Guild Wars 2

Currently, this is how servers are matched up in Edge of the Mists per the patch notes:

All European worlds will be matched up with one another in the Edge of the Mists. All North American worlds will be matched up with one another as well.

• Worlds will be matched according to which color they are in the current WvW matchup. For example, all green worlds will be on the same team in the Edge of the Mists.

This system heavily favors the green side in EotM as it is composed of all 1st place servers in the current WvWvW match.

There are a total of 27 servers in the EU. In a match in which three teams fight one another, that means each is made up of 9 servers. To bring a little more balance to the teams in EotM (EU), I suggest each one be composed of three green servers, three red servers, and three blue servers.

Alternately, don’t base it on color at all. Instead, use the servers’ WvWvW ratings to create teams which are roughly equal to one another when averaging their combined rating scores.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

This system heavily favors the green side in EotM as it is composed of all 1st place servers in the current WvWvW match.

Colors are random now. They changed it several months ago because people were complaining that they couldn’t get map completion due to always being the same color.

I stand corrected as I forgot about that change they made. Thanks for the reminder. In which case, just base it on averaged ratings.

Ratings mean nothing, but coverage, the higher servers having better coverage, which is not like the 9 first EU are green, and the last 9 are red…
most balance problems that have been reported on the forums was from a guild that was on one side or the other, either driving people on the opposite side to change OF, or that caused a disbalance when the guild left the map…

Nothing to do with colour so far…

I just want to say it is epic being able to play with friends from different servers. Gotta hope for same color as often as possible.

Definitely do not base it off rating.

in all instances i’ve played in Blue have been winning.

In the last weeks Overgrowth/Green was steamrolling over the maps on every overflow, while Badlands/Red and Frostreach/Blue where mostly outmanned. To me it seems like Blue is even less populated than Red.
On top of that Green has this annoying champ in their keep with his elementals. It takes for ever to kill him, cause the half zerg dont recognize, that the elementals have to be splitted. Also they respawn very quickly – bug or working as intended?
In the meantime Green usually takes another keep, ports back and facerolls over the enemyzerg, which is still trying to kill this kitten ed Grawl.

Well i think that it’s more about commanders not numbers. Every side have numbers at start, but after couple clash only one side have big zerg left. EotM players can’t really handle wiping that well. Many will leave if they die one time or enemy actually decide defend something.

Depends whether the more populated servers care about EoTM. I know that Blackgate guilds rarely enter EoTM except to bum around and do some training (so very rarely), so as the T1 server of whatever colour we are at that week, that colour suffers due to it missing a huge chunk of potential population. Hell even our pugs rarely go to EoTM since our borderlands usually have more action going on.

Can’t comment on other servers though. I don’t go to EoTM often enough to know who plays there often

Before EotM came out I was 100% positive they were going to have a much smaller map capacity, the whole point of it was to allow for smaller teams to still have something to do while waiting for regular wvw.

if the map capacity is lowered then more people have a chance to play even numbers.

Ryvn.8094:

Colors are random now. They changed it several months ago because people were complaining that they couldn’t get map completion due to always being the same color.

Out of curiosity, do you have a source for this?

ManaCraft.5630:

Ryvn.8094:

Colors are random now. They changed it several months ago because people were complaining that they couldn’t get map completion due to always being the same color.

Out of curiosity, do you have a source for this?

Just look at the matchups? See if the server rank and colour match…

The above post is false. You are put in based on your server color. What is (somewhat) random is which overflow you get. There are times where you seem to get bound to an overflow (as in relogging multiple times keeps putting you back in the same overflow) and others where you do not.

If you guys want to continue debating something that will likely never happen, I’d like to put my two cents in as well and say that it’d be better if the match making algorithm was changed in some way.

From what I’m currently seeing, there’s been a very long period of time where red has won 85% of the time during some weeks (1-4 weeks ago). Red was Overgrowth at first and was winning it all while Badlands was blue and more than likely last. The instant that Badlands went from blue to red, they all of a sudden started winning everything for the week. The next week has entered (this week) and they still appear to be winning mostly but Overgrowth is close and winning some times too. So basically, before this week, I remember red winning almost everything and then during this week is the first time I’ve seen at least one other side with a somewhat competitive edge. Blue on the other hand, which is now Frostreach (and previously Badlands), hasn’t been close to winning anything ever in the past 4 weeks or so. The reason? Population inbalance. I’m not exactly sure why but blue gets the fewest numbers by far on average.

Red has always got the most numbers, probably because they are mostly servers that are losing in WvW and want to log in to something they can compete on.

I’m thinking it should be more randomized to balance the amount of people on each side and maybe even have it preference your color when logging on based on which side has less people. Or if Anet wants to make sure servers in each WvW matchup have no instance where they are on the same side in EoTM then they can just each be grouped up and assigned a color randomly (such that each of the 3 servers in each matchup get assigned a different color from the rest which is not necessarily their wvw color) and then put all of the colors together like it currently is to play on their side. You will never be playing with people in EoTM that are against you in WvW currently and your server will have a random EoTM color for each 4 hour matchup so maybe the numbers will be more balanced that way.

Map completion in EotM counts towards nothing. So, there’s no reason to change it based on that alone.

Colours aren’t truly random either. It’s still based on rating, there’s just a random seed applied. Chances are that higher ranked servers are more likely to roll higher than lower; however, they can ‘roll up’ to the next tier’s red or blue rank as well, so the effect will hopefully be minimal. If most tiers have massive rating gaps between them, as NA did a couple months ago, then I’d expect to see a lot of first-placed worlds in the green spot.

Ben K.6238:

Colours aren’t truly random either. It’s still based on rating, there’s just a random seed applied.

A much improved explanation and a better fit for my own experiences than true randomization.

On the topic, I think EotM can and should be used for experimenting with the nature of the format, including server matchups. If nothing else, a.net has created for themselves a nice experimental lab for WvW. If in doubt, EotM is the place to introduce new ideas – be it mechanics, maps, schedules, incentives, you name it. If ever there was a place where you can afford to be less conservative, EotM is it.

Junkpile.7439:

Well i think that it’s more about commanders not numbers. Every side have numbers at start, but after couple clash only one side have big zerg left. EotM players can’t really handle wiping that well. Many will leave if they die one time or enemy actually decide defend something.

This isn’t always the case though . . . This morning, WvW was boring – we were sitting at 400 PPT – so I decided to check in a new matchup of EotM. From the start of the match, we (blue) had the outnumbered buff. Within 30 minutes, Green controlled the entire map.

You’d “think” anyone with half a brain would realise “Let them capture some stuff – so we have stuff to take back” but no – they just sat at spawn and tried to farm us.

As it stands – the map is a failure. So much promise during testing. All gone!

*Edited to add that I’ve been Blue and completely dominating the same way – it’s the numbers, and they’re just wrong. It’s not right that one team should have enough numbers to easily defend all 3 keeps AND enough to roam around.

A browser like in pvp would be nice.
EotM Overflow 1:
<color>: Points: x , player: y
EotM Overflow 2:
<color>: Points: a , player: b

So you could simply go on another overflow or avoid those overflows, where one color dominates to heavy – like you can in pvp. And the facerolling color can play with themselfes.

Another solution could be to change the matchmaking system. For each round in EotM each server will be assigned to a color again (independent from his color in WvW), based on the amount of active players from this server in the last round. The goal should be to distribute the players as equal as possible.