Guild Wars 2

This is my open letter to you Arenanet developers,

So I have to say I’m impressed with this patch. I think it’s a huge step in the right direction and I thank the Arenanet devs for finally trying to do something interesting with WvW. That being said, this current iteration contains what I feel to be half measures towards making WvW truly compelling as a game mode and I would like to propose the changes that I would make:

1.) Uncap ticket gain, increase ticket costs of t2/t3 items.

2.) Raise rank requirements for t2 set to the 1500-2k mark that’s been set for t3.

3.) Raise rank requirements for t3 to 3.5k-6k territory, turn t3 items into precursors for WvW legendary set.

4.) Add collections quest for turning t3 precursors into legendary gear a la envoy set.

5.) Add t3 weapons, make them precursors for WvW legendaries, give them their own collections quests as well.

The whole idea here is to create a grind that incentivizes investment in the game mode as a primary game mode and reward those who have already invested time into getting high ranks by making them eligible for something really awesome. It would also prevent a lot of people from ever obtaining the gear which would finally give these items something that almost no other item in the game confers: PRESTIGE.

Arenanet, if you’ve ever wondered why people don’t care about the ascension or the ascended pvp gear it’s because everyone can get it. If everyone can get it then no one is impressed when someone has it and that defeats the entire concept of prestige items that Guild Wars 2 is based on.

Time gating alone doesn’t confer prestige, everyone has time until they don’t. You need to make the set truly difficult to get, make it a real open ended grind that is only limited by player investment. You need to make the items truly promise prestige for anyone able to obtain them. You need to make sure that a lot of people CAN NEVER GET IT. Do this and you will see a continued resurgence of enthusiasm for WvW that isn’t just people logging on for a day or two to finish their skirmish track once and then going back to PvP or PvE.

Ty Anet devs, you’re finally on the right track, you just need the conviction to really do something amazing. Hopefully this letter helps that process along.

While I like giving access to rewards to the most dedicated players, 6k rank is way high, I thought 2k was a nice sweetspot. I know people who have over 5k hours of mostly WvW who haven’t passed the 5k mark. 6k might seem easy for someone on a winning server zerg stomping everything, but not every server win every blob fight or capture everything successfully.

Don’t forget we want new players to join the game mode, not set unrealistic goals that would discourage them.

Israel.7056:

[…]
3.) Raise rank requirements for t3 to 3.5k-6k territory, turn t3 items into precursors for WvW legendary set.
[…]

https://youtu.be/Lozn2bbqLhw?t=26m56s (from the Flashpoint Dev-AMA)
There will not be another Legendary armor set in the foreseeable future

Are you insane? Everyone s conplaining about wvw lag ,queues and godawfull time to get the rewards in a game that has no new content that justifies 2more years of this.

Trice.4598:

Don’t forget we want new players to join the game mode, not set unrealistic goals that would discourage them.

They’d still be able to get t2 at 2k. They might never get t3 but that’s the point.

The threshold for t3 has to be high enough to shut out a certain percentage of the population from ever obtaining the gear. In this way the gear gains prestige points so to speak.

If everyone can get it no one cares.

miguelsil.6324:

Are you insane? Everyone s conplaining about wvw lag ,queues and godawfull time to get the rewards in a game that has no new content that justifies 2more years of this.

The queues and lag can be fixed by removing links and potentially adding more servers though there’s humor in this obvious solution evading people. We haven’t had the problem of the game being too populated for a long long time.

Uncapping the tickets would leave the time required open ended. It could take 2 years or conceivably a month or two depending on how much people play.

Okay, so I am all emotional and such just because I haven’t seen WvW like this in so long.

Seriously Anet your on the right path. Keep going this way. You have huge potential with this game mode and with the right direction and love it will grow again.

Competitive is the only true endgame because its always different, and always a challenge. You can not program the experiences that happen in WvW but you can support them.

I think your rewards might have a bit to high requirements but otherwise I would agree that this is a stunning step in the right direction.

Don’t unlink servers though until we see what the next few weeks is like as I know that some will give up on the rewards as WvW may not be for them.

As for us players seriously, welcome these people in with open arms so that we can keep as many as possible. Each person is a new opportunity and a new friend, they maybe the next karma train or battle commander. You just don’t know!

Stay away from the hate and keep the warm friendly community that we are going!

@Israel:

At the moment, only 2.5 % of the players on GW2Efficiency have a rank above 2000. Knowing that Gw2 efficiency registered players are probably a lot more invested than regular players, I’d say that less than 1% of the players are above rank 2000.
Now you remove all the people above rank 2000 not interested in T3 armor with particles, let’s say half.
So you have 0.5% of the players that can get that armor for the moment. I don’t think it’s necessary to increase the cap to 6000, 2000 is high enough.

Think about all the hardcore roamers that played since the start and are "only"rank 1500-4000. A lot of guys played the same amount of hours with more tanky classes in zergs, and have much higher ranks at 6000+ (and I’m not even talking of the guys that farmed EOTM…) Don’t you think roamers and zergers have the same right to wear those T3 armors?
The 2000 rank requirement is prestigious enough! Past this 0.5% of the population, you’ll still have your rank to show how much you are worth (if you really think rank reflects that)

And I’m not speaking about my own case. My rank is much lower than this 2000 cap and I don’t think I’ll ever get to 2000 soon!

Nonononono. No more rank requirements. They are stupid. 2000 is already more than enaugh for even enthusiastic WvW players.

If you want to expand rewards make them based on the Pip system to encourage active play instead of rewarding brainless eotm farmers!

Yeah, just go straight to give those rewards ONLY to people who played for 5 years and preordered the game.
Screw those who buy the game later.
Screw those who didn’t karmatrained before the nerf on EotM.
Screw Scouts.
Screw Roamers.
Screw everyone who just thinks that playing WvW requires less than Rank 250.
Let’s all enjoy the server linking even further and let’s resize the WvW population until the only reward you can hope to get is a discounted cultural skin.
This will surely help the WvW to be healthier, beloved and played only by those who really deserve it, which are ONLY those who zerged since 2012.

You see Arenanet? These casuals will never get the armor if you put it to 6k. Never.

And that’s how it should be.

Like full disclosure I’m rank 4.6k so I wouldn’t even be able to get t3 unless I played a lot more.

Israel.7056:

This is my open letter to you Arenanet developers,

So I have to say I’m impressed with this patch. I think it’s a huge step in the right direction and I thank the Arenanet devs for finally trying to do something interesting with WvW. That being said, this current iteration contains what I feel to be half measures towards making WvW truly compelling as a game mode and I would like to propose the changes that I would make:

1.) Uncap ticket gain, increase ticket costs of t2/t3 items.

2.) Raise rank requirements for t2 set to the 1500-2k mark that’s been set for t3.

3.) Raise rank requirements for t3 to 3.5k-6k territory, turn t3 items into precursors for WvW legendary set.

4.) Add collections quest for turning t3 precursors into legendary gear a la envoy set.

5.) Add t3 weapons, make them precursors for WvW legendaries, give them their own collections quests as well.

The whole idea here is to create a grind that incentivizes investment in the game mode as a primary game mode and reward those who have already invested time into getting high ranks by making them eligible for something really awesome. It would also prevent a lot of people from ever obtaining the gear which would finally give these items something that almost no other item in the game confers: PRESTIGE.

Arenanet, if you’ve ever wondered why people don’t care about the ascension or the ascended pvp gear it’s because everyone can get it. If everyone can get it then no one is impressed when someone has it and that defeats the entire concept of prestige items that Guild Wars 2 is based on.

Time gating alone doesn’t confer prestige, everyone has time until they don’t. You need to make the set truly difficult to get, make it a real open ended grind that is only limited by player investment. You need to make the items truly promise prestige for anyone able to obtain them. You need to make sure that a lot of people CAN NEVER GET IT. Do this and you will see a continued resurgence of enthusiasm for WvW that isn’t just people logging on for a day or two to finish their skirmish track once and then going back to PvP or PvE.

Ty Anet devs, you’re finally on the right track, you just need the conviction to really do something amazing. Hopefully this letter helps that process along.

As stated by others above, 6k is way too high, its out of WvW territory and within EOTM farmer territory.

I have played this game since beta followed by early launch and I literally know only a handful of actual WvWvW players who reached 5k+ and literally only 1 person that has managed to reach diamond in actual WvW and not EOTM.

6000 is way too high. Literally only a handful of people would be this high.

2000-3000 would be more appropriate.

The threshold is arguable but I’d say it has to be at least 4k. I’ve been playing since launch but I’ve taken extended breaks from the game and I’ve still gotten to 4.6.

I agree it is a great start. I am very happy that WvW is getting some well deserved attention and more than a little bewildered at all the negative croaking.

Some well written constructive criticism is a good thing. The rest, well I can’t imagine it doing much good.

I think it’s important for folks to remind themselves that it is very early on in this feature pack and it will take a while for some of the wrinkles to get ironed out. The sky is not, in fact, falling:)

Anet WvW devs that developed this deserve a raise. or at least buy them a pint. A few minor tweaks and we’re heading in the right direction. Just don’t tweak the 2k rank. If anything add a double xp event for rank gainings or something for a week or sell wvw rank boosters.