Guild Wars 2

Dear devs: Please re-evaluate ‘your’ community input practices

I’m going to try keep this simple, lets just look at 2 specific scenarios (there are others) to illustrate a point:

Scenario 1:
-May 6th: Someone claiming to be a commander from the start of the game, asking for the return of pvd in response to hardened gates existing. No valid reasoning other than ‘fun’ and ‘nostalgia’ was given for this request.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Time-to-nerf-some-Guild-Buffs-Scribing/first#post6180122

-June 1st
Hardened gates nerfed from 100% to 50%. No reason given. This was recent, and the reasons as to why this is a big deal can be easily researched if you haven’t already experienced them ingame.

Scenario 2:
-Community members demand the removal of Desert bl and the replacement of alpine bl.
-Many votes and forums are created by these community members and submitted across the interwebs.
-The wvsw team is changed and this request is granted after citing a legitimate “vote” that had occurred, in which the majority of the community said they wanted alpine redone and to replace the present desert bl. Here is the link to this “vote” https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Your-top-5-priorities-for-WvW-Overhaul/first

And the thread identifying the vote and citing where it took place:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Two weeks ago we polled the WvW community about Desert versus Alpine borderlands. The majority of players asked us to bring Alpine back. We’ll do that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upcoming-changes-in-Spring-Quarterly-Update/first

That was the “majority” vote that took place. I mean can anyone spot any problems with calling this a legitimate community polling….? There were tons of threads like that one posted daily during those chaotic months. Anet just happened to pick one they liked, that wasn’t even aimed at the issue specifically, and used it as a poll to determine whether the majority of players want desert replaced with alpine.

Analysis of both scenarios:

I mean who is gonna be spending the most time on these threads typing the same thing overand over….people who are “complaining” about stuff who want a specific change! People who are “happy” with the current state aren’t gonna be there commenting on the thread en masse….the percentage that is there will be divided between commenting about other stuff on that thread, and commenting against these supposed “invisible Polls”.

I think community voice is great and all, and I am in full support of the legitimate unbiased (against community bias anyways) polls that have been done by anet the past month.

However, I find it very very questionable how they are going about deciding to ‘make’ changes based on community feedback. Honestly it seems to be a case of whoever is whining is winning when it comes to getting their voices heard. Making a posting wanting something and then getting 50 of ur zerg members to go online and ‘like it’ for the sake of their specific playstyle (k-train perhaps..?) is a very real thing that happens. There needs a logical basis for granting these requests though, one that improves the actual gamemode rather than someone’s sense of fun. There are plenty of others examples I can cite that are just like these (feel free to list some urself), and the point to take away from them is all the same it seems.

It fosters an environment where the forums devolve into a spat. It’s already happening to a large degree right now. You can see it happening: On every single thread people will see the need to fully represent their position on all their views, at the expense of actual discussion, on the chance that there might be an ‘invisible polling’ chosen to be done on that specific thread.

Tl:DR: I feel Whining = winning when getting the things you want for wvsw lately, and rationale and logics need not apply. This is concerning, and I honestly am hoping for a dev response of some kind here or elsewhere to address this.

In regards to dbl…its not only just community/forum feedback, there are actual raw numbers to compare activity levels. There was a massive dropoff in player activity, there is just no getting around it. With the hardened gates change, well I still don’t understand that one, it seems a bit much to me.

Scenario 3
Guild Sieges badges of tribute requirement reduced from 5 to 1

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/100-badges-of-tribute-for-a-statue

Wait, I’m sure that was welcomed, or not?

I would prefer they actually email their surveys including write in answers as they did and used to create this game in the first place. They did send out email surveys after HOT to some players, but what I would really like to see them do in regards to WvW is send them out to every WvW player over a certain rank, past or present to actually see what the WvW community wants rather than do random surveys on the forums open to anyone, including their multiple accounts with low WvW ranks or players that have never stepped foot into WvW.

Reaching out to the WvW community specifically, including those that may have left the game over decisions that have been made would be the best way to gauge what the wvw community wants and how to increase their player base for that community. The way they are currently doing the polls do not accomplish that, nor does it reach out to those who already lost hope that the developers would ever listen to them. I think that would make a real difference in how these things turn out and how effective these things actually change the game for the better to increase the population of the game mode and have it grow instead of shrink.

Pretty much nobody saw the hardened change coming. ANet fell back into their old ways on that change and while it isn’t a game breaking change it didn’t do them any favors. Leaving it out of the patch notes would have been the cherry on top of that kitten change.

While I am no fan of DBL, I would rather have it in the mix each week since it offers variety. To me more variety in WvW maps is better than the same maps which tend to get stale. I believe that sentiment is reflected in the polling.

Cerby.1069:

Dear devs: Please re-evaluate ‘your’ community input practices

I’m going to try keep this simple, lets just look at 2 specific scenarios (there are others) to illustrate a point:

Scenario 1:
-May 6th: Someone claiming to be a commander from the start of the game, asking for the return of pvd in response to hardened gates existing. No valid reasoning other than ‘fun’ and ‘nostalgia’ was given for this request.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Time-to-nerf-some-Guild-Buffs-Scribing/first#post6180122

-June 1st
Hardened gates nerfed from 100% to 50%. No reason given. This was recent, and the reasons as to why this is a big deal can be easily researched if you haven’t already experienced them ingame.

Scenario 2:
-Community members demand the removal of Desert bl and the replacement of alpine bl.
-Many votes and forums are created by these community members and submitted across the interwebs.
-The wvsw team is changed and this request is granted after citing a legitimate “vote” that had occurred, in which the majority of the community said they wanted alpine redone and to replace the present desert bl. Here is the link to this “vote” https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Your-top-5-priorities-for-WvW-Overhaul/first

And the thread identifying the vote and citing where it took place:

Mike O Brien.4613:

Two weeks ago we polled the WvW community about Desert versus Alpine borderlands. The majority of players asked us to bring Alpine back. We’ll do that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upcoming-changes-in-Spring-Quarterly-Update/first

That was the “majority” vote that took place. I mean can anyone spot any problems with calling this a legitimate community polling….? There were tons of threads like that one posted daily during those chaotic months. Anet just happened to pick one they liked, that wasn’t even aimed at the issue specifically, and used it as a poll to determine whether the majority of players want desert replaced with alpine.

Analysis of both scenarios:

I mean who is gonna be spending the most time on these threads typing the same thing overand over….people who are “complaining” about stuff who want a specific change! People who are “happy” with the current state aren’t gonna be there commenting on the thread en masse….the percentage that is there will be divided between commenting about other stuff on that thread, and commenting against these supposed “invisible Polls”.

I think community voice is great and all, and I am in full support of the legitimate unbiased (against community bias anyways) polls that have been done by anet the past month.

However, I find it very very questionable how they are going about deciding to ‘make’ changes based on community feedback. Honestly it seems to be a case of whoever is whining is winning when it comes to getting their voices heard. Making a posting wanting something and then getting 50 of ur zerg members to go online and ‘like it’ for the sake of their specific playstyle (k-train perhaps..?) is a very real thing that happens. There needs a logical basis for granting these requests though, one that improves the actual gamemode rather than someone’s sense of fun. There are plenty of others examples I can cite that are just like these (feel free to list some urself), and the point to take away from them is all the same it seems.

It fosters an environment where the forums devolve into a spat. It’s already happening to a large degree right now. You can see it happening: On every single thread people will see the need to fully represent their position on all their views, at the expense of actual discussion, on the chance that there might be an ‘invisible polling’ chosen to be done on that specific thread.

Tl:DR: I feel Whining = winning when getting the things you want for wvsw lately, and rationale and logics need not apply. This is concerning, and I honestly am hoping for a dev response of some kind here or elsewhere to address this.

I agree with your line of thought. The door thing should have definetly been a poll.

The polls system is better then just going by postings and ravings.

I would like to see at least 1 in game WVW e-mail every time there is a new poll, so all players that play it are aware of it. Many do not visit the forums and the poll results will be skewed by those that do.

I think an e-mail, like they did with the 1st one would go a long way towards rectifying that situation.

Yea, I like the idea of in game emails notifying players of polls. Seems to have worked pretty good so far.

desert is superior to alpine, numbers show alpine was the cause of dead wvw before hot and with hot and desert we see a big increase in activity in wvw again. Then when they removed desert the numbers started to plummet again and wvw is now dead.

TallBarr.2184:

desert is superior to alpine, numbers show alpine was the cause of dead wvw before hot and with hot and desert we see a big increase in activity in wvw again. Then when they removed desert the numbers started to plummet again and wvw is now dead.

Lol what?

I have another theory as to why hardened gates was changed, it could possibly be related to the upcoming scoring changes, specifically the ppt timer being reduced to 5mins. In which case I can see how things like this would become to much of an obstacle for earning points.

X T D.6458:

TallBarr.2184:

desert is superior to alpine, numbers show alpine was the cause of dead wvw before hot and with hot and desert we see a big increase in activity in wvw again. Then when they removed desert the numbers started to plummet again and wvw is now dead.

Lol what?

Same response lol. All these kids with their crazy numbers and statistics ya know.

PPT – Point per tap

Just gonna leave that there

X T D.6458:

I have another theory as to why hardened gates was changed, it could possibly be related to the upcoming scoring changes, specifically the ppt timer being reduced to 5mins. In which case I can see how things like this would become to much of an obstacle for earning points.

That makes no sense. Are they going to dump that 5 minute RI too. That is an obstacle to earning points.

Its not like an objective gets flipped 12 times an hour with the current 15 minute tick.

IF I had to guess, the PvD damage buff is intended to benefit/encourage blobs. Lets not pretend that its anything else.

TorquedSoul.8097:

X T D.6458:

I have another theory as to why hardened gates was changed, it could possibly be related to the upcoming scoring changes, specifically the ppt timer being reduced to 5mins. In which case I can see how things like this would become to much of an obstacle for earning points.

That makes no sense. Are they going to dump that 5 minute RI too. That is an obstacle to earning points.

Its not like an objective gets flipped 12 times an hour with the current 15 minute tick.

IF I had to guess, the PvD damage buff is intended to benefit/encourage blobs. Lets not pretend that its anything else.

How do you know the RI timer wont be reduced as well?

I believe they actually said that the RI timer wasnt going to change when they mentioned the 5 minute scoring cycle, simply because they wanted to make it so that if you capped something, you had it for at least one tick.

Bash.7291:

I believe they actually said that the RI timer wasnt going to change when they mentioned the 5 minute scoring cycle, simply because they wanted to make it so that if you capped something, you had it for at least one tick.

Ah thanks

Cerby.1069:

That was the “majority” vote that took place. I mean can anyone spot any problems with calling this a legitimate community polling….? There were tons of threads like that one posted daily during those chaotic months. Anet just happened to pick one they liked, that wasn’t even aimed at the issue specifically, and used it as a poll to determine whether the majority of players want desert replaced with alpine.

I’ve got severe issues with the current poll driven direction at such a granular level but to be fair that was before they implemented the current formal polls and they brought ABL back for a rotation so the DBL wasn’t going to be scrapped. And they are now having a poll on the DBL which will resolve the issue once and for all.

They have been ignoring wvw for almost 3 years or so now. And now that they “major wvw update” (desert borderlands) failed, they realize there are other ‘realm vs realm’ games breathing down their neck. xD

TallBarr.2184:

desert is superior to alpine, numbers show alpine was the cause of dead wvw before hot and with hot and desert we see a big increase in activity in wvw again. Then when they removed desert the numbers started to plummet again and wvw is now dead.

lol? It’s the desert borderlands that put the nail in the wvw “coffin”. If you are interested in a full read on what went wrong with wvw then read this awesome post by Phantom.8130
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Can-someone-explain-what-went-wrong-with-WvW/first#post6081948

X T D.6458:

TallBarr.2184:

desert is superior to alpine, numbers show alpine was the cause of dead wvw before hot and with hot and desert we see a big increase in activity in wvw again. Then when they removed desert the numbers started to plummet again and wvw is now dead.

Lol what?

He’s attempting to rewrite history. As if no one was around to know the difference. Just like the OP is whining to win his precious PvD DBL map. Yet, he’s complaining of others whining to win and wanting to PvD. So, it’s fine when he does it but, it’s terribly bad when others do it too.

As if real life politics weren’t depressing enough….. smh

Okay let’s be honest here, the desert borderlands actually weren’t that bad, and either is the hardened gate nerf. It’s not like the gate nerf is going to make it so zergs can get through gates at blazing speeds, if anything it will speed it up by only a few seconds. As for the DBL, that wasn’t so bad either the only problems were that it was too big and that is was different. Neither of these are actual problems, people just tend to overreact when theres a change.

Cerby.1069:

Tl:DR: I feel Whining = winning when getting the things you want for wvsw lately, and rationale and logics need not apply. This is concerning, and I honestly am hoping for a dev response of some kind here or elsewhere to address this.

This certainly applies to your post. As others have said, the reason why DBL were removed is because people didn’t like to play them. It was not unusual to see large queues on EB and empty maps on the BL. ANET has the stats to back that up. Actual playtime is more important than any other logic that you think should be applied.