Guild Wars 2

So I had an idea. Now we all know there is no actual “night capping”. It’s always night-time somewhere, we get this. However we all recognise the problem of time zones and the effect they have on the overall score. Without a force to counter an opposing servers zerg time, the points blow out to ridiculous extremes.

I was just reading a thread that was comparing opposing forces based on general time zones regardless of a servers total points (NA vs NA, Oceanic vs Oceanic), and that got me thinking. What if a day of combat was broken down into 6 or 12 hour windows. You keep the current scoring the way it is, but the goal is to get the highest point tick within the current window. Having the highest score at the end of the window scores you a point. That way a servers score would more accurately reflect the strength of performance of those playing within each time zone, and this could potentially better balance, and/or keep the winning score closer so that blow-outs cant happen.

For Example:
Lets say there are two 12 hour windows (for sake of ease). In theory you’re pitting your general NA time zone against your Oceanic. SoR has a stronger NA force for whatever reason. JQ has a stronger Oceanic force. In the first 12 hours SoR racks up the most points, winning the first window, and scoring a point for the day. Later, JQ dominate the Oceanic 12 hour window and score themselves a point. At the end of that day the meta week is tied, or depending on the scoring, still within a close fight.

Why this works:
Looking past the face of it, lets say that SoR has no Oceanic presence, only an NA presence. JQ can PvDoor faceroll their Oceanic window, scoring a point. They have the people, they get the benefit. But by presenting a strong fight in the NA window, SoR remains in the fight throughout the week. And, in fact, if they make some sort of coordinated extra effort, might be able to pull off a late night Oceanic window for an extra point some time throughout the week to offset the balance.

That’s the gist.

This is actually a pretty good idea. It keeps servers that can tick +500 overnight from blowing away the other servers, but still leaves that nighttime effort meaning something to the overall score.

Let’s break down the day into 4 “zones” (maybe more). Score is still calculated the same within each zone, but at the “zone tick” the server in first place gets a gold medal, second gets a silver, and third gets a bronze. 5-3-1 points to the overall match win score. This would blunt the +500 effect some servers have, but still mean that people need to compete.

There is a problem though…this system almost guarantees fights for second in some zones. That server with no Oceanic presence will have to do it’s best to fight for second. It also allows the dominant server to play kingmaker, choosing Server #2 to win tonight, Server #3 to win the following night, to maintain point dominance over both. It bears some thought. Maybe 3-2-1 or 2-1-0 points instead….hmm…

how is this any different

instead of 300k-200k-200k you end with scores like 50-30-30

the winning server still has a ~50% lead no matter how you slice the time

Straegen.2938:

Why not just restart matches every 8 hours and pit servers against each other based on trended WvW populations during that time?

Only because it might not be practical. The trouble is balancing the perpetual world at war. You’ve got siege placement, gold investments, time needed to upgrade, wall and door hp’s, server populations, zerg DPS. It’d also mean that a NA prime time balanced match had purpose, but the unbalanced Oceanic window, for the team totally outmanned, it’d be pretty much pointless making any contribution what’so’ever. Effectivly you’re suggesting Oceanic servers, and NA servers, just with some weird 8 hour reset hybrid.

insanemaniac.2456:

how is this any different

instead of 300k-200k-200k you end with scores like 50-30-30

the winning server still has a ~50% lead no matter how you slice the time

How it is scored would need to be worked out, and depending on how it was set up would either make the system work, or it would not.

If winning simply awarded a single point per window for example, then any one server simply needs to outperform on 50% of windows to maintain an equilibrium. We have 3 way battles, which could mean quite a bit of variation. 3 servers competing for 4 points a day for example. This may even promote servers focusing down leading opposing servers more (maybe, I’m not sure).

Let’s see, 4 windows a day, 7 days a week, that 28 points up for grabs in a 1 point per win window. That means the closest a match can be is 10 v 9 v 9 for the win.

It all depends on how the math is done.

And in the case of a tie between servers, the one who scored most points overall in all time windows is on top.

i just dont see how turning down the number of discrete steps in the scoring system will do anything positive.

if anything, turning down the impact of upgrades would lessen the effect time zone coverage has on a match.

insanemaniac.2456:

how is this any different

instead of 300k-200k-200k you end with scores like 50-30-30

the winning server still has a ~50% lead no matter how you slice the time

But it wouldn’t. Let’s create a hypothetical example.

Server A is mega-stacked during SEA, moderately stacked in EU and NA, and weak in OCN. Server B is outstanding in NA, competitive with A in EU. and weak in OCN and SEA. Server C is the king of OCN, but weak in the other three since a lot of it’s guilds moved to Blackgate…dangit, this is supposed to be hypothetical. (The numbers below certainly are.) :O

There are 24 point ticks per 6 hour block, not counting all the yakslapping points.

Server A averages +500 in SEA (yikes), +300 in EU, +200 in NA, +150 in OCN.
Server B averages +135 in SEA, +300 in EU, +300 in NA, and +185 in OCN.
Server C averages +100 in SEA, +35 in EU. +135 in NA, and +300 in OCN.

SEA zone: A wins, B in second, C third.
EU zone: A and B trade wins, C always third.
NA zone: B wins, A in second, C third.
OCN zone: C wins, B in second, A third.

Raw points: Server A: 27,600 points per day, 193,200 for the week.
Server B: 22,080 points per day, 154,560 for the week.
Server C: 13,680 points per day, 95,760 for the week.

Using the medal system (5-3-1)
Server A: 9 per day average, if that traded win is four of the seven days, 83.
Server B: 11 per day average, if that traded win is three of the seven days, 92.
Server C: 56 points.

Under this system, even though server A has a massively stacked SEA team, it can’t pull victory because it’s not showing the consistency over the whole day that Server B is. With a little more effort in that EU timeslot, though, Server A could pull a victory.

Durian.5419:

insanemaniac.2456:

how is this any different

instead of 300k-200k-200k you end with scores like 50-30-30

the winning server still has a ~50% lead no matter how you slice the time

But it wouldn’t. Let’s create a hypothetical example.

Server A is mega-stacked during SEA, moderately stacked in EU and NA, and weak in OCN. Server B is outstanding in NA, competitive with A in EU. and weak in OCN and SEA. Server C is the king of OCN, but weak in the other three since a lot of it’s guilds moved to Blackgate…dangit, this is supposed to be hypothetical. (The numbers below certainly are.) :O

There are 24 point ticks per 6 hour block, not counting all the yakslapping points.

Server A averages +500 in SEA (yikes), +300 in EU, +200 in NA, +150 in OCN.
Server B averages +135 in SEA, +300 in EU, +300 in NA, and +185 in OCN.
Server C averages +100 in SEA, +35 in EU. +135 in NA, and +300 in OCN.

SEA zone: A wins, B in second, C third.
EU zone: A and B trade wins, C always third.
NA zone: B wins, A in second, C third.
OCN zone: C wins, B in second, A third.

Raw points: Server A: 27,600 points per day, 193,200 for the week.
Server B: 22,080 points per day, 154,560 for the week.
Server C: 13,680 points per day, 95,760 for the week.

Using the medal system (5-3-1)
Server A: 9 per day average, if that traded win is four of the seven days, 83.
Server B: 11 per day average, if that traded win is three of the seven days, 92.
Server C: 56 points.

Under this system, even though server A has a massively stacked SEA team, it can’t pull victory because it’s not showing the consistency over the whole day that Server B is. With a little more effort in that EU timeslot, though, Server A could pull a victory.

so… you just want higher population != win ? there are better ways to solve population issues than messing with how points are earned…

like, basing transfer fees off of man hours put into wvw instead of total population.

I also dont see slicing the time change a lot.
You will have a server still winning during night time.

I prefer having flexible EBs (more then 1)
This will also fix queues.
And it will also bring more balance to lower tiers.

And with flexible EBs i mean having next to the 3 border zones flexible EBs
Whenever all 3 servers have queues in all borders and all EBs, a new EB get opened up.
(so for very populated servers in high tiers during prime time you will have like 3 or maybe 4 EBs open?)
As soon population of 1 of the servers in one of the borders or EB drops below 60% a random EB get closed up.
(so during off hours all EBs will be probably closed and the night capping can only be taken place in the 3 border zones, but defenders are also only spread out over 3 borders)
Closed mean:
- people will get kicked out and cant enter
- no points will be given to keeps towes etc being owned in a closed border
- the zone will not be reset when it opens again. And as soon it will open up again points for the keeps towers you got before close will start adding again.

Dutchares.6084:

I also dont see slicing the time change a lot.
You will have a server still winning during night time.

I prefer having flexible EBs (more then 1)
This will also fix queues.
And it will also bring more balance to lower tiers.

And with flexible EBs i mean having next to the 3 border zones flexible EBs
Whenever all 3 servers have queues in all borders and all EBs, a new EB get opened up.
(so for very populated servers in high tiers during prime time you will have like 3 or maybe 4 EBs open?)
As soon population of 1 of the servers in one of the borders or EB drops below 60% a random EB get closed up.
(so during off hours all EBs will be probably closed and the night capping can only be taken place in the 3 border zones, but defenders are also only spread out over 3 borders)
Closed mean:
- people will get kicked out and cant enter
- no points will be given to keeps towes etc being owned in a closed border
- the zone will not be reset when it opens again. And as soon it will open up again points for the keeps towers you got before close will start adding again.

with population levels as they are, this would encourage superservers with ridiculous populations since everyone could get in to wvw at once

currently, superservers are barely even held in check by queue times. no need to encourage their formation with an even bigger draw than the “im winning” bandwagons.

insanemaniac.2456:

Dutchares.6084:

I also dont see slicing the time change a lot.
You will have a server still winning during night time.

I prefer having flexible EBs (more then 1)
This will also fix queues.
And it will also bring more balance to lower tiers.

And with flexible EBs i mean having next to the 3 border zones flexible EBs
Whenever all 3 servers have queues in all borders and all EBs, a new EB get opened up.
(so for very populated servers in high tiers during prime time you will have like 3 or maybe 4 EBs open?)
As soon population of 1 of the servers in one of the borders or EB drops below 60% a random EB get closed up.
(so during off hours all EBs will be probably closed and the night capping can only be taken place in the 3 border zones, but defenders are also only spread out over 3 borders)
Closed mean:
- people will get kicked out and cant enter
- no points will be given to keeps towes etc being owned in a closed border
- the zone will not be reset when it opens again. And as soon it will open up again points for the keeps towers you got before close will start adding again.

with population levels as they are, this would encourage superservers with ridiculous populations since everyone could get in to wvw at once

currently, superservers are barely even held in check by queue times. no need to encourage their formation with an even bigger draw than the “im winning” bandwagons.

Yeah but if a super server plays against a low pop server the EBs wont go open.
So low population servers can get high in ranking too.
Especialy if they bring back the max people of the border zones again to 70 or even 60.(also reducing the problem the border zones are to small for someany people)
So 24/7 coverage isnt a main factor. (or a low pop server only need a 24/7 coverage over the 3 border zones .. so like 3*60 = 180 people)

Having super servers matched against low population servers will give even more queues to the super server. (especialy if you start over with the points)
And the match wouldnt be an easy win for the high population, or even a loose.
And the no easy win.. looses make people of superservers spread out more.

Straegen.2938:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Straegen.2938:

Why not just restart matches every 8 hours and pit servers against each other based on trended WvW populations during that time?

Only because it might not be practical. The trouble is balancing the perpetual world at war. You’ve got siege placement, gold investments, time needed to upgrade, wall and door hp’s, server populations, zerg DPS. It’d also mean that a NA prime time balanced match had purpose, but the unbalanced Oceanic window, for the team totally outmanned, it’d be pretty much pointless making any contribution what’so’ever. Effectivly you’re suggesting Oceanic servers, and NA servers, just with some weird 8 hour reset hybrid.

Upgrades rarely last beyond an 8 or 12 hour window unless one server is VERY strong. Usually one of the three servers in the tier ends up capping everything while the other server is low on population. Besides this could easily be adjusted by simply making upgrades/siege cheaper and faster to build.

As for balancing, I think population is a MUCH bigger factor than averaged Glicko. Even if a matchup is unbalanced it would change in 8 hours anyway and with near even populations at that time a server wouldn’t be overwhelmed even if they were out classed. This would also solve the stale match-up issue completely.

So server A with good night coverage and bad day coverage will raise a tier during the night and drop back during the day?? Average points scored over a week will be the same..
I dont see the difference shorter matchup battles will give.

Omg best proposal I ever saw. Server like vizunah square will be kitten however. They rely on the free +500 at night/small loss at peak hours ratio to win.

I’ve seen something similar done before in another mmo called RF Online. There are 3 RvRvR events that resets every 8 hours, there is a seperate NA, Euro and Asia “prime time.” What I enjoyed is that you could get dominated in the Euro event, but since everything resets you can come into the NA prime time and start again on an even battlefield. Play to win your prime time instead of skating by and relying on your “night crew” to carry you.

Dutchares.6084:

Yeah but if a super server plays against a low pop server the EBs wont go open.
So low population servers can get high in ranking too.
Especialy if they bring back the max people of the border zones again to 70 or even 60.(also reducing the problem the border zones are to small for someany people)
So 24/7 coverage isnt a main factor. (or a low pop server only need a 24/7 coverage over the 3 border zones .. so like 3*60 = 180 people)

Having super servers matched against low population servers will give even more queues to the super server. (especialy if you start over with the points)
And the match wouldnt be an easy win for the high population, or even a loose.
And the no easy win.. looses make people of superservers spread out more.

i dont really understand this post.

there is no such thing as simultaneously being low population and being able to compete with a server that can fill all maps. perhaps our definitions of low pop are different? to me low pop means significant periods of time when 0-20 people are in 1 (or all) of the wvw maps. have you only ever played on high pop servers?

as the system is currently, there is a LOT of room for participation growth in wvw. this idea would tend the servers towards 3-6 servers, because you are adding in infinite population support. whats the point in playing on any other server? you can be “winning” (high tier) and “playing” (no queues) 100% of the time on one of those few servers, unlike the current setup where you cant have both sometimes.

if wvw participation were 10x what it currently is and all servers had significant queue times for significant portions of matches, or if anet lowered the player-per-map cap by a factor of 5, then maybe your idea of overflow EBs would be practical. but if you seriously have an issue with queue times, please realize there are at least 12 servers you can move to that could not ever unlock an EB overflow.

returning to your original post/idea here, i really dont think you realize that queues dont need fixing. what needs fixing is the incentives given to the playerbase to equalize individual server wvw populations. currently there are none. and if you think encouraging the abandonment of lower tiers equates to balancing them… well yeah 0v0 is balanced, but please sir, may i have a puff of whatever your smoking? the notion is ridiculous.

How to fix everything in WvW….drop the queue for each BL to ~60 per team per map. Open up free transfers again so guilds could spread out and find new homes to redistribute to

here’s a solution: an objective stops giving PPT after X hours under team Y’s control.

no one else gets the points till they gain it, but at least it stops the situation where an unattended tower can generate hundreds of points overnight.

This is the worst idea for EU, where 26 servers dont play outside EU hours, the 1 server that does cannot be beaten, as u can see, its not really working here.

Straegen.2938:

Dutchares.6084:

So server A with good night coverage and bad day coverage will raise a tier during the night and drop back during the day?? Average points scored over a week will be the same..
I dont see the difference shorter matchup battles will give.

Forget fixed tiers completely. In this system, servers would get matched up every 8 hours (or some fixed time frame) based primarily on their population numbers during that time. So a server like FA with a really strong NA prime could fight BG, JQ, TC, etc. Then in FA’s weaker hours they would fight servers currently ranked well below their current tier.

At all times servers would be fighting a relatively equal number of combatants and the server match ups would be constantly rotating so nothing really gets stale. If a single match up did get out of hand, it is OK since it would reset itself shortly and be taken into account during the next full rotation. This would shift WvWvW from being heavily player number based to more skill based.

Ultimately a servers total score would truly reflect the skill of a server matched against equally populated servers during all hours of a day.

that system doesnt fix the problem created by imbalanced populations, it masks it with a glossy complication to the current broken system. subdividing matches based on time zones doesnt encourage people to balance populations. and you only get a sense of variety if you dont play at around the same time every day, a completely unrealistic expectation.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

here’s a solution: an objective stops giving PPT after X hours under team Y’s control.

no one else gets the points till they gain it, but at least it stops the situation where an unattended tower can generate hundreds of points overnight.

If this were the case, I would see the stronger, holding sever leaving points unupgraded, allowing the enemy to cap them, then recap that point again before point tick. Hold point for the point tick duration, then rinse repeat for more points.

Players are just to smart.

That requires actual player participation though, which is what we’re really after: points come from player effort, not from a sustained absence of player effort.

I’m gonna put this here.. cause I keep seeing this term and can’t for the life of me figure it out. WTH is PvDoor?

Oh.. Ok. Well that makes sense. Man that was bothering me. Thanks!

Oh.. Ok. Well that makes sense. Man that was bothering me. Thanks!For the record, I’m kinda in agreement to adjusting the ranking/point system to somehow take into account the coverage issues. A server shouldn’t suffer just because they don’t have adequate coverage during just a 6 hour gap.

Straegen.2938:

insanemaniac.2456:

that system doesnt fix the problem created by imbalanced populations, it masks it with a glossy complication to the current broken system. subdividing matches based on time zones doesnt encourage people to balance populations. and you only get a sense of variety if you dont play at around the same time every day, a completely unrealistic expectation.

In the current system, no servers will ever be fully balanced across all time zones. It is simply unworkable in a server v server environment. Every MMO that uses servers in this way has this exact problem.

I also think my solution fits in the current system rather well. It doesn’t change the 3v3 system, could use the same scoring structure and the same maps. We already know they can do shortened matches as they have done 24 hour matches in the past. The only thing it really changes is servers would be ranked on trended population for that time rather than glicko. The interesting part to me is it probably isn’t much code to figure out how to rank by population. A simple SQL query can do it if they are tracking population in WvW.

I played on DB last night during NA prime. We had nothing on the EB map and only 6 people at the entry point being camped by 3 times that number that had balistas and trebs raining down on us. Right now, we have almost capped their map. FA doesn’t like it because they don’t get significant competition during their prime and we don’t like it because we are out gunned 5+ to 1. At least my suggestion would allow more fun competition for both these servers.

if anet is tracking wvw population, they most certainly could try to balance out populations by tying transfer fees and incentives to a servers average man hours spent in wvw:

insanemaniac.2456:

track man hours put into wvw for each server

make transfer fees to servers with over average man hours totally obnoxious
make transfer fees to servers with under average man hours low / nonexistent (or “pay” people to transfer in)

put in a feedback cycle for low fee servers – have it act similar to gems<->gold where transfer fees spike (but more drastically) when lots of people transfer in in short periods of time (prevents supermassive transfers, set the bar high enough for reasonably large guilds so they dont have issues).

if rewarding players for transferring to undermanned servers:
track hours they spend in wvw and hours spent playing. if you have a certain % spent in wvw after 2-3 weeks, give the reward. dont tell people what your quota is so they dont try to abuse cheap/free transfers to unbalance servers.

once average man hours in wvw per server levels out, make transfer fees less obnoxious, but keep the price spike system in place to prevent regression to the current problematic state.

sure, a solution like this wouldnt do anything for servers with similar populations in different areas of the world and the whole spawn camping situation at different times of day… but it would discourage players from stacking servers the way they currently do on a whim. or at least anet could profit off their playerbase’s insatiable desire to be winning…

Personally I would prefer if they had differing amounts of points per map.
For example EB worth 70% of total points and the borderlands worth 10% each. That way It would encourage the big guilds to spread out because they would all want to be on the main map to maximize points for their server. Coverage would be less important and skill would count for points, owning SMC for example would be critical to points gained. People would still be able to log on and play at any time of day like currently. You could change the borderlands to server unique smaller maps for our pvp oriented battle minus the Pvdoor.

Just had a crazy idea that I am sure someone will be able to shot full of holes, but thought I would float it out there anyway.

Everyone knows the current ’out-manned” buff is worthless as far as helping the out-manned in anyway defend their stuff or get points in anyway for their server. I have seen it proposed to make the buff a stat buff which might make it easier for smaller numbers to prevail over larger. One problem with that would be making 1v1 fights way unbalanced.

Well how about if points were awarded to an individual players contribution that would add to the over all server score. Kills, building siege, repairing, upgrading, escorting yaks, successful assaults, successful defenses, etc. Would all earn points for each player that would count to the servers total. And then the out manned could buff the points by a percentage of the population unbalance. Rewards would also be buffed to encourage players to participate even when out-manned.

I also think players who set siege should get a small amount of credit for each kill that siege does if they are using it or someone else is. Which gives incentive to set siege.

Kind of off the subject. But upgrades should also be able to be purchased by contributing to a pool. That way players could contribute a small amount for the upgrade spreading the cost around and not putting it all on one player or counting on a guild leader to be on who has guild funds to draw from.

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