Guild Wars 2

I debated a good while on whether to actually make this post or not and if it was even worth trying but here goes.

Just to quickly address those who are saying server pride doesn’t exist or died in X Y or Z, what you are actually saying is it died for You then. Just because you do not have it doesn’t mean others do not.

Over the past four years, I have very much enjoyed the community that we had slowly built up on FC (recurring theme here perhaps?). Sure there were hiccoughs, and some disagreements, but over time the community that was forged was the best I have been a part of. To give some background for those who have not been on FC (or at least recently), a good portion of us put community first. Sure, there were guilds, and we all have guild loyalty, but loyalty to the server was strong as well. We did regular community events (or at least when those of us setting them up remembered to set them up). The result was a strong, friendly community relatively free of toxic behavior. Even the roamers, of which we had many, behaved themselves (mostly :P).

As some of you have pointed out, the server system has, over the years received quite a few hammer blows, such as the megaserver for pve. Despite all these, our server stayed relatively strong, community-wise. Week after week, we hung on, hoping against hope anet would find a solution. I’m sure a lot of you can appreciate how hard a blow it was to a lot of us then that the eventual solution turned out to be a painful shattering blow to the lower tier server communities, not quite enough to outright kill them, but to encourage a slow, painful bleed-out.

Some were ready to quit immediately (not at all helped by our first pairing), and yet we encouraged them to stick it out, hoping improvements to the system would be made. They weren’t, and as a result a good few of us have been left feeling betrayed. A betrayal of the amount of time put in to try and make the system anet neglected for so long work, only to have the entire thing smashed before our eyes.

Swagger, your main argument so far appears to be simply these two quotes:

Read the facts…
Swagger.1459:
McKenna Berdrow GW2 forum post….
“The poll has ended! After removing all votes for “Don’t Count My Vote”, the final results are:
82.7% – Yes
17.3% – No
This mean that World Linking is now officially a Guild Wars 2 Feature. Thank you to everyone who voted!"
AnetChrisB post on Reddit…
“We’ve also had a substantial increase in global WvW participation since reward tracks, world linking, and the return of the Alpine borderlands.”

Firstly, the way that poll was presented was heavily in favour of linking. The two, and only two choices (apart from people abstaining) was revert to the previous system or to work on finding a method of linking that worked. They effectively forced those who disliked the old system and the current linking into voting for it, with the vague promise that it would be improved upon. So to say 82.7% of people wanted this exact system and are happy with it are a gross distortion of what it actually was.

On your second quote, it is more a question than a rebuttal, but when exactly was that quote from? How recently? Also bear in mind, by looking purely at numbers, you are forgetting that it is possible that the people making up those numbers are entirely different people to a lot of the people who stuck with wvw for years. If so, then they are just as likely to leave again once things begin to fade again. Choosing short term number increases over long-term loyal players is a very risky strategy, providing that the intention is to keep wvw going, rather than simply cashing in on what is left of it.

Chris Barrett.3280:

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

What I would say on this is, a fair number of the guest worlds have become subject to bandwagoning or whatever you want to call it, especially those linked to the high tier locked servers (going from what I have read at least). This poll has taken place after this has occurred. So, unless I’ve misunderstood, a good number of these votes per server will be from people who weren’t actually part of the server pre-linking, and therefore less likely to care (not sure if care is the right word there) about the server pride/ existing community aspect, since transfers will have been based on the logic of ‘This server is linked with a T1 server, therefore I will move here to play with the T1 server’, rather than moving to be on the actual server they moved to and become a part of the server community, like in the past.

Whilst data like the per server stuff can be useful, it is important to remember outside factors that may have altered it. It would be interesting to know how the proportion of yes/ no votes on guest servers varies depending on the number of transfers to those servers.

Edit: As an afterthought, the guest servers that got paired with the higher tiers had a lower general population before the linking, so the proportion of yes/no votes would be more easily swayed by transfers.

insanemaniac.2456:

Clemy.8290:

Zhou.3605:

Lol I am sorry this current linking system is so lame. I am on Dark Haven. For one…Ferguson’s Crossing… no offense, they don’t even know how to wvw for the most part. yet here they are added to us. They don’t contribute, and now as a result we have 4 other worlds against us and a server that doesn’t feel like it is contributing much. Now, my guild, which is a smaller guild, cannot even do a guild mission because we have far too many enemies and far too few allies in the field.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

nooooo dont take the bait ;(

I’ll take the bait if I want to take the bait Rikkity :P

Zhou.3605:

Lol I am sorry this current linking system is so lame. I am on Dark Haven. For one…Ferguson’s Crossing… no offense, they don’t even know how to wvw for the most part. yet here they are added to us. They don’t contribute, and now as a result we have 4 other worlds against us and a server that doesn’t feel like it is contributing much. Now, my guild, which is a smaller guild, cannot even do a guild mission because we have far too many enemies and far too few allies in the field.

And it was this attitude from certain members of DH that made a good number of FC not care about supporting DH. Why should we care about fighting FOR DH (since the guest servers don’t actually gain anything out of winning/losing) when from the first night, FC has been looked down upon from certain members of DH because, in general, we don’t enjoy blobbing. Members on your own server did their apparent best to belittle FC so I’m afraid you are simply reaping what your server has sown.

Puck.9612:

Which has me wondering why they would implement a patch and then leave for the weekend? Wouldn’t it be better to put out patches on Monday so if something goes wrong you are there to fix it?

^This bit right here. Patching just before they go home is just asking for problems.

SkyShroud.2865:

The fact that you continue to see the map queued, you continue to see a lot of people playing WvW already prove that the changes are welcomed.

You are using the queues as a method of measuring people’s approval of the changes. So you are admitting that if the queues die down/ stop then people no longer approve of the changes?

As a side note, saying that the increased populations on maps prove that they are welcome changes is to a degree wrong. It’s 2-3 days into a beta test. The point of a beta is to give feedback. How can people provide feedback without first having tested the game? So to use the queue times after such a short period as evidence is a bit premature don’t you think?

Chris Barrett.3280:

FogLeg.9354:

They all show host server names. I was fighting against UW players today and they all had FSP tags now. I knew them only from their guild tags so, nothing will show which smaller server they from.

Thanks for answering, FogLeg. That’s exactly correct. The biggest motivator for showing only the “host” world in enemy nameplates was to help identify enemies quicker. With only two other world names showing up in a given week, it’s easier to quickly figure out which color team they belong to. Since world linking supports any number of “guest” worlds linked to a single host, it would potentially get pretty confusing to see a big zerg of nameplates with any number of world names, and figure out the composition of one team versus another.

As for not seeing an allied player’s guest (actual) world name anywhere, we wanted to be sure world linking wouldn’t create any avoidable friction between players. One of the major goals we have with GW2 is always making sure encounters with other players are positive experiences (my paraphrasing). So anything we could do to let guests blend in and only stand out if they felt like calling themselves out as such is likely to be a good thing toward that goal.
Plus, there actually just aren’t that many places in the UI where we show allied players’ world names, so this was an easy goal to keep for this side of things.

Helping maintain guest world pride is a little tougher. We could show each player their world’s name in more areas of the UI, regardless of if they’re on a guest world or not, but this may cause communication issues, with some maps and areas of maps being named after worlds.

I’m open to hearing any feedback people have on little ways we could improve the feeling of world linking, while maintaining unambiguous communication for players and avoiding any negative “tribalism.”

This just seems to be an attempt to kill of the ‘guest worlds’ though by relegating them to a second class of sorts who aren’t important enough to even have their name appear on the scoreboard. Using the word ‘linking’ mad it seem like each server would be on an equal footing with the partner servers but this just seems like a merge, resulting in the destruction of the ‘guest’ server. Perhaps it’s just me but this doesn’t seem like what was being proposed.

Gaile Gray.6029:

So, good news!

• You (collectively) spoke.
• The team listened.
• Things are changed for the better, judging from the large number of votes in favor of this switch.
• Obviously, this is not all that’s coming, but it was a matter of importance to the WvW community, and it’s a good start, eh?

Regrettably, what should have been an easy change with a huge positive impact will be heavily detracted from by the fact that much of the feedback about it being too late has been completely missed.

It is difficult to comprehend why, after managing for over 2 years, it is now impossible to have the reset on Friday, 1 hour after reset, as it used to be. The given explanation of there ‘maybe’ being a patch then makes little sense to be honest. There have been so few patches on a Friday that the impact would be negligible. This is aside from the fact that patching on a Friday, just before you all go home, seems like a terrible idea. Coding is rarely perfect, which means any potentially game breaking bugs caused by the Friday patch have to be suffered over the entire weekend. Not sure about anybody else but to me this seems completely illogical.

On a more positive note, thank you at least for the improved communication. It’s a welcome break from a wall of silence (although a little more warning than less than a week would have been nice)

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

This is a great thread. It’s constructive. We’re all reading it and referring to it in team discussions.

As we said in the AMA, our top internal priorities have been population balance and rewards. From this thread, your top five priorities are, in order:
1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

Yes, we will take the feedback and make stability, general skill balance, and fixing/reverting DBL our top priorities. We’re not currently working on scoring and that has to be a longer-term project.

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance. He’s looking for the wins for WvW that don’t screw the rest of the game.

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

I want to reiterate that everything we work on either ships in April or starts beta-testing on Live servers in April. We’re locking down dev work for the April release soon — next up is localization, QA, integration and regression testing — but we’ll extend the deadline for WvW skill balance.

There is one thing that doesn’t need to get wrapped up into the April release: Friday night resets. That doesn’t require a Live build. We’ll do it.

Mo

I’m happy with all of this, with the possible exception of 4. If 4 means getting rid of/ merging servers, then please don’t. A good portion of us that have stuck with our servers in the lower tier are there because we want to be. We like the community and sense of server identity that we have gradually built up over the years. If we wanted to move servers then we already would have. The option is still there after all. I do not see how forcing players who have stuck with the game to move against there own will is a good basis for a restructured WvW.

T6 NA is actually quite populated around prime time, so merging would simply create large queues at prime time, whilst not addressing the population gaps at the times people are saying are ‘dead’ now anyway.

Surely improving the appeal of WvW to attract more players into it would be a much better method of improving the population of WvW.

As a side note, should you decide to close servers down (and I really hope you don’t), please give community leaders decent notice. There are TS servers and community websites that are in place for nearly every server which don’t come free. I would hope you would have the decency to give adequate warning so that they aren’t needlessly renewed.

sydney.4901:

As for a reference point, After 5 ish day’s of PPTing CD is just past 31k on the scoreboard. Them and Everyone below them is dead as hell.

That last part is just incorrect. T6 has been having quite a heated battle for who stays in it. Just because CD are falling fast doesn’t mean the servers below it are just as dead since CD probably hasn’t stopped falling. Wait for it to settle before making these assumptions please.

Knob.6835:

So t6-8 are dead……

That’s news to me that T6 is dead. FC are quite enjoying T6 so can we not go labeling tiers as ‘dead’ if they aren’t please. Just because there isn’t a 30 man zerg 24/7 doesn’t mean a server is dead. A good number of people in the lower tiers actually like the smaller fights for one reason or another so to label a server/ tier as dead is incredibly misleading, if not wrong.

As a side note, forcing players to move servers by ‘merging’ when there already is a system for them to move should they wish seems like a very bad idea. Many people in the tiers that have been labeled ‘dead’ would much rather stay on the server they are on and with the community they have become a part of, rather than being told they have to merge with another server just because the higher tier players don’t have enough people to zerg with. If we wanted to move, we would have already.

Any later than 1 hour after reset, which is what it used to be on a Friday, is too late. A lot of people go to sleep a couple of hours after reset as it is so you would only be giving them 1 hour of play?

If by T8, you mean DR and ET, then yes, the servers are reasonably quiet. But don’t forget that 1 out of the 3 servers (FC atm) in T8 isn’t dead, so people shouldn’t be so quick to brand entire tiers dead.
Edit: Even DR and ET do still have some people playing, and can give some decent fights on reset/ during the weekend, so claiming that there are 5 people on a map the entire week is misleading and factually incorrect.

So what you are saying is that you lie your way onto a server so that you are welcomed, all the while having every intention of ditching them a week later? The true nature of Dark Jean, ladies and gentlemen!

I never refuse a duel. It may be at an inconvenient time which is why I may say I can later but you remember it like that if you want. Good to hear that you only fight your own side though

Um, read my above post.

Blade Of Gandara.6738:

Sorry i only duel in pvp arena . it is more balanced. No ascended or legendary advantages or level advantage or buffs

Uhm only 1 FC that challenged me to a duel… I accepted it but he refuses to duel in pvp arena. For more balanced and proper dueling. But he wanted to duel in WVW instead… Soooo whatevar!!!

What are you talking about? i dont need to test myself. I been through alot of duels already. Stop crying already pls this is why i blocked you in gw2 cause you cry alot… My gosh..

Actually, I said I couldn’t duel at that minute since it required changing game modes and setting up a build etc but would be happy to later in the week. You then promptly blocked me XD

I think Dark Jean just used dodge

Bump for an incredibly friendly community

Mono.7320:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Upcoming_changes_and_features READ THIS!!!!! :OOO I LOVE YOU ANET <3

Yeah, but the basis if that wiki page came from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/ which is from July 2013. So it looks like it is just another broken promise from ANET.

For some reason, the dead drops are not showing for me in the diessa plateau. I know where they are, yet they don’t appear. Could anybody help? FC

Edit: I tried guesting on Maguuma and the dead drops in the Diessa plateau were all there. It may be the case that only certain servers have them available due to a bug or something.