Guild Wars 2

Unique now for sure does not exclude a match with the same 3 server.
EU-T1 round 1 was SFR-Deso-Kodsh EU-T1 round 4 is now SFR-Kodash-Deso.

Probably it was a unique in the sense of unique experience

Sin.4130:

Dayra.7405:

Sin.4130:

To devs:
The solution is really simple, how to do that?
Just change “tick score” system to “gain points” system – that’s all!
For claiming every object server gets points once.
Camp- 5
Tower -1 0
Keep – 25
SM – 35

Very BAD idea.

• Defense become totally worthless, EotM-style play rules
• two sides can make a win-win agreement to trade an objective between them to both get ahead of the third
• If there is no such agreement: Match is irrelevant till last day – final outcome is who controls how much of the map at match-end.

If you want activity based scoring then conquest must not the only activity that count (e.g. look at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage/3895144)

If u can defend your objects, opponents will not score it!

Now 2 servers can also make agreements.

If the opponent does not take it, you cannot score as well.

Assume 5 ppl each from two sides sitting together in a tower, do not attacking each other turning it every 5min, defending it together against the third server, both server get ahead of the 3rd server in your scoring.

Sin.4130:

To devs:
The solution is really simple, how to do that?
Just change “tick score” system to “gain points” system – that’s all!
For claiming every object server gets points once.
Camp- 5
Tower -1 0
Keep – 25
SM – 35

Very BAD idea.

• Defense become totally worthless, EotM-style play rules
• two sides can make a win-win agreement to trade an objective between them to both get ahead of the third
• If there is no such agreement: Match is irrelevant till last day – final outcome is who controls how much of the map at match-end.

If you want activity based scoring then conquest must not the only activity that count (e.g. look at https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Nerf-the-domination-of-Coverage/3895144)

Matches of round 3 look decided. As https://leaderboards.guildwars2.com/en/eu/wvwgold is buggy, MOS doesn’t show it and Wiki http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Fall_Tournament_2014 is slow
here the EU-Gold table after round 3 (winner 5 pts, middle 3 points, looser 2 pts according to wiki, thanks for discovering it and pointing to it, Ken.):

1. SFR 5+5+5= 15
2. Kodash 2+5+5=12
3. Deso 3+5+3=11
4. Elona 5+2+3=10, Baruch 5+3+2=10, Jade 3+2+5=10
5. -
6. -
7. Gandara 3+3+2= 8
8. Riverside 2+2+3=7, FSP 3+2+2=7
9. -

I assume that match-making hasn’t changed since spring (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/S3-NA-final-week-match-up-possibilities/4460488)

This would give the following matches;
T1: SFR (green)- Kodash (blue) – Deso (red) My Tip: 5-2-3
(Marketing was correct, it is really unique, i.e. different colors than in round 1 SFR-Deso-Kodash)
T2: Elona (green) – Baruch (blue) – Jade (red) My Tip: 5-3-2
T3: Gandara (green) – Riverside (blue) – FSP (red) My Tip: 5-3-2

Final result according to my tip:

1. SFR (800 tickets) 20
2. Elona (650 tickets) 15
3. Kodash (600 tickets), Deso (650 tickets) both 14
4. -
5. Baruch (600 tickets), Gandara (600 tickets) both 13
6. -
7. Jade (550 tickets) 12
8. Riverside (500 tickets) 10
9. FSP (450 tickets) 9

What’s your tip?

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Nauda.3678:

Well, it seems it is possible for the same matchups to occure:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Clarification-for-fall-tournament-matchups/first#post4422718

DevonCarver.5370:

Naga.1805:

Oh right, I remember that now. So if it is Swiss style, then the next match up in Silver and Bronze leagues will be based on how everyone finished this week. So all first place finishers will matchup, all second place will matchup as well as all third place?

Week 3 will then have the possibility of playing against a server that we met in week 1 or 2 right?

It is swiss style, that is correct. Certainly worlds might get matched up against one another more than once, but the nature of the matchmaking is going to minimize that, especially in conjunction with the 4 week timeframe.

What Devon said was that we might get matched against a server whom we already faced. For eg. We faced DB in week 1 and in week 3.

No where Devon said that the whole match will repeat which stands by the original point they made in the blog post that every match will he unique.

What does “every match will be unique” really mean?
Of course every match will be unique, it happen at different times in a different situation, once as start match once as final match of the season, even if the same server play it i.e. a typical advertisement statement in an advertisement text: nice words without much content.

We will find out tomorrow.

PabbyGaul.9682:

About dynamic scoring

Dynamic objective scoring based on number-defending/attacking could also work but on the other-hand completely does not give experience for feinting, one of the most valuable tactics in a commander’s tool box. So…just because someone isn’t defending an objective shouldn’t determine its value…But how many people COULD defend it does. Why should you not get the points if you tricked the enemy commander into leaving t3 SMC undefended because you attacked their Garri about 30s earlier for the sole purpose of getting him to move? Good tactics deserve good rewards. BUT in this case the Population is still their…just on a different map.

You don’t want to keep and defend an keep you acquired via feinting, do you?
You want to reset something to wood is my experience with feinting. So the score this objective have afterwards is quite irrelevant. Important is that the WP, walls and it’s former score for the opponent is destroyed. All this you can achieve with any scoring.

Concerning rewards: I really thing that taking a keep after an 1 hour fight should be (at least) equally rewarding than taking N keeps and X towers via PvD in an hour. Currently PvD is far more rewarding and thats why EotM is as it is and a lot of “feinting” is only karma-train (or PvD score race) in reality (oh they defend this, lets try there). (And yes, this should not lead to a global reduction of rewards, rather to an increase, WvW is already the least rewarding per hour)

I think dynamic scoring leads to more defense and fights (you defend objectives you gained a high score for) and you cannot afford to loose anything with high odds in your favor, so you have to be more defensive when you have superiority (loosing a tower while have 5:1 superiority may cost you 50 points score per tick.) And at least I think this is a strong improvement in it’s own: Fighting for something is much more fun than PvD.
I am tired of hearing (or saying) we cannot afford to fight that long for this single objective, our score is going down.

PabbyGaul.9682:

Regarding PPT scaling…PTT wouldnt necessarily be scaled by ranked population. Rather PPT percent increase or decrease would be capped at a specific percent…maybe 20%, and would be based on a moving average of the current server population. This way PPT is entirely related to coverage, and coverage being in this case the ratio of current server populations as measured and adjusting the moving average at some randomly determined point between Ticks.

This is clearly worser as the dynamic objective values I proposed above, as conquest and tick happen at different points in time and need very different amounts of man power.

Assume the superior server A runs over the map with his 50 people zerg to conquer it, and goes to next map or even EotM. Now the de facto inferior serve B tries to get its stuff back with 10 people, A left a few people to defend the map, but as currently more B than A are on the map the superior A even scores higher scaled than B.

Junkpile.7439:

Problem is that frost reach doesn’t even try.

Hi hi yes with most WvW and EotM heros now at SFR you start to become a problem: no enemies left.

I only go to EotM if SFR isn’t green and I only go to WvW if SFR isn’t in the match.
If we can no longer beat you on the battlefield, we’ve to bore you to death

Manual interaction is not a fix. The problem remains and the problem is:
more manpower/coverage => more score and rewards => more attractive transfer-target => more manpower/coverage

Solutions that want to last longer than a few weeks or month, therefore have to break this self-reinforcing feedback loop.

If we would have effective play = more score than stacking at the winning side would usually lead to less effective play (as the newcomer have to be trained and integrated, before they become effective) and therefore less score and rewards, I.e. we get a self-balancing system, instead of an self-reinforcing system.

The best way I see for effective play = more score is dynamic values for objectives.
An objective worth more the worser your odds were at conquest and it worth less the better your odds were at conquest and nothing if you conquer it vs no opponents
(See e.g. In https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4452770)

It would be good if the same is done for rewards, conquering an objective while you are superior should give you less rewards than conquest while you are inferrior.

And the same for kills, with the odds in your favor, kills should be worth less (score and drop-table) than kills done against the odds.

How large you make the area in which the odds are calculated leads to interesting variations. For the dynamic value of objectives I would propose map based odds, for battles maybe smaller areas are interesting as well.

It helps vs a bunch of related problems

• man-power imbalance of teams
• coverage (as domination vs no opposition generates only low score objectives)
• Zerg-size (as better odds are rewarded less)

Otokomae.9356:

Dayra.7405:

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Actually, Tier 1 has been exactly like it is now for at least 1 year at this point…

Don’t know. I play EU and I remember the EU-T1 collapse with over 2 month trapped servers 1.5 years ago
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/matchups/Vizunah-Desolation-Seafarer-2-03-T1-EU if you don’t)

Till season NA-T1 seemed balanced, I don’t know if it still is, e.g. BG only has a stronger league push than JQ and TC, that will go away after season, but it only needs a few week of imbalance without hope of change (and you are all 3 full, no one will get more reinforcements) for a collapse.

Otokomae.9356:

Omg, we’ve found the magic solution! …

Obviously, you are still not bored to dead/transfer. Just stay it will happen rather sooner than later.

Don’t forget: you are trapped in T1 outside season and when JQ and TC loose fun fighting you and transfer away, you will be alone in T1 till next season.

Jerus.4350:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Jerus.4350:

What I see here is a bunch of suggestions to merge servers without calling it merged servers.

@Dusty Moon, no, being able to float and defend an objective is IMO a pretty important part of the game. BGBL is boring enough as is, if the TC/SoS forces couldn’t float there in an attempt to catch us off guard or get us off other maps then it’d just be completely dead, and I’d be stuck there twiddling my thumbs hating WvW.

Not really – basically your server is your Alliance. If you cannot plan an Alliance general defense and plan (like what guilds go to what server and not just blob together) then the balance should or could be there. If your server doesn’t have a cohesive plan or is just so big it only cares about numbers in a blob COUGH BG COUGH then maybe it is time you have one.

You’re misunderstanding the issue. My guild is assigned to BGBL, thing is we’re stuck there twiddling our thumbs hoping TC/SOS will attack the majority of the time. The only time we get action is when TC/SoS floats to our BL to make an attempt, then they’ll bounce back off. TC will show up in massive number (full blob) hit something, do pretty well, eventually get pushed out, and then we’re back to twiddling our thumbs hoping they’ll do it again. If it wasn’t for their ability to float we’d probably not see any action all night.

The solution to this pseudo-problem is fully in your hand: transfer to TC or SOS and get as many action as you like by attacking BGBL. Problem solved.

That’s exactly the reason why I would recommend anyone in heavy one-side match to stay home or ignore score and concentrate on one map: bore the superior side to dead.

Assume server will be turned into (open) alliances. Assume further scoring is designed in a way that alliance can really compete independent of size. And the level of competition will stay at alliances on the leaderboard. (Even if they are grouped into teams).

Open alliances have no leader and no membership control, I.e. everyone can join no one can be kicked. Assume further there are also closed alliances, they have leader(s) and join is by invitation only and kick is possible as well.

What would you think would be fair prices to build new alliances?
1’000’000 gems for open alliances?
10,000’000 gems for closed alliances?

(If an alliance has 1000 member 1’000’000 is just 1000 per member, I.e. less than a transfer and alliances should have some continuity, not just be found and abandoned.)

Mex.5740:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Probably because eotm is PvE?

It is not.

It is PvE, as WvW is! Or

• do you run around with PvP gear now in WvW/EotM?
• do you think WvW/EotM is competive?
• do you think WvW/EotM has any balance?
• do you think your most favored enemies in WvW/EotM namely doors and lords are player?

Both of course allow you to attack enemy player, but that’s only a minor feature

Concerning the bufs: the +5 sups is of course also very useful if you do not defend. And I remember darkly that it once worked in EotM as well.

Curse Drew.8679:

Suggested Gold League:
BG+IOJ vs. JQ+DR vs. TC+SI
SOS+DB vs. FA+CD vs. YB+MAG

Lol T1 does not need a merge, T1 need a fence
Suggested Gold League:
BG vs. JQ vs. TC

Everything else into 6 (unlikly 9) server of Silver with mergers for man-power balance (only ANet can get the numbers for a good grouping)

KDXX.9520:

Just gonna say, from SoR, if they try to merge us. I won’t quit. But I will kittening HATE Anet forever. I can’t even go to LA and call for more SoR to go to WvW anymore because it’s not server specific.

If I will hate it or like it, depends very much on the details of how it’s done.

If my server turns into an alliance with guild-list and guildless member list, that drops everyone that did not login during the last (3) month, and shows for everyone else WvW-active (was active in WvW during last week) WvW-passive (wasn’t active in WvW during last week), and provides a chat were all online WvW-active player can be reached (somehow limited to avoid spam), if they are online, i will like it as it improves community.

If they just merge us (German speaking server) with a different language server and do nothing that help to preserve community, i will hate it

azizul.8469:

that’s why i said remove EotM for now, and WvW will be back to normal, at least until a better solution is found.

You don’t want the upscaled karma-train in WvW, do you?
So it’s good that there is EotM for them. Equal reward level of course would be nice.

scerevisiae.1972:

Scaling PPT to active population when tick is calculated is the best solution as it means servers with a low but dedicated population can still beat a lazy, overstacked server like BG.

Moreover scaled, moving-averaged PPT also addresses the timezone/coverage issue – since points/pop at time of tick is all that matters.

Simply scaling tick by man power isn’t enough, as it not only ignores the coverage problem, it worsens it, capping the map in off-time will be even stronger. It also ignores that in the end you only need 1 scout and a blob waiting somewhere else (e.g. EotM) to keep it.

Determing the value of an objektive by the manpower-ratio used to acquire it, however would work.

Blaeys.3102:

The hard truth is the population imbalance is, mostly, a player created problem. Constant bandwagoning and server stack during the course of two years (and this has been an issue since the game’s launch) have led to us to the situation we are in.

The rules of the game so far enforce it:
- You win if you are more
- You get more season-rewards if you win
- You dominate EotM if you are more, instead of sitting in queue

And in game as well:
- You maximize anyones rewards, if anyone runs around in a big blob and PvDs

People optimize their behavior according to the rules.

The rules need to be changed, if the result is bad, not the people blamed to behave optimal.

Rimmy.9217:

PabbyGaul.9682:

Apparently, there aren’t any ecologists that play/program in this game.

The slow polarization of WvW servers is inevitable because the system doesn’t mimic reality and is being played by real people. There is NO incentive to move to lower populated areas because right now More Population = More Kills = More Rewards. Its not rocket science…….its ecology.

Scale Magic Find, Drop Rates and Experience based on simulating a limited resource (Bags) rather than an infinite one (because its computer game) and the problem solves itself.

The result would be that high population servers have a severely impaired Magic Find, Drop rate, and Experience bonus in WvW. WHY?….Because in reality bags don’t drop out of thin air, they are a limited resource. So if there’s only a thousand bags to be had, I would much rather be after them with only 50 ppl rather than 2000. Making these stat bonuses inversely proportional to population mimics the reality that when you have lots and lots of people good stuff is harder to find. Exp would scale also because fighting on lower populations is simply more challenging. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t be leaving. If yer always the underdog why shouldn’t their efforts be considered more difficult? Isnt experience related to the difficulty of the task…ect.

So….the solution is really simple. Limit rewards in a way that mimics the consequences of actual population size.

The details of this idea were already submitted via Adopt-A-Dev. Would welcome some criticism.

This… is an amazing idea. I definitely think that ANet should apply it for a month or so after the tournament and watch their metrics.

I could be very simple: at every match end there is a lottery for each team: 20000 WEXP-level up boxes are raffled between all that entered (maybe even with more shares for those that contributed more, hard to measure, but whatever it is: keep it secret, such that people cannot optimize) WvW for that team. If you prefer to be in a lottery with 1000 or with 10000 participants is up to you. (Could be made reward neutral, use the winner/2nd/last bonus boxes for that.)

In fact I proposed that for the league rewards:
1st place server get 1000000 tickets
2nd place server get 950000
….
And then the server earned tickets are distributed between all that made their achievement on the server.

1) If some want to play basketball (great), some want to play football (great) and it cannot happen together on the same field (here I am at doubt, Kodash is a good example where the integration of both playstyles works very well) then yes: We would need two permanently separated league. And as there are people that want to play both, all server/alliances/teams should participate in both leagues at the same time, up to players choice which type of sport to join. (But for that we need server mergers, otherwise man-power would be reduced even more.)

Restrictions on how many can be in the same area (foraging levels) before they suffer something like fractal-agony (when you are long in the area with the right amount of people you gain some resistance/imunity over time, but if you enter it and overstack it at the same time you are hit by it hard, you can turn back and go out, at some places you may be able to cross it, but if you just stay inside you die) could be used to make sure that everyone plays in the right match. (but does it need two leagues, simply different foraging levels on the same maps, could be used to enforce that some areas on the maps are large-scale and some are small-scale).

2) I play in EU-T2 (Elona) we only have queue on all 4 maps only during reset, I am in doubt that many servers below us have queue on all 4 maps during normal prime-time, and I don’t thing that a server with queue in most prime-time should be merged with someone. Goal of a merge of course is to fill empty maps and not to generate (more) queue.

3) Server-merges must never be seen as a contribution to the coverage problem in itself. Do not follow the wrong Motto more queue at prime-time, will generate more off-time play. Instead, adapt the map-capacity to time-demand, just make more maps available at prime- (if there is queue) and less at off-time (when less people want to play than fit).

Berk.8561:

yanniell.1236:

TC + ET = Eredon Cost

If they do this, I will stop playing Guild Wars 2. I despise what the megaservers have done to PvE, found out that’s one of the main reasons the person who got me into GW2 hasn’t played in 2 months despite formerly having played every day and having more than 10,000 achievement points, and it’s why other friends play less. If they do the same thing to WvW, I’m outta here.

Isn’t that a bit to emotional reaction? Mega-server still mean you may or may not meet your people, while in a community preserving merge, you are guaranteed to meet all ET people, just some others as well.

It like a merge of two schools where classes remain the same (WvW merge) vs a merge of two schools where classes are mixed on order of entrance (mega-server and EotM).

Look at them next week and compare them to first week
I guess T1 will be identical. But how should it be, this is the most balanced match and it should never had a different one.

I must say: I do not really see the point sending an email telling me I can get my now rewards there and there. Sending the rewards directly via this email would have been the better solution.

dynamic map capacity

Assume that at off-time the superior side fields 100 people and a minor side fields 25.
Currently this allows the superior side to jump around with a single 100 people blob, to be 4:1 superior wherever it likes.
If we would reduce the map capacities such that every map can be filled with mostly 1/4 of the manpower of the superior side (i.e. 25 in this example), then still everyone can enter the match (no one has to sit in queue for non-technical reasons), but the superior side can no longer overrun everything 4:1. The minor-sides can fight 1:1, if they focus on a map.

dynamic value of objectives

Obviously it is more difficult to acquire an objective from a side with superior manpower, than it is to acquire something from a side with lower manpower. This should determine the value of the objective for scoring till next conquest. And if you acquire something from a side that has no one on the map it will have no value for scoring. Still the owner looses score, so abandon things without need isn’t a strategy.

At every time the system tracks the mean manpower balance between the 3 teams within the last 5min for every map.
E.g.: Blue:Red 2:1, Green:Blue:1.5:1, Green:Red 3:1, if blue conquers a tower (base 10) from red, while having 2:1 on the map, the score-value of this tower is 10/2=5 pts while it is in blue possession. If red takes a camp (base 5) from green while it is 1:3 inferior the value is 5*3=15pts while it is in reds possession.

equal rewards for per team and map

Currently defense is much less rewarding than fights and conquest. And individual reward hunting hinders optimal play. How about all rewards generated by a team on a map are equally distributed to everyone in this team on this map outside spawn. (To disable leaching: every inactive (including dead and dc’ed) outside spawn is ported to spawn after a minute, 15min inactive at spawn is kicked from map to disable capacity waste). This way the whole team – independedly of task-assignment – profits from any team action.

Why does this help?

Gameplay will become much more strategic! It’s no longer pure manpower and coverage that scores best, but most efficient usage of available manpower that score best. A small well-organized team becomes a change to fight a thumb mass successfully. Therefore man-power imbalance becomes less decisive. A nice side-effect is improved 3-sided match balance, it is most worthy to acquire stuff from the superior side, so the two minor teams may find it more worthy to attack the side that has currently most man-power and not each other. Another thing is: Defense is much more important for the superior side. It just cannot afford to loose a tower, while is has 4:1 superiority (as this would give an objective with score value 40), it has to assign more people to defense, reducing it’s attack superiority.

Last but not least: being on a strong superior side can become quite boring, if the enemies do not choose your map to focus their man-power, while the minor side has always action. People may chose to improve balance to be less bored.

Latency.3907:

There is no perfect solution for this issue,

Maybe there is no perfect solution, but for sure it can be improved! And putting the head in the sand till it disappear it far from optimal.

The problem with the three sided matches usually is: it is naturally that 1st (to win) and last (to not loose) focus on 2nd, cementing the advantage of the leading.

If that could be somehow improved (I.e. Current 2nd and 3rd have a malus fighting each other and a bonus fighting the leading) it would be nice to have three way matches, but as it is it’s quite annoying and 2 sided matches would be better especially during seasons.

azizul.8469:

just remove EotM , and WvW will be back to normal….

Better rebalance and integrate it. I.e instead of 3 identical BLs and EB, make it EB+EotM2.0 in prime-time (more than 100 want to play) and only the better filled one in off-time (less than 100 want to play). Reduced match capacity would help a lot of server to become competitive.

Just 2 leagues t1 and the t2-t8/9, even better 8/9 leagues (each tier it’s own league), best no season, but some improvements to our problems: imbalance & coverage.

Check your achievements and if you transferred.

If all say you should get them: http://en.support.guildwars2.com/

Why do you think you earned a reward for being away?

Why do you think you earned a reward, if you do not inform yourself about the conditions of it ahead of time?

Why do you think you earn a reward for being to lazy or busy to take it?

I think, if you aren’t able or willing to spend 6min (1 for taking the reward, 5 to make 5 events) per week in WvW you are did not earned a reward.

The original guy that did MOS was on Vizunah, Vizunah doesn’t exist anymore (compared to a year ago at least), maybe he left and doesn’t care about GW2 anymore. It’s just running fully automated

munkiman.3068:

My point is basically this. The server system isn’t broken (aside from having no PvE place to call home anymore), all we are doing is talking about changing something for the sake of it.

The system is not broken? How do you want to call a mean-balance of 3:1 and a actual balance of 13:1 between 2 server that are just 2 ranks apart? I can only call that broken. (see picture below)

munkiman.3068:

There is still population that stays on lower pop servers, by choice, so why remove that?

No one removes them. No one proposed to remove them. John asked what do we think if current servers would be named alliances from now on. And several alliances would be put together to play a match on the same side.

In my posts I tried to imagine solutions where they could play a better role, than they play in the current system when matched against a server 2 ranks higher. Currently they are only a gnat facing an elephant! How can they be turned in David facing Goliath (or a mice facing an elephant)?

ykyk.2740:

“No repeated matchups”

Gotta have that variety. Because it’s refreshing when people with differently-spelled red names roll over you.

So far we did not had repeated matchups (all three sides equal), but next week we likely have in some leagues the starting round repeated, but yeah, if strength is so imbalanced as it is, then the match outcomes are strongly predetermined, and the start-matches are likely repeated in the last week as well, as they are the most balanced matches.

And yes, the shorter format ensures that repetitions mostly happens once, and not several times as in the overlong season 2, and that’s what they wrote.
“The shorter format will ensure that worlds will not be repeatedly matched against one another, which will more closely resemble a true Swiss-style tournament. "

munkiman.3068:

If you are going to change the scoring system, then why not just focus on that? If you go on about alliances then you’re just changing the system for the sake of it.

Because changing only scoring will never enable a fight between 2 diverse alliances to be fun. If you leave alliances (server) alone, you better never match an alliance that fields 200 in prime (only 2 maps) against one that fields 400 in prime (all 4 maps).

But if put the alliances into overal teams, such that the total team-man-power is equal,
The small alliance can fight against a large one, as it fights it on two maps only, which it is able to fill (where as its coalition-alliances take over the other maps)

munkiman.3068:

You can’t give the players the option otherwise you’ll have stacked alliances. No one wants random allys each week, if you actually think about it. You simple can’t have co-operative, organized play when you randomly rotate who you play with every week.

How good it works depends likely on how the scoring is done and how easy it is to distribute tasks.

• if a 100 person alliance needs to score 100 pts per hour to be equally good than a 1000 people scoring 1000 pts per hour, then I do not see a need to concentrate.
• if there is a split of individual scoring of an alliance (for permanent community building) and a common scoring of the whole team (for cooperation of random community) then having different alliances in a team and having a cooperation of the alliance I. The team make sense.
• if you think that a match consist of maybe more maps than today, an abstract task assignment could be: this small alliance is responsible for this map, this large alliance is responsible for these maps. You do not need strong coordination for different maps, but you need strong coordination on a single map.

Gudradain.3892:

John Corpening.9847:

• We want a thriving and vibrant WvW community in each world. That is to say, we want people to play with and against.
• We want to continue to play with our friends and the communities that we have developed already.

So… Alliance!

I really like your alliance idea. Also, you are dead on that we want to continue to play with our friends and that we want balanced/active wvw population.

….

Here is my vision of your alliance idea.

Player managed dynamic alliance

Think of alliance as super WvW guild. There would be the normal guilds that we have currently and then the super WvW guild, that we call an alliance.

…..

TLDR

Alliance = Group of players that want to play together edit: initial alliances are current servers
Coalition = Group of alliances and/or players that are put together for a week. edit: I called them team, but coalition sounds better
Match up = 3 coalitions that fight it out for 1 week to see which coalition is the best.

But really, take the time to read it

Looks like our conception how alliance and their grouping into teams/coalitions could be is quite similar https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Solution-to-fix-the-population-imbalance/4443728

Menaka.5092:

I don’t think we have enough details to give proper judgement.

How does the alliances work? I’m confined on one server? What about representing different guilds that may be in different alliances?

I wonder to see such questions quite often in this thread.

As I understood it, this is a brainstorming about balance and alliances as a way to reach it. no one (not John, not ANet, not us) knows at moment if alliances will ever come! and how they would look like should they come the sense of this thread is to find out

• how you could imagine them to be
• how you would like them to be
• what would you dislike
• how could they be made to contribute to balance
• how could they be made to avoid unwanted disturbance of player communities.

Let me explore a basic observation a bit:

maximal zerg-size does not depend on how many people are in a match, but on how many fit on a single map

So if you have maps of different capacity (say 30, 60, 90 per team) in the same match you make sure that you have a place for small-scale, a place for mid-scale and a place for large-scale fights within the same match!

So if we have teams/coalition consisting of alliances originating from different tiers, it would be very nice if we would have maps of different capacity in a single match, such that each alliance can choose a map of its preferred play-style, e.g. a T7-alliance plays BLs-30, and a T1-alliance plays BLs-90.

The fewer matches we have, i.e. the more alliances form a team/coalition the more maps can be filled by a coalition, e.g. if we have only one match were all the alliances are grouped into 3 teams/coalitions the more (variant) maps we can have in the match, e.g. 15 maps in a single match: 3 BLs-30 + 3 BLs-60 + 3 BLs-90 + EB-50 + EB-100 + EB-150+ EotM-50 + EotM-100 + EotM-150 such a match would offer 1140 total capacity per team, i.e. around 3 times as much as a current match, still each alliance could find a map where it’s preferred play-style can be played. And on which it can compete, even if larger enemy alliance attacks it there.

P.S.: @Sir Arthur (below): A map-150 can be interpreted as a very rich provincem, where foraging supply is easy, and therefore army-size is larger, A map-30 is a very poor or inhospitable province, where foraging is difficult and army size therefore very limited Would be beautiful if map-textures could show that

PPS: instead of fixed map caps: define regions on the map, they have a foraging capacity, the more people are in it and they longer you are in it while it is over-filled the more agony (like in fractal) you (everyone depending on the time he is in) suffer.

Manuelito.6081:

Dayra.7405:

Manuelito.6081:

EotM is a farming ground because players made it so.
here is the solution: change server.

No it isn’t you will be blue next week and farmed by green.

If the green is SFR, I agree. If not, then – following my experience – I will not be farmed.

Of course SFR is Green, its Season.

Lord Kuru.3685:

McWolfy.5924:

I this kind of tactics must be the part of the game. Server level tactics and cooperations are wonderful things

Server level tactics and cooperation are indeed wonderful. But losing on purpose as a strategy is not. It means your tournament design is flawed.

No idea if we loose on purpose (even if a lot of player don’t go there can be seen as that.),
I am very happy that Elona is loosing this weeks T1, as it means we will have a nice match in T2 in a few hour, instead of another even worser T1 match.

As it is impossible for us to end first, our optimal strategy is: loosing this week T1, being 2nd next week T2, winning last week T2, voila, we end as (shared) 2nd.

Swamurabi.7890:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Aridia.3042:

Server merge/alliance/player cap solves nothing. Because you cannot prevent people from stacking. If you let it, they will stack.

How would a player cap not prevent stacking? It won’t fix everything that is wrong with WvW, that wasn’t my intention when posting this idea, but the one thing it will definitely fix is player stacking.

Set the cap too high and off peak coverage determines winners through stacking.
Set the cap too low and peak players might not get to play.

There’s no just right cap level because of population differences between peak and off peak.

Make the cap demand dependend: cap = mean-demand*1.1
The mean-demand is sum all 3 sides player on Map and in Queue (only count queue if all maps have queue and even then do not count people queued but already on another WvW-map) for that map divided by 3.

munkiman.3068:

I tend to think this is how John kinda envisioned it work too, in his post. But, it’s pretty much how EotM works now (in the “win”). I don’t know that i would have it so new players could only be randomly tossed on to a server though (maybe a “pick a server for me” button).

There are a bunch of important differences:

• EotM does not care about balance (it just takes the most imbalanced WvW color), a placement of servers into teams should do that.
• EotM has an unlimited number of anonymous overflow maps only existing for 4hours, WvW should have continuos (for the whole week) named maps you should be able to choose.
  This is the most important feature to make combat organized: You can assign a server to maps. (you cannot in EotM)
  As a nice extension to today I would propose that you can easily find out how many players from your side are on which map (in EotM you not even know how many maps exist).
• A EotM score no one ever notice, who wasn’t by chance on the map when the match ended, a match score in WvW can be computed and people interested can care about.

Deli.1302:

Snorcha.7586:

- no side can have more then 20% players then the other side on the map

you can’t punish players just because they want to play but their side has more people.

You can offer them an immediate permanent transfer to any side without queue, if they refuse, you have to educate them that insisting to play on the predominate side is punished by queue.

And here for a completely different solution:

• Make 8 (9 in EU) permanent leagues, i.e. never matchup the different tiers.
• Reduce the map-cap in every tier down by 10 (e.g. 100 in T1, 90 in T2, 80 in T3, …)
• In all leagues: transfer prices are: free to the looser of last week, some gems to the middle one, impossible to the winner. (people can freely move between tier, to experience variation, but they always have to improve balance, never improve imbalance)
• implement a strong balancing inside every tier, i.e. no one, is ever allowed to put more, than the current mean demand (map+queue of all teams) onto the maps
• close a tier when it is (nearly) empty.

For EU there is an alternative, at least we germans enjoy nothing more than fighting each other.

• 1 league german large (map cap 100) with Kodash, Riverside, Elona
• 1 league german small (map cap 50) with Abaddom, Drakkar, Millers+Dzagonur
• 1 league english large with (map cap 100) SFR, Deso, Gandara,
• 1 league english medium with (map cap 60) …
• 1 league english small with (map cap 30) …
• 1 league romanic large (100) with Jade, Baruch, Augury Rock
• 1 league romanic small (50) …

Will a merge of t2-t8 into 1 match of 3 teams really result in teams larger than current t1?
I am in doubt for NA, if I look at current NA matches.

It looks like wvw-population approximately halves from tier to tier.
50% of T1 in T2
25% of T1 in T3
12.5% of T1 in T4
….
Would mean if you merge them all you nearly reached the size of T1.

And even, if this is a bit pessimistic, I am quite sure that if you merge t2-t8 into 6 teams, they will be all smaller than BG.

A fixed set of maps will have the coverage problem as today. A dynamic system that adapts capacity to demand will have coverage mostly solved, as on 4 empty maps you can reach 695:0:0 on only 1 empty map you are limited to ~200:0:0 not even counting that possessions only only 1 map are easier to defend for an outnumbered team than possessions distributed over 4 maps.

Jerus.4350:

Dayra.7405:

NevilleDevil.4530:

So which server gets the advantage of the frozen map? Red, Blue, or Green? Frozen anything is bad.

No one. While it is frozen no one can enter it and it’s state doesn’t count in the tick.
It could be frozen when no team has more than 250 people in the match, i.e. all fit on the remaining 3 maps, and waked up when the first team reached queue on all 3 maps, i.e. there is a real demand for it.

You’d have to freeze EB then, because each BL has a team at an advantage, if you freeze one of them out of their BL they don’t get a map that’s built in their favor. Thus it’d be imbalanced. THen is there some announcement that EB is reoppened? Will people have to watch their wvw windows to rush back to defend their stuff before the opponants can rush in and take it? Seems like a terrible idea honestly.

Yes, with the current available maps it has to be EB.
You remember the fat text in the middle of the screen that was used in PvE?
Could be used to say “Send scouts to EB, it will open in 5min”, and open it for 5 people per team immediately, and 5min later for all 100 per team.

NevilleDevil.4530:

So which server gets the advantage of the frozen map? Red, Blue, or Green? Frozen anything is bad.

No one. While it is frozen no one can enter it and it’s state doesn’t count in the tick.
It could be frozen when no team has more than 250 people in the match, i.e. all fit on the remaining 3 maps, and waked up when the first team reached queue on all 3 maps, i.e. there is a real demand for it.

NevilleDevil.4530:

Dayra.7405:

NevilleDevil.4530:

That is 24*4**100 = 9600 people. That is the amount of people that can be in WvW across all the servers at any given time. Reducing this number is not the solution.

Should only 7000 want to play at reset …
Should only 5000 want to play at a normal prime-time …
Should only 1000 want to play at a normal off-time …

Then of course it is time to reduce the 9600.
The question is when and where!

• reduce the 24, i.e. servers, e.g. till capacity of a normal prime-time matches the space
• reduce the 4, i.e. the number of maps, e.g. freeze a map in the off-time, only let it be playable in prime-time
• reduce the 100, i.e. the cap per map, e.g. reduce the cap of map in the off-time

So your going to limit tatics? Pulling people off of maps to stop them focusing an attack? That is kinda nonsense.

I would call it PvD not tactics, but I did not said it should be stopped, I only said it should be reduced.

So e.g. instead of 1 100 people zerg jumping between 4 maps of 100 capacity you will be forced to break it up into 2 50 people zergs jumping between the 3 maps (one is frozen) as each map could have only 50 capacity in off time.

NevilleDevil.4530:

Dayra.7405:

NevilleDevil.4530:

Before you say all I like is winning. in PTT. I hate PPT; I am in a fighting guild that has fun finding other zergs and killing them. I enjoy the 24/7 coverage because I always can find a zerg to fight, and there many more in T1 that agree with me, all of T1.

Then you should really try to understand John’s proposal and some of my interpretations of it: The population and coverage in these future matches are HIGHER than in current T1, as current T1-server will be only PARTS of the future teams.

However you seem to misunderstand a part of the point of why I am against breaking up T1. I like my community now. How would you feel if you were told, your server has been broken up your not allowed to play with all of your friends, only a part of them; and by part of them, the one that your guild chooses.

Again, John did not talked about breaking T1-servers, he explicitly said, servers will be preserved as alliances, so your home will be an alliance and not a server.

The difference he proposed is: you do no longer fight alone against another lonely alliance, but your alliance can also be part of a team of alliances (or it will stand alone, because it is large enough to be the only alliance in the team) and your opponent team will also consist of a team of alliances.