Guild Wars 2

Cayden.4587:

We are happy that you have welcomed us and are glad that we have found something that really feels like a home.

I generally had a good time working with you on the Coast but, and with all due respect to you because the previous statement wasn’t false, I don’t know if “home” is something that you’ll ever have. Unfortunately. But, who knows. Maybe you’ll surprise me.

I’m pleased that SoS will have a fair NA time zone presence though. Hope that the inverse happens for TC. It’d make for a really fun match in the future. That really was my biggest regret of this match up. The rubber band nature. Balancing that out? Man, that’d be good times.

Psy.6153:

HUG came out with us tonight and had a blast, especially at the end when we took Tarnished Coast’s Orb and THEN a keep to put it in lol

good times

Won’t last, sadly. Could. But I wouldn’t take that bet.

Grumpdogg.6910:

Firstly I want to say good game to TC. It’s been a back and forth tug of war with neither side totally giving up at any point. Good luck in the next tier, you are the first enemy server I have come to respect.

With regard to SoS, we are definitely improving. 2 weeks ago, a fully capped map by the enemy would’ve meant WvW was abandoned for the week. But it seems like we are willing to fight it out till the end now. Our NA primetime coverage is certainly improving. It’s good to see so many regulars as well as the new names.

Next week is definitely going to be a good week for SoS.
salute

I like this guy more than some of the other guys. Hats off to you and your kind as well.

The ability to prioritize and make the order of priorities clear to the field is also important. That is, the ability to have a general strategy and make it clear to people. This>This>If x, then This>.

“Hey guys, we’re going to be attacking and focusing on X, Y, and Z only if we have the chance to. For defense, respond to attacks at this location over this one over this one.”

A good commander understands the field, understands their advantages on both the offensive and defensive side. She then makes sure that everyone is on the same page.

Phy.2913:

Love how the top bar is completely blue. Great balance this week.

It was actually a great match up at the start of the week, even into the last few days. Night crew made a big defense a while back that buffered the lead.

But to say it was just that would be dishonest. For all the good fights, TC and SoS have pretty much opposing queue times, at least for max players. So there was and actually still is a big back and forth. This morning, I believe that SoS had potential points for a total of slightly over 500 and dug in for quite a bit.

Basically, it was a fairly steady pace early in the week (GoM got a focus after an orb exploit from single guild, which set them back a lot. They’re actually fair in a fight and suffered for the act of that one guild, unfortunately). Then it began to rubberband, TC built up and held for a time, and now it’s rubberbanding (at least in terms of map control) again.

It’s actually kind of a shame. SoS plays well and head to head (time wise), I think the match would have been much tighter. And maybe even given GoM a way to sneak in and do damage.

I’ve ignore all this conversation because I’m sure that it’s full of some crazy things. But the baseline is that for all the server ranking, ANet has the metrics on server queue times. This is something that should be taken into consideration in match ups. You can’t assure properly managed match ups in a fullest persistent combat world. That’s a given.

But I’ll talk about my current matchup GoM, TC, and SoS. TC and SoS are pretty well matched, fundamentally, in terms of strength and such. And even GoM isn’t in a bracket that’s awful for them (even though, through an act which turned ire towards them, meant that any true competition from them was not going to happen).

But SoS is largely Oceanic. TC is most NA. And while both servers have made efforts to up their individual “night” presences, there’s something of a cycle. I say something because this trend was bucked, slightly, in the last few days. And I mean very slightly. TC conquers during NA primetimes. SoS makes their greater pushes at theirs. Which is a shame because it’s actually a fairly even match up but I don’t know if it’s really that much fun for either server to play such a strange type of tug of war.

Matching up queue times as much as you can relative skill would make things much, much more appealing across the board.

PsionicDingo.2065:

It sounds awesome…except in an MMO. Partied with friends or strangers of the same class? They have your exact sidekick. The same status, if you play together. It bugged me, and I’m not even a heavy roleplayer.

I truly do love most game’s lore and stories (even WoW,), but when you want to make the player character the focus in the way Old Republic or GW2 does …it doesn’t work, by virtue of the game being massively multiplayer.

I’d definitely disagree. Particularly because in GW2, the personal story isn’t personal. If the issue is about having the same status, GW2 is the epitome of that. By the end of it all, all players have essentially become the same thing. Yet, you ignore that fact.

At least TOR made stories have important variation (the Imperial Agent in particular has quite a few important variables that are important in the plot). Things you did come back. GW2? Your choices have little to no significance . Insofar as what you are saying about equal status in TOR, that’s a personal issue with suspension of disbelief. Star Wars stories always take place in a haziness.

The Guild Wars 2 story will be the same. “Trahearne’s Lieutenant” will likely never get a specific race or gender or order. But the issue with the presentation here is that they will forever be known as Trahearne’s second in command and not anything else.

That is to say nothing of the terrible way in which the plot fails to branch. In fact, it is a reverse branch. As time goes on, a character’s story (and by virtue, the character) becomes less and less unique. It’s terribly lazy.

Raist.4580:

We have organized groups and experienced commanders that get the job done against much larger numbers every week.

What happened this week? I mean, you can say it was a population thing in terms of coverage but if the argument is that you’re still outplaying people with your small numbers, the results speak louder than the words.

You really have to wonder many of these claims are being made after the fact. Like a guy showing up last second to a brawl and claiming he turned the tides.

The point about morale is all fine and good but there’s easier ways to demoralize an enemy regardless. I’m not really buying what the snake oil fella is selling.

sil.4160:

I’m so confused with this thread. Didn’t RUN just went back to TC after saying they will be coming to SOS? So all this angst against SOS is misdirected. This is really an internal bickering between TC members

Well, they (Defiance, that is) were trying to recruit Oceanics for TC and then decided to jump to SoS and said a lot of nasty words that basically reduce my post to nothing but the word kitten about twenty times with a few adjectives. To say nothing of Cayden sort of making a spectacle of himself.

I don’t think anyone’s directing angst towards SoS. I’d like to think that most people posting here like Sea of Sorrows. I do, anyway. And I do think it’s sort of a shame how a few people from Defiance are representing their guild in the public sphere (ie. not well). I thought plenty of them were nice folk and smart players. Don’t want to paint with a wide brush anymore than I thought that people finger pointing at GoM for that one exploiter were making the right call.

That said, I’m guess more of the anger is less that their leaving but they’re sort of trying to make it seem like they were an invaluable part of TC. If SoS does really well in the next match, I’m sure they’ll attribute it to themselves. I mean, someone from the SoSU had to come in go: “Slow down, we didn’t take you in yet.”, so…y’know, you see that from a group that’d already pushed itself on one server, make a big fuss and burned bridges, and you just hope that it works out.

But on the inside, you cringe a little. I want it to work out for you SoS folks. I just…don’t really know if it will. Hope that made sense.

Furienify.5738:

I don’t think anyone on TC hates SoS outside of a general sense of competition.

Heck no! They’ve been one of the best opponents yet! I’ve always lamented that the time zone differentials never quite allowed us to clash the way we ought to have.

Cayden.4587:

Hehe difference is, you dropped 130 points to Gate of Madness…

You’re saying this like those 130 point will have any appreciable effect for GoM. They won’t. That bird was cooked days ago.

It’s funny. For all the complementing I gave you and probably the general unspoken service that I did by not mentioning the temper tantrums that some of your players would throw in map chat, (although not Sharan, that cat’s alright)……

…you’re really making a quick push to publicly make something of a fool of yourself in the name of advertisement. I don’t think you’re understanding the type of “publicity” you’re giving yourself right now. It’s not good. And three notable server hops in so much time is actually not that great of a record either.

Ashanor.5319:

Maybe this doesn’t happen so much in tPvP, but in sPvP the melee assist zerg rules all.

This sentence sort of explains the parts before. But sPvP isn’t really what you balance around necessarily. Team composition is going to be nuts all across the board, which means that there are going to be situations in it that won’t happen in tournaments, especially in paid tourneys when they’re all set and ready to go. Situations that are hard to account for.

Perhaps I’m going to speak out of line but if Quickness was removed, I’m going to question if, even then, you’d still be able to deal with the three hypothetical opponents.

There is also the fact that too many builds are relying on it to compensate for problems in the class.

I’d partially argue that this might be a problem with the build. I have, for instance, a S/P thief with the familiar utilities that come with that but the build isn’t built around Hate or Pistol Whip but around Dodge and positional benefits. Noting this, I can say to the following:

For instance, without quickness, where would Pistol Whip be?

It would still be useful, even if they potentially kept the self root. Provided you have a strong understanding of how to pick and position your targets. Of course, a smart enemy might be able to dodge some of the hits but you’d still get them in if you were playing well. To say nothing of if your enemy is playing poor. Which of the two do you think you’re going to run into more in sPvP?

How about we take out these bandaid haste effects and work on making skills that rely on them viable without them.

Why not adjust the skills as needed and merely reduce the increase from Haste? The skills become more useful, people can retain the risk v. reward CD that they want in exchange for a more properly managed DPS boost (see the poster above me, even, for a means of doing this) if they so choose, and even someone like you would probably be happy, I’d wager.

Or does that seem too elegant a solution?

Fiesbert.9816:

So far only people with poor reading comprehension disagree

When you phrase it like that, it doesn’t really make you seem like someone people want to agree with. Certain’y makes me regret implicitly doing so. I think the general feel is that it is fairly powerful as it (when use with certain builds), requires minor tweaks, but shouldn’t be removed or overnerfed.

I’d go as far to say that anyone who believes it should be removed or anything like that isn’t thinking things through. Because it’s really only something dangerous against really glassy or unaware individuals as is and even with a slight nerf, this will remain the case. It would just properly balance the risk vs. reward of it’s usage, which is aligning quite the way it should.

For whatever it’s worth in consideration, Bull’s Charge does have a knockdown if you’re moving when hit. Which tends to be often. I can’t remember if that’s something that shows up in the death break down or not.

It’s adorable. Makes me laugh when they use it as their opener. “HS!” Plink. HS! Dodged “Ooooh…shiii” Smack

Side note I just read this:

Dee Jay.2460:

Not classy because
-You’re ganking people during the jumping puzzle

You know there’s only really one fight he initiates during that section. First one, the Thief opens fire. Second one, starts the ambush on the Necro and Thief. Third, the Ele jumps down. Fourth, the Ranger tries to longbow him, which leads into the fight with the Crystal Desert and Dragonbrand enemies. So, that’s about 1/5 where he’s the initial attacker.

I dunno why I felt obligated to point that out.

Just reduce the speed increase. All versions of a quickness utility have costs to them meant to offset the benefit. Manage the benefit to match the costs and you’re set. Or inverse that even.

For all the playful banter, I do mean it legitimately. They’re all good folks. SoS is luck to have them. Have fun over there, all.

Around. Borderlands, usually. Good people. Shame that I have to kill them now.

Oozo.7856:

People who only play thieves might have a limited viewpoint when it comes to these facts.

And the people who play more than that? And still don’t quite agree with you? This rare breed of creature is just an illusion I suppose..

End of the line is that while thief is an easily accessible class with less of a learning curve than others, competitive and competent play actually does require a play to know about the class and show some finesse. I still run into HS spammers, even in WvW. My thief doesn’t stealth at all. I still kill them. I still also kill them with my rifle warrior.

/shrug

I like that one hacker/exploiter’s been doing it for weeks. Those bans are really brisk, eh?

cainejw.7142:

Then you are, in fact, colluding and acting in an alliance. Thank you for admitting that TC and Maguuma, in fact, were acting in tandem as an alliance.

Yeah. Words matter and you’re not using them correctly. Two group independently deciding to attack the more vulnerable and/or eagerly aggressive target, each for their own reasons, isn’t an alliance. Alliances are formal agreements. They have terms because they are pacts. Not a circumstantial overlap of strategies. At best, you’re arguing that there was a coalition leveled against Emhry but even that implies a level of cooperation that didn’t occur.

How could it when the two forces were fighting each other on other fronts? You can’t accuse the two realms of collective defense because that accusation can’t hold up in the face of what was happening all around. Particularly in Borderlands.

Look, at this point I’m pretty sure I could tell you the sky was blue and you’d tell me it was green. I’m trying to get you to think. Trying being the operative word.

cainejw.7142:

Yeah, it’s a pretty funny joke when Maguuma constantly insults EB…. I don’t appreciate some of the server taking clear advantage of exploits, rumored hacking, and alliances to win at any cost. I don’t appreciate some on your server having this near pathological need to insult anyone and everyone you fight. I would definitely appreciate some sportsmanship and good faith from some on Maguuma.

My server? I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention. I’ve made it clear that I’m not from Mag. So what does Mag or their behavior have to do with me? The only thing I’ve ever hoped to address are your silly conspiracy theories. If only to save you the continued public embarrassment.

Daays.4317:

Now while S/P has more mobility, it doesn’t have the power of stealth, lacks burst when haste is on cooldown, and PW can be easily interrupted. Also, S/P thieves are actually easier to kill than D/D because stealth drops target.

I’m hazy what you mean by “power”. At the very least, doing things properly I can do fair (read: sufficient) damage even off my auto attack with the proper S/P build. Although I agree that D/D or really, P/D builds have a potential uptime advantage if they really prioritize stealth.

I’m not necessarily saying this completely in reply to you but I do think that some people underestimate the degree to which the thief (or really, most classes) can be built to meet a suitable playstlye for the person behind the keyboard. And as long as that person’s a good player, that’s the most important thing. Sure, the meta will point to certain builds over others but it is possible to craft suitably equal or at least competitive builds.

Slamz.5376:

I don’t really buy this. Or at any rate you’d think that going into the 4th day, with Maguuma in a solid lead, Yak’s would realize that maybe they should, I dunno, let us beat up Maguuma rather than constantly defending ourselves against Yak attacks?

I can’t really comment on your current match and I wouldn’t presume to. But in general, I can say what occurred in EB’s last match (and I’m assuming you’re from EB, correct me if I’m wrong). And in general, it was easy for TC and Mag to contain EB and do so from the start to prevent progress in a lead. This partially happened in this week’s TC/SoS/GoM match. GoM overextended in the initial day of the match and the response was to shut them down, basically. Although the pretty public orb incident didn’t help. Which is unfortunate because it brought the hammer down on that server for the actions of a single individual.

I’m not saying that the shift to a 2v1 will always occur; please don’t think that. But it is one of the balancing factors in WvW and one of the reasons that it’s three realms and not two. That Yak’s isn’t turning entirely to Mag with you could be for a lot of reasons. I’m not really in a position to say, partially because I don’t really know the current point situation.

Jamaz.9837:

Sharpclaw.7510, you mention that us taking the lead early is some kind of strategic act from our server and a tactical mistake. You’re over-analyzing it. It’s as simple as us having the population to fill all borderlands on Friday when can play, and then only fill 1-2 borderlands the rest of the week – morale or any other factors aside. This is what occurred last week and isn’t some grand scheme.

You misunderstand me. I’m suggesting that you had no plan at all. Besides “Go!”. The turn towards Ehmry from the other realms began as early as the next day, largely because of overextension. If you cripple one enemy, you only really need to worry about the other.

It was also because Mag and TC constantly tested the waters against each other, particularly in EB’s south. Each advance into enemy territory wasn’t able to last. Not until either side could focus on the other pretty much without worry from the third party.

cainejw.7142:

All you’ve basically said is that it’s OK for Maguuma and TC to have an alliance because it’s “a battle.”

No, what I said was that it’s perfectly fine and, in fact, intelligent to have your force attack another that’s already engaged on one front. And that it’s fine for two realms, largely independent of each other (and make no mistake, this is true) to attack the force with the advantage.

EB took an early lead. But they rushed it. And in doing so, they made themselves the natural target of their opponents because that early into the week, you cut off potential leads faster before they can snowball into something that can’t be stopped. The servers Ehmry faced knew this, having come off their match with Dragonbrand. So they acted on a lesson they learned in the previous match: don’t let one enemy gain the lead and run away with it.

It’s not a hard concept to understand, actually. And I feel bad having to explain it here because this thread (and the one it was based on) is a joke thread. So, be jovial. Seething over something that isn’t true and (to steal from you a bit) is only a video game…well, it’s not going to do wonders for your blood pressure, that’s for sure.

PS. You got mad at me for using the term battle and then used it yourself. I believe that’s what saiyr was talking about before.

The only thing I might disagree with, or at least the only one I feel more qualified to disagree with is the issue of Quickness. I run S/P and actually get a lot of my main damage from my auto attack, believe it or not but I still have PW, obviously and use it. It’s the builds only burst and the daze effect, when used well with Infiltrator’s Strike, can prevent and enemy from fleeing.

I have Haste on my bar. It is used rarely and in cases when I need to burn a priority target or am in a real jam. But someone in another thread made a point that the 2x speed might be to high. Mind you, this is across the board for any usage of Quickness, it’s not unique to our class. They suggested something more in line with 1.5x speed.

I don’t think this is completely unreasonable. It still gives increase burst and would be beneficial when used well but would not necessarily make it as big of a thing. Since a skill like Haste, for instance, means losing Endurance for a time and because using it generally means that the thief or whoever with have, in the former case, used a lot of Initiative, and in the latter, burned through cooldowns, it’d not be an issue as well.

A lot of on demand quickness skill have downsides: Warriors receive more incoming damage. Rangers and their pets cannot be healed. Engineers get a random drawback. The only skill that has no real drawback is the Mesmer Time Warp, which is because it’s an elite skill with a sizable cooldown.

So reducing the speed might be prudent. I’m not sure how much this affects the metagame or class balance but a meager decrease wouldn’t, in my mind, remove the viability of certain builds

ManCaptain.3154:

The other problem with thief is the thief guild elite which makes it really hard to handle an already very damaging, stealthing opponent.

I don’t see any difference with thieves guild compared to any other minion heavy utility or skill. Besides, and this might actually come off as a shock, there are viable thief builds that have no stealth at all.

Cloud.7613:

Besides, lol, strategic and tactical knowledge, no…

Certainly relative to Gate of Madness, the two servers know what they are doing far more. Early on, it was their lead to lose and they did. If that and other issues demoralize them enough, that’s a leadership issue. And from what I can tell, SoS and TC move around the map and pick targets better. On one end, being on the latter server, I know this means commanders (and a few general players) that are generally listened to and an understood/generally agreed upon prioritizing of defensive areas and offensive routes.

If I truly didn’t believe that SoS and TC were both equally competent, I wouldn’t be lamenting the fact that there’s some off hours issues between the two teams. Besides, if I wanted proof of what I’m saying, all I need to do is look at how well SoS can generally hold when at a disadvantage. Same with TC.

God, no. We’re getting close to the Oceanic push. Which is legit, mind you. Not complaining. SoS plays well but still, there’s definitely some time zone differentials that contribute to the flip flopping between us all. We’re up when a lot of players aren’t. A lot of SoS is up when TC isn’t.

It’s actually quite a shame since both servers seem to have strong strategic and tactical knowledge, or at least it is equal for our overall rankings. The swinging back and forth is exciting but a bit sad that timezones play so much into it for both sides.

Krathalos.3461:

Quickness is OP – I’ll give you that. That’s not a thief problem, though. That’s a Quickness problem, and Thief isn’t the only one with it. It needs to be like 1.5x your attack speed, not 2×. Still, it’s kind of fine as is.

This, I just wanted to comment on. It’s pretty much right. A reduction to the attack speed gained from Quickness is probably wise (and I say this as someone who has it on their Utility bar as something of a desperation skill rather than a main part of how my build works). However, the reductions really all that would be needed to penalty to Endurance, even currently, has a larger affect than people realize. You dodge the burst, that thief is pretty boned.

cainejw.7142:

There was coordination regardless of if it was formal or not.

And, with a single sentence, everything you just said sounds silly. To say nothing of why strategies aligned that way. You take what you can in a battle. Not what you want. EB was weak. Both the other servers knew it. After a meager lead early on, it was obvious they’d get attacked. And they failed to account for it properly.

omgwtfbbq.5374:

This in itself is a contradiction. You say you wouldn’t judge the entire server, but you go on to say everyone is benefiting from these cheated orbs and you will lead every attack against them.

Let’s use logic:

A) “An enemy that has the advantage in orbs is dangerous (by virtue of their statistical advantage).”
B) “It is in the general best interest to act with rapidity to remove dangerous enemies and their holdings”.
C) “Not all players were culpable in the unfortunately dubious means used to acquire the orbs.”

? “While not all players are culpable in the acquisition of the orb, their possession, at the time, made them statistically more dangerous. Thus, they were dangerous. Thus, it was in the general best interest of their opponents to act rapidly to remove their holdings and advantage.”

Bottom line, you can blame the one while also acknowledging the effect their actions had for the many. And you can act accordingly.

It’s like I mentioned in another thread: Imagine how desperate or, at the very least, small you have to be to have to even resort to this.

Break it, you bought it. The guilty will get theirs. For now, all they did was wake a sleeping giant. No one is accusing you of being a hacker. They’re just going to kill you and burn your keeps and towers, in a video game.

Akadios got banned? That’s the most insane thing I’ve heard yet, even with floating people and instant orb stealing.

Well, I don’t know about giving up. Bot SoS and TC are clearly the superior forces (although some Gates forces have done well and I’d be remiss to ignore them). Unless this hacker has a way to magically kill Lords and take positions from under people, this is still a fight that their server is going to have to push uphill in.

Deya.3796:

Yaks Bend Hacked Orbs too orci in their match with BG and GoM

Certainly doesn’t make this any more permissible than that instance. Although I hope that’s not what you were implying anyway.

Although, to darken the mood, if these players wanted to call down the hammer on them, I think this sealed the deal.

Deya.3796:

How can they punish a whole server becaus eof 1 hacker?

They shouldn’t. The should try to reset orbs and altars and then punish the player in question.

You look at this and you gotta ask how desperate those player must feel against TC and SoS.

EDIT: Can we communicate with this guild at all? See if this is an individual act or something on the part of the guild?

I suppose we can do our best, particularly on the GoM side to identify who is doing this or to see if it is a particular guild? Obviously, we don’t want to hold the entire guild culpable without full knowledge but we could somehow communicate with their leader.

Meanwhile, I’ll try to get the message to TC about this. Again, not sure about what we can do but if we’re vigilant, we might be able to help and keep an eye out for any other exploiters.

Tarnished Coast here. If this is true, I don’t know what to say. Nor do I know what to do to help. I suppose if a lot of us report this, they could reset orbs?

zTales.4392:

So, let me get this straight …

First, Ehmry Bay lost because Tarnished Coast and Maguuma were being unfair. Tarnished Coast moves up a tier (and rightfully so, you guys are great!) and Maguuma barely wins second place.

Now, Ehmry Bay is falling behind because Yak’s Bend and Maguuma are being unfair. Both servers have a pretty solid lead over Ebay.

Yeah. I’m not really one to interject much in threads that don’t involve my server but the implicit notion of what is or isn’t unfair is a bit strange to me. Maguuma are goons but at least they fight and don’t really complain about fighting.

Emhry’s only got a real point about whatever happened with their orb and that exploit (which I admit I am ignorant to the details of and therefore, totally am on their side, as I think most people are, on the matter.)

But I do sort of agree with the quoted poster about the tone of some of the more vocal Ehmry players in the last two weeks. It’s been…interesting, to put it diplomatically.

EDIT: I missed this…

Eanae.3178:

Maguuma and TC never attacked each other inside of Eternal Battlegrounds.

Yeah. You’re demonstrably false. I’ll start showing you the map records.

Cloud.7613:

Did you forget you literally gave SM away? :-/

Why take a position that you cannot necessarily defend and drains your supply, when you can have other forces fight each other over it. It happens all the time, even on smaller targets. TC had Greenbriar on the Borderlands and abandoned it when Sea of Sorrows and Madness forces both arrived and decided to fight each other for it.

It happens all the time. You defend what you can, attack where you are not expected or where you have the advantage of rapidity, and you fall back from positions that are not tenable for long term defense.

Thrumdi.9216:

SoS strategy = be Oceanic.

(Also applicable to Dragonbrand).

Potentially explains things. Again, I don’t really know. So far, this has been an interesting match, to be sure! 29.5k to 25.8 to 20.1. It’s really been fun!

Of course, so many people here have ways of knowing what happened. It’s odd because I heard far more people complaining in TC chat about Maguuma than Ehmry. Probably because they were such a none threat and Mag was.

Compare that to Sea of Sorrows at the moment. They were down by the end of the night, with TC moving up by Gates of Madness, IIRC. Now? They’re leading and putting up a good defensive. Madness fell because both their enemies wanted to take them down fast and did. Because that was strategically the strongest action at the time.

Now, people can say what they want about Sea of Sorrows and whatever tactics they employ. I, myself, am generally ignorant of what caused the turnabout. I assume it was a fairly well organize push in the morning hours, mostly in their own Borderlands which they have cleared out and held tightly. But I believe the two underlying points I’m making are this, mostly in reply to continued Ehmry complaints:

-In order to prevent major initial gains, especially within the first, I’ve observed a general trend on the part of the two other realms to ensure that the first realm does not run away with things. This has occurred two weeks in a row and was only not really effective against Dragonbrand, who flat outplayed their enemies.

-It is quite possible, through strong organization and/or effective timing and defense for the initially "lesser’ (read: low point) realm to take key positions and make process in the point differential.

I’ll leave it to your imagination or inference which of these things occurred during Ehmry’s last match, which did not, and which have occurred during the GoM, TC, and SoS matchup.

romsea.8539:

But in the end, all this fuss is people facing more organized team (yes, time coverage is organization) and wanting the game to be fixed in their way instead of them having to match those team to compete, am i right?

Partially. But there are certain degrees to which this is not feasible due to composition of groups, etc. Thus, a small balancing function or defensive option ought to be open to defenders. You just make it limiting. Either by the number of keeps/towers you can have defended in such a way or the relative cost, strength, and/or length of the purchased buff.

I agree that you shouldn’t limit when people can play. However, I’m wondering if there is a way to address people’s concerns. And I’m sure it’s not an idea that I’ve come up with first.

Perhaps guilds or individuals could purchase a buff to a tower or keep Lord the way way that supply camp supervisors can be buffed. As it stands, they can be tougher than Lords. The ability to purchase an upgrade to a Lord wouldn’t prevent an organize force from taking a location, but it would potentially offer protection for a team where hours don’t quite match up.

Obviously you would manage this by making it cost prohibitive so that it could not be done across the board or perhaps just limit it to keeps.

Just a thought. Because I principally agree that playing at all hours is just part of how it goes. But I do understand the concerns of players on servers where player hour rotations just don’t happen. Arguably, this is countered by more organization but that’s partially unrealistic. Allowing a team to offer some more protection to a location, at a significantly limiting cost and non-guaranteed effect could be the way to go.

Even with them in the lead, it seems to be a fun match. Last week was good, this week seems fun too. Victory’s obvious what I’d like but but so long as the battle is well fought, I think most of us can deal with whatever comes.

Cheapy.8657:

You bravely teamed up with the goons to stomp EBay.

Can’t tell if troll or if they actually believe it. Both options are pretty sad.