Guild Wars 2

Ketharius.9018:

EnRohbi.2187:

John Widdin.9618:

I wonder how long it’ll be until our server isn’t allowed to have match discussions anymore.

I have wondered this for a while myself.
Or more so, when they just make match threads against the rules entirely.

Check out the BG/KN/TC Thread, prime example as to how Match Threads can go, positive mostly. Even SoR misses participating on the Forums with us, and other T1 server members would rather post in our thread than their own.

I have done so before,
The tier 2 threads are the way they should be.

But,
Your tier is the exception more than the rule,
I think most tier’s threads end up locked at least once a week

John Widdin.9618:

I wonder how long it’ll be until our server isn’t allowed to have match discussions anymore.

I have wondered this for a while myself.
Or more so, when they just make match threads against the rules entirely.

Mike.7320:

Teamkiller.4315:

Mike.7320:

First in AoN 3 man getting owned by pugs.

sorry I don’t see any ownage at all. Are those AoN dead or what?

Second is the typical FA player, running back to their zerg. He was probably thinking “ah my gawd 5 OG RUNNN”

well…yeah if I was up against 5 people alone i’d run back to my zerg too.

I know your a zerger team, you have fortified your position over and over on the forums about being a zerg lover.

Had to take advantage of what I could before they spawned as soon as they died. Not like I was looking for it, I was afk on the hill and maximized to see AoN dieing to pugs.

Looks like three of those people attacking AoN are from the same guild.

I believe that is the very opposite of a PUG

ower.9143:

Moddo.7105:

Odaman.8359:

Evalana.5480:

I’m just stating the facts – We wouldn’t have known about them as a guild, if we hadn’t been hit with one first.

Reset night in hills the first day db was in t3 was the first night I saw golem spam from EA in your BL’s hills. Anyway they’ll be nerfed soon, now it’s just waiting for the pain to go away… =p i’ll be on guardian while I wait though.

First porn I ever saw was 2 ladies going at it, does that mean that was first porn ever made? NO because world does not revolve around my perceptions. Gezzz.

Nice strawman, doesn’t change that there’s post after posting point out that it was indeed EA abusing golems and bringing it everyone attention on our first reset with you guys which is fine because it caused them to get tossed out of WvW and you guys couldn’t use them for a crutch that much quicker. I’ll give vegas odds you can probably still find the initial thread about it and not one mention of " bu-bu-bu- we learned it from FA!1!!1!"

And…?

ower.9143:

Evalana.5480:

ower.9143

probably, EA was also the guild spamming the golems too.. funny how when that got taken out of the WvW they had a harder time defending anything.

We learned about golem-in-a-box because FA was hitting us with them and we became curious. Again, for the record, I never personally used them.

haha ok.. youre guild got it’;s garbage rep because of how often you ALL of you were using them. Sorry kiddo, but EA and DB were the first people I saw using them and I’m out in WvW for hours every night. Try to blame us all you want but a ton of us lost respect for EA because of it.

You should consider not being in WvW for hours every night.

I think you should take a step back and remember this is a video game, you are far too emotionally invested in this.

Wow,
Where’d all the bitterness in tier 3 come from?

Frank.7452:

Mif.3471:

zastari.1730:

Good job DB for wrecking the FA forum warriors at briar with a clever use of game mechanics!!!

I’m going to assume you mean DB’s NNK guild using the gear exploit non stop all night….

No more respect for that guild.

No need to be rude. You can say it like this:

Speaking of a clever use of game mechanics, I’m amazed at how organized the Dragonbrand players in Neconecoknight [NNK] are in regards to using that consumable gear nonstop to keep groups of players permastunned.

Every group of them I’ve seen today is using it, and there certainly are a lot of them around — so great job at that communication and teamwork, guys. You’re certainly showing us how good you can be.

Just so everyone is clear here.
NNK is one of our Asian guilds and have only a couple English speaking members.

It is unlikely (Not impossible, just on the lesser side of probable) that anything said here will even make it back to them.

I feel like Katniss is just having a reality shock when realizing that players on their server do,
indeed,
get steamrolled.

I’ve noticed a significant increase in threads about Dragonbrand stuff since we got out of tier 5~4.

Half solid video too, as long as people don’t start flooding in and pointing out how many wvw videos there are of the whole “Few people destroy many people” thing :P

Good stuff.

kerona.3465:

EnRohbi.2187:

Wait,
How many threads have we had closed so far?

This is our third thread since reset.
Unless I’m missing some.

That’s amazing
Go us.

I was just reading through the last one and getting myself caught up on the happenings when it got closed.

Wait,
How many threads have we had closed so far?

Ungood.3054:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ungood.3054:

Swamurabi.7890:

Your point total analysis is flawed because of the one of the major flaws in WvW. Once a weaker server is wiped from a map , especially their own BL, they have a much more difficult task to just regain what they lost and usually just give up on trying to take anything from that map. You need to be better to defend paper walls than against fortified and if you were better you wouldn’t have been wiped from the map in the first place.

You seem to miss the big part of this:

If a sever is so weak that is can be wiped from the map, down to it’s own borderlands, and if a Server is so strong that it can wipe another sever from the map to their own borderlands, at least 1 of these 3 servers should not be meeting up again next week.

End of Discussion.

Servers have primetimes at separate points during the day.
If one server in a tier has a strong oceanic or asian presence, they are going to capture at least one entire map overnight. This is not an indication that the servers are in the incorrect tier.

If either one is losing by or winning by a large margin, then it’s incorrect that they should be facing off next week.

Again. End of Discussion.

Having separate prime times does not mean the margin between scores will be large.

You post like you are speaking factually, but you show yourself to have less and less understanding of how wvw really works outside of anything but the final score count.

But you are right, this is the end of this discussion.
When you’re met with a logical argument you just copy numbers into your post and pretend they prove things they do not. Everything I’ve said remains completely valid and to continue with you would be redundant unless you choose to actually address any of my points.

Ungood.3054:

Swamurabi.7890:

Your point total analysis is flawed because of the one of the major flaws in WvW. Once a weaker server is wiped from a map , especially their own BL, they have a much more difficult task to just regain what they lost and usually just give up on trying to take anything from that map. You need to be better to defend paper walls than against fortified and if you were better you wouldn’t have been wiped from the map in the first place.

You seem to miss the big part of this:

If a sever is so weak that is can be wiped from the map, down to it’s own borderlands, and if a Server is so strong that it can wipe another sever from the map to their own borderlands, at least 1 of these 3 servers should not be meeting up again next week.

End of Discussion.

Servers have primetimes at separate points during the day.
If one server in a tier has a strong oceanic or asian presence, they are going to capture at least one entire map overnight. This is not an indication that the servers are in the incorrect tier.

Ungood.3054:

Ruprect.7260:

Every week would be an even worse curb stomp with your system.

Why do I post fact if no one bothers to look at them?

Why do we bother with numbers if no one is going to read them?

I disproved this fallacy, this myth you cling to is just that, a myth, a fallacy, that the numbers I have shown have disproved time and time again.

This belief that moving out of tier is bad is backed up by nothing more then the weights and merits of old wives and their tales.

If you can show me how it will result in blows out, with cold hard numbers, I’ll look at them, but lets be real here, I am not going to wait for that to arrive in the mail, sort to speak.

I’ve already told you why we ignore your numbers.
Your numbers have the same flaw that glicko does; they do not take transfers into account.

Furthermore.
Your numbers are not proof that WULD system would be better than glicko, they are only proof that there is a problem with Glicko.
Which, as I have said before, I don’t think anyone particularly disagrees with.

Ruprect.7260:

Ungood.3054:

Ruprect.7260:

3 weeks of free transfers.

You defend a system that could not account for that? really?

That is the progression you see. I think we need to give this a month to see where everyone goes now that transfers are over. If it is still the same way then maybe Anet needs to look into it, but what you are suggesting will be worse.

You propose a no less then a month of curb stomps and bad matches and gawk at a loser up – winner down system that would not give more then a week of a bad match up to any server.

Really, this is what comes to defend the Glicko system, this is what comes to champion a system that has curb-stomps that have lasted a month straight.

Do you think DB and YB would be so excited to be facing TC instead of FA that everyone would come out of the woodwork.

Oh, without question YES

They would just get an even worse beating. How is that anymore fun.

All this would do is breed even more bad blood between servers.

No to be rude, but, You are assuming too much, and none of it based on facts.

I am not defending the system, I just don’t see how your proposed system would work.

Every week would be an even worse curb stomp with your system. With very few exceptions. I am defenitely not assuming, TC was stomping T3 for how long agains FA/YB for how many weeks?

The people in favour of WULD don’t seem to realize that it would be far worse than glicko. Stagnant matches are not a problem to be fixed when the solution is “complete and utter imbalance in every tier every week”.

Each tier, with the except of tier 1 and tier 8, would comprise of a server from the tier below them, a server from that tier, and a server from the tier above them.
The top ranked server being from TWO tiers above that of the bottom ranked server.
In every tier.

selan.8354:

EnRohbi.2187:

John Widdin.9618:

How did Aspenwood let you do that? I thought they had a night presence.

I gotta be honest, I’m not entirely sure. We weren’t allowed to do this the first week we fought them.
I feel like FA’s night presence has slacked off since then.

MY THEORY is that after FA’s mass transfers from IoJ, there was a boom of motivation for participation in wvw that may have died off a little now when the transfers realized that transfering from one higher tier server to another higher tier server didn’t really change anything.

erm this is not the night presence it is the early morning in California 6am time where NNK shows up with 50 to 100 people and takes everything. Pretty much every night the same thing nnk mass zergs everything on every map and then runs off. we can even predict when we are resisting and actually awake when the golemrushes arrive. so by 7am pst we will be outmanned by a giant zerg in our bl and sometimes we just dont care to stay up.
our night crew in fact acquired over 400ppt before logging off. So night crew is doing pretty good.
As long as PRO and AVTR and some TSI are on nnk wont be able to mass zerg everything, but hey we all gotta sleep u see. but before we go to bed we usually do things like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbyG5rHK9k

Then adjust when I use the word “Night” to “Early Morning”.
The exact time I cited is not the point of my post so much as “At this time of day before, we did not reach +600”. Leading to my theory that FA has slacked off at the appropriate time of day.

I seem to be one of the only people in this game that just got their 100% world completion without transferring >:

katniss.6735:

I had 10 superior arrowcarts despawn in EK after rebuilding them 3 times on our BL yesterday because neither team would come to our map. They both want to just train wreck us for 4 days in a row again next week with superior numbers, only to avoid going up a tier. And on the flip-side, we aren’t playing because we don’t want to do that. Yay! WvW is super awesome! I’m so stoked by these tactics.

I don’t think DB is in dannger of going up a tier anytime soon.
I can’t speak for FA’s tactics, but DB not attacking Mag has nothing to do with ratings manipulation.

Acelerion.6820:

Yes it does. And necros are in a fairly bad place anyway. Nerfing epidemic would nearly destroy them

I agree that Necros are not a particularly sought after class in wvw.
But I can also tell you that Mesmers have ate so many nerfs that if they receive any more they will be in a very bad place too. (Especially since Anet has floated the idea of giving Portal-like mechanics to other classes and may greatly reduce the allure of mesmers in wvw)

But this doesn’t change the fact that the best argument anyone in this thread has given for Confusion being overpowered is when it’s used in conjunction with Epidemic. So the logical step is to nerf the skill causing the problem (That skill being Epidemic).

The change could be as subtle as removing Confusion from the list of conditions that Epidemic spreads. That being it would work exactly the same, just not copy Confusion.

Ungood.3054:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ungood.3054:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ungood.3054:

Where do people get the idea that this system should be anything other then scrapped when this is it’s result?

Because the result would be much worse much more often in a WULD system.

Can you support this or is just off the wall baseless speculation?

If you can support this I ask you to do so, if you can’t… well… then you won’t be able to supply my request.

From being on a server that has both freefallen through tiers and climbed up tiers somewhat rapidly, I can tell you that the differences in skill/coverage/effectively between many of the tiers is pretty massive.

A tier 2 server cannot drop down to tier 3 and have a competitive match. They will win in tier 3 without very much doubt at all. Likewise none of the tier 3 servers can go up to tier 2 and have a competitive match (Except maybe FA, but that is an entirely different discussion and they just came back from tier 2 after having come in a significantly last place).

Your personal observations are noted, but they are also wrong.

I’ll post this again, and again, if that is what it takes.

Ungood.3054:

Ok. Lets look at the real number then.

Week 3
Dragonbrand – Moved UP from T4 to T3 – Took 2nd place.
Magumma – Moved UP from T5 to T4 and Destroys.
Kaineng – Moves UP from T6 toT5 and Destroys it.
Borlis Pass – Moves Down from T5 to T6, Took a close 2nd

(Added Note:

4 Moves – 2 Blow outs. 2 Even Matches.

Equally that week-
Sanctum Rail – Which had NOT moved – Steamrolls Tier2
Fort Aspenwood – Which had NOT moved – Stomps Tier 3
Sorrows Furnace – Which had NOT moved – Steamrolls Tier 8

3 Blow outs from Tiers that did not move.

Week 4
Magumma – Moves UP from T4 to T3 – takes Tight 3rd.
Kaineng – Moves UP from T5 to T4 – Destroys it.
Crystal Desert – moves Down from T3 to T4, takes a Tight 3rd.
Isle of Janthir – Moves Down from T4 to T5 takes 3rd

Highlights: (AKA: Blowouts from the NOT Moving Tiers)
Sanctum Rail – Destroys Tier 2 – Again
Fort Ashwood – Destroys Tier 3 – Again
Ehmry Bay – Destroys Tier 5 – Again (crushing Isle of Janthir that moved down from Tier 4)
Darkhaven stomps Tier 7 – Again
Sorrows Furnace – Destroys Tier 8 – Again

Week 5
Sanctum Rail – Moves UP from T2 to T1 – takes a tight 3rd place – did better then Blackgate.
Blackgate – Moves DOWN to from T1 to T2 – Takes take 1st by far LESS a magrin then Santum rail did.
Fort Aspen – moves UP from T3 to T2 – takes a tight 3rd – vastly outpreforms Stormbluiffs last few weeks
Kainenge – Moves UP from T4 to T3 – we know how this story ends.
StormBluff Isle – Moves Down from T2 to T4 – takes a tight 3rd.

Highlights:
Ehmry Bay – lays the beat down on Tier 5 – 3 weeks going.
Darkhaven – owns Tier 7 – 3 weeks going now
Sorrows Furnace – Destroys Tier 8 – 3 weeks going now

Week 6 - Current Week
Kainenge – Moved UP from T3 to T2 – looking at 2nd
Fort Aspenwood – Moved Down from T2 to T3 – looking at 1st

Highlights:
Ehmry Bay – is looking all set up to Stomp Tier 5 – for a Full Month in a Row now.
Darkhaven – yah, Looks like T7 is all set up to conclude a – full month of losing to these guys
Sorrows Furnace – has a nice lead in T8 as expected again – to blow out the month.

So. While I am sure you have your views on it, the numbers don’t lie. This is the reality for the last month and it VERY clear that the myth of blowouts and coverage and all that jazz is just that.. a myth.

Your numbers take into account only final scores and,
Much like the glicko system itself,
Do not take transfers into account in your data.

FA stomped without moving in tier 3; correct. But they also assimilated most of Isle of Janthir that week.
Kaineng spiked through just about every tier in the game because of their transfers.
Dragonbrand received a moderate amount of transfers the week before we hit tier 3. And we came in second between FA (A server that had just received far more transfers from higher ranked servers than us) and CD (A server that was bleeding guilds the entire match and got weaker all week).

Give us the “reality” in another month after transfers have settled and try to make the same argument, using final scores.

I’ll give you a hint: It won’t be applicable.

Dasboba.1652:

This whole thread baffles me and reeks of people who have never played a mesmer. I run a full glass cannon shatter build mesmer. I have 1 condition removal on my build and it comes from my sigil of generosity. Once every 10 seconds I “might” transfer a condition. That’s it, no other removal. Condition classes are the rock to my scissors. That said, in all my time in WVW, I don’t ever recall dying to a condition mesmer. I don’t understand how people with multiple removals and most likely more hp/tou than my glass build are dying unless it’s just a complete lack of understanding on how a confusion build works. I tried to build one, but just couldn’t find a playstyle I liked. By doing that, I learned what a basic rotation would be like on a confusion mesmer, and now when I see one in a fight I can pick my opportunities to burst.

As someone who has spent most time with a GC shatter build,
I can tell you that no condition mesmer has every killed me either.

I have had some extended and really fun duels with condition mesmers,
But no losses.

Ungood.3054:

EnRohbi.2187:

Ungood.3054:

Where do people get the idea that this system should be anything other then scrapped when this is it’s result?

Because the result would be much worse much more often in a WULD system.

Can you support this or is just off the wall baseless speculation?

If you can support this I ask you to do so, if you can’t… well… then you won’t be able to supply my request.

From being on a server that has both freefallen through tiers and climbed up tiers somewhat rapidly, I can tell you that the differences in skill/coverage/effectively between many of the tiers is pretty massive.

A tier 2 server cannot drop down to tier 3 and have a competitive match. They will win in tier 3 without very much doubt at all. Likewise none of the tier 3 servers can go up to tier 2 and have a competitive match (Except maybe FA, but that is an entirely different discussion and they just came back from tier 2 after having come in a significantly last place).

This is something that echos between most tiers.
If a tier 3 server dropped to tier 4, they would dominate tier 4.

What a WULD system would provide is a system where just about every week in every tier is a blowout, because there would always be a server either from the tier below you or the tier above you really unbalancing the match.

And this doesnt even touch on this situation: (I’m gonna use the current servers in these positions as examples only)
Yak’s Bend (tier 4) wins and moves to tier 3.
Tarnished Coast (tier 2) loses and moves down to tier 3.
Dragonbrand comes in second in tier 3 and doesn’t move.

How competitive do you think Yak’s Bend would be able to be against Tarnished Coast? Than’s a tier 4 server vs. a tier 2 server. And DB stuck in the middle not being evenly matched with either.

There are definitely better alternatives to the glicko system, but WULD is definitely not it for the game we have.

I further would argue that it is not the right time to adjust the maths at all.
I’ve said before, if not in this thread than in other similar threads, that the population and wvw coverage imbalance between servers needs to be addressed before the math is changed. The top 2 tiers are too stacked and the bottom 4 tiers need way more people in wvw.

There just aren’t enough combinations of equal servers that wvw can be anything other than stagnant matches every week until things balance out more.

Iavra.8510:

Yeah sorry, seems i don’t really understood your post.

I fought some mesmers lately, nearly all of them were heavy confusion. In 1on1 it’s usually manageable but in larger fight it’s becoming a bit of a problem.

I was fighting a confusion mesmer and a backstab thief the other day. Managed to down the mesmer before the thief showed up but that’s when the real problems started. Mesmers are able to easily stack huge amounts on confusion all the time on you if they are downed. Couldn’t really finish the mesmer as the thief would just kill me in the meantime. Couldn’t hit the mesmer or thief as the confusion would cause me to kill myself. I could’ve tried to run away but, well…guardians are slow and thiefs are fast so i got killed ^^

Epidemic could be the a good place to start but i don’t know how to change it without rendering it completely useless. Mesmer downed state could also be adjusted a little bit as it just happened to their underwater skills, but that’s not so important i think.

Well,
Let me explain the Mesmer’s downed state in a bit of detail to help you get an idea.

We have the #1 attack which is where confusion comes from.
It does very little direct damage and leaves one stack of confusion that lasts 3-5 seconds.

The #1 attack while downed is also fairly slow at attacking and cannot stack more than 3-4 stacks of Confusion reliably before you either die or rally.

The #2 skill teleports you a few feet to the left, stealthes you for a couple seconds and creates a clone in your original location which auto attacks, and also stacks confusion.

The #3 skill summons a phantasm which drop kicks the enemy and does a fair amount of direct damage. I am rarely still alive while downed long enough to actually pop this phantasm off.

If you kill the clone you will not have more than 4 stacks of Confusion on you from the mesmer. If you allow both the clone and mesmer to continue Downed, you will still likely not see more than 8-9 stacks of Confusion.

If a thief showed up during your fight, even if the mesmer was Downed it was effectively a 2v1 at that point and claiming that you should have been able to win that fight against anything but noobs is just not true.

In short,
the Mesmer’s Downed state is not that useful.
It’s not the worst Downed state in the game but it cannot really do anything except hope that someone else kills something for you so you can rally before you get stomped.

So no, Mesmers cannot stack “huge amounts of confusion” on your while Downed.

While not Downed,
If I blow my entire rotation on you at the start of the fight, and for some reason you just stand there and take it and don’t dodge, I might get 15 stacks of Confusion up on you, for a maximum of about 5 seconds if I use food to increase condition duration. Then everything I’ve got is on CD.

If you’re losing 1v1 to a confusion mesmer, you have mashed buttons too much.
I can tell you from experience that full condition mesmers have no direct damage to attack you with while you wait/run/whatever until Confusion expires, and hybrid confusion mesmers don’t pack enough confusion damage to be damaging enough to warrant nerfs.

If you’re losing 1vX to a confusion mesmer and other classes, then you would probably have lost regardless because, as has been pointed out before, one good player should never be able to beat 2 or more good players unless they make heinous mistakes.

And to scale up more…
Epidemic is the only reason Confusion is destroying whole zergs.
And even then, I don’t believe it would destroy any zergs that were properly prepared and paying attention to what was going on. (Between tier’s 6 and 3, and multiple wvw hours a day since the end of August, I have not seen a single zerg of ours wiped by confusion. With or without the presence of a necro)

Epidemic is clearly what’s causing the balance problem here.
Nerfing confusion would effectively eliminate one of the very few selections of Mesmer builds already available.

Also,
Fun thing to think about, but only marginally related to the topic: In GW1 Epidemic was a Mesmer skill and did more or less the exact same thing. If Necro’s didn’t steal it from us in GW2 we’d be able to wipe zergs without even having a partner.

EDIT: This post ended up being much longer than I realized. I am also groggy from just waking up, I hope it was somewhat comprehensible.

John Widdin.9618:

How did Aspenwood let you do that? I thought they had a night presence.

I gotta be honest, I’m not entirely sure. We weren’t allowed to do this the first week we fought them.
I feel like FA’s night presence has slacked off since then.

MY THEORY is that after FA’s mass transfers from IoJ, there was a boom of motivation for participation in wvw that may have died off a little now when the transfers realized that transfering from one higher tier server to another higher tier server didn’t really change anything.

John Widdin.9618:

Well then.. Good morning Dragonbrand.

Good morning, Maguuma!

I’m glad to see we’ve adapted to tier 3 completely now, and our pattern of “getting better as the week goes on” is holding again.

I’m excited for this upcoming match.

Iavra.8510:

I know how to play my class, thanks. All of our guardians are specifically built for support running 80% boon duration. However, most of them are consecration builds, i am currently the only fixed shout guardian in our raid. Area condition removal is mostly shared between us guardians and our D/D eles.

However, timed confusion + multiple epidemics can occur really fast and an attempt to cleanse them does a huge amount of damage. Before even doing this, an ele has to switch over to water so that’s one more tick.

It’s amazing how everything that comes up on the forums immediately gets marked as l2p by the classes that would be affected by a change.

You still haven’t told me why you think Confusion should be nerfed and not Epidemic.

You don’t seem to have any problem with just confusion mesmers, as the “Epidemic and confusion” combo is the only thing you’ve cited in your recent posts. So why nerf Confusion when Epidemic is what makes it a problem?

Osicat.4139:

secondly, never trait for stats, trait for traits

/Osicat

I agree with this in a lot of situations…
Except when crit-damage is involved.

It’s less important with Mesmers since Dueling 20 is in 95% of builds anyway so that 20% crit damage and 200 precision is pretty much built right into the class.
But my general rule of thumb is that percentage increase in your damage (Crit Damage in a DPS build) is a pretty valuable thing.
I have, in previous GC builds, traited to 30 in Dueling for the Crit Damage. If I were still straight GC I would do it again.

Iavra.8510:

We got hit by a mesmer – necro confusion bomb yesterday. Our raidlead, a d/d ele, died almost instantly due to 25 stacks of confusion. This is what people are currently doing in WvW and whoever witnessed it would agree that it’s much too powerful.

So why are you arguing to nerf confusion instead of Epidemic?

It would completely solve the problem to Necro-Mesmer teams beating zergs, and I don’t know very many Necros that run Epidemic unless they’re with a mesmer anyway.

Or is all this really just another way to argue for Mesmer nerfs because the pink butterflies are too much for you? o;

Ungood.3054:

Where do people get the idea that this system should be anything other then scrapped when this is it’s result?

Because the result would be much worse much more often in a WULD system.

Blame yourselves for this,
The playerbase as a whole stacked the upper servers so severely that the closest the game can get (right now) to balanced matches is by essentially fighting the same servers every week.

Servers are not even remotely competitive with each other.
There are likely only one or two other servers IN THE ENTIRE GAME that would be on par with whatever server you’re currently on. Which means if you mix up the matches at all, they’re going to be very lopsided.

People keep arguing for this idiotic “Winner up, loser down” system without thinking about what it would actually do.
Stagnant matches are the remedy to blowouts every week right now.

You cannot have diverse matchups and balanced matchups at the same time with the server populations varying so wildly. It is not possible. Changing the math behind the ratings would fix nothing and just tie up the work time a dev should be spending on areas of the game they can actually improve right now.

Krakah.3582:

Braxxus.2904:

If ‘pvp’ players want to partake in W3 they should put in the same effort and work that W3 players have had to with their characters.

As for bringing them closer together I see that as an issue with the players, after all they sure do like to keep making the distinction that wuvwuv ISN’T PvP, and that THEY are PvPers while putting down wuvwuvers at every opportunity.

TLDR: No free rides for the elitists.

The elitists as you call them, are the PvP guilds that carry their server to competitive tiers. Without the hardcore PvP players in WvW/SPvP there is no PvP, it’s carebear pillow fights and will be as dead as T8.

If Anet wants GW2 to be taken seriously for competitive PvP, the SPvP premade system migrated to WvW would bring that.

It bring everyone in line eliminating power creep, and becomes what it should always be. A skill based competition. If you don’t understand power creep go read up Taugrim’s article on it.

No one is asking for a free ride, but no one wants to waste their time doing PvE they’re not interested in.

I don’t think anyone is arguing in favour of PvE being the only way to get gear.
Nobody likes that.

Having ways within WvW to equip your character in an acceptable amount of time would be fantastic. And as long as all stat combinations from PvE are available in WvW as well, it would solve all these “I need to PvE in order to WvW” complaints.

This would be far preferable to the Amulet based system in sPvP.

jkctmc.8754:

EnRohbi.2187:

jkctmc.8754:

EnRohbi.2187:

jkctmc.8754:

kash.9213:

Most builds amount to the spvp amulets anyway.

This isn’t true. In sPvP you can’t have half a healing build, and half a beserker build. It’s all, or nothing.

And this is my problem with it.
Getting to change the gem in your amulet is not even remotely good enough for any sort of hybrid build of any class.

“Most” builds may equate to normal spvp amulets; sure.
But “most” players in this game are also casual players who don’t sit down and figure out how to make any other sort of effective build.

The stat system is dumbed down enough as it is, taking away all the combinations possible in PvE would be terrible in wvw. We want to add /more/ depth to wvw, not take depth away.

Choices are hard for some people, that’s why games with more choices like; “Rift” always had the worse population of complainers. Even sPvP, the easiest format I have ever seen in any game still has an army of complainers.

Choices are more important to me, and I believe the more choices a player base has, the funner the game is.

The thing is though,
If that is the kind of player you are (Not yourself, the generalized “you”), then you can fully replicate the amulet system in PvE/WvW by just buying gear of all the same stats.

If you don’t want the option for a more in depth build, you are not required to take it, you can just go the “Simple-Choice” route of wearing all Berserker Gear (or whatever gear you focus on).

I can’t see it as a good thing to remove that choice from wvw for the spvp amulet system, which I feel will offer nothing that other improvements couldn’t do better.

I agree with you, so I hope you’re not taking my response as a disagreement.

Nah,
I agree with people sometimes. :P

jkctmc.8754:

EnRohbi.2187:

jkctmc.8754:

kash.9213:

Most builds amount to the spvp amulets anyway.

This isn’t true. In sPvP you can’t have half a healing build, and half a beserker build. It’s all, or nothing.

And this is my problem with it.
Getting to change the gem in your amulet is not even remotely good enough for any sort of hybrid build of any class.

“Most” builds may equate to normal spvp amulets; sure.
But “most” players in this game are also casual players who don’t sit down and figure out how to make any other sort of effective build.

The stat system is dumbed down enough as it is, taking away all the combinations possible in PvE would be terrible in wvw. We want to add /more/ depth to wvw, not take depth away.

Choices are hard for some people, that’s why games with more choices; “Rift” always had the worse population of complainers. Even sPvP, the easiest format I have ever seen in any game still has an army of complainers.

Choices are more important to me, and I believe the more choices a player base has, the funner the game is.

The thing is though,
If that is the kind of player you are (Not yourself, the generalized “you”), then you can fully replicate the amulet system in PvE/WvW by just buying gear of all the same stats.

If you don’t want the option for a more in depth build, you are not required to take it, you can just go the “Simple-Choice” route of wearing all Berserker Gear (or whatever gear you focus on).

I can’t see it as a good thing to remove that choice from wvw for the spvp amulet system, which I feel will offer nothing that other improvements couldn’t do better.

jkctmc.8754:

kash.9213:

Most builds amount to the spvp amulets anyway.

This isn’t true. In sPvP you can’t have half a healing build, and half a beserker build. It’s all, or nothing.

And this is my problem with it.
Getting to change the gem in your amulet is not even remotely good enough for any sort of hybrid build of any class.

“Most” builds may equate to normal spvp amulets; sure.
But “most” players in this game are also casual players who don’t sit down and figure out how to make any other sort of effective build.

The stat system is dumbed down enough as it is, taking away all the combinations possible in PvE would be terrible in wvw. We want to add /more/ depth to wvw, not take depth away.

I wouldn’t mind this matchup being repeated next week.
But that is admittedly because I want another shot at FA more than Maguuma.

I was a little excited to see Yak’s again, but that’s okay.

Oh my god, no.

Part of the reason I WvW and almost never go into sPvP is because of how the gearing is set up in sPvP.

I want to be able to combine my equipment and get the stats I want.
My build is impossible to replicate with the sPvP amulet system.

You also do realize that Anet wants sPvP to be the competitive side of their game, right?

They would prefer wvw players go into sPvP than sPvP players go into wvw.

I don’t necessarily believe it would help with night capping at all,

But I have always thought Friday night was a really silly time to have the matches reset.
The weekend is the most active time in wvw and, with Friday night match resets, is also one of the least important parts of the week (In balanced matches).

Seige.4862:

It appears more and more people who are pro confusion don’t understand the basics. Not surprised really .

Probably about as surprised as I am that those against Confusion have nothing to say in their posts except insults to those who disagree.

JaironKalach.4938:

EnRohbi.2187:

katz.8376:

it’s not that you insulted me. but come on. it’s already been over a month that SF has been sitting on us, and no end in sight. “no quick fix” is all well and good, but every person reaches the end of their patience at some point, and right now, there IS no light at the end of the tunnel. at all.

People will join in if they see you actually trying. Most people would quit and walk out of wvw when they enter a map and don’t see anyone at all. Your server’s morale has a lot of bearing on how many people will show up for wvw (Dragonbrand suffered a massive guild loss some months ago and has since rebuilt, I have seen every part of the morale-spectrum in my own server and can speak here from experience). Motivating the players on your server to participate even in a losing battle is a huge factor in how your server is going to fare in wvw.

My biggest concern is that for a server like FC or ET, this is an unsustainable proposition. It’s certainly a significant uphill battle. It’s probably a topic for a different thread, but I don’t think that the psychology of the situation will allow for the balance we are looking for to come through natural attrition/growth. It is too punishing for a new player on a server such as ET to stick it out, with little incentive. I would advocate that ANet introduce something to help manage this, but… It’s not really clear to me what they would be able to effectively do.

And this is the problem.
Everyone wants a solution to what everyone knows is a problem,
But there might not be one,
Short of merging servers or waiting for natural growth to happen.

Which tier 7 server would you rather take SF’s place?
Is there any other server in the whole game who you think would be a fair fight against FC and ET?

Darkhaven would almost certainly rock you more than SF is doing currently, so let’s rule them out.
If both HoD and GoM are at the same level of competition that SF is at (Which I would say is likely to be true), then there are exactly zero combinations of servers in tier 8 that would give you a balanced match, and nothing Anet does to the ratings system or ratings themselves will create a third server on par with ET and FC.

This is why I suggest that you try to increase wvw participation on your respective servers before calling for a change to the math (EDIT: I’d like to point out again, right here, that I do think a change in the math is required. But changing the math now would be likely to make the problems worse than they already are).

Right now there just aren’t enough servers at similar levels of play to have balanced matchups in every tier, regardless of how those tiers are calculated.

katz.8376:

it’s not that you insulted me. but come on. it’s already been over a month that SF has been sitting on us, and no end in sight. “no quick fix” is all well and good, but every person reaches the end of their patience at some point, and right now, there IS no light at the end of the tunnel. at all.

Agreed.
As I said, wvw matchups are in a poor state right now.

“Transfer, quit or deal with it” are not good choices, but they are unfortunately the choices right now.

You can try to help be a solution, if you are motivated to do so, and try to encourage more people on your server to go wvw, try to encourage more coordinated group play. Basically make the best of the situation.

People will join in if they see you actually trying. Most people would quit and walk out of wvw when they enter a map and don’t see anyone at all. Your server’s morale has a lot of bearing on how many people will show up for wvw (Dragonbrand suffered a massive guild loss some months ago and has since rebuilt, I have seen every part of the morale-spectrum in my own server and can speak here from experience). Motivating the players on your server to participate even in a losing battle is a huge factor in how your server is going to fare in wvw.

Tactics and well coordinated small group play can be quite effective, and even more so, on lower tiered servers, where teams simply don’t have enough players to have a zerg on every map.

katz.8376:

EnRohbi.2187:

If SF moves up a tier, you’re just gonna get rolled by the server that falls from tier 7 so SF has room to move up. The only difference will be the name of the server.

maybe. maybe not. SF was hovering around tier 6 before they took a 1 month dive into the pit of despair AKA tier 8. by the time they finally claw their way back out, IF they ever claw their way out with how the stupid math has them locked in place, they’ll probably shoot BACK up to tier 6. i’d welcome a true tier 7 over that.

also. wow. saying we’ll get rolled anyway, doesn’t matter by who. are you TRYING to make me quit or transfer? talk about demotivating.

I’m not trying to be insulting, I just prefer to speak realistically about a situation.
The tiers in wvw are not in a good place right now, and unfortunately the solution is not super easy or quick.

I believe that a certain amount of the problem will solve itself with time. That being the issue of servers being extremely disproportionately effective against each other in wvw. As populations balance out and new people buy the game and end up going to lower population servers.

At THAT time, a review of the math or ratings of servers would probably be quite appropriate to handle the huge ratings differences between some tiers. Because the glicko system is, indeed, stopping some servers from moving as easily as they should (Like SF, as you say).
But the bigger problem is the imbalances between servers more so than it is just the math.

Solving either issue will not fix the problem with wvw unless both are addressed.

Teamkiller.4315:

EnRohbi.2187:

I think the most ridiculous that I’ve seen was when 5 people ganked my level 20~ alt ranger one day and then all danced on my corpse like it was an accomplishment to win against an upleveled character by outnumbering them 5:1. ;D
.

I hope you destroyed them

In that situation, I decided it wasn’t worth it to both switch characters and go rally a group of people to help me, and then go hunt down a group of people I would probably not recognize a second time in Eternal Battlegrounds.

When someone dances my corpse after they defeat me by ganking me 5v1 when I’m not expecting it or while I’m distracted fighting someone else, I usually go find them and steamroll over them to dance on their corpse right back.

I think the most ridiculous that I’ve seen was when 5 people ganked my level 20~ alt ranger one day and then all danced on my corpse like it was an accomplishment to win against an upleveled character by outnumbering them 5:1. ;D

More often than not, it doesn’t bother me, it just gives me a target and objective for the next few minutes.

Kerithlan.1659:

EnRohbi.2187:

If SF moves up a tier, you’re just gonna get rolled by the server that falls from tier 7 so SF has room to move up. The only difference will be the name of the server.

This is not necessarily correct. However what is correct is that SF moving up and potentially balancing T8 is guaranteed to break the current balance in T7.

The question is not “should that balance be broken” but rather “when will it be?” Will SF be balanced in T7, or will they drop down again? Will they move up to T6 and break more things?

It’s circular imbalance at work. Exchanging one imbalance for another doesn’t solve the problem. It just moves it. Glicko can’t correct it, but the WULD system exacerbates it horribly.

It is not necessarily true; no.
But it is likely, given that most tiers are pretty far separated from the tiers below and above them.

If FC and ET are just really far below every other server in the game for wvw skill/coverage, then you will never see a balanced match in tier 8.
At least not until your server gains some new population.

Again,
It sucks.
My tier has a similar problem, though not as severe, where there are only two servers that really belonging in tier 3 and the third server is the one that doesn’t fit into tier 2.

But it is the reality of the situation with servers being so disproportionate with each other.

katz.8376:

oh trust me. i’m not going anywhere. as i said. my friends are here. my guild is here. my husband is here.

i just may bow out of WvW even though i quite enjoy the concept, because being rolled every week by the same server over and over and over and over and over and (you get the point) because they have more people than us, and the math is too stupid to actually move them up…and no end in sight because the math expects them to be able to roll us? yeah. not fun. that is the very definition of hopelessness.

it doesn’t matter how good or bad we do this week. we’re still stuck with SF next week. and the week after. and the week after. and… and… and…

seriously guys. how are you not seeing this.

No one said they didn’t see it.
Everyone knows there’s problems with the wvw tiers and matchups.

But there’s nothing to be done until servers balance out.
Seriously.

If SF moves up a tier, you’re just gonna get rolled by the server that falls from tier 7 so SF has room to move up. The only difference will be the name of the server.

Servers are incredibly out of balance right now due to the guild’s stacking higher servers. Yes, it’s a problem. No, there’s no easy or quick solution.

The wvw population decided that winning was more important than having a balanced game mode.

katz.8376:

JaironKalach.4938:

The thing I find that is truly ironic about this is that we have had numerous threads about what ANet should do to fix the problem, but in the end the first solution (leveling out server pops/coverage) has been in the hands of the player base, all along.

i just started playing recently (around a month or so). and i didn’t start WvW immediately. i played and had fun and got used to how to play. i didn’t even know HOW to go to WvW… and i remembered that when i first chose my server, i got a warning that “this choice is final, you’ll have to pay if you wish to move.” and i was unaware of free server transfers.

by the time i realized what soul-crushing will-sapping WvW-fun-devouring hole i was in by being on a Tier 8 server, i had already made friends, joined a guild, and free transfers were over. so, pray tell, what should i do to ‘level the field’ at this point? and if your answer is “transfer”… pony up so i can make the transfer and break the news to my guild for me. i’m broke. be sure you send enough for 2 transfers. my husband has to come too

“At this point”?
Wait and see if your server gets more dedicated wvw population after things settle down from paid transfers.

99% of new players purchasing the game will not research the server they pick before they register an account, the best you can do if you don’t want to transfer is to hope your server improves and make the best of wvw while you’re waiting.

The original point was valid,
The playerbase is entirely responsible for wvw being in the state it’s in right now.
Now, it’s an effect of mass transfers that wasn’t apparently obvious when they started, so you can’t blame players for not thinking ahead and realizing that stacking the top servers was only guaranteeing stale and stagnant matchups.
But not having the foresight to prevent it doesn’t mean that the playerbase didn’t cause the problems we’re experiencing now.

Think about how much more competitive every server would be if every player in the game was still on the server they signed up their account on.

Sorry for not reading this whole thread first,

While in principle I don’t think there’s anything wrong with changing the math for the ratings. The glicko system “works”, but isn’t optimal, and leads to a lot of kittenty weeks in wvw for a lot of servers.

But the issue is that stagnant matches are not the biggest problem right now. They are, in fact, the solution to the bigger problem. The bigger problem being that servers are so different in their ability to perform in wvw that they simply cannot fight any servers outside of their tier without serious balance.

The stacking of upper servers that has been happening since launch has created such a deviation in servers that there’s just no way (right now) to have volatile matchups and have them resemble any form of balance or competition.

I’d love to see different servers in wvw every week, but something needs to be done about the imbalance between servers before stagnant matches can be remedied.

Kerithlan.1659:

kfarb.6732:

Kerithlan.1659:

kfarb.6732:

It doesn’t really matter. Maybe there are 4 T1 servers. Either way T1/T2 can’t hold 7 so one is pushed to T3.

Fair enough.

Just saw you were on TC, so I suppose it does matter for you…

Not necessarily, we just want good matches. The new FA was a good match for us and BG, as is the current BG/Kaineng match. I have little doubt that if we end up against DB and YB/CD we’ll have another good match, even if it’s lopsided. I like all of the servers I’ve listed, so we’re going to have fun anywhere we end up.

Obviously it’s better for T3 if TC stays up in T2 simply because of experience/population issues. I just found it interesting that T3 believes there’s a ton of T2 servers while T2 believes there’s a ton of T1 servers. It’s sort of funny in the bigger picture lol.

I think the general consensus that most people would agree with though is “There are too many servers for the upper tiers right now”.

I believe it will get better in time, we’re just suffering from a few servers being stacked while the rest either remained consistent or were completely stripped of wvw guilds.

The playerbase should be striving to have all 24 servers in each region be much closer in skill and coverage, instead of further apart. Would be able to mix up matches more frequently and, more importantly, would reduce the number of complete blowouts when one server is in a tier above or below where they belong.

I believe stealth is handled differently by the game engine depending on whether you’re an ally or enemy.

The visual effect you see from stealth is just a representation of it; what matters is that you have the “Stealthed” buff in the buffs part of your screen. If you have that, you are not visible to enemies. (I believe the game engine checks for the Stealth buff and uses that to determine whether to display your character).

There are other things that will look like they break stealth but really don’t (Like blinking while stealthed)

jaegerx.1693:

Mike.7320:

jaegerx.1693:

Mike.7320:

saiyr.3071:

Mike.7320:

jaegerx.1693:

Mike.7320:

saiyr.3071:

Don’t worry I will make fun of the AoN people I know forever until they do it!!!

Lol everyone makes fun on AoN, serious roaming guilds atleast xD

OG is so loved and has so many fan bois that people made a guild called Original grubstars, thats how loved we are.

Courtesy of our #1 fanboi Jeager x or w/e his name is..this dude runs into an og group and follows us around forever lol.

Please don’t not address me or mention my name. This is harassment and if it continues I will report you to ANET.

Jaeger, whats wrong fanboi, your supposed to support us not hate o.O

The plot thickens! I must call into question everything you’ve said now!

I know man! I thought he loved us too, why else would he make our recruitment guild? lolol

Mate, listen I’ve asked you to leave me alone, I paid for this game not you so I’ll play it how I want.

No no dude, I love that your our #1 fan the LAST thing we want is you turning against us

Now your trying to provoke me on the forums get life budded I blocked you in-game, looks like I’ll have to do the same on the forums.

If you want him to leave you alone, stop taking his bait and replying.
Report him, and move on with your life.

Trikki.5803:

EnRohbi.2187:

Then explain to me why I don’t run into all these invisible armies everyone else is complaining about?

If culling affects everyone equally, then why, in my 5-10 hours every day in wvw, have I not had a problem with it since the patch?

Clearly it is not affecting everyone equally, like you say.
There is some other factor at play.

Fallback models aren’t related to fps lag, they’re related to asset load time. FPS lag is, essentially, a CPU or GPU problem, asset load times is more hard drive related.

Simple, because you don’t have the numbers in the field that Tier 1 and 2 have.

A fully queued map on tier 3 has just as many people as a fully queued map in tier 1.
Do you not think queues exist this low?