WvW could use dynamic balancing

[Jeydra.4386]

For the past several weeks, Tier 1 on NA has been rather silly in my opinion. Maguuma karma trains Sea of Sorrows during their strong timezones, and Sea of Sorrows returns the favor during Maguuma's weak timezones. The result is something like this screenshot. Red circle are when Maguuma is karma training, and Green circle is when Sea of Sorrows is karma training. (The third server in Tier 1 occasionally win a skirmish but are generally spectators as the two karma trains go past each other.) The result is that although the final scores are relatively close, the individual skirmishes are not, and it is kind of pointless to try to fight the karma trains because their numbers are overwhelming. The best thing to do is play when it is your turn to karma train.

I suspect the populations of Maguuma & Sea of Sorrows are pretty close, but the matchup is still unbalanced because the numerical advantage is overwhelming depending on timezone. Therefore I think what WvW needs is some kind of dynamic population balancing.

If we agree this is a problem (do people generally agree this is a problem? Seems like it, given some of the other threads here) then here are three ideas:

1. There could be a rule that caps the player population (team A) on a map to 130% that of the next-highest server (team B). 30% more is still a large advantage, but not an overpowering one. If more players on team B transfer to the map, then team A can also bring in more players. If team B logs off, then the advantage will be temporarily >30%, but they still can't bring in more players so the number of team A players on that map will eventually drop. This does mean you can't switch maps and zerg an enemy objective with golems while they are figuring out where you went to, however.
2. A variant of the above idea is to cap the player population across all maps. If team A currently has 100 players playing on all four maps, then team B can have at most 130 players playing on all four maps. This opens up the possibility of a crushing numerical advantage on one map and a reverse crushing numerical advantage on another map, if the two teams decide to avoid each other.

These changes would not be easy to implement, but they could be more useful than alliances, since (as far as I can tell) right now there's no mechanism against multiple guilds in the same timezone allying and karma training everyone else during that timezone.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Jeydra.4386

[Solvar.7953]

At a glance, it would seem that this would result in players not actually be able to play in WvW when the other team is not playing - I don't see how it helps anything out, other than add long queues.

It could also create odd incentives for a team to really try and vacate WvW so the other team can't play, and then hop back in (to 130% population of the other side).

This would likely create more problems than it fixes.

 

[Dawdler.8521]

To argue each point:

1) The core idea of open world WvW is escalation of the battle. You see 5 enemies while solo? Call for help and win over them. They bring 10 instead and win over you? Call for more help and win again. They bring 50? You bring 50. And thats how you get WvW. Restricting this to an arbitrary number (well its already restricted to map cap) and letting the lowest number set the pace stunt the gameplay. Not to mention 10 boonball guildies vs 13 randoms will crush the map. The actual number "needed" is sometimes more like 200-300%, not 130%.

2) Same thing.

3) People have suggested it before and its a bad idea because there is no way to tell whether individuals are actually fighting outmanned or not. You'd punish roamers hard because if a zerg comes to the border and AFK for 20m in spawn, players can find themselves fighting against 3x their numbers of "outmanned" players. You'd mess up every 1v1/2v2/etc on the border as soon as outmanned trigger.

Point is, an "even starting field" is a necessary evil of playing the game no matter how it goes after that. Its the same reason sPvP matches start at 5v5, not 7v5 just because one team got a slightly higher ranked player, or any arbitrary number that the game weigh against each individual.

Matchmaking is supposed to be what "balances" this out but monolithic worlds end up in a fixed position eventually because they stack all the players and people dont want to fight them. 

Something something need more random teams with more granularity.

[Gehenna.3625]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

 

1) The core idea of open world WvW is escalation of the battle. You see 5 enemies while solo? Call for help and win over them. They bring 10 instead and win over you? Call for more help and win again. They bring 50? You bring 50. And thats how you get WvW. Restricting this to an arbitrary number (well its already restricted to map cap) and letting the lowest number set the pace stunt the gameplay. Not to mention 10 boonball guildies vs 13 randoms will crush the map. The actual number "needed" is sometimes more like 200-300%, not 130%.

That beggars the question why Anet continues to facilitate and reward things like PPT and tanking.

I mean PPT servers just go around with as big a zerg as they can muster and go around a map until they meet a lot of resistance at which time they go to another map to continue to do the same. This gameplay is also very well-rewarded.

And of course tanking servers drop tiers on purpose so they can dominate lower tier servers and have a good laugh. And that gameplay is also well-rewarded.

If you look at it closely, both these things are about situations where you overwhelm the enemy, so you basically can't lose. It's not about competitive play, but both these things are well-rewarded.

All in all the core idea as you describe it is not being facilitated by Anet. But playing an overwhelming force against a smaller one is being facilitated. Or I should say a superior force against an inferior one. Because if you play an organized group of 10, you can easily destroy a group of 20 randoms. And that's pretty much down to boons. So I'm not sure why you'd compare it 10 vs 13. They can easily take out double their numbers.

[Dawdler.8521]

20 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That beggars the question why Anet continues to facilitate and reward things like PPT and tanking.

I mean PPT servers just go around with as big a zerg as they can muster and go around a map until they meet a lot of resistance at which time they go to another map to continue to do the same. This gameplay is also very well-rewarded.

And of course tanking servers drop tiers on purpose so they can dominate lower tier servers and have a good laugh. And that gameplay is also well-rewarded.

If you look at it closely, both these things are about situations where you overwhelm the enemy, so you basically can't lose. It's not about competitive play, but both these things are well-rewarded.

All in all the core idea as you describe it is not being facilitated by Anet. But playing an overwhelming force against a smaller one is being facilitated. Or I should say a superior force against an inferior one. Because if you play an organized group of 10, you can easily destroy a group of 20 randoms. And that's pretty much down to boons. So I'm not sure why you'd compare it 10 vs 13. They can easily take out double their numbers.

Perhaps you should re-read the OP. He was talking about 30% more in relation to the idea of map restrictions. I was actually talking about how much more is usually needed against an organized boonball.

But also how does Anet facilititate and reward that when people always claim that winning gets you nothing (and in fact many ideas revolve around introducing rewards for that)...

Edited December 28, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Mabi black.1824]

Our matches in the WVW are one week. This inevitably leads us to situations that are always different, sometimes of superiority, sometimes of inferiority, sometimes of balance. It is a feature of our mode. It's not something teams and players need to fix. It's something teams and players need to take advantage of. You will be forced to change your game strategies in reference to the number of players. It's part of the game makes it less obvious and more fun in my opinion.

Of course if your team is outnumbered 24/7 then we are talking about another thing, it is no longer the feature of WVW but a problem of WVW in this case. In fact, Anet has finally decided to work on WWW to solve the mechanics that control server populations, and remove the current transfer logic to prevent players from manipulating matches.

We just have to have a little more patience, but the development with alliances and WR will surely achieve its goal, because the real revolution is not so much alliances, but having the opportunity to rebuild servers from scratch every time, so as to assemble many small pieces. And the result in terms of balance is guaranteed.

That said and going further, even when we have all the servers very similar, to help the competition between the servers, I would prefer a dynamic system that corrects the score that the structures generate over time. I do not want to change the statistics and performance of the players (honestly I would also remove them from the structures as we have now and as Riba often asks).

The gameplay of WW is that your team wins if it gets more points. Kills and structures earn you points. So even with very similar servers, in a 24/7 logic having a dynamic system that corrects the points generated (in reference to the number of online players of the teams for example every 60 minutes) could only increase credibility in terms of competition between servers.

[SweetPotato.7456]

Cannot restrict numbers of players / numbers on map.

 

What Anet can do is make use of the PvE maps. It can be on fortress in any of the Tyria Maps.  You make the  players split themself up. 
I' ve said it a thousand time. (exaggeration) but I said it before, use PvE maps.. 

 

1)assign random pve maps objectives to guilds. 
 

 

once a guild their objective on that map they lost control of said map, they will have to move to ally's objective/ map, until they can find ways to get their map back within the allotted time frame. The more maps a guild and their ally hold the higher they score.  

 

To make the game more fun, don't tell what guild get which maps. let players search for enemies themself, so they have to split up to fight for the map.   If you want to bring your whole guild and ally to fight for maps, you will have to leave your own map empty, and therefore easily taken by enemy. make players want to split up is the best way to balance the population.

I am sure Anet can come up with ways to make players want to split up to fight for they guild and alliance by giving better loots and rewards 

IE at every tick a guild and their alliance hold an objective on their map, they get a reward, the longer they hold the objective the more reward they get. so if you have 3 alliances, you get 3 reward if they hold 3 of their objectives 

 

And this is how i would end the matchup, 
SMC or an appointed "castle" or objective will open up at some point of the match up, this is when everyone will fight for it. the one that wins that castle will become the winner of that matchup and received an abundance of reward. 

 

etc.

Edited December 28, 2022 by SweetPotato.7456

[enkidu.5937]

12 hours ago, Jeydra.4386 said:

The result is that although the final scores are relatively close, the individual skirmishes are not, and it is kind of pointless to try to fight the karma trains because their numbers are overwhelming. The best thing to do is play when it is your turn to karma train.

 

I suspect the populations of Maguuma & Sea of Sorrows are pretty close, but the matchup is still unbalanced because the numerical advantage is overwhelming depending on timezone.

Sounds like the real beta for world restructuring in advance. 😗

 

12 hours ago, Jeydra.4386 said:

If we agree this is a problem (do people generally agree this is a problem? Seems like it, given some of the other threads here) then here are three ideas:

Lets say:

Team A = 150 ppl

Team B = 90 ppl

Team C = 60 ppl

 

Imo it's not a problem, if team B and C would unite vs. the stacked team A. Then it would be 150 ppl vs. 150 ppl. So the real problem imo is that team A and B unite vs. team C.

 

The easiest way imo is to adjust the invulnerability time of the lord after an object was flipped.

Team A = 150 ppl  -> 5 min

Team B = 90 ppl     -> 10 min

Team C = 60 ppl     -> 15 min

 

This might also help at nighttime, when all teams are low in numbers. Those few players would inevitably have to focus (offensive and defensive) on the few objects that are flipable atm.

[Svarty.8019]

14 hours ago, Jeydra.4386 said:

For the past several weeks, Tier 1 on NA has been rather silly in my opinion. Maguuma karma trains Sea of Sorrows during their strong timezones, and Sea of Sorrows returns the favor during Maguuma's weak timezones. The result is something like this screenshot. Red circle are when Maguuma is karma training, and Green circle is when Sea of Sorrows is karma training. (The third server in Tier 1 occasionally win a skirmish but are generally spectators as the two karma trains go past each other.) The result is that although the final scores are relatively close, the individual skirmishes are not, and it is kind of pointless to try to fight the karma trains because their numbers are overwhelming. The best thing to do is play when it is your turn to karma train.

I suspect the populations of Maguuma & Sea of Sorrows are pretty close, but the matchup is still unbalanced because the numerical advantage is overwhelming depending on timezone. Therefore I think what WvW needs is some kind of dynamic population balancing.

If we agree this is a problem (do people generally agree this is a problem? Seems like it, given some of the other threads here) then here are three ideas:

1. There could be a rule that caps the player population (team A) on a map to 130% that of the next-highest server (team B). 30% more is still a large advantage, but not an overpowering one. If more players on team B transfer to the map, then team A can also bring in more players. If team B logs off, then the advantage will be temporarily >30%, but they still can't bring in more players so the number of team A players on that map will eventually drop. This does mean you can't switch maps and zerg an enemy objective with golems while they are figuring out where you went to, however.
2. A variant of the above idea is to cap the player population across all maps. If team A currently has 100 players playing on all four maps, then team B can have at most 130 players playing on all four maps. This opens up the possibility of a crushing numerical advantage on one map and a reverse crushing numerical advantage on another map, if the two teams decide to avoid each other.
3. Alternatively, give some strong bonuses to a server based on how many more enemy players there are at the time. For example should team A have X% more players than team B on the map, then team B's players get a buff that increases their stats by Y% when they are within a friendly objective. Team B can still defend their objectives, although they won't be able to go on the offensive. Another possibility is to give team B a buff whenever they lose one of their "most important" objectives (e.g. their Garrison, EB keep). I am intuitively a bit skeptical of this option because increased stats can make players one-shot another (e.g. Soulbeast Rapid Fire is already huge, add on the buff on top and one can down instantly).

These changes would not be easy to implement, but they could be more useful than alliances, since (as far as I can tell) right now there's no mechanism against multiple guilds in the same timezone allying and karma training everyone else during that timezone.

Raymond hates the idea so the players can't have it. No matter how much of your stooopid "logic", "common sense" and "rational thought" you spout.

 

  

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Perhaps you should re-read the OP. He was talking about 30% more in relation to the idea of map restrictions. I was actually talking about how much more is usually needed against an organized boonball.

But also how does Anet facilititate and reward that when people always claim that winning gets you nothing (and in fact many ideas revolve around introducing rewards for that)...

I wonder how many WvW players just don't have any goals. We simple WvW folk don't want for much. We did a few legendaries, we did a few ascended weapons... what we don't have, we can make, should we need to. 

Unless new mechanics are to be added, rewards don't seem like much of a motivator. Is this just me?

Edited December 28, 2022 by Svarty.8019

[Gehenna.3625]

12 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Perhaps you should re-read the OP. He was talking about 30% more in relation to the idea of map restrictions. I was actually talking about how much more is usually needed against an organized boonball.

I prefer saying it as it is rather than what is presented initially. But you do you.

12 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

But also how does Anet facilititate and reward that when people always claim that winning gets you nothing (and in fact many ideas revolve around introducing rewards for that)...

I'm talking about ranks and pips. The more pips you get every 5 mins, the faster it is to get wvw tickets. Gaining ranks and pips faster is definitely rewarding in that sense. For me it means less time to get my wvw tickets every week, so I can focus on other things. I see that as a reward. It also means that you are more effective in WvW, because of the specific WvW abilities that you can put points in with ranks.

Sure, at some point that's not rewarding anymore but I'm not there yet and many others aren't either. New players will have a lot easier time on dominating servers. But what about the other servers? Players have a much different experience because of it and it really detracts from the WvW experience to have one server dominate the other two all week.

But it definitely pays to be a dominating server because it gives a much easier experience especially for new players or people that still have lower ranks and aren't done yet with their legendary items...and sad as it may be, a lot of people really get a kick out of dominating other servers. 

It may not be the rewards that some players seek, especially long-time WvW players but that doesn't mean it doesn't pay to dominate. 

 

 

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

just remove WvW and let people karma train in EotM.

[Jeydra.4386]

 

 

23 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

At a glance, it would seem that this would result in players not actually be able to play in WvW when the other team is not playing - I don't see how it helps anything out, other than add long queues.

It could also create odd incentives for a team to really try and vacate WvW so the other team can't play, and then hop back in (to 130% population of the other side).

This would likely create more problems than it fixes.

 

Maps can already be queued, which also stops players from WvW-ing. I don't see how this is different. I also don't see how you can "vacate WvW so the other team can't play, and then hop back in", because once you hop back in the other team can play.

 

 

11 hours ago, enkidu.5937 said:

Lets say:

Team A = 150 ppl

Team B = 90 ppl

Team C = 60 ppl

 

Imo it's not a problem, if team B and C would unite vs. the stacked team A. Then it would be 150 ppl vs. 150 ppl. So the real problem imo is that team A and B unite vs. team C.

The problem with this is that you can't magically combine team B and team C into one team. They will always at least "friendly fire" each other.

Furthermore, what's likely to happen is that team B hits one objective while team C hits another objective. Team A responds with ~120 players and flattens team B while their remaining ~30 players stall team C. Afterwards the ~120 team A players go and flatten team C. After a while, team B and team C realize that they're just dying whenever they try to do something, and stop. 

 

21 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

To argue each point:

1) The core idea of open world WvW is escalation of the battle. You see 5 enemies while solo? Call for help and win over them. They bring 10 instead and win over you? Call for more help and win again. They bring 50? You bring 50. And thats how you get WvW. Restricting this to an arbitrary number (well its already restricted to map cap) and letting the lowest number set the pace stunt the gameplay. Not to mention 10 boonball guildies vs 13 randoms will crush the map. The actual number "needed" is sometimes more like 200-300%, not 130%.

 

You can only call for help when you have players available to respond. Not always possible, as you can see from SoS and Maguuma karma training each other during the other's weak timezones.

10 boonball guildies vs 13 randoms will crush the map, but not as badly as 30 boonball guildies vs 13 randoms.

[Mabi black.1824]

16 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Unless new mechanics are to be added, rewards don't seem like much of a motivator. Is this just me?

I completely agree with you, weapons, armor etc etc are just the outline. If you really want to stimulate the PvP player you have to give him a ranking to climb, a tournament to participate in, teams with similar flows, so that winning a game becomes challenging, giving meaning to winning. Even a nice prize, unique in its kind to the teams that win helps, for many players could become a long-term goal

Edited December 29, 2022 by Mabi black.1824

[kash.9213]

23 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Raymond hates the idea so the players can't have it. No matter how much of your stooopid "logic", "common sense" and "rational thought" you spout.

I wonder how many WvW players just don't have any goals. We simple WvW folk don't want for much. We did a few legendaries, we did a few ascended weapons... what we don't have, we can make, should we need to. 

Unless new mechanics are to be added, rewards don't seem like much of a motivator. Is this just me?

I have no care for filling my bags really for a couple of related reasons.

I only need to be able to keep buying stuff for a couple of different ascended foods. Apart from skins I want once in a while, I just don't care.

I just don't care largely because WvW is cut off from the rest of the game. The best parts of the game are wandering around the world taking it all in on foot or on mounts and then large scale, mostly persistent moving fights in WvW. It's frustrating that those two aspects don't connect.

I don't bother with pve apart from keeping up on story stuff and expansions. I'd love to because there's a lot of great art and effort in this game, but I only get an hour or so after work most days and while WvW just doesn't offer that lived in quality, it's consistent and I like vibing with the people in this mode just a little more. 

WvW needs a lived in quality but that can't really happen being a mode apart. Time in one mode shouldn't weight so heavily as time taken away from another. 

Edited December 29, 2022 by kash.9213

[Sviel.7493]

On the upside, this solution would force rough short-term population balance.  However, it comes at too great a cost when we look at what the best strategies become.

 

Say all servers clash on reset night and Server A pulls ahead as they have more people in that timezone.  Even if they're restricted to 130% of their opponents, that extra 30% is a lot of people since overall activity is very high.  As the night goes on, they see that Server B's primetime is coming up.  They end their guild raids to bring overall activity down and now play defense with 10 people versus 13 while Server B languishes in queue.  Obviously, they're going to be very successful.  Over the course of the week, the score grows lopsided while far fewer people than now actually get to play the game.

 

Granted, vacating the map to such an extent would be hard, but that provides an incentive for these hardcore groups to harass allies off of the map in the name of the server's success.  If you can't field massive numbers 24/7, this is the way to min/max your odds of victory.

 

While this would help in a major WvW problem, it seems to introduce several other problems of equal or greater magnitude.  I think a healthier approach would be to give players more agency to function when outnumbered so they have some reason to play outside of their server's primetime.  This would both smooth the population curves and curb runaway karma training.

[Jeydra.4386]

10 hours ago, Sviel.7493 said:

Say all servers clash on reset night and Server A pulls ahead as they have more people in that timezone.  Even if they're restricted to 130% of their opponents, that extra 30% is a lot of people since overall activity is very high.  As the night goes on, they see that Server B's primetime is coming up.  They end their guild raids to bring overall activity down and now play defense with 10 people versus 13 while Server B languishes in queue.  Obviously, they're going to be very successful.  Over the course of the week, the score grows lopsided while far fewer people than now actually get to play the game

I dunno about your experience, but in mine, Server A is going to end their guild raids anyway. That's because 1) it's no longer their prime time, they want to log off and do something else / sleep, and 2) if they don't, then they start losing fights. Getting crushed by 40 people with 20 is not very fun, even for so-called "fight guilds". And while it's possible you can fight 40 disorganized players with 20 organized ones, you still can't fight 40 organized players with 20 organized ones. Once Server A lose several fights, that's when they decide to do something else. Finally I've also seen people say they're not tagging up because they're currently outnumbered and it's pointless.

 

If people are concerned they are not able to play the game, there is always transferring, which current queue mechanics already encourage.

[Jeydra.4386]

Bump.

Events like the Alliance beta increasingly convince me that this is the solution. If there are only 10 enemy players, you should not be able to play with a 40-man zerg; you should simply be put into a map queue. Lowering the rewards you get for karma training doesn't stop people from karma training because what else are they supposed to do when they so heavily outnumber their enemies.

The exact number of players permissible should be fine-tuned. I am not sure if this number should be single-map or across all four maps, as well. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, Jeydra.4386 said:

Bump.

Events like the Alliance beta increasingly convince me that this is the solution. If there are only 10 enemy players, you should not be able to play with a 40-man zerg; you should simply be put into a map queue. Lowering the rewards you get for karma training doesn't stop people from karma training because what else are they supposed to do when they so heavily outnumber their enemies.

The exact number of players permissible should be fine-tuned. I am not sure if this number should be single-map or across all four maps, as well. 

I don't think this would work. A legit strategy in this system would be for a server to gain the lead and then tell everyone to stay out of WvW so they could limit players from other server to get on to play. You don't want to create situations where players tell other players to not play. That makes no sense.

The point of the WR is to address exactly what they are trying to impact. The issue you are seeing is coverage. That I admit is not part of the system which is a valid issue. Some people will say the game is just designed around large scale play. Anyone that has faced numbers imbalance will say that's where roaming and havocs come in to counter lopsided numbers. The best way to face a zerg is to hit them where they are not so that you remove their options to just run you over. 

Outnumbered....again.... 🙂 Were there pip hunters yes, did it help in times like this to draw more to a map though it might be a lost cause, yes.

[Solvar.7953]

If low population of one server limits the number of other servers that can play, I would expect to see chats like this:

'Everyone get out of green borderlands so are 10 good players can defend everything'

'Screw you - I'm here for my daily/GoB/whatever'

So you would add more toxicity - not just between opponents, but within teams now.

 

[Ronin.4501]

You do realize if a system like this were implemented every server that faced Mag would just sit out the week (like they already do to some extent) and ensure that Mag and their link had queues in the hundreds when they can only get 10 players into EBG. I mean sure, it'd be hilarious...but it's never going to happen.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Ronin.4501