Guild Wars 2

Hey Dutch Master,

MAS- Might and Smarts is a 3 year old, 18+, NA, WvW-focused guild on HOD server. We have members doing just about everything in game, and are raising up a static Raid group, but WvW is where we spend most of our time. Read more about us on our recruitment post here: MAS recruitment post

Or visit our website:
MAS website

Or reach out to me directly. Happy to answer your questions. Look forward to talking with you soon.

Welcome to MAS, Plagueis! Glad to have you joining with us!

ummmmm. NO. Until they create some semblance of balance between the servers. As it is, some servers are facing opponents which have 2 linked servers that received a dramatic boost to their populations and are gaining the ‘winning’ pip bonus every 5 minutes, consistently.

I remember the days of OP Dragon Hunters. Here’s a reminder, in case some have forgotten. Beta test day – testing DH Traps. (please overlook bad Chrono play).

Testing Dragon Hunter Traps – Beta

More queues, more queues! Let’s have more queues!!

Omg… no words.

@Isanox, I’m pretty sure that many players complained about the elitist, toxic PvE Raiders as it became apparent that they expect/demand certain classes and builds to succeed in their raids. It’s really not that different in WvW. So, don’t understand the complete disregard of that fact.

This is a problem whose source is the balance team decisions around condis and how they stack/apply, etc. These decisions were made with an eye toward PvE. Plain and simple.

The players, who play – win, die – here, understand what works and what doesn’t cause… been there. done that. Just like Raids. Adjustments to the way things work have been made for Raids. Adjustments to the way things work have been made for sPvP.

WvW players are asking for a separate balancing that understands WvW as a separate game mode with it’s unique needs/requirements. Not that unreasonable.

What is being talked about here, is how the condi meta and a lack of separate balancing between game modes has made THIS game mode LESS fun, not more. I am hoping that in a little time, more of our PvE brethren who have stepped foot into WvW will be discovering the same and joining with us to request that ANet separate their balancing for WvW from PvE just as they have already done for sPvP.

And look, I said all that without putting down PvE. Let’s just stick to the issues without the need to call each other out for possibly understanding one game mode better than others cause we’ve been spending a ton of time in it – whether PvE, sPvP or WvW.

The solution is to embrace the condi meta, and to – like a server we all know but won’t mention here, because this is NOT a matchup thread – push it all to the limit.

With so many of our PvE comrades now here with us in WvW, it is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how much ‘fun’ this new meta is when they face a blob of 50 opponents running mostly condi-spamming classes while they are in – no condi abatement builds – and the ‘fun’ experience of being glued in place watching your health tick away. Wait… nope can’t watch it, it happens so fast!

If power were the meta, much the same would happen to our new WvW friends. But, we’re talking about the need for separate balancing across game modes, and our PvE friends can be some important allies in getting that message to ANet.

Give it some time. Hope that they stay long enough to try to run small teams, rather than tucking into the blob. Hope they try traversing the map by themselves, and that their experience informs them of what we’ve been seeing and saying for awhile now.

Jaina Ashlynn.1043:

Got into EBG a couple nights ago, didn’t recognize any commanders or their guild tags and it was an unorganized mess. Moved over to the enemy bl, recognized the tag and then spent the evening getting into fights with both of the other servers. I never would have thought I’d seen the day of ending up in 3 way fights in Bay, Hills or the enemy garrison outside of reset.

Had similar experience. EB fills with new players with a mix of experience, classes and builds – many of which don’t make sense for those of us WvW regulars. BLs fill with the overflow of organized teams, some running open tags which fill with players who can’t get on other maps with their WvW teams. Tag then ends up with experienced people in the right gear, and confidence grows that you can take on fights. Was an amazingly fun night Wednesday when this happened.

It’s still, at it’s core, a ‘who can mass up the largest group(s)’ experience, and definitely has an EOTM feel to it, especially during NA. The challenge is to give it enough time to see what else ANet and the ‘WvW regulars’ can do with the influx of new players by revising things to reduce the blobbing and encouraging new players to modify builds and classes for WvW.

It’s definitely not at all what I’m wanting to see for the long term, but understandable in these first few days of these changes that have created both interest AND participation in WvW.

Yep. We’re seeing it as well. Hope they upped the Precursor drop rate, too. I’ve been waiting a long, long time for my first.

+1 for use of “Perverse”.

Haven’t seen the outnumbered manipulation described here.

Balthazzarr.1349:

@Pensadora:

People switching servers to lower servers do it to bandwagon for less gems. They aren’t doing anything that resembles “the good of WvW balancing”. They are either moving to hang out with friends.. or switching to “the better server linking” of the day. Except on possibly extremely rare occasions, people are “bandwagoning”… not being helpful.

With all due respect I totally agree with turning off rewards for bandwagoners.

Was not encouraging movement to linked servers for less gems, so I agree with you there.

Guess my guild is the ‘rare exception’, as we moved down looking for less blobby, more reasonable fights and the challenge of NOT being on the #1 server in T1. New patch does mix things up a bit, but NOW, when interest is highest, is when to start encouraging newly entering players & guilds to move around to balance out time zones and fill out servers with needed coverage.

Yep, it’s probably unusual to think we could all try to think more about the BIG picture, so count me the optimist.

Balthazzarr.1349:

The best way to teach new people, in my opinion, is to get some into a small group and run them around in a roaming/havoc fashion and explain what’s happening on the map. If they prefer they can just follow the zerg/blob and pretty much learn nothing.

I believe this may have been the intent of ANet when they implemented this 5 or more squad reward.

Agree 100%. Which is why I also think we should discourage the pip-training blobbing behavior we’re seeing in WvW right now. Give the outnumbered bonus to small teams that are facing or being run down by the blob. Establish a numbers differential that qualifies for ‘outnumbered fight’ like + or – 10 players. This to encourage MORE smaller groups to work together, and make MORE smaller fights possible. This buff can only be given to groups of 5 in a squad/party together. Sorry my dueling, roaming friends.

Remove the 3 week time gate from pip rewards when moving DOWN tiers. Encourage players and guilds to spread out.

Give reward of tickets when movement is BOTH down and into a low-populated timezone. This will encourage thinking about timezone balancing.

Raven.1524:

Spartacus.3192:

get ready to see the Turret Engies AFk farming mobs for pips.

The engi turret GvG? xD
Turrets and wrenches only~

Meet on Desert BL in the jungle, kill the pocket raptors. Lol.

Watch now… someone will do this.

Some ideas to encourage the kind of transfer movement that is needed:

1. Remove the 3 week time gate for earning pips for those players that move DOWN tiers.

2. Retroactively reward those players that have already moved down, say in the last 3 months. Give them 1 week’s worth of tickets for proactively participating in the balancing that WvW needs. This way, players will move off bloated servers, relieving the problems with queues to the benefit of the heavily populated server, and improving the situation for the less populated, lower tiered servers.

3. Reward guilds/players that move DOWN tiers AND fill in needed timezones – to reward thinking about timezone balancing. If a particular timezone is lacking players on that server, and a guild group or player moves there, give them some tickets for doing what is needed to create a better balanced server overall. If movements were based on which timezones were the most needy, that would create an inherent reward for balancing out each server. Relinking messes this all up every 2 months. So… end the relinking… (which is another topic altogether).

4. Increase the pips earned when players are in SMALLER sized squads, say 20-25. The 50+ map blob zerg is killing the play in WvW. Nothing can face a 50+ squad running together other than another 50+ squad and/or a ton of siege. Encourage more reasonably-sized squads where fights can take place. This will encourage more tags to exist and less mindless blobbing. New players can receive more attention in smaller squads. Please……

5. Give the outnumbered increased pip reward to those groups who are taking on outnumbered fights. If the 50-man map blob is pip-training your stuff, and your 20-man tries to take them on, then they earn the out-numbered buff rewards. This is regardless of whether your MAP is outnumbered. This is about breaking the blobs down into reasonable sized squads for MORE fights and less pip-training.

If the blob runs down a 10-man havoc, no points for PPK, and the 10-man group gets rewarded during that tick.

We need to get some balance into the competition, instead of encouraging a constant stacking of unchallenged timezones and blobby pip-trains (sorry for that). They aren’t that much fun to lead and they aren’t that much fun to be in. Encourage more teams to form up on a map. But to do that, we need a solution for the sense that the best format is a map blob that runs down and runs over everything except for a counter-map blob.

Do NOT increase the map populations or overall server populations. This will only encourage more UPWARD bandwagoning.

The queues that the higher tier servers, those with the excess populations, are currently facing are deserved and a logical consequence of the bandwagon effect. Implement rewards for destacking those servers and tiers and encourage movement onto servers where they can actually hope to get their entire guild team into WvW. Encourage them to move into timezones where there will be other players playing at the same time.

Just ignore the whining and complaining about those long queues, and give out a few carrots to encourage moving out and off of those bloated servers.

Locking down pip earning for 3 weeks discourages BOTH movement up AND movement down tiers. It would be more beneficial to reward a movement to fill in less populated host servers, than to discourage the participation of those newly interested players who are creating the queues and who we want to participate and experience World v World with us.

Will k-training in EOTM still give WEXP and help players rank up, or is that going to over once this patch lands?

Adzekul.3104:

A thought occurred to me … since I play both Edge of the Mists and The Mist War … does all of this only apply to The Mist War, or does it apply to Edge of the Mists also?

McKenna answered this in the reddit thread: “Pips can only be earned in The Mist War. So you cannot earn pips in EoTM.”

MAS welcomes new and veteran players to our team and WvW-focused community. Our guild brings experience with structured fight and small havoc teams and a willingness to welcome new and returning players to our group.

Check us out at our website or PM with questions.

Join the fun!

Check us out at: mas4eva.enjin.com

Popping in to remind ANet that our updrafts in guild hall are still turned off. Flip the switch please. People would like to glide in guildhall without needing to land to turn on the updrafts. Just do it!

Pretty sure you can locate a Blackgate guild on their server forums: http://gw2blackgate.com/forum/.

They are still in T1, but server is closed – so hoping you’re on BG already.

Good luck!

@joneirikb.7506 Yep. Interesting proposal. Thanks for sharing that.

@Ann Jay, that’s a great twist. Like it! And, if it’s only for a week – why not?
Could mix things up a bit, with the Committees on Refugee setting boundaries on movements.

expandas.7051:

I’m having difficulty taking this thread seriously with terms like Visas and Refugees flying about..

Fair enough. I tend to look for other real life parallels for solutions to challenges, because they can oftentimes point to a solution. The way the world community addresses untenable situations created by civil wars, and the resulting fleeing of conflict to shelter in bordering countries, had me thinking about these incredibly unbalanced matchups in a similar way.

Also, why is this in Q&A format?

The post is in question format because I’m asking for thoughts about this proposal. And ends with a question: “Thoughts?” Because I am asking those reading these forums to engage in a discussion of this problem and suggested alternative(s).

That said, I think your proposal would have a detrimental effect by validating server stacking instead of taking steps to prevent it in the first place.

If I could have my preference, these kinds of matchups would never occur. However, we do know that they have occurred prior to this example matchup and they are likely to reoccur again. I’m suggesting the implementation of a fallback option that would give players some different alternatives than these:

• don’t play for the week, or play less
• be a bag farm for the dominant server while being told to ‘getgudder’
• try to overcome the situation – please refer to the image attached.

And, we have yet to see what the implications will be to improved ‘rewards for Skirmishes’ when they become available.

If an unreasonably balanced matchup, like this one, occurs again, why would we accept as reasonable that the players on 2 servers should be forced out of play in WvW, and the players on the dominant server be so bored with their competition that they resort to using open field siege, trebs, and dragon banners- all very demeaning to their skill level. In fact, why let their skills lie dormant for an entire week?

Why not provide an alternative to all the players to have some form of fun, WvW play that has a semblance of reasonableness for that week? This is what my proposal is suggesting – an alternative which may also help some other servers in a future unfortunate matchup, which has a higher chance of recurring than that of prevention of server stacking.

Swagger.1459:

If players fight for different servers they are not helping their own server right?

key words from you… “other servers would benefit”… not the players home servers.

WvW would not be healthy with a “free for all” server guesting design.

Yep. It was a long post. I’ll give you that. But at the top, a mere three bullet points down, I note the fact that these matchups result in players NOT playing AT ALL, much less for their home server. So, if the refugee is able to visit another zone for some WvW play, at least they are playing, and playing WvW.

To make it really easy, I added some pictures as well. Please refer to image #3, which shows clearly how much the players are playing for their home servers in this matchup.

Not sure where the idea came from that I was suggesting a “free for all” server guesting design, but then I wasn’t able to provide pictures for every point, so at some point it is required to actually read the proposal.

@ Swagger.1459 – Actually, I would just like population balance and non-trollable matchmaking, but yea… probably seriously flawed from that aspect!

As for hurting other servers, how is this so? During the initiated refugee program, other servers would benefit by an influx of refugees, and they would not be able to overstay their visas.

There is an alternate forum for posts like these @jamesdolla. This thread is for discussion of possible solutions to situations like the one discussed.

Please don’t railroad this thread when an outlet for that type of post already exists. Thanks!

(Disclaimer: This is NOT a matchup thread. This is an idea thread that is using an example of a current matchup to suggest ideas and solutions.)

The Problem:

• The attached image shows a recent matchup that is easily described with a list of negative terms: ridiculous, laughable, insane. None of the descriptors, however, really tells the story of what it is like to be one of the other two servers, and not the RED team, in this matchup. These improper matchups drive away the players of the other two servers and make for a boring matchup for the red team.

• The graph – image #1 – clearly shows that the conditions depicted in image #3 not only could have, but actually did exist for the ENTIRE week.

• The implications for the players on the two other servers is severe, resulting in what amounts to a DoS for them. The majority of the WvW population of these servers goes somewhere else – if not temporarily, then permanently, with the potential that we lose more players from WvW and/or GW2. This is NOT a good thing for anyone who enjoys and supports this gamemode.

• Since we cannot control, evidently, when these type of matchups occur, or the behavior and choices of the players on the dominating server, we can implement solutions which address and provide temporarily relief for them. Hence, the:

Refugee Resettlement Initiative:

In any matchup where an extreme imbalance occurs as a result of matchmaking, the Refugee Resettlement Initiative would be activated. When scores between the top scoring server and the 2nd server exceed [XX] points, the Initiative would trigger.

• The Initiative would provide a temporary resettlement visa (server transfer) to any and all members of the unbalanced matchup to other servers with room for them.

• The Office of WvW Resettlement (ANet) would provide visas for each server, which are limited in number according to the current population caps for each server.

• Refugee resettlement would be temporary – lasting until the next reset.

• Refugee resettlement would be optional – allowing the players to either remain in their war-torn matchup, or flee the devastation to another server for the week.

• ALL players of all three servers will have the option of accepting temporary resettlement, as this kind of unbalanced matchup is not that much fun for anyone.

• The office of WvW Refugee Resettlement (ANet) will provide these visas free of charge because they accept responsibility for having permitted such a devastating war to occur in the first place. They will understand that compassion and a sense of responsibility for the innocent victims of such a matchup makes the implementation of the Refugee Resettlement Initiative the right thing to do. (some sarcasm, but not entirely.)

Pro

• Players who desire to continue playing WvW will have an option – other than NOT playing at all, playing less, or leaving the game – to continue to play on another server for the week. Refugees could at least flee WITHIN the boundaries of WvW rather than leaving it.

• Players who accept temporary resettlement will have the benefit of experiencing WvW play in a new ‘country’ with new friends, and in a different tier from their current matchup, with the goal being that they find a place to be able to continue to play for the week.

• Depending on the design and implementation of scoring and Skirmish rewards, the temporary resettlement may make rewards accessible to players of this matchup, which otherwise may have been unachievable.

Con:

• Entire guilds may not be able to resettle onto the same server. However, given that members of these guilds may otherwise be sitting out the week, this seems a small drawback. And, given that this is an optional resettlement, guilds who are concerned can choose not to resettle.

• The implications toward the next week’s matchup will have to be addressed. This is the case, regardless, as this matchup screams that there are underlying challenges that have to be addressed.

Thoughts?

Yes!!! Anything that encourages guilds and smaller sized teams. Pleeeeeeze ANet! Enough with winning by steamroll.

Guilds create opportunity to learn, to connect with other players, make friends, and provide a place of belonging. They are the glue that keeps players coming back to this game mode. We are hanging on in WvW primarily because of the guild communities we’ve all worked hard to create and maintain, and the friendships we’ve formed around them while playing WvW.

Shining One.1635:

There will be copious amounts of supply trolling. My 40-man zerg needs to resupply, let’s go to our ally’s garrison and take 25 supply each.

Agreed. I see that as a potential drawback as well. But, does it have as large an impact as the underlying match up imbalance has? Is it a worse problem than the core issue I’m trying to address?

I would argue that it could actually be a result of the mandated alliance that both servers are capable of holding real estate and acquiring stores of supply. So is it so terrible in comparison with the alternative?

What are some workarounds?

Sarika.3756:

… If both servers are allowed, all owned properties would need to be equal access.

Should it return to being a three way, give each allied server their third “home” keeps and towers back (assuming they are owned by the alliance) and rng assign the others equally by point value and tier level.

Yep. The two allied servers would need to share everything – structures, points, VP’s so that, for the duration of the alliance, there is no advantage to either partner over the other.

This thinking is motivated by a couple of the current NA matchups, which we are NOT discussing here because this is NOT a matchup thread, but a proposal to address imbalanced/runaway matchups.

Problem statement:

When misalignment of servers occurs through the WvW matchmaking ‘system’, the resulting matchup becomes quickly imbalanced and no fun for anyone. The dominant server may choose to demoralize the other servers by running up points, and by occupation of key territory (as in total occupation of EBG), or a home BL keep, or may naturally run larger zergs which are unanswerable by the other servers in the matchup. This is tons of fun at first for those winning, but becomes boring when the occupied servers’ players decide to opt out of WvW for the rest of the week.

This is, however, often the outcome when the WvW matchmaking ‘system’ gets it terribly wrong – both sides have an awful week in WvW, or go do something else instead of playing there, so that by the end of the week, WvW is seeing very low activity.

This proposal seeks to address the situation in this way:

Once the difference between the top scoring server and 2nd place server is greater than XX score or XX Victory Points (or some number that spells ‘runaway matchup’), the other two servers are allied together. This takes effect at the beginning of the next skirmish period and persists until the score differential drops to within XX range of the top server.

During this ‘mandated alliance’, neither of the allied servers can kill each other, or capture anything belonging to the other. Their only opposition is the dominant top server.

Something like this could occur on a skirmish basis, so that when timezone imbalances create runaway timezones, the mandated alliance skirmish is proc’d for the next skirmish period.

Possible benefits:

• thwarts runaway matchups by aligning the two servers to consolidate manpower and is done automatically, rather than needing to wait an entire week for the hope of a better matchup.

• discourage servers from doing demoralizing point runups, or benefiting from a misalignment caused by the matchmaking ‘system’ for WvW. If it is argued that ‘skill’ is the gap creator, then this provides an answer to the skill gap by providing allied forces to better stand up to the supposed ‘better skilled’ server.

• allows for strategic choices – the dominant server may choose to avoid, or to act to initiate the mandated alliance skirmish, depending on their desire – to face a more difficult situation to test themselves and their skill, or to avoid losing the skirmish period, or a potential lowering of KDR. The dominant server could then be facing zergs of comparable size, as the two servers become one alliance in the field, and capable of joining squad together, or have the ability to spread out, creating a challenge for the dominant server to maintain one force in one place and not lose claimed territory.

• forces the focus onto the top server, rather than in capping the other, possibly ‘weaker’ populated server for PPT/VP during their low coverage times. Backcappers would not be able to undermine the alliance’s focus, as the only objectives to take will belong to the top scoring/dominant server.

• creates a reason to continue to play during an improperly balanced match-up – both for the winning server, which will continue to have opponents and stronger opposition, and for the losing servers which will have hope of the ability to compete against the dominant server.

The mandated alliance continues through each successive skirmish period until the score gap comes within [xx] points.

The mandated alliance varies depending on (if skirmishes are evaluated) the degree of timezone/skirmish imbalance, or the overall matchup imbalance.

Victory points from the alliance skirmish would be shared equally between the two allies based on their combined skirmish placements. Allocate each 50% of the total victory points earned by the two servers. In a 5-4-3 point system, if the alliance wins that skirmish, each would receive 4.5 VPs, [(5+4)/2] with the other receiving 3 VPs. If the alliance loses, each would receive 3.5 points, with the other receiving 5.

Cons:

• the obvious – getting this setup and working.

• in some imbalanced matchups, even with the allying of the two losing servers, the allied population during certain timezones may not be able to succeed in reducing the gap between them and the lead server.

• two servers could intentionally tank their score to proc the mandated alliance against a targeted server. This would take a lot of coordination to create enough of a point gap, through inactivity, that an alliance skirmish is proc’d.

Thoughts?

2017 and hoping that with the next expansion will come permanent updrafts in guild hall.

Or… just turn them on now?

it seems reasonable to expect that a FULL server should no longer be linked, much less have two links, as in the current case with one of the NA servers (whose name will not be mentioned as this is NOT a matchup thread).

Has ANET any intention of – on a current basis – reassigning links when a server has enough population to be locked down as FULL?

Or is it the plan to leave this out-of-balance situation to continue for the two month linking period?

I ask because one of the stated purposes behind the linking system was to create a ‘competitive’ matchup, and clearly a FULL server with two links is not in keeping with this design purpose, as can be seen by recent history (by the NA server that will not be mentioned because this is NOT a matchup thread.)

MAS guild is glad we made the move here from T1. Have enjoyed our first month on Henge of Denravi server and recommend it to others!

Not a dc being talked about here. It is an active player not playing actively – AFK, standing at spawn. Or, one that yells at whole team and then goes and stands at spawn. Done to punish the whole team they believe are deserving of this one player’s punishment. And ANet, by the way they have this designed is culpable.

As for DC, had a player out for 2 minutes and returned to game with an apology rather than just staying Dc’d and saving the rest of us a loss of points. Nope – selfishly protected himself from dishonor but cost the 4 of us our points.

^^ This !! [required minimum characters met]

So, while they AFK at spawn, we lose and I’ve had my time wasted and my progress – slow as it may be – affected. Reported the player, but what is the repercussion for that player? And, if it’s already spelled out somewhere, could someone link that for me?

Cause, if someone impedes my ability to watch a movie, they get thrown out of the theater. If someone’s obnoxious at a concert, they’re escorted out. But, in pvp we have to put up with them being AFK AND we get to be penalized, too. Really, ANet?

+1 Flax fibers in recipes are overdone. 1 subcomponent 12 Fibers. 2nd subcomponent another 12 Fibers. Someone wasn’t paying attention when they designed the recipes.

Have not ever seen this kind of mistake in other crafting recipes. Maybe they were rushing to get things done for the expansion and QA didn’t get a chance to look this over. But a year later and still not fixed?

Check us out – mas4eva.enjin.com!

a pithy bump – Join the fun!

Sent you a PM with the information you are looking for. Check us out on our website, as well, or reach out with more questions. Happy to help.

Thanks, Ultrad!!

Member recommended!! Join the fun!

BREAKING NEWS:

Plans for the First Ever MAS Annual Air Race of 2016 may once again need to be suspended as a hoped for fix to the updrafts in the GLIDING guild hall (Lost Precipice) has yet to be announced by ANet. Stay tuned, as this event will likely need to be rescheduled into 2017. This will be the second cancellation of this much anticipated event, following the cancellation of the First Ever MAS Annual Air Race of 2015.

Fans will once again have to be satisfied with merely imagining how amazing and fun the Lost Precipice guild hall would be with constantly ON air updrafts.

Stay tuned for further updates.

We would like to get our plans for the MAS Annual Air Race and Jumping Puzzle Challenge off the ground. Please turn our updrafts on permanently. Impossible to have an Air Race when there is no air. Thanking you in advance!!

Thank you, ANet.

We are excited to welcome in new players and guilds to Blackgate. We’ll treat them well and hope they continue to enjoy playing WvW with us.

Welcome to all the newly transferred Blackgate server members!

Please connect with us on our server forums:
http://gw2blackgate.com/forum/

Blackgate has closed again… but, if you’ve made it onto the server, look us up. Join the fun!

And… back closed again!

Looking forward to welcoming all who made the decision to join with us!

And thank you all for keeping Blackgate in the spotlight and reducing our advertising costs.

Read more about this awesome WvW community here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor/Is-now-your-time-for-Blackgate-WvW/first#post6393968

or visit our server website here:

http://gw2blackgate.com/forum/

Looking forward to welcoming all that made it in and those that have returned to us from faraway lands!

Recruiting new and veteran competitive players to join our WvW-focused teams. Join the fun!