Guild Wars 2

Blanche Neige.7241:

Titan.3472:

I guess league means different match up every weeks until season ends in order to meet every other servers and get a ranking based on every scoring, am I right??? If so it’s good system.

It’s the same system that many professional sport leagues have, and yes it is a good one.

But it,s good only if you have control mechanisms to try to make the various teams more or less equal in strength. For example, when it’s time to recruit new players, the teams who finished at the bottom of the league generally have the choice of the first picks, so they have a chance to get better by picking up the best new players. There is also a limit on the amount of money a team can spend in salary each year, and a limit to the number of players a team can have on the playing field in a game.

Here there is absolutely no control on how a server can become stronger. Like someone said before, it’s like having a pro sport league where any player can choose to move to the team of his choice by paying a small fee. This ensure that the strong server gets even stronger than they are now, and those lingering at the bottom are sure to stay at the bottom.

I have this wild Idea now,

Why don’t we make WvW like NFL

Servers can do drafts, Anet can give us a budget for our servers, appoint a rep for our server.

We can pay gold salaries to “skilled” guilds to be on our server. The server that best manages/scouts for guilds for wvw is the victor.

Only then will it be fair

/sarcasm

(Wonder if the rest of Anvil would be on board? :P )

Read all the posts, many of the posters are upset, but taking the emotion out of their posts, I seen some good suggestions.

I can say the point system, or the way a server earns points, appears flawed, especially when paired with their modified “glicko” system.

I say this, because I play billiards/pool in an american amateur league. They implemented a “handicapped” system where even the lowest player could have a chance against a higher skilled player. Granted, there were flaws in this as well, but overall it worked. They rated players from 2-7, 2 being lowest, 7 being the highest.

If both players were a skill level 2, then they both had to win 2 games. Even

If the 2 had to play a skill level 6, then the 2 had to still only win 2 games, where as the 6 would have to win 6 games.

The matchup varied depending on the level.

A handicapped system put in place to alleviate the diffence in WvW population would be a good addition to the updcoming “league” play. At least then lower tiers could have a chance.

Swamurabi.7890:

Deniara Devious.3948:

Skapocalypse.5236:

Watch as your group while in a T3/4/5 server won’t be able to take anything but camps and maybe a unguarded tower during European/Oceanic/SEA against T1/2 servers that you probably won’t hold for the point tick. Watch the karma train while sitting in a T1 or T2 server against T3/4/5. Watch in the lower tiers the literal ghost town at these times. Then you’ll understand the true gaps between the servers and maybe then it will lead you guys to a solution. As many have stated it’s not skill and never will be skill it’s all coverage and population

This maybe true in NA, where the rating gap is really big between rank 4 server (TC) and rank 5 server (FA): currently 169 rating points. Here in EU we have 27 servers (vs 24 in NA) and the rating differences are smaller. I play for Desolation, which is currently rank 3 (but going to drop down). We are now matched up against rank #11 (Abaddon’s Mouth) and #14 (Gandara). So this is a tier #1 server against a tier #4 and a tier #5 server. Exactly what you were writing about. See:
http://mos.millenium.org/eu

We are going to win this match up, but only because we got a bit better night time coverage. During prime time we are constantly at the brink of being outnumbered. Our enemies, Gandara and AM, are high population and Deso is very high population. I would claim that the actual number of WvWvW players at prime time doesn’t show any indication of this. Our enemies can summon a zerg + several roaming teams on the same map. Last night I saw us ticking as low as +150 at prime time. Surely we felt like both enemy servers concentrated on us.

The things to take into consideration: Despite Desolation is so called EU tier 1 (rank 3) server, we currently don’t have any major queues to speak of. Except for prime time I can get to any map without any waiting. 20-25 man guild group is big for us. Even in prime time usually just one BL map has a queue, if 3 big guilds are having a raid or gvg there at same time. After 2 hours, when the raid / gvg is over, queue is gone and we get outnumbered buff on that same BL. Desolation really is unlike any other server in EU. We are hosting the best tpvp/spvp players and also the unofficial pve capital of EU, but our WvWvW attendance is relatively low and we are still lacking big WvWvW guilds. In our previous match up against SFR and VS (EU rank 1 and rank 2 vs rank 3) we had the outnumbered “buff” on us almost all the time. Despite having clearly less than half the numbers of our enemies we were able to tick pretty well due good coordination using server wide TeamSpeak.

What I understood is that the top 4 servers of NA (JQ, BG, SoR and TC) are all very stacked servers. Here in EU we have just 2 stacked servers: SFR and VS. The league is going to be won by either SFR or VS. There is no other choice, unless some major population shifts occur e.g. a lot of people band wagon to SFR and its main guilds will /ragequit due having too long queues (happened before) or Piken Square getting bandwagoned, because it is only a medium population server and has the lowest transfer costs of any top server.

Yes, I fully agree that the winner is mainly decided by the WvWvW population and coverage. And EU is much much more volatile than NA in this respect. If 1-2 big NA guilds would move to any top 6 server in EU, that server could easily be winning the league, because of better night and morning time coverage.

Current score of your match

11. Abaddon’s Mouth 101 913
14. Gandara 93 502
3. Desolation 135 673

Current glicko rating change of your match

11. Abaddon’s Mouth 14.777
14. Gandara 30.052
3. Desolation -43.434

What if the winner was decided by glicko instead of score?

I wondered about this in another post as well. Obviously the glicko system has a built-in handicap – do better than expected and you gain points, do worse you lose. Seems a much better model for determining the real winners rather than PPT.

As long as rankings and the whole point system is based on who has most players 24/7 .. instead of who plays best , the whole ranking , so also these leagues means kitten.

Please look at the suggestions about calculating objective holding points on enemies in zone. So holding objectives with a lot enemies in the zone gives you a lot more points then holding an objective with no enemies in the zone.

I’m thinking this league COULD be a good thing. I think basing the win on glicko score gain being the key. It could promote de-stacking which would probably be a good thing. We all know how to gain glicko for several weeks in a row, Kaining did that in January when WM transferred form tier 1 to tier 8. Large guilds moving to lower tier servers sounds like a good way to win glicko-gain based league and is good for wvw in general. We might get some good things out of the league system.

J heazy.7214:

I’m thinking this league COULD be a good thing. I think basing the win on glicko score gain being the key. It could promote de-stacking which would probably be a good thing. We all know how to gain glicko for several weeks in a row, Kaining did that in January when WM transferred form tier 1 to tier 8. Large guilds moving to lower tier servers sounds like a good way to win glicko-gain based league and is good for wvw in general. We might get some good things out of the league system.

There are three sorts of guilds

One has server pride and will never transfer out from their world regardless of win or lose. I connote them to the samurai

The second type holds no allegiance to any particular server and enjoys whichever server provides good fights. I refer to them as Mercenaries

The third type are free agents and change servers faster than I change my underpants. I call them free agents

Fuzzion.2504:

J heazy.7214:

I’m thinking this league COULD be a good thing. I think basing the win on glicko score gain being the key. It could promote de-stacking which would probably be a good thing. We all know how to gain glicko for several weeks in a row, Kaining did that in January when WM transferred form tier 1 to tier 8. Large guilds moving to lower tier servers sounds like a good way to win glicko-gain based league and is good for wvw in general. We might get some good things out of the league system.

There are three sorts of guilds

One has server pride and will never transfer out from their world regardless of win or lose. I connote them to the samurai

The second type holds no allegiance to any particular server and enjoys whichever server provides good fights. I refer to them as Mercenaries

The third type are free agents and change servers faster than I change my underpants. I call them free agents

Most wvw guilds play for the fights.
Not the points. Not some system that gives most points to the server who has best 24/7 coverage.
They dont want queues, they dont want to have skill lag all the time.

So why stay on a server that is rank 1 (that doesnt mean kitten accept having best coverage) have lots of queues and skill lag.

The leagues system will just mean more solo karma/loot farmers going to top rank league servers to get their bonus. And more guilds moving away from it dodging queues and skill lag.

Server pride means nothing if it doesnt include some skill and is only about who has best coverage. I am proud my server beat most servers during prime time.
Having them sit in there T3 keeps, porting home as soon as they see us even when they have 3 times the size of army. Having them switching zones after a few wipes in open combat.
But that doesnt mean anything in the current point system

Tietus.8013:

I wondered about this in another post as well. Obviously the glicko system has a built-in handicap – do better than expected and you gain points, do worse you lose. Seems a much better model for determining the real winners rather than PPT.

The only issue with this type of scoring is that the high coverage servers would end up spawn camping to protect their precious PPT to maintain their expected Glicko results. The counter would be to bump Siegerazer from Champion to Legendary and have him take a tower, camp and a keep.

A Glicko based results system would also promote roaming camp flippers at 5 minutes before tick, who could end up being the reason a lower pop server wins against a larger server. You send a small group to tag a keep, then as the entire map’s population swoops down on you, you have 6 roaming 2-3 man groups flip every camp on the map, getting your side a +30 PPT per map. I’m sure 120 PPT would be enough for server #12 to out Glicko the #1 server.

As more and more stacked servers lose in the league their population will end up spreading out to other servers. But then you’d still see massive player transfers the week before a new league starts to a lower server so they’d be guaranteed a win during the next season.

DevonCarver.5370:

bradderzh.2378:

We, the people of lower tiers, don’t mind testing our metal against tough odds. We do however mind it when the servers with the most players and best coverage gets the best rewards purely for the numbers reason only.

But as you said in another topic, wvw isn’t fair. All rank 12 has to do is throw enough matches to drop to rank 13 and get the best rewards.

So, as I’ve said before, we are still looking into ways to try and alleviate those problems, but that is also what WvW is like right now, so while this season will create new rewards and new incentives to play, it isn’t as though this is a brand new problem. We want to make it so that skill is more important than sheer numbers and we have some ideas. None of them are so easy/safe to implement that they are going to happen in the near-term.

I’m not sure how you think this is going to create new incentives to play, at least for the lower tiers in the two leagues. They stand no chance of getting the top place(s), so why even try?

DevonCarver.5370:

bradderzh.2378:

We, the people of lower tiers, don’t mind testing our metal against tough odds. We do however mind it when the servers with the most players and best coverage gets the best rewards purely for the numbers reason only.

But as you said in another topic, wvw isn’t fair. All rank 12 has to do is throw enough matches to drop to rank 13 and get the best rewards.

So, as I’ve said before, we are still looking into ways to try and alleviate those problems, but that is also what WvW is like right now, so while this season will create new rewards and new incentives to play, it isn’t as though this is a brand new problem. We want to make it so that skill is more important than sheer numbers and we have some ideas. None of them are so easy/safe to implement that they are going to happen in the near-term.

I hear you saying that you want skill to be more important than numbers but I see you implementing a league system which gives you more incentive to be on a server with more numbers (provided it’s one of the top ones).

League rewards are going to make the problem worse.

This seems like a money grab in disguise to trick players into paying for transfers so they will not get facerolled for 7 weeks.

If anet wanted it to be a competitive fun league they would of broken up the servers into 4 groups of 6.

DevonCarver.5370:

skeet.1390:

So do 4 leagues in NA. This eliminates the enormous population difference from server 1 to server 12 and 13 to 24.

If you really think the server that is ranked 12th at the start of this stands any chance against the top servers you are delusional.

I never said they did. However, I’d argue that they do in fact stand a chance against the 6th ranked server and the 5th ranked server. We are not trying to only ever match you up against your closest comparable server. That was what was happening with the system before and it was bad. If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

under the current matchup randomization system, #12 already has the opportunity to test themselves against #5 and #6. the server I’m on is ranked #11 this week, and we’ve gotten the chance under this system to play #6 and #5 (and #4 too) already. we’ve gotten to play #13, #14 and #15 too.

I can say with some certainty that the #12 server is going to have no chance to win against #5 and #6. or even #8 and #9, for that matter. unless they somehow get a lot of transfers, of course, but that seems unlikely — anyone contemplating a transfer is much better off transferring to #1, #2, #13 or #14 instead.

the only ‘good’ thing about being rank #11 and #12 I can think of is the likelihood that they will find themselves in the #13 and #14 spots for the second season, since it’s likely that ‘stacked’ #13 and #14 servers from season one will find themselves in the Gold league for season two.

-ken

AphoticEssance.7592:

This seems like a money grab in disguise to trick players into paying for transfers so they will not get facerolled for 7 weeks.

If anet wanted it to be a competitive fun league they would of broken up the servers into 4 groups of 6.

If ANet wanted anything about WvW to be fun, rewarding, and instilling of a sense of accomplishment they wouldn’t have this out of touch development model for the mode.

The most proud I’ve ever been of my guild and my server was winning a GvG against the #1 spot NA guild…and I was just rooting my guildies on from the sideline! Made me proud to wear my guild tag and let enemies know to be wary of my server should you be matched up against us.

Funny. What they’re trying to do with WvW is what players have already done with GvG despite them.

As a player on the 12 ranked NA this mechanism makes it almost mandatory for us to try to lose ranking before it cuts in.

If we can drop to 13 then we will get better rewards and better matches. Getting better matches may be a contentious opinion, but what I mean is that if a match is 13, 15 and 23 then 23 will be curb stomped but at least 13 and 15 will have a competitive match. If the match is 12, 10 and 2 then 2 will curb stomp both of the others, so you rely on getting all 3 servers close to you before you get a match; any of the top 5 would totally destroy us.

I want to see some merit in it but from our perspective it looks horrible! Even if there are personal rewards for taking towers etc we will struggle to get them as when our player base turns out they will face a No 4 server that has a +600 tick, has our own BL fortified and outnumbers us 2 to 1. People will quit or move…

I wonder if Anet has really thought about people quitting GW2 altogether? I’m already hanging by a thread with this whole Ascended mess and if WvWvW goes even further down the kittener then I’m gone.

Devon, and other WvW devs,

I think you guys are trying to do to much at once. I would first say focus on getting the new objectives around the lake in the borderlands maps, in game, live, first! After these buff controlling objectives are in game, be patient and most importantly, observe how the WvW community reacts and utilizes these objectives in matches.

From the little information you have released about these objectives, I can tell this is your attempt at providing the player base a micro-level of control over fighting zergs while out-manned. I.e. if the out-manned server has buffs individual players become more effective, thus trying to account for the difference in population. Also five new objectives will spread out players more than your previous build which is a good thing in the current state of the game.

This lastest Sept. 3 patch was a great one for WvW because it provides great incentives for player’s new to WvW to participate due to ascended materials dropping off lords and such. This is an awesome addition to your game, I hope to see more of this in the future.

With the information that has been released about these leagues, I believe from what has been stated on these forums you will destroy many communities you have worked so hard to create over the passed year. Some communities will survive, but others will die. Please, if your manifesto still hold true in your hearts, don’t implement these leagues yet. Put them on the back burner, until you can sort out how to make WvW more about skill and less about population.

I still believe you are a community building developer, not a video game developer.

But my belief hangs in the balance!

Since I’m sure Devon quit reading this thread after all the examples as to why this system is dumb and will break the game, I’ll just say one last thing in the hopes he browses one more time.

Devon Carver, you’re a kittening idiot.

/thread.

DevonCarver.5370:

skeet.1390:

So do 4 leagues in NA. This eliminates the enormous population difference from server 1 to server 12 and 13 to 24.

If you really think the server that is ranked 12th at the start of this stands any chance against the top servers you are delusional.

I never said they did. However, I’d argue that they do in fact stand a chance against the 6th ranked server and the 5th ranked server. We are not trying to only ever match you up against your closest comparable server. That was what was happening with the system before and it was bad. If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

We will continue to look into ways to change scoring to try and even out some of the population based imbalances, but that is not an easy task and it won’t happen during the season.

The thing is, its not all about skill. In fact, its mostly not about skill.

And I agree, lower ranked servers will have a chance against servers ranked closest to them, but these are the servers we already fight most often. So the good fights will be the more familiar fights, and the rest will be garbage.

I’d rather have more good familiar fights than some good fights and some that are so lopsided thakittens kitten.

IMHO,The real questions are as follows;

Should servers rated 10-11-12 be playing to ensure they are rated 13-14-15 prior to the start of the league?

Should servers rated 13-14-15 be taking steps now to ensure their rating does not climb to 10-11-12 prior to the start of the league season?

Should those of us loyal to our servers start asking our server mates which league pool they wish to be in?

I am not a great fan of the league concept BUT the 5-6 weeks facing the same opponents thing was not working either so any change is worth a shot….

Clearly Devon only cares as long as he doesn’t get any real feedback > <

You guys should all remember that most of the devs have their accounts on Sanctum of Rall and play WvW on that server. Of course they wont see the problem :p

I really don’t think this is going to work out for the NA side of things. The population difference between ranks 1-3, 4-6, 7-12 are huge. Considering how badly the random match ups have been under the new system, it should stick out like a sore thumb and you can see T2 cannot compete with T1 servers, T3/4 cannot compete with T2 servers. What’s worse is all the losing servers every week have been getting falsely boosted ratings, which has not let some servers settle into their proper places.

So have the league, but it’s a given, one of ranks 1-3 servers will be winning because of their population and coverage.

Archon.7516:

Clearly Devon only cares as long as he doesn’t get any real feedback > <

The flaw in your logic is assuming he cares more at one point than he does at another. Given the history I’ve seen with this guy it’s mostly a pretty consistent level of not giving a %&#@ what we think.

Self solving problem though. Eventually we’ll just leave, ANet wont be able to justify the development cost, and they’ll just dismantle the team. Development of WvW will be left for the random nonsense that didn’t make the cut for PvE implementation and seen as a good way to not completely waste the development time burnt in creating it…kinda like how it is now, except with a lighter payroll cost for ANet.

have a guildmate considering quitting GW2 altogether because of ANET’s incompetency in balancing WvW, and focusing too much on farmfest Living Stories…

don’t know what to say……

Xenesis.6389:

I really don’t think this is going to work out for the NA side of things. The population difference between ranks 1-3, 4-6, 7-12 are huge. Considering how badly the random match ups have been under the new system, it should stick out like a sore thumb and you can see T2 cannot compete with T1 servers, T3/4 cannot compete with T2 servers. What’s worse is all the losing servers every week have been getting falsely boosted ratings, which has not let some servers settle into their proper places.

So have the league, but it’s a given, one of ranks 1-3 servers will be winning because of their population and coverage.

That’s making the assumption that points is the deciding factor in who “wins”. I think Devon and Anet are smarter than to put BG/JQ/SoR against CD/YB/BP and expect an even match, and that the players would “balance” out by wanting to move to CD/YB/BP. But if you have your change in Glicko rating be the deciding factor in who wins you’ll find that anytime a lower tier server goes against a higher tier server, the lower tier server gains rating or “wins with a handicap”.

The players have been complaining about night capping and being outmanned and out pointed and how it’s not a fun setup. With Glicko as a handicap instead of stat boosts, everyone is the same in the maps and you’ll find that the stacked servers won’t win if the league uses a Glicko handicap. Look at Milennium scores for the past weeks, lower tier servers gain rating when matched up against higher tier servers. This would cause those players to rethink why they want to be on a server with queues 24/7 and in game lag and all they get in return is 7th or 8th place finish out of 12.

DevonCarver.5370:

If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if Mr. Carver has EVER used his dev privileges to jump in as HOD world player and face IOJ for a week and seriously thinks that is fun.

That response is like saying if you don’t want the chance to stand in front of a speeding bus and test your skill against it, he does not know what to say.

What is the most frustrating thing is all of Arenanets head in the sand attitude towards any situation where they clearly have made bad design decisions and cling to them. The current basic WvW system has some serious basic design flaws that no amount of tweaking will ever improve. Some things in WvW need to be rethought and changed from the ground up.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

DevonCarver.5370:

If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if Mr. Carver has EVER used his dev privileges to jump in as HOD world player and face IOJ for a week and seriously thinks that is fun.

That response is like saying if you don’t want the chance to stand in front of a speeding bus and test your skill against it, he does not know what to say.

What is the most frustrating thing is all of Arenanets head in the sand attitude towards any situation where they clearly have made bad design decisions and cling to them. The current basic WvW system has some serious basic design flaws that no amount of tweaking will ever improve. Some things in WvW need to be rethought and changed from the ground up.

According to the ratings IoJ is only 1 rank above you. Iokittenoving on up in the rankings and you won’t be facing this for long. Imagine how you make FC, ET, AR, or DR feel when HoD zergs are squishing them.

Ynot.8397:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

DevonCarver.5370:

If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if Mr. Carver has EVER used his dev privileges to jump in as HOD world player and face IOJ for a week and seriously thinks that is fun.

That response is like saying if you don’t want the chance to stand in front of a speeding bus and test your skill against it, he does not know what to say.

What is the most frustrating thing is all of Arenanets head in the sand attitude towards any situation where they clearly have made bad design decisions and cling to them. The current basic WvW system has some serious basic design flaws that no amount of tweaking will ever improve. Some things in WvW need to be rethought and changed from the ground up.

According to the ratings IoJ is only 1 rank above you. Iokittenoving on up in the rankings and you won’t be facing this for long. Imagine how you make FC, ET, AR, or DR feel when HoD zergs are squishing them.

Imagine how you’ll all feel when you face BP or SBI or Yaks, one of which will be #13, and DH and Kain.

[QUOTE]I wonder if Mr. Carver has EVER used his dev privileges to jump in as HOD world player and face IOJ for a week and seriously thinks that is fun.
[/QUOTE]
maybe if SF and HoD ganged up on IoJ rather than bashing eachothers borderlands we’d be better off. :P

Swamurabi.7890:

Xenesis.6389:

I really don’t think this is going to work out for the NA side of things. The population difference between ranks 1-3, 4-6, 7-12 are huge. Considering how badly the random match ups have been under the new system, it should stick out like a sore thumb and you can see T2 cannot compete with T1 servers, T3/4 cannot compete with T2 servers. What’s worse is all the losing servers every week have been getting falsely boosted ratings, which has not let some servers settle into their proper places.

So have the league, but it’s a given, one of ranks 1-3 servers will be winning because of their population and coverage.

That’s making the assumption that points is the deciding factor in who “wins”. I think Devon and Anet are smarter than to put BG/JQ/SoR against CD/YB/BP and expect an even match, and that the players would “balance” out by wanting to move to CD/YB/BP. But if you have your change in Glicko rating be the deciding factor in who wins you’ll find that anytime a lower tier server goes against a higher tier server, the lower tier server gains rating or “wins with a handicap”.

The players have been complaining about night capping and being outmanned and out pointed and how it’s not a fun setup. With Glicko as a handicap instead of stat boosts, everyone is the same in the maps and you’ll find that the stacked servers won’t win if the league uses a Glicko handicap. Look at Milennium scores for the past weeks, lower tier servers gain rating when matched up against higher tier servers. This would cause those players to rethink why they want to be on a server with queues 24/7 and in game lag and all they get in return is 7th or 8th place finish out of 12.

And then the people on those high pop servers would complain to no end alongside the players on the low pop servers who are getting steamrolled on the maps anyway. Anet knew off the bat how imbalanced WvWvW was and tried to play it down with marketing spin. Even if guesting had been working from launch and transfers were never free there would still have been major population problems especially with how attractive GW2 can make 3rd party RMT.

Devon as long as you realize, right now, that this is going to be a failure of truly epic proportions I say burn it down around all our feet. Let’s get this bus on the road so we’re doing 90 when the wheels come off.

gennyt.3428:

Swamurabi.7890:

Xenesis.6389:

I really don’t think this is going to work out for the NA side of things. The population difference between ranks 1-3, 4-6, 7-12 are huge. Considering how badly the random match ups have been under the new system, it should stick out like a sore thumb and you can see T2 cannot compete with T1 servers, T3/4 cannot compete with T2 servers. What’s worse is all the losing servers every week have been getting falsely boosted ratings, which has not let some servers settle into their proper places.

So have the league, but it’s a given, one of ranks 1-3 servers will be winning because of their population and coverage.

That’s making the assumption that points is the deciding factor in who “wins”. I think Devon and Anet are smarter than to put BG/JQ/SoR against CD/YB/BP and expect an even match, and that the players would “balance” out by wanting to move to CD/YB/BP. But if you have your change in Glicko rating be the deciding factor in who wins you’ll find that anytime a lower tier server goes against a higher tier server, the lower tier server gains rating or “wins with a handicap”.

The players have been complaining about night capping and being outmanned and out pointed and how it’s not a fun setup. With Glicko as a handicap instead of stat boosts, everyone is the same in the maps and you’ll find that the stacked servers won’t win if the league uses a Glicko handicap. Look at Milennium scores for the past weeks, lower tier servers gain rating when matched up against higher tier servers. This would cause those players to rethink why they want to be on a server with queues 24/7 and in game lag and all they get in return is 7th or 8th place finish out of 12.

And then the people on those high pop servers would complain to no end alongside the players on the low pop servers who are getting steamrolled on the maps anyway. Anet knew off the bat how imbalanced WvWvW was and tried to play it down with marketing spin. Even if guesting had been working from launch and transfers were never free there would still have been major population problems especially with how attractive GW2 can make 3rd party RMT.

Glicko handicapping is going to save WvW, it has to. That’s the only way to get people to leave voluntarily the stacked servers. It also means that those who have since launch stayed on the Tier 3-4 and Tier 6-7 will get rewarded. Just look at the past 7 weeks results at Milennium. When a lower tier server went up against 2 servers from the tier above, the lower tier server GAINED rating. WvW league will have to use Glicko gain as the deciding factor as to which server wins.

Glicko handicapping solves most of the issues with WvW.
It also creates other issues.

Night Capping is irrelevent because that is already baked into the Glicko. You are supposed to be Night Capped if you are on a lower tier server facing a higher tier server. Nobody’s effort is diminished by using a score handicap.

Population size is also irrelevent for the same reason. You are supposed to get less points when you face a higher rated server.

Currently the WvW population drops after a few days because the match is already decided. With a Glicko handicap you might not have a clear winner until Friday.

Zergs/blobs will be less rewarding for higher population servers because they will have to defend against the lesser servers flipping points just before tick. If yaks heading to a destination give 3 points when killed it would force the zerg to spread out. I’d argue that yaks that don’t have a destination should give nothing. That way if a roaming group killed 4 yaks and then flipped a camp just before tick they would get +17 ppt. Do that for 3 camps with 6 people and you can easily get 50 ppt. Multiply that by 3 or 4 and a small population server could get 150-200 ppt by just flipping camps and killing yaks. That alone would win if you have a handicap. The 80 man zerg would be forced to defend 3 keeps, 4 towers, 6 camps, the 5 new lake points and 12 yaks. That’s 30 targets to defend at any one time.

Roaming would become relevent.

Servers of every size would have to have use strategy and teamwork to win instead of counting on who can put the most people on the map.

The first issue I see with this is that eventually the high population servers would have resort to spawn camping as the best way to secure a victory. The other issue is that when players from high population servers get tired of losing, they could jump to a single server like what happened to Kaineg to guarantee a win the following season

Swamurabi.7890:

Glicko handicapping is going to save WvW, it has to. That’s the only way to get people to leave voluntarily the stacked servers. It also means that those who have since launch stayed on the Tier 3-4 and Tier 6-7 will get rewarded. Just look at the past 7 weeks results at Milennium. When a lower tier server went up against 2 servers from the tier above, the lower tier server GAINED rating. WvW league will have to use Glicko gain as the deciding factor as to which server wins.

Glicko handicapping solves most of the issues with WvW.
It also creates other issues.

Night Capping is irrelevent because that is already baked into the Glicko. You are supposed to be Night Capped if you are on a lower tier server facing a higher tier server. Nobody’s effort is diminished by using a score handicap.

Population size is also irrelevent for the same reason. You are supposed to get less points when you face a higher rated server.

Currently the WvW population drops after a few days because the match is already decided. With a Glicko handicap you might not have a clear winner until Friday.

Zergs/blobs will be less rewarding for higher population servers because they will have to defend against the lesser servers flipping points just before tick. If yaks heading to a destination give 3 points when killed it would force the zerg to spread out. I’d argue that yaks that don’t have a destination should give nothing. That way if a roaming group killed 4 yaks and then flipped a camp just before tick they would get +17 ppt. Do that for 3 camps with 6 people and you can easily get 50 ppt. Multiply that by 3 or 4 and a small population server could get 150-200 ppt by just flipping camps and killing yaks. That alone would win if you have a handicap. The 80 man zerg would be forced to defend 3 keeps, 4 towers, 6 camps, the 5 new lake points and 12 yaks. That’s 30 targets to defend at any one time.

Roaming would become relevent.

Servers of every size would have to have use strategy and teamwork to win instead of counting on who can put the most people on the map.

The first issue I see with this is that eventually the high population servers would have resort to spawn camping as the best way to secure a victory. The other issue is that when players from high population servers get tired of losing, they could jump to a single server like what happened to Kaineg to guarantee a win the following season

Actually wont work out this way. Your not factoring in the “snowball effect”. Glicko handicap or not lower tier servers are going to get beat down. As they consistently get beat by superior adherence to the siege/zerg meta they’re going to stop fighting. Once a server is demoralized its just the roamers and die-hard-try-hards left and they don’t play for PPT, they measure success in loot bags and the tears of scrubs. Once that snowball gets rolling, it’s already over for the losing server.

Glicko isn’t going to encourage a lower tier server to keep getting their faces caved in when the server blobs roll over them in every engagement. All they’re going to do is rack up a massive repair bill and then go play PvE to make up their losses…or just quit playing and do something entertaining with their free time.

So long as Dev-on-a-budget Carver is in charge there’s no saving WvW from it’s inevitable demise. Come this Q4 season the mode will gradually become a ghost town on nearly every server, and be near dead by Christmas.

Obscure One.4357:

Actually wont work out this way. Your not factoring in the “snowball effect”. Glicko handicap or not lower tier servers are going to get beat down. As they consistently get beat by superior adherence to the siege/zerg meta they’re going to stop fighting. Once a server is demoralized its just the roamers and die-hard-try-hards left and they don’t play for PPT, they measure success in loot bags and the tears of scrubs. Once that snowball gets rolling, it’s already over for the losing server.

Glicko isn’t going to encourage a lower tier server to keep getting their faces caved in when the server blobs roll over them in every engagement. All they’re going to do is rack up a massive repair bill and then go play PvE to make up their losses…or just quit playing and do something entertaining with their free time.

So long as Dev-on-a-budget Carver is in charge there’s no saving WvW from it’s inevitable demise. Come this Q4 season the mode will gradually become a ghost town on nearly every server, and be near dead by Christmas.

This guy gets it, totally.

#Golfclap

@ Swamurabi

Every tactic a lower pop server can pull off, a higher pop can do it better if they chose to, there are no mechanics that help out the small guy on the battlefield, none. Roam you say? Ok, a handful of ppl from the underdog server can go roam and get rolled hard by the higher pop server’s “small man” effort because under that system, they will most likely have more of these groups and more people per group anyway. Arbitrary points mean little when you’re getting your face melted off at every turn. People get demoralized now, when the winnings are paltry and I doubt anyone on the higher pop servers are going to see this and say “Hey, these guys are getting so utterly steamrolled, I want some of that fun, let’s transfer!”. The losing server will just be that, the losing server.

Glicko handicapping to determine win/loss:

It doesn’t sound/feel like winning when winning means you didn’t get owned as badly as you were predicted to.

Looking at the NA matchups, the only favorites (IoJ and FC) are winning according to Glicko gain/loss. All the other matchups have a lower ranked server winning. EBay is getting STOMPED in points by DB and SoS but with Glicko handicapping they are stomping both of them.

The EU side is more difficult to analyze because they have so many “interleague” matchups, but in the 2 matchups that aren’t interleague…

1. PS is STOMPING #1 VS and #2 SR, 40 to 13 to -52
2. Vabbi is beating #23 BT and #26 WR, 9.5 to 7.6 to -15.5

11) Ebay +40
8) SoS -3.7
6) DB -37.5

So tell me how can EBay, Vabbi and Piken be demoralized by getting stomped in the field but WINNING on the handicapped scoreboard, if what matters is the handicapped score????

I like that Anet is trying something new. However the concept that BP #10 has a chance against FA #5 or DB #6 is laughable. DB nearly doubled our score last week. I didn’t mind the uphill fight but pitting servers and corresponding rewards based on this system is ridiculous.

There is virtually no chance a 10, 11, 12 server can win against a 5, 6, 7 server. The odds have to be fantastically high.

On a high note, servers that already dominate in WxP/Karma/XP generation will continue to dominate in new rewards.

Straegen.2938:

I like that Anet is trying something new. However the concept that BP #10 has a chance against FA #5 or DB #6 is laughable. DB nearly doubled our score last week. I didn’t mind the uphill fight but pitting servers and corresponding rewards based on this system is ridiculous.

There is virtually no chance a 10, 11, 12 server can win against a 5, 6, 7 server. The odds have to be fantastically high.

On a high note, servers that already dominate in WxP/Karma/XP generation will continue to dominate in new rewards.

They have a chance if you use Glicko rating gained as the determining factor…

4. Tarnished Coast 314,319 -6.162
9. Crystal Desert 112,153 19.633
5. Fort Aspenwood 189,331 -13.084

6. Dragonbrand 284,547 -6.575
7. Maguuma 186,021 -37.988
11. Borlis Pass 147,545 45.069

Looks like the #9 and #11 servers beat servers #4-#7 if you look at rating change.

Do you REALLY think Anet is going to allow the entire WvW population to be stacked into a few servers?

Swamurabi.7890:

Do you REALLY think Anet is going to allow the entire WvW population to be stacked into a few servers?

lol

Johje Holan.4607:

Ynot.8397:

Jalad Lantana.3027:

DevonCarver.5370:

If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

I wonder if Mr. Carver has EVER used his dev privileges to jump in as HOD world player and face IOJ for a week and seriously thinks that is fun.

That response is like saying if you don’t want the chance to stand in front of a speeding bus and test your skill against it, he does not know what to say.

What is the most frustrating thing is all of Arenanets head in the sand attitude towards any situation where they clearly have made bad design decisions and cling to them. The current basic WvW system has some serious basic design flaws that no amount of tweaking will ever improve. Some things in WvW need to be rethought and changed from the ground up.

According to the ratings IoJ is only 1 rank above you. Iokittenoving on up in the rankings and you won’t be facing this for long. Imagine how you make FC, ET, AR, or DR feel when HoD zergs are squishing them.

Imagine how you’ll all feel when you face BP or SBI or Yaks, one of which will be #13, and DH and Kain.

I welcome the challenge to be perfectly honest. I don’t expect to win but I love messing with the zerglings.

Rhaegus.8924:

You guys should all remember that most of the devs have their accounts on Sanctum of Rall and play WvW on that server. Of course they wont see the problem :p

There’s only 1 dev on SOR regularly. An issue is actually that most of them are on lower ranked servers so the top ranked servers arguably aren’t represented enough.

morrolan.9608:

Rhaegus.8924:

You guys should all remember that most of the devs have their accounts on Sanctum of Rall and play WvW on that server. Of course they wont see the problem :p

There’s only 1 dev on SOR regularly. An issue is actually that most of them are on lower ranked servers so the top ranked servers arguably aren’t represented enough.

If that was true there would be 4 leagues because they would understand the differences in population.

Swamurabi.7890:

Do you REALLY think Anet is going to allow the entire WvW population to be stacked into a few servers?

I’m sorry..I thought this post was HILARIOUS….and yes…yes..I do….

Remove the scoreboard. There is no point for players to see it. You can keep it on the back end with a rating system to keep equal(ish) servers fighting each other.

Sure, I like to win just like anyone else. I don’t take a tower for the ppt, I take it for the challenge/fights that attacking an enemy gives me. Large fight, small fight, 60v60 or 5v5 it doesn’t matter.

Take away the “points” for a tower. Make towers have a strategic value instead of a point value. (Sure they have it now, but no one uses/sees It). Yes, people will take and hold towers because of their strategic value instead of points.

This would be the first, basic step to improving WvW as a whole. Adding leagues and giving the winner (read:best coverage servers) benefits for massive stacking is a terrible, terrible idea.

Let’s start with basics first. Worry about zerging in a bit. This is a quick change that could be implemented for a week or 2 then monitor the results. I think it will change the way people play wvw. Zerging will go down a little bit IMO.

If change is positive, move to next issue. If change is negative, make changes until it is positive. I don’t know how anet wvw devs work, nor pretend to, but from a customer point of view, you guys have done almost nothing to improve and/or expand wvw game play for a year. Sure, wvw has had updates but compare wvw changes/fixes/additional content to the living story and tell me I am wrong.

Ynot.8397:

morrolan.9608:

Rhaegus.8924:

You guys should all remember that most of the devs have their accounts on Sanctum of Rall and play WvW on that server. Of course they wont see the problem :p

There’s only 1 dev on SOR regularly. An issue is actually that most of them are on lower ranked servers so the top ranked servers arguably aren’t represented enough.

If that was true there would be 4 leagues because they would understand the differences in population.

Well there is another answer to that but its probably infractable.

Swamurabi.7890:

Do you REALLY think Anet is going to allow the entire WvW population to be stacked into a few servers?

yup, Im sure they are terrified of the consequences of that happening…I mean, they would earn tons of money from transfers…oh the horror! bet they are losing sleep over this

Ok I was recently forced into a hiatus away from thread here.

I noticed that Anet stopped touching this thread…..w/e I guess we going to have to wait until its live for full disclosure

:(

Jinks.2057:

Ok I was recently forced into a hiatus away from thread here.

I noticed that Anet stopped touching this thread…..w/e I guess we going to have to wait until its live for full disclosure

:(

Devon doesn’t do 3rd and 4th pages, man.

DevonCarver.5370:

skeet.1390:

So do 4 leagues in NA. This eliminates the enormous population difference from server 1 to server 12 and 13 to 24.

If you really think the server that is ranked 12th at the start of this stands any chance against the top servers you are delusional.

I never said they did. However, I’d argue that they do in fact stand a chance against the 6th ranked server and the 5th ranked server.

Quoting this again. Yak’s Bend stands no chance against DB or FA. Four leagues for NA really seems like the more sensible option. NA has more diversity in population than EU, so more leagues not less would be logical. Is “the matches wouldn’t be varied enough” really that big a problem? They’d still be more varied than the original system, and slightly less than the current one.

Also I’m a bit confused. Who is in which league is determined by the rankings, which are determined by glicko rating. But who wins the league (and gets the best rewards) won’t be determined by glicko? Or will it? And if so will the glicko ratings be displayed in game?

And if glicko is the determining factor, will some sort of value be put on ranking movement? If YB by some miracle finishes 5th, surely they deserve whatever the best reward going is.

Lorelei.3918:

DevonCarver.5370:

skeet.1390:

So do 4 leagues in NA. This eliminates the enormous population difference from server 1 to server 12 and 13 to 24.

If you really think the server that is ranked 12th at the start of this stands any chance against the top servers you are delusional.

I never said they did. However, I’d argue that they do in fact stand a chance against the 6th ranked server and the 5th ranked server. We are not trying to only ever match you up against your closest comparable server. That was what was happening with the system before and it was bad. If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

We will continue to look into ways to change scoring to try and even out some of the population based imbalances, but that is not an easy task and it won’t happen during the season.

Devon, c’mon man…it’s not about skill. Skill is not a major factor in wvw outcomes. It never was and never will be. It’s population, population, population. And do you know what happens when you match a rank 12 server against a rank 1 server? Rank 12 goes home. That’s what happens. And if you think that’s ‘pathetic’ or something, then maybe you need to rethink what it is you are making. It’s a game and people want to have fun in a game. Being outnumbered 5 to 1 all the time is Not Fun.

In fact, it doesn’t even need to be a 1-12 difference. CD spent just 3 weeks fighting t2-3 servers and by the end of it we had pretty much given up. It’s much worse for others I hear.

Sorry, this isn’t angels in the outfield. Miracles aren’t going to happen. The outcome of matching servers with more then 1 tier of disparity is pretty much already decided.

I’m ready to go back to the old system now. I’ll take the same ‘boring’ old 3 servers every week to the way things have been: not being able to even play for weeks at a time.

This, so much. I left GW2 for some months (long before the randomized matchups) and I have to say, coming back to this mess wasn’t fun. My server (Mag) against JQ? Really stupid.

And from what I gather about this leagues system, it is only going to get worse from here.

I really have begun to miss fighting against Ebay, CD, Yaks and others… Yes the fights were always the same few servers, but it was fun and enjoyable that way. Friendly rivalries between all our servers, but we always had a good time.

I don’t call running into 40 man+ zergs of two other servers (sometimes at the same time) with our fewer numbers fun lol. If we have good commanders who’re good at open field fights it can be really fantastic, but at the end of the day, numbers is really what decides the war’s outcome. And as everyone else has so aptly pointed out, it is very much about coverage and numbers.

And I’d daresay that zerging would hinder someone from really learning how to fight properly where there’s less riding on your performance than there would be in smaller fights or skirmishes. The reason I didn’t transfer to a top tier server was because I enjoyed the middle tier. we had good fights, some zerging, some skirmishes but it’s nearly unheard of now that we’re being matched up with much bigger servers. And it’ll only get worse with this leagues system. I don’t like roflstomping smaller forces just as much as I don’t like getting roflstomped by bigger forces… I don’t see how that’s so hard to understand, and makes me wonder how much our dev really plays WvW. And if he’s ever seen it from a top tier, middle tier or lower tier perspective in all ways.