Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Fencers]

The only person who brought up winning was Fencers:

Those are the only servers I know about or play on regularly. Don't know what TC's ranking is actually. I see that TC wins some and loses some. So I assume that is middle of the road for most servers.

I only been to WvW twice ever. Though TC and Blackgate are fairly busy servers from what I gather/experienced.

[Huehuecoyotl]

*snip*

I have been seeing you post regularly around here, and clearly you know a hell of a lot about the game, and you are keen to share your knowledge. This is a good thing. Can you not see that your posting style is actually getting in the way of your goal? Your patronising, insulting style is guaranteed to get everyones backs up. The end result will be people missing the important points you make because of the tone that you use to make them.

Unless you are just trying to annoy everyone, in which case well done. Keep it up.

[Karizee]

And last week her server's score was twice was it is now. It shows a simple-minded understanding of the game to expect a static experience in WvW, you cannot look a single screenshot and think you have the big picture.

[Dezerte]

What would you say is the closest class & spec to this idea?

A tanky character, using retaliation and similar proc-on-hit abilities to fulfill most of the damage output. When not being focused, it should have some "annoyance" skills to complement it.

[Deleted]

Hope for those of you still playing, that they do announce the season start date with more notice this time, as it`ll give the players that don`t immediately move the chance to see how well things go once the bigger herd has flit, rather then finding out during the season you`re screwed.
I know the guild I was in for a while (most of them) stayed on UW, but left recently. Not surprising, seeing as we`ve been as high as fifth in the past, often around 11-17th, but during the season, not only did they get white washed most of the time against the zergvers, they also ended up with lowest weekly points.....in the world.

That is what this season has done to some servers /sigh
& for what, some temp` spike flags, a mini (which no one will ever notice) &...erm....loss of fellow server cronies.

Hope you manage to find a better/newer server Lane (& all others that flit) & vive le PvP, long may the enemy respawn

A single screenshot of one point in time on an enemy's borderlands map is meaningless. Look at this timelapse of map changes over the course of a full match last week between Henge, Ferguson's & Sorrow's Furnace:

But that image wasn`t of the enemy borderlands was it. They had stated they were blue & you can see that Citadel is blue & also that the new capture nodes are blue also.
If one image is "meaningless" then so is one clip of one particular match up.
Millenium.org is a better resource for showing the points action, despite the fact it doesn`t tell you if it was all from night cappers etc, but even then players playing on the servers are the only true way to find out what is what.

But Lane isn't interested in rankings. She is only interested in WINS!

Extremely presumptuous of you. Oddly, folk do do this for the wins, but I`m guessing a hell of a lot more do it for the pvp/fun etc.

Some of my best memories in WvWs were from Underworld losing, but leading to some amazing fights where we were heavily outmanned (again, almost constantly at times) yet still winning fights that due to numbers we shouldn`t have.

Then you are looking to the wrong game mode. There will never be "balance" in WvW simply due to the fact that there are 3 opponents. Go find some tidy little battleground with 2 sides, no siege and a set number of players at the same level with the same gear.

That`s a very odd thing to spout.
First: Why shouldn`t there be balance? Wasn`t there an mmo in the past with three faction pvp (don`t recall its name, drat) that had balanced numbers?
Second: There is no reason at all why it shouldn`t be balanced in gw2 either. But anet still use some seemingly random matchup system at times that can put two heavy wvw populated servers against one that is dead in comparison.
Third: After all of this seasonal debacle, some servers purposefully dropping, some guilds moving etc, it`s only a matter of time before most folk are settled all in one clump & the quieter (aka ghost towns) are left to the pure PvE/RPers.
Fourth: I`m guessing the two sided battlegrounds was a hat tip towards warcraft. Bit odd tbh, seeing as actiblizz never did get things right after they allowed faction transfers & left some servers almost pure Horde or Alliance, not many servers had an even match up after that.
Also, you never had folk with the same gear.
Or were you on about gw2s bgs? Because gear/level aside, the balance in there isn`t all that much better then it is in wvws. If it were, you`d see all classes represented & players wouldn`t be checking who/what was on what side before they decided which to enter...

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Those are the only servers I know about or play on regularly. Don't know what TC's ranking is actually. I see that TC wins some and loses some. So I assume that is middle of the road for most servers.

I only been to WvW twice ever. Though TC and Blackgate are fairly busy servers from what I gather/experienced.

That`s good to hear the TC is doing well, it`s mainly the unofficial RP server isn`t it?
I watch a lot of Chronicles of Tyria & they`re on there I believe

[Fencers]

That`s good to hear the TC is doing well, it`s mainly the unofficial RP server isn`t it?
I watch a lot of Chronicles of Tyria & they`re on there I believe

Don't really know about TC being an RP server. Everyone just speaks normally in chat. Though the server is very lively with people all over the place.

I only went to TC because a few friends were going there-- beyond that I know nothing of the server "community". I rarely interact or speak to anyone outside of my guild.

[Meledelion]

First off, sorry Fencers. I didn't mean to drag you into this, but I wanted to point out that Karizee was mixing up what was being said by whom therefore I had to quote and name you, I in no way meant to aim any of my arrows at you or deflect other people's arrows towards you.

Second,

I have been seeing you post regularly around here, and clearly you know a hell of a lot about the game, and you are keen to share your knowledge. This is a good thing. Can you not see that your posting style is actually getting in the way of your goal? Your patronising, insulting style is guaranteed to get everyones backs up. The end result will be people missing the important points you make because of the tone that you use to make them.

Unless you are just trying to annoy everyone, in which case well done. Keep it up.

Thankfully this is the one thread so I can go offtopic and expand a bit.

I'm fully aware of my writing style and in general I try not to patronize when explaining things. If you've visited the class specific threads you'll probably notice that I'm usually (I admit, not always) quite patient when people ask questions.
Some people though have gotten on my nerves with certain things, I can name them and what they do wrong in my opinion but that won't get us anywhere and will probably offend more than one person. This also means that I'm very aware of the fact that I annoy others and that they have a similar philosophy in this regard.

Now, my last few posts have been quite patronizing especially towards Karizee which I'm aware of. There's a couple of reasons for this, the most obvious one is that Karizee and I both post a lot which is why the odds of conflict/disagreement are quite high.

I get really patronizing when people infer off the hook things from other people's post and then put down the person who they're talking to/about.
Sadly this happens a lot and sadly most people seem to not care about this, I do.

If you think you have the right to ridicule (no matter in what scale) anyone else, I will ridicule you. I don't use generic insults, I simply go back and show what's been written and what's wrong (I don't know how long you've been around but I have had some pretty long posts detailing a full conversation between people who forget what they wrote), I hate when people try to bend the truth about what they said and when they go down a trend of slippery sloaping (I can kill anyone. I can kill anyone who doesn't attack me in the back. I can kill anyone doesn't attack me in the back and isn't a thief/ranger/... I can kill anyone who I get the drop off and isn't class X.).

Many people think that I'm not aware that I'm being insulting/harsh/mean/... I am. I simply write the way I do for a reason, I take the risk of going down the other person's mentality and pay them in kind, I make no exceptions and thus I "have to" post like this on the regular.

I also get patronizing when people post numbers that they haven't calculated themselves and are just regurgitated from somewhere else without having ever been fact-checked. I have no issues with people countering my arguments but for the love of god atleast show that you're knowledgeable about everything that's being discussed (I'm hinting at the recent thief=ele>.... dps wise discussion where I also was a little condescending).

TLDR, I'm a white knight who constantly thinks SOMEONE'S WRONG ON THE INTERNET! and I can't help myself :'(.

P.S.: Ty for the kind words in regards to my understanding of the game.

[Valeron]

speaking of Thief vs Elementalist

Thief used to be my highest killing speed class. But ever since the last patch, whether it's my imagination or not, my staff elementalist has easily taken over that mantle. They are at roughly the same gear level. I will say that my thief has a lot more control options though.

[Meledelion]

Ele got buffed and thief was nerfed so you're not imagining things.

[Svifnymr]

Gate of Madness is without a doubt the coolest named server and where I originally wanted to roll until a friend (who quit less than a month later :P) intervened.

However, what you described is something I've already experienced extensively and I really don't want to be on another heavily fairweather dependent server.

I picked it for the name, the early days the servers were so much in flux there really wasn't any specific stuff.

But yeah, I'd think all the bronze will be fair-weather, GoM did well early in the season, but every time some new event would arrive, all the fairweathers would flood the tower or the whatever and ignore Wv.

[Meledelion]

You got the reference, it was obvious, but it makes me glad.

[zed zebes]

What would you say is the closest class & spec to this idea?

A tanky character, using retaliation and similar proc-on-hit abilities to fulfill most of the damage output. When not being focused, it should have some "annoyance" skills to complement it.

Maybe a Guardian with Hammer/Mace+Shield ?

[Arlee]

Some servers miraculously seem to have come out the stronger after the season, at least NSP and IoJ -- the only two servers out of Silver league we were able to defeat -- have made very strong showings since. IoJ, formerly the runt of the trio, won against us both in our last (re)match.

It remains to be seen if they learn from their mistakes in the first season. As far as transfers are concerned, I'm just worried about another round of server stacking. It'd really suck to move somewhere and then find out their WvWers collectively decided to go somewhere else. >_<

Yea I have been trying to guess what might attribute the stronger showing of some servers after the season as opposed to during it. I know before the season started some servers were purposefully trying to drop to lower brackets, so there might be some of that going on again which in turn would make some servers look like they are doing better when in reality it's just that some of their opponents aren't trying at all :/ I'm not really sure if that would account for all the variances though. Been trolling through the data on millennium since the season ended trying to figure it out, but I think there is a data point out there that isn't available which would make it make sense :/ I wish there was some way to track server transfers.

Your second point is also a really valid concern :/ Honestly I'd say your best bet would likely be transferring to one of the servers who won last season... though it might not be a safe bet either because another bit of info we don't know is if they are going to divide leagues based on the rankings a week before the next season starts like last time, or if the standings at the end of last season will play into it somehow. If the last season factors in it could ruin a lot of people's plans.

You got the reference, it was obvious, but it makes me glad.

If anyone doesn't know of XKCD I feel sad for them. It's one of the best comics out there imho

[Meledelion]

What would you say is the closest class & spec to this idea?

A tanky character, using retaliation and similar proc-on-hit abilities to fulfill most of the damage output. When not being focused, it should have some "annoyance" skills to complement it.

Reta is horrible since it scales of the person giving the reta 's power. This means that you have to run PVT gear to keep up the damage and tankiness.

retaliation damage = 198.45 + (0.075 * Power)
In full ascended gear (with 25might and full bloodlust) that is 423 damage per hit, not bad but there's some issues.

1. Misses = no damage (blind/aegis/dodge/...)
2. It's hard to keep up and easy to rip
3. Condition classes won't take a lot of damage
4. Not attacking = your foe is very safe since just power doesn't damage people enough (and they can use immobilizes without being punished)

A much better way is to focus on confusion
1. Not a problem
2. Easy to keep up, easily removed (but it hurts before it gets removed)
3. Still take damage
4. Not a problem

You can either go mes or engi for this sort of build, you'll obviously be focusing on condition damage. As for actual builds I cba to look them up atm but they're easy to find.

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snip

WvW is a mess to make any sense of given our knowledge.

You can't transfer now and be safe since it's possible that all servers that are in gold aim to be in silver to make winning easier (but boring as hell since it's an imbalanced setup) and so on.

Player activity is very tough to find out, having 10solo players in a map can be gold if they give call-outs but if they don't do that they're pretty much useless but how would you measure that? So even knowing X, Y and Z of how many players each server has in a BL doesn't help. Classes are also important and so on.

There's also focusing on certain foes (strategy or hate) making it hard to determine that if A beats B and C beats B, C also beats A

All in all there's just too many variables out there but giving some info might help to bring clarity.

[zed zebes]

My view: I've been on Stormbluff Isle since launch. We were #1 and top tier for the first few months or so since launch. We then had people get pissed off (War Machine, a major GW guild since the first game.) and then an Exodus, and then we dropped to mid tiers, and people went transferring to find a winning server elsewhere. We then had people transfer to us from really low ranked servers, and then transfer again, constantly hopping to find a winning position. Through it all, I warned everyone that the only constant in WvWvW is flux. Not change, but flux. Servers rise and fall, guilds rise, burn out or lose allies. I stuck with SBI because the community is strong throughout the game and it's the home server of most of my guilds.

So I've fallen and risen and repeat. I've seen players and guilds that left us for other servers have to move again. We've risen above servers that bandwagonned over us and above guilds that left us for greener pastures. There's just no constant unless you go to somewhere like Blackgate, but then you have to deal with queues that get nightmarish. Our server has adopted guilds that left t1 to escape the queues. There is no absolutely happy place. Find a server that has a community that you like and sit on it. WvWvW will flux. The only thing you can rely on is the community. If its strong, it will rebuild itself.

[Arlee]

Yea I agree with you Mel.. it's just against my nature to not try and figure out something once I get curious about it and I tend to keep working on it no matter how many brick walls I have to bash my head on. One of my failings in life

One things I haven't seen happen is when a strong server and two weak servers are matched against each other, I haven't seen the weak servers sort of band together to take out the strong server. This seems odd to me because I would think that would be the obvious tactic especially during the season where if some servers had done that the race for first might have been an actual race. Idk... maybe it's as simple as no one wants to help someone else potentially win, though the reality of the situation is by not doing that they just helped the first ranked servers roll everyone.

[zed zebes]

Yaks Bend is very pro-double team, but they're the only server I've seen actively pursue it week in and week out. I think most just get desperate for something to accomplish, and so the weaker servers attack each other in order to attain a keep or tower.

[Valeron]

yeah I don't think it quite worked out how ANet wanted it to (as far as 2 weaker realms teaming up to attack the strongest one)

[Meledelion]

At the start of the game servers banded together frequently, the problem is that if it's A+B vs C, A can't defend B's stuff and vice versa.
You can say "If we cap something of yours you can take it back no contest later" but then who's gonna upgrade it and defend it from C? At the same time you have to divide all maps so it's close to 35%*2+30% which is very risky given the previous statement, so you have to get 40/40/20 which is really really hard ( it's something like 275tick+275 tick vs 145 tick)

The only real things you can coordinate are simultaneous strikes at important locations attacking both bay and hills, or the outer towers on EB and so on. The catch here is that you have to do this on all borderlands at the same time or C will just borderhop. You also have to make sure that you cap at the same time otherwise one server will get a lead.

Those are some difficulties, the main problem however is simply coverage (as usual). Strong servers simply have a big round the clock presence, weak servers don't so night-capping breaks the entire idea since you lose the 40/40/20 distribution and then bringing the score back in line is extremely hard. C can just ignore one enemy BL at night to tip the balance.

Mathematically it's also not really worth it to go 40/40 since we just know that won't happen add to this that thanks to the glicko system it's really not worth the trouble to set all this up since you don't lose a lot of points if you lose from a strong server but you do lose reasonable points if you lose to someone on a similar level, it's easier to try and ensure 2nd place giving you a few points for beating 3 and losing hardly anything from losing to C. Included with rating comes that if A>B you have to ensure that the end is B>=A>C which again is easily countered by C focusing B, making it risky for B to trust A.

TLDR, ratings screw it up

[zed zebes]

Back when they were looking for suggestions for WvWvW, I posted these ideas:

Changes to Weekly Scoring:

Scoring will now be decided by a best of 21 over the course of the week. Each day of the week is broken up into 3 sections that last 8 hours each. Points are accumulated in mostly the same way (minus changes listed below) over the 8 hour span. The server with the most points for that 8 hour span gets 2 win points, and 2nd place gets 1 win point. At the end of the week, the win points are added up, along with an extra win point for the overall score through the week, and the server with the most win points then wins the week's match-up.

-Week long match-up
-21 sets within the week worth 2 or 1 win point each.
-Each set lasts 8 hours
-Extra win point for the highest total score at the end of the week

(Math would have to be done to figure out the best way to divy up win points in order to alleviate ties. Originally, I had only 1 win point going to the server that won that 8 hour span, but figured second place should also get points so that we don't have servers getting blanked all the time. However many win points you award is less important than breaking up potential ties and creating a comeback mechanic. I still prefer 1 win point for each span since it works for comebacks.)

Over the week, this would lead to much better endings for match-ups and greatly increase comeback potential. This also negates nightcapping advantages somewhat. Instead of falling behind 10k points overnight, you fall behind 1 win point. You can make up that win point by winning a close match-up during prime-time. Thus, your hard work during the day isn't made futile by people PVDooring a karma train at night.

Changes to Tick Scoring:

Problems: Outmanned isn't encouraging people to play while outmanned and it doesn't discourage a bad behavior for the stronger server: (rushing through the entire map). Also, rewards encourage constantly flipping things at night. This leads to "Karma training", which can often turn a whole map one color and discourage the other two sides from doing much.

Proposed change: When a server gains a lead that goes past a certain threshold, a debuff to towers and keeps is enforced. For example, lets say a 4k lead within the 8-hour set span would lead to activating this proposed debuff. Once a server with a large lead gains the debuff, any new keep or tower they take within that span of time is given a "Revenge" debuff that lasts 20 minutes. Whenever one of these "Revenge" keeps or towers are retaken by another server, that server gets 25% more PPT for that keep or tower over the next 45 minutes.

This would punish heavily manned servers for karma training across the entire map. Anything they take can be retaken and defended for more points than what the karma training server gets for them. If you over extend when outmanning other servers, you may actually cost your server PPT leads. This also encourages outmanned servers to still try to retake their own structures and defend them.

The numbers can be adjusted. You can find the sweet spot in lead for the debuff to trigger, and a sweet spot for how much the debuff is worth in PPT for the other side. However, the concept itself is what's important as it encourages more competitive looking maps.



Basically, my changes approach the psychological point of WvWvW. The reasons you have such flux and dropoffs is often because of the score/map situation as combined with each individual players situation. You make changes to alleviate the feeling of hopelessness and you will probably get better numbers showing up and being active, even when guilds or players are taking a week off.