The staleness of extemity tiers

[SpoopyGhost.2364]

I’d like to take everyone’s time for a bit and have you all to read a concotion of verbal diarrhea I am about to write. The topic I would like to start discussion on is the staleness of the extremity tiers caused by the tier system. I’d say I support the tier system, yet I do think it does need change to address the issue – one way or the other.

 

 

One up, one down

 

As most of us know, the tier system divides regions into 5 or 4 tiers where 3 servers duke it out between one another. The system also includes „one up, one down“ system where the winner goes up a tier and the loser goes down. This system works fine when we’re discussing tiers 2, 3, and in case of EU, tier 4. However, once we get to the top and bottom of the tier system, the „one up, one down“ becomes either „one up“ in T5(T4) or „one down“ T1. One could ask, why is this a problem? Well, the primary issue is that servers, that are in any of the extremity tiers, usually have to face the same server multiple weeks in a row, with very little variety. Quite often the server populations tend to get either fed up or bored of the matchup(referring as MU from now on). That in turn leads to people leaving the server for greener pastures or just plain stop playing outside of raids. There is a reason, why the tiers between the extremities are considered the sweet spot, as each week you get new enemies. So even if, by average, you fight the same servers multiple times during the 8 week period, it at the very least gives the illusion of a fresh MU.

 

 

Linking system

 

What aggrevates the above mentioned issue is the linking system, where at least according to ArenaNet themselves, the population inbalance between servers links (host + links is meant in this case) can be as large as 50%. That by itself means that the larger the link, the more likely it is to float up towards T1 and leaving the less populated links sinking down to the lower tiers where they are likely to stay. Much like cream rises to the top in milk. In EU, there are 27 servers, 5 tiers – that means 12 servers will get a link, 3 will not. Currently, that is 17th of november, the servers without a link in EU are Riverside, Gandara and Baruch Bay, 2 of which are in T5(Riverside, Gandara) and one is in T4(Baruch Bay). If the T5 and T4 positions will stay as they are, the next MU in T5 is going to be all linkless servers. While one of them would be bound to break free of T5, it would most likely be so only momentarily. Often the servers from T5 swap between T5 and T4, very rarely going higher than that.

 

 

The point I am trying to make

 

So, the point I am trying to make with my rambling is that the extremity tiers need to be ruffled up a bit in the middle of the 8 week period, much like during the relink week, where servers are assigned the tier randomly. Perhaps even more so, than during relinking – otherwise the weaker/low population servers will still end up in T5 and the overpopulated/stronger servers end up at T1. Not quite  While it does not really solve the population issue, it will take time for servers to consolidate the tiers once more. The population issue from the linking system is not solvable without alliances, as players tend to flock to servers which are perceived as strong at current time and place. It will inherently lead to unbalance in the population system.

 

 

 

So, won’t bother writing much more. Would like to know opinions. I will say, just in-case, that this is just my view on things, and some of those views may be incorrect or I may misinterpret.

[Mabi black.1824]

I believe that everyone here can agree with you on the observations of the current linking system.

my advice is to take it easy and have as much fun as possible.

as well as wishing good luck and good work to the developers of anet for the new system coming of alliances.

will surely solve this aspect...... probably creating some other problem that will correct itself over time.

[subversiontwo.7501]

You realize what you describe is everything we have known ever since the game came out - and - it is everything Alliances sets out to solve, right?

I mean, even Relinking. We figured out almost immidiately this is how that  system works and this is where it ends up. The issue is not that Relinking did not do what it was supposed to do. The issue is that Relinking was not built to still exist. It was not meant to exist now. Alliances were meant to be here already. Relinks were built because they fubbled whatever incarnation of "Alliances" built after EotM. Even EotM is a testbed for an incarnation of "Alliances" (ie., an alternative to servers). In the very announcement for Relinks, Alliances as we know them now are described as the system they wanted to do longer term. Relinking is completely pointles to talk about when they have been working on various ways to replace servers since like 2013. Or as I like to describe it, Alliances is formally known as World Restructuring. Megaservers that came out in 2014 were also formally known as World Restructuring. This is WVW being left 7-8 years behind PvE because they do not spend development resources on it.

Being the ray of sunshine that I am, I went ahead and pulled some of the sources up for your convenience:

Quote

WvW’s Big Update
As our competitive game director John Corpening discussed, we’re currently working on a large-scale overhaul to WvW that helps deal with core issues like population balance, scoring, rewards, and the need for 24-hour coverage.

Quote

Transcript of the statement that John Corpening, game director for World vs. World, made at the beginning of the World vs. World Desert Borderlands Invitational:

"As work on Heart of Thorns wraps up, we’ll be treating resolving the remaining core areas in WvW as our #1 live development feature priority for the game to ensure we deliver on making World vs. World not just the great experience it is today *- but the incredible experience we know it can be. As this effort ramps up you will be hearing more from us about the work in progress." https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/hot/Colin-s-Blog-Today

Does this, from Q1 2016, seem similar to what Grouch says now in 2021? Does this in 2016 seem similar to what Alliances sets out to, maybe, achieve in 2022? Do they say anything about the problems we face in WvW today?

Since I'm on a roll being such a positive influence, here is the 2016 AMA where they pretty much tell us about "2015 Alliances" getting dumped and what leads up to Relinking. It's also the source of several of the SCW comments about WvW's back-end, why it's clunky, why maps are difficult etc. All the "legacy" hoot going on in the Alliance beta subsection now. The thread as a whole is a good read for transparency, communication and interesting bits and pieces for WvW. Even the things not said about WvW is interesting because the amount of questions about WvW says something about its interest and standing while the type and amount of replies says something about the effort.

A sharp student of time will note that the State of the Game post was made around jan 12th, the AMA was around march 4th, the Relink beta sometime in april and the design leads pulled to PvE in june. So they made relinks in ... one month? Three months at most, talking about its challenges. Then the team was sent to PvE.

Edited November 17, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Xenesis.6389]

Only problem I have with the system these days is the big groups of players who are slumming it down in the lower tiers, they won't ppt because they prefer to blob down the other lower tier servers with their numbers for easy bags. The points system is always going to be unbalanced garbage in this large scale setting that is littered with variables to do so.

 

We had a semi random system once upon a time, but even that was stale and would end up with repeat matches often, and eventually it grew walls between ratings and servers would get stuck in the top or bottom tiers. BG JQ TC for the longest time in T1.

 

At this point, with alliances supposedly going to help fix population issues (but not all), and they've mentioned maybe looking into tournaments again after. It's probably best to move on to a new seasonal system for matches, maybe, hopefully, in the format of the old tournament system, where matches were set over a number of weeks with servers set up against other at least once, get rid of rng once and for all. But this time with a 2% not a 50% difference in populations.

[CrimsonRise.7650]

Apparently we have two full servers in the EU too, not including SFR, who should have the highest activity as of now. Last week was also a bonus week, yet I haven't seen as many queues as the previous links, just lots of clouds, when we were also anticipating the first alliance beta.

It is how it is, with how the population algorithm works, but T1 with just one server going down and usually the same servers coming up, is just the worst. You have the stacked fight servers, who fight each other every other week, otherwise they usually complain about the national servers and other servers like Piken, so they usually go to eotm , even though they miss out on open field fights, but at least they get some variation.

At least we get New links every two months, but we've seen the same links happen at this point and we still have 5 tiers in the EU.

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by CrimsonNeonite.1048

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

13 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Only problem I have with the system these days is the big groups of players who are slumming it down in the lower tiers, they won't ppt because they prefer to blob down the other lower tier servers with their numbers for easy bags. The points system is always going to be unbalanced garbage in this large scale setting that is littered with variables to do so.

 

We had a semi random system once upon a time, but even that was stale and would end up with repeat matches often, and eventually it grew walls between ratings and servers would get stuck in the top or bottom tiers. BG JQ TC for the longest time in T1.

 

At this point, with alliances supposedly going to help fix population issues (but not all), and they've mentioned maybe looking into tournaments again after. It's probably best to move on to a new seasonal system for matches, maybe, hopefully, in the format of the old tournament system, where matches were set over a number of weeks with servers set up against other at least once, get rid of rng once and for all. But this time with a 2% not a 50% difference in populations.

One thing Alliances will help fix for sure, and bring alot of players back to the game, is the burnout that made many veterans quit the game because those never ending matchups like you mention. I was on JQ at that time, but I also remember later a FA/TC/Mag matchup that lasted years with only  small breaks, to the point where when that matchup comes around again, most of the players just log off because it literally makes them sick.

[GoldenPants.1870]

17 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

BG JQ TC for the longest time in T1.

Please get me out of here, I don’t want to face BG and JQ/SoS any longer now, it has gone on for months.