Guild Wars 2

as others have said, the issue with transfer costs is not that it’s not free, it’s that it is the same price regardless of where you are transferring from, or to.

I think there is general agreement that the way that the players have arranged themselves server-wise is not healthy for the game. a different pricing structure for transfers could help by encouraging players to arrange themselves so that matchups are more balanced.

for example, transfers from a higher-rated server to a lower-rated server could be free (or dirt cheap), while transfers from a lower-rated server to a higher one would cost more and more depending on how highly ranked the destination server is.

-ken

Transfer cost is a very little part of the problem.
I think every server have the capacity to fill every map with players, but the players have no reason to play. Now pvp is way more revarded as wvw and pve… We all know: if you want money farm the actual new living story content and thats all.
We just run again and again on the same maps for the nothing. No gold, no achi, no title, no fancy loots.

Add EotM to the PPT rotation and harmonize the rewards between all the WvW maps. Keep the overflow version for upscale characters.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

People tend to get tired of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. Even if they are winning. Free transfers would let people move around and find new challenges.

Would it eliminate stacking? Not at all but it would keep things fresh. Right now everyone has to first consider their own wallets (virtual or real) before they consider moving to another server. So a lot of times people just stay where they are because they can’t afford to move.

I understand locking transfers down during an actual season but off season I don’t see the point in charging or locking them. Well… I see the point, to generate income, but from a player’s perspective I don’t see the point.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

Well … right now it can be cheaper to buy another account than to transfer depending on where you are transferring to. Something about that just seems a bit off.

I like the idea mentioned before about cost reductions going into effect if the server experiences many losses in a short time. After about 3 consecutive last place finishes or 5 consecutive non-first place finishes; a reduction of about 100 gems a week should go into effect.
This will addressed “locked” tiers (particularly in NA) and will encourage balancing from people looking for a change of scenery; while making the “winning” server having to make a VERY compelling argument as to why more currency should be spent in their direction.

@Gail,

I think we need a much bigger change in transfer prices. Something like:

T1: 3000
T2: 2500
T3:1800
T4: 1800
T5: 1200
T6: 800
T7: 300
T8: Free

Transferring down 2 or more tiers would remove 200 gems from the cost.

In other words, encourage people to continue going to lower tiers. Why? The tier is all about population balance. Even it out.

Reduced gem cost wont encurage players to play

Balance servers on WvW population, avoid pve events to interfere with WvW.
adjust price for transfer to inflation of the gold/gem market and the server tier/population.

Atm. tranfering costs more then the game itself and i don’t think even T1 would pay that to transfer to a lower tier server.

The problems are easily recognized, The solution is something that needs work.. fast.

TBH paying to transfer servers was a great idea when we had huge populations and Queue’s..

Now we have small populations, unless you stacked, and no queue’s so why are we still paying for transfers?

McWolfy.5924:

Reduced gem cost wont encurage players to play

No but it will allow the population to redistribute to lower tier servers and reinvigorate wvw. Right now no serious wvw players are going to drop down to t5-8 because there’s absolutely nothing to do and it’s a huge waste of time and money.

Kanebrake.6192:

McWolfy.5924:

Reduced gem cost wont encurage players to play

No but it will allow the population to redistribute to lower tier servers and reinvigorate wvw. Right now no serious wvw players are going to drop down to t5-8 because there’s absolutely nothing to do and it’s a huge waste of time and money.

It won’t change the ‘nothing to do’ part if they lower transfer prices. I agree transfer prices need to be looked at, but it won’t fix the root of the problem – lack of updates and dev support causing players to get bored

Reverence.6915:

Kanebrake.6192:

McWolfy.5924:

Reduced gem cost wont encurage players to play

No but it will allow the population to redistribute to lower tier servers and reinvigorate wvw. Right now no serious wvw players are going to drop down to t5-8 because there’s absolutely nothing to do and it’s a huge waste of time and money.

It won’t change the ‘nothing to do’ part if they lower transfer prices. I agree transfer prices need to be looked at, but it won’t fix the root of the problem – lack of updates and dev support causing players to get bored

This is true. But since I have a feeling there’s going to be very little in the way of updates and dev support I think going for the low lying fruit is the best we can hope for.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

Definitely not, because when prices have been less in the past, people stacked tighter.

If the idea is to even out WvW populations across the entirety of the servers, then lock out transfers to the gold tier entirely. For the rest of the servers, put in scaled transfer costs that go from free (for the absolute lowest ranked server) to “punishing” (for the server just below gold.

Then drop the map caps to something fairly punitive and watch what happens. People who actually want to play, especially together, will have to consider what servers will support their numbers and transfer accordingly. Obviously they can farm gold if they don’t want to pay the cash. It should also mean that you can’t buy your way into a gold server, and so anybody that makes it there did it on the strength of their playing rather than via sheer population.

And ideally it will shake up the matches somewhat – it would be nice if you couldn’t predict how the week is going to end up half an hour after reset on a Friday.

Plus, it means no mergers. Merging is a bad idea on so many levels, like for queues at prime time and destruction of existing communities to name the obvious ones, but something that rarely gets mentioned is that fewer servers means less variability in matches.

Here is a thread, the first post of which has some great artistic representations of some of the NA servers (at the time).

The WvW population is finite – isn’t it time to smooth it out and make it less about karma training and more about fighting, attacking and defending objectives, and not only about who has the most population?

If you loose wvw you are demoralized. If you like wvw, you will want to fix it. If you see transfer price, you are amazed by them. So you think twice about wich server you go. And in the end, all EU people, that have this issue, go to Seafarer’s rest. Increasing/decreasing the price won’t change this. Only if the loosing server, can get similar wvw, loot, caps as the winning server, then the ‘must transfer to Seafarer’s Rest’ hype will be broken. If you don’t do that, no chance at all. SFR will remain overpowered (in manpowered) for a hell of a long time to come. It doesn’t help that the nr 1 server is more often then any other existing server green color. Please change that. Green colour = easy karma trains in eotm (unlike other colours, in wich it is NOT the case). Result? More motivation to go SFR, less motivation to go another server, even if eotm is not the major reason for people to transfer.

A relative new gw2 player and friend of me, played on piken for long while. He even won this tournement (third one). Yet he was so bored, he looked to transfer to a higher tier server. And in that moment, is where Anet needs to do something. Because in that situation there is NOTHING at all, motivating players to choose anything other then SFR. As you can guess, he chose SFR. He doenst play wvw that often, but STILL. If stagnation so easely leads to SFR transferring, then there is a big problem.

Solution?

The next points must all come at same time or it won’t work.

Revive wvw. Current state it’s not popular enough to be taken serious imo. It’s become mostly Toxic (troll builds like perplexity, 10 vs 1’s all over the place, body laughing, etc). Also below t2, EU wvw is really quickly diminishing, very fast actually.

Give ‘loosing servers’, while they play the game equal (or almost equal) loot as winning server. The loot gap is way to big now.

Stop giving nr 1 server so often green. Make it more random so that eotm is also randomized.

If end score in weeks before tournement (don’t announce the period, you gotta keep it secret to stop abuse), is very equal amongst a tier, then lock transfers completely before till after tournement. If you don’t do this there will always be the ‘if i don’t win, i’m bored’ kind of ppl that will transfer to winning server no matter what, they don’t care it costs 250g.

And a lot more things, but this is a good start.

The thing is Gayle that even if stacked servers are not an ideal situation they are far better option to an empty one.
Let me suggest Anet to take an active part on WvW population balance.

There is no more boring thing that getting your friends together for WvW night and find that the only thing you get is PvDoor all night long.

Fights are what makes WvW fun and i’m not talking just about open field fights but sieges, roaming and other kind of stuff.

Focus on population balance, PvP mechanics (inside WvW ofc) and for gods shake, GIVE US NEW WvW MAPS!! ’cause its boring as hell when everyone knows exactly where to put sieges and/or how to counter them. Some variety would be apreciated.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

I say free transfers for only the bottom 3 servers. All others still have to pay.

But TBH I have posted a real solution, it just requires some effort by Anet.

First of all monitor server WvW activity 24/7
Find out what times a server either has long queues, or little to no activity.

Honestly they have metrics for all of this already.

They know exactly how many people play WvW and have chosen to spend their time/money on PVE content.

WvW got the OS, WXP and EOTM.

OS was like a hotfix to placate a group of people, most of which don’t play the game anymore.

WXP has been a slight interesting addon, most hardcore players already have enough points to buy everything that matters though.

EOTM is a failure in the sense of a competitive gameplay arena, its basically just a place to go to get free rewards. It was meant to be a place to go to when you are stuck in queues and a place to test WvW elements. I have honestly never seen either…

ROFL! You want to show us we are the target audience? The best way to show that is to punish a server by making them face a server 6 ranks higher then them.

style.6173:

@Gail,

I think we need a much bigger change in transfer prices. Something like:

T1: 3000
T2: 2500
T3:1800
T4: 1800
T5: 1200
T6: 800
T7: 300
T8: Free

Transferring down 2 or more tiers would remove 200 gems from the cost.

In other words, encourage people to continue going to lower tiers. Why? The tier is all about population balance. Even it out.

Tier is all about coverage, and theres only enough OCX, SEA and EU guilds / players to substain one “healthy” tier. Encouriging people to transfer down would do nothing.
BG that is considered the most “stacked” NA TZ server in NA T1 currently have a max of 1 queued map during NA prime on a saturday and none during weekdays.
We´ve given up finding fights during EU prime, and have had trouble finding fights during NA prime in T1 for so long that we´ve decided to disband as a guild from GW2.

GW2 without a doubt has the best combat system, but out of all mass pvp content mmos that Ive played, it also has the worst and least endgame pvp content which is why (alot) of people and guilds are leaving.

About the ops post, its been clear since release that WvW never was the target audience of the devs / anet, but we´ve always hoped that they´d have enough insight and pride of their game to make something out of the gamemode. Why else would you make it in the first place? It reflects bad on Anet as a game developer and will only hurt their rep in future game releases.

Smokee.1754:

Tier is all about coverage, and theres only enough OCX, SEA and EU guilds / players to substain one “healthy” tier. Encouriging people to transfer down would do nothing.
BG that is considered the most “stacked” NA TZ server in NA T1 currently have a max of 1 queued map during NA prime on a saturday and none during weekdays.
We´ve given up finding fights during EU prime, and have had trouble finding fights during NA prime in T1 for so long that we´ve decided to disband as a guild from GW2.

There’s nothing “healthy” about tier 1 – that’s kind of the point. T1 is a stacked and overstuffed tier, and whether it has queues or not doesn’t really say anything other than large queues is a sign of an unhealthy server, as there are people who want to play that can’t.

My own server, currently ranked 18, manages to pop a queue on resets in EBG and/or home BL sometimes, depending on who we’re fighting. Do you think that means we have more coverage than Blackgate?

In fact, if you want to see healthy, have a look at T6. We’re on our fourth week of the same lineup, and the matchups tend to be fairly close. Final score at the end of the week tends to be within 25k from first to third, and we’re all having fun.

Seriously, have a look – T6 is the only tier that isn’t a blowout. Not on reset, and not at the end of the week. That’s what population balance looks like.

Encouraging people to transfer down will give that experience to more people – you guys in T1 had your fun stripmining the other servers until you were bursting at the gills with players… and kind of created this problem. It was an unhealthy distribution of population, and it’s come back to bite everybody in the hindquarters.

Destacking will give other servers the chance to have what T6 is currently having – a satisfying game experience.

Yes, it’s bronze. No, it isn’t dead. There are zergs, there are large scale fights, there are small scale fights, there are havoc groups, there are solo roamers, there are duels, there is GvG.

And nobody on any of the three servers, in the four weeks of the same matchup, is burning out or complaining. More servers should be this lucky.

So ANet – encourage servers to destack and let’s see more people enjoying rather than karma-training, which is all a blowout match really is. There’s EotM for people that want to farm.

And Smokee, if you don’t want to take my word for what it’s like at this tier, just ask. People from GoM and DH will be happy to tell you much the same. And next week or the week after when ET rockets up to T6, we’ll find out if they can sustain there. If they can, it gets even better with four servers all competing for the three spaces available in the tier.

Remember when WvW used to be fun? We do – it’s daily.

@Rimmy, you’ve completely missed Smokee’s point. T1 is the only place left for non-NA players left in this game. OCX prime is like T5-T6 NA prime. There’s not enough OCX, SEA and EU players to split up on the NA servers and still continue to provide those players a decent WvW experience. In fact, look at all the T2 OCX guilds that transferred to T1 recently, and we still can barely match T5 NA prime populations. We simply cannot spread the population out any thinner than it already is

The only way to have a chance of fixing the coverage problem would be to remove the separation between NA and EU servers but Anet says it is a technical impossibility. I say they are just not trying hard enough or willing to invest enough to do it.

The only way, Julie? I think something like EotM “battle groups” is the answer. I don’t know of an MMO that has conjoined the two continents, I’m guessing the biggest impediment is latency.

Vael Victus.2654:

The only way, Julie? I think something like EotM “battle groups” is the answer. I don’t know of an MMO that has conjoined the two continents, I’m guessing the biggest impediment is latency.

Is it an overflow instance type setup like EoTM? If so, why would guilds invest to upgrade and defend something on a map that might get erased and replaced as population fluctuates during the day?

Reverence.6915:

@Rimmy, you’ve completely missed Smokee’s point. T1 is the only place left for non-NA players left in this game. OCX prime is like T5-T6 NA prime. There’s not enough OCX, SEA and EU players to split up on the NA servers and still continue to provide those players a decent WvW experience. In fact, look at all the T2 OCX guilds that transferred to T1 recently, and we still can barely match T5 NA prime populations. We simply cannot spread the population out any thinner than it already is

Nonsense.

You think T1 is the only place that there are solid populations of non-NA prime time players?

I know you’re all about all things BG but BG and T1 in general isn’t a good place to talk about satisfying game experiences – again, it’s from T1 that people leave the game, not transfer.

But I’ll play along – if the T1 players from other regions are really like T6 NA prime time, then lowering map caps isn’t really going to affect them much anyway, so there will be no pressure for them to go anywhere unless they want to.

Sorted.

Rimmy.9217:

Reverence.6915:

@Rimmy, you’ve completely missed Smokee’s point. T1 is the only place left for non-NA players left in this game. OCX prime is like T5-T6 NA prime. There’s not enough OCX, SEA and EU players to split up on the NA servers and still continue to provide those players a decent WvW experience. In fact, look at all the T2 OCX guilds that transferred to T1 recently, and we still can barely match T5 NA prime populations. We simply cannot spread the population out any thinner than it already is

Nonsense.

You think T1 is the only place that there are solid populations of non-NA prime time players?

I know you’re all about all things BG but BG and T1 in general isn’t a good place to talk about satisfying game experiences – again, it’s from T1 that people leave the game, not transfer.

But I’ll play along – if the T1 players from other regions are really like T6 NA prime time, then lowering map caps isn’t really going to affect them much anyway, so there will be no pressure for them to go anywhere unless they want to.

Sorted.

Stop using so much logic before you break the internet.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

Free transfers overall? Probably not. A massive scaling difference in cost xfers? Possibly. For example, bronze tier being free or incredibly cheap ( or even 1 time free then incredibly cheap thereafter). silver being kinda cheap and t1/t2 being relatively expensive. And if you xfer down a tier, maybe getting a discount.

What you would have is two competing interests. many ppl don’t like being on lower tier because they find it demoralizing, or has less action and is quite. But if you make going down free, ppl looking to move will give lower tier servers extra weight.

The thing is the cost has to be really cheap to move down to bronze, or people just wont do it. But making all servers free would cause wild swings not leveling out.
But , all views need empirical testing, but my guess is a massive scaling cost across the tiers would result in more balance. Matching peoples desires to be on higher tier servers vs the differential of the cost of doing so.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

It’d be an experiment and I don’t think there’s anything to show how it would or wouldn’t be if you changed transfer costs to a low amount or free.

You would still see transfers heavily weighted toward the upper tiers, but there would be less fear of making a mistake and transferring to a dead tier. Ultimately people are spending money to guarantee that they are on a server that has people who are on when they are or at least that regularly has opponents who are on when they are on.

People are reluctant to gamble money to transfer to a not sure thing because it’s a very dramatic change in your gameplay experience that could be for the worse.

There should still be some nominal cost to make switching servers a meaningful event, regardless of how that is paid, but the current price is very high for what you might obtain. It isn’t like a skin where you know what you’re paying for.

Right now, you could easily spend a lot of gems and then come to find out that oops, there’s actually no one to fight or play with on the server you transferred to.

What makes it worse is that transfers are frequently group decisions. You aren’t spending $15 or whatever it is to transfer, you’re spending $15 * number of people in your guild, split however many ways with whatever assistance you can get from the receiving server.

It’s obviously a huge problem for people who play off hours in their region more so than it is for NA in NA or EU in EU.

Changing server transfer prices is one thing within a very large menu of options that could affect server WvW populations.

Before Arenanet looks at that, I think you’re better off focusing on increasing the overall base population of the game mode first and addressing the overall aspects of the game that may affect how often and for how long core WvW players want to play before they feel roadblocked, like increasing the frequency with which fights happen for groups of various sizes by adjusting siege balance for larger groups, or the effects of smaller objectives for smaller groups, like ruins/mercs, and taking a very careful balance pass on WvW masteries to make it less likely that one person can completely shut down 80 people.

leave wvw. just make new matchmaking gvg

Here is an idea Anet about the transfers.

Atm i play on Desolation but since the gem price and gem amount is 1000(which is a lot for a wvw player) makes me unable to transfer to less populated servers suck as Piken Square, now if this was free i would do it right away, my point being is that transferring from Tier 1 servers to Tier 2 should be free of charge, that will promote a lot of transfers and will make WvW a lot more interesting.You can keep the 1k gem price for transferring to the high populated servers.

Hyperion.4638:

Here is an idea Anet about the transfers.

Atm i play on Desolation but since the gem price and gem amount is 1000(which is a lot for a wvw player) makes me unable to transfer to less populated servers suck as Piken Square, now if this was free i would do it right away, my point being is that transferring from Tier 1 servers to Tier 2 should be free of charge, that will promote a lot of transfers and will make WvW a lot more interesting.You can keep the 1k gem price for transferring to the high populated servers.

Then you would run into the same problem we had in the first few months. Large guilds would transfer to low tier servers. K-train their way back up the ranks with totally unblalanced match-ups and start the process all over again when they get back to the top messing up the server ratings in the process.

For those that said the problem is the gems or the cost to move to another server that makes people stack. The thing is that, at least in Europe, the current N1 server had literally dozens of guilds transfered there in last 3 months, full guilds, as also some other players that moved by themselves, paing the total cost for moving to the server

This means that people will even pay for moving to another server that thinks fits better on his needs (it’s the same if what you want is to have good GvG options, easy farming, better wvw general play…). Rememeber that some months ago guilds left to lower populated servers (silver league servers) in order to have less stacked ones, without queues and with a good environment to play their GvG’s etc, they moved back within last months since people on those silver servers moved to another higher server, letting almost die (or making the WvW experience in those last servers much different). I can give plenty examples of this(and most of you will already know those examples), so this is nothing I’m just figuring out.

The conclussion is that if servers are stacked, it is because there is not a rule in the game that prevents that, there is not a rule taht prevents fighting 2 servers one with an average of 100 ppl in WvW all times and another with 20 in average, these kind of things, the score broken system and the current “play for fights” because ppt is not fair for a “competition”. The fact that the population is the base of the scoring, is the one that is making all people stack, you want a better MU, more ppl to play with and against, more off-hour action→ you move to a more populated server.

Free transfers are bad. Cost to transfer being dependent on your current server is not. Transfering to a lower tier server than your current server should reduce the cost while transfering to a higher tier server should increase it. Transfering to a server in a lower rank within its tier than your current server should also reduce the cost while transfering to a higher rank server within its tier than your current server should increase the cost. Maximum cost should be about $50 while minimum cost should be about $5

Free trial transfer to any server other than the two you are facing. After 7 days, you pay the transfer fee or are returned to the original server. You can only trial transfer so Kant times – once a month? Twice a month? If you like your new home, the transfer fee could be graduated as others have mentioned…..

That is one way players can try a lower tier or another server to see how well they fit…..

Rangerdeity.5847:

Free transfers are bad. Cost to transfer being dependent on your current server is not. Transfering to a lower tier server than your current server should reduce the cost while transfering to a higher tier server should increase it. Transfering to a server in a lower rank within its tier than your current server should also reduce the cost while transfering to a higher rank server within its tier than your current server should increase the cost. Maximum cost should be about $50 while minimum cost should be about $5

that is insane $50 for a transfer

i am not paying the price of the game to change servers !

i quit this game because
i don’t want to stay in my low pop server .
there is no one in wvw when i am on

but it cost half the price of the game to change servers !!!!

i am not happy with the class balance and wvw

anet seems to only care about pve
so they are not getting my money to change servers

y would i pay to change servers when it is clear that anet does not care about WVW

Not sure if this was mentioned in other thread on this subject (how to fix population imbalance.) But you could try servers based on time blocks. Outside the timeblock, shut the servers down. This is just a concept!

Seems two primary themes continue whenever WvW is discussed: Lack of new content etc, and population imbalances e.g. “its all about coverage vs skill”. On the subject of population imbalances etc. finding OCX/SEA coverage these days on the NA servers is like finding a unicorn..its somewhat mythical outside of T1-3. Even in T1-3 it exist to varying degrees. However, if a server has it, and lands a match vs one that doesn’t..the match is over at least based on the metric (PPT) created for determing “winners.” So, create time zones for servers, perhaps something like this: “NA Prime” (5pm to 2am EST), “OCX Prime” (1am to 9am EST) and “24/7” those servers open all the time. Within each time zone, have 3-6 servers, perhaps 6 for “24-7”, then 3 in the other two. Outside those timezones, the server shuts down.

You will still have to pay to transfer into the server grouping you want to play in, but if you are a NA prime player, and don’t want to worry about having everything rolled during OCX, a very discouraging event for all servers playing in say T4-8, you wont have to.

These are some cons to this approach e.g. if you pick a time slot, but your real life changes such as job change so your game hours change, you could be locked out of server block and have to pay to get into another.

But this will address the population imbalances and smooth out some of the time zone based elements that are causing big challenges to the competitive nature of this part of the game.

As for content..oh wow. Got a long way to go. But, you should try new things, even if small, more frequently, listen to feedback and move on. Test, tinker, and then add or delete. You need to go much faster with development pace in WvW. At this point, I think most ppl will take the experiments as sign you care and are trying..even if they don’t turn out well.

Oh..and I don’t think free transfers is the answer within the current system for reasons previously mentioned.

Rangerdeity.5847:

Free transfers are bad. Cost to transfer being dependent on your current server is not. Transfering to a lower tier server than your current server should reduce the cost while transfering to a higher tier server should increase it. Transfering to a server in a lower rank within its tier than your current server should also reduce the cost while transfering to a higher rank server within its tier than your current server should increase the cost. Maximum cost should be about $50 while minimum cost should be about $5

Explain exactly why free transfers are bad. Or more importantly what makes you think a fifty dollar (anet your filter is garbage) transfer fee is anywhere near reasonable?

I play wvw almost daily and I’ve long wondered if anet has been disincentivized to fix bandwagoning in large because of the simple fact that they make money off the transfers. I hope this is wrong because it seems like a rather short sighted strategy. I’ve seen too many players quit the game lately because there doesn’t appear to be in fix in sight.
As far as a fix might go, it seems to me that it would need to come in the form of BOTH population fixes and in-game changes.
On other notes. I liked the idea of better garrison lords room defense dynamics incorporated into the structures geometry verses the siege disablers which try to solve some of the same problems but aren’t as organic feeling as they should be. And Lastly, is there a technical reason we can’t just have one large interconnected map? The bl’s seem like a great idea but in effect it just divides the players and perhaps exasperates the coverage issue.

Free transfers in and of themselves will not balance population and improve game play. What is to keep large guilds/groups of people from over populating the lower tier if free transfers are offered? Answer is, nothing. Anet would have to do several things to make free transfers work as many here have said they want them to.

Anet would have to:

1. Close transfers to T1/T2
2. Give guilds/people on T1/T2 servers a reason to transfer down (free transfer? not sure that is enough for that to happen.)
3. Micromanage the number of people going to specific servers to prevent over stacking based on current tier wvw population
4. Ties in with #3 – guilds of 50+ transferring would need to be verified to new server by Anet before they can transfer.

I’m sure there are other things to factor, but outside of certain stipulations free transfers will be much as they have been in the past; a specific group/groups of people all piling onto one server and pushing it up tiers and again creating an imbalance. What I think needs to happen is for Anet to find a way to get the base server populations interested in WvW again. The maps are stale, the match ups are stale, and scoring system is bad, outside T6 and T8 there isn’t one real competitive match for NA.

There of course are many reasons why the game population in general is low but much can be attributed to new game releases and the changes made to GW2 that made the game feel diluted and tiresome.

EotM while a good concept when we had a booming WvW population has never really worked as intended, which as presented was a layover place while you waited in queue for the normal WvW maps to open. It simply replaced the lowbie champ trains after the mega server was introduced and is primarily used for leveling alts from what I’ve seen. It has however had a huge impact on the WvW population, taking those that would normally follow a pugmander on EB to a map that contributes absolutely nothing to WvW. Personally, I’d like to see the map change to PVE and remove all WvW associations with it, or change it to the PPT map and make EB and the BLs the PPK maps.

Someone earlier also mentioned that the tourney needs to go away. I agree with this. There was such a dramatic shift in population prior to and after Season 1 that WvW never recovered. I saw many including myself leave the game, due to the high server imbalances and screwy match ups. I have since returned and now reside in T4 on NSP. I still however find myself in the same situation as before, wishing Anet would improve the WvW game mode. WvW is why I play this game, I don’t like PVE in GW2 and if I want to do it I will go elsewhere. People shouldn’t feel that they need to transfer every week to get a balanced or competitive WvW experience.

REmember paid tournies Anet? Good rule of thumb/heuristic, whatever you want players to be doing, don’t make a barrier of entry to do.
Ie , high cost.

The single biggest reason people would rather do anything other than play in the main wvw maps is the sheer lack of rewards. Wvw server buffs are server wide and mainly un noticed- maybe if there was a real affect that you could carry to the rest of the game that could be gained by completing some stuff in wvw (like, say , the server scores x number of kills while you are active in wvw (ie if you are in a safe area or not in the area of combat you get no credit, no leeching please!).
If you want karma and wexp then EoTM is sooo much better that you would be foolish to waste time in main wvw, and that is part of the problem.
Old, stale maps, no rotation at all, 3 are exactly the same. Why bother?

Wvw needs a total rethink from the rewards side to map design, points system, and how it affects the rest of the server. It needs to engage people from the server and make there be a reason for them to WANT to play in wvw.

At the moment, there is no real reason to play wvw, and until that changes, wvw as a game mode will continue to suffer disinterest and declining numbers.

I’m with Baldrick… there’s simply no point to WvW in this game other than you’re too bored to do anything else. There aren’t proper rewards for skill or time invested.

I think too many are in the mindset of targeting tiers when they should be targeting balance. Increase costs on those winning week after week will discourage bandwagons and give those fighting them a better shot.

If you think encouraging people to transfer down, look at what happened with HoD and now ET and tell me that is somehow good for balance?

Kanebrake.6192:

Rangerdeity.5847:

Free transfers are bad. Cost to transfer being dependent on your current server is not. Transfering to a lower tier server than your current server should reduce the cost while transfering to a higher tier server should increase it. Transfering to a server in a lower rank within its tier than your current server should also reduce the cost while transfering to a higher rank server within its tier than your current server should increase the cost. Maximum cost should be about $50 while minimum cost should be about $5

Explain exactly why free transfers are bad. Or more importantly what makes you think a fifty dollar (anet your filter is garbage) transfer fee is anywhere near reasonable?

your not a very big reader are you? is a scale transferring from the lowest bronze to the highest gold should be $50 thus the term MAXIMUM, while transferring from the highest gold to to the lowest bronze would be $5. my god people do you even read?

style.6173:

@Gail,
I think we need a much bigger change in transfer prices. Something like:
T1: 3000
T2: 2500
T3:1800
T4: 1800
T5: 1200
T6: 800
T7: 300
T8: Free

The above suggestion is reasonable to be done – solving some population issues stacked in WvW high servers (T1 mostly) due to winners attraction. Arena Net would still get gems for transfers (except to T8 class servers) and players will have the opportunity to experience new horizons and new communities more often.

Take in consideration the vast number of players looking for all sort of Achievement Points (a.k.a “addicted” AP hunters), allow me this suggestion to the achievement category earned by completing special achievement tracks during a single month (monthly AP), add 4 of 8 the new categories regarding only to WvW:

– Monthly Mists Invasion Defender (0/40 enemy invaders killed)
– Monthly Mists Land Claimer (0/25 Sentries captured)
– Monthly Mists Caravan Disruptor (0/20 supply Caravans destroyed)
– Monthly Mists Camp Capturer (0/10 Camps captured)
– Monthly Mists World Ranker (0/7 World Ranks Gained)
– Monthly Mists Tower Capturer (0/5 tower captured)
– Monthly Mists Keeper (0/3 keeps captured)
– Monthly Mists Castle Lord (0/1 Stonemist Castle captured)

The intention is to encourage players to come more World x World maps during a single month and increase the population outside Season tournaments window.

People are really wrong if they think T1 has enough people to spare and still keep a minimum viable population. The days when T1 queued all maps all the time are long gone. Besides reset night, it’s really rare to see a queue, and it’s not uncommom to roam in the BLs on non-prime time and don’t see a soul.

The WvW population as a whole is diminishing, and what we need is less servers, not new prices on transfers.

yanniell.1236:

People are really wrong if they think T1 has enough people to spare and still keep a minimum viable population.

Please define: “viable population”

The population of T1 servers right now. On regular days, on prime time, we usually have one float team, that bounces between BL’s as needed, and one commander in each BL. If happens to be a queue, it’s on EBG, and it’s not more than 20. The other borderlands rarelly queue if it’s not reset night.

After prime time, the only BL with real action is EBG, and it’s hard to find a commander in any other BL. Yesterday, a group of less than 10 enemies were capping our towers and keeps on our BL after prime time, and we didn’t have a commander nor the people to stop them. And when a commander tagged up afterwards, there were like 10 people following him.

Anything less than that level of population, isn’t viable nor healthy for WvW.

yanniell.1236:

People are really wrong if they think T1 has enough people to spare and still keep a minimum viable population. The days when T1 queued all maps all the time are long gone. Besides reset night, it’s really rare to see a queue, and it’s not uncommom to roam in the BLs on non-prime time and don’t see a soul.

The WvW population as a whole is diminishing, and what we need is less servers, not new prices on transfers.

That’s not what the people coming to us from T1 report their own experiences are. Some are people that have left our server to go to T1 and have returned, and others are people who have never been off of T1 until now.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kanebrake.6192:

Neptune.2570:

If WvW is dead, the community killed it, not anet.
How can there be different outcomes and new fights each week when every server is tier locked because we, as a community, have stacked servers so much.

Anet charging $35+ per transfer is what causes stacking. If they didn’t charge for transfers or were much more reasonable about the cost of it, then you’d see guilds and people moving around a lot more.

Interesting comment. Do you think that free transfers would reduce stacking? That things would just naturally even out over time?

I’m genuinely interested in this topic and would like to get some insight into it from our players’ perspective. (For clarity, I’m not on the WvW Team; y;’all know that. I just found the theory interesting.)

I think guilds should be able to form their own alliances (in the best of worlds)

In the short term and what is right now, I think transfer delays should remain, (or no wvw upon transfer until the next reset – you still get eotm)
I would completely remove transfer costs for a few reasons. It punishes players from a very small portion of the game. sPvP & PvE players have megaserver & guesting. WvW is directly being targeted by the fees and is detrimental for the mode.

For instance, when my guild tried to reform, many were reluctant to transfer because of the fees (single transfer) and we even less thought of exploring every server and made a tough decision based on what we knew of the different servers instead of testing them out and settleing where we are happy. Also, new recruits or recruiting people from other servers often fails not because of the lack of interest but because of the fees.

I think the whole “server” mentality and more specifically the fee that was placed on transfers is obsolete because of megaserver & guesting and only serves to hurt the WvW game mode. (important to note that I’m still for keeping the restrictions upon transfers that currently exist or somewhat tighter than they are.

Edit: I’ve always been on SoR and now currently on BG (there because it’s the closest thing to what SoR used to be)

Rangerdeity.5847:

Kanebrake.6192:

Rangerdeity.5847:

Free transfers are bad. Cost to transfer being dependent on your current server is not. Transfering to a lower tier server than your current server should reduce the cost while transfering to a higher tier server should increase it. Transfering to a server in a lower rank within its tier than your current server should also reduce the cost while transfering to a higher rank server within its tier than your current server should increase the cost. Maximum cost should be about $50 while minimum cost should be about $5

Explain exactly why free transfers are bad. Or more importantly what makes you think a fifty dollar (anet your filter is garbage) transfer fee is anywhere near reasonable?

your not a very big reader are you? is a scale transferring from the lowest bronze to the highest gold should be $50 thus the term MAXIMUM, while transferring from the highest gold to to the lowest bronze would be $5. my god people do you even read?

All that and you didn’t even answer the question.

I’ll try again. What makes free transfers “bad” and why would kitten transfer fee be acceptable?