It's past time to limit transfers.

[Swagger.1459]

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:Previously, on another thread, I mentioned having two leagues. It just came up as I was writing but thinking about it, it may work.

Given that population balance is chaotic not only due to frequent transfer but also because of unpredictable fluctuating population across days and timezones. There are basically multitude of problems.

1. "Weekend" and "weekdays" have the biggest disparity in population.
2. Pay to win
   bangwagoners every relink

What if we have two leagues? One for weekends and one for weekdays? Basically 3-days (fri-mon) and 4-days (mon-fri).Doing so we can split the weekend warriors and weekday warriors, by splitting them we could gain a clearer picture of the populations and hopefully better population balancing. Naturally, have two leagues can also means less tiers. We can have same old 4 tiers during weekend while 3 tiers during weekdays.

Furthermore, having two leagues would means bandwagoners have transfer two times (each for each league). That effectively double their cost.

Edit: Oh wait, they won't transfer two times, they have to pick which league and stay for good since players are bound to servers

That’s not gonna work. Players are allowed to play and contribute whatever day or time they want... Not sure why you think it would be a good idea for the devs to tell players what days they are allowed to enter wvw.

There is no prohibition here. People still WvW everyday. The main thing is we will have two leagues/ladders, whatever you want to call it instead of the current one league/ladder. Basically instead of the current 7-days league/ladder. We will have 3-days league/ladder and 4-days league/ladder, specially, weekends league/ladder and weekdays league/ladder. Of course, this also means we have two WvW resets.

Naturally, with two different ladders, you can have complete different linking and matchups. The main benefits:

1. Able to estimate the populations more accurately. It is way easier to calculate 3 or 4 days worth of people than 7 days of people. You can balance it way easier.
2. With more accurate populations measurement, we can then assign the link more effectively
3. Since those are complete different ladders, we can have complete different number of tiers. For example weekend have 5000 people playing, we can have 4 tiers. Weekdays only have 3000 people playing, we merge into 3 tiers. This will provide a greater level of activities during weekdays. This is only possible because of complete different league/ladder.
4. Naturally, with 2 ladders also come with greater varieties of matchups
5. It inherently make bandwagoning not rewarding if we relink the two different ladders on different months. For example, currently we relink every even month. With two ladders, we can have weekend league/ladder relink every even month while weekdays league/ladder relink every odd months. Bandwagoners will then come to a dilemma. If they bandwagon, their weekend or weekday match will be affected. Even if they want to bandwagon, are they gonna do it every month?

That’s obviously not going to work, unless your goal is to make things needlessly complex and annoy players even more.

[Doll Mistress.9267]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:fix aoe so smaller groups have a better chance, then population discrepancy ceases to be an issue.something something broken record.

I want to know, in detail, exactly how increasing aoe potential (which benefits larger groups more. and don't forget that larger groups will have access to more boons and heals to protect members than a smaller group) balances populations between all servers?

Edit- And don’t respond like you’re talking to a player, respond as if you were laying out the information to sell the devs on the idea...

stealth ambushcouple smaller groups hitting bigger zergcloud formationchokes

No matter what tactics are used, 5 -10 vs 50+ is not going to win.

Anet pretty much stopped server loyalty when they created the mega-servers and have done nothing too address that issue. Only host server names matter in this setup. It demoralizes people to be on the small server and most eventually want to switch servers, or switch games.

The bandwagoning and purposely losing/throwing matches to drop tiers is a real problem.

We should have a player balance that works like the outnumbered buff. It could disallow overpopulation of each map so that there isn't the ridiculous numbers I mentioned above. It would also encourage participation as each server would want to have as many players on each map as possible. It would allow people to transfer as they wish, but, stop it from being such an issue.

Lastly, make a Server chat channel...bring back server loyalty.

[joneirikb.7506]

@Doll Mistress.9267 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:fix aoe so smaller groups have a better chance, then population discrepancy ceases to be an issue.something something broken record.

I want to know, in detail, exactly how increasing aoe potential (which benefits larger groups more. and don't forget that larger groups will have access to more boons and heals to protect members than a smaller group) balances populations between all servers?

Edit- And don’t respond like you’re talking to a player, respond as if you were laying out the information to sell the devs on the idea...

stealth ambushcouple smaller groups hitting bigger zergcloud formationchokes

No matter what tactics are used, 5 -10 vs 50+ is not going to win.

Anet pretty much stopped server loyalty when they created the mega-servers and have done nothing too address that issue. Only host server names matter in this setup. It demoralizes people to be on the small server and most eventually want to switch servers, or switch games.

The bandwagoning and purposely losing/throwing matches to drop tiers is a real problem.

We should have a player balance that works like the outnumbered buff. It could disallow overpopulation of each map so that there isn't the ridiculous numbers I mentioned above. It would also encourage participation as each server would want to have as many players on each map as possible. It would allow people to transfer as they wish, but, stop it from being such an issue.

Lastly, make a Server chat channel...bring back server loyalty.

Just to point out what STW is saying here, is basically remove the target limit on skills, so all aoe's can hit any number of players. It's been requested many times in the past, and Iirc ANet stated there was some technical limitations to it once.

But if that change happened, 10 or so players grouped/organized, with lots of high damage AOE and stealth (like smoke field and lost of blasting), could sneak up on a large zerg and kill 90% or so if they're bunched up together in front of a door, or on top of a lord or something.

On the other side of the coin, it would mean that a larger group would also be much better at killing smaller groups unless they can ambush or surprise them, it would make the pirate-ship even stronger.

Not really a fan of it myself, as I see as much (or more) problems to it than benefits.

---

Bonus point, if they reversed it, and said that players can only be hit by 5 opponents in X amount of time (1 sec?), 10 people could actually kill 50, as then it would be much more dependent upon the skill level of each individual, their builds/synergies, and their organization/team-work. Most random zergs would actually struggle to kill a decent havoc squad. (I'm not a fan of this either, because then my guild leader would almost never die...)

---

(No comments on the server-loyalty stuff.)

I don't understand what you're talking about regarding the Outnumber effect? You talking about closing the map for more players if the opponent has the Outnumber effect? Basically create an artificially changing map-capacity-limit ?

If so, there are a few problems with that idea:

• A server that has a high population that wants to play in an "off hours" time zone, when the 2 opponent servers have 0-5 players tops at the same time-zone. This could create an block refusing several players to play in the one time of days they might have a time/chance to play.
• People exploiting this limit, and mass quit a map/maps, in order to reduce how many players the enemy can get into a map.
• If you have a server that actually has a low Prime-Time presence, it can actually reduce both opponents queue's!

[Slick.7164]

Very simple Add more servers to fight You all hooked on 3 at a time

[Slick.7164]

Is very simple and good way to test alliances. Open 6 v 6 server on server. Anet not announce and let the dip shits keep switching servers. They pump money to anet and we all win. Anet just has to change it up random for a few weeks and stop leaking.

[SkyShroud.2865]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:Previously, on another thread, I mentioned having two leagues. It just came up as I was writing but thinking about it, it may work.

Given that population balance is chaotic not only due to frequent transfer but also because of unpredictable fluctuating population across days and timezones. There are basically multitude of problems.

1. "Weekend" and "weekdays" have the biggest disparity in population.
2. Pay to win
   bangwagoners every relink

What if we have two leagues? One for weekends and one for weekdays? Basically 3-days (fri-mon) and 4-days (mon-fri).Doing so we can split the weekend warriors and weekday warriors, by splitting them we could gain a clearer picture of the populations and hopefully better population balancing. Naturally, have two leagues can also means less tiers. We can have same old 4 tiers during weekend while 3 tiers during weekdays.

Furthermore, having two leagues would means bandwagoners have transfer two times (each for each league). That effectively double their cost.

Edit: Oh wait, they won't transfer two times, they have to pick which league and stay for good since players are bound to servers

That’s not gonna work. Players are allowed to play and contribute whatever day or time they want... Not sure why you think it would be a good idea for the devs to tell players what days they are allowed to enter wvw.

There is no prohibition here. People still WvW everyday. The main thing is we will have two leagues/ladders, whatever you want to call it instead of the current one league/ladder. Basically instead of the current 7-days league/ladder. We will have 3-days league/ladder and 4-days league/ladder, specially, weekends league/ladder and weekdays league/ladder. Of course, this also means we have two WvW resets.

Naturally, with two different ladders, you can have complete different linking and matchups. The main benefits:

1. Able to estimate the populations more accurately. It is way easier to calculate 3 or 4 days worth of people than 7 days of people. You can balance it way easier.
2. With more accurate populations measurement, we can then assign the link more effectively
3. Since those are complete different ladders, we can have complete different number of tiers. For example weekend have 5000 people playing, we can have 4 tiers. Weekdays only have 3000 people playing, we merge into 3 tiers. This will provide a greater level of activities during weekdays. This is only possible because of complete different league/ladder.
4. Naturally, with 2 ladders also come with greater varieties of matchups
5. It inherently make bandwagoning not rewarding if we relink the two different ladders on different months. For example, currently we relink every even month. With two ladders, we can have weekend league/ladder relink every even month while weekdays league/ladder relink every odd months. Bandwagoners will then come to a dilemma. If they bandwagon, their weekend or weekday match will be affected. Even if they want to bandwagon, are they gonna do it every month?

That’s obviously not going to work, unless your goal is to make things needlessly complex and annoy players even more.

So you saying you got better idea?

[Swagger.1459]

@"SkyShroud.2865" said:So you saying you got better idea?

Yup. I always do. Thanks for asking btw...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq

@"Swagger.1459" said:THE GOALS OF THESE SUGGESTIONS:

• To fix the same complaints we have seen for 6 years over and over and over and over...
• To keep the progress made with World Restructing systems and use it for balancing Factions.
• To eliminate stacking by removing the transfer system entirely.
• To pool ALL players into one big playground and create an epic 3 sided Alliance war.
• To encourage ALL types of players to get involved.
• To cater to ALL different play styles.
• To provide a place where ALL players can contribute to their side in many ways despite possible queues.
• To make “scoring” more about personal and guild rewards instead, and placement means reward PACE.
• To make WvW into a “living” WvW experience that receives closer to equal amounts of attention from the developers.
• To make a space that both developers and players CARE MORE about.

Imagine a Alliance WvW MIST WAR like this…

WHAT ALLIANCES WOULD LOOK LIKE:

• 3 Alliance Factions made up of ALL players pooled together fighting against each other. OBVIOUSLY NA and EU are NOT connected.
• Alliances, guilds and individual players are reshuffled every 2 months to create 3 new Factions
• Faction Names change every 2 months.

THE 1st ALLIANCE UPDATE WOULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:

MAPS MADE FOR "BLOBS", WITH A 100 PLAYER MAP CAP PER SIDEThese maps are the “No PvE” zones that remain conducive to quality open space and structure capture mass pvp.

• 1 Eternal Battlegrounds with SM CASTLE.
• 1 Alpine Borderland.
• 1 Desert Borderland.
• 1 NEW Arctic Borderland.
• 1 Edge of the Mists.

PLUS... (These would be the EotM factions inspired borderland maps.)

• 1 NEW Badlands Borderland with a castle.
• 1 NEW Frostreach Borderland with a castle.
• 1 NEW Overgrowth Borderland with a castle.

(SO 8 MAPS WITH 4 CASTLES FOR "BLOBS" TO FIGHT OVER)

MAPS MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR SMALL GUILDS, SMALL TEAMS AND SOLO ROAMERS WITH A 50 PLAYER MAP CAP PER SIDE

• 6 Guild Wars inspired PvP/PvE Maps http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Mists
• Let’s call these “Hot Zones” (for this discussion) that draw elements from GW lore.
• Players fight against each other and NPCs here.
• These maps have *MOSTLY OPEN AREA CAPTURE POINTS, EVENTS AND META EVENTS as well.
• WvW wide alerts can be given to indicate a meta event will occur on a map.

(SO 6 MAPS MADE MOSTLY FOR SMALL OPS AND SOLO ROAMERS WITH A MAP CAP OF 50 PLAYERS PER SIDE)

---

THE 2nd ALLIANCE UPDATE (RELEASED AT A LATER DATE) WOULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:

"SAFE SPACE" HOMELAND PVE MAPS WHERE NEW PLAYERS CAN LEARN THE BASICS OF WVW PLAY AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE MIST WAR

• I’d like to take NPCs and Factions from EotM and WvW and expand on them. Let’s give them a purpose for their existence in the Mists, an open world story for players to go through and a compelling reason for players to be fighting the Mist War with them.
• Homeland maps would be the entry zones for WvW depending on the Faction side you are on. From here you can portal to other maps. These homeland maps do not have to be just 1 map for each side, multiple smaller maps could be used as well or added later.
• Enemy players cannot enter opposing sides PvE homelands.
• These maps are treated and played like any Tyria PvE maps, but tailored to teach players about wvw and help contribute to "war score".
• Players are not forced into other types of WvW maps, they are only encouraged by rewards.

---

GENERAL STUFF FOR ALL MAPS

• Would be cool to have some underground maps and areas utilized more in the Mists. Homeland and "Hot Zones" would be great for this.
• Add tunnel systems, like in EotM, to various maps for strategic use and map travel.
• It would be great to have a cohesive story and fixed groups of npcs for each faction across all maps.
• Outnumbered "Blob" maps gets a bit of extra help from their homeland faction NPCs. Have an additional Champion, with tough minions, spawn to help protect friendly structures against enemies. Only structures, not supply camps

NO MAP COPIES EXCEPT FOR HOMELAND PVE MAPS

• Ideally I’m looking to create 1 Mist “world” for this "war", but feel the PvE maps would need to use the map copy function like we have in PvE.

MAP TOTALS RECAP

• 8 PvP maps (EB, AB, DB, Arctic B, EotM, BB, FB, OB) with 4 castles in total (EB, BB, FB, OB). Total fixed max capacity across these 8 maps would be 2,400 players.
• 6 PvP/PvE Hot Zone meta event maps. Total fixed max capacity across these 6 maps would be 900 players.
• 3 Homeland PvE maps, with a few extra area maps for learning about wvw and contributing to your Faction.

(So a total of 3,300 players can be participating in wvw, at any given time, across 14 maps. While pure PvE style maps allow for tons of players due to the map copy function)

SCORING AND REWARDSI’m going to try to bring up a basic outline of scoring and rewards. I feel the ideal "scoring system" would have more of an emphasis on reward pace, NOT just about 1st, 2nd and 3rd place rewards. To do this, I’d like to see a tiered reward vendor system (similar to Dry Top) based off of “war score”. Tiers would either scale up in quality for purchasable goods and rewards, or lower in cost for purchasable goods and rewards. Badges of Honor and gold are used as currency to purchase items.

• ALL maps contribute to the Mist War score total for each side. Yes ALL. The purpose behind this is to have ALL players contribute to the war effort in the way THEY feel comfortable.
• Personal reward tracks and Pip/Ticket stuff all remain in place.
• Loot as normal from player kills, npc kills, events and capturing objectives.
• ALL maps have unique crafting materials to gather, and these materials are only found in the Mists. These can be used for components in any new crafted items introduced to the game so they become part of the global economy.
• HIDE SCORING FROM PLAYERS, and only use it as an internal Dev stats tool every 2 months when Alliances and players are reshuffled.
• GET RID of 2 hour Skirmish stuff.
• Faction mix and match rotations done every 2 months.
• NO TOURNAMENTS.
• Continue with WvW "special event weeks"
• Outnumbered Buffs are still in place on maps
• REMOVE THE SERVER TRANSFER SYSTEM because you will not need it for this design.

CASTLE DESIGNS

• I feel it would be a great change to have multiple capture points to castles. This would require some changes to EB, but feel it’s worth it.
• I’d like to see more reasons to take and hold castles. Perhaps gaining access to a unique vendor with unique personal and guild goods.
• Increased Magic Find, WXP, BoH drops and PiPs while holding a castle. Stacking reward bonuses for each castle in possession of your Faction... Stuff that doesn’t give an advantage during combat.

THESE IDEAS WOULD BE BETTER FOR THE LONG RUN...It would be smoother for the long run to balance 3 sides total instead of multiple different match ups. I think the 1 “world to fight over', with 3 sided designs concept, would provide more population stability overall, and better coverage, for everyone. Shifting players and guilds every couple months keeps things "fresher'. Removing the "score" for player eyes, and focusing on personal and guild rewards, changes the emphasis from a "numbers" war to more of a "mist war".

I HAVE SOME EDITS COMING...

[Swagger.1459]

Part 2

@"Swagger.1459" said:FACTION CONCEPT EXAMPLES USING GW LORE

GREEN FACTION

• Maps are all nature themed.
• Antagonist Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Menzies AND http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shadow_Army
• Allied Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Balthazar AND http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Eternal

Why Balthazar on green?

• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Forest_of_the_Wailing_Lord “The forest is governed by the Wailing Lord, who allows both the Eternal army and the Shadow army to harvest the forest to fuel their war efforts.”

RED FACTION

• Maps are all desert themed.
• Antagonist Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Abaddon AND http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Margonite
• Allied Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kormir AND http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Sunspears

“Abaddon, with the help of Dhuum and Menzies, was almost successful, but was stopped by the Order of the Sunspears and the Order of Whispers, who entered the Realm of Torment to defeat him. In his final moments, Abaddon’s power threatened to run out of control and destroy Tyria, but it was absorbed by Spearmarshal Kormir, who became the Goddess of Truth using a power that had been granted to her by the Five Gods.”

BLUE FACTION

• Maps are all winter themed.
• Antagonist Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dhuum and http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lords_of_Anguish
• Allied Factions http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Grenth AND http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/King_Frozenwind

WHY ARE THE FACTIONS FIGHTING?I’m still figuring out a good tie-in for these factions to be at war. I was thinking perhaps going with like a “Battle of Champions” type thing, but with the bad NPCs thrown into the mix....

Maybe the Factions are trying to win control over the…

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Scepter_of_Orr OR http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Staff_of_the_Mists

To control… http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Titan and http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Demon for extra NPC support for their Faction.

...IDK, just tossing out some story line ideas that add more substance surrounding the "Mist War".

Thanks for reading!

[SkyShroud.2865]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:So you saying you got better idea?

Yup. I always do. Thanks for asking btw...

Isn't that way more complicated and additional work? That is also challenging the alliance system that devs have decided.

What I suggested is expanding a little bit from what it is already capable of doing. Doesn't take a lot to implement and able to greatly minimize the current chaos while waiting for the supposed alliance.

The cost/benefits are just incomparable.

Edit: Reading the other thread, I notice that you don't really understand the majority's train of thought. What majority really want is a small modification that can significantly minimize the current bad population balance while waiting for the alliance to release. You on the other hand want big massive modification or should I say a total revamp. Didn't dev already decided on a revamp called alliance?

[aspirine.5839]

But but, they want to play with ' friends'. It's not at all that they want to stack on the latest bandwagon server. not at all.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@"aspirine.5839" said:But but, they want to play with ' friends'. It's not at all that they want to stack on the latest bandwagon server. not at all.

This is truth. Every time I see, "Why can't I play with friends?" it translates to "I want to stack on BG."

[Sleepwalker.1398]

If Anet wants to make money, then they should increase med server transfer from 500 gems to 900 gems maybe :)

[L A T I O N.8923]

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@"aspirine.5839" said:But but, they want to play with ' friends'. It's not at all that they want to stack on the latest bandwagon server. not at all.

This is truth. Every time I see, "Why can't I play with friends?" it translates to "I want to stack on BG."

That makes SenseI meanHalf the pve players are on blackgate

[hugeboss.5432]

Alot of xnsfers these days are players & guilds trying out potential guild alliances to see how well they work together in a bigger team. It's not really an issue, winning/losing doesnt really have much of an impact for most servers. But, I can understand players that play in low pop timezones having "a pressing need" to xnsfer every so often, they generally need to be further up in the server tiers to get any action or they'll quickly end up having to fight Veteran Guards & Yak escorting to get any participation at all).

[Slick.7164]

Said it before and will say again. Anet makes money to keep this game alive. Anet should let these "fight" guilds transfer as much as possible. Anet should also throw random relinks during the 2 months and let them pay to re-transfer. Throw unannounced relinks a lot. Make them buy gems for gold or gold sync the pve. Anet make a ton more ebit and can then afford to hire a few peeps back they fired. Im a fight guild moving to a t1 link Make me use my moms credit card a few times a month instead of once every two months.

[Straegen.2938]

Forcing players to play on a team or in an environment they hate will just have them sitting many a match out and likely going on to another game in the meantime.

Sometimes server dysfunction becomes unbearable or a player gets really tired of getting run over /running people over with no challenge. It is a game, let people play it the way they want to play it.

[LetoII.3782]

@L A T I O N.8923 said:

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@"aspirine.5839" said:But but, they want to play with ' friends'. It's not at all that they want to stack on the latest bandwagon server. not at all.

This is truth. Every time I see, "Why can't I play with friends?" it translates to "I want to stack on BG."

Half the pve players are on blackgate

Very trueAn old legacy from before paid transfers and megaservers, and one that didn't get addressed.

[aspirine.5839]

So this friday, or perhaps this weekend the great migration can start again.

[Princess.7584]

@Straegen.2938 said:Forcing players to play on a team or in an environment they hate will just have them sitting many a match out and likely going on to another game in the meantime.

Sometimes server dysfunction becomes unbearable or a player gets really tired of getting run over /running people over with no challenge. It is a game, let people play it the way they want to play it.

Now I wasnt saying no to transferring, transferring relink week? If you didnt want to play on that server why wait until then, surely you would want to leave asap? You have already been there 8 weeks, if you want to change relink week then there should be a penalty, and gems seems to be what will get people the most.Transferring on relinks screws up the matches for weeks,

[aspirine.5839]

@Straegen.2938 said:Forcing players to play on a team or in an environment they hate will just have them sitting many a match out and likely going on to another game in the meantime.

Sometimes server dysfunction becomes unbearable or a player gets really tired of getting run over /running people over with no challenge. It is a game, let people play it the way they want to play it.

That last sentence is golden :D I wish it was true, but it is quite the opposite.