Guild Wars 2

I would just like to start by saying that this is a DH/EB perspective.

The idea was to join these four servers together to give some sort of competition to SF/GoM/FC & DH/EB, but they have held a consistently high PPT for the last three days bringing them 40-50K ahead of everyone else. There is no competition at least when it comes to points because of their ability to be in every place at every time. Nobody will pass them by the end of the week.

There is maybe a 1-2 hour window outside of NA primetime to actually compete with them in fights, but as soon as that is up we’re back to where we started. Unable to actually defend any of our objective’s because we can’t fight that many people without pulling our commander off the BL for the night.

The fights with SF/GOM/FC are good, and I think most of us on DH/EB are enjoying them. But something has to be done. DH/FC were in a pit against NSP/CD for 3 months and that drained whatever interest I had. I was optimistic about the new server pairing but it seems that we’re back where we started.

Please do not take this as QQ’ing or whatever. I simply want an enjoyable experience for not only myself, but for my server and the server we are paired with.

Since I am not SF/GoM/Fc, I really cannot say much. For those of you who are apart of that pairing and care to comment, please feel free to do so. I’m curious as to what your experience is so far.

Kaineng and ET have quite a bit of players from both BG and TC. I expect this number to go down soon.

Currently on GoM ( was on DH for the longest time. <- Carmen Stacy if anyone remembers me o/ ) and I certainly agree.

Although I’m finding the fights relatively fun, it’s still very clear that the coverage is in favor of the quad server.

The main issue I saw coming as soon as I saw that four servers would be paired together is that one server’s down time would be anothers prime time. They never sleep or die down because there are too many communities mixed together. It makes it impossible for the rest of us to compete, even if we can manage fight them when our servers are awake.

I’m not horribly upset or on the verge of quitting WvW by any means. I’ve been through much worse match ups. That said, it is still extremely unbalanced and I’d like to not see quad servers in the future… Aside from their total lack of discipline, they could probably compete in T2 with the coverage that they have.

Kaineng and ET both formerly linked to the 2 top tier servers did learned a thing or 2 from their peers during their time together. The overwhelming hospitality and friendly environment enjoyed makes it an memorable experience. The same cannot be said for the others like DB and YB who from personal experience were quite hostile and not sharing TS and some even made nasty comments about their partners.

That said, maybe others from Kaineng and ET would like to comment on the above?

1. Why were they mashed with CD? CD was already huge to begin with, it seems like a bad idea to mash 3 servers onto an already huge server. The population/participation rate of the 3 smaller servers is also going to go up with this change, from transfers and old players returning cause of the high population. So those 3 smaller servers on their own ain’t gonna be so small anymore….
Plus how do you decide which is a small server? If they decided it based on participation during the past 2 months then it might be very very low if nothing changed for those servers or they got the short end of the straw again. If they based it on total server population (even those that don’t play wvsw) then that number would be less prong to giant jumps and better to use as a guideline.

2. Why were they matched against EB/DH?!??!? DH was third place for every single week minus one during the first pairing period (2 MONTHS). EB was first place every single week for those 2 months but they were the ‘guest’ server. Why wouldn’t you put 2 host servers or one of the giant T1 servers and a small server against this 4 alliance behemoth?!??!? ITS CD!!!! They are HUuuuuuuuuGe! CD vs Eb/DH on its own would have been a balanced fight probably. Neither Eb nor DH on its own could ever stand up to CD…..and DH is weak as can be from the pairing period, EB also has been weakened a bit although nowhere near as much as DH. Dh is the host server and yet EB could beat it easily in its shattered state. Cd is stronger than ever from that 2 month pairing period. HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE? Was anet expecting 4 communities randomly being shoved together to be a handicap? DO they not know their own game!!!!? WvsW is setup in a way where: NUMBERS WIN PPT EVERY TIME. Also take into account the coverage periods of all 4 of these servers….they all have different highs points! Meaning their total 24/7 coverage period is INSANE.

Its like anet learned absolutely nothing during those 2 months. What matchups were you eyeing exactly to come up with this nonsense we see today?

SF/GoM/FC against DH/EB is actually doable and arguably ‘fair’ as a matchup. Even though they outnumber us we have enough experienced members to offset this and put up a decent fight some of the time (even if it is a losing battle). I could see us beating them some weeks after we get our kittens together.

hmm…. I can’t remember the last time I even looked at the score with any sort of caring. Yes I see that the CD linked group is winning.. how about that… meh.. I’m in BP and I don’t give a rats !@#$ about the score, ppt, etc.. What I care about, and always have, is finding some fun to have. I led a small group around last night for an hour or so defending our BL. We have some fun because there were a few other small groups running around. Sure the blobs pound the heck out of EB (boorrrinnnggg) but I’ll stick with the BL’s and find little or big fights where I can. I mean really what do you get from winning the week? NOTHING! If you are the host server then I guess you could take bragging rights because you think that since you are the biggest server you are the best. At the end of the day if that’s all you’re there for then zzzzzzzzzz…. I am so used to playing outnumbered almost all the time that I don’t even see the issue. It’s not that hard to get a group together (if you know people of course) and have some fun creating havoc, even when the zergs are running around.

The match-up that was created definitely seems not well set up to me but then again I don’t run the programs etc that determine these things. After all is said and done, it doesn’t matter…. just come on out, find the enemy, have some fights, live, die, kill, whatever. Forget the score because really.. it means nothing except a number for them to decide future matchups that more people will complain about.

Come find me… My head is still soft from all the stomps I’ve received… you might get me!!!!

aristotle.2813:

Kaineng and ET both formerly linked to the 2 top tier servers did learned a thing or 2 from their peers during their time together. The overwhelming hospitality and friendly environment enjoyed makes it an memorable experience. The same cannot be said for the others like DB and YB who from personal experience were quite hostile and not sharing TS and some even made nasty comments about their partners.

That said, maybe others from Kaineng and ET would like to comment on the above?

And don’t forget BP was previously paired with FA, another fairly solid server. Because of being linked with T1/T2 servers, Kain, ET & BP probably saw their share of stacking, as that was the only way to then join up with the other T1/T2 servers. We’ll have to see if any destacking occurs, or if the bandwagoners mostly decide to stay to wreak havoc in T4…

Cerby.1069:

Plus how do you decide which is a small server? If they decided it based on participation during the past 2 months then it might be very very low if nothing changed for those servers or they got the short end of the straw again. If they based it on total server population (even those that don’t play wvsw) then that number would be less prong to giant jumps and better to use as a guideline.

No. That is how things used to work and servers like SoS and others were completely screwed over because they had a massive PvE population but was seriously lacking in WvW players for the tier that they were in.

Also being linked to SBI may have rejuvenated CD somewhat but they are far from big.

TBH I think Anet included Kaineng and ET in that quad server link because they are fully expecting a lot of the ET and Kaineng bandwagoners who were there purely for the BG/TC link to leave soon. So they didn’t want to overestimate the strength of Kaineng and ET.

Boots.2849:

Cerby.1069:

Plus how do you decide which is a small server? If they decided it based on participation during the past 2 months then it might be very very low if nothing changed for those servers or they got the short end of the straw again. If they based it on total server population (even those that don’t play wvsw) then that number would be less prong to giant jumps and better to use as a guideline.

No. That is how things used to work and servers like SoS and others were completely screwed over because they had a massive PvE population but was seriously lacking in WvW players for the tier that they were in.

Also being linked to SBI may have rejuvenated CD somewhat but they are far from big.

TBH I think Anet included Kaineng and ET in that quad server link because they are fully expecting a lot of the ET and Kaineng bandwagoners who were there purely for the BG/TC link to leave soon. So they didn’t want to overestimate the strength of Kaineng and ET.

I think now that Kaineng and especially ET have had a taste of T1 bandwagon blobbing and are presented another easy win (currently 113+ glicko lol) they will stay for the easy ride until a challenge appears. Such is the life of those who transfer to stack.

I think Anet’s idea of siphoning population from the top and feeding it to the bottom could work, but they’re ignoring the flaws of Glicko. The system is not good at adapting to large population shifts and the “glicko pit” that can be created is also unrealistic.

It’s possible they could create a balance NA scene with 4 tiers that shift regularly with their population shifting experiment, but they need to manually adjust their ranking (or reset them) to allow their population tinkering a chance to work.

People in tier 4 that think they’re being stomped by zergs now have no idea how hard they’d have to be stomped before the server stomping them can escape the glicko pit. If they ever did escape, you would likely get SBI or SoS down to nonchalantly do the same thing for however many months until they can escape too.

TL;DR Anet, you should reset or adjust glicko manually to account for the system’s inability to adapt to the huge population shifts you’re inflicting upon it.

This isn’t a refutation of anyone’s post, but I would like to say I think it’s great Anet has the stones to try something new.

This is another example of Anet getting feedback from the community (linking T1 servers is unnecessary) and using that feedback. Is this the perfect solution to that problem? Probably not, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In two months when they relink servers, they will have more data points to see what worked and what didn’t work for giving everyone a fun match. Population balance is an issue, but they’ve used feedback on server linking, borderlands, etc., I would like to believe they are exploring options for population balance as well.

@Hesacon: Well, yeah, this is only the second ever linking, so perhaps we are still being guinea pigs.

@all: Something that I don’t quite understand about the whole “coverage” thing: we’re all NA servers, right? It’s not as if each server consists of people from one particular NA time zone, no? Then if and only if each link has approximately the same total population, why would a link consisting of four tiny servers have better coverage than a link consisting of three slightly-less-tiny servers or two yet-less-tiny servers?

Because some of the guilds are ocx and not na.

Don’t forget those in the SEA/OCX time zones that play on NA servers. Playing late PST myself I’ve had the privilege of talking to Hawaiians and Aussies in TS. Some servers tend to have larger populations of those time zones because there are fewer of them overall so it makes it more sociable if they can congregate on a few servers rather than spread themselves thin. This is that “night capping” crew that you may have heard people talking about because they are up when the majority of NA is asleep.

So far the match has been fun for me on Borlis Pass. My 5 man group was roaming last night and got almost 40 heavy loot bags in under 2 hours haha. No shortage of enemies to fight for sure.

I see, that makes sense. I did wake up Sunday to see the maps pretty swarmed by red before slowly giving way to a more reasonable division; it is easier to understand that as the work of SEA/OCX “guilds of a feather” all flocking together rather than enthusiastic night owls (—hoo don’t flock at all, as far as I am aware).

I do wonder if it’s possible to match/link based on coverage, if guilds are so prone to clumping together with their timezone comrades rather than spread out.

Something must be done, according to the glicko sites were only at 1300ish right now and if that is true we are to remain in this tier for another 3 or so weeks before moving up to tier 3. That needs to change desperately because the other 2 teams have no chance of taking us on as we should be in t3 or possibly t2 but because of the broken glicko system that is being used WHICH SHOULDNT. We won’t be moving up anytime soon as the current T3 servers are in the 1700 glicko range while we are at 1300…

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

At the end of the day they’re going to have to realize that an updated version of a system that was originally used to rank speed chess players (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system) simply will not work as intended for this variant.

This probably isn’t just night capping, I’m from NSP and I remember HoD having a significant SEA population that can fight well through NA’s off hours.

If I had to guess I’d say this is more a problem of population spread, the four servers linked probably have better coverage and activity at almost all hours and this will just worsen as the other servers from the matchup just lose interest and stop participating.

Aitadis.8269:

Something must be done, according to the glicko sites were only at 1300ish right now and if that is true we are to remain in this tier for another 3 or so weeks before moving up to tier 3. That needs to change desperately because the other 2 teams have no chance of taking us on as we should be in t3 or possibly t2 but because of the broken glicko system that is being used WHICH SHOULDNT. We won’t be moving up anytime soon as the current T3 servers are in the 1700 glicko range while we are at 1300…

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

That is a big issue of carrying over old scores. Fortunately they reset volatility to allow servers to settle into their correct tier faster.

I remember the first month of the last linking was against different servers every week. After that it became stale and we (SoS) had maguuma and SBI nearly every week with the occasional FA/SBI or FA/Mag matchup. That last one sucked, few people from SoS or GoM played that week.

DH/FC were in a pit against NSP/CD for months

Correction: DH/FC were in a pit against NSP/SF for months. It does get confusing at times, but for the record….

I’m on BP. This matchup has been fun so far, but I agree that this quad server linking is overpowered, at least for this tier. Even our small roaming squads seem to outnumber 2:1.

Could chalk it up to glicko reset, so eventually we may move into tier 3. But I have noticed however that the tier matchmaking seems to prefer one dominant server in each tier.

It could be worse. At least we are getting some smaller scale fights in this linking. I have another account that is still on FA, and Dragonbrand in that tier is pretty much all blob.

BTW, I don’t think BP was stacked much while we linked with FA. I suspect our size hasn’t changed much overall, though its hard to identify player world right now – the only way I know of is to get in a squad with someone and then inspect them via the tooltip.

After surviving HOD/Ebay prime time numbers, hoping and wishing for a new match soon, 3 days into soon, I have to say:
1) I miss HOD/Ebay
2) I’m glad 3 months didn’t win the poll
3) Dead tiers lolz

Rastaaa.3752:

I would just like to start by saying that this is a DH/EB perspective.

The idea was to join these four servers together to give some sort of competition to SF/GoM/FC & DH/EB, but they have held a consistently high PPT for the last three days bringing them 40-50K ahead of everyone else. There is no competition at least when it comes to points because of their ability to be in every place at every time. Nobody will pass them by the end of the week.

There is maybe a 1-2 hour window outside of NA primetime to actually compete with them in fights, but as soon as that is up we’re back to where we started. Unable to actually defend any of our objective’s because we can’t fight that many people without pulling our commander off the BL for the night.

The fights with SF/GOM/FC are good, and I think most of us on DH/EB are enjoying them. But something has to be done. DH/FC were in a pit against NSP/CD for 3 months and that drained whatever interest I had. I was optimistic about the new server pairing but it seems that we’re back where we started.

Please do not take this as QQ’ing or whatever. I simply want an enjoyable experience for not only myself, but for my server and the server we are paired with.

Since I am not SF/GoM/Fc, I really cannot say much. For those of you who are apart of that pairing and care to comment, please feel free to do so. I’m curious as to what your experience is so far.

This is week 1. There is a lot of novelty here, once the effect of that wears off and things settle down a bit it will be somewhat different.

Add to that, while I was not a part of your previous match ups, to my limited understanding, there are quite a lot of FC players that are just looking to particularly stick it to DH as well as motivating their linked servers to do the same.

It will be interesting to see what happens down the line, if you guys can hold out and not get demotivated to play by then, I do know that can be difficult to do, but hopefully things will become a bit more even for you.

Hesacon.8735:

This isn’t a refutation of anyone’s post, but I would like to say I think it’s great Anet has the stones to try something new.

This is another example of Anet getting feedback from the community (linking T1 servers is unnecessary) and using that feedback. Is this the perfect solution to that problem? Probably not, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In two months when they relink servers, they will have more data points to see what worked and what didn’t work for giving everyone a fun match. Population balance is an issue, but they’ve used feedback on server linking, borderlands, etc., I would like to believe they are exploring options for population balance as well.

So, we have 2 more months of these matchups? For real? Someone mentioned in another topic that we will be switching at the end of the week. Guess not.

Oh, well. There’s always South Park: Stick of Truth. Getting it from Steam now.

We have 2 months of our current pairings/partners (SF/FC/GOM – roommates for 2 months). We have 1 week matches. Whether or not we get a new server in T4 depends on how badly the quad beats us, it could switch this week, it may not switch for 2 months.

YB constantly broadcasts TS info on map chat at least while I was there. AR had a different style on the map chat than YB. I had three people on my block list from map chat before the merge and 12+ after.

The FA/BP pairing was fun but keep in mind FA/BP were playing against more populated servers almost the entire match. Not sure why anyone would “stack” to get 3rd place almost every week.

well thx to those who voted 2 month and more to relink now u are stuck with crap matchup, its ur own fault.

Taxidriver.2043:

well thx to those who voted 2 month and more to relink now u are stuck with crap matchup, its ur own fault.

They trusted Anet to come up with better pairings in the first place. And don’t forget, the 2 months was the average that Anet came up with after the vote, since no one choice got the majority vote.

Taxidriver.2043:

well thx to those who voted 2 month and more to relink now u are stuck with crap matchup, its ur own fault.

At some point the CD/BP/ET/K server could move up into the next tier. Unfortunately they are still keeping with the base Rating meaning the move up likely won’t happen soon. ANet should reset the rankings during each link.

I’m on FC and we are actually enjoying this matchup. Yes the quad server usually has more people but there are tons of fights that come in all different sizes. Yes dh is still losing, but dh was losing before because the fc/dh pairing had even fewer than the eBay/dh pairing against enemies with more people than even the quad team. eBay is the largest single server in this match. If they tacked on a third server to you guys it would be unfair as well. DH will have to accept they have to actually have enough people to help their “guest” server and not be carried by them.

The mobs of the quad server will fade in time, but you can’t blame the numbers for everything like you did with fc too.

Sweet Sanity.8593:

I’m on FC and we are actually enjoying this matchup. Yes the quad server usually has more people but there are tons of fights that come in all different sizes. Yes dh is still losing, but dh was losing before because the fc/dh pairing had even fewer than the eBay/dh pairing against enemies with more people than even the quad team. eBay is the largest single server in this match. If they tacked on a third server to you guys it would be unfair as well. DH will have to accept they have to actually have enough people to help their “guest” server and not be carried by them.

The mobs of the quad server will fade in time, but you can’t blame the numbers for everything like you did with fc too.

I can’t tell if this is an actual troll or if I should respond

Four guilds transferred off of Darkhaven. They did not update the pairings for three months and for that reason we dropped to the bottom. Faced with a constant cycle of the same thing for a month. There is no way we should be hosting. The population status does not reflect the real numbers out right now.

But of course there are no complaints coming from your side, you have people.

I am from Kaineng, and this crazy linking has been tons of fun, so far. Fights of all types everywhere……and pretty much at all times.

Right now, our linking is dominant……but as a few have already posted, some of the servers in our linking came from high up tier linkings from last week….so some of us are a bit stacked. I agree with those other posters that that will change in the next week or two, as people move to other servers again. Right now, I think the matchup would have been more competitive if DH had one of our servers.

But yea….heck of a lot of fun out there!!

@Teon: Kaineng… until now you have always been the enemy! haa… Except for the people I know in game I have no idea who is on what server when I’m in there. Just running around looking for groups and fights.. and yes, there’s lots of action. Seriously all this talk about 1st, 2nd, 3rd… really? Do people really care? I don’t.. I just wanna find people to stomp…. and sadly, be stomped by of course! :P

Balthazzarr.1349:

@Teon: Kaineng… until now you have always been the enemy! haa… Except for the people I know in game I have no idea who is on what server when I’m in there. Just running around looking for groups and fights.. and yes, there’s lots of action. Seriously all this talk about 1st, 2nd, 3rd… really? Do people really care? I don’t.. I just wanna find people to stomp…. and sadly, be stomped by of course! :P

Aye, it is odd to be linked with some of our old enemies……and yea, I don’t really care much about the score, either……it certainly doesn’t mean anything. My time in EB last night was just hilarious…..stomping and getting stomped galore!!!!

And very few T1 sized blobs. That was really nice.

It was glorious!

@Rastaaa: Sweet Sanity said they were from FC. That’s from the three-server alliance, not the four-server alliance. It looks like they are currently second place in that matchup right now, although there does not seem to be a massive difference between SF/FC/GoM and and DH/EB.

Tris Apollumenon.6435:

@Rastaaa: Sweet Sanity said they were from FC. That’s from the three-server alliance, not the four-server alliance. It looks like they are currently second place in that matchup right now, although there does not seem to be a massive difference between SF/FC/GoM and and DH/EB.

Edited.

I mean I’m happy for the lesser servers getting mashed together under the strong leadership of CD. I’m happy ur having fun, but everyone can see that EB/DH is the dumping ground of this matchup. Its pathetic to watch us try to take SM. We don’t have anywhere near enough people, the most we can do is sit and watch. Only SF can oppose CD on that account….and most of the time I just see them sitting around inner pvding waiting for the CD zerg to come out and play. They don’t seem to care at all about capping anything on ebg that’s fortified or upgraded.

SF and CD are often ganging up on us and k-training all our stuff….cause lets face, we are clearly the loser this week and are weak. Everyone by nature is drawn to attacking the weakest alliance, and that is us.

I was honestly hoping we could proc into second place before the weekend ended, that way we wouldn’t become the dumping ground of the matchup. That didn’t happen though. Now with this 7vs2 thing going on we are destined for 3rd place.

Sweet Sanity.8593:

eBay is the largest single server in this match.

Tell that to Anet. We should have been a host server on our merits alone.

I doubt we were ever that large though, back before the mergers we fought dh/nsp/sf/hod and others all on equal footings but I would never say we had more players than any of them. Saying we are larger than CD is insane….they always dominated if i remembered correctly, although it wasn’t half as bad as vs Mag.

I agree. eBay should have been the hosts this week. It is a shame they are not

misterman.1530:

So, we have 2 more months of these matchups? For real? Someone mentioned in another topic that we will be switching at the end of the week. Guess not.

I mentioned it to you in the other thread, which you were talking about the t3 matchup. Tier 4 is different, their glicko is still far apart from t3 in order to get any new matches with them, so yes t4 is stuck by themselves, until this unholy 4 server alliance manages to drain t4 enough to break into t3.

Taxidriver.2043:

well thx to those who voted 2 month and more to relink now u are stuck with crap matchup, its ur own fault.

Yeah GG guys y’all voted to lower the link switch time!
it’s your own fault!
now you live with it!

Most of t4 enjoys the matchup. Even with the quad server mowing things over. The fights are way better and I don’t know why they are complaining about numbers because before the switch the number differences were far worse. The quad server is still smaller than the hod/eb server

Sweets…not everyone was previously in T4 until the pairings changed, so realize that your comparison of how the fights were might differ from those that are coming down from pairing with a T1 or T2 or T3 server.

And as Josh pointed out in another thread, CD/Kain/BP/ET have the highest KDR right now of all servers, even higher than BG. Yes, there are fights, but they are very lopsided according to the stats.

The majority of the posters upset about this pairing are from darkhaven/eBay. Both of these servers were in t4 already. The other two server groups fighting in t4 have people who were in different tiers before this week, but the ones who are upset were.

As much as I rip on dh though, really it is eBay who got the short end of the stick here. They did great with hod at the top of t4. They played very well and had a lot of good fights, but then they got stuck in last place as a guest to a dead server

Sweet Sanity.8593:

The majority of the posters upset about this pairing are from darkhaven/eBay. Both of these servers were in t4 already. The other two server groups fighting in t4 have people who were in different tiers before this week, but the ones who are upset were.

As much as I rip on dh though, really it is eBay who got the short end of the stick here. They did great with hod at the top of t4. They played very well and had a lot of good fights, but then they got stuck in last place as a guest to a dead server

Courtesy of kandle.2367’s post with numbers that are up to date as of now from wvwintel.com

Blackgate
Kills: 17,750
Deaths: 14,540
Ratio: 1.22

Kaineng & Eredon Terrace & Borlis Pass & Crystal Desert
Kills: 26,777
Deaths: 21,115
Ratio: 1.27

Ehmry Bay & Darkhaven
Kills: 11,456
Deaths: 14,739
Ratio: 0.78

Ferguson’s Crossing & Gate of Madness & Sorrow’s Furnace
Kills: 18,149
Deaths: 22,234
Ratio: 0.82

These servers together have generated more kills AND have a higher kd than BG/AR. People are not complaining without a reason. Not to mention the fact that we are four days in and they are 60K ahead of everyone. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they say they wanted ppt this way to prevent a winner from being chosen overnight?

I am not saying they should be matched against BG/AR, but they just should not be here.

they are in this tier because cd was previously a guest server with no score and had to start at the bottom. They will move up I’m sure but they had to start at the bottom

Sweet Sanity.8593:

As much as I rip on dh though, really it is eBay who got the short end of the stick here. They did great with hod at the top of t4. They played very well and had a lot of good fights, but then they got stuck in last place as a guest to a dead server

You indeed have some serious anti-DH bias. Where did it come from? Look at the post above to see just how stupidly unbalanced this matchup is. The 4 server monster is more active than Blackgate…

All of the servers in this mashup should be actively recruiting on the forums, because I’m pretty sure a lot of people are curious how it plays out.

Although I’m not in this matchup it seems pretty clear that anet’s estimation of population is way off. Maybe they expected more people to transfer off ET and Kaineng after being delinked I dunno but something has gone completely awry and it could indicate that overall there is an issue with their population calculation.

@Rastaaa: 4days \= overnight