Guild Wars 2

When I started playing in WvW, it felt like a grandiose thing. So much potential. It felt like with strategy and team play, we could have epic battles over keeps and towers! Guilds being proud of holding their points. Players being deployed for strategic strikes into enemy territory. War! Glory! Death!

Instead, we have zergs rolling over keeps in 4 minutes flat, campers in jumping puzzles (why are those even there?) waiting for the easy prey, and those who shelled out 100g for their commander icon being less and less motivated to try and do anything. Why bother?

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way. You can just go run some dungeons in pve, and come back later. Capturing is much easier than defending, and this is a major impediment to wvw game play. It’s completely meaningless to hold a point when it’s much easier to wait for the zerg to move on and capture the point back. All of which takes maybe ten minutes.

Why would anyone bother with strategy and organization, when you just need two dozen mindless zerglings thrown at the gate?

Supply yaks are weak and slow. It takes hours to get a meaningful amount of supply to any point, and that’s if there’s nobody ganking the yaks… But that would be fine if trying to get them alive past anything that so much as sneezes their way wasn’t the only way to get supply to a keep. And good luck trying to stop anyone from just ganking the yak from under your nose after walking with it for half an hour. Event failed. You suck. Of course, you can do supply runs yourself. For ten supply. Like that’s gonna do anything about repairing a wall or gate. Maybe you were lucky and the point you’re trying to defend hasn’t been flipped 30 times in the last 5 hours, and there’s actually some supply left in the pad.

The only bad part about dying is having to walk back. Death is completely meaningless, just like everything else. You loose nothing, except for twenty minutes of running across map. And dying is so easy… I have never gotten even just a slight feeling of competition when fighting someone. Nine times out of ten, it’s completely one sided, be it because the other guy pulled 20 friends out of his back pocket, or because you’re simply fighting a profession you can’t handle well. And when I win, it generally feels like I was fighting a white critter. Hit em twice and they fall over… And yet, dying feels so frustrating. When I die, I usually know that there was nothing I could have done better to prevent my death. Which just makes it worse.

You know who loves WvW? The same people who play pirates in Eve Online. Those who live for nothing but the tears of those who dare crossing their path. Those who don’t give half a kitten about points, strategy, team play, or anything at all besides their own power issues. WvW is a paradise for these people. The rest of us are left with hopes that we might someday be able to deal with all the grief that floats in the mists. And yet WvW looked like such a great feature…

you are why there are so many zerglings in wvw, people that make no effort to understand how the game works before crying about how unfair everything is.

while there are issues with wvw, what you laid out isn’t one of them, your issues are you and your server is bad.

wads.5730:

you are why there are so many zerglings in wvw, people that make no effort to understand how the game works before crying about how unfair everything is.

I actually try pretty hard, mind you, and succeed pretty often in whatever I’m trying to get done. I just feel like it’s all pretty pointless. The only reason I do it, is because it’s what my guild does, and through playing with my friends I have fun. Let me say that again: I have fun in wvw; not because of wvw and it’s mechanics, but because I share the experience with my friends.

As for not understanding the game, I’d love to learn more.

I would suggest, calming down xD WvW is no doubt one of the best gameplay features in GW2, if no the best!

It seems you are suffering from a lack of organisation on the part of both yourself and your Server – for just a couple:-

You DO place siege before enemies turn up, all you have to do is refresh it, go up and press F, and there you go, another 30 mins, also I hear it stays many hours should you hit an enemy with it.
Zergs do not run over Keeps, unless they are extremely good – I have a feeling you are talking about T1 Keeps rather than the normal fully upgraded types.
I have never seen 2 dozen mindless people take a Tower, 24 people is nowhere near enough to take down a T3 Tower, they will shatter on the defenses…
Death is easier to avoid if you gear yourself up correctly, work with team mates, and know your class, anyone of any class, provided playing well, can beat another
Dolyaks are always decent, we protect ours, and upgrade camps, that way they double supply runs and the Tower upgrades quicker.

I believe your Server is probably too geared towards PvE, not caring enough about WvW to excel, and you have low population, along with either a surplus of moronic Commanders or a lack of any, a good one can make all the difference!
Try WvW on a higher tier Server, I would suggest either Gandara (though taking a beating this week) we have a high resolve and determination level, and a lot of good players despite a lot of Randoms running after the next Karma giving event; or Piken Square, which is comprised mainly of many Guilds that know how to fight, along with the best Guild I have seen as of yet on GW2, Red Guard, they hit like a freight train. Although I’m not entirely happy with the attitudes of certain Forum Warriors, there is no doubt they are very good at what they do, which is Strategy and coordination.

Ye

I would suggest trying other servers to see how they play it. You probably don’t have the right crowd to truly immerse yourself into the game. If you’re not using voice comms at all, that would probably get boring and aggravating fast.

mkaito.6981:

When I started playing in WvW, it felt like a grandiose thing. So much potential. It felt like with strategy and team play, we could have epic battles over keeps and towers! Guilds being proud of holding their points. Players being deployed for strategic strikes into enemy territory. War! Glory! Death!

Exactly the experience I’ve been having in WvW since BWE #2.

mkaito.6981:

You know who loves WvW? The same people who play pirates in Eve Online. Those who live for nothing but the tears of those who dare crossing their path. Those who don’t give half a kitten about points, strategy, team play, or anything at all besides their own power issues. WvW is a paradise for these people. The rest of us are left with hopes that we might someday be able to deal with all the grief that floats in the mists. And yet WvW looked like such a great feature…

What the hell are you even doing in WvW? What kind of server are you in? Join a decent WvW guild, get on VOIP, coorinate and capture objectives, defend it.

All your points are flawed, since it is very subjective and have no relevance to most serious WvW players. Defending is fun as much as capturing, one well-placed siege can shut down the whole enemy assult. WvW is not about 1v1 combat, and from what I see on your writing you seem like a very underskilled player as well. Mobility and escape skills are very important in WvW such as blink, rush stealth or stun breakers.

Learn WvW and try again.

If you don’t mind me asking, what server are you on that is acting this way?

mkaito.6981:

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way.

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts. They came back a little while later with about 50 people and 6 of us held them off despite that they had set up a catapault, flame ram, and two trebuchets.

The point being that defending a keep or a tower is far from hopeless, even if you’re outnumbered. It sounds like your own attitude and inexperience are what keep you from succeeding.

Sorry to say this (because you seem like an earnest player), but all of the points you list are not problems with WvW … they are problems with the way that you or your guild/server are playing it. None of those items are issues if you deal with them properly.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

mkaito.6981:

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way.

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts. They came back a little while later with about 50 people and 6 of us held them off despite that they had set up a catapault, flame ram, and two trebuchets.

The point being that defending a keep or a tower is far from hopeless, even if you’re outnumbered. It sounds like your own attitude and inexperience are what keep you from succeeding.

I think that’s pretty awesome. I wonder how you did that, though.

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Well there’s also the bonuses everyone on your server gets the higher your score…

Chessrook.8643:

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Well there’s also the bonuses everyone on your server gets the higher your score…

xD The best of those bonuses is the gathering bonus. It is the only bonus that can technically reward you. At best, just before the reset, it can be as much as 20% in theory. So if you spend those hours running around orr and gather stuff worth of 5gold you have now actually made 1 gold more! Yaaaaaaaaay!
You would have profited a lot more by just running fractals ofc, but yay anyway!

I just can’t find much joy from wvw anymore like I used to. Now that people know all the tricks and always abuse them, it’s just a tar ball fest for me. It was more fun when people were new to it and nobody really knew what to do.

mkaito.6981:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

mkaito.6981:

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way.

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts. They came back a little while later with about 50 people and 6 of us held them off despite that they had set up a catapault, flame ram, and two trebuchets.

The point being that defending a keep or a tower is far from hopeless, even if you’re outnumbered. It sounds like your own attitude and inexperience are what keep you from succeeding.

I think that’s pretty awesome. I wonder how you did that, though.

I’ve done this too. It feels pretty great. It’s all about placing and building the siege before the enemy zerg shows up or else they’ll see the siege prints you dropped and start AoE’ing it. There are times when you just can’t stop the zerg. Gotta take the loss and keep trucking.

At OP, I’d highly recommend switching servers and joining a guild if that has been your experience in WvW. Different servers are in different metas due to what they’ve experienced. In general, larger populations force more competition, which then generates better strategy. WvW is kind of like a canvas and paint brush…anyone can play but it’s up to you and the other participants to make it something truly amazing.

Haldunius.7864:

mkaito.6981:

EnemyCrusher.7324:

mkaito.6981:

Defenders are barely able to stand on their own walls due to mass AoE, let alone actually shoot back. You better had siege placed and ready, because there’s no way you’re deploying a full defence set up before they break the gate. And they better arrive within the 30 minutes it takes the blueprints to despawn. But why bother? The zerg is going to roll over you either way.

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts. They came back a little while later with about 50 people and 6 of us held them off despite that they had set up a catapault, flame ram, and two trebuchets.

The point being that defending a keep or a tower is far from hopeless, even if you’re outnumbered. It sounds like your own attitude and inexperience are what keep you from succeeding.

I think that’s pretty awesome. I wonder how you did that, though.

I’ve done this too. It feels pretty great. It’s all about placing and building the siege before the enemy zerg shows up or else they’ll see the siege prints you dropped and start AoE’ing it. There are times when you just can’t stop the zerg. Gotta take the loss and keep trucking.

At OP, I’d highly recommend switching servers and joining a guild if that has been your experience in WvW. Different servers are in different metas due to what they’ve experienced. In general, larger populations force more competition, which then generates better strategy. WvW is kind of like a canvas and paint brush…anyone can play but it’s up to you and the other participants to make it something truly amazing.

Defending a semi-zerg with 6 people feels great, but what is the canvas offering you for it? The more efficient (and safer) strategy is to simply let the enemy have it then retake it 5 minutes later when they all move to zerg something else as soon as they get the tower (same reason why you’d let them take it in the first place – what is the canvas offering for them to defend what they just took?). The “better strategy” you’re talking about doesn’t necessarily mean the “fun strategy” and as you can see strategy is very much affected by what your canvas offers as rewards and incentives. If, for example, defending was given larger rewards than taking a tower (and for the sake of argument also somehow scaled by the people ratio of defenders to attackers so that the more outnumbered you are the more rewards you get), a lot more people would be sitting around in towers and camps or dolyaks to defend. It could even be more of a camping game and the zergs could be significantly smaller in size. As you can see my example wasn’t a possible solution, it’s how WvW changes strategy. So I don’t blame the OP if the canvas wasn’t to his likings, because his gameplay experience does reflect what a lot of other WvWers see as problems.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Last week I singlehandedly defended a keep (without guild buffs) against a group of 20-25 invaders who tried setting up two arrow carts.

No offence but you would only have been able to do that against dumb opponents.

This is siege warfare for the A.D.D. instant gratification generation. It’s far too easy. That’s the market today though so I would not expect anything else… I’d rather have the daoc days back.

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

If that’s your attitude, then why play sports? It’s all for some abstract numbers on board, right? Why read books? They are just some words on paper, right?

I like competition. My guild and my server gets out there and plays to win the match. We play to win the battles. We don’t always win, but we try like heck.

patricide.1062:

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Not that I have ever cared for sports, but yeah, playing sports pays real well and it

If that’s your attitude, then why play sports? It’s all for some abstract numbers on board, right?

Don’t try to refute my point with two awfully far-fetched analogies. Here, I draw you a picture about what I mean: in Eve online, you can for example fight with other corporations (guilds) to conquer areas that have valuable resources. This means that the fight has a goal: to get valuable resources that benefit your guild. Or in some cases you could be defending for your corporations home lands.

No such thing here. You just fight for some abstract numbers that reset every week. I personally could care less who has most of these points. They are just as meaningless as the abstract line between kurzicks and luxons was in Guild Wars 1. However, I certainly would care to fight for something that would benefit my guild and guildies.

Yeah, I quess the points show what server is the best. But what do I care about who is the best? I just want to fight for something that gives something to me and my friends in the game.

Master of Timespace.2548:

patricide.1062:

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Not that I have ever cared for sports, but yeah, playing sports pays real well and it

If that’s your attitude, then why play sports? It’s all for some abstract numbers on board, right?

Don’t try to refute my point with two awfully far-fetched analogies. Here, I draw you a picture about what I mean: in Eve online, you can for example fight with other corporations (guilds) to conquer areas that have valuable resources. This means that the fight has a goal: to get valuable resources that benefit your guild. Or in some cases you could be defending for your corporations home lands.

No such thing here. You just fight for some abstract numbers that reset every week. I personally could care less who has most of these points. They are just as meaningless as the abstract line between kurzicks and luxons was in Guild Wars 1. However, I certainly would care to fight for something that would benefit my guild and guildies.

Yeah, I quess the points show what server is the best. But what do I care about who is the best? I just want to fight for something that gives something to me and my friends in the game.

So if you don’t like it…. don’t play.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Numbers are important but without a good leader, the zerg just falls apart. Besides, I’ve seen quite a few good counter zerg or well organized defenses.

As for benefits, there are some small gathering/hp/gold etc bonuses from wvw. It’s not much but it benefits the whole server.

patricide.1062:

Master of Timespace.2548:

patricide.1062:

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

Not that I have ever cared for sports, but yeah, playing sports pays real well and it

If that’s your attitude, then why play sports? It’s all for some abstract numbers on board, right?

Don’t try to refute my point with two awfully far-fetched analogies. Here, I draw you a picture about what I mean: in Eve online, you can for example fight with other corporations (guilds) to conquer areas that have valuable resources. This means that the fight has a goal: to get valuable resources that benefit your guild. Or in some cases you could be defending for your corporations home lands.

No such thing here. You just fight for some abstract numbers that reset every week. I personally could care less who has most of these points. They are just as meaningless as the abstract line between kurzicks and luxons was in Guild Wars 1. However, I certainly would care to fight for something that would benefit my guild and guildies.

Yeah, I quess the points show what server is the best. But what do I care about who is the best? I just want to fight for something that gives something to me and my friends in the game.

So if you don’t like it…. don’t play.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Yaay! No, it wasn’t hard to quess that you’d eventually end up saying this triviality! You know, my point still holds: the points are meaningless.

As for benefits, there are some small gathering/hp/gold etc bonuses from wvw. It’s not much but it benefits the whole server.

And? Why would I care more about my world’s stranger than Piken Square’s stranger? And in any case, those bonuses are just mariginal.

We have epic battles everyday on my server cluster. This week has been the most competetive yet. Your server is doing it wrong if this is your experience in WvW. Those arbitrary numbers have meaning to all of us, this is a competition and we want to win.

As far as a mindless zerg is all you need. Wrong! There have been numerous time I am in a group of 10 or less and we manage to hold off a zerg of PuGs. A coordianted group vs. another coordinated group = hours of fun. On Friday reset this week we defended our Garrison against 2 huge zergs from the other 2 servers for like 4 hours and managed to keep it and get upgrades going. If you want to have fun in WvW:

Join a server that has a good WvW presence.
Join a guild that has scheduled WvW events
If you see a commander tome – go to it (after a while you will start to recognize who the good commanders are and follow them)

How not to have fun in WvW:

Play on a server with dead WvW
Join a guild that casually runs into WvW to play in the JP
Run around alone haphazardly toward crossed swords

IMO WvW is the best part of the game if you get with a good WvW guild. We try out new startegies every week. We have groups that specialize in completing certain objectives (ie. groups that just ninja camps, or for just defending siege). It is far from a zergfest to me.

In Aion, the Legion who were holding a fort was receiving daily kinah (gold) and medals ( for pvp gear).
It would be interesting to see this kind of system in WvW. Guilds would be more motivated to upgrade and hold their forts. + They would have to keep good relationship with other guilds on the server if they need help when they are under attack.

Actualy, it’s a pure waste of gold and time to upgrade a tower with the zerg mentality. Same for defending. Just lose it and retake it 5 minutes later, you’ll do more money/xp/karma this way.

Nausicca.6038:

In Aion, the Legion who were holding a fort was receiving daily kinah (gold) and medals ( for pvp gear).

That would indeed be very interesting.

To everyone above talking about epic point defense, are there any videos where I can see such things? All I have ever seen is people getting killed on the walls and the zerg running the the door 3 minutes after arriving. It’s painful to watch.

This video starts with some tower defense and moves into some other action but gives you a good idea of great defense and how to bust a zerg 5x your size:

I blame thieves

Some reasons why WvW in its current state is extremely lame.

-Massive guilds exploiting free transfers to leave servers in higher tiers unable to compete at that tier any longer. Also allowing them to completely steamroll other servers at the lower tier levels they deserted too.

-Anet allowing the above point which makes rankings of any kind just plain idiotic and is ruining many WvW players enjoyment in the process.

-Thieves and stealth in general id just plain broken. Which I believe is because of culling which is because of over population due to loser guilds exploiting the free transfer system that Anet for whatever reason will not suspend.

-Mesmers, very lame having a class pop out clones left and right and stealth on top of it. Whoever thought this class in its current state belonged in WvW should share whatever it is they are puffing cause i want some. Portal Bombs? Really?

- Culling, see above. Most likely cause by allowing kitten guilds 2 drop down from higher tiers to over populate lower tier servers and run in huge Zergs which need to be culled so we can maybe move a few feet a minute.

- Bad design due to the above reasons and some of the OP’s reasons as well.

Want to make things better Anet? Immediately shutdown all free transfers and put all servers into tiers decided by their populations. Once this happens then they can use their current ranking system which may take a few weeks to sort itself out but then we will have a half decently ranked system and these morons who cant handle losing a single matchup will have to fork over real money to move. Which will most assuredly stop these 400+ person guilds from completely skewing the rankings and ruining the fun of those that actually fight for and have pride in their servers.

Until Anet stops the massive transfers nonsense then WvW will continue to be a broken zergfest and rankings should be suspended as they are nowhere close to being accurate and are really just redundant right now anyway. I believe stopping free transfers will also go a long way to solving the culling problem. At least for many players that dont run away from their servers. Although it might not help those stuck on servers who got flooded b y these guilds. Maybe Anet could allow a 1 time server transfer for those stuck on over populated servers but I dunno.

patricide.1062:

Master of Timespace.2548:

WvW is a ridiculous monkey zergfest and any gamer that comes from a mmo that has REAL open world pvp would laugh at it. Who even gives a flying **** wheter your world wins or not . In a few days it starts again anyway. and you gain nothing no matter what you did. Not to mention those towers that are repainted 10 times a day.

You fight, fight and fight, but for what? For some abstract points that appear at the top of your screen? Very interesting.

If that’s your attitude, then why play sports? It’s all for some abstract numbers on board, right? Why read books? They are just some words on paper, right?

I like competition. My guild and my server gets out there and plays to win the match. We play to win the battles. We don’t always win, but we try like heck.

he also seems to forget the better you do the more % go up on things like drop rates and such. so the better your server dose the more points you get, over all adds to how well your sever dose in the grande economy

this is a big part of why TC keeps fighting even when were in last. we push this way of thinking on our server.

Well, if your server ensured all towers and keeps have “backup supply”, arrow carts should be build. 3 nicely placed ACs will decimate a zerg. I’ve seen 4-5 people hold off a zerg of 30 with smart tactics and siege.

If you don’t have superior numbers, have superior firepower

What I’m reading in the original post is someone who isn’t involved in the comms for the people who are making WvW really happen on the server they play on. Maybe the server they play on doesn’t organise well.

I’d suggest getting onboard with the people who organise properly and being involved in making things happen. It is such a game changing experience.