The History of Guild Wars Season 8

Danmen

MaggiesSweetAss vs El Origen

[Deleted User]

10 players can score more than 1000 points
526 Total Top Guns

Lady J

527... 😁😘

Billbam

111

Karajoca

Another exhausting season is finally over.
Lot of bugs reported, glitches in scores, errors that couldn't be fixed during battles, errors that strongly affect Leaderboard and ruin all the effort guilds put into this.

Also, change from a pay-to-win format to even more  pay to win format in the middle of the season was a cherry on top.

It was all about who survives better and find a way out from the chaos. Proud to say that my team somehow ended up as winners.

I see all this as a repay from NG "Gods" to us, for missing being the champions multiple times in the past by small margins and bad luck.
Title is finally home, baby!!   

Here is the recapitulation of our season campaign :    

From a start, we choose to play with numbers where maximum scores were reachable only with huge number of "stacking" tactics in the old format. 
That's with 9 and 6 players. Other strong teams decided to mostly play with 7 since that way provide bigger VP in total. However, that way of playing also has a big chances to "draw" which is equal to lose. 
So we accepted the fact that we will drop ~1000 VP from maximum, but thought that we can make that up by attacking the rivals when chance comes. 

But, things went even better for us. Rivals literally slaughtered eachother, everyone were "greedy" for points and went with 7 which made that playing field a  bloodbath. Guild Belarus  upset the odds, beat and had a draw with our rivals Mavericks and TLOU
Crazy as they are, Belarus faced us as well and that was our first real test. We came out as winners, and that was crucial win for having advantage on the half of season. 
....................................... 

Then, new format was introduced. Things changed massively and it was important to find right strategy how to continue. I have to be honest and say new format was in favour of my guild. Not many guilds have a strenght to do only 44+ difficulty, and we decided to mostly play with 10-men in the 3rd week as our biggest advantage lies in those numbers. 

However, just one match was needed to realise that new format brought huge pay to win factor as well. 
For a top player who want to do difficulties 46-49 lvl, for 18 attacks is MINIMAL NEED to have
15-20 flares
15-20 grenades
6-12 medkits
6-12 blasts
or 45-60 tools in total. This is the minimum, many had to use more.
Those missions on island 20 are designed like that so you need tools to pass, especially having flare is a must if you want to have a chance at all. 


So we fast realised that going for maximum points every battle is mission impossible, and had to do just as much is needed to win, save tools for big matches. 
........................................ 

Then again, luck was on our side. Another brave guild, "Stay Alive" , upset the odds and beat our rivals TheLastOfUs. Big baggage fall from our backs since this meant we can also afford to lose once. 
Road brought us to that same Stay Alive guild at the end of week. We won a battle in very hard mapset which have costed both team incredible amount of tools. But, on the end, it was the crucial battle of the season for us. Huge respect to @miori199373 and her crew. We beat you twice this season, but it could be different both times and you could be the season winners. Your time will come, i am sure! 
...................................... 


We went into last week with 4000 VP advantage to TLOU. Crazy Germans lead by @Jens_KF despite the loss were still breathing to our neck. 
I had to change strategy, and go safe first few days, to buy ourself a time, and face them only with our strongest possible team, because that would be only way to win.
To do this, we used 3-men strategy. 

Play with 3 is absolute joke in new format. You only need to wait for opponents to do first move, and then just go for one island higher. I put our USA teams there because timezone work in their favour, they can play late when Europe sleep. 
Easy two wins, and tools saved. 
We were ready for big fights. 
......................................


But unfortunately, this is where worst moment of the season happened. In the best battle of the season, where two giants TheLastOfUs and RedSnow faced, both did maximum possible levels, scored enormously. TLOU used 1 red gas only,and should have won, but due to scoring glitch they didn't. 
This simply, ruined season for everyone. They refused to continue fighting and boycott the rest of season because Ng was unable to fix the glitch. We can only guess "what if", and our battle with them never seen the light of day.

German steamroller crushed many big guilds this season, and dictate the tempo, rising the standards, literally each day. They didn't deserve this what happened.
To me, TheLastOfUs is the winner of the season as much as Wild Walking. I hope what happened to them is the final warning for NG, if they want GW to ever become successful mode, they will have to fix this bugs, at least manually, during season.

.........................................


Final week continues, but with lower morale for everyone. Wild Walking had a "clean road". TLOU out of action, many guilds have no tools to be competent, only guilds who can hurt us are our biggest rivals from previous seasons, Mavericks & Red Snow.

We could face them and see who is the best (or who has more tools) but i refused to give them that chance this time.
Instead, i kept using broken GW system, decide with what numbers to go after fallowing what opponents do. If you fallow and predict guilds correctly you can easy know who will be your rival if you go into battle with specific number.
My guesses was 100% correct, all the time. I don't find this as big deal to know, it's very easy and it amazes me how guilds are predictable.

System should never allow guilds to choose to play between 3-10 players in my opinion and its something i was against from beginning.
However, this is maybe the only way for smaller guilds, and since there are no "leagues", everyone put into same basket, i can abuse the system how i want. 

As a final low kick, on last day we simply removed two players and again made us unpredictable, choose an "easier" rival, and did just enough to secure the season win in this ridiculous season. (also i wanted to allow myself to have a crack into Forrest Island no5, why there are no forrest maps on 45+?) 


Sorry, but not sorry, to everyone who think it's unfair how we dodged big rivals in last few days. I also find it unfair that game allows so many pay to win factors in this mode. So i have to search for best available options.

Strategy and tactics is the part of every war. Seasons in the past made me realise battle plan is just one small part of whole strategy. Knowing when to "attack" and which number of players to use is way more important.

More seasons will come and i am sure @JayZ and @Vastich & their crew will find a way to bring us down like they always do. It's uncertain at the moment, will i be there, because the way game is now is not something i want to keep playing.


I BEG, Next Games, to really try to make things right, summon all big families, make acceptable rules, fix the bugs, balance pay to win factors - or don't return with another Beta season at all.

Karajoca

... 

Karajoca

My " season recapitulation" post is fairly big, and doubt many will read, so i just want here again to say : 

Huge respect to TheLastOfUs guild, who are the winners as much as Wild Walking is.
The numbers they put over the season were astonishing, and they were, when comes to strenght and power the best guild.

What happened to them must be a final warning to developers to not take things for granted, and "play" with us. Top guilds involve so much time, effort and money to achieve all this.
It's time for you to finally make Guild Wars mode worthwhile

Wild Walking family wish you all good rest and 4 weeks of recovery 

fragcandance

@Karajoca it was interesting gambit decision on the last day. Red Snow was 99% sure to meet you, there should be great fight but you choose to miss it-)
Our congratulations on victory in this messy season!

Jens_KF

Karajoca said:

My " season recapitulation" post is fairly big, and doubt many will read, so i just want here again to say : 

Huge respect to TheLastOfUs guild, who are the winners as much as Wild Walking is.
The numbers they put over the season were astonishing, and they were, when comes to strenght and power the best guild.

What happened to them must be a final warning to developers to not take things for granted, and "play" with us. Top guilds involve so much time, effort and money to achieve all this.
It's time for you to finally make Guild Wars mode worthwhile

Wild Walking family wish you all good rest and 4 weeks of recovery 

Thanks buddy! Really appreciate it! 

You did an awesome job with WW. Congrats on the season championship! 🥳

Karajoca

 @fragcandance, thank you and sorry for not showing up.

Decision was made only because of lack of tools, and simple calculations. We didn't need another big and intense match on the very last day of exhausting season.

I am sure we will have a match next season, hard to stay that long away from you  

Billbam

111

Mario_Romero

Congratulations to the entire WW GW team.

And let me just add that we did not lose to the champions, that's a great achievement too. 

As for you @Karajoca enough slacking, time to put in some real work and start preparing that wild cup. 

JayZ

Congratulations to WW! They've finished the season in second or third place so many times, it was only a matter of time until they won a season.

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with how their organizers were able to manage their team sizes to save tools and avoid the toughest opponents. Hats off to my friend @Karajoca for some crafty maneuvering.

To help show how their strategy helped them win, here is the battle history of the top 3 teams and TLOU (who would have been top 3 if they didn't get screwed by a scoring glitch):

- In 23 battles, WW played 7 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Mavericks OG played 11 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Red Snow played 10 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings (missing information about 3 battles, so might be more).

- In 20 battles (before their glitch), TLOU played 11 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings.

To summarize:

- 30% of WW opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 0 losses.

- 52% of OG opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 3 losses.

- 50% of RS opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 4 losses.

- 55% of TLOU opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 1 true loss and 1 draw.

WW played significantly fewer top tier opponents (30% of battles, instead of 50%+) because of their ability to plan their teams to avoid some of the biggest battles (they never played Mavericks, Red Snow, or TLOU). But, that shouldn't take away from their victory, as they still did win tough battles against guilds like Belarus and Stay Alive. And, while there is strategy that you can use when playing the maps, there is also strategy in organizing your team well, which WW really showed.

Congratulations again to WW, and I hope we actually meet next season

Karajoca

Nice sum up @JayZ, i wasn't really paying attention of how big % of top 20 guilds we faced but i know this % is certain

 If we just look back at season 7, we finished 3rd while had  lost matches against TLOU and Red Snow, and draw with Mavericks. We win back against TLOU but other two match-ups happened in last week when we were trying to attack, but it was too late to change the final outcome ( and unsuccessful anyway) But finally we had a chance this season, to be in defending position and just dodge until end

JayZ

Karajoca said:

Nice sum up @JayZ, i wasn't really paying attention of how big % of top 20 guilds we faced but i know this % is certain

 If we just look back at season 7, we finished 3rd while had  lost matches against TLOU and Red Snow, and draw with Mavericks. We win back against TLOU but other two match-ups happened in last week when we were trying to attack, but it was too late to change the final outcome ( and unsuccessful anyway) But finally we had a chance this season, to be in defending position and just dodge until end

Man, that was fast. Did you have the graphic ready to go?

brucewayne007

JayZ said:

Congratulations to WW! They've finished the season in second or third place so many times, it was only a matter of time until they won a season.

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with how their organizers were able to manage their team sizes to save tools and avoid the toughest opponents. Hats off to my friend @Karajoca for some crafty maneuvering.

To help show how their strategy helped them win, here is the battle history of the top 3 teams and TLOU (who would have been top 3 if they didn't get screwed by a scoring glitch):

- In 23 battles, WW played 7 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Mavericks OG played 11 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Red Snow played 10 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings (missing information about 3 battles, so might be more).

- In 20 battles (before their glitch), TLOU played 11 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings.

To summarize:

- 30% of WW opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 0 losses.

- 52% of OG opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 3 losses.

- 50% of RS opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 4 losses.

- 55% of TLOU opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 1 true loss and 1 draw.

WW played significantly fewer top tier opponents (30% of battles, instead of 50%+) because of their ability to plan their teams to avoid some of the biggest battles (they never played Mavericks, Red Snow, or TLOU). But, that shouldn't take away from their victory, as they still did win tough battles against guilds like Belarus and Stay Alive. And, while there is strategy that you can use when playing the maps, there is also strategy in organizing your team well, which WW really showed.

Congratulations again to WW, and I hope we actually meet next season

JayZ said:

Congratulations to WW! They've finished the season in second or third place so many times, it was only a matter of time until they won a season.

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with how their organizers were able to manage their team sizes to save tools and avoid the toughest opponents. Hats off to my friend @Karajoca for some crafty maneuvering.

To help show how their strategy helped them win, here is the battle history of the top 3 teams and TLOU (who would have been top 3 if they didn't get screwed by a scoring glitch):

- In 23 battles, WW played 7 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Mavericks OG played 11 teams that ended in the top 20 of GW standings.

- In 21 battles, Red Snow played 10 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings (missing information about 3 battles, so might be more).

- In 20 battles (before their glitch), TLOU played 11 teams that ended up in the top 20 of GW standings.

To summarize:

- 30% of WW opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 0 losses.

- 52% of OG opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 3 losses.

- 50% of RS opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 4 losses.

- 55% of TLOU opponents were top 20 GW teams. They had 1 true loss and 1 draw.

WW played significantly fewer top tier opponents (30% of battles, instead of 50%+) because of their ability to plan their teams to avoid some of the biggest battles (they never played Mavericks, Red Snow, or TLOU). But, that shouldn't take away from their victory, as they still did win tough battles against guilds like Belarus and Stay Alive. And, while there is strategy that you can use when playing the maps, there is also strategy in organizing your team well, which WW really showed.

Congratulations again to WW, and I hope we actually meet next season

Only the final War. 

Otherwise NG places what team we fight. 

It takes me back to the times of when WW have chased down RM & Mavs and them not interested in matching incase they lose a battle which could jeopardise the potential win and win bonus. 

If the shoe was on the other foot, you would have not wanted to play a Top3 team if it has the potential to lose the season. 

JayZ

Don’t think that is quite true @brucewayne007. Reading Joca’s post, it seems like the team sizes were carefully considered the whole season to minimize risk.

For example, in the first two weeks, WW played 5-5-6-6-9-9 when most top teams played 6-6-7-7-7-7 or 8-8-8-8-8. In the last week, WW played 3-3-8-8-8-8 instead of 4-9-9-9-9 or 10-10-10-10 as many of the top teams did.

Again, I’m not criticizing them for the strategy. It was quite a brilliant way to win and required a lot of careful planning by the organizers and strong play by the players to still not lose a single battle. But let’s not pretend like it was only the last day that WW was trying to manipulate their team sizes to dodge certain teams.

xbamfx

Congratulations to Wild Walking on a superb season! 

brucewayne007

JayZ said:

Don’t think that is quite true @brucewayne007. Reading Joca’s post, it seems like the team sizes were carefully considered the whole season to minimize risk.

For example, in the first two weeks, WW played 5-5-6-6-9-9 when most top teams played 6-6-7-7-7-7 or 8-8-8-8-8. In the last week, WW played 3-3-8-8-8-8 instead of 4-9-9-9-9 or 10-10-10-10 as many of the top teams did.

Again, I’m not criticizing them for the strategy. It was quite a brilliant way to win and required a lot of careful planning by the organizers and strong play by the players to still not lose a single battle. But let’s not pretend like it was only the last day that WW was trying to manipulate their team sizes to dodge certain teams.

Correct yourself, I’m not talking about the final day. 

The final week yes it was strategically done. 

But to say it was done from the very 1st week. Mate it’s like saying that we have never beaten you. Which both you and I know isn’t the case. 

All 4 teams can beat each other on the very day 

ATLAS-Z

Congrats! 

Karajoca

I absolutely admitted and joke about dodging opponents, but saying it was all the time or meant to be like this is quite wrong.
We couldn't imagine it will be like this. And i believe that every defensive tactics is only good if there is counter-attack.

Every guild for sure try to balance strength of teams for every day. However, every guild must have day or two when their "best" players are in battle ? Players who never use red gas and have bigger chances of beating everyone. We at least, call this, our "hunting team" . And every week we try to hunt someone down.
So, let me " draw" you our tactics if my detailed explanation wasn't enough, to see who really fled :  



In week 1 - Mavericks played 5-7-7-7-7-7 formation.
I saw this, and wanted to attack you on Day1 on 2nd week, 5 vs 5, because like we all know when two good teams play with 7 is nothing but stupid dick measuring which could end up as a draw very likely (in old format)
However, Mavericks, changed their tactics and weren't there with 5, not like in 1st week.

3rd week came, and saying that we wanted to dodge anyone can't possibly be true. Everyone were meeting with new format, and i couldn't guess for what formations will teams decide. BUT, i could see that Mavericks were with 10 on day1 same as we were. There was no match because you were lower on table. But on 2nd day we all expected to see you out there, and came back with 10 people expecting  to find you. But other guild pop-up on the screen. Mavericks fled. Absent. Why ? Who knows, maybe it was planned. But i never saw a top team skipping Wednesday.

And finally, in week 4, Mavericks first day was with 4 players. This tactics was similar as ours, absolutely screams "Dodging" , and "let's lower our VP so we get easier opponent first few days" , because why else would you use non-challenge day for only 4 players, and play rest with 9

Let's open cards completely and not try to represent something different then it was. I don't blame you, in fact i see all this changes in formations as a play of chess. NO GOOD TEAM IN GW SHOULD BE PREDICTABLE!! 
That's the fact. And i congratulate to Mavericks coming all the way up to 2nd place despite 3 lost matches. This was only possible because you started changing tactics as well

Wild Walking win against 0 opponents from top 3 this season
Mavericks win against 0 opponents from top 3 this season.
Only difference is you lost 3, we lost 0.

JayZ

Wasn’t my intention to turn this to an argument. I was just responding to something I perceived to be untrue. Although I could respond, I’ll step back to avoid further accidental disagreement, congratulate you on a well-deserved season win, and leave it at that.

WellyLuga

I think @Karajoca, @aquila and I had a collective 22 flares between us going into the final day . Considering we spent much of the season managing our tool count with marine like precision it just goes to show what we have to work with.  Every guild near the top, when matched with another guild of the same caliber will win some and lose some. The crazy side of this is, we won 23 of our matches and only skipped 1 day. Mavs skipped 3 days, lost 3 and were still just over 1k away. 23 wins vs 18...

We (Joca mostly ) watch the score of the opposition, then do enough to beat them to manage tool costs. Other guilds don't need to do that, what should we do today? Oh, we'll just play every tough sector and massively outscore the opposition, regardless of the cost, why? Because we can. Most of the time, the amount of wins don't really matter with the way the scoring system is. It's like having a football/soccer season decided on goal difference. Absolutely stupid.

The maps are setup to promote tool use. The new layout has so many high level sectors that the cost to compete has become so out of hand. I'm just happy that we managed to find a way to win despite the OBVIOUS pay to win factor that has taken over GW like a cancer. If the map layout and tool economy remains the same as it was in the 2nd half of the season, this will never be repeated IMO. It will forever be won by the guild with the most tools...

Nova_TWD

I hope you’re listening NG. Some of the mission objectives need some serious balancing.

-KTTW: before entering I already know that I will have to toss at least two grenades 

-KWE: this objective is basically hit or miss. Some are well balanced, while others are hell. When there is one spike, one fatty and another third tough walker like a goo or metalhead, there is nothing to do but spam tools. I have a video from Sunday’s battle that I’ll more than happily share with you. 

-GTE: most of these mission are balanced but some weird walker movement can make them tricky😉

I could talk about the other type of missions too, but my point is that there are way too many special walkers on some of the missions. The difference between dealing with one or two spikes at higher levels is ginormous. 

I love the game mode, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know if I’m interested in pumping tools looking at the rewards you have given us in the shop the last seasons. 

And yes, it’s my own choice to enter the missions, but I do it out of love for my teammates. I’m human, I want to help my guild as much as I can🤷‍♂️

Not every mission is a tool drain like some make it sound like on the Line app for example. However, the ones that are (4+ tools required to compete a mission), drains your toolbag if you play many of them. 

5x swords * 4 tools= 20 tools spent

I know that GW isn’t supposed to be a piece of cake, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. There is a point where tools overrule skill. 

With that being said, I know that not everyone with unlimited tool supply would be able to handle some of the maps.

Last but not least, I think it’s worth mentioning that this is coming from someone who has nothing against the concept of tools. I love them 

Nova_TWD

*I don’t want maps to be too easy, but I don’t want too many tool draining maps either.

Go ahead and critique my essay structure, I’ve never been good at it🤷‍♂️

Burmeliinis

I don't see how making GW easier would solve anything. Many guilds already now routinely close sector 20, so making missions easier would mean we are back at the previous meta where top guilds draw against each other. And remember, NG already did a lot of balancing by taking out some of the most outrageous maps, as well as making it so that a mission will never have both spawn piles and threat counter.

Maybe spice things up a little bit and have one week of the season being a "no-tools war" where you could't use tools at all. Have double or even quadruple healing times during the week so the gold saved in tool use wouldn't go to healing instead.

xbamfx

brucewayne007 said:

JayZ said:

Don’t think that is quite true @brucewayne007. Reading Joca’s post, it seems like the team sizes were carefully considered the whole season to minimize risk.

For example, in the first two weeks, WW played 5-5-6-6-9-9 when most top teams played 6-6-7-7-7-7 or 8-8-8-8-8. In the last week, WW played 3-3-8-8-8-8 instead of 4-9-9-9-9 or 10-10-10-10 as many of the top teams did.

Again, I’m not criticizing them for the strategy. It was quite a brilliant way to win and required a lot of careful planning by the organizers and strong play by the players to still not lose a single battle. But let’s not pretend like it was only the last day that WW was trying to manipulate their team sizes to dodge certain teams.

Correct yourself, I’m not talking about the final day. 

The final week yes it was strategically done. 

But to say it was done from the very 1st week. Mate it’s like saying that we have never beaten you. Which both you and I know isn’t the case. 

All 4 teams can beat each other on the very day 

Perfect strategical move that can only be done when playing from the front of the pack, you have to have the lead score to do that though 😉. Hence why many other will “claim” someone else would have won but did NOT lol 😆 

Nova_TWD

@Burmeliinis I agree that the missions shouldn’t become easier, I already said that.

All I wish is that some missions became more balanced;
-set a maximum amount of tough walkers possible in one mission for example. 

To compensate for that, NG could 
-increase the difficulty of missions without special walkers or just one special walker. The chance of getting autospawn could be increased to 75% for instance

[Deleted User]

I'm complete all full tops
need only copy them to forum and also update teams results from last war

[Deleted User]

Hey @Fluxxx NG should remove that joke from game

• The reset brings your guild down to 25% of the VP at the end of the season

• The amount of VP at the beginning of the season cannot exceed 30 000 VP

at least 646 guild reach master tier in season 8
and it's just  annoying me when I'm update my spreadsheet because you dont included it to GW Online Ladder board