Guild Wars 2

A little about myself:

I’ve been playing videogames, and MMOs for the better part of 20 years. I’m no stranger to all types of gaming, from consoles to PC, hardcore to casual. FPS, RTS, MMO, you name it. My RL friends call me a gaming snob, or a vidiot. I call it just being good at videogames.

Recently I’ve been putting in a lot of time in on GW2. Obviously it’s a pretty good game. I’ve enjoyed the leveling and the class setup, the quest system and crafting. I’ve spent some time in WvW over the last few weeks, but what I’ve come to find is that my server has almost no one on during the late hours that I tend to play the most.

This causes two problems: First, there’s hardly anyone on to talk to while I’m playing. Second, we get crushed in WvW due to lack of night players. It’s not very fun in either regard. So, as much as I like some of the people on Ehmry Bay, I’m now looking for a new home.

What I’m looking for is an already established guild that primarily consists of either later night players by the North American time, or oceanic players. I’d also like a guild that’s decently organized, with a fairly strong focus on WvW.

I currently have a lvl 80 thief as a main, with a 44 warrior and 33 ranger for alts.

What your complaining about is losing…

Perhaps some people are, but the larger issue is just as much about servers steamrolling and having nothing to do. That problem also stems from massive population imbalance during off hours.

This guy here understands and outlines the issue pretty well:

If you are a serious WvWer you want to be on a competitive server. The minimum characteristic of competitive servers is “full queue 24/7” which means that your server is never outnumbered.

I don’t know that having a queue 24/7 is a * minimum* requirement, but the point is that as long as you are on a server which is up against other servers with similar populations during ALL times of the day, you’re playing on a more of less equal standing. With the advantage of raw population more or less equallized, it’s actually up to the players to form strategy, out-think their opponents, and determine the outcome of WvW through their own efforts.

With a heavy population imbalance during the off hours, the opportunity and potential for strategy and tactics to make a difference is highly mitigated in both the small scale daily fights, and over the length of the entire match.

At what point is it considered flat out impossible for strategy and tactics to overcome population? 2v1? 5v1? 10v1? Anet says over time new strategies and tactics will be created to handle this. But what’s available to one is available to all, barring exploits.

This is the nature of the problem.

Absolute balance such as we see in sPVP is not needed. However, some system should be in place so that players who are on an under-populated server have a chance for their strategy and tactics to matter against an overwhelming zerg. Players who are on an over populated off-hours server should be equally entitled to having to use strategy and tactics instead of just beating down empty, or sparsely defended, gates.

Leaving the problem solely up to matchmaking is only going to result in polarizing the servers. There will be servers who are full with queues 24/7, and there will be servers with either continuing steamroll matches or with hardly anyone bothering with WvW at all.

If this is the intended result Anet is shooting for, then I guess it’s working. I don’t want to transfer, because all my friends play on the server I’m on. But I want to enjoy a truly competitive WvW experience where my actions can make a difference, and that means I’m going to eventually end up on a 24/7 server.

RamonDomke.9638:

Higher server population and maximum player cap in world vs. world do not go hand in hand. Yes, there is a statistical advantage of this happening – since you can fall back to a higher number of players. But stochastics and ‘large numbers’ do not per se grant an advantage – since we are talking mere ‘probabilities’. It still could happen that you have a caped out world population – of which no one wants to (or can) play at night.

The free character transfer is NOT a core mechanic of the game – but instead a launch only initiative to balance out server population (to actually prevent the above mentioned ‘possible scenario’). It will go away at some point.

Servers are starting to balance out. However, it’s being proven almost every day that the servers which have a consistent population through all 24 hours of the day are doing far better than those without, even when the servers with weak night crews are doing well during the day when their people are on.

The nature of the average gamer means people are far more likely to transfer into a server that’s already doing well rather than taking a risk and moving to a server that’s on the losing end in the hope that they can make the difference. Doesn’t this mean that the current unrestricted transfers simply compound the issue?

It is possible that a severe minority of players might decide to go to an underdog server, but likely only if it was a coordinated effort along with an entire guild. This is a very unlikely scenario.

Server transfers happen 24/7 with a 24 hour lockout, whereas server matchups only recalculate once a week. How can this be an effective system of balancing when a person who gets tired of losing can instantly jump ship to the winning side, further disrupting the matchup?

Must a person wait until after all these free transfers have utterly unbalanced server population to find out if their own server is worth staying on?

So basically Anet is admitting that the server with the highest populations are going to win.

No offense, but I agree with the planned imbalance of WvW. However, it only works when you stop allowing people to freely transfer to servers that are already winning. I’m surprised that free xfers have been allowed to continue for as long as they have.

You can’t form effective tactics when every time your server loses a match, it also bleeds manpower as well. Eventually no amount of skill, organization, or tactics will make up for raw numbers.

I’m all for fighting until the bitter end, but at a certain point it DOES just become ridiculous.

Hey guys, I wanted to apologize about that post I made earlier. I was getting pretty irritated at the slow progress by EB last night( we were REALLY disorganized and just zerging mostly). So when I saw some Mag players trolling around in our back-court I assumed the worst. I thought I let it go, but when I logged on and saw this thread it all snuck up on me again and I made that post above.

Really this was a pretty close match up. I know TC did a fine job of staying on top of things, but orbs and territory has passed back and forth throughout the entire week. None of our servers really has anything to be ashamed of, and I shouldn’t have lashed out at Maguuma for attacking us, since all three servers are always enemies no matter what territory they control.

Chiming in here from EB:

I only work a part time job, so I have a lot of hours to put in on GW2. I play WvW at all kinds of random hours of the day AND night. Sometimes I’m up playing at 6am, other times 1am, or noon, or 3 in the afternoon.

Every time I go into WvW there are plenty of people fighting. I have yet to see a situation where there’s steamrolling going on due to lack of population. Sure, one side might be a little bit outnumbered at a keep, but it’s ALWAYS a fight to take it. So all you people claiming there’s some kind of unfair advantage due to population need to stop making excuses and get back in the fight.

But last night was the first time I’ve actually seen Maguuma actively going out of their way to support TC. Up until now it’s been pretty subtle, but while us EB guys were trying to take Dreaming, Mag was doing nothing buy running around in our back-court harassing supply camps and other areas and more or less ignoring TC’s territory.

At first I thought it was just Maguuma being stupid and trying to snap up some points. But then I found this thread.

Really Mag, you should be embarrassed. Fighting 1v2 only gives us EB guys more practice, and we’ve repeatedly shown that we don’t give up and we CAN hold our own against it. But Mag, really….being TC’s little servant isn’t going to help you in the long run. You might end up second place this week by riding their coattails(That’s not even assured with the way EB has been fighting tooth and nail), but what are you going to do the week after? Settling for 2nd place is just a losing strategy, and it’s going to hurt WvW in the long run.

Because if you Mag players keep listening to the guys shouting to help another server win, all that’s gonna hapkitten you’re going to get weaker and weaker since you never learn to stand on your own. People are going to just transfer away. So all you honest Mag players trying to fight to win, you need to get on top of this.

As for TC: you guys put up some fierce fights every time we assault you. That’s gonna serve you well in the next matchup. After constantly fighting 1v2, EB is going to end up wrecking whoever we get matched against next time, so even if we drop down this week, you’ll be seeing us again soon.

Quasi Mota.7390:

Daggerstorm: I shouldn’t have to explain this one.

If you’re trying to write up a guide, then maybe you actually should explain why you took Daggerstorm, and how it fits into the build.

Deathpope.6253:

Gear : Full exotic Rampager’s, exotic Rampager’s weps

Runes : Rune of the undead, give alot of condition damage and toughness, plus the 5% conversation rate means the more toughness you get, the more damage its converted into, amazing rune set.

Sigils : im using Agony and Earth

Build : 30 Deadly Arts (3/8/12), 20 Shadow Arts (4/6) 20 Acrobatics (2/8)

Skills : Hide in shadows, Spider Venom, Ice Drake Venom. Signet of Shadows, Dagger Storm (only used when im out numbered, and only when they try to get distance from me)

now with this build, im able to stealth alot with CnD, get bleeds up with sneak attack, and heal with venoms, my signet and passive gives me blinds, i have a lot of escapes with my passives, stealth, and skills.

my gear gives me alot of crit, condition damage, and power. Condition removal is useles against this build as all the damage comes from sneak attack, i only spend my initiative on CnD and Dancing Dagger, so i stealth and open with sneak attack, auto attack, get back in their face and CnD, sneak attack.. now they have 8-9 bleeds on them which tick for 90-111 depending on my targets gear, they blow condition removal, thats when i stack the venoms and bleeds, also making sure i keep using CnD.

with this set up you can easily take on 1v3 people as you are darting in and out of combat so much and healing alot from the venoms, and dont forget you get long stealth, so you can always CnD and reset the fight, or even Hide in Shadows.

hope that helps, also this is the build that i only use in WvW, tried it in PvP and it didnt work out so well.

That sounds a LOT like how I play, same utilities and elite even. Sadly I don’t have full exotics yet. I’m rolling with:

Deadly Arts 25(4/8)
Shadow Arts 25(5/9)
Acrobatics 20(2/8)

I’m getting stacks of might every time I dodge, stealth, or apply venom(all three happen pretty regularly). The longer the fight goes, the harder I hit. It’s a bit more offensive based than most, but the build works equally well in WvW, sPVP, and PVE.

Maybe the more general nature of the build is why I can’t take multiple people, or it could be the gear. Or maybe I’m still learning how to get the most out of the class. All I know is that I can take any class 1v1, no question.

Stripeknight.6458:

I am having a hard time deciding which class to run with and wanted the opinion of you fine folks as to which class speced properly is harder to beat one on one in exotic gear. I keep seeing allot of conflicting reports. Some guardians say they can face roll two thieves at once, others say guardians die to thieves due to a lack of burst damage. Just looking for some clarification.

Thank you!!!

Part of why you’re getting such conflicting reports is because in WvW you have a pretty wide variety of skill and gear mixes. You’ve got level 80 players in full exotics mixed in with level 1s in starting gear. Then there’s also the orb buffs on top of that.

So a full exotic-geared player at level 80 with orb buffs might very well be able to handily take on 2, 3, or more people at once, especially if they’re on the ball with their skill and have a good ability to keep track of the battlefield.

Guardians are a very solid class no matter what you do. They’re probably the most tanky class in the game if played right, but they can also spec for very good damage output as well.

Thieves, on the other hand, have so many options to control a fight, that a well played thief can more or less own anyone if they’re smart about it. They can make builds that range anywhere from a super glass cannon that kills people in seconds by burning all their cooldowns, to outlast builds that are in and out of stealth, and so hard to nail down that they can be almost impossible to kill without excellent teamwork.

So yeah, play whatever class you enjoy most. They’re all prettykittenstrong in their own right.

More than likely he’s getting the advantage of the rendering bug where the enemy players don’t even know he’s there. He’s getting lucky that the enemy zerg doesn’t just turn around and smash his face.

I honestly can’t wait until Anet fixes this. All these thieves getting away with garbage play because of a bug….so sad.

He DOES sound like he’s having a good time tho. But I bet he rages when he can’t do it anymore after the fix.

I know that anytime I get near an enemy zerg, I get focused on so fast, I die if I dont’ stealth immediately.

Here’s a few of my early Asura characters. All low level stuff.

P/D venom builds destroy guardians, even if they have alot of condition removal, your in and out of stealth so much its hard for them to hit you, infact i have yet to lose to a 80 in 1v1 with the P/D build.

i take on 1v3, 1v4 and always kill at least 2 people before i have to escape or get downed.

I also use P/D, although I wouldn’t try to take on 4 people at once under any situation. Even 4 bad players can pile on enough damage and stuns to ruin your day, and if there’s even one decent player in the mix, you’re in trouble.

Still, I’d be interested in the gear/build you use to fight multiples like that. 1v1 I’m confident I can take down any class, including guardians and mesmers. Other thieves are actually the most challenging, usually.

Yes, it’s a known issue where the game itself is having a pretty significant delay for letting your client even know someone is there. It’s not only stealth, however. In some cases a normal player or zerg of players can be right on top of you before the game decides to draw them for you.

Now, about the 5 stealths. There’s no limit on the number of times a thief can go into stealth. The only real limitation is the “Revealed” debuff, which prevents them from re-entering stealth for a few seconds.

I don’t know where your stuff is, but I didn’t take it!

bwillb.2165:

Eliteseraph,
I suggest you go and check your facts on that. In PvE – which you likely are more used to then sure, this issue is a non-factor. In WvW where the rendering of a player instantly is pretty much never happening – especially under high load the ability of a thief increases tenfold.
Thiefs are able to get off at least 3 skills before they become fully visible, even to tabbing (not just visually but to your client) this has all been tested and confirmed countless times from many people who understand a thief far better than you I am sure.
There is nothing an individual can do to counter/fix this issue due to the mechanical nature of it, so in essence it is the fault of stealth that this is occuring because it is mechanically broken within the system right now due to the culling/rendering problem the client/engine has.
Do some more research before you go berating people for not knowing what they are talking about when you show the same lack of knowledge.

And an entire zerg can roflstomp a defensive position before they’re visible, even without any sort of thief or mesmer to stealth them in the first place. It’s an issue that affects everything, and I think we can all agree that it needs to be fixed, no need to even argue about that one. Heck it’s even a pain in PvE. I logged on right outside Arah last night and the defend Arah event was happening but I couldn’t see any enemies or any friendly players. went down and got back up twice before everything loaded.

The rendering issue is one that Anet is aware of.

This is not a problem that’s specific to stealth, and the complaint doesn’t belong in the thief forums. It’s a problem with the game engine and needs to be dealt with or complained about in the tech support area.

Also, WvW is not the only place you might fight Thieves, and thieves are not the only ones who can make their character disappear from the screen(I’m looking at you Mesmers).

But thank you Aneu.1748 for clarifying the problem in WvW, as I’m sure the OPs complaint was directed towards constructive improvement rather than just QQ about being beaten by a thief.

My vote is for 1200 Rifles. Or at the VERY least an optional trait to turn shortbows/pistols into 1200 range.

The only thing I don’t like, from a PVP perspective, about the asura dodge vs other races is how it is much easier to identify when an asura is dodging.

The blur animation can VERY easily be lost in the mess of group PvP combat, while seeing an asura cartwheel can be identified VERY easily, and tallied up so people have a much easier time judging when you’re low on endurance.

The smaller size of asura really isn’t an issue at all, especially with tab targeting. I would personally prefer that all thieves had the same dodge blur. Or if people prefer the cartwheel for purely cosmetic reasons, give them(or SELL them) an option for that.

It’s a very minor disadvantage that is only going to be exploited by the most hardcore of PVPers, but there it is.

My thief looks like she stole her gear from Dynasty Warriors:

+1 Will.4165.

If only we had more players who were willing to take the time to better understand the game like he did.

Friendly players or NPCs that are stealthed will be slightly visible, although with a kind of blurred effect, similar to the Predator movies.

Enemy or hostile targets that are stealthed will be completely invisible to you. Although you can sometimes see a small puff/swirl of smoke when they enter or leave stealth.

Also, and this is VERY important: Stealthed targets are NOT invulnerable. You can’t see them, but you CAN still hit them. So if you’re really quick on the draw and a little lucky, you can activate an attack right after a target stealths and still hit them.

How to make steal a useful skill for ranged?

Target something that’s not the enemy in your face: shadowstep to it(and away from the guy in your face. Even squirrels work. Enemy players who aren’t currently attacking you or paying attention work as well. Even a well-timed steal during a boss fight can get your out of trouble.

I wouldn’t mind something a little more directly useful to ranged thieves, but there IS a way to put steal to good use as long as you’re willing to think outside the box.

So just our of curiosity, how do you counter it?
Ive seen a few times in WvW what seems like (almost) permanent invisi with some serious dmg output with a grp of (seemingly) capable people being unable to take the thief down.

There is no direct counter. Just like you can’t counter a warrior gaining adrenaline, or a mesmer from using illusions/phantasms. Stealth is as much of a class mechanic for thief as initiative is.

But what you can do is play smart, and understand how stealth works, and how a thief can use it.

The first thing you need to understand is that stealth is NOT invulnerability. The thief is still there to be hit, you just can’t see him. AOE works well. Ground effects like engineer mines, or necro wells can limit a stealthed thief’s mobility. Even melee attacks with large area effects can hit. Greatsword warriors hit my thief all the time after I stealth just by swinging around randomly.

Pets also work well against a thief who’s constantly in and out of stealth, since pet AI will auto-target and attack the thief the second he’s comes out of it. You can watch where the pet attacks or starts to move towards as a sign of where the thief is, sometimes.

Limiting the directions a thief can attack you from can also be a useful tool for predicting what direction he’ll come at you from. Although a good thief will try to attack from unexpected directions, sometimes you can limit his options with stairs, hallways, or even a wall or pillar if you place your back to it.

And any combination of those can help. But mostly if you REALLY want to learn how to fight a thief, you should try playing one for a little while. Get into the mind of a thief and learn how they think. See what kinds of problems we face, and how we like to fight.

Because just sitting there and letting yourself be defeated because you’re too focused on “OMGZ STEALTHZ!” being a gamebreaker for you is YOUR problem. You’re letting yourself get psyched out instead of staying calm and calculating.

But even then, if you play your best you might still get beaten by a thief who’s just outplaying you. That isn’t because of stealth. It’s because any highly skilled player is going to beat a lesser one with their favorite class, no matter what that class is.

So stop trying to use stealth as an excuse, and start getting better at the class you like.

Unfortunately the early levels of playing Thief is kind of hard. We’re really REALLY squishy until the later levels. Thieves don’t have many good survivability options until tier 2 traits. At that point you have:

Leeching Venoms: Steal Health when triggering a Venom.

Using two of your utility slots for venoms along with Leeching Venoms allows you some pretty nice in-combat healing on demand.

Pain Response: Gain 10s of regeneration and remove bleeding, poison, and burning when struck and health is below 75%. This effect can not trigger more than once every 45 seconds.

Pain Response is another nice passive heal that you can almost forget you have once you slot it, but definitely notice it’s lack if you don’t.

Or instead of Pain Response you could take:

Assassin’s Reward: Heal yourself whenver you use a skill that uses initiative. Heal yourself for each point of initiative spent.

I’m not a fan of Assassin’s Reward, since you need to be a heavy initiative spender to make it useful(and thus more trait points to support it), although you could combine this with the heal skill Signet of Malice that heals you every time you attack. But I prefer the heal+stealth+condition removal of Hide in Shadows that you get at level 1. It’s gotten me out of more trouble than I can even remember.

So for the first 40 levels or so, I highly recommend Pistol/Dagger. You can kite up to any four melee targets forever with your 4 button: Dancing Dagger. I’ve taken down all kinds of veterans and even a champion or two like this(although champs take FOREVER. Prepare to be bored to tears).

After level 40 the class really starts to feel like it’s coming into it’s own. I personally don’t like the glass cannon builds that people find so popular in PvP. They work fine against other players when you can exploit their weaknesses and fight 1v1, or when you have backup.

But for PVE when you are often fighting three or four enemies, sometimes with a veteran mixed in, a heavy survival build is going to serve you a LOT better. My personal build suggestion is to go Pistol/Dagger with a core of :

20 Shadow Arts: ( V Infusion of Shadow) ( IX Leeching Venom)
20 Acrobatics: ( II Power of Inertia) ( VIII Pain Response)

You can only get one right at 40, but both by 50. I recommend going for Pain Response first, but you can choose whichever you feel more comfortable with. Using Spider Venom and Ice Drake Venom as defensive heals instead of offensive poisons keeps you topped off for HP, and if you start to take a pounding hit Hide in Shadows to buy more time. You can also pop your 5 button, Cloak of Shadows regularly to get a bit of spike damage and more stacks of bleed on the target. Pain Response will kick in automatically as needed, along with Last Refuge if you happen to get dropped all the way down to 25% HP or less.

So it does take level 50+ to become really tanky as a thief, and you won’t be killing things quite as fast as other build. But you WILL survive a lot longer.

And this build works well with just about ANY gear setup, which is perfect for levelling since a lot of the time you can often be wearing some fairly outdated equipment. And it’s much more forgiving while you’re still learning the class.

I will say that the thief playstyle probably changes the most, depending one which traits and skills you choose. You’ll have to experiment a LOT to figure out what works best for you. Try using the Heart of Mists area in the PVP section to test out builds.

For every single person who is complaining about stealth being broken or too powerful: go play a thief for 40 levels then come back with greater understanding of how it works. It has strengths and weaknesses, and is in no way overpowered in it’s current form.

You just don’t understand it, and are looking for some excuse for why you got beaten by a better player. This is NOT the fault of stealth or the thief class. It is your own fault for not taking the time to understand your enemy.

So please. Stop with these posts already. Stealth is fine as is. If you think there is an exploit or actual bug going on, then use the /BUG command in-game.

(written by a thief who regularly beats thieves at their own game by knowing how and what to look for)

rndmize.9274:

If your server doesn’t want to work together, they’ll drop in rank until they’re against appropriate opponents. My point was simply that it can be done. The game mechanics highly reward it, much as teamwork is rewarded in Dota, LoL, L4D, etc.

I don’t doubt that it can be done. In fact I’m in favor of people taking the matter into their own hands instead of waiting for Anet to do it for them. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone agrees with you and me. In fact I’d go as far as to suggest that most people, even the hardcore players, would prefer a system that promotes combat rather than simply leaving them to their own devices.

Yes, I read them. To me, it looks like all your suggestions do is tighten the potential variation between winners and losers and force an equilibrium. As it stands, it’s already costly to expand beyond your “default” territory. You have to travel farther to get there than your opponents; you have to spend money to upgrade defenses; and you expose yourself to attacks in more places. With the current system, by default, if one side controls the entire map, you’re left with an automatic 2v1 situation. Even if one side only controls most of the map, you have a near 2v1 situation as it’s generally silly to travel a distance and hit your second opponent when the first one is right in front of you.

Scrapping the orb bonus and making it even more costly to expand/cheaper to defend would lead to a musical chairs situation (during prime times) – world A takes objective X, thus increasing their costs and decreasing the costs of world B, which takes objective Y elsewhere. Let me further note that defenders already have powerful advantages – 12 hour claiming guild bonuses are roughly equal to an orb bonus, but only in the local area of an objective. By making it harder for one side to win strongly when there’s a major player number imbalance, you make things static during times of balance. In fact, now that people are learning to play WvW better, I’ve already seen instances where things were basically static for hours.

I don’t necessarily see constant combat for hours on end as a bad thing. And I suspect that by erring on the side of static, it would place more emphasis on well-coordinated strikes and teamwork to make the difference rather than raw numbers. And raw numbers making too much of a difference is probably the number one complaint I see, especially in extreme cases.

This is all purely conjecture on both our parts, of course.

The only practical ways to fix this are to match up servers with night crews against similar or to shut down servers for a span of time at night. Changes to mechanics and balance, like your suggestion, will inevitably have negative side effects (or at least, I’ve yet to see one that doesn’t).

I strongly disagree that harsh changes such as population control or closing WvW during off hours is the only viable solution. While there may be some minor negative effects to my suggestions, they’re far far more mild than anything else I’ve seen posted in these forums, especially compared to the potential benefits.

rndmize.9274:

Hold up there. There’s no need for the losing servers to work together or coordinate at all. Every keep has at minimum two (most have three) entrances to attack, generally from entirely opposite directions, for both outer and inner walls. There’s no reason for two attacking worlds to even see each other until they’re at the inner gates or at the lord.

No offense, but that’d almost be counter productive for the two losing teams. Even if they both worked together to get inside, they’d end up fighting each other at the lord. Only one team could claim the castle, and the defending force could just hold the Lord’s chamber and focus their efforts. The underdogs want to avoid fighting each other at all costs.

Instead they should be attacking two completely separate keeps/towers and forcing the leading server to split it’s attention between them. But that’s a question of tactics, not game mechanics.

I completely agree that servers should be trying harder to coordinate themselves. But have you ever tried telling people what to do in an online game? I imagine herding cats is probably an easier job. And cats don’t yell back with “S T F U” or “Ur not my dad!”

I imagined similar, until I started doing it.

No offense, it was a nice story. And I’m glad you were able to get people to work together. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be the same across all servers and all people. Balancing the game around the social habits of gamers is a pretty sketchy prospect at best.

This is a matchmaking issue, and removing orbs won’t fix it. Even if orbs were removed, a world without a night crew will still lose to a world with one; they’ll still have to deal with fully upgraded keeps and towers to retake in the morning; they’ll still have to deal with 6 hours of massive point loss every night; they’re still going to lose, regardless. I have faith that matchmaking will balance things out eventually, but you may have a bad time until it gets there.

You’re quite right, and I believe that matchmaking will help somewhat, and removing the orbs won’t fix it. Changing what the orbs do, along with a few other tweaks, will.

Did you even read my suggestions? They directly address the issue of a night crew cleaning house and fully upgrading everything without stopping people from doing it if they choose to put forth the effort and resources.

What would happen under my suggestion is that as the daytime people started logging back in, they’d find the entire map covered in enemy control. Due to the buff reducing costs of repairs and siege equipment based on map control, the dayshift could pick up a pile of siege gear for cheap, and assault like crazy while suffering little in the way of repair costs themselves.

Meanwhile the dayshift defenders who take advantage of their night crew’s upgrades,which would have cost an arm and a leg to do in the first place, are going to also be paying a lot to maintain their upgrades if any of them get broken down. If the underdogs take back their territory, it’s going to cost the night crew again, and again, every night. On top of that, the Triple Orb buff would no longer be giving such a massive stat and HP bonus.

You can’t stop night people from playing, and even matchmaking is sometimes going to place servers against each other where off-hours gives one side an advantage. But under my changes even a server without a strong night crew could still remain in the running and potentially win a war of attrition if they were willing.

Granted, as the underdogs take back more and more territory the buff is going to work in the reverse for them, forcing them to decide if they want to stop and hold early, or keep pushing to get as many points as possible before the night crew rolls through again.

Overall I think it would facilitate more combat and willingness to fight, even when at a disadvantage of population or off-hours players. Because most of the reasons to NOT fight will have been removed.

Also, where did you get that 6 hours number from? Seems made up. I think the actual time that a night crew dominates is going to vary from server to server.

rndmize.9274:

A 15% buff is entirely insignificant compared to a 2v1. And if the two worlds without orbs aren’t working as hard as they can to get at least one back from the current leader, they’re doing it wrong. The entire point of a 3 way battle is for things to balance themselves out; the problem is that currently, the vast majority of players fail to realize the important of orbs and zerg the nearest target instead.

I tend to agree that the two servers on the losing end of things should be working together, or at the very least, not attacking each other. But unfortunately that really doesn’t work in the current reality of the game. The two underdogs are still enemies as far as the game mechanics are concerned, so there’s no way for the two teams to coordinate effectively. Worse, if they’re in close proximity their AOEs will do just as much harm to each other as the side they’re attacking.

Furthermore, the server that’s already dominating is doing so for a reason. Whether it’s because of superior skill and coordination, sheer population, or superior strategy. Either way the side already winning has no business being given a buff that increases the margin.

So again it seems like my suggestions, while not perfect, still eliminate almost all of the flaws with the current system.

Here’s the good news: you can do something about this. Get on those borderlands and start telling people what to do. Tell them to work on capturing the orb at all costs. Get your guild together and do it yourself. Every world in the battle has an equal chance to get the orbs.

I completely agree that servers should be trying harder to coordinate themselves. But have you ever tried telling people what to do in an online game? I imagine herding cats is probably an easier job. And cats don’t yell back with “S T F U” or “Ur not my dad!”

The goal should be to creating a system which is equally fair to players ranging from the hardcore, well organizes guilds to the more casual, and anything in between.

Further, every world has an equal chance to get orbs, players just don’t realize their importance.

Yes, every realm has an equal chance to get the orbs in the very beginning of a match. But knowing the importance of the orbs doesn’t address the issue of servers with off hours players vs servers without. Nor does it give a player any reason to try the uphill fight every day when they repeatedly lose the orbs every night because their server has no off-hours players.

Ultimately matchmaking will begin to even things out, but I’d much prefer a system that more dynamically promotes balance and consistent play than the one we have currently. Too many people are giving up after they get smashed once, and I’d prefer that the combat continue through the entire match rather than being decided immediately after the first few days, especially when the match length gets increased to 2 weeks instead of 1.

That’s why I don’t advocate giving the losing servers any kind of direct buff like Tenacity. I specifically went out of my way to try and think of ways to avoid that, and come up with a system that would allow the opportunity for a team that’s losing to get their act together and get back in the fight without taking away from the accomplishments of the other players.

Ensuring that players on both the winning and losing sides still want to play the entire length of the match is almost more important than absolute perfect balance.

Lakhla.9183:

I got this bugged too. What I did i re-logged and even after creating a portal by Pale-tree insted of entering it I spoke to her again. After entering the portal Elf-Necromancer properly starts talk sequence with Pale tree and rest of the quest went smoothly.

This worked for me also. Relogging and had to do the quest again, but it worked the second time through.

I’m not really sure how you can honestly say:

Orbs are fine.

Followed by….

I strongly dislike the idea of something like tenacity in WvW.

….later in your same post.

On the one hand you’re implying that direct increases to player stats such as hitpoints, healing, and damage output are fine(The buff Orbs give), but then turn around to say that Tenacity, which does the same thing, is something you dislike?

Either way Orbs are giving far too much of a direct boost to servers that are already dominating(and thus doesn’t need the buff), Single orbs are not the issue. But 3 orbs in the hands of a single side only serves to enhance the snowball effect.

The out-manned buff could use some changes. I’m not too sure in what direction, but I do like reduced repair/upgrade costs.

Tenacity…….a skilled guild could abuse it to farm opponents efficiently.

Well then, it sounds like you should be on my side then. Since the changes I proposed remove all direct buffs to player effectiveness, no one could possibly use them strictly for farming purposes.

And my changes give players a chance to fight back under their own skills and organization instead of relying on an godmode which doesn’t make sense that they’d have.

No offense, but Tenacity in Wintergrasp was terrible for a couple of reasons. One, it turned individual players into one-shotting juggernaughts. Two, it didn’t actually solve the problem, since the side with the most people was still able to attack and defend and basically be in more places at once.

And with all due respect, GW2 generally, and WvW specifically, are both very complex themselves. Simple changes may very well NOT be the best thing to do.

Similar principles can also be applied to changing the Undermanned buff into something that would actually help servers with low populations have a chance to get back in the fight without making it outright unfair and arbitrary to the server and players who put in the work to get ahead. The main difference is that changes to WvW other than just the undermanned buff would also contribute to this.

My first suggestion is to make the undermanned buff give a bonus to out of combat movement, reduced repair costs, and reduced siege weapon and upgrade costs. This would allow the Undermanned players to be harder to pin down, get where they need to be more quickly without giving them an advantage to actual combat, and be able to fight and upgrade anything they do manage to recapture with less fear of throwing their money away. This buff would obviously need to scale with raw population ratios, so as more people trickle into an overmatched situation it slowly equalizes.

But these changes would also need to go hand in hand with an equal change to how the server controlling most of the map is treated.

The change to the Undermanned buff I described above could have a counterpart that works off of total map control rather than raw population, and have an effect on EVERY server in the matchup. As your side controls more of the map, upgrades and siege weapons start to cost more and more. But as your server controls less, costs also go down. The actual amount would need to be closely controlled, since you don’t want it to reach a point where it beggars players just to stay on the offensive, or for players to intentionally lose control of points in order to facilitate attacks elsewhere(although this could bring a new dimension to WvW strategy).

All of this combined would help to promote continuous combat in WvW without contributing to snowball situations we see right now. But at the same time keeping the incentive for playing well and staying on the offensive, without giving the losing side huge arbitrary and undeserved and unrealistic increases to their actual combat performance.

Furthermore, open field encounters, whether 1v1 or Zerg vs Zerg would also be virtually unchanged, Players would not have the excuse that they’re up against artificially improved enemies, and would keep the emphasis of WvW on player skill and organization being used to capture and holding camps, towers, keeps, and orbs.

So guys, tell me what you think? Do you like these ideas? Do they need some tweaking? Are they terrible?

Alright, so after the most recent server match-ups, it appears that many servers are getting a much better WvW experience, even after a night has passed in which the off hours players could easily have abused population imbalances to take over the entire WvW map.

However, on many servers this isn’t happening. Maybe it’s the weekend, maybe it’s the server rankings matching them more accurately. But either way there are still some servers where it’s a problem, and they’re losing 99% of their territory while very few people are logged on.

Even if population wasn’t a problem, and skill or coordination was, and one server was dominating the other two, there’s still the issue of people not even wanting to try and fight their way back into the match for the week. Partly this is because controlling all three orbs is giving too significant of a buff, party because it’s a lot of work to make a comeback from virtually nothing, and a great deal of risk due to the costs involved with losing repeatedly.

While my own personal opinion is that population isn’t as much of a factor as people make it out to be(as I’ve made pretty clear in some of my posts), I do recognize the fact that for many players WvW is about having fun rather than being hardcore and fighting no matter what the situation is. And because of this, some level of balancing needs to happen in order to keep WvW competative and fun even in situations where a bad server match results in complete domination. Both because it’s not fun to be spawn camped the moment you set foot outside your starting area, and because it’s pretty lame to have to resort to spawn camping because your server already controls everything.

So let’s look at some of the ways balancing can be done without completely wrecking the fundamental aspects that make WvW fun.

First off, it’s pretty clear that the advantage that controlling the orbs give is just making it so that the server that’s already doing well is just going to keep doing it. Controlling the Orbs should give benefits in order to keep them as an important objective to be fought over in WvW, but those benefits should not be direct performance enhancers.

Instead, the orbs should be giving something more indirect, such as improving any of the benefits already listed under the WvW stats and bonuses page(excepting Robust, Energetic, and Medic). The orbs could also not give any benefit to players at all, but instead be a simple multiplier for how many points each camp, tower, keep, and castle gives your Server each time points are calculated.

In this way the orbs stay as an important tool to helping a server win the points race for the week, but without creating a snowball or demoralizing effect.

Tarnished Coast 37k (2 orbs)
Ehmry Bay 34k
Maguuma 27k (1 orb)

So far pretty evenly matched. I’m liking it. But we’ll see what happens over the course of the week.

I’m not sure if it would be unbalancing, hwoever, since defenders could repair without any risk at all. But it also seems very unfair to be hit when you’re behind what would normally be considered hard cover.

There’s arguments both ways. And we’ll just have to see what the devs think.

Tarnished Coast 33k **
Ehmry Bay 32k
Maguuma 25k *

So far so good here. Decent matchup.

Splintrr.7391:

Give it 6 more months, I’m sure it will even out with this flawless match making system.

/sarcasm

I take it that means your in a group where one server holds 99% of the map? How about you post your server group’s numbers?

Seriously, I would like to hear what people think. We’ve had a full night for people to be utterly destroyed by off hours guilds. But how bad has it really been after the new set of server match-ups?

Post here! Is your server being dominated? Is all your hard work during the day being undone by the evil off-hours alliance of players who have the same right to play the game as you? OR are the match-ups more equal, and combat across 24 hours is evening out the issue?

Lets hear it, guys! What’s the situation?

Darken.9670:

So with the way the game is designed the OP is right, there isnt much you can do to fix the bad system. But the problem is easily pointed out, “winning” in WvW comes down to which side is better during off peak hours.

Technically “winning” in WvW comes down to which serve can maximize their strengths and exploit the weaknesses of the other two. In this particular instance(and on several other servers) that means using their off hours population effectively to exploit the lack of resistance.

If server A has a zerg of 40 people, they can choose to send it off to find another zerg of 40 people. This would be fair, right? Or they can choose to find a spot with 5 people, and utterly destroy them, then move on. Which do you think is more likely to result in a win for server A?

Server B only has 5 people to work with. They can choose to send it off to fight a zerg of 40 people. This would be stupid and pointless, right? Or they can choose to get out of the way of the 40 man zerg and attack somewhere useful, like back area camps or the jumping puzzle where they’re more likely to encounter equal numbers.

Server A is going to try to put themselves in the situation to smash the 5 people as often as possible. Server B is going to try to avoid that as much as possible. The ‘skill’ comes down to who’s better at getting what they want.

Server B’s five people aren’t going to be able to hold the map against the kinds of odds people are describing when they’re matched against such a huge night crew, no matter what they do. That’s a given. But that doesn’t mean they can’t do anything at all. They’re still fighting to give their day crew as much assistance as possible, and to hold on to as much score as possible despite the odds.

Maybe they’re successful and they hold on to a bit more than expected. Maybe they’re not and the day crew logs on to find they’ve lost everything. But you know what? That’s warfare, not warfair.

And yes, the proper response is to get your own night crew organized to maximize as much of situation B as you can. Recruiting people from other servers is one option. Getting your existing night people as massively geared and coordinated is another.

Either that or resign yourself to the fact that you were up against a superior server, and save your strength and effort for the next week when you’re matched against servers closer to your own. That’s a hard pill to swallow, I know. But in the long run it will serve you and your server better than complaining on the forums.

Maybe it isn’t fun for some people to fight a losing battle. No one likes to “lose”. But where is it written that every aspect of the game must be fun for every single person every hour of the day? Or that every single WvW match must be absolutely perfectly matched? Once you get past the idea of thinking and complaining about how it should be, you can start thinking about maximizing the situation you do have. And if you don’t want to deal with it at all, then sPVP is actually a lot of fun too, you know!

Furthermore, the matchups are only a week long. But people are acting like losing this way is the end of their gaming career for all time. That their server and their fun are ruined forever, never to be regained.

Good god, people. It’s a week! Go outside, play some PVE, try a different game, watch a movie. Or if you absolutely can’t tear yourself away from the game, spend the rest of the week talking to your server and getting ready for next time. Look at the situation and ask yourself and your server: “How do we get better for next time?”

And do yourself a favor and think in terms of your entire server, not just the few hours of the day that you personally play.

Shibbi Shwing.4689:

I read the OP and nothing else.

I endorse the OP and this thread.

You really should read the entire thread. There is a bit of back and forth between some baseless argumentative people, but there’s also some very good points made by reasonable people on both sides as well.

nilco.8457:

Wait what? Your telling me I can capture and upgrade keeps and castles in sPVP? That I can do jumping puzzles and have siege weapons? Color me impressed, they must have added all that when I was sleeping!

No, of course not. But what people are asking for is for arbitrary limits to be placed on non-primetime WvW in an effort to make it into something it’s not. Once you start adding those kinds of limits, the eventual outcome is nothing more than a giant sPVP match.

Well my idea isn’t as simple as I wrote it. I would like them to have instanced borderland which would fill and open with equal demand, this would also remove hour long ques.

See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You might not think of it in the exact terms I used, but what you’re really asking for is to convert WvW into nothing more than a series of sPVP matches. And sPVP already exists, so please stop trying to turn WvW into something it isn’t.

I see your point of view so try to see mine.

I have seen your point of view already completely catered to and met in every regard with a completely fleshed out system and aspect of the game called sPVP.

nilco.8457:

What is it people cant grasp about why night capping is a problem?

I will try my best to contain my rage and explain the problem in a way even small children could understand.
OK so here we go…..

……That in a nutshell is the problem with night capping. It has been read and understood by a 6 year old boy, so I assume the people here will grasp it aswell.

Oh we all understand exactly what people claim the problem is. But on the other side of the argument, you need to understand that the point some of us are making is that the fundamental nature of WvW precludes your argument entirely.

You guys keep repeating that the population imbalance diromg off hours players is somehow not fair.

We keep repeating that the game not being fair is the very nature of WvW!

If you want absolute fair matchups, Anet has provided you with an entire levelling and bracketed system with completely even number of people on each side, with access to exactly the same gear, and played at the same level. It’s known as: sPVP

WvW, as you may have noticed, is not even remotely similar to sPVP. Even with an absolutely equal number of people, you still have a wide range of players of all different levels and gear. The game might auto-level them to 80, but that doesn’t give them automatic access to full exotics with a completely tailored upgrade loadout, nor does it give them access to all of their trait points or skills.

So even at the simplest level of a random, 1v1 encounter in the open field, the game can not guarantee that the matchup is going to be even or fair.

And yet some of you guys are STILL demanding that WvW be evenly matched at all times. Do you not see the fallacy of basing your entire perception of what is fair and balanced solely on population numbers at a given time of day?

Ultimately we get it. We really do. Some of you guys don’t like having to fight against unfair odds. Most of all we understand that you really REALLY don’t like feeling as though the fate of your server is being dictated by a minority of players when you’re not even there to fight back.

But you guys also need to understand that THIS IS THE REALITY OF WVW!

It is the combined might, population, skill, coordination, and everything else that your server is or isn’t pitted against the same for two other servers.

If there is a strong night crew in your opposition, you need to either coordinate your own night people to fight back however they can, even if it’s only disrupting supply camps, or you need your day people to pull together and figure out how to take back what you can.

If you can’t beat people one way, then try something else. Coordinate your guilds to massively gear out your elite WvW teams. Farm for golems like we’ve seen in so many youtube videos. Deny everyone but your server access to the jump puzzle, and farm piles of badges in the process.

And if you keep doing that long enough, the ranking system will put you against the kinds of SERVERS that you’re most suited to facing. Not the most equal day shift.

THAT is also the reality of WvW! Don’t you understand that this is the reason why WvW is so incredibly awesome? If you take away all of the uncertainty and built in imbalance and chaos, all you’re going to be left with is just one big fat oversized sPVP match.

And if that’s what you want, I suggest that instead of asking for Anet to change WvW, that you instead ask them to build bigger sPVP maps instead, and leave WvW alone.

nilco.8457:

What is it people cant grasp about why night capping is a problem?

I will try my best to contain my rage and explain the problem in a way even small children could understand.
OK so here we go…..

……That in a nutshell is the problem with night capping. It has been read and understood by a 6 year old boy, so I assume the people here will grasp it aswell.

Oh we all understand exactly what people claim the problem is. But on the other side of the argument, you need to understand that the point some of us are making is that the fundamental nature of WvW precludes your argument entirely.

You guys keep repeating that the population imbalance diromg off hours players is somehow not fair.

We keep repeating that the game not being fair is the very nature of WvW!

If you want absolute fair matchups, Anet has provided you with an entire levelling and bracketed system with completely even number of people on each side, with access to exactly the same gear, and played at the same level. It’s known as: sPVP

WvW, as you may have noticed, is not even remotely similar to sPVP. Even with an absolutely equal number of people, you still have a wide range of players of all different levels and gear. The game might auto-level them to 80, but that doesn’t give them automatic access to full exotics with a completely tailored upgrade loadout, nor does it give them access to all of their trait points or skills.

So even at the simplest level of a random, 1v1 encounter in the open field, the game can not guarantee that the matchup is going to be even or fair.

And yet some of you guys are STILL demanding that WvW be evenly matched at all times. Do you not see the fallacy of basing your entire perception of what is fair and balanced solely on population numbers at a given time of day?

Ultimately we get it. We really do. Some of you guys don’t like having to fight against unfair odds. Most of all we understand that you really REALLY don’t like feeling as though the fate of your server is being dictated by a minority of players when you’re not even there to fight back.

But you guys also need to understand that THIS IS THE REALITY OF WVW!

It is the combined might, population, skill, coordination, and everything else that your server is or isn’t pitted against the same for two other servers.

If there is a strong night crew in your opposition, you need to either coordinate your own night people to fight back however they can, even if it’s only disrupting supply camps, or you need your day people to pull together and figure out how to take back what you can.

If you can’t beat people one way, then try something else. Coordinate your guilds to massively gear out your elite WvW teams. Farm for golems like we’ve seen in so many youtube videos. Deny everyone but your server access to the jump puzzle, and farm piles of badges in the process. Step up to the plate and do something other than complain to daddy Anet that it isn’t fair.

THAT is also the reality of WvW!

nilco.8457:

How can we fix it? Find people from other timezones to play. (or have arenanet find a solution, like limiting population according to demand to get in for example, but we dont want any of that, its noob mentality)

So the solution for everyone is, go out find yourself a guild from a different timezone and FORCE them to move to your server! If they dont want to, employ them or kill there familes to get them to come over and help you win in a game!

Right Hedge Bandwagoner?

Or you can play better, harder, more determined, and more organized during the day. Ever consider that? Or did you think that fighting against two entire servers of living, breathing, intelligent human beings was going to be easy?

nilco.8457:

As it is now, me, your mum, your best friend and his sister, we cant do ANYTHING to impact how many people enter WvWvW during the night. We require guilds from other time zones you say, Why ill get right on that good sir.

The f-u-c-k man, thats not a solution you ignorant son of a dolyak.

+1 for amusing namecalling.

And why should you be able to do anything about something when you’re not on? Explain to me and the rest of the forums. Oh, it’s not fair? We’ve already established that WvW isn’t fair. It’s not fair when a zerg of 40 mows down a group of 20. It’s not fair when a guild gets on vent and coordinates a 10 golem rush on a keep. It’s not fair when two servers gang up on one.

Like I mentioned earlier in the thread: expand you concept of what it really means to be an entire server vs an entire server. Only then can you get past complaining about fairness and start moving on to figuring out ways to beat the everliving crap out of your enemies.

Not many people are asking for a balanced WvWvW as that would go against the whole point of WvWvW. People are asking for ArenaNet to mitigate the snowball effect of servers 100% capping during the night, then just defended during the day.

And is it not possible for your server to outplay the defenders and take it back when you do have people on? The idea that you’re entitled to keep what you’re not there to defend is an idea that people need to get over. The idea that just because one server holds most of the map makes them invincible and unbeatable is another.

I understand that you play on a low-tier server and do not understand any of the complaints. And as you dont understand it, just do us all a favour and shut your mouth kid.

Aaaannnndd -1 for needless insult.

I understand that people’s perception of the problem stems from their lack of experience with the WvW style of combat. Too many people are unaccustomed or completely new to the kind of persistent PvP that happens in WvW, and have some pretty strong misconceptions about what it really means to have a persistent battle over territory. I understand that it’s going to take time for people to acclimate themselves to this type of combat and develop tactics and strategy and organization to deal with these situations. and time for servers to balance themselves out.

That’s one of the best parts about GW2 not having a monthly sub. We all have as much time as we want or need.

Guys, try to keep it civil.

Kamos.2897:

Good, because that is how I feel about the whole above conversation.

I’m sorry that you considering disagreeing views on the same subject as trolling. However, I will not be responding to you any further, since you’ve made your stance abundantly clear.

Kingface.9781:

Yes, maybe your server rocks the angry pony in primetime but if it can’t handle a 24/7 fight it’s not good enough to be a top WvWvW server. You can’t win a marathon as a sprinter.

Exactly!

The only real question is whether or not you and your server are going to put up a fight or not. And expand your perception of what your entire server fighting 24 hours really means. Maximize your strengths instead of complaining about your weaknesses.

If your server loses everything at night, then you better step up during the rest of the time. Some servers have massive skill. Others have population, or coordination. Some have people willing to farm 10 golems, others don’t.

What does your server have that makes it strong?

Xandax.1753:

If people don’t want to fight because they see the score; then I suspect it’s not the WvW that pulls them in to begin with, but them thinking they would ‘win the game’.
Even if you end up on a server that ends up #1 on the ‘ladder’ – you’ve still not won anything.

Strange that for so many years since DAoC I’ve seen people clamouring about open world PvP and 3 faction warfare and what not.
Now we have something comparable at least, except for the long queues, and … wammo – people want it changed because it doesn’t let them ‘win’ and doesn’t enforce structure.
Guess what – we got run over by Albion zergs in DAoC for years but kept pushing back when we could. We lost relics at night, we took them back when we could. They got run over by us, they came back. They lost relics, they took them back.
That was the fun, as it will be here. Somebody caps everything when you sleep – go kick them around when you’re online so they can see that they’re only ‘winning’ because they cap while you sleep.
The fight is the fun.

If “you” want structure and enforced teams; sPvP in this game or perhaps something like CounterStrike would be the way to go.
If “you” want to be ‘leading to play’, I suspect few games will be fun – ever.

This is, IMHO, a fine example of the correct way to view WvW.

Kamos.2897:

No, rather I’d like for there to be a possibility that my sites will be there for more than 24 hours. From this point onward I’ll just consider that you have somehow not read about this thing people call “nightime capping issue”.

Oh, I’m familiar with the issue. I just don’t think a majority of the arguments people have been making about it are valid ones, especially in light of the ranking system. As I’ve stated before, the complaints people are making are based out of a desire for and immediate solution instead of waiting for the long-term, already established, and likely far more accurate and superior one.

Oh? Is that how you see it? Interesting. Because I think I said I’d like to not have to face the same situation over and over.

You mean like what happens every time the server ranking updates and resets everything?

As you say. Points are calculated pretty often. Now, if there is no one to defend during 10 hours of the day, how many hours of 100% map dominance are my opponents getting, again?

I believe that is a gross over exaggeration of the issue. Even on the most sparsely populated servers there are people playing during the off hours. It’s far more likely that 100% map domination is caused by players not even willing to try fighting back. Or worse, people doing the opposite and abusing the free transfers to jump ship to a side that’s already dominating.

Again, over time the server match making and lack of free transfers will smooth out the issue.

Of course, I jest. I wouldn’t transfer out of my server – there is nothing wrong with it. But please, do keep boasting about your elite skill of being in a server with superior distribution of players across timezones. It is absolutely hilarious.

Now you’re just trolling. I never once claimed any such thing about my server’s activity or my own skill levels, only my willingness to fight and my disgust and disappointment for people who believe the game should change to cater to their own personal enjoyment, to the exclusion of everyone who does not play similar times as them.

As I clearly stated, I’m interested in playing the game without it being Groundhog Day.

Ok, so you’re not interested in anyone competing against you at all unless they let you hang on to your conquered sites for more than 24 hours?

Why does it matter if people recapture territory while you’re not on? What would you do if your server DID have lots of players on during the off hours, but they just sucked at WvW? Wouldn’t the result be the same? Would you still not bother with WvW if this was the case?

I don’t understand this kind of approach to WvW. The territory is there to be fought over, but you’re acting like you don’t want to have to risk losing it while you’re not on. Or at the very least, you’re unhappy that other people are getting to play under different circumstances than you.

How would it be even remotely fair to anyone who doesn’t play the same time as you if sites could only be captured during a very narrow window of time?

I suggest that you not look at it as having to reset every day, but instead view it as taking and holding a resource for as long as possible before eventually having to fight over it again. Points are calculated fairly often, and it’s not as though the other servers taking points nullifies your own accomplishments.

No, sorry. If things keep going as they are, WvW will be a game of people taking camps by themselves and epic sieges of deserted towers. Get a grip.

“If things keep going the way they are” only on the bottom-end servers where everyone gives up without trying will run into that sort of situation. Those same servers will likely also be filled with people who continue to complain that nothing is fair, and demand that the game change to cater to their own narrow view of selfish ‘balance’. And very likely will have a large number of people who transfer off of them, re-balancing the skill levels, eventually.

However, once matchmaking gets a more accurate measure of how each server is doing relative to the rest, the servers with motivated people will remain very consistently active at all times of the day.

Kamos.2897:

I’m not completely sure, but it seems to me that you are saying that players shouldn’t feel “entitled” and that they shouldn’t be asking Anet to work on a plan to somehow mitigate real world issues that obviously detract from the full potential of this virtual world game (i.e. timezones & server population).

No, players shouldn’t feel entitled, especially not to the degree of some of the examples I gave in my original post.

Also, what exactly do you think the ranking system is, if not a system to help better mitigate uneven matchups like what we’re experiencing right now? Do you think Anet is just sitting on their hands laughing at the issue?

Kamos.2897:

As for seeing the “potential that a map full of enemy controlled points presents”, I don’t understand what you are talking about. What I do understand is that some challenges and situations are more interesting than others. When I think of an interesting WvW match, I think of control points changing hands due to team effort and master strokes of strategy, or people collaborating to reinforce defenses and defend against sieges. When I think of a boring WvW match, I think of doing the same thing every day – i.e., going into WvW to find that once again my team needs to go from 0% map control to 33% map control. And then do the same thing the next day. And the next day. And the next day.

It seems like that sounds very interesting to you, but I’ve done it enough times by now and if this is the gameplay depth that WvW can provide (and I’m sure it isn’t, once issues are worked out), I’d rather go do something else with my time.

So you’re only interested in combat where your server already has at least a decent level of control established? You log on, see that you’re at a low level of control and just give up and go do something else.

Basically, according to your own statement above, you’re admitting that you’re unwilling to actually fight as an underdog for your server or face the challenge of retaking territory that was lost, and would rather go do something else.

I, and many players like me, are the complete opposite. We enjoy fighting no matter what the odds are. We want to take our server and push it as high and as far as it can go.

But if all you want to do is drop down to a level where things are easy, then that’s your choice. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play. You’re not even paying a monthly subscription fee. Take some time off, let the rest of the week play itself out however and start fresh after the new matchup.

But for God’s sake, do NOT have the brass balls to demand that Anet force other people to play under arbitrary restrictions simply because you’re not up to the challenge, and especially not while you’re not even logged on.

If all you want is a perfectly matched challenge of skill and fairness, I suggest to you that you take a real strong look at all of the awesomeness that is provided in sPVP.

I won’t sit here and claim that WvW is perfect. The Orb bonuses are a little too much in their current form, and if that was the argument being made for why WvW is unbalanced, I would probably be one of the first to agree. But those aren’t the arguments people are making, nor are the suggestions for ‘fixing’ WvW even remotely interested in actually improving the situation.

Those are the kinds of people my posts are targetted at. Not the ones who understand that WvW is meant to be unbalanced and chaotic.

Kromulous.4291:

What -possible- incentive do I or anyone else have to keep playing WvW for the rest of the week after pressing B and seeing this?

Um….how about the fun and the challenge of it? How about the glorious feeling of knowing you overcame people who had greater area control than you, or at least made them pay for every inch of ground they took?

It’s not only about getting bonuses for your server you know.

Mara Gossep.2761:

Indirectly calling me a beggar is….

I’m sorry you felt personally insulted, but isn’t that exactly what people on these forums are doing? I’m not saying that everyone is doing this, but what else do you call asking Anet to set it up the game so it’s easier for their own personal playtime, and covering it with weak arguments trying to mask it under the false guise of ‘balance’?

Lappdancer.4857:

1. How is the fact that you are fighting two servers unfair? All three servers are fighting two different servers. There is nothing uneven about it.

Because if one side holds most of the map, the two servers who are attacking only need to focus on taking points away from the current leader. They leader, however, has to respond to attacks on two fronts, complicated by the need to potentially defend many more points If the underdogs stupidly attack each other instead of the current leader, then that is their ownkittenfault, not the game’s.

Lappdancer.4857:

4B. Arbitrary limits? There are already limits during prime time on how many can get into WvW. Why are you so touchy about applying a similar process to off-hours?

There is quite a bit of difference between the game not allowing any more people into WvW because every available spot is full, and kicking someone out mid-game, especially for the selfish reason of preserving someone’s points while they aren’t online. It’s the difference between not being able to get into a sold out show, and having the ushers kick you out midway through while half the seats are empty because the earlier show was sold out and they don’t want to detract from the enjoyment the people in the earlier show had.