Showerthought: Relinks feel meh, Delinks feel terrible

[Riba.3271]

While relinks make little sense as it doesn't balance populations or transfer costs at all, what is even worse is getting delinked because there aren't enough servers. You know you won't have numbers to match enemies because full status is reached so easily thanks to population algorithm.

Thx.

[Mabi black.1824]

28 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

While relinks make little sense as it doesn't balance populations or transfer costs at all, what is even worse is getting delinked because there aren't enough servers. You know you won't have numbers to match enemies because full status is reached so easily thanks to population algorithm.

Thx.

in Europe it is the problem that really makes any form of competition of this competitive game  mode lose its meaning. we have asked for a solution perhaps a few thousand times.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Mabi black.1824

[Zevelon.6512]

Well till alliance i don’t expect us to have any sort of balance at least number wise. Sadly linking of servers is the biggest problem in my opinion, specialty when the not full linked servers get full after the link and then get matched vs a single full server, like we had before our link with ROF , Mabi knows what i’m talking about , and Riba will find out soon ,2vs2vs1 is not a balance.But sadly we as the players can’t do any thing except to wait and see how bad they will mess up alliance.

[Dawdler.8521]

11 minutes ago, Zevelon.6512 said:

But sadly we as the players can’t do any thing except to wait and see how bad they will mess up alliance.

Part of the player base will embrace it because their worlds suddenly grows larger.

Part of the player base will complain because their worlds suddenly grows smaller.

Guess which part it is that are on high+ worlds and will always comes to the forum and vocally complain on behalf of everyone about how the relinks suck because they got a weak/no link this time.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Zevelon.6512]

I’m saying that links are bad in general , we’ve kicked kitten with and without a link and just wen we got the same numbers as the “top” servers we started to climb the leaderboard. I personaly prefer not to be linked and get whispers by players with math problems. But like i said we cannot do kitten about the fair play number wise till alliance comes out.

[NightFlight.3804]

The idea of links for NA servers work great, because everyone speaks either English or Spanish as a majority language.

When links are made across EU servers, for example, we have German speaking worlds linked with French speaking ones, both servers have a hard time cooperating with each other. Both servers are left weaker. The Francophone players do not understand German, and will not follow the German server commanders. The same also happens the other way around, the German players take little interest in a commander that speaks only French.

We all know this is not the optimal solution. I would think though, that linking only German speaking worlds with each other, French, and Spanish servers linked the same way, would at least foster greater cooperation between servers. At least then we can communicate with each other.

I'm looking forward to the World Restructuring Beta 4 very much, and it will be a new experience for me anyway to participate in WvW in English... XD

[subversiontwo.7501]

6 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

While relinks make little sense as it doesn't balance populations or transfer costs at all, what is even worse is getting delinked because there aren't enough servers. You know you won't have numbers to match enemies because full status is reached so easily thanks to population algorithm.

Thx.

The bigger question for your wash-time worries is how to control the populations in the first place. The more you let players move unhindered the more they will find their own ways to game the system. The less you let players move the more things will die over time.

I am going to throw Anet a bone here, however, it comes with a number of factors that themselves are the real gripes with WvW. I think, from their perspective, that they have just been unable to find a system that deals with that transfer-or-not issue that they are happy with or consider superior enough to gem-transfers. I don't think the intention ever was to maliciously just farm the WvW players for gems, even though that is meme-worthy. However, it is important to aknowledge that as long as the current system exists they do maliciously farm us for gems and unfairly, treat us as third-rate customers even though we pay them the same money for the same things, if not more with the gem transfers in mind. The other modes does not have mode-specific costs like that. The WvW playerbase is likely their most loyal even if it may be far from their largest or happiest, as a result, for good reason.

I would hazard a guess that sPvP has fallen even further out of grace than WvW recently because that mode has proven less stable over time, despite the attention it has been given.

Yet, that is more of a result than an intention. The real cause is equally third-rate treatment though, because the underlying problem was addressed everywhere else in the game in 2014. World Restructuring (Alliances) did not first become a project in 2018 and 2021/22 was not the first time ArenaNet admitted to treating the WvW playerbase particularily poorly and felt that they had to apologize.

You can define it in various ways, but one way to put it is that the Alliance project has existed in three forms: The Devon C project (2013-2016), the Tyler B project (2016-2018) and the Ben P project (2018-). I named each after a design lead, though the last one is perhaps more fairly named the Ray L project. All these projects have the same thing that Grouch said in june in common: They were abandoned or down-prioritised by directors. They were followed by aplogies and promises but little delivery - or - as more apt put from a player perspective, they pretended to commit and lied to us. That is the real third-rate treatment.

That's also the real reason we struggle with this stuff 10 years after release and the real reason that Alliances are not here yet, even if we can appreciate that something as important as this is not built in a day. However, the complexity of the system is not why it has taken 10 years. The mal-treatment of this playerbase is. Their indifference to take our money and give others content is. That also goes for accountability over the past year because while Grouch was right to come clean, an astute observer will note that while they were talking about priorities again before EoD and now a handful of months after EoD - they still do not tell us anything about how it is prioritised or what resources it has been allocated. We are still getting that drip-fed: There's Floyd, there's a team, there's a Roy and a Ray somewhere.

The bickering about whether there is a new WvW team or not over in the Alliances Beta 4 thread on Reddit is a good reminder (though the posters there have yet to figure out the difference between a WvW design team and an ambulating programming team [or how lean, agile or product-owner type of stuff works]). You can say priority and cornerstone yet still have it be one of the least prioritised modes: With far less resources than the "raid" team and the LWS teams, even with inadequate resources for timely delivery. At which point they are just treating us the same-old again. Keeping the developer honest comes with transparency about how the prioritisations look and whether the commitment made is likely to lead to success or not. They are still not telling us that. They are just trying to ensure us and they did that with each of the three or so Alliance projects. That is nothing new either.

Edited July 29, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Riba.3271]

Nvm, we got a link. The system is perfect. They don't speak our language tho. 😂

[subversiontwo.7501]

31 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Nvm, we got a link. The system is perfect. They don't speak our language tho. 😂

Did Gandara get a link? That always seems to be content here on the forums.

Though, I had forgotten relinks were today, that puts your thread in a more specific light. I thought you had shower thoughts about this stuff in general 😄.

Edited July 29, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Mabi black.1824]

2 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

All these projects have the same thing that Grouch said in june in common: They were abandoned or down-prioritised by directors.

I can tell you that this is the thing that I have most appreciated from arenanet or grouch in recent years. with this they have earned a lot of points of my respect (however little it can count) the transparency and sincerity of a person or a company is among those few things that are priceless. it doesn't matter if it's an inconvenient or unexpected truth. what matters is that it is the truth. consequently you will always find a solution.