Guild Wars 2

Fizzlepip.5218:

In the end, we really should be blaming [WE] or something.

Yes, blame us /cackle.

We activated our long-duration sleeper agents, who then brainwashed Prosecute using a mix of super advanced alien technology and ancient Aztec meditation technics.

We’re evil, pure evil!

COBRAAA-LALALALALAAAA.

Sureshot.6725

The point is there is no perfect solution that will please every single player. However, competitive matches based on the ranking system are the best solution to an imperfect virtual world.

I agree, the current system is better than many that have been wished for, and it works well enough.

But if 6-7 out of 8 matches in the NA are not competitive, it is still not a good system. I can’t tell you which system we need, but the current one is not conducive to the long term health of the WvW scene.

Just wait, three or four weeks from now, everyone will be noticing this.

Yeah, the NA ladder has never looked more settled than it is currently. Not a single server moving tiers, and only a handful of -1/+1 moves within tiers.

This is the natural and anticipated result of the Glicko system.

And it is a bad thing that will destroy the WvW community pretty fast. And I can sum it up in one word. Stagnation.

If the MOS projections are accurate, the winners of NEXT week’s match are already easy to predict. Starting with Tier1 and working down, JQ, BG, FA, YB, SBI, ?, DH, SF. Only Tier 6 is really a dynamic match-up(although Tier 2 comes close).

If you’re on one of those losing servers that has no real chance of anything other than a perpetual 2nd or 3rd place finish, while usually fighting against greater numbers in WvW, you’re burning out. If you’re on a winning server, every week you win, you have to put in less and less effort, and the pride of winning(against servers you have beat week after week) becomes much less, you’re also burning out, albeit at a slower rate.

I too have noticed a big drop in FA’s numbers between the hours of 3am PST and 8am PST. It has only started occuring the last few days, so I’m not sure if it is an abberation or just a couple guilds taking a break or what. But what it has done is allowed Dragonbrand’s Asian guilds(NNK/TFV/GA) to get up to 500-600ppt, where as in previous weeks against FA we could only get up to just over 300ppt(and then relatively briefly).

I at first thought it might be that Dragonbrand’s Asian forces are coming back in force after the Chinese new year. And while those guilds have been doing excellent work, Dragonbrand is not running particularly more bodies at those hours now. As an NA vampire I was rolling through FA bl a few nights ago, and we never saw more than five FA defenders at one time anywhere in the borderland. Three or four weeks ago at the same time we would have run into 30 zealous FA defenders.

The change seems odd, particularly since I haven’t heard of any guilds leaving FA recently.

Kerithlan.1659

I just found it interesting that T3 believes there’s a ton of T2 servers while T2 believes there’s a ton of T1 servers. It’s sort of funny in the bigger picture lol.

I think it is pretty clear that JQ is T1+ atm, while SoS, SoR, BG, Kain all belong in T1. TC and FA are solidly T2, while Mag and DB are solidly T3. Of course due to the three-slot tier system, two of the potential T1 servers fight it out in T2, while one of the T2 servers drops to T3 and has an easier time of it.

The T1 and T3 outcomes are easy to predict. The winners are never really in doubt. The T2 match-up is the interesting one, especially with Kain having only just arrived.

Mag may get its wish and drop to T4 next week, but unless CD and EBay have become significantly stronger in the past two weeks Mag should do well and return to T3 rather quickly.

Banana is still around, although much less often due to family-agro.

Not entirely sure if he keeps current on these threads anymore.

Hmm, a couple misconceptions going around.

1) Player “skill” is a silly generalization to make, especially when you sweep entire server populations into it. DB/Mag players are not more skilled than Kain players, nor vice versa. The average player skill across all three servers is about the same. All three servers have players who are above average, and players who are below average.

2) The only standout guild in this match-up is War Machine. I feel perfectly comfortable fighting any guild on Mag or Kain, but when I bump into WM, it is clear everyone else on all three servers is outclassed. The discipline, the organization, and the sheer amount of hours WM puts into WvW is admirable. And I respect them a great deal.

3) Whatever “queue” problems actually exist, exist on all three servers. I believe that 70-80 people is the standard population cap on borderlands maps. I have never seen a borderlands map with greater numbers than that from one server.

4) Kain was not beat in the first hours of reset because of the great skill of Mag/DB, nor because of population numbers, or because one server is more skilled. Kain was beat because they holed up in Stonemist at the price of some PPT, and because the defense of Kain bl was disjointed after Mag executed a brilliant rush on Kain garrison in the first few minutes of the match.

Had Kain held its own garrison from reset, all three servers would have been more or less evenly matched scorewise in the first few hours. All this chest-thumping from DB/Mag that we beat Kain in those early hours is silly. We got lucky, in part because I don’t think Kain has ever really had to seriously defend its borderlands on reset before.

Speaking as someone in attendence at the Dragonbrand pre-reset server meeting, and who stays in contact with many of the guilds and leaders on Dragonbrand often, I can assure you there has never been any sort of alliance with Maguuma. I did musingly toy with the idea of reaching out to Maguuma but my own guildmates and various others were adamantly opposed to the idea(a lot of them really don’t like Maguuma).

I know the narrative put out on Kaineng is that there was double-teaming going on. But I think that shows a deep misunderstanding of basic WvW reset-night strategy. Whoever holds Stonemist will be attacked by both servers. On borderlands maps you do not attack laterally, you always attack north against the defending home server.

Dragonbrand attacked north on MAG bl, Dragonbrand attacked north on KAIN bl, Dragonbrand attacked the owner of Stonemist in EBG, Dragonbrand defended against both MAG and KAIN in its homeland.

This is basic strategy. No conspiracy theories needed.

sticx.5823:

Battle decisions are made purely dependent on how many points it will net your realm, instead of tactical impact that those decisions may have.

Of course decisions are made on how many points it will score. Because kills DO. NOT. MATTER.

Tactical impact is scoring. This is why you time your caps right before the point tick, this is why you hold things until the scoring tick. This is(partly) why you use three people to kill every enemy dolyak in sight.

That scoreboard and ticking clock add a level of complexity that is sorely needed in the already simplified world of WvW. Do I think it could be redone with a better scoring system? Absolutely yes. Do I think it would help WvW to have scoring removed and replaced with NOTHING? Absolutely not.

I think a ratings reset is a good thing, even if it results in a couple weeks of blowouts until the ladder reaches relative equilibrium again. But I think ANet has failed to mention one of the key factors in why they’re picking this time for the WvW reset.

At some point in February we’re getting the much anticipated “WvW”-incentivation Patch. If it works out well, it will be drawing a bigger chunk of PVE players/guilds into WvW. And I’m sure many of the dedicated WvW guilds who have recently experienced a sense of burnout and lack of interest in WvW(my own included) will return to WvW in greater numbers.

The demographic shift is going to be fairly large and will skew WvW results. Certain servers with high numbers of PVE players/guilds are going to be stronger in WvW.

The ratings reset goes hand-in-hand with the upcoming WvW patch, they’re linked. And while it is possible that ANet is a week or two early on the reset, it is still a good thing that needed to happen.

Slomoshun.6317:

When you say, “along with a lot of other Dragonbrand fighters”, do you mean Warsworn leading the siege on hills and the only ones dropping siege and running supply to defend it?

Kinda like we did again last night.

Peace, no slight on Warsworn was intended. Without you guys we would not have taken Hills at reset. But then again without everyone else there we would not have taken it either. Which is why it was decided at the server meeting the night before reset that we would do it together. There is more than enough glory to go around for everyone. One team, one fight.

As to the rest, I dropped eight arrowcarts, 2 catas, 2 ballistas personally during the first few hours in Hills. More after the map crashed. More during the next few days. As to running supply and guarding dolyaks. Both NNK and TFV had groups in CD bl doing that for more than 12 hours after reset, as did WE and others. And as far as defending it, basically everyone on DB who regularly WvWs saved that keep at one time or another. Name a commander, or guild, they were there at some point.

The whole server can take pride in that achievement.

If I sounded too possessive of it I apologize.

Not sure what my month old post about WE leaving DH has to do with a Kain/DR/EBay match-up thread or Rethesis. But just because I’m anal about getting history right let me clarify a few things.

DHU was the first major alliance on DH, their major wvw guilds moved servers within a month of the game’s release. RE, nor WE was ever a part of this alliance. Guilds in this alliance scattered. Defiance(RUN) last I heard is on TC, while FMC transferred to SoR. Purple Dragons is on FA.

DHA was the second major alliance on DH. Ethersin and RE were briefly in this alliance until there was some sort of argument between Ethersin and Seal the Deal of HVN.

Of the DH guilds that have moved servers in the past six weeks. Rethesis went to Kaineng, Win Everyday went to DB, Get of Fenris went to CD and now Blackgate. HoT went to SBI. Side Effect(not 100% sure on this) went to JQ, then NSP, then Kaineng, where it split up. The bulk of its members under Kiridono formed DE which recently merged into RE. Prosecute reforged Side Effect and went back to Darkhaven.

And that is the simplified story of Darkhaven’s orphans as accurately as I know it. Trakittenalk and troll us if you must, but at least get the details right.:)

My guild and I(Dragonbrand), figured coming into this match-up that CD would be crushing us, having won the prior week. To this end we(and a lot of other Dragonbrand fighters) went into CD bl at reset, seized that Hills keep, and kept it for three days. Had we realized the extent of the power-shift due to IoJ>FA transfers we might have rethought our strategy and tried to take and hold a foothold in FA bl. We never expected it to work so well, and if it served as some sort of catalyst to start a collapse of the CD wvw scene I am sorry.

To my fellow Dragonbrand fighters we now have a choice. Fight hard, focus CD exclusively and we might stay in Tier 3 next week. Or we can relax, take second place with the margin we have, and fall to Tier 4.

If we stay in Tier 3 we will be fighting FA and Maguuma. In that match-up I think we will take third, but it will be a good hard fight from all sides. If we fall to Tier 4 we will fight Kaineng and YB. And Kaineng will smash us, but we’ll still take second place easily over YB. I know, many of you will disagree with that assessment. But you’re wrong. Kaineng can field queues in all four maps, they can keep queues in 1-2 maps 24/7. DB can’t come close to those numbers.

This is particularly important because it will be the last three days before paid server transfers go active. I think it will be better for Dragonbrand morale and keep people’s spirits higher to stay in Tier 3 and fight a rough, but solid match-up against FA and MAG, rather than be steamrolled by Kaineng.

So get in WvW, and pressure CD until the end of this match-up.

Kaineng is actually in a very good spot structurally because it is not a full server, has lots of momentum, and guilds transferring to it. And because paid transfers are incoming, the number of guilds looking for a new winning server that they can move to is particularly high. It is literally perfect timing for Kaineng. And they’re getting more people every day.

Next week Kain will go against DB(or maybe CD), and a YB server that is kind of on life-support. As a Dragonbrand player I look forward to seeing just how beastly Kaineng is firsthand, but I don’t enjoy the thought of going against them with a 3rd server that seems to be losing numbers and the will to fight.

A Kain/Mag/DB fight would be hard fought, a Kain/YB/DB fight is going to be a Kain victory, albeit with smaller margins than before.

As to whether or not Kain can get to Tier1, I don’t know, but they will make it to Tier2 at least.

Just out of curiousity and being new to the tier, why the bad blood between CD and FA/IoJ?

I encountered a few FA hackers last night who flipped a tower, tried to flip a keep and another tower. And that left a certain bad taste in my mind. But 99% of FA seem like honorable opponents, and I haven’t seen anything particularly bad from CD yet.

The only real reason DB has a bit of a lead over CD so far, is because DB has held CD bl’s east keep since reset. Had that not occured it is very possible CD would be in second place right now.

Presumably CD will retake that keep at some point today(sunday), and stop or begin to close the gap in score.

Unfortunately for us on DB, that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, since beating CD does nothing for us(other than some pride I guess). DB has to beat FA to remain in tier 3.

If DB takes 2nd and FA takes 1st, we’re going to gain rating, but still drop a tier due to Maguuma’s metoric rise.

ninjambo.3784:

Oh hey its Caliburnx! I remember you from Darkhaven
I used to be in HVN when Seal the Deal was really popular.
Did he quit? He went MIA so I went to FA.

Yeah, Seal disappeared. HVN folded more or less. WE moved to DB, ran into your folks tonight as you were holding DB bl east keep against us. Good response time on your part.

It is impossible to be certain about any of this stuff right now, because so many guilds are considering server moves before the paid transfers go in.

But if current trends continue it seems like there will once again be ten servers fighting to be in the top three tiers. The odd server out, will drop to tier four for a week and enjoy a relaxing blowout.

I guess those ten, in no particular order, will be SoS, JQ, BG, SoR, TC, CD, FA, DB, MAG, KAIN.

As far as some of the unknowns go. How far will SBI fall, or will it stabilize somewhere in the top four tiers? Will YB grow or lose people before the 28th? If those two servers can survive mostly intact, it will give us 12 servers in the top four tiers with reasonable good match-ups.

Then there is an even more interesting question, are any of the servers in the bottom four tiers going to enjoy the boon of guilds transfering to them? Just a couple reasonably sized guilds transferring to a single server could create a mini-bandwagon server that would be well positioned for post-28th success.

Hehe, hello GoF. Next time my thieves take down Phoenix don’t revive him. Every leader needs to die once in awhile.

Also, I appreciate the Siege Golem tombstone over my body.

Drednyte.7601:

Oh who was this?
1 – Found you
2 – Enjoy the punt?

Lol, thats one of my guildmates, Khaotic I think. I’ll tell him you posted that so we can all laugh at him.

Had you not found him, we were stacking below to take the keep back. We thought you guys were done mesmer sweeping.

Sol.4317:

Gotta say that i’m getting pretty disheartened with the whole pvdoor scenario. last night before i crashed we had DB and EB solidly behind us.

YB did have a decent lead, and you guys came out swinging hard at the reset.

But the majority of that lead stems from the tactical decision by Dragonbrand to only flex NA guilds in three maps. We decided to leave YB bl alone for the evening, and EBay apparently followed suit or had trouble setting up any kind of foothold there.

Had Dragonbrand decided to flex major forces into YB bl, and leave EBay bl alone for reset night the score would have been closer.

EBay is still trying to dislodge DB from their homeland as we speak.

Was defending garrison once, had a comfortable amount of supply, and then BAM someone queues up hire merchants right as the enemy zerg is forming up outside. 600 supply gone in an instant, at the price of what 10-15s?

There has to be ways to fix that type of thing. It is too easy, and there is no way to counter-play it.

I apologize, it was ill-considered to bring up structural issues in a recruitment thread.

After three weeks in a row fighting a desperate holding action against DB’s Taiwanese and Malaysian guilds, let me give YB and Ebay some free advice.

Taiwan is 8 hours different than US pacific time, 11 hours different than US eastern time.

This means they generally start logging on in decent numbers around midnight PST or 3am EST. They’ll generally only do a little bit of work in WvW at this point, and after an hour or two break for dinner. At around 3am PST is when you’ll begin to see the full turn-out. When you see your supply camps start flipping around this time, you know that golems are coming. If you repel the golems, they retreat and move to another map, and come back in around two hours. This pattern will continue until about 8am(midnight in Taiwan)PST, at which point their numbers drop off sharply.

Also, because Taiwan is across the international dateline they are a day ahead. What this means is that you can make up ground on sunday(in the US) because the weekend is already over in Taiwan.

I am curious to see if the 3rd generation of Darkhaven WvW guilds can overcome the main structural problem the server faces.

Generation 1 left mostly due to what was perceived as lack of late-night numbers.

Generation 2 left mostly(different guilds say different things, but this was the root cause) due to what was perceived as lack of late-night numbers.

Generation 3 is in the rebuilding process.

I’m rooting for you guys, but having gone through the process twice on Darkhaven, beware, it is a long painful slog, and if you don’t get a solid oceanic presence the server will collapse again in a few months.

To be fair, DB’s NA primetime force certainly does need work. We need to cross-talk more effectively, and coordinate our forces better. Also, we need to educate more people on using key siege. Last night for example we lost NE tower in YB bl due to the defenders in the tower not using an already built treb to take out the YB cata line.

But it is easy to pick out and criticize crucial mistakes like that, and miss the bigger structural picture. DB’s primetime force would have been neck and neck with EBay and YB scores throughout the night, had we held DB garrison. Which to my understanding we only lost because YB and Ebay hit it at nearly the same time.

We can easily fix that mistake with a bit more defensive siege.

All the various exploits, imbalances, and minor other things, are all annoying. But just a nuisance.

The two core problems of GW2 WvW right now are more structural in nature.

1) It is a numbers game. With numbers in off-peak hours weighted a bit more heavily depending on the match-up. Skill and organization can beat numbers briefly. But can anyone think of a single week-long match where the winning server did not have superior numbers/coverage, and a greater total of man-hours spent in WvW?

In the end it always comes down to numbers. And as more players surpass several hundred hours in WvW apiece they are growing to recognize this. And it is a motivation killer.

2) And arguably worse, is the tactical and strategic stagnation of WvW gameplay. During the first few months there were plenty of new and interesting things being tried and innovated. But now? Everything is static, I can’t even remember the last time I saw a fresh position for siege equipment, or a new style of attacking or defending.

Couple points.

1) When RE leaves, the last DH guild fielding 20+ numbers routinely in WvW will be gone. Saying the WvW scene on Darkhaven is dead is silly, saying that the organized WvW scene is dead, is accurate.

Last night DH had a queue in DH bl, a queue of up to 15 minutes, a queue that lasted for several hours. DH was barely able to hold onto one keep for much of that time. And certain random DH commanders were exchanging our partially fortified keeps for freshly flipped towers, simply because that is where the karma and coin and experience were at.

I hope DH organically builds some new WvW guilds, but that process is going to take at least a month or two. Right up to the February patch, where everything is going to get shaken up.

2) WE have been scouting servers for about two weeks, and considering a move since before that. We talked to some of DB’s guilds last week, and it is only through the vagaries and oddness of the glicko rating system that DB somehow gained rating, yet still fell back to Tier5.

3) Why Dragonbrand? WE did not want to go to a tier we felt we had not earned, nor did we want to drop down to lower tiers. We know that Dragonbrand has its own history and flaws. We know it has no centralized alliance or website, and we know that the language barrier between us and the Taiwanese guilds will make combined operations trickier. And we know that as part of DB’s primetime force we will largely be outnumbered and on the defensive.

But we’re not afraid of those challenges.

It is with great sadness that I want to announce that Win Everyday(WE) is moving from Darkhaven to Dragonbrand. We’ve been with Darkhaven since the release of the game(three of our commanders are among the first ten on the server), we have helped build up the server since the DHU alliance tore the heart out of Darkhaven’s WvW forces, we helped again after Darkhaven reached tier4 and was destroyed. But the situation for Darkhaven’s organic WvW scene is worse than ever before. After the DHU fiasco Darkhaven had RE, GoF, SE, HoT, HVN and WE ready to step in and rebuild.

Now? GoF is gone, SE is gone, HoT has more or less retired from WvW, HVN has folded, RE is leaving.

This would not be crippling for Darkhaven, if it had another group of guilds waiting in the wings to save the server. But it does not. I’ve watched closely, putting hours into WvW every single day since release. Guilds like Omen, DRoW, SoS all had potential to really aid Darkhaven’s WvW scene, but none have reached critical mass, and each has somewhat withdrawn from WvW.

WE have tried the alliance game. We’ve tried the server-community website. We’ve offered a public mumble to everyone on Darkhaven. There has been little to no response. We’ve coordinated and communicated with anyone and everyone on the server who are willing. And the vast bulk of the server doesn’t care. Their version of WvW is simple. Enter WvW and ask, “Where is the karma train?” If there is no karma train, leave WvW. Defend? Not a chance.

And we’re done trying. It isn’t worth it anymore. Darkhaven is a PVE server at heart. BURN, DHE, TRA and others all have hundreds of members, and have little to no desire to do WvW.

To that small band of loyal fighters(those who respond to defensive calls, and leave the karma train) we’re sorry to abandon you. Silverback, Skap, Togochubb, Lokii, Flint; Omen, DR, PD, EXE, PaK members, and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. We’re sorry. You guys all deserve so much better.

WE like working with you guys, and hope you’ll consider coming along to Dragonbrand.

Superior siege is much closer to what siege equipment should be, but even superiors aren’t feared enough. There are only a handful of spots ballistas can be effectively employed, and arrowcarts(even superiors) can still only hit five targets at a time in a zerg, and those targets are never the same targets.

Sicktor.7285:

What would be the point of having a ballistae which are meant to be highly effective against infantry if a trebu can kill characters immediately.

If trebs were to be buffed as I would like, ballistas would need a buff as well probably. Although their role as siege destroyers(both offensively and defensively) would still see them getting constructed. As to the trebs being ridiculously overpowered, you could tweak the numbers to find the right balance. For example, reduce the splash damage to almost nothing(IE only a direct hit would instant kill someone), reduce the rate of fire etc. And good players would of course actually watch where trebs are aiming, and dodge the projectiles. People on voice-coms could call out, “Incoming!”, use projectile blocking, there are many ways to counter-play trebs. The players who are running with the zerg, mindlessly auto-attacking the door, and going afk to smoke or eat as the gate goes down would be punished. But I’m okay with that.

As to the concern about weather or smoke effects just being a worse form of culling, that is nonsense. If everyone in a blizzard can only see a couple meters in front of them, and everyone has the same limitations, and everyone KNOWS that everyone else has the same visual impairment, it is VERY different than culling where one side will suffer from it, while the other side might not, and you never know exactly who can see who.

The more substantial argument against visual impairment effects like severe weather, would be that it might indirectly nerf ranged classes/builds.

JCWolf.1674:

Npc guards need some loving as they are not contributing anything to WvW in their current state.

They certainly do. My idea would be that a guild that claims a tower or keep can then position the guards. Including the option to station NPC guards on various siege equipment.

This option would be a trade-off however, NPC guards would obviously use the siege equipment less effectively than human players( NPCs wouldn’t really have the creativity or programming to do counter-battery work), and perhaps they’d have a damage penalty on their siege equipment, say only 80% damage compared to what a human operator would be doing with it.

cuge.5398:

Point system review
+ Some points should be earned on succesfull capture of a point.
+ Points per tick given by any structure should increase over time. Such as camps starting at 0 points first tick (but still you get 5 points for the cap), then 5 more points second tick, 7 points third, 4th – 10pt, 5th – 14pt and stops there.
Same goes for keeps, 2nd – 25pt, 3rd – 30pt, 4th – 35pt, 5th – 40pt.
This way just capping something for the tick will be lot less rewarding than holding it.

Supply system review
+ When they get capped their depot should be empty, so there is no use for a zerg to rush to a camp and flip it just for the tick and resupply. Supplies will go to whom defend the camp.
+ Dolyaks should be a lot harder to kill, at the moment is useless to escort them cause any burst built toon can just suicide on it and take it down in 3 skills. I’d say they should have like 4000armor and 50k hp.
+ Dolyaks should have one additional upgrade to carry more supply, like 75 – 125 – 250.
+ There should always be 2 guards defending a dolyak, and 3 more should come with the upgrade. Yaks shouldnt be something that you kill passing by…. they should be really something to care more, by both sides.

The specific numbers would be different, but I like these ideas in principle.

What I would like even more, is the ability for players to dynamically effect supplies and points per tick while playing defensively.

For example,

You hold a supply camp and a nearby tower or keep. You can then trigger giant dolyaks to spawn at your supply camp and move to your building, and if they reach their destination they give your server instant points. If they are killed enroute the enemy gets instant points(more than the 3 they currently can get).

But here is the fun part. When you trigger point dolyaks, it flags the event on the map for all servers to see, AND more important it opens the gates of your destination building so the dolyaks can get inside. So it gives the players the choices to make make their buildings much more vulnerable, but also the option of making more points.

There would obviously need to be a rather long timer on opening and closing your gate(something in the order of a couple minutes), so that you could not have the best of both worlds. And there would also need to clearly be certain limits on who/when you can open gates, otherwise griefers and spies would become rampant.

Making siege weaponry more deadly as I suggested would make defending easier. Which is why it would need to be offset by weather, darkness, and taking swords off the map, all changes that would favor the attacker.

Also, siege used in a counter-battery role would be extremely important. A properly aimed treb or two could sweep walls clear of defenders.

And finally, well placed siege in open field battles between zergs should have the power to actually effect the outcome of said battles significantly.

As it is currently, siege equipment kills walls and gates, and other siege equipment. While players, even the glassiest cannons laugh at being hit by it most of the time.

By turning siege weapons into true force multipliers, and making the terrain more complex and dense(via weather, darkness, or bigger maps) you make the smaller forces who operate asymetrically more viable and WvW far more tactically diverse and interesting.

I’m tired of zerging being the primary tactical of Meta of GW2, after nearly a thousand hours spent in WvW I’m tired of it. The bigger zerg usually(not always) wins, the lag is horrible, and culling effects are at their worst. But worse, it promotes a stagnant boring type of gameplay that is not conducive to making people enjoy WvW.

So lets break the zerg Meta. Let’s give Anet some easy workable solutions to start to push the Meta away from the zerg. Simple stuff that doesn’t require much coding or new content. Just tweaks of existing mechanics and content.

Here’s is the sort of stuff I would like to see,

-Take away orange swords on the map.
-Take away contested swords on the map.
-Add a true day/night cycle(like really, really dark).
-Add severe weather. Thick fog banks, or blizzards(like in certain Fractals).
-When hit by a catapult, players are instantly downed(not just knocked down).
-When hit by a trebuchet, players are killed instantly(no downed state).
-When hit by a siege weapon while in a downed state, players are instantly killed.
-No 5 target cap for siege weapon damage(Arrowcarts especially).
-No 5 target cap for AoE player spells.

Just these minor changes would radically change the tactical aspects of WvW for the better.

What do you guys think? I’m sure some of you have even better suggestions to help improve the tactical stagnation in WvW.

Yes, absolutely. The current prediction will probably not hold up. But just the possibility that such an event can occur is troubling.

First, check out the MOS NA scoreboard.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

Let me draw your attention to tier 4 and tier 5, and the projected outcomes.

Dragonbrand is going to win that match-up(Christmas will hit that server with less impact than its competitors). Yet due to how the Glicko rating system works Dragonbrand may win its match-up against two higher rated servers, yet still be knocked down to tier 5 next week.

Ehmry Bay by comparison is dominating its match-up against two lesser ranked servers, and will likely move back into tier 4.

This is ridiculous. Winning matters, there needs to be some sort of checks and balances within the modified Glicko system being used to ensure that winning a match(particularly against higher rated opponents) can never, ever, send you back to a lower tier.

Matt Witter.6982:

Player placed siege weapons have a 30 minute timer that remove the siege from the game, when the timer expires. Players using the siege causes the timer to restart.

This is a myth, but one that has apparently entrenched itself even up into the ranks of Anet?

And it is easy to debunk. Pick a secluded nook on the northern wall of your home borderlands. Around the orb spawn area works fine, no one every goes there. Build one piece of siege equipment. In my case I built an arrowcart. I then sat watching said arrowcart for THREE hours, no player touched it. And it did not despawn.

After that I got bored and went to go find people to kill. But I checked on my arrowcart periodically. It survived for five days, right up until friday’s WvW reset.

Evilzara.6378:

Yeah, that fight inside stonemist was intense. I really admire Darkhaven’s effort for trying to get stonemist from us while having the outmanned buff at one point. (I think I saw it on one person).

With the exception of our own borderland Darkhaven is more or less always outnumbered in the current match-up. If we refused to fight when outnumbered it would be a horribly dull week.

Ultimately it was a strategic mistake for us to attempt to snag SM, we could have made more points elsewhere. But it was a fun mistake to make.

DtC.4806:

ok guys, speaking for many ppl in BP, and i can get 80%+ of BP to follow this if we go through with it,
lets face it this week will be horrible in terms of wvw numbers, i would like to try organizing a ceasefire for the next week so people can enjoy christmas in real life, as well as the pve stuff in gw2, the big commanders and guild leaders in DB/DH what do u think? if we all agree upon it, it would be succesful

Even if you got 80% of BP to abide by a ceasefire, and we were able to do the same on DH and DB(or EBay), that missing 20% of people will mess things up.

Also, speaking purely for myself and my guild, we enjoy doing WvW, and while family and holiday obligations may limit the playtime hours of some players, there are also many players who are getting time off work or school and will be playing more.

No ceasefire is desired.

Darkhaven at reset yesterday had queues for two maps for perhaps an hour. At various points we had outmanned buff on the other two maps.

Then came the patch and Wintersday’s stuff, and we had the outmanned buff on all maps(except briefly on DH bl) for the rest of the night.

BP looks pretty organized, but again DH only has RE and GoF who field 40+ numbers during the late afternoon and primetime. And WE who is a distant third fielding around 20 during late primetime hours into early morning. That is it. Side Effect is gone. HoT, Omen, SoS, DRoW used to field 10-15+ members in WvW, but all those guilds rarely(if ever) do organized WvW currently. There are a couple smaller guilds that field maybe 5-10 people, and I hope they develop into bigger and better assets for DH.

I wish we could fight BP on a numerically even basis and really test how good your organization and coordination is, but even without the Wintersday stuff, but that isn’t going to happen this week. You’re going to outnumber us at pretty much all hours.

Then again, DH’s true role in this match-up is to act as a spoiler and drag on BP, to prevent you from gaining that 600PPT for hours on end that would let you beat DB’s oceanic scoring period. DH has taken over the role that NSP had held for the previous three weeks. We can’t win ourselves, but we can help determine which other server wins.

Of course, since most of DH strongly dislikes DB after three weeks of going to bed with a lead and waking up behind we’re not particularly motivated to help them…

Maybe we’ll just all decide to take a week off.

nalenb.1425:

I don’t get it. DH says DB is a PvDoor server because we have people at night. But in the morning they PvDoor and it’s okay? I was just on DB BL now, and they rolled into our upgraded garrison with about 30 people and a golem against our 4. We lost an upgraded keep in < 3 minutes due to numbers. I just don’t understand how either that’s not PvDoor or that it is somehow okay because it’s during waking ours in EST.

That was my golem. And PvDoor is boring no matter which side of it you or I are on. All three servers do it at different points in the day.

The underlying structural problem for this current match-up(From a Darkhaven perspective) is that DH has to compete with NSP during US daylight and primetime hours, while DB has no real competition during Taiwanese daylight and primetime hours. Also, DB’s US primetime numbers are far superior to DH’s Taiwanese primetime numbers.

Complaining about this stuff is silly, its the nature of 24/7 WvW, but understanding it will give some needed perspective.

Several nights ago I took the SW borderlands supply camp and fortified it with ballistas and arrowcarts. We had around 15 Darkhaven fighters. We start trebbing West Keep, which brings the Dragonbrand reaction force to hit us, as we desired. No problem, we’re tying up twice our number of Dragonbrand, and having fun playing Alamo in the supply camp and farming badges. Good times.

Keeping in mind that SW supply is the only thing owned by Darkhaven on that particular borderlands, what do you think the NSP forces in the zone did? They gathered their forces at SW tower, and begin climbing the mountain path to SW supply, while DB kept hammering at the main gate. My paltry band is holding off easily 35 DB and 25 NSP. Finally NSP portal bombs into the camp. My guys wipe them out, barely. But DB takes advantage of the distraction to flood inside and wipe out my guys from behind.

It was some of the tightest coordination between servers I have ever seen. Some guilds on a single server couldn’t have pulled it off better. And yet I know, with absolute certainty that it was completely unintentional. That is just the way the battle played out. I question NSP’s tactical rational, for wanting to turn a 2-way battle for a supply camp into a 3-way battle(When they could have been taking an undefended keep on the other side of the map), but there was no plotting, or conspiring to double team Darkhaven at that particular moment.

I can’t speak for NSP, nor have I ever spoken to any of their fighters. They’ll do what they think is wise.

But every competent commander and fighter on Darkhaven understands that taking an NSP camp give us points(good), but taking a Dragonbrand camp gives us points, AND denies points to Dragonbrand(better). All things being equal, we are always going to focus Dragonbrand first for that simple reason.

And Dragonbrand does the same thing to us. Every night when Dragonbrand’s Asian/Oceanic guilds come on, they go for DH’s borderlands before NSP’s borderlands.

11,669 WvW kills.
4043 Badges of Honor.

Darkhaven lost ICoa, part of HVN, Brazilian Legion(I think, not 100% sure on that one), and a smattering of random fairweather players last week.

As far as I am aware, we have gained no significant guilds in that same period. So overall we as a server are definitely putting weaker numbers into WvW than we had two or three weeks ago.

There are two or three small to middling sized homegrown guilds on Darkhaven that I am keeping an eye on however, that seem to be putting more numbers into WvW, so the situation is not entirely bleak.

wombat.6123:

In fact, our numbers during Oceanic time are still very weak. For the first couple of days of this match HoD and Darkhaven had more players on during Oceanic time than we did.

You mean saturday night, sunday morning pacific time? Because I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that Darkhaven had the outmanned buff on all borderlands for most of that period. And it took a 50-60 man FA force, bringing in an omega golem to kick out our 15-20 man force in FA bl at around 5am PST sunday morning. You might not be able to pack all four maps at once, but you outnumbered Darkhaven’s nightcrew by at least two to one over the weekend.

I can’t speak to HoDs late night numbers however.

There is an interesting sort of rhythm going on in this match-up. Namely that none of our three servers are really able to field strong numbers at any time. So it has become a delicate balancing act of deciding how many people to leave defending each of our respective borderlands, how many people to send to the grinding slogging fight that is EBG, and when/if to send a major force into an enemy borderlands.

It actually feels like there is a lot more logistical strategy. Proper application of forces at the proper time and place are shaping this battle. And small dedicated defensive teams of 10-15 can do amazing things at these population levels in WvW.

^I was the first DH commander on scene for that. Had to put down many arrowcarts, including superiors, and zero in my mortarmen, it was fun stuff. We were wondering the whole time why one server would attack then back off, and let the other server attack us. We had the outmanned buff for most of it, maybe 15 people in the whole map, until we brought in reinforcements from DH bl.

Unfortunately due to DHs abysmal numbers in WvW currently, we can really only defend one point during the early morning hours.

I am always amused when word is spread about an alliance or truce with another server. They never last, and they never work.

Any agreement DH had with NSP was never publicized to the maps at large, nor was it honored by anyone except a few guilds, and then only for an hour perhaps. It is gone now and unlikely to return.

To Maguuma,
You guys are very tenacious and skilled defenders. The best Darkhaven has run across so far(not surprising considering the tiers we’re coming from). I very much admired your spirited creative defense of West Keep in NSP BL recently. We’re going to learn a lot from you guys in this match-up.

To NSP,
Is VIP moving to Darkhaven going to motivate you guys against us more, or demoralize you? I think you came up with a strategy to counter us last week, that had it been implemented a day or two earlier would have earned you the win. You have that chance now.

Darkhaven, as a whole(there are exceptions) is bad at WvW. I say this as a Darkhaven player. We are technically bad. We misplace siege equipment, we misuse resources, we waste time attacking objectives we have no business attacking and we rarely have the patience to defend properly. Timing and coordination between pugs, small guilds and larger guilds is rarely optimal. Anyone playing against us tonight has seen all of those failings, and will probably try to capitalize on those problems.

But we’re learning, we’re improving, and we have three things that bode well for us.

1) We are a high population server, and I think more and more of our people are realizing that WvW is the endgame of GW2, and gradually shifting more and more into WvW. Our PvErs are horrible at WvW. But as Napoleon said, “Quantity has a quality all its own.”

2) After last week’s match-up there is real excitement and passion to do WvW. The bandwagoners, and fair weather players who saw us crush FC and AR last week think DH is great and want to do WvW. The veteran WvW players(few as they might be) were utterly bored for an entire week, and now want to battle against NSP and EB in hopes of a good fight. We’re hungry, hungry for WvW as I have never seen on this server before.

3) We have a decent nighttime/Oceanic population. No, it is not as big as people claim(except maybe on weekends). We can maybe muster maybe one 40 man main zerg, and a couple 10-15 man squads. But we also operate much smoother than our daytime crew, and it appears so far that NSP and EB cannot match our nighttime forces.

So yes, if DH wins this match-up(which I frankly doubt, NSP stood toe to toe with YB and SoR last week, something DH failed at miserably) it will be because of our numbers, not the quality of our players(mostly).

But I’m okay with that, we’ll be in good company. WWII, the American Civil War, and countless other wars were not won by the nations with the best soldiers. They were won by the nations that could field the largest armies and keep them sustained in the field for the longest period of time.