Guild Wars 2

Looking at NA matchups, 5 are close and 3 are way off. I guess that’s a win. Wonder which server is having the best results from this change, I already know the ones who aren’t… from personal experience

Hematuria.4051:

Looking at NA matchups, 5 are close and 3 are way off. I guess that’s a win. Wonder which server is having the best results from this change, I already know the ones who aren’t… from personal experience

Pretty much everyone T5 and below are having the times of their lives, except unfortunetely for the server that get put with the t8 severs.

Dont give in et, fc, fow, vabbi. one day these high populated severs will transfer some so that you can compete with us without having to deal with overwhleming numbers and give us the spanking you know you can give us XD ( i look forward to it wink wink ).

So great to see some much whine and realize it only affects a few servers. here have some cheese

Sunspots.9861:

They aren’t reinventin NASCAR here, they are selling gems. Period. And believe it or not I can respect that if its honest,

You pay for the wvw experience you want in guildwars 2 , and if your somehow adverse to the concept of 40 to 80 gold per transfer, be preapared to have a crappy wvw experience every other week.

If seriously you are saying this whole rating/matchup system has been devised to sell gems for transfers I would say there are JFK/Twin Towers/Illuminati conspiracy nuts that could learn a thing or two from you

They make money by selling licences and holding on to players and they do this by developing the best, most engaging game they can. There are plenty of other ways they have to encourage gem sales without deliberately frustrating players with unbalanced and/or laggy gameplay!

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

The matchups themselves aren’t as big a problem as the underlying Scoring and Rating System itself.

This is a recreational game activity not a competitive tournament where the chances are very high that matches will be imbalanced. The scoring system needs to have in-game mechanics that reward the weaker 2 Servers teaming up on the strongest and that funnel people into fights rather than away from them.

The current Rating System forces dominant Servers to squash opponents to maintain Rating (not good), encourages 2nd Place Servers to target the weakest Server to farm/maintain points/rating rather than fight the top Server, and rewards wXP Trains/Flipping way too much.

I’m not sure of the best ways to solve all these issues, but I have two suggestions to help balance scoring:

1) The 3rd Place Server in a match (by current score) receives Double Points for Objectives held in their own BL and EB
2) If the 1st Place Server’s Current Score exceeds a percentage threshold of the other two Servers – for example if Server 1 Score > 1.5 x (Server 2 Score + Server 3 Score) both other Servers receive Double Points for all holdings.

I’m sure many more ideas are out there but something really needs to be done.

The broad point you are making here I agree with. If fact I’ve made a similar suggestion in another thread – adjust scoring and even wXP according to glicko difference. lowest rated team does do a more impressive job if it captures an objective than the top rated team and should be rewarded accordingly. But those that dominate their matchups hate it! You can’t please everyone.

Top teams still would have the map and leaderboard to tell them how ace they are, but the scoring would give lower teams a goal and it may even encourage some good people to transfer to lower rated servers improving balance.

TC-SoS-CD provides awful unfun gameplay for all sides.
I’m on TC and I find myself rooting for SoS and CD when I have been in WvW, which is minimal. I couldn’t get my daily done because nobody kills a sentry.

On the other hand, I RP more these days.

uberkingkong.8041:

You guys like how BG destroys JQ and DB by over 100k points and then Jade Quarry advances to #2 best server and DB advances to #4 server.

While TC moved down and is facing T3 and T4 servers.

The way how JQ and DB got crushed, both servers should be placed in a lower tier. TC should be facing off SOR and BG. Completely broken system. Maybe Anet accidentally removed the 3 zeros behind and said it was only a couple of hundred points?

Sunspots.9861:

They complained less because there were less of them playing …Think about that. If you want an argument about stagnation, we can have it. This system solves stagnation like a blender solves brain tumors.

xD

Best. Reply. Ever.

Sunspots.9861:

This system solves stagnation like a blender solves brain tumors.

You clearly haven’t read, or maybe understood, Anet’s comments on this change. At this stage in the process it was never intended to just address stagnation. It was specifically intended to mix things up and test the validity of current ratings. Now we can argue they mixed it up too much to start with and should certainly mix it up less now, I for one definitely agree with the latter. But this matching of teams with widely disparate, but low confidence, ratings was always a deliberate, but temporary, stage in the process.

What I don’t understand is why Arenanet considers it so important to have “correct ratings”. It’s painfully obvious that even after we’ll have reached the “correct” ratings matches will be horribly unbalanced anyway because the population difference between servers is too big (even for servers with similar ratings) AND the scoring system exponentially increases those differences.
To me it looks like they’re stalling because they don’t really have a good plan to fix the real problem i.e. the scoring system sucks, so they’re using the “we need the ratings to stabilize” as an excuse.

Or, can someone tell me what exactly we will have achieved once the “new” ratings will be stable again? Do you seriously believe it will lead to balanced matches? I mean just have a look… most of the rankings are identical to the old ones, barring odd exceptions like Desolation which was “stuck” in T1 despite having lost most of its WvW guilds. If the matchups were nearly all blowouts before, what exactly is going to change now?

I think the real problem with them doing it is that they are trying to do it when they have released new content. For our server I know it’s a major factor in determining WvW participation. When people have finished the content there will be probably 200+ more people playing on our WvW maps. So if we get balanced to a lower count while the numbers are down we’ll end up in matchups that we roll when everyone is playing again. It’s a fickle beast, best of luck making it work out right.

DevonCarver.5370:

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.

Splitting this into 2 messages:

I’m not sure it’s the variation that needs to be addressed – and this is coming from a player on a server that was in first place last week in a very close, very good match-up, but is in dead last (with TC beating us 77,000 to 25,000) this week. We are having as much fun as we can have with the situation, but it is a little uncomfortable.

Granted, the variation should be tightened up enough to keep a blow-out like this from happening in the first place, but other things can be done and many of those things have been discussed in other threads.

There are tons of really good ideas that can be incorporated to make WvW more dynamic and challenging. A close match-up is the most fun, but it doesn’t have to be about numbers. Golfers get handicaps as an equalizer and to make the game more interesting, more challenging to the “pro” (“zerg” in MMO terms), and to give people a reason to actually play the game. In GW2, we have the “outmanned” buff, but I think such a buff should be more dynamic – and I don’t think it would be that hard to calculate the dynamics. I’ll mention it below along with some other aspects of WvW that I think should be addressed, considering the new match-up system.

- AC are still FTW and they shouldn’t be. I can’t for the life of me figure out how an arrow cart can destroy a ram or a catapult… realistically. Sure, they would easily kill the person manning the thing, but it seems to me that the few arrows that would actually stick into the ram wouldn’t be enough to destroy it. A simple and helpful fix: AC can only do damage to people, not other siege. Additionally, it seems to me that 10 AC all aimed at exactly the same spot would interfere negatively with one another. The arrows would collide and throw each other off course… sure, collectively, they’d do more damage than 1 AC, but probably not 10x more damage. Maybe a 10%-30% total damage reduction for each arrow cart that is aimed in a manner that crosses more than 50% of another AC’s path? Something like that.

- Siege is necessary, but there needs to be some way for the vastly outnumbered server to be able to get siege up in the first place. It’s nice to have an outmanned buff, but when you’ve got 10 people trying to take a tower and they’ve got 50+ defending, it’s tough to get even a small foothold. Maybe outmanned buff can carry with it a reduced supply-per-siege-item buff as well… how does 30%-50% less supply sound? Further, we are up against a server that has so many WvWers that they have up to a 3 hour wait to get into WvW. If they have that many people on the map and that many waiting to get in (and we have 0 wait), they should have an easier time refreshing siege. Conversely, when a disadvantaged server spends all their time and effort gaining a foothold and then moves on to a battle of attrition at another point on the map, it is difficult to have people break off to refresh siege – every able-bodied person counts… Perhaps the outmanned buff or the disparity between one server’s score and another server’s score or the number of people in queue should have an effect on siege refreshment?

- The last thing we want to do is discourage people from doing WvW. If you too harshly disadvantage the winning server, you run the risk of them logging in less. If you fail to give the losing server a proper “handicap”, you run the same risk. But there are ways to give the losing server a bit of an advantage without over penalizing the winning one. One of the problems is this: more people = more money and resources. More money and resources = easier to wage war. In addition to lowering the amount of supply-per-siege-item for outmanned servers and making siege refreshment more responsive to numbers, it might be a good idea to look at how much it costs to set traps. 50 people can set more traps and a lower cost-per-person than 10 people can. The game of golf recognizes things like this, too. Men can strike the ball harder and hit it further… so women get a headstart. It’s not sexist or unfair. It’s realistic – and the point is to balance challenge with benefit to encourage people to play. Maybe servers given the outmanned buff should also receive a reduced price for traps?

- OR be given access to traps that are not available when the buff does not apply. For example: “Zergbuster Trap” – lasts 5 minutes, each enemy that walks over the trap adds 0.5% incoming damage (stacking) to allies within 900 (max 20 stacks). I know ANET has new traps planned, but it might be a good idea to consider not just what the trap does, but how it can be used to equalize the playing field, rather than just cause mayhem. Another example: “Clumsy Trap” (again, can only be purchased when you have the outmanned buff) – when triggered, enemies within range of the trap are effected with siege clumsiness, all siege skills recharge 50% slower for 5 minutes (obviously, you’d have to be realistic with the range).

Just some ideas off the top of my head that I believe would change the dynamics of WvW drastically and for the better, if thought through. Zergs of 50+ would be wise to slow down a bit – send scouts in to trigger traps and find ways around them. This would give defenders time to situate themselves for the best defense they can provide and make the whole experience, win or lose, more gratifying.

Finally – and this has been mentioned more than a few times – additional world XP is a good thing, but it really comes down to the points you’re ticking. When a hero does a little in the face of overwhelming odds, she is seen as a champion. Her name goes down in history. She is rewarded for her courage. It should be the same in GW2. Somehow, ANET has to figure out a way to reconfigure how points are ticked in situations like this. It cannot only be about how many camps and towers are being flipped before the timer resets – it has to also be about how well you do considering your circumstances. The individual battles between the ticks matter and the points should reflect that somehow. I’m not getting paid to think about these things too much, but I’m positively sure that it cannot be too daunting a task to award more or fewer points (not too drastically) to effectively reflect the courage and heroics of the disadvantaged server.

And keep in mind: every server will, at some point, be on the losing side. Those of you who are winning right now – consider how you will feel about these ideas next week when you’re in the ring with a server that vastly outnumbers you and has 25 hour coverage.

I’m gonna play WvW either way. I love it, just like a golfer loves golf. And even the most disadvantaged golfer still gets up, gathers his clubs, puts on his shoes and his ugly polo shirt, and heads onto the course. But at least he knows that, with a little luck AND a handicap, he can end the day with a score that accurately reflects not only how well he played the game according to the rules, but how well he played the game considering his opponent.

MagnusLL.8473:

What I don’t understand is why Arenanet considers it so important to have “correct ratings”. It’s painfully obvious that even after we’ll have reached the “correct” ratings matches will be horribly unbalanced anyway because the population difference between servers is too big (even for servers with similar ratings) AND the scoring system exponentially increases those differences.
To me it looks like they’re stalling because they don’t really have a good plan to fix the real problem i.e. the scoring system sucks, so they’re using the “we need the ratings to stabilize” as an excuse.

Or, can someone tell me what exactly we will have achieved once the “new” ratings will be stable again? Do you seriously believe it will lead to balanced matches? I mean just have a look… most of the rankings are identical to the old ones, barring odd exceptions like Desolation which was “stuck” in T1 despite having lost most of its WvW guilds. If the matchups were nearly all blowouts before, what exactly is going to change now?

This is completely confusing as well as amuzing. you use the word blow out but your server is doing better then mostly all of the other servers that are having a rough time o.0. So i thought theres no way he could exaggerating this, so i clicked on the sever match up history………must be a rough time being 3rd place in the tier 1 bracket for how many matchups?

horray we are becoming self aware about what the true problem that the old system masked <3

ShadowX.4639:

I think the real problem with them doing it is that they are trying to do it when they have released new content. For our server I know it’s a major factor in determining WvW participation. When people have finished the content there will be probably 200+ more people playing on our WvW maps. So if we get balanced to a lower count while the numbers are down we’ll end up in matchups that we roll when everyone is playing again. It’s a fickle beast, best of luck making it work out right.

I understand your point, but I think this gets balanced by the times that the fair weather players show up when your server is green. It’s always feast or famine on a PvE-predominant server.

The primary goal of the new matchup system is to make the ratings more accurate, by ensuring that they are both valid measures of relative server strength within a single tier, and also valid across tiers. To put it another way, the old system ensured that your rating was accurate when compared to the servers you were already playing. But the ratings were not accurate measures of strength against servers you weren’t already playing. So we had cases of weak servers with high ratings who couldn’t move down, and strong servers with low ratings who couldn’t move up. Those servers might have been perfect matches for each other, but the old system never let us find out.

The reason the ratings need to be accurate is not to make matches balanced — this is not actually possible to do given the current population imbalances. The reason the ratings need to be accurate is, we want to have some matchup variability. We don’t want to be stuck playing the same servers week after week, we want to play somebody harder than usual or easier than usual once in a while, and we want to play more of our neighbors more often (so if you’re the #3 server you don’t want to face #1 and #2 over and over, you also want to play against #4 and #5 sometimes).

in order to determine how often these unusual matches should take place, the ratings need to be accurate. if all the servers had the same rating, you would see #1 playing #24 as often as they play #2. having accurate ratings allows the system to make matchups that are reasonably good, with reasonable variation, while avoiding horrible matchups that cannot possibly be fun for anybody.

yes, those servers that were in ‘perfect’ tiers where every matchup was balanced (but there was no variation) will actually see more unbalanced matchups — in some cases imbalance is the price you pay to get variation. but for most servers, the benefits of match variability will far outweigh the costs of imbalance because variability is what’s going to allow servers to move up and down the ranks more freely as they get stronger or weaker.

that is the big problem the old system had that the new system is trying to fix — it is a system that allows most of the matches to be reasonably good (but not perfect) while still allowing mismatches that provide an opportunity for an over-rated or under-rated server to prove that they deserve to move.

to do this, we need to be more flexible about what we consider “good” matches. under the old system, “good” matches were essentially “the best possible” matches. under the new system, “good” matches may sometimes have to be merely “not horrible”, because one of the things the new system does is spread the pain of bad matchups across all the servers, rather than just a few that were stuck perpetually in bad matchups every single week under the old system.

-ken

Snowreap.5174:

to do this, we need to be more flexible about what we consider “good” matches. under the old system, “good” matches were essentially “the best possible” matches. under the new system, “good” matches may sometimes have to be merely “not horrible”, because one of the things the new system does is spread the pain of bad matchups across all the servers, rather than just a few that were stuck perpetually in bad matchups every single week under the old system.

-ken

I think these were all great points ken. I also see some problems with the blowouts. From a rankings perspective, the best server should win and move up. Yet, there is a handicap in terms of the way the points work out. And in the end the best server really needs to win by a sufficient amount to justify its superior position in the rankings in order to move up.

This system ostensibly works well, if we assume that most people who are playing have the goal of achieving maximum server points. ANet has done a great job of tying loot and wvw rewards into this to encourage that goal for players. Unfortunately, when a server is dominating a match, people stop having fun on both sides, as they really don’t get enough time in meaningful fights. The lootbags also dry up for people on both sides. One side totally outnumbers the other and people on the losing side quit because they can’t kill anyone when completely outnumbered. Then people on the winning side get bored and quit too, due to the low population density of competition, there are no lootbags for them either. Then you wind up with server ratings that don’t actually represent the server’s potential, because players on the server are not just trying to advance their server rating, they are trying to have fun with the limited time that they invest into the game. You also wind up with situations where the winning side intentionally makes strategically poor decisions, (like bigger guilds not anouncing to everyone that a 30 man zerg is invading x tower), because they want a chance at an actual fair fight. So from the algorithm’s perspective, the sporadic drops in play on the winning server, coupled with occasional coordinated and successful rushes from the losing servers, start to make the servers seem more evenly matched than they really are. The algorithm then pushes them closer together so that a similar matchup is more likely in the future.

So I guess what I’m getting at is that you have the potential for odd feedback loops in this system, just as in the old one. The variability may remedy this to some extent. But I think, when it comes down to it, the problem is really a massive disparity in populations between servers.

I think allowing free transfers under limited conditions may help as well. For example, if a server loses 3 matchups in a row, maybe allow guilds to queue up for a limited number of free transfers to it in the following week. Or you could have the cost of transfers scale with wvw rankings, so a losing server becomes more desirable to a moderately sized guild that is tired of blowouts on major server. I think the problem with this system as it stands is that it doesn’t account for the impact that it has on player behavior. Players do not like blowouts, and will react to them accordingly, either wanting to leave losing servers for ones that win (which I believe would be bad for wvw as a whole), or wanting to leave winning servers for ones with more challenging and consistent matchups (which would be good for wvw).

Ideally, wvw should be working towards a condition where numbers are more or less equal across servers, and superior tactics and coordination are the main drivers of success. At that point, I think this system would become fun, and achieve the stated goals of exposing players to different playstyles (rather than different sized zergs).

Also, some people have suggested ANet may have ulterior motives in all of this…that’s just silly, they are trying to fix big problems in a complex system. The best we can do for them is give them simple and honest feedback.

echo.2053:

This is completely confusing as well as amuzing. you use the word blow out but your server is doing better then mostly all of the other servers that are having a rough time o.0. So i thought theres no way he could exaggerating this, so i clicked on the sever match up history………must be a rough time being 3rd place in the tier 1 bracket for how many matchups?

horray we are becoming self aware about what the true problem that the old system masked <3

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Desolation has been losing matchups for the last 21 weeks so I fail to see how “it’s doing better”. When you login on saturday morning knowing you’ve already lost, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re in T1 or T9, the end result is the same.

Sure, the new matching system solves the problem of ratings becoming false due to being locked in a tier. What I’m saying is:

A) this is a game
B) getting roflstomped and/or roflstomping is not fun
C) the purpose of playing a game is to have fun
D) given A B and C playing WvW makes little sense
E) accurate ratings won’t do a thing to fix the previous 4 points

I fail to see what’s so hard to understand here. Arenanet had 2 problems: an almost insignificant one (server ratings were not always accurate) and a colossal one (matches are grossly unbalanced and thus not fun). Solving the first won’t do anything for the second, because the difference between servers is too big even if the servers are close in ratings and even if the ratings are perfectly accurate. So why bother with the first at all, and ignore the second?

Contrary to what I keep reading it’s perfectly possible to enforce a point balance even with vastly different populations. All you need to do is change the scoring system. And yet it remains the same, and we get a different matching system instead. Why?

Tons of valid points here from both large and small servers. I have fought with and against some great players. Thanks for the fun guys while it was still fun.

sendmark.4731:

spanky.4630:

we need one up one down . why is this so hard to understand ?

Yeah I’ve no idea why they are so slow to understand this, but bear in mind they just don’t have this promotion/relegation in American. They don’t understand it.

They seem obsessed with thinking it’s bad because it puts tier 1 against tier 3, but don’t understand it’s worst tier 1 and the best tier 3, which is competitive. Also every other server is matched well. We can see this in fact from the random matchups, they only go to heck when it’s a bigger discrepency in ranks.

Don’t you dare go blaming America for Anet’s screw-ups. They are all from <insert name of place I dont care about> and THAT is why they won’t listen to players and stop ruining the game.

sendmark.4731:

They seem obsessed with thinking it’s bad because it puts tier 1 against tier 3, but don’t understand it’s worst tier 1 and the best tier 3, which is competitive. Also every other server is matched well. We can see this in fact from the random matchups, they only go to heck when it’s a bigger discrepency in ranks.

No.

Not by a long shot is the best T3 server even remotely close to the worst T1 server. SoR and BG may crush JQ all they want but the moment you remove both of them, JQ will simply walk over whatever competition is left. You would guarantee this match up every other week while (as has been pointed out countless times) trapping every single middle-of-the-isle server with terrible match ups because they’d oscillate between: the server that beat to move up, to, the server who could beat them without even showing up half of the time; without fail every week.

WULD is a bad, bad system.

There needs to be an incentive for players to spread out from the top-ranked servers. Unless the population spreads out everything else is tinkering around the edges.

Unfortunately this type of thing is counterproductive:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/recruitment/Large-Alliance-wanting-to-transfer-NA/first#post2225049

I’ll add that I reckon they should drop two of the borderlands. This would mean that it would be less coverage wars. Only the top four or five servers have the coverage to fill more than EB and one b’land.

The resulting queues for your SoRs and BGs would certainly be a way of encouraging people to other servers.

Actinotus.6410:

I’ll add that I reckon they should drop two of the borderlands. This would mean that it would be less coverage wars. Only the top four or five servers have the coverage to fill more than EB and one b’land.

The resulting queues for your SoRs and BGs would certainly be a way of encouraging people to other servers.

Perhaps they could do what ESO is planning to do.

In ESO, everyone will sign up for a “campaign” which is an instance of their AvAvA combat. If there is a queue for your campaign, you are put into an “overflow” campaign with randoms from other full instances. It’s almost exactly like GW2 PvE overflow system.

They could close down some Borderlands if they had this system. Playing in an overflow BL might not be that great. But, it probably would cause people to spread out more from the top servers.

Thrumdi.9216:

They could close down some Borderlands if they had this system. Playing in an overflow BL might not be that great. But, it probably would cause people to spread out more from the top servers.

Except the BLs are not designed to be a one-of, there’d be no way to decide who has the most advantageous positions north/hills vs. who has bay. The only map split evenly (mostly) is EBG; going to restrict everyone to EBG?

And before we take notes from a game… let’s actually wait for the game to come out such thakittens ideas can actually be tested… after however many more delays they might put it through.

echo.2053:

Hematuria.4051:

Looking at NA matchups, 5 are close and 3 are way off. I guess that’s a win. Wonder which server is having the best results from this change, I already know the ones who aren’t… from personal experience

Pretty much everyone T5 and below are having the times of their lives, except unfortunetely for the server that get put with the t8 severs.

Dont give in et, fc, fow, vabbi. one day these high populated severs will transfer some so that you can compete with us without having to deal with overwhleming numbers and give us the spanking you know you can give us XD ( i look forward to it wink wink ).

So great to see some much whine and realize it only affects a few servers. here have some cheese

I always wonder about people who call it whining and if they’ve spent over 1/2 a year getting throttled week in and week out. You would think that if you have spent over 7 months in a no-win situation, you would have the right to complain about the setup. I guess you could just make fun of and dismiss 4 servers because you don’t happen to be them.

Actinotus.6410:

There needs to be an incentive for players to spread out from the top-ranked servers. Unless the population spreads out everything else is tinkering around the edges.

Unfortunately this type of thing is counterproductive:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/recruitment/Large-Alliance-wanting-to-transfer-NA/first#post2225049

The only incentive I can think for those people to move out is a forced incentive. Free transfers will only cause the lower populated servers to be stacked.

Anet should just drop down the number of players allowed in all borderlands. Seeing that the only ones that can fill them out or come close to are the higher tier servers. After a while the higher tier WvWers would get tired of even longer Qs and eventually move out. The Zergs would not be as massive as they are now.

ShinNakon.9085:

Anet should just drop down the number of players allowed in all borderlands. Seeing that the only ones that can fill them out or come close to are the higher tier servers. After a while the higher tier WvWers would get tired of even longer Qs and eventually move out. The Zergs would not be as massive as they are now.

This! It also would result in much less lag and more dedicated WvW servers (and not just a handful of super stacked servers).

Also they should revisit how boons work in WvW. AoE damage is capped at 5. Boons, however, not. Therefore the current system favors big zergs.

It would be nice to see more group/squad actions. However, ANet needs to add way more tools for squad leaders. Other games, like EvE or PS2, provide way better tools to organize squads and platoons.

server match up is not terrible

it’s the point system that needs an overhaul

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

One post from devs on this issue…really? You have a decent portion of the games community upset and we get a tiny response pretty much saying oh well deal with it were not changing anything right now. Most mmos tend to hotfix or patch stuff thats wrong with their games. I dont know if i can speak for everyone here but i can say that wvw is literally the only reason i play this game. dont force me to go somewhere else.

mikefmc.5961:

One post from devs on this issue…really? You have a decent portion of the games community upset and we get a tiny response pretty much saying oh well deal with it were not changing anything right now. Most mmos tend to hotfix or patch stuff thats wrong with their games. I dont know if i can speak for everyone here but i can say that wvw is literally the only reason i play this game. dont force me to go somewhere else.

Because 5/8 tiers are in decent matches, and Mags frankly has just been REALLY unlucky?

The RNG gods cant possibly have it in for you guys a fourth time right?

Rawr.5930:

mikefmc.5961:

One post from devs on this issue…really? You have a decent portion of the games community upset and we get a tiny response pretty much saying oh well deal with it were not changing anything right now. Most mmos tend to hotfix or patch stuff thats wrong with their games. I dont know if i can speak for everyone here but i can say that wvw is literally the only reason i play this game. dont force me to go somewhere else.

Because 5/8 tiers are in decent matches, and Mags frankly has just been REALLY unlucky?

The RNG gods cant possibly have it in for you guys a fourth time right?

I find it hard to believe that it is only affecting 3 tiers either way thats still an issue.. a system that makes wvw almost unplayable for 3 weeks at a time is ok for you?

I love the new system. I love seeing new faces on the field. I’ve been having nothing but fun as a result of it.

That being said, the volatility will go away supposedly as we get closer to our “true” score.

I hope beyond hope that we do not go back to what we had prior to this.

mikefmc.5961:

Rawr.5930:

mikefmc.5961:

One post from devs on this issue…really? You have a decent portion of the games community upset and we get a tiny response pretty much saying oh well deal with it were not changing anything right now. Most mmos tend to hotfix or patch stuff thats wrong with their games. I dont know if i can speak for everyone here but i can say that wvw is literally the only reason i play this game. dont force me to go somewhere else.

Because 5/8 tiers are in decent matches, and Mags frankly has just been REALLY unlucky?

The RNG gods cant possibly have it in for you guys a fourth time right?

I find it hard to believe that it is only affecting 3 tiers either way thats still an issue.. a system that makes wvw almost unplayable for 3 weeks at a time is ok for you?

The short term volatility is expected due to the size of the variable factor, Devon Carter already posted on this that as glicko gaps narrow and tiers become more balanced LESS variance will the goal.

Mags thus far has just had REALLY CRAPPY LUCK.

But the issue isnt systemic, you guys just have REALLY CRAPPY LUCK.

Mammoth.1975:

Lopez.7369:

I would take stale match-ups over a week of being on TC right now. The game is basically unplayable for a week.

I just don’t understand why the deviation was allowed to stay this large for this week’s match-up. It’s been a clear problem for the past few weeks. It should have been fixed by now.

I don’t know how the current TC-CD-SOS match-up is remotely acceptable to any developer. I know for a fact Blizzard would immediately hotfix an issue this big for such a major feature.

CD-SOS-SBI were matched for months and TC is closer in rating to SOS than SBI is. Your example is the system actually working. The problem is SOS got so used to easy wins that now they’re facing opposition more suited to them, they’ve all packed up and gone to PVE. CD is a different story, their matchup this week is rough.

How many times does it need to be said, SoS went from fighting the 11th and 12th ranked servers (SoS was 10th) and were mismatched with the 4th and 6th ranked servers, then the 4th and 1st ranked server (that was a hillarious joke) and now the 4th (I know DB is technically 4th and TC is 5th but TC is much stronger than DB, DB got ratings leach and TC didn’t) and 11th. A server with coverage of 4th place shouldn’t be fighting a server with coverage from 10th (realistically, 7th – current unstable rank, 8th or 9th) place. It’s not that SoS had easy wins (it did, that’s not the problem here) or isn’t trying (they are, although the bullkitten match ups from the last three weeks have turned WvW into a chore so a lot of people don’t give a kitten and are not participating any more, there are still a lot of people turning up), it’s that WvW is a numbers game and the current matchmaking system is a pile of kitten that is completely ignoring dramatic differences in numbers (ie: coverage and score) because Devon is infatuated with ELO regardless of how it doesn’t match up with reality.

It’s like watching someone use a star screwdriver for a screw that requires a flat tip. You might get the screw in eventually, but you’re going to royally kitten up the screw in the process. But the ELO dude has a bunch of letters in from of his name, so that must mean consecutive weeks of terrible mismatches are the ideal situation, right?

The solution is glaringly obvious but it is also painful for some people. Restrict wvw numbers to even for all realms…

If you are on a stacked server you can choose between massive queues or going to play on regular servers and building them up. You know like the rest of us?

The lack of population controls is at the heart of the mismatches, in fact it is the only consideration in determining who wins. We regularly thrash the enemy zerg v zerg when only slightly outnumbered cos they’re not good! But later on we get 2-3 onto our 1 and of course we cannot win.

Force the stackers to endure huge queues and you may well filter the population out a bit, right now it is a disaster and wvw is complete garbage. Who knows with FORCED EVEN NUMBERS in wvw we might then get rankings that mean something???

fishball.7204:

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

The sad part is our points are increasing lol

Mike.4618:

The solution is glaringly obvious but it is also painful for some people. Restrict wvw numbers to even for all realms…

If you are on a stacked server you can choose between massive queues or going to play on regular servers and building them up. You know like the rest of us?

The lack of population controls is at the heart of the mismatches, in fact it is the only consideration in determining who wins. We regularly thrash the enemy zerg v zerg when only slightly outnumbered cos they’re not good! But later on we get 2-3 onto our 1 and of course we cannot win.

Force the stackers to endure huge queues and you may well filter the population out a bit, right now it is a disaster and wvw is complete garbage. Who knows with FORCED EVEN NUMBERS in wvw we might then get rankings that mean something???

Even numbers should be the way to go, but punishing players for actions they’ve already taken is just going to drive them away.

You think NA prime on SoR is enjoying the queues?

They had those queues for months, and the guilds havent moved?

Making the problem worse is more likely going to drive people from the game rather than having people “destack”.

Dont try to unfry an egg.

Matching servers with similar population profiles is the way to go rather than attempting to FORCE a population shift.

You’ll just engender a ill will and betrayal amongst the player population.

A lot of smaller servers are suggesting things like “Let’s lower map caps.”

Sorry but worst idea ever.

You guys think you are forcing these players to move to lower tier servers. But in reality these players and guilds will just rage quit the game.

None of this is addressing what needs to happen. When the kitten are we going to have Mag-SoS-EB?

People point out the unfortunate events that led to stagnation in T5-T4. Let’s clarify this, EB had been working hard to work it’s way up. SBI was clearly not T4 or apparently even T5 material but refuses to quit to the point where they dropped down.
SoS ended up in T4 because of massive transfers, and because DB was in T3; despite ticking +500 for about 8 hours a day.

All those problems, were resolving themselves. EB had finally clawed up; KN is melting down, DB was in T2, and SoS was ~ 1 week from going to T3. The only thing that could have stopped that was EB, and if we couldn’t beat them or beat them by enough, then clearly we belonged where we were.
Keep in mind that CD has gotten a lot tougher as well, and are beastly in NA prime (for a >T2 server that is.)

Besides, if people want to talk about stagnation; then tell me why SoS and TC have been in every match together despite being first 6 places apart then 3? I have mad respect for TC and there have been times I’ve enjoyed our match(es), but it’s ran it’s course; especially as shown this week.

The system has shown that T2 is no match for any T1, and no <T2 server is match for T2 (though I want another crack at FA, in spite of this).

Every server except YB and KN has gotten a turn in the kittenbox and SBI has gotten corrected downward, is there anyone not from those servers happy about this?

Ethics.4519:

fishball.7204:

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

The sad part is our points are increasing lol

Not this week. You’re down 26 points as of this writing.

Maybe Anet can just create a button for “Alliances”? Alliances only lits up when the 2 servers are behind by certain amount of points. Example would be if the 2nd closest server is 10k points behind, the 2 servers who are behind can vote on the “Alliance” icon which has a 1 minute timer which prompts all those within the borderland to click accept or decline. If they don’t vote, it abstains so it’s neither a yes or no vote. If both sides has more saying yes than no, it will effectively in that borderland allows the 2 servers to see each other as “non red” so they are friendly and cannot be targetted or attacked. If server A heavily outmanned B and C, B and C will have their forces combined to take out A. The Alliance will trigger off after either B or C passes A in points. So no need to complain about double team, because if your server is so stacked, be prepared to face off against 2 servers which they cannot mistakenly hurt each other… And if both servers going after same base, it’s okay. Whichever server captures it first will take the base. The circle will have both colors and whoever gets more people in, takes it. Make the matches closer. And with the Alliance, if B captures a base, C cannot take it and vice versa. They are both allowed to take all of the bases from A until the scores evens out.

Hickeroar.9734:

Ethics.4519:

fishball.7204:

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

The sad part is our points are increasing lol

Not this week. You’re down 26 points as of this writing.

Thanks for missing the point.

Ethics.4519:

Hickeroar.9734:

Ethics.4519:

fishball.7204:

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

The sad part is our points are increasing lol

Not this week. You’re down 26 points as of this writing.

Thanks for missing the point.

The system is “working” from a numbers perspective. The ratings are more accurate than ever. The problem is that a lot of people aren’t actually having fun anymore with this crap.

So, it’s basically this: if you want to have fun in WvW then join a stacked server or quit. Well, ok …

Hickeroar.9734:

Ethics.4519:

Hickeroar.9734:

Ethics.4519:

fishball.7204:

Nobody cares about points when you can’t even move out from spawn on your own borderlands to cap a camp or tower lol.

The sad part is our points are increasing lol

Not this week. You’re down 26 points as of this writing.

Thanks for missing the point.

The system is “working” from a numbers perspective. The ratings are more accurate than ever. The problem is that a lot of people aren’t actually having fun anymore with this crap.

amen. I’m sure you’re just as tired of seeing us as we are of you LOL.

I see no way it can happen without SoS or FA getting kittened over royally; but I am curious to see how a TC, DB, JQ match would turn out.

Don’t get me wrong, it’d be dreadful for the T2 folks, but I wonder if DB and TC did a 2v1, would JQ win and by how much?

Chris.3290:

Don’t get me wrong, it’d be dreadful for the T2 folks, but I wonder if DB and TC did a 2v1, would JQ win and by how much?

Without any in-game incentives or mechanics to encourage the 2v1 I seriously doubt TC and DB would ally.

That match might end up even worse for DB than the BG-JQ-DB match did because TC would be under a lot more pressure to farm DB for points whenever possible to combat JQ’s strength, causing what would look like a JQ-TC 2v1 against DB (even though no such thing actually existed).

That to me is the single greatest failing of the current Rating/Scoring system – it does everything it can to encourage 2v1s against the weakest Server.

Bring on them free transfers. Fix this top-heavy population kitten.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

That to me is the single greatest failing of the current Rating/Scoring system – it does everything it can to encourage 2v1s against the weakest Server.

You nailed it.

2v1 against the stronger server sounds noble, but what happens if it actually works? The two weaker servers aren’t going to be splitting the points evenly, and that alliance will way too fast.

ahn.9271:

- Siege is necessary, but there needs to be some way for the vastly outnumbered server to be able to get siege up in the first place. It’s nice to have an outmanned buff, but when you’ve got 10 people trying to take a tower and they’ve got 50+ defending, it’s tough to get even a small foothold. Maybe outmanned buff can carry with it a reduced supply-per-siege-item buff as well… how does 30%-50% less supply sound? Further, we are up against a server that has so many WvWers that they have up to a 3 hour wait to get into WvW. If they have that many people on the map and that many waiting to get in (and we have 0 wait), they should have an easier time refreshing siege. Conversely, when a disadvantaged server spends all their time and effort gaining a foothold and then moves on to a battle of attrition at another point on the map, it is difficult to have people break off to refresh siege – every able-bodied person counts… Perhaps the outmanned buff or the disparity between one server’s score and another server’s score or the number of people in queue should have an effect on siege refreshment?

Whole post was good but this one specifically. I don’t think I’ve seen this suggestion before and I believe its one of the best one’s ever.

I know its hard for the higher tier servers to understand but getting enough siege while undermanned is hard as is keeping it refreshed. This would make it immesurably easier and more enjoyable to play as undermanned.