The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Matchups outside of your comfort zone are necessary now and then in order for the server ratings to be meaningful. I think people fear that these outlier matches will be more common than they actually are.
I ran another set of random trials overnight (10 billion trials this time). Here’s the full set of data, which will hopefully make it easier to see how the distribution of likely and unlikely matches looks (for NA only, sorry, I don’t have volatility data for EU at hand).
(split into 4 posts because it won’t all fit in 1)
Blackgate
65.657217 Jade Quarry
54.560907 Sanctum of Rall
29.791629 Dragonbrand
19.581320 Fort Aspenwood
18.370786 Tarnished Coast
4.508521 Maguuma
4.363235 Kaineng
2.108594 Yak’s Bend
1.018578 Sea of Sorrows
0.024463 Crystal Desert
0.013282 Stormbluff Isle
0.001454 Ehmry Bay
0.000009 Anvil Rock
0.000005 Borlis Pass
0.000000 Darkhaven
0.000000 Isle of Janthir
0.000000 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
Jade Quarry
65.657217 Blackgate
51.751898 Sanctum of Rall
28.765118 Dragonbrand
19.873674 Fort Aspenwood
18.797098 Tarnished Coast
5.522435 Maguuma
5.355067 Kaineng
2.812321 Yak’s Bend
1.386921 Sea of Sorrows
0.045210 Crystal Desert
0.028149 Stormbluff Isle
0.004847 Ehmry Bay
0.000030 Anvil Rock
0.000016 Borlis Pass
0.000000 Darkhaven
0.000000 Isle of Janthir
0.000000 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
Sanctum of Rall
54.560907 Blackgate
51.751898 Jade Quarry
26.491010 Dragonbrand
21.357870 Fort Aspenwood
20.622216 Tarnished Coast
8.496510 Maguuma
8.266378 Kaineng
5.124415 Yak’s Bend
2.914704 Sea of Sorrows
0.216044 Crystal Desert
0.159978 Stormbluff Isle
0.037735 Ehmry Bay
0.000214 Anvil Rock
0.000117 Borlis Pass
0.000003 Darkhaven
0.000000 Isle of Janthir
0.000000 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
Dragonbrand
29.791629 Blackgate
28.765118 Jade Quarry
26.491010 Sanctum of Rall
29.270935 Fort Aspenwood
28.819525 Tarnished Coast
16.060183 Maguuma
15.697157 Kaineng
11.941738 Yak’s Bend
8.883480 Sea of Sorrows
2.109081 Crystal Desert
1.680902 Stormbluff Isle
0.457437 Ehmry Bay
0.014877 Anvil Rock
0.012351 Borlis Pass
0.003892 Darkhaven
0.000428 Isle of Janthir
0.000258 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
Fort Aspenwood
19.581320 Blackgate
19.873674 Jade Quarry
21.357870 Sanctum of Rall
29.270935 Dragonbrand
30.528809 Tarnished Coast
19.750503 Maguuma
19.370550 Kaineng
16.240203 Yak’s Bend
13.230901 Sea of Sorrows
4.940582 Crystal Desert
4.183725 Stormbluff Isle
1.406415 Ehmry Bay
0.121322 Anvil Rock
0.103734 Borlis Pass
0.033601 Darkhaven
0.003663 Isle of Janthir
0.002193 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
Tarnished Coast
18.370786 Blackgate
18.797098 Jade Quarry
20.622216 Sanctum of Rall
28.819525 Dragonbrand
30.528809 Fort Aspenwood
20.202149 Maguuma
19.824850 Kaineng
16.847125 Yak’s Bend
13.866970 Sea of Sorrows
5.451373 Crystal Desert
4.663470 Stormbluff Isle
1.657292 Ehmry Bay
0.159725 Anvil Rock
0.136767 Borlis Pass
0.044181 Darkhaven
0.004795 Isle of Janthir
0.002870 Sorrow’s Furnace
0.000000 Devona’s Rest
0.000000 Gate of Madness
0.000000 Northern Shiverpeaks
0.000000 Henge of Denravi
0.000000 Ferguson’s Crossing
0.000000 Eredon Terrace
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
Ok, I simulated 100,000,000 random matchups to see what’s likely to happen, and what’s not likely. I started with the ratings and volatility values from this page:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/big-changes-coming-to-wvw-matchups/
Blackgate
65.6% chance of being matched against Jade Quarry
54.6% chance of being matched against Sanctum of Rall
29.8% chance of being matched against Dragonbrand
19.6% chance of being matched against Fort Aspenwood
18.4% chance of being matched against Tarnished Coast
4.5% chance of being matched against Maguuma
4.4% chance of being matched against Kaineng
2.1% chance of being matched against Yak’s Bend
Ehmry Bay
23.9% vs Anvil Rock
23.3% vs Borlis Pass
22.9% vs Stormbluff Isle
22.9% vs Crystal Desert
18.3% vs Darkhaven
17.3% vs Sea of Sorrows
14.0% vs Yak’s Bend
12.0% vs Isle of Janthir
11.1% vs Sorrow’s Furnace
10.4% vs Kaineng
10.0% vs Maguuma
3.8% vs Devona’s Rest
3.4% vs Gate of Madness
2.8% vs Northern Shiverpeaks
Eredon Terrace
57.8% vs Ferguson’s Crossing
49.1% vs Henge of Denravi
25.4% vs Northern Shiverpeaks
23.5% vs Gate of Madness
22.3% vs Devona’s Rest
7.9% vs Isle of Janthir
3.1% vs Darkhaven
I hope this helps people understand what matchups are likely under the new system, and what matchups are unlikely.
Note that the percentages add up to 200% because in each match you will face 2 opponents.
-ken
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Here’s the difference:
- WULD System = Only Tier 1 RED vs Tier 3 GREEN = Rank 3 vs Rank 7 = So after the new matchup begins as rank 3 went down and rank 7 went up = Rank 4 vs Rank 6
- New System = Random Matchups = Possibility of Rank 1 vs Rank 9 or Rank 10 vs Rank 18 etc..
The new system isn’t totally random, and while it would be possible for a rank 1 vs rank 9 matchup to occur, it’s not likely to happen very often, if at all. If I get some time I’ll try to calculate exactly how unlikely it is. I already did the math to show that rank 1 vs rank 12 is impossible given the current ratings (or at least, the ratings from 2 weeks ago). rank 3 vs rank 12 is also impossible, but I didn’t check the likelihood of rank 1 vs rank 9 occuring.
Under WULD, rank 3 vs rank 7 blowouts will happen every other week.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
As much I hope this new system work out ok, I can’t see it happening. Unless they lower the spread matchups random math, even the chances are low, tier 1 servers can fight against tier 3 servers wich I don’t even need to say how bad that would be.
Why not a very basic ranking system(NO RATING)? Like this:
- FINISH MATCHUP 1ST PLACE = MOVE UP A TIER
- FINISH MATCHUP 2ND PLACE = REMAIN ON TIER
- FINISH MATCHUP 3RD PLACE = MOVE DOWN A TIER
This way a server will never ever face the same matchup in a row plus they will always be fighting against a server that you can compete as well as you are close each other(like an imaginary rating).
what you’ve described is usually called WULD (Winner Up Loser Down), and it turns out that WULD has even worse volatility.
WULD essentially guarantees that a T1 server will fight a T3 server every other week. Likewise, it will put a T2 server against a T4 server every other week, and so on.
To understand why, imagine three closely-matched servers in Tier 2. The winner will move up to tier 1, and the loser will go down to tier 3. meanwhile, the loser from tier 1 will come down to tier 2, and the winner from tier 3 will go up to tier 2.
The match will be a blowout. the T1 server will easily beat the T3 server (and probably the T2 as well), and the next week they’ll go back up and the T3 server will go back down, resulting in essentially the same matchups you started with. then a week later, the blowout will be repeated.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
given that guesting allows you to do pretty much anything you want on any other server, and that WvW is basically the only thing that you must actually transfer for, I think it would be entirely appropriate for the price of transfers to depend on relative WvW rank.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
to put it another way: under the current system, rating points will always ‘flow up’ the rankings. suppose the bottom server in tier 2 ends up with a rating of 1850 at the end of a match, and the top server in tier 3 ends up with a rating of 1900. for the next match, they will switch places (and the lower server having a higher rating is the only way this can ever happen). 50 points from tier 3 will shift up to tier 2, and there is no way for those points to ever come back down again.
even if a higher tier server plays badly and falls through the rankings, the server that goes up to replace them can only do so by taking rating points up with it. for any server to come down from tier 2, there has to be another server in tier 3 to replace them, and that tier 3 server will have to bring more points up than are coming down (otherwise they wouldn’t switch places).
the endless flow of points up the ranks is what makes it harder and harder for lower ranked servers to advance. the supply of points available to carry you up gets smaller and smaller, making it harder and harder to get the kind of blowout wins you need to move up.
under the new system, there will be a mechanism for the higher tiers to bleed rating points into lower tiers by losing matches (or by failing to win by at least the expected margin). this mechanism will balance out the natural flow of points upward, and when equilibrium is reached the ratings will be “accurate”.
the randomness will allow servers to play outside their tiers, and cross-tier matches will allow rating points to flow back down (if they need to), and the end result will be less match stagnation (due to the randomness) and better quality pairing (due to the more accurate ratings).
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
they’ll become more likely if the ratings get dramatically closer, which would only happen if the higher-tier servers don’t do as well versus lower tiers, and the lower-tier servers do better than expected versus higher tiers.
but if the higher-tier servers consistently demonstrate that they deserver to be higher, the ratings spread will actually go up, making outlier matches less likely.
the thing about Glicko-2 is, the difference in rating creates an expectation — a higher-rated server is expected to beat a lower-rated server, and the difference in rating defines how much the higher-rated server is expected to win by. As long as the higher server wins by that margin or more, they will never lose rating points.
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The whole point for the new rating system is to allow more match-ups by bringing the ratings closer, not winning by enough for a higher rating server and losing by less for a lower rating server than system expects it is expected to happen. The higher servers if they gain more rating, the expected win margin gets higher to the point, they will lose rating points. Opposite for losing servers, hence the ratings get closer making the outlier matches more likely to happen.
no, the point of the new rating system is to make sure that the ratings are an accurate measure of the relative difference between tiers, because under the current system tier stagnation has made the ratings a useful measure of relative strength within that tier only.
with this change, sometimes servers will play outside of their tier, and this is what will allow the inter-tier rating gaps to be corrected. if the gaps are too small, the higher tier server should win by more than the predicted amount, causing their rating to go up. but if the gaps are too big, the higher tier server should win by less than the predicted amount, causing their rating to fall.
over time, this will improve the quality of the ratings so that they are both good measure of strength within a tier, as well as being good measures of strength across tiers.
what makes the outlier matches likely to happen is the random adjustment added to the base rating. this artificially spreads the ratings out making them more likely to overlap. but the random adjustments are applied only for the purpose of choosing matchups, they are not included or taken into account when your base rating is recalculated.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
they’ll become more likely if the ratings get dramatically closer, which would only happen if the higher-tier servers don’t do as well versus lower tiers, and the lower-tier servers do better than expected versus higher tiers.
but if the higher-tier servers consistently demonstrate that they deserver to be higher, the ratings spread will actually go up, making outlier matches less likely.
the thing about Glicko-2 is, the difference in rating creates an expectation — a higher-rated server is expected to beat a lower-rated server, and the difference in rating defines how much the higher-rated server is expected to win by. As long as the higher server wins by that margin or more, they will never lose rating points.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
I can say without any hesitation that if SBI pulls a tier 1 or 2 server next week, there wont be a soul left in the borderlands. We haven’t had a decent matchup in months, and now after taking a beating from SoS for a couple of weeks you hold us over the tier 1 and 2 beasts? Holy cow is this a recipe for destruction or what.
This is extremely unlikely. It really is necessary to understand the math here.
Let’s look at the example again, for SBI. In the example, SBI ended up with a Matchmaking Rating of 1719.921705. This rating is a combination of your actual Rating, the Potential Variation, and the Random Roll of 0.720972111. The math is:
1562.257 + (218.6835)x(0.720972111) = 1719.921705
In the worst case (your Random Roll was 1.0) you’ll have a Matchmaking Rating of 1780.6835 (1562.257 + (218.6835)x(1.0)). In the best case (for you, with a Random Roll of -1.0) you’ll have a Matchmaking Rating of 1343.5735 (1562.257 + (218.6835)(x(-1.0)).
The #1 server is Blackgate, with a rating of 2200.649 and a Potential Variation of 215.9742. In the absolute worst case they will end up with a Matchmaking Rating of 1984.6748 (2200.649 + (215.9742)(-1.0)). 1984.6748 is so far beyond SBI’s worst-case rating of 1780.6835 that it’s mathematically impossible for this matchup to happen — the base Ratings are simply too far apart for the Potential Variations to make them meet. even if JQ and SoR roll -1.0 as well, they will both have higher Matchmaking Ratings than SBI, making it impossible for SBI at their current rating to ‘random’ their way into Tier 1.
Meanwhile, the #6 server (the one with the lowest rating in Tier 2) is Tarnished Coast. they have an actual Rating of 1949.458 and a Potential Variation of 216.1932. Even if they get a horrible Random Roll of -1.0, their Matchmaking Rating will be no lower than 1733.2648.
The only way SBI would get matched up with TC is if your server got a very high Random Roll and TC gets a very low Random Roll. For example, if you get higher than around 0.9, giving you a Matchmaking Rating of 1759.07215 or higher, and TC gets lower than around -0.9, giving them a Matchmaking Rating of 1754.88412 or lower, that would put your Matchmaking Ratings close enough together that you might be matched against them.
The chances of this happening are very small (on the order of about 0.25% — one quarter of one percent) because the likelihood of your server rolling higher than 0.9 is (0.1 / 2) = 0.05, and the likelihood of TC rolling lower than -0.9 is (0.1 / 2) = 0.05, and the likelihood of both of those happening at the same time is 0.05 × 0.05 = 0.0025 which is 0.25%.
(yes, I know I’m ignoring the additional incremental probabilities of other equivalent outcomes such as SBI rolls 0.95 or higher and TC rolls -0.84 or lower, but those probabilities are still tiny so I’m leaving that out to keep the math simple)
The end result is, it’s mathematically impossible for #12 SBI to get matched against any T1 server with the current ratings. There is a possibility you’ll find yourself in T2, but only if every server from #6 down to #11 gets horribly low random rolls, and your server gets an unbelievably high roll. But the chances of this happening are so small they’re not even worth considering.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Anet has addressed the wrong issue. The true issue is WvW coverage/population.
Coverage/population needs to be evened out among the servers.
This is a valid argument.
I propose an easy fix: Arenanet needs to force you to move to a different server, and they need to lock your account so that you can only play during periods of the day when your new server has low coverage.
If Arenanet does this for enough players, the problem will be solved.
If you don’t think this is a good solution, I invite you to propose an alternative that doesn’t involve forcing players to switch servers or what time of day they want to play.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
It’s true that you can’t prevent a good thief from getting away if they want to.
There are a lot of players that would be happy just to survive versus a thief, and consider it a win if the thief gives up and moves on.
But if you won’t accept anything less than a kill, you have to prevent the thief from running. That means tricking the thief into thinking he’s winning the fight (or that he at least has a good shot at it), until it’s too late for him to escape.
Stacking conditions is one way to do this because many players won’t notice until it’s too late, and sometimes even if they do notice they don’t have enough condition removal in their build to do anything about it.
Another way is to use burst dps, but save it until the thief is low enough that it will finish him. Sometimes I’ll use grenades for a whole fight, then whip out my flamethrower at the end for a surprise DPS spike.
These don’t always work, of course. Against a really good thief there’s almost nothing that will work, but that’s to be expected. There is no single build that’s good against everyone in every situation.
And with thieves, the situation is just as important as the build. You need mobility to deal with thieves. If you’re escorting a dolyak, your mobility is going to be extremely limited if you want to stay close to it, so you’re going to be at a disadvantage. In a wide open area, with lots of NPCs you can tag for potential rallies, mobility will be much more effective.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
it’s actually a really good idea to make the timer a bit higher than the intended refresh rate, but certainly not one that should prevent the current fix from going out as scheduled.
along the same lines, do the jumping puzzle chests reset at the same time every day, or do they reset 24 hours after you last looted? (I don’t know, because I don’t do the jumping puzzle very often). but if it’s the latter they should change it to 23 hours 45 minutes, so you can do the jumping puzzle the same time every day.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
If a lower tiered server does better than Glicko expects it to do against a vastly higher tiered server, that lower tiered server’s score should increase at a better pace than it would if that same server were facing a lesser opponent.
Not sure if that made sense, but basically it gives servers a chance to prove their worth against higher tiered servers. Even if they lose, if they do not lose by as big of a margin as Glicko expects them to they should gain points.
Well thats the point of my previous post….they WILL lose THAT badly. The difference in coverage is that big.
Lets say even, a tier 1 server vs a tier 2 vs a tier 3 ( which can happen apparently). The scores will be 530k, 150k, 20k…. great the lower tiered servers gained some glicko…. I doubt they had alot of fun in that matchup however.
This is kind of the point of the change.
The problem here is that the ratings aren’t an accurate measure of server strength, because you need to occasionally play a server outside your tier to keep the relative differences between ratings accurate.
Yes, if you get matched up against a higher rated server, you are expected to lose. but if you lose by less than expected based on your relative ratings, the winner’s rating will go down, and your rating will go up (despite the loss). This will help make the ratings more accurate, and it will help servers that deserve to move to actually move.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
the relatively low effectiveness versus the cost is why the anti-stealth traps are rarely used compared to supply traps which work really well.
but the principle remains the same — anti-stealth traps are not intended to be used for 1v1 combat, or even small group combat. they are intended to be used to protect fixed positions from stealthers.
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
another option to prevent too much volatility due to randomness (but still allow it occasionally, just to keep things interesting) is to use a flattened bell curve distribution for random numbers, rather than a linear distribution.
with a linear distribution, you are just as likely to get a +0.9 as you are a 0 or a -0.9. with a flattened bell curve numbers near zero will be more likely than numbers far from zero, but the outliers will still happen from time to time.
I think a flattened bell curve is needed rather than a regular one because otherwise the outliers won’t happen nearly often enough to have a noticeable impact.
a computationally easy way to do something similar (but mathematically less accurate) is to simply take two linear random numbers between -0.5 and +0.5 and add them together. statistically, numbers near 0 will be more common than numbers farther away (similar to how 1-6 are all equally likely on a single die, but with 2 dice 7 is very common while 2 and 12 are rare).
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
you already got a reward for it — you have rank points to spend on things like Arrow Cart Mastery that other players who haven’t ranked up don’t have.
and you’ll be getting a new reward in the future — you’ll get rank chests at double the rate of other players, until you’ve cleared your backlog.
I cannot think of a single game where retroactive rewards would even be considered, unless the rewards were planned from the start and not given due to a bug. most of the time when new content is introduced, you are expected to play the game to get it. even when existing loot is changed, they don’t always retroactively change things for players who already got the old stuff, leading to “pre-patch” vs “post-patch” items.
when Arenenet changed the drop rules for loot bags in WvW, they didn’t retroactively give support classes hundreds of bags to make up for what they missed under the old scheme. they didn’t even give us a backlog. support builds got nothing except a new improved system going forward.
It would have been entirely within Arenanet’s rights to do the same here — new rank chests going forward and nothing else.
I don’t think new rewards make people quit games. I didn’t see a lot of people quit when Ascended gear was added because they had already gotten Exotics and didn’t want to farm for gear again. new rewards keep games interesting, because the same things you did before now have better outcomes.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Biggest problem I have with it is that they don’t award the players who have gained all these ranks by just giving them what is rightly theirs. Also the fact that I play a lot of alts, that all passed the rank 5 line, where the wxp required is 5k. Rank 1-3 required only 1k wxp, so that’s 3 chests very easy to gather.
Since I already passed these easy ranks I never got the chests there, and the ranks ahead are a lot harder to attain. Because I play several characters I won’t get my rewards very easily, cause it would require me to get 5×5k wxp per character. Some of my characters are higher than that, so means an average 7 times the 5k wxp.
Now, I also have 6 characters I play WvW on.
your error is in believing that rewards for ranks already gained are “rightly yours”. when you gained your existing ranks, you were not expecting reward chests, and the failure to receive them wasn’t a bug. you never got chests because there were no chests to be gotten.
the reward chests are new. starting on a certain future date, getting WxP ranks is going to have these additional rewards on top of what you were already getting (points to spend, and rank titles). you don’t deserve to get any backlog rewards at all, but Arenanet is giving it to us anyway, because they’re trying to be nice.
And you’re complaining that they’re not being nice enough, because you want all your future rewards right now. That’s like complaining when an expansion comes out that raises the level cap, because all the XP you earned after hitting the old cap isn’t retroactively applied to instantly level you up to the new cap on the first day.
finding out what’s inside these new chests is supposed to be fun. and the fun of finding out is intended to be had over time, as you rank up. it is not intended to be 100% discovered in the first couple of minutes after the patch, when people with lots of ranks open up hundreds of chests and ruin the surprise for the rest of us.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
I’m currently rank 13 WvW. Rhetorical question: will I get my 13 chests after the update?
You will get 2 at 14 and every level thereafter upto 26, then back to 1 per rank after that…so yes you will get all your chests backdated…
It stops at level 60 thou. so the guy at rank 140 misses out on 80 chests I believe…that will teach him on being a no life WvW player…
I don’t think this is true. 60 was just an example number that was used, but I haven’t seen any post from Arenanet claiming there is really an upper limit (although if there is an upper limit, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be 250).
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
So how will I get my chests, my main’s rank 155 and now I’ve decided to level up another char for wvw. Will I get 2 chests per rank on my new warrior ? Or the only way to get my chests is to play my main untill rank 300+…
I suspect the backlog is character-specific. to get your main’s backlog cleared, you’re probably going to have to rank up your main some more.
I know this wasn’t deliberate, but this backlog idea has turned into yet another reason not to rank up alts. While I understand some of the reason for this, it doesn’t make it any less annoying (I have 3 level 80’s myself).
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
How about Anet removes the siege timers, and add a new skill to all the siege like skill 6 or something. That skill would be called something like “remove siege.” And when used, the siege has one tick to it. Once it gets 10 ticks from 10 different players, it would be removed and in its place 10 supply. That way, armies can recycle supply (go green!) and people can prevent siege grieving. The chances of sabotaging another server would be lower as it would require 10 people to remove key sieges.
I don’t know how technically feasible this idea is, but I do like it.
Just because I think the current situation with 30 minute timers is tolerable (barely), does not mean that I wouldn’t welcome a better situation.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
outcome #1 (“when siege does not despawn”) is preferable, for exactly the reason cited. so, what can you do to prevent siege from despawning? refresh it.
there have been times I had to make a hard choice: stay where I was to continue a fight, knowing that unrefreshed siege was going to despawn elsewhere, or leave an active fight to refresh siege elsewhere, knowing that my absence might be the difference between holding our position and getting overrun.
sometimes I choose to leave, and sometimes I choose to stay. sometimes my choice proves to be correct, and sometimes it turns out to be a mistake. these are the kinds of decisions that add variability and unpredictability to WvW, and they help keep it from getting boring.
and for the person who asked earlier: yes, siege sabotage is a real problem. here are some sample threads/posts complaining about it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Siege-griefing
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Siege-cap-griefers
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Spies-in-WvW-wasting-supply-and-siege-capping
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Attention-SoS-spies/1214213
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/What-is-with-supply-burning/1091794
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/12-24-Yaks-Bend-Maguuma-Dragonbrand/1091300
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
big groups already move slower — the leaders have to periodically stop to give the stragglers time to catch up. if the leaders don’t do this, the group gets spread out.
the really good groups are able to stay together even when on the move and shouldn’t be penalized for being able to achieve this feat.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Question: Will these reward chests for ranks be given for people who already have Ranks? For example will a Rank 60 player receive 60 chests?
There will be a system for rewarding players who have already gained ranks. The way it will work is you will have a backlog of 60 chests, if you were at rank 61, and for each rank you achieve after that you will get 2 chests, instead of 1, until you’ve received all 60 of your backlog. These bonus chests should be available for every player who has gained rank prior to the build.
This backlog idea seems like a great way to balance the perceived unfairness of no retroactive rewards versus the glut and devaluation that would occur if retroactive rewards were granted all at once.
I hope this idea sees use in other parts of the game too.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
I really do think so. I’m on Ehmry Bay and we’re in T5 right now. We played against Kaineng on their way up through the ranks and they absolutely obliterated us. Kaineng is in T3 right now.
If Kaineng loses a match the same week we win ours, we could end up facing each other in T4 and it wouldn’t be pretty. Now, it’s possible that Kaineng is no longer as good as they were last time we met, and it’s very likely that Ehmry Bay is better than we were before, and it might actually be a great match if it happens.
But I don’t think that just because it might be a great match for us, that most servers will also have great matches. I think most servers will end up with terrible un-fun matches every other week under WULD.
We do need some change to combat the stagnation, but like Rakhir said, WULD adds too much volatility.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
The reason it wouldn’t be selected is is because the worst case in WULD is worse than what we have now. The “worst case” isn’t playing the same teams every other week — those will be the “good” weeks. The “worst case” is going to be the alternate weeks when a higher tier server demolishes a server from the tier below, and another server from two tiers below.
WULD works fine when applied to only one match (and everyone else stays the same). but when everyone moves at once you end up with cases where servers still can’t advance because, for example, every time the T6 winner advances to T5, they have to play the T4 loser, and the T4 loser easily beats the T6 winner every time, sending them back down to T6 again. the T6 winner will be crying on the forums that Arenanet is preventing them from advancing by putting a T4 server up against them every time they move up, when what they really need to “prove themselves” is to play against 2 T5 servers.
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PS> my choice of “T6 winner” is purely hypothetical, and any resemblance to actual servers is purely coincidental. I am not trying to imply that T6 winners would be any more or less inclined to cry about their matchups on the forums.
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
+1. “winner up loser down” sounds good in theory, but in practice it has real problems.
WvW isn’t the playoffs. the losers don’t go home for the season, they have to play again the very next week and the ratings algorithm has to be able to find reasonably good matches for them too. This isn’t as easy as it sounds.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
If you’re on guard or patrol duty, you shouldn’t get called to help elsewhere — you’re already doing something important. When I’m on patrol duty and I see an attack coming, I stick around long enough to make sure that defenders show up, then I resume my patrol.
The exception is, when you are in danger of losing something so important that you’re willing to give up other things to keep it. In that case, there’s no reason to continue guarding it.
One thing to keep in mind here is that all servers have the same siege timer to deal with. Dealing with it is just one of the many small things you can try to do better than your opponents, in order to win the match each week.
I’m not sure that making the refresh timer longer is a good idea (even though it would certainly be more convenient). The key question is: “what is the maximum amount of time your team should remain penalized when siege-capped due to enemy spies who are trying to sabotage your ability to place useful siege?”
Right now the timers are pretty low, which makes sabotage generally not worth the effort. If you just drop siege without adding any supply, it will only last 2 minutes. Adding a little bit of supply will extend it 5 minutes. To get just 30 minutes of “benefit”, a saboteur has to finish the build completely.
If you extend the refresh time, that will make it more likely that saboteurs will (a) build useless siege in order to siege-cap your team and (b) waste valuable supply to finish building each piece. I’m not sure that would be an improvement.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
The thing about WvW points is, there’s no limit to how many you can get. It’s like karma or badges; there’s an endless supply of it (unlike character trait points which are capped at 70).
If you’re worried about shiny new things that might come out soon, don’t spend all your points — keep some in reserve. If you feel like you need to spend all your points to stay competitive, then they weren’t “wasted”; they were spent to stay competitive.
If they make it so that I can refund my spent WvW points repeatedly, I’d appreciate it if they could fix things so I can sell back unwanted gear to get my karma or badges back also.
I don’t see the fundamental difference between saying “I used this gear to advance, but now I don’t need it anymore and I’d like to return it for a refund” and “I used this point allocation to advance, but now I don’t need it anymore and I’d like to return it for a refund”.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
“many of the complaints”, not all of the complaints. And remember, not everyone on EB complained about it. I certainly didn’t.
While I hadn’t intended to speak for the entire server, I am gratified that I now have your leave to do so. Coming from someone in [Rekz] that means a lot to me; I’m glad to know that my thoughts match yours so closely.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
for a game with no monthly fee, this game has stayed remarkably interesting. I cannot remember the last non-subscription multiplayer game that kept me this interested this long, except maybe Diablo (which wasn’t massively multiplayer).
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
The subject of this thread should be “zergs are discouraged in WvW” because all three things cited work against zergs.
downed is the enemy of a large zerg — a smaller, more organized force that focuses on getting enemies down and spiked, while avoiding getting downed themselves, can easily decimate a zerg. every player who dies creates an opportunity for an enemy to rally. the side with more people gives more opportunities.
arrow carts help disperse zergs. they’re finally strong enough to give players a reason to get out of the red circles.
supply traps encourage zergs to spread out, so they don’t all get hit by the AoE effect.
looks like Arenanet has been doing a good job adding things to the game to help discourage zergs.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
under the existing rating system, EB would have to work hard to move up a tier. most of our players don’t like to work hard.
I think this was the source of many of the complaints when AR and BP were allied. an enemy alliance forces EB to work hard, and while they can do it if they have to, they don’t like it.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
You cannot wait until you are already being attacked, then decide to organize a defense. I’m sorry if this isn’t the answer you wanted to hear, but if you’re in the air force then you should already know this.
Defense is all about preparation.
If you don’t have enough players (or enough dedicated players) to defend full-time, it might work to pre-organize your defenders, getting them all into a common voice chat channel, then turn them loose to do PvE or whatever until they are needed. But they need to be organized in advance, and ready to drop whatever they’re doing at a moment’s notice.
And you need at least some of your defenders already waiting and watching, so that they can call for reinforcement the moment they see enemies approaching. If you wait until you see swords on the map, it may be too late (especially if your waypoints become contested). You have 30 seconds to teleport as many defenders as you can, free. Find a way to take advantage of this window.
You don’t have to assume 100% of this burden yourself (and your server shouldn’t expect you to). Take turns with other people; set up some kind of rotation.
Being able to defend well is part of being able to play well in WvW. Defense is the thing that slows enemy attacks down. If you are worried about groups of 10 taking fully upgraded objectives in minutes flat, you have two options: position defenders to prevent it, or organize your offense to do exactly the same thing to them.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
Defense is a full-time job. If you are in another zone or doing PvE while you wait for the call, you aren’t defending.
For key objectives like the Garrison, you need defenders there all the time (especially somebody to watch the water gate), and you need siege already built with people keeping it all refreshed.
For towers and keeps you can often get by having patrollers run a circuit between a small number of them, checking for enemies at each and refreshing siege.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
I spent about 8 hours on Saturday refreshing siege in Eternal Battlegrounds. It was not exactly what I would call “fun”.
It was, however, valuable. Several times, our towers were attacked, and we were able to drive off the attackers because we had plenty of siege ready and waiting and enough time to get people on them.
“Time” is the key thing there. It doesn’t matter how much siege you have if nobody shows up in time to defend. And nobody is going to show up to defend if they don’t know there’s an attack underway. To ensure a successful defense, you either have to have guards stationed at each objective, or you have to have people patrolling so that when there’s an attack, your team hears about it.
The people who are guarding or patrolling might as well refresh the siege while they’re there. But refreshing siege needs to be a secondary task for them (ideally, a task they should get some small reward for); their primary task should be checking the area for enemies.
Other secondary tasks for your guards or patrollers: identifying useless siege and deliberately not refreshing it so that it goes away, and building extra siege if you think an objective doesn’t have enough. A side bonus of building extra siege is, you get first dibs to use it if there’s an attack (which means more bags for you).
One other thought: if you’ve been refreshing the siege you will know how much is at each objective. So if an attack is reported, tell your team how much siege is already there ready to use. Your defenders are more likely to show up if they think the defense will be (a) successful and (b) profitable. Having siege ready makes both (a) and (b) more likely. During one attack we had problems getting enough defenders to show up, but when I announced that we had 3 unmanned arrow carts available for bag farming, the response was immediate.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
fyi, that floating bag had a precursor in it.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Ehmry Bay spent a week getting stomped by Kaineng on their way up through the tiers. It wasn’t what I would call a fun experience, but our gameplay improved dramatically as a result of it.
from what I’ve seen in my time on Ehmry Bay (and I’ve been here since release) EB plays best when they feel challenged. AR and BP have gotten to see this for themselves, first-hand.
there are EB players, of course, who may complain on the forums when they feel challenged. I think being challenged makes a lot of EB players unhappy, not because they can’t handle a challenge but rather because it simply means they have to stop being lazy.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
that screenshot showing BP owning one of AR’s towers doesn’t prove anything. Maybe AR let them have that tower on purpose so their PPT wouldn’t fall too low.
and of course not 100% of the players on either BP or AR are in agreement with the idea of an alliance, so this kind of thing can always happen even if the alliance is otherwise going well.
I wouldn’t worry too much about whether AR chooses to be in alliance or not. whether we think such things are ‘proper’ or not doesn’t matter as much as whether they consider it to be proper. as long as they’re not actually exploiting every tactic is a valid one.
I am a little bit worried that AR is trading a temporary boost in their fun levels (and ours) for some longer term problems, and that the end result may not be good for them. if the alliance turns out in the long term to be less fun, and they lose players because of it, that could make WvW worse for all of us. hopefully Arenanet fixes the match selection algorithm before that becomes a real problem for any of us.
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
EB 157,663 +265
BP 122,985 +250
AR 118,135 +180
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
EB 134,162 +105
BP 99,196 +310
AR 92,466 +280
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
EB 106,826 +280
BP 85,056 +205
AR 79,991 +210
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
unofficially, yes. all’s fair in WvW. you can read more about it in our match thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Tier-5-EB-BP-AR
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
EB 75,414 +215
BP 56,640 +265
AR 52,787 +215
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
the guardian the OP describes sounds exactly like the Commander Siegerazer NPC.
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
(edited by Snowreap.5174)
[IND]… Is it really necessary to all four bag someone after a 4v1? :<
Sad Yums is sad.
I think they heard somewhere that “it’s not gay if it’s a 3-way” and they misunderstood…
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
Only a WvW player thinks that 100% World Completion means that their team’s PPT is +695.
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
thanks for the answers.
this was during a very quiet time in the zone so there were relatively few of us, and my status updates ended up being a significant fraction of the activity in /team. I’ll try to vary my text a bit to avoid this in the future.
(and in case anyone is wondering, relogging does not clear this, I had to wait it out)
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
EB 60,223 +310
BP 37,414 +165
AR 35,910 +220
The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay
For the past few hours I’ve been saying (among other things) the following in [Team] chat every 20-25 minutes: “siege refreshed at hills”.
now I’m getting a message saying “Your message was suppressed due to excessive messaging.” how can I get rid of this? how can I prevent it from coming back?
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The Purge [PURG] – Ehmry Bay