Guild Wars 2

In the tier threads there are a significant number of complaints that two servers are ganging up on another.

I think that 2v1 may be the most rational choice, and not 2nd & 3rd combining to beat 1st, but 1st & 3rd beating on 2nd. (Note: by 1st, 2nd, & 3rd, I mean according to the current score, rather than the green/blue/red team.)

One thing to keep in mind is that, since this is a zero sum game, if you beat your main opponent, you also pull them back, which is a “two-fer”.

The team in 1st has the most clearly defined opponent. If you 1st, why would you go out of your way to fight 3rd? Assuming you want to win and don’t care who comes in 2nd, the team you want to hurt is the team closest to you in score. If you knock them down to 3rd, then you can start hurting the new 2nd.

It’s not so clear cut when you are in 3rd, but it seems to me that pulling back 1st while 2nd is still ahead of you is not a winning strategy. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about 3rd place teams “fighting for second instead of fighting to win”, but if you’re in third then the path to first is through second.

For 2nd, it seems like your natural opponent is 1st — there’s no need to push 3rd further down while 1st is still ahead of you. Sure, if it’s red it’s dead, but a server has to choose where to devote its resources.

This goes out the window if the 1st place team has a mathematically unassailable lead.

Funny, i already know you were from SOR without reading your signature…
2v1 are only circumstantial events. You adapt your strategy to the moment. In Tier2, i often saw SOR attacking on north and TC attacking on south. Is that due to an agreement between those 2 servers? Of course not.

Honestly, the theories behind all these scenarios can be summed up in one sentence.

Any server, regardless of standing, stands to gain from a 2v1 with either of the two other servers at any given moment in time and it is those that capitalize on this opportunity the most that will have a stronger outcome when the points are counted up.

The rating system is what really drives servers to choose who to fight. Red server gains the most points by lowering Green’s score. It’s all about point spread. Red will gain rating even if they come in third place as long as their score is close to Green’s.

What the OP is saying is logical though, and is probably what leads to most blue servers feeling like it’s a predetermined double team.

Because then 3rd place is only playing for 2nd. What’s the point in fighting to not win? Supposing that the scores aren’t so unbalanced by the end of the weekend, 3rd place could still become 1st place. This can be true any day, really, if the matchups are kept close.

Let’s say scores at 20K, 15K, 14K, then by your logic, second and third would simply switch around every couple hours, and whoever’s in second at any given time would be getting beat up by 1st. But, if 2nd and 3rd beat up on 1st, suddenly the scores would become something like 22K, 20K, 20K. And that continues, until scores are even. And at the end of the week, every single server has a chance to win.

tldr: Nobody plays to not win.

Numbers are all made up, not based on anything. Just showing an example.

buzzkapow.8465:

tldr: Nobody plays to not win.

true that!

orchid.4726:

Funny, i already know you were from SOR without reading your signature…

Not at all sure I like the tone of that.

2v1 are only circumstantial events. You adapt your strategy to the moment. In Tier2, i often saw SOR attacking on north and TC attacking on south. Is that due to an agreement between those 2 servers? Of course not.

That’s a straw man. I am not making the case that intentional collusion is happening (to my knowledge, it isn’t, and the idea seems absurd). I’m just saying that playing to win means that you will tend to focus on one server rather than another, at least as a choice of who to fight more often.

And there are other factors. E.g., after you know the teams and the times that they have high pop, you might focus on them when they have low pop to build up a cushion, regardless of their current position.

But that said, and I know I’ve not made an iron clad case, it still seems to me that 2nd is 1st’s natural opponent, 1st is 2nd’s natural opponent, and 2nd is 3rd’s natural opponent.

Aodh.6418 responded above about ratings, and how 3rd gains more by lowering 1st. If people start fighting for ratings rather than score, then I think that 1st would be 3rd’s natural opponent.