Guild Wars 2

Missed all this drama. Anyways…enjoy the new server, hope you find what you are looking for.

Tier 3 seems to be a population edge tier. We’ve got tier 1 & 2 servers being flagged “Full” the majority of the time with decent coverage. The only other NA server I’ve seen that is flagged “Full” for a large period is TC. For whatever reason TC doesn’t seem to be able to compete in Tier 2, and it doesn’t look like any other NA server (outside tier 1/2) has the raw numbers to compete with TC in tier 3. FA losing numbers to TC is doubly negative and equivalent to 2x the number xfering from another tier into TC as far as population balance goes (ie -made up numbers- TC goes up 50, and FA goes down 50 = 100 player swing)

The scoring gap between t3 and t2 is fairly large, so TC isn’t moving up anytime soon, and the same goes for CD moving up…and even if CD moved up, I don’t think the dynamic would change for this tier. So, baring additional sizable xfers it looks like T3 is going to be auto wins for TC for weeks…(months?) With the other servers just playing for 2nd….with the knowledge that TC’s actions will ultimately decide who actually finishes 2nd, by where they focus.

There will still be action and good fights, I just don’t see T3 being competitive from a score perspective (baring population/participation changes). FAvYBvCD would prolly be a more competitive match-up.

But this perhaps leads us more into the FA play style anyways….look for fights and have fun as scoring really doesn’t matter in the end anyways.

Bobby Fizz.5706:

I say it again, the whole problem IS people changing servers.

The server matchups do not work if whole guilds transfer server for any reason.

Prolly the opposite in reality. We need more servers with healthy populations with good coverage having competitive fights 24/7. There just isn’t enough of a WvW playerbase for all of the servers…..the lower tier servers will have thin coverage and/or be open to large holes when/if people move on or don’t show for whatever reason.

Over time I suspect those that care (there are those that don’t) will continue to migrate from the lower tiers upwards as the yo-yo-ing of action/scoring/PvDooring and giant holes left by 1 group leaving to another server, or general player attrition over time gets old. Its not a dominate or be underdog only scenario out there. Atm tiers 1, 2 and 3 are pretty competitive. I’m on FA in tier 3 and there is always action (and hardly ever a que) so still room for more on FA, and Yaks as well in that tier (the other server in tier 3: TC is “FULL” flagged).

Daedalus.3954:

WvW has but one incentive for [ULTD], war. Winning said fights through superior tactics. The server may not be number one, but when we hit the field it’s your keeps or your blood. We’re going to take one of the two, if not both.

Isn’t that why we bought this game?

Again….I think many (most?) play this way on FA..

…there is a distinction between fights and war though. Fights being measured by immediate individual (win/loss), whereas the war is measured by the server scores.

Examples of server over fight: ie ensuring the easy camp flips in proximity are taken within a few minutes of score tally instead of chasing down 2-3 opponents running, camping your BLs southern areas to ensure no other servers obtains any footholds (lots of time idle as opposed to being “active” 100%), pushing into BLs that your server can credibly hold for longer periods of time, without giving up similar sized or larger territory in another map, for FA (we don’t generally fill maps) – moving maps when necessary to help with defense or pushes, upgrading and repairing positions (supply runs yay!), choosing what server to provoke and when etc etc…. All these small things, translate into your overall score and standings (but can often lesson your individual fighting experiences with more “mundane” activities or down times)

Vagrant.1094:

Oh, yes. I don’t disagree that quite often whoever is in first place can dictate who comes second. Once whoever is in first gains enough of a lead (25K or so) it is very rarely recovered, and whichever team is in 3rd place going into the match (red) has more to gain by taking on whoever is 2nd (blue) in terms of differential gain.

However, it’s not my intention to dictate who ends up 2nd/3rd when ’I’m’ co-ordinating EB – I’m more interested in hitting whoever is TC’s closest competition, or shows the most aggression towards us. I have no personal preference as to which of YB and FA take 2nd and 3rd, though I am enjoying the closeness of the race between you two. I’m hoping both servers flip back and forth between 2nd and 3rd over the last few days of the match, as there really is something to gain or lose for both in terms of position ranking.

While they’re likely outmanned, YB have kept quiet for the past 3 hours in EB, while FA came over and tried to hit Klovan. This resulted in TC sweeping out and taking Langor, my beloved Quentin Lake and Durios. Kudos to FA on their Bravost defense – I’m more of a defensive minded person than offensive (I rarely leave TC’s 3rd of the map in EB), and I made a few mistakes there, which FA rightly capitalised upon.

~Nyari Cil, Queen of EB!

^The challenge being that someone (likely both YB/FA) need to show aggression towards TC, otherwise for the next few months (barring xfers) tier 3 will just be an auto win for TC and the match just comes down to who comes in 2nd…..with TC having a great (greatest?)influence on who that ultimately is.

IMO (as viewed during my playtime – and I’m sure it varies throughout the day) I suspect you see more of FA as we are generally an offensively focused server with limited defense….the majority (98%?) of our population seems to be on the front lines pushing against another server, and when/if our borderlands is all blue it quickly becomes a ghost town (hence the near constant TC/YB activity there vs the other BLs – as we do a poor job at limiting initial footholds of opposing servers).

^all that being said. It’s a video game, there are no rewards for placing, and an individual has limited impact on overall performance of a server 24/7 for 7 days, and you can understandably see why people act as they do. In fact “optimal server point gain” is not pursued by many on FA imo (or the decisions made on the battle field suggest they don’t, per your example), and even many of the recognizable FA guild names in this thread are playing more for fun/good fights then optimal point acquisition/AND retention strategies imo. That could change with time, lead by some of the larger guilds, but honestly I don’t think FA has the numbers, or many large enough guilds(with coverage) to implement that strategy yet – perhaps with time and more consolidation and/or coordinated alliances…..but then you fall back on the motivation/reward issues. I like competition, for competitions sake, but overall I think joe average mmo player (wvw is numbers game) is motivated by individual fun and rewards – and those don’t always align with optimal server strategy.

TLDR: This match-up has been fun, and always has hectic fights and things to do

Vagrant.1094:

Something for the strategic minds of FA to consider:

In EB, FA and TC spent roughly 3 hours beating up on YB. The Yakkies lost their keep and had nothing left on the map. Neither TC or FA sent anyone into the other’s territory other than your expected <5man supply cap teams, most of which failed and were wiped.

Then GODS started hitting TC’s supply camps in numbers of around 15-20, and made a weak attempt at Aldon. When a large group of people starts repeatedly hitting your camps, trying to hold them, or makes a play at towers, that signals a shift in behaviour.

The end result is that I asked our folks to forget about YB and go take FA’s towers. As much as people deride playing for second, FA has the potential to drop a rank to 9th this week, and had the folk from GODS not begun rushing over into TC territory in numbers, we had no interest in hitting FA, as YB remain in 2nd place and are currently the strategic priority for TC.

When we pulled off YB, they regained their 3rd of the map. The net result is that YB gains points, FA loses points/towers, and FA ends up in a worse position than they were before they started attempting to raid TC’s territory.

I don’t expect this post to make much of a difference, really ^^, but if anyone on FA reads this and plays/commands on EB (especially from GODS), perhaps it’s something to consider.

It ‘is’ nice to see red back on the map, though.

~Nyari Cil, Queen of EB

I think that is the nature of this matchup. TC has the overall numerical advantage, and you get to choose who comes in 2nd, based on where you decide to focus (as was shown in your example – ie whoever you focus losing ground versus the other). The general theory of red and blue focusing on the stronger green rarely seems to play out, and looking over all the tier score standings atm, green is winning in every single tier. We’ll see if this continues for several months or if something changes.

I do agree with you btw that many strategic moves are not well thought out. Sadly all you need is gold to get a commanders tag

I request more frequent 4map pics please in this thread. The map colors, and the BLs with activity levels from all three sides will point out where the action is and who appears to be fighting on more fronts….problem solved with facts!……I know, I know facts don’t belong on forums posts!….just kitten! lol……Seriously post em more frequently please

Been enjoying my time in WvW (almost exclusively leveling that way). I do see lots of issues with it though (zerging, culling… etc). I’m assuming lots of other folks are seeing flaws or having less fun as well….as, despite selling million(s) of copies, all but a few servers fill all 4 maps during primetimes, let alone population levels around the clock.

Yes I am having fun now, and spending the mjority of my game time in wvw atm, but if I ask myself, when the pay-for xpac hits and we get some new pve content and maybe 10-15 new levels, but wvw remained relatively unchanged….would I fork out an additional $40-50 dollars to continue playing this WvW?….prolly not.

lessurl.6107:

@rhonyn
As an outsider looking in on your two servers I will say it appears to me the difference this matchup between FA and TC has been strategy (both servers are incredibly strong opponents).
Despite what it would appear to some Yaks (atleast the people I play with) have not been focusing one server over the other. If we weren’t shoring up our own borderlands we spent an even amount of time in the other two.

The difference being that whenever we attacked FA borderlands, TC would generally concentrate on pushing up their side of the map so we would push up ours. However whenever we went to TC borderlands, FA would be attacking us rather than focusing on their own side. Case in point, we had south east tower, FA had south west. We were building trebs at the se supply camp to attack the east keep when the entire FA force came across and attacked us at the camp, destroying our trebs. Naturally, we left TC borderlands at that point and went to FA instead.

What was Yaks big picture strategy? I didn’t see much of an attempt to hold TC back once they took the lead on Sunday….yes their points are harder to take….they are the server with the highest rating, and larger population so of course they are going to be…knocking the #1 off isn’t ever going to be the easier target (they are generally #1 for a reason).

I fully agree though that FA overall could do much better at strat/coordination and picking targets. We’ve been beat by both your servers in the past iirc.

Props to TC for great strategy this match. During my playtime, you showed great discipline in focusing #2, while limiting aggression on #3 and thus encouraged them to help you cement your win. /salute.

Look forward to playing this one again (and again most likely lol)

As to OP…. anonymous first time poster? TC’er RPing as FA player to rally the troops? :P (joke) That would be brilliant as well actually.

Bedinar.1754:

Are we getting a rematch this next week?

yes. Most likely this same group for several weeks (barring mass xfer migrations).

Cogbyrn.7283:

As has already been pointed out, you misunderstand. It’s a strategic move to mitigate you losses by allowing the world that is currently a lesser threat to acquire an objective that is guaranteed to be lost to your world.

Don’t let your emotions get in the way of sound tactical reasoning.

^This. This is the way the game is intended to be played (and why there is 3 teams). TC is playing the “right” game strategically by limiting their aggression on the 3rd place team (Yaks), and focussing on 2nd place (FA), while encourageing Yaks to do the same, to cement the eventual TC win. Optimally if they were playing to win, Yaks shouldn’t be complying….but people aren’t always rational….and/or they are playing for 2nd…..and/or…..they want to attack the weaker target(hey its easier!)….or they aren’t really thinking. /shrug.

Amblix.3640:

I heard OBEY from Sorrows Furnace just moved to Fort Aspenwood, that’s a good 700+ people if they all move. o:

Yikes!

RE: 2 v 1 – its the game design. For example when FA came out with the early lead, Yaks and TC should have focused FA. Now that TC is leading FA and Yaks optimally should be focusing them. This is what ideally keeps matches close and helps address population dynamic discrepancies (which are the ultimate match deciding factor). In reality though, for numerous reasons (i.e. no real incentives, pugs, habits, ease, commanders influences etc), this is unlikely to always play out. Also camps on all maps are going to be randomly flipped all the time by people looking for xp/karma and SMC due to its location and importance is a magnet for aggro from both opposing servers.

Its been a fun week, and looks like we will get another one next week.

Kneemin.4235:

rhonyn.6810:

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

Where is your evidence for this? Are you a programmer? (I am) Did you not see the post by devs that they are working on it? On the contrary, its quite likely that it be fixed at some point. Whether that be done in the near future or not, they shouldn’t waste a bunch of dev-time rebalancing thieves because a few people can’t adapt to the rendering (which really isn’t that big an issue anyway…. even in large fights its maybe 1.5 seconds where you can target, but not see the enemy). I actually feel bad for thieves when it gets fixed… since I already mop the floor with the majority of them on my elementalist as is.

My point is a basic premise: design classes and game mechanics with game engine limitations in mind….not some future build that may or may not ever coming into being and may or may not even actually fix the problem. You say its not worth their time…you’re entitled to your opinion as am I. (and the culling issue is bigger then just “thieves”…its just the topic of this thread)

Anet would never say they can’t fix the culling issue. It will be “being worked on” indefinitely or until fixed. They’ve stated its challenging, and they are hoping to “improve” it in the future (no timelines given). Meh, at some point…. months? year? when? you have to call it and hopefully design the game around what they have imo.

Clearly the fact that you’ve stressed you play Ele several times now, brings some additional weight to your arguments that I am failing to see …but I defer to you…as you are a programmer.

Kneemin.4235:

Fix culling and it’ll just make it a bit harder for really good thieves to stay in stealth, but it will use up all their focus just to do that… let alone kill you as it does now, but a smidge more-so.

It’s unlikely that culling will ever be fixed in the WvW environment…..class/game mechanics should be designed with that in mind.

Yashino.5713:

Kneemin.4235:

I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the ‘dodge’ button? Or perhaps the ‘blind’, ‘immobilize’, ‘cripple’, or ‘chill’ effects? How about ‘blowback’? Surely you have a couple of these available to you? Seriously, do you not know anything about how thief works? If they are stealthing for “1/2 the fight” then you’re clearly doing something wrong and if your not, that means they burnt a LOT of their trait points and select-skills on stealthing, which means they will probably not be able to kill you.

Holes; Your argument has a lot of them.

exactly my thought…
people just don’t learn the mechanics of the game~
im sure ALL classes have something to counter, stun, slow, stealth, DODGE…
oh sorry, i think im wasting my time since 90% of them just stand there waiting to be stabbed in the back.

by this logic….nothing would be OP, or need adjustment. I don’t even need stealth…give me a skill that can hit for 50k!….you’ve got dodge right?…so its all good

I don’t care about spike, I do think that some thief builds are too easy to play to mediocre efficacy though relative to other classes (risk/reward is off), and rendering in WvW is an admitted issue – at some point that game engine deficiency needs to stop being an excuse for current challenges in class/game mechanics and become the reason for implementing change (read: CHANGE not NERF class into oblivion).

I too hope that it is addressed……….

…….But, realistically, from a pure marketing perspective I wouldn’t expect Anet to say anything other then “we’re working on it” regardless of actual prospects/priorities. It may be here to stay. /shrug.

trying to avoid drama….impossible on forums I know lol…

“Culling issue” – in a post a few thread down a dev states it has been here since launch (and I presume in months of beta before that) and that it is difficult to address…..approaching 3 months post launch now….at what point do classes/mechanics get tuned to the game engine (and its limitations) that exists for players today, as opposed to the wishlist of a future design that may or may not ever come into being?

Agree with many of the posts above….wide spread xfers were/are an issue, yes……but its the underlying game and scoring mechanics that are the underlying cause imo. As was stated above population and coverage almost trumps all from a macro scoring perspective. A small group can win some skirmishes versus a larger force, but in a game where you have to hold points on 4 maps, for 24 hours across 7 days….numbers will win out in the end.

Unfortunately I’m not sure there are enough “like” servers atm to have “competitive” matches within all tiers of play, even with xfers curbed. Small differences in off-peak populations can have a dramatic impact on scoring. I suspect the competitive nature among the people who like to focus on WvW over the longer term will result in more and more consolidation into a few servers who have decent pops/coverage, thus mitigating that impact on scoring (actual play and strategy thus are more influential) and the rest of the servers will be left with large holes and up and down play…..essentially giving us two tiers.

ravendd.4209:

So… I shouldn’t hold respect for or dislike the way someone or a group of people behave because it’s a game? How silly of me. I’m quickly reminded of the FA that posted two weekends ago how dirty and underhanded it was of YB to assault a Garrison with GOLEMS! Gimme a break. So if I cede that “contempt” might just be TOO strong of a word, can we go with maybe “Disdain” – we can maybe get past the finer points of what you should and shouldn’t like about a game, and get on with it?

The golem rage poster was actually from ET not FA. Regardless, obviously 1 or 2 posters are representative of an ENTIRE servers playerbase. WvW is serious bizness it seems. lol.

Maniac.5163:

quick judgements are usually the wrong way to approach a lot of things in my experience.

True.

Nethril.7413:

rhonyn.6810:

no comment on thief balance per se, other than to say class mechanic issue or game mechanic issues shouldn’t be viewed differently imo. Class mechanics should account for game engine performance and limitations in all game play scenarios that exist.

tldr: if culling is crappy, design stealth mechanics knowing that.

Culling isn’t crappy, their current implementation of Umbra 3 Occlusion (commonly called culling for GW2) into their game engine has a few issues which need to be ironed out. These types of fixes sometimes aren’t as easy as changing a couple numbers. Sometimes these may take months for the coders who know how this works to resolve.

The instantaneous appearance of a character is what causes it to appear later while the Umbra 3 process determines if it should be seen and queries the servers for it (look up Umbra Occlusion on wiki for more info). That is also why you see it with Portals. The same can occur if someone jumps from behind an object and runs out into the open. The only way to eliminate or reduce this issue is by removing stealth / portals. These are complete and utter class eliminating changes. If you take stealth away from the thief, it is no longer the character people signed up to play.

This leaves only one option. Fix Umbra 3 Occlusion. This unfortunately may take some time. Now, before anyone yells “oh, the thieves will defend anything” – i’m actually not sticking to playing my thief a lot. It is no the class for me. I learned a lot by leveling one to 80 and WvW / sPvP’n and now understand the class better. I do not think anything should be changed with the class. period. I have no issues with what they do and going against them.

I stick by my point. ….and it’s not in ref to thiefs only or rendering only….just the basic premise that class/game mechanics should account for game engine limitations. The premise of <insert whatever issue> isn’t an actual issue because in the future (months?) when/if they can implement a fix that may or may not work it will likely no longer be an issue….seems a bit weak. : )

no comment on thief balance per se, other than to say class mechanic issue or game mechanic issues shouldn’t be viewed differently imo. Class mechanics should account for game engine performance and limitations in all game play scenarios that exist.

tldr: if culling is crappy, design stealth mechanics knowing that.

The incentive is that upgraded locations are easier to defend and thus you keep them longer -earning more ticks.

To lazy to multi quote….some random points/thoughts…

- Props to all those still fighting
- Matches (aka macro points) are primarily determined by numbers/coverage
- Population/coverage delta between servers are magnified over a match as losing servers have less participation and winning servers get more (both internal and xfers)
- This isn’t a good match for judging strategy on FA’s part for obvious reasons (good and bad)
- HoD and ET have been in the wrong tiers for weeks, and likely weeks more – messing up scoring by removing the 2v1 viability
-Many of us play regardless of score (all servers), but xfers and large changes in internal server participation suggests that the majority of people are impacted by scoring…..and unless you have decent coverage/population you are always going to be susceptible to fluctuating scores and thus participating populations. Especially in mid/low tiers where small numbers can make a dramatic difference. Over time this will likely cause more drift/consolidation of WvW populations to a subset of the servers. There isn’t a large enough player base for all servers to have good coverage it seems.
-to FA – been here since start and enjoyed all the fights, server is remarkably drama free and mature atm….hope that continues as we grow.
-and lastly nothing is static – apparently Blackgate is low on numbers now (losing) and are looking for people to prop them up as people leave (back to my scores matter comment above) and in the bottom tier where matches were tight for weeks, a couple guilds moved to one server and its a blow out now…./shrug.

RE:TC experience

TC’s will to fight has been broken before (SoR).

Yak I would encourage your guilds to “no-life/gold dump” the reset/weekend again and you many do the same.

Failing that I would xfer a toon or two to TC to set up a pirate RP event to pull some folks off the maps

They were numerous and have/had a large off-peak population (at least relative to us)

As was mentioned above, many combinations can work well. IMO the key is gearing/traiting for group functionality/support…ie not a “selfish” glass cannon solo build to get the best results….if your goal is to be able to engage and participate in sustained fights and not just run in ff down 1-2 targets and run until CDs are back up.

@OP Hope you find what your looking for.

I have to admit after trying numerous MMOs over the years I have been pleasantly surprised with the generally maturity of the WvW playerbase (assuming most servers are similar to mine: FA). Perhaps its the game style (which encourages server community/cooperation) that attracts that type of gamer. More then anything communities are what tie me down to an MMO for an extended period of time….so hope this continues.

Kuhickaswhip.7360:

Dear FA,ET
This fight has been great. If you have ever read anything about Yak’s Bend. You would know how strong our weekend force is. We usually jump ahead the first two days. If our enemy does not fold monday morning. They have a very good chance at catching us. With that said, we get bored of being 100k ahead.. A large secret that I might get in trouble for. Possibly banned and shunned from the server. in a whispering voice …there are some of us that play reset friday 7pm cst – ??… you know what ?? means… its till we pass out. That is right. We play past our NA time cause its the freakin weekend and we bout to have some fun…That makes our foes think that we have a night presence and if they have none we usually keep it for our morning crew to clean up what we couldn’t hold.

Shout out to PRO, GODS. You keep the pain coming.. sorry only two guilds I have run into in force.(I havn’t played since monday)

Lies!….Yak’s weekend:weekday strength has been constant leaving the ONLY possible explanation for FA making any forward progress during the week being mass xfers!!!!!!!

…in fact ETs small point surge is likely from xfers too!….its a mass conspiracy I tell you!

rhonyn.6810:

Ekove.4586:

The only reasons Yaks are not happy is because they might lose another matchup due to transfers mid way through the match..against an equally matched server initially…

The weekend scoring suggests that our servers were NOT equally matched (24/7) IF that scoring dynamic maintained during the remaining (ie majority) of the match time. In fact if the ranking system was functional (and any reliable measure of server strength) one would have to assume that FA would close the gap as “equally matched” servers should generate close scoring matches after the full 7 days play out.

There are lots of ways this could occur with and without xfers playing a small or large role. For example- you may have a larger weekend warrior contingent then us, we may have had a larger group of folks w/o power over the weekend….could be all kinds of stuff. It’s the reality of matches now and going forward in these mid/low tiers – small changes in off-peak player participation can have a large impact….and it doesn’t even require that many people unfortunately (ie 10 of your guys taking a break and 10 more of our guys showing up is a 20 person swing….during a time period with perhaps 30 people on the map is meaningful) – it’s the nature of the game, be prepared to be frustrated continuously if this upsets you…..and wait for the double teams to create even more angst!

I will just copy/paste my response from the match thread….
———————————————————————

All this complaining about numbers….it is, what it is. Its the game design/mechanics issue. …numbers win matches (or at a minimum greatly influence it). Whether server number variations and miss-matches versus competition come from:

1) Dumb luck? – more people clicked on your server when they installed the game
2) Recruiting more “PvE only” players to participate
3) server Xfers
4) New players trying the game, or recently finishing PvE content trying WvW out
5) Daily/hourly variations in players participation – jobs, life, extreme weather
6) Score dynamics – “fairweathers”, momentum, attitudes etc etc..

It will happen and continue to happen and impact scoring in matches…especially when small changes (relative to map pop caps) in off-hour player numbers can dramatically impact the maps……our choices are to:

a) Accept it, and enjoy the fights we have (sometimes you will have more, other times less)
b) Xfer to tier where raw numbers play less of a role (i.e. top tiers)
c) Build your server to mitigate as much as you can by getting numbers/coverage
d) petition Anet to change the scoring design

All this complaining about numbers….it is, what it is. Its the game design/mechanics issue. …numbers win matches (or at a minimum greatly influence it). Whether server number variations and miss-matches versus competition come from:

1) Dumb luck? – more people clicked on your server when they installed the game
2) Recruiting more “PvE only” players to participate
3) server Xfers
4) New players trying the game, or recently finishing PvE content trying WvW out
5) Daily/hourly variations in players participation – jobs, life, extreme weather
6) Score dynamics – “fairweathers”, momentum, attitudes etc etc..

It will happen and continue to happen and impact scoring in matches…especially when small changes (relative to map pop caps) in off-hour player numbers can dramatically impact the maps……our choices are to:

a) Accept it, and enjoy the fights we have (sometimes you will have more, other times less)
b) Xfer to tier where raw numbers play less of a role (i.e. top tiers)
c) Build your server to mitigate as much as you can by getting numbers/coverage
d) petition Anet to change the scoring design

morrolan.9608:

rhonyn.6810:

Transfers are just numbers/coverage. And you seem to concede that numbers/coverage are what drives a matches outcome (i.e. “match being decided by transfers”). Should I be upset that server numbers/coverage going into a match decide the outcome?

No because thats a given going into the match.

You missed my point. Refer to Scorpio’s post above (i think he is a dirty TCer!)

morrolan.9608:

rhonyn.6810:

So Yaks amassed a 100k point lead in 48 hours due to superior strategy/play over the weekend, while on the other hand FA closing the gap by just 10k over 48 hours is purely the result of transfers and a large and growing population advantage…?

Bit of a strawman there.

rhonyn.6810:

Not sure why you are getting so upset over this…

You don’t see why we would be annoyed at a match being decided by transfers in the middle of it?

Transfers are just numbers/coverage. And you seem to concede that numbers/coverage are what drives a matches outcome (i.e. “match being decided by transfers”). Should I be upset that server numbers/coverage going into a match decide the outcome?

Ordibble.3092:

Cogbyrn.7283:

It’s too bad we can’t get a graph of WvWvW participation per world per hour over the course of the week. I guarantee that sort of information is available somewhere, and I’d pay money to get my mitts on it. I bet they could even break it down by regional representation.

The next best thing – http://mos.millenium.org/servers/view/40

To equate it with population fluctuations, you of course have to assume that PPT reflects the relative WvW populations at any particular point. With that in mind, I think it shows time zone trends reasonably well.

To answer someone else’s question, YB does have a bigger weekend than working day presence. From my own observations, our WvW population also seems to drop when we are winning by a large margin. I know the only times I haven’t logged in are when we are well in the lead.

Thanks. I noticed the “monday” effect. And understand the taking a break when leading.

I would love it if skill/strategy played a large roll in matches outcomes…..unfortunately the game design heavily rewards population numbers and coverage. In the mid tiers it seems population dynamics are very different among servers and even within an individual server it varies greatly during various times of day, days of week and even during various score dynamics (i.e. taking a break on blowouts, fair-weathers etc) on the map.

Which all points to needing to get to a minimal critical mass of players and coverage in order to ensure more “competitive” scoring matches that are less impacted by pop dynamics.

Ekove.4586:

IRSyKo.5843:

What I don’t understand is why yaks bend is acting like they lost the match when they have a 100k lead.

The match is only half over, and if you guys have enough transfers you guys could would, it has happened before, and more likely now without orbs. And honestly the transfers you have gotten are ridiculously significant…a couple hundred WvW dedicated players is a match breaker.

The other reason is because some FA players are still complaining about being out numbered, still beggi…excuse me, looking for recruits, by claiming that the only reason they are losing against us is because of our night capping, posting screen shots of the map all green at their prime time before they go to bed, and all blue after they log off….when any Yak bend could make the exact same posts and just reverse the screen shots. I mean the map was all blue when I went to bed last night and it’s all green now. Your server is at it’s primetime now while our many of our commanders and leaders are not even online now. Are we complaining as much about you “night capping”? no…So I wish those FA players would stop being biased, if you want to recruit more players then good, all servers at our tiers do so they can move up to upper tiers, but I find the way some FA are recruiting is kind of cheap, and also diminishing to our server claiming that the only reason we are winning is because of night capping.

And btw we also do get the outmanned buff….again, dont understand why some people still assuming that Yak Bend is a huge-pop server. And if you dont see it on the other team while you have it, will that’s for a logical reason.

I have to admit that I am a little jealous that, whether FA wins or loses this week, they have ultimately won with the large transfers they have gotten with their whole claim that they are demolishing us on primetime and only losing cause of night capping.

So Yaks amassed a 100k point lead in 48 hours due to superior strategy/play over the weekend, while on the other hand FA closing the gap by just 10k over 48 hours is purely the result of transfers and a large and growing population advantage…?

Not sure why you are getting so upset over this….you had numbers advantage over the weekend, FA seems to have a numbers advantage now. Is this due to FA recruiting, more “native” FA’s playing, or less Yak’s playing?….or combination of all of the above?…prolly…..who cares?….kill stuff. Does any of this imply that Yaks or FA didn’t employ good/great strategy?…no. The only “issue” that was taken from some of the FA posters in this thread was the insistence, by some, that Yaks early points lead had nothing to do with population dynamics, and was just superior skill/strategy.

In mid tier matches at this stage of the games life, I would prolly go as far as to say the majority of the outcomes are primarily attributable population dynamics. You said so yourself in your post above… prime-time we seem to have similar population numbers and the point ticks stay relatively stable, they only move wildly when there is population mismatches. The servers able to benefit from the longer period of mismatches wins…..this is essentially GW2 WvW as it stands now…..as you get into higher tiers periods of mismatches are less and other elements of gameplay become more important. Its the system we have atm. /shrug

Ekove.4586:

And if you dont see it on the other team while you have it, will that’s for a logical reason.

brilliant.

I think many of the NA servers likely have comparable NA prime pops….but the period of time when both servers have 4 map queues is the only time you can say with certainty they had “equal” numbers on the field…..and for FA (and I assume Yak too?) the only time that happened (if at all?) was Friday after reset for a few hours.

As an FA player I have had the out-manned buff on several occasions….has Yak gotten this buff? I honestly haven’t noticed it, but obviously I’m only out there for a very small fraction of the time, or could have missed it as well.

I would also note pop advantage after prime > pop advantage a few hours before prime from a points acquisition potential.

It is what it is….

rhyein.6172:

I don’t mind an EU guild moving to an NA server or vice versa, and certainly FA could use you guys. However, trying to get as many EU guilds to go with you at the same time is only going to screw up the ladders yet again for the tier that FA is in and the tier above it.

We’ve alternated between winning or losing by 100-300k the last 3 weeks….we aren’t really seeing “competitive scoring” matches in the mid tiers……yet. Population trumps all, and for whatever reason (xfers, luck of the draw etc) there appears to be relatively few NA servers that have comparable population dynamics. Its further complicated as small deltas in off-peak pops can have dramatic scoring implications with the current game/scoring mechanics, so I’m not sure we’ll ever see “competitive scoring” matches outside the top and bottom bracket or two consistently….and a server can’t really consciously decide to go down to the bottom tier, so the only option is to get coverage and move up*. I do agree that “piling on” is bad, and usually leads to flame outs…so measured improvement to a number of servers is the best outcome.

(* ignoring fun can be had regardless of score/tier etc….just referring to “scoring”)

kanikani.2430:

@Munki, I totally agree, and even would go so far as to say EVERY server, be it big or small has some very talented people out there its very nice to see. That is what keeps me coming back to WvW. And I think we should all recognize that WvW has a lot of problems/constraints at this point and ‘points’ or ‘winning’ or ‘dominating’ are largely not due to skill but due to other things, and I would love to see this change.

Agree, that no server has a monopoly on anything…skill or skill-less, dedicated or fair-weathers…etc. As you mention there are lots of things outside “skill” that determine the outcome of matches. A server can try to mitigate some of these external factors. I would argue (for good and bad) that population and coverage are arguable the largest factors that impact the scoring for a host of reasons…..the only way to mitigate this issue is to build your pop/coverage so its not a liability and be pushed up in the ranks to where other servers have similar-ish 24/7 coverage. The more servers that we can get that have reasonable coverage the better. Piling on the same server and flaming out is not good though.

With time, the matching system may balance this out in the mid tiers (non perfect coverage/pops) but I’m not sure the system/mechanics are currently refined enough. Combined with the fact that small pop changes (especially off peak) can make match-altering changes in these tiers. I suspect there will be lots of up in down in scoring in the mid tiers….which may be good or bad. Sounds like Anet is thinking of some changes and once we get more actual 3-way competitive matches it may get better. (ET props for being out and above attitudes, but your pop is non-viable at this tier both individually, and in the context of a 2v1 to hold back the leader)

This match has been interesting…..more then an increase in FA pop, I’ve noticed what seems like a decrease in Yak pop (lots of weekend warriors?….you seemed to imply losing a lead late in another match? – I don’t think that will happen this time…but just wondering if you have a larger weekend:weekday divide…could always be a one day anomaly though (large guild event(s) etc).

Yak has definitely shown me the value of supply and siege, which in my experience FA still can get better at securing (props to PRO for never ending blueprint supply), guarding, and cutting off from targets. I was in the group that took SM the other day and after we flipped it watched as 5+ people ran to the supply depot within SM to take supply from the keep and run off to the next thing as opposed to going to a supply camp and letting our keeps and towers internal supply build for active defensive uses.

One thing that I’m sure would benefit all servers communities and coordination is server subforums……I likely missed it, but are we getting those?

MagnusLL.8473:

This is the only rational solution to the messed-up scoring system. We need more servers with 24/7 coverage, not less. It’s the only way the system can work.

It also makes for strong servers with short queues which everyone ought to appreciate…

^agree.

@OP – Welcome aboard and hope you find what you are looking for.

I guess Yak does have the same pop as FA despite apparently hitting Q’s occasionally on maps during various points of the day. The outmanned buff I get must be from the large invisible ET zerg….guess they all rolled thiefs and are just gibbing dolyaks :p

“primetime” most servers will have comparable numbers – it the other 16-20 hours that have the biggest impact.

I think this is the fate of tier matches below the top one or two….population trumps all, with off-peak arguably being the most important (it covers the most time (more points&supply, upgrades etc), and has the greatest variability among servers).

Strategy/organization for an outmanned server can win them a battle, but they will not win the war. I played very late on FA last night and 90%+ of our WvW pop at the time was on 1 map, and we still had the outmanned buff (btw what number imbalance triggers that?)

We’ll see if long term this format is interesting to the broader population (ie population advantage wins) or if people will get bored of that, and outside the 4-6 servers that attract the most folks to have good coverge 24/7 and have “competitive” matches every week WvW becomes a side game for a few.

Ekove.4586:

Point is, even if your argument is valid, both us and DH suffered from the off-prime time capping powers of CD last week but neither of us gave up and we never let them take a stomping lead. Sadly by FA’s efforts/numbers today it seems that many have given up and it might be a boring week. Either way, well played on the first day and I hope you guys will keep it up, and also realize that our “night team” is not as monumental as you might think considering how CD walked over us during the night last week.

Different matches have different circumstances….I suspect DH had more muscle then ET to help even the field, and we’ve seen your off-peak numbers are larger then FA and ET combined so would obviously be better at slowing another servers off-peak progress to limit the damage done, or perhaps have an earlier/larger day crew to take stuff back sooner…I don’t know. /shrug.

In my experience FA doesn’t have that large of a population period, let alone during off-peak (wrt WvW). I’m westcoast, so play tail end “peak”, but I didn’t experience any queues last night even with us in the “lead” points wise at the time i logged in (and haven’t seen a queue for weeks), let alone ever having queus on multiple maps. Suggesting there is limited periods of a 24 hour cycle that we even come close to being able to fill all 4 maps. This basically means any drop in fairweather players translates into a direct drop in players on the maps, not just shorter queues for FA.

Topology.8931:

FireRunner.9481:

Nice work to Yaks. But, with the orbs gone it’s MUCH EASIER to come back and win So, my message to Fort Aspenwood and even ET…don’t give up and fight. The battle is 7 days not 2 days.

That’s the spirit.

Let’s keep this interesting the whole week long.

Unless Yaks is nearly 100% weekend warriors who dissapear during the week…a comeback is not in the cards (orbs or no orbs). Amassing a 15k lead in less then 24 hours and full map cap, suggests you’ve got a sizeable pop advantage during a large period of play….any marginal gains during peak time will not offset these large deficits off peak. This is compounded by the fact that ET is a non-factor it seems, limiting a any viable 2v1 option to slow the leader.

Fun fights can be had regardless….ignore the score FA/ET and work on some strats/coordination.

FireRunner.9481:

While I enjoy Fort Aspenwood, our WvW population is very “sensitive”. Players only play when we’re winning and when we’re not the casual WvWer is always complaining and whining. We’re a fickle bunch. When we do well we’re awesome, but it’s annoying because the majority of our population act like children when the going gets tough.

This describes most/all servers.

Battles were fun and very intense last night (NA timezones). FA held its own, while I was on, but definitely could use some better strat on a few of the maps. Maintaining supply and defense is still foriegn to many FA WvW casuals it seems (why protect siege when i can autoattack the gate! lol)…..they are too used to karma train zerg-and-forget objectives that was the norm last week. Yak’s did a great job of cutting off supply in a few situations (and FA still has people who randomly take supply from keeps instead of walking to camps), and on the flipside when we had a couple towers with no supply it took nearly 20 mins in chat to convince FA players to take back the supply camp (that was defended with siege) /facepalm. Or we had the situation on our home borderlands where we had one group deep in the enemy territory trying to take a tower right outside the enemy rez for like 30 mins (which we would have zero chance in holding, and they were unsuccesful), meanwhile we lost 4 points and were about to lose another fully upgraded tower up north (bad trade).

FA’s population spread will result in us bouncing back and forth between rolling and getting rolled (score wise) and since the fairweathers will stop playing versus the stiffer competition, their experience will be primarily karma-trains with little competition – leading to a lack of strategy during actual competition.

Fun fights regardless Yak and hope for more action as the week progresses….I’m also looking forward to seeing a mythical unicorn…er I mean ET player as well

saiyr.3071:

IMO, map hopping to avoid fighting is a valid tactic if you care about points in the slightest. It’s boring as hell unless you’re messing around with friends (see every screenshot I’ve posted in this thread), but it’s still necessary. Every night this week Aspenwood just takes over almost everything, but they just go away after awhile. Not switching maps to cap means free points for Aspenwood and a lot less karma-train for us. Now, if you’re not map hopping and not defending like in the above situation, obviously that’s not good. I don’t think you can blame commanderless zergs for running around randomly though. Strategy by committee is a pretty terrible thing.

wrt points – you often just end up trading points though….your not defending so as your taking stuff on one map, your losing stuff on another (or in my example losing stuff literally next door).

re:karma – this is prolly the major attraction to PvD. You do get decent karma (and badges) from defending though. People seem to generally not like defending …offence is more “fun”…perhaps rewards need to be tweaked. I do find defending against superior numbers with some strategy fun – but I don’t really play with a reward maximization mentality (other then fun) in mind.

Seemingly, seeking to PvP in a PvP zone is atypical :P (joke)

katniss.6735:

I don’t know what Maguuma does in the day. They attack something, don’t defend it at all, then switch maps. :s I told them that west keep inner wall was down, and they just needed to break the outer gate, but they up and left maps when they lost garrison. Our morning crew is 15 players at the most, and none of them can read/fight/or defend.

Your not the only server with questionable strategy at times. Last night (off peak) in one of the BLs we had the tower outside our rez and a couple supply camps (maybe 15-20 of us on the map total – no commanders). Lost a camp and could predict that our tower was going to get hit….called it out and 3 players showed up to defend (versus maybe 20ish). We had more defensive siege then players to operate. Checked map and note that there is crossed swords at the tower opposite the other rez (literally next tower over). Call out again for some help defending…nothing. As we are losing our only tower I bail and bomb over to the other tower our team is attacking to see what is going on….find 8-10 auto-attacking the gate. The 20 that took our only tower then come over and wipe this group…./sigh

I find that pug groups often over extend, and rarely defend or bother to read chat. The zerg up and pvdoor the map is how many seem to want to play…..and in fact people map hop to achieve this in order to avoid the inconvenience of having to fight other players (unless you’ve got the bigger zerg). I guess at the end of the day though people can play however they want /shrug.

RE: Bots – I’ve personally reported that group multiple times.

I don’t understand all the QQ about 2 v 1’s……that’s the nature of the game design. What do people expect?…. the 3rd server to twiddle their thumbs while another fight is going on….or to say “ok guys we need to alternate between who we attack so as to not hurt any feelings”. Fights on multiple fronts are good…..as it counters the lets all just make one uber zerg swarm at one spot in the map and roll around the map together hitting the “1” key. Adds another level of strategy….over commit to one map point and you will likely pay for it in another.

^true (re: TC vs FA pop). Anecdotal but my impression is that our late night presence this week is nearly double what it was last week. These large pop shifts happen with every server (more evident in servers w/o queues as it effects numbers on the maps). Same thing is happening to TC this week….the map queues they had fighting us last week….are non existent this week. Strategy/organization help on the margins, but I would wager that population and coverage (timezone) have more to do with the tiers then anything else. This is also one of the causes of the large divides you see in scores “winning” servers numbers go up and “losing” servers go down. As the server pops stabilize and servers find their correct tiers, hopefully scores and matches will be more competitive (read:closer scoring) and thus keep the 80%er’s on the maps and fighting, especially as more 2v1’s occur with 2nd/3rd focusing on 1st slowing runaway matches. I’m sure anet can introduce further mechanics to help as well.

@Maniac. RE: Fairweather players. Every server has them without exception. Look at TC this week; they are getting crushed and during the weekend have the outnumbered buff, and their multiple queues are gone. Their numbers have dropped dramitically versus fighting us a week ago. They have vocal forum posters/guilds who “never give up”….but that does not describe their server overall…or any server for that matter it would seem.

TC had queus on maps last week….how are you getting outmanned buffs?

Based on last week I think TC has a population numbers advantage over the lower tier servers (most importantly off peak). This alone will keep pushing you up into this tier of play ….as the 4-8 hours of prime time, is less important then the 16+ hours of off-peak. I think if/when you are paired with a 3rd server that acutally has some numbers (seems ET needs to go down much further in tiers), the scores will be closer as it will turn into a 1v2, instead of a 1v1.2

Scorpio Shirica.1286:

Not really, Rhonyn. The same complainers from the BG match have stopped playing during the fair weather and are back on the forums. The hardcore WvWvWers in TC will be enjoying the kitten out of this week while they are posting here instead of taking up our queues.

I agree you are no different then any other server…..and the fairweathers are still part of your server (for good and bad)..I’m guessing your numbers this week will be considerably less then the numbers you fielded last week….especially outside primetime.

Fairweathers, like the orb buff and many other design elements, are another contributing factor to creating “snowball” matches….by deflating and inflating a servers strength – and in the opposite direction that is needed….stronger then winning and weaker when losing.

Still lots of fun to be had….none top/bottom tier matches are going to be yo-yo’s though it seems.

Radiodread.8469:

You missed the biggest snowballer: Fickle Players

haha true……this is an mmo after all! ….game design/mechanics should prolly account for a large (majority?) of the playerbase falling into this camp.