Guild Wars 2

Twinbros.5372:

Cloud.7613:

Twinbros.5372:

Why didn’t they just put together an ocianic group? How in any stretch of the imagination did it make sense to stick them with the North American realms?

Erm … It’s an unofficial server for a reason, they didn’t do it, we made it happen.

And for starters, if we had an oceanic server it’d be the joke of the realm system, no one would be on it.

Then you get teamed up on. Simple as that, you really have no one to blame but yourself and you certainly cant complain either.

Yay, let’s gang up on a server because they aren’t American and didn’t get their own server, oh you

Top Tier WvW – What it takes to be on top.

Wall of Text Inc :P

There have been many excuses thrown around from the BWEs through to the 24-Hour matched until as recently as last week as to why those who call HoD home are undefeated. As well as many excuses by PuGs on HoD as to why we were losing last week end.

These excuses are Night Capping (the reason HoD don’t lose) and Gangbanging (2v1 – the reason HoD do lose).

I can’t speak on behalf of the lower tiers and the issues they face with PvDooring and Time-zone imbalances, but in the Top Tier there is no such thing as Night Capping.

For those that feel otherwise let start with the basics:

Night Capping – The Irony

NA/SA Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
Oceanic Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
SEA Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
EU Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.

Night Capping – The Ignorance

The match lasts 176 hours.
Not 7 cycles of ‘prime-time’ and 7 cycles of ‘work/sleep’ time. There is no day, there is no night. No 1/2 time entertainment, no time-outs and definitely no injury time.
The score at the 48 hour mark is irrelevant. Last week HoD was 30k behind after a week-end of being tag-teamed. The forums were full of posts from HoD pugs crying that the game could not be won. Titan Alliance had other ideas.

Night Capping – The Excuse

All competitors in the Top Tier have the same amount of Oceanic Players.
Queue time graphs do NOT mean anything. To fill up WvWvW you actually have to queue. When you are losing shock horror people stop queueing (and start qqing). This applies not only to our Rivals but to HoD aswell.

Night Capping – The Results

HoD for the first time ever had an instant queue in all Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds at the start Oceanic Prime-time Monday night, thanks to the spineless Tailcoat Riding PuGs who did not want to log on to participate in a losing battle. As a result Titan Alliance, their Strategic Oceanic/SEA partners and the Militia were able to deploy their full forces on the Map.

You want to know why we went from 95 PPT to 400 PPT, even when it was still 2v1 in Oceanic Prime, b4 +8 SEA logged on?

Complacency – There is no lead you can have that we won’t claw back. Your Oceanics cannot take a night off during the week.

Determination – We have been the Premier Trio of AU WvW guilds for the last decade. We will not lose to those who don’t rise to the challenge.

Co-ordination – We are simply more experienced than these new AU guilds, in the arts of MMO WvW warfare.

Moral – Soon as we broke their spirit in each Borderland they resorted to doing the Supply Camp Circuit with a 50man zergs.

Backbone – Once they went from winning by 30k to losing by 30k the opposition stopped queueing … and the NA guilds started QQing that HoD were PvDooring.

Night Capping – The Conclusion

We know for a fact that all Top Tier Competitors have enough people at any point in time to fill the 664 available spots, regardless of what time of ‘day’ or ‘night’ it is in your part of the World. All they need to do is log on and queue.

You only have to looks at Ascension Alliance’s Oceanic roster (not even ET’s total Oceanic Roster) to see they have the ability to fill all 4 maps:

Conquest – 140 members http://gw2au.com/for....php?f=28&t=542
Nocturnal – 90 members http://gw2au.com/for....php?f=28&t=480
Resonance – 200+ members http://www.gw2guilds.../view-guild/184
Harlequin – 130 members http://www.gw2guilds.../view-guild/916
Oceanian – 100 members http://www.gw2guilds...view-guild/1053

We won’t even go into the numbers available to Top Tier Servers in the +8 SEA time-zone.

Here is the Video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL59Rr5aGAg

Night Capping – Moral of the Story

Don’t QQ about your opponent’s ability to have people in WvW when you sleep/work, QQ about your own server’s Carebear attitude when you’re asleep/working. You simply will not win if you aren’t prepared to fight to the end.

The Elite – GM
Titan Alliance Leader

Vaash.8956:

Can I say you are night capping Oceanics and cry foul too? Because this is the mature thing to do.

Actually problem is two sided. Blaming Oceanics and targeting them as the only cause of the problem is irrational. Same goes for Canadians.

There are some things about WvW not going well together.

1st mistake: It’s 7/24 but it has regions.

2nd mistake: Even it has regions people allowed to play on other regions.

3rd mistake: It’s game play and scoring system don’t take fluctuations on 24 hour server population into account. Leaving “alarm-clocking” as the strongest tactic/organization to win

4th and biggest mistake: ANet hoping players to solve problems of game mechanics. This never happened in the past, why would it happen in this game.

I have the hope that ANet can find a solution to those problems.

Hello all,

My suggestion is pretty simple and people would say unfair but here me out.

There is not a problem with night capping, Players who cannot play in the day shouldn’t be penalized, Though on the same hand neither should the players on PEAK times.

All players want to contribute and in my eyes, The advantage is not points gained at night though it is a problem, The main advantage is resetting upgrades on keeps.

So my suggestion is simple.

In my eyes as long as everyone feels they are contributing at whatever time people should not have a problem so…,

Peak time points remain at 15 minutes.

At Dead times 12am-6am GMT+0 for Eastern EU servers, Should either be every 30 minutes or every 60 minutes.

Thus allows all players to contribute but the majority can suck it up as they feel something has been done to remedy the situation and in my eyes everyone walks away with something.

Just my 2 cents, Thanks for those who took time to read it.

Marstar.7162:

…

Good stuff mate but does not put light to situation on EU servers.

Marstar.7162:

Top Tier WvW – What it takes to be on top.

Wall of Text Inc :P

There have been many excuses thrown around from the BWEs through to the 24-Hour matched until as recently as last week as to why those who call HoD home are undefeated. As well as many excuses by PuGs on HoD as to why we were losing last week end.

These excuses are Night Capping (the reason HoD don’t lose) and Gangbanging (2v1 – the reason HoD do lose).

I can’t speak on behalf of the lower tiers and the issues they face with PvDooring and Time-zone imbalances, but in the Top Tier there is no such thing as Night Capping.

For those that feel otherwise let start with the basics:

Night Capping – The Irony

NA/SA Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
Oceanic Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
SEA Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.
EU Prime Time is 6pm at night till mid- night.

Night Capping – The Ignorance

The match lasts 176 hours.
Not 7 cycles of ‘prime-time’ and 7 cycles of ‘work/sleep’ time. There is no day, there is no night. No 1/2 time entertainment, no time-outs and definitely no injury time.
The score at the 48 hour mark is irrelevant. Last week HoD was 30k behind after a week-end of being tag-teamed. The forums were full of posts from HoD pugs crying that the game could not be won. Titan Alliance had other ideas.

Night Capping – The Excuse

All competitors in the Top Tier have the same amount of Oceanic Players.
Queue time graphs do NOT mean anything. To fill up WvWvW you actually have to queue. When you are losing shock horror people stop queueing (and start qqing). This applies not only to our Rivals but to HoD aswell.

Night Capping – The Results

HoD for the first time ever had an instant queue in all Borderlands and Eternal Battlegrounds at the start Oceanic Prime-time Monday night, thanks to the spineless Tailcoat Riding PuGs who did not want to log on to participate in a losing battle. As a result Titan Alliance, their Strategic Oceanic/SEA partners and the Militia were able to deploy their full forces on the Map.

You want to know why we went from 95 PPT to 400 PPT, even when it was still 2v1 in Oceanic Prime, b4 +8 SEA logged on?

Complacency – There is no lead you can have that we won’t claw back. Your Oceanics cannot take a night off during the week.

Determination – We have been the Premier Trio of AU WvW guilds for the last decade. We will not lose to those who don’t rise to the challenge.

Co-ordination – We are simply more experienced than these new AU guilds, in the arts of MMO WvW warfare.

Moral – Soon as we broke their spirit in each Borderland they resorted to doing the Supply Camp Circuit with a 50man zergs.

Backbone – Once they went from winning by 30k to losing by 30k the opposition stopped queueing … and the NA guilds started QQing that HoD were PvDooring.

Night Capping – The Conclusion

We know for a fact that all Top Tier Competitors have enough people at any point in time to fill the 664 available spots, regardless of what time of ‘day’ or ‘night’ it is in your part of the World. All they need to do is log on and queue.

You only have to looks at Ascension Alliance’s Oceanic roster (not even ET’s total Oceanic Roster) to see they have the ability to fill all 4 maps:

Conquest – 140 members http://gw2au.com/for....php?f=28&t=542
Nocturnal – 90 members http://gw2au.com/for....php?f=28&t=480
Resonance – 200+ members http://www.gw2guilds.../view-guild/184
Harlequin – 130 members http://www.gw2guilds.../view-guild/916
Oceanian – 100 members http://www.gw2guilds...view-guild/1053

We won’t even go into the numbers available to Top Tier Servers in the +8 SEA time-zone.

Here is the Video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL59Rr5aGAg

Night Capping – Moral of the Story

Don’t QQ about your opponent’s ability to have people in WvW when you sleep/work, QQ about your own server’s Carebear attitude when you’re asleep/working. You simply will not win if you aren’t prepared to fight to the end.

The Elite – GM
Titan Alliance Leader

yawn no one cares

Marstar.7162:

Top Tier WvW – What it takes to be on top.

Do you think WvW is only for those who aspire to be top tier?

If not, do you think it should be?

I added some of my ideas for this problem here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Some-ideas-of-how-to-improve-WvW/first#post304068.

I’d also like to say the amount of point earned per server should depend on the average amount of adversaries they’re facing, thus reducing the scale of so called night capping.

Cavalorn.8057:

Marstar.7162:

Top Tier WvW – What it takes to be on top.

Do you think WvW is only for those who aspire to be top tier?

If not, do you think it should be?

I know it may have been TL:DNR, but I clearly state in my post :

" I can’t speak on behalf of the lower tiers and the issues they face with PvDooring and Time-zone imbalances … "

To answer your question, i think WvW should be for every1.

I was merely clarifying that the ‘claimed’ problems the Top Tier has, is in fact completely different from your valid concerns.

The solution to the purported ‘Night Capping’ issue raised by SBI, ET and JQ players is that their AU/SEA players should actually queue.

The solution from Anet for the other tiers would be welcome.

The Elite – GM
Titan Alliance

I know it may have been TL:DNR, but I clearly state in my post :

" I can’t speak on behalf of the lower tiers and the issues they face with PvDooring and Time-zone imbalances … "

Yes, I picked up on that. My question was more to do with what you perceived the design intent of WvW to be.

I don’t get the impression that all that many people really care about being top tier. They do care about having fun, however. If we’re in agreement that this is a legitimate perspective, then that’s all to the good.

I think it’s funny that what was being argued as a worst case scenario (3 Megaservers, all other servers dead) is now being proposed as the solution.

Also think it’s funny that the same people arguing that NA servers should just recruit more Oceanics also say that Oceanics can’t be put in their own 3 server group cause there aren’t enough Oceanic players to spread around 3 servers.

This official statement is nothing more then softcore damage control. Nobody with a 3rd grade math level expected peak hour scoring systems. We ALL expected participation based scoring. We have been saying this from the very start of wvw in beta. We are still saying it now.

For the love of god are we getting a participation based scoring system or not? PVPers around the world are tired of waiting for an answer. Time is not infinite.

Hix.8925:

Also think it’s funny that the same people arguing that NA servers should just recruit more Oceanics also say that Oceanics can’t be put in their own 3 server group cause there aren’t enough Oceanic players to spread around 3 servers.

You realise you also have nightshift workers and etc to bolster up the “NA nightcrew”? Half if not more of Oceanics would likely play on the NA servers voluntarily, just to be around more people. That would leave a three server group pretty much dead (really doubt we’d have three full servers, there’d not be enough for decent sized DEs also across 3 servers).

Basically, this wouldn’t work and is not a solution.

Also, the people saying “nightcappers” are small groups and don’t face against any opposition at all, wouldn’t have to recruit many “night time” players, as finding a small team to face people who aren’t used to fighting anything other than doors can’t be hard to put together.

Namu.5712:

etiolate.9185:

Namu.5712:

There will always be complainers….. you can never make everyone happy.

They could have the buff calculated based on the number they are outnumbered by. But it comes to a point where you have to look at your server and what you want.

If your server has weak or no night players that pvp…. you might want to move servers.
To a server that is more focused on pvp rather then not.

Why is it that the majority keeps getting told to move servers or “deal with it” while the minority get to keep things as screwed up as they are?

I didn’t say that.

I said if your that concerned about your servers performance in wvwvw you might want to look at your current situation. Don’t twist my words please.

You completely ignored a legit fix in the line just above what you commented on and instead twisted my comment below.

I didn’t say Deal wtih it, nor did I say you need to move.

I suggested a fix then I suggested that if your not happy with your server move.

Yes, you said you need to move. It’s right there in your post.

lollie.5816:

Hix.8925:

Also think it’s funny that the same people arguing that NA servers should just recruit more Oceanics also say that Oceanics can’t be put in their own 3 server group cause there aren’t enough Oceanic players to spread around 3 servers.

You realise you also have nightshift workers and etc to bolster up the “NA nightcrew”? Half if not more of Oceanics would likely play on the NA servers voluntarily, just to be around more people. That would leave a three server group pretty much dead (really doubt we’d have three full servers, there’d not be enough for decent sized DEs also across 3 servers).

Well lets do the math here. Half the Oceanics could not fill 3 servers, according to you. Lets assume that half the Oceanics could fill 3 servers. Then that means all the Oceanics could fill 6 servers.

That’s still not enough Oceanics for the “go recruit” option to be a real solution.

Cavalorn.8057:

I know it may have been TL:DNR, but I clearly state in my post :

" I can’t speak on behalf of the lower tiers and the issues they face with PvDooring and Time-zone imbalances … "

Yes, I picked up on that. My question was more to do with what you perceived the design intent of WvW to be.

I don’t get the impression that all that many people really care about being top tier. They do care about having fun, however. If we’re in agreement that this is a legitimate perspective, then that’s all to the good.

As an ultra-competitive Leader of Titan Alliance, my views on the design intent of WvW would be vastly different to most gamers. I am in complete agreement with the OP : “WvW was developed as a never ending continuous battle”, albeit it’s actually a 168 hour battle.

The problem with the design is that Anet expect us to solve our own issues, as to how to achieve as continuous battle, without providing adequate tools / incentive to do so. However, the solution you seek to improve your experience is vastly different to the solution for mine.

Again i agree with the OP; they should not be solving one person’s problem just so they can cause another problem to someone else.

The Elite – GM
Titan Alliance Leader

Cloud.7613:

You do realize, while Sea of Sorrows sleeps, Tarnished Coast/Gate of Madness will be nightcapping us? hear us complaining? no.

Oh yeah, TC and GoM are going to be nightcapping you at 4pm EST (5am in some parts of Australia) despite SoS being queue capped at the same time.

This is what you guys don’t understand: you’re playing on a North American server. While you, the Oceanic players, are asleep, there are still more North Americans on your server playing. You have a sizable, even queue-cap reaching population during the NA primetime. You are the only server with a sizable population during the AU primetime. This is where the disparity crops up. It’s not NA vs. NA vs. AU, and everyone takes turn night capping.. it’s NA vs. NA vs. NA+AU, and SoS does not really have a nighttime to be capped during.

At the point in the day where SoS has its lowest population in WvW, be it NA primetime or AU primetime or anywhere in between, the population disparity between SoS and the other servers does not even approach the disparity that exists between us during the AU primetime.

So, for the umpteenth time, in the hopes that it really sinks in:
6pm EST, Australians are asleep, SoS NA team is awake — I have to fight a full compliment of SoS
6am EST, Australians are awake, SoS NA team (and all others) are asleep — you have to fight a bare-bones crew of GoM/TC everywhere but EB

That’s what the nightcapping is. POPULATION DISPARITY based on timezones. It’s not “capping when it’s 5am in this part of the world or that part of the world”, it’s “capping when your server has a 40 man advantage in every WvW zone”. That magical time just happens to be when the majority of players on the server, a North American server, happen to be asleep—the night time for them.

gorgewall.4901:

Cloud.7613:

You do realize, while Sea of Sorrows sleeps, Tarnished Coast/Gate of Madness will be nightcapping us? hear us complaining? no.

Oh yeah, TC and GoM are going to be nightcapping you at 4pm EST (5am in some parts of Australia) despite SoS being queue capped at the same time.

This is what you guys don’t understand: you’re playing on a North American server. While you, the Oceanic players, are asleep, there are still more North Americans on your server playing. You have a sizable, even queue-cap reaching population during the NA primetime. You are the only server with a sizable population during the AU primetime. This is where the disparity crops up. It’s not NA vs. NA vs. AU, and everyone takes turn night capping.. it’s NA vs. NA vs. NA+AU, and SoS does not really have a nighttime to be capped during.

At the point in the day where SoS has its lowest population in WvW, be it NA primetime or AU primetime or anywhere in between, the population disparity between SoS and the other servers does not even approach the disparity that exists between us during the AU primetime.

So, for the umpteenth time, in the hopes that it really sinks in:
6pm EST, Australians are asleep, SoS NA team is awake — I have to fight a full compliment of SoS
6am EST, Australians are awake, SoS NA team (and all others) are asleep — you have to fight a bare-bones crew of GoM/TC everywhere but EB

That’s what the nightcapping is. POPULATION DISPARITY based on timezones. It’s not “capping when it’s 5am in this part of the world or that part of the world”, it’s “capping when your server has a 40 man advantage in every WvW zone”. That magical time just happens to be when the majority of players on the server, a North American server, happen to be asleep—the night time for them.

SoS has traditionally had a lower NA participation rate than it’s competitors. You are claiming that this is no longer true. Assuming you are correct then SoS has picked up more NA players recently. Therefore they will climb out of your bracket and soon face servers with equal NA/AU/SEA coverage in Tier 2.

Wouldn’t that mean Anet’s system is working as intended?

The Elite – GM
Titan Alliance Leader

gorgewall.4901:

POPULATION DISPARITY

Well, just keep losing to SoS then, eventually you’ll drop down the rankings and play against other servers who also don’t like to field players 24/7.

the primary reason something needs to change is players ALL want to be challenged to make intelligent decisions during their gaming time, no matter what time of day. bringing more people is not an intelligent decision for anyone, even if it is organized.

winning by default is boring.
losing by default is boring.

everyone who matters feels the team who plays better should win. this SHOULD be an average of the skill level of a server around the clock. this SHOULD NOT be weighed so heavily on any timeframe for any server.

lower wvw queues with more players? it happened on every server. people are losing interest because the outcome of the match is out of their hands.

as long as the current system holds, arenanet is catering to the population minority.

gorgewall.4901:

Cloud.7613:

You do realize, while Sea of Sorrows sleeps, Tarnished Coast/Gate of Madness will be nightcapping us? hear us complaining? no.

Oh yeah, TC and GoM are going to be nightcapping you at 4pm EST (5am in some parts of Australia) despite SoS being queue capped at the same time.

This is what you guys don’t understand: you’re playing on a North American server. While you, the Oceanic players, are asleep, there are still more North Americans on your server playing. You have a sizable, even queue-cap reaching population during the NA primetime. You are the only server with a sizable population during the AU primetime. This is where the disparity crops up. It’s not NA vs. NA vs. AU, and everyone takes turn night capping.. it’s NA vs. NA vs. NA+AU, and SoS does not really have a nighttime to be capped during.

At the point in the day where SoS has its lowest population in WvW, be it NA primetime or AU primetime or anywhere in between, the population disparity between SoS and the other servers does not even approach the disparity that exists between us during the AU primetime.

So, for the umpteenth time, in the hopes that it really sinks in:
6pm EST, Australians are asleep, SoS NA team is awake — I have to fight a full compliment of SoS
6am EST, Australians are awake, SoS NA team (and all others) are asleep — you have to fight a bare-bones crew of GoM/TC everywhere but EB

That’s what the nightcapping is. POPULATION DISPARITY based on timezones. It’s not “capping when it’s 5am in this part of the world or that part of the world”, it’s “capping when your server has a 40 man advantage in every WvW zone”. That magical time just happens to be when the majority of players on the server, a North American server, happen to be asleep—the night time for them.

Meanwhile we’re getting absolutely DESTROYED 2 hours after majority of Oceanic players left. Want to know why? I’ll give you a hint, no NA players want to play on an Oceanic based server, can you blame them? I cannot. If I had mentioned IoJ or HoD this would be totally different, but it’s not always the case. If you have a high NA player base vs high Oceanic and very small NA player base, the NA player base will generally win, why? Because the Oceanic population is miniature compared to and a lot of our population is spread on multiple servers.

Spineless.6917:

This official statement is nothing more then softcore damage control. Nobody with a 3rd grade math level expected peak hour scoring systems. We ALL expected participation based scoring. We have been saying this from the very start of wvw in beta. We are still saying it now.

For the love of god are we getting a participation based scoring system or not? PVPers around the world are tired of waiting for an answer. Time is not infinite.

This.

Can we get simple yes or no answer? Participation based scoring system, yes or no?

Marstar.7162:

Assuming you are correct then SoS has picked up more NA players recently. Therefore they will climb out of your bracket and soon face servers with equal NA/AU/SEA coverage in Tier 2.

Yes, I’m sure the only reason your ~TiTaN aLLiAnCe~ is dominant in WvW is population at all hours of the day. For all your blustering and tactics and organization of guilds and whatever, you’re only just as skilled as the lowest common denominator of player, and it’s solely throughout-the-day population that sustains anyone a position at the top. Right? Is that the message you want to send out?

Except, wait, that’d be crazy. That’d mean you’re a sham and this whole thing is just a ridiculous numbers game all of the time, instead of some of the time. SoS won’t get out of this bracket, because despite all of their night capping shenanigans, they’re not good enough to be in the current one. They get absolutely destroyed during the NA primetime because TC’s evening teams are more organized and skillful and successful than SoS’. That last part’s important: more organized and skillful and successful, NOT more populous. We beat them in fair fights, man-to-man, even if they start out with the territorial/upgrade advantage from night capping.

And, cue the cries of our Oceanic team not being as strong. Nonono, see, we don’t have an Oceanic team. We don’t really have NA night/morning presence outside of EB. Strength of various teams doesn’t enter into this equation, it’s only numbers of the various teams. And that’s the issue.

So, no. SoS is likely going to stay here because their gains during the night when populations are uneven can’t outstrip their losses during the day when populations are. If they do go up, it will be for a week until they are absolutely destroyed, then we’ll be right back down to this mess.

See, it’s in our interests that the rating system of servers and the matchups is informed primarily and overwhelmingly by the skill disparity between servers: whose best teams and strategies can beat the others reliably at times of day when queues are full. That’s when everyone can start talking about having a “stronger night team” instead of merely “having a night presence”. That’s the actual balance. Anything else is a number’s game and isn’t really indicative of the per timezone performance of any given server.

Does SoS NA enjoy getting rolled in the afternoon by not only more coordinated groups with better strategies, but to an often 2v1 mentality that seeks to punish them for night capping, being on the defensive constantly and only ever losing ground? Does SoS AU enjoy doing PvE content inside Keeps and Towers, only ever seeing half their own numbers if that, never having a sincere challenge outside of Eternal? Does TC NA enjoy stomping over an equally populous enemy that generally can’t resist them? Does TC NA enjoy the knowledge that all the money they pour into upgrades and siege in the Borderlands will be wiped clean and their point lead erased come 4am because it all falls while unprotected and unprotectable?
I do hope the answer to these questions are “no”, and we see where this is an issue.

Marstar.7162:

As an ultra-competitive Leader of Titan Alliance, my views on the design intent of WvW would be vastly different to most gamers. I am in complete agreement with the OP : “WvW was developed as a never ending continuous battle”, albeit it’s actually a 168 hour battle.

The problem with the design is that Anet expect us to solve our own issues, as to how to achieve as continuous battle, without providing adequate tools / incentive to do so. However, the solution you seek to improve your experience is vastly different to the solution for mine.

I haven’t actually proposed any solutions as yet. I’m a game designer myself, so I’m always interested to get a handle on the variant perspectives involved.

It does seem to me that some people – not yourself – are making the assumption that WvW is only for those who aspire to win at all costs and that the solution for those who are not having fun is simply to adopt a more hardcore attitude. If WvW was designed only for those who aspire to win, then that’s fair. However, if WvW is expressly for the casual and fun players as well as the hardcore, then that advice is based on a false assumption and is therefore worthless.

Really fixing the scoring system isn’t going to fix anything. Not even a little. The problem with WvW currently is not that it’s unfair and people that are winning shouldn’t, it’s that it’s simply not fun with the mismatches. Additionally, people just aren’t playing the way they should, and it’s all because of gold.

Take this scenario for example (I’m in Sorrow’s furnace if that somehow changes anything):

I decided to get a small party to try and ninja some stuff on a map that went entirely another color due to night capping. With only 4 people, we managed to quickittenake both a camp and even a tower before the enemy got it’s oceanic horde back on the map. The situation then got a little stupid trying to hold the tower with 4 versus about 25. We stopped all the rams via catapults at the door and meteor showers but the enemy started building a catapult.

What exactly could we do? I started suiciding on the catapult several times to ensure it wouldn’t be built but… nobody else did the same. We could;‘ve stopped them, but repair costs simply stopped the other players from helping. And it fell quickly because nobody bothered upgrading the tower to begin with since it was doomed at this hour. When the situation became clear this would only continue happening now that they know we’re on the map, I logged off for the night.

Exactly how does changing score change repair costs? Exactly how does changing score affect choosing not to upgrade? Exactly how does changing score even make any of this fun even if you fixed the other two?

I made a suggestion on guru here, that might solve some of this here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/65782-outmanned-needs-a-massive-fix/#entry1945544

But it still just wouldn’t fix these extremely skewed battles, the 25 vs 4 ones really, without some pretty stupidly powerful buffs. I also tried another suggestion here:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/68028-servers-by-time-making-every-server-in-wvw-competitive-and-fun/#entry1978216

But I’m going to guess it is impossible to implement at this point. i reall hope someone coes up with a real solution to this because at the moment WvWvW is increasingly becoming not fun.

But the scoring system changes, while nice, will not change a thing. The only people who honestly care about score at the moment I think is titan alliance, and they’re quickly becoming a laughingstock, having actively worked to destroy WvW by getting all the night players onto one place for a little tin foil badge nobody cares about. And after that little “The elite” tirade, I doubt anyone will take them seriously from now on.

Cloud.7613:

Meanwhile we’re getting absolutely DESTROYED 2 hours after majority of Oceanic players left. Want to know why? I’ll give you a hint, no NA players want to play on an Oceanic based server, can you blame them?

First, you’re not on an Oceanic-based server. You are on a North American-based server with a sizable Oceanic presence.

Second, you are being destroyed because GoM and TC woke up to see the map covered in green (SoS) and that really miffs everyone something fierce. There’s now two servers with populations close enough for a decent fight to your own marching into the fight and seeing nothing to hit but you. Now your numbers have to defend against twice as many (because there are two servers here) on multiple fronts. There’s confusion, people calling for help here and there, players are spending time running to defenses that fall as soon as they arrive, they can’t get inside a tower and die in the field and respawn, yada yada, utter chaos and disorganization and just generally not a fun time.

But hey, let me entertain this bizarre notion that when Server A is sleeping, C is awake, and thus when A is awake, C must assuredly be sleeping as well. Let’s assume for a moment this is actually true, a completely hypothetical situation: one entirely NA server (A) vs. another entirely NA server (B) vs. a third entirely AU server ©.

AU Primetime: Server C takes everything; they’re awake, A and B are asleep. There’s not enough people on A and B to defend anywhere other than EB, so you see every borderland fall to C, with maybe a Garrison holdout in each homeland. Huge point gains, and C gets several uncontested hours of owning nearly everything. 12k lead in imaginary numbers. Then the clock ticks forward and..
NA primetime: Server C goes to sleep, and Server B wakes up. Server B takes everyth—actually, wait, no. I forgot, there are two NA servers here! They can fight each other. They will fight each other. The territory of C, utterly undefended, is divvied up between A and B. Then the clock ticks forward and the cycle repeats..

Completely oversimplifying things for the purposes of this scenario, C holds the whole map for 12 hours of the day, for 1k points an hour (again—simplifying): that’s 12k points. B and A hold halves of the map for the other 12 hours, for 500 points: that’s 6k points each. At the end of the day, we’re looking at a score like: C-12k, B-6k, A-6k. The next day is the same. The day after that is the same. And so on. At the end of the week, C has twice the points of B or A, or equal to both of them combined.

Here’s where we run into that problem again. Even granting that after the AU population nightcaps a server, it is then their turn to be nightcapped, they do not have any competition for those points during their own primetime. The other two servers, both with NA primetime numbers, even if the AU server is completely and utterly absent, which just doesn’t work out that way in practice on some servers, have each other for competition—they’ve got to divvy up the pie that the AU nightcappers got to themselves. There’s still an issue here.

gorgewall.4901:

Cloud.7613:

Meanwhile we’re getting absolutely DESTROYED 2 hours after majority of Oceanic players left. Want to know why? I’ll give you a hint, no NA players want to play on an Oceanic based server, can you blame them?

First, you’re not on an Oceanic-based server. You are on a North American-based server with a sizable Oceanic presence.

Second, you are being destroyed because GoM and TC woke up to see the map covered in green (SoS) and that really miffs everyone something fierce. There’s now two servers with populations close enough for a decent fight to your own marching into the fight and seeing nothing to hit but you. Now your numbers have to defend against twice as many (because there are two servers here) on multiple fronts. There’s confusion, people calling for help here and there, players are spending time running to defenses that fall as soon as they arrive, they can’t get inside a tower and die in the field and respawn, yada yada, utter chaos and disorganization and just generally not a fun time.

But hey, let me entertain this bizarre notion that when Server A is sleeping, C is awake, and thus when A is awake, C must assuredly be sleeping as well. Let’s assume for a moment this is actually true, a completely hypothetical situation: one entirely NA server (A) vs. another entirely NA server (B) vs. a third entirely AU server ©.

AU Primetime: Server C takes everything; they’re awake, A and B are asleep. There’s not enough people on A and B to defend anywhere other than EB, so you see every borderland fall to C, with maybe a Garrison holdout in each homeland. Huge point gains, and C gets several uncontested hours of owning nearly everything. 12k lead in imaginary numbers. Then the clock ticks forward and..
NA primetime: Server C goes to sleep, and Server B wakes up. Server B takes everyth—actually, wait, no. I forgot, there are two NA servers here! They can fight each other. They will fight each other. The territory of C, utterly undefended, is divvied up between A and B. Then the clock ticks forward and the cycle repeats..

Completely oversimplifying things for the purposes of this scenario, C holds the whole map for 12 hours of the day, for 1k points an hour (again—simplifying): that’s 12k points. B and A hold halves of the map for the other 12 hours, for 500 points: that’s 6k points each. At the end of the day, we’re looking at a score like: C-12k, B-6k, A-6k. The next day is the same. The day after that is the same. And so on. At the end of the week, C has twice the points of B or A, or equal to both of them combined.

Here’s where we run into that problem again. Even granting that after the AU population nightcaps a server, it is then their turn to be nightcapped, they do not have any competition for those points during their own primetime. The other two servers, both with NA primetime numbers, even if the AU server is completely and utterly absent, which just doesn’t work out that way in practice on some servers, have each other for competition—they’ve got to divvy up the pie that the AU nightcappers got to themselves. There’s still an issue here.

I’ve never face palmed so much in my life, you don’t night cap, we don’t night cap, ok?

The main issue is luring out the existing population onto the field, because it seems NA people won’t play unless they’re in a zerg and also currently winning.

After going to sleep once and waking up they all take fright because other people have actually played while they weren’t around, and they seem to give up.

lollie.5816:

The main issue is luring out the existing population onto the field, because it seems NA people won’t play unless they’re in a zerg and also currently winning.

After going to sleep once and waking up they all take fright because other people have actually played while they weren’t around, and they seem to give up.

I’m sorry lollie, but I’ve read all this thread and you don’t have the foggiest idea of what is going on at our hours, and statements like this, which is quite the opposite of what happens (we tend to get pretty annoyed and wipe the floor after a nightcap) really show you shouldn’t be talking on the subject, and you’ve made them repeatedly. Making guesses does not help, and detracts from the real arguments.

Greep.6394:

lollie.5816:

The main issue is luring out the existing population onto the field, because it seems NA people won’t play unless they’re in a zerg and also currently winning.

After going to sleep once and waking up they all take fright because other people have actually played while they weren’t around, and they seem to give up.

I’m sorry lollie, but I’ve read all this thread and you don’t have the foggiest idea of what is going on at our hours, and statements like this, which is quite the opposite of what happens (we tend to get pretty annoyed and wipe the floor after a nightcap) really show you shouldn’t be talking on the subject, and you’ve made them repeatedly. Making guesses does not help, and detracts from the real arguments.

If you’re wiping the floor on your hours then there is no issue at all with people “nightcapping” (in reality just playing the game) during their hours.

Can you all have a meeting then and decide what the real story is? Are you discouraged like the guy above you said, or do you wipe the floor?

Again, you are just arguing for the sake of arguing. I don’t find this very amusing really, you have no idea what’s going on. Of course I don’t mean we take them over entirely, but if you look at what happens, we usually do take a decent chunk back almost imediately when we get back on. But generally these servers with decent sized night guilds who nightcap everything also have decent prime time populations and don’t get completely destroyed, not to mention the completely upgraded holdings from the nightcapping make it a grueling fight and make getting back everything a little difficult.

But really, if you’re going to make an argument you should be knowing these things. Arguing with half the information just makes us get into repeating arguments because you are denying what we are saying. And when we do talk, you are just imagining the worst and best cases of what we say that fit your argment. If you actually knew anything about what was going on, you’d see how frustrating it is.

This thread isn’t some battle to win. We should be working out solutions like Jon Peters is trying to do, and not even knowing the specifics doesn’t help.

Greep.6394:

we usually do take a decent chunk back almost imediately when we get back on. But generally these servers with decent sized night guilds who nightcap everything also have decent prime time populations and don’t get completely destroyed, not to mention the completely upgraded holdings from the nightcapping make it a grueling fight and make getting back everything a little difficult.

Then the issue is your server isn’t properly matched up yet. Wait for your server to drop rankings, and play against other servers who also don’t have a 24/7 population.

We’ve had how many matchups? 20?30? This is not a problem that will be solved by matchups. And in the case of SoS detailed by gorge, while the matchup is “fair”… again.. it is not fun. Having their server nightcap you and knock them out completely and then again and again ad nauseam is not the way WvW is meant to be played. And then when you get in the next bad matchup, it gets very bad.

Greep.6394:

We’ve had how many matchups? 20?30? This is not a problem that will be solved by matchups. And in the case of SoS detailed by gorge, while the matchup is “fair”… again.. it is not fun. Having their server nightcap you and knock them out completely and then again and again ad nauseam is not the way WvW is meant to be played. And then when you get in the next bad matchup, it gets very bad.

The matching system isn’t working yet then. You can’t tell me every matchup you’ve gone against has a 24/7 population, except for your server which is empty during those hours…basically you shouldn’t be facing a 24/7 server if your server isn’t one, because obviously your server isn’t ready for that kind of play.

Your server also might need to encourage your existing nightshift workers etc to play for the server, because people will be there, they’re just not queuing.

I’ve never played on an empty NA server during my hours, even the most quiet ones…there’s always people around.

lollie.5816:

Greep.6394:

We’ve had how many matchups? 20?30? This is not a problem that will be solved by matchups. And in the case of SoS detailed by gorge, while the matchup is “fair”… again.. it is not fun. Having their server nightcap you and knock them out completely and then again and again ad nauseam is not the way WvW is meant to be played. And then when you get in the next bad matchup, it gets very bad.

The matching system isn’t working yet then. You can’t tell me every matchup you’ve gone against has a 24/7 population, except for your server which is empty during those hours…

Your server also might need to encourage your existing nightshift workers etc to play for the server, because people will be there, they’re just not queuing.

I’ve never played on an empty NA server during my hours, even the most quiet ones…there’s always people around.

I just can’t argue anymore. 20 matchups is more than enough to get us around our level of opponents, and yes we do face nightcappers that take the entire maps. You can either accept this or just think we;re lying, your choice.

Greep.6394:

I just can’t argue anymore. 20 matchups is more than enough to get us around our level of opponents, and yes we do face nightcappers that take the entire maps. You can either accept this or just think we;re lying, your choice.

No it isn’t enough time, the matchup system has really only just kicked in – it wasn’t working properly for ages. It looks like it needs further tweaking with this in mind.

The “nightcapper” servers (you need to stop using this term, it’s just people playing their natural hours just like you do) should be facing each other and clearly not pitted against servers like yours, then we wouldn’t be hearing this as being an issue, and this thread wouldn’t exist.

Edit button has disappeared again >.<

Maybe they could have two ruleset groups for the matchups – dividing servers into one of the two rulesets: one 24/7 and one sleepyzone (NA only); then give free transfers to the ruleset group of choice, with guilds retaining their influence upon transfer.

Cloud.7613:

Devildoc.6721:

@lollie and Cloud, since quoting always seems to be broken.

I am not saying you’re second class citizens. I’m saying that the mindset you have from other MMO’s is counterproductive here.

On most other MMO’s, oceanic people all being on one server means you have people to play with, both PVE and PVP, as it’s faction vs faction, not server vs server.

But this server vs server setup makes that all fall apart. You don’t have people to fight against if the majority of you are concentrated on one server.

Is that not excruciatingly boring to just roll the map uncontested?

Wouldn’t it be better if there wasn’t just a handfull of oceanic guilds on every server, just enough to put 100 oceanic players on each map on every server every night. Then your server would have 24 hour a day presence. Not only would you have people to fight against, but your server wouldn’t lose everything while YOU were asleep because you tried to chase NA players OFF your server (which DOES happen.. SWTOR I got called a vulgar term for female reproductive organs and told to move off the server my guild got assigned to because Oceanic players were “claiming” my server for themselves)

This means all the severs would have 24/7 presence.

Wouldn’t this be better than having 1-2 servers have the entire oceanic presence and lacking in NA presence meaning you roll the map uncontested when you play and lose the map uncontested while you sleep?

Broken? lol, you can’t be serious if you’ve read all my posts you’d understand that I want this to change, but at this rate, Sea of Sorrows(The one I’m on) Has action 24/7, just because players sleep, doesn’t make the Oceanic population anywhere near the NA population. Please look where I’m coming from before you include me in anything. Give an Oceanic player a reason to move, Because at this point, we already have action whenever we choose.

Yeah the quoting link on the forums is broken half the time only option I have sometimes is the perma link chain which doesn’t quote people in my reply.

Anyway, you’re still not getting it, yeah, SoS has 24/7 activity, but the servers you’re put up against, you know, the ones complaining about night capping, do not.

IE you have very few people to fight during your prime time, because most oceanic players are on Henge, Sea of Sorrows, and I think Isle of Janthir or was it Stormbluff Isle?

When you’re pit against a server that doesn’t have a significant oceanic population, you steamroll the map without competition. You fight NPCs.

What are you asking? For Americans to suddenly all switch to night shift?

Spread out, improve WvW for everyone.

Btw who ever said WvW is persistent he’s lying. When you woke up you see everything is reset and in one color, either yours or some other servers. Nothing you do, persists even 1 day.

If you don’t look at scoreboard, you can assume you start a new match each day, in such a way one server is picked to have a good start up with whole of the forts in full supplies and full upgrades.

Kazim.2043:

Btw who ever said WvW is persistent he’s lying. When you woke up you see everything is reset and in one color, either yours or some other servers. Nothing you do, persists even 1 day.

If you don’t look at scoreboard, you can assume you start a new match each day, in such a way one server is picked to have a good start up with whole of the forts in full supplies and full upgrades.

If your server or even two servers were getting set against a 24/7 server that outclassed them (both of them at once?), the other two servers should have dropped rankings and no longer be facing a 24/7 server.

romsea.8539:

Could we stop this NA vs Oceanic vs EU bs, i think everyone got that the game is global by now (well almost everyone).
Let’s start discussing some good addition to the game instead.

So, region lock: limited access to the game is not a solution imo.

the more pve stuff
Buffing npc to the defender number: bad, people would immediatly rely on this to have low pc defense. doesn’t take into account a 2v1 situation
buffing npc to general population ratio: hard to balance, anyway buffing npc to the point that they can hold a zerg is not fun.

score fix:
Slower tic: doesn’t change anything
Score by pk: encourage low tactics and zerg vs zerg
change function of the time: possibly the worst solution people came up with, i’m not even going to state why
Change in population ratio: impossible to balance given that people come and go, doesn’t take into account a 2v1

Now to the good stuff imo:
Added limited high defense option to defender: good, can benefit to everyone, can come in various ways (thanks to Sharpclaw, no quote)
Better reward while defending/losing: good, benefits to everyone. (by Mr JP)
“Safe” acces to a tower/supply from borderlands: good, benefits to everyone (Mr JP)

Come on guys, i know you can do it

The ONLY fix is for every server to have a substantial amount of both NA and Oceanic players.

It is the only way to do it, that means, no “unofficial oceanic server” that means, spread out, and get some NA guilds on those past “unofficial oceanic server”s

This is a community issue. No amount of coding is going to fix 10 years of an ingrained mindset that the oceanic community needs to claim a server or two exclusively for themselves. it works in other games, it is not good for this one.

Roland Falantyr.3290:

lollie.5816:

gorgewall.4901:

it’s the Oceanics that throw it off..

Then their server has a weak NA team and a strong Oceanic team. Nothing more to be said.

Should’ve had separate servers. Why should we all suffer crappy matches because ANET made such a mistake? Don’t worry though. This game will be ruined if you all get your way and this isn’t fixed.

Reference SWTOR for self-righteous idealistic dev team telling the customers that their concerns are invalid.

Oceanic population isn’t large enough to have a robust WvW circuit. You’d not have enough servers to rotate enough.

Though with the way things are going, matchups are pretty static. Henge and Stormbluff Isle apparently team up to maintain the #1 and #2 spots, and so only #3 and #4 are rotating here at the top.

It’d shake things up if the #2 and #3 servers went after the #1 server, I don’t know why Stormbluff is content with being Cal Naughton Jr. while Henge is being Ricky Bobby, but hey, shake n bake right?

lollie.5816:

If your server or even two servers were getting set against a 24/7 server that outclassed them (both of them at once?), the other two servers should have dropped rankings and no longer be facing a 24/7 server.

Our server is pretty low on rankings. It doesn’t take a 24/7 server to reset the map. 10-20 man is enough.

The matching system isn’t working yet then.

The current matching system won’t work EVER. If you seriously think the matchmaking will somehow magically make the problems disappear you’re deluded.

The game doesn’t have a simple binary state where your server either has “night presence” or it doesn’t and you can just match servers of the same type together. The scoring system will ensure that even if populations match 23 hours out of 24, that single hour in which one server has a significantly bigger population gives that server an autowin.
So unless you can miraculously come up with a group of 3 servers whose numerical total presence in all 4 WvW maps is nearly identical throughout the whole week, most of the games will keep being washouts decided during the first 24-36 hours.

The only situation in which these matches can ever be balanced is if all 3 servers have 666 (i.e. maximum) people 24/7, which is what will happen anyway, for the top bracket at least, as people interested in WvW (what will be left of them anyway) will concentrate on those few megaservers to have a fighting chance.

Of course that leaves 90% of the servers out in the cold with totally lopsided matches but hey… not my problem anymore.

Namu.5712:

gorgewall.4901:

Ludacrit.6183:

Let me get this straight, when NA players from a primarily NA populated server get all thier points from an outnumbered NA force playing on a primarily oceanic populated server during the ‘day time’, it’s fair game.

But when the oceanic population get home from work (night time) and the roles are reversed, it becomes an issue?

But when the NA servers by and large go to sleep and the one server with the most Australians sweeps over the entire map and takes keeps and towers without facing any resistance, it becomes an issue.

The part I bolded I find amusing every person that complains about nighttime play always adds that in.

Its simply not true there is resistance.

Oh sure there is… obviously, you are in a borderland where there is people. Can you say the same for the other borderlands that you are not on? Doubt it because in our server we are too busy filling up one border of all the players we have all across the WvW map. Please refer to “Jon Peters” post (ANET game designer) on this thread, he said it himself they were outmanned on the map he was playing on, yes he was on SI server. Are you saying that he’s lying? Try to transfer to other server like ours, that way you experience it first hand. You are just ignoring people that are not from your server telling you that we dont have enough Oceanic WvW players on our server. You wont hear any of this, if what you are saying is entirely correct.

To cap towers/keeps with less resistance is NOT AN ABILITY. It is common sense, you would be stupid not to do so. The problem here is having a 24/7 game and separating EU and NA servers. WvW would have worked so much better if there wasn’t any separation between this two since most servers will have appropriate 24/7 coverage and fairly test their mettles, skills and strategies.

Behold illium in all its glory.

What happened to this weekend lady lisz?

Doing nothing devalues US prime time time investment. Trying to alleviate the problem devalues oceanic and off peak player’s time investment. Giving oceanic players their own servers isn’t going to solve the problem either.

So you’re stuck trying to alleviate the problem of night capping slightly, so you don’t discourage off peak playing, but don’t make prime time players feel like it doesn’t matter what they do since a heavy off peak pop server is going to completely own all 4 maps (for hours) by the time prime time comes back around.

I don’t see match making fixing this unless the primary factor in pairings happen to be the activity during certain hours. Then you’ll still have issues with player skill, but at least that is bound to improve over time.

lady lisz.7849:

To cap towers/keeps with less resistance is NOT AN ABILITY. It is common sense, you would be stupid not to do so. The problem here is having a 24/7 game and separating EU and NA servers. WvW would have worked so much better if there wasn’t any separation between this two since most servers will have appropriate 24/7 coverage and fairly test their mettles, skills and strategies.

Stormbluff has a strong SEA presence, just because you’re not awake to see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Also for the record last week when HoD ‘zerged’ and ‘night capped’ there was no queue for the borderlands I got into.

Why is it when North Americans take capture points it’s down to their skill but it’s absolutely impossible for the same to be true for Oceania and SEA? There’s any number of screenshots been posted that show our opposition don’t have the outmanned buff, and just because there’s no queue doesn’t mean the BL isn’t close to capacity.

I also think the point Marstar was making that you have completely missed is that when we get pushed we don’t give up and leave the map. We keep fighting. When the ET/SBI Oceanics got pushed they appeared to give up and stop fighting which is why you keep waking up to a sea of green.