Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet, please listen to us…those who play WvW and want competetive, engaging, and fun gameplay.

GW2 WvW Players, please review the WvW Ranking options below and respond with your preference on how the WvW Ranking system should be implemented. Please use this thread as a constructive and informative discussion on our desire for the WvW Ranking system in GW2. Reply with your preference # from below and any pros/cons you would like to provide as to why you would like that particular Ranking system implemented in GW2.

1. Original glicko system that was in place since launch.
2. New randomized glicko system that was implemented May 31, 2013.
3. Promotion/Relegation system. (Similar to how European Football ranks their leagues.)
4. Other system not discussed before. (Provide a detailed description of a ranking system not mentioned before.)

Please ArenaNet, take the thoughts and opinions in this thread seriously and adjust the Ranking system the way we want it to be…your customers.

Thank you,
Z

The new ranking system, coming from a server which was previously t4 getting paired against two t2 giants.

2

The resets are really nice now because you don’t know who you fight next. Nearly everyone’s enjoying it on Elona.

2, though it’s too soon for things like this to be of any use.

Yup, also 2.

Finally some random opponents.

Number 2! New system is much better than old one. This is so much fairer on servers stuck in stale match ups.

None of them.

New one has a mindblowing badly designed RGN factor – manly due to it’s wideness.
A T7 server kicked in T9 while winning his tier, a T7 pushed in T5 while losing his tier…. makes no sense.

Old one was better. The main flaw of it was being not very responsive to shifts in power balance in a tier. Took 1 month or more for Deso/SFR to drop out of T1 while VS dominating it 24/7.

But hey, ppl said that prefer to fight different servers, enjoyability of match doesn’t matter, over fighting same servers in a somewhat balanced match.

Ppl asked for this.

Lolol this is funny all the 2 s and then all the threads hating it but I’m giving my vote to 2. Because why not randoms ok with
Me they could narrow the rng factor but hey first week

for now il say the 2nd system but we will have to wait and see only been 1 day of week 1

Alternating weeks of the old and new.

Its too early to say, but at the moment I quite like the new matchups.

I mean sure, we are getting slaughtered by a higher tier server.. but as a T8 server ourselves that is completely normal. Ever since RoS got transfers and moved up we’ve had T7 servers in T8 every week who have beaten us easily.. so thats nothing new for us. The only difference now is that we arent living with the constant fear and pressure of falling to T9 where WvW doesnt even exist.

At least now we can go out and have some fun and to a certain extent not worry if we lose, because we wont get trapped in T9 even if we do lose.

the new thingy without a server being able to go up more then 2 tiers like Arborstone and gunnars hold.
might also like a system were the losing server always goes down and the winner always goes up.

2.

Being a competetive tier 7 server placed into tier 9 means I can go look into a couple new games knowing i’m not missing anything to do on GW2. Not even really being sarcastic. Games are addictive and once they lose that and the purpose being in them it means you can try all those games you’ve had on a to do list for a while so i’m cool with it.

I just don’t understand how a ‘random’ matchmaking system will lead to ‘stable’ matchups. At the end of the previous matchup, things were as stable as it could be, but now we have unstable matches like SBI fighting DB and Maguuma. Don’t get me wrong, fighting new servers is hell lot of fun, but I am afraid in will destabilise the matchmaking further. An example, SBI, which was supposed to move down to tier 5 is now in tier 3. Not only is it losing by qutie a large margin, it is actually gaining rating points.
So, I would have to go with option 3

2. this despite the terrible rolls this week that gave us the one matchup we absolutely did not want.

the new system is not intended to lead to ‘stable’ matchups, it’s intended to make the ratings more accurate, especially between tiers. in order for the ratings to stay accurate (and therefore for the rankings to be meaningful) it will be necessary to play opponents outside of your tier from time to time.

as a side effect, the new system also eliminates the problems of tier stagnation where you play the same opponents over and over and over, and color stagnation where you always find yourself the same color (hindering map completion).

-ken

Option 4 – Mixture of all elements + more

Discuss:

1. Create 49 international servers and 1 NPC server controlled by Anet

a. Merge EU / NA Tiers forming 16 regular tiers and 1 training camp tier
b. Merge FoW to ET and Merge Vabbi to FC

:. Creates less power gaps between tiers and provides more servers for new match ups.
:.The weakest 49th rank server will be sent to a training camp for 1 week where they’ll fight NPCs and gets free siege equips for practicing. They’ll be replaced with the losing server from Tier 16 every other week. Anet controls the NPCs difficulty to make it more challenging.

2. Implement the ratings up ratings down system.

a. Winner +75 Ratings
b. Second +25 Ratings
c. Loser – 100 Ratings

:. Similar with promotion/relegation (rank up rank down system) but won’t remove the concept of server ratings and changes won’t be too extreme as RURD system.

3. The rolling system limited to team colors only

:. 3 servers in 1 tier just roll who gets green, blue and red

Other things to improve WvW

4. Orbs (We miss it but not the glitches)
a. Find Glitch free alternative
b. Turn the rewards into PVE buffs / All EXPs buffs / Slight Buff for “NPCs” /
No Armor break on that certain borderland.

5. Change out manned buff mechanic
a. Add 15% HP, Healing, Dodge Regen, Defense to Siege Weaps and Armor to Players

6. World Events
a. Remove the Champions Mobs
b. Add pop out random events that will give big groups and solo/small groups a chance to participate.
Ex. An NPC spawned and running around fast in EB. First to talk to it get 250 Points.
Ex. A Champion monster appeared in green borders kill it or whoever server dealt the most % of damage after it died gets 300 point.
Ex. Treasure chest appeared on a random location on A-Server borders. Whoever of B and C Server gets to it first Gets 150 points and the person gets badges. It spawns equal times on all 3 servers at random .
c. Turn the skritts and centaurs into mercenaries that will attack the northern camps and towers instead.

7. Some siege equips like Arrow Carts are too OP if abused. Re balance it that there should actually be some people vs people going on once in a while.

Just an opinion. We appreciate option 2 cause we bottom 2 servers can’t finish our map completions and either way we get stomped bad by both options 1 and 2 but we happy with color blue and green for fair chance of map completions. Thank you

I dont understand why they cant just implement a 1 up, 1 down system. This randomised crap wont solve all of the previous issues without adding more crap to the heap of other problems.

2 because it is fun and what everyone wanted before it came to pass. . Come at me random.

I like 1 up 1 down

The problem I see with this system is in the Tier 1 area. In theory all it takes is for 1 of the servers to play for 2nd place. Effective locking the tier pummeling anyone that comes in since niether 1st nor 2nd place would move.

A solution would be to dissolve one of the lowest non particpatiting servers, thus creating tier 1 to be a 1v1 server match which personally i think theyd find fun as well as guarented competiveness.

The problems with this new new idea:

What happens to the players/guilds on the server that is to be removed – players could be given a free transfer pass. guild leaders could contact anet to get an rp item that would give them a headstart in remaking guild.

Both EU and NA have dual servers with lowest ratings…. it would not be fair to one server if the other was allowed to move to a higher tier. Im at a lost here, removing both would creat an odd sever out. thus the only way to implment this solution would be to remove 4…. wont happen since the 3 and 4th lowest servers are ready and rather extremely competetive lacking only coverage.

combining the severs doesnt seem optimal enough ( espically with vabbi and fow) though sadly someone has to be in last place. BUT this system opens to the realm of possiablities

Humans will mostly always take the easy way out, hence the top tiers are full and nearly have complete time coverage.

with this system being rather unpredictable its quite possiable for the population to spread out since it would not be a guarented. then agins it still possiable that servers be the same due to the funk that the several free months of transfers created.

If you let get it seen by the devs, if not let it rot

2 seems fine to me

People could give it some time instead of complaining 24/7. If you play for fun who cares about scores? Make new tactics to fight your enemy. Get inspired by 300! Lure big blobs into choke points etc. Youtube is full of 5 man groups wiping full zergs? Split up into alot of small groups distract and ninja cap. I don’t see the problem tbh. Before there was almost always 1 server winning massively anyways.

2. There were plenty of interesting matchups this week.

simple 1 up 1 down = fairest way to do it and keep things reasonably competitive.

Really doesn’t matter to me. T9 ‘trashcan’ forever!
Seriously though, I think perhaps some more time should be given to the new system. As it’s random they’ll always be silly looking weeks, that hopefully will be balanced with some more exciting weeks. :> We’ll see!

2, just make it so you can’t drop more than 1 tier down for matchups.

2, but decrease the standard deviation of the randomization rolls.

GoldenTruth.2853:

2, but decrease the standard deviation of the randomization rolls.

This.

2. but INCREASE the standard deviation of the randomization rolls.

Promotion/relegation.

Why complicate it. Glicko does not work in this kind of environment, not when matches are held at the same time and you dont get a chance for ratings to change in a non-standardised time defined way.
All it does is standardise the matches over time, locking in combinations. And the “randomised” version will just result in massive imbalances.

A simple promotion/relegation system mixes it up a bit but still keeps servers reasonably matched.

if a server is being totally dominated in the last teir, Anet needs to look at why, and if its population reasons, do something about it.

I think all the ppl in this thread that welcome the change is because they got a new opponent to fight and that it will change again by next week.

What those same ppl fail to realize is this system destroys an competitivity for WvW.
And while Offski’s idea is right in terms of competition and respects rank, those ppl will yet again complain of being matched up against the same 4 servers instead of 2 or something like that.

I think the best thing they can do is to treat this like a sports season, football (soccer) or hockey, and work rankings from there instead of these rating points.
ex: +5 for a win +3 for 2nd and +1 for last
This would encourage every server to fight for positioning while always getting new matchups.

I personally think the “rating points” of the glicko system to be a broken statistic that will never satisfy the WvW community as a whole.

The overall demand of the WvW community is to have a competitive system that allows for variation of matchups.

If i were to compare the glicko system to the real world, imagine the NHL where winning your match is not important, but your ranking is based on your players statistics wich do vary depeding on the opponent they face. And of course the weaker opponent will have a boost in their stats even though they lose.

2 so you cant have the same world dominating the same other teams over and over. Its easy to hate 2 if your in one of thoughts world who keeps dominating but most worlds do not do this. Also its not comply random as you put it there is a factor for what rank your world is vs the other worlds your fighting.

2.

One up one down would mean a tier 1 server would face a tier 3 server every week, which has already been pointed out quite a few times. The complaining would be atleast as bad, but then again when are people ever not complaining?

Le Rooster.8715:

The new ranking system, coming from a server which was previously t4 getting paired against two t2 giants.

2

Agreed! Although we are behind in total points and in current PPT the hours I have played tonight have been the most fun i’ve had in WvW for awhile. Loving the challenge that comes with vs-ing higher tier opponents.

Meglobob.8620:

2. but INCREASE the standard deviation of the randomization rolls.

I don’t know. We’ve only seen a few data sets to be honest, so me saying the SD is set to high is hasty. However, I think that fighting a world 2 tiers higher/lower than you should be rarer than what several of these matchups look like.

I’m not sure I would change the ranking system, but I’d change the scoring. I understand that night capping is part of the game, but at the same time I don’t really think it should be worth +145 PPT to hold an empty borderland. I would look into scaling down the point gain earned by holding objectives to the population of the map. IMO this would make primetime competition more meaningful. DB is running away with their current matchup because SBI and Maguuma just don’t have the coverage to compete, but when we’re all three on the field in force (as we saw last night) anything can happen. So I would look for ways for the score to increase faster based on enemy population. I’d also consider making player kills worth much more on the scoreboard.

One problem with this though is it would give away keep/garrison spikes. Once you saw your PPT jump you’d know right away that someone is rallying there.

before you all continue to shout 2, 2 2 and more 2,
Read the other comments above that actually propose solutions to you getting the different matchups you want while keeping a competitive ladder that makes sense.

I hate 2 because it does not respect in any way competitiveness losing rank because the other is facing easier to crush opponents than you does not make sense! A server should have the ability to at least defend their rank in some way.

2.

The new match-making is much better, it has a chance to work!

The old one was broken due to a design bug.

My favoured at moment:
Each of the 4 maps get it’s own match (via 2, or by putting 9 server in a group, having a 1 vs all 8 others at each match). So you always play 4 matches at once.
You (as player) can choose your difficulty by choosing the map, and hey when you (as server) are underpopulated: leave the most difficult map(s) out and play only on the easier ones!

NA came close to where it should have been.

There were only 4 problems in the matchups. T1 and T5 didn’t change, SoS ended up in T2, and SBI ended up in T3.

All they had to do was make a few changes from the last match to create different matches and make everyone happier.
T1: SoR, BG, TC (let them have a shot at the big time)
T2: DB, FA, JQ (because DB and JQ have bad blood
T3: Mag, KN, SoS
T4: YB,CD, EB
T5: SBI, BP, AR

And there, no one would be complaining. Yes, TC would have had a bad week but they should see what’s above them. JQ would take T2 by a lot, but FA and DB need to see what T1 looks like as well.

So there you have it, what COULD have been the best week of WvW in the NA in months!

Chris.3290:

NA came close to where it should have been.

This is wrong.

For the simple reason: there are always player movement, directly from A to B, some stop at A others start fresh at B, or within a server more PvE vx more WvW.

The only thing where you are right: with the old system nearly no match change was possible anymore. And given that there are always player movements you NEED a system tries out new matches and by that is able to adapt.

The issue with random is the gulf between any server t3 and below versus any server t2 and above in terms of population and coverage. I don’t mind getting stomped, but if the goal of anet is to balance these matches, I can guarantee that any t1/t2 that lands t3 or lower will be a complete blowout, purely from a coverage standpoint.

The good news is that if they adjust the potential rating volatility, this can be avoided. The rating difference in the t2/t3 line is enough that, if they adjust the dice roll max, it can be much rarer or never happen.

Consider adjusting the volatility dice rolls so that going over certain point gulfs becomes impossible. The playerbase wants some volatility, but that’s coming from 10, sometimes 15+ weeks of the same thing. Give it some volatility, not throwing servers across insane point gulfs.

2.

needs more words.

1 of course… i don’t feel any incentive now to win a match… Why i should aim for the victory if maybe we win on t2 and next week we fight on t4? I don’t get why Anet just eliminated the competitive part of WvW… The leaderbords are just usseles now…

The one up/one down system would be fine too.

majos.8503:

1 of course… i don’t feel any incentive now to win a match… Why i should aim for the victory if maybe we win on t2 and next week we fight on t4? I don’t get why Anet just eliminated the competitive part of WvW… The leaderbords are just usseles now…

I totally agree, and I really think there are simpler better ways to give all these happy ppl what makes them happy without this crap.
There is absolutely no more competitiveness in WvW with the current system. There is no real point in winning your current match-ups, it doesn’t reward the player or the server.

Ranelso.9765:

I think the 2 has potential but it is too early to tell. It’s true that 1 was creating stale match ups. Being from Maguuma the only reason I enjoyed playing Yaks and Kain week after week was so that I could level my alts. It may be true that the standard deviation was a little high but there was just too large a gap between tiers IMO. Is dumb that SBI will go up a spot when it comes in dead last? Yes, especially when EB is dominating and they will go down one. This kind of thing is happening to a lot of servers and it’s my hope that it’s all part of the balancing process. I would hope that as the servers settle into their new places ANet will lower the standard deviation to create more “fair” match ups, but when the community wants variety there isn’t really much they could have done.

Some people think that by winning the server should move up, and the losing server should go down. However, after a few weeks I can see a lot of servers being stuck winning one week, only to be sent back down the next in a never ending cycle. Not to mention what would happen at the top and bottom tiers.

I’m not too happy with the new system (mostly because we have to fight DB :P), but I think it has the potential to make everyone happy.

Well what would you think of a sports season like kind of ranking system. You get to fight and get a taste of all the different servers while also having a valid ranking system for the ppl that enjoy the competitive aspect of the rankings

I much prefer the new system as it shuffles up the matchups for fresh air.
However, I think they should compact the ratings toward 1500 and then lower the random range to make it work better.

If it must be randomized or math based, then 2 – but with a modifer or hard cap to prevent a server from moving too far. I’m not one of the one’s complaining about our current match (I’m on SBI)., in fact, I had one of the best times ever at reset but then I like being the underdog. However, I can see that many people do not enjoy it, and yes, I do think we got thrown too far up.

So the hard cap should only allow a server to move within so many points of its own rating. We really should have had a zero chance of being put with DB.

However, my real preference is choice 4, something else. Either something along the lines of some variance within a bubble around your current rating. That way you can have fresh matches, but also good ones. Or seasons or something similar, with manually created matchups – but still within your “bubble” of rating.

Chris.3290:

NA came close to where it should have been.

There were only 4 problems in the matchups. T1 and T5 didn’t change, SoS ended up in T2, and SBI ended up in T3.

All they had to do was make a few changes from the last match to create different matches and make everyone happier.
T1: SoR, BG, TC (let them have a shot at the big time)
T2: DB, FA, JQ (because DB and JQ have bad blood
T3: Mag, KN, SoS
T4: YB,CD, EB
T5: SBI, BP, AR

And there, no one would be complaining. Yes, TC would have had a bad week but they should see what’s above them. JQ would take T2 by a lot, but FA and DB need to see what T1 looks like as well.

So there you have it, what COULD have been the best week of WvW in the NA in months!

I want the ranking system which gives me these proposed matches. Hand pick them if you have to, just don’t unquestioningly bow down to some RNG god that gives you match ups that you know are wrong.

I prefer 2! I don’t care about inbalanced matchups, the fights will always be good.

The system should have divided servers into an alliance, so 3 server per alliance, which would help maximize WvW population.

I also feel the maps should have been inherently larger. This would allow small forced to have an impact without needing to worry about the massive zerg responding in a matter of minutes.

The fact that you can be anywhere on the map within a few minutes is a joke and really limits the impact a small group of players can have at times.

SOR – BG – TC
JQ – FA – MAG
DB – KN – SOS
YB – CD – EB
SBI – BP – DH
AR – SF – GoM
IOJ – DR – HOD
NSP – FC – ET

This is what would have happened if 1U1D was implemented this week instead of random matchups. T3 would have been the same whitewash as they are seeing now, since DB’s oceanic presence is incredibly huge.