Guild Wars 2

When you introduced randomized matchmaking to try to break up stagnant matchups and add variety to WvW, it sounded like a reasonable enough goal. Some matches in particular were very stale and driving people away. However, I’m very concerned that the current matchmaking system is doing even more harm. I’m looking at the point range in this week’s NA matchups and it’s kind of absurd:

Tier 1: 56 points. The top three servers are fighting each other once again. This is fine.
Tier 2: 277 points. This is the fifth time in the last seven weeks that Sea of Sorrows has had to suffer Tarnished Coast and it’s becoming a running joke.
Tier 3: 367 points. Yak’s Bend lost WvW guilds because of their horrible matches, and how do you reward them? Make them fight the fifth rated server. How does this help anyone?

I could continue going down the list and it would be the same stuff over and over again. I could look over at EU and see a similar pattern in many of their matchups. This really has to stop. Furthermore, this radio silence from ArenaNet has to stop. Keeping quiet is only going to frustrate more and more people and drive more and more people away from the game. How many more posts like this one will it take for ArenaNet to actually address this problem? I get that there are some pretty big fish to fry with WvW, but I can’t imagine that tightening up the matchmaking search parameters is a particularly long-term task. Please do something. It’s not fun for the stompers and it’s not fun for the stomped.

The problem is, if/when the servers finally do stabilize with match-ups we should be in, were just going to be left against the same opponents we already faced before this match making system came into effect.

I really think it’s time to just do away with the World vs World and Server vs Server concept just either create a faction system which people can pick join which one to fight for every time they log on. Either that or just eliminate server match ups all together and just completely randomize the tiers that whole guilds and stand alone players end up in.

That would be a truly randomized system, where you’d never know which way the battle will turn.

ANet said they wanted the new rating system to be in play for a bit before they decided if it was working or not… I’m just curious how long that is.

Honestly, I don’t think the matches up we’ve had have been too bad, but given all the complaining I see I don’t know if that’s just me, or if the rest of CD feels that way as well.

stinkypants.8419:

ANet said they wanted the new rating system to be in play for a bit before they decided if it was working or not… I’m just curious how long that is.

Honestly, I don’t think the matches up we’ve had have been too bad, but given all the complaining I see I don’t know if that’s just me, or if the rest of CD feels that way as well.

Ours (Gandara) have been pretty terrible. Either we’re up against a server with far fewer people than us who aren’t much opposition (like last week) or we’re getting steamrollered (like this week). Every single week since the new matching system has been one of the two (not a single ‘fair fight’ in how many months?). Neither is much fun.

How many more weeks of 2/3 of each matchup not playing much will it take for Anet to learn that unbalanced matchups are a bug, not a feature?

except stale matchups, there is problem of population. we still didnt get the fix for that.

so now we have randomized matchups so no more stale, but its still not balanced population vise…

i love being against Vizunah again tbh. Was getting low on lootbags and wanted to level my guardian a bit.

yours truly,

Toothpick Slinger

Force Dragonbrand to play on EU servers. Thanks.
They have more Sea presence than anyone else in NA and you’re pitting them vs t3 shards every 2nd week.

It’s sad that SoS’ best matchup in the past 7 weeks was SoS/CD/SBI.

fishball.7204:

It’s sad that SoS’ best matchup in the past 7 weeks was SoS/CD/SBI.

I guess it’s just a coincidence this is the one where they came in first…

I’m going to say it, I told you all so.

People asked for randomized matches, alternating matches and we got them. Look where we are. People are not happy getting blown out, people are not happy steamrolling. It isn’t fun doing either. At least under the old system, more matches were balanced than what we have now.

And when they do balance out, we’ll still be back where we all were before randomized matches.

I told you all so.

Simply people don’t know what they wish. And hardcore WVW want hard fights, but not everyone is hardcore, most are fairweather players. This is what I learned when people want something but don’t understand the consequence.

The best matchups possible given the attributes was the old system…which everybody whined about to the point where they felt they had to take immediate action.

So now we have variety of bad matchups instead of stale best matchup.

Without attempts to balance server populations and/or some sort of handicapping system those are the only two options.

If arenanet failed they failed in the same way I think most MMO companies have been failing post-WoW…they are reactionary and listen too much to a player base who whines about things without thinking about what the “solution” might mean for the game….

Yaks Bend here. Always nice to go to EB and press M then see that Draonbrand has taking about 95% of the map. That includes borderlands. At least we don’t have to go far to find a fight, they are right outside our hill destroying us with arrow carts ^^.

old system was not good. at least not to servers that got abandoned by wvw guilds. that servers were locked in tiers too high for them and couldnt get out.

only system that could work is one that reacts to population migration and coverage.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

except stale matchups, there is problem of population. we still didnt get the fix for that.

so now we have randomized matchups so no more stale, but its still not balanced population vise…

Surely with all the metrics Arenanet have, a solution could be found to the population issue? Maybe feed population into rating in some way, measuring how many ‘active’ WvW players a server has (say at least an hour a week) and how many ‘very active’ WvW players a server has (say aty least ten hours a week). Of course that also means going back to matching servers on skill rating, rather than the randomised system which produces pointless wipeout weeks 80% of the time.

WvW is slowly passing away. When mods do answer it is on Obsidian Sanctum griefing. The spvp of wvw

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

I’m going to say it, I told you all so.

People asked for randomized matches, alternating matches and we got them. Look where we are. People are not happy getting blown out, people are not happy steamrolling. It isn’t fun doing either. At least under the old system, more matches were balanced than what we have now.

And when they do balance out, we’ll still be back where we all were before randomized matches.

I told you all so.

Randomized matches can be fine. The issue is that the current matchmaker has a far, far too large range right now. I feel like there should only be randomization if servers are within around 100 of the next tier. Looking at the NA rankings right now, I feel like the following matches should be locked in:

1. Blackgate/Sanctum of Rall/Jade Quarry (4th place is 120 points away)
2. Tarnished Coast/Dragonbrand/Fort Aspenwood (7th place is 126 points away)

Then when you get to the T3 matchup, Sea of Sorrows would be guaranteed while Maguuma, Crystal Desert, Ehmry Bay, and Crystal Yak’s Bend are subject to matchmaking (as Yak’s Bend is within 100 points of Crystal Desert, the 9th place team, but Kaineng is not), and so on down the list until you have your matches made.

You would carry on this way until you get to T6, where there is a 213 point gap between the 15th and 16th place servers. In T6, Gate of Madness would be guaranteed for that matchup while the matchmaking could pick up anyone all the way down to Sorrow’s Furnace (who are within 100 points of the 18th place team).

This system seems far more reasonable as a randomizing mechanism. There would still be some kinks to work out (mainly how it would handle a big ratings gap in the middle of matchup where a fair match would be very hard to make), but it surely can’t be inferior to the current system.

Well, it’s getting ridiculous really. I never understood why they decided to implement this horsekitten to begin with. Yes, the old system had issues, but at least it produced somewhat balanced matchups (especially after free transfers came to an end). Then for some odd reason they decide to cater to a minority of players complaining about stale matchups, and introduce one-sided blowout matchups week after week. As had to be expected, kitten hits the fan and forum goes wild, but now their stance is to just ignore all of that and pretend everything’s fine? ANet logic I guess.

For me personally, I’m pretty much done with WvW and GW2 as a whole now. I used to log in and WvW pretty much daily. Last week I found myself logging in twice, only to think “ah kitten it, why even bother” and immediately log off again.

I know what i want. I want to enter wvw and play vs the same numbers and have a fun fight or siege. I dont want to keep being matched up to server that either have way more numbers then us or us have way more numbers then them. PVD is not fun nor is looking out and seeing and 80man zerg when you have 10-15 ppl. The problem is not the random match making. its the coverage each server gets. They need to address this in some way.

fishball.7204:

It’s sad that SoS’ best matchup in the past 7 weeks was SoS/CD/SBI.

We had some close matchups in our tier at least. All 3 servers were within about 4k points of each other all week. It seems like the random aspect of the matchmaking has been nerfed a bit which I am very happy about. Had some terrible blowouts at the start of that thing. And it seems like there are still some going on.

Population (#) of active WvW players should be factored into the matchmaking system.

Monsoon.2589:

violentlycar.5267:

Tier 1: 56 points. The top three servers are fighting each other once again. This is fine.

Not really… getting really old and boring up there and it is not going to change anytime soon which sucks

AWWW =[ . You should of expected that band wagoning to the top tier servers would result in.. you know… versing the other top servers over and over due to …you know… not being able to progress past ranks 1-2-3. And because of your illogical cry, now the lower match ups are not competitive.