Guild Wars 2

/15 charrs were harmed in the making of this post.

Chaba.5410:

I play for Server 1009.

Ah, Chaba, you sound like an old DaoC hack…..lol.

Apropos of this thread here is what Tyler just said on reddit: “The current plan is to change world links once every quarter. It takes 4-6 matches (weeks) for Glicko to place the newly linked worlds in their correct tiers, so changing links faster than once a quarter would mean almost perpetual inaccurate matchups.”

My feedback is this is not enough and they are not doing anything to discourage overstacking.

Chaba.5410:

I play for Server 1009.

Clearly 666 based on the way some treat you.

morrolan.9608:

Apropos of this thread here is what Tyler just said on reddit: “The current plan is to change world links once every quarter. It takes 4-6 matches (weeks) for Glicko to place the newly linked worlds in their correct tiers, so changing links faster than once a quarter would mean almost perpetual inaccurate matchups.”

My feedback is this is not enough and they are not doing anything to discourage overstacking.

Anet – they weren’t accurate from the start and the linking becomes worse daily……

So I guess we all need to move to et until that is full as well to show Anet how moronic a 3 month time frame is.

Liston.9708:

morrolan.9608:

Apropos of this thread here is what Tyler just said on reddit: “The current plan is to change world links once every quarter. It takes 4-6 matches (weeks) for Glicko to place the newly linked worlds in their correct tiers, so changing links faster than once a quarter would mean almost perpetual inaccurate matchups.”

My feedback is this is not enough and they are not doing anything to discourage overstacking.

Anet – they weren’t accurate from the start and the linking becomes worse daily……

So I guess we all need to move to et until that is full as well to show Anet how moronic a 3 month time frame is.

Just made another reply to Tyler’s statement so may as well put it here as well:

Another point, how can you get an accurate glicko rating when you aren’t measuring glicko for the lower ranked server anyway?

@morrolan – good point on the guest Glicko….

As if 1+24 /2+23/3+22 was even any sort of real plan in the first place….

If the devs want WVW population to spread out more evenly from T1 in particular, players/guilds need viable servers to transfer to. Why would anyone who wants a good long term wvw experience transfer to a “guest” server that could end up being linked to a completely random server when pairings are changed again? Or worse still linking ends and players are stuck on “dead” servers.

The current system of locked host servers/open guest servers only benefits players who are thinking short term and want to jump on the “bandwagon” of whatever guest server is linked to the winner of a given tier. It doesn’t work for players and guilds who want a stable WvW experience and it’s also bad for existing servers where guilds can’t recruit new players.

Situation is even worse for new player to GW2 itself, they get to join a “guest” server that’s an unstable mass of random people (and with said instability, good luck finding anyone who can teach them how WVW works on a given tier in terms of builds/groups and the like).

Prolonging the combination of linked servers and “full” host servers is creating a poor WVW experience for alot of players that is just going to get worse as time goes on. IMO merge the lower 4ish tiers into T5 and let those players get on with building stable wvw communities. Server populations being batted around like ping pong balls for the sake of “balance” isn’t good for anyone. If I wanted “mindless mass of random people” vs “mindless mass of random people” I would play EOTM or world of warcraft battlegrounds.

EDIT: I appreciate the attention devs are giving to fixing the “dead server” situation and wvw improvements in general, I"m just not sure the devs understand how important steady/organized servers are in terms of making wvw fun to play and different from the other MMOs out there with similar game modes to wvw.

Frankly, this level of WvW play is very very little strategy… GET IN TS! Jeez come on guys get into TS now and follow your commander!… LEFT, RIGHT, BACK, BOMB, WATER.. blahblahblah… such is the life of a blob/zergling… Do most people on these servers really care about their keeps/towers? Not from what I can see… for the most part it’s about the fights. Random havoc groups here and there but too many people to do the cool sneaky stuff that some of our groups used to do on the medium/lower level servers. Things you could get away with because there wasn’t just blobs of people everywhere. There isn’t much more satisfying than stealing a keep from underneath somebody as they fight someone else for example, ( and they don’t k now it until it’s too late ). Those days are gone in the new order of things. People keep yapping about pvd and crap like that.. Those people really do NOT know how things work in the world of lower populations where you can actually have a good fight or skirmish for an object without blobbing, and where you can actually have some fun wreaking havoc here and there without being blobbed to death. The high pop server folks don’t understand what this is really like ( for the most part I think ), and the devs definitely seem to think that this is a part of the game that’s not useful. Both are wrong. I have nothing at all against the blob/zerg groups that love doing that. I’m not one of them.

Serith.3712:

Prolonging the combination of linked servers and “full” host servers is creating a poor WVW experience for alot of players that is just going to get worse as time goes on. IMO merge the lower 4ish tiers into T5 and let those players get on with building stable wvw communities. Server populations being batted around like ping pong balls for the sake of “balance” isn’t good for anyone. If I wanted “mindless mass of random people” vs “mindless mass of random people” I would play EOTM or world of warcraft battlegrounds.

EDIT: I appreciate the attention devs are giving to fixing the “dead server” situation and wvw improvements in general, I"m just not sure the devs understand how important steady/organized servers are in terms of making wvw fun to play and different from the other MMOs out there with similar game modes to wvw.

+ a billion to all of this.

Some of the server mergers have ruined the efforts of some servers.

Aurora Glade were doing well before the mergers, almost hitting Gold League.
It get’s stuck with Blacktide and now it’s being dragged down.

Sure it’s made WvW a little active again, but when you ruin the efforts of a sever like this, it could force some people to stop.

Gaile Gray.6029:

This is a merged thread of feedback on the subject of world linking. While the subject is the same, not all threads had the same originating viewpoint. However, merging allows efficient review of your thoughts and also highlights dev posts on the subject, so it’s beneficial to the conversation.

Please continue to provide your constructive feedback on world linking here.

Thanks.

So does this mean this thread should be treated as the official feedback thread now instead of the one that has existed on the subject?

So it is here that we should ask for what was the top servers to not be linked, and the bottom servers to more be linked with likeminded gameplay style? The longer this goes on the less viable that really is, and the less interested some become in playing. And then when links change you get chaos…
So many things have been affected by this linking, getting to where you have friends that had moved before the change was leaked/released, now they cannot move to those servers, only the linked ones, which is subject to change anytime/2 months from now, maybe, perhaps, at Anet’s whim.

Serith.3712:

If the devs want WVW population to spread out more evenly from T1 in particular, players/guilds need viable servers to transfer to. Why would anyone who wants a good long term wvw experience transfer to a “guest” server that could end up being linked to a completely random server when pairings are changed again? Or worse still linking ends and players are stuck on “dead” servers.

The current system of locked host servers/open guest servers only benefits players who are thinking short term and want to jump on the “bandwagon” of whatever guest server is linked to the winner of a given tier. It doesn’t work for players and guilds who want a stable WvW experience and it’s also bad for existing servers where guilds can’t recruit new players.

Situation is even worse for new player to GW2 itself, they get to join a “guest” server that’s an unstable mass of random people (and with said instability, good luck finding anyone who can teach them how WVW works on a given tier in terms of builds/groups and the like).

Prolonging the combination of linked servers and “full” host servers is creating a poor WVW experience for alot of players that is just going to get worse as time goes on. IMO merge the lower 4ish tiers into T5 and let those players get on with building stable wvw communities. Server populations being batted around like ping pong balls for the sake of “balance” isn’t good for anyone. If I wanted “mindless mass of random people” vs “mindless mass of random people” I would play EOTM or world of warcraft battlegrounds.

EDIT: I appreciate the attention devs are giving to fixing the “dead server” situation and wvw improvements in general, I"m just not sure the devs understand how important steady/organized servers are in terms of making wvw fun to play and different from the other MMOs out there with similar game modes to wvw.

I know you put dead in quotes, and players have different interpretations of what constitutes a dead server, but unless the expectations are 24/7 50+ zergs on every map, the tiers below t4 were hardly ‘dead’ (never really got that on upper tiers either if that is the definition cutoff anyways). They just had a different activity level, and somewhat different playstyles. Oh there could be times where there were few people in, due to coverage, but as has been said many times, if those players had really wanted to be in t1/2/3 they had ample opportunity to move into it.

Reasons they didn’t move varied of course, and just some examples: some did not want how those tiers are played. Some wanted their communities where everyone kinda knew everyone else. Some didn’t want to pay the cost, which short term this system probably appeals to those, until they realize they may have to pay that cost regularly.
Others wanted away from those ‘upper tiers’ and went to the ‘lower’ servers, and now have no where left to go to get away.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

…..the tiers below t4 were hardly ‘dead’ (never really got that on upper tiers either if that is the definition cutoff anyways). They just had a different activity level, and somewhat different playstyles. Oh there could be times where there were few people in, due to coverage, but as has been said many times, if those players had really wanted to be in t1/2/3 they had ample opportunity to move into it.

Exactly. Pushing to T1 isn’t everybody’s goal anyway – T7-8 guilds and players who see that as the end game often transfer or make alts, others stay put because we like the style down here. The point is, we need that choice.

Would I like more players in T7-8 to have fun with? Sure. Would I like us to be forcibly merged with T1-2 ad infinitum? No. (again no offense to TC, they’ve been great.)

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

…..some did not want how those tiers are played.
…..Some wanted their communities where everyone kinda knew everyone else.
……Others wanted away from those ‘upper tiers’ and went to the ‘lower’ servers, and now have no where left to go to get away.

Agree with all this.

Well it’s nearly been 3 weeks since the server merge.

I would like to point out our current views as of today.

My girlfriend and I have definitely started to play less GW2 and enjoy it less as a result of the server merge.
We don’t feel like we’re having fun in WvW and we find ourselves staying in Lions Arch for hours, or end up fractalling. But even after all that, we just turn our attention into farming gold…

We do feel quite sad as we feel alienated from WvW, for reasons posted in the first post, and with regards to the server we’re currently linked with.

Time after time, we constantly feel put off by unfamiliar faces with their personalities that alienate us, as well as feeling like we step on people’s toes. It DOES feel like walking on broken glass sometimes and constantly reminds us of the original server we left from.

Anyway, I thought I should post this as some sort of “on-going feedback” to the WvW team.

Personally, I understand that this “Glicko” system needs a few weeks i.e. a quarter to ensure that the tiers become better matched up, but at this rate…I feel certain that people like my girlfriend and I will continue to be alienated until this system stabilises at least.

I would like to continue insisting on the earliest opportunity for the poll about the WvW server link and then if polls show that the link isn’t a good idea, please reverse this asap.

Until then, we’ll be patiently waiting for the ultimate result and finding some other entertainment to occupy us…

As a joke (well a little bit)- Please do this so I don’t have to watch more talent shows

Smashie: I hear you totally and agree completely. I keep going back in there for bits at a time but I'm also going in less and less. Today I gave it the "good ol' college try" but with outnumbered showing most of the time and enemy camped at pretty much every camp we couldn't even run a guild mission. I don't like the PvE guild missions but it's looking like I'm going to have to stop going into WvW and start spending my time getting used to PvE again. I like the talent shows... but I usually watch them AFTER I've had my wvw time... This week I've watched my shows first for a change then spent a short bit of time in GW2 poking around... If only ANet would do this poll they said they would do, and then do something about whatever the results were. Leaving things as they are is disheartening to say the least. I like a lot of the people on FA that I have met, but it's their server... and we will likely be tossed off to a different server before we know it. In that regard I have nothing really left to play WvW for except for missions ( which can barely be done ) and maybe to run with a few friends when they're on. Other than that I don't give a rats a@ much about what is and isn’t capped anymore.

What?! It’s only been 3 weeks? I thought for sure it had already been a month!
I log in to wvw long enough to try and get the daily and then I go to pve. WvW just isn’t as fun anymore. I am eager for the linking poll also. I can’t imagine another 9 weeks of this, haven’t we suffered enough?!

Jayne.9251:

I’m starting to feel protective about Tyler the same way I am about Gaile.

He’s actually taking the time to understand the community. He actually listens and tries his best to fix issues.

Remember this to buy him some goodwill and patience if things don’t go perfectly.

I can’t recall any time playing wvw when we’ve had someone like this.

+1 – I have to agree.

smashie.3074:

Well it’s nearly been 3 weeks since the server merge.

I would like to point out our current views as of today.

My girlfriend and I have definitely started to play less GW2 and enjoy it less as a result of the server merge.
We don’t feel like we’re having fun in WvW and we find ourselves staying in Lions Arch for hours, or end up fractalling. But even after all that, we just turn our attention into farming gold…

We do feel quite sad as we feel alienated from WvW, for reasons posted in the first post, and with regards to the server we’re currently linked with.

Time after time, we constantly feel put off by unfamiliar faces with their personalities that alienate us, as well as feeling like we step on people’s toes. It DOES feel like walking on broken glass sometimes and constantly reminds us of the original server we left from.

Anyway, I thought I should post this as some sort of “on-going feedback” to the WvW team.

Personally, I understand that this “Glicko” system needs a few weeks i.e. a quarter to ensure that the tiers become better matched up, but at this rate…I feel certain that people like my girlfriend and I will continue to be alienated until this system stabilises at least.

I would like to continue insisting on the earliest opportunity for the poll about the WvW server link and then if polls show that the link isn’t a good idea, please reverse this asap.

Until then, we’ll be patiently waiting for the ultimate result and finding some other entertainment to occupy us…

As a joke (well a little bit)- Please do this so I don’t have to watch more talent shows

Please post a poll so I don’t have to listen to a few people who refuse to adapt complain about the mergers any more. Small scale is slightly harder but not impossible. Get on TS, listen to what the scouts and commanders are doing but ultimately do your own thing. You are alienated by your own biases and refusal to adapt.

When looking at an example of Linking lower ranked and higher, especially with disparities in population and transfer costs, just look at the mass transfers to vabbi now. It’s like those discounted transfers before the WvW seasons, luckily it’s only in beta and wvw is competitively pointless,so it doesn’t screw anything up.

smashie.3074:

I would like to continue insisting on the earliest opportunity for the poll about the WvW server link and then if polls show that the link isn’t a good idea, please reverse this asap.

Until then, we’ll be patiently waiting for the ultimate result and finding some other entertainment to occupy us…

As a joke (well a little bit)- Please do this so I don’t have to watch more talent shows

Thank you for posting Smashie! Your post is as always honest and I also hope for a poll ASAP.

As aside to posters who disparage other opinions; I’d ask you to consider this is a beta and we have been asked by Anet to provide constructive feedback. Details on personal/guild/server experiences in WvW are important data.

I also notice that a lot of folks who are not in favor of the current linking system are often suggesting alternate ideas (especially removing the top 2 tiers.) This suggests that many of us recognize the need for population changes, we just have issues with this particular execution. The reasons are numerous and complex and if nothing else, I have learned a lot about how other servers/players view WvW play, which proves this is a truly unique game mode – and one we really care about.

See you in the borderlands,
Nanesh, Owl Legion of Kaineng

The Ventari Ele.5812:

Some of the server mergers have ruined the efforts of some servers.

Aurora Glade were doing well before the mergers, almost hitting Gold League.
It get’s stuck with Blacktide and now it’s being dragged down.

Sure it’s made WvW a little active again, but when you ruin the efforts of a sever like this, it could force some people to stop.

Since the linking AG is doing worse than before! Really hope we get linked with someone else!

I’m sure some of us have already seen it, but there’s currently a WvW poll about the server link.

Is this an actual, safe, official poll?

Keeping the linking is currently winning the poll. It should have been placed in the WvW subforum (as mentioned in another thread).

Skynet.7201:

Keeping the linking is currently winning the poll. It should have been placed in the WvW subforum (as mentioned in another thread).

But where about’s did this poll originate from?
I can’t seem to find it anywhere?

Because of that, and simply because there’s not an ANET logo/response, I’m not sure if I trust the link.

No link here no mention on guildwars2.com – no poll in my mind…..

Skynet.7201:

Keeping the linking is currently winning the poll. It should have been placed in the WvW subforum (as mentioned in another thread).

It should have been mentioned, AND it should NOT be just a Yes keep world linking, No, get rid of it completely.

The poll is practically designed (even if unintentionally) to get a Yes response no matter how people feel about it. What if someone thinks the world linking could work, but it’s implementation is awful? How are they supposed to vote? Voting Yes in large percentage could be seen as if the current status quo is perfectly fine and should stick to it when that may not be what many want.

In this case it may very well be choosing the lesser of 2 evils for the majority, while too many feel like their voice is being ignored/they have no say. Hmm I just described politics too but that’s a different subject.

As said, the poll is awful. We wanted the poll put out, but this? Might as well not have done it at all. Should have known it would be just a Yes keep/No get rid of. Yes I am being critical of this, because it’s frustrating.

smashie.3074:

Skynet.7201:

Keeping the linking is currently winning the poll. It should have been placed in the WvW subforum (as mentioned in another thread).

But where about’s did this poll originate from?
I can’t seem to find it anywhere?

Because of that, and simply because there’s not an ANET logo/response, I’m not sure if I trust the link.

What is to trust? it’s at feedback.guildwars2.com
The domain is guildwars2.com just like it is for this forum. It’s at the exact same ‘site’ “feedback.guildwars2.com” that the other polls were at. There is good reason to be wary on the internet, but this is going a bit far.

Okay, well if it is the official poll then so be it.

I’ve asked my guild and the word is spreading about the wvw poll.
I’ve also updated the 1st post of this thread with the link so anyone looking at the thread first time, please visit and vote no if you dislike the server link.

My problem is simple. The solution may not be. Before the beta, many of the peeps in my guild transferred to another server. Some of us did not because we did not, at that time, have the gems to do so. That server is now artificially “full,” so now that we do have the gems to transfer, we cannot. Well, we can transfer to the linked server, but we don’t particularly want to pay for a transfer every time anet decides to switch the server links around. Not sure how to resolve this (the reason anet has for making these servers “full” is valid), but current situation is untenable. It’s just not right.

I appreciate anet trying different things to make the game better; I’d rather them try and fail than not try at all. Hopefully, they’ll try something that successfully resolves this issue.

I can understand people’s frustrations on queues and such, but I think we need at least another (or two) set of matchups to really determine how things will shake out. ET, for example, may have a lot of ‘fake’ population, due to bandwagoners trying to be on BG. Once that pairing changes, the linked servers will see their populations shift, yet again. I say just let it ride for a while, and then evaluate.

New poll on wvw linking servers, get your votes in.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Poll-21-May-World-Linking/first#post6166866

I enjoy the merge because I rather fight people not doors and empty maps. It really does seem that the majority of the players disappointed are the ones showing up on forums complaining while the greater and much less vocal majority is enjoying it.

There’s alot more roamers around since not everyone likes to run with tag. Now if only TC+YB would man up and not build 7+ Superior ACs with map blob and expect us to fight under them it would be dandy.

The main issue I have with “linking” is that the Dev’s are making our teams. What is the point of a competitive game mode when we, the players, are not in control of our own teams? It’s simply made trying to win futile as we can’t beat the dev’s. Locking Worlds, especially when there’s such a population disparity from BG and everyone else, makes the mode futile.

Only Anet would have the numbers but, I believe the mode has shed even more players from this “Beta”. It’s better to just rip off the band aid and make Alliances. Just a new organizational level that exists above Worlds for players to join into. This way we can shuffle about weekly, maybe even daily.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Skynet.7201:

Keeping the linking is currently winning the poll. It should have been placed in the WvW subforum (as mentioned in another thread).

It should have been mentioned, AND it should NOT be just a Yes keep world linking, No, get rid of it completely.

The poll is practically designed (even if unintentionally) to get a Yes response no matter how people feel about it. What if someone thinks the world linking could work, but it’s implementation is awful? How are they supposed to vote? Voting Yes in large percentage could be seen as if the current status quo is perfectly fine and should stick to it when that may not be what many want.

In this case it may very well be choosing the lesser of 2 evils for the majority, while too many feel like their voice is being ignored/they have no say. Hmm I just described politics too but that’s a different subject.

As said, the poll is awful. We wanted the poll put out, but this? Might as well not have done it at all. Should have known it would be just a Yes keep/No get rid of. Yes I am being critical of this, because it’s frustrating.

couldn’t agree more. I voted no because all I can base it on is the current version. it was ill timed, poorly linked, and way too static (3 months)… Given the right circumstances maybe it would work….

and really attributing population bump to this and not the patch or ABL… just wow

I’m not sure if this was mentioned anywhere in the 5 pages of posts here… but at the end of the day the majority of people voting would naturally be the people on the BIG Host servers. The minority is the server group that has been merged. With that fact alone it’s pretty clear to me that this vote will “pass” to keep world linking since the minority’s voice is still NOT being considered, period. imo

Consider HoT. Many thought (perhaps naively) that HoT would usher in a revival to the WvW population. In reality we didn’t see that, but why?

When HoT landed, the top servers were all full status. The only servers available were servers with much lower activity and organisation. I, and many others, feel that WvW isn’t fun if there isn’t a commander running a group. The proof is simple, when a commander detags, how many of the following will stay online in wvw? Usually the population drop is immediate if there is no follow-up commander of similar entertainment calibre.

It’s an MMO after all, we are looking to play with other people. I am a guild leader and commander too, but I only find entertainment outside of my guild raids when running with other tags.

So what happened when HoT dropped and we had new players forced to play on low tier servers? We had individuals with no guilds logging in perhaps once or twice, trying to figure out where they are and what they should do. They might walk to a camp and find something resembling PvE there, but 90% of the day they wouldn’t see any activity. It looks like a really dead PvE map— why should they bother ?

That’s a disaster to the health of the game mode. If there is ever a return to such dead state servers, then it should be 100% opt-in. New players should never be able to select that as a starting server, that dead ‘roaming’ server should cost as much to transfer to as a ‘very high’ server and only then we’ll see if these players who complain about this revitalisation of the game mode (world linking) will put their money where their mouth is.

@Ultra… agree with you there… and I don’t want to see a situation where the bl’s are dead all the time either. I don’t even totally disagree with merging lower/higher tier servers but if we are to do that make it a permanent change and give everyone an identity that they are fighting for. Not just fighting for the sake of fighting because even that gets stale after a while. Right now as a low server ( BP ) I have no real home, and no real investment in fighting for the “homeland” since I am well aware that it’s most likely that my “homeland” will be somewhere else in a few months. How much fun is that? Switching servers would just be a stupid waste of gems since you can only switch to low pop servers and they will be moved around as well. See the problem? My main complaint isn’t about the merger itself but the way this beta is being run. If ANet is truly going to expect people in the low pop servers to continue to be tossed around from host to host and not get really tired of it they are wrong. I used to spend at least 95% of my time in WvW. Now I just go in when I see friends in there and feel like running with them for a bit… and that’s probably 25% of the time at best.

I do understand that the majority gets to rule, and that as we know are the populations on the host servers. At the end of all of this the low pop servers still have no real representation in this process and are mostly being called whiners by the people that are established and not being tossed around. Seriously, all I want is a server that is HOME. Preferably BP if possible, but somewhere other than a floating team of pugs.

Also, to the HoT comments… People stopped going into WvW for a while after HoT came in because they realized that they had to farm the HoT areas and all over Tyria for the mats needed for their guild hall upgrades, which includes all the WvW claiming buffs. ANet unintentionally pulled many many people out of WvW due to this. Two of the guilds I belong to pretty much stopped WvW altogether for about 3 weeks while we busted our butts trying to get our halls upgraded to the point where it would be useful in WvW.

Dear ANet,

As a player who belongs to a smaller/medium-ish server where roaming and playing in a much leisure way has become our favorite part of the game. I (and most of my fellow server members, including the server we got merged with) am wondering- how is Arena Net going to deal with the loss of server identity, very little roaming opportunities, and how are servers supposed to work well with each other when each have built their own ways of playing WvW (this is heavily linked to server identity)?

I’m from Ferguson’s Crossing. The major reason why I began playing WvW, and continued to do so, is because of our community. Our server is very kind to each other, we police each other because we don’t tolerate toxic gaming attitudes (keeping game play positive), and have learned how to work with each other. We’ve learned how to address different issues with the different guilds and players we’ve had. We like the fact that we’re a medium server with mostly roamers. The past months, we’ve been proud of the fact that we’ve climbed our way out of the bottom tier and to tier 5, beating other blobby giant servers on our way up. THEN only after just getting into T5 out of nowhere- bam- server merge. The work we’ve put as a server to put ourselves to tier 5 pretty much vanished. Our guilds? most of them gone. Most of the people I played with are now M.I.A. not only from WvW but the game itself. Our community is pretty much scattered. We get so happy when we see a team of FC’s in one place. That’s how much we miss our server! It’s not that we can’t work with other servers, it’s more of the fact that this server linking has pretty much rendered our server and everything we worked for together in the span of a few months non-existent. This leads to numerous problems TS, general communication, morale, etc.

From a guildie of mine:
“I had a problem a few days ago, when a commander was doing something I know FC commanders don’t do. I was about to make a suggestion or say something, but then realized- What if that’s how this other server works? What if they’ve found that this other way of doing things works for them? This server linking makes it hard to actually take things personally.”

Believe me, you want us to take this personally. Because when we stop caring deeply about our community and how we play, then this game turns into just another mindless MMO where people just do stuff for the sake of winning. I used to play Guild Wars 2 A LOT because it is not mindless. The way WvW has been with the server linking… it has become zombie-like and very similar to EotM (Follow the commander or the zerg- that’s the only way you can achieve anything since it’s become rare to face a small group of opponents. You think you only see 3-5 rednames? Oh, just wait. There’s more… Waaay more. )

We balanced the teirs out ourselves based on playstyle and the only real issue was the oppression that we had to put on our foes to dig ourselves out of T8. I’m sure we demoralized many servers by having such a consistently high ppt (400-600, with occasional 695) on top of having to fight the same ones for weeks at a time to get anywhere. I hated playing at that point because we were forced to annihilate the other servers if we wanted to move up. We proceeded to crush other servers to such an extent that either their main guilds left or they didn’t want to play either. This leads to a massive loss in morale for the losing sides and great amounts of boredom for the winning side. The PPT system and the walls it produces is what I see as the big problem here. Maybe matchup T8 with the last tier of the European servers from time to time to shake things up.

Your poll about the world linking was poorly implemented. Yes, some players got to put in their vote. The players who are active and who probably don’t mind a lot of zerg fighting or could care less about server identity and community. The players who would say no? They’re not in the game. They’ve left, maybe to check back a few weeks later. They’re not going to see that poll and will not get their votes in. I know this because my friends list, which largely comprises of WvW’ers, has gone down drastically. Most of them offline, the others in PvE. Send out an actual email to players that have logged on within the past 3 months who play WvW, rank 50 or higher and ask for their feedback as well.

In addition, the poll already benefitted the big servers from the beginning. They’re the ones who have the largest number of active players, and they’re the ones who benefits from a more populated world. Of course they’ll vote yes, and of course they’ll have the most votes. This poll system, in my opinion, is broken.

Server merging only helps with one thing- more population. It doesn’t fix population balance from what we’ve seen so far, doesn’t add more activity per player, and it doesn’t make the matches more dynamic (we’ve been merged with the same server fighting the same other servers for the past weeks). Not all of us want high populated worlds. Not all of us like zerging all the time. Some of us put a heavy importance on a healthy and tight knit community. Most importantly before server merging, both playstyles were honored- people went to servers that had high populations and big fights, and the ones who liked the opposite stayed in lower tiered smaller servers. That option is now non-existent. It’s important to note that those people who like large fights still would have another option provided WvW died, which would be EotM (With a map rework. Desert BL perhaps?)

At least give the rest of us a better chance at preserving the part of WvW that we enjoyed the most- roaming, server identity, community. Choice, that’s what matters.
How are you going to address this?

Since I want to end on a positive note, thank you Anet for recently listening to our criticisms of the game mode that we so dearly love and thank you for giving us who play WvW some dungeon track rewards.

Written by myself and a guildie who wishes to remain anonymous.

P.S. If you’re a player and your only response is something like, “if u don’t like how this works then quit the game”, please know that said response is not only unhelpful but ignorant and reflects poorly on our community as a whole . It might as well just stay in your head since it doesn’t help continue the conversation in any shape or form. Thank you.

Instead of starting a new thread, why not just post this in the thread that is already discussing what you’re talking about?

And there is even dev responses in the already existing thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Additional-World-Linking-Information/page/2#post6173358

While I understand your frustration because its like the whole game mode just changed for you, the majority wanted this. As it currently stands, 77% of people who have voted said they wanted to keep the server links. I don’t think this should mean that the minority are completely ignored in what they want, but I don’t see them having many options when the results of the poll are so over whelming.

I’ve personally been in each of the tiers more than once per tier because my guild and I have transferred around a lot to find where the best roaming fights were. By that, I mean most frequent fights and good fights. So my experience is going to differ from yours because I love the server linking personally.

Being as you’re on FC, you’re still in the bottom tier that is the least populated as it currently stands. FC and Darkhaven are paired at the lowest rank even currently. It seems like that is probably as close as its going to get for lower populated servers.

In my experience, in my time in T7 and T8 when Borlis Pass was there (not way too long ago), it was boring for me. I would run around for a long period of time without finding any fights, all I could really accomplish was PPT fighting doors for hours, it was pretty dull.

I understand that might be exciting to some people (not sure why), but if that is what you enjoy, you should try PvE land out more. I’m not saying that to be mean, but if you’re just running around taking camps and towers, you can do essentially the same thing in PvE with events and its just as rewarding if not more rewarding.

A lot of people who do WvW enjoy it because of the fights, T7/T8 was greatly lacking in the fights department which is why the servers were nearly ghost towns at most times. If you don’t want fights, maybe WvW is not the right game mode for you. I’m not saying to quit, I’m not trying to be mean – I am just pointing out what polls like the current one are proving, that the majority of WvW players want to be with higher populations.

Nice to see you joining in the discussion.

Va Fail Gwynbleidd.

While I can sort of understand those from higher tiers that keep spouting the T7/T8 was dead rhetoric, the OP said they worked their way up to T5. I wish people would stop lumping everyone that got merged in the category of Dead Server, Pvders or You don’t want fights, it’s simply not the case. T5 and parts of T6 were active enough, and the fights were frequent enough and fine enough for most in those tiers, and to hear others from T3 and above talk before, there were plenty of fights then, so it stands to reason with the que complaints now, that population on some of those higher servers is busting at the seams now and it’s a blob town. The current T4 however, can be a bit shocking to anyone from a server that was used to T6/T7 fights and had only just moved into T5 a few weeks before the pairings, because the current T4 is akin to the old T3. Though, roaming is improving, the playstyle of the hosts, the increased populations from all sides and the sometimes almost arrogant attitudes of the “dead servers” that got moved above servers that had worked their way past them really doesn’t help matters. Yes, majority wins, but there’s still that 20 something % that is not happy, and they can’t all have been from T4 or a previous dead server.

Personally, I would love to see 5 tiers for NA, where T1/T2 have no pairs and T3-T5 do. It would open 3 more hosts and provide another “quieter” tier for those that prefer it. But, alas, the poll didn’t provide that option.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Also, to the HoT comments… People stopped going into WvW for a while after HoT came in because they realized that they had to farm the HoT areas and all over Tyria for the mats needed for their guild hall upgrades, which includes all the WvW claiming buffs. ANet unintentionally pulled many many people out of WvW due to this. Two of the guilds I belong to pretty much stopped WvW altogether for about 3 weeks while we busted our butts trying to get our halls upgraded to the point where it would be useful in WvW.

Yes it was kind of a perfect storm that they should have foreseen. But then clearly the different parts of the company don’t communicate well with each other and those overseeing the whole thing didn’t do their job.

Here’s Wolf and I’s feelings on the matter. (Would have posted here have I known this thread existed. But alas! I also do not go on the forums much, but felt like I needed to because we got concerned as much as you did, OP)- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Dear-Anet-WvW-Linking-Poll-and-Problems

I’d like to add a few things.

-Server linking to be a special event? -Since people do seem to enjoy being able to play with another server to a point, then why not have servers link like once a month, every 2 weeks, or whatever time frame would work best? It could be based on scoring or some other variable. This could make game play more dynamic, we get to say hi to other servers, but still get to have our own true server and play in our chosen play style for most of the time. Obviously, I don’t know the logistics of this or if something like this could be possible, but the one thing I (and others who have posted here) do not like is the fact that these links are permanent. It’s like being forced to visit friends and relatives on a constant basis without managing to actually come home. That’s what this linking feels like to me.

-The World Linking Poll- I am just begging for the devs to not rely on this poll for their decisions. It isn’t an accurate representation of what “most” of us want, despite what other people think. The big servers already win in numbers of their population alone (and of course most of them will vote yes- their servers rely on giant blobs. They want the extra bodies). Add into that the amount of people who aren’t playing anymore, mostly from the lower tiered servers, and that just bumps the “yes” numbers up.
(If any of you want to read more of what people thought of the poll system, read the feedback of the May 21st poll’s announcement thread. A lot of people bring up really good points there too.)

-“Linking has revitalized WvW”- I’ve seen this stated in the forums a lot, and I think there’s some misunderstanding here. Anet rolled out quite a few changes with WvW all around the same time, and some were very good, like the reward tracks as an example. How sure are we that people came back because of the world linking and not for these other updates? If Anet waited a little while before linking servers, I think we would have gotten a more accurate read on what’s actually bringing these people back.

Anyway, I’ll just leave this here. Stay strong and happy, FC. Much love <3

Forestgreen.7981:

I enjoy the merge because I rather fight people not doors and empty maps. It really does seem that the majority of the players disappointed are the ones showing up on forums complaining while the greater and much less vocal majority is enjoying it.

There’s alot more roamers around since not everyone likes to run with tag. Now if only TC+YB would man up and not build 7+ Superior ACs with map blob and expect us to fight under them it would be dandy.

“The greater and much less vocal majority”- Well of course you’re less vocal. You’re not going to speak up about something you’re already content with. There’s a reason this is beta. It is being tested to see what people think of it, and there’s a good number of us who don’t.

You’re obviously from a higher tiered, high population server. I’m sure you like playing that way. Our server, as you can see from the 5 pages of posts, was very active. We weren’t just fighting doors in empty maps. Sure, there were quieter days, but we didn’t mind them. But there were also lively, much louder days where we fought, won, lost, and we enjoyed them just as much as we did the quieter ones. The problem with this permanent linking is that it takes the option of playing in our preferred way away. The options were available pre-linking, where people like you played in high populated servers, while we happily played in ours. That has been taken away, we don’t like it, and I’m sure it’s ok for us to voice this opinion.

It’s not like these opinions will completely take control of this beta’s outcome anyway.

In reply to XTR, Who are you to tell someone to go play pve? WvWvW is over glorified pve with the opportunity to fight against real players when you want to. Also a lot of people had pride in their servers and didn’t hop around from server to server they actually tried to help their server earn its spot for better or for worse. The people who took pride in their servers were the ones that were hurt by the linking not the bandwagon guilds who wanted to be in higher tiers but didn’t want to work for it. And back to the pve there are camps, towers and keeps meant to be taken and defended so if some want to do just that its their right to. WvWvW was never meant to be purely guild versus guild or player versus player only. The only thing accomplished with server linking was a particular company took the easy road disregarding a good portion of its player base who are no longer around to vote in the polls. Bandwagon servers benefited and everyone else got the shaft.

@Quiet Wolf.6520

Ignore the running commentary soldier…it’s all trash…Bravo Zulu…on Tier 5.

+1

I get what you mean.

Yours truly,
Diku

Quiet Wolf.6520:

Dear ANet,

As a player who belongs to a smaller/medium-ish server where roaming and playing in a much leisure way has become our favorite part of the game. I (and most of my fellow server members, including the server we got merged with) am wondering- how is Arena Net going to deal with the loss of server identity, very little roaming opportunities, and how are servers supposed to work well with each other when each have built their own ways of playing WvW (this is heavily linked to server identity)?

I’m from Ferguson’s Crossing. The major reason why I began playing WvW, and continued to do so, is because of our community. Our server is very kind to each other, we police each other because we don’t tolerate toxic gaming attitudes (keeping game play positive), and have learned how to work with each other. We’ve learned how to address different issues with the different guilds and players we’ve had. We like the fact that we’re a medium server with mostly roamers. The past months, we’ve been proud of the fact that we’ve climbed our way out of the bottom tier and to tier 5, beating other blobby giant servers on our way up. THEN only after just getting into T5 out of nowhere- bam- server merge. The work we’ve put as a server to put ourselves to tier 5 pretty much vanished. Our guilds? most of them gone. Most of the people I played with are now M.I.A. not only from WvW but the game itself. Our community is pretty much scattered. We get so happy when we see a team of FC’s in one place. That’s how much we miss our server! It’s not that we can’t work with other servers, it’s more of the fact that this server linking has pretty much rendered our server and everything we worked for together in the span of a few months non-existent. This leads to numerous problems TS, general communication, morale, etc.

From a guildie of mine:
“I had a problem a few days ago, when a commander was doing something I know FC commanders don’t do. I was about to make a suggestion or say something, but then realized- What if that’s how this other server works? What if they’ve found that this other way of doing things works for them? This server linking makes it hard to actually take things personally.”

Believe me, you want us to take this personally. Because when we stop caring deeply about our community and how we play, then this game turns into just another mindless MMO where people just do stuff for the sake of winning. I used to play Guild Wars 2 A LOT because it is not mindless. The way WvW has been with the server linking… it has become zombie-like and very similar to EotM (Follow the commander or the zerg- that’s the only way you can achieve anything since it’s become rare to face a small group of opponents. You think you only see 3-5 rednames? Oh, just wait. There’s more… Waaay more. )

We balanced the teirs out ourselves based on playstyle and the only real issue was the oppression that we had to put on our foes to dig ourselves out of T8. I’m sure we demoralized many servers by having such a consistently high ppt (400-600, with occasional 695) on top of having to fight the same ones for weeks at a time to get anywhere. I hated playing at that point because we were forced to annihilate the other servers if we wanted to move up. We proceeded to crush other servers to such an extent that either their main guilds left or they didn’t want to play either. This leads to a massive loss in morale for the losing sides and great amounts of boredom for the winning side. The PPT system and the walls it produces is what I see as the big problem here. Maybe matchup T8 with the last tier of the European servers from time to time to shake things up.

Your poll about the world linking was poorly implemented. Yes, some players got to put in their vote. The players who are active and who probably don’t mind a lot of zerg fighting or could care less about server identity and community. The players who would say no? They’re not in the game. They’ve left, maybe to check back a few weeks later. They’re not going to see that poll and will not get their votes in. I know this because my friends list, which largely comprises of WvW’ers, has gone down drastically. Most of them offline, the others in PvE. Send out an actual email to players that have logged on within the past 3 months who play WvW, rank 50 or higher and ask for their feedback as well.

In addition, the poll already benefitted the big servers from the beginning. They’re the ones who have the largest number of active players, and they’re the ones who benefits from a more populated world. Of course they’ll vote yes, and of course they’ll have the most votes. This poll system, in my opinion, is broken.

Server merging only helps with one thing- more population. It doesn’t fix population balance from what we’ve seen so far, doesn’t add more activity per player, and it doesn’t make the matches more dynamic (we’ve been merged with the same server fighting the same other servers for the past weeks). Not all of us want high populated worlds. Not all of us like zerging all the time. Some of us put a heavy importance on a healthy and tight knit community. Most importantly before server merging, both playstyles were honored- people went to servers that had high populations and big fights, and the ones who liked the opposite stayed in lower tiered smaller servers. That option is now non-existent. It’s important to note that those people who like large fights still would have another option provided WvW died, which would be EotM (With a map rework. Desert BL perhaps?)

At least give the rest of us a better chance at preserving the part of WvW that we enjoyed the most- roaming, server identity, community. Choice, that’s what matters.
How are you going to address this?

Since I want to end on a positive note, thank you Anet for recently listening to our criticisms of the game mode that we so dearly love and thank you for giving us who play WvW some dungeon track rewards.

Written by myself and a guildie who wishes to remain anonymous.

P.S. If you’re a player and your only response is something like, “if u don’t like how this works then quit the game”, please know that said response is not only unhelpful but ignorant and reflects poorly on our community as a whole . It might as well just stay in your head since it doesn’t help continue the conversation in any shape or form. Thank you.

I agree with you as i am facing the same problem in my own server as i am from RoS and we hardly have any of our WvW players left on our own server or they are just no longer interested since being linked however it does have it’s upsides too as now there are a bit more fights and you feel like you’re actually making a difference but following one person the whole time not being able to give advice is also not that fun