Guild Wars 2

It’s simple really.

The player base has no obligation to you devs. They are not locked in a 2 year agreement with you. Most people who play this game bought the game within 3 months of release, they’ve had it for awhile now. They’ve got their moneys worth.

Now one of the main things that keeps this player base playing GW2 is WvW.

In other posts you make it sound like ‘blowouts’ aren’t that big a deal, like a growing pain. This isn’t the US economy or the Iraq War. You can’t tell us to ‘stay the course’. We’re gamers, and you’ve got competition for our attention right left front and center!

Every single blowout week costs a server players. because when those devout wvw players stop logging in for a week, what do you think they’re doing? Finding a new game.

When servers become depopulated, moral drops, more people quit.

You are setting in to motion a domino effect that could very well kill this game. Servers say they are all full, yet where are all the people? Perhaps those servers are full of accounts, but I wonder how many are active..?

Once a games population dies, they rarely ever bounce back. The mmo graveyard is rife with these very examples. Word to the wise, learn from the mistakes of the past. Don’t wind up in the MMO Graveyard.

Why is this in the WvW discussion? That is my first question.

Second is, why do you come onto the forums and spend so much time complaining? The fact is that Guild Wars 2 has no subscription fee and that’s a lot of the appeal. You’re able to come and go as you please, playing other MMOs at your leisure while still contributing to this one. The population for the original guild wars never died, and I expect the same for Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet has a very loyal fan base, and a lot of us can respect their policies even if they aren’t implimented correctly.

I have full faith in ArenaNet. We in Team Legacy witnessed the entire hardcore PvP team scene disappear with no faith whatsoever that ArenaNet could bring back the PvP scene so late in the game. Yet, here we are. The eSports scene is not only taking off but it’s thriving, and thousands of dollars are being poured into every major tournament. After seeing that happen over the course of this game’s history thus far, I have no doubts about the power ArenaNet has to make this game not only better than it already is but really hit the nail in the coffin of doubt when it comes to their competency.

In the words of Bob Marley, “Have a little faith, brother.”

faith is Anet?

you mean when they pair up rank 8 server with servers rank 15 an 16?

http://mos.millenium.org/matchups

or rank 2 with servers 11 and 12?

the low ranking server population despair and quit and high ranking population get bored, there is a limited fun in conquering all the maps with negligent resistance …

To a certain degree, Anet should be glad people are complaining. If they’re not complaining, they’ve already left (a truism in the MMO industry).

Anet is also lucky ESO was pushed back to Spring 2014. That is more than enough time to raise their game vs. the only serious competitor on the horizon. (Though the DayZ alpha is coming out this month).

I think though WvW is different than the sPvP situation.

Anet has made huge changes to WvW, that (to my knowledge) have no equivalent in sPvP. The Arrow Cart buff would be akin to taking away 75% of sPvP’ers skills and giving them only 3 abilities on their hotbar. Then, progression in sPvP after that would buff only those three skills (equivalent to WXP abilities). Because that is what Siege Wars has turned WvW into.

Lorelei.3918:

It’s simple really.
Once a games population dies, they rarely ever bounce back. The mmo graveyard is rife with these very examples. Word to the wise, learn from the mistakes of the past. Don’t wind up in the MMO Graveyard.

Yup I agree with you, and anet claims GW2 is a esports game….

But all the in game hype is on living story, there is no esports hype or even good matchmaking system in GW2.

All the rewards are for PvE players, ZERO incentives to play either WvW or PvP… This game isn’t esports, nowhere near esports.

Annnnd then you realized that the previous rank differences was due to population differences not skill or stragety ( not saying there arent skilled guillds or players within all servers).

For funsies i wish we could do a population count on a 1st place t1 server, then have that server come in 3rd for 3 weeks and then redo count afterward. LMAO

the loss of sore losers isnt a big loss.

Its funny, because I specifically moved to ET for the fact that they face a blowout every week and have outmanned buff and are outnumbered all week. I enjoy this environment and love the challenge. But from my observations, 99% of players in WvW won’t fight unless they have larger numbers. The game format is full of casuals who are terrible at PvP. This goes from top tier to bottom tier WvW. So even though I love the current format, does it really cater for the majority of fickle players? The ratings system is doing good things IMO, but should the ratings system be catering to a casual audience in a game format based around PvP, or shouldn’t it? Serious questions.

Thrumdi.9216:

That is more than enough time to raise their game vs. the only serious competitor on the horizon. (Though the DayZ alpha is coming out this month).

Your kidding? Wasn’t DayZ standalone supposed to be released like 9 months ago? Is it still one of the most hacked games in existence? That game was seriously awesome, but hackers completely ruined the experience.

Lorelei.3918:

It’s simple really.

Now one of the main things that keeps <ME> playing GW2 is WvW.

Fixt

I’m 99.999% sure that ANet will reduce the randomness factor in a few weeks.

High randomness and ranking volatility is useful initially to get a lot of varied data about how different servers really fare against each other, and as a result has made the ratings much more accurately reflect all servers’ true abilities (SoS is a good example with their 2-tier jump).

But once the true ratings are dialed in after a few weeks they will almost certainly reduce the randomness factor in the matchmaking by a lot. It will still be more than the previous system that kept servers locked in stale matchups for months, but much less than it currently is.

Patience, grasshopper. And failing that, spend a few weeks honing your skills in sPvP instead.

what would probably help is if there was indeed a “graveyard” server, to which inactive accounts get a free transfer after a set time (say 3 months away).

OP\

Awesome Titile

Awesome Thread

I like your style and thoughts of writing.

I Agree with you 100%

I love your baseless assumptions on what the majority of players want/feel… They really strengthen your argument…

Thrumdi.9216:

Anet is also lucky ESO was pushed back to Spring 2014. That is more than enough time to raise their game vs. the only serious competitor on the horizon. (Though the DayZ alpha is coming out this month).

I wouldn’t call TESO a serious competitor. I would be far more worried about Dragon’s Prophet.
Day Z is a completely different genre and I will be playing it too as a standalone (was playing the Arma mod one already)

I’m searching hard in your post to find anything useful/meaningful, you know suggestions how to “fix issues” or what exactly is wrong, discussing/identifying problems… there is none. What’s your point exactly?

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I love your baseless assumptions on what the majority of players want/feel… They really strengthen your argument…

Today’s first brush with arenanet customer support has badly shaken my faith in the game’s long term playability.

Up til now I’ve been a very vocal supporter and fan of the game, but this incident has left me with a very bad taste in my mouth. Arenanet needs to recognise that the MMO market is a big place these days and you really can’t afford to treat your customer base like dirt if you want them to keep playing and paying. I’m already considering reinstalling Star Trek Online…

Lorelei.3918:

It’s simple really.

Usually not.

Once a games population dies, they rarely ever bounce back. The mmo graveyard is rife with these very examples. Word to the wise, learn from the mistakes of the past. Don’t wind up in the MMO Graveyard.

Guild Wars 1 was claimed dead weeks after release, remained as a cult game for it’s entire lifetime and yet had several big player spikes. At moments I wondered myself whether it was dead. If GW2 runs par for the course, I’ll be a happy player.

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

UrMom.4205:

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

Sorry about that. I tried to be gentle, but you know…war is war. lol

UrMom.4205:

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

Yeah, I’m on TC. I feel bad when we outnumber you guys so much. A good fight is a challenging one with extended back-and-forth, strategic play, clutch moments, etc.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

UrMom.4205:

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

Yeah, I’m on TC. I feel bad when we outnumber you guys so much. A good fight is a challenging one with extended back-and-forth, strategic play, clutch moments, etc.

All kidding aside, I feel pretty bad too. I don’t WvW that much when we’re that much ahead, because I’m obviously not needed to turn the tides. But I did go in to get my monthly kills.

I completely understand. It’s not fun to get stomped because you are outnumbered (even though you guys play great).

If they are going to continue with these unbalanced matchups they need to do something to even the odds. Personally I’d be in favor of something along the lines of removing the downstate from the leading server. That is, currently, if someone from CD or SOS (for example) downs someone from TC, the TC person is finished.

Is this about WvW or the whole game in general? I’ll assume the latter.

The population density that the game provides (High, Medium, even Full) means nothing without numbers. Of course, ANET can’t be giving that information so openly as it could stir up a whole ’nother storm.

I’d like to see something like an Elo rating for servers. Or just a squash ladder :)

daimonos.9831:

I’d like to see something like an Elo rating for servers. Or just a squash ladder

ELO was meant for chess, a game between two players in a game that has draw as the most likely outcome.

It was not meant for threeway battles between ever changing amounts of players that doesn’t have draw as a potential outcome.

sostronk.8167:

Your kidding? Wasn’t DayZ standalone supposed to be released like 9 months ago? Is it still one of the most hacked games in existence? That game was seriously awesome, but hackers completely ruined the experience.

And yet in my gaming circles it’s still head-and-shoulders in front of the competition in regards to excitement. You sound like the Counter-strike beta 4-5 naysayers.

To the OP: I read your doomsday post as more about business sense than a specific gripe on a gameplay element, as such I will only say I choose to have faith in the foresight of the people that developed battlenet and a truly fantastic mmo than the foresight of somebody I know nothing about. Though this may certainly change, it won’t because you ‘created any doubt’. What do you you expect to come from this post? Why don’t you send Anet an email? Are they your target? Or is it for ‘HAH TOLD YOU SO’ rights?

I don’t get it.

Players are too focused on simply winning their match-up in WvW. Their most fun comes somehow from looking at the scoreboard. My server had easy matches in the last weeks and that made the people euphoric about their great performance. At this point they didn’t notice that the lower quality of our opponents rather than improving our tactics had helped us win.

Now our server that is always around rank 10 got matched against the server on rank 2. At least during the weekend the power balance was actually quite even. Instead of appreciating the new challange, most people complained about getting killed more often than usual. The moral dropped, because the players had been too used to their easy victories.

In my opinion the new server matchmaking system is so much better. I prefere the new variety and challenge over the same old opponents every day, even if this means facing a server that is so much stronger than ours.

@Lorelei.3918
Viking Jorun is correct, you do complain way to much. If you don’t like the game, please find one that you do.

@Viking Jorun.5413
Wow! I love this guy! Finally someone who isn’t complaining and loving the game for the great piece of work that it is. Keep it up my friend. Your post was a breath of fresh air.

@FlamingFoxx.1305
I don’t think anyone could have said it better. Kudos.

Did any of you play GW1?
For me the livin story feels a bit like the guild wars beyond part of the game. Those were not made by the best people of Anet because they were working their kitten of on GW2.
Some of the beyond content was fun, the kryta part was great. But still not the best content I was used from Anet.
So for me it sounds like they have their best people on the expansion, even though they have to say they have not by ncsoft.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

UrMom.4205:

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

Yeah, I’m on TC. I feel bad when we outnumber you guys so much. A good fight is a challenging one with extended back-and-forth, strategic play, clutch moments, etc.

Nothing to feel bad about, you’re just playing the game, it should put more equal servers together. last week when we were against yak and ka the match up was fairly balanced from what I saw, there were a lot of back and forths and tons of last min clutch saves.

I think the change in matchup, theoretically, was to expose differences in skill that may not be visible in the stagnant rankings. Basically, it’s Rock vs Scissors one week, then Scissors vs Paper the next week. We never see Rock vs Paper, so Paper is always ranked low. Unfortunately, population outweighs skill by a huge margin right now. I don’t see the state of WvW improving until that is properly managed.

The problems extend far beyond WvW trust me. They really should be releasing their Kitchen Sink patch asap imo because the delays make people speculate and their track record of not explaining things to their playerbase doesn’t help matters either.

Thrumdi.9216:

To a certain degree, Anet should be glad people are complaining. If they’re not complaining, they’ve already left (a truism in the MMO industry).

Anet is also lucky ESO was pushed back to Spring 2014. That is more than enough time to raise their game vs. the only serious competitor on the horizon. (Though the DayZ alpha is coming out this month).

I think though WvW is different than the sPvP situation.

Anet has made huge changes to WvW, that (to my knowledge) have no equivalent in sPvP. The Arrow Cart buff would be akin to taking away 75% of sPvP’ers skills and giving them only 3 abilities on their hotbar. Then, progression in sPvP after that would buff only those three skills (equivalent to WXP abilities). Because that is what Siege Wars has turned WvW into.

ESO was pushed back to spring 2014? Bummer :-(

UrMom.4205:

I’m on Crystal Desert and this week we’re against TC and SOS, while SOS isn’t doing very well either, TC is completely kitten us all. Not going to lie, when I look at wvw and see that we own only like 15% of our own borderlands and like 5% of eternal….i just stay in pve lol. See you guys next week!

I know how you feel. When we got partnered up with SoR, I felt the same way. However, what’s surprising is that both TC and SoS still pushed for fights. You might be surprised what your server can do against seemingly insurmountable odds.