Guild Wars 2

Easy solution…just stay put.

Someone in another thread mentioned using WvW rank to order the map queues, where higher ranks get in faster, even if that means they are cutting in line…like a Disney Fast Pass.

Zalavaaris.5329:

Garrus.7403:

Zalavaaris.5329:

I love it! Although I am not a WvW player you can bet I will become one in order to get this!

Like a thousand of other scrubs with their pve builds. Queues will be insane….. for some time and if you got the backpack you will leave again I guess. I hope you really will not get the backpack to easy for new players in wvw.

It sounds a tiny bit elitist when you say it like that. I expect to work hard to earn it and I hope I get hooked on wvw for the long term. Its where I started to fall in love with GW2 back in the beta weekends in 2012 so im sure with a good reward structure I will stick around. I do agree with you about not wanting it to be easily handed to people. I like my legendaries to be difficult to acquire for the personal sense of pride for attaining them.

I think it’s a stab at the PvE players who are happy that the new Legendary armor sets are Raid exclusive, and there’s no way for WvW players to get them without having to step into PvE. So, now we have an item where we can listen to the PvErs whine about having to play WvW to get it…it’s karma.

Aye…had an EBG queue for TC last night for as long as I was on, at least until 2am EST…kind of unusual for a work night, but then schools/colleges are winding up for the summer break.

Yep, don’t forget server relinks every 2 months, which may change things up before they get too stale…at least I assume they will continue with new linkings…the post linked above doesn’t give much detail.

Or…Titanic. The ship is slowly, inevitably sinking, yet some refuse to believe it, some believe a mysterious ship in the night will save them, some know the truth but continue playing their parlor games until the very end while sipping their favorite drink, some have long since debarked on a life raft, and all the while the band played on…but in this story, does the captain go down with the ship, or pull a Bruce Ismay maneuver?

Hey…remember all those official polls we had, about a year ago…and then they all went away? That’s about the size of it…

Think Tao meant to ask for stat changes only occurring “outside” WvW…that would make more sense…but yeah, as long as you can’t change mid-combat, why would it matter?

How much of the population drop was really related to DBL though versus the unbalancing effects of the new elite specs and the resulting OP boonsharing meta that was also introduced with HoT?

If anyone hasn’t watched Wooden Potatoes’ videos, he already had all the insights and other mats needed when the patch landed to turn them in for a legendary set, so for many diehard raiders, it’s a reward for what they’ve already done rather than giving them something more to work towards. In that vein, I’d like to just be able to merge ascended sets into one set that lets you swap stats between the stat sets you’ve already created, which saves inventory space and adds some convenience but not a new skin. Seems fair.

Ruru.1302:

Ahka.6705:

atticus.5284:

In that case the tier Mag is in will always get you fights. They could care less about PPT…only fights.

They don’t want fights, they just want to karma train. They run of they don’t outnumber their opponents. All they do is ktrain EB. Most boring server to fight. The only 2 ways they’ll fight is if they outnumber you or if they are in range of their staggering amount of defensive siege. I thought BG was bad until we got matched up with Mag. You are right though, they don’t care about PPT, that’s why their BL gets rolled without much resistance. Worst server ever…

You just described TC. Mag is the server whose roamers will chase your guild groups across the map and killing their tail.

Not last night…it was too much work for Mag to chase anything across EBG, so they just camped spawn like a fat, lazy bear, sitting underneath the beehive waiting for the honey to drip out.

Sylvyn.4750:

Odokuro.5049:

Go and look at the top meta builds for WvW and tell me how many of them actually have different stats, very few.

Ok…let’s look on Metabattle.com at Elementalist…

WvW – 4 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Marauder, Berserker, Cleric, Minstrel (4 in total)

Raids – 7 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Berserker, Viper, Magi (3 in total)

Huh…wow…who would have thought that even though raids have more build diversity within a class, they actually require fewer different armor types…even one of the Ele’s raid healing builds is all Zerker armor…so who would really benefit from the stat swapping with legendaries?

Ok, maybe that was an unfair generalization based on a sample of 1…let’s look at Guardian:

WvW – 5 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Celestial, Marauder, Soldier (3 in total)

Raids – 3 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Berserker…(1 in total)

So if I was a Guardian in a raid, I’d never have to switch my legendary stats? Cool!

Hmm…I’m seeing a trend here…but it’s time to get back to work, I’ll have to continue my research later…

Here’s my final tally of the Metabattle data as for how many different armor stat sets are currently listed for meta builds in each category, WvW vs. Raid:

Odokuro.5049:

Go and look at the top meta builds for WvW and tell me how many of them actually have different stats, very few.

Ok…let’s look on Metabattle.com at Elementalist…

WvW – 4 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Marauder, Berserker, Cleric, Minstrel (4 in total)

Raids – 7 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Berserker, Viper, Magi (3 in total)

Huh…wow…who would have thought that even though raids have more build diversity within a class, they actually require fewer different armor types…even one of the Ele’s raid healing builds is all Zerker armor…so who would really benefit from the stat swapping with legendaries?

Ok, maybe that was an unfair generalization based on a sample of 1…let’s look at Guardian:

WvW – 5 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Celestial, Marauder, Soldier (3 in total)

Raids – 3 builds listed with the following armor types suggested: Berserker…(1 in total)

So if I was a Guardian in a raid, I’d never have to switch my legendary stats? Cool!

Hmm…I’m seeing a trend here…but it’s time to get back to work, I’ll have to continue my research later…

X T D.6458:

Honestly I dont know why they didnt just link the lower tier servers together. That would have made more sense than to add more population to higher tiers which then produces the eventual roller coaster type of effect where there is incentive for bandwagoning that causes a server to rise then fall when it’s link is taken away.

Agreed…the lower tier servers (at least in NA) were too quiet before the links, so I think it’s fair to say that it is too late to go back to the way it was before. However, most that were still playing on lower tier servers enjoyed the close-knit communities and small group roaming, so linking a few of them together would have kept that small server flavor but also bumped up population enough to keep them active and enjoyable.

SkyShroud.2865:

Unless you can name me one server that actually managed to tank down couple of tiers during pre-link days. Then I believe tanking exist. Why not server links? Because some servers links do have population capable of rivaling top 3 biggest solo server.

Look at the server history for the 5 weeks leading up to linking…one server stands out as dropping from 16th to 21st with hardly any PPT during that time and losing to servers they handily beat prior to that, and then boom…linked with T2 server that then moved into T1.

aandiarie.7195:

Anet did server linkings for a while and now it’s no longer needed. People have seen what other servers are out there and will want to have back their server identity. If they want to move to another server they will and if not that’s okay too and they can stay on the server they actually chose to be on.

Some people from link servers don’t like being moved around against their will. Enough with the server linking. Just to compensate for population stuff just adjust the spots open on a server at least once a month. BOOM.

While I would also like to have my server back to call home, instead of being a guest server to a larger, ever-changing host server, to completely stop server linkings now would lead to the final death of the smaller servers. Prior to the linkings, my server, GoM, was a ghost town, just not fun at all, similar to the above mentioned ET. We’ve lost even more people off our server since the linkings.

I’d have to agree with Mal, at this point only a server merge would work to keep populations healthy and also allow those from smaller servers to finally gain a permanent server identity when they are roaming in WvW. It wouldn’t be the server they are on now, but at least a permanent merge would lead to the development of an identity and sense of community that guest servers don’t have right now compared to host servers.

OriOri.8724:

lgutsl.3257:

OriOri.8724:

Why should WvW get its own legendary armor set? Hell why should it even give an alternate way to earn the current legendary armor set?

Yes, WvW deserves its own legendary backpack but thats it imo. Legendary armor is a raid exclusive, and at least for now it needs to remain that way.

In my opinion why shouldn’t WvW get its own Legendary armor set? The only reason the legendary armor is raid exclusive right now was to make people actually play the raids… Don’t get me wrong I’m sure people would have still played the raid regardless but not even close to the amount that presently do.

Saying it needs to remain that way right now is ridiculous though. Them adding an alternative path for other parts of the game, not just raiders should have been implemented since the start.

Legendary armor is supposed to be hard to get, and right now Raids are the only part of the game that support that. You could just grind it out in WvW if you wanted to, which would cheapen the effort that others put into obtaining the armor from raids.

Besides, why tf should you not be forced to play Raids to get legendary armor? WvW players creamed their pants so hard with “justice” kittens when the GoB vendor was removed so that PvE players would be “forced” to WvW to get legendary weapons, and now you are asking for special treatment to avoid having to play a game mode you don’t like? That’s such hypocrisy!

Adding a method to obtain Legendary Armor through WvW will do nothing except cheapen it for people who Raided to get it. And considering the extremely high time and gold costs to make it, no actions should be done that cheapen that effort.

And btw this is coming from someone who hasn’t even stepped foot in a raid, this isn’t some elitist comment from someone who is just waiting for the next wing to come out so that I can finish the set.

Requiring a WvW player to reach certain WvW levels could be used to simulate the time that a raider would put in to obtain the various parts of a legendary. For me, it does not matter so much because I can make ascended with the stats I need, the legendaries are just eye candy.

Remember when MMOs had you use real money to pay for transfers instead of converting in-game gold to gems to transfer? If I remember right, one game charged around $25 for a transfer, but then they occasionally offered free limited-time and limited-number of transfers to servers that needed a boost in population until the target number was reached , then servers were locked again, and paid transfers could only be used to fill low and medium population servers after that. This was a subscription game, not a F2P, and that steady income stream meant they didn’t count on paid server transfers to keep the game going. So, Anet’s F2P model seems to be failing with regards to keeping servers stable enough to promote balance in server populations, which WvW desperately needs.

As some have noted, one issue is that toughness is a passive defense against power damage, but we have no universal passive defense against condi, generally condi defenses have to be triggered with a skill, and good luck triggering them when you are being interrupted or otherwise blocked from using those skills.

I like the idea of Constitution, which goes all the way back to D&D, though there it applied to overall health pool as well as resistance to disease and poison (conditions). However, a new stat like that would require a lot of tuning in many parts of the game, so I don’t think it is likely to be implemented over an existing stat, trait or mechanic that we already have in place that could be modified to achieve a similar result.

I like scones, especially with…bacon!

morrolan.9608:

Server links are doing a great job eroding server identity due to the implementation.

I agree, though at this point my opinion is that most if not all guest servers have been bled to the point that they cannot stand on their own, so completely ditching server linkings at this point would not be good for the smaller guest servers. They were just about dead before the linkings…I’d hate to see what they look like on their own now. Perhaps merging the less populated servers with each other would be necessary if the entire linking system is abandoned.

The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

How about 1-up/1-down with the stipulation that it will only occur when the top server of one tier has at least a 25% point lead over either of the other two servers, and the lowest server in the tier above them is losing by at least 25% in points to either of the two servers in its tier? The victory would have to then be more convincing to move the top server up to the next level, assuming the next level has an imbalance in scores as well. Or, it could be combination where the % by which the top server wins and the % by which the next tier’s lowest server loses adds up to a total percent difference, like 50%, then that would also trigger the 1-up/1-down between those two tiers.

BP…a once noble adversary of GoM…those were the days, eh? Sadly, even if they dumped the linkings, our servers would be but a shadow of their former selves.

DeceiverX.8361:

The real, big, obvious problem with WvW, moreso now with the skirmishes and pairings in the mix, is profession/gear imbalance. It’s abysmal, and quite frankly, the single biggest reason why I’m seeing people not stay interested in the format. I know this isn’t in the scope of the WvW team, but this is something that absolutely needs to be pushed as hard as it possibly can; the profession balance and total absurdities in gear and food that came with HoT has pretty much crippled WvW.

The new profession/elite specialization mechanics aren’t fun. We shouldn’t be seeing build diversity, even in sPvP (via the removal of stat amulets) because of problem-child classes/mechanics. Having entire zergs running around with permanent all boons and 87% damage reduction isn’t fun. These are problems specifically on the profession-end that totally break WvW and cannot be fixed unless addressed. It doesn’t matter how good the matchmaking is or how much hard work you guys put in to fix WvW in its fateful hours if there isn’t a huge push to bring back the vitality of diversity we had before HoT released.

I can confidently say now that without major profession/spec adjustments, the game mode will not see improvement. Every single player I personally know who has stopped WvW’ing in recent months has done so due to profession imbalance and gimmicky mechanics, and the lack of fun and interesting combat in GW2 as a whole. Something needs to change, and it needs to change fast.

I think with these you are trying to say profession/spec/gear imbalance is a factor because we actually have only a few of each that are viable, so everyone is running them, that’s all you see and that’s not fun, right?

SkyShroud.2865:

Sylvyn.4750:

SkyShroud.2865:

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

A number of commanders left our server as the result of server linkings, some even before that when our server was at its lowest level of activity. The community TS3 server we’ve always used in the past is now a ghost town, as we are generally following the commanders from host servers and using their TS3, if/when they invite us.

It can only means that your server community is weak to begin with. If you have persistent commanders and guilds then your community will exist but with weak willed commanders and guilds, it will simply perish over time.

Since we were as high as T6 on our own right before the linkings, I can’t imagine what the communities were like on the servers that were ranked below us, since they weren’t able to muster the forces to take on our kitten community. So, a good third of the servers with dying communities…candidates for merges methinks.

I ran a quick 10 skirmish model of how 5/4/3 would work as opposed to 3/2/1…the end results still left the net point difference between 1st, 2nd and 3rd the same. The only difference was the overall numbers were larger with the 5/4/3 method, but 2nd and 3rd place still had the same net points to catch up to tie for 1st, and it would have taken the same number of skirmishes in either situation to do so.

I like skirmishes when compared to the total war score method previously used. I still don’t see how 5/4/3 points per skirmish is different from 3/2/1. If you use the higher amounts, you are effectively adding a 3/2/1 differential on top of giving everyone a flat 2 points per skirmish. The differential is what has to be overcome when a server wants to beat another, and that would still be reflected by what we have now.

SkyShroud.2865:

Guest server’s sense of community depends on totally on the guest server’s community itself. If the guest server from the beginning does not has much commanders or commanders do not uses community ts3 or recognize the use of the community ts3, the community doesn’t have much existence to begin with.

A number of commanders left our server as the result of server linkings, some even before that when our server was at its lowest level of activity. The community TS3 server we’ve always used in the past is now a ghost town, as we are generally following the commanders from host servers and using their TS3, if/when they invite us.

As I’ve posted in other threads, “guest” servers have little sense of community anymore…we’re just wandering gypsies, the fickle winds and shifting sands taking us where they may. Permanent server merges might help with that feeling of not belonging to a community outside of one’s own guild. From what I’m seeing in WvW, if Anet were to stop linkings and not merge servers, the server I’m on now would be but a shell of its former self.

It’s not perfect, but seems to be working better than what we had right before the linkings. My one gripe is that being on a “guest” server, we no longer have an identity. Our actual server name is not used in WvW in any meaningful way. It is harder to recruit people or be recruited in a guild because not everyone on the map is on your server and if you join a cross-server guild, that may work against you when the next linking occurs within 2 months and that guild’s main server is now either your enemy or in a completely different tier. Voice communication is also harder to coordinate with multiple servers that switch every 2 months. I really think server merges are the next logical step, because at this point, I already don’t feel like I’m on my own server anyway. At least a merge would give guest servers a more permanent identity to what we have now, and allow us to build a sense of community instead of feeling like gypsies. I also hate knowing that I’m fighting against the wonderful people I was linked with previously…it doesn’t feel right.

Peppel.9736:

@Sylvyn

that is not completely right. I am from WSR we were in T9 / 8 and before the linking in T7. We were a strong community and have fun in WvW. But that is past, we since linking hardly play WvW in T1, very sad.

Since the linkings we have so many people and guilds lost. I made this thread more as one month ago:
Slow death of the “forgotten” Guest server

We miss our fun in WvW. All what we want:
- roaming (take keeps, tower and camps – ppt),
- small scale fights with guild groups
- small guild raids

“I and the others missing the good old days”

I apologize…my generalization should have been limited to NA servers and tiers. I’m sure EU servers have had their own unique issues related to the server linkings, too, but it sounds similar in that pretty much all “guest” servers have lost their identity and their communities are shrinking.

The situation has always been fluid, though. You can’t tell me that one server stayed about the same from game launch all the way through HoT until server linkings. There may have been a point in time where a server felt “just right”, but then things changed and it either got bigger due to bandwagons or got smaller due to people bailing for various reasons, or a mass exodus.

Right before server linkings, though, T6, T7 and T8 servers were dead, really dead, where a commander might rustle up 5 people to create the only zerg on the map. It seemed fine after HoT and the DBLs came out, but after a couple months, it slowly died off until the server linkings. The DBLs weren’t all to blame, though, because in the lower tiers, even EBG was dead…no queues at all.

Lower PPK, balance professions, balance server populations and coverage…hmm, nevermind, that’s a tall order…

Dawdler.8521:

If you make it impossible for the BS with cata/treb splash damage/supply drain going through doors making it impossible to deploy rams on well defended objectives, cata splash hurting itself is an acceptable compromise.

And don’t forget the skills that pass through the gates…CoR, et al. Nothing should pass through walls or gates to hit defenders. Historically, defenders had arrow slits/loops, murder holes, battlements with merlons to hide behind, etc., where each defender could hold off 10 times their number, and yet in GW2, it would seem attackers have the advantage, even without siege.

+1. Glicko baggage from the previous links should be left at the station.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Here is the NA server activity since the linking.

I’m not sure if Northern Shiverpeaks could actually compete in Tier 1 but its activity is comparable.

Dragonbrand’s activity is taking a dive.

What do the numbers on the Y-axis represent? Is this something that is more appropriately used to compare only a server’s activity against itself over time rather than an indicator of who might win a matchup and what tier they should be in?

Jski.6180:

FA wants GOOD ppl to fight running though zergs that put up no fight is not fun. That why FA wanted to stay in T2 that is where all the gvg fight guilds are and FA was and still is a major world for this.

Where are these fight guilds you speak of? They must not have been on last night much, or I wouldn’t have gotten so many bags…

It’s a lot harder to roam than it used to be…with the HoT power creep, some classes have really come out on top in the area of 1v1 or small group roaming. When I was last on T6/T7 with GoM, though…it was just dead…you couldn’t find anyone to group with, so I let the small enemy groups run by since I couldn’t solo them. I tried to defend SMC against a horde of 6 or 7 enemies…died and lost the castle. No, it was too dead right before the server links…they were a necessary evil. Even with the zergs that might be around on a map today, it’s easy to just go to the other side of the map and flip stuff with a small roaming group, or solo, like I do a lot. If you’re on a small server linked with a T1/T2 server, perhaps the next round of links will be kinder to you. It’s still pretty quiet in T3/T4. I wish they would go ahead and just make permanent server merges, so that we know what server we can move to according to our desired playstyle…hard to do when you get tossed around every 2 months.

Thanks, Bridget, for all the thought put into your posts. I wonder at the end of the day, though, as this thread highlights, if people would be resentful of any human intervention in the process. Some people may be pleased, but others may not be. Ultimately, people need to realize that bandwagons and fairweathers make almost any kind of scoring or ladder system break down horribly, so there must be a mechanism in place to counter such population swings.

RyuDragnier.9476:

The problem Sylvyn is that it creates too many lopsided matches. JQ and FA can barely deal with T1, and T3 can barely deal with anybody from T2. It’s a huge gap between server pops and skill, and a 1-up/1-down ladder would only highlight that worse.

Understood, but how long is it going to take DB to get down to where they obviously need to be, as there is still a 200 point gap between DB and YB? We only have another 5 matchups before linkings change again and populations shift again. Glicko isn’t moving fast enough to take into account the changes. If not a one-up/one-down ladder, and not Glicko, because obviously it doesn’t work without manual adjustments, then what’s left?

Even if we got all the servers in the tiers they need to be in, yes, there are still wide population gaps between each server within a tier, because Anet has to try and balance linked server populations when the server populations themselves are in a constant state of flux…I don’t envy them that job. We may be at the point where we need just 3 tiers, consolidating a few T4 servers into T3 so that it doesn’t hurt so much when a T2 gets dropped into T3. Ideally, in a perfect world, all servers would be able to compete against any other server, at least from a population and coverage standpoint, so that the only determining factor is skill. Yeah, I know…pipe dream.

We need that simple one-up/one-down ladder…things would move much more quickly and account for the rapid changes in populations due to new linkings and due to transfers.

I’m sure they checked their own internal numbers, too. Even looking at the total score for the last 2 weeks, YB had a higher total score than any other server, including those that were winning in their own tiers by a large margin. Same thing happened in the last round of pairings with CD in T4.

Malediktus.3740:

I think Anet should do merges instead of links.

I’d go for that…tired of trying to remember what server I am on anymore…I see SoS take a camp and I cheer, only to realize I’m not with SoS anymore, but SBI…nuts.

Seriously, if PPK mattered more (worth more points), you’d see a lot less fighting as no one would want to take the chance of giving a bunch of points to the enemy (this assumes people care about the war score for a particular match). Want more PvD? Raise the PPK value.

PPK is 2 points, PPT for holding a camp for 5 minutes is 2 points. In a quick minute, a 20-man can take down a 10-man group (assuming equal skill) and generate 20 points. 10-man now says, hey, that’s too many points for us to risk, we’d have to hold an extra camp for almost an hour to make up for that point loss, let’s run away!

They did give us murder holes above some of the gates, but not arrow slits in the walls…

I think his point, Swagger, is that siege is boring, due to situational placement, and broken, due to defenders not being able to effectively utilize siege or otherwise stand on walls to ward off the attack. No one is saying that siege isn’t supposed to be part of the game mode, but most would probably say the implementation has room for improvement.

Heimlich.3065:

Rotteny.8743:

Svarty.8019:

Offair.2563:

Population imbalance mainly driven by players, not anet.

Yes, Babs, but it’s important to recognise that Anet has the power to do something about it. Whether what they do is the right thing is another discussion.

The only way for them to stop population imbalance would be if they ended the transfers. And we all know this ain’t happening… However, we can see the majority of the players aren’t interested in balance, since they always decide to stack in a single server to “win”. Then why would them do that?

I disagree. ANet could address population imbalance if they weren’t hell-bent on keeping gameplay and rewards that give advantages to over-stacked servers. Every piece of WvW gameplay currently reduces to “bring more people, play more person-hours”. They have indicated that they want to give valuable rewards to players who win a matchup or win skirmishes, and that will only encourage more stacking.

On the other hand, if stacking happens to an extreme and the other two server teams decide not to participate, there go the rewards. Rewards are much better when teams are balanced. How can you continue to gain participation points by flipping a camp or tower that hasn’t already been flipped by another server? If there’s no one to fight, how can you get PPK?

You can get max participation without being on a winning server. If you can’t get into the game because of queues, then you can’t get loots of any kind. Might actually encourage people to spread out to servers that don’t have queues.