Tree of Savior Forum

GvG; lack of participants and possible solutions

General Discussion
#1

Our current GvG system has several flaws that serve only to discourage participation rather than promote it. In Klaipeda/Orsha there are currently only 1 or 2 guilds that match in the entire 9pm hour block, and at times even the 12am block is only sparsely populated.

Below I will list a few of the current flaws, the reasoning behind why they are a problem, and a possible solution to each.

As pointed out several times below in the comments (thank you to those that replied):

FPS issues and bugs/disconnects/crashes render GvG largely unplayable

  • It’s fairly obvious why this is a detriment as nobody truthfully enjoys this macabre slideshow of pixels that lead to the player either dying, crashing, or bugging out. This is especially so because we are all so much more capable players than how we perform in GvG and not being able to perform up to our expectations is truly the most disheartening factor of all.

Suggested Fix: IMC get’s their testing done asap and starts taking things seriously.

GvG timing couldn’t be worse for some guilds and/or regions

  • As the title is international, and server election largely a preference, not all guild members are able to log in at once. This is especially true for certain servers/regions where the GvG times fall at awkward hours. As the TOS community is largely composed of players of-age, these times often coincide with IRL obligations such as class or work.

Suggested Fix: Times are altered to be more suitable on a per-region basis rather than at a single globally defined time. Additionally, to counter the requirement of 15 members at once to stand a chance against larger guilds, perhaps guilds could choose to participate in 15v15 or 10v10 instead, making it easier for smaller guilds to both compete and succeed.

Original thoughts that concern removing demotivating factors:

Guild losses are tracked and displayed

  • The display of losses, either all-time or weekly, only serves to discourage smaller guilds and tarnish their record by participating against a larger guild. Rather than looking at it as an opportunity to get better, and get some practice, it is more easily viewed as a poor experience that is recorded on the scoreboard for the entire server to see. This can cause even organized and worthy opponents to lose face and withdraw from participating.

Suggested fix: Losses are not recorded or displayed. This will help increase participation by making sure the players are not punished, or publicly ridiculed for past performances, for playing against a larger guild.

In-line with the previous flaw:

Guilds currently lose ranking points when suffering a loss

  • Guilds that actively participate, but lose often, are moved further and further down the ranking lists as their points go lower and lower from each loss. However a single person who queues their guild only once, even if they lose, will have substantially more points in the ranking. I.e. a strong guild that goes 0-10 will lose out in ranking to a small or single person guild that only has 0-1.
    This is extremely counter-productive as this limits participation by an alarming rate. Why would a smaller guild want to participate more than once a week if they will lose? Why would a larger guild who isn’t quite PvP ready want to participate more than once and risk sequential losses against a larger or more PvP oriented guild and unfairly lose their ranking for the week? This is not an adequate system. While it works well for TBL it only serves to discourage participation in GvG.

Suggested Fix: Guilds do not lose ranking points when suffering a defeat in GvG. Instead, guilds are ranked solely on their wins and the points associated with them. The point system should be calculated so that you earn more points from defeating a guild that has an already substantial amount of points. This serves to motivate all who are involved by removing all punishments for queuing and only rewarding their successes, and more heavily rewarding their success if they defeat a higher ranked guild. If a guild loses their match there is no immediate or long-term damage and can instead “try again” in hopes of securing a win. This will also create a more fair ranking system (as mentioned before a guild currently can go 0-1 and still be ranked much higher than another guild with a mixed w/l ratio of, for instance, 3-12) by highlighting only the wins.

Guild ranking defaults to display total all-time statistics rather than weekly values

  • As each week progresses all guilds are supposed to get a clean slate to try again at that week’s TP incentive/reward. However as the GvG Regional Ranking screen defaults to “all-time” statistics rather than weekly it can confuse or demotivate guilds from participating.

Suggested Fix: Weekly wins are displayed by default. All-time statistics are instead replaced with a “winning streak” concept. Again this type of thinking is to help erase any sense of “permanent” detriment by participating. All-time statistics current function is so that players may see a guild’s overall success but can also be a notable source of distress by reminding players of their mistakes. Instead a “winning streak” concept would allow for the initial goal of displaying a guild’s success, but as a single loss would destroy the streak, helps remove permanency from the equation so that even new guilds can more easily compete with established ones in the years to come.

Guilds currently have a substantial amount of motivation to participate in GvG’s. Whether it is the 1,000 Talt for the event, the interview with IMC for ranking highly, or even the immense amount of free TP weekly given to the top 10 ranking guilds (if it ever gets delivered…), there is plenty of motivation to participate. Instead, though, we are finding that nearly nobody is participating at all. I am sure that it is not because the rewards are not good enough (because they are amazing) so this means that the current flaws in the system serve to demotivate and discourage guilds from actively enjoying GvGs.

What are your thoughts? Are you in a guild that doesn’t participate in GvGs? If so, why? Do you feel if the above changes were made, so that the repercussions of losing are removed and only the incentives from winning remain, that you or your guild would be more likely to participate in the future?

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#2

You missed the most important reason which is that GvG is a lagfest with incredibly low fps. I can’t see how it could possibly be fun for anyone with the terrible optimization of this game.

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#3

Second this. If IMC optimizes the game and GVG can run in 60fps even with 30 players spamming in the fight with no skill freezes, I can say that the GVG scene will be a lot more lively than now.

@Darkon My guild doesn’t participate in GvG is due to the following 2 reasons:

  1. GvG timings in SEA servers. We have only 3 players online during the time slots.
  2. FPS reduced to 3-5fps even when we went in to take a look… 4 players vs 15 lol. Can’t even move before we die.

The fps is the one that irks us the most, not the win lost rate being displayed.

#4

As I wrote the above post and pushed it hard… I do get the point lol

But that is how it is for everyone right now. The weekly TP rewards go out to everyone regardless of our current FPS issues. The event is ongoing despite it as well.

Everyone suffers from it and while it is definitely a steamy pile of ■■■■ in there… it’s what we have for now until IMC addresses it.

However smaller guilds vs smaller guilds wouldn’t even have the issue of FPS and yet we still find that we can go an entire day, between two servers sharing a queue, that we only get all 4 matches done in a day if we are exceedingly lucky. And that is even after sitting in empty queues for upwards of 2 hours.

So with that being said even smaller guilds are not actively queuing which brings me back to the point that we have all the motivation and incentive to participate… but there is a substantially larger amount of discouragement and demotivating factors at play with their flawed systems.

#5

Beautiful, thank you @Nekorin.

The FPS concerns are definitely an issue that I hope they address. When you do fight another guild though they are also suffering from that terrible FPS. So while it sucks it is also… balanced, in a way, that everyone suffers together in the mess of IMC coding.

The timings are junk, for sure, but I can understand why they are there. If they were not there then, with limited matches, you would have to try to get your entire guild together at once and queue only to find that nobody else is queuing at all in your given span, which could increase queue times to span several hours. Once you find a match, whenever in the day another guild decides to queue, your members may not even be present anymore. By limiting the time guilds can participate, they force everyone to queue together which increases the likelihood of actually finding a match. I do hope though that they add regional timing soon. Their “one-time-fits-all” mentality isn’t working.

For our servers there are several guilds that have anywhere between 10-20 members online at either time and still do not queue, which is why I did not consider the timing an issue as much in our situation, and more that there are demotivating factors at play.

#6

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#7

I’m actually fine with IMC limiting GvG to a couple of time slots. The issue that is plaguing the SEA servers is that the time slots 9pm, 12am EDT , when converted to the SEA local times are:

  • 9am morning
  • 12pm afternoon

If the guild is made up of players who are schooling or working, no one is able to play at these timings. This is the reason why many of us create threads just to get IMC to change the timings, which they acknowledged and looking into it. (How hard is it to change 1 timing omg)

As for FPS reasoning, it isn’t really good to say since it affects everyone it balances out. The common denominator is not met, which is the game runs on different frame rates on different computer specs. If we take the case of another competitive game, SFV for example, it is able to achieve a fixed 60fps for a majority of gamers no matter the situation. If most players can get 60fps and yet no one wants to join the ranked matches, then the fault lies on the design side. It may be what you say, the shame and embarrassment of having loses shown to the server.

Right now FPS remains as one of the top issues for GvG.

Another issue I can think of is, the way GvG is initiated. My guild’s very first GvG experience (which the 7 of us died splendidly hugging the floor lol) was done by logging into my GM’s account to initiate the game. If the guild master is not online, the guild can’t participate at all no matter how many players are online at that time.

Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why guilds never participate in GvG.

#8

The problem here its not about some guild getting a better or worst fps. The problem is we dont have fun at all even when we win the battles. Its simply more stressfull then joyfull to play GvG right now, at least for us.
We played the first 2 days of GvG, but we give up, cuz everybody got upset even after winning, cuz half of us got stucked at tower after dead or disconected cuz the client crash.

#9

Fps dropping so low the game is nearly unplayable certainly seems like a valid reason for the lack of GvG participants, which is the purpose/title of this thread. I can guarantee you it turns many players away, rightfully so.

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#10

@Nekorin Yeah we have had a couple instances where we also had to wait for our GM (but not too long lol) which is another way that IMC has dropped the ball. A “Sub-leader” kind of position needs to be made available for a Guild Leader to grant to a member so that responsibility can be shared. Expecting one person to always be present, every day at multiple times, is a bit excessive.

The FPS is most certainly not acceptable but the reason I said that it is sort of fair in that everyone suffers together is, that despite that, we still queue (and, for the most part, we queue alone for the entire hour with not a single other guild between the two servers even wanting to participate).

As I said though the event rewards, the weekly TP rewards, everything incentive is still present despite the FPS being ■■■■. And the first week of GvG proved that multiple guilds are able to participate… where as now, on week 3, nearly everyone has stopped GvG altogether. Despite the incentives. I think that a few changes to the core of how GvG ranking is handled would at least eliminate some issues that discourage guild participation, even if core issues like FPS, bugs, disconnects, crashes, etc still exist. Typing that all out was very disheartening because it’s so true that GvG is a complete mess right now.

@vszalek yeah I’ve even been stuck quite a few times at the tower. You know it’s sad when you have an action plan against a single skill like Snow Rolling, just so your team can react quickly and prevent getting bugged by the horrible slew of CC bugs currently in the game. I don’t have a lot of fun in the battles where it is 15 vs 1, but I have even less fun when I plan around my GvG times and end up making sacrifices just so I can sit in queue for an hour without even a single match. Finding that nobody else is queuing at all between multiple servers is a pretty sad hour/day lol

Even if my ideas are complete trash (hey, I’m not perfect lol) hopefully this thread can at least be a good source of info for IMC when (if) they read it so they can figure out why the added the GvG feature and yet nobody is using it at all lol So far I think the main issues have been:

  1. Timing issues
  2. FPS
  3. Bugs/crashes/disconnects
  4. Reliance on Guild Leader to be online/ no Sub-leader role

I do know that in the future we are expecting invincibility periods after spawning to counter the effectiveness of a strong “push-and-camp” where players spawn into CC/AOE and insta rip, putting them further behind. I think though it would be better to have a “Spawn” button where you choose when to spawn, so that teams that communicate well can all come back at once instead of staggered all willy-nilly only to die one-by-one. Coupled with a limited invincibility that could also be nice.

Weekly Q-part of the Q&A
#11

Updated OP, thank you everyone for your constructive replies!

#12

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#13

@STAFF_Max @STAFF_Yuri @GM_Francis @GM_Sebastian @STAFF_John @STAFF_Amy this is still a problem, lack of participation + guilds abusing match-fixing which makes even less guilds participate.

Proof:

Is anything going to be done?

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