Guild Wars 2

Caliburn.1845:

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?

JQ would be the winner since we have a higher VP than Mag, and VP is the new indicator of who wins the week. As for the glicko, I would say they’ve adjusted glicko for this or are attempting to, so the gap between VP amounts is what is going to effect placement now, though I wish I knew by how much.

fishball.7204:

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.

I don’t agree. It was also possible for a 1st place server to ensure 3rd got 2nd under the old system, but hardly anyone did it. The only thing that changed is the amount of effort involved in it.

I like the new system, because my server is basically non existent at night but still pretty strong in the afternoon/prime times. In our current skirmish the points right now are 5074/745/869 that is a massive difference, yet I know that even if we outpoint the server by only 100 points every skirmish tomorrow during the day we can keep up, and that is really motivating for many players.

I spend quite a lot of time in wvw and it is fun as always. But more so if I don’t look at the points too much.. Especially at the end of skirmishes it can be harder to find motivation for me, if you know the points you are able to get will not count in the end at all. :/

I still think the new system makes it harder for servers that are behind to catch up and it favours servers with offtime-coverage over servers that formerly relied on prime-time pushes. That will be good for some servers, not so much fot others.
http://mos.millenium.org/na is great to compare the points to victory points, their admins did a great job to record all data since the changes. You can also see what coverage your server has compared to your opponents or if your guild had any impact.

Will also be interesting to see activity compared to before as soon as the first winners are mathematically fixed on wednesday. Earliest possible is 4 days into the matchup with 3 more days to go. Some matchups look like they will be decided only shortly after this.

1. 2 hours skirmish system is good. But, it still doesn’t fix population imbalanced problem.

2. My idea..

Example, the map will auto count how many players are in the borderland, at the beginning of the 2 min tick. Map will stop accepting players until next tick begin.

So player who come late need to wait in que for the next tick before they can get into the map.

Example:
Red server 10 players vs 60 players from green server vs 30 players from blue server

So the outnumbered buff,

Red server will gain x6 PPT/PPK when defeating/capturing any green camps/tower/player. This is because 10×6 = 60

red server will gain x3 PPT/PPK when defeating/capturing any blue camps/tower/player. This is because 10×3 = 30

Meanwhile,
Blue server will get x2 PPT/PPK when defeating/capturing any green camps/tower/player. This is because 30×2 = 60.

Hence, the bigger the player number gap, the bigger outnumbered buff will be multiples. Example if 10 vs 100, means outnumbered ppt/ppk buff is x10. If 1 camps worth 5 points, 5×10 = 50 points. If 1 player killed gives 1 points, outnumbered fight will make it 1×10 = 10.

If this multiple still cant balance it, multiples the outnumbered buff even further. I cant give a numbers now, but for starter lets start with this system.

Maybe red server 10 players vs green server 100 players,
1×10 = 100, hence 10×2 = 20. double the buff.
give x20 outnumbered buff. For sure, population wont be the reason a server to win

This system is clearly not intended to prevent landslide victories. If your server is losing by x2 points, it was never going to win. It does make it harder to get a landslide victory, but your server has to actually win skirmishes to keep up.
It does seem to reward well rounded coverage over strong coverage in certain timezones, which is why servers that have huge ticks during NA are losing to servers that have average ticks all around.

I would honestly love to see some releases by anet covering warscore:active population ratios from before the Skirmishes change and VP:active population after the change. I expect they’re already looking at this data in private but I think it would be very interesting to see whether skirmishes are helping or hurting.

nerovergil.5408:

2. My idea..

Queues and war score multipliers have already been suggested to fix population imbalance. Both ideas have been shot down for good reasons.

Tyler Bearce listed population rebalancing as one of the goals of the Scoring changes.

• In conjunction with population rebalancing, updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly, and thus reward players more fairly
  • Currently we can’t give out worthwhile rewards for winning, as most match-ups are already decided before they begin

Just wait and see what he comes up with.

Sarrs.4831:

I would honestly love to see some releases by anet covering warscore:active population ratios from before the Skirmishes change and VP:active population after the change. I expect they’re already looking at this data in private but I think it would be very interesting to see whether skirmishes are helping or hurting.

ANet will not publish player activity or population data.

Rink did some calculations on last week’s scores. The result was that victory points differences are greater than war score differences. Thanks to the world linking the war score differences had been small in past months.

I agree they should publish the results of their analysis if they are to poll whether to keep Skirmishes in the game or not.

1. max. scoring difference is capped to 2points within 2 hours
2. skirmishes affect population spread over 24h
3. -> Primetime-server will fall in ranking cause they cant make up leeway in a few hours with skirmish points
4. ->skirmishes (and scoring) probably lead to more balanced matchups regarding activity over 24h. ( excluding other effects like server-linking etc.)
5. skirmishes do not affect nightcapping (->3.)
6. skirmishes may lead to more motivation at the start of a 2h session

This is my conclusion of the new system. It isnt bad, but is it an advantage to the old system ? —> well theres is more activity on my server at the moment lets see how it developes

Weekend is over. If I look at Kodasch and Baruch I can see that Kodasch can keep closer contact to Baruch due to the new system. FSP is beyond good and evil.

Rewards for the skirmishes would give more incentives to fight for points. Let us see how the devs will implement them.

Very strong population imbalances will not be solved with the new scoring system. With week ones it could work.

I think Arenanet has to give up the paradigm that only one WvW server can represent a home world. The more players want to play for a home world the more Wvw servers with fixed populations you have to create.

I like the skirmish system. It is an elegant solution to the coverage problem where if your server has poor coverage at hours, they’re not blown out of the water.

Even during low population times, it seems to be encouraging defense. Having stronger objectives is important for the next skirmish if you’re expecting better coverage.

It also puts more emphasis on 2nd vs. 3rd in the skirmish, trying to squeeze out points to get the 2 points instead of 1 point. This didn’t really exist before, the sense of urgency.

I had some really epic fights over the Rampart and Air keep on Red Borderlands this weekend. These battles wouldn’t have happened had there not been such a close race between 1st and 2nd in those skirmishes. Nothing like trying to defend two weeks on your borderlands while also trying to defend SMC on EBG.

There is already an 11 point variance on one match up between first and third. That’s 8 hours of holding first place just to catch up. With four and a half days left to play it is already an insurmountable lead. The skirmish system and victory points have solved nothing in the long run.

EDIT: It would be more than 12 hours of holding first place while the current first place was held to last place to catch up. That is because even last place still gets one point.

cdsmith.1072:

There is already an 11 point variance on one match up between first and third. That’s 8 hours of holding first place just to catch up. The skirmish system and victory points have solved nothing in the long run.

I believe that the next change is to give more points depending on how many upgrades an objective has. I believe this is counter-intuitive as although in theory it incentivises servers with nothing to lose (i.e. all their stuff is paper) to attack, I believe it sends servers with small populations into the meat grinders of fully upgraded enemy keeps, thus wiping them over and over, giving the already powerful side lots of PPKs and ultimately serving as a morale-crusher that will drive the scores further apart instead.

BUT there is hope. JR ‘Bob’ Dobbs! A glowing beacon of slack
Someone suggested giving more points as the week wears on, which I believe is a great way to help make the matchups less of a foregone conclusion by any given Tuesday.

Svarty.8019:

cdsmith.1072:

There is already an 11 point variance on one match up between first and third. That’s 8 hours of holding first place just to catch up. The skirmish system and victory points have solved nothing in the long run.

I believe that the next change is to give more points depending on how many upgrades an objective has. I believe this is counter-intuitive as although in theory it incentivises servers with nothing to lose (i.e. all their stuff is paper) to attack, I believe it sends servers with small populations into the meat grinders of fully upgraded enemy keeps, thus wiping them over and over, giving the already powerful side lots of PPKs and ultimately serving as a morale-crusher that will drive the scores further apart instead.

BUT there is hope. JR ‘Bob’ Dobbs! A glowing beacon of slack
Someone suggested giving more points as the week wears on, which I believe is a great way to help make the matchups less of a foregone conclusion by any given Tuesday.

If they were to increase the points on how many upgrades an objective has, I’d hope that they also increase the amount of points for CAPTURING said objective.

The next phase must address how many points a T3 defended objective grants to balance the skirmish system out because a T3 properly defended keep in the higher tiers can take 2 hours just to siege in itself.

Either keeps are too strong, Skirmishes too short, or Keeps aren’t worth enough when upgraded.

There is already an 11 point variance on one match up between first and third. That’s 8 hours of holding first place just to catch up. With four and a half days left to play it is already an insurmountable lead. The skirmish system and victory points have solved nothing in the long run.

EDIT: It would be more than 12 hours of holding first place while the current first place was held to last place to catch up. That is because even last place still gets one point.

This.

I think the perception that scores are “closer” is purely psychological. Because the numbers look smaller, it feels like the match is closer, failing to take into account the now rigidly timed way of catching up and the percentage disparity between the placements.

Issues:

1. While softening some of the impact of extremely low-coverage time slices, it in turn magnifies the hurt of middle coverage times (where you are going to lose but you have enough pop to minimize the damage). Net gain, 0.

2. There is now a hard line after which it becomes mathematically impossible to change your placement. Before, with so much score coming from PPK, it was more fluid. Now anyone who can add 1, 2, and 3 can figure out “We have no chance.”

It will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out in terms of actual percent margin of victory for the old vs. new systems as the weeks roll on. Would this be clearer to people if the win scores were 3000/2000/1000? As it stands now it would appear this change in isolation is just a new hat on the old system in terms of results, with less flexibility.

I really hope that this will not lead to Glicko being even worse in the task to reflect populations-differences and further match-making problems. The “old” Glicko measurements may reflect population-differences better than victory points.
So please keep an eye on that closely, as the matchmaking with facing unbeatable servers is what makes most people unhappy atm and maybe reduce the probabilty to get servers that aren’t in your tier for Glicko.
I am curious what changes you will come up with for matchmaking.

I am positively surprised by the skrimish-idea. I could experience two advantages.
1) The players stay until the end of a skrimish. They also try to win the skrimish/become 2nd. So the incentives to play WvW increased.

2) Even if one server is clearly dominating, the other two server still have an incentive to fight for position 2. I saw more ppl. still motivated despite the fact that the chances of being first were close to 0.

So far I think its a really good system although there are a few things I am curious about.

Would it be possible to see how a longer skirmish might affect matchups? Is the current time for skirmishes set in stone or can we ever try a longer amount, it could give groups more breathing room so they are not constantly rushing to grind ppt. It would be good to avoid burnout since there is no reward to winning.

Also is the 3/2/1 point system too standardized and does it fairly reward effort? If a server wins a skirmish by 1 or 3000 points it still gets the same amount of victory points. I understand the concept is to mitigate the effects of off hour coverage gaps but then there is the argument of whether or not there is a fair recognition of effort.

Would it be possible to add some small weekly rewards for server placement and individual contribution. It could be measured by a progress bar, and the rewards don’t have to be anything fancy. Maybe reward track potions, proofs of heroics, stuff like that. Some kind of reward would be a lot better then people burning themselves out grinding ppt all week for nothing.

Chris Barrett.3280:

This can have different effects on how ratings will change. If team A consistently beats team B— but only a little— their ratings will be split apart faster than before. If team A steamrolls team B consistently, their ratings won’t split apart as quickly as before…

…But, if teams facing one-another that really belong in different tiers have more similar scores than before at the end, their ratings updates won’t reflect that as quickly…

…Regardless of how they affect Glicko ratings in their first Live run, if skirmishes improve the moment-to-moment feeling of being in WvW, we can work with updating how ratings (and more importantly, match-making) are determined.

If skirmishes makes Glicko and matchmaking even worse than before please do something about it quickly. Don’t wait.

In fact, everyone knows Glicko was terrible before, especially related to allowing quick movement, and something needed to be done about matchmaking. So why not start that conversation now?

Matchmaking needs to provide variety and the best matches possible. And it needs to adjust quickly. People can take a bad match but not bad matches for weeks.

Take NA for example. YB is clearly stronger than anyone else in T3 and T4. It is not a terrible matchup – but people are starting to grumble on my server (which is not YB). YB needs to move up and FA should move down – just to see what happens. Or maybe DB needs to move down and FA and YB need to fight each other. Heck, FA might be stronger than YB and DB who knows? But we’ll never know unless the matchmaking allows movement.

“YB needs to move up and FA should move down – just to see what happens. Or maybe DB needs to move down and FA and YB need to fight each other. "

See this is exactly one of the problems with Glicko. It is designed to measure server performance 1-to-1. A more accurate rating would be produced by YB and FA being in a match against each other rather than just switching places. But because both servers are ranked on a tier edge with rather wide differences in glicko to servers above and below, the chances of that happening are extremely low.

Thanks for the clarification on glicko/victory points Chris.

Do you think that overall the new system will allow servers to move more rapidly between tiers as population/activity change, or will it be semi-stratified and fairly hard to move tiers as in the old system?

Chaba.5410:

“YB needs to move up and FA should move down – just to see what happens. Or maybe DB needs to move down and FA and YB need to fight each other. "

See this is exactly one of the problems with Glicko. It is designed to measure server performance 1-to-1. A more accurate rating would be produced by YB and FA being in a match against each other rather than just switching places. But because both servers are ranked on a tier edge with rather wide differences in glicko to servers above and below, the chances of that happening are extremely low.

The first problem is that Glicko is a rating system, not a matchmaking system. The complementary problem is that WvW adapts really badly to servers with different coverage and strength.

If WvW was fun/interesting/challenging/worthwhile to play even when servers were of very different strength or had mismatched coverage then ANet could tinker more with how it makes matches and still deliver fun gameplay to players.

I knew you missed us Chaba, but you are correct some of the better matches may never occur with the edge phenomenon ….

Before calling Skirmish a success I’d like to see it run for more than a couple of weeks. Folks praised the return of DBL a success early on, but 2 weeks after red BL was queue-less in both T1 & T2 even during primetime on the weekends.

Right now people are excited to try out the new scoring system. But ultimately, without rewards for winning, without server balance where certain servers always win and some always lose, then it won’t be long before people get tired of it again.

Skirmish seems to be a tiny small step in the right direction. But WvW game-mode as a whole requires quite a lot of changes, updates, fixes, and additions.

Korgov.7645:

nerovergil.5408:

2. My idea..

Queues and war score multipliers have already been suggested to fix population imbalance. Both ideas have been shot down for good reasons.

Tyler Bearce listed population rebalancing as one of the goals of the Scoring changes.

• In conjunction with population rebalancing, updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly, and thus reward players more fairly
  • Currently we can’t give out worthwhile rewards for winning, as most match-ups are already decided before they begin

Just wait and see what he comes up with.

Tyler has been taken off the WvW team to work on the xpac.

morrolan.9608:

Korgov.7645:

nerovergil.5408:

2. My idea..

Queues and war score multipliers have already been suggested to fix population imbalance. Both ideas have been shot down for good reasons.

Tyler Bearce listed population rebalancing as one of the goals of the Scoring changes.

• In conjunction with population rebalancing, updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly, and thus reward players more fairly
  • Currently we can’t give out worthwhile rewards for winning, as most match-ups are already decided before they begin

Just wait and see what he comes up with.

Tyler has been taken off the WvW team to work on the xpac.

What?!! Nooooo! Gaile give Tyler back

1. Skirmish time: 1 hours – 30 minutes. I think 2 hours is too long.

2. Outnumbered buff = Give huge point per tick (PPT) and points per kills (ppk)

Example:

Blue servers 50 players vs green server 100 players

Even blue server different with green server is only x2, but the player different is huge.

unlike 10 vs 20 (only 10), or 20 vs 40 (only 20), the different is so huge in 50 vs 100 (50 players different)

So i suggest, instead of x2, x3, outnumbered buff, give the buff exactly according to the player differents. If its only has +1 player, give small buff to the outnumbered server. if the different is 10, 20 or even 50, give more buff if more numbers.

Moreover,

Example:

red 10 players vs blue 50 players vs gree 100 players.

red will have outnumbered buff on blue and green PPT/PPK

blue will only have outnumbered buff on green PPT/PPK

3.Righteous Indignation = Make it 1 or 2 minutes. Because 5 minutes is too long and boring to wait

4. Sentry = Can be upgraded, add more guards. And can we have PPT points on captured sentry?

5. Bloodlust node: Bloodlust give PPT. So there is small fight all the times.

6. MVP Boss: MVP boss will give PPT to the server that made a last hit kills.

7. System to auto count players numbers on wvw for each server:

A system will auto count number of players for each server on all 4 borderland (red, blue, green, ebg)

if there is a population gap, outnumbered buff will be given

This systems will repeat every PPT tick (2 min)

Player who come late before beginning of each PPT tick need to wait in que. And can enter wvw map on the next que

System will auto detect disconnected (DC) players and add players on the waiting que smartly.

If there is no player on the que? Can developer create a smart systems that react on the go, so if something like this happened, the outnumbered buff can be adjusted on the go? If not, the buff will stay until the next tick. Just 2 minutes thou.

Slightly off-topic, thanks for communicating with us McKenna and Chris.

If anything 2 hours is too short not too long. Considering how long it can take to take a properly defended Tier 3 keep. Right now the social GW2 norm is to operate within 4 main time zones. We talk, NA, OCX, SEA and EU. I believe our skirmish system should use a similar format.

gavyne.6847:

Before calling Skirmish a success I’d like to see it run for more than a couple of weeks. Folks praised the return of DBL a success early on, but 2 weeks after red BL was queue-less in both kitten even during primetime on the weekends.

Definitely agree. It seems, at least to me, that population has spiked for both TC+KN and BG. (Not familiar enough with FA to say)

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

If anything 2 hours is too short not too long. Considering how long it can take to take a properly defended Tier 3 keep. Right now the social GW2 norm is to operate within 4 main time zones. We talk, NA, OCX, SEA and EU. I believe our skirmish system should use a similar format.

I don’t think the 2-hour format should be adjusted. What I would be interested in seeing is increased VP during high-population time periods (i.e. NA is worth twice as many points as other time zones for NA servers, EU worth twice as much for EU servers).

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t think the 2-hour format should be adjusted. What I would be interested in seeing is increased VP during high-population time periods (i.e. NA is worth twice as many points as other time zones for NA servers, EU worth twice as much for EU servers).

Yes by all means marginalise the off NA peak time players and then see what happens.

They should change the system, the 2 hour format during the day and a 4 hour format during the night.

Half points for nightblobbers.

Yeah they should make OCX/SEA more points and NA/EU less points. Half points for people that play while I’m sleeping only fair mate.

Umm… wouldn’t the extra points during certain hours negate what balances skirmishes were introduced for?

Dhemize.8649:

Umm… wouldn’t the extra points during certain hours negate what balances skirmishes were introduced for?

Skirmishes isnt for balance, its to restrict runaway points. Extra points during high activity hours make perfect sense even with skirmishes. We return to the age old question: Should 2h in the middle of the night when 20 players died (18 of which died by falling of cliffs on DBL because they never go there normally) and one server tick 250ppt really equal 2h in primetime when 2000 players died and all 3 servers fought furiously to a near standstill in PPT?

In either scenario, 3 points is awarded the skirmish victor. Is that fair?

But personally, I think they can leave it as is – and I say that as someone otherwise fully in favor of balancing things based on total WvW population. VP alone restrict runaway points enough and keep the score simple to understand.

gavyne.6847:

Folks praised the return of DBL a success early on, but 2 weeks after red BL was queue-less in both kitten even during primetime on the weekends.

Are you playing the same game I am? We’ve (SoS) needed a 50-70 player zerg the last couple of nights to barely hang onto DBL. Even then we could only hang onto two of the keeps and the towers were easy pickings.

YB and SBI are relentlessly attacking us on DBL. YB also has dumped SBI’s Alpine BL on a regular basis. They’re clearly not preferring one to the other. There’s an enemy there, and they’re willing to fight them there. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

As I type this, YB has just dumped the rampart.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/map2/3551/1003

Hesacon.8735:

gavyne.6847:

Folks praised the return of DBL a success early on, but 2 weeks after red BL was queue-less in both kitten even during primetime on the weekends.

Are you playing the same game I am? We’ve (SoS) needed a 50-70 player zerg the last couple of nights to barely hang onto DBL. Even then we could only hang onto two of the keeps and the towers were easy pickings.

YB and SBI are relentlessly attacking us on DBL. YB also has dumped SBI’s Alpine BL on a regular basis. They’re clearly not preferring one to the other. There’s an enemy there, and they’re willing to fight them there. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

As I type this, YB has just dumped the rampart.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/map2/3551/1003

Yes we’re playing the same game, of course my chars are on T1 & T2, you’re on T3 in a completely lost cause matchup. Looks like YB is simply rat hunting for action since they’re roflstomping the matchup. I wouldn’t look too much into it other than they’re just going anywhere they can find people to kill. And you being completely totally outnumbered, chose to try to defend your home BL, so they go there.

Chris Barrett.3280:

…

This can have different effects on how ratings will change. If team A consistently beats team B— but only a little— their ratings will be split apart faster than before. If team A steamrolls team B consistently, their ratings won’t split apart as quickly as before.

Keeping scores closer together through the game’s mechanics keeps moment-to-moment gameplay more competitive and interesting. But, if teams facing one-another that really belong in different tiers have more similar scores than before at the end, their ratings updates won’t reflect that as quickly.

…

So this part confused me … if Team A roflstomps Team B… it makes sense to keep them closer together?

I’m not sure how to make sense of that… wouldn’t a team who crushes their opponents be better suited to move away from easy pickins? ignore T1, cause there’s a roof, but say in T3 NA, shouldn’t a team likes the YB pairing be pushed up because they are steamrolling there opponents? The way I read what you wrote, says they would receive more of a split if they kept it close… can someone please explain this a little more clearly so I can understand the logic?

morrolan.9608:

Yes by all means marginalise the off NA peak time players and then see what happens.

Speaking as an OCX player, yes. When one server has 120 players and the other two servers have 50 players, the skirmishes should be marginalized because they are unfair.

The server with a drastic margin of players can still create enormous advantage- they are still earning more VP than their opponents and they can still paper and fortify objectives on enemy borderlands.

Sarrs.4831:

morrolan.9608:

Yes by all means marginalise the off NA peak time players and then see what happens.

Speaking as an OCX player, yes. When one server has 120 players and the other two servers have 50 players, the skirmishes should be marginalized because they are unfair.

The results have been equalised via skirmishes which is fair. Population disparity is not a scoring issue and attempts to address it via the current scoring system will just result in distortions and force players in non NA peak times away from the game because anet would be saying their contribution is literally worth less. You’re still going to be outnumbered it won’t change that except because of players leaving the game.

If its to be addressed via scoring then scoring has to completely change to be done via player activity such as capturing and defending as a number of players have suggested. This would reflect player activity in a timezone and be fair without marginalising the contribution of players.

morrolan.9608:

The results have been equalised via skirmishes which is fair.

I don’t know what precisely you mean by this. It’s true that the impact of night-capping has been reduced in extreme circumstances but that doesn’t address the fundamental premise that population imbalances create imbalanced skirmishes and that those imbalanced skirmishes should provide less points than balanced skirmishes.

morrolan.9608:

Population disparity is not a scoring issue and attempts to address it via the current scoring system will just result in distortions and force players in non NA peak times away from the game because anet would be saying their contribution is literally worth less.

Population disparity is a scoring issue in that it creates unfairly disparate scores. I think what you mean to say is that the scoring problem is created by the population imbalance and not the other way around. Regardless, population disparity and the scoring problems it causes are a major factor in ANet’s decision making regarding WvW development, including the decision not to begin new tournaments.

morrolan.9608:

You’re still going to be outnumbered it won’t change that except because of players leaving the game.

I am curious to know how many players would actually leave as a result of increased impact of NA skirmishes. To the best of my knowledge, most guilds ignore it for the most part.

You are also assuming that it wouldn’t make a better game, and that being a better game would not in turn draw new players.

If your thesis is correct and that marginalizing the impact of offtime players would encourage them to leave the game, it stands to reason that introducing biases towards NA players would add NA players to the game- and NA players still comprise the vast majority of players on NA servers. Observing their proportions, a relatively minor drop of players across the other three timezones would create a larger boost in NA players.

morrolan.9608:

You’re still going to be outnumbered it won’t change that except because of players leaving the game.If its to be addressed via scoring then scoring has to completely change to be done via player activity such as capturing and defending as a number of players have suggested. This would reflect player activity in a timezone and be fair without marginalising the contribution of players.

But this would change nothing. If you have more players, you can simply attack and defend more objectives. If you have less players, you cannot. The only position which would result in an actual impact would be 100% control by one server, as it can no longer capture new objectives.

Sarrs.4831:

morrolan.9608:

The results have been equalised via skirmishes which is fair.

I don’t know what precisely you mean by this. It’s true that the impact of night-capping has been reduced in extreme circumstances but that doesn’t address the fundamental premise that population imbalances create imbalanced skirmishes and that those imbalanced skirmishes should provide less points than balanced skirmishes.

I mean that winning the skirmish at 4 am is worth exactly the same as winning it at 8pm. The imbalance in points is the effect, the cause is the population imbalance. If you treat the effect you don’t fix the actual cause and indeed it would create other undesirable consequences.

Sarrs.4831:

morrolan.9608:

You’re still going to be outnumbered it won’t change that except because of players leaving the game.

I am curious to know how many players would actually leave as a result of increased impact of NA skirmishes. To the best of my knowledge, most guilds ignore it for the most part.

There has been feedback to the effect that players who play during non US peak times would be extremely unhappy and would leave the game. This feedback was in response to the leaked document a while back with proposed new scoring changes including making points during prime time worth more.

morrolan.9608:

There has been feedback to the effect that players who play during non US peak times would be extremely unhappy and would leave the game. This feedback was in response to the leaked document a while back with proposed new scoring changes including making points during prime time worth more.

Can you provide a source?

World vs World is unavailable while matches are being updated is still not fixed.

morrolan.9608:

Sarrs.4831:

morrolan.9608:

The results have been equalised via skirmishes which is fair.

I don’t know what precisely you mean by this. It’s true that the impact of night-capping has been reduced in extreme circumstances but that doesn’t address the fundamental premise that population imbalances create imbalanced skirmishes and that those imbalanced skirmishes should provide less points than balanced skirmishes.

I mean that winning the skirmish at 4 am is worth exactly the same as winning it at 8pm. The imbalance in points is the effect, the cause is the population imbalance. If you treat the effect you don’t fix the actual cause and indeed it would create other undesirable consequences.

Sarrs.4831:

morrolan.9608:

You’re still going to be outnumbered it won’t change that except because of players leaving the game.

I am curious to know how many players would actually leave as a result of increased impact of NA skirmishes. To the best of my knowledge, most guilds ignore it for the most part.

There has been feedback to the effect that players who play during non US peak times would be extremely unhappy and would leave the game. This feedback was in response to the leaked document a while back with proposed new scoring changes including making points during prime time worth more.

As someone who plays in EU timezone I can call bs to that. most eu players I know prefer balance in eu timezone itself. The value of the points maters little. So having points have more impact in na timezone for na makes more sense since only 3 or 4 NA servers have enough non na population to mater. Same on EU servers. EU timezone should have more impact.

I think an adjustment like making NA points worth more for NA servers, would make mags #1 server and drop servers like DB and JQ down far.

And i have a feeling the forums will go rampant with BG posts (on top of JQ and DB posts) if that happened. That’s my opinion, so it’s likely very difficult for them to make that kinda change … any change will have a big cause and impact. I think anet is more worried about making a change that could hurt large player bases… so they in turn … let it be (or perhaps they just don’t have sufficient data to support making a change like that… yet).

Skirmish point system has eliminated the opportunity servers with coverage gaps had to catch up during times when they have the numbers.

Anet decides who has consistent coverage by choosing the server pairings. (I’m assuming coverage and overall server population have something to do with the pairing choices and that it’s not just a random roll.) This is a factor that is out of the control of any given server, which can be demotivating.

There is often a good half hour out of every two hours played where whatever you do is worth nothing to the outcome of the current skirmish due to the given point spread.

At least with the old system we knew, even if the gap appeared kind of large, we had a chance to do some game changing, which was motivation to rally the troops. Now that’s gone.

Skirmish system at this time rewards consistent quantity of players vs. quality of play.

I do appreciate you guys trying to tweak the ranking system because the old glicko system was not suitable, but at this time I’m not a fan of this skirmish system in it’s current state.