Guild Wars 2

titanlectro.5029:

1) Your argument is essentially that it couldn’t get any worse. Of course, that argument only applies to T8, whereas most of the other servers are much more balanced. But even in T8, it can get worse.

2) Sports are a bad analogy for how WvW works. I almost put this in my last post, but decided to leave it out.

My argument does not only apply to T8. I’m willing to bet there are quite a few other servers in other tiers who would also like to see some variety and the chance to test themselves against more opponents, rather than the same ones week after week. The current match-ups are most definitely not “much more balanced”. The only reason T8 looks less balanced is because of the weird math hole created by the system.

Some people feel certain sports games are a “sure bet” as well. They are often wrong. Even the most powerful teams lose once in a while, for whatever reason. The same would be true here. You’re trying to claim that because there are more variables at play, the outcome is MORE certain. That’s a contradiction and makes no sense. More variables means it’s less predictable. You have no idea what each individual on a server is going to do week to week, or how things will move or change. The players on an NFL team are fixed, the numbers of players are fixed, and the stats are kept in a million different ways…yet the outcome of each game is still quite often unpredictable. Imagine trying to predict who would win an NFL game if each team could have different numbers of players, and different players, every single week. You can’t.

Everything you’re saying is complete speculation. Again, for the one hundredth time…we have no idea how matches would play out until we play them. We have no idea how FC right now, or FC one month from now, will stack up with any other server right now, or one month from now. The fact that a third server is thrown into the mix makes it even less predictable. You’re guessing.

The current scores were arrived at through a whole series of completely out-of-control things…like mass server transfers, holidays, and off-hours capping. Claiming that those scores represent the current participation or skill of the servers is just silly. The current ET or FC participation in WvW is extremely low. Why? Because people get sick of losing by a huge margin to the same server every week forever and there’s no requirement for them to come out and play. If things switched up, more people would turn out, and in turn the server would do better. It’s a cycle that works both ways.

Of course winning servers have huge participation when they are winning. Of course losing servers have smaller participation when they are losing. ArenaNet has provided really no incentive or reward for defending or beating long odds…so people get discouraged and wait for something new to happen (check ET and FC turnout each time a new match starts…it’s probably double what it is any other day).

This nonsense about T8 servers being “worse” than everyone else has got to stop. It’s completely arbitrary and made up. We had bad luck and small populations early on, but that doesn’t make us any less worthy of a fair shake, does it? You feel that past performance should lock us out of ever playing anyone other than the two servers we’re married to? The possibility of losing some matches wouldn’t scare us at all. The chance to see other servers, and the possibility of winning some matches, it worth the occasional “big blowout”.

Stop overthinking, and just consider for a minute what’s fun. Is it fun to play the same servers week-in and week-out forever? Not for me. Variety and fresh experiences is what will keep it fun. Losing by 10 points or a million points is still losing either way, so who cares if some matches are big blowouts…if we get to move on and play someone different the following week, it’s all good.

Kyto.4269:

So would the choices be reset tiers or closed the servers on the lowest bracket and allow people out of those servers to ones of their choice?

A soft reset for the tiers would help, but as one poster pointed out, that’s more of “a bandage for a bullet wound” than a fix. Then there’s the idea of server closure, which would probably be very bad for ANet’s PR purposes. FC and ET aren’t dead servers in the usual sense of the word. I don’t PvE all that much, but I’d be surprised if the nobody was still out playing that area of the game on the servers. Our WvW populations are just getting tired of showing up.

EasymodeX.4062:

Fozzik.1742:

What do you think it is right now? Blowout week after week is exactly what we have, with no change in sight…no possibility of something new or different.

Er, not gonna scroll through the thread to look at what matchup you’re talking about in detail, but there is no blowout in T8. SF is winning by a pretty wide margin, but they only have 55% of the total score. A blowout is when they’re winning by a hell of a lot more than that, lmao.

When looking at the current T8 match-up, people refer to it as a blowout because of the effort put on by all sides. The current score is FC and ET throwing everything they have at the match with serious risk of burnout just to get under 50% of the score between them. SF is getting over 50% just by being SF, losing interest and getting bored because of it. Not that SF isn’t trying, far from it. They just don’t need to try to get more than 50% of the score

A way to distribute players to servers with paid transfers would be to allow only transfers to the 2nd and 3rd in each tier or have an additional charge in each tier itself for 1st and 2nd to ensure more balanced matches.
It would be interesting to know by which percentage server transfers dropped since the paid method was implemented and a chart to see the transfers to and from each server as well.
Does Anet when creating a new account suggest certain servers to join or is it a list of all servers and you pick ? I don’t remember anymore.

Another way to rest the rating system would be to wipe out the history without
changing the current ranking. This would ensure some faster movement in ranks
without getting crazy pairings and hopefully closer match-ups. This could be done even on a regular basis like every 3 month.

Takerukun.8924:

When looking at the current T8 match-up, people refer to it as a blowout because of the effort put on by all sides. The current score is FC and ET throwing everything they have at the match with serious risk of burnout just to get under 50% of the score between them. SF is getting over 50% just by being SF, losing interest and getting bored because of it. Not that SF isn’t trying, far from it. They just don’t need to try to get more than 50% of the score

I agree that the level of effort is probably pretty lopsided, but it’s important to note that those trying their hardest in WvW every night are, at this point, a pretty small part of the populations of both servers (ET and FC). If the match’s outcome was a bit less certain, there would be a lot more FC and ET players out there trying their hardest.

I still enjoy playing WvW almost every night, but it’s definitely frustrating and I don’t begrudge anyone taking a break from it. We’re not showing at our best, is all I’m saying, and our score doesn’t define us right now.

Voradors.5381:

Earlier this week Mos.millenium had SF score as going down. Even after we stomped ET/FC.
Yesterday, Anet posted the official scores and had SF score going up by 56 points.
Now, mos.millenium shows SF as going up by 56 points as well.

Does this mean Anet is actually doing something to balance things out?

The way Anet posts official scores is just a summary of what happened last week, not what’s currently happening this week.

If you look at the matchup history on the Millenium site, last week’s stats match up with what Anet posted.

yeah, no end in sight …

Fozzik.1742:

I agree that the level of effort is probably pretty lopsided, but it’s important to note that those trying their hardest in WvW every night are, at this point, a pretty small part of the populations of both servers (ET and FC). If the match’s outcome was a bit less certain, there would be a lot more FC and ET players out there trying their hardest.

I still enjoy playing WvW almost every night, but it’s definitely frustrating and I don’t begrudge anyone taking a break from it. We’re not showing at our best, is all I’m saying, and our score doesn’t define us right now.

Oh, I agree with you 100% in that regard. And I’ll even admit to being part of the no-show problem most days this past week. (Midterms are fun, what can I say…?)

If everyone in FC and ET who consider themselves part of the WvW crowd were to put their full effort in, I have no doubt that we’d at the least give SF a better run for their money. We might even be able to stand up to T7. It’s just that between low morale, real life getting in the way, and the black-hole that is T8 ratings, the turnout won’t increase enough to matter in a timely fashion.

I wish it would, ‘cause I’ve seen some awesome WvW people from both servers. But then, if we do show up in force for once, SF’s crippled crawling frantic dash for T7 will slow down even more. Who knows, T8 might yet be an even and fair match even with SF in it. But, with the shear number of people I know who are throwing themselves at WvW non-stop, I don’t see that happening.

I think the idea that there’s some “ideal match” that every server should end up in…where they are playing two other servers they are evenly matched with and they play them every week forever…sounds like a pretty boring prospect.

That seems to be the goal of this system…that things shake out to the point where we have two opponents (instead of dozens) and just play those two every week for as long as we play the game.

Personally, I think that’s a lousy idea and will be terrible for long-term retention. They need to mix it up and provide fresh experiences. Whatever system they use, it needs to be one where servers get to see different opponents at least reasonably often, and where the matches’ outcomes aren’t known before they even start.

Fozzik.1742:

I think the idea that there’s some “ideal match” that every server should end up in…where they are playing two other servers they are evenly matched with and they play them every week forever…sounds like a pretty boring prospect.

That seems to be the goal of this system…that things shake out to the point where we have two opponents (instead of dozens) and just play those two every week for as long as we play the game.

Personally, I think that’s a lousy idea and will be terrible for long-term retention. They need to mix it up and provide fresh experiences. Whatever system they use, it needs to be one where servers get to see different opponents at least reasonably often, and where the matches’ outcomes aren’t known before they even start.

You’re right. It is a terrible idea. What you say also points to the root of this problem – that not even fixing the ratings this thread is about is a viable plan for long term growth. However, while the servers might need variety, they need fun variety. Variety for variety’s sake is about as much fun as sending an old, bitter, and uptight grandparent to hang out with a group of rebellious teenagers. Sure, you probably haven’t seen that in a while. But it isn’t going to end well.

The only real viable solution for the long term survival of this game (in WvW at least) is balancing the populations across all 24 servers. You’ll still see servers who are just plain out better than others, and some that are still going to be crushed. But that would be from player skill, not population. People don’t usually complain when that happens – they strive to improve themselves.

That’s where this becomes a tightrope walk in a hurricane. ANet can’t balance the populations on their own. They’ll probably lose more than half their player base if they do that. All they can do is offer some kind of reason for people to balance out of their own free will.

All I can say is good luck with that. The game’s been out for half a year already and people still haven’t done it out of the goodness of their heart. They’ll need either a game breaking carrot to move to under-powered servers, or a death threat of a stick for those that stay on over-powered servers. Hell with the cake the Necro forum sent ANet, I’m sending whoever’s in charge of this Aspirin for the migraines

Takerukun.8924:

The only real viable solution for the long term survival of this game (in WvW at least) is balancing the populations across all 24 servers. You’ll still see servers who are just plain out better than others, and some that are still going to be crushed. But that would be from player skill, not population. People don’t usually complain when that happens – they strive to improve themselves.

to actually do something like this… anet would need to introduce obnoxiously expensive transfer tickets to go to any server with even a few more man hours put into wvw. 2000 gems doesnt cut it, and the current number is based off of the wrong statistic (total population, with very large brackets for different price points). they could do something more like 20k gems, or 10x current prices, for any server with higher than average man hours put into wvw. and reduce prices to (or even incentivize) transfer to undermanned servers. and they could make transfers act something like the gem/gold exchange where massive spikes in plain old transfers (and not man hour averages) drastically and quickly change a servers transfer price, to prevent abuse.

i think the servers would even out wvw population-wise fairly quickly.

insanemaniac.2456:

to actually do something like this… anet would need to introduce obnoxiously expensive transfer tickets to go to any server with even a few more man hours put into wvw. 2000 gems doesnt cut it, and the current number is based off of the wrong statistic (total population, with very large brackets for different price points). they could do something more like 20k gems, or 10x current prices, for any server with higher than average man hours put into wvw. and reduce prices to (or even incentivize) transfer to undermanned servers. and they could make transfers act something like the gem/gold exchange where massive spikes in plain old transfers (and not man hour averages) drastically and quickly change a servers transfer price, to prevent abuse.

i think the servers would even out wvw population-wise fairly quickly.

Yeah, that sound you heard when paid transfers came out was the relieved sigh of every WvW player, followed by a resounding thud from the mass facepalming when they checked the price-scheme. I’ve yet to hear a truly valid rebuttal arguing against basing paid transfers on WvW population rather than on total server population. If PvE population is becoming an issue (which is hard to believe considering this game rewards grouping up with other players for PvE like no other), simply stop transfers to the server.

I’d be surprised to find more than a few people in WvW who wouldn’t defend the system you suggest to the death (err…of their avatar). It would probably show, at the very least, enough balance that teirs adjacent to one another could fight each other without many population or coverage problems. The current system gives no reason to transfer to any of the tiers below T5, and I’ve yet to see a valid argument for why that remains unchanged.

so… saw some more people (guilds) leaving the server, when will anet wake up? this problem is getting worse

Yep, a price structure for transfers that was based on WvW participation makes a ton of sense. Just strictly from a quality of service standpoint, they should be discouraging players from moving to a server where they are going to have to wait in long queues and hang out in overflows all the time.

I think moving to high WvW participation servers being dramatically more expensive would be a good first step, but there’s a couple of others they need to make.

As I suggested earlier, they need to provide a much better reward structure and incentives in the mechanics for even fights or battling against the odds. Rewards need to be improved, and need to focus on defense much more than they do.

I also think that any plan to encourage transfers to lower-participation servers will fall flat unless they provide real support for guild transfers. If a guild transfers to a lower-participation server, they should get to take their influence and the perks they’ve earned with them. Make them leave their influence and perks behind if they move to a higher-participation or perpetually winning server…as an additional cost to taking the easy way out.

That would just alienate all the people that just PvE if transfers are based on WvW participation.

How would it alienate PvE players? They could still take advantage of the system to transfer to the “cheaper” worlds if they chose, and reap the same benefits of cheap transfers and moving their guild’s influence… so it would balance out PvE as well. Less overflows would be a good thing.

Also, PvE balances out a bit more on its own, since new players are funneled to the less crowded servers by default. The population in PvE is really much less sensitive than WvW, as long the population isn’t so low that all zones are deserted, or so high that overflows are in use constantly. Anywhere in the middle works great.

The problem that needs fixing is not the natural flow of players between servers. The problem is the artificial flow of players who are intentionally moving to winning WvW servers so they can get easy wins and finish their exploration, or the artificial consolidation of guilds on a certain server to create a new imbalance in a certain tier.

In short, people were gaming the free transfers, and are continuing to game the cheap paid transfers, for WvW purposes.

Most people don’t like a fair fight…they want to win handily and easily and the bahavior of the population over the past few months proves it. Some positive pressure needs to be brought to even out populations and make matches more competitive. I agree with others that this needs to happen first, then they need to create a different system of match-ups which is more dynamic than what we have currently and avoids the issues of stuck tiers.

Well PvE players don’t even like to hear anything about WvW and hate that they even have to go in there for map completion or for Badges…so I can imagine the backlash that this would cause.

Not sure of what you mean by saying that people like to win handily and behavior proves something that is in Anet’s hands.

FilthyRat.4652:

That would just alienate all the people that just PvE if transfers are based on WvW participation.

Has anyone heard of guilds changing servers because the PvE environment is better on another server?

Anet has a lot of work to do to make WvW fun for everyone who wants to participate…

Ideally you’d want balanced servers with balanced coverage but that’s just not going to happen because players want to be on winning servers, even if it means having queue times.

High PvE population doesn’t always mean high WvW population and low PvE population doesn’t mean low WvW population. Transfers based on PvE populations won’t work when people transfer because of WvW when you have High PvE-Low WvW and Low Pve-High WvW situations.

Night capping ruins morale faster than anything else in WvW. Two, or even three balanced servers have to fight on a longer front than when one is pushed back to their spawn point. The one tower per breakout doesn’t push the front far enough to achieve balance. Three possible solutions is to give players and npc’s increasing buffs for being outmanned/outpointed. Another is to increase the breakout event to include a camp and a keep. The third solution is to bring in PvE disruption events in the dominating servers territory so they have to retreat from the spawn point to save their holdings.

If Anet could have a system where WvW is fun when you’re outmanned then there’s no reason why a JQ/ET/FC couldn’t be an interesting matchup that gets players from all sides to want to play all week.

FilthyRat.4652:

Well PvE players don’t even like to hear anything about WvW and hate that they even have to go in there for map completion or for Badges…so I can imagine the backlash that this would cause.

Actually, PvE players looking to complete their exploration would benefit if all servers were more balanced in WvW. It would be easier for them. Plus, if matches were more dynamic, one particular server wouldn’t get stuck on one color. If things rotated more regularly, exploration would be much more do-able.

I was talking about players wanting to switch server but either way…I feel those solutions would just cause more problems for Anet than they already have on their hands. I agree there is a problem with the whole ranking system and something needs to be done.

I have been on servers and taken a far worst beating that you guys week after week where we were luck if we even took a tower for 20mins mins before a zerg would show up and smash the one or two people that tried to defend the tower. (;) GoM before they worked hard formed a server alliance and pulled themselves out of the mud).
It has been a problem for a long time and they need to fix it along with a lot of other game mechanics….like more options for commanders and being able to ride dolyaks.

Seven hours with no thread bump? Page two?! Oh, no you don’t thread…

In regards to the argument that people who transfer based on PvE would start an uprising if they had to pay transfer fees that were scaled according to something they have no interest in, there’s a single word that invalidates any strength behind that line of reasoning. Can anybody guess what that word is?

Guesting.

The PvE crowd can transfer to not only any server they want free of charge, they can do this twice every 24 hours. Is there even a single one of them who honestly pays to PvE with friends from different servers when they can do the transfer for free? If there are, they clearly have no money management skills. The only reason to do a permanent transfer is for WvW. Period. Full stop.

So, I’m asking again: Why don’t the permanent transfer fees in any way relate to WvW? Please, to anyone who reads this, I’m begging you; can you offer an answer to this question? If it takes more than 2 paragraphs to shoot down a defence of the current scheme I’ll be shocked.

FilthyRat.4652:

I was talking about players wanting to switch server but either way…I feel those solutions would just cause more problems for Anet than they already have on their hands. I agree there is a problem with the whole ranking system and something needs to be done.

I have been on servers and taken a far worst beating that you guys week after week where we were luck if we even took a tower for 20mins mins before a zerg would show up and smash the one or two people that tried to defend the tower. (;) GoM before they worked hard formed a server alliance and pulled themselves out of the mud).
It has been a problem for a long time and they need to fix it along with a lot of other game mechanics….like more options for commanders and being able to ride dolyaks.

kain did that to us. we could rush 2 towers w/ breakouts because their zerg would leave the map defenseless, but as soon as anything turned blue they responded within 5 minutes. we would be halfway through taking garrison and theyd show up and wed throw our arms up in frustration collectively. at any time of day.

since you cant do this to us, it just means sf isnt at least a t2 server.

Takerukun.8924:

Seven hours with no thread bump? Page two?! Oh, no you don’t thread…

In regards to the argument that people who transfer based on PvE would start an uprising if they had to pay transfer fees that were scaled according to something they have no interest in, there’s a single word that invalidates any strength behind that line of reasoning. Can anybody guess what that word is?

Guesting.

The PvE crowd can transfer to not only any server they want free of charge, they can do this twice every 24 hours. Is there even a single one of them who honestly pays to PvE with friends from different servers when they can do the transfer for free? If there are, they clearly have no money management skills. The only reason to do a permanent transfer is for WvW. Period. Full stop.

So, I’m asking again: Why don’t the permanent transfer fees in any way relate to WvW? Please, to anyone who reads this, I’m begging you; can you offer an answer to this question? If it takes more than 2 paragraphs to shoot down a defence of the current scheme I’ll be shocked.

First off never seen anyone guest in the game yet.
Right now it’s based on server population as a whole so to change it to give the bottom tier servers a handicap would be unfair to many people.

FilthyRat.4652:

First off never seen anyone guest in the game yet.
Right now it’s based on server population as a whole so to change it to give the bottom tier servers a handicap would be unfair to many people.

not seeing does not equate to not happening.
ask anyone you see if theyve guested.

if they havent yet, they dont even know its there. because its too useful for (at LEAST) orr temples.

I guested…That’s one. Your arguments make no sense.

Lol… what doesn’t make sense is this whole thread. The name is meant to draw people in then in the opening page you reference other servers, and when people from other servers come in and give you an opinion you call them troll and tell them to stay out?

And be truthful about the real situation on your servers please with all the infighting, guilds not working together, and the way people act in map chat. i have talked to several member that came to our server in the week alone.

If people are paying to get out of there and come with awful stories about certain servers then it seems like you need to do some internal work and and start working together.

you are arguing that there shouldnt be obnoxious transfer fees to overly populated wvw servers because people dont use guesting

and youre saying you arent a troll?

/head scratch

yeah, i really should be ignoring him.

insanemaniac.2456:

you are arguing that there shouldnt be obnoxious transfer fees to overly populated wvw servers because people dont use guesting

and youre saying you arent a troll?

/head scratch

Wow…you are too funny.
I never equated guesting in any kind of reference to paid transfers. Just said I haven’t seen it myself.
Right now based on total server population. Seems like an indifferent system than one based on either doing it by wvw or pve populations. You may like to guest on other severs but some people like to just be on a server and stay there.

SniffyCube.6107:

yeah filthy is a huge troll if you look back at previous match threads… I usually take the safe route and ignore pretty much everything he ever says

He’s just trying to get a rise out of people. Most people on either side of the fence have come to realize this match is a serious problem by now.

Can say the same thing about you also…and btw I have agreed with it just not your ideas to fix it. Giving an advantage to a server that doesn’t get people to come out to WvW except for friday night just doesn’t make sense. Call me a troll all you want but I read this whole thread and you guys have said that with anyone that doesn’t agree with you. And some of my previous post were for a reason. please don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.

My apologies in advance if I offend, just trying to keep the debate civil and ongoing.

FilthyRat.4652:

First off never seen anyone guest in the game yet.
Right now it’s based on server population as a whole so to change it to give the bottom tier servers a handicap would be unfair to many people.

I won’t really address the first issue too much, as people not utilizing a system in place for them doesn’t invalidate the system.

As to you’re second point, I agree with you in that transfers shouldn’t be cheap to the lower tiers simply because they’re in the lower tiers. They should be based off of man-hours of participation in WvW – that would help deal with issues reaching far beyond any complaints of T8. The scale could adjust itself as people transfer, basing adjustments on the transferred account’s average hours in WvW over the past month.

I can’t claim to be a professional programmer by any means, but it shouldn’t be too hard to clock the times I’ve mentioned. They already have the basic framework in place to make /age work.

FilthyRat.4652:

Lol… what doesn’t make sense is this whole thread. The name is meant to draw people in then in the opening page you reference other servers, and when people from other servers come in and give you an opinion you call them troll and tell them to stay out?

And be truthful about the real situation on your servers please with all the infighting, guilds not working together, and the way people act in map chat. i have talked to several member that came to our server in the week alone.

If people are paying to get out of there and come with awful stories about certain servers then it seems like you need to do some internal work and and start working together.

Not everyone in this thread has called non-T8 posters trolls with a GTFO sign to the face. Admittedly, some have, but that in no way makes the debate going on in this thread completely invalid. Ignoring the message because of the messanger it was sent with is illogical.

Furthermore, in-fighting inside the lower tiers, and even FC and ET suddenly deciding to all stop playing, does not invalidate the original point behind this thread. The fact of the matter remains that T8 ratings are so far underneath T7 ratings that tier advancement isn’t viable, even when it’s obvious. SF aside, replace them with Kain next week and you still would see more than a single week of Kain having to claw their way out of the tier.

FilthyRat.4652:

Wow…you are too funny.
I never equated guesting in any kind of reference to paid transfers. Just said I haven’t seen it myself.
Right now based on total server population. Seems like an indifferent system than one based on either doing it by wvw or pve populations. You may like to guest on other severs but some people like to just be on a server and stay there.

Yes, at the moment the system of paid transfers is indifferent. That’s the problem. Guesting is in place for the PvE crowd, and paid transfers takes everybody into account. Therefore, the current system favours the PvE crowd when it has the framework in place to cater to everyone.

FilthyRat.4652:

Can say the same thing about you also…and btw I have agreed with it just not your ideas to fix it. Giving an advantage to a server that doesn’t get people to come out to WvW except for friday night just doesn’t make sense. Call me a troll all you want but I read this whole thread and you guys have said that with anyone that doesn’t agree with you. And some of my previous post were for a reason. please don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.

It doesn’t make sense to favour servers with one-day-shows, you’re right. However, that’s why a system could be designed to adjust in almost-real-time for WvW man-hours. If you wanted to get really complex, put error limits in place that account for the rate that WvW man-hours are being accumulated. If a server were to suddenly go from having sub-par showings, to accumulating hours at par or above, temporarily increase the transfer price to match higher population servers in order to avoid the lower population server getting mass transfers.

The math behind it isn’t something that can really be debated in this thread. ANet has too tight of a lid on any numbers they have or record to have any debate be more than guess-work. However, the debating of the need for such math is in no way over-stepping the rights of a debate.

It’s been a problem since day one and really hope they do something about it they will drive people away from game now that they put paid transfers in. It takes them so long to even fix the little thing in the game, we can only hope. Not happy that they are pushing back the Feb. WvW updates, but hopefully it’s cause they are working on current system.

fair enough, but yes I totally agree it’s been way too long waiting and being frustrated for even a response by anet

FilthyRat.4652:

It’s been a problem since day one and really hope they do something about it they will drive people away from game now that they put paid transfers in. It takes them so long to even fix the little thing in the game, we can only hope. Not happy that they are pushing back the Feb. WvW updates, but hopefully it’s cause they are working on current system.

+1

We can only really hope that the March update brings good things with it. Other than that, I’m stock-piling cookies and ice-cream in fear of heartbreak. Let there be good things in store! Otherwise, there will be a comfort food consumption unlike any before seen on this Earth! Climb, cardiac arrest rates! Climb!!!

Oh. Umm…I think I got carried away there. Moving along.

Hey guys, SF member here, just pokin my head in…

Firstly I’d like to thank Takerukun.8924 for keeping a level head and calmly explaining several points that clarified a lot to me and is sincerely appreciated by a lot of us.

Secondly, the amount of bickering in this thread makes me sad. This highlights a lot of the reasons why I ignore the official forums and choose to lurk the “Not quite dead yet” SF forum and my sparsely populated alliance forum.

There’s also an unusual amount of whining on here (see: every major update since before release), but I suppose it’s only unusual to me because I rarely have complaints about the direction ANet has gone.

That said, I don’t normally feel the need to speak out on issues and contribute to matters that annoy me (like soulbound everything?! Why?!!), but this is a matter that is genuinely causing issues and affecting the game’s health and I feel that I need to speak up and hope that my voice is heard from our overlords.

The following has likely been said over and over in this thread and I admittedly didn’t read every post, so I apologize for the redundancy.

SF is fighting a winning battle with ET/FC, but unjustly losing the battle in rankings. We are being penalized for not winning enough which is as unfair to the players of Sorrow’s Furnace as it is to Eredon Terrace and Ferguson’s Crossing. It’s mostly unfair to ET/FC in that there are likely players over there that need world completion but can’t because we’re steam rolling them all week and will next week and the next and possibly the next if things continue to stay the same.

The fight between SF/ET/FC actually started out pretty awesome! see the score

Thursday night we were winning by a slim margin, by Reset Friday, FC had taken it back and came out victorious! That was the most fun I’ve had in WvW and honestly was my first or second serious adventure into WvW. even the second week in T8 was a good fight!

But every fight since then has been complete domination. On all sides of the fight, I think we’re just tired of the monotony. I feel bad blocking FC and ET players from getting World Completion (on some level) like this for the past three weeks. It has got to be demoralizing to see your server crushed like this continually. As a result, I suspect that ET and FC has had a huge cutback in active WvWers because of this and it doesn’t help their position whatsoever. Same for us, we dominate the crap out of FC/ET so much I barely think about logging into WvW because why bother? We’re winning by a huge margin.

But it’s so incredibly frustrating that instead of being rewarded for the win each week, we’re punished by not winning by enough of a margin to move up.

It’s gotten to the point where we should just find the three servers with least interest in WvW, stick them in T8 and then let them work out how to rotate around the map so everyone gets map completion, line up and get killed by other teams for badges and can continue on with PvE-ing… (obviously not a legitimate idea…. also, it is a long ways from being “the point where….”…. I don’t think anyone wants to participate in a carebear WvW league)

TL;DR: The current T8 matchup is unfair to ET/FC for fighting us over and over and over again, but this could also be a fault of those servers in just “rolling over and dying” (I’m not saying that’s what’s happening, I don’t honestly know, it just honestly feels like that’s what happened). It’s duly unfair to punish SF for not winning by a large enough margin to make the jump to T7. And it’s also pretty lame and discouraging to play WvW when we’re leading like this.

Final appeal: Please ANet, we would truly like to hear things from your side. Is the current T8 matchup truly what’s supposed to happen? I don’t think anyone here is very happy with how this matchup has turned out and we would at least like to hear from you.

yawg.4172:

Hey guys, SF member here, just pokin my head in…

Firstly I’d like to thank Takerukun.8924 for keeping a level head and calmly explaining several points that clarified a lot to me and is sincerely appreciated by a lot of us.

Thanks. If it helped even one person, it was worth it. :’)

yawg.4172:

Secondly…
//Snip! ’Cause this is the post above this one.//

If more people take a chance like you and provide their civil input in this thread, it can do nothing but improve things for everyone involved. Even if they disagree with the main point behind the thread, civil debate is healthy for all parties involved.

Thank you for joining the chorus of voices in this thread. It’s nice seeing new faces that bring a healthy dose of respect and civility in their arguments.

(Also, reduncy isn’t a bad thing in most cases if it isn’t verbatim. It’s merely showing support for things already presented.)

Takerukun.8924:

If more people take a chance like you and provide their civil input in this thread, it can do nothing but improve things for everyone involved. Even if they disagree with the main point behind the thread, civil debate is healthy for all parties involved.

100% agree, a healthy and civil debate about any issue will usually provide the best optimal outcome. It saddens me to see people complain and whine about stuff beyond their control and then resort to in-fighting…. sigh

Anyway, I’ll see you on the battlefield, you’ll know it’s me cuz I’m a tricky necro with an incinerator stabby thingy and big red/black blossomy armor >:D

If only there was a way they could merge NA and EU servers like T1 NA and T8 EU merge and T1 EU and T8 NA merge or some similar merging through all tiers based on server population.
It would not solve but help server population and also give every server a fair advantage with the night capping etc, also i seen someone on this thread mention about a season or league table which i was also thinking the same way myself, like the way a football/soccer league is set out so regardless of the fact that u will still have servers far superior than others, we will all still have the opportunity to play each other an equal amount of times throughout the season and add some variety to whom you play whilst also keeping a ranking system in place. Only a few weeks back we had same opponents for numerous weeks in a row which was a bit repetitive and also knowing that unless your server magically grows in numbers or gets a few night capping guilds move to ur server then with the current system there will be servers u will never ever get to play. Since everyone who waned to move to the higher tier servers done it before pay to exchange came in unfortunately u not gonna see as many guilds moving around now, so the server population seems to be set solid.

I honestly think it would be amazing if they merged us with the bottom tier of EU… dunno if it would be possible, but it would certainly give us great coverage…

I also liked the idea of opening free xfers to ferg and ET… you could also just open transfers to ET or to ferg from ET or ferg respectively so that the WvW guilds can all be on one server and actually have an enjoyable time

Edit: It’s sad that I can be ninja’d six minutes before I post something…

Yeah, this post is most definately not motivated in any way by end-of-day bump efforts. Four hours with no bump and a looming second page placement didn’t encourage this at all.

Twinny.9304:

If only there was a way they could merge NA and EU servers like T1 NA and T8 EU merge and T1 EU and T8 NA merge or some similar merging through all tiers based on server population.
It would not solve but help server population and also give every server a fair advantage with the night capping etc,

When the issue of night-capping came about back in the early months of WvW, I think pretty much everyone wanted this in one shape or form. If ANet hadn’t seperated the NA and EU data centers at the game’s creation, this would have probably been an ultimatum from the WvW population.

Sadly, as you pointed out, there isn’t a way. ANet’s stated on multiple occasions that, with their current hardware, it’s physically impossible. So, the thought remains forever in our fondest dreams, never to stray nearer the realm of reality.

My apologies if that sounded harsh or condescending. I just want to make sure people don’t start debating the pros and cons of breaking the laws of reality.

Twinny.9304:

also i seen someone on this thread mention about a season or league table which i was also thinking the same way myself, like the way a football/soccer league is set out so regardless of the fact that u will still have servers far superior than others, we will all still have the opportunity to play each other an equal amount of times throughout the season and add some variety to whom you play whilst also keeping a ranking system in place. Only a few weeks back we had same opponents for numerous weeks in a row which was a bit repetitive and also knowing that unless your server magically grows in numbers or gets a few night capping guilds move to ur server then with the current system there will be servers u will never ever get to play.

Could someone be so kind as to please explain to me why so many people think a season, round-robin, or winner-move-up scoring system is the final hope of WvW? As you stated, there are currently servers you will never play. Things are like that for a reason.

You’re from NSP, are you not? You currently reside in the most even, nail-biting, fight to the bitter end tier to exist in WvW. That’s even looking at EU as well. Would you find WvW a fun place to be if you suddenly had to relive your matchup with Kain from 4 weeks ago? To trade the uncertainty of your current match for a roflstomp that’s decided before the reset even happens? To relive the match for months on end, only changing one faceless Kain server for another every week?

If the current method of scoring WvW matches was done away with for something that allowed servers to still try, even when they had been outperformed for 4 days, and that didn’t allow time-zones to play such a large role in score, the variety that people seem dead-set on might work. But, as it is, introducing variety would only lead to wondering which servers drew the short-stick in the roflstomp-lottery that week, along with a lot of servers simply wondering who is going to stomp them.

I feel the need to reiterate this: When the novelty of wondering who’s going to stomp you that week, and just how they’ll do it, has worn off, you’ll be wishing the change had never happened and wondering why you ever wished such a terrible fate upon yourself.

And if, for whatever reason, you find yourself on the new version of the JQ server and able to slaughter every other server, with only 2 to 4 even finishing close to your score, you’ll find yourself bored out of your mind. You’ll be trading one faceless T8 server for another every week and wondering why there aren’t any servers that play WvW and take points for months at a time.

Twinny.9304:

Since everyone who waned to move to the higher tier servers done it before pay to exchange came in unfortunately u not gonna see as many guilds moving around now, so the server population seems to be set solid.

Currently, this is true. That’s why the past 15-ish posts have been discussing the possibilities of how to rectify this. A problem that proves itself a challenge is a problem worthy of being solved, not a problem to accept and forget about.

Takerukun.8924:

You’re from NSP, are you not? You currently reside in the most even, nail-biting, fight to the bitter end tier to exist in WvW. That’s even looking at EU as well. Would you find WvW a fun place to be if you suddenly had to relive your matchup with Kain from 4 weeks ago? To trade the uncertainty of your current match for a roflstomp that’s decided before the reset even happens? To relive the match for months on end, only changing one faceless Kain server for another every week?

No im from EU FSP (Far Shiverpeaks) currently T5 rank 15/27 so around mid table, my point is as many ppl on my server has said before we dont mind if we lose no matter how badly as long as we have fun and and lose to the better server not some server that we clearly better than and then they cap and upgrade everything while our server sleeps. with a season/league u would not always meet the superior servers, u would meet everyone and more to the point an equal amount of times, and we get variety and it would be nice to play against the top and bottom tiers same. Anyway never mind me i probably posted my views in wrong thread as per usual lol, and just so u know i didnt even know what or who Kain were^^ until i just checked when i seen u mention them a few times lol.

Twinny.9304:

Takerukun.8924:

You’re from NSP, are you not? You currently reside in the most even, nail-biting, fight to the bitter end tier to exist in WvW. That’s even looking at EU as well. Would you find WvW a fun place to be if you suddenly had to relive your matchup with Kain from 4 weeks ago? To trade the uncertainty of your current match for a roflstomp that’s decided before the reset even happens? To relive the match for months on end, only changing one faceless Kain server for another every week?

No im from EU FSP (Far Shiverpeaks) currently T5 rank 15/27 so around mid table, my point is as many ppl on my server has said before we dont mind if we lose no matter how badly as long as we have fun and and lose to the better server not some server that we clearly better than and then they cap and upgrade everything while our server sleeps. with a season/league u would not always meet the superior servers, u would meet everyone and more to the point an equal amount of times, and we get variety and it would be nice to play against the top and bottom tiers same. Anyway never mind me i probably posted my views in wrong thread as per usual lol, and just so u know i didnt even know what or who Kain were^^ until i just checked when i seen u mention them a few times lol.

replace kain with whatever server RUIN jumped to… BT, Deso, i dont really remember.. and replace jade quarry with vizunah

its all the same

EU’s bottom tier is as screwed as NA’s, they just havent posted threads here complaining/discussing the problems

so no, you arent really in the wrong thread if you care at all.

^ What Rikkity said. My apologies for getting your server wrong. I just read “Shiverpeaks” and assumed NSP. I guess I need to brush up a little more on my EU servers, as I’m still a little biased towards understanding the NA issues.

Well, most of my argument towards you in my last post have kind of been thrown out the window…

But, yeah, you’re not in the wrong thread at all. I’ve never played in the EU bracket, and I’ve never really followed it before either, but just checking MOS shows that they’re in the same situation as NA. Honestly, maybe it’s just too early in the morning for my brain to function, but looking at the history of the servers is showing you guys probably have had it worse than NA the past month or two. Frankly, I’m surprised you guys weren’t the ones to make this thread.

By the way, could someone enlighten me as to how EU handles transfers? Maybe I’m just thinking that paid transfers came in sooner than they actually did, but it seems as though at least two of your T1 servers weren’t daunted by the idea of paying for a mass exit in the least. Also, your tiers seem to have volitility like I never imagined, with your T9 being a pathos inducing wreck. I’m guessing that free transfers were a very screwed up thing for EU lower tiers, considering that just looking at the MOS history baffles me. Some of the T9 servers go from winning over 90% of the points, to losing with less than 10%, and then jump back up to 75% the next week.

Forgive me if I seem confused, but after looking at the MOS history for only 20-30 minutes, I have to ask why it wasn’t you guys who started this thread…?

//Edit: After this point.//

Okay, I checked the history a little bit more, and the EU bracket appears to not only be in the same position as NA, they appear to have completely broken the tier system to beyond my level of comprehension. At least when a server changes tiers in NA, the next matchup is more or less roughly predictable. It looks like either the tiers have no real correlation to their population and skill level, or some of your servers have possibly the most impulsive groups of people in existance.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why a server would crush T9, be stomped by T8, stomp T9 again, randomly fling themselves into T7 during the next T8 match, and somewho manage to hold their own in T7. And that’s not even counting the servers that randomly started free-falling through the tiers, the servers that seem to swap populations with the other servers in their tier at random intervals, and the servers that bounce from tier to tier like a yo-yo.

While this isn’t the wrong thread for you at all, I think there’s at least two more threads EU could start without people batting an eyelash.

So looks like SF is going to win by around 200K this week. How much rating will they gain? About 14. Looking forward to another 7-8 weeks! How much does glicko expect SF to win by each week for a good rating jump?

itll diminish more, prolly down to -5 – 5 in the coming weeks

As much as I wished it wasn’t the case, Rikkity is spot on. The closer SF gets to approaching T7 ratings, the more they’ll have to stomp T8 just to maintain ratings, let alone gain them. It reminds me oddly of a graph as it approaches an asymptote, but that comparison is even a little too extreme for my taste.

As much as I don’t recommend doing this, you could get a numerical answer quite easily if you simply submit a false report to MOS showing SF having all of the points, with all of the point gain for themselves. Assuming it went through unflagged, it would be an interesting experiment to see if SF actually was projected to improve to a T7 rating.

Not that I’d advise doing that, as you would make a great number of people wish ill health on you if were to do it. Hmm…I wonder if whoever runs that site would be willing to run the calculation if requested through email…

I’d try my hand at running the calculations myself, but I can’t seem to find the actual modified equations ANet uses, or the current Ratings Deviation of each T8 server for the life of me.

page 3 halp halp halp

ive seen people submit false reports to mos.. like sf ticking for 695 during prime time when they had no more than like 350. why cant i remember the projection for that.

Manoa.5897:

SniffyCube.6107:

@manoa, If I misinterpreted your statement then forgive me. We have a few chest thumpers out there that really get annoying in the puzzle and on our thread.

No worries! It’s totally difficult to interpret tone in a text-only communication environment and it’s bound to happen from time to time.

And I’m totally with ya on the chest thumping. I’m totally against chest thumping when it’s unwarranted and was quite vocal on these boards against such activity a couple months back when we railroaded HoD and ET.

SniffyCube.6107:

We need to look at this tier situation. The math is most certainly not “fine as is.”

100% agreed. A server shouldn’t have to completely dominate their opposition for months (emphasis on the plural) before they dig their score out of the ditch and move to a better suited tier. Mismatched fights like these are no fun for all parties involved (those who dominate and those who are being dominated). And it’s disheartening to hear that servers who are already struggling with WvW population are loosing even more people due to such mismatches (which even further exacerbates the population discrepancies).

Anet needs to fix this so SF stops complaining about it.

Bedstain.6735:

Manoa.5897:

SniffyCube.6107:

@manoa, If I misinterpreted your statement then forgive me. We have a few chest thumpers out there that really get annoying in the puzzle and on our thread.

No worries! It’s totally difficult to interpret tone in a text-only communication environment and it’s bound to happen from time to time.

And I’m totally with ya on the chest thumping. I’m totally against chest thumping when it’s unwarranted and was quite vocal on these boards against such activity a couple months back when we railroaded HoD and ET.

SniffyCube.6107:

We need to look at this tier situation. The math is most certainly not “fine as is.”

100% agreed. A server shouldn’t have to completely dominate their opposition for months (emphasis on the plural) before they dig their score out of the ditch and move to a better suited tier. Mismatched fights like these are no fun for all parties involved (those who dominate and those who are being dominated). And it’s disheartening to hear that servers who are already struggling with WvW population are loosing even more people due to such mismatches (which even further exacerbates the population discrepancies).

Anet needs to fix this so SF stops complaining about it.

Lol…complaining was going on long before we arrived on the scene. And people that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

insanemaniac.2456:

page 3 halp halp halp

ive seen people submit false reports to mos.. like sf ticking for 695 during prime time when they had no more than like 350. why cant i remember the projection for that.

And look at your teammate that made post right before you about changing SF score so pretty sure it wasn’t one of us.

FilthyRat.4652:

insanemaniac.2456:

page 3 halp halp halp

ive seen people submit false reports to mos.. like sf ticking for 695 during prime time when they had no more than like 350. why cant i remember the projection for that.

And look at your teammate that made post right before you about changing SF score so pretty sure it wasn’t one of us.

it was a couple days ago, before that post