If you aren't playing harb or ebon hawk pops basically dont exist for republic players, shadowlands has one active pvp guild right now and even though the imps get reg pvp pops rated is gone entirely except for the win traders, just combine the us servers already, make one east one west, you keep holding out fpr this mass population increase that wont happen.

we play against pubs a decent amount on JC.

"Heavy"" servers dont even exist anymore, even harb, the most populated us server is a standard

Myself and others have been asking for this since March last year. Bioware said months ago before the expansion that they would wait and see. Obviously that had to do with "their" expectations of an increase of people for the expansion.

 

There were lots of people in the gen section saying that there would be a massive increase and the servers were already heavy, LOL. They were newer players and had NFI regarding what is heavy. Most of them were solo players who didn't want to have to share any mobs, farm nodes, wait for heroic respawns etc. They are probably RPG players and this is their first MMO.

 

To cut a long story from being longer, I actually said back when we were asking for merges that there would be no significant population boost with the expansion, which there wasn't. They actually lost players because of the poorly designed expansion. I also said that come Mid to the end of January, all those fly by night expansion players would start to leave and we would see a big drop in population activity. So guess I can now get on my high horse and say I told you so

 

So Bioware Devs, it is now time to look at and plan these server merges.

 

We need -

1 for the west coast (probably Harbinger)

1 for the east coast

1-2 for Euro

 

If that doesn't fix populations then the game is truely dead.

Here is a detailed explanation why this wont revitalize PvP and what really needs to be done: Its been written with ranked in mind, but the very same incentives and psychological effects also apply to reg pvp

Here is a detailed explanation why this wont revitalize PvP and what really needs to be done: Its been written with ranked in mind, but the very same incentives and psychological effects also apply to reg pvp

 

The first thing you need for ELO to work is a population. It's just not there on any server. You're not going to convince everyone that currently prefers to do regs to do ranked instead and you're not going to get PVE'ers to do ranked any more than CXP already has.

 

Your premise is flawed. Ranked in this game has never had enough of a population that the qs couldn't easily be extremely exploited by a couple people with no scruples - that has always been a major flaw in the system here. And ideally there should be at least a dozen people in q on both sides -in several different ELO brackets- during all or most times of the day (or else win traders take advantage of empty qs and/or regular q exploiters/dodgers/syncers get their ratings bumped). And for anything like that to happen we've needed x-server or mergers right from the start. X-faction arenas would dramatically complicate things for win traders and make the ELO matches a bit easier to line up as well, but first we need a much larger population.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Savej

We need -

1 for the west coast (probably Harbinger)

1 for the east coast

1-2 for Euro

 

I doubt they would merge European language servers, so we would probably end up with 1 French, 1 German and 1 English (that sounds like the start of a joke, which, in hindsight isn't far from the mark...)

1 Mega server for the U.S ( wouldn't really need to be mega)

Then we can verify without a doubt when the game is actually dying.

Just went to TRE this month from MOTF.

 

French servers are almost empty, probably the same for german one too.

 

Dunno for American servers, but yes you should really merge european servers.

1 Mega server for the U.S ( wouldn't really need to be mega)

Then we can verify without a doubt when the game is actually dying.

 

You dont need one server to verify that, harb is only a standard right now, and only at primetine, there was pnly 300k subscribers durning 2.0 that was the last time bioware announced their subscriptions(i wonder why) there is no way ot is more than that now, i would even go as far to say theres only about 50 k players, total.

and dropping...I'm on bastion...haven't played for a week..why should I nothing going on...merge the damn servers!

1 Mega server for the U.S ( wouldn't really need to be mega)

Then we can verify without a doubt when the game is actually dying.

 

This wouldn't work for a lot of people, especially in OS locations like Australia. But that would depend on location, ie west coast would be ok for APAC, estcoast would be unplayable.

Regardless, where ever they were to put it, they would piss off a lot of people in different regions and reduce the population even more.

The only solution is to have 2 servers in the US. One on the west coast and one on the east coast. Then one or two in EU

This would solve the issue of people being stranded on dead servers or new people rolling on a dead server and not realising.

and dropping...I'm on bastion...haven't played for a week..why should I nothing going on...merge the damn servers!

 

That really sucks for new or returning players that login and discover the server is now dead. Then Bioware have the nerve to ask you to pay to transfer your toons.

They need to offer free transfers from dead servers, then they don't need to merge. Just designate 2 servers that can be transferred, ie Harbinger for west coast people that are stuck on bastion and 1 east coast server. But don't allow people to transfer to dead servers.

Once Bio realise just how many people are left on those servers they will see they need to be merged. What I don't understand is why they can't see that in their data now. Surely they can see how many active players are on at certain times.

I started another merge server threads in the general section because we know Bio don't read the pvp one.

It's funny how the solo game people jump straight in and start attacking you for bringing up merges and how it's going to have this major impact on them if they merge servers. "Apparently" there are only 5 people in the whole game who want server merges, lol. supposedly we are the minority of the games population.

So what ever you do, don't ask for merges or the "scary solo players" will troll you. 😂😂

Feel free to join the conversation over there -

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=910932

If you aren't playing harb or ebon hawk pops basically dont exist for republic players, shadowlands has one active pvp guild right now and even though the imps get reg pvp pops rated is gone entirely except for the win traders, just combine the us servers already, make one east one west, you keep holding out fpr this mass population increase that wont happen.

 

What are you talking about? Ebon Hawk gets plenty of pops lol

I started a poll to see how many want to merge servers

 

http://www.strawpoll.me/12119899/r

 

And this poll to ask what type of swtor player you are

 

http://www.strawpoll.me/12119962/r

Edited January 16, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

If you aren't playing harb or ebon hawk pops basically dont exist for republic players, shadowlands has one active pvp guild right now and even though the imps get reg pvp pops rated is gone entirely except for the win traders, just combine the us servers already, make one east one west, you keep holding out fpr this mass population increase that wont happen.

 

There is no need to impact every other in the player in the game to please the PVP crowd. PVPers should either transfer or re-roll to Harb and make it the unofficial PVP server if they believe their server does not have a large enough population. I play on JC and PVP every day and get pops regularly from Imp and Pub, but if I wasn't and it frustrated me I wouldn't make a suggestion that screws the entire playerbase to satisfy my need.

There is no need to impact every other in the player in the game to please the PVP crowd. PVPers should either transfer or re-roll to Harb and make it the unofficial PVP server if they believe their server does not have a large enough population. I play on JC and PVP every day and get pops regularly from Imp and Pub, but if I wasn't and it frustrated me I wouldn't make a suggestion that screws the entire playerbase to satisfy my need.

 

And yet, dead servers impact everyone. I've seen it before in other games and in this one: dead and dying servers just get worse, never better, and people in general get turned off from the game. Nevermind hms or ops, what's the q time for fps or uprisings or gsf on BC, JM, POT5 or Bastion during, say, now? That's half the NA servers and most of the rest aren't great. Many things improve for everyone on busy servers. When you say "impact", what exactly are you referring to. What are you afraid will happen?

And yet, dead servers impact everyone. I've seen it before in other games and in this one: dead and dying servers just get worse, never better, and people in general get turned off from the game. Nevermind hms or ops, what's the q time for fps or uprisings or gsf on BC, JM, POT5 or Bastion during, say, now? That's half the NA servers and most of the rest aren't great. Many things improve for everyone on busy servers. When you say "impact", what exactly are you referring to. What are you afraid will happen?

 

Exactly, you have to put yourself into the perspective of a brand new player, which Bioware themselves is holding out for. You try the game out and after leveling for awhile que for other content and realize you had been in que for hours with not one pop in any category, you decide other than the class story the game is complete ****. Or you make it to 70 because someone told you end game is the only content, and realize, hey theres no que pops or content here either. Basically the only swtor players left are founders and fanboys, everyone else either never gave it a chance or gave up at some point along the way. I played during Vanilla and people seem to forget that the game had an exodus of over a million players...

Agreed. Dead servers Drive new people away if they roll on them and don't realise. They then tell their friends who dont even bother.

For every person who trashes swtor because they are new and it's dead or they leave because its dead, will tell another ten people. Those ten people tell another 10.

These new solo players that have been drawn into the game and don't do group content love dead servers because they don't have to share anything like mobs, respawns or resources.

But they don't understand that this is an MMO based on group play as well. So when ever any group content players like pvpers or operations guys say we need merges, they jump up and down and have a hissy fit and tell us we are being selfish and how dare we ask for merges.

Half these guys haven't even been playing 18 months, some not even 12 months. But they seem to be experts on what the game needs, they seem to know what a dead server is (apparently none of them are dead ), and they are so loud and argumentative if you ask for merges to fix the game for the rest of the 80% of the player base. To the point of trolling any thread or any body asking for merges. They think they can silence us by trolling.

What ever fact or logic you use to explain it to them they try to rip it apart and tell you it's wrong and you have an agenda :rolleyes:, (idiots, of course we do, we want the game fixed). But they will use the most illogical and selfish reasons to make their point.

There are way more group content players in this game than just solo story players. Being conservative I would say 80% are group content, but I think that's being generous. I wouldn't be surprised if the number was more like 90%.

Group players need populations to play. People stuck on dead servers can't play group content.

Merging servers has no real impact on solo players except maybe waiting 30sec for a mob respwan because they can get on at anytime of the day and play their game content straight away.

Group content players can't. If we don't have enough people we can't play.

So who is being more selfish?

10% of the population who don't want to share resources and are arguing against population consolidation for group players

Or

90% of the population who want everyone to be able to play the game by consolidating the servers?

 

EDIT: I expect my personal anti merge troll to turn up here because he's followed me everywhere else. LoL 😂

Edited January 23, 2017 by TrixxieTriss

There is no need to impact every other in the player in the game to please the PVP crowd. PVPers should either transfer or re-roll to Harb and make it the unofficial PVP server if they believe their server does not have a large enough population. I play on JC and PVP every day and get pops regularly from Imp and Pub, but if I wasn't and it frustrated me I wouldn't make a suggestion that screws the entire playerbase to satisfy my need.

 

Merges don't screw the whole player base. They help most of it. But if you are getting regular pops and can play the content you want, then why do you care.

Players should not need to pay to transfer because Bioware let the game and servers die. It's not the players fault, it's the Devs fault.

There are really only two options.

Forced merged servers

Or

Free legacy transfers off dead servers.

But even if they give us free transfers and everyone who wants to leave does, there will be hardly anyone left on those other servers. So Bio will then shut them down regardless and force mergers anyway. I think that is something you and others don't understand. This is a business and if no one is using a server, they will shut it down. They've done this in the past with servers that were twice as populated as harbinger, so why would anyone think they won't do it now.

The whole argument for not merging is ridiculous. "Oh no, you're going to screw the whole player base". What a load of crap. If anything it helps the entire game and stops it from dying more and being shut down.

I'm starting to think they can't merge the servers possibly something to do with the Guild Ships and Guild Strongholds. All the servers on the lists are now running at Light. Even on Harbinger it's a struggle to get pops on some of the Galactic Command content. What good is buying a command boost if it's half way used up by the time you get a pop.

What good is buying a command boost if it's half way used up by the time you get a pop.

 

Buy more command boosts in cartel market. Bioware will appreciate

My sub is only for a few more months, I don't expect they will do anything and I'm done after that..and wont look back. I highly recommend everyone consider why you bother. They haven't responded, wont respond and don't care to respond. Stop giving them your money..that will get a response. This new system was a mess, its junk and it did nothing to make the game enjoyable. In fact I think it increased the number of people leaving. At this point SWTOR has flatlined, it had a good run but on to other games and new challenges.

Definitely need a server merger again, at least on Shadowlands, population is the lifeblood of a MMO and this game is in a continual decline, I know that they are always reluctant, especially the 1st time, I spent the better part of a year on Darth Bandon Server where many nights I was the only single player on all of fleet, it seems this Dev team has a inherent fear that merges equal failure and that somehow their next patch will turn things around, when in fact most patches just give a temporary bump and then rapid decline, More population is s simple and cheap solution that everyone can win, PVPers get more queues, PVEer have more groups going and solo players have a more vibrant GTN and have little to no effect on their playstyle.