Guild Wars 2

As I’m sure many of us already know, Tier 1 servers have not changed in a very long time — only counting ranks, not tournaments, so this brings us back to February of 2014. Now, I don’t really have a dog in this fight, as I haven’t been to Gold since HoD was T1 (Season 1!), but I still wonder… at this point, why is there a Gold league? Why are there even leagues at all? The chances of a T2 server rolling T1 are almost infinitesimal sometimes, and most of the time the RNG chance is actually a flat zero. My first thought was “why bother with leagues?” and then it changed to “why not just stick T1 in its own league?” and then finally “ok, I have no idea what to do with Tier 1. Gold is just broken.”

With the way they’ve been dealing with the tournaments, league-locking and using in-league Swiss-style matchups, the chance of the top server in each league going undefeated is extremely high. In fact, that’s exactly what happened in the previous tournament season, with Gate of Madness undefeated in Bronze, Jade Quarry undefeated in Gold, and Dragonbrand undefeated in Silver.

If we’re going to have a tournament sometime in the future, the same thing is likely going to happen. With the way JQ/BG/TC do their so-called “push weeks” (which, please, call it what you will, but this is the method of win-trading they use to ensure the league stays locked), it’s going to be incredibly difficult for any server to break in. Personally, I would love to see FA try to push its way up just to get some spectator excitement, but let’s face it, T1 is a bit like cousins marrying cousins — if any T2 server “dares” to randomly roll that tier, it’s going to be a 2v1 smash fest. There’s almost zero hope of anyone else pushing and staying there.

Since I don’t think forcefully dividing the population of Tier 1 is any kind of viable solution, I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do here. I almost think T1 should have its own separate EotM-like game mode where they can just play to their hearts’ content and never have to worry about push weeks (as well as not having that nigh-unattainable carrot for Tier 2 anymore), or whatever other silly nonsense they have to do to ensure none of the 3 servers drops too far. Still, I can’t arrive at any solid ideas. What do you think?

As you said T2 has a 0 percent chance of breaking into tier one but this is not a problem players have been able to solve in game till now.
Coverage is still king so expecting natural competitiveness within the leagues is a fantasy.
As a result, T1 guild in NA have branched out into each other’s servers in order to at least promote close matches. This can result in guilds fighting each other but atleast the fights matter and the score is not super lopsided. The “push week” strat is being removed in favor of trying this new version and currently it looks like a success if you look at NA scores.

Now coming back to T2 and so on this may be done on the other servers too, but obviously the obstacle is logistics as people need to buy second accounts and such. Furthermore T1 NA has developed good faith with each other in order to facilitate this kind of situation but some other server leaders might not be as inviting.

At the end of the day, tier has lost importance and most guilds just want to have good fights so I suggest people just stop caring about ppt because once you’ve fought over keeps for 2-3 years it starts getting a bit stale. (The fight to take a keep is more engaging than the points you may get from it afterwards)

Your right OP. You have not been in T1 in a long time. You do not have a dog in the fight. Yet you made a entire thread and a multi paragraphed post, chalk full of misinformation and uninformed accusations.

This so called “push week” is a myth. One that your disingenuously perpetuating. I feel your claim of how a match would go if a T2 server moved up is simply blind assumption, and not remotely true based on my experience.

Back when HoD was in T1 there weren’t Leagues or Seasons. I seem to recall these existing because players came to the forums and asked for rewards for winning, to say it in a simplified way. This happened well after people left HoD due to mulit hour queues 24hrs a day.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

If we’re going to have a tournament sometime in the future, the same thing is likely going to happen. With the way JQ/BG/TC do their so-called “push weeks” (which, please, call it what you will, but this is the method of win-trading they use to ensure the league stays locked), it’s going to be incredibly difficult for any server to break in.

Err, here’s what you need to understand (among many, many, many things).

At the moment, JQ is leading in points for this week. Their predicted rating change for the week? -9.602. NEGATIVE. Why? Because their current rating says JQ “should” have a wider lead.

You don’t need to “trade wins” to maintain relative stasis. If Glicko says you should beat me every week by, say, 15k, and we continually end up at about that level, my score isn’t going to plummet much at all. I’m at my level, you’re at your level, and even if the match isn’t equal it’s the closest thing available, so that’s what we get.

The score gap between T1 and T2 means the system that has “decided” that only a server that could absolutely destroy YB and SoS can make it in T1. And, despite FA’s cushy leads week-to-week, that’s just not what’s happening in T2 right now.

I agree. If another tournament rolls around there will be a problem with NA T1. Just like there has been for every other tournament.

And I agree, we need to get rid of the League system for tournaments. If there a tourney now and it was the same leagues as before, at least in NA it would be disastrous. (Even moreso than in the past I think).

Gold League may be about the same except with FA maybe being slightly better off?

In Silver, however, I believe there is even more of a gap between 7 and 15 than there was previously. It would be horrible.

I’m on SBI, and personally, I’d rather be in Gold League for a tourney. But even better is if there were no leagues at all as the OP suggests.

I made a post about a no league tourney a long time ago and here is the link. This is the only way to go for a tourney I think. (Note this was a year ago (or was it 2?) so of course the servers have changed a bit so if you look at it don’t equate the example to todays servers).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Modified-Swiss-system-to-fix-WvW-tournaments/first

coglin.1867:

Your right OP. You have not been in T1 in a long time. You do not have a dog in the fight. Yet you made a entire thread and a multi paragraphed post, chalk full of misinformation and uninformed accusations.

This so called “push week” is a myth. One that your disingenuously perpetuating. I feel your claim of how a match would go if a T2 server moved up is simply blind assumption, and not remotely true based on my experience.

Tell the people who organize push weeks that there are no push weeks, then

While I may not be a T1 player, it’s a fact that it has been kept locked by the 3 servers there for as long as it has for a reason. I don’t care what happens to it, but it is also a fact that it is broken in that it is night-impossible to get into it now. Even with FA pushing as hard as it can.

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

coglin.1867:

Your right OP. You have not been in T1 in a long time. You do not have a dog in the fight. Yet you made a entire thread and a multi paragraphed post, chalk full of misinformation and uninformed accusations.

This so called “push week” is a myth. One that your disingenuously perpetuating. I feel your claim of how a match would go if a T2 server moved up is simply blind assumption, and not remotely true based on my experience.

Tell the people who organize push weeks that there are no push weeks, then

While I may not be a T1 player, it’s a fact that it has been kept locked by the 3 servers there for as long as it has for a reason. I don’t care what happens to it, but it is also a fact that it is broken in that it is night-impossible to get into it now. Even with FA pushing as hard as it can.

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

There are push weeks in t1. I will try to find the link that was posted in these forums a while ago of the top 3 servers on TS discussing it.

Personally, I would love to see FA try to push its way up just to get some spectator excitement, but let’s face it, T1 is a bit like cousins marrying cousins — if any T2 server “dares” to randomly roll that tier, it’s going to be a 2v1 smash fest. There’s almost zero hope of anyone else pushing and staying there.

FA can’t even distance itself from YB – and that’s with the help of SoS. To say that FA may cause some “excitement” in T1 is assuming they are as good on their own – which is laughable considering how they play in T2 – with their “partners”.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

coglin.1867:

Your right OP. You have not been in T1 in a long time. You do not have a dog in the fight. Yet you made a entire thread and a multi paragraphed post, chalk full of misinformation and uninformed accusations.

This so called “push week” is a myth. One that your disingenuously perpetuating. I feel your claim of how a match would go if a T2 server moved up is simply blind assumption, and not remotely true based on my experience.

Tell the people who organize push weeks that there are no push weeks, then

While I may not be a T1 player, it’s a fact that it has been kept locked by the 3 servers there for as long as it has for a reason. I don’t care what happens to it, but it is also a fact that it is broken in that it is night-impossible to get into it now. Even with FA pushing as hard as it can.

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

There are push weeks in t1. I will try to find the link that was posted in these forums a while ago of the top 3 servers on TS discussing it.

lol, you poor souls. You believe everything you read on the troll forums?

If your claiming that is real, care to list who one that link are leadership of any kind?

Seems to me that someone is salty that they cannot break into tier one………………

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

I have a secretarial, position open. Are you attempting to apply for it? Not sure I could offer it to someone who perpetuates such misinformed and petty rumors to make themselves feel better about their own position though.

coglin.1867:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

coglin.1867:

Your right OP. You have not been in T1 in a long time. You do not have a dog in the fight. Yet you made a entire thread and a multi paragraphed post, chalk full of misinformation and uninformed accusations.

This so called “push week” is a myth. One that your disingenuously perpetuating. I feel your claim of how a match would go if a T2 server moved up is simply blind assumption, and not remotely true based on my experience.

Tell the people who organize push weeks that there are no push weeks, then

While I may not be a T1 player, it’s a fact that it has been kept locked by the 3 servers there for as long as it has for a reason. I don’t care what happens to it, but it is also a fact that it is broken in that it is night-impossible to get into it now. Even with FA pushing as hard as it can.

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

There are push weeks in t1. I will try to find the link that was posted in these forums a while ago of the top 3 servers on TS discussing it.

lol, you poor souls. You believe everything you read on the troll forums?

If your claiming that is real, care to list who one that link are leadership of any kind?

Seems to me that someone is salty that they cannot break into tier one………………

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Also, “chock”, “you’re” and if the seasons are any indication of what happens when a T2 server ends up in T1, then I am unassailably right, natch.

I have a secretarial, position open. Are you attempting to apply for it? Not sure I could offer it to someone who perpetuates such misinformed and petty rumors to make themselves feel better about their own position though.

What’s my own position? What is it making me feel better about? Are you saying I’m somehow jealous that I’m not in T1? Really? Because that’s petty. Are you also saying that every post on the “troll forums” is a troll? Every single one of the hundreds that talk about push weeks? People that I know in the game that also post there? There are 689 posts in that search, and one of you. Who am I more inclined to believe? You think I didn’t arrive at my conclusions without passing my thoughts through T1 friends of mine ingame, who thanks to the megaserver I can now meet and play with?

These are questions you could have asked me, but you didn’t. You got defensive. I mean, really defensive.

Seems to me that someone is salty that they cannot break into tier one

Ah, there it is. I’m on HoD. I didn’t want us to break into effin Tier 3 let alone T1. I was happy with where we were in T4. Don’t believe me? Look up my posts from a few weeks back on the “troll forums.”

I am an interested observer in all tiers NA; all leagues. I treat the whole thing like an enormous game of Risk. I love watching the map politics play out in realtime on wvwintel. I watch the point evolution of all servers. I keep track of what guilds claim what and during which times. It’s all very fun to me, sometimes more than actually playing WvW.

And there is no comma between secretarial and position.

Err, “push weeks” aren’t a coordinated match-fixing thing. They’re just one server or another deciding to go into full-on try-hard mode that week.

Why do that? Because it’s good practice in general, and it can help morale — especially if you’ve been stuck in 3rd for a while.

When you see someone on the kittenpile forum saying “Oh, it’s JQ’s push week,” that’s not “Oh, we all decided JQ should win this week.” It means “It’s really obvious JQ is trying harder than usual.”

Also, please don’t trust anything from the kittenpile forums.

Maguuma tanked for 2 weeks to get into silver and were still forced into gold….and then imploded when facing another pointless 6 weeks. There truly is no point to gold league with such disparity.

Anet should allow shuffle T1 and T2 match up in alternate weeks.

Push weeks haven’t been a thing for BG for months now. They did exist before but BG don’t do them anymore.

Push weeks were just guilds and commanders doing overtime for PPT/win that week (eg. NA guys staying up till OCX, OCX staying up till EU, Koreans playing 24 hours etc).

There’s nothing nefarious in T1 contrary to your beliefs. The only thing different in T1 compared to every other tier (especially imbalanced ones) is that every server up here gets 2v1’d constantly across multiple timezones which keeps PPT somewhat in check. No T1 server can maintain 3 waypoints on their home BL for any length of time for example.

There seems to be serious misconceptions about T1 and “push weeks.” As someone else said, if a T1 server is deemed to be having a “push week” it just means they’re basically pulling overtime and trying to maximize PPT basically like they would during a season match. That doesn’t mean they’ll automatically win the match or there is an acceptance that they will win that week. The opposite is often true, actually. If it is obvious one of the servers are pushing harder than usual, this can cause 1 or both of the other servers to start pushing too in order to prevent a server from winning on their “push week”, thus often creating some epic fights and fun for all concerned. In fact I think one of the points from that stupid meeting someone referenced was to try and co-ordinate the so-called “push weeks” so everyone’s “pushing” at the same time meaning a greater level of competition, although that often happens organically anyway rather than through some agreement.

T1 is effectively locked and will basically remain locked because none of the T2 servers have the coverage or the will to compete with T1 servers. The established T1 servers have become stacked by people looking for around-the-clock large group play and will remain so unless something drastic happens.

FA had a small window to push for T1 when TC was getting focused, but only their SEA really did so. Even if FA rolled a T1 matchup, they wouldn’t be able to compete with T1 servers on coverage alone. There wouldn’t need to be a coordinated 2v1, they would get completely obliterated and k-trained naturally when they simply didn’t have any groups on to defend. T1 servers have groups operating 24/7, for most part, which is not the case for T2 servers and below usually. FA’s brief opportunity to come up has long since passed anyway and their main SEA guild is bored with PvDooring in a timezone they vastly outnumber the other 2 servers and is seeking to transfer to T1. The rest of FA didn’t really have the will or ambition to come to T1 so that will lead to guilds on the server who did want that to transfer off. FA will become less stacked in the process which will probably be a good thing for the T2 scene.

I think you misunderstand. I do not believe anything nefarious is going in T1 at all… well, maybe some people that share guilds across multiple servers, but I don’t think that’s a majority. I see 3 servers that are perfectly happy with the way they are. I don’t seek to change that. The only thing I think of in terms of T1 is that it does not exist in a league of 6 servers, wherein 3 of those 6 (you) want absolutely nothing to do with the other 3.

I want you to get out. Become Platinum Tier, maybe. And when I talk about “push weeks” I am not necessarily talking about a coordinated effort between all 3 servers to maintain the status quo, but I do watch the income evolution, and any time a T1 server gets too low in rankings (as was pointed out, too many times in 3rd) it will push to regain some of the glicko it’s lost. For the brief time that FA was in a 0.07% RNG chance of rolling T1, the bottom server, in this case TC, pushed hard, and overcame BG to take second. This is how T1 stays locked.

I only wish that you didn’t have to bother with such silly things. Go fight it out to your heart’s content without worrying about being in 3rd too long, or whatever. After a year and 3 months, you deserve it.

There is a non-zero possibility of a shakeup with the release of HoT — with Anet considering a large influx of new players that don’t know where to go, since servers are a somewhat antiquated concept thanks to megaserver, what will they do to WvW? They’re not dumb people. They know that T1 has been locked for a long time. They also know that it may be off-putting to new players to see so many servers full and locked. I have little faith that they will make a wholly informed decision about what to do in that case, considering what they did to fractal levels, pvp ranks, etc. There’s a new BL map coming, a whole lot of new players, and a whole lot of other changes to the dynamic of the game. Do you think even T1 is safe at this point?

The problem you are describing isn’t exclusive to gold league, even if it is most prevalent there. Far from it, actually. Even the higher end of the silver league vs. the lower end wouldn’t result in balanced matchups. The same is true for bronze too with servers like GoM who are ridiculously stacked in comparison with lower bronze servers.

The fact is, the whole “tournament” and “league” concept is broken from top to bottom and needs to be reevaluated. The server populations themselves are broken, for a start. The full status of servers should only be determined by participation in WvW since servers now are irrelevant from a PvE perspective and it should be cheaper to move to servers which are least populated. New players should also be educated on what relevance server choice has to them and perhaps be encouraged/incentivized to pick certain servers depending on population which dynamically changes.