Guild Wars 2

Rotteny.8743:

Cecilia.5179:

Rotteny.8743:

Cecilia.5179:

Is it bad? I haven’t logged in yet.

Nah, it’s kinda the same, coverage will triumph over all… But at least we can now play to win small matches (skirmishes) instead of bothering with a week long score.

Wouldn’t it be harder for an off hour coverage server to win a kdr match if the small handful of people on the other servers kill a few stragglers and don’t die?

Sure, but PPT still dominate the major portion of the score. If the largest force holds the majority of the map, killing their players won’t really help unless you are farming them big time.

So winning a skirmish is only as good as the old ppk system?

Winning a skirmish will award you Victory Points, which are the actual matchup score. The Warscore (PPT + PPK) are how you win the skirmish. Think as 84 2hr matchups where the server that win most of them is the winner of the week.

The main improvement is: It doesn’t matter if you win a skirmish with 695:0:0 tick (as happen often in off-time) or with a 235:230:230 tick (as happen often in primetime). So the score doesn’t run away that far in skirmishes strongly dominated by one side.

Ok, I get it. That’s a good thing. Now that WvW is a series of 2 hour matches, things can be balanced around that much easier.

lol “beta” in a live environment. gg anet.

What “beta” is supposed to mean: Likely to change or improve
What “beta” actually means: Will either be “released” as is or removed if people don’t like it

I like this change.

Yeah it doesn’t address population, but at least servers won’t be able to run up the score as before since skirmishes are every 2 hours.

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

etsmith.9025:

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

Wait a minute. So BG has won over 2,000 skirmishes already in 12 hours of playing? They must be amazing.

etsmith.9025:

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

so for that 2 hour skirmish…blackgate will get 3 points. Make sure you look at the War-score and not skirmish for how the overall matchup is doing

etsmith.9025:

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

Lol. Wrong screen.

etsmith.9025:

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

Wrong screen. That’s only the War Score, that isn’t the Victory Points.

Is this the thread we leave Skirmish feedback on?

The UI could definitely use some clean-up. It isn’t noticeable when a skirmish ends and another begins. I got a lot of questions from players last night asking if reset had already occurred before actual reset.

etsmith.9025:

So how exactly does this new scoring system stop overstacked servers from blowing up the score. … yeah . .it doesn’t need to go back to the drawing board

Is this a system problem or a BG problem? Seems like a BG problem to me.

the first tab with VP on left and skirmish score on right seems simple enough. The second tab etsmith posted could use cleanup.

My question is where do you see the VP by 2 hour segment – not just the total sum.

Liston.9708:

the first tab with VP on left and skirmish score on right seems simple enough. The second tab etsmith posted could use cleanup.

My question is where do you see the VP by 2 hour segment – not just the total sum.

That’s a QoL change they could pull, and I’m surprised they haven’t.

Well, after 24h I conclude the new system is rubbish.
Designed to diminish the huge PPT some servers had thanks to nightcapping and big outnumbering situations… AND it does basically the same, now it pushes stacked servers even more, and the population imbalance becomes even worse.

Skirmishes: A system designed by devs, for stacked servers with the promotion of primetime people, where offtime players and servers out of top 5-6 are now considered 2nd class.

That BB with its night-only force doesn’t like the skirmishes not really surprises me

This system is good in a way that it reduce the impact of ktrain, still, it is coverage war which means population still a big issue. I hope anet don’t use this design as a mean to play down the importance of population balancing.

So how is this going to affect glicko? It seems to me if we’re going to change the system to narrow the gap between higher and lower performing servers in any given matchup, then that should have some influence on the way in which glicko calculates the predicted performance vs. results for any given server. I’m concerned that future matchups will be even more unbalanced if one server can dominate two others but the final score reflects that less than previously. Or is glicko going to still be calculating off the old system?

My concerns about this are:

• If the scoring does change permanently, it should probably come with a glicko reset or some other major adjustment.
• The UI to find how score is calculated and to be able to track the skirmishes and their timing is poor and needs to be reworked.
• If the skirmish score is reset every two hours to zero, but all the stuff in the map remains still owned by the same teams, isn’t this basically setting up a handicap system that benefits the top populated/performing servers, rather than the bottom performing servers, in each individual skirmish?

Dayra.7405:

That BB with its night-only force doesn’t like the skirmishes not really surprises me

With the old system, Far Shiverpeaks would have 36% more PPT than Baruch and 44% more than Kodash. And BB would be 6% ahead of Kodash. 73000vs53700vs50800.
With the new system Far Shiverpeaks is ahead of BB by a 46% and a 65% of Kodash, with BB being 13% ahead of the germans. 38vs26vs23.

As you can see, Kodash is the most punished server, Baruch is affected a little, but not so much for what it could be, and FS is getting a free win.
Just like the system was supposed to work…

In fact, this new system helps Baruch. Before, at nights we had to hurry to recover what we lost during the morning and early afternoon. Now we can relax during nights (we still win) and don’t give a kitten during our off hours (we lose the same if we care or if we don’t).

It will only affect us in the long term. As the only server not eligible to be linked in the entire game, we are condemned to recess. Things will sustain until we reach the point this new system bullies us, like any other low tier server.

I am afraid this will cause a lot of burnout with no reward. Now players will be constantly grinding ppt throughout the week for victory points, but problem is there is no reward for it, it will just cause burnout because whats the point.

Rotteny.8743:

Cecilia.5179:

Is it bad? I haven’t logged in yet.

Nah, it’s kinda the same, coverage will triumph over all… But at least we can now play to win small matches (skirmishes) instead of bothering with a week long score.

Ack. That feels very EoTM-ish

It is still too early to tell if the Skirmish scoring system is a total failure or not, but it doesn’t seem to be making the matches more even at all.

Just one day in match up, Desolation is 19, Jade Sea+Arborstone at 32 and Piken Square+Blacktide at 36. It means that the gap between weakest and strongest is already about 2x and so early in the match up. I can imagine the point gap will just widen in the next few days, making it impossible for the 3rd server to recover.

I have countless of times suggested better scoring systems, but it seems Arenanet either wants to invent their own overly complicated system (aka “NIH = Not Invented Here” syndrome) or want to do something which just further makes the game less balanced.

The scoring system should most importantly address this problem: make it worth while for 2nd and 3rd server to attack the leading server. Since the server which is leading in points is easy to determine in real time, why not alter scoring so that you get double points if you capture an objective from the winning server. This would motivate both 2nd and 3rd one in the match up to focus on the 1st one, instead of both preying on the weakest or the 2nd. If either 2nd or 3rd one manage to climb to number 1 spot, the enemy servers will get double points attacking the new leader.

The current Skirmish scoring system is bad in many ways:
1) It is more difficult for players to understand the the old system (“keep it simple stupid”)
2) the winner is often determined too early in the weekly match up. When the point lead is too high, the others often just give up. There is really no reward to fight an uphill battle.
3) the last two days are often irrelevant to determine the winner. The point gap is too wide, so even if the winner almost stops playing, they would still win.

And of course, the coverage, the number of players and the amount of good, popular and active commanders, still pretty much determine the winner. If one side has half the amount of players, there is no way they are going to win. Simple as that.

Ansau.7326:

Well, after 24h I conclude the new system is rubbish.
Designed to diminish the huge PPT some servers had thanks to nightcapping and big outnumbering situations… AND it does basically the same, now it pushes stacked servers even more, and the population imbalance becomes even worse.

Skirmishes: A system designed by devs, for stacked servers with the promotion of primetime people, where offtime players and servers out of top 5-6 are now considered 2nd class.

Umm…but if you’re stacked in only one coverage, doesn’t the system actually hurt the server that’s stacked? You can’t win just 4/12 skirmishes every day and expect to win the week.

Ya chris, right now PPT is more important than PPK, and you are talking about buffing PPT higher in making Upgraded structure captures worth more…Which favors nght capping even more.

ANET you really dropped the ball on this one. You did exactly what the community didn’t ask for.

X T D.6458:

I am afraid this will cause a lot of burnout with no reward. Now players will be constantly grinding ppt throughout the week for victory points, but problem is there is no reward for it, it will just cause burnout because whats the point.

Which is different from just plain PPT how exactly?

And tbh, I see active points matter much more now than before (it will be what, like a third of the final score for a skirmish?). So its not just PPT you need to win. Still not sure how good that is though. Dont want to discourage fighting.

Waiting to see how often 1st place overall helps 3rd place to snatch some skirmishes away from 2nd to increase the gap on 2nd.

Well I like the system even as an ocx player on the NA servers. It gives guild raids a more concrete goal, we set ourselves to win the skirmishes in our raid time and we did. IMO there can be no more complaints about off hours score blowouts, it doesn’t however solve population disparities but it was never going to.

morrolan.9608:

IMO there can be no more complaints about off hours score blowouts, it doesn’t however solve population disparities but it was never going to.

Agreed. Off hours may keep you in the game, but it won’t win it now. So if you were completely relying on SEA/OCX to win you matches before…sorry, ain’t working anymore, at least not without the remaining timezones putting in a lot of work to keep things going.

I like the system. But can we have score be 3/2/2 if 1st server is more than 10vp ahead?

Ansau.7326:

FSP is getting a free win.

Of course FSP got a free win, but not with skirmishes, just with the linking system.

• No 1 linked with 2 cheap bandwaggoning targets
• Instead of adapting glicko to the relinked populations, they increased volatility, such that teh overlinked No 1 get 6 and 10 as opponents.

The big question I currently have is: How will Glicko be adapted end of the week?

• based on the kirmish points? It’s not described so far
• based on the score as before? then the skirmishes are just an illusion

Seems decent to me so far. If your server has no one online to fight it’s a server population coverage issue. The skirmish system seems to smooth that out a bit but there’s no way it’s going to completely fix matchups where one server has like 10 on map and another server has 70.

I think this is a great change and is helping things a lot. I think a lot of people posting so far don’t quite understand that ppt and ppk are not more or less important than before. nothing has changed. It’s just mitigating scoring to a 1, 2, and 3. Servers with any dominant timezone can’t tick for 600 (I still think in terms of the old totals) for hours.

If one looks at our current T1 matchup, TC is 75% of BGs total war score. However, they’re only 90% of our Victory points. That’s making it a much closer fight.

However, there does need to be tweeks. As one can also see, FA is 54% of Blackgate’s total warscore. But they are 45% behind us in victory points. I suspect this disparity is going to grow as the week goes on, because it’s most likely that TC or BG will be winning the skirmishes and FA will most likely be placing last.

I think this is due to the ratio of 1, 2, and 3. For arguments sake, lets play this out for the week with a total hypothetical situation of BG winning every skirmish, TC placing 2nd, and FA placing 3rd. At the end of the week, the total victory points would reflect that, with FA having 84, TC with 168, and BG with 252. But if one were to look at a typical warscore match, rarely does the match have such drastic numerical differences. It may be that this week is just a bad week to judge by because FA is in our match up. Too soon to tell.

But I think that if the ratio was lessened for whoever wins the skirmish, that would make things closer. For example, instead of allotting 1, 2, and 3, make it 2, 3, and 4. This way, the difference between the first place winner and last place winner is 2:1 rather than 3:1, as it stands now. A 3:1 ratio can be very discouraging.

The worst thing about the new scoring system is the ability to calculate how many hours you need to lead another server to get back into the lead on the VP.

Currently on AG/ROF we are 12 point behind AM/DZ – assuming we (AG/ROF) win a skirmish and they come second we need 24 hours like this to get even VP with them. Yes – a day and a half into this matchup we are already up to a whole day behind.

It’s honestly depressing and demoralising. I am really struggling to see why I should even bother for the rest of the week.

Add to that the fact we are red and don’t have bloodlust without capping someone elses (and who really wants to do that?) we don’t even get the benefit of added ppk.

Why not just add 3 hours matches and give so good rewards that players actually try to win?

Junkpile.7439:

Why not just add 3 hours matches and give so good rewards that players actually try to win?

Exactly: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Proposal-for-a-new-competive-WvW

Spurnshadow.3678:

I think this is due to the ratio of 1, 2, and 3. For arguments sake, lets play this out for the week with a total hypothetical situation of BG winning every skirmish, TC placing 2nd, and FA placing 3rd. At the end of the week, the total victory points would reflect that, with FA having 84, TC with 168, and BG with 252. But if one were to look at a typical warscore match, rarely does the match have such drastic numerical differences. It may be that this week is just a bad week to judge by because FA is in our match up. Too soon to tell.

Rink did some math using the last week’s scores. The Victory Points system yields much greater relative points differences than plain Warscore system.

That’s not the beef. While running away with score is now capped, so is catching up. There will be a moment into the matchup when it is not even theoretically possible to catchup. That moment seems to come sooner now.

Skinnii.3504:

The worst thing about the new scoring system is the ability to calculate how many hours you need to lead another server to get back into the lead on the VP.

Currently on AG/ROF we are 12 point behind AM/DZ – assuming we (AG/ROF) win a skirmish and they come second we need 24 hours like this to get even VP with them. Yes – a day and a half into this matchup we are already up to a whole day behind.

It’s honestly depressing and demoralising. I am really struggling to see why I should even bother for the rest of the week.

Add to that the fact we are red and don’t have bloodlust without capping someone elses (and who really wants to do that?) we don’t even get the benefit of added ppk.

Exactly the same thing with previous score design, except it was using higher numbers.
You think people kept fighting on thursday when they where 50K behind?

So I fail to see how this can be the worst thing about the new scoring. Especially since you didnt mention what could really be related to what you said – the inability to win even if the server scores 3 point every skirmish. At some point in the matchup and when one server is on top, it will win no matter what because 1 point on loss is guaranteed. With the previous PPT system, you could theoretically fight them to 0 PPT (which would probably also mean very high PPT for your server). But granted that was unlikely to happen when being the underdog.

Either way the system works best when points are being traded between the 3 servers. Which requires balanced server matchups. The new scoring system does exactly nothing to help with that. It’s just a new scoring system.

Warlord.9074:

Ya chris, right now PPT is more important than PPK, and you are talking about buffing PPT higher in making Upgraded structure captures worth more…Which favors nght capping even more.

ANET you really dropped the ball on this one. You did exactly what the community didn’t ask for.

Correct because the more you punish death, the less players are going to want to fight. If you want fights, you have to keep PPK reasonable. Raising PPK too high increases Turtling and Omniblobbing. Which is what the community doesn’t want.

Dawdler.8521:

Exactly the same thing with previous score design, except it was using higher numbers.
You think people kept fighting on thursday when they where 50K behind?

So I fail to see how this can be the worst thing about the new scoring. Especially since you didnt mention what could really be related to what you said – the inability to win even if the server scores 3 point every skirmish. At some point in the matchup and when one server is on top, it will win no matter what because 1 point on loss is guaranteed. With the previous PPT system, you could theoretically fight them to 0 PPT (which would probably also mean very high PPT for your server). But granted that was unlikely to happen when being the underdog.

Either way the system works best when points are being traded between the 3 servers. Which requires balanced server matchups. The new scoring system does exactly nothing to help with that. It’s just a new scoring system.

At least with the old system you fought until Thursday, and it allowed comebacks on Friday in more neck to neck matches by heavy pushes.

Now we have to enjoy mathematical winners in Monday/Tuesday.

Spurnshadow.3678:

I think this is a great change and is helping things a lot. I think a lot of people posting so far don’t quite understand that ppt and ppk are not more or less important than before. nothing has changed. It’s just mitigating scoring to a 1, 2, and 3. Servers with any dominant timezone can’t tick for 600 (I still think in terms of the old totals) for hours.

If one looks at our current T1 matchup, TC is 75% of BGs total war score. However, they’re only 90% of our Victory points. That’s making it a much closer fight.

However, there does need to be tweeks. As one can also see, FA is 54% of Blackgate’s total warscore. But they are 45% behind us in victory points. I suspect this disparity is going to grow as the week goes on, because it’s most likely that TC or BG will be winning the skirmishes and FA will most likely be placing last.

I think this is due to the ratio of 1, 2, and 3. For arguments sake, lets play this out for the week with a total hypothetical situation of BG winning every skirmish, TC placing 2nd, and FA placing 3rd. At the end of the week, the total victory points would reflect that, with FA having 84, TC with 168, and BG with 252. But if one were to look at a typical warscore match, rarely does the match have such drastic numerical differences. It may be that this week is just a bad week to judge by because FA is in our match up. Too soon to tell.

But I think that if the ratio was lessened for whoever wins the skirmish, that would make things closer. For example, instead of allotting 1, 2, and 3, make it 2, 3, and 4. This way, the difference between the first place winner and last place winner is 2:1 rather than 3:1, as it stands now. A 3:1 ratio can be very discouraging.

good point. Maybe even 5 6 7 ? Just need to make sure winning actually maters in each skirmish.

One of the benefits of the new system I’ve noticed, it helps 3rd place servers because there is no longer an incentive to PPT the 3rd guy to death. Instead, 1 & 2 need to ensure 3rd place gets 2 points for a higher lead over the other guy.

It doesn’t fix coverage holes or anything but at least this seems to be working.

Ansau.7326:

At least with the old system you fought until Thursday, and it allowed comebacks on Friday in more neck to neck matches by heavy pushes.

Now we have to enjoy mathematical winners in Monday/Tuesday.

People already stopped playing by monday in the old system anyway when they saw their server was 50k behind…. A good thing about the new system is that people don’t know how to do math and can’t be sure when they no longer can win.

The ideal would be give the same points to 2nd and 3rd, so both are “forced” to fight the dominant server instead of ganging on 3rd (like it used to be) or on 2nd (like it is now). Playing matches where servers start playing for second right at start isn’t fun.

Ansau.7326:

Dayra.7405:

That BB with its night-only force doesn’t like the skirmishes not really surprises me

With the old system, Far Shiverpeaks would have 36% more PPT than Baruch and 44% more than Kodash. And BB would be 6% ahead of Kodash. 73000vs53700vs50800.
With the new system Far Shiverpeaks is ahead of BB by a 46% and a 65% of Kodash, with BB being 13% ahead of the germans. 38vs26vs23.

As you can see, Kodash is the most punished server, Baruch is affected a little, but not so much for what it could be, and FS is getting a free win.
Just like the system was supposed to work…

In fact, this new system helps Baruch. Before, at nights we had to hurry to recover what we lost during the morning and early afternoon. Now we can relax during nights (we still win) and don’t give a kitten during our off hours (we lose the same if we care or if we don’t).

It will only affect us in the long term. As the only server not eligible to be linked in the entire game, we are condemned to recess. Things will sustain until we reach the point this new system bullies us, like any other low tier server.

You could also simply throw that kitten overboard Franco introduced…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/world/europe/spain-land-of-10-pm-dinners-ponders-a-more-standard-time.html?_r=0

I’m liking it. Here in tier 1, in NA, it makes a huuuuge difference. As Blackgates ppt would be jumping up 20k per overnight block when theres not a big enough force to really slow momentum. At this moment, Tarnished Coast is roughly a few hours behind BG (on good pushes) when usually by this day TC would be maybe already 60k or so behind most of it just rollover adding up over OCX/SEA times. I think this spells good news – at least for the higher tiers – I can’t speak for the lowers. If the matches are more in a general reach, then people will keep on playing rather then looking at the score and going “Why waste my time – we’ve already won, lost, doesn’t matter…?” It also seems to cause a lot more direct fighting – because the smaller time limits to get the victory points ends really throttling everyone into gear when they realize they can get a gain on their enemies.

Personally, I feel like it is the absolute best thing to start WvW in the right direction.

Small Edit: Note to Anet Devs Reading: Not that it really matters too much but the WvW Server bonuses granted by the overall score may need a slight tweaking to the new points system if you intend to keep it of course.

So right now in T2 NA Maguuma is winning in total score, but Jade Quarry is winning in Victory Points.

So who is actually the winner of the match-up if that continues to the end of the week, and how does that effect glicko gain/loss and tier placement?

Victory points is the total score. Warscore is just the score that decides who gets 3, 2, and 1 victory point.

So victory points is directly tied to glicko placement? Did Anet confirm this?