Guild Wars 2

Now that I’ve gotten my Gift of Battle I’ve decided it is a good time to take a break from WvW and work on the other parts of the legendary. Being on GoM in T4, it’s been some fun but a lot of frustration. I think having 3 servers kinda killed the organization in TS as I have seen almost no shout outs by tags to get people on TS. It’s like a two month pairing isn’t long enough to bother with investing some time coordinating on comms, and perhaps going up against the quadserver most don’t think it is worth the effort having the odds against them. So guild groups on the quad server have the advantage over any larger pug groups because of this.

What, you guys never ran an all-tag, all-Charr, or all-Asura group before in WvW? Fun stuff!

Only when we start seeing the same population for each team on each map at any given hour, then something like this might matter more. Until then, it’s like patching up an arm vein while letting a ruptured aorta bleed the patient out. This is why sPvP can micro manage builds but WvW should not.

I’ve just recently been running a scrapper in WvW, but still have trouble with the same classes everyone else does…necro, thief, mesmer. Also, thought I’d point out that revenants have a similar 2s block on sword 4 with only a 12s cooldown compared to our 20s version. Finally, if you are a hammer scrapper, those extra seconds of missile shielding help you from getting melted while trying to close to melee range. We have a very slow gap closer with hammer 3 compared to guardians, revenants, thieves, etc., so it can help when you’re getting kited by a ranged class.

While it would be nice for the quadserver to move up, Anet left the other two server pairings with so little population that they have no chance against any team that came down from T3 either. I guess the best we can hope for is a slightly better matchup than the roflstomp we have now.

You read this right? It was obvious from just about day 1: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/The-Ridiculous-Mashup-of-CD-BP-ET-Kaineng/page/3#post6227582

Kaiser.9873:

Do not focus on tiers anymore. Focus instead on fun fights and such-like. All these linkages mean that tiers are totally meaningless. Just when you start to move tiers they are going to change linkages anyway as populations move around.

What some of us are saying though is that the current T4 matchup didn’t take into account populations moving even since the last linkage. ET, BP and Kain got stacked more in the last linkage so some could still play in T1/T2, and yet Anet linked those 3 with CD? Not only are tiers meaningless, so is population balancing. And yes, it was totally fun having CD’s full zerg take our T3 keep in EBG as if it was a paper tower…that fight lasted all of one quick death and not enough time to rush back to do anything else except to get pushed all the way back to spawn by the zerg.

Just got out of playing a little after midnight PST (3am EST) and here’s a pic of the map…yes, they have a decent late night crew:

Since glicko doesn’t take into account the change in pairings, and doesn’t immediately take into account player transfers between servers, it’s not the optimal method of determining matchups, imho.

I’d rather see a ladder-type system, where the team with the highest score of each tier moves up to the next tier on the next weekly reset, and the team with the lowest score of each tier moves down a tier, though obviously the lowest scorer of T4 and the highest scorer of T1 would just stay put. At the start of each 2-month cycle, when the new pairings are determined, the ladder is randomly populated, so if BG ended up in T4, they’d have to work their way up. It would keep things from getting too stale too fast, as it could take 3-4 weeks for each tier to kind of settle, but after that, you’d still have the highest and lowest teams of each tier swapping out, so the matchups would never be the same in any two consecutive weeks.

Akkeros.1675:

So…..week is half over. I propose SF, GoM, and FC unites with DH and Ebay to serve justice and put down the wicked monstrosity that has become CD.
Any takers?
I usually don’t attack SF tags anyway because I fear I may accidentally hit a FC SNKY that is mingled in there…and I love those guys too much.

Ur friend-
Green Lantern

Sounds like fun! I can’t make promises for the rest on my server, but I’ll certainly not initiate an attack on DH/Ebay targets or personnel, unless they shoot first, of course!

Anyone ever play the boardgame “Risk”? A lot of diplomacy and strategy going on there, overt and covert alliances, spies, double agents, backstabbing, etc. Kind of reminds me of WvW, as we know we already have spies among us, except that we’d need a little better communication to make more of it happen within a matchup.

Gotcha…it would be so much easier if GW2 had some kind of TS server that automatically linked all the paired worlds each time the linkings are changed…

Josh XT.6053:

So you can assume when I need all big damage out in one area right? See that is the other thing, you might drop your big cooldowns that I need at a specific time at different times.

Hands down, the best way to be the most organized and best coordinated is being on teamspeak. You can try to argue with me about it all day but I’m telling you that you are incorrect for sure. Being on Teamspeak is a must for organized battle, if you’re not on TS, you’re most likely not being very helpful in the fights because you’re unaware of when things are being called out.

Watching one of your BEEP runs on Twitch from yesterday, though, there was discussion in your chat channel about inviting the non-BP servers onto your TS, and it was decided not to do so. So, was that just one time where it didn’t seem worth the effort for what you were hoping to accomplish, or is it standard protocol? If it’s the norm, then I’m afraid your argument is shot. Not that your group needed help trashing all my homies, but at least you were complimenting them on their persistence…:)

Cerby.1069:

I mean if this carries into another week and the 4 servers get organized…it could happen. They’ve owned all of ebg at least once so far that ive seen.

Yeah, the other night, I had just left defending on EB to go help out on our BL, since everything looked like it was holding okay in EB, but after about 20 mins, I checked on the EB map to see how things were going, and CD had taken over all of SF’s holdings, including our T3 keep. Never got a shout out on our BL to help defend it, so that speaks to lack of organization and a population spread too thin across the maps. The quad server seems to have a significant late-night population that does a lot of damage as some NA time zones start shutting down for the night, after about 10pm PST (1am EST).

Djamonja.6453:

The score and the servers you are facing just don’t support your assertions, sorry (@Josh).

I agree with Josh on the large disparity, from my perspective on GoM. However I don’t think there is an easy resolution to the root problem as any server moving into T4 will still be larger than either the SF or DH teams.

Sazukikrah.5036:

Teon.5168:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Removed-crafting-stations-and-vendors

That’s just another forum post that doesn’t really answer my question.

A Dev has posted there now to answer your question…

Yep, that would be a good guess, especially looking at YB’s ratio.

Ah, yes…TS limits thrown into the mix!

Hexinx.1872:

Josh XT.6053:

Blackgate has a pretty nice chunk of their score from PPK, not just ktraining.

As of right now, heres stats on the match

Blackgate has 17308 kills, 14070 deaths – 1.23:1 kill to death ratio
TC has 15346 kills, 14198 deaths, 1.08:1 ratio.
YB has 8396 kills, 14249 deaths, 0.59:1 ratio.

I believe it is 2 points per kill if I remember correctly? So 34616 of blackgates 167539 is just from kills alone. The only server right now that has a higher KDR than Blackgate is the CD/BP/ET/Kain pairing with 1.26 KDR and 25478 kills down in T4 with a 1.26:1 KDR lol..

Source: www.wvwintel.net

We on TC couldn’t really believe it last night. We were out scoring them the whole night long from objectives, yet they were extending there lead, and we kept scratching our heads. We figured it had something to do with PPK … but just couldn’t believe the gap kept widening by about a few dozen to hundred or so all night long.

So close… yet … so far. Here’s to another round tonight guys!

You would think that in the process of claiming objectives, your success would be inversely proportional to your deaths. If most of you died in the process, you ordinarily wouldn’t be successful. There must be some open field action going on where your team is just getting clobbered while you are successfully claiming camps, towers and keeps. Roaming gank groups, perhaps?

It wasn’t until last night that I finally saw a tag from SF actually broadcast the TS info…4 nights into the new match. So, yeah, I think too that the new 3 and 4 server pairings are making coordination a bit more difficult, depending on the hours we might be online versus the commanders that are more willing to organize people.

Could be their attempt to fix the lag issues that have been occurring since last Friday, by reducing the player counts on each map.

Sometimes, though, a tag will run a guild-only raid. Saw this several times when paired with a larger server.

Having played with the fine folks of SoS, I’d defend their blobbing as a direct result of having to survive against Mag’s or JQ’s blobs…it’s a snowball effect, really…once one server starts it, the rest have to follow suit to survive.

What? There were crafting stations in WvW? I guess I didn’t notice those…too busy roaming and defending and all…

Ok, seriously, before we go further, we need to define the variables, starting with the server pairing itself. What should its common or slang name be, so that we don’t have to keep typing cap letters, slashes, etc. to say “CD/BP/ET/Kain”?

Quad?
Quadgate?
Quadmonster?
Fab Four?

Other ideas? (all in jest, of course)

And as Josh pointed out in another thread, CD/Kain/BP/ET have the highest KDR right now of all servers, even higher than BG. Yes, there are fights, but they are very lopsided according to the stats.

Sweets…not everyone was previously in T4 until the pairings changed, so realize that your comparison of how the fights were might differ from those that are coming down from pairing with a T1 or T2 or T3 server.

Ignoring the time zones is a big part of the problem for matching up more balanced fights. It also doesn’t take into account if people on the 4 server pairing play an average of 4 hours per day where people on the 2 server pairing only average 2 hours per day. Twice as many person-hours equates to seeming to always have twice the numbers of people in a match, even though the unique population for each pairing could be the same over the course of 24 hours.

Josh XT.6053:

The server pairing I believe is going to be monthly but I’m not sure if ANet is committed to that or if it will still be quarterly.

Every 2 months was the average that Anet came up with for server pairings (partners) after the poll was taken, but the matchups will still be determined weekly.

Taxidriver.2043:

well thx to those who voted 2 month and more to relink now u are stuck with crap matchup, its ur own fault.

They trusted Anet to come up with better pairings in the first place. And don’t forget, the 2 months was the average that Anet came up with after the vote, since no one choice got the majority vote.

Josh XT.6053:

I believe it is 2 points per kill if I remember correctly? So 34616 of blackgates 167539 is just from kills alone. The only server right now that has a higher KDR than Blackgate is the CD/BP/ET/Kain pairing with 1.26 KDR and 25478 kills down in T4 with a 1.26:1 KDR lol..

Source: www.wvwintel.net

You know Anet set up that stacking…defies all logic, of course…4>3>2. Blobs 2x ours, and on top of that, gank groups from your server pairing are camping the south end of your BL and farming bags from those just trying to join tag. If it’s going to take at least 3 more weeks for the quad server to move up to T3 based on how glicko is looking, I think you’ll soon see the fallout of that frustration from the other servers. No enemies = no bags.

Don’t forget those in the SEA/OCX time zones that play on NA servers. Playing late PST myself I’ve had the privilege of talking to Hawaiians and Aussies in TS. Some servers tend to have larger populations of those time zones because there are fewer of them overall so it makes it more sociable if they can congregate on a few servers rather than spread themselves thin. This is that “night capping” crew that you may have heard people talking about because they are up when the majority of NA is asleep.

aristotle.2813:

Kaineng and ET both formerly linked to the 2 top tier servers did learned a thing or 2 from their peers during their time together. The overwhelming hospitality and friendly environment enjoyed makes it an memorable experience. The same cannot be said for the others like DB and YB who from personal experience were quite hostile and not sharing TS and some even made nasty comments about their partners.

That said, maybe others from Kaineng and ET would like to comment on the above?

And don’t forget BP was previously paired with FA, another fairly solid server. Because of being linked with T1/T2 servers, Kain, ET & BP probably saw their share of stacking, as that was the only way to then join up with the other T1/T2 servers. We’ll have to see if any destacking occurs, or if the bandwagoners mostly decide to stay to wreak havoc in T4…

Teon.5168:

The linking that Kaineng is in right now is almost ideal. We’re got a good lead in the points…..I think the matchup would be perfect if Darkhaven had one of our servers…..then I think the point total across the board would be almost perfect and very close. But, it is early yet…..it might change by Wednesday.

But just loving it. Lots of small zerg action, havocs, and roamers….very little blob stuff.
Reminds me of the days when Kaineng wvw was alive and well.

And so far, everyone is really nice to each other…..no primadonnas…..even the purple tags are super nice……..just like old Kaineng and the other lower tiers. Just brings a huge smile to my face!!!!
Well done, Anet!!!!

I’ve said as much about DH needing a bit more help by having one of your 4 servers pair up with DH. The point count blowout at this stage will likely cause some of your opposition players to do something else until they see how the next matchup will look, which means your fights will dry up as the remaining players end up severely outnumbered. It’s like the 4 server group is the BG of T4. Hope I’m wrong but time will tell.

Sky.8035:

I happened to be in Darkhaven and we got paired up with Crystal Desert.

It’s actually a nice thing aside from the fact that it’s a 2v7 for us this week. Nothing could possibly go wrong with pairing 4 worlds vs 3 worlds vs 2 worlds right?

As I’m typing this, the top team this week has double our score. Not necessarily because of the numbers game (At least I don’t think) but because of the random and varied tactics that the multiple worlds use that’s different for one-another.

The smaller worlds are taking the smaller objectives (Supply Camps/Towers) while the bigger world they got (Crystal Desert) is focusing Towers/Keeps.

It’s literally impossible for 2 big worlds to go against this tactic because it would require like 3-4 commander tags on the map at once doing different things and fanning out to different areas of the map.

They got the number game right it seems, but they didn’t factor in world tactics and how they would affect the result of pairing worlds.

Just my 2¢.

I’m on GoM, and from our end, I do see multiple commanders on a map for our team, but we’re still behind as well. Later last night, we were getting the outnumbered buff on half the maps at any one time, so, I really think it is mostly the numbers game. As someone pointed out, the numbers might have looked good from what Anet saw last week when they drew up the server pairings, but how many of those on the 4-server team came out of hibernation to play now that they aren’t stuck in T1 or T2, like Kain, BP and ET were? For many that came from a smaller server, being thrown into T1/T2 wasn’t their idea of fun, so now that they are back in a lower tier, their numbers might have swelled beyond what Anet was expecting.

Reverence.6915:

Matchups need more volatility to avoid stuff like this happening.

Losing servers need to lose more glicko. Winning servers need to gain more glicko. We do not need “comeback” mechanics. We need bigger score stomps to create bigger glicko deficits to let matchups evolve faster.

As an example, T4 on NA will not change due to the massive glicko wall that separates them with T3. This is unfortunate since the 4 server link team is stomping the other 2. Considering the links won’t change for another 2 months, that’s a long time to play without being able to lift yourself out of it besides transferring (which isn’t a solution as it makes the problem worse).

Per McKenna in the 6/24/16 World Linking post: “We have reset glicko volatility and deviation for all worlds to the same value, but have left their rating unchanged (this includes worlds that were previously guest worlds but are now host worlds). Just to reiterate, resetting glicko volatility and deviation will result in greater rating shifts in the first few matches. This will give worlds the opportunity to move into their ideal matchup tier much faster.”

Hopefully this will help, as being on one of the other server pairs in T4, I don’t relish fighting the 4-server blob groups for 2 months straight…

When using some leaps to quickly cover ground, a target is required to make them work, so having something to target in front of you is still desirable, however they don’t need to be tough.

Jake.5741:

I am actually curious as to how this match-up even seemed to look right in Anets eyes. 4 servers VS 3 servers VS 2 servers. Its not even close. Its a K Train for 7 servers to run over the 2 server pairing. If population is so low that you can actually have 4 servers paired up together, then its probably time to combine some and go to a 3 tier system. We have to deal with this for 2 months and you wonder why WvW is loosing people…. At least make it somewhat fair and not something that one side has no chance of competing in…

Actually the 2 & 3 server pairs in T4 aren’t too far off from each other, it’s the 4-server combo that is the runaway freight train. They really should have put BP or ET with DH and EB.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Have been on GoM the whole time, actually. So I’m with FC and SF now.

Yes, it’s fun when everyone is awake, lots of action everywhere. Unfortunately the quad server has like 0 downtime because they have so many communities mixed in to one. When one goes to bed another wakes up. So they will almost undoubtably win the match. They rolled all the maps last night after everyone went to sleep and their blob was still like 40 – 50 deep.

I don’t mind being outnumbered and have never had a problem with uneven matches. I just want to be somewhere where I can count on people to back me up when I’m roaming about. I want to be with people who have a fighting spirit that will eat the tail of a massive blob as it passes by. So far, those wishes are being fulfilled so I’ll be happy with this match up for a while.

I’m on GoM, too, so we’ll see you out there! Yeah, we really need to talk to DH/EB to get some double-teaming on CD & crew…they are already 40% over the next highest score.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m actually having fun in this current match. All 9 servers that are against each other atm, rofl.

Gate Of Madness, Ferguson’s Crossing, Sorrow’s Furnace
Crystal Desert, Borlis Pass, Kaineng, Eredon Terrace
Darkhaven, Ehmry Bay

The blobs are insanity.

Did you end up transferring off SoS? To where? With the above matchup, for day 1 at least, it’s shaping up heavily in favor of the 4 linked servers team…unless there’s a counterbalancing SEA/OCX population to help out the other servers overnight, we’ll see.

As part of the Madness, I came to appreciate SoS very much. If we get to partner again, we’ll be fighting alongside loyal friends, but if we meet on opposite sides of the battlefield, it will be with much respect.

BOA smid.1783:

One thing SoS will never do is tank. We play to play whatever the outcome. And I’m not sure what timezone you are talking about, but I’ve never seen that playstyle from SoS. We take things and move on. If people want to be trolly and try to farm someone they might exhibit the behavior you mention, or if it’s our own BL and people want to try to get upgrades to take. But on enemy BLs, no one is going to respond to defend something on an enemy BL unless it’s a guild looking for a fight.

You fail to understand that whoever takes Mag’s place will have just as much a population discrepancy as we face now. The outnumbered buff will still exist and we’ll still be fighting the same uphill battle. You want outta the tier, get there yourself. No one is going to give it to you.

Exactly…Mag needs to quit letting SBI PPT them, too, if they want to move up, it’s not just SoS. In fact, it looks like SBI will come out ahead of SoS this week by about 10k points.

Cerby.1069:

Bay of Madness?

So those of us from GoM are losing our Sea and only getting a Bay in return? It’s just Madness, I tell you! ;-)

If the leaked info is correct and SoS is teaming up with FC, which in my experience from right before the pairings indicated FC also had a decent amount of OCX coverage, then the SoS/FC capping during those hours will be that much more effective, making up for not as much NA prime coverage. Clearly, Anet is not looking at coverage hours on these pairings.

lil devils x.6071:

Sylvyn.4750:

Anet should do what Blizzard used to, free one-way transfers from certain high-pop servers to certain low-pop servers until the desired population counts were reached, and lock paid transfers back to the high-pop servers for a time.

Why would someone transfer their account from a locked server when many people on locked servers already have alt accounts on lower populated servers? Many T1 guilds already have offers from lower tiers to have paid transfers. Not sure why anything thinks players would remove more valuable accounts to make their account lose value.

What happens when you lock top servers is the accounts on those servers become valuable and people sell them to anyone who wants to transfer there… Some accounts I have seen sell on other games for more than $5,000.

People don’t leave locked servers often due to knowing they can’t just go back if they are not having fun elsewhere.

I suppose too the dynamics are different with WoW and having a monthly subscription versus what we have in GW2. If you want an alt account in WoW, you’re going to have to pay monthly for it as well as your main account.

Anet should do what Blizzard used to, free one-way transfers from certain high-pop servers to certain low-pop servers until the desired population counts were reached, and lock paid transfers back to the high-pop servers for a time.

Yes Sekz is on either of those servers. Hard to tell which at the moment due to the pairing, and SoS’s OCX is the best! If only our NA hadn’t lost so many of the regulars…

Ah, nuts…doing a Google search I just found where [Grim] transferred to Ebay around February…guess I missed the memo on that! It looks like they are doing well in T4, at least. If they had stuck around, we could be pounding Mag & SBI in NA prime instead of trying to merely stay alive until OCX woke up.

Reh.5986:

Lightsbane.9012:

Loosmaster.8263:

Reh.5986:

Meh. Constantly outnumbered. Constantly defending 10v50 or worse. Fairweathers taking the week off. People running around apparently naked, getting 1 shot.

We can whine and cry or deal and try to make things better. I’m fine running into an outnumbered fight with a lot of names I’ve learned to recognize on SoS and definately GoM as well. And if I’m defending a keep in a 10v50+ I throw as many ACs as I can get operators for. Throw a couple shield gens you lazy blobs.

Nice take on SMC last night!!!

i’m impressed that GoM doesn’t have more of a presence. from my days there we had a lot of dedicated wvw guilds. problem being, when you ask the larger pve guilds for help, they often tend to not care. It’s mostly a pve server, i guess.

I see a lot of bliss, art, tm and a few others running around. We did lose a few guilds before the link though and we’re mostly NA. We don’t have the numbers to deal with mag/sbi while waiting for the SoS OCX heavy crew to wake up.

Shortly before the pairing, I also recall Grim Chizzard/Charizard frequently leading a number of the pugs around the maps during NA on GoM. After the pairing, I still see some of the [Grim] running around, but haven’t seen Grim himself. Several other commanders that we had prior to the pairing seemed to have stepped out of the picture as well…not sure if they are still in game and laying low, or doing something else entirely.

And yes…siege is a symptom of being outnumbered.

Unfortunately we lost key people when the server transfers were opened up a couple weeks ago. One of our better drivers lost most of the core fighting group that he depended on to bust zergs, which is all we seem to see from Mag or SBI anymore while we are left with an odd assortment of roamers. Yes we might have one blob running EBG but we are usually outnumbered on BLs during NA prime and forced to roam and back cap rather than fight because enemy blobs outnumber us.