Guild Wars 2

gennyt.3428:

instead of having these poor people semi-afking eating chips and watching Breaking Bad.

LOL

quoted for truth

Any interesting new about guilds and servers lately?

- Any server becoming the next bandwagon or imploding?
- Any guild transferring in or off server?
- Any new guild being created and old guild dying?

I enjoy watching servers rise and fall in WvW. It’s interesting to analyze the latest trend in population shift.

When I saw that they merged all the threads about commander tag color together the thing that I thought was :

They don’t want to hear about it, they won’t change anything, they won’t take into account any suggestion and it was merged to make it less annoying

Now, maybe it wasn’t the intention but that was the feeling that I got.

Let’s talk about merging.

Having multiple threads on a subject versus one massive thread is a HUGE difference. It’s NOT the same thing at all.

The first post in a thread give a direction to the thread. It is usually the most read and important post in a thread since the communication of the rest of the thread will be around that post.

When you merge everything, you lose all directions for the conversation and it becomes a big mess.

Need an example? CDI process…

It was impossible to communicate effectively our ideas and get good feedback from the community because you put everything in one big thread.

If there was multiple threads you would easily has seen what feature was more important for the community, but since it was all in one big thread, all you got was hundred of players not bothering to read each other wall of text.

Now, I can agree that you don’t want to fill the WvW section with only one subject, so that’s a valid concern for regrouping things together, but merging is not the solution.

The solution would be to create a temporary sub-forum for example.

You got it all wrong. 300 golds per color is unreasonable. You need ability to change between different colors for colors to be useful, paying 300g per color defeat that.

Also, color is not the only feature we wanted. Tag only visible to guild/squad were a BIG one.

If you want to make people pay for more tags feature it’s fine but do it right. Here is an example of how I see tags should cost :

Tag Level 1 : Private Commander Tag

Only visible to squad and guild members
Color : Gold (Yellow)
Price : 100g

Tag Level 2 : Public Commander Tag

The commander tag that we all know currently, visible to everyone on the map.
Color : Blue
Price : 200g
Requirement : Have the private commander tag

Tag Level 3 : Colored Commander Tag

Like the public commander tag but you can switch between 5 different colors
Color: Blue, Red, Pink, Green, Orange
Price : 200g
Requirement : have the public commander tag

All tag’s levels are account bound.

We play for fun

The solution for me, as well as the solution to hard rezzing in combat, would be force respawn on stomp with the ability to stomp defeated body.

But yeah… Best course of action is to treat it as a game mechanic and use it yourself…

A new ranking system

Blow out matches or stale match up? Which one of the 2 would you pick?

For me, it’s none of them. I think there is a way to rank server so that there are very few blow out matches without stale match up.

First, let’s look at what is good and bad from our current ranking system.

Good

Glicko 2 : This is the algorithm that it used to rank the server together in the same match up and it’s very good. It gives a very good approximation of the strength of each server, much better than any point based ranking like in tournament.

Bad

Huge gap between tier in ranking : Ever wondered why tier 1 and tier 2 are always stuck together and why the top server in tier 3 can destroy its opponents for weeks without being able to move up? 

This is the cause of stale match up : huge gap between tier. It also makes the glicko algorithm worse because there are few cross tier match up which makes it impossible after a few weeks to correctly kitten the relative strength of servers that are in different tiers.

If you want to fix the ranking/matching problem, you need to attack this issue.

Random : Random is bad. Random was introduced to fix the problem mentionned above, huge gap between tier, but it didn’t work.

If you add too much randomness you get blow out matches every week. If you put too few randomness, you are still stuck with stale match up because of huge gap between tiers.

Random also bring other problems. Server that are supposed to go down a tier stay stuck in the same tier or server that are supposed to move up don’t.

A good example is Gate of Madness after season 2. They won every match in the season, but when it ended, instead of moving them up in tier 5, it was Sorrow Furnace that move up to tier 5. Even if Sorrow Furnace lost every match against Gate of Madness.

Random was introduced as a band aid solution for a problem it is not able to fix and it introduced a whole new set of problems.

My solution

- Keep Glicko 2 as it is very good
- Get rid of random factor as it is not working
- Adjust the rating of the servers each week to keep the average of each tier fixed

The last point might not be very clear so let me explain.

I want to adjust the rating of the servers to keep the difference in the average rating of 2 tier smaller.

For example, take tier 2 and tier 3 from NA. Currently, the average rating of tier 2 is close to 1900 while the average rating of tier 3 is close to 1700. This gives us a gap between the 2 tiers of 200.

It is this gap of 200 that makes it very hard for a server to move from tier 3 to 2, or vice versa, and this is what creates stale match up.

Now let’s see what my solution would do.

Let’s say we chose a gap of 100 between tier and keep the average rating of tier 3 to 1700. This means that the average rating of tier 2 must now be 1800, hence we substract 100 rating from each tier 2 server.

Now, since the ratings are much closer, the winning server in tier 3 will naturally move up to tier 2 when it is stomping its opponents hard enough.

Shorter matches

There has to be an happy medium between too long and too short. EotM is too short with its 4 hours matches, but week long matches are too long.

Why are they too long? 

They are too long because usually matches are decided in 1-3 days. We don’t need week long matches when the winner is already known by the end of the week end. Yes there are exceptions but they are few.

Why are they too long? (2)

They are too long because it takes way too much time for a server to adjust to its population shift. Look at Sanctum of Rall. How many MONTHS, yes months not weeks, did it take them to drop from tier 1 to finally stabilize in tier 6-7? No it’s not 1-2 months. It’s more around 4 months. It’s crazy!

They basically spent the last 4 months getting destroyed week after week because the rating doesn’t adjust fast enough. And why doesn’t it adjust fast enough? Because the matches are too long. 

Cut the duration of match up in half and it would already be much better. 2 months is still bad but it’s 2 times better than 4 months

Shorter matches bring diversity

If you are tired of the same match up every week, shorter matches is what you want. The more matches, the more likely you are to face new opponents.

The solution

I talked before about an happy medium between too long and too short. For me, the perfect duration would be between 3-5 days per matches.

It’s long enough for everyone to participate in the matches and short enough to not get bored of your opponents.

@Dayra

You are right that this change alone would not fix population imbalance alone but it would help.

Like you said, rewards are very important for players and one of my next post will be about it.

Redistributing the population

Let’s face it. Population imbalance, which bring uncompetitive blow out matches, is one of the biggest problem in WvW. Every days, thousand of players are complaining about it.

There got to be a solution!

Let’s start by looking at non-solution

1. Forced redistribution : It has to come from the players or it will alienate them.

2. Unlimited free transfer : No one like band wagon that destroy communities

Now, my solution! It’s a 3 steps solution : 

1. 100 free transfers per week to the lowest ranking server
2. 100 free transfers per week out of the highest ranking server
3. Half transfer cost if you transfer to a server ranked lower than your current server.

Give it a few weeks and it’s almost guarantee that the population will stabilize across all servers.

The biggest benefits will be for tier 1 and 8. These 2 tiers might consistently have the most balance matches every week.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs

lol… Not really the thread I was looking for but I guess that will do

Claude, volatility is not the solution and the actual ranking system is the problem.

Fixing the bugs

As a programmer myself, I find it very surprising that game breaking bugs are not fixed sooner. Especially when they are known and easy to reproduce for testing.

Most of the time, the hard part about fixing a bug is either not knowing that it exists or being unable to reproduce it. Since these two cases don’t apply here, what is your excuse?

I won’t name any bug (otherwise this thread will be deleted…), but please look at the following thread and fix the issues.

:(… Still trying to find this amazing thread where players were listing all the bugs they found in WvW (help pls)

What I would do with WvW!

I feel like the WvW team is lacking a real vision for their game mode. WvW is amazingly fun but often feel neglected by its creators.

As I love this game mode, I often find myself thinking about what I would do if I could design it.

Below, you will find a compilation of the ideas I would add to WvW.

(I will update this list as I write the posts)

1. Fixing the bugs
2. Redistributing the population
3. Shorter matches
4. A new ranking system

All these suggestions are things that I would like to see in WvW. You might or might not agree with me and it’s fine. If you got new ideas or would like to improve on these ones, feel free to comment!

N.B. Whenever I think about an idea, I also ask myself how easy it would be to implement. Sure, I would like to see new WvW map every month, but it’s impossible.

N.B. I will add better formatting and link to the posts when I’m not stuck on my phone.

I’m looking for a thread made not so long ago where people were listing every bug they knew in wvw.

Anyone got a link to it?

lee jeremy.8526:

You do realize ressing in combat is what helps smaller, more organized groups take towers and keeps, right? Such the garrison in home bl? While the enemy, queues the map, mindlessly runs in, and contests, and dies, and still runs back faster?

That’s an interesting opinion. Could you elaborate on it please?

I always thought that rez in combat would help the bigger force. Here is an example

They attack your keep with a huge force and you have a couple of AC on the gate. A couple of them died, but most stay alive are able to kill most of your ACs but not all of them. Then they start rezzing all their defeated players directly in the fire of your last AC.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

It’s an interesting idea. However, why add the extra step of potentially needing to stomp an opponent in the defeated state?

If the goal is to reward a smaller group (or any sized group, for that matter) for having defeated their opponent by preventing that opponent from being resurrected to rejoin the fight, I think there’s an easier way to do it:

Simply prevent defeated players being resurrected by allies who are in combat.

Resurrecting from the downed state would still be permitted. Once sent to defeat, though, a player can’t be resurrected by another player currently in combat mode. Once the battle is over and players are out of combat, they can then resurrect their fallen comrades (assuming their side was victorious and there’s still players left to resurrect anyone).

Because, I don’t think “Simply prevent defeated players being resurrected by allies who are in combat.” go far enough

It :

Doesn’t promote organized play
The blob will still be able to resurrect all their defeated players once the battle is over and the attack will continue. Also, blob have a lot of players in it and many are not in combat

Doesn’t help as much with defense
After each door or wall is down, they will be able to resurrect all their players for the next attack

Doesn’t really fix dead body problems
Dead mesmer behind door or corpse spying for example. Sure the people will probably be in combat when they try to resurrect the mesmer but the problem is that the mesmer can be resurrect and lay there forever in the first place.

Promote lazy people staying dead
How often do we see half the zerg stay defeated in the keep when it takes 30 seconds to run back and the fight will continue for like 5 minutes

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having both mechanics co-exist.

Agree with that, both mechanics could work well together

Here are 2 additions to the stomping mechanics that I think would improve WvW:

1. You can now stomp down AND defeated players
2. When you are stomped, you automatically respawn at the starting area

I think it would improve WvW because it would :

Promote organized play
Smaller group now stand a chance to slowly drain a bigger group

Help with defense
Each player that you stomp is one less player participating to the attack

Still be possible to resurrect people that fall off cliff
It’s very frustrating when you fall because of fall damage

Fix dead body problems
Dead mesmer behind door or corpse spying for example

etiolate.9185:

1. This is possible. One thing I hadn’t decided upon is whether I think the maps should reset every 8 hours. So far, i felt this should not happen, so that whatever work someone was doing at the end of a reset would still continue on to the next. This is also a reward for working hard the previous 8 hour set.

2. To me, “who should win” is decided by the rules in which you play. In any sport or league, a handful of rule changes can drastically alter who should win. In the NFL, new rules to protect players and open up offenses has changed the idea of who should win in a match. In the NBA, hand-checking rules and new alterations to the illegal defense rules changes how the league played, and this changed the idea of who should win. Passing become more important in the NFL and post play became less important in the NBA.

The same concept applies here. Currently, dominating against outmanned servers during a significant time period would lead a server to thinking they should win. My rule changes are making the statement that taking empty keeps all night shouldn’t be the deciding factor. The statement of the rule change is that tightly contested times of day should be on par with uneven times of day. It’s the statement that all times of day should have a roughly equal contribution to who wins. So who should win will win according to the new scoring rules.

That’s sort of the point of this whole discussion.

3. I have felt that ANet should use the weeks between seasons to test out new ideas and new scoring methods. At first, I would hide glicko rating while testing this new method out. It should be a trial run to see how it alters players approach to the game and how well its received. If it’s well liked, then a glicko rating + win/loss performance could be used for ranking. If these are seasons, or if this tournament is a “playoff”, then the rest of the time could be trial periods and pre-seasons. Wins and losses and placings matter.

Hell, if having 24/7 coverage matters less, then you may see a shift in the mentality of player movement. Again, what we value and what rules we make dictate who should win and which servers are best.

1. True
2. Can’t disagree with that. The rules are what makes the sport.
3. You really need to define a good ranking system. The current system, PPT score + glicko2, is quite good to find the strength of each servers in WvW. (Considering that WvW is a competitive game mode where you try to control the most territory most of the time.) I just don’t like the RNG to decide the next match up… but that’s a topic for another discussion.

Your idea is good and Devon Carver even proposed it in the last CDI so it’s on their radar. I think it would be a nice change for WvW if we can find a good ranking system.

fedecane.6259:

#2: I think you still don’t get the part about the population… it’s not about server population but just how many people your server has in WvW maps at any given moment. And I never said this number needs to go public.

Yes I got it. If you make the score dependent on the population, people will be able to calculate the relative population of each servers. It doesn’t matter if it’s the number at any given moment or the average population over a week.

Anet released an API, that you can easily query to get the current PPT score (in fact you need to look at the list of all wvw objectives, verify who owns each objectives and then calculate the PPT for each server by knowing the PPT value of each different objectives). So, if you modify the PPT score based on population, people will be able to calculate it.

New_PPT = Old_PPT * population_modificator.

There is 3 variables in this equation. We know the New_PPT and Old_PPT, hence you can easily get population_modificator that will give you the relative population between server at any given time. If you store all this information in a database, you could even generates statistics about the relative population of server over any time period.

fedecane.6259:

I’m talking about the instantaneous number of people that each server has in WvW. The number of people that are in a WvW map fighting for your server (not counting EoTM, it’s a PVE map, you know). Server population has little to do with this.

Gudradain.3892:

3. Your system is probably too fair. This is the biggest issue.

Wasn’t fairness the target of this whole discussion? I mean, if we wanted a system in which stacking servers is encouraged and there’s no chance for a low active WvW population server to do anything in WvW beside roaming / small scale fights I think we don’t really need to change anything!

Gudradain.3892:

As the current one is too good at finding the strongest server, yours help too much the losing servers. We need to kitten the strength of the servers. If a server is losing very badly, it’s a not a very good idea to magically boost it’s score to give him the opportunity to win.

The current system is too good at finding the server with the bigger active WvW population around the clock, and that’s it. It has little to do with strength, skillful gameplay, tactics and such, that SHOULD be the metrics to define a server stronger than another. Up to now a server is stronger than another if it has better coverage.

And I never spoke of magically boosting the score. What I meant is that if 2 servers have a big gap in active wvw population at one time, the one that outnumbers should naturally be able to get a major percentage of the map and it should not be rewarded for doing so, because it’s just normal.
And if in this situation the outnumbered server manages to capture a tower, this will grant this server more PPT than the same tower would grant to the outnumbering opponent.

This also encourages to defend stuff from both sides and gives value to tactics like sending few people to capture camps around the map. And completely favours splitting zergs around the map to cover a major part of it.

And most importantly this system would promote skillful gameplay, strategy and “healthy” metrics to compare different servers while vastly reducing the benefit of coverage and stacking servers.
In fact I would say that this would promote destacking and splitting the population equally among servers (because seeing how many slackers there are in WvW these days in T1/T2, people looking for good gameplay will look forward to move to a server without said slackers, and that’s where T8/T7/T6 servers shine! but now you can’t even consider it because with the current PPT system you will just get destroyed every week).

Sorry for not understanding it was instantaneous population instead of average population but the same things applied

1. Not all server are able to do the same things with the same numbers
2. Anet doesn’t want to release information on population number

But these are minor issues

The big one is that your system is too fair. I was a BIG BIG fan of population based scoring/ranking before. Until I realized one big issue : You don’t want to play with a server that completely destroy you or play with a server that you completely destroy.

With your system, Eredon Terrace, the last server, and Blackgate, the first server, could be competitive together score wise. That’s a huge NO. This should never happen. Eredon Terrace is not competitive with Blackgate and should not play against Blackgate. Any scoring system that make server that should NOT be competitive together, “magically” competitive are not good system.

When you lose population because guild transfer off your servers, you should go down in ranking. When you gain population you should go up in ranking. That we like it or not, there will always be population difference in WvW so we need a system that match server according to their strength.

@Kraag Deadsoul

I will answer your massive post later today

etiolate.9185:

Second Proposal:
The outmanned buff is now almost entirely meaningless with the removal of repair costs. Instead of changing the outmanned buff on players, I would add a buff/debuff to objectives.

Strained Resources Debuff:
Any time a server has X amount of lead, any new Tower or Keep they take is given the Strained Resources Debuff for 20 minutes. Whenever a losing server takes a Tower or Keep with the Strained Resource Debuff, that Tower or Keep is worth 50% more PPT for the next 45 minutes.

I’m all in for giving more utility to the outnumbered buff, but the question is what to do? I think you came up with a good idea here.

This system encourage a server to actively retake their territory as fast as possible after the big bad karma train winning server has come and flipped everything. I like it because it encourages active play, it’s simple and well defined.

Also, it uses what is already in place and bring an improvement, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel here.

It might also encourage server to team up against the winning server since they will gain more points by taking the structure they just took. This, as you said, might also mitigate the power of the karma train and force them to defend for at least 20 minutes. I think the 20 minutes is a good idea too because after 20 minutes the winning server will likely stop defending as actively giving a little chance to the losing server to retake their territory.

Conclusion

Probably the best idea mentioned so far in my opinion.

A bonus: have you considered merging it with PPT cap? The 2 can work well together.

etiolate.9185:

Retain 24/7 match. Break up each 24 hour day into three 8 hour sets. Each 8 hour set is like a mini-match. A score is kept for the 8 hour set and the highest score wins the set. This gives the winning server of the 8 hour set a Win Point. As well, there is a running score for the entire week. The week-long score counts for one Win Point as well. At the end of the week, the server with the most Win Points then wins the match.

It’s a good idea and it would produce a result nearly identical to PPT cap. But it also has some flaws that PPT cap doesn’t suffer from :

1. The players that have their play time right in the middle of 2 time slot might feel like their contribution has less impact. For example, they might perform very well for the last 2 hours of a match up than very well for the first 2 hours of the next match up but still lose both match up. It might feel to them like all their work is loss because of this 8 hours match up system.

2. It might be too fair. It’s not as drastic as the population based solution but this one might also produce unwanted rankings.

For example, we have server A, B and C. A wins match up 1 with average PPT of 250, B wins match 2 with average PPT of 250 and C wins match up 3 with average PPT of 600.

Obviously, with the current ranking system, C would most likely win the match up. But with your system, it would have exactly the same number of points as A and B until the end when the final point is awarded. This doesn’t look like a very convincing win from C.

If a server is suppose to win, it should win. Same thing if a server is suppose to lose, it should lose. PPT cap does right that but it also make it more fair for the currently losing servers, hence it improves the current situation while not introducing new problems.

3. You need a new ranking/matching system. You basically get rid of the glicko ratings so what will you use now? How do you differentiate between the performance of A and B in the previous example, they have the same number of points… This question needs an answer before we can take an advised decision on this scoring system.

Johje Holan.4607:

Another thing I think they should try for non-season play is to seperate matches into time slices. And rate/rank each time slice seperately. And each time slice will be matched up against other severs who have similar ratings for that time slice. So in NA prime it might be AvBvC but in Ocx-Sea prime it might be AvDvF and in EU prime it might be AvCvH.

I have also been a big fan of time slice match up a long time ago. Even made a thread about it

The system certainly have a very good point :

You won’t be able to find another system that match the server according to their respective strength better than this one.

It’s simply the best to provide the most balanced match up. It also has the huge benefits to give more power to the players since they can have a bigger effect to the match up in which they usually play since it last only 8 hours instead of 24.

But it also has a couple of flaws

1. It’s probably very hard to implement compared to other scoring/ranking/match up system. Devon kinda hint at this point when he mentioned the 21 matches in a week scoring system in last CDI. Looking at how hard it seems (for them) to provide color change to the commander tag, I wouldn’t expect to a change like that before 2020.

2. It brings more downtime to wvw. Every 8 hours the match up are basically resetting. This means that for at least 5 minutes wvw will be down. For most it’s not a problem but if the 5 minutes is right in the middle of the 1 hour you are able to play wvw during week day, it would certainly suck.

3. To continue on point 2, having multiple resets further reduce the effective play time. Will you try to attack a big fortified tier 3 keep that might take 1 hour to take if there is only 45 minutes left in the match up? Probably not. This means that wvw will be “dead” way longer than the 5 minutes down time for reset.

4. Is it worth to play in a match up that is already decided? If you log in at 6 hours in the match up of 8 hours. Chance are that you already know if you will lose or win this particular match up. So, if your play time is near the end of a match up, you might begin to think that your contribution doesn’t matter. But you will always be there for the final karma train

5. If your play time is in the middle of 2 match up, will you want to actively play in both? For example, one time zone might be very strong while the other is very weak. Do you want to play in both or would you only care about a particular one. I think this is a good question to ask ourselves if we decide to implement any system that split the day in a couple of matches.

Conclusion

It would provide the most competitive server matching and give more power to the players but it has a couple of flaws. So this is an interesting scoring/ranking system, but maybe a bit complicated to implement.

A thing that I would absolutely keep if we ever do it, would be to keep the upgrade between 2 consecutive matches : you restart with the upgrades from the previous day when the next day start.

fedecane.6259:

Hello, I will just copy-paste what I proposed in another thread, where it went completely ignored but I think it’s somehow in the right direction:

- Scoring SHOULD be influenced by the total amout of people that each server individually has in WvW at each time (not divided per map, it would be nonsense since border hopping is a reality), in a way that (in a simplified WvW with just 2 servers facing each other) if a server has 60% players in WvW of its total capacity and another has 40% players in WvW of its total capacity then if the first server owns a number of structures that would give him the 60% of the total score (60% of 695), and the other owns 40%, then they both get THE SAME PPT (excluding bloodlust/finishing points) because they are both giving their full potential and they should be equally rewarded for that.

Population based solution! I have been a huge fan of these types of solutions in the past until I realized a few very important problems

Let’s start by looking at the current PPT system to understand the problems. The current scoring system, PPT, is actually quite good to rank the server according to their strength in wvw. When a server is stronger it wins in the score, when a server is weaker it loses in the score. It’s very good to kitten the strength of every servers.

So, where does it fail and why so many people want to change it? Well, maybe it is too good for it’s own good… The problem is that when a server is stronger, it is able to build a big lead in the score really fast and probably even too fast. It’s so fast that after only 1-2 days most match up are already decided and there is no point to keep trying for the rest of the week.

Another big problem is that it gives huge power to certain timezone that vastly outnumber their opponents…. But back to your idea

1. Making the scoring dependent on population might produce unexpected results. I play on a lot of different servers and the population vary a lot. Even in the same tier between 2 opponents that perform equally well. That is to say that the “skills” of the players vary a lot. We often say that the population win the match up but it’s rather the effective population. Some server are able to do less with more and some server do more with less. It’s just how it is and I bet a couple of players would not like to learn that number wise they suck.

Arena Net only gave hint to population numbers 1 time if I recall correct. Call me crazy on that one, but before the league started Devon Carver said that some server might stand a chance fighting against server way higher than theirs : example BP in bottom tier 4 at the time and Dragon Brand middle tier 2 at the time. Having played on both servers, I can tell that strangely the wvw population looked similar on both servers…

Let’s see how HoD perform against FA next week… HoD probably have more numbers than FA currently since they can queue many maps at a time. If HoD beats FA, we can review this counter argument.

2. Arena Net doesn’t want to release population information. I don’t know the exact reason but they don’t. If we tied the score to the population in some way, people will be able to calculate the relative population of each servers and Arena Net doesn’t want that.

3. Your system is probably too fair. This is the biggest issue. As the current one is too good at finding the strongest server, yours help too much the losing servers. We need to kitten the strength of the servers. If a server is losing very badly, it’s a not a very good idea to magically boost it’s score to give him the opportunity to win.

Even if a server has a better score/population ratio, if it’s getting destroyed in the maps, it should also get destroyed in the score. If they don’t they will keep being match with opponents they have nothing to do with.

Take for example Sanctum of Rall. Very recently they were Tier 1 and a good tier 1 server. But then they start losing a lot of guilds and began to get destroyed in all the maps. Now let’s imagine the remaining players had a good score/population ratio. Then Sanctum of Rall would still be competitive with the other tier 1 server. It doesn’t matter if they tick at 50 ppt all week long, they will stay in tier 1.

That scenario would suck for everyone. If you get destroyed for whatever reason then you should move down. If you roflstomp your opponents then you should move up. Servers need to be match against server they are competitive with.

Conclusion

For the reasons mentioned above, this idea is not a good one.

Lord Kuru.3685:

1. PPT stays the same for each match and determines the match winner.
2. Winner gets 1 point. The two losers get 0 points.
3. Server rankings are determined by the points from #2.

• This removes the reason to fight for 2nd place and encourages the two smaller servers to doubleteam the bigger one.
• …which helps alleviate the population gap between servers.

This idea would be an interesting experiment

I say experiment because it will probably not be a viable system to rank the servers. Here’s why :

1. It’s too dependent on the player reactions to this new ranking system. You make a big _assumption that the players will completely change the way they play if we introduce this scoring/ranking system. Will players really start to double team the biggest server or most just don’t care because they only play for rewards/fun. Fighting the winning server is not always rewarding or fun, especially when they outnumber you very bad. It makes taking any structure from them very hard or simply winning zerg fight nearly impossible. The 2nd is an easier target for 3rd and it’s also much funnier to play against an opponent where you stand a chance.

I think the quality of the gameplay provided by fighting an opponent well matched with you is what influence most players to fight for 2nd rather than the ranks. But, it would be very interesting to see how it turns out.

2. You still keep PPT unchanged. Sure you expect that the players will drastically change the way they play and focus the currently winning server fixing the population imbalance. But if that doesn’t happen, simply because 3rd prefer to have good interesting fight with 2nd rather than being wiped non stop by 1st, then nothing is fixed. We still have the broken PPT system.

3. What about the ranking in general? How do you rank the server exactly according to your system. Currently the server are ranked by their glicko rating. If you change taht by point you have to provide a new ranking system.

What about the rank of 2nd and 3rd? They both have 0 points… 2nd might actually be nearly competitive with 1st while 3rd might be better off in the tier below. Or maybe 2nd and 3rd are nearly equal in strength but 1st is a lot stronger and should move up in tier. Or maybe it’s a very balanced match up and we should keep pairing these servers together.

Too much is not explained in this idea to see if it would really work or not and it also makes big _assumptions.

So for now, unless the missing details are explained, I would say it’s not a good idea.

azizul.8469:

1. cap point based on upgrades level. structures with higher upgrade grant more cap point.
2. PPT based on upgrade level. structures with higher upgrades grant more PPT. encourage servers to upgrade.
3. every kill grant 5 point ( no need stomping). promote skill over numbers.

1. Which server is able to flip defended upgraded structure? It’s usually the winning server so they will get even more point. For them it does not matter if the structure is upgraded or not, they can take it and they will
2. Which server is able to upgrade their structure and keep them upgraded? It’s the already winning server. The 2 other servers are not able to upgraded their structure and keep them upgraded. So the winning server will get even more point
3. Which server is able to kill the most players? Again it’s the already winning server.

All your points are only helping the currently winning server, but they already win so why help them even more? I can see all the good intentions behind your logic but it won’t work.

Alright folks, just write your new super idea here and I will take the time to explain why it might or might not work.

My favorite idea is PPT cap; a server can’t tick higher than 255. So, you fight to lower your opponents’ score rather than fighting to increase your own score.

Feel free to try to destroy my idea too, if you can…

N.B. Try to keep it short

I would really appreciate if you could try to destroy PPT cap. I would like to pass to the next super idea but I can’t while I see all the qualities and simplicity needed in PPT cap.

PPT cap is limit the maximum PPT a server can tick at to 255. You fight to lower your opponents’ PPT rather than fighting to increase yours.

My thought process about a new scoring system or just giving a chance to the losing servers has been roughly :

1. PPT sucks (no need to explain the reasons here…)
2. We should do point on cap
3. We should adjust PPT based on population
a) Based on population per map
b) Based on population currently online
c) Based on average population online
d) Based on population in cap circle
4. The system you mentionned
5. We should buff the losing side
a) based on current population online
b) based on population per map
c) based on average population
d) based on current PPT
e) based on current wvw score
6. Bigger reward for attacking the strongest
7. PPT cap (no downside so far and super easy to implement)
8. Bloodlust madness (could be quite interesting but we would see wall of QQs)

Some idea in that list are very bad, others are good, some are just ok…

3. Stopping the karma train… For this point it seems that this systems can’t fail since server will automatically go for structure that are worth more points. But…

a) What are people usually interested in? Is it reward or server score?

The answer is simple : reward. People don’t karma train for PPT they do it for loots. It’s also a pretty efficient way to gather people and increase your PPT but people don’t care about that, they are there for the loots. So, if you tell them that we will siege this keep for the next 2 hours in order to gain a huge boost of point, many won’t be interested… even if taking a defended keep is probably the most entertaining thing is wvw

b) The next one is not obvious at first but ; Why should we try to defend structure that we are nearly 100% sure we won’t be able to hold 24h?

If people start to realize that by defending for 2-3 hours the structure they just took they will simply increase the score of the other server when they flip it, they will want you to retake it as fast as possible to negate the bonus point. Then when you retake it, they can just retake it to negate you the PPT and get a bonus for flipping it. More rewards and more points. Everybody wins! Viva the karma train!

Conclusion

Awarding point on flip has been mentionned so many time already and it’s bad. I’m sure Arena Net has already run multiple tests on it and it doesn’t help the current situation at all. You can come up with any types of strange or everly complicated modifications to point on flip, the thing is : if it’s points on flip it won’t work.

Hello TheGrimm and sorry for the late reply…

Your ideas are very interesting but I’m not sure they would all work. I only have the time to respond to your first one in this post : The pool of point that accumulate in a structure the longer it is not flipped.

While I was looking for the best solution to solve our “crappy” scoring system, it’s one of the solution I came up with many months ago. The goal behind that idea was to solve 3 problems at the same time :

1. The server with the biggest population will win no matter what
I thought this system would Advantage a little bit the weaker servers by giving them extra points when they flip a long held structure (example retaking their garrison that was fortified by the big bad server during the night)

2. The outcome of the matches are set in stone after 2-3 days
I thought this system would make it possible to do a come back at the last minute and make matches more thrilling

3. Stop the karma train and encourage attacking upgraded structure
It’s certain that it will stop the karma train because upgraded structure are now worth more point since they are held longer.

Now let’s see why it fails…

1. At first, when we think about this system we think that it will make it possible for the weaker servers to gain more points because when they flip structures they will gain additional points.

But the thing is : all servers are gaining additional points when they flip a structure. So, which server will gain the most additional points? This last question is hard to answer, so let’s look at it on a different angle.

a) Which server flip the most objectives?

This one is easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup, the one with the biggest population. This is the server that usually do the big karma train all week long because they don’t have any real opposition. Since they flip the most objectives, they will win the most additional points.

For example, let’s take server A, B and C. A is currently winning. Usually what happens is that A will go karma train B then when it runs out of target to flip it go karma train C and repeat forever. After A flip all their objectives B and C retook them. But, B and C never have the chance to really attack each other since they are both busy with A. This means that A will be flipping 2 times more objectives than B and C. More objectives flipped = more additional points

b) Which server is able to flip well defended, long held objectives?

This one is also easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup too. So, if they are the only server that is able to flip long held objectives, they will be the only one to get a huge boost in points. This will aggraviate the problem even more.

c) Which server more likely to be able to hold a structure for 24h?

Again, this is easy to answer : it’s the server that is currently winning the matchup. They win for reason; they are able to defend their objectives and take the objectives of the other teams, while their opponents is not able to do the same.

So, we explored this idea thinking that it would help the weaker servers but when we look at it, everything is helping the stronger server to be even more dominating. This solution might even be worse than the current PPT system. In the current PPT system, even if A tick higher than B and C most of the time, B and C are usually able to retake their territory back relatively fast and get back to a good PPT.

If you give bonus on cap, the server doing the more flips will dominate 100% of the time and that is the server with the biggest population. The server that is already winning 100% of the time.

2. I thought it would be possible, if some objectives had a huge point associated to them because they were held for hours, for weaker servers to make an heroic come back at the last minute doing an epic push on the fortified garrison for example.

But looking at #1, we see that it will probably not matter since the gap in points will be far too big. Also, which server is more likely to get a huge boost in points at the last minute? The already winning server of course because they are the only one able to flip a fortified keep easily

Not in any order but

Commanding, fights, the community, the statistics and looking at world population change

I like to fight against all odd and come out on top. I like to make crazy plan to attack a structure and often failing, but it’s still fun

Let’s talk a bit about blowout.

Some people do not like the PPT cap solution because they feel it does not fix the main problem with wvw which is population and coverage disparity, and only adjust the scoring system.

The question we should all ask ourselves is : Is wvw really a blowout most of the time?

Do I ever feel like it’s impossible to do anything when I’m in wvw? No
Do I ever feel like it’s impossible to even get out of spawn by one of the 3 exit? No
Do I ever feel like it’s impossible to recap our camps/tower/keep in wvw? No
Do I ever feel like it’s impossible to wipe the enemy zerg? No
Do I ever feel like it’s impossible to upgrade/defend our structure in wvw? No
Do I ever feel like I’m playing in a blowout when I play? No

But I sure feel like I’m playing in a blowout when I look at the score. There is absolutely no way to win for a server that do not have coverage in offpeak hour with the current scoring system.

WvW is not broken, only the scoring system is. Hence the simple solution is PPT cap.

@purecontact How does it affect you? Are you on a server usually winning in your timezone or usually losing in your timezone?

You said you disagree with my POV… My point of view is that all timezone are equal. If there is a server with a very strong NA time force, then this server will be PPT cap too during this time. Is that what you disagree with, that all timezone should be equal?

@Andrew All timezone are equal. This idea is based on that.

We are not nerfing the work of any timezone.

All timezone are equal and have the same importance.

Anyone remembered one of the suggestion Devon Carver made in the last CDI?

Splitting the week in 21 matches of 8h and the winner is the one that won the most matches.

It took time, but people actually realized that doing this would actually improve the coverage imbalance (scoring wise). PPT cap will do the same thing but it has a few advantages as well as disadvantages compare to Devon idea.

Take the time to think about it

@Kraag The intention was never to fix wvw as a whole but simply the scoring system.

WvW is not a blowout for most when you are in wvw, only the score board are blowout sometimes.

You need to take the time to read and think about the idea. Check the last section of the first post and run the fake match up on paper. The outcome is very different when you introduce a PPT cap.

gennyt.3428:

Coverage will still win because the team with the most WvWvW people active will slap the other servers’ PPT down to zero anyway.

The sad truth of it is…<drum roll> Anet messed up big time! Games these days have global communities, but Anet didn’t give two kittens about that when they made a game mode with 24/7 scoring but only offered NA/Euro servers(brilliant!). It is what it is.

All timezone have the same importance.

This is exactly what this idea promote.

Please, take the time to read before posting.

This idea is based on : All timezone have the same importance.

The issue

Your contribution has absolutely no effect on the match outcome if you don’t play in the right timezone or in wvw jargon : Coverage > All

You can look at this 90+ posts QQ thread for more information The Nightwatch Issue

The solution

Introduce a PPT cap of 255. Meaning that you can’t tick higher than 255.

You fight to lower your opponent score rather fighting to increase your score

Why is this a good solution?

Because all the timezones have the same importance. Your time is not more important than the time of another player. All good solutions must have this quality. Since the PPT cap is always applied this quality is preserved.

The PPT cap solve the Coverage > All issue by making it impossible for 1 server to gain a 10k lead in a few hours by ticking at 500+. This make all the timezone as important because if you want to win the match you have to perform well in all the timezone.

Why 255?

Your corner (220) + Stonemist Castle (35) = 255

I still don’t understand why this is a good solution

First, it’s not your fault. I know this can be something very hard to understand. Stay calm and reread the proposition.

Next, try to execute a fake matchup on paper to see the difference between a match currently and a match where there is a PPT cap. For example, here are the average PPT for 3 different time period in a day :
- 0h00 to 8h00 : { Green = 200, Blue = 300, Red = 195 }
- 8h00 to 16h00 : { Green = 200, Blue = 300, Red = 195 }
- 16h00 to 24h00 : { Green = 500, Blue = 150, Red = 45 }

If all else fail or you are too lazy to take a few minutes to think, just press +1 and write that it’s a good idea to bump the thread.

Yes but it’s way more fun to treb when you use a superior trebuchet. Just imagine with the mega trebuchet!

It’s random but… I think it would be cool to have some sort of mega trebuchet on the 5 platform in Stonemist castle. Maybe as an upgrade? (instead of the waypoint…) Here are the specification for it :

- 12000 range (normal trebuchet have 10000 range)
- 5 times the damage of normal trebuchet
- 2 times the size of the splash radius
- 3 times the health

I can totally see myself sitting on the MEGA trebuchet all day long to completely destroy all the towers around SM in a few shot.

Great idea +1

DevonCarver.5370:

Think of a tower that guards the only pass through a canyon, rather than bridges everywhere. Is that something that, in moderation, could provide for more varied and strategic gameplay?

For the purposes of the question, think in terms of building a new map from scratch, rather than retrofitting the current maps.

I think that adding a tower that block the access to a critical path on the map would be great.

It would probably not work with the current map but let’s say the 2 north towers in the borderland were blocking the only way to the north camp and north gates of garrison, then these 2 towers would suddenly become way more important for the map because when you hold them you would be guaranteed to get supply into garrison and not be attacked from the north.

When you start adding towers that block access to a part of the map, you can start adding little twist like keep easier to take if you have this tower. For example, let’s say that the 2 north towers in borderland are blocking all the access to the 2 north gates of garrison, then to make it easier to cap garrison after you control of these towers, we could simply remove the 2 north gates from garrison, so you only have 1 gate left to destroy to capture garrison after you capture 1 of the 2 towers.

DevonCarver.5370:

I wanted to pivot to something that Luna mentioned early in the thread, the idea of a more complex fight for Stonemist.

Would it make Stonemist feel too difficult to capture if the assaulting team had to capture and hold 3 capture points? Here are some of the problems I see with it.

1) It would encourage everyone defending to just blob up on one point and hold out as a group.
2) It could be so difficult to actually accomplish that it becomes nearly impossible to flip Stonemist.

However, I think it would be an improvement to the current rush the middle of the room scenario.

Do any of you think this version of Stonemist would be an improvement or does it not really make any positive changes in your mind?

I like the idea of a more complex fight for Stonemist. As you said replacing the central capture point by 3 capture points might make it very hard to capture SM.

But there are ways to introduce multiple capture points that still make it possible to capture SM.

One way is to hold 2/3 capture point similar to how the ruins works.

But for me the central capping circle is not really what I would change about SM. I don’t like the big open space without anything in it and all the walls/gates. I feel that SM should be a constant battle with less walls and gates.

An idea would be to replace the inner gates by 3 capture points protected by NPCs. When the defending side lose all 3 capture points the inner gates becomes open and you can get in lord room for the final cap. There could be a 5 minutes between each cap of the control point (similar to lord/supervisor indignation)

Also, maybe make the outer gates/walls similar to towers. For example, each gate would be a tower. When you cap it you gain control over that part of SM wall and the side that is controlling SM has to recap it from you.

DevonCarver.5370:

Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.

This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.

I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?

Separating the wvw match into 21 matches over the week is a very good idea, but only if the upgrades doesn’t reset between each match.

Reasons to keep the upgrade?

There is already so few incentive to upgrade/defend and too many to attack/karma train. Let’s not make it even harder to defend/upgrade.

A big part of wvw is defending. When no one is defending it’s basically players fighting against door. Taking a keep that is undefended does not feel rewarding. It’s just meh… No one was here…

Reasons to separate in 21 matches?

It would greatly help with the thing that we call “nightcapping”. There is nothing wrong with nightcapping except when 1 server tick at like 500+ for 8 hours because of better coverage. It happens on the first day and the match is already over because of only 8 hours.

If you split in 21 matches, the server ticking at 500+ for 8 hours would only be guaranteed to win 1 match per day, then the other 2 servers still have a chance to win the other 2 matches in the day.

The number one thing I would bring from EotM to normal WvW map is :

The ability to build siege at spawn

Reasons?

Is there anyone that like to be spawn camp or see their enemy upgrade all their structures in unbalance match up? No.

Allowing player to build siege at spawn would give outnumbered server a chance to retake their keep in Eternal Battleground for example.

Simple solution to promote smaller group instead of blobing

- Give commander buff (similar to siege razer) when you are in the commander squad and close to him.

Don’t do anything else. Commander usually can’t stick close to each other more than 30 seconds. So players will split in multiple groups to follow their respective commander and get their buff.

Problem solved and we just improved the commander tag…

Actually I’m green atm