RoarImaDinosaur

FriendlyFire, on 23 January 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

I'm curious on why you think we will see new tier 1 contenders. What makes you think the WvW scene will change all that much in the coming weeks? Once free transfers close, it's unlikely we will see many people changing servers at all, if you're already in a tier 1 or 2 server (which seems to be what everyone is trying do looking at the population numbers) why would you bother changing? If a server doesn't have the coverage to get to tier 1 by the end of the free transfers, what realistic chance is there that they will fill that coverage gap once it starts costing money? I can see the possibility of one of the tier 2 servers rising up into tier 1, most of the tier 1 servers were nearly impossible to get into this week (I've seen guilds break the EULA by swapping account information and passwords so they could swap each other's accounts over while people were sleeping or at work), so many guilds went to tier 2 instead, boosting their coverage a lot more, servers which had full populations but poor coverage (population caps have nothing to do with active WvW players as far as I know). What I'm saying is, if you don't have the coverage before free transfers ends, how are you going to get the coverage to get into tier 1?

@ the whole JQ/SoS drama, this shit is why so many people don't post on forums or want to be involved in WvW or top tiers. A handful of people (seriously, it's a handful of monkeys slinging poo at each other) painting entire servers with broad paint brushes. The drama over winning or losing tier 1, gaining or not gaining large transfers and the dellusion that WvW is supposed to be a balanced competitive arena where objective and meaningful achievements are made, it's all just really depressing. You can do some really cool shit in WvW but people talk about it like it's GvG from GW1, where guilds competed on a balanced playing field and skill triumphed. The best sPvP in this game (and the bar is pretty high) would get crushed by any large guild. If you want to build a reputation of being a competitive skilled team that stomps their competition, do it in sPvP. If you want to have zergy fun, siege towers, defend keeps and crush enemy militia (with tactics and strategies, good commanding and a giant force to back you up), WvW is great. Let's stop pretending it's something it's not.

I'm sad to see PRX go as I think they were welcomed with open arms to SoS. There are definitely other guilds that brought something to the table when it came to WvW but PRX seemed to do it with class, mystery, and oddly enough; professionalism. I'm not saying the other guilds didn't, PRX just stands out in my mind more so than the others. I don't see them come here (or any site) and talk trash about players or guilds and they certainly don't demean the accomplishments and contributions of other guilds. Quite the opposite.

I asked myself many times what I would have done if I were the guild leader of a large guild playing in a game that had a dwindling population but the guild itself had accomplished much since launch. It was pretty clear that TA disbanding was probably one of the best things to happen to the competition so PRX making a move to EU servers to shake things up after what they've accomplished is bold and obviously needed by the guild. I can only imagine how much of a needed break this is for them. Look at how many of their commanders were leading in WvW reset, after reset, after reset and then to continue well through the night. Putting in countless hours, sacrificing family, friends, etc. to keep up the fighting. How anyone can possibly try and take that away from them is beyond me. That's either bitterness, envy, or flat out unwarranted hate, especially when they are confrontational where it matters and that's on the battlefield, not some forum.

In any case, I applaud them for their decision and really hope that if they do come back to the NA servers they know that they're still welcome on the Sea of Sorrows.

After reading through the recent answers to the Chris Whiteside Ask Me Anything Highlights I could not not help but walk away with an empty pit in my stomach.

The take away here is that constantly evolving and improving gear stats are planned.  While Chris says there is no plan for another named Tier like Ascended he says clearly that an ongoing gearing progression is intended via things like infusions or other 'loot' that can improve existing Tier gear stats.  

OK so we don't have a new Tier .... just ongoing gear stat improvement to existing Tiers??  Somehow this is different?

Now Chris spins this by saying the gear curve will be shallow and the grind will be easy.  If I had a dollar for every time a game developer made those statements to rationalize their thought they needed gear progression in their game I would be a rich man.

I could care less what they do with PvE content and the gear treadmill there.  I would rather stick a sharp stick in my eye than run Fractals endlessly.  But all of this impacts WvW.

The reality here, just like in every other 'Open World' PvP game in the genre is that as time goes on, even a shallow curve between 'levels' becomes a mountain for the new player joining.  So a year down the road Ted wants to try out GW2 because he wants to get into some RvR style PvP.  What kind of experience does he have to look forward to?  What will be required to get viable?  Right now its a reasonably quick trip to 80 and Rares.  Exotics ... not much more effort.

But then we have Ascended ... then infused Ascended ... then Ascended with Super Level 2 infusions.  

When looking at this dynamic you have to look at the difference between a level 30 blue geared player and a top tier tweaked character after each is WvW buffed.  I can tell you I felt the difference between level 79 rares and level 80's exotics.  How much more gimped will a level 30 blue or green character feel against a fully tweaked toon in Level 5 Super Infused Ascended Gear?

Its so simple ... if the mountain is too high, the masses won't climb it and we will be left with a slowly dieing PvP game just like every other game in this genre with gear progression.

Since it is quite clear from Chris's comments that this where we are headed, is it time to lobby for WvW working like SPvP in terms of gear and stats?

I am going to the bar and drown my tears.

Atticus, on 28 November 2012 - 05:47 AM, said:

This post here made me spit orange G2 all over my desk!  Awesome job everyone!

Also, JQ, please let us know what the routing number is for the account you want that 30,000 points sent to.  We will wire them asap!

Pleasure doing business with you, see yall tomorrow!