Guild Wars 2

I also would like some indication that the WvW overhaul is still under way and is making progress. I’d be even happier if we were given some very broad outlines as to what it covered – just general headings would do at this point.

I do however think we need to be patient.
Two key areas that need addressing are WvW specific balancing of classes and 24 hour population imbalance. I suspect that in both cases a serious rewrite of parts of the game are required, and for developers who are working on someone else’s code this would take time. I’m prepared to wait and see what happens in part because I would like to see things done properly and in part because I feel I have no other choice.

However, while waiting patiently works for a while, it would be nice to see a post that says something like: “Still working on WvW overhaul. We’re having to rewrite a lot of code to separate the game mode properly but it will allow us to respond quicker in the future.”
I’d far rather see that than: Silence, followed by more PvE content.

What the kitten?! You think 3 years of waiting is nothing?! That’s how long we’ve been waiting mate!

Indeed, waiting for a Directx9 game to sort itself out… By the time they finally do we will all need special out of date PC’s to run it. =P

Your assumption is based on the notion that they are going to address current problems. History has taught us that this isn’t what they excel at; they prefer to completely ignore existing issues and rely on redesigns which simply replace old problems with new ones.

In the absence of better information, I still find the “leak” the most likely scenario. In other words, killing off the servers entirely and replacing them with a megaserver GvG alliance system that will alienate a large portion of what little remains of their WvW community.

No.

It’s beyond the point of patience, this kitten ed overhaul was meant to ship with HoT and when it was delayed originally they said it’d be their main priority and they keep delaying and saying “soon”.

HoT came out 4 months ago, 1/3rd of a year. How in the hell did something get delayed that badly? The games been out for 3 and a half years, there’s no excuse for screwing up that badly at this stage.

If they’d said why it was delayed, what they’re planning and when they reckon it’ll release, sure, patience can be found. But this bullkitten of “soon” after 4 months is a whole load of crap.

If my department at work failed to push out something this big and it was delayed for 4 months (and counting) you’d be sure as hell someone would be getting flogged.

I know we’ve been waiting for three years for some proper attention to WvW – but not for this overhaul. I’d say at most about two years for this and perhaps in all seriousness just over one. During the past three years many things have changed including the WvW lead at Anet and probably the development team (that includes personnel or size – I have no idea and they don’t tell us).

I do not support a longer delay than is necessary to do a proper job, but I also cannot see the sense in throwing a tantrum and demanding that Anet do something immediately to fix this issue or that issue, nor to be honest do I see the point in continuing toxic behaviour on this forum.

The lack of information from Anet is deplorable and can only serve to affect customer relations in a negative way. They know this and we know this. There is however nothing to be gained from continuing to repeat the situation: if anything was going to be done then it should have been done before now.
The only hopeful option left for us is that they really are working on a major overhaul and that it will make (genuine) improvements based on the many good ideas put forward over the last year or so. Wishing this overhaul to happen now does not change the coding or time required, and probably won’t affect the resources assigned to the job either.

I have clearly stated I would welcome more information or confirmation, but Anet policy seems to be like mushroom farming. It’s not just us however, the changes to the PvP season 2 match making system were announced on Reddit and on the new eSports website, but no official link or mention in the GW2 forums or game notes. In other words this is a company wide problem and not aimed directly at WvW. To be honest I can’t see it changing however much it really needs to.

So that leaves me two viable options: be patient, or walk away. I’ve made my choice and you’ll make your own. But a third option of stay but keep complaining? I really can’t see how that helps any more.

I have seen no indication that “WvW specific balancing of classes” is even considered. What has happened, is that skills/stats/items that originally behaved differently in PvE and PvP have been combined into single behaviour. I expect PvE to be main target for every class balance in the future too.

Missed your post Psizone – and I agree that patience would be helped if there was some communication about what is happening. I’ve never disputed this.

The WvW will be our number one priority statement has been clearly proven to be somewhat economical with the truth: we have had PvP season 1 occurring before the WvW overhaul, and PvP season 2 being released soon with evidence of development work on the match making system and some class balance. So no – it isn’t the number one over-riding priority for Anet.

Whilst I agree with you, I still don’t believe that a now repeating stream of complaints will speed things up.

In my opinion wvw has been good for 2 years. This final year it has been getting worse and it is also the amount of time Anet have said they have been working on it. On Reddit there is a suggestion that the overhaul they have been working on has been scrapped because people did not like the leaked info about it. If this is the case there is still a long way to wait. I just don’t understand why they don’t come here and ask us what we want because making a overhaul of a game mode that they clearly don’t play will only lead to bad decisions.

You could say WvW, was badly directed from the beginning.
At least from a population standpoint, they could not or did not bother with, managing player population better, they offered Gem discounts that allowed players to stack on servers, their only solution was to use their resources on EoTM.

The Core, of the game mode has always been flawed really, all these new features and changes, just shows their lack of understanding and direction.

Buy Some Apples.6390:

What the kitten?! You think 3 years of waiting is nothing?! That’s how long we’ve been waiting mate!

if you think wvw been bad for 3 years well you should leave now as it will not get any better.. anet isn’t going to redesign the game mode around you.. period

Yuffi.2430:

Whilst I agree with you, I still don’t believe that a now repeating stream of complaints will speed things up.

It’s the internet, you can’t really stop a steady stream of complaints unless you address them. Yes there will still be complaints but right now instead of plunging the clogged up toilet, they’re just continuing to let people take a dump in it.

The problem is Anet decided that since the forums were venomous years ago, they’d stop all communication on it, not considering the fact that many that were venomous then have left and because they are continuing to ignore the forums, they’re breeding a new wave of venomous forum users.

On an earlier point you made. We have been waiting for this overhaul for years. Yes, it was only announced before HoTs release but we’ve been asking, pleading, begging for an overhaul such as this for years – it’s desperately needed and now that it’s in the wind they keep delaying it and leading us on.

“Hey that whole population imbalance thing? Fixin’ it reeeal soon” – ‘Soon’ is a pinprick of uncertainty that’s being made more redundant by the constant delays and lack of clear communication.

briggah.7910:

if you think wvw been bad for 3 years well you should leave now as it will not get any better.. anet isn’t going to redesign the game mode around you.. period

Well the population imbalance has been a problem for years and it’s supposed to be getting resolved somewhat with this overhaul.

So technically it is being redesigned for people that think WvW is bad because of that reason.

Excuse me Yuffi, but, if you think 3+ years its not patience enough, please tell me how many years exactly its enough patience?

Why do people come up with these suggestions to homecooked problems?

Class balance in WvW, the same as all game modes, worked perfectly alright for two years. I’m not going to say it was all gold and green meadows but it worked reasonably well as for any game. Very few people had any cross-mode complaints and the issues that did exist in WvW was mostly tied to undecisive class design (eg., Rangers not really being decided if they should be range, melee or havoc oriented – being a bit of everything and ending up becoming committed to nothing). Alot of the initial balance (such as stability mechanics) had different scales and game modes in mind. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked quite alright.

That brings us to the second issue you bring up. The infamous “population imbalance” is as simple as scoring system + stability mechanics redesign. That’s all there is to it. Before april 2014 the only issue people had with population imbalance was in the scoring part, not in the day-to-day gameplay part and even though it affected any long-term goals in the game mode, the community dealt with it alright in terms of gameplay (servers mostly ending up grouped based on culture and ideas, given how scoring worked). It wasn’t ideal, it needed long-term appeal and iteration, but it had no pressing issues as far content was concerned.

Instead, the big issue we see now with migration, dropping participation and completely onesided matchups is mostly due to the stability change making smaller servers (groups) much weaker against larger servers (groups) in direct gameplay. It is not fun to already be at a disadvantage only to be put in a situation where you don’t get to push your buttons and the buttons you push hardly affect opponents: only because they have more players.

That’s why players move to tier one and that’s the population imbalance.

Like you said, we really have no choice but to be patient.. but as we wait my server-mates keep leaving.
The are really gonna have to address something. Every time I see an announcement or twitch/guildchat thingy about league or pve my skin crawls, I shake my head, alt + f4

Its almost like a list of priorities got thrown into a basket and someone just draws out something random each week or 2

I think I figured out how the WPs on the BLs are supposed to work – you’re not supposed to hold your own BL but be on all 3 at the same time; thus the enemies have WPs on enemy BLs while they’re blocked on their own BLs – this is an easy to fix issue and should be fixed.
The idea behind it is kind of nice but most servers only have enough people to cover 1 maybe 2 maps – I don’t think that any server is that populated that they can hold objectives on all three BLs (and EB). I need to communicate with my server to do things and I can’t when there’s no one there. So this is a nice idea but completely past what we need – and they should have realized this by now and should’ve fixed it by now. Even putting WPs behind a pay wall (guild upgrades) is a bad idea and they’re just hurting themselves with that.

Edit: Awful spelling.

Yes, I have to agree. I am patiently learning how to play Fallout 2 and relearning Team Fortress 2. I think I have enough patience to learn another game or two as well. As for GW2 I am done until something real happens to fix WvW.

As an aside, on Reddit someone posted that when the forums blew up with the Alliance plan to fix the population issues, Anet scrapped that idea and is starting over… Oh goodie, start from scatch… That makes sense, they seem to have zero focus or direction. Servers made WvW and Servers are a large part of what killed it. There is no future for WvW with the current server match up system. Server identity can be kept, but needs to be removed from the sorting of players into warring factions, alliances, guild groups, or however one is going to split up the WvW population into equal-ish large armies…. Unfortunately, it appears that Anet lacks the courage and most of the playerbase lack the insight to make or understand what needs to change and what doesn’t.

I agree with almost all of this except the waiting for over 3 years bit. Being honest, I spent the first year enjoying WvW and it was new enough not to need an overhaul. The second year was still fun too, so I can honestly say I’ve only been waiting for the overhaul since HOT was announced.

It’s an interesting thought that you brought up Subversion, although reverting stability and adjusting scoring doesn’t seem like it should take a year or more (but I’m no code monkey so I can’t say for sure). However without any communication everything is speculation, and is likely to remain so until Anet spring their Surprise! overhaul upon us .

And Psizone is right, you can’t stop people complaining especially when they feel there is so much to complain about. But it does get tiring reading the same complaints again and again, and I doubt they will be attended too any quicker than they were the first few times they were raised.

It really saddens me to see so few of my WvW friends on any more, and even fewer commanders tagging up. Then you get those who do try hard to make the best of what we have, like Knob, seeing their hard work unravel because of a crazy random match (I’m on IoJ so I understand both his pain and his post all too well).

I know those who are waiting patiently are fewer than those who moved on. My experience tells me the player base is shrinking with fewer new players entering WvW than veteran players leaving.
Those of us who are left are waiting as patiently as we can for the promised overhaul and the more frequent communications… and we will definitely need to be patient because it looks like a long wait ahead on both counts.

Yuffi.2430:

I know we’ve been waiting for three years for some proper attention to WvW – but not for this overhaul. I’d say at most about two years for this and perhaps in all seriousness just over one. During the past three years many things have changed including the WvW lead at Anet and probably the development team (that includes personnel or size – I have no idea and they don’t tell us).

I do not support a longer delay than is necessary to do a proper job, but I also cannot see the sense in throwing a tantrum and demanding that Anet do something immediately to fix this issue or that issue, nor to be honest do I see the point in continuing toxic behaviour on this forum.

The lack of information from Anet is deplorable and can only serve to affect customer relations in a negative way. They know this and we know this. There is however nothing to be gained from continuing to repeat the situation: if anything was going to be done then it should have been done before now.
The only hopeful option left for us is that they really are working on a major overhaul and that it will make (genuine) improvements based on the many good ideas put forward over the last year or so. Wishing this overhaul to happen now does not change the coding or time required, and probably won’t affect the resources assigned to the job either.

I have clearly stated I would welcome more information or confirmation, but Anet policy seems to be like mushroom farming. It’s not just us however, the changes to the PvP season 2 match making system were announced on Reddit and on the new eSports website, but no official link or mention in the GW2 forums or game notes. In other words this is a company wide problem and not aimed directly at WvW. To be honest I can’t see it changing however much it really needs to.

So that leaves me two viable options: be patient, or walk away. I’ve made my choice and you’ll make your own. But a third option of stay but keep complaining? I really can’t see how that helps any more.

you can take your “be patient” preaching and go shove it you know where… We are done being patient. Look at other game modes, Anet is always communicating with them. Ex-WvW lead admitting to not working on anything since March 2015 (while still has the job title), the terrible desert BL when feedbacks were provided but ignored, and the exclusion of WvW updates for HOT release are acceptable to you? You make me sick.

Dont forget to check out the sPvP forum, they just got tons of updates on season 2, now that’s a communication we want from ANet, not this current bullkitten.

Missed your post Tspatula. Not sure how much I agree, but I’m definitely not in favour of scrapping servers to make “equal-ish large armies”. There needs to be some play option for these yes, but there are players who enjoy the small group warfare and other players who prefer roaming, and some who enjoy all three play styles. I don’t want to see them forced to play in large armies any more than I wanted to have to grind PvE for my guild upgrades.

I definitely agree about direction for WvW. If they did scrap and start again it does show they listen, but listening too much could see them start all over every week! I’d still like to know what they are working on, in general terms, just so we hear something.

To be fair though, the original 3 guild Alliance idea wouldn’t have worked due to the variation in size and activity of guilds. Fortunately there were other suggestions as to how to deal with this issue.

Edit: to remove last sentence on reflection.

@ Yuffi

You seem to be as dissatisfied with Anet’s handling of WvWvW as many of the other people complaining here but I think you’re directing your frustration at the wrong people and falling into the trap of apologist/respectability politics. You voluntarily come to the sub-forum of a mode that is in a depressingly rapid decline and you’re complaining about complaints. What did you expect to find? Do you know what it means when there is no dev communication and improvements in a failing game mode and the forums go quiet? I don’t think you know what you’re asking.

Most of the requests I’ve seen here concerning WvWvW updates fall in line with “at least give us an idea of what’s coming” and “rollback to or rotate alpine BL to possibly slow the decline”. Not so much “It’s my overhaul and I want it nowww”!

But how? Both of the things your asking for is a lot and nearly imposable if not comply. To balance out population in a 24hr game you have to foces ppl to play at times something you can never realy do unless you start putting guns to ppl heads to make them play or not play during the “right” times. Its out right silly to think ANY ONE could fix this other then the “cut the game off when I am not playing” ideal something that the “I” is purely a selfish point of view.

As for class balances in wvw how do you do this too? Do you some how make a class able to take on 20+ ppl with out getting one shot but at the same time kill-able by 1 or 2 ppl? It simply dose not work in any logic point of view.

This is not a question of patient this is a question of using your mind and stop just asking for things that cant be done.

Gennyt – when I started reading the WvW forum (before HoT) there seemed much more of a balance between positive and negative threads. I understand the reasons why this has changed, and agree with many of them, but again I’ll state my opinion that repeating complaints that have been previously made many times is unlikely to have any positive effect effect. Does it even help to “let off steam” as it were?

If you think I’m wrong then so be it, and yes, suggesting patience is a big ask, not because of this community but because of the history of this game mode. However if we are not to be patient then what is the alternative?

Jski – thank you for your comments.

Balancing the population will not be easy if it can be done at all. There have been different suggestions however that do not force people to play when they do not want to – this is never a thing that I would suggest or support. A quick fix is remake and rename all the servers – in effect reset WvW. People join afresh and perhaps the population will spread out. I have seen some ideas involving different over flow maps that could work. The mega server approach – although not an idea I like personally – would help concentrate more people into fewer maps.

As for class balancing – if this was separated from the other game modes so changes for PvP five man matches didn’t affect WvW matches then this would allow Anet to adjust each profession to be more evenly matched. The problem with this is that your character might behave a little differently in WVW than it does in PvE or PvP. No-one is suggesting that any class should be able to take on 20+ people! It is true however that the stability changes that were brought in have caused a much bigger problem in WvW than they fixed in PvP. It is this connection that I believe needs to be broken: perhaps you misunderstood me – I’m not asking for anything, I simply summarised what others have already said.

Yuffi.2430:

Missed your post Tspatula. Not sure how much I agree, but I’m definitely not in favour of scrapping servers to make “equal-ish large armies”. There needs to be some play option for these yes, but there are players who enjoy the small group warfare and other players who prefer roaming, and some who enjoy all three play styles. I don’t want to see them forced to play in large armies any more than I wanted to have to grind PvE for my guild upgrades.

The 3 guild thing is probably arbitrary and wouldn’t be in the final implementation. Consider that you are already grouped in an large army called your server, alliances would be similar, but more like what you are talking about with renaming things, but with alliances of guilds people would have more choice and it would be easier to move from one to another….

Yuffi.2430:

However, while waiting patiently works for a while, it would be nice to see a post that says something like: “Still working on WvW overhaul. We’re having to rewrite a lot of code to separate the game mode properly but it will allow us to respond quicker in the future.”
I’d far rather see that than: Silence, followed by more PvE content.

I concur. It’s nearly a month since we had the “we will be able to talk about it sooner than expected” comment.

soon
su?n/Submit
adverb
1.
in or after a short time.
“everyone will soon know the truth”
synonyms: in a short time, shortly, presently, in the near future, before long, in a little while, in a minute, in a moment, in an instant, in a twinkling, in the twinkling of an eye, before you know it, any minute (now), any day (now), any time (now), by and by; etc

Dal.5872:

Indeed, waiting for a Directx9 game to sort itself out… By the time they finally do we will all need special out of date PC’s to run it. =P

Thank you for the laugh of the day +1 to you. And I couldn’t agree more.

Tspatula.9086:

Yuffi.2430:

Missed your post Tspatula. Not sure how much I agree, but I’m definitely not in favour of scrapping servers to make “equal-ish large armies”. There needs to be some play option for these yes, but there are players who enjoy the small group warfare and other players who prefer roaming, and some who enjoy all three play styles. I don’t want to see them forced to play in large armies any more than I wanted to have to grind PvE for my guild upgrades.

The 3 guild thing is probably arbitrary and wouldn’t be in the final implementation. Consider that you are already grouped in an large army called your server, alliances would be similar, but more like what you are talking about with renaming things, but with alliances of guilds people would have more choice and it would be easier to move from one to another….

To me the guild alliance means that black quarry won’t need multiple accounts to do their shenanigans.