Guild Wars 2

I see so many people saying the system is failing the ranking aren’t correct. It isn’t generating “even” matchups
Well plain and simple it is the players not the system

Now let us take an example: the server transfers close today. No one can move anywhere.
What the system does is it will take the servers and match up server vs similar or similar performing servers.
Right now, with servers closed. In a matter of a couple weeks the top 5 servers (not in any order) would be JQ, SBI, BG, SoS, and IoJ and that is how you find the system working as intended.
The matchups in every tier will even out as well.
The system only works in a static environment. A computer program cannot factor in 6 guilds going from one server to another on Thursday before a match. It doesn’t look at population or change of population. It look at how x preformed against y and z regardless of what fluxes occured during the week on any server

Now lets look at how the people kill the system.
Lets look at one match up in particular
Couple weeks ago it was DB v FA v BG. Come Sunday it was a normal match, a pretty even match. The system was working. Mass overnight/early am guilds move to BG Tuesday AM the map is over 75% BG. BG wins the match people look at the rankings and say the ranking suck, when in fact the match up was fine until the people transferred.
Lets look at HoD, couple guilds xfer off, HoD still a strong server, lose the following week, lose rank 1, everyone xfer off HoD, now it is a ghost town. Again players ruin the system.
Lets look into the future: next week JQ v IoJ v SBI. And lets take a hypotetical. SBI and JQ decide they don’t want IoJ in tier 1 and they completely dominate them and come Sunday IoJ owns 5% of the world. What do you think will happen mass xfers off IoJ onto other servers. Again players ruin the system.

Fact is right now the players ruin it so badly that at any point in time any server can turn from a thriving power house to getting knocked down a tier or 2. We have already seen many examples of this.

It’s all the players

And lastly let’s think about this little tidbit

Let’s say that ANet reset the entire game and everyone was sent back to their original server. Out of the WvW players what % would you think would not be on the same server as before reset? I would guess over 50%. I would guess even higher. I would love to see that figure.

The free servers were put in place so servers would even out. So guilds would make roots on servers. That people could find a home that met their needs and build a community.
But I think we all know what is really happening

I don’t think it’s true (I think the scoring system makes for inherently unstable matches, meaning every small population imbalance snowballs into massive point leads, so the matching system will never work because it will never be able to find servers whose populations are similar enough to provide a close match), BUT, even if it was true, how is this the players’ fault and not Arenanet?

Everyone working in this industry should now know (and should have known since 10-15 years at the very least) that if you hope your game systems will be balanced not because of the way you have designed them but thanks to players’ behavior you are going to be extremely disappointed.

There is no excuse anymore, IMO.

I agree. Without mass player movement, after a time (a month or two) the system would arrange the servers according to their power level, so servers close to each other would represent similar power, hence more balanced matchups.

Exactly not.

With free transfers the match-ups are not, necessarily, against the servers/players you were matched with.

Shame, but only time will tell.

I don’t think its the match-ups, but I think the first few days are competitive, but once someone takes a lead the other servers roll over, quit, don’t queue, chase Wild Moas……..

Too bad we can’t team up european servers with us servers. granted it would be 6 servers per match but it would balance out the day night issue – having 1 eu and 1 us server share a base – it would be the que from heck though.

This is a distinction without a difference. If the system can not account for what is easily predictable player behavior then the system is flawed. You don’t allow player transfers at this rate and then grumble when players actually do it because it makes your “system” useless. It’s willful ignorance.

The ranking system and the transfer ability are separate things. You are correct that the ranking system cannot accurately make good matchups with transfers, but it isnt there to do that.
Taking transfers out of the equation the argument is that the system will work, and it will
Leaving transfers open in its current state the system cannot possibly work
In addition ther would be no ranking system with 24hr transfer rule that could possibly work

My gut instinct is that closing transfers won’t even result better match-ups for everyone.

Even the most similar servers are going to have differences that get magnified.

mangarrage.1062:

The system only works in a static environment.

EXACTLY!

Anet might as well delete their server match-up data, it is meaningless.

The ranking system and the transfer ability are separate things. You are correct that the ranking system cannot accurately make good matchups with transfers, but it isnt there to do that.

The effectiveness of the ranking system is proportional to its ability to reflect actual server strength. If transfers render it incapable of genuinely reflecting this reality then they are not “separate.” Ending transfers is fine. But barring that, the ranking system, which essentially entails weekly rankings according to Glicko 2, is not sufficient. Something must change. If its transfers fine. If they won’t budge on transfers, then they have to change the ranking system which they can do by simply updating them more frequently to keep up with rapid changes i.e. shorten the matches. Given any part to the equation as a constant, some other part must change to bring things back into line.

It comes down to one of two things: lessen the fluidity of populations or increase the frequency with which populations are tracked.

The way I see it, if you want to transfer servers, you should be unable to do so until the WvW reset or you should be unable to participate in your new server’s current week’s WvW.