Guild Wars 2

I think dynamic population limit could be a way to solve some of the problems of WWW. It may need to be paired with other solutions though.

Dynamic, could be that no server is allowed to have more than 50% more people than the lightest server in the matchup.

But as I wrote, it probably needs to be paired with some other solution to work probably, or some people would feel heavily punished.

Perhaps the matchup mechanics should include some sort of population count at the off hours, pairing the heaviest populated off hour population servers with the heaviest. Thus creating an enviroment where winning is more about here-and-now coordination, instead of the current enviroment, where it is all about getting people to play at off hours.

Other mechanics may also have to be in place to avoid exploiting this limit.

I may be all wrong about this idea, but please keep a friendly tone nevertheless.

I agree the idea is in right direction. WvWvW works only when all sides have nearly equal amount of players playing. But there are some problems with your idea.

First, free instant transfer has to be stopped to make it works(and in fact make all other balancing work). And there are still some issues on that.

Second, how do you deal with people that can stay playing when everybody in other server go to sleep and the pop limit decrease? Should you cold-kick them out of WvWvW? Who get kicked and who can stay? It is not funny when you spent like 50s on siege weapons or defence, get kicked and have no return on your investment becasue those guys on other servers are going to sleep.

In addition to the points YPC brings up, also you have this glaring problem:

Say one server is getting trounced. They lose morale, and stop playing. This now punishes the other two servers (who are now forbidden from entering the zone) for simply winning the game.

Sky.9347:

In addition to the points YPC brings up, also you have this glaring problem:

Say one server is getting trounced. They lose morale, and stop playing. This now punishes the other two servers (who are now forbidden from entering the zone) for simply winning the game.

ANET needs to look at how match ups go when all 3 servers are relatively close in numbers. I imagine they would find there is a back and forth and all servers are doing something positive. Therefore all these arguments that servers will get demoralized are hogwash. They get demoralized already because the score is out of hand within 10 hours of reset. Because it reset when they were all sleeping and the dominant server went in and took everything while the maps were empty.

I think people would find more people would actually log in and build the caps right up to max once they saw they could actually compete.

No one is going to go into WvW and spend what little bit of money they can scrape together in a completely futile effort. Beyond repair costs you have updates and buying siege weapons and various other things to spend coin on. If you know that once you go to sleep or leave it will be ‘wasted’ money why bother? But if you server at least held its own stuff for the vast majority of the time and the original ‘conflicted’ areas were actually in conflict the attitude might change. If one server takes everything and then holds Stonemist for 160 of the 168 hours of the weekly match up what is the point? especially if your server cant come close to even threatening it let alone taking it?

The irony is what everyone describes as what ‘could’ happen is already happening, and then some.

I think it is a good idea. I would say:

1. Floor of 50 people (don’t want one server having everyone leave to defend a lead).

2. Cap set to 20% over the next most populated server (I don’t really have a problem with two servers splitting the points if a third doesn’t have people. I think the issue is one server holding everything).

3. No kicks. (It should work itself out with people leaving and not letting new people in. There is potential for one server to keep over the cap on for a while but I’d think it should balance eventually).

JMO.

I think Lappdancers correction to my original ideas are right on spot, though I am not 100% sure about no 2., but I am inclined to think it is still a better idea than comparing to lowest population server.
Keep it coming guys, it might evolve into something usefull.

No, they should remove any limits and let everyone in who wants to go. The matchmaking should work it out over time. There will be imbalances at times but I’d rather have no queues and let everyone in than what we have now.

Rodarin.6058:

Sky.9347:

In addition to the points YPC brings up, also you have this glaring problem:

Say one server is getting trounced. They lose morale, and stop playing. This now punishes the other two servers (who are now forbidden from entering the zone) for simply winning the game.

ANET needs to look at how match ups go when all 3 servers are relatively close in numbers. I imagine they would find there is a back and forth and all servers are doing something positive. Therefore all these arguments that servers will get demoralized are hogwash. They get demoralized already because the score is out of hand within 10 hours of reset. Because it reset when they were all sleeping and the dominant server went in and took everything while the maps were empty.

I think people would find more people would actually log in and build the caps right up to max once they saw they could actually compete.

No one is going to go into WvW and spend what little bit of money they can scrape together in a completely futile effort. Beyond repair costs you have updates and buying siege weapons and various other things to spend coin on. If you know that once you go to sleep or leave it will be ‘wasted’ money why bother? But if you server at least held its own stuff for the vast majority of the time and the original ‘conflicted’ areas were actually in conflict the attitude might change. If one server takes everything and then holds Stonemist for 160 of the 168 hours of the weekly match up what is the point? especially if your server cant come close to even threatening it let alone taking it?

The irony is what everyone describes as what ‘could’ happen is already happening, and then some.

Okay, so let’s leave the “demoralizing” out of my post.

Instead, let’s just call it “going to sleep”. My point stands. You are locking anyone who plays during off peak hours into long ques (possibly endlessly), and giving power to the tactic of “we’ll cap and then everyone leaves in order to prevent them from fielding much resistance”.

Why would you incentivize such behavior?

How does this work in the situation whereby a server has enough people to populate Eternal but doesn’t have enough for the borderlands?

Is the cap across all of borderlands? Is it for each individual borderland?

If that is the case, what of the situation where one server can field lots people while the other two servers can’t? Are the borderlands closed down?

Even though you have some valid points Sky, it is still a problem as it stands today for a lot of people. Somehow, a solution has to come up, which solves a lot of problems, and create fewer problems while doing this. As it is today, night high pop server, have a blast (at least ingame reward like) steamrolling everybody else at nighttime.
I think it is very hard to come up with a solution which pleases the night low pop servers, without somehow making some people on the high pop servers mad. But those on high pop servers who actually wants a fight, will love this change, as it actually creates nighttime PvP instead of nighttime Pv[Structure].

If you play on a server with low population at nights, you would very well know that the current mechanics is a problem, by experience. If you play on a high pop, you may only know it from hearsay, which you may or may not trust to be valid.

But personally, I don’t find it fun to be not really be able to put up a fight, simply because I play on a server which is vastly outnumbered at night.

whiran.1473:

How does this work in the situation whereby a server has enough people to populate Eternal but doesn’t have enough for the borderlands?

Is the cap across all of borderlands? Is it for each individual borderland?

If that is the case, what of the situation where one server can field lots people while the other two servers can’t? Are the borderlands closed down?

I would say we would need individual cap per borderlands / BG. With “floor” limit at X (possibly 50).

If your server won’t field enough WvWvW players, actively recruit more people in your server to play WvWvW.

If your server won’t field enough players during certain times of day, actively recruit more people in your server to play during those times.

I will not believe that any server (except perhaps the very last one in the rankings) has so few people on the server itself that it can’t manage to field competitive numbers.

I suspect the more realistic scenario here is that people look at the WvWvW score, see that their server is losing, and don’t bother to play. Or that they are in WvWvW, get killed a lot, and quit.

In this case, you need to find some way to motivate the people on your server to stop giving up so easily. You MIGHT still lose if everyone goes in and tries their hardest. You’ll DEFINITELY lose if people don’t bother to try.

You can’t FORCE people to play WvWvW. But forcing people NOT to play WvWvW is ridiculously unfair.

Sky.9347:

Okay, so let’s leave the “demoralizing” out of my post.

Instead, let’s just call it “going to sleep”. My point stands. You are locking anyone who plays during off peak hours into long ques (possibly endlessly), and giving power to the tactic of “we’ll cap and then everyone leaves in order to prevent them from fielding much resistance”.

Why would you incentivize such behavior?

If they have a very large population advantages, yes there will be queues. Server transfers are free.

I think the leaving issue is solved solved by setting a floor that is enough that people can easily take unguarded points. Plus if you have enough people to cap a significant portion of a map due to population discrepancy, I don’t think it would be very easy to prevent everyone from joining wvw.

Mara,

I used to argue for solutions to this problem. After reading carefully and thinking critically, I’m honestly not sure if there IS a problem.

I would like to see how things shake out when the queue system is fixed + transfers are closed + rankings are stable. Those three things together might actually solve this “problem”.

IF NOT – then I am now of the belief that it is going to require a change in the way the points are amassed and how the buffs they build up are built. The problem isn’t so much the nightcapping, but rather the snow ball effect that comes from one 6-8 hour period of an all-cap.

I think:
Nobody should have their play time diminished by any system.
Nobody should have less access to W3 than anyone else, especially not based on time zone.
All caps (near 100% map control) SHOULD be very valuable.
All caps should be very difficult to maintain for long periods of time.
The system should offer variable (increasing) resistance to a server as it goes from 100% to 300% of their original holdings.

Lappdancer.4857:

Sky.9347:

Okay, so let’s leave the “demoralizing” out of my post.

Instead, let’s just call it “going to sleep”. My point stands. You are locking anyone who plays during off peak hours into long ques (possibly endlessly), and giving power to the tactic of “we’ll cap and then everyone leaves in order to prevent them from fielding much resistance”.

Why would you incentivize such behavior?

If they have a very large population advantages, yes there will be queues. Server transfers are free.

I think the leaving issue is solved solved by setting a floor that is enough that people can easily take unguarded points. Plus if you have enough people to cap a significant portion of a map due to population discrepancy, I don’t think it would be very easy to prevent everyone from joining wvw.

Server transfers are free right now, but what happens when they aren’t free and the server matches are reshuffled every 2 weeks?

What I mean is… say I am playing on my server today and I have a decent queue time. Tomorrow the match resets, pitting us against 2 new servers with new and different schedules, and all of a sudden I am stuck with 4 hour queues. Should I just transfer? What if it costs money, and I have a guild, and not everyone wants to pay money every 2 weeks to find a new server that fits their schedule?

I think team populations should be equalized in some way. If you’re being punished by queue, transfer to a new world without a queue.. The real people who are punished are the worlds with less population that wake up every morning to see the high pop world owns 95% of the territory.

neoxide.7320:

I think team populations should be equalized in some way. If you’re being punished by queue, transfer to a new world without a queue.. The real people who are punished are the worlds with less population that wake up every morning to see the high pop world owns 95% of the territory.

I will make the following statement: There is no server that has such a low population that it cannot reach the maximum number of players allowed in WvWvW.

However, there are servers in which so few people are playing WvWvW that it seems like the servers with more people on them always win.

The problem here is that the servers with low participation rates need to motivate more people to play WvWvW.

Sky.9347:

I would like to see how things shake out when the queue system is fixed + transfers are closed + rankings are stable. Those three things together might actually solve this “problem”.

I’d agree, but I’m not very hopeful it will show anything different. In the 24hr matches I don’t think I saw any match that was fully balanced. It was always one side 100% night-capping everything. Every WvW score I see online seems to show the same thing for the 1 week matches.

Sky.9347:

I think:
Nobody should have their play time diminished by any system.
Nobody should have less access to W3 than anyone else, especially not based on time zone.
All caps (near 100% map control) SHOULD be very valuable.
All caps should be very difficult to maintain for long periods of time.
The system should offer variable (increasing) resistance to a server as it goes from 100% to 300% of their original holdings.

1/2: Prime-time players already do because of the queue.
3. IMO it should be impossible. It is no fun for anyone if one server can 100% cap against two servers.
4. Agreed. Evidence seems suggest that it isn’t as many servers can 100% for many hours.
5. Wouldn’t be opposed to it depending on how it is implemented. Still my ideal solution would be to force a balanced playing field (which really means population balance).

Sky.9347:

Lappdancer.4857:

Sky.9347:

Okay, so let’s leave the “demoralizing” out of my post.

Instead, let’s just call it “going to sleep”. My point stands. You are locking anyone who plays during off peak hours into long ques (possibly endlessly), and giving power to the tactic of “we’ll cap and then everyone leaves in order to prevent them from fielding much resistance”.

Why would you incentivize such behavior?

If they have a very large population advantages, yes there will be queues. Server transfers are free.

I think the leaving issue is solved solved by setting a floor that is enough that people can easily take unguarded points. Plus if you have enough people to cap a significant portion of a map due to population discrepancy, I don’t think it would be very easy to prevent everyone from joining wvw.

Server transfers are free right now, but what happens when they aren’t free and the server matches are reshuffled every 2 weeks?

What I mean is… say I am playing on my server today and I have a decent queue time. Tomorrow the match resets, pitting us against 2 new servers with new and different schedules, and all of a sudden I am stuck with 4 hour queues. Should I just transfer? What if it costs money, and I have a guild, and not everyone wants to pay money every 2 weeks to find a new server that fits their schedule?

I do see what you are saying, but I guess I’m going on the assumption that initial queues with server transfers would balance out the off-peak population. Then once it works out there should be similar populations on similar servers. Though that may be more optimistic than realistic considering the top server right now seem to maintain their population despite very long queues.

mcl.9240:

I will make the following statement: There is no server that has such a low population that it cannot reach the maximum number of players allowed in WvWvW.

However, there are servers in which so few people are playing WvWvW that it seems like the servers with more people on them always win.

The problem here is that the servers with low participation rates need to motivate more people to play WvWvW.

People play WvW or they don’t. I don’t think there is really any “motivating” people to play.

The system needs to be set up to encourage balancing. Without that it isn’t fun for anyone and it hurts the game.

There is a system in place to encourage balancing: The matchmaking system. It’s three weeks old, and has not had enough time yet to stabilize. It will need several months, most likely.

You’re demanding a fix NOW for something that is designed to work itself out over time, and most likely won’t be a problem once matches have stabilized.

the matchmaking system will never fix it and even trying to justify that is borderline moronic.

different time zones per server cause extreme imbalances and they’ll never line that up perfectly.

dynamic population restriction fixes most issues, and if you’re ever stuck in a queue with free transfers available it’s only your own fault.

shortcake.8659:

the matchmaking system will never fix it and even trying to justify that is borderline moronic.

different time zones per server cause extreme imbalances and they’ll never line that up perfectly.

dynamic population restriction fixes most issues, and if you’re ever stuck in a queue with free transfers available it’s only your own fault.

You have no proof of any claim you just made, and are insisting on changes to WvWvW. Whereas my solution (wait until the matchups stabilize over the period of a few months) requires only patience.

Dynamic population limits will never work in this game. I have seen that used in other games and it did not work in them.

I am sorry people are mad because they are getting destroyed, but rather then complain because you think its un-fair, wait and let thekittenrankings do their job and sort it out. That is why there is a ranking. It may take a few weeks but in the end each server will be paired up against servers for more equal matches.

A.Net has a Algorithm they use to figure out the match ups. They are still in the collection phase for data thus 1 week matches we currently have. The data they were going off of was for 24 hr matches. So data will be a little different. They will have a better handle on rankings after a few weeks.

mcl.9240:

There is a system in place to encourage balancing: The matchmaking system. It’s three weeks old, and has not had enough time yet to stabilize. It will need several months, most likely.

You’re demanding a fix NOW for something that is designed to work itself out over time, and most likely won’t be a problem once matches have stabilized.

Hey look somebody who gets it! Congrats your are in the minority just like me.

To add to what you said the data they have is based off 24 hr matches so the data they will get over the next couple of weeks will be different because of 1 week matches. Not to mention I am sure a decent % of the pop is not even bothering with WvW because they are to busy still leveling!

mcl.9240:

There is a system in place to encourage balancing: The matchmaking system. It’s three weeks old, and has not had enough time yet to stabilize. It will need several months, most likely.

You’re demanding a fix NOW for something that is designed to work itself out over time, and most likely won’t be a problem once matches have stabilized.

I’m not demanding anything. Offering suggestions and opinions.

We’ve already had 10 iterations of matchmaking and the servers are no where close to balanced according to this thread. I don’t really expect much of a difference going forward. I’m sure pretty much every server can pick the group of 4-5 others that they are going to be playing.

The current system in place could just need more time to seem balanced on every server. Currently in our SBI, HoD, JQ matchup it seems to be working quite well. I really do not like the idea of the dynamic capping system. It essentially just decreases the amount of players in WvW and increases que times. Which… on SBI are a little high at times.

Lappdancer.4857:

mcl.9240:

There is a system in place to encourage balancing: The matchmaking system. It’s three weeks old, and has not had enough time yet to stabilize. It will need several months, most likely.

You’re demanding a fix NOW for something that is designed to work itself out over time, and most likely won’t be a problem once matches have stabilized.

I’m not demanding anything. Offering suggestions and opinions.

We’ve already had 10 iterations of matchmaking and the servers are no where close to balanced according to this thread. I don’t really expect much of a difference going forward. I’m sure pretty much every server can pick the group of 4-5 others that they are going to be playing.

You expect 10 matches to be sufficient? It isn’t. There are 120 possible matchups among 24 servers.

Also, the current data (from the 24 hour matches and the single 1 week match) used to determine matchups have all been obtained while free transfers are in effect. People are still server-hopping like crazy.

Which, in my mind as someone who has studied statistics at the Master’s and Ph.D level makes the data invalid for the purpose of matchmaking, since a good many people are changing servers based on the WvWvW score for a given match. They’ve got a confound in their variables; the IV isn’t independent.

Be that as it may, the data they have is insufficient at this time to produce stable matchups. And will be for some time. At a bare minimum, until several weeks after they disable free transfers.

You expect 10 matches to be sufficient? It isn’t. There are 120 possible matchups among 24 servers.

Do you really think we need to see all matchups? I don’t think a HoD vs Kaineng matchup is going to tell us anything. Like I said, it is pretty easy with the current information to determine the few servers that you are going to be playing.

Also, the current data (from the 24 hour matches and the single 1 week match) used to determine matchups have all been obtained while free transfers are in effect. People are still server-hopping like crazy.

Which, in my mind as someone who has studied statistics at the Master’s and Ph.D level makes the data invalid for the purpose of matchmaking, since a good many people are changing servers based on the WvWvW score for a given match. They’ve got a confound in their variables; the IV isn’t independent.

Be that as it may, the data they have is insufficient at this time to produce stable matchups. And will be for some time. At a bare minimum, until several weeks after they disable free transfers.

Looking through the 24hr text file results posted and the post I linked earlier showing current scores, the current 1 week match seems to be very closely following the 24 hour format. I just looked through the current winning server vs the other two they are playing and there was maybe 2 results that differed significantly (one early Eredon got crushed but that was before a large alliance transferred there, the other being crystal desert getting beat by blackgate on the 10th).

Everything I am seeing is showing that the current 1week format is mimicking the 24hr format.

The transferring can have an issue, but I have no information to let me know the extent of this actually happening, other than posts by people saying it is.

I don’t think we need to see all 120 matchups before the matchups stabilize, but I also don’t think 10 out of 120 possible matchups is anywhere near stable.

You don’t have the information to determine whether the transfers are having an impact, but ArenaNet does.

Stiv.1820:

No, they should remove any limits and let everyone in who wants to go. The matchmaking should work it out over time. There will be imbalances at times but I’d rather have no queues and let everyone in than what we have now.

This idea is just terrible. You will see a map with just people from one server, none other, with free server transfer in place now.