Guild Wars 2

Ultra Hades.4691:

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Don’t be hesitant to overstack the low tiers. They don’t have the organisation or skill to fight on even terms, give them a chance and give the stronger servers a challenge.

Gotta love that fine grade school logic.

Yea, because we all know that the lower tiers suck at everything. Why else would they be in a lower tier?

Do you actually even have ANY experience playing on a lower tier to base that ridiculous comment on?

Maybe ask our TC mates in wvw about how bad a wvw players we are from Kaineng.

/eyeroll

I am not saying that isps are to blame for it, just that maybe the sheer speed of my isp is taking up the slack on what would normally result in lag or disconnects if I were, say, on something like centurylink, or a typical dsl.

Not trying to brag or anything like that. Just trying to figure out why my wife and I haven’t experienced the serious lag or dc’s that others have.

X T D.6458:

Speaking of ping Tyler, can you guys please look into the lag lately in wvw, its been terrible.

I still have yet to experience this lag that I have heard about, and I am on the TC pairing, in the same wvw world you’re in.

It has to be my fast fiber optics connection. I don’t see any other non-cause for the lag besides my isp, as both my wife and my computers and vid cards are not top notch.

I would think you would get the same ping, or close to it.

Nevermind…..replied at the same time Tyler did. Thanks Tyler!

keenedge.9675:

I missed that !

Great . . .

Yea, the dbls should be back in around 2 months, now. I love the abls, but I had just gotten used to the dbls when they yanked them. Am looking forward to the rotation, as I had actually gotten to like the dbls quite a bit.

Interesting idea, Tyler. I think it would all depend on how it was implemented.

smashie.3074:

Edit 2:- @ Teon – in response to your edited “authoritative poll”,

I quote my previous post:-

“Yes, at the moment, it appears that most of the pairings are more than happy to continue with this concept and look at some improvements on this concept. However, it’s likely that those particular pairings, being the first pairings, haven’t experienced our not-so-fortunate experience.”

I would be willing to bet that you’re wrong on that. Just last night, in wonderful TC wvw, me and a couple of guildies experienced all sorts of nasty toxicity. And I have experienced that sort of toxicity(as have many others) in this game and other mmorpgs.

See the end of my thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Experiences-on-two-different-server-pairings/page/2#post6172211

I realize that you’re in a toxic pairing, in your opinion, right now. But you don’t have some sort of exclusiveness on experiencing toxicity in an mmorpg. Anyone who has played mmorpgs for any length of time has experienced the same sort of toxicity that you are experiencing now. GW2, in comparison to a lot of other mmorpgs out there, both new and old, is extremely tame when it comes to toxicity, imo. Substantial portions of the playerbase in some older mmorpgs I have played were extremely vile and ugly……GW2, overall, seems to have a fairly civil playerbase, imo.

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

So maintaining wvw communities, no matter how small they might be, is more important to you than maintaining and/or increasing the number of wvw players, and therefore, playability/action?

And yea, I wish you could be in the pairing we(Kaineng) are in. TC, for the most part, is a bunch of really nice people, and a lot of fun to wvw with. They appreciate us, and we appreciate them.

Not quite. You’ll simply be drawing your own conclusions from my responses.

Anyway in response to that, it’s up to the WvW community and the WvW team to decide whether or not the feedback I’ve provided about our situation.

A case study of (I feel) a normal couple who are active in WvW, who love WvW, who love the community they were in, have played WvW and enjoyed WvW for the majority of the 2 years we’ve been in-game.
A case study of an unfortunate pairing.
A case study of the unforeseen consequences of the server link.

Edit:- @ Teon – if you haven’t already, I have also edited my previous post feel free to comment.

Yea, I edited my last post as well, after this response of yours.

As I edited into my previous post……this might be a relevant ‘case study’ in your opinion…..unfortunately, the latest poll resoundingly disagrees with you. The huge majority seem to favor linking and more wvw action, rather than personal issues of a small minority of the playerbase.

And I am not meaning that as some sort of disparaging comment. Just looking at the latest polls and the obvious direction that the majority of players want for wvw.

Am not sure how anyone can look at 76+% to 17% numbers and go……“yea, but those numbers might not truly reflect…….” With that kind of huge yes majority, it is hard to make any sort of reasonable case for “yea, but….”, imho.

smashie.3074:

Teon.5168:

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

And to me, is one of the key flaws of the server link.

It has opened up a whole can of problems that I feel Anet didn’t have to solve. In the previous state of WvW it was the communities themselves, the people, who decided whether or not they wanted to stay in the server with such a “toxic community”.

You’ve read my first post on the world linking thread. We chose to farm the gold, convert the gems, and move from our previous server that didn’t fit us.

Instead, with this server link and it’s continuous rotation, we don’t have that choice or stability to move to another server if we wished to. Instead, we can now only…hope!

(Can we be paired with TC? I’m kind of jealous with their relationship with Kain)

So maintaining wvw communities, no matter how small they might be, is more important to you than maintaining and/or increasing the number of wvw players, and therefore, playability/action?

Judging from the polls, the vast majority seem to disagree with you on this point. I could see you saying that the polls really aren’t reflective of the playerbase because of players having already left, etc., if the poll was close……like say 45 to 35 % or something like that. But the poll is overwhelmingly in agreement on the linking…..seriously….76+% to 17%???? That’s a fairly authoritative and resounding YES.

And yea, I wish you could be in the pairing we(Kaineng) are in. TC, for the most part, is a bunch of really nice people, and a lot of fun to wvw with. They appreciate us, and we appreciate them.

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

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

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

I’m curious, smashie……specifically how could Anet possibly figure out server pairings based on server attitudes and the people that play on those servers?

What, they would have a bi weekly psychological profile survey of server players to determine what servers might match up best based on their profiles???

I don’t see how Anet can possibly do anything about determining pairings other than it being based on some sort of points/population sort of numbers.

This is an mmorpg, and unfortunately, no matter what is done, one will encounter toxic players. That is not the game makers fault…..that one lies solely on the playerbase.
Whenever one encounters toxic players, all you can do is to ignore/block/report them.

But if you have a solid, workable idea on how they could accomplish server pairings based on mutual likeability of those servers…..I would love to read that idea.

Tiny Doom.4380:

I don’t doubt for a moment that there are people who will use macros to run siege but I personally know people who will happily treb for hour after hour, sitting at the keyboard pressing the hotkey every time it refreshes. I’m not that heavily into it but I do like to spend a quarter of an hour or more just lobbing rocks – it’s relaxing and I like to watch the trajectory. All siege machines are fun to use. I try to get on rams whenever possible – it’s pretty competitive. Like a lot of other things some people choose to automate, whether legally or not, getting a script to do something you could do yourself is, to me, just removing something that I would prefer to be doing. I mean, if firing a treb is so boring you’d rather run a macro to do it for you, why bother using it at all? Why not log out and go play a game you actually enjoy?

Am with ya on this. I enjoy doing siege from time to time, and sometimes I will siege for quite a long period of time, with no macro running. And I agree, if sieging is so boring that you have to have a macro do it for you, then why do it at all?

Chris Barrett.3280:

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

If the strings of text get too long for the ui, either on the main wvw screen or in wvw as player tags, then how about this for example:

Take the Tarnished Coast/Kaineng pairing…..

On the main wvw screen, instead of having Tarnished Coast, and then Kaineng invisible and under that name if you hover over it with your mouse……why not show it as TC – Kain….fewer characters than the existing label, so should be doable for the UI. Other servers could also be abbreviated, as most of us use an abbreviation for our servers, anyways.

In wvw, just have an extra few characters that can be toggled on/off by players…for example, just add a K or TC to the player’s name to signify server. Very few characters, so shouldn’t be a problem for the GUI.

The people that place importance in server identity/pride/whatever you want to call it, aren’t asking for much. Abbreviating the server names on the UI so both could be shown, and or adding a 1-3 letter tag in wvw to signify their server……would that really be that hard to do? Imo, it is a pretty small bone to throw them.

Just a thought.

Thanks, Chris, for the feedback! Fwiw, I am a Kaineng native and am really, really enjoying, for the most part, the changes that you all have been making to wvw. Despite my suggestions on server identity perceptions, I am definitely part of the “this improves my day-to-day gameplay” crowd. Keep up the good work!

You make some very good points, Roadbull.

X T D.6458:

Assuming tier1/t2 are unlinked and left alone, how would this affect world status/transfer fees, etc. What happens if a t3 server moves up into a t2 matchup, will they be unlinked, if so then how long would that take, and wouldn’t that give them an advantage in such a matchup since no t2 server would have a linked server to team with.

Maybe have the pairings change more often. Perhaps on a bi-weekly basis. Lock the pairings down, but at the pairing change, if a server has enough points to move from T2 to T1 or T8 to T7, (or movement in any of the other tiers, for that matter) then reflect that at the pairing change.

Just an idea. Thoughts?

Imho, you’re attaching too much importance to the game name and what it should have to do with wvw.

Your idea, imo, would require an entire rework of wvw, which would not be a good thing for a game this old. Currently, they’re making much needed improvements to wvw, and the vast majority of players(according to their polls) approve of it. I see no reason to change the entire scope of wvw just because a very small portion of the playerbase doesn’t think the game title fits with what wvw currently is.

That would be like suggesting that a game like EvE Online should have more to do with the garden of eden because it would fit the title of the game better. Or Elder Scrolls Online should have more to do with ancient scrolls in the game due to the title.

Guild Wars 2 game title originated from the first one. It is just a game title.

I kind of like the idea of unlinking T1 & T8(although, find a way to provide those wvw’ers(guilds) on T8 that enjoy large scale wvw a way for a one time cheap or free transfer to a linked server that will have more action). That way you have a tier that doesn’t need the added population, as well as a tier that provides those that want it with small scale wvw. Then the linking is 9 and 9 servers.

On the server identity problem, just list the linked servers names on the wvw screen in equal fonts, both visible, and possibly find a way to add server names to players in wvw(with the ability to turn that tag on or off). That would take care of any sort of piggyback or minion sort of perception for the lower linked server.

I also like the idea of the pairings changing on a more frequent basis.

I also, strangely, like the idea of blowing everything up. That idea intrigues me. But, I think that might be a fairly risky idea, as I am not sure how the playerbase would react to something like that.

Fatherbliss.4701:

Traditionally TC is pretty cool overall. But we of course still have some folks that have always done exactly what you described above. EBG seems worse than other maps too. To be fair, there is also a big issue with maps hitting a queue and players sitting in spawn for long periods of time.

It is usually about that point I start talking in map chat about flavors of pie or what you can do with honey in sticky situations between sentry points. Because fark that type of behavior. lol.

Yup, most of the players from the guild I am in got a pretty good chuckle about the drama…..lol. And the night ended great with the driver we ended up with.

Just to add…..me and my fellow guildies that were in EB tonight, ran into a really nice blue tag driver that was quite good. He was very friendly and super appreciative of people that followed him. He joined Kaineng to get into TC after the pairings. Was a really fun driver….all the drama completely disappeared when we joined his zerg. But man, was he ever fast…..had to have speed to keep up. Had a great time after we joined his group. If you’d like his name to join his group tomorrow night, pm me….here or in game.

After the bit of drama, we had a great time for a couple hours with this guy. Great bunch, and we did quite well.

And yea, TC is overall quite nice. I expected this sort of drama eventually, am just surprised that it took so long for me to experience it.

Just an update, as I was waiting for this to happen, as I have experienced it before on T1 servers. The hardcore wvw’ers were out in force on TC tonight, and wow, are they a nasty bunch. Screaming at people to get off EBG if they’re afk(can I just take a few minutes to heal myself and get rid of some inventory?), and guildies telling me that they were kicking people from groups that either didn’t have TS, or wouldn’t get on TS.

Apparently, they’re getting tired of getting their butts kicked by BG. I got news for ya, gang…..it is not because of the small numbers from Kaineng, but because BG is so overstacked that they outnumber TC and YB by at least 2-1, if not more. Guess that is not sitting well from with the over-serious wvw’ers on TC.

But, it is all good…..my guildy friends and I were getting a good laugh from it. It is something to be expected, and I am surprised it took this long to experience that sort of attitude. T1 can be fun, but the blob warfare can get dull pretty quick. Glad I have a second account where I can go mess around on T4 where the attitude should be better tonight. I’ll get back on later on T1 when the too serious players have gone to bed. (Got high school and junior high classes tomorrow, after all….lol)

In the end, most of my guildies and I still like the action, as this doesn’t seem to happen too often so far. The TC matchup, overall, has been a good one. Just one night with the spoiled brats out in force.

As one of our main guild leaders said tonight…..LOL….“ah, the cool kids are out tonight”…..but he also said that a few of the other TC tags were telling them to kitten and sit on their thumbs…..lol. Gotta love the drama.

Liston.9708:

Teon.5168:

Liston.9708:

and they are betas not “live” betas…..

I have a feeling that DeWolfe has never been involved in open beta testing for any game, before. If he/she had, they would know what a ridiculous statement ‘should just be for a day, or a weekend’ actually is.

except the changes aren’t introduced to a live game.. most used public test servers and leave the game alone. 1 day is silly, but so is 3 months when flaws were found on day 2…..

Agreed that 3 months is just as silly on a live game. Now, I could see maybe, 3-6 weeks. And 3 months just sounded like the initial rotation of the server linking schedule and border lands…..so, it sounded to me like the beta is going to last longer than 3 months. Hopefully not.

Liston.9708:

and they are betas not “live” betas…..

I have a feeling that DeWolfe has never been involved in open beta testing for any game, before. If he/she had, they would know what a ridiculous statement ‘should just be for a day, or a weekend’ actually is.

DeWolfe.2174:

Xenesis.6389:

IT’S BETA.

That excuse got old after the first week. A Beta for a day or a weekend is one thing but, an entire 3 months???? That’s not a “Beta” any longer.

I don’t believe that I have ever seen any beta run for just one day, or a weekend. They normally run for several weeks, if not longer.

Iceband.3714:

75% of people that vote in no way shape or form represents the number of players that do or do not like this change. most of the people that are against this change have already left, and check back once in a while hoping its been changed,

What a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance.

And fwiw, I voted yes on the poll. The pairings need some heavy tweaking, but the linking idea is a huge step in the right direction, imo.

Really well done, instructional videos. Enjoying these a lot! Had the pleasure of running into your group south of SMC this weekend with a bunch of TC’ers. Was a very fun back and forth battle.

Silberfederling.9302:

Teon.5168:

Jayne.9251:

@Skyshroud: It’s completely logical: Anet can unlink the pairings once the other lower servers are more populated.

And yes, I think it’s an intentional fix to a long term issue where players refused to fix it themselves.

You really believe the servers are going to be unlinked, again? I really doubt if that will happen. Sure, the pairings might change, but I doubt if we’ll ever see servers unlinked, again.

Mate look at the poll before posting that we are close to the old Situation.

Anet said in the poll that they’re looking for 75%. That is a fairly ambiguous statement. The poll is at 74.1%, .9% short of what “they’re looking for”.

You really think that .9% is going to cause the servers to get unlinked?

I don’t. Heck, I think the poll could only be at 65%, and we would still see linking continue. They’re wanting to know if they’re on the right track with that poll,(they say that in the poll) and an overwhelming majority have said yes.

I just don’t see unlinking happening. Hopefully there are some tweaks to it, but I don’t see Anet reverting back to the way it was.

morrolan.9608:

On NA servers the matching of SBI into T2 is very poorly done when it didn’t even come close to first in its previous T3 matchup and is clearly significantly behind both FA and Maguuma. It just results in an extremely poor match for the week for all 3 servers.

While I understand the poor matchup and the frustration associated with it, poor matchups existed even before this latest wvw beta.

Jayne.9251:

@Skyshroud: It’s completely logical: Anet can unlink the pairings once the other lower servers are more populated.

And yes, I think it’s an intentional fix to a long term issue where players refused to fix it themselves.

You really believe the servers are going to be unlinked, again? I really doubt if that will happen. Sure, the pairings might change, but I doubt if we’ll ever see servers unlinked, again.

Josh XT.6053:

I can offer my experience with two different server pairings as well.

Prior to Alpine return and server linking, my guild had transferred off Maguuma to Blackgate for more fights, every tier except tier 1 was just so stale. Fights were great there – it was a lot of fun. Once server linking happened, we continued to have fun until people realized they could play on Blackgate for the low low price of 500 gems by transferring to ET. The server became so stacked that you spent more time in queues than playing the game, so we had to transfer back to our original server of Borlis Pass.

Borlis Pass/Fort Aspenwood has been a lot of fun for roaming and larger group play. I think that is a server link that worked out well to help get better coverage without having to worry about every map being super queued every day. I’m pretty happy with that one, but I have to say that linking the T1 servers really did more harm than good. I suppose if they were trying to get people to transfer off of stacked servers, they succeeded a little bit, but the server is just so insanely stacked its unreal. I wouldn’t be surprised if ET could be a T2 server on its own right now lol.

Yea, I agree with you on pairing up the T1 servers. Even with the excellent pairing with TC, I am just not sure that the T1 servers needed it.

FA is a fun server. I have spent some time there from transfers over the last year or so, and they’re a fun bunch of people to run with. The pairings helped that tier a lot. Enjoy your time there!

Fatherbliss.4701:

Teon.5168:

Excellent post, and very well said! I couldn’t agree more with you on how good the TC/Kaineng pairing has been. Going to T1 was a real culture shock(both good and bad) for many Kaineng players, but the TC players have made it all that more enjoyable with their acceptance and super kind welcoming of their new partners.

My trying the SF/NSP pairing with my other account has just been added gravy. Gives me yet another sort of different wvw mode to experience and relish for times when I want to have a less frantic and crazy time in wvw….lol.

Yep! For me I keep one of my alt accounts on a server without crazy huge population. Course I do still need to buy HoT for that account too.

I broke down and did that for my second account a few weeks back, as I was playing the second account enough to justify it. The server pairings got me playing it more, and figured I better get all the bells and whistles of HoT for it.

Fatherbliss.4701:

My experience on other servers has been incredibly positive. I played on Sorrow’s Furnace for awhile with one of my alt accounts. You are right that the play is more strategic. They have to be. And really I would expect that same mindset from any server in the game that is constantly outnumbered. We have some great communities in this game who are overshadowed by larger servers. I laugh every time I hear people say that their isn’t server loyalty. While that may or may not be true, people have created communities that they are proud of across the board. Plus the vocal minority that speaks up on forums only represents a certain percentage of players. Though I suppose since many people I recognize on here are guild leaders that is only partially true.

I’ve said this before: The Kaineng folks I have met in game are universally awesome. Hilarious, good with tactics and relentless. For me personally the pairing has been great.

The thing is there will always be players willing to do kitten near anything to manufacture the experience they want in the game. You will have trolls. You will have community leaders, those who want duels and those who want big fights. I think Anet is currently trying to make changes to satisfy the player base. But its a lot more difficult to change a system already in place.

Another aspect has been rivalry in this game. People have absolutely transferred to different servers to fight specific groups (or to get away from people they see as toxic.)

Excellent post, and very well said! I couldn’t agree more with you on how good the TC/Kaineng pairing has been. Going to T1 was a real culture shock(both good and bad) for many Kaineng players, but the TC players have made it all that more enjoyable with their acceptance and super kind welcoming of their new partners.

My trying the SF/NSP pairing with my other account has just been added gravy. Gives me yet another sort of different wvw mode to experience and relish for times when I want to have a less frantic and crazy time in wvw….lol.

LionChain.7694:

Seph, so you’re saying it wouldn’t help if players are ACTUALLY LIMITED to only being able to have 30 people per BL map as opposed to 60-70 people? You’re saying this wouldn’t help with the blobbing issue? That fighting against 30 man groups isn’t any better or different from fighting 60-70 man groups (especially if you have around 15-20 people in your own zerg)?

Oh yea, am sure it would help the blob issue. But you would really make a lot of players who also paid money for the game really, really angry that they couldn’t play wvw, or couldn’t play wvw with their friends/guildmates.

So yea, it would certainly help decrease the blobbing, as it would also massively decrease the playerbase.

Yea, I understand what you’re trying to talk about, based on your other post on this same subject in these forums. But that OP of yours sounds more like larger mapped pvp to me.

Plus, adding more structures and such would just cause massive QQs from people complaining about LOS, obstructions, etc…..Anet already removed some obstructions and barriers in dbl due to playerbase complaints. And you want to add more back in?

It might fit your mode of playing wvw, but it would cause more problems with the majority of wvwers.

And fwiw, I really enjoy running in small havoc squads. Some more added obstructions, vegetation, etc., wouldn’t bother me at all. But that doesn’t mean most of the wvw playerbase would enjoy it.

Sounds like you’re talking about pvp arenas with somewhat larger maps, and not about large scale wvw.

I am not sure how this would discourage blobs or encourage even numbered fights. How would you control the sign in/queued population into wvw, and then control what groups they join so as to have anything close to even numbered fights?

Apologies for the multiple posts. Suppose I could have taken the time to edit all three of them into just one.

SkyShroud.2865:

Yes, it is exactly like your typical match balancing mechanism. The difficulty of implementing this on a much greater scale is the existence of uncertainties like players behavior (wvw when feel like it) or returning players or guild activities or so on. Therefore, adjustment is needed to create allowance for this.

Indeed, putting this approach at this stage of game is indeed extremely difficult as all population balancing methods should be applied right from the start since population balance cannot occur overnight and population imbalance will only get worse as days go by.

See your statement that I bolded…..that is where the logic of your entire argument falls apart, imo. It is not just difficult to implement on a larger scale, but near impossible. Even if it had a slight chance that it could be done on such a massive scale, it would be so incredibly cost prohibitive (dev team size, labor intensiveness to maintain, etc) that it wouldn’t make any financial sense to even attempt it. The overhead costs of such a system on such a large scale would just take too large a cut of any game profits to be feasible, imo. Not to mention the potential problems/exploits that such a system would have.

All of this is just my personal opinion, of course.

SkyShroud.2865:

That was a really old game, like early 2000s. People at those time don’t have this cowardly idea of trying game the system. They play the game as it should be.

LOL. You must have been playing entirely different games than I was in the 90’s to current time. In my experiences on large scale mmoprgs with some sort of pvp/wvw/rvr, players have always tried to “game the system” to get some sort of advantage.

And I don’t believe it has anything to do with “cowardice”…..it is just a game and players naturally look for advantages in a large scale wvw/pvp environment.
Your statement that people ‘played the game as it should be played’ back then is naive, at best.

Just my opinion, and not meant aggressively. I just disagree with your opinion/proposed solutions on it all.

SkyShroud.2865:

Teon.5168:

SkyShroud.2865:

One example of a old game is shattered galaxy, population unbalance will result in serious bad gameplay since the entire game is built on the idea of players fighting over plots of lands.

Most recent example will be Camelot Unchained. They had a similar proposal for population balancing.

Shattered galaxy looks like it was a very limited (20 player teams) pvp sort of strategy game, rather than large scale wvw/rvr such as DaoC or GW2. So I find that sort of comparison odd, to say the least. Shattered galaxy had a much smaller scale, and therefore, more controllable sort of pvp.

Giving your recent example as Camelot Unchained, which hasn’t even gotten out of kickstarter funding yet, is absolutely ludicrous. You have no idea what their large scale rvr will be like besides what they’re imaging for the game at this point. I would just like to point out that CU is being done by Mark Jacobs, who also did DaoC, and I have had lots of experience with DaoC’s large scale wvw/rvr…..and if CU is anything slightly close to Jacobs’ last successful mmoprg, it will have stacking problems just like DaoC did.

It seems like you didn’t play SG before. SG while look like 20v20, but that is just one plot of land. In the whole game, several battles are happening over a world map. If population unbalancing is to be occured, one fraction could push all the way to another fraction’s capital and IIRC, the capital only has 2 maps accessible to it and if got capital lock, you can sit and cry till some group break it. If comparing it to WvW. If your server only has one zerg of 20-men while another server has 3 20-men zerg. The other 2 20-men could be going around cap your stuffs while one 20-men zerg play with your’s.

For CU, like I said, is a proposal. I don’t think the word proposal suggest anything more. You seems rather aggressive.

I’m not sure what you find aggressive about my post. Was it my use of the word ludicrous? /scratching head

And no, I did not play SG. Never been much of a fan of the mapboard style mmorts. Just looked it up on wiki to see what it was, as I had never heard of it. And from what wiki and other sources said about it, it doesn’t sound like the game was ever commercially successful, so I have to wonder what sort of actual numbers they had for their playerbase, and/or active players ingame at one time.

SkyShroud.2865:

One example of a old game is shattered galaxy, population unbalance will result in serious bad gameplay since the entire game is built on the idea of players fighting over plots of lands.

Most recent example will be Camelot Unchained. They had a similar proposal for population balancing.

Shattered galaxy looks like it was a very limited (20 player teams) pvp sort of strategy game, rather than large scale wvw/rvr such as DaoC or GW2. So I find that sort of comparison odd, to say the least. Shattered galaxy had a much smaller scale, and therefore, more controllable sort of pvp.

Giving your recent example as Camelot Unchained, which hasn’t even gotten out of kickstarter funding yet, is absolutely ludicrous. You have no idea what their large scale rvr will be like besides what they’re imagining/hyping for the game at this point. I would just like to point out that CU is being done by Mark Jacobs, who also did DaoC, and I have had lots of experience with DaoC’s large scale wvw/rvr…..and if CU is anything slightly close to Jacobs’ last successful mmoprg, it will have very similar stacking/population problems just like DaoC wvw/rvr did.

Xenesis.6389:

SkyShroud.2865:

Nope. This kind of thing can be controlled and has been demonstrated in some old true PvP focused MMO. It cannot be 100% balance, that is for sure but the disparity can be greatly minimized to the point that match up variety will naturally occur due to it.

The current system works like this
There is a algorithm to determine the number of active WvW players.
There is a cap on the server, this cap is assumed to be fixed as it is historical observed to behave so and I read it somewhere that some T1 servers had higher than average cap before the revamped server status. Base on this, stacking and destacking easily occur whenever the cap is not reached.

What the really pvp focused MMO did is go a step further
They too have a algorithm to determine the number of active players.
Now, instead of a fixed cap, they calculate the disparity percentage of the fractions and close it if the disparity grew too big. This resulted a scenario where all fractions grow at the same rate. Since the population are rather comparable, a higher degree of population is achieved. At the same time, this system literally prevent large scale movement that involve multiple guilds intending to switch sides. If guild wars 2 use this approach, match up variety will likely increase due to closer population, people that complain server full status will know it will open when the disparity reduce.

However, like you said, there is a problem implementing this after 3 long years of stacking which means disparity can be really large and some servers will be locked for a long time. What I can suggest is in accompany with this approach, make last 3 lowest populated servers completely free to encourage movement of players, quickly reducing the disparity gap.

However, before they can use this approach, they need to resolve the number of servers.

What games did that?

Yea, I would like to know which games did this, too. Must have been mmorpgs that I didn’t play.

jason.9548:

I’m a savage and I cant be stopped. Banned off tc ts3.

That’s difficult to imagine. (That’s a sarcastic smiley face….lol)

Xenesis.6389:

Teon.5168:

Fwiw, I don’t think anything can be done about stacking. That is something that Anet can not control, imo.

I don’t think so either, they can’t lock all the servers because then people will complain about not being able to transfer to friends and family on other servers. I’m sure they could look into heavy restrictions for transfers too, but that’s really a waste of time and money. Like I said there were servers that were stacked from the very beginning of the game, it was going to happen one way or another for a multiple server based system.

Completely agree. Have seen exactly the same sorts of things in other mmorpgs with wvw/rvr.

Xenesis.6389:

How would you guys solve stacking and population problems? Again seeing people screaming about it but not offering any solutions. Many servers only queue up one map a night (other than BG oh boohoo), so it’s not like anyone feels like they need to move for those reasons.

The top 12 servers are currently locked, if someone wants to stack a server they have to transfer to the lower servers linked to them.

They’ve left it to players and players obviously don’t care enough to help balance this situation, despite people coming in here to complain about it. Fact of the matter is most players want action, they also want an easier time getting it, so they will stack dominating servers.

So what would you have them do? Lower map populations and force queues on them so people consider moving? Offer free transfer to funnel players from the locked servers to lower servers? Actually merge servers and forever destroying 12 NA servers?

Free transfers in the beginning helped unbalance the situation, but even if the free transfers weren’t around there were servers that were already stacked coming out of beta. The tournaments helped unbalanced this situation as well, free transfers and players wanting to stack winning servers, those won’t be back, and the servers who benefited the most with those free transfers aren’t exactly top tier servers right now either.

You know what, at this point I don’t even know why they bother having this as a competition of 12 servers and glicko for ratings, it’s time to break the tiers apart for more specialized play.

Unlink the T8 servers from T1.
Make the old T8 a tier by itself which will be a good home for roamers and small teams, for players who want to be a part of a smaller community.

Make a new tier for gvg’s, the old T2/3.
3 servers where the glicko doesn’t matter, offer free transfers to these servers, but a transfer fee to move. Gvg guilds get a place to play without needing points, without needed glicko, get alpines, ebg, OS for open areas to do random/planned fights.

The remaining 12 servers, merge the bottom 9 with their links. Rename all servers, reset glicko or remove it and do one up one down.

Terrible idea? then stop complaining and come up with your own.

I never meant this thread to become some sort of whinefest about wvw numbers. Was just trying to relate my experiences in two different tiered pairings in wvw. The last few posts (including that absolutely moronic post stating that the lower tiers should have less say in the game) have kind of moved the thread toward a less constructive tone. (I admit to contributing to that with my response to sheer idiocy)

Fwiw, I don’t think anything can be done about stacking. That is something that Anet can not control, imo.

jason.9548:

Lol. People in the lower tiers need to stop crying about everything. I don’t want to see another siege buff, which led to severs like yaks bend abusing it. All the t1 severs can play jusy play for ppt but its beyond boring so we just choose to fight. None of you guys understand the word balance (which doesn’t exist no two severs will be the same there will always be a winner and loser ). @sky shroud #1 forum warrior crying about everything.
This is why smaller severs and guilds should get less say in things.

“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”

Nice job at showing how completely clueless you are.

Funny thing is, several people in this thread and others have been wanting Anet to leave T1 & T2 alone, and just merge the lower servers for wvw. That idea would leave your little blob warfare world intact with nothing to bother your extremely shallow, no experience viewpoint of T3 – T8 servers.

Spying in wvw has existed ever since mmorpgs created that mode of play. There is absolutely nothing one can do about it. As some other posters said, there are far more important issues with wvw to be concerned about.

Lots of players out there, myself included, have multiple accounts. And I would be willing to bet that most of those players, myself included, don’t want to even bother with wasting game time to spy in wvw. There is lots more fun to be had in game with those other accounts actually playing alts, rather than wasting valuable game time spying on a wvw foe.

I could maybe see someone spying if they had absolutely no life outside of the game, and/or if they took wvw mode way too seriously. I think it would be a lot more fun to actually be a scout in wvw…..certainly a lot more challenging and rewarding, and a much better use of my limited game time, imo.

Chaba.5410:

I play for Server 1009.

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

Rednar.4690:

Thanks a lot for sharing this Teon, it gives me and my guild a little hope that things will get better. And don’t get me wrong, World Linking is nice (even with a lot of work remaining on the ‘server pride’ side of things), but the top tiers should have never been included on it.

I am just hoping that they work out the kinks in the pairings. And yea, I agree…..am really not sure if T1 and T2 should have ever been included in any of the pairings.

I really wish that Kaineng had been paired with a T3 or T4 server.

And that last comment is not meant to be disparaging at all to TC. They have been a very friendly and nice bunch. And very welcoming.

Regarding server pride….
I liked what DaoC did when I played it and they started merging servers as pop numbers decreased. The servers had generic numerical names…..so was hard to have any sort of server pride when your server was just a numbered one of many. They had geared the game in such a way where you had pride in your race(Albion, Hibernia, or Midgard), rather than a certain server. And this too, was fluid and changing, as well, as many players changed races during the game, or had multiple toons in different cultural lands.

Naming the GW2 servers actual unique names might have been a mistake, as that encourages the perception of unique servers/communities, and therefore, some sort of perceived pride in that server.

I am not saying that is a good or bad thing…..just that it makes it harder for the playerbase to let go of those perceptions when inevitable mergers happen as the game gets older and player numbers fluctuate.

Maybe a better solution with these mergers, is to make them more permanent, and then rename the merged server, so as both servers have to reset metally, and have a new server that they can once again develop pride in.

As I have posted previously, server pride is not a big deal to me, as guild pride is my priority, no matter what server they might be on. But for some, obviously, server pride does mean something.

Maybe what I suggested above might be a better solution. I really don’t know……just an idea.

In the end, like it or not, as this game gets older and player numbers decrease, which is inevitable as an mmorpg grows long in the tooth……servers will continue to merge. If a player wants to continue to play and enjoy the game, then they need to find a way to get beyond the sticking point of server pride, as mergers will continue to become more the norm rather than the exception. That is just the way it is with older mmorpgs.