jul.7602

I've had some ping issues, and noticed some strange connectivity issues during the beta. Although I cannot say for sure that its due to the beta, or the fact that everyone is just running blobbier than usual.

It's not a low bar. Seven pines is literally a alliance full of pvp guilds, and the other servers are just getting farmed day in day out. KDR is a landslide and people are realizing how dumb of an idea this was.

Well. To those who thought that you couldn't stack alliances. Look at Seven pines. Massive PvP alliance steamrolling servers in both of their match ups. KDR differential is worse than Maguuma.

That's why we are conditioning the probability of winning on all variables besides skill. In other words, if Skill1>skill2 P(player 1 beating player 2)=100%

Nothing really changed. Indo is still blobbing EBG. Mag is still trying to cloud. Pugs are still getting destroyed boonblobs. Pugmanding is dead and most builds suck against the meta builds. People will still find a way to cheat the alliance system (despite people insisting that they can stop this). Alliances wont have any material effect in the day to operations. All pointless I'm afraid.

It's a good laymans definition of what balance could be. It's not a definition or any type of workable hypothesis as Chaba incorrectly suggests.

Your original quote claimed to be an authoritative definition of balance (which there isn't one btw, because balance is not a mathematical term, it is a subjective term based on how we think a victor should be determined). I clearly identified which parts of his definition were lacking using mathematics. I'm sure Sirlin probably has thought of a more rigorous definition, but you haven't cited it. That's not his fault, but rather your fault for not understanding and comprehending what he is trying to convey. For instance, I get the feeling that you still dont' quite grasp why its necessary to use technical language when your trying to set up a statistical experiment. The term "reasonably large options" can arguably be quantified in a game like street fighter. We can say that the options, or in other words sample space (notice how I use the mathematically precise definition) is the set of possible character match ups. (Lets also note that we changed our definition. We just went from reasonably large, to "all possible character match ups/entire sample space". You can easily represent this with a square-matrix like figure. In a Guild Wars 2 fight, what on earth is an option in this context? You have to define the sample space before you can even talk about probability, let alone do some sort of statistical analysis. Let's be generous Chaba, and say that the we can at least define an option as the build that you bring to a fight. Okay well just how many builds are there in GW2? Almost an uncountable number of them. When we have multiple players in a fight, maybe an even better definition is the comps that you can bring to the fight. Okay so what a comp and how can we define the sample space of comps? A comp is basically a permutation of builds, which we already established is basically uncountable. So now our "options" are an uncountable permutation of uncountable builds. See this is why you need to understand your source as well when you cite it. You can't just copy and paste his layman definition of balance and expect it to make any sense in GW2. There are a discrete number of match ups in street fighter. There are nigh infinite number of builds in SC2 and GW2 so incorporating "reasonably large option" into your hypothetical definition of balance is a nightmare. I could go on and on about why your definition and source doesn't make any sense here.

You only quoted his definition, and the link you provided doesn't give any detail about statistical tool. Not that it matters because, as I said his first definition is untestable. The statisticians who are probably designing such tools are using much more detailed, and technical language because as I said before, its impossible to test his definition.

Because mathematics is better than anybody else's opinion. i can assure you nobody is using the definition you provided for any statistical analysis, because the definition is you provided is not scientifically testable. It's literally impossible to test the following statement :"A multiplayer game is balanced if a reasonably large number of options available to the player are viable". In order for that definition to be testable you have to be able rigorously define and quantify each parameter. For the 2nd paragraph you are obfuscating the difference between mathematically fair, and something that is balanced. If the sample space has a dimension of two, and the the probability of each event is 50%, then it is mathematically fair. When it comes to balance, you have to bake in some additional assumptions. In combat, we're not necessarily looking for each fight to be mathematically fair, because no such fair fights really exist. There is presumably always going to be a difference in skill level, and we assume that those that are trying to balance the game want the victor to be the person with the highest skill. In mathematical terms I would express that as: The probability that person 1 defeats person 2, given person 1 has higher skill than person 2, is 100%.

A source can be wrong or incoherent. It's more important to understood what is being sourcing, what they are trying to convey, and why. I've stated the glaring issues in his definition. It attempts to define balance, by introducing vague/subjective terms that nobody can ever quantify or agree upon. His definition is quite literally untestable, because nobody can every falsify what my opinion on what is the 'correct' answer for any of the definitions he uses. What constitutes viability in GW2? You'll get probably a hundred different answers. Tempest and druid were viable healers, but most would also say tempest is very favored druid. What constitutes an option? Are we talking about builds or comps or gear? What is considered reasonably large? Are we talking about the percentage of builds in existence that are viable, or just the absolute number of viable builds. I could go on and on. But nothing in the way he defines balance is authoritative, or let alone even testable. Nobody could parse his definition without going through an even worse rabbit hole of trying to agree on the above terms. It's a useless definition. I could cite David Kim, one of the balance devs of SC2. He looked at multiple metrics, but in general looked more closely at win rates and race-representation in tournaments because they are objective and measurable. If all the respective non-mirror match winrates are close to 50%, and the r04 bracket of a tournament has at least one of each race, he would conclude the game is relatively balanced. His definition is more or less the same as mine, and unlike Sirlin, it can be formulated as a testable hypothesis. I can compute the exact winrates and standard deviations for every premier tournaments and reject or fail to reject my hypothesis. I'm applying the definition of a fair event in mathematics to guild wars 2. When you flip a coin, it can be either heads or tails. We say the sample space has a dimension of two. If the probability of each event in the sample space occurring is equally likely, which in this case is 50%, then we say (at least mathematically) it is a fair coin. If there was some sort of environmental factor that made it so that the distribution of heads/tails was different from 0.5, it is no longer a fair coin. In general, there aren't really any obvious environmental factors that would skew the distribution of the coin-toss, so we just leave that out for simplicity. In guild wars 2 we know that there are a long list of variables that affect the probability of defeating an opponent (builds, comps, ect.). That is why I add "conditioned", at the very end. When all environmental factors in GW2 are controlled for, our situation is exactly the same as a coin toss, and we can directly apply the definition. Well, again his definition is scientifically untestable and ambiguous. Sirlin's definition isn't a meaningful definition to begin with so it can be anything you want to be. Now its probably closer. Yes. Early POF was both poorly balanced, and poorly designed. The probability of defeating your opponent was not the same for any given build. It was higher based on the number of scourges you had, so everybody stacked scourges. Yes, the meta today has more options than in other metas, but still suffers from a whole host of design issues. Nothing is contradictory here. I didn't say that either. My definition of balance is based on winrates being equal when all environmental factors are conditioned for.

It's semantics at this point. What you sourced is really just his particular opinion. The definition I wrote was based on the mathematical definition of a fair coin. Which is, given a sample space, every event in that sample space is equally likely. I don't like that he uses "viable", "large", "reasonably", because those terms really don't mean anything concrete anymore and defeats the point of having a clear definition. I also think including "large" is incorrect. In a GW2 fight, the sample space has a dimension of 2. You win the fight, or you lose the fight. If the probability of winning the fight is the same as that of losing the fight, you can say that it was a mathematically fair coin. Same situation. From a PvP perspective, the definition of a balanced fight is not necessarily that each player equally likely to win. It's something along the lines that the controlling for all other aspects besides skill, the probability of the higher skilled player winning is 100%.

Honestly I don't think Anet has any intentions of retaining any type of "server" transfer. That would defeat the whole point of the alliance system because everyone would just bandwagon to the server with the strongest alliances and we'd be back to square one.

The chances that any developer is going to read this is zero, but I think it's something needs to be discussed in detail. Over the last few years I find that Anet has focused too much on fixing symptoms of improper combat balance, as opposed to tackling the root cause: combat design. Yes, there is a difference between combat design and combat balance. Balance is a narrow term describing the mathematical probability of defeating your enemy conditioned on some set of variables. When that probability approaches such that probably of defeating your opponent is the same for any set of build, you can say that the combat is perfectly balanced, conditioned on the choice of build. While that is certainly something to admire, it by no means guarantees that combat is actually engaging and fun for anyone. As an example, during POF beta you had the big red button (Scourge), and the big blue button (Firebrand). One had extreme offensive capability, the other extreme defensive capability, and while they somewhat canceled each other's kittenous abilities the overall game mode during that time was stagnant somewhat infuriating. All it seems that Anet is doing lately is just changing the names on the blue and red button respectively. For a time the big blue button was minstrel scrapper, and the big red button changed between power DH, power rev, back to scourge ect. Granted this meta has a bit more variety but the overall issue of approach remains. I think the biggest design issue right now is accessibility of stability, now made even worse by powercreep and CC spam in the latest expansions. Issue #1: STABILITY Stability is arguably the most important boon in the game, especially in large scale fights and even more so against comped enemies (AKA boonblobs). It is so important for players that I believe Anet has made a combat design mistake by limiting stability to boon applications from a small subset of classes. The Anet approach to this problem would be to slightly lower the CDs of some major stability skills, and I bet that hardly anybody will notice any change. Stability is just about as important as being able to dodgeroll; can you imagine if we needed a boon to be able to execute dodges? That's basically the problem we have here. Every player, regardless of their build/utility needs some baseline access to self-stability. Solution #1: Breakbars Give every player a type of "Breakbar", similar to holding a Dragonbanner but with some key changes. Whilst the breakbar is not depleted, you are immune to all hard CC and immobilization. Other movement impairing conditions such as cripple and chill are unaffected. The only CC that will always bypass the breakbar is daze (to allow for skilled well time interrupts). Once the breakbar is depleted you will become 'broken' and now fully susceptible to CCs. The breakbar will slowly replenish and once it reaches 100% you will no longer be broken. Stability no longer grants CC-immunity. Instead it increases the recovery speed of the breakbar. Solution #2: Give players a new ability called "Sprint" Leave the system as is, but allow players to bind an ability to their keyboard called Sprint. Activating Sprint grants the user superspeed and CC immunity for 6 seconds. The cooldown can be about 25 seconds.

Of course it wont work. Seven pines/stonefall/firsthaven is a typical example of what a bandwagon with alliances would look like. You got one server that has all the pvp guilds, and the other server with practically none and just a bunch of pugs thrown in to get farmed relentlessly.

https://www.shacknews.com/article/126300/guild-wars-2-fall-2021-roadmap-includes-wvw-revamp-beta OFFICIAL Anet advertisement calls the first beta "First World vs World Alliance Beta". It was later essentially used interchangeably on the stream by developers.

Again they are interchangeable at this point. You've lost the narrative. Numerous times this whole thing has been called "Alliance beta" by official Anet representative, and even promotional material. When people say alliances they are referring to all of the stuff that was brought up in that one thread 5-6 years ago. Not having this discussion again.

They are interchangeable.

Thought that I would make a mega-thread where we can discuss our experiences.

It's no secret that T1 was, and probably still is in a terrible state. It was essentially confirmed that T2 was match fixing a tie in order contain the awesomeness of T1 and stop it from dripping into T2. Meanwhile, BG and FA demonstrated their peerless skill by ganging up on Maguuma whom was primarily hobbled by atrociously undermanned link. Big applause to them for correctly identifying when someone is weaker than normal, and choosing exactly and only that time to fight. Those were some great weeks, not having to wait on ques, while additionally purging some of the weaker unqualified pugs from our ranks. That being said, I must admit that things have gotten out of control, anda firm, guiding hand is once again needed to stabilize T1. The police have returned from hiatus, and things will be straightened out in the coming weeks. Rest assured, the culprits have not been forgotten, and will be dealt with accordingly in the greater interest of WvW. BG has wisely chosen to tank to T4 and hide, but their time will come eventually. FA is an entirely different situation however. To be blunt, next week in T1 will be absolutely awful, and FA should hope that T2 doesn't try to match fix again, because its going if so it will be a very long two weeks. I anticipate that they will likely try to 2v1, but now that we have an actual linked server, and people are back from break, a 2v1 will only serve to further deplete their KDR, and open their bloated server even quicker. Best of gaming to all you,

It will be a pleasure to farm the living crap out of DR. Finally rid of them.

Never. Stop talking about it.

As I said countless times before. We will never see alliances. Never. Have fun wasting developer resources and effort on this project, that we all know will never be finished.

Is it cynicism? That's literally what Anet did before they 'revived' alliances? If they did it once, they can do it again.

Sure that's what they say, but its very obvious that Anet isn't serious about finishing alliances. They are stringing this community along.

And what "alts" would those be?