Guild Wars 2

This new system is completely dumb. I’m currently GoM – we are currently stomping the matchup. This doesn’t mean that we are leagues better than FC or ET, it just means we have more people. The old system settled out the way it did primarily because the servers in the tiers had similar active wvw populations, not because of some huge player skill separation. It’s a zergfest video game; we’re not performing heart transplants here.

Go back to the old system. It’s no fun to stomp match ups. It’s no fun to be stomped. This is dumb.

Keep making dumb decision ANET, ur matching system is making people not playing for a week, that including ur stupid AC’s and the skill lag is enough for many people to stop playing ur game.

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.

TL;DR: Devon doesn’t play on SoS nor does he think their game experience should be a priority when his new system screws the server over two weeks in a row.

Thurin.5610:

Keep making dumb decision ANET, ur matching system is making people not playing for a week, that including ur stupid AC’s and the skill lag is enough for many people to stop playing ur game.

totally agree.
but don´t forget wvw players are the minority. and anet doesn´t care if some of them quit. so don´t expect anything from them.

I don’t want to destroy your illusion but only because there is much more people complaining it doesn’t mean that this is the common opinion throughout the whole gw2 population. Its just normal that less people will show up to say something like “well, the new system is pretty decent”. As it is for me i even like the new match up system even if it still balancing. It gave our server awsome fights and great fun and you might be able to have some fun too if you changed your attitude.

I’ve been playing on Gunnars Hold since ever, so instead of most of you guys complaining here our server knows the feeling of defeat and the lack of people. But we tried to get people out of pve and into pvp. Our guilds tried to get better too, but in the end we still couldn’t ever get above of tier 7 and were bound to face wsr, rof and dz forever. Even Ruins of Surmia who got an insane income of guilds of tier 1 wasn’t able to get into tier 6 after weeks of facing us and winning permanently.

But after one week with the new matchup with indeed some mismatches you can still see that some rankings which had been completly solidified have been wrong:
Last week the first three matchups were uninteresting but above that it was sometimes pretty surprising
-between Piken, Riverside and Gunnars (place 8,10,20 not 1,4,7 were most our NA friends are crying in this thread!) Gunnars was able to get 125k points which is more than half of what Piken made
-the matchup Underworld, Fort Ranik and Ruins of Surmia (17,18,19), a matchup that was impossible before the change, was extremly tight and was decided at friday
- for Millers Sound, Aurora Glade and Drakkar Lake (12,14,16) we had a match between two german servers that played against each other for some time and AG which were at least 1 sometimes 2 tiers above the other two for weeks and yet they still ended 3rd placed
- for Gandara, Far Shiverpeaks and Arborstone (13,15,25!): for some reason FS got heavily smacked in that week but the more interesting thing is AS. They only know extrems either they stomped Vabbi and Fissure of Woe or they got dominated in tier 8 yet two servers that are ranked soooo much higher and must be sooo much better couldn’t stomp them down (not even under 100k points). This means that in prime time when AS had the same amount people Gandara and FS weren’t that much better than them o.O
-the last two matches were pretty lame again as we had them many times before and they always ended more or less like that

This weeks matchup is still pretty new and things still can change but even here we have some unexpected developments ( i ll start from the back this time)
- you can forget Arborstone, Fissure of Woe and Vabbi
- but Underworld, Ring of Fire and Blacktide (17,22,25) doesn’t seem to be such an unbalanced match. Sure Underworld is stronger but the other two seem to be able to fight back
- Fort Ranik, Dzagonur and Withesideridge (18,21,24) should be an even closer match yet FR destroyes them completly till now which makes me at least wonder what either RoF and BT have compared to Dz and WSR or what Underworld lacks compared to FR as considering the old rankings they should all be more or less the same
- now to Millers Sound, Ruins of Surmia and Gunnars Hold (13,19,20): again an extremly unbalanced matchup if you look at the old rankings. The gap of mere 23k points between 1st and 3rd place could tell you though that Millers doesn’t seem to be that much better than those former tier 8 servers. You also could take in account that the german servers like Millers normally don’t get much better during the week but RoS will most likely get stronger.
- the matchup between Abbadons Mouth, Gandara and Far Shiverpeaks (11,12,16) is one that i can’t actually understand well myself as Gandara and FS get stomped way too hard for what i expected but maybe there is some player movement or i just don’t know of their normal weekend weakness
- Riverside, Aurora Glade and Drakar Lake (8,14,15): Riverside has a far bigger wvw population than the other two servers and so they can queue all their maps much easier i believe but i already said the system is still balancing and hopefully matches like that will stop after some time
- Jade Sea, Augury Rock and Piken Square (3,9,10) on the other hand is pure gold in my argumentation. Its a match that wouldn’t have been here without the new system as JS was way out range for AR and Piken and yet it seems not to be boring on their maps
-The upper two matchups aren’t that much again as on the one hand Vizunah and Elona truly aren’t ranked on first and second for show but on the other hand at least Seafarer lost some people since their tier 1 time and Desolation lost loads

I don’t know if you could say anything similar about the NA servers as i don’t know how it looks at your side of the world but in my opinion this system isn’t bad for EU. I also know that i can’t convince the stubborn ones but who cares.

And for the ones crying for a system that only matches servers with equal wvw population: If that happened servers with only few but good players would be extremly penalized ( for example Piken Square that seems to be doing quite good though).

Fast Asleep.8475:

I don’t know if you could say anything similar about the NA servers as i don’t know how it looks at your side of the world but in my opinion this system isn’t bad for EU. I also know that i can’t convince the stubborn ones but who cares.

sweet, a well informed guy … muhaha
you seems to know everthing about every server n1

I disagree, I feel both Jade Sea and Augury Rock are teaming up against us and aiding each other due to a sense of comaradry between the French servers. I’ve seen Jade Sea come to the aid of Augury Rock when we’ve tried to take their towers and vice versa.

So, let me make sure I understand this “stabilize” argument…since the points on the server are (loosely) determining the matchups, then as people who are getting dominated will lose points and eventually will more or less be matched up with their peers, while those who are dominating will gain points and then be matched up with their peers…and in the end we’ll wind up with a roughly stable system that is not too different from 1 up 1 down, except that they don’t always move up or down.

So then as TC is currently placed, we need to consider that we will be going up SoR and other higher tier servers fairly frequently, so we just need to figure out a way to handle them. The problem as I see it is that TC is really struggling for coverage compared to SoR…yet, we have people on other servers trying to move to TC and unable to because it is overpopulated. So it seems that a server that has more of a mix of pve/pvp and wvw players is penalized because it is impossible to get the wvw population necessary to provide consistent coverage. The way I understand the situation; if we really wanted to be more competitive, the most obvious solution would be to convince pve/pvp players to either play wvw or leave the server – this seems absurd, but is really our best shot at competing. I think ANET needs to solve this problem, or the reliance on numbers and coverage alone in WvW before we can see games that are both varied and competitive.

bobross.5034:

I think ANET needs to solve this problem, or the reliance on numbers and coverage alone in WvW before we can see games that are both varied and competitive.

it´s easy, wvw will die in the next months

Wow… I actually feel bad for A net. We complain about the old system, and they design a whole new system for us. Now a lot of you are whining about this, I mean come on. You want these mythical matchups where every server is almost equal, well NEWS FLASH that’s NEVER going to happen. You might get that one or two lucky tiers that have that, but the rest of them nope. Stop whining, enjoy the week and just know it will be different next week! I mean, for example: I’m from Ehmry Bay. We beat BP and AR 13 weeks in a row. We got bored as you could imagine. Now we’re facing Maguuma, and FA. Like Devon said, tiers are old now but if you want to look at it with the old system FA is T2, Maguuma is T3 and ehmry is T5. We are losing horribly. But we love it. No one is quiting, and we’re trying our hardest win or lose, it’s a challenge and it won’t be the same every week anymore. It’s almost like football, when some horrible team plays the best team. Idk how else to put it, but good lord some of you kids will never be happy.

fishball.7204:

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.

I’ve been waiting for almost a year. My money is not going anywhere and neither am I. It’s always now, now, now with everyone on here. Most of us are realistic and understand that these things take time. And I’m not so naive as to think that one day people will stop complaining about games. I just find it funny that on one hand you have people rightfully fired up about video game companies doing everything they can to get their hands deeper into their pockets, and on the other you have companies like A Net that give us amazing content which only requires you to pay once, and because that product needs a little bit of polish they pick it apart as if it were the worst thing to come out. Given the former I’m amazed that the latter even exist.

Back on topic though, I only meant to address that a one up one down system would do nothing for the advancement of wvw. You can do all you want to fix the problems now but if you don’t look ahead that’s when you start to bury your game. This game is going to be around for a long time, that’s why you see so much talk about the future and “things will…” To say wvw has been “fubared” since the culled mess it was before is simply delusional, not to mention an insult to those who have been busting their kitten on it these last few months. Just because progress is too slow for you doesn’t mean it’s getting worse.

And I’m sorry people are so hurt by the fact that every week there needs to be a winner and a loser. That’s life. May be time to start blaming the morale of your server instead of A Net.

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.

If there are “surprising results” at EU, list them. Authoritarian arguments imply that they are contradicted by evidence. Checking EU, it looks to me like the matches are out of balance 7 to 1. Within each map, each server’s position mirrors its rank. What is the goal of matching based on artificial Ranks? State that clearly for evaluation please.

At this point in time 13 of the 16 matches are blowouts. I will make a prediction based upon my analysis: If or when a reasonable balance and limited blowout state is reached, the matches will be a function of non-artificial (i.e. non-adjusted/random) Ranks.

The theory that artificial Ranks result in improved Matches seems illogical to me. On the other hand, if the goal was to randomize match participants, then kudos. That certainly has happened.

Burma.5796:

If there are “surprising results” at EU, list them. Authoritarian arguments imply that they are contradicted by evidence. Checking EU, it looks to me like the matches are out of balance 7 to 1. Within each map, each server’s position mirrors its rank. What is the goal of matching based on artificial Ranks? State that clearly for evaluation please.

At this point in time 13 of the 16 matches are blowouts. I will make a prediction based upon my analysis: If or when a reasonable balance and limited blowout state is reached, the matches will be a function of non-artificial (i.e. non-adjusted/random) Ranks.

The theory that artificial Ranks result in improved Matches seems illogical to me. On the other hand, if the goal was to randomize match participants, then kudos. That certainly has happened.

Surprising results from last matchup:

Gunnars Hold and Arborstone had a very good performance. Both earned a lot of ranking points. Both servers showed their real current strength. Piken disappointed. They could not win their matchup. They lost points and therefore ranks.

Even in the current matchups you see very good performances of Gunnar Hold (again) and Blacktide. Underperformers are Gandara, Jade Sea, Seafarers Rest and Underworld. Each servers position does not mirror its current rank in the European league. Maybe you should look closer and more carefully.

If I look at other leagues like football or handball, most of the matches are out of balance. For FC Bayern München the whole season was more or less out of balance in their home league.

Insane Pancakez.9182:

Wow… I actually feel bad for A net. We complain about the old system, and they design a whole new system for us. Now a lot of you are whining about this, I mean come on. You want these mythical matchups where every server is almost equal, well NEWS FLASH that’s NEVER going to happen. You might get that one or two lucky tiers that have that, but the rest of them nope. Stop whining, enjoy the week and just know it will be different next week! I mean, for example: I’m from Ehmry Bay. We beat BP and AR 13 weeks in a row. We got bored as you could imagine. Now we’re facing Maguuma, and FA. Like Devon said, tiers are old now but if you want to look at it with the old system FA is T2, Maguuma is T3 and ehmry is T5. We are losing horribly. But we love it. No one is quiting, and we’re trying our hardest win or lose, it’s a challenge and it won’t be the same every week anymore. It’s almost like football, when some horrible team plays the best team. Idk how else to put it, but good lord some of you kids will never be happy.

There is an important observation within this post. The first place server often gets bored while the other two often “love it.” There are a number of reasons to explain this. Here is one: being in position 2 or 3 in a blowout presents the opportunity farm the heck out of Karma, Rank Points, XP, Events, some money, etc. Also, as stated, having a challenge contributes significantly to enjoyment.

Currently, 13 of 16 Matches are blowouts. Translation: 13 servers are bored which is atypically high.

Concerning the “mythical match-up” comment (the condescension notwithstanding), the evidence clearly shows that the percent of fairly equal Matches has dropped since the implementation of the new matching technique.

And finally, whining about whiners and name calling…heat for heat’s sake or heat for light?

What I’m noticing is that the people who seem to favor (with a few exceptions) this new system of match-ups are also people who are on servers that are either still competitively placed and can at least engage in some satisfactory gameplay – even if they don’t win – or they are on the winning server, steamrolling the other mismatched servers. As mentioned by Insane pancakez: : “. Stop whining, enjoy the week and just know it will be different next week! I mean, for example: I’m from Ehmry Bay. We beat BP and AR 13 weeks in a row. We got bored as you could imagine. Now we’re facing Maguuma, and FA. Like Devon said, tiers are old now but if you want to look at it with the old system FA is T2, Maguuma is T3 and ehmry is T5. We are losing horribly. But we love it.”. Great, but then, you are coming off of weeks of winning, so a few losing streaks doesn’t break morale; it’s just a change of pace in the short term. After all, there’s a chance that you will be matched against 2 previously lower ranked servers next time, and you can win again. That chance diminishes the lower your rank was previously, and the very lowest ranked servers are now continuously facing servers who so outman them that they essentially are incapable of accomplishing anything.

This is not a good situation. I am on Henge of Denravi, but I didn’t get into WvW in the beginning when the henge dominated WvW, but after the TITAN alliance fell apart, when the Henge was in freefall with the loss of the major guilds. So, my experience was mostly with losses week after week. Oddly though, this didn’t bother me, as even though we lost, the battles were mostly interesting, with some tightly contested skirmishes – and even some victories – involved. And let me just say, the players on HoD are some of the best to run with, having had to learn the hard way how to play after the mass exodus, those that are left are a tight group that know how to WvW – I’ve seen smaller forces hold off or defeat larger forces repeatedly. Ultimately, there is just so much that you can do, however, when you are so grossly outmanned; and that is the problem with the current matchup system.

The system now in place is punishing for the “weaker” servers, pretty much locking them out of the WvW experience as they are being completely shut out of the majority of the maps. Look at the screens being posted: EB completely dominated by one server, who in many cases has the majority of one of both opponents battlelands as well. This is not enjoyable in any sense; and after all, that’s why I (and I suspect many players) play: for pleasure. To relax. To enjoy themselves. It’s not a job, it’s not supposed to be frustrating. Yet it is.

This leads to a problem: already, some of the people I usually game with are calling it,
with comments like "this is pointless, why are we doing this?’ and “this is B****, I’m over it”, and the rest of us grow continually more frustrated. Yes, I could go back to PvE, but then, I’ve got map completion, and the content there is not compelling enough to play the maps again. Frankly, its boring – GW1 had much better PvE content; and the living stories are the same thing over and over, basically: Find something. Fight something. Dungeon! Thanks, but already done that.

Again, I don’t expect to win all the time, and ranking means very little to me; I just want some good, clean battles in WvW that are, most importantly, FUN. Because this is a game, and I don’t play games to be frustrated. After all, isn’t WvW/PvP the designated endgame? Shouldn’t that endgame be compelling? Right now it isn’t.

Europe 8/9 blowouts North America 7/8 Blowouts and its only sunday morning here. At least for me is another week of not playing and looking for another game to play. Mr.Devon ur system is bad and if u don’t change it fast the WvW community will die in alot of servers.

Belenwyn.8674:

Burma.5796:

If there are “surprising results” at EU, list them. Authoritarian arguments imply that they are contradicted by evidence. Checking EU, it looks to me like the matches are out of balance 7 to 1. Within each map, each server’s position mirrors its rank. What is the goal of matching based on artificial Ranks? State that clearly for evaluation please.

At this point in time 13 of the 16 matches are blowouts. I will make a prediction based upon my analysis: If or when a reasonable balance and limited blowout state is reached, the matches will be a function of non-artificial (i.e. non-adjusted/random) Ranks.

The theory that artificial Ranks result in improved Matches seems illogical to me. On the other hand, if the goal was to randomize match participants, then kudos. That certainly has happened.

Surprising results from last matchup:

Gunnars Hold and Arborstone had a very good performance. Both earned a lot of ranking points. Both servers showed their real current strength. Piken disappointed. They could not win their matchup. They lost points and therefore ranks.

Even in the current matchups you see very good performances of Gunnar Hold (again) and Blacktide. Underperformers are Gandara, Jade Sea, Seafarers Rest and Underworld. Each servers position does not mirror its current rank in the European league. Maybe you should look closer and more carefully.

If I look at other leagues like football or handball, most of the matches are out of balance. For FC Bayern München the whole season was more or less out of balance in their home league.

You are correct. Three of the eight EU servers, although blowouts, have the 2nd and 3ed ranks servers in reversed positions, but close. The word “generally” was intended to be part of the sentence. My mistake. Apologies.

Are your “surprising results” the same as those to whom the question was directed?

What was your purpose in being rude?

Dear dev’s, all hostility aside, pure as a practical solution:

Your system should have been working as a backburner for months first.
That way the ‘new’ system could have followed and tracked the ‘real’ performances of servers.

Than, when the results of the backburning system indeed showed a better overall matching, than you could have made the switch to the places in the ‘new’ ranking.

I would assume simulations were run, and tinkered to mess up till they proved stable?

There was no reason to make this drastic restart.

Because, in the end: only 2 options can come of this:
1. your system remains as flawed as it seems to be right now, and the matching remains totally uneven.
2. your system stabilises over time, as you say it will, and the match ups will become more balanced.

Even if option 2 is the case, than you still didn’t need this transition period.
You could have done it as a second running system till it stabilises.

Bottom line, main question: how many patience do you think your WvW community has left?
It’s your gamble, I’m not even going to make a guess at that.

To those few who thinks this new system is good based on ratings being a contributing factor.. take a look at the ratings as we speak.

If we matched the tiers up (starting from Tier 1) based on ratings, we’d be back to the same match-ups we were at 2 weeks ago and many weeks prior to that. Why have a flawed system to navigate us to the inevitable?

The old system is/was better because it essentially cuts out a lot of the red tape. We already know how it’s going to pan out (if this current system stabalizes)" T1 will feature SoR JQ BG: T2 will feature TC FA DB

and so on, and so on

^and here’s the thing: as a TC player, I want to be in T2, and not T1. I don’t want to move up to a more competitive tier, where wvw participation becomes an obligation. I also don’t want to always have to wait for a queu when wvwing….or alternately, falling horribly behind when our bl is underpopulated. I don’t want to always have to be a part of a giant zerg ball. T2 was the right balance of these things for me.

Going up vs SoR I know that to have a fair chance, we would have to lose all that. we would need to accept wvw as an obligation while playing, and we’d have to populate the server enough (even though capped already) so that wvw would always be full…and then we’d have to deal with queues all the time in each BL….if we had all these things going, we may be roughly evenly matched, or at least it would be more competitive. unfortunately, wvw would also lose its appeal for me. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with SoR, but it’s not for me. So now we either need to change or get used to losing a lot.

A lot of people I know who come out and play in tier 2 now don’t because of this match up.

They ruin their own game in PVE and now PVP. I’m amazed at how well this company is chasing away their customers.

ewokee.7819:

Thurin.5610:

Keep making dumb decision ANET, ur matching system is making people not playing for a week, that including ur stupid AC’s and the skill lag is enough for many people to stop playing ur game.

totally agree.
but don´t forget wvw players are the minority. and anet doesn´t care if some of them quit. so don´t expect anything from them.

Er, what? I know many players who still play this game only because of WvW.

Here’s a Screenie of what should should NEVER happen. Alot of my server has given up on WvW because of this. Mapchat was flooded with accounts of dissrest on the new match-up system.

:Edit: I agree it is chasing away customers. I almost picked up my Xbox 360 Controller.

dragonewtking.9867:

What I’m noticing is that the people who seem to favor (with a few exceptions) this new system of match-ups are also people who are on servers that are either still competitively placed and can at least engage in some satisfactory gameplay – even if they don’t win – or they are on the winning server, steamrolling the other mismatched servers. As mentioned by Insane pancakez: : “. Stop whining, enjoy the week and just know it will be different next week! I mean, for example: I’m from Ehmry Bay. We beat BP and AR 13 weeks in a row. We got bored as you could imagine. Now we’re facing Maguuma, and FA. Like Devon said, tiers are old now but if you want to look at it with the old system FA is T2, Maguuma is T3 and ehmry is T5. We are losing horribly. But we love it.”. Great, but then, you are coming off of weeks of winning, so a few losing streaks doesn’t break morale; it’s just a change of pace in the short term. After all, there’s a chance that you will be matched against 2 previously lower ranked servers next time, and you can win again. That chance diminishes the lower your rank was previously, and the very lowest ranked servers are now continuously facing servers who so outman them that they essentially are incapable of accomplishing anything.

This is not a good situation. I am on Henge of Denravi, but I didn’t get into WvW in the beginning when the henge dominated WvW, but after the TITAN alliance fell apart, when the Henge was in freefall with the loss of the major guilds. So, my experience was mostly with losses week after week. Oddly though, this didn’t bother me, as even though we lost, the battles were mostly interesting, with some tightly contested skirmishes – and even some victories – involved. And let me just say, the players on HoD are some of the best to run with, having had to learn the hard way how to play after the mass exodus, those that are left are a tight group that know how to WvW – I’ve seen smaller forces hold off or defeat larger forces repeatedly. Ultimately, there is just so much that you can do, however, when you are so grossly outmanned; and that is the problem with the current matchup system.

The system now in place is punishing for the “weaker” servers, pretty much locking them out of the WvW experience as they are being completely shut out of the majority of the maps. Look at the screens being posted: EB completely dominated by one server, who in many cases has the majority of one of both opponents battlelands as well. This is not enjoyable in any sense; and after all, that’s why I (and I suspect many players) play: for pleasure. To relax. To enjoy themselves. It’s not a job, it’s not supposed to be frustrating. Yet it is.

This leads to a problem: already, some of the people I usually game with are calling it,
with comments like "this is pointless, why are we doing this?’ and “this is B****, I’m over it”, and the rest of us grow continually more frustrated. Yes, I could go back to PvE, but then, I’ve got map completion, and the content there is not compelling enough to play the maps again. Frankly, its boring – GW1 had much better PvE content; and the living stories are the same thing over and over, basically: Find something. Fight something. Dungeon! Thanks, but already done that.

Again, I don’t expect to win all the time, and ranking means very little to me; I just want some good, clean battles in WvW that are, most importantly, FUN. Because this is a game, and I don’t play games to be frustrated. After all, isn’t WvW/PvP the designated endgame? Shouldn’t that endgame be compelling? Right now it isn’t.

Very much this^

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.

Test server, build one.

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.

What surprising results?
Oh! you mean the same results that everyone expected, where the higher ranked server dominates?
8 out of 9 times on the EU servers?
http://mos.millenium.org/matchups

To all the clueless ones that “WvW will always be unbalanced, it’s not possible to balance mass pvp games”.

New scoring system: every server gains 1 point per second. At the last second of a matchup, one of the three chosen at random gains 2 points instead of one and wins the match. Total, perfect balance until the very last second.

There. Wasn’t so hard to find one possible implementation of “balanced score”, was it? And hey, look at that: population and coverage are irrelevant with this system. All problems solved, and it took me all of 5 seconds to come up with it.

I’m sure the smart guys at Arenanet can come up with something even better if they make a serious attempt at it.

As an Abaddon’s Mouth player I can say that last week was a surprising successful week for us. We played against Baruchs and Augurys vers good guildgroups(esp. RG, BuLL, etc.) and Baruchs strong nightforce(sooooo many players! it’s crazy!) and in my opinion it was hard but it was till a lot of fun and only made us stronger in the end. And we performed better than we or they or the ranking expected. Yeah we lost till the end of the week but we were quite on the same level with them at the beginning and were even leading during the first days. For us it was a very awesome match although we lost. This week looks kinda easy at first but we know from previous matches that Gandara and FSP start gaining points during the week and we lose our weekend coverage so nothing is set at this point. So far the new system was really nice for us and i think i speak for most Abaddon-Players when i say that we’re excited to see who we’ll face next.

Complex formulas are not required to produce varied match-up systems. Is there a complex formula to determine who my favorite football team plays next? Do the Mets roll the dice after every series before they find out who they play next?

Of course not, because that would be exactly what this new WvW system is, F***ING STUPID.

Simplify the system and toss out your garbage formula that is clearly a heartless algorithm that is either a self-aware entity intent on the destruction of the world (vWorld), or is so poorly designed without thought to the existing game meta that it borders on incompetence.

Matchmaking systems haven’t been this arbitrary or unnecessarily complicated in the history of game design. There are 24 servers, 24! That’s 8 groups of 3, and basically 4 clusters of somewhat relative skill levels: Tier 1-2, Tier 3-4, Tier 5-6, Tier 7-8. Wanna provide variety? Keep to those clusters. Any match up that includes a server from a different cluster will be a bad match-up…period. You put a Tier 3-4 into a Tier 1-2 match up, and the result is no fun for anyone. A Tier 2 barely has what it takes to compete with a Tier 1, toss in a Tier 3 or 4 into the mix and it’s basically a Tier 1 vs a Tier 2 with an innocent bystander getting torn apart in the cross fire.

Here’s a really really really really really really simple matchmaking system:

1st Place: 5 points
2nd Place: 3 points
3rd Place: 1 point

Servers with the highest point totals fight each other. No delta, no RNG bulls***, no ridiculously imbalanced match-ups. “But then there’s no variety!” Yeah, your absolutely right! If you don’t have the ability to win matches within your server tier you have absolutely no business in a higher tier, and if you win matches in your own server you have no business in a lower tier.

“Improving” server match-ups by putting tier 1, 2, and 4 into the same match up and calling it good is basically flipping the whole WvW community a big fat “f*** you, have a nice day!”

The “balance” issue isn’t in regards to the skill level of a server, or even the ranking system they had in place – it’s purely based on population size.

Here’s a much more simple way of evening out the player distribution issue.
Varied map sizes.
Let’s say that you have four maps – one allowing 10v10, one for 20v20, another for 30v30, and the final for 40v40.
You would then allocate the same total possible point values to each map.

Out of the maximum player capacities in this situation, it is possible for a server with only 70% of the player base of the larger server to have an even fight at 75% of the points. In this scenario, the winner of the matchup would not be winning by crushing the opponent with a larger force, but by having better control over smaller maps.

Why do people keep saying that the system will get more balanced as it plays out?? There will still be a random number added to a rating tomorrow, next week and a month after that till they remove it. It doesn’t matter how the ratings adjust or get closer to each other, the previous months of tiers have created and enforced clear WvW population distinctions between the tiers we are supposed to somehow forget.

SoR will beat every single server in game and destroy every single server other than BG and JQ. What does this mean? Anytime SoR doesn’t end up with BG and JQ, it will be a mismatch. What else does this mean. Anytime SoR doesn’t end up with BG and JQ, a new contender will take their place against BG and JQ and be dominated resulting in a mismatch. Tactics have as much effect on the score as GvG’s do.

This is no indictment of SoR mind you. BG and JQ are strong in their own right and will force mismatches as well, and if you think the difference between Tier 3 and tier 2 is any different, you’re wrong.

There was a time when this system would have worked, perhaps that’s even when it was written. But now, with huge distinctions in populations, we have to have tiering. Ironically, the best possible way for this randomness to play out would be for the numbers to COMPLETELY RANDOMLY have all the servers fall in their tiers from 3 weeks ago. How is this better exactly?

Those of us who truly enjoyed WvW did so because despite the casual atmosphere of GuildWars 2 as a whole, WvW offered a competitive outlet that made our guilds more than just chat rooms. We logged in to boost our characters, our guilds, and even our servers. There is no competition when the entire match is over before it begins. This is the same reason there are weight divisions in boxing.

If Anet will stop treating WvW like just another themepark attraction for the pve crowd, and just work on keeping it a healthy competition, I think we will all be more happy.

You guys need to let this play our for a couple of weeks folks. You havent even given it a fair shake. Crying after first matchup since launch.

On a brighter note I am glad to see TC putting up a good fight. They are out there and mean business. I have had 500% better fights solo and big fights since the matchup despite some of their server players boohooing. Sea of sorrows is trying but I havent really faught a lot of them except for some small man skirmishes which have been very good. So kudos to TC for bringing their A game.

The rest anet isnt going to change anything right away. So complaining all day everyday isnt going to help. At least give it a go for the duration of the first week or two and then if you dont like it roll out or wait for a better one to your liking. Good hunting all.

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.

All you’re saying can be thrown to the rubbish. This shouldn’t be a random matchup like LoL where you have your rating and get matched with similar skill level players taking into account a RNG. Don’t try to copy that style when you only have ~20 players (servers in this case) because it wont work.

The previous system was working in terms of balanced matchups and a 1 up 1 down should work too. Why the kitten do you want a server fight any other? Theres only ~20 bro, ~8 matches, what do you spect to happen? There’s not much to play with so you can have diffrent matchups and balanced matchups.

Most of the people that play WvW are result dependant
If you start to unbalance the matchups people will stop playing that week causing strange ups and downs in the rating, specially when the previous one worked and matching servers with 3 or more difference in ranking, will cause those great imbalance they are already creating.

You kittened up your own game and don’t have the balls to revert it back ASAP. Same as arrow carts.

Ps: why don’t you make matchups manually insteax of letting the computer randomice them? Shouldn’t be a problem with so few servers… better than the mess you already did, you won’t at least mstchup people with more than 10 ranking diference and so.

really the issue with this matching system is when 2 moderate or small wvw communities end up facing a huge one, that is where this system fails, the huge one dominates because frankly they have multiple zergs that are larger than any other server’s super zergs that are formed as desperate mesures. if only they could make a system that recognizes when something like this happens and can initiate a “Desperate alliance” to the other server that is getting dominated as well and make all players on both servers allied and able to communicate to actually keep combat competitive and help the smaller servers deal with any LARGE servers that they are matched up against. but because this is obviously complicated and makes way to much sense it wont ever happen lol would be nice though if it could… and if one server hitting 400 points and keeping within 50 points of 400 for over 24 hours would trigger this. and the combined forces of the servers receive the same point adjustments to their servers scores at the end of the week should they win/lose.

You can’t expect me to participate in WvW when we conquer all of the map when I am able to play. This is just a slaughterfest for my server and is not fun. I didn’t even play last night like I usually do every night.

Aevic.9675:

You can’t expect me to participate in WvW when we conquer all of the map when I am able to play. This is just a slaughterfest for my server and is not fun. I didn’t even play last night like I usually do every night.

I assume you’re on SoR…I spent a few hours today winning back parts of TCBL from you guys, we had garrison, we were escorting yaks there, building it up…We tried to ninja hills unsuccessfuly and then made a solid play for bay. At each point we were outnumbered, but we hung in there. Then I log off and come back like an hour later, just in time to see garrison go down, and the entire map is green.

I know this is not fun for anyone…SoR gets to feel superior for like 2 seconds, before they realize that it’s not even tactics or player skill that are winning the games half the time, it’s just superior numbers.

I feel like they’ve just decided to take over maps in brief shifts and then quit, because it’s not fun for them either…as defending stuff and spawn camping are the only things to do.

Someone also mentioned allying ourselves with SoS…that’s not really an option either, They can barely manage to take a single tower on their own map much of the time. We pummeled them last week when they were matched with us and FA…now they have to deal with this. It really makes it less fun for everyone involved. This has nothing to do with their skill level either. When we were well matched with SoS in terms of numbers, we had some good battles…this just rarely happened because they don’t have the same wvw population as us, and much less than SoR.

I understand that this will possibly change a bit over time – but frankly where my server stands right now in the rankings, I imagine we’ll be going up against the top tier servers fairly often, and losing like this (constantly outnumbered 10-1) is really not the kind of play that I’m looking for.

^ while that’s true for SoR it is also true for a bunch of other servers in other tiers…

BP
FA
GoM

are all having complete blowouts during some hours of the day.

(and that’s just NA, EU is worse)

bobross.5034:

Aevic.9675:

You can’t expect me to participate in WvW when we conquer all of the map when I am able to play. This is just a slaughterfest for my server and is not fun. I didn’t even play last night like I usually do every night.

I assume you’re on SoR…I spent a few hours today winning back parts of TCBL from you guys, we had garrison, we were escorting yaks there, building it up…We tried to ninja hills unsuccessfuly and then made a solid play for bay. At each point we were outnumbered, but we hung in there. Then I log off and come back like an hour later, just in time to see garrison go down, and the entire map is green.

I know this is not fun for anyone…SoR gets to feel superior for like 2 seconds, before they realize that it’s not even tactics or player skill that are winning the games half the time, it’s just superior numbers.

I feel like they’ve just decided to take over maps in brief shifts and then quit, because it’s not fun for them either…as defending stuff and spawn camping are the only things to do.

Someone also mentioned allying ourselves with SoS…that’s not really an option either, They can barely manage to take a single tower on their own map much of the time. We pummeled them last week when they were matched with us and FA…now they have to deal with this. It really makes it less fun for everyone involved. This has nothing to do with their skill level either. When we were well matched with SoS in terms of numbers, we had some good battles…this just rarely happened because they don’t have the same wvw population as us, and much less than SoR.

I understand that this will possibly change a bit over time – but frankly where my server stands right now in the rankings, I imagine we’ll be going up against the top tier servers fairly often, and losing like this (constantly outnumbered 10-1) is really not the kind of play that I’m looking for.

No I am on FA we have a 50k lead in points right now. It’s boring.

Instead of making the ratings more accurate, the new system has distorted the ratings even more.

IoJ is going to finish 3rd this week. DH is going to finish 1st this week. IoJ has lost to DH the last ten out of ten times, yet IoJ will end up with a higher rating after this week’s matches.

It is conceivable, given the current system, that IoJ will face tougher and tougher opponents, finishing 3rd each time, yet gain points. Meanwhile DH will face easier and easier opponents each time and bleed points.

The system is broken in so many ways that you will need to completely revamp the entire system or lose many players over boring blowouts.

@Devin,

While I agree the old system had a lot of ratings that were not accurate, this current system needs some tweaks. Right now it is just creating too many imbalances. I think you reeeeally need to consider having 2 or 3 resets per week while the ratings work themselves out.

The new system is working great. They only need to tune the number now. 1/-1 (maybe there is 0) will not ever work (it work to normalize the rating). Its need to be tuned down to 0.5/-0.5.

Currently, Anet only have 1 data of complete match with new system. The second one still ongoing. It will take a while before they get “enough” data to tuned the new system.

bleach.9074:

Instead of making the ratings more accurate, the new system has distorted the ratings even more.

IoJ is going to finish 3rd this week. DH is going to finish 1st this week. IoJ has lost to DH the last ten out of ten times, yet IoJ will end up with a higher rating after this week’s matches.

It is conceivable, given the current system, that IoJ will face tougher and tougher opponents, finishing 3rd each time, yet gain points. Meanwhile DH will face easier and easier opponents each time and bleed points.

The system is broken in so many ways that you will need to completely revamp the entire system or lose many players over boring blowouts.

Just go talk to SoS, where we’ve been absolutely obliteration yet we are 100 glicko higher than when the “new math” was implemented…

current idea is good but the implementation is too late already.. some servers have grown to be so much powerful than others… lower the number of players per map , and give players a 1-time free transfer and you’ll see servers balancing out…..

I’m inclined to think free transfers will only make the larger servers even larger. Now that matchups will always be random/unstable, if you want to be on a winning or competitive server then best to improve the odds by shifting to a large server. From now on whatever server you’re on there will be both competitive matchups and blowouts so better to be on the team stomping rather than the one being stomped.

puddintay.5786:

You guys need to let this play our for a couple of weeks folks. You havent even given it a fair shake. Crying after first matchup since launch.

Why do we need to wait, we already know it is screwed up Anet touched it. It is to late for a system like this to be effective. They missed the chance for this to work by not starting the game off with this system, now guilds have migrated to certain servers leaving those left behind little chance. Had the system been inplace it would have kept the transfers and the issues caused by them to a lesser amount.

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.

Devon, your team should really consider making population size (both averaged out and on an per-hour basis; only for WvW participation) a factor for determining match-ups.
For example, we on Drakkar Lake recently absolutely trashed Riverside, a much higher ranked server, on their homelands at primetime (atleast those evenings when I was playing) strategically and tactically, thanks to some dedicated guilds and organized zergs, but we are still losing overall. Of course that’s not to show that we “deserve” these points, it’s more that Riverside has almost topped out maps at all times (even at 5AM) whereas Drakkar could never dream of muster such a feat.
Currently, in the mid tiers, it’s not about which server is better at WvW, but which one has more mass.

TitaniumDog.3054:

I’m inclined to think free transfers will only make the larger servers even larger. Now that matchups will always be random/unstable, if you want to be on a winning or competitive server then best to improve the odds by shifting to a large server. From now on whatever server you’re on there will be both competitive matchups and blowouts so better to be on the team stomping rather than the one being stomped.

So what incentive can we think of to get SoR/JQ/BG to destack and spread the love to other servers? The fact that some in TW have left SoR this week because they think the “T2” matchup is boring for them as they will likely win by 200000 points and have gone on a holiday back to JQ suggests that being on an overstacked server isn’t as attractive as it once was.

Aevic.9675:

No I am on FA we have a 50k lead in points right now. It’s boring.

Ah….we miss you guys. If we had you in the matchup instead of SoS, it could have made for an interesting alliance, and maybe together we could be keeping SoR in check. Guess it’s always a possibility..

I really think this is just an excuse to eliminate the lowest ranked servers and spread their population amongst the other servers. They save server space, etc.

Devon’s reply makes me doubt his analytic abilities, to the point where I wonder if he is completely right brain dominant.

Yes, this experiment has uncovered some interesting tidbits. JQ being that weak against BG in an essential 1 v 1 is interesting. TC is finding out how big a difference there is between #4 and what was #3 until they got one European guild.

CD is showing what SoS has known for weeks, that they are tough and not the quitters they once were. Likewise, YB and KN are probably grateful that this system came about before SoS came to T3

However, those lessons were already known by anyone who follows these things. A simple day on the forums or looking over 3 weeks of scores would clued them in. The lessons have been learned, and this system has ran its’ course.

Retire it now, because it’s killing interest for WvW in many communities. It’s a broken system and you need to fix it TODAY, not SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE.

People like Devon voted for Mike McGinn (oh yeah, I went local boy there).
For those who don’t get the reference, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn decided that to fix Seattle’s horrendous traffic; he’d simply make it worse until everyone rode bikes like himself….

Yeah, lack of foresight is in the water supply up here.