So let's talk Scoring

[Reztek.7805]

Typical Anet. Instead of using a multiplier based on the activity of the other teams in the current skirmish they look for the time slots with the most overall activity, regardless of the team.

So for EU Team A with 200 players and Team B and C, each with 150 players, at 9 pm is more balanced than Team A, B and C, each with 120 players, at 11 pm.

lol.

[Zyreva.1078]

Right now victory points are only used for matchmaking purposes and as such those changes should be primarily changes to the matchmaking system. My guess is that they are trying to match worlds with a strong primetime presence (typically worlds with large "boon blobs" and pretty K/D but bad coverage) against each other to "fix" those k/d disparities and "lack of content" for boon blobs that we are seeing now. Will it work? I don't know.

I wouldn't see it as playtime based punishment or reward for players right now, because player still don't gain anything from getting more victory points and winning matches. Ofc that can change eventually, and i wouldn't even be surprised if that's what they are eventually pushing for, and in that case i think it would be pretty unfair. But again, right now it shouldn't have any direkt impact on someones WvW experience, unless careing too much about something that has been meaningless since forever.

43 minutes ago, Reztek.7805 said:

So for EU Team A with 200 players and Team B and C, each with 150 players, at 9 pm is more balanced than Team A, B and C, each with 120 players, at 11 pm.

They aren't giving that team A more score, because they think that timeframe is more balanced. They are giving them more score so they can eventually get matched against other teams with 200 players at 9 pm.

Edited July 13 by Zyreva.1078

[CafPow.1542]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

You misunderstood. We can continue to deliver points every 2 hours as we do now. An example of what it could be. A team that has won all 6 skirmishes earns 5x6 = 30 points/day. The other team has lost all 6 skirmishes and earns 3x6=18 points/day. At the end of the day, just for hypothesis, the hours of play of the first team are exactly twice as long as those of the second team. So the real points earned will be: the first team 30x1 coefficient of hours of play = 30 The second team will have 18x2 coefficient of hours of play = 36. The second team, with half of the players available, is actually winning, slightly, but is winning (incentive for the player to propose the content even when outnumbered). And it's just a first hypothesis. You can do 100 more.

There's nothing creepy about math, if you know how it works and especially how to use it.

No i don’t think math is creepy. But if you use a coefficient and nobody knows how this coefficient works out then it’s not transparent. Is all.

i understand you better now, but again. Shouldn’t world restructuring solve that problem already?

plus:

when i check the numbers now (skirmish and VP) i can read vaguely which team wins.

with your idea i can not decide through points. Cause i don’t know if they got points because they did good or they got points cause they are outnumbered? This would honestly make the whole scoring system even more useless than it already is.

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

You misunderstood. We can continue to deliver points every 2 hours as we do now. An example of what it could be. A team that has won all 6 skirmishes earns 5x6 = 30 points/day. The other team has lost all 6 skirmishes and earns 3x6=18 points/day. At the end of the day, just for hypothesis, the hours of play of the first team are exactly twice as long as those of the second team. So the real points earned will be: the first team 30x1 coefficient of hours of play = 30 The second team will have 18x2 coefficient of hours of play = 36. The second team, with half of the players available, is actually winning, slightly, but is winning (incentive for the player to propose the content even when outnumbered). And it's just a first hypothesis. You can do 100 more.

Would maybe make sense if a) score/placement wasn't used for matchmaking purposes and b) if players could actually gain something for winning. Since neither a) nor b) do and should apply - it doesn't make sense and wouldn't improve anything.

Edited July 13 by Zyreva.1078

[Safty.7326]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Right now victory points are only used for matchmaking purposes and as such those changes should be primarily changes to the matchmaking system. My guess is that they are trying to match worlds with a strong primetime presence (typically worlds with large "boon blobs" and pretty K/D but bad coverage) against each other to "fix" those k/d disparities and "lack of content" for boon blobs that we are seeing now. Will it work? I don't know.

I wouldn't see it as playtime based punishment or reward for players right now, because player still don't gain anything from getting more victory points and winning matches. Ofc that can change eventually, and i wouldn't even be surprised if that's what they are eventually pushing for, and in that case i think it would be pretty unfair. But again, right now it shouldn't have any direkt impact on someones WvW experience, unless careing too much about something that has been meaningless since forever.

They aren't giving that team A more score, because they think that timeframe is more balanced. They are giving them more score so they can eventually get matched against other teams with 200 players at 9 pm.

This is my understanding too of the changes and its intentions. You may be an off peak player/guild who can skew the score in current system and place your server in a tier facing content it shouldn't be in getting farmed. The new system may fix this and have you fighting players instead of gates and provide the server a tier more suited to it.

[disForm.2837]

I think this scoring change is an initial step to offer rewards for "winning". As of now, absolutely no one cares about score except to manipulate matchups (avoid or try to get to certain Tiers).

If they attach any type of rewards to winning, the outcry would be immense, since the vast majority of the players play in or near prime time. Their effort would be insignificant, since with the current scoring system, off hours coverage is what wins matchups.

Ofc, this will have consequences, stacking primetime with the best possible players is extremely valuable. OCE players contribution is significantly scaled down. NOT playing off hours is better than playing and getting third in the skirmish.

[TheGrimm.5624]

The WvW part of the VOD is about 30 mins. If you didn't get a chance to listen to it you might want to. Rewards for winning is up next on the list and this is setting the ground work for it.

[Joonmo.7523]

Currently, I think the problem with each alliance matching is that the score through keep and tower maintenance is too high.

In reality, most of the scores between alliances occur in keep and tower (more than 10 times) , and as a result, scores based on K/D are meaningless.

As a result, strong alliances do not take keep and tower, so they maintain low scores and try to stick with low-level alliances, and this continues  to have a negative impact of matching  balance.

It is a structure in which it is advantageous not to have a keep or a tower.
To change this, keep and tower would have to have a much lower score than they do now, and the score by K/D would have to be increased.

I think that on Arena.net, you can see the score generated by K/D and the ratio gained by occupying keeps, towers, etc.

You may notice that this is abnormal.

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/13/2024 at 2:52 PM, CafPow.1542 said:

No i don’t think math is creepy. But if you use a coefficient and nobody knows how this coefficient works out then it’s not transparent. Is all.

i understand you better now, but again. Shouldn’t world restructuring solve that problem already?

plus:

when i check the numbers now (skirmish and VP) i can read vaguely which team wins.

with your idea i can not decide through points. Cause i don’t know if they got points because they did good or they got points cause they are outnumbered? This would honestly make the whole scoring system even more useless than it already is.

As far as we see in the EU, the restructuring of the world is not solving anything. But, it is also normal to expect that it will solve nothing, in a 24/7 format with teams that revolve around a number of 1500/2000 players. Let these numbers fluctuate freely, you'll be outnumbered first and superiority number after. Take advantage of these different conditions in your best way, which will be different from my best way. 

What are you missing from what I have explained to you by my example? When the points are processed (every 24 hours or whatever form you prefer) in reference to the hours of play that the servers have manifested, you get a score that expresses only and exclusively the quality, organization, ability to press buttons, knowledge of your and your enemy's classes and constructions, team strategy) the ''quantity'' is completely irrelevant at that point.

Edited July 15 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/13/2024 at 3:05 PM, Zyreva.1078 said:

Would maybe make sense if a) score/placement wasn't used for matchmaking purposes and b) if players could actually gain something for winning. Since neither a) nor b) do and should apply - it doesn't make sense and wouldn't improve anything.

So, having a series of conditions that leads us to a useless points system as you and I know well (we also lacked this madness of the time slots) does not mean that we must persevere in the error. We can ask for, and also explain how we can get there if necessary, a points system that is much more credible and competitive. Because if we go in that direction, you also get as a result, the player's involvement and motivation.

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/13/2024 at 3:20 PM, Safty.7326 said:

This is my understanding too of the changes and its intentions. You may be an off peak player/guild who can skew the score in current system and place your server in a tier facing content it shouldn't be in getting farmed. The new system may fix this and have you fighting players instead of gates and provide the server a tier more suited to it.

We are not going to achieve this. Even if you have a variable score in pre-set time slots, the score will not guarantee that you will find an enemy of ''adequate' number to what your side is carrying. Why? Because it could be for 6 hours straight in prime time 60v60 and you're just better/more capable than me and you're going to keep winning all the skirmishes. So you'll be perceived as a server with a lot of players in prime time, while I'll be like an empty server in prime time.

while the k/d coefficient could and should be taken into account when WR distributes all the fragments, to ensure as much as possible with pieces of 500 (which makes it impossible) that the ''quality/experience'' is well distributed. but for that I don't see the need for 'time slots'

Edited July 15 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/13/2024 at 6:56 PM, disForm.2837 said:

Ofc, this will have consequences, stacking primetime with the best possible players is extremely valuable. OCE players contribution is significantly scaled down. NOT playing off hours is better than playing and getting third in the skirmish.

This is just a short-sighted change, which no longer sees beyond its own nose. If you want the score to actually represent the 'quality' of a server, then use the ''hours played' that each server expresses differently each time, to work out that score. And you'll find that what you get is definitely more believable than looking at a wristwatch.

[CafPow.1542]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

As far as we see in the EU, the restructuring of the world is not solving anything. But, it is also normal to expect that it will solve nothing, in a 24/7 format with teams that revolve around a number of 1500/2000 players. Let these numbers fluctuate freely, you'll be outnumbered first and outnumbered after. Take advantage of these different conditions in your best way, which will be different from my best way. 

What are you missing from what I have explained to you by my example? When the points are processed (every 24 hours or whatever form you prefer) in reference to the hours of play that the servers have manifested, you get a score that expresses only and exclusively the quality, organization, ability to press buttons, knowledge of your and your enemy's classes and constructions, team strategy) the ''quantity'' is completely irrelevant at that point.

Yeah sure. But The quantity should already be irrelevant that’s why they made this whole WR thing. The incapability of anet to create teams that have overall more or less equal player activity doesn’t mean the tool itself is bad.

your said coefficient could also work but for me as a player i don’t know at what time this coefficient strikes and how hard he does. Today i get 3 points for stomping somebody and tomorrow i get 7 cause my server got outnumbered yesterday evening and stuff like that.

not saying it wouldn’t solve things, just saying it would feel super weird for me and it would be the text book definition of intransparency.

 

try to even out teams / alliances / servers. Then you don’t need to adjust scoring. Evened out teams are the fundament this whole game builds up upon. If you don’t fix that first, the whole house of cards you build untop of it will crumble.

that‘s just my guess, maybe I’m wrong and i can’t influence what anet will do in the end, so yeah. 

[Daxia.1425]

I just don't know what to say. It's like each time Anet does something their whole thought process must be like so different from the player base. I like some changes, like how they made the synths in the area so you can still cap the camp. I hope they do that for the towers and keeps too. That be so epic, such a game changer. I really need that. 

[Mabi black.1824]

50 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

your said coefficient could also work but for me as a player i don’t know at what time this coefficient strikes and how hard he does.

We can suggest many different ways to do this. It could hit, as you say, when in reality it is a process, to re-parameterize what is the ''true'' score of a game. Let's pretend we do it every day at 24.00 and it won't hit hard, it will hit the score of all servers in the exact same way for everyone. Again, just for example, it could be a coefficient ranging from 1 to 3. Our matches have 3 teams. Coefficient 1 is assigned  always to the team with the most hours of play, while the other two will always get a coefficient higher than 1 and a maximum of 3. ( 1.1-1.2-1.3........3) where you get the coefficient 2 when your enemy has manifested twice as many hours of play. where you get 3 when your enemy has manifested hours of play that outnumber you by 3 lengths. ( which is something I've often seen happen in WVW thanks to you famous transfers , I'm not blaming Anet ). we just have to decide how to set it up between us players and with Anet. And then it will ''hit everybody'' punctually and in the exact same way.

If we finally choose to use intelligently the ''hours of play'' that Anet has always said to detect, we can also get better matches right after the first week of the reset. Because week 2 you're going to match servers that have expressed ''similar' hours of play. So this community gains 2 times. believable points system, and more fun matchups. It's not the epic matches that WR wanted to give us, but it's still a lot of stuff.

Edited July 15 by Mabi black.1824

[CafPow.1542]

45 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

We can suggest many different ways to do this. It could hit, as you say, when in reality it is a process, to re-parameterize what is the ''true'' score of a game. Let's pretend we do it every day at 24.00 and it won't hit hard, it will hit the score of all servers in the exact same way for everyone. Again, just for example, it could be a coefficient ranging from 1 to 3. Our matches have 3 teams. Coefficient 1 is assigned  always to the team with the most hours of play, while the other two will always get a coefficient higher than 1 and a maximum of 3. ( 1.1-1.2-1.3........3) where you get the coefficient 2 when your enemy has manifested twice as many hours of play. where you get 3 when your enemy has manifested hours of play that outnumber you by 3 lengths. ( which is something I've often seen happen in WVW thanks to you famous transfers , I'm not blaming Anet ). we just have to decide how to set it up between us players and with Anet. And then it will ''hit everybody'' punctually and in the exact same way.

If we finally choose to use intelligently the ''hours of play'' that Anet has always said to detect, we can also get better matches right after the first week of the reset. Because week 2 you're going to match servers that have expressed ''similar' hours of play. So this community gains 2 times. believable points system, and more fun matchups. It's not the epic matches that WR wanted to give us, but it's still a lot of stuff.

I understand your concept and it’s not silly or anything… it could help scorewise but…

you know… i don’t care much about score. When i get steamrolled by a zerg i get steamrolled by a zerg. Said coefficient doesn’t prevent that. It’s even more bad, cause now we can still get better score and potentially rank up against another overpopulated team that steamrolls again.

the score should be used for balancing so good fights can happen. If you falsify the score by a coefficient i would fear that the fights don’t improve.

i hope i can make sense. 😄

[Arete.7019]

31 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

I understand your concept and it’s not silly or anything… it could help scorewise but…

you know… i don’t care much about score. When i get steamrolled by a zerg i get steamrolled by a zerg. Said coefficient doesn’t prevent that. It’s even more bad, cause now we can still get better score and potentially rank up against another overpopulated team that steamrolls again.

the score should be used for balancing so good fights can happen. If you falsify the score by a coefficient i would fear that the fights don’t improve.

i hope i can make sense. 😄

The new changes do help scoring balance fights properly. Say WR worked perfectly and every single TZ had an exactly equal amount of players to each other in that TZ. If Prime time is 20% of the playerbase and the smallest skirmish is 5% you're going to get worse matchups if those get an equal amount of points. Take the extreme example where a server completely rolls fights during prime time for 6hours but then loses the rest of the day (and pretend its because their offhours is just worse, not because they have less numbers). That world is going to rank way below where they should be in prime time when most people are playing. You can just look at EU T2 and NA T5 to see this in action.

This is why even if WR worked perfectly (which it can't, there aren't enough groups playing those times to spread evenly) you'd still need to scale scoring based on population. Obviously you'd want to give 20% of the playerbase as close to 20% of the points as possible, which is what it looks like these changes do. IDK what that other guy is talking about with coefficients, they clearly don't understand the math that went into anets changes.

Edited July 15 by Arete.7019

[Mabi black.1824]

48 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

I understand your concept and it’s not silly or anything… it could help scorewise but…

you know… i don’t care much about score. When i get steamrolled by a zerg i get steamrolled by a zerg. Said coefficient doesn’t prevent that. It’s even more bad, cause now we can still get better score and potentially rank up against another overpopulated team that steamrolls again.

the score should be used for balancing so good fights can happen. If you falsify the score by a coefficient i would fear that the fights don’t improve.

i hope i can make sense. 😄

I understand it very well, just above I explained how you will have to build the matches at that point, in reference to the hours of play, no longer in reference to 1 up 1 down. The coefficient doesn't fake anything, it highlights the team that is really winning beyond the number of players.

[Chaba.5410]

32 minutes ago, Arete.7019 said:

IDK what that other guy is talking about with coefficients

Mabi's been talking about how outnumbered teams should get more points for playing against larger teams, like he's viewing it as some sort of balance between uneven teams in scoring.  I tried to point out that that's ripe for player abuse (everyone log out so we can get more points!).  It's a failure to see that scoring in WvW is a function for getting matches between teams that can stand up against each other, not a system for handicapping.

Edited July 15 by Chaba.5410

[Mabi black.1824]

34 minutes ago, Arete.7019 said:

IDK what that other guy is talking about with coefficients, they clearly don't understand the math that went into anets changes.

As if I've never played the game 2 hours after the reset outnumbered by 50% or even more. And I should pay a score that represents 20% of the total score for what reason? because I fielded 30 players while you have 60. Well if it 'works' mathematically for you, I don't know what I can add.

[Mabi black.1824]

9 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Mabi's been talking about how outnumbered teams should get more points for playing against larger teams, like he's viewing it as some sort of balance between uneven teams in scoring.  I tried to point out that that's ripe for player abuse (everyone log out so we can get more points!).  It's a failure to see that scoring in WvW is a function for getting matches between teams that can stand up against each other, not a system for handicapping.

Chaba, if we choose to take advantage of a data collection that Anet has ''hours of play'' available you have to forget about 1 up and 2 down. Matches are made with reference to this data collection. Better define the team that really wins a game, should have a feedback only in the standings, and perhaps for an award, certainly not for how to set up the pairings.

The servers are lined up opposite each other in reference to the hours of play. It should be easy to understand that not waiting 4 weeks to play against a stream of players similar to yours (also because after 4 weeks we are building teams) leads you to more entertaining matches. Or do we turn a blind eye to this too?

Edited July 15 by Mabi black.1824

[Zyreva.1078]

4 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

So, having a series of conditions that leads us to a useless points system as you and I know well (we also lacked this madness of the time slots) does not mean that we must persevere in the error. We can ask for, and also explain how we can get there if necessary, a points system that is much more credible and competitive. Because if we go in that direction, you also get as a result, the player's involvement and motivation.

It's is the very nature of WvW as a large scale open world 24/7 PvP game mode that makes any score system rather pointless for anything but matchmaking purposes. In oder to get a more "credible and competitive" system, you'd have to destroy WvW and turn it into a different game mode. No thanks, i'd rather keep it as it is, including its "pointless" points.

If you want more score based competition, you can always play sPvP, which is a much better fit.

[Ashen.2907]

7 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

the team that really wins a game,

The team that "really wins a game" is the one that beat the opposing teams, not the one who was beaten but had a third party authority assign victory to them regardless of their performance. When victory is decided by ANet handing out victory points and not by players organizing, playing to win, and the like then there is no point in trying. Might as well just have ANet decide the Victor for the match up 1 minute after reset.

[Mabi black.1824]

8 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

The team that "really wins a game" is the one that beat the opposing teams, not the one who was beaten but had a third party authority assign victory to them regardless of their performance. When victory is decided by ANet handing out victory points and not by players organizing, playing to win, and the like then there is no point in trying. Might as well just have ANet decide the Victor for the match up 1 minute after reset.

My suggestion, comes after all this cinema I've been seeing for these latest updates and development work for 3 years now. with the result of canceling what has always made this game mode unique, to miss the goal they had set themselves. All normal if you deal with a variable parameter with a static solution. Beyond that, do you really believe that at the end of the week the best team has won a game? with the current scoring system? Or is it just the team that had more players (hours of play) than the others? When you use the term 'server performance' what are you referring to? How many players do they have or the quality of those players?  Because if it's clear to you, it's not absolutely clear to me. And my proposal is a possible solution to this.

Edited July 16 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

15 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

It's is the very nature of WvW as a large scale open world 24/7 PvP game mode that makes any score system rather pointless for anything but matchmaking purposes. In oder to get a more "credible and competitive" system, you'd have to destroy WvW and turn it into a different game mode. No thanks, i'd rather keep it as it is, including its "pointless" points.

If you want more score based competition, you can always play sPvP, which is a much better fit.

I have to say that I might even agree with your ''version'' of events. I may be the one who misunderstood from the start. You know, PvP mode I associated it with ''confrontation/competition'' maybe I was just wrong before, and deluded after that it could grow and get a better/credible confrontation, then be involved for that exact reason. But maybe it's just actually a mode devoid of all this, useless PvP, maybe you're right. It's a real shame.