Guild Wars 2

I wanted to comment here on the quality of gameplay in WvW after the HoT release.

First, my own history in the game: I consider myself a moderate to hardcore player. I like to take time each day to do a bit of everything, from open world fights to mastery progression, to even just spending time in Lion’s Arch and farming. Prior to HoT, I knew that if I wanted a bit of fun, I could always go into WvW and find people to run along with and with a moderate effort, at least get some rewards out of it – some fun, some loot, some farming, and some Badges of Honor.

After waiting two weeks and taking extra time to play through a lot of the new HoT content, and hopping into WvW once in awhile, I noticed that two things were lacking though. First, I actually do like the new challenges and size of the BL maps. My guildies and I did S1 and S2 of the WvW tournaments on a server that won for their ranking, and we were always pleased with whatever we could do in there.

Now? WvW is a complete ghost town. We’ve been everything from kitten T8 since launch, and had been averaging around T4; we slipped this week for the first time in probably a year down to T5. WvW is lacking PEOPLE, and when I did go into Edge of the Mists and found a small group to roam with, taking towers and supply areas, I soon noticed that WvW is also LACKING REWARD. I also realize that the reset day has changed, but this should not impact what I saw.

Pre-HoT it was easy to get into even a small zerg on a map and run for an hour, easily gain 100 Badges of Honor, a bit of loot, and enjoy yourself. Last night, it took probably a half hour or more of roaming BL maps and EB before giving in to go to EotM where I finally found a commander. We ran the map for probably an hour, easily took half the map for the green team, and the entire time, I only received 1 Badge of Honor. Part of why I went into WvW in the first place, other than to enjoy it, was to also help farm badges for my guild and the guild hall. In the past I used to be able to run for a night and have enough badges to get an exotic piece of armor. Now, if that’s even in game anymore, it will be easier just going to Orr instead.

PLEASE aNet, take some time and effort to fix WvW. While some of the community plays it exclusively, a majority of players are still casual in it. Why bother alienating casual players from 1/3 of your game by having it empty and lacking reward? I have been reading the forums here and at Reddit the last few weeks on reviews of HoT and have seen numerous comments that the “Fixes” for WvW have been to nerf resource nodes as an “attempt” to fix the problems. The problem isn’t farming in WvW but all around lack of reward. Why should I go into WvW for an hour to get 1 Badge of Honor while taking towers, keeps, and more? That was an hour I could have spent working on my masteries or getting better at PvP so I can get the reward potions for my guild hall as well.

I have played this game since launch, and while there have been times our server was on the bottom in rank, even then, it was guaranteed that there was a place I could go to find community with my server and have an enjoyable time with them. While reward and loot are not my main concern in the game, it is still nice to be rewarded with more than one Badge of Honor for spending more than an hour in WvW. At that rate, I could have gone to Orr and gotten at least 5 gold farming and a ton of karma for the efforts.

If you only got one Badge when taking all of those objectives, it’s either a bug or you weren’t getting credit for the lord kills. That’s not a WvW issue so much as a zerg-burning-lord-before-you-can-tag issue.

In the past, I’ve always been an advocate of playing for the sake of playing. I WvW because I want to go take camps, get into fights, and get myself into situations that would make a good story. Something super exciting/thrilling doesn’t happen every day, and that has been the case since the game released for me, even on Alpine.

However, I do personally think that WvW needs to be much more rewarding. As much as I don’t understand it, incentive is the key (and sometimes the only) driver for people to do things in an MMO, and I don’t think the WvW population will stop deteriorating until more non-PvPers get involved.

One thing I’ve been wondering though, is that many people have mentioned the loot as a draw. What loot exactly is a draw in this game? Are we just talking about the ascended mats, or like the weapon/armor drops as well? I’ve played the game around 1600 hours, and every single weapon/armor drop I’ve gotten has been garbage. No precursors, I think maybe 3-4 exotics, maybe. I believe 1 exotic sold for 10 gold once. I’m inundated in terrible loot all the time. The main fortunate thing I ran into was that, recently I leveled Weaponsmithing and happened to have all of the tier crafting mats necessary to get me to 450 without having to buy anything. Otherwise, the loot in this game is almost universally awful, and I personally hate getting it. It’s like I’m playing vanilla Diablo 3, only I’m not expecting upgrades because ascended items can’t drop, so I’m flooded with things that will never be good.

What is it about the “loot” in WvW that people currently like?

I want loot go to PVE, you want duels go to sPvP, you want siege warfare and tactics go to WvW.

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

What is even dedicated WvW players currently steering off the maps?

They need to work in the new HoT maps and Dry Top for materials for their guild halls.

You want to reward WvW players better?
Add a merchant to the home BL spawn merchant corner that sells each of these packs once a day for Badges:
>> Oiled Supply Pack – 5 Linseed Oil
>> Coarse Supply Pack – 50 Coarse Sand
>> Pigment Supply Pack – 10 Pouches of a random coloured Pigment

The Packs can be used to augment basic scribing and upgrade needs for the guilds. This would allow WvW players to skip farming in Dry Top (Sand) and HoT maps (Flax) and also the need to buy overpriced Pigments for scribing kits.

The time gate factor is needed so veteran players can not buy stuff for their thousands of Badges they have at the moment.

It would also open up the possibility for PvP guilds or PvE guilds to do WvW dailies and game play more often as they get an alternative to repetitive farming.

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

Do you think there are enough core WvW players who do it for fun to sustain the game over the new few years? I’m not so sure. I’d personally rather see ANet direct the meaningful rewards along the same goal path as the WvW community. More PvE/reward focused players want their rewards, and WvW players often want their fights. Why can’t they dangle a carrot that leads you to get rewards as a direct result from fighting?

My only concern with trying to make that work is that it’s still up to the players to at least try to get the rewards. Quitting out of discouragement can happen so lightning quick that I’m not sure how you’d even accomplish that goal. However, after players participate in a game mode for 3 years running, how do you keep it fresh enough for them to want to continue? It would be easier if more people played the game for fun, but the desire for rewards seems too ingrained.

Well take a look at the forum and the hundreds of threads about any change. People love this game mode. So much so they are very vocal when things shift. That’s the core base, and, after three years, they’re still quite passionate about this mode.

If you add rewards, you get the constant map agro if things aren’t ktrain, instead of strategy. We saw it during season one. There was a great hope the tourney would bring in fresh blood, but in the end those folks just got their quotas and disappeared, never even bothering to learn the mechanics or be any meaningful contribution to the team.

Jayne.9251:

Well take a look at the forum and the hundreds of threads about any change. People love this game mode. So much so they are very vocal when things shift. That’s the core base, and, after three years, they’re still quite passionate about this mode.

If you add rewards, you get the constant map agro if things aren’t ktrain, instead of strategy. We saw it during season one. There was a great hope the tourney would bring in fresh blood, but in the end those folks just got their quotas and disappeared, never even bothering to learn the mechanics or be any meaningful contribution to the team.

Yeah they left when there were no more rewards. If WvW stayed rewarding for them a lot more might have stuck around. At that point they are pretty much forced to learn the mechanics and strategies or they become free loot bags for the rest of us. Sounds like a win win to me.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Jayne.9251:

Well take a look at the forum and the hundreds of threads about any change. People love this game mode. So much so they are very vocal when things shift. That’s the core base, and, after three years, they’re still quite passionate about this mode.

If you add rewards, you get the constant map agro if things aren’t ktrain, instead of strategy. We saw it during season one. There was a great hope the tourney would bring in fresh blood, but in the end those folks just got their quotas and disappeared, never even bothering to learn the mechanics or be any meaningful contribution to the team.

Yeah they left when there were no more rewards. If WvW stayed rewarding for them a lot more might have stuck around. At that point they are pretty much forced to learn the mechanics and strategies or they become free loot bags for the rest of us. Sounds like a win win to me.

Naw. Those who mindlessly ktrain will continue to mindlessly ktrain without learning the mechanics. There’s an awful lot of lazy players out there who only care about the digital loot tables — which is so bizarre to me, lol, it’s just pixels on a screen. It doesn’t matter how long the rewards are there. We saw it in replicated season two and three for example — same deal, get the quest track rewards, disappear.

And if it did happen it will be a trade off of either become a loot bag or not get a reward. And guess what happens if they’re constantly loot bags and no rewards? They’ll get better? Nope. They’ll head back to pve-land.

Jayne.9251:

Naw. Those who mindlessly ktrain will continue to mindlessly ktrain without learning the mechanics. There’s an awful lot of lazy players out there who only care about the digital loot tables — which is so bizarre to me, lol, it’s just pixels on a screen. It doesn’t matter how long the rewards are there. We saw it in replicated season two and three for example — same deal, get the quest track rewards, disappear.

And if it did happen it will be a trade off of either become a loot bag or not get a reward. And guess what happens if they’re constantly loot bags and no rewards? They’ll get better? Nope. They’ll head back to pve-land.

You do make a very good point, and that’s my biggest concern. Reward-based players will try to take the path of least resistance, and making a path of least resistance that gets the PvP and PvE players working together in WvW in such a way that fights are encouraged and not discouraged is, as far as I can tell, next to impossible. There will always be the risk of not getting rewards in a competitive environment, so I don’t see how it could ever really live up to PvE.

In that scenario, we’re left with PvPers, though many of them also talk about rewards. Taking objectives is always going to be rewarded. So really, how do we get people to really, really want to go defend an objective, instead of just let it get taken so they can take it back in 5 minutes? That seems like the key to me, making defense something players want to rally behind.

Jayne.9251:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Jayne.9251:

Well take a look at the forum and the hundreds of threads about any change. People love this game mode. So much so they are very vocal when things shift. That’s the core base, and, after three years, they’re still quite passionate about this mode.

If you add rewards, you get the constant map agro if things aren’t ktrain, instead of strategy. We saw it during season one. There was a great hope the tourney would bring in fresh blood, but in the end those folks just got their quotas and disappeared, never even bothering to learn the mechanics or be any meaningful contribution to the team.

Yeah they left when there were no more rewards. If WvW stayed rewarding for them a lot more might have stuck around. At that point they are pretty much forced to learn the mechanics and strategies or they become free loot bags for the rest of us. Sounds like a win win to me.

Naw. Those who mindlessly ktrain will continue to mindlessly ktrain without learning the mechanics. There’s an awful lot of lazy players out there who only care about the digital loot tables — which is so bizarre to me, lol, it’s just pixels on a screen. It doesn’t matter how long the rewards are there. We saw it in replicated season two and three for example — same deal, get the quest track rewards, disappear.

And if it did happen it will be a trade off of either become a loot bag or not get a reward. And guess what happens if they’re constantly loot bags and no rewards? They’ll get better? Nope. They’ll head back to pve-land.

Some will, some won’t. As terrible as the tournaments were we did manage to pick up some players during the first 2 and they became WvW regulars.

I’m sure a lot of them will end up being fairweather players who hop into the pug blob when there server is winning and pve’ing when they are losing, but that is one of our main sources of recruits. You get them in the guild, give them some builds and train them, and they will start showing up whether you are winning or losing.

Aye, I’m all for community training, that’s how you build a solid community. I guess I’d like to see that as the carrot, before the rewards plan is tried, since you’ll likely get more people who feel part of a team, rather than isolated part of the ktrain.

Cogbryn, I think you have to have a certain mentality to like defense. I work with fellow teammates on map to thwart the blob, and the reward is holding off the blob with a handful because we spent the entire day sussing out chokes, etc. Personally my reward is the trust of our GVG guilds, who will respond to a call out for defense, because they know they’ll get massive fights. That’s gratifying for both sides.

Jayne.9251:

Aye, I’m all for community training, that’s how you build a solid community. I guess I’d like to see that as the carrot, before the rewards plan is tried, since you’ll likely get more people who feel part of a team, rather than isolated part of the ktrain.

Cogbryn, I think you have to have a certain mentality to like defense. I work with fellow teammates on map to thwart the blob, and the reward is holding off the blob with a handful because we spent the entire day sussing out chokes, etc. Personally my reward is the trust of our GVG guilds, who will respond to a call out for defense, because they know they’ll get massive fights. That’s gratifying for both sides.

I actually don’t personally like defense. I like offense. Players are always going to be attacking objectives, but players don’t seem to ever want to defend objectives for whatever reason. Look at all of the complaints about ktraining, no fights, swapping objectives, clearing objectives on maps with no players.

I’m just trying to think of ways to encourage people to fight each other, because based on feedback I’ve seen and experiences I’ve had, players often would rather do whatever will get them a reward that is easiest.

If you can make a call-out to a GvG guild who will respond to a zerg and create a fight, that seems to be a very unique situation that many others don’t have, whether it’s population/timing/whatever reason.

If you want my opinion, I don’t get why people don’t want to fight. I don’t get why they wouldn’t want to go at a zerg they see or know of on a map and start something. I don’t get the “let’s just trade/let them have it” mentality. I’m just trying to think of ways to get that mentality into the fight game.

People cant farm Bl’s now, ofc players are mad, instead of give the right information to how make the new bl’s more playable they just bash the new map because the new BL’s means no farm empty map in a few minutes.
Still some pointed out some interesting stuff that needs to be removed on the new bl’s system.

Jayne.9251:

Aye, I’m all for community training, that’s how you build a solid community. I guess I’d like to see that as the carrot, before the rewards plan is tried, since you’ll likely get more people who feel part of a team, rather than isolated part of the ktrain.

We’ve been trying that for the past 3 years, that’s not something that will entice the PvE players to WvW, they are motivated by their digital rewards. We can’t teach them there are ways to have fun without chasing some new shiny, until we get them on the map.

Xp earned in WvW should do something.

Advance a mastery track somewhere or occasionally give out rewards (like spirit shards on the old system)

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

That is false and in fact quite opposite and it has been proven.

If you have been around long enough, and remember when there was no EOTM yet, and the 1st time they improved WVW loot before they improved the PVE rewards you would know this.

When WvW loot was equal to PVE loot, yes, we got some players that just wanted to k-train, but those players just became easy pickings for us which was great. I remember consistantly wiping entire map que blobs in groups of 10-15. On some occasions we even went 8 vs full blob and still won. It was great. Can’t do that now partly because of stab change, but the other part because we need those ignorant players in WVW in order to be wiped like this. If you are new to the game and are not aware of this, you can still use google and youtube and find various vids of those times and check it out.

2nd, a LOT of those PvE players got involved in the communities, switched guilds and have become WVW players, many of whom would have not done so if they have not had a reason to enter and try out WVW in the 1st place. The rewards keep those players on a longer “trial” basis, lack of rewards makes them leave so fast they don’t end up bothering fully checking things out or hopping on TS.

On one of my old servers, that is exactly what happened and during that time our WVW group ended up going from 30ish to 150ish active steady WvW players as we recruited more and more people from PVE. And we were not the only guild that did this, there were several.

So rewards are a great and proven positive incentives for people to play WVW, lack of them does the opposite. Not just that, but it also removes lots of regular and hardcore WVW players from WVW as it is now with hero point and guild hall grinds. If for example the rewards included better hero point options in WVW and guild hall completion options in WVW then a lot of us would have come back to WVW sooner and many would have never been abscent from it as given the choices WVW is preferred. But we run out of gold, and stuff and like to play new specs, new builds (including new stats gear) and therefore go to PVE because have to grind it in order to have it in WVW.

Removal of rewards in WVW, or reward nerfs, will leave it in exactly and precisely same state as SPVP was before reward tracks, and you can dig around to see what that was like. In fact, speaking of reward tracks, it would be great to have them on top of what is currently in WVW, that would solve a great deal of reward issues.

I don’t really like the way people talk about PvE players in here like they’re some mass of backwards cavemen. Especially given how laughably inept some of my WvW guildmates have been in PvE farming guild hall stuff. They do different things, but they’re not inferior players.

Sviel.7493:

I don’t really like the way people talk about PvE players in here like they’re some mass of backwards cavemen. Especially given how laughably inept some of my WvW guildmates have been in PvE farming guild hall stuff. They do different things, but they’re not inferior players.

Wvw is a competitive mode, and if you fight like you’re fighting an NPC that makes you a pve player, 90% of the time if you approach a wvw player like they’re an NPC you’re gonna get your kitten handed to you. Thus WvW players are considered superior in our playstyle, the same could be and (you even said it) that pve players are superior in their playstyle.

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

It’s not just the lack of rewards, but the lack of rewards as compared to other modes. Those who love PvE never have to leave that game mode to get pretty much everything in the game. Those who love sPvP never really have to leave HOTM either, they have access to pretty much everything save crafting tables. And those are just a quick portal to Lions Arch away. The other game modes allow for people to play those game modes exclusively with ease and receive comparable rewards.

WvW on the other hand…not so much. Those who play WvW don’t want free loot to rain down on their heads, they just want something comparable to the other modes. They want to feel like they have everything, or nearly everything, they need without having to leave WvW to go PvE farm things.

Sviel.7493:

I don’t really like the way people talk about PvE players in here like they’re some mass of backwards cavemen. Especially given how laughably inept some of my WvW guildmates have been in PvE farming guild hall stuff. They do different things, but they’re not inferior players.

PvEers often have a different skillset and are driven by different desires in-game than a PvPer. They two groups need to be distinguished and considered for their separate needs if ANet wants to incorporate both into a more open-world type situation, instead of having it just be a PvP situation.

There has always been contention between the two groups, so it isn’t surprising to see that arise. However, that contention is silly, like most “I don’t like you because of your label” shenanigans, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Teevell.1684:

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Can’t have a war if there is nobody to fight.

There’s enough of a core wvw playerbase that it doesn’t need to be incentivized.

Nobody who loves this game mode cares much about the loot or they’d have quit years ago.

Big shiny rewards draw players focused on the loot train, with very little desire to learn map mechanics, team cooperation or community support. So they blob and never improve, because why would they if the loot keeps rolling in.

That, in itself, leads to the deterioration of the game mode.

It’s not just the lack of rewards, but the lack of rewards as compared to other modes. Those who love PvE never have to leave that game mode to get pretty much everything in the game. Those who love sPvP never really have to leave HOTM either, they have access to pretty much everything save crafting tables. And those are just a quick portal to Lions Arch away. The other game modes allow for people to play those game modes exclusively with ease and receive comparable rewards.

WvW on the other hand…not so much. Those who play WvW don’t want free loot to rain down on their heads, they just want something comparable to the other modes. They want to feel like they have everything, or nearly everything, they need without having to leave WvW to go PvE farm things.

The problem isn’t the rewards per se, but rather the impact (cause and effect) it would have on Wvw itself.

I have no issue with folks new to wvw who are curious and want to learn. Heck my server used to have scouting/siege frdays and zerg Tuesday’s, where kind folks donated time to help teach. Those are the folks I’d love to see in wvw. The ones that don’t need the shiny to try it out. Those guys become part of the team.

The rest? Not so much.

I know a lot of you want free easy walking Lootbags, but how much fun is it for them too?

Dasenthal.6520:

Wvw is a competitive mode, and if you fight like you’re fighting an NPC that makes you a pve player, 90% of the time if you approach a wvw player like they’re an NPC you’re gonna get your kitten handed to you. Thus WvW players are considered superior in our playstyle, the same could be and (you even said it) that pve players are superior in their playstyle.

I get that, but I don’t think too many people try to fight a player like an NPC. It seems plausible that one could fight one way in PvE and then switch gears for WvW. I could understand an apprehension due to uncertainty about whether any single player transitions well, but I’m seeing a wholesale discounting of anyone that enjoys more than just WvW.

Then again, I’m probably reacting to some extreme fringe. I hope that’s all it is.

I prefer people looking for reward that no people at all…
You can’t do anything with no one on the map…

And in those people searching for reward, you will have a few % who will try to learn, and maybe play other style that only following the blue tag…

I’d like to see reward paths like they have in spvp, so they also give rewards for actively defending as well as attacking, killing players, etc. Sitting in the tower doing nothing would give little to no reward, to stop people leeching.

With the current Desert(ed) BL there is literally no reason to log on to it, as I have better uses of my time than to run around a pretty map seeing no enemies in an hour, and progressing not one iota towards any sort of reward, as well as having zero fun.

Some people might feel it is the pinnacle of excitement to stand in a keep chatting on ts for an hour doing nothing, wondering if anyone will attack, but it’s not my scene.

Casuals make up the majority of the numbers in wvw, whether the ‘elite’ players like it or not, and unless they figure out some way of drawing in more players wvw looks like a ghost town.

I’ve resorted to going to EoTM for fights and wvw levels to collect enough HP for my Revenant (playing mesmer)- at least in EoTM you know you will encounter enemies.

What is the reward for non professional Baseball or Soccer players? As I know, they don’t get dollar-rewards for the win but they still play year after year this game. They will tell you that they do it just for fun and maybe for the honour to climb in team-rank.

In comparison to a real life game: tell me why people play WvW? Isn’t there something more than just a virtual medal?

Boa

Though I appreciate the argument of “people should play WvW because they want”, I also think that reward more on par with other game modes would be needed.

With all the new HoT shinies, I hardly go in WvW anymore. I used to be a hardcore player. I spent all my money on siege, on helping commanders or scout, I would get off the main bus to solo a camp or scout a contest, didn’t bother much about tower caps, the mere fact of being on TS with friends was enought.
From 15 or so, we are now down to under 5. We don’t cap fast enough to avoid T4, forts are out of our reach, I don’t make enough in WvW to make up the increased costs of capping structures, camp soloing got way harder, and so on.

Before belt pouches we would go in our server’s lion’s Arch and cities to inform people something was going on in WvW, and convince them to join.

That allowed us to keep our numbers somewhat stable, to renew the population, get new faces in WvW. We could get people for golem rushes, last minute, desesperate defense with few risks of alerting foes.

That way to renew the population and get people yo join fun events that would surprise the adversaries is now hardly possible.

What do we have left to call on our server’s troops?
They need to be brought to WvW, to not have the impression that they are “missing out” on opportunities. I also need it. My guild needs it.

Right now, WvW needs to go in PvE to get hall advancement items, gold, the crafter needed to get guild siege, and so on. How is it that pve guilds can claim wvw forts, while wvw guilds hardly got to buffing camps?

(Sorry ideas not in order because wroting on a phone makes reorganisation hard)

All the * tunnels and kitten annoys me, you need to move 10m but you have to run 5km to get 10m because its a * Cliff so you have to run around but then its blocked so you have to run around that all the way to South off map to get up 10m from were you started.