Guild Wars 2

I love WvW. It’s the main draw of the game for me. Here on NSP we have a hardcore contingent of WvW’ers who are devoted to winning. Unfortunately the vast majority of our server appears to be PvE players, endlessly grinding for shinnies in some far away fractal while our towers topple and we sink in ranking. The outmanned buff is often on, and we often find ourselves fighting twice our numbers, struggling to hold our points. The good result of this is that those who WvW religiously on our server are battle-tested and excellent players who have had to learn all manner of strategies to keep the mindless hordes at bay. We hold our own with diminished forces admirably. Still, it’s endlessly frustrating to lose a battle because we lack superior numbers. And I know we’re not the only server to struggle with this.

How can we solve this problem?
PLEASE POST YOUR IDEAS BELOW:

Here’s mine:

1. Several unique WvW armor / weapon sets as beautiful and epic looking as any Dungeon set (with particle effects). Have these purchasable with badges and set the price high. I did PvE for my dungeon set even though dungeon runs are not my thing. It stands to reason the PvE’ers would do the same. Plus, it would be fantastic to have your armor identify you as a WvW player of significant experience. Yes I know there is WvW armor now, but no one sports it because it looks awful.

2. Unique back pieces that are unlocked by completing achievements relating to WvW. Taking SM 20 times, etc.

3. A 1st and 2nd place server reward for the week.

4. Let our WvW ranks be VISIBLE to others if we want to display them.

5. WvW Living Story temporary EVENTS. I’m not sure what these would be exactly, perhaps you’d log on to discover that snow had covered everything in EB and an Ice Dragon was guarding SM. Hard to kill, taking SM out of the picture unless one server beats it, in which case the dragon will fight for you briefly. Regardless, making things change in WvW would add flavor and variety.

6. Have a silver or gold statue appear in lions arch if your server wins 2nd or 1st place in WvW for the week. Plus a general buff for the server in general, so people could FEEL the tangible impact of playing. So we’re fighting for something. +2% magic find or something.

POST YOURS

The most frustrating thing for me is losing because of coverage. Anet should have separate battle groups for NA, Europe, and Oceanic. Merging those into a 24hour server isn’t working. The key to victory is a mismatch with your weakest link. You gain more by trying to recruit people to solve your coverage issue than you do by actually honing tactics.

Define 3 periods

Midnight-8am = period 1
8 am to 4pm = period 2
4pm to Midnight = period 3

When period 1 closes, the board is frozen, people are booted from WvW, and the period 2 matchup initializes with the period 2 servers added. Rank would be determined by time period, and each time period would have a different matchup.

Thus if your server was highly competitive in period 1, but dead last in period 2, you would still face appropriate competition by period. If all that mattered to you was WvW during your highest rank period, you could PvE or whatever in the other periods.

This would hopefully eliminate the need for endless recruiting to solve coverage issues, and get better match ups. I think more would participate in WvW if there was a window for it opening, as it would be like reset night every time the period came up. There would be some strategic talk in the off periods on what to do next push, and overall the game would improve because of it.

I don’t think there is an ANet fix for this. I think the WvW’ers of any given server need to get out and mingle with the PvE populace more.

Run a large guild group working on map completion or harvesting through Cursed Shore. People like to see guilds that are still active and actually play together. Talk in “say” to people around you…be friendly and bring up wvw. Answer questions.

We’ve picked up 3 new members last weekend doing this. 2 are now interested in wvw, the other not so much, but thats okay too.

Build PvX guilds!

People may join them for PvE, guild-missions, etc., but if they also have some experienced WvW-player, better even Commander, they can be easily motivated to play WvW from time to time, and several may even become real WvW player.

This way they are not alone in an hostile, much more difficult to understand environment and can get access to WvW much easier.

Offer training, build discussions as well, but don’t overdo.

It’s a very contradictory wagon your trying to fix with new addons vs fixing the fundamental problems with the core game format.

There’s a strong case for why even bother having match scores given the current game play structure.

guards and keep lords start droping t6 mats

I would love to see the living story come to the mists. But as a NSP guild leader, and Commander I’ve been trying to recruit people and scheduling specific day’s and times that we work as a guild in WvW. This has worked to some degree and improved my guilds overall presence in WvW.

To be honest though if we were going to get our PvE population into WvW they would need 2 things.
1: Monetary reward to WvW = PvE or greater. (probably would have to be greater)
2: Organized guilds/groups to work with. (pugs will easily leave if they feel overwhelmed)

I can sit in PVE, Gain gold hand over fist with little to no risk. I do not however gain any kind of profit in WvW. Yes the Majority of this is because I am a commander who will drop siege and pay for it out of my pocket. I do this because too many times Ive gotten to a tower and out of 30 pugs 0 of them have had a ram or catapult. (“They cost too much, your a commander your supposed to be rich”). Eventually I run out of coin and have to PVE to even try to help support my server.

In the years of world pvp and sort of world pvp (wintergrasp anyone?) i can say i feel there is no fix for this, but winning. The diehards are there no matter what, the others they show up when you win.

You lose they stop showing up. After many server transfers and watching it happen again and again, once a side starts consistently losing the people who are just playing for rewards or just killing time stop showing up. They transfer, they faction change, they roll defiant, they get black wings.

Dont get me wrong im all for rewards, they help get new people to give it a look and those who might be bored a reason to poke in. But just trying to come up with some sort of gimmick reward gets people there for the wrong reason.

Interesting ideas. I see what you guys are saying, that add ins are like putting a band aid on the gaping wound of a more systemic problem. But I recall very vividly how the week after WXP was introduced there was a major uptick in player participation. WvW was full for days, which never happens on NSP. This was because everyone was curious about the ranks and wanted to level them up. It was glorious. Rewards can work. It’s carrot and stick. Maybe we need more stick! Punishments for not playing WvW! Just kidding, but who knows. Maybe it’s an aesthetic thing. If your server WvW rank falls Lions Arch starts to look more ruined and messy. Cracked walls. Overgrown grass. Faded paint.

Ranks should be displayed on the commander tag in map. For example:

“Commander Colonel Entropy”

instead of the current

“Commander Entropy”

And player ranks should be displayed to allies as well as enemies in WvW.

It is too big and too long to care about. My puny 1 hour contribution feels like a tiny drop in the bucket. It needs some smaller objectives that actually reward the player in some way.

If I can get on a good zerg it is good for leveling alts. Cheaper than crafting and faster alt leveling would get them in. I came for map completion and luckily due to the recent changes got it in three weeks.

Cant speak for anyone else but the server wide buffs due to wvwvw do not even enter my mind. Dont think that I have ever even looked at them. So poi worked in my case I have them but keep coming back for a couple hours of fun every few days. Imo more reasons for players to just get a taste would work. Otherwise many will never not even once click that button.

I like the more unique skins idea. Suggest light armor for males that doesnt make you look like one of the three musketeers.

You already have your reward.
The better the server competes, the more money you find, the better chance for crafting success you have, more gathering from nodes etc.
Most player (PVE) still do not know that this system actually exists! I mean really, pretty much no casual knows, not even some of the more veteran players.

Emphasize this system, maybe push it even further, as current reward is still not that big. Maybe for good points the server gets double loot luck, double coin/token drops and so on in the following complete week depending on how well they did the week before (random numbers here…). Not beginning from every week, but the achievement of the last week counts for the current week completely.
This system will make WvW very much more popular for the farming/dungeon/general PvE player.

Simply put. You do not need something new, just make the current system more public, refine it by far and people will have lots of reasons to go WvW if it gets them more stuff in PvE later on. THIS will increase population for every server, guaranteed.
But it will not change balance in number of players/server. For this, we just need free server transfer to lesser populated server and maybe a buff (25% higher stats on just the described system) if you are on a server with less population or 5% more damage and hp in WvW on such a server (random numbers here…).

PS: Also, PvE environmental Mobs in dungeons etc. should drop blueprints. Increased interest for WvW only players in PvE and maybe the not interested PvE player will sell them cheap on the broker or even just give them to the next best commander, while the casual WvW player will have a reason to visit WvW more often to use his blueprints.

No. None cares about the server bonuses. They are totally irrelevant. What anet does if anything they absolutely must not under any circumstances listen to what a pve player suggests might entice them.

But really I think you do not want to be waiting in a que because you have managed to entice a bunch of pve players.

There is a danger of too much carrot. Already completionist types are forced into WvW for map completion. Getting power seekers into WvW with more rewards can screw up the game, as those coming in will engage in WvW to maximize WxP and not points.

In the existing system, it is not too hard to go out there, drum up a bunch of low levels and run an XP train. My son got 9 lvls on his Engineer over a 3hr period doing that, and the coin and badges are fair. Badges and karma from doing this can be used on exotic lvl 80 gear when they ultimately arrive. The problem though is one of patience. Few commanders seem to have the patience necessary to spell out things plainly and repetitively over and over to new players in chat, and most PUGs absolutely refuse to get in Teamspeak, because it might bite them or something.

I think Anet should instead spend their time making WvW better so more people view it as one of the main draws of GW2, and wish to engage. Part of why PvE types stay out there so long is the world is fairly large with many POIs and events and skill challenges and hearts to do, and that takes time. Those who like to solo along on their own time, may not have time or inclination to commit to organized WvW.

What you want is Anet improving WvW to the point that people from other epic PvP MMOs come to GW2 to take part in it. I used to listen to a podcast for GW2, and the guys on it were really into WvW, but over time left due to intractable problems with WvW that annoyed them and Anet seemed very slow to fix. Were Anet to be much more responsive to fixing WvW problems, you would retain many of those people leaving, and draw more people into the game.