Guild Wars 2

Judging from the price changes it looks like a return of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze leagues.

I will be the first to admit that the lower half of the Gold League actually bettered their situation in the last Season; but now that winning matters; doesn’t the new pay system kinda take a squat on servers 4-6 and 10-12?

No one in Tier 2 is going to beat anyone in Tier 1 unless backdoor arrangements (not in the spirit of the game) are made, so why do we get stuck with the Mercedes price tag? Don’t get me wrong, we shouldn’t get the 0 gem treatment but the post-start costs seem reasonable for 4-6 and 10-12? At least give us a break and drop it to 1600 (between the 800 and 2400 costs)

The pricing seems to be implying that each league’s 4-6 have a equal chance at taking 1-3; and everyone knows that it won’t work that way. Sure, we might have a repeat of #4 taking #3 or something.

However, I know in Gold league people have already done the math and even with the Swiss System it will still end up 1-6 being 1-6.
Silver is more in doubt due to the unstability of two of the T3 servers but that might resolve itself pre-tournament as well.

Server 12 and 20 has a real shot at getting some big bandwagon transfers.

T2 got boned as far as getting players to help them compete with the beasts of Tier 1.

T4 servers didn’t fare much better than T1 but at least T4 can beat up on T5 servers throughout the tournament as a consolation prize.

I think there might be a typo for the pricing for NA Server 12. Because it says that NA 1-12 is 2400 gems but NA 12-15 is 0.

My best guess is that Server 12 is going to have a 2400 gem charge and they meant to have NA 13-15 as 0 instead.

Reality.9256:

I think there might be a typo for the pricing for NA Server 12. Because it says that NA 1-12 is 2400 gems but NA 12-15 is 0.

My best guess is that Server 12 is going to have a 2400 gem charge and they meant to have NA 13-15 as 0 instead.

It is a typo of some sort. Based on former leagues and their current pricing I would have guessed their pricing at:

1-9 = 2400
10-12 = 800
13-15 = 0
16-18 = 800
19 and below = 0

Probably better:
— Gold
1-3 = 2400
4-6 = 1200

— Silver
7-9 = 1800
10-12 = 900
13-15 = 0

— Bronze
16-18 = 600
19 and below = 0

This completely screws up tiers 3/4 if true. Anet seems very out of touch with the chasm in diffrerence between tier 2 to tier 3 servers. 1-6 should be the 2400 and far less from there on down.

Maybe some context would help here… what price changes? what are you actually talking about?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Maybe some context would help here… what price changes? what are you actually talking about?

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready-for-wvw-spring-tournament-2014/

Thank you Anet, these transfer prices are pretty logical and hopefully they will be effective in creating better competition like we all hope they will.

I am glad you (Anet) are finally starting to implement logical solutions to problems we all see within the game. Instead of remarks stated in these forums, by devs, before the start of our 1st season. If only this transfer pricing plan was in place…… after guesting was working. The game would have been better for it, hindsight is 20/20. May your vision become 20/20 in the future, Anet.

Thanks again!

2400 gems for SBI and SoR , two servers that have just been gutted…

dmk.8560:

2400 gems for SBI and SoR , two servers that have just been gutted…

Some must suffer so that others may live. SBI had it coming after the first league though.

Straegen.2938:

Reality.9256:

I think there might be a typo for the pricing for NA Server 12. Because it says that NA 1-12 is 2400 gems but NA 12-15 is 0.

My best guess is that Server 12 is going to have a 2400 gem charge and they meant to have NA 13-15 as 0 instead.

It is a typo of some sort. Based on former leagues and their current pricing I would have guessed their pricing at:

1-9 = 2400
10-12 = 800
13-15 = 0
16-18 = 800
19 and below = 0

Probably better:
— Gold
1-3 = 2400
4-6 = 1200

— Silver
7-9 = 1800
10-12 = 900
13-15 = 0

— Bronze
16-18 = 600
19 and below = 0

I was actually expecting that the new Transfer Pricing would have followed something like this… since it did seem most logical

This is seriously messed up. Are the transfer costs going to be back to normal after the tournament?

Seigfried.5938:

This is seriously messed up. Are the transfer costs going to be back to normal after the tournament?

Anet throwing a kink into BG’s plan?

Ceres.4569:

Seigfried.5938:

This is seriously messed up. Are the transfer costs going to be back to normal after the tournament?

Anet throwing a kink into BG’s plan?

I was planning on going to deso because my friend is there.

I don’t agree with their pricing either which is based off the division of the tournie, but the long term effect will be that certain servers will get screwed from this after the tournie. SoR looks like it will be caught in the wrong rank and miss a chance to recover a little.

If rank 13 and rank 20 are free, why would I choose to go to 20 over 13? better chance at tickets? meh you’re going to be able to get the weapon either way, 13 would obviously have more population to play with and better to move to in the long run. If I was down on the bottom half of the rankings I would take this opportunity to move entire guilds out to the top half for free.

If I was on say BG I would probably be looking to jump all the wvw guilds down to 13-15, to get away from their now pve heavy population, yet keep their wvw core together and easily move that server to the 4-9 range.

They probably should have done the 1-9 servers with 1800( 1+ 2 you can’t even move to anyways), 10-15 with 1200, 16-24 with 0.

I feel really bad for servers 10-12. Either FA or DB is going to win Silver by default, not even having to raise a finger.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a GREAT first step in addressing the problems that come along with this.

I also think it screws up long term prospects for Fort Aspenwood and Maguuma. They need some transfer love for competitive T2 and this is just throwing a giant spike into those works.

As someone mentioned, this will wreck the recovery of SBI and SoR. No matter what your individual feelings might have been of those servers when they were riding high; they don’t deserve to get squatted on right as they are trying to pick up the pieces.

Straegen.2938:

dmk.8560:

2400 gems for SBI and SoR , two servers that have just been gutted…

Some must suffer so that others may live. SBI had it coming after the first league though.

Really? What doesn’t FA and other servers that recieved transfer have it coming?

Hell, most of t3 and t4 seems to have transfered to t2 (and TC) in the past few months, do they have it coming too?

And, just think, BP is about to get hit with the transfer bug, just like the rest of us. It must be great to be in t5.

There definitely are some wrong assumptions they’re making here, but wonder if ears are even open or they’ll just ignore us and move along. :S

Andrew Clear.1750:

Really? What doesn’t FA and other servers that recieved transfer have it coming?

And, just think, BP is about to get hit with the transfer bug, just like the rest of us. It must be great to be in t5.

Basically servers that do well because of transfers, implode when the grass gets greener elsewhere… in other words… Live by the sword and die by the sword. I don’t have any malice to tranfering players, servers that get transfers, etc. Just stating an observation.

FA was already strong prior to the league announcement. SBI’s strong finish was a product of transfers looking for better rewards. BP players didn’t get any help last league and probably won’t this league either. The server does well despite the lack of transient players. Keep in mind I have no server allegiance as I have bounced around on a half dozen servers since GW2 Beta.

Leagues should be based solely on BG/EBG coverage.

When coverage doesn’t overlap, look at the data that fills the slot, add to alliance for league.

Don’t limit #Leagues based on equal pairing (tourny style), but based on data.

Rewards equal through-out league lvls’.

Gold -> New Skins (all) +current reward system
Silver -> New Wpn Skins + current reward system
Bronze -> current reward system

Straegen.2938:

Andrew Clear.1750:

Really? What doesn’t FA and other servers that recieved transfer have it coming?

And, just think, BP is about to get hit with the transfer bug, just like the rest of us. It must be great to be in t5.

Basically servers that do well because of transfers, implode when the grass gets greener elsewhere… in other words… Live by the sword and die by the sword. I don’t have any malice to tranfering players, servers that get transfers, etc. Just stating an observation.

FA was already strong prior to the league announcement. SBI’s strong finish was a product of transfers looking for better rewards. BP players didn’t get any help last league and probably won’t this league either. The server does well despite the lack of transient players. Keep in mind I have no server allegiance as I have bounced around on a half dozen servers since GW2 Beta.

Most of SBI’s initial transfers were before the gold/silver/bronze leagues were officially announced and they were going to look forward to being a low man on the totem pole in the 12 server gold league.

And now they’re pretty much in the exact same spot with fewer players overall in silver league. Maybe someone in the 13-15 ranks can get some silver league stacking to combat FA when they tank into silver league again.

Chris.3290:

No one in Tier 2 is going to beat anyone in Tier 1 unless backdoor arrangements (not in the spirit of the game) are made,

Making backdoor arrangements is exactly what the spirit of the game should be about.

The whole premise of 3-way server PvP is to allow for two smaller servers to stand up to the dominant one. Normally it never happens because normally there is no incentive to do so, but tournaments such as these can provide that incentive.

You want proof? Look no further than to week 47 last year when Yaks helped EBay sneak into second over SBI, in order to keep SBI below Yaks in the overall league standings.

Grav.3568:

Chris.3290:

No one in Tier 2 is going to beat anyone in Tier 1 unless backdoor arrangements (not in the spirit of the game) are made,

Making backdoor arrangements is exactly what the spirit of the game should be about.

True, but it shouldn’t be a pre-req.

2400 for the top servers is a good idea, but if NA gold league is going to be 6 servers again then I agree something should be done to help 4-6.

Slightly off topic, but how well would the swiss-tournament format work for 6 servers? Seems like it would be really monotonous.

The pricing for the duration of the tournament makes sense, and looks like a good change. But the pre-tournament pricing is a trainwreck.

For NA, it costs 2400 gems to move to the rank 12 server and get totally shafted for rewards in Silver League. But only 800 gems move to rank 16 for an easy win in Bronze League.

I’m sure Anet is banking on people realizing that they’ve got a sweet deal going to get an easy win. They’ll be making a lot of gem sale money from people moving to those 800 gem rank 16-18 servers. Just a shame that 4-6 and 10-12 are getting completely screwed over so they can make a quick buck.

The tier 3,4 servers have it worst.
They’ll be overtaken by t5 servers that get free transfers while the cost to go to SBI, SoR, BP, YB, IOJ will actually go up assuming rankings stay the same. As if they weren’t having a hard enough time bringing people in.

t2 is guaranteed no less than a 6th place finish. the top 5 servers in each league get 300+ tickets — enough for a mistforged weapon.

whats your problem with the most stacked servers being shoo-ins for the most interesting reward?

insanemaniac.2456:

t2 is guaranteed no less than a 6th place finish. the top 5 servers in each league get 300+ tickets — enough for a mistforged weapon.

whats your problem with the most stacked servers being shoo-ins for the most interesting reward?

They might be getting a pass on the bad luck of 7-9 rewards, but they still have 0 chance of actually getting 1-3 rewards, yet have the same transfer cost. Who is going to pay 2400 gems to get 5-6th place rewards when you can pay 800 gems for an easy 1st-2nd place?

mrstealth.6701:

insanemaniac.2456:

t2 is guaranteed no less than a 6th place finish. the top 5 servers in each league get 300+ tickets — enough for a mistforged weapon.

whats your problem with the most stacked servers being shoo-ins for the most interesting reward?

They might be getting a pass on the bad luck of 7-9 rewards, but they still have 0 chance of actually getting 1-3 rewards, yet have the same transfer cost. Who is going to pay 2400 gems to get 5-6th place rewards when you can pay 800 gems for an easy 1st-2nd place?

are you actually suggesting t2 needs to get transfers?

insanemaniac.2456:

mrstealth.6701:

insanemaniac.2456:

t2 is guaranteed no less than a 6th place finish. the top 5 servers in each league get 300+ tickets — enough for a mistforged weapon.

whats your problem with the most stacked servers being shoo-ins for the most interesting reward?

They might be getting a pass on the bad luck of 7-9 rewards, but they still have 0 chance of actually getting 1-3 rewards, yet have the same transfer cost. Who is going to pay 2400 gems to get 5-6th place rewards when you can pay 800 gems for an easy 1st-2nd place?

are you actually suggesting t2 needs to get transfers?

For the normal course of wvw, no.

But for a tournament with placement-based rewards where they are stuck in a league with the T1 beast servers…yes. They do need transfers to have any chance of standing up to those servers.

They are being put into a situation where they have no chance at winning, and then having their only means of trying to improve that situation (getting transfers) crippled.

If the transfer pricing during/after the tournament has T2 in a cheaper price bracket, why does the special “pre-tournament sale” have them at the same cost as T1?

Who knows, maybe SoS might finish 3rd, and BG 4th? We shall see.

But, honestly, t3 can’t compete with any t2 server, so the 6th man gold works. no one in silver can come close to competiting with DB, since they recently got some transfers, and the rest of us lost players.

I don’t know about t6 through t8, but I am sure the 800 gems to t6 is going to kill bronze league, and make it about as competitve as silver. At least we can say, the battle for last will be good…

I don’t get the impression that Arenanet is trying to encourage people to go to lower servers, so much as they’re simply raising the price on transfers to the desirable servers. the idea here isn’t to encourage people to move down, it’s simply to discourage them from moving up.

part of that discouragement comes from the absolute price increase from 1800 to 2400 gems. and part of that is to make the increase especially obvious by lowering transfer costs for servers very few would want to go to anyway. if Arenanet raised the prices across the board to 2400, maybe fewer people in total would transfer, but proportionally most of them would still go to the top 6 servers (especially ranks 4-6). but by raising the prices for only some servers, people will look at the transfer cost and they will question the value they are getting for their gems. “why should I pay 2400 gems to go there, when I could pay 0 gems to go elsewhere?”

the next thought would then be “hey, why pay 0 gems to go to a lower server, when I could pay 0 gems to stay where I am already?”

suddenly the value of staying where you are has gone way up — it is the same price as transferring to the rank 24 server, but instead of ending up on the rank 24 server you can stay right where you are!

I think the pricing is a good idea because it will act to kitten the flow of players to higher ranks, but I don’t see how this will encourage very many players to transfer to a lower server. really, Arenanet would have to give me gems to get me to transfer down.

-ken

and by “kitten” I mean a word which means “slow down”.

-ken

Snowreap.5174:

I don’t get the impression that Arenanet is trying to encourage people to go to lower servers, so much as they’re simply raising the price on transfers to the desirable servers. the idea here isn’t to encourage people to move down, it’s simply to discourage them from moving up.

There are still people that will pay the 2400 gems to get to the top of Gold or Silver league. And even if they buy those gems with gold, that still works to push up the gem demand/value, and give further incentive to exchange cash-bought gems for gold. So either way, the increased price gets them more money.

But the really smart server movers will be going for that 800 gems to get into the top of Bronze. That’s a tempting offer that will get them a large amount of sales.

Fact: Server Population does not Equate to Skill Lvl.
Fact: Just because you place 1st in Top Tier, does note equate to being more skilled, but rather just that you have more transfers.

Population /=/ Skill /=/ Rank Reward.

1st Place in Gold, Silver, Bronze should have equal distribution of goods.

It is a population imbalance. Take your pathetic ego’s out of it.

Amins.3710:

Fact: Server Population does not Equate to Skill Lvl.
Fact: Just because you place 1st in Top Tier, does note equate to being more skilled, but rather just that you have more transfers.

Population /=/ Skill /=/ Rank Reward.

This is why the Tournament Ticket rewards are totally pointless, and only serve to promote server transfers. These rewards need to be based on your personal level of participation, not the fact that you happen to be on, or recently paid to be on, a server with good wvw coverage. Make the achievements harder to get, and tier the rewards based on how many you complete. The people that deserve the most exclusive wvw tournament rewards are the players that put the most effort into wvw. Not the players that abandoned their server/community to get an easy win.

But promoting staying where you are, and putting in effort, doesn’t sell gems. Having a sweet deal on a ticket into the #1 slot of Bronze league does sell them.

@OP:

I disagree. T1 AND T2 do not need more people. This is a good way to get people to go to lower tier servers.

This is one of the best decision recently by ANET

style.6173:

@OP:

I disagree. T1 AND T2 do not need more people. This is a good way to get people to go to lower tier servers.

This is one of the best decision recently by ANET

While I do agree that encouraging transfers to lower tier servers is good, this change does come along with a tournament that encourages stacking onto servers that are already in positions to win their league.

There is also no good reason for 5-6th place in Silver League (R11-12) to have a same transfer cost as 1st-2nd place in Gold/Silver league. YB(r11) could definitely use some transfers, but who would move here when the same price gets you onto #1 spot in Silver? Or even better, you can pay 800 gems to get on the top spot in Bronze.

Encouraging stacking onto the R16-17 servers isn’t any better than stacking T1-2 even more. Those servers will simply dominate Bronze, and have a post-tournament rampage across the next couple tiers above them.

This pre-tournament special pricing needs to be thrown out, so we can just have the much better tournament/post-tournament pricing scheme right now.

mrstealth.6701:

style.6173:

@OP:

I disagree. T1 AND T2 do not need more people. This is a good way to get people to go to lower tier servers.

This is one of the best decision recently by ANET

While I do agree that encouraging transfers to lower tier servers is good, this change does come along with a tournament that encourages stacking onto servers that are already in positions to win their league.

There is also no good reason for 5-6th place in Silver League (R11-12) to have a same transfer cost as 1st-2nd place in Gold/Silver league. YB(r11) could definitely use some transfers, but who would move here when the same price gets you onto #1 spot in Silver? Or even better, you can pay 800 gems to get on the top spot in Bronze.

Encouraging stacking onto the R16-17 servers isn’t any better than stacking T1-2 even more. Those servers will simply dominate Bronze, and have a post-tournament rampage across the next couple tiers above them.

This pre-tournament special pricing needs to be thrown out, so we can just have the much better tournament/post-tournament pricing scheme right now.

this thread pretty much says youre opinion is the minority. there is no wrong time to start the population balancing process. youre just in the wrong place at the wrong time, reaping the advantages of a broken system and having those advantages taken from you.

so get bent out of shape all you want, but please understand that the progress you want to stand in the way of is better for the game than the status quo you want to uphold. id recommend reading the thread a bit if you want to further understand the problem.

insanemaniac.2456:

this thread pretty much says youre opinion is the minority. there is no wrong time to start the population balancing process. youre just in the wrong place at the wrong time, reaping the advantages of a broken system and having those advantages taken from you.

so get bent out of shape all you want, but please understand that the progress you want to stand in the way of is better for the game than the status quo you want to uphold. id recommend reading the thread a bit if you want to further understand the problem.

I don’t want to uphold the status quo at all, but the tournament will do a great job of upholding it. The 2nd pricing scheme that goes into effect once the tournament starts could actually help with population balance. This special pre-tournament sale is just promoting over-stacking the top end of bronze league. The reward system for the tournament encourages stacking the top of each tier to get the maximum number of tickets. You’ve got one good change, with two horribly bad ideas that will undo any progress it could have made.

What is standing in the way of progress is the reward system that encourages server stacking instead of rewarding personal participation/accomplishment, combined with a sale that gives the opportunity to cheaply swap and stack the top bronze league server. There is actually a good chance that this could cause one of the bronze servers to climb all the up to T2, leaving another over-stacked server at the top end till it collapses. So which T6 server is going to be the next Kaineng that climbs to near the top only to collapse back to T8 when the next tournament rolls around? SBI had a nice climb before/during Season One, and they’ve already fallen apart for the Spring Tournament.

youre just in the wrong place at the wrong time, reaping the advantages of a broken system and having those advantages taken from you.

I’m not sure what you’re implying, or what you think my intentions are. But I have no interest in reaping the advantages of this. If I wanted to do that, I would be swapping to a T6 server for 800gems instead of staying on YB. I also don’t see what advantage I’ve had taken away from me, as I have no intentions of participating in this tournament primarily because of it’s reward system that rewards high population/stacking/server swapping instead of actual participation or achievement.

If there is going to be any balance in server population, it has to begin with not rewarding players based on server ranking/placement. No matter what else you do, people are going to flock to where the rewards are the best/easiest. It’s great that they are offering transfers to tier 5, 7, and 8 for free. But who wants to actually take that offer when it means getting less Tournament Tickets?

mrstealth.6701:

This special pre-tournament sale is just promoting over-stacking the top end of bronze league. The reward system for the tournament encourages stacking the top of each tier to get the maximum number of tickets. You’ve got one good change, with two horribly bad ideas that will undo any progress it could have made.

There is definitely some unfairness to the middle servers in the silver and bronze league that are not getting whatever advantage comes from free transfers, while they are also not as attractive to (in theory) stack to at the discounted price.

However, I really doubt that many players are going to pay 800 gems to hopefully get more reward tickets if they otherwise don’t want to be on that server after the league ends. It’s a stupid weapon skin that tons of people are going to get whether it’s bought straight with tickets or forged with less, and you probably won’t care about it one month after you get it. The other stuff is junk many players already have too much of and regularly destroy as an annoyance drop.

The real advantage one of these free transfer servers might get is if there’s a mass organized transfer down to build up a server at zero cost for the league and beyond. We’ll just have to see if that happens. Personally, I thought the gold league last season was a giant PoS of round the clock blobs, tower humping, and babysitting AP addicts, and I transferred out after two weeks. I am very happy anet has presented the opportunity to avoid it this time for free, even if it’s a bit flawed.

zen.6091:

However, I really doubt that many players are going to pay 800 gems to hopefully get more reward tickets if they otherwise don’t want to be on that server after the league ends. It’s a stupid weapon skin that tons of people are going to get whether it’s bought straight with tickets or forged with less, and you probably won’t care about it one month after you get it. The other stuff is junk many players already have too much of and regularly destroy as an annoyance drop.

The real advantage one of these free transfer servers might get is if there’s a mass organized transfer down to build up a server at zero cost for the league and beyond.

Well, the previous season saw people paying more to swap server for less rewards. And we’ve already seen population shifts since the announcement of the spring tournament. I don’t really understand it, and it’s not something I would do(been on YB since Nov 2012), but there are a good number of people that will.

I suppose it does seem a bit easier to understand, and a more reasonable choice, when you look at the fact that 800 gems can be bought for around 65g. If that transfers nets you one of the Mistforged weapons (which I’m assuming are ascended tier), you’ve saved 40g+ in materials by not having to craft an ascended weapon.

I would like to see the bottom servers end up getting a good bit of transfers, but I just see the tournament reward incentives outweighing that. Sometimes people seem willing to jump ship just by hearing the word “rewards”, even if the reward isn’t much of anything. Or maybe even thinking they can get achievements easier plays a role in the decision…I just don’t get people sometimes

last time people also thought winning would bring legendaries or precursors instead of a dolyak mini and 3 greens.

not that those beliefs were justified, but people still thought them.

mistforged are stated to be exotic. its about the prestige cosmetics. and its MOSTLY about showing you participated since most people will be able to get one, and if not theres season 3.

I just hope that on top of scaling costs they also throttle the total amount of allowed transfers TO a server per week to give time for the rankings to update and to nip certain mass transfer exploitations in the bud.

Otherwise what we are likely to see is a mass transfer to servers in the bottom of each league to try to game the chances of winning that bracket, which does not actually help the lopsided coverage/stacking issue, just changes the server name tag attached to it.

I can see some movement into T2 servers mid-season ‘cos of the discount. And really does Mag, SoS and FA/DB need/want more people? I don’t reckon.

NA rank 1-12 2400

Seriously? I don’t wanna sound offensive, but, are you drunk when you are planing these changes dear devs? Really, seriously?? The community is the only one who see how this gonna end?

I mean, seriously?

Well, i have until march 18 to get out of my server…

WTB the rewards still suck. You don’t have a idea how much effort some guild does to keep the server up the entire season. That WvW tickets should be win every week (in less proportion) for those who do a weekly wvw achievements.