Guild Wars 2

Amurond.4590:

Chris.3290:

Warthog has a good point. The public debacle of the week before leagues resulted people moving to FA (to deny SBI first) and both SoS and Mag have increased their numbers in their weakest time zones.

SBI is a legitimate contender for T2 along with FA, SoS, and Mag; but they’ve lost all momentum and will probably not break free of T3 when the season is over.

I am pretty confident FA have better coverage than SoS & Mag, assuming the populations stay the same after season 1 finishes (who knows). SBI also got more Oceanic/SEA transfers since the first week of leagues.

FA did get a second IoJ infusion, but they were on the ropes before that. I think that T2-T3 is going to stay interesting for a while.
I think we’ll continue to see T1 fatigue set in during the season and immediately after.
The fact that the Gold League might be decided by EU tourists might encourage people that T1 is simply not worth all the crap that comes with it.

This is interesting reading for those of us who were for a 2v1 against JQ.
http://gw2wvw.org/?region=1&tier=1

Apparently JQ played it almost evenly (slightly more against Mag, probably all from Monday) and SoS and Maguuma focused more on each other than JQ.

Let’s see if we can work on this in two weeks. SoS and Mag have the highest RNG compatibility in all of WvW so we will see each other when the league is over and can get back to bashing each other then (unless it’s SBI, in which case we’ll both beat them up on principle).

It’s going to be interesting, as SoS hasn’t seen BG since the T1 days. We’ll just have to make sure we hunt down all the quislings who left us (J/K no hard feelings, but we’re still going find them and stomp them LOL)

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Chris, the population and style of play is changing but I am not sure TC will level down in the long run. There were some self-defeating egos in the group that left. There is some skill and commitment in the people who stayed and in newcomers. We have all learned from being paired against tier 1 servers. We will see how it goes.

Don’t get me wrong, you are still the largest and most active server in T2, but that “baby T1” level of coverage is gone and there is a greater sense of mortality when facing you. I think it’s to the point where some added numbers to SoS and FA could see TC having to fight hard against equals for the first time since early spring. That’s what I’m hoping for and I just hope your fair weather population sucks it up like the classic zombie coast always did.

We’re happy that we’re AGG’s #1 vacation destination.

Other folks on JQ might consider following suit since we face SoR and BG next week. Might be the ONLY chance you have to change BG’s trajectory to become number one (throw in some gold and we won’t pick sides either LOL)

BG: the organ grinder
SoR (IRON): the monkey
TC: the guy who keeps throwing change in the hat.

The question is will BG and SoR “burn off” their casual populations before they face JQ again. With one week of karma trains down and 2 to go, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be rid of them before week 5 when they face BG again.
That will be the crucial match as JQ needs BG to get 2nd in order to tie up the score. BG is certain to get first the following week so JQ needs to hope that SoR doesn’t come any kind of arrangement with TC (though it may not be a deciding factor even if it did happen).

That would make the final week the deciding match, with SoR playing kingmaker.

In other words, you better take those recruitment funds and start bribing them for week 7

note: I do not condone these actions, but it would not surprise me if someone actually tries.

is Kartek drunk posting?

Warthog has a good point. The public debacle of the week before leagues resulted people moving to FA (to deny SBI first) and both SoS and Mag have increased their numbers in their weakest time zones.

SBI is a legitimate contender for T2 along with FA, SoS, and Mag; but they’ve lost all momentum and will probably not break free of T3 when the season is over.

I may have to quit the forums next week if you are going to bring this to the BG-SoR-SoS matchup.

SoR, we are still waiting for the TW video of all dancing in pink to “I’m a barbie girl”; but BG hasn’t offered to bribe us either so we might end up playing it straight.

Seigfried.5938:

Chris.3290:

Speaking for T2, we only seek to be balanced with each other.
The human nature to stack for an easier victory is too prevalent and no one has the stomach for that level of an arms race outside Tier 1.

This is a very nice sentiment that has been promoted for a long time (mostly by Blackgate, Cheers!) but unless someone wants to be the first to dive into the water???

Could you get enough folks to do it without destabilizing the current T1 situation?

T1 is so unstable that every guild transfer (outside of NA) results in a massive swing in fortunes.

MERC (or just some of them) transfer to JQ and suddenly #3 is number 1. ZDs goes to BG and suddenly #3 is #1 and everyone is saying how JQ needs EU even though even a modest sized guild would throw the math off again.

How do you prevent a stackwagon and prevent a server implosion if it should dip to #4 for a week or two?

Here’s your problems on the tier 2 side:
TC:massive fairweather population, queues are rough and they have lost a lot of their WvW focused strength outside of CERN and PINK
SoS: Anemic NA, but if it’s NA becomes strong it will start crawling upwards in rating. Plus we don’t really have a burning desire to be T1 again (unless the nature of T1 were to change drastically).
Maguuma: The addition of OCX/SEA guilds would help them, but then they’d have to redefine themselves (can’t say you don’t PPT when you tick over 300) and there would be massive infighting between roamers and blobbers.
Fort Aspenwood:I have no idea what their problem is, but I hear there are a lot of politics
SBI: Too many lower tier transfers, won’t be ready for primetime for a while.

Continue with all the name calling, stackwagon, etc. Who really cares about #3, #2 or #1, as long as we are in tier 1, we have the best fights. And you forget how hard everyone in tier 1 fights. 1 guild can make a difference between #3 to #1, but everyone else on each of these 3 servers fight harder than in any other tier

I have no idea what you are addressing, but it isn’t my post. The stackwagon comment is referring to the proven formula that people will often stack a server that is doing well or is expected to do well; not a name for any server.
Also, I think you are deluded when you talk about how hard EVERYONE fights in T1. First off, I think that is categorically untrue. People fight kitten every server and in every match.
The lone difference is I think there is an unwritten expectation that you are supposed to put in more hours in T1, as each server has egos that have to be assuaged to prevent infighting and transfers.
Hence, my statement on why the current T2 and contenders aren’t thrilled by the prospect of joining T1 in it’s current incarnation.

Outside of AGG and EP, most our guilds are “hybrids” in that we like open field fighting but also like to capture targets.

For instance, AGG will fight an enemy zerg at a camp; then will leave without capturing the camp. Fang or CNB would take the camp afterwards just in case we want to poke a tower or keep to get a brawl going.

To give voice to everyone’s concerns, we don’t want to have to man siege at garri to fight off Aetherblade pirate skyships.
I think that sums up the concern here in a single sentence.

RedOwl.7496:

There are no prizes for 5th or 6th, remember? We’re in it for the lulz and we got fired up because of the mysterious alignment in the heavens that brought about Maguuma “tryhard form” for a week and thought we were competing that way.

No matters, we get shipped off to the crap sandwich match and we’ll get to play again in 2 weeks.

Speaking for T2, we only seek to be balanced with each other.
The human nature to stack for an easier victory is too prevalent and no one has the stomach for that level of an arms race outside Tier 1.

This is a very nice sentiment that has been promoted for a long time (mostly by Blackgate, Cheers!) but unless someone wants to be the first to dive into the water???

Could you get enough folks to do it without destabilizing the current T1 situation?

T1 is so unstable that every guild transfer (outside of NA) results in a massive swing in fortunes.

MERC (or just some of them) transfer to JQ and suddenly #3 is number 1. ZDs goes to BG and suddenly #3 is #1 and everyone is saying how JQ needs EU even though even a modest sized guild would throw the math off again.

How do you prevent a stackwagon and prevent a server implosion if it should dip to #4 for a week or two?

Here’s your problems on the tier 2 side:
TC:massive fairweather population, queues are rough and they have lost a lot of their WvW focused strength outside of CERN and PINK
SoS: Anemic NA, but if it’s NA becomes strong it will start crawling upwards in rating. Plus we don’t really have a burning desire to be T1 again (unless the nature of T1 were to change drastically).
Maguuma: The addition of OCX/SEA guilds would help them, but then they’d have to redefine themselves (can’t say you don’t PPT when you tick over 300) and there would be massive infighting between roamers and blobbers.
Fort Aspenwood:I have no idea what their problem is, but I hear there are a lot of politics
SBI: Too many lower tier transfers, won’t be ready for primetime for a while.

Very good point Pavel.

I personally feel that this decision has a lot to do with the Season and the lack of participation that Halloween experienced.

I’m troubled that we might be soon having to clear Karka from the ruins, or that Aetherblades will capture Stonemist.

I also wonder at the logic, that if WvW Season has become so popular; that they would seek to undermine it (well, more like attach underperforming aspects to it), as opposed to realizing that it’s become more popular and devoting further resources to it.

So you super-stack and stand there, slack-jawed and wonderstruck, that there would be negative repercussions.

The elitism from the OP and those that agree is quite frankly sickening. A person playing WvW for the first time ever has just as much right as someone ranked a Gold Legend because they paid for the game just like the latter person did.

FIFO

Try to keep this one positive and constructive so that it doesn’t disappear like the last one.

There are many ways I can imagine how this decision played out over the course of meetings and discussions. Most of them I see from a very jaundiced perspective: Long-term integration of WvW into PvE to reduce the costs associated with maintaing both; office politics from the LW team feeling their work is being ignored due to the WvW Season, or even just highlighting PvE events for WvW-focused players so that they may be more aware of the content and will explore it out of curiosity.

If my more negative speculations are true, then this thead will be deleted and this will most likely go unread. Taking it positively, at worst there is an internal debate among the development team(s) and at best that this is an experiment to see how additional “non-PvP” content in WvW will be received. I prefer to take it positively and will go from there.

Whether or not the desire to include Living World content in WvW originated from the WvW team, or was some sort of compromise, or????; the fact is that you have implemented it. I don’t fear a lot of contradiction by pointing out that this has not been popular with the folks playing WvW. I have heard only negative comments from the folks I play with, and haven’t heard anyone share a positive view or experience with it.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that you have a great game in PvE. That great game, would not be a great game in WvW mode. Just as you made a decision that PvE should be a cooperative endeavor without any kind of open-world PvP, resource and kill ninja’ing; so should you keep WvW as large scale PvP.
When I want PvE, I go to PvE. When I want WvW, I don’t want PvE. Let us play how we want (where have I heard that before?)

SleepingDragon.1596:

Can Maguuma stop bringing out their 1-3 man crew to fight? I don’t like wasting too much time to complete my dailies and fighting small crews doesn’t cut it. Where’s the huge force that was there during reset???

But they don’t play for PPT. They just pick off people who stray from zergs and declare victory on the forums.

It was nice seeing Maguuma in “tryhard mode” for once, and knowing they at least have the capability to bring that level of play. Now we’re back to bribing them with cookies to get them out to play.

Hexin.5603:

Psykoyul.9147:

The best move for Bull would be:
- stay one more week in EU server, fight Piken
- then transfer to TC.

And moving to TC or SoS would guarantee them fights… even after the season 1.

Something something something … that makes little sense to keep stacking into T1.

Fixed. Make T1.5 into T1 and 4 servers, and keep building that until you have 6 servers competitively fighting. People get bored of fighting the same crap day in and day out. The rest is not worth it.

I appreciate the sentiments, but I think SoS, Mag, and maybe even some on TC now would rather we widened the distance between T2 and T1.
The way the game is setup now, true balance in T1 is near impossible and there are too many who are always ready to stack a server.

What has got us excited is TC starting to destack a little (moving from 1.5 to 2) and the prospect of having five T2 servers that can duke it out on near to equal terms.

That being said, if anyone wants a piece of that action; SoS needs NA and Maguuma needs OCX/SEA to make it happen. (sorry, but there are queues and discontent here and that’s who will get the most out of any move)

scootshoot.6583:

Chris.3290:

SoR is now saying it’s not about PPT.
I cannot wait for week 4 when BG will have to abandon the forums from having the full PvF of two servers claiming they never fight for PPT.

Week 7, circle it on your calendar. Stock up on tissue.

Why? I’m on SoS and that will be the best week of the matchup for me.

I appreciate courtesy in the JPs, especially Ob. Sanctum; but posts like this make me want to wait behind waterfalls with my guardian and spam banish.

JQ had a truly evil idea with this one, clearing their queues once they are too far ahead to lose.

There appeared to be some sort of formal agreements from both Mag and SoS with JQ on Tuesday, but their latest tactic is just to give away SMC and keeps to retake later.

To think that Maguuma’s resident trollmaster general was actually bragging about taking JQ’s garri yesterday LOL.

If you want to put a stop to this, go the BL where the trades are taking place and put a stick in the spokes. That’s what most of us on SoS are talking about doing.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

TC is in a transition right now, too. The most dominant guild split about a week ago with more than half of them moving to Sea of Sorrows. We still have a couple of very strong guilds and good commanders, but are seeing plenty of unknowns tag up as well. We are still seeing how things will shake out.

TC is transitioning from a T1.5 to a true T2 server. Despite their recent transfers, they still offer a good community and decent competition. The last few matches with them have been more competitive than previous weeks and I hope that SoS, Mag, and FA continue to increase their numbers so that we can have fairly even fights for the forseeable future.

SoR is now saying it’s not about PPT.
I cannot wait for week 4 when BG will have to abandon the forums from having the full PvF of two servers claiming they never fight for PPT.

You’d probably get better visibility if you made this for all lower tier (in their league) servers to recruit.

I was on SoS before it went to T1 (transferred their last week in T3) and afterwards.

When we were #1 we had queues at times. I remember that if I didn’t try to get in right at reset, I could be waiting over an hour to get in to join my guild.

I didn’t come and complain though, because I understood that I had made the choice to be on a Tier 1 server.

The current batch of T1 folks… entitled to a fault and all they do is whine about how they should be at the front of the line because they are so L337.

For the 11,111th time, we ALL told you that there would be massive queues and massive lag in T1. Even Devon tried to warn you, but you kept on going around recruiting like madmen, buying guilds and all the other pre-league shenanigans.

The result is no less than 9 servers that are husks of their former selves, and no one on T1 servers gets to play with their guilds.
Everyone chose and made their beds, now lay in them and give it a rest.

It was in the patch notes. Just means you have to be more careful with usage.

If you RP you are probably best for TC.

EB is in a “transition” moment so it might not be the best time to put down roots there. You can always transfer off (costs a lot of gold, but not too hard to get) if it turns bad for you.

Seigfried.5938:

Chris.3290:

BG with heavy EU, vs JQ sans casuals thanks to karma training vs Maguuma/SoS/TC for 3 weeks.

Looks more and more like that will be the championship match.

Oh, don’t embarrass yourselves like SoR and ask SoS to pick sides in that match. We’d rather tick 0ppt fo the week than let the league be decided by shenanigans from our server.

Aren’t you the guy who always asks for a double team?

yeah, when it’s two weaker servers against a stronger one. (and always against the stronger one).

BG with heavy EU, vs JQ sans casuals thanks to karma training vs Maguuma/SoS/TC for 3 weeks.

Looks more and more like that will be the championship match.

Oh, don’t embarrass yourselves like SoR and ask SoS to pick sides in that match. We’d rather tick 0ppt fo the week than let the league be decided by shenanigans from our server.

Shaymi.9124:

Chris.3290:

Nick.6972:

FA could have easily won both SoS and MAG if we hadn’t lost WvW guilds.
That being said, I’m quite happy we’re finally not fighting SOR/JQ for next 5 weeks.

So what you are saying is that FA could have won easily if they weren’t FA?

This may very well be the most stupid forum post I’ve ever read.

That may very well be the most stupid interpretation of a forum post that I’ve ever read. Congratulations.

You are actually defending someone for saying “we could have won if we had more numbers”?

If you want to play that game what about SoS when it was T1, could you still win then?

Sorry, this game is played with the team you have; not the team you HAD or WANT.

DeWolfe.2174:

TY for this! Glad someone get’s it Yet, it’s not just for us, it’s to benefit everyone. I was already working on this topic on day 1 of the Leagues.

I’m completely ambivalent on this.
I’m disgusted that we are part of letting JQ off the hook for buying guilds and overstacking and I’m equally disgusted that we have queues in the middle of the day, our least populated timezone(s), for this but we can’t get those same people out for a real matchup.

At the same time, it beats burnout from spawncamping and will clean our own PvE focused folks out of the way so we stop giving away so many free rallies.

I guess it is what it is and this is yet ANOTHER reason why leagues is a losing idea and should not have been implemented.

And the top winners have been decided!

#1: Gem Sales
#2: The Schedule
#3: Karma Vendors

Nick.6972:

FA could have easily won both SoS and MAG if we hadn’t lost WvW guilds.
That being said, I’m quite happy we’re finally not fighting SOR/JQ for next 5 weeks.

So what you are saying is that FA could have won easily if they weren’t FA?

This may very well be the most stupid forum post I’ve ever read.

Comprissent.3856:

rip JQ garri with almost no resistance

JQ confirmed for PvE server

To be fair, do they really gain a thing by holding it? Ratings don’t matter right now, they get 5 points if they win by 1 point or 400,000, and they have 2 more weeks after this one of the same PvD crap. Maguuma gets JQ for 3 weeks in a row.

Right now they just want to spend the next 3 weeks doing karma trains to clear their queues before they actually have to work for a win.

In other words, they wanted you to take it.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Kinda boring the last few hours. I’ve been chasing JQ GS+S/W warriors around the map and that’s kinda fun, I didn’t know there was a spider champion north west of the map.

GS+S/W?

Folks, go dual axes for roaming; it’s a lot funner.

SFShinigami.2015:

I think Rogerggg from GGYY just won magswag of the week. He got a Dusk off Mag in EB

Pics or it didn’t happen.

Seriously, I would like proof so we can tell the already ungodly amount of casuals that it didn’t happen; we already have 3 minute queues on 2 maps on weeknights!

Artaz.3819:

SBI would have won Silver if FA wasn’t in the league. SBI beat Mag (pretty easily in coverage) two weeks prior to the start of the WvW season. I have no idea what SoS would have done in Silver but I have a feeling it would have been at the challenge level of Mag or probably even lower based on how well they are doing in Gold. To my knowledge, SBI didn’t gain anything and Mag didn’t lose anything last day pre-league announcement so the WvW populations would have been the same.

That’s not to say SBI doesn’t need an kitten kickin’ every once in a while to keep people motivated. It’s a blessing since a single rival WvW world brings community focus on a common goal as oppose to the blob-wins in weeks prior.

Also, do not believe the Mag hype. They do not have the skillz necessary to beat any server with superior coverage. Mag’s skillz revolves around havoc squad/tower ninja for PPT and that’s not going to win anything in Gold League or Silver League. It actually only encourages the flip/karma-training/blob issue of kitten. In T1, that ‘strategy’ does not work ever…been there, done that.

/shrug – Mag has already realized the error on their part but is going through the 5-steps. There is not much more to say here as the trollz will be out in force claiming some other reason but knowing it is true.

SoS and Maguuma have only gotten stronger in Gold League. While SBI will spend most their weeks PvD’ing and snoring through Silver League; SoS and Mag are adding numbers to their weaker timezones and are getting a lot of their native talent fired up.

You look at score totals but you don’t look at total scores at key times. JQ ticking in last for a while on reset night, both servers maintaining tick vs JQ’s ungodly SEA timezone coverage.

Make no mistake SBI, you aren’t getting any stronger; and SoS will happily destroy you once we get you alone without a T1 openly helping you.
You also missed out Maguuma when they go full tryhard, as they did when they beat the FA that stomped you.

In short, enjoy yourselves now; the real T2 servers are going to kick your junk in.

Yeah, Gold League is a snore 4-6

Xabu.3754:

Chris.3290:

Azure Prower.8701:

Why is Maguuma so bad at roaming?

He was even roaming the ruins by himself, tagged up to make himself a more enticing target.
You guys got to pick up your game.

That’s something Maguuma needs to address internally. Except for a few very skilled roamers I’ve seen some real shrubs trying to roam from Mag. They are getting to the point where I don’t even run if I’m using my group play build and gear.

OK, I’ll fire a whisper off to every single person on Maguuma so that we may fix this problem internally. It’s bad enough at least half of them aren’t putting covers on their TPS reports.

LOL, considering that 44.2% of all Maguuma PvF is relating to roaming and prowess at roaming; you kinda own the problem.

If I were to brag (for example, not actually bragging) that SoS had the best engineers in the game; and you stomped everyone of them you found, you’d probably bring that up.

BTW why were members of the JQ guild SWAG (nice troll guild name) in SoSbl when you created a name to mock Maguuma? #T1logic

Azure Prower.8701:

Why is Maguuma so bad at roaming?

He was even roaming the ruins by himself, tagged up to make himself a more enticing target.
You guys got to pick up your game.

That’s something Maguuma needs to address internally. Except for a few very skilled roamers I’ve seen some real shrubs trying to roam from Mag. They are getting to the point where I don’t even run if I’m using my group play build and gear.

If you listen to the forums everyone on Mags never dies and get hundreds of kills per hour.
I guess I must be being drugged and hypnotized because they keep falling and my bags keep filling.

I hope Maguuma isn’t going back to old habits weekend-wise, we need some sort of third threat to keep thing interesting.

xok.2915:

am not leaving sfr

Then your complaints are void.

Everyone pointed out that queues on top ranked servers were going to be the worst ever. Why are people surprised when everyone else was right?

Andrew Clear.1750:

This week was supposed to be blowout week. Look at the schedule. It is just like in the NCAA tournment, when 1 v 16, 2 v 15, etc, you get a lot of blow outs.

I’m on SBI, and the matchup for us is 7 v 11 v 15. Of course we are blowing them out.
On the other hand, FA’s matchup is 8 vs 10 vs 14. Now, they should in theory, be blowing out their competition, but they are losing atm. They will prevail during the week.

Every league will have blowouts, that is just how it goes (I am talking about a much bigger picture than just WvW). Leagues are designed to be competitive, so you are fighting for your wins. In this case, you are fighting for 5 points or 3 points (I hope no one is really fighting for 1 point).

Just stay focused, get through the week, and plan for the next match up. Which might, or might not, be a blowout.

“Leagues are supposed to be competitive.”

When I bought this game and got big into WvW, there was no mechanisms in place to guarantee months of blowouts (SoS has already been fighting t1+ TC for 5 weeks straight and have 5 more for certain and possibly even more after the season thanks to RNG.

As messed up as tiers could get at times, you were never fighting anyone ranked more than 2 ranks higher. Now we’re being led to believe that Northern Shiverpeaks T6(some sort of sandbagging by other servers I guess got them to T5) issupposed to be competitive with a server that was a hair away from being Tier 2?

It’s just not cricket.

Wonderful work here. It also is wonderfully compiled data on why bloodlust stats need to just go away.

SoS

1. Are you concerned that your server’s WvW activity will decrease during these matchups? If so, which timezones are you most concerned about? Our overall participation has increased, but no telling what will be happening by the of the season.

2. Are you worried about queues on your server, and/or lag in WvW? Our queues have been short, if we even have one. We dislike the lag vs T1 opponents because it takes skill out of the equation and it’s all about numbers.

3. Do you like the league changes? No, we’d like to go back to the mix of T2 and T3 match ups now that there is an increased level of competition between us.

4. Do you like the old Bloodlust buff (stats and stomp points) and mechanic, and do you like the new Bloodlust buff (stats and stomp points)? Stomp points are fine, the stats are just another sop to the more populated server in the match and aren’t needed.

5. Are you in a roaming guild, a point per tick guild, an open field guild, or a combination? Whatever is more fun at the moment.

iAmTheDuke.6201:

Good fights to HzH/NS.
Think VR got fully wiped 2-3 times all night, we had a lot of kills and fun.

VR lived up to your forum sig. Your aoe spam builds are pretty impressive and make any defense a real pain.