Guild Wars 2

Jong.5937:

I’m confused because I thought that was exactly what happened now. Not directly using populations, I realise, but a lower tier server gets more points if it does well. It is precisely why it is possible to lose and still gain points or win and lose them.

That is true, but it normally isn’t proportional to the population difference. In some tiers (such as the lowest or the highest), there has to be several big blow outs in a row for anyone to be able to actually move up a tier. They might be able to bounce around theirs for a while, but for the most part, once you’re in a tier, the rating difference between them gets large that hopping between them is hard. So the rank 6 team might not ever face the rank 7 unless there are massive blow outs in rank 7’s tier.

pixieish.9627:

Spoken like a true mesmer that doesn’t want to lose their easy kills.

Just so you know, doing the pulls gives mesmer no tags So if you die upon impact, the mesmer gets nothing. And my guess is there are other people on the bottom with the mesmer. But, as stated before, there is a way around it and not die.

Jong.5937:

Well I understand why you would feel like that, but (on average) I’d still say that it IS easier for a higher tier to cap than a lower tier, so the reward should reflect that.

Note: I am only talking a handicap relative to your opponents, not some kind of absolute scaling, so if you are playing teams close in rating the rewards will not be that different.

I agree with that ,but remember, you’re still facing an opponent in your tier. If a T1 server was facing a T3 server, then it would be much easier. However, if you included a weighting factor in the glicko score, instead of the real-time rewards, then the server would raise/lower accordingly, without affecting the single player. But I do understand that idea I just think if you did real-time stuff, you’d have to only look at local populations (i.e. how many are defending the tower vs. how many are attacking it). But, that just my opinion, though I have fought in Tiers 1→4 (so I haven’t just been in high tiers hehe)

thiagoperne.7340:

Snowreap.5174:

thiagoperne.7340:

As much I hope this new system work out ok, I can’t see it happening. Unless they lower the spread matchups random math, even the chances are low, tier 1 servers can fight against tier 3 servers wich I don’t even need to say how bad that would be.

Why not a very basic ranking system(NO RATING)? Like this:

• FINISH MATCHUP 1ST PLACE = MOVE UP A TIER
• FINISH MATCHUP 2ND PLACE = REMAIN ON TIER
• FINISH MATCHUP 3RD PLACE = MOVE DOWN A TIER

This way a server will never ever face the same matchup in a row plus they will always be fighting against a server that you can compete as well as you are close each other(like an imaginary rating).

what you’ve described is usually called WULD (Winner Up Loser Down), and it turns out that WULD has even worse volatility.

WULD essentially guarantees that a T1 server will fight a T3 server every other week. Likewise, it will put a T2 server against a T4 server every other week, and so on.

To understand why, imagine three closely-matched servers in Tier 2. The winner will move up to tier 1, and the loser will go down to tier 3. meanwhile, the loser from tier 1 will come down to tier 2, and the winner from tier 3 will go up to tier 2.

The match will be a blowout. the T1 server will easily beat the T3 server (and probably the T2 as well), and the next week they’ll go back up and the T3 server will go back down, resulting in essentially the same matchups you started with. then a week later, the blowout will be repeated.

-ken

Here’s the difference:

• WULD System = Only Tier 1 RED vs Tier 3 GREEN = Rank 3 vs Rank 7 = So after the new matchup begins as rank 3 went down and rank 7 went up = Rank 4 vs Rank 6
• New System = Random Matchups = Possibility of Rank 1 vs Rank 9 or Rank 10 vs Rank 18 etc..

My thread (go check it out if you want), shows that with the new system, if they make the random number range larger, then you won’t get (at least on a very very rare basis) a rank 1 vs a rank 9. If they lower the random number range to like -0.5 to 0.5, then the most likely server ranking difference is 2 with a probability of ~50%. Then a spread of within the next tier above/below is ~50%. So, there is only a very rare chance to get a match with servers 2 tiers away. So with this slight chance, the matches aren’t as stagnant, but you’re much less likely to get total blow outs.

So, if you die in the loading screen and they fix that, then what? You die the moment you step out of invuln. So, people come on and demand that the invuln region isn’t large enough, or that people shouldn’t be allowed to kill you in the JP, etc. It’s really the SAME thread, with a slightly different twist. People will always complain about the JP’s in WvW, I’d actually be fairly happy if they just rid of it.

Jong.5937:

Another idea, that, I don’t know, might help a bit with server balancing.

How about handicap wXP for forts (not individual players) based on server rating. So players on a lowly server get more wXP for capping a high tiered server’s tower/keep/castle.

Seems to reflect the real-life reward due and might encourage some to move from high to lower tiers.

Well, for some people, such as myself, who have been in TC since the beginning, would see this as kind of a slap to the face. We’ve worked very hard, with many of us sticking around from the beginning, to get to where we are. So then to be told that we now have to do, for instance, double the work to get the same amount of reward that someone in a lower tier does. For instance, TC used to be in T4, and many of us worked long nights to get up to T3, then to T2. Yes, we got some transfers, but doing real time “handicaps” for rewards on high population server is only punishing people who have worked hard (not that those in Lower tier servers don’t, they most certainly do! We’ve seen it when they come up!). I think the better way to do it would be to NOT do real time handicaps, with things like lowering WXP or points. Instead, have a weight value in the glicko scores that puts into account the population difference, even something like was mentioned above with the inverse relationship. This would still give people the same rewards when playing, but allow the servers to move up more when they win, or do at least get rewarded for doing better!

I don’t mean to say this..but..if you get pulled off multiple times, and you running back so much and so often makes you broke..you kind of deserved it, didn’t you? If you keep getting camped, don’t go there. It’s unnecessary to play, and it IS a pvp zone. You don’t need to go to the JP, it’s merely a convenience to get siege and badges without engaging in WvW. So, if you keep dying, leave and go back later….if you die so much you break your armor from them camping you, it’s 100% your fault.

Denaria, then what is to stop servers from having blackouts to falsely lower their population? While I think it would be amazing if the score put into population, how do you make sure it doesn’t punish the players of big servers who have been there from the beginning? It also is much too drastic of a change, especially because if, in your example, server A takes a keep with 20 people, and server B takes it with 20 people, server B gets punished for it. Both servers did the same amount of work, but they got totally different levels of rewards, which really isn’t fair to the individual players. If two servers do the same amount of work, they shouldn’t be rewarded on totally different levels.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

If a lower tiered server does better than Glicko expects it to do against a vastly higher tiered server, that lower tiered server’s score should increase at a better pace than it would if that same server were facing a lesser opponent.

Not sure if that made sense, but basically it gives servers a chance to prove their worth against higher tiered servers. Even if they lose, if they do not lose by as big of a margin as Glicko expects them to they should gain points.

The question is then too: by how much does the higher tier server have to dominate such that they don’t LOSE a lot of rating? This is a big issue. If a T1 server is matched against a T3 server, and they don’t win “by enough” (most likely because the players get so bored they stop…or theres nothing left to cap!), then the T1 server actually gets PUNISHED for playing WELL against a server that was RANDOMLY matched against them. So you see the issue? Servers getting punished, for playing well, because they got a bad draw. Is that fair? is it fair for a server to play perfectly well, but get punished in ratings because they randomly got a server they would have had to 100% dominate for the entire week (which would frankly be very VERY boring to play)? This is the biggest issue with glicko in this situation. It can reward a server for losing, but not by “as much” as glicko thought, and it can definitely punish a server for winning, but not winning “by enough”, whatever those may actually mean.

If you look in the past match up threads (especially in the lowest tier, and the highest), you see servers actually LOSE A RANK. Not because they lost a match, but because they won, but didn’t win by enough. You should never LOSE a rank, by winning.

Snowreap.5174:

another option to prevent too much volatility due to randomness (but still allow it occasionally, just to keep things interesting) is to use a flattened bell curve distribution for random numbers, rather than a linear distribution.

with a linear distribution, you are just as likely to get a +0.9 as you are a 0 or a -0.9. with a flattened bell curve numbers near zero will be more likely than numbers far from zero, but the outliers will still happen from time to time.

I think a flattened bell curve is needed rather than a regular one because otherwise the outliers won’t happen nearly often enough to have a noticeable impact.

a computationally easy way to do something similar (but mathematically less accurate) is to simply take two linear random numbers between -0.5 and +0.5 and add them together. statistically, numbers near 0 will be more common than numbers farther away (similar to how 1-6 are all equally likely on a single die, but with 2 dice 7 is very common while 2 and 12 are rare).

-ken

The bell curve drawing is basically done in the mean method shown above. Since means, calculated from ANY probability distribution, will, with large enough numbers, go to a gaussian distribution. I used a small number of draws to let it start to go to a gaussian, but still maintain a decent amount of scatter, just very limited. It’d be much more like a poisson distribution than anything else. But, you’re right, using purely a constant distribution, with such a large potential for the deviation, will make the match ups far too random and too scattered. They might say “it will” even out, but as my simulations show, for the first match up, and probably the first several, the potential match ups are going to be have too high of a probability of several blow out matchs. Not because of a lack of skill, but a lack of numbers.

I think one way to implement this and the glicko ratings is for the first month or so make the match ups only like 3 days. This is really short, and not ideal, but then at least if a server is getting blown out, they won’t have to sit there for a week and deal with it. It will also give them plenty of data to stabilize the rankings, which apparently should just magically happen.

I really do wish that anet would give the players USEFUL data. If you expect them to stabilize, please show us. You gave us that wonderful table of data in your press release, then go on to tell people “It’s useless, don’t look at it, it means nothing”. Then why show it?! Show us what you, the programmers, are expecting. That will give us faith in the system. Not telling us “what we showed you won’t happen, it’s worthless, don’t look too much into it. Here is how it will work does jedi mind trick”

Az z.2746:

Handin.4032:

kitten .2746:

JonPeters, the problem is not the matchmaking, but the score system itself. Fix the scoring system so that the server with most coverage doesn’t automatically win.

I have a feeling what they’re hoping for is that if say, a rank 1 server faces a rank 4, and the rank 4 server does well, they’ll get a decent boost, much more than they would get facing the rank 5 and 6 servers in their own tier. However, I am worried this could also punish the rank 1 server more if they don’t win “by enough”, and not give the rank 4 server enough gains. If they still lose by a lot, they might lose rank, instead of gaining it. Meanwhile, if the rank 5 server faces a rank 7 or 8 and dominates them, they could move up.

When a server is demoralized they don’t even show for the matchup anymore, this happened countless times already.

Yup! I totally understand that that’s why I think their system parameters need to be tweaked a little to allow for less spread on a match by match basis, at least initially.

People keep saying its 3rd party software, but its really an AMD graphics card download that allows you to use several things using multiple screens instead of just one. Claiming that using this would be like saying downloading a better graphics driver is an exploit, or using a mouse with 1 extra button is an exploit, since other people don’t have it. Eyefinity isn’t an exploit. What would be would be software designed explicitly for GW2 which “exploits” something in the program to allow them to see more. Adding an extra screen and using it isn’t an exploit..no more than buying a better graphics card and processor is an exploit. It’s just an upgrade to the computer. Ive known some people in other games who do this to “immerse” themselves more in the game. I don’t use it myself, though I dual screen..I dual screen so I can look up guides or read the forums while playing on my other screen.

Az z.2746:

JonPeters, the problem is not the matchmaking, but the score system itself. Fix the scoring system so that the server with most coverage doesn’t automatically win.

I have a feeling what they’re hoping for is that if say, a rank 1 server faces a rank 4, and the rank 4 server does well, they’ll get a decent boost, much more than they would get facing the rank 5 and 6 servers in their own tier. However, I am worried this could also punish the rank 1 server more if they don’t win “by enough”, and not give the rank 4 server enough gains. If they still lose by a lot, they might lose rank, instead of gaining it. Meanwhile, if the rank 5 server faces a rank 7 or 8 and dominates them, they could move up.

JonPeters.5630:

Yes, we expect the new match ups to help stabilize the ratings/deviation.

To help people understand better, would it be possible for you guys to put somewhere what your simulations/programs are showing should be the expected ratings after they stabilize? Since you said yourself that if you base if off the current ratings, the predictions don’t mean much, but that is all you have showed us: the possible match ups with the current ratings. And, if they stabilize, about after how many matches are you guys expecting? Since they run for a week, even if they stabilize after 5 or 6 matches, thats over a month for us to play in.

JonPeters.5630:

Glicko will still be used to calculate ratings, we will simply properly be using deviation to match people up because glicko matchup was not accounting for the the fact that all matches were simultaneously created, and simply matching the same teams every single time.

Thank you for your speedy replies for clarification!

JonPeters.5630:

Yes, we expect the new match ups to help stabilize the ratings/deviation.

Can you give some clarification on how the final ratings will be calculated after each of these matches? Will they be the matchmaker ratings, or using the glicko ratings for those match ups?

JonPeters.5630:

This is excellent and would be true if our rating currently had significant meaning. Once this new randomization is in place for a while we expect both ratings and deviation will stabilize a bit more. If at that point our simulation is still generating bad match-ups we can absolutely look at lowering the range.

Thanks for commenting! I only worked on what data was given. When you say they have no meaning, is this because you are resetting the ratings, or because the dev’s are expecting that the match ups will “scramble” the rankings a bit and let them be more stable? It is also unclear how the FINAL ratings, after these random match ups, will be calculated.

I also want to note that the simulations aren’t doing 5 million match ups, one after another assuming a winner or something. Just that given the current ratings and deviations, what the statistically possible match ups could be, and what their probabilities are. I could put in any initial ratings and deviations for the server and produce the statistical probabilities of potential match ups!

Hey all, instead of people debating what the matches will look like, I posted the promised statistics of the new system: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Statistics-of-the-new-ranking-system

Go, read it (or at least look at the pictures). From doing that, it seems like the system could work out decently if they tweaked their parameters a bit. If they improve the system as I noted, it shouldn’t be nearly as doom-and-gloomy as people think (and what I thought initially!). I think the random example they used was just pretty horrible and they weren’t thinking..it isn’t smart to show how good a random system is with one fairly bad random outcome. It’d be like trying to show how good playing craps is, then showing them a losing roll. LOL.

I’ll try and do some computer simulations to see how far you can actually spread and how often it happens in the next day or so, so stay tuned

It would be a good system if the random roll wasn’t between -1 and 1. So a much lower ranked server that gets a +0.9 might face a server with high rank that got a -0.9. This would result in a really unbalanced match.

I think this system will cause even more “stagnant” matches, since it gives a good chance for a high rank server to fight a low rank. The difference in population might very well lead to the lower rank server just giving up…not much fun for the top one. While the current matches get stagnant facing the same people, theres still lots of fighting in the higher teirs. IF this is to please the lower rank servers, I don’t think they’d have more fun facing a server which totally dominates them from the population difference and they sit at +60 the entire week…

So, I’m interested to see how this plays out..but they definitely should limit the effect of RNG on a full week of WvW. RnG for matches should not cause a whole server of people to get dominated. EVER. We already have to deal with RnG so much in our GW2 lives.

So I tried using iPersona, and it definitely was much better! The combination of AOE blind and distortion gives an extra ~5-10 seconds of survivability even in the middle of a large ZvZ

tigirius, you’ll get T6 mats if you kill stuff in the high level areas. They may not be the ones you want (i.e. bloods, lodestones, etc), but you’ll definitely get T6 mats. So if you haven’t received any T6 mats since January, I’d look at where you are killing stuff. Even in WvW, where our loot is a bit more funky..I pull 5-10 T6 mats a night from it at least.

Also, to actually compare the RNG, try killing for more than 25-30 minutes. These things only get to the proper percentages on average, which means you’ll probably have to loot a few hundred things to get an even somewhat accurate comparison, but it is really interesting what you’ve found so far

Also, from what I’ve found, certain professions are better at tagging than other classes. Warriors, rangers, guardians, etc with good and constant AoE’s can get MORE loot (and thus potentially better) than, say, mesmers, which only have a few non-condition based AoEs that are on longer CDs.

I don’t get how people have such a big problem with “cost of living”…I only grind when I really want something that’s really expensive which is purely cosmetic and unneccessary (like when I collected all the dyes, bought a bunch of mini’s, etc…). Besides that, with WP’s and repairs and what not, I might spend at most 10s in 5 hours of play…As long as you’re not just WP’ing around 24/7 and not killing anything, you should never have a problem with “cost of living”.

If you’re talking about getting new armor sets, then you don’t need to really grind for that. Just from running around doing WvW, I get a gold or more a day by selling the loot, and full exotic gear (if you don’t care about skins) only runs like 10-15g. But you shouldn’t be able to just say “hey, I’m tired with this exotic set, I want a new one” and BAM a new one is just easily accessible. Exotic armor/weapons/etc are determined by the economy..but unless you want things that are over 100g, you shouldn’t even need to “farm” or “grind” for anything. I’ve done “farming” streaks for 3 situations: 1) when I got my commander tome, 2) When I spent 50g finishing my dye collect, 3) When I grinded the mats for Anomaly and The Eye of Rodgort. Each of those things was entirely not needed, and mostly for the sake of just having it for looks. (and I had ~25g in donations for the commander tag from my guildmates)

What I’ve found is that the more and more I pay attention to the loot I’m getting, the worse it seems to be. I’m not saying its in your head, but maybe what would help is do what someone suggested: over a week, go to the same place you normally farm, farm it for an hour or so (or the same amount of time), and just keep a log of the items that you get (in terms of quality).

Many people are saying their statistics are bad, but have you actually CHECKED your statistics? Do it, and maybe see how it is, and see if other players can do it to compare

For the people too that keep quoting, RNG, remember, RNG are never actually truely random, just pseudo-random. I’d be interested to hear a comment from a dev about their generators. A good one might start repeating after billions of number “pulls”, but in an MMO, that’s not very much. So, just the curious side of me would like to know how they do the RNG. Do different aspects of the game get different generators, etc…

I don’t get exotics very often, but I still get them (I’ve never gotten one in WvW though and some of my guildmates in the same length of time have gotten a couple of precursors).

nbikz.2708:

I’d choose Illusionary persona or something instead of Blinding Befuddlement, the latest nerf to that skill defeats the whole synergy of the two traits. (Blind on glamour, confusion on blind) Having 1 stack of confusion every 5 seconds isn’t just worth it.

That’d be interesting! My main reason of having Blinding Befuddlement was mostly because my previous build was a pure glamour build, but also to help make the medic’s feedbacks more powerful. But I’ll definitely check it out!

Malediktus.9250:

Canguro.5768:

if you are correctly geared you can have even more survibality than a lvl 80.

a lvl 35 with lvl 35 MW armor and weapons that go for +vit +thg have more vit and armor than a lvl 80 in exotics with soldier because you also have points going to +pwr.

a lvl 80 can bring more variety of builds, but a low lvl with the right gear/stats can bring some powerfull builds to the table.

So who is correctly geared? Almost noone buys best equipment for their lvl while leveling. I often see lvl 60s in WvW who still use blue armor around lvl 20

Its the minority of the upscaled players who always buy suitable equipment for every slot at their lvl.

OMG! Where did you get this new elite commander skill to inspect the armor of players? I mean, that must be the only way you can claim to see level 60’s in blue level 20 armor! Please, please tell me how you learned such a skill, and where I can get it!

Now, in all seriousness…upleveled players can be just as useful as level 80 players. When I rolled an alt, I went out as a level 5 and stacked my vit gear, and I was upscaled to like 36k health. Saying that upleveled players are worse is just silly, because I have seen plenty of level 80’s who are utterly USELESS. Level != skill, since you could grind level 2 boars if you really wanted to until you were high level. If you’re seriously saying a clueless level 80 is still better than a knowledgeable, skillful lvl 40 (or lower), then you need your brain checked!

drongas.4189:

hey, nice idea but 1 thing u dont know or it just mistake
sigil bloodlust and corruption dont work together

I was probably a mistake. I haven’t found any specific sigils which help more than any others, so you can basically put any in there that you want. If anyone knows of any sigils which could help with this build, please let me know

My issue with the sentinel’s gear is that it takes away some much needed power to get the damage in. Thats why I thought a good balance would be the azurite jewellery, but with the WvW PTV gear. Get the high vit and high power of both.

Accidental quote here, so I’ll just put in some extra info.

You can swap out the Descent into Madness trait for Master of Manip. This gets rid of spurious etheral fields which could cancel water fields, etc, and gives more flexibility to your blinks to get in and out of the fight.

Does the link still not work? When I click on the bitly link it sends me to a filled out build (but this is the first time Ive used that site, so maybe I’m not doing a step)

This is a WvW build I’ve been fiddling around with and running for quite some time. It is 100% pure support for large scale fighting, though it is also very usable in small scale fights. The build focuses a lot on using glamour fields for blinds, confusion and REFLECTS! The Glamourous Medic is made to be a very bulky durable mesmer, with lots of vitality and toughness. As such, the stats focus on PTV so that a mesmer can run into the middle of an enemy zerg and heal a fallen comrade. This build focuses a lot on being able to create feedback bubbles when you revive someone, which coupled with runes of mercy allow you to rez easily in the middle of enemy fire, as well as tagging and damaging all surrounding enemies that try to fire at you. The build is shown here:

http://bit.ly/13iON2n

Who is this build for?
If you’re someone who loves to be in the fight, this build is for you! However, there is very low crits, it focuses on the power stat, as well as powerful reflects to do your damage. It is not made for 1v1, though you can survive easily as a 1v1 since you’re very durable. My mesmer has 26k health unbuffed, so I can normally just bear through most of the damage.

What is this build made for?
Being a combat medic in the middle of large WvW fights. As a mesmer on a T2 server, reviving in the middle of combat and bringing up your downed is crucial and can turn the tide in the fight. With this build, the mesmer can blink into the fight (yes INTO the fight!) and start to revive fallen comrades. The traits allow you to create long lasting feedback bubbles every 8-10 seconds while reviving, making you also deal quite a bit of damage if you’re in the middle of a zerg. With this build, I have revived teammates in the middle of AC and ballista fire and able to get them out of combat (you can even use portal to evacuate!) Your distortion shatter as well can be easily used to get yourself out of combat if you need it, plus the nifty reflections!! This build is all about getting into the fight, bringing up your fallen friends, and getting out safe! A mesmer with this build is FRONT line, not in the back throwing in illusions and phantasms.

The focus #4 can also be used to reflect projectiles. The reason for enabling this trait is so that you can throw down a Temporal Curtain IN BETWEEN your enemy and the person you are reviving to give you a safe screen (and causing MORE reflecting damage!) It is also good if you need to make an escape, or do extra damage. The Focus #5 can be thrown down when zergs stack.

Now, some of you might be asking: why the clone factory? And the answer is: distortion. Dodging will not only prevent you from taking hits (of course!), but give you extra clones for longer distortion reflections. Throwing down feedbacks, mirror heal, focus skills and distortion can give you a long time of security from ranged attacks, and you can always blink away from any melee people!

Why did I make this build?
Well, I ran a confusion/glamour build for a long time, and wanted to do something different, something that got me in the fight! A guildmate wanted to make a rez squad so I spent some time and came up with this. It is, in my opinion, incredibly useful support in the middle of ZvZ fights, or in the middle of taking keeps.

Pros:
- Very bulky (high vit)
- Very tough to kill (high toughness)
- High power
- Support to turn the tide of war!

Cons:
- Very low crit damage and crit change (however, since this is a reflection build, it doesn’t matter so much)

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask/comment!

Cheers! I hope you try out my build and become a very Glamourous Medic!

Spets, yeah I agree that running in a zerg is definitely less fun for me compared to small groups. However, I don’t think it ruins the game..on the other hand, some of the most epic fights I have had were 60v60’s in enemy keeps against other well coordinate large groups. I remember one fight in garrison seemed to last FOREVER, and there was lost of individual contributions (portals for reinforcements, heals, siege being manned, etc) all while fightign inside garrison.

Spets the MilkBandit.9031:

zergs are whats breaking the game… not the siege.

I still have yet to see how zergs are breaking the game. In every large-scale PvP game I’ve played in (not many mind you), there have ALWAYS been ‘zergs’. And what people call ‘zergs’ can be totally different. Is a well coordinate guild group of 50 a zerg? if so, then you’re saying that guild groups are breaking the game, and that grouping as a large guild should be punished. Is a group of 50 coordinate pugs a zerg? If so, then you’re saying communication is breaking the game. Is a group of 50 uncoordinate people a zerg? Well…you should be able to smash them to bits since they’re not coordinating! A well-coordinated 20 man group can take on twice its numbers if their opponents are well coordinated.

Siege adds, if anything, more for small groups to do. A few people on AC’s above a gate can stop a huge group from taking a keep (this was true even BEFORE the update). “Zergs” are nothing more than large groups of people, which is what you will expect in large scale warfare. I don’t understand what people were expecting in WORLD vs WORLD…a bunch of 5-10 man squads running around?

This isn’t antagonistic, but I have yet to see a good clear explaination of this, and what people are defining as a zerg, and how that is killing the game. (Note, I prefer doing small group ninja stuff, but if I get stomped by a 40 man group, then I get stomped, and I come back)

CorliCorso.6254:

I won’t be happy until I can ride on a Dolyak.

I won’t be happy until you can ride players who have tonic’ed as Dolyaks! And carry players who tonic as guild banners and use them for buffs!

Or even better, launch players (especially asurans) with catapults over walls (and they take ‘impact’ damage!)

Sinaya.4201:

I’m deeply shocked and appalled about the general hostility within this part of the community.

I’ll be happy to let this thread die at this point. I got my concern for other players across, got my Staff answer, and opened my eyes a bit about how little I have in common with many fellow WvW players.

Hope to see you on the battlefield.

There has been no hostility, just people showing you the OTHER side of these arguments. Often enough people who do PvE forget that their arguments go both ways. So, don’t try to put all this off as hostility. There’s been no name calling, etc…just showing you how your argument is flawed, and pointing out the flaws and our reasoning.

Sinaya.4201:

Not everyone wants to play in WvW, but not wanting to play there shouldn’t limit one’s access to Map Completion.

This statement right here only proves my point. You’re saying you don’t want to have to do WvW stuff since you don’t want to play WvW. However, there are quite a few WvW’ers who don’t like doing PvE map completion, grinding dungeons endlessly, etc. It really stuns me that PvE’ers come in here and make this argument, then go against their argument by saying that it’s not the same the other way around.

That being said, I agree, if you don’t want to WvW, you shouldn’t have to, so, like it has been said on the forums many times, the devs are working on introducing color rotations. SO, you’ll just have to wait, or go play some WvW.

zano.5387:

Boonprot.6274:

Not quite understanding the purpose of this suggestion.

To prevent that excessive construction of flame rams. We have Griefers with accounts only for this purpose, wasting 3000-5000 supplies daily and ANET is not very interested to do anything!

While it’s a nuisance, making it a cap of like 1-2 rams per 30 minutes will only make grievers more effective. Think, if they time it just right, they can stop a whole map from using ANY rams! The only way for it to be stopped is for anet to get GMs who come in and randomly watch when they get reports and actively watch the player.

They’re already putting in color rotation, which has been said LOADS of times in the past few weeks on these forums about this same whining.

But yes, I agree, the current system hampers world completion, I mean, I have to get the over 95% in PvE zones which interferes with my WvW. And let me tell you..thats a much bigger number than the WvW map completion…

From my experience every tower/keep on the map flips at least once, if not ,just wait and chill until they update it. Until then, just remember this: every time someone comes in whining about a few percentage points for map completion, while dedicated WvW’s have to get the rest of it, an angel loses its wings!

DevonCarver.5370:

To be a little clearer. The fixes to arrow carts will be coming quickly. We are already putting those in and testing them. Those should bring them more in line with what we expect them to be.

But one of the biggest issues, in my eyes, is the fact that you can place AC’s in areas where there is NO way to counter them, because of camera issues, or other issues. For example, you can place an AC on the cliff past the south hills gate, which will do massive AoE on the gate. There is NO way to destroy that, besides maybe finding a few spots to put a treb. But, people shouldn’t have to place 1 treb to take out 1 Arrow cart, that’s just silly. Is ANET going to do anything about making it so that siege that is placed by defenders can be countered? Another example is placing an AC behind a gate (so it cant be reached!), and then using funky camera aspects (like dual screening, etc), to be able to hit people outside. When the AC’s weren’t buffed, it was a minor nuisanced, however, since you now basically have to deal with counter siege, there is more emphasis on putting the AC’s in areas where the enemy has no hope to counter it, besides move away. That is a huge issue.

The biggest issue with the AC update is that AC’s can be placed in areas where they cannot be attacked. For instance, in hills, a defender can put an AC inside the lord room, then shoot OUT of the room around corners, etc to hit people out of the lord room. If AC’s were logical in how they hit and acted (i.e. like arrow carts), and if there were ways to hit them if they can hit you (i.e. sometimes your camera won’t let you hit them, even though they can hit you).

My issue with people saying “just take out the AC’s” is that there are spots where you can place AC’s in keeps such that they can hit people attacking you gates with ease, but they have NO chance to be able to hit you back (i.e. AC’s behind gates firing into the gates can hit the AoE damage through it, etc), or the fact you can bug your camera to see it. So, as long as AC’s aren’t “blocked” by things that would be in the arrow’s actual flight path, there will always be places to put AC’s such that they cant be counter sieged. In that case, there’s nothign you can do except try to go to another gate, or use trebs.

So I feel like with this update there will be more cata’s and trebs being seen to take down walls instead of rams/golems on gates, since there are many places to put Arrow carts where they cannot be hit, or near impossible to hit, with counter siege. (What I’ve never gotten is how can the Arrow cart fire around a corner, from outside a keep, into a hallway o.O)

I think there could be two cool portal changes:

1) Give engi’s their own “portal”, which would be an elite skill that would build an Asuran gate that maybe lets in 10-15 people
2) Remove the cap on portals for people, HOWEVER, make portals become “unstable” after a set amount of people. This instability would become worse, and make it so there is a higher and higher chance of the people being portal somewhere totally random on the map. I think that’d be an interesting, and effective, nerf.

But I don’t think any mesmers would hate engi’s getting their own, as long as kept our own, since some of us use them in PvE, for glamour field blinds, etc.

lLobo.7960:

Before nerf one or two mesmers could take down a zerg…
Now you can take the zerg halfway down and leave the other half for a hammer warrior (boon hate + SoM) to have fun too…

There you go, everyone can help, everyone gets bags… much more fun…

If one mesmer could actually kill an entire zerg…you have an issue. Most of the damage I get from my glamour fields are actually from the feedback reflects. I, as a single mesmer, can only stack high confusion on a single target basis. It is quite funny when I throw a feedback on a stacked zerg, and they stand there shooting while in the feedback!

Now, I agree that confusion needed a slight nerf, and people, they didn’t reduce the TOTAL damage by 50%, they just nerfed the efficiency. 15 stacks of confusion can still deal ~3k per tick. The issue in my mind is that it doesn’t act like all the other conditions when it comes to scaling, damage, duration, etc, and yet they try to balance it against the other conditions.

I will continue run a confusion build, as I have from the very beginning (though Ive been changing confusion build variants every so often). I think the issue I have is that confusion is so much at the core of mesmer, doing a seemingly blind (number-wise) nerf doesn’t seem to be a very smart way to do it. They could have reworked the mechanic so that it is easier to deal with, maybe did less damage, but not an overall blanket nerf. It seems like they just had to think of a number, and 50% sounded good. As such, I think glamour builds aren’t “dead”, just that the only mesmers left using it will the mesmers who took time to be good at their confusion build.

As such, I find it laughable at how much people whine about mesmers over stuff, it gets nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and we rarely get stuff back. Soon enough, when there is a huge influx of shatter mesmers, people will start a massive forum QQ-festival about how mesmers making so many clones is OP. Shatter builds are boring to play, so, I’m staying with my glamour build, or by “glamour rez” build.

Renny.6571:

Handin.4032:

Just so people know, there is a PERFECT counter to glamour fields: retaliation. Retaliation can actually kill a mesmer that uses feedback, since any damage from reflected projectiles that hits people will retaliation will hit the mesmers, hard.

It has nothing to do with the nerf, just letting people here know that retaliation across zergs (boon share!) can wipe out mesmer groups when they throw feedbacks on you!

They’re nerfing retaliation too, fyi.

Oh, I know I’m just saying that people act like there’s no counter to it, but there is.

Just so people know, there is a PERFECT counter to glamour fields: retaliation. Retaliation can actually kill a mesmer that uses feedback, since any damage from reflected projectiles that hits people will retaliation will hit the mesmers, hard.

It has nothing to do with the nerf, just letting people here know that retaliation across zergs (boon share!) can wipe out mesmer groups when they throw feedbacks on you!

I really hate it when people quote seeing confusion hit for 2k+…it is really hard for a mesmer to maintain that many stacks. As such, I think ANet needs to decide to make confusion fully like other conditions, or make it different than a condition and bring in a new mechanic. The issue is it’s in this weird part-confusion, part-unique thing…so of course people won’t like it.

As such, I think it’s a really dumb, blindly done nerf, that they applied without thinking and just picking a number and applying what they thought sounded like a good number.

I would bet that if all the glamour mesmers switched to shatter builds, that people would declare on this forum within a week how OP it is that clones can make so many clones, and have 3 out at once, and declare that mesmers should only have 1 or 2 clones out at a time. LOL.

Thieves can still permastealth in certain towers, so if several thieves hide in those towers, a few thieves can easily take down a tower’s champion and cap it.

As for going in stealth, they can’t do any harm, they can’t hurt anything…most people who I know who do it just do it for fun (such as getting in there and turning into some tonic)

Let me just post a quick counter strategy here, laid out as a situation:
1. Enemy rushes your gate with 5 golems, contests the keep
2. Someone runs to the keep, sees the golem
3. Reinforcements come
4. Epic free loot from the golems

if you are outnumbered, this whole point is moot, since whether it was 5 golems, or 5 rams, or 5 cata’s, it would have the same effect. If you have no scouts, or no sentries, this whole point is moot, since whether it was 5 golems, or 5 rams, or 5 cata’s, it would have the same effect. if you have no communication, this whole point is…well, you see where I’m going. Golem rushes are very easy to counter. It’s not like golems are invisible, or don’t contest keeps. If you don’t want to have sentries, or have scouts, and you don’t want to defend your OWN keep, why should be allowed it keep it? Even with TW’s, there is plenty of time to SEE the golems, and go kill them, even if it is in the lord room, or at inner gates. Most people who do golem rushes with small amount of people learn that a keep isn’t being sentried and take advantage of their opponent’s own neglect and lack of communication. It’s not them being OP, it’s the enemy being neglectful.