I just wanted to redact on a few points of my previous post about balance in WvW. It was rather simplistic what was written and rather positive considering the state of things on many servers.
I stand by that at times the diehard WvW players really do need a mixed bag of match ups but the predominant style should always fall back towards a more even battle. Unfortunately on many servers this has not been the case for lengthy periods of time, HoD has been on a downward cycle for weeks now and servers like Blackgate have had an uncontested rein to the top. It is a huge issue with WvW right now but of course as usual the main issue is the easy and regularity of transfers.
I won’t go on about why they are a bad thing because if you are interested in WvW you are very aware of the issues and if you aren’t well there are enough rants on the forums to get an understanding. I see that finally Anet are making a small stand on their matter with the announcement to make server transfers limited to every seven days, but this is nothing but a band aid fix over a gaping raw bloody wound. I understand their need to fix or actually implement the guesting system, a system which was a very large part of their marketing and is still a work in progress (when we’re ready hmmmm) with no time-frame suggesting it’s state of affairs. We can’t upset the PvE masses now can we, that would be unheard of so the pvp crowd had to suffer AND still will.
It is unfortunate in a way as I see this fix having no real impact on the factors playing a part in the large amount of people transferring and jumping on the bandwagon with the winning servers. It is still a very easy and more importantly free to transfer wherever you want, we may get less of the undesirable elements such as certain guilds transferring to the beaten solely to belittle and abuse as we saw from ET but that is about it. The limit is the perfect time for people to bandwagon as well since it is the same time of the matches… server not doing well and you just switch to a winning server, and will be back in time for the next.
Sorry Anet but as long as people can move around freely they will and it will be much longer till the servers and ladder show anything even slightly resembling a reasonable balance of servers rising and falling around others with a similar strength. You need people to form bonds on a single server first and foremost before we can expect long term WvW player retention and I hope it happens soon because I know many in my guild and even the alliance are getting rather annoyed with the unpredictability of the battlegrounds.
Healing the masses 