Guild Wars 2

Can someone explain to me (preferably Arena Net) how the warscore/skirmish thingy is going to stop night capping or at least even scores out? My matchup is a perfect example were this should show if it actually was helping, but as far as i can see it is even favoring the night cappers.

Check my matchup in EU. Gandara, Riverside and Viznuah. Check the k/d ratio against Visnuah, and check their night cap. And yet they win, which should not be possible because as the K/D ratio tells, as soon as we break their walls down and kill the insane amount of siege they are hiding behind, and forcing them to fight us, we run them over or they run away. So why do the warscore and the skirmish thing support night cappers when it is said this will help against night capping servers? How will it help? We are sleeping and don’t have a 50 man blob running all night and early morning, neither have most of the other EU servers, so how is this changing anything? Am i missing something?

And i am not trying to bash A-Net here i am just not seeing what i was told this would be. We now have even more issues with night cappers because they also ofc win the skirmish during the night cap time so this kind of support them rather then anything else.

One server with 1000 people nightcapping against 20 for 6 hours could, for example, create a 50k lead daily just in that timezone. I’m just making numbers up.
Now, they will get 3 points for each skirmish. The others servers will have 2 and 1 point for each skirmish.
So if before they could have 10x more points in that timezone, with Victory Points, the difference will be closer. 3 to 2 to 1. Making it more even.

tldr: no matter how much PPT someone makes, they’re capped to 3 VP for each skirmish

Nightcapping is divided into two main issues, coverage gaps/population imbalances, and scoring. Anet has attempted with world linking to help alleviate issues with population imbalances. This is a tricky issue because you cannot force people to play the game or to stay on a server. The best way to address this issue was to change the scoring system to mitigate the effect that coverage gaps have on matchups.

Skirmishes are a really good system, because it awards all servers victory points, even if you are ticking 0 for 2 hours, your server will get a point. The point of this system is not to solve all problems, but to help make it a little more fair. There will also be more scoring changes coming up. Including PPU (points per upgrade) and PPC (points per capture). This new scoring system is a lot more fair then before and much more modernized.

We might see tweaks in the future to how many points are rewarded, how long skirmishes are. Remember also this is in beta testing.

X T D.6458:

Nightcapping is divided into two main issues, coverage gaps/population imbalances, and scoring. Anet has attempted with world linking to help alleviate issues with population imbalances. This is a tricky issue because you cannot force people to play the game or to stay on a server. The best way to address this issue was to change the scoring system to mitigate the effect that coverage gaps have on matchups.

Skirmishes are a really good system, because it awards all servers victory points, even if you are ticking 0 for 2 hours, your server will get a point. The point of this system is not to solve all problems, but to help make it a little more fair. There will also be more scoring changes coming up. Including PPU (points per upgrade) and PPC (points per capture). This new scoring system is a lot more fair then before and much more modernized.

We might see tweaks in the future to how many points are rewarded, how long skirmishes are. Remember also this is in beta testing.

Well Viznuah have 2 links, and according to A-Net FSP was built to be able to face Viznuah, yet after two weeks this have not happen. And to be fair and imo if they do, i think FSP will hate every minute of it as we have and just take a week off hoping they wont face them again. This is just my guess of what i know about FSP though.

Also as much as Gandara can run over Viznuah during day time and kill them if we manage to get walls down were they are hiding behind siege we will faceroll over them, even if they are double our numbers. As seen from K/d ration both from Gandara and Riverside we both manage to do this towards Viznuah. None of us can put up the numbers during nights though. We have roamers or small groups, they have zergs or groups over several maps. And there are no Skirmish going on to talk about during this time it is a for sure win for viznuah during night cap time.

It doesn’t change night capping at all.
The skirmish change simply limits the amount of score/ppt that can be gained during times where there is server imbalance.
Essentially, no server can gain more than 50% of the score now.

Server imbalances still exist. A bandaid fix could be to lockout all servers a week before server linkings change, try to aquire a rough idea of server populations as well as recent transfers and link accordingly.

your night is my day. we live in earth

Draeyon.4392:

Server imbalances still exist. A bandaid fix could be to lockout all servers a week before server linkings change, try to aquire a rough idea of server populations as well as recent transfers and link accordingly.

Makes no difference, people transfer after the links are done. Doubt that many would even transfer a week before unless they’re going to a stable host server, basically any of the t1-3 hosts.

nerovergil.5408:

your night is my day. we live in earth

And now everyones night or day scores the same 1, 2, 3, points.

The Skirmish doesn’t stop night-capping, it stops runaway scores, which is usually a result of night-capping.

So instead of the night-cap server getting 8 hours of +695 PPT every 15 minute as it used to be (forgot the current numbers, sorry, been lazy), now they can max get 3 points per 2 hour, while the other servers still get 2 or 1 points.

instead of night being server A 2345132445 points, and server B and C 0 points.

This score system doesn’t change a thing at all. Ok now you won’t lose with 300k points behind, but with 150 warpoints, at the end it is still the same stuff and it surely won’t make people play this game in a different way.

@ Offair

It does change a thing, it isn’t a big change though. It means that unlike before where Server A (Evil) completely dominates all maps for several days and gets ex:

Server A: 100 000
Server B: 10 000
Server C: 10 000

Now at the very least

Server A: 60 000
Server B: 40 000
Server C: 20 000

Or more likely a mix of them.

It is also a mental change that you can fight hard to win a skirmish (2 hours) to get that +3, despite how much you lose out in coverage.

If you want changes past this, you’re going to have to consider EotM style changes with 4 hour long matches and full reset. Because this is an inherent weakness in the 24/7 game mode, that can only be fixed by players actually moving servers to balance out.

(I mean, there are dumb suggestions like just having ANet program teh game so you’re given points for anything, including dying, so all servers always are identical in scores no matter what….. to always have close matches, even if none on your server shows up. But seriously, we’re not PVE!)

If we look at the matchup Kadasch, Baruch and FSP. You could see as long as Kodasch did seriously fight and field their normal troops the server could compete with Baruch that has a very strong presence during night and a much weaker one during prime time.

Unfortunately the presence of FSP demoralised Kodasch and they stopped fighting. This explains the current huge gaps in points.

The skirmish system solves night capping as long as the overall populations of two servers are similar. As soon as you see a huge imbalance in populations skirmishes in the current state are not able to compensate it.

To avoid imbalances you have to split monster servers into smaller units. For example BG would become BG I to V. FA would become FA I to III and so on. Stacking on one server would simply create new units of a server but no longer monster servers. It would also be much easier to link units of the same size without creating huge imbalances.

As I see it score is just a measure of population vs coverage. You want to group servers in a tier based on that since population, server stacking and bandwagoning is a player created and player driven problem. Populations will continue to shift as players change servers for whatever reason as the wind blows. We need a design that takes this into account.

Servers with a more even population at any given time will have more competitive fights. Anyone can easily capture undefended objectives because that’s just a measure of time. We need something else...

A quick look at http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/ shows there is very little change in the allocation of scoring between Victory Points and the old Warscore.

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

So scores are not closer nor does the Victory points system give a weaker server a better chance to win.

But since the glicko strength of victory calculation was broken in that it under-rewarded winning servers and over-rewarded weaker servers, the Victory Point system might accidentally fix the glicko tier wall problem.

I’ve attached a couple charts. The values are calculated by summing the total points of the 3 servers in a tier and then dividing each servers score by this sum total to get a servers score portion. I did this for Victory points and Warscore.

EDIT: This data was taken at 10:30EST on Friday.

Hey Torqued. Love your charts and data always interesting.

VP probably benefits stronger servers because their true coverage shows. Where before weak servers could “catch up” by sneaking in some PvD to manipulate the score.

This would also server to give a more reliable glicko and matchup system and maybe get the servers with true strength matched up against each other.

In your chart it shows some servers took a pretty big drop. Like FA and DB for example. Do you think a drop like that shows a chunk of score was being made from PvD and avoiding fights?

LOL, this idea was on the forum 6 months ago and I mentioned the problems.

Less variance = harder to catch up. dumb, dumb, dumb

I can’t figure out why they won’t just delete whole WvW. Played WvW today and it’s like EotM without players and fights.

Every 3rd place team seems to not benefit from victory points, and instead the difference is then added and split among the top 2 in any bracket.

The only bracket this doesn’t happen in was EU t2, wondering why that is though? Any thoughts?

This scoring change has literally changed nothing. I’d much have rather had the QoL by now.

Scoring isn’t the core issue with WvW anyway.

Every 3rd place team used to benefit from PvD and night capping to keep their rating up.

In an ideal matchup placement would not be decided until later in the week. Maybe now they will fall to a tier more suited for them and matchups will get better.

Since the prime time atm gives the same amouth of victory points as nighttime, the night capping server will still have a serious advantage. Atm coverage is everything. Servers that have strong prime-time but less overall coverage will struggle in the current system and not the “night cappers”, because prime time with lots of kills AND lots of points now is worth the same as getting objectives with no opponents.

Because current NA matchups are close, the victory point system opens up gaps more (like has been said, by reducing variance). Some matchups were decided mid-week and no server can “force” a lot of points in a short time in the new system. So servers in the back also have no way to “catch up”.

The current system was intended to have other features as well though. And those are able to make the new system better at least.
Hope they will pimp the matchmaking system too though.

Having matchups decided early shows just how bad the match was. The only way to get a huge lead with VP is if it’s basically a blowout. Otherwise the system works well to eliminate the runaway nightcapping problem.

Moving YB manually is a good sign, matchups are half the population problem most of the time, and the glicko system was always messing it up.

displayname.8315:

Having matchups decided early shows just how bad the match was. The only way to get a huge lead with VP is if it’s basically a blowout. Otherwise the system works well to eliminate the runaway nightcapping problem.

Moving YB manually is a good sign, matchups are half the population problem most of the time, and the glicko system was always messing it up.

Have you even done any models to prove this to yourself? Because if you did, you would see that it doesn’t work that way. Just because the numbers are smaller do not assume that matches will be closer or easier to come back from, its the exact opposite.

Getting a large amount of VP is based more on time then actual ppt/ppk. All you have to do is be the top for the points in the skirmish.

If people would take the time to work it out in excel they would see it actually assists small nightcapping groups. Its about timezone coverage now not about how much of the map you can take and hold. And its harder to come back from even though the numbers are smaller because we are capped in what you can accomplish in a 2 hour period.

Again work it out in a spreadsheet.

Reverence.6915:

This scoring change has literally changed nothing. I’d much have rather had the QoL by now.

Scoring isn’t the core issue with WvW anyway.

I Agree.

Its more comical that users are seeing the smaller numbers thinking that scores are closer…

Haythere.7513:

Have you even done any models to prove this to yourself? Because if you did, you would see that it doesn’t work that way. Just because the numbers are smaller do not assume that matches will be closer or easier to come back from, its the exact opposite.

Getting a large amount of VP is based more on time then actual ppt/ppk. All you have to do is be the top for the points in the skirmish.

If people would take the time to work it out in excel they would see it actually assists small nightcapping groups. Its about timezone coverage now not about how much of the map you can take and hold. And its harder to come back from even though the numbers are smaller because we are capped in what you can accomplish in a 2 hour period.

Again work it out in a spreadsheet.

Don’t need a spreadsheet, the math is pretty simple. +695 every 5 mins all night long versus +3, +2, +1 every 2 hours.

It is more about coverage now your correct. Matching up the servers with true coverage is what we want. This system simply eliminates “false coverage”, something you used to see with nighcap crews skewing the scores much more than they do now.

displayname.8315:

Haythere.7513:

Have you even done any models to prove this to yourself? Because if you did, you would see that it doesn’t work that way. Just because the numbers are smaller do not assume that matches will be closer or easier to come back from, its the exact opposite.

Getting a large amount of VP is based more on time then actual ppt/ppk. All you have to do is be the top for the points in the skirmish.

If people would take the time to work it out in excel they would see it actually assists small nightcapping groups. Its about timezone coverage now not about how much of the map you can take and hold. And its harder to come back from even though the numbers are smaller because we are capped in what you can accomplish in a 2 hour period.

Again work it out in a spreadsheet.

Don’t need a spreadsheet, the math is pretty simple. +695 every 5 mins all night long versus +3, +2, +1 every 2 hours.

It is more about coverage now your correct. Matching up the servers with true coverage is what we want. This system simply eliminates “false coverage”, something you used to see with nighcap crews skewing the scores much more than they do now.

Well at least it would have been if VP wasnt disabled for match calculation this week since Anet broke skirmishes, lol. Nightcapping at max PPT with your false coverage still wins.

People dont seem to understand that the scoring changes affect the core mechanics of WvW. You cannot simply look at these changes and base whether they are good or bad because it has helped or hurt your server. These changes do not take away the need for coverage, that will always be there. What these changes do is equalize all timezones and creat a more fair scoring system for everyone. If you expected that suddenly your losing server was going to suddenly start winning every matchup, well sorry but thats not how it works.

Here is where skirmishes come in handy, a server now cannot simply gain a 50k lead over the weekend and basically end the matchup after a few days. Also in the old days if you would go to bed with your server leading by 10k, and wakeup with your server losing by 10k because of nightcapping, yea thanks to skirmishes coverage gaps are less of an issue. Even if your server ticks 0 for 2 hours you still get a point.

There will still be a need for coverage, there will still be blowout matches but these are more due to population imbalances, of course there is no perfect system that can prevent all issues. These scoring changes are important fundamental changes to WvW mechanics, and long overdue.

It’s only been a week, this is a big change, let things settle down. More changes will come, possible tweaks to skirmishes might come.

cgMatt.5162:

Populations will continue to shift as players change servers for whatever reason as the wind blows. We need a design that takes this into account.

The Problem is: Anet is earning money with all those servertransfers

How can u balance the population if transfering starts as soon as the new links are published?

There would be several solutions like:

U can only transfer during the last 2 weeks before the new links are published
Transfering to any server who is linked costs the transfer of the most expensive link
Transfering is limited to 2 transfers a year

Skirmish & Victory Points are very good game mechanics, but people are expecting it to fix things that go beyond the scope of their function…imho

Hoping ANet is able to code this game mechanic so that it’s an independent module that can be easily connected or disconnected into the Match-Up and Scoring design.

Anet need to make total WvW overhaul. Forget these idiotic 24/7 matches and servers.

Clearly OP does not understand the difference between equalizing the weight of the score across board and discriminating specific timezones. If you are so insisted on winning, why not play 24/7 or actually spend some golds and buy some night guilds instead of complaining?

Junkpile.7439:

Anet need to make total WvW overhaul. Forget these idiotic 24/7 matches and servers.

Yup.

WvW doesn’t feel like an epic mist war, feels like an spvp offshoot. The devs should take a page from city state games and make something better for rvr here.

X T D.6458:

What these changes do is equalize all timezones and creat a more fair scoring system for everyone.

More fair is subjective. As this change as you say equalizes all timezones, the players playing in timezones when there are not many people online are more valuable than the players playing during primetime, as each of those players can contribute more to the win by making some small ppt. This “devalues” primetime players compared to other timezones players. The point per kill system was invented to work against this devaluation but that doesn’t work anymore, because having more kills during primetime only affects the ppt and you don’t get more victory points depending on how many players play. So purely statisticly the new system made off-time-players more valuable then they were before, because the prime-time kill differences now play a lesser role in deciding the matchup.

About the winner only be fixed early in blowout matches: this isn’t true, it is possible for a server to only have 1 ppt in every skirmish more than the other 2 servers and the match would be decided on tuesday even though in ppt this would be far from a blowout match. The system gives a limited amouth of victory points and thus there is no way to catch up atm and this is clearly a problem that will show in wvw activity at the end of the week when servers “give up” because it is impossible to change the rank anymore.

I’m on Fow linked with FSP and we’re against BB one of the “other” night capping servers and they’re doing really well in general so i’m guessing we’re not really going to be too worried about viznuah night capping and take a week off so we don’t face them again, just a guess….and before anyone says anything no i didn’t bandwagon i’ve been on fow for two years just got my two year bday gift on my first char.

TorquedSoul.8097:

A quick look at http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/ shows there is very little change in the allocation of scoring between Victory Points and the old Warscore.

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

So scores are not closer nor does the Victory points system give a weaker server a better chance to win.

But since the glicko strength of victory calculation was broken in that it under-rewarded winning servers and over-rewarded weaker servers, the Victory Point system might accidentally fix the glicko tier wall problem.

I’ve attached a couple charts. The values are calculated by summing the total points of the 3 servers in a tier and then dividing each servers score by this sum total to get a servers score portion. I did this for Victory points and Warscore.

EDIT: This data was taken at 10:30EST on Friday.

Where is Baruch Bay in EU chart?

Now it happend
Night-capping Deso has more score, but less skirmish points than Riverside
Desolation: 131 449 Riverside: 127 819
Desolation: 64 Riverside: 70

Dayra.7405:

Now it happend
Night-capping Deso has more score, but less skirmish points than Riverside
Desolation: 131 449 Riverside: 127 819
Desolation: 64 Riverside: 70

The week isnt over yet but it would be funny if a nightcapping server wins on lower skirmish point this week, lol.

You can’t look at this only from a single match up or just from match up to match up views. You need to look at it in terms of how the VP system shows your servers coverage and ability to be dominant for the majority of the match up. If the VP was in match up calculations we hopefully would see less blow out match ups as servers migrate to bands where their coverage meets others.

There’s always exceptions and anomalies though, you could get a match up with 1 server having a strong night cap dominating 4 skirmishes, another with a dominant 4 skirmishes at prime and pulling a close lead in early and late prime while a third server wins the off period in early and midday.

Fremtid.3528:

TorquedSoul.8097:

A quick look at http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/ shows there is very little change in the allocation of scoring between Victory Points and the old Warscore.

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

So scores are not closer nor does the Victory points system give a weaker server a better chance to win.

But since the glicko strength of victory calculation was broken in that it under-rewarded winning servers and over-rewarded weaker servers, the Victory Point system might accidentally fix the glicko tier wall problem.

I’ve attached a couple charts. The values are calculated by summing the total points of the 3 servers in a tier and then dividing each servers score by this sum total to get a servers score portion. I did this for Victory points and Warscore.

EDIT: This data was taken at 10:30EST on Friday.

Where is Baruch Bay in EU chart?

Good catch. I had the labels wrong in tier 2. I have corrected labels in my original post.