Linking killing the game for single servers

I cannot understand the linking, it took only a few week-ends of Beta testing of new expac to check servers, stability, bugs etc. We have had linking for so long I cannot remember how long ago it started, but surely you have come to a solution. The queues that used to be full before you're current expac are sadly once again empty thanks to another broken, unfinished, incomplete decision for an equally important part of the game. The server I am on, has been unlinked for most of this year, yet week after week we play linked servers, even 3 linked at times. I realise that its not abut winning every MU, but surely someone can make a decision to make permanent linking to get numbers back to fun levels. FYI we always have 1 que to EB, and every other BL is free, imo bad management of server resources/ linking ort clearly no clue what is going on in you're own business, sad.

Linking is there because the linked servers were dead. I was on Kain, and during the weeks leading up to the linking we were hitting 15 or 20 points per tick, during prime time. And that was with me keeping two or three camps flipped. The low tier servers were dead. Keeping the links dynamic allows them to adjust population to compensate for fluctuations. I don't know if this is the best solution, but they can't just unlink the servers at this point.

Well the current system prevents people from populating servers to the extent that they don't need a pairing. Which makes no sense to me. Don't we want to slowly shift the population to more active servers and create a situation where most servers no longer need links? The small servers can still exist, it would just mean that pairings could be from anywhere from 1-6 servers. Heck we could phase out an entire tier probably with this method, it doesn't have to mean pairings of like 6 small servers....you could view the small servers as like the mercenary camps in ebg.... they would be very small buffs to their host server.

Having like 5 very large standalone servers of the same size and then 5-7 very small servers would make for some interesting balancing. The small servers would have smaller effects than currently.... so you could even pair one with a large server who isn't doing well and see a small increase in its scoring. Stuff like this allows you to finetune balance to the point of having a decently balanced tier..... or rather tiers where every team has a good chance of winning. It prevents stagnating the tiers as well. t1 is just mag and bg and some helpless small server every week. There is no diversity.....to the point where mag will throw an entire week by not playing just for a week of t2. Something is seriously wrong with your game if not playing for an entire week is how people keep it fun. I mean why would mag split itself and rebuild it's community on new servers? It's like deleting your account and restarting the game from scratch.

I always liked the whole idea of renaming the homeless servers as mercenary servers.... then giving them tags ingame. showing what server they are from rather than just the host's name. I made a whole posing of it on the old forums. Mercenary servers could become just a couple of wandering guilds who want to experience all types of fights across the tiers......or guilds trying to figure out where to settle down. Being a mercenary is this manner allows them to have a place to belong still...those are important things...it sucks being an immigrant all the time and being labelled as part of a community and culture you are only visiting.

let's just visualize 8 servers of 2x as many players as the current top t1's. Let's also assume the servers can accomadate that level of population. And lets assume we have a leftover of 6 merenary servers. we'll label the merc servers as '2' and the large servers as '1'.

we could have 3 tiers then madeup in many combinationS;t1: 1-1-12t2: 1-1-2222t3: 1-12- 1

or

t1: 12 - 2222-1t2: 1- 1 -1t3: 1-1 -12

point is you could have more diversity and balance in every tier. It would be dependent on what the pairings are, and we should be changing them every month with this system until the worst server can compete with the best server.

If we have 9 large servers we can simply put the mercs in an array that makes each pair as close as possible to eachotther. I mean we need a system where bottem tier servers and top tier servers can have a match where either can win the week. There shouldn' be blatant power differences between the tiers. like we are used to having. any server should be able to be top dog. maybe some have better skill.....then others are given greater numbers to compensate....others are given greater uptime to compensate. You could even fiddle with the max que of 1 server vs another if one server is always outperforming.....we gotta up the difficulty and keep it interesting for the best and worst of players.

Balance ideas that net similar scores at the end of the week is what we need.

Lemme repeat that for effect: If your server is steamrolling as a pack of 30 vs groups of 60.....then the system in the next week should increase that to 30 vs 70 and continue in that fashion until you start losing! If its the opposite and 80 are always beating 30.....then we simply make it so you can't run 80 next week....bring down the max to 70 on your side. At the end we should have alot more elite small groups running around, and the ability to win will be based on getting better as individuals and smaller groups vs larger groups. Max ques can also be timegated......so the primetimes of different servers have different max ques depending on what time it is and how they have been performing during those timespans.

Such a system is easy to swallow if we can up the max que an a map without performance issues. like i said...we would need servers larger than the current t1's and an infrastructure that allows most of these players to actually be able to play rather than spend 30 mins in que.

Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

make links and servers now - merge as one. =)

@MarkBecks.6453 said:I cannot understand the linking, it took only a few week-ends of Beta testing of new expac to check servers, stability, bugs etc. We have had linking for so long I cannot remember how long ago it started, but surely you have come to a solution. The queues that used to be full before you're current expac are sadly once again empty thanks to another broken, unfinished, incomplete decision for an equally important part of the game. The server I am on, has been unlinked for most of this year, yet week after week we play linked servers, even 3 linked at times. I realise that its not abut winning every MU, but surely someone can make a decision to make permanent linking to get numbers back to fun levels. FYI we always have 1 que to EB, and every other BL is free, imo bad management of server resources/ linking ort clearly no clue what is going on in you're own business, sad.

What is your idea of a fun level? Your idea of fun might not be someone else's.

@Cerby.1069 said:Well the current system prevents people from populating servers to the extent that they don't need a pairing. Which makes no sense to me. Don't we want to slowly shift the population to more active servers and create a situation where most servers no longer need links? The small servers can still exist, it would just mean that pairings could be from anywhere from 1-6 servers. Heck we could phase out an entire tier probably with this method, it doesn't have to mean pairings of like 6 small servers....you could view the small servers as like the mercenary camps in ebg.... they would be very small buffs to their host server.

Having like 5 very large standalone servers of the same size and then 5-7 very small servers would make for some interesting balancing. The small servers would have smaller effects than currently.... so you could even pair one with a large server who isn't doing well and see a small increase in its scoring. Stuff like this allows you to finetune balance to the point of having a decently balanced tier..... or rather tiers where every team has a good chance of winning. It prevents stagnating the tiers as well. t1 is just mag and bg and some helpless small server every week. There is no diversity.....to the point where mag will throw an entire week by not playing just for a week of t2. Something is seriously wrong with your game if not playing for an entire week is how people keep it fun. I mean why would mag split itself and rebuild it's community on new servers? It's like deleting your account and restarting the game from scratch.

I always liked the whole idea of renaming the homeless servers as mercenary servers.... then giving them tags ingame. showing what server they are from rather than just the host's name. I made a whole posing of it on the old forums. Mercenary servers could become just a couple of wandering guilds who want to experience all types of fights across the tiers......or guilds trying to figure out where to settle down. Being a mercenary is this manner allows them to have a place to belong still...those are important things...it sucks being an immigrant all the time and being labelled as part of a community and culture you are only visiting.

let's just visualize 8 servers of 2x as many players as the current top t1's. Let's also assume the servers can accomadate that level of population. And lets assume we have a leftover of 6 merenary servers. we'll label the merc servers as '2' and the large servers as '1'.

we could have 3 tiers then madeup in many combinationS;t1: 1-1-12t2: 1-1-2222t3: 1-12- 1

or

t1: 12 - 2222-1t2: 1- 1 -1t3: 1-1 -12

point is you could have more diversity and balance in every tier. It would be dependent on what the pairings are, and we should be changing them every month with this system until the worst server can compete with the best server.

If we have 9 large servers we can simply put the mercs in an array that makes each pair as close as possible to eachotther. I mean we need a system where bottem tier servers and top tier servers can have a match where either can win the week. There shouldn' be blatant power differences between the tiers. like we are used to having. any server should be able to be top dog. maybe some have better skill.....then others are given greater numbers to compensate....others are given greater uptime to compensate. You could even fiddle with the max que of 1 server vs another if one server is always outperforming.....we gotta up the difficulty and keep it interesting for the best and worst of players.

Balance ideas that net similar scores at the end of the week is what we need.

Lemme repeat that for effect: If your server is steamrolling as a pack of 30 vs groups of 60.....then the system in the next week should increase that to 30 vs 70 and continue in that fashion until you start losing! If its the opposite and 80 are always beating 30.....then we simply make it so you can't run 80 next week....bring down the max to 70 on your side. At the end we should have alot more elite small groups running around, and the ability to win will be based on getting better as individuals and smaller groups vs larger groups. Max ques can also be timegated......so the primetimes of different servers have different max ques depending on what time it is and how they have been performing during those timespans.

Such a system is easy to swallow if we can up the max que an a map without performance issues. like i said...we would need servers larger than the current t1's and an infrastructure that allows most of these players to actually be able to play rather than spend 30 mins in que.

1. I personally don't want more blob servers. There's enough of that already to go around.
2. As long as server transfers exist you will never have balanced populations.
3. You need to account for coverage which Anet has stated is impossible to do, especially regarding links.
4. If matches reset every week it will be impossible to logically impose caps on any "30 vs 60" group scenarios.
5. What metric will you use to determine skill vs numbers each week, especially with server transfers in place? Its hard to measure a fluid population.
6. This won't change the zerg mentality or make people become better players.
7. Linked servers deserve to keep their identities.
8. Did I mention server transfers?
9. There's nothing keeping us from running in smaller elite groups right now as it is.
10. Seriously doubt Anet will invest in infrastructure changes as this point.
11. Also, lag.
12. Timegating queues? Interesting thought but I don't think it is a good, or even feasible, idea.
13. 30 minute queue is nothing.
14. And finally, server transfers.

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

Anet admitted BG has lower population than the current linked servers, and currently there are 7 linked servers vs BG and still losing against BG.From Reddit AMA recently"•We calculate a Worlds “fullness” based on the amount of WvW playhours over a period of time. Specific details about world populations is something we don’t discuss externally. Both JQ and FA are within 10% of BGs playtime stat. Many of the hosts with links have a larger total population play time then BG."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/74re46/pof_developer_ama_summary/

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

Which may be true on a 24-hour cycle, but does not address the prime time populations that most people experience on the opposing sides.

@Sylvyn.4750 said:

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

Nope, sorry but you are wrong even in prime time the population is still lop sided and since you clearly dismiss the facts that Anet gave us so nothing more to discuss here, and haters are going to hate no matter what.

Anet should form a guild without the anet tag and fight vs BG.

@Cirrion.8951 said:Linking is there because the linked servers were dead. I was on Kain, and during the weeks leading up to the linking we were hitting 15 or 20 points per tick, during prime time. And that was with me keeping two or three camps flipped. The low tier servers were dead. Keeping the links dynamic allows them to adjust population to compensate for fluctuations.

Yet they do a really bad job at this, why was FA not linked for example yet Mag was? And the 2 month link period is far too long for the links to be very dynamic.

@MasterYoda.8563 said:Anet admitted BG has lower population than the current linked servers, and currently there are 7 linked servers vs BG and still losing against BG.From Reddit AMA recently"•We calculate a Worlds “fullness” based on the amount of WvW playhours over a period of time. Specific details about world populations is something we don’t discuss externally. Both JQ and FA are within 10% of BGs playtime stat. Many of the hosts with links have a larger total population play time then BG."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/74re46/pof_developer_ama_summary/

Based on anecdotal evidence this demonstrates their calculation is wrong or the way anet calculates server population does not tell the full story. At this point it is asinine to assert that other servers and their links are bigger than BG so its all fine when BG overruns every single other server + links in a normal week.

Also, Server Population seems to be calculated during prime time surely, which is flawed.Ever since the less patient PVE'ers gave up on the new shiny rewards, there's rarely a queue if multiple Guilds raid, apart from that it's just EB that's queued.Desolation is clearly not full, but a link would just open the server to bandwagoners IMO.

@morrolan.9608 said:

@Cirrion.8951 said:Linking is there because the linked servers were dead. I was on Kain, and during the weeks leading up to the linking we were hitting 15 or 20 points per tick, during prime time. And that was with me keeping two or three camps flipped. The low tier servers were dead. Keeping the links dynamic allows them to adjust population to compensate for fluctuations.

@MasterYoda.8563 said:Anet admitted BG has lower population than the current linked servers, and currently there are 7 linked servers vs BG and still losing against BG.From Reddit AMA recently"•We calculate a Worlds “fullness” based on the amount of WvW playhours over a period of time. Specific details about world populations is something we don’t discuss externally. Both JQ and FA are within 10% of BGs playtime stat. Many of the hosts with links have a larger total population play time then BG."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/74re46/pof_developer_ama_summary/

Well Mag must've been within 12% of BG's population, well outside the 10% threshold. ;)

FA has a commander who has been tagging up extremely long hours during non-NA prime time hours because he doesn't want to see a lack of effort in trying and while he's been great so far, I worry that he's headed for a burn-out while also inflating FA's playtime hours. This is a perverse incentive and like you say the calculation doesn't reflect the full story. Competitive-minded players like him shouldn't feel pressured into playing longer hours against teams that were given higher population via links and get punished for it. This is no different from what happened during the tournaments that lead to a permanent drop in players.

As I wrote in another thread, I also think the 2 month period is too long given the way linkings are being based off BG's population numbers without being fully competitive against BG.

how they measure only applies to the average, like players who nornally play 2 hours will go 10 plus. so, a server who has more ppl will always have more ppl

@Blodeuyn.2751 said:

1. I personally don't want more blob servers. There's enough of that already to go around.
2. As long as server transfers exist you will never have balanced populations.
3. You need to account for coverage which Anet has stated is impossible to do, especially regarding links.
4. If matches reset every week it will be impossible to logically impose caps on any "30 vs 60" group scenarios.
5. What metric will you use to determine skill vs numbers each week, especially with server transfers in place? Its hard to measure a fluid population.
6. This won't change the zerg mentality or make people become better players.
7. Linked servers deserve to keep their identities.
8. Did I mention server transfers?
9. There's nothing keeping us from running in smaller elite groups right now as it is.
10. Seriously doubt Anet will invest in infrastructure changes as this point.
11. Also, lag.
12. Timegating queues? Interesting thought but I don't think it is a good, or even feasible, idea.
13. 30 minute queue is nothing.
14. And finally, server transfers.

/sigh

Some people just don't know how to do anything other than cry wolf whenever someone doesn't think inside the box.

1. ? I literally told you how it would breakup blobs for the majority of players......
2. well we can get rid of those then or limit them a great deal more than they are now.
3. I need to account for something anet has stated is impossible to do? If you know anything about anet's track record, the once labelled impossible can be done in a week.
4. Why would it be logically impossible? Its a case of having the k/d/ppt/population data on each bl per skirmish duration and analyzing them vs the other 2 servers
5. I literally told you how it would be done in my OP.......you dismissed it as impossible and now are asking me what I'm going to use instead? THE SAME THING I SAID I WOULD USE TO BEGIN WITH.6Yes it will, i litearlly outlikned why it will. you will have to outline why it won't if you want to continue this allegation.
6. Do you even play this game? Linked servers do deserve to keep their identities.....they have no identity in the current system, my solution fixes the problem. How could you think otherwise.....you are making 0 sense, the only thing I can think of is you misread.
7. repeating your points only shows bias and lack of substance in your argument
8. Except you know...winnning! And b eing effective......why do all the work running small when you can get more done running large and do less work.
9. I seriously doubt that too. There, we agreed on something
10. Yes...laggg....I literally mentioned in my posting to assume there wouldn't be any negative performance issues more than there are now. YOu really need to read.
11. Well That's great. Maybe you can share why you don't think its good or feasible.13 30 minute queu is nothing.......? ok..... a new player is gonna think otherwise. Killing the newer playerbase isn't gonna do the game any good.14 Yes.....third time you mentioned that......I don't really wanan repeat myself 3 times over in response.......I shouldn't have to

This is ridiculous. Half your supposed problems you coulda thought up solutions to yourself. Instead you put the onus on me to explain them for you.....well I did exactly that. So go and ask another 14 questions, be sure to include at least 3 that are the same question....... they definitely aren't hard to answer.....just hard to take serious.

My argument must be the best thing ever if this is all you could scrounge up against it.

@Cerby.1069 said:

@Blodeuyn.2751 said:

1. I personally don't want more blob servers. There's enough of that already to go around.
2. As long as server transfers exist you will never have balanced populations.
3. You need to account for coverage which Anet has stated is impossible to do, especially regarding links.
4. If matches reset every week it will be impossible to logically impose caps on any "30 vs 60" group scenarios.
5. What metric will you use to determine skill vs numbers each week, especially with server transfers in place? Its hard to measure a fluid population.
6. This won't change the zerg mentality or make people become better players.
7. Linked servers deserve to keep their identities.
8. Did I mention server transfers?
9. There's nothing keeping us from running in smaller elite groups right now as it is.
10. Seriously doubt Anet will invest in infrastructure changes as this point.
11. Also, lag.
12. Timegating queues? Interesting thought but I don't think it is a good, or even feasible, idea.
13. 30 minute queue is nothing.
14. And finally, server transfers.

1. ? I literally told you how it would breakup blobs for the majority of players......
2. well we can get rid of those then or limit them a great deal more than they are now.
3. I need to account for something anet has stated is impossible to do? If you know anything about anet's track record, the once labelled impossible can be done in a week.
4. Why would it be logically impossible? Its a case of having the k/d/ppt/population data on each bl per skirmish duration and analyzing them vs the other 2 servers
5. I literally told you how it would be done in my OP.......you dismissed it as impossible and now are asking me what I'm going to use instead? THE SAME THING I SAID I WOULD USE TO BEGIN WITH.6Yes it will, i litearlly outlikned why it will. you will have to outline why it won't if you want to continue this allegation.
6. Do you even play this game? Linked servers do deserve to keep their identities.....they have no identity in the current system, my solution fixes the problem. How could you think otherwise.....you are making 0 sense, the only thing I can think of is you misread.
7. repeating your points only shows bias and lack of substance in your argument
8. Except you know...winnning! And b eing effective......why do all the work running small when you can get more done running large and do less work.
9. I seriously doubt that too. There, we agreed on something
10. Yes...laggg....I literally mentioned in my posting to assume there wouldn't be any negative performance issues more than there are now. YOu really need to read.
11. Well That's great. Maybe you can share why you don't think its good or feasible.13 30 minute queu is nothing.......? ok..... a new player is gonna think otherwise. Killing the newer playerbase isn't gonna do the game any good.14 Yes.....third time you mentioned that......I don't really wanan repeat myself 3 times over in response.......I shouldn't have to

Answered in order of your points above:

1. No, you state you want three tiers with 5 very large standalone servers (then later say 9 large servers). You provide no evidence of how this will break up the existing blob mentality.
2. A large part of your idea hinges on Anet removing server transfers, or severely limiting them. I doubt they want to nerf a revenue stream and I can imagine this would anger a portion of the players.
3. There is no way to account for coverage regarding links, Anet has stated this is not viable. I think you completely missed my point about server transfers and fluid populations.
4. Again, I think you completely missed my point about server transfers and fluid populations. There is a reason I've stated this multiple times (see my #2 above).
5. If you lock transfers and no one quits the game and new players don't join, well, still no. You're trying to balance a game mode that can't be forced into that kind of balance (measurement of skill vs numbers). Remember, this is a MMO. I also forgot to mention how angry players would be if you constantly adjusted the maximum number a side is allowed to have ("If its the opposite and 80 are always beating 30.....then we simply make it so you can't run 80 next week....bring down the max to 70 on your side.").
6. Regarding server identity, you stated you want X amount of large servers and/or 3 tiers. Which servers get to be the new mega-hosts? In a way this is actually not much of a change from how it currently is, but you also say these mercenary servers will be smaller, thus further destroying their identities. "Don't we want to slowly shift the population to more active servers and create a situation where most servers no longer need links?". Removing the need for linked servers, as in deleting them because your idea wants to make them unnecessary, is the epitome of destroying server identity. You also assume the linked servers want to be labeled mercenary servers.
7. Not sure if your #6 and #7 are the same thing, so see above.
8. It can be argued that stating things in all caps such as "THE SAME THING I SAID I WOULD USE TO BEGIN WITH" shows bias and lack of substance in your argument. You're not providing any counter to my argument, you're just saying "I'm right because I said so!". There is a reason, yet again, why server transfers were mentioned in several points, as your idea really does hinge on removing server transfers.
9. What? "why do all the work running small when you can get more done running large and do less work". You specifically state in your OP that "At the end we should have alot more elite small groups running around". So you support the blob mentality? That goes against your point #1 above of "I literally told you how it would breakup blobs for the majority of players......".
10. Ok.
11. I didn't notice this the first time, but you ended your argument with the statement asking us to assume "Such a system is easy to swallow if we can up the max que an a map without performance issues". You should have started with that, because it would have killed your argument right away. "I literally mentioned in my posting to assume there wouldn't be any negative performance issues more than there are now". We all know larger servers will be more laggy without significant infrastructure changes. The skill lag alone will remain or get worse if you want people to continue "running large", and on larger servers no less, as in my point #9 above. Also, see my #1 above.
12. Timegating queues - players complain, including yourself, about queues as it is. I am not sure how this could be implemented as it would have to be dynamic and could be easily abused by those with alts on other servers.
13. How many new players do you think we are getting at this point? They should be aware that queues sometimes exist in wvw. Stating that a 30 minute queue will kill the new player base sounds to me more like you don't personally want to wait in queue for 30 minutes. I can also argue that what kills wvw for new players is class balance (condi) and wvw being an overall harder game mode with harder to earn rewards such as pips. In other words, it isn't PvE. We are on the same server, and most of the time the only queue we have is on EBG. Maybe leave EBG and play on another BL while you wait the 30 minutes.
14. See #8.

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

Pfffft...what you quoted doesn't even discuss time frames, it only compares play hours over a period of time...no reference at all to prime time or other time of day or night, so you've given no facts other than a general statement and we're supposed to glean the specific details with our crystal ball? Now who's hating for no reason...hyperbole much?

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

first let me say im not t1. that being said even i know BG does not have the massive population every other server seems to think it has.if anything it has a fairly small population of die hards. they face a constant double team because the double team people have little to no faith in themselfs or their servers.coupled with the face people like cloud fly and zog have accounts to tag watch them is cowardly to say the least and technically match manipulation. if youre gonna link 1 server then link them all.

This poor horse.. getting continually beaten.. :( Again the only solution to this is make it Green vs Blue vs Red, or Faction vs Faction vs Faction as they already exist in the game (how convenient).

People will scream "server pride" Server pride is dead, it was dead years ago; guilds continually jump ship, it is what it is. If transfers exist, there is no server pride, simple as that.

Make it Faction vs Faction vs Faction, because that makes the most logical sense. Make multiple instances of each map to facilitate whatever size group a player wants to play against. Make the map numbers visible on each map for each side so people can pick whether they want to blob around, mid-size group, small-group, or roam. If you want to small scale fights, you aren't going to join a map with omni blobs; you'll join a map with lesser players.

No reason to keep score anymore, it's pointless (not unless a tournament is created, which seems to draw mass negative reaction here so forget that). Replace the PPT with ticking rewards instead (based on what Tier the structure is). Expand the dailies for rewards. Add entire new sets of armor and weapon skins per faction; something we can spend the thousands upon thousands of badges we have sitting around collecting dust.

This is just a starting point, but there will never be a fix as long as transfers exist, and servers are allowed to over-stack. And yes, BG is over-stacked. A server doesn't tick over 200 the majority of the time without having a much larger population & more playing time. To think otherwise is just asinine; Anet's metrics on how they figured it out simply don't work. All the need to do is simply jump into their own game and play it.

For each server to have full q at 24 hours, there should be atleast 7200 players on said wvw server.

This is computed with the estimate one person plays 1 hour 75 map cap multiplied by 4 maps and 24 hours.

If a server is locked and does not have this number of players, then it is depriving players of good wvw fun.

hope each locked server has atleast this number. else, i'd be surprised how things are being cal cu lated.

@needbeer.1687 said:

@MasterYoda.8563 said:

@Sylvyn.4750 said:Even in a 3-server linking, other than reset, we are seeing maybe a queue on EB and that's it, the other BLs are wide open. So, it seems linking is working if it takes 3 servers to get the same activity level as your one server. The big issue is that they can't seem to link enough servers to compete against Blackgate, but then they allowed BG to overstack and I really doubt anyone on other servers in T2-T4 wants to wait in long queues just to feel like they are as big as BG.

BG has a couple things going for it...first, there is actually an advantage for not having other servers linked to it because they can run unified comms for the entire server and achieve better coordination...if a few members of one guild can't get an effective group going, they can join another guild group fairly easily because they can see them on the server's TS/Discord/etc. When 2 or more servers are linked, there is a lot less likelihood of people hopping between multiple TS servers looking for groups on comms, as you don't want to miss guildies popping in and out, and if you hand out permissions to guest servers, then you have issues with guests logging in after server links have changed and they are now your enemy. I also rarely see the callouts these days from commanders on other servers inviting people to join their server's comms...it just becomes a hassle all around, leading to less coordination for linked servers.

Second is coverage. Even if BG supposedly has a bit less total playtime compared to linked servers that it faces, if the playtime for the other servers is primarily NA time zones, they will still lose if BG or any other server has a more even distribution of players' playtimes across all time zones, especially the so-called "night-capping" hours. No biggie if other servers outman BG by 10-20% during primetime for one or two skirmishes and BG loses just a little territory when BG has an advantage for 6 or more skirmishes when the other servers' populations have dropped and they can then flip all the maps to mostly green.

As a final point, being on DB and in T1 this rotation, I am seeing firsthand that there is no double-teaming going on against BG...in fact, it's more like the two big dogs, BG & Mag, picking on the runt of the litter because it's the easy way to get participation pips and that 3rd server won't be there next matchup anyway.

@MasterYoda.8563 said:As a final point, being on DB and in T1 this rotation, I am seeing firsthand that there is no double-teaming going on against BG...in fact, it's more like the two big dogs, BG & Mag, picking on the runt of the litter because it's the easy way to get participation pips and that 3rd server won't be there next matchup anyway.

Just FYI Mag itself is waiting to be delinked and slip out of T1.