Guild Wars 2

A new custom is starting to develop to counter this “serious bussines” learning freeze thing… sparring bouts. Mostly born out of the refusal to compromise e-pn but a common will to scrap. Problem is it is seen as a missed opportunity by many.

You see the “serious biz” aura is rly a double edge sword… it makes everything so much more compelling and tense, important almost… but yeah, it kills experimentation and development.

This can only be fixed by a simple game mode implementation, maybe slotted monstruously in the sPvP frames. I would accept 15v baseline, seems more reasonable than 20, while retaining the small army feel. Deathmatch means fast fights, and the high count in teams makes it very accesible to the layman.

At any rate, its good to dream, but as of today our only way to endure serious biz spirit is to spar. Throng surfing is a very limited fountain of training, and will give you bad habits as a GvG crew.

Ogre.1750:

A new custom is starting to develop to counter this “serious bussines” learning freeze thing… sparring bouts. Mostly born out of the refusal to compromise e-pn but a common will to scrap. Problem is it is seen as a missed opportunity by many.

You see the “serious biz” aura is rly a double edge sword… it makes everything so much more compelling and tense, important almost… but yeah, it kills experimentation and development.

This can only be fixed by a simple game mode implementation, maybe slotted monstruously in the sPvP frames. I would accept 15v baseline, seems more reasonable than 20, while retaining the small army feel. Deathmatch means fast fights, and the high count in teams makes it very accesible to the layman.

At any rate, its good to dream, but as of today our only way to endure serious biz spirit is to spar. Throng surfing is a very limited fountain of training, and will give you bad habits as a GvG crew.

I dont know. People still read a lot into these sparring matches. I definitely think the mentality of those involved could do with being adjusted a bit.
I guess i hope that as gw2gvg develops and more matches get added and the effect of winning or losing becomes fairly minor people just dont take things as seriously.
Hopefully when that happens people will feel more comfortable taking risks with set up.

I also think it can have other negative consequences as some guilds are saying they’re having a hard time getting people to fight them. They dont say it but its kind of implied that people are afraid to lose to them

I think if GVG has to truly evolve further, it ironically needs to be moved to tpvp instead of continuing it in WvW. It offers far more advantages over WvW.

1. Biggest advantage is guilds being able to fight each other regardless of the server. If u need healthy GvG scene. U will need more than 2 teams willing to fight u on the opposing server.
2. All players will have complete access to all classes and the same gear. WvW currently does offer “advantages” whether we agree or not.. for example – a guy with full guard leech, full ascended trinkets and most expensive food will have an advantage over a guy with full exotic gear, no masteries, and average food.
3.it would lure more pvp focused pvp player’s to at least join gvg guilds and there by increasing the skill ceiling and evolving meta naturally.
4. A best example is VoTF itself to see what spvp backed experience brings to the table. Another good example is richmond of GH.
5. Minimal skill lag and intruptions. Just when ur having a good nail biting match imagine a whole zone of vizunah/blobaddons decide to port in the map. Skill lag goes for a toss. In spvp u will have 4 spectators who preferably are streamers.
6. It will shut up all the wvw’ers who think wvw is only about ppt and winning.

Of course ANET obviously will need to make nonconquest type battleground with varying options like 15/20/25. But going purely by developer interaction on forums about being “heard” .
Spvp forums offer far more possibilities compared to wvw forum which the dev hardly even read and the only responsible dev thinks seige are the most important thing and hence never ending lines of seige masteries.

Caid.4932:

I dont know. People still read a lot into these sparring matches. I definitely think the mentality of those involved could do with being adjusted a bit.

100% this!

As people have mentioned, the GvG meta is generally very cookie-cutter and stale, due to nobody wanting to risk trying anything new, as every fight is “official”

The problem with sparring, is that even when you take the “official” part away, the hype is still there, the stream is still there, the scores are still kept, and the aftermath still happens all the same as if it was official. Our sparring against GD even got feature spot on GvG showdown this week. So there is still just as much pressure to stick to what you know in terms of meta. We were already sparring without either of our usual raid leaders, if we had tried a radically different setup too, the result, and subsequent discussion about the fights, could well have been very different from an outsider PoV.

Sparring is also seen as one guild chickening out of fighting another. I think the gw2gvg leaderboards has a lot to do with this attitude problem to be honest. Scnd were doing scrims against BuLL and sIN back when we were on Piken, and nobody cared back then. I’d even go as far as to say, that most people couldn’t even tell you the score of those, despite the rep’s of the guilds involved. Now with the leaderboards it has become a different issue, and while they remain in the format they are, I don’t think the meta can evolve radically.

Personally i’d welcome guilds approaching us for sparring fights, so that both guilds can enjoy themselves, and learn something, rather than sit in a boring matchup all week because nobody wanted to lose rating.

Just my opinion

I remember when VoTF had little semi-organized fights against IRON. We would just decide to meet somewhere (on the road to the centaurs) and kill eachother on sight. No agreement on numbers IIRC but neither side was overwhelming. Those were awesome fights, I almost kitten myself when we realised they were pincering us.

Wompage.4586:

Caid.4932:

I dont know. People still read a lot into these sparring matches. I definitely think the mentality of those involved could do with being adjusted a bit.

100% this!

As people have mentioned, the GvG meta is generally very cookie-cutter and stale, due to nobody wanting to risk trying anything new, as every fight is “official”

I don’t know…
GvG being on WvW means you have whole open field to experiment on. Granted, that’s not isolated environment as GvG itself, but you still have opportunity to test all kinds of ideas running open field, if you are determined to do so and look for balanced fights against organized opponents, not just busting pug zergs

Of course, it goes without saying that dedicated GvG game mode, be it based on WvW balance or sPvP one, would propel evolution of GvG meta. That would give us a training ground where, even if there are no opponents available atm, bigger guild could deploy two teams to the same arena to spar, train and test things out.

Oh man, whenever GW1 is brought to the table I’m always wondering what the person is trying to achieve. GW1 is a totally different game, and in terms of gameplay mechanics it makes no sense to compare GvG fights from both games to each other.
GvG in GW2 evolved over the last 6 months naturally and the scene is where it is, but will never be in the same spot where GW1 GvG was. And it makes no sense to push it in that direction. Leave GW1 where it is, and move on.

The other thing is, that GvG has no strict rules (right now). Numbers, how many rounds, winning conditions and so on are all player made and based on agreement between the two guilds fighting. That’s hardly a competetive “game mode”, i would say it’s more like RP for people who like to fight other people in bigger fights.
So, will GvG ever be a truly competetive game mode within GW2? I highly doubt it, because of the underlying gameplay focus the game has. The game itself is aimed at casuals, lots of RNG and hidden stuff which is not clearly documented to get a competetive scene going.

We have a handful of top guilds left in the game, who are still trying to develop a active scene and shifting GvG in a sensible direction, that’s great. Hopefully it will get more players into GvG or even into the game to help the scene growing. Focussing on ladder points over at gw2gvg.com is (in my opinion) a mistake and just like focussing on ranking points for the server, and watching mos.millenium.org to see which rank the server has right now.

My point is: Let GvG develop. Think back to february what we had then, and now look where we are six months later. I would say, thats a pretty great evolution we’ve seen. Maybe we’ll see a few adjustments from ArenaNet to help develop this particular scene, maybe not. All we can do is what we’re already doing. Have as many organized fights as possible, thats the only thing pushing the scene forward..

yiishing.9057:

Oh man, whenever GW1 is brought to the table I’m always wondering what the person is trying to achieve. GW1 is a totally different game, and in terms of gameplay mechanics it makes no sense to compare GvG fights from both games to each other.

It makes sense in many ways, dont let your holy cow sindrome overtake you. Everybody is beign reasonable.

yiishing.9057:

GvG in GW2 evolved over the last 6 months naturally and the scene is where it is, but will never be in the same spot where GW1 GvG was. And it makes no sense to push it in that direction. Leave GW1 where it is, and move on.

No one wants to go towards it, we just want an official format recognition for GW2 GvG, a gamemode created by players, supported by players, practiced and studied by players. Demanded by players, if you might. Thats the very definition of community driven. Its not Anets model… its certainly not a GW1 model either… its our model. That kind of has a unique value in itself,and is precious.

yiishing.9057:

The other thing is, that GvG right now has no strict rules (right now). Numbers, how many rounds, winning conditions

Well, if you refer to the fact no game mechanic enforces u to do anything, youdontsay.jpg. But overall, theres a pretty fixed setup of rules: same numbers, to death. Its simple, extremely so.

yiishing.9057:

The game itself is aimed at casuals, lots of RNG and hidden stuff which is not clearly documented to get a competetive scene going.

I see extreme contradiction in that statement. Regardless, it could be argued the whole industry has almost exclusively focused on catering to the broad audience. I still consider this title the highest skill based mmorpg to date, tho.

yiishing.9057:

My point is: Let GvG develop. Think back to february what we had then, and now look where we are six months later. I would say, thats a pretty great evolution we’ve seen. Maybe we’ll see a few adjustments from ArenaNet to help develop this particular scene, maybe not. All we can do is what we’re already doing. Have as many organized fights as possible, thats the only thing pushing the scene forward..

My point is: having the hopes to be oficially recognised considering the current activity seems reasonable to me. Our fight club gets bigger by the minute, and is very active. I get the feeling you dont really take it very seriously, or rather that u try to give out that impression. Odd considering your guilds success and efforts. Those were certainly not casual.

Hope im not giving out a bitter impression, im as calm as an iceberg

yiishing.9057:

We have a handful of top guilds left in the game, who are still trying to develop a active scene and shifting GvG in a sensible direction, that’s great. Hopefully it will get more players into GvG or even into the game to help the scene growing. Focussing on ladder points over at gw2gvg.com is (in my opinion) a mistake and just like focussing on ranking points for the server, and watching mos.millenium.org to see which rank the server has right now.

Im inclined to agree with this. I would have much preferred that GW2GVG simply serve as a historical account of past GvGs than actually try to filter then into a ladder rank based on calculations that are debatable. Dont get me wrong, I very much appreciate the effort that was put in to make this possible and give us as the community a tool to work with. But I also cant help but feel it could have been done better. I dont think a “ladder” is feasible due to the inconsistencies of games and the arbitrary ruleset that differs between each GvG. There have also been guilds who hesitated to GvG vs us in fear of losing ladder rank, and thats almost the equivalent of the ladder actually hindering the promotion of activity.

Tbh in most competitive games, nobody really takes the ladder seriously as a metric of skill. Nobody did in GW1, nobody does in GW2 tpvp and very few games that I know of care. Its always about the tournaments. That is also something that may be considered, if people want to really make this competitive, then in a given week a tournament can be helped in the bottom 2 servers (Vabbi and FoW I believe) where all the GvG guilds transfer there for a week and play several GvGs daily in a structured style to conclude after 7 days which guild wins the tournament. Just a random idea off the top of my head, probably wouldnt work for a lot of reasons but something to consider if this is really going to be “competitive” cause a ladder simply doesnt cut it. I mean VoTF got to r5 on the ladder after a single win, and perhaps that is or is not our place on the ladder, I feel like we jumped too high in 1 match for me to take it seriously.

Achilles.2197:

I still find it hilarious that this is called GvG

Me too!

@ogre
Well, maybe I played a little bit devils advocat here
Don’t get me wrong, I love GvGs, I love the fighting spirit and whole dynamic surrounding that setup. I love watching guilds fighting in an organized fashion and I really like doing it myself. But when I speak of a competetive game mode, I mean things like a controlled environment, regional ladder, big tournaments and worldwide championships. A year ago GW2 was released, and nothing really changed during that year. The last few months we (as a very young GvG community) made little tiny steps into the right direction, several people and guilds certainly had a massive influence on this development. We made these steps ourselves, without any help from ArenaNet. And we have to keep doing so. Thinking from step to step and not get to far ahead with our very own progress.

Indeed, our guild approach is not casual at. We try to win every fight we’re invloved in, and it doesn’t matter if its an official GvG, sparring fight or just an open field skirmish during “normal” WvW play. We’re constantly looking and talking about mistakes we’ve made and changes we need to do in order to improve ourselves.

Jackie.1829:

Its always about the tournaments. That is also something that may be considered, if people want to really make this competitive, then in a given week a tournament can be helped in the bottom 2 servers (Vabbi and FoW I believe) where all the GvG guilds transfer there for a week and play several GvGs daily in a structured style to conclude after 7 days which guild wins the tournament. Just a random idea off the top of my head, probably wouldnt work for a lot of reasons but something to consider if this is really going to be “competitive” cause a ladder simply doesnt cut it. I mean VoTF got to r5 on the ladder after a single win, and perhaps that is or is not our place on the ladder, I feel like we jumped too high in 1 match for me to take it seriously.

Me and some guildies have been thinking about organizing a tournament week in the tier 9 server, however as you say there are alot of reasons why it wouldn’t work. All guilds would have to pay a fortune to go to tier 9 and back. This would mean that some guilds would skip this and another problem, maybe even worse, is that guilds that are on the same server would not be able to fight eachother.

About the rating, it’s the Glicko 2 rating system, you guys went up to spot 5 because of beating a high ranked guild, that’s how it works. I agree it’s really easy to get into the top 10, but it’s also hard to stay in there. I am however open for suggestions on how to improve the rating system!

While im not overly fond of the ladder style organisation i do think the site needs some kind of organisation. Like theres 100 or so guilds listed there.
Overall i think the site has helped a massive ammount as were up against Jade Sea this week, a server i haven’t fought in months and I can find out what guilds they have, who to contact in them, what kind of numbers they prefer (10v10 or whatever) and maybe i recognise one of their opponents and have some vague idea of the level they’re playing at.
Thats all brilliant, really helpful information.
Its up to us to stop taking the ladder seriously if we think its doing more harm than good.

Gentlemen, I think the seriousness and the e-pn pressure cannot and shouldnt be avoided. Let me explain:

What we have now, under the current gvg.com ladder system, is an open, ongoing, free for all GvG tournament. The division or rather weight check control is basicaly the crews free will to commit to a match and make it official. I see no problems here, considering what we have to work to begin with.

Public slander or rumors shouldnt taint in any way our endevours, those will always be there, specially considering the nature of these activities. E-pn is at stake yes, this is fact. Human nature acts acordingly. This cannot be avoided.

Regarding that Jack, Im still wondering why VotF hasnt registered the legendary matches they fought with RG. I heard a “fresh start” rumor, which unsettled me, considering im a fan of history. Not really caring much, but yesterday i read some random public concerns. True story.

I’m not a statistician but I believe the ratings system on the site could be different.

Ideally I believe that 2 guilds that decide to fight should both receive points (reward playing despite of results)

The points received by the loser should be weighted with their own win/loss ratio (if you lose hundreds of matches without winning one, you would receive a lot less points for participating).
It should also be weighted with the rating difference between the teams (losing to ‘better’ guilds should hurt less than losing to a ‘weaker’ guild).
And finally a weight based on how hard they lost.

The points received by the winner are obviously higher by default than the ones won by the loser.
The weights added to those points would be the rating difference between both teams
A weight for how hard they won.

Another thing that could be added into this system would be something that knocks inactive guilds down. After every timeframe (e.g. a month) the points received during that timeframe would lose some weight (like becoming 80% of the points at that time) and this would keep going on for ever so eventually the first months you play would mean nothing at all. This would make it possible for people to make up for mistakes.

To favor history we could keep a hall of fame of all guilds who had the highest amount of points during a timeframe and for how many timeframes. That way the ladder would always be fresh but history would not be forgotten.

I don’t know if a system like this already exists (probably does and it is probably better). I believe this (if worked out and with some more specific numbers) would be a better system.

The sad part would be that the old matches might not mean anything in this system unless someone wants to do a lot of input work and even then it is probably not fair.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

I think the rating system is fine as is, there just hasn’t been enough matches played for it to have any meaning atm.

Ogre.1750:

Regarding that Jack, Im still wondering why VotF hasnt registered the legendary matches they fought with RG. I heard a “fresh start” rumor, which unsettled me, considering im a fan of history. Not really caring much, but yesterday i read some random public concerns. True story.

Because personally I disagreed that this ladder should be retroactive in anyway. When a ladder starts in anygame it starts fresh, when a game launches it doesnt preserve the ranking of its beta testing. When a season starts in most competitive games the ranks are reset (ladder wipes in GW1 from season to season, current tpvp leaderboards being unrelated to paid tournament leaderboards). If the goal of the ladder was to promote active GvG from its launch onwards, then the objective shouldnt have been to decide the top place by who did the most GvGs before a ladder was even made. VoTF has also won 5 GvGs before it registered on that website, I have not gone back to request my wins, because when we GvGed those guilds, there was no ladder at stake as far as they were aware, and we were not registered to the website so we were not consciously competing for a rank, even if we may have won. You cannot just make up rules as you go along then preach fair and competitive pvp, doesnt work that way in real pvp. Unless you then say the ladder isnt so serious so it doesnt matter, but that then contradicts everything else you have said so far. So can only be one or the other.

The history is still there if history is what you are truly after. There are videos of the accounts so they can be fondly looked back upon. But history has no place in a “competitive” ladder.

RG…VoTF. Ogre. Jackie. Do you understand each other now? Are you going to compromise?

Make two ladders.
One that includes (historical matches for historical reference of who was active at certain times).
One that is reset like normal ladders after a certain amount of time with a winner declared.

Lets point out that the game format is not being assisted by developers and it is unusual for players to be making structure decisions…

May I ask why we havn’t heard of [Deth] yet? They seems to be ranked #2 and soon to be #1 for NA ranking. I know the NA server arn’t as interesting GvG wise but I’d be nice to know our good guild.

Jackie.1829:

Ogre.1750:

Regarding that Jack, Im still wondering why VotF hasnt registered the legendary matches they fought with RG. I heard a “fresh start” rumor, which unsettled me, considering im a fan of history. Not really caring much, but yesterday i read some random public concerns. True story.

Because personally I disagreed that this ladder should be retroactive in anyway. When a ladder starts in anygame it starts fresh, when a game launches it doesnt preserve the ranking of its beta testing. When a season starts in most competitive games the ranks are reset (ladder wipes in GW1 from season to season, current tpvp leaderboards being unrelated to paid tournament leaderboards). If the goal of the ladder was to promote active GvG from its launch onwards, then the objective shouldnt have been to decide the top place by who did the most GvGs before a ladder was even made. VoTF has also won 5 GvGs before it registered on that website, I have not gone back to request my wins, because when we GvGed those guilds, there was no ladder at stake as far as they were aware, and we were not registered to the website so we were not consciously competing for a rank, even if we may have won. You cannot just make up rules as you go along then preach fair and competitive pvp, doesnt work that way in real pvp. Unless you then say the ladder isnt so serious so it doesnt matter, but that then contradicts everything else you have said so far. So can only be one or the other.

The history is still there if history is what you are truly after. There are videos of the accounts so they can be fondly looked back upon. But history has no place in a “competitive” ladder.

Funny almost every other guild have registered previous matches both wins and losses.

problematic.9623:

RG…VoTF. Ogre. Jackie. Do you understand each other now? Are you going to compromise?
Make two ladders.
One that includes (historical matches for historical reference of who was active at certain times).
One that is reset like normal ladders after a certain amount of time with a winner declared.
Lets point out that the game format is not being assisted by developers and it is unusual for players to be making structure decisions…

Thats got to be the voice of reason if i ever heard one. It only makes sense to have a sort of fresh start, if we really want to get serious about this. At the same time, a registry of all matches, altho ambitious, isnt a far-fetched possibility considering the system already in place.

Im unsure of everythign else tho, but seasons as an overall concept could work. Maybe 3 month seasons? With Glicko and everything. Dunno, brainstorm welcome.

EDIT- Trice, lol youre right, I considered Deathclock inactive, but i see ive been missing out the past week! I gotta stop roaming forums and actually wake the kitten up, thanks for the heads up.

Elvicof.8263:

Funny almost every other guild have registered previous matches both wins and losses.

Irrelevant to me, im not a sheep and by no means do I need to follow the status quo (I am not calling other people sheep, but saying cause others did I must too, is not much of an argument at all). I have played in several ladders of several competitive games and I know how it is actually carried out. If a lot of MMO gamers are inexperienced to what makes a balanced competitive ladder, then that isnt my problem tbh.

Not to mention, the amount of rating RG would get off VoTF would depend on when I accept the loss, if I accepted it at the start it would have been 1500 rating basis, if I accept it now its on an 1800 rating basis. So what I am basically understanding is that I can actually manipulate the ladder depending on when I want to accept my wins and losses…. there is an issue with this isnt there? Again in any “competitive” ladder such things arent even remotely possible. If I go back now and take some of my wins, 2 of the guilds we beat have less rating than they did at the time, so now I am going to get less rating for the same win? Retroactive ranking does not work, nobody has ever done it before and just cause people got confused and did it here doesnt make it right.

Anyways Ogro kind of sees what I am getting at judging from the above post. I think seasons with historical rankings is a good way to go about it, but I will support GvG either way.

Ogre.1750:

problematic.9623:

RG…VoTF. Ogre. Jackie. Do you understand each other now? Are you going to compromise?
Make two ladders.
One that includes (historical matches for historical reference of who was active at certain times).
One that is reset like normal ladders after a certain amount of time with a winner declared.
Lets point out that the game format is not being assisted by developers and it is unusual for players to be making structure decisions…

Thats got to be the voice of reason if i ever heard one. It only makes sense to have a sort of fresh start, if we really want to get serious about this. At the same time, a registry of all matches, altho ambitious, isnt a far-fetched possibility considering the system already in place.

Im unsure of everythign else tho, but seasons as an overall concept could work. Maybe 3 month seasons? With Glicko and everything. Dunno, brainstorm welcome.

EDIT- Trice, lol youre right, I considered Deathclock inactive, but i see ive been missing out the past week! I gotta stop roaming forums and actually wake the kitten up, thanks for the heads up.

I dunno, its hard enough getting a relevant active ladder with a years worth of gvg’s up there …
Until theres the opportunity to have a gvg against any guild at any time these kind or ratings are just going to be … inadequate and largely irrelevant.
The competitive aspect is good i agree but the rating up there just doesn’t mean much.
Like look at TDA in 6th (?) place. They’re never going to play against VotF or VII or Scnd or guilds of that type because they run around with about 10 guys every night. They’re just not comparable.
(They are awesome though, <3 TDA)

RG are an issue too tbh. Most of the teams they played and gained rating against had 1500 rating at the time of the match. Many of them no longer do and to catch up or overtake them would probably require a guild to beat arguably better opposition. And if you lose one match ever you can basically forget about overtaking them. Its a bit of a ball and chain on the site imo.
Theres too many messy, silly aspects to trying to rank individual guilds currently or formerly in this scene. Theres not enough opportunities for guilds to match up against each other without mass transfers happening left, right and centre.

I love GvG’s its probably one of the best things thats happened in this game. I love your video’s Ogre, I love the coverage you provide and getting to see NA guilds or T1 guilds or T9 guilds that im unlikely to ever run into myself. I’d love to see some new and weird tactics and strategies being thrown out and being highlighted in your video’s. I’d love for their to be some competition between guilds and seeing them develop and come up with strats and counter strats in later matches and counter, counter strats.

The ratings up there have no particular value beyond giving a hazy idea of the quality of a guild.
I dont know about other guilds but some of the matches and scores of gvg’s we had contained many players who dont play the game anymore. The dius who played Unity or TUP the first time doesn’t bear much resemblance to the dius who played VotF last week or most likely the dius of a months time. Hell Unity are a completely and utterly different guild now tbh. They’re kind of a community, score based, pug training guild (and apparently very good at it, with some nice idea’s. No disrespect intended in these comments).

Can we just get past who’s the best guild? Do we care? If VII are the best this week will they be next week? How long till someone in a position to challenge them for that ‘honor’ is able to test themselves against them? By the time that opportunity comes will they be in a position to challenge them or will VII even exist at that point?

Let the pride and ego massaging be the winning of the individual match, not how many matches you’ve won

I’d love to see YouTube video links to completed matches on that gw2gvg site …. So you see the score, then click the link to view the actual match. There is already a spot there for it, would be nice if guilds linked

In a competetive ladder, the ranking for inactive/low active teams should be degenrating.

For example – TW/RG. if they havent played in 2 weeks or so should start to degenerate their rankings,

1. This will always have most active guilds on higher ranking based on their wins ofcourse
2. Should enourage guilds like TW to be more active in GVG.

Another option is to reset the ladder on Aug 28( GW2 anniversary and store the current one as historical data)

Elvicof.8263:

Funny almost every other guild have registered previous matches both wins and losses.

GH didn’t have their first formal GvG vs [Rise] registered for a long time, it was added relatively recently. It also wasn’t 1:0 tbh. And I can tell you, if we were at the losing end of it, we’d be far less inclined to try and register it.

So it is all understandable considering unofficial nature of the format in general and ladder in particular. I’m not sure if you can force GvG results against registered guild that would not confirm it. And in current setup it is fine.

I don’t see any real problem with “serious business” vs “training ground”, inconvenience at best. If you are mature enough to access your strengths and weaknesses rationally, and on the other hand to respect other guilds’ decision to not make it official, then who cares, you’ll have your experience anyway. And if it is any good, it will probably end up being featured on GvG Showdown anyway

Clogging ladder by making every possible fight official is not a good thing at the moment, if at all. It is bad enough when I look at particular guild record and go: “who are all these guys? OK, I know this guild, this one and that one. But who are all the rest and how strong they are? No idea.”

Known guilds is what I’ll use to guess how strong the guild is based on its GvG record, not the bouts that are obviously unbalanced or against unknowns.

It is also true that historical data gets irrelevant quick as guilds evolve in their meta, team composition and head count. It is like looking at GH record:

Ok, they won first GvG, then took 3 rounds from RG, then long hiatus, then a couple of clear wins again. What does it tell you (no offense to any opponents really)? The only thing it tells you is that GH was pretty good at the time of GvG vs RG and probably was a runner-up on the imaginary ladder at the time. That’s it. But “at the time” was like 4 months ago.

TL:DR: Do not read too much into the ladder. It is an OK tool to get the general idea on what your next opponent might have at the table, but that’s it.

EDIT:

Can we just get past who’s the best guild?

Sorry, no

Do we care?

Sure we all do, you can’t be serious saying that in a competitive activity there’s no value in determining, crediting and remembering best “players”. In both “all-timers” and “super-novas” categories. The question is, if we have adequate instrument to have that kind of picture. The answer to this question is painfully obvious and that is something to think about too.

Yaro.3251:

The question is, if we have adequate instrument to have that kind of picture.

Well thats the basic issue and until that changes its hard for me to care about who’s best.
My guess is GH, GD, VotF, VII and Scnd are all very close together and capable of beating each other on a good day and until all 5 are playing each other regularly its impossible to tell.

Dropping in on the discussion wagon here;

1) I believe no, we cant drop the kitten or who the best is, coz quite simply GvG in this format it’s the only thing we GvG’ers can really aim for. It’s the reward for us. No special lootz, skinz or cash reward.

2) Contradiction! I do believe that kittening should be based on top guild beating other top guilds consistently, and as such the current leaderboard and way we are forced to GvG it is kind of negligible trying to measure who’s top dogs or not.

3) GvG in GW1 and 2… Apples, Oranges. Two hugely different modes. I prefer GW1, more complexity in my opinion blah blah. However should Anet dictate it so, then for all we know GvG in this setup could evolve into a more complex mode. (Haha.. I have my doubts if Anet would try this :P)

Finally, the vids are awesome and entertaining to watch, even if it is my guild getting munched by another :> Thanks for your work Ogre.

Gah silly filter…

Hmm how hard would it be drop some arena in some godforsaken zone like dredgehaunt cliffs. Big empty area where guild members could hit other guild members. Devs could put some orange beware angry ganker signs all over place so PvE heros would stay away.

@Ogre, keep the work up!

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Congrats, you’re now the best of the worst!

The ranking will never have any significance without tournaments. Currently it requires the consent of two guilds to do a gvg and there is no reason to accept a challenge. You don’t want to fight – you don’t show up.
We had the problem that over 5 weeks we only found one opponent, despite asking every guild registered on the website or that we found ingame.
Also guilds change their leaders/members/composition quite frequently. Having all matches ever played under a tag taken into consideration won’t give information about the current strength of a guild. Just forget about the ranking, have fun and fight for glory!

Caliban.3176:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Congrats, you’re now the best of the worst!

#Signs up after RG quits

Zerg vs zerg is not GvG, call like this is just awful .You should try to play GW1 GvG.

Vamp Rook.7835:

Zerg vs zerg is not GvG, call like this is just awful .You should try to play GW1 GvG.

/yawn

Vamp Rook.7835:

Zerg vs zerg is not GvG, call like this is just awful .You should try to play GW1 GvG.

sPvP is not GvG, call like this is just awful. You should try to play GW2 GvG.

PredatoR.5247:

Caliban.3176:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Congrats, you’re now the best of the worst!

#Signs up after RG quits

Play nice kids.

Congratz Jericho.

Next: Conquer EU.

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Any plans for an EU tour?

Jayne.9251:

PredatoR.5247:

Caliban.3176:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Congrats, you’re now the best of the worst!

#Signs up after RG quits

Play nice kids.

Congratz Jericho.

Next: Conquer EU.

That’s pretty much what I wanted to say. Leave NA behind and come join the big boys on the right side of the pond. I’d like fight you guys, you graduated from NA, must be a decent fight.

Been nagging Jericho to come to Piken to face off against you guys like VOTF and SCND … so far not even cookies are working

Would you guys stay up a bit later to face them though? They run PST-time …

Ouch, late
Should prob be fine to compromise tbh, EU guilds stay up a bit later, NA guilds who are here for fights come on a bit earlier.

Well I know a number of guilds that would willingly transfer to EU if organized GvG with the bigger names could be arranged.

Wompage.4586:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Any plans for an EU tour?

Actually yes, Thanksgiving and or Xmas break.

The only reason we aren’t already in EU is because we are afraid we wouldnt be able to catch the EU champions by the time we login

Caliban.3176:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Congrats, you’re now the best of the worst!

Oh cmon… They deserve credit. I watched their GvG this morning (yes I’m a zombie) and that is what I call a come back! They were 3-0 down in a bo7 and still managed to win the GvG. Most guilds would give up at this point but they adapt really fast or at least at the right moment. Respect!
I’m curious how Ogre will include this in his episode but I’m sure it will be great.

Btw Ogre, have you already thought about making an episode every friday or when can we expect another episode this time? :P

PredatoR.5247:

Wompage.4586:

PredatoR.5247:

agg has siezed #1 NA wooooppiieeee

Any plans for an EU tour?

Actually yes, Thanksgiving and or Xmas break.

The only reason we aren’t already in EU is because we are afraid we wouldnt be able to catch the EU champions by the time we login

Don’t worry, I think it can be done.

Wooooo just woke up wtf!! grz Agg and NS omfg!! Did i hear match of the week? holly ghost gentlemen, holy kitten ghost….

Supr, thought I mentioned it in the last episode, but the idea is to have a release each saturday. Expect next one then o/

Hoping to make great justice to the gift those two monster crews gave us <3

Yea agg are you guys going on a EU tour lol.

It’s gonna be ok if you arrange it ahead of time, even if that might be a bit – challenging, since weekend is the best time, and it’s right after reset. I remember when RG went NA and there were some problems, cause our people were long in bed when our opponents were still sitting in work, but that was kinda fail with getting those matches during the weekend.
Piken would be a bad place to go though, with a lot of GvG guilds being here already that would probably like to fight you too VII, GH, DSun, Mya, FURY etc.

P.S. Welcome back Genev :p

Spectator POV, please watch till the end
Again, great fights [Agg]