Guild Wars 2

Miko.4158:

you register to vote, they know your server…
a little bit of stats they know who plays the most wvw and who doesn’t etc.
shouldn’t really make the difference in a ‘free’ decider vote but they are learning alot more from it than reading the die hard trolls ala forum and some of the sweeping statements on here. well done anet.

So those that don’t like the changes, play less and don’t count as much as those that like the changes and play more. Are you familiar with the concept of an echo chamber?

sWvW anyone?

Reverence.6915:

Linking is definitely worth keeping in the game. The difference though, is that links need to be readjusted more often, with periods of downtime between server links to allow for the low tier servers to readjust to their new populations after a link.

Perhaps 1 month server links with 1 month off would work better than the current quarterly setup.

Properly implemented it could be worth keeping. But right now it feels like a coverage lottery.

Ariel.6291:

Also, please word the poll more straightforwardly. I read this incorrectly and voted incorrectly.

It should read simply

Do you want to keep world linking?
Yes
No

Simple and straightforward.

Plus your majority is messed up. What if you don’t get 75 percent either way?

Then the beta continues and we have the option to get rid of it later.

If you want to leave the issue open to further debate, you have to keep both options below 75%.

Virtute.8251:

Bottom of the leaderboard will always be the bottom of the leaderboard.

Weakest, least populace server(s) sink. That’s the leaderboard’s job.

It’s working.

You can’t have four tiers of 12 servers all perfectly balanced to each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

There is not and will not be a significant enough ruleset to enforce that on WvW teams. Bet on it.

Beta = Success

If population balance wasn’t the goal of server linking why was it advertised as such?

If it doesn’t solve the balance problem then why do we need it at all?

The only thing that has changed with the linking is that the maps are more crowded leading to more blob fight activity. IF that was the goal, then yes Beta=Success.

I voted No on the world linking because we haven’t even seen the first swap guest servers to see if the linking is going to balance the populations long term.

Its a bit premature to say this should be a permanent feature. It should under go a couple swap cycles before deciding one way or the other.

Chaba.5410:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Chaba.5410:

TorquedSoul.8097:

some teams will be starting a skirmish with a scoring advantage. So in a following skirmish where the teams have equal numbers, some of the teams will be fighting an uphill battle.

Eh. I don’t see this as something of a negative against the skirmish system since that advantage already exists in the current system. I.e. it isn’t something that is going to be introduced by the skirmish system.

I agree, the skirmish system doesn’t introduce any new problems related to scoring imbalances.

Except these skirmish changes were specifically labelled a fix to the population based scoring problems imbalances … clearly they aren’t.

So what anet is doing is implementing a rather complicated change which they admit will take a large effort to accomplish that doesn’t really fix anything.

The only part that would even remotely attempt to correct the scoring problem is listed as optional and would upset a sizable chunk of the players.

I was under the impression they said the skirmish system will reduce run-away scores due to population differences. Keeping scores closer make players feel like they have more of a fighting chance. Coverage still will matter, which was also said.

Even if they use the same scores for all time zones, it will under-reward large disparities and over-reward close matches. I’m not sure that this will be enough to close the gap in a meaningful way.

I guess we are going to find out.

Chaba.5410:

TorquedSoul.8097:

some teams will be starting a skirmish with a scoring advantage. So in a following skirmish where the teams have equal numbers, some of the teams will be fighting an uphill battle.

Eh. I don’t see this as something of a negative against the skirmish system since that advantage already exists in the current system. I.e. it isn’t something that is going to be introduced by the skirmish system.

I agree, the skirmish system doesn’t introduce any new problems related to scoring imbalances.

Except these skirmish changes were specifically labelled a fix to the population based scoring problems imbalances … clearly they aren’t.

So what anet is doing is implementing a rather complicated change which they admit will take a large effort to accomplish that doesn’t really fix anything.

The only part that would even remotely attempt to correct the scoring problem is listed as optional and would upset a sizable chunk of the players.

joneirikb.7506:

Anyway, still want to see Skirmish/Time Slice added first without this, so we can try/evaluate that stand alone. And see how much it evens out the score (or not)

The proposed model will do nothing to even out the score. It may make things appear more even, but the underlying imbalances will still exist and will still lead to predictable outcomes. Anet knows this which is why the still propose both throttling the victory points during certain periods, and have the “last stand” comeback mechanic. Both of these variants indicate that reducing the competition to 84 scoring blocks will do nothing to fix the underlying problems.

All the victory points system will do is allow ego-tripping PvP’ers to get their squirt of dopamine after each two hour block when they win. It will certainly make the game more addictive to them if nothing else. Although those playing during the off hours will get a smaller squirt of dopamine.

The scarier part of the victory point implementation is that it could lead to a complete and total reduction of WvW matches to two hour blocks. As it stands they have no intention of resetting the maps between skirmishes. When you combine this with PPT’s passive scoring, some teams will be starting a skirmish with a scoring advantage. So in a following skirmish where the teams have equal numbers, some of the teams will be fighting an uphill battle.

The solution to this is to reset the map at the beginning of each skirmish to get rid of the advantage and once you have done that, you effectively have 2 hour WvW matches which is what people who want WvW to basically be a large scale sPvP would prefer.

Order of operations is important when the changes are made. If Anet moves to this skirmish format while adamant about not ditching PPT, we will be basically looking at an oversized sPvP match once they incorporate the map resets. Or some ridiculous comeback mechanic. Or point throttling during the off hours.

Pick one. With PPT’s passive scoring these are the only possible outcomes.

BAITness.1083:

Grim West.3194:

Ok…. BlobGate is all about skill. Being stacked with the highest amount of WvW players in all time zones… has NOTHING to do with anything at all in WvW. And before BlobGate had the numbers and was in lower tiers it was because everyone on the server was asleep for those months. And when BlobGate stacked the server and started winning, it was ALL JUST A COINCIDENCE.

/rolls eyes

Are you a ANET dev? It sure sounds like it.

Those stats don’t lie dude. You are just angry at the messenger.

Clearly you have never heard of the three types of lies.

Ven Zehn.6573:

Pretty sure everyone complained about JQ having the biggest population for a while, long long ago. Every server has the potential to pull those numbers into WvW (key word “potential”), but if their communities don’t care for WvW, and they don’t have guilds/players that promote WvW on their servers, then yea, it won’t be likely for the servers to get the same numbers showing consistently.

Do you think, maybe, just maybe, the people in Blackgate WvW because they like it, and those who join the server, do so because they see it as something they want? People were transferring to Blackgate even when we were getting 3rd place, even when we dropped to t2 randomly, and even after we got 3rd place in season 2 (and yes, I’m sure some came due to the war council, but I don’t think any of those guilds stayed long, could be wrong, but who knows, I’m just another random player).

How bout trying to create a welcoming and happy place in your own servers, where people would want to join you.

Maybe a real life example could help: Company A smiles at all their employees, gives them donuts, and asks them about their lives, Company B asks that you put in overtime without extra pay, and doesn’t even know you just got married. Which company would you want to work for, which would you want to stay with?

This isn’t something Anet can fix alone, this is something that each community has to do themselves.

OMG, the BG PR is real.

All that is required is a hard population cap. This isn’t a community problem, its a design problem. Leaving a “loophole” that players can use to troll entire servers isn’t a community problem. Everyone complains about Mal’s alliance moving around and wrecking servers but Anet does nothing to restrict the behavior. This is the internet … saying “stop that!” doesn’t work. You restrict unwanted behavior with game mechanics.

And BG “hibernating” while recruiting guilds doesn’t happen? Why was I giving Visual gold then during that low activity period?

BG is gaming Anet’s “activity based” population metric and everyone knows it. The smug PR isn’t fooling anyone.

morrolan.9608:

mulzi.8273:

I find it amazing that BG was coming in dead last for months. MONTHS. Getting absolutely smoked in scoring (mainly due to YB back/night capping playing the PPT game). Then, for 3 weeks BG reversed the tables and its suddenly the ‘no one can compete with BG’ argument? People are raging against the coverage BG has now. Well didnt YB have that same covered for months while they were winning by 100k points each week? Where did they go? They are still there,

No they aren’t, all the guilds that took YB to T1 have left, mainly for TC. This is then coupled with the fact that BG clearly still has a large dormant WvW population which never left the server and which came back for the recent WvW changes. Plus transfers to ET of idiot players wanting to ride the bandwagon.

BG is a perfect example of why Anet needs to enforce a hard population cap.

Virtute.8251:

mcarswell.3768:

very true. you stated in an earlier post that Anet has said PPT is here to stay. i’m curious if you have that reference…because if that’s true, then it’s discouraging…

As interesting as the link to dev statement may be, we don’t need that to know it’s a true claim.

PPT can’t be removed from WvW because that action would effectively mean building a new game type. PPT stays because WvW fundamentally is a game of capture-and-hold.

The new systems being tacked on will never wholly replace that foundation.

WvW without PPT is a job for GW3, if ANet is interested in it to begin with.

There are other ways to score WvW that adhere to capture an hold. The problem with the current scoring system is that it leads a simple capture race. This happens because all assets of a type regardless of location have the same value and only a small portion of the score rewards capturing objectives in clusters.

The better scoring model is the camp -> dolyak -> objective scoring model. This requires clustered control to score. Its still capture and hold but rewards regional control. This is important because as soon as you have regional control you end up with front lines and front lines lead to designated fight locations and the fights have more meaningful impact on the game.

The current PPT system creates a system where the path of least resistance is the best strategy. Because there is only a small reward for controlling objectives near each other. The end result is a capture race with a rather unrewarding strategic feel.

Dumping PPT wouldn’t be making it a new game … it would be making WvW a better game. All they need to do add points per capture and upgrade (which they plan to do anyway) and ditch PPT and then just tweak PPK and yak values to balance the game. To further reward the supply connections and regional control, yak values can be increased when the come from higher tier camps and when they go to higher tier objectives.

Blackgate continues to have the highest total server activity. #OverPopulated

Maguuma had the highest KDR, if you into that sort of thing.

Straegen.2938:

I have run GW2 on some crazy powerful machines including 980ti GPUs, RAID 0 SSDs, servers with six processors/terabyte of ram, my own rigs that are very respectable and just for giggles loaded the entire game onto a RAM drive.

Best I can tell is that the game is bound by the CPU and hamstrung by its networking code. You can basically load the game on the most bad kitten rig and it will still perform graphically like a dog when a lot is going on.

I suspect their network and rendering code isn’t fully threaded and is at least partially part of the main thread. The result is that the graphics processing ends up waiting on network packets to be processed.

It’s important to note that this isn’t specifically a GW2 thing. The lag experienced in the crowded zones in any MMO is caused by the same thing.

There may be a better way to pipeline the new network data into rendering frames faster, but I don’t think anyone has solved that problem yet.

I have a similar problem as OP.

I think the loss of FPS in these situations is related to the processor (CPU) and not the graphics card. Large scale fights puts a load on your processor to parse all incoming information before it can be rendered. This is pretty much confirmed by the FPS increase I get when I overclock my processor when in WvW. The increase in FPS is proportional to the increase of my clock speed.

wwDefuser.2056:

Scoring in relation to Serveractivity …
Are u serious ?!

I dont know what u guys hope this will change but in my opinion this option is completely dumb !
What is the function of Scoring ? ! Right it sets the best/most active server on Rank 1 and the worst/less active server on last Place.

To implement a feature that rewards the worst server is like announcing the worst PvP-Player in ESL as the Champion …. lol !

democracy is the leadership of stupidity

I’m not necessarily on board with scoring adjustments based on activity level, but the problem that most have is that the primary factor that determines victory is the size of the population/activity level and nothing else. Skill and strategy are distant seconds.

This is probably why most of the community saw population imbalance in matches as the biggest problem.

Disconnecting WvW entities from the general population and providing a tiered population hard cap is a better long term solution than linking of score tweaks based on population.

But linking and score tweaks are easier, I guess.

The problem here isn’t the democratic approach but rather the poor communication of ideas and plans that distort the communities request.

For example, the server linking didn’t solve the population imbalance. And the proposed scoring adjustment based on population/activity, doesn’t really solve the underlying problem of “off hours” passive scoring (aka PPT.) Instead it is more of a European style victory point system which in itself is not a bad thing, but doesn’t really solve the scoring problem. Reducing points at certain times of day (which is an optional part of this change) ham handedly solves the problem but creates another problem in its wake. Passive scoring continues to be ignored.

I think its odd that with the rise of RvR as the staple of MMO’s that Anet doesn’t realize how important WvW is to their brand in the long run. And they currently have a head start on all the new games that are coming out in the next few years to lock it down and get it right. Half measures will not get them there, they need to rebuild the underlying scoring framework. PPT as it is, has to go.

Sirendor.1394:

lil devils x.6071:

Sirendor.1394:

mcarswell.3768:

i don’t think people voting for “Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large)” understand that this is what everyone was railing against in the other scoring thread…

Ehm.. ‘everyone’? I really think it is better to have lower scores when there are less people playing.. it doesn’t make sense to award points per tick for structures when nobody is fighting over them.

You are still awarding points per tick when no one is fighting over them proposed in this system.. People fighting over the objectives is not even being addressed. They left passive scoring in the game, they just wish to treat players unequal over it instead.

You PvD undefended objectives during the right time of day = WIN! You PvD during the wrong time of day = LOSE!

Nothing at all in this system encourages players to not PvD at all. The proposed systems by multiple players addressed that issue, but not the one people are voting for here.

Ok maybe I am wrong on this, but I thought the proposal included that when side A has high numbers but side B and C have low numbers, scores for side A will be lower too.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, also would like some developer answer on this, cause it’s not really clear.

---

Also Lil, I am not trying to defend PvD and passive scoring, because I personally find it a rather bad system, but maybe when they change the way PPT works (based on activity) there will be less PvD and karmatraining and more organised defenses and fights.

Anet has said that PPT is here to stay unfortunately. The best we can hope for is for them to marginalize its impact by incorporating more activity based scoring.

Zenith.6403:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large) is the Skirmish idea Tyler explained in this thread.

Oh I’ll have one of those, thank you.

Meanwhile the scoring problem directly related to population imbalances (PPT) will continue to imbalance things … just to a slightly lesser extent.

Jong.5937:

The alternatives are not at all clear. It would have been better if each option was illustrated with options from Tyler’s mail.

At the moment people are left to basically guess which options are in which category or they simply vote for the ‘goal’ I.e. less imbalance and maybe Anet then misinterpret that as a vote for a specific (but unspecified!) option.

they should have also bundled some of those small and medium effort things together. Non-PPT rebalancing, Points per capture, and scaled scoring for upgrades should have all been together as non-PPT scoring options.

This poll was set up to ensure a particular outcome … Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large)

it sort of looks like a political poll :P

Wow. It looks like people are voting for the major (large) change that doesn’t fix the underlying problems of PPT or population imbalances and will most likely be irreversible due to its complexity.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Changes to Match Structure:

• We’ll split the week long matches into 2 hour time slices we are calling ‘Skirmishes’
• Warscore is used to determine the winner of a Skirmish
• Skirmishes award varying amounts of Victory Points based on placement
• Victory Points are used to determine Match victor
• When a Skirmish ends, Warscore is reset, but actual map-state remains unchanged

The smaller changes that marginalize PPT would be a better option. But oh well.

https://feedback.guildwars2.com/en/results

mcarswell.3768:

Can you clarify what the first option means? is this just increasing the contribution of PPK, or is there more to it?

Rebalance scoring for actions that are not included in Points-Per-Tick (Small)

It looks like it just PPK, yaks and sentries. But it is a good start in marginalizing PPT. But without points per capture and points per upgrade, things will be ugly for a while.

I wish I could vote for this options plus PPC and PPU.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

The poll on this topic is up: https://feedback.guildwars2.com

can you elaborate on these two poll options?

• Rebalance scoring for actions that are not included in Points-Per-Tick (Small)
  Does this include anything other PPK and yak kills and deliveries?

• Adjust scoring to be relative to current activity and population (Large)
  Would this be based on the population and activity at a given time or would it be based on a predicted population and activity?

I posted a scoring model a few weeks ago that doesn’t use PPT. The only passive scoring is dolyaks. The rest of the scoring is based on activity (fighting, capturing, upgrades). Since we are making suggestions here …

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/PPT-less-Scoring-model-Fights-and-Dolyaks

Bethryn.4087:

Caravan Delivery giving points is questionable. You are rewarding people for the absence of enemies a lot of the time here (this is a general problem with PPT, and the source of my dislike for the system). However, given that a server essentially gains ‘double’ from killing a caravan (they both gain points and deny their opponents points), it may not be a big deal.

I think the problem is that they use both PPT and Caravan scoring. The benefit of Caravan scoring in terms of balancing is that it requires a neighboring camp and every yak is contestable by even a single player. Caravans also encourage regional control which is strategical more interesting than PPT’s capture race.

Its not the supply caravan scoring that needs to go, its PPT.

Blackgate achieved a ridiculously high capture volume last week. This is the first time I saw a number over 60K. Is BG OP, OverPopulated, I mean.

It may be a consequence of the smaller maps so BG could crack 70K next week if they maintain the same activity level.

Overall capture volume was up 6% and fight activity was up 3%. This may have also been the result of the smaller maps.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

It’s important that PPT continues to be the primary source of score.

Why is this?

Since the tick based scoring clearly aggravates other problems like timezone imbalances why would it be important to keep it?

PPT as it is doesn’t reward clustered control of objectives. The Yak’s do encourage that because they require connections between camps and objectives. But ATM yaks only represent about 35-40% of the score.

With PPT as it is, you never really have a sense of a front line for conflict. As a result players will backcap any objective anywhere on the map leading to a simple capture race. This encourage players to attack the objective with the least resistance because from a scoring perspective they are all the same.

Unless the scoring mechanism more significantly rewards clustered control of objectives, then WvW will always be a capture race with limited strategic appeal.

Its interesting that the players have organized coverage times into 3 hour blocks but here it has been reduced to 2 hour blocks.

Was 3 hours deemed as too long for a skirmish?

Also, if the map structure stays the same between skirmishes and PPT is still a thing, then teams will inherit advantages and disadvantages from the previous skirmish.

I think dumping PPT needs to happen. Yaks are a good substitute for PPT in regards to passive scoring and are more easily contestable by roamers. The yak points can be scaled in points on successful deliveries to higher level objectives to encourage defense and assaults. It also makes the camps a critical component from a strategic point of view.

Racking up big PPT points for keeps and towers could still aggravate imbalances.

FogLeg.9354:

Did you manage to solve problem with Kills? I mean the number of kills vs deaths is pretty much just the population in server 1 vs server 2. If one side has the blob of 50 and other side has 25, the 50 will always run over the smaller group and increase their kills.

As long faster way to increase kills is to have more people, it should not be overly important factor in the score.

The only way to solve the problem with kills dominating the score is to lock them to a certain percentage of the score like I did. If you read my linked post you can see how I score it.

However any server with a higher population and fight activity will end up with more kills. Nothing can be done there. Higher population servers always have the advantage. Short of hard population caps that imbalance will always create an advantage for someone.

Some people have suggested that the score be adjusted by active population at any given time.

I guess it would look something like this with R,G,B being servers portion of total population:

For balanced population
R = 0.333, B = 0.333, G = 0.333

To find Red server’s score multiplier:
mulitplier_R = 3/(1 + R/B + R/G) = 3/( 1 + 0.333/0.333 + 0.333/0.333 ) = 1.

SO for a balanced population the multiplier would be 1 for every server.

Imbalanced example:
R =0.8, B = 0.1, G = 0.1

multiplier_R = 3/( 1 + 0.8/0.1 + 0.8/0.1) = 3/17 = 0.176
multiplier_B = 3/( 1+ 0.1/0.8 + 0.1/0.1) = 3/2.125 = 1.412

The sum of the multipliers always equals 3 and the difference in multipliers is always the multiple of the population difference, so Blue’s and Green’s points are worth 8x that of Red.

Its a bit convoluted and I’m not sure if this type of calculation would create too much overhead. But assuming that Anet is tracking active map population as a part of their population balance metric then they should have the information available to do the calculation.

+1 above.

Blobs and Map queues are not a solution for population balance.

A tiered hard population cap structure would work best to both balance the competition and allow people to play in the environment of their choosing (low pop vs high pop.) And different population ranges could be ranked in a meaningful way by existing in a completely different competitive group.

This could be a part of an alliance implementation … but that will never happen.

Reward tracks should be tied to wvw experience gain, but other than that I like it.

World linking did little to fix the population imbalances.

However the glicko ratings deviation reset worked well in getting servers with similar populations next to each other.

If we have learned anything from this experiment it is that glicko should be locked at a high volatility, that is, it should be run as Elo with a high K value to ensure that the rankings can be as fluid as the population shifts.

High volatility should be assumed.

The Ventari Ele.5812:

Why do you keep posting these?

They have no real relevance on anything! Not on activity, not on population.

Feel free to disregard the one I post on Monday.

smashie.3074:

Hi TorquedSoul,

I’m not sure if you can do this, but I would imagine this takes into account the server merge i.e DH representing both DH and FC?

I was wondering if you have the data for the weeks prior to the merge?

Reason I’m asking:-

1) I would expect that the server merge, if people enjoyed the server merge, the activity for the merged servers would increase vastly.

If…however, it is the contrary, I would expect only a small increase in contribution…if at all.

Whilst I’m aware that the current data will show both efforts of both FC and DH, I hope you understand the reasons I’m asking

A PM or instructions as to how to get these data myself is appreciated

Thanks

Overall activity did increase after the linking but this was the result of fight activity. Capture activity went down.

I think the kill activity went up as a result of maps being more crowded. The shift to Alpine maps should see this trend continue.

As far as DH + FC, their changes followed this same trend. Capture volume dropped by about 10% and fight activity increased by 43%.

Josh XT.6053:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Josh XT.6053:

I also look at this from a business perspective, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re the customer.

Having 24 servers is expensive, 12 servers is likely half the cost. It is hard to justify having the bottom 2 tiers at all because there was probably a total of 40 people tops a week (between all time zones) on those servers that even entered WvW. From a business stand point, those 40 people aren’t supporting keeping those servers open.

Keep in mind, your $0-$100 you spent to buy the game/expansion doesn’t go too far. Lets say every one of the 40 people paid $100, that is $4000. Now that is enough money to buy a decent server, but it wouldn’t be enough to host it. So basically the lower tier servers are losing money.

Now all of that above is assuming the way that their servers are set up – they may all be hosted on 4 physical servers for all I know, but if each server has its own physical server, that gets expensive quick.

I thought all servers were virtualized clusters these days. If that is how Anet does it, load is more a factor than # of servers. There may be some additional overhead for adding new maps but I suspect the real load comes from active parts of the system … ie the players themselves. IN this case reducing the load of WvW would be to literally get rid of the WvW population. I doubt that is Anets goal.

But I haven’t worked in IT in a long time and have never worked on MMO’s so I could be wrong here.

I’m a software developer personally. I am not sure how ANet had their servers set up though. I figure that the load the servers are under for WvW would merit having separate physical servers but I could not say for sure.

my understanding these days is that hardware is cheap and labor is expensive. I doubt the merger had anything to do with dollars and more to do with making some players happy.

This is capitalism, so if Anet wanted to maximize its revenue it would track who the big spenders are in WvW and try to accommodate them. And then build a misery index to ensure that the desired changes for the big spenders didn’t drive off other common spenders. So long as they maintain a low enough misery score, they wont see the flight of the remaining occasional spenders.

By the time they are done the will have a game that their paying public mostly wants and cheap people like me will go play BDO.

Pay the piper, pick the tune. And maybe the tune makes you the big winner.

Josh XT.6053:

I also look at this from a business perspective, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re the customer.

Having 24 servers is expensive, 12 servers is likely half the cost. It is hard to justify having the bottom 2 tiers at all because there was probably a total of 40 people tops a week (between all time zones) on those servers that even entered WvW. From a business stand point, those 40 people aren’t supporting keeping those servers open.

Keep in mind, your $0-$100 you spent to buy the game/expansion doesn’t go too far. Lets say every one of the 40 people paid $100, that is $4000. Now that is enough money to buy a decent server, but it wouldn’t be enough to host it. So basically the lower tier servers are losing money.

Now all of that above is assuming the way that their servers are set up – they may all be hosted on 4 physical servers for all I know, but if each server has its own physical server, that gets expensive quick.

I thought all servers were virtualized clusters these days. If that is how Anet does it, load is more a factor than # of servers. There may be some additional overhead for adding new maps but I suspect the real load comes from active parts of the system … ie the players themselves. IN this case reducing the load of WvW would be to literally get rid of the WvW population. I doubt that is Anets goal.

But I haven’t worked in IT in a long time and have never worked on MMO’s so I could be wrong here.

Josh XT.6053:

If you don’t like where you were paired with, transfer to a lower population server in the bottom tier.

As it currently stands, we have 5 tier 1 servers in NA. Blackgate, Yaks Bend, Jade Quarry, Dragonbrand and Tarnished Coast. The populations of those servers are incredible, and they were already incredible before the world linking. In my opinion, none of those servers should have been linked with another server, but its fine I suppose. I am on Blackgate and I would be fighting queues rather the server linking happened or not.

There were some on those lower tier servers that enjoyed having a lower population because it better fit their play style.

Transferring to a slightly less populated server isn’t going to solve that problem.

Scoring has won the priority poll so lets get the discussion started!

I already posted a long description of a possible scoring mechanism here, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/PPT-less-Scoring-model-Fights-and-Dolyaks/

But I will summarize it here for those that don’t like to be burden with details.

Territorial scoring:

• remove PPT
• Add Points per Capture for non-camp objectives (scaled by Tier.)
• Add Points per Upgrade of all objectives including camps.
• Dolyaks still count as points for successful deliveries and kills.
• Scale successful dolyak deliveries based on Tier of target objective (Optional)

Fight Scoring:

• Lock fight scoring to 40% of total score ( or 66% of Territorial scoring)
• Base the fight score on KDR * kills (Killscore)

To see exactly how fight points would be awarded, check the linked thread.

Post your suggestions below and I will continue to add them to this post.

unconventional options:

• Straegen suggestion appears to be to remove servers scoring altogether and replace it with reward tracks and leader boards.

It does seem that the combination of server linking and moving back to the smaller alpine map has resulted in Blob v Blob.

Silberfederling.9302:

TorquedSoul.8097:

People pulling levers without permission?

This sounds like an organizational issue. Your pugs don’t respect your authority.

Authority? good grief man,

my server even has two TS after the merge, Drama will be Drama and some people allways find a way to fluff stuff up. Not much can be done without strickt rules enforced by gms and 24\7 coverage. Even then, if a net had the resources, what should they enforce what’s good use what’s bad. I think that is something beyond a net’s control, sadly.

BG pugs need a good flogging! This is the only solution.

People pulling levers without permission?

This sounds like an organizational issue. Your pugs don’t respect your authority.

I think anet will be looking at passive scoring since the topic of scoring is winning the public poll.

There are ways to reduce the impact of passive scoring globally without being unfair to any particular timezones.

X T D.6458:

They closed down the JQ thread, and left this crap open?

This thread needs to live on. It is both educational and motivational.

Revel in your victory. It’s ok. You are allowed.

So DB got to tier 1 twice on a 1% chance?

Oh wait, they updated the glicko too. Check the leaderboards.

Chaba.5410:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Chaba.5410:

several servers changed their position in tier.

The matchup colors aren’t the same throughout the week? doh!

I should be able to correct for that.

Each API pull is internally consistent … I hope.

I am guessing you haven’t looked at the match-ups.

I haven’t checked who was what color. I thought that was what you meant when you said the switched positions in the tier.

The API is treating this was the same match that is all I know at this point.

Chaba.5410:

several servers changed their position in tier.

The matchup colors aren’t the same throughout the week? doh!

I should be able to correct for that.

Each API pull is internally consistent … I hope.

Chaba.5410:

Next week’s activity chart is going to be rather interesting since the matches are all reset.

pfft. next weeks activity report may be currently probably broken. I think all the alpine stuff is in the objectives api so it may not matter for this report. I will have to check.

It does look like the score reset though. I wonder what is going to happen to the glicko this week.

Naithe.4271:

Torque, is there any way to check activity by account and location of that account over the last year (server wise)? I assume it’s only ANet that has this info.

One thing that really torques me (yes a pun) is that people assume “mass transfers, ET influencing BG a ton, etc.”

In short, from what I’ve seen is that people are just playing their accounts again. Our SEA guilds picked up (SEPH <3), our OCX picked up, more people on for NA. But it’s the same people that were here a year ago (with some small exceptions with people getting off JQ or YB and some ET people).

Any way to get that detail or not?

I think you meant to post this here in the “how is population calculated” post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-is-server-population-calculated

This thread just presents raw activity data. Try to keep up.

Johje Holan.4607:

Cyanon.1928:

Score, score, score…?

Who gives a kitten who even win?

I’d bet the vast majority of players actually.

Its great to say, “For the fights!”. But honestly there’s got to be some reason to fight to keep it interesting. Without a reason to do something human beings become bored. Even enjoyable things get old without purpose. We need a purpose; and a score and winning provide a purpose.

+1.

How is this not obvious to everyone.

I guess some are content to attribute their fight victories to skill and the fight losses to being outnumbered. Good for the ego, good for the soul.

Blix.8021:

I can’t wait for hours long garri fights, big open field battles, and a map that isn’t labyrinthine and filled with gimmicks.

Dumbed down for mass consumption. woohoo.