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Posted by: Radian.2478

Radian.2478

My suggestion is

1) Glicko reset at each re-link
2) Change in the way server links are decided

Notice that a glicko reset has a huge downside which is that the first few weeks are predicted to have more one-sided matchups until the true server ratings are established.

Now for how to change the server linking algorithm such that glicko reset doesn’t screw over the first few matchups.

Run the following algorithm to decide the new server links:

Step 1) Select the 12 most populated servers to be host servers

Step 2) Generate all possible ways (combinations) to make the 12 server links such that all 12 host servers receive 0-2 additional servers linked to them.

Step 3) Choose the set of 12 server links that minimizes the standard deviation in the population of the 12 server links. For example, say you look at one possible way (combination) to decide the 12 server links. For each of the 12 server links, calculate the population (population of host server + population of guest servers). This gives you 12 different numbers. Take the standard deviation of that. Repeat this process, calculating the standard deviation in population for all combinations generated in step 2. Select the combination of 12 server links that ended up with the lowest standard deviation in population.

And there you have it. If you don’t like outliers, you can do steps 1 and 2 from above and then instead choose the combination of server links such that the most populated server link minus the least populated server link is minimized. Lastly, if you think that having more servers in a single link makes each individual server less effective (maybe poor communication or something), then you can always take off 5% from the calculated population for each additional server linked or something like that.

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Posted by: Sinbold.8723

Sinbold.8723

Dear Anet,

I LOVE your game. Especially WvW, where I spend most of my time. Love the new teaming up of servers and the populated borderlands. However, many guilds transferred servers when this happened (at least from my server- not sure about others), skewing your population numbers that you use for match-ups. I’m on Ehmry Bay, and we lost two of our largest WvW guilds when the server pairings happened, and I truly believe that you have not counted this loss for our server when calculating match-ups. We’ve been stuck in a match-up against CD and SF where we are outnumbered 95% of the time we’re playing this wonderful game. Although we can still manage to have fun at times, I have to admit that it CAN get discouraging when we’re outnumbered so often. So I come before you in these forums to humbly request you re-check your population numbers for your next match-up. And maybe, just maybe, to manually adjust things that that horrible glicko cannot figure out on its own so we can have some fresh, relatively even, matches.

If you are a player reading this and you feel the same way, please leave a comment. If you are a player reading this and you don’t feel the same way, please explain why you feel a server should always be outnumbered in this new match-up system.

Thank you for reading.

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Posted by: Jeknar.6184

Jeknar.6184

This topic is already being discussed on this thread. T4 only hope is that the increasing of rating that they intent to do at the 29th be enough to make CD roll a T3 matchup. However with YB feeding rating to the other T3 servers, they will either have to give more rating than they previously planed or we’ll just have to stick up with this match until the pairing change at August 26th.

Kawagima / Kelvena Riverstream / Calamis Fatima / Hanna Flintlocke
WvW Rank 3800 (Platinum Veteran) – PvP Rank 69 (Shark) – 25,9k Achievment Points
Mërcenaries [Sold] – Ferguson’s Crossing

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Posted by: Mushin.3928

Mushin.3928

Its clear that that the T4 links were poorly done. Glicko adjustment for matchmaking won’t help if the worlds are not linked properly.

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Posted by: Sinbold.8723

Sinbold.8723

As it is right now, we are 2 servers matched up against 7 servers. Are the populations equal between we 2 and those 7? Abso-freakin-lootly not.

RE-FRELING_BALANCE please.

(do I get extra points for the Farscape curse reference?)

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Posted by: SilkyPantaloons.3617

SilkyPantaloons.3617

We’ve had the outnumbered buff on CD 24/7 for 12 months or more,you have it a few hours a day for a few weeks and suddenly it’s an issue for you??

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Posted by: Jayne.9251

Jayne.9251

L’enfer, c’est les autres

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Posted by: Choppy.4183

Choppy.4183

We’ve had the outnumbered buff on CD 24/7 for 12 months or more,you have it a few hours a day for a few weeks and suddenly it’s an issue for you??

Lol, nonsense. CD’s actually fought EB a few times in the twelve months prior to the current matchup, and iirc you had higher pop almost every time.

You’re the highest pop server in the current matchup and you’ve got three others linked with you. You’ve also gained guilds since this match started while others (like EB and DH) have actually lost guilds (more than the two Sinbold mentioned, which were lost prior to the current matchup but apparently wasn’t factored into this one).

All Sinbold has said is the current approach to matchups and scoring keeps servers in a bad way. He used EB as an example. but this applies almost as much to CD itself, which some CD people have already complained about. You’ve dominated every round of this matchup, and that’s almost as boring as getting dominated.

I’m Biff Rangoon, and I approved this message.
Ehmry Bay | Omg Brb Icecream Truck (ICEE)

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Posted by: Jeknar.6184

Jeknar.6184

We’ve had the outnumbered buff on CD 24/7 for 12 months or more,you have it a few hours a day for a few weeks and suddenly it’s an issue for you??

Pretty sure CD was rising before the links began… Don’t make me link CD previous matchups and make you look like a idiot. Only servers who have been at the bottom of the barrel for long periods have the right of crying somenthing like that (Hello Eredon Terrace) and even them weren’t losing prior the linking (AR was the lowest during the few last weeks).

The way you talk tho you must be one of these people who think winning is more important than having a fun balanced match.

Kawagima / Kelvena Riverstream / Calamis Fatima / Hanna Flintlocke
WvW Rank 3800 (Platinum Veteran) – PvP Rank 69 (Shark) – 25,9k Achievment Points
Mërcenaries [Sold] – Ferguson’s Crossing

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Posted by: Mushin.3928

Mushin.3928

The problem with old matchup data is that transfers have probably made a lot of it obsolete. I’m on BP and I know that two major guilds have transferred off for example.

The CD link is still OP though and should have never be done. Really they should have relaxed the pop cap restrictions for transfers a couple weeks before the relink, not two weeks after it as they did. So we’re stuck messed up links that were further skewed by heavy transfer activity. Oh well, just another month of it I guess.

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Posted by: Hitch.7295

Hitch.7295

This topic is being discussed a 100 times. Just realize their system is broken and they can’t fix it and that’s that. Find another game until they actually do something. 4 years of or so of playing this I was fooled by the you tube videos of this great WvW system that is pure kitten. Play it to waste time the design will not be changed unless they figure a way to monetize it!

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Posted by: Famine.7915

Famine.7915

While on paper it may work, putting this into action is a different story. Say using this you do manage to get the most even balance of population possible, it still doesn’t take into account server performance. Some servers can do more with less while some servers can’t compete despite a higher population. Assuming a scenario like this happens (which is highly likely), that alone will throw off the matchups. Once again you will see higher population servers overwhelming a tier that they have dropped down to, or having a less populated server in a match they can no longer compete in.

So many more factors affect this outcome and all of this doesn’t even take into account ability of players to transfer or how frequently they do so.

Vee/Volk
Maguuma – Predatory Instinct [HUNT]
Necromancer

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Posted by: johnny lafata.4670

johnny lafata.4670

I am on BP so I am linked with CD. I normally roam the hostile BL’s, and I am outnumbered most of the time.
i just try to avoid the Zerg. However SF tends to never roam in groups of less than 5 since they can’t win a fair fight to save their life. lol
Found some pretty cool people on DH though!

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Posted by: SilkyPantaloons.3617

SilkyPantaloons.3617

We’ve had the outnumbered buff on CD 24/7 for 12 months or more,you have it a few hours a day for a few weeks and suddenly it’s an issue for you??

The way you talk tho you must be one of these people who think winning is more important than having a fun balanced match.

Far from it,i would like nothing better than to see a more balanced arena.But don’t just jump to conclusions, here are the results for CD with it being exactly 12 months since we won a week and it steadily getting to the point of us being seriously outnumbered.
My argument was,that servers that enjoyed reasonable matches for so long and suddenly have had that taken away now seem to care about imbalance.
http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/histories

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Posted by: Tongku.5326

Tongku.5326

My suggestion is

1) Glicko reset at each re-link
2) Change in the way server links are decided

Notice that a glicko reset has a huge downside which is that the first few weeks are predicted to have more one-sided matchups until the true server ratings are established.

Now for how to change the server linking algorithm such that glicko reset doesn’t screw over the first few matchups.

Run the following algorithm to decide the new server links:

Step 1) Select the 12 most populated servers to be host servers

Step 2) Generate all possible ways (combinations) to make the 12 server links such that all 12 host servers receive 0-2 additional servers linked to them.

Step 3) Choose the set of 12 server links that minimizes the standard deviation in the population of the 12 server links. For example, say you look at one possible way (combination) to decide the 12 server links. For each of the 12 server links, calculate the population (population of host server + population of guest servers). This gives you 12 different numbers. Take the standard deviation of that. Repeat this process, calculating the standard deviation in population for all combinations generated in step 2. Select the combination of 12 server links that ended up with the lowest standard deviation in population.

And there you have it. If you don’t like outliers, you can do steps 1 and 2 from above and then instead choose the combination of server links such that the most populated server link minus the least populated server link is minimized. Lastly, if you think that having more servers in a single link makes each individual server less effective (maybe poor communication or something), then you can always take off 5% from the calculated population for each additional server linked or something like that.

Half of what you propose was already done and failed.

The top population servers were linked with lowest pop servers, it didn’t work because their original populations still far outnumbered the linked pairs, while at the same time limiting overall playability for many of the low pop server people via queues etc.

So the top pop servers do not need any links whatsoever, hence you can’t have 12 hosts. The reason we have a 4 server link now is because A-Net tried to manually link servers based on collected data. Mind you, their data involves and is based on WVW activity rather then just sheer numbers.

However, for the rest of your post, there should be more movement and plain and simple manual intervention in match ups to allow movement far more responsive to bandwagoning and scenarios such as the current server links with 1 link being overwhelming to the others in its tier.

As long as mass server hopping and bandwagoning is allowed, there is simply and plainly no way for any algorithm to keep up, because those need hard, over time data to work and obtain averages.

So instead of coming up with some elaborate, time and labor consuming scheme of one sorts or another, just keep collecting data, then have a guy take 30 minutes and do the match ups based on the data, approve it by another 2-3 people, and you’re good to go.

Heavy Deedz – COSA – SF

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Posted by: Rayya.2591

Rayya.2591

well if you want to have fun, best ideea is to spend some gems for transfer
there will never be population balance

http://imgur.com/a/fKgjD
no.1 WvW kills

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Posted by: Akkeros.1675

Akkeros.1675

Just, wow! at the cd prior to linking comparison. No comment
Also, the difference between this thread and the “other threads” that have a similar subject discussed is the way it was presented and the fact that the other thread simply describes the situation in half-joking, half-serious comments in regards to a different topic.
The big pic here is how? and why? these linkings took place and what to avoid using as an indicator(glicko vs pop or time of census maybe?) to revert the situation or prevent it from happening again.
Good comments OP!
So ANET, can you comment on this subject?

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Posted by: Sylvyn.4750

Sylvyn.4750

Just, wow! at the cd prior to linking comparison. No comment
Also, the difference between this thread and the “other threads” that have a similar subject discussed is the way it was presented and the fact that the other thread simply describes the situation in half-joking, half-serious comments in regards to a different topic.
The big pic here is how? and why? these linkings took place and what to avoid using as an indicator(glicko vs pop or time of census maybe?) to revert the situation or prevent it from happening again.
Good comments OP!
So ANET, can you comment on this subject?

They commented in the other thread about the adjustment they will make on the 29th. They also said they could look at modifying how matchups are determined but it is a significant enough change that it would take time out of the current issues they are addressing so it is automatically on the proverbial back burner.

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Posted by: Radian.2478

Radian.2478

While on paper it may work, putting this into action is a different story. Say using this you do manage to get the most even balance of population possible, it still doesn’t take into account server performance. Some servers can do more with less while some servers can’t compete despite a higher population. Assuming a scenario like this happens (which is highly likely), that alone will throw off the matchups. Once again you will see higher population servers overwhelming a tier that they have dropped down to, or having a less populated server in a match they can no longer compete in.

So many more factors affect this outcome and all of this doesn’t even take into account ability of players to transfer or how frequently they do so.

I have always thought that the majority of the community wanted matchups to be decided by performance/skill more-so than the population gap. I felt this algorithm does that a tad better than the current one. I can see how servers that have a high percentage of pugs not competing well. I’d hope that they would meet at the bottom tier and vs other server combos like them.

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Posted by: Radian.2478

Radian.2478

My suggestion is

1) Glicko reset at each re-link
2) Change in the way server links are decided

Notice that a glicko reset has a huge downside which is that the first few weeks are predicted to have more one-sided matchups until the true server ratings are established.

Now for how to change the server linking algorithm such that glicko reset doesn’t screw over the first few matchups.

Run the following algorithm to decide the new server links:

Step 1) Select the 12 most populated servers to be host servers

Step 2) Generate all possible ways (combinations) to make the 12 server links such that all 12 host servers receive 0-2 additional servers linked to them.

Step 3) Choose the set of 12 server links that minimizes the standard deviation in the population of the 12 server links. For example, say you look at one possible way (combination) to decide the 12 server links. For each of the 12 server links, calculate the population (population of host server + population of guest servers). This gives you 12 different numbers. Take the standard deviation of that. Repeat this process, calculating the standard deviation in population for all combinations generated in step 2. Select the combination of 12 server links that ended up with the lowest standard deviation in population.

And there you have it. If you don’t like outliers, you can do steps 1 and 2 from above and then instead choose the combination of server links such that the most populated server link minus the least populated server link is minimized. Lastly, if you think that having more servers in a single link makes each individual server less effective (maybe poor communication or something), then you can always take off 5% from the calculated population for each additional server linked or something like that.

Half of what you propose was already done and failed.

The top population servers were linked with lowest pop servers, it didn’t work because their original populations still far outnumbered the linked pairs, while at the same time limiting overall playability for many of the low pop server people via queues etc.

So the top pop servers do not need any links whatsoever, hence you can’t have 12 hosts. The reason we have a 4 server link now is because A-Net tried to manually link servers based on collected data. Mind you, their data involves and is based on WVW activity rather then just sheer numbers.

However, for the rest of your post, there should be more movement and plain and simple manual intervention in match ups to allow movement far more responsive to bandwagoning and scenarios such as the current server links with 1 link being overwhelming to the others in its tier.

As long as mass server hopping and bandwagoning is allowed, there is simply and plainly no way for any algorithm to keep up, because those need hard, over time data to work and obtain averages.

So instead of coming up with some elaborate, time and labor consuming scheme of one sorts or another, just keep collecting data, then have a guy take 30 minutes and do the match ups based on the data, approve it by another 2-3 people, and you’re good to go.

I think that what you mentioned about going off WvW activity instead of WvW population is a better idea. My main concern is the current lack of degrees of freedom in choosing the server links. I felt that when you allow for each server to have 0-2 additional guests, you open up more opportunities for closer activity levels than when you require each server to have one partner (the set of rules used for the first server link). Maybe they have to also be open to having 4-6 tiers at each re-link and see which would give the best balance. When you add more degrees of freedom, there are more ways to have closer matchups. The down-side is that it’s harder to come up with a decision since there are so many options.

As far as lessening bandwagonning, I think they need to lock all servers after each re-link and then re-open them sometime in the middle of the matchup or towards the end. Maybe open them up with 2 or 3 weeks left in the matchup. The idea is for it to not be worth it to just bandwagon the day of the re-link. It should also not be worth it to bandwagon at any point in time only with the intention of doing it because of the current set of server links. I haven’t really thought a lot about what should be changed with server transfers very much though because that is something that helps fund ArenaNet and I don’t know what type of effect each idea regarding server transfers would have on the funding.

As for your bottom paragraph, ArenaNet may have done that for this re-link. I’m not sure though because I’m not an ArenaNet employee.

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Posted by: Akkeros.1675

Akkeros.1675

but i bet it’s soon

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Posted by: Sylvyn.4750

Sylvyn.4750

but i bet it’s soon

They were going to put up a poll on in first, however, which we haven’t seen yet.

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

Its clear that that the T4 links were poorly done. Glicko adjustment for matchmaking won’t help if the worlds are not linked properly.

Yep and there’s still nothing from anet on the process on how these links were arrived at.

They commented in the other thread about the adjustment they will make on the 29th. They also said they could look at modifying how matchups are determined but it is a significant enough change that it would take time out of the current issues they are addressing so it is automatically on the proverbial back burner.

Yes the burning issues of repair hammers and mobile cannons…..

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

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Posted by: Grim West.3194

Grim West.3194

Coverage is a huge issue. JQ is a “full” server but NA is rarely queued.. Other servers have queues in NA on multiple maps, but are empty at other times. Fights are almost never “balanced” at any time frame.

You want people fighting at the same times with roughly equal numbers for “balance” but the servers have coverage all over the place. How do you fix that?

Telling players who don’t live in NA that their money and time doesn’t count isn’t going to work. It will just make them mad and they will leave the game. And the players will game that system too.

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Posted by: funghetto.1584

funghetto.1584

hello Anet.

will you consider a few suggestions for quick balancing?

1) boon “resistance”, introduced it with the increased conditions max stack, perfect.
but can’t work for long in that way, not with boon increased duration from mesmer-revenant-etc, as settings of armor-runes-sigils-trinkets-weapons.
in wvw a cripple-chill-imob (soft cc) was perfect vs the old stability system to slow down this group. now nothing can stop them. consider “resistance” working as “protection”? a 33% condition damage reduction? or similar?

2) condition “confusion”: simply “wrong” how it works in pvp-wvw.
100 damage on skill use, 200 overtime a second? lets say like 100 damage on skill use and 50 overtime a second

3) stealth and conditions damage that don’t trigger “reveal” state, why? that is a damage aswell, should trigger a “reveal”

regards.

“There’s no such thing as balance, fairness or honor.”
a Fissure Of Woe player that has no home.

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Posted by: Offair.2563

Offair.2563

About confusion; Revert it to the original state, only damage on skill usage. Or simply remove perplexity runes as confusion is like bleed 2.0 atm.

Big Babou, Ranger for life.
Madness Rises [Rise] – Banners Hold.
Don’t argue with idiots, they pull you down their level and own you with experience.

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Posted by: SkyShroud.2865

SkyShroud.2865

It doesn’t matter. Your suggestion doesn’t make the fundamental problem go away. Every server has NAs but not every server has off coverage. It is extremely hard to link servers in such a way that you don’t destroy the NA with queues while having comparable coverage.

Founder & Leader of Equinox Solstice [TIME], a Singapore-Based International Guild
Henge of Denravi Server
www.gw2time.com

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Posted by: jamesdolla.3954

jamesdolla.3954

Coverage is a huge issue. JQ is a “full” server but NA is rarely queued.. Other servers have queues in NA on multiple maps, but are empty at other times. Fights are almost never “balanced” at any time frame.

You want people fighting at the same times with roughly equal numbers for “balance” but the servers have coverage all over the place. How do you fix that?

Telling players who don’t live in NA that their money and time doesn’t count isn’t going to work. It will just make them mad and they will leave the game. And the players will game that system too.

most those off hour guilds are just pvd and would get rekt in NA timezone. i could care less if some unskilled night capper would get mad cause his pvd is nerfed. They’re zombies m8

Native Maguuman

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Posted by: funghetto.1584

funghetto.1584

hahaha we are the only two that would like a bit more balance hahaha

“There’s no such thing as balance, fairness or honor.”
a Fissure Of Woe player that has no home.

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Posted by: Grim West.3194

Grim West.3194

Coverage is a huge issue. JQ is a “full” server but NA is rarely queued.. Other servers have queues in NA on multiple maps, but are empty at other times. Fights are almost never “balanced” at any time frame.

You want people fighting at the same times with roughly equal numbers for “balance” but the servers have coverage all over the place. How do you fix that?

Telling players who don’t live in NA that their money and time doesn’t count isn’t going to work. It will just make them mad and they will leave the game. And the players will game that system too.

most those off hour guilds are just pvd and would get rekt in NA timezone. i could care less if some unskilled night capper would get mad cause his pvd is nerfed. They’re zombies m8

Lol at PvD. I’ve played on most servers (transfers when they were free and multiple accounts), they are all the same and PvD all day every day.

Every server (including yours) PvD’s like there is no tomorrow,. That’s how you get to higher tiers. Anyone in T1 or T2 or T3 claiming they don’t PvD is a pathetic liar. GW2 is built for PvD, that is how you win and move up tiers. I love how you all cry about it and then go ahead and PvD your hearts out.

JQ’s NA is low so they see all the hypocrite “fight servers” PvD all the time. You are not special and you are not a better human being than those who don’t fight during NA. EVERY server (including yours) blobs against those that are weak during certain time zones.

I would love it if PvD wasn’t important, but that is how the game is designed and it will not be changed. The mass player fantasy of claiming not to PvD is just a mass example of hypocrisy.

(edited by Grim West.3194)