My Issue with FAQ: Why is there World Linking instead of some other solution?

[Jonesy.9728]

@"joneirikb.7506" said:I do agree with you, but there are some problems with that as well. Mostly that it lets servers go toxic against each others "Don't help the Server2 players, let them die." "Ah it is Server2 that is trying to defend Bay that is wh it's failing." etc. Players will always try to separate players into an "us and them" system, to increase their own ego or self esteem or something.

As far as I have ever seen, my server has been pleased with our links and sad to see them go. :( I am sorry you are on such a cut throat server; people should enjoy their links.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Mostly that it lets servers go toxic against each others "Don't help the Server2 players, let them die." "Ah it is Server2 that is trying to defend Bay that is wh it's failing." etc.

That happened before linkages. Some zerg commanders would say literally the same thing about militia-style roamers. And some militia were equally harsh in response. Tarnished Coast fell from T1 in part because of the intense in-fighting after a few outside guilds came with their own strong style (imposing it upon TC or offering an alternative, depending on who you talk to).

@"joneirikb.7506" said:Players will always try to separate players into an "us and them" system, to increase their own ego or self esteem or something.

Exactly so. Toxicity comes from toxic people; it has little to do with linkages themselves. Some people are just salty all the time, some think they have a moral right to be salty because they don't think WvW gets enough attention.

Taking away linkages won't change that; it will only change how its expressed.

[joneirikb.7506]

@diamondgirl.6315 said:

@"joneirikb.7506" said:I do agree with you, but there are some problems with that as well. Mostly that it lets servers go toxic against each others "Don't help the Server2 players, let them die." "Ah it is Server2 that is trying to defend Bay that is wh it's failing." etc. Players will always try to separate players into an "us and them" system, to increase their own ego or self esteem or something.

As far as I have ever seen, my server has been pleased with our links and sad to see them go. :( I am sorry you are on such a cut throat server; people should enjoy their links.

Just to be clear, not had a problem with this myself, just trying to point out some of the reasons why ANet would want to avoid this. When I play I typically roam solo or small group of guildies anyways, so it wouldn't bother me much anyways.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

Mostly that it lets servers go toxic against each others "Don't help the Server2 players, let them die." "Ah it is Server2 that is trying to defend Bay that is wh it's failing." etc.

That happened before linkages. Some zerg commanders would say literally the same thing about militia-style roamers. And some militia were equally harsh in response. Tarnished Coast fell from T1 in part because of the intense in-fighting after a few outside guilds came with their own strong style (imposing it upon TC or offering an alternative, depending on who you talk to).

@"joneirikb.7506" said:Players will always try to separate players into an "us and them" system, to increase their own ego or self esteem or something.

Exactly so. Toxicity comes from toxic people; it has little to do with linkages themselves. Some people are just salty all the time, some think they have a moral right to be salty because they don't think WvW gets enough attention.

Taking away linkages won't change that; it will only change how its expressed.

It has always happened, in every game mode, from launch to present, in some form or shape. But in Salt vs Salt... I mean World vs World people are even more inclined to blame everything on someone else. I think it is this whole "Competitive, yet not Competitive." aspect that just brings out the worst in people regarding this.

So different worlds on the same team, strikes me as something that would become the next big "us vs them". It is after all so much easier to blame everything wrong on the "new guys in OUR server!" etc. Humans being humans, we see what we want to see, and thus if 10 of our own roamers fail to take a camp, ok that happens. The linked servers 1 roamer fail to take the same camp? Oh wow, every roamer from our linked server is kitten horrible! Probably need a dozen superior AC's to take a sentry!

That being said, I would love an OPTION to do so, so I can enable "Kaineng" over my head, and let them rage in map chat, after all I don't care what they think of me :)

Alternatively, us small servers could probably make a Community guild with tag like [Kain], or [ET], [AR] etc. We're probably small enough by now that the remaining players could fit inside a single guild anyways.

[Seffen.2875]

@Raymond Lukes.6305 said:

@"Seffen.2875" said:Yes. This one is right and really hard to solve. A question on that Topic: Do you still try to normalize Population within one Tier? At least that is what i know. Is it possible to normalize Population across all tiers? So every Server has almost the same Population in the end. Is that making sense anyhow?We try and normalize the population across the whole region. Tier teams are not fixed and so we need to try and get population as close across the board as we can.

Great. I can imagine this is a pretty hard Task. Everytime i try to emulate Server linkings i give up pretty soon because i really fast run out of ideas. ^^

I ask myself, what would be the longterm outcome? Because if you Keep the linking this will always stay the same. But if you merge it will fade after some months. Sometimes it is worth risking something on the short run to get better outcome on the Long run. (though i am pretty sure you know what it feels like to get **** on for something which turns out right in the end.) One Thing that could be done is a whole new Name for the merged Server. So at least it feels "fair" for both the smaller and the bigger Server.There maybe some long term benefit to merging in server identity as people get used to being part of the new server. Long term this makes the problem of keeping worlds balanced hard as we have fewer pieces to move around. Server transfers with still be a thing so players and guilds will want to move around. Over time this will cause the same imbalance we see in the worlds now accept we wont have small worlds like we have now to move them around to help even things out. If server populations had stagnated the links would never change and would effectively be "merged"

I see that. After diving deeper in the Topic and thinking it more through i have to admit that you are most probably right. Maybe there is a middle way which reduces the Servers by only a few leaving some smaller Servers to push around but also mergins some others. Especially those Servers for certain nationalities in Eu?

I can understand this but i think you are making the wrong assumptions. I do not think that People are questioning the linking System on itself. I am pretty sure everyone is able to understand, that the linking was needed to Balance out the matches. I think it is really rather the changing of Partners and the smaller Server beeing smaller. These things would be actually solved by merging. A lot of People ranting here are just not able to articulate fittingly what they want.There are people who question the links every time we do them. Every time links change it is because server population status since the last link have changed and so worlds need to be shuffled. I think the topic would grow stale rather then solve anything.

i completely agree on the first one. Luckily i have been on Servers beeing on their own most of the time therefore there was never a Need for me to complain. Maybe i do not have a complete insight on this because of that.I would love to know how Long it takes in average for a Server linking to accumulate so many Players that it Needs a relink. Is it the two months? Is it only few weeks but you Need to wait till the 2 months are over or does it take longer?

A(aaaaaaa)h(hhhhhhhh). This one. this one is an Argument i really do not want to take into account anymore. This one was

before

the linking. Things have changed since then. A lot. The poll Held back then is not representative anymore. Either do a new one. (i can understand if you do not since they always carry a lot of aftermath with them) or stop quoting this one.This is pretty much saying you: Yeah this did not turned out like you wanted it but hey you wanted it so we will Keep it. Instead of: OK. You were wrong. We know. You know it now as well. Let's look Forward.We quote this poll because that is why the time period was picked. While my sample size isn't as large as that poll (it does span worlds, and regions) I can tell you there is still a lot of division on the topic. A lot of it has to do with what kind of world you play on. People on linked servers tend to have a different opinion then ones on host worlds etc. I'm curious what you think the link time frame should be.

The Problem here is, that i just left elonareach for Dzagonur. (Leaving a lone wolf Server with its own Special problems for a link Server) Therefore i will just start to experience what Impact the linking can and will have. this is the reason why i tried to leave out the question of how Long should the linking be. In a poll in this Forum i voted for 2 months because of this and i really was surprised by most of the People wanting to relink every month.

The main Point i was heading at is, that of course you are right to cite this poll if it Comes to why the linking is as it is now. But i think it is wrong citing this poll if it Comes to why the linking stays at it is. --> i will continue on this at the next passage.

I suggest you try anothe poll. A poll that is a bit bigger. trying to come up with a bigger and more complete Picture of the whole Situation. I would gladly invest a lot of my spare time in it. Too bad i am not good at computing.I'm not sure what you mean here. What would a bigger poll look like?

As you already mentioned there are a lot of different aspects in the Topic of linking. You mentioned that you have insight on a sample on how the linking should be. I thought about making another poll. A one that is also bringing up certain Connections between the user and his opinion. Taking Points in account like: Server, Gender, Main Modus, WvW Level, Usage of certain Websites/Forums a.s.o. (Pivot Table ;-) ) Too bad this is a real huge amount of work because otherwise the outcome would be really interesting. (I did something alike for my Bachelor Thesis and therefore i can imagine the huge workload)This was, as i have to admit, just a small brainfart of mine and coming to think it more throughly i have to admit that this would not be doable without a significant amount of time and Money which could be well spend on other aspects.

If you communicate it the right way, this could be a huge deal.i just wish we can all together solve this Situation.I agree.

This Response left me very happy with hopefully meaing not a lot of work for you.

(Some self reflections: it is quite funny how Content i was about this. The same way i get angry if i see a Topic i am also very eager about and which i see as very important (though it might not be) not beeing comented in any way. I think this Forum, also reddit, are influencing my Feelings about this game more than it is good. Especially on Topic that are discussable. the game is, and has always been, a great game. Especially for those not ranting too much about it. But since i started writings in Forums i sometimes end up with my Feelings getting catalysed and me doing the game wrong.)

[Lemoncurry.2345]

@"Raymond Lukes.6305" said:We try and normalize the population across the whole region. Tier teams are not fixed and so we need to try and get population as close across the board as we can.Thanks for your response! I am wondering though, isn't that a slight contradiction to what you said in the past?Our goal with World Linking is good matches. This doesn’t necessarily mean that worlds in tier 4 are intended to be competitive with worlds in tier 1, but ideally every world in tier 4 should be competitive with the other worlds in tier 4 and likewise every world in tier 1 should be competitive with the other worlds in tier 1. It would be nice if worlds in tier 4 were competitive with tier 1, but it’s not realistic since the distribution of players across worlds is not consistent. The issue is compounded in EU, due to the fact that we are avoiding linking worlds with different languages. For example, there is only one Spanish world, so they’ll never be linked and thus might never be competitive in tier 1 worlds. Similarly making each set of German worlds have equivalent populations has proved equally impossible because if we were to link them they would have a much higher population than other worlds, making match-ups against them not competitive.

At least in the EU, experience showed that more often than not total linked World-WvW-populations were not comparable between upper and lower tiers.