Guild Wars 2

Originaly posted in the WvW section (Probably buried by now).

Ok so I posted some of my concerns about WvW and how they could be changed. I want to add some more of the less important, but still anoying issues of WvW.

First ill begin with my original post (Removed the {quote} to make writing easyer to read):

“Iv’e been playing WvW for a while now on Ring of Fire server and I have some concerns about the longevity of the game as well as some other parts of the game which make me cringe just a tad.

WvW Rewards
Iv’e seen this talked about a few times, even before I started playing GW2 I was wondering why there arn’t any rewards and/or reward system in place.

You got to ask yourself, why do I want to help ferry supplies or spend my gold for upgrades? To win? Why do we need to win? To have fun? Fun factor wears out on everything one may enjoy.
What driving force is there to make you stay and deffend a siege engine and not gain anything for it?
The answer: For the reward at the end of it all.

Only problem is, there is no reward. I could not give a monkies testicals (and im sure many others would agree) about braggin rights. I mean, your going to tell all your friends that your server is ranked number one on a computer game? yeah I didn’t think so….

Also just to clarify two things:
World wide buffs is not a reward., they are nice but not what one would consider an endgame reward, you get nothing from it once the game has ended and a victor has been decided.
The other thing, taking objectives is a reward, but not the right kind. Yes you get karma and gold, but its also very comman, any shmuck can run with a zerg and grind that. It also doesn’t reward players who try to win in a more sutle way: Like defending a siege engine, ferrying supplies from a camp to a keep for repairs, etc.

While I agree you should be playing just for fun, and it is fun. But there is no incentive for me to make a sacrifice every so often. Why do I want to run to a camp to grab supplies to fix this wall thats being attacked? ill loose karma and gold that way, and thats not fun.

Getting rewards is fun: This is the one thing which makes people stick to a game once the “oohhh thats cool” has worn out. Developers know this, its why WoW is so popular, and while I dislike the way its done in that game, there is no denying it. Getting shinies is what its all about.

The reward(s) can be just cosmetic (if added correctly) in a nicely coloured chest at the end of each round to winners. Of course the differnce of the reward you get from your fellow players could be determained by a number of factors for example:
-How many WvW’s you have taken part in.
-How long you take part in them for.
-How many objectives you take, how many players you kill/revive.
-How much gold you spend on upgrades/siege.
-How much damage/healing you do with and without siege.
If the reward is just cosmetic then casual players shouldnt feel any “squeeze” on gear difference.

Moving on….."

Just a side note: The reward doesn’t have to be gear or a chest, it was an example. It can be like another player suggested: Realm Ranks like the ones in DOAC.

" Orb of Power
I found this to be probably the second most alarming feature about WvW. While I agree with many when it comes to adding that depth of struggle for survival kind of thing. But for me it is done just a little bit to much.

Just imagine for a moument: Three equal teams (in a perfect world) each with their orbs gaining 5% hp + 50 stats for everyplayer. While if one team manages to get themselves two orbs not only does that improve that team to 10% hp + 100 stats it decreases the other team to Zero, meaning it’s now 15% + 150 difference.
While then it would be apparent that the two weaker teams should “team up” against the stronger, that doesn’t happan always. Part of it is down to orginization from two sides that cannot comminicate through “normal” means. The difference on a three orb server against a zero orb server needs to be:
A: Toned down.
B: made apparent that the 2/3 orb team is a more apealing target.

My suggestion would be to reduce the effectiveness of the second and third orbs owned by a server and make objectives/players worth more to take/kill for each additional orb."

" Squad Leaders
This is the one thing which kind of made me cringe. Farm gold to become a leader, eventualy everyone will be squad leader (ok, maybe not everyone) But it also implies that money = can now lead properly. Its just a little bit……. wrong. It should not be this way in my opinion.

The way I think this should be done is: during the course of a WvW round, each player can be voted for to be next round’s sqaud leader and then the top six (number just for example) will be elected to squad leaders.

This allows for players to judge who is the best for their server, it also encourages good behavior. The only downsides I can see to this are:
A: Large guilds voting for their own member(s).
B: To many cheifs, not enough indians (but that kind of happends anyway).

Ok thats it for now, there are a few other concerns on my mind, but ill leave it at that."

Additional information of the squad leader idea(About guilds voting for their own):

“Yea I also thought that would be a problem. No system is full proof I can tell you that.

However to compensate there would be a system in place that voting for anyone who has been in the same guild for that week would have deminishing returns.

How this would work is that if any player (even if hes not in any guild) has been voted by 100 players of the same guild (Just an example) then for the first X amout of votes, they would count as a full “Point” then for the next X amount of players it would be reduced and keep reducing down to a cap. Also if the player who votes has joined or left a guild, he is both registered to his/her new guild and his/her old.

This means that any big guild that wants to take control of this system would have to have everyone who votes leave the guild and stay out of the guild until the next round, this would be a very risky move for even the most orginized guilds.

Another thing, Delicate information that could affect the outcome, like current votes would be hiden.

Just an idea, I mean you can always just merge the two ideas. Needing X amount of contribution to be considered to be placed onto the voting board."

Ok now I want to get down to some of the other issues that come to mind (In no paticular order.

Towers/Keeps/Castle being capped to quickly
Now while some players like that kind of fast paced play it is a little bit bothersome that each side just zergs the crap out of an objective and it just turns into objective swaping due to the pace at which they can be taken (More notablely the towers this happends with).
It seems to be alot more worth it to just zerg around and take towers and camps within a matter of seconds or minuits. where as deffending takes more effort (most of the time) with often less rewarding results as attacking.
Of course you will always have people defending and calling in team chat that the place needs help. But often it’s already to late before the “main army” can make it back after either caping an objecting or abandoning it.
Now my suggestion isn’t to make guards stronger, or gates harder, but rather a more realistic solution.
The reason why gates go down so fast is simply the amount of rams that can be placed. Four rams will surely just rofl stomp a door within seconds.
Its simple realy, add a “Pad” infront of gate doors (This pad should be invisable or blend in with the floor so its not so “ugly”) only one ram can be placed on this pad (Keeps and caslte may or maynot contain multiple pads). This means, if a server wants to take out a gate faster, they will need a siege golem to do so, or alot of catapults (Which would be pointless for a gate as they would then be better off attacking the wall).
This idea isn’t unique, but for me it seems more logical and less messy to implament than fiddling with gaurds and gate health, etc.
This idea will slow down the pace at which towers and keeps can be taken without directly or indirectly nerfing siege equipment. It allows servers that little bit of time to get back to a keep or tower to deffend.

Players with supplies
One thing that has been mentioned is there to be some sort of tag or sign when a player has supplies on them, this isn’t so you can tell that player off for not using the supplies, but rather an idication of how many supplies a group has.
Another method could be to show at the top of the screen how many total supplies are being held by nearby players. Both ideas have their cons and pros but overall it would be a good change.
Also another thing, often (And I mean very often) if you build siege thats not within the 90 degree cone of players sight, it will not be built. A suggestion would be to, everytime a siege blueprint is deployed a notification (With a sound effect also within a limited range that is default as Enabled) will apear and the siege will automaticly be shown on the mini map for everyone on the map.
This will make it easier for people who are having tunnel vision at the time to stop auto attacking a gate for 20 damage and contribute.
Another thing. Remove supplies from players who leave the battleground all together. The supplies can be removed after not being in a WvW map (Or queing) for 5 minuits, this is so sudden DC’s dont loose even more. (Though slightly off topic, DC’ed players should retain their place in WvW for a least a short period for a chance to log back in)

Contribution Credit
What bothers me about this game at the moument is that it doesn’t reward players who help in less subtle ways. Player(s) that branch off from the main zerg will loose any credit on a the point that they are potentionaly helping.
For example, The zerg is going to take a tower, a small group of players head off to take the nearby camp to both stop enemy supplies and supply thier newly captured tower with fresh supplies. While somtimes they would make it back in time, it doesn’t always happen and in other examples of “Trying to win” it happends more.
While this wouldnt matter as much if there was a reward for winning, it is still a little bit anoying to be punished for taking the inititive.
My suggestion is: Any player that is near adjacent objectives or between them and the Event or captured point will be awarded with the Xp/Karma/Gold.

Two things may need to be done with this change though:
A: Reduce the rewards from captured points slightly
This will be to compensate for the extra reward an attacking force would get for defending any adjacent points while they arn’t actauly there (They would still be defending it in a way by playing offensively. “Offence is the best defence” some belive)

B: Allow players to kick and temporarily ban players (Botters and afkers) from that map. Wrongly kicked players can apeal and be compensated for the inconvience (And become immune from being kicked again by the same players, though im not sure if that would work well. It depends on how well Anet can determine a botter from a real player (As well as being exploitably AFK) which can be difficult if not impossible.). As long as a considrable amount of players/accounts don’t do this then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
An edgey idea, but one that would be great if it were to be made less exploitable.

Combat speed and puzzle maps
This is something that has a little bit bemused me (More so on the puzzle maps). I can understand there being combat speed in the PvE zone. But I honestly struggle to find its “use” in player vrs player combat.
It reduces the effectiveness of the speed boost for a start if you’re tagged as in combat by an random NPC or player’s pet, meaning it’s that much harder to get away from multiple players. Also most notebly it blocks any progression on some parts of the puzzle maps.
I really cannot think of a single reason why there is combat speed in WvW. If someone can give me a valid reason, then that would be great.

Next thing, Siege on the puzzle maps, this is realy starting to peeve me off, you get a couple of guys in certain areas on a puzzle map building unreachable balista’s and arrow carts, meaning you are there for hours trying to get past. I have even taken a break and come back hours later to find either the same guys or differnt griefers just camping that area.
While I don’t entirely mind getting killed by agroup of players, as much as it anoys me its understandable. but to build siege equipment to completely block game content, yes BLOCK (Which im sure Anet doesn’t want) is completely douchbag-ish (Frankly I think players like that need some sort of punishment).
However part of the problem lies with the end game WvW content, these players are probably lvl 80 and bored to bits of doing the same thing in WvW for stuff they don’t even need or want (Still doesn’t excuse their behaviour).
The solution is obviously to disallow siege to be built in the puzzle area, and also to implament something more to WvW than taking objectives just for the sake of taking objectives.

Walls and gates
I personaly think its a bit silly for walls and gates to instantly reapear after one tap of the hammer when fixing, and im sure everyone agree’s. Simple solution: Walls and gates need to be repaired to X% of health before they reapear.

Ok that is all for now. Im sure that Anet is aware of certain bugs and exploits and im sure they are on their way to being changed. I may add more things that weren’t on the top of my head later.

Reserved for later use.

Reserved for later use.

I agree with all of this but arenanet probably can’t make changes to some of these suggestions (such as the commander not having anything to do with gold).

Also want to add that players can’t notice enemies well enough when they zerg from behind which is a field of view issue actually.. would be nice to get a slider.

Interesting how much weight people put by a title. Personally I’d rather follow a good player without any title than an idiotic commander