Guild Wars 2

I’m throwing some ideas out for testing match-making policies without putting thinking, feeling human beings through them. Maybe these ideas help someone at ArenaNet, maybe not, maybe that someone knows them already. In any case, here they are.

Player experience in structured PvP can be quantified by statistical metrics. For example, the average experience is a balanced, neutral mood if

• losing streaks are short,
• win-rate of most players are close to 50%, and
• the variance of win-rate is small.

Conversely, if win-rate fluctuates a lot and most losing streaks are long, then people perceive match-making to be unfair. To evaluate a previously implemented match-making policy, ArenaNet can compute the relevant metrics from matches in the past. But it is hard to gather the metrics for new policies without trying them out. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the matchmaking policy of season 2 is not performing too well on variance of win-rate across time and on the average length of losing streaks.

The general idea is: Estimate the metrics of new policies by simulation.

1. Build a model of player skill that predicts the outcomes of matches with reasonable accuracy.
2. Simulate matches with the player-skill model and some candidate match-making policy.
3. Compute the metrics from the simulation result.

(1) is the most difficult step because player skill is hard for the game to observe directly. Here’s a simple model: the team with the higher average win-rate is predicted to win. One can definitely build more sophisticated models using tools like hidden Markov models or Markov decision processes. Without the real data, it’s hard to say how accurate a model is; perhaps the sum of win-rates is a good enough predictor, who knows. To measure accuracy, one could build the model from half the data of season 1 and test it on the other half.

Parties queueing in together is a tricky part of (2). One can handle it with various degrees of sophistication.

• Use previously formed parties.
• Build a statistical model for parties based on previously formed parties.
• Build a statistical model for parties based on statistical models for friends, guilds, time zones and so on.

Players gaming the system present a confounding factor. Again, one would have to look at the actual data to know whether these players make a statistically significant impact. If they do, assumptions must be changed to account for such behavior. For example, instead of “players play to win all the time”, the skill model may assume “players play to win only if their MMR is low enough”. (That is not the case for season 2, of course; the current match-making policy seems especially designed to make intentional losing unprofitable.)

First let me congratulate the writing team on intelligent storytelling across the board, from ambient conversations to books in Durmand Priory to random townsfolk. I admire their courage in exploring some serious, difficult questions of human condition (or Asura, Charr, Norn, Sylvari condition as the case may be). And there are plenty of clever puns. Running around the maps I was often amused, rarely bored, and never felt any insult to my cognitive abilities, something I can hardly say for most MMOs. Here are two of my favorite story moments.

With the general good impression out of the way, it is time to tackle a pet peeve: Overly positive NPCs bordering on self-delusion.

The love of her life dumped her. Did she rage? Did she weep in silence? Did she sing “You’ve been a fallen angel / Ripped out of the sky / But as your wings grew strong enough / You left me behind to die” (song)? No, no, no. She exclaimed, “If we work together, we can achieve anything!” I’d be real worried if that were my daughter’s first reaction being dumped.

Sometimes a bad ending is the only logical conclusion to a story. I’d rather have fun revelling in misery as a tragic hero, than be told to count the failure as a win, knowing very well I didn’t.

The sole surviving member of the House of Ashe and heiress to a great fortune, Dawn sampled delicacies from all over Tyria. Ordinary cooking no longer interested her; more adventurous culinary experience was in order. Over the course of a few months she imbibed Cuatl goo, lab-grown meat, a chewy flower, and elixir looted from an Asuran corpse. But it was when she swallowed a poisonous bacon (to go with the mango pie from a kindly stranger) that something changed inside. Dawn felt the ability of ordinary speech slipping away, replaced by an increasingly irresistible urge to burst into song. She glided to the highest pillar of Tarir and screamed at the demoralized Pact soldiers below, scrambling away from advancing Mordrems:

“Are you READY TO ROCK?”

Blowing a wicked tune from an Exalted warhorn that happened to lie around, she continued:

“Welcome to Maguuma, friend.
Come on, soldier, take my hand:
Here there’s no easy prey;
Only worthy foes to slay.
There’s just five words to say
As you march on, on, on:

“They’re gonna feel the burn!
Oh, feel the burn!”

She couldn’t believe the inferno all fired up inside. Without even trying she flooded the eye of the storm. It’s up to her to protect and to heal and to shield. In the eyes of her friends she saw hope as the pain washed away…

And so on and so forth. (I’ll show myself out.)

We had a vision of the eternal alchemy in the last mission of Entanglement in Living World season 2. There, 6 orbs representing the Elder Dragons revolve around the Pale Tree. A second later, the green orb hits the center, and then vines are everywhere. Marjory thinks that the revolving machinary is Tyria, and that the Pale Tree is at the heart of it. The Elder Dragons revolve around the her, and she is independent from them.

We learnt later that Sylvari were meant to be minions of Mordremoth. Some came to think of the Pale Tree as another rogue Dragon champion, similar to Glint. In that case, Mordremoth would have created the Pale Tree. How could Tyria function before the Pale Tree’s creation, without its heart? There would be nothing for the Elder Dragons to revolve around.

So who came first, the Dragon or the Tree? If the Tree exists before the Dragons, how can Mordremoth control Sylvari with such ease? Is the green orb Mordremoth? Did the green orb “usurp” the Pale Tree? That must be a monumental event; did it happen in the past or the future?