Guild Wars 2

How has everyone’s league experience been and should we have a season 2?

For me personally, I did not like season 1 and will likely not return to WvW at all after this season ends. This is an opinion and I understand it could have been very fun for some people. I am just wondering what everyone’s opinions are and if there are enjoyability trends in higher ranked servers vs. lower.

State your server + league, if you enjoyed leagues, and if we should have another season:

Server: TC
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: No
Should we have season 2?: No, never again.

No. Just give me a big empty battlefield I can wreck faces on without needing to worry about capturing points.

Well you say you didn’t enjoy season 1, but what exactly about it didn’t you enjoy? Also it would help to know if you WvW often, or if you just started doing it a lot at the offset of season 1. I think people should include actual feedback when posting here other than “yes” or “no.” It would at least potentially create some sort of discussion on the pros and cons of the season. This is the “WvW Discussion” forum after all.

But for me,

Server: Borlis Pass
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes. Other than a few very one-sided match-ups, the overall experience has been pretty good. I think BP has had some great moments as a server where we came together and beat other servers in very clutch moments (such as our last day push to pass Dragonbrand, that was a fun day of fighting). That being said, I wouldn’t mind seeing some polishing up of achievements and what not for the next season. Also, I personally dislike the addition of living world elements in WvW (toxic stuff does not need to be killing off mercenary camps on EB and slowing down movement across the map. It’s just a general nuisance).
Should we have a Season 2?: Yes, and hopefully it’s a bit more polished and needed changes are made in light of Season 1.

Server: SoR
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Mixed, regardless of PPT… when there has been an ‘even’ match – Yes, when it’s been a total one-sided event (either way) – No.
Should we have season 2?: Need the matches to be closer (not specifically talking about PPT, put this can obviously determines numbers)

I say NO.

The matchups are broken due to guilds transfering servers or trolling WvW scores weeks prior to season start.
The end of season reward chest is based on server performance, so if you lose a few weeks people don’t bother anymore.
The few good matchups are influenced more by griefing than performance.

I love WvW but season one is pointlessly broken. If there is season 2 I suggest the removal of all leagues, the removal of the reward chest (titles, mini’s and crafting mats are ok for me) and extending the season to 14 weeks so griefing and cheating will be harder.

Server: SOR
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: NO
Should we have season 2?: NO

Servers were unbalanced population wise before the league started as well as the ratings because of their crazy ratings system. First and foremost coverage will determine the winner, and unless they work on either fixing the population of servers or help the losing servers in matchups there is no point to running a league. Things such as changing the bloodlust stomp points, make it 1 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, make the winning server work harder to hold off the bloodlust buff since they have more population to do it, make this work for the outmanned buff as well. I suppose that’s really a discussion for another thread, which they would never read I’m sure.

All the league has done is further encourage some people and servers not to care and bother playing. I got my achievements done by week 2, but haven’t logged on much lately and probably won’t until after season or whenever my server decides they want to compete again.

Server: AR
League: Bronze
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
Should we have season 2: Yes

Obvious coverage talk aside…AR has was at the bottom of Bronze, which would put us at the bottom of all 24 servers. We tightened up our Defense and had the closest 2nd place finish in the NA leagues (1,172 pts). Right now Bronze won’t be completely sorted out until the last week. After BG won in week one, gold league was decided and FA in silver league is a joke. Right now there are 7 servers involved in a tie with another server. Final standings won’t be figured out until the last week. There have been about 6 matches where two servers were within 20k points of each other. AR was left for dead in 9th placed and we managed to turn it around and could end up finishing 6th. Not the greatest but it pulled our server together and I think that is somewhat of a success for leagues.

I dont hope they make a season 2 and here is why. Im playing on Seafarer’s Rest and yes it is fun when we are againts piken or Vizunah, but when we are meeting a lower server, then we have nearly won when the weekend is over and then i dont play the last couple of days. Pls go back to the old system

BG
Gold
Meh
Heck no son.

Server: Piken
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Absolutely
Should we have season 2?: Yes please. Much more fun than the constant ladder treadmill with no end in sight. Gives servers a set period of time to plan and attack. Makes certain weeks ones to rally your server when it comes to the math calculations for end result. Heck, even the end result isn’t all that important, but the leagues made it more fun for me.

Remember, the regular WvW gameplay is RNG based and you’re going to get skewed matchups regardless. At least this gives momentum.

Server: BG
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes, it was a good start
Should we have season 2?: Absolutely. It wasn’t going to be perfect the first time. But this community desperately needs a healthy dose of competition. It’s too casual.

Server: Augury Rock (EU)
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: No
Should we have season 2?: No. Unless major changes are made to adress imbalance issues.

Server : JQ
League : Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes and No. The only week I enjoyed was week 1 with BG and SoR. Other match-ups were way too one-sided in terms of points but great fights nonetheless.
Should we have Season 2?: Yes but matches needs to be more balanced. Having a one-sided match is boring for both the winner and the loser. Also , remove the achievements which require supplies to complete because achievement hunters are wasting supply by repairing walls that are actively being trebbed. Living Story updates should NEVER be in WvW , it tells enemies where we are when we are passing through the toxic stuff by popping OJs.

lordhelmos.7623:

How has everyone’s league experience been and should we have a season 2?

For me personally, I did not like season 1 and will likely not return to WvW at all after this season ends. This is an opinion and I understand it could have been very fun for some people. I am just wondering what everyone’s opinions are and if there are enjoyability trends in higher ranked servers vs. lower.

State your server + league, if you enjoyed leagues, and if we should have another season:

Server: TC
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: No
Should we have season 2?: No, never again.

Server: TC
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
Should we have season 2?: Absolutely

(3/4th of my playtime is WvW, since headstart)
Server: Aurora Glade
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: No.
Season 2: At the rate of progress Anet is making, no for at least a year. Then I would reevaluate my opinion.

Why?
Having to wait in a queue for your achievments is simply put, bullstuff.
Preventing people to play together (GUILDS), even if they dont care about the Achievments, even more of this bullstuff.
Servers swelling and dieing out in the later stages of seasons(example Underworld) providing no challange at all for opponents/being totally dominated in a semi-competetive environment. Just because the next living story update got released.
This semi-“competetive” environment in a gamemode that is everything but competetive is in the wrong place.
Leads to toxic behaviour within the server communities like in every gaming community that thinks it is doing something competetive.
Queueing for hours, queueing because the queue system is really bad (people taxiing in all the time before you) instead of actually playing the game makes dedicated people think why they are even trying.
Specific for me: basicly killed the GvG scene because of queues and the same matchups over and over.
Fighting the same Servers over and over, often in the same totally unbalanced matchups like random matchups were.

I, for once, will be extremly happy when random matchups hit again.
Want to play on your medium ranked server? Np, join the map and play because people who dont care about the game mode dont fill the maps.
Nothing better to fight than Vizunah Square. Whiners wont bother playing because we’ll lose the matchup, Vizunahs will still be around. Killed 50? Made them ragequit? No problem 50 more in queue for you.
Didnt do a zone blob as guild? Didnt care about PPT for a day? Its okay since these random matchups dont mean much, nobody will be toxic towards you because youn are screwing with their rewards of the season.
Instead it will bring me and my friends (guild) to play together instead of moaning in guild chat about how bad this season idea was.

Don’t be so closed minded. You think we should cancel baseball because a high school team cannot defeat a major league team? They just need to make adjustments to who belongs in what division and then it will be fun for everyone. I cannot believe anyone would suggest that we just scrub divisions and let the major league players play against high school. Its just plain silly. Divisions are necessary to keep games fair and fun. How many high school teams would exist if they had to face major league teams half the time?

No, leagues effectively killed some servers, especially the lower tiered ones. Unless Anet wants to merge servers it’s a bad idea.

Binkydink.2697:

Don’t be so closed minded. You think we should cancel baseball because a high school team cannot defeat a major league team? They just need to make adjustments to who belongs in what division and then it will be fun for everyone. I cannot believe anyone would suggest that we just scrub divisions and let the major league players play against high school. Its just plain silly. Divisions are necessary to keep games fair and fun. How many high school teams would exist if they had to face major league teams half the time?

I am from europe, we dont have baseball, but I afaik in baseball your team won win the match if they jump on the baseball field and start playing at night while the other team is asleep.

As long as this is possible in WvW you cant compare it to anything that is competetive. WvW. is. not. designed. to. be. competetive. at. core. Its not even designed to be balanced. Since WvW as a game mode is not competetive at all, why should someone try to make leagues out of it?

Server: DB
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
Should we have season 2?: No

I enjoyed most of the silver league matchups, but I fear this system too heavily favors the high population servers in each league and basically screws over the low population servers (See:NSP). I’m not particularly fond of running into FA blobs and outnumberd buffs on every map outside EBG. (And even on that one, sometimes.) And DB is mid-tier Silver — think of how the low tier Silver servers feel.

Just allow the ratings to adjust the servers. This may cause some repetitive matchups — but honestly I don’t care what server appears above the enemy’s head so long as the fights are fun and the ppt is comparable. The league system doesn’t help, here.

I, for one, enjoyed the old TC/FA/DB matchups week in and week out. The fights were always there and all three servers stood a chance at winning any given week. Obviously people have bandwagoned for league, (which is in itself a problem,) so this particular match up would no longer apply. XD

~ Kovu

Binkydink.2697:

Don’t be so closed minded. You think we should cancel baseball because a high school team cannot defeat a major league team? They just need to make adjustments to who belongs in what division and then it will be fun for everyone. I cannot believe anyone would suggest that we just scrub divisions and let the major league players play against high school. Its just plain silly. Divisions are necessary to keep games fair and fun. How many high school teams would exist if they had to face major league teams half the time?

WvW isn’t baseball… where they generally have an equal number of players in each team (I can’t imagine it making a difference which league you play in baseball if you only had half as many players as other teams).

“There’s no crying in baseball!”

comparing the flawed WvW (because of imbalance in numbers) to sports (which always field the same number on each side) is very stupid i think…

back to OPs question :

1. CD
2. Silver
3. No
4. No. Unless they test on the reduced the map cap first.

grifflyman.8102:

“There’s no crying in baseball!”

yeah but they spit a lot… uggh.

Server: Borliss Pass
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season: Yes

The top 3 servers in the league face rolled everybody. The other matches were competitive and fun. Right now we are in the running for 4th or 5th place.

Leagues idea needs a lot of work. The achievements brought In people (good) but caused players to chase off to irrelevant objectives (bad). Next time limit it to world ranker.

Anet has to look at whether their decisions are killing server communities. Not just better loot for players on the winning team, while losers get punished by repair costs and super low income in wvw, but things like Tequatl that only are relevant if your server is already stacked. How they handle the season one loot could help or hurt season two.

SOR

Gold

Mixed. Like several others have pointed out population balance is a huge problem. People running around wvw for achievments but not participating in the effort is also a problem.

I’d participate in season 2. But I’d rather they fix the problems that have reared up before they launch another season.

No.

A “League” for a 24/7 persistent open world PvE/PvP is pretty much the most ridiculous form of on-line “competition” that could have been imagined.

ANet needs to focus on a structured form of GvG similar to Guild Wars 1 where guilds press an Enter button and wait for a match making system to find matches.

World V World is an incredibly fun form of server wide PvP but in no way shape or form is it or will it ever be “League” material in it’s current form. Only MASSIVE changes may do that to it.

Server: BP
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: No
Should we have season 2?: No

Leagues brought out the worst elements of the game so no there shouldn’t be.

What I’d like to see:

- A state of the leagues from the devs – to talk about their thoughts and feelings on season 1. What worked, what didnt, what they feel the players response has been.

-One of those dev discussions with the playerbase so problems can be discussed, and devs give feedback on what they can/can’t do, what they do/don’t like of the players suggestions (focus being to make a better league season).

Until we can discuss, and see change, there’s no point to continuing seasons. Nor can you say if this season was successful or not (it will only be if it becomes a platform for improvement).

Leagues for WvW made no sense in the first place.

It’d be like having a league of Football, with 3 Teams

Team A gets 20 people on the field
Team B gets 15 people
Team C gets 10 people.

Xsorus’ analogy is pretty spot on. And even if you manage similar sized zergs the one with the most hammer warriors always wins. Neat, wait I mean zzz.

FYI, 2 players from any major league baseball team can easily beat 18 players from any high school baseball team. I’m very glad a lot of you are not developers because this game would be complete garbage. Give anet time to place everyone in the correct division so the matches will be fun. Problem is I fear week 7 is gonna have too much of a negative impact on the losing servers.

Binkydink.2697:

FYI, 2 players from any major league baseball team can easily beat 18 players from any high school baseball team. I’m very glad a lot of you are not developers because this game would be complete garbage. Give anet time to place everyone in the correct division so the matches will be fun. Problem is I fear week 7 is gonna have too much of a negative impact on the losing servers.

There are no divisions when it comes to leagues, that is the issue. Especially when people can transfer at will. There is always going to be imbalance because of that. People will transfer to the winning side all the time, like it has happened this season which has basically destroyed quite a few servers.

Until Anet can fix the imbalances, leagues should be scrapped.

SoS here, this WvW season needs to stop. The current system still caters to servers with mass wvw population. If Anet is too stupid to figure out how to balance it, they should just kill it. Or figure out a way how smaller pop servers can be “grouped” into one team per season in order to be competitive.

• Server: YB
• League: Silver
• Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
• Should we have season 2?: Yes, but with changes to the format

What I liked

• Matchup variety
• Rivalries with servers that are close in rating (at least at the beginning of the season) with EB/BP
• The competitive spirit of our hard-core YBers that rallied the troops even in our down weeks
• Rallying from 6th seed at the beginning of the season to finish in the top 2-3

What I didn’t like

• Too many blowout PPT scores (We didn’t finish closer than +/-59k points to another server in a single match, and the 1st to 2nd place score differences in our matches varied from 86k to 259k)
• 1st place in all the leagues was not highly contested
• The season meta achievements did not encourage team play
• Imbalances in the schedules (example – Dragonbrand had to play Stormbluff Isle and Fort Aspenwood 3 times each, but Stormbluff Isle and Fort Aspenwood only played each other 2 times)

Server: SoR
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Mixed feelings
Should there be a Season 2: Definitely not.

I feel the seasonal tournaments are more fitted for spvp than wvw. Why? Spvp teams are static and the match will always be 5v5 each time. You aren’t limited by coverage, i.e you don’t lose if you do not play at a certain time.

WvW by nature is mutable. The biggest issue is coverage, which ever server can have around the clock coverage is the winner. Furthermore problems of transferring on and off servers mid season matches is a problem. So I don’t see how it could work, it doesn’t make sense to hold a tournament when each server doesn’t have the same population at all times.

Unlike spvp, wvw isn’t won by superior play but by superior numbers and coverage.

Server: JQ
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: NO
Should we have season 2: No

I wouldn’t go into it but, since most of my thoughts on the matter have already been raised. There were too many concepts that divided the player base and brought out some truly bad behavior. Unlike a poster above, WvW needs to be more casual. As it appears the players level of honor and respect, for themselves and others, aren’t high enough to handle more competition. The dev’s need to consider the ramifications of their choices. This is just a video game for entertainment after all.

Server: Desolation
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes, very much
Should we have season 2? Yes

When the season started I held a wvw rank of 6. Now I am at 131.

When the season started I only played wvw when my guild insisted on it (and my guild is not of the insisting type). Now I play wvw most of the time.

When the season started I did not know what siege weapons did. That has changed.

If ArenaNet’s goal were to lure pve guys into wvw: with me they completely succeeded.

Though I have to say that too many of the matches Desolation participated in were too onesided. The current match with Gandara and FSP is great, on the other hand. We have our chances but Gandara gives us a hard time and it is not that FSP has exactly given up. Great fun.

I hope ArenaNet improves the match-making. And some of the achievements were a bit unbalanced. But after a week or so I did not pay much attention to them anymore because the gameplay itself was attractive enough

Claudius.5381:

Server: Desolation
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes, very much
Should we have season 2? Yes

Dropping ratings on purpose to get to silver league and then completely dominate it… Yeah I bet you had fun. I hope you are happy that 8 other servers had to suffer for you to have some fun.

Server: SBI
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: NO
Should we have season 2: NO

League has done nothing to enhance world play, in fact it has killed everything I loved about going into world. With 3 stacked servers (and yes I realize SBI is one of those – doesn’t mean I like it or condone it) in NA silver I feel for those lower pop servers that had to deal with it through this league junk. Those guys lost a ton of guilds to higher pop servers for w/e reason and I’m sure it has been miserable for them. Seems like Gold and Bronze are in the same boat.

I may have enjoyed it more had Anet 1) blocked all transfers the week before and during league thus securing a more balanced matching 2) basing league placement on 7 weeks prior to league start to get a more accurate placement of servers 3) broken it into 4 tiers/6 servers per tier.

What will post league promote – mass exodus on servers, leaving them placed higher/lower than they should be, which will continue to give imbalanced matches.

•Server: SOR
•League: Gold
•Enjoyed Season 1: Not in Particular
•Should we have season 2?: Yes, but with major changes needed

Things I liked:

• The influx of new players that had been to scared or a mirad of other reasons, into wvw. No mater how you look at it we need more people activley interested in WvW.
• The sense that there was a solid goal to aim toward (reward for effort) and served as a rally point for servers to get their community more involved
• The week 1 match against BG/JQ. I have never seen a more competitive match in my entire year worth of playing. Props to you guys for making it fun.

What I didn’t enjoy:

• Achievments that promoted individule play -> jumping puzzles, supply wasting, yak/sentry camping. This does nothing except breed discord in a community. It’s bad enough that people are being yelled at in map chat for being Achievment hunters, but when guilds and commanders start singling out and grouping pugs and other players under the same lable things start to go down hill. One good example of this was in week 2 I think, when we were trying to hold garrison and we had solo players robbing the place of supply just to get the achievment. Map chat devolved into something very unplesent and it’s not something I ever want to see again. Same goes for the building of siege and ninjaing siege out from people with masteries just to get the stupid meta done.

Solution: If you want to keep having achievments they should promote helping the server by doing things like defending a keep/tower or taking an objective that will only give you credit if you are running with a minimum of 5 people. Supply use should never ever be tied to achievments.

• The lopsided victories aginast a non T1/TC server ->; JQ blew out almost everyone not SOR/BG. BG blew out the 2 easy matches they had. SOR kinda blew out the easy match. There is no way that can make the other 3 servers grouped in gold feel good. If anything that does more harm than good to communities and promotes the “Why should I go out and play if I’m only going ot get face rolled” mentality. I’d imagine this is even worse for the low ranked siver and bronze servers that have yet to win a match. It also promotes transfering to higher/winning servers in order to get good fights.

Possible Solution: Lock server transfers once the season starts -> You started on that server then you stay on that server for the whole 7 weeks. There is no reason we should see people jumping ship left right and center because a sever has all ov a sudden had a bad week, or got double teamed, or now has a less desirable ranking. If that isn’t possible then make it so there is a 2 week wait period before you can play wvw on your new server or you get no rewards/achievments period, unless you make it to the end of the 7 week period on your original server.

Think of it this way: If you enter a regular sporting tournament you have a set team. You don’t get to decide halfway throught the tourny that you don’t want to be on the team anymore becasue it’s loosing. You are generally stuck with that team till the end of the tourny.

* The schedule -> SOR/BG faced each other constantly and face rolled everyone not them (not counting JQ). SOR/BG/JQ will happen only 2 times. I’m sure I’m not the only one to think the gold matches were super lopsided.

* The non-queue queue -> For the love of all things holy get a queue system that actually works as a queue system. Should be first come first served and we should be able to see what number we are in the queue.

* Keep the LS out of WvW -> It has no place in the aside from making another area that needs to be avoided when roaming about.

•Server: IOJ
•League: Silver
•Enjoyed Season 1: Nope
•Should we have season 2: Nope

My issues with leagues was everyone transferred from lower spectrum of leagues to higher for those few greens and a rare.
Also for servers that are completely stacked, face rolling everyone, had some fights here and there that were a lot of fun but the more I die to a 5v50 and watch 30 people emote about it the more I lose interest in the game, congrats to those guys for stacking and pressing 1 for hours.

Also: I want my town clothes back

Yes but I think they structure of how the league is set up needs to be different

Server: Blackgate
League: Gold NA
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes and No
Should we have a Season 2: Maybe, but probably not.

Anyone that has been in Tier 1 for long enough knows how important Non-NA coverage means to success. There just isn’t enough players in all these time zones to evenly distribute between servers to make for a balance league. The game mode doesn’t allow for upsets due to population so the best coverage will win. Due to these issues there should not be a second season. As for other reasons, it’s quite clear that this type of competition put to much strain on servers and had a very negative effect on there population and morale. While being on Blackgate I can say “woot we won!” but in the end what is important is the health of our tier and how things are going to go after week 7. There are going to be (already are) disgruntled players about how rewards and items are handed out, when they have no control over it them selves.

Seasons/leagues was a awesome “idea” but due to the state of WvW and its player base we should not have a 2nd season till the current issues are resolved. (Which I don’t see happening with out stepping on players toes or for the foreseeable future)

Speculation issue to season 2: Say we get even population between 3 or 6 servers. As the season gos, Blackgate is undefeated again. Now you have great servers that put in massive time building up the server to lose again. Its a huge hit to morale and the enjoyment of your player base. My guess would be (IF this were to happen) WvW would take a massive hit to its population and be on the brink of Death.

FA
Silver
Yes
Yes

Blackgate
Gold
No
No

Week 1 was great, the rest of the match-ups were horrible. They need to re-make gold league, either merge some servers or kick them out, the non-t1 servers don’t have the coverage to compete, making it boring for everyone involved.

If they can somehow address the fact that 90% of matchups are over by the weekend, yes.

We all know servers imploding and people shuffling servers to try to get rewards translates to gem sales though. So…

Server: SFR
League: Gold
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes
Should we have season 2?: Yes

I think as season 1 ends, less players are going to play WvW. Many are going to have a break, only a season 2 (or something similar) will motivate them to play at the same level. Returning to the pre-league format will be viewed as boring now…

A league with rewards was one of Anets better ideas, just need to tinker with it to make it better. Mainly, more competitive between servers, closer scores.

Server: Ehmry Bay
League: Silver

I don’t have a problem with the meta-achievement so I’d be fine if that stayed, but I’m against the return of leagues. The very design of WvW isn’t meant to be fair, so why do we have a competitive system in place, where the same 1-2 servers are always going to come out on top while the others are in hopeless situations? Why should the servers with the most population be rewarded more than the less populated servers?

Server: Gandara
League: Silver
Enjoyed Season 1: Yes.
Should we have a Season 2: Yes.

At least half of the time in WvW the fights are interesting since almost every server can field enough players from reset to Monday morning. That is not counting matches with servers that have enough coverage for good fights. Having a point based system where 2nd place is also very important gives servers that are dominated by one server the determination to keep on fighting for those precious 3 points.

All in all I think that even with all the hickups and some servers getting the short end of the stick (mostly because of the decision of powerful people on some other servers to underperform in order to dominate lower tiers) the season idea was a great success and we should definitely have season 2, with winners of previous league (or maybe 1st and 2nd place ?) moving to higher tier and bottom servers moving to lower league.