Guild Wars 2

Here are the reasons I believe WvW is dying. These do not necessarily reflect how I personally feel, but more general statements:

1. Lack of WvW progression. WoW has changed the typical player into wanting to always work towards gear and character progression. WvW has none of this. You don’t earn better gear or better abilities. The only “reward” for WvWing is the internal feeling of fun and accomplishment, no shiny swords or anime-looking armor.
2. Two maps = “been there done that.” Imagine how many times the typical WvW player has dropped a ram on Durious, fired a treb from Stonemist, repaired a wall on Dreadfall Bay or escorted a dolyak.
3. Being “nightcapped” or server losing in WvW. I am sure tens of thousands of players have stopped playing because of the frustration that comes from losing matches and going to bed after fighting hard all day just to lose everything while they sleep. There are very few servers that have winning records. You see time and again a T2 server move up to T1 only to be “nightcapped” and drop back out of T1 as their playerbase loses heart.
4. Snowball effect. WvWers have fun when there are many people WvWing, both friends and enemies alike. As people stop playing, it snowballs and less and less people play. It’s easy and fun to go into WvW with 30 guildies by your side, but when there are only 5 guildies online, it’s tough to do anything in WvW.
5. Lack of communication from Anet. WvWers see snowballs fights and fractal dungeons but really nothing for them.

If I could wave a magic wand, I would do the following:

a) Close down the top nine servers from each bracket (NA and EU) or 18 in total.
b) Create 6 international WvW-centered servers, with no region or nation tags, with new names and tell the WvWers to pick one of those and go there.
c) Then immediately make Ascended Gear available from WvW.

This would shake up the status-quo and concentrate the WvWers into 6 servers that would have better 24/7 coverage and breathe new life into WvW. You would also give players a “carrot” of item progression.

Congrats to VZ on the win. Im saddened that BT is moving down, we get excited when Redguard is around.

As someone who has extensive experience in NA T1 and now some time in EU T1, I’ll weigh in.

Let me begin with NA T1. Even the best server, SoS, has population issues. There is almost never a queue during NA and even some maps during NA prime have the outmanned buff. SoS has a strong Oceanic presence but then virtually no Asian and no European presence. SoS is the best in the world with basically just coverage in two time zones. SB and JQ, being the 2nd and 3rd best NA servers, are worse with regards to coverage. SoS is very organized and has good inter-guild and inter-map communication.

EU T1 is a small bit more vibrant; ie there are more people out WvWing during EU prime than during NA T1’s prime. During European prime, SFR typically has 15-30 minute queues on all maps. However, SFR, the 2nd best European server(and beat VZ last week) and with a stronger European fighting force than VZ, is 2nd best with basically only one strong time zone, the European time zone. During NA, we are literally the only guild out there with a few militia. Even with us holding down one map, the other three are outmanned and in the enemy’s color. SFR doesn’t have any Oceanics nor Asians but we do have some strong Russians.

VZ is a very consistent T1 performer with excellent coverage almost all hours of the day. Now, there is some disagreement with how they get that coverage. According to VZ, it’s the same 60 people, all from France, that play 20 hours a day and cover all 4 maps with their skills. Opinions vary on this but even if this is true, 60 people covering four maps is still low WvW population.

With regards to the question of NA trying to win and EU just going for fights, I don’t really see a huge difference. Redguard is a prime example of a guild that goes out specifically looking to just slaughter folks (and they do it well) but you also have many folks on SB and JQ that say they are only fighting for fun and not to win or lose. However I do feel that EU folks don’t give up as easily as NA folks when losing.

Ultimately T1 in NA and T1 in EU is similar in that all servers have population issues that causes one server or another to paint the entire map their color at certain times of the day. Elona, which will be in T1 next week, I believe primarily just has a strong German time zone, and they are the 3rd best server in EU.

When we moved to EU, there were many, both in our guild and outside, that thought we would just be nightcapping and getting bored. Let me dispel that myth; VZ is wracking up 400-500 during NA prime (around 10pm EST) while we are under heavy fire on our map. Holding two castles, a few camps and a few towers on one map is only worth ~75 points.

With regards to lag and latency, we do have some members experience unplayable connections and even some common fixes haven’t helped but most of us can play without noticeable problems.

If I could wave a magic wand Id put all the WvWers on the same 4-5 international servers to help with the WvW population issues.

To conclude, if your guild is bored with WvW and needs a spark, I would suggest two options, in this order:
1) Move to a T1 EU server (SFR or Elona) and face the beastly French of Vizunah, the most consistent T1 server in GW2. If you don’t enjoy it, move back to NA.
2) Move to T1 NA server (JQ or SB) and face the proud SoS’ers. I will tell you that if you’re from EU and move to any T1 NA server, you will have a huge impact as none of them have any EU to speak of.

All WvWers can feel that the WvW in GW2 is waning and needs a spark. The best servers in the world are only fielding full maps a fraction of the 24/7 cycle. If you haven’t tried EU, give it a try.

Few things:

1. This victory belongs primarily to the hardcore Oceanic WvWers of Sea of Sorrows, most notably Jedahs and [MERC] and [OCX] but to many others as well, that have stayed with SoS since the early days and battled each week. The Oceanics of SoS had the most to prove as they were constantly doubted:•They couldn’t stand up to SoR’s Nine Dragons and CRS, but they did stand up, and stand tall.

•They would get crushed by IoJ’s Oceanics, but instead beat them three consecutive times to prove who has the best Oceanic WvWers.

•War Machine would roll over SoS’s Oceanics, but they didn’t.

2. Secondarily, many NA and other guilds, hearing the call of from the SoS Oceanics, joined the server, when it was ranked 10th or lower, for a challenge. Instantly we all worked together and communicated and shared the load. Even though most nights we always had a map with nearly zero coverage during our NA timeslot (and to this day virtually no Euro coverage), we typically had the best ppt while pulling double duty and constant all-calls. Much respect to guilds and alliances such as FoE, AoI, WORK, HuG, FANG, TSym, RMA and DiE (forgive me if I forgot any). We have many talented folks that, when they’re on the map, put in great work. The militia and commanders do a great job as well. I have witnessed extremely little infighting on maps during matches.

3. To JQ and SB, thanks for a great match and I salute your hard work and skill. You folks deserve to be mentioned among the best servers of all time in GW2 for your consistency. I can only hope that SoS shows such consistency at the top.

An open letter to the non-NA’s on Sea of Sorrows (ie Oceanics etc).

You put out the call to your server for NA guilds. You touted your WvW tenacity and ability and wanted help to make SoS more competitive in WvW. [PRX] and other NA guilds (RMA, FoE, TSym, AoI etc) answered the call and many of you welcomed us in a friendly fashion.

Our first match with Maguuma and Dragonbrand ended in 6 hours before you even woke up. We did a 100% cap in EB and our NA brothers did amazing work on their maps and Maguuma and Dragonbrand gave up – all while you were asleep.

This current matchup began in an epic fashion. Through the weekend the three-way fights were incredible. Sure, there were some anomolies with transfers and orb hacks, but the match was incredibly fun and competitive. We turned EB 100% blue twice in that time and again, our NA partners put in hard, skilled work on their maps. As a guild we were in all-call the entire time and used more than 50 golems (not a typo, fifty) and hundreds of other siege weapons and did our job for the server.

Even with NA coverage that was only good enough to hold 3 of the 4 maps and virtually never a queue even for EB, as of 10pm Eastern time last night (Monday), we had a lead of 8k, fully upgraded Stonemist and our corner of EB. On our borderlands, FoE, RMA, TSyn and AoI earned many fully upgraded castles, towers and orbs. Also as of 10pm Eastern time last night the ppt was +455 SoS, +215 SoR and +25 CD even with one full borderland capped by SoR and noone from NA on it (due to not having enough coverage).

And then frankly, the non-NAs kitten it all away for candy corn.

By now anyone watching the match saw what happened after we passed the torch to you. While Lion’s Arch had overflow during your prime time, all the WvW maps had outmanned buffs and our tick fell to +20.

This puts [PRX] in a tough position. We are in our prime and want to strive and move onward and upward on the ladder. We do not want to server hop. We didn’t want to leave Henge, but everyone quit on us and left us to fight (which we did) JQ alone. We don’t want to leave SoS, but we want to know that at least a few folks have our back. Honestly, on a full server with 3-4000 people playing, it isn’t too much to ask that 10-15% of those are in WvW.

We want to make SoS our home and work to build it. But when you (non-NA) folks quit on us as a whole, disrespect the blood, time and treasure we put into your server, we contemplate our options. We do not want to relegate ourselves to just moral victories, ie “Sure, we are in 3rd place, but boy we really owned that supply camp!”

We don’t ask for greatness, we ask simply for effort. No server should ever drop past +180-200 ppt if they are actively trying, even if they are outclassed.

To conclude, this is a request to those on SoS. If you are a WvW player and/or guild, show your heart and get out there and fight. Losing after putting up a good fight is nothing to be ashamed of, but losing because you’re afraid to fight or because of silly candy corn is unacceptable if you wish your server to be good at WvW. Your NA guilds will find a server with some sisters and brothers that will actually stand with them in a scrap.

Tomorrow at our NA prime time, [PRX] will re-evaluate the non-NA of SoS. If you show up and fight between now and then and show some determination and desire to WvW, we will look to the future and stand with you. If you continue to chase down candy corn and shy away from combat, we will weigh other options. If SoS is truly just a server of PvEers, then so be it, own up to it and we will make choices based on this and will respect your playstyle.

My sincere hope is that last night was just an anomoly and you come to your senses and realize SoS can be an up and coming WvW server and you get back to fighting.

Thanks for your time

KV

GM of [PRX] The Professionals, since 1999

www.prx-guild.com