Guild Wars 2

I generally stay out of WvW, but now that the Gift of Battle requires ~10 hours of playing, I’ve had to spend a decent amount of time with everyone. Here are some of my thoughts on the experience. (And fyi, about 70% of the time was spent in EotM.)

1. When two zergs of roughly equal size meet, the battle is fun. When one zerg just rolls over another, it’s not so fun. When your commander can’t make up his mind about what to do, things are downright frustrating. (Last night our zerg was staring at another one, and we each had AC up. Com yells “push left”, leads a charge into AC range, and then immediately turns around and runs all the way back to where we started. Half the zerg follows him, half doesn’t see, so they die in the charge.)

2. Taking objectives is rewarding. I mean I get a sense of accomplishment from it, even if there was no one home to defend other than NPCs.

3. I’ve enjoyed having to tinker with my build. Obviously what works in PvE doesn’t work as well here, and trying new things, especially utility skills that I’d otherwise discount as a “DPS loss” has been a great way of branching out.

4. Despite all of this, as soon as I have my Gift of Battle, I’m going right back to spending 100% of my time in PvE. Why? Rewards suck in WvW. I can play for hours and not have to clear my bags. Just about anything I do in PvE makes me gold faster and with less down time between activities. There’s just so much time spent running from A to B in WvW that I get bored with it, and as long as I’m running, I’m not collecting loot.

5. The reward tracks aren’t rewarding. Tomes of knowledge? I already have thousands of spirit shards and 9 level 80 toons. Transmutation charges? I have hundreds. And the idea of a maximum tick is absurd when the only way to make progress on the track is ticks and daily rewards. If I’m in WvW to grind a gift of battle or the wvw armor set, then I should see that my participation is correlated directly to my rewards. Sadly, this system encourages me to do a soft afk. Here’s how it works: I join the zerg, get my dailies done, get 100% participation, then afk for 5-10 minutes. I’ll alt-tab, get some irl work done, browse 9gag or imgur, read a book, whatever. Then I’ll alt-tab back in, autoattack an NPC so far away from the action that no one cares, and then I’ll run away and afk again. The idea that that behavior gets me the same amount of progress on the reward track is ridiculous. The other rewards that I’m missing out on either don’t matter to me (karma – already have more than I need; experience – already have a zillion spirit shards) or are insignificant enough for me to ignore (loot drops).

6. Really then, it looks to me like the only thing keeping people in WvW is that some people just love the game mode. That’s cool and all, but I know all of you are worried about decreasing player population. If you want to generate more PvE interest in WvW, the rewards need to be increased significantly (not to AB Multiloot levels, but to silverwastes or cursed shore levels) and the cap on the reward track tick needs to be done away with. Well, either that or make all sources of WXP also provide ticks for the reward tracks. I’d be ok with ticks stuck at a hard maximum, but each time I kill a player I get 3-4 points for the track as well. It’d make me play more and afk less.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts. Congrats for making your way through the wall of text. I want to like this mode and play it more, but some things are just holding me back.

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.
What i have to agree with you, is that the A-B time travel is too much, as i said they should incentive fights, by making smaller maps and less “fortress like” objective to capture, so that opponents can’t hide behind a wall on siege, but they have actualy to fight. Another problem is coming from the population imbalance, wich does simply destroy the fun of fights… as you say there’s no fun playing 20 vs 50 since in this meta, you literally have no chance to win, since players are carried by condi or cc builds, is even hard for a good player to win 1v2 against average players, guess what is 20 vs 50? IMPOSSIBLE. So the only solution to this, is delete server identity, and create guilds identity with guilds ladder ranking, you will play with your guild and make alliance with others guild if you don’t have numbers, but at least you won’t play for a server wich is constantly outnumbered all day.

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

Jeknar.6184:

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

That doesn’t mean ppl play for rewards, it means they see the difference between the two an common sense would dictate that reward/loot progression should be close to equal. It’s the principle more then anything I would think.

Nuzt.7894:

Jeknar.6184:

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

That doesn’t mean ppl play for rewards, it means they see the difference between the two an common sense would dictate that reward/loot progression should be close to equal. It’s the principle more then anything I would think.

But this person said we don’t care about rewards, then why would we complain when the rewarding is poor? That whole “WvW players don’t care about rewards” thing is a lie.

Sure, we don’t want to turn WvW in EotM 2.0 by overflooding it with rewards, but I’m thankful for the reward tracks as they now increased the poor income I have from playing mostly WvW. That mean less time on PvE and more time in the game mode I want to play.

The Gift of Battle track has particularly bad rewards, and that’s been complained about a bit which is why I hate it being randomly selected. The dungeon tracks are significantly better when you can salvage exotics though yes it’s still not as good as pve.

The tomes of knowledge are mainly so PvP and WvW folks can level alts, but then again they probably do come in excessive numbers and don’t justify the track times.

While the tracks could be buffed since progress is rather slow, the main thing is that the tracks are mainly meant to help those who actively play the game mode and not necessarily those who want to farm it. Beating up on fixed, predictable encounters is always going to be far easy to optimize to farm.

You have to understand that for a long time wvw players had to sink lots of gold into wvw but had no way to obtain it. Back in the day you would be lucky to leave with a few gold. That is where the rewards complaint stems. This issue was made even more significant after guilds lost all their guild buffs and had to spend thousands of gold to get them back. Other contributors include introduction of ascended weapons/armor and introduction of new expensive stat combinations not found in wvw.

Jeknar.6184:

Nuzt.7894:

Jeknar.6184:

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

That doesn’t mean ppl play for rewards, it means they see the difference between the two an common sense would dictate that reward/loot progression should be close to equal. It’s the principle more then anything I would think.

But this person said we don’t care about rewards, then why would we complain when the rewarding is poor? That whole “WvW players don’t care about rewards” thing is a lie.

Sure, we don’t want to turn WvW in EotM 2.0 by overflooding it with rewards, but I’m thankful for the reward tracks as they now increased the poor income I have from playing mostly WvW. That mean less time on PvE and more time in the game mode I want to play.

He/She is wrong, I care about rewards, not because I want a shiny mini per or some crap but lets face it WvW is the most expensive game mode. We have to buy siege, gear changes frequently, Food/Stones (this part can be pretty kitten expensive), server transfer, I would say Guild Hall upgrades are more important to WvW for the Guild Siege if nothing else. I don’t play for rewards but I certainly would not mind having some half decent rewards I could turn into gold.

PvP is a one time charge for the locked stuff, PvE is put on zerker gear and never worry about regearing ever again. WvW is really the only mode that requires gold income on a constant basis.

So I don’t agree with “we don’t care about rewards” but I do not base my gameplay off of rewards, they would be a welcomed addition.

Jeknar.6184:

Nuzt.7894:

Jeknar.6184:

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

That doesn’t mean ppl play for rewards, it means they see the difference between the two an common sense would dictate that reward/loot progression should be close to equal. It’s the principle more then anything I would think.

But this person said we don’t care about rewards, then why would we complain when the rewarding is poor? That whole “WvW players don’t care about rewards” thing is a lie.

Sure, we don’t want to turn WvW in EotM 2.0 by overflooding it with rewards, but I’m thankful for the reward tracks as they now increased the poor income I have from playing mostly WvW. That mean less time on PvE and more time in the game mode I want to play.

I think most of us were complaining because we’d actually lose gold playing WvW, especially those of us that were constantly upgrading things. Even now with the reward tracks I’m lucky if I break even.

personaly i don’t go wvw for reward, if you do you are not a true wvw player, as i said you are a pver looking for extra loot, you can stay in pve for the loot, i’m in wvw cuz i want to fight and not get bored to hell in grinding. I play wvw cuz i love the gamemode, even with the all wrong decisions anet made, i chosed gw2 among all the others mmo around only cuz of this gamemode. Unfortunately, anet never realized what a powerful gamemode they could have created, this is the only reason of the lost of players, there’s no more fights, there’s bandwagoning, and increasing loot or reward as the opener is asking wouldnt favor the bandwagoning? Personaly me, my guild, any player i played with care less than nothing about your pve like loot, we like competitive gameplay, wvw was the alternative to the boring fight on point we have in pvp, with a more dinamic and bigger sistem for fights. Most of the guilds we lost from wvw, wich was the core of the population in the servers, quitted the game cuz the competition was never favoured, instead was favoured the bandwagoning zerg blobbing easy win easy loot, like the pvers like. You are still thinking as anet developers and making the same big mistake, WvW is not PVE!! PVERS have plenty of maps world boss events raid and fractals to do, why you want to grind in wvw too? We wvw players want to play the game, not grind, and if you think differently from this you are not a true wvw player, you are a pver coming in wvw!!

Jim Hunter.6821:

Jeknar.6184:

Nuzt.7894:

Jeknar.6184:

Shala.8352:

One thing i can tell you, is that wvw players havent the same mentality of pvers grinders, so we don’t give a kitten about reward tracks XD, we play for fights and we have fun fighting, our fun is not coming from opening the loot but from killing the opponents.

That’s why people always cried about how rewards were bad and how EotM was much more rewarding?

That doesn’t mean ppl play for rewards, it means they see the difference between the two an common sense would dictate that reward/loot progression should be close to equal. It’s the principle more then anything I would think.

But this person said we don’t care about rewards, then why would we complain when the rewarding is poor? That whole “WvW players don’t care about rewards” thing is a lie.

Sure, we don’t want to turn WvW in EotM 2.0 by overflooding it with rewards, but I’m thankful for the reward tracks as they now increased the poor income I have from playing mostly WvW. That mean less time on PvE and more time in the game mode I want to play.

I think most of us were complaining because we’d actually lose gold playing WvW, especially those of us that were constantly upgrading things. Even now with the reward tracks I’m lucky if I break even.

This^

WvW now earns enough that you don’t (or shouldn’t) lose money doing it. Problem is the way many handle it they just let the commander or just some people pay for all the siege and stuff, tip your commanders! (those 4 superior rams that just dropped cost someone about 1g, multiply that by the dozen or so times you do that, it adds up and someone is footing the bill).

No one is saying we play for the WvW for rewards, what I am saying is rewards should matter to some degree because WvW by nature costs gold to play so we should be able to sustain that cost within the game mode we enjoy. I don’t want to be rich, I don’t care about shiny this or that, I’ve never had a legendary because to much PvE involved, I do want to be able to fun my consumable and/or and gear changes that I may require.

Nuzt.7894:

No one is saying we play for the WvW for rewards, what I am saying is rewards should matter to some degree because WvW by nature costs gold to play so we should be able to sustain that cost within the game mode we enjoy. I don’t want to be rich, I don’t care about shiny this or that, I’ve never had a legendary because to much PvE involved, I do want to be able to fun my consumable and/or and gear changes that I may require.

Best thing would be remove those consumable you need from wvw, and siege too! No more siege in wvw, no more fortress, only objective capturable by fighting!

In a perfect world, but lets try to be realistic, Anets not going to do that.

I used to be a hardcore WvWer but then the GvG scene imploded (because of Anet) all my friends in fight guilds scattered on different servers. We played for the community and the challenge, not the rewards. WvW is an endgame, you go there really when you realize that PvE is too easy for your skill level (and I’m not talking about artificial difficulty like raid timers, but about your ability to dodge and make good combo chains in team fights).

It’s going to be hard to have fun in WvW unless 1- Anet merge the servers together so that I can play with my friends again, 2- the PPT system is changed into a scoring system that is much more dynamic and 3- They nerf condi and bring back the old stability.

If they do that then a new era of WvW will start and I have no doubt that even the GvG scene will come back.

@Ceesa, thanks for feedback!

1) Comms often do fake pushes to trick the enemy into wasting their bomb. Was he on TS? He probably would have called out the fake push in TS, but there just isn’t enough time to do it in chat. Sometimes also, a comm sees something when charging in and decides to back off. Things can happen fast. As far as zerg size, yeah that is a real problem as the populations are still uneven, as is whether a given world tends to blob up or run smaller groups.

4,5,6) The rewards for WvW used to be even worse than they are now. Its true that is basically poverty level income and that is definitely a wall for primary PvEers. Most of us who do a lot of WvW just do it because we like the game mode (and personally, my account is old enough now that the lack of rewards doesn’t concern me much. I’m also sick of most of the game’s PvE).

~10 hours of playing wvw just to get an item for a legendary?

that’s literally nothing compared to the time a WvWer has to spend in PvE just to get all the items for a legendary.

I wish I could get a legendary without going to PvE.

AmphibianX.7042:

I wish I could get a legendary without going to PvE.

You can. Just save up the gold and buy one off the TP.

Admittedly I can do the same thing, but I’m not complaining about having to spend time in WvW; on the contrary, I think someone crafting a legendary SHOULD have to spend time in WvW. What stinks is that the time there feels like a timeout from getting any other rewards in comparison to the loot I get from PvE.

Ceesa.1350:

6. Really then, it looks to me like the only thing keeping people in WvW is that some people just love the game mode. That’s cool and all, but I know all of you are worried about decreasing player population. If you want to generate more PvE interest in WvW, the rewards need to be increased significantly (not to AB Multiloot levels, but to silverwastes or cursed shore levels) and the cap on the reward track tick needs to be done away with. Well, either that or make all sources of WXP also provide ticks for the reward tracks. I’d be ok with ticks stuck at a hard maximum, but each time I kill a player I get 3-4 points for the track as well. It’d make me play more and afk less.

What an odd thing so say.

All PvP games is about loving the game mode. Whether its a MOBA, MMO, FPS or some kittenty mobile game is irrelevant. Has anyone ever argued that only people that love Battlefield 4 will keep playing it, because there sure as hell isnt enough loot to keep people interested?

Generating interest in WvW should be done by exposing the game mode better to PvE, not just throw loot at players and go look at us, we have shinies! That’s an incredibly shallow reason for playing WvW. No, the only thing Anet need to do is integrate it better than a button some people barely know exist. Update the loading screen to list some WvW data, server wide notifications on reset night that say you won or lost the war, server wide call to arms when being the underdog in terms of score, big note that a war of the mists event is going on this week (monthly).

They do it for those kittening stupid sPvP tournaments that torment us every kittening time with their links in the loading screen. But noooooooooooo… cant do it for WvW.

kitten.

Ceesa.1350:

AmphibianX.7042:

I wish I could get a legendary without going to PvE.

You can. Just save up the gold and buy one off the TP.

Admittedly I can do the same thing, but I’m not complaining about having to spend time in WvW; on the contrary, I think someone crafting a legendary SHOULD have to spend time in WvW. What stinks is that the time there feels like a timeout from getting any other rewards in comparison to the loot I get from PvE.

Think how we feel any time we’re forced into pve, it’s like a time out from having fun.
The pve in this game is so mind numbingly boring that any time I’ve had to spend any real time doing it (for a rune set or whatever) I end up quitting the game for several weeks.

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

@Jayne

I agree…WvW & EoTM are very different styles of play.

Also, I’d like to add that Communities are different between Host & Guest Servers since World Linking became a permanent feature.

Host Server Communities are more stable & robust.

Guest Server Communities are slowly dying & systematically encouraged to migrate to Host Servers.

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

I stopped reading after “… about 70% of the time was spent in EotM.”

EotM is NOT, repeat, NOT WvW. Similar, sure, but very different. You will NEVER have a shout out to EBG from EotM to help save your WP in Garrison, Bay, or Hills. I could go on, but true WvWers will agree with me here.

You should REALLY change the title of your post to “A PvEer’s Perspective on EotM”, as that is more accurate. That would be like me, a mostly WvW player, commenting on Auric Basin’s pro’s and con’s while I’m playing in Verdant Brink.

ArchonWing.9480:

The Gift of Battle track has particularly bad rewards, and that’s been complained about a bit which is why I hate it being randomly selected.

The fact that it’s a very lazy copy of one of the worst PVP reward tracks (it’s literally the Balathazar backpack track with the final reward, the only good reward in it, switched out) doesn’t help.

Also, I’ve said it before, but WvW reward tracks need to progress primarily on actual WXP earned (like the original PVP version does with rank points), rather than that janky “do something and wait X time to get rewarded because reasons” nonsense.

I laughed about the gift of battle… Remember when map completion was tied to WvW?

Gw2 has a bad design system in some aspects, such as PvE legendaries earnt in WvW or WvW guild upgrades for WvW guilds to be earnt in PvE.

Also for point 1: The zerg sounds like it was on TS and you weren’t? You’ll find WvW has TS so it’s worth asking for details because that comm most likely said “bomb the AC and move back” and the people without TS might have thought “tag moved, lets push”.

Actually other then the bag in box in bag in suitcase system…lol the rewards them selves are ok you can get ascended gear in wvw here and there and that’s good the mode itself isn’t about “bag farming” as a general rule tho that said if you couldn’t fill your bags then you were running with the wrong group im always encumbered in wvw.. but ide bet the bulk of wvw players dont log in looking to score mind blowing loot its about having fun in battle and seeing how you go..

I have never played any video game for rewards. I can’t speak for others but loot is a secondary concern for me. I play video games for the experience and the excitement. I don’t care about material gain as in many video games, you only “need” a limited amount of loot to help you progress (higher level gear, etc.)

I would be lying if I said better loot in WvW wouldn’t be nice. It’s always nice to have more money. All loot is to me is an inconvenience as it currently is. It fills my bags with crap I don’t need/want with little value and I’m forced to empty my bags every hour or two. I would play WvW as much as I currently do even if there were no rewards at all.

As I’ve stated in the past, I don’t know what the proper solution is to fix the WvW population or many of it’s other problems so I refrain from complaining. Unless I have a way to resolve these issues, I’m not going to kitten and rant because it’s not going to help. All I can say is that I, personally, don’t give a flying fart about loot and I know at least a good percentage of other WvW’ers feel the same. So if you’re wondering why many of us still play WvW, it’s because we enjoy each other’s company not because we’re holding out for something better.

When I do PvE, I get bored within an hour because I don’t know anyone. It’s like going to the mall versus going to a small-town coffee shop. You go to the mall and there are lots of people you can socialize with but it’s different people every time you go. In the coffee shop, there are some different people and some familiar people. I recognize dozens of people when I go to EOTM and EOTM’s community is a lot more diluted than “real” WvW. So I still go there because there are friends there and new friends I can make. Of course I can make friends in PvE as well, it’s just that it’s rare I run in to the same person I was talking to yesterday when I go back.

I don’t know… I play for the social/bonding aspect and the randomness of combat. I like to feel like I’m a part of a community and WvW has that. I like to do things at my own pace, my own way and WvW allows that.

- Before I finish, I just had an idea although probably a bad one. What if in WvW they halved the loot gain but instead tripled the amount of Rare quality loot. So most times you get loot, it’s Yellow tier instead of Green or Blue. You wouldn’t get as much loot as you do now but the loot you get would be more valuable. Maybe it would make WvW a good place to farm Ectos? Just going off the top of my head here but if loot is what PvE’er want, maybe this would be a good way to entice them?

Jayne.9251:

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

I just want to point out that many people who consider EOTM a champ train probably haven’t done it in a while/don’t do it very often.

While I absolutely agree that WvW and EOTM are two entirely different things, EOTM has changed a lot since the days of K-training everything. There are lots of fights in EOTM and lots of fight-focused commanders as well. Since the EOTM rewards were reduced, people stopped focusing so hard on that loot and instead started to treat it a bit more like real WvW.

It’s a bit like WvW on fast forward to be honest. There are more frequent captures and more frequent fights. Just the PUGs are a lot worse and commanders are hit and miss. Sometimes the commander has no clue what they’re doing, sometimes they’re semi-experienced, sometimes they’re so good they dominate the entire map.

The stigma of EOTM being a PvE map is no longer relevant. You should give it a few tries some time. You might get a few bad tags but when you get a good one you’ll see what I’m talking about.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jayne.9251:

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

I just want to point out that many people who consider EOTM a champ train probably haven’t done it in a while/don’t do it very often.

While I absolutely agree that WvW and EOTM are two entirely different things, EOTM has changed a lot since the days of K-training everything. There are lots of fights in EOTM and lots of fight-focused commanders as well. Since the EOTM rewards were reduced, people stopped focusing so hard on that loot and instead started to treat it a bit more like real WvW.

It’s a bit like WvW on fast forward to be honest. There are more frequent captures and more frequent fights. Just the PUGs are a lot worse and commanders are hit and miss. Sometimes the commander has no clue what they’re doing, sometimes they’re semi-experienced, sometimes they’re so good they dominate the entire map.

The stigma of EOTM being a PvE map is no longer relevant. You should give it a few tries some time. You might get a few bad tags but when you get a good one you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Does any defend? Last time I was in there, nobody did. It’s night/day difference between the two modes, simply for that alone. It changes the whole scope of play and encourages team/community. Where you’re invested beyond flipping the next objective. That has real value and implication associated with enjoyment/engagement levels.

Jayne.9251:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Jayne.9251:

OP thanks for the perspective.

Next time might I suggest trying wvw instead of EoTM. Two very very different styles of play.

What makes wvw great is a sense of teamwork. EoTM hardly anyone plays strategy, it’s basically just a different pve champ train map.

In wvw you see the same faces every day and get to know them. You learn their strengths and who to trust. If X is hitting Y, you know that Joe Guardian is epically good at killing off their siege. Jane Elementalist can read a map and predict where the enemy is going. Fred thief does one better and actually trails the enemy, calling out their movement so our team can intercept them. You don’t get that in EoTM.

I just want to point out that many people who consider EOTM a champ train probably haven’t done it in a while/don’t do it very often.

While I absolutely agree that WvW and EOTM are two entirely different things, EOTM has changed a lot since the days of K-training everything. There are lots of fights in EOTM and lots of fight-focused commanders as well. Since the EOTM rewards were reduced, people stopped focusing so hard on that loot and instead started to treat it a bit more like real WvW.

It’s a bit like WvW on fast forward to be honest. There are more frequent captures and more frequent fights. Just the PUGs are a lot worse and commanders are hit and miss. Sometimes the commander has no clue what they’re doing, sometimes they’re semi-experienced, sometimes they’re so good they dominate the entire map.

The stigma of EOTM being a PvE map is no longer relevant. You should give it a few tries some time. You might get a few bad tags but when you get a good one you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Does any defend? Last time I was in there, nobody did. It’s night/day difference between the two modes, simply for that alone.

Often, yes, although in somewhat of a different way.

In WvW, there are usually scouts/small groups of people that will defend. Sometimes the commander + full zerg come to defend but that’s usually only when a large group is attacking.

In EOTM, there are scouts as well but there isn’t much they can do to stop attacking forces. So when something is attacked, 90% of the time the commander + the full zerg come to defend. Eg. last night while I was commanding, we had to completely avoid blue side of the map because the commander on blue side was aggressively defending their entire area. If we so much as set foot in there their zerg would run us down. This happens quite often but again, depends entirely on who’s commanding. Some tags like to protect their stuff, others don’t care.

But yes there is absolutely defending, it’s just less of a small scale thing. I know and recognize specific players in EOTM that are always scouting. So if I happen to see that they’re not on my team a certain week, I let the map know that those players will be telling their commander about what’s happening.

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.

Eh you can see where I’m going on this.

It’s not wvw.

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.

Eh you can see where I’m going on this.

It’s not wvw.

Honestly, it sound a lot like WvW…

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.

Eh you can see where I’m going on this.

It’s not wvw.

If the offending force is too large to deal with then yes. I was avoiding blue because they were triple our size. We wiped them once because I was smart about when I decided to engage them but otherwise, we couldn’t handle them open field. Our zerg was 20 and theirs was 60.

And I had specifically said that I agree it’s not the same as real WvW. The point I was trying to make is that EOTM is no longer a constant k-train. There are lots of fights there now and lots of intelligent strategy involved when one or more offending forces are looking for fights.

Wasn’t trying to change your mind. Just wanted to let you know that the community there has changed a lot. I enjoy it a lot more now that players actually want to do things other than farm XP.

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.

Eh you can see where I’m going on this.

It’s not wvw.

Going to have to sincerely disagree. That pretty much captures the NA experience for the past three years.

I hope EoTM keeps doing well. Maybe, just maybe, people will finally realize realm-based gameplay is the best-designed.

Attempting to create stable competitive environments by enabling change via transfers is conceptually not a good idea on multiple levels. Unfortunately, we’re too far deep to just remove transferring, and just removing transferring ultimately still leads to stale matchups with the tiered server system we have as it is.

Linked servers was the right idea. Just done horribly, because glicko W/L does not work for this kind of environment.

Thanks for the feedback, OP, but this is pretty much what people have been voicing their concerns of since launch. It’s even gotten better than it was, particularly in respects to loot/profitability, but quite frankly, more people care about the combat and fights at this point, and ANet is failing absolutely miserably at maintaining fun and balanced gameplay for the format. It’s been heavily-neglected for pretty much four years. Balance decisions are made arbitrarily with next to no basis or context it seems. The PvE team runs rampant with ridiculous items and things which break WvW more and more with every patch.

People aren’t worried about decline because of a lack of loot at this point. The game is so broken from ANet’s poor decisions they’re worried the format itself will eventually buckle from close to four years of repeated failure of ANet maintaining it at the benefit of other game modes.

As soon as an RvR game is released with good combat, WvW is dead in the water. That’s not something I say happily from the time I’ve put into this game and format, but that’s the common WvW-player perception of the game as it is.

WVW rewards are way better then they used to be, if you’re running with a good guild/commander then you’ll need to empty your loot bags multiple times during the night. The balance isn’t ideal, but player skill definitely has a way bigger role in how much wvw loot you get vs most forms of PVE – unless players screw up drastically the PVE map metas in particular are really easy compared to wvw.

Inicidentally, the bloodstone fen reward track is really good, best source I found for getting large amounts of blood rubies. IMO increasing WVW rewards by lowering the amount of fine/masterwork loot in favor of rares would be a great idea.

One thing WVW rewards really need is to be tied more closely into actually taking defended objectives and fighting other players. Objective rewards should scale based upon how many attackers/defenders there are and how long the fight is, killing players with siege damage should be less rewarding on both a personal and server score level then fighting them head on.

I don’t have any interest whatsoever in EOTM, way less strategy then WVW and no real sense of investment/accomplishment. It isn’t necessarily the idea of having three large “sides” that is a problem – Elderscrolls Online only had 3 factions and I spent a ton of time in Cyrodil which is their WVW equivalent. In ESO, players could choose what “instance” of Cyrodil they joined subject to queue limits so it was reasonably easy to play with allied guilds or login to the Cyrodil instance where all the most competitive guilds played. EOTM has no long term map persistence and groups/players can’t control whether they end up on a map with lots of good fights…..or a map with a bunch of ktrain groups that do nothing but run away and hide behind siege.

Ceesa.1350:

And fyi, about 70% of the time was spent in EotM.

Soooo….. you basically didn’t WvW at all? EotM can’t even hold a candle to WvW in terms of quality of fights and content. Also, I don’t know what you were doing while you were there, whenever my guild raids in wvw i end up filling up all 160 slots in my bags multiple times during primetime, there is an INSANE amount of loot. Most of it is trash greens and blues but WvW is where I got my first and only precursor drop.

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.
Eh you can see where I’m going on this.
It’s not wvw.

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, it sound a lot like WvW…

DeceiverX.8361:

Going to have to sincerely disagree. That pretty much captures the NA experience for the past three years.

Jayne and I are on EU – and my experience is as well that we’re trying to get to the fights and not to avoid them. There are exceptions, sure.
And there you have a “PvE vs WvW” problem again: We’re brushed with the NA solutions although we don’t have the same problems.

Jana.6831:

Jayne.9251:

So …. If somethings defended its avoided for an easier flip.
Eh you can see where I’m going on this.
It’s not wvw.

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, it sound a lot like WvW…

DeceiverX.8361:

Going to have to sincerely disagree. That pretty much captures the NA experience for the past three years.

Jayne and I are on EU – and my experience is as well that we’re trying to get to the fights and not to avoid them. There are exceptions, sure.
And there you have a “PvE vs WvW” problem again: We’re brushed with the NA solutions although we don’t have the same problems.

Ah, I did not know Jayne was EU. In that case, my statement that EOTM has changed may not be relevant. On NA at least, it is much less K-train focused than what it used to be. Maybe on EU it’s still the same as it’s always been, then.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Ah, I did not know Jayne was EU. In that case, my statement that EOTM has changed may not be relevant. On NA at least, it is much less K-train focused than what it used to be. Maybe on EU it’s still the same as it’s always been, then.

No idea, haven’t been there for a few years – but it was different back then because when I came to EU and was a low silver rank people wanted me to duel a warrior “Nah, I can’t he’s got a high gold rank – he’s way better than me” – then he played unfair in one duel and I had him down in 3 strikes. Basically the rule was: The higher the rank the easier the kill. I guess they’re still karma training while the rest is in real WvW.

So, for those that say they never PvE for loot/gold, how are they getting into Ascended armor without a more reliable income stream of gold and mats? As for actual drops in WvW, I have gotten two Ascended pieces over the last year, myself, one plate item and one ring, so they seem to be fairly rare drops. Looks like buying gems is the only way to get anywhere for those dedicated to WvW, or at least get there before the game ages itself out of existence.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Ah, I did not know Jayne was EU. In that case, my statement that EOTM has changed may not be relevant. On NA at least, it is much less K-train focused than what it used to be. Maybe on EU it’s still the same as it’s always been, then.

No idea, haven’t been there for a few years – but it was different back then because when I came to EU and was a low silver rank people wanted me to duel a warrior “Nah, I can’t he’s got a high gold rank – he’s way better than me” – then he played unfair in one duel and I had him down in 3 strikes. Basically the rule was: The higher the rank the easier the kill. I guess they’re still karma training while the rest is in real WvW.

That’s kind of my point about EOTM. Many of the people who say that it’s a karma farm map probably haven’t set foot on it in a long time. That, or only once in a very rare while.

I just want to defend the fact that EOTM is more like WvW training wheels than it is an avoid all combat k-train thing (at least on NA). I remember when EOTM first started out people would avoid other zergs to farm loot and sometimes co-ordinate with the other teams to make it more efficient. It has long since evolved beyond that and much of the time, commander’s are extremely aggressive and looking for as many fights as they can get now.

I didn’t mean to derail the thread, I just wanted state that OP’s experience in EOTM is actually fairly accurate as it’s not a whole lot different from real WvW anymore. The PUGs are worse (because a lot of them are new to WvW/new to the game), there’s no teamspeak and scouting isn’t quite as common, but there are still lots of fights, roamers, sometimes guilds and commanders who don’t care about XP at all and just strictly go for killing the other zerg.

I jump in and out of WvW depending on whether there’s fun things going on. Sometimes that’s a zerg, sometimes a group taking territory, sometimes solo. I like WvW when it’s playable.

When the other team is running unbeatable numbers then I just leave WvW and do other stuff. In the big scheme of things WvW is pointless fun. So when it’s fun, I do it.

What I never have understood are the players screaming obscenities in voice chat, map chat, and enemies sending whispers. GW2 has some of the most casual gameplay around. How do players get so angry in such a casual game?

LeCreaux.3087:

I jump in and out of WvW depending on whether there’s fun things going on. Sometimes that’s a zerg, sometimes a group taking territory, sometimes solo. I like WvW when it’s playable.

When the other team is running unbeatable numbers then I just leave WvW and do other stuff. In the big scheme of things WvW is pointless fun. So when it’s fun, I do it.

What I never have understood are the players screaming obscenities in voice chat, map chat, and enemies sending whispers. GW2 has some the most casual gameplay around. How do players get so angry in such a casual game?

You’re what people call a fairweather. You leave when the odds are against you.

That’s fine if that’s how you want to play but that’s why a lot of WvW veterans hate PvE players. Because they don’t pull their weight, they just leave the map when things get hard and it only makes things worse.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

That’s kind of my point about EOTM. Many of the people who say that it’s a karma farm map probably haven’t set foot on it in a long time. That, or only once in a very rare while.

I didn’t mean to derail the thread, I just wanted state that OP’s experience in EOTM is actually fairly accurate as it’s not a whole lot different from real WvW anymore. The PUGs are worse (because a lot of them are new to WvW/new to the game), there’s no teamspeak and scouting isn’t quite as common, but there are still lots of fights, roamers, sometimes guilds and commanders who don’t care about XP at all and just strictly go for killing the other zerg.

I can’t speak for Jaye but I know thet EotM NA and EU have been different back in the day. And the general mentality on NA is vastly different than the mentality on EU. EU: “Server xy nightcapping? Sucks but whatever” NA: “THEY HAVE A BETTER COVERAGE!!! THAT CAN’T BE I’M TRANSFERRING UP!!” We’re currently against a server who’s got no linked server, I think last or second last tier EU and they really crushed both our other servers who both have linked worlds with their 100 man blob yesterday.
Btw: OP doesn’t state whether they’re NA or EU

ETA: My point was: People on NA might have created a “wvw-like” EotM while wvw on EU still was and is good enough, so EotM likely still is karma train.

Jana.6831:

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

That’s kind of my point about EOTM. Many of the people who say that it’s a karma farm map probably haven’t set foot on it in a long time. That, or only once in a very rare while.

I didn’t mean to derail the thread, I just wanted state that OP’s experience in EOTM is actually fairly accurate as it’s not a whole lot different from real WvW anymore. The PUGs are worse (because a lot of them are new to WvW/new to the game), there’s no teamspeak and scouting isn’t quite as common, but there are still lots of fights, roamers, sometimes guilds and commanders who don’t care about XP at all and just strictly go for killing the other zerg.

I can’t speak for Jaye but I know thet EotM NA and EU have been different back in the day. And the general mentality on NA is vastly different than the mentality on EU. EU: “Server xy nightcapping? Sucks but whatever” NA: “THEY HAVE A BETTER COVERAGE!!! THAT CAN’T BE I’M TRANSFERRING UP!!” We’re currently against a server who’s got no linked server, I think last or second last tier EU and they really crushed both our other servers who both have linked worlds with their 100 man blob yesterday.
Btw: OP doesn’t state whether they’re NA or EU

Yes the coverage hate and bandwagoning is a bit out of hand on NA. I transfer often myself but have almost never moved to a winning server. I just look for a happy medium between challenge and effective. I’ve settled on Mag for now as it has good fighters and potential to fluctuate between tiers for varying types of matches. I’m a minority though as I don’t have a guild nor do I care about score/nightcapping. I just look for a place I’m comfortable and having fun. I actually prefer to be outnumbered because I love to play the role of the squirrel. Poking at huge zergs and making people chase me out of their comfort zone then killing them behind a rock some where.

I was on EU over a year ago and the roaming skill cap was always much higher there. I considered moving back to EU not too long ago but I decided to spare myself the frustration of a crappy ping.

And yes very true about not mentioning whether NA or EU. I probably got ahead of myself but my points still stand.

Ceesa.1350:

5. The reward tracks aren’t rewarding. Tomes of knowledge? I already have thousands of spirit shards and 9 level 80 toons. Transmutation charges? I have hundreds. And the idea of a maximum tick is absurd when the only way to make progress on the track is ticks and daily rewards. If I’m in WvW to grind a gift of battle or the wvw armor set, then I should see that my participation is correlated directly to my rewards. Sadly, this system encourages me to do a soft afk. Here’s how it works: I join the zerg, get my dailies done, get 100% participation, then afk for 5-10 minutes. I’ll alt-tab, get some irl work done, browse 9gag or imgur, read a book, whatever. Then I’ll alt-tab back in, autoattack an NPC so far away from the action that no one cares, and then I’ll run away and afk again. The idea that that behavior gets me the same amount of progress on the reward track is ridiculous. The other rewards that I’m missing out on either don’t matter to me (karma – already have more than I need; experience – already have a zillion spirit shards) or are insignificant enough for me to ignore (loot drops).

I play WvW because its the only REAL END Game not for such rewards. Rewards in pve doesn’t matter also, do you found it rewarding to equip your character with legendary weapons + full ascended equipment to hunt fractals and raids for more ascended equipment? The only real reward you can have is equip your character with such mighty and beautiful equipment to KILL people in WvW.

But those fractals backpack are beautiful though.

dont really give a rats kitten about WvW rewards tho, i play cus i enjoy it only thing i dislike is (even tho i dont care) that other game modes are far more rewarding.
all i need is food, if i got food i can play WvW. id like to craft legendary at some point but it just takes me loads of more time cus i cant grind X mobs to drop X item needed for X crafts.

like getting T6 mats is far easier in PvE while from time to time i enjoy PvE also but i get bored quite fast in it and will bugger off to WvW again.

at the end of everything im glad WvW is not so kitteny tho, i mean u can roll into WvW gear ur self up with some exotic gear and be pretty much on PAR with people that play much longer then u, so i cant complain this is why i like guild wars u can leave 2 / 3 months come back and still be on PAR with people unless u like shiny skins etc then u might wanna farm ur kitten off for some gold/other crap but if ur like me playing pure for them kills and dont care how ur toons looks like ur fine for ever once u got some gear :p

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

You’re what people call a fairweather. You leave when the odds are against you.

One could make the same argument for those that transfer/bandwagon around…it creates imbalance on a more permanent basis compared to those that pop in/out of WvW/PvE.

Sylvyn.4750:

So, for those that say they never PvE for loot/gold, how are they getting into Ascended armor without a more reliable income stream of gold and mats? As for actual drops in WvW, I have gotten two Ascended pieces over the last year, myself, one plate item and one ring, so they seem to be fairly rare drops. Looks like buying gems is the only way to get anywhere for those dedicated to WvW, or at least get there before the game ages itself out of existence.

Well i can tell you wvw players are probably the players who average spend more GEMS than any other kind of players in this game XD. Ye, because wvw players looking for fights (NOT LOOT, FIGHTS!!!), so usualy they have to spend gems to transfer.
Funny is, the higher income players for anet are the ones who are ignored more!!!

Ceesa.1350:

If you want to generate more PvE interest in WvW…

Why would you want PvE interest in WvW, sure there will be a small percentage who actually find they enjoy WvW, but on the whole PvE players are just kitten.