Guild Wars 2

Read for posterity but I’ve already admitted I was wrong with my assumptions, but I still think my point is valid. Feel free to read on :P

I understand that there is no way to police this but this rubs me all of the wrong ways.

I am a member of Borlis Pass and have played WvW with the intention of completing the meta as well as helping my server reach as high as possible.

We are currently in a matchup with Stormbluff Isle (SBI) and Dragonbrand (DB) and, while being smashed entirely by SBI, we’ve held a close back-and-forth with DB. This has been exciting for my guild particularly because defeating DB and coming second in this particular matchup all but guarantees our server will be in the top tier of rewards for our league.

That is, of course, until this morning when it has become highly apparent that something fishy is going on in the state of Denmark. I do not want to make false claims that I cannot prove but it is incredibly odd that just this morning I log on to find that DB has not only gained a lead on us, but they have taken everything of importance from SBI as well. This has not been possible at any point during this matchup.

It seems to me that SBI is allowing DB to take it’s keeps, towers, and castles in order to drive DB to the win on this final day of the competition. If I’m wrong someone please feel free to correct me.

It highlights some of the many problems I’ve noticed about WvW but have not voiced because I hate to complain about a free-ish game, but this is such a game breaking problem for me.

Perhaps the second tier of rewards will not be that much different from the first tier, but to have a legitimate run at gaining the top tier rewards for WvW snatched from us by what can only appear to be a political move takes all of the fun and competition out of leagues.

I’m not going to speculate on what all makes this possible, I’m sure someone else will do that for me. But I know that I for one do not find this at all fun.

My final thought is that what is the point in participating in a competition if you cannot win based solely on your ability to play the game? We look down on cheaters at every sport or competitive action that happens in our world. Football, soccer, hockey, tennis, and even cup stacking are all sports that noone enjoys to see someone cheated out of a victory.

Please, encourage your servers to engage in honest play with their enemies. If you’re going to smash your enemies then more power to you! SBI I commend your server for how active they are in WvW. I know it must be boring for you when there’s no competition, but that’s a problem with the leagues that will need to be addressed before the next league happens, because it’s plainly obvious that you and FA were both below your league.

Please don’t use your position at 300k WP to play king maker and decide who will gain the lead in your matchup. It’s dishonest, and unsportsmanlike.

Thanks for reading!

http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/map/1141 View this today to see what I mean. DB is the blue dudes :P

BG and SoR jumped into bed together week 1 to double team and collaborate against JQ…nature of the beast…frustrating when you are on the receiving end, but speaking for JQ, we find it a mark of pride that two large servers think of us as a huge threat…on the good side…JQ folks collected massive amounts of bags :-)

You must have missed last night when we (SBI) completely overran the DB bl. We owned everything in sight. However, BP’s bl was not fully overrun. I’m sure there were Dragonbrand members saying that we were in cahoots with BP.

Coverage isn’t always consistent throughout the day on every BL by any of our servers. I know we have higher, but it still fluctuates.

It’s things like this that make borlis.org is the most entertaining wvw site I’ve ever found.

DB is an oceanic server. At the time of this post, it’s just after midnight (end of Friday night) in Singapore and Taiwan.

Lots of people play video games on their local Friday night. DB has frequently pulled out sizable points-gains on Friday, like in your prior match-up with them http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/35/117.

Anyway, please continue the paranoia and we’ll see you guys in 2 weeks.

Signed,
Amused Yakbender

Based on playing Dragonbrand last week, who we (Yak’s Bend) demolished in PPT overall, but who has certain times (7 AM – 12 PM EST) that they can flood all the maps with coverage, during weekdays (they took all our stuff during that time), seeing their current score (615 ppt) is not at all out of the ordinary, or indicative of a conspiracy (we certainly didn’t allow DB to take all our stuff during those times).

WOOOO GO BP. I’m in BP too!!!!!!

Blockhead Magee.3092:

You must have missed last night when we (SBI) completely overran the DB bl. We owned everything in sight. However, BP’s bl was not fully overrun. I’m sure there were Dragonbrand members saying that we were in cahoots with BP.

lol, yes as a DB player there was a discussion or two last night about that I remember thinking at that time: “I wonder if Borlis players think we are taking underhanded measures to win? That would be kinda funny.”

I will say though, that many commanders have been putting in overtime on our server to try and get coverage in during non peak hours. It’s been a pretty competitive week for them and I wouldn’t be surprised if the rival commanders are doing the same.

Season 1 – European Gold League.

Match1:
SFR vs Virzunah Square + Piken Square.

Let’s wait and see in Match7!

SBI has never had a strong NA day presence. We’ve lost plenty of matches in the past because we couldn’t keep up during those times. On top of that we have a good lead and as the week progressed less people play WvW.

I’m also from BP, let me make that clear before this post…

A couple of points:

1) There is no reason to be upset or surprised by unsportsmanlike conduct, this isn’t a sport and it’s not meant to be friendly or even fair.

2) As someone from SBI mentioned above, they stomped on DB for most of yesterday and the day before both in DB BL and EB. Claiming that they are intentionally handing DB the win seems odd (though, I guess, possible).

3) The only way I would even make the claim that SBI was intentionally letting DB win was if, while DB took their stuff, SBI guarded the structures to make sure BP couldn’t interfere. I didn’t see this happen. If it did NOT happen, then SBI’s lack of presence during a time could have just as easily handed BP the PPT if we had enough coverage.

4) I’m sure SBI is exhausted from hitting us so hard all week that they needed some nap time before reset :P

Bottom line here is that there doesn’t seem to be any real evidence of them collaborating (and MOS shows that they’ve already retaken their BL – if they were handing DB the win why would they bother?). And even if they were handing them the second place in this match up that’s not something that should be looked down on. If ANET wants to give us such unbalanced match ups then this kind of thing happens (even if I don’t think it’s happening now).

Sreoom.3690:

BG and SoR jumped into bed together week 1 to double team and collaborate against JQ…nature of the beast…frustrating when you are on the receiving end, but speaking for JQ, we find it a mark of pride that two large servers think of us as a huge threat…on the good side…JQ folks collected massive amounts of bags :-)

And there was a valid reason for this at the time, which had everything do to with the silly schedule Anet decided on for Season 1, and the expected outcome of future matches, again, at that time.

Regarding this subject, I know I’m a complete outsider, and have no clue about what kind of server politics (if any) exist here, but I would have high doubts that SBI would intentionally give DB their stuff. Late in a match week, it is quite common for a server who has secured the win to reduce effort and participation, sometimes significantly. Other servers will often capitalize on this during periods where they made have a numbers advantage, and especially during a tournament like this where finishing 2nd vs. 3rd matters more to some players/servers.

I’d say it’s most likely the DB had a numbers advantage and struck out on the path of least resistance.

Don’t forget, with such a close match, DB has been doing all it can to deny BP 2nd place. There were times where we were mere hundreds of points apart.

I know that our floating strike team was in bpbl for much of this matchup just to take away your ppt. SBI was a lost cause, but you? You were a target.

In fact, a common saying on your bl was “As long as it’s not red.” meaning that if SBI had a target, and there was another target nearby that was red….we went to red first.

It could also be the obvious, SBI has won and doesn’t need to fight hard today so they are resting up for reset, there is really no need for SBI to show up today after looking at millenium. It seems DB took advantage of this before BP.

Heimlich.3065:

It’s things like this that make borlis.org is the most entertaining wvw site I’ve ever found.

Checked it out, good read. Borlis kids skipping school to WvW, so gud.

I stand corrected then. It just seemed wholly odd to me because I’ve never seen such a disparity in the time that I’ve been playing this week.

If this is a natural anomaly then I guess that’s fine. It’s obvious that somehow the tables have turned since I got back from work and we now hold a lead in ppt (not in total points) as well. Hope the best wins in any case.

Waffler.1257:

Heimlich.3065:

It’s things like this that make borlis.org is the most entertaining wvw site I’ve ever found.

Checked it out, good read. Borlis kids skipping school to WvW, so gud.

HAHAHAHA nice!

Feliponious.3521:

I stand corrected then. It just seemed wholly odd to me because I’ve never seen such a disparity in the time that I’ve been playing this week.

If this is a natural anomaly then I guess that’s fine. It’s obvious that somehow the tables have turned since I got back from work and we now hold a lead in ppt (not in total points) as well. Hope the best wins in any case.

And even if it was true, it is perfectly fine within the frame of game mode. Just imagine you’d have three-way boxing matches. Would you complain that one boxer took advantage of two other going at it, or you’d be like “WTH why 3-way in the first place???”

The point is, 3-way assumes 2v1. Either coincidental, natural, opportunistic or deliberate.

If you are against 2v1, you should be against not how people are playing 3-way matchups, but setup itself.

2 vs 1 is inevitable, however I do think the developers could programmatically place disincentives to persistent 2 vs 1 situations. I don’t know how well it would work, if at all, but here’s a suggestion to explore. I’m just plugging in some numbers as examples only.

1. Points earned while holding objectives diminish the longer that objective is held, eventually earning 0 points per tick if held long enough. The exact amount of points and the rate at which they diminish would need to be explored/tested but to keep it simple, let’s just say each minute the objective is held the points being earned drops by 1 point. T3>T2>T1 of course.

T3 = Garrison 240 pts Keep 120 pts Tower 60 pts Camp 30 pts Castle 480 pts
T2 = Garrison 120 pts Keep 60 pts Tower 30 pts Camp 15 pts Castle 240 pts
T1 = Garrison 60 pts Keep 30 pts Tower 15 pts Camp 05 pts Castle120 pts

2. Upgrading the objective to a higher tier will reset this countdown.

3. Capturing and holding an objective that does not natively belong to a world will then vary the number of points being earned for that objective based on the overall score of the match.

- 3rd place captures/owns:
——>1st place objective = 3x points
——>2nd place objective = 2x points
- 2nd place captures/owns:
——>1st place objective = 2x points
——>3rd place objective = 1x points
- 1st place captures/owns:
——>2nd place objective = 1x points
——>3rd place objective = 0.5x points

So now there are greater incentives for the 1st and 2nd place teams to battle it out with each other than it is to just beat up on the 3rd world.

May or may not work, but possibly some variation of this could. Probably someone who was better with numbers could come up with some equalizing design that discourages persistent 2v1 situations.

DDOS attacks on our team speak every time we face a certain leading server. They actually brag about how they shut down our team speak. Disgusting.

CattivoUomo.7198:

2 vs 1 is inevitable, however I do think the developers could programmatically place disincentives to persistent 2 vs 1 situations. I don’t know how well it would work, if at all, but here’s a suggestion to explore. I’m just plugging in some numbers as examples only.

1. Points earned while holding objectives diminish the longer that objective is held, eventually earning 0 points per tick if held long enough. The exact amount of points and the rate at which they diminish would need to be explored/tested but to keep it simple, let’s just say each minute the objective is held the points being earned drops by 1 point. T3>T2>T1 of course.

T3 = Garrison 240 pts Keep 120 pts Tower 60 pts Camp 30 pts Castle 480 pts
T2 = Garrison 120 pts Keep 60 pts Tower 30 pts Camp 15 pts Castle 240 pts
T1 = Garrison 60 pts Keep 30 pts Tower 15 pts Camp 05 pts Castle120 pts

2. Upgrading the objective to a higher tier will reset this countdown.

3. Capturing and holding an objective that does not natively belong to a world will then vary the number of points being earned for that objective based on the overall score of the match.

- 3rd place captures/owns:
——>1st place objective = 3x points
——>2nd place objective = 2x points
- 2nd place captures/owns:
——>1st place objective = 2x points
——>3rd place objective = 1x points
- 1st place captures/owns:
——>2nd place objective = 1x points
——>3rd place objective = 0.5x points

So now there are greater incentives for the 1st and 2nd place teams to battle it out with each other than it is to just beat up on the 3rd world.

May or may not work, but possibly some variation of this could. Probably someone who was better with numbers could come up with some equalizing design that discourages persistent 2v1 situations.

What they need to do is encourage 2v1 against the top server.

Johje Holan.4607:

What they need to do is encourage 2v1 against the top server.

Well yeah, hence both 3rd and 2nd place can earn more points by capturing the 1st place objective, plus 1st place has now more incentive to go after 2nd place over that of 3rd place. Also sitting on objectives longer would have diminishing returns in points. Perhaps also outmanned teams can get bonus kill points since they are clearly in the weaker position they should get rewarded more for overcoming that.

Another thought I had would be to have dynamic events that occur such that either 1st or 2nd or possibly both worlds are suddenly attacked by an outside force such as to weaken them some and give the 3rd place team a chance to take advantage. These events would only happen in the event that any of the scores become significantly lopsided. So let’s say 1st has 10k more than 2nd and 20k more than 3rd, then a dragon spawns at 1st place’s keep and begins assaulting it. If the keep is currently ticking any points then the degradation in points accelerates for as long as the dragon is assaulting the keep to include going into negative numbers. This degradation would end when either the dragon is defeated or the dragon kills the lord. If the dragon kills the lord, then the team being assaulted is further hit with a point deduction which could be a percentage of their lead over the nearest placed team; possibly as much as 50% which would really hurt. This essentially means that a team(s) under siege would need to then switch their focus away from the other teams giving their enemies an advantage and a chance to catch up.

I think it would also be cool if a random player could be picked from the team not being assault to temporarily take on the role of the dragon (or other boss) and have a whole new skill set to use in the assault. There would need to be restrictions of course such that the player could not pull the dragon away from combat, and must be actively attacking or otherwise be released from control.

Whether or not this would work, I really don’t know since it would have to be played out in some simulation or beta, but you’re right; somehow there must be a way to break persistent(keyword) 2v1 such that it isn’t always the same 2 worlds beating up the 3 world.

I hear that DB are very motivated to get 2nd in this matchup. Whether an internal alliance was formed or not I would obviously have no idea but it wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.

What sucks about this tier system is that when two lower server do have to face one server that vastly overpopulates them, the big server pretty much has a large say in who gets second. If they want to at least.

Lol, if you look at the current map, this person was just full on conspiracy mode.

Or has SBI been bought now by BP?!?!?!? HMMMMMM?!?!

Aliens…

Really??? Really?

Here is a little reality check for you. DB was up against FA and SBI week one.
Guess what, we are up against those 2 again in the last week.

Has BP gone up against them both yet? Lets see… um, no, you have not. Will you… nope.

Well aint that fun.

Yeah, enjoy your 4th place. You sure do deserve it against us complaining evil conspirators.

Calm down, MAGpie, the OP already said that he maybe just misinterpreted that evidence. No need to continue freaking out.

Hey, I admitted I was probably wrong and even asked to be corrected if I was. I wasn’t joking lol. My point stands however, that it certainly feels gamey (2v1 when it does occur)

I’m glad to see that it probably wasn’t an alliance formed against us, but it was certainly odd that they held literally everything. You’ll notice that we are not able to do the same thing they did this morning.I know now it’s probably due to the time zone difference and the whole oceanic thing and the fact that SBI seems to have taken a more lax push in WvW tonight.

I apologize if I offended anyone, but I had to at least get my point out there. I just prefer to lose due to mistakes that can be rectified in later matchups, not things that discourage one server from even bothering to try. It’s highly discouraging when you hear fellow players actively saying “why bother because…”. Wish I had an answer for that particular problem, but I guess that’s just human.

Anyways, good luck to you all.

Oh, and please note the clutch nature of our scores. This thing could swing so fast in the other direction it’s not even funny. May the best server win. I know I’ve enjoyed defending the BL from you guys these past few hours. Good luck.

lol at “unsportsmanlike conduct.”

What a joke.