Guild Wars 2

People have been complaining for years about off-peak population times, or “night capping.” I think after 3 years, Anets solution was to tie a servers full status to WvW. A good thing, imo since mega-server maps for PvE, PvP, and instances made this irrelevant. I think their goal was to fill the lower populated servers. However, a drawback to this is that servers who had a full status can not fill their dead timezones. For exmaple, we, on Blackgate, have no EU guilds (sorry RK). This means it is a time when almost all our stuff gets flipped, unless a lot of NA players rally very early.

Auto upgrades are a huge concern of mine with HoT. (I personally think this is going to be one of the things that kills WvW). Combine lack of coverage in certain time zones with auto-upgrades, and some servers will have a huge advantage, as it will be extremely difficult for havoc teams that might be playing to take down structures.

My solution:

This probably isn’t new, but I haven’t seen it mentioned, or if it has, not for a very long time. Have war score directly tied to total population.

What do i mean by this? As it currently stands, the total population all maps may have is 1080 (This is based on old information which has most likely changed, but is useful for my example). 80 players from each server for each BL and 120 for each server on EB. The highest tick one can achieve with war score is 695. Make it so that the only way that 695 can be reached is if every map is qued on every server. If the total population across all three servers is half that then the total war score that could be reached would be 348.

How does this affect server imbalance? Well, lets look at an off peak hour example. Lets say one server has 70 people total. They have some roamers on different maps flipping camps and a zerg of 40 running around flipping stuff. Lets say the other two servers only have 15 people across all maps. No one is organized. Maybe there’s a 5 man havoc squad trying to flip towers and a keep now and then.

The big problem with HoT is that the 5 man havoc squad will most likely always be hitting T2 or T3 objectives as everything auto upgrades. This will give the larger population server plenty of time to respond. I’m not saying the havoc squad will be able to do nothing, I just don’t see them making as much progress as they currently do. This means that larger population servers during off-peak hours will be able to dominate even more than they do now. Back to the example.

There’s a total of 100 people playing across all 4 maps. That’s about 9.26% of the total population. Apply this percentage to the total warscore tick of 695: The new total warscore would be 64. Now, lets say the higher population server is able to maintain half the objectives. That means that they would only be able to achieve 32 PPT.

Now, I do realize this is relative. The lower population servers are only going to be earning 16 PPT each, however, this would prevent the run away scores that happen during off-peak hours. One way to make this a bit less relative is to have warpoints gained from non-structures not be affected by this system. So, killing yaks, sentries, and points per stomp (if ever implemented with HoT) would still retain their current value.

While they can still K-train to their hearts content, under this system, a server would no longer be able to make up 10,000 – 20,000 war score overnight. Also, when more people log in from an off peak time zone, they will still have to face an uphill battle against an enemies upgraded structures, still giving them an advantage. Something like this must be implemented until we are allowed to recruit to fill our off peak time zones.

My problem with this has to do with the server i play on, kaineng…we are a very small server who never sees the outnumbered icon go away…why if we can rally and hold points should we be penalized for doing more with less…not to mention the fact that the most people i have seen on all 4 maps combined is about 60 people…matches in t6 and below would end within a few points because of the low ability to score points basically giving the win to whoever had the night

I have advocated this before by using something I call “WvW nighttime”.

Every hour, the game check total population (as in all 3 combined). If below a certain percentage, say 20% (still 200 players mind you), PPT max drops by 50% (700→350) and the score bar indicate its “night”. If population is above the threshold the next hour it check, it goes to “WvW daytime” with 100% gains. This day/night shift has nothing to do with real time, its pure server based on population.

Its simple, easily understood and would even the score curve instead of allowing nightcappers to stack too much points unopposed. It helps the issue without imposing any ridiculous multitude of rules. They can still nightcap sure, just not as effectivly in terms of PPT.

I also like the idea of dynamically closing borders based on population (freezing points there, limiting max PPT) but its far more complicated to implement.

Chase.2798:

My problem with this has to do with the server i play on, kaineng…we are a very small server who never sees the outnumbered icon go away…why if we can rally and hold points should we be penalized for doing more with less…not to mention the fact that the most people i have seen on all 4 maps combined is about 60 people…matches in t6 and below would end within a few points because of the low ability to score points basically giving the win to whoever had the night

You wouldn’t be penalized at all. This system is relative, so you’d still be loosing by the same, relative amount. It just wouldn’t be a blowout. If you are outnumbered, winning, and still have a majority in PPT, you’d still be winning. Since the enemy has more players, you’d be earning more ppt. Remember, my proposition has to do with the total of all servers, not just yours. Also, it favors lower population servers, as my proposition makes non-sturctural ppt the same.

Dawdler.8521:

I have advocated this before by using something I call “WvW nighttime”.

Every hour, the game check total population (as in all 3 combined). If below a certain percentage, say 20% (still 200 players mind you), PPT max drops by 50% (700->350) and the score bar indicate its “night”. If population is above the threshold the next hour it check, it goes to “WvW daytime” with 100% gains. This day/night shift has nothing to do with real time, its pure server based on population.

Its simple, easily understood and would even the score curve instead of allowing nightcappers to stack too much points unopposed. It helps the issue without imposing any ridiculous multitude of rules. They can still nightcap sure, just not as effectivly in terms of PPT.

I also like the idea of dynamically closing borders based on population (freezing points there, limiting max PPT) but its far more complicated to implement.

I feel that a sample of total population should be taken every minute and averaged over the 15 minutes in order to determine a ticks population value. My proposition requires it to happen every tick.

One can not close borderlands, as that would unbalance the match. 3 borderlands are necessary as each server needs to have the opportunity to have each home base.

This isn’t a solution but rather, deceiving oneself that the match is balanced which in reality, it will never be balanced, life is never fair.

This approach also delay servers in other tiers that might have superior coverage from climbing up the tier. So, the off hours population in those servers ended up have to ktrain longer periods just to climb up the tiers.

If the context of this approach is T1, then it will never be applicable to all tiers.

This is neither easy, simple, and it certainly is no solution.

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

This idea is clearly discrimination towards specific servers for simply having a spread out player population by having different rules for different players. I do not support a discriminating scoring system with clear bias.

SkyShroud.2865:

This isn’t a solution but rather, deceiving oneself that the match is balanced which in reality, it will never be balanced, life is never fair.

This approach also delay servers in other tiers that might have superior coverage from climbing up the tier. So, the off hours population in those servers ended up have to ktrain longer periods just to climb up the tiers.

If the context of this approach is T1, then it will never be applicable to all tiers.

I don’t see how this would have any impact on a server being able to climb up or fall down a tier. War score itself has nothing really to do with glicko. Glicko is all based on how much you win or loose relative to the other servers in your current match. So, if a group of servers had 24/7 coverage, and the final match was 300,000 / 150,000 / 150,000, the glicko change would be equal if the same group of servers had half the population and a final score of 150,000 / 75,000 / 75,000.

Yes, this system does reward lower population servers slightly by not changing the non-structure points (that’s kinda the point), but if your server is overpopulating the other two buy a great degree, this shouldn’t be an issue, as you are also killing yaks, flipping sentries and getting stomps.

coglin.1867:

This is neither easy, simple, and it certainly is no solution.

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

This idea is clearly discrimination towards specific servers for simply having a spread out player population by having different rules for different players. I do not support a discriminating scoring system with clear bias.

It does the exact opposite. I don’t think you understood the system I proposed. It’s also very simple. It only requires a sampling of all 3 server populations on a regular basis in order to change the weights of structural PPT. Seems easy thing to do.

coglin.1867:

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

Why yes, it does encourage players to play the game. Not only that, plenty of players at the same time, sometimes even with queues. Like some sort of popular MMO or something. Sounds horrifying!

Spurnshadow, you can give up trying to argue with Coglin and it’ll spare you a headache. Unfortunetly he remind me a little too much of myself – he likes to argue for the sake of arguing.

coglin.1867:

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

Stacked players are already rewarded for stacking behavior! What did you think “night-capping” was? :O

Spurnshadow.3678:

coglin.1867:

This is neither easy, simple, and it certainly is no solution.

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

This idea is clearly discrimination towards specific servers for simply having a spread out player population by having different rules for different players. I do not support a discriminating scoring system with clear bias.

It does the exact opposite. I don’t think you understood the system I proposed. It’s also very simple. It only requires a sampling of all 3 server populations on a regular basis in order to change the weights of structural PPT. Seems easy thing to do.

I understand the system you suggest. I simply dislike taking a 24/7 game mode, and discriminating the scoring system, by skewing it one way or another within those 24 hours.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Have war score directly tied to total population.

One of the key tenets of GW2 is social gaming. Nodes are instanced, loot is instanced, everything encourages cooperating and playing together (except the rally-from-player-death system which makes guilds hate on pugs).

Say JQ was ticking 600 in EU, the logical thing for BG to do would be to have everyone log off WvW to minimise the damage during EU timezone.

So your new system would encourage other players to tell people to log off WvW.

You’ll see things on map chat like: “Log off WvW we need to keep their tick as low as possible”.

This is anti-social gaming.

You would also get the scenario where BG builds up a 15k lead and tells everyone to log off so that JQ/YB can’t close the gap by reset.

Your system would be way too open to manipulation.

The real solution is to simply revert poorly thought out algorithm for detecting full servers back to the way it was originally done.

There are probably other ideas like rewarding outnumbered players with more points when they capture objectives but I haven’t thought through all the permutations of what could go wrong with that idea or adding a catch up system for servers that are trailing (to keep the match ups close/tight/fun).

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

You’ll see things on map chat like: “Log off WvW we need to keep their tick as low as possible”.

That would be impractical with properly tuned population percentages, as even 1 server completely empty wouldnt be able able to bring max PPT down (at least not with my simple way of doing it). You would have to have all 3 servers coordinating to force it – or when PPT is lowered it would just come from one simple fact, poulation is low.

Plus, it wouldnt be that hard to link a global boon to it to boost the players, like +MF, karma, xp etc (always active on low pop, not like outmanned).

Spurnshadow.3678:

SkyShroud.2865:

This isn’t a solution but rather, deceiving oneself that the match is balanced which in reality, it will never be balanced, life is never fair.

This approach also delay servers in other tiers that might have superior coverage from climbing up the tier. So, the off hours population in those servers ended up have to ktrain longer periods just to climb up the tiers.

If the context of this approach is T1, then it will never be applicable to all tiers.

I don’t see how this would have any impact on a server being able to climb up or fall down a tier. War score itself has nothing really to do with glicko. Glicko is all based on how much you win or loose relative to the other servers in your current match. So, if a group of servers had 24/7 coverage, and the final match was 300,000 / 150,000 / 150,000, the glicko change would be equal if the same group of servers had half the population and a final score of 150,000 / 75,000 / 75,000.

Yes, this system does reward lower population servers slightly by not changing the non-structure points (that’s kinda the point), but if your server is overpopulating the other two buy a great degree, this shouldn’t be an issue, as you are also killing yaks, flipping sentries and getting stomps.

You have no idea what you are suggesting and how glicko works. Really.

SkyShroud.2865:

Spurnshadow.3678:

SkyShroud.2865:

This isn’t a solution but rather, deceiving oneself that the match is balanced which in reality, it will never be balanced, life is never fair.

This approach also delay servers in other tiers that might have superior coverage from climbing up the tier. So, the off hours population in those servers ended up have to ktrain longer periods just to climb up the tiers.

If the context of this approach is T1, then it will never be applicable to all tiers.

I don’t see how this would have any impact on a server being able to climb up or fall down a tier. War score itself has nothing really to do with glicko. Glicko is all based on how much you win or loose relative to the other servers in your current match. So, if a group of servers had 24/7 coverage, and the final match was 300,000 / 150,000 / 150,000, the glicko change would be equal if the same group of servers had half the population and a final score of 150,000 / 75,000 / 75,000.

Yes, this system does reward lower population servers slightly by not changing the non-structure points (that’s kinda the point), but if your server is overpopulating the other two buy a great degree, this shouldn’t be an issue, as you are also killing yaks, flipping sentries and getting stomps.

You have no idea what you are suggesting and how glicko works. Really.

I don’t think you have any idea how glicko works. Really.

There are a few ‘unwanted’ situations with this suggestion.

For example, if all servers are 100% on all maps and server A is winning in PPT they will be gaining a good score over the other two. Later in the same matchup all servers happen to have same numbers on every map but only 20% of max. Points are less worth it so if server B holds a PPT lead like server A held a full compacity for the same duration they will not catch up to server A.

This system could also promote people not come out to play WvW so the other server doesn’t get as many points when they have the population to hold everything easily.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Have war score directly tied to total population.

One of the key tenets of GW2 is social gaming. Nodes are instanced, loot is instanced, everything encourages cooperating and playing together (except the rally-from-player-death system which makes guilds hate on pugs).

Say JQ was ticking 600 in EU, the logical thing for BG to do would be to have everyone log off WvW to minimise the damage during EU timezone.

So your new system would encourage other players to tell people to log off WvW.

You’ll see things on map chat like: “Log off WvW we need to keep their tick as low as possible”.

This is anti-social gaming.

You would also get the scenario where BG builds up a 15k lead and tells everyone to log off so that JQ/YB can’t close the gap by reset.

Your system would be way too open to manipulation.

The real solution is to simply revert poorly thought out algorithm for detecting full servers back to the way it was originally done.

There are probably other ideas like rewarding outnumbered players with more points when they capture objectives but I haven’t thought through all the permutations of what could go wrong with that idea or adding a catch up system for servers that are trailing (to keep the match ups close/tight/fun).

I really don’t see this happening. The only way this would be an issue is if people were in WvW not doing anything. Since when in WvW, one is usually playing, you are contributing to your score in one way or another. When people are done playing, they log off or do something else. Even if people are hanging out at spawn, waiting to form up, the ppt gain/loss should be minimal. One thing would be for sure, if you’re loosing, the the loss would be much less than if there was no system like this and the enemy was ticking at its full amount.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

There are a few ‘unwanted’ situations with this suggestion.

For example, if all servers are 100% on all maps and server A is winning in PPT they will be gaining a good score over the other two. Later in the same matchup all servers happen to have same numbers on every map but only 20% of max. Points are less worth it so if server B holds a PPT lead like server A held a full compacity for the same duration they will not catch up to server A.

This system could also promote people not come out to play WvW so the other server doesn’t get as many points when they have the population to hold everything easily.

Last point first:

On the flip side, it could promote people to play WvW so that war score is increased.

I can understand your first point. That is concerning. Just to simplify, that means that they would have to own 20% more real estate or hold the same real as the opposing server earlier in the match but for longer, or a combination of the two. I’d have to think about that a little more. Is that fair?

On one had, when all servers are full, and server A is ticking higher, aren’t they doing better than later in the match when there’s 20% less population and server B owns the same amount of real estate? Server A is playing against more enemies, so they are doing better in the face of tougher adversity. If later in the match, server B owns the same real estate, but the population is 20% less, that means a couple things. If server B has the larger population, then they should be doing better than holding the same real estate, therefore, they should tick less. If server B has the smaller population, they are doing really well, and should, and are being rewarded for it. If all server populations are even, then this is unfair.

Lets take this to the extreme. Lets say population across all servers is always even. Reset night hits, everyone is playing, the socre goes up to 20K a piece. After the first 24 hours, hardly anyone is playing for the next 6 days, but server A is consistantly winning. Would they ever be able to get enough PPT to catch up to the initial gain of reset night? Maybe, Maybe not. This may a flaw.

Solution: the original system I proposed was linear. Instead, have the score weighted on a population based on an S curve. While writing this, I know I’ve read this suggestion in the past. However, there should be another factor: relative population to each other.

If each server has 20 people, and will only have 20 people (give or take a few) for the next 8 hours, then it’s very unfair that their work will mean nothing compared to the prime time hours. So another weight needs to be placed on relative evenness of population. This whole proposal is to prevent run away score, so if all populations are even, then warscore should be at max.

Bleh, complicated issue.

Spurnshadow.3678:

However, there should be another factor: relative population to each other.

This

However I think ArenaNet already has something in the works that they will probably follow through with and see how it works out. Something along the lines of awarding points (3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd) for how well a server does score wise for a particular chunk of time (like 3 – 6 hours).