Guild Wars 2

DevonCarver.5370:

Sticking to the lines of transfers, what are reasonable restrictions to place on players after they transfer? No WvW for the rest of the match? No WvW for 24 hours? Would that help any or would it actually exacerbate the problem?

The main thing that people have asked for is a prohibition on using supplies or dropping siege for a week and possibly using siege weapons, specifically golems, since this seems to be a major form of griefing plaguing some servers. It should be applied to new players, too. It won’t stop spying but it will limit a spies ability to actively undermine a server through supply waste and siege destruction, and if it’s applied to new accounts, it will limit the damage people can do during free trials and such.

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

One thing to look at, other than the cost, is allowing the transfer if guild influence down, especially to a server on the bottom, but not up. That might help encourage guilds to move down in the rankings.

Sirendor.1394:

You forgot 5) Delete servers and make it “Alliances”, cross-server, with overflows, or a sufficient number of maps (that might mean one complete open world server with capture-able pve environments).

I said that I was enumerating the “non-radical solutions” to the problem, meaning those that could be implemented without major structural changes to the game. While this option is interesting, I think it’s fairly radical and would require a lot of effort to implement. I think we are more likely to see ANet implement a non-radical solution than a radical one.

DevonCarver.5370:

Firstly, several posts have called for reduced map caps in WvW. The problem that would create is that we’d be allowing even fewer people to play in a given period of time if we were to do that. So I wonder if there is another way to accomplish the same goal, while not disenfranchising people who would now be unable to get into the maps?

I think there have been 4 non-radical solutions offered to revolve the population balance.

1) Physically balance the populations through transfers, either forced or with strong incentives.

I think this is unlikely to work because the WvW population and coverage depends on so many things (e.g., college players may take time off during finals but then play much more over the summer, players may take time out of WvW to do PvE Living Story achievements, etc.) that I think this is unlikely to work. Further, as I stated earlier in the thread, I like the range of play that different populations offer and actually like the small town feel of the lower population servers. Flooding them with transfers, forced or chasing an incentive, could easily destroy the communities on smaller servers.

2) Capping how many players can enter a map.

The problem with this is that it means people don’t get to play or get stuck in queues. That’s not particularly fair to the higher population server.

3) Buffing the disadvantaged side or nerfing the advantaged side.

While this may balance zerg vs. zerg, it will greatly imbalance 1 on 1 and small group encounters. Players looking for fair battles won’t find them unless populations are matched and the effectiveness of characters could vary wildly from day to day or even our to hour.

4) Adding or buffing NPCs.

The main problem here is that people in WvW want PvP, not PvE. But given that heavily imbalanced match-ups already include a substantial amount of PvE in the form of PvDoor and in other cases involve rolling over the weaker opponent with minimal resistance, I’m not sure that’s a valid objection to this solution. Of all of the solutions, I think this is the most viable, since it doesn’t depend on counting on player participation or changing actual server populations, it doesn’t prevent people from playing, and it doesn’t stop 1v1 and small group engagements from being between opponents with roughly equal abilities. The game also already has the mechanics to dynamically balance encounters, spawn NPCs, and upscale the NPCs to be tougher during combat because it does that in PvE.

The way to make this work is that the goal of the added or buffed NPCs is to (A) more fiercely defend sites that the less populated server lacks the manpower to defend, so that what’s already a PvDoor experience is more difficult and challenging and the lower population server has more time to bring actually players into the battle, and (B) to fight alongside the players to improve their chances in open field combat, much in the way pets augment a ranger’s combat abilities.

I have personally seen how (B) can work several times when I’ve been able to solo larger groups by staying among NPCs and having them fight with me. The NPCs, alone, are no match for players but with a player among them, they can be a real nuisance and make a big difference. The NPCs can deliver additional damage, draw fire, and help hold objectives and they can be easily spawned, de-spawned, buffed, and nerfed without having to adjust the effectiveness of the player characters. Right now, a camp provides enough NPCs to fight off an additional attacker or two but more NPCs and tougher NPCs could help negate an even larger imbalance while giving the attacking server more targets to fight and and a more challenging combat than rolling over a heavily outnumbered defender. No, its not ideal to be attacking NPCs and people could get that experience in the PvE part of the game, but given the alternatives, rolling over an opponent that’s too outnumbered to fight back is an even less challenging experience.

As for how to stop any of the solutions from being abused:

1) Only make them available to a server that’s losing, so the advantage can’t be used to win in points.

2) Base the comparison population on the larger of either the current map population or the rolling average for the last half-hour or hour. If the population drops suddenly, it will take a half-hour or more for the advantages to kick in but if the population suddenly increases, that will be taken into account immediately.

bradderzh.2378:

Ranger is inherently at a disadvantage due to the class dependency on it’s pets. Pets are not strong enough or smart enough in most wvw situations and as soon as it dies the ranger can lose a lot of functionality from traits.

I actually find the pet quite useful when soloing a camp, especially if it’s upgrade or has NPC mercenaries in it, too. Send the pet in to attack first and draw the enemy into a nice ball and then AoE them with Barrage, Piercing Arrows, and the Mistfire Wolf. But against other players, you need serious pet management to keep them from dying quickly.

ricekrispys.5304:

Camp PPT: 5 (upgrades at camps do not add PPT)
Tower PPT:5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 1 )]
Keep PPT:+5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 2 )]
Stonemist: +5 + [(# of completed upgrades) x (Multiplier 3 )]

My variation on this theme is:

Resource Camps: 1 point base + 1 point per upgrade (max 5 points)
Towers: 3 points base + 1 points per upgrade (max 15 points)
Keeps: 6 points base + 2 points per upgrade (max 30 points)
Stonemist Castle: 9 points base + 3 points per upgrade (max 45 points)

It would help encourage upgrades and defense and make flipped towers worth less, but I’m not sure it would help with the problems caused by a population or coverage imbalance.

DevonCarver.5370:

The way that we try and find answers to the types of problems raised in this thread are by trying to get to the heart of the issue. Saying things like “populations aren’t balanced” doesn’t lead to any productive solutions because they all involve things like drastically redistributing the populations of the game. Finding the core reasons for that like “score momentum is overpowering” allow us to attack the actual problem. What I hope to get out of this is a sense of why people think that the population causes the scoring issues, because that is something we can find a solution to.

I think there are actually two problems created by the server population imbalance. One of them is points and the inevitability of the bigger server and/or server with better coverage winning by points. The second, which I think is even more important than the first, isn’t about the points but the ability to achieve objectives while playing and not simply provide loot bags for their opponents.

You’ve been widely quoted for saying, “WvW is not intended to be ‘fair’,” and I think you are correct that it never will be perfectly fair, and one could easily argue that the server that can win battles should win in points. But at a bare minimum, the game needs to be fun and being spawn camped, roflstomped, and being powerless to stop your entire borderland from being taken at the whim of a much larger server simply is not fun for most people, to the point where people give up on WvW and the population problem gets even worse.

As I said in an earlier reply, I like the dynamics of my low-WvW participation Bronze League server, so I don’t want to see my server as stacked as a T1 server, even if the queue and lag issues were resolved. There is something to be said for “small town” WvW play instead of “big city” WvW play. And maybe the smaller servers will never be a match for the big servers with 7X24 full coversage, and I’m fine with that, so long as the match-up system doesn’t actually put my smaller server up against a significantly larger server, and that’s what a lot of people seem to be asking for on the forums here. Many acknowledge that the former tier system was too rigid, leading to the same match-up week after week, but the current system goes too far in the other direction, putting, for example, then-21st Ranked Eredon Terrace against 10th Ranked Yak’s Bend.

The current leagues have helped to some degree, in my opinion, by putting servers that are far apart in the rankings out of each other’s reach (Eredon Terrace can’t face Yak’s Bend in league play), but have done so imperfectly because the league boundaries were not drawn with competitiveness in mind and there are servers that would have fit poorly regardless of whether they were pushed above or below the cut-off line they were near. So a bare minimum, the goal should be to prevent blow-out match-ups by making sure servers aren’t matched against servers that will blow them out.

The other solution is to use handicapping to make a weaker server competitive against a stronger server or modify the game rules in such a way that numbers matter less. I recommend taking a look at the various forms that handicapping takes in different sports, board games, and computer games because the solutions used elsewhere might give you ideas of how to do this in GW2.

As annoying as it is for the defender, I believe that’s the purpose of the design of those water gates, to allow exactly that sort of thing to happen. It’s a feature, not a bug. There are at least 3 underwater skills that knock an opponent back. I recommend using one of the to push the Mesmer away from the gate before they go down.

I’ve had people respect waves and wave back and people who didn’t. I’ve had people not attack me when I didn’t attack them and people who attacked me anyway. If they attack, I fight back. I also did one of the jumping puzzles in my city clothes, which is another way to indicate you don’t want a fight and so I wouldn’t accidentally attack people not attacking me. If there was any pattern to it, it seemed that lone players and pairs were far less likely to attack than full parties. Make of that what you will.

Theftwind.8976:

I would have to say ET as the same group did it at the north camp Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Same group, same mo. In fact we can almost guarantee now that shortly after midnight my time (mst) if ET takes the north camp, that there will be siege set up and people waiting outside the blue door.

Seems like a lame strategy to me. Not so much building siege in a taken camp or tower, which is a legitimate way to try to hold a site, but ganking people as they walk through the door, relying on the disorientation caused by door and cover provided by the wall. We got rid of the HoD group trying the same thing by exiting down the side hill instead of going through the door and I may start making that my standard way to approach that camp if it’s been taken.

Theftwind.8976:

lol this from the server that built ac’s and ballis right on the steps of our citadel to the north camp and then had their thieves, engies and hammer warrior parked right outside the blue gate.

Out of curiosity, when was that because I saw HoD players doing the same thing at the same spot on our Borderlands on Sunday night. Just wondering who is being a bad influence on who here.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Simply, make all the NPC’s legendary, make them heal and revive each other, and use mass CC’s. Throw 10-50 of those in any given tower or keep.. and it won’t be as easy to take as some people think.

Lets face it, it’d probably be a lot more interesting fighting that then a handful of veterans and a champion. Then again, this would also drastically hinder any objectives the dominating server has.

Not if the NPCs are only improved based on how much lower a server’s score is than the top server’s. If a server falls below, say, 70% of the top server’s score and at least 1000 points lower (suggesting a significant imbalance in population and/or coverage), start buffing the NPCs to from Veterans to Champions and from a Champion to a Legendary. When the score falls below 60%, add a couple more Champions. When it falls below 50%, turn two of the Champions into Legendaries. Reverse the change for NPCs out of combat as the gap closes, thus a server will lose this advantage once they get within 30% of the top server and can’t use this handicap to take the lead. ]

As an added benefit, if two servers are being dominated by a third server with a higher population and/or better coverage (not all that uncommon), they’ll both get the improved NPCs making them less attractive targets for each other and encouraging them to turn their attacks on the dominant server.

And, no, this isn’t adding more PvE to WvW. It’s making the existing PvE in WvW harder so that servers being severely beaten can concentrate more of their people on attacking the dominant server or spread out to add some PvP to the PvDoor instead of the dominant server rolling over mostly empty camps, towers, and keeps and the losing server or servers having to allocate most of the people they have to holding a few core locations. And even when they do defend, a server with double the points will likely just roll over them, anyway, if they choose to attack in force.

Note that by basing this on score, it eliminates the problem of servers complaining that too many people are on the map or deliberately manipulating their populations, and while a server could deliberately try to maintain the improved NPCs by keeping their own score low, it’s not going to help them win any more than losing the improved NPCs for a while and then getting them back once the score gap reappears would.

One other thing that could help buff NPCs is to allow them to use unmanned siege if there are no players at the location under attack that could man the siege. So if you had 3 ACs in an empty tower, 3 NPCs might man it, but if there were two players in the tower, only 1 NPC would man 1 of the ACs, leaving the other two to be manned by the players, even if they don’t actually man them.

Berk.8561:

“Handicapping, in sport and games, is the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation or other advantage given to different contestants to equalize the chances of winning. The word also applies to the various methods by which the advantage is calculated. In principle, a more experienced player is disadvantaged in order to make it possible for a less experienced player to participate in the game or sport whilst maintaining fairness. Handicapping also refers to the various methods by which spectators can predict and quantify the results of a sporting match.”

One thing I wanted to add to this point is that I think this pretty clearly illustrates why many people react badly to the Orbs and Bloodlust buffs. They are basically anti-handicapping. Rather than equalize the chance of winning, they actually further imbalance already imbalanced maps in favor of the stronger server.

In the current scoring system:

Resource Camps: 5 points
Towers: 10 points
Keeps: 25 points
Stonemist Castle: 35 points

What I propose, to make upgrades matter more, to discourage deliberate flipping, and to encourage defense, is:

Resource Camps: 1 point base + 1 point per upgrade (max 5 points)
Towers: 3 points base + 1 points per upgrade (max 15 points)
Keeps: 6 points base + 2 points per upgrade (max 30 points)
Stonemist Castle: 9 points base + 3 points per upgrade (max 45 points)

Further, award no points until the first upgrade is completed or 30 minutes (2 ticks) have passed and award 1 point for each successful Dolyak delivery to a tower, keep, or castle.

The effect is that each site is worth much less unless it’s upgraded, at which point a fully upgraded site will be worth a bit more than it is now. A tower or camp that is constantly flipped will be worth .little more than flipping a sentry flag or killing a dolyak and even Stonemist Castle won’t be worth all that much unless it’s upgraded.

Next, what I think a lot of people are looking for is what’s called in many sports and games “handicapping”. Wikipedia defines handicapping as:

“Handicapping, in sport and games, is the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation or other advantage given to different contestants to equalize the chances of winning. The word also applies to the various methods by which the advantage is calculated. In principle, a more experienced player is disadvantaged in order to make it possible for a less experienced player to participate in the game or sport whilst maintaining fairness. Handicapping also refers to the various methods by which spectators can predict and quantify the results of a sporting match.”

Handicapping can take many different forms. It can be applied to the score in the form of point spreads, free points, adjustment rations, or even the Glicko system that’s being used to determine ranking evolution. It can be in the form of an advantage given to the inferior competitor in the form of more information, more resources, reduced limits, reduced costs, buffed abilities, increased use of abilities, or a looser application of the rules and limits. It can be in the form of a disadvantage given to the superior competitor in the form of less information, fewer resources, increased limits, increased costs, penalized abilities, decreased use of abilities, or a tighter application of the rules and limits.

Reducing or buffing the abilities of individual characters is problematic for players who want WvW to be a game of ability and for there to be some consistency in the quality of battles, so that sort of adjustment should probably be avoided. But there are other things that can be done to help an underdog server or hinder a dominant server:

Improving the NPCs that guard empty towers for underdog servers, including adding more, making them stronger, or allowing them to fire unmanned siege if no defenders are there that could man it. I know people don’t want more PvE in their WvW, but PvDoor is hardly PvP, either, and there is no reason why it should be easy for the dominant servers that engage in it. Don’t like fighting NPCs? Then find a defended tower to capture.

Give the underdog server more information, specifically in the form of reduced or eliminated delays for when swords appear on a location to allow an underpopulated server time to respond to attacks more effectively.

Give the dominant server less information, specifically in the form of increased delays before swords appear on a site under attack or eliminate the swords warning entire, except on waypoints. If they want to defend and hold sites with a superior number of players, they’ll need to have scouts and camp sites and not depends on zerging in when the sword appear.

The challenge there is to find a way to determine which server is superior and which is inferior enough to warrant a penalty or help and how to introduce them without players being able to exploit it by modulating their population on a map.

The easiest way to implement the information adjustment, in my opinion, is to look at the difference in score and implement the bonus and/or penalties when a servers score falls below, say, 65% of the top server’s score (and at least 1,000 points, to prevent it from kicking in immediately) and eliminate the bonus and/or penalities when the score falls back to within 75% of the top server’s score, so it won’t disappear instantly but can’t be used to win. The bonus and/or penalties could also be phased in with multiple tiers. Score is often a reasonably good proxy for determining coverage and population disparities, especially when the gap in scores is large.

As for the improving the NPCs defending empty towers (and perhaps the strength of tower and keep doors and walls, too), that would not only help weaker servers when they have coverage but also help deal with disparities in coverage, as well. People engage in PvDoor because it’s easy. Maybe it shouldn’t be.

So how to we make sure it’s based on coverage but it’s not abused by a server manipulating their map population? First, make the adjustments happen in small increments so that no small population change makes much of a difference. Second, use rolling averages where it makes sense instead of simply current map population.

Calculate two population numbers. The first is a one hour (or maybe half-hour) rolling average. The second one is the current population. Use the higher of the two numbers to calculate the difference in population on a map for rewarding bonuses and penalties. If a server suddenly exits a map, they get no immediate benefit and the population will effectively slowly go down as the average rolls foward. If the server suddenly surges on to a map, on the other hand, that will immediately get used for calculating things.

I’m going to go against what many people think is the ideal and say that I don’t really want all of the server populations equalized, nor do I want to see a transfer of huge WvW guilds to my low-tier server. I think that would feel like an even larger invasion than what we experience in match-ups against servers with much higher WvW populations. There is a lot that I like about the dynamic on lower population servers, especially when we are up against similarly sized opponents, and I really don’t want to see that replaced by the dynamic I read about from players on T1 and T2 servers.

Yes, it would be nice to have more WvW players than we do and more consistent coverage throughout the day, so I’m not trying to discourage individual or even guild transfers to Eredon Terrace because we could certainly use more help. What I don’t want to see is the existing community drowned out by transfers because I like our existing community quite a bit and like how much of a different individuals and small teams can make on the lower-tiered servers. And, no, it’s not all PvDoor, especially when we have coverage.

What I’d like to see is the opponent pool limited to servers that are not wildly different in WvW populations, coverage, or ability. In that regard, the leagues have been helpful in limiting the disparity by putting distant servers out of reach, though some servers have wound up on the wrong side of the cut-off. Yes, variety is better than static tiers, but the existing pre-league system had too much variety. ET should never have been put up against Yaks Bend, for example.

So maybe a looser definition of leagues that’s not limited to a fixed number but to groups servers into broader tiers based on WvW population, coverage, and score could be useful, because I think what many people are complaining about the most is blow-outs where an opponent is so powerful it can show up on a servers Borderlands and take most or even all of it without the defending server having any ability to stop it. Most WvW players accept that losing is part of the game, but it’s not a lot of fun being impotent.

So I think the first goal of any fix should be preventing blow-out match-ups where a server is powerless to fight back.

bokunocarrie.7215:

oh real cute, HoD. spawn camping. cute cute cute.

I found their spawn camping over the weekend somewhat entertaining because they were willing to die and provide loot bags to the ET players fighting them and we kept pushing them back to the keep. On the other hand, there was a group of them camping just on the other side of the exit to the North supply camp on our Borderlands on Sunday so that when one stepped through the door, they’d walk right into multi-HoD attack as soon as they appeared on the other side. That was pretty nasty, though they weren’t that hard to get rid of once we drew them to the sides by exiting over the edge instead of through the door.

I will also give praise to the HoD and DR players that I ran into in the BL jumping puzzles over the weekend who responded positively to waves and my not attacking them by not attacking me back, though I have to admit some of the fights I got into earlier in the Jumping puzzles against less friendly opponents were interesting, especially when my opponents were willing to face me underwater.

Sirendor.1394:

Use hiding places. Seriously, can’t be that hard?

Yes, positioning them right in front of a spawn or keep waypoint makes them easy for anyone to grab them and take them for a joyride. On the other hand, if they are hidden, people might forget to refresh them. Simply allowing the owning player to take control of the golum the way they can with other siege weapons would go a long way toward providing a counter for this problem.

FinalPatriot.8034:

On my Mesmer, I have fought several rangers and have never really found them to be a class to avoid while necro’s have really given me some trouble. Anyways, I’m really looking for opinions.

I play my Ranger as support character with longbow, but I’ve seen and fought a very effective melee bunker ranger who was able to successfully fight 2-3 opponents at once and successfully retreat from the encounter when more eventually showed up. Not only did they manage their attacks well but they had excellent pet management, always swapping them out before they went down. Never played a Necro but they do seem fairly resilient in WvW, but about the only thing they do that I worry about is Fear.

Respawn.6802:

I would like the ballista’s firing height to be raised a bit, then it can fire over the raised lip of walls when on top and be set back a little bit on the walls.

As I said in my reply, the raised lip of walls should not be blocking fire from defenders at all, and that would solve the problem, too. A character firing a ranged weapon can be blocked by the lip, too, even though they look like they are firing far above it.

Don’t neglect underwater combat weapons and skills as a Ranger in WvW, even though they’ve reduced the deep water on the maps. I’ve seen plenty of cases where opponents who are very powerful fighting me on the land don’t do so well when they follow me into the water. Also, the underwater weapons can attack opponents standing on the shore if you target them while underwater. Have a stealth thieve you can’t take on land? Try to lure him into the water.

Also remember that your warhorn and Healing Spring can heal friendly Dolyaks making supply deliveries. You can use this to speed them up so they deliver fast and to help them survive attacks by monsters and enemies.

Dee Jay.2460:

But due to the positioning of defensive siege, trying to save them from the massive AoE fields spammed on to walls, the Ballista never really sees much action. This is also due to the direct-fire shot, rather than an arcing show, making it impossible to hit targets up on walls.

The way walls work is a much broader problem, in my opinion. The raised edges on the walls, which keep opponents from pulling you off, actually block the shots of defenders on the wall, often forcing them to hop up on the edge where the can be pulled off. And crenellation is even worse. It blocks defensive siege while doing nothing to stop AoE attacks that can hit behind it. Those defense features should benefit the defender, not penalize them or get in the way. Why would defenders build them into their fortifications if they are worthless? ANet needs to figure out how to have fortifications cast defensive shadows against AoEs and need to make the edges on walls be transparent rather than obstructive to outgoing fire.

That said, there are a few places were ballistas are quite useful for shooting down tunnels, including in the Lord’s Room tunnel in the Hills keep and inside the Pangloss camp. They can also be quite useful for defending a Lord’s Room because they have no minimum range and the spread shot one gets from expertise can be quite effective against a charge.

But perhaps the best use for ballistas, especially if you use a superior ballista or have ballista mastery, is Hylek shooting off the back of Quentin Lake tower. From the edge of the platform by the Lord’s Room, you can defeat hostile Hylek, defeat the Krait to get the Hylek on your side, and harass enemy players trying to do the same, all from the comfort of Quentin Lake tower. And, yes, I can do enough damage with expertise, even without a superior ballista, to kill Hylek even when there is nobody else down there fighting them and they are rapidly healing (usually takes 2-3 shots).

If ANet wants to improve the ballista, I would make the shots a bit faster, because the main weakness I see in them is that it’s very hard to hit rapidly dodging opponents with them.

clint.5681:

There is about 50 yaks spawn camping my sever in EB with all kinds of siege from Ballistas, to catas. They do that because they are bad and also i guess no one on their server discourages the behavior.

[…]

Im not sure how the spawn has been looking at ET but that all is just pathetic.

They were using trebs on our spawn from the keep and, yeah, they were pretty terrible because a lot of them were still dying. I personally think spawn camping consisting of PvP fights can be somewhat amusing as a source of combat practice on the receiving end, especially with the Outnumbered buff so it’s free to die, but trebbing into it from a keep when we were outnumbered there? Really?

I did find the three-way battle for ET’s Hills Saturday night quite entertaining. Died in the lord’s room, ran back from our Garrison, and then ran into Hills inner again (in through the open South gate and around to the open North inner gate) alongside people from both other servers, all more interested in getting back into inner than stopping to kill each other. I managed to stay alive the second time (though I went down a few times, alternately getting myself up and rallying each time) through to our capturing it. Lots of fun.

Looks like it may currently be free to transfer to Medium population servers and discounted to High until October 17. [Edited} Looks like ET is now a High population server and there are no Medium population servers in NA.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151767774514209&set=a.135044094208.103264.114036714208&type=3&theater
Kerzic [CoI] – Ranger – ET

Looks like it may currently be free to transfer to Medium population servers and discounted to transfer to High until October 17.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151767774514209&set=a.135044094208.103264.114036714208&type=3&theater

If you are willing to look at lower tiers (looks like you are from DR so you know what that means), ET has a good group of people who run upgrades, including on camps, and even walk dolyaks when necessary to get upgrades done. Our commanders are generally responsive for calls to help defend, and I’ve seen some great saves if camps, towers, and keeps after the enemy got the capture circle up. One thing that being at the bottom of the rankings for a long time did for ET is give it a tenacious core of people who don’t give up, even when the odds are stacked against them. We don’t deliberately trade camps, towers, keeps, or SM.

While there can be some frustration playing in low-tier servers when one gets outnumbered in a matchup or loses sites due to weak coverage, the great thing is that everyone makes a difference and you’ll be able to have an impact on what happens. You should have the room to carve out the niche you want in a cooperative environment. And nothing tests a defense like having a small tenacious group facing down superior numbers. ET isn’t currently fading. We’re managing to rise in ranking. And ET has people who came down from higher tiers and who transferred away and came back because the higher tiers have their own problems.

ET has a TeamsSpeak server and an active community there.

From an HoD player in the current (9/27) matchup thread for AR/ET/HoD about ET’s play this matchup:

“While we’ve seen a bit of ET recently, it hasn’t been without a dominating force hanging over our heads (IoJ/KN) so this is a little different. ET as a whole seems much more organized especially defensively. Their BL is no longer just a bunch of paper towers waiting to be taken – they’ve got upgrades and frequently ready siege and I frequently see camps with upgraded supply output and defenders reacting quickly. I think they’re doing the best organization wise of any server in this match up by far but I’ve seen a lot of inexperienced players who aren’t used to the new order and the coverage still is spotty.” – kurath.9406

From a recent transfer (a self-described “defensive/roaming commander”) in the latest ET server recruitment thread:

“I transferred to ET last Thursday, and I must say, this server is very organized and has a very fast response time. Everyone here works together and knows what needs to be done, and I don’t see any infighting between players, nor anyone arguing with or griefing commanders. I haven’t gotten on the TS yet, but I am very impressed with the organization on ET and quite satisfied that I transferred here. I came over from NSP, and while I have many friends there, I will not be returning to that server. ET is better organized, the people here are friendlier, and the community as a whole is more mature. Everyone here contributes to wvw and helps out where it is needed, without question or argument, and the players are all committed to making ET the best server that it can be. […] So if you are looking for a good community with a winning team spirit like I described, then please consider moving to ET: you will not be disappointed.” – Riondron.1069

From an HoD player in the current (9/27) matchup thread for AR/ET/HoD about ET’s play this matchup:

“While we’ve seen a bit of ET recently, it hasn’t been without a dominating force hanging over our heads (IoJ/KN) so this is a little different. ET as a whole seems much more organized especially defensively. Their BL is no longer just a bunch of paper towers waiting to be taken – they’ve got upgrades and frequently ready siege and I frequently see camps with upgraded supply output and defenders reacting quickly. I think they’re doing the best organization wise of any server in this match up by far but I’ve seen a lot of inexperienced players who aren’t used to the new order and the coverage still is spotty.” – kurath.9406

Could use some help making the coverage less spotty.

CD does sound like a good mid-tier option.

If you are willing to look at lower tiers, then ET has a pretty good group of people who run upgrades, including on camps, and even walk dolyaks when necessary. Our commanders are also generally responsive to defense calls, even to camps, unless in the middle of something more important, and we do a pretty good job of holding our core keeps and towers. I would welcome more defensive players to join those of us already doing it. Last night, one of our recent transfers commented on our strong defense, something I’d mentioned in the recruitment posts that brought him to ET.

When we do lose towers or camps, it’s generally because we are greatly outnumbered (that happens on the lower tiers due to matchup imbalances), had a hole in the coverage (overnight and afternoons is usually when we lose some things), or didn’t have someone watching the site so it was too late once swords appeared on the map. That last point is where a defense-minded player can make a big difference. And that’s one of the things I like about lower-tier play. Every player matters as much as they want to because there are plenty of things that need doing, including defense. And even when ET is outnumbered, we fight and defend to the point of holding a tower or keep even after the enemy has entered the lord’s room (successfully more often than I’d expect).

And to address what some people have said about other servers, nobody on ET talks about deliberately leaving a tower or keep undefended so that it will flip easily to get loot and karma for retaking it. Yes, we’ll sometimes write off a hard-to-hold tower if there is something more urgent going on, but we don’t deliberately loose things.

See the recent ET recruitment post (see the first or second page of this forum).

On ET, we rarely experience lag or queues and our population is small enough that everyone matters. We do sometimes see short queues on reset night for 1 map and sometimes get some lag for really big SM and keep battles, but for the most part, we don’t see those problems down in the bottom tiers. The bottom tiers also have GvG and small roaming groups that rely on their skills and couldn’t really do what they do if all they could do was press 1. I saw a couple of bigger zergs last night (20-35 — AR actually had a pretty large group last night) on the Eternal Battlegrounds, but most of the fighting I saw was in the 5-15 range.

While ET has some low coverage times and we do sometimes get matched up against much larger opponents, ET has gotten out of last place through good play and a don’t give up/keep fighting attitude. Every person matters in the lower tiers so if you are looking to be more than a body in a zerg pressing 1 and don’t like queues, I encourage you to look at the lower tiered servers like ET. There are recruitment calls from several of them in the first 2-3 pages of the WvW recruitment forum that can give you a taste of what they offer.

Jeknar.6184:

I’m not talking about hese forums… I never really take forum seriously… But when you get yourself called an Idiot on map chat, and people on TS get upset if you keep asking for help to defend/attack an objective, it’s clear that there is somenthing wrong.

When you said, “I enjoy much more the weeks we are losing.” I knew exactly what sort of thing you were talking about, because I’ve also seen several other examples of that sort of thing this week. This isn’t the right forum to go into details in and I’ll see about creating a thread about that on the ET forums over the weekend, but I will say that there did seem to be a general increase in tension and hostility in map and voice chat because people were taking the points and winning more seriously.

I’ll add two general comments about this and hope that this doesn’t drive away the people who came to ET looking to escape the drama on other servers.

First, as someone who spends a lot of time (including last night) upgrading camps, defending camps, retaking camps, and even escorting dolyaks personally to make sure they get through (the main reason I have the trait to reduce off-hand skill cool-down is so that I can run dolyaks faster with my horn), I share your frustration at being told a camp isn’t worth defending, especially when it’s done in a nasty way. I’ve had it happen to me during weeks when we were being stomped but I think such comments have been rare and isolated (usually one person), and generally are thrown out by someone having a hard time elsewhere on the map (they’re frustrated that someone may be drawing resources away from their objective).

But I also saw a lot of good support at the camps this match-up, including a great save at Golanta after I died keeping the circle green. We have a lot of good support people at ET, so don’t let one or two ornery people in the map chat discourage you. What I do sometimes is ask for help specifically from roamers and people not following the commander so the commander doesn’t feel like I’m trying to pull people away from their force.

In part, I blame ANet for this problem because they make defense, camp support, and dolyak running a thankless job with no in-game reward. I’ve commented that I lose money (from running upgrades, building siege, and playing defense) every time I enter WvW and run with the zerg sometimes just to get something out of it. As such, a lot of people focused on points, loot, and karma view defense as largely worthless and it sounds like higher tier servers even have a problem with people deliberately not defending in order to let camps, towers, and keeps flip because that’s what ANet does reward people for.

If you look at PvE, it’s starting to suffer from the same problem with loot trains who feel that they own champion events in Queensdale and elsewhere who insult people who spoil their sequence simply because they want to do the event when they encounter it (that should be entertaining during the free trial). As ANet nerfs every other way to get loot and rewards in the game except for flipping sites and killing champions, that’s all players are starting to care about and the same mentality that insists on speed dungeon runs in full zerker gear only is starting to spread through the whole game. ANet needs to learn how to reward other modes of play unless they want to turn this game into a one trick pony.

Second, when ET was losing badly, it didn’t often have SM. I’ve only played for a few months, but I remember people being amazed that they even got into the lord’s room in SM before being driven back. ET is not used to having SM and hasn’t fully worked out how to prioritize and handle in a way that everyone agrees with it when it does. And because ET went so long without having SM, even before we started doing well, when we did start doing well, I think SM and the idea of taking and holding it made people on ET a little crazy. ET is going to need to learn how to balance out interest in taking and holding SM with keeping everything else together, and that’s going to take a some time. But given how many times SM has been flipped along with other locations on the other two servers playing, I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem unique to ET in this match-up.

Harbinger.8637:

ET nice showing over the weekend, which gave you a comfortable lead. You guys deserve the win, you have a lot of talented people.

All trash-talking aside, while numbers do matter, I think there is more talent on all of the low-tiered servers than I see when we face higher-tiered servers because the people who do WvW on the low-tiered servers are used to working for their wins. I saw some nice moves by FC, in particular, but also DR this match-up. Yes, I’ve run into some bad SF and DR players this match-up (I say this as someone who is pretty awful, too — if I can beat you in 1v1 or small group combat, that makes you pretty awful, too) but nothing like what I saw against IoJ or SF. Heck, I solo-defeated several IoJ thieves during one match-up.

DevonCarver.5370:

I will say it again. If the cap were raised performance would suffer greatly. That is why it hasn’t been changed.

Could you make AoE attacks on WvW work over a few seconds with, say, half-second or one second pulses such that each pulse it hits 5 more targets that haven’t been hit by the previous pulse? That would allow an AoE skill to hit maybe 25 targets over 5 seconds with each second being a 5 target “attack”. In fact, I think some AoEs already work something like that, don’t they?

Riondron.1069:

We have too much infighting in Nsp, and as a defensive/roaming commander, I’m getting quite tired of all the drama.

Not a lot of drama that I can see in either map chat or TeamSpeak. The only thing that gets a really bad reaction is defeatism because the server is used to playing underdog against greater numbers and knows it can win against greater numbers if people don’t give up. Whining about how it’s “game over” like Hudson in Aliens in map chat undermines morale and there isn’t a lot of tolerance for it.

As for being a defensive and roaming commander, ET has a pretty solid core of defensive players who upgrade sites, refresh siege, and run dolyaks for supplies and our commanders are usually pretty responsive to reasonable requests for defense help when they don’t have their hands full with other things. Commanders also generally make defending our home borderlands a priority. There is certainly a place for a commander focused on defense. And given our numbers, there is also room for commanding with a roaming style of play, too.

Riondron.1069:

I contribute as much as I can to my server; I like being the underdog, and I was extremely impressed with how well ET fought against us a couple weeks ago, outmanned as you were.

ET was the underdog for a long time and the WvW players have, for the most part, embraced it. ET doesn’t have too much to offer fair-weathers looking for easy, so the people who are on are there to fight a good fight, even when the odds are awful.

If you look at the current points held by ET during primetime, we actually do quite well when we have some coverage. Even when Outmanned, we take and hold things. Where we get killed is overnight and through the day on the US, which is why an Oceanic or SEA or even European guild would be a welcome addition and could make a big difference.

And that’s a big part of what I like about ET. With a fairly low population, anyone can make a big difference just by getting in there and helping out. If you want to matter and make a difference, ET is a good place for that.

This proposal is intended to address the 4 legitimate complains that I’ve heard about the update in the forums today:

I) Performance Problems, making skill lag worse and so on. I’m a programmer and this may help, based on how I understand the buffs being applied and managed.
II) Destroying GvG for those players who like that mode of play.
III) Boosting the winning server signficantly to make them even more powerful.
IV) Roaming and 1v1 being not very viable against a server with 3 stacks of stat boosts.

My solution is:

1) Divide the Borderlands Bloodlust buff into two buffs:
a) Borderlands Bloodlust provides +1 point for a finisher and can either stack or not stack.
b) Borderlands Boost provides the +50 to all stats and does NOT stack. The maximum benefit any server can get is +50 to all stats.

The goal here is to limit the imbalances caused by the stat buff, keep roaming viable against a buffed opponent, simplify the calculations, and enable a workaround that’s specified below.

2) When a server holds three of the five ruins in a Borderland simultaneously for 2 minutes, it applies the two buffs to everyone on the server for 15 minutes.

The benefit to taking another server’s ruins if you already have the stat boost is to deny an opponent the stat boost. If more incentive is needed, then I recommend applying the Borderlands Boost for the first ruins taken, +30% gold for the second ruins, and +30% Magic Find for the third ruins, or something like that.

3) Every 15 minutes, when server points are added in, a server holding three ruins in a Borderland will have the appropriate buffs refreshed for another 15 minutes.

The purpose of (2) and (3) is to limit the server overhead of applying and removing buffs that seem to be causing a problem. Buffs won’t need to be recalculated the instant ruins change hands, just applied when they are taken, because they won’t need to be removed from everyone when ruins flip. They’ll expire like any other buff and will expire naturally if the ruins are not held when they run out.

If there is concern about flipping abuse here (as proposed, it could be possible to flip ruins between all three servers such that all three could have all buffs), then put a cooldown timer on each set of ruins so that only the first server to hold them can get a benefit from them during every 15 minute heartbeat. The cooldown mechanism already exists, as does the 15 minute timer, at the top of everyone’s screen.

4) The fix for the GvG complaint is to provide a craftable or magic forgable consumable buff that also provides the same +50 to all stats Borderlands Boost buff for 15 minutes in WvW only, such that it will act like a refresh to that buff and won’t stack. That will effectively cancel the benefit any server enjoys from the boost and allow for the even fights that some people are asking for. It also gives roamers an option to equalize things.

This consumable should be fairly expensive to make so that it’s not ubiquitous, will only work in WvW (or maybe it should work in PvE, too), and will only last for 15 minutes. It will also not provide the finisher bonus that holding a set of ruins provides.

If nothing else, I hope this gives the ANet developers some food for thought.

Tots.3056:

All good, I agree with you in a sense that it isn’t fair. But there’s a difference between bad game mechanics and cheating. It really forces you to think about siege placement. There are definitely places where defensive siege can’t be countered but for some reason people put them in obvious, easily countered spots like above or behind the gate.

Yes, now that it’s been explained, I acknowledge that it isn’t cheating and apologize for assuming so, and the resulting conversation has more than restored my positive opinion of DR.

That said, I think it’s a bad mechanic. I understand that the game has an interest in attackers winning and churning locations, but the amateur historian in me thinks it’s absurdly difficult to defend and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find a safe place to put siege equipment on your own walls. More absurd is that the crenellation on the walls (what little there is) doesn’t seem to help defenders at all and actually gets in their way quite a bit.

The siege in question was back from the walls where it couldnt’ be hit by a standard area of effect attack without cheating and, in every other situation I’ve seen, it would have been good placement. I’m surprised there aren’t more scepter elementalists in the game to take out siege because I can think of plenty of time when it would have helped attackers and I didn’t see it happen.

Tots.3056:

Hey just saving you before you look like an idiot to everyone. Scepter Elementalists don’t need line of sight to target things. I targeted the arrow cart and the scepter elementalist in my party dragon’s toothed it.

It is normal game mechanics and not cheating in any way. Search it up, you’re not the first to think so.

OK, my apologies for assuming it was cheating but I have never seen that used before, which is surprising given how effective it is. I guess it’s just another way this game is biased against defense.

Used to have a lot of respect for DR fighting fair. Now, not so much. I’m on an AC on an inner corner at the Briar tower on our Borderlands and not only is an elementalist hitting me on the AC but they are hitting me dead on center, perfectly targeted. Cheat much? The group had guild tags Bags, BFF, and DDLG, I think. Nice cheating guys and spare me the 3 monitor excuses. Also classy were the guys ganking me, while I wasn’t moving, after the guards revived me while I was composing this. Yeah, very challenging.

Runamok.9638:

Whooooppppdeeeeeedooooooooo…..

I took your T3 Wildcreek and Klovan with a small ragtag force of awesome ET while the rest of SF diddled around in SM against GoM last night.

Sunday morning, US time, a small group of ET players who added a 4th golum to the 3 that had been sitting in the keep overnight and charged SM with them. They got both gates down and claim they got the castle lord down to 15% before enough GoM showed up to push them out. I made it to the lord’s room myself late when they said how far they got and defense was still sparse enough for me to get all the way in. Lets just say that if more of us had taken them seriously when they started (some of us thought they were nuts on a suicide run), we might have taken SM, though we wouldn’t have kept it for long. I’m pretty sure we were Outnumbered for that, too, and no commander tag on the map that I can remember.

moomincat.9816:

, Hang on wait…. the ET server (with all the hard work [BS] is doing ganking the [VS] back lines, and then bragging about it on the forums) is still losing…….But how can it be, I’m reading all the posts about how good [BS] is, in WvW but its not translating in to points.

You are aware that ET spends a lot of time in matches like this fighting with the Outnumbered buff, which kicks in when a server is “greatly outnumbered” on a map in WvW, as a warning and some minor compensation to the server that gets it, right? Here is what it looks like, in case you’ve never seen it (though you might have seen it on opponents before ANet stopped letting opponents see it):

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/2c/Outnumbered.png

I’ve got a challenge for all you l33t skillz guys on SF and GoM who are disappointed with ET’s point showing to prove your prowess. Ask the people on your server to leave WvW until the Outnumbered buff appears on your screen on all of your maps and play that way for a few hours, and then see how we’ll your server does in points.

Myst.5783:

Can someone tell me how that thief flew away like that?

There are at least two thief skills that I know of that allow teleporting a distance:

Infiltrator’s Arrow – a short bow skill that allows a range 900 teleport combined with blind.

Shadow Step – a range 1200 teleport skill.

Since it only happened once, you weren’t blinded, and looked like a fairly long distance, I’m guessing Shadow Step.

ghost.3208:

But seriously in regards to the last posts I don’t believe that there is “sportsmanship” in an online video game, or do you expect me to go running past a huge enemy zerg and get greeted with /bows and /claps??

Again, excluded middle. I’m not asking for a hug. I’m expecting the basic humanity of recognizing the person on the other side is another human being and am truly confused about why someone would specifically enjoy the grief of others.

There are people here who seem bothered that their entire server is being maligned for the actions of a few. Should I take that concern seriously and adjust my replies in the future to take that concern into account, ignore it, or dial it up to 11 and be more unfair just to annoy people and cause bad feelings?

King Amadaeus.8619:

People like you two are the reason why every kid gets a “participation trophy”….

Sorry, but no. Excluded middle fallacy. I’m not asking for a trophy or for you to let us win. I’m actually fine being the underdog at the bottom of the rankings fighting 8 against 30-40 and have no interest in leaving ET.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Respect is earned, sportsmanship is for sports or something that would at the very least qualify as such.

This is a game where players control their virtual Barbie dolls with a keyboard and mouse. What do you think it is?

King Amadaeus.8619:

Maybe you should go play My Little Pony’s Pink Palace of Periwinkles if you want everyone to be nice and butthug each other….

Yeah, I do that with my daughters, too (well, maybe not the “butthugging” depending on what you mean by that), and I’m not seeing the huge difference between the two that you do. Look around, dude. Many GW2 players spend more time fussing over wardrobe for their virtual Barbie dolls than my daughters do over their real Barbie dolls.

King Amadaeus.8619:

That does not mean be a kitten to be a kitten, but also does not mean cry for the sake of crying, then tryng to apply real life morals to a game.

People are not crying for the sake of crying nor are the applying real life morals to the game. If you want to play a Charr war criminal in the game who slays every bunny he sees, knock yourself out. But once you say that you enjoy the real life suffering of other players, then you’ve wandered out of the game and into the real world of real human beings.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Forums? We griping about random text on a wall from random people?! That gets your goat? Good luck in life kid….

If its just random meaningless text, then why are you spending time on it?

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

Then again, is this not combat?

No. It’s a game that people play for enjoyment. If you want combat, then join the army. Even then, you’ll find limits to what’s acceptable.

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

Now, I do not spawn camp, but really, there are 3 exits, so stop crying and start playing.

A fair point but it breaks down when there is no commander on the map and some of those being slaughtered are newbies whose first and possibly only experience with WvW is that it’s awful and impossible. Learning can require being given the opportunity to learn.

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

Do you actually think we sit around waiting for people from other servers to log off or something and only then do we take things?

Well, given that I often watch how the match progresses during the day, it often looks that way. Monochromatic maps, beyond a server’s home BL, simply don’t happen when the opposition has a serious number of defenders. In the case of last night, the SF sweep of our corner of the Eternal Battleground only happened after our commanders left to defend our home BL and the Outmanned buff popped up. When we have decent participation, we tend to hold out corner and home map, even when the zerg swings by.

To be fair, SF can and does take defended sites, too, and you have some good small roaming groups, but that’s not what is letting you paint the entire Eternal Battlegrounds red and spawn camp ET and AR.

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

Do you hear us crying that it was not fair, the other team had more numbers than us?

Has SF been spawn camped by either ET or AR during those times?

King Amadaeus.8619:

I don’t like being camped (who does), I find it boring to do (but sometimes strategic; keeps close to spawn and all), )but you make it fun because we can all come here and see those beautiful E-Tears afterwards.

Also stop talking of sportsmanship on a game, we kill each other…I ain’t trying to be your kitteng friend lol…

That it is just a game is why people expect sportsmanship and, frankly, finding enjoyment in the anguish of others when they’ve done you no real wrong doesn’t reflect we’ll on a person’s basic humanity and empathy. Why is it fun watching someone else suffer and not have fun? Indifference or disagreement I can understand, but enjoyment?

But even if you really do get a kick out of it, from a purely practical standpoint, it makes for a worse game for SF. If you make the game not fun for the other players, they stop playing. At some point, with ET, AR, and FC, all that is going to leave you with us PvDoor. I find it hard to believe that if you really want a PvDoor experience with no real resistance that you’d be playing WvW since the PvE parts of the game offer a far more diverse, challenging, and profitable alternative if slaying NPCs all day floats your boat.

King Amadaeus.8619:

This game needs more competitiveness and less Mickey Mouse.

And discouraging people from playing against you from weaker servers you are put up against so even fewer play and you get more PvDoor helps toward that end how, exactly? And, yes, when I see people talking about not having fun, giving up for the night or week, or switching servers in map chat on ET in situations like that, that’s exactly what it’s doing. People play for their own fun, not your fun. Align the two and you’ll get a better experience, since WvW requires a certain level of participation to be any deferent than PvE with towers and keeps

King Amadaeus.8619:

Hoping for the AR/FC/ET match, should be best for you 3 servers. (heres to hoping)

So, was this display of empathy, humanity, and sportsmanship really that painful?

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

LOL, if we were to believe all these “thanks for all the bags” and “it took SF 30-40 ppl zerg an hour to take this against only 10 of us” we wouldn’t have the points we have, no matter the numbers.

Have you actually watched how this matchup has progressed over time? When ET has people on, we generally hold most of our borderlands and our corner of the Eternal Battlegrounds. We’ve even led in points held from time to time. The same has been true of AR, which has even taken SM from SF.

But when our population is sparse overnight, during the day, and during the period between 4pm and 6pm US Eastern time (when either ET collectively goes to dinner or SF has a population surge—I’d really like to know what happens there) SF sends the zerg around to PvDoor and dominate in points. Since SF follows a fairly predictable attack pattern when there is little resistance (generally camp, tower, other camp, other tower, remaining towers, keep — if that pattern is broken, it’s usually because something was harder than PvDoor and the SF zerg moved on to the next target), it’s pretty easy to see what’s going on via the Millenium Old School WvW tracking map.

I’ve also seen us actively turn away plenty of SF zergs trying to take our towers and keeps when we actually have more than 2-3 defenders, even with the Outnumbered buff on, and we did it once last night, too. It took a second assault on Jerrifer’s with no supplies left to take it.

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

And again, how many are spawn camping? Not the whole server, a small portion at the most, so go ahead and stay as classy as those you accuse of having no class.

It takes more than 5-10 people to effectively spawn camp. It takes a zerg. How many? At least 20. Probably more like 30-40 in that particular case.

Xavi.6591:

We DON’T need more PVE in WvW.

While I agree in principle, PvDoor is essentially PvE and guarding a site with no attackers is pretty boring. We know that a net has the ability to scale encounters based on combatants (they do this in PvE), so I see no reason why the NPC defenders shouldn’t scale up significantly to make PvDoor challenging, particularly when the defending server is Outmanned on the map. That would help solve the night-capping problem.

I would also like to see more “target practice” mobs around camps, towers, and keeps that can be killed with siege weapons alone (turn off the rapid healing they get when attacked be siege weapons only) so that defenders can have something to do while waiting for other players to attack.

But that is as far as I’d go withore PvE in WvW and we definitely don’t need NPC armies taking towers and keeps (there are already NPC forces that can take or help take camps).

I would simply like ANet to have the loot last longer (maybe 5-10 minutes more) to give the player more time to recover it after dying, which I’ve done. I consider that an interesting challenge. But I really wasn’t amused to walk back into a certain death situation last night to recover a wooden box containing a rare that I left behind after dying only to find out it contained a worthless support token for the Living Story content. Unless I can get at least 10 silver selling it or an ecto salvaging it, please don’t drop it in a rare wooden chest. Thanks.

King Amadaeus.8619:

Hmmy time to initiate spawn camp 4.0….you guys cry too kitteng much.

Sure, and that might help get you guys back up to around rank 18 again until you hit higher population servers that can match your numbers and SF plummets back down to the bottom tier where they can win on numbers alone again.

It took over an hour last night for an SF zerg of 30-40 to take a tower from what looked like a maximum of maybe 8-10 of us after SF took the mostly undefended and unsieged keep from us after most of our forces left to defend our borderlands. How many bags of loot did you guys get for that investment in time and how much siege did you burn to take it in two tries?

Yes SF has some skillful players who are good, but that’s not the cornerstone of your victory this matchup or what people are complaining about. They seem to stay away from the zerg.

King Amadaeus.8619:

But coming on here crying about it only gets you more of it…

Why? Because that’s how bullies roll? How about developing some skills that can carry SF above rank 18 against servers with comparable WvW participation?

What I would like to see to be reasonably happy (in order):

1) The drop rate I currently get wearing +100% Magic Find gear without consumables. It’s the difference between farming feeling worthwhile and a waste of time for me and I don’t want to have to remember to acquire and use consumables to maintain it. It’s why I achieved the +100% with runes and some other equipment instead of getting the 100% with consumables, which is currently possible. If I have to pop consumables to maintain a decent drop quality, it’s going to reduce my enjoyment of the game. It’s a grind and I thought GW2 wasn’t about grind.

2) Replace the magic find gear with something worthwhile and compensate the people who got their gear through dungeons with a refund (e.g., Seals of Bettletun for Noble Runes) and the same with people who spent laurels on Magic Find gear and infusions. I would prefer the magic find gear to be replaced with a random selection of runes and equipment types so that if people decide to sell them, the market isn’t flooded with a single type of equpiment.

3) Give people a way to unload their second set of armor after it’s been converted to non-Magic Find modifiers because many people won’t need a second set of armor if it’s not Magic Find. The easiest way to do this is to unsoulbind all Magic Find gear and only soulbind it again if it’s re-equipped. That way, people can sell their extra armor sets. Getting value back for this gear should not require salvaging it unless the salvage returned is mighty impressive and comparable to the market rate of that type of armor.

Surbrus.6942:

The only difference MF gear makes for you, is it means that you are doing less damage, killing things slower, getting fewer drops, but the magic find might make up for it. Its better to just use zerker stats, kill things faster, kill more things, and you’ll get just as much as someone in MF.

I got a Vial of Condensed Mists Essence from a second level Fractal run using Magic Find gear. I’ve gotten an exotic drop and plenty of rares in WvW where people complain about how unusual that is. I often get three rares from running The Frozen Maw, which takes as long as it’s going to take whether I’m in ‘Zerker gear or my Magic Find gear. Are ’Zerker stats going to help me do any of that better than I’ve been doing? Uh, no.

From the Wiki:

“Everytime you kill a monster you roll on a number of tables, inside these tables are different rarity categories. Magic find increases the chances you will get higher categories. For example if there is a 1 in 10 category, and you have 200% magic find you will have 3/10 chances to get that category. This improves not just the rarity of the items you get but can also improve your chances at getting trophies and rare crafting materials like lodestones.”

If the Magic Find bonus applies to each internal table “roll” and there are multiple “rolls” so that if there is a “roll” to check if a basic piece of equipment is Fine, and then another “roll” to see if the Fine is Masterwork, and then another roll to see if the Masterwork is a Rare, and another roll to see if the Rare is an Exotic, a +100% Magic Find is going to double each of those “rolls” and not simply double your chance of getting something better. In other words, if there are 4 rolls that you need to succeed on to get an exotic, you are not going to have just twice the chance of getting an exotic with a +100% Magic Find but 16 times the chance. Can you do events and dungeons 16 times faster in your ’Zerker gear than I can with my Magic Find gear?

Surbrus.6942:

The only valid use of MF is if you are being a leech, letting other people kill the enemies for you, and simply tagging them. These leeches are bad for the group in some events where a champion or some such might scale up to account for more players being in the fight, even though some of them aren’t contributing to chipping away that scaled up HP pool.

So it all boils down to your fear of being taken advantage of?

Personally, I want everyone wearing Magic Find gear because I want them to get the best loot possible when they play.

The only valid reason not to wear Magic Find gear is that you are too awful of a player to win a battle with anything other than maximized stats, and I say that as someone who turns with my keyboard and often activates skills with mouse clicks. If a few hundred attribute points mean the difference between success and failure for you, then you need to learn to play your character more effectively.

Is that fair of me to say that you are a horrible player? Probably not. But then it’s also no fair for you to assume the only reason why I have Magic Find gear is that I want to take advantage of others. Here’s a free clue — I spend a lot of my time running solo so the only one that my Magic Find gear might hurt most of the time is… me. And when I do play in group activities, I’d be quite pleased if everyone else was wearing Magic Find gear, too, as some of my friends do when we go farming together.