Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet balances by server and not by Tier. They use data and analyze actual numbers to determine proper links. It’s not as simple as all the lower tier servers get a link and all the higher tier servers do not. If they took this approach it wouldn’t prove to be beneficial at all. Considering people play where they want to play, every 2 months ArenaNet forces people to move and they always move to the tier they wanted to be in in the first place. Also, as I said BG doesn’t have a link. What incentive does BG have to destack?

ArenaNet also recently released a statement saying the issue with having a 1 month cycle.

Zero.4935:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Zero.4935:

+1

I’m curious to see what servers people who are -1 are from

Tarnished Coast -1 because having no doors is silly. Because Siege is apart of WvW no matter how op it is. A castle should have siege to defend it in a war. WvW isnt some openfield kitten.. Just because something is imbalanced doesn’t mean it needs to be removed. It could be reworked. Like siege for instance. Or the toughness of Tier 3 objectives.

Have you seen how fat TC runs? You can’t even break outer without trebbing from a tower and let’s say you do get into inner? You literally have 0 hope of breaking through a T3 sieged castle WITH a blob defending it.

I avoid EBG like the plague specifically because SMC promotes massive pug blobs constantly re-spawning and running to the center. This can not be pinned on 1 server in fact this happens on all the servers I fought and played on. The problem you guys are identifying is the flow of the map and general WvW mechanics like Tier 3 keeps and Arrow Carts. The issue isn’t with SMC itself but the flow of the map. It makes everyone meet in the dead center. Hence your lag..

If Arrow Carts were simply removed from game, and there were no doors at all and you couldn’t upgrade anything. I bet the same folk would be very happy.

Zero.4935:

+1

I’m curious to see what servers people who are -1 are from

Tarnished Coast -1 because having no doors is silly. Because Siege is apart of WvW no matter how op it is. A castle should have siege to defend it in a war. WvW isnt some openfield kitten.. Just because something is imbalanced doesn’t mean it needs to be removed. It could be reworked. Like siege for instance. Or the toughness of Tier 3 objectives.

-1. While I agree T3 SMC is kittened. This proposal is also silly to me.

How will this help unstack BG When BG doesn’t have a link.
How will this help unstack MAG, when MAG is open
As it stands, it appears every server needs a link except 2 servers.
The games population isn’t big enough for 5 tiers and 15 servers.

I believe they should just perma merge servers and be done with it.

Endelon.1042:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

You need to stop doing polls.

1) It’s not really feedback when the options are just ‘more of the same’ or ‘something new’ as in “should things stay the same? or should we add world-linking?” Of course people are always going to vote for something to change rather than continue another year of the same stuff.

2) These polls only offer the illusion of feedback. In many cases they are yes/no votes and they only serve to make the players feel good (yeah, they listened!) and to make you, the game designers, feel good (well the community voted for this, so…)

You need to stop the world-linking. You either need to actually merge servers and permanently reduce the overall number of worlds because the game can no longer support what it supported years ago. Or, you need to abandon the world system entirely and come up with something new in order to force the player population to more evenly disperse itself. (Example: creating entirely new worlds and forcing everyone to pick one while controlling population caps)

You were working on this last year with the alliance system experimenting/testing. Was that system entirely abandoned in favor of the current band-aids or are you still considering the alliance system as an option?

Messing around with glicko or +1 -1 is NOT what will help out WvW. At this point what players want is match stability for activity and fights, not constantly changing matchups that are lively and active one week followed by dead and boring the next. And most players want a stable community aspect to WvW. This doesn’t necessarily mean “server pride” or that players need to be permanently affixed to one world/team/server, but it does mean that there needs to be a stable community component and messing with re-linking once a month would be a disaster for this even more than it already is.

PREACH!!!! LAWD!!!

Xenesis.6389:

Well they tabled it, much like the legendary weapons, which are now back in production. If the complex plan was going to take more than 6 months to work out, then they should have just implemented the link system which was easier to accept and quicker to implement, then moved on to finish the overhaul.

Acceptance of that overhaul was of course going to be a problem at that time, which I think at this point because of links many more are seeing that type of solution is probably the only thing left to help revive wvw at this point. A lot of the lower tier communities have already lost a lot of players, wvw has lost a lot of players altogether, but server identity and pride is pretty much gone for many.

I always figured links were going to be a temporary solution. I just have no fate in anet willing or bothering to finish the overhaul, since they seem to like pulling people off the wvw team. Either way the overhaul was going to be needed, unless they really expected links to be the best solution to solve wvw problems for the future, I hope the last 5 months has shown them it isn’t.

I agree, that’s why I personally voted in favor of the links, because I thought this was a temporary thing that’s going to lead into the overhaul. But then ArenaNet released that statement and I nearly lost my kitten. I didn’t want the link system to replace the battlegroups… As a matter of fact the entire thing felt dirty to me… how they made this loaded poll with secretive plans to ice something else they didn’t even talk publicly about or give a try. Or even take proper community feedback. Instead once again the easy route was taken and WvW gets the shaft.

The funny part about this message is Tyler saying they didn’t want to do something that would take 6 months to produce… Yet, this Live Beta has been a disaster and is going on 6 months.

More funny? is the line about complexity considering the majority of WvW players can’t even understand the Glicko system as it is. But hey lets dumb down our complex game to 1 up 1 down.

More funny? They were worried about server identity… So they went with server links lol. Server links has the same effect.

Swamurabi.7890:

The main problem with alliances is that a WvW player hears alliances they think EotM, and the fact that many players have already had a bad experience, or some like myself two bad experiences, with player lead alliances.

I’m a WvW player. But I have no clue what you refer to when you say alliances in EotM. To be fair ArenaNet didn’t call them alliances. They called it Battlegroups.

Xenesis.6389:

Wow, if it’s true, just wow.

I mean I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that anet decided to scrap a fully designed plan and go the easy route. They’ve already admitted they’ve wasted time creating upgrades that never made it into the game in the past, that’s why Colin came out and said after the expansion they’re focused now on just building on what they have in place and not creating more new mechanics.

I’m sure if they had even presented the plans for alliances things would be different today. I always figured that was just a rumor and that they wouldn’t have put that much effort into fixing wvw.

Listening to a couple streamers and shoutcasters on the fate of wvw? Typical anet, that whole new game experience which was not needed that earlier in the game life was from opinions of some closed door “testers”, which led to the trait system revamp 2.0 that was a disaster.

Wvw is never going to get the treatment it needs, who knows by now the turnover they’ve had on the wvw team over the years. It already sounds like they trimmed down the department yet again with Tyler shipped off to living story, after the supposed reorganization when Mike fully took over in the spring.

If they really did scrap a major overhaul, at a time they really needed plans to stabilize wvw (right after the clusterkitten the expansion created for wvw), I believe there’s really no hope for the future of wvw now. Beautiful combat game dying each and every passing day.

“We had/have another, much more elaborate, solution to world population imbalance. However, we decided to table it (perhaps indefinitely) in favor of World Linking for three primary reasons:
1. Time – We felt we needed to improve the world population situation as soon as possible. Any solution that was likely to take 6+ months was off the table.
2. Acceptance – Our two ‘quick’ solutions were World Linking and World Merging. We went with World Linking because we felt players would be more likely to approve it, due to it better preserving the identity of all original worlds, and being more flexible than a more traditional World Merging solution.
3. Complexity – World Linking and World Merging are both fairly easy to understand solutions. This ties back to points 1 and two, but a complex solution would have taken longer to implement, and have been harder to get players to understand and accept.”

- Tyler

Here is the proof you need. It really sucks ArenaNet took the easy way out and delivered a poll they knew we’d vote yes on because it’s easier to do.

EDIT: Here is the link https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Additional-World-Linking-Information/first#post6172091

I like 2,1,1 taken from face value because it forces the top dog to be the focus and not third place.

RodOfDeath.5247:

Just as long as they listen to the big guilds and T1 pug commanders…..that’s what is important in wvw and it seemed to have wonderful results.

Yes, sarcastic

Good thing I’m a T2 commander.

Grim West.3194:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Grim West.3194:

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made it almost unfixable.

Yaks bend Glicko hell, wasnt much of a glicko hell as the community made it out to be. However, the results of that are strictly due to the Live Beta and relink every 2 months. On top of not resting the volatility.

so Glicko hell I suppose is when a very populated server gets stuck by glicko rating in a lower tier in which they crush all opposition and shouldn’t be in that tier. In-fact, if Arena Net used 1 up 1 down. There would always be someone who crushes all opposition in these tiers and as Chaba pointed out above me the attrition rate would skyrocket worst than the Glicko system. Thus the Glicko system is better than 1 up 1 down even in it’s current broken state.

I don’t think you really believe that. YB would still be in the wrong tier if they hadn’t been adjusted. Talk about a boring mismatch.

And the reason there are mismatches is because of the population balance issue. If that isn’t fixed then there will always be mismatches in every tier. Or you can lock the tiers and be bored of the same faces forever.

The only fix for mismatches and scoring issues is population balance. Without it then WvW will continue to die.

I believe that Arena Net should have reset the volatility instead of fixing YB. So you agree the main issue is population imbalance. Then you’d agree locking server transfers to once a year would be a terrible idea since we are already imbalanced.

Grim West.3194:

Glicko hell for one thing (YB having to be adjusted etc).

And it’s already boring because of the overstack problem.

Population is the main issue that has to be fixed. If it isn’t dealt with then nothing else will matter. Scoring is a minor issue compared to the population problem. Anet sticking their head in the sand for 4 years has made it almost unfixable.

Yaks bend Glicko hell, wasnt much of a glicko hell as the community made it out to be. However, the results of that are strictly due to the Live Beta and relink every 2 months. On top of not resting the volatility.

so Glicko hell I suppose is when a very populated server gets stuck by glicko rating in a lower tier in which they crush all opposition and shouldn’t be in that tier. In-fact, if Arena Net used 1 up 1 down. There would always be someone who crushes all opposition in these tiers and as Chaba pointed out above me the attrition rate would skyrocket worst than the Glicko system. Thus the Glicko system is better than 1 up 1 down even in it’s current broken state.

Grim West.3194:

I don’t have a problem with double teaming. Part of the game design. And I agree that 1up 1down is not the best solution. But for now Glicko has to go. 1up 1down is better than Glicko and will help eliminate a number of artificial problems. They can work on a better system after that.

But if they don’t fix the issues that allowed players to overstack servers and destroy any chance at balance then none of it will matter.

What artificial problems will it eliminate? The only one I can see is a stagnant tier. But what this would do it basically make every other week a challenge for servers. The week its not a challenge it would simply be boring. You see there are two things you’re talking about.

1 is proper scoring.
2 is population.

Grim West.3194:

That wasn’t always the case. And just because you have settled down, it hasn’t stopped the masses that move on a whim.

In PvP games the players (especially American players) will gravitate to the winning side to get to easy mode. That has to be discouraged and penalized or the PvP becomes a lopsided joke. Which leads to people giving up and leaving the game. Sound familiar?

There are a number of ways fix the issue. How would you do it?

Listen, I don’t care about the other people. But you accused me of something and I’m asking for clarification. Most people haven’t moved more than twice in a year. This Live Beta is different as it forces people to move. If you read my walls of text i gave plenty of solutions. The entire system needs to be changed and the Tier structure needs to be done away with. The glicko system doesnt work with the Tier structure we have. The issue in my opinion is the Tier structure and server structure. Not the glicko system. Thus, If Arena Net removed the glicko system in place of 1 up and 1 down. We would experience the same issues except there would be more manipulation. It would be easier to do. Easy to tank. Easy to double Team. Easy to kick someone out the tier.

Grim West.3194:

My initial post lines out the problems.

The fix is to limit player transfers to 1 or 2 times a year at most. With everyone’s possible transfer dates staggered across the calendar to eliminate mass transfer waves.

And close all transfers to servers with a history of “hibernating” which allows them to game the population model to allow overstacking.

I’ve only moved once or twice a year. How will that fix anything. If anything that will cause more attrition because the state of servers and cultures change too drastically.

Grim West.3194:

It wasn’t intended as an insult. It is the results of the game being manipulated by players like you that I have a problem with. The long term consequences have been disastrous.

ANET deserves just as much blame. For they encouraged you at every step.

What is your definition of Manipulation and what are you accusing me of?

Grim West.3194:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

Your polls are ruining this game. 1 up 1 down is a terrible idea. Yet, it will get voted in because of the general population not liking what we currently. have. Just like we voted for linking and that was a terrible decision. You are the game designer.

Glicko is garbage. Too easy to game by people like you and your crew. Glicko was never designed to deal with the fickle easy mode transfer crowd and their short sighted mangy cousins (who tank matches on purpose to open up servers that are already overstacked).

1up 1down isn’t going to be much of an improvement, but it will be better than what we have now. It might even put a damper on the transfer addicts, etc. It’s a temporary fix though, ANET will have to do better. People will eventually game the new system also.

Unfortunately, until the ability to overstack servers on a whim is eliminated, balance in WvW will continue to be a sad joke. ANET has to create a system that promotes some semblance of balance and stability to get people to care about WvW again. But that is so far from anything they have built so far, that it just doesn’t seem possible for them anymore.

A simple solution would be to not allow players to transfer more than 1 or 2 times a year (even that might be too much). And to never allow transfers to the two highest pop servers, whether they are “full” or not.

Theres no reason to insult people. You don’t even understand why we moved. My explanation details how 1 up and 1 down can be utilized to manipulate even greater than the Glicko system in its current form.

McWolfy.5924:

Give us a cape! Everyone wants it who played gw1

Yess!!!!!!!! We need a cape.

morrolan.9608:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

So from my sources, the sponsors were worried about the destruction of server communities if and when they chose to overhaul the system. Arena Net didn’t cancel it for their opinion. They canceled their plans, when they decided to poll the community to see if we wanted to keep server links. The community voted “yes”, for keeping server links in, But then Arena Net said right afterwards, that since Server links are now in, they would be scrapping the overhaul for server links.

So because we voted on server links, it scrapped their original idea without us even hearing it for what it could be. We replaced a well rounded near perfect system for Server links and no one even knows besides the select few.

That is mind boggling.

Yeah it is. I was triggered by it and I still am. They literally reversed a ton of work and a great idea based off a poll that seemed more like a trick or a political move to make everyone feel as if they have a say. Arena Nets move with this made me really see the company in a different light, and GW2 is my all time favorite game.

And IF they simply moved back battlegroups for the expansion to make us pay another 50 dollars, I’m quitting this game.

Deli.1302:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Instead of having Server loyalty, have loyalty for your alliance or Globe and the community you play with.

What is the difference between a server of guilds/players and an alliance of guilds/players other than the obvious exclusion/elitism that would be encouraged by players being able to pick their own teammates?

The difference is that you can not control your server, or it’s overall cap. An alliance would have a limit much like a guild. This limit of players/guilds would be defined and well known. Based off the limit and the mechanics, the community can pick their own team mates and be matched against another competitive teams and players. The sense of Loyalty to ones community would greatly increase, The structure of our communities would become independent of the server or globe we are on. Having loyalty for your community overall, is better and more optimal than loyalty for a server in which you have little control over. Organizing a community that wants to be organized is better than organizing a community like a server with varying degrees of opinions and goals. How do you organize which that doesn’t want to be organized.

Overall, having globes or alliances, would help things like culture shock and mass transfers. It would provide the tools necessary for the communities to depict overall balance better and actually equate it to a number. It would give birth to more strategy and tactics and allow for guilds and communities to not be separated by the constant shift in server powers and locks determined by an equation no one knows about beyond the devs.

Guild Wars 2 is unique in a way. This game’s population greatly determines how well you do. Our population effects if we win or not. Yet if we lose, or drop out of tier it literally kills servers. It kills communities. There are so many things that can kill a server community and so many things out of our control, yet Arena Net wants us to balance ourselves.. But with what tools?

morrolan.9608:

I assume this is the system Tyler briefly referred to a while ago. It definitely seemed to resolve many of the issues that the game has even now. Shame to hear that it sounds like it was relatively advanced in terms of design. Were these ‘sponsors’ streamers? Did they decide not to proceed based on the reaction of the ‘sponsors’? It also adds weight to my perception that anet have moved the only devs with a clue about WvW off the mode and onto the xpac leaving other devs essentially in just maintenance mode on WvW making marginal changes but making the mode worse because they don’t understand the mode and the implications of what they are doing.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

1 up 1 down, will do nothing but add to the attrition rate and give us even more of a reason, to do things like Hibernate, tank on purpose or manipulate the tiers through 2v1s. With this 1 up 1 down system, Tier 2 will never be balanced. Instead it will be a consistent blow out when 3rd place Tier 1 meets first place Tier 3 in T2.

Stop with the band aids and polls. Change the system fully, then make maps based off the new systems design. This guy I quoted wrote up large walls of text explaining a well put together system that’s actually very similar to what Arena Net’s Battlegroup system explained.

For once I fully agree with you on what anet need to do, and yes one up one down is probably not a solution any more and will just lead to further acrimony amongst the player base.

Yes, It’s the system Arena Net hinted about for months. They fully designed most of the mechanics then they told their Sponsors. These are people who Arena Net chooses for their program. It’s mostly streamers and shoutcasters. When Arena Net tells these folk these secretive plans, 9 times out of 10 they are leaked to reddit.

morrolan.9608:

“Were these ‘sponsors’ streamers? Did they decide not to proceed based on the reaction of the ‘sponsors’?

So from my sources, the sponsors were worried about the destruction of server communities if and when they chose to overhaul the system. Arena Net didn’t cancel it for their opinion. They canceled their plans, when they decided to poll the community to see if we wanted to keep server links. The community voted “yes”, for keeping server links in, But then Arena Net said right afterwards, that since Server links are now in, they would be scrapping the overhaul for server links.

So because we voted on server links, it scrapped their original idea without us even hearing it for what it could be. We replaced a well rounded near perfect system for Server links and no one even knows besides the select few.

morrolan.9608:

It also adds weight to my perception that anet have moved the only devs with a clue about WvW off the mode and onto the xpac leaving other devs essentially in just maintenance mode on WvW making marginal changes but making the mode worse because they don’t understand the mode and the implications of what they are doing.

Your perception seems to be 100% accurate. I will explain why.

remember when I moved to TC and everyone kept screaming I had insider information? Well, the only insider information that fueled my move was the leaks given by reddit. However, right around the time we were preparing to move Arena Net invites guilds to what they call an alpha test. In this they took direct feedback from the guilds involved. then they produced the results live for feed back. Then while in the alpha test, which was nothing but a forum, they started the live beta in which they got the dumbest idea to start polling the community. When they decided on this idea, they closed down the alpha test because they said they’re just going to poll the entire community now.

During this alpha, I noticed they switch WvW directors with this poll and with the “Yes” vote we canceled out anything that was planned for before hand and left it up to the global GW2 community to vote on what they decide.

It’s very clear to me that Arena Net doesn’t understand the community, the reasons we transfer, the reasons we play where we play and how this live beta effects us all. I really wish they stop with these polls. It’s really killing the game and we aren’t even given enough information on what we are voting on or the stipulations it will bring us.

The idea of a “Live” Beta is disastrous as it is. Because whatever happens will have a permanent effect on us all just like it is.

LOL you think ArenaNet is gonna do what now for WvW? LOL

Diku.2546:

I’d strongly advise ANet to instead replace World Linking with a New Game Mode that can support & encourage healthy competition between all Servers.

This can’t be said enough. I’m tired of ArenaNet laying these band-aids on a broken system. I’m tired of ArenaNet failing at game design and relying on these polls for the design direction of the game. We as a community do not know enough about game design nor do we have the proper data to analyze. Yet we are polled and the entire WvW structure depends on them. The polls are twisted in itself. The community almost never gets full disclosure or information regarding the systems we do not properly understand and is voting upon.

ArenaNet had it right before they decided to poll the community. Yet, they didn’t even tell the community their plans. They told these “sponsors”, fully detailed plans of a system called Battlegroups (Alliances). It was well thought out, and it would have allowed for the community to better balance itself. It would have allowed us to play where we want, and it would have led up to WvW tournaments. WvW, Needs a overall OVERHAUL. It needs a system flexible enough yet structured to allow the community to balance themselves happily. Instead of having Server loyalty, have loyalty for your alliance or Globe and the community you play with. Let that community be decided by the actual community and not outside forces.

1 up 1 down, will do nothing but add to the attrition rate and give us even more of a reason, to do things like Hibernate, tank on purpose or manipulate the tiers through 2v1s. With this 1 up 1 down system, Tier 2 will never be balanced. Instead it will be a consistent blow out when 3rd place Tier 1 meets first place Tier 3 in T2.

Stop with the band aids and polls. Change the system fully, then make maps based off the new systems design. This guy I quoted wrote up large walls of text explaining a well put together system that’s actually very similar to what Arena Net’s Battlegroup system explained.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hey everyone,

I wanted to address the idea of moving world linking to monthly instead of every 2 months, since it is being brought up more and more frequently.

The team isn’t opposed to this idea; we actually think it would be beneficial to move to monthly because it would allow us to iterate faster on how we are calculating which worlds should be linked. However, the main reason for not doing this right now is the matchmaking algorithm, Glicko. Each time we shuffle worlds via world linking it takes about 4 weeks’ worth of matches before Glicko begins to reliably match make those new worlds into balanced matches. If we did world linking monthly, Glicko would not be able to create balanced matchups.

Our next priority poll is going to be asking if players would rather have us work on adding rewards to skirmishes (and possibly other feedback items being collected from this thread) or replace Glicko matchmaking with a 1-up 1-down system (wherein the winner moves up a tier and the loser moves down a tier.) The 1-up 1-down system should work better with monthly linkings than Glicko, so we are most likely going to hold off on 1 month linkings until that system is in.

Another possibility we could pursue is 1 month linkings, but use the Glicko offset system to guarantee the matches. Alternatively, we could manually change Glicko ratings to what we believe they should be for each world. Either option would force worlds to start out closer to being in the correct tier and thus give better matches faster. These options are contentious, so even if everyone on the forums seemed to like this idea it would be something we would poll on.

Your polls are ruining this game. 1 up 1 down is a terrible idea. Yet, it will get voted in because of the general population not liking what we currently. have. Just like we voted for linking and that was a terrible decision. You are the game designer.

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Your server must be DragonBrand. That server was going to lose a mass of guilds even if the link didn’t happen. This is simply due to the state of that server and the guilds that wanted to go. Not to mention weeks/months before the unlinking of DB, some of those very same guilds were in the process of talking to other servers about transferring.

Linking may have been what helped sustain DB for a period of time and while it did hurt DB population wise, theirs a lot more that went into why DB lost all those guilds other than linking. I wouldn’t blame how DB rose and fell just on that.

But wait, rotations was supposed to revive WvW. Meanwhile, all it’s doing is harming those with server pride and those that cared about their community.

GJ on reducing our WvW population further.

What…. What does DB being annihilated have to do with a rotation. Why are you saying GJ to me?

Your server must be DragonBrand. That server was going to lose a mass of guilds even if the link didn’t happen. This is simply due to the state of that server and the guilds that wanted to go. Not to mention weeks/months before the unlinking of DB, some of those very same guilds were in the process of talking to other servers about transferring.

Linking may have been what helped sustain DB for a period of time and while it did hurt DB population wise, theirs a lot more that went into why DB lost all those guilds other than linking. I wouldn’t blame how DB rose and fell just on that.

morrolan.9608:

RyuDragnier.9476:

This is a fix to punish the servers that purposefully have guilds move to their linked server so their main server stays open and not full like they should be. And don’t say they don’t, there’s a kitten good reason why a server currently in NA T1 is not full and yet 2 servers in T2, one of which is falling down to T3, are declared full. Besides, who do you know in WvW who switches servers multiple times in the course of 3 months? Only those gaming the current server linking.

2 servers in T1 are not full, the system is riven with exploits and servers who choose not to purposefully exploit get punished. Its absurd. At this point they should just do server merges and leave it at that.

Although I agree with server merges, there are more negatives than positives when you transfer a guild to a linked server and not your home server to gain coverage.

The biggest negative comes from the fact, if you succeed and gain more coverage through your linked server, you have a high chance of being reevaluated in 2 months and losing those said guilds. The guilds then have a high chance of going to another server because it’s hard to get back to the original host. In fact, guilds literally have been split in half and forced to move to be whole again.

Those guilds that are moving around like that, are being forced to move around till they find a healthy community in which they all reside on and a lot are quitting the game. They don’t want to continually pay money every 2 months to find a community. The communities don’t want to lose someone they want to play with and everyone wants to fight good competition.

Most of everyone applies old WvW meta and dynamics to this “live beta” and that’s the problem. Servers that “stack” with their linked pair, are the servers with the hi risk loss of player base come 2 month cycle every time. As this is happening, the players that move from the paired server all choose (based off preference) their next destination. 2 servers in “T1” not being full is irrelevant when those 2 servers could be in “T2” next week. Good fights last week in Tier 1 FA.

Any server or community that sees this as a benefit is fooling themselves. The server being punished is the server relying on the paired server for stability when the objective is overall balance.

Johje Holan.4607:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

For this reason alone, a tournament shouldn’t be considered until server balance happens and til mechanics are figured out to make it fair and competitive.

In other words, never. Servers are never going to be balanced and it will never be fair and competitive.

I’m pretty sure the last Anet comment on tourney’s I saw somewhere said basically that.

The system would have to be changed to something very different that would enable the communities to be balanced specifically for it. They originally had a concept for it but scraped it for server links sadly. I agree though with what we have here, balance will never happen. So they shouldn’t even consider a tournament.

Tournaments failed because, the servers within were so imbalanced that any of the Seasons could be easily predicted. The matches being easily predicted because of Imbalance, made way to most of the problems a season tournament brings in the format they were given.

For this reason alone, a tournament shouldn’t be considered until server balance happens and til mechanics are figured out to make it fair and competitive. It shouldn’t even be something that’s polled on. It’s scary to me that it is.

The attrition rate after a season happens for many reasons. Many see it as a good point to “retire” after playing for a long time and burning out. People need a rest and others view the tournament as a end. Perhaps you feel demoralized because the tournament wasn’t balanced or fair and it damaged your community because of it.They will especially get this view when they return to the same meaningless game after said tournament. Nothing has changed. You loose a greater sense of achievement.

I suggest introducing new content for WvW after a tournament has ended. Like new maps, rewards, and mechanics. This will keep peoples interest and allow them to relax and enjoy something new after a chapter has ended in WvW.

I’m sure it’s based off numerous factors and its most certainly is based off a longer evaluation time period than you describe.

The communities of the game move too sporadically given the game mechanics and cultures. It can’t be balanced by use of a formula over time in such a manner. I believe this is one of the issues Arena Net will face when trying to balance WvW with the current mechanics.

I would also like to point out I believe that your actual rank and/or your tier and not if you’ve won a match effects the formula that determines your status. (Can’t confirm) Just been watching consistently.

Based off that, I can use YB as an example as to why their locked.

YB is locked because even though YB is currently winning this match up by a land slide, They are rank 7 and this match-up isn’t decided so it’s not taken into account. Which means, their normalized spot is in T3. Yet they had a surge in population base and because of this, they are standing up to and crushing Tier 2.

DB has recently lost a large chunk of their player base and coverage(Over many weeks). They are dropping like a rock, yet they are STILL ranked 4 overall. Which means currently in Tier 2 there is a huge imbalance. JQ is rank 5 and beating rank 4, yet being creamed by rank 7. (ArenaNet should have reset the volatility)

If you look at JQ: last week was the first week of skirmishes, JQ gained +18 and the fact that match making is calculated at the end of the match up when Jade Quarry was rank 4 and Yaks Bend wasn’t in the tier dominating

Considering my above analysis, Yaks Bend is dominating and is imbalanced purely based off speculation that a servers actual rank is a factor. Thus, causing them to be temporarily locked. I say temporary, because their rank will even out. Predictions show that not only will YB take 6th but their closing in on 5th as well. Once this happens, and whatever reevaluation period comes next will indeed effect Yaks Bend based off their coverage over time.

*Take into account that the formula for rating was recently modified when the skirmish system got added. This is also having a effect on server placement and ranks. Thus, it’s even effecting the server status upon reevaluation that just happened. *

“Regarding how Glicko will be updated at the end of a skirmish-based match. The same inputs and outputs will be used as usual, except that total Victory Points from the week’s match will be fed in as the score for each team, instead of the week’s total War Score.
This can have different effects on how ratings will change. If team A consistently beats team B— but only a little— their ratings will be split apart faster than before. If team A steamrolls team B consistently, their ratings won’t split apart as quickly as before.” -ArenaNet Chris Barrett

Also, notice that last week MAG blew out JQ and remember “If team A steamrolls team B consistently, their ratings won’t split apart as quickly as before.” You still gained and JQ was recently open. TC was initially locked.

All the status (T1|T2) updates that just happened are predictable IMO more so than not. Just the same as the link reevaluations every 2 months.

If anything 2 hours is too short not too long. Considering how long it can take to take a properly defended Tier 3 keep. Right now the social GW2 norm is to operate within 4 main time zones. We talk, NA, OCX, SEA and EU. I believe our skirmish system should use a similar format.

having PPK worth more in these skirmishes because of the 2 hour duration is a good thing. People running away from fights has always been a thing we all complain about. If anything, I would develop a mechanic to get everyone to stop running away, rather than not increase the gains from PPK over PPT. Perhaps like open field objectives with no walls that will attract fights.

I feel like Arena Net tried this with the Desert map but failed when they added Dinosaurs and the entire event lagged. If it were not for that. People would fight over this mechanic, because it can change the flow of the map very quickly so they feel like they must do something.

The next phase must address how many points a T3 defended objective grants to balance the skirmish system out because a T3 properly defended keep in the higher tiers can take 2 hours just to siege in itself.

Either keeps are too strong, Skirmishes too short, or Keeps aren’t worth enough when upgraded.

Kaiser.9873:

dianeh.2745:

Ya blue / green / red = not great colors for tags . Also for those of us that like to be tagless could you just enable the squad capabilities (ie. lutenint and markers even when there is not someone tagged)

A ghost tag visible only to your squad would be amazing.

/EndDiscussion

I don’t know why this hasn’t been done yet. We need a private commander tag.

I get jumped on daily by QQ of BG.

I believe the system detailed Arena Net created before the introduction of the polling voting system was way better than linking and it enabled the community to decide who they wanted to play with in a more clear fashion. This system earned the name “Overhaul” or “Alliances” and only sections were leaked to the public.

It’s sad that the system I refer to was never officially talked about to be reviewed by the WvW community. Instead segments of it were leaked across reddit which left authenticity concerns and questions. Certain aspects actually made it live but the actual core of the change were simply dismissed by voting in favor of links. Yet no public knowledge was known about the system it nullified. In my opinion this makes Arena Nets polls scary. It adds too much uncertainty in voting. Let alone the principle that the average WvW player does not know the details and mechanics that drive the system as it stands. So to have that system be changed by a poll in which the large majority does not properly understand the effects does not help but instead it leads us down a path that’s dangerous.

I just know that if the GW2 community had known then the community as a whole could have voted on it after the proper explanation and discussion. If I had been presented with the details of this “Overhaul” system I refer to, and the poll would have read: Alliances|Battlegroups or Server Links. I would have voted against server links as our long term solution.

Balance is a crazy thing in this game. It’s not achievable or fixable without physically moving players to strike balance. While population determines your position and rank through coverage and competitiveness , it can work as a direct counter to overall balance when mechanics like transfers and tiers allow the community to make the decision within an competitive environment.

Arena Net designed the game to allow the players to balance themselves out and they just simply provide the tools, fees, and regulations to do so. They recently changed the mechanics to allow for greater flexibility and more accuracy.

Yet, it’s still largely left up to the communities within the game to balance themselves. Our community is huge and our opinions and play styles are very different. What one person might think is balanced, another might consider it to be imbalanced. Things like simple differences make it hard for formulas, equations, and statistics to dictate balance aggressively.

Arena Net has introduced a very aggressive system while still following their own community balance structure. Instead of simply force merging servers together and or changing the entire system, they decided to keep the new system as dynamic as the old tier system itself. Instead we know have a 2 month dead line in which we will all be shuffled around, depending on how much we’ve moved around during the prior month.

How ever aggressive the system is that imposes balance, the community will aggressively push back to play where they want just as hard. Having the system do it in cycles will just set us in a faster pattern based from the same old systems flaws. This fast pattern will expedite our attrition rates.

I do not believe the 2 month reevaluations and repairing should be a permanent solution to WvW balancing. I believe what this system does is just speed up the the already existing pattern of WvW tier balance, thus giving the community a chance to balance themselves every 2 months. While is is more of a chance to take action, I believe a video game community as large as guild wars 2 will have a very hard time balancing itself out. In fact there is a greater chance that the community can use the very same mechanics to create an imbalance just simply due to player relations and general player movement while playing self-consciously the way they see fit.

Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Through systematically locking servers in such a pattern, one might gather Arena Net is slyly forcing player base where they want and limiting what servers have in terms of population through the pairing system.

Just look at the pattern of how servers open up and close again based off population. The system is being used to control the bandwagon. It’s forcing people up in tiers while closing down the bottom tiers to grouped servers. If during this system, your server manages to climb to the top through your link, you risk the chances of being locked for a long period of time and you will be unlinked during the 2 month cycle.

Every time this happens, there is a wave of players that’s going to transfer and a collapsed tier 1 server that’s probably going to get a pair again. Once that server reaches a peak in population and coverage, it will be unpaired and locked longer. This will enable the bottom tier servers another link the next 2 month cycle. The players who move up again, all try to find a competitive server that fits their mentality and tier they came from. Thus, stacking another server till it’s locked. This cycle happens as we move down the Tier ladder. As one server gets flooded we move to the next.

Guilds become split and options change. Players move in every direction. Then after the dust is settled they find themselves back in the same scenario but on another server until they find a healthy community in which they all reside on the host and not the guest server.

So while, the system doesn’t appear to be helping short term, it could in fact be the balancing nudge the community needs overtime to allow everyone varying amounts of balancing choices and times until we are all settled and equally competitive. Even if the number of playing fields is dynamically shortened over time for better or worse.

Can the community handle such change?
Is the community willing to play along to finish this series of beta test we are only in the middle of?
Will Arena Net merge servers eventually once everyone is collapsed and competitive within a rotation or partial rotation?
What will the end of all this testing bring us?

Who knows. However, linking shouldn’t be a long term solution. I am still in favor of the overhaul that was promised. To bring the change that we need.

5000 character cap on post. RIP.lol

Liston.9708:

Sorry if no one believes the timing of the break right before a relink. Once a manipulator….

You can believe what you want to believe. Tin foil hats are always fun too

morrolan.9608:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

No one “hibernates” on purpose. It’s normally due to boredom. Dragonbrand isn’t Hibernating. Their guilds aren’t sleeping at all. They are leaving. Leaving to other servers.

All T1 servers hibernated to some degree around HOT to open up, and servers have done it since.

TC doesn’t Hibernate to open up. Rather TC hasn’t hibernated to open up. As a server we’ve had a self conscious break. Meaning that without coordinating some of our main commanders and leaders didn’t play during the past few weeks. I was one of them and had a business trip that lasted 3 weeks. Other guilds decided to take a break to play other games just just came out

BG has been as inconsistent as anyone else yet they have more coverage than everyone else.

DB isn’t hibernating it’s losing guilds for more than 1 reason. Those reasons aren’t important for this response and I’m sure they are different from 1 guild to the next.

To say servers coordinately hibernate to play the population system is wrong. All the guilds on each of the respective servers and the servers as a whole play as they see fit for a multitude of reasons that go way beyond the scope of just generally playing GW2 as it is.

No one “hibernates” on purpose. It’s normally due to boredom. Dragonbrand isn’t Hibernating. Their guilds aren’t sleeping at all. They are leaving. Leaving to other servers.

I’m really starting to hate ArenaNets polls. Like These things are like….

Cannon Blueprints…

TL:DR – Yes.

Not sure why my name had to be mentioned here. But I guess keeping up with mad court is what makes you guys tick. However, this time around it’s more of an global community act than anything else. You see, when you examine WvW as it is, the mechanics simply allow the community to balance themselves. This is an intended function of GW2.

The reset of the volatility speeds the entire process up. The system has not changed at it’s core. What is has now is a possible expiration date on “staleness” or stagnant matches. It reevaluates and links/locks servers respectively making us all adjust at a whim within the same system. It does this all while collapsing multiple servers under the tier structure, thus it’s also limiting the over all space we have to play.

The community aspects..(politics)

1. BG and TC both wanted YB out of Tier 1. BG has wanted YB out of Tier 1 before any of these changes took place along with JQ.

2. JQ recently suffered from a huge exodus of guilds and players in the wake of these changes that drastically limited the effectiveness of having such a large rating.

3. My alliance moved to TC + others, and the rebels moved to DB literally making DB a server that’s prone to rotating in the wake of these changes and the instability of JQ. Along with TCs push for Tier 1.

4. The first linked pairs, allowed 3 other servers to be linked up with Tier 1 servers. It did this while keeping the Tier 1 servers locked and the Guest server open. This caused huge waves of players to move to these guest servers.

Contrary to popular belief, the general populace of this game does not prefer lower tier quality of life. The system by design progressively moves players up competitively as it is. Therefore Arena Net literally incised individual player base to Tier 1 life when there was more so a reason to play WvW. BG got the biggest boost in player base. It showed in their coverage and the ceiling created in such a short time frame.

5. Arena Net reevaluated again. Now, Blackgate is locked. YB and TC are open and even JQ is locked and some other Tier 2 servers like FA. Why? It’s obvious by design the system is working it’s way down the pool of overall player base to balance the general populace.

The ET players could not get back to BG. ET players moved to TC and Kaining players also moved to TC simply because they experienced a game state that was healthier than the rest. They wanted back in this Tier. This act Balanced Tier 1 in itself. Arena Net gave the community options to balance and the community took it after a “play test” and after examining possible outcomes for themselves and their respective guilds.

6. YB didn’t gain many new recruits. In fact they lost more than they gained in terms of guilds. While DB is gaining.

LAST. Reevaluation and re link meets community driven effort to show general populace through WvW glicko gains during a volatility reset in which servers fall faster and rises faster as well. Making all the dynamics happen faster. .This is what happened and this is what we have now.

Each reevaluation will allow the community to balance it self. The structure will trickle down in balance. The overall glicko ceiling will fall as it has been. The most interesting and controversial thing happening as it stands is happening in the very last Tier. Because of how the mechanics work and the collapsing of the tiers. The bottom servers are left with a massive wall. Even with the changes at hand, the population of the lower tiers in terms of coverage simply do not equate. Because 3 of those servers were also Tier 1 guest it also does not help.

Only time will tell if this all works out and the community takes it well enough to see it happen. It is possible to have more competitive healthier communities that are similar to the higher tiers. It is progressively happening with Arena Nets help and Tier 1 is exciting.

But I don’t believe it’s a locked Tier and I don’t think we are done experiencing changes overall.

Brutal Augus.5917:

I demand a GvG Anet.

Agreed. Arena Net GvG me. Don’t dodge.

Xenesis.6389:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Tier 1 is good and very fun. However, the match up will probably not remain the same.

I get the feeling BG is hibernating this week to feed glicko to DB, and TC isn’t pushing that hard either. I’m sure JQ will be back in t1 soon too once they leeched enough off of YB.
DB, JQ will be flipping t1/2
YB, Mag will be flipping t2/3 maybe.

---

As for the links, I don’t expect it to be the long term solution. Servers will continue to lose population especially the linked ones as players continue to move to hosts or leave the game. Once they all get down to a low enough population, permanent merges can be looked at, and at that point players should be more receptive of it too.

Correct. I suspect Tier 1 and Tier 2 to consistently rotate some servers with the 2 month resets and re links. However, I think Yaks Bend is becoming a server thats losing it’s population base to rise to Tier 1.

Depending on what the OP is looking for and what time zone you play, I would for sure recommend DB, or any of the Tier 2 servers for that matter. Even MAG.

Wow the NaCl levels.

Tier 1 is good and very fun. However, the match up will probably not remain the same.

Xenesis.6389:

So uh, why did JQ lose all it’s NA in the first place?

A lot of drama with admins and tired of dealing with Yaks Bend so they gave up. Caused them to lose a large portion of their NA and EU to other servers willing to keep trying and over time they lost a lot of coverage.

This isn’t even the first time this has happened. But this time they were replaced where as last time they were just a broken server in Tier 1. Thanks to Arena Net this isn’t the case anymore.

You are all Tier 1 servers you just don’t know it yet.

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

JQ still thinks they are gods given right to Tier 1, and it’s okay to hold all of WvW hostage because they have 4 SEA guilds that refuse to move. It’s not Arena Nets fault you’ve lost all your NA guilds, again.. AND you can expect NA guilds to flock there and deal with that.

You may want to be mindful when you’re projecting your own shadows upon others. If you wish to find a person in this game that believes themselves as being “God’s Gift” and deserves special treatment, the answer lies in a mirror.

As some from JQ, I can say all I see is a community striving to be the best they can be. In doing so we wish to replace the teammates lost over time, one for one. There’s absolutely nothing unreasonable about wanting to replace those teammates lost. Nothing unreasonable with JQ wanting an equal opportunity as you and other Worlds have. All we wish for is to be unlinked and have the same population ceiling as BG, YB, or you on TC.

If you feel Worlds shouldn’t have such opportunity, that only your world should be open, then whom is it that truly feels they are special, entitled, and as you said it “God’s Gift”?

There is nothing wrong with replacing those you’ve lost. But to think BG can only be handled by JQ and it needs to be in Tier 1 is something entirely different. Also, the only shadow I have that your think I have is given to me by folks like yourself. I believe myself just to be a leader is all.