Guild Wars 2

WvW suggestions. this is all opinions and ideas to try and help WvW improve from its current state. apologies if something similar has already been suggested. not read everything on the forums.

transfer abuse goes without saying. and i am pretty sure a fix is in the works.

1) length of matches

change to either 3 days or 4 days. a week (and soon to be 2 weeks) is too long i think, and 24 hour matches felt pointless.

this is partly to keep the interest of the losing server. last week, a commander decided to just go from server to server and zerg the supply camps for XP and karma. we then lost everything we had. fully upgraded keep etc as half the server followed him for pure XP and karma farming. also, the other two servers seemed to make an alliance. so all was lost and no one had any motivation.

2) commander role

the commander role should not be a 100g book. at the moment people with more money than sense are getting the book and leading zergs which usually end up going nowhere. if someone doesn’t have the book that person doesn’t get listened to even if the suggestions on tactics is good – this is infuriating to be honest. just because someone don’t have 100g to spend on a book. should not be able to buy a rank like that.

people also just follow the commander icon blindly.

i cannot remember the name of the game, and never played it, but someone could volunteer to be the commander and if they were doing a bad job they could be voted out of the position. but they had a tactical map and could see where everyone was and they were able to place icons for things that needed to be be built so people could go and make them. the commander should also be able to see enemies if someone on his team can see them. not exact numbers though. that will make scouting worth while and also give the commander a real tactical role which is more than “folowZ me ppl! i r zrgin!!11!”22!!".

the system i just suggested might be flawed too, but it encourages tactics rather than mindless zerg – which is common, and quite often, it is not a permanent solution to winning. having said that zergs have their place – but then a “zerg” with a purpose likely is not a zerg.

at the very least the commander needs to be able to see where groups are and to be able to give them directions.

3) the party/squad system

this really needs to be enforced i think to help with cohesion and role allocation.

4) WvW is not a place to farm anything.

get rid of XP and karma totally. there are groups of people farming XP who contribute nothing to WvW and put that server at a disadvantage.

4b) replace gathering nodes

replace the gathering nodes as the WvW has been known to be farmed by people. those who are farming just for resources are clogging up the queue and contributing nothing.

if the nodes were replaced by ones which can be used in WvW ONLY. these would be used for upgrades to replace karma. each node can be gathered by 10 people. it then disappears and re-spawns somewhere else randomly with a re-spawn timer of 5-10 minutes – which will prevent node camping.

these resources are then dropped off at supply camps/keeps/towers. the resources would be something like wood, stone, vegetables and metal.

veg and steel to upgrade guards and dollys (they have to eat something after all).

wood and stone for structural upgrades.

… or something like that.

the resources disappear from your inventory on a WvW reset.. oh, and they would also need to be soulbound. but the key is that they have to be dropped off at a resource point in order to be used.

supplies would still be used for upgrades as they are now.

5) reward constructive participation

track what people do with a point tally. these are already tracked in the achievements.

different rewards for whatever servers come 1st, 2nd and 3rd. the winning server should have a mass reward for everyone on the server (regardless if the person took part in WvW or not). and then other rewards based on the persons contribution. this may discourage server alliances and also encourage people to try and win, or even come 2nd if they are losing.

if dolly escorting or node gathering (provided the resources are dropped off), were also rewarded as well as taking a keep or defending it then this might encourage people to contribute more. it gives those who are a lower level and at a disadvantage in combat to contribute something else too.

the rewards should also not be given until the end of WvW. and what the rewards should be… don’t know.

maybe silver, a bit of XP based on a multiplier that is dictated by server position and your contribution. black lion chest keys. 5% XP bonus to everyone on the winning server for 24 hours. or 5% more money from mob loot.

not sure. just something to encourage people to take positive actions towards the war effort and to stop people taking advantage of certain things that are already in place along with encouraging tactical play and team work.

hoping something in that wall of text is a worth while suggestion at least.

Regarding the commander title, I believe others have mentioned this before but I think the game TERA has something we can learn from. It has a political system where players get to vote on their leaders from time to time. This could be applied to GW2’s commander title where commanders are chosen for their merits and not their wealth.

Here is an example.

Voting will take place every 3 weeks, in which 20 commander spots will be opened to each server. Players above the level 40 will be able to vote in the election. One vote per account.

For the candidates, in order to qualify they must meet several requirements.
They must be level 80.
They must be the leader/officer of a level 6 guild.
They must pay a registration fee of 10g and 100 badges of honor.

Voting can take place via either in game system or on the official forums (depending on which method is more feasible)