Guild Wars 2

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

The amount of kills have gone up globally but that is simply a result of population density and not increased participation.

The activity peaked after server linking prior to the addition of ABL. the month following the reintroduction of ABL activity experienced a steep drop off.

IMO, ABL erased any gains provided by rewards and server linking.

The blob fighters got what they wanted … and didn’t stick around for very long anyway.

I’m not sure who these changes were a win for. WvW will never be organized like sPvP due to the technical difficulties of having such a large number of players. The lag effects will remove any hope of skill based results.

The lag is the main reason the DBL should be used. Anet is not in a position to solve the WvW lag problem from a technical standpoint, however introducing maps that spreads the players out and encourages small group play would reduced the impact of lag effects.

In many ways, DBL was the right course of action. But since there was a vocal blob fighting group, Anet reversed course. And now the blob fighters complain about the things they complained about prior to DBL, LAG.

All you can do is shrug, and find something else to do. I’m working my way through my library of other games at the moment.

I think so far they have done the following:

6/11: Reduced the tick to 5 mins and adjusted the objectives tick value to reflect the change.
Camps: 2 points
Towers: 4 points
Keeps: 8 points
Castle: 12 points

6/11: Increased the PPK to 2.

6/28: Reduced Dolyak value to 1.

7/26: Added Points per capture.
Castle: 6 points
Keeps: 4 points
Towers: 2 points
Camps: 1 point

I believe they are still working on breaking down the matches into 2 hour intervals called skirmishes that will be scored independently and awarded victory points towards the weekly score. No word on when that will be completed.

Mezmere.3241:

Sarrs.4831:

Mezmere.3241:

there isn’t a set thing where all of bg says “Lets not show up so we can open up” bg literally just gets…bored..

I’ve heard BG players explicitly say that they drop their participation so they can juke the player population count.

Whats the fun in not playing for a few weeks so you can outstack the other servers in the current game? none. Maybe back during seasons, but the past year has been stale and stacking isn’t anyone priority as far as I’m aware. the year my guild has been on bg not once has the server taken a break to open up

People on BG were trying to sort out the population calculation so they could game it. Let’s call the technique #Hiberstacking

Why would they do it? So they can … win when it matters™

Not that it will ever matter again. BG’s bloated population was frequently asking about the next tournament and when they found out there was none planned … They went back to hiberstacking mode again.

A part of the glicko wall problem is the strength of victory calculation. I describe the problem here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Error-in-WvW-Glicko-Scoring/

The poor strength of victory modeling (for the actual score) results in a tier wall.

Hexinx.1872:

I credit jarvan for papering BG’s BL right before OCX… was probably easy pickens for them all night.

#Dragonwagon

I credit DB’s strong community and tremendous skill for their strong showing. Only a few weeks ago, BG was beyond reach. Now both TC and DB are giving BG competition. DB is coming from Tier 2 and that is some amazing growth in skill in a short time. It is good to see TC make such an strong leap in skill over the past week also.

This shows that WvW is game were personal skill growth is still possible. Keep up the good work DB.

Xenesis.6389:

I’m starting to think Anet should probably just go back into silent mode,

I think that anet should just make the WvW they wanted to make and stop allowing the players to bully them.

At the moment I don’t know just how much time I should (if any) into community development or even simple game play, because I don’t know where the game is going.

Community opinion about the WvW is about as amorphous as a blackgate blob. I can get no sense of where things will end up by listening to other players.

My involvement has been reduced to checking for polls and collecting data. I have no desire for blob fights and am left waiting to see were this all goes.

Slynn [oPP] Mesmer – Blackgate NA

much surprised.

At the end of the day, Anet is a business. The only players that matter are the ones that spend money.

They should weight everyone’s vote based on the financial investment that each player has made in the game.

This is the only way to ensure that GW2 and WvW will survive.

My logic is irrefutable.

My interpretation of this thread.

Anet should only include people who matter in the polls. Only people who matter get to decide who matters.

I can only wonder if this post is related. :P

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Why-is-Arenanet-killing-our-server/first#post6212557

ArchonWing.9480:

That ship has sailed.

If before HoT, they decided to make it a 3 sided map, it could have worked. But as is, it’s a bit too late as it would require so many fundamental changes that you’re might as well just start thinking of a new map.

All that is required to get EBG turned into a desert is some persistent forum zerging. It is now a proven method.

Desert EBG NOW!

c’mon everybody … zerg more threads.

Swagger.1459:

Do we need 2 threads on this idea that will never happen?

Yes.

Yes we do.

Johje Holan.4607:

Teon.5168:

Loosmaster.8263:

If there was a majority that liked the DBL, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

How so? I think it has more to do with the minority on this subject just being extremely loud and persistent.

I think this is because the people who play WvW the most disliked DBL the most. Of course people who love WvW are going to come in and voice their opinion the most.

People who are fine with other areas of the game can just go play those. It doesn’t really matter to them what kind of map was put into WvW if they only pop in on occasion.

If you’re trying to defend the DBL as a good map for WvW’ers then I don’t think you’ve been paying attention since the launch of HoT. It had and still has major problems.

TorquedSoul.8097:

The activity spike happened directly after the implementation of wvw rewards and world linking.

Since ABL was re-implemented, activity has actually been dropping.

Sorry. ABL is not the reason activity spiked. If anything it is the reason the spike died.

Yes the activity spiked with the changes. Change brings back people. Different people liked different aspects of the changes. Reward tracks, world linking and ABL.

I’m pretty sure you know your statement about the ABL being the reason the spike died is ridiculous.

By my measure of activity (kills + capture volume), activity started decreasing after ABL was reintroduced. What measure of activity are you using?

DeWolfe.2174:

Wait, so where the heck is the logic in this request OP. You want to take the most popular map and replace it with the most controversial and divisive one??? That has to be one of the worst idea’s I’ve read in a long time.

Its beginning to look as DBL isn’t as controversial as some have made it out to be.

And I doubt the reason that EBG is popular is strictly the result of its alpine design. Its a 3 way map and has a more balanced objective layout than the BL’s.

DeWolfe.2174:

TorquedSoul.8097:

What do you think would happen if Anet decided to make an EBG desert map (with all the same objectives that are currently on EBG) and made all of the borderlands alpine maps?

Do you think that EBG would no longer get queued?

Yes, I believe the EBG population would decline. A Desert theme is not the best design theme especially for long term play. The only reason why PvE zones like the Silverwaste or Cursed Shore gets frequented is because of the loot available. Put equal wealth potential in all the zones and I believe Queensdale, Kessex Hills, Wayfarer Foothills, and some parts of Lornar’s Pass and Timberline Fall’s, would be the most frequented area’s of the game.

Daniel Dociu artistic style and taste are too dour for the mainstream. I believe the game has always suffered in becoming more because of this.

I always thought the art in this game was one of its high points. I certainly wouldn’t call the art too dour for mainstream.

zhonnika.1784:

We won’t be silenced permanently. Sorry to burst your bubble there, sir. I’ll rail against these maps for as long as I play this game. As for PvE-ers knowing better how to design and run a map than people who play WvW….. um, what? I mean, I’ve heard some stupid garbage here before, but that really tops it.

How, really… how do you explain the resurgence in population in WvW with ABL coming back? It wasn’t reward tracks. It wasn’t world linking. It was the return of a map that makes sense for WvW. If we have to have this fetid dusty crap back, I only hope it remains to one map…. so that I never have to go there.

The activity spike happened directly after the implementation of wvw rewards and world linking.

Since ABL was re-implemented, activity has actually been dropping.

Sorry. ABL is not the reason activity spiked. If anything it is the reason the spike died.

Jim Hunter.6821:

….You do realize the majority of roamers are on the alpine bl right?

But yeah, I have no problem with rotating ebg and the kitten map. It would need a lot more changes but I honestly think it would take less changes to make it suitable for an ebg replacement than it would to make it bl worthy.

Well there are only Alpine BL’s at the moment so where else would the roamers be.

I guess the question would be, is EBG alpine popular because of its alpine design or simply because it is a balanced 3 way fight with more objectives?

Its pretty clear that there is sufficient support to keep the desert maps in some form.

A quarterly rotation will likely result in a large portion of players sitting out depending on which maps are being employed.

Allowing different borderlands to use different maps during the same match may lead to balance problems.

Making EBG a desert map solves a most problems.
It will maintain balance.
It will avoid midweek map switches (which will suck)
It will provide roamers/havoc a large space to play.
It will provide blobbers 3 maps to blob.

Maybe HoT got it backwards.

Blobs need more maps because they hit the map cap quicker and the large groups make increased map caps a problem due to lag.

Making EBG for roamers/havoc should allow EBG a higher map cap since they will(should) be spread out.

Dawdler.8521:

Depraved Ambience.7942:

What I don’t get is, for all these players who are hating on the desert borderlands, since it looks like you will be “stuck” with it and you know that ANet is going to release another, amended poll on mixed vs. rotational borderlands, why you don’t just campaign for and vote for mixed borderlands? Then you will always have your alpine maps to play on, and those who like and enjoy and want to play on desert borderlands can do so also.

I mean, if you were to vote for mixed borderlands, then you won’t be “stuck” playing anything…

We kittening did overwhelmingly vote for it but Anet said 70% in favor was not enough so they where going to use quarterly rotations. Anet only changed their minds after massive backlash, remember?

I want desert. I voted for 1 desert and 2 alpine. But kitten it if I’m going to say yes to keeping desert after that kittening travesty, without knowing what the implementation poll look like.

Why not make EBG a desert map? A big sprawling desert map.

And leave all the borderland maps as alpine.

synergy.5809:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Get over it. Most people want/like DBL and would like to play on it again. Just because there are a few haters that fill the forums doesn’t mean that is how most of us feel. Enough.

ppl liked it so much that EBG was always queued and DBL were always empty and tooks hours to find another living soul.

if DBL comes back you kittens better not be queueing into EBG after you see the whole DBL map is empty like before.

What do you think would happen if Anet decided to make an EBG desert map (with all the same objectives that are currently on EBG) and made all of the borderlands alpine maps?

Do you think that EBG would no longer get queued?

Aeolus.3615:

TorquedSoul.8097:

(…). I’m skeptical. Anet has done plenty recently to encourage blobbing so I don’t think this will effectively reduce blobs in any significant way.

So far blobs are still only capping what is abandoned, as usual, or bring a full cluster for the pvd on paper towers and leave.

Some blobs are k-trains, others are more fight oriented. Regardless, most of the changes being made seem to support blobbing either for k-train or fights. The doubling of PPK is a continuation of encouraging blobs. The small advantage that havoc may get from the 5 minute tick will be crushed by the PPK disadvantage they get for not traveling in large groups.

The 5 minute tick will likely increase captures during high activity periods but will have only a small impact during off peak times.

I would guess this would increase global capture rates about 25-35%. This would assume around double the capture activity during a 6 hour prime time window.

Theoretically, it should tip things in favor of havoc groups … but maybe the blobs will just split into blobs of 35 and work opposite sides of the map. I’m skeptical. Anet has done plenty recently to encourage blobbing so I don’t think this will effectively reduce blobs in any significant way.

darwinslittlehelper.7182:

These polls need more visibility to the general population. Asking for input from only the people who frequent the forums is a grave disservice to the large majority who just enjoy playing the game, and do not enjoy wading through the often argumentative posts and occasional hysterical whining. There are good posts, and some well reasoned responses, but also a fair bit of unpleasantness and textbook human behavior. Not everyone’s interest.

Throughout this polling process, I continually encounter people who either do not know a poll is up, realized they have missed it, wonder how it find it, or know others who have no idea about it.

If these polls are to have any real meaning or representation, a wider selection of players needs to be reached. Perhaps a global email when a poll drops?
Better yet, town criers in Lion’s Arch. Have NPC’s announce a the polls —even advertises WvW to the general population. We have those little messages telling us about PvP seasons on loading screens… WvW deserves the same consideration.

WvW is a great game mode, and it deserves support. Not all of us agree all the time about what form it should take, or how much our total game time it should be. We should all have the chance to help shape that mode, if ArenaNet wishes some input.
I also believe ArenaNet should leaven their response and actions with their own input, and not let the whole thing be decided but a potential voting coup.

-another concerned player

Are they no longer providing messages upon leveling in WvW? I thought that was implemented already.

sionnach.5391:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Unfortunately the linking will transform the types of cultures that exists on the guest servers. They will become like roadside motels or hostels. Shady and transient.

I feel bad for those that invested their time to build those communities. They should be compensated somehow.

I’m with ya Torque. We’re trying to be optimistic about what our communities can do with this situation we are stuck with, so…..

For those of us who are permanent guests with no home to call our own, the only option I see going forward is to embrace it and make it part of our culture – on Kaineng, our guild is leaning towards rebranding us as the Party Bus since we’re already known as a great place for non-serious fight-lovin’ roamers; I guess we will just be the best traveling circus we can be! As far as ‘shady and transient’ goes, that resonates because well, we were already a little shady.

Here’s to whatever we can make of it! And to our T8 kin, best of luck and hoot hoot from Owls.

Nanesh

That’s definitely the right attitude. A little RP will go a long way in making that transient server existence bearable.

I’m hoping one turns into a mercenary/anarchy culture. I’d probably join that one or even help build it if somebody needs a hand.

It’s good to see that the polls are still getting posted in the forum.

Anything that avoids server stacking will do better to balance population. So every month would be best in that regard although those that are willing spend money to stack cannot be stopped.

Unfortunately the linking will transform the types of cultures that exists on the guest servers. They will become like roadside motels or hostels. Shady and transient.

I feel bad for those that invested their time to build those communities. They should be compensated somehow.

Heimlich.3065:

Get your transfers to ET while they’re still just $6.25! That’s 6 or 7 weeks of 0-effort top-place finishes! Don’t miss your spot on the bandwagon!

pass.

Daemonne.5018:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Yeah, alot of people in America feel the same way about Presidential Elections…

Sure there is a point were adding more people doesn’t make a difference, but having a representative sample is still important. If the selection process is biased, then the results are biased.

And yes, we see this in U.S. media all the time regarding politics. Most polls are made to produce the answer the funding entity wants.

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

It seems that the current push is to appeal to one play style exclusively, and that will cost Anet population.

But this is where you are wrong, and if you had played (or do play) the ABL’s, you would know.

The ABL’s invite MANY different types of WvW participation among many different types of players. You can solo camps, escort Yaks, slap Yaks, tap Garri to keep the WP contested, sit on a Treb in an enemy’s Hills and harass their Water Keep, scout, havoc, refresh/build siege, serve as a diversion to draw enemy from other maps, etc., etc., etc. You can even participate in a good old fashioned Zerg stomps.

None of this was really relevant to the DBL’s. The DBL’s were largely PvE – meaning a guild would go into an enemy DBL, flip some uncontested stuff and leave. The DBL’s promoted one type of game play at the expense of others – much like EoTM.

OK. I’m wrong.

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

You are correct. Siege fighting doesn’t show up in the kill metric. Successful defences happened on the dbl also. This is not unique to abl. But when it happened in dbl it was called low skill cowardly gameplay, aka Siege humping.

Is there more siege humping in the abl? Are players able to hide behind walls better?

I don’t know if you are woefully ignorant of WvW or merely trolling — but, except for the recent experiment in server mergers, no one has paid attention to scoring in WvW in years. Your statement above that WvW is “Kills and Captures” is laughable.

For years, I could tell you, within minutes of the reset, not only which server would place first, second and third for the week, but also what the spread in points would be at the end of the week.

The WvW community (of which you don’t appear to be per your historical posts) want good, protracted strategic fights over keeps and towers. As I’ve commented in game and elsewhere before, I’d rather lose the week by 5k points then win by 50k. Most points in WvW are garnered in other than North American Prime Time play. Yes, yes, yes. There are other time zones, but their contribution in points is disproportionate to the level of activity taking place. This has always been the real problem with WvW. If you played it, you’d know.

A spread in points does not mean that one server is that much “better” than another. It means that, on average, there are more people participation in WvW over the course of a week. That’s all.

I’m not trolling, I just disagree with you. I understand that some here assume that all that disagree with them are toxic trolls, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

I agree that defensive play is a part of WvW, I’ve seen it and been a part of it even on DBL. However in my experience defensive play often involves fighting (and killing). Unless your tactic is to bore the opponent into leaving which is valid and does happen but is not the common resolution. If it was, players would stop attacking any defended objective.

If you think that players returned because of alpine to simply spend their time hanging out in objectives building siege and repairing walls, I cant argue that. There is no way for me to know.

But time will tell who is right about this. You may enjoy the current maps and the play style they bring with them, but others may not and may leave. Players have different preferences. It seems that the current push is to appeal to one play style exclusively, and that will cost Anet population. I seriously doubt that those who left before left strictly because of HoT and I expect their return to be short lived.

IMO, Anet is making changes to get a short term activity spike which will result in lower overall activity in the long run. Or at best, no significant change as those that don’t like the blobbing may come back after the blobbing stops.

They are giving the “community” what they want. Once the “community” gets what they want they will get bored and move on. For some people the game is getting what they want, and once they have it the appeal is gone and they will just want something else.

DeWolfe.2174:

TorquedSoul.8097:

All things being equal …

But they are not, which nullifies any arguments you could have made. The fact that participation is still above the start of the “Beta” say’s a lot about how much better Alpine is. Also, of course the shiny of the Beta has already worn off. It was gone after the second week and participation has dropped since. OW has and will continue to draw players out of GW2 too.

You are rationalizing, but that is your right. Whatever you need to tell yourself.

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

WvW is kills and captures. All things being equal … more man hours will equal more kills and captures regardless of the tactics being used.

Occasionally confusing or distracting your opponent will not significantly reduce the impact of population.

The DBL’s consisted largely of guilds hitting things that had been auto-upgraded, and then leaving WvW. There was little in the way of protracted engagement with the enemy (if you could even find any).

The protracted engagement is somehow leading to fewer kills than before the reintroduction of the alpine maps.

Do you guys do war dances rather than fight now?

So you don’t actually play WvW? There is much more defending going on in the ABL’s. Defending does not necessarily equate with kills.

The enemy might hit the water gate at Garri, be repelled after 30 minutes, and then the walls are repaired by running supply in from the main WP. This is game play that won’t show up on a kill based metric.

You are correct. Siege fighting doesn’t show up in the kill metric. Successful defences happened on the dbl also. This is not unique to abl. But when it happened in dbl it was called low skill cowardly gameplay, aka Siege humping.

Is there more siege humping in the abl? Are players able to hide behind walls better?

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

WvW is kills and captures. All things being equal … more man hours will equal more kills and captures regardless of the tactics being used.

Occasionally confusing or distracting your opponent will not significantly reduce the impact of population.

The DBL’s consisted largely of guilds hitting things that had been auto-upgraded, and then leaving WvW. There was little in the way of protracted engagement with the enemy (if you could even find any).

The protracted engagement is somehow leading to fewer kills than before the reintroduction of the alpine maps.

Do you guys do war dances rather than fight now?

Soon.5240:

TorquedSoul.8097:

The linking boosted the kills to 1,263,727 globally by crowding the DBL maps, but the alpine maps introduction has destroyed that boost losing nearly 300K/week kills globally since they were introduced.

I’m not certain that “kills” is the correct metric for measuring the success (or failure) of the ABL’s.

I’ve spent an hour defending Bay from raiders, making taps, trebbing walls from Vale camp, etc., who were acting as nothing more than a diversion for a move on Hills.

This type of “activity” (and others like it) IS a valid measure of the success of the ABL maps, imho. Even though there were not a lot of kill being made, by either team, there was long term engagement and strategy being employed by both sides. The DBL’s were pretty much just Guild objectives and hit-N-quit, in-N-out game play (at least on my tier). Multiple, hour long engagements were non-existent.

WvW is kills and captures. All things being equal … more man hours will equal more kills and captures regardless of the tactics being used.

Occasionally confusing or distracting your opponent will not significantly reduce the impact of population.

DeWolfe.2174:

No, it was certainly the map itself that created a lot of unhappiness. That’s why the dev’s removed it, it was lowering participation. Even if there were complaints on the forums, if Anet saw participation increasing they would have kept them. It’s only because participation was dropping like a rock did they bring back Alpine.

btw.. please stop spamming from multiple accounts. It doesn’t make your arguments “more right”. For those of you doing that…

Are you sure it was the maps? Because since the reintroduction of the Alpine maps activity has dropped about 20% and there is still a downward trend. Maybe more people “came back to the game” but if they did, they are doing less … either that or other players have left the game.

Activity is barely 10% above where it was before rewards and linking were introduced and it is still falling. Even with linking and the alpine maps, kills are only up 5% from before their introduction (and this is also on a downward trend). If anything Alpine maps have killed the resurgence of WvW. The linking boosted the kills to 1,263,727 globally by crowding the DBL maps, but the alpine maps introduction has destroyed that boost losing nearly 300K/week kills globally since they were introduced.

I think your logic is broken.

The hype train is about to crash into a wall of reality.

Xenesis.6389:

Those “inactive” players have had more than a month now to come back since Alpine and the other major changes happened to WvW in April. If they haven’t been keeping up on the game with the forums or through friends during the time they left, I think it’s safe to say they’re not interested in GW2 anymore.

The polls aren’t even limited to voting in game which some have suggested for Anet to do, it’s on the website linked through the forums, accounts aren’t locked behind subs, they’re free to log in and vote. Seriously, if someone hasn’t been following the game since leaving, they’re not interested in the future direction of the game.

Anet doesn’t need to go the extra mile after those former players for opinions, they need to gather information from their current active players, and those that follow in the main/reddit forums.

If at some point some players come back, then great, they can jump in and participate in the forum discussions and polls like everyone else. If they wanted Anet could do a one time email to players about recent changes, current discussions and polls for wvw. Pretty sure an email was sent about the quarterly updates, if players haven’t returned to even check that out what more you want for Anet to do? go the players house with a bat in hand and demand they log on to vote?

The suggestion that they are focusing only on “active” WvW players seems to dismiss those players that have stopped playing due to recent changes but still frequent the forums to keep up on the changes. It seems at one point they tried to run a poll without posting a notification in the forums, instead a player posted the existence of the poll AND THEN Anet posted the topic thread about the poll.

If Anet continues to post notifications in the forums, there isn’t a problem. But I’m not sure that is their intent.

Teraphas.6210:

Torqued you speak like you can not vote in the poll without getting the ingame notification.

Untrue

I have voted in every poll prior to meeting the conditions in wvw to get the ingame mail, which I don’t get because I have already voted.

The ingame mail is an extra reminder for those whose friends and guilds have not told them of the vote or missed all the various places in social media and forums that anet posts about the polls bring up.

I was responding directly to Tyler’s comment. It seemed to imply that the feedback from inactive players in the forum was not valued anymore.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We chose to target active players for polls, because they are actually playing WvW and thus have the largest stake in the result. Many inactive players may never come back, or come back only briefly. We don’t think it would be fair to let the votes of those who have quit playing shape the result for those that are still playing.

DeWolfe.2174:

Long story short, the Tier 1 of JQ, BG, and TC, has to be restored. That balance worked and population was stable for a long time. Once that balance is restored, I really do hope bad karma to those that try to undermine it again. Because all I see is participation dropping right now the way things are working.

Oh, and we still need Fridays off from WvW and some kind of kitten y fun added in.

Only JQ is stopping JQ from being in their 1. YB is trying to drop. Git to werk boiz.

X T D.6458:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

I would rather they message and alert active players that actually participate in the gamemode they are trying to get player feedback on. If you quit or find wvw such a time consuming activity, why should anyone care what you think? Furthermore why should anyone bend over backwards for you, if you want to participate its up to you, if you quit and have little interest in the game, why should they go after you?

Considering that Anet made all the recent changed to bring back all those people who had stopped playing (aka quit/inactive), I find your statement pretty ironic.

I seriously doubt that anet is promoting an unhealthy level of WvW participation. So suggesting that Anet shouldn’t worry about what casuals think is pretty lame. Expecting players to engage in a oncologically dangerous level of game play activity shouldn’t be required to have a say in polls. We are all paying customers. To think that they should not have a say is just an extension of the “They are not real WvW players.” Ego check.

In the end you will get with your want: Blob vs Blob. You are already getting it. And those that prefer havoc play basically being told to adjust or leave.

In the end, Whether or not those havoc players are a smaller group than those blob players will be known by the activity changes over time. I suspect some players will blob as a result of wanting to stay in the community … but many will just go elsewhere.

So long as Anet can cash in on the Blobbers they wont care. The linking carousal will keep the transfer money flowing as everyone moves to restack after relinking. The profitability of WvW has been solved.

Have fun. I will be back when havoc play becomes a possibility again.

Scamp.5296:

I like the fact that you guys send us an in-game mail when you have a new poll up. I agree inactive players should not be pursued for voting.

So you like that anet customers that don’t like the changes should be forced to run around the maps daily and level to get access to the poll which decide which way the game will go?

In other words, engage in time consuming activity that isn’t entertaining just for the hope that eventually a poll will get posted that will allow them an opportunity to show that they don’t like it.

Two words.

Echo Chamber.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We chose to target active players for polls, because they are actually playing WvW and thus have the largest stake in the result. Many inactive players may never come back, or come back only briefly. We don’t think it would be fair to let the votes of those who have quit playing shape the result for those that are still playing.

So basically the more people like the decisions that you make (which are the people that continue to play), the more of a say they will get in the direction of the game. Essentially a “Like promotes like” mentality.

Its odd that the initial barrage of changes that were made were supposedly made to “bring people back to the game” and now the people that leave as a result of the changes are just considered less important and their opinions don’t matter.

It’s one thing to say that you are doing what the majority Anet customers want, it’s another thing to cull the population into one that better fits your desired design outcomes.

I think its clear that Anet is moving towards a blob war design. You should really just come clean and stop with the pretend consensus thing that you are doing.

If I had to guess, you are appealing to the crowd that spends the most money. And that is fine … its a business. I just find the polls a bit disingenuous.

Good luck with this approach.

X T D.6458:

I have another theory as to why hardened gates was changed, it could possibly be related to the upcoming scoring changes, specifically the ppt timer being reduced to 5mins. In which case I can see how things like this would become to much of an obstacle for earning points.

That makes no sense. Are they going to dump that 5 minute RI too. That is an obstacle to earning points.

Its not like an objective gets flipped 12 times an hour with the current 15 minute tick.

IF I had to guess, the PvD damage buff is intended to benefit/encourage blobs. Lets not pretend that its anything else.

I hope during the transfer period suggested, stacked servers will still be listed as full.

This is some absolutely delicious bait. Good luck with your fishing expedition.

Don’t forget to push for a tournament while you are here.

It seems that Anet has decided that blob wars is WvW. That is their choice.

They definitely seem to be systematically eliminating all inconveniences to blob fights.

Havoc play may still be possible but it will require a great deal of communication and coordination to overcome blobbing. I would be happy to discuss it and even considering building a server community around it if anyone is interested.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Thanks everyone. The response was mixed, but there was a general lack of interest in the idea, so we’ll pass on it.

We should have a poll. 30 people on the forum can’t be representative of the general population.

lil devils x.6071:

I love all the " hypotheticals" without actually thinking about how this works in the end.. Who pays for all of the addition voice comms and website upkeeps when there are less players on server to do so and this is already an expense that is difficult for the existing servers to manage? Who admins all of these things when you have less players available to do so? Who pays for all the siege and supplies it takes to run map raids 24/7 with less people? The problem is the current servers are already struggling to manage these things so more players are forced to bond together in order to reduce the costs on everyone. You need more people to be able to play at once on LESS servers in order to make this easier on everyone on each server. The opposite of what you suggest.

Players are not just " bandwagoning" as some may think, they are moving to servers they can afford to play on since it costs each person less to play on the more populated servers than it does on the others. You want MORE help, not less, so that all players on the server spend more time having fun and less time worrying about everything it takes to run WvW and having players to work as a server to make that happen.

The more servers you have the more expensive in both time and money is needed to maintain that server. We need far less servers, not more.

I think GW2 has enough nerds to keep the operating costs of those teamspeak and web servers pretty low.

There are cloud server packages that start at $5/month and can be dynamically scaled to your needs (by the hour if need be.) You can install anything you want on those servers.

There will always be people that willing to invest their time and money to help build and maintain communities. This is a part of the game for many.

More smaller worlds would allow would be better overall both in terms of community building and more balanced pairing.

Guild alliances could dominate some of the smaller worlds and some of the worlds can just be anarchy roaming havoc worlds.

Frequent relinking will keep the GvG’ers happy also.

This would be much better than the current system. I would even encourage breaking up the larger worlds or slowly lower their population through attrition.

I guess it was probably too much to ask this far into the life cycle of GW2 for an elaborate solution.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess I will stop kittening about linking now.

While I suspect that the developers don’t want to reveal exactly how the calculate “population”, would it be possible to share with the community the resulting population score they come up with for the linked servers? Add the value to the leaderboards or something.

Maybe a little transparency here could help with some of the confusion about how the developers see the current population balance vs the communities perception of it.

Miko.4158:

“it’s a free vote”, are you familiar with the concept of reading? after that try stats + amazing world of maths

I’m familiar with reading, math and statistics. Not sure what your point is other than suggesting that those that like the Anet’s changes should carry more weight in Anets decisions than those that don’t.

How about we throw a little psychology into the mix, confirmation bias.