Relinks and Transfers

[Syrus.2174]

It is nice to see that Anet is at least somewhat trying to balance the server activity somehow...

...the thing is, it is not working the way they think it should. Or rather, it isn't working at all.As soon as servers are relinked, especially this time, with national servers being linked with international servers (and even different language national servers being linked to each other...why?), people transfer away and all that "balance" the relinking should have brought is instantly gone.

For Anet that is probably a good thing, as transfers cost gems and gems cost money (or gold). For the players on the now pretty much dead servers, this is horrendous. It means another eight weeks of no WvW activity, and as an active WvW player one starts to ask themselves why even bother playing the game anymore. Giving into the trend of transfering would just make you part of the problem.

It would already be helpful to remove one tier from the EU matchups, thereby focussing activity over a smaller amount of servers.Generally the server's language should always be kept in mind when linking, as well as only linking an international with a national server, instead of two different language national servers, and preferentially creating a national link where this wouldn't completely break the server balance.

Another major thing that needs to change is how population levels should count for the linked servers together. It should not be possible to just transfer to a low population linked server when the total population of the linked servers is very high compared to other server links. Otherwise we get the same scenario as we get now: relink happens, everyone transfers away and stacks on a few servers. It's even worse now as English players are for example leaving the servers linked with nationals. It breaks the whole idea of rebalancement through relinking.

Relinking should also happen more often (each month, in my opinion). It both makes constant transfering more costly in both gems and pips lost and gives more chances for better balanced server link population. Maybe you wouldn't then have to sit around for another two months on a dead server combo, not being able to do anything due to being outnumbered at pretty much all times, just sucks the fun out of WvW.

Some might say, better focus on Alliances ... I'm still sceptical of the whole Alliances concept, and I don't see it happen in the foreseeable future. I don't know why it is taking so long, but the whole idea sounds flawed to me. And even if it comes out at some point, I'd rather Anet makes the current situation more bearable for the time being. The relinking as it happens right now just does not bring balance.

(Besides ... I'd really love to see some statistics for transfers, like when they happen, how many, from where to where and such, and actually hours spend in WvW, players in WvW, hours spend in WvW per player and such, for each server...)

[Swagger.1459]

“the thing is, it is not working the way they think it should. Or rather, it isn't working at all.“

Anet is, and has been, completely aware of the situation. Alliances are being developed as a result. Also, Anet knows Alliances won’t solve all the problems either because they can’t force humans to log in and play. Players just have to accept that WvW will never be balanced... Sometimes during a match you’ll have a more balanced or less balanced game session, but players will never get perfectly balanced match ups.

Some of you peeps keep making it sound like Anet is rolling in dough from WvW transfers... They are not.

The community isn’t getting stats like that.

[Syrus.2174]

Ok. I'm not asking for "perfect balancement", as nice as that would be. But it would be great to have every server be worth being on.It's Sunday, 4 PM. The server link I'm on has been outnumbered (in EB) all day pretty much, with at most 20 people around, probably less.I know there are servers (without a link for example) with even less activity. I know it's summer, it's nice weather outside in many places and there's an event going on.

But I hear it and even see it: people are leaving this link left and right. We already spend the few weeks with a dead server pretty much. The future eight weeks do not look better. Anet's attempt was to better balance the population. It utterly failed because of the immediate transfers. We need this system to be improved, if the Alliances don't happen in the sooner future, because it is hurting WvW more than anything else in the long run.

[Swagger.1459]

We get it and you’re not saying anything new... Sometimes wvw has more people playing and sometimes it doesn’t, and that will never change.

Yes, wvw needs updates, but even if we had updates things would be either better or worse, but mostly the same trends would take place. This is also summertime so there will inevitably be a drop in participation. Again, Anet can’t shackle players to the chair and force them to play... Yes, there are issues, but players need to be realistic.

[Syrus.2174]

Anet could reduce the number of tiers, that way the players would be less spread.Anet could also limit the ability to transfer to a low pop link server of an already stacked link.As pointed out in the opening post.

Just waving the issues away does not help the game mode.
The issues need to be fixed and this international + national server linking has only made the problems more noticeable.Or at least they need to implement some improvement, can't just demand people to always throw money at the problem because they are unlucky enough not to be on a stable main server.

[Nauda.3678]

I'm pretty sure we're on the same link. Yeah it's... interesting? difficult?And heard some similar stories about other links.

[Swagger.1459]

@Syrus.2174 said:Anet could reduce the number of tiers, that way the players would be less spread.Anet could also limit the ability to transfer to a low pop link server of an already stacked link.As pointed out in the opening post.

Just waving the issues away does not help the game mode.

The issues need to be fixed and this international + national server linking has only made the problems more noticeable.Or at least they need to implement some improvement, can't just demand people to always throw money at the problem because they are unlucky enough not to be on a stable main server.

Alliances are meant to address certain issues... You have to wait like everyone else.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Syrus.2174" said:... the players would be less spread."less spread out" isn't the only factor in figuring out matches

Anet could also limit the ability to transfer to a low pop link server of an already stacked link.There's no such think as "an already stacked link" at the time the links are made; the links are made so that each "team" is as close to even as possible, based on metrics from the previous two months.

Unless you're asking for ANet to close worlds every week based on a single week's participation. In which case, we already know what happens: people deliberately stop playing in order to game the system and open up worlds. It would also have the effect of opening up worlds that had lower participation for non-WvW reasons, e.g. some worlds participate more in the first week of Living World than others.

Historically, when we had "less spread out," people complained about queues. Whether long queues are good or bad is a matter of personal taste; the point is that it's more complex than suggested by the OP.

Just waving the issues away does not help the game mode.

No one is "waving the issues away." People are pointing out that the solutions suggested won't address the fundamental issues in balancing. Restructuring probably won't solve everything; it will just address most of the underlying causes, which might allow ANet enough flexibility that balance becomes a less obvious issue.

The issues need to be fixedYes, everyone agrees the issues should be fixed. The only disagreement is about whether there's any way to make a big change that helps enough to make it worth taking resources away from Restructuring and task them with the big change.

and this international + national server linking has only made the problems more noticeable.That's not clear. It's been one weekend. Of course, the first weekend was going to be fraught because some people expected the worst and reacted accordingly. The problems have been "noticeable" for a while, which is, of course, why ANet finally decided to entirely restructure the basic building blocks upon which "teams" are built.

PS there's no such thing as a "national server." All worlds are international. There are worlds with language preferences; there are none that are grouped specifically by nationality.

Or at least they need to implement some improvement,Linking worlds in EU the same way that NA worlds are linked is an attempt to improve things: it adds flexibility to the mixing & matching. As was pointed out in the main thread,

• The difference in play hours between the largest and smallest link has decreased by 37% from last linking.The standard deviation on play hours between links has decreased by 39% from the last linking. This means that on average, links are much closer in play hours than before.

can't just demand people to always throw money at the problem because they are unlucky enough not to be on a stable main server.No one is saying that. They are saying: it's harder than most of us think to address that in a way that (a) makes things better and (b) doesn't make other things so much worth that the exercise is a waste of time.