Guild Wars 2

I can’t help get the feeling that the overflow map will be just as unbalanced as the main WvW maps are, and that unless there’s some feature that helps a smaller force defend better against a larger force, that this map will just mirror the main WvW maps.

If I’m on a server that can que one map tops and going up against another server that queues three, I don’t think I’d have fun playing on the overflow map or any of the other WvW maps.

I understand that you can’t give any specific information yet, but was this map something like a concept of Edge of the Mists, or that was an entirely different area?

During off-hours in the lower tiered servers it’s virtually impossible to find enemy players already. Adding another map will reduce the chance of doing so even more.

1 Question: I have heard about this idea for a new open area inside the jumping puzzle on Eternal Battle Grounds which would be ideal for guilds to battle each other (GvG, not its intend purpose i know but u know what I mean), is this map the same idea or instead of etc? in other words in addition to this new map is this area in jumping puzzle EB still happening if it was happening that is?

Twinny.9304:

1 Question: I have heard about this idea for a new open area inside the jumping puzzle on Eternal Battle Grounds which would be ideal for guilds to battle each other (GvG, not its intend purpose i know but u know what I mean), is this map the same idea or instead of etc? in other words in addition to this new map is this area in jumping puzzle EB still happening if it was happening that is?

Anet answered before that if there would be a team creating content for GvG, it wouldn’t be the WvW team.

The Obsidian Sanctum map seems to be completely different to this map where there are still WvW related objectives like keeps, camps, etc.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anet answered before that if there would be a team creating content for GvG, it wouldn’t be the WvW team.

I know that and that’s why I said not it’s intended purpose.

DevonCarver.5370:

Niim.9260:

First I generally like this idea. I think it can solve a lot of issues unrelated to ques and I look forward to seeing how it is implemented.

That said, this solution is really about helping those that have stacked to T1 at the expense of everyone else. This will have a negative impact on servers already struggling population wise and it will have a cascading effect on unbalanced match-ups, which is really most match-ups.

My question, for the FAQ, is how do you predict the new map will effect unbalanced match-ups? I am not asking you to solve the problem here, but I want to know that they are known issues.

The first point is that, regardless of the number of worlds that see queues, there are still tens of thousands of people in queues on a daily basis. As we launch in new territories, we are currently in Beta in China, we want to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone.

The second, and larger point, is that this map is not intended to solve the unbalanced servers issues. This is a first step towards a few things.
1) We are creating a place that we can test significant changes to WvW in a near to live environment. This will help us make major changes to the meta, scoring, etc. while being reasonably confident in the results of those changes.
2) Some of the things we are building into this map are the first step towards eventually making headway on the server imbalance issues. We have some ideas that we are going to implement, but the first step is eliminating the queue. We’ve seen, regularly, that when we make a major change to WvW, people flood the game type and get stuck in queues. This will allow them to at least experience some of WvW when those changes occur.

I hope that explains it.

2) The problem with server population is that people transfer up. They’ve done so for 14+ months now. They’ll continue to transfer up even if you bring them into the low tiers. There’s barely any guilds right now to have a large community that a MMO should have in the low tiers.

Any PvE guild that wants WvW just needs to ask for gold from tier 1. They can then recruit in the low tiers to get gold for transfer for PUGs as well. Mass recruitment for transferring to higher tiers of pugs and other guilds is one of the last hilarious acts of a big low tier guild being bought by a high tier server.

Like, it’s great you plan to have PvE folk show up on my server. Are these people gonna know what to do in WvW? Nope. Are they gonna know people that know what to do? Nope. Is anyone gonna be on to help them? Nope. There’s just not enough WvW guilds or commanders to be around. But there are enough tier 1 recruiters that I’ve never met a low tier guild over 100 people that hasn’t had an offer given to them.

The server imbalance issue isn’t that there is an imbalance. It’s that the imbalance grows bigger, to the point that people show up in WvW and the maps are dead. They can’t find fights. I don’t care about people who can’t WvW because they’re in queue. I can’t WvW because the borderlands are empty, save for some PvD karma trains that leave a map as soon as they meet resistance for a different empty.

I think it’s ridiculous you’re making a map for people who don’t have an empty one. There’s lots of empty WvW maps!

Fine, if you’re making it so China or whatever has a smooth launch but, like leagues, it’s only gonna make a problem we have here in North America (I don’t comment on Europe where I’ve never played) worse!

I’m missing something here.. how is this going to balance population imbalance? The queue was a reason to find a new home. Now, with what is effectively a fifth map you’re just.. oh forget it. I give up.

I’m going to hold off on judgment until the map is actually implemented, but I can see a lot of potential problems. Forcing higher servers to wait in queues is really the only thing that lower wvw-population servers had in terms of making people from the top transfer down. Again, we’ll need to see how many PvE players are driven into wvw by the new leagues, but I assume they’ll stay long enough for their achievement points and then bounce.

If this isn’t done right, it won’t bring disaster, but it will mean that unless Anet does something to combat higher tier overpopulation, then we’ll forever be stuck with the way things are. People will continue to transfer up, and the lower population servers will struggle to not lose more players when we lose due to sheer coverage.

Anet has always had the general philosophy that WvW has been designed and geared towards large amounts of players fighting against other large amounts of players. Has this philosophy deviated at all to include small roaming groups, and if so will one of the gameplay objectives of the new map include incentives such as the Bloodlust to promote small roaming group play?

Thank you!

This new map sounds very cool and I’m excited to learn more about and hopefully be part of the development process!

** edit ** Thought about it more; less-server allegiance doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think it may present an issue for the larger population server. With the seasons enabled though, there certainly will be a population issue; e.g. Server A pop > much larger than Server B/C pop.

Q: What objectives and/or incentives would be available for Server A on a potentially empty opposition map?

DevonCarver.5370:

This is not, I repeat not,, intended to fix population imbalance. This is intended to address the population of people who are in the queue. We will make moves to address population imbalance as we can. This has nothing to do with that.

You’re helping the people who are part of the problem. You are quite literally saying "hey guys, thanks for being part of an overbalanced population.. here have another map to play on.. "

Have you ever looked into what WvW would be like if it was free to transfer down to a server that was (an eg) Ranking-3+?. My guess is that you would never would have had to introduce the new ranking system. There must be easier ways to bring balance to WvW rather then cater to the people who flock to what they think is a ‘winning’ server (You’re designing a whole new map, rather then just taking off an artifical restriction to do with gems/transfer)

DevonCarver.5370:

docMed.7692:

This new map sounds very cool and I’m excited to learn more about and hopefully be part of the development process!

• edit ** Thought about it more; less-server allegiance doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think it may present an issue for the larger population server. With the seasons enabled though, there certainly will be a population issue an Server A having a much larger pop than Server B/C.

Q: What objectives and/or incentives would be available for Server A on a potentially empty opposition map?

We aren’t quite ready to talk about how we are addressing that, but it is a top-level consideration for the success of the map. It has to be fun when you are the only world and be fun when full of all three worlds. Once the testing begins we’ll talk more about the mechanics we intend to solve that problem.

Sounds good. Seems like a tough thing to balance!

Another Q: Are there time limits regarding the duration of an edge map such as PvP or will each overflow essentially be a persisten server as long as there is some minimum population?

Shads.9468:

DevonCarver.5370:

This is not, I repeat not,, intended to fix population imbalance. This is intended to address the population of people who are in the queue. We will make moves to address population imbalance as we can. This has nothing to do with that.

You’re helping the people who are part of the problem. You are quite literally saying "hey guys, thanks for being part of an overbalanced population.. here have another map to play on.. "

Have you ever looked into what WvW would be like if it was free to transfer down to a server that was (an eg) Ranking-3+?. My guess is that you would never would have had to introduce the new ranking system.

I would imagine their goals are to solve both these problems. Just because they’re working on one solution now doesn’t mean they are not concerned about the other nor are currently working on another that is not ready to be discussed.

I know this is just wishful thinking but have you ever thought about using this new map or developing another map to rotate on a week to week basis with eternal battlegrounds for some variety? Maybe even alternate borderlands maps. I know that’s a tall order but it would be awesome.

docMed.7692:

I would imagine their goals are to solve both these problems. Just because they’re working on one solution now doesn’t mean they are not concerned about the other nor are currently working on another that is not ready to be discussed.

Ok, I hear you, but where do you think the game would be if the free transfers hadn’t been taken away?

They took away free transfers for whatever reason.. but then they had to introduce this random ranking system to stop stuff from being stale after 6 months. When a company takes away one method of generating a dynamic player driven system, and then inserts a pay-wall between it and then introduces a random system instead.. Well one system was income neutral, whereas the other is income positive.

The worst part of it all is that the people who paid the gems to transfer to the overpopulated servers are the ones who directly benefit from this..

This Edge of the Mists map is headed in the right direction as it would be the best place for GVG matches so they won’t eat up ques on other WvW maps. So an arena on the map would be great for those GvG matches since GvG matches are going to take place regardless.

This I’m sure will be discussed later, but don’t you think this will make lopsided matches even more lopsided? Once a server starts to lose, players from that server will start playing the overflow map instead of the borderland map and helping their servers. I like the idea of a new map, but I like the idea of close matches more.

Unfortunately, until a real plan is in place to deal with severely underpopulated servers, the end result of this will most likely be, at best, the introduction of more content that is only relevant to a smaller percentage of players and, at worst, actually damaging to the enjoyment of the game for many (by draining even more people away from low pop servers).

For those on lower servers, it makes it kinda hard to get excited about this announcement.

Shads.9468:

I’m missing something here.. how is this going to balance population imbalance? The queue was a reason to find a new home. Now, with what is effectively a fifth map you’re just.. oh forget it. I give up.

The way I am seeing this, and reading what you are saying, it feels like you have totally missed the point of Edge of the Mists.

My take on it is:

First, not everyone dealing with queues wants to move server, and the queue is not a reason to change server for everyone. Some may feel it is, but others do not.

Some of us love the community on our server and want to participate in WvW but sometimes end up with hour, 2 hour, 3 hour plus queues waiting. This is supposed to give us something to do in the waiting time instead of sitting in LA (for example) kicking the dirt, filling up LA queues so it gets overflow, which causes more people to have to wait because you can’t get in to WvW from LA overflow (just as an example).

It is also a way for people who don’t know about WvW to test it out, without feeling like they are going to be automatically swimming with the sharks so to speak as well. Not to say there won’t be people who are extremely familiar with WvW, or who are hardcore WvW players there, but it provides a way for guilds and those who are interested to train and learn about WvW in a less strenuous setting (because it isn’t gaining or loosing points).

It has potential for giving a way for guilds who are interested in teaching people without risking having a set of newbies risk loosing a score which is so critical with WvW.

So while it sounds like you want some solution to a specific problem, pushing this square peg into the round hole you see being there doesn’t work. Let this stand for what it’s meant to be for, and let the solution for population unbalance come and solve it when it’s available.

Shads.9468:

DevonCarver.5370:

This is not, I repeat not,, intended to fix population imbalance. This is intended to address the population of people who are in the queue. We will make moves to address population imbalance as we can. This has nothing to do with that.

You’re helping the people who are part of the problem. You are quite literally saying "hey guys, thanks for being part of an overbalanced population.. here have another map to play on.. "

Have you ever looked into what WvW would be like if it was free to transfer down to a server that was (an eg) Ranking-3+?. My guess is that you would never would have had to introduce the new ranking system. There must be easier ways to bring balance to WvW rather then cater to the people who flock to what they think is a ‘winning’ server (You’re designing a whole new map, rather then just taking off an artifical restriction to do with gems/transfer)

You keep zeroing in on “balancing population” and no where in the information did anyone say that was what this was for.

If it helps, think of it like a new PvE map opening up. It doesn’t contribute to the WvW score, but it gets people ready for WvW.

And if you are so hard set on the idea that people need to move from higher population servers so they can compete in WvW, this doesn’t prevent that – because they aren’t getting the full experience. It’s just a taste of it, more like an appetizer to get people excited and interested in getting involved, which btw could help the servers who are saying they are low population anyway – many of those servers are just PvE type servers, and giving them a chance to see what WvW is like could have the exact result you are looking for as a nice side effect.

Blaeys.3102:

Unfortunately, until a real plan is in place to deal with severely underpopulated servers, the end result of this will most likely be, at best, the introduction of more content that is only relevant to a smaller percentage of players and, at worst, actually damaging to the enjoyment of the game for many (by draining even more people away from low pop servers).

For those on lower servers, it makes it kinda hard to get excited about this announcement.

It’s sad that there is people on lower servers feeling this way. I have guested on other servers and see that they have populations, just maybe those populations are more PvE oriented and this could actually be what gets them excited about the prospect of WvW. Some people need an easy introduction. I know my first foray into WvW was a scary experience. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was complete trial by fire. I didn’t know where anything was on the map, I didn’t know what the commanders were saying to do. If I had something like this to learn on where I wasn’t at risk of loosing critical assets for the team on the major WvW area I would have gotten involved more quickly. As it was for me, I was slow and arduous until I finally forced myself to do it, kicking and screaming all the way.

To be honest I think this is a great idea, im happy that this is being put in place. A few arguments have been posted that its only to going to encourage more on the upper tier servers and give them more of a reason to stay than swap.

I understand where you are coming from and I understand its not very good being in a underpopulated server. But at the same time should that mean anyone that has to deal with queues should be punished because of other servers being underpopulated.

Its not our fault that people left to join higher populated servers or that your server is underpopulated and im guessing that a few who are on the higher populated servers didn’t ask for alot to come and add to their queue times but these things happen.

The map isn’t there to address the population issue it is there to help people who wish to do some WvW and maybe only have a limited time and do not wish to stand around playing eye spy with my little eye in lions arch. The good thing about this map is it will allow guilds to do GvG if they openly wish to do so, outwith the normal WvW environment. It is also a good place for some of the more prominent WvW guilds to advertise to train inexperienced WvW players in a place that isn’t effecting the grand scheme of things and being able to teach them the basics of WvW.

I know my first time in WvW I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I jumped off a hill to meet a sea of red and got trampled by a zerg and thought this is rubbish, how on earth am I meant to defend against that. But I stuck it out and then slowly discovered the mechanics of WvW, and even now im still learning new tactics and new strategy’s that I haven’t seen before.

For me this map is a good thing and its alot better being able to do some WvW action than having none at all. Yes I could transfer and yes I have done so in the past for various reasons but I enjoy being part of Piken and the community is friendly enough so why should I be forced to leave a server I enjoy just to play some WvW. This way I get the best of both worlds without having to sacrifice something.

DevonCarver.5370:

docMed.7692:

DevonCarver.5370:

docMed.7692:

This new map sounds very cool and I’m excited to learn more about and hopefully be part of the development process!

• edit ** Thought about it more; less-server allegiance doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think it may present an issue for the larger population server. With the seasons enabled though, there certainly will be a population issue an Server A having a much larger pop than Server B/C.

Q: What objectives and/or incentives would be available for Server A on a potentially empty opposition map?

We aren’t quite ready to talk about how we are addressing that, but it is a top-level consideration for the success of the map. It has to be fun when you are the only world and be fun when full of all three worlds. Once the testing begins we’ll talk more about the mechanics we intend to solve that problem.

Sounds good. Seems like a tough thing to balance!

Another Q: Are there time limits regarding the duration of an edge map such as PvP or will each overflow essentially be a persisten server as long as there is some minimum population?

The duration of the map will be less than a full WvW map. We are currently looking at 4 hours per match, but that number is subject to change as the test goes on. The idea is that it has some heft to it, while still being an amount of time that feels reasonable to complete in one sitting. Feedback on this will be crucial to determining the final values.

Q: Are there going to be win/loss scenarios? First to 1000 points, first to take X objective, etc? If so, might run into scenarios that spvp faced on a small scale (i.e. premades vs pugs).

Thanks again for being so responsive.

Shads.9468:

docMed.7692:

I would imagine their goals are to solve both these problems. Just because they’re working on one solution now doesn’t mean they are not concerned about the other nor are currently working on another that is not ready to be discussed.

Ok, I hear you, but where do you think the game would be if the free transfers hadn’t been taken away?

They took away free transfers for whatever reason.. but then they had to introduce this random ranking system to stop stuff from being stale after 6 months. When a company takes away one method of generating a dynamic player driven system, and then inserts a pay-wall between it and then introduces a random system instead.. Well one system was income neutral, whereas the other is income positive.

The worst part of it all is that the people who paid the gems to transfer to the overpopulated servers are the ones who directly benefit from this..

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here; transfers have always been disclosed as an associated cost and the times they’ve lifted these restrictions were to entirely encourage population balances. Not to mention it is overall cheaper to transfer to a lower tier. Additionally, transfers impact all your chars for approximately $18.... Games like WoW involve $25 per! ArenaNet hardly gouges or introduces aggressive restrictions here.

I’d just be patient and see where this goes first; one of their goals is to get more people interested in WvW. You may see a population increase on your server that participate in WvW because of this.

JonPeters.5630:

docMed.7692:

DevonCarver.5370:

docMed.7692:

DevonCarver.5370:

docMed.7692:

This new map sounds very cool and I’m excited to learn more about and hopefully be part of the development process!

• edit ** Thought about it more; less-server allegiance doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think it may present an issue for the larger population server. With the seasons enabled though, there certainly will be a population issue an Server A having a much larger pop than Server B/C.

Q: What objectives and/or incentives would be available for Server A on a potentially empty opposition map?

We aren’t quite ready to talk about how we are addressing that, but it is a top-level consideration for the success of the map. It has to be fun when you are the only world and be fun when full of all three worlds. Once the testing begins we’ll talk more about the mechanics we intend to solve that problem.

Sounds good. Seems like a tough thing to balance!

Another Q: Are there time limits regarding the duration of an edge map such as PvP or will each overflow essentially be a persisten server as long as there is some minimum population?

The duration of the map will be less than a full WvW map. We are currently looking at 4 hours per match, but that number is subject to change as the test goes on. The idea is that it has some heft to it, while still being an amount of time that feels reasonable to complete in one sitting. Feedback on this will be crucial to determining the final values.

Q: Are there going to be win/loss scenarios? First to 1000 points, first to take X objective, etc? If so, might run into scenarios that spvp faced on a small scale (i.e. premades vs pugs).

Thanks again for being so responsive.

These are exactly the kind of questions that are going to be part of the discussion that happens as part of the test!

Alright, I’ll wait for more information than before continuing my bombardment of questions. Happy Friday!

JonPeters.5630:

EDIT: From here on out Devon and I will just answer questions inline because the OP is too long to add to and maintaining a second list halfway down just feels impractical and confusing.

Jon

This might be too much trouble, but maybe move the content from the OP to the second dev post, and then just put questions and links to the answers in this thread in the OP.

At least this way, people can more easily see what’s already been asked and answered.

I don’t see why you’re restricting people to fighting with their servers, and in their tiers. Why not mix everyone up – just fill out 3 sides randomly until you max out, then start a new map? These aren’t intended to be server-pride maps, just a place to have big fights while you wait, so why not make them even fights and not bother with the server thing?

This sounds amazing!

Q: My main question is how do you plan to use the beta process to balance factors that are dependent on player interest and activity level?

I was very active on the test server for Ultima Online’s PvP Factions system in late 2000 (feeling old even if I was very young back then!) and I remember how the last few days/weeks of the beta were amazing fun as they finally got lots of stuff right. But then it launched, very few people played it on my server (and most other servers AFAIK), and the mechanisms simply did not work when there wasn’t a large amount of people playing it 24/7 (worse than WvW) so I basically never played it again.

I can imagine some issues here that will require very careful and difficult testing to get an idea of what will happen on live servers, e.g. what happens when the number of overflows or players on each overflow goes down massively after primetime, what happens if many people play on that map by choice and abandon the borderlands because it’s more fun, does it encourage PUGs (blobbing) or guilds (will it be easy to get on same overflow?) too much?

My other question is related to queues. Yes, yes, I know, but it’s directly related to the new map.

Q: Since this should allow everyone to still have some fun in WvW even when there are queues on every map, what do you think of adding a server-wide queue?

Basically you cannot enter the normal maps if you have (say) 50% more people than either other server across all 4 maps combined. This would do a LOT for making unbalanced match-ups more fun to play while keeping an advantage for the server with greater population or coverage.

Anyway really hope FURY gets in the beta, but either way please take your time (and get as many developers and testers as required) to make this as good as it could be!

Q: Will Edge of the Mists have small PvE elements (i mean wolves, oozes, deers) like the others WvWvW maps or will be a full PvP map?
Q: Why the map is filled with orrery-looking-objects?https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2426103-WvW-maps.jpg

DevonCarver.5370:

MeatShield.1983:

I like the idea of adding a new map, but I am concerned as a mid tier wvw player that has seen players already leave to higher tier servers. I felt like the long queue times was the one incentive for players to leave T1 servers for lower population servers. Now this will be gone. It seems that there will no reason to not be on a T1 server now. Should I just plan on saving gems to transfer now?

This is a totally valid concern and from our point of view the only answer to it is that WvW and winning in WvW is what people want to do. If that is not the case, that is a problem with WvW, not with this new map. We want the existing maps to be the place everyone wants to be and if that is the case, then jumping to the high tier worlds will keep you from playing in those maps. We clearly have more work to do to make WvW as good as it can be, but this map is intended to solve a very specific problem, queueing, while also giving us the space to work on some other issues we think WvW has generally. It is also the case that we will take things from this map and push them back to WvW generally, it will just take time.

Question: Say you’re on a lower tier, low population server. You’ll pretty much never get a queue. Under normal circumstances, that’s a wonderful thing.

But, let’s say I like new content. Will there be a way to travel to this new map, even if only just temporarily, so I can take in the pretty shiny new map?
_

Suggestion: Better yet, could it be a recurring option within the new match reset time? Maybe action on this map can count in an indirect way towards the main WvW server.

Such as bloodlust stat boosts or orbs, etc? Obviously it shouldn’t do anything for the world score directly.

Something like action in the Edge of The Mists gives indirect buffs that effect the actual WvW maps, the borderlands, EB.

It would have to be small, cool things so it wouldn’t unbalance anything.

And since it would be a temporary option in my thought here (within the beginning of the new match up, reset day), it could perhaps go away after that first day.

It would essentially rally everyone on reset day to fight. This would also make Edge of The Mists accessible to everyone regardless of server tier.

Give it a real purpose, a sense of camaraderie to the main WvW map without it directly effecting the score.

An imposed limit to traveling to The Edge of The Mists, being only on reset day would stop people from hanging out there all the time to the detriment of the real WvW maps.

And obviously larger servers with a queue all the time could automatically be put into the Edge of The Mists at anytime, sans the special reset day buffs that can be earned.
_

Really interesting stuff. I much appreciate the work and dedication the team has for this game. It’s one of the best games I’ve ever played.

Thank you.

The search function being the awful thing it is, did they say if you get exp/wexp on this overflow map?

Brutal Arts.6307:

The search function being the awful thing it is, did they say if you get exp/wexp on this overflow map?

You will get WXP. This is tied to WvW after all.

Jon, this certainly sounds like a fun map to me personally, I’d love to play on this map. It also sounds like there is a lot of PvE going on, are you afraid that hardcore WvWers who dislike any form of PvE on “their” playground have a problem with this?

Will PvE mobs give WXP which allows pure PvE-players to farm WXP without killing human players?

(Personally I’d love more PvE on the WvW maps as well – like events for tower-defenders to pass time and have more fun, but I can see the Kittenstorm arriving when this happens)

JonPeters.5630:

Edge of the Mists will have a lot of content elements but much less arbitrary than the current maps.

— cut for space —

At least on paper all of this sounds really fun. Now I am not super hardcore WvW player, but I like the concept of it and the open world style of PvP it brings. Mostly because to me WvW as it is right now seems a lot like an overgrown sPvP map, to crudely oversimplify it.

Siege is fun but there is finite number of practical siege that can be deployed at any one time, to put it differently using siege is typically satisfying but the ratio of time you spend running supply/building it versus the time you usually get to use it (if any) doesn’t feel fair to me. This happens with any size of group because you need several people to build a most siege yet only one person can ever man it at any one time. Which is fine, but if you are not playing in a heavily organized way or with friends you tend to feel like you get the short end of the stick more often than not.

I am all for team play, but I guess I am just not motivated enough by passive server bonuses and PPT to feel rewarded for being a good team player. I guess what I yearn for is more “combined arms” battles, as out of place as that term sounds in this context, mixing of siege and infantry/open field combat. The best moments I have had in WvW are moments were both the attacker and defender have a chance and the end result is not foretold (which usually means both players and siege are used). Sadly there is no magic way to make that happen with current WvW mechanics. In a fair matchup in theory this should happen on its own, but that isn’t always the reality.

What I read in above sounds promising to me because it doesn’t sound like it is as reliant on siege, which means there is less moments where I would feel like something that could be replaced with a dolyak. Playing with siege maybe fun but in the end siege mechanics are far less diverse than profession mechanics. The funny thing with siege is that it should be essential in WvW, which it very much is, but it should usually be in a support role not the only thing that matters the most. You don’t make an army with battering rams and catapults alone, they are either supposed to be in either a lead in or support roles, with the exception of tactical nukes. But in WvW I sometimes feel that you don’t need people to take over the keep you need them to be pack mules for the supply to build the siege needed to get into/take over the keep. Once you are in the passive defenses are pushover for even a smaller group, and you only need people to keep a lookout for incoming players, that are the only real threat for you takeover attempt, and take the otherwise mostly average champion down quicker.

I think you could make WvW a lot more interesting for the less populated servers at least if each Keep/Tower/Castle Lord was unique, perhaps with few spares in the roster to rotate and give an element of surprisoe…. make them have more tricks than simple DPS race.

Which is another thing I read between the lines in your post namely diversity, which WvW has none of out of the box, Keeps & co all share the same basic mechanics, supply camps being the only diverging objective. Siege does in theory give tools for player created diversity but more often than not to take a keep or tower the fastest or defend it in the most efficient way that potential for player created diversity in encounters is killed. Only when this efficient routine is thrown off and the encounter becomes unpredictable things tend to work out in a fun and different way.

And to throw in a question, does the map itself have geographical verticality that players can use or is all of the vertical gameplay in structures, like say with the recent re-design of borderlands. To clarify, can players by holding one of the islands potentially lay waste to an island below (or even above) them. Another way to put it would be whether or not this map has potential for territorial warfare beyond the marked capture points and objectives.

The reason why I feel the need for such unmarked territorial warfare is there is because that would give a place to use siege in a way that you can’t put numbers on. What I mean is that with current objectives you can in theory put a number on how many rams and well usually just rams you need to take over a point that is not hyper defended, some times you can trade bring a few arrow carts and ballistas to do it with less people, but the point is there is no places on the current maps where you would want to deploy siege in a free form way. Granted doing it verticality does limit “infantry” options. But on the other hand no opponent is going to let you set up siege to battle for control of an are if they can just run over and destroy your build sites either.

This map and any / all issues that can possibly come up with it are utterly and totally meaningless until server population and coverage gap issues are solved.

If you’re on stacked server and going onto a nearly empty map, what will the match up be ? PVE mobs instead of players ? Does anyone actually think that Guard and Lord NPCs can offer a good fight instead of opposing players ?

Likewise, if you are on a server that will have 5-10 people on this map going against 100, what can you do that is actually meaningful for the overall longterm PPT ? Camp flipping and yak killing only gets you so far, you may be able to ninja 1 tower if the scouts go AFK during the entire session at the most. Rest is pre-determined.

JonPeters.5630:

Edge of the Mists will have a lot of content elements but much less arbitrary than the current maps. You won’t see random wolves wandering along the plains but there might be a nice cave with wolves and a Boss wolf den mother where players might go to farm and others might go to gank unsuspecting farmers. Here are some existing examples which are subject to change.
[…]

Sounds good to me as there are things to do when the map is empty/domineted by one server. I hope to see this new map with my eyes asap! I’m so excited!

As Marcus Greythorne stated, I fear too that WvWvW elitist/purist will dislike this PvE component (would be not the first time): I count on the fact that they will wait to see the mechanics by themselves before making complaints on the forum!

Tiborb.1453:

As Marcus Greythorne stated, I fear too that WvWvW elitist/purist will dislike this PvE component (would be not the first time): I count on the fact that they will wait to see the mechanics by themselves before making complaints on the forum!

Not that I’m an elitist, though I am a core WvW player – but even the elitist won’t hate anything about this map, as nothing we do in the EotM will add (points) to the overall matchup, i.e. there will be nothing to lose in this map and hence no interference with what we do on a weekly basis. If anything, it will be a gain for WvW playera of all types so there’s nothing to complain about, even at the core idea of EotM.

The only thing that WvW players might ‘complain’ about is that this map becomes more enjoyable and so PUGS and PvE players would rather play there instead – obviously we can’t change what aspects of the game people enjoy. Now if ANet with this map can somehow encourage WvW participation from PvE/PvP players, without forcing it on them and making it feel like ‘you have to do this’, then that could solve that complaint.

i’m on a t2 server i rarely see a que outside of reset night why are you putting so many resources into stuff that i will get to play once a week is this to encourage me to transfer to t1? it wouldnt bother me so much if the reason you give for not fixing alot of problems is lack of resources.

JonPeters.5630:

Tiborb.1453:

Q: Will Edge of the Mists have small PvE elements (i mean wolves, oozes, deers) like the others WvWvW maps or will be a full PvP map?
Q: Why the map is filled with orrery-looking-objects?https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2426103-WvW-maps.jpg

Edge of the Mists will have a lot of content elements but much less arbitrary than the current maps. You won’t see random wolves wandering along the plains but there might be a nice cave with wolves and a Boss wolf den mother where players might go to farm and others might go to gank unsuspecting farmers. Here are some existing examples which are subject to change.

• Some bridges between islands are currently destructible and then can be repaired with supply.
• There is currently an objective that internally we call the altar which you capture by being the world who kills the most Elementals near it. Holding it allows allied players to run through and get a powerful buff that persists until they are downed.
• The desert region has an ogre theme currently where objectives may be guarded by ogres and their griffon pets. There may be unique ogre siege weapons in this area.
• The current arctic area keep lord is a Kodan with a giant hammer who can collapse the ceiling on enemies, breaks stuns with a powerful ability, has a in knockdown shockwave as his basic attack, and is constantly surrounded by a frost aura which chills his attackers and heals him.

Of course all of this is subject to change, but I think it lays the foundation for what to expect.

2) I think answer #1 somewhat Answers question #2. What you see in that screenshot in the distance is an objective currently dubbed “the observatory.” It is one of the “towers” in the jungle area and is captured with a series of control point and conveys unique bonuses to other jungle objectives if you hold them at the same time…

Jon

There a few short points I’d like to make here.

1. If PvE players are getting excited about this – then you’ve done something wrong Anet. If you attempt to turn WvW into PvE – you will end up alienating your WvW player base. There are plenty of players who do both – and I have this icky feeling like they are going to be the only ones really happy with what you come up with here.

2. If you draw too many PvE players out of their vast amount of content and into WvW – then you will do nothing but increase the number of players you have to juggle. Does that make sense? You will increase the amount of players you have to funnel into Edge and WvW proper, exacerbating your problems not alleviating them.

I have more to say – but this will do for now.

:-)

Tiborb.1453:

JonPeters.5630:

Edge of the Mists will have a lot of content elements but much less arbitrary than the current maps. You won’t see random wolves wandering along the plains but there might be a nice cave with wolves and a Boss wolf den mother where players might go to farm and others might go to gank unsuspecting farmers. Here are some existing examples which are subject to change.
[…]

Sounds good to me as there are things to do when the map is empty/domineted by one server. I hope to see this new map with my eyes asap! I’m so excited!

As Marcus Greythorne stated, I fear too that WvWvW elitist/purist will dislike this PvE component (would be not the first time): I count on the fact that they will wait to see the mechanics by themselves before making complaints on the forum!

You’re kitten right WvWvW Purists will dislike it. There are many reasons why people participate in WvW – not the least of which is to avoid the type of PvE content prevalent in GW2 dungeons.

The fact is- this game could survive if not thrive on the current PvE population alone. If every one of the WvW players who do nothing (NOTHING) but WvW left the game, everything would more or less be okay from Anets business perspective, but a whole hell of a lot of people would simple move on to the next thing.

I believe that most purists know this and therefore feel a bit threatened when Anet says they’re going to put PvE content into WvW. We will simple be marginalized, pushed out, or converted. This does NOT make me happy in the least.

Think about it, if you have to do a “Grub” fight at every tower and keep, the enemy can simply gather back up, buff up, recover from getting pushed out, and still have plenty of time to get back to the threatened tower and defeat the attacking force. This is especially true if it is a tower or objective close to a spawn point.

All this is an aside to the fact that many players avoid PvE content because they simply don’t like it. Now – will I have to endure it when I play WvW?

(FYI: It’s not really polite to call people elitists. There really is no way to erase or negate the negative connotation it has. Please refrain from calling people derogatory names on the forums.)

gidorah.4960:

i’m on a t2 server i rarely see a que outside of reset night why are you putting so many resources into stuff that i will get to play once a week is this to encourage me to transfer to t1? it wouldnt bother me so much if the reason you give for not fixing alot of problems is lack of resources.

you have access to this map and it’s overflows at anytime, not only when you’re queued.

@CptWheezy: I see where you’re coming from and you may have valid concerns. I feel it’s neccessary though, since it probably will happen that only one server is active on one of the new maps at a given time and you need something exciting to do for those players if they have no human enemy to fight.

I also think that this is a great opportunity to bring more players into WvW. A lot of the players have never tried WvW because they don’t like PvP (as they know it from other mmos). This could be the first experience for them… and maybe they have fun killing players together.