Guild Wars 2

So, WvW is amazing. The concept is great, and the execution at launch was superb. However, now that things have kinda settled in, there are some areas that I think could more greatly improve the WvW experience for players.

1. Get rid of gold requirements in WvW
Here’s why:
A. Control Point upgrades: Huge risk, small reward. A single player can dump three hours worth of wealth into upgrading a single point only to have it taken just because some non-player commander doesn’t feel like hanging out on that end of the map. Server and player loses. It still should be a risk and upgrades do need to be initiated at cost and with tactical circumstances in mind—but losing hours worth of silver/gold just on a whim is super demoralizing and leads to lower player participation. Perhaps making these either money, karma, or badge would mitigate the sense of loss in some way. Alternatively, you could also just make a rolling player-driven event that leads to upgrades. My dream circumstance would be going to a quartermaster, asking for them to start building a waypoint, and then having to gather portal energy points inside and outside the keep and bringing that back to the workers who then continue to build consuming the energy points, and supply, all with the progress bar slowly ticking backwards so that you really are fighting the clock. Then, to provide the same economic sink for economy balance, have a vendor nearby that sells the energy points so that someone can just outright buy the waypoint if they want to (or so multiple people can share the cost).
I think that’d be a fun option for small guilds and pugs that would still contribute to the game.

B. Commander is super tough to get if you don’t buy gold—and that’s the way it should be regardless of real-world wealth. People have bought it just for vanity marks. About half of the commanders that come on just mess around and don’t achieve anything and kinda spoil the fun for people who do want to play—mostly because the hordes follow these non-participating commanders by instinct. Commander should be a badges-only title. Maybe add in a “guild commander” title after changing the reqs—much like the guild catapult—that has green icon on the map instead of a blue so that large groups of players can get what they want and need even easier without mucking with the whole server tactical dynamics.

C. Armor repairs: I’m gonna die in WvW, and I should take a penalty for it, that’s fine. Can that penalty be limited to WvW? Earn it back in WvW and don’t make players decide between their own pocket book and their server’s best interests. Perhaps offer a “badges for repair credit” like that every badge of honor is worth 10 silver (at level 80) repairs in WvW. I don’t think this would mess with the PvE economy to bad—it’s just plugging up a small sink in favor of a better player experience.

D. Blueprints: These have it right! Spot on! Use badges of honor or gold to buy. I’d like the gold to be gone altogether here because then only people who actually know a bit more of what they’re doing would be carrying the big guns, but I can also see merit to letting players who want to spend their gold in PvP.

2. Remove some motivation for battles containing more than ~40 people.
The servers and our clients just can’t handle it. You fire into the unrendered space and hope for the best, only to find out that they have two alpha siege golems and you never stood a prayer of a chance. It’d be awesome to play 100 players vs 100 players, but with aoe attacks being what they are, those huge battles really need to be spread out into different tactical options for a single encounter.
Easiest way to do this would be watching who’s in a given area, and once it starts to reach that threshold, spawn an NPC event close by that can give a major buff to players on the front line. e.g. taking Stonemist castle and each server has 30+ people trying to get inside. Server detects this, and an event spawns in the courtyard and outer walls that, if completed successfully, will give the players on the server x seconds (10 would probably be fine) worth of balista/arrow cart immunity. This keeps the load on the servers down, and keeps big-battles more engaging. It’ll also make the game more low-end PC friendly.

1a: I don’t like the current upgrading system myself. I would prefer them to implement a donation system instead of forcing one person to pay full. Everyone would be allowed to choose how much they want to pay. But I also like the idea of using BoH to pay for upgrades to.

1b: I believe it should be tough, if not largely tougher. I agree that it was a horrible idea to make commander cost gold. If anything it should cost BoHs since that would signify experience.

1c: I personally don’t think the armor repair is bad at all. We NEED money sinks, and this is probably one of the leading things that is keeping inflation in check (although gold farmers are not helping). Also I don’t think the devs designed the game to be played solely in WvW. If your having money difficulties play PvE more, its were your suppose to get all your money from.

1d: I see no problems with them. I wouldn’t mind them adding even more items such as blockades, siege towers, mobile cannons, ladders, stakes, ect.

2: Giving us an option to remove effects would help. but honestly I don’t think this is such a major issue. Nothing it forcing players to zerg, they just choose to do it.

One other huge thing: Make it so the number of people who can get into a borderlands is dependent on how many people are on in the opposing side. If one side gets 5+ more than the other two, then say the queue is full. I hate being one of three people on against fifty, and most gamers have a very short attention span and will just try back later if things don’t look favorable.

As for my suggestion for 2: that idea came partially from overcrowded zones in WvW, and partially from events in Cursed Shore where just to many people are there to even render the event properly. Having “sub-events” could be a boon to the game in general.

You are right about the huge battles and lag. I can’t stand it. The unfortunate thing about it is you need that many people to take castles. Even if I turn down every graphic setting on my PC I still lag horribly. I think it’s server lag and it sucks the fun right out of the game. From the devs point of view though, I’m not sure how to fix this. If you lower the HP of structures it’s only going to invite more zerging. If you limit the number that can come into a zone, you end up with long wait times. It definitely is something that needs to be addressed.

As for the cost of items… well I just made a post on how to Fix WvW. I think if they implemented an interface that allowed you to see who’s in your zone (on your side), what guild they’re in, what group they’re in, with commander objectives, it would make it less of a risk to spend some money on siege and upgrades. In other words, if you had commander Bob set an objective “Defend Durios Tower”, and a small squad of 10 doing that, you might have more help and confidence that it would get done.

Also put “FINISH THEM OFF” mechanics on cooldown. It’s ridiculous that your interrupt skill is on cooldown and finish them off is not. Because of that it’s impossible to get up from downed state in many cases.

It’s weird, my interrupt is always on cooldown when I’m incapacitated yet when I go to finish somebody off, I’m interrupted 90% of the time by them. And some classes can interrupt me 4-5 times before I can finish them.

Please please fix the invincible players bug when i get killed by a invincible army it just ruins the whole fun for me.