Guild Wars 2

Hi guys. I’m pretty new to the game, and recently I decided to try WvW. I went into the Borderlands and followed a commander tag around. Someone spotted that I wasn’t level 80 yet and suggested I go to Edge of the Mists instead. Which I did.

Oh boy, what a great design! I love the way the three sides are completely different. The artwork in the zone is incredible. Within a few minutes I had found my way to our castle and helped someone build some siege weapons to defend it.

Big mistake. When my new friend asked for help, mapchat erupted in derision and insults. We were told we weren’t supposed to be defending or killing other players, as Edge of the Mists is a PvE zone and not a WvW zone. Some guy directed me to a reddit thread, which had a guide to the perfect karma train. According to the guy who wrote it, defending means you’re being a troll and should be punished…

So now I’m completely confused. Was I being a troll by trying to defend the castle? A couple of players whispered me telling me I should uninstall and that I was costing them the ‘recap’ experience and stuff. One guy did offer me support, but by then I had had enough, and I logged out.

I don’t really understand – if it isn’t a WvW zone, why can you kill other players? And if it is a WvW zone, why are players allowed to act like this if you try to do what you’re supposed to do?

Anyway, I didn’t mean to cause any problems. I’d just like one of the more experienced players to explain it to me.

Either just do what you want anyway or go to another overflow where there isn’t a ktrain going. Don’t let anyone tell you how to play.

If you aren’t supposed to kill other people in a PVP map, then that’s a bug that’s taking an awfully long time to fix.

In other words, do what you want. Let them cry about it. They don’t own the map.

This is the best sentence in that whole thread: "First thing to do is to kindly remind them (as polite as you can be) that EOTM is not a WvW area – it’s for k-trains. "

It’s WvW – unfortunately many individuals have treated it like a karma train.

The best commanders use it like a WvW map defend, Zerg hunt (which gets more bags [bags = loots] than a karma train).

The reason it became a karma train is due to the number of events that could be completed in a short amount of time after they removed karma from dungeons and other events where players would otherwise be found.

Depending which colour you are you may find people bunkering down in the main keep (corner of the map) to wipe incoming zergs. It’s really good fun with a party of 5 or so firing massive ACs onto the enemy and wiping the incoming zergs.

Most individuals now rely on Tequatl killing for karma (~30k) per completion and will do this on alts as it’s much faster than edge of the mists.

Anyone hurling abuse at you use the /report command or right click there name and click report for verbal abuse. Unfortunately people are people and make mistakes saying the wrong things.

Edge of the Mists was intended to be a World vs. World zone. The setup combined with the desire of many players to farm has turned it into the “karma train” that you’re referencing above.

What you experienced isn’t always the case in Edge of the Mists. Sometimes you’ll find an instance that has one of the colour groups with a commander actively seeking fights and defending objectives. On rare occasions, you might find an instance where all of the colours are simply out to brawl with each other, and that can be an awful lot of fun. But most of the time, people are content to capture objectives for experience and loot, without trying to defend their own, expecting to simply recapture them later. It doesn’t help that it’s one of the fastest ways to level a character currently, and a way that gives you profit in doing so rather than costing gold like crafting for levels would.

Now, does that mean you’re a troll? No, it doesn’t. If you want to defend an objective, you can defend an objective. If people flame you for it, report them for verbal abuse. Don’t stoop to their level, of course, but you have no right to be harassed for playing the game the way it was intended to play. That said, the flip side is that in many cases, the players who are playing in Edge of the Mists simply aren’t very good at PvP/WvW. These are people bringing level 10 characters in to auto-attack gates and champions while only barely paying attention. Often, a single player standing on walls with a Superior Arrow Cart is going to be able to kill at least a dozen attacking players within 10 seconds because many people in the zone aren’t aware enough to realize that they’re being hit by a siege weapon rather than a wimpy NPC defender, and don’t think to dodge or move out of the way. So in those cases, while defending you’d basically be farming unworthy opposition.

Is that a bad thing? That’s for you to decide.

What amazes me, is a pretty amazing map was made with varied environments and then quickly polluted to blur the line between PvE and WvW by putting farmable champs everywhere.

To make it worse, it counts for pretty much zero on a WvW level since it doesn’t help your PPT totals.

Solution seems simple, shake up the existing WvW areas to include more variety in terrain and objectives, and get rid of the champs in EOTM.

Because really, EOTM isn’t exactly PvE or PvP, it’s a glorified overflow lobby.

Is this the thread you were talking about OP? http://redd.it/2pmdp1

Edge of the Mists can be great fun… but some people would rather match fix and spy in order to get their karma etc.

Don’t let those people tell you what to do. They are the ones in the wrong… and when you wipe their entire zerg with a superior arrow cart, it’s worth all the hate.

eotm is a great map for you to visit if you arent 80, because people flip tons of objectives really quickly for tons of experience and excellent levelling.

eotm is a great map for you to visit if you like pubstomping noobs, because you can set up some siege on a wall and get 20 kills before the zerg even realizes youre there.

the tension youve encountered arises when a few people are coordinating the efforts of ~150 people, and a single person is able to wreck it. feel free to join either side, it doesnt make you a bad person either way really, but if you have 50 people telling you to stop you might get a bit discouraged. but also be aware that the color of your home keep doesnt necessarily denote the team lines, merely who can attack who.

It’s PvE where you occasionally attack other karma trains mashing your skills.

A huge percent, if not almost all of the people in EOTM are either farming “level”, “karama”, “badges”, or just doing their daily.

Unfortunately, not really that many people do it for the realm vs realm, nor do they care who is winning.

It’s WVW, just do what I do, take a necromancer and fear uplevels off ledges. Or take a ranger and pointblank shot them off. There are some epic videos on youtube of players knocking off 30-40 players using fear because they’re too lemming to pack stun breaks or cleanses.

Azrael.4960:

It’s WVW, just do what I do, take a necromancer and fear uplevels off ledges. Or take a ranger and pointblank shot them off. There are some epic videos on youtube of players knocking off 30-40 players using fear because they’re too lemming to pack stun breaks or cleanses.

You’re the person knocking back the vet’s and champs out of the AoE aren’t you???

TracyM.3602:

Was I being a troll by trying to defend the castle? A couple of players whispered me telling me I should uninstall and that I was costing them the ‘recap’ experience and stuff. One guy did offer me support, but by then I had had enough, and I logged out.

- People are generally playing Edge of the Mists for the fantastic and constant rewards it brings. You’re not getting any rewards for defending structures, but lose the bonuses you’d get if you let the enemy capture your building and afterwards capture it back.

TracyM.3602:

I don’t really understand – if it isn’t a WvW zone, why can you kill other players? And if it is a WvW zone, why are players allowed to act like this if you try to do what you’re supposed to do?

- Technically it is a WvW zone, but without the usual server allegiance being a factor fostering competition. Of course you can build siege weapons and defend if that’s the way you want to play it.

It’s a PvPvE zone that, in order to maximize their gains, a lot of players choose to drop the 3rd and 4th letters. If they try to enforce this on others, ignore them. If they get abusive about it, report them. But don’t hold your breath waiting for them to come help fight other players. That’s not why they’re there.

Zenith.6403:

You’re not getting any rewards for defending structures, but lose the bonuses you’d get if you let the enemy capture your building and afterwards capture it back.

Killing 20 players while defending something gives you better rewards than capping it. Both in terms of loot and wxp. The only thing you miss out on is a little karma, and you’ll even make that up if you get multiple defend events.

OP: defend all you want. EotM is a WvW map, and nothing the k-trainers can do will change that. This game is very carefully segregated between PvP and PvE, so if people want to avoid PvP, it’s very easy for them to do so.

Since this new change to wvw I can’t honestly tell the difference between wvw and eotm. They’re both just karma trains.

The scenario the OP paints seems a little too perfectly crafted to be entirely plausible.

As a hypothetical situation, I can see the merit in a made up set of events as social commentary. But when this issue has been hashed over already, many times, I fail to see what the additional value in this thread is.

Is a map with pk option if you want.

ppl use it to lvl characters or for karma. I wont say is a www map, is full of bridges and narrow paths, is not room to properly maneuver a www guild raid except few areas.

OP, keep in mind that the composition of your team in Eotm will vary from week to week and day to day. The Eotm teams are formed from players of all the WvW servers of a given color for that week. Each instance of Eotm will also be composed of the players that joined at a given time. One time you may be with a group of PvE karma trainers, the next you may be with a WvW fight guild. The difference will be apparent when you see it.

It was a WvW border land now it turned into a PvE farming fest.

Nothing is stopping people from PvP on that map. Want to do it go for it.
Or do you need other people to protect you while you PvP?

I used to do EotM for easy WvW daily kills: set up a superior arrow cart at FR keep, above the BL workshop, or snipe Stonegaze/Tytone gate/courtyard with the OG supercannon. It was great seeing 10~30 bags suddenly appear at your feet.

Don’t need to do that anymore with the new dailies, so I’ll miss that. I’m sure 10~30 other people won’t though.

EotM was created ostensibly so that players could have a place to play when normal WvW was queued, but:

1. It was probably really created for the China launch of GW2 so that Chinese players wouldn’t experience the massive queues at launch because:
2. Due to lack of dev attention, WvW has been in decline for a long time. Queues are few and far between now.
3. Its poor design (map = big Skyhammer) meant WvW players generally avoided it.
4. It’s got way too much PvE content.
5. It’s now the usual place to go level your characters — especially since the revamp of the leveling system made leveling horribly tedious (not to mention the Queensdale leveling train being derailed by Anet).

EotM is very nice place; no changes pls. Pure WvW maps could be changed; they are boring as now.

I have not experienced problems like OP. If commander prefers to fight, I have wished for karma train commander when I have leveled a char. Otherwise fighting is good training for WvW and PvP.

One day our player cata’ed bridges which we use very often. I counted to10 and decided that this game can be played in many ways

One day our player ran along with enemy player, and did not revive me but just did stand next to me; commander was raging in the map chat that somebody tells where our zerg moves. I thought that this game can be played in many ways

Defend the keep. Who cares. Plenty of times our karma train has been thrown off because 4-5 people decided to actually defend.

Everyone does get upset, but I don’t. More power to those 4-5 people. There’s no reason 30-40 shouldn’t be able to take a keep against those few players, yet everyone mindlessly stands in the AC rain and the entire group wipes because the karma train is made up of lazy uplevels that really just want to PvE.

Don’t get me wrong I thoroughly enjoy EoTM, it just gets frustrating how mindless people can actually be sometimes. A solid wipe helps give a kick in the pants.

Just play how you want, srsly.
Since it’s EotM any of your actions you will kitten off either karma zerglings or WvWers.

To answer your question, EoTM was introduced as an overflow to WvW and a place where different concepts could be tested by the devs. It was designed to be slightly different for each side unlike the regular WvW borderlands. It was designed to be a three sided fight containing all servers of the same color for a given week to help ensure full maps. What it is now is up to the players. It is a place that people can level toons, so is regular WvW. It is a place that you can fight other players, so is regular WvW. Its a place where there are objectives you control and can defend. So does regular WvW. It does not tie into the weekly server rank points. Will hold my opinion there on that.

So what is it, that’s up to you. Defending in EoTM is not trolling and not against EULA, sending people abusive tells is. There are people that will just k-train in EoTM, some people that will just fight and a lot that will do both. If the map looks more one way or another to you, try exiting and re-enetering. Or see if you have a friend in an instance that has more what you are looking for an join on them. Either way good to have more people in the field for fights. Enjoy your stay and Good hunting to you!

Thanks for the (mostly) kind responses. It seems that most players on the forums regard it as a WvW zone. What does Arena Net think about this?

Its a PvP zone using PVE gear, buffs, etc. Anyone who derides you inappropriately should be reported using the in game tools.

Once in a while, I enjoy popping arrow carts and slaughtering the uplevels (or anyone else who doesn’t realize they shouldn’t sit in a hail of arrows) trying to take various locals in EOTM . The tears of the cry-babies makes the activity even more entertaining.

TracyM.3602:

Thanks for the (mostly) kind responses. It seems that most players on the forums regard it as a WvW zone. What does Arena Net think about this?

anet thinks they put a lot of work into designing the boss fights and terrain. they probably wont comment on this thread.

It’s essentially WvW for the terrible people/people on terrible servers.

The good old days of it being a decent karma/exp train are long gone.

Arcade Fire.4895:

It’s essentially WvW for the terrible people/people on terrible servers.

The good old days of it being a decent karma/exp train are long gone.

Aren’t you the guy that sent an angry whisper to me after I ganked him in EOTM?

Ouch.

Honestly its a lot of fun to wipe zergs with a single superior AC in EotM

EotM = WvW = PvE

Everything that isn’t sPvP is PvE.

In my opinion you should just play how you want to play, people have no right to tell you otherwise. The only exception to that would be dungeons where you’re ought to run Berserker meta builds if the party you join asks you to do so.

If you play how you want outside of dungeons and people complain I’d just ignore them. You have every right to defend a tower or garrison in WvW or EotM if that’s what you want to do.

I understand the complaints though. When I need karma and I decide to do EotM for the karma train then ofcourse it’s annoying when people like you start defending stuff which basically hampers our karma train. But it is how it is an you are within your rights to play how you want to play. The karma train could ask you nicely to find a different map but they can’t demand you to do so. If you want to defend stuff in EotM then the karma train is just gonna have to deal with it.

The only reason why the karma train exists in the first place is because of Anet’s poor game design choices. If they’d give out an equal amount of karma for defending then this entire problem wouldn’t even exist.

I use EotM to level. There seem to be as many levelers as karma farmers, judging by the number of people who are(n’t) level 80 in the zerg.

When EotM is in PvE mode you get 4 or even 5 levels an hour with boosters, which is much better than doing hearts and events. Usually I follow a commander, see whether the map seems PvE oriented, and pop my XP boosters if it looks that way.

Sometimes it changes because my commander gets ambitious, or an opposing commander does. I know it’s over when I find I haven’t leveled for half an hour, and I’m getting messages about daily WvW kills, and the commander is ranting about people who don’t “push with him” (whatever that means). Then I change to another character and try again later.

If somebody disrupts the leveling train by PvP I’m a bit sad, but I absolutely can’t complain. Don’t stop PvPing for people like me.

I’ll say one thing for EotM: I learned to pick up supply and work a ram, so when I was map completing “proper” WvW I could bust a few doors to get at the PoIs behind them. It’s amazing how you can spend 10 minutes with five supply runs building a ram and breaking a door in the Eternal Battlegrounds and not see a soul, yet EotM has multiple zergs who carefully ignore each other quite a lot of the time.

If ppl flamed you in chat thats WRONG. That should not happen. But EOTM is a zerg train for drops, karma, badges and whatever. Anyone who says otherwise is misleading you.

MotherKitten.6795:

If ppl flamed you in chat thats WRONG. That should not happen. But EOTM is a zerg train for drops, karma, badges and whatever. Anyone who says otherwise is misleading you.

If you play it that way, that’s your choice. Others take joy in killing other players in Edge of the Mists. You know, playing the game as it was intended.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

EotM = WvW = PvE

Everything that isn’t sPvP is PvE.

Actually anything that allows you to attack another player is technically PvP.

However that has nothing to do with the OPs question.

EotM is officially WvW. If you doubt me just check which section of the dailies it is tied to – also some activities in EotM count towards WvW achievements.

The fact that some PvPers don’t like anything WvW or that some WvWers don’t consider EotM proper WvW is irrelevant.

Can we please stop all the QQ in this thread and in EotM then?

Settle your issues on the battlefield. If you want karma and experience be prepared to fight for your right to do so.

If you’re getting ignored by enemy zergs on your AC then find another spot to put one up.

Stop asking ANet for help and stop trying to guilt trip the other side into stopping whatever they’re doing. May the strongest and most determined side win.

I heard that there are guilds that organize to make EotM a karma train across all 3 colours and will have friendly scouts to warn their zergs about defenders while harassing said defenders.

I haven’t seen this myself since I never enter EotM, but if it’s this bad they should just nuke down the rewards from that map. They could take punitive actions against the abusive players, but that’s just treating the symptoms. A map where players have conflicting goals but aren’t on opposing teams inevitably leads to a toxic environment.

The JQ-TC alliance against BG in the WvW tournament is precedent that alliances across groups is not only tolerated but may even be encouraged.

Harassment in chat aside (and this is unacceptable no matter where it’s coming from), I don’t see any issue with people in EotM forming alliances of any sort.

The problem has honestly sorted itself out quite a bit in recent times.

• Silverwastes offers more karma, dragonite ore, and champ bags.
• The people who ran some of the EotM guilds are getting bored of commanding (and especially organizing multi-trains)
• There are more bag farming groups to counter ktrains.

Ktrain zerglings will whine about defenders, but most have accepted that they will have to fight (or at least actively try to avoid other groups) for their experience now.

There is a big difference between two sides working together to fight another side. Compared to all three sides working together to stop any type of play (defending) they do not like.

The often cited JQ-TC alliance is one thing, if there was some kind of alliance between JQ-TC-BG for whatever reason, then that would be a valid comparison. One has to wonder whether Anet would then intervene if three competing servers worked together. Perhaps to stay in the same top tier, or taking turns staging a server wide bagfarm or for whatever reason.

Why is the idea of a centralized group controlling all sides running a train in Eotm any less repugnant than the idea of a similar group doing the same on a WvW borderland?

Gedekran.1487:

The often cited JQ-TC alliance is one thing, if there was some kind of alliance between JQ-TC-BG for whatever reason, then that would be a valid comparison. One has to wonder whether Anet would then intervene if three competing servers worked together. Perhaps to stay in the same top tier, or taking turns staging a server wide bagfarm or for whatever reason.

You mean something like this?

The closest precedents for ANet intervening in WvW would be siege trolls and spies. In both cases ANet has introduced some measures (like captions at what you’re building, and server transfer fees), but has generally expected players to police themselves (keeping server Teamspeak spy-free, etc).

However, it is very possible that this precedent from ANet is a judgment based on laziness rather than ethics and morals.

TPMN.1483:

The best commanders use it like a WvW map defend, Zerg hunt (which gets more bags [bags = loots] than a karma train).

Most individuals now rely on Tequatl killing for karma (~30k) per completion and will do this on alts as it’s much faster than edge of the mists.

These are 2 false statements.

Firstly, claiming that bags give better loot than ktraining is laughable. You get bags of all varieties since most players are uplevels and most items dropped by them sell for pennies. Besides that, it is not regular, you actually have to find people to kill and tag as much as possible, which is not always easy or fast to do and requires something out of your control – the existence of opponents. Ktraining, on the other hand, gives you champ loot, karma, badges and WvW rank-up chests on a very regular basis, and all these can be made into cash. Not to mention that it’s by far the fastest way to level up characters (except using tomes and crafting, ofc). The monetary gains of EotM ktraining are stagerringly high, which is why most people preffer to ktrain. On the other hand, it is pointless to fight, defend and siege up since there is absolutely no end reward for winning the 3 hour match and the benefit to your server is so little it’s as good as 0.

Secondly, teq does not give 30k karma per kill, it’s only 13k + what you get from the events, which is little.

It’s sad that there are abusive players, but you can just block and report them and be done with it.

Keep in mind that, if in a map of, say, 100 people, 97 want to ktrain and 3 want to fight, it’s pretty obvious what the majority opinion is and it would be nice of you to allow the majority to do their thing. Nice, not mandatory: you can do whatever you want. EotM has been along for a long while now, if ktraining were such a bad thing, they would have fixed it by now, as they did with every farm in the game they thought was damaging (ember, coil, SW amber etc).

OP, I’m sorry to see that they have gotten to you so badly, but try and move over this and enjoy the game. A few bad apples don’t make the whole forest bad.

DaveGan.8065:

The problem has honestly sorted itself out quite a bit in recent times.

• Silverwastes offers more karma, dragonite ore, and champ bags.
• The people who ran some of the EotM guilds are getting bored of commanding (and especially organizing multi-trains)
• There are more bag farming groups to counter ktrains.

I’m also hoping that the new daily system will offer some meaty XP scrolls over the 28 days. Then people who’ve been at it for ages and don’t want to map complete their next character will have another option.