Guild Wars 2

Honestly, I appreciate the free transfers finally ending but the damage is already done. The reality of why the problem of such imbalances occurred to begin with is obvious: having a system like the Glicko2 or whatever it is called, while simultaneously having free transfers available was a contradiction. This current system, while capable of “fixing itself” takes FAR TOO LONG to do so and simply is not built to deal with rapid/massive population fluctuations. In fact I’ll say it is literally 0% capable of matching servers where such things happen in a reasonable fashion. Everyone playing this game is human. Two different servers in different tiers with approximately the same population taking 8 weeks of being mega zerged by super-servers before they finally get thrust into the same tier might sound to Anet like things being fixed, but for the human players who endured the 8 weeks, this system is simply too slow.

And let’s be honest, paid transfers.. heck even if you eliminated transfers entirely would not fix this problem. For those proud tier 1 folks, what happens when the battles between their servers continue at a near even ratio for so long (months) that eventually a large number of players of one or two of the servers end up quitting the game? (be it due to boredom with the WvW situation and its feel of endless cycles of the same thing or just tired of GW2 in general as will inevitably come with time) What is going to happen to those that do remain active in WvW in those full servers when its population starts to become inactive? Especially one with a large points advantage built up? Eventually servers are once again gonna be set into another XYZ week period of being vastly outnumbered, one way or another. As long as this tier system remains. Even if its a minority, and it works out for most cases.. should WvW become so unbalanced for the minority for the sake of the majority?

Wouldn’t it be easier for example to have a double tiered system that first pairs up various servers by detected WvW population averages, and THEN a second tier system (perhaps keeping the Glicko2 for this) to rank those servers within those tiers?

Ie:

Population Tier 1: 350-400 serverwide WvW participants
A Server Ranked first in tier by points
X Server Ranked Second in tier by points.
Y Server Ranked third in tier by points
Z Server Ranked fourth in tier by points
S Server Ranked fifth in tier by points
D Server Ranked sixth in tier by points

Population Tier 2: 300-350 serverwide WvW participants

Q Server Ranked first in tier by points
E Server Ranked second in tier by points
R Server Ranked third in tier by points
T Server Ranked fourth in tier by points
V Server Ranked fifth in tier by points
B Server Ranked sixth in tier by points

And so on. That way population would at least be taken into account first, and THEN whether one server is “better”, “more skilled on average”, “possesses better strategies” could be seen in its population rankings. And perhaps with monthly qualification round point resets in re-determining placements to accommodate for population fluctuations.

I’m no genius, I’m sure there are problems as well with what I’m suggesting. But surely this system can’t be all there is forever. And it shouldn’t take months or years to figure out that servers being pit against other servers with anywhere from 30% more-300% more WvW combatants for even two weeks, let alone 8-12 weeks or more is.. unacceptable. And as a member of Ferguson’s crossing, I can tell you that is what we’ve had to deal with up until recently and yet may have to go through once again with Sorrow’s Furnace begging for more transfers in two separate threads and getting them daily.

“Just wait for the system to fix itself and provide balanced matchups” simply doesn’t fly well anymore when it takes weeks-months to do so, and a third or more of the population of WvW combatants on your server have fond memories of constant 30 vs. 50-100+ for 8+ 24/7 non-stop weeks of brutal and pointless WvW.

Come on A.net, surely you can do better than this? I really hope my server won’t won’t have to play the waiting game for another few weeks when the transfer system is changed just to be put into a population matchup that they rightfully should of been in 3 months ago.

glicko systems doesn’t seem to be suited in a 3 way contest. its logic is based on 1v1 comparison without interference of a 3rd party. there’s no logic in glicko maths to account for the valid/legal 3rd party interference (playing kingmaker, occasional doubleteaming, taking advantage of weak coverage periods etc) that happens frequently in matches here. perhaps that’s why most competitive sports/games are always a 1 on 1 affair that prohibits 3rd party interference for more accuracy in ratings.

as much as i disagree with using the glicko system for wvw, it’s one of the only systems that is capable of measuring things that are not discrete. unless anet hires some mathematicians or make some drastic changes to wvw matching system, we are likely stuck with glicko system.