My server is empty - A solution to balance, and empty teams

[Spadassin.4076]

1 hour ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Alliances:

If the alliance algorithm can identify specific player skill level and matchup accordingly, then all god, but that's not what I am seeing currently in my matchups. We have still dominating sides vs. frustrated sides.

Spot-on, they can't measure quality, only quantity. And 100ish players are enough to completely dominate a low quality 500 people alliance. Anet tried to solve this with the boonball meta. It worked to some extent but it made WvW the most boring it's ever been...

Create megaservers along with events - this will solve both population, and quality issues at any time of the day. Revert the boon strip nerf so small groups can take on big groups and let us have fun again.

Stop the interventionism, it keep making things worse.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Dawdler.8521]

40 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

Well if they got placed in T5 they not even reach T1 within the 4 weeks linking period

Not really something that has to do with the matchup system though. 4 tiers to match the monthly shuffle would be fine but then again people would still say WvW is dead when as they sit in a 100 man EBG queue while refusing to play on the 3 borders without queue.

Edited August 2 by Dawdler.8521

[One more for the road.8950]

22 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

The kdr from your own link says otherwise. Points are a poor measurement because no one cares about it, and it doesn't show active population. I wouldn't call it balanced when one team has half the kills of the two others - almost all matchups are like that.

Nightly PPT trains on weak servers taking them to T1 with abymsal k/d during all of host/link history says otherwise about activity and points.

[Dayra.7405]

Balance was never meant to be equal KD, balance was always meant to be equal manpower (average over the week, not necessarily at any point in time).

Balance is meant to avoid that always 50 from one side overrun 10 from the other side. At worst it means that the number of times where 50:10 and 10:50 occur is equal.

It was (and should not) influence the outcome of a 50 vs 50.

In any team sport you make sure it’s the same amount of player, but not that the market-values of the team is equal or that their score is equal. 

In WvW you cannot force player to play, so you have often that parts of the playerbase leave the playground when the score swings to the other side. Consequently you cannot even have actual man power balance even when theoretical balance is given.

Edited August 2 by Dayra.7405

[Spadassin.4076]

Lots of logical fallacies in your post.

Balance is both about quality and quantity. Your example from sport is very poor. Sport has handicaps, leagues, and a segregation of age categories and sexes (trans men competing in women sport is an absolute disgrace, there are no trans women competing against men). And yes, a closer score means a more balanced match, and more fun for all parties involved.

You're describing very well the current system. But it doesn't make it good. Tell me how the current system isn't failing at balance? And tell me why megaservers aren't better in every aspect?

Players leaving the battleground, and not achieving population balance is a bug not a feature. There should be fresh blood constantly coming in. Something mega servers can solve.

Furthermore, before the boonball meta, groups of 15-25 were able to win lower quality 50 men groups with skill. These fights were balanced, and fun despite one side overrunning the other.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Dayra.7405]

18 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

And tell me why megaservers aren't better in every aspect?

Why should they'

In fact I see only 1 effect. The destruction of any fixed organization, makes any group equally bad. But that's not what I want, do you?

[Spadassin.4076]

8 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

In fact I see only 1 effect. The destruction of any fixed organization, makes any group equally bad. But that's not what I want, do you?

Do you feel PvE lacks organizations? When X com joins an empty map, he should still be able to fit his squad. If anything there will be better organization because maps will constantly be full. Alliances and guilds will in fact be more relevant than ever.

It immediately solves the quantity problem. People trying to leech a good squad on other borderlands should also achieve quality balance on the matchup. Matchups should be 5 hours long instead of weekly with nice rewards in the end. Then maps close, structures reset and it starts all over.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Dayra.7405]

6 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

Alliances and guilds will in fact be more relevant than ever.

As soon as you give guilds and allianaces a way to join the same team on the same instance, you will have KD's very far away from 1.0 as a good voice-based guild group will always kill a voiceless random zerg.

Edited August 2 by Dayra.7405

[Mabi black.1824]

On 7/31/2024 at 12:13 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

and as an update, within about 24 hours, Palawadan went from the stats yesterday at 10:29 (21.144 kills, 17.805 deaths, 1.19 K/D,  17.27 % PPK, 177 VP) to today at 11:05:: 25.233 kills, 21.019 deaths, 1.2 K/D, 16.1 % PPK, 229 VP and leading the bracket. That's a net gain of 4.089 kills and 3.214 deaths over approximately a 24h period.

I don't know if these numbers are many or few. but since you are mentioning this site, I tell you how I observed it just last night. For the server I'm playing on, Skrittsburgh I saw from page 1 to page 14 (where on the last page there are players who killed 1 enemy, so they will have played like 10 minutes maybe) are the active users. From page 15 to page 52 I noticed all the players we lost along the way.

That's 10 players per page. So we have 140 active players and 380 players lost, or they had some commitment this week that prevented them from playing or they left the game. in itself this should suggest something to us anyway. And propose a change that excludes a portion of players in a conscious way (as Anet itself has stated), perhaps, but perhaps and still perhaps it was more appropriate to make a different WVW update to this one.

but close your eyes and cover your ears again and again. My words will fall on deaf ears as always. for 3 years now.

Edited August 2 by Mabi black.1824

[Spadassin.4076]

4 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

As soon as you give guilds and allianaces a way to join the same team on the same instance, you will have KD's very far apart from 1.0 as a good voice-absed guild group will always kill a voiceless random zerg.

Yes on one map, this cannot be solved. But not necessarily on the entire matchup as people will try to join the other maps to leech. If I see what seems like a winning matchup, I may try to join it. If enough unorganized players do this which they will. It will balance the matchup because other competing guilds will mostly join the empty maps to fit their own squad.

Game theory can achieve balance by letting people self regulate. Interventionism only leads to more problems because people are not fixed chess pieces and have their own interests. This is basic economics.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Dayra.7405]

6 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

Game theory can achieve balance by letting people self regulate.

haha, it's clear what comes out if you let people self-regulate (switch map instances free on desire) in wvw: Each instance will have only 1 dominating team everyone from the other teams switched away, where they do karma train till evrything is turned to their color, which is when they dissolve to find new maps they can dominate.

We had this free transfers during the first 6 month with overstacked & empty server. We had that in EotM.

Edited August 2 by Dayra.7405

[Spadassin.4076]

5 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

That's 10 players per page. So we have 140 active players and 380 players lost, or they had some commitment this week that prevented them from playing or they left the game. in itself this should suggest something to us anyway. And propose a change that excludes a portion of players in a conscious way (as Anet itself has stated), perhaps, but perhaps and still perhaps it was more appropriate to make a different WVW update to this one.

This is exactly why interventionim is a losing battle. There will always be something they didn't think of, and they are moving way too slowly.

[Spadassin.4076]

4 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

haha, it's clear what comes out if you let people self-regulate (switch map indtances on desire) in wvw: Each insatnce will have only 1 team where they do karma train till evrything is turned to their color, which is when they dissolve to find new maps they can dominate.

That's why you need to pair instances with 5 hours long events. If you switch team your progress towards the event resets.

The fight groups may change instance because they only care about bags. The karma train people wouldn't because they'd lose on rewards.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Cyninja.2954]

14 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I don't know if these numbers are many or few. but since you are mentioning this site, I tell you how I observed it just last night. For the server I'm playing on, Skrittsburgh I saw from page 1 to page 14 (where on the last page there are players who killed 1 enemy, so they will have played like 10 minutes maybe) are the active users. From page 15 to page 52 I noticed all the players we lost along the way.

That's 10 players per page. So we have 140 active players and 380 players lost, or they had some commitment this week that prevented them from playing or they left the game. in itself this should suggest something to us anyway. And propose a change that excludes a portion of players in a conscious way (as Anet itself has stated), perhaps, but perhaps and still perhaps it was more appropriate to make a different WVW update to this one.

but close your eyes and cover your ears again and again. My words will fall on deaf ears as always. for 3 years now.

You have no idea at which point those players where lost. Given the age of the site, I can guarantee that the majority of those inactive players left long before WR was introduced.

Which tells us only 1 thing: the mode has been losing players for many years. That is not new news to long time WvW players and is something I mentioned as far back to you when the news broke that WR was being revived 2.5 years ago.

Edited August 2 by Cyninja.2954

[Spadassin.4076]

1 minute ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You have no idea at which point thise players where lost. Given the age of the site, I can guarantee that the majority of thise inactive players left long before WR was introduced.

Yeah I don't know why people keep quoting this just to show that they're data driven while completely missing any form of basic judgment, and critical thinking.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Mabi black.1824]

11 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You have no idea at which point thise players where lost. Given the age of the site, I can guarantee that the majority of thise inactive players left long before WR was introduced.

You don't need to guarantee it. We all know this very well. but. (as I wrote above) in itself this should suggest something to us. Maybe not to us players, but to Anet for sure. especially when he has the opportunity and freedom to choose what changes to propose to this community of players.

Edited August 2 by Mabi black.1824

[Dayra.7405]

2 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

That's why you need to pair instances with 5 hours long events. If you switch team your progress towards the event resets.

I don't see any coherent definition of what you want, you invent undescribed stuff with every statemenrt.

"5 hours long events" lol, will only leed to nearly noone playing wvw, at least I don't know anyone playing 5 consecutive hours wvw.

[Spadassin.4076]

15 minutes ago, Dayra.7405 said:

I don't see any coherent definition of what you want, you invent undescribed stuff with every statemenrt.

"5 hours long events" lol, will only leed to nearly noone playing wvw, at least I don't know anyone playing 5 consecutive hours wvw.

Have you played PvE? You can join a map anytime. This is the part where you need imagination.

You'd join a matchup by physically logging-in. You cannot change team after picking one. As long as you get tier 6 participation, you'll get all the rewards no matter how long you played. Then people can "prepare" the matchup for their guild/alliance by upping structure, or just do fights. Whatever they prefer. There are many ways to make this work, but it's another debate.

Yes you can leech the rewards by joining the winning matchup 30mn before the end. However, remember game theory - it's most likely that all their maps will be full at this point.

Map is full but you still want to play? No problem just join a new matchup. Queue only if you want to play with your friends on a full map. That's how it should be damnit.

Edited August 2 by Spadassin.4076

[Dayra.7405]

2 minutes ago, Spadassin.4076 said:

Have you played PvE? You can join a map anytime. This is the part where you need imagination.

You'd join a matchup by physically logging-in. You cannot change team after picking one. As long as you get tier 6 participation, you'll get all the rewards no matter how long you played. Then people can "prepare" the matchup while waiting for their blob by upping structure, or just do fights. Whatever they prefer.

EotM satisfies all you describe, go there and be happy, if this is all you want, but I am sure you don't like it. Why? A lot of stuff you don't describe anywhere.

[Spadassin.4076]

Just now, Dayra.7405 said:

EotM satisfies all you describe, go there and be happy, if this is all you want, but I am sure you don't like it. Why? A lot of stuff you don't describe anywhere.

Yes my initial post suggested using eotm as a pilot. Currently there is no pip there, and maps are too big for fighting. There are many things to tweek there to make it work but it could.

[Cyninja.2954]

9 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

You don't need to guarantee it. We all know this very well. but. (as I wrote above) in itself this should suggest something to us. Maybe not to us players, but to Anet for sure. especially when he has the opportunity and freedom to choose what changes to propose to this community of players.

Yes it does, the mode needs change both in regard to keeping it fresh as well as in regard to being able to adapt to players gain/loss.

What do you think they are trying with WR, instead of just kicking the can down the road with more liking or server merges?

[One more for the road.8950]

28 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I don't know if these numbers are many or few. but since you are mentioning this site, I tell you how I observed it just last night. For the server I'm playing on, Skrittsburgh I saw from page 1 to page 14 (where on the last page there are players who killed 1 enemy, so they will have played like 10 minutes maybe) are the active users. From page 15 to page 52 I noticed all the players we lost along the way.

That's 10 players per page. So we have 140 active players and 380 players lost, or they had some commitment this week that prevented them from playing or they left the game. in itself this should suggest something to us anyway. And propose a change that excludes a portion of players in a conscious way (as Anet itself has stated), perhaps, but perhaps and still perhaps it was more appropriate to make a different WVW update to this one.

but close your eyes and cover your ears again and again. My words will fall on deaf ears as always. for 3 years now.

When it comes to individual player stats, it only shows for those who actually registered in the site. 

Edit: I also think you have to update your API to be sorted on right team, not sure.

Edited August 2 by One more for the road.8950

[Mabi black.1824]

30 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Yes it does, the mode needs change both in regard to keeping it fresh as well as in regard to being able to adapt to players gain/loss.

What do you think they are trying with WR, instead of just kicking the can down the road with more liking or server merges?

I think that behind this change there are all the best intentions. I am sure of this, but as I feared and as I have repeatedly indicated, this solution has also led to new problems. I would have gladly avoided all my personal feelings of loss of interest, of useless team play because we chose that the teams become useless etc etc. I am certainly one of those players that Anet knew he would add to the list of those who have to move away from this mode. And I'm sorry, just because I've always been a fan of WVW.

Absolutely acceptable loss and perhaps negligible, since I have always been an open tag and without a voice. And this mode has changed quite a bit, better to leave room for the elit, where you have to clock in, respect the schedules, especially in reference to the new game score, and ask permission from someone else to be in a community. the kind of thing that has always been too tight on someone like me.

[Cyninja.2954]

11 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I think that behind this change there are all the best intentions. I am sure of this, but as I feared and as I have repeatedly indicated, this solution has also led to new problems. I would have gladly avoided all my personal feelings of loss of interest, of useless team play because we chose that the teams become useless etc etc. I am certainly one of those players that Anet knew he would add to the list of those who have to move away from this mode. And I'm sorry, just because I've always been a fan of WVW.

Absolutely acceptable loss and perhaps negligible, since I have always been an open tag and without a voice. And this mode has changed quite a bit, better to leave room for the elit, where you have to clock in, respect the schedules, especially in reference to the new game score, and ask permission from someone else to be in a community. the kind of thing that has always been too tight on someone like me.

Sure new problems, but here is the 1 kicker:

The mode is now future proofed population wise. The active WvW population could drop by half and you would not notice a difference. The system would simply adjust the amount of shards created during the next restructure.

That's something the old system could not do.

Ideally some of the issues get resolved but even if not, from a pure population design standpoint, WR has made sure this mode can live on until the game gets shut down.

Edited August 2 by Cyninja.2954

[Mabi black.1824]

19 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

That's something the old system could not do.

This is for sure. But is that what it took to make this game fresh and more addictive? Are you sure? And what is the intention here? Do we do automatic and self-adjusting WVW lock the door and throw away the key?  Wouldn't you have preferred to see new maps and settings in rotation? Wouldn't you have preferred to see a team game with teams that can really compete with each other? Facing seasons and scheduled competitive events? Was what we were all really looking for an automatic mechanic that loses the very concept of a team in a team game along the way?