Guild Wars 2

We’re having fun and should’ve been in T3 anyway. With the new matching system, that means that most weeks we’ll be facing off against other T3ish worlds like Mag, YB and KN. Some weeks we’ll be facing off against T2 worlds. Some weeks we’ll be facing off against T4 worlds. Rarely we’ll encounter T1 or T5 worlds. The system is a good one and is working as intended. We’re currently projected to be top of the group we’d normally be paired up with that includes worlds that are only on par with CD – a world that we regularly beat by 90-100k points. This is just sensible.

Honestly, I just wish folks would recognise that just because we’re not winning and we’re not going to win (although, hell, even second place isn’t that far off), it’s not the end of the world. Hell, if all of the people being negative about the match actually spent that time playing and having fun, we’d probably be running dead evens on score. A number of folks seemed to write off the match on the basis of the first few hours, despite everyone on the world knowing how poorly we do on reset nights

I think I saw us as high as 420 ppt?

Lyndis.2584:

Wow, we really deserve to get stomped in this matchup. Some of the commanders have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. At all. We’re barely managing to hold on to our homelands and they decide to go on an offensive tilt instead of staying defensive and upgrading towers (which are barely T2 to mention). In the meantime while they get wiped knee deep in enemy territory (we’re outmanned, why are you invading an enemy’s T3 tower when they have more than triple our number?) we lose 2 towers and supply camps to boot.

/SoS#1

Edit : Also, don’t understand why people feel the need to tag up on an outmanned map when we already have a commander and break up an outmanned server into two zergs. Christ, this server gives me migraines.

I think there are going to be some hiccups as we readjust to a matchup where we can’t get away with some of the really bad habits that have sunk in in T4 and there’s a learning curve for newer commanders who’ve never really had to have the good habits. By and large, what I’ve seen out there so far has been very encouraging though.

Waffler.1257:

This post is pretty hilarious coming from SoS. 24 hours into your current match-up and the score looks like this:

FA – 32.5k
TC – 39.2K
SOS – 20.2k

So it looks like TC has almost twice your score, and you decide that WvW is stupid and are going to quit playing for the week. Want to know what the score was 24 hours into your last match with CD and SBI? Here it is:

CD – 23.8k
SOS – 44.0k
SBI – 20.3k

Yeah, SOS has over double the score of third place and almost double the score of second place. Not to mention you had that match-up for 2 months and apparently found nothing wrong with it. If you’re going to quit playing every time you lose, you should transfer to SoR or JQ because you won’t be guaranteed easy wins for weeks on end with the new ranking system.

In his defence, I’ll at least say the following. The first couple of weeks where it was fresh, SBI and CD were still fairly strong (prior to losing more guilds to other worlds) and we were still licking our wounds, it wasn’t a particularly unbalanced match. After that? I don’t think anyone really thought it was a fair fight. We had been trying very, very hard to move up to T3 since then as whilst even in a lopsided match there’s some fun to be found, after the novelty wears off, it can get pretty dull for all parties involved. Case and point really has been the number of old faces I’ve seen coming out of the woodwork just since this match started. So many people had gotten so tired of it on our end, that they’d just stopped playing WvW entirely.

I don’t blame anyone for looking at the overall headline score and jumping to the conclusion that it’s terrible and unbalanced. I don’t even blame anyone for seeing a sea of red twice, if not thrice, the size of anything we’ve seen in the last couple of months and overreacting a lil’. I just don’t feel that it’s representative of the world. I’ve seen more people on our TS3 and in WvW full stop in the past day than I’ve seen in a very long time. Heck, I’m even having to get used to there being a small, but regular queue for the home BL again. Yes, a handful folks aren’t happy about the situation, but I think the sheer amount of people that have been out in WvW from us and enjoying every minute speaks for itself – the majority of us are loving this.

Last time we were in a match like this was against DB, where their SEA presence sometimes took us down to 0 ppt. This isn’t that bad.

They’re on SoS, yes.

We were actually closer to the T3 worlds than we were the rest of T4 in terms of rating. Being in T2 is not a surprise to us.

To be honest, I’d be more insulted if you folks went easy on us.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. We’re going to lose. Pretty badly, too. But we’re still going to go out there and fight. I know this might sound rude to those who think that spamming 1 is a tactic, but if you can’t beat your opponent even when you have equal or greater numbers, analyse why you didn’t beat them and learn from it. Learn and adapt so you’re playing, strategising and communicating better until you can beat your opponent. I know for a lot of SoS this is more a question of shaking off the rust and dropping those charming, sloppy tactics we’ve all picked up. However, by and large, if you’re losing against similar numbers, it’s generally not because of anything to do with them. It’s because you can be better as a player and a member or commander of your team.

I don’t speak for everyone on SoS, but not only have we seen the most people coming out for reset tonight that we have in a long, long time, but the resounding consensus on TS3 was that we’re very happy with the match we’ve been given, even though we’ve been bumped up two tiers.

Yes, we’re going to lose. By a lot. And especially as the week wears on, it’s going to be noticeable that we’re rather outnumbered and outmatched during parts of the day (how will our Oceanics stack up? Will be interesting to find out). But, even if we don’t have the numbers, we’re going to go out there, shake off some rust, try to get back to playing at our best and have some kitten fun.

It’s just bad luck, really. T1 NA is the only tier where worlds haven’t changed and T5 got unlucky with its rolls to bring back the now-T4 EBay. Next week, it’ll probably be completely different with, I don’t know, EBay getting its crack at T2, AR going up against T7 and BP getting someone else. Random is random, so you are going to get familiar match-ups from time to time.

Definitely some nice fights so far. Will be very interesting to see how this pans out over the week.

It depends on what you look for in terms of balance. Some of us can have fun even whilst losing and it’s going to be nice to see the effort we put in recognised in a better-than-expected performance which gives us more rating.

Yes and ratings-wise, both you and Arborstone are kicking kitten.

Well, for what it’s worth, hats off to SBI. You’ve been good opponents and I hope the more NA-centric play of T5 will be more fun for you guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if we did bump into each other again in future, but good luck until then.

Basically your relative ratings gives you a projected number of points you’ll have at the end of the week. If you do better than that, you gain rating. If you do worse than that, you lose rating. Instead of fighting against the other worlds for score, at the moment you’re fighting against whatever score you chalked up the week before.

Accordingly if you want one world to move down in ratings, you have to deny them points specifically, rather than just doing well yourself.

Chris.3290:

Grieve.1432:

Oh, and per usual there should be a fight night tonight, 6pm Server Time, on SBI BL at the usual location.

Yes, make sure you finish up on time so I can get the usual panic call at 7:30pm “CD is attacking Bay”

Last week they started after the push on Bay started. It was seriously painful having to drag myself away from all of those bags.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

There are T4/T5 servers that can queue all maps on reset, even if for only a short time. I highly doubt the T1 servers don’t do that as well.

I’m pretty sure whilst EBay may be able to do it, none of the rest of us can. In my experience, if SoS manages to queue EB and our own borderlands, that’s because it’s a very busy reset night and we’ve not got a single person outside of those two. SBI and CD aren’t that much better off, to be able to queue more than two maps at reset either.

Mayoken.9851:

From last I heard some SoS SEA guilds were coming to DB. Chiips you know anything about this? Btw it’s great to see you old chap!

My erstwhile companion covers this quite succinctly as it is, but SEA guilds? You mean the two PvE ones or the sole PvX one? Or perhaps you’re just referring to a couple of the random 5-man guilds.

I would have thought anyone on DB would remember that our strength is Oceanic, not really SEA. We may be far from shabby in SEA, but that’s due to strong militia and good commanders, not actual guilds. I have to wonder if your information might be just slightly in error. This is, however, besides the hanging question of what use would DB have for more SEA? It’s already undeniably the strongest SEA presence outside of T1 and you wouldn’t have many confident bets if you did match it up against any of the T1 worlds.

Any recruiters from SoS here? Sent them a PM. ^^

I’m quite happy to sit down and chat with anyone who’d like more information about SoS as a world and to meet the community, with a view to a potential move. We have made no secret in the past about our desire to recruit, particularly for NA, with a view to slotting into T3. With the new matchup changes, we’re still keen to move up somewhat in rating to avoid regularly facing hideously mismatched opponents as our Oceanic strength is too much for the worlds even in our current tier (sadly for them and us, we regularly average 500-600+ppt during that time of day).

Outside of the usual things that every world will cite as if they don’t come as standard, I suppose the primary thing we have to offer as a world is our low-pressure, relaxed attitude to WvW. We’re more interested in being in a match which is challenging and fun rather than anything else and we do as well as we do simply through the entire community pitching in and working together.

Can only build golems? Simple, counter golems with golems!

Seriously though, it wouldn’t be so bad if all sides experienced it equally on a map, but it seems like where we can’t build siege, y’all are perfectly able to and I guess it’s probably happening vice versa too.

Chris.3290:

Sniffy, they were in your guild. You can say “Either get out of the tower or get out of the guild.”

I might dislike being quite so blunt, but I would have to echo this sentiment. I don’t feel my guild or any other guild can have any kind of credibility if they don’t feel that pretty fundamental parts of the game’s ToS are worth upholding as part of their own rules. Any member of my guild who took advantage (bearing in mind that there’s a huge difference between the countless numbers of people in WvW who’ve accidentally found themselves inside there thanks to that bug and who’ve merely ran up the stairs and jumped back over the wall and the minority who take the opportunity to attack the defenders and their siege) of that kind of glitch would either cease and desist or cease being a member. It’s genuinely that simple and I feel that anything less is an unacceptably low standard.

Bannok.3152:

Complaining cant change it anyways, This reset will most likely be our last together, if they do indeed change the matchmaking. If the last two nights are any indication there will be a big drop off in any competition like past weeks. Its at the point now I don’t even know a fraction of the people, and when most either stop to get the skill point in Ogres or Dredge, or ask when can we get green’s keep for map completion, you get the feeling things aren’t right. Hopefully the new system prevents stagnation, though I am not sure how it can possibly change. Will see you folks tonight.

If they’re that desperate for map completion, I guess we’ll see what happens with the ratings changes and how certain moving tiers is.

Xsorus.2507:

ko killer.3692:

Looks like Cd isn’t the only one to get a guild transfer yesterday. ORL from BP has began the process of transferring members to SoS just last night, although we don’t have the 300+ that KWBH has, we should be looking at 150+ coming in the next few days. We look forward to fighting KWBH and the other servers during NA primetime. Once again thanks to the SoS community for being so welcoming, we also enjoy the 3 servers unique play styles! You all have definitely brought our interest back into WvW as it was getting dreadful in tier 5. Best wishes to all servers involved in this tier gl and have fun!

Wait….You transferred to the Green high population server in a pairing with a 150+ people?

You realize how pathetic that makes you look as a guild right?

The main reason for them moving was that they liked the community that much. They’re aware that we’re quite likely moving up to T3 though, where we sure as heck aren’t going to have an easy time.

Oh, not to mention they’re an NA guild, where we don’t have an easy time as it is.

Edit:
1) If SoS goes up, EBay is also likely to replace SBI in T4 (given the current ratings gaps).

2) Yeah, would be nice to have some fresh faces at fight night tonight.

Would only realistically have worked if it’d been this way from the start.

Bannok.3152:

So you know, we’re not on voice, we don’t have more then 2-3 people in a guild, and we fight quite well considering. Don’t want to give any credit, that’s fine. I would love to see how well you would do every night with no major guilds contributing. No FaTe running on its own or otherwise. Yeah, im saying it. Our pug is better then your pug. SBI is just pugs.

SBI has got some talented individual players and is currently somewhat unlucky in that they’d probably be more at home in T5 in terms of overall population and coverage. However, in all honesty, your pugs (and I’m talking about the actual pugs, not the people from the notable guilds who just happen to be running with a random group) are worse than CD’s. They’re not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but between gearing, effective use of classes and overall skill, on average they could be a lot better.

That big Charr commander of yours on CD (well, at least an hour ago was) has a decent build. Tanky, but still with plenty of dps. A guy/gal after my own heart.

The only huge shame is that by the time KWBH are fully transferred over and have shaken off the T8 rust, we’ll probably already be in T3, seeing as that could be as early as next Friday (will have to see what the details are in the upcoming blog post and in the patch on Tuesday). That said, if that happens and such swings become possible, y’all will have some interesting opponents in the form of Kaineng and EBay to fight (if the scores stand as they are). I think I might’ve preferred to fight Kaineng than Yak’s Bend, but I still think Yak’s Bend and Maguuma will give us a run for our money.

Still though, we’ll enjoy your badges in the meantime as much as you enjoy ours as we… ah… “welcome” you to the tier.

Good. Would be nice to have another quiet thread week except for hopefully some teary goodbyes at the end of the week next week.

In all honesty, we thought the same about yours. That was one huge group y’all were running for a Tuesday night.

It seems like NA primetime is going to be more lucrative for badges in the (probably) last week and a bit we’re in the tier, for now. Shame I don’t feel like pulling a 3 or 4am job every night.

Bannok.3152:

We clearly needed our enemies to get more people, so we can spend 24 hours a day at +45 instead of 20 hours. Should make things between SoS and CD more interesting though.

I don’t know – you folks seem to be doing alright at the moment. Couldn’t tell which one was the world that just had a transfer in, that’s for sure.

Equalise? Uh, that unfortunately strikes me as somewhat economical with the truth. SoS has the lowest core NA population in the tier. Y’all did struggle at first because what NA’s there is actually quite good and now seem to be struggling to motivate people to get into WvW (this is about the only thing I can surmise from the drop-off we’ve been seeing), but in terms of core NA strength in the tier, it’s definitely SBI>CD>SoS. Failing to motivate a population to play is not the same as having a low population.

It also really won’t do much for the Oceanic timezones…

Hitting the oil doesn’t actually pop the swords – it’s just that most people aren’t careful enough to only hit the oil and manage to tag the gate at the same time.

Good. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how good they actually are.

I think the scheduled date that they were planning to formally move was today. I’ve, at least, not seen any of them in WvW as yet (although being predominantly NA, they largely play at different times).

Just to follow up on this, at the moment my tag isn’t working at all, no matter what I do, in certain maps such as Malchor’s Leap, Red Borderlands in WvW, etc. The icon will show up in the status bar, but the tag itself will never appear. In contrast, it almost always (if not always) works on certain other maps, e.g. LA, Blue Borderlands, etc.

If need be, I can run around every map cataloging what does and does not work, if that would be of any assistance. It’d be genuinely nice to see this fixed, as obviously it’s rather frustrating at times.

Honestly, I think we’ll have to see what the details are on this, but I know in the past we’ve had towers/keeps saved by oil and enemies being too lazy to clear it/thinking they were going to go for speed. Heck, even since the 30s swords update, we had one group trying to take our NE tower in our BL, who basically tried to be as quick as they could to take it before we got there… yeah, forgot about the oil. Whoops?

Just wait – oil’s range will be massively buffed with the trait so you can hit their trebs.

BrunoBRS.5178:

DevonCarver.5370:

Ascii.9726:

Question: Will these reward chests for ranks be given for people who already have Ranks? For example will a Rank 60 player receive 60 chests?

There will be a system for rewarding players who have already gained ranks. The way it will work is you will have a backlog of 60 chests, if you were at rank 61, and for each rank you achieve after that you will get 2 chests, instead of 1, until you’ve received all 60 of your backlog. These bonus chests should be available for every player who has gained rank prior to the build.

i have a question, i hope you can answer it for me:

my main character for WvW is still on the process of leveling. would it be better for me to just wait until the character hits 80 to open those chests, or do the chests have no level scaling?

i ask this because the chests you get from the group events scale with the level (so i can only get a lv40 item with a lv40 character, but a lv80 character opening the same chest would get lv80 items), and the WvW drops are also scaled by level (can’t drop heavy loot bags with a low level character). since i’m in the process of getting my legendary (which will inevitably come to a halt once i reach the “buy the precursor” part), “wasting” chests like that seem bad.

Depends on what you get from them. If it were just badges and siege, it’d be fine at any level. From the ecto comment, it sounds like gear is likely to be dropped from them, in which case you will want to wait ‘til you’re 80. Unless it was just going to drop ecto directly (not that many players would necessarily complain at this).

Eh, if they make it too easy to move between tiers, I could see us popping in again for flying visits – will probably see EBay then too.

Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers, as a combination, are probably slightly overpowered in PvE, but I’d say that Necros are perfectly viable. With their rework, even Engies seem sound. Although, as you say, Rangers are still a little bit questionable (though much improved with the pet buffs).

If you wanted trash talking to liven things up, I honestly think you’re in the wrong tier.

Haven’t been experiencing any lag in T4, but I have seen before that specific maps can have issues (a couple of weeks ago, one of the BLs was completely broken and down for an hour or two).

What and have to fight EBay, who have better NA coverage when we’re wanting to move up a tier? What do you think we are? Madmen?

Nah, on a serious note, the only negative thing we feel about this match-up is that it’s kinda very “same ole”. SBI and CD are good opponents, but variety is the spice of life.

If you have evidence of a guild member on SoS hacking, you’re always welcome to contact us directly. Obviously we can’t always do much about it, but a lot of guilds won’t tolerate it and would prefer to know if their member is up to something so they can get rid of them.

Just to pick up on this somewhat, yes there are plenty of sloppy commanders out there. Honestly, T4 has been fun, but it really hasn’t done us any good insofar as being technically good and organised. Why waste the time with advanced tactics when the really simple baits, flanks and charges are doing the job most of the time? Why waste time and money upgrading and defending when you have your opponent on the back foot? This is not to take away from the folks that do spend a lot of their time and money on upgrading, scouting, etc. However, I honestly think this kind of sloppiness will see us getting rolled for the first couple of weeks in T3. If I look at how even some of the current groups going out there performed back in higher tiers, I think they’d roll over their current selves. But, this is not a case of starting from scratch. There are very few bad players, let alone commanders who don’t appreciate that to be performing at 100%, we need to be covering all of our bases and extremely organised in how we do things. For the most part, they’ve all been there, done that, got the t-shirt. It is literally just a question of weaning ourselves off of the bad habits we’ve picked up when we hit a fight that isn’t a mismatch in our favour.

There are some people who do it literally just to trash talk, but unless you get easily-offended, there’s generally little to fear from seeing what they have to say.

Yep. Three and a half hours to go.

What I’m not glad to hear is how few of y’all have popped in for the Beach Blast! Come take five minutes out of your day and meet the neighbours.

I don’t know. If the early scores stay pretty similar throughout the week, T4 might be welcoming Yak’s Bend next week…