Sviel.7493

They have a much better chance of working than what we currently have. Alliances only wouldn't solve all problems, but they allow for other, easier changes that are currently nigh impossible.

> @"Svarty.8019" said: > Indeed, defending is very difficult these days. When Anet nerfed high tier walls, as part of a bigger change (that, surprise surprise, never happened), it put the nail in defending whilst outnumbered. > There was good intention in the nerf, the devs talked on the livestream about the change bringing more fun because people will be inside structures. But there seemed a lack of consideration that the mode is 24/7 and that a lot of the time this encourages player to, rather than attempt a fun valiant last-stand, to a avoid the enemies altogether because of hopelessness. I would expect player interaction to be one of the design goals of WvW, not the opposite. > > Now it's turned into avoid-the-enemy ktrains. Remember EotM? This doesn't bode well. This is what made me give up on WvW. The devs make a well-intentioned change that makes the game worse because they have a very narrow focus on one aspect and, for one reason or another, fail to predict the repercussions it will have in the larger design web. In this case, they blithely talk about it being more 'fun' because players are inside structures...Their change makes it easier to get inside, but what then? The larger group rolls over the smaller group; gg. Rather than make the siege itself more fun or rewarding, they make a hasty change that only works as intended in rare moments and is a disaster the rest of the time. I know that happens, sometimes, and I can be forgiving...but with Anet, it happens way too often and then takes way too long to fix--if it is ever fixed or even acknowledged. It's amateur, which I can overlook, but also immature. A company that can't face up to its own decisions is not one I can place my trust in.

> @"Sylvyn.4750" said: > Good points...I just hate it when you're focused on defending one wall against blue team and green team is on another wall out of sight and you don't know it until they're spilling into the keep behind you...at least Fire only has one inner wall to guard if two teams break in through outer, but Air still has two approaches on inner. Doesn't happen often, but it happens. I also hate that--got a knot in my stomach just reading about it. I mean, I like that it's possible for that to happen but I hate when it happens _to me_.

> @"Sylvyn.4750" said: > However, the intra-tower and intra-keep travel times in DBL are larger, which does make an impact on defense. If you're on either the north or south wall defending against an attack, you can't even see if another group is hitting the opposite wall. Both northern towers and the keeps have large central structures/mounds that hinder mobility and line of sight between walls. It's like they built DBL keeps and towers expecting a much larger influx of WvW players, as you would need multiple guards standing post to have eyes in every direction, where one would suffice on ABL. They could also tone down the rocks and low shrubs that I often seem to get hung up on in mid-fight..:P Other than that, I think DBL is worth keeping...good for roaming, and I do enjoy the diversity in terrain. I also measured these, but I don't think I ever graphed them. If I recall, it takes ~20-30s to check every entry point in both Fire and Air on DBL whereas on Alpine you can basically stand in one spot and see everything. For towers, while there is more space, you're still able to check every entry point by spinning in a circle. The impact this has on defense is probably offset by the opportunity this gives to actually stage a defense. It is because of this larger size that it is not possible to siege outer and inner keeps in one go. It also allows for covert anti-siege plays (like overhang ballistae at Fire). That said, I don't think this was the point of the change. Rather, the lower visibility makes it much easier for havoc or small-teams to harass and whittle down a keep or build siege that requires a re-supply run. On Alpine, a catapult set up on Bay is visible from half the map away. It must also be built in high-traffic areas and is instantly revealed to anyone inside the keep as soon as you hit once. This makes it nearly impossible to harass. Hills has much the same problem, though perhaps even worse as there are so few places a catapult can hit from. Anyone online, regardless of whether they have any inclination to scout, will spot you. Meanwhile, on DBL, both Fire and Air have several options where you can build siege away from high traffic areas and actually deal meaningful damage if no one actually checks for you. Since the advantage is in detection time, it helps smaller groups much more than larger groups as they are still easy to detect due to their size. In short, intra-keep times do make a difference in how defense works against nimble groups, but there's not much difference against zergs. The biggest change is that scouts have to move around in the keep instead of standing in one place.

Both 2019 and 2020 passed in their entirety without a peep from Anet. It might be time to call in a health and safety check...

@"kamikharzeeh.8016" There are definitely some servers where the organized core does not run RBL, and also some guilds that won't run it scattered on random servers. That's why I prefer to look at multiple tiers at once: I want to see if the map itself leads to activity differences rather than if players avoiding the map does so. If the map changes activity, that could be a good or bad thing depending on how it does it. If players boycott a map, that doesn't tell me anything about the map itself. Still, if players dislike a map in large numbers, it's worth checking out why. To that end, I've already measured how long it takes to run from one objective to another in both ABL and DBL*. Most of the times are very similar, though running from home spawn or Middle Keep to the Side Keeps is a bit longer on DBL. However, since the side keeps have no double siege spots, it takes longer to break in as well. There is also much more opportunity for scouts to delay assaults. Meanwhile, running from the Northern towers to their respective camps is actually shorter on DBL with no cliffs to carefully jump down like on Alpine. The short version is that it isn't objectively harder to defend stuff on Desert, nor is it harder to reach places nor does it take longer across the board. I think that's why we don't see significant differences in map activity when players actually play all of the maps. If people are still getting lost despite roads between objectives being clearly marked...I don't think that's the map's fault. * Inter-keep travel times: http://puu.sh/H8Hav/38fafb83b2.png * South BL travel times: http://puu.sh/H8HaL/383762474a.png

The first time I went into WvW was because all the other dailies looked annoying. I was on EBG, red corner, and not quite lvl 80. For the first half hour or so I just ran back and forth between Speldan and Overlook, escorting Yaks and repairing walls. Then I fought my way through the Dredge (which was not easy), dodged a few enemy groups and, by pure chance, ran into a friendly zerg. It was led by a massive Norn in glowing armor named Virtus Vis Maximus or something like that. He was easily the largest, most impressive figure I'd ever seen and he helmed the first group of allies I'd seen. I followed along for a while being more or less useless and somehow wound up joining his guild. He drilled us in all manner of zerg tactics and even had us go into EotM (my first and only time there) to test our tactics on enemy zergs. I stayed past when HoT dropped, oversaw the construction and material gathering for our guild hall and then...they all went to Dragonbrand and I declined to go with them. Somewhere in there I discovered the borderlands. There was a strong network of scouts on my server who had strong relationships with each commander. When not being schooled in how to zerg/command, I hung out with the scouts, upgraded buildings when I had gold, conspired with roamers to boot enemies back to spawn and cleaned up the aftermath of assaults by running supply from camps to walls. I remember one warrior (but not her name...) who I could call on to consistently 1v3 enemies. I fell in love with the map control aspect of WvW: I wanted to know where every enemy was, what they were up to, what impact it would have and so on. Eventually, the scouts slowly died out. I don't know why most left, but I personally went on hiatus due to the futility of defending on Alpine. If the enemy zerg was bigger, they steamrolled everything. It felt like nothing we did mattered in the face of a blob and blobs were becoming more and more common. After exhausting every method, I finally realized that I had to play flawlessly just for a small chance of creating a slight delay. In the worst of times, I'd switch to building solo catas on enemy fortifications and alerting commanders when I'd knocked a wall down. I came back when DBL released, and while the map was not without issues, it did give me greater ability to delay enemies if I played my cards right. While my zerg/comm training went mostly to waste, I was able to stage such effective defenses as to get a healthy amount of salt whispers. I had one commander (who tried to siege as if I didn't exist) threaten to quit the game with his whole guild if I didn't stop. The obscured paths made it more challenging to track multiple enemy groups by sight, but sentries and flipping shrines balanced it out. It seemed like the start of a great time aside from WvW being emptied out while people were forced into PvE to build guild halls. Kind of...all went downhill from there...

How are you going to accuse me of using selective stats? Actually, nvm, this is clearly pointless...I don't know why I keep doing this to myself, lol.

@"Threather.9354" It would be a lot easier to do an apples-to-apples comparison if we both used the same data. Is there any particular reason you've chosen to count only deaths? Also, with no other data, it's really hard to understand _why_ any of that stuff is. It seems like you're trying to argue that DBL is universally unpopular. What you would need to show then is that the data from NA T1 last week was an anomaly. If data from other matchups is different, that would suggest that DBL is just abnormally popular in NA T1. To that end, looking at EU tiers is worthwhile, but we have to make sure we're checking for the same things. I can't seem to figure out how to pull up historical map data on WvWstats, but let's look at what's happening today in EU. *T1 EU*  --- EBG Activity: 2,933K + 3,003D = 5,936A EBG KDR Gap: 2.82 DBL Activity: 2,137K + 2,290D = 4,427A DBL KDR Gap: 0.76 ABL(blue) Activity: 2,172K + 2,249D = 4,421A ABL(blue) KDR Gap: 0.71 ABL(green) Activity: 2,927K + 3,062D = 5,989A ABL(green) KDR Gap: 2.02 Since this is a short ways into the match, I don't think it can be compared to previous data. One big difference that immediately jumps out is that no server has their highest borderland kill count recorded on their home BL. Still, based on what we see here it's safe to say that no map has been an outlier with popularity so far in this match-up. Two maps, EBG and GABL, have been clear zerg stomping grounds. Let's check tier 2 EU as well. *T2 EU*  --- EBG Activity: 3,085K + 3,153D = 6,238A EBG KDR Gap: 1.14 DBL Activity: 2,221K + 2,427D = 4,648A DBL KDR Gap: 1.13 ABL(blue) Activity: 2,707K + 2,793D = 5,500A ABL(blue) KDR Gap: 2.05 ABL(green) Activity: 2,404K + 2,502D = 4,906A ABL(green) KDR Gap: 1.08 It's interesting that the total Activity numbers are actually higher in T2 EU than T1 EU. Again, no server records their highest kill count at home, but it's also clear that Blue made no progress anywhere except RBL. Their KDR at home was 0.25 and on GBL was 0.3, yet somehow they earned 1.72 on RBL. Meanwhile, Green racked up a huge kill count on BBL but had averageish numbers elsewhere. I imagine knowing more about the actual server dynamics would shed more light on these numbers. Anyway, while there is again no massive difference in popularity between maps (perhaps due to queues?), this is the first tier I've checked that actually has EBG on top and DBL on the bottom. Now, for comparison, let's look at the top two tiers in NA. Reset is just a few hours off so it's the opposite side of the match. *T1 NA*  --- EBG Activity: 50,105K + 51,612D = 101,717A EBG KDR Gap: 1.1 DBL Activity: 22,474K + 24,609D = 47,083A DBL KDR Gap: 0.33 ABL(blue) Activity: 15,766K + 16,727D = 32,493A ABL(blue) KDR Gap: 1.06 ABL(green) Activity: 19,743K + 20,680D = 40,423A ABL(green) KDR Gap: 1.86 There's been a massive end-of-week surge in EBG numbers that probably means something important. It went from the second most active map to double the Activity of other maps in about a day. That is, a full week's worth of dying and killing happened basically overnight. Unless I somehow screwed up the earlier snapshot...? This can only be because of zergs recklessly clashing since the match was probably decided way earlier in the week. Other than that, at weeks end, we see a clear preference among borders for DBL in this tier. As we saw earlier, it also has the lowest KDR gap out of all of the tiers we've checked so far. *T2 NA*  --- EBG Activity: 58,522K + 59,894D = 118,416A EBG KDR Gap: 0.35 DBL Activity: 9,131K + 10,185D = 19,316A DBL KDR Gap: 0.2 ABL(blue) Activity: 17,230K + 18,019D = 35,249A ABL(blue) KDR Gap: 0.47 ABL(green) Activity: 23,063K + 24,095D = 47,158A ABL(green) KDR Gap: 0.3 This matchup looks most like what you've claiming all of WvW looks like. Is it, per chance, your own? We see surprisingly low KDR gaps across the board here. Activity is also slightly higher than T1 with the exception of DBL, where it has plummeted. Since no server has an outsize KDR on RBL, it seems that they just didn't fight much there which suggests that there was a lackluster defense. It may be a similar situation to Maguuma where the server has amassed so many folks that despise a certain thing that it just doesn't get done. If you're not familiar, Maguuma has a seemingly religious objection to PPT...and thus now sit at the bottom of the servers in the last tier in NA. Can anyone from Kaineng or JQ shed some light on that? Maybe I'll check what NA looks like after reset, but I kind of doubt I'll be around at that time tomorrow. Hopefully I can at least screenshot the matches and tally them up later... edit: It's also worth noting that we're measuring kills and deaths instead of direct activity. Since EBG is a more compressed map, it follows that the same number of people on EBG for the same amount of time as a BL will generate more kills and deaths. This doesn't necessarily mean the map is more popular--just that the playstyle is more focused on killing and dying. However, since I don't know of a way to directly measure player population per map, this will have to do.

 Here are the current stats from the Borderlands in T1 NA on Thursday. Green is clearly the dominant server. Anyone in the match can see they have more people on more maps at all times. That's going to change the numbers a bit and is thus critical to understanding them. If we measure Activity as Kills + Deaths, which is already a pretty flawed approach for a non-deathmatch gamemode, we get the following: DBL has roughly 45k Activity. ABL(green) has roughly 34k Activity ABL(blue) has roughly 29k Activity Further, the K/D ratios on each map can tell us who's winning the most zerg fights. The difference between the highest and lowest K/D ratio can reveal if one server is just stomping all over the others. DBL has a 0.35 K/D gap ABL(green) has a 1.94 K/D gap ABL(blue) has a 0.98 K/D gap What these numbers seem to be saying is that both Alpine BLs seem to be zerg stomping grounds in this match. Both ABLs are likely seeing huge activity spikes when zergs clash, but have relatively little going on outside of that. DBL either has fewer huge zerg clashes or the outcome of the zerg fights is much more varied. It's notable that the server with the lowest KDR (blue) and the server with the highest KDR (green) both move toward the middle on DBL. We can also conclude that this isn't because servers are avoiding DBL. Each server's top kill count is on their home BL, but blue and green both record their second highest kill counts on DBL rather than on the other ABL. Of course, we also can't look at one week and conclude that DBL is the most popular map of all time. To some degree, we may just be seeing that SoS is defending their home BL with greater fervor and thus generating more activity. Or, it could be that they are the weakest server and thus both other servers are trying to cannibalize them. P.S. EBG has about 43k Activity by the same measure, meaning DBL is the highest K+D map in the matchup after almost 6 days of fighting.

> @"Threather.9354" said: > Guys, the old poll doesn't matter. All it says is that highly intellectual personalities that like to discuss things on forums like desert map. Naturally if you use brain, you have more creativity in how to find your fun. Yes, sometimes desert map is playable. > > But numbers don't lie, Desert map has half activity of one alpine map. There are 2 alpine maps to choose from. _So it is not even half as popular as alpine map_. And tbf, Id say lot of people just trolled the poll as desert map is just a widespread meme at this point. Just for fun, how are you measuring activity?

Did they give any Alliance updates in those 12 years?

> @"Threather.9354" said: > Its pointless to presiege stuff, there aren't enough enemy groups. State of WvW is such. Home bl gets attacked by something you would need siege against maybe once a day. I'm sure it varies by server, but for most of the time I'm online it is worth pre-sieging the more popular assault points. This is especially true if the only counter is a treb since it takes too long to build those in the middle of an attack.

That is the exact reason I am both awake and logged into GW2 right now, but I can still wish for a better world, no?

@"subversiontwo.7501" While I more or less follow your logic, it seems like there are some prior assumptions that maybe we don't share. As such, it feels like something is missing from your argument. For starters, you say that "players who prefer those maps prefer them from a perspective of the biggest blobs or strongest groups not being there." Where is that coming from? It is precisely the opposite of my own experience, though I realize my personal experience doesn't speak for everyone. Later, you reference Halloween maps. That's pretty much lost on me as I haven't ever bothered with holiday events, but mainly this line caught my attention: "A similar system for WvW could let pickups match pickups, guilds match guilds and roamers match roamers etc. " I don't understand why you want such a thing. Perhaps a server of guilds or a server of PUGs could make sense as they could encompass both zergs and roamers--but a server of nothing but roamers? How does that work? Why would roamers only want to face other roamers in WvW? A potentially revealing remark was "the core idea of WvWvW combined with overflows is best done on an even 3-way and not on attack-defense maps." Here, it sounds like your aversion to keeping the borderlands in an idealized WvW is only because they provide uneven advantages among the teams. While I'm not totally on board there, an even 3-way map built to promote the same things as DBL (scouting, havoc, defense) would probably be cool with me. If such a map existed, I'd be open to trying a no-border concept. If the borders were simply replaced with multiple even 3-way maps, not much would change. Assuming EBG is considered an even 3-way, these maps would still have areas of relative advantage like the 3 corners of EBG. Servers would guard their personal corners more jealously than they sought to hold enemy territory--as it is now. There would be a bit of a shift in PPT gain when everyone held their own corners, but that's it. But, if you wish to drastically change the system, are you suggesting that matches have a dynamic number of even 3-way maps depending on population? I could see this potentially working as long as the number of maps changed based on time-of-day rather than actual population. It would be dumb if folks could game the system by just logging off en masse. I could enjoy that so long as that fictional, non-EBG 3-way map became a thing. I would not consider it worthwhile if it meant everyone had to play EBG-style WvW.