Guild Wars 2

Go back to the old system. This new system isn’t fun at all. I’d rather play servers that are equal in rating than stomping lower rating servers to the point where they don’t even want to play WvW.

Seriously, go back to the old system. It was better than this. Way better.

Guess that’s how they make the PvE areas more populated, force people to tire of WvW and PvE.

I seriously question Anet’s logic behind the match-ups right now. I’m not the kind to EVER rage or rant on these forums but this is a serious wtf moment. Our match-ups were PERFECT last time (I’m on devona). Yea, we faced mainly the same people over and over, but thats because they were the only server on equal footing! Previous either we steam rolled people or we’d get steam rolled. now were back to square one. YAY! WAY TO PROGRESS ANET!Anet acts like there wasn’t already an outcry back when the game release. Why not bring back culling while your at it anet?

Stop being lazy coders, account for active WvW player populations in the match ups.

TC last week was boring and this week is looking to be boring too. I probably wont’ wvw at all because of how boring it is, until competitive matches come back again.

DevonCarver.5370:

The concept of tiers has little meaning at this point and you should try to stop thinking of matchups in those terms even though you never asked for this, didn’t want it, and our change makes no sense. Servers are matched up by random draw that puts servers against other servers they never should have faced.

Fixed that for you.

Your idea of a matchup system is just….to be frank….idiotic.

What you should have done was set it up so traversing between tiers was a much more compressed process that required real effort on a server’s part, but nowhere near the tier-breaking garbage that it required originally. No one wanted random draw, your random draw values are just wildly out of control with no logic at all, people are overall pretty unhappy with the system, and you need to seriously rethink what you’re doing here.

Seriously…at the end of this week, check the average attendance on servers facing off against higher tiers that they shouldn’t have been matched with.

1) I guarantee you it’s much lower than normal.
2) You very well may destroy the entire spirit of WvW on these servers. Turning something competitive into a useless slaughter for points is nonsensical in the extreme.

Maybe the new system will sort itself out in a couple of weeks. Maybe it won’t. I can’t speak to that since I didn’t design it (nor would I have).

There are only a couple of things you, as players, can do to show them how messed up it is. You can either quit or play as hard as you can to drive the weak servers into the ground….no mercy.

If the system isn’t broken, it won’t matter as it will self correct. If it is broken, it will show them exactly how broken it is and force them to make a change before they lose too many players.

Aethilmar.3951:

If it is broken, it will show them exactly how broken it is and force them to make a change before they lose too many players.

That assumes competence, which has been shown to be non existent.

what ever happened to the idea they had originally that puts a cap on player base by the numbers of players from each server instead of allowing one server that has 3 zergs of 50+ running around on each map completely dominating each map to claim owner ship of all WvW? I mean this had to have been seen coming there are servers that have extremely high WvW pops. and there is no way to even fight back against this even when teaming up with the other server to push them back when the combined forces are still outnumbered

Aethilmar.3951:

Maybe the new system will sort itself out in a couple of weeks.

That’s the problem with this system. It CAN’T sort itself out because it’s based on RNG.

People complained about the matchups, so ANet “randomized” them…when all people actually wanted was to be able to push up and down tiers without a combined perfect storm of a server crashing while another destroyed their current tier.

This is a stupid solution to what was a simple problem.

Arkard.3970:

Aethilmar.3951:

If it is broken, it will show them exactly how broken it is and force them to make a change before they lose too many players.

That assumes competence, which has been shown to be non existent.

If you don’t assume they can fix the stuff in the game, then you might as well quit b/c the game will die rather quickly if they can’t.

I think this is a case of hubris on their part in that they found a good fix but waaay too late but are too proud to admit it. This solution would have worked months ago, but things have changed. The populations have sorted themselves out already.

What ANet should do is run this RNG system for another two weeks, then re-implement the old system. This would allow them to see if the tier rankings have, indeed, been sorted out properly, and they could use the RNG system once every six months to level things out if they become stacked again.

This is the ONLY way the system could sort itself out.

i know it can be hard facing a server that has way more coverage than u. I’ve been on FA since start and i remember when we were facing TC in tier 3 for the first time we had a hard time and over the weeks tc had bigger numbers that were increasing. we had enough people to cover like our own bl and a little of eb and that was it.

well, we kept fighting and a lot of players didnt bother to fight anymore, because they were discouraged, but the people that didn’t give up grew stronger and improved their tactics. and i gotta say, i had the most fun during that time. we got lots of transfers later on, because other servers were impressed with the way we fought for our bl, so yeah things changed, but we still have the spirit of an underdog server(and we sometimes still are;-).

what i am trying to say is, that even if a matchup is overwhelming, because u don’t have the numbers, u shouldn’t ragequit. work on your tactics, find stuff u CAN do, siege and bunker up,[ut someone on the watergate(i used to guard that gate for hours and was able to fight off lots of golemrushes.

when facing db, we had barely coverage around sea time and their sea crew is huge and sometime we were like 8 people defending our last keep(garrison) and we managed to bunker up for hours and eventhough we lost it after 3 hours, we were proud and saw it as a good defense.

i know u wanna give up when outnumbered 5:1, but situations make u grow as a community if u stay strong. take it as a challenge and try to make the best out of it.if we are facing bg,jq or SOR…. oh well, a new challange and way to improve our fighting techniques.

selan.8354:

i know it can be hard facing a server that has way more coverage than u. I’ve been on FA since start and i remember when we were facing TC in tier 3 for the first time we had a hard time and over the weeks tc had bigger numbers that were increasing. we had enough people to cover like our own bl and a little of eb and that was it.

well, we kept fighting and a lot of players didnt bother to fight anymore, because they were discouraged, but the people that didn’t give up grew stronger and improved their tactics. and i gotta say, i had the most fun during that time. we got lots of transfers later on, because other servers were impressed with the way we fought for our bl, so yeah things changed, but we still have the spirit of an underdog server(and we sometimes still are;-).

what i am trying to say is, that even if a matchup is overwhelming, because u don’t have the numbers, u shouldn’t ragequit. work on your tactics, find stuff u CAN do, siege and bunker up,[ut someone on the watergate(i used to guard that gate for hours and was able to fight off lots of golemrushes.

when facing db, we had barely coverage around sea time and their sea crew is huge and sometime we were like 8 people defending our last keep(garrison) and we managed to bunker up for hours and eventhough we lost it after 3 hours, we were proud and saw it as a good defense.

i know u wanna give up when outnumbered 5:1, but situations make u grow as a community if u stay strong. take it as a challenge and try to make the best out of it.if we are facing bg,jq or SOR…. oh well, a new challange and way to improve our fighting techniques.

thing is SoR probably has the one of the largest if not largest WvW communities which is leading to them spawn camping with siege so no one can even get out to even make a dent at times in the day. in comparison, “Magikarp uses splash!…nothing happens. Raichu uses thunderbolt on Magikarp! It is super effective! Magikarp has fainted.”

Draygo.9473:

that’s why niim anet needs to move the goalposts from overall server points in a match to the rating system entirely.

If all that matters now in matchmaking is your server rating than servers should be playing for rating over overall points. Previously you had to win your tier over and over again to move up, now you just have to siphon points away from other servers by doing better than anticipated.

Move the goalposts anet in the UI to emphasize server rating.

Great theory, only no one cares about rating. All most servers play for is a competitive match. Sure one might argue that the servers in rank 1-3 might have played for rating, maybe even some of 4-6, but the other 18 servers not even a little bit. Do you think those players stuck with those servers because they thought they were going to push for #1? The only reason rating mattered to most people in ratings 4-24 was how it impacted your chance at a competitive and entertaining match.

The WvW system’s greatest failing in my opinion is the profound lack of anything meaningful to fight over. Population and coverage drive the ratings system, because of ANET policies, and as such the vast majority of the player base simply stopped caring about it.

This change does nothing for that. It removes a few issues with the glicko system where a server might get trapped in a tier, a situation that impacted what 2-3 servers in all of EU and NA? In return ratings are no longer a predictable way to ensure a competitive match, and thus are even more meaningless then before, and we get more variety.

Perhaps more variety is enough of a reason, but I fail to see why having a small variance in match options to start is not a better approach then the wide open miss-match that is currently occurring.

DevonCarver.5370:

This is going to result in blowouts, no doubt about it. However, we are not going to make changes

WOW
/Rage quit

I’m on TC, and I can say that I really did enjoy a few parts of the matchup with SoR right after reset…when things were still sort of uncertain, and we did have some interesting back and forth. Now SoR has dug in, and playing wvw is more frustrating than it ever has been for me. I imagine others are just as frustrated because I am seeing fewer people from our side (or maybe I just never noticed such a huge disparity in numbers before).

I feel worse for SoS, as they were already having a hard enough time staying in the game vs us and FA last week. This week they are just getting trounced…every time I’ve seen an SoS today, they’ve had an outmanned buff – even in their own borderlands, which was completely controlled by SoR. I imagine that players just got sick of it and stopped playing.

I like the concept of switching things up, but as others have mentioned, the disparity in skill is one thing, and that turns a close fight into a victory/loss that may be educational for both sides. The consistent difference in coverage makes it impossible to come back from losses well, and the main calculation from our side seems to be: can we flip this tower before the massive zerg shows up, because we’ve only got 15 people and if they get here we will definitely lose. I can only imagine for SoS it is more like “is it worth trying to flip camps, or should I just run some fractals?”

I hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining too much, I respect the decision by ANET to try this out, and I am truly impressed with the coordination that SoR is showing, and have nothing but respect for them…it just feels like major league vs minor league vs little league (please don’t take offense, SoS…I’m not referring to skill, really it’s mainly a coverage thing). It’s a real shame too, because forming an alliance with SoS might have been a great way to handle it, but they are understandably demoralized and not consistently showing up in numbers that would make a difference.

ErlendR.6107:

DevonCarver.5370:

This is going to result in blowouts, no doubt about it. However, we are not going to make changes

WOW
/Rage quit

Yeah, that’s a pretty blind point of view. “We know it’s going to suck, so get used to it.”

DevonCarver.5370:

T If you look at EU, which is using the exact same system, you can see matchups with numerous surprising results. The same will likely be true by the end of the NA matchup.

Ive looked at every single match… In no way do I mean to argue with you but the higher tier.. i mean “Ranked” is winning. The only exception is Yaks, Kain, and Crystal fighting in the T4 spot. And that is the only non blow out it looks like currently. It is only Sunday morning so give it more time and see. As for EU all the higher ranked servers are winning.

I may take a beating for saying this, but I think there may be some logic to the Anet scheme and there’s a bigger picture here that we’re not equipped to see.

I don’t think SoR, TC and SoS got stuck together because the system said they’re the best match for each other. I think it happened because, at least right now, the system doesn’t know how servers from different tiers compare to each other. At the moment its only recourse is to shrug, put on its goggles, throw the lever and attempt to extract data from the resulting carnage to make next week’s matches better. The results will be pretty spotty until each server has managed to play a variety of opponents, which means it will probably take another couple cycles before it hones in.

Some of the side effects mentioned in the Anet post also seem to be happening. I can’t say I can call the current SoR/TC/SoS matchup balanced, but the servers do use different tactics and it has caused some delicious chaos. From the SoR side, it’s been recognized that TC does some things that BG and JQ don’t do in organized fights. That’s neat because it meant some of the tactics used with BG and JQ don’t work. We’re learning new stuff and so are they. In the bigger picture it could also mean that some servers which rarely or never fight each other that are in different tiers may be able to fight a back and forth contest. If it actually happens in practice, it implies the rankings are flawed.

While I still regret that some will have to suffer still, keep in mind they suffer for Science.

@Torrad:

It’s a random roll. The system will NEVER know how to match people up…because it’s largely random. There’s no “adjustment” period here. It will randomly roll and match you with another server.

It’s a broken, idiotically designed system. I just HATE the fact that ANet will drag us through this mud for months before finally coming to their senses and changing it to something else.

Really, ANet… Go out on a limb and poll your players. People do not like this garbage. It’s far worse than what we had before.

Well Anet is kind of between a rock and a hard spot here. kittened on if they didnt kittened on if they did. A little change never hurt anyone, so everyone needs to put on their big boy panties and roll with it. It was us the players that broke the original system to begin with. Now the majority of these servers get to see the complete lack of hope, and no chance of winning that DR faces everyday of the week. :-D

qualm like a bomb.6512:

Well Anet is kind of between a rock and a hard spot here. kittened on if they didnt kittened on if they did. A little change never hurt anyone, so everyone needs to put on their big boy panties and roll with it. It was us the players that broke the original system to begin with. Now the majority of these servers get to see the complete lack of hope, and no chance of winning that DR faces everyday of the week. :-D

Quote from what I said earlier in this thread:

What you should have done was set it up so traversing between tiers was a much more compressed process that required real effort on a server’s part, but nowhere near the tier-breaking garbage that it required originally.

This is what ANet should have done. Not this crap they ended up implementing.

IMHO, Anet is watching the new system. They are seeing the blow outs and mis matches. Right now,Ferguson’s Crossing is getting Stomped to the point WvW is unplayable. We are out numbed really bad.

They will adjust and fix it. They want people playing, not quitting. I can not imagine its not much fun for the servers that can walk all over the other guys any time they want. Game is no fun if its to easy. No one around to fight.

Just be glad when its fixed. Time to find something else to do until it is.

Do the EU T1 servers have 24/7 coverage like the NA T1 servers? If so would it not make sense for them to play one another? They could call it a champions league or something.

tym.3791:

IMHO, Anet is watching the new system. They are seeing the blow outs and mis matches. Right now,Ferguson’s Crossing is getting Stomped to the point WvW is unplayable. We are out numbed really bad.

They will adjust and fix it. They want people playing, not quitting. I can not imagine its not much fun for the servers that can walk all over the other guys any time they want. Game is no fun if its to easy. No one around to fight.

Just be glad when its fixed. Time to find something else to do until it is.

I have a feeling that another couple weeks of this utter madness will see players leaving in droves. ANet had better not wait around too long to “fix” this garbage.

mikey.1537:

Do the EU T1 servers have 24/7 coverage like the NA T1 servers? If so would it not make sense for them to play one another? They could call it a champions league or something.

The EU servers are housed on a different continent from the NA ones. Pretty much the opposite side of the world…

Shun.9475:

Why the heck does a Tier 4 Server SoS, Tier 2 TC, get matched up with SoR?

We are getting farmed, its the first freaking day and we are already getting siege spawn camped on our own borderlands

Hello sir!

I feel you. This is how whole SFR has felt after first week in tier 1 from last christmas. At least now we can fight someone else than VZ once a year with this new system, so we’re not being overrun whole year.

Being outmanned on every border except prime time is pretty boring.

I have to agree with Anet on this one. This new WvWvW match up system is for the best in the long run. I also have to agree that turning up the variance for the purpose of data collection is the best move also. Cause having data of the same 3 servers going at each other every month is pretty useless for making match ups. all it tells you is how those 3 servers respond to each other and gives you no indicator of which is the actual best server of those 3 in terms of the big picture. which means that most of the previous data can be considered biased and corrupt.

As we speak out of 18 total match-ups, we have 16 blow-outs occurring; 2 of them have been completely wiped off the map ticking at a whopping 0..

Ya, I think it’s safe to say this current match up system is terrible, and in no way, shape, or form is this good for the long run of the game.

With this occurring, does anything honestly think the WvW population is going to increase? Or do you think perhaps it have a much better chance at decreasing?

Players should have right to vote against who they wanna fight.

The match up needs to take more than rating into account. It is kittening ridiculous some of the outmanned matchups which this is kicking out.

fix it.

I really don’t understand the logic behind this.

The crushing majority of the customers don’t like this system yet a certain someone is trying to shove it down our throat? I’d say customer’s money/satisfaction is more important than a stubborn delusional employee failed idea.

The match-ups will stabilize, folks. We just have to give it a couple weeks, like Devon said, for things to iron out to allow for more enjoyable play all around. We’ll all be jerked around for a few more weeks. You’re not alone, we’re all here going through the same thing, whether we’re severely outmanned or ridiculously stacked against opponents.

Honestly, if you want to help ANet make this progression in WvW match-ups to be successful, show up and fight so that when things DO stabilize, you don’t get ranked lower than you should be. (Because then, all you’re gonna do is come back and complain about the results of these initial match-ups.)

Fight the good fight, fellow brothers in arms. Sometimes you’re the windshield…

Loren Michael.7891:

The match-ups will stabilize, folks. We just have to give it a couple weeks, like Devon said, for things to iron out to allow for more enjoyable play all around. We’ll all be jerked around for a few more weeks. You’re not alone, we’re all here going through the same thing, whether we’re severely outmanned or ridiculously stacked against opponents.

Honestly, if you want to help ANet make this progression in WvW match-ups to be successful, show up and fight so that when things DO stabilize, you don’t get ranked lower than you should be. (Because then, all you’re gonna do is come back and complain about the results of these initial match-ups.)

Fight the good fight, fellow brothers in arms. Sometimes you’re the windshield…

I’m sorry but not all of us are blind fan boys redditing and kitten kissing. Also, you are on SB which is one of the zergiest servers. I bet that is why you think the current system is ok. I guess some people need massive zergs to win and think that is mad skillz.

I don’t think anyone here is happy with what is going on and agrees to being zerged at their spawn for weeks and weeks. Not everyone is a fanboy who wants to take it up the kitten for weeks and weeks.

Eating kitten is one thing..eating it for weeks is another.

As I log off, I just witnessed one SoS ranger trying to solo the TC starter camp in SoS BL. This is a dangerous business as it takes time and it is near our starting position. Take skill to pull something like that off.

We didn’t stop him. Instead a 30 person SoR zerg just steamrollers the poor guy.

I’m sure SoR people are fine citizens in RL, pillars of the community and fine humanitarians – but you can take your giant zergs and stale gameplay back to tier 1. It can be tough to find fun fights with you guys. You never send 5 guys to take a camp – always 20+.

I guess the huge numbers in tier 1 necessitate fast moving huge zergs – but I just can’t see the fun in it.

Oh FA, my dear FA – where aren’t thou atm? (I can’t beleive I just said that!)

It is amusing to see so many Tarnished Coast people upset – seeing as some of the biggest advocates of the random system came from your server and were shouting any criticism down with how awesome it was going to be.

I think it’s great anet are going to keep going for a couple more weeks, as then everyone will experience just how bad and unbalanced a system this is.

There is definitely an imbalance with numbers, and without numbers you are just going to get steamrolled no matter how skilled your player base is. You might have some good battles but ultimately you won’t win the war because you just can’t field enough people to keep control of points you have taken. Or, hell, even break out of your spawn point for that matter.

With the lower tier servers it’s now painfully evident how imbalanced the system is.

Just gaining rating even tho you’re not accomplishing anything on the map is not fun. If I wanted to just play a numbers game I’d break out the board games and turn off the computer. I want to win a battle, kill things, and gain territory to go up in rank. Gain something tangible. Sitting at your spawn point being murdered because you’re outmanned 100v1 is not fun…even if you are gaining rank while you do it. That’s not a real testament to skill.

If there was some sort of population control so it evens out the playing field when you try to enter a BL or EB.

The cap could be based on the lowest population server on that particular map set up in mb 20 player increments or percentage based. So if the lowest # a server can field in Eb is say 70, the other 2 servers can’t field more than a low% more than that each. For the BL’s it would be based on the home servers population. So if you can only get in 30 people in your own bl then the enemy can’t have more than that, but if you go into enemy territory you’re at the mercy of their #’s. Home court advantage.

I think you would really start seeing skilled fights and not just a mindless hack and slash because the server you’re up against can field 30x your #‘s. I really don’t mind losing a fair fight, but c’mon anet, even the 300 died in the end to greater numbers.

DevonCarver.5370:

If you look at EU, which is using the exact same system, you can see matchups with numerous surprising results. The same will likely be true by the end of the NA matchup.

Is this what you call a ‘surprising result’?
This is EU in fact, and it’s been like that for us since the changes…

muhahaha suprising results, i can´t believe.
this is really the best joke ever i read in here.
6 matchups out of 9 are COMPLETELY dominated by one server.
and yes i´m talking about EU …
great ignoring anyway

Here is what I have seen in Tier 7 we had finally bottomed out and had a couple competitive weeks fighting…we were starting to see some new faces out trying things… good fights keep people coming back.

Then new system comes online… we get destroyed by a large oceanic presence… fewer new faces… then we draw a server that has more bodies 24/7 than us… after what 36 hours Im only seeing the same people ive seen over the last 4 months as we slowly dropped in rankings.

They may have destroyed our servers chance at a recovery and that is very irritating.

why can`t they use a system of promotion and relegation?. 3rd place goes down 1st place goes up ? Its simple and doesn’t require stupid rng . Don’t like the tier you are in then lose the match up and get relegated . Want to move up then put the effort in to win.
At least this way the tiers are decided by the players that actually play the game .

Speaking from Gunnars Hold, who had THE most nasty roll last week… we got matched up against two very high ranked servers, as a rank 20 server – but we had tonnes of fun and learnt lots in the process. Sure, we lost hard, but we fought strongly and had a good primetime and enjoyed ourselves regardless.

This week we’re up against a much higher ranked server again (Millers Sound) and our old rivals RoS, but we’re both pushing MS really hard despite their much higher ranking. Sure, we’ll likely lose again, but we’ll have fun doing it.

Also I notice Underworld are doing much worse than you’d expect against low opposition, so it seems like this is giving the ratings a much needed shakeup.

I don’t understand why people are crying for one up one down. It seems great unless you actually think one or two weeks in advance, which A Net thankfully did. There are a couple of scenarios created by one up one down. First, server wins and moves up a tier then loses the next week. They could get stuck in this endless loop for who knows how long. Second, server loses and moves down a tier then wins the next week. They could end up stuck in this endless loop for who knows how long. Third, server stagnates in second place. They could sit there for who knows how long.

Short term, yes one up one down would stabilize tiers. Long term, people would eventually complain of stagnant match ups again. Guild movement would be the ONLY thing that would cause any type of movement. Win streaks greater than one would be unsustainable by anyone other that the top server.

In the current system as far as short term is concerned, the match ups are random so stabilization will take longer. In the long term however this will place servers more permanently where they belong while still allowing for some sort of randomization. Basically, we will have what we had before only moving tiers wont seem so hopeless because a. Tiers will not matter and b. There is always that element of randomization.

Nothing A Net does short of forcing guilds to move to different servers will ever fix imbalanced match ups. I’m sorry tier 8 or anyone who is being dominated. It’s a simple fact of life that imbalanced match ups will occur as they always do in every online game. Just rest assured that over time servers will stabilize, this current madness will end, and you can all go on to crying about something else.

thievery.2701:

Nothing A Net does short of forcing guilds to move to different servers will ever fix imbalanced match ups. I’m sorry tier 8 or anyone who is being dominated. It’s a simple fact of life that imbalanced match ups will occur as they always do in every online game. Just rest assured that over time servers will stabilize, this current madness will end, and you can all go on to crying about something else.

I keep reading this crap about “things will stabilize” since game release. Guess what: the best part of a year has elapsed and the unbalances are worse than ever.

The only thing the current system is doing is ranking the servers more accurately. It does nothing to fix the fact that server A always loses horribly to the server immediately above it and always crushes the one immediately below it. It does nothing to fix the fact that a 1% population imbalance results in a 100% score difference.

The scoring system sucks, period. No rating system will ever correct this problem. And no, people as a general rule don’t like getting roflstomped hopelessly for a week so this MUST be changed or WvW is doomed in the mid to long term. Stating “imbalances happen” is just an extremely cheap way of defending a pathetic excuse of a failed game design. Several viable alternative scoring methods have been provided in the long months since game release, and so far no one has even been considered by Arenanet.

Hopefully the most recent article means that someone of them finally figured out another one of these mystic “simple facts of life”: players like participating in balanced games much more than crappy blowouts.

Pretty much ^

When some of the most hardcore WvW players on SoS decide to take a break and play L4D2 (ew) there’s something wrong with GW2.

You can keep saying “things will…” but most people have waited for months now. WvW has gone from being neglected to being FUBARed, people don’t have the patience anymore.

DevonCarver.5370:

The concept of tiers has little meaning at this point and you should try to stop thinking of matchups in those terms. Servers are matched up by proximity of rating, not proximity of “tier”. If the tiers have ratings that are within the range of the random adjustment, they can end up fighting each other. This is going to result in blowouts, no doubt about it. However, we are not going to make changes to this after just 2 weeks of the system. There are things we can do. We will almost certainly end up adjusting the total added to each server rating to group the matchups a little more closely. First however, we need to let the ratings adjust by having more varied matchups like these. If you look at EU, which is using the exact same system, you can see matchups with numerous surprising results. The same will likely be true by the end of the NA matchup.

TL;DR: We are going to wait at least a couple more weeks before changing any of the math behind the new system, but it is very likely we’ll decrease the size of the variation at some point.

Something dynamic like this would have really helped the player driven work to make 6-9 top servers a few months back. If the current math doesn’t work with the current player base, something as simple as red server falls green advances could work in its place. It would only hit a wall in the top and bottom tiers.

/salute

I like/enjoy the new system like many many other players. It gives us more variety. It is more like a traditional league now, where #1 is facing opponents all across the ranking. Arenanet however still prevents very extreme matchups.

The new system reflects much better the current strength of servers. Look at Fort Ranik and Underworld or Whiteside Ridge and Blacktide. You will see very surprising facts so far. Even if the victor is set there are still numerous close fights about 2nd place. There also fights between nearby servers placed in different setups to to earn a better rating. There is still competition like in every league on each matchday.

There is more movement now within the league. Good playing servers gain more points than expected the bad playing ones less. Now the servers will find much faster their right place. With the new system the travel there is less painful, because you have the chance to reach the 2nd place at least.

A good performance will be still honored with an increase of ranking points. It is like ski jump, where not only the distance of the jump matters. Important is what starting gate you had, where the wind came from and how the landing was.

The system needs now some time to sort the serves in the right order and the right ranking.

then guys why to hell asked you for this mess? I never understood, you got bored fighting the same enemys over and over? lol There a games where you enemys never change and this for jears. So be careful what you wish for. Did anyone really belived that this matchup change will be any good? Srsly?

To satisfy the current whiners Arenanet could introduce a quarterly transcontinental tournament, where the same tripletts would be bundled. Four matches for all servers should give enough variety.