Guild Wars 2

So, the claim is that 3 teams provide balance. The argument is that the losing 2 teams will be able to team up to take down the bigger team. This argument is flawed, at least in the current method of coming up with server ranks. Here’s why:

1. During off peak hours if the winning team has more players than second place, not overwhelming but just 20-50 more, but team 3 has almost nobody those 20-50 are able to completely decimate the other team. Simultaneously team 3 is continuously taking team 2 objectives while they are (hopefully) taking team 1 objectives, which allows team 1 to gain a more commanding lead on team 2.

2. In the current server ranking system it is always better for team 3 to focus on team 2 after a certain point. And everyone knows it is better for team 1 to focus on team 2 to keep them at bay. So, instead of the two lower teams teaming against the powerhouse team 3 battle for second place.

3. If this system was working we should have more than 1 shining example of a balanced matchup, with the match Sanctum of Rall was in a few weeks ago.

I understand why they did it this way, but it isn’t working. Given how the scores have been going, I don’t see how they could justify moving to 2 week matches.

2 teams has it’s problems, but 3 teams is not working either. In fact, 3 teams seems to be there just to make sure that 1st place has enough players to beat on to keep them slightly interested.

Anyway, given these realities I wanted to get a feel for what other players think would help.

Adding another team or two? Changing the scoring system?

Thoughts?

Seems fine to me.

4 teams will fix it.

all i can say is that i agree with your points, can’t see this holding for 2 week matches as it is now.

It’s fine as is. The server with no players on doesn’t deserve to win and they will drop until they fight teams that also have a low player base.

Adding more teams won’t even fix the issues you brought up. They’d still happen, just on a wider scale.

I agree about two week matches, though. They would be ridiculous.

3 teams is what makes the WvW fun

Three teams is the best part of Guildwars 2.

It’s been working great for the last three weeks in our rankings.

I think we need to give it a little more time. There seems to be at least a couple of close matches so far this week. But with free transfers still in place, that’s definitely a factor in skewing the matchmaking system.

But having participated in a close match, I think there’s definitely more incentive to attack the big dog if they’re not up by thousands of points over the other two servers.

Otherwise when a single server is so dominant it does seem to require a kind of strict server alliance between the lesser two that’s practically impossible to enforce.

3 teams makes it better

your talking jibberish

I think the world of warcraft mentality dominates most players mindset. You want your easy wins, you want your easy loots, you want pandas. DAOC players know that 3 teams not only works but is the only way to have a realm war.

The player base needs to figure out that arenanet isn’t going to hand you your precious victory without either working for it or having 24/7 coverage with a mass player base while the other two realms are asleep.

There is no point to wvw other than an artificial scoreboard. The only point is having orbs of power. Have fun with the system as it is and enjoy the wvw. Your skill in wvw is victories on the battlefield and not getting caught up in what the score is.

Azure Prower.8701:

4 teams will fix it.

Perhaps but with 5 people definitely won’t quit when behind.

I don’t think the OP got a single thing right there….

The 1st mistake is thinking WvW is balanced or will ever be balanced.
You cannot make WvW balanced…..you just cant.

Sometimes you get doubled sometimes you double the weakest or strongest.
Sometimes you have a big zerg in offpeak hours and gain alot of points and sometimes you dont.

People need take WvW with a grain of salt and have fun and stop looking at the score so much.

I know i was looking at the score every 10 minutes, now i dont care for it anymore and just try to make as much fan as i can.

Arenanet made 3 faction WvW and this is as good as it gets, so either love it or dont

As the poster above me pretty much says, who ever claimed WvW was supposed to be balanced? It’s the whole imbalance that keeps it interesting.

The balanced gameplay is over in sPvP territory.

3 teams doesn’t work ofc obv obv obv i mean c’mon obv but neither does 2 teams which should be even more obvious after 6 years of wow clone mentality among mmo devs, and nearly 9 years of wow.

l2 had it right, clan war system augmented by a proper PK flagging and penalty system. made pvp meaningful. because ultimately it was up to players to decide who their friends were and who their enemies were. none of this devs as your nanny mentality from daoc and wow/wow clones

The ranking system would work if people would stop transferring to the higher population server.

The problem with 3-team games is that they balance out assuming that each team is in it to win the overall match. Strategically, the best move is for 2nd and 3rd place to team up against 1st place to increase their chances of coming out on top by dragging 1st place down with their combined strength.

But what ends up happening is that most gamers are interested in feeling good in the now. Overall strategy to come out as the top server a week from now is trumped by stomping a weak, easy opponent and feeling good about it now. This is compounded further by rewarding individuals for individual moment-to-moment performance. It is far more rewarding for an individual player to kill more easy opponents now and get the individual rewards than for them to focus on destroying walls and siege equipment against a stronger opponent that will net them fewer kills in the short term. Their server may come out on top score-wise, but they will not be rewarded as much individually.

DeadAirRT had is right… Transferring is the #1 problem behind exploiting.

I vote for 2 teams WvW

the free transfers do need to stop. 3 teams in WvW is nice but until the hacks and free transfers stop people will see a problem with the system

Senti.5372:

Azure Prower.8701:

4 teams will fix it.

Perhaps but with 5 people definitely won’t quit when behind.

Yeah but six would make it twice as good.

I agree with four teams. If you have three factions its either 1v1v1 or 2v1.
With four factions you can have 1v1v1v1 , 2v2, 1v3. Much more balanced there I think.

Varathiel.9128:

1. During off peak hours if the winning team has more players than second place, not overwhelming but just 20-50 more, but team 3 has almost nobody those 20-50 are able to completely decimate the other team. Simultaneously team 3 is continuously taking team 2 objectives while they are (hopefully) taking team 1 objectives, which allows team 1 to gain a more commanding lead on team 2.

2. In the current server ranking system it is always better for team 3 to focus on team 2 after a certain point. And everyone knows it is better for team 1 to focus on team 2 to keep them at bay. So, instead of the two lower teams teaming against the powerhouse team 3 battle for second place.

1. True, and throw in the fact that the first place team usually has more orbs than the third place team.

2. This is just an issue with the players that might eventually correct itself. The ratings provide no reward (in fact, a higher server rating indirectly results in lower rewards next week) and aren’t even presented in game at all.

While I agree the three faction theory falls apart when one side is basically free points, I think it works pretty well most of the time if the players are acting rationally (which is a big “if”).

While team 3 focuses on team 2, team 1 will focus on team 3. Team 2 will struggle to defend from team 2.

Team 1 will win the battle and you get posts about Orbs being the problem.

I agree to the extent that the scoring system has messed up how 3-team was supposed to work.

DAOC/Planetside style, 3 teams means the big guy gets ganged up on 9 times out of 10. There’s no “overall score” so there’s no reason for #2 to beat up on #3. You go after the most readily available opponent, which is #1.

With the scores, sometimes it makes more sense for #1 and #2 to gang up on #3. More points for them. It’s not about taking down the big guy, it’s about the score. Having a visible score was probably a mistake.

i vote that they adjust the scoring to be proportionate to the amount of people logged into the zone at the current time of the ticks.

if you have 100% of your people and the other two teams only have 20% of their people, you should not be getting 100% of your score… basically winning because of an unpopulated server, it should be giving you less points per tick because you can simply hold ground 100 times easier due to numbers.

if its a full queued up server vs 2 unqueued and undermanned server, they should realistically get 20% of their total points if the other two teams average % of people to full is 20%.

so say team 1 is at 100% capacity,

team 2 is at 75% capacity, and team 3 is at 25% capacity.

that means that team 1 will only get 50% of their total ppt each time.

team 2 will get 62.5%

and team 3 will get 87.5% of their ppt

so if team 1 held 325, then they would get 162.5

team 2 held 250, then they would get 156.25

and team 3 had 120 then they would get 105

as you can see. it doesn’t give people a huge advantage for purely outnumbering anyone, and we all know that even though they won’t get tons of points per tick, they will still be gaining score, but it wont be a blowout overnight.

this would, IMHO, steer the points system in the correct direction to allows more fights between servers with obvious population gaps at times to be a more fair game.

when outnumbered, you won’t totally be obliterated with nothing you can possibly do, even though this is your normal play time… and you wouldn’t have to try and switch servers just to find a good one.

this also means that when the servers are getting full queues vs each other that if one really is 250 points ahead of another, then they will get 100% of their tick score because they are fighting against full forces.

perfect? no, obviously no, nothing is perfect.

but it feels like the best solution to help alleviate some issues with population differences that cant be solved by asking people to politely transfer on the forums…

^ best example right now i can give is, Team legacy (yes the same one that claimed they would be amazing and then folded), has now switched from ET, which was suffering from enough population to stay in tier 1 consistently… to JQ… who is in tier 1 right now too and has a higher pop than ET already… this does not help the game and the way things are going right now. and these kinds of people are the problem that scoring system changes can help fix

The number of teams, the ranking system, and the scoreboards mean absolutely nothing until free transfers are stopped.

The entire point of WvW was supposed to be about server pride. It’s failed horribly in this regard and it’s a shame.

^this

obviously server pride should have been established long before the 1 week matches started, but unfortunately you still established guilds like TL moving to highly populated tier 1 servers to jump on the winnings of already established servers..

nothing wrong with going to an unpopulated one, but there is something a bit off about moving large groups of people to top tier fights for whatever reason you may have)

^ this too.

WvWvW rules and recommendations will mean absolutely NOTHING until they start charging for server transfers.

As it is, people will shift over to a server for 24 hours to perform the following:

1) Supply draining
2) Spying
3) Counteracting a strategy over mapchat and teamchat with other recommendations and orders.
4) Being a rally decoy

Sporadicus.1028:

^ this too.

WvWvW rules and recommendations will mean absolutely NOTHING until they start charging for server transfers.

As it is, people will shift over to a server for 24 hours to perform the following:

1) Supply draining
2) Spying
3) Counteracting a strategy over mapchat and teamchat with other recommendations and orders.
4) Being a rally decoy

Don’t get your hopes up, all this will continue till Arenanet provides the tools for us to deal with these people.

^ same.

it will be a deterrent for the average 12 year old that is always broke, bu tpeople who have tons of gold or who buy gold wont have problems spending 10g to transfer or more.

what we need is something in a profile that tells us where the last 2 server transfers the person made and when…. even if its just in guild information to catch these people or something

as well as needing in game GM’s specifically for WvW… even having just 1 gm per server matchup would make a world of difference, WvW reports, go to the WvW gm who can go and take a look at whats happening and make a ruling on it.

lets face it, we need referees at this point now that people have found out how easy it is to manipulate matches

I agree that free transfers should stop. There should be a fee to transfer between servers (extra income for Anet?). How about a WvW concept instead, where some of the points in each BL (eg. Stonemist) are neutrally held and requires extra efforts to be captured? Say, dragons (that require mass cooperation), or “almost impossible to kill” veteran guards, or certain things to be fulfilled (both side must have at least 100 online players?) in order for some points to be captured…

Maybe, at the same time this will solve the issues of “overcrowding” or “lack of players”…

Just my 2 cents..

And I second the “public transfer history” thing – it works.
I see a potential in developing the WvWvW segment with so many ideas but Anet needs to understand that in order to have us participating actively, there should at least be some procedures / truth in the actions of each individual / server.
Maybe a “current online players” box in each BL could help.

I just had an idea of pure epic proportions, make wvw map the size or the size of pve world map, all servers battle each other all at once, no one starts with orbs, they are hidden throughout the world and have to be found, stir and simmer, serve hot witj a side of chaos. Enjoy

having 3 teams itself is great, but I do agree that the theory that #2 and #3 would fight #1 is wrong. And I agree that the scoring system is a least significantly to blame for this; #2 would rather attack #3 because it’s much easier to score there (and second place is better than 3rd if 1st is no longer an option).

perhaps this is automatically resolved if servers even balance out, but in the past two matchups on my server, the game for 1st has pretty much been over on by monday, so #2 tends to try and keep #3 from scoring, instead of attacking #1.

500 teams will do the trick! One big All vs All arena Just kidding.

People are still in the misconception that free transfers have anything to do with it. Did you miss the memo yesterday where ANet looks at the ACTUAL TRANSFER DATA and confirms that most players transfer FROM winning servers TO loosing servers? Not the other way around? Kinda totally busts your theory doesn’t it?

Many prey on the weak, its divide and conquer.

What people need to learn about WvW is it can never ever be balanced….

Winning is fun losing aint, but make sure you have fun with whatever you are doing.
You can have an epic battle at a tower for 2 hours and lose it, i have a feeling that even tough i lost that keep they had to make a massive effort to get it.

Just dont look at that score board every 5 min, just make sure you have fun when playing with your friends / guildies

I agree 3 teams are not working out, mainly because the players have severe case of downs. The 3 team match SHOULD be working out, but my realms current match is a shining example of why it is not.

Crystal Desert VS Dragonbrand VS Tarnished Coast

Crystal Desert is dominating the match think they are in 100k bracket now, while Dragonbrand and TC are around 60k. While it would make the most sense for TC and Dragonbrand to focus entirely on CD to get their lead down. Neither the players on TC or Dragonbrand seem at all interested in having any hint of strategy in their game.

CD home realm is devoid of Dragonbrand presence with a hint of TC here and there. Dragonbrand home realm is devoid of CD again with a paultry force of TC camps. TC home realm has been the sole focus of both CD and Dragonbrand with a constantly changing map. And EB is dominated by CD with a few Dragon and TC camps here and there.

To those with an ounce of strategy, the logical thing to do would be for TC to pull its forces from Dragonbrand teritory and focus on reclaiming our homerealm/ hitting CD. Likewise Dragonbrand should pull all forces out of TC and focus sole on CD. And both teams should ignore one another in EB and focus solely on CD controlled points.

So yea, people are just too kitten to handle 3ways.

Also I disagree with getting rid of free server transfers. For those in low pop servers who are getting hammered in WvW its a great way to jump on the top tier server.

The point of WvW is it will never be balanced. It is a zerg war where battle happens everywhere.

3-teams is the best way to do it.

For example, team A is hitting team B SM, when they’re capping the lord room team C arrive and ninja them. This is a great way to promote rivalry and thus making the fight more intense.

Your bulletpoints are your opinion and not “realities” as you put it.
I honestly believe that a month or so down the road when more data and rating etc are there the matchup will be better.

I personally would like to see server act as every man for themselves, but you do have teaming up, fact is teaming will only ever make sense for one server not both and that is something some servers have to start to understand

The 3 servers fighting does allow 2 to team against 1.
Or for all 3 to go head to head.

It’s interesting, because if you go into different brackets of WvW you notice different things. I was on SBI and SBI/ET went against HoD at the same time. HoD/SBI/JQ would end up with the 3 servers switching which 2 were attacking 1 at the same time. SoR/NSP/Yak’s all 3 fight each other, without double teaming one another as much. So it’s all on your server for WvW and your opponents.

As for free transfers, it is allowing some servers to balance. The main thing holding back guilds switching servers they are on is loss of upgrades/influence, ect.. But Anet is working on that.

It’s just a lack of servers coordinating. Honestly, if each week, losing servers could actively agree to not fight each other and ONLY raid the winning team, things would be awesome. But people aren’t that coordinated nor trusting.