Guild Wars 2

Sadly you are right. Can’t add anything to it.

All of this is exactly true. I’ve been on Devona’s Rest since about a week after launch, and WvW … plus the lack of a trinity … were the primary reasons I bought the game. There’s really no point in even trying any more, though. Players simply got tired of having population and coverage trump ANYTHING else they did, and bloodlust, siege mastery, and leagues have only made it more appealing to jump to higher pop servers. WvW in general has been crippled by the absolute worst game management imaginable … I’d like to think it was due to sheer incompetence on the part of ANet but the magnitude of it points to intentional scuttling. I would probably stay with GW2 forever if they’d fix this mess, but as it is I am anxiously awaiting the next game that makes a decent attempt at open world PvP.

Yeah cactus me and you both.

Transfer fees have nothing to do with WvW. They are there to balance total server populations including PvE. I am not sure there is a solution here. You don’t seem to be offering a solution as well.

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)
2. Combine the low population WvW servers onto a smaller numbers of servers
3. Cap WvW server population at the highest WvW population
   (players cannot join or transfer to a full WvW server)
4. Make it free to join or transfer to a WvW server with below average population

This will result in fewer WvW servers but with more even and therefore more competitive populations.

I personally don’t mind the population disparity so much as I can’t stand the coverage disparity. Even though we’re outnumbered in almost every engagement, we can maintain some control over things because of how arrow carts and siege in general is designed. Where we can’t hold up is at night when no one is on and opposing servers take control of all 4 BL’s.

Wouldn’t just changing the PPM mechanic resolve a lot of the problem? For example, if you got something like 100pts for attacking a keep but 300pts for defending one. At night when some servers run unopposed and take over every BL, the outnumbered can defend one or 2 keeps and maintain some kind of hold on their server’s points.

Zenguy.6421:

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)
2. Combine the low population WvW servers onto a smaller numbers of servers
3. Cap WvW server population at the highest WvW population
   (players cannot join or transfer to a full WvW server)
4. Make it free to join or transfer to a WvW server with below average population

This will result in fewer WvW servers but with more even and therefore more competitive populations.

I agree with what sniffycube explained as well as Zenguy. There has to be some kind of balance that is at least considered reasonable. I’m from KWBH as well and love to fight the fight in WvW. But dominating Yak’s and Kain this week, I have not set one foot in WvW this week. I fight in WvW for challenge and honestly i feel bad. When this game first released I was on Darkhaven which was the initial server [RE] was on. When I joined them they said that they were planning to move to another server to go on a bigger scale of wvw population. I left them and said I am sticking to Darkhaven. I don’t believe in hopping on those bandwagons. They need to have a cap on WvW population or at least the amount of people who can be on a server. Transferring to T1 or T2 does NOT mean you are the best. It just means you want to be carried to the top and share the glory of the “winners”. I love Guild Wars too much to leave but cmon. At least consolidate some of the lower pop servers to show more power diversity in WvW, as well as PVE.

Zenguy.6421:

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)

What do you mean by that?

Yaro.3251:

Zenguy.6421:

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)

What do you mean by that?

If I understand the op correctly, It means dedicated Servers for WvW that are separate from the servers we now know. I would support this for multiple reasons. But adding more servers to the data centers might not be a financial feasibility. I love the idea, I just don’t know what the costs would be to add the servers needed to do so.

BlazeQ.1095:

Yaro.3251:

Zenguy.6421:

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)

What do you mean by that?

If I understand the op correctly, It means dedicated Servers for WvW that are separate from the servers we now know. I would support this for multiple reasons. But adding more servers to the data centers might not be a financial feasibility. I love the idea, I just don’t know what the costs would be to add the servers needed to do so.

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

BlazeQ.1095:

If I understand the op correctly, It means dedicated Servers for WvW that are separate from the servers we now know. I would support this for multiple reasons. But adding more servers to the data centers might not be a financial feasibility. I love the idea, I just don’t know what the costs would be to add the servers needed to do so.

WvW already runs on its own Servers (that’s how WvW could be down yesterday while Servers were still up).

The challenge is they would have to handle the idea that a single Player Account now had both a PvE Server and a WvW Server associated with it. The changes necessary for that could be small, or huge, or somewhere in-between depending on how it is coded.

Yaro.3251:

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

The idea in Zenguy’s post is you stay (or go) to whatever PvE Server you want for that, and then separately also choose a WvW Server Allegiance for Matches. There would be fewer WvW Servers than PvE Servers and the idea is to keep them all better populated/balanced.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

BlazeQ.1095:

If I understand the op correctly, It means dedicated Servers for WvW that are separate from the servers we now know. I would support this for multiple reasons. But adding more servers to the data centers might not be a financial feasibility. I love the idea, I just don’t know what the costs would be to add the servers needed to do so.

WvW already runs on its own Servers (that’s how WvW could be down yesterday while Servers were still up).

I’d warn against talking confidently about back-end architecture. I’d imagine that “servers” (OS instances) are abstracted from software module instances. If you think that there’s a single piece of hardware that exclusively runs your “server” or part of it, that’s probably not true. Virtualization is a funny thing

Yaro.3251:

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

The idea in Zenguy’s post is you stay (or go) to whatever PvE Server you want for that, and then separately also choose a WvW Server Allegiance for Matches. There would be fewer WvW Servers than PvE Servers and the idea is to keep them all better populated/balanced.

Ah, now it looks better. Still such segmentation and mix-up of communities may be confusing and counterproductive.

I’m not saying I support his proposal, just trying to explain it

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

WvW already runs on its own Servers (that’s how WvW could be down yesterday while Servers were still up).

You may be correct that WvW runs on its own servers, but I’ve never seen that stated by Anet and your reason for concluding that is flawed. ANet has the ability to make server-side coding changes on the fly using a scripting system the developed … all of which was described by them in a one hour video they presented to the gaming community just prior to launch. ANet could easily have coded a simple block to shut down WvW without affecting anything else.

I might very well be wrong about their hardware implementation, but I’ve never seen/heard anything about LA lagging when a 3-way fight is blocking CPU Cycles in Stonemist…

Regardless it’s a tangent to the topic – ANet will know best what their infrastructure is and whether it is viable or not no matter what we post here.

I think the main focus of the thread (that hopefully we can all agree on) is that disparities in Server Populations and Coverage are hurting WvW, and that even though they always have it is being brought to the fore again by Leagues and a lot of transferring taking place around them.

It would be very nice to see ANet doing something to redress population/coverage imbalances rather than encouraging/facilitating them.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

I might very well be wrong about their hardware implementation, but I’ve never seen/heard anything about LA lagging when a 3-way fight is blocking CPU Cycles in Stonemist…

Regardless it’s a tangent to the topic – ANet will know best what their infrastructure is and whether it is viable or not no matter what we post here.

That was basically the point. Without a pretty good idea about implementation there’s no point in briging it into argument. As in “well, that would be easy to implement since servers are already separate.” Even with pretty good idea there’s no point. Since devs know better anyway.

Yaro.3251:

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

Outside.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

I might very well be wrong about their hardware implementation, but I’ve never seen/heard anything about LA lagging when a 3-way fight is blocking CPU Cycles in Stonemist…

Where you there for the Karka invasion event long ago? Lag worse than SM 3-way battles.

bjchase.3074:

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

I might very well be wrong about their hardware implementation, but I’ve never seen/heard anything about LA lagging when a 3-way fight is blocking CPU Cycles in Stonemist…

Where you there for the Karka invasion event long ago? Lag worse than SM 3-way battles.

I have guesses about their architecture… however it is pointless and off-topic to talk about them.

The real point of this thread is can something be done by ANet to help address the ever-growing Server imbalances we are seeing.

How about we stick to that topic?

bjchase.3074:

Yaro.3251:

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

Outside.

Haha, good one But it’s not my case, although ditching computer games completely wouldn’t be a bad idea. For anyone.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

The idea in Zenguy’s post is you stay (or go) to whatever PvE Server you want for that, and then separately also choose a WvW Server Allegiance for Matches. There would be fewer WvW Servers than PvE Servers and the idea is to keep them all better populated/balanced.

Thanks for that summary, Rackhir.

Yaro.3251:

OK so my main is 314 WvW rank and 39 fractal lvl. Where should I go?

A: nowhere.
You have a PvE server which you would remain on. You have a WvW server which you would also remain on. If you are on a server with a low WvW population, then your WvW server may be merged with another low population WvW server to bring it up to a more competitive population level.

After that, if you change PvE server that would not affect your WvW server, and if you change WvW server that would not affect your PvE server.

Bumping this thread so Anet can read it with their Collaborative Development glasses on.

I, too, agree that something needs to be done with the server imbalances. Sniffy and Zen have posted well thought out ideas that should be looked at by the Anet team… sooner rather than later.

Zenguy.6421:

Solution:

1. Unhook the one-to-one link between PvE and WvW servers
   (required for #2)
2. Combine the low population WvW servers onto a smaller numbers of servers
3. Cap WvW server population at the highest WvW population
   (players cannot join or transfer to a full WvW server)
4. Make it free to join or transfer to a WvW server with below average population

This will result in fewer WvW servers but with more even and therefore more competitive populations.

It is too primitve to merge servers. It will happen , but not yet. DAOC took around 5 years before they merged. Then they had naming problems when they merged. DAoC merged another time , created a classic server, and then finally merged everyone to a final set. That was like 7 years i think. So no, too early to talk about merging