Guild Wars 2

This week TC attracted some coveted night-time guilds, and I say good for them. FA will do what it has always done: hang in there, adapt, and keep fighting.

The stronger our opponents are, the stronger we seem to become.

SHAKA ZULU.3128:

Jhawk.1360:

Why are we wizards? :P

Pervin said you were. :< IS SOMEONE LYING so help me FA I will draw tons of ducklings in lieu of your victory picture if there isn’t a consensus and I know how much you disparage unmanly things.

I think you had it right the first time. FA’s culture and fighting spirit has always been like berserker vikings. So give us beards, beer, and blood stains. Oh, and TC’s mom should be drawn in there too because we’ve been hanging out with her lately.

(I’m just teasing you TC, I’ve always liked you and your good-humored ways. BTW, can you ask your mom if she has seen my green shirt, I might need it next week?)

Dear TC. We on FA are fond of keeling your bawdies. So we are happy when there are lots of bawdies to keel. But since yesterday there have just been too many bawdies. Too many TC bawdies! And so much pirate hate! So many seething yarrrrr pirates and man-yaks frothing at the FA! What can men do against such reckless RP hate? We are losing, morale is low, and all our towers smell of mayonnaise and yak pee. We need less bawdies, less TC bawdies to keel please. Thanks in advance.

SPOILER ALERT: the rest of the thread will probably go something like this:

Our server is clearly better than your server. Nuh-uh, WE are the better server and you only have more numbers. Shut up you squishy care-bear jerk. No you shut up. We have cookies to share with everyone, enjoy! I took a kitten on your cookies earlier, enjoy! Good fights tonight everyone! Guys seriously, we are totally being 2v1’d!!!!! Nice job taking Hills from us you bunch of hackers. Hackers? You must be joking, I have never seen people hack and Alt+f4 and emote as much as YOUR butthole server. Great fights tonight guys! Check out this video of us WRECKING your server’s best guild. Dude, we wiped you guys like 4 times and then you made that video later when most of us were logged off. This thread is pathetic, don’t feed the trolls from that server of trolls. Great fights in Bay tonight! Yeah, but only if you think PvDoor is a great fight, which I’m sure your night-capping server does. This 2v1 breaks the game!!! Your ugly face breaks the game.

AND REPEAT.

Taking the idea further, WvW could have a whole new element of cat and mouse strategy if we did not have huge red permanent identifiers above our heads at all.

As it is, huge red text ensure that sneaking and hiding is pretty close to impossible without stealth. Red text become visible long before the enemy himself, and it is even visible through walls. What do you think about everyone having only a small title/id (like an abbreviated server name) that only appears when a player targets or scrolls over an enemy. At all other times enemies will merely have a corporal form, no identification at all. That way individuals and groups could actually sneak and hide. It would change how individuals and zergs move, the tactics they use, and there would be a new element of camouflage.

Maybe i’m missing some drawback to this suggestion, but it seems like a pretty great modification to me.

TC and Kain: “Hey FA, choose a celebrity commander and be silly with us!”

FA: “We have many brave commanders. They help us kill our enemies.”

TC and Kain: “No no, we mean you should choose a pretend celebrity commander to represent your server on the forums. It’ll be fun. Plaaaaaay with us!”

FA: “Oh, I think I understand. This notorious ‘celebrity commander’ strikes fear in the heart of your foes so you can better cut them down!”

TC and Kain: “Uh, no. Its just a silly little thing we do on the forums.”

FA: " . . . . "

azizul.8469:

nah. mesmers (and their skills) are fine. otherwise GW2 will be just another hack-and-slash game without strategy……

Yep.

Also, AoE being limited to 5 enemies is fine. If there were no limit on AoE, on some rare instances I could inflict over 100,000 damage on a zerg with a single ability as an ele, and over 500,000 in under 5 seconds. That would be way OP.

20 person portals are fine, and they add a lot of spice to WvW.

Grumpdogg.6910:

T3. Could rebuild and re-enter T2 in the medium term.

As an FA player, I have spent months in T3, risen into T2, and have now had the chance to see SoS in action. I agree with the majority opinion here that if SoS holds on to its remaining players, it will be a T3 server, maybe T2 in time.

I would encourage all SoS to hang tight, don’t transfer. There is life beyond T1. New tiers mean new play styles, new situations, new enemies, and new strategies. It can get pretty dull spending months playing in the same tier. Your server is going to shuffle around for a while until it settles into a new equilibrium. Think of these coming weeks as an adventure shared by the SoS community.

Lanimal.6541:

Last off-topic post. I swear!

I know exactly what you guys did wrong that match-up and if you guys had a different strategy on reset you would have possibly beaten us that week. There was a sense of delusional arrogance with FA moving up to T2. After the IoJ transfers some of you thought you could compete with BG in skill and coverage.

Your reset plan where you sent some of your ‘better’ guilds to BGBL (they did fairly well) and not to TCBL. The guilds that were assigned defence of FABL were trying to slow BG down at Bay instead of TC at hills or at the least playing it safe and just turtling garrison. It was just not a smart strategy, your reset plan was flawed as you could have maximized your points by spreading the guilds out more evenly or focusing on TC more.

I was proud of how well FA did that week. We ended with a bigger overall point gain than BG or TC. Our final score was just 17k behind TC. http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/39/#history We didn’t get pushed back down to t3 that week, we were displaced by Kain as they vaulted upward from t3.

But you are right that we probably underestimated BG. Call it “delusional arrogance” if you’d like, but speaking for myself, I just hadn’t faced a server like that before and I was really curious about them. We learned a lot from them, and we’re doing better in tier-2 now. Anyway, hope FA and TC meets again soon cause TC is a really fun bunch.

I like it.

New maps are key. We’ve been stuck with two maps (EB and BLs) for more than 6 months now, and we have every inch memorized.

We could also have 4+ server matches where higher ranked servers are placed in increasingly more difficult spawn locations to make things more balanced/interesting.

The possibilities and potential are huge, but unrealized to date.

Anyway, I like your idea. +1

I’ve defended Anet a lot. But this WvW update is objectively crappy. We desperately need NEW CONTENT, and instead we just get some kind of ranking, and there seems to be no plans for future new content.

After 6+ months we know every square inch of these stale old maps, and every possible position for siege. Nothing in WvW has surprised me for months.

WvW has amazing potential, more than any other feature in GW2. But it will go unrealized if Anet only give us two maps (EB and Borderlands).

I’m very disappointed.

Dragonvdoorbrand? Because you have to admit this dragon breathes fire mostly during the night. No disrespect.

Great thread! We know every nook and cranny of the present maps and desperately need new terrain. There is almost no room for new strategies because its all been done. So I think we need NEW MAPS.

Great ideas so far. I’ll throw in a couple ideas of my own.

- Mountain range terrain with a more vertical battlescape and choke-point passes where we can live out the movie 300 against zergs. Areas of thick forest.
- New structures other than camps/towers/keeps, including smalls structures worth 1 or 2 points that can be solo’d.

Since the conversation is turning to IoJ, I just wanted to say how happy I am that IoJ guilds decided to settle in FA. I can’t think of another server I’d rather have join us. My understanding is that IoJ spent months in Tier-2 outnumbered by competing servers. They had to compensate for their numbers with superior skill and tactics, which made them strong (much like FA in Tier-3). They are elite, and I’d take quality over quantity any day. It is an honor that they have picked FA.

I am really looking forward to giving Maguuma a proper Tier-3 welcome. Next week will be FA’s 11th week in Tier-3. Over these months we have held strong against bigger foes and slooowly battled our way into finally taking 1st place in the tier this week. But suddenly here comes Maguuma, vaulting ahead of us in a single leap, up 4 spots from Tier-4 due to mathematical quirks.

No no, it’s cool man. It’s cool. Well played. I’m super happy for you. : }

fenim.2395:

Personally i’m not terribly concerned about ranks and scores. But you have to admit, an alliance is good strategy. ~Shadow Gathering [FA]

This alliance is only good for the right now. Sure you two might be able to dethrone TC eventually but then another will become on top, FA or CD. (More likely CD based on numbers) Then your alliance might crumble unless FA/CD settles with Second or continues targeting TC. As soon as this alliance crumbles though TC will be able to rise up again in points just as it has all along because we all know that TC can’t be taken down without an alliance.

In the end it ends up being Infinite matches with the same servers unless an alliance isn’t formed or unless you focus TC out of the tier.

My thoughts exactly. A 2nd/3rd alliance makes it way more difficult for 1st to progress into T2. But TC/CD/FA will get sick of each other soon enough and 2nd/3rd cooperation will lose its appeal. Obviously an alliance like this has a short shelf life.

But as you said, it is good for right now. After almost a month of being outnumbered by TC and having TC sit comfortably atop T3, its really nice to bring a little bit of pain to TC. Things have suddenly become way more exciting and interesting for everyone. And to their credit, last week many TC players requested this very thing (fearing they were becoming complacent and losing their edge). So for now, an alliance is good for everyone and TCBL is my target.

Sunspots.9861:

Raincrow.1840:

Sunspots.9861:

What’s the point of an alliance where you still get last place lol

If you watch the score you’ll see that during the times when FA and CD work together that all three scores are much closer, with FA many times getting the most points per tick. It’s helping you guys have a better chance at 1st and 2nd.

Has it occured to you that while defending our own lands as best we can, TC could simply choose not to attack CD and only destroy FA on their own homeland? I’m pretty sure if we couldn’t get first we’d just guarantee ourselves second until Fort Aspenwood got tired of being third and gave up on helping CD get first. An alliance is really on phase 1 of a changing war and we plan on playing smart, not emotionally.

Moreover, while FA can affect who gets first, it is TC who would get to decide who is last. Think about that.

It seems like who gets 1st, 2nd, 3rd is largely a symbolic victory. End-of-the-week scoring is mostly dependent upon (1) how many total points your server has earned and (2) how large or small the difference is between servers.

So if you are going to get 2nd or 3rd, ideally you want to do so while (1) still gathering as many points as possible and (2) keeping 1st place scoring to a minimum.

This is why a 2nd and 3rd place alliance is so mutually beneficial—-it achieves both of those objectives. It is also why TC is expected to get 1st place but lose weekly points while 2nd and 3rd will gain points. http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA

Personally i’m not terribly concerned about ranks and scores. But you have to admit, an alliance is good strategy.

Dariroch.6482:

I want to see an WvW dungeon that changes hands depending on who has the most points at the time. A dungeon that is PvP that is great for material/ loot farming.

This is a great idea.

And more WvW maps! Imagine all the cool maps they could create. One map could have a lot of small objectives and no keeps, another could place each server on its own mountain . . . the list could go on and on. Our map is stale. The excitement is gone.

Thief.

I am a D/D ele with an embarrassing amount of experience. The thief is most annoying for two main reasons:

1) I hate thrashing at the air like a lunatic. Messes up my hair and makes me look silly.

2) When a thief realizes he is going to lose, he can just vanish and leave. I can run down most things, but I cannot run down what I cannot see. Often the losing thief is suddenly just gone. Come back here with my badges you silly little chameleon!

I’m not saying a nerf is in order, i’m just saying that that those slippery little terds are annoying.

Korgov.7645:

WvW is fun. I don’t need any other reason.

The mix of pvp and pve, playing as team with no strings attached, good balance between simplicity of game mechanics and variety appeal to me. I love that there is no vertical progression.

The loot gives back enough money to pay for repairs, upgrades and sieges. Karma, exp, server bonuses, badges don’t interest me as I am already level 80 and with good enough gear.

As for future rewards… I would like to see some ranks to show off, achievements of yours and your guild to compare against others, some publicity for your guild for going that extra mile towards victory… that kinds of thing.

I agree, and I would add that the WvW incentives are already quite good (we shouldn’t expect it to be as lucrative as farming).

For WvW improvements, what I would most like to see is new and changing maps. For example, after just a few months, all servers have figured out every place on the WvW map where a treb can hit a wall. Just like we all know how to build catapults in the Greenwater tunnel. My point is that there are fewer and fewer ways to surprise your enemy or be surprised. It is becoming impossible to be creative on the battlefield. That part of WvW is feeling stale to me.

So I recommend keeping the 4-map model where all three servers have identical positioning, but how about giving us a new map once a month or rotating maps or something like that?

Everything is fine.

A little diversity between builds and classes is good. Sure, once in awhile a thief or warrior will hit me REALLY hard, but once in awhile my elementalist pumps out an insane amount of AoE damage against a zerg. We all have strengths and weaknesses. It is silly to come in here and complain about other classes strengths while ignoring their weakness and your OWN strengths.

There is no such thing as a perfect balance when you are dealing with different classes with different skills. Even if such an imaginary perfection existed, there would still be folks on forums complaining about imbalance because there are other factors at play like skill and chance.

We don’t all have to be same. Diversity, and even overpowered classes, keeps things interesting. If you think those builds are so great (which they are not), go make one, and then meet me in WvW/PvP.

I think the class balance falls within a reasonable range. Moving on.

Until things become a bit more balanced, I am vowing a personal ceasefire with Yaks.

I don’t want a TC blowout, and I don’t want the next 5 days of WvW to suck. In the interest of fun and competitive WvW , I suggest Yaks and FA leave each other’s BLs alone, and target TC instead. To their credit, TC players have themselves requested that FA and Yaks each focus on TC this week to make things more interesting and to keep TC from going soft.

When things become a bit more balanced i’ll go back to indiscriminate killing.

I would just like to applaud the Yaks for doing more with less. You consistently have less manpower than FA and TC, and yet (1) your score remains competitive and (2) you continue to bring the fight. It speaks very highly of your resourcefulness, tenacity, and strategy.

In fact, its quite likely that the scoreboard obscures the fact that the Yaks have actually outplayed FA and TC.

I commend you mangy Yaks!

Glad to hear it Derv!

Xavi.6591:

We may be flee ridden but we’re definitely not smelly. I just bathed near the SM watergate last week.

That’s weird because my daggers have smelled like yak for two weeks now.

There could be a silver lining to the [GODS] leaving FA.

As others have noted, FA’s play style is very aggressive. We put fewer resources and less effort into defense than other comparable servers. I think the [GODS] played a really big role in establishing this play style due to their enormous size. IN VERY GENERAL TERMS, the [GODS] offensive strategy is to zerg around the map until they wipe, and their defensive strategy is to zerg around the map putting out fires. But captured objectives are neglected and quickly recaptured by the enemy, and there often isn’t anything left for the zerg Calvary to save by the time they finally ride into town.

The departure of the [GODS] could be an opportunity for FA to adjust its strategy, do more with less, better balance offensive and defensive efforts, and improve the sophistication of its tactics. I always liked the [GODS] because of the manpower they brought, and their departure will be a blow in the short term, but it could also be an opportunity for FA moving forward if it forces us to improve our strategy.

Good luck to the [GODS], FA, and TC. Curses to the smelly flee ridden yaks that FA is battling for 2nd. And may the good matches continue!

-Rockrain, FA

Dethroat.3514:

Agreed!

And it’s not hard to take their whole borderlands considering they don’t siege anything, or upgrade anything. Maybe that’s why it seems everyone is against them, easy picking in my book!

FA, lets focus on how we can continue to improve. We have made great strides the past couple of months, thanks in large part to learning from superior foes. For example, these past two weeks TC has shown us how to use mesmers better, and we are now doing the same.

But there is one area where we haven’t really improved. As the above quotation indicates, we still suck at defense. That has been my experience after about 300 hours in FA WvW. If we are to continue our upward trajectory, we need to work on holding our real estate. Buy upgrades, escort yaks, hold camps, build siege. I truly believe that if we did this, we could be far more competitive in tier 3 and maybe even break into tier 2. Other suggestions?

-Rockrain, FA

All this outrage and whining is depressing and ridiculous. The sky is falling! I hate dungeons! Why won’t Anet keep me appraised of their every intention!? Everyone should be identical!!!!

At this point, for all you know the tokens and karma from WvW could make ascended gear perfectly accessible without ever set foot in PvE (god forbid). How about we wait a little bit before getting our panties in a bunch and sharpening our pitchforks?

And you know what else? The advantage of being a skilled player dwarfs any advantage from armor. I’m not worried. I’ll battle in any armor.

Chin up lads.

- Rockrain, FA

FA: 26,266 +240
TC: 19,900 +250
YB: 19,416 +210

This is WvW at its finest. Three worthy adversaries.

To my fellow FAers, lets institute a no complaining rule. Makes us look bad. Sometimes we’ll lose to superior foes. Sometimes we’ll lose to shenanigans that are PART OF THE GAME. Salute your foe’s cunning, don’t whine.

LETS BE AS RESILIENT AND THICK SKINNED ON THE FORUM AS WE ASPIRE TO BE ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

Sir William PD.9615:

@Kami

On the flip side I have loved Fort Aspenwood, the attitude here is a tremendous upgrade. I have yet to see commanders arguing on map chat. PUG’s listen and use blue prints, something I didn’t know was possible while on DH. My first night over a month ago as an Aspenwood commander, I had a large Squad of PUGs in addition to my own guild who operated together, followed every order and even gave me regular scouting updates. It was a amazing. Our night presence that week rivaled Sea of Sorrows, which is an oceanic server and we beat them. The intestinal fortitude of this server is surprising, last week Yak’s had us pretty well night capped and sealed in and Aspenwood pulled it together and brought the fight back up to a head-to-head.

I am really proud of the progress FA has made! Our progress is not because we’ve had a flood of fair weather transfers. Who wants to jump on a “bandwagon” that is ranked #10 and has a winning ratio of about 50 percent over the last month? That’s kind of a crappy wagon. Instead, we learned from our more-skilled enemies. For about three weeks in a row we got hammered by SoS, BG, and TC. They were so much better than us. But we saw how they operated, and we learned. For the most part, I see the same devoted WvW players and guilds, but now we’re better: better defense, strategy, and cooperation. We’ve worked hard and it is paying off. We are on an exciting trajectory and I am kitten proud. Keep up the good work, the positive morale, and the cooperative spirit!

-Rockrain

Krustydog.1043:

All I do is wvw so I’ll never have that other stuff. Homey don’t grind. Homeys been there and done that and is gonna pass this time around. Badges is as good as it’s going to get for me. I bought this game to pvp, nothing more.

On the contrary my friend, you already have “that other stuff.” In fact, if all you are doing is WvW, you probably already have substantial karma points. WvW not only gives you badges, it gives you karma. Click on your inventory and you will see a purple karma number on the inventory pane. You can use karma to buy top-tier exotic gear. I mostly do WvW and I have earned enough karma for two complete exotic armor sets even though I still only have 540 badges. Karma armor is the way to go if you only WvW.

And for the thread in general, my badge drop rate is 1 badge for every 5.5 kills. This seems fine to me.