Guild Wars 2

The solution to server matchup system is actually fairly simple.

Server ‘tier’ placement should be based on average number of wvw players online per hour. In fact, servers should have a ‘weight’ rating based off of this number.

Now before you bring up issues of skill, blah blah…look…

Do we see featherweights fighting against heavyweights in boxing? No. In fact boxing has multiple tiers based on WEIGHT. Not skill. Not achievements, not wins or losses…..WEIGHT. Believe me there are some amazing featherweight fighters out their that could knock a dude twice their size out. But its understood in a competitive environment nobody’s skill is going to be that far out of line of the next to overcome a difference in weight.

A server’s weight wouldn’t be hard to figure out. The metrics already exist inside the game for measuring these numbers. Most of us experienced wvw players know intrinsically who the heavyweight severs are and who the welterweights are, ect.

We don’t need a lot of tiers. Just a few tiers with servers of relatively close weight in them. The weight of every server would be checked before the next week starts and assigned their weight class then. Once assigned a weight class, the next thing to check would be rank points to decide within the bounds of that weight class which servers matchup against who.

One last thing; to avoid a high rank server from one weight class moving up a tier and being immediately pitted against the high rank of that weight class (which would be a total blowout) when a server moves up a weight class, its ranking is setback to whatever the lowest score in that weight is.

Just like when a boxer moves from one weight to another, he has to start all over moving up the roster. A caveat here is if that server moves back down to their old weight, they reclaim their old rank as well.

So what do you all think. Possible solution? Terrible idea? TL:DR?

I think it has merit, but part of the issue is not the number of people, its the time of day they play. In ANET’s position that all hours of the day are equal, they actually in fact made off hour for north america more important coverage wise and any server with an off hour population is better positioned even if their overall population is the same.

How does that fit within your proposed system?

I think the WvW rankings already read like a population chart. Things may have changed up a little since that added the random variable, but I’m pretty sure the top servers have the highest wvw populations, and they file pretty neatly on down from there.

I like the idea of comparing to boxing. The top 6 (HeavyWeight) should all stay together and face each other in random matchups. The next 9 (MiddleWeight) should do the same, and the the last 9 (LightWeight) the same. Instead of this junk where it seems at least 1 T3 or even lower server has to face at least 1 T2 server every week.

FA and DB might not like being stuck in the top 6, but the fact is nobody below T2 can even come close to matching up with these servers above them. Everytime TC/FA/DB have faced servers below their tier it’s been a bloodbath… coverage is completely unmatched.

Coverage isn’t too big a deal as long as your average spans a 24 hour period, or even longer. Obviously if two servers have good coverage at different times they will dominate each other at different hours, but overall in terms of PPT it would be a close match.

Now as for actual fun gameplay? Matching NA to NA and Oceanic to Oceanic would be nice but with the current number of servers probably not feasible?

Niim.9260:

I think it has merit, but part of the issue is not the number of people, its the time of day they play. In ANET’s position that all hours of the day are equal, they actually in fact made off hour for north america more important coverage wise and any server with an off hour population is better positioned even if their overall population is the same.

How does that fit within your proposed system?

This has been suggested before: It can be fixed by PPT is relative to the total amount of players playing WvW at the time of the tick.

This would be horrible, would be very bad for servers in limo where their too strong for one tier and too weak for the other, also from t2 below the coverage difference is fairly balanced.

The current tier system doesn’t take population of servers directly into account or WvW participation. The ranking system would make sure a ‘limbo’ server would only be matched up with the best in their weight OR the worst in the next highest weight.

Vaugh.7193:

This has been suggested before: It can be fixed by PPT is relative to the total amount of players playing WvW at the time of the tick.

ppt relative to population leads to one massive problem.. once a server gets a lead, this encourages them to stop playing.

Lorelei.3918:

Coverage isn’t too big a deal as long as your average spans a 24 hour period, or even longer. Obviously if two servers have good coverage at different times they will dominate each other at different hours, but overall in terms of PPT it would be a close match.

Now as for actual fun gameplay? Matching NA to NA and Oceanic to Oceanic would be nice but with the current number of servers probably not feasible?

The problem with that is the third server. If it was a two server matchup then I agree PPT would be close because it would average out. What happens in reality is that you have one server of three with strong off hour population, which means two servers have to fight for their points during prime while the other server gets free points in the off hours, free time to build fortifications, etc.