Guild Wars 2

The phrase ‘WvW blowout matchups’ is no longer seen in the WvW forums.

Congrat’s to Anet for fixing the uneven balance.

I would like to open a discussion on how to address an issue created by the new matchup system.

In the past players, including myself, asked for closer competition. We didn’t want to play against teams more than 3 ranks above or below. That is 6 possible realms to fight each week. (Playing realms ranked 6+ levels below you no fun for the crusher or the crush-ed). However the current system has gone from one extreme to the other.

Always 1 v 2 v 3
Always 3 v 4 v 5
Always 6 v 7 v 8
etc

This system means the same teams play against each other over and over. Case in point: SBI v SOS v Yak’s Bend. This matchup has been the same for the past 3 weeks. Tomorrow we may have the same matchup for a fourth week running. If that happens I may head butt my keyboard several times.

This rigid structure is not what we suggested.

Here is what we asked for. No matchups more than 3 ranks above or below.

Solution: Human input from an Anet employee to give the matchups variety and therefore more enjoyment. It would take 5 minutes to set up.

Tomorrows new matchups will probably be the same same again.
BG v SoR v JQ
TC v Mag v SA
SBI v SOS v YB

Why not give players some new and varied challenges:

Tier 1: Give FA a shot at the title, against SoR and JQ.
Tier 2: The BG juggernaut facing off against the might of TC and SBI.
Tier 3: Mag against the oceanic power of SOS and bring in DB.
Tier 4: BP and EB lining up to settle an old score with Yak’s

Would this manipulated variety give players what they want or are you happy with the current sequential matchup system?

Does Anet need players from each realm suggesting who they want to fight against? (Hell, who wouldn’t want a shot at Blackgate?).

Are there any other ways to create variety on the same battleground maps? Eg: Mixed teams. BG&DB v SoR&BP v JQ&EB. Imagine running with and learning from Blackgate. Or fighting against Jade Quarry. Or showing Sorrows Furnace how to golem rush SBI’s garrison.

Until new battleground maps are available we need players like YOU to suggest ideas that provide variety to the matchups. Even daft ideas may trigger discussion and a new approach.

Don’t get me wrong. I love GW2. I love WvW. And I love the close fights that SBI and SOS give us every week. But I sense my guildies and myself are growing weary of fighting the same ‘middle tier’ people for 20 days in a row. (Maybe 28 days, or 35).

Do we need human intervention because the computer sucks at choosing matchups?

And how can we get a drop, or even just a ‘thimble’ of matchup variety within WvW?

Yes, we absolutely need human intervention. It is the only way to have a combination of both variety and balanced matches.

I don’t think Anet should ask us who we want to fight though – that would get too messy. And while it would be fun, combining servers is surely not possible technically for them to do.

In the population CDI (which I’m still waiting to hear Anet’s conclusions from that) many ideas were suggested. Most of them too complicated.

Human intervention in the matchmaking would be the simplest way to achieve variety and a semblance of balance. They could do it next week I’m sure – they have proven they already have the ability because they did it for the leagues.

And if I see you all and SoS pop up at reset tonight I’m probably just going to log off straight away.

In EU the new matchmaking parameter work quite well.

NA are fewer server, with a larger Glicko-range (maybe partly the result of ANet last manual interaction, the infusion of points into T8) and much more imbalance. On EU the the national servers countered the concentration process. On NA it seem to be much worser.

I think there are only 2 ways for NA-ladder that could lead to more variance and balance:
- a different scoring system, i.e. less dominance of coverage and numbers (e.g. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage)
- a reduction of map-capacity, i.e. more queue on the over-stacked servers, easier to fill the maps for understacked servers.

And best before EotM takes the queue away

The other possibility of course is: Everyone will play EotM and no one cares about WvW (neither variance nor balance) when it appears.

Probably the quantities joining EoTM and leaving WvW will vary per server, in which case balance and therefore ladder will be reshuffled soon anyway.

Wait… we can talk about matchups again?

The current system, with the new randomness variability, so far looks ok — there hasn’t been nearly as many big disparities between ranks in the matchups as before the seasons.

Furthermore, T1 seems to be matched up together every week. Looks great. Everyone stacked into T1 so it has way better coverage than everyone else — hopefully they’ll be matched up together for the rest of eternity (or until the coverage gap is, for whatever reason, diminished).

Oh and I don’t think we’re allowed to talk about this on these forums anymore as it’s matchup related. gw2wvw.net is the new WvW forum site that allows matchup talk.

The problem is that T2 and T3 and T4 have been matched up with each other every week too. And that is getting old.

Of course we can talk about this. This is not about a particular matchup. This is a discussion about the matchmaking system.

the truth is, the players have to decide, whether they would rather have close matches or varied matches. The 3 up 3 down rule still means blowouts will happen often.

99.4% change of drawing DB, 84% Ebay. Every week. Every freaking week. Did I mention we only have a 0.6% chance of not facing DB every week. Stagnant matches return even with the new system. May as well try winner up loser down. At least there will be different faces.

reduce map cap and you can have balanced match up variance…… but of course ANET want large scale battle which favours stacked servers…

so, there you have it, unbalanced variance….

azizul.8469:

reduce map cap and you can have balanced match up variance…… but of course ANET want large scale battle which favours stacked servers…

so, there you have it, unbalanced variance….

anet wants people to actually be able to participate, lowering caps = greater ques and less people able to play the mode

Stacked servers don’t deserve variety.
Want an interesting matchup? go lower populated servers.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Stacked servers don’t deserve variety.
Want an interesting matchup? go lower populated servers.

There’s more than t1 complaining here, you realize? Reading OP!

Really? Lets see YB has been playing against SBI for about 7 weeks in a row now, SBI greatly outnumbers YB, and won almost every single match-up, yet we still face them. This isn’t working.

phys.7689:

azizul.8469:

reduce map cap and you can have balanced match up variance…… but of course ANET want large scale battle which favours stacked servers…

so, there you have it, unbalanced variance….

anet wants people to actually be able to participate, lowering caps = greater ques and less people able to play the mode

There are a lot Server without Queue.
Lowering cap = Stack and Queue OR spreadout and Play

And spread out will also result in more server able to compete, so more balanced varity

The current system is not working. It “is” working by design and code, but not in regards to play, fun, entertainment, or even sustainability in the long run. Has already noted people are tired of coming in the same position week after week while facing the same servers.

We say this after launch, we saw this during Season One (when everybody predicted what would happen, and it did), and we see it after the recent change. It is a pattern and if it isn’t really addressed anytime soon (and the mist map isn’t going to help one bit) this meta of play will be dead.

It has already been raised many times whereas people feel it is about dead. I know on our server the same match up is starting to draw on even those here since head start. While we are the one facing the last spot weekly we didn’t like it much when we ranked first.

Ratings in EU allows for more variance than NA ratings…
I’m on Augury Rock (EU), and I love how the new matchmaking system works. No blowouts, fun and close matches, that makes it important to play till the last day (compared with being 50k behind at the end of the week-end, having a less than 10k difference means we can catch up)

I understand that it gets boring for those on NA servers, or first and last tier EU that faces the same servers days in days out, but I feel that it is OK, in the name of balance. If population/coverage was more evenly distributed (no big ratings difference between servers) there would be more diversity… as is, servers that always face the same opponents do so because the ratings with those servers is closer than the ratings with the others.
Though noone wants to move, the solution is to spread the population… Tired of meeting always the same servers? Go see elsewhere… Enough people go elsewhere, servers ratings change, which change against which servers one can be matched, which means more variety…

Current ratings :
(just for showing point ratings disparity between servers)
NA………………………EU
2168.4136…………1900.4493
2116.968……………1873.9576
2072.2253………….1868.3142
………………………………864.2253
1902.0203 …………1851.4526
1839.4063 ………1773.1705
1817.6829 ………..1748.897
1783.4678 ………..1701.0516
1766.483 ………….1695.1279
1731.7076…………1676.5537
………………………………1664.7451
1597.3077…………..1641.662
1572.5814…………..1634.2761
1504.08 …………….1632.3691
1417.5128 ………..1632.1184
1405.9797 ………….1547.6101
1360.9645………….1538.5038
1279.9542 …………1473.8315
1253.161…………….1472.2535
1194.6802 …….
1182.1622…………..1317.1378
1178.6395 …………..1286.0411
1173.0592…………….1223.0381
1128.4653
1080.1416 ……………1110.8104
1036.3162…………….1026.698
…………………………………993.7221
…………………………………850.8922
…………………………………771.3427

From my experience, when there is more than 100 rating points difference with the other server, the MU is likely to be a blow out, unless the higher server purposefully stop playing. So I’ve made a blank line when the difference was over 100 points (between two consecutive servers).

Now, I do see that given some servers always are matched against the same, the ratings are going to be harder to significantly change. And that maybe a one-up/one down matching for these servers might be the solution to allow for some ratings diversity, so that the difference between tiers don’t just keep increasing…

But, it would mean a one every two weeks blow out for the “one up”, and a one every two weeks “easy match” for the “one down”.

the two lower servers would have to pair to get the “one down” server’s ratings down, and the “one up” server’s ratings up, so that the difference between tiers isn’t that big, which would then allow for better match diversity…

But, this would require even more cross server communications than there actually is (servers would have to work together to change ratings)…

So, the easier solution, the one that would make both for balanced Matches and for varied matches is for people from higher tier servers move to lower tier, which Anet can encourage by setting server’s transfer price according to server’s tier, instead of population.

But, in the end, it is up to players to decide what they want. For me, the current matchmaking system makes for the nicest MU we had in a long time. People are actually coming back in WvW, since we are not getting hopelessly crushed.

Now.
IF 300 people from T1 servers moved to T2, 600 from T1+T2 tp T3, 900 from T1+t2+t3 to T4 and so on, it wouls already make a lot for balance.
But people want to stay on their server. And complain. (People love to complain…)
In the end, even if Anet did put incentives to move down, I doubt people would take the opportunity…
Did people in NA moved down to even competition? BG bought guilds, JQ did a lot to get more guilds in, SOR not sure, but, one way or the other, at least these servers did purposefully get more people in, which have an effect on ratings…
So, if players/servers initiatives had an effect on placement, player/servers initiatives can solve ratings disparity.
Exactly as they got people in, they should get people out… they stacked by paying? Propose to pay players to move down… they got people in by promoting their server? Well, make promotion to move down…

Not only Anet’s design of the game, but also player’s decisions, brought the current situation… So, players can revert the situation, instead of always asking Anet to do something…

FA already fought SoR and JQ and we’re really not interested in doing that again. That’s why we’re on FA rather than a T1 server.

Well what do you know. The gaming gods have created variety.

It was probably the computer, or a new Anet system but I am claiming that this thread was the catalyst to mix around the matchups.

Im looking forward to EoTM but in the mean time fighting new servers is a welcome change.