Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Host servers versus Hosted


MarkBecks.6453

Recommended Posts

Seems that the system is in need of timely review, I see so many of the hosted servers having more activity, yet in the following MU, that does not affect the system, rather the same Host server is still the main server. I cannot understand this because some servers are locked due to populations, however, our server lost 5-7 guild over the course of the last year, but still locked and always the main server, which causes much frustration because we are clearly not full. In the end it doesn't matter how many gems you get from player transfer if players are frustrated and leave the game, and the sad reality, is one day those gems are going to dry up and you going to be left with empty servers. I know the Alliances was supposed to resolve these issues, but already in a guild of 300 players, 10-15 are active at most, the rest have not played for months and years. Please review the system for the sake of WvW, as in its current state Mains locked, and hosted servers always seem to have space for transfers. These hosted servers suddenly have the higher WvW populations. Within 5 minutes of linking, your fair linking system has been overturned and is inconsequential due to transfers.The WvW community was very active, as players took the game seriously. yet many of the Old Guard have left, and left behind a huge void that can never be replaced. What is the way forward, as I am sure the WvW community will comment with some ideas that can be looked at to resolve this huge imbalance. Any ideas Ladies and Gents as I am sure with some people still having some server pride they dont want to leave their current servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MarkBecks.6453 said:Any ideas Ladies and Gents as I am sure with some people still having some server pride they dont want to leave their current servers.

Well, like you're pointing out and as I have been saying for ages: Guilds make up the vast majority of content but a decreasing small portion of the populace. Servers that get stacked get stacked with few players from guilds first and many players without guilds later. Servers that are full have sizable casual- or PvX populations that tend to bloom when those servers get content produced by guilds.

This is the situation that the developer has created by not giving the mode any attention in general and when they have made exceptions to that rule they have given attention to players without guilds in particular. This is the result of that.

To turn that around they need to give the mode more attention in general and they need to give guilds attention in particular. They figured that out a couple of years ago when they started two major projects for the competetive team: World Restructuring (Alliances) for WvW and Backend Restructuring (10man+) for sPvP. They have just never delivered on those systems in three years. The sPvP project can be important for WvW as it can create more overlap between the sPvP and WvW populations and it could double as a working GvG project for player-run events with guild content for WvW guilds.

Apart from that there are a myriad of other things they could do to put more attention and focus onto WvW but those two things are leaps and bounds more important than anything else. Not the least because a system like Alliances where half the game's servers are not locked would mean a chance to get friends to come play the game with us. We can't bring new players to the game with the full server system.

With all this in mind, people with server pride never created their servers' content so their oppinion is largely irrelevant. It is people with server pride that make up the casual- and PvX populace that only seems to play when someone else has tagged up for them and thus keep their servers full. You do not solve a problem by listening to the people that are the problem, even if they are the majority.

Having accounts on both host and link servers also gives perspective. It's interesting to see how many incorrect assumptions tar people's words. The full servers assume themselves to be much smaller than what they are and they assume the nomad communities to be much larger than they are simply by the disparity in content. The inccorect assumptions is not by some common percentage either but often by three-four times.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Hope this provides the OP the feedback (why & how) that they're looking for.

Told you so. Track record of things for the past 4-5 yearshttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1311428/#Comment_1311428

The way forward, that can resolve this huge imbalance...imhohttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89449/wvg-world-vs-globes/p1

Credibility requires critical insight & time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"subversiontwo.7501" i don't necessarily disagree, but on Desolation they actually been the majority of activity as well;"Well, like you're pointing out and as I have been saying for ages: Guilds make up the vast majority of content but a decreasing small portion of the populace. Servers that get stacked get stacked with few players from guilds first and many players without guilds later. "^this is therefore not working here. our numbers extremly rely on our linked server, therefore i agree, it makes absolutely no sense that we're a permaful host server. we have some odd night population, but even those are by now usually outnumbered 1:3 normally.

the guilds we lost been actually rather 9-10... about seven alone in 2019 november, the other three bigger across 2020, each had about ~25 members. that's more than three full maps... and whenever unlinked, you wouldn't find big groups mostly. we even promote our discord constantly, there are just no players. something is deeply wrong in the system. surely, some roamers and ppters are going wild by playing like 16 hours a day, but in a sense making system, that shouldn't be counted the same as big groups moving around.like, even if we got many newbies from other servers or plain new players, it is impossible that they refilled the 250 spots up. even the overbored "gift of battle" farmers (pls anet, just make this crap sellable via trade post...) cannot be making that much content. they take like 1 week i guess and be never seen again (not that one really "sees" them doing anything but they tend to complain in chat)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"kamikharzeeh.8016" said:this is therefore not working here. our numbers extremly rely on our linked server, therefore i agree, it makes absolutely no sense that we're a permaful host server. we have some odd night population, but even those are by now usually outnumbered 1:3 normally.I think you need to read what I wrote again, consider the context and keep a perspective of a longer stretch of time. Or we just misunderstand each other and then this entire post will be superfluous, but meh, at least someone else can always learn something from it then.

Desolation was originally one of the most guild-stacked servers in Europe. For tournament one they (you) rather famously tanked from gold to silver simply to fight all the other servers with a european profile. The gold tier was just coverage-stacked with canadians and south americans so no one who actually wanted to compete against europeans wanted to be there. By the second tournament I think Desolation was pushed up to gold tier anyway. That also reflects that it was both typically guild-stacked with a european profile but also the largest of those servers at that time. That also persisted for a long time.

Throughout most of late vanilla and early HoT Deso was one of two servers almost constantly in Tier 1. The other server was whatever non-european stack was keeping itself up there so Deso essentially was THE european stack and regarded as the #1 in Europe thanks to that. That attracted alot of players for a very long time. It just didn't ruin the guilds as much back then because there were still plenty of guilds around so they had not depleted and vultured themselves to the point of non-recruitment yet and if one guild died finding a new one on Deso wasn't a problem.

In fact, by the time the GvG community decided to stack three servers for matchup reasons as we were creeping up on 2017, Deso was choosen as one of the three servers simply because so many of the guilds were already there and wasn't overly interested in moving. The other two servers at that time was of course Vabbi and Whiteside Ridge which most people had hardly heard of before that because they were regarded as "dead" already when the linking system was first introduced.

So what you describe has only happened in the last year or two and as your server is obviously struggling, that new community that has less of a guild profile is clearly struggling with content, per your description. That supports my argument, it doesn't detract from it. If Desolation has adopted a "server identity" today, that is only recent and has clearly lead to the sewers of the ladder and general content production issues.

Often when these discussions come up you on Deso get lumped together with Gandara. Gandara as a server has a fairly similar history to Deso as it was also very guild-stacked in vanilla, came second in silver after Deso for the first tournament if I am not mistaken and won silver in the second tournament when Deso didn't tank out of gold. Essentially every commander worth his/her salt on Gandara originally was a guild-commander. They may not have been in guilds for stretches of time after their guilds died but they earnt their stripes as members of guilds and learnt commanding publically with the support of their guilds. I don't know the inner workings of Deso as well but I remember enough of who Deso was stacked with throughout most of vanilla and HoT.

Deso is certainly not helped by all those years of being "#1" today with lowered server caps, dead guilds and apathic players lingering around. Similarily Gandara is certainly not helped today by all the time that community spent accepting every player here on these forums that asked for a "nice community" when all their guilds were dying out. Like I've pointed out countless times by now: I am not defending the server system. I think it is terrible and destroys the game mode at this point. However, I understand the server system, I can try to explain it and it isn't surprising to me how it affects servers like Desolation and Gandara. That isn't any more surprising than how it is starting to affect the more recent stacks or remaining communities that actually has some guilds cooperating. How long did WSR's attempt to flush their server work for them? A relink and a half? Then they were stuck in locked hell again simply for having two-three good guilds that can create- or match up to alot of content and for having inherited that unpleasant label of being #1. That is very representative of the sorry state of our game mode, when all it takes is a guild or two to attract enough completely anonymous players to lock the server.

We clearly need restructuring and guild-encouraging content to slip out of that chokehold. It is either that or being milked to death. A death where every server looks like your typical T5 server. Perhaps that is ArenaNet's vision, I can't tell. I mean, that will still have some players play and people can come tourist from PvE. Perhaps it isn't misrepresentative for GW2, the GW2 we have come to know today. However, it is still "death" from a WvW-identity perspective, from an MMO-identity perspective and any sliver of hope for seeing the mode claw its way back towards its potential. At that point it may be Cydoriil for most of us even if nothing more promising has come along. GW2 WvW will no longer be the best player on a weak RvR starting roster. At that point, if ArenaNet can survive on the single-player PvE majority, more or less alone, will be put to the test. I don't think so, but that isn't really my problem so I don't really have to concern myself with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

u actually know more about Desolations history than i do, i only play since 3 years... and despite all the burn-out reports, i'd prefer to have experienced the tournament time. i started basically into the wave of the dissolving, when the questionable system claimed more and more victims. the first year i remember was still this "perma t1 bc/ stacked"-syndrome u describe there, yes. surely great for newbies, but it got naturally worse by time.

i guess i understood your first post wrong intitially, i acutally agree with what u wrote.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...