I HOPE THIS RESTRUCTURING DONT GO TROUGH

[DeWolfe.2174]

3 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Do you not see any irony at all in you asking for "equality by design" with regards to combat while at the same time being against an "equality by design" team formation change?

Literally having the freedom to move out of inequality is aligned with asking for "equality by design".

Mag on Griffonfall were spawning camping in EB this morning. So much for the dev's ability to create balance. lol

[Razi.6031]

18 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

because it's not just a population problem. The way they count population doesn't take into account:

• what time of day you play
• skill differences of players
• pug groups vs organised groups aka boonballs
• imbalances per class vs player preferences
• the various different roles people can play WvW
• the people who play (or just stand around) in WvW for legendaries
• the difference in how serious some guilds/servers take their WvW

All of these things lead to imbalances that are not about population of servers old or new. And boonballs are the worst of it all because the difference between a boonball and a group of players that isn't as well organised is humongous and leads to things like a boonball just farming defenders of, for example, the garrisons without the defenders (even when more numerous) being able to do anything about it.

I get that you should be rewarded for playing well, but the difference is just too big.

If there are all these parameters to account for, then I would rather keep the old system. 

Server pride was a thing once. I'd rather see them try something about enhancing that experience, rather than throwing it away for something, that looks like it will cause more problems 

[Mabi black.1824]

12 hours ago, DeWolfe.2174 said:

Mag on Griffonfall were spawning camping in EB this morning. So much for the dev's ability to create balance. lol

Reading this, I feel it is necessary to clarify what we mean when we talk about balance or similar flows of our 24/7 matches. We poor players can only read the numbers at the end of the week of deaths plus kills to get an estimate of how many players participated on the 3 sides of the same mu. Practical example 100,000k+d vs 50,000k+d vs 50,000 k+d This indicates that a team had ''about'' twice as many players (or flow - hours played) compared to the other two teams. With this we don't know the numbers yet, we only have a percentage estimate of the differences, and only for the same mu. There's no way to know the flow differences between the different MUs. 

That said, even if we read a perfectly balanced MU at the end of the week, guess what, you could go online when you're outnumbered, and you might have some very good players on the opposing side who want to camp in EB, so you'll be forced to stay in your corner. It doesn't mean you're playing an unbalanced game, and you shouldn't complain about an unbalanced game. 

For this precise reason, as I have written several times here on the forum, we know that Anet is able to detect flows on all servers. So it should make them public, accessible to players. by means of a coefficient. Defined the coefficient 1 of the average flow of 24 servers, you will consequently get all the others that will revolve around it (some servers may be drastically below type 0.5 other servers may be just above type 1.2 etc etc ) This would make everything easier for Anet as well. Because even if we get better mechanics it will never be perfect, but it doesn't matter if you have a flow coefficient that helps you. It would also help build a much more credible server ranking. Who actually won a game? The server that has accrued 350 victory points with 2000 players or its opponent who has accrued 300 victory points with 1500 players? Help me figure it out.😉

Edited January 20 by Mabi black.1824

[Gehenna.3625]

On 1/19/2024 at 1:33 PM, CafPow.1542 said:

But couldn’t we more or less assume that, if all players are randomly equally distributed to all servers (i know: hypothetical scenario), those different kind of players would also be distributed equally?

so if we completely forge new servers and redistribute all players random and then block every transfer forever, we would have a more or less balanced population wouldn’t we?

i know this will not be done for a lot of good and bad reasons but I’m afraid that’s the only real solution.

Well, what I'm indicating with this list is that there never will be balance and that this restructuring of WvW isn't going to solve it. It will just change things but I don't think it will make it better, just different. I don't even believe the devs are striving for balance, but what I do wish for is that they nerf boonballs because that's the most egregious imbalance there is imo; and Anet are not going to change that with this restructuring stuff.

I think the restructuring is mostly for themselves, so they can run WvW in an automated way that makes populations somewhat more equal over a week, but not per day or per part of the day. I also feel there is something in it for them to not have characters linked to a server anymore but rather have them assigned to a WvW server based on your alliance for the week. 

But what if you join another alliance every week? How will they calculate which servers will be a good match against each other? Like I said, I don't think it will be better, just changed.

[Riba.3271]

On 1/19/2024 at 2:33 PM, CafPow.1542 said:

ut couldn’t we more or less assume that, if all players are randomly equally distributed to all servers (i know: hypothetical scenario), those different kind of players would also be distributed equally?

so if we completely forge new servers and redistribute all players random and then block every transfer forever, we would have a more or less balanced population wouldn’t we?

i know this will not be done for a lot of good and bad reasons but I’m afraid that’s the only real solution.

People stop playing often and for various reasons. One main reason is that they do not like their current server. Locking the gates will just mean players will quit and never come back.

Best way to keep WvW active and fair is to have a cap on server population (Full status, no linking), and cheaper transfer costs to lower tiers.

Of course people will still flock to servers that provide what most people want, but those servers will mainly face each other in higher tiers if there weren't relinkings to throw them around. Also it isn't necessarily bad if some servers have less population, because for a player or a guild it might be what they prefer. Some people just like smaller fights and no queues.

So no relinkings, no link servers. Just 12 servers fighting to be the best. The less entertaining ones will have less people and be at the bottom, but they will face other such servers and it will have much fairer matchmaking than with world linking or restructuring systems. Main issue with the systems were dealing with now is that there is high chance that the largest server will face the smallest server on their way up to tier 1. Shuffling playerbase just doesn't lead to good matchups.

Edited January 21 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

Best way to keep WvW active and fair is to have a cap on server population (Full status, no linking), and cheaper transfer costs to lower tiers.

Best because it is what we already have and are used to? Let us recount all the ways this has been a terrible method over the years for the 20th. 30th, 100th time...

Edited January 21 by Chaba.5410

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

Best way to keep WvW active and fair is to have a cap on server population (Full status, no linking), and cheaper transfer costs to lower tiers.

Nah man surely we can compromise here.

Maybe a cap of 500 peeps, but keep linking and have free transfers on 4 week cds?!

[Burnfall.9573]

On 1/17/2024 at 4:22 PM, Ragnarox.9601 said:

I really hope you are smart and stop doing this and leave servers as IS, you should better come with something promising like new rewards, quality content and changes for wvw instead. As a long wvw player who enjoyed it untill now I really hope you learn from this mistake and don't ruin what is good in wvw. I really hope this don't go trough. I am sorry but this is bad.

 

end of rant.

 

 Exception, "To excuse someone or excuse their behavior means to provide reasons for their actions, especially when other people disapprove of these actions."

Condone, "to allow (something that is considered wrong) to continue"

Enabling, "Enabling involves "helping" someone in a way that actually makes it easier for them to continue destructive behavior"

 

Whether it goes through or not....what changed?

"Same approach, Same philosophy, Same mindset, Nothing changes"

Don't Expect Better Results If They Keep Doing What They Always Done For The Past 12 Years!!

Edited January 21 by Burnfall.9573

[Riba.3271]

7 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

8 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

Best way to keep WvW active and fair is to have a cap on server population (Full status, no linking), and cheaper transfer costs to lower tiers.

Best because it is what we already have and are used to? Let us recount all the ways this has been a terrible method over the years for the 20th. 30th, 100th time...

? We have linkings? And no full status because links are always open? Do you get filled with anger everytime you see my messages and thats why you can't understand them?

Yes, we used to have the system 10 years ago, and main issue was that there were too many servers. Of course such a system wouldn't work with 10000000000... or 27.. servers

Edited January 21 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

14 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

? We have linkings? And no full status because links are always open? Do you get filled with anger everytime you see my messages and thats why you can't understand them?

Yes, we used to have the system 10 years ago, and main issue was that there were too many servers. Of course such a system wouldn't work with 10000000000... or 27.. servers

You're inexplicably proposing what we had from launch to about 5 or 6 years ago without consideration being given at all as to why it was changed away from that in the first place.

Even with server linking, there have been examples of Full servers being given no link, as RECENTLY as last year.  How has that worked out?  Did players magically transfer off them to lower population servers?  Have you considered the fact that there are lower population servers that don't fill because there are too many servers NOW?

Explain why you think that old system is best.
 

Edited January 21 by Chaba.5410

[Riba.3271]

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

2 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

? We have linkings? And no full status because links are always open? Do you get filled with anger everytime you see my messages and thats why you can't understand them?

Yes, we used to have the system 10 years ago, and main issue was that there were too many servers. Of course such a system wouldn't work with 10000000000... or 27.. servers

You're inexplicably proposing what we had from launch to about 5 or 6 years ago without consideration being given at all as to why it was changed away from that in the first place.
 

It was changed because there were too many servers. The system was not bad, there were just too many servers.

And I know the reason, ANet just didn't want it to seem like the game is dying. So they didn't want to outright delete servers. They chose marketing over better system.

Quote

Even with server linking, there have been examples of Full servers being given no link, as RECENTLY as last year.  How has that worked out?  Did players magically transfer off them to lower population servers?

Yes, it worked terribly. They were outnumbered by linked open servers.

It just proves that you should calculate population status and transfer costs based on totals on linking.

You do understand that people on linkings, lower the total population status cap? So a single server can fit less players since the playerbase is spread across 27 servers, not 12 or 15.

Linking system just does not work, we have outnumbered full servers, we have open outnumbering servers, we have cheap transfers to higher tiers. Add to that the 4 weekly terrible matchmaking where you're guaranteed to have 2 or 3 weeks of bad matchups.

Quote

Have you considered the fact that there are lower population servers that don't fill because there are too many servers NOW?

You will never have all servers full, because full status isn't a static number, its based on most active servers activity. And that is the way to do it anyways: you can't have the game break if there is suddenly WvW boom of 10 000 players.

Quote

Explain why you think that old system is best.

Everything you said is why linking system is terrible. Why monoserver system with 12 servers is good:

1. Server can fit more population before going full because playerbase is split across less servers
2. Matchmaking is closer because there isn't 4 weekly throwing servers randomly around where lowest tier server might face the biggest server
3. Highest populated servers will be full and not open through linking
4. There won't be full unlinked servers being outnumbered by linked servers that are still open to transfers
5. You can transfer to bottom tier for cheap and higher tier costs more or are full.
6. You have a choice of less active WvW and lower queues, or more active WvW. If you want to play EB on primetime as a guild, you probably want to go midtier or lower tier server.
7. You have a choice of type of server you want (Timezone, Guilds, Commanders). It won't chance based on linking. You choose best the 12 servers and it will stay the best unless your preferences change.
8. Since enemy servers will also be more consistant, you can learn their timezones so you know when to log in for some good action.
9. Due to more players being on your server and reachable by communication, you can easier control the tier of your server to face servers you want to face.
10. No communication issues from having 2 different language servers linked
11.  You can improve your servers playerbase, communication and infrastucture without it being reset by randoms. For example linking refusing to use same discord, or linking guilds using same tag colour as open tags, are both pretty common problems with linking system.
12. You will have higher portion of playerbase in your communication channels. So if there is something wrong with the server, you can communicate it.

You can easily see that all these 12 very positive things, do not exist in linking system (some do but only if you're willing to transfer every 4 weeks).

But yes, main thing is that you can choose best out of 12 servers, and since theres no linkings the queues, guilds, commanders, won't change much over 6 months or even longer period. And matchups will be closer since there every 4 weeks there won't be high chance you will face a server from completely different tier.

If you have a choice of 12 completely different servers that don't change much, the best server for you there will be better than any server in a system where ton of randomness regarding teammates is included. And this applies to all players: Point is not to create same server for everyone, but that everyone has more fun server and closer matchups. If system is better for everyone, it is better. Cherry on top is more control over future of your server.

Edited January 22 by Riba.3271

[RisingDawn.5796]

After several betas, it feels like a mess of matchmaking, worlds with too many guilds and others not, with players/pugs to fill in the numbers and population.

This wouldn't  be the case, if WR or alliances came out earlier, years as we hoped, before it started bleeding players and losing guilds.

Edited January 22 by RisingDawn.5796

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

It was changed because there were too many servers. The system was not bad, there were just too many servers.

You see players coming here on this forum and complaining about how WR is destroying their server community.  Tell them now that only some servers are going to be deleted and they are going to be forced to pick a new server and it's a crap shoot as to whether they will be able to keep playing together because their new server goes Full and they don't have all their guild or friends together yet.  Is that really all that fair?

Fair is deleting ALL servers and forcing players to pick who they want to play with through guilds with a limit of 500.  The limit applies to everyone equally.  Why do the servers where players stacked/bandwagoned for easy wins get the special treatment of remaining?

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

a choice of 12 completely different servers that don't change much

Now imagine a system that adjusts the number of servers dynamically based on total playing population.  Does it need 12 server or 15 servers?  If there's a seasonal low, maybe it reduces down to 3 tiers.  If there's a WvW rush event, maybe it expands to 5 tiers.  The only way to accomplish this well is programmatically reshuffling the entire total population.

[Riba.3271]

11 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

6 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

It was changed because there were too many servers. The system was not bad, there were just too many servers.

You see players coming here on this forum and complaining about how WR is destroying their server community.  Tell them now that only some servers are going to be deleted and they are going to be forced to pick a new server and it's a crap shoot as to whether they will be able to keep playing together because their new server goes Full and they don't have all their guild or friends together yet.  Is that really all that fair?

Fair is deleting ALL servers and forcing players to pick who they want to play with through guilds with a limit of 500.  The limit applies to everyone equally.  Why do the servers where players stacked/bandwagoned for easy wins get the special treatment of remaining?

Yea, you can delete all servers and rebuild them. I don't really care. We are at the point where logical system is much bigger priority. School system functioning properly is much more important than memories someone has at particular school.

7 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

6 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

a choice of 12 completely different servers that don't change much

Now imagine a system that adjusts the number of servers dynamically based on total playing population.  Does it need 12 server or 15 servers?  If there's a seasonal low, maybe it reduces down to 3 tiers.  If there's a WvW rush event, maybe it expands to 5 tiers.  The only way to accomplish this well is programmatically reshuffling the entire total population.

It is possible to change the amount of tiers or players on a server, but this also means worse matchmaking first few weeks. So you can't do it too often. You really don't want to end in a situation where over half the matchups are landslide victories.

Edited January 22 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

2 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

It is possible to change the amount of tiers or players on a server, but this also means worse matchmaking first few weeks. So you can't do it too often. You really don't want to end in a situation where over half the matchups are landslide victories.

Delete all servers and rebuild them every time an adjustment is needed but it also means worse matchmaking at the start?

Edited January 22 by Chaba.5410

[Riba.3271]

6 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

8 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

It is possible to change the amount of tiers or players on a server, but this also means worse matchmaking first few weeks. So you can't do it too often. You really don't want to end in a situation where over half the matchups are landslide victories.

Delete all servers and rebuild them every time an adjustment is needed but it also means worse matchmaking?

Yes, because if you it give enough time, some of those servers will end up in tier 1 because they have more efficient players. But at start, they will face servers from tier 3 or below, that hold no candle to them.

Overall, initial matchmaking will always be bad. Even if done fairly ranking systems always need data to access teams level and place them against right opponents.

It is akin to taking 12 random men off the streets and making them fight each other one-on-one. While there is expected average level, some of them will still get destroyed. The fights only start to be close once you start to have some idea how strong each person is and start placing them against each other.

Edited January 22 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

4 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Yes, because if you it give enough time, some of those servers will end up in tier 1 because they have more efficient players. But at start, they will face servers from tier 3 or below, that hold no candle to them.

Overall, initial matchmaking will always be bad. Even if done fairly ranking systems always need data to access teams level and place them against right opponents.

It is akin to taking 12 random men off the streets and making them fight each other one-on-one. While there is expected average level, some of them will still get destroyed. The fights only start to be close once you start to have some idea how strong each person is.

How do players get on these new servers?  What if they all try to stack onto specific servers?  If these are new servers, any incentives to go to lower pop servers don't do anything.

[Riba.3271]

18 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

24 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Yes, because if you it give enough time, some of those servers will end up in tier 1 because they have more efficient players. But at start, they will face servers from tier 3 or below, that hold no candle to them.

Overall, initial matchmaking will always be bad. Even if done fairly ranking systems always need data to access teams level and place them against right opponents.

It is akin to taking 12 random men off the streets and making them fight each other one-on-one. While there is expected average level, some of them will still get destroyed. The fights only start to be close once you start to have some idea how strong each person is.

How do players get on these new servers?  What if they all try to stack onto specific servers?  If these are new servers, any incentives to go to lower pop servers don't do anything.

Well, as long as higher tiers have queues large enough to be a bother, people will go to other tiers. Then while Tier 4 will most likely have only queues around primetime or weekend, that sounds exactly what some players or guilds might prefer.

There is no particular reason why tier 4 server must have same population as tier 1 server. They're not facing against each other after all. All population differences is add you as a player option to choose between tiers with different activities. Main thing is that there will be no purely dead servers like back when we had 9 tiers.

Now, will people manipulate populations, to stack a particular server? Yes, exactly like they do with World linking system. But difference with monoserver system is that all they will do is face rank 2 and rank 3/4 servers, so other servers that are doing similar stacking, instead of ravaging through all servers every 4 weeks. And as player, you have option to avoid them: You don't have to worry about them being matched against you every 4 weeks if you choose to chill at lower tiers with less activity. Or you can join them, or go do some giant killing, if you find that fun.

For single player or guild, monoservers offer you most choice and best matchmaking, thus it is best system. Do you need to care about some random Andy, that refuses to move from tier 4 server even though he prefers tier 1 activity? No, it is his problem. You should just desire a system that maximizes your own fun and influence.

Edited January 22 by Riba.3271

[Mabi black.1824]

You guys are putting too much meat on the fire. We know that there are many different ways to enhance the gaming experience and make it immersive for the player. But that's not the point. The point is to understand what Anet wants to do and what it doesn't want to do.

This beta in particular, perhaps due to the technical problem it had, highlighted once again that the concept of community/team identity is a real thing, and every time we deluded ourselves into denying it here on the forum ''because it doesn't exist anymore'' we were quite wrong. The consequence is that our concerns with this update are even more real. So it would be nice and useful to have an exchange of views with the development guys.

[Gehenna.3625]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

You guys are putting too much meat on the fire. We know that there are many different ways to enhance the gaming experience and make it immersive for the player. But that's not the point. The point is to understand what Anet wants to do and what it doesn't want to do.

Except they don't really want us to know

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

This beta in particular, perhaps due to the technical problem it had, highlighted once again that the concept of community/team identity is a real thing, and every time we deluded ourselves into denying it here on the forum ''because it doesn't exist anymore'' we were quite wrong. The consequence is that our concerns with this update are even more real. So it would be nice and useful to have an exchange of views with the development guys.

Well, the technical problems you seem to allude to is the point that alliances were made and guilds were chosen accordingly beforehand and now we see that even within the same guild we're spread out over multiple WvW servers and that for 3 weeks.

And yeah, the concept of community is a real thing, but like I said Anet won't tell us what their goals ultimately are because, and this is my opinion, the player base will be in an uproar if they did. I firmly believe, having played a number of MMOs that balance is NOT a thing that developers aim for. Far from it and that's why there exist so many imbalances in GW2 as well. I suspect that imbalances are one of the things that keep most people engaged oddly.

[joneirikb.7506]

3 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I firmly believe, having played a number of MMOs that balance is NOT a thing that developers aim for. Far from it and that's why there exist so many imbalances in GW2 as well. I suspect that imbalances are one of the things that keep most people engaged oddly.

Agreed.

There's probably many reasons why this appeals to players brains the way it does, but the explanation that makes the most sense to me is that players will always look at games in some manner as a puzzle. So when you have a rigid finished but balanced game, the puzzle tends to get "solved" and the players lose interest in interacting with the balancing. Where if the balance is constantly shifting and things will get better/worse, more players get invested and enjoys the hunt for finding the next broken thing etc.

[Riba.3271]

8 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

12 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I firmly believe, having played a number of MMOs that balance is NOT a thing that developers aim for. Far from it and that's why there exist so many imbalances in GW2 as well. I suspect that imbalances are one of the things that keep most people engaged oddly.

Agreed.

There's probably many reasons why this appeals to players brains the way it does, but the explanation that makes the most sense to me is that players will always look at games in some manner as a puzzle. So when you have a rigid finished but balanced game, the puzzle tends to get "solved" and the players lose interest in interacting with the balancing. Where if the balance is constantly shifting and things will get better/worse, more players get invested and enjoys the hunt for finding the next broken thing etc.

No I am fairly certain it is because if the game is balanced, then it tends to attract competitive and smarter playerbase. Then the dumber playerbase dies a lot and enjoys other games more. Where gaming companies get their revenue is from dumb people who buy lot of things from ingame due to lower impulse control. They might spend 2000 euros or dollars on useless cosmetics, because they simply cannot estimate expected value from purchase.

Why are P2W games utter garbage? Precisely because of this. Worse game => People spend more. They could add the P2W features to where it makes sense, or make them cost reasonable amount, but that wouldn't make as much money. For same reason GW2 was made worse game, so people spend more money.

Edited January 22 by Riba.3271

[SweetPotato.7456]

I hope this thread goes away, its making me dizzy. all the derailing .... 

[erKo.9586]

I dont enjoy this Alliance beta at all, i miss my server, and if they will make this live and remove servers, i will quit wvw & gw2..  😞