Guild Wars 2

Chaba.5410:

Aurika.6751:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Using exp boosters does not affect play hours and thus does not affect world sizes.

It speeds of WvW rank gains, which were another metric that you mentioned.

Just because something was mentioned doesn’t mean you understood it.

“Rank gains is tracked for comparison purposes since they usually follow a similar curve, but isn’t actually used to determine the world size.”

be nice … the first dev post said this …

“Yak’s Bend is among the highest worlds in terms of play hours and ranks gained, which is the primary metric we use to determine which worlds we lock each week.”

It was “clarified” later in the third dev post.

Deemo.6094:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Yak’s Bend is among the highest worlds in terms of play hours and ranks gained, which is the primary metric we use to determine which worlds we lock each week.

Does this mean that a player who plays 8hours with exp boosters can count for a lot of spaces within the server? My question being, do exp boster effect server population?……………

Good point. Given that they measure ranks gained, they most certainly would skew the population measure.

Everyone stop taking experience boosters if you want your servers opened.

Swamurabi.7890:

Just had another thought.

Have you considered instead of using just player-hours to determine a server’s activity level, that you modify it based upon a servers kdr numbers?

I like that idea … it might punish blob servers.

ich.7086:

TorquedSoul.8097:

ich.7086:

Caliburn.1845:

It also occurs to me that we have seen a downturn in activity in NA T1 in recent months, T1 is often the least active tier in NA by kills/deaths(presumably also ranks). We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

That makes no sense at all, it’s the server population algorithm which has been updated not the matchmaking one …

It makes sense if considering actual WvW related activity like caps and kills … BG, Mag, and TC are all on the bottom half of the activity level chart.

Read with me :

We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

What puts server into Tx ? Glicko and matchmaking algorithms. Not the new algorithm which computes a server activity. This is what i was pointing out.

On the whole topic now :

Your data is just an another way to measure activity which has flaws and strengths as the way Anet measures it.

I think what Caliburn was suggesting is that if you measure population by some form of activity and have an arbitrary “population”/activity cap then if the lower tier servers are more “active” than tier 1, Anet might see this as excess population and lock those servers. And they may see the bored and stale T1 low activity as reduced population and open those servers up.

Another thing that is important to note is that overall activity in a tier seems to calibrated by the lowest activity server in that tier. So if you have TC bombing … which they are in terms of activity, that will drag down the activity of both BG and MAG. This is simply because of the highly reciprocal nature of WvW. You can’t take an objective back if it was taken from you. You can’t kill a player that is not on the map. And so on.

I don’t know if Caliburn was mentioning “performance” or skill as those probably don’t show up in the measure. In the cases where an “unskilled” server ends up in tier 1 and gets crushed, their activity for that week will be low but on average their activity will be higher because they will spend most of their time in the lower tiers and not tier 1.

This problem is further aggravated because there is really only two genuinely tier 1 servers which means that any 3rd server added is likely to bring the activity level down especially if they get stuck there for a long period of time … like TC. And Ironically, TC is not being rewarded for its lack of interest by getting into a lower tier but by receiving links. I think they currently have two.

And yes, all these types of derived population measures are flawed which is why I support things like battlegroups and fixed REAL population caps of some kind rather than the derived and manually curated process.

As far as population vs glicko, many see glicko score as a function of population. It may not be as bad as it was before linking but it is still a factor and will always be a factor in the minds of the players until there is a mechanism for a hard population cap.

ich.7086:

Caliburn.1845:

It also occurs to me that we have seen a downturn in activity in NA T1 in recent months, T1 is often the least active tier in NA by kills/deaths(presumably also ranks). We could reach a point under the new algorithm where servers are far more likely to be locked below T1 then within T1 itself.

That makes no sense at all, it’s the server population algorithm which has been updated not the matchmaking one …

It makes sense if considering actual WvW related activity like caps and kills … BG, Mag, and TC are all on the bottom half of the activity level chart.

Rink.6108:

I personally really don’t understand why arenanet changes things that have no possibility to solving the problems there are in wvw

They do these things because players demand that they do them.

The flaw in 2-1-1 wasn’t in some statistical error, it was in error in judgement of human behavior. Anet correctly thinks that changes in scoring will alter the behavior of those playing the game to score the most points. Rational player behavior inside that system would lead to the 2v1 end.

Anet’s problem is the assumption of rationality. Anet assumes that everyone is playing the game for score. But we know not every is playing the same game.

Some are there for fights, some of there for score and some are just there chasing a tag around because what else could they possibly do with their time.

It appears that the biggest mistake Anet made with WvW was not finding a way to effectively merge the fights with the capture and hold mechanism.

This might be a problem of population balance, but who knows. And maybe that is what Anet sees as the fundamental problem.

But Anet refuses to enforce strict population measures because the “community” doesn’t want it. And because population imbalance renders futile any attempt to fix the scoring mechanism, Anet has effectively given up on providing meaningful change.

Instead they keep the money making mechanisms open (transfers), while throwing the community the occasional bone (like 211) to convince community that they are still working on the issue. And then when some complains about 211 they switch immediately to 543. By trying two solutions they can get the community divided and blaming each other for the state of the game and then switch back to 321 anyway.

The irony is that the only way players could truly convince Anet to make real changes is to simply stop playing. But at that point Anet would be justified in treating it as a dead game mode. However if more people started playing the game as it is, they would see as an indication that the game is currently healthy, so no change is required.

The only real solution is for Anet to make the game they want to make. And make it the best game they can imagine. And then let the community decide if they like it. If the community doesn’t like it, show them the door. But that wont happen because its better to have a broken game full of future promises with a stable population, than risk losing the population by making significant change.

All WvW has to offer at the moment is situational drama; the larger game is pointless.

The endless speculation of their motives and plans are equally pointless because in the end we will find that Anet has developed an immunity to iocane powder and has nothing to worry about regardless of what the community chooses.

@ragnar

I like posts like this.

It is possible you covered this and I missed it but …

Did you compare red post to total post or thread volume? In other words, did the activity of red post correlate to overall user activity in those particular forums.

If users are putting their attention more into PvE or PvP forums, you would expect there to be more Anet responses in those areas.

You could compare this to either post or thread count, but thread count might be more reasonable since sometimes users have extended arguments in these threads even after Anet has responded. Although bigger threads with higher post volume show where user interests are.

The assumption I’m making here is that Anet’s interests track user interests and not the other way around.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Do you guys not have enough metrics on this yet?

I doubt anyone will be able to analyze the impact of the scoring change until after Christmas and wintersday passes. We saw a ten percent drop in WvW activity during the Halloween content and we are seeing a similar (although slightly larger drop) for wintersday content.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Sigh, so many of you are totally lost on the concept of the ratio between points and how that affects peoples behavior.

If only we could grasp your brilliance.

Maybe the problem is that you are projecting your behavioral response to the change on everyone else and assuming an outcome based on that.

Spurnshadow.3678:

While this is very telling about the current situation, it would be unfair to compare this current weeks war score with a 321 system as people’s, and server’s behavior, tactics, and strategies would be different under a 321 system, so we would have no idea how many skirmish wins/losses would occurr. This is all we can do with the current data.

A direct comparison will always be more meaningful than data in a vacuum.

And as far as I can tell behavior in WvW is pretty stable throughout all the changes at least in terms of activity. You seem to suggest that activity will drop as a result of this change because second place is going to lose value. That isn’t likely to happen. Until Anet makes a significant change to the WvW system, there will be no significant change to players’ engagement.

If I had to guess, winning is no longer the driving factor for most people playing the game. The driving factor is habit. People play because it is their default behavior to play. They play because they feel like the belong or they want to belong. They play because the buttons are familiar to them, because the button pressing rhythm presents them with a familiar and soothing pattern.

I’ve been following the activity data for a while now. And I honestly believe that Anet reduced the population slightly with the grand experiment of asking the players what they want. But after that slight loss, activity has stabilized.

If playing a game where the mechanics are in flux and moving in an undefined direction with no stated goal is not enough to get the players to consider other options … nothing will. Certainly not a shift in skirmish score from 321 to 211.

Players are enthralled by habit.

Chaba.5410:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Whats the point of having as many people of the other two servers combined if the other two servers are just going to team up on you.

They key word being “if”. I haven’t seen it yet. Is there a match somewhere we can use as an example of the 2nd and 3rd placed servers teaming up yet?

My understanding is that a certain tier 1 server is always double teamed. This change makes the double teaming even worse.

It really isn’t fair.

More population is now needed to counteract the double team.

There is only one way to achieve balance in WvW. Allow all servers to become overpopulated. All servers open. All guilds and players move to all servers simultaneously.

To facilitate this, Anet will need to create many parallel universes IRL.

Anet please hire quantum physicist to develop parallel universes for game balance.

Thanks.

@XTD

So what you mean is that the new 2-1-1 skirmish scoring basically renders a population advantage useless.

Whats the point of having as many people of the other two servers combined if the other two servers are just going to team up on you.

What fun is that.

Here are my thoughts on scoring changes from about 6 months ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/PPT-less-Scoring-model-Fights-and-Dolyaks

The goal was to eliminate PPT and replace with dolyak scoring, capture scoring, upgrade scoring and PPK.

I believe that capture activity should be encouraged, but PPT needs to go as it leads to a simple capture race.

laffingseals.5934:

I love and hate this game. The only game mode I care about is wvw. It’s the most epic pvp experience I’ve come across. Arena net I know you and I haven’t seen eye to eye and you like to ban me frequently but for gods sakes please consider the following

Remove or severely weaken barriers to combat such as tiers of walls and gates, siege etc.
Remove gear from wvw. Replace it with the pvp system. Old timers will not like this but I think if we want new blood in Wvw we need to adapt. Let it have the trinket weapon and sigil selections. It makes it easier for new players to come in and change the metas around quicker
Bring back a season with the grand finale at the end. Make it based off of kills vs points per tick.
In game voice comms, with commander having priority speaker.
Increase base run speed of players
Increase base damage of melee attacks
Close down smaller servers, merge into larger servers and open up more BLs to accommodate the population
Lastly…. kill eotm. Let me spin it to you this way, you are having wvw compete with it self for player base. You want low level players to get into actual wvw because it ultimately bodes better for that community besides the issues that may cause.

Excuse the grammar and formatting this was done on a phone. Shout out to muscles molasses

The maps need to be smaller too. They need to be about 1/10 the current size. And increase map population.

Also, do away with most structures and dump PPT and any territorial control based scoring. PPK all the way!

WvW is BlobvBlob.

Lemme guess, you are on Blackgate, right?

CommonSense.4697:

Xenesis.6389:

Kappell.1923:

What is Maguuma’s goal in making this kind of ridiculous game? In all WvW time I have never seen this kind of low level atitutu, this is certain that capturing the castle is part of the game, plus doing respawn kill, that is too much. Any acceptable explanation for this kind of attitude?

Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.

Viking stuff

Conan stuff

Swamurabi.7890:

Why don’t we all just end this and put everyone on BG?

And then we can have a tournament with awesome rewards!

Baldrick.8967:

Creating new worlds and assuming anyone would willingly transfer to them- why would they? Leave your established world that you know and love to join some random underpopulated world without even a ts? for what? to be roflstomped by every organised guild and server?

I would move to a new small server. Teamspeak and websites are not expensive to manage if you have a few nerds …

As far as getting roflstomped, that is more a function of blobs and population imbalance.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Thanks for the feedback everyone! It still seems like there is a general lack of interest in the idea, so we’ll pass on it again.

I think this question is poll worthy, don’t you?

A forum zerg one way or the other shouldn’t decide it.

Increasing the number of “worlds” is the only direction that moves WvW towards population balance.

But its not enough.

There needs to be private guild run worlds as well to solve the problem with recruiting and alliance building.

The private worlds would need to maintain some minimum population (say 500) to persist. If prior to matchmaking, they had a population below the threshold, the population would be randomly dispersed to public worlds. Having this risk is important to keep people from just spamming new worlds know they would not be viable.

Private worlds would have leaders like guild leaders that can approve entry and so on.

Public worlds would be open to anyone provided they are not full.

AND transfers would need to be free but with time restrictions.

Ratings for individual worlds would be possible, but due to high volatility and an unstable composition of worlds, using Elo ratings would make more sense than glicko. Ratings calculations for worlds would be simple with Elo. After each match, each worlds rating is adjusted as if it had independently competed with each of the opposing clusters other worlds. So if a world 1 in cluster A competed and won against 4 worlds clustered in B, then world 1 elo rating would be adjusted as a win against each of the 4 worlds in cluster B.

Anytime a private world comes into existence, it would start with a provisional rating (1000 or whatever, its arbitrary.) and have a provisional K value to allow rapid placement.

Having ratings for all worlds (public and private) would create a sense of pride, ownership and competition.

A hybrid private/public system meets the needs of large organized guild seeking seeking alliances and smaller guilds and individual players that maybe are not interested in larger organizational elements.

I’m impressed. This thread has been going for a couple days and no one from BG has asked when the next tournament is.

I guess they don’t feel as if they have enough population to be successful. Maybe things in WvW are improving.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

Simple: You can’t be kicked by another player from the server. Only anet can force you to leave a map ( which they are unlikely to do, unless they are banning you..).

A battle group is simply a guild by another name, with a larger cap. Along with all the current drama and politics that may come with it ( such as, “raid at this time or get kicked from the guild”).
However the “relinking” we currently have for worlds would be more like: world 1 : battle group 1 + 2 + random pugs number 1-100.
Effectively replacing “server” with “guild battle group”
and replacing “world 1 (+ world 9)” with faction 1.

I see lots of problems and issues to fix, but no meaningful benefit of the proposal.

It fixes the most important thing, population balance.

My understanding is that Anet would be matchmaking battlegroups, guilds and individuals to create a server population. During the match, no one can be removed from the “server.”

This both balances population and makes it stable.

It allows you to form inter-guild groups with your friends and allies so that you are guaranteed to be on a team with that group. How is this wrong?

I don’t understand this issue people have with being kicked. If you don’t want to be kicked, form your own group or don’t join a group. In either case you will be matched with some server during matchmaking if you want to participate in WvW.

I think some of you missed the part where individuals and unallied guilds would still be matched to a server with the battlegroups. No one is being left out. No one will be forced to be subjugated to some guild or battlegroup.

Thelgar.7214:

At least one above you and the other people in favor of battle groups, which includes a guy who was involved in match fixing and deliberately stacking two servers for advantage as well as a guy who posted a screenshot here celebrating TC spawn camping with arrow carts after the first guy stacked the server. You fit right in with them, playing the victim and acting offended after you attacked someone first.

Sorry Bro, didn’t mean to trigger you.

Thelgar.7214:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

None of what you said is true. Battlegroups are basically unlimited stacking of guild groups, movement of which does more to imbalance play than individual transfers. And the server leadership will simply become battlegroup leadership with the ability to kick people, something they couldn’t do from servers (though they still manage to create an environment in which people are harassed from the map and/or server). Battlegroups put more influence into the hands of people that have proven they will use it to benefit themselves at the expense of others and game balance.

So your entire argument is based on your fear of getting kicked? Then form your own battlegroup with like minded people. It can be made up of many small guilds who hold hand and sing kumbaya.

Ahhh, manipulation of opinion by a personal attack – calling the other person afraid. These are exactly the kind of people that favor a system that allows them to attack and kick others like battlegroups – they are toxic lowest rung of the gaming community.

Wow. What rung are you on?

Thelgar.7214:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

None of what you said is true. Battlegroups are basically unlimited stacking of guild groups, movement of which does more to imbalance play than individual transfers. And the server leadership will simply become battlegroup leadership with the ability to kick people, something they couldn’t do from servers (though they still manage to create an environment in which people are harassed from the map and/or server). Battlegroups put more influence into the hands of people that have proven they will use it to benefit themselves at the expense of others and game balance.

So your entire argument is based on your fear of getting kicked? Then form your own battlegroup with like minded people. It can be made up of many small guilds who hold hand and sing kumbaya.

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

Jayne.9251:

TorquedSoul.8097:

BTW, I’m a casual and don’t care that others are more hardcore than I am.

That’s ok. I’m hardcore.

And yet I still care about inclusivity.

And nobody is stopping you from caring about it. However, expecting Anet to successfully enforce inclusivity in a gaming culture built around guilds and competition is a bit unrealistic, IMO.

Jayne.9251:

TorquedSoul.8097:

You can still play for fun. That is always an option. But others may not want you on their team.

This is a perfect quote to outline the reason why this is a bad idea.

Anything that is exclusive and not inclusive, particularly in an MMO, is bad for business.

You expect Anet to overcome human nature with game mechanics?

Not every Battlegroup would be exclusive. But team building will require including some and excluding others. The totally inclusive groups will likely be at the bottom of the pecking order simply due to the fact that they will not be the hardcore players.

Casuals shouldn’t care that the hardcore players have the best team. I thought that not taking it seriously was the definition of a casual. If you want to be casual and also the best at online games, you have unrealistic expectations.

BTW, I’m a casual and don’t care that others are more hardcore than I am.

Jayne.9251:

No the model outlined above caters to big guilds and seemingly ignores the contributions of smaller guilds.

The battlegroup system doesn’t cater to large guilds, human nature does.

I would presume that there would exist enough battlegroups/alliances to accommodate all players. But I would expect less organized players and guilds to find themselves together in a less organized battlegroup. These players would then have the opportunity to build new alliances to become competitive.

This type of system isn’t designed to create parity in skill, simply to ensure balanced populations. Just like PvP, equal numbers will not mean equal skill.

Of course, all the best and most hardcore players will want to team up. Everyone is trying to build the best team. If you are not hardcore and not obsessed with winning, that shouldn’t be an issue for you.

You can still play for fun. That is always an option. But others may not want you on their team.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

ArenaNet had it right before they decided to poll the community. Yet, they didn’t even tell the community their plans. They told these “sponsors”, fully detailed plans of a system called Battlegroups (Alliances). It was well thought out, and it would have allowed for the community to better balance itself. It would have allowed us to play where we want, and it would have led up to WvW tournaments.

Population balance is the only way to make the mode competitive and alliances is the only way to achieve population balance in any meaningful way.

I seriously doubt they will overhaul the game though. Ironically, like WvW there just isn’t enough reward for Anet to undertake it.

I would happily pay $5/month for a balanced WvW so that it wouldn’t need to rely on transfers for its funding. But even subscriptions probably wouldn’t be enough incentive at this point.

Glicko became pointless as soon as linkings started. Only something as crude as 1up-1down can work in the current state. Rankings systems like Elo and Glicko require some amount of consistency in the competitiveness of the field. Linking completely breaks that consistency.

Its seems to me that the skirmishes have done little to fix any imbalances.

I’ve attached a couple charts that show that scoring follows the same trend as warscore and, in general, extends the advantage of the stronger server and the disadvantage of the weaker server.

It offers virtually no night capping correction and the only time it is relevant is in very tight matches (i.e. Riverside vs Desolation last week.)

Whether it has improved game play, that is dependent on preference. Those that want to track skirmishes won are probably happy about it, but since objectives are not reset between skirmishes it is pretty much pointless as advantages are carried from one skirmish to the next.

darkaheart.4265:

you know a couple a months ago when there was the only desert maps and wvw population was dying?

well im actually happy to see that people are queuing to play
it brings back wvw to life

do you guys think anet learned their lesson after the desert maps? lol

I guess you missed the server linking that led to queues on reset nights. But right, it was the removal of the DBL that led to the queues. There were no queues until after the DBL was removed.

The moon is made of cheese. I’ve tasted it.

morrolan.9608:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Here is the NA server activity since the linking.

I’m not sure if Northern Shiverpeaks could actually compete in Tier 1 but its activity is comparable.

Dragonbrand’s activity is taking a dive.

And JQs is at T3 level so why is it closed? If population is based off the last month during that whole time the JQ population has been less than Maguuma and now YBs. YB is full but Maguuma isn’t, there is an inconsistency here. Moreover YB’s population is not at Maguuma’s size.

Depends on how Anet measures the activity. If they do unique logins on the maps throughout the week, that could be dramatically different from manhours on the maps for the week.

If they are trying to balance the competition, the should be tracking manhours.

JQ should be open or linked. If it is neither they are kinda getting screwed.

SkyShroud.2865:

Sylvyn.4750:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Here is the NA server activity since the linking.

I’m not sure if Northern Shiverpeaks could actually compete in Tier 1 but its activity is comparable.

Dragonbrand’s activity is taking a dive.

What do the numbers on the Y-axis represent? Is this something that is more appropriately used to compare only a server’s activity against itself over time rather than an indicator of who might win a matchup and what tier they should be in?

I assume those data are simply base on captures and kdr, retrieved from API. However, it lacks actual population so these activity level is questionable as the most important factor, active population, is not present.

That is correct. The y axis value is a combination of captures and kills and deaths.

You are also correct that it lacks raw population data, but a person that is logged in and neither capturing an objective or engaging in fights is probably not a factor except for maybe scouts.

I still think is activity is the best way to tier a server. Equal activity doesn’t mean equal performance anymore than equal population would mean equal performance. Organization and coverage are still factors.

Here is the NA server activity since the linking.

I’m not sure if Northern Shiverpeaks could actually compete in Tier 1 but its activity is comparable.

Dragonbrand’s activity is taking a dive.

Fremtid.3528:

TorquedSoul.8097:

A quick look at http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/ shows there is very little change in the allocation of scoring between Victory Points and the old Warscore.

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

So scores are not closer nor does the Victory points system give a weaker server a better chance to win.

But since the glicko strength of victory calculation was broken in that it under-rewarded winning servers and over-rewarded weaker servers, the Victory Point system might accidentally fix the glicko tier wall problem.

I’ve attached a couple charts. The values are calculated by summing the total points of the 3 servers in a tier and then dividing each servers score by this sum total to get a servers score portion. I did this for Victory points and Warscore.

EDIT: This data was taken at 10:30EST on Friday.

Where is Baruch Bay in EU chart?

Good catch. I had the labels wrong in tier 2. I have corrected labels in my original post.

A quick look at http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/ shows there is very little change in the allocation of scoring between Victory Points and the old Warscore.

Stronger servers benefit from Victory points 10 out of 11 times. And weaker servers are hurt by Victory points 10-11 times.

So scores are not closer nor does the Victory points system give a weaker server a better chance to win.

But since the glicko strength of victory calculation was broken in that it under-rewarded winning servers and over-rewarded weaker servers, the Victory Point system might accidentally fix the glicko tier wall problem.

I’ve attached a couple charts. The values are calculated by summing the total points of the 3 servers in a tier and then dividing each servers score by this sum total to get a servers score portion. I did this for Victory points and Warscore.

EDIT: This data was taken at 10:30EST on Friday.

SkyShroud.2865:

We do not have much details how they gonna calculate the ranking with the new skirmish system.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Reminder-Skirmish-beta-beginning-soon/page/3#post6324338

They have historically used score proportions to calculate the glicko ratings. So technically they don’t need to change anything. However, they have no history of skirmish victory points so they they have no idea what the strength of victory distribution should look like.

Errors in the last strength of victory distribution resulted in the glicko walls between tiers. But with the new scoring system there is no way of knowing how the ranking calculation will be impacted since there is no sense of what a normal margin of victory will be. It may fix the glicko wall or it may make it worse.

Hexalot.8194:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Rink.6108:

YB “hybernated” the last 2 months and now people play again

That was because DK stopped playing the game, and he’s apparently THE commander that motivates YB. He’s back now, and thus they’re back in business.

So basically you’re saying that YB is a one man show. DK plays, they do well. He quits, they implode. Doesn’t say much about the quality and stability of the server then.

The increase in activity probably had to do with their linking.

Their activity has increased 40% since the linking and is currently the highest in NA. And their activity (at least my calculations) is about 10% higher than the next highest NA server, Blackgate.

Life in T3 will be miserable for SoS and SBI since YB is currently 40% higher than them in activity. And the glicko wall will keep YB in T3 for a while.

BTW dragonbrand’s activity has dropped 40% since linking.

Aurika.6751:

In the past you though BG was a dead server ready to fall out of T1. People told you they were hibernating and you did not believe them because of your numbers. In the end, your interpretation of the situation was incorrect and the people who said BG was sleeping were right.

I think your are confusing provocation with hypothesis. I also told them to put up or shut up, did you miss that exchange? And I criticized them for their obsession with blob fighting and tournaments. Maybe you forget but I also accused them of only playing hard enough to stay in tier 1 so as to keep their population low enough to continue recruiting. All this is to prepare for the “tournament” of population supremacy which BG will of course win because they have been stacking for years while waiting. If Anet every seriously moved to fix the population problem with something like a hardcap, this behavior would stop. Who knows, maybe BG is doing this to punish Anet for having such a broken population metric.

As I have said time and time again, you can interpret the data any way you like. And anyone can form whatever hypotheses they like. They can only be tested when Anet makes a change related to that hypothesis. For example, the argument that bringing back ABL was going to result in a return of the some significant portion of the population. That turned out to be false. At best ABL resulted in no appreciable change, at worse, it resulted in a small drop of population.

Rink.6108:

So, let me get that right: you have the hypothesis, that the changes caused a drop in activity in wvw. You define your variables for participation as kills and capture points. And then you find an average raise after the changes, so data that CONFLICTS your hypothesis. But instead of accepting that the data points in the opposite direction of your wishes and expectations you make excuses to why the data shouldn’t be accepted as it is and at the same time bring NO new data to the table that points in the direction of your statements.

I don’t ever recall saying that the “changes” as a whole have reduced activity. Only that they reintroduction of ABL didn’t spur the return of population and if anything resulted in a drop of activity.

As far as the my suggestion that population density contributed to the increased kills, I base this on linking. There was a spike in kills directly after linking was introduced. I have said that I believe that is due to population density mostly in regards to kill counts. One of the complaints prior to the linking was that many squads complained that they had difficulty finding people to fight because the maps were too empty. Putting more people in the same space resulted in more encounters which means more fights which means higher kill counts. You are allowed to disagree.

As far as capture points go, the global capture rate is far lower than the maximum capture rate possible. An objective is available for capture every 5 minutes. If every objective was being captured every 5 minutes minutes then capture capacity would be a limiting factor. But it is not. I checked prior to linking and the capture rate was 8-10% of total capacity. I think we can agree that after linking that they are still not capturing the maximum.

Your argument is that because the groups must larger due to linking that capture rate should be weighted more in terms of population. this assumes that every group that captures an asset is significantly larger on average then it was before the linking.

I don’t doubt that there are more blobs on the maps. But those blobs tend to represent prime time activity. During the off hours the groups are smaller. Capture rates tend to be higher during prime time (particularly weekends). Meaning higher population tends to increase capture rates. this effect is more exaggerated on low population servers but even on high population servers you see an uptick in capture rates during prime time. Is that uptick proportional the the population on the map. not likely. But since prime time represents at best a 6th of the total playing time, I doubt that increasing population density is having the dramatic skewing on population/capture relationship that you claim. What we see with the linking is that the off hours capping has risen relative to the prime time capping.

Arguing that increasing population density without increasing global population would reduce capture rates ignores the impact of off hours capping where rates have gone up significantly because of competition and perpetual backcapping.

I’ve attached the charts you requested with zero y-axis so that you don’t get confused by them. Capture rates are more stable, but kills show a dramatic increase after linking. Kills show a 45% increase after linking. I think we can confidently say population density directly impacted kills. If I were to remove that 45% gain from the current kill count, it would be 15% lower than the kills on 4/9.

Feel free to reach your own conclusions.

Rink.6108:

- Do you have graphics for only kills and only caps as well? Better make two separate graphics instead of summarising variables that aren’t exactly equal signs of participation.

Yes I do. If you like I can dump the data in another thread. Neither is a precise measure of population which is why I combine them.

Rink.6108:

You don’t have enough weeks before the changes. Any reason for leaving them out?

Yes. These data include kills and caps. Prior to the start of this data set, kill data was broken in the API for a few months. I’m sorry if you feel it doesn’t adequately provide a good history. I only intended to show data over the recent changes, not the entire history of WvW activity. However, if you know some that has a complete history of WvW data taken in 5 minute snapshots I would be happy to process the data.

Rink.6108:

When I look at this graphics, the first thing you should do is make the axis start at zero istead of at 1500000. Why? Because it should you how marginal your “steep drops” truly are. At least if you want to be taken seriously by people that know something about statistics.

People who are familiar with statistics understand that they missing part of the y axis is still meaningful. Actual change can be be determined by comparing the values. Only people unfamiliar with statistics are likely to be fooled by the missing range on the y axis. But just so you know, this is a common space saving technique that many scientific journals use also. Maybe you would like to lecture them as well. What I provided was the default axis created by Excel. There was no intent to deceive. The numbers are clearly posted on the axis.

Rink.6108:

The only thing you can say from this graphics with any statistical reliability is that there was a rise in kills/caps after the wvw-chances following 4/9 and that there is a more or less stable kill/caps-sum after 5/21 on a higher level as before 4/9. Those small increases and decreases after 5/21 are in the margin of error and from a statistical view it is invalid to analyse them.

ok. I don’t recall hinging any argument on post 5/21 data. It was simply there to show a contrast from the peak data and the data prior to the changes. I have no interest in small oscillations. I was referring to the big hump. But just as we can say there is a statistically significantly increase after the changes we can say there is a significant decrease after ABL was reintroduced. You can speculate as to the causes and so can I. You want to say that everyone got bored of the new changes and linking right as ABL was released again, you can. and I can disagree.

Rink.6108:

Concetration of people has actually a negative impact on caps (defenders make it harder to cap, less objectives to take with linked servers) and there is no reason why it should have a higher impact on kills because two 2×2 fights in ds-bl would result in same death count as one 4×4 in alpine.

That is a reasonable argument. I can tell you that right now cap volume is about the same as it was before linking and changes. You can interpret that however you like.

Rink.6108:

I would say it shows that the new changes (not only the BL, but also tracks) brought a temporary increase in kills/caps and that this increase was partially temporary (completely normal for any change, players trying out the new stuff) and partially persisted since 5/21. So I would say this data hints us into the direction that the changes were good for wvw. We cannot separate the impact of the changes though, because the changes happened to close together and were additive, so we don’t know if it were the reward tracks or the alpine BL or both that participated to the higher stable level after 5/21.

We cannot tease apart the impact of the changes because they happen in fast succession. But here is what I can say, that capture volume is about where it was prior to the linking and the changes and kills up are about 25%. I attribute the increase in kills to population density, you may of course disagree.

There was a widely held belief among DBL haters that somehow ABL was going to rescue the participation problem. There is no evidence of that and if anything the opposite is true. Although likely its a wash and the post hump activity is simply a result of population density.

You can say the data are insufficient, or have to many confounding factors or don’’t reflect the in game reality. You can conclude whatever you like.

I provided data and my interpretation of it. You can spin it how you like. People will agree with whichever one of us confirms their existing biases.

Aurika.6751:

With that context, your numbers make sense and it has nothing to do with people preferring the DBL.

First, guilds and players moving from one server to the next impacts the rankings but doesn’t necessarily impact the activity. Moving activity from one server to the next doesn’t lower activity. So that three paragraphs of guild shuffling you describe is pretty much irrelevant to global activity volume.

Second, Full guilds coming back and then remembering why they left isn’t much of an endorsement for the importance of the ABL maps. If DBL were such a major contributor to the population loss, I would have expected more players to stick around. What is clear is that this all important group of guilds/players isn’t interested in playing the game unless they get 100% of what they want. I am guessing that even if they are given what they want, they will want something else anyway. It seems to be a theme.

Makes me wonder how much of the player population is being lost trying to satisfy those who will never be satisfied. Its like these people are intentionally trying to sabotage WvW for their own entertainment. Have the trolls be elevated from the forums to the game design itself?

Anet seriously needs to STOP listening to its players and design a game that is actually entertaining. They need to work within the technical limitations and produce something that is appealing from a gameplay perspective.

The biggest problem with WvW is that Anet itself has no vision of the game mode. Its turning into a poll generated catastrophe.

Aurika.6751:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

OK. So in anticipation of ABL being reintroduced the DBL haters excited played on DBL’s driving up activity levels until ABL was released and then promptly left.

You can interpret the data anyway you like.

In regards to the best way to calculate activity, I use both capture data and kill data. Neither is a direct reflection of how many people are present as only Anet has that info and wont release it. I imagine the correlation of activity to population is not perfect, but I am guessing it is pretty strong.

But believe what you like.

You do bring up an interesting point. That the blobfight (tactics) players will return the game if and only if Anet commits to serving only their interests and ignoring the interests of other play styles (RTS, map based strategic.)

What I do find funny about the blobfighters is that they refuse to accept that the lag caused by such large numbers is not something Anet is in a position to solve. Short of having cookie cutter classes and skills with zero theory crafting, I don’t think they can do it. Meanwhile the small ball gameplay of havoc/RTS play is the playstyle that is possible with limited lag and it is being marginalized.

From a technical side, Blogfights are just impractical. Lag battles are not fun.

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

Jana.6831:

TorquedSoul.8097:

The conclusion one can reach from this is that DBL wasn’t the problem.

DBL was a problem: A lot of people quit because of it, EB was “overqueued” and more people quit. It’s not the core of the problem, sure.
And you already said it yourself: Those who liked the DBL weren’t “The angry zerg that came to the forums” – it was/is few.
I think the biggest indicator of the health of wvw and what this game needs are GvG guilds – if they vanish the mode is really doomed (and they didn’t even use the DBLs). And I think most of them did vanish.

ETA: I have no idea whether or not I’m right with this, but in my opinion the since June/Oktober 2015 messed up balance is the reason why wvw is dying. If they would fix that and reintroduce 3 DBLs people would still queue EB because the DBL as they were were unsuitable for wvw. And the reason why the DBLs were designed like that was because anet listened to the people on this forum.

I have a chart of the activity drop off after the reintroduction of ABL. Its quite dramatic. Activity was rising from linking and rewards and then just plummets after ABL is introduced. I cant say if activity wouldn’t have slowed if they had kept DBL, but neither can you. We can only deal with the reality presented. And in this case, it activity took a dive after ABL came back.

elkirin.8534:

I only have around 11k hrs played in the game. Mostly in WvW, so the only absolute I have learned so far is;

People on the forums kitten a lot.

See you on the battlefields, whichever they may be.

Meh, I have standards.

Jana.6831:

“People quit because of AP”
No, they just realized that this game is a mess, no matter whether it’s DBL or AP (people were blaming DBL when it was still the only BL for all problems wvw had). Eventually they gave up and the number drop is from wvw being a mess, not because the AP came back.

It would seem that they realized this after the reintroduction of ABL. The conclusion one can reach from this is that DBL wasn’t the problem. And that those who preferred DBL may be playing less while those that demanded ABL got what they wanted and realized it didn’t fix other bigger problems and then proceeded to leave after getting what they asked for. The net result is that you lose on overall participation because now you have lost those that had a strong preference for DBL.

What I find entertaining is that the more they listen the WvW community, the smaller the WvW community gets.

Somebody with Anet needs to consider what makes games fun and stop listening to the those who zerg the forums. I’m fairly certain at this point that most people who play MMO’s really don’t know why they play anymore than a donkey knows why it chases the carrot hanging on that stick from string in front of it.

Straegen.2938:

TorquedSoul.8097:

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

Roaming sucked on DBL. Partially because of the WP system and partially because of the numerous obstacles. Each side often had long runs to fight each other. We nearly stopped playing WvW during that time since none of our guild wanted to PvE on that map any longer and EBG had hour long queues.

Alpine roaming is far more fight central. All three sides can engage easily particularly when Bay or Hills has a home turf WP.

By small group play, I am referring to more havoc play than blob play. I’m am not referring to duelers.

I don’t think Anet is in a position to fix lag.

Hopefully the next generation of RvR will find a solution. But I doubt that Anet wants to make that level of investment. Maybe they will have it fixed in GW3.

Blobfighting without lag will have to wait a couple more years.