WvW Thoughts

[Furiously]

I don't understand the score is meaningless augment.  Many, many people care.  Queues are dramatically shorter on servers that are losing.   Score is basis of the ranking system. If scores are jacked up, then the ranking system is not going to properly match servers.  Players are flooding the servers with the highest scores/ranks.

Since A.net released the formula for the ranks, we now have a reasonable projections of the next round.   IoJ it just broke into tier 1.  No way we are tier 1 but the scoring system favors our Oceanics.

You do realize you just had a couple huge guilds leave ET and joined your server?

[Threash]

I don't understand the score is meaningless augment.  Many, many people care. 

It's not about caring, it's about affecting gameplay.  I would take the night capping complaints more seriously if losing affected anything, but since it doesn't i find it perfectly acceptable that servers with better coverage "win".

[tazelbain]

As long as you put up a better fight than HOD/ET, whose populations have been decimated from alliance drama, there won't be any complaints from the JQ side.  SBI's been pushing pretty hard, and I wouldn't mind a SBI/IOJ double team effort against us.  We have a pretty strong oceanic presence as well as SBI's from what I've seen.  Most of us don't want to see the other sides crushed into hopelessness; it gets very boring.

IoJ doesn't play for second, we mostly go after the strongest rival.  Except our asshole karma farmers who just go after supply camps regardless.

You do realize you just had a couple huge guilds leave ET and joined your server?

Just TL that I know of. I wouldn't call them huge.  Got a few small ones from JQ and HoD too. Its more about a lack of organization.  We got a lot of medium and small "try hard" guilds that do their own thing and sometimes they coordinate but mostly not.  But I don't think we want to get that much more organized because that makes it more like job than a game. This I feel contributed to burn out and the fall of HoD and ET. I hope this can be avoided here but may be a fact of life like the boom and bust of alliances in EvE.

[KallDrexx]

It's not about caring, it's about affecting gameplay.  I would take the night capping complaints more seriously if losing affected anything, but since it doesn't i find it perfectly acceptable that servers with better coverage "win".

It most certainely affects gameplay.  When we are nightcapped no one goes to the nightcapped battlegrounds and everyone queues for the non-nightcapped battlegrounds until someone finally takes charge to beat back the taken keeps.  it's a bit demoralizing and reduces population in non-queued borderlands.

[rk47]

People like to be rewarded. If they just get zerged everytime they go in, they rather just farm tokens or silvers or level an alt.
I only World v World on weekend when server population is actually peaked, and there's a much more fair fight going in, when you have work on weekday and login at 8 pm to like 150k - 55k (your world) - 50k (another world) would I even care to reverse this score? The time taken to organize a grp, assemble something that actually can match superior number isn't something random pugs can do on weeknights. Not to mention the reward is meh for a failed attempt.

[Genev]

We switched to Blacktide, and are up against Desoaltion now, which just got RUIN.

It seems like RUIN got a bit surprised, though they are fully using the empty gap we have of the few hours between our latest big shift and the Russian morning play, it's still going to be a close one.

[Nija]

You do realize you just had a couple huge guilds leave ET and joined your server?

Just TL that I know of. I wouldn't call them huge.  Got a few small ones from JQ and HoD too. Its more about a lack of organization.  We got a lot of medium and small "try hard" guilds that do their own thing and sometimes they coordinate but mostly not.  But I don't think we want to get that much more organized because that makes it more like job than a game. This I feel contributed to burn out and the fall of HoD and ET. I hope this can be avoided here but may be a fact of life like the boom and bust of alliances in EvE.

I came over with the gaggle of tiny guilds that play with TL.

Some will say that we're hanger-on guilds or what not, but I don't really see it that way - nor do I care what is said about it. I'm an ex-catass that plays hard when I play. I can't commit to raid nights or specific times to be online and the kind of thing that guilds like TL require. Our tiny group has 4 core members and between the four of us we collectively have ~25,000 WvW kills and about 1k deaths. Not a bad ratio. A good addition to any zerg.

When we're on we're part of an organized unit accomplishing some task. Even if that task is to split up into tiny scouting units and go watch an area. (half-play breaks, keep an eye on things and report what you see.)

IoJ could be tier 1 now. They're stronger than ET was in my opinion. We're taking this week to practice some tricky moves - stuff that will hopefully allow us to stay in tier 1 for two consecutive weeks.

[sachiel]

You do realize you just had a couple huge guilds leave ET and joined your server?

Just TL that I know of. I wouldn't call them huge.  Got a few small ones from JQ and HoD too. Its more about a lack of organization.  We got a lot of medium and small "try hard" guilds that do their own thing and sometimes they coordinate but mostly not.  But I don't think we want to get that much more organized because that makes it more like job than a game. This I feel contributed to burn out and the fall of HoD and ET. I hope this can be avoided here but may be a fact of life like the boom and bust of alliances in EvE.

I came over with the gaggle of tiny guilds that play with TL.

Some will say that we're hanger-on guilds or what not, but I don't really see it that way - nor do I care what is said about it. I'm an ex-catass that plays hard when I play. I can't commit to raid nights or specific times to be online and the kind of thing that guilds like TL require. Our tiny group has 4 core members and between the four of us we collectively have ~25,000 WvW kills and about 1k deaths. Not a bad ratio. A good addition to any zerg.

When we're on we're part of an organized unit accomplishing some task. Even if that task is to split up into tiny scouting units and go watch an area. (half-play breaks, keep an eye on things and report what you see.)

IoJ could be tier 1 now. They're stronger than ET was in my opinion. We're taking this week to practice some tricky moves - stuff that will hopefully allow us to stay in tier 1 for two consecutive weeks.

Hope you guys coordinate with SBI and knock JQ down from 1st.  I wouldn't mind a housecleaning on JQ while server transfers are still open.  I still don't understand people's resentment to server coordination; we used to do that all the time in DAOC through IRC when one of the realms was obliterating the other two.

[tazelbain]

I came over with the gaggle of tiny guilds that play with TL.

Awesome. Maybe I can run with you guys some time.

What bothers me is people saying IoJ moving to tier 1 because of our recent transfers. Like IoJ is riding TL coattails. Which is plain not true. We achieved our solid #5 place well before the ET/HoD crisis. This is all the while getting routinely getting shit on by tier 1 weak after weak.  With #1 and #4 tanking, there is no choice but #5 to become the new #3. The new folks have no hand in it and are untested. Now if we do well in the tier 1 this weak I am whiling to give them credit.  I suspect our getting shit on trend will continue given how easily CD manhandled us last Friday/Saturday and JQ/SBI don't have the massive gaps in coverage for us to exploit. Suspect when the dust settles, BG will be settle in as #2/3 and we'll be #3/4 and CD will be new tier 2 whipping boy.

[Nija]

CD on Friday night into Saturday is an anomaly at this point. They do that every match up and they give up at the same point as well. It's very bizarre.

Next week is going to be interesting for sure.

I agree with you - the recent transfers didn't cause IoJ to move up - there isn't one specific thing that put IoJ into tier 1. I think the biggest contributor to IoJ's success is the existing players. The people who have always been on IoJ. It was an easy choice for me, prior to TL messaging us saying they'd like for us to come to IoJ.

I was talking to my buddies about ET's situation - this was post TA breaking up and prior to RUIN leaving the server. ET was in a position when many guilds from several servers were looking for new homes, and virtually nobody would look at ET due to RUIN. Now, I recognize that ET is where it was BECAUSE of RUIN, but it also kept many people away.

Brainstorming servers we've fought against as future homes, IoJ was the easy choice because "we could still go to a borderland on Wednesday or Thursday and IoJ would fight us." - Everyone else like Blackgate and Crystal Desert quit early. Transfering to JQ or SBI was out of the question. IoJ was the logical choice for us.

I think next week will be interesting because many servers will be in new positions. Last week when JQ won, the threads were interesting to me because of this. Being a long time (game has been out 2 months - LONG TIME isn't hte right term here, but you know what I mean) ET player with a ton of WvW time, I've experienced the strikes and gutters that is being a tier 1.5 server - We've blown people out and we've been blown out routinely. JQ was elated because they were winning it all for the first time. HoD was in disarray due to losing for the first time.

What existing IoJ members may not understand is that the old HoD blew out ET in a similar way that the tier 1.5 server would blow out the tier 2 servers when they dropped down. It's going to be a completely different match up next week for most IoJ people. Tier 1 dudes play fucking dirty. We're talking about 70-90 people through a single mesmer portal and your seemingly safe 40 person zerg gets wiped out before anyone loads. At this point I'm not 100% certain all of the diehard IoJ players will stand strong when they face Tier 1 competition.

Hopefully we have commanders covering the right hours in the right places. We'll see how it goes.

[satael]

I was talking to my buddies about ET's situation - this was post TA breaking up and prior to RUIN leaving the server. ET was in a position when many guilds from several servers were looking for new homes, and virtually nobody would look at ET due to RUIN. Now, I recognize that ET is where it was BECAUSE of RUIN, but it also kept many people away.

Having been on the other side of the wvw (against ET) alot of the time it would have been pretty empty without RUIN (and this at times when there probably weren't any queues). RUIN also kept fighting when most of ET gave up. (judging by the numbers (not) taking part in the wvw)

[Threash]

The prices of pvp gear seem ridiculously insane.  It takes less badges to make a legendary weapon than to buy an amulet, which costs less than 2g on the trader.

[Furiously]

CD on Friday night into Saturday is an anomaly at this point. They do that every match up and they give up at the same point as well. It's very bizarre.

I know the two Reddit guilds work together on Friday/Saturday, but once we figure if we are going to win or lose it's pretty much locked in by that point. The rest of the week it's pretty much do your own thing.

We've bounced from tier 2 to 1 and we don't have the night presence to be a tier 1.  Next week should be spectacular for us. Should be CD/SOS/TC.   ET is in for a bad couple of matches during the next few weeks.

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA Is how it should look next week I believe.

[sachiel]

The prices of pvp gear seem ridiculously insane.  It takes less badges to make a legendary weapon than to buy an amulet, which costs less than 2g on the trader.

Badges: do daily jumping puzzles in the wvw zones (you also get siege plans for them) or man siege on keep defense.  

Easier PVP gear: farm the shit out of AC explorable.  There's a set of Power/Toughness/Vitality to be had in everything (armor and weapons) except jewelry.  I you want PVT jewelry, save your badges for that shit.  Otherwise, Emerald is a good toughness choice until you can get enough badges.

[Threash]

I can make enough gold to buy a full set of pwr/tgh/vit gear in about four hours of farming in orr also.  That's not the point, the badge prices are utterly unreasonable compared to everything else.

[KallDrexx]

Badges: do daily jumping puzzles in the wvw zones (you also get siege plans for them) or man siege on keep defense.  

1) The jumping puzzle has been broken for well over a week.
2) Manning siege on keep defense is boring as crap, and doesn't even guarantee a steady flow badges.
3) Badges get lost in non-siege battles because you don't have time to look for any loot bags you missed because either 1) the fight moved away from where some people you killed were, 2) You died and thus can't loot any loot bags that you got during the fight, or 3) you are still fighting and don't have time to look for loot bags.
4) Badges dropping are a matter of pure luck, which I apparently don't have since I can solo people or get into large battles and come out with maybe 5-8 badges in an hour (and probably half of those are from supply camp takeovers).

Badges are ridiculously hard to come by as they are now

[sachiel]

1) The jumping puzzle has been broken for well over a week.
2) Manning siege on keep defense is boring as crap, and doesn't even guarantee a steady flow badges.
3) Badges get lost in non-siege battles because you don't have time to look for any loot bags you missed because either 1) the fight moved away from where some people you killed were, 2) You died and thus can't loot any loot bags that you got during the fight, or 3) you are still fighting and don't have time to look for loot bags.
4) Badges dropping are a matter of pure luck, which I apparently don't have since I can solo people or get into large battles and come out with maybe 5-8 badges in an hour (and probably half of those are from supply camp takeovers).

Badges are ridiculously hard to come by as they are now

I agree with all of that.  The BL jumping puzzles are broken, yes, but the EB one is still working.

I can make enough gold to buy a full set of pwr/tgh/vit gear in about four hours of farming in orr also.  That's not the point, the badge prices are utterly unreasonable compared to everything else.

I'm confused as to being able to buy PVT armor with gold as none of the crafted options offer PVT.  I thought it was wvw/dungeon/karma only.

{EDIT} Yup, just looked on the TP and there's not a single piece of armor that has Power/Vitality/Toughness.  To me, unless you're swimming in karma and want to make a mixed-runed set from Orr karma vendors, the easiest way to get a set of PVT is to run AC (or COE or HotW).  I like the looks of the AC armor over the other two and AC probably has the best run-rate for pugs.

{EDIT2} I agree though, the drop rate is shit for time spent.  I can get a piece of armor for 1.5 hours in AC, whereas as much as I've been WvW'ing, I don't think I've broken 200 badges between our two accounts.  I've only done a couple jumping puzzles and my eyes went wide when all the badges dropped.  Lesson: the most efficient method to get badges is to avoid fighting and do a 15 minute jumping puzzle.  Stupid.  They do need to adjust that.

[satael]

Badges are ridiculously hard to come by as they are now

Badge drop rate is enough for to keep me supplied with siege blueprints (supplemented by occasional eb jumping puzzle runs which I do mostly to beat my current time (of around 9 minutes...still missing that perfect run))
For equipment the cost is pretty steep and I've only bought an exotic shortbow with the badges(but then again I'm satisfied with my current gear and see no need to change it)

[sachiel]

My wife's warrior has 482 kills in WvW and 2 EB jumping puzzles and only 101 badges.  Shit. Rate.

[Zetor]

Yep. I have about 180 badges, and haven't gotten any in my last two wvw sessions (6+ hours with plenty of killing - some offense, some defense). And I'm a ranged aoe nuker with 1200 range, so yeah. I haven't done any of the jumping puzzles (and definitely not going to do them while they're broken) -- how hard are they compared to, like, the one where you have to jump around a cave from metal beam to metal beam? (it bears repeating: fuck beams, man)

That said, the only thing I am collecting badges for is the legendary component (yeah right, as if I'll ever grind out the rest of the shit for it) and I actually seem to get more siege weapon drops than badges. Speaking of which: thank you, nameless ranger dude who tried to gank me while I was killing a sentry, your trebuchet will be put to good use!

[Furiously]

Yep. I have about 180 badges, and haven't gotten any in my last two wvw sessions (6+ hours with plenty of killing - some offense, some defense). And I'm a ranged aoe nuker with 1200 range, so yeah. I haven't done any of the jumping puzzles (and definitely not going to do them while they're broken) -- how hard are they compared to, like, the one where you have to jump around a cave from metal beam to metal beam? (it bears repeating: fuck beams, man)

That said, the only thing I am collecting badges for is the legendary component (yeah right, as if I'll ever grind out the rest of the shit for it) and I actually seem to get more siege weapon drops than badges. Speaking of which: thank you, nameless ranger dude who tried to gank me while I was killing a sentry, your trebuchet will be put to good use!

Were you subject to DR before you went into WvW... It looks like DR hits you in WvW as well so you don't get badge drops for some stupid reason.

[Threash]

1) The jumping puzzle has been broken for well over a week.
2) Manning siege on keep defense is boring as crap, and doesn't even guarantee a steady flow badges.
3) Badges get lost in non-siege battles because you don't have time to look for any loot bags you missed because either 1) the fight moved away from where some people you killed were, 2) You died and thus can't loot any loot bags that you got during the fight, or 3) you are still fighting and don't have time to look for loot bags.
4) Badges dropping are a matter of pure luck, which I apparently don't have since I can solo people or get into large battles and come out with maybe 5-8 badges in an hour (and probably half of those are from supply camp takeovers).

Badges are ridiculously hard to come by as they are now

I agree with all of that.  The BL jumping puzzles are broken, yes, but the EB one is still working.

I can make enough gold to buy a full set of pwr/tgh/vit gear in about four hours of farming in orr also.  That's not the point, the badge prices are utterly unreasonable compared to everything else.

I'm confused as to being able to buy PVT armor with gold as none of the crafted options offer PVT.  I thought it was wvw/dungeon/karma only.

{EDIT} Yup, just looked on the TP and there's not a single piece of armor that has Power/Vitality/Toughness.  To me, unless you're swimming in karma and want to make a mixed-runed set from Orr karma vendors, the easiest way to get a set of PVT is to run AC (or COE or HotW).  I like the looks of the AC armor over the other two and AC probably has the best run-rate for pugs.

{EDIT2} I agree though, the drop rate is shit for time spent.  I can get a piece of armor for 1.5 hours in AC, whereas as much as I've been WvW'ing, I don't think I've broken 200 badges between our two accounts.  I've only done a couple jumping puzzles and my eyes went wide when all the badges dropped.  Lesson: the most efficient method to get badges is to avoid fighting and do a 15 minute jumping puzzle.  Stupid.  They do need to adjust that.

Well shit that's even worse then.  I can still grind out the karma a shit ton faster than badges though.

[Ingmar]

The prices of pvp gear seem ridiculously insane.  It takes less badges to make a legendary weapon than to buy an amulet, which costs less than 2g on the trader.

Anything off a vendor is priced in a tremendously stupid way, yes.

[rk47]

84k karma for chest n legs, then 750 tokens from dungeons for Shoulder, Glove, Shoes, Helm.
HotW is pretty easy , so yeah it's roughly a week of token if you want PVT.

[satael]

I haven't done any of the jumping puzzles (and definitely not going to do them while they're broken) -- how hard are they compared to, like, the one where you have to jump around a cave from metal beam to metal beam? (it bears repeating: fuck beams, man)

EB jumping puzzle isn't broken, just the ones at borderlands (the door you collect the keyhalves for is bugged there) which doesn't really bother me since I don't find those nearly as interesting as the eb one.

[Furiously]

I haven't done any of the jumping puzzles (and definitely not going to do them while they're broken) -- how hard are they compared to, like, the one where you have to jump around a cave from metal beam to metal beam? (it bears repeating: fuck beams, man)

EB jumping puzzle isn't broken, just the ones at borderlands (the door you collect the keyhalves for is bugged there) which doesn't really bother me since I don't find those nearly as interesting as the eb one.

I generally wait for a mesmer to be at the top and get a port up :P

[Brogarn]

I generally wait for a mesmer to be at the top and get a port up :P

Fine. *sighs* I've become a glorified taxi for the lazy and impatient. :P

[Outlawedprod]

Thief prevents zerg from capping camp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54bkD-3Nr0

[Threash]

I was going to say those people are horrible but the most likely scenario is that they couldn't see him even when he appeared.

[Fordel]

I still don't know why dev's keep making stealth classes in these kind of games though.

[Zetor]

It's a combination of several short-cooldown vanish/stealth abilities and the culling bug that prevents him from actually appearing on the client screens for a few seconds after being uncovered - by which time he can stealth again. The only way to deal with it is blanketing the entire area with AOE dots since the numbers will tick and reveal the location even if the thief is invisible due to the bug (at least in theory).

I remember someone using this in wvw against Tarnished Coast recently, too.

[satael]

Thief prevents zerg from capping camp.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54bkD-3Nr0

The culling is breaking stealth in wvw. In spvp it works ok with the 3 second revealed debuff actually working and not being able to cap the control point when stealthed.

All in all I think GW2's stealth is great (it's short in duration and does not make you immune to damage) when it works as intended.

[rk47]

So yeah, Crystal Desert population was so bad that 2-3 hours after reset, we started to get the outmanned buff.
I lasted around 4 hours with the guild before deciding to start a new character. Maybe necro. Or warrior.

[sachiel]

So yeah, Crystal Desert population was so bad that 2-3 hours after reset, we started to get the outmanned buff.
I lasted around 4 hours with the guild before deciding to start a new character. Maybe necro. Or warrior.

Meanwhlie, the tier 1 fights, JQ/SBI/IOJ, WERE BANANAS.  Most fun ever.

[Brogarn]

Ya, tier 1 has been going great so far.