Guild Wars 2

Hello there!

First my experiences and Background info. If it’s TL;DR, scroll to the BOLD part.

Background info:
I have started playing GW2 as a whole only about a week ago and tried out WvW two times, once on the weekend and once yesterday. Both days I did not enjoy the experience, mostly due to getting steamrolled by other Servers bigger / more numerous Zergs.
When I created my character I looked at the Server list and knowing that “low population” Servers are generally considered not a good start in MMOs, I chose a Server with high population. This happened to be Whiteside Ridge by chance.
Probably should have checked the WvW Rankings, honestly though I didn’t see the leaderboard when informing myself about the game/Server. That is my fault of course.

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The reason I did not enjoy my dips into WvW – and here comes the rant/suggestion part – aside from the other Worlds perhaps having better leaders / superior tactics, was the severe imbalance of populations that I noticed.

First WvW Session, in our borderlands:
When we had a Zerg of roughly 20 players (which was pretty much every teamplayer / anyone not roaming around the map combined) and defended a Keep, while we were fighting one enemy Zerg, according to our roamers another Zerg of the same Server took the stuff around our prolonged engagement.
Our Server simply did not have the numbers available to form 2 Zergs and effectively combat the other Server. We were outnumbered fighting 1 of the enemies Zergs already.

My second WvW Session was yesterday, in the Eternal Battlegrounds.
One Server pretty much – not unlike the first session – owned the majority of the map. I went outside our spawn and help in the fight only to notice we were fighting against about 2:1 odds in that engagement. After receiving a severe butt whooping in that fight, we regrouped to try again. Ultimately with the same result. After a third crushing defeat this time against another Zerg from the same World, which in the meantime pushed us back to our spawn pretty much – once again realizing we did not have anywhere near the numbers to counter even 1 of the enemy Zergs – the Commander and majority of the players decided to go into our Borderlands and abandon the Eternal Battlegrounds alltogether for the time being.
I personally disheartened went back to PvE, not feeling the urge to participate in that kind of fights anytime soon. Which is a shame because I love PvP, especially in this game it’s fun. At least structured PvP with even odds for all sides participating.
This is how the map looked like when I logged in btw:

[img]http://s1.directupload.net/images/131106/5xpourqo.jpg[/img]

Since our Zerg was fighting the Green World pretty much exclusively during my time spend in WvW, I assume the same was true for the Red World. So Green World was able to field enough players to battle 2 other Worlds.
Once again, I’m aware that superior tactics/commanders play a role in this situation most probably BUT you can’t tell me that something ain’t wrong with this picture.
And my conclusion of what’s wrong is that the numbers game, to which it boils down to in the end, just isn’t balanced.

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My feedback/question

I want to actively engage in WvW, I really do. But on my Server I’m simply not having fun.
There were competent commanders online during both my sessions that seemed to have an idea of what they were doing, I had fun for a short while playing with the team and listening to the commander. I was quickly discouraged however by the odds we were facing constantly and not being able to achieve anything of significance without it being taken away from us by the bigger Zerg in a matter of minutes – sometimes seconds even.

This is why I’m
a) putting this cry for attention out there, hopefully for the Devs to notice and find ways to level the playing field eventually
b) wanting suggestions for a European Server that I can transfer to with an active WvW community. I’m not interested in steamrolling everything in my path with an enormous Zerg. Rather, I’m looking for good, fair fights. Those are simply not provided when playing on Whiteside Ridge in the current situation. That is at least what I took away from my WvW sessions on that Server.

sounds like a personal problem, but you could just join a winning server as it seems you dont want to put the time inot building a wvw guild or community, there are servers who will pay you to move to them especially if you have a guild that even slightly wvw’s

SpehssMehreen.5897:

sounds like a personal problem, but you could just join a winning server as it seems you dont want to put the time inot building a wvw guild or community, there are servers who will pay you to move to them especially if you have a guild that even slightly wvw’s

I have to respectfully disagree on the personal problem part.
At least if the chat messages that I saw while playing WvW are anything to go by, I’m far from alone with the “not having fun because of being outnumbered constantly” issue.

Since the game is out for over 12 months I highly doubt I could achieve anything that hasn’t been tried already by other, more competent/smarter people and or groups of people than me in regards to building a WvW guild or community either.
If there aren’t enough people participating and the lack of people is exactly the problem, what is the solution? If player X couldn’t be motivated with anything tried in the past 12 months it has to be something freaking major.
Or it’s time for the Devs to come up with a mechanic / Server merge solution. Partly why I created this Thread, to raise a little awareness.

And in regards to “just join a winning Server”, you should re-read my TL;DR. I want fair fights in which both sides have an effective shot at winning engagements. I don’t want to steamroll all over the place simply and solely because our Zerg is bigger than theirs.
The current environment just doesn’t provide equal opportunity. That’s my gripe and I’m looking for some place where it’s at least a little more equal.

The problem you are experiencing is called ‘fair weather player syndrome’. The server starts losing (usually after a good comm/guild leaves) and people get disheartened, preferring to spend their time in mindless zerg trains of champ farming/scarlet/LW which yields them much better returns with little to no risk of having to play their toon properly or learn how their class works.

Less players= less wins= less players..you get the idea.

If your server suddenly started winning then I guarantee the fair weather players would all be back in wvw zerging away happily- right up until you hit a hard match, when they all disappear back into pve.

It would help if commanders were more realistic about their targets, and more people stuck with them rather than wondering off to do their own thing (being wiped time after time trying to take Bay will make roamers/quitters out of most people). Too many commanders tend to focus on the most obvious big target even when there are 10 of you and you know there are at least two groups of 20 of the enemy just waiting to stomp you after you deploy the rams at the outer gate. Playing smart and avoiding battles you cannot possibly win makes for a much more enjoyable time than being stomped all the time. Some of the best fun I’ve had in wvw is with a small group of 10 vs an entire full border of enemies- porting, splitting into two groups and timing attacks on the two top camps, reforming, ninja attacks on towers and generally outwitting the enemy.

Most lower tier servers don’t properly utilise a server ts and don’t have strong wvw guilds- but can easily muster 80-100 people for a Jormag.

Victory.2879:

The problem you are experiencing is called ‘fair weather player syndrome’. The server starts losing (usually after a good comm/guild leaves) and people get disheartened, preferring to spend their time in mindless zerg trains of champ farming/scarlet/LW which yields them much better returns with little to no risk of having to play their toon properly or learn how their class works.

Less players= less wins= less players..you get the idea.

If your server suddenly started winning then I guarantee the fair weather players would all be back in wvw zerging away happily- right up until you hit a hard match, when they all disappear back into pve.

It would help if commanders were more realistic about their targets, and more people stuck with them rather than wondering off to do their own thing (being wiped time after time trying to take Bay will make roamers/quitters out of most people). Too many commanders tend to focus on the most obvious big target even when there are 10 of you and you know there are at least two groups of 20 of the enemy just waiting to stomp you after you deploy the rams at the outer gate. Playing smart and avoiding battles you cannot possibly win makes for a much more enjoyable time than being stomped all the time. Some of the best fun I’ve had in wvw is with a small group of 10 vs an entire full border of enemies- porting, splitting into two groups and timing attacks on the two top camps, reforming, ninja attacks on towers and generally outwitting the enemy.

Most lower tier servers don’t properly utilise a server ts and don’t have strong wvw guilds- but can easily muster 80-100 people for a Jormag.

Exactly, also WvW a playground not a structured game like spvp, theres no way to ganrantee tht every server will have the same number of people everytime, even if they did, what if one group doesnt use ts? or you have40% of them kitten ing in spawn or the JP?
what if a guild decides to not play for the night and your suddenly outnumberd and complaining about the enemy having zergs all the time.
one day you can be winning and steamrolling the enemy, another you are being steamrolled and you have no people on, why? fairweathers, on when your winning, gone when youre losing and honestly I see alot of that in your post.

the “problem” is exasperated when your server doesnt have a culture of using a server wide teamspeak and dedicated wvwers and guilds

Victory.2879:

The problem you are experiencing is called ‘fair weather player syndrome’. The server starts losing (usually after a good comm/guild leaves) and people get disheartened, preferring to spend their time in mindless zerg trains of champ farming/scarlet/LW which yields them much better returns with little to no risk of having to play their toon properly or learn how their class works.

Less players= less wins= less players..you get the idea.

If your server suddenly started winning then I guarantee the fair weather players would all be back in wvw zerging away happily- right up until you hit a hard match, when they all disappear back into pve.

It would help if commanders were more realistic about their targets, and more people stuck with them rather than wondering off to do their own thing (being wiped time after time trying to take Bay will make roamers/quitters out of most people). Too many commanders tend to focus on the most obvious big target even when there are 10 of you and you know there are at least two groups of 20 of the enemy just waiting to stomp you after you deploy the rams at the outer gate. Playing smart and avoiding battles you cannot possibly win makes for a much more enjoyable time than being stomped all the time. Some of the best fun I’ve had in wvw is with a small group of 10 vs an entire full border of enemies- porting, splitting into two groups and timing attacks on the two top camps, reforming, ninja attacks on towers and generally outwitting the enemy.

Most lower tier servers don’t properly utilise a server ts and don’t have strong wvw guilds- but can easily muster 80-100 people for a Jormag.

The above is an excellent post.

As Dirty Harry would say “A man has got to know his limitations”

I play in a T1 server and even with the biggest zergs running around a 5 to 10 man group can have fun if they realize their limitations and play accordingly.

The best thing you can do to have fun, in my opinion, is to first get Team Speak for your group, guild. Try to get other guilds on your server using the same system so that you can coordinate activity. Let it be known you are a “havoc group”. You will find the commanders running the large zergs will have many uses for your group if they know you and can communicate with you. You will also learn how you can have an impact on the overall server score, by your harassment, or distraction activities.