Guild Wars 2

enLight.1695:

The cause?

Human nature and shortsightedness.

This is what happens when thousands of players simultaneously transfer to the same half-dozen servers.

You have a typo in your name … somehow you hit the “e” key instead of the “u” key.

enLight.1695:

Cactus.2710:

So is stupidity. You need to read the post from Drok four spots above you.

You’re right, it is stupid to suppose that hundreds/thousands of new players transferring to the top servers would massively increase queue times. What was I thinking?

Yes, it is stupid of you to ignore the dozens (probably hundreds) of posts here explaining that long queues don’t equate to having lots of people on the map. I mean seriously … try to actually think about the evidence at hand. Players sit in long queues only to find two or three dozen server mates ANYWHERE on the map. Players routinely report wildly different wait times even when they try to join at the same time as other guild members.

For the record … I’ve been on the same server since launch and I’m just as opposed to mass transfers as everyone else. I just know better than to blame an obvious bug solely on that. When all this eventually shakes out you will know it as well.

Chessrook.8643:

The queue problem started on Monday, the big patch we got.
One of the thing the big patch fixed, was that people who got DC’d or booted from Fractals are able to get back in.
It’s possible these two things are linked somehow.

Just a thought.

That’s a very interesting observation.

Grimaldi.8532:

you mean WvW will be based on skill again not based on an unbalanced numeric handicap. You mean matchups will actually have parity and allow more servers to be competitive? You mean you are being penalized for constantly bandwagoning? Best change Anet could have ever done to the game, now there are 24 real skill oriented matchups where servers will not get railroaded by being hopelessly outnumbered.

Silly person. That isn’t likely to happen for a very long time, if at all. Just look at the projected matchups for next week( http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA ), and then do your best to imagine what the following week’s matchups will look like after the monumental blowouts that await us all.

Also keep in mind that the ANet’s version of the Glicko-2 system tends to trap servers in a tier if the matches in that tier are reasonably balanced … even if those three servers are much stronger than the servers in the tiers above them. So if a different server eventually drops down or moves up into that tier, the chances for another blowout are high. Stability in population does not assure stability in rankings.

tl;dr You don’t know what the kitten you’re talking about.

Ivano.2604:

Cactus.2710:

Wintuo.1356:

Not to restate this but some of you are missing the point, what we’re really concerned with is the actual number of WvW is not balanced per server. Yes a lot of people are trying to get in, but why is there a queue if within the map the max population doesnt exist. For instance people who only own a supply camp or being spawn camped, they see max 10-20 ppl around them, do you really think 90+ ppl are off hiding and avoiding being killed by the bloodthirsty server thats fielding 80ish ppl? All we are asking for is that the refresh rate, or whatever issue thats causing the max pop from being able to get into the map to contribute to be fixed, its clearly a technical issue, stop whining about max pop servers, even max pop should have the right to have their total allowed players inside a map. When a tier 1 server tells you they have about 20 on a map, honestly you should believe them, because they got there knowing who’s on a map and where, you dont get to hold your own on numbers alone at that level its tactics involving knowing your own server and the enemies.

^Bumped for intelligence that is clearly lacking in other posts blaming server transfers for the problem.

Even tho it makes sense, if queues related issues are not in relation with server population, answer me to this question:

Why FoW (low population server) has NO queue, ever?

Most probably “truth” stands in the middle, as usual…

PS Do not blame ANET for having to counter a mass migration as we have seen, migration mostly due to the “I ll be the first in rank, or well at least I ll be there where leeching is guaranteed” attitude. You pick first bus to Tier 1, you ll get there or at least some will, other will have to keep running behind that Bus it seems ^^

I never said it was totally independent of server population. Higher population servers would almost certainly have a higher number of players that were being mishandled by the queue, and since the max player capacity is fixed (supposedly at 166) on any particular map the higher population servers would probably see more of a problem. The problem wouldn’t necessarily track server population precisely, though, since the number of players coming and going could easily vary from server to server and by day of the week. What I have said was that the number of players in the queue doesn’t appear to be equal to the number who want in minus 166.

enLight.1695:

As I happily reported in the other thread: when I logged in on reset night, there were no waiting times for any maps on Stormbluff Isle.

I had a blast playing WvW while people on bandwagon servers sat in hour-long queues.

Karma is a kitten, ain’t it?

So is stupidity. You need to read the post from Drok four spots above you.

Gab Superstar.4059:

As much as I like this match up, it’s probably for the best that it will change.

It has proven to me that match up threads don’t have to be constant whine, and that there can be good fighting and friendly atmosphere in WvW, but the disparity in server power is just too high for it to be fun for a longer period of time.

I have to agree. I’ve enjoyed fighting against both IoJ and EB and wouldn’t mind a continuation of this match one bit if the player pops were just a bit more even. I actually feel sorry for EB, since it looks like they are going to get fed to the crocodiles after the next reset and they don’t deserve that.

Draygo.9473:

I have a new theory.

I think it is possible that for some reason when a queue pops for an individual the client is refusing to display the queue pop dialog box. This causes the server to have to wait for that progress bar to expire, then it reinserts that player into the queue.

This could also explain why some people get in <30 mins when you have some people waiting 2+ hours in the same queue.

This can also explain why some servers are down on pop, the heavier the queue the more often this situation happens, and thus more slots are being ‘reserved’ for players that are missing the dialog popup.

Interesting thought. Isn’t it sad, though, that we have to try to analyze this problem from the outside instead of Anet doing it from the inside? So far all ANet has done is look at the queues and conclude that the numbers in the queue “look reasonable”. If we can find anomalies in how the game works you’d think that they should be able to. The difference, of course, is that we care enough to bother.

inbetween.5623:

Premature thread. Take a look at the scores, and match-ups arent nearly as close as you think. IN fact some of them have been decided already just by the performances during offhours. For what its worth, virtually all matches are close a few hours after reset. It is reset after all and numbers are relatively equal. By weeks end, Anets decision will have been justified.

You truly do not understand how the Glicko-2 system works. Normally it takes into account several scores from past weeks to set the rating (which has the function of smoothing out the effects of individual weeks), but now it only has the 1500 point reference to work against. Take a look at the projected matchups (http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA) for next week to see how screwed up your comment is.

Wintuo.1356:

Not to restate this but some of you are missing the point, what we’re really concerned with is the actual number of WvW is not balanced per server. Yes a lot of people are trying to get in, but why is there a queue if within the map the max population doesnt exist. For instance people who only own a supply camp or being spawn camped, they see max 10-20 ppl around them, do you really think 90+ ppl are off hiding and avoiding being killed by the bloodthirsty server thats fielding 80ish ppl? All we are asking for is that the refresh rate, or whatever issue thats causing the max pop from being able to get into the map to contribute to be fixed, its clearly a technical issue, stop whining about max pop servers, even max pop should have the right to have their total allowed players inside a map. When a tier 1 server tells you they have about 20 on a map, honestly you should believe them, because they got there knowing who’s on a map and where, you dont get to hold your own on numbers alone at that level its tactics involving knowing your own server and the enemies.

^Bumped for intelligence that is clearly lacking in other posts blaming server transfers for the problem.

ghtchill.7613:

Cactus.2710:

Try this test:

-1. join a party with four other players
-2. find a safe spot on any WvW map and have everyone in your party stand in a circle a few feet from each other.
-3. have three of your party quit or log out of the game without first leaving WvW
-4. compare your mini-map with the main screen
-5. how many blue dots now show on the mini-map?
-6. how many characters now show on the main map?
-7. take a screenshot and send to Anet

The game simply is not releasing players who log out or D/C without first leaving WvW.

Yep, true. I have noticed this. But still, a heck of a lot of people must have logged out while still in the maps to explain what we saw during last night’s reset. And I would wonder why it was not anyway near as severe last week.

Well, I could imagine that it is possible for an original bug (the one showing logged out party members still on the mini-map) to have combined with a more recent bug in strange and mysterious ways. Maybe a logged out player that didn’t leave WvW first has always tied up a spot in the queue for some period of time (such as the thirty minute period somebody else mentioned), but now he also ties up spots equal to the number of other players that had been in his party … even though they are still in the game and being separately counted on their own. Maybe players who queue for one map while joining another map tie up spots in both maps … i.e., maybe the game doesn’t properly release a player from the queue even if he decides to just stay in the map he was able to get in.

Who knows what squirrely kitten is going on … but something clearly is amiss.

Try this test:

-1. join a party with four other players
-2. find a safe spot on any WvW map and have everyone in your party stand in a circle a few feet from each other.
-3. have three of your party quit or log out of the game without first leaving WvW
-4. compare your mini-map with the main screen
-5. how many blue dots now show on the mini-map?
-6. how many characters now show on the main map?
-7. take a screenshot and send to Anet

The game simply is not releasing players who log out or D/C without first leaving WvW.

Taras.4367:

this isnt Anet’s fault. 90% of servers defended and welcomed the guilds that transferred to their server now yall are complaining about the wait time. this is hilarious. dont like the que? switch to a lower tier server.

More ignorance from someone who apparently can’t read. The problem is not simply long queues … the problem is that people are experiencing long queues even when the map is obviously far from being full (the supposed 166 player cap per server per map). There are hundreds of posts here in this forum that describe that problem.

testpig.5018:

You are in long ques because you are in zerg servers.

My guild started in SoR.. then once it started going to high up in the ranks, the que times were about 6 hours long. It killed our guilds morale. So we jump ship down to a lower tier server, and love have no ques!

You’re either a troll or a fool. There is definitely some sort of bug in how GW2 handles queues.

I have a screenshot that proves that a player who logs out of the game without first leaving WvW leaves a dot on the minimap even though his character is gone. This makes me strongly suspect that the game is still counting those people as being in the match even though they are not. If enough of these accumulate, the queues would naturally get very long.

This is very easy to duplicate, by the way. Simply party up with someone, have them stand next to you, and then have them log out of the game without first leaving WvW.

If you check the other recent threads on the subject of long queues, you’ll see that many people are noticing that players in party who log out of the game without leaving WvW first still show as a dot on the map. The suspicion is that GW2 is not properly releasing players who leave in that manner, so the map still shows as being full even though it is not (thus the long queues).

I’ve checked it the last two nights and it always happens that way … I have the screen shots to prove it. You can see the dot on the mini map but no player on the main screen even though I’m standing near the location of the dot.

If it does anything to detract from the objectives being pursued at the time it is a bad idea. If there are three different assaults (open field or otherwise) in progress on a map you don’t want one of them pulling glory seekers from the other two just because an orange circle popped up on the map. That would be a good way to subvert whatever strategy the commanders were trying to maintain.

Kaleden.9386:

There seems to be demand for another WvW map that doesn’t include the types of point objectives found in the Borderlands and the Eternal Battlegrounds. A place where smaller group / solo battles might take place. The EB jumping puzzle is a good example, except that it occupies a player slot in EB.

From what I’ve read in ANet’s comments about future additions to the game, they intend to develop the capability for player-generated contests (including duels) within the sPvP structure. In any case, it doesn’t really belong in WvW. I understand why players enjoy things like fight clubs, but hosting them within WvW is pretty much like two players deciding to play HORSE while the rest of their teammates are playing basketball.

DancingPenguins.9875:

The only thing broken is actually the rating system as I’ve pointed out a long time ago. Glicko-2 doesn’t work for WvW. Hopefully they are changing it with an updated rating system.

I completely agree that the Glicko-2 system is inappropriate for WvW, and I’ve pointed out the several reasons why in previous posts … not the least of which is the fact that treating Green vs Blue, Green versus Red, and Blue versus Red as independent contests is insanely invalid. My impression, though, is that ANet intends to retain the Glicko-2 system after the February PvP patch, and that the only things they plan to change are maybe some of the factors in the formula … such as how many previous scores are included, the weighting of previous scores as a function of their age, the degree of penalty for variation in scores from week to week, etc.

Rob.7624:

But, an undefended tower has takes the player out of PvP anyway.

Good point. But an undefended tower with an automated turret “rewards” the lack of a player, whereas the undefended tower without one penalizes the lack of a player.

To be honest, I’m not against adding variety to tower and keep mechanisms, and I hate seeing undermanned structures we already own melt away as much as the next player does. But it’s also supremely boring to capture an objective that isn’t being defended no matter how hard to do so, and I just would hate to see keeps and towers turn into the equivalent of the Arah temple in Orr. Maybe it would be interesting to have a defensive player be able to spawn assistance in the form of an automated turret that could only be placed on or within some small distance of a wall, but I think I’d want to see the turret automatically disappear if the player that spawned it died or left the scene.

My first impression of this proposal is that it simply takes the player out of PvP, and on that basis I don’t like it much. Undefended towers SHOULD be easy to capture.

Dokyo.3685:

You realize this thread was started over 4 months ago, and someone just dragged it up to the front page. He was asking people to transfer then when it was still free.

I’ve got to say that I don’t really feel that bad for people with the long queues, except for the original inhabitants. What did all those people who jumped onto the top few server expect? Long queue times and lots of zerging is what they should have expected, I’m actually glad several guilds transferred off my server. I’m happy to play in the tier 3-5 range.

What you need to realize is that the long queues are NOT simply a population issue. Players in the same guild have queued at the exact same time only to enter the game after wildly different waiting periods. Players have endured waiting periods approaching an hour only to find the map practically deserted when they get there.

Something is broken in the system and ANet simply isn’t looking hard enough to find it. It appears to me (based upon the very few official comments they’ve made on the subject) that they’ve been looking at the queue times without looking at the actual logged in population numbers, and that they’ve been thinking in terms of demand instead of considering the possibility of a bug.

This has nothing to do with server jumping and everything to do with some sort of server side software glitch.

Alaric.6125:

But three people to kill one person isn’t that a bit of overkill. plus it also damages your armour and so you spend half of your hard earned coin on repairs. I believe they should remove that feature from WvWvW.

I think EVERYONE agrees that the JPs should be removed from WvW. You don’t want to have to fight people to do the puzzle and nobody else wants you to waste a slot for players who actually want to WvW. I wouldn’t be the least surprised if people camp/gank at the JP precisely so that more people will complain about it in these forums until ANet does something about it. They want you to die and write about how unfair you think is. If I was on a server that was steamrolling the other two servers I’d probably do the same thing.

So in that respect … good post.

Goblin Beet Farmer.3045:

I think the longer someone has been on a server the higher priority they should have in the queue.

You’re missing the point. Your suggestion assumes that ANet actually has control over the queue. They very clearly do not. ANet doesn’t even understand why queues are not behaving according to plan, and yet you want them to change the plan to something even more complicated? They can’t fix something if they don’t even know why it’s broken.

Sorry, but this is totally delusional … and there is lots of evidence to support my contention. All you have to do is read a few forums to see that players have a really difficult time agreeing on much of anything that isn’t flat out broken. Secondly, when have you even seen something as simple as an alliance of servers hold up longer than a day or two? Do you realize how difficult it is to keep even the players within the same guild on the same page?

But even worse, you’re asking for things that require an infrastructure of sorts to manage … and that doesn’t exist anywhere. There are tons of guilds and without such an infrastructure there is not a chance in hell that any of that could happen even if everyone had a similar view of the situation … which they don’t.

Stiv.1820:

CrassBippy.4619:

I downed a thief in kaineng who just popped SR as he went down, waited and he never reappeared no bags or nothing, also a Mesmer who went invis, popped up about 10 seconds of runnin down the map. So screwy things are going on

Thief can get up from downed pretty easy if SR gets dropped right before. They usually wait it’s duration then port outside of it and start healing up. To counter this run a swirly yellow brick road pattern from the center outward autoattacking well beyond the limits of the SR circle. They are likely out there somewhere trying to heal and just one hit will cause you to see them before they get up fully. If you don’t hit them at all they will get up 100% of the time.

True. Plus, the thief can be traited to heal while in stealth, and stealth abilities (Hide in Shadows, Shadow Refuge, Blinding Powder, BlackPowder/Heartseeker combo, etc) stack in duration. Teleports (like Shadowstep or even Heartseeker without a target) don’t break stealth, and you can port to a waypoint without penalty. It’s unlikely, of course, if you’ve been fighting him that he has all of those abilities off cooldown, but the thief was designed to be evasive and that’s what he can be.

As a thief, I’m always amazed at how many opponents simply stop trying to attack me after I drop Shadow Refuge. Even if you don’t have a ready AoE, spam hit every part of that circle until the little house goes away, and if you think you downed him don’t stop for about 20 seconds in case he got off a couple of other stealth abilities before Shadow Refuge. And if you started hitting him with a channeled ranged ability before he went into stealth, you’re still hitting him even after he stealths.

Altie.4571:

The fraps you posted there is not the issue that Anet fixed.

Anet installed a fix that gives credit if a player is DOWNED and exits the game. That ranger exited just before he was to be downed. It’s a way of alt f4 without the penalty it seems.

Now the OP said that his opponent was in a downed state. That could be a hack of sorts.

That isn’t how it works. You are supposed to get credit for the kill if your opponent leaves the game while in combat … he doesn’t have to be down.

Oozo.7856:

We will be matched up from this week’s projections. After that all of the scoring that comes from server history and performance is wiped which will increase the volatility.

For example, one reason we are actually gaining points this week (so far) is that we are ahead of IoJ which used to be a higher teir server. If that history was wiped we’d be dropping instead of rising.

True. And since we don’t know what math changes Anet intends to make in the Glicko-2 formula, the uncertainly of which server anyone will face in the week that starts February 8 is even greater. Will they change the factor that determines how far back previous results are captured? Will they change the factor that determines the weighting of previous results (i.e., the relative weight of a score from four weeks ago versus the weight of last week’s score)? Will they change the factor that determines the penalty for week-to-week score variability?

Ruq.5396:

This needs to be looked at. Habib any response from Anet?

If this indeed turns out to be the problem, the smart money says that the problem will just fade away after a “maintenance patch” with no acknowledgement from ANet. I mean, how could they not have caught this on their own if they were looking at the issue at all? Months of complaints and they didn’t even bother to check the list of players showing on the map versus the list of players logged in? How embarrassing that would be.

Check out this related thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Question-regarding-full-wvw-maps/first#post1341726

It is looking more and more as though players who simply quit or log out of the game while they are still in WVW (as opposed to leaving WvW first and THEN logging out) are still showing as being active on the map. Lots of us are still seeing dots on the map of party members that we know for a fact have left the game.

If this is indeed the problem, it is pretty sad that ANet couldn’t have quickly caught it on their own.

Majik.8521:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Question-regarding-full-wvw-maps/first#post1340434

This here might be worth looking into.

Basically what’s happening is when someone logs out of WvW to the character screen they still show to be in WvW according to guild/friends list. So it is entirely possible that the game is thinking they are still in the WvW map.

Quoting this here again for the bump. Something is way too weird when you know for certain that somebody has logged out of the game but their dot still shows on the WvW map. It would be a total shame if this turns out to be an issue, though, since it would have been trivial for Anet to have caught it if they were really investigating anything.

Last night my son and I were in WvW in EB as a two man party. He logged out of the game entirely to go to bed ( I know for a fact that he did) but his dot still showed on the map where he had been when he quit. His dot went away when I left our party, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the game does not properly recognize when a player simply logs out of the game instead of leaving WvW first. Maybe it only happens when a player is in a party or maybe it happens all the time, but it’s pretty certain that something is messed up with how ANet manages player queues in WvW.

Erlex.4518:

The most important thing right now I think is rewards. There’s no reason to WvW other than non existent realm pride.

LOL. Because so many people play pickup basketball games or soccer matches for the rewards, right?

If you don’t enjoy WvW simply for the style of play it offers, go find something that you do enjoy … but please don’t try to turn WvW into something that it wasn’t intended to be. WvW in GW2 could use a lot of help (fewer technical issues, better balance, more intelligent ranking, more content, bigger and better maps, etc) but turning it into an individual glory hunt or gear grind is not on that list.

I’m telling you … ANet’s left hand does not know what its right hand is doing.

CHIPS.6018:

I think it is 500 total players / 4 maps / 3 servers = 42 players per server per map.

That’s ridiculous. I saw twice that number in a single [WM] zerg alone time after time last week … and that is not the least an exaggeration.

Tallis.5607:

In the thread where they answered several WWW questions (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Willing-to-share-WvW-details/page/6 ) they stayed vague on this, not giving a number.
.

I think it’s pretty obvious that whatever mechanism they have in place is simply broken. Multiple players can enter a queue at the exact same time and have wildly different wait times. Players can be queued for a long time, abandon the queue, re-queue and get accepted immediately. ANet can’t specify a number because even they don’t really know what it really will be from time to time and situation to situation.

Sumwun.3846:

This match up has been pleasant in game and on the forums. I would like another week of this before we roll the dice.

Agree. While the scores aren’t all that close, the individual skirmishes have been competitive for the most part and the play has been respectful.

I agree that it can be frustrating to be a squishy player in WvW, but there are ways to make a difference even so.

-1. Don’t be afraid to die, although the repair costs can become an issue. There are lots of situations where you can make a solo contribution simply by being willing to die. If you are annoying enough you can often draw several enemy away from your server mates long enough to give them enough time to kill their foes or capture a camp just before the timer resets. You can singlehandedly contest a keep to disable the enemy’s waypoint. You can kill yaks to prevent enemy tower/keeps from being upgraded. You can scout and provide valuable information to commanders. All of that will likely get you killed, but so what … it’s a useful death.

-2. You can plant defensive siege in clever places near camps that make them difficult for small enemy groups to capture (nothing will stop the zerg). There is one camp in particular where I’ve held off as many as eight attackers solo long enough for help to arrive. I drop a ballista in a difficult to reach spot that can still hit the camp, and I place an arrow cart next to the ballista to defend myself (I hop back and forth between the two). There is another camp where you can hide a ballista in a bush that often doesn’t get discovered by a small enemy attack group until it is too late as long as you have at least one teammate to keep the enemy engaged at the camp.

-3. Your mere presence can be a deterrent. Two enemy might decide to attack one of your camps if there are only two defenders, but having three might give them pause … especially if the class you play is able to provide buffs or lay down fields.

-4. If you are ranged you can hang at the back of a group and help kill enemy. Trust me … everyone at the front will gladly take whatever help you can provide.

Lots of players think that face-to-face combat is the only valid PvP mode, but that simply is not true in WvW.

Dee Jay.2460:

What are you referring to? In what terms “make of break”?

Regarding progression, content or balance?

The OP hasn’t thought it out that far, and doesn’t really know. I’ve checked out a bunch of his previous postings and they mostly are just asking for better rewards to make WvW more “interesting”.

Just think of downed state as a severe stun and get over it.

Acidphase.6520:

The people that are complaining are the ones that switched servers multiple times for easy street as well. Now they’re mad cause they have to work at it rather than just transfer servers.

Bullkitten. I’ve been on Devona’s Rest since launch and couldn’t care less which tier I am in, but I do want to be in balanced matches. I’m intelligent enough to see the inherent flaws in the system that ANet is using and the likely effects that resetting every server is going to cause. Just because you are unable to do so doesn’t mean that everyone else is lazy.

Kyuzo.4675:

I missed the part where anet said that they will give each server 1500 points. And I have no idea what kind of math and adjustments they are making the their system to arrange the next match-ups though they have said that there will be weeks of adjustment.

As I said earlier, if several weeks of adjustment after a reset for everyone to 1500 points is a faster path to balanced matchups than the current rating system would be even after the math adjustments, there is something dramatically wrong.

Joiry.2504:

Kyuzo.4675:

Why does everyone assume that the “reset” for the new ratings system will mean that ANET just randomly assigns servers to tiers?

Mike Ferguson said “….If it helps, think of the last few months as the preseason games that determined the initial seedings for the season opener (to use a really generic sports metaphor that is in no way indicative of future plans)……”

Which in the first sentence sounds like they will use current predictive match-ups for the reset (which makes perfect sense) but then he covers his bases by parenthetically sayings it was just a metaphor that is not indicative of future plans. (sigh) I guess we will just have to wait and see though I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just explain the first match-ups and remove all the guess work.

Its not the first (reset) week matchup people are concerned about. I think everyone understands the first matchups will be the same as if the rating points remained, just they will be set to 1500 each.

Ie, JQ, SoR and SoS will be in the rank 1 matchup after the point reset (assuming current scores hold). That first week will be fine. Its the next several weeks which will be ridiculously unbalanced. The loser(s) of the first week T1 match may find itself in T6, T7 or even T8, against servers which they will steamroll. And a low tier/pop server may find itself in the top tiers. Mid tier servers that happen to lose will be down in the lower tiers, probably getting steamrolled in the second week by the artificially fallen high tier servers, forcing them in low tiers for extra weeks until they can finally climb back to their deserved position.

Who the reset really benefits is servers in too low of a tier (cough, Kaineng), rocket them to first place, where they will get a few weeks to build up a ratings buffer facing servers that shouldn’t be up there until their real competition climbs back up.

^This

more characters

Here’s another problem with how the Glicko-2 system works. It includes a “volatility” factor that penalizes any deviation from historical performance. During a blowout it is typical for the player base on the losing server to mostly disappear for the rest of the week while they wait for a more balanced matchup, and since their score now is significantly different than their history they get dinged additional rating points. Maybe demotivated players SHOULD be penalized for being fairweather warriors, but the fact remains that their rating no longer reflects how they would perform in a properly balanced match. The only way to minimize that effect is to build lots of delay into the Glicko-2 system (i.e., your score still reflects what you did several weeks ago against other servers in other tiers), but now that makes the system unresponsive to demographic changes (population or 24/7 profile).

Syeria.4812:

Cactus.2710:

Changing the math doesn’t address either of the two issues I raised in the post just before yours … unless by changing the math you mean changing the rating system itself. If all you do is alter the parameters you’ve been using in the Glicko-2 system you won’t have fixed anything. Three well-matched servers in the same tier will NEVER break out of that tier unless something dramatic happens in the tier above or below them to kick on of them out, and in the “ideal” case where all tiers are perfectly balanced matches each week there will be no movement at all even if servers in lower tiers become more proficient (or even more populated) than servers in upper tiers.

You need to change the system, not just the math.

Two things:

Why is that a problem? If the servers are evenly matched, they’re still receiving a solid WvW matchup and experience, which is the entire purpose of the ratings system. It does not exist to show “who’s the best.” That’s stupid and pointless. The purpose of the ratings system is to ensure competitive matchups. In your extremely unlikely scenario (anything that results in an imbalanced match would allow a server to advance, so the only situation is one where all three servers become “better” at almost the exact same rate while all other servers stay the same) the matchup is still competitive. It doesn’t really matter if they’re competitive in T5 instead of T4.

What’s the better option? I’ve seen countless complaints about the Glicko-2 system, but the only suggestion for replacing it is that atrocity of an idea of “winner advances, loser falls.” As has been pointed out time and again, that system is completely worthless and only guarantees non-competitive matchups. So what’s this other option that would be so much better than the one people constantly rail against?

Personally, I ONLY care about having balanced matchups … I really couldn’t care less about which tier I am in. But it’s pretty obvious that many players do very much care about which tier they are in and I suspect that they view upward migration as a form of progression and status. There are hundreds of posts here in the forums that clearly express that view of WvW.

But my real point was simply to illustrate how poorly the system currently works. It is a fundamental flaw in ANet’s rating system that none of the three servers in a well balanced tier will move in either direction unless something dramatic (and beyond their control) happens in a different tier. While my hypothetical example of all tiers being balanced is highly unlikely, we have had several examples where servers in any particular tier have had to blowout the other two servers to break out of that tier … only to quickly move up some more places once they got into the next higher tier. It is undeniable that tiers subvert the Glicko-2 rating system. If you’re going to have a rating system it should at least do a proper job of rating.

I agree that “winner up, loser down” is a horrible alternative. It pretty much guarantees unbalanced matches most of the time unless all the servers in a region are approximately equal in population and proficiency. That happens in Euroleague, where every team has the exact same number of players and similar access to skill and coaching, but that isn’t the case at all in GW2 WvW.

As far as what might actually work better, I’d be really surprised if ANet did not have access to player demographic data that shows exactly how many players from each server participate in WvW at each hour of the day/night. At the very least they could factor that into tier assignments … maybe even synchronizing the lock for weekly server transfers to the weekly WvW reset with enough lead time to do the necessary calculations. They could even add a factor for subjective assessments of each server. If those of us on these forums are able to develop a pretty good idea of which servers are stronger than others you would hope that somebody at ANet was capable of doing the same thing … all evidence to the contrary, of course.

MikeFerguson.8921:

Here’s why we think this is a good thing.

As Habib alluded to in his post, we are also revising the math behind the ratings formula. Habib will be explaining the math in a later post, but for now, I can give everyone a glimpse into why we are updating the rating formula and resetting the ratings.

Over the last couple of months we’ve seen that when worlds experience dramatic changes in their ability to field a consistent fighting force for whatever reason, it can take quite a while for them to work their way through the ratings until they end up in a match that suits them better. In a lot of cases, some worlds took multiple matches to work their way through a single tier even after a series of blowouts. We really dont like that, so one of the goals for updating the math behind the ratings is to try and reduce how often we experience the repeated blowouts that can come from that sort of situation and get those teams through the rankings quicker.

We also expect that the large population changes that impacted a number of worlds and helped create a number of those type of blowouts should be much less common now that we are well past the launch period and free transfers are no longer available.

So, not only does world choice have quite a bit more meaning now that paid transfers are online, we also want to adjust how the ratings are calculated. If we redo the calculations involved with the ratings, then it’s much better to just reset the ratings and let the new formula do it’s thing instead of trying to carry the old data over from the old system and have those numbers pollute the new ratings.

In essence this gives every world a chance to start fresh now that everyone is on their ‘real’ team and will help protect against worlds in a state of flux being involved in consecutive blowouts for weeks on end in the future. For us, that means it is actually the perfect time to update the rating system and address some of the issues we’ve noticed with it since launch then reset the ratings.

If it helps, think of the last few months as the preseason games that determined the initial seedings for the season opener (to use a really generic sports metaphor that is in no way indicative of future plans).

Finally, matches are going to remain a week long. We feel that the 24 hour matches are not representative of what we consider ‘standard’ gameplay, and actually create a lot of incorrect data in the system because people play the game much differently when it’s a 24 hour match compared to a 7 day one.

I know many of you are concerned about what all this means and it might seem scary from the outside, but from our perspective this really is a great time to reset the ratings and improve how the math behind all of this works so we can benefit from more competitive matches in the future.

Hopefully this helps some of you feel a little better about why we’re doing this. We really think this is going to be better for the game in the long run, even if it may be a bit bumpy until we have a couple matches completed post-reset.

Changing the math doesn’t address either of the two issues I raised in the post just before yours … unless by changing the math you mean changing the rating system itself. If all you do is alter the parameters you’ve been using in the Glicko-2 system you won’t have fixed anything. Three well-matched servers in the same tier will NEVER break out of that tier unless something dramatic happens in the tier above or below them to kick on of them out, and in the “ideal” case where all tiers are perfectly balanced matches each week there will be no movement at all even if servers in lower tiers become more proficient (or even more populated) than servers in upper tiers.

You need to change the system, not just the math.

Syeria.4812:

Cactus.2710:

Everybody here seems to be either happy or upset with this decision, but I am truly surprised that nobody … including apparently ANet … realizes what having to do a complete reset to zero really means. It’s an overt admission that ANet’s rating system (the modified Glicko-2 calculation) is incapable of responding to changing server dynamics in any meaningful way. ANet has clearly decided that (in their words) “several weeks of volatility while the ratings settle down” represents a quicker path to parity than the rating system would be able to accomplish on its own. That’s pretty pathetic in its own right, but it’s even more incredible that ANet would elect to stick with such a flawed system instead of spending the time and effort to craft a more workable one. I find this aspect of the decision to be the most incomprehensible of all.

That’s not the case at all. The ratings system was never intended to be able to compensate for massive server transfers. The fact that it failed to compensate for massive server transfers doesn’t make the system a failure in an environment without server transfers at all. That would be like taking an umbrella out in a hail storm and having it torn apart and deciding that umbrellas are completely worthless for normal rainstorms because of it. Anet sticking with the ratings system is just like them purchasing a new umbrella now that they know they’re not dealing with anything more than rain.

I guess you and I have a differing view of how stable server WvW the populations will be going forward. Have you checked to see how low the cost per person is to transfer to a low population server? And those are the ones that will cause the most disruption.

At least we agree that the Glicko-2 system was never designed to handle such situations, but varying server populations are only part of the problem. The Glicko-2 system was designed to be used in situations where virtually ALL participants competed against each other more or less equally often. It totally loses contact with large parts of the player base when used in a tiered system. For example, let’s say that all tiers are so well balanced that the scores in any of the tiers are almost equal each and every week. The servers in Tier 6 could be learning/progressing fast enough that they actually become better than any of the servers in Tier 5, but the system will never upgrade any of them because there is no opportunity for the comparison that would show it. I’ll say again … the Glicko-2 system was never intended to be used in a tiered environment.

Here’s another flaw in ANet’s implementation. The Glicko-2 system was only designed for 1v1 play, so ANet tries to get around that in a three team enironment by assuming that A’s score can be independently compared with B’s score, B with C, and A with C. That isn’t really the case, though, and whoever at ANet thought it could is an idiot. There are all sorts of dynamics during the week that affect, for example, what B versus C would look like if A wasn’t in the picture. B and C might decide to ally themselves against A, or A might decide to focus more heavily on B because they perceive C to be a lesser threat. If A and B are being rolled by C, the active WvW population of A and B drops off dramatically the rest of the week and whatever score they end up with is not a valid representation of how they might have looked had they faced only each other.

ANet had their head up their kitten when they chose Glicko-2 for WvW, and they still have their head up their kitten for perpetuating that mistake.

What the OP really is asking for, whether he even realizes it or not, is a simply a collection of several mini maps that are essentially independent of each other. That isn’t the WvW I bought this game for. I want there to be strategic advantages of holding other objectives. I want the map to be interconnected. I want the loss or gain of a particular objective to make a difference elsewhere. That’s where strategy comes into play instead of simply attacking isolated structures. It’s called “position”.

Everybody here seems to be either happy or upset with this decision, but I am truly surprised that nobody … including apparently ANet … realizes what having to do a complete reset to zero really means. It’s an overt admission that ANet’s rating system (the modified Glicko-2 calculation) is incapable of responding to changing server dynamics in any meaningful way. ANet has clearly decided that (in their words) “several weeks of volatility while the ratings settle down” represents a quicker path to parity than the rating system would be able to accomplish on its own. That’s pretty pathetic in its own right, but it’s even more incredible that ANet would elect to stick with such a flawed system instead of spending the time and effort to craft a more workable one. I find this aspect of the decision to be the most incomprehensible of all.

Dr Acula.3496:

I like you and your words Mr. Yorgy.

Why does that give me the same unsettled feeling that watching The Following does?