Guild Wars 2

Nobody likes being grossly outnumbered but I don’t think the OP is the solution to the problem. I’m pretty sure that a good way to kill WvW would be to prevent motivated people from playing it.

Basing anything on server populations isn’t the answer either, because that doesn’t necessarily correlate to WvW interest or competency. The only real solution, in my opinion, is for Anet to come up with a better ranking system for tiers that responds more quickly to current server dynamics. The Glicko-2 system was never intended for a tiered environment, and it assumes a much more stable level of competency for each entity than currently exists in WvW.

ANet simply needs to fix how they determine matchups. Introducing the equivalent of culling is not the solution to server imbalance.

Sumwun.3846:

I find it a little funny that a guild of fishermen would worship a Sky Deity. So strange. Does it effect your harvest? This is how I am confused by the worship of a single God. How would the Sky God help with water people such as yourselves? I can’t see how he can help.

This is why I worship the 7. Each with different power over elements. Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Bacon, Carbohydrates, Beer, and killing. Sure there are 8, but they vote before they go out and one always stays home.

It looks to me all one needs to do is shovel a mound of dirt or build a false support system under the Sky Ram, and then it’s just a Mortal ram lifted off the ground. To become mortal so easily is not safe for a God. This is why the Shoe Lace God fell to Velcro and Slip On’s when they merged into a sect of knot free foot ware fastening.

WvWvW even exists between shoes.

LOL.

As you know, I’ve been thinking of joining SoCo and caught up with a bunch of them the other night. I mentioned on TS that I had chatted with you and would appreciate a guild invite, whereupon one of them said “let me get this straight … you’ve spoken with Yorgy and you still want to join our guild?”

zen.6091:

Cactus.2710:

zen.6091:

The golems float over wall lip obstructions and home in at unlimited distance.

LOL. I love it when people make stuff up to support their position. The mini-golems will NOT jump over any obstruction, and that includes the outside lip of the top of a wall. They also do not have unlimited range. Read the tooltip for gods sake … the range is 1600.

Yes, they do jump over wall lips that obstruct movement (i.e. prevent pulls), and also fly right down for hits that most skills do have LoS for. As for the range, I’m not sure how range is calculated with vertical distance as well, but they definitely go further than traited grenades or longbow attacks.

I just tested it again. They go through some lips, jump over others, and get blocked by some. I couldn’t see any reason for the differences.

Yes … they go all of 100 units further than traited grenades or longbows. Big deal. As slow, visible, and easy to block/avoid as they are I don’t see how that makes them OP. What’s the difference between a half dozen rangers/engineers focusing a poorly placed siege or a half dozen players using GiBs for the same purpose? Not much.

zen.6091:

The golems float over wall lip obstructions and home in at unlimited distance.

LOL. I love it when people make stuff up to support their position. The mini-golems will NOT jump over any obstruction, and that includes the outside lip of the top of a wall. They also do not have unlimited range. Read the tooltip for gods sake … the range is 1600.

As I said before, I don’t really care if the cute little buggers were banned from WvW or not. They weren’t in any way as much of an issue as all the Chicken Littles here tried to portray them. They were amusing, though.

Kenage Achalarus.4276:

if you ask me it seems like the only way to get them is by killing players. or by not dying from other players on the JP. i would like to see a change.

sigh …

Maniac.5163:

Random interesting fact; Both of the people repeatedly defending the use of GiB in this thread are from Kaineng..

LOL. If you’re referring to me, I’m not on Kaineng, never have been, and most likely never will.

Haldunius.7864:

Cactus.2710:

Haldunius.7864:

A lot of people are missing the point. In open field no one really cares. For defense, these can obliterate siege with the defenders doing almost nothing. It is stupid. I’m glad quite a few bads have gotten some ego boosts, but I think it’s gone on long enough.

Get real. Personally, I don’t care whether they remove them or not, but I just think it is silly that people make such exaggerated complaints about them. It is trivial to place siege out of range of GiBs, and anything else you can do with them you can do better with players. The ONLY way I’ve ever seen them be effective enough to warrant nerfing them is against enemies who simply aren’t paying attention.

Right, let me just get that extension piece for my ram…

More ignorance, and more evidence that you’ve never really used these things. There is literally … and I mean literally … about a 100 to 1 difference in the amount of damage a flame ram will do to a gate compared with a golem-in-a-box. The GiB, of course, is a a bit faster, but not enough to make a difference.

Haldunius.7864:

A lot of people are missing the point. In open field no one really cares. For defense, these can obliterate siege with the defenders doing almost nothing. It is stupid. I’m glad quite a few bads have gotten some ego boosts, but I think it’s gone on long enough.

Get real. Personally, I don’t care whether they remove them or not, but I just think it is silly that people make such exaggerated complaints about them. It is trivial to place siege out of range of GiBs, and anything else you can do with them you can do better with players. The ONLY way I’ve ever seen them be effective enough to warrant nerfing them is against enemies who simply aren’t paying attention.

EvilSardine.9635:

I can’t believe people are using this to defend this obvious exploit/bug. These things scale down walls towards tower attackers.

The only way you can make them go down a wall is to stand at the very edge of the wall … otherwise the small lip on the wall will block them.

It’s pretty obvious that Anet will remove this from WvW.

Maybe ANet will remove them from WvW and maybe they won’t, but it’s pretty obvious that you’ve never actually used these things in any quantity and don’t know what you’re talking about.

EvilSardine.9635:

StormWolf.7645:

A) It’s slower than regular attacks.
B) It costs money for every attack.
C) It’s at BEST equal damage to your 1 Attack…If it’s doing more, you’re doing it wrong. XD

A) Not really. It’s spammable with no CD.

B)Saying this costs money to defend it is silly. It means that only bigger guilds and people with lots of money are the ones that abuse this. Which is why big guild leaders set up whole crews dedicated to stealthing while spamming these. Endless money to do it with.

C)People are being hit for 12k with this. Please let me know which class deals 12k in damage with their number 1 attack so that I can starting playing that class.

Here’s a suggestion … buy a few of these and actually see how they work in WvW before messing your pants with extravagant exaggerations.

A) They are spammable but take forever to get to their target, can be easily seen, and can be easily outrun without running away.

B) They do cost money but anyone can afford them. You can buy 125 of them for one silver.

C) The exception is not the rule. I’ve probably burned 500 of these things in the last day or so and none hit harder than a decent crit. The average damage is indeed about the same as an average #1 attack. Anybody who got hit for 12K by a GiB was wearing lowbie gear, got hit by a stacked crit, and was being attacked by somebody with a lot of attack power.

I’ve said several times before here in these forums that it seems obvious to me that ANet has some of the worst internal communication/coordination of any software company out there, and in my opinion this is simply another example. Things that should and could easily work the same across the game simply don’t. I still remember the time that they threw down a non-critical PvE patch just two hours after the Friday reset for WvW, and there have been lots of examples of similar disconnects. Just look at the ridiculous differences in IQ level of the various race implementations (storyline, emotes, etc). Let’s face it … ANet may have some really strong talent but it is not a very well run company.

Wastrelz.8235:

If you would prefer going into matches week after week and knowing that there is no way your server is ever going to win (until enough people quit playing that you drop down after 2 months and finally play someone you can beat, and in turn know you are going to beat THEM every single time), then you have different tastes than I do.

How on earth did you ever read that into my comment? What part of “sucks because of blowouts” did you not comprehend?

EvilSardine.9635:

This needs to be removed from WvW.

I’m getting everyone I know to report it as an exploit/bug.

Whether they should be removed from WvW is debatable, but it is simply inane of you to call them a bug or an exploit. They work exactly as specified by ANet and are available to everyone at almost zero cost. How on earth is that an exploit? Please answer … I’d really like to know.

They aren’t even overpowered … I’ve tried them out in a lot of different situations and in most cases I won’t even bother with them. They aren’t much different than a really slow ranged ability that can easily be countered. Their most significant advantages are that they can be spammed and have long range, but the slow travel time pretty much offsets that range.

I think the GiBs are fun to use, but there have been rather few situations where I find they make a difference against anybody who is paying attention. They do have some cool features, though, and to the best of my knowledge the following is accurate.

-1. They are spammable with no cd … you can drop them as fast as you can double-click them and hit your #1 key.

-2. They can be locked on to a target and will pursue it. Enemies, NPCs, mobs, walls, gates, and siege are all viable targets. If you don’t target anything they will simply travel in a straight line in the direction you are facing when you launch them.

-3. They have a range of 1600, but as best I can tell that is total travel distance, not radius. If your target is running around they will eventually detonate on their own at 1600 or whenever they hit an obstacle, whichever comes first. Players are not obstacles, but players can become collateral damage.

-4. They are a bomb and will cause AoE damage within a radius of 120 of their detonation. If you can find a safe place from which to launch them they can be fun against a zerg.

-5. They will not go through either friendly or enemy gates.

-6. They can be launched from stealth without breaking it, but will reveal you as soon as they do damage.

-7. You can launch them while moving.

-8. As far as I know they can be blocked/reflected but not killed.

-9. They can drop off ledges but will not climb over obstacles. Even the small lip on the top of a wall will block them, meaning they can’t be dropped from walls onto attackers below … although they can drop from adjacent hills.

-10. Their damage is highly variable depending upon the specs of who/what they hit, and possibly the specs of who is launching them although I haven’t tested that last part.

-11. A train of them headed toward a zerg looks cool … and pretty much draws an arrow right back to the person launching them. If you are the only one in your group using them, expect to die.

I once used GiBs to solo defend a camp against about 8 enemy that were too preoccupied with the NPCs to notice that I was using them. I just rotated targets and spammed GiBs, and the GiBs did enough AoE damage that the NPCs were able finish most of them … the last two standing ran off. At least for me, though, that kind fo thing has been the exception. I do believe that GiBs could make at least some difference in the right situation, but in my opinion those situations are not common and I’d hate to see them get excluded from WvW.

Now if they could go through gates, THAT would be something else.

Wastrelz.8235:

The match-up finally changed, but the root of the problem remains.

I would like to see a play-off system implemented, in place of the current system. You should not be going up against the same worlds time after time. I mean, what is there to prove? The same world that wins this week will win next week, or so that has been our experience EVERY single week. A playoff system would allow the winners to play the winners, the 2nd placers to play the 2nd placers, and the losers to play the losers, until a final standings come in and a victor is determined. Then it can start all over again with new match-ups. Eventually I should be able to see every other server out there as an opponent sooner or later. Sure you get blown out at times, but I can deal with that if it’s not EVERY single week. Each week would be a new match-up and a new chance.

Also, a related problem is that all of our matches seem to be fully decided by Sunday night, leaving the rest of the week as kind of a lame duck session. Why not make it best 2 out of 3 instead? The weekend could be part 1; Monday-Tuesday part 2; Wednesday-Thursday part 3. Best 2 out of 3 wins, or otherwise at worst it’s a 3-way draw, which has its own possibilities. Anyway, that way at least things can go until Tuesday night before they are decided.

If you actually watch the matches in the various tiers, you’d see that balanced matches are way more important for player interest than are matches with new opponents, even though players obviously would also like to go up against new opponents from time to time. The current ranking system sucks, but it sucks because of blowouts and replacing it with a system guaranteed to generate blowouts (which your proposal would do) isn’t the answer.

Atlanis.6597:

It isn’t supposed to wipe the zerg, it’s supposed to make some of them leave so that you’re not dealing with groups so large that nothing can be done on either side because of culling and graphics lag. The damage scales with the number of people in the vicinity. In an ideal situation, you’d have large groups (60+ people) taking about 10k damage each second from the dot 3-4 minutes after being hit, with the damage being negated if they spread out sufficiently that it can’t spread further. The thing is that they have 3-4 whole minutes to spread out. It’s not just going to demolish a group, it’s going to force them to spread out. For example, to siege two different towers or two different gates instead of having a massive zerg at one. The numbers I have atm may not hold up this ideal situation. The goal would be to have the disease ‘die off’ if the group size is below a certain threshold, at which point it’d deal only mediocre damage. You’d deal some (but not much) damage and would be better off with ACs unless they really had a huge, huge group.

I’ve never understood the mentality that says the way to fix one problem is to introduce a totally new mechanism. Personally, I don’t have a problem with some new mechanism (such as biobomb) being added to the game if the intent is to broaden the gameplay, but I think it’s ridiculous to do so because of culls and lags. All that does is add another layer of dependencies that complicate the game algorithms. ANet should simply fix the culling and lagging in the most direct manner possible instead of turning GW2 into the MMO version of the U.S. tax code.

This is probably the most subtle troll thread I’ve seen in a while. Well done, sir.

RyuDragnier.9476:

I still think they just need to increase the size of the tiers. Such as to 6 servers, just so the matchup is completely random every week, with the tier list changing every month.

That’s a really, really bad idea that would be certain to cause continual mismatches.

Nurse.1085:

I think for me, WvW is missing personal goals, variety, smaller skirmishes and a sense of epicness. In the end, the maps feel too squished together and the environment and setup is very zerg-friendly. Another thing that bothers me is the anonymous feel of it all, there’s no sense of building a name for yourself and there’s no personal rewards or goals. In addition, I greatly dislike the “downed” state in WvW. It makes it hard to “snipe” kills, only to have them resurrected immediately (especially in Zergs). As for my last complaint, the battles don’t feel “epic” to me because they usually turn into a massive ranged trade off battle or a Siege fight. It feels less about my character and more about my supplies and the amount of people I’m with. Hmph. I have had some pretty awesome smaller skirmishes with friends in the past, but these situations are very few and far between. The Zerg always catches up.

You’re right … WvW is not for you. WvW was designed to be more of a wide-ranging team-oriented style of PvP, with personal glory taking a back seat to group strategy and cooperation. I don’t understand why sPvP wouldn’t fit you fine, though, except for the fact that the maps suck and none of the enemy know your name.

Zergs can be frustrating, but they are only out of place when server populations are strongly out of balance. In all other situations zergs SHOULD be able dominate smaller groups. Assuming equal populations in the tier, it should remain a tactical choice whether any particular server wants to combine their forces into one large entity that can only be in one place at a time, or split their forces up into smaller teams with better map coverage. Making small groups competitive against large groups kills half the strategy of WvW and is a dumb idea.

Server population imbalance is the real issue, not zergs per se.

Shaojack.3871:

Littlefeather.8623:

Shaojack.3871:

Siege already has no max targets, and superior arrow carts and ballistas can do the job just fine.

You know what I do when I see arrow carts and ballista?

I run past them and kill the person sitting on them…those siege weapons can be easily dodged/evaded…

Ya know what I do when I see someone running over to my siege operator?

I run to them and kill the person attacking him/her…those runner can easily be cc’d/immobilized…

So… ya I countered your counter… your move sir.

That’s a silly answer. We’re talking zergs here, which by definition means that the folks attacking you … and your siege … have more numbers than you. Even if you were to have equal numbers in the vicinity of the siege, the siege is going down because you have to hit all of them while they only focus on the siege operator. Besides, AoE alone will take out your siege operator no matter what you do. As long as he’s on the siege he can’t even heal himself.

Everyone enjoys different things in any game, so keep in mind that this is purely my own perspective:

PvE in the open world can be enjoyable. You’re fighting a variety of characters in a varying (often beautiful) setting, but the enemies are indeed scripted and you can quickly learn how to anticipate their every move. They also die easier … a level 80 mob is dead in a coupe of hits and even a veteran is an assured solo kill if you are fully geared.

PvE in a dungeon is (again, purely in my opinion) a boring romp with not only scripted enemies but also a scripted environment. It does indeed take a lot of teamwork to take down a boss, but once a group learns how to do it they can pretty much do the exact same thing next time and expect to succeed.

sPvP is (or at least can be) an intense and unrelenting battle in a small, fixed environment where the enemy actually thinks, reacts variably, and is much harder to kill. For the most part, though, all of the sPvP maps in GW2 are the same mindless capture-the-flag configurations that get boring very quickly. Even WoW and Rift did much better jobs creating different map mechanics for instanced PvP.

WvW provides the most variation of all in terms of environment and type of enemy. Players are able to constantly alter a large scale environment by capturing or upgrading objectives, or preventing the enemy from doing so. Both enemies and friends range from massive zergs to small teams to solo roamers … all trying to offset or complement each other as the case may be. As a player, you can contribute to the overall server score in a wide variety of ways that include not only your own ability to fight, but also your ability to think strategically against an enemy who is trying to counter your every move.

That’s the fun I find in WvW.

I think these two links pretty much tell the story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access (about a third of the way down)

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5777101_normal-satellite-internet-latency_.html

In a nutshell, satellite internet is probably a bad idea for gaming.

Syn Strykiir.9356:

I’m fixing to get off my land-line 1.5mb internet to get satellite internet. Only problem is of the several dif providers, they all have a data allowance. I need to know how much data usage is GW2 using. My wife plays average of 12-16 hours a day and I play average of 8-10 hours a day. So how many gigs of data does that equate to. 20gigs a month, 50gigs a month, 150 gigs a month(hope not). Please any info would be very appreciated so I can figure what package to buy! Thanks in advance!
Syn

You may want to reconsider that plan, or at the least carefully research it before you leap. Satellite internet can be pretty quick, but I would be concerned about potential latency problems. Maybe things have improved in the last few years since I used the Hughes satellite system (I switched to a land-based wireless ISP in 2005), but latencies in the range of 1200-to-1500 msec were not uncommon for Hughes back then.

I’m curious … is anybody here using satellite internet, and if so, what kind of pings do you get?

Keira Ferland.5619:

So what I’m getting out of this thread is Kaineng sucks but has a lot more people than maguuma

I’m on DR and don’t like some of what I’ve seen from Kain, but I for sure would not make such a broad generalization to say that they suck. Here are my own purely personal perceptions, which may or may not have the slightest bit of truth to them:

-1. [WM], the largest guild on Kain, has awesome discipline (and I mean awesome), great internal coordination, and their group tactics are designed to capitalize on all of that. But they haven’t shown much at all for broader map tactics (at least at this level) and individually they are pretty easy to kill … even for me and I do suck. They have huge numbers, move very fast, swarm like bees, and take pretty much whatever they set their mind on.

-2. The other guilds on Kain are pretty much what you would expect anywhere. They have some really good players and they have some that are not so good, but all of them seem to show a lot of enthusiasm (winning obviously helps morale). If 20 of you go up against 20 of [WM], you will win … if you go up against 20 from the rest of Kain, it’s a crap shoot.

-3. You rarely see [WM] mixed in with the other Kain guilds. On the battlefield it’s more like an alliance of servers than it is one server, although I have no doubt that all the Kain commanders, including those from [WM], more or less communicate and cooperate with each other. I question, though, how well that will work against a more unified foe.

-4. From my perspective, Mag worked harder at developing their players, their tactics, and making sure everyone was on the same page even when they had such large numbers that they didn’t need to bother. They have good commanders, solid tactics, great communication across the entire server, and good organization.

tl;dr Except for the fact that Mag has gotten a lot of new players that may or may not be very well integrated into their system by the time they meet up with Kain, I’d give the edge to Mag if the population numbers are close. I guess all of us are pretty interested to find out.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

The point system needs changing as well. Points should be awarded for each capture of a fort , garrison, or keep. Supply camps should only be awarded points after the tick.

Sorry, but that part is simply clueless. All you would get with that is more zergs and people not defending anything because it would be worth more points to just run around flipping objectives back and forth. That’s truly a horrible idea.

Littlefeather.8623:

Cactus.2710:

Thanks for the answers from the Kain folks. I’d like to think that everyone will be better off next week after reset, but with all the turmoil going on I’m not sure anyone really has a clue what it will look like.

I will say this, though, and I posted pretty much the exact same thing in a different thread:

A large map with lots of different objectives gives each server lots of choices … choices that make strategy and tactics important and provide opportunity for both large and small groups (even roamers) to make a significant difference. For me, that’s where the fun is. A tier with hoards of players in it is the equivalent of a small map … a tier with fewer players in it is the equivalent of a large map. It seems to me that the most desirable conditions for any server are to have a reasonably uniform population around the clock and be in a tier where the populations are similar among the three servers. Other than that, I personally see little benefit in being in a higher tier, and I suspect that I will always be happier in a middle tier or even lower one.

I understand, however some of us in the guild I am in are hardcore WvW players, we dont see any significant reason for the PvE content, and some of us are very competitive. I for one, I don’t do WvW for “fun” I do it to win, some are not as serious, but some of us are.

Well, just to clarify, I don’t think I ever said I wasn’t competitive or that I enjoy PvE content in WvW. I’ve even posted several messages opposing the idea of adding dragons, random boss spawns, and other such fluff into WvW, and I have several months bad experience with the Conquest map in Rift to back up my feelings on that topic.

For me, competition >IS< exactly the fun, but for me it’s more than zergs and large scale headbanging. I love being a part of a broad and varied force that uses mixed strategies and tactics that include massive assaults on keeps, diversions and sneak attacks on towers, small raiding teams that capture supply camps or kill yaks to starve an enemy of supply, and wisely chosen defenses. My point above was that I think more of those elements are available when the map is in essence larger than any of the pitched forces can cover … it requires more choices and provides more variety in game play. I never said that I wanted less intensity, less competition, or that I wanted any less to win … and in fact the exact opposite is the case.

Thanks for the answers from the Kain folks. I’d like to think that everyone will be better off next week after reset, but with all the turmoil going on I’m not sure anyone really has a clue what it will look like.

I will say this, though, and I posted pretty much the exact same thing in a different thread:

A large map with lots of different objectives gives each server lots of choices … choices that make strategy and tactics important and provide opportunity for both large and small groups (even roamers) to make a significant difference. For me, that’s where the fun is. A tier with hoards of players in it is the equivalent of a small map … a tier with fewer players in it is the equivalent of a large map. It seems to me that the most desirable conditions for any server are to have a reasonably uniform population around the clock and be in a tier where the populations are similar among the three servers. Other than that, I personally see little benefit in being in a higher tier, and I suspect that I will always be happier in a middle tier or even lower one.

Foss.4830:

These kinds of posts need to stop. Do not rag on guilds for transferring from dying servers because they want to be competitive. This is both unfair and disrespectful. Im on kaineng and im getting plenty of 1v1s and small group fights. Just because your constantly getting rolled by our zergs doesnt give you the right to come into this thread and start stirring things up and attacking our community. You only have to put up with it for this week then you will probably never see us again.

I mean its almost like you want us to stop outnumbering you some how? Are we supposed to tell everyone to wait in LA and just take turns going in to WvW to make things fair? Ill let you be the one to organize that.

Bottom line. Our guilds WANT large scale battles. We absolutely WILL NOT find that in lower tiers.

I’m not going to rag on Kain for having numbers. Things are what they are. But I’ve read your post several times now, even waited a while before responding to it, but since the start of this matchup I’ve had a few questions that maybe you can answer. I’m being serious … not trying to pick a fight.

-1. If [WM] wanted so badly to get back to T2/T1 (obvious from their tactics), why did they leave that level in the first place? If they were unhappy with SBI, why didn’t they just transfer to one of the other higher tier servers? Why disrupt all the other matchups in the lower tiers on their way back up to where they were anyway? It doesn’t make sense to me.

-2. If there were a lot of guilds (presumably including yours) on Kain that ached to join really large scale battles, why wouldn’t you have transferred to a server in a higher tier to begin with? Several of them have pretty much always been recruiting, they are established and well organized so you’d learn faster, and it would have been a much faster path for you. Steamrolling opponents isn’t even good for you, because it draws in players you don’t really want (as Mag is discovering to their chagrin) and bores the good players you do have to the point they don’t even join the map.

I’m honestly not trying to bait you or anyone else … I’m just puzzled.

I look at it this way. A large map with lots of different objectives gives each server lots of choices … choices that make strategy and tactics important and provide opportunity for both large and small groups (even roamers) to make a significant difference. For me, that’s where the fun is.

A tier with hoards of players in it is the equivalent of a small map … a tier with fewer players in it is the equivalent of a large map.

It seems to me that the most desirable conditions for any server are to have a reasonably uniform population around the clock and be in a tier where the populations are similar among the three servers. Other than that, I personally see little benefit in being in a higher tier that doesn’t involve lots of ego.

Llyrx.3497:

Fallout.1798:

Why is it that whenever we show up on a map and take a single tower, the full population allowed at once on that map for Kain show up to crush us? Seriously, you aren’t even giving us a chance to get a foothold on a map. You are already guaranteed to move up to the next wvw tier. http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA
Really we try to get some stuff done and Kain’s only response is to mega zerg us, nothing else.

You have to think from our point of view too, A lot of us are WvW main players, we don’t do anything else, So we have nothing to do, we are bored too and when we see a tower flip, everyone goes to it because it’s all we have to spend our time doing.

Yeah, I’m not at all surprised that’s the way it is, and I don’t hold any of that against you guys. Blowouts aren’t fun for anyone except for maybe the first few hours after reset, and after that populations on the losing servers drop dramatically. It is kind of fun to poke the bear, though, and a very few of us did that for a while last night in our own (DR) BL. We’d take the Arah camp and then wait for the inevitable zerg, and even took Longview a couple of times just for grins. I saw lots of different Kain guild tags (none from [WM], though) and I was surprised at how many of you were still on the map … obviously chafing for any kind of action at all.

Now there’s an original post …

LieutenantGoogle.7326:

I believe there should be a system where keeps only fill up a players supply load to 6 instead of 10 to promote taking supplies from a camp, pugs taking supplies from keeps is a huge problem that affect everyone who tries to defend the keep or upgrade.

That’s a horrible idea. It penalizes the legitimate players who, in an emergency, need to quickly grab keep supplies to defend it (or quickly deplete it if a takeover is unavoidable), while only mildly inconveniencing the griefer who simply needs a few extra trips (short ones at that, typically) to complete his dastardly task.

Aveneo.2068:

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

nerva.7940:

ranger is bottom of the barrel in wvw, bringing nothing useful for the team (except maybe barrage). a well done spirit buff could change this.

A well done rework could change this.

Unfortunately, they’re apparently going to nerf AoE’s. So I guess we’ll be bringing nothing useful for the team unless we’re going to see some major Ranger updates in the next patch.

They implied they might buff single target damage, so I’m hoping they were referring to the ranger. I’m not really holding my breath, though …

Jacbo.7598:

The funny thing about this matchup is look at the tiers below us and how they’ve balanced out since we left them. With the exception of some disparity in T8, they’re all pretty even matches. I wonder if next week another even match will be left in this tier when IoJ moves down. I doubt that, though, since IoJ probably needs to fall down a couple more tiers before they find their sweet spot.

I even posted on the Tier 6 thread that I wished DR had dropped down instead of BP. I’ll bet that each of the three servers in that tier are having way more fun than Kain, Ebay, and DR combined.

I have plenty of personal validation in real life so I don’t need to be in an upper tier to feel good about myself. I just want to play a game in a balanced environment, do the best I can, learn how to get better, and have fun. I don’t see how any of those things cannot be accomplished in any tier … at least not if ANet would get their act together on the matchups.

Hexin.5603:

3. The guys of old on Kain and DR … seems too much has changed, just enjoy the rivalry we have at hand, for what it’s worth.

Agreed.

SHAKA ZULU.3128:

This thread is a complete embarrassment and I hope it gets locked. DR, you faced the same bitter vitriol on your way up that we’ve been getting every week now. Your cognitive dissonance is showing, blinding me even. Pots and kettles calling each other black. I was looking forward to a tone of rivalry and fun jabs now that your problem people are gone, but you’re just as mad at us for no reason as everyone else we’ve faced. I’ll be sitting this thread out this week if it stays open. I expected better from you as another server who has charted a similar path as us, and I especially expected better of some Kains in here to not take the flame bait. Just so, so disappointing.

Who said anything about being mad? Where is the “bitter vitriol?” I’ve looked back at the postings from myself and other DR players, and the great majority of them are simple observations.

-1. We said that Kain’s play style has changed from being more broadly strategic to one that is mostly numbers driven. It has … that’s obvious to everyone. Even your own server mates have said that here. As one of them pointed out, against DR and Ebay you don’t need to do anything else and that makes sense. Another pointed out that the numbers you field almost force you to play that way, and I can understand that as well.

-2. We said that Kain has a huge advantage by virtue of better 24/7 coverage. That also is true, and I’m sure you would agree.

-3. We said that [WM] employed extremely disciplined hit-and-run tactics, and at least early in the match they did so with little regard for what they hit and without much defense. One of your server mates then posted here a rational and detailed description of why that was, and how it would probably be different in a different tier or possibly even later in the week in this tier. What would you like to dispute there?

-4. Some said that they were surprised at how easy it was to kill [WM] stragglers compared with members of Kain’s other guilds. I don’t think there’s much to argue there (I suck and even I find them easy prey), and … again … one of your server mates posted a comment here on why that was probably generally true and how they were working to upgrade those players.

So where do you see DR being “mad” here? I’ve seen more vitriol in the Kain replies (yours in particular) than I’ve seen in the DR comments. We’ve made some honest observations that you can contest if you see fit, but nobody is saying that Kain is not the stronger server here or that you don’t deserve to win. You guys deserve to move up, you almost certainly will move up, and it will be better for everyone when you do move up. I’ll be glad when you leave, but I’m not mad that you’re here this week while on your way to wherever you’re headed. It’s just a totally different style of play all around than when Kain and DR were last in the same tier, as I’m sure even you would agree.

Dovgan.8605:

To BP and NSP … so far .. best match up ever.

I’m on DR (currently getting rolled in Tier 5) and I have to say that I really envy all of you here in Tier 6. This is looking like a tremendous match up, at least based upon the scores. I would LOVE to be playing in a match where literally everything you did made a difference, small groups and large groups alike, and where every camp and tower was critical.

Personally, I prefer matches where the map is larger (compared to the populations) than any one server can realistically control. That way everything is in a constant state of flux and strategies and tactics really come into play. DR may have beaten BP last week on points (just barely), but from my point of view BP ended up being the real winner.

CHIPS.6018:

I am not even from this tier, but I find it sad that many of you decided to trash talk Kaineng instead of self improvement. Number is not everything in wvw.

Look at tier 2. SoR is the major player in that tier with all those transfers. Yet TC is still constantly getting 200 points. SBI, even after all their major wvw guilds left, and fighting outmanned 24/7, is still constantly getting 100 points.

Now look at tier 3. FA is another T1 material server that has so much more manpower it aren’t funny. Yet CD and DB are still holding their own.

No matter how strong you think Kaineng is, it isn’t indestructible. There are no reason that BOTH of your servers combined for less than 50 points. SBI by itself, at the worst possible moment, is still getting 100 points against the tier 1 bound SoR. And you two servers combined for less than 50 points. Explain to me how this is no fault of yours?

I am not trying to be hash. But when you only blame others you would never improve.

How duplicitous can you possibly be?? You’ve recently made several posts suggesting ways for ANet to fix the game breaking effects of server population imbalances, and below is an exact quote from a post you made just a few days ago. What’s even more incredible is you telling us to just suck it up and learn how to survive against insurmountable numbers after you just admitted that you can’t learn to play without them. We’re even talking about the same guild!!

posted by Chips:

Server PvP and WvW

Every night, SBI is getting overrun by zerg after zerg. In the first few days at tier 2, SBI would only lose their EB keep once a day at around 2:30 am PST. But for the past few days (after server transfer announcement), SBI now losses its EB keep 4 or 5 times a day. And this is happening even during NA prine time, a time slot where SBI used to be very strong at. And our ever shrinking numbers is a direct linking reason to that.

Ever since WM left SBI, many of us had to play extra amounts to fill those holes. But let’s get real its very tiring and expensive. And all the effort with nothing to show for it is extremely demoralizing.

Night after night SoR (nothing against you guys^^) would show up with their 60 men zerg and overrun everything. And the 20-30 of us have no chance. Even inside the walls we cannot shoot at our enemy below because our OWN walls blocks our shot (LOL!). When we jump to the edge of the wall to attack we get pulled down in a second (its so obvious you got to jump up to the edge).

So we put in the time, the thinking and the money into our wve efforts. All of these leads to nothing. Its a bottomless pit with no return. And so when the server transfer announcement was made, everything, and I do mean everything, collapses in SBI.

The question of many guilds is not whatever they should transfer out of SBI or not. The only question is where to. And I don’t blame them. Who want to suffer though this kind of torture night after night? Many of the people that I used to fight with are leaving. So yup our server is ripping apart.

3 weeks ago if you ask me, I wouldn’t ever considering leaving SBI. But today, everything combined really got me thinking. I mean I do play this game for fun. This game isn’t my life. So why stay in a depressing and stressful server?

This is a very sad time for me, my guild and my server. Very very sad times.

Oozo.7856:

WM’s movement isn’t botting or something mysterious. They move like a small man group: extending, looping, and flanking. You just have to pay attention. They are fairly predictable and as far as I can tell they are carried by numbers.

Not sure I agree about the predictable part, but the way they move is indeed amazing. One time their zerg was attacking one of our towers, and after they laid down a couple of flame rams they all stood back in the most perfect semi-circle I’ve ever seen. They knew exactly where to stand to stay out of range from the walls, and hardly a one of them was out of position. I find their tactics to be pretty singleminded, but their discipline is exemplary.

Draygo.9473:

Ok till friday ill start replying to these DR posts with quotes from Dred. It should be fun.

Go ahead, but Dred’s gone and both his guild and his server felt the same about him as you do.

Ashuri.1387:

Secondly, to everyone saying our tactics are worse majority of us are not even in WvW because of the uneven match-ups. So you have not even been reunited with us normal wvw guilds from back in T8

Uhh … you know what you just said there, right? The part about your normal guilds displaying better tactics than your zerg guild that now represents such a large portion of Kaineng’s WvW population? Yeah, that’s pretty much the exact same observation I made yesterday.

GekoHayate.2451:

Wait… The home team’s Garrison gives them an advantage?!?!?!?!!??!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!!?

Considering every server has a home field I don’t see the issue.

That seemed to me to be the obvious answer to the OP. I’m just surprised it took five replies before someone offered it.

That doesn’t really seem practical to me. How do you determine the population? Certainly not by just the server population because there could easily be servers where the WvW population doesn’t directly correlate with the server’s total population because of how guilds function. ANet can’t even use WvW population history since that doesn’t account for potential differences in the mix of casual versus more dedicated WvW’ers. You want to totally ruin WvW? Put in place a system that makes serious players not able to play.

dEjAhVu.4526:

What would you realistically like us to do?

Well, Maguuma had big numbers on us last week but still didn’t play like Kaineng has this week. Maguuma picked up even more numbers this week but isn’t happy about it because it subverts their play style. Anything Kaineng does this week is still going to result in a metric ton of whompkitten for both EBay and DR, but when Maguuma was in the same situation they somehow managed to still play like they were playing a stronger opponent. I’m not asking for mercy (which we don’t deserve anyway) … just making an observation.

Hexin.5603:

Cactus.2710:

I’m in no way trying to blame you for the numbers you are able to field. That’s ANet’s problem to fix. But the only way you “have grown so much already” is in numbers, pure and simple. For you to expect respect for anything more than that brings tears of mirth to my eyes. In all other aspects of WvW play you are a lesser server than when we faced you all those weeks. Your tactics are worse and your efforts are less. You are also now totally dependent upon one guild … a guild whose players (at least as far as I could tell last night) don’t even run with any of your other commanders even though [WM] has tons to spare. How sad is that?

Where were you fighting? I’m happy to clear the misconceptions or assumptions you make regarding commander assignments and such. Also may help to understand your active time of play? Happy to help clarify before you and other just talk without fact basis.

I spent the first half hour after reset in DR BL, but I dislike the BL maps in general and we were clearly on the run there anyway, so I spent the next 7 hours (until 1:30 AM server time) in EB. I rotated my time (sometimes attacking, sometimes defending, sometimes running supplies) between the camps and towers on both sides of the map, but didn’t spend any significant time south of Anzalius or Ogrewatch. I was on Teamspeak and paid attention to map chat.

dEjAhVu.4526:

It’s sad seeing a post like that from a server that went through the same transition Kaineng is currently expiriencing. If we had the exact same number as we did while we kept your server at bay in T8, we would not have come this far. I’m seriously sick and tired of people complaining about our numbers. How hard is it to understand that in order to compete in the tiers that we as a server are striving to get to WE NEED THE NUMBERS!!

What would you like us to do? All transfer to another server? Then ruin the balance in another tier? Unless you have some amazing suggestion to solve all this. Stop complaining.

First of all, everyone in DR knows we had a big advantage in those lower tiers because of numbers. Anyone who denies that is being foolish. That doesn’t mean that we’re not getting fed the same porridge now in spades.

But more importantly, if you go back to my original post here, I didn’t actually complain about your numbers. I simply remarked that Kaineng’s gameplay had changed from when we last faced you … you used to rely much more on tactics and skilled PvP. It’s pretty apparent now, though, even based upon the posts here from your own server mates, that at least in this matchup you’ve migrated to a zerg priority … a huge one. That makes you a more powerful opponent, but not necessarily a more respected one.

ShadowSoljer.6524:

I’m tired of all these whiners week after week giving full credit to WM. Yes they are good, but they aren’t doing it by themselves. They have full presence in Eternal and a smaller presence on one of the other borderlands at reset, after that, since we owned everything in 8 hours, everyone just goes to where help is needed. So you saw one tiny part of what the server can do, yet you make such a bs statement like that. Now that is something to laugh about, something to bring “tears of mirth” to my eyes. You got outplayed and outmanned. Enjoy the ride back down to t8.

LOL. Read that again and tell me how numbers alone don’t create that scenario. Send your new big guild to EB and let the rest of your sever focus on the BLs. Use a massive zerg (and I mean massive … we’ve never seen numbers even close to being that large, even against Mag) to wipe EB, then send portions of it wherever else might be needed. Yup … that works.

And yes, I spent almost all of my time last night in EB, where we did a pretty good job of keeping [WM] off balance for quite a while because all they did was hit-and-run, while we made better choices of what we attacked and what we defended given the people we had. If you had looked at the map in EB even a few hours after reset you would know what I mean. For quite a while [WM] didn’t even do a decent job of controlling the supply camps, but eventually they wore us down and we simply couldn’t come up with enough supply to defend anything. If you want to call that being outplayed, so be it.

Personally, I couldn’t care less which tier we are in as long as we have a balanced match (I didn’t like it when DR was steamrolling Kain and FC either) against great competition.

earendil.1290:

They are using tactics for T1-2 matchups. When you have strong coordinated zegs + several coordinated havoc squads + scouts and spies from all servers on all maps. They are not relying on overwhelming numbers – they have overwhelming numbers and have to use them.

That would be easier for me to believe if I saw members of [WM] running with any of your other groups, but I honestly don’t believe that I ever saw that last night … at least not in EB where there would have been lots of reasons to beef up the forces outside the main zerg.

Granted that it is annoying right now when you get that amount of PvDoor and they hate PvDoor as much as you do. I still don’t really understand why they did that move down. My guess is they had a lot of people in WM dropping from GW2 and this was their way to keep them with a minimal interest until the February update – but do not think they are happy with the current situation.

You seem like a rational person so I will take your word for that, and maybe the best way to resolve this for all parties involved is indeed for Kaineng to quickly blow us out so they can move on up next week. But as you say, if [WM] intends to play like that why did they bother to move down in the first place? It seems odd to be unhappy with a situation that any fool could have predicted their actions would create.

Ashuri.1387:

AHAHAHA So much complaints about our transfers we got. Listen here, we LOST quite a few LARGE wvw guilds in Kain back when DR outnumbered us incredibly! So please shove it with the transfers. Also we didn’t get those transfers until AFTER we fought DR so hard and got out of T8 once they left us. Seriously, its like people forget that we fought so hard against DR’s numbers and kept loosing guilds because of the match up but we kept going. As I remember we never looked over the fact we clearly outnumbered our matchups. We always gave recognition to everyone we faced and didn’t boast about out winnings like others. Kain is still one of the lower populated servers, just so happens most of us love WvW. hehehe Anyway I guess Kain we better get use to hearing this BS about we suck, our zergs are easy, we only win due to the transfers blahblahblah…all we can do is continue to work hard and move up and learn in the process!! Let’s keep fighting Kain!!! We have grown so much already!!!!

Now that’s a real laugh. Even though you were significantly outmanned back when DR had numbers on you, we respected Kain as an opponent. You guys fought hard and mostly fought smart. I still came up against a few of those types last night, but mostly I just came up against raw and not very proficient numbers. I didn’t see anybody in those massive zergs having to “work hard” for anything.

I’m in no way trying to blame you for the numbers you are able to field. That’s ANet’s problem to fix. But the only way you “have grown so much already” is in numbers, pure and simple. For you to expect respect for anything more than that brings tears of mirth to my eyes. In all other aspects of WvW play you are a lesser server than when we faced you all those weeks. Your tactics are worse and your efforts are less. You are also now totally dependent upon one guild … a guild whose players (at least as far as I could tell last night) don’t even run with any of your other commanders even though [WM] has tons to spare. How sad is that?