Guild Wars 2

Too bad I don’t see my position in queue. Probably 2456th or something. Not sure if it is worth it to wait..

Guild wars 2 is currently full. Love that message
We are probably on backup servers now, right?

hmm and why would the guy with the orb go out and fight and not hide behind walls to keep the opponent from getting the buff?

I also think PPK has an impact on fights, but I guess most people avoid fights if they are not sure if they win. So people with a superior force or equal force and mortars/cannons/boonshare will attack, while the outnumbered force will run away. Not sure if you can change that.

Yes, in the chatwindow you can “tab” to the combat log and you can specifiy what info you would like to show up there. It isn’t perfect, but usually helps me in those wtf moments.

Ping: what’s your ping and where do you live? Ping is more or less the distance between you and the gameserver. I am living in central europe playing on NA server and my ping is 170-180. No problems with playing wvw with that ping.

Players could always transfer servers “easily” (IF they had no pride for their server) and it was far less expensive back then when gems were cheaper. Population has always been volatile (again this were people with already low serverpride), I remember servers getting stacked, left etc pre-linking all the time. Most WvW players have transfered pre-linking several times already. I am sure in this forum you will find a lot of evidence for this.

I see our server and enemy servers working hard to get ppt if there is a chance to catch up, I hear people refer to their server as “we” a lot (“we just took their hills” – even if the person speaking wasn’t there), I see people bragging about the server k/d and I hear a lot of cursewords and trashtalk in the same sentence as opponent server names.
But if this is purely to show their pride in their servername or for their guilds, commanders and friends, I don’t know.
I personally want some servers to win because of the people I know on them and the servername has become a synonyme to call all those people and similarly I want some servers not to win because of bad experiences I had with players from that servers.

My opinion to the linkings:
+ WvW maps are more populated, this leads to bigger/epic fights, better commander coverage and more action
+ People from small servers that joined when the wvw on their server was already empty now get to know the gamemode as it was intended
+ You get to know new “active” people, on less popular server it are always the same commanders, scouts, trolls and it is good to get to know new people, guilds, commanders
- very small servers linked to big servers may lose their identity/community; so linking similarly big servers is a better way to ensure both servers noticing their contribution to the matchup
- matchmaking becomes more of a problem because blowout matches happen more often if a server isn’t in their tier

I am far more active since the linkings happened, as I enjoy higher activity in wvw, I enjoy zergfights, running with guildsgroups and organized commanders. I am tier 3/4 NA (host-server).

I think the first step in gender-equality would be to not mistake irrelevant coincidences as sexist. Because they will always happen and if people point them out everytime the coincidence happens for one gender only, then the focus and the attention will always stay on gender/gender-differences instead of giving the people the opportunity to judge others by important means. So stop looking up that lords dress and start judging the lord for being a charr instead.

Hexinx.1872:

I just want them to put up a good leaderboard based on player first.
Something that says top k:d ratio, tower/keep captures (participated in), supply used to repair structures, camp captures, hours played ….
All stats refresh each week matchup so it’s based on current data – not some historic data about a guy who killed thousands years ago.
Also exclude Edge of the Mists.

I would like to see a leaderboard for this, and I think the historical data for this will not have been saved by arenanet anyway unfortunately. But of course I also would be interested to see where I stand on those overall (sm caps, kills, deaths, times played).

The best thing would be if it would be a tab in your guild as well to see a ranking in the guild so it could become an ongoing competition in wvw guilds.

I think the first thing that should be implemented is a “serverwide” statistic though, because this is how we play in this mode and to avoid it being a headhunting tool in the first place.

morrolan.9608:

You’re being naive, it is easy to earn the gold to transfer around low ranked servers every 2 months. Why wouldn’t they do it.

Why should they do it? Do you think they get the gold back if they transfer to another server?

In my opinion transfers are not the problem. If people want to pay for changing servers, let them. It is a lot better than forcing them to stay in a place they don’t want to be/play in. Of course transfers can lead to imbalances as well, but other things like people not playing (hybernating servers) do as well. So if the matchmaking reacts fast enough on them, then there is no big problem. But the matchmaking system needs to react faster and work better for balanced matchups.

I agree that arenanet probably had the tiers in mind when balancing out the matchups in NA. BUT they made it also in a way that tier 4 and tier 3 are comparably strong and tier 1 and tier 2 are similarly strong. When you make matchups you cannot adjust for everything (it just takes too many small servers to be able to compete with blackgate) and imho in NA they made a gap between t2 and t3 that wasn’t meant to be passed.

The problem is, that population and activity in wvw isn’t stable. DB lost a lot of people and activity, YB gained a lot of people and activity this loss/gain is more than the difference between the two groups. This is something arenanet couldn’t predict when making the linkings. So the linkings were very balanced and fair, I would say as good as you are able to make them.

But again: the matchmaking system isn’t fast enough with adapting to changes, although it should be and there is too much randomness included. Europe still has the problem with the languages, but I still don’t understand why worlds cannot be linked because of language differences. We have lots of koreans and spanish-speaking people on NA as well.

Matchmaking suggestion: Every person on a server has a record of “participation” (if someone transfers it is the record that person has on the previous server) that you could use to calculate the total participation of all players on a server. Adjust this participation for when this participation is done (so off-hours or prime-time, because off-time participation is worth more as other servers are unlikely to match it) and you have a predictor for how well a server can and will perform and make matchups depending on that. Not all problems would be solved by that, because not all problems are solvable, but it would be better than Glicko system.

TorquedSoul.8097:

I still think is activity is the best way to tier a server. Equal activity doesn’t mean equal performance anymore than equal population would mean equal performance. Organization and coverage are still factors.

I think the factor coverage is quite important, organisation will immediately have an impact on population. Kill your zerg twice in a row and 1 out of 5 will leave wvw.
We discussed your “activity” rankings before and I think we both agree that if arenanet would do the tiers like you posted, then it wouldn’t work out well, but I am sure they have better predictors for “activity”. I would think they use the system currently in place for activity: the “participation” point system (the same thing that makes your reward track to go up when it isn’t maxed out) and maybe adjust it slightly. So they could add up all the points players would (theoreticly) get in participation over an hour to measure activity.
I agree that manhours probably is a good way to measure it, and a very easy one, and without any data it is hard to say what is superior but I guess both systems do not include possible coverage gaps that will have high impact on total scores.
So if you want to compare servers in their strength in the current system, the participation during off-hours is worth more than during primetime, because other servers will be unlikely to match it, so you should adjust for that (and thus increase the value of off-hour participation by 2-10 depending on when it is). And close servers depending on that total value that does also adjust for off-hours.

Instead of doing that for closing servers and matchmaking I would like it better if they adjusted scores to make primetime more valuable. And I think they are working on that.

How do you know how many gems they make through transfers between servers?
And are you sure that those were paid with real money and not just in-game-money?

Yes, Glicko has problems and it should be adressed and the server linking in europe with languages should be up for a poll on those affected servers (so the blame for it can be on community if frenchies don’t want to be paired with english speaking users), but if you are still playing and enjoying the game, then it would be good if arenanet could pay their salaries from that so they can work on improving the game by solving the problems.

Not purchasing anything anymore will not lead to any changes, it would shut down the game even more. Development needs funds.

Sure they develop what makes them some money. They have to pay the running costs for the game, their salaries aren’t paid by us buying the game 4 years ago anymore. So they have no choice but to make what makes them money or the game will shut down. At least they didn’t go pay-to-win like most other games did. I hope they will not need to in the future and for this we need those ideas.

It is in theory possible that arenanet makes specific servers just for low population wvw matchups, yes. But if this would be done, then it should not be on servers that new players will call their home without knowing that their wvw-maps will be dead.
Since the linkings I see a lot more people with low wvw-levels in our ranks and with the enemies. Many of those are from servers that had no wvw-activity before and that now found their way into wvw BECAUSE it is more active. When you chose a server when you start out, you don’t know the impact your homeserver has on wvw activity. So if such servers were to be created, then it should be clear for new users why not to chose those servers.

I think this would be a good candidate for a gw2 kickstarter option. If enough people want to pay for low population wvw servers to finance the change, then it could be added. If not: go to DBL on tier 3 or tier 4 matchup or just go to european server if you are NA or NA if you are european. You will have a lot less opponents in your primetime (I am european on NA server).

morrolan.9608:

On linkages however anet is manually making decisions and is clearly doing a woeful job. […] in deciding what servers don’t get a link I would now argue that actual results should play a large role in deciding whether a server gets a link or not.

I agree that the results should also be included in the choice of the linking as well of course.
I don’t agree on the “Woeful job” though. Arenanet made the linkings in NA with the feedback from past linkings in mind: T1 got too stacked when combining a full server and smaller servers where people could transfer to. This lead to long queues additionally to small servers complaining about the loss of their identity. so they wanted to make T1 out of servers without a link. Small linkings to T2 and T3 and 2 similarly big servers together in T4 with a small server. It may not be perfect, but at the time the linkings were made, this really seemed like a good, balanced choice and good matchups. Arenanet isn’t to blame about people leaving DB – if that is what you are refering to .

Jski.6180:

When your talking about say T1 and T2 its more then population there is a true skill factor going on both player (pugs) and commanders. T3 players so far do not put up real fights in open field. Its kind of boring.

There is clearly a huge population difference between the tiers. Maybe there is some skill factor as well with some specific commanders, but I doubt that the impact is that big. I don’t think the average pug is worse in lower tiers, just less used to fighting big blobs maybe.
I think the population difference has to be taken into account even if there would be an additional skill factor.

SBI loves to fight open field given the fight-commanders (look for HATE guild for example) and I know some commanders on SoS and CD that love fights as well, even if they are outnumbered. If you play primetime and don’t demoralize the opponent too much, then you should get your fights. If you don’t play primetime, then you will probably outnumber the opponent too much for a fair fight. ^^

I think there is only a minority of us that only plays wvw and not pve as well. So it may not be so easy to compare how much money a pve player spends on the game compared to a wvw player. Also I am not sure how rich the average wvw player is. I think wvw players spend so much time in the game, that most of them can just buy a lot of gems with gold and thus giving them things they can buy in the gemstore may not give arenanet a lot of “real” money.

—> I think the current system with votes is actually a good way. If participation is less than 50% of actuve wvw-players maybe give a small wvw-reward for people that vote like wvw-reward-track-tonics (wouldn’t be surprised if participation was only 20% or lower in last votes).
—> If there are changes that arenanet and the community would like to make but are too expensive: make a system comparable to kickstarter: if enough people contribute and invest real money into a change, then the change will be done. If the “goal” isn’t reached, the people get gems for the money they invested.

Some ideas:
—> buying my own guild with all wvw-upgrades, picture and sound to have the buffs on camps/towers with a solo-guild.
—> maybe permanent tactivators (that would allow to use a specific tactivator upgrade once a day for example – price should be adapted to how overpowered it is and maybe at the same time the clearly overpowered could be reduced in effiency a bit as we will have always watchtower for example and the radius is too big if you can’t run to a camp without being seen by watchtower like QL)
—> maybe finishers, if they are good, maybe give us some with high ranks/achievements.
—> Superior rune holder: Ascended item that can be added to armor in the rune slot, you can feed it with superior runes and then freely switch between the runes you fed it.
Properties: If you fed it all superior runes that exist, it will unlock additional new runes or a small bonus on top of it. Can be removed from the armor to be added to new armor once it is full.
—> Minor sigil collector: Small guy that sits in your inventory and snatches all minor runes that you get. Can be upgraded and then set to collect major runes and trash items as well. Is an inventory cleaner.
Properties: Has a small chance to give you a wiggly chest with minor rewards for every item it snatches. It should be possible to put him in shared inventory slot.

*Things that may be more controversal and some people will hate them: *
—> catas that throw quaggans instead of stones (custom, funny/silly/cool siege)
—> custom changes in builds that you claim:
entities: like spawning a horde of friendly quaggans or some annoying bard that sings, changing skins of guards to all asuras, all norns, all ghosts or pirates or wearing pink, wearing horsehead etc.
changing skins on dolyaks in camps that you capture to cows, dragons, giganteous bunnies
skins on structures: door or walls look differently (for example pink door, christmas themed etc). but I think those skin-changes would be too hard to fit to every objective you claim.
—> different commandertags in wvw (for example a crown)

Jski.6180:

That the problem Glicko should never = population its a ranking system if ppl move then they move that should not make the RANK of a world go up. Playing wvw should be the only thing that makes rank go up.

The point is the current system did not react fast enough on the population changes that happened, thus creating blowout-matches. So I think the population has to be a factor the arenanet admins have to take into account as well a) for linking and b) for matchmaking. It can play a minor role behind the performance of a server of course, but especially for having a server move up or down a tier it surely would be a good variable to find out how good the server would perform there. For this tier changes the performance of the server in a lower tier is not a good predictor variable because the opponents also are likely to have far less population than in higher tiers.

X T D.6458:

What these changes do is equalize all timezones and creat a more fair scoring system for everyone.

More fair is subjective. As this change as you say equalizes all timezones, the players playing in timezones when there are not many people online are more valuable than the players playing during primetime, as each of those players can contribute more to the win by making some small ppt. This “devalues” primetime players compared to other timezones players. The point per kill system was invented to work against this devaluation but that doesn’t work anymore, because having more kills during primetime only affects the ppt and you don’t get more victory points depending on how many players play. So purely statisticly the new system made off-time-players more valuable then they were before, because the prime-time kill differences now play a lesser role in deciding the matchup.

About the winner only be fixed early in blowout matches: this isn’t true, it is possible for a server to only have 1 ppt in every skirmish more than the other 2 servers and the match would be decided on tuesday even though in ppt this would be far from a blowout match. The system gives a limited amouth of victory points and thus there is no way to catch up atm and this is clearly a problem that will show in wvw activity at the end of the week when servers “give up” because it is impossible to change the rank anymore.

YBs performance in t2 actually shows that the choice was a good one. Well, the Glicko-matchmaking system just doesn’t react fast enough on the current population changes. But I also think it is weird to intervene with Glicko adjustments instead of just creating matchups that make sense, because when you change something then there are always other servers affected by this decision and if those servers are the “wrong” ones to go down or up then they will of course cry and also ask for intervention.

It really would be easiest if a person would take a look at the results at the end of the week and decide over the new matchups with the population, results and Glicko in mind. Like Bridget Morrigan I understand why they wanted to make it “random” but that just doesn’t work with the current strength differences of the servers and the Glicko system imho. But it would also be acceptable if the matchmaking system just gets adapted to a more reactive system that takes strength differences into account better and has reduced chance to create blowout matches (so for example would put DB into T3, FA into T2, CD in T4 and NSP in T3 at the end of this week if current scores would be final ones).

very cool! I think events like this are great.

Commanders need their squad to be effective and using ts is a great way for commanders to make their squad better by giving the important information (like where enemies are or what you intend to do) and not having to type everything in say/squadchat.
Additionally if everyone is on ts he can for example send subsquads on special errands, like getting camps or blocking opponents etc.

So people may have reasons to not be on ts, but commanders also have reasons not wanting to have you in their squad if you don’t want to be on ts. Like has been said: nobody is stopping you from walking with the commander though, just expect to die more often if you don’t hear the commander telling you to fall back etc.

Jeknar.6184:

But they took 5 weeks to intervene in the CD issue.

Is it not a good thing that they intervened faster now?

Btw in retrospect CD was weaker than SoS, SBI and YB in tier 3 when they adjusted. It lead to YB and SBI beating tier 4 even harder than CD had, so the problem wasn’t really solved with it back then.
I think YB is different now, they woke up “hard” after the hibernation and I seriously think they are able to compete in tier 2 with this activity, but if YB or FA is in tier 3 may not really matter much for their opponents.

I think it is good that it was adjusted in this case. The problem persists though: if you have to manually adapt a scoring system just to get a “chance” for a fair matchup, then maybe a deterministic system where you “create” the matchups fairly would just be the better choice.
I consider YB a 4th tier 2 server atm. So in this case this would mean each week another tier 2 server will have to go tier 3, so nobody gets locked down there permanently.

Since the prime time atm gives the same amouth of victory points as nighttime, the night capping server will still have a serious advantage. Atm coverage is everything. Servers that have strong prime-time but less overall coverage will struggle in the current system and not the “night cappers”, because prime time with lots of kills AND lots of points now is worth the same as getting objectives with no opponents.

Because current NA matchups are close, the victory point system opens up gaps more (like has been said, by reducing variance). Some matchups were decided mid-week and no server can “force” a lot of points in a short time in the new system. So servers in the back also have no way to “catch up”.

The current system was intended to have other features as well though. And those are able to make the new system better at least.
Hope they will pimp the matchmaking system too though.

The linking and the matchmaking system are two different things. The linkings are mostly good although they could be better in EU if there are linkings with different languages, the matchmaking system still does generate blowout-matchups.
The victory-system is unlikely to change that, because the endresult in victory points doesn’t show strength of the servers as well as points did, but reducing the randomness in matchmaking (that right now makes server dropping and rising to tiers they don’t belong in and thus generating blowout matches) could help.

The linking system for europe is complicated because of the languages. Maybe there could be a vote on those servers, if they want to be linked with servers that have a different language as well? Would surely make the work for arenanet easier.
What I think they could already do: change linkings if they obviously do not lead to balanced matchups after 1 week or 2 instead of waiting for 2 months to go by.

In NA the linking system actually works out quite well and matches are more fun with more players than before the linking system. Also I see a lot more people in wvw that have baby wvw levels. Maybe people that chose a dead wvw-server when starting the game now find their way into wvw with more populated matchups?

Merging solves the population-problems as much as linking does (linking is a temporary merge): not really and would further enrage the players that have been loyal to a server for so long.
Bandwagoners: let them transfer if they want to. I think the problem is overrated. I don’t see more people transfering compared to before the linkings and usually guilds don’t want to transfer to tier1 because of the queues anyway. I think servers have too many people that just don’t play, if their server has a hard time (“server hibernation”). So populations on servers can change very fast and people think that is because of transfers while it is just caused by people on winning servers playing more and longer and people on losing servers playing less. Unfortunately this may be a reason why balancing matchups will be very hard to do.

I really hope that this will not lead to Glicko being even worse in the task to reflect populations-differences and further match-making problems. The “old” Glicko measurements may reflect population-differences better than victory points.
So please keep an eye on that closely, as the matchmaking with facing unbeatable servers is what makes most people unhappy atm and maybe reduce the probabilty to get servers that aren’t in your tier for Glicko.
I am curious what changes you will come up with for matchmaking.

well to be fair: it is hard to even things out. Even things that arenanet cannot control, like one populat commander that doesn’t play one week can condemn a server to be dead last. But yea, the problem should be addressed, as it is the most important problem in wvw: matchmaking. Maybe in europe the question has to be answered, if the language segregation should continue in wvw, or if linkings between languages can be possible. On NA servers there are also people that only speak spanish or korean, they play in guilds that speak their language. We even have Australians here.. nobody understands a word they are saying but that’s fine.

Almost all commanders are guardians and I also think that is the best choice for commanding and survival (mobility with jumps, blocks/invulns, stability/empower, self-healing, blocking opponents) but if you have a guild that will support you when you command, then other classes can be fine as well.

Wanderer armor isn’t really worth it atm on some classes even if you go boonshare meta, as the max boon-duration increase you can get is 100%.
For example if you are a guardian with staff and have a herald in your party and have durability runes then you already are at 90% boon duration with the right traits and without food. That’s why I would prefer soldiers armor if I was you unless you prefer other runes on your armor.

Like has been said: ascended weapons and trinkets are worth it. Armor not so much, if you can, make breastplate and pants ascended (for example with ascended armor chests your dropped) but honestly: not forgetting your foodbuffs will be more important than a full set of ascended armor.

I spend quite a lot of time in wvw and it is fun as always. But more so if I don’t look at the points too much.. Especially at the end of skirmishes it can be harder to find motivation for me, if you know the points you are able to get will not count in the end at all. :/

I still think the new system makes it harder for servers that are behind to catch up and it favours servers with offtime-coverage over servers that formerly relied on prime-time pushes. That will be good for some servers, not so much fot others.
http://mos.millenium.org/na is great to compare the points to victory points, their admins did a great job to record all data since the changes. You can also see what coverage your server has compared to your opponents or if your guild had any impact.

Will also be interesting to see activity compared to before as soon as the first winners are mathematically fixed on wednesday. Earliest possible is 4 days into the matchup with 3 more days to go. Some matchups look like they will be decided only shortly after this.

Vinetooth is a hard fight. I actually enjoy that but it is hard in a group of pugs. I have beaten it without breaking the breakbar with a heavy damage puggroup and I have failed it often because people weren’t able to break the breakbar. There are some skills that have a high impact on breakbar, it helps to tell the pugs what skills they have to equip and only use when the breakbar is up. It also helps to “command” vinetooth so people are ready.
And of course it helps, if you do the cc of 3-4 people alone. For example bring mesmer with Signet of Humility and additional cc.
More info about what skills break how much of the bar: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_Bar

I have 14 characters and while I identified the problem after 6-7 characters, it is still hard for people in my guild to identify who is talking if you didn’t use the same name in the name of every character.
Some people just use additions like “Java Guard” “Java Warrior” to solve this problem. Maybe I should have done this rather ugly way to solve the problem.

I agree that if they actually want to give smaller servers a fighting chance, they should also implement last stand. If they want to “fight” offtime-capping more efficiently, then they will also have to implement the action level as well. Those changes are listed here and imho not perfect yet, but go in the right direction: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Revisiting-April-s-WvW-leak/first#post6318194

Yea, you are right 4/3/2 leads to results that are more similar to current values, it still does not “close” the gap between servers, in current NA they are opened up a little bit, but it doesn’t open it even more significantly. It is possible that last stand could actually give the small server the possibilty to win the match then, as the impact will be bigger. Very close matchups (tier 4 NA) will still be pulled apart somewhat, but I would think that matches that close rarely happen. Thank you for the great suggestion.

More numbers (sorry!) For 4 days in current matchup with the 4/3/2-scoring instead of 3/2/1

Tier 1 current points BG 42%, TC 32%, DB 26%; new score: BG 43%, TC 32%, DB 25%
Tier 2 current points Mag 36%, JQ 33%, FA 31%; new score: Mag 36%, FA and JQ 32%
Tier 3 current points YB 42%, SBI 30%, SoS 28%; new score: YB 43%, SBI 29%, SoS 28%
Tier 4 current points NSP and HoD 34%, CD 32%; new score NSP 36%, HoD 34%, CD 30%

Comparison the currently proposed 3/2/1 system:
Tier 1 current points BG 42%, TC 32%, DB 26%; new score: BG 47%, TC 32%, DB 21%
Tier 2 current points Mag 36%, JQ 33%, FA 31%; new score: Mag 37%, FA 32%, JQ 31%
Tier 3 current points YB 42%, SBI 30%, SoS 28%; new score: YB 48%, SBI 27%, SoS 25%
Tier 4 current points NSP and HoD 34%, CD 32%; new score NSP 37%, HoD 35%, CD 28%

Hmm did some further calculation in the 4/3/2-system, while the matches “look” closer, it is still the same amouth of difficulty for the servers in the back to actually catch up with the server in front. So while the 4/3/2 system does make the matchup look closer, it doesn’t solve the problem that by mid-week the winner will be fixed..

I am tier 3 and myself do not duel (because I suck at it). I see some duelers from time to time, often southeast of sm, never seen many of them and on my server never in a number that would the hurt the zerg in any way. Most of the time the same numbers from all servers are dueling, so all server would be hit the same way as well anyway. For me it is no problem and actually kind of a nice thing to see people fighting and letting each other get back up for a rematch. Just go there and join in the fight.
We have far more people afk at a waypoint or merchant waiting for their next reward track to pop on queued maps for example.

Well it is mathematically simple. The new system avoids score imbalances that are bigger than:
1 server average of 126 points (3/6),
one average 84 (2/6) points and
one average 42 (1/6) points

But all the times the actual imbalance is smaller than this it sets it to that imbalance. In NA all the matchups have smaller average differences in scores than this, thus the new system actually increases the gaps in score.
I calculated it for all the current NA matchups. The gaps are bigger. check here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Where-are-the-promised-scoring-changes/first#post6317807

I know it is too late, but here what I would propose:
If you want a system that a) reduces the impact of “blowouts” where a server overruns everything and b) reduces the impact of night-capping:
a) Anti-blowouts:
Instead of reducing variance to a simple ranking system: just make dimished returns for high ppt. So capturing a keep does give you more ppt if your ppt is 40 than if it is 100. This will cut off having high ppt mostly but still gives you a reason to capture stuff. You can make this gradually and show rounded numbers. New maximum ppt would be lower and the impact of temporary blowouts would be far less heavy.
b) Anti-nightcapping:
Make an activity index that measures the number of active players in wvw across all three servers and boost the ppt by that. I would make that a linear function that boosts ppt by 100% maximum with a hard cutoff at the top, but other functions would work fine as well (for example 80% or more full servers = double the ppt. 8% full servers = ppt * 1.1; 16% full servers = ppt *1.2), this would have a serious impact while still making it not really lucrative for servers to fully leave wvw to “pointblock” other servers.

The advantage of going 2;1;1 would be that you don’t have to hope another server beats your oponent as well as you. But unfortunately it wouldn’t help with keeping winning and losing scores closer together.

I did the calculation for 4 days for the other NA tiers as well, have data and calculation in excel, so can do it for other matches as well, if needed.

tier 2: current scoring system Maguuma 36% of the points, Jade Quarry 33%, Fort Aspenwood 31%.
New scoring system: Maguuma 37% (106), Fort Aspenwood new in second 32% (93), Jade Quarry 31 % (89). Aspenwood with better coverage especially during US prime time.

Tier 4:
current calculation: Northern Shiverpeaks and Henge of Denravi both with 34 % of the points, Crystal Desert with 32%.
new calculation: Northern Shiverpeaks 37% (106), Henge of Denravi 35% (100), Crystal Desert 28% (82)

Sometimes only a few points more or less in ppt decide over if you get double the victory points (1 or 2). The races are definately not getting closer with the new calculation. But maybe I misunderstood and they meant “the winning and losing numbers are getting smaller (while the relative numbers are getting further apart)”.

I did just that, I broke down current data of points into two hour slices. Data is from
http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/40/
All my calculations for exactly 4 days in the matchup.

I did the same thing for the current matchup tier 1.
Current calculation: Blackgate 42% of the points, Tarnished Coast 32%, Dragonbrand 26%
New calculation: Blackgate 47% of the victory points (136), TC 32% (92), Dragonbrand 21% (60).

In the new counting system, it would be impossible for DB to win the matchup already and TC also can only win if DB beats BG in 8 or more 2 hour slices while still scoring less than TC.

Well it is mathematically simple. The new system avoids score imbalances that are bigger than:
1 server average of 126 points (3/6),
one average 84 (2/6) points and
one average 42 (1/6) points

But all the times the actual imbalance is smaller it sets it to that imbalance. In NA all the matchups have smaller average differences in scores than this, thus the new system actually increases the gaps in score.

I just did the calculation to verify in the current matchup YB, SBI and SOS because imho this is the matchup that is the most imbalanced atm in NA and the imbalance grows, in current counting system YB has 42% of the points, SBI has 30% and SoS has 28%
in new system YB has 48% of the points (137), SBI has 27% (79) and SoS 25% (72).

Furthermore in the new system it would be impossible for either SBI or SoS alone to beat YB since yesterday (tuesday). They both can only beat YB if the other server consistently also beats YB. In probably 14 hours it will be mathematically impossible for either SBI or SoS to beat YB in the new system, making the remaining more than two days in the matchup useless. But of course it would also have been inprobable for either of those servers to get the 100’000 points necessary to beat YB, still mathematically it would have been possible in less than 24 hours and without the “support” of the other server in the matchup (one day gives 120’000 points to the servers, – this does not include kills).

I will check the new calculation for other matchups.

“Skirmishes will keep the winning and losing scores closer together”

- well mathematically it is the same as if one server would get an average of 126 points (3/6), one 84 (2/6) points and one 42 (1/6) points for 2 hours straight. So if matches do not have this discrepancy atm, then the scores will NOT be closer together other than both numbers are lower numbers. I would think that most matches currently are closer together than this and thus the new system will most likely lead to higher relative discrepancies in score between servers.
- Since the number of victory points is highly limited you can expect the winner of a matchup to be mathematically certain a lot earlier than in todays matches even if the server in front stops playing by wednesday. Servers that are in the back have a smaller chance to actually catch up by rallying the troops and heavy pvt at the end of the week in 1-2 days. But maybe that’s a good thing if people play for fights instead of points at the end of the week more often.
- since the victory points are the same for every 2 hour matchup regardless of prime time/off time and the number of players playing, this will give coverage of servers a very high importance and punish the servers that rely on prime time rallies (as prime time is maybe 6-8 hours of the day) just as much as servers that rely on night capping only.
- It will not solve the run-away matches, as those can only be solved by making matchups with servers with similar strenght, something the current matchmaking does not always achieve. The problem here is not the scoring system, but the matchmaking randomness.

Still it will be an interesting change and I am curious to see how it plays out. I am hoping that it will lead to higher activity and fights at the end of each skirmish, while people still don’t “give up” because they need upgraded things for the next skirmish.

it’s normal that servers “implode” when they aren’t winning. People leave for pve after whiping or if no commander is on and you cannot hold objectives against bigger numbers, on the opponent servers people often stay longer, if they are winning.
YB “hybernated” the last 2 months and now people play again, same thing seems to happen to DB now but I am sure they will come again.

I got 4-5 ascended armor/weapon chests and 35-40 ascended rings in 2250 rank-ups. Got around 10 ascended chests from the reward track since it was implemented.

what I do with tomes: create a new character, level him up with tomes, get the levelup rewards:
2 unidentified dyes
1 copper doubloon
1 exo
tons of crafting bags
tons of boosters
tons of exo equipment you can throw in mystic forge
delete character and repeat.

It’s not much you get out of it, but better than nothing.

I agree that level-up rewards could be improved by making them slightly better on higher ranks. So chance for exotic/ascended could be higher on higher levels. Atm the chance always stays the same no matter what rank you are. In fractals that is different. But with the reward track the rewards are good atm. so it isn’t really needed imho.

.. you are in a empty wvw-ts channel but still call out the 5 man enemy blob that just arrived in front of your tower because you haven’t noticed
.. when you cannot stop yourself from saying “thank you” to the zerg that just saved “your” keep after the call
.. when you fully siege up paper towers with superior siege even though the passing commander told you to “let it go” because it is paper
.. when you are reliefed to find out that the opponent only hit one wall instead of two, because last time you had to fix them both alone and it took you 15 minutes
.. when you are respecting enemy scouts instead of just being annoyed to see them in keeps and towers in the bls you arrive at
.. when you stop expecting people to show up when you call out crucial enemy activity, but are still grateful if they do
.. when you are the one guy that defends alone even against 20 guys until it is flipped rather than jumping out when the door or wall goes down (and then continue by telling the commander where the zerg is heading to next).
.. when you increase the volume on your computer to be able to hear any activity while you are cooking, working or doing something else afk

Yea if you are running a guildgroup, then try to go for the boonshare-meta.
You will need 20% boonshare mesmers, at least 20% stability guards and 20% revenants, rest is optional imho.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Team:Team_-_Boon_Meta

Swagger.1459:

That was exactly you when talking about those Druids from YB… You gave up and lost a chance to get better.

When something is overpowered, that doesn’t mean it cannot be beaten, that’s true. But it means that something may not be a fair fight and it usually is Arenanet that should make sure that fights remain fair in most cases. Atm some builds and classes may not be that fair anymore for a lot of people and if they stop fighting those classes/builds because of it, this should be a problem that Arenanet should be interested in solving.

I also have a lot of fond memories of battles, some of them are years old with commanders and guilds that don’t exist anymore, some of them months old and some of them happened in the last weeks. I still very much enjoy WvW, the people/community and the fights. It’s even better now that we can mostly ignore pve and still get our gear, weapons and tokens just by doing what we love.

I have lots of respect for all the groups that still dare to fight even if they are outnumbered and all the guys that still run vanilla builds. It may not always be successful, but when it is, you really get a kick out of it.

I agree that the balance in NA makes 6 good competitors in T1&T2 and T3&T4 that are able to beat each other. Of course a shuffle of small servers to weaker servers could make it even better (I am not sure though if that is even needed or if the scores atm just show some players/commanders not playing the last week; CD was very active for example, SoS unusually bad populated. That may be different next week.).
I think Arenanet should adjust the Glicko-system with a system that does work even with server linkings. So a system that “adds” up activity on servers and thus in the current matchup should make it hard for T3/T4 servers to go to T2. Or just make the matchups manually instead, so blowouts just don’t happen. Why the randomness anyway? Ever seen players happy because of it?
Never let statistics do your thinking for you and if arenanet doesn’t have any professionals in their rows to make the interpretation of their statistics, then I am surely not the only guy that would like to help out and has studied it.

In EU there are so many servers in tiers where you wouldn’t put them if you consider their strength atm. Let’s hope the new matchup in NA doesn’t also go this way.

I agree that the bunker druid is overpowered in small scale battles. I think it is okay, that the druid has a place in small scale roaming, but the disengage possibilites are too good for a class that is never in melee distance, the heals are too strong even without a lot of healing power and it is very hard to counter the damage of the pets for beastmaster-bunkers even if you focus on killing the pets.
The underwater problem should have been solved a long time ago imho, but well, you can stay out of water most of the time at least.

YB isn’t supposed to be in tier4, with the current linkings, they should be able to beat SBI and SOS in tier3 as well.
SBI and SOS are significantly weaker with the loss of HoD and NSP (especially noticable during non-primetime).

I am not sure if DH is the biggest loser of the linkings or if it are the small servers linked to big ones that feel like they have lost their identity and community (IoJ for example). I can’t speak for them though, because I am not on one of them, SBI is one of the biggest winners of the linkings imho.

I think linkings have been great for the wvw-community and I personally enjoyed it very much. I think the current focus is great for most servers and players (maybe less so for the very small server veteran communities).

I don’t think the number of players should affect the reward system, because I think people should not be “punished” for being on a high population server. If the matchups all are balanced, then it doesn’t matter if you are in tier 1 or tier 4.
If the matchup isn’t balanced for example because of bandwagoning to tier 1 linking servers, then arenanet should just adapt the linkings on a weekly basis when they see serious inbalance. Only the news about arenanet doing this would be enough for people not to transfer.