For the past few weeks i have noticed a lot of controversy regarding the way players decide to run their EOTM overflow, particularly revolving around whether an overflow is conforming to the ‘Karma Train’ mentality that the majority of players seem to have correlated to EOTM gameplay, or if an overflow is ‘Bag Farming’.
For those who are not aware of what i am talking about: Edge of the mists is an extension of world versus world designed to make sure there anyone wishing to play World versus World at any given time is able to do so, even if there is queues in their servers WVW (Doing so by using an overflow system). Now in comparison EOTM is very fast paced, plenty of the objectives do not have walls/gates around them so they are free for taking, and the rewards for capturing objectives are VERY high. What this led to was the general mindset that in EOTM you should avoid PVPing and attempt to capture as many things while avoiding combat.
Now for my actual feelings on the subject and how players and other commanders should treat EOTM: I am an EOTM only commander, and command in EOTM daily for a few hours every day. When i am playing Guild Wars 2 EOTM is what i enjoy doing, and its all i do when playing Guild Wars 2. My perspective of EOTM is that we are discussing PVP content when we debate about EOTM. Now this does NOT mean i am promoting only participating in PvP interactions when playing EOTM, what I am getting at is that the goal of PVP content is to be victorious. When i command my EOTM overflows my goal is to win, i have been called out for karma training, and i have been called out for having not capped something in a ten minute time-span, but in the end my goal is not to ‘Karma train’ and not ‘Bag farming’, its winning.
Winning in EOTM is often thought of as ‘Karma Training’ or using the some of the in-game community’s words ‘Being player versus defense scrubs’, but this is far from the truth. EOTM functions similarly to world versus world in that PPT is the deciding factor, and a team desiring the win is looking to gain PPT. PPT being a PVE orientated factor, you can see where these assumptions come from, but there is a lot more going on then what meets the eye here. PvP interactions come into play to such a great extent here in so many situations, in so many ways. For instance when i am commanding my EOTM overflows i take into consideration enemy morale, if an enemy is wiped four times in a row the result IS going to be a reduce in their population, and if the enemy has lower population you have faster capture rates than them naturally. Another situation, you have 120 PPT and the opposing team has 40, they outnumber you and have better siege yet when given the chance to fight this team I would take it, even if a wipe is inevitable, because during the few minutes this fight occurs you are essentially winning verus the enemy by losing that fight. I wish i could go on and on pertaining to the subject, but i am quite sure this post is looking far too long for most users so the last point i will make here is that there is also the obvious fact that killing enemy zergs will stop them from capping, also improving your win chance.
I suppose the reason i am posting this is that I spend a large portion of my day every day commanding in EOTM specifically, and during my time I enjoy the intense matches i have played versus other teams in EOTM where tactics are used to such great extents to ensure victory. While the community may be mixed on whether ‘Karma training’ is better than ‘Bag farming’ or not, i think everyone enjoys a true victory, and both sides of this controversial topic benefit from attempting to win.
TL;DR: The true goal of EOTM seeing as it is PVP content, should be to come out victorious. PLEASE READ ABOVE if you plan on responding.
~Commander Amarynth Nur
Reddit post here for those wishing to respond to the original:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/25g62m/edge_of_the_mists_a_commanders_point_of_view/