Guild Wars 2

Osu.6307:

Here’s a solution. 20% of SoS please go to NSP, 20% go to IoJ, and the rest stay put. That way T2 and T3 stay in balance. I think I can speak for all of FA when I say we really are not enjoying this week. We’re not getting good fights, and NSP and IoJ are certainly not enjoying being on the receiving end of our frustration.

People might be waiting to see how HoD does. Maybe the once and future kingmakers can revive T3.

Karizee.8076:

Ah, the illusion of choice – at the end of this match there will be only 50 rating points between IoJ and HoD with IoJ losing 22 pts and HoD gaining 20. If it keeps at this rate, HoD will be in T3 in 2 weeks.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/

What choice and what illusion?

I am only giving a comparison about how many players the servers can field, which in the end is what it matters, not the rating, not the glicko. HoD is simply sucking up Mag’s rating, and as it is, the server doesn’t belong to tier 3 as well as any other server in silver.

If HoD goes to tier 3, unless they make a good recruitment or some miracle, will be back down to tier 4. They can’t field the numbers the other servers can. We, as in HoD, SBI, GoM, DH, can queue up EB and, maybe, just maybe, another border during reset and small EB queues during the week. In no way, we can compete with servers that have potential to queue up every map.

So, the problem isn’t the glicko, if SoS drops to tier 3, they will still have enough players to make lopsided matches. The problem is tier 2 and its 4 servers, not tier 3 and no other tier below. Tier 3 will be broken until one tier 2 server implodes because I doubt the other servers will be able to recruit enough to keep it in par, thus making 6-ish tier 2 servers.

The “GvG” T2 bandwagon is what broke the matchups. It’s players throwing money at a broken/incomplete system, if I was Anet I would bother fixing it either as long as players a willing to throw money to transfer for whatever the reason of the month is: tournament rewards, GvG, “fights” (the most overused and misused term in the WvW community).

There is no more community or server pride. Just a bunch of fairweathers who are eager to hope on the next bandwagon. Not andII’ll will be alright, both are used to lopsided matchups, the vets of both servers have been throu the 4 T2 servers are the ones who have to be wary of implosion, those are the ones full of fairweathers.

Both SoS and FA are stable T2, if anything DB should be worried because historically they’ve been filled with fairweathers and bandwagoners.

Osu.6307:

Here’s a solution. 20% of SoS please go to NSP, 20% go to IoJ, and the rest stay put. That way T2 and T3 stay in balance. I think I can speak for all of FA when I say we really are not enjoying this week. We’re not getting good fights, and NSP and IoJ are certainly not enjoying being on the receiving end of our frustration.

Why should SoS be the one to fall into T3 alone? If you asked me, I’d say that each of the four T2 servers should send away a guild. 4 guilds leave, 2 each to NSP and IoJ. See how the matchups go for a bit and then balance more from there. I think it’d be better to have T2 and T3 be closer (for example, T2 is ~1800 Glicko and T3 is ~1700 Glicko) than just keep the wide gap between the two.

If FA doesn’t like this week… and I know SoS doesn’t like it when they’re in T3… and hey, DB and YB don’t like stomping when they get moved down… the solution isn’t to just cripple one of four. The solution is to cut a bit from each.

At least that seems like the most obvious solution.

timmyf.1490:

Osu.6307:

Here’s a solution. 20% of SoS please go to NSP, 20% go to IoJ, and the rest stay put. That way T2 and T3 stay in balance. I think I can speak for all of FA when I say we really are not enjoying this week. We’re not getting good fights, and NSP and IoJ are certainly not enjoying being on the receiving end of our frustration.

Why should SoS be the one to fall into T3 alone? If you asked me, I’d say that each of the four T2 servers should send away a guild. 4 guilds leave, 2 each to NSP and IoJ. See how the matchups go for a bit and then balance more from there. I think it’d be better to have T2 and T3 be closer (for example, T2 is ~1800 Glicko and T3 is ~1700 Glicko) than just keep the wide gap between the two.

If FA doesn’t like this week… and I know SoS doesn’t like it when they’re in T3… and hey, DB and YB don’t like stomping when they get moved down… the solution isn’t to just cripple one of four. The solution is to cut a bit from each.

At least that seems like the most obvious solution.

T3 is a symptom of YB in T2… they are a T1 style server without the pop of T1… They just need to be stacked more and will breathe fresh air into T1 as well… JQ T1 guilds should move to YB… JQ falls down to T3/4.. SoS/DB/FA new T2… BG/TC will have a new ppthard buddy YB… All is well in GW2

we dont need another tc clone in the form of yb in t1 tyvm, you can keep your siege lust in t2 where it belongs

X T D.6458:

we dont need another tc clone in the form of yb in t1 tyvm, you can keep your siege lust in t2 where it belongs

Laughed multiple times. XTD has the consensus. The T1 leadership would have a real problem with open field siege tactics and 24/7 ppt focus. The servers like to take breaks from ppt without worry about losing rank. You convert to the meta or die in T1. Even if enough T1 leadership agreed to facilitate YB into T1 they still have to agree on who is leaving T1. None of the top three have leadership that want to leave the tier permanently or play a primary account below T1. So far, only individual guilds are leaving/arriving. What if YB did not comply with the meta? What then? It would be an ugly conflict of interest.

Its the twilight of the game’s political cycle. The end will be as painful as the playerbase chooses. The level of “care” can be controlled by leadership in all tiers. The level of cooperation this late in the game is up to the playerbase. Will they care about the happiness of other players? Can the community be moved to do something? Or will they continue to be anonymous entertainment users? Will it be an awful decline or a soft decline? Discuss. Choose. Move on.

The case for an Alliance system:

The problem of lopsided tiers will always remain due to bandwagoning and natural chance. The glicko ratings just determine the pace of that change. Currently the problem is very pronounced at t3 due to the limited musical chairs at t2.

A systematic problem demands a [self-correcting] systemic solution. One such solution would be to pair up servers under one color (i.e., “an Alliance”) so that, conceptually -

Green Team = highest + lowest ranked servers
vs
Red Team = second highest + second lowest servers
vs
Blue Team = third highest + third lowest servers
Etc.

Basically this would halve the number of matchups while doubling yet leveling out the average population of each colored team.

And in another version (for those that don’t want the higher populations of this solution, say for NA) Anet could break down these pairings into two brackets:
#1+12 vs #2+11 vs #3+10
#4+9 vs #5+8 vs #6+7
and
#13+24 vs #14+23 vs #15+22
#16+21 vs #17+20 vs #18+19
Etc
Overall Points for victory will be cumulative by Alliance color, but PPT contributions will still be calculated separately by server for glicko ratings. Therefore each server can maintain its name and identity, but there may be options (or need?) for improved cooperation beyond what is seen in Edge of the Mists between paired servers. Such details require fleshing out but this solution helps address fluctuating server population imbalances in a more self adjusting manner while preserving server identities. Thoughts? …perhaps for another thread…

problematic.9623:

X T D.6458:

we dont need another tc clone in the form of yb in t1 tyvm, you can keep your siege lust in t2 where it belongs

Laughed multiple times. XTD has the consensus. The T1 leadership would have a real problem with open field siege tactics and 24/7 ppt focus. The servers like to take breaks from ppt without worry about losing rank. You convert to the meta or die in T1. Even if enough T1 leadership agreed to facilitate YB into T1 they still have to agree on who is leaving T1. None of the top three have leadership that want to leave the tier permanently or play a primary account below T1. So far, only individual guilds are leaving/arriving. What if YB did not comply with the meta? What then? It would be an ugly conflict of interest.

Its the twilight of the game’s political cycle. The end will be as painful as the playerbase chooses. The level of “care” can be controlled by leadership in all tiers. The level of cooperation this late in the game is up to the playerbase. Will they care about the happiness of other players? Can the community be moved to do something? Or will they continue to be anonymous entertainment users? Will it be an awful decline or a soft decline? Discuss. Choose. Move on.

For a second I thought you were being sarcastic. Yea t1 is what it is, one of the reasons I moved back to t1 was for fights and the more balanced attitude towards ppt. that while its important, its not the only reason to play. Not having to worry about the scores every week, while still being able to play for fights and some ppt is a nice fun and balanced approach at least for me. Personally I detest open field siege, and overuse of it even for defense, seeing it used in fights irritates me to no ends.

Chairface.9036:

Balance may have happened a lot faster is some people hadn’t started the 2v1 wars.. *cough

What are you going on about? T2 had balance and T3 wasn’t as bad as it is now before players went to DB and increased its size, long before any 2v1 stuff started.

I’m all for an alliance system if it keeps populations even and stable. Lopsided matchups are detrimental to winning and losing servers alike.

Karizee.8076:

azyume.6321:

Jski.6180:

What i do not get why don’t most of the come T3 worlds (not SoS or FA or even DB they are more on the lines of T2-T2.5) get ppl from T4 and lower worlds to come to T3. Part of wvw is comunitly and if you cant build one then your world will die or simply be crushed by the odd T worlds.

BTW sry to IoJ and NS FA really dose not want to be in T3 though you guys are giving good fights so we are pushing ppt (ppk when we had it) to push back up to T2 where we will get some what stomped lol.

No, thanks. Tiers 4 and 5 are actually stable.

If HoD and GoM get a just a few more fresh blood, a match up with SBI/HoD/GoM will be very balanced and a tough one.

Why should us leave our tiers, which are actually good, to try to “fix” something players had broken themselves by stacking in one server when they knew there was no room for 4 tier 2 servers? Ruining other tiers in a vain attempt to “fix” anything will cause more harm than good as history have been pointing in the past 2 years and half.

Ah, the illusion of choice – at the end of this match there will be only 50 rating points between IoJ and HoD with IoJ losing 22 pts and HoD gaining 20. If it keeps at this rate, HoD will be in T3 in 2 weeks.

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/

It’s worth noting, with the way glicko works, the lower/higher a server goes (assuming the same performance/the opponent have the same glicko as previous week), the slower their rating will change. So IoJ and NSP won’t lose as many points next week, unless they do quite a bit worse. Further, HoD has been PvDing against the two (relatively) ded servers in silver tier (they can compete in t6, but GoM/Dh/Hod/SBI can Mag/CD with relative ease), next week HoD will likely be in t4… they almost certainly will not gain much rating (seeing as every server in t4 atm, Dh/GoM/SBI have beaten HoD in the past, none of them have lost to HoD recently).

problematic.9623:

Its the twilight of the game’s political cycle. The end will be as painful as the playerbase chooses. The level of “care” can be controlled by leadership in all tiers. The level of cooperation this late in the game is up to the playerbase. Will they care about the happiness of other players? Can the community be moved to do something? Or will they continue to be anonymous entertainment users? Will it be an awful decline or a soft decline? Discuss. Choose. Move on.

Since the four T2 servers all have very close ratings, they probably feel like dropping to T3 is just temporary — at the mercy of a dice roll — and that they’ll be back up to T2 the following week after a week of karma trains.

So they have no real incentive to try to fix T3.

So it looks like it’s going to take the other two T3 servers to do something. Perhaps drop ratings until five T4 servers are all very close in rating. Then it’ll be a roll of a dice to see which two out of five get karma trained.

Ironically, perhaps the best thing that can happen is another tournament because some server always implodes and maybe the problem will — just by luck — resolve itself. Not a good solution.

Chaba.5410:

Chairface.9036:

Balance may have happened a lot faster is some people hadn’t started the 2v1 wars.. *cough

What are you going on about? T2 had balance and T3 wasn’t as bad as it is now before players went to DB and increased its size, long before any 2v1 stuff started.

I don’t see a problem with people joining a server to the point its considered FULL status, that is how they should be populated.

Servers are losing population and should not necessarily be propped up because people say they don’t like the scale of WvW fighting.

2v1 is an artificial balancing that keeps servers from rising or dropping as their population dictates.

People feeling a need to be in a certain tier because they demand certain opponents and draining lower tiers of their guilds and glicko to keep up is what I consider to be unbalancing things the most.

Nice idea Osu, although you, yourself help create the situation you’re in now. You transferred to FA from a lower tier, giving them yet more numbers, so whenever you are out there you server outnumbers T3 servers, go figure. If you don’t like it, maybe put time into thinking these things over before jumping ships to join blob servers. You could also arrange GvG’s with equal numbers, but then again, that wouldn’t happen as you guys don’t like getting wiped in equal numbers.

A lot of good ideas have been posted in WvW forums for a long time. The fact is Anet doesn’t care about it’s WvW player base. We are like the red headed step child that gets abused by the step dad. They need to rename the game because guild wars defiantly is not a fitting name for it any longer. I really don’t care if I get banned for speaking out at this point.
It peees me off they shove us under the rug every chance they get. The WvW community has suffered long enough.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Kanebrake.6192:

ChoChoBo.6503:

Sigh…

I think IoJ and NSP have pretty much given up. They’re tanking and its not deliberate.

It was even more devastating because of the Sneak Attack, everything felt more hopeless in T3 against big brother Green.

Rather than merge servers, maybe a merge Tiers would be a better option. T1+T2 where T1green and T2blue are allied in one corner, T1red and T2red are in another corner and T1blue and T2green are together in the last corner. And you do this for all the other Tiers. T3+T4, T5+T6, etc.

This allows for weekly alliances where you team up with higher Tiered/“skilled” wvw servers and lower Tiered/“ranked” servers.

I don’t know about IoJ but NSP has not given up. Yes we lack the numbers to fight against the kind of coverage a t2 server brings but no one to my knowledge has given up. At least I’m seeing no overt signs of it.

I can’t speak for IOJ’s major WvW guilds as I typically only roam. My guild does do runs twice a week; we didn’t do too bad holding our BL on reset night but it took a large amount of our population just to hold BL while EB went completely green and has been ever since.

Our guild run last night was less successful as we tried to breach the fully upgraded and impenetrable keeps in the FA borderlands. Having waypoints in keeps is a big bonus and I think FA has had a waypoint in our Bay for most of the week.

As the week has progressed, our tick has gotten worse and worse (we were actually ticking ZERO for some time yesterday), so I’m guessing our major guilds may have lowered their activity in hopes of dropping down a tier. Or it may just be that upgrades and numbers have made it impossible to take much back and keep it.

I would also guess that the return of white swords will make the situation worse, not better, since FA has the coverage and the waypoints to defend almost everywhere.

We actually broke the Hills waypoint of the FA home BL two days ago versus the END lead zerg force online at the time. We also had times were we where pushing high 100’s for PPT.

So don’t think that IOJ has given up. The FA blob might flip our whole BL but they have to spend 2-4 sorties on our garrison with a bigger force supplemented by Golems every attempt. That has been my experience this week at least. I’ve actually had more fun this week than the past couple of months with the outnumbered fights that we win around 70-80% of the time.

Consolidating all servers to 6 new servers is the only solution.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Consolidating all servers to 6 new servers is the only solution.

2 tiers is definitely not enough – not when the T2 servers now can queue 4 maps during NA prime.

Perhaps it would be better to have 5 tiers – 15 servers –
Gold(T1) Silver(T2) Bronze(T3) Copper(T4) Iron(T5)

Jski.6180:

What i do not get why don’t most of the come T3 worlds (not SoS or FA or even DB they are more on the lines of T2-T2.5) get ppl from T4 and lower worlds to come to T3. Part of wvw is comunitly and if you cant build one then your world will die or simply be crushed by the odd T worlds.

This isn’t entirely directed at you, but just the general group of sanctimonious players in T2 who roll down and offer advice and complaints.

The rift formed in T3 started long before IoJ and NSP got into the tier. All the servers preceeding in the months before us had guilds siphoned into T2 and fell afterwards – CD, SBI, HoD, etc. The introduction of a heavily PPT-focused server, and people choosing to jump to a fourth server historically carried by a single timezone caused a sort of cold war in the tier which has switched the focus from fights to doing whatever is necessary to stay afloat in T2.

When IoJ got to T3 we had roughly 8 guilds that could field 15 – 20 people, through all of our timezones. About 2 of those decided the number difference wasn’t for them and left, which is to be expected to some extent. That left us with 6. Fort Aspenwood’s community approached IoJ and offered to buy the server because they needed to strengthen their off-hours coverage. Obviously people had mixed feelings about that, 3 guilds stayed and 3 guilds transferred to FA – 2 of the guilds that left covered timezones that are typically weaker (OCX, SEA).

So, that’s where IoJ is now, we have about 2 guilds that rally in NA, and 1 in OCX. And we recently picked up another guild in NA. These guilds don’t typically overlap that much, so at any given time through NA prime into OCX there is 1 guild covering all maps, with whatever pugs are still masochistic enough to log in. For comparison purposes, a quick check on the FA website lists 26 guilds, and that doesn’t include the 2 guilds they had transfer from T1 this week.

Because of the 4 servers trying for 3 spots in T2 over the last 2.5 months, whoever rolls into T3 is typically PPT’ing as hard as they can to drain glicko. This means map queues blobbing on multiple maps, people building siege in our camps and leaving teams in them, and all the trolling that goes along with that, etc etc.

There’s no real need to question why the T2 servers do it, we get why they do it. They want to survive in the current situation so they buy and recruit more and more guilds. In general, people are lazy, just want to enjoy their gaming time and they transfer in the path of least resistance. People on IoJ and NSP have, in my opinion, been pretty good about making the best of a bad situation and not complaining too much. The bulk of the complaints come from the T2 servers about why they can’t find fights, or how poorly we fight, when they can clearly see the situation they created – not us. It’s not our job to keep you entertained while you play in the most toxic ppt-driven way possible while trying to purchase our remaining guilds.

Daaaamn

Welp. We (HoD) are on track to hit the top of T4 soon. Our 24/7 coverage has increased dramatically, but there is no way we could compete with the 4 T2 servers. We know that. We would far rather have a matchup with IoJ/NSP/DH/SBI/GoM, because honestly, I think all 6 servers are actually on a pretty even level at this point.

Which makes things really interesting. Since we have 4 T2 servers, does that now leave us with 6 T3 servers, or possibly three T3 servers and three T4 servers that are all closely matched? All of our glickos are frighteningly close, or at least will be after reset. That creates a single server out of place in Silver; the flavor-of-the-week T2.5 server. Otherwise, things start to line up: we’re looking at Mag/CD/Ebay in T5, and a very close span of the previously mentioned servers in T3/T4. However, with T3 literally being broken, it’s not possible.

How long will it take for one of these T2/T2.5 servers to implode? 4 months? A year? What will the state of Silver be by the next tournament?

So yeah, Silver is broken. Badly. Not just T3, but the arrangement and order of matches, the ups and downs and the movement between server tiers based on scoring trends and other algorithmic seeds. If Anet decides to roll another swiss-style season with the current situation in Silver, it’s going to end up being a game of which T2 server can tank the fastest to secure a win every week.

Broken. No ideal way to fix it. It’s just broken.

Epsilon Atreides.3816:

All the servers preceeding in the months before us had guilds siphoned into T2 and fell afterwards – CD, SBI, HoD, etc.

Guilds left CD, SBI, HOD on their own for the most part.

Epsilon Atreides.3816:

Fort Aspenwood’s community approached IoJ and offered to buy the server because they needed to strengthen their off-hours coverage.

You shouldn’t be asking why don’t servers stop helping to pay for transfers, you should be asking why players and guilds want to move up tier in the first place. If Anet isn’t going to do any sort of server consolidation and cater to the majority of players who like the larger scale combat, the player base will.

Fort Aspenwood approached IoJ because the player attrition is causing more and more extreme mismatches down tiers and a lot more PvDooring off-hours as time goes on. Both servers have a shared history between the communities going back to the first IoJ exodus and continuing through the second and third. A lot of players still playing on FA came from the first exodus, including one of our self-professed “server leaders”, and there are players on IoJ who played at one time on FA. So our communities have a lot of similarities.

We didn’t approach any other server with such an offer. That offer was for IoJ only. Yes, it would have caused possibly even more extreme mismatches down tiers, but we saw it as helping out players on what is considered a sister server. Anet needs to get their kitten together and such a movement of players may have highlighted that need.

Also, you’re forgetting to include the fact that one of those three guilds that left IoJ and came to FA was started on FA and went to IoJ for a time.

Chaba.5410:

Epsilon Atreides.3816:

All the servers preceeding in the months before us had guilds siphoned into T2 and fell afterwards – CD, SBI, HoD, etc.

Guilds left CD, SBI, HOD on their own for the most part.

I didn’t say they didn’t, I was just saying a pattern was already established and initiating the problem (gap in coverage) long before we got there. An issue that could have been mitigated if more people exercised common sense about how they transfer. The gap is created in part by player attrition, but the constant transfers between outmatched T3 servers and T2 is a big contributor.

Chaba.5410:

Epsilon Atreides.3816:

Fort Aspenwood’s community approached IoJ and offered to buy the server because they needed to strengthen their off-hours coverage.

You shouldn’t be asking why don’t servers stop helping to pay for transfers, you should be asking why players and guilds want to move up tier in the first place. If Anet isn’t going to do any sort of server consolidation and cater to the majority of players who like the larger scale combat, the player base will.

I wasn’t asking anything. Nor was I criticizing FA, or transferring itself. That was just a statement of fact for context. The root cause of the issue is people generally just not being able to chill out, enjoy the game, and not force the ppt agenda. Once one server gets in the mix like that it generally ruins the game for everyone because the way the ranking system is it forces you to have to PPT as well. Over two years into the game and you have communities that still don’t realize that it’s a self-destructive metric to be chasing. The current state of T1 should be a clear indicator to anyone with a brain. Balance can never be achieved the way the game is, so forcing people to focus on the score to an extreme causes the majority of the game’s population to obsess on aspects they don’t otherwise want to, burnout and frustration inevitably occur, people quit the game and the destabilization continues.

Chaba.5410:

Fort Aspenwood approached IoJ because the player attrition is causing more and more extreme mismatches down tiers and a lot more PvDooring off-hours as time goes on. Both servers have a shared history between the communities going back to the first IoJ exodus and continuing through the second and third. A lot of players still playing on FA came from the first exodus, including one of our self-professed “server leaders”, and there are players on IoJ who played at one time on FA. So our communities have a lot of similarities.

We didn’t approach any other server with such an offer. That offer was for IoJ only. Yes, it would have caused possibly even more extreme mismatches down tiers, but we saw it as helping out players on what is considered a sister server. Anet needs to get their kitten together and such a movement of players may have highlighted that need.

Yeah, I totally get that. Again, my comment was to the people showing up on the various forums to complain in their short-sighted way about the fights they’re not getting from us. We can tolerate the personnel losses because we get why people transferred. What I can’t tolerate personally is listening to the sanctimonious attitude of a person sitting on a team with 6 – 7 times the organized wvw population who lacks the brain capacity to understand why they have a tough time finding fights.

Chaba.5410:

Also, you’re forgetting to include the fact that one of those three guilds that left IoJ and came to FA was started on FA and went to IoJ for a time.

No I didn’t forget that, the origin of a guild bears no relevance on factual statements quantifying player movement and server population.

Very informative discussion. More people should read.

It seems the best hope is for a tournament to come:

• This’ll cause a race for the four T2 servers to tank.
• Since the four T2 servers are so close in rank, it’ll be an epic tank-fest. Whichever server is in T3 at the time of the tournament announcement can easily tank a lot of ratings away by losing to the two T3 servers (who, having no horse in the race, will just beat up on the tanking server). This’ll put huge pressure on servers in the T2 matchup to outdo each other in tanking.
• Tanking always generates inter-server disagreements. A race to tank of this magnitude perhaps will generate even bigger disagreements.
• So the hope is for one of the T2 servers to implode from all this.
• And balance is achieved(?)

Much more preferable would be for the T2 and T3 community get together to fix this kind of like how T1 has done.

TLDR: Tournament —> tank-fest --> inter-server strife —> server implodes --> balance.

Hamster.4861:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Consolidating all servers to 6 new servers is the only solution.

2 tiers is definitely not enough – not when the T2 servers now can queue 4 maps during NA prime.

Perhaps it would be better to have 5 tiers – 15 servers –
Gold(T1) Silver(T2) Bronze(T3) Copper(T4) Iron(T5)

tier2 does not que all maps. Maybe just maybe only on friday at reset. Atleast on FA. One evening should not at all count.

i can only assume all other tiers lower than tier 2 only que 1 or 2 of 4 maps on reset. There is plenty of room to merge servers unless anet has something up there sleeve with an expansion that will release new content.

Lord Kuru.3685:

It seems the best hope is for a tournament to come:

• This’ll cause a race for the four T2 servers to tank.
• Since the four T2 servers are so close in rank, it’ll be an epic tank-fest. Whichever server is in T3 at the time of the tournament announcement can easily tank a lot of ratings away by losing to the two T3 servers (who, having no horse in the race, will just beat up on the tanking server). This’ll put huge pressure on servers in the T2 matchup to outdo each other in tanking.
• Tanking always generates inter-server disagreements. A race to tank of this magnitude perhaps will generate even bigger disagreements.
• So the hope is for one of the T2 servers to implode from all this.
• And balance is achieved(?)

Much more preferable would be for the T2 and T3 community get together to fix this kind of like how T1 has done.

TLDR: Tournament —> tank-fest --> inter-server strife —> server implodes --> balance.

the rewards are what causes tanking. When first place bronze league can get better rewards than last place gold league….

problematic.9623:

X T D.6458:

we dont need another tc clone in the form of yb in t1 tyvm, you can keep your siege lust in t2 where it belongs

Laughed multiple times. XTD has the consensus. The T1 leadership would have a real problem with open field siege tactics and 24/7 ppt focus. The servers like to take breaks from ppt without worry about losing rank. You convert to the meta or die in T1. Even if enough T1 leadership agreed to facilitate YB into T1 they still have to agree on who is leaving T1. None of the top three have leadership that want to leave the tier permanently or play a primary account below T1. So far, only individual guilds are leaving/arriving. What if YB did not comply with the meta? What then? It would be an ugly conflict of interest.

Its the twilight of the game’s political cycle. The end will be as painful as the playerbase chooses. The level of “care” can be controlled by leadership in all tiers. The level of cooperation this late in the game is up to the playerbase. Will they care about the happiness of other players? Can the community be moved to do something? Or will they continue to be anonymous entertainment users? Will it be an awful decline or a soft decline? Discuss. Choose. Move on.

Can we stop with the romantic daydreams about T2 guilds moving downwards after expressing discontentment with T3’s amount of fights and discuss this stinkbomb?

You read it here, the whole problem would be fixed but T1 match fixing (politely called politics here) has created an artificial barrier. They should end push weeks and let some new blood in.

Also Chaba, I agree in principle about the tournaments but I think that having one in the near future would be the best solution right now. Someone in the top 7 will crack and I’d rather it not be the traditional FA solution of letting them bore themselves to death LOL

Chris.3290:

problematic.9623:

X T D.6458:

we dont need another tc clone in the form of yb in t1 tyvm, you can keep your siege lust in t2 where it belongs

Laughed multiple times. XTD has the consensus. The T1 leadership would have a real problem with open field siege tactics and 24/7 ppt focus. The servers like to take breaks from ppt without worry about losing rank. You convert to the meta or die in T1. Even if enough T1 leadership agreed to facilitate YB into T1 they still have to agree on who is leaving T1. None of the top three have leadership that want to leave the tier permanently or play a primary account below T1. So far, only individual guilds are leaving/arriving. What if YB did not comply with the meta? What then? It would be an ugly conflict of interest.

Its the twilight of the game’s political cycle. The end will be as painful as the playerbase chooses. The level of “care” can be controlled by leadership in all tiers. The level of cooperation this late in the game is up to the playerbase. Will they care about the happiness of other players? Can the community be moved to do something? Or will they continue to be anonymous entertainment users? Will it be an awful decline or a soft decline? Discuss. Choose. Move on.

Can we stop with the romantic daydreams about T2 guilds moving downwards after expressing discontentment with T3’s amount of fights and discuss this stinkbomb?

You read it here, the whole problem would be fixed but T1 match fixing (politely called politics here) has created an artificial barrier. They should end push weeks and let some new blood in.

Also Chaba, I agree in principle about the tournaments but I think that having one in the near future would be the best solution right now. Someone in the top 7 will crack and I’d rather it not be the traditional FA solution of letting them bore themselves to death LOL

Please explain to me why in the heck the t1 servers should stop playing how we want to satisfy people in other servers who caused the problems that t1 is trying to avoid. Server instability has been a problem since the beginning. The battle over ppt vs. fights has been a problem since the beginning. It may look odd to some people that are not in t1, and thats understandable. But you cant blame people here for trying to compensate with those issues, and the constant decrease in wvw players across all servers. I never heard anyone here say no to new blood in terms of players/guilds. What we dont want is a new server that wants to screw everything up with ppt siege creep, or will only end up getting hurt themselves because they do not have the coverage to compete in t1. If thats your thing stay in t2. If you want fights and a balanced approach to ppt where you dont have to go crazy worrying about scores every week t1 is for you.

And think about this. Any t1 server can lose 5 or more straight weeks and not drop tier or ranking below #3 or lose much rating thanks to push weeks. Its not for everyone and thats understandable but nobody can deny that stability. Again, it may look wierd, to some outside the tier but nobody here wants that same server/tier instability that has plagued wvw.

Trinnitty.8256:

Hamster.4861:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Consolidating all servers to 6 new servers is the only solution.

2 tiers is definitely not enough – not when the T2 servers now can queue 4 maps during NA prime.

Perhaps it would be better to have 5 tiers – 15 servers –
Gold(T1) Silver(T2) Bronze(T3) Copper(T4) Iron(T5)

tier2 does not que all maps. Maybe just maybe only on friday at reset. Atleast on FA. One evening should not at all count.

i can only assume all other tiers lower than tier 2 only que 1 or 2 of 4 maps on reset. There is plenty of room to merge servers unless anet has something up there sleeve with an expansion that will release new content.

Perhaps not FA, but YB will, on a near daily basis have 3 if not 4 maps queued.

coglin.1867:

Perhaps not FA, but YB will, on a near daily basis have 3 if not 4 maps queued.

YB pretty much the same as FA it seems. 4 maps queued on friday then pretty much the usual 0 queues all day. You see a map queue up now and then during primetime, maybe 2 maps if things are getting hit hard.

Was strange seeing 4 deep map queues on friday night then nothing after that. Must be a ton of people that only play on friday nights.

Sorry about using your tier as our personal time out box there t2. SOS will eventually become comfortable with their new home though.

On a side note, SG sponsored by A-net? Discuss.

T3 being broken is not the fault of T1 or T2. It’s the fault of a select number of guilds from low tier servers that decided to collectively bandwagon onto a T3 server pushing them to a T2 level population.

Sharpoon.8197:

T3 being broken is not the fault of T1 or T2. It’s the fault of a select number of guilds from low tier servers that decided to collectively bandwagon onto a T3 server pushing them to a T2 level population.

That is.. only part of it. A lot of those guilds were bought. FA, for example, would not be where they are now if they hadn’t “recruited” many talented lower-tier NA guilds and SEA/OCX guilds so they would be able to achieve their current coverage.

DB is the server most likely to implode, in glorious Mag style. It’s a massive amalgamation of random WvW players combined with only a few really decent guilds. Any number of them could jump ship at any time.

Thing is, Dragonbrand has never done much recruiting, so even if there is another fairweather implosion, the core guilds don’t really mind. At worst, such an implosion would take us to tier 4 briefly before bouncing back and forth between 3 and 4 until another wave of transfers comes through, restarting the entire “four tier 2” thing again.

I think it would be the third time it’s happened with Dragonbrand, so I’m fairly confident on my prediction. The end result depends on the other current tier 2 servers staying about where they are, though.

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

Grav.3568:

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

Servers in lower tiers might have more balanced matches, yes, but the population would still be diffuse to the point where the fights/action is not as busy/large scale as a lot of players seem to like. It’s a devil of a choice.

Grav.3568:

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

This is a silly comment. Then the servers would just flop around again. Temporary imbalances can’t be cured by a mass migration to low tier servers. They can be cured by migration between near-tiers.

The ideal Glicko ramp is gradual and smooth. We have too many cliffs. That’s why it seems so pointless.

timmyf.1490:

Grav.3568:

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

This is a silly comment. Then the servers would just flop around again. Temporary imbalances can’t be cured by a mass migration to low tier servers. They can be cured by migration between near-tiers.

The ideal Glicko ramp is gradual and smooth. We have too many cliffs. That’s why it seems so pointless.

The players created the cliffs by transferring up.

Grav.3568:

timmyf.1490:

Grav.3568:

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

This is a silly comment. Then the servers would just flop around again. Temporary imbalances can’t be cured by a mass migration to low tier servers. They can be cured by migration between near-tiers.

The ideal Glicko ramp is gradual and smooth. We have too many cliffs. That’s why it seems so pointless.

The players created the cliffs by transferring up.

Players created the cliffs by transferring up poorly. I’m not sure why you think transferring down will work any better.

^ Agree with Timmyf. However, I want to add, server community leaders and guild leaders have more experience with population balancing. They could potentially learn from past mistakes. Ask around…lots of mistakes to talk about.

timmyf.1490:

Grav.3568:

timmyf.1490:

Grav.3568:

This problem would not exist if everyone who has ever transferred up, had transferred down instead.

This is a silly comment. Then the servers would just flop around again. Temporary imbalances can’t be cured by a mass migration to low tier servers. They can be cured by migration between near-tiers.

The ideal Glicko ramp is gradual and smooth. We have too many cliffs. That’s why it seems so pointless.

The players created the cliffs by transferring up.

Players created the cliffs by transferring up poorly. I’m not sure why you think transferring down will work any better.

To some degree you’re right, but I think you overestimate the ability people have to make properly informed decisions. Did the first guilds who transferred to HoD in tourney 2 make a poor decision? If so, why? It was a tier 5 server, lowest of silver, it was free, CD was just as plausibly going to be a bandwagon server to them, yet HoD ended up getting stacked. Even transfers based on the best available data, especially upward, can lead to very bad results.

The issue is this: the majority that move tend to move upward. This is because they see a fault on their server, and think the grass must be greener and better on higher tier servers, so they check those out. Virtually all transfers from bronze tier, are not into bronze tier, they’re into silver/gold (with the most notable recent exception being DR).

Bronze servers individually may have a low pop, but across 9 servers people constantly leaving for greener fields in silver/gold can create bronze tier bandwagon servers (DR, HoD, and to the most damaging example probably in the history of GW2, is the recent bandwagon of DB, destroying the balance for t2 so now t2 servers hate t2, and forcing 1 rightfully tier 2 server into t3 every week, destroying t3 utterly and completely as a tier). These decisions can be made with the best information available, but they still frequently end in disaster.

There’s a reason, in every single tourney, silver league ends up the most lop sided of them all, with 1 server roflstomping every other w/o challenge. It’s because too many bronze folks make the move up to silver and create bandwagons.

I think the most damaging example of bandwagoning was Kaineng. Remember how it shot up to tier 1 for a week before dramatically collapsing? Those guilds went somewhere, and it was primarily into the number 5-8 servers (because 1-3 were expensive and #4 was Kaineng): the current tier 2 servers.

Dragonbrand was already a strong tier 3 server before that happened and, at the time, was at the top of tier 3 (once you factored out Kaineng). When Kaineng imploded, Dragonbrand got a number of guilds.

KN never made it to T1. :-O The HoD bandwagon was set to repeat the KN experience but tournament divisions unfortunately prevented that. Would have been nice to see that play out without the tournament.

Chaba.5410:

KN never made it to T1. :-O The HoD bandwagon was set to repeat the KN experience but tournament divisions unfortunately prevented that. Would have been nice to see that play out without the tournament.

Pretty sure they spent one week in T1 and that was it. I know for a fact they made it to T2.

Honestly, tournament divisions are a nice way of preventing population disruptions if they are implemented at the correct time. HoD was set to repeat, but they hit the ceiling in Bronze and people subsequently lost interest.

KN was more of an experiment of how hard offhours could carry (WM) in my opinion.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Pretty sure they spent one week in T1 and that was it.

No they did not. Check mos if you don’t believe it.

The only real way to solve the problem is to turn WvW teams be created like EoTM color schemes; not individual servers but collections of servers, and simply create larger maps and have dynamic queue scaling to accommodate for more players.

Then on the back end, keep track of things like kills and claims by guilds based upon server, and use the data to create new team compositions for the next week to be more balanced. This creates a constantly-shifting experience and prevents bandwagoning to mid or lower-tier servers while emphasizing server loyalty – the bottom of the bottom will be raiding alongside the best there is, keeping things interesting for pretty much everyone involved.

DeceiverX.8361:

The only real way to solve the problem is to turn WvW teams be created like EoTM color schemes; not individual servers but collections of servers, and simply create larger maps and have dynamic queue scaling to accommodate for more players.

Then on the back end, keep track of things like kills and claims by guilds based upon server, and use the data to create new team compositions for the next week to be more balanced. This creates a constantly-shifting experience and prevents bandwagoning to mid or lower-tier servers while emphasizing server loyalty – the bottom of the bottom will be raiding alongside the best there is, keeping things interesting for pretty much everyone involved.

Let’s bring the “successful” “WvW” “experience” of EOTM to WvW and kill the game mode for good!