Proposal: Eliminate/decrease gem costs for transferring servers

As a main WvWer, the server I'm on has a significant impact on how (or if) I will be playing the game. Right now I want to play with my friends, but they are all on a different server. Now of course, I could transfer, but I think the gem costs are unreasonably high and not worth it. Transferring to a "very high" populated server costs more than $20 worth of gems

Eliminating the gem cost for transfers makes sense when you consider the fact that people who play the other game modes don't need to pay extra just to be able to play with their friends. Only WvWers have this added cost. I'm completely okay with paying for shinies, in-game benefits, etc, but to play with my friends? That should just be a given, right? Let me know what you guys think.

Transferring to less populated servers should be free. Transferring to higher populated servers should be paid.

I'd almost go so far to say that people should get some gems to transfer as an incentive to move from a top server to the lowest pop ones. Or some bonus as a bribe that wouldn't be abused, could also be something to attract people who choose a starting server as well.

there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. hehe

As a game that doesn't have a subscription model I understand they want to generate revenue however they can, but lowering the prices would be the way to go, not having to pay nearly the same amount as the game itself just for a transfer.

@Sovereign.1093 said:there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. heheFree transfers are literally what got WvW into this population mess in the first place.

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. heheFree transfers are literally what got WvW into this population mess in the first place.

=) and it may be the one to get it out

Free Transfers without some other limiting factor, to avoid the huge swinging of bandwagon's, and other opportunists, will spell disaster. We saw this at launch. So if you want to discuss removing the Server Transfer Cost, you should focus the discussion on what sort of limits to put in play to limit the Band-wagoning population.

There are also other problems/questions, there are probably a lot of people that would like to play with their friends, but their friends are on locked/full servers, those people would also like to be able to transfer, but their target servers are full, and if we open those what happens ? (Hint BG). Not to mention titanic queue's to get into WvW maps.

thats just a guess. =) we will know only when these ideas are tried.

Just open Blackgate with free transfers to it, problem solved.

open deso too hehe

@Sovereign.1093 said:there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. hehe

Yeah this wouldn't get exploited real quick. Right? LEL

@apharma.3741 said:Just open Blackgate with free transfers to it, problem solved.

@Sovereign.1093 said:open deso too hehe

i agree with these, since the whole WvW communnity cant persuade people to spread out to have fun fighting each other fairly let those who want to bangwiggin freely do what they want on one server, they'll have the illusionary victory they get every week while we enjoy the lower tier matches we dreamt of since the GW2 launchits a win/win situation

@Reaper Alim.4176 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. hehe

Because sitting on the current situation is so much better, amirite?

@joneirikb.7506 said:Free Transfers without some other limiting factor, to avoid the huge swinging of bandwagon's, and other opportunists, will spell disaster. We saw this at launch. So if you want to discuss removing the Server Transfer Cost, you should focus the discussion on what sort of limits to put in play to limit the Band-wagoning population.

There are also other problems/questions, there are probably a lot of people that would like to play with their friends, but their friends are on locked/full servers, those people would also like to be able to transfer, but their target servers are full, and if we open those what happens ? (Hint BG). Not to mention titanic queue's to get into WvW maps.

Fair points, and I appreciate you bringing them up, because it really hadn't crossed my mind that free transfers would be abused. But yeah, you're totally right: there would be bandwagoning and that would create unbalanced, crappy matches.I do think there is a legitimate conversation to be had, though, on whether or not gem costs are the best way to solve this problem.

Server transfers for gems were more reasonable when the gold to gems conversion wasn't so expensive. However, these days, the cost of a transfer in gold is... around 250g (this converts to around 1,000 gems).There are two potential solutions I can see. One, you could make a server transfer cost 100g instead of 1,000 gems. 100g is enough to prevent "bandwagon" transfers, as someone above mentioned, but it isn't that hard to earn. The benefit of this solution is that the cost of server transfer would be stable, and not subject to the increasing cost of gold for gems. The setback is that A-net wouldn't be making money off those who are willing to purchase gems.Another solution would be to lower the gem cost of a server transfer to 400-500 gems. Currently, 100g will get you about 450 gems. This would put transfer cost in reach of those who will not or cannot pay real world money--but A-net still has their "product" to sell. The setback of this solution is that it'd be temporary. Gold-to-gems conversion will continue to see inflation--and eventually 450 gems will cost as much as 1,000 gems used to.

Just permanently link servers and make all transfer 1800 gems again. Less bandwagons and fluctuation in population -> minimise the need to reset server links all the time -> communities don't break up all the time -> reduces the need for transfer to play with people you met -> if you don't need to transfer, its FREE!

oh wait no transfer no revenue $$$$$

Open all servers, increase all transfer cost, win win for players and anet.

Also there's this thing called gold, you can use it to buy gems, sell all the materials stuck in your storage."But then I can't make my legendary!".But then you can play with your "friends".Pick one.

@XenesisII.1540 said:Open all servers, increase all transfer cost, win win for players and anet.

Also there's this thing called gold, you can use it to buy gems, sell all the materials stuck in your storage."But then I can't make my legendary!".But then you can play with your "friends".Pick one.

Yeah, but don't you think the cost of transferring should be more appropriate for the actual in-game effect? ~450 gold/~$20 for one person to transfer to another server. Someone brought up a good point earlier when saying it made sense when 100g gave you 1,000 gems. What makes transferring worth it for me is that I can play with my friends, so I'm still going to do it, but if you ignore that and think about the actual effect that transferring has in-game, it doesn't make sense for the price to be that high.

Plot twist: WvWers have no friends.

@Elementalist Owner.7802 said:

@XenesisII.1540 said:Open all servers, increase all transfer cost, win win for players and anet.

Also there's this thing called gold, you can use it to buy gems, sell all the materials stuck in your storage."But then I can't make my legendary!".But then you can play with your "friends".Pick one.

There's a lot more gold flowing into the game today, plus a lot more valuable materials to sell, than whenever it was 100g for 1000gems, like back in 2014.

I'm all for free transfers to the lowest servers, if there were no links.Free transfers for the first 4 months is what killed the balance of servers.I'm fine with the current gem cost to transfer, I'm also for opening all servers, as long as the fee to transfer to tier 1 remains very high, you will be transferring to the most populated servers after all.450g is cheap to be playing with friends and maximizing your enjoyment of the game.

People should be able to move around to find the community of people they best affiliate with. Current system kinda sticks you in one spot and tells you to try and work with and convince "these people", of which there are a finite amount, to do things you wanna do. Problem is all "these people" are doing the same thing so the status quo and what has already been created is what is gonna be forced upon 'you' in the end.

Like Say I wanna make a wvsw guild of warrior only carebear skinned/outfitted tooons. Such a thing is neigh impossible on an existing server. Grouping like minded people from all the servers though....welll that makes it a very real possibility.

The system really should be guild based. I mean if you allocate up to 50 spots to each fully upgraded guild then you can allow people to automatically fill any empty ranks across all servers.

It could continue in that fashion based on server size. Smaller guilds can have up to 10 slots based on guild level/activity/size. Then we go up to 20....30..40...then the mex 50.

Benefit is that you always have x many spots you can instantly give to anyone from another server who wants to come and join the guild. THis could be tied into the current system, so people who want to stay on the server can simply pay to stay ....or get evicted after a few days of being removed from the guild or whatever.

So again in the generic case: ur a large guild wiiht full level. You have 50 slots. SO if you ever have under 50 people, you are allowed to recruit someone from another server and instantly transfer them over to fill one of those 50 slots. Otherwise this system doesn't affect you at all.

Guilds are too large as is. The system doesn't serve its purpose when you can be in 7 of them and part of guilds where there are 800 people you don't know or interact with.

For wvsw it makes sense to have smaller guilds of people, those are your wvsw raid sizes basically with an extra 20 slots for people who maybe don't take part in ur raids all the time or at all. Many guilds kick people who aren't active for their wvsw raids, this wouldn't enforce such a system. It simply keeps more guilds alive that want to be alive, while providing ways for people to move around and find the place they really do belong.

I mean there shouldn't be any complaints in the long-term....since you'd all be paired with people you actually like and feel real connection to. If you happen to have more than 50 people you know personally and have a real connection to already.....well fine! You can continue with the current system lol....this wouldn't affect you at all. Its just for people who want to take advantage of it. Noone is forcing you to cull ur wvsw guild from 100 to 45 in order to recruit 5 vets from other servers over to it.....and why would you want 100 people in ur wvsw guild when you could have 40 who are active for the purposes and events that your guild takes part in? That's what such a system does....it would take those 'other 60 players' that used to be in ur 100 player guild and spread them around to guilds that suit their needs/purposes better.

everyone wins down the road. You gotta be willing to put a little effort into even a game in order to get a good experience, this enables you. Like that who moved my cheese thing....they move on to find new cheese rather than sit in their existing guild as the cheese runs out and they start to fester.

Like I could easily see a forum dedicated to wvsw lfg's. Basically you post what your guild does.....the times it runs....and who you want to join. Then people apply. You can get on ts together or communicate on the forums. Then from there you can instantly transfer into their guild to try it out. If/when you don't like it...you leave the guild and it kicks you back to ur old host world. Then you can go again.....and look for more lfg and try new communities till you find urs.

Then once ur there for x many weeks you can pay to stay there. This could actually replace the current system of paid transfers rather easily.

@ThunderPanda.1872 said:Just permanently link servers and make all transfer 1800 gems again. Less bandwagons and fluctuation in population -> minimise the need to reset server links all the time -> communities don't break up all the time -> reduces the need for transfer to play with people you met -> if you don't need to transfer, its FREE!

oh wait no transfer no revenue $$$$$

Problems with Permanently Linking Servers:

• Effectively same as server merges.
• With static links, band wagoning gets static as well.
• This removes ANet's possibility to mix different servers to counter band-wagons to try to equalize (somewhat) populations.
• 1800 Gems still wouldn't prevent band-wagoning, with static links they wouldn't need to fear transferring every 2 months.

I do agree about the positive sides though:

• Community building
• Stick with Friends
• Server Identities (somewhat)

Overall, permanently linking = server merge. And with 5 years of experience of GW2/WvW, I can say that people would just stack to abuse it (again). Static servers can only work if the community/player-base actually work together to even out and try to make each server stay relatively competitive. Otherwise, you might as well just request to replace it with EOTM.

@XenesisII.1540 said:Open all servers, increase all transfer cost, win win for players and anet.

Sometimes I wonder how this would play out. Say ANet set a price, say 3000 gems, to transfer to a FULL server. And just let the Queue's deal with it. Adding a huge warning when you transfer to the full server "YOU MAY BE STUCK IN QUEUE'S AND UNABLE TO PLAY WVW! DO AT YOUR OWN RISK! Check this box to continue, and take responcibility for your own actions."

Or alternatively Bump the prices one step up, so 1800 gems for full server, and making "medium" servers free. To give all the people on full servers a place to run off to when their full servers, grows even more full.

.. and here I am thinking "just break up them bandwagon servers and put the bandwagoners on random servers and put a 2800gem cost to transfer to any server indefinitely..."

@Sovereign.1093 said:

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:there should be a monthly free server transfer to all. heheFree transfers are literally what got WvW into this population mess in the first place.

Fight poison with poison, is interesting idea, let's try it. Not like it will get any worse than now.