Guild Wars 2

As mentioned in the other thread, there is a new algorithm for calculating WvW population. There is or was a discussion on that thread about it but I believe it need greater attention and the topic title of that thread is not helping much.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

To clarify further this is the first week we are using this new algorithm. So some of the complaints that are being brought up were problems with the old algorithm.

We use play hours to determine the size. Rank gains is tracked for comparison purposes since they usually follow a similar curve, but isn’t actually used to determine the world size.

We have simulated other algorithms to measure world size and ultimately found that player hours gave us more accurate results because we are mostly comparing active WvW play. The past algorithms weighed more heavily on individual players, so we ended up with situations where JQ was ‘Full’ because they had a lot of players, just not necessarily ones that played as much as Blackgate.

Under this new algorithm, some servers that were Medium or High become Very High, big changes yes. Some servers that were Full become Very High. Some some servers that were Very High become full. The problem is what comes after that.

As mentioned in that thread. There are concerns about how this new algorithm can possibly make gameplay unbalance. Before I go any further, I need to highlight that I advocate for population or gameplay balance, I am not scoring system supporter. And of course, I am doing this for personal benefits but I am sure my personal benefits will coincide with some other servers, population and gameplay balance.

Moving on, the concerns mentioned are pretty simple. Given that gameplay hours are used to determine population size, it is easy to assume that there will be servers with fundamentally more players than others just because of it. Thus, there will be likely scenarios where at some timing, the lower gameplay hours servers will have bigger numbers than the higher gameplay hours. In this scenario, can it really be called balanced?

Moving on, the next scenario is population cap. Given that population cap is most likely a hard limit and accounting for the nature of players, there will be likely scenarios where the lower gameplay hours servers start to put in more hours regardless of what reasons. Naturally, the system will put this server full but what about the already full server due to higher gameplay hours? The higher gameplay hours servers will not be able to compete in comparable numbers and will have no ways to get more due to the status.

Generally speaking, the new algorithm is questionable.

SkyShroud.2865:

Under this new algorithm, some servers that were Medium or High become Very High, big changes yes. Some servers that were Full become Very High. Some some servers that were Very High become full. The problem is what comes after that.

Anet changed metrics so expected result.

SkyShroud.2865:

As mentioned in that thread. There are concerns about how this new algorithm can possibly make gameplay unbalance. Before I go any further, I need to highlight that I advocate for population or gameplay balance, I am not scoring system supporter. And of course, I am doing this for personal benefits but I am sure my personal benefits will coincide with some other servers, population and gameplay balance.

The algorithm is just a way Anet measure things and take decision from. It won’t solve any problem imbalance by itself (which is a community problem) but only but barriers to help community to reach the balance. If Anet take care of population balance, they will lock all transfers, move people to even the population (with good metrics ofc) and then you will have to ask for moving so you moving doesn’t create imbalance. But nobody want that with good reasons.

SkyShroud.2865:

Moving on, the concerns mentioned are pretty simple. Given that gameplay hours are used to determine population size, it is easy to assume that there will be servers with fundamentally more players than others just because of it.

At any given time we will have servers with more players than others, unless you have ANet moving players agaisnt their will. The algorithm only change the way dev measures population, not the population itself.

SkyShroud.2865:

Thus, there will be likely scenarios where at some timing, the lower gameplay hours servers will have bigger numbers than the higher gameplay hours. In this scenario, can it really be called balanced?

Explain because that makes no sense for me. The metrics is on average so at a certain timezone, a 8000 gameplay hours servers will have more players on fields that the 9000 gameplay hours server. And ? We had the same thing with the former metric (unique player) where a 700 players server can have more people at night that the 1000 players server. So nothing new and nothing wrong apart the fact that the metric doesn’t account for timezone which is a valid point but very hard to fix (how do you separate timezone ? do you need to classify players by timezone in order to allow them to move or not ? many questions hard to answer).

SkyShroud.2865:

Moving on, the next scenario is population cap. Given that population cap is most likely a hard limit and accounting for the nature of players, there will be likely scenarios where the lower gameplay hours servers start to put in more hours regardless of what reasons. Naturally, the system will put this server full but what about the already full server due to higher gameplay hours? The higher gameplay hours servers will not be able to compete in comparable numbers and will have no ways to get more due to the status.

It’s the very same with the old metrics, if you have 100 players that didn’t played last week (because reasons) and that server open to replace those 100 players. What happen next week when the 100 “retired” and the 100 new want to play ? You got 100 players more than the cap.

The thing is that participation is pretty much slow to move and unless purposefully tanking (which can already be done) this scenario is very unlikly to happen.

SkyShroud.2865:

Generally speaking, the new algorithm is questionable.

I agree but not for the reasons you said. I find this metric way more meaningful that the former the only problem I have with this one are present with the former (akf players/trolls/abuses).

Ermm….first thing first, you know you don’t have to force yourself to attempt to reply everything, right?

So, the first statement, I have no idea what you trying to say. My first paragraph is a opener to speed people up to date on what effects the algorithm has bought.

Ermmm as for your second statement. It isn’t a community problem, it never was. The community is restricted by the system itself and how the community move or not move again is base on the restriction. If the system is incapable of being flexible enough to handle the growth and decline of population, then the system itself is flawed. Now, the system is guiding the population towards further unbalance and that how it is.

Before I start with third & fourth statements. I really need to tell you that attempting to break up paragraph like that is not much different from straw man argument, attempt to break the context into something that is not.

Now, moving on to the 3rd and 4th statements. Why are you asking for explanation which you then answered yourself… Anyway, the previous algorithm appear to be much better than current. Reason being is that the only thing this algorithm trying to solve is a scenario where server has huge amount of casual pop but that doesn’t mean every server has huge amount of casual pop. This creates a big disparity between the casual heavy server and non-casual heavy server. Have you heard of categorical imperative? Basically, if the action is not right for everyone, it is not right for anyone. In a system design, this is important.

Going on to 5th statements, it isn’t the same. What you mentioned is return of on-off players which both servers in the example have. The example is talking about active players putting in more game time. There are many reasons why people don’t play for long hours but it can also means they can put in more hours if they want to. If they do put in more hours, let say increasing from 2 hours to 4 hours, that is a 100% increase in hours played. Then, the other server instead of getting rolled over for 2 hours, they get rolled over for 4hrs.

I don’t understand the concern. The only thing that matters here is total hours spent in wvw, whereby a population of 2000 people playing 10 hours per week is the same as 500 people playing 40 hours a week.

I presume they added the rank gain metric to pick up anomalies, like large populations of afk players.

If a server’s players are especially active, then how “full” they are rightly gets upgraded. If they go more dormant, then they get downgraded.

That should more or less manage total server resources (in terms of hours played) and help guide pairings and matchups. The rest comes down to relative skill and is sorted out in the match score, no?

This change to server population assessment for wvw has got to be a step in the right direction compared to whatever was used in the past. It’s too early to be critical.

Good on them for making the change I say! Let’s see what happens.

Part of the problem from YBs perspective is that we are full AND no link. With that combo we can keep pace rolling a t4 match and sort of keep pace in a t3 match. We would never be able to move forward to say t2 if we wanted to.

In other words, our 1 full server lags behind the sum of some of the linked forces we face….. How does that make any sort of common sense? Granted this could be more of a link issue and not status issue…..

Choppy.4183:

I don’t understand the concern. The only thing that matters here is total hours spent in wvw, whereby a population of 2000 people playing 10 hours per week is the same as 500 people playing 40 hours a week.

I presume they added the rank gain metric to pick up anomalies, like large populations of afk players.

If a server’s players are especially active, then how “full” they are rightly gets upgraded. If they go more dormant, then they get downgraded.

That should more or less manage total server resources (in terms of hours played) and help guide pairings and matchups. The rest comes down to relative skill and is sorted out in the match score, no?

The first statement is the concern. As mentioned, I am not interested in scoring balance. The system design here is all about scoring balance. On a general overview, it looks great and all because the overall scores may seems competitive. The main point is you have to look into the details. WvW isn’t just a few hours thing, it is a 24 hours thing. The logic behind equivalent gameplay hours look nice on overview but in practice, it is a disaster for different groups of people of different time slice. Using your example, there is no rule that says the 2000 people must be spread evenly across all time slices and that is to say, these 2000 people is very capable of creating queues in certain time slice. Now, the question is can those 500 people capable of generating similar queues in those time slices? WvW isn’t just about scores which translate to winning or losing, it is about having fun and how fun can it be to be rolled down?

Shazmataz.1423:

This change to kitten server population for wvw has got to be a step in the right direction compared to whatever was used in the past. It’s too early to be critical.

Good on them for making the change I say! Let’s see what happens.

In the past, many concerns were raised by other players, those concerns were not things that will happen immediately but it will eventually and it did. That generally the result of wait and see what happen attitude for the past 4 years, here we are.

@SkyShroud
It seems to me that issues related to active hours being clumped during certain periods is the only potential problem.

But we have no idea whether or not this is a problem on any server (remember, it has to be greater clumping in comparison to opposing servers in their matchup), nor if Anet is also factoring this into their decisions. Moreover, opening currently closed servers doesn’t necessarily fix that problem and may even make it worse.

Score is a completely separate thing. I believe the purpose of the algorithm being discussed is to roughly balance server player hours. Skill and strategy thus becomes more important than they have been, which is great.

@Liston
You need to stop looking at the tiers as some sort of ranking with “the best” being at the top. We now have four matchups made up of combinations of servers that give roughly even player hours to each side in a given matchup.

YB doesn’t have a link because its player hours are roughly equal to the other two sides in its matchup. At least, that’s the idea.

Liston.9708:

Part of the problem from YBs perspective is that we are full AND no link. With that combo we can keep pace rolling a t4 match and sort of keep pace in a t3 match. We would never be able to move forward to say t2 if we wanted to.

In other words, our 1 full server lags behind the sum of some of the linked forces we face….. How does that make any sort of common sense? Granted this could be more of a link issue and not status issue…..

There is absolutely no possible way that YB alone has as many players as JQ + 2 links, or TC + 2 links. I do believe YB has people on for long stretches, but 10 on for 10 hours is not equal to 25 on for 4 hours.

@SkyShroud

I know I don’t have to quote & reply at everything but I think the way you see the new algorithm is plain wrong.

2nd statment : Population balance is a community problem. The lock from Anet is just a way to limit the imbalance, queue system is also a system that prevent a too high imbalance. The system doesn’t make people move (apart linking which are move according to the metrics to lower the imbalance) : it’s the community that move from its own will.

For the strawman, you put a logical connector “Thus” so it’s pretty much fine to examinate parts one by one and then the logical connecter. When looking at X Then Y, you have to look at X, then Y and then the Then if X and Y seems fine.

3&4 statement :
I’m trying to give an explanation, I’m still asking to open up reply if i’m wrong (am I ?).
The old algorithm was the number of uniques players. But that metrics was too raw because it doesn’t make a difference between someone who just come and do its daily, an average prime wvwer and an hardcore player. We all agree that thoses types of players doesn’t contribute at the same level. One key difference is the time spent in wvw. That’s why Anet choose this metrics. It’s only better. Before 1 casual = 1 hardcore so if you want to stay competitive you have to make casual leaves so hardcore have more slots. Now since 1 casual = 0,2 hardcore (i.e. the casual took 30 mins to make its daily and the hardcore spent 5 hours) it doesn’t matter as much. And the disparity between the casual heavy server and non-casual heavy server is normal. The non-casual heavy don’t need more transfers, they are fine, it’s the casual heavy that needs more activity. I looked for the categorical imperative and I disagree strongly with your conclusion. A system contradict this when an logical action under this system when universalized breaks one of its core concept. I don’t see anything like this here.

5 statement :
. I agree with the very flaw. I just pointed the fact that the same argument could be used for the old algorithm (i.e national vacation on FR/DE/SP servers). There are reasons for people not playing WvW at all and playing again (old system) as they are reasons for people playing less and coming back playing more WvW (new system).

@Liston

If you got the most hours played in WvW and get steamrolled by another servers that could mean that you are either bad (on average) or have coverage issue or they teamed up against you or any combinaison. I don’t play NA so I can’t tell but having more hours played means you have more players on average so on average and assuming same average skill you should be winning or at least not being destroyed.

@SkyShroud
I totally agree, coverage is one of the hardest problem of this metrics (it was one of the former too) but i fail to see any elegant solution for this (cf my first reply to you at statement 4). Remember that queues aren’t accounted in that playtime since time spent in queues outside WvW aren’t likely to be counted (EotM isn’t counted so i fail to see why Anet should count someone who afk at LA waiting for its queue).

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

SkyShroud.2865:

Given that population cap is most likely a hard limit and accounting for the nature of players, there will be likely scenarios where the lower gameplay hours servers start to put in more hours… […]

Generally speaking, the new algorithm is questionable.

It’s not useful feedback to say “the new algorithm” is not good or so on. Of course it’s not. But better than what was used before. Still, unless one also includes how they would like this to be, it’s not constructive.

1. Population numbers and
2. hours spent in WvW
are not enough metrics to create balance, at least two more are needed:

3. skill level of those players (ability, ranking, but not the current wxp k-train based rank, but something new, likely similar to what PvP has)
4. hours spent efficiently, as in Contribution Rating (a new metrics, again similar to what PvP has, inactivity or lower quality performance will make the player go down in ranking)

Still, organization is of paramount importance. New system is needed, badly, where a team/alliance (what is now called server, world) is based on a few core guilds, and Contribution Ranking metrics is used to add the rest, to fill the team up. The new teams have to be built around these guilds.

Of course there is also the timezone issue, outside of NA the player numbers allow only 1 tier to be filled during these times (on NA servers at least), so we could get something like this:
1. Top Competitive tier
2. Secondary tiers (based on WvW player numbers), where guilds and players work towards getting a top Contribution Rating.

The top ranked guilds (sum of their player ranks) will go to Top tier, and drop from there, based on these rankings. Extra space filld by non-guild players, based on their rank. This will ensure that everyone will work towards improvement and really contribute to their team, and rewards based on these.

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

ich.7086:

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

I think he forgot his units.
10 players for 10 hours = (10 players)(10 hours) = 100 player-hours
25 players for 4 hours = (25 players)(4 hours)= 100 player-hours

Tiawal.2351:

3. skill level of those players (ability, ranking, but not the current wxp k-train based rank, but something new, likely similar to what PvP has)
4. hours spent efficiently, as in Contribution Rating (a new metrics, again similar to what PvP has, inactivity or lower quality performance will make the player go down in ranking)

I think you’re dead wrong on #3. Wvw is a competition, and it’s on the players to improve skill, not Anet to balance it. Trying to balance for skill defeats the whole purpose of a contest.

The rank gain metric is what they’re using to estimate your #4. Imo, it should only be used to estimate anomalies like large afk time and make slight corrections to whatever the player hours suggest, but that’s just me.

Swamurabi.7890:

ich.7086:

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

I think he forgot his units.
10 players for 10 hours = (10 players)(10 hours) = 100 player-hours
25 players for 4 hours = (25 players)(4 hours)= 100 player-hours

I agree with your calculus but i don’t see the relation with Stand The Wall’s calculus.

ich.7086:

Swamurabi.7890:

ich.7086:

Stand The Wall.6987:

ich.7086:

@Kaiser
Don’t think on “players” count but on hours played count.
10 on 10 hours > 25 on 4 hours did you ever heard of nightcap or coverage wars ?

its really 10 for 10 hours and 62 for 10 hours when equating for hours

10 over 10
25 over 4 = 25×2.5 over 4×2.5 = 62 over 10

You need a reality check if you think 62 people playing 10 hours equates 25 players only playing 4 hours in terms of hours played.

I think he forgot his units.
10 players for 10 hours = (10 players)(10 hours) = 100 player-hours
25 players for 4 hours = (25 players)(4 hours)= 100 player-hours

I agree with your calculus but i don’t see the relation with Stand The Wall’s calculus.

I think he was trying to compare 10 hour (apples) to 4 hour (oranges), trying to come up with the lowest common numerator, but forgetting that hours is hours.

It’s more algebra than calculus. Calculus has squiggly symbols and a lot of dx and dy.

ich.7086:

…

I don’t see you how think is plain wrong when you agree partially with what I wrote.

The way you see population balance is interesting but impractical. I will compare moving server to people moving between cities. People are not going to move to another city if that city does not has the basic needs available to them and that basic needs is accommodation + others. Same thing for the server, people will not move if it is full, simply because they can’t. WvW has double limitation, first is overall population limitation and the second is map population limitation. The concept is simple, if everyone is queued, it is balanced but that’s not gonna happen outside NA prime. Their only chance for balancing outside NA prime is and only is overall population limitation. Yet, here there is this problem, overall population limitation is a hard cap and not dynamic cap. Hard cap lead to disparity easily due movement of players. This is anet responsibility as they did not implement a solution to dynamically limit the movements.

The casual can further break the balance under this new algorithm. Afterall, as mentioned, they can possibility just overwhelm the other side with pure numbers. It is similar to how JQ was when it was at its peak of stacking. This algorithm isn’t calculating actual population like you mentioned, it is just calculating perceived population. This perceived population is base on what anet deemed as acceptable but so far, what has anet deemed as acceptable bought to WvW balance as a whole? Anet has a different concept of competitiveness and fun.

Tiawal.2351:

…

In the past, there were a lot of suggestions regarding how the algorithm can be done and some of which are complicated ones. The complicated ones can handle more diversity but it takes quite a while to implement it. So, by looking aback, a lot of suggestions were already made and so did mine, I am sure anet devs did read them since they once mentioned they thought of blowing it all up as well as putting a whole new algorithm after that.

Now, we have past that suggestions phase since it already said. Currently, is to question the feasibility of this approach and if it will bring more harm than good.

Stand The Wall.6987:

what I was trying to say is that balancing for hours played does not create equal populations.

And it will never be.

All that matters is that the lowest population server in the match have the right numbers to avoid getting ktrained (compared with the high populations server in that match at that time) and at least defend some fo its PPT.

Pupulation variables are to inconsistent to be the main factor, they change to much every day every week.

Lets see how it goes at the long run and see what will happen to server stackers and jumpers.

right. logic fail, move along folks.

Aeolus.3615:

Pupulation variables are to inconsistent to be the main factor, they change to much every day every week.

Yeah an abundance of pups in the pupulation will do that.

Choppy.4183:

I don’t understand the concern. The only thing that matters here is total hours spent in wvw, whereby a population of 2000 people playing 10 hours per week is the same as 500 people playing 40 hours a week.

if player were robot you will be right. but if a server depend on 500 people as compared to 2000, what the impact when all the player decide to play 20 minute more? or 20 minute less? this make the system completely unstable for assessing server usage week by week effectively. what is more is the system is accumulative, this greatly reduce the system responsiveness to population change.

SkyShroud.2865:

As mentioned in the other thread, there is a new algorithm for calculating WvW population. There is or was a discussion on that thread about it but I believe it need greater attention and the topic title of that thread is not helping much.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

To clarify further this is the first week we are using this new algorithm. So some of the complaints that are being brought up were problems with the old algorithm.

We use play hours to determine the size. Rank gains is tracked for comparison purposes since they usually follow a similar curve, but isn’t actually used to determine the world size.

We have simulated other algorithms to measure world size and ultimately found that player hours gave us more accurate results because we are mostly comparing active WvW play. The past algorithms weighed more heavily on individual players, so we ended up with situations where JQ was ‘Full’ because they had a lot of players, just not necessarily ones that played as much as Blackgate.

Under this new algorithm, some servers that were Medium or High become Very High, big changes yes. Some servers that were Full become Very High. Some some servers that were Very High become full. The problem is what comes after that.

As mentioned in that thread. There are concerns about how this new algorithm can possibly make gameplay unbalance. Before I go any further, I need to highlight that I advocate for population or gameplay balance, I am not scoring system supporter. And of course, I am doing this for personal benefits but I am sure my personal benefits will coincide with some other servers, population and gameplay balance.

Moving on, the concerns mentioned are pretty simple. Given that gameplay hours are used to determine population size, it is easy to assume that there will be servers with fundamentally more players than others just because of it. Thus, there will be likely scenarios where at some timing, the lower gameplay hours servers will have bigger numbers than the higher gameplay hours. In this scenario, can it really be called balanced?

Moving on, the next scenario is population cap. Given that population cap is most likely a hard limit and accounting for the nature of players, there will be likely scenarios where the lower gameplay hours servers start to put in more hours regardless of what reasons. Naturally, the system will put this server full but what about the already full server due to higher gameplay hours? The higher gameplay hours servers will not be able to compete in comparable numbers and will have no ways to get more due to the status.

Generally speaking, the new algorithm is questionable.

You said this way better than I did, I’m glad someone else notices how the system backfires.

lagrangewei.8516:

if player were robot you will be right. but if a server depend on 500 people as compared to 2000, what the impact when all the player decide to play 20 minute more? or 20 minute less? this make the system completely unstable for assessing server usage week by week effectively. what is more is the system is accumulative, this greatly reduce the system responsiveness to population change.

The impact from the server with 2000 people would obviously be greater, which the approach Anet is taking would pick up for the following week.

Yes, there’s a lag and it’s not going to be able to anticipate future changes, but what’s the alternative. Just basing it on people logging into wvw with no regard for time spent in wvw is worse, and basing it on actual server population is worse still.

the inbalance came when they introduced the link system and the way anet tries to fix it will make sure the population inbalance maintains it’s current status.
If for example 1 server has a 1000 man limit or times 10 hours 10000 hours playtime limit to get the server full. Then why are linked server which have a 3000 man limit together with a 30000 hour playtime limit have different statusses mostly they are very high populated. then anet expects the single server to fight a combined server which has a lot more force 3 to 1 to fight them.
My SUGGESTION is that anet looks at the largest merged server based on playtime hours multipies that by 0.75 and locks all the servers with that amount. This way you compensate the single servers for their lack of people and hours but punish the large servers for having a to large of a population.
To add this will only work if anet looks at the linked servers as 1 server which i find the most logical to do.
But anet and logics we all know where that will end

continue the necroooooo
not

LaurenLizzy.8429:

You said this way better than I did, I’m glad someone else notices how the system backfires.

I post this 4.5 months ago but current full server is now a issue of this, plus the increase of players due to rewards and uneven base populations, plus the fixed threshold. A combination of factors, basically overall bad designs.