Curse

Ate of DK · Jun 02, 2009, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by lewis91

So yeah, go to JQ, you rarely loose there as kurzick.

True, when I was maxing my Kurzick title I used to play many Jade Quarry matches when I had a few days off.

Usualy at the end of the day I could say I won 18 out of 20 matches as a Kurzick. When I played during the mid day I had 6 matches per hour.

wilson · Jun 02, 2009, 01:03 PM // 13:03

I play Suxon AB most of the time and I'm absolutely positive that there's really no difference between Luxon and Kurzick players in AB (or FA or JQ for that matter). Both sides are equally bad.

Eragon Zarroc · Jun 02, 2009, 02:03 PM // 14:03

first off, pugging for AB is fail anyways. maybe u should be asking why luxons are so damn good? O_o my opinion, it's faster to get a match on luxon side because less people fight on that side, so the people that actually enjoy doing AB for the hell of it and the people that are good at AB play on that side to get quick matches. u can end up waiting 10min on kurz side for a match where on the luxon side, it is surprising if u have to wait 1 or 2 min.

Tharg · Jun 02, 2009, 02:45 PM // 14:45

I think only someone who has played on both sides regularly can compare the sides. I guess that the general tactics between Luxons and Kurzicks are different - I think Kurzicks put more emphasis on capping in groups of 4 and I tend to see Luxons more mobbing.

I have played AB only on the Kurzick side. How a group acts makes a HUGE difference. I play a monk. If the group is somewhat balanced, follows a leader, stays together and caps continuously I can keep them alive most of the time and we end up winning over and over again.

But then again I get into these groups that promise to stay together and then everybody just takes off in different directions... We get killed and killed and killed... Very frustrating.

On average I end up winning more than half of the time, but then again one tends to end up playing Grenz. I think Kurzicks have an advantage there anyway.

Xyon the Greatest · Jun 02, 2009, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Thats kinda alliancist, they are not bad, it is just some games noobs will go to kurzick, oh ya and JQ kurzick own.

Krill · Jun 02, 2009, 02:55 PM // 14:55

The only real difference I've noticed is that Luxons often try a little harder with organized teams on attack maps (Grenz / Ancestral) because winning those is how you get large amounts of faction. Kurz on the other hand will have 9 of 10 groups that grab 'n go and fail on Keys / Canyon. I won't even play the attack maps or Saltspray from Kurz side anymore it's just a complete waste of time.

Onion Guy · Jun 02, 2009, 03:45 PM // 15:45

I have played AB on each side a lot. As far as I can see Luxons tend to stay in a group more often and cap shrines together. Kurz like to split up and all individually try to kill the players or cap. Being alone they will usealy die capping a shrine or get crushed one at a time by a luxon group and occasional mob. I have not played AB after my guild started DSC. I do know that i just didn't like the feel of the kurz AB, lux was just faster ind seemed to be more organized.

glacialphoenix · Jun 02, 2009, 03:49 PM // 15:49

I think the problem with there being few monks is because

1. I suspect there are more Kurzick players than Luxon players in the first place - higher demand for monks so the few monks who ARE there are usually snapped up pretty fast;

2. Most people who do bring monks into AB don't really like playing backline professions. They want to see big yellow numbers on their screen - hence, they go ROJ instead. (I am thoroughly sick of ROJ idiots and the even bigger ones who stand in that giant beam of light.)

3.

Quote:

Threatened with reports twice in the night, maybe I was just being a dick but this only happened once in months of Luxon.

Never happened to me before, and I ABed my way to Kurzick r7. Not that that's a fantastic rank, but I should think that counts for several months of playing on the Kurzick AB side.

4. Get a guild team, it makes a difference. And, let me tell you this: from a monk's perspective, it's not rewarding monking for anything but a guild team unless it's AB weekend. People don't stick together, then complain that the monk didn't heal them. Occasionally you get yelled at when you point out that the group is mobbing to no avail. Give me my guild team any time - when I say something, they listen. That may be the other reason why you don't find many non-RoJ monks in Kurzick AB: they don't stick around to be yelled at. Why would a monk want to hang around a group of people who can't take out one shrine, can't target, can't kill anything, and then complain that you didn't keep them alive?

Bobby2 · Jun 02, 2009, 06:22 PM // 18:22

The reason there seem to be few Kurzick Monks is because they all group up in 4-man RoJ teams.

Bowstring Badass · Jun 02, 2009, 06:32 PM // 18:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by leetLoLa

kurzicks play JQ now...

I heard RoJ monks don't suck complete balls there.

moriz · Jun 02, 2009, 09:37 PM // 21:37

playing monk in AB is probably the most unrewarding experience you can ever get. yes, it's even worse than playing monk in RA. this is compounded because kurzicks are usually weaker in AB. that's why you see so little of them.

Lux Aeterna · Jun 02, 2009, 10:06 PM // 22:06

^ Luxon side usually has a lot of monks, you can look around and see 4-5 of them within a small radius and wearing obby armor. Many of them are chicks and / or genuinely enjoy healing.

Also I've generally had a terrible experience with guild/ alliance teams, often wiping opposing guild groups 4v4 with a carefully made pug, but again this is on the Luxon side.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tmakinen

In a mini-game like AB there is a positive feedback where the weaker side gets progressively weaker when the most skilled portion of the weaker side recognizes that any prospective rewards are not worth their time and go elsewhere. Thus, a relatively minor initial difference in average player skill level tends to grow over time.

This is an observable mechanic in most online games - Some CSS servers have an automatic team balance script which will switch people from the winning side to balance the game, I've alwayse wished GW had something like this..

The point about most decent kurzicks leaving for JQ is probably a good one. On the most recent double faction AB weekend I felt like trying kurzick for a bit, and thinking that JQ would probably be the best place to find a kurzick guild invite, I went there and found it PACKED, despite the AB weekend. There were crowds of kurzicks around just dancing and complaining about the 40 minute wait, seemingly unaware of the double faction AB.

Strangely enough, though, most of the top GvG guilds (rawr, KMD, vR, VD) seem to be kurzick and can occasionally be seen in AB.

I gather that Kurzick used to be better, the Luxon dominance has only been for the past year or so.

TalanRoarer · Jun 02, 2009, 10:09 PM // 22:09

The reason why most people suck in AB these days is for one reason. Anyone who plays AB either does it because they love it (these are generally the good people) or they are too stupid to do DSC to max their title?
Therefore they suck?
I dunno, just my guess!

Chicken Ftw · Jun 02, 2009, 10:43 PM // 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux Aeterna

Strangely enough, though, most of the top GvG guilds (rawr, KMD, vR, VD) seem to be kurzick and can occasionally be seen in AB.

Those you see in AB are usually just capeleeches allowed into the guild for the sole purpose of farming faction for the guild's alliance. Occasionally, you'll see a team or two of the actual GvG core in AB, as they roll over your side like a tsunami. But not often.

glacialphoenix · Jun 02, 2009, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

^ Luxon side usually has a lot of monks, you can look around and see 4-5 of them within a small radius and wearing obby armor. Many of them are chicks and / or genuinely enjoy healing.

Also I've generally had a terrible experience with guild/ alliance teams, often wiping opposing guild groups 4v4 with a carefully made pug, but again this is on the Luxon side.

My experience, like I said, has been the opposite, and I'm frankly not sure why your guild team fails compared to your PUG team. oO Maybe Luxons are more organized? I know many teams on the Kurzick side are just 'grab and go' - if there's a Mo/X in the team, they're happy; some people will ragequit on you if you ask them to ping skills.

Quote:

I gather that Kurzick used to be better, the Luxon dominance has only been for the past year or so.

People switching from maxing Luxon to maxing Kurzick, I guess?

On Kurzick side, though, PUGging as a monk is extremely unrewarding; I do it only when I'm bored. PUGging in Grenz is bad enough - I wouldn't touch Etnaran without a guild team. (I don't touch Saltspray because I loathe the map.) Like I said: if your team can't kill at all, you tend to want to leave fast.

I ragequit one team after sitting at the same shrine for two minutes, with three Lux people on me while the idiots in my team did... nothing. Just, nothing... except hammer fruitlessly away at different targets and get absolutely nowhere. After that, I went "...gah idiots today" and closed GW. And the horde of Kurzick ABers makes it likely that you'll meet those same idiots - again, and again, and again... different people behind them, different characters, same problem.

Lexar · Jun 03, 2009, 01:39 AM // 01:39

To be honest I noticed no significant difference in tactics between the two sides. If anything, Kurzick teams actually tend to be slightly more coherent. Which leads me to think, small ad-hoc improvised teams might be more flexible and overall better than 3 teams of 4 that just cap and run.

Luxons have always been slightly better, now it's just more pronounced but we have been more in kurzick territory than in luxon. This is a trend that has been going on for a long time. It's more gradual than caused by a single incident.

What it comes down to is:

Competitive oriented players are by no means the best players, but they're better than average casual gamers, and they tend to want to win, so when one side gets the reputation of being better, it becomes a self-fullfilling prophecy, and competitive players pick the winning side.
The best players are the ones who love AB and have been playing it for years. They know other good players and make teams together. They don't ask to ping builds with a pug because they know they can compensate for a poor player. A team of those guys wins over a team of gold and silver trimmed capes in AB. Those just tend to use half a gvg split build with replaced res sigs anyway.

Of course all of this is just speculation, the real reason the Luxon side wins more is that I am on the Luxon side.

Jeydra · Jun 03, 2009, 07:47 AM // 07:47

@Above - well almost all the PvP guilds I know are Kurzick. All the top-level guilds are all Kurzick anyway. That's why I'm Kurzick as well (in a PvP alliance).

I really don't know why Kurzicks are so bad at AB compared to Luxons, and I have no idea either why there are so many more Kurzicks than Luxons. It's just frustrating though. It leads to ...

1) Map usually being Grenz or Ancestral. This wouldn't be so bad since I usually win some 80 - 90% of my matches on these two maps regardless of how good or bad my teammates are. The real problem is the wait times. It seems fewer Luxons are willing to play when the map is hard to win on.
2) It means my favorite AB map - Etnaran - is seldom available. Etnaran is really a great map to play on. It, together with Grenz, comes with most of what people normally associates with AB. As Kurzick, you start out with immediate access to the Elite shrines with capping direction to the Res Orb, giving you a head start on building an NPC army. It's biased towards the other team so there's more challenge. And crucially, you typically have much shorter wait times.

I wish we'd see the Jade Sea more, so I might actually start playing AB more. Right now I'd map to Guild Hall, see the map is Grenz, and then give up.

PS: One reason why Luxons are better might be [any] alliance. Their alliance faction is pretty insane, and presumably to keep up with the daily requirements people have to get better. I have no idea. I've not been Luxon for quite a while.

urania · Jun 03, 2009, 07:54 AM // 07:54

I think the fact why Kurzicks are so bad at AB is simply because there's a lot more of them than there's Luxons, so the number of bad players greatly increases with that, while on Luxon side there might still be bad players, but just not as many as on Kurzick side, so good players tend to stick out more.

Bobby2 · Jun 03, 2009, 08:56 AM // 08:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeydra

PS: One reason why Luxons are better might be [any] alliance. Their alliance faction is pretty insane, and presumably to keep up with the daily requirements people have to get better. I have no idea. I've not been Luxon for quite a while.

Best bit in the entire thread

Shadow Slave · Jun 03, 2009, 09:38 AM // 09:38

[any] actually also holds HZH -

So that significant skill booster is balanced

- It must be all the other terrible Kurzicks tipping the scales.