Guild Wars 2

For almost 3 years I have spent between my time almost exclusively in WvW. I have seen ups and downs, cheese build after cheese build, all sorts of exploits and hacks, server/population imbalance and total disinterest from Anet to the concerns of the WvW population.

This has finally culminated in the current fiasco which has seen the WvW population diminish even further. The Golem ‘Event’ was a total disaster has has now been followed by two weeks of totally unbalanced match ups. Where we would have full maps on reset only 4 weeks ago we now have deserted borderlands, the people who left because of the Golem event have not returned and are not likely to given the dire lack of opposition.

People are not transferring to other servers, they are giving up the game, they have had enough. Enough of the seeming inaction on the part of Anet, enough of the increase of stealth in a game mode where it is nothing more than an annoyance, Enough of bugs and hackers.

If you want to kill off WvW then at least have the courage to do it and no we won’t all go into PvE despite your claims to the contrary. Like it or not, WvW offers an unpredictable gameplaying experience unlike the predictability of PvE events and there are still an enormous number of people who want to continue to enjoy it.

If you don’t want us in your game then say so and we will find something else to do with our free time.

TBH I do agree with this. It really SEEMS that the game mode is left to degrade on purpose.

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues and too little in lower tiers (to the point where we can’t even play in tier 9EU). It could have been addressed easily with monitoring periods of free transfers, mergers or forced transfers.

If you add the almost complete lack of dialogue from the devs who sometimes seem out of touch with the mode (let us not remember Mike on the subject…) which IMO is an even more important problem with the gamemode.

—> It’s almost impossible to not get to the conclusion that the degradation of the mode is done on purpose!

So if that’s the case. I’d rather have them tell it to us straight and honest so we can either get used to playing PvE or go do something else. Pure and simple. No rage. But at least we won’t waste more time expecting stuff that won’t arrive

The game itself is still a beautiful piece of art and WvW still has the potential to be head and shoulders above anything else out there and it is underachieving on that score. WvW needs substance, not gimmicks.

There have been dozens, if not hundreds of ideas put forward by the community with the aim of improving the gaming experience, ALL have been ignored in favour of meaningless fluff and all have been more nails in the coffin.

I don’t say this out of anger, but out of sadness, Our server, Gunnar’s Hold was T5 pushing T4 then the ‘Golem Event’ hit and the population dipped as a result. Followed by matches against T7 opposition for another 2 weeks has not brought back the people who quit the game for the event.

I despair at losing many friends I have made over the last 3 years to other games and I remember well Anet touting the community feel at launch whilst quietly going about destroying the very thing they sold us 3 years ago.

I expect to get censured for this post which again shows another failing. Had Anet put as much effort into removing hackers and exploits from the game as they do into ‘policing’ the forums there may well be less dissent?

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues

Oh kitten … NO there’s isn’t “giant queues” any longer. The only world with ridiculous Q’s is Yaks Bend during NA right now. They have almost 200 players total sitting and waiting during NA. The rest of us are lucky to Q 1 map! Even for reset on JQ, we just Q’d the 4 maps for an hour or so. That’s after shuffling and asking for players to come into WvW to begin with.

Sorry for barking at you but, this imagery that T1 has massive q’s filled with all the players it absorbed from the lower tiers just isn’t true. The games just bleeding that many players. There’s so much apathy toward the mode it’s becoming malaise. A lot of players just don’t care and it’s dragging down everyone.

This game mode is full of people that like to all play a different way. Game mode has people that GvG, duelers, roamers, zergers, zerg busters, havoc groups, and ppters.

Most suggestions from community are fixes for one of those type of players. I don’t even have a problem with cheese builds or stealth in this game so as you can see, problems to some people are not problems for others.

If people quit this game because of the golem event, they really wanted to quit for some time now and needed something to seal the deal. Also golem event was temporary and people quit you say? So what do you think will happen if Anet does decides to actually make changes or try to fix things that some people feel is wrong with this game mode?

Its far from broken if you ask me but I guess I’m the minority here. Close to 8k hours into this game and really if it didn’t change for years to come but I can still have fun playing, I would still play it whether it changes or not..

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

My server it’s experiencing the exact same thing. I’m not sure if we just lost a lot of our fairweather pugs because the WvW guilds blew off golem week, or if people got so fed up with the crap decisions and lack of communication that they just quit. Either way we took a big hit and have dropped 2 ranks because of this bull kitten.

DeWolfe.2174:

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues

Oh kitten … NO there’s isn’t “giant queues” any longer. The only world with ridiculous Q’s is Yaks Bend during NA right now. They have almost 200 players total sitting and waiting during NA. The rest of us are lucky to Q 1 map! Even for reset on JQ, we just Q’d the 4 maps for an hour or so. That’s after shuffling and asking for players to come into WvW to begin with.

Sorry for barking at you but, this imagery that T1 has massive q’s filled with all the players it absorbed from the lower tiers just isn’t true. The games just bleeding that many players. There’s so much apathy toward the mode it’s becoming malaise. A lot of players just don’t care and it’s dragging down everyone.

Didn’t say it absorbed or stole players. However it’s the only places you will find queues anymore. henceforth more player than what the maps can handle. Henceforth too full. Henceforth should spill over to lower tiers.
We haven’t had a queue in Tier9 for the past 2.5 years.

However I’m not blaming the top tiers for that. It’s just a fact. I’m just really angry that such a ridiculous situation was left to happen by Anet and even ENCOURAGED by very poor transfer price decisions.

I mean how hard is it to understand that:
-You need to monitor your wvw population based on acitivity on the wvw maps during a full cycle and therefore get a weekly average
-then you need to make ridiculously low (if not free) transfer prices towards the empty servers. That way you create some sort of circle that ensure no server will truly stays at the bottom. Labeling everyone under high as “medium” is just a big giant kitten you to the wvw community.

That’s all

I’m far from an Anet fanboy at this point, and I have to admit that I’m a bit disillusioned with the game right now. I will say that we reap what we sow in many cases, but in this case we were slammed with an unneeded event that had very poor planning and even worse implementation.

Many of the problems with WvW right now is our fault as players. Overstacking as the main issue. Overstacking has reduced some servers to graveyards, and promoted others to being almost unplayable due to queue and lag. Unfortunately the poster child of overstacking atm is my server. The goal is worthwhile, but I’m not sure the system is going to let it work out for us.

ANet has to take much of the heat for WvW’s problems as well. Lack of oversight, lack of resources, lack of achievable goals, lack of direction, and general ambivalence to the game mode has burned too many players out. That, and Anet’s seeming push to make WvW into a KTrain at all times, has made me realize that they have zero idea what’s going on in WvW.

What can ANet do to make WvW vibrant again? I think there are some moves they can make to revitalize the mode.

1. Free transfers from full servers to medium servers for 2 weeks.
1b. Make a transfer last for 1 month before a player can transfer again.
2. Hire a team that is purely WvW-focused.
2b. This team has autonomy to make changes and oversee WvW without Mikey O’Brien trying to pump WvW full of PvE garbage.
3. Institute immediate Glicko caps.
3b. No server can have more than 2K, or less than 1K Glicko.
4. Allow the OS to be megaserver, and allow it to spawn extra instances as it fills.
5. Have at least 2 tournaments per year.
5b. Transfers should be locked before announcing the tournament.

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

I have to agree, the playerbase has to take it share of the criticism. The endless need for easy-mode, searching out and using exploits, for example the zoom hack. Anets response? Ooh, let’s make it universal now everyone can do it, no longer a problem except it is a problem. Arrowcarts hitting inner walls and siege in keeps is ok? No, it’s another joke of a ‘fix’

I don’t have solutions, I wish I did which is a shame for a game with so much potential and as I will be the last to leave the server as far as WvW is concerned, I will make sure to turn the light off

tichai.4351:

I have to agree, the playerbase has to take it share of the criticism. The endless need for easy-mode, searching out and using exploits, for example the zoom hack. Anets response? Ooh, let’s make it universal now everyone can do it, no longer a problem except it is a problem. Arrowcarts hitting inner walls and siege in keeps is ok? No, it’s another joke of a ‘fix’

I don’t have solutions, I wish I did which is a shame for a game with so much potential and as I will be the last to leave the server as far as WvW is concerned, I will make sure to turn the light off

Well you do not comply changes a game to fix one exploration like zoom hack you just make it fair for every one to be able to use it to a point. There a lot more going on with zooming out then just wvw.

If you ask me players are more likely to be trying to destroy wvw becuse this is the way rvr go. You find ppl clump together most of them do so who is one person to say or even a smaller group that its not alright to play the way most ppl want to? That is what most ppl who complain about wvw are saying at the end of the day “don’t play the way you want to play but play the way I want you to play.”

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

ArchonWing.9480:

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

They did say it was a test to see if they could do these drop in events for wvw not to see if golmes where ok. Think of it as a test and a test alone though i must say it funny to see ppl try to think more of it. I hope its not the same ppl that say ppt means nothing becuse golme rush was more about giving up the ppt ideal as why you play and just simply play for fun and fights.

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

They did say it was a test to see if they could do these drop in events for wvw not to see if golmes where ok. Think of it as a test and a test alone though i must say it funny to see ppl try to think more of it. I hope its not the same ppl that say ppt means nothing becuse golme rush was more about giving up the ppt ideal as why you play and just simply play for fun and fights.

That’s fine and all, but that doesn’t really run mutually exclusive with most of what I said.

If you run a test, you ought to share what you learned! The population thread and the associated changes is an example of some interesting communication and note a number of folks were probably more interested in Anet speaking more than the changes themselves.

ArchonWing.9480:

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

They did say it was a test to see if they could do these drop in events for wvw not to see if golmes where ok. Think of it as a test and a test alone though i must say it funny to see ppl try to think more of it. I hope its not the same ppl that say ppt means nothing becuse golme rush was more about giving up the ppt ideal as why you play and just simply play for fun and fights.

That’s fine and all, but that doesn’t really run mutually exclusive with most of what I said.

If you run a test, you ought to share what you learned! The population thread and the associated changes is an example of some interesting communication and note a number of folks were probably more interested in Anet speaking more than the changes themselves.

The thing is they where not testing if ppl wanted free golmes or not as far as we know they where just testing there abitly to drop an event into wvw and to take it out. They even said this and as far as we can tell it worked.

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

They did say it was a test to see if they could do these drop in events for wvw not to see if golmes where ok. Think of it as a test and a test alone though i must say it funny to see ppl try to think more of it. I hope its not the same ppl that say ppt means nothing becuse golme rush was more about giving up the ppt ideal as why you play and just simply play for fun and fights.

That’s fine and all, but that doesn’t really run mutually exclusive with most of what I said.

If you run a test, you ought to share what you learned! The population thread and the associated changes is an example of some interesting communication and note a number of folks were probably more interested in Anet speaking more than the changes themselves.

The thing is they where not testing if ppl wanted free golmes or not as far as we know they where just testing there abitly to drop an event into wvw and to take it out. They even said this and as far as we can tell it worked.

I’m not even referring to finding out if people like golems or not, rather the discussion is now about how to handle events, like the very kind they’re testing. As for it working or not, well, that is indeed just speculation IMO.

tichai.4351:

The game itself is still a beautiful piece of art and WvW still has the potential to be head and shoulders above anything else out there and it is underachieving on that score. WvW needs substance, not gimmicks.

There have been dozens, if not hundreds of ideas put forward by the community with the aim of improving the gaming experience, ALL have been ignored in favour of meaningless fluff and all have been more nails in the coffin.

I don’t say this out of anger, but out of sadness, Our server, Gunnar’s Hold was T5 pushing T4 then the ‘Golem Event’ hit and the population dipped as a result. Followed by matches against T7 opposition for another 2 weeks has not brought back the people who quit the game for the event.

I despair at losing many friends I have made over the last 3 years to other games and I remember well Anet touting the community feel at launch whilst quietly going about destroying the very thing they sold us 3 years ago.

I expect to get censured for this post which again shows another failing. Had Anet put as much effort into removing hackers and exploits from the game as they do into ‘policing’ the forums there may well be less dissent?

It seems they really missed the boat on the bolded part, there are so many PvE games out there that have much better PvE. For a long time there was no real 3 way open field/siege games on the market (at least non that weren’t either dated or terrible). When people heard about WvW, many people flocked to GW2 because of this alone, the WvW populations at release proved this point. Instead of taking advantage of these facts they focused on PvE and half heartedly SPvP, let’s face it their PvE will never compare to many other games, it’s the difference between thousands of players and millions. WvW on the other hand was something many were waiting for, since DAoC there hasn’t been anything worth while, why could they not see this and capitalize on it ? They could still do PvE, after all by their own admission it was geared towards casuals so it really shouldn’t require all hands on deck to keep it going and keep it interesting for a casual player.

We could be sitting here having a completely different discussion, we could have healthy populations across the board, some server’s would still have a bigger populace but the trickle down affect would still see the rest as healthy, after all a server can only hold so many.

Again, I would ask them that going by their WvW activity in the first few months, how could you have been so blind to not see what you had created ? How could you have neglected it so much that you (Anet) are the reason it is not flourishing and keeping your MMO in the spot light (yeah you’re in the spot light a lot but it’s usually negative). I just don’t understand what happened, did one of your senior devs die to much to players ? Did they not have the patience to get better ? What was going through your head ?

I’m sure your game is in a healthy spot across the board as far as players in all modes, but would you not have preferred great as opposed to average ?

tichai.4351:

….snip

If you don’t want us in your game then say so and we will find something else to do with our free time.

No because then you’ll take your gem shop money with you and there will be less streams and Youtube videos that resonate with other potential GW2 players and their soft, plump wallets.

DeWolfe.2174:

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues

Oh kitten … NO there’s isn’t “giant queues” any longer. The only world with ridiculous Q’s is Yaks Bend during NA right now. They have almost 200 players total sitting and waiting during NA. The rest of us are lucky to Q 1 map! Even for reset on JQ, we just Q’d the 4 maps for an hour or so. That’s after shuffling and asking for players to come into WvW to begin with.

Sorry for barking at you but, this imagery that T1 has massive q’s filled with all the players it absorbed from the lower tiers just isn’t true. The games just bleeding that many players. There’s so much apathy toward the mode it’s becoming malaise. A lot of players just don’t care and it’s dragging down everyone.

You are very wrong – Yak’s Bend, is queued most of the day and all night now – but that’s thanks to the many new guilds who see a community, not a server…

ArchonWing.9480:

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Jski.6180:

ArchonWing.9480:

Lord Kuru.3685:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

Was there any communication about the event between Anet and the specialists?

No this was never mentioned.

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

They did say it was a test to see if they could do these drop in events for wvw not to see if golmes where ok. Think of it as a test and a test alone though i must say it funny to see ppl try to think more of it. I hope its not the same ppl that say ppt means nothing becuse golme rush was more about giving up the ppt ideal as why you play and just simply play for fun and fights.

That’s fine and all, but that doesn’t really run mutually exclusive with most of what I said.

If you run a test, you ought to share what you learned! The population thread and the associated changes is an example of some interesting communication and note a number of folks were probably more interested in Anet speaking more than the changes themselves.

The thing is they where not testing if ppl wanted free golmes or not as far as we know they where just testing there abitly to drop an event into wvw and to take it out. They even said this and as far as we can tell it worked.

I’m not even referring to finding out if people like golems or not, rather the discussion is now about how to handle events, like the very kind they’re testing. As for it working or not, well, that is indeed just speculation IMO.

The test went perfectly- wvw’rs were cheesed off and the pve players didn’t care, proving to Anet that they can do anything they like to wvw and it won’t affect their main player base.

Next up will probably be double damage AC or catapults, to co incide with the release of the new JP/maze/pve area called the new borderlands.

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues and too little in lower tiers

I play on Desolation, EU rank 2, EU tier 1. We haven’t had any giant queues for many months. In fact during prime time there is often no queues to any map, or queue to one of the four maps, while 3 other maps have outnumbered “buff” flashing.

I cannot speak for other top servers, but I would imagine that their queues aren’t that huge either. Waiting for 2 minutes in a queue isn’t a problem for most players.

The biggest problem by far is that game is dying slowly. So many players left GW2. Arenanet has misplaced their developer and community resources:

1. Instead of developing Living Story 1 & 2, Arenanet should have regularly been making normal pve maps. Southsun Cove was an attempt, but just one map area filled with annoying karkas and don’t get me even started with Dry Top (I hate it), Silverwastes is the only new working map area, which is full of players. They should have been creating more of the same: forest areas, snow-topped mountains, hidden caves, more jumping puzzles, more dungeons. Regular new high quality pve content keeps the pve players happy.

2. The biggest reason why WvWvW is bleeding players, are these two:
- lack of rewards and incentives to play
- deliberate destruction of WvWvW communities

The latter was caused by removal of the WvWvW sub forums and creation of mega servers. Now the WvWvW community efforts need external web sites. There is no way inside the game to reach a large number of the players of your home world.

Defending is not rewarding in WvWvW. The rewards are in general much lower compared to pve, EotM or even spvp. Most players go where the rewards are highest, thus WvWvW bleeds players. Why haven’t the devs copied the reward tracks from spvp to WvWvW? Why there are so little WvWvW specific skins and the armor aren’t even salvageable? Why most of the WvWvW achievements are still not being fixed and remain at unrealistic level (1 million dolyak kills for Yakslapper) ?

3. WvWvW is the end game for many players, not a bridge between pve and spvp. Arenanet never saw WvWvW as the home of the serious hard core players, but kept believing in the esports nature of spvp. There is still no separate skill or profession balance for WvWvW. We still have the overpowered -40/+40 % condition duration foods etc. Stealth is broken in WvWvW. The devs never comment the threads on these topics or do something about it.

1. requires a lot of work
2. and #3 requires relatively few developer resources.

Ok, so we are all supposed to be PvE players first and WvW is an afterthought?

So, last night I attended my first (and last) Tequatl event. What is that all about? A big dragon sits there while 200 people beat it to a pulp and that is supposed to be exciting? Give me a break lol

If that is deemed to be fast, exciting gameplay then maybe WvW is not in such a bad place by comparison.

Thanks to the people who have added some further insight into this topic.

Do people still remember the excitement and unbridled enthusiasm from Anet pre-launch? It seems to have waned in recent interview as if to say “We have made this amazing game, but now we don’t know what to do with it to keep it amazing”

So, come on Anet, get your Mojo back and build on what you started or how about this for an idea?

Spin off WvW into a separate game and take on the likes of CU, you have more than a head start on the competition and there are still plenty of people who would buy the game. If CU can raise over $3 million for a concept there must be something in the format.

DeWolfe.2174:

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues

Oh kitten … NO there’s isn’t “giant queues” any longer. The only world with ridiculous Q’s is Yaks Bend during NA right now. They have almost 200 players total sitting and waiting during NA. The rest of us are lucky to Q 1 map! Even for reset on JQ, we just Q’d the 4 maps for an hour or so. That’s after shuffling and asking for players to come into WvW to begin with.

Sorry for barking at you but, this imagery that T1 has massive q’s filled with all the players it absorbed from the lower tiers just isn’t true. The games just bleeding that many players. There’s so much apathy toward the mode it’s becoming malaise. A lot of players just don’t care and it’s dragging down everyone.

OP is on the EU servers, which have far more players in WvW during prime time than NA servers. NA T1 servers can barely queue a map during NA prime, where as T2 or even T3 EU can manage to queue 2-3 maps at times, depending on the matchup (good matchups obviously bring more people out).

The incessant catering to PvE players is slowly destroying WvW, but many good PvP games are coming out around the corner. C’est la vie. Games come and go. GW2 has been great so far, but there seems to be greener grass coming out soon.

So there already starting the HoT beta this weekend?

Looks like I’ll be getting my completely free new map, with all new WvW and guild mechanics sooner than I though. Pretty much everything they are adding should make WvW even more fun to play… thanks Anet!!

Tich I am on GH aswell as on gandara with my second account. Weird enough we hardly have ques on gandara this week/weekend. EB on prime time still has some, but weird enough so does GH. Because there is just no-one at the BL in our(terrible) matchup. The worst thing about such a machup is we can own it all and not make a lot of progress in the glicko scoring system :/

BTw. I had a longer que on GH EB than on gandara EB during friday switch

I’m about to believe that gw2 was originally made as a cash cow. The players should buy the game and gems, play it for a few months and then change to the next game of nc soft (“Wildstar-hype”). I didn’t see that the provider company had have a long-time plan (living story, weekly new gem shop items) for guild wars 2.

But wildstar has flopped as I heard (never played it), so most of the players stayed or returned to gw2 or moved forward to other games. NC-Soft was surprised that people still play the game, even with complains, and spent constant real money in it. This game had have the order to die fast, but this plan has failed, luckely ^^. So I personally think, they try to catch-up the lost time. Maybe it’s too late for wvw, but we will see, I will let me surprise. Everything else is already written months and years ago.

tichai.4351:

For almost 3 years I have spent between my time almost exclusively in WvW. I have seen ups and downs…. BLAH BLAH GOLEM EVENT BLAH…. Where we would have full maps on reset only 4 weeks ago we now have deserted borderlands, the people who left because of the Golem event have not returned and are not likely to given the dire lack of opposition.

What servers are you talking about?

NA matchups look pretty even, except for T2 and the bottom 2 tiers. Both of those cases are absolutely a result of transfers and not the golem event. Cant speak for EU.

Basically T1 got tired of the same fights every week and decided to prop up YB into the mix, at the expense of completely destroying several tiers below them because they only care about themselves. T2 was a GvG fight tier, not interested in ppt’ing, so dozens of guilds from that tier have fled from all 3 servers to go to T3, splitting up evenly across the servers. It’s only a temporary reprieve, because ultimately the old T2 servers of SOS and FA will drop down and force one of the very balanced T3 servers into its place.

Players actively destroy WvW.
Anet passively destroys it by adding barely anything to it over the course of years, while PVE heroes get map after map and story after story. For the whole expansion WvW is getting only a single new map. We should have tons of maps by now. That 75% of WvW is a re-used map for each borderland is nuts. Literally the only positive addition we have seen is WvW ranks, and soon Defense Against Guards is getting nerfed, so, lol.

Edge of the mists, while pitched as WvW development, is pretty clearly strictly for PvE’ing and karma training your way to 80 while collecting some badges and avoiding fighting other players at all costs. An incredible environment wasted by having zero objectives that contribute to the weekly mist wars. And that was one patch after dozens that did zero for WvW.

Golem event was a dumb karma train but it got pve’rs out there and the roaming to kill carebears was good all week. WvW participation was noticably heavier, and it was good for the lols for a few days. Cool for a week long matchup? Probably not. But a cool “wacky tuesday” event? Yes. More of this type of thing in shorter durations please.

atheria.2837:

DeWolfe.2174:

DiscoJacen.1590:

For example one of our biggest problem is the population: too much on top tiers with giant queues

Oh kitten … NO there’s isn’t “giant queues” any longer. The only world with ridiculous Q’s is Yaks Bend during NA right now. They have almost 200 players total sitting and waiting during NA. The rest of us are lucky to Q 1 map! Even for reset on JQ, we just Q’d the 4 maps for an hour or so. That’s after shuffling and asking for players to come into WvW to begin with.

Sorry for barking at you but, this imagery that T1 has massive q’s filled with all the players it absorbed from the lower tiers just isn’t true. The games just bleeding that many players. There’s so much apathy toward the mode it’s becoming malaise. A lot of players just don’t care and it’s dragging down everyone.

You are very wrong – Yak’s Bend, is queued most of the day and all night now – but that’s thanks to the many new guilds who see a community, not a server…

This is wrong. EBG is queued nearly all the time, but the BLs are lucky to have one queue outside of reset. Super late night I can’t comment on, but Saturday EBG had a large queue, YB had a small queue, and one other BL flash queued. Sunday EBG had a medium queue, YB had a single digit queue, and that was it.

Menaki.6329:

I’m about to believe that gw2 was originally made as a cash cow. The players should buy the game and gems, play it for a few months and then change to the next game of nc soft (“Wildstar-hype”). I didn’t see that the provider company had have a long-time plan (living story, weekly new gem shop items) for guild wars 2.

But wildstar has flopped as I heard (never played it), so most of the players stayed or returned to gw2 or moved forward to other games. NC-Soft was surprised that people still play the game, even with complains, and spent constant real money in it. This game had have the order to die fast, but this plan has failed, luckely ^^. So I personally think, they try to catch-up the lost time. Maybe it’s too late for wvw, but we will see, I will let me surprise. Everything else is already written months and years ago.

Yeah NCsoft is not good. I didn’t do a ton of research prior to buying GW2, and never played GW1, but had I realized NCsoft was attached I might have foreseen some of what has come to pass. After playing Aion and City of Heroes/Villains I got a bad taste in my mouth for NCsoft.

Kaiser.9873:

Menaki.6329:

I’m about to believe that gw2 was originally made as a cash cow. The players should buy the game and gems, play it for a few months and then change to the next game of nc soft (“Wildstar-hype”). I didn’t see that the provider company had have a long-time plan (living story, weekly new gem shop items) for guild wars 2.

But wildstar has flopped as I heard (never played it), so most of the players stayed or returned to gw2 or moved forward to other games. NC-Soft was surprised that people still play the game, even with complains, and spent constant real money in it. This game had have the order to die fast, but this plan has failed, luckely ^^. So I personally think, they try to catch-up the lost time. Maybe it’s too late for wvw, but we will see, I will let me surprise. Everything else is already written months and years ago.

Yeah NCsoft is not good. I didn’t do a ton of research prior to buying GW2, and never played GW1, but had I realized NCsoft was attached I might have foreseen some of what has come to pass. After playing Aion and City of Heroes/Villains I got a bad taste in my mouth for NCsoft.

Kind of a silly point of view NCsoft not going to make or brake a game they will kill a game off if its not profitable but the game it self is up to the makers of that game or Anet. I mean ppl loved GW1 and NCsoft was very much apart of Anet back then so unless they are using NCsoft as some type of Bogeyman argument i do not see how its relevant.

ArchonWing.9480:

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

The opposite applies to your question if you ask me. Why does it “deserve” a comment? With all of the bias demand, and the ridiculously rude way multiple poster find a way to make threads around twisting every comment in every post they make here, What do you want them to say?

For that matter, what would saying anything change?

Anet is simply became what i did fear the most, they are nothing like GW1 devs that did care a lot for community and gave every thing to stay as close to them and they did know good that, keeping good relationship with fans is the best to be honest. A lot of anet core members left before release of GW2, and they recruited new people. I don’t want to judge but, it seems that as anets roster grows, we share less and less mutual respect and quality experience in last 3 years.

Anet, don’t take me wrong, but that post is just reflection of your communication, it seems like you guys don’t care any more for what your fans think, you only care for those that whistle how you should make the game..

We know for very long that you guys don’t listen to WvW and PvP players, but i was not aware of not listening any of play base, which is kind of sad.

I hope this is not the last expansion that i’ll buy. I’ve been with you since GW1 beta, and clearly, there has be negative changes through last 3 years, i wonder why, what and who .. specifically WHO made this kind of decisions..

coglin.1867:

ArchonWing.9480:

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

The opposite applies to your question if you ask me. Why does it “deserve” a comment? With all of the bias demand, and the ridiculously rude way multiple poster find a way to make threads around twisting every comment in every post they make here, What do you want them to say?

For that matter, what would saying anything change?

Not sure how people here being rude and biased is relevant at all, unless they consider the entire customer base to be that.

What kind of business avoids answers just because their customers were mean? They aren’t friends or family, and they certainly aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts. You’re right that they don’t have to answer, but that doesn’t mean people can’t keep asking and expecting an answer. And that was a pretty popular issue at the time.

They don’t care because we are contained here on the forums where no outer source of media can see. The reddit is littered with angry PvE players that will downvote any WvW thread so no luck there either.

They just listen to streamers and youtubers and even then they can act moronic (ie: Reyana’s interview a few months back about how WvW players are just PvE players).

It took me a while to get that in my head, but we will accomplish NOTHING here as they will never read what we write and therefore we are all losing our time here; prowvwers and anti-wvwers alike….

they will do what they want with their game to optimize the money income and your only liberty is to either keep playing or stop.

ArchonWing.9480:

What kind of business avoids answers just because their customers were mean? They aren’t friends or family, and they certainly aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts. You’re right that they don’t have to answer, but that doesn’t mean people can’t keep asking and expecting an answer. And that was a pretty popular issue at the time.

The kind that strives to limit rude and inflammatory post on their own forums?

Arborstone(our opponent in this matchup) just stopped playing. There seems to be no-one around from that server

butch.8136:

ArchonWing.9480:

The complete silence on the fallout from the golem event is pretty unacceptable in my opinion though. I would expect a word on any event of the sort regardless of outcome.

What do you wan them to say?

Sjeez, it was a one-week event.

How about a simply apology for the inherent lack of communication while the forums were basically left to be on fire ?

Or communicating anything about the various bugs and the abuse thereof during the event.

How about the same treatment PvE gets when a bug is reported that is gamebreaking, (Hotfixes)….

But no, we got silence. Which is unacceptable. Even during this “All Hands on Deck HoT shipping” time i’m fairly certain you have people in PR for a reason and community managers who are supposed to be there to talk to the community. How about some form of actually giving WvW players an outlet and understanding of who does what as right now the understanding is we dont have a true WvW team. We have “competitive events team” whose primary focus is PvP and Esports marketing.

…… Jeez it is too much to take 5 minutes of a day for people i suppose.

dancingmonkey.4902:

ArchonWing.9480:

What kind of business avoids answers just because their customers were mean? They aren’t friends or family, and they certainly aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts. You’re right that they don’t have to answer, but that doesn’t mean people can’t keep asking and expecting an answer. And that was a pretty popular issue at the time.

The kind that strives to limit rude and inflammatory post on their own forums?

They have forum moderation for that already. Any post left intact is therefore condoned and hit the report button if you disagree. Also, it is irrelevant because I am stating that just because customers are irate or mean doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a response. It doesn’t make their points invalid. It is a variation of ad homenim to declare otherwise.

Two wrongs don’t make a right either.

coglin.1867:

ArchonWing.9480:

Because it was a one week event, it deserves no comment? There were a number of exploits and buggy deployment and noting these events could be valuable information for the next time they plan something of the sort. There are certain things that I don’t want to see happen again. So I reject the notion that this topic is restrained to a single week.

Anyhow, a brief note about the event itself, a description, or something about what they perceived as results. Otherwise, why bother?

People have asked for comments on all content from gem store purchases to the next living story event, after all.

The opposite applies to your question if you ask me. Why does it “deserve” a comment? With all of the bias demand, and the ridiculously rude way multiple poster find a way to make threads around twisting every comment in every post they make here, What do you want them to say?

For that matter, what would saying anything change?

Because they’re in the business of people pleasing and many people were everything but pleased. Clamming up does nothing to improve an already battered relationship. Plus it’s one of the only “events” WvWvW has gotten in a long time IIRC so why not at least acknowledge the people using your product. It’s called PR. It can go a long way.

Hi Tich

tichai.4351:

I don’t have solutions, I wish I did which is a shame for a game with so much potential and as I will be the last to leave the server as far as WvW is concerned, I will make sure to turn the light off

• It’s not your job to have solutions, it’s Arenanet’s responsibility to NC Soft.

tichai.4351:

Spin off WvW into a separate game and take on the likes of CU, you have more than a head start on the competition and there are still plenty of people who would buy the game. If CU can raise over $3 million for a concept there must be something in the format.

• I don’t think CU is seen by Anet as a competitor for GW2. It’s my assertion that Mike O’Brien thinks that because the payment models are different, the player bases will be. I think he will be surprised when a lot of the WvW guilds (emphasis on “whole guilds full of players”) show him that they are willing to pay a subscription fee and move over to (at least try) CU.

• I believe the reason Mike thinks WvW players like PvE is because they do it to suppliment their WvW play – for example, players might do PvE to get cool-looking gear to take into WvW, or to craft-up some food pots for WvW, or simply to earn gold to spend in WvW. Of course, there are some players who simply like to WvW because it adds variety to their PvE lives, but I consider them to be the minority (of WvW players), not the other way around.

• Having said all of this, it’s clear that the WvW population is considerably smaller than the PvE population – you only need to look at the number of players on each map. You’re looking at what… 100-200 players in total per server at prime time? So although we consider ourselves to be quite a considerable number, we are like the GW2 of NCSoft’s income. Tiny.

Well, I’m about ready to delete my guards and warrior because they are pretty much obsolete in WvW right now except for extremely large zergs. All mesmer all day every day for me now. Perma stealth, unbeatable burst and condi, and no need for siege (just port in!)

Yep, they should rename it Mesmer wars. Fun stuff anet.

Yeah we have an enemy guild in our matchup. Only PU mesmers, guardians for perma retal and Ele for giant fire aoe to get our defensive siege. Really powerful but ridiculous^^

tichai.4351:

The game itself is still a beautiful piece of art and WvW still has the potential to be head and shoulders above anything else out there and it is underachieving on that score. WvW needs substance, not gimmicks.

There have been dozens, if not hundreds of ideas put forward by the community with the aim of improving the gaming experience, ALL have been ignored in favour of meaningless fluff and all have been more nails in the coffin.

+1

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

Well, I’m about ready to delete my guards and warrior because they are pretty much obsolete in WvW right now except for extremely large zergs. All mesmer all day every day for me now. Perma stealth, unbeatable burst and condi, and no need for siege (just port in!)

Yep, they should rename it Mesmer wars. Fun stuff anet.

Go ahead.

Every couple of months some skill changes bring a different profession more to the fore front of value in game. If you delete every profession you have when it falls out of its level of being generally over powered in comparison to other professions, no one is going to worry to much about it.

The question is, do you really want to be the type of player who only plays the profession that are in favor due to buffs and nerfs every time they make a change?

tichai.4351:

There have been dozens, if not hundreds of ideas put forward by the community with the aim of improving the gaming experience, ALL have been ignored in favour of meaningless fluff and all have been more nails in the coffin.

They were ignored for good reason. I see no logic in implementing terrible ideas, simply because they were offered by the player base.

Mesmers are absolutely broken in small scale fights, but small scale fights in general are pretty silly atm I’d say. They’re pretty good in big fights (15+) of course, but I think of them more as an great addition to GWEN.

Deleting a class because one is salty about being dropped a few times is silly. Especially after the balance shakeups that are still in progress. Sorry, you’re just going to die sometimes and wvw being a large scale mode means that it’s not always within your control.

Svarty.8019:

Hi Tich

tichai.4351:

I don’t have solutions, I wish I did which is a shame for a game with so much potential and as I will be the last to leave the server as far as WvW is concerned, I will make sure to turn the light off

• It’s not your job to have solutions, it’s Arenanet’s responsibility to NC Soft.

tichai.4351:

Spin off WvW into a separate game and take on the likes of CU, you have more than a head start on the competition and there are still plenty of people who would buy the game. If CU can raise over $3 million for a concept there must be something in the format.

• I don’t think CU is seen by Anet as a competitor for GW2. It’s my assertion that Mike O’Brien thinks that because the payment models are different, the player bases will be. I think he will be surprised when a lot of the WvW guilds (emphasis on “whole guilds full of players”) show him that they are willing to pay a subscription fee and move over to (at least try) CU.

• I believe the reason Mike thinks WvW players like PvE is because they do it to suppliment their WvW play – for example, players might do PvE to get cool-looking gear to take into WvW, or to craft-up some food pots for WvW, or simply to earn gold to spend in WvW. Of course, there are some players who simply like to WvW because it adds variety to their PvE lives, but I consider them to be the minority (of WvW players), not the other way around.

• Having said all of this, it’s clear that the WvW population is considerably smaller than the PvE population – you only need to look at the number of players on each map. You’re looking at what… 100-200 players in total per server at prime time? So although we consider ourselves to be quite a considerable number, we are like the GW2 of NCSoft’s income. Tiny.

I actually find the 2nd point somewhat hopeful, because that would mean perhaps the idea that people were taking wvw as a primary means of gameplay wasn’t even made aware to them, and they were still seeing wvw as a bridge to espohts pvp. In that case, there might be tons of room for improvement. The game, after all, has evolved in a way driven by players to a state that is probably different than what was previously intended.

Great post btw.

ArchonWing.9480:

Not sure how people here being rude and biased is relevant at all, unless they consider the entire customer base to be that.

What kind of business avoids answers just because their customers were mean? They aren’t friends or family, and they certainly aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their own hearts. You’re right that they don’t have to answer, but that doesn’t mean people can’t keep asking and expecting an answer. And that was a pretty popular issue at the time.

Let’s name things properly.
Anet is giving middle finger to Gw2 players for whatever reason(expansion isn’t an excuse for what’s happening since the beginning of 2015).

There is zero communication between Anet and players.
What’s more, it seems that devs do make changes and it appears that playerbase aren’t pleased by them even one bit.

Since I don’t use devtracker and sit in couple of forum sections, did they fix the Stability lag issue that started with it’s change in March?
Did they even reverse the decreased player entry pool for WvW maps from March?

Well, let’s be frank.
WvW content is losing players constantly.
PvP content is losing players constantly.
PvE content is losing players too, but it’s not noticeable as with WvW and PvP contents.

I personally lessened my activity in game, and stopped participating in some contents as I used to before, because of simply two reasons:
1. Anet doesn’t care at all
2. Anet is inventing and implementing features that are irritating, frustrating, not enjoyable and what’s more, they refuse to talk about it.

Quite sad to point it out, but ArenaNet has reached the level of publishers such as Gameforge, PerfectWorldEntertainment, Webzen or Nexon.

By the attitude presented by Anet till now, if they plan to develop GW3, I would rather ask them to not and drop it.