Guild Wars 2

Ranger Emeritus.2905:

I know this will close that discussion but it has to be said. If you want a meh reaction you have the perfect karma train member or cmdr. If you want someone who has a bit of passion for the game you find the scouts , the roamers, the leaders , who put in long hours, and at times, not gaining one level. The guys who make dozens of runs an hour to camps to build siege, repair etc. Those are the folks who are my brothers in WvW. Not the meh ones. Go back to EOTM.

Something tells me you’re not much part of the FA community. I’ll tell what I told that tym guy before. Go check out our very active forum and become part of it. You’ll find me there too.

It’s incredibly easy to just wait for Friday ktrain day and get all the map completions you want. Or buddy up to a decent guild group and have them ninja somewhere. Reset is also a good time, since everything paper.

Honestly, it’s not that hard. Maybe it’s the hardest thing PvErs have to go through in their GW2 career, but that’s not saying much. PvE too stronk.

Or FA will beat SoS and take 2nd place. Totally possible.

Lol’d.

Ranger Emeritus.2905:

Saw a comment about how YB and HOD didn’t double up on FA during the previous tourney. I was there. They did. Vivid memories of being wiped out of OW by HOD and then leaving. Many times during many instances that happened. Pleasant memories of YB sieging up our garrison with trebs, acs and even golems, while they had lost everything on EB. Hours of fighting on the west side inner with all that being on the dome. We were more than waiting on YB after the tourney. We laid a 180k plus on them. HOD met the same faith. I would not say we wont double up YB. If SOS asks me for siege on YB BL, they will get it. I look forward to seeing YB again. Really look forward. Gotta love WvW.

Meh, what happened happened. Too long ago to care. I’m just tired of 1v1 FA vs TC/JQ/SoS. Mag is basically absent from the match-up. Don’t get me wrong, FA is fairing fine through all the focused blobs on us since FA is beastly stable and its vets rock solid. Plus, the zerg busting is real. But the fun of having 1v1v1 is missed. We’re getting too used to losing our entire BL and EB between 2-3:30 a.m. EST. I think the first time I see we still have Gari WP at least the morning after reset, I will go into shock.

tym.3791:

While Guilds do tend to help a server, IMHO, they are simply over rated and not much different that a group of “pugs” (I hate that term). I have seen one if the big guilds fight, and to be honest, Not impressed. They lack imagination, and will gladly take there ball and go home if the fight is not to there advantage.

It boils down to the commander, and its amazing the amount of people you can gather, if as a commander you have fun. Golem zergs are a hoot.

Friend, you really need to explore more of WvW. Guilds make WvW the strong, long-lasting community that it is. If they didn’t exist, WvW would have been dead 6 months after launch. And if you’re on FA (I think you are), you simply have not seen/participated in a proper guild group yet. Get on our highly active TS or forums and find a guild to join. It changes the experience 1 bajillion percent.

Introduce yourself and look for a guild. Go go go!

Well, you’ve usually at least heard of commanders that you play against in your tiers.

Keep in mind this is the semi-current list (last 2 months at latest) of celebrity commanders. Game-changing is too vague of a concept to be able to categorize commanders as such. People get what I mean when I say celebrity.

For FA, probably the most well-known outside of FA is Tyryon. Does quite a lot of pugmanding, as well as leading his guild group BOMB. He puts in tons of hours but also does well in open field. I’d say other than him, there’s truly no other celebrity commanders on FA. However, we have quite a few great commanders, since we have quite a few guilds and their drivers tend to pugmand here and there and/or run open rallies.

Mag had Nacho, Duke, and still has Xushin. Nacho for his excellence in pugmanding (guy knew how to lead a disparate crew), Duke for his crazy hours when Mag needed a consistent tag, and I don’t know much about Xushin.

SoS no clue. Sorry guize. Only peeps I knew there was HOPE and far as I know they didn’t pugmand on SoS, only on FA.

Ben K.6238:

YB’s going to stay in T2 for a while – the population influx and extra guilds they’ve inherited from Maguuma will even make it seem like business as usual.

Sure, their population is going to drop after the season, but so will everyone else’s. It’s not just the appearance of a few PvE’ers that makes a server capable of focussing DB down below NSP, it’s a full-on bandwagon.

Actually, FA’s population will go up. Most of our fairweathers have been absent from WvW until the T1 MEGABLOBS are over. Which is fine because our guild group pugs and veterans have been doing just fine (including zerg busting JQ hard from EU til PST, da kitten?). I think YB will be in T2 for about 3, maybe 4 weeks, and then they’ll drop.

UrMom.4205:

In a perfect work I would like to see t2 de-stack a tad to create a t2-4 spread. That would give us 9…FREAKING NINE servers that could all be interchanged. That would lead to different matchups almost every week.

Couple things on this. One, as Visirale.6097 stated, the populations of T3-4 are actually fairly similar to that of FA and SoS in almost all TZs, exceptions probably being FA EU and SoS OCX. Other than that, the populations of T3-4 are relatively similar to T2’s, so there really isn’t any “de-stacking necessary”. Two of SoS’ OCX guilds are planning on leaving to T1, so you might consider that destacking, but their OCX is 95% pugs these days anyways. The difference is the skill gap.

Now, I’m not being an elitist prick in saying this, it’s generally accepted that there’s a skill gap. That’s the issue. T2 pugs are generally more experienced/skilled than those below, and our guilds tend to be fight-oriented. But here’s the thing. The reason it’s there is indeed because of the gap in glicko. I’m all for some minor match variation, as long as there’s fights to be had. You may think that there’s fights to be had in T4-T5, but from what I hear it’s too much PPT and tower hugging and not enough open field or GvG opportunity.

So actually having too much match variation would be detrimental to a “fight”/ GvG tier, as it relies upon having consistent people to fight against. If you want to fight X guilds on X server and then you roll Z server who has some but not many, you’ll get bored. Yes, having the same matchup might get a bit stale sometimes. But in those epicly amazing fights? Definitely not stale. GvGs themselves are rarely stale, and I’ve only been in a handful myself.

In any case, I, and this thread in general, have digressed from the main points of the OP. It seems from the consensus of YB posters that they aren’t really going to welcome guilds that don’t work with the YB community to improve the PPT game. Fair enough. At this point, then, I would not recommend for guilds to transfer to YB for a shot at T2 fights and GvGing. For one, their stability in T2 is unbeknownst to us thus far. They may drop down in 2 weeks. Secondly, unless you want to focus on PPT, I don’t know that they will be your fit.

Instead, I’d recommend waiting a bit longer for another T3 server to rise to T2 to go there. Or go to CD to bring them up. As others have stated, I still believe that CD is the best candidate for T2. Their play style and mentality runs along the same lines as ours. I won’t speak for CD or attempt to guide their recruitment (oh wait, I already did ), but they seem to want a shot at T2 and I think they’d be a blast to have up here.

T2 is still going strong in terms of fights, but we’d love to have an active 3rd server in the mix that fights and plays around. I was dreaming that we’d have at least one non-Mag matchup during the season after ANet said no repeat matchups (LIES ANET LIES!), but nay, the RNG god of the season denies us. Looking forward to a fresh face, even if that face is metaphorically that of a porcupine made of ACs.

There’s that Warrior heal ability that absorbs damage as healing. I forget the name of it.

Xenesis.6389:

WvW hasn’t changed much, same stale matchups lasting for months, same class meta’s, people are getting bored and they’re either moving up tiers(T1 is their last hope) for a lot of new competition or quitting all together.

Guilds go to tier one to die. There’s a laundry list of them. Guilds that were established on T2/3 (usually T2) and decide to go to T1. Within a month, bam dead. HOPE is the most recent victim of this phenomenon, I believe. I’m also waiting for many of the other T2 guilds that moved to T1 prior to seasons to announce their last rallies soon. It always happens.

IMO, T2 is still the best tier for fights, despite the collapse of the GvG scene. T1 too blobby and toxic with the cross-server politics. And from what I hear, established, closed, and hierarchical organizations within the T1 servers that dictate the path/actions of their entire servers.

EDIT: I lol’d. I had to say tier one instead of T1 because ANet thought T1 was a curse and made it “kitten”.

The actual item description clearly states %dmg “against monsters”. The defense is universal though, and can be useful to get a little more sustain in larger WvW fights.

For some reason, people just aren’t getting the point of T2. If you come to T2, you have to not care about winning the PPT game. A couple YB posters get this point and don’t want to be a part of it. Fair enough. But the wonder about not having to worry about getting the most total points in the week is that you can actually enjoy best aspect of GW2: combat.

So all those posters saying that WvW is made to be played as a PPT-centric game mode? Sure, maybe. But in general, people play GW2 for the combat system. So you have to get the fights to maximize the experience. WvW is the best game mode for this, in my humble opinion. PvP can be fun for the fights, but it simply isn’t as dynamic as WvW. So people go to WvW for the fights. In fact, I’d be comfortable with saying that most WvW people play the game mode for the fights, not winning the week due to some flawed PPT system.

So here’s the point. In T2, you can focus on the fights, for once. You know how in T3+, you have people organizing those fight nights one or maybe two nights of the week?

Guess what?

In T2 we never have those because every night is a fight night. There’s plentiful roamers to find and fight. There’s guilds to fight in open field or GvG. There’s zergs to bust. And yes, there’s even a place for PPT-centric guilds. It’s an environment that is entirely accommodating for every game style, as long as each server accommodates every play style.

That’s why I’m unsure if YB will be a fit. I don’t think they have all those styles or are willing to sacrifice focus on PPT to give other styles breathing room. I could be wrong since YB has definitely changed from an outsider looking in, but the posters seem to point to the former.

In any case, come to T2 for the fights you want and crave. You’ll learn a lot and subsequently will have tons more fun when fighting. You’ll find that T2 guilds have a lot more sustain, while also having dynamic group composition and higher all-around damage. So fights are constantly interesting and constantly on the edge of defeat for either side. Even the groups/guilds that are learning are having a blast.

If you have any doubts, talk to a recent transfer to T2. I know [RAGE] from Kaineng just moved to FA and they’re already having tons of fun with all the fights they’ve had. Yes, it’s different and more challenging. But that’s the fun of it, especially if you win those fights.

tldr: Just come to T2 and try it. It’s not about losing/winning the PPT game. Ignore the fact that you’re losing the week. It’s about having tons of fun in fights.

tym.3791:

Just like last week, this week for us on FA Wvw is pointless and unplayable. We are against TC and We are simply getting spanked like its our birthday’s. Rumor has it next week we face a server that can take TC in WvW fights. So if thats true, That will be the third week playing WvW will be impossible. Man I gotta find a different server if I wanna play WvW anymore.

Eh, this week’s been fun against JQ actually, just not until they began to let up on the PPT yesterday and today. Yes, you have JQ SEA pugmander spawn camping out of pure kittenry, but there’s been good fights against IX, SG, and JQ pug blobs, among others that I’m leaving out. For example, today in EB we had an hour long fight, more or less, between green keep and SMC. Tons of fun and tons of bags. Really can’t complain.

On the topic of T2 in general, I honestly think CD would do very well in the tier. If you guys can queue 2 maps in NA, then you’ll contend well in NA time, and while you might struggle a little bit in EU and PST, and OCX may suck, I think that still it’ll be a fun and educational experience for you guys. The fights are phenomenal, and the zerg busting is real.

Seasons are the lowest point for T2 due to tangling with T1, but even then you get to bust some T1 megablobs with strong, coordinated guild groups. Nothing’s more fun than YOLOing into groups of 30+ with a guild group of 15+pugs and somehow walking away alive with full bags.

The main thing is moving away some from the PPT game, and partially setting it aside. Winning the week in PPT really isn’t the focus. You’ll defend and go for home BL and EB WPs, but beyond that the focus is on fun fights and sound strategy. The idea is to not worry about PPT being there’s really no way to rise past #4 into T1, and if T3/4 is fun then there’s little to worry about dropping down there. Take a shot at T2, if you hate it, you can tank out of it. But at least try it with an open mind and empty bags. I think it’ll surprise you.

ANet needs to discourage blobbing and encourage more fights. It’s the best part of WvW, and everyone knows that, except for some reason ANet. Siege disablers just make PVD the most viable solution, encouraging blobbing and allowing people to just sit and chuck these things down instead of fighting.

They need something to encourage fighting and discourage large defensive zergs sitting on walls, avoiding fights. A thought I had that’s entirely not well thought-out or fully fleshed includes implementing siege towers. This is something very similar to golems, except they can only be built within a close proximity to walls and only one may be built per objective, at only 2-3 specific locations at each objective. They’d have similar health to golems and cost 200-250 supply to build, but move slower than golems. They’d also take 200-300% damage while being built, so that you really have to speed build it. You can’t just run from a camp and back over a few minutes. It takes 5 people to man it in order to move/push it forward, and these people are still susceptible to damage while they do so .

Once put into place after 15-20 seconds of “pushing it”, 5 people can use it to get on top of the wall from where they are. There’s a 30 (or maybe 45) second internal timer for the siege tower, so that no more than 5 people can get into an objective every 30 (or 45) seconds. Also upon entry, they receive the Revealed condi which cannot be condi cleansed with a 30/45 second duration. Mesmers similarly are given a 30/45 second cooldown on their portal automatically, so that these siege towers can’t be abused as a tactic for mesmers to get in to port.

Essentially, it’s a way to promote the importance of small, coordinated 5-man groups who could potentially make the difference in a siege. If there’s a zerg of 20-30 defending the objective, those five would likely get demolished quickly, and the siege tower perhaps destroyed before it unloads more than the first five. Also, the limitation of only being able to build them in 2-3 specific locations means that it can be somewhat predictable. Good defense would put a balli or AC or treb to destroy it should it be built there.

Still, it provides some strategic worth to a small man group. Plus, with the 200 supply cost, you really can’t ninja with one. Maybe even up this to 250/300 supply to make it necessary to use larger groups to build these during sustained sieges. In any case, it’s mostly just a random thought and an attempt at reducing the tendency for people to sit on walls, avoiding fighting despite having strong numbers.

You’ll probably say that it favors larger population servers too much. Yes it does. But it’s not up to siege to balance population imbalances. ANet has to deal with that structurally.

Anyways, food for thought. Begin ze flaming.

tldr: Just another attempt to reduce boring siege-offs.

Ohbe.9761:

What’s the point of this thread exactly? If Anet follows through with their post about match ups being different all 4 weeks of season 3 for Silver/Bronze league. You’re no longer playing with the best of the best after each week. You’re playing against everyone in the league. If they followed through with Season 2’s format sure, but now it seems just like a group stage.

Indeed. A Gold League ranking would be the only relevant prediction, due to the lack of sufficient servers to not play the same servers twice.

rashkin.9530:

If you actually believe what people say there then you are as stupid as the idiots who pretend to be important and make kitten up for the “lolz”. Most of it is Mag crying about everything because that’s what they do and randoms pretending to be SoS dribbling off whatever people want to hear.

I believe screenshots.

rashkin.9530:

Before Mag’s collapse, all FA would do run completely avoid any sort on confrontation with Mag/Nacho and constantly try for easy caps and back cap all the Nachos hard work at the first possible time. Nacho got kitteny and started to hammer FA keeps and it just flowed into prime time from there. There would be good fights there because you had to call in all the guilds and players you could because you couldn’t handle the heat Nacho brought.

Yeah, this is just false. The usual stereotype that FA is a backcapper. I brought up the facts one week and most of those claims disappeared, but occasionally they pop up somewhere in ignorance.

Nacho’s very good at pugmanding, and his celebrity tag meant he had no less than 25-30 on it during NA. Guild groups tended to fight him, but I don’t think any FA guild groups run with more than 15-20 at any given point, with a handful of pugs following if there’s a tag up. And yes, he provided good fights. Couldn’t handle the heat though? When we had equal numbers, we tended to fight him, win or lose. I don’t speak for FA as a whole, but the guild I’m in did engage him often when we crossed paths.

rashkin.9530:

All afternoon while SoS Americans were at work there would be FA blobs running around hitting doors like a bunch of kids in a candy shop. As soon as guilds logged in and rallied up to wipe them once or twice they vanished. I’m sure it was just getting too late for them and they couldn’t stay up for any longer.

We have one EU TZ guild (TK) that has a couple celebrity pugmanders. They take breaks in late EU for those who want to play in NA too. They do tend to wipe most groups that face them, far as I know. I don’t play that TZ though. Also, what SoS NA guilds? They became rare commodities in the past month.

rashkin.9530:

Besides it being a few hours of bad ppt for 3 map queues (which were about 10 each and not the 50 you seem to be trying to make it out as) the 1st night of reset isn’t normal. Reset night isn’t a ppt night and all this “inefficient blobbing” is just the first night of reset pugs because it is purely all about going out of a Friday night and having a bit of fun. The difference is FA does it on normal raid night and they are probably better at it because they use their guilds to do it.

I never said that you guys had 50 man queues. The fact that you had 2-3 full maps though, with 8-10 sitting in queue, meant you had a hell of a lot more available than FA did. And we were still wiping your blobs often. Besides, SoS is primarily a PPT server. Claiming anything else is simply false. Sure, you had some fight-oriented GvG guilds that raided sometimes. But they became rarer and rarer in the past months. Our guilds are bored during NA, so we poke your T3 objectives to bring out your blobs.

rashkin.9530:

Oh, and it wasn’t all that long ago that FA had 4 map queues on reset. It seems FA has done more “imploding” recently then SoS has. Keep crowing about all these guilds are leaving SoS, but all it comes down to is that no-one wanted to stay in a broken tier with a rotting corpse on one side and a massive disappointment on the other. Make up your minds if you want balance, don’t go acting like a bunch of bitter juveniles when a few guilds transfer off.

We had 3 queues on the first week into T2 (with 4 on reset) but only during NA on the weekend. The second week, we had two queues on reset and NA primetime Saturday night. After that, only one queue on reset. So yes, it’s been a while now.

And FA hasn’t imploded in the least. We’re just experiencing the same drain as every other server out of T1 due to the staleness of the game mode. Our NA is strong, yes, but mostly due to strong organization and a close community.

Both of which SoS lack, so it seems. Pug blobs and tensions between TZs, leading to drama and guilds leaving server. That tension and in-fighting is what caused a good few SoS guilds to leave. That and your PST tryharding too much and causing SoS’ OCX/SEA guilds to be bored out of server.

SoS guilds are abandoning ship, Mag is already two miles below. FA seems to be the only stable server in T2.

tldr: Same old stereotypes and claims are boring, SoS is the cause of its own problems. Looks to blame external agents, when all of its issues are internal.

rashkin.9530:

None of the guilds on SoS, even the ppt guilds, take resets remotely seriously. Whereas you see multiple map queues of FA humping tower and keeps all night all weekend. It has nothing to do with skill or balance.

I’ve seen screenshots on the PvF forums and elsewhere (none of my own) of SoS having 2-3 queues on reset for the first hour at least on reset. FA hasn’t had more than one queue at any point in the week for over a month. Usually just FABL when there’s a call-out, or when the fights are all concentrated there.

Before Mag’s collapse, the SoS and Mag fight guilds would consistently go to FABL because they knew there’d be good fights there, so FABL tended to get a queue then too.

Now though? One queue at the very peak of NA for a few minutes in FABL, usually leading to Outnumbered in EB.

SoS is just inefficient due to blobbing with their numbers in NA, I assume due to lack of pugmanders and concentrations of pugs on those few tags displayed, as I stated previously.

Liston.9708:

It is odd that there was no official statement on when it is locked. I would assume at the end of this week, but maybe locking leagues on reset night based on results from that day is too hard?

It happens every week on the weekly reset, so I assume not. It’s probably more that they haven’t been reading the forums very closely or they want to stay quiet to not influence the final rankings.

Banzie.5248:

They stopped pushing after hearing ratings were already locked.

Still no official confirmation of this. Don’t believe yea or nay til a dev speaks on the topic.

caljay.8720:

SoS’s NA is horrible at PPT, had 3 queued maps this reset, struggled to get above 130.

Need to de-blob a bit in EB and spread some numbers to other BLs. Maybe you have a shortage of NA pugmanders, but a single blob in EB is reallyyy inefficient at controlling the map.

caljay.8720:

Basch.1347:

Truly, their server and PPT is led by PST tryhards who paper most things against scant resistance in the wee hours, and their OCX logs on to everything papered and logs right back off again.

FTFY

Lol’d

caljay.8720:

Basch.1347:

tldr: SoS offhours have held up the server, and have had it pretty easy. Their true test is coming.

100% agree, SoS’s off hour brought SoS back to t2 and has kept it here, let the NA have there GvG’s and fights, but when SoS’s off hour (OCX, SEA and EU) wanted to try push for t1, the objection by members and leaders of NA guilds (some of which have xferred to t1 since) meant we had no hope

It was a shame to see such a divide, as I think that FA would have preferred to have TC back down in T2. If there’d been consensus on your T1 push, then at least you’d have stood a chance to switch spots and prove your PPT-worth in T1.

TC/FA/Mag would have been a much more balanced match, as our peak times are the same. Granted, TC is much larger than both Mag and FA, but their recent low point was before they started receiving significant transfers from T2 and beyond.

Having different peak times is just a recipe for disaster and timed implosion. It’s a race to see whose peak is affected first.

Frosch.7809:

Basch.1347:

Truly, the only ones that would moan and complain would be YB, mostly due to the agreed upon focus by FA/SoS if YB does rise to T2.

Once more you attack people on an entire server because of your personal dislike. A server you aren’t on, so you know nothing about the community there.

Stop your personal attacks.

Friend, I’m just quoting the many YB from the PvF forums who said they have no desire whatsoever to go to Gold. And citing the fact that many within FA and SoS have stated that YB’s bunker play style is not welcome in T2, myself included. Less personal attack and more friendly warning. Far as I can tell, many YB are happy to stay in T3. Honestly, it’s where you guys belong, with your population level.

Straegen.2938:

-snip-

That would have been the case a month or two ago, but T2 now is a different beast. Sure, there are still more than a few good pugs/skill groups on SoS/FA, and among the few Mag left, but times they are a-changin’. Many skill groups left SoS in their EU/NA, as well as a few from their off-hours. And their off-hours tends to consist of pug groups who usually only ktrain. They’re rusty and haven’t had a fight in a while. Lots of pug baddies in SoS PST, so I’ve been told.

Besides, more than a few players/skill groups from T3/4 have had a rotation in T2 before, at this point in the game. They get it.

I like this change. Sure, the long, drawn-out fights were occasionally fun, but it was a broken mechanism. Any way to make taking T3 objectives easier is welcomed. Force that smaller group defending against an invading force to actually fight that invading group with some coordination and skill. No more waiting for the friendly blob to show up. You can still contest, too.

Yes, it’ll allow enemy blobs to take objectives quickly, but small skill groups can churn through those blobs. And if you haven’t spotted those large blobs coming, then you need better scouts.

Also, keep in mind that power rezzing a dead Lord is still an option for you stealthy thieves or tanky Wars/Guards.

Actinotus.6410:

Last I looked we had the highest score of any server in NA, were ticking +390 in NA time after reaching about +650 last night in OCX time.

I lol’d. If you just pay attention to reset, you see the actual balance of the tier:

SoS ticks about 120-180 usually, since Mag tends to have 30-40 on a single tag in MagBL every reset, FA tends to control at least half of Mag’s third in EB and usually much of SoSBL, and SoS sometimes caps SMC to push themselves above 150 PPT.

Bit by bit, SoS creeps toward the base ~225 tick until around 3 a.m. EST, when FA guilds start to log and the SoS late PST groups start omega rushing or trebbing every hostile T2+ objective. By 4 a.m., most objectives except the T3 keeps have been flipped by two 25-30+ SoS groups, and by 5 a.m. the SoS OCX swarms have arrived.

I’ve stayed up a few times to 6-7 a.m. EST on a long night, and the OCX PvD is stronk. By that time, they tend to be trying to take FA/Mag Gari (after capping all of EB and the rest of the BLs) with 40-50+ pug blobs, using poor siege tactics but usually getting in due to mass PvD.

On reset, they can sometimes be held off until SEA comes on. Sometimes FA SEA holds them off, sometimes not. By Sunday night though, our numbers have dwindled and theirs have lost equal numbers, but that still leaves them with 30+ every night/morning.

Truly, their server and PPT is led by PST tryhards who paper most things against scant resistance in the wee hours, and their OCX logs on to everything papered and an easy ktrain.

With a 3rd server in the mix, they can’t do nearly as much damage, as they’re able to focus down one server with only 2 servers active in the match-up. Truly, S3 will be a rude awakening for SoS.

Their EU/NA already struggles against FA, and their late PST/OCX/SEA have their first rough time in a long time. They won’t have their fairweather ktrain pugs to lean upon either, and they’ll be rusty from having no fights for months after Mag’s implosion and FA’s OCX demoralization via daily blobbing.

tldr: SoS offhours have held up the server, and have had it pretty easy. Their true test is coming.

mango.9267:

As of now, I don’t think any of the T3 servers (including CD) want to go to Gold. At least from CD’s posts on the forums, it seems they’ve also decided to take it easy this week.

If Anet manually intervenes, one of the T3 servers will field a lot of angry complaints.

CD and DR won’t complain if they get bumped up. Honestly, I think DR would celebrate. CD would say, “Welp, let’s do this then” and just go for it. DB might cry foul, but they’d settle back into T2. Truly, the only ones that would moan and complain would be YB, mostly due to the agreed upon focus by FA/SoS if YB does rise to T2.

It’s a toss-up between CD/DR of who will get 1st. YB tends to play for 2nd and rides on the 1st place server, and they seem to have particular distaste for DR, so methinks DR will get focused to 3rd or 4th. DB will probably get 3rd in the T3 matchups, so I’ll put them interchangeably between 3rd or 4th, depending on DR. So:

1st: CD/DR
2nd: YB
3rd: DB/DR
4th: DB/DR
5th: SBI

The rest I don’t have a clue, I don’t follow them.

An official response would be highly appreciated.

Are the leagues for S3 locked as of this week. Is Mag staying in Gold no matter their drop in rating? Or are the tiers open until reset this coming Friday?

Just a tip. Don’t let gold league become a fail league with only 5 participants. Mag players won’t play unless they stand a chance to do anything. The new match-up if they drop to T3 will breathe new life into both Mag and T2. I fail to see the point of leaving Mag in T2 without at least a manual override of the match-up.

It takes but a minute of your time to respond to this question. A simple yes or no would suffice as well.

FA moved from T3 with only a 45-point differential between DB and ourselves, if I remember correctly. I expect it’s pretty much a flip of the coin if Mag drops or not. Pretty good chance that whoever has the highest glicko in T3 by the end of the week (looks to be CD) will go T2.

Cheers to CD for having the gumption to play for T2. It’s a good thing to challenge yourself to do better.

Being the new face in town also means that CD will probably get more than a few transfers from T1 post-S3 if CD can hold their own decently. If they have a good reputation after 4 weeks of T2, whether or not they win by any close margin or not, then they can expect to get at least a few guilds from T1 weary of the T1 blobs/politics. It should be a fun, challenging, and certainly educational experience for them.

Tip of my hat to you, good sirs and madams.

Please yes, so I can lock my squad into jumping off cliffs with me.

But honestly, letting one person control dozens of others is just asking for trolling. Also, reducing player activity and involvement always is a bad idea. Also allows for more complex, free-form movement.

Do the matches lock prior to tournament? I don’t remember seeing mention of that. If not, the seeding/ranking shifts right up to the start of S3, so Mag has another week to lose glicko still. Seeing that Mag will lose ~35 rating this week, they’ll probably lose around ~25-30 next week, settling them at 1690-95. Very strong chance to switch out, as there’s 3 servers within a 30 point range.

Make karma/xp from capping objectives tied to how many are present when the cap occurs, so that you get less for capping it as an omniblob. You’ll soon hear the death knell of WvW farming if you do this.

But actually, there should be a king-of-the-hill style WvW map, minus giant SMC blocking the works. To discourage zerg-style play, put four equidistant control points with the same size Lord’s room ring as SMC on the top of four hills (with a slight incline up to each, probably 25-30 degrees) right in the middle of the map. Spread them out to about the distance from SMC’s Lord room to the inner doors. Capping all four will give a one-time flat boost to PPT (say, 200 points), followed by the same-old points per turn value equivalent to SMC (not sure what it is off the top of my head).

Open the map, and watch the massive, ongoing melee.

It’s basically using the base structure the PvP arenas and implementing them on a WvW-scale. Except the points are closer together for more interplay. And 3 way fights to add some dynamism.

It won’t be zerg on zerg, since there’s not just a singular point, but close enough that there’s some interaction between each. You’ll get a good number of 15 on 15 or so, with plenty of edge fighting for roamers or gank squads. Obviously, this is for EB style fighting three-way fights, not 1 on 1 GvG or duels, but it’d improve fights and reduce siege bunkering.

I’m just spit-balling, but it sounds like fun to me. Probably tons of holes/issues too. Still, wouldn’t it be fun? Also zero chance for ANet to implement it, as it might actually be a significant change.

Frost.6748:

Maguuma has a higher rating but is tanking like a pro and will certainly drop if they repeat their performance next week. Last I heard, most of Maguuma is moving to YB for the tourny on the 11th hour.

At this point it looks like CD will be the new biotch in T2, but it’s impossible to tell until next week is over. If you think the tanking is bad this week, wait until next week when #7-#9 all completely STOP playing out of fear of going up to T2.

Far as I know from an within-T2-yet-outside-Mag perspective, most of Mag left game to AA. The rest either moved to TC or stayed on Mag. Heard something about some Ark on YB, but no clue what’s going on there.

Thing is, you’ll see quite a few more Mag than we’ve been seeing currently in T2. It seems like they’ve accepted their drop from T2, but the promise of new matchups in T3 will bring a good number out of their AA holes and back into WvW, at least for reset and weekend play. This past reset, they still had 60+ Mag playing WvW at least, with 30-40 of those on Nacho’s tag in MagBL.

Don’t discount them entirely because of their incredi-bad tick. Depending on who gets bumped up to T2, Mag will probably stick around 3.5-4.5. Probably T4 for a bit then back up to T3.

My bet’s on CD moving up. A good number seem to look forward to the challenge (which I applaud). It won’t be that bad from FA’s side, we don’t tend to ktrain and WP enemy BL keeps when it’s the underdog. Can’t say the same for SoS though. Should be fun fights.

All in all, whoever moves up, we’re looking forward to having a living third server in the match-up. Sole exception is YB, since many are hostile to their play style. Honestly, I completely understand their tanking. The SoS late PST/OCX/SEA ktrain special means EU/NA logging in to see paper everything every day. Probably YB’s horror story.

Bump for FA’s OCX

FA is the best of the best of chair flippers. Join us.

Bump for ze good times.

Ahem. To ANet:

Considering that WvW quite possibly represents the tightest-knit guild communities in GW2, you should be rushing to amend the current stale situation that’s causing dozens of guilds and players to disband every month. WvW is bleeding players and you do little but a few cosmetic changes.

If you release some extra content with the seasons that truly creates significant changes, I’ll eat my words. Until then, get your kitten together ANet.

If WvW becomes a ghost town, you’ll be catering to the vain, mindless, unorganized masses of PvE, i.e. casuals. Except for a few hundred hardcore PvPers (between NA/EU), the bulk of your most active players are found in WvW.

Don’t let the prophecies of ded gaem come true. You’re only aloft with activity due to the failures of other MMOs (ESO, Wildstar, soon-to-be ArcheAge) rather than the successes of GW2.

I personally think it’s hilarious that they made a map (EotM) for players to avoid queues, when queues no longer exist in WvW except for a few hours a week for select servers.

Liston.9708:

Top spot of t3 is like t2 1/2 so you will outnumber whoever the other 2 are….. At least you are closer in pop than the new hod – FA.

I lol’d at this. FA is back to the same population levels as it was pre-S2, nothing new about it. New HoD? Really? 2 HoD guilds transfer to FA and all of a sudden we’re the new HoD? Yes, we’re getting guild transfers by the load because FA is a strong, organized community with a fun playing environment. Part of that is the ability to raise gold donations to help guilds that want to come here to complete the transfer. Meanwhile, HoD got transfers because it was free. An apt comparison, for sure.

Been in APS for months now, though the guild has been around for over a year, and kitten am I glad to have made the move. It’s an organized guild that runs nightly raids with at least 20 core members on weekends and 15 on weekdays. While T3 has yielded few fights in the past few weeks, we still rally and do impromptu scrims or wreck face in EotM if WvW isn’t yielding fights.

As for the GvG scene, we’ve begun as of a month ago, and we’re rapidly becoming a strong GvG group that has made every guild we face put forth their best to try to beat us. We still have room to improve, but we know that our impending rise to T2 and the GvG guilds present there will challenge us to improve and compete. Not only that, the members of APS are just downright fun to be around. I always enjoy my nights when I run with them on TS.

If you’re interested in coming but you’re on the fence, whisper Silo (above) or myself (Basch.1347) and jump in TS one night to chat and listen to our fights. There’s never a dull night. Come join the fun.

It’s not yet time for this. Even in the lowest rungs in T8, WvW isn’t completely depleted. One might be able to make the argument that bronze tier be merged into silver, but even that would be a poor idea. I’d say at the most, eliminate 6 servers from bronze so that each tier will have 6 servers each. It’s a bit cruel to eliminate communities that have been around for 2 years now and force them to migrate elsewhere, but it might (maybe) improve competitiveness.

At this point though, ANet just lets people transfer to other servers to fix this solution. That way, casual WvWers can chill in their T6+ communities and more regular WvWers can go T1-3. They seem content with this, as it’s closest to status quo and still gives them gem store revenues for transfers. In the long term, though, I think they may have to encourage movement from a few bottom servers to eliminate the 9 server per tier style WvW. It would certainly make more evenly-ranked servers. Imagine the populations of, say, FC, EB, SoR, KN, AR, and ET (I just grabbed the lowest six ranked servers from predicted ratings for next week as an example) all interspersed into other tiered servers. It’d even out T1-4, and T5-6 would become the more casual servers.

Here’s the caveat, however. Deleting these servers would undoubtedly cause many players to leave the game, as ANet will have single-handedly destroyed 2 years worth of community in one fell swoop. So which one is worse: giving people the option to transfer and letting the bottom servers depopulate slowly? or deleting those servers and having groups of people RQ from sheer frustration? To be honest, I think the former, as much as I dislike giving any credence to maintaining status quo (as it’s rarely the answer).

Something does need to be done to improve the populations and competitiveness of WvW, and the answer lies somewhere in improving the intermingling of WvW and PvE, but the answer is not seasons and it is not removing servers. I don’t claim to have any answers, either, but I know that much.

ventusthunder.5067:

FA has [WS], and that’s about it. Otherwise pretty blobby. Big props to Kruegs’ guys for small-manning it and risking getting zerged, just as we do.

Eh, FA has quite a few 20+ guild groups, but we have quite a few roamers as well. WS is the most vocal and noticeable, but BOSS and WB roam well too. GWAM in OCX/SEA roams too, but lately they’ve been tagging up and leading in their timezone. oT and LAG roam too, when they’re not rallying. Thing is, FA roamers don’t get zerged too often during NA prime time, since our guild groups are taking care of the zergs, giving roamers much more free reign. Without a friendly zerg, a roaming group will naturally be targeted by the enemy zerg.

For the full list of contacts and relevant information, check out http://www.fort-aspenwood.com/index.php?/topic/4100-about-fort-aspenwood/ . One of our many server leaders can arrange to chat and answer any questions you might have.

Wondering what caused the recent lag spike & D/C that happened 10 minutes ago. Lost 70% of my zerg following me on a crucial push and I’m wondering if it was a DDoS or something or if it was just ANet kittenting the bed again. As if ANet isn’t pushing enough people away from the game, kitten like this still happens?

FA is a great community that’s very welcoming to new players and old. Despite losing a few of our guilds before seasons, we still have a strong core of active, competitive guilds, all of whom know each other and coordinate amongst themselves. Even when said guilds rally, they tend to rally in an open fashion, welcoming non-guild militia to join in and have a good time laughing it up on TeamSpeak. Our TS itself is a monument to the FA community, with T2-level total numbers of users and activity. Within this community, you’re guaranteed to find a home that is encouraging and welcoming. We look forward to hearing back from anyone interested in joining, guilds or individuals. Who knows, you may even qualify to have your transfer subsidized!

Any questions? PM any posters above or myself, Basch.1347

Basch Von Zähringen – APS

bob.8632:

Oh I absolutely agree….The problem is, the only thing worse is the player base that continues to “know what they are getting into” and still be surprised when it “is what it is”.

-You know/knew what WvW (an imbalanced mess, in regards to ppt as it related to coverage issues)
-You knew the season was going to be 9 weeks long.
-You knew the new matchup system would produce less variation in week-to-week matchups….

Now I am no ANET apologist by any stretch, but c’mon people, use your brain…

Problem here is that people aren’t simply going to stop playing WvW for 9 weeks. That’s quite a long vacation. If the tournament was a week or two long, then sure. The fact that ANet used it as a filler made the season moot from the start. They made a stew of achievements, free transfers, and prolonged, unchanging matchups and expected something good out of it? Well, they made money, so I guess it was all okay.

They should have called it a “tournament” not a “season” and made it 2 weeks long.

- Make every league elimination and reward every server the same, with some tiny extra boon for the winner. Gold NA would be locked T1 and T2 and decided in the first week, with a winner in each tier.

- Give winning players rewards based upon server association prior to the tournament, not during it, and no free transfers in a hazardous attempt to shake things up.

- Making the tournament 1-2 weeks long will prevent mass exodus of players to higher tiers due to the short duration. FA wouldn’t have lost a large portion of guilds if this had been the case. 9 weeks too long.

Yes, winners are probably already decided before it even begins, but there’s still a chance for a server to pull off a coup to take the win. You still get the same shenanigans as usual in WvW, but no added shenanigans from an failing swiss-style point system. You’re creating a phenomenon within a failed system (WvW), so don’t expect the phenomenon to be better than the system.

oregonice.6324:

Old list from FA:ACE/APS/BKB/BURN/CL/FEAR/FTF/GLOB/PRO/PVP/RAM/ET/RET/uA /DPS /GODS /OBEY /oT /Rekz

We lost GLOB, RET, GODS, RAM, HOPE and Im not sure if FEAR and Rekz left too, or if they just don’t raid much anymore. Also, ATK can be pulled off and changed to [LAG]! Ty

It’s really only ACE/APS/BKB/BURN/CL/FTF/PRO/PVP/DPS/OBEY/oT/Rekz, though BKB, BURN, FTF, PVP and OBEY don’t really rally larger than havocs. Also, +1 for LAG.

Astaroth.5146:

remove aoe cap

Can’t do this without causing the servers massive pain & lag.

No need to increase damage at all. Just reduce it. Put reducing gains upon a group that’s larger than, say, 30. Any damage done within some radius (800?) if there’s above the number of friendly characters (30), then they do x amount less damage. For every 5 people above 30 (or whatever number is chosen), you do less damage. Maybe 2% per 5 above 30. I don’t know, I’m just conjecturing. That way, it’s about 10% less damage once you reach 55. I don’t think the losses would discourage zerging though, since you’re still doing 200% more damage if you go from 30 to 60 players. Even if it’s 190%, still enough to matter. 150% though, with 10% less for every 5 above 30? Maybe then.

Kobi Beef.3895:

HoD isn’t tanking anything this week, they are getting double teamed.

More like YB and FA had a mutual enemy that both were focusing. There was no coordination or agreement at all, until possibly 6 a.m. server this morning when a very loose truce was arranged between a few commanders on each side that lasted a few hours at most, until both sides got bored and started fighting each other.

A 50/50 split of points for PPT from structures and from kills would be a good start, just to see what the result might be. It could probably be tipped to 40/60, but any more and the structures might be spurned completely in favor of fights. Perhaps to some, including myself, that prospect is exciting, but others like the tactics of castle/tower defense and fights. ANET just needs to experiment for a month here, a month there, to see what fits best. The current system just isn’t satisfying enough people.

+1 to this thread too. Since reset, CD and BP have been bringing the fights every day. Most of their guild groups are ready and willing to jump into fights regardless of the outcome and regardless of their chances. Love to see that kind of YOLO. [MM] on BP especially has been quite fun to fight and kept coming back last night even when we outnumbered them 2 to 1 (they were only 10-15). Keep it up. Glad to have had some healthy competition at some point during the seasons.