[POLL] Alliances vs Reducing Servers & Offering Free Transfers

So considering that players have no information if Alliances were ever started in the first place. What is the forums thoughts? If there has been no head way on the topic. Stay the course or want something different so other development can occur?

I don’t understand how closing linked servers and allowing free transfers will fix population issues.

Can someone explain?

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:I don’t understand how closing linked servers and allowing free transfers will fix population issues.

Can someone explain?

It won't fix the population issues but Alliances won't really do that either. Alliances does two things: It removes the milking so friends can play together unhindered again and it creates a full reset every two months or whatever. That means that any transfers outside of the guild mechanics will be reset every two months too. There will essentially be two parallell systems with the guild system taking precendence over the paid transfers or has more longetivity.

Simply removing the milking will adress that one thing. Free transfers will maintain (and execerbate) the current trends where guild players transfer away from non-guild players and non-guild players follow them. Such a system would obviously be better than what we have now since the 200g farm or the Gem whipout act as the only hinders but they also hinder friends from playing together as much as they keep migrations in some base level check. Without it you will see servers getting stacked and restacked at a quicker pace but the driving forces behind the migrations will be the same.

So, depending on what kind of player you are (affiliated with a guild or not) you will likely favour either system while all players are likely to see any option as better than the dairy farm that we have now. The question in the longer perspective is what kind of behaviour is something to build upon and what kind of behaviour is a root cause to the problems we have. The preference of the majority may not necessarily be the better option for the game (mode).

Closing linked servers basically means removing them so that we're back to the same large chunks of population that cannot be "reset" every two months with relinks. What a giant step backwards. Server links are the very definition of "head way" into Alliances which splits up population into smaller, resettable chunks even if we never get Alliances.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:I don’t understand how closing linked servers and allowing free transfers will fix population issues.

Can someone explain?

The free transfer I referred to was a one time deal for those that are losing their homes. Transfers after that act as normal.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:I don’t understand how closing linked servers and allowing free transfers will fix population issues.

Can someone explain?

It won't fix the problem, especially not with a free transfer option, which is what started the initial stacking back in 2012 early 2013 before they closed it, and then again when they offered it to certain servers before a tournament. Even if you make it a one time transfer you'll get players stacking certain servers and not actually spread out, it's a free pass to screw with the system, it is known.

People think having no link servers will somehow get people to function like a unified community again, and that simply won't happen because of the age of the game and game play that has evolved and has swung people away from the aspects that push people into playing like a community. Like defending your homebl just because it's your home and want to keep everything you have for the ppt, instead now it's just defending fully upgraded places being attacked by a zerg because it's the place to find guaranteed action, but they don't want to switch maps often as it may screw with squad composition because of map queues. Players are more loyal to guilds than servers these days, it's more that likely that more guilds in the game have moved servers at least once, and a good number that have moved 2+ times already.

Alliances will do many things at once for the population.

1. Keep guilds together in a group to play on the same server, less reason for guilds from multiple servers moving and screwing over multiple servers at once, especially after a relink/reshuffle.
2. Sort alliances, guilds, pugs, in a more even distribution over servers, with the option to raise or lower the number of worlds per season to keep populations at a healthy size.
3. Optional sorting of commanders, and time of play.
4. Spread pug population out every two months instead of having them just stack one or two servers and stay like that for years (BG). This is the important one.
5. Have the population more evened out to run tournaments again as seasonal play, (and they should consider something to limit movement by cutting out season rewards entirely for anyone moving mid season because they want to stack to winning servers).

I think at this point the biggest problem going forward isn't even population balance, but lack of commanders, with invisible tags and less reliable consistent pug commanders, pugs will continue to lose interest and leave, with little option to fill their space.

the problem with this poll is threefold. First there are people that are still Loyal and love their server and would not transfer/move regardless (GScH on SOR comes to mind). Second, Being on the link servers have allowed some WvW guilds to recruit and grow because these servers are commonly open 9i know of several guilds like this). Third, there are several guilds on link servers because they like being guaranteed a "fresh" re-link, the changing matchups and changing allies, which bring new challenges and fun. also it allows them to more easily recruit new players from their link server. You cannot fix this problem until the alliance system comes out. Myself, i'd quit WvW before I would transfer voluntarily or involuntarily. and for the record, I play probably 20 hours a week in WvW.

Crunchy chicken is much taste good.