Guild Wars 2

Anet,

We’ve suffered in NA for a long time now with Glicko rating between top tiers being too large and leading to match stagnation, which in turn lead to large guild movements in arguably vain attempts to counter it. The goal of all these changes you are doing to WvW should be to even out population across all tiers and create better matches. But…

Glicko was designed for 1v1 matches. WvW is a three-way match where each server gets compared to the other two on an individual basis so what that means is servers at tier borders never match up against each other. Instead they compare themselves against servers 2 ranks above/below them; of course they’re going to do much better/worse than the system predicted.

Resetting volatility and deviation does not look like it is going to cut it. Especially not with the server links increasing the activity levels across all four match-ups. All it has done is make for faster drops/rises. The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.

There are two main extremes that kill WvW for most players: wide population disparities and stagnation. Players need relatively even matches and variation of opponents to keep it both fun and interesting. Right now you have the piece for alleviating population disparities with server linking. If you create matches though where there will be stagnation, all you are doing is boring players again. I wish NA were more like EU, but it is not and now the sample size of only four matches leads to increased inaccuracy. You have to do more. You have to make some way that servers at tier borders can get the chance to be in a match together.

Maybe you are rushing in conclusions that “The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.” It has been only 1 reset and just few days so far. You can not deny that ideas to improve WvW have been in right direction, we may need to wait some time to see full effect.

Go play WvW, dont be distracted by the glicko, ranks and tiers
after Beta lets see who will Anet listen to:

the veteran glicko/rank/tier fanboys
the returning curious cats
or the new breed of WvW bags

so stay tuned and watch GoT S06 Ep1

Messing with volatility and deviation is fine, but its only a short term fix. The longer term and better solution is an actual glicko reset where all that inflation that has occurred since the game launched is removed and the servers can start fresh.

If they have a fix for this in mind, it would have to come after they found a way to somewhat even out population. Thus, the linking may just be the first step in the process.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed~

If they have a fix for this in mind, it would have to come after they found a way to somewhat even out population. Thus, the linking may just be the first step in the process.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed~

FogLeg.9354:

Maybe you are rushing in conclusions that “The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.” It has been only 1 reset and just few days so far. You can not deny that ideas to improve WvW have been in right direction, we may need to wait some time to see full effect.

Nevertheless Chaba is right about how glicko works and I highly doubt anet devs are aware of the drawbacks or even care about them given the lack of understanding and care demonstrated by the pvp devs with the matchmaking in that mode.

Glicko cliffs can only get worse – each time a world makes it into T1 it puts more glicko into the top 3 because that world has more than the one they ousted. A similar issue occurs at the bottom, anytime someone makes it out of the bottom they take a small amount of glicko with them, so the bottom 3 have less to share. Glicko loses effectiveness at the end points, and progressively gets worse.

And on top of all that they have now frozen the lower half of the linked worlds so that they can never improve, no matter how much they contribute to the result.

Chaba.5410:

Anet,

We’ve suffered in NA for a long time now with Glicko rating between top tiers being too large and leading to match stagnation, which in turn lead to large guild movements in arguably vain attempts to counter it. The goal of all these changes you are doing to WvW should be to even out population across all tiers and create better matches. But…

Glicko was designed for 1v1 matches. WvW is a three-way match where each server gets compared to the other two on an individual basis so what that means is servers at tier borders never match up against each other. Instead they compare themselves against servers 2 ranks above/below them; of course they’re going to do much better/worse than the system predicted.

Resetting volatility and deviation does not look like it is going to cut it. Especially not with the server links increasing the activity levels across all four match-ups. All it has done is make for faster drops/rises. The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.

There are two main extremes that kill WvW for most players: wide population disparities and stagnation. Players need relatively even matches and variation of opponents to keep it both fun and interesting. Right now you have the piece for alleviating population disparities with server linking. If you create matches though where there will be stagnation, all you are doing is boring players again. I wish NA were more like EU, but it is not and now the sample size of only four matches leads to increased inaccuracy. You have to do more. You have to make some way that servers at tier borders can get the chance to be in a match together.

I agree 100% with this. The entire system needs to be looked at because we are going to place ourselves in the same mess. It’s already happening.

FogLeg.9354:

Maybe you are rushing in conclusions that “The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.” It has been only 1 reset and just few days so far. You can not deny that ideas to improve WvW have been in right direction, we may need to wait some time to see full effect.

The time to create more match-up variation that smooths out the glicko cliffs between tiers is now during a re-invigorated population time when everyone and their mother are logging in to play and check out the changes. Waiting is only going to bore players away again with stale matches. EU doesn’t have this problem because they have a larger number of servers within close enough rating of each other to already get more match variation. NA on the other hand doesn’t. It needs a much bigger kick than the partial reset.

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Naithe.4271:

Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

There are also many German, French servers (and 1 Spanish) so if you want to play the game only in one of these language, your possible number of servers to transfer is much fewer.

There is actually only 8 international, mostly English speaking, servers in EU atm, while NA has 12.

What I have seen so far in our new linked match, people from FoW (the small, almost dead server) are more interested about points, they defend keeps, run around in BL maps etc. While the players from GH (the bigger server we got linked to) mostly don’t care about that, they just do the blob vs blob fight in EB whole day. Maybe I am wrong, and I do not wish to insult anyone from GH, just my impression so far.

While I agree that reseting all glicko scores would be a better long term solution, there is no point in doing it while they are beta testing server linking.

If they reset the scores and undo the linking you will have tier 8 servers getting matched with Tier 1 servers and that will be a mess for about a month.

And without truly fixing the population balance both by server and by timezone it will never matter under the current scoring system.

Anet either needs to fix the scoring system to minimize the timezone imbalances or keep the current scoring system and find a way to truly fix population imbalances. Unfortunately short of alliances I don’t see them achieving population balance so they should direct their attention to scoring changes.

Either way, glicko is dependent on the outcome of matches and that is currently imbalanced by the scoring model and/or population. So fixing the glicko doesn’t fix the underlying problem and we will eventually end up back where we started.

Somebody needs to decide what type of game WvW is going to be and suck it up and make the changes.

TorquedSoul.8097:

While I agree that reseting all glicko scores would be a better long term solution, there is no point in doing it while they are beta testing server linking.

By that reasoning, what was the point of the partial reset? You might as well be arguing that they should not have reset deviation and volatility because beta test.

Yes, the scoring system plays a role, but so does the fact that tier border servers don’t get much of a chance ever to match up against each other when the rating spread is beyond a certain range. What typically ends up happening is these border servers swap places rather than there being a chance that the middle-of-the-tier servers roll up/down and border servers fight each other (and to get a chance to swap places requires usually draining players from other servers). You may argue that the population disparity is too high, and I’d agree with you most of the time, yet right now with the server links everyone’s queues are flooding.

Chaba, probably to test results I guess. All babies have to crawl before they walk.

Torqued, agreed. The overall system just doesn’t seem to work well. Personally, I feel alliances can have limitations as well as it limits those that can’t compete due to connections, skills.

It sure would be nice to have a WvWvW objective from ANet (full servers, # of players, etc.). Besides being the best MMO, what do they want specifically for WvWvW?

They should have reset the scores to 1 million across the board when they linked servers. They should do that every time they do a new round of server links. Keep the order like they did but give servers a chance to move up/down quickly.

This way linked servers rise and fall quickly based on how well their link performs rather than being held up by months of play that is likely not relevant to the current battle.

Naithe.4271:

So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation?

one of the seven deadly sins (and the deadliest of them all)

It’s only the first step in the beta. They have said it themselves that they may do a full-wipe, or other such things if this isn’t working. It’s not a forever thing, and we should just roll with the punches until something comes along that works.

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

Personally, I want equal-ish matches, where there is a reason to push to win, and winning is a combination of strategy, tactics, and fighting ability. Where there is room for multiple play styles, all of which contribute to the game.

While I’m at it, I’d love sportsmanship, respect for the opponents who make our play style possible, rainbows, unicorns, and world peace (except when slaughtering each other in the mists).

Sadly, I don’t know think a full glicko reset will do anything but push the problem off a bit longer. Naithe has some valid points.

Agree mostly with OP, I was about to make a very similar thread.

Neither Glicko matchmaking or 1U1D is satisfactory. As pointed out they both cause the servers a the edge of the tiers to not meet – thus disallowing the best matchups.

For example there is a cliff between DHFC/NSPSF and SBICD/HoDEBay. What’s probably going to happen is that SBICD and HoDEBay (wow that’s hard to keep typing) will switch back and forth between T3 and T4 and not getting to fight each other.

Now one might say that this is because the server combinations are not the best. Which could very well be the case. It seems pretty clear that DHFC and NSPSF are underpopulated compared to the rest. And BGET is overpopulated.

Which may indicate that they need to wait to get the server matching correct before doing the full Glicko reset.

The method I would prefer is to have manual matchmaking. Or at least some kind of algorithm that takes both Glicko and “recent opponents” into account. The algorithm would tend to reduce the chances of facing the same servers over and over.

Naithe.4271:

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

I agree about analyzing the situation, which is why we should understand why players stack servers in the first place. Or why bandwagons get created. Or why players leave their servers. The twin evils are match stagnation and wide population disparities. Spreading out NA population across 8 tiers became a non-solution as the total population size decreased. One of my points was that EU doesn’t really spread out. The existence of the national language servers discouraged large swaths of EU population to simply remain in place. NA didn’t have that brake on transfers. But now we have server links which can serve that same purpose.

Johje Holan.4607:

Neither Glicko matchmaking or 1U1D is satisfactory. As pointed out they both cause the servers a the edge of the tiers to not meet – thus disallowing the best matchups.

When we consider that the Glicko rating is a reflection of population and coverage and pay attention to the fact that edge servers are next to each other in rank, we cannot ignore that these edge servers would make great match-ups against each other. If only a larger number of NA servers were closer to each other in rating like EU.

Chaba.5410:

NA didn’t have that brake on transfers. But now we have server links which can serve that same purpose.

Server linking won’t put a brake on transfers, because while the host server is full, the linked server is medium or very high. The T1 transfer floodgates are wide open, just transfer to the linked server and we can overstack with 10 hour queues instead of 4 hour queues. If your server gets re-linked we’ll just pay your transfer to our new linked server…….It will never end until there is only one tier.

The only thing now that puts a brake on server transfers is queues and that never stopped NA T1 servers from trying to get more players.

Just saying, the gap between tiers in NA is ENTIRELY FAULT of players. EU has had the same system and there have never been such big difference.

Blame people in NA wanting locked tiers.

Yes.
NA players seem to like to stack to higher tiers to create both population and glicko gap between tiers.

Then later when things get a bit stale. Some players just go stacking on another server to completely kill a tier in order to move up. This seems really unhealthy to me and does damage to the overall population in the long run.

Chaba.5410:

Anet,

We’ve suffered in NA for a long time now with Glicko rating between top tiers being too large and leading to match stagnation, which in turn lead to large guild movements in arguably vain attempts to counter it. The goal of all these changes you are doing to WvW should be to even out population across all tiers and create better matches. But…

Glicko was designed for 1v1 matches. WvW is a three-way match where each server gets compared to the other two on an individual basis so what that means is servers at tier borders never match up against each other. Instead they compare themselves against servers 2 ranks above/below them; of course they’re going to do much better/worse than the system predicted.

Resetting volatility and deviation does not look like it is going to cut it. Especially not with the server links increasing the activity levels across all four match-ups. All it has done is make for faster drops/rises. The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.

There are two main extremes that kill WvW for most players: wide population disparities and stagnation. Players need relatively even matches and variation of opponents to keep it both fun and interesting. Right now you have the piece for alleviating population disparities with server linking. If you create matches though where there will be stagnation, all you are doing is boring players again. I wish NA were more like EU, but it is not and now the sample size of only four matches leads to increased inaccuracy. You have to do more. You have to make some way that servers at tier borders can get the chance to be in a match together.

Reset the Glicko system would be a terrible idea. The players in each server work so hard on it. It will destroy all the effort done by servers. Thats no different anet reset your account and delete all your character and say we will see more new players in tyria low level areas!

cpchow.7416:

Chaba.5410:

Anet,

We’ve suffered in NA for a long time now with Glicko rating between top tiers being too large and leading to match stagnation, which in turn lead to large guild movements in arguably vain attempts to counter it. The goal of all these changes you are doing to WvW should be to even out population across all tiers and create better matches. But…

Glicko was designed for 1v1 matches. WvW is a three-way match where each server gets compared to the other two on an individual basis so what that means is servers at tier borders never match up against each other. Instead they compare themselves against servers 2 ranks above/below them; of course they’re going to do much better/worse than the system predicted.

Resetting volatility and deviation does not look like it is going to cut it. Especially not with the server links increasing the activity levels across all four match-ups. All it has done is make for faster drops/rises. The partial reset does nothing for preventing stagnation of matches.

There are two main extremes that kill WvW for most players: wide population disparities and stagnation. Players need relatively even matches and variation of opponents to keep it both fun and interesting. Right now you have the piece for alleviating population disparities with server linking. If you create matches though where there will be stagnation, all you are doing is boring players again. I wish NA were more like EU, but it is not and now the sample size of only four matches leads to increased inaccuracy. You have to do more. You have to make some way that servers at tier borders can get the chance to be in a match together.

Reset the Glicko system would be a terrible idea. The players in each server work so hard on it. It will destroy all the effort done by servers. Thats no different anet reset your account and delete all your character and say we will see more new players in tyria low level areas!

If you carefully read my post, you’ll notice that I don’t suggest anything about a full reset of Glicko.

Anet,

If you haven’t noticed yet, NA servers within the same tiers are all close to 100-200 glicko rating points away from each other. Literally, all tiers show servers in the same tier with a predicted glicko rating that is over 100 points wide. This makes it next to impossible for true match-up variation in the manner that EU has and there is absolutely no chance that servers close in rating to each other would ever get a chance to be in the same match. The glicko walls are getting worse! Are you going to be increasing the range of the randomization roll for match-making?

Naithe.4271:

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

Can you stop taking side swipes at me without understanding what the reasons behind my thinking are. I know you don’t like me and that’s fine. I was completely transparent in all my decisions. So transparent that I write walls of text everywhere. If you have any questions just ask even though you can’t because you have had me blocked for the last year or so. Don’t ask for transparency when you are too afraid to talk please.

Also please don’t make assumptions. Tier 2 is healthy and competitive and fun. The issue with the system is that it creates walls. The walls create staleness. The community moves to try and break it. You call us a bandwaggon because we moved together with a plan.. But this has been happening in Guild Wars 2 for the same reasons that I give all the time as to why I made my decisions. I am sorry you do not agree with it but maybe you should try understanding and listening to the other side directly.

You should understand that the mechanics in GW2 enable mass movements of guilds and player base regardless of how organized the move is or not. You should realize the problem is the system in place because it creates staleness. Both this soft reset and an overall reset would make for rotation and both would be very temporary. This is why the entire system needs to be changed.

Chaba.5410:

Anet,

If you haven’t noticed yet, NA servers within the same tiers are all close to 100-200 glicko rating points away from each other. Literally, all tiers show servers in the same tier with a predicted glicko rating that is over 100 points wide. This makes it next to impossible for true match-up variation in the manner that EU has and there is absolutely no chance that servers close in rating to each other would ever get a chance to be in the same match. The glicko walls are getting worse! Are you going to be increasing the range of the randomization roll for match-making?

I believe ArenaNet said at the end of the week when scores are decided gains will then be bigger and loses will also be greater. I believe MAG rose to Tier 2 on a very low chance. I suspect there will be a rotation despite data given from various websites and statistics.

I think we need to play test longer because this has changed the dynamic and over all performance of every server.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

I believe ArenaNet said at the end of the week when scores are decided gains will then be bigger and loses will also be greater. I believe MAG rose to Tier 2 on a very low chance. I suspect there will be a rotation despite data given from various websites and statistics.

I think we need to play test longer because this has changed the dynamic and over all performance of every server.

I think what Anet wrote was extremely confusing. The bigger gains/losses already occurred, not that it will occur at the end of this week. What Gaile wrote makes it sound like the partial Glicko reset was going to happen at the end of that first matchup of the beta.

• The first matchup will use current placements (T1 worlds vs T1 worlds, T2 worlds vs T2 worlds, etc.)
• The reset volatility and deviation values will come into effect at the end of that match.

Compare the ending rating of servers from last match with their starting rating this match. Mag rolled T2 on a pretty fair chance.

Sure there could still be rotations, but only with the edge servers it seems. All tiers look like they will end up having servers that are separated by 100+ rating spread within the tier. It won’t improve match-up variability and makes it even easier to game the system to create glicko cliffs, forcing players to make large moves again to shake the system up.

Chaba.5410:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

I believe ArenaNet said at the end of the week when scores are decided gains will then be bigger and loses will also be greater. I believe MAG rose to Tier 2 on a very low chance. I suspect there will be a rotation despite data given from various websites and statistics.

I think we need to play test longer because this has changed the dynamic and over all performance of every server.

I think what Anet wrote was extremely confusing. The bigger gains/losses already occurred, not that it will occur at the end of this week. What Gaile wrote makes it sound like the partial Glicko reset was going to happen at the end of that first matchup of the beta.

• The first matchup will use current placements (T1 worlds vs T1 worlds, T2 worlds vs T2 worlds, etc.)
• The reset volatility and deviation values will come into effect at the end of that match.

Compare the ending rating of servers from last match with their starting rating this match. Mag rolled T2 on a pretty fair chance.

Sure there could still be rotations, but only with the edge servers it seems. All tiers look like they will end up having servers that are separated by 100+ rating spread within the tier. It won’t improve match-up variability and makes it even easier to game the system to create glicko cliffs, forcing players to make large moves again to shake the system up.

I see.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Naithe.4271:

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

Can you stop taking side swipes at me without understanding what the reasons behind my thinking are. I know you don’t like me and that’s fine. I was completely transparent in all my decisions. So transparent that I write walls of text everywhere. If you have any questions just ask even though you can’t because you have had me blocked for the last year or so. Don’t ask for transparency when you are too afraid to talk please.

Also please don’t make assumptions. Tier 2 is healthy and competitive and fun. The issue with the system is that it creates walls. The walls create staleness. The community moves to try and break it. You call us a bandwaggon because we moved together with a plan.. But this has been happening in Guild Wars 2 for the same reasons that I give all the time as to why I made my decisions. I am sorry you do not agree with it but maybe you should try understanding and listening to the other side directly.

You should understand that the mechanics in GW2 enable mass movements of guilds and player base regardless of how organized the move is or not. You should realize the problem is the system in place because it creates staleness. Both this soft reset and an overall reset would make for rotation and both would be very temporary. This is why the entire system needs to be changed.

Mal, I believe you want this game to flourish. I believe you want it to grow like that little Sylvari you once were. There is no question in my mind you understand that for this game to do well, it needs players.

Please indicate where I said Tier 2 wasn’t healthy.

Posts you’ve made else where indicate 10+ guilds that all agreed to go to one server. That sounds like bandwagoning. I never said that was wrong; please indicate where I said it was bad for the game.

We both want the same thing, I just choose to do it honorably, not by manipulation or intimidation. You choose to do it whatever way you like; I just feel your way is bad for the game. I’m not here to throw stones, I’m here to stand up against what I feel destroys the game. How many guilds haven’t jumped servers and are doing well? A lot.

How many guilds/servers have been heavily disrupted and lost players due to a large number of guilds jumping to one server (think SOR)? If one could show you it was 50% of the server population that left due to these actions, would you care? I don’t know if it’s true, only ANet does, but that’s my suspicion due to player frustration that other guilds move in and “take over”.

There are bigger fish to fry besides server rotations and I don’t believe we have enough proof to show that ANet’s methods so far won’t work. It’s barely been over a week. I just recommended we wait a little bit. EU works because people are forced to spreadout due to language barriers (according to Chaba). Again, if the dream is to have a 6 server rotation, what’s the plan to split up the alliance to help with that? My point stands, you can’t have it both ways which indicates you’re not trying in the first place; you’re not stupid.

You and everyone that follows you is blocked because Silver said it was the only way to put myself above reproach that I didn’t listen to spies. I don’t, proofs in the actions.

Honor, everywhere.

we need a complete glicko reset and possibly some scoring changes as said by TorquedSoul in another thread.

Looks like the volatility is . . . there? Guess time will tell. We had rotation in tier 1/2/3 this week and tier 2/3 last week.

It is only deviation and volatility reset?

If you check Snowreap’s thread, DB/YB/BG was less than 2% chance at that match. FA/JQ/TC was less than 1%.

IMHO hopefully this volatility keeps up. Hope the glicko difference between servers in NA gets smaller.

Chaba.5410:

It is only deviation and volatility reset?

If you check Snowreap’s thread, DB/YB/BG was less than 2% chance at that match. FA/JQ/TC was less than 1%.

IMHO hopefully this volatility keeps up. Hope the glicko difference between servers in NA gets smaller.

Maybe but it looks to me like the performance of servers that go up or down a tier are still being being unfairly assessed compared to servers already in that matchup.

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

It is only deviation and volatility reset?

If you check Snowreap’s thread, DB/YB/BG was less than 2% chance at that match. FA/JQ/TC was less than 1%.

IMHO hopefully this volatility keeps up. Hope the glicko difference between servers in NA gets smaller.

Maybe but it looks to me like the performance of servers that go up or down a tier are still being being unfairly assessed compared to servers already in that matchup.

Because they’re matching against opponents 2-3 ranks up and don’t get a chance to match against neighboring opponents (ie DB and JQ, Mag and FA, SBI and HoD). Perhaps that can occur over time if the glicko rating between the servers 2-6 ranks apart gets closer from this volatility.

Ansau.7326:

Just saying, the gap between tiers in NA is ENTIRELY FAULT of players. EU has had the same system and there have never been such big difference.

No, it hasn’t had the same system. There’s one very important difference.

If everyone in Europe spoke the same language, you’d see the same thing happening there.

It’s happening!

I’m going to make a long post on bandwagoning, naturally over time or forced (what happened with TC). This speaks against what has happened on BG over time (or JQ at one point).

Bandwagoning in any form is poor for the game and builds the glicko wall. What’s worse is when the way it’s done displaces players from their community or makes people stop playing. My main reason for leaving GW2: too much effing drama for a game that is just suppose to be fun.

Which is why I don’t understand the logic of “We want to destroy the wall, let’s bandwagon 12 guilds to a server that was already crushing their opponents.”

It sounds like there is some other motivation (or no patience and willingness to transfer constantly).

At this rate, if BG keeps having players login to their accounts again, it’ll be BG/TC/X. Basically, BG and TC won’t rotate. Is that what everyone is looking for?

Go natural folks.

Naithe.4271:

I’m going to make a long post on bandwagoning, naturally over time or forced (what happened with TC). This speaks against what has happened on BG over time (or JQ at one point).

Bandwagoning in any form is poor for the game and builds the glicko wall. What’s worse is when the way it’s done displaces players from their community or makes people stop playing. My main reason for leaving GW2: too much effing drama for a game that is just suppose to be fun.

Which is why I don’t understand the logic of “We want to destroy the wall, let’s bandwagon 12 guilds to a server that was already crushing their opponents.”

It sounds like there is some other motivation (or no patience and willingness to transfer constantly).

At this rate, if BG keeps having players login to their accounts again, it’ll be BG/TC/X. Basically, BG and TC won’t rotate. Is that what everyone is looking for?

Go natural folks.

I hope players start to get out the mindset of “we gotta transfer to X tier”. Tiers are not really a thing right now and they shouldn’t really ever be.

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

I’m going to make a long post on bandwagoning, naturally over time or forced (what happened with TC). This speaks against what has happened on BG over time (or JQ at one point).

Bandwagoning in any form is poor for the game and builds the glicko wall. What’s worse is when the way it’s done displaces players from their community or makes people stop playing. My main reason for leaving GW2: too much effing drama for a game that is just suppose to be fun.

Which is why I don’t understand the logic of “We want to destroy the wall, let’s bandwagon 12 guilds to a server that was already crushing their opponents.”

It sounds like there is some other motivation (or no patience and willingness to transfer constantly).

At this rate, if BG keeps having players login to their accounts again, it’ll be BG/TC/X. Basically, BG and TC won’t rotate. Is that what everyone is looking for?

Go natural folks.

I hope players start to get out the mindset of “we gotta transfer to X tier”. Tiers are not really a thing right now and they shouldn’t really ever be.

It’s a two prong problem:

1. Reduce incentive to move 10+ guilds to the server that is already dominating. That’s poor form and hurts the game (individual players don’t like being spawn camped on EBG while the enemy force puts WPs in all of the towers and keep on your side of the map to get you to log out, I’m sorry that HURTS the game, it doesn’t HELP the game).

2. Reduce incentive for the slow movement of guilds to one server (see season 1 where JQ bought MERC, BG bought ZD, etc.).

Both have to be solved for and people have to be willing to lose (or not get their non-stop I want to fight these people etc. me me me me me).

Ben K.6238:

Ansau.7326:

Just saying, the gap between tiers in NA is ENTIRELY FAULT of players. EU has had the same system and there have never been such big difference.

No, it hasn’t had the same system. There’s one very important difference.

If everyone in Europe spoke the same language, you’d see the same thing happening there.

The situation could have also happened in EU if all German people went to a single server, and all non-national server players went to a single international server, and have a locked tier 1 with one international server, one french server and another german one. But it didn’t.
When Vizunah dominated, Jade Sea was always around top 5-7, and Augury Rock was always top 8-10.
Elona Reach, Kodash and Riverside have always been on the upper side regardless what the other server were doing. There was a point when these 3 servers were in the top 6.
And there’s been only a single week in the nearly 4 years of the game where first tier was populated by 3 international servers.
About Baruch, there aren’t enough Spanish people to populate more than a single server

We can conclude it is not about the language people speak, but the mentality and the culture. NA is messed up because of the people playing there.

pretty sure you don’t have the ocx and sea pops there that NA does … they are a factor in this as well

EU gets some OCX and SEA population, though not nearly at the same levels as on NA servers. A lot of OCX/SEA players are also able to play during NA Prime and not as much during EU Prime.

The only possible lasting solution to WvW matchmaking is if Anet institutes incredibly harsh limitations on transferring. If they locked down transfers completely to the higher population half of linked servers, they would manually enforce balance to eventually be reached.

However, this won’t ever happen. People want to play together and want the ability to transfer as a community wherever they want, and the outcry of such a severe transfer lock would be immense. On Anet’s side, they want that sweet transfer money that comes in abundance from WvWers (probably by far their largest revenue stream from WvW).

Transferring “as a community” typically is the result of stagnation with regards to opponents. Players are more willing to stay on a server when the matches are fun and they are facing new opponents almost every week.