Guild Wars 2

Can someone explain to me how the whole matchup thing works? Because i dont get how a rank 3 server gets matched up against rank 12 and 13.
Talking about Vizunah Square, Aurora Glade and Far Shiverpeaks matchup.
Such matchups are probably no fun for both sides.
Ranks taken from https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/eu/wvw
I dont want to complain but i was kinda shocked when i saw it.

Greetings from AG and thanks in advance.

Very simplified explanation, it doesn’t work exactly like this but this is the general idea;

Each server has a rating, this rating is adjusted at the end of the week based on the scores.

AG’s rating at the end of last week was 1 646.905.

When a new matchup is decided, a deviance is decided by a random roll, this ensures that matchups stay fresh and same servers don’t continously fight each other, the deviance is randomly determined and can be within a set range of values (e.g -100 to +100 (the way it’s calculated is a somewhat complex formula, check the blog post at the bottom). This is then added to the server rating.

Once this deviance is applied, the servers are then matched accordingly, from rank 1-24. They are split into groups of 3 as you head down the list (sorted by the rating in descending order once deviance has been added). The server with the highest rating is green for that matchup, the server with the middle rating is blue, and the server with lowest rating is red.

In the case of this AG/VS/FS matchup, AG and FS have rolled extremely high positive deviances (close to +100), while VS has rolled an extremely high negative deviance (close to -100), bringing the ratings of these servers next to each other. The chance of such a matchup is quite low, but still possible.

Full explanation: Check this blog post, https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/big-changes-coming-to-wvw-matchups/?utm_source=client

They dont’ work.

Well AG is ranked 12-14.
Servers we most often get are: Desolation, Baruch Bay, Kodash, Riverside
Being matched against silver league servers is pretty much an exception for us.

Why is it like it?
Well, if a server which ends up a matchup as 3rd it does not always lose ranking points. If you are matched against much higher ranked servers you will probably gain them regardless of having lost. This is what happened to AG.
1. Matched against gold league servers
2. Lost
3. Gained points regardless, because they have much higher ranks, so we deserve a reward for courage
4. Thanks to positive deviance AG is matched again against gold league servers

For example (from my memory) AG lost against Kodash+Piken Square, but still gained ranking and next week got matched against Riverside+Baruch Bay. A server can be stuck with much higher ranked servers for quite long like that and thanks to those “points for courage” it may even be pushed into higher league for a while (AG, not having won a matchup for months, was 10th at one point!).

OK, i did not know that there is random roll which can influence the matchups that much.
I think i can understand now a bit better how this works ^^

Thanks everyone for your explanations.

The biggest problem is the downfall of SoR which messed up the matching completely.
By fighting SoR 2 straight weeks with complete domination (since SoR is a t5 or lower server now WHILE staying in t2~3 for quite a while RIGHT BEFORE season 2 begins.), some t3 servers are forced to go to t2 RIGHT BEFORE season 2 begins..

Jeez… Why do you guys have to mess the Meta up?

Aomine.5012:

The biggest problem is the downfall of SoR which messed up the matching completely.
By fighting SoR 2 straight weeks with complete domination (since SoR is a t5 or lower server now WHILE staying in t2~3 for quite a while RIGHT BEFORE season 2 begins.), some t3 servers are forced to go to t2 RIGHT BEFORE season 2 begins..

Jeez… Why do you guys have to mess the Meta up?

please keep in mind the discussion here was about European servers. SoR is a American server.

Furthermore, as far I know, to actually get some randomness into the match ups, a Gaussian deviation is used. This does mean that it is more likely to end up around your own rating as to end up as to end up way higher and lower. There is a parameter in this deviation that is usually called sigma. By changing the sigma you can change to likelihood on a bigger or smaller “distance” form mu (mu here is the most likely number to get). A few weeks ago I did read something about that the sigma would have been lowered, this does mean that it will be more likely to end up closer to your own rating. Now the catch comes though, if it’s indeed a Gaussian deviation that is used for this, in theory it would be possible that the highest and the lowest ranking server will get match up against each other (this however would be very unlikely). It seems AG did have 6 weeks of bad luck in the last 8 weeks. This however makes me wonder why there is no use of hard cap, so things like #3 and #13 getting match up against each other cannot happen. Like if the rule would be server cannot get match up against server that are more as 1 tier higher or lower as them there will still be a pool of 8 opponents, this however would make the match ups a bit more realistic in my opinion.