Rethink Linking

[DeWolfe.2174]

@joneirikb.7506 said:we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

It's going to turn out badly! Simply for the fact that the game mode should be based around a large open community of equal players like Worlds, not a guilds. If not then I'd rather just have an EOTM color scheme and no guild tags flown at all.

For tiers, there should be just 3 designed around population and play style as PPT / Fight / Roaming. The world populations need to be raised way up again as it was at launch. There should be more freedom of movement as the Worlds should be free or extremely low cost for transfers. The game mode needs to be freed from all these constraints and manipulation of the developers. We can all see these world population labels, locks, and links, are bogus and the injustice of it all enrages the players.

[Shining One.1635]

@"Fricken.3819" said:I agree with you saying, "a bunch of foundational problems that will continue to exist", but linking does not fix the issue it was set to be used for. I was on SoR at the time of linking back then. and we moved to DH then because we did not want to be in T1 with BG. Yes, communities were dying but linking only exacerbated the problem. No communities won't SPROUT back up, but the ones left may get to grow or stick around and healthy competition may happen from time to time.You want to go back to a point in time where some enemies swarmed you when you tried to flip a northern sentry on your home map? Or some different enemies would whisper you while you're playing Fractals, asking you to enter WvW and solo flip some Tier 3 Keeps / Towers / Camps so they can flip them back for their dailies? That was frequently my Sanctum of Rall experience prior to linking. I certainly didn't consider it healthy competition.

[joneirikb.7506]

@Fricken.3819 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:You're nostalgic about a specific time of the game history that you enjoyed, more than for the system. Removing tiers now wouldn't bring that back, it would just further show the problems with the game mode, and expose just how empty some of the tiers would be, and how way out of whack the population of the servers would be.

Also, just like you don't choose which server you're linked with, you never chossed who to be on a server with. To accomplish some sort of control over that, we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

---

Regarding choosing what sort of gameplay you want to play, I think they could accomplish that better by making separate maps for different modes, rather than artificially splitting people for it. Or just make the game mode relevant enough that people actually want to play the game mode in all it's different ways, since that would be the most efficient way for winning a match-up. So the problem is closer related to the fact that most doesn't care if they win/lose, rather than the population.

Yes, I was there for that time, but I was also there when everyone left wvw because of Red BL being the only bl with bad mechs. etc. yes 7 tiers may be too much, but linking (beta) is not better than the old system, and waiting on alliances is a dead meme. Cutting everyone one down to even 5-6 servers would be healthier for the mode than linking is for the game until the "next big thing they won't finish" comes out.

And why do you think that deleting some servers and force those players into other servers are better than linking ?

You'd completely ruin any last semblance of the "server culture/community" that way, and kill off the last ones. You'd force even more people to play somewhere else and thus give them even less control over where they play with who.

The server communities was pretty much dying from the start, and keep dying. Especially the MegaServer was a strong blow to the whole server-community, and at the point where they introduced linking I'd have to completely agree that server-community wasn't a large enough thing to warrant much consideration.

It isn't perfect, not by a far shot, but it's better than merging servers and forcing people to get stuck with each others permanently if they want to or not.

The move towards alliance is the best shot they have, simply because guilds are the last bastion of community in the game, after MegaServer destroyed the server-community.

---

For more varied play styles, I DO NOT want that locked to tiers, I don't want to have to transfer each time I want to play something different in WvW.

I'd rather they split it off to own maps, or even EotM style maps independent off the match-up, that focus on specific play styles. Like a small scale/roaming map for example.

Some people like playing multiple ways and sizes, and some have friends or guilds they play some ways with, and other ways with others or alone etc. At this point I'd rather have a linking system that at least can put me in a blob match for 2 months, and then roaming-lands the next. Rather than being stuck in one forever.

---

@DeWolfe.2174 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

It's going to turn out badly! Simply for the fact that the game mode should be based around a large open community of equal players like Worlds, not a guilds. If not then I'd rather just have an EOTM color scheme and no guild tags flown at all.

For tiers, there should be just 3 designed around population and play style as PPT / Fight / Roaming. The world populations need to be raised way up again as it was at launch. There should be more freedom of movement as the Worlds should be free or extremely low cost for transfers. The game mode needs to be freed from all these constraints and manipulation of the developers. We can all see these world population labels, locks, and links, are bogus and the injustice of it all enrages the players.

You want wvw to be focused around server-communities, and then say we should be free to transfer around, and basically bunch all servers more or less together into as few servers as possible. And then split up the different type of gameplay ?

I must admit I find your suggestions very conflicting, like you're trying to first mash all the servers together, and then rip them appart again, and in the meantime make sure to rip appart the last bit of server-community.

---

Personally I see guilds as the last bastion of community in this game, as MegaServers and bandwagon/server-transferring has watered our or just ran over what little was left of the old server communities. I honestly don't see much left to salvage there, and neither do I see new communities build up around a system of frequent moving in/out (even without linking). So the only thing left where I see communities build are guilds.

Guilds are also one of the few things in the game where you can control who you want to play with, by invite/kick or just join/leave the guild with people you like. If you're going to try to build a community, you need a way to actually build it the way you want it, including a way to deny people that would be disrruptive for that community. Guild does that, Servers doesn't (just ask any server that been bandwagoned).

---

Regarding splitting play styles to specific tiers, that would be an even more band-aid solution than linking. Suddenly a server get designated as "roaming" and a bunch of the loyal players that stuck on the server through thick and thin, that might prefer a more zerg gameplay, might just give up and feel they they've been betrayed by the system. It would go very much against ANet's philosophy of "play as you like".

Similarly trying to cram all this into 3 tiers, would certainly overcrowd the game, and I really can't imagine how you want a "roaming" tier, if you're going to cram like 3 servers into 1 for it ? Roaming with 20 players ?

And also by opening for more transferring through free or cheaper transferring you'll just encourage the final blow to what little server communities remain (and also the deathblow to any remote chance for competition and population balance in the game mode), as should be pretty obvious at this point of the game that humans are going to use that in all the wrong ways to screw up balance/population/communities, all for personal gain/pride.

---

About splitting playstyles:

I do agree that we should have ways to play different play styles, but I don't agree that we have to move servers to do so, or split communities to do so. You argue that everyone should be able to play what they like, and that they should focus on server communities, but then your suggestion seems designed to destroy just those aspects.

As I've suggested before (in this thread and elsewhere), I'd rather see them making own maps for different play styles, so we could have a own "roaming map", a own "fighting map" etc (ebg already work quite well as the ppt/zerg map). This could either be added to the existing map selection, or added as an extra map through a EotM system and removed from ppt (alternatively).

That way people could look up the play styles they wanted without having to leave their communities, ability to play with their guilds, and without having to transfer back and forth constantly.

A "roaming" map could for example have no building larger than towers, and only a few of them, lots of small objectives, lots of small roads that would be cumbersome to walk with 6+ players, add in signals that automatically show large consentrations of players on the map etc.

[Fricken.3819]

@Shining One.1635 said:

@"Fricken.3819" said:I agree with you saying, "a bunch of foundational problems that will continue to exist", but linking does not fix the issue it was set to be used for. I was on SoR at the time of linking back then. and we moved to DH then because we did not want to be in T1 with BG. Yes, communities were dying but linking only exacerbated the problem. No communities won't SPROUT back up, but the ones left may get to grow or stick around and healthy competition may happen from time to time.You want to go back to a point in time where some enemies swarmed you when you tried to flip a northern sentry on your home map? Or some different enemies would whisper you while you're playing Fractals, asking you to enter WvW and solo flip some Tier 3 Keeps / Towers / Camps so they can flip them back for their dailies? That was frequently my Sanctum of Rall experience prior to linking. I certainly didn't consider it healthy competition.

None of this happens now? We left SoR because we wanted a better experience... it was the people's choice to stay there. when we moved to DH then, it was great... until linking and the bandwagon started even harder because people are forced into playing with communities they don't want or for an easy ride of the best link.

[Fricken.3819]

@joneirikb.7506 said:

@Fricken.3819 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:You're nostalgic about a specific time of the game history that you enjoyed, more than for the system. Removing tiers now wouldn't bring that back, it would just further show the problems with the game mode, and expose just how empty some of the tiers would be, and how way out of whack the population of the servers would be.

Also, just like you don't choose which server you're linked with, you never chossed who to be on a server with. To accomplish some sort of control over that, we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

---

Regarding choosing what sort of gameplay you want to play, I think they could accomplish that better by making separate maps for different modes, rather than artificially splitting people for it. Or just make the game mode relevant enough that people actually want to play the game mode in all it's different ways, since that would be the most efficient way for winning a match-up. So the problem is closer related to the fact that most doesn't care if they win/lose, rather than the population.

Yes, I was there for that time, but I was also there when everyone left wvw because of Red BL being the only bl with bad mechs. etc. yes 7 tiers may be too much, but linking (beta) is not better than the old system, and waiting on alliances is a dead meme. Cutting everyone one down to even 5-6 servers would be healthier for the mode than linking is for the game until the "next big thing they won't finish" comes out.

And why do you think that deleting some servers and force those players into other servers are better than linking ?

You'd completely ruin any last semblance of the "server culture/community" that way, and kill off the last ones. You'd force even more people to play somewhere else and thus give them even less control over where they play with who.

The server communities was pretty much dying from the start, and keep dying. Especially the MegaServer was a strong blow to the whole server-community, and at the point where they introduced linking I'd have to completely agree that server-community wasn't a large enough thing to warrant much consideration.

It isn't perfect, not by a far shot, but it's better than merging servers and forcing people to get stuck with each others permanently if they want to or not.

The move towards alliance is the best shot they have, simply because guilds are the last bastion of community in the game, after MegaServer destroyed the server-community.

---

For more varied play styles, I DO NOT want that locked to tiers, I don't want to have to transfer each time I want to play something different in WvW.

I'd rather they split it off to own maps, or even EotM style maps independent off the match-up, that focus on specific play styles. Like a small scale/roaming map for example.

Some people like playing multiple ways and sizes, and some have friends or guilds they play some ways with, and other ways with others or alone etc. At this point I'd rather have a linking system that at least can put me in a blob match for 2 months, and then roaming-lands the next. Rather than being stuck in one forever.

---

@DeWolfe.2174 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

It's going to turn out badly! Simply for the fact that the game mode should be based around a large open community of equal players like Worlds, not a guilds. If not then I'd rather just have an EOTM color scheme and no guild tags flown at all.

For tiers, there should be just 3 designed around population and play style as PPT / Fight / Roaming. The world populations need to be raised way up again as it was at launch. There should be more freedom of movement as the Worlds should be free or extremely low cost for transfers. The game mode needs to be freed from all these constraints and manipulation of the developers. We can all see these world population labels, locks, and links, are bogus and the injustice of it all enrages the players.

You want wvw to be focused around server-communities, and then say we should be free to transfer around, and basically bunch all servers more or less together into as few servers as possible. And then split up the different type of gameplay ?

I must admit I find your suggestions very conflicting, like you're trying to first mash all the servers together, and then rip them appart again, and in the meantime make sure to rip appart the last bit of server-community.

---

Personally I see guilds as the last bastion of community in this game, as MegaServers and bandwagon/server-transferring has watered our or just ran over what little was left of the old server communities. I honestly don't see much left to salvage there, and neither do I see new communities build up around a system of frequent moving in/out (even without linking). So the only thing left where I see communities build are guilds.

Guilds are also one of the few things in the game where you can control who you want to play with, by invite/kick or just join/leave the guild with people you like. If you're going to try to build a community, you need a way to actually build it the way you want it, including a way to deny people that would be disrruptive for that community. Guild does that, Servers doesn't (just ask any server that been bandwagoned).

---

Regarding splitting play styles to specific tiers, that would be an even more band-aid solution than linking. Suddenly a server get designated as "roaming" and a bunch of the loyal players that stuck on the server through thick and thin, that might prefer a more zerg gameplay, might just give up and feel they they've been betrayed by the system. It would go very much against ANet's philosophy of "play as you like".

Similarly trying to cram all this into 3 tiers, would certainly overcrowd the game, and I really can't imagine how you want a "roaming" tier, if you're going to cram like 3 servers into 1 for it ? Roaming with 20 players ?

And also by opening for more transferring through free or cheaper transferring you'll just encourage the final blow to what little server communities remain (and also the deathblow to any remote chance for competition and population balance in the game mode), as should be pretty obvious at this point of the game that humans are going to use that in all the wrong ways to screw up balance/population/communities, all for personal gain/pride.

---

About splitting playstyles:

I do agree that we should have ways to play different play styles, but I don't agree that we have to move servers to do so, or split communities to do so. You argue that everyone should be able to play what they like, and that they should focus on server communities, but then your suggestion seems designed to destroy just those aspects.

As I've suggested before (in this thread and elsewhere), I'd rather see them making own maps for different play styles, so we could have a own "roaming map", a own "fighting map" etc (ebg already work quite well as the ppt/zerg map). This could either be added to the existing map selection, or added as an extra map through a EotM system and removed from ppt (alternatively).

That way people could look up the play styles they wanted without having to leave their communities, ability to play with their guilds, and without having to transfer back and forth constantly.

A "roaming" map could for example have no building larger than towers, and only a few of them, lots of small objectives, lots of small roads that would be cumbersome to walk with 6+ players, add in signals that automatically show large consentrations of players on the map etc.

To think that if at some point 20 roamers on a map kill the "roaming style" is false because roamers will spread themselves out then consolidate against larger groups, I am not giving hard lines on what each of Gold, silver, and Bronze should be, but allowing space for people to choose is better than 2-month Shakeups that only add fuel to breaking communities apart, I've seen more BIG guilds die on servers because of bad linking because no one wants to play, than people that were left back on SOR that should have been offering a free transfer and that tier killed off. Yes, those communities would have been killed off but the people "few" that were left could have kept the "SOR" community together ( if they wanted) on another server they work well with but not be transplanted every two months.

Your ideas are good, but I want them to do something until the "the ded meme" alliances come out. We know adding tiers is not that hard as shown in the EU. and if it's a fail then put it back after the 2 months. no coding needed, no new systems, no resource except for giving everyone a free transfer. It's a temporary change while waiting for a long term solution which is what I thought links would be when they added them. From Links we got good systems IMO like 1up 1 down, Skirmishes, and PPK. but linking IMO doe's nothing for wvw in a positive way.

[Fricken.3819]

@DeWolfe.2174 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:we'll have to see how the Alliance system (eventually) turns out.

It's going to turn out badly! Simply for the fact that the game mode should be based around a large open community of equal players like Worlds, not a guilds. If not then I'd rather just have an EOTM color scheme and no guild tags flown at all.

For tiers, there should be just 3 designed around population and play style as PPT / Fight / Roaming. The world populations need to be raised way up again as it was at launch. There should be more freedom of movement as the Worlds should be free or extremely low cost for transfers. The game mode needs to be freed from all these constraints and manipulation of the developers. We can all see these world population labels, locks, and links, are bogus and the injustice of it all enrages the players.

3 tiers is a bad Idea... who chooses to follow the PPT/Fight/ Roaming in 1 tier each... giving more tiers than now allows there to be mixing of the types of play where T1 is blob fight and ghost town between that with 100 roamers each map defending things and tier 7 or lowest tier a guild of 15 be would be big and roamers of 5 each map defend objectives. Mid tiers would be guilds of 30, roamers 15 a map etc maybe map caps for each tier would help with this?. yep... blob guild could bandwagon a low tier server but people playing would have to deal with heavy q? could work.I would also like an EOTM style on current maps at this point, Guilds are the last remaining community. Server tiers are just a way to get the style of play you enjoy and if you build a community around guilds, roamers, on a server, even better.

[XenesisII.1540]

Meh I think linking actually delayed some of the problems, of course it came with it's own set of problems, but I feel like at that point there was no choice.

The bandwagoning was happening even a couple months after release, when transfers were still free, DB to SoS was one of the first big ones. Over time this got worse as players became disenchanted with ppt and started to just fight more, this in turn led to more guilds turning to fights, which messed the community relationship, even to the point where some of these guilds would become toxic to their own community to get people off maps for their own, ultimately they created two fight tiers over this. The shift from server loyalty to guild loyalty was continuing to grow.

We also had the desert borderland come out, which did damage on different fronts. That map drove players out of wvw, and even to this day has a hard time getting players to defend it like they would an alpine map. It's a terrible map to defend and a lot of the community relations tend to come from players working together in defending, whether that be scouts alerting players(automated with watch towers), or upgrading structures(again automated), or getting commanders or guilds to help come defend against big threats, smaller guilds that helped in those purposes also started to die off.

This relationship has been breaking down as each year passes by, as we get less commanders, and less guilds, and hidden tags, forced voice to squad, or more commanders turning to just leading their own guild in tagless rallies, and overall less people willing to even jump a map to defend something unless it's 25+ there with emergency waypoint ready and t3 and no queue to jump back.

As for server identity that is also being lost over time, yes links has a hand in that, but really it's players and design. Because a lot of people use the abbreviated name tags you get a lot of scout calls by color not server names anymore, and with that it diminishes all the reputations those names use to have. Megaserver also screwed over wvw emergency calls and recruitment. What's server pride these days anyways? The last surviving server that had any amount of server pride was BG, and they had many bandwagons, paid guilds, world first teq kill, world first tournie winner, and overwhelming other server in ppt for years to carry them through it all while also propping up other server to stay with them in t1, and only this past year they've fallen to everyone elses level.

There's no pride in defending or winning, winning means nothing, defending a paper tower means nothing, defending a t3 structure means nothing, winning a match means nothing, getting out of a tier means nothing, getting to be the tippity top server in ranks means nothing, the prestige for any of that stuff clubbered to death by coverage. Something falls, you back cap it in 5 mins and move on, and the dedicated defenders efforts of 2 hours wasted in a span of a couple mins. Just today I watched a t3 tower fall because the commander was busy taking a camp on the other side of the map, we didn't have as much as the attackers but no real effort was made to defend. These are the bonds that use to tie players together for a purpose in wvw.

The communities have always had the potential to grow before and after links, the problem is whether or not the players actually want to bother, but the fact of the matter is a lot of them don't anymore.

As for roaming, that's dead, I've been roaming this past week and can barely get 1v1 with anyone, it's always groups of 2-10 gank squads running around. People aren't interested in roaming anymore, it's all about ganking people. Trying to split the community by play style is a terrible concept, because when you get into the ppt or fight servers there's still going to be room for roaming because those guilds and fights aren't running 24/7. Maguuma probably has the most roamers in the game at the moment, know what they do with a map full of roamers? they make a giant roaming cloud instead, they don't spread out as you'd like to think.

Like I said real roaming has been dead for a while, part of that is due to class balances, other part is people are just too scared to fight alone anymore unless they're on some broken movement/stealth/sustain spec(look at the uptick in condi revs and reapers lately). What @joneirikb.7506 mentions about having maps specific to play styles actually makes more sense to do, like having a map with small objectives like towers and camps and sentries for "roaming", and a map with only big objectives with smc in the middle and three keeps and three arenas around it, but none of this will ever happen.

[Luthan.5236]

Personally - and I haven't really played WvW since end of 2013 - I liked the system back then 2012/13. I think before the tiers it was even possible for the super weak servers (no linking) to fight vs. the strong ones.

I did like to fight for "my" server/world. Now with the linking ... I wasn't really motivated to try WvW again when I returned 2019, June. (Didn't play GW2 from end 2013 until 2019.) Feels like ... I don't know ... like a PvP match with temporary team members where you don't care if it goes bad.

Back then I played on Underworld. Super weak sevrver. Often getting pwned until they made the system with tiers. Was still fun to fight back. (Biggest problem was "night capping" when on lower populated servers less people were online but still stuff got taken in the day if possible ... and upgraded. At least the own keeps close to spawn location.) // (And I'm still on Underworld. Never changed the server since release. I only have that 1 account. But especially since Underworld was weak I guess if I went to WvW now there would be almost no Underworld players left. Only those other servers I don't care about. Basically only interesting for achievements to play WvW then - especially since I like the game mode where it is about zerging less than PvP.)

I'd prefer if everyone got a free server transfer (I'm from EU an I'd love to region change to try the community in the NA and their WvW) and maybe regularly discounts and encouraging people to spread across the servers. (To make population more evenly distributed.)

But I think I read people talking about the problem with the gems: So I guess it is in ArenaNet's interest to have expensive server transfers (which will keep stronger pouplated servers strong ... nobody would want to switch ... if they wanted to go back it would cost lots of gems) so people will buy gems?

[XenesisII.1540]

@"Luthan.5236" said:Personally - and I haven't really played WvW since end of 2013 - I liked the system back then 2012/13. I think before the tiers it was even possible for the super weak servers (no linking) to fight vs. the strong ones.

I did like to fight for "my" server/world. Now with the linking ... I wasn't really motivated to try WvW again when I returned 2019, June. (Didn't play GW2 from end 2013 until 2019.) Feels like ... I don't know ... like a PvP match with temporary team members where you don't care if it goes bad.

Back then I played on Underworld. Super weak sevrver. Often getting pwned until they made the system with tiers. Was still fun to fight back. (Biggest problem was "night capping" when on lower populated servers less people were online but still stuff got taken in the day if possible ... and upgraded. At least the own keeps close to spawn location.) // (And I'm still on Underworld. Never changed the server since release. I only have that 1 account. But especially since Underworld was weak I guess if I went to WvW now there would be almost no Underworld players left. Only those other servers I don't care about. Basically only interesting for achievements to play WvW then - especially since I like the game mode where it is about zerging less than PvP.)

I'd prefer if everyone got a free server transfer (I'm from EU an I'd love to region change to try the community in the NA and their WvW) and maybe regularly discounts and encouraging people to spread across the servers. (To make population more evenly distributed.)

But I think I read people talking about the problem with the gems: So I guess it is in ArenaNet's interest to have expensive server transfers (which will keep stronger pouplated servers strong ... nobody would want to switch ... if they wanted to go back it would cost lots of gems) so people will buy gems?

You're still stuck in 2013 thinking, things have changed greatly in 6 years, not just links, but everything around it that led to it. Tiers were always present from day one, and you would still get the matchups where like a rank 3 server would drop all the way down to t3/4 because there was a huge random +- variable to glicko in matching servers for the matches, a lot of those matches would end up being blow outs especially when over night coverage came in.

They lowered the variable a few times and then started to have glicko walls in NA, where t1 servers were stuck with each other for like a year straight. It then took like a group of like 8 guilds to bandwagon to yaks bend to try and break that wall, which meant they had to over run and destroy t2 during that time to build their glicko high enough. Later on after links, t4 was also going to get glicko walled off which forced players to transfer up because they didn't want to be stuck in the potentially dead tier, the 1u1d system fixed those problems eventually.

You say underworld was weak even back in 2013, and it probably would still be regardless of links or not, the only other thing that would save it is a bandwagon or free transfer, which was rarer to happen on lower tiered servers. 500 gems to transfer to a low pop server is pretty cheap by gold standards these days, you can make way more gold today than in 2013, even completing dailies gives you 2g a day, I've never had to paid for a transfer with real money even with the little pve I bother to do.

Also giving everyone a free transfer to "evenly distribute" will never work, it didn't when we had free transfers back in 2012-jan2013, heck the free one right before the second tournament was a huge mistake. Most players just want to be where the actions at.

[Shining One.1635]

@Fricken.3819 said:None of this happens now?I've yet to log on to my entire home borderland being all one enemy color and everything Tier 3 since linking started. Even during the period of time we were a host without a link and the vast majority of people abandoned the server (went from Full to Medium), this still didn't happen. While competition wasn't healthy at all during that particular linking, it was far, far better than it was prior to linking.

[Fricken.3819]

@"XenesisII.1540" said:Meh I think linking actually delayed some of the problems, of course it came with it's own set of problems, but I feel like at that point there was no choice.> I agree they had to do something, they tried links and I only think it hurt more than helped

The bandwagoning was happening even a couple months after release, when transfers were still free, DB to SoS was one of the first big ones. Over time this got worse as players became disenchanted with ppt and started to just fight more, this in turn led to more guilds turning to fights, which messed the community relationship, even to the point where some of these guilds would become toxic to their own community to get people off maps for their own, ultimately they created two fight tiers over this. The shift from server loyalty to guild loyalty was continuing to grow.> Never said this would stop bandwagon, but not allow full servers to get bandwagon through no link is a good start. Remembered voting for Linking to be 1 or 3 months and we voted 1 so they said we will give 2, lol

We also had the desert borderland come out, which did damage on different fronts. That map drove players out of wvw, and even to this day has a hard time getting players to defend it like they would an alpine map. It's a terrible map to defend and a lot of the community relations tend to come from players working together in defending, whether that be scouts alerting players(automated with watch towers), or upgrading structures(again automated), or getting commanders or guilds to help come defend against big threats, smaller guilds that helped in those purposes also started to die off.

> Desert BL with an expansion that forced players into PVE to grind to get best in slot wvw gear with no reward tracks, tickets etc. was a bad choice. and a bl that forced more people to take things with barricades and glitches that allow jumping into wing keeps, pve event that lagged all off wvw and made all walls go to 50%, so many things that wvw community said don't do then ask us if we wanted it and everyone voted no then they added it back

This relationship has been breaking down as each year passes by, as we get less commanders, and less guilds, and hidden tags, forced voice to squad, or more commanders turning to just leading their own guild in tagless rallies, and overall less people willing to even jump a map to defend something unless it's 25+ there with emergency waypoint ready and t3 and no queue to jump back.

Most of the time this is because BLOB guilds that queue a map alone can't be bothered, and bad pugs that can't defend, when that blob guild should be sending people over to help, but are mindless derps that can't do anything without their tag or even play the game mode without their guild.

As for server identity that is also being lost over time, yes links has a hand in that, but really it's players and design. Because a lot of people use the abbreviated name tags you get a lot of scout calls by color not server names anymore, and with that it diminishes all the reputations those names use to have. Megaserver also screwed over wvw emergency calls and recruitment. What's server pride these days anyways? The last surviving server that had any amount of server pride was BG, and they had many bandwagons, paid guilds, world first teq kill, world first tournie winner, and overwhelming other server in ppt for years to carry them through it all while also propping up other server to stay with them in t1, and only this past year they've fallen to everyone elses level.

When you are linked to a host server.. you are that server... they normally have more guilds population and "pull" so you must obey /s. They queue out maps good or not and may bring your KDR to .2 I would move away from them but in 2 months may end right back up with them, so what's the point?

There's no pride in defending or winning, winning means nothing, defending a paper tower means nothing, defending a t3 structure means nothing, winning a match means nothing, getting out of a tier means nothing, getting to be the tippity top server in ranks means nothing, the prestige for any of that stuff clubbered to death by coverage. Something falls, you back cap it in 5 mins and move on, and the dedicated defenders efforts of 2 hours wasted in a span of a couple mins. Just today I watched a t3 tower fall because the commander was busy taking a camp on the other side of the map, we didn't have as much as the attackers but no real effort was made to defend. These are the bonds that use to tie players together for a purpose in wvw.Winning means nothing but the style of gameplay and guild competitiveness could be there.

The communities have always had the potential to grow before and after links, the problem is whether or not the players actually want to bother, but the fact of the matter is a lot of them don't anymore.No one wants to bother because every 2months it changes anyway and they have no choice.

As for roaming, that's dead, I've been roaming this past week and can barely get 1v1 with anyone, it's always groups of 2-10 gank squads running around. People aren't interested in roaming anymore, it's all about ganking people. Trying to split the community by play style is a terrible concept, because when you get into the ppt or fight servers there's still going to be room for roaming because those guilds and fights aren't running 24/7. Maguuma probably has the most roamers in the game at the moment, know what they do with a map full of roamers? they make a giant roaming cloud instead, they don't spread out as you'd like to think.

Mag is prob. the last server community NA, like them or hate them. They could use a few tags and guilds for the BL, but they play the cloud because it works against bad guilds and keeps them playing where they want to be. They do go to bl's, if the farm is there. They don't have a guild carrying them or pug tag bringing the wagon over. and that's after most of their guilds left to other servers or went to EU.They are not roamers, they are a server of players that responds to fights. roaming to me is 2-5 people havoc groups. roaming is not 1v1... go to OS for that. if you get outnumbered bad luck try again it's a open map game.

Like I said real roaming has been dead for a while, part of that is due to class balances, other part is people are just too scared to fight alone anymore unless they're on some broken movement/stealth/sustain spec(look at the uptick in condi revs and reapers lately). What @joneirikb.7506 mentions about having maps specific to play styles actually makes more sense to do, like having a map with small objectives like towers and camps and sentries for "roaming", and a map with only big objectives with smc in the middle and three keeps and three arenas around it, but none of this will ever happen.

They would need a whole new game mode for this... but I would like it, just don't see Anet ever adding another mode.

[Fricken.3819]

@Shining One.1635 said:

@"Fricken.3819" said:None of this happens now?I've yet to log on to my entire home borderland being all one enemy color and everything Tier 3 since linking started. Even during the period of time we were a host without a link and the vast majority of people abandoned the server (went from Full to Medium), this still didn't happen. While competition wasn't healthy at all during that particular linking, it was far, far better than it was prior to linking.

Lucky you, I have been on servers where they spawn camped people for hours and hours and have been spawn camped for hours and hours. Things aren't getting to t3 now because defending stuff is worthless, and tiering up things doesn't matter because you can PPK more points than PPT. Servers "paper" stuff just to get the fight... not to defend to get the points.

[Slick.7164]

Re link once a month. Make the bandwagons create more revenue for anet. Make them pay to transfer twice as often. They got credit cards and will use them.

[Riba.3271]

@Slick.7164 said:Re link once a month. Make the bandwagons create more revenue for anet. Make them pay to transfer twice as often. They got credit cards and will use them.

Double the prices too, maximum income. Comms drop ascended food for everyone and they have their legendary sets, what else would they use their money on?

[DeWolfe.2174]

@Fricken.3819 said:3 tiers is a bad Idea

That is what the players and guilds formed naturally since the beginning and even today. Originally it was JQ, BG, and either one of SOS, TC, YB in 3rd place of T1. Then we had a fight tier in T2 that people transferred to an enjoyed as they didn't want the pressure of constant PPT'ing in T1. The other tiers were diminishing levels of population. Right now, we don't have the population for more than 4 tiers, 3 would be far more active. You can keep the 4th if you want a purely wilderness tier.

btw.. individuals transferring is not what demolished server communities, its the Guilds transferring and stacking that demolish communities. Now you can't even form communities with linking constantly tearing them apart.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@XenesisII.1540 said:Meh I think linking actually delayed some of the problems, of course it came with it's own set of problems, but I feel like at that point there was no choice.

But it did come with WvW reward tracks! Unfortunately with that at release of links you couldn't fully tell how much activity linking brought as the reward tracks gave it a false boost of population for a while.

We also had the desert borderland come out, which did damage on different fronts. That map drove players out of wvw, and even to this day has a hard time getting players to defend it like they would an alpine map. It's a terrible map to defend and a lot of the community relations tend to come from players working together in defending, whether that be scouts alerting players(automated with watch towers), or upgrading structures(again automated), or getting commanders or guilds to help come defend against big threats, smaller guilds that helped in those purposes also started to die off.

When WvW was desert only it also had none of the reward tracks mentioned above, and if you wanted guild hall upgrades you HAD to go to pve or even pvp to get them, plus WvW players are lazy and don't like to learn tricky maps.

There's no pride in defending or winning, winning means nothing, defending a paper tower means nothing, defending a t3 structure means nothing, winning a match means nothing, getting out of a tier means nothing, getting to be the tippity top server in ranks means nothing, the prestige for any of that stuff clubbered to death by coverage. Something falls, you back cap it in 5 mins and move on, and the dedicated defenders efforts of 2 hours wasted in a span of a couple mins. Just today I watched a t3 tower fall because the commander was busy taking a camp on the other side of the map, we didn't have as much as the attackers but no real effort was made to defend. These are the bonds that use to tie players together for a purpose in wvw.

So much this, my guild would always try and be in an enemy borderland causing trouble, but if there was real help needed at home we would go because I knew the players there putting in SO much time and gold to upgrade our home borderland.

The communities have always had the potential to grow before and after links, the problem is whether or not the players actually want to bother, but the fact of the matter is a lot of them don't anymore.

Again too true, where people would hit a wall moving up server tiers in the old days and could only get stronger through server organization(which with more organization brought more players to the server). Now which is easier, server organization or transferring to a cheap link? The fact that large guilds do this sometimes regularly should be a big warning.

Overall very nice post...I love it all except for the desert comments, I enjoy the map for everything it used to be, and still today even though it's only a shell of its original self.

[displayname.8315]

Wish New World would hurry up maybe Anet would actually do alliances if they set a date.

Anyone watch the latest vids about the "Territory Wars"? Looks interesting. Cannons, repeater gun siege, mortar bombs, flame oil. Ranger pew pew appears to be a FPS shooter.. that's way better than rangers in this game.

[Cuks.8241]

@Slick.7164 said:Re link once a month. Make the bandwagons create more revenue for anet. Make them pay to transfer twice as often. They got credit cards and will use them.

Actually agree. If they shake things up, might as well do it more often.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"displayname.8315" said:Wish New World would hurry up maybe Anet would actually do alliances if they set a date.

Anyone watch the latest vids about the "Territory Wars"? Looks interesting. Cannons, repeater gun siege, mortar bombs, flame oil. Ranger pew pew appears to be a FPS shooter.. that's way better than rangers in this game.Except did you actually read about how it works? It's 50v50 battles of random players over company owned keeps. Why random? Because there's no way "normal" companies will be able to fill that count any more than GW2 guilds can bring 90 people to fill a border, only a few will be able to. And those randoms? Well they have to travel to the area and sign up for the battle at the preset time. As it looks now, it seems to be about as good as the territory fights in Archeage. It was not something your average player could even participate in, it was only for hardcore guilds and it flopped so hard. Cant imagine it's particularly fun if you 10 man company that's spent time and money building up a lovely territory, gets declared war on by a 200+ man "fight company" that could go to war 3 times over and still have people to spare. Yeah those 40 random pugs will really be of help against 50 organized people on discord in defending your territory.

I expect it'll work decently for maybe 3-6 months, after that unless the game is absolutely fantastic in every regard it will quickly deteriorate as there's not enough players to fill slots - or not enough players that want to fill the slot - while the gap to the remaining "fight companies" increase so much it's basicly impossible to compete.

But maybe that's just pessimistic old me.