What is the goal of server links and matchups?

I'm genuinely asking what the current purpose (or end goal) of server links/re-linking is. When linking was put in last year it was a way to boost WvW population by condensing matchup populations without having to actually merge servers and have the negative PR associated with "GW2 now 'merging' servers". The linking created a lot of new WvW activity and action for quite awhile.

But for the past 6+ months or so (probably longer, really), the linking system and server locking is getting pretty ridiculous and is really making things worse. Servers are locked for really long periods of time even when it makes no sense to regular WvW players that the server is locked (Tarnished Coast, Fort Aspenwood, etc.). We don't need to see the developer metrics to know that Tarnished Coast should not be locked for months on end, for example. There are qualitative differences between the servers, not just population numbers and activity numbers otherwise the paired servers with more weekly activity than Blackgate (per recent developer comments on reddit) would be ascending to the #1 position for the duration of their link.

Winning the weekly matchup doesn't mean anything and never has (I guess you could technically say your server "wins" by going up a tier) but by trying to balance matchup populations through linking and server locking the developers are tacitly admitting that winning matters. I would imagine most regular WvW players would say they don't care either way. Because of the +1 -1 system, some servers are actively trying to manipulate the weekly score in order to move or stay within certain tiers to avoid certain servers.

So, what is ArenaNet's current end goal with this system? Is the eventual goal to smooth populations out so that winning the weekly matchup can mean something?

If winning the weekly matchup continues to be meaningless (as it has been for the life of GW2) then why does it matter if some servers become bloated while others are lighter?

What's the end goal with all of this? Is there anything that the WvW team is able to share about current or upcoming goals/features/anything?

@Endelon.1042 said:So, what is ArenaNet's current end goal with this system? Is the eventual goal to smooth populations out so that winning the weekly matchup can mean something?

If winning the weekly matchup continues to be meaningless (as it has been for the life of GW2) then why does it matter if some servers become bloated while others are lighter?

What's the end goal with all of this? Is there anything that the WvW team is able to share about current or upcoming goals/features/anything?

Great post. Well written and excellent questions. Here's hoping an Arenanet employee visits the thread and provides some good answers and lets us know of some great changes to WvW improving the game-mode.

@Endelon.1042 said:Because of the +1 -1 system, some servers are actively trying to manipulate the weekly score in order to move or stay within certain tiers to avoid certain servers.

I'd like to hear Anet's thoughts as well because of the above.

@Endelon.1042 said:

Winning the weekly matchup doesn't mean anything and never has ... I would imagine most regular WvW players would say they don't care either way.

Speak for yourself. Winning the match has been my primary interest in and reason for playing WvW throughout the lifetime of the game. There have been times when winning was clearly the goal of the majority of players on the server and times when it seemed not that many were interested. There have been times when winning a given match made a substantive difference and times when it made no observable difference at all. Regardless of the ups and downs over five years, however, to suggest that winning the weekly matchup has never meant anything is simply untrue.

This is also why my favorite times in WvW were the Seasons. I know the reasons we don't have them any more but I believe a baby got thrown out with all that bathwater.

From my perspective, WvW is a competitive team game. If there's no value in winning a match then there's no reason to structure the mode around matchplay. For all the endless discussion over balancing populations it seems to me that a much better way to deal with the situation would be to restructure the competition in such a way that winning unequivocally mattered more than not winning.

I'd start by removing ALL extrinsic rewards from WvW, leaving nothing but directly WvW-specific incentives, tied directly and exclusively to winning the match, that could not be used, displayed or recognized outside of the four WvW maps and see where that takes us, population and balance-wise.

@Tiny Doom.4380 said:

@Endelon.1042 said:

Winning the weekly matchup doesn't mean anything and never has ... I would imagine most regular WvW players would say they don't care either way.

I did forget about WvW seasons and you're right about seasons giving meaning (rewards) to winning each week. But you're also kind of making my point, which maybe I wasn't clear about in my original post. When I said that winning the weekly matchup is meaningless I meant that there is no reward (other than personal satisfaction or something like that). There's no gold, item, currency, etc. Even winning the 2-hour skirmish block has no reward. So, there's no game-related incentive or reason to win each week which goes back to my question about what the current goals/purposes of servers links are.

The purpose of matchups has never changed: offer a fair-as-we-can-make playing field for massively multiplayer versus massively multiplayer. The purpose of linkages hasn't changed either: give ANet maximum flexibility to balance active populations. The reason for not wiping the slate and starting with new worlds hasn't changed: that annoys everyone who worked hard to get to their current setup and only resolves issues temporarily (it also doesn't guarantee that there won't be bandwagoning day 1).

The reason for locking servers has changed. Originally, it was meant to be a Real Time™ cap on max populations, to reduce queuing. Then ANet switched to measure only 'active populations', which allowed them to change it to a more predictable pattern (no longer first come, first served at 3 am). More recently, they've been using it as a blunt-force tool to encourage people to move to linked servers rather than primary ones, so that population would (in theory) become better balanced over time.

Working against ANet's efforts: human nature. Some of us have been playing WvW non-stop since 2012 and are simply tired. Many of us only want to be on ROFLstomping worlds, many love karma training, some like to win match ups, some prefer to win territory, and, well, there's just not a single school of thought on what exactly is good WvW. So many people still want to move to the same servers as ever, many can't stand being moved around as linkages change, and many will likely never leave unless forced to.

There's just no simple long-term fix. And it doesn't help that many of us have unreasonable expectations about what reasonable match ups are. (Admittedly, ANet doesn't help when they hide the metrics used to make their decisions. And it's also difficult to follow their logic when they don't respond to comments.)

tl;dr the goal of server links and matchups hasn't changed: it's to offer the closest thing to a level playing field for massive "capture the objective" battles. That's far easier said then done and we often have unrealistic expectations about what should happen.

All complaints towards wvw have been ignored for many years now, although Needless to say most of there gem sales will come from world v world players who constantly band-waggon.

It is the most ignored part of the game that makes anet the most money, pvers do not have to pay for nothing.Mega server for mixed instances FREE of charge. Every complaint as legitimate as they are, is on death ears now, tomorrow, the day after and next year.

Everyone should accept the FACT that the game is dying after POF 1 week story including all its content new specialisations etc, it is back to where it was with a bigger pirate ship uncalled for, uncared for balance in wvw.

Bring back Gaile Grey and other DEVS from Guildwars 1 who actually took time to listen to the players needs, socialised rewarded the gamer's in the correct manor.POF now £15.99 that says it all cheap as chips cos no one is buying it no new players are coming servers will not be unlocked, linking will not stop, because it is of no benefit to ANET.

EMBRACE purchasing gems and keeping anets servers running, whilst you chase your dreams for the servers with the most fun at the cost of friendship consistency activeness, ppt & Karma.

Take this complain and send it on to Blizzard you might get a better response.If this post gets deleted it just proves my point.

@Endelon.1042 said:What's the end goal with all of this?

Probably an attempt to delay the inevitable. Although...without a real control group running in parallel, it would be hard to determine the effectiveness of it anyway. Foo.

We'll just have to hope ANET's data can compensate, and that their interpretation of that data doesn't strip out context that can be lost if you average too many things together...

Foo!

@Endelon.1042 said:But for the past 6+ Because of the +1 -1 system, some servers are actively trying to manipulate the weekly score in order to move or stay within certain tiers to avoid certain servers.

I personally like 1u1d, just not the current version of it.

If Anet treated wvw like leagues, clubs don't want to go down to the next level because the club loses money, fans lose hope, people feel dejected their team dropped. Then clubs have to rally again to get that forward momentum to move back up.

With wvw there is no punishment for purposely dropping, there is little server pride to want to move up, there is no incentive for people to want to be the next tier up because they will get dominated. Players lose hope and log in less to get dailies and move on.

There seems to be 2 tiers that people seem to collectively not want to be a part of, T1 due to BG and T4 due to lack of involvement.

But what are the incentives for players and servers? the standard rewards everybody has access too. Maybe a few extra pips if you dominate a tier? It's just not motivating the collective of a server or the link it's with to move up and try to not go down. Even more so for links because in 2 months it's going to get shuffled again and they could be in a new spot. But there is still no incentives for the link to try with its new host.

I'm sure this would create massive bandwagons to certain servers (like it's not already happening. ...), but maybe it would get people trying a little harder in the long run.

@JoEWas.1409 said:

I personally like 1u1d, just not the current version of it.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the idea for +1 -1 but it's obvious that it's not working when, to a large group of players, the real "reward" is staying in 2nd place in order to say in the current tier.

What other 1u 1d system is there? I mean, Win you go down? Lose you go up?

Before this came out, servers were tanking for many reasons. This just gave them a convenient and simple way to pull it off.

@Tiny Doom.4380 said:I'd start by removing ALL extrinsic rewards from WvW, leaving nothing but directly WvW-specific incentives, tied directly and exclusively to winning the match, that could not be used, displayed or recognized outside of the four WvW maps and see where that takes us, population and balance-wise.

I can answer that one for you; into the bin

@FXLEACH.9436 said:Here's hoping an Arenanet employee visits the thread and provides some good answers

hahaha............. no.

@FXLEACH.9436 said:Here's hoping an Arenanet employee visits the thread and provides some good answers and lets us know of some great changes to WvW improving the game-mode.

Employee? No. Intern, yesVisits? No. Has to clear the non-consecutive comments, yesAnswers? No. Presents beginning with the letter I, yes.Changes? No. Removing things, yesImproving? No. Not doing anything, yes.

@"Tiny Doom.4380" said:I'd start by removing ALL extrinsic rewards from WvW, leaving nothing but directly WvW-specific incentives, tied directly and exclusively to winning the match, that could not be used, displayed or recognized outside of the four WvW maps and see where that takes us, population and balance-wise.

There's a reason why they stayed away from rewarding servers instead of personal rewards. To this day that "one" server can win every week and reap maximum rewards, this is why they can't even be opened. So no, rewarding servers is a bad idea, and always will be as long they use this 24/7 ppt system that relies on coverage.

The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

They also cant force people to actually play. Servers that are full of people that want to sit out a match, then complain they cant compete in it :/. Although they will come out in force to ktrain empty maps in easier matches.

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

Don't worry, they do know but just not doing anything in attempt to resolve it. Maybe too troublesome? Maybe too lazy? Maybe just doesn't care? Maybe pve is more important?

Regardless, to me, everything is pointless, the complains, the ranting. Now, I am just gonna go around pouring cold water at people like how people did to the people who once fought for it. Join the dark side.

Magumma proper just opened while having a link. I think it's confirmed even ArenaNet doesn't know what they're doing.

A server that was placing #1 a few weeks ago and beating JQ, is now open. While servers in T2->T4 doing much worse with less population are closed.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

Well here is my view on it...if a player doesn't want to do something that's perfectly fine. Just don't complain about it, you cant have it both ways. You cant sit out a match, then complain you don't have enough people. You cant say there is no competition when you don't even bother to compete and quit right away. Its amazing what 5 people can do on a map, I cant tell you how many times our small teams take over an entire map because nobody bothers to defend anything. If a server is full of people that only show to farm shinies and ktrain empty maps, that's the fault of the server.

@Seasniffer.1763 said:Magumma proper just opened while having a link. I think it's confirmed even ArenaNet doesn't know what they're doing.

A server that was placing #1 a few weeks ago and beating JQ, is now open. While servers in T2->T4 doing much worse with less population are closed.

Tell a certain commander to stop ktraining for 12 hours a day with a map full of pugs, and you might open ;)

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

Btw, the they I refer to is anet.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@X T D.6458 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:The intention with the link has always been clear; to boost the populations while secondary to keep the matchup as competitive as possible.

Of course, the boosting part is obviously working. The competitive part is base on devs' visions of competitiveness.

They can only do so much, I think linking need some tweaks like making it 1 month and giving linked servers the same status as the host. But a lot of it is player driven. I have more problems with class balance and lag, which I think are bigger factors in driving players away.

@X T D.6458 said:

@Seasniffer.1763 said:Magumma proper just opened while having a link. I think it's confirmed even ArenaNet doesn't know what they're doing.

A server that was placing #1 a few weeks ago and beating JQ, is now open. While servers in T2->T4 doing much worse with less population are closed.

Cloudfly? He hasn't played in ~2 weeks, he's busy IRL with work.