Guild Wars 2

Anyone who buys the game today is going to be pointed at a tier 8 server. When they first poke their heads in WvW, what’s their experience going to be like? Forget about the frustrations of the people posting here — we’re masochists and will probably keep going regardless. But judging from the names that pop in one day and never again, this is going to cause retention problems. At least with free transfers they could try out a few different servers. As-is, sending your curious, fresh recruits against triple their numbers with a handful of jaded, frustrated people to lead them and a month of the same matchup on the horizon is…suboptimal.

Here’s an example post from our matchup thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/2-1-Sorrow-s-Ferg-s-Eredon-s/page/3#post1389446

A couple of ideas that might help:

1) Cap the minimum rating for a last-tier server to, say, 85% of the rating of the third server in the tier above. This should help keep the whole of the lowest tier from sinking to where a server can’t get out in a reasonable time frame.
2) Mix the tiers on occasion, either at random or by some rule (eg two wins in a row and you’re automatically bumped for a week, after which ratings decide again). Glicko2 doesn’t work unless those near each other on the ladder actually play each other. Occasionally swap the third server from one tier with the first on the next to make sure the tiers stay in the right order. There is a lot of information to be gained by putting Sorrow’s Furnace against tier 7 now. There’s none to be gained by keeping them in tier 8.
3) Increase the contribution of score to rating change. Servers in the wrong tier cause pain all around them. It’s criminal to have exposed pretty much every WvW player in the game to the new Kaineng (though Tier 8 has the distinction of having to deal with new Kaineng for 2-3 weeks), and keeping servers that suddenly weaken in over their heads all the way down doesn’t help anyone either. The ratings system isn’t about “earning your way up” — it’s about creating compelling matches. In computer science terms, right now we’ve got something like a bubble sort when we need a quicksort.

@Irate Platypus:
So you are at Ferguson’s Crossing a T8 server with (currently or always? I’ve no idea I play EU-ladder) no chance to win in T8.

If Sorrow’s Furnace dominates you, what do you think will happen if you play vs e.g. Jade Quarry?

I can tell you: on all 4 maps you will not be able to leave the spawn 24 hours a day for all 7 days. Whenever you try you will be farmed immediately. (Maybe after 1-2 days the Jade Quarries got to bored by the match and go to the forum instead of WvW to post complains in the forum)

So what will you gain from random matches or a reset? An even more frustrating experience, not more!

Server WvW-population is not balanced and decisive for matches, mixing up the matches without mixing up the population will not work. And who likes to be forced to a server.

The only way for you to get a different (positive) WvW experience is to switch servers.

Or ANet drops the idea of server vs server and replace it by server-independent alliance vs alliance

Nobody’s advocating that we play Jade Quarry. Henge of Denravi? Maybe interesting. Maybe not, but nobody knows because #22 hasn’t played #21 in a month.

Believe me, we know what happens when we’re matched against servers above our weight class. The problem is that, due to the math, once servers escape tier 8 they tend to be tier 5+ caliber. There are higher quality matches to be made among the lower-tier servers than those currently happening, and it’s in the best interest of new players — read: everyone interested in the future of the game — that they happen.

Irate Platypus.9318:

Nobody’s advocating that we play Jade Quarry. Henge of Denravi? Maybe interesting. Maybe not, but nobody knows because #22 hasn’t played #21 in a month.

I agree with you that some match borders are to solid now, especially the T1-T2 and the
NA T7-T8 / EU T8-T9 border are now to established and usually need a to long time and to strong domination to be broken et al.

But the reset is like shooting with a cannon on a bird sitting in front of your house with respect to this problem. To much harm for to little gain.

Adaptation of the formula, switching the last in the upper tier with the first in the lower tier (always, every 2nd time, or with 50% chance) would do better to solve the problem with much less side-effects.

Flawed Victory.4321:

ANet is the biggest joke of online gaming industry ever. Public announcement then take it back? ANet FAILS for one more time and I can expect more coming up. They don’t even use their brain to think before putting up public announcement.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

If devs have finaly realized that their attempts to create a new rating system was just driving them to worse results it gives me confidence in them to keep gw2 good to play.

Many MMOs hugely suffered from new implementations & rules while being successfull.

And I hope we will have some new features in WvW as well, I don’t want to get bored, am I ?

I personally think the tiers are done wrong. This has probably been suggested before but they should probably be set up like football. (soccer) leagues. Have 9 servers in a league 9, 6, 9) in NA, and have rotating matchups in the leagues every week. There’s a posibility of 504 different matchups, I believe (9 * 8 * 7). If you cap the ‘season’ at 9 matches each server will get to play each of the other 8 servers at least twice.

At the end of the season, the top two and bottom two servers in each league get promotions and demotions. This way if there are any big upsets like mass server transfers, it won’t affect things for too long as the servers will move around a bit.

This will ensure that there will be a different match every week (or two) and there will be a fight for e promotion to the next league and a fight to keep away from being demoted down a league.

Also if you keep a record of the matches and make sure one doesn’t happen twice (till the numbers run out) you’ll always have a different game. And if you come up with the schedule at the top of a season you might promote more strategy and scouting, perhaps allowing people to observer matches without affecting them? People may start training their guilds for specific anticipated matches in the future too. The goal is to promote different ways to play and more dynamic matchups.

I am on one of the many servers that is not competitive. You only have to look at this week’s score for T5, T7 and T8 on the NA servers to see that the current match-ups are not competitive.

Second, can someone take another look at the ‘outmanned’ buff which our server has daily? An experience buff when you have far fewer players is kind of a bad joke. A damage buff/boon would at least help the server with fewer players better defend or attempt to rally.

They should just make a NA vs EU Map for the highest coverage servers and make room for a competitive T1…….SoS/BG/SoR sounds pretty intriguing, but will never happen .
Not sure if Europe has a server with full coverage or not but if they do…….

Some matches are not competitive, but resetting the ratings would have taken a longer time to fix things than simply letting the old system do its thing. T5 is unbalanced. But next week, SBI will move to the bottom of T4. The week after, SBI and EB will switch places creating more competitive matches in T4 and T5.

T7 is a closer match than T2 and no one is really complaining about that. But at some point, HoD and SF will switch. Maybe they should do the 1500 + ((rating-1500)*.5) thing to tighten the ratings, but solving the T8 issue shouldn’t inconvenience everyone else which is what a reset would have done.

Vodka.3958:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Haha kinda amusing to see all the BG players complaining now…you guys threw a match and now its not resetting…ohh isn’t it ironic?..Good luck being in tier 2 for a long time since Kaineg is coming up and you will probably never gain ratings.

Not even complaining bro; JQ has coverage that is unmatched and with free transfers over i doubt they will be trumped from the throne anytime soon. I hope exploiting SBI’s rating was worth it, because now you’ll be in third place for a very, very long time…

Because BG never took advantage of seriously outmanning their opponents servers on it’s rise to tier 1 right? The obligatory “bro” doesn’t hide the fact that you are whining.

Wise move I think. At least in NA it was going to fix some problems, but make more. Better to just let it ride out this wave. More features need to be introduced with the upcoming wvw developments that include reasons to be loyal to a server.

Xispeo.1706:

The only annoying aspect of keeping the current system is that we were expecting to fight some new servers and not our usual opponents. Variety is refreshing.

^^^^ Agreed. Spending a month with the same servers has been a gentle introduction to commanding, but now I want to take those training wheels off! DH as a server has changed a lot in the last month, and now I want to test our tactics against some new faces.

Yeah, I wanted to see some new faces, even if it would have been a bit lopsided. That’s what I was looking forward to the most. Now it’s just SoS again, and I’m sure they’re as sick of us, as we are of them

kidbs.8920:

Vodka.3958:

SmokeyNYY.7841:

Haha kinda amusing to see all the BG players complaining now…you guys threw a match and now its not resetting…ohh isn’t it ironic?..Good luck being in tier 2 for a long time since Kaineg is coming up and you will probably never gain ratings.

Not even complaining bro; JQ has coverage that is unmatched and with free transfers over i doubt they will be trumped from the throne anytime soon. I hope exploiting SBI’s rating was worth it, because now you’ll be in third place for a very, very long time…

Because BG never took advantage of seriously outmanning their opponents servers on it’s rise to tier 1 right? The obligatory “bro” doesn’t hide the fact that you are whining.

the point is that the vast majority of the time a faction moves up or down a tier is due to imbalance caused by direct player manipulation (bandwagoning or leaving a server)

your point about BG outmanning opponents to move up is further evidence. we belong in t1 every now and then. in fact, we beat SoR every time we faced them and SoR is in t1.

despite a dominant showing in t2 265k against 179k 162k…. we actually lose rating because we’re not blowing them out. we’re 150 rating above our opponents, and t1 is at a further 75 rating ahead of us.

the glicko system is flawed. i mention BG because im on it and i know the factions in our power range. im sure the same flaws happen throughout the rankings.

anet needs to AT LEAST change the scoring so that a dominate, but not a blowout, victory allows the victor to GAIN rating from lower rated servers.

TL DR
the ranking/scoring system must be altered so that winning factions move up, and losing factions move down, despite large rating difference between tiers. just a small tweak to the scoring will have the effect.

In the last 8 weeks, our server has faced the same 2 other servers for at 6 of those weeks and lost every time because we don’t have the same numbers. I am no longer going to waste my time in WvW until there are changes.

Miiaah.5416:

They should just make a NA vs EU Map for the highest coverage servers and make room for a competitive T1…….SoS/BG/SoR sounds pretty intriguing, but will never happen .
Not sure if Europe has a server with full coverage or not but if they do…….

Wow thats an idea i can get behind. Half because i think it would be awesome for the top two servers in US and EU go for the world championship belt, half because im being selfish and want SOR, BG, & SOS to happen.

This is disappointing to no end. The current ranks are NOT ACCURATE. They are FALSE rankings. Reset them.

Uhm when game devs listens to its players like this and cancels a plan that would cause a lot more chaos, personally I think they’re doing a good job by listening to reason!

Two things:
1) Implement a “handicap” system (as in golf)
2) Lock down the WvW servers at night (local time)

Being stampeded at night is not fun and reduces the numbers of night players further, worsening the stampede. Handicaps will help make for fairer/sportier matches.

PS:
And how about a 3-2-1 scoring? Winner gets 3, loser 1. Irrespective of their actual points. (Or 13-12-11, or 23-22-21… compress the the point spread… needs some thought and simulation.)

Wait so if I whinge like a kitten little * about something ANET won’t fix what needs fixing?

Good to know.

you suckers kill www nad kill GW2 thy

J heazy.7214:

Miiaah.5416:

They should just make a NA vs EU Map for the highest coverage servers and make room for a competitive T1…….SoS/BG/SoR sounds pretty intriguing, but will never happen .
Not sure if Europe has a server with full coverage or not but if they do…….

Wow thats an idea i can get behind. Half because i think it would be awesome for the top two servers in US and EU go for the world championship belt, half because im being selfish and want SOR, BG, & SOS to happen.

I know it’s too early to tell but I think Kain might have a little say in all this after I saw the numbers they bring. I think they may surprise a couple people

Muan.1029:

Impressive knowledge of Vizunah dude, in french language we call posts like yours “etron”.

In English we call such comments rude… but it just demonstrates how you are in denial of the facts.

We all know that VS run away when a SFR core player approaches (marked by the guild tag) and you only win when the other servers are outmanned. If the game was based on skill instead of exploits and numbers… then VS would be in tier 8.

When I read about the reset last week I was quite happy, though I did not take the time to express it here… Now that the reset has been canceled I’m fairly frustrated.

Ever since the guilds responsible for our current rating bailed from Isle of Janthir we have been sitting with an artificially high rating and have been steamrolled week after week. It is not fun.

Additionally, Isle of Janthir has not been the red team since mid-December so people like me have been sitting at 99% world completion for over 6 weeks because it is impossible to get the POIs and vistas inside the Red team forts when our server is having a difficult enough time capturing towers and forts inside our own borderland… As a guild leader I had no desire to switch servers, and I especially now have no desire now to pay for a transfer just to get the 100% world completion…

I don’t know, perhaps not resetting the ratings was the right decision, but I can’t help but be frustrated with the current situation.

Kaitlyn.9245:

When I read about the reset last week I was quite happy, though I did not take the time to express it here… Now that the reset has been canceled I’m fairly frustrated.

Ever since the guilds responsible for our current rating bailed from Isle of Janthir we have been sitting with an artificially high rating and have been steamrolled week after week. It is not fun.

Additionally, Isle of Janthir has not been the red team since mid-December so people like me have been sitting at 99% world completion for over 6 weeks because it is impossible to get the POIs and vistas inside the Red team forts when our server is having a difficult enough time capturing towers and forts inside our own borderland… As a guild leader I had no desire to switch servers, and I especially now have no desire now to pay for a transfer just to get the 100% world completion…

I don’t know, perhaps not resetting the ratings was the right decision, but I can’t help but be frustrated with the current situation.

Looking at last weeks scoring, you should turn red pretty soon. We however in HoD have been stuck at red for weeks on end (except for a brief stint at blue). We have no hope of ever turning green because we are WAY above Tier 8 scores, and Darkhaven is WAY to strong during all hours of the day to compete against. The best we can do is struggle in a holding pattern.

Putting world completion behind enemy lines was a totally BAD idea. If the colors where RANDOM each week, then we could sooner or later get our points of interest and vistas.

Habib Loew.6239:

Update 2/7/2013:

We’ve been keeping a very close watch on this week’s matchups and, despite our concerns regarding the recent population shifts, it seems that many of the games are quite competitive.

Many is not most. And my impression, from here and other forums, is that most were not as competitive as the final score. That is, an over-whelming lead was taken and then the losing guilds scored junk points Monday-through-Friday to tighten up the score while the winning players went off and got to do other things in the game because there was no way that they’d lose if all they did was ‘hold their own’ for the rest of the week.

Kind of like being down 35-0 at the start of the 4th quarter and scoring three TDs to make it ‘look competitive’ at 35-21…

But the bottom-line is most people I know who WvW on other servers are either face-rolling or are being face-rolled.