Alternative to Alliances - Static Server Pairing

[Hesione.9412]

5 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I'm not obligated to answer any of your questions.

I'm interested in explaining the suggestion I made, for you, the suggestion you had reservations with and called ... mean.

As far as the suggested scoring system goes, it only has two variables:

A) Do you have sufficient players to fight? The system provides world score regardless if you are OCX, NA or EU.

B) Do you not have sufficient players to fight? The system does not provide world score regardless if you are OCX, NA or EU.

If that means you need to break up your 300-man OCX PPT guild or not is not really of my concern.

You said:

 

38 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

1. So if you want to impact score as an aussie in NA or as a french-canadian in EU? Well, make sure you play against other aussies and canadians, not disproportionally distributed with them. If you want to impact score that is your choice. If you just want friends at your play hours, be prepared to play on score-frozen maps. It's on you.

 

I've asked you four questions related to that. You can't or won't answer my questions, you just want to punish people who play during OCX hours because... we live in OCX timezones.

[subversiontwo.7501]

21 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

You can't or won't answer my questions.

Well, considering that you qouted a post of mine that basically says "I won't answer your questions". That would have been rather easy to figure out.

However, since you are insistant and I have a couple of more minutes before bed. Let me change my decision and do answer your questions. Here goes.

44 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

How many guilds do you think run large during OCX/SEA?

How am I or my guildmates supposed to prevent server bandwaggoning?

How are OCX people ruining the score? Exactly how many skirmishes do you think are in OCX time compared to NA?

I did read the post. It's mean.

I have no idea how many guilds run during OCX/SEA whether the are large or not. It's not really relevant. What I do know is that there are 51 servers in GW2 under the existing system and I would hazard a guess that there are more than 51 OCX/SEA players. In fact, I would be as brash as to assume that there are more than 510 OCX/SEA players that would allow you to create 10-man guilds on every server if you wanted to. What you decide to do from there is up to you, but if that decision is to overly stack few servers the system would indeed "punish you" as that is the intent of the system: To discourage such stacking whether you play in OCX, NA or EU and whether the total playerbase in a timezone is 510 players or 51000 players.

That brings us into the second question. The point of the suggestion is to prevent bandwagoning for score in such a manner. Hopefully the system solves that for you by discouraging the other players to move after you. Otherwise you move. That's what we do in NA and EU so expecting no different from OCX isn't mean. The Alliance/WR will make it easier to move. Again, the suggestion is there to discourage bandwagoning for score. That's the point of it.

Your third question is a strawman. The qoute does not say that OCX people ruins score. It says minorities shouldn't stack to ruin score for everyone. People stacking to PPT coverage holes ruins score for everyone. That goes for OCX same is it does for NA, EU or players that simply have jobs that keep them up at night. Score should be rewarded when sides are relatively balanced.

Your fourth question is also irrelevant. I would assume most people sleep 8 hours at night and work or go to school for another 8 hours. Totalling 16 hours as typical off-hours for the majority of a region and 8 hours as prime time for the majority of a region. I would expect nothing different from OCX than NA or EU regarding an 8-hour prime. The question is simply what kind of stacking-behaviour goes on in your 8-hour window. In this you can also include players who are extremely active and play up to 16 hours a day. The system will then, as intended, cap off how much impact they can have if they stack very active players togther and play into coverage holes of opponents.

Hopefully, you see why I didn't want to answer your questions at first, because quite frankly, they are mostly irrelevant and it just takes extra time while being all the more likely to make you feel like someone is being mean to you.

[blp.3489]

1 hour ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

How do we balance score on a multi-map system like that? Only let relatively balanced maps generate world score across all three sides. It is a scoring-system fix.

The following is mostly rambling out loud as I think about this.

Since this seems like a simple (at least partial) solution I wonder if the concept could work with the existing maps?  I guess at minimum you need to know how many players each side has on a map, and if that was publicly available we wouldn't have to guess what the map caps are, so I guess it isn't something that could be implemented without Anet's help.  Which is too bad because if you could implement it externally and prove it works Anet would be much more likely to adopt it.  They probably don't want to make their player population public but perhaps they could provide access to one or a few matchups?

I assume that the non-scoring maps would still be accessible and you could capture objectives even if you wouldn't get score for taking or holding them?  So one side could take all the objectives on a map and be holding them when the map becomes active again.

If the current reward systems were kept it would create ideal grounds for zergs going around empty maps earning rewards but not score.  Not sure if that is a big concern as long as the people who want to PVP are concentrated together on the more balanced maps and that is where scoring is determined.

What are the criteria for declaring a map inactive?  Do you need sufficient players from all three sides or just two?  If all three then one side could deny the other two sides scoring by staying off the map.  In the extreme if one side was all players in one time zone they could potentially halt all scoring outside of their chosen hours if they wanted to, which seems undesirable.  So lets go with scoring is counted as long as there are two sides with sufficient numbers on the map.  An obvious strategy for scoring purposes would be to concentrate your players on as few maps as possible, with the potential for small groups to go to the other maps to capture objectives, either to earn capture rewards or to set up for the next shift. 

All sides concentrating their players on the same maps would be the ideal.  If the system was effective in concentrating the players on the same maps you could potentially increase the number of servers/teams with the aim of always having at least one well populated map and the unoccupied maps would act as a buffer for player number variation, thereby reducing queueing.

I don't know whether it would actually work or not.  There is the potential for just endless ktrains running around empty maps and I'm unsure if that is a problem or even the extent to which that is already happening.  Would players that want to PVP at various scales really concentrate themselves on a subset of the maps?  What percent of the current population are "true PVP" players?

And would anybody really care about the score any more than they do now?  Would players that couldn't fit on the maps that are scored care?

 

[Hesione.9412]

3 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I have no idea how many guilds run during OCX/SEA whether the are large or not.
 

Yep.

Edited to add: you changed the OCX part of your earlier post to NA. Which has promulgated through my quotes because the quotes update if a person does a later edit. It was a core part of why I replied to you.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Hesione.9412
The person changed the meaning of their post that I originally replied to

[joneirikb.7506]

On 9/30/2023 at 12:07 AM, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I'm hopping into the thread out of the blue now and just quoting you for a hook in, so I may miss some things that have been said, but this felt like a good place to start.

Uh-oh, now I actually have to pay attention to what I say! 😉

But anyway, the thread is rather fraying and not very coherent. My post there was in reply to a single post talking about making a dedicated "Structured WvW" sort of, so those two posts are the only ones talking about that in the entire thread. (And mine was a rambling mess)

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Competitive:

Just to clarify my personal view on "competitive" in this case. I believe that a "competitive game/mode" is one that creates as fair a chance for both teams, and rewards skill and organisation first and fore most. So I'd consider sPVP to be a "competitive mode" (set team size, set time duration, rewards skill and organisation). Where I consider WvW to be more of a casual pvp mode, you compete against other players, but the format itself puts focus on numbers, coverage, and basically avoiding fair fights as much as possible. Like that video about the soccer team that just puts 200+ players on the field.

It's a bit of a narrow definition, as the word "competitive" can be used in a lot of situations. Like for example anything in which you compete against another human being, like Yatzee, but I don't consider Yatzee to be a "competitive game", rather I consider it a game with some elements of competition. To be completely honest/fair, it would be better to find another word to use to describe this, but it's generally the word most people know/use, so kind of been stuck with it.

I do think that players can make their own fun and competitive activities in the mode, like Duels and GVG etc. But I personally don't think the game mode itself is built toward or encourages it, which is what separates it in my mind.

That said, I do think that's part of WvW's charm, that it isn't this full blown "Competitive mode". It's a large part of what I've enjoyed in WvW, that it's a casual sandbox open world pvp, similar to what Open World is for PVE compared to the Instanced/Structured content.

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Improvements for EotM map:

What would be needed to make EotM into a decent/good map? Not talking perfect here, but enough that it won't turn a lot of people off?

I'd expect at minimum:

* PIPS (Obviously, rewards draws players)
* Mount/Glider (QoL, expected mechanics)

Another point would be the bottomless fall off the sides. Glider might solve some of that, by letting you glide to some of the lower underground passages, so you can walk up again. Another option I've seen mentioned is put water at the bottom, so you can swim back to the bottom areas.

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(unleash the Valheim)

Ugh, you're almost tempting me to fire up Valheim again! >_<

Personally suspect that adding even a simplistic building system to the game, especially with multiple players at the same time, likely will get very complicated very quickly. It certainly would be interesting, but something I feel is beyond the scope of what they're ever going to do with WvW.

(Might make another reply about this topic later, when I got more brain juice to spare)

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I'll have to come back and re-read and reply to more of your post later. Interesting stuff as usual.

[joneirikb.7506]

On 9/30/2023 at 12:07 AM, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Player-events simply needs a robust system to let players hold them. Here the problem is more of a classic ArenaNet problem where there are multiple attempts at such systems, none of which have been robust enough and none of which have seen sufficient development. Like I've alluded to in recent posts of mine: I think that problem is not that difficult to fix either and could easily be done with existing tech (and mode-wide positive improvements) instead of trying to reinvent the wheels. The mechanics we have that governs access to structures are in many cases far more robust than any other attempts of keeping players on the right. These things are best solved by a back-to-basics approach that gives players more of an empty canvas and more control over the building blocks. It doesn't need to be specifically built for player-events, it simply needs to be built broad and solid enough to let players figure out such uses and events on their own. Instead of trying to build new options to form "colors" on a map: Just have an FFA map, have other preexisting mechanics like parties, squads or guilds supercede it and let players figure out how to navigate friend-or-foe on their own. Don't try to build arenas for players who know how to do that better than you. Just give them the tools with preexisting building blocks in WvW like space, walls and capture points. Give them control over tower design and they'll figure it out. Build to support that stuff instead. Not only are those systems often more robust and preexist but by investing in them and keeping them part of a broader WvW vision (rather than exceptions) you can find other applications for them too.

Where would and FFA map fit into WvW? Would it be its own new map type under the WvW menu, like an off-shot of EotM? It's a very big shift from the basic concept of WvW, with its realm vs realm and 1vs1vs1 setup. Obviously it wouldn't be tied into the scoring/points/ranks. It just feels so different I don't know if it even belongs in the WvW menu.

I could definitively see some ways to have fun in a FFA map though, especially if you can make teams with parties/squads/guilds etc. Reminded of a game mode I saw explained where guilds went once a week to claim castles, and keep them through a few timers, and battle other guilds wanting to take them back. And whoever had it at the end of the time, kept control over it for the week. Which might have been an interesting alternative to Reset.

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I'll admit the only "building system" I can remember from the game is the decorations in Guild Hall? As much as I enjoy open ended systems (and building in Valheim), I'm struggling to see how to get that to work practically inside a WvW map.

Now if ANet did manage to make it work, with say having a very simple system of an area of flat stone that you can build upon as a limiter, and players having to bring supply from camps and protect a builder/architect player while they build so they don't get interrupted or ganked, could be an interesting experience. The idea of working together to build something can be very rewarding for groups of players. If the building blocks where fairly large and simple blocks that wouldn't be too fiddly etc, for example I'd probably say keep most of it simpler than Valheim's system for a compare, probably want to build big wall blocks.

It would certainly open up the Sandbox aspect, and I'd appreciate that. (Though, I'd probably not be allowed to do my favourite thing in Valheim, which is to make hidden underground bases where no one can find them).

But to be honest, I think you could also get a lot of that same feeling without the build system, if ANet made a map with more custom-able towers, bring supply to upgrade and build, give options for them, and some deployable options like barricades etc to create funnels inside the tower before enemy breeches walls etc. Option for expanding the tower to make it actually add extra sections etc. An ok sized tech tree with different advantages that you can pick from but not get all etc.

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It really feels like an entirely new mode more than an extension of any existing mode. The more I think about it, the more it feels like it "doesn't belong anywhere" sorta.

End up feeling that it would be interesting, would like to see how it turned out, not really sure what I'd expect of it, and as something I can't imagine ANet doing/spending resources on, nor really have the vision for anything past WR and basic fixes.