Guild Wars 2

Doomdesire.9365:

Burl.9567:

Thief
- Cloak and Dagger: The player can no longer use this ability stack stealth by attacking WvW walls.

Told you it was an exploit. Nobody listened. All those thieves I reported hopefully will get banned!

Not that I think it was a valid tactic,
But nothing about the patch notes indicate it was an exploit. And certainly not a bannable one.

Gilgamesh.2561:

EnRohbi.2187:

Cries.1263:

Mass transfers AFTER the free transfers are over? Surely ye jest?

It’s almost like I tried to tell everybody for months before paid transfers hit that costing a bit of gold isn’t going to stop guilds from moving. o;

No. Just stop.

Stop what? >:
I thought everybody was having a good time

Cries.1263:

Mass transfers AFTER the free transfers are over? Surely ye jest?

It’s almost like I tried to tell everybody for months before paid transfers hit that costing a bit of gold isn’t going to stop guilds from moving. o;

Well,
Yeah.

That’s what happens when people mass transfer in such a frenzy that there are no possible combinations of fair matches.

Jayne.9251:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

uberkingkong.8041:

Haters are going to hate. They just dont understand that we are in a leige of our own and no other server out there is even comparable to us.

You are in a leige of your own because no one else knows what a leige is.

liege
[leej, leezh]
noun
1.
a feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service.
2.
a feudal vassal or subject.
adjective
3.
owing primary allegiance and service to a feudal lord.
4.
pertaining to the relation between a feudal vassal and lord.
5.
loyal; faithful: the liege adherents of a cause.

Okay, so that’s a liege, but what’s a leige?

Sureshot.6725:

EnRohbi.2187:

Sureshot.6725:

Straegen.2938:

EnRohbi.2187:

And you are not very good at reading.
I said it wouldn’t put significantly more drain on the server, not that there would be no extra calculations.

There is simply no way of knowing this without seeing their architecture. However it is pretty likely that there will be a noticeable performance price from upping the limit when the server is loaded. For example during a big SM attack, it is likely additional AoE targets will cause more lag and reach saturation much quicker. If the server isn’t being taxed already, you are correct it probably won’t have any effect.

I am sure they use some queue system for updating clients and the more damage going into that stack means more aggregation in the queue and more registers being hit on the server. As transactions per second increase server I/O pays a price likely in memory for buffering, CPU for calculating, disk for storing the data, etc.

I work in n-tier transactional systems using a proprietary network protocol that do thousands of transactions per second in near TB sized databases. CXPacket waits (CPU) in SQL are my current life.

muylaetrix.2096:

it’s a disgrace that in a game you gave to pay for, the server infrastructure is such a pile of dung in the first place.

Not many games can process large scale real time warfare on this scale. There are a handful but most suffer from issues like these. It should be better but ultimately there are limits to hardware and resources.

Finally someone knowledgeable and realizes this isn’t just about networking.

You mean,
Like how you brought up Networking as a major argument against removing the Aoe Cap and how I said that the networking load isn’t as big as you imply?

Straegen made that argument.

My posts were all about server side load increases. Perhaps there is some confusion. Hell I didn’t even consider additional network load (which I agree would be nominal ) until you brought it up.

I admittedly took on more forum arguments than I’m used to while I was waiting for the patch to download and, admittedly, got distracted from them once I got back in game.

I’m not necessarily for or against aoe caps (While I would personally enjoy the game more without them, they have far more implications on game mechanics than I’m qualified to really argue about), I just don’t think that any part of the extra technical load imposed by more damage calculations would have enough of an effect to actually be a reason to keep the cap.

The 5 man aoe cap is far, far more likely to be in place for balance issues and not to reduce either network load or server calculations.

No one on JQ knows the answer to my question >:
Sad day.

Sureshot.6725:

Straegen.2938:

EnRohbi.2187:

And you are not very good at reading.
I said it wouldn’t put significantly more drain on the server, not that there would be no extra calculations.

There is simply no way of knowing this without seeing their architecture. However it is pretty likely that there will be a noticeable performance price from upping the limit when the server is loaded. For example during a big SM attack, it is likely additional AoE targets will cause more lag and reach saturation much quicker. If the server isn’t being taxed already, you are correct it probably won’t have any effect.

I am sure they use some queue system for updating clients and the more damage going into that stack means more aggregation in the queue and more registers being hit on the server. As transactions per second increase server I/O pays a price likely in memory for buffering, CPU for calculating, disk for storing the data, etc.

I work in n-tier transactional systems using a proprietary network protocol that do thousands of transactions per second in near TB sized databases. CXPacket waits (CPU) in SQL are my current life.

muylaetrix.2096:

it’s a disgrace that in a game you gave to pay for, the server infrastructure is such a pile of dung in the first place.

Not many games can process large scale real time warfare on this scale. There are a handful but most suffer from issues like these. It should be better but ultimately there are limits to hardware and resources.

Finally someone knowledgeable and realizes this isn’t just about networking.

You mean,
Like how you brought up Networking as a major argument against removing the Aoe Cap and how I said that the networking load isn’t as big as you imply?

“Finally someone knowledgeable” was exactly what I thought when I read his post, which is why he got so much more respect out of my reply.

Straegen.2938:

EnRohbi.2187:

And you are not very good at reading.
I said it wouldn’t put significantly more drain on the server, not that there would be no extra calculations.

There is simply no way of knowing this without seeing their architecture. However it is pretty likely that there will be a noticeable performance price from upping the limit when the server is loaded. For example during a big SM attack, it is likely additional AoE targets will cause more lag and reach saturation much quicker. If the server isn’t being taxed already, you are correct it probably won’t have any effect.

I am sure they use some queue system for updating clients and the more damage going into that stack means more aggregation in the queue and more registers being hit on the server. As transactions per second increase server I/O pays a price likely in memory for buffering, CPU for calculating, disk for storing the data, etc.

I work in n-tier transactional systems using a proprietary network protocol that do thousands of transactions per second in near TB sized databases. CXPacket waits (CPU) in SQL are my current life.

Agreed on just about all points.

At least in upper tiers (Not sure where you are), three way sieges in SM do tend to cause quite a bit of skill lag and are clearly more than the servers are able to handle. This is a problem that needs to be fixed regardless of AoE limits.

But there’s also the idea that, without an AoE cap, even if it put extra strain on the servers, the large zerg v zerg battles could be over much quicker instead of being 6 hour attrition turtle fights that don’t end until one server logs off or goes to bed. Which could arguably reduce the overall strain on the server, even if it spiked a little more for a short while.

Edit: I use “server” a lot in this post referring to both the group of people in wvw with you and the actual server boxes that we’re connected to. I hope it is not too confusing.

Sureshot.6725:

EnRohbi.2187:

And you are not very good at reading.
I said it wouldn’t put significantly more drain on the server, not that there would be no extra calculations.

Sorry, but I ignored your qualified statement because it is based on faulty speculation.

To even contemplate that thousands of players across the server cluster requiring additional damage calculations would not place ‘significantly more drain’ on the cluster is laughable.

The game already has performance issues server side with regard to culling and you really want to place additional burden on the processing capacity….really??

I’m done with this conversation but feel free to continue beating a dead horse. I’m juts glad I bought their game and not yours =)

Your condescension is cute, but your ignorance about networking is not.
So yeah, this conversation isn’t going to go anywhere.

I love how the patcher just completely died at 99% with 2 files remaining and refuses to re-establish a connection.

Ragnarok.4586:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ragnarok.4586:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ragnarok.4586:

airstu.2579:

how can you possibly think changing the requirement to badges will fix things. Pressing 1 in a zerg != skill but boy it does collect badges. Combine that with jp heroes and you have the making of a perfect commander. Fantastic idea.

Wow bro, so you don’t think, that if you ran around in a zerg long enough to collect 10,000 Badges of Honor that you wouldn’t have the slightest idea about WvW tactics and communication? Great argument… /e sarcasm off.

I think that the majority of wvwers have spent their badges long ago before reaching 10,000.

I know some people hoard them like hallowe’en candy, but not everyone.
I keep only a few stacks in my bank and find things to spend the rest on.
But if the currency for Commander were to be switched from Gold to Badges, it would leave a lot of people who rightfully deserve it who simply don’t hold onto their badges.

The point I am trying to make is this : Commander should cost WvW currency, not currency which can be farmed in PvE or bought on Ebay.

It doesn’t have to be badges. Badges are simply the only WvW particular currency which exist.

You guys are just arguing semantics.

I still think the overarching point is invalid though (As detailed earlier in my posts),

Commander is not a WvW specific feature, or it would simply be disabled in PvE maps.
Anet wants it to be used in PvE as well, therefore, it must be attainable in a currency related to both.

But I’ve already covered all this, so let me bring up something new.

There is NO system that modern technology is capable of, that will accurately determine whether someone is a good leader or not. None. Zero. Impossible.

There is no reason Anet should waste their resources “fixing” the Commander acquisition, when the end result is going to be just about the same that it is now: Bad players will still get Commander icons and it will still be up to every individual to decide whether the person with their icon on is worth following or not.

I don’t know about you, but if I could find a diamond in the 1 square foot of rough, I’d rather do that then search for a diamond in 1000 square feet of rough.

For me, its an issue that revolves around ease of access.

I agree that bad leaders will still get it. But not as many.

I agree with you,
But I think this is one of the most minor problems in the game right now and the devs shouldn’t be wasting their time on it. (And no matter how small the change might seem to you, and I don’t know if you have any Software Development background, but it would not just be a case of changing a couple lines of code. Many other factors would be considered) Especially considering the advantage of changing the acquisition method of Commander wouldn’t actually fix the situation, it would just make it marginally better for people who don’t recognize any of their own server’s commanders.

Sureshot.6725:

EnRohbi.2187:

Sureshot.6725:

However, I do know for a fact that removing the AoE cap will force the server cluster to process more damage calculations and cause a performance hit this game can ill afford.

I know for a fact that your knowledge of networking is not as much as you like to pretend it is. (See how annoying it is when people state “facts” that they have no way of proving?)

Some amount of more damage numbers is not going to put a significant amount more drain on a server than is already there (And let’s be clear, the server would only be sending the results of the calculations back. Bandwidth is unrelated to the speed in which the server can calculate damage, only to the speed in which the server can tell the client how much damage it calculated.)

LOL….you really don’t understand how increase AoE caps will not result in more damage calculations server side?

The server still has to process additional damage calculations as well as send and process additional packets across the wire to the clients. You can’t get around basic math and their are no free rides.

And you are not very good at reading.
I said it wouldn’t put significantly more drain on the server, not that there would be no extra calculations.

Ragnarok.4586:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ragnarok.4586:

airstu.2579:

how can you possibly think changing the requirement to badges will fix things. Pressing 1 in a zerg != skill but boy it does collect badges. Combine that with jp heroes and you have the making of a perfect commander. Fantastic idea.

Wow bro, so you don’t think, that if you ran around in a zerg long enough to collect 10,000 Badges of Honor that you wouldn’t have the slightest idea about WvW tactics and communication? Great argument… /e sarcasm off.

I think that the majority of wvwers have spent their badges long ago before reaching 10,000.

I know some people hoard them like hallowe’en candy, but not everyone.
I keep only a few stacks in my bank and find things to spend the rest on.
But if the currency for Commander were to be switched from Gold to Badges, it would leave a lot of people who rightfully deserve it who simply don’t hold onto their badges.

The point I am trying to make is this : Commander should cost WvW currency, not currency which can be farmed in PvE or bought on Ebay.

It doesn’t have to be badges. Badges are simply the only WvW particular currency which exist.

You guys are just arguing semantics.

I still think the overarching point is invalid though (As detailed earlier in my posts),

Commander is not a WvW specific feature, or it would simply be disabled in PvE maps.
Anet wants it to be used in PvE as well, therefore, it must be attainable in a currency related to both.

But I’ve already covered all this, so let me bring up something new.

There is NO system that modern technology is capable of, that will accurately determine whether someone is a good leader or not. None. Zero. Impossible.

There is no reason Anet should waste their resources “fixing” the Commander acquisition, when the end result is going to be just about the same that it is now: Bad players will still get Commander icons and it will still be up to every individual to decide whether the person with their icon on is worth following or not.

Sureshot.6725:

However, I do know for a fact that removing the AoE cap will force the server cluster to process more damage calculations and cause a performance hit this game can ill afford.

I know for a fact that your knowledge of networking is not as much as you like to pretend it is. (See how annoying it is when people state “facts” that they have no way of proving?)

Some amount of more damage numbers is not going to put a significant amount more drain on a server than is already there (And let’s be clear, the server would only be sending the results of the calculations back. Bandwidth is unrelated to the speed in which the server can calculate damage, only to the speed in which the server can tell the client how much damage it calculated.)

Tuluum.9638:

edit2: Just because I am curious, do you agree with the decision on stat adjustment for upleveling non level capped characters in WvW?

You’re lucky I came back to read that, I thought our conversation was over. o;

I think upleveling in wvw is more useful to give people a taste of what wvw is like at lower levels. Because honestly, you should know as well as I do that an upleveled level 40 in wvw wearing blues or greens is not going to preform very well.

But I do not consider it to be a very serious feature, no. It primarily just supplies a bunch of easy targets for the opposing team.

Straegen.2938:

Imagine popping a single AoE that hits 25 people, does a combined damage of 75k in a couple seconds and lights 25 players on fire. Then forces the server to calculate all that and send packets out to all the clients. The result is likely increased lag and a massive OP of AoE skills which are already considered too dominant in the game by ANet.

I think they would be better off eliminating AoE before making it more powerful not that I am advocating either.

That’s probably less network-intensive than 25 people all using single target projectiles on the same 25 opponents.

Ragnarok.4586:

airstu.2579:

how can you possibly think changing the requirement to badges will fix things. Pressing 1 in a zerg != skill but boy it does collect badges. Combine that with jp heroes and you have the making of a perfect commander. Fantastic idea.

Wow bro, so you don’t think, that if you ran around in a zerg long enough to collect 10,000 Badges of Honor that you wouldn’t have the slightest idea about WvW tactics and communication? Great argument… /e sarcasm off.

I think that the majority of wvwers have spent their badges long ago before reaching 10,000.

I know some people hoard them like hallowe’en candy, but not everyone.
I keep only a few stacks in my bank and find things to spend the rest on.
But if the currency for Commander were to be switched from Gold to Badges, it would leave a lot of people who rightfully deserve it who simply don’t hold onto their badges.

Sureshot.6725:

I’ll go turtle centric over aoe centric any day of the week and twice on Sunday especially if comes with a performance hit due to all the additional damage calculations that have to be processed server side.

I’m also not convinced removing the aoe cap will prevent turtling.

Removing the aoe cap would have zero effect on small group battles of 5 or less, and a very marginal effect on larger groups. (Obviously scaling up with the amount of people, but linearly so)

I don’t see how you don’t consider the game to be AoE Centric as it is now, people are still using AoEs in zergs, they’re just having 10+ people all stack their AoEs to bypass the 5-man limit.

And I have absolutely no idea how you’ve come to the inane conclusion that turtling is, in any way, a tactic to prefer over something else. And even less idea how you’ve concluded that removing the aoe cap would not discourage turtling (Since pretty much the entire reason Turtling was started was to abuse the 5-man aoe cap)

Tuluum.9638:

EnRohbi.2187:

No amount of being “programmed and mitigated with variables” is going to stop guild groups from telling pugs to “Get the kitten away from me because you’re lowering my stats”

As soon as you tell the wvw community that they get weaker the more people are around them, they start getting hostile to people around them

Who said anything about debuffing the group with larger numbers? That would just make it more complicated than it needs to be anyway.

Like I said, if you are completely against making smaller groups more viable, then we wont see eye to eye at all and you will just look for anything to confirm your bias on it. Working towards how to make it work, instead of discarding it completely because your individual vision of its implementation is flawed, is not exactly the most productive way to go about things.

Of course, if you think that things are perfect the way they are, then that is your stance. Obviously, any solution brought up, no matter how viable, will be thrown out the window due to bias instead of reality.

I never said either of those things,
I do most of my wvwing in small groups and agree that zergs are not everything wvw should be.

You are making very strong (And very false) assumptions by assuming otherwise.

But adjusting stats is not the way to go.

Removing the AoE target cap would go a lot longer way into breaking up zergs than improving the stats on small groups would.

Tuluum.9638:

EnRohbi.2187:

I really don’t think giving people higher stats is the same as showcasing higher skill.

This wouldn’t discourage zerging so much as it’d discourage PUGs

It’d take about a week before the organized guilds realized that the random PUGs in wvw would be doing nothing for them except making their characters weaker, and that would lead to animosity and wvw being less welcoming for new players.

There are ways to discourage zergs, but changing stats has already proven in the past (Orbs) to be a bad approach to wvw in general.

Everything you bring up are things that can be programmed and mitigated with variables. Of course, it it was done right, there would be balance. It wouldnt mean that the larger zerg would be weaker, obviously, since they have the numbers. It also wouldnt mean giving people higher stats would showcase skill. What it would do is allow those with said skill to be able to compete against a larger force without as much skill. Right now, the only way it will happen is if the larger force has little to no skill and the smaller force is well practiced and knowledgeable about the game. The idea is to reduce that disparity. Of course, balanced and tested like anything should be done in a video game!

I am not interested in discouraging zergs. Nor am I interested in giving map-wide buffs like orbs. I see some issues with the system, but there are issues with the current system as well. I also do not see anything you brought up to be too detrimental, as it all would depend on exactly the type of variables and “buffing” that occurred.

Do I necessarily trust Anet to do this properly? Well, lets just say I have my doubts. I would be interested in hearing more criticism about it though, just maybe from a standpoint of the “ideal” situation rather than if Anet implemented it in the worst way they possibly could imagine. Its usually better to work towards an ideal than negate any action through possible, yet avoidable, failure.

No amount of being “programmed and mitigated with variables” is going to stop guild groups from telling pugs to “Get the kitten away from me because you’re lowering my stats”

As soon as you tell the wvw community that they get weaker the more people are around them, they start getting hostile to people around them

Ascii.9726:

EnRohbi.2187:

I didn’t take the patch notes to read “Retaliation used to be able to affect 25 players in an area and now only 5” so much as “For every individual player, Retaliation can only stack duration 5 times now instead of 25”.

You also seem to have missed the part about Righteous Indignation now preventing all condition damage, how do you propose the major guilds beat it?

Retaliation is not considered Condition Damage, its True damage. You never ‘inflict’ Retaliation on an enemy so they cant be immune to it.

I did delete that post in favour of completely rewriting it and erasing the parts about retaliation, seeing as it’s something unproveable until the patcher stops disconnecting on me and actually gets me back in game,

But I get the feeling that Anet is trying to prevent all ways of killing buffed supervisors before the time runs out.

Ascii.9726:

Ruprect.7260:

Not almost impossible, it will be impossible. You can start at 4:59 and run and get as many camps as possible and they cannot be taken back before the tick. A good tactic would be to send small groups to all the camps at 5:00 and cap them all and you are guarantted them for the tick.

Retaliation was the main source of killing a buffed Supervisor. Previously Retaliation had a 25 stack limit, meaning when the Supervisor swung her hammer into a zerg she would be hit back a maximum of 25 times with different players Retaliation.

This has now been changed down to 5 stacks, previously a guild zerg could stack light fields + blast combo and take a supervisor in about 20 seconds, now your looking at about 3 minutes.

Not impossible, but only doable by the major guilds.

So, uhm
The part about Condition Damage no longer affecting NPCs with Righteous Indignation at all,

How do major guilds get around that?

Tuluum.9638:

Expanding on my original post here, describing what I feel is a super awesome idea ( ) ;

Anet continues to make changes like this:

Event Scaling

A new test version of our advanced event scaling algorithm has been applied to four high-level, regularly played events to help us monitor the feasibility of this system in the live environment. This new scaling algorithm dynamically increases the difficulty of events by using the current system of increasing the difficulty of existing creatures, while also adding a new system that substitutes creatures of lower difficulty with different creatures as the event scales up. If successful, this system will be slowly extended to other events across the game during 2013.

Using this same system, it could potentially be applied to engagements in WvW. Where each battle in a given radius would be viewed as a “DE.” It would scale stats in proportion to set variables. It seems the groundwork is there (with uplevelling and the algorithms being created for DEs), I think this would solve a lot of issues with WvW in regards to numbers being superior to skill in almost every situation.

I really don’t think giving people higher stats is the same as showcasing higher skill.

This wouldn’t discourage zerging so much as it’d discourage PUGs

It’d take about a week before the organized guilds realized that the random PUGs in wvw would be doing nothing for them except making their characters weaker, and that would lead to animosity and wvw being less welcoming for new players.

There are ways to discourage zergs, but changing stats has already proven in the past (Orbs) to be a bad approach to wvw in general.

drtoph.4857:

It is impossible for any 1or2 guilds to carry a server.

If you wanna get technical about it,
If someone were to actually succeed in putting together a 500 person guild with nearing 100% activity during scheduled wvw times, they could probably queue all four maps alone

So tell me,

And bare in mind that I’m not part of tier 1 and in no immediate danger of getting up there to fight you guys; so I’m not particularly offended at your showboating here,

But where do you guys go from here?
There’s no tier for you to rise to,
Do you just keep steamrolling for the rest of GW2’s lifetime?

I can’t imagine there being any fun in being that much more effective than the other tier 1 servers.

Maladon.5760:

What is the difference between this:

selan.8354:

he gets rezzed through the wall puts portals down and get people in.

and this?

selan.8354:

u should be still able to put put a port down inside keep and jump outside and portal people in.

The normal portalling into a keep/tower tactics should remain unchanged.

the patch doesn’t say “Portals won’t work if there’s an obstruction between the entrance and exit portal”, it says that you can’t interact with a portal if there’s an obstruction between you and it.

So you can’t take advantage of clipping to exploit yourself past gates

HermanVanderpoop.6743:

FA seems to have 2 peek time zones nailed, but is lacking in the SEA time slot. DB is lacking in all time slots, except when NNK plays during the SEA time slot.

We are moving to FA (just a handful of us). Seems like a match made in heaven. Would be pointless for those T3 powerhouses to keep fighting when they could make some awesome strides in T2. The missing equation for both servers is for them to come together.

Except WvW isn’t all about being in the highest tier you can be in.
I’d rather see tier 3 become balanced than unbalance it more just so I can go up to tier 2.

There are limitless small tweaks they could do to Commander to make it much better,
Suggestions like these have been rolling in since the beta weekends,
Fact is, it’s over 6 months later and Anet has changed nothing about Commander.

This isn’t even one of the first 20 threads suggesting that Commander icons cost badges instead of gold.

People use Commander for PvE content as well.
I use it to rally people for Group and World events almost every day.

Do you want the PvE nubs taking up your queue slots for weeks on end while they grind for badges so they can go back and rally their PvE armies?

Harrish.8743:

EnRohbi.2187:

DB’s problem right now is that there are zero other servers who actually come out with a similar point spread by the end of the week to warrant us actually being in a tier with. All the tier 4 servers and the red tier 3 servers don’t have the coverage to go against DB, and both FA and TC have far too much coverage to go against DB.

So sadly, we’re sitting here in the middle hoping a tier 2 loses a handful of guilds to a tier 4 server so we can see a competitive tier 3 for the first time since we got here~

I’m on TC and we feel your pain. We always joke that we’re a Tier 2.5 server. We have the exact opposite problem you do on DB, though. Our NA coverage is outstanding, but we just don’t have enough SEA/Oceanic coverage to keep up with the other T2 servers (our SEA/Oceanic guilds are phenomenal, but they need help).

So, like you, we sit around waiting for servers above us to implode and even things out (which doesn’t happen — all the guilds from the imploding server just join another server above us).

On a different note, we’re looking forward to moving to T3 and seeing some new faces/making some new friends in the coming weeks. Just remember to leave our dolyaks alone (j/k).

Last time we had a match against TC was, if I recall correctly, recently after we lost our wave of guilds to SoS and had no dedicated wvw presence except a few pug zergs. So having a “proper” rematch is kind of nice. From what I’ve seen of your wvw match threads, the attitude is usually pretty good too, so that’ll be a nice change of pace, perhaps you can balance out the Maguuma forum warriors.

Of course,
It’s still early in the week and ratings could change by Friday.

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

What I really don’t understand is Dragonband’s NNK guild. I mean, DB is a solid tier 3 server and as such there’s likely never going to be much coverage from any of the other servers in NNK’s time zone. Doesn’t it get boring having nobody at all to fight? Is there something about PVD I’m missing? I guess I’d get it if it made a difference, but score wise it really doesn’t. What’s the deal?

You still have points,
If it was PvDoor and we had “nobody at all to fight” we would be +695,

It’s not like we just took 60% of the map and then said “Nah, we’ll stop here for today”.

:)

What?
Yak’s still has towers and a keep in that score update.
Just because FA can’t muster enough people to have anything more than a camp doesn’t mean all we’re doing is fighting doors.

If you check the score now, you’ll also notice we spent less than an hour above +600, so unless your point is that NNK is only online for 40 minutes a day, I really don’t understand what you’re proving.

(And we’ll completely ignore how +600 is not +695)

I’m not knocking you guys. It’s possible you like PVD and that’s fine. You bought the game the same as me and you’re entitled to do whatever you like.

Personally I just don’t understand it. FA desperately wants out of this tier because fighting DB and Yak or Mag feels a lot like PVD to us too.

I wouldn’t mind you guys out of the tier either,
TC is less condescending.

No offense,
I think you think you’re being respectful, but it shows that you believe our efforts are inferior to yours

I’m really not trying to be condescending. I also don’t believe your efforts are inferior to ours!

I am fully away that come prime time DB just doesn’t have the coverage to make things really interesting against us. DB absolutely has some skilled players. So do we. We both know you can’t say one side is better than the other because we’re not on even playing fields.

I think even you would have to admit that the tables turn during the South East Asian prime time. DB fields impressive numbers during that time and FA can’t offer any meaningful resistance. That doesn’t mean I think NNK doesn’t have skilled players. I’m quite sure they must have some! I never meant to imply otherwise.

It’s unfortunate that we haven’t been able to secure coverage in that timezone because it means we’ll bounce around between tier 2 and tier 3 getting face rolled in one and doing the face rolling in the other. Given the choice I think many of us would prefer to stay in tier 2, even if we’re the losing server time and time again. We don’t enjoy dominating week after week any more than you enjoy getting dominated week after week.

Yak/Maguuma/DB would be an excellent match I think. Very solid tier 3 servers with similar coverage in prime time that would be enjoyable for all. Unfortunately with there more or less being 4 tier 2 servers, one of them is always going to be in tier 3 tipping the balance.

DB/Yak/Mag is a good match,
I believe that was the match our first week in tier 4
It was a very close match that, I believe, we didn’t even win.

But that was in December, lots have changed since then.
I think it would be undoubtable that DB would win that match now, which isn’t what I want any more than FA wants it here.

I’d love it if all server populations balanced out more so matches could actually be fair and volatile (Since right now we have neither), but servers seem to be pre-occupied with going up in tiers more than balance.

DB’s problem right now is that there are zero other servers who actually come out with a similar point spread by the end of the week to warrant us actually being in a tier with.
All the tier 4 servers and the red tier 3 servers don’t have the coverage to go against DB, and both FA and TC have far too much coverage to go against DB.

So sadly, we’re sitting here in the middle hoping a tier 2 loses a handful of guilds to a tier 4 server so we can see a competitive tier 3 for the first time since we got here~

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

What I really don’t understand is Dragonband’s NNK guild. I mean, DB is a solid tier 3 server and as such there’s likely never going to be much coverage from any of the other servers in NNK’s time zone. Doesn’t it get boring having nobody at all to fight? Is there something about PVD I’m missing? I guess I’d get it if it made a difference, but score wise it really doesn’t. What’s the deal?

You still have points,
If it was PvDoor and we had “nobody at all to fight” we would be +695,

It’s not like we just took 60% of the map and then said “Nah, we’ll stop here for today”.

:)

What?
Yak’s still has towers and a keep in that score update.
Just because FA can’t muster enough people to have anything more than a camp doesn’t mean all we’re doing is fighting doors.

If you check the score now, you’ll also notice we spent less than an hour above +600, so unless your point is that NNK is only online for 40 minutes a day, I really don’t understand what you’re proving.

(And we’ll completely ignore how +600 is not +695)

I’m not knocking you guys. It’s possible you like PVD and that’s fine. You bought the game the same as me and you’re entitled to do whatever you like.

Personally I just don’t understand it. FA desperately wants out of this tier because fighting DB and Yak or Mag feels a lot like PVD to us too.

I wouldn’t mind you guys out of the tier either,
TC is less condescending.

No offense,
I think you think you’re being respectful, but it shows that you believe our efforts are inferior to yours

Saradon WarChild.2034:

EnRohbi.2187:

Saradon WarChild.2034:

What I really don’t understand is Dragonband’s NNK guild. I mean, DB is a solid tier 3 server and as such there’s likely never going to be much coverage from any of the other servers in NNK’s time zone. Doesn’t it get boring having nobody at all to fight? Is there something about PVD I’m missing? I guess I’d get it if it made a difference, but score wise it really doesn’t. What’s the deal?

You still have points,
If it was PvDoor and we had “nobody at all to fight” we would be +695,

It’s not like we just took 60% of the map and then said “Nah, we’ll stop here for today”.

:)

What?
Yak’s still has towers and a keep in that score update.
Just because FA can’t muster enough people to have anything more than a camp doesn’t mean all we’re doing is fighting doors.

If you check the score now, you’ll also notice we spent less than an hour above +600, so unless your point is that NNK is only online for 40 minutes a day, I really don’t understand what you’re proving.

(And we’ll completely ignore how +600 is not +695)

Evalana.5480:

Er, yeah… I just woke up and, this… Score update or something. ::sigh::

It’s okay, Eva, it’s better now.
You should practice sleeping in a little

I’unno,
I’m with Moxic on this one.

The only time I lose to thieves is when I get ganked while I’m fighting someone else.
In direct 1v1 encounters with thieves I just about never lose.

Not all thieves trait for condition removal in stealth,
And the ones that do are generally the ones who trait for max stealth and usually do complete kitten for damage and should never be able to kill you either.
Cry of Frustration is, in fact, very valuable against gank thieves.
Most of them are bads who won’t even realize they have confusion

Just fight with them until they drop shadow refuge then pull or knock them out of it.
That is just about always the turning point in the fight.

dreztina.4820:

Just pointless talking about anymore unless Anet changes who they design the game for.

I’m certainly not the only person who is glad Anet didn’t design the game for mindless buttonmashers.

Evalana.5480:

Hadan.2841

maybe you should roll with krew more.

THIS!

But I have such fond memories of the good ol’ days when they were on the opposing server >:

(I’m just kiddin’, I like krew)

Niim.9260:

I do not run with large groups, but what I see around me is a lot of people using the size of the force as an excuse to not bother to learn from the experience, which I think is unfortunate.

I agree with you.
While facing FA, I have left WvW on more occasions than I can count because all our zergs were doing were charging into an FA keep and getting farmed by BT.
Over
And over
And over
And over again.

No change in tactics, no new approach,
Just charge back in and hand over more badges.

Ammendment: I don’t command often anymore, but when I do I generally do not let a plan of mine fail more than twice before I either find a new target or adjust my approach.

pulsecodesgnl.3470:

My Dead Characters.9517:

OMFG ALL THE OTHER SERVERS WOULD BE WORSE THAN SF!!!!! there is a reason SF is in T8.

ThaOwner.7560:

while this is quite unfortunate for t8 i dont think you guys will fare much better against any of the servers in t7, honestly if you care about WvW that much, i dont think t8 is the place for you at this point

These kind of posts show you guys clearly have no understanding of what the situation is, how the scoring system is detrimental, and instead have some misguided notion that the system is behaving correctly for the benefit of everyone.

We have a very established guild on our server, many actives and many casuals, there is no way we are going to migrate 200-300 accounts to a new server when the transfer fees are expensive as they are. Beyond that, because of the way guild’s are currently structured, we would lose our hundreds of thousands of built up influence, existing upgrades and bonuses that our guild has earned over the past 6 months.

Moving is not an option.

Months ago we landed in tier 8, and at that time we relatively deserved to land in there, as I have posted many times before we have had our PvE playerbase come back from events (Wintersday), several transfers from higher tiers, and co-ordinated Commanders / Guilds for tactics ON TOP of having excess numbers for zergs.

We have improved, A LOT. Our WvW guilds are growing bored again, and are suffering because of the scoring system. Because of the balance in the higher tiers, servers have a chance to bounce back and forth and be tested amongst other tiers.

Getting thrown in Tier 8 against two undermanned/underpowered servers sucks the availability for progress which is what the ranking system is dependant on. When we completely wipe the floor with these two tiers our score goes up a negligible amount, if for some reason they decide to put any kind of a fight, and instead of winning them by a vast majority, we win by an average majority we lose a significant amount of points that prevent us from having the same ‘chance’ that higher tiers have.

You can say things are fine all you want, and argue about whether SF would do fine in higher tiers, the reality is though, we do not have the opportunity to prove that. Unless something dramatic happens in the higher tiers, we are stuck here for what appears to be more months on end, despite the months we’ve already been here.

The problem being, of course, Anet isn’t going to disrupt every other tier just to give SF a chance to “prove themselves” in a tier that they may, or may not, be competitive in.

Not a lot of people are saying the ratings system is fine, it’s a known and mostly agreed upon problem.
But people also seem to be realizing that the ratings system is not the biggest problem we have right now, and fixing the ratings is not going to make matches any more balanced. Increased volatility would hurt a lot of tiers just to have the potential to fix tier 8.

People have suggested putting a ratings floor on tier 8 to prevent servers from falling too far to recover. I have no issue with this, I can’t see it negatively affecting the other tiers. Not that I get to make the decision for Anet, but I would support that idea.

Tricare.2946:

EnRohbi.2187:

While I do agree,
In theory only,
That the two losing servers should team up to overtake the winning one.
And if there was a way to make it work in practice, that would be fantastic.

But the REALITY is,
When you’re in wvw and you’re one of the two losing servers,
And you look at the map to figure out where you want to go.
MOST people will go attack the other losing server, because they are weaker and easier to take points from.
And thus, playing for Second Place begins.

Haha yes DB did this all the time, we had a group of 5 that went into Hills that DB owned and was being taken by FA. We started attacking FA to help out. DB decided to attack us instead of help out and kill FA.

It wouldn’t be hard to have this work. I know there are commanders on every server that people listen to. Just have them talk to everyone and make it work.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Well, yeah ;P
I speak from experience, so DB absolutely does do this.

But I can also say there are a lot of PUG groups on DB,
And even the most influential guilds on a server can’t control everything.
Unless Anet puts in an actual system to make real alliances between the two losing servers, or some other solution that encourages servers to attack the leading team as opposed to each other, then Playing for Second is just what is going to continue happening.

I would love for these things to happen, don’t think I am disagreeing with anyone particularly. I’ve always been an advocate for servers to take more advantage of the social gameplay side of wvw, but with the way the game is set up right now, that is very difficult to accomplish (Nigh impossible) on player initiative alone.

While I do agree,
In theory only,
That the two losing servers should team up to overtake the winning one.
And if there was a way to make it work in practice, that would be fantastic.

But the REALITY is,
When you’re in wvw and you’re one of the two losing servers,
And you look at the map to figure out where you want to go.
MOST people will go attack the other losing server, because they are weaker and easier to take points from.
And thus, playing for Second Place begins.

Slamz.5376:

selan.8354:

so u would pretty much remove everything a mesmer has when stacking condition dmg.u know how silly that sounds right?how about you adjust your gameplay when facing multiple mesmers stacking those 2?

Confusion and retaliation are fundamentally different from other conditions. The ultimate counter to poison, fire, immobilize, etc, is to kill you. Nothing about those conditions makes it dangerous for me to keep fighting and in fact it’s best if I do.

Retaliation and confusion essentially ask the player to stop fighting until the condition goes away.

Those two conditions should be removed. They are just bad ideas. Replace all confuse/retaliate skills with some other type of condition.

I’m sorry that you think mashing buttons is the only way to play this game,
You might just have to die a lot to glamour mesmers then.

I’m glad that there are conditions in this game different than everything else.
It adds,
Oh, you know,
Layers and dynamic gameplay.
A reason to actually pay attention and know what you’re doing, which this game lacks pretty desperately in other areas.

Ragnarz.1750:

EnRohbi.2187:

Being “locked into place” is not causing the problems, the fact that there are just no possible combination of fair matches is. And that is the playerbase’s fault. Having new opponents isn’t going to fix that.

Please prove to us that there is no possible combination of fair matches. Elaborate on this vast experience in multiple tiers that leads you to make such statements. while your at it, define your version of “fair” just so there wont be any confusion.

Furthermore, blaming the players is just silly. Players have their own set of goals and will do what they want to achieve them. Game publishers have design specifications and are expected to build sufficient intelligence into their game such that these are not violated. When they are, they are expected to fix the problem.

The fact is, I’m not obligated to prove anything.
You are the ones complaining, the burden of proof is on you.

So I’m not going to sit here and explain to you how different every tier is from the tiers above and below it, because anyone who’s actually moved in tiers recently can vouch for this. If you’re a tier 4 server you will not be balanced in either tier 3 nor tier 5. The same thing resonates through just about every tier, if not every one.

Blaming the players is far from silly, they caused the problem. It’s their fault.
Just because Anet did not explicitly ban mass server transfers does not mean Anet caused everyone to stack the top of the game. The players are responsible for their own actions, they don’t get to just absolve themselves because Anet happened to /allow/ it to happen.

Anet allows terrain exploits and hacks in WvW to continue, but I bet you’re not out there going “Everybody should hack into keeps because Anet isn’t good enough to fix it”.

EDIT: I’ll define my version of “Fair” however.
My version of Fair is a match whose winner is not obvious at the end of the weekend.
We had matches back in tiers 5 or 4 where we did not pull into the lead until Thursday, and those were some of the best matches we’d had, as far as “fairness” goes.

Gab Superstar.4059:

EnRohbi.2187:

Gab Superstar.4059:

EnRohbi.2187:

Do we really need 3 threads a day about tier 8?

I agree that something should be done, specifically about tier 8 that would hopefully not negatively affect the rest of the game, but spamming the forums is not it.

Yes, we do. What is currently going on in T8 is already starting to slowly creep up into higher tiers as well. Endlessly unbalanced match ups will be the norm soon if nothing is done.

They are already the norm.
The playerbase stacked the top 5~6 servers and left the rest of the game behind.

Unless Anet merges servers or forcibly relocates people out of the top servers,
Then this is what we will have for matches for a very, very long time.

And see my subsequent posts,
Having a problem is not a reason to spam the forums,
The mods will just shut down threads and Devs will never read them.

One thread is enough

The fact that people stacked on the top 5-6 servers is actually not the problem. Hell, I know for a fact that many people on HoD enjoy WvW much more without the huge zergs. No, the problem is the broken rating system.

You’re completely blind.
I never said every server should be the same,
In fact, if the top servers weren’t so stacked the zergs would be far less prominent with the population spread out more.
But the players unbalanced every server this dramatically on their own.

Being “locked into place” is not causing the problems, the fact that there are just no possible combination of fair matches is. And that is the playerbase’s fault. Having new opponents isn’t going to fix that.

Gab Superstar.4059:

EnRohbi.2187:

Do we really need 3 threads a day about tier 8?

I agree that something should be done, specifically about tier 8 that would hopefully not negatively affect the rest of the game, but spamming the forums is not it.

Yes, we do. What is currently going on in T8 is already starting to slowly creep up into higher tiers as well. Endlessly unbalanced match ups will be the norm soon if nothing is done.

They are already the norm.
The playerbase stacked the top 5~6 servers and left the rest of the game behind.

Unless Anet merges servers or forcibly relocates people out of the top servers,
Then this is what we will have for matches for a very, very long time.

And see my subsequent posts,
Having a problem is not a reason to spam the forums,
The mods will just shut down threads and Devs will never read them.

One thread is enough

roostapro.9827:

part edited by Moderator

Morale is depleting, fun is gone, my money isn’t going into arena nets pocket until they at least say “We are aware and working on it” (if anything, a company is scared to lose money…maybe T8 should halt purchases for giggles, but this is becoming a serious problem)

This is all we ask of you a net, a simple use of PR can go a long way for your players.

part edited by Moderator.

Why?
It doesn’t make any sense.
Mods delete and lock the threads, they are not devs and not the ones who will fix your problem.

One consolidated thread is enough for Devs,
Or, you know
You could PM one of them and ask for an update, if it’s something you think needs direct Dev attention (Which clearly it is).

I don’t understand what you hope to gain by antagonizing the mods.

Do we really need 3 threads a day about tier 8?

I agree that something should be done, specifically about tier 8 that would hopefully not negatively affect the rest of the game, but spamming the forums is not it.

EasymodeX.4062:

Well, the OP is saying that the snowballed matches last too long, so that leads directly to a consideration of how long the matches are.

Well then let me elaborate a bit.

Glicko might not be the best system to deal with shorter matches,
But a lot of people are in agreement that Glicko isn’t the best way to handle the matches we have now either. :P

I do, in fact, think it would be a good thing for weekend and weekday matches to be different.

The weekends and weekdays already play very differently from each other.
I’ve always felt that in close matches, the weekends are one of the least important times of week (Which is unfortunate since it’s also the time with the highest participation),
While in lopsided matches, the weekend can be the most important time.

Coming out of the weekend with a 50,000+ point lead is pretty much the end of the match.

Because of the server populations, even with shorter matches it is likely that the matches will be largely stagnant, but the refresh in scores every couple days could at least bring the fairweather players out more frequently. And as I touched on previously, it is much easier to rally your server’s real determination and forces for 48-72 hours than it is to keep them playing all week. Even servers with lesser populations would have a chance at having a victory or two, where as they would otherwise lose horribly in an attrition fight.

Anet’s original plan was for two weeks matches but, as far as I recall and based on what Anet released, it was decided after one week matches began that two-week matches would have been too long. It’s possible that one week matches are too long too.

EasymodeX.4062:

EnRohbi.2187:

I think that with weeklong matches, servers are pretty locked into their fate with scores by Monday or Tuesday. At least if the matches were 2-3 days long, servers could really rally together for a shorter period of time and win a match or two that they would have otherwise lost because they don’t have the population or stamina to compete for a whole week.

Monday or Tuesday is about halfway through the time period. That means you had ~4 (of 7) days of significant action.

If the matches were 2-3 days long, then after 48 hours, people would quit.

In addition you’d have absurd weekend versus weekday coverage disparities that would rock GLICKO on a match-by-match basis. Is that a good thing? Perhaps, perhaps not. It would make matches less fair, but also shake them up.

If this thread is about more fair matchups, then this solution would negatively impact the ratings. If this change is about more chaos and variety, then it would be a positive impact.

Well,
As I’ve said (Now in the third post in a row),
This has nothing to do with this thread :P