Guild Wars 2

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Just one. Zombieland [WvW] from HoD. I haven’t heard of any other transfers.

Ah that was the one I was thinking about. I had heard it was only one guild transferring originally, but then someone else said “Majority of HoD” out of no where on teamspeak and I thought something was off with what they said.

So, exactly how many HoD guilds transferred to GoM, and how strong were they?

I know I saw at least one large guild I don’t recognize.. GoM feels super extra large today, and I’m sure everyone has been done with the mario box for a while.

That was a fun night.

We all know the true reason for Agg leaving was that they could not handle those legendary Zerguson’s Crossing Ram rushes!

I want to put out an apology, this is addressed to KREW mainly, but also all of Eredon Terrace.

I was that ranger who fought with your thief for several minutes after we exchanged a certain amount of ego banter and trash talk. I want to express that I said things that I wish I had not; things I don’t even really believe. Namely, I called ET a trash a server trying to get under these individual’s skin in response to the thief (then on alt’s) comments against me and melee rangers in general.

After we agreed to a duel, I think we both realized quickly that we had said some hasty things (when it turned out to actually be a brilliant and hard fought duel), but I never got the chance to apologize to the rest of you, only to the thief. So let me state clearly, I do not think ET at all is a trash server, that comment was the result of built up frustrations, baseless ego and random circumstance. I actually think ET is a great server, and house to many great guilds; now I note KREW in addition to the more famous ones like KWBH, TAC, FoE, etc.

Thankfully when I spoke earlier in the thread, about egos and pride and such, I did not rush to exclude myself. I too am only human and susceptible to these unfortunate lines of thinking from time to time. I wish ET the best(but not as much as I wish it for FC, admittedly ;P) and look forward to our continuing close struggle.

Please don’t hold what I said against me. It was just.. one of those days. I made a mistake, and let foolishness fly out of my mouth. Please forgive me for that.

~Dathaul

Am I the only one that will miss GoM? I mean, how can you go wrong with a server that has both Gollum and that whacky aliens guy with crazy hair as its representatives?

King Amadaeus.8619:

titanlectro.5029:

Runamok.9638:

King Amadaeus.8619:

Just popped in to check on mid and lil brother(s). Keep up the good fight, eventually you will prevail, perhaps once HoD exodus people stop arriving at GoM.

Hold the train! What, people are hopping from HoD to GoM now that they are swapping places? Hopefully not our former ET friends. I was looking forward to seeing them out in about back in T8! Sounds like this thread needs some more popcorn! Get that kettle heated up!

You can read about it in the T7 thread, if you can stand sifting through trolling long enough to find it. Short version: Zombieland [WvW] is transferring to GoM. So your former ET buddies will still be on HoD when they drop to T8.

They seem to have had more than just WvW leave, but could be wrong…Their participation is worse than we ever saw from any opposition in T8…There are whispers of them holding out of WvW to purposely drop down to T8… But those are only whispers since that is “match fixing” apparently.

I ran by their spawn the other day and like the day before, there was a group of people there farming badges from them as all 6-10 of them were running out of spawn (EB).

Transfers to a green team tier 8 server? Here we go again.

Ungood.3054:

Detharos.3157:

Did Eredon Terrace really forget the eleven consecutive weeks in which we drove them into the mud of 24th place while we held out against constant SF attacks? Back then, people didn’t rush to make a bunch of excuses for ET, it just did its thing. And it struck at us and reversed the situation when we showed weakness, so the feeling’s mutual.

Wouldn’t that have been 8 weeks as the last 3 weeks FC was 24th.

To be specific I’m talking about being blue team, and ranked 23rd in the ranking specifically. Actually looking back at millennium’s ladder evoltion though, it was 9 weeks, including the Kaineng period in there. Week 51-week 07 basically. Point is, we’ve had our long period of blue as well. Not that it’s anything to be proud of, being in the bottom tier its like fighting over who gets to be front or back seat of the short bus. I simply want to point out, its not some magical steroid moment if we suddenly start coming in second, that’s just the nature of the match-up.. which between FC and ET at least is a close one. Right now, things can go either way aside from GoM being guaranteed victory regardless every week at current trend.

Anyways, it seems I need to get my memory checked. Perhaps I got my head dented in too many times by GoM BL roaming death squads.

Funny, talks about FC and GoM teaming up. That brief period where I helped out FC BL 2 days ago, it was just constant TFOR+TAC+Random commander zerg ET group attacks only ever occurring simultaneously while a GoM group was going wild in our BL between the south towers, bay, longview, etc.

Let’s just conclude that this stuff happens when your opponents smell weakness.

As for the numbers issue, most of the score ET gets over FC comes when we don’t have the “numbers” either, no?

Did Eredon Terrace really forget the eleven consecutive weeks in which we drove them into the mud of 24th place while we held out against constant SF attacks? Back then, people didn’t rush to make a bunch of excuses for ET, it just did its thing. And it struck at us and reversed the situation when we showed weakness, so the feeling’s mutual.

But no hard feelings, both servers actually have quite the showing when they are on full morale and motivations. At least between FC and ET, nothing’s guaranteed which makes things exciting.

Well, after some investigation, I’ve made some changes to my typical pet set up and am putting it to the test. Namely rolling dual canine; a bit less dps output but the knockdown and greater tankiness are certainly worthy of consideration.

As per the questions, yes I was using the jaguar stealth to its fullest.

As for the question regarding Master’s bond, I have 20 and beast mastery so I can use it quite effectively in WvW.

And for the objections to the build.. I don’t think there’s that many problems with it at all, it was more an objection to a situation I’ve never encountered before. It’s also beneficial for team play in ways very different from the carrion ranger, it’s not like I constantly solo roam. I wouldn’t underestimate the effectiveness of the +vit/condi/healing combo.

Kudos to the warrior and people who target pets though, it takes a certain amount of brilliance to pinpoint weakpoints in a class most people underestimate by nature.

I’ll leave this post up if anyone else encounters a problem with this. Maybe the advice will help them out. TBH, I didn’t really figure out anything new from them. I think I’ll figure out the rest on my own.. I see this as another challenge to overcome, and I don’t think its impossible to deal with, just.. difficult.

Also, the reason I don’t roll shortbow typically is for the extra challenge.. to leave the ranger “comfort zone” so to speak. While it leaves some obvious weak points with engineers, its great in many other ways.

Good luck to all rangers out there.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Dear lord, please add a tl;dr to this

I just cut out half of it, somehow it ended up kitten and repetitive.

Basically, need strats for when people specifically and intentionally target your pet.

Let me be clear this is not a post to whine, or complain, but just to bring up discussion based on personal observations. Now, obviously I’m a ranger. I only have one level 80 character, the ranger. I’ve played it in various PvP forms, from Spvp to WvWvW, from the zerg to duels. I’ve optimized my build around my style; I acknowledge there are some weaknesses it can never overcome, but I try my best to cope with those. I won’t say I’m the most skilled ranger in the world, but I will say put in the same row as the average joe warrior, full burst thief, yes compared to most of them I am very skilled, not to sound obnoxious but that’s from observation and revealed in practical application. I can hold my own in most battles, I rarely complain about anything. However, today for the first time in a long time I got stuck in a 1 vs 1 battle where I realized I could absolutely not win, but not based on a skill difference or lagg or anything. See, as a shaman geared ranger with s/d and gs, I have mobility and healing that can enable me to survive at tank guardian levels if played right, however a large portion of my power, like most rangers is found in my pet. Now, its no problem pressing F3 and pulling my pet out of a zergy aoe, a warrior whirl attack if I see it coming. But what do you do when a player/players are intelligent enough to specifically target your pet before you? I have enough beast mastery invested to reduce the swap cooldown, but today for the first time this was truly a massive issue for me, when I fought a warrior who would immobilize my pet and destroy it in seconds and prioritize its death over mine, turning the battle into a slow but inevitable defeat 100% of the time, no matter how I played or which weapon I took. To be fair, this warrior was incredibly talented, and thinking on that level shows it. Maybe there were better builds, but I’ve never been in a situation where someone literally singled out my pet rather than hitting it by coincidence and completely eliminated half-70% of my damage for extended periods.

As I said earlier, I tried hitting f3 whenever this warrior would do this, but he was simply too intelligent for that to work. Granted I was using cats, which you would say are squishy, yet had I used just about any other pet, I wouldn’t even be able to outdamage his healing at all. (As long as my pet was around which was not often, I had a chance at victory.. at one point his hp was 2-3/10ths max with his heal on cooldown) .. but again, he killed my pet over and over, and alone without it I really am nothing.

So.. I ask the ranger community, when someone singles out your pet, what can you do? I need a non cookie-cutter response, I have dodge roll protection, I hit f3 and pull it out of what I can, I have the -cool down pet swap trait. Also, I wasn’t using “Protect me” during the fight, to be clear. I don’t need noob ranger advice, I need some kind of appropriate counter measure.

I don’t see what all this trash talk is about. It’s completely meaningless. People across all servers have this weird tendency to stretch out stories of them taking on absurd amounts of foes, but I’m sure we can all admit in 95% of these cases its large groups of upleveled and generally incompetent players and not really something brag-worthy at all. This happens probably in equal proportion for all servers, I haven’t personally seen too much to distinguishing GoM from ET when it comes to roamer groups and large zergs outside the numbers game. However I can say, when I call them out to duels I have found GoM to possess a good few incredibly skilled and praise-worthy fighters, a certain mesmer and a good elementalist with a bad attitude come to mind among others I can’t recall 100% at this time.

Every server has its hit or miss moments. I’ve viewed countless threads and even some of higher match-ups now and I can say there tends to be this phenomena of “Gauging server skill level” where people will attempt to downplay a server’s accomplishments to pure numbers, hold their server up against it in comparison and call their server “More skilled”, “Superior” and elevate themselves in their own eyes. I’m sure deep down we all know, whether ET, GoM or FC that 95% of it is void talk, completely empty of substance… vain attempts to override the bitter feeling of losing an engagement that one tried very hard to win. The reality is, you win some, you lose some, and you certainly can’t win them all. I’m not saying its impossible for a server to, on average possess more skilled and competent individuals either. But that in most cases these claims are massively exaggerated.

If GoM’s numbers frustrate anyone on FC, then I say remember the Devona’s Rest, Kaineng and Sorrow’s Furnace days. There were days where the best we could scratch off was to hold a single tower, or a single keep for a very short period of time. Though meaningless in the eyes of our foes, and we certainly would of had an easier time sitting it out.. we made the choice to fight. We’d fight tooth and nail at times to hold 10-20 ppt, even though from the points perspective that was meaningless. That was because, the fight was not meaningless.. and we enjoyed it somewhere deep down, even though the odds were not “fair”. Back then, we didn’t care in the least what our PPT counts were, heck we couldn’t even have the time to upgrade our stuff past stone walls many times. Yet we didn’t care about this point game, our morale at times even grew during the worst.

I think some of us need to free up our minds. There’s so much more to WvWvW than the point count. Every battle has its ebb an flow, good moments and bad moments. Soak it all in, and enjoy every battle and learn from every battle also.

Roaming solo for a while now, I’ve been reminded of all these things. Though I often charge into certain death, group ganks and downright humiliation, I learn through every fight and always look at a way to pour strengths into the ranger class that most never knew were there. I have had some real good moments, but in most cases victory doesn’t come in beauty or domination, but in a downright muddy, bloody struggle. People often talk as though they cut swathes through 20 times their number in their shiny armor reflecting the light, encouraging their entire server.. but the reality is, nobody does that and when victory comes, it’s rarely “sexy” in any sense in WvWvW. It’s easy for any of us to, despite the fact that this is all a game for our own enjoyment; get prideful- server pride, guild pride, and what not. We become arrogant, conceited and turn our characters, guilds and servers, and furthermore this game into something it is not. I daresay that is not healthy. From my personal view, pride and over-confidence in WvW merely blind us, and reduce our skill, not elevate it.. for one who fights filled with these things does not think clearly when they attack or defend, and they become liable to miss small but important details all around them, and at time even big details also.

The sheath drops from Subject Alpha final in CoE path 3, at least I got one from there.

Unfortunately its an account bound item and not of my stat preference, nor does it appear to have any graphic of its own.

Daaaaaamn Sorrow’s Furnace is on fire. Now that it’s come down to this, we can’t wait to see them face off against Darkhaven! The battles to come for them are going to be pretty epic, and if they dominate even harder next week we might get to see that match-up in the third post-tier 8 week, and hopefully some balance returned to tier 7 also.

Good luck Sorrow’s Furnace!

And to tier 7, may you find a balanced matchup like ours soon. If all goes well, maybe in a little over a week from now.

This post may come a little late, but remembering all the old times and countless complaint threads… well ArenaNet did certainly hear and act! Since ArenaNet has made a great choice and expressed clearly its concern and appreciation of us of tier 8 (and SF as a former member as well), I think it would be best if all of us Fergs, ETs and SF peoples give a show of thanks and appreciation for the recent changes and bring some good old positivity to an often times overly negative forum atmosphere.

Thank you to Habib, Devon and all ArenaNet members who have given us a viable temporary solution to the ratings problem and continue to look into a long term solution and work hard to make it possible. Your effort is most appreciated, and double thanks for communicating it to us, thought we were getting the silent treatment for a while!

Also, since its clear Devon has gone quite above and beyond in upping the communication between the WvWvW community and ArenaNet with almost constant updates and friendly discussion, even from his home: Thanks for your dedication, it has certainly improved the forum atmosphere quite significantly.

The work may not all be done yet, but its clearer than ever now that ArenaNet intends to continue to improve WvWvW and we of the community do appreciate this.

Come on tier 8, let’s show some of that same friendly tier 8 spirit Moobs encapsulated when he even sent them cookies!

Woot Fergs, keep up the pressure! And remember, every single battle is an experience to be treasured.

At the moment, tier 8 has become arguably the most competent of ALL the tiers. GREAT work ET, GoM and FC!

May everyone enjoy the balance for weeks to come, if its possible.

And lol @ Mariogeddon.

I was hoping after a thread lock that when I peeked in here to check out some of big bro SF’s score updates some of the drama and trolling would of watered down. How disappointing. Let’s get some basic facts straight for those who are actually genuinely confused on these topics however.

1) Sorrow’s Furnace earned its way out of tier 8. Compare the number of weeks it won by land slides on the http://mos.millenium.org/matchups/histories if you have doubts. Many of you seem to either be trolling hardcore or not understand that they could dominate with these same numbers that have put your tier 7 servers underfoot and be incapable of advancing.. simply put, it was an anomaly that tends develop in the Glicko system in the bottom tiers, not just tier 8 but also tier 9 in EU. What happens is that as tier 7-6-5 servers develop in tier 8, depending on how the move upward goes about it saps A LOT of the bottom two server’s ratings. The rating gap gets so grotesque that if the server that gets knocked down to tier 8 say, loses the first week, its ratings will fall from the 800-700 level straight from its 1000+ and will have almost no way to make that loss that occurred in a single week back even with a month+ of effort.

Then you get this thing of “Glicko 2 predictions”. What it means is that, Glicko makes an improvement projection for the winning server. Basically, if SF won enough with 400k for a few weeks, it would start to get NEGATIVE ratings with 400k+ victories because Glicko 2 makes a projection based on past performance that somehow SF is magically gonna bring in 430k+ the next week, and it punished them severely for situations like that.

Tier 8 is the Glicko Ghetto. That’s the ONLY reason SF was stuck there for so long.

Let me tell you, these numbers your seeing in tier 7 were NOT gained through transfers in the last week either. In the THIRD week of our match up with Sorrow’s Furnace and into the fourth week, they frequent triple map coverage and occasionally triple map queues against us, but when they got bored of dealing with Glicko their numbers did drop for some kind of PvE-stress break for a while, something that also helped hurt their ratings, but much more than it should have.

For months we warned both your tier, the general community and ArenaNet about what was happening in the forums. Surely you’re not ignorant to it, and the fact is you had months to be mentally prepared for what was to come from the move up from tier 8 yet so many of you are knees deep in flaming and trolling over this. If nothing else, take this from us. When we of tier 8 talk about how well a server will do, WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE KITTEN TALKING ABOUT.

Many of you barraged all our complaint threads of how if SF moved up they would only be dominated, and imagine falsely that there was some kind of tier 7 wall between tier 8 and 7 despite the fact that tier 8 scored better and fought harder against BOTH Devona’s Rest and Kaineng than tier 7 did. My point in saying this is, we know first hand what tier 7, 6, 5 and even tier 3-2 servers look like because we fought them head on for weeks-MONTHS longer than your tier ever had to. That so many of you doubted when we projected that SF would move up and dominate tier 7 in the early days is shocking, or that whoever dropped would dominate. Now look at and accept the cold reality. SF moved up, its dominating much like DH did just as we said would happen, GoM fell down and is NOT dominating but is actually ENJOYING one of the best match-ups of all tiers and continues to reflect a positive and mature tone in the forums.

I’m sorry if I sound like I’m generalizing all of tier 7 as a certain mentality, rather this post is aimed at all those trolls and dividuals who genuinely believed these myths that flowed around in your tier in ignorance. For a THIRD time, you’ve been proven wrong. Face the reality and accept it.

Also, you would do well to stop whining about 5-man groups not finding what they want. There’s SPvP for that, WvWvW, a.k.a. WORLD VS WORLD VS WORLD is, has always been, ABOUT THE HUGE CRAZY ZERG NUMBERS. That’s actually what’s supposed to make it exciting, those times where you have 30 people locked up in a keep trying to defend against 70+ invaders while lightning bolts and a fierce snow storm set the mood for an epic struggle. Fights that give you that epic feeling, even for a time that you get when you read about major battles in Tolkien’s books.

Happy to see you doing well in tier 7, Big Brother Sheen.

BTW Who are NSP and HoD’s representatives?

For our SF brothers who care, we are currently enjoying the company of this eccentric fellow down in tier 8. The matches are most splendid.

Although its kinda late, welcome to tier 8 you good fellows of Gates of Madness/Team Aliens!

Glad to have you on board sir, you will definitely fit right in with us.

Fair the well in tier 7 big brother Sheen!

And without further delay, your tier 8 celebrity score update!

To be honest I haven’t had an opportunity to get on since the patch (internet issues and busy IRL, etc. Also the reason for no post-patch celebrity score updates.) but from the screenshots I’m seeing, the numbers don’t look much more grandiose than those yielded by FC in the past, same thing for SF when it really got going.

The problem with the two servers is that with FC, there’s a demoralization issue created from months in tier 8 to overcome (Hopefully it will now be overcome, especially with new strategies being picked up from these [VK] fellows. Welcome to tier 8 btw, hope you enjoy your time here even if it is short. )

As for SF, that they can yield 3 zerg clusters of 50+ simultaneously is old news, we’ve seen very similar numbers before in the third and fourth week they were here as I recall. The problem with Sorrow’s Furnace is consistency, they get excited about a new patch, or a new match up and have some tier 6-5 showings for a week or two, and then their number’s magically cut by upwards of half that while the other two servers drop from the demoralization. They make an incredible push when they have the right motivation but are quick to slow down, especially when a major PvE event is included in a patch, from what I hear.

So in other words, its a little early to call anything during the excitement of the early post-patch period, whether these numbers can be sustained is a big question, especially with Sorrow’s Furnace.

Then you have the whole “Glicko Ghetto” issue on top of that, although thankfully moderator posts finally confirmed they have been looking into it. (GREAT WORK WITH THE COOKIES MOOBS).

I do however admit I’m feeling quite optimistic for FC at this point, hopefully this keep up and they will return to the number two position that they held for 10 consecutive weeks previously.

Jeknar.6184:

I’m sure people won’t be willing to leave their guilds to join the other server since you cannot transfer all your upgrades and influence…

Yes that is the most likely case, especially given the history of server zealotry on FC; the majority of major guilds and players will probably stay on their respective servers and hope for the changes in WvW to bring a WvW population boom. (Something that may or may not happen.)

However, its still a topic worthy of some serious discussion. This could be a chance to drastically change the tier 8 dynamics, given that nobody makes the poor decision to start bloating HoD.

ColinJohanson.2394:

For the next week, all the medium population servers will be free to transfer to. Might be worth giving one of them a look!

Confirmed.

I’d recommend for Ferguson’s Crossing and Eredon Terrace hardcore WvW’rs to use this chance to put down old disagreements and make serious concessions on the possibility of combining the WvW core of both servers into one viable serious WvW community, just as SniffyCube always suggested.

I’ll drop a note to my fellows in War Zones regarding this development, unfortunately having stepped down as an officer a while back I no longer carry too much weight on things like this.

I wonder how things will play out, especially considering all three servers should be receiving a possibly major surge in WvW from the changes in the impending patch.

Tier 7 Fools! They come for your souls!

In the very least, I think tier 8 DESERVES a FORUM RESPONSE from ArenaNet at this point. It doesn’t matter what the response is, but time has shown the old statement of things fixing themself by Habib/Mike Ferguson when the rating reset was announced is not proving true. It’s not fixing itself at all, many agree its getting worse.

A bunch of players complaining in a single thread and threatening to quit GW2 was powerful enough to have a rating reset cancelled at the last possible minute, how come tier 8 players complaining with multiple threads can’t get one decent reply? And we’ve at least maintained enough composure to not threaten to quit the game over our issues, we’re trying very hard to be reasonable. I mean, ONE SINGLE REPLY is all it would take to alleviate a HUGE amount of stress/frustration from the tier 8 players.

“Sorry, we understand there is a problem here, but at this present time there is no viable solution.”

“Sorry, but this rating gap is intentional and useful, just transfer off if you don’t like it.”

“We’re aware of this problem, and are currently investigating methods to fix this situation.”

“We’ve already got a fix in mind, and are currently busy testing it.”

ANYTHING would do, but just say SOMETHING, seriously. Ignoring people does not help anything. Give people something to chew on, even if it were negative it would still help by acting as confirmation. Why the silence?

It’s all good and dandy if they don’t want to reveal their intentions and excite people prematurely, but if they wait to long WvWvW on tier 8 probably will die out for real, its getting pretty close at this point.

And so far despite culling fix and progression, the March patch doesn’t really look all that promising for WvWvW incentives, certainly nothing like more exotic gear/legendary/ascended gear acquisition options of any significance are being offered from what I see. So logically, there isn’t going to be some “Second Wind” at the March patch for our servers either, so I hope ArenaNet hasn’t been waiting on that.

I think there was a definite point in the past where Ferguson’s Crossing in particular was strong enough to be in, and would of been competent within tier 7 had it moved up. Namely, in those days it was stuck with Kaineng and DR and managing to consistently maintain BL control. (In other words saying at HoD at the time fallen down it would not of dominated like SF does, or any tier 7 server for that matter.)

Unfortunately that time has long passed and if it drops down HoD would most certainly dominate, or any other tier 7 server for that matter. After the months that we were stuck with that awkward situation of having two tier 5 level servers within the same tier (Devona’s Rest and Kaineng) and the months that followed, its obvious we’ve run out of steam. While I know some are hesitant to admit it, the fact is the various [Np] commanders that left were extremely competent and did a crap load of work to maintain our scores in previous times, losing them hurt A LOT, as well as we lost a precious amount of bodies in all those who transferred following [Np] to Ehmry Bay and others leaving for other servers, especially the numbers we lost when the end of free transfers was announced. We lost [Envy] as well which was a hefty loss. Eventually [TTA] also transferred off/broke apart and while I have nothing but love for them, we definitely lost a lot of morning presence from no longer having their coordinated 4 AM strikes. Between that whole period Ferguson’s Crossing morale was constantly being pushed to breaking point due to the combination of the confinement problem of the Glicko2 system’s failures in tier 8 and an overall lack of meaning in our battles and gradually reducing strength due to the various vets becoming exhausted, and morale eventually pretty much broke hence Eredon Terrace overtaking us as second place. Oh yeah, not to mention the countless players that quit the game entirely on our server for games with more balanced simulated war pvp systems.

Anyways, following this period, many of the dedicated guilds left started bickering with each other far more readily than before; I can honestly say [WZ] despite doing great things for our server took a stupid amount of flak for simply utilizing strategies that fit a lower population such as ours(Hit and run tactics just like [Np] used and took flak for.). The constant state of dwindling numbers and unnecessary amount of guild flaming/defamation wears away at the patience of those in major guilds, so in time they started maintaining less consistent presence as well. There’s not much motivation to do WvWvW at the cost of your own gold only to be flamed/bashed after all, which I gotta say is a ridiculously stupid phenomena to occur when a server desperately needs every player it can get.

In other words, our WvWvW participation in raw numbers has dropped like crazy in the past 3 months, morale on average is now very low across the bord, and the drama is stupid and unproductive. At least when the drama occurred in the [Np] days there was some point to it, but these days its just degraded into bashing for the sake of maintaining ego/appearances and gaining server popular opinion at the cost of another major contributing guild. We’re not the Ferguson’s Crossing that we used to be.

That all said, regardless; there is no excuse to ignore the broken math, especially if it can be fixed with a solution that works for tier 8 while simultaneously leaving the others intact. Fixing the tier 8 ratings problems won’t make us able to compete with tier 7 instantly, but it will do something for our server in particular but also equally for Eredon Terrace and Sorrow’s Furnace that is so desperately needed; a morale boost. A morale boost that will start to come naturally when our tier advancement rates match other tiers more closely, that exhilaration and excitement from seeing a server you’ve never fought before can do wonders, believe it or not. Even if whoever drops down dominates, that’s actually of much less consequence than ignoring a clear rating problem. And if something is broken, can be fixed and at no cost to the other tiers, why not fix it? Why ignore it?

And if ArenaNet has investigated this issue and come to the conclusion that it cannot be resolved, it should offer free transfers to escape tier 8 (And also tier 9 in EU I guess) at least for a period so those serious WvWvW guilds/players who put blood sweat and tears into trying to overcome this broken math can find a more suitable home without breaking their guilds/communities apart.

GuardianOMS.8067:

Another T8 thread? At this point I think they’re just trolling us.

But look! The guy who made the thread is from HoD! We’ve burned our complaints into the minds of the other tier members so severely that they even make threads for us now!

Haha, look at all that!

And still no significant responses from any ArenaNet representatives outside those about infracted posts. You guys do know what that means, right?

NOW WE MAKE MORE TIER 8 POSTS.

U mad yet? Not nearly mad enough!

The Glicko system has not yet brought its full brutality to bear since rebounding from Sorrow’s Furnace’s recent two weeks of rating drops, if there were any good chance for them to advance it would be this week before the system can make ridiculous improvement projections and start chopping up their ratings.

Unfortunately it would require ET and FC to stop maintaining an organized presence for the week to get their rating to 50+, something that probably won’t happen and since you’d probably be flamed on both servers for even suggesting forfeiting a week, I fear Sorrow’s Furnace will be stuck here yet another many weeks bouncing between painfully slowly making +5-10 gains at best before Glicko starts cutting down rating in every period between them maintaining positive rating.

In the best case scenario. it’ll probably be like this for SF every month repeating constantly until they FINALLY advance at some unpredictable point:

+50
+5
-48
-2

In the worst case scenario they could start going nowhere every month, with monthly rating trends like this:

+48
+2
-50
-4

As others have noted, its no longer Sorrow’s Furnace vs. ET/FC, it’s Sorrow’s Furnace vs. Glicko 2. This is the tier where Glicko 2 is at its strongest, so its tremendously difficult to overcome its predictions, but it is possible. There’s quite a lot at stake for all the servers at this point, with the March patch bringing in a whole lot more incentive to enter WvWvW (Progression, better battle quality with the removal of culling( if you have a system capable of handling it), etc. Depending on the timings and how the work out there could be a second wind in store for both ET and FC, and not a small thing like who comes in second place but something truly substantial in the numbers game. SF may grow as well, although I don’t know if it has as much room for improvement as these two servers. Furthermore, the longer SF gets stuck, the greater the risk that the dedicated WvWvW players get bored and no-showing/quitting/move on to some place where a little more challenge is offered, reducing the competency there.

The next month and a half could see some truly major shifts, and while this is an exciting time I truly hope that SF gets a shot at tier 7 before the March patch hits if its possible.

All these complaining/whining berserker thieves can feel free to roll a berserker ranger if thieves are no good anymore.

Oh wait.

Seriously though, at least let things be tested out a bit before complaining and asking for buffs. Certain thieves will just have to pick their engagements more wisely than before, the real pro thieves probably won’t be too phased by this patch after a little practice.

Was that “We’ll see you at the battlefield!” at the end of the blog post a pun? Cause I laughed. Certainly will be nice to see thieves after they attack for a change, although I fear for my performance on this old laptop. Guess it’s about time to upgrade anyways.

FilthyRat.4652:

Detharos.3157:

FilthyRat.4652:

One thing that I always see posted as a fix is that Anet put a floor so servers in T8 wont go below, but wont that just push all the other servers up higher and just revert back to what we have now after the higher tiers gain more points.
I mean the match did start out at 0 and given the time if you make the floor 1,000 seems like it would only be a matter of time before the situation would just repeat itself.

FilthyRat, take a look at the EU ratings, the exact same thing happens with tier 9 and their tier 8 reflects scores of the other tiers more closely, just like tier 7. Yet I doubt their tier 8 is signifcantly stronger than ours.

So it seems this problem will only inevitably happen with the “Floor” of the tiers the final tier in a ranking, in this case tier 8. It is a Glicko2 math issue that occurs in a tier where there is nowhere to fall to, if there was a tier 9 and three new servers we would probably magically get ratings that would enable us to access tier 7 as readily as they can access tier 6 rather than current disparity.

So one thing that could be done is to establish an artificial tier, for example creating a “Tier 9” in NA and “Tier 10” in EU, only fill them with ghost servers where accounts cannot be created or played, ghost servers that exist simply to take the rating hit. Call them “Tier Ghost” or something like that. This is assuming that there are no mathematical algorithms that could be added in to make it work.

Basically, an artificial tier with artificial servers to take the artificial ratings gap that we otherwise have to suffer.

Oh yes I see that I was under the impression people just wanted to put a numerical floor of 1,000 pts.

The problem with creating a numerical floor is, you would have to create a numerical roof as well for ratings to not get sucked up into higher tiers, and probably end up having to create a numerical floor and roof for every single tier from tier 8 all the way to tier 1.

Which would probably be a great long-term permanent solution to balancing tiers quickly if done like that, but I’m sure the servers that are proud of their bloated ratings would detest such a proposal and spam all kinds of ridiculous complaints on the forums, so rather its probably better just to stick to fixing tier 8 only at this time. :/

Heck, having “Rating roof” alone in every tier rather than a “rating floor” might actually work also.

FilthyRat.4652:

One thing that I always see posted as a fix is that Anet put a floor so servers in T8 wont go below, but wont that just push all the other servers up higher and just revert back to what we have now after the higher tiers gain more points.
I mean the match did start out at 0 and given the time if you make the floor 1,000 seems like it would only be a matter of time before the situation would just repeat itself.

FilthyRat, take a look at the EU ratings, the exact same thing happens with tier 9 and their tier 8 reflects scores of the other tiers more closely, just like tier 7. Yet I doubt their tier 8 is signifcantly stronger than ours.

So it seems this problem will only inevitably happen with the “Floor” of the tiers the final tier in a ranking, in this case tier 8. It is a Glicko2 math issue that occurs in a tier where there is nowhere to fall to, if there was a tier 9 and three new servers we would probably magically get ratings that would enable us to access tier 7 as readily as they can access tier 6 rather than current disparity.

So one thing that could be done is to establish an artificial tier, for example creating a “Tier 9” in NA and “Tier 10” in EU, only fill them with ghost servers where accounts cannot be created or played, ghost servers that exist simply to take the rating hit. Call them “Tier Ghost” or something like that. This is assuming that there are no mathematical algorithms that could be added in to make it work.

Basically, an artificial tier with artificial servers to take the artificial ratings gap that we otherwise have to suffer.

Linkisdead.9647:

I really hope SF moves out of this tier because I can’t stand Ungood crying everyday about being “vastly outnumbered”

You have lower numbers than SF, this is a fact, there’s no need to go overboard and claim the numbers are vastly in our favor. We’ve lost numbers as well with people transferring out of the tier or staying out of wvw due to boredom.

Honestly I think at this point its mostly morale. For the last two weeks outside of an instance or two, ET and FC gave up pretty quick. SF gets moved out of a keep or gets wiped, we keep throwing people at the gates until you break.

Lately it seems like we halt your zerg and they disappear from the map. I think this has a lot to do with our past as newer WvWers on our side assume we are going to get it back so they don’t mind running back after a death. I think on your side players are used to getting thrashed so they don’t even try again.

I think the numbers discussion should no longer be about how many we have active in wvw, but the crazy low amount of players you have.

In EB even when commanders aren’t on we still have a small group of 5 or so taking towers. It’s downright silly to cry about us having vast numbers when we only have 5 or 10 on the map. Is it out fault we had a few guys on being productive, or is it yours for having no group effort?

ET and FC gave up pretty quick? Don’t flatter yourselves on Sorrow’s Furnace too much.

We didn’t give up against two weeks of Sorrow’s Furnace, at least we of FC didn’t. Our numbers and coverage in week 3 and 4 were barely different from weeks 1 and 2, your server on the other hand increased its WvWvW showing massively, and we realized immediately we couldn’t match it equally no matter what.

But alas, I don’t despise Sorrow’s Furnace at all at this point, but you misunderstand. We didn’t give up to two weeks of Sorrow’s Furnace. We gave up after MONTHS of the Glicko 2 hell hole.

We of FC fought against Devona’s Rest and Kaineng who both had tier 5 numbers and in the NA prime time even dwarfed your server. We fought against them FOR MONTHS, with everything we had. We did not give up easy, we gave up hard. We fought harder than you can imagine, for longer than you can imagine against much worse things than SF has ever had to face for more than a single week. Tier 7-6 saw Devona’s Rest and Kaineng for a week each only, despite the fact that we have even less numbers than these servers in tier 7 according to most and saw them for months rather than the one week they did, and also had HIGHER SCORES against them than tier 7 did, and fought against them with everything we had for months, we fought them despite being so outclassed (Even more so than we are by SF) they couldn’t get scores like your server does against us up until the last 3 weeks with Kaineng, we had our borderland on almost a 24/7 lockdown defense with daily EB strikes and almost never lost our borderland outside Kaineng managing to night-cap it on very rare occasions. Think about the effort and coordination that took.

Us giving up, (which we haven’t really done, merely given up on trying to win.. we still show up in WvWvW and have fun here and there, surprisingly) was not against 2 weeks of Sorrows’ Furnace, it was giving up in the face of everything we’ve endured for the 3-4 months or so prior.

EnRohbi.2187:

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

LOL, notice this guy won’t respond to anyone but me? Because all he can do is defend not being a troll because he is contributing nothing to the actual conversation here so he doesn’t respond to anyone else.

I’ll give you a hint about my forum-going methods.
I don’t look at the names of people who post.

Until you pointed it out, I didn’t even realize I was responding to the same person every time. I already gave my input to the conversation, something that nobody has even acknowledged except to call me a troll or otherwise attack me because I don’t believe Anet should waste their time and money fixing a problem that effects only a very small minority of the wvw population in this game.

I stand by my “self entitled” opinion.
Anyone who doesn’t think Anet should make tier 8 their top priority is a “troll” and not contributing anything.

Forget whether its their top priority or not, it would do us wonders just to hear a single reply from ArenaNet representatives on the topic.

imalog.7689:

Detharos.3157:

Honestly, I can’t understand why there’s constantly someone dropping this obligatory “Whoever drops down is gonna dominate anyways”. Currently SF is untested in how it would fair in its full power against tier 7 in a rematch, so just because they dominated doesn’t neccesarily mean other tier 7 servers would.

BUT..

Even if they would dominate, that is really not the issue or the complaint at all. The complaint of tier 8 is always simply how long a dominating server takes to advance. How would those of you in tier 7-2 feel if a server in your tier could dominate you with 300k-400k+(in comparison to your 140k-ish score or whatever) scores every week, possessing the numbers two suppress both its competitors in their own borderlands AND control EB/press one other map simultaneously, and despite this disparity this server was stuck in your tier for 2-3 MONTHS. That’s the problem. You don’t know how it feels, and you never will know how it feels unless you drop here. Servers that dominate in your brackets like that advance within ONE WEEK. Here it can take up to a quarter year with the same server. Get it? Sorrow’s Furnace is not enjoying this. Ferguson’s Crossing is not enjoying this. Eredon Terrace is not enjoying this. ALL THREE of us are complaining about a legitimate issue.

Drop the misconception already. We have no issue with Sorrow’s Furnace. This is not a server issue. Bit by bit we’ve even started to become friends on the forums due to this Glicko junkhole. What if HoD dropped down and dominated us even HARDER than SF and advanced back up within a week, and this trend constantly continued forever with various tier 7 servers like what can happen in other tiers, where advancement doesn’t take months? We would actually be A LOT LESS frustrated because the functionality would be working here just as it does in higher tiers. At least we would get to truly put to the test whether the other tier 7 servers can hold their ground or not rather than operating purely off speculation. And if we were that weak even in our prime largest showings in WvWvW, we would happily accept it because we would of gotten to put it to test with more than just tier 6/tier 5/tier 3 WvWvW showings. Consider also the fact that we SCORED BETTER against the tier 5 and tier 3 level showings of both Devona’s Rest and Kaineng than tier 7 did. Don’t you think us having at least a new shot against a new server in tier 8 every three weeks at least or so would be fair? But we never get that opportunity in a timely fashion, unlike those of you in higher tiers. So, can you really not understand what the complaint is? Why should EVERY OTHER TIER (except tier 1, but at least they have the option to purposely drop DOWN if they don’t like it.) enjoy the privilege of having servers dominating like SF does advancing in as little as a week, two weeks tops while it takes many months here, and increasingly more every time more points get sucked out of tier 8 by the advancing server?

We don’t want tier 8 servers to be bumped up, we’re not asking to pick and choose who gets bumped down, we’re asking in a very reasonable fashion to have advancement to tier 7 and drops from tier 7 to work at in the very least COMPARABLE rates to other tiers. You people in higher tiers would be yelling the same crap twice as loud as us if it happened in your tiers, that’s the irony in all of this. So kitten stop trying to drown out our voices and legitimate complaints with “You will always be dominated by whoever drops”, that’s a non factor in our frustrations to begin with, and has never even had the chance to be adequately tested outside a single server in the case of Sorrow’s Furnace. After all as I made clear earlier, Devona’s Rest and Kaineng were very different case.

What’s it to you if whoever drops down here dominates anyways? If our complaints annoy you higher tier people, than do both of us a favor and keep your sorry hides somewhere else while you pass by the 20 minutes of your fail queues. At this point I’m even starting to think you guys just want to block all changes to this tier because you’re scared that one of these days with an unpredictable population shift your servers could fall in here, and maybe think that with us down here you’re safe from that.

Because we saw ET on the way down to T8 and their population is where they belong.
You seem very angry about something i care little about, and to the other people, theres at least 2 threads a week about SF or T8 problems. Theres 2 threads up right now.

Check the date on this thread, its an old one not a new one. It makes more sense to use an older one rather than creating more doesn’t it, or bumping the others? This one also has that convenient ArenaNet post marker on it, I think we should stick to this one now.

Well, at least he admitted the tier is broken. That’s a start, that’s a change. Someone realizes its not a matter of skill, its not even necessarily a matter of numbers causing the frustration, its a matter of an undeniable fact that the ratings here a broken, that Glicko2 cannot manage tier 8 like it does every other tier, and that unless fixed it probably never will. Every single person who accepts reality and admits that this tier is broken counts in having us heard by ArenaNet, and at least he did bump the thread for us with his posts.

Now if only we could hear from ArenaNet. With the sheer volume of tier 8 posts, unanimous complaints on the issue, and even growing support from various people in higher tiers, even posts by someone from a completely different tier about the topic in a different forum entirely, I’m sure they’ve HEARD by now. We await the REPLY. I hope they’re not waiting on this march patch as if its gonna magically fix things, because its obvious at this point it won’t.

More incentives for WvW /=/ fixing broken ratings and server advancement rates in tier 8.

Scumbag Mawile.6384:

Nearly double the combined score?

We keep this up, Ferg and ET might get to fight someone they have a shot at stomping.

We don’t really want to stomp anyone, ideally a close split like tier 6 saw in the past weeks would be the achieved result, even better if there were frequent shifts in what server is green team, red team, blue team with victories and losses based more on weekly strategies, competent commanding and micro management rather than just issues with numbers.

Such a thing may be impossible to achieve though. But we can only hope.

But then again, where did “hope” get us when we hoped ArenaNet would at least see that there is a real problem with the math in tier 8 when they’re statement of “It will fix itself in a few weeks” fell apart like a soggy cookie.

This waiting game we’ve all been playing is getting old, whether your Sorrow’s Furnace, Eredon Terrace, or Ferguson’s Crossing. Equally Kaineng and Devona’s Rest know what its felt like, and it only gets worse every time it happens.

EnRohbi.2187:

Cantur Soulfyre.5409:

EnRohbi.2187:

No, higher tiers don’t know how it FEELS because we know it sucks so we didn’t put ourselves in that position.

LOL, now who sounds entitled? Do you honestly think we put ourselves in this position on purpose? LOL, oh the irony. You aren’t one of those who transferred off your original creation world to find a “better” WvW server, are you?

Why are you posting on a T8 thread anyways? Troll much? Just because what we are experiencing means nothing to you does not make our points invalid. So you coming here and stating these things on a T8 thread that has nothing to do with you just shows what kind of class you have.

Please, if you do not want to hear our complaints about the system, stay off our threads and do not read them. Very simple. However if you continue coming onto our threads with this junk it will just show you for what you are, a troll.

No, been on the same server since launch. Through good times and guild exoduses.

And I’m posting on a tier 8 thread because it’s in a public WvW forum for the entire game, and I have input to give.
If you don’t want people from other tiers posting in it, you should go post it on your server’s forum (If you have one).

But, alas, this is the way public forums work.

And yes, I do think you put yourself in this situation on purpose. You have options.
You have had an ample amount of time to find a new home if tier 8 is so unplayable for you. I’m all for server loyalty and not bandwagoning away when things get tough, but when the reality of the game is that YOUR TIER IS BROKEN, it’s okay to find a new home that satisfies your WvW needs.

So basically, you ADMIT the tier is broken. We haven’t left exactly because we believe in seeing broken things FIXED, and it should be pretty possible to fix tier 8 without damaging other tiers at all. This is all we’ve been waiting on:

Either a fix, or an FORUM ADMISSION from the developers and representatives that they are convinced there is a problem here, and that it cannot be fixed. If it came to that, we would be willing to transfer. They could even have the courage to offer our tier specifically free transfers to certain servers so we could once again effectively grab at the chance to move without breaking up our guilds/communities as much as it takes with paid transfers. As it stands the most recent post on the issue from an ArenaNet representative literally amounted to this:

“Give it some weeks and it will fix itself.”

Yet its months and it hasn’t fixed itself, and evidence shows it probably never will without some drastic interference in the Glicko2 system from ArenaNet. So we wait on AT LEAST a single reply from ArenaNet, some light and closure on the issue. Of course we won’t wait forever, we eventually will transfer off despite the close knit online communities that have been built up here. Tier 8 could then at least function as a ghost tier that supports the ratings of the “real servers”. No we did not put ourselves into this position on purpose, we’re not masochists.

Weren’t many people from higher tiers, and even some from your very server also suggesting to us to attempt to inspire our PvE communities into showing up rather than resorting to transfers? Guess what, we missed our opportunity to benefit from free transfers simply because we had that same sentiment. That was not us making some masochistic decision to be dominated forever, that was us making a sacrifice to put to the test whether we could change things.

Do you really despise us just because we took ArenaNet at their word? For believing that somewhere deep down they do care, are listening and have at least some intention to fix what you yourself admit to be a problem, calling it a “broken tier”?

But alas, maybe we are fools for doing so. Maybe we did bring this upon ourself. Maybe it was weakness that we trusted ArenaNet to fix our tier, that we didn’t whine like other tiers did or in unity threaten to quit Guild Wars 2 for rival games in order to ArenaNet’s hand forced when the worry of dwindling net income is threatened.

Maybe we were naive, and maybe we were wrong for ironically NOT acting “self-entitled” as you called us earlier.

Yeah, I guess the joke’s on us.

EnRohbi.2187:

Detharos.3157:

Even if they would dominate, that is really not the issue or the complaint at all. The complaint of tier 8 is always simply how long a dominating server takes to advance. How would those of you in tier 7-2 feel if a server in your tier could dominate you with 300k-400k+(in comparison to your 140k-ish score or whatever) scores every week, possessing the numbers two suppress both its competitors in their own borderlands AND control EB/press one other map simultaneously, and despite this disparity this server was stuck in your tier for 2-3 MONTHS. That’s the problem. You don’t know how it feels, and you never will know how it feels unless you drop here. Servers that dominate in your brackets like that advance within ONE WEEK. Here it can take up to a quarter year with the same server. Get it?

Anet doesn’t redesign WvW because tier 8 has their feelings hurt.
No, higher tiers don’t know how it FEELS because we know it sucks so we didn’t put ourselves in that position.

You can complain about people saying that any other server would dominate tier 8 all you want, but it doesn’t make it false. What good is it going to do for Anet to put their time and resources and money into fixing tier 8’s problem, if the very next week the server that replaces SF is going to be just as bad/worse?
You cannot seriously be so self entitled

Self-entitled to what? A fix for a broken rating system? It’s not even like we’re asking for a rating reset. We’re asking for something that works for all tiers and solves our problems simultaneously, not something that shoves your higher tiers under the carpet so that we can enjoy WvWvW.

And you speak like your opinion is absolute fact. Can you present to me any credible evidence that if for example, HoD dropped down here they would dominate? Or other servers? You tell me, how is it that tier 8 held out better against Devona’s Rest and Kaineng than tier 7 themselves did, and consistently so in multiple weeks? Maybe whether the current tier 8 servers are truly tier 8 quality SHOULD BE re-examined on a large scale and put to the test. I’m increasingly less convinced that the current three servers in tier 8 really are the weakest of all the tiers, especially when every single time a server has dominated with score discrepancies like Sorrow’s Furnace has, it has proceeded to crush upwards of two tiers above it.

Working as intended? Yeah, right.

How about this. IF EVERY SINGLE IN TIER 7 REALLY IS that much stronger than us, and there REALLY is this “Tier 7 wall” between our tiers like you seem to think, and this contrary to the evidence in all of mos.millennium score history, how about having EVERY SINGLE TIER 7 SERVER ACTUALLY TESTED against tier 8 for a few weeks to confirm this?

In the very least if what you said was true, it would prove a convenient opportunity for tier 7 to get their map completion don’t you think? But if things didn’t happen that way in such a test, all your arguments and opinions would prove to simply be full of crap wouldn’t it? I guess you can’t have that happening, so you’ll continue to show up in every single thread we make.

Seriously, did you even read my post at all? You must of gotten angry at the part I called all you out for whining about the rating reset, do you even understand why I did that? You think I want a rating reset to go through? NO. My point in that was that your people of higher tiers, to the very FACE of developers and their representatives whined about a crappy change, and made a difference because so many of you threatened to quit and move on to other games.

So when our tier members COMPLAIN about a LEGITIMATE ISSUE, and are CONSTANTLY PROPOSING SOLUTIONS THAT FIX OUR TIER WHILE LEAVING YOUR HIGHER TIERS INTACT, again we RAISE UP VIABLE SOLUTIONS while NOT threatening to quit the game like a bunch of spoiled brats like certain people did, why do you constantly try to block us out?

But no, even forget all the mos.millennium evidence that contradicts everything you say at this point, since you’ve constantly gone against it anyways, can you present to me rather evidence that you are NOT a mere forum troll? Because I’m really starting to think that you are.

Again let me make this clear to you one final time. We want dominating servers in tier 8 to advance to tier 7 just as quickly as tier 7 servers dominating like SF do advance to tier 6. That is ALL we want. We are not saying that advancement rates should be slowed down to what we suffer for every tier, we’re asking to receive the same treatment and situations other tiers have the privilege of enjoying.

Honestly, I can’t understand why there’s constantly someone dropping this obligatory “Whoever drops down is gonna dominate anyways”. Currently SF is untested in how it would fair in its full power against tier 7 in a rematch, so just because they dominated doesn’t neccesarily mean other tier 7 servers would.

BUT..

Even if they would dominate, that is really not the issue or the complaint at all. The complaint of tier 8 is always simply how long a dominating server takes to advance. How would those of you in tier 7-2 feel if a server in your tier could dominate you with 300k-400k+(in comparison to your 140k-ish score or whatever) scores every week, possessing the numbers two suppress both its competitors in their own borderlands AND control EB/press one other map simultaneously, and despite this disparity this server was stuck in your tier for 2-3 MONTHS. That’s the problem. You don’t know how it feels, and you never will know how it feels unless you drop here. Servers that dominate in your brackets like that advance within ONE WEEK. Here it can take up to a quarter year with the same server. Get it? Sorrow’s Furnace is not enjoying this. Ferguson’s Crossing is not enjoying this. Eredon Terrace is not enjoying this. ALL THREE of us are complaining about a legitimate issue.

Drop the misconception already. We have no issue with Sorrow’s Furnace. This is not a server issue. Bit by bit we’ve even started to become friends on the forums due to this Glicko junkhole. What if HoD dropped down and dominated us even HARDER than SF and advanced back up within a week, and this trend constantly continued forever with various tier 7 servers like what can happen in other tiers, where advancement doesn’t take months? We would actually be A LOT LESS frustrated because the functionality would be working here just as it does in higher tiers. At least we would get to truly put to the test whether the other tier 7 servers can hold their ground or not rather than operating purely off speculation. And if we were that weak even in our prime largest showings in WvWvW, we would happily accept it because we would of gotten to put it to test with more than just tier 6/tier 5/tier 3 WvWvW showings. Consider also the fact that we SCORED BETTER against the tier 5 and tier 3 level showings of both Devona’s Rest and Kaineng than tier 7 did. Don’t you think us having at least a new shot against a new server in tier 8 every three weeks at least or so would be fair? But we never get that opportunity in a timely fashion, unlike those of you in higher tiers. So, can you really not understand what the complaint is? Why should EVERY OTHER TIER (except tier 1, but at least they have the option to purposely drop DOWN if they don’t like it.) enjoy the privilege of having servers dominating like SF does advancing in as little as a week, two weeks tops while it takes many months here, and increasingly more every time more points get sucked out of tier 8 by the advancing server?

We don’t want tier 8 servers to be bumped up, we’re not asking to pick and choose who gets bumped down, we’re asking in a very reasonable fashion to have advancement to tier 7 and drops from tier 7 to work at in the very least COMPARABLE rates to other tiers. You people in higher tiers would be yelling the same crap twice as loud as us if it happened in your tiers, that’s the irony in all of this. So kitten stop trying to drown out our voices and legitimate complaints with “You will always be dominated by whoever drops”, that’s a non factor in our frustrations to begin with, and has never even had the chance to be adequately tested outside a single server in the case of Sorrow’s Furnace. After all as I made clear earlier, Devona’s Rest and Kaineng were very different case.

And for the love of Guild Wars 2, stop recommending us to transfer to your queue-plagued tiers and trying to use our threads to pick off what WvW dedicated guilds we have left. Didn’t Mike Ferguson or Habib in one of the posts in the thread where all you whiners got the rating reset cancelled outline that it was their intention to have PEOPLE SPREAD OUT THROUGH THE TIERS rather than clustering into a select few “Holy servers”.

What’s it to you if whoever drops down here dominates anyways? If our complaints annoy you higher tier people, than do both of us a favor and keep your sorry hides somewhere else while you pass by the 20 minutes of your fail queues. At this point I’m even starting to think you guys just want to block all changes to this tier because you’re scared that one of these days with an unpredictable population shift your servers could fall in here, and maybe think that with us down here you’re safe from that.

Hey guys! Haven’t been on much the past two-three days but regardless; cheers and good luck to all in this latest week of the tier 8 match-up.

I must say Team Bean is becoming quite beastly.

Also, I’ve been thinking about some new possible solutions to the problems with the tiers/population distribution and the unique problem in tier 8, and came up with a pretty radically different idea from what I’ve traditionally had.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/How-about-changing-the-whole-system/first#post1605291

Feel free to check it out and drop a reply/constructive criticism. Tier 8 represent!

Now with that all out of the way, hopefully I can soon get to work on a new celebrity match-up update but I admit I’m low on ideas at the moment, and want to get to finishing up some CoE tonight. I will see what I can do.

Challenges of this proposal

I’m not naive; I know there are a whole lot of complications and things I may not see at the moment to consider, and feel free to drop a post containing some of those concerns.

For one thing, let be the first to say, such an endeavor would be costly. Obviously, ArenaNet has a budget to consider. This idea of mine would have a certain dollar value attached to it, and no matter how you look at it it would be an INVESTMENT for ArenaNet to make. When you make an $ investment, you expect RETURNS and you want those returns to be predictable if possible. I know this will be a major issue. With this proposal, I’d be looking to attract A LOT more $ to ArenaNet in the form of new players trying out Guild Wars 2 for this unique WvWvW system, in theory. If this system was executed, it would naturally have to have to be advertised across the gaming/MMORPG Gaming world which costs money. Not only that, it would have to be clear in the advertisement what’s different from before to bring back “Those old WvWvW players” who quit GW2 or those who turned it down for other games after analyzing the system, and to turn it into viable income.

Another idea I have to increase $ returns to ArenaNet would be to make some of the theoretical new WvWvW guild upgrades be purchasable with gems, you can still do a whole lot with gems actually.

I want to note when I say “WvW server” I use it interchangably with “WvWvW community.” The idea I’m proposing would be splitting up the current WvWvW population distribution into a lot of seperate populations/communities. If buying more servers/finding the space for those servers is not viable, if you could establish “micro servers” within servers however that would work, you could establish the same thing without buying a whole lot of new hardware, at least in theory.

As per another issue, I know there are TONS of mechanics and specifics involved that would be changed/need to be changed/could be changed with the implementation of a new system. For example, I like others want commander icons in WvWvW to be purchased from WvWvW specifically and for the commander system to offer more mechanics to make it easier for commanders to.. command. Better UI like someone suggested earlier today, namely. There’s A LOT that would be of concern.

So, feel free to post your concerns with such a system, I’d love to cover more but not everything comes to mind at this time, and for the things I have no idea how to make viable, it would always be nice to have help brainstorming with someone else.

3) A new guild system should be provided

In a hypothetical situation where WvWvW servers are provided; There should be WvWvW server guilds on these servers, and PvE guilds on the PvE servers. Completely separate from each other. Guilds created in PvE servers should not be functional or capable of being represented in WvWvW and vice versa. WvWvW guilds should be able to provide more benefits to WvWvW communities with its influence, and likewise PvE guilds should be able provide unique benefits to its PvE community. PvE guilds should have influence purchasable upgrades/events/quests or even maybe stories that affect their entire PvE world as a whole and WvWvW guilds should have more options of upgrades/benefits/events/stories than are currently present purchasable/accessible with influence that affect their respective WvWvW server only.

WvW map completion and world map completion functions to be completely seperated, new options for obtaining legendaries should be included in WvWvW

Obviously, there’s already problems with people needing certain keeps to complete their PvE objectives, and it would be even worse in this new system. That would have to be changed entirely. No PvE map completion in WvWvW maps. Seriously.

Seperate methods should be available for PvE and WvWvW players to obtain the same things if possible, and that includes legendaries. Obtaining legendary precursor exotics, the legendary ingredients, and ultimately the complete legendary item in WvWvW should operate differently in WvWvW from how it is pulled off in a PvE environment.

Removal of the tier system, establishment of named battle groups

Hate to sound like a WoW nerd here but instead of tiers, in this new system establish named battle groups. People in general don’t like to have a number on their forehead if it isn’t number 1, if you catch my drift. Battle groups would be three WvW servers permanently paired within that battle group unless manually adjusted by ArenaNet/some possible shuffling system if a system was found to be capable to provide new match ups without breaking population balances, something that would have to be based in weekly averages and such. In this new system the goal is to have a bunch of WvW servers that have their own unique identity yet are much more closely matched to each other in terms of numbers, a more equal population distribution of Guild Wars 2 players if you will.

Ideally whatever the system, match-ups of the three servers would be based specifically on players number averages detected in weekly showings, and would also include timezone coverage calculations if timezone specific WvWvW servers were not created.

Here’s my idea of a solution in parts:

1) Make WvW a viable alternative to PvE; More WvW gear; MORE BALANCED GEAR ACQUISITION METHODS

Let’s face it, in WvWvW you’ve gotta work harder for a lot less. I don’t have the options of stats, or looks, in gear obtained from WvWvW that I do elsewhere which means I cannot operate independently of PvE if I desire to have a certain stat-set or certain look. That’s a problem. People who want to spend all their time in WvWvW should find gearing up easier, they should not have to run dungeons or grind Karkas/gift cards/grab their credit cards to obtain the gear and fine transmutation stones to make their character what they want it to be.

I think this gear option in WvWvW should be executed like this: Have the full arrangements of gear options, at least stat-wise added into WvWvW gear. Ideally include the full arrangement of “skin” options if its possible as well. First, create some kind of token currency for WvWvW gear, separate from badges. Siege is expensive, and I should not feel hurt to spend badges meant for gear on siege, or vice versa. Also, make obtaining these tokens used for gearing up happen at a viable rate, and not operate on a system resembling dungeons. I daresay the system for these “WvWvW gear tokens” should not be identical to badges either, because in reality some classes obtain badges in WvW far easier than others when we’re talking about those obtained from kills. A full berserker elementalist for example is gonna get a lot more badges daily than a berserker ranger, or probably any ranger for that matter. All people should be able to gear up in WvWvW, and to do so at a rate equal to the EFFORT they put in yet in a manner fair for players both hardcore and casual, and to be able to use that gear when we do choose to PvE also, or vice versa. As is the current system but* I am expressing my desire to outline that an equal arrangement of exotic gear of various stat combinations and looks/design usable in PvE should be obtainable in WvW, just as those obtained in PvE can be used in WvWvW. The basic idea works, but gear acquisition for WvWvW needs to be adjusted. I am not asking for things to be handled like Structured PvP, because Structured PvP gear has some signifcant stats lacking,*

2) Seperate WvW from PvE. Establish WvWvW Servers.

I hate to say it, but when we’re on WvWvW even in my server of Ferguson’s Crossing, its generally a completely different community with completely different standards and mindsets than what makes up PvE. When we’re in WvWvW, its not PvE carebears, its WvWvW participants even if the server population as a whole has a preference to PvE. And its like that for any given server. WvW populations and distribution IMO need to be balanced seperately from server population, and done so more forcibly in a new system. No free transfers, no paid transfers, NO TRANSFERS PERIOD.

Just as a player has the option of selecting a “Home server” they should have the option of selecting a “WvW server”. These WvW servers should contain a waiting room map and the WvW maps only. Population caps should be in place in addition to caps on “currently playing in the map” + a queue system should still be in place just as it is now. These numbers however would be freely adjusted by ArenaNet to whatever numbers they feel are ideal to be contained within the WvWvW maps at any given time. Furthermore “Timezone” populations should either be made more clearly visible/managed or forcibly placed on to Timezone specified WvWvW servers. Night capping disadvantages sucks for everyone when it happens, it offers nothing to the experience at all. If you ask me, South Americans, Asians and whatever other groups contribute to night capping issues should also get their own balanced servers to play on against active members of their own community.

Now that I have your ears, I outlined roughly a major problem that is unfolding, but I didn’t highlight some of the mechanics that are causing it. Let me start for one thing; Glicko 2 is locking tiers. The longer a tier’s situation remains unchanged, the more difficult it is for that lock to be broken. Glicko2 may be working as intended when it does this, but the problem is that other mechanics in place are not working as intended, which is causing Glicko 2 to lock servers with drastically different WvWvW showings within the same tier, for weeks to months on end.

Here are some of these mechanics that are not working as intended, which are causing Glicko2 problems in providing a balanced tier:

Freedom of movement. Players, guilds still CAN and ARE transferring. Paid transfers has not changed all that much. ArenaNet has given players far too much freedom to move between the various servers, and far too little incentive to stay on a server that is challenged in WvWvW. Here’s the crazy part. Eliminating transfers wouldn’t solve the problem either, because the damage is already done. Instead of having 3 servers of approximately close balance in every tier with every higher tier being more number heavy than the last, situations are coming about all to often where you can for example(the following is hypothetical) have “Four Tier one servers, two tier two servers, five tier three servers” and so on. Unfortunately if you eliminated transfers completely now, you’d just be locking the places where they are and not solving the problem of WvWvW participant distribution.

The other problem, which I already touched on a bit is that there’s always a higher ratio of regular WvWvW participants leaving the field than new players buying Guild Wars 2 and joining WvWvW servers in an imbalanced match-up. I point this again to highlight the inevitable reality which is that, while the majority of tiers have become imbalanced due to population trends, waiting for new players is not going to solve the problem. Glicko 2 cannot account for these issues either, which causes it to become completely enable of shifting servers between tiers as fast as it needs to, especially in certain tiers.

Another issue is that the problem Glicko 2 with locking imbalanced tiers has in turn caused players in “unfortunate tiers” to become more inclined to shift into a different server in a different tiers or quitting WvWvW/the game entirely, which creates a vicious cycle where in the current system Glicko 2 actually promotes the problem that causes itself problems, which creates.. the problem. A vicious cycle is starting to establish out of this trend, and if left unchecked I daresay the damage to WvWvW as a whole will be enormous.

So here’s a whole lot of problems, how about some solutions? Well first let me warn you: The way I see it, the solutions are major not minor. I know ArenaNet likes to solve problems in a slow manner so as to avoid the risk of breaking the game. Small patches and fixes building up and working together for a large end over time. My idea is the opposite. I think its going to take a whole lot of changes to be applied simultaneously TOGETHER in one massive system upgrade to make WvWvW more viable for everyone.

I know this is gonna come off as extreme, especially in the eyes of a conservative group like ArenaNet. But in my opinion, the whole WvWvW system is broken. Furthermore at the rate its going, its not going to fix itself. Again IMO, Glicko2 is NEVER going to produce a majority of balanced tiers ever again. Furthermore, this idea that new players joining the game and participating in WvW will eventually outweigh the number of people tiring out and transferring servers/quitting the game entirely in massively imbalanced tiers is WRONG. It sounds good in theory, but I’ve been in tier 8 for long enough to see that in practice it does not work. For any given tier, this factor will remain the same; people are human and this is a game, and people are looking to enjoy it. In other words, people are not going to WAIT weeks, much more the months it takes, for Glicko 2 to balance a match up, something I don’t even think its capable of all with its design to lock tiers. So this idea that we will have balanced tiers in every tier or a majority of tiers seems to be a mere pipe dream.

In WvWvW participation, it seems to me that the number of players quitting WvWvW, or transferring off servers to find better balance in WvWvW, or quitting the game entirely drastically outnumbers the increase in WvWvW participation gained from new players. In Ferguson’s Crossing for example, from my observations over the past 4 months; for approximately every 15 regular NA primetime WvWvW participants we gain in the form of new players rolling on the server, we LOSE about 18-20. I fear many other servers have this issue also. And with more leaving WvWvW than people joining, in an game MMORPG game that will eventually start selling far less copies as time goes on, WvWvW on certain servers is positioned to die out fast.

Furthermore with an increasing amount of major competitor companies boasting their own simulated war systems, ArenaNet will find need to be concerned with how its World vs. World. Vs. World system is enjoyed by its players. That enjoyment IS dropping over time, and those competitors and rivals of ArenaNet have games out there and in production that are going to become more and more attractive to WvWvW regulars. That means, this company is probably going to lose potential income in the form of gem purchases, Guilds Wars 2 and possible future Guilds Wars 2 expansion purchases if its WvWvW system remains unchanged. So really, it only makes sense to be open improving this portion of the game from all perspectives; be it economical on ArenaNet’s part, enjoyment on the player’s part, and a passion for high quality online gaming experiences on the part of both ArenaNet and the players.

Here’s how Ferguson’s Crossing has changed over the past 4 months or so: About three major guilds since our prime have transferred off, 2-3 other major guilds (200+ members frequent 15-25 person WvW showings) have backed completely out of WvW at least until Sorrow’s Furnace moves up which may never happen with the rating system, 1-3 hardcore WvW guilds like mine are taking WvW in stride and are becoming less active due to burnout, with maybe half the showings as they used to.

The HUGE MISCONCEPTION that I fear ArenaNet and other supporters of their supporters may of made in trying to justify Glicko2 locking tiers as it does in tier 8 was to assume the new players joining servers like ours would give it the numbers to balance out with the higher WvW population servers that get locked in tiers with us. IT NEVER WORKS OUT, because people are human and tire out; as many members as we do gain in the form of new players rolling here, we’re LOSING MORE WvW participants in the form of people tiring out from months of imbalanced match ups than those new players can dare number.

That’s the critical mistake, and why Glicko2 fails. Servers across the board are LOSING more WvWvW participants as time goes on than we gain from new players buying guild wars 2 and participating in WvW. On FC, for about every 10 new players that rolled their first character and have found WvW enjoyable enough to participate in daily, about 20 veterans who have endured bad match ups for months quit the server/game entirely and no longer show up in WvW.

While its particularly bad here in tier 8 since the way the math works down here causes Glicko2 to produce a locked match up much quicker than in higher tiers, its going to be equally a big problem for higher tiers soon if not already.

Here’s the issue ArenaNet has yet to see, in my opinion; basically, Glicko 2 is working as intended but WvWvW population distribution is NOT WORKING AS INTENDED, and when a viable system and a broken system are mixed, the result is still a broken WvWvW. Look at the imbalance in the tiers across the board for yourself. Glicko2 is not gonna fix that with time, contrary to the belief of some. New players joining Guild Wars 2 is not gonna fix that with time, contrary to the belief of some.

If no DRASTIC CHANGES are made the WvWvW + transfer SYSTEM as a whole (not just a select few parts) then the imbalanced match ups are going to continue forever until ALL the players with an interest in WvWvW in Guild Wars 2 die out. People will eventually move on to competitors of Guild Wars 2 that offer better systems of simulated war.

“Lackin’ Coverage”

They see me upgradin’
My red borderland
I know they’re all thinking
I’m lackin’ coverage

Think I’m lackin’ coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Can’t you see I’m lackin’ coverage!
Look at me I’m lackin’ coverage!
I wanna wage war in-
Tier 6
But so far the fact is
I’m lackin’ too much coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Really, really lackin’ coverage

First in the first week with SF
Never again to taste victory
Only one to know how this feels is ET
Take a one minute break to pee
Come back to see 40 SF hitting AB
My 12:30 PM crew isn’t massive, to the contrary
The fact that they’re non-existant is quite ordinary
All of my major guilds bicker like they were married
Krakarabbit’s crazy quotes fill my library
My server web page is all totally pimped out
Nah I’m lying there is no such place
Yo Anet checkin’ which attacks are fake/real is boring
And lack of ranger stealth got me snorin’
I can only ever move up to second place
If EB green lands were a chick, I’d never reach first base
Once you see my sweet score you’ll be amazed
that FC players aren’t crazed
There’s no camp I haven’t run
Godslore is number 1
Cause 5 manning SF keeps just ain’t fun.
I ain’t got a night crew but I got a Lions Arch queue
“Veloka” is my favourite tower
fill it with 5 superior acs and feel the power
I’ll face any SF zerg in EB
But then have to abandon it to defend BL from ET

They see me roll on, my 148k score!
I know in my heart they think I’m
lackin’ coverage!
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Can’t you see I’m lackin’ coverage
Look at me I’m lackin’ coverage
I’d like to roll with-
Tier 6
Although it’s apparent I’m
lackin’ coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
How’d I get to lack so much coverage?

I’ve been scouting SF and ET
Primetime and only one FC zerg while SF zergs number three
The forum warrior within
He yells for transfers to the Glicko bottom bin!
10 vs. 50 never gets old here
The more time passes the more will come I fear
I post complaints about Glicko 2 on the forums and beg for action
Only to recieve an infraction
I can try again right now
Watch higher tier servers say “Fifth FC post in a week, holy cow!”
When we’re defending bay from SF, watch out
“30+ ET HITTING HILLS!” the lone scout will shout
Even losing our bl to ET’s new night crew!
So I doubt we’ll soon be blue
Tequatl was hitting in PvE
30 people in WvW I could no longer see!
Culling makin’ me wish I rolled thief

I’m gonna be red forever at this rate, chief
Some goofy treaty means ET and us have beef!
And now that they’re strong
They want to see us dance in a red thong
I spend silver coin on siege
and call Edwin Kern “my liege”
The FC WvW standard is droppin’
So its time to go to PVE or hit some Black lion trading post shoppin’

They see me in red BL strugglin’
They on my corpse laughin’
And rollin’ their eyes ‘cause
I’m lackin’ so much coverage
Just because I’m lackin’ coverage
Just because I’m lackin’ coverage
All because I’m lackin’ coverage
Holy cow I’m lackin’ coverage
I wanna roll in-
Tier 6!
but oh well it’s obvious I’m
lackin’ coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
Think I’m just lackin’ too much coverage
I’m just lackin too much coverage
Look at me I’m lackin’ coverage!

Dathaul vs. the one enemy known to have over a million kills in WvWvW, and a score update.

Edit: For the record, I don’t really know if ET even attacked SF Garrison at all in this week or not, I just needed an excuse to use that Mr. Bean chemistry episode pic.

The various battles in FC BL from about 4:00-9:00 PM EST were fun. I was overseeing a lot of the defense and upgrades there during that period, so kudos to the SF who came out and made defense duty interesting. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that we had Stonemist at one point.