Dragonbrand is to Tier 3 what Tarnished Coast was to Tier 2 last year: just too big for the tier, but without a snowball’s chance in the tier above.
TC are in first place right now and doing a pretty good job of staying there.
He’s talking about last summer, when TC dominated T2 but couldn’t compete with T1 in any form.
I don’t think I can go back to kill stealing in PvE (launch day, hundreds will be stuck in the first room waiting for the loot needed to leave to drop).
The fact that they are already allowing special classes for buying the SE version shows that an in-game shop will happen and most likely will not be fair.
The game looks like a massive cash grab and will probably go F2P win 9 months tops.
The one reason to get into it early is the PvP will probably req. a token purchase after F2P.
I understand the mods got tired of spending so much time dealing with the excessive vitriol in the matchup threads, but by removing all contact between competitors they depersonalized the format. Maybe that fits into their vision (the removal of even teammates’ names in EotM); but that defeats the purpose of the MMO. If I wanted a sterilized RPG experience I’d have more than 2 hours put into Skyrim.
I dislike that we can’t even talk about a server or guild community without having the thread get closed. There are countless faceless and nameless pixels to be fought put there, let’s not force everyone to become such.
So, until something (specifically, groups lead by the right kinds of someone) steers DB toward more consistently skilled play, we are rightly positioned at rank #7 in regard to what happens if we fight anyone rank #8 or lower. However, the distance between rank #7 and rank #6 is much wider than 40 leaderboard points does justice to explaining.
I think it’s more about the distance between #8 and #7 that is causing the problem. One that will go away as SoR drops down and DB reaches the point where it cannot gain score.
FA has fantastic NA, great GvG guilds, and I like fighting them; but they continue to bleed off hours guilds.
The best thing would be for DB to get some more WvW-centric players and make a play for T2. Hopefully the OP and others decide to do so.
Having DB stuck at the top of T3; PvD’ing and destroying any server that moves into T3 is not good for anyone.
Need more Mag/FA/SOS
Well there is a 1/3 chance that DB replaces one of you, 0.15% of SoS dropping (I guess the RNG cannot overcome a 150pt difference), a d only 4.5% of us moving up. Looks like we’re are good for a rematch.
We’re increasingly getting into GvGs and still have slots open as we build up to 20 v 20 matches.
Very stable guild that has been around since launch.
As for Orr changing, all they have to do is use the methods used in GW1 to show the differences, adding a disclaimer that you are taking part in “past events”. The only way to move the story forward without drastically changing the landscape is to add new zones and that is a very labor intensive process.
They clearly used some of the breaks (Wintersday, back to school, etc) to work on these updates and now we’ll have a LS story break that will probably be used to work on the first major (and hopefully permanent) expansion to the game.
The only question is if they are going to lowball it or go big time and charge for it.
Huh, I think you mean SoS.
Pretty slim chance of that, it would take BG/TC to roll very low and SoS to roll very high to make that happen.
There’s also odds of SoS going to T3 if DB rolls high and we roll low.
Kral’s wingspan is the width of the dragon brand, it makes sense. The concept art, like many loading screens from both games is from Dociu’s art portfolio.
This LS will end with Scarlett giving one of her campy “I got what I wanted and I’m leaving now” speeches. Only right before she finishes she gets snagged and falls into the burning pit underneath the drill and primordial swallows her whole.
SoR might be far from dead, but they are gonna struggle so stay in t3, like SBI will. We lost a lot too.
DB is skewing any real assessment of what T3 will look like. It’s exactly like a year ago when SoS dropped and DB’s massive PvD covered up for their atrocious NA skill level (though our 3 weeks there made them stronger, they were better by the time we went to T4…and you know what happened then. It wouldn’t be much better with FA, with their heavy NA and modest to decent coverage elsewhere.
Poor BG, people will still accuse them of crying wolf if they dropped down to T8.
Self-inflicted wounds hurt the most.
players are angry
impatient with responses
shoot the messenger
Simple answer to Devon’s last post, better use of terrain would be very welcome; but as you said let’s avoid maps with a dozen Thermopylae.
A simple implementation might be making more chokepoints, maybe even within siege range of towers; the deeper you get into a team’s home territory. Keep gradual cliff drop downs to allow the defending team more mobility while limiting offensive mobility.
In the current maps, it’s too easy for an enemy to ninja towers close to spawn due to the multiple approaches.
A single approach, possibly under watchful siege and easily defended; would make total domination of a borderland a much taller order and mean that much more.
Honest question, I’m sure there are occasional blips thanks to RNG, but wouldn’t it make sense that if you are in a T6 matchup you are getting pretty much even fights?
I have no idea what kind of numbers you typically see in that tier, but say there is on the home borderland 2 guilds with ~15 people following tags and about 10 or more roaming or jerking around; wouldn’t you typically see that from the enemy as well? Especially since with the lack of organized numbers, wouldn’t you be pretty stable in your home BL?
I would think that with the right organization and cooperation between your active players; that you could still make a pretty good go of it and have some satisfying fights at the lower tiers if people worked together.
Is it really that difficult to straighten out?
People do warrior trains because it’s an easy way to take out 5-10 PuGs out of any sized group because people haven’t gotten over GW1 mechanics and mastered dodging.
Also warriors are crap without Guardians for stability, mesmers for veils and pulls, and eles to focus the stunned.
Follow this instructional video on how to deal with hammer trains. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dgyk71VRoUE
You are also forgetting that a vocal majority of SoS players are not keen on becoming a permanent T1 fixture.
We’ll fight hard in the upcoming Tournament and have some fun since it will be something fun to do a few times.
T1 is like that psycho ex-girlfriend. She had a nice bod so we got suckered in, but we have to keep changing our phone number to be left alone and you make sure you don’t end up meeting when you are out and about.
SoR is going through exactly what happened to SoS and SBI when they left T1.
For those that are preaching gloom and doom, remember that the few who remain are veterans of high tier combat and even the PvX folks there should have a high skill cap for their PuGs.
I predict Tier 5 as he “landing zone” due to DB’s T3 dominance and I don’t think there are enough OCX and SEA left to deal with IoJ. Once you land, it’s rebuild time.
If FA’s current trajectory fails to improve maybe you can get FEAR and RET back?
SoR imploded when Blindo and the rest of [TW] Twerk Warriors left for SoS
Ran with them earlier, speaking of that. My god they’re good…really good. Kept wiping entire giant zergs of FA in Eternal like they were nothing. They know their stuff.
Well in FA’s defense, TW also had a giant kittening zerg backing their 20-25. They even asked/forced other SoS guilds to help them push on guild groups. They sure know how to blob. TW also gets wiped in any situation where they don’t have back-up.
And you have the massive gall to say I talk about stuff I don’t know on other servers. No one “forces” anyone to do anything on SoS (they’d lose any and all respect immediately) and if any other guilds joined in on their fight, they were going there for the fight (something FA claims to do all the time).
People from 2 guilds (ALL and DIE) that I know on SoS have said that TW demanded them to help fight a guild on FA. Once was on a BL and once was on EBG. So if they were lying to me I apologize, but considering I know my friends on those servers are legit I am more liable to trust them than some guy who tries to meddle in the affairs of other servers.
I’m not denying that TW made the request, or even that they made it that way “sounds fishy though”.
What I’m contesting is that they would have even answered if TW “demanded” their cooperation.
DIE in particular wouldn’t put up with that, despite having a long time partnership with TW from SoR days.
It’ll chug along until they come out with Thief Mastery where rank 5 allows you to jump onto walls and attack from stealth for 15sec.
The only counter will be Warrior Mastery teamed up with Hammer Mastery for map wide 20sec stun.
Seriously though, ANet had difficulty managing power creep in GW1 and it will only get worse from here.
I would like to know which tiers have the best match ups. 3 weeks back my server were tier 6 and the variations in coverage & population were quite dramatic, regardless if you were matches against other tier 6 servers or up against tier 5.
Now we are tier 7 and its the only time in a year of world vs world the rounds have been close to being the ideal match up.
Guilds moved away from our server too, due to bad match ups.
Let the Season 2 and ESO launch play out and see how the lay of the land plays out. There is so much volatility right now and guilds flying between tiers that making a pick now might backfire badly.
SoR imploded when Blindo and the rest of [TW] Twerk Warriors left for SoS
Ran with them earlier, speaking of that. My god they’re good…really good. Kept wiping entire giant zergs of FA in Eternal like they were nothing. They know their stuff.
Well in FA’s defense, TW also had a giant kittening zerg backing their 20-25. They even asked/forced other SoS guilds to help them push on guild groups. They sure know how to blob. TW also gets wiped in any situation where they don’t have back-up.
And you have the massive gall to say I talk about stuff I don’t know on other servers. No one “forces” anyone to do anything on SoS (they’d lose any and all respect immediately) and if any other guilds joined in on their fight, they were going there for the fight (something FA claims to do all the time).
I personally think he got intimidated when I told him that our entire OCX timezone was waiting to greet him to Tier 2.
j/k; I hope he is with Maguuma, I’ve heard a lot of good things about him from the former EBay folks and hope he gives our guys a great fight.
warrior = weak
day = night
up = down
left = right
Seriously though, Warrior is not difficult but it does require active gameplay more than say a ranger or staff ele might need.
learning to dodge, and picking a cohesive build based upon your playstyle is all that you really need to work on to make a warrior be at least average.
Transferring is sometimes healthy for a group that might be seeking out of a bad matchup situation or is at odds with other guilds on the same server.
The whole ball of crap got rolling with the first season and stupid amount of transferring that led up to it. T1and SBI caniballized about 6-8 servers between the announcement and the start of the season.
The fallout between that, and two very populous servers imploding due there being no pot of gold for them; made the situation go all screwy. With two T1 servers FULL, and the third well on it’s way; we’ll be ok unless ANet proves how devoted they are to this system by raising server caps again.
from Niadon.9270; my answers in bold,
I don’t like it. It doesn’t sound as a solution, but like more a temporary solution waiting for something better.
We already experimented the buff on on health and has been dropped.
+25.000 does not mean necessary that the server doesn’t has numbers, potentially means that the wvw guilds on the other server are not so good, so why give them a buff?
If they aren’t that good, then you shouldn’t mind a handicap. One-sided victories are quickly forgotten and don’t really do anything for anyone. With this idea, they have reason to get better and take advantage of the opportunity
Many time we lost the match even for 70.000 points, but we was satisfied ’cause the numbers on the battlefield was good and the fight as well, we would not have been happy to fight with extra buffs.
While hardcore players continue to fight, fairweather fluctuations skew the matches (creating a tough match one week, a joke the next. Being human, we are affected by the score if we are losing by a lot; even if it does not affect our participation)
Moreover on the highest positions, there are still server that worked hard to get a night coverage, this system mess up their effort and the effort of the night guilds.
If a server is +100.000 even we that buff, will not be able to do so much, probably means that they don’t have numbers, they will be unable to defend all the objects and I don’t think that buffs of such kind are enough to stop a blob of 70 players hitting a tower with inside 30 players.
Take the T2 match in NA right now. FA is no slouch in night coverage, but can’t compete with SoS’s nightime coverage. If they had this buff, they would be encouraged to hold more territory or take more back in their timeslot. It would also allow them to push their primetime advantage to make up for the difference.
The point of this is to give people reason to fight back at a point in a match where many people just give up
If you die from barrage, that’s a sign that you might as well not bother with WvW.
apparently the alliance battles in ESO (their WvW clone) is so huge and has so much empty space that they encourage you to save up for a mount to traverse it faster.
Teslas are very popular in Bellevue (where ANet is HQ’d). It’s their largest market in the country/world by a ginormous margin.
tanking usually implies that one is “driving” the tank down. There’s no one left on either server so there is no one at the wheel in either case.
The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.
So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.
Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases
Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.
There is another possible outcomes with that.
The obvious counter to that buff would be keeping your own PPT low until later in the week. Then the outcome of the match can be determined just from the last hours of the match. The stronger server can take better advantage of this buff by hanging back and using it to help them maintain an appropriate point gap behind the weaker servers. Then once there is only a certain amount of time(someone needs to work out the math for that) left ignore the buff and go full force because the gaps created with only that amount of time left can’t be closed due remaining time and tick intervals. For example a 25,000 gap would take around 9 hours at +695 for the 9 hours so the goal would be to end up with slightly less than a 25,000 lead with 9 hours left on the match and then just defend a single supply camp or something.
That is assuming you have a matchup where someone can pull +695 for 9 hours which isn’t really the case very often.
Also, that strategy could REALLY backfire more times than not so it sounds like a good reason to implement the system.
Besides, if there is a mismatch; you almost never see a dominant server successfully dial back it’s efforts.
Right now in T2 there are a lot of people on SoS talking about dialing it back a bit after yesterday. The result : SoS+450 vs FA+120
That’s in spite of everyone saying we shouldn’t push so hard (risking moving up a tier) and people taking breaks and finishing PvE content.
90% of the problems are all momentum (mentally and in terms of upgraded structures) and this idea addresses both.
That is typically SEA time. Look at the top 6 servers (swap SoR for Maguuma). DB has folks, but I’m not sure about their English (probably better than some Americans, but if they choose to speak it I mean LOL)
I don’t understand the delay. If they could figure out how to put together all your characters’ wallets, karma, laurels, and dungeon tokens; I would think this would be pretty simple.
The desire for shorter matches, comes from the problem that once a dominant server has momentum out of the weekend; you rarely see a reversal.
So the answer isn’t necessarily to shorten the week, but to change the momentum.
Proposal: “Against All Odds!” a buff that increases in intensity as the score gap increases
Functionality: At 25,000, 50,000, 75,000, and 100,000 points behind the matchup leader; a server gets a progressive buff that will slow down the leading server.
+3%/6%/9%/12% to siege power and structure HP (for the server(s) behind in score).
Consequences: This gives the server(s) that are behind a lot of incentive to keep pushing, knowing that their structures will be more defensible while giving them greater ability to capture enemy structures. This will cause winning servers to see the consequences of running up the score; and will actually make the upcoming Tournament A LOT more interesting.
I’d say there is a pretty strong sentiment against the idea of collapsing all of WvW into 3 colors, rather than the current world set up. Which I agree with. I think world pride and association is an important part of the way that WvW works currently.
Here’s a possible version of shorter matchups that wouldn’t necessarily sacrifice the long term fight of a WvW matchup currently and wouldn’t involve merging everyone into one of three teams.
Matches last 8 hours, there are 21 matches in a week with the same 3 worlds, the winner of the week is the world that wins the most matches over the course of that time.
This solves some of the problems we see currently, namely the issues that can arise as matches get out of hand towards the end of the week. However, it would still give worlds with better coverage a leg up on their opponents. It also loses the feeling that you’ve had a long term battle for victory.
I’m curious what you all think of that? Does it retain the feeling of victory in WvW right now and solve problems or does it just introduce more issues without solving any core concerns?
I think the 8hr format would exacerbate player frustrations with off hour coverage, as well as giving unearned wins to certain servers.
Here’s an example: Server A has a large nightime population, but weak coverage during North American primetime. Server B has decent coverage all day long. In the current system, Server B is most likely to win because they would be scoring all day long and would be able to limit Server A’s score during that server’s strongest time.
In the proposed 8 hr system, Server A gains automatic wins.
Also, there would be a lot of controversy on where the 8 hour blocks would be implemented.
Lastly, it would remove the contribution of those in a dominant block towards the final outcome. If (hypothetically) a server pulls out all the stops during NA to tick +600, it means something in the current system. With this proposed change, it would make those heroic efforts meaningless.
Lastly, it would exacerbate the existing concerns about coverage. It would turn off hours from an advantage to the only deciding factor in a victory.
There are disadvantages in the current system (the match "Over by Monday Syndrome) but that’s something that can be better addressed by transfer costs being scaled to server WvW ranking and adjusting map population caps.
TL;DR: 8 hr matches would give people less incentive to give it their all, exacerbate coverage gaps between servers, and would not fix any existing issue other than Monday blues
Proposal Overview
Changes to strategic points on the existing WvW maps with features from EotM. Namely convert the Centaur and Skritt areas into areas that grant buffs and/or transformations much like those found in EotM. (additionally add worm holes for fast transport to the NE tower, NW tower, and North camp (so that players don’t take themselves out of the fighting for unreasonable amounts of time).
I wouldn’t mind seeing a moderate difficulty fight for the Bloodlust points. An event needing ~6-9 people to flip the point (instead of having one person stand there for 5 minutes) would make the Bloodlust more interesting and more rewarding for small groups.
Would also like to see similar changes to the mercenary camps in EBG. Scale the difficulty up a lot, but make the reward something very worthwhile (airstrike on walls of nearest structure, with SMC getting priority). That will not only make those events worthwhile and not waste of space, but will force smaller groups to fight nearer the castle and make the fighting over the structure more intense and make it more about combat than sneaking around to capture camps and attack enemy towers.
Second, adding some destructible terrain could be advantageous. The bridges south of the ruins, the one leading to Hills, and the one inside the Bay keep. Perhaps a VERY hard to trigger avalanche on the switchbacks leading from the North towers on the borderlands. These would add difficulties for both sides (resupplying and reinforcing more difficult vs. the added defense.
Lastly, the thing that most people want (not related to EotM) is that someone cannot be resurrected if no attempt has been made to resurrect them in over 1 minute (WvW only).
Goal of Proposal
To add variety and perhaps an increase in coordination for previously “simple” tasks, and to change the very formulaic fighting in the current WvW maps (EotM excluded)
The resurrection fix would prevent a lot of griefing and abuse of game mechanics for other than intended purposes.
Proposal Functionality
The first part of the proposal would simply be a change in the nature of existing content.
The second is a lot more complex in that it would be hard to predict how these changes would affect the game and people’s enjoyment of it.
The third change is a overhaul of a game mechanic, being altered for only one game mode. One that a majority would support and applaud however.
Associated Risks
The risks of the first part are simply a matter of changes and adapting to those changes. It’s also possible that the benefits and rewards could either be too overpowering or underwhelming to the point where there would be no benefit for participation.
The second part comes with high risks and would require a lot of testing and careful monitoring.
The third part has no negative for the players, but would require additional resources not currently allocated on the part of ArenaNet
^^the plane flew over the runway bit the wheels never touched down. Someone with a gentle heart please PM Buckeye and explain the joke
Transfers => gems => income => bonuses => Tesla S in the garage
ANet is not a non-profit
I recommend SBI, DB, or SoR. All three servers are rebuilding in T3, but have good skill level in their high tier veterans.
What happened to HoD, ET, SoS, SBI, IoJ, KN, DB, And Ehm Bay.
The math goes bad, the matches go sour, and ppl look for a new situation or to start the same situation with different people.
JQ and BG are the exceptions, not the rule. Since they have so many transfers between the I’m surprised anyone asks this question in honesty. More likely people wanting to rub it in, which is lower than snake’s balls IMO.
Having played on BG in pretty much every timezone for the last couple of weeks, I assure you its every timezone.
BG is outnumbered in EVERY timezone now…… this thread is going nowhere fast.
Did the sky fall on your FULL status server, Chicken Little?
So many on BG say this, then they go on to win gold after gold…it has no credibility anymore. It’s gotten to the point where no one can trust anyone from BG where it comes to their coverage.
I remember reading a post ~2 weeks ago where they were claiming to be weak in OCX. I happened to be up late (right around OCX Prime) reading it so I clicked on Mos and they were ticking over +350.
It does look like JQ might have finally got more WvW focused members and a better overall coverage; as well as the new TC… we might see BG take 3rd. However, because there has been so much smoke and mirrors; who can tell if that’s the whole story?
All of the top 6 (I’m leaving SoR out of it due to their changing state) have coverage at all hours, but the depth of that coverage varies greatly among them.
Breaking the times into 5 blocks paints a good picture: Early NA, Late NA, OCX, SEA, EU.
I won’t get into classifying these for other servers because A. people feel the need to sandbag for recruiting and downplaying losses at these times and B. people don’t like other folks classifying their server (especially since people either grossly overestimate or rudely minimalize opposing coverage)
Follow servers and matchups and you can see some clear trends of when servers are strong and where they are lacking; but take in consideration of when their opponents are strong. Also on some servers a timezone might be dominated by certain personalities (look back at what happened to SoR’s EU when the leader of IRON became ill) and their presence and participation can greatly affect the server at those times.
2v1 against a stronger server is always a good idea if you are the weaker member in the matchup.
The time to start complaining is when you have one overpowered server at the top of the matchup, and the two servers are pretty close to even in skill; and one of the weaker servers focuses the other to “create” the 2v1.
I also think it’s a good idea to look over gw2score and statistics before crying 2v1; but with a grain of honesty as well.
What’s happening here is the opposite of that; the two strongest contenders are teaming up to farm the weakest one.
In the OP’s case, he’s on BG this week. I hope you aren’t referring to that matchup, because BG’s sandbagging is already laughable but they need to uninstall if they really are going to cry uncle at TC’s coverage (pre-SoR invasion).
We welcome every playstyle and contribution level is the game. We have hardcore untagged guilds and we have affable public channel commanders.
You like defense, we’ll cheer you on. You like zergbusting; hurry before the bags are all gone.
You like large scale combat, we do that. You do roaming and/or havoc; we do that and want more of that!
We have a 24/7 presence so you will not be fighting alone; and a community that’s willing to help any PvE newbie learn how to WvW effectively.
It’s 1444 server time. Poor devs will have to work late tonight; and in this crappy weather (windy and rainy). At least there’s a chance this won’t be like previous updates where I come home and people have already farmed 50G off of it and everyone has their achievements finished.
About the EU vs. NA drop; they have to be in the office when it drops; in case it breaks some big things.
Obviously someone found something at the last minute and they are moving to deal with it.
I would hazard as far as to guess if it isn’t dropped by 3pm that it might get a 24 hr delay.