The pure and simple truth of this match is numbers.
I don’t think anyone is denying this, but each thing acts on the other as well. If someone is dissatisfied with their server or just looking for a change of scenery, a place that is known for doing well relative to its numbers is going to be more appealing than just ‘a generic tier # server’.
Do the higher tiers think they’re actually THAT much better then the lower tiers?
Yes and no. Like that waffles guy was saying upthread, tactics change with numbers. You can get good at fighting solo or in small groups on any server, but the more potential for large groups there is, the more additional things you’ll need to learn.
As one example, I noticed a few times SoR would come upon a tower, and instead of taking rams/golems or putting catapults at the wall with their faces stuck in it (which is pretty much the majority of what I’ve seen TC do when besieging anything not in treb range of another building) they would very accurately stop at the edge of their range, often where things like mortars were blocked by terrain, and build catapults or trebuchets.
I never did ask why, but one very obvious effect was that they were outside the range of ACs, outside the range of ballistas, largely outside the range of – or protected from – base siege, and often just outside the range of siege equivalent to theirs (they only need to hit the wall, of course, and catas or trebs usually sit further back). It seemed to me like that would benefit anybody, so I found it a bit odd that it was so noticeable with them when we didn’t really need to most of the time, and they certainly didn’t need to a lot of the times I saw them do it.
Looking at the target caps on siege though, it occurred to me that it stacks incredibly well. Playing on TC, I rarely need to queue outside of NA prime, and then usually on one particular land (commonly EB or TCBL) for only a few minutes. To the people I see most of the time, defensive siege can get pretty nasty, but it has the potential to be so very very much worse. If that’s what they’re used to, the habit of keeping their distance makes perfect sense – if I were them I’d probably prefer ranged siege (at actual range even) more often as well. The rest of the time, stuffing a catapult’s face in the wall lets it fire faster and kill the wall sooner, and as long as we AOE the walls and use tanky people to operate the siege, it’s fine.
tl;dr – more people allows for some scenarios more often and requires a greater variety of tactics as a result, now with one free anecdote per purchase.
Edit: Also lol @ ‘as a CD’.