Guild Wars 2

Hopefully those that have played in T5 can shed some light on this phenom that is the T5 wall.

As best as I can see it from T6.

T6 servers win by default and move to T5.

There are 4 T4 quality servers; Mag, YB, EB, DB. One loses and by default moves down to T5.

The T4 is used to a 7 day long match that can do down to the last day. T6 teams are used to having won the matches by Monday.

This is where the wall hits, the lower T6 teams are not only mismatched via population/coverage and overall server cohesion. They just lack the stamina to go a full 7 days.

Over the past 5 weeks, the T6 servers have lost morale and more importantly, have lost guilds and players as they move to the T4 server. This in turn widens the gap between T6 and T4.

My concerns is that over the next coming months T5 will be a purgatory for T6 rather than a reward for winning. Even worse, I don’t see a solution that Anet can implement short of splitting the ladder in two.

-K

It is interesting how servers can get mired into a tier.

Maguuma got pushed from T4 into T5. They crushed the other two T5 server BUT the other T5 servers were rated so much lower than them that despite winning the round, Maguuma actually lost rating and stayed in T5. This week they have redoubled their efforts of crushing the other two servers and it looks like they’ll move back up.

Meanwhile, Ehmry had some guilds say “We’re tired of T4 competition and want to move to a lower tier server”, which they did (some, I hear, went to Maguuma). Ironically this is going to cause Ehmry to be a lower tier server itself (maybe they’ll come back!)

I think the bottom line problem is that players playing “chase the winner” are generating too much churn and no server can really be pegged to a tier for very long.

Also, I think, people see a failure to win as, well, a demoralizing loss — a serious problem requiring drastic action to fix. This, despite the fact that every week 2 out of every 3 servers must, by necessity, lose. Sometimes great pairings are ruined because even though the 3rd place team actually did well and had a close, fun match, too many people said, “3rd place?! This server sux!” and they moved away, because moving is easy.

Once Anet removes free server transfers I think WvW will become a lot better. It’s a shame its taken them so long to implement something that was, I thought, intended to be ready to go on launch.

The first Mag/DR/BP matchup was actually fairly close up until Sunday evening. Starting on Monday and through the rest of the week Maguuma pulled away big.

For the second matchup, a lot of guilds transferred to the winning server (Maguuma) and off of the losing servers to make an already unbalanced fight even more unbalanced.

Losing gets you nothing but a repair bill.

I get the impression people like winning and don’t like losing, no matter the tier. So people winning in lower tiers get sad when they’re losing in higher tiers even though they’re stronger than they ever were.

This wall exists at every tier and gets larger at each one, t5 is just the most noticeable. t4 is a different ballgame, and t3 even moreso. The t2/t3 servers that are held back from not enough night time coverage have more night time players than t7 has daytime players. The entire population throughout the day on a t1 server in a single borderland would by itself make a t6 server.

styx.7294:

I get the impression people like winning and don’t like losing, no matter the tier. So people winning in lower tiers get sad when they’re losing in higher tiers even though they’re stronger than they ever were.

This isn’t really true. Mag is built on losing. When you lose 40-50 times, you start to play for fun. Then because you play for fun and have an active public community, you play more often. When you play more often, you get better and end up winning some. When you win some, people say you only play to win.

DB might be going to T3 soon
The Mag/DR/BP first match up was fairly close during the weekend. DR had momentum going from moving up the tiers and we (mag) were getting hit hard by both server.

Everyone likes to win but i believe that most are looking for a competitive match more than anything else. an unbalanced match up sucks for all party involved.

As for the transfers to Mag, yes we got band wagoners, but there are also guilds/ppl that chose Mag for what we have to offer.

@Pinko: we are only winning T5 because we do not belong there. Not only do we have superior number we also have superior coordination

In all honesty, it very often takes the collapse of a server in the tier above you for you to move up. The rating system is so broken to “keep matches balanced” because it does not take into account winning as a guaranteed increase in rating or position.

Blackgate won Tier 2 9 weeks in a row. We just now got into tier 1, and barely at that because SBI lost rating, not because we gained it so much. The advancement of Blackgate to tier 1 was not predicated on our score in Tier 2 at all. We scored more points than SoR and TC combined and barely advanced.

Theoretically, Tier 8 could have the best coverage in the game and have 24/7 coverage and all the best guilds, but if their matches were close, they would never even see Tier 7 unless a server in tier 7 absolutely imploded. and dropped enough rating to have one of them move up. They would then, of course, all systematically break out of Tier 8 and steamroll their way to the top, but until a server above them collapsed, they would be quite literally trapped in their tier. That alone is a disgrace to how the rating system works and, barring transfers upsetting the balance in tiers causing matchup changes, WvW has become largely stagnant with regard to upward mobility no matter how high the level of play in your tier is because you have to crush your opponents so badly just to gain a few rating points, which is nothing unless the 3rd server in the tier above you loses rating to meet you in the middle, which seldom happens because they bounce up and down as far as overall rating points go from week to week. Once your rating gets low enough in a tier, getting beaten badly no longer makes you lose rating making it easier to gain rating often shackling the top server below them to their respective match.

The wvw styles of all the brackets are different. The key to winning T6 is breaking morale. All T5 servers that moved from T6 know that whomever breaks the other spirit wins, and the key to winning T5 is all about tenacity. T4 is a different beast- it begins the odd transition from lower tier wvw fighting to what would be referred to as ‘big league’ wvw. At this point all servers know the attacks and counters to treb placement, uncounterable arrow carts, pulling blitzkrieg maneuvers, maximizing zergonomics all that jazz. By the time you hit T4, your server pretty much knows how to play, both teams are pretty good at telegraphing their opponents movements, and what kind of resistance they expect to encounter when starting a breakout event (which is kinda useless at t4, even when trying to strategically employ the breakout to provide a distraction) etc.

T4 is no longer about how well you can outplay your opponent. T4 is about attrition warfare: the server with the most resources (gold/siege/manpower) is going to win. Whomever can throw the most golems at a reinforced door. Whomever has the best 24 hour coverage. Whomever has the most players logging in. That is what wins wvw games in the Majors.

The biggest problem with upper tier wvw is that every server starts to play it safe – they try not to spend any more resources unless they absolutely have to. This pretty much means all keeps/towers attacked are fully upgraded, so trebs/golems are used way more often than rams/cata. Its like the Cold War: everybody has nukes, and is waiting for their opponent to make the first move.

That is also the reason why many upper tier wvw guilds leave for lower tier competition, as wvw matches become irritatingly boring and predictable. Seriously, its nothing but golem rushes and portal bombing.

ayc.7108:

The wvw styles of all the brackets are different. The key to winning T6 is breaking morale. All T5 servers that moved from T6 know that whomever breaks the other spirit wins, and the key to winning T5 is all about tenacity. T4 is a different beast- it begins the odd transition from lower tier wvw fighting to what would be referred to as ‘big league’ wvw. At this point all servers know the attacks and counters to treb placement, uncounterable arrow carts, pulling blitzkrieg maneuvers, maximizing zergonomics all that jazz.

Please tell me your not refering to Maguuma as one of these so called tier 4 servers. They lost 10 arrow carts and 5 Ballista’s before they finally found the right spot to hit our treb. They also lost 7 golems trying to bust a door with two cannons shooting at them. They win by shear numbers (usually all depends on night crews) not strategy.

Yes, the key to lopsided victorys is to break the spirits of the server, thus why my server claims they don’t want to do WvW in order to drop a few tiers then steam role again.

1 small note for EVERY Server: Generally when one side starts winning more than the other, the “Less experienced” make more of a show than the stronger folks. When one side starts winning a lot more than the other, the people who most know what they’re doing will get bored and go do something else because they aren’t worried about their presence being all but mandatory in WvW.

So basically: When one side is winning a lopsided victory, expect a lot of silly tactics and such to occur…as the people who -know- what they’re doing are either just having fun(Trebs right against walls/doors anyone?) or not there.

Teanti.2376:

Please tell me your not refering to Maguuma as one of these so called tier 4 servers. They lost 10 arrow carts and 5 Ballista’s before they finally found the right spot to hit our treb. They also lost 7 golems trying to bust a door with two cannons shooting at them.

sounds like the random baddies that transferred off borlis and devonna have already made a name for themselves.

Slamz.5376:

Also, I think, people see a failure to win as, well, a demoralizing loss — a serious problem requiring drastic action to fix. This, despite the fact that every week 2 out of every 3 servers must, by necessity, lose. Sometimes great pairings are ruined because even though the 3rd place team actually did well and had a close, fun match, too many people said, “3rd place?! This server sux!” and they moved away, because moving is easy.

Once Anet removes free server transfers I think WvW will become a lot better. It’s a shame its taken them so long to implement something that was, I thought, intended to be ready to go on launch.

I think you really touched on something here in questioning the points system. It reminds me of the old “Warlord” PvP rankings from Word of Warcraft. There could be only one (or maybe a handful?) ranked players on a server, so players were pitted against each other in a race to the highest point totals for the week, every week.

What happened was some people stayed up 24 hours, played days without sleep, grinding out matches to try and get the highest point totals so they could earn their gear. It was a battle of attrition much like you see here with the servers; exhausting for everyone, but only worthwhile for the winner, and ultimately unsustainable.

IMO the point of WvW needs to be objective based, not point based. Each server should fight for control of some large objective that maybe provides bonuses or something, and then the whole map resets once it’s achieved ala Warhammer. The points system should be kept for even matchmaking, but should be in the background, not visible to players.

Esoteric.5490:

Theoretically, Tier 8 could have the best coverage in the game and have 24/7 coverage and all the best guilds, but if their matches were close, they would never even see Tier 7 unless a server in tier 7 absolutely imploded. and dropped enough rating to have one of them move up.

That’s actually not really a bad thing. I mean, if the matches are fair (and supposedly fun as well then), why change tiers?

I expect all ArenaNet wants to accomplish is that each of the tiers are fairly matched. If they don’t go from best to worst as 1 to 8 (1 to 9 in Europe), they probably don’t lose as much sleep over it.

So … can we safely call this wall trebbed? Scores now 2-1

The wall moved to T3.

Nothing but withering servers in T4/T5 now.

Not withering, it’s more like a borderland, we sit on the edge of zergville and emptytown.

Sometimes a bus comes flying down from zergtown with a few folks on it screaming about something called a “que”, and sometimes a bus full of goofballs drives up from emptytown beating their chests and screaming how they rolled us while we slept or worked, and how we should just get more coverage and we could move up too.

I think Ehmry is good where it is, and i look forward to waving at the buses as you kooky kids drive by.

T4 withering? not sure I’d agree entirely call it a transitional bracket maybe… but I would agree largely to the next wall t3…

waves at plutonium, but keeps eyes on road. Carebear heart does not want to run over ebay kids aimlessly walking on to the road as I drive that bus through town, caught a couple pics, saw 1 live game, and am able to check it off my bucketlist thinking was pretty serene place…