Guild Wars 2

Grim West.3194:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

Your polls are ruining this game. 1 up 1 down is a terrible idea. Yet, it will get voted in because of the general population not liking what we currently. have. Just like we voted for linking and that was a terrible decision. You are the game designer.

Glicko is garbage. Too easy to game by people like you and your crew. Glicko was never designed to deal with the fickle easy mode transfer crowd and their short sighted mangy cousins (who tank matches on purpose to open up servers that are already overstacked).

1up 1down isn’t going to be much of an improvement, but it will be better than what we have now. It might even put a damper on the transfer addicts, etc. It’s a temporary fix though, ANET will have to do better. People will eventually game the new system also.

Unfortunately, until the ability to overstack servers on a whim is eliminated, balance in WvW will continue to be a sad joke. ANET has to create a system that promotes some semblance of balance and stability to get people to care about WvW again. But that is so far from anything they have built so far, that it just doesn’t seem possible for them anymore.

A simple solution would be to not allow players to transfer more than 1 or 2 times a year (even that might be too much). And to never allow transfers to the two highest pop servers, whether they are “full” or not.

Theres no reason to insult people. You don’t even understand why we moved. My explanation details how 1 up and 1 down can be utilized to manipulate even greater than the Glicko system in its current form.

It wasn’t intended as an insult. It is the results of the game being manipulated by players like you that I have a problem with. The long term consequences have been disastrous.

ANET deserves just as much blame. For they encouraged you at every step.

Grim West.3194:

It wasn’t intended as an insult. It is the results of the game being manipulated by players like you that I have a problem with. The long term consequences have been disastrous.

ANET deserves just as much blame. For they encouraged you at every step.

What is your definition of Manipulation and what are you accusing me of?

My initial post lines out the problems.

The fix is to limit player transfers to 1 or 2 times a year at most. With everyone’s possible transfer dates staggered across the calendar to eliminate mass transfer waves.

And close all transfers to servers with a history of “hibernating” which allows them to game the population model to allow overstacking.

Grim West.3194:

My initial post lines out the problems.

The fix is to limit player transfers to 1 or 2 times a year at most. With everyone’s possible transfer dates staggered across the calendar to eliminate mass transfer waves.

And close all transfers to servers with a history of “hibernating” which allows them to game the population model to allow overstacking.

I’ve only moved once or twice a year. How will that fix anything. If anything that will cause more attrition because the state of servers and cultures change too drastically.

That wasn’t always the case. And just because you have settled down, it hasn’t stopped the masses that move on a whim.

In PvP games the players (especially American players) will gravitate to the winning side to get to easy mode. That has to be discouraged and penalized or the PvP becomes a lopsided joke. Which leads to people giving up and leaving the game. Sound familiar?

There are a number of ways fix the issue. How would you do it?

Grim West.3194:

That wasn’t always the case. And just because you have settled down, it hasn’t stopped the masses that move on a whim.

In PvP games the players (especially American players) will gravitate to the winning side to get to easy mode. That has to be discouraged and penalized or the PvP becomes a lopsided joke. Which leads to people giving up and leaving the game. Sound familiar?

There are a number of ways fix the issue. How would you do it?

Listen, I don’t care about the other people. But you accused me of something and I’m asking for clarification. Most people haven’t moved more than twice in a year. This Live Beta is different as it forces people to move. If you read my walls of text i gave plenty of solutions. The entire system needs to be changed and the Tier structure needs to be done away with. The glicko system doesnt work with the Tier structure we have. The issue in my opinion is the Tier structure and server structure. Not the glicko system. Thus, If Arena Net removed the glicko system in place of 1 up and 1 down. We would experience the same issues except there would be more manipulation. It would be easier to do. Easy to tank. Easy to double Team. Easy to kick someone out the tier.

I don’t have a problem with double teaming. Part of the game design. And I agree that 1up 1down is not the best solution. But for now Glicko has to go. 1up 1down is better than Glicko and will help eliminate a number of artificial problems. They can work on a better system after that.

But if they don’t fix the issues that allowed players to overstack servers and destroy any chance at balance then none of it will matter.

Grim West.3194:

I don’t have a problem with double teaming. Part of the game design. And I agree that 1up 1down is not the best solution. But for now Glicko has to go. 1up 1down is better than Glicko and will help eliminate a number of artificial problems. They can work on a better system after that.

But if they don’t fix the issues that allowed players to overstack servers and destroy any chance at balance then none of it will matter.

What artificial problems will it eliminate? The only one I can see is a stagnant tier. But what this would do it basically make every other week a challenge for servers. The week its not a challenge it would simply be boring. You see there are two things you’re talking about.

1 is proper scoring.
2 is population.

One-up-one-down will increase burn-out. Players will feel pressured to “push” every week in order to maintain rank and that’s not good for an “always-on” game mode. No other part of this game generates that kind of stress; not even competitive sPvP since matches are only 15m long and players can take long breaks between them. That is why the WvW tournaments saw a permanent drop in population after each one. One-up-one-down will replicate that.

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made the balance issue almost unfixable.

Grim West.3194:

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made it almost unfixable.

Yaks bend Glicko hell, wasnt much of a glicko hell as the community made it out to be. However, the results of that are strictly due to the Live Beta and relink every 2 months. On top of not resting the volatility.

so Glicko hell I suppose is when a very populated server gets stuck by glicko rating in a lower tier in which they crush all opposition and shouldn’t be in that tier. In-fact, if Arena Net used 1 up 1 down. There would always be someone who crushes all opposition in these tiers and as Chaba pointed out above me the attrition rate would skyrocket worst than the Glicko system. Thus the Glicko system is better than 1 up 1 down even in it’s current broken state.

Glicko is far too slow to adjust at four-weeks, but I believe that is more due to the way the data is being fed to glicko and how the algorithms are being used. There are discussions from three years ago saying the same thing. A two-week adjustment period would seem more appropriate for an “always-on” game mode as it allows more room for players’ personal schedules.

Please review this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/The-math-behind-WvW-ratings/first

Some samples all still valid today:

The system and formula works well, but with free transfers in play, servers can change quickly and no longer be as strong as their rating indicates. HoD is the prime example. When the Titan Alliance fell apart, it took time for HoD to fall out of Tier 1. A possible solution is to take a page from the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. After the ratings are determined, baseline them by making the gap between each place 10 points (for example). This would make it easier for the places and match ups to change from week to week.

Any system that doesn’t also take Participation Population into sampling VS. these Results, … just seems half baked to me.

That’s also intresting… capturing points is less rewarding when you already have 90% of the points than when have 0% of the points. Basically, it rewards the big losers more heavily than the big winners for doing something.

This curve currently over rewards lower performing servers and under rewards higher performing servers.

A good model will need to be able to take into account drastic increase/decrease in server WvW strength and adjust accordingly, instead of allowing the server to raise/fall tier by tier, causing uneven match ups.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Grim West.3194:

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made it almost unfixable.

Yaks bend Glicko hell, wasnt much of a glicko hell as the community made it out to be. However, the results of that are strictly due to the Live Beta and relink every 2 months. On top of not resting the volatility.

so Glicko hell I suppose is when a very populated server gets stuck by glicko rating in a lower tier in which they crush all opposition and shouldn’t be in that tier. In-fact, if Arena Net used 1 up 1 down. There would always be someone who crushes all opposition in these tiers and as Chaba pointed out above me the attrition rate would skyrocket worst than the Glicko system. Thus the Glicko system is better than 1 up 1 down even in it’s current broken state.

I don’t think you really believe that. YB would still be in the wrong tier if they hadn’t been adjusted. Talk about a boring mismatch.

And the reason there are mismatches is because of the population balance issue. If that isn’t fixed then there will always be mismatches in every tier. Or you can lock the tiers and be bored of the same faces forever.

The only fix for mismatches and scoring issues is population balance. Without it then WvW will continue to die.

Here’s a good one: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/The-math-behind-WvW-ratings/first#post890370

“However, the wAPercent function serves to centralize values around 0.5. While the wAGlickoScore transformation does help mitigate this around edge values in [0,1], it is linear in neighborhoods of 0.5. This seems to split matches into two possible directions of motion:

1) A blowout where one server wins heavily and causes all three servers to be adjusted strongly due to being at the “edge” of the wAGlickoScore transform (see HoD and ET)

2) A convergence as all servers have fairly close to the same score and are normalized near the 0.5 mean value.

Ultimately, this seems to result in a stratification between tiers; within-bracket matchups converge to the median glicko rating (unless there is a blowout) while between-bracket scores diverge. This seems unhealthy for overall matchups as people seem to prefer playing different opponents (even if the matches will be more uneven) rather than the same matchups over and over."

Grim West.3194:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Grim West.3194:

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made it almost unfixable.

Yaks bend Glicko hell, wasnt much of a glicko hell as the community made it out to be. However, the results of that are strictly due to the Live Beta and relink every 2 months. On top of not resting the volatility.

so Glicko hell I suppose is when a very populated server gets stuck by glicko rating in a lower tier in which they crush all opposition and shouldn’t be in that tier. In-fact, if Arena Net used 1 up 1 down. There would always be someone who crushes all opposition in these tiers and as Chaba pointed out above me the attrition rate would skyrocket worst than the Glicko system. Thus the Glicko system is better than 1 up 1 down even in it’s current broken state.

I don’t think you really believe that. YB would still be in the wrong tier if they hadn’t been adjusted. Talk about a boring mismatch.

And the reason there are mismatches is because of the population balance issue. If that isn’t fixed then there will always be mismatches in every tier. Or you can lock the tiers and be bored of the same faces forever.

The only fix for mismatches and scoring issues is population balance. Without it then WvW will continue to die.

I believe that Arena Net should have reset the volatility instead of fixing YB. So you agree the main issue is population imbalance. Then you’d agree locking server transfers to once a year would be a terrible idea since we are already imbalanced.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

1 month linking won’t be good for anything but Gem Sales… It’s not enough time for servers to work together and linking was never going to be anything more than a band aid for a head wound. What it’s done is promote band wagon mentalities that are a big reason WvW is losing it’s appeal for a lot of us.

Glicko doesn’t work. 1- up, 1 – down might be worth a try to stabilize things. I see conversations all the time about people trying to manipulate Glicko, just to cut off their nose to spite their face. There needs to be a good incentive to stabilize a server, work together and build something, for WvW to work now. At this point, the system makes it more attractive to just server hop to a paired server, have all the numbers, none of the skill and win anyway :\

P.S. JQ isn’t “Full”. Knock that off :P

Just as long as they listen to the big guilds and T1 pug commanders…..that’s what is important in wvw and it seemed to have wonderful results.

Yes, sarcastic

RodOfDeath.5247:

Just as long as they listen to the big guilds and T1 pug commanders…..that’s what is important in wvw and it seemed to have wonderful results.

Yes, sarcastic

Good thing I’m a T2 commander.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

RodOfDeath.5247:

Just as long as they listen to the big guilds and T1 pug commanders…..that’s what is important in wvw and it seemed to have wonderful results.

Yes, sarcastic

Good thing I’m a T2 commander.

You sir are on my good side

veo.9243:

why not get rid of the “flat” ranking and adopt a “tree” ranking? you know, like on sports tournaments but on a permanent basis…

say team is one world or linked world, linking will be automatic at the end of every week

• three teams will be matched up on tier1
• six team will be matched up on 2 matches on tier 2 (going on like that will need 12 more teams on t3, so let’s just stop at 2 tiers)
• one up one down: team going down from t1 will be splitted (if not a single world) and relinked with the teams remaining in t2, worlds from the teams going up from t2 will be merged in one team to face the remaining t1
• enjoy the next week

…dunno, maybe it’s my brain farting :p

edit: small clarification

Which Server would you pick to play on & why?

If your Server choice is in the Top Tier or Rank…don’t bother answering the following question.

Would a Majority of WvW players also share the same choice & reason?

Don’t think having a Tree to determine the Match-Ups will really help.

Everybody will naturally want to be on a Top Ranked Server (Powerhouse) & the Bottom Ranked Servers will sadly be abandoned.

It’s like playing Cops & Robbers…and if Robbers are cool…nobody wants to be a Cop.

EDIT – Posted thread merged

Not bashing you veo.9243…it’s pretty noble that you’re trying to suggest a solution & I totally respect & encourage it.

Just pointing out to myself…that it can also be said

If it’s easier to steal a win over having to earn it…why bother being a cop

Flash Mobs Robbing Stores
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wepmrX9n1uw

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Yes, It’s the system Arena Net hinted about for months. They fully designed most of the mechanics then they told their Sponsors. These are people who Arena Net chooses for their program. It’s mostly streamers and shoutcasters. When Arena Net tells these folk these secretive plans, 9 times out of 10 they are leaked to reddit.

So from my sources, the sponsors were worried about the destruction of server communities if and when they chose to overhaul the system. Arena Net didn’t cancel it for their opinion. They canceled their plans, when they decided to poll the community to see if we wanted to keep server links. The community voted “yes”, for keeping server links in, But then Arena Net said right afterwards, that since Server links are now in, they would be scrapping the overhaul for server links.

So because we voted on server links, it scrapped their original idea without us even hearing it for what it could be. We replaced a well rounded near perfect system for Server links and no one even knows besides the select few.

Your perception seems to be 100% accurate. I will explain why.
remember when I moved to TC and everyone kept screaming I had insider information? Well, the only insider information that fueled my move was the leaks given by reddit. However, right around the time we were preparing to move Arena Net invites guilds to what they call an alpha test. In this they took direct feedback from the guilds involved. then they produced the results live for feed back. Then while in the alpha test, which was nothing but a forum, they started the live beta in which they got the dumbest idea to start polling the community. When they decided on this idea, they closed down the alpha test because they said they’re just going to poll the entire community now.

During this alpha, I noticed they switch WvW directors with this poll and with the “Yes” vote we canceled out anything that was planned for before hand and left it up to the global GW2 community to vote on what they decide.

It’s very clear to me that Arena Net doesn’t understand the community, the reasons we transfer, the reasons we play where we play and how this live beta effects us all. I really wish they stop with these polls. It’s really killing the game and we aren’t even given enough information on what we are voting on or the stipulations it will bring us.

The idea of a “Live” Beta is disastrous as it is. Because whatever happens will have a permanent effect on us all just like it is.

Wow, if it’s true, just wow.

I mean I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that anet decided to scrap a fully designed plan and go the easy route. They’ve already admitted they’ve wasted time creating upgrades that never made it into the game in the past, that’s why Colin came out and said after the expansion they’re focused now on just building on what they have in place and not creating more new mechanics.

I’m sure if they had even presented the plans for alliances things would be different today. I always figured that was just a rumor and that they wouldn’t have put that much effort into fixing wvw.

Listening to a couple streamers and shoutcasters on the fate of wvw? Typical anet, that whole new game experience which was not needed that earlier in the game life was from opinions of some closed door “testers”, which led to the trait system revamp 2.0 that was a disaster. Little good it did since both alliance and linking systems destroy communities anyways, one is instant and the other is a slow burn on low tier servers.

Wvw is never going to get the treatment it needs, who knows by now the turnover they’ve had on the wvw team over the years. It already sounds like they trimmed down the department yet again with Tyler shipped off to living story, after the supposed reorganization when Mike fully took over in the spring.

If they really did scrap a major overhaul, at a time they really needed plans to stabilize wvw (right after the clusterkitten the expansion created for wvw), I believe there’s really no hope for the future of wvw now. A once beautiful combat game, dying each and every passing day.

Grim West.3194:

The only fix for mismatches and scoring issues is population balance. Without it then WvW will continue to die.

Population balance is an illusion. ANet can’t force people to play.

Even limiting transfers won’t help much because many players have multiple accounts on different servers.

The only reasonable solution is to balance the game for interesting gameplay (though not necessarily even scores) despite population imbalance rather than trying to impose population balance.

Xenesis.6389:

Wow, if it’s true, just wow.

I mean I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that anet decided to scrap a fully designed plan and go the easy route. They’ve already admitted they’ve wasted time creating upgrades that never made it into the game in the past, that’s why Colin came out and said after the expansion they’re focused now on just building on what they have in place and not creating more new mechanics.

I’m sure if they had even presented the plans for alliances things would be different today. I always figured that was just a rumor and that they wouldn’t have put that much effort into fixing wvw.

Listening to a couple streamers and shoutcasters on the fate of wvw? Typical anet, that whole new game experience which was not needed that earlier in the game life was from opinions of some closed door “testers”, which led to the trait system revamp 2.0 that was a disaster.

Wvw is never going to get the treatment it needs, who knows by now the turnover they’ve had on the wvw team over the years. It already sounds like they trimmed down the department yet again with Tyler shipped off to living story, after the supposed reorganization when Mike fully took over in the spring.

If they really did scrap a major overhaul, at a time they really needed plans to stabilize wvw (right after the clusterkitten the expansion created for wvw), I believe there’s really no hope for the future of wvw now. Beautiful combat game dying each and every passing day.

“We had/have another, much more elaborate, solution to world population imbalance. However, we decided to table it (perhaps indefinitely) in favor of World Linking for three primary reasons:
1. Time – We felt we needed to improve the world population situation as soon as possible. Any solution that was likely to take 6+ months was off the table.
2. Acceptance – Our two ‘quick’ solutions were World Linking and World Merging. We went with World Linking because we felt players would be more likely to approve it, due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.
3. Complexity – World Linking and World Merging are both fairly easy to understand solutions. This ties back to points 1 and two, but a complex solution would have taken longer to implement, and have been harder to get players to understand and accept.”

- Tyler

Here is the proof you need. It really sucks ArenaNet took the easy way out and delivered a poll they knew we’d vote yes on because it’s easier to do.

EDIT: Here is the link https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Additional-World-Linking-Information/first#post6172091

The main problem with alliances is that a WvW player hears alliances they think EotM, and the fact that many players have already had a bad experience, or some like myself two bad experiences, with player lead alliances.

Well they tabled it, much like the legendary weapons, which are now back in production. If the complex plan was going to take more than 6 months to work out, then they should have just implemented the link system which was easier to accept and quicker to implement, then moved on to finish the overhaul.

Acceptance of that overhaul was of course going to be a problem at that time, which I think at this point because of links many more are seeing that type of solution is probably the only thing left to help revive wvw at this point. A lot of the lower tier communities have already lost a lot of players, wvw has lost a lot of players altogether, but server identity and pride is pretty much gone for many.

I always figured links were going to be a temporary solution. I just have no fate in anet willing or bothering to finish the overhaul, since they seem to like pulling people off the wvw team. Either way the overhaul was going to be needed, unless they really expected links to be the best solution to solve wvw problems for the future, I hope the last 5 months has shown them it isn’t.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

You need to stop doing polls.

1) It’s not really feedback when the options are just ‘more of the same’ or ‘something new’ as in “should things stay the same? or should we add world-linking?” Of course people are always going to vote for something to change rather than continue another year of the same stuff.

2) These polls only offer the illusion of feedback. In many cases they are yes/no votes and they only serve to make the players feel good (yeah, they listened!) and to make you, the game designers, feel good (well the community voted for this, so…)

You need to stop the world-linking. You either need to actually merge servers and permanently reduce the overall number of worlds because the game can no longer support what it supported years ago. Or, you need to abandon the world system entirely and come up with something new in order to force the player population to more evenly disperse itself. (Example: creating entirely new worlds and forcing everyone to pick one while controlling population caps)

You were working on this last year with the alliance system experimenting/testing. Was that system entirely abandoned in favor of the current band-aids or are you still considering the alliance system as an option?

Messing around with glicko or +1 -1 is NOT what will help out WvW. At this point what players want is match stability for activity and fights, not constantly changing matchups that are lively and active one week followed by dead and boring the next. And most players want a stable community aspect to WvW. This doesn’t necessarily mean “server pride” or that players need to be permanently affixed to one world/team/server, but it does mean that there needs to be a stable community component and messing with re-linking once a month would be a disaster for this even more than it already is.

Swamurabi.7890:

The main problem with alliances is that a WvW player hears alliances they think EotM, and the fact that many players have already had a bad experience, or some like myself two bad experiences, with player lead alliances.

I’m a WvW player. But I have no clue what you refer to when you say alliances in EotM. To be fair ArenaNet didn’t call them alliances. They called it Battlegroups.

Xenesis.6389:

Well they tabled it, much like the legendary weapons, which are now back in production. If the complex plan was going to take more than 6 months to work out, then they should have just implemented the link system which was easier to accept and quicker to implement, then moved on to finish the overhaul.

Acceptance of that overhaul was of course going to be a problem at that time, which I think at this point because of links many more are seeing that type of solution is probably the only thing left to help revive wvw at this point. A lot of the lower tier communities have already lost a lot of players, wvw has lost a lot of players altogether, but server identity and pride is pretty much gone for many.

I always figured links were going to be a temporary solution. I just have no fate in anet willing or bothering to finish the overhaul, since they seem to like pulling people off the wvw team. Either way the overhaul was going to be needed, unless they really expected links to be the best solution to solve wvw problems for the future, I hope the last 5 months has shown them it isn’t.

I agree, that’s why I personally voted in favor of the links, because I thought this was a temporary thing that’s going to lead into the overhaul. But then ArenaNet released that statement and I nearly lost my kitten. I didn’t want the link system to replace the battlegroups… As a matter of fact the entire thing felt dirty to me… how they made this loaded poll with secretive plans to ice something else they didn’t even talk publicly about or give a try. Or even take proper community feedback. Instead once again the easy route was taken and WvW gets the shaft.

The funny part about this message is Tyler saying they didn’t want to do something that would take 6 months to produce… Yet, this Live Beta has been a disaster and is going on 6 months.

More funny? is the line about complexity considering the majority of WvW players can’t even understand the Glicko system as it is. But hey lets dumb down our complex game to 1 up 1 down.

More funny? They were worried about server identity… So they went with server links lol. Server links has the same effect.

Endelon.1042:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

You need to stop doing polls.

1) It’s not really feedback when the options are just ‘more of the same’ or ‘something new’ as in “should things stay the same? or should we add world-linking?” Of course people are always going to vote for something to change rather than continue another year of the same stuff.

2) These polls only offer the illusion of feedback. In many cases they are yes/no votes and they only serve to make the players feel good (yeah, they listened!) and to make you, the game designers, feel good (well the community voted for this, so…)

You need to stop the world-linking. You either need to actually merge servers and permanently reduce the overall number of worlds because the game can no longer support what it supported years ago. Or, you need to abandon the world system entirely and come up with something new in order to force the player population to more evenly disperse itself. (Example: creating entirely new worlds and forcing everyone to pick one while controlling population caps)

You were working on this last year with the alliance system experimenting/testing. Was that system entirely abandoned in favor of the current band-aids or are you still considering the alliance system as an option?

Messing around with glicko or +1 -1 is NOT what will help out WvW. At this point what players want is match stability for activity and fights, not constantly changing matchups that are lively and active one week followed by dead and boring the next. And most players want a stable community aspect to WvW. This doesn’t necessarily mean “server pride” or that players need to be permanently affixed to one world/team/server, but it does mean that there needs to be a stable community component and messing with re-linking once a month would be a disaster for this even more than it already is.

PREACH!!!! LAWD!!!

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Endelon.1042:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

You need to stop doing polls.

1) It’s not really feedback when the options are just ‘more of the same’ or ‘something new’ as in “should things stay the same? or should we add world-linking?” Of course people are always going to vote for something to change rather than continue another year of the same stuff.

2) These polls only offer the illusion of feedback. In many cases they are yes/no votes and they only serve to make the players feel good (yeah, they listened!) and to make you, the game designers, feel good (well the community voted for this, so…)

You need to stop the world-linking. You either need to actually merge servers and permanently reduce the overall number of worlds because the game can no longer support what it supported years ago. Or, you need to abandon the world system entirely and come up with something new in order to force the player population to more evenly disperse itself. (Example: creating entirely new worlds and forcing everyone to pick one while controlling population caps)

You were working on this last year with the alliance system experimenting/testing. Was that system entirely abandoned in favor of the current band-aids or are you still considering the alliance system as an option?

Messing around with glicko or +1 -1 is NOT what will help out WvW. At this point what players want is match stability for activity and fights, not constantly changing matchups that are lively and active one week followed by dead and boring the next. And most players want a stable community aspect to WvW. This doesn’t necessarily mean “server pride” or that players need to be permanently affixed to one world/team/server, but it does mean that there needs to be a stable community component and messing with re-linking once a month would be a disaster for this even more than it already is.

PREACH!!!! LAWD!!!

That dude just RKO’d anet lol

Delete glicko, it doesn’t work for multiple team competition. Too many variables for even it to track.

Instead go back to something so simple it should be obvious. A weekly point system that is reset month. 3 for first, 2 for second, 1 for third. at the end of the month servers are re-aligned and points are reset.

Then lock transfers out for people within the same tier. IE no transferring between T1 servers. Allow only transfers down, never up.

I have always been opposed to the 1-up-1-down system because it can be too easily manipulated by transfers.

I suggest some kind of locking mechanism, but it means that at some point players will be frantically transferring, causing all manner of population problems and thus scoring issues.

Linking has made the ladder system a problem. How can you say that one pair of servers is going to be better than another or evenly matched with them? The new system is said to promote good matches, but it doesn’t and it can’t. Glick0 is and has always been a poor matchmaking system (and there’s no way to predict common wholesale transfers). It would therefore be better to try to make all the links competitive with one another (but the McKenna has stated issues with languages on EU servers).

Having slated Glick0, I have to say that the three factors I see in the balance equation don’t include it;

• Transfers,
• Linking,
• Ladder.

Even with Glick0 gone, I believe that having all three of the above is problematic.

TexZero.7910:

Then lock transfers out for people within the same tier. IE no transferring between T1 servers. Allow only transfers down, never up.

So what happens to a dying server in last place at the bottom tier? You go down with the ship?

Hexinx.1872:

TexZero.7910:

Then lock transfers out for people within the same tier. IE no transferring between T1 servers. Allow only transfers down, never up.

So what happens to a dying server in last place at the bottom tier? You go down with the ship?

What happens is exactly what happened before season 3 when a few servers were free to transfer to, everyone bandwagonned to the highest free server (HoD). Everyone in T1 will transfer down to the top of T2, T2 will transfer down to the top of T3…….

If your server is last in tier and losing players, transfer to the top of the next tier before you lose too much glicko and you will be back in the same tier as you were before. This still won’t balance anything.

SloRules.3560:

Malediktus.3740:

Server merges instead of linkings are the solution.
Server communities can never establish if people get rotated in and out every 1 or 2 months.

This might be the best solution in the end. Like i said in post above, there is a lot of community rotation going on, i can’t even track guilds on my server+linking server.

I have a question for you, how do you control the bandwagon when everything is merged? If you can’t control the bandwagon, wouldn’t everything return to pre-hot eventually? Does that make sense to you?

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Deli.1302:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Instead of having Server loyalty, have loyalty for your alliance or Globe and the community you play with.

What is the difference between a server of guilds/players and an alliance of guilds/players other than the obvious exclusion/elitism that would be encouraged by players being able to pick their own teammates?

The difference is that you can not control your server, or it’s overall cap. An alliance would have a limit much like a guild. This limit of players/guilds would be defined and well known. Based off the limit and the mechanics, the community can pick their own team mates and be matched against another competitive teams and players. The sense of Loyalty to ones community would greatly increase, The structure of our communities would become independent of the server or globe we are on. Having loyalty for your community overall, is better and more optimal than loyalty for a server in which you have little control over. Organizing a community that wants to be organized is better than organizing a community like a server with varying degrees of opinions and goals. How do you organize which that doesn’t want to be organized.

Overall, having globes or alliances, would help things like culture shock and mass transfers. It would provide the tools necessary for the communities to depict overall balance better and actually equate it to a number. It would give birth to more strategy and tactics and allow for guilds and communities to not be separated by the constant shift in server powers and locks determined by an equation no one knows about beyond the devs.

Guild Wars 2 is unique in a way. This game’s population greatly determines how well you do. Our population effects if we win or not. Yet if we lose, or drop out of tier it literally kills servers. It kills communities. There are so many things that can kill a server community and so many things out of our control, yet Arena Net wants us to balance ourselves.. But with what tools?

I can see it already. Grand Cross 2.0 and Titan Alliance 2.0. I’m sure people enjoyed fighting them back then. I remember when opposing alliances would be formed (AA, Bloody Flag Alliance) and would fail then half those guilds will just join the winning alliance, bloating it up further. You talk about a hypothetical alliance system having a cap, that will just encourage kicking. The alliance will just kick the guilds they think are the weakest links. What will happen to those guilds? My guess is they’ll quit the game, speeding up WvW’s decline.

WvW is designed as a sandbox environment for people to play however they want. Servers allow that. I allows those who want to organize to organize. It allows those who want to ppt to ppt. It allows those who want to blob to blob. It allows those who want to roam to roam. It allows those who want to have no interaction with their server to do so. It gives people the freedom to discriminate (which I suspect is the real reason why people want alliances) and it gives people the freedom to play in the face of discrimination. If you want to control who you play with, you already can. If you want to form a de facto alliance, you already can.

Reminds me some of the pvp oriented MMO I have played, they have alliance and I so happen that I usually part of those leading alliance or part of the alliance that is greatest threat to the leading alliance. I can tell you that at the end of the day, people will bandwagon to the leading alliance and destroy the whole game, a lot of those pvp oriented game die that way.

Question still remains, how are people gonna deter others from bandwagon to maintain a healthy game mode and not revert to the pre-hot status? As long this isn’t resolved, it doesn’t matter how good the idea sounds on paper, it is worthless in practice.

Deli.1302:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Deli.1302:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Instead of having Server loyalty, have loyalty for your alliance or Globe and the community you play with.

What is the difference between a server of guilds/players and an alliance of guilds/players other than the obvious exclusion/elitism that would be encouraged by players being able to pick their own teammates?

The difference is that you can not control your server, or it’s overall cap. An alliance would have a limit much like a guild. This limit of players/guilds would be defined and well known. Based off the limit and the mechanics, the community can pick their own team mates and be matched against another competitive teams and players. The sense of Loyalty to ones community would greatly increase, The structure of our communities would become independent of the server or globe we are on. Having loyalty for your community overall, is better and more optimal than loyalty for a server in which you have little control over. Organizing a community that wants to be organized is better than organizing a community like a server with varying degrees of opinions and goals. How do you organize which that doesn’t want to be organized.

Overall, having globes or alliances, would help things like culture shock and mass transfers. It would provide the tools necessary for the communities to depict overall balance better and actually equate it to a number. It would give birth to more strategy and tactics and allow for guilds and communities to not be separated by the constant shift in server powers and locks determined by an equation no one knows about beyond the devs.

Guild Wars 2 is unique in a way. This game’s population greatly determines how well you do. Our population effects if we win or not. Yet if we lose, or drop out of tier it literally kills servers. It kills communities. There are so many things that can kill a server community and so many things out of our control, yet Arena Net wants us to balance ourselves.. But with what tools?

I can see it already. Grand Cross 2.0 and Titan Alliance 2.0. I’m sure people enjoyed fighting them back then. I remember when opposing alliances would be formed (AA, Bloody Flag Alliance) and would fail then half those guilds will just join the winning alliance, bloating it up further. You talk about a hypothetical alliance system having a cap, that will just encourage kicking. The alliance will just kick the guilds they think are the weakest links. What will happen to those guilds? My guess is they’ll quit the game, speeding up WvW’s decline.

WvW is designed as a sandbox environment for people to play however they want. Servers allow that. I allows those who want to organize to organize. It allows those who want to ppt to ppt. It allows those who want to blob to blob. It allows those who want to roam to roam. It allows those who want to have no interaction with their server to do so. It gives people the freedom to discriminate (which I suspect is the real reason why people want alliances) and it gives people the freedom to play in the face of discrimination. If you want to control who you play with, you already can. If you want to form a de facto alliance, you already can.

You made some awesome points. The system ArenaNet designed however isnt only about alliances. You can have a guild outside of a alliance still playing for a battlegroup. Just like you can have individuals outside guilds. sadly, I don’t think I’m allowed to share full details of the leak on this forum and I don’t want to misquote what they had designed.

I see all your points though for sure. But the same can be said about guilds as it is.

SkyShroud.2865:

Question still remains, how are people gonna deter others from bandwagon to maintain a healthy game mode

Professional sports leagues use a draft system.

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Question still remains, how are people gonna deter others from bandwagon to maintain a healthy game mode

Professional sports leagues use a draft system.

I’ve bold the key word.

Make WVW EOTM style,,,,, 4/6 color battle , or penalize a stacking blob server, give them a skill lag DC ,maybe this will stop the server stacking problem.

swellercross.3974:

Make WVW EOTM style,,,,, 4/6 color battle , or penalize a stacking blob server, give them a skill lag DC ,maybe this will stop the server stacking problem.

Yeah, that will happen. We just need to stretch the objectives a bit farther and make the maps bigger and then we’ll have EotM II. At some point we can also substitute players with npcs and everything will be fine in PvE ktrain lalaland.

There is no point linking servers to balance them when people can pay 500gems to join the “winning” t1 server.

the point of server linking was to create balance fights but it has done the complete opposite in the EU servers. People dont like fighting 10:1 I dont care how good you are it is not fun to play like this 24/7 and this creates a snowball effect causing more people to stop playing and thus creating a bigger imbalance.

I dont see the point of linking server A that has a pop of 250 players to server B that has a pop of 50 players to fight server C that has a pop of 300 players but you leave the gem transfer of server B at 500gems and server C at 1800gems meaning everyone bandwagons to server B giving it a pop of 500 players which totally undoes the balancing before the fight even starts.

I’d actually prefer a slightly different linking system where you have the standard servers, but padded out with alliances instead of other servers.

I don’t particularly care which server I’m playing on anymore, there’s just a group of about 30-40 regulars I’d prefer to be linked with. In some regards it’d be great to switch to a small linked server for that, except for the tendency to be linked to the same tier every time.

But that wouldn’t solve anything for the regular servers so it’s not worth the effort at this stage.

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Question still remains, how are people gonna deter others from bandwagon to maintain a healthy game mode

Professional sports leagues use a draft system.

I’ve bold the key word.

What’s the point we’re supposed to take-away from your emboldening? WvW is not a pro league, but how does that matter? It is widely recognized that WvW players have differing levels of skill. Not all professional sports players are of the same skill level either. Professional leagues use several mechanisms to prevent teams with deep pockets from stacking the team. WvW has no such mechanisms when perhaps it should as a deterrant to maintain a healthy game mode.

I find it hilarious that people still ask for alliances when it already proved what so many said before all this crap started, if you remove servers it will all end up like now but even worse. Players bandwagon the servers that are winning. They move to servers that are winning. They pile it up to a point were it becomes monster server, they win, and after a while it all falls a part because bandwagon never worked in the long run. So now they move to next server and band wagon that and so on.

So for some reason there are still players out here thinking Hey lets call it alliances instead THAT will so work, wait not i wont because then players will move to the best alliance (like it have happen in ALL other games out there already that have something remotely close to wvw). Call it linking, alliances, factions, fluffy pink unicorns or what ever, players will bandwagon the top and in the end players who don’t do this get tired of getting beaten up and either join the bandwagon or leave the game mode.

Servers have always been the reason to why wvw worked better then other game that choose linking, alliance, factions or fluffy pink unicorns. Reason is because servers have their own way and their own identity. With linkings they manage to remove a lot of this, and moving it further will end up like every other game out there were players just move to the group that wins the most.

Well, if Anet isn’t going to give us battlegroups/alliances, what do you feel is the best solution to fix this giant mess? It really does feel hopelessly messy, and I’m not convinced we’ll ever be at a point where glicko OR anet can keep up with the constant changes. So, if 1u1d isn’t the solution, and we can’t rely on something they scrapped or shelved for now… what do? I mean, do we even think that more frequent linking will benefit anyone?

Maybe if they aren’t going to give us something like alliances…. we need to do it ourselves (as best we can)? Would take some doing, but it’s not totally impossible.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

I don’t think I’m allowed to share full details of the leak on this forum

Am I the only one that’s having a problem with this? Someone should have been fired for giving you inside information. WTF?

zhonnika.1784:

Well, if Anet isn’t going to give us battlegroups/alliances, what do you feel is the best solution to fix this giant mess? It really does feel hopelessly messy, and I’m not convinced we’ll ever be at a point where glicko OR anet can keep up with the constant changes. So, if 1u1d isn’t the solution, and we can’t rely on something they scrapped or shelved for now… what do? I mean, do we even think that more frequent linking will benefit anyone?

Maybe if they aren’t going to give us something like alliances…. we need to do it ourselves (as best we can)? Would take some doing, but it’s not totally impossible.

I think Arenanet has to give up the idea that only a single WvW server can represent the home world. They need a system were you can stack at home worlds but not on WvW servers.

If 100 people want to play Football you create 9 teams with 11 players and not one team with 100 players (11 on the field and 89 on the substitute’s bench). If the number of players change the number of teams has to follow.

Arenanet has now to find a reasonable team size for WvW (may it 600 or 1200) and split the current WvW servers in handy chunks.