I don't get the linking system

[Nimon.7840]

Well i was on miller's sound in EU first.

We got linked to drakkar. Played our way up into tier 1

 

Immediately after getting there, we got split again.

 

So my guild transferred over to drakkar.

At this time, drakkar was linked to Abaddon's mail i think.

The next link came, drakkar got miller's sound back.

So we basically threw those gems out of the window.

 

But that's not the point.

At this point, second linking drakkar/miller we were constantly tier 2.

 

Now anet decided to not give us a link anymore.

Guess what, we dropped and were suddenly placed last.

Next linking came, guess who didn't get a link partner?

Right drakkar, that barely has queue at primetimes and can't even get all maps full at reset.

 

Seems legit.

 

So can someone explain how linking is done?

 

 

I feel like instead of making gvg-spots and so on, anet should more focus on the new wvw to give it to us asap (didn't read the whole announcment just read over it)

 

 

Edit: drakkar was never full, only at very high.

It still is. And as i can see, anet makes links by playhours in wvw.

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Linking is primarily based on population (which is defined by how long people play WvW, taking into account short-timers versus full-timers). Scores matter, also, but mostly as a way of determining match ups.

 

What each of us see in terms of population isn't largely representative of what's going on that we don't see. So it's not a matter of who has queues and who doesn't, but about ANet trying to set things up so that in any give match during the 2 month period, every "team" is bringing roughly the same amount of people, primary & links included.

 

 

[steki.1478]

You transferred to a well populated server, it became full (I guess)and it lost link because it had enough active players according to algorithm. Since DL had bad glicko rating at relink it was placed in low tier and no solo server can compete in coverage with linked ones, so I guess you're stuck for a while. It's also a heavy PPT focused server and ppt players arent fans of low tiers (you should know that, you transferred to it in t1) so my assumption is that people are demoralized and nobody wants to transfer there.

[Player.9621]

theres a serious imbalance in my group ill tell you that for nothing

the current system is trash

 


 

[aceofbass.2163]

> @"Player.9621" said:

> theres a serious imbalance in my group ill tell you that for nothing

> the current system is trash

>

> 

>

 

Wow your server is bad. Hope the alliance system comes soon enough.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Player.9621" said:

> theres a serious imbalance in my group ill tell you that for nothing

> the current system is trash

>

> 

>

 

"My group"?

 

That means nothing. Literally 7 out of 9 matchups EU/NA looks exactly the same in terms of total victory points.

 

Momentary skirmish points with cut out names could just as easily be taken from a perfectly balanced matchup as it could from an unbalanced one.

[Gemnaid.4219]

Linking to done to get your money. Don’t get suckered into transferring.

[CrimsonNeonite.1048]

There are too many German Servers to spread the population of German speaking players evenly, especially with 5 tiers and multiple international servers.

[SkyShroud.2865]

It is base on overall population, coverage is not taken into consideration so people who think that linking will fix imbalance issue, well, that's the answer, it will not fix unbalance.

[Offair.2563]

They do this intentional so people, like OP, will buy gems to transfer.

 

Working as intended.

[Optimator.3589]

The problem with their population metric is that while it looks at total play hours, it completely ignores distribution of those hours across time zones. So it's possible for a world or pair of worlds to have an overall high activity level, and yet do hopelessly poorly on PPT because all that activity occurs in one time zone and they have no coverage elsewhere. NA and EU primes may be where the most fighting happens, but SEA and OCX are where matches are won or lost.

 

[Player.9621]

Body is 4 characters too short.

[Etheri.5406]

Some correct and some misinformation here.

 

Linking german servers in a way that is healthy is impossible at the moment. The alliance system should help a bit with these type of issues. Essentially, the problem is 1 german server sits in T5, but a linked german server quickly becomes THE place for germans to go to play. Because all other german servers... well still stuck in T5. Part of this issue is that they're all FULL. I don't even speak german but now that RS / Kodash are both open i'll most likely move my alt to either of these servers.

 

Kodash can be strong. Elona can be strong. Drakkar can be ~~strong ~~ PPT. RS and kodash are; imo, the strongest german main servers and they've literally been dying in T5 because of it. Whoever gets a link gets out of T5, more enemies and more allies means more original players play again too, and the whole server revitalizes. For 2 months, after which some other german server gets the link and the previous server gets shafted and slowly drops back to T5. By the time they arrive there, they've had 2-4 weeks of stompy matchups because they can't hold their own as well without links.

 

I think anet is mad that it took them years to kill communities like RS; so they're trying harder. just kidding. Anet can't really link in a way that is healthy. It would be better for anet to introduce alliances or change these servers completely. It's possible that opening the servers also allows germans to (naturally) spread more to create healthier servers. RS has been closed for so long it's not even funny despite no links stuck in T5. It's only gone open now.

 

I'm somewhat hopeful that by moving players from international servers, germans could have at least 2 probably 3 stable T1-T4 main servers. If the german linked server, presumably still millers, becomes smaller then that'd be helpful too. That way you don't get only one german server having a huge amount of extra players; but a more balanced division.

I don't see a "good" link that anet can create right now. You can say link DL + millers as DL is the weakest out of elona / RS / kodash / DL; but truthfully you're still killing 3 stable german communities because they've been having oktoberfest in T5 for what, almost 6 months now?

 

> @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> It is base on overall population, coverage is not taken into consideration so people who think that linking will fix imbalance issue, well, that's the answer, it will not fix unbalance.

 

That said, sky shroud is correct. Alliances will NOT fix the second issue people here are upset about : COVERAGE BALANCE.

And that's also something that works both ways. I'm sorry but that screenshot? If you match 1 german server against 2 international ones, then every morning looks like that. Oh it's 6 am, germans drinking coffee and 70 man blobbing my garri. Whelp! By the time it's noon they own 70% of the map and then they suddenly all log off again.

 

And by the end of the afternoon? Half the german servers have nothing left because between noon and 4 pm CET they all went to work or had nothing left to ktrain. Their ktrain comms log off and suddenly the entire map shifts in the other direction. Or just any night.

 

Keep in mind the first matchups after relink are alwyas a mess. Kodash + millers is obviously not a T5 server and will soon rise to at least T3. Unless RS / DL get large amounts of transfers, I doubt they'll have another kodash MU in these next 2 months.

[Malediktus.9250]

Server linking is a flawed system invented to generate server transfer sales. Server merges would have been the way to go

[Roxanne.6140]

To put it in a more direct and negative way, the game developers create the platform to play but you have to pay for the experience if you want it consistently.

[RedShark.9548]

> @"Etheri.5406" said:

> Some correct and some misinformation here.

>

> Linking german servers in a way that is healthy is impossible at the moment. The alliance system should help a bit with these type of issues. Essentially, the problem is 1 german server sits in T5, but a linked german server quickly becomes THE place for germans to go to play. Because all other german servers... well still stuck in T5. Part of this issue is that they're all FULL. I don't even speak german but now that RS / Kodash are both open i'll most likely move my alt to either of these servers.

>

> Kodash can be strong. Elona can be strong. Drakkar can be ~~strong ~~ PPT. RS and kodash are; imo, the strongest german main servers and they've literally been dying in T5 because of it. Whoever gets a link gets out of T5, more enemies and more allies means more original players play again too, and the whole server revitalizes. For 2 months, after which some other german server gets the link and the previous server gets shafted and slowly drops back to T5. By the time they arrive there, they've had 2-4 weeks of stompy matchups because they can't hold their own as well without links.

>

> I think anet is mad that it took them years to kill communities like RS; so they're trying harder. just kidding. Anet can't really link in a way that is healthy. It would be better for anet to introduce alliances or change these servers completely. It's possible that opening the servers also allows germans to (naturally) spread more to create healthier servers. RS has been closed for so long it's not even funny despite no links stuck in T5. It's only gone open now.

>

> I'm somewhat hopeful that by moving players from international servers, germans could have at least 2 probably 3 stable T1-T4 main servers. If the german linked server, presumably still millers, becomes smaller then that'd be helpful too. That way you don't get only one german server having a huge amount of extra players; but a more balanced division.

> I don't see a "good" link that anet can create right now. You can say link DL + millers as DL is the weakest out of elona / RS / kodash / DL; but truthfully you're still killing 3 stable german communities because they've been having oktoberfest in T5 for what, almost 6 months now?

>

> > @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> > It is base on overall population, coverage is not taken into consideration so people who think that linking will fix imbalance issue, well, that's the answer, it will not fix unbalance.

>

> That said, sky shroud is correct. Alliances will NOT fix the second issue people here are upset about : COVERAGE BALANCE.

> And that's also something that works both ways. I'm sorry but that screenshot? If you match 1 german server against 2 international ones, then every morning looks like that. Oh it's 6 am, germans drinking coffee and 70 man blobbing my garri. Whelp! By the time it's noon they own 70% of the map and then they suddenly all log off again.

>

> And by the end of the afternoon? Half the german servers have nothing left because between noon and 4 pm CET they all went to work or had nothing left to ktrain. Their ktrain comms log off and suddenly the entire map shifts in the other direction. Or just any night.

>

> Keep in mind the first matchups after relink are alwyas a mess. Kodash + millers is obviously not a T5 server and will soon rise to at least T3. Unless RS / DL get large amounts of transfers, I doubt they'll have another kodash MU in these next 2 months.

 

well said, im on kodash for years now and i remember those days when we were in the top 3 with deso and sfr for weeks, we have a pretty stable and somewhat organized community that is slowly falling apart, because many ppl are leaving or are just fed up with wvw overall. we were closed for an eternity and now that we finally opened (naturally, not due to tanking lol) we almost instantly got a link and just destroy our matchup so hard its painful to watch.

 

alliances could help when german communities that rly want to rise collaborate with international communities to form an alliance

national servers/communities will always have a problem with nightcapping and having a low playernumber at night or over the day because most go to work at the same time

[hunkamania.7561]

The world linking was a horrible bandaid solution. The links are never well done and have you scratching your head most the time.

[Lemoncurry.2345]

> @"Etheri.5406" said:

> [...] Anet can't really link in a way that is healthy. It would be better for anet to introduce alliances or change these servers completely. It's possible that opening the servers also allows germans to (naturally) spread more to create healthier servers. RS has been closed for so long it's not even funny despite no links stuck in T5. It's only gone open now. [...]

Very well thought-out post Etheri! The only hope for a lot of German worlds is the alliance system, though a limit of 500 players per alliance as stated by the devs will probably pose a problem for whats left of those former rather tight-knit communities. The inability to compete coverage-wise with linked servers led to a lot of damage to these servers. Even players who were only interested in fights got fed up with the never-changing stale MUs at the bottom of the league and transferred away or stopped playing. Basically whoever got a linking partner was the new bandwagon-target until the link was removed, then the unhealthy cycle continued.

Maybe the opening of all servers will alleviate the problem a little. What would probably help most would be the closing of a tier in the EU and giving every server at least one link. But even with the alliance system still under construction for quite some time I doubt Anet will make this step.

[Etheri.5406]

I do not think EU needs to close one tier (yet). I am grateful they FINALLY opened german servers.

 

I'm one of the players who transfered my alt off RS because it (clearly) couldn't get out of T5 and did not have any fights. Despite that; I honestly rather play on RS with limited understanding of german because they play community heavy than join the clownfiesta that is most linked servers.

If almost all "full", including the strongest and biggest servers (wsr gandara vabbi fsp ...) in the game can have a link; then I don't see the point of having "closed / full" T5 servers. They don't need to reduce a tier to give everyone a link; they just have to leave T3 / T4 / T5 servers open.

 

I will transfer to either kodash or RS on my alt. I know others will too. With players being able to return, new blood being able to come in, guilds finally being able to recruit again and the potential of matchups that aren't... well oktoberfest; I hope both RS and kodash come back to life. That said I'm not sure howmany players will want to bother, I'm sure after several months many players have moved on. I hear disco is a fractal expert now.

[Nimon.7840]

I think, they could have just introduced a transferring penalty. So you cannot transfer again for like 8 weeks (if relinking was once every 4 weeks)

 

I'm playing wvw because it's a fun gamemode. Better than bgs in wow. And better than any mass-pvp i played in any other game.

 

But as it is right now is so unbalanced, it's no fun to play anymore.

I do my dailys, go offline.

Then i raid with my guild and that's it.

 

Before when there were at least some players to play with and when we had the same manpower or only small less than the other servers, i played. Wvw like all day long

[DeWolfe.2174]

Linking is how the dev's get to "rotate" who wins and loses every couple of months. Only issue is, they also have favorites.

[SkyShroud.2865]

> @"Etheri.5406" said:

> > @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> > It is base on overall population, coverage is not taken into consideration so people who think that linking will fix imbalance issue, well, that's the answer, it will not fix unbalance.

>

> That said, sky shroud is correct. Alliances will NOT fix the second issue people here are upset about : COVERAGE BALANCE.

 

But....I never say anything about alliance......

 

Really amaze how people can take advantage of others' words to emphasize their unrelated points.

 

More surprised how people not notice that too....

[Korgov.7645]

ANet is very secretive about how worlds are linked. The data is simply not available so we can only trust ANet made the linking correctly.

 

It is not only the linking. We also have 1-up-1-down system and 5-4-3 victory points system. Both add to the imbalance.

 

1-up-1-down means that you get normal matchup only every other week. The other half of the time your team lands in a matchup where is does not belong.

 

5-4-3 victory points means that the weaker teams will never team up against the strongest. Instead the middle team will always attack the weakest. This strategy secures 1 victory point difference per skirmish with minimal effort. Securing 2 victory points, or securing 2 victory points over the strongest team is way, way more difficult.

 

Come world restructuring everything will be rose scented, simple, balanced, transparent, verifiable, fair, and competitive. Honest.

[SkyShroud.2865]

> @"Korgov.7645" said:

> ANet is very secretive about how worlds are linked. The data is simply not available so we can only trust ANet made the linking correctly.

>

> It is not only the linking. We also have 1-up-1-down system and 5-4-3 victory points system. Both add to the imbalance.

>

> 1-up-1-down means that you get normal matchup only every other week. The other half of the time your team lands in a matchup where is does not belong.

>

> 5-4-3 victory points means that the weaker teams will never team up against the strongest. Instead the middle team will always attack the weakest. This strategy secures 1 victory point difference per skirmish with minimal effort. Securing 2 victory points, or securing 2 victory points over the strongest team is way, way more difficult.

>

> Come world restructuring everything will be rose scented, simple, balanced, transparent, verifiable, fair, and competitive. Honest.

 

Nah, it isn't secretive. Anet dev clearly said the linking does not take coverage into considerations though I all along suspect it but didn't gotten a confirmation until recently. That alone pretty much means there is a great chance it will be very unbalanced in some months.

 

So all those people (at last matchup) who claim linking will fix unbalance, well, they are in their own imaginative world.

[Etheri.5406]

> @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> > @"Etheri.5406" said:

> > > @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> > > It is base on overall population, coverage is not taken into consideration so people who think that linking will fix imbalance issue, well, that's the answer, it will not fix unbalance.

> >

> > That said, sky shroud is correct. Alliances will NOT fix the second issue people here are upset about : COVERAGE BALANCE.

>

> But....I never say anything about alliance......

>

> Really amaze how people can take advantage of others' words to emphasize their unrelated points.

>

> More surprised how people not notice that too....

 

You state that using only population and not coverage data means linkings cannot fix this problem. They stated a week ago that alliances will ONLY use population data and not coverage data. So I state you're correct and that alliances won't fix this. Do you understand or too difficult? :)