Are tiers even needed anymore? Can't we just have 3 worlds and 21 maps?

[Riba.3271]

Tiers do not really improve matchmaking anymore. All they do is match up losers against winners so make matchmaking worse.

So there is alternative solution: Just have 3 teams and lot of maps: 6 Eternal Battlegrounds, 12 Alpine borderlands and 3 Desert borderlands

Benefits of such system is:

- Map layout will be fairer: Everyone will have 2 green ebs, 2 blue ebs,2 red ebs and 1 desert map as home.

- There will always be enemies available and queued maps to play on

- If you want to arrange fights with specific group, as long as they are not same colour, they will be in same matchup

- If you want to PPT, there will always be empty maps to avoid enemies on

- Amount of Desert borderlands is respective to its popularity

How do you make sure one team doesnt steamroll several weeks in a row? By creating new teams every week.

Edited July 1 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

Tiers do not really improve matchmaking anymore. All they do is match up losers against winners so make matchmaking worse.

- If you want to PPT, there will always be empty maps to avoid enemies on

I don't really get it.  What's the point of PPTing if there's no matches anymore?  Wouldn't it become even more of a brain numbing activity than it already is?

Edited July 1 by Chaba.5410

[Riba.3271]

36 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

2 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

 

I don't really get it.  What's the point of PPTing if there's no matches anymore?  Wouldn't it become even more of a brain numbing activity than it already is?

Well I called it PPT, but it can be just following:

1. Lacking numbers to attack upgraded objective (so youre forced to capture something easy or log out)
2.  Roaming meaningfully (flipping upgraded camps)
3. Having fun on voice, talking about teabrands or some mundane stuff.

Also with restructuring occuring every 4 weeks, PPT is even more meaningless as it is. All you're doing is facing losers (instead of winners) so worse enemies after you win. In addition map differences between red and blue/green sides makes it uncompetitive, so winning does not mean you were better.

Overall, I am more towards having stable monoservers and actual communities, but if restructuring and forced "fair" matchmaking is here to stay then 3 servers is just better choice. After all, more enemy and allied groups adds more strategy and choice to the game.

Edited July 1 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

47 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Well I called it PPT, but it can be just following:

1. Lacking numbers to attack upgraded objective (so youre forced to capture something easy or log out)
2.  Roaming meaningfully (flipping upgraded camps)
3. Having fun on voice, talking about teabrands or some mundane stuff.

I suggest looking into what a faction-based design like ESO does for how to incentivize that kind of gameplay in a tierless structure.

[Dawdler.8521]

Why not just join a random color on clicking the map? Or in fact to make it even more balanced by having a single button that randomly assign you to a map where that random color has the least players.

Might as well go all the way. 

[joneirikb.7506]

22 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Why not just join a random color on clicking the map? Or in fact to make it even more balanced by having a single button that randomly assign you to a map where that random color has the least players.

Might as well go all the way. 

Just to build a bit on this though:

I've seen people suggest this in the past, and would advice against it.
* It would practically destroy any means of playing together with anyone, even less than sPvP.
* It would just make balance between teams completely random, if 5 more good players gets assigned to one team than another and the entire thing will feel horrible to the other two teams.
* It would make fair-weather just fair-weather more, enter are we winning, if not leave. They wouldn't even bother try or wait.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Aye, we all know this will not happen because they'll make the map menu a scrolldown one which will crash the game and somehow delete pve from the game.

Edited July 2 by ArchonWing.9480

[Tula.6021]

On 7/1/2024 at 9:23 PM, Riba.3271 said:

Tiers do not really improve matchmaking anymore. All they do is match up losers against winners so make matchmaking worse.

Was wondering that recently too.

I didn't feel any balance yet. The system feels as random as always. Being stuck with overpowered enemies or underpowered enemies (each discouraging for different reasons), one fights their way up the tiers and the other falls down, why stick to such a system and don't bring together what fits better together faster?

 

[Dawdler.8521]

44 minutes ago, Tula.6021 said:

Was wondering that recently too.

I didn't feel any balance yet. The system feels as random as always. Being stuck with overpowered enemies or underpowered enemies (each discouraging for different reasons), one fights their way up the tiers and the other falls down, why stick to such a system and don't bring together what fits better together faster?

Well what are you really wondering about? 

People seem to think that Anet have the power to instantly know how to "rank" a player/guild without any data on the backend.

People love to make sports comparisons on the forums, so here's one:

11 people run out on the football field to the cheers of the crowd. How do you judge their skills? 

Is the guy with the long flowing hair better at defense than the guy with the way too tight pants? 
Is the guy with the white shoes better at offense than the guy with the yellow laces?
Is that weird guy in the lederhosen just a random fan or an actual part of the team?

Or do you have a looooooooooong history of their performance in previous matches?

[godfat.2604]

While this is a pretty wild idea and I don't think ANet will do it, I honestly do like it when I think about it. It better shows the population on the map so people can easily find where to chase the enemies or escape from, because I would certainly assume some of the maps are going to be empty, and I wouldn't want to keep swapping to figure that out.

This probably also raises a question about, why not we just create overflow maps? I suppose for the sake of the old school scoring, objectives must be static and persistent otherwise it'll be too dynamic, making the whole scoring system even more pointless...

I know winning or not become so pointless, but you see ANet is still using that to judge if match ups are balanced. We can't ignore scoring forever... It's an important tool to drive motivation, collaboration, and sense of belonging as well.