Guild Wars 2

.. being the server on the 2nd slot in reach of the first place for the week, and seeing people mindlessly attacking the weakest server on the 3rd place, over and over again instead of leaving them alone and letting them attack the 1st place holder.

Do people really not understand the rule 1. of strategy? In order to win, you attack the strongest, as soon as possible, in order to become the strongest, or risk them swallow smaller competition and grow so much, you will never reach them. That is the no1. reason of the unbalanced match results.

Just now, after our server getting closer and closer to server.1 over past days, I’ve seen us defend that server’s tower against the attack of the 3rd place holder. Our small zerg didnt even mean to take the tower, it just fought the attackers off, for minutes and minutes until I could not take it and logged out. Helping the winner, because their defenders instead of defending (we did that for them) went to retake the towers we took from them. Instead, we could have let the 3rd server cap and reset that tower while we attack another tower and split the defenders. Instead we play the defenders! Totally disheartening, I just logged off, feeling all my time spent capping camps, sieging towers, refreshing siege, building golems and what not, is wasted, because all the points that may have been gained are thrown away by such mob behavior.

Now you may say ‘then get a badge and lead if you know better’. I’m not a leader, nor do I care for leading.. I’m more of a solo player that loves WvW. I did raise the question of why we’re doing this, but of course to no avail. I just wish people would see such obvious mistakes that favor the enemies.

Were it up to me, I’d never touch the weakest servers towers, and only defend against their attacks on our lands, while focusing entirely on the winning server. But of course, victory means nothing in the current system, and all that matters is WXP so grander strategy and long-term plans are out of the question.

/rant over

Sorry just had to let it out :P

Totally agreed, WvW needs more rewarding system for the winning server 1st / 2nd.
The way it is now people just zerging mindlessly to get wxp because they / we dont see any benefit from seriously trying to win the WvW matchup

zerospin.8604:

Do people really not understand the rule 1. of strategy? In order to win, you attack the strongest, as soon as possible, in order to become the strongest, or risk them swallow smaller competition and grow so much, you will never reach them. That is the no1. reason of the unbalanced match results.

Here’s the thing: WvW doesn’t really incentivize being in first place. The actual reward schema for WvW has very little to do with mastering your tier, and even less to do with moving up a tier. For most people, farming the weak server is more fun than banding together with it (thus reducing available targets), and perhaps more importantly in the context of GW2 it is more rewarding. First place doesn’t get anything but a few small server-wide benefits that end as soon as the match does. Most WvW rewards are at the personal level, and at the personal level you get more rank and more loot taking the easy path.

People will always choose to conquer an “abandoned” wvw map, in many cases i see A taking B borderland while A do not recover theyre borderland.

Tulisin.6945:

zerospin.8604:

Do people really not understand the rule 1. of strategy? In order to win, you attack the strongest, as soon as possible, in order to become the strongest, or risk them swallow smaller competition and grow so much, you will never reach them. That is the no1. reason of the unbalanced match results.

Here’s the thing: WvW doesn’t really incentivize being in first place. The actual reward schema for WvW has very little to do with mastering your tier, and even less to do with moving up a tier. For most people, farming the weak server is more fun than banding together with it (thus reducing available targets), and perhaps more importantly in the context of GW2 it is more rewarding. First place doesn’t get anything but a few small server-wide benefits that end as soon as the match does. Most WvW rewards are at the personal level, and at the personal level you get more rank and more loot taking the easy path.

I do agree that Anet needs to incentivize attacking the stronger server. And I agree that there needs to be better rewards for defending and tasks other than zerg around and cap stuff.

But I find it hard to believe that people play WvW for the rewards, I mean PvE gives much more. I think people play for the fun and excitment of fighting other humans and not NPC’s. If it takes more rewards to get more people into WvW I’m all for it.

And I agreee 100% with the OP. I’ve been saying it for a long time. We can’t wait for Anet to do something. The power is in our hands, as players, to do something now.

If people would just use strategy against the stronger server they would have a lot more fun. You’d hear a lot less complaining about unbalanced matches. There’d be less stacking of servers because you’d be able to feel like you were able to have fun, good fights and successes even when you’re the smaller server.

In many scenarios the choice comes down to hard fight jumping on a more populated server or an easy fight jumping on a less one. The maps really do make it easier and more lucrative (badges/wxp) to go after a weaker rival.

Even the 3rd place server has an easier time hitting the 2nd place server because that 2nd place server usually has its hands full defending against the 1st place server.

This is wholly a design problem with the maps IMO. EB should have put the 1st place server between 2nd and 3rd giving them a two front war.

Seriously, people don’t care about the scoreboard.

Even if the system was perfect, MOST people are going out to WvW to have fun and find interesting fights…. this vocal minority of people who live by the scoreboard and are willing to run siege for hours “For the realm” need to realize the hard fact…they are a minority.

That being said, it’s even worse because the current scoring system is total crap. The winner each week is chosen by who has the most people participating and the most off-hours coverage…that’s it! Why would anybody take it seriously enough to pass up potentially fun fights?

Aeolus.3615:

People will always choose to conquer an “abandoned” wvw map, in many cases i see A taking B borderland while A do not recover theyre borderland.

What I find fascinating about the people who seem to focus on undefended camps and towers is that taking an undefended tower is basically a PvE experience and the game is full of maps with that kind of objective with more variety and reward. I understand why a solo player or small group of roamers would do that but not larger groups. Taking an undefended camp, tower, or keep with a zerg reminds me of riding the loot train on Southsun Cove but with worse rewards.

It happens because one server has the other out manned by such a large amount it just turns into a wipe, so they focus on the other losing server with smaller zerg size.

To top that off there isn’t any real incentive to win the match, I already suggested a reward for winning, and Anet says they have ideas in the works.
Of course many kiddies on here whine without thinking they don’t want rewards for winning servers.

Zosk.5609:

Seriously, people don’t care about the scoreboard.

Even if the system was perfect, MOST people are going out to WvW to have fun and find interesting fights…. this vocal minority of people who live by the scoreboard and are willing to run siege for hours “For the realm” need to realize the hard fact…they are a minority.

That being said, it’s even worse because the current scoring system is total crap. The winner each week is chosen by who has the most people participating and the most off-hours coverage…that’s it! Why would anybody take it seriously enough to pass up potentially fun fights?

Well I don’t know who cares about the scoreboard and who doesn’t. Witness the “fair weather” phenomenon. And I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make – using strategy or not?

But I do agree with you that most people play for the fun and for interesting fights. And that is why using strategy is better – it will lead to more fun and more interesting fights.

Berk.8561:

Aeolus.3615:

People will always choose to conquer an “abandoned” wvw map, in many cases i see A taking B borderland while A do not recover theyre borderland.

What I find fascinating about the people who seem to focus on undefended camps and towers is that taking an undefended tower is basically a PvE experience and the game is full of maps with that kind of objective with more variety and reward. I understand why a solo player or small group of roamers would do that but not larger groups. Taking an undefended camp, tower, or keep with a zerg reminds me of riding the loot train on Southsun Cove but with worse rewards.

Well it can be hard finding a defended tower at times.
If a tower is defended nowadays that usually just means that it is filled with OP arrowcarts (yes those things still need a good nerfing) while the people manning the arrowcart are asking the blob to come and help.

An undefended tower can be fun to take. Chances are some guy farming minotaurs will feel guilty about taking a Q spot and call in that blob again to defend the tower. As luck will have it, the blobs usually arrive at the tower about 15 seconds after the gate has gone down. That means that at the time the blobs collapse there is a choke (the gate), you can get the highgroud (walls), the field is rather open and the blobs can have a real fight without stupid siege.

btw as for the OP. Why do you care about what server you hit? Do they drop different lootbags? Does it matter what place you end on fridaynight? The only reason to choose a certain server to attack is to settle a score or because one server is more fun to fight against than the other.

WvW is an area of all kinds of misguided pvp.

It is full of solo roamers looking for duels, skirmish groups that would rather engage in open field pvp instead of capturing structures, and a plethora of players that will avoid fights at any cost.

I suspect that Wxp has become main culprit for servers to ignore the scoreboard and just focus on the easy objectives and quick Wxp rewards.

I spend most of my WvW time in my home BL. I often see tactical opportunities wasted despite advanced scouting reports because people would rather wait at a camp for an RI cool down instead of cutting of the group that is flipping camps.

I see players engage a camp and go right for the Dolyaks first thing instead of taking out the other NPCs first, quite often leaving an up leveled player in peril as the Supervisor beats the tar out of them or some other noble soul that misunderstood the real intended target.

WvW is a game type that is casual in nature but with the added reward system has become a farming ground for certain players. This is working against the whole point of the WvW feature in many ways.

Players would focus on objectives a great deal more if winning the weekly battle served a purpose. Without that there will be more and more divisions between objective players, Wxp farmers, solo players, GvG battles, and the various other play styles as time goes on.

I also want to touch on the fair weather factor a bit. If a server that suddenly has so many players stop participating is full of fair weather players, they were not really as strong as they thought they were. They were most likely just boosted by numbers.

The other side of that situation is that most “fair weather” players are likely to be causal players. When the heat gets turned up in battles, or if a more dominating server is rolling over them, these “fair weather” players feel the burn in more ways than just dying. They suddenly become the target of their own server for an array of criticisms, frustrations, and in too many cases insults.

When your “fair weather” players are not backing you, it can be a sign of much more than just a challenging enemy. Your server’s army is never obligated to enlist or follow directions and therefore is going to bend and bow when the fighting is far from fun.

And it doesn’t help that you need 500 BoH for the legendaries. I have some friends that go to WvW just for the badges, so for they it is logical to join a Zerg or pick on the weakest.

On the other hand, I have friends that check http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/map/786/blue?lang=en during office hours and send me “crap, we lost Stonemist” via IM

Probably best to not take a tower ect that is in team A territory but has been captured by team B when you are team C. You want your two opposing teams consuming time and people fighting each other.

Johje Holan.4607:

Zosk.5609:

Seriously, people don’t care about the scoreboard.

Even if the system was perfect, MOST people are going out to WvW to have fun and find interesting fights…. this vocal minority of people who live by the scoreboard and are willing to run siege for hours “For the realm” need to realize the hard fact…they are a minority.

That being said, it’s even worse because the current scoring system is total crap. The winner each week is chosen by who has the most people participating and the most off-hours coverage…that’s it! Why would anybody take it seriously enough to pass up potentially fun fights?

Well I don’t know who cares about the scoreboard and who doesn’t. Witness the “fair weather” phenomenon. And I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make – using strategy or not?

But I do agree with you that most people play for the fun and for interesting fights. And that is why using strategy is better – it will lead to more fun and more interesting fights.

Why? What does the scoreboard have to do with whether a particular fight will be interesting or a blowout?

My point is the three-way fight type of meta-strategy doesn’t have that much effect on the winner of the match each week (mostly because Coverage is king over anything that happens prime time), and no effect on player rewards (both types: lootz and fun).

So people are only paying attention to it when they feel like it and smart ones aren’t passing up potentially fun fights based on the fact the person they’re attacking is in 3rd place on a meaningless scoreboard.