Guild Wars 2

I think a lot of the issues with the apparent lack of communication on what’s being done for WvW could be solved if Arenanet started a WvW test server, where they could roll out ideas and possible changes for people to try out and test, and adapt them based on user experience and feedback before going live on the real servers.

Terrahero.9358:

“The hardcore WvW guilds carry the server.

Malvader.7502:

@terrahero you are wrong on the way you think. You need both organized guilds and pugs to actually have the game survive.

He actually said exactly this, “carry” means there are actually pugs present to be carried. And I think he is right, you need the organized WvW guild people to start something, and then all the pugs will join it, either by going to the commander icon or asking in chat where the action is.

I don’t think WvW needs to cater to a specific group of people though, it just needs to be fun. Then everyone will join regardless of if the rewards are good for PvE players or just for pure WvWers.

One major change to the UI I would like to see is a place to click on my consumables, without having to open my bags constantly.

There does not need to be any reward for WvW, really. As the real endgame, people play it for larks. I think people might want to distinguish themselves from WvW newbies, however, so WvW specific titles or fancy looking WvW-specific gear might be appropriate.

Maybe I am sceptical for having played Age of Conan and experienced how “not-in-touch” Devs can become with their games..especially on the pvp side of things.
And how neglecting and/or forcing playstyles WILL break a pvp com over time.
Some things to consider about:

Progression
Progression in terms of upping stats by level, gear spiral (Ascended gear coughcough), etc.
-> destroys the “power ceiling” and therefore will be (and has been in every other title)…
GAMEBREAKING over time

On the other hand progression by ranks/titles, scoreing ladders for guilds and/or individual players to differentiate themselves (“Arcade Station score AAA” and people even paid for it…)…
IS A MUCH WANTED INFLUX/INCENTIVE TO WVW

Suggestion: Achievements ladder
Who (guild/player) killed / build / repaired / healed /capped / held the most a given day/ battle week.

Rewards
Defending can net some decent rewards as long as it gets attacked…. But doing the karma train seems more worthwhile still to most players…
In addition depending how/whom you ask you might get different oppinions on the reward matter:
-> a lot (non-crafting) player regard the whole WvW set as to expensive and restrictive (cuz its not useful to a lot of builds)
-> …and dont get me started on the AG-matter…
-> …not to be forced to pve/craft/trade for WvW equip/siege
—> many pvp players like to see titles / ranks / emotes / visual gimmicks as part of their rewards/progression.
—> Player actions haveing MORE impact on WvW server score

Suggestion: Scale Rewards
The longer a structure didnt got tapped/reset the higher its rewards should become for both defending and taking the objective.
In addition the attackers should get some bonus WvW score points if they manage to cap.
—> Gives more incentives to build out/hold a tower/camp.
—> Strengthens guilds and server com
—> Karma train cycling will reduce
—> Adding deeper meta to score strategics
—-> Dominating server might “spare” some structures to up rewards…giving away some points&time to the defender
—-> The longer you hold a structure the more troublesome it will get. cuz even underpopulated but organized and strategically working servers could still “switch the outcome” by concentrateing on those objectives. (and might solve night-capping to some degree…)

—>>Scoreing overall will become less predictable over the week and if you start out to dominant into a week it might even completely backfire.

MAPS
I can relate that more WvW maps need some serious dev-manpower/time… BUT
Changeing textures around might be doable. Keep the map, but change the ground textures (convert ice map into desert map i.e.) and/or give a seasoned theme. Every object without collision-mechanic could be replaced (i.E. Grass/Flowers/bushes…and even trees could change as long as they remain at their map position).
Its not only about new WvW map mechanics, but also about a change in looks for a lot of players.

Culling
I get that it takes some time…but also it seems client-related. On High settings i experience way more culling issues.
Why not introduce an option to “Never cull tags/generic placeholder”?
Would make it easier to discern between client and server-side related problems. I dont need to know about class/equip/style/hp of some player group 100m away…but at least I have(want/need to know that some group is around and where they are heading.

UI
None wants to click around a raid group pane…and none asks for it.
See, for a Commander/Squad leader its about information.
i.E.:
- How many still live in group 3?
- How many players are part of a given squad group?
- Where is group 3 now on the map? everyone together or split apart?
- How many supplies does the raid currently have?
- Commanders of stealth Squads want their group to know where they are…but none else…its about stealth after all
- haveing different raids talking in the same team chat can be very confusing…raid chat needed
- Commander icon should show guild heraldric…instead of the generic blue icon

At least in my exp these are the (often only little) things I miss or see a lot player asking for it in/for WvW (or other pvp titles).

Anet, if you are listening. Some changes you might consider.

Guild Commander Tags – These are tags only guild members can see. Make them show as a gold icon on the map.

Camp upgrades – Allow for more, better upgrades for smaller guilds to defend camps, those guilds who can’t really afford to upgrade towers/keeps. Something like putting up easy to break walls, set up traps, or any number of things.

Character travel time – I thought you had the right idea giving the Ranger, Necro, and Elementalist a full time 25% run speed, even though I didn’t think the Elementalist needed it. But you forgot the two slowest classes in the game, the Guardian, and the Mesmer. Please consider adding a more reliable movement speed for these two classes.

Orbs – These should be keep specific items that are captured, and moved to a keep to strengthen those who fight “inside the keeps”.

Guild buffs placed on claimed keeps – These should be zone wide for the guild.

World vs world should be a FOUR SERVER MATCH UP.

ADDITIONS TO THE ABOVE!!

Reward system: Defense reward system kind of sucks because you constantly see the timer tick to zero, while the enemy is still beating on the gate, and you do not get rewarded. This is the best place to reward PUGs, or give PvE players a reason to leave PvE, and defend keeps/towers thier server owns. To encourage more participation in a defense, a person should be rewarded every single time the defense timer ticks to “zero”, even if the enemy is still beating on the wall/gates.

UI Changes: I think the most important UI change should be putting a place where we store our consumables so we don’t have to open our bags to use them. Better yet, if you didn’t want to apply this UI change, allow for us to apply an “auto consume” feature on our foods so that once the duration has run its course, our toons automatically use the consumable again. We had the auto consume feature in Everquest II, and it worked extremely well.

Supplies, more importantly supply runs: The 15 supply buff from guilds should be a 20 supply buff “AT” supply camps, and players should be allowed to assist keep/tower workers in thier upgrades, allowing them to run to a supply camp, pick up supplies, and go click on the “structure” being upgraded inside the keep/tower. That alone would solve a lot of problems for guilds trying to do upgrades.

Road Marker “Banners”: These should emit a pulsing buff (600 radius) for 10 seconds of swiftness, instead of the need to click on them for a buff for 20 seconds of swiftness. This would require more to be used, and allow for a better synergy, with use. Also there is a major bug with these that makes them disappear too early.

A major class change I’d like to see;

Warrior I’m seeing fewer, and fewer banners in WvW, probably because they’re tedious. To assist Warriors out, I thik once they pick up a banner, it should put the banner on thier back, or the back of the person carrying the banner. Allowing for them to carry the banner, and utilize their weapon skill set. This is a UI change, basically making “F8” the banners special buff, like Banner of Disc’s “Fury Buff”, and making “F9” the Banners Swiftness buff. This would allow for one Warrior to provide multiple banners to be moved by multiple people in a large scale fight, without losing the weapons they’ve traited for. It would also be cool if the banners represented the guild the Warrior belongs to.

Shadow.3475:

Listen to what they say instead off making up stuff, they want to make ranking system better rewards and so on but they need to figure out how to do it and it is better to say nothing then say we will do this and that and then it takes them 10month to get it to work, or like Funcom never get it to work.

No one is making up stuff – as you say Anet might be like Funcom… so your post is kind of self contradictory…

I think the concern we have for WvW is right. And this interview as a whole doesn’t really say much nor does the Anet devs: wait for feb – is all they say. While we from the other side of the spectre rightfully have said since the start: Culling – please fix it.

Yes character progression in WvW is poor, but at the moment I think there are many more issues with WvW.

Stealth is broken at the moment due to culling – there is no counter ability from any profession in the game to stealth. No stealth detection turret, field or break on damage mechanic.

Map overlay tiresome and boring – the same terrains and due to that – one tactic for one bl is the same for the rest. Eternal bg map is good though, but way too small. If you played DAoC – you would feel claustrophobic, have I heard. The overall map-size is waaaaay to small.

Commander options – in this interview Matt said due to they want people to play the game they wouldn’t implement any changes. However Commanders are checking map for swords or other information almost constantly – a small UI as the friendlist will never hurt – and then Commanders might want to have a friend/lieutenant check the map for them.
Guild Commander tag option. I think guilds with a commander or a commander in a guild that have many numbers in WvW knows what I am talking about. And would actually make squad-chat viable.

Minimap friendlies colour (while this is a small issue): You could easily implement a colour for friends, guilds and then randoms on your mini-map. Bloodlusting players want to kill and get lost afterwards cause the 5 man party was full and now has to embarras him self on ts, vt or mumble to get back to his herd… or worse lost and have to stop up to type in g-chat or party-chat cause he lost his friends or guildmates.

No news about culling… this is probably the biggest problem and also the most fragile for Anet at this point – but the no news, as it is now – is troublesome for many.

Feb patch: There are no information about this patch… what will be changed? No one knows, but I feel this is one of the biggest issues as well. Anet need to be better to give small reliable information, I mean it’s 1 month and approximately a week away.
The news this interview gives is what we can all rely on – character progression and rewards are being added, which then presumably means: Ascended gear available.

If this is all we can look forward to, I think our concern as a whole for WvW is equitable. The silence of this patch content is worrying. We don’t know if any of the major issues will be addressed.

So how far out of balance does the spvp player to wvw player ratio have to get before we become the focus of balance/updates?

You designed a combat system around instanced pvp. This makes for terrible pve so naturally all your content updates are pve. All your pvp players are in wvw so your balance changes are for instanced pvp. Priorities need to be figured out.

You guys just posted two lengthy and great, great, truly great suggestions, I hope so much that developers implement them… Because we really need those, WvWvW is pretty stale and with a lot of things not exactly working.
Please, ANet, talk more to us, tell us you’re reading, we’re pretty much in the dark with your lack of communication regarding tons of aspects.

This thread is epic! A lot of people were throwing ideas in the same direction. Anet, please stop babbing around by yourself and start listening to your community!

Many great comments/suggestions were here! Please take time and read!

In spite of all the short attention span insta gratification whining contained within this thread there are also some really great ideas so I suggest people who actually care about WvW maybe stop being so bitter and try to be a touch more realistic with their demands. I know 3.5 months seems like a long time for you younger generation gamers but for those of us who played games like UO, DAoC and EQ for 6 or more years, this is only the beginning and we are here for the long haul.

The only bit of this interview that stuck me a little bothersome was the overly optimistic idea of never needing to plan for game population shrinkage when of course no game can expect to be continually growing in population endlessly without peaks and valleys, especially one that is buy-to-play where population size is likely to be roller coaster for the long term (not there is anything wrong with that). With all their awesome on the fly population tech, they should be planning ahead ways to shrink and grow the worlds as needed for the best experience possible for all players month to month.

The way to effect real change is not to burst into temper tantrums and throw around negativity storms to scare other players away or create a false sense of failure but with positive reinforcement and constructive ideas. I am just going to quote 2 of the larger collections of solid ideas in this thread that WvW devs are likely looking to for their Feb update. I would be excited to see any one of these options added to the game and am looking forward to seeing what they have in store for us come February. Until then, there is still plenty of fun to be had out there in WvW so enjoy and chill a bit.

Ardrin.7491:

…an herald, some title/ranks that we can achieve by doing things (killing peeps, taking keep/garrison/tower/supply camp or even doing escort mission with dolyaks)…
Bring back the Orbs, changing the boost they give (like old DAoC relics), take away that crappy altar from up north and place there the Garrison as a Orb Keep, with better guards/door/walls… so taking it (and claiming the Orb) would be a real siege; and make that they works if you have your borderland Orb…
…get my ascended gear through WvWvW instead of doing everyday fractals..

jkctmc.8754:

Guild Commander Tags – These are tags only guild members can see. Make them show as a gold icon on the map.

Orbs – These should be keep specific items that are captured, and moved to a keep to strengthen those who fight “inside the keeps”.

Guild buffs placed on claimed keeps – These should be zone wide for the guild.

Reward system: Defense reward system kind of sucks because you constantly see the timer tick to zero, while the enemy is still beating on the gate, and you do not get rewarded. This is the best place to reward PUGs, or give PvE players a reason to leave PvE, and defend keeps/towers thier server owns. To encourage more participation in a defense, a person should be rewarded every single time the defense timer ticks to “zero”, even if the enemy is still beating on the wall/gates.

UI Changes: I think the most important UI change should be putting a place where we store our consumables so we don’t have to open our bags to use them.

Supplies, more importantly supply runs: The 15 supply buff from guilds should be a 20 supply buff “AT” supply camps, and players should be allowed to assist keep/tower workers in thier upgrades, allowing them to run to a supply camp, pick up supplies, and go click on the “structure” being upgraded inside the keep/tower. That alone would solve a lot of problems for guilds trying to do upgrades.

Road Marker “Banners”: These should emit a pulsing buff (600 radius) for 10 seconds of swiftness, instead of the need to click on them for a buff for 20 seconds of swiftness. This would require more to be used, and allow for a better synergy, with use. Also there is a major bug with these that makes them disappear too early.

Warrior I’m seeing fewer, and fewer banners in WvW, probably because they’re tedious. To assist Warriors out, I thik once they pick up a banner, it should put the banner on thier back, or the back of the person carrying the banner. Allowing for them to carry the banner, and utilize their weapon skill set. This is a UI change, basically making “F8” the banners special buff, like Banner of Disc’s “Fury Buff”, and making “F9” the Banners Swiftness buff. This would allow for one Warrior to provide multiple banners to be moved by multiple people in a large scale fight, without losing the weapons they’ve traited for. It would also be cool if the banners represented the guild the Warrior belongs to.

If you want to get more players into WvW simply make the loot drops from other players (not NPCs) much better, at least on a par with dungeons/fractals.

Way I figure its still early days in terms of the game that’s only been out for 4months and in hindsight, a lot of the MMO type of games take some time to fill out all their areas. That doesn’t necessarily make me satisfied of course as a full time WvW player to have no recognition titles, usable equipment (for my condition spec) to buy with badges or the fact the PvE monkeys are universally both wealthier and now, also better equipped.
So 6 months probably seems about right to fill out, however, due to a number of factors I think it should have been done earlier.

WvW is important because it also affects server health- the better your server does:
The better the game bonuses
Ability to attract better players and guilds
Keep better players and guilds

But mostly, this is Guild “Wars”, I came here for an open warfare experience, I didn’t come here for “PvE Wars”, “Dungeon Raid Wars” or “Group Wars” on some postage-stamp sized spvp match of half a dozen a side. All other games do that kind of stuff and its universally boring for me, I’m here for the week long, big fights, long term tactical planning/manoeuvring and logistics required for my server to be winning a War.

So please Anet, give us, the hardcore 1%‘s that fight it out every day on the battlefield some recognition that will never be achieved by someone running a dungeon 20 times, grinding components, crafting silly legendaries etc.
That we are are ’Realm Defenders’, the crazy guys and girls with a 25-1 player killer ratio, the supply train destroyers, castle ransacker’s, contributors to the server’s honour with hundreds of hours of blood and warfare under our belts.

Wish we could have a chance to actually talk to developers, well those of us willing to give ideas.

The biggest problem with WvW is that none of the developers working on it seem to be aware of what the people playing WvW actually want.

It would be benefical to them to look at this thread and to take from it not just the ideas, the the feeling – we are not happy with the changes you have made, we want different things than you are offering. We’re not asking for much, just a few simple changes to make it WvW – not PVE – and to make it more managable and enjoyable, which will in the long run keep more people playing.

As for things that are really in need of change in WvW – get rid of the PVE break out event (if only in the top 3 tiers) it’s so uneeded, as someone mentioned for culling placeholders would be a fairly simple fix to a huge problem, and fix the balance of money earnt / spent to upgrade in WvW. As a large WvW guild I cover around 50g a day to upgrade two borderlands, not including siege needed. I don’t PVE and neither does my guild so we don’t get free money from dungeons, a nice income from WvW would be appreciated. That last point is a selfish one, it costs a bomb to upgrade everything

But really the main thing – involve WvW guilds and players in the choices made in changing WvW.

//Wrex

But mostly, this is Guild “Wars”, I came here for an open warfare experience, I didn’t come here for “PvE Wars”, “Dungeon Raid Wars” or “Group Wars” on some postage-stamp sized spvp match of half a dozen a side. All other games do that kind of stuff and its universally boring for me, I’m here for the week long, big fights, long term tactical planning/manoeuvring and logistics required for my server to be winning a War.

This quote basicly summed it all! Anet, come on! Give WvW some more love… Those purposed changes, some of them u can do it within a day or two if you really want to do it… Do not wait for February. It might be way too late for our WvW population to shrink to the point of no return.

While not brimming over with details, I still enjoyed seeing the people behind the scenes. I hope Habib Leow doesn’t mind my quoting him in my signature, but I find his statement poignant.
Yes culling creates the most ludonarrative dissonance, its waveform is causing all kinds of cresting, and minimizing it will help a lot. However, from the description of the causes, the developers may never be able to eliminate culling completely; especially since the more fun WvW is the more risk of culling.
Could a culling rate meter be developed? Something similar to a ping/fps rate meter. A culling rate meter would allow players to take responsibility for their pillar of the paradox.
The PvE:PvP:WvW culture cresting is tougher….
My instincts tell me that evolving a more dynamic rear echelon, supply line doctrine could help align wave forms.

I love wvw and really do enjoy it, but there is no progression there at all. I could go into culling and class balance, but that’s covered pretty much everywhere else on the forum! What I would love to see is a progression system put in place that rewards players. Not based on the achievements you already get, mind.

What I would like to see is tags that go alongside names, much like guild tags, but discernible from them and in relation to your progression in the wvw areas. Such an idea would be to have ranks such as private, specialist, major, leutenant etc. But in addition to that, have different progression trees, and some which are related to class, some to account. For example:

Account based wvw progression titles such as:
- Private
- leutenant
- Major
Yada Yada based on your progress, eg general kill count and defense count.

Character specific progression titles:
- Specialist
- Tracker
- Assassin
- Defender
These based on how you play.

Then you could end up with titles such as Specialist Leutenant. Okay, that doesn’t sound great, but you get the idea for what I’m aiming for here! Maybe have symbols for each rank instead of the actual name.

A further addition to this would be to incentivise the process by gaining remuneration on a daily or weekly basis in the form of siege weapons based on your rank. Say, for example, 7 random siege per week per rank?

Another thing I would like to see is much nicer wvw armour. Skin wise, more than stat wise. And the abilty to tattoo your guild emblem onto any part of the armour, not just from buying the guild specific 1g things.

A mild increase to the targets hit by aoe would be nice, also.

The final thing I would like to see is the ability to see all guild members and friends on the maps, not just party members! I feel this would be a very simple but massive boost to wvw itself!

Oh dear…This is not good. I was hoping for more. They developed fractals in 5 weeks and was anticipating 6 months of WvW Dev time reap some cool stuff. Alas they must have only a handful of people (if that) working on this aspect of the game.

Raeyne,
I like where you are headed with using titles as indicators of roles/skills. My input would be this:

The roles must must echo the narrative of Tyrian war-gaming. Perhaps real world 17-18th century battlefield mechanics may offer suggestions in particular, but I think any real world doctrine of military deployment using ranks as signifiers of specialty could be used to develop one for Tyria.

Server transfers imo are not a huge issue in this stage of the game. A majority of the WvW community in fact DOES have server pride and loyalty. Many people try to recruit but fail.

Paid transfers would only make it so teams simply have no chance, because many people are too cheap to pay to transfer to a different server. Right now, servers go up and down simply because people join them, and guilds join them.

It’d also be incredibly difficult to get members of your guild to pay to transfer if your guild wishes to. Although people get mad when guilds do this, it’s in the best interest of the players to go where they are happy.

The only problem is bandwagoners, but that’ll always happen. Those that leave your server aren’t players you want anyways because they are generally bad players to begin with. It’s much more rewarding to build your server up instead of joining a different server.

With paid tranfers, the T2 and T1 servers will always be in that tier, and no one can improve past it. This is bad, and also makes it so servers are always fighting the same enemy. I myself am very happy when we get at least one new server to compete against. Paid tranfers end that, and it already gets boring fighting the same people over and over.

The only main issue with WvW is that gold is required to succeed in WvW. Those that actually try to help their server win generally do not have the max stats or legendary weapons because they can’t afford both that and the victories.

The other issue being culling. That needs a fix, and if I have to wait until February to get this fix, I’m just going to go and farm PvE and play a lot less, making me less likely to make gem purchases which help fund ArenaNet. This is something that needs to be addressed immediately, as it is breaking the gameplay.

All i want is my realm points

Colin, are you hinting that their may be a new map in WvW, but not a map seeking to replace the current borderland map?

Hrm.

An easy new set of maps to add, would be to do what the original Planetside did. Just make a series of new maps, one for each borderland and one for EB that are underground . The underground maps would limit areas where you actually need to code for siege, invulnerability areas, etc. and be pretty quick to implement.

You could then later add another set of maps that take place in the clouds above each BL and EB.

kanikani.2430:

Cliff notes:
-So no new maps in the near future
-1 week cycles for matches will continue
-Culling is being worked on
-We have talked about population issues but don’t design for it
-Paid transfers at some point in the future, but transfers are not that big of an issue
-Progression/rewards in Feb patch
-Live scoring no time soon (via website)
-Nothing major till feb patch.
-No UI changes (raid tools etc.)
-No changes to commander system

Did I miss anything?

wow disappointing to the max

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s worth noting, while they said we’re not working on new versions of the home maps currently, they didn’t say anything about new maps in general…..

Also I’ll throw out that the work our WvW guys are doing on culling and progression systems are extremely large, these are feature systems unto themselves. For example a lot of the culling work requires re-building almost entirely the way our game compiles, loads, and handles assets in general. For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

I know some of you got the impression there isn’t much development going on here, but I was to clarify you couldn’t be more wrong. There is a boat load of very serious WvW being done, much of it they discussed in this interview. Major features require many month long projects, our hope is you’ll start seeing the major fruits of those labors starting in our February update.

You’ll hear more details from our WvW team once stuff gets closer to finalized and tested, but we think you’re going to be thrilled with the stuff that’s coming. As an old DAoC fan, I’m freaking stoked about what these guys are doing.

ah yes the standard mmo company line “we have so much good stuff but can’t tell you yet, please dont quit!”

While waiting for GW2, I watched a lot of interviews/panels and Colin really hyped me up for the game. I’m sure he honestly believes in his game, but watch the manifesto trailer and compare it against your experience with the game. http://youtu.be/35BPhT-KI1E

My stance now is that I have to see it to believe it. Instead of telling me the Feb update is going to be great, show us what you are working on. If you’re not going to because it is somehow too early, don’t bother trying to hype it up.

Well they have to hype it up, there’s so much rage on their forums you could create a new sun with the energy from it all. The fact is WvW has no long term goals and very little variation to it’s purpose. The maps aren’t dynamic, they don’t change, they don’t rotate, it’s all static and the tactics for taking towers or castles is always the same since there’s only so many good places to set up siege to take them. Also as I mentioned before, there’s not that much going on in the WvW maps to encourage PvE players to spend months upon months of time doing it. One ugly armor set that I’ve never seen another person on my entire server using, useless weapons, it’s all very basic and even if you somehow did want to grind them out, most people with the grind mentality already have.

As lame as it sounds, PvP needs PvE to survive. 90% of any PvP population is PvE players playing around in PvP for the easy rewards, unless you really don’t have the rewards which is the problem with this game. Again, look at World of Warcraft’s PvP. You have the “serious” PvP mode, Arena, and the “ho hum gimme some epix” mode, Battlegrounds and of course the “world pvp” zones like Wintergrasp and Tol Barad due to the instances in those zones.

Sooo, perhaps Anet could steal something from there? For example, since they consider WvW PvE anyway, why not have each map have it’s own “World Boss” event that can happen when that maps home server owns, lets say at least 85%~90% of their map? It could pop up in random areas and even take over camps and siege castles and towers on it’s own as it meanders through the map. It would be designed to take a beating and you could even set up siege to help defeat it. The rewards would be drops equivalent to the best PvE dungeon armors and weapons.

And since Eternal Battlegrounds is the only one that’s not a palette swap of the others, why not make that one have a special dungeon that you can only access when your server owns 100% of the map? You could probably add a cooldown on that map to control massive zergs and standstills from big guilds wanting to hog it for themselves. Again, rewards would be on par with the best PvE dungeons have to offer and the instance bosses would be very hard to defeat as well.

Just adding something like this would flood the servers with PvE players looking to take on “easy” bosses for “easy” loot and give the PvP players all the red names they could gank! But since the rewards would now be worth dying for, rather than rage quitting and whining on the forums, PvE players would respawn and run back to get all the shinnies! I’d wait until February for that, more stuff to gank. =D

Ok, I need to come in and say a few things here, things are getting out of hand.

We can’t have different borderlands, coming quite simply down to the point where people will complain that something isn’t fair, be it server X on map A has a keep where it only has two effective trebuchet attack points on a keep where as the other two maps have three or more viable points on the same relative keep, or server Y is a desert like landscape and certain players can’t see that well with this shade of yellow. You name any slight difference and people will complain, guaran-kitten-teed.

You as your home server are fighting for only buffs and benefits, the team with the most points only benefit is being able to get these small buffs quicker, and all in a large part the bonuses are not too (if at all) detrimental to the opposing sides if one is getting them quicker. If they were to add something which is exclusively for the winning server, that would be deemed as unfair and you’ll see people server hopping more than ever.

As for the Tiers and same fights, that’s a irreparable fault of which we the players are just as much to blame as ANet can be accountable for, you get people who want to win and will happily jump ship for a more successful side, but there will always be people who will stand and fight the good fight, it’s up to the players to make their server appealing to fight for just as it is the developers to put some restraint on the server hoppers.

The final thing I want to address is this apparent communication issue. As much as I (and many of you lot too) would like to hear about various directions things are taking, if they mention anything as little as something in passing, it can be easily misconstrued with subsequent posts and they lead to people being incredibly disappointed and followed up with rage on the forums, and exactly the same situation can and will happen from consistent external testing which some others have suggested, not to mention other issues such as many players opting to play a persistent beta rather than the actual game, and the people who switch in between the two relaying false information. An example of the prior point happened with the Mesmer and a proposed more reliable swiftness or movement speed ability, and we see the fallout from that still rampant today.

The best and most constructive thing we can do as players is give feedback, not cut down and insult developers and their assumed inability to work on changes you (or whoever/ how many else) personally want to see. If they only cared about lining their pockets and wallets the game wouldn’t be buy to play, they want this game to work, and they need the encouragement, patience and probably a little bit of faith from you.

As it’s past midnight where I am, and I’m about to retire for the small sleep before people start pestering me to get up, Merry Christmas to you all.

i fear this Feb update is so hyped and make or break fo a lot of people that even a small misstep from Anet will result in an outrage or just dead WvW.

Anet, please listen to the WvW before making changes going by every major update we have had so far, almost every update has missed something major and creates a storm.

salluks.6017:

i fear this Feb update is so hyped and make or break fo a lot of people that even a small misstep from Anet will result in an outrage or just dead WvW.

Anet, please listen to the WvW before making changes going by every major update we have had so far, almost every update has missed something major and creates a storm.

I agree, hype is a double edged sword. On one had you get people to wait when they might otherwise not, or invest in something with the hope of the future. On the other had if it doesn’t live up to the expectations it is devastating. And the more hyped things get the higher the expectations, up to a point where nothing can realistically live up to them.

The best way to console people now and deflate the hype so Feb doesn’t cause all the rage is just to start leaking info. More real info = less hype = less disappointment.

That is why an interview like this gets such disappointment and rage because there was not really any real info up to this point. I hope it is a lesson learned. Share with the community and the community will share with you.

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s worth noting, while they said we’re not working on new versions of the home maps currently, they didn’t say anything about new maps in general…..

Also I’ll throw out that the work our WvW guys are doing on culling and progression systems are extremely large, these are feature systems unto themselves. For example a lot of the culling work requires re-building almost entirely the way our game compiles, loads, and handles assets in general. For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

I know some of you got the impression there isn’t much development going on here, but I was to clarify you couldn’t be more wrong. There is a boat load of very serious WvW being done, much of it they discussed in this interview. Major features require many month long projects, our hope is you’ll start seeing the major fruits of those labors starting in our February update.

You’ll hear more details from our WvW team once stuff gets closer to finalized and tested, but we think you’re going to be thrilled with the stuff that’s coming. As an old DAoC fan, I’m freaking stoked about what these guys are doing.

Thank you for taking time on Christmas Eve to respond, but I must worn you that doing so reveals your inner nerd. If I may, as developers you live and work the paradox of set-up, reveal, and prestige. As players we live and play the very same paradox.

Happy Holidays players and builders

Svarty.8019:

There does not need to be any reward for WvW, really. As the real endgame, people play it for larks. I think people might want to distinguish themselves from WvW newbies, however, so WvW specific titles or fancy looking WvW-specific gear might be appropriate.

If there are no rewards for it then Anet needs to get rid of the goldsink aspect of it. It is brutal on my coin supply.

It’s boiling down to this.

Players are more interested in doing Fractal’s than WvW and websites like gw2lfg has made it exceptionally more easier to find groups. Tier 1 (for example) use to be full 24/7 on all the servers, but now it’s instant queue’s and on many maps servers are outmanned during prime time. Yet, the server’s are still listed as FULL.

Player participation in WvW is down because let’s face it, it’s getting stagnant. I’ve been doing WvW since the game came out and the biggest frustration I’m having is the guilds I like to play with getting up and leaving.

Arcadio.6875:

While waiting for GW2, I watched a lot of interviews/panels and Colin really hyped me up for the game. I’m sure he honestly believes in his game, but watch the manifesto trailer and compare it against your experience with the game. http://youtu.be/35BPhT-KI1E

My stance now is that I have to see it to believe it. Instead of telling me the Feb update is going to be great, show us what you are working on. If you’re not going to because it is somehow too early, don’t bother trying to hype it up.

Welcome to the dark side. Forever in your future with any MMO where you say, “actions speak louder than words” you will find yourself bombed with fanboy hate.

Sarcasm aside, I think this point of view servers anyone well when it comes to companies selling their product.

Edit: Before people misunderstand, this has nothing to do with a company lying either. Anet employees really seem to care about their product and come across as a good gropu. It’s more a matter of someone putting their heart and sole into something, and that excitement comes across rather than the actual details.

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s worth noting, while they said we’re not working on new versions of the home maps currently, they didn’t say anything about new maps in general…..

Also I’ll throw out that the work our WvW guys are doing on culling and progression systems are extremely large, these are feature systems unto themselves. For example a lot of the culling work requires re-building almost entirely the way our game compiles, loads, and handles assets in general. For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

I know some of you got the impression there isn’t much development going on here, but I was to clarify you couldn’t be more wrong. There is a boat load of very serious WvW being done, much of it they discussed in this interview. Major features require many month long projects, our hope is you’ll start seeing the major fruits of those labors starting in our February update.

You’ll hear more details from our WvW team once stuff gets closer to finalized and tested, but we think you’re going to be thrilled with the stuff that’s coming. As an old DAoC fan, I’m freaking stoked about what these guys are doing.

Colin, THE BIGGEST issue with WvWvW right now is that it is POINTLESS…. It has no barring on the normal PvE world and it should, just like DAoC did with darkness falls etc…

Right now it’s just a game of planetside…. capture a keep and lose it 5 minutes later. rinse repeat.

How about removing those talon drops in wvw and give us more badges of honor?

ColinJohanson.2394:

For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

you just aproved my theory, this game was created with vertical progression in mind from the start, false advertise on horizontal progression all this years for the old fans to buy. I allways said since you anounce that vertical… its imposssibile for anyone to turn a project like gw2 upside down in 3 months just because “deticated players” ask it.

Anyway, KUDOS to graphic departamant and animation, in my eyes they are the heroes in this game, not thowse two, out from reality guys, what I seen them in the interview

The interview was cool with having 2 devs on it. I remain hopeful for the future of WvW. The ossumness of RvR in DAoC was not immediately rewarding beyond the killing in RvR but the RvR blossomed into something players loved.

I have similar hopes for WvW. It’s what I love most about GW2.

Oh, and thank you all for the nice compliments on the song. I think I will drink more often and do more of that stuff. I know me and my friends had a blast the night I recorded it.

@Colin:
Reworking the structure for a complete culling overhaul is indeed time consumeing and “binding” lot of resources & manpower, I would agree.

But players asking for a fast & simple fix to culling, just to be able to eliminate the Tactical problems they get with invisible players. In short:

Some ugly tag/nameplate/indicator shown is better compared to haveing to deal with invisible enemies.

(optional..for those who dont like to lose their “immersion” in pve…)

Would also give the team way more options to “delay timeline” for the real fix and wouldnt “tie” the “whole” team to 1 issue….rockstars or not.
Its about focus on a fast and maybe simplistic fix first, before “tieing” the whole team into a major overhaul…

…and being able to see mosquitos and the moa-duo at deepwaters bridge while players get culled…
tells me there are some easy and simple fixes at hand ;D

How about making it impossible to tab target the NPC animals that are far behind the PC players we try to target. Nothing worse than targeting a group of Minotaurs that are on the other side of the map instead of the person trying to kill you who is right in front of you.

Just remove them all.

Dan.8709:

Watch the interview.
They didn’t say there won’t be new maps, they just said that atleast now they won’t do separated borderlands.

I STILL BELIEVE in a new set of maps, new borderland and eternal battlegrounds, and make it change in cycles, one week our maps now, next week another set, then actual one again and it goes along as they add more maps… I hope… Soon, as in February, please.

Thanks for posting the interview, Colin, it was fun and interasting.
Here’s really hoping February will be huge for WvW.

Hah, I called it.
So many people just keep on bashing the team and talking crap. ANet really loves their game and will work to make the better out of it and I have faith in them to stick while we’re waiting for fixs and improvements that are much needed.

I can imagine how incredibly hard it is to make that major overhaul that culling takes, I’m a programmer myself, so yeah.
Thanks for aswering this thread Colin, it’s appreaciated!

Edragor.9164:

@Colin:
Reworking the structure for a complete culling overhaul is indeed time consumeing and “binding” lot of resources & manpower, I would agree.

But players asking for a fast & simple fix to culling, just to be able to eliminate the Tactical problems they get with invisible players. In short:

Some ugly tag/nameplate/indicator shown is better compared to haveing to deal with invisible enemies.

(optional..for those who dont like to lose their “immersion” in pve…)

Would also give the team way more options to “delay timeline” for the real fix and wouldnt “tie” the “whole” team to 1 issue….rockstars or not.
Its about focus on a fast and maybe simplistic fix first, before “tieing” the whole team into a major overhaul…

…and being able to see mosquitos and the moa-duo at deepwaters bridge while players get culled…
tells me there are some easy and simple fixes at hand ;D

That is not a simple fix, that is the most complicated part of the fix.

What a person is wearing, the colors he chose, the weapon he is using is all data that is only sent once.

His location, his skill usage, status effects are what culling is about, because this data is actually expensive in bandwidth and cpu usage. If you switch to nameplating, these things would still have to be sent.

Basically your suggestion doesnt fix a thing in a simple way. And you need to realize that.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Also I’ll throw out that the work our WvW guys are doing on culling and progression systems are extremely large, these are feature systems unto themselves. For example a lot of the culling work requires re-building almost entirely the way our game compiles, loads, and handles assets in general. For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

Rockstars are declared stars by their fans. This team is not there or even close at this point. Launching with the game in such a broken state that its not playable without a 6 month super hero effort to get it playable is a rough start.

I am very excited at this games potential, and truly hope it gets the basics going. World pvp is never about the pve keep trader score, its all about busting 3 times your numbers with 1-2 groups.

Your guys will be rockstars when we can play this game without invisible, no name armies, that spring back to life if a deer dies. I will be the first to send your guys a beer when you get there, again I truly wish you guys best of luck.

I’m with dooger. These guys are rock stars of an invisible audience. Tickets have been sold and redeemed but the audience is nowhere to be seen.

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s worth noting, while they said we’re not working on new versions of the home maps currently, they didn’t say anything about new maps in general…..

Also I’ll throw out that the work our WvW guys are doing on culling and progression systems are extremely large, these are feature systems unto themselves. For example a lot of the culling work requires re-building almost entirely the way our game compiles, loads, and handles assets in general. For many companies, this task could literally years, we’re trying to pull it off in a matter of months, these guys are rock stars.

I know some of you got the impression there isn’t much development going on here, but I was to clarify you couldn’t be more wrong. There is a boat load of very serious WvW being done, much of it they discussed in this interview. Major features require many month long projects, our hope is you’ll start seeing the major fruits of those labors starting in our February update.

You’ll hear more details from our WvW team once stuff gets closer to finalized and tested, but we think you’re going to be thrilled with the stuff that’s coming. As an old DAoC fan, I’m freaking stoked about what these guys are doing.

I’m sorry, but I can’t quite accept how you try to reduce all the problems that where adressed to the huge problem you have with the culling system. I understand that reprogramming a whole engine is a huge problem, but you developed a system where you had hundreds of players fight each other and a. didn’t saw the problem in the beta or in other tests you made? or b. didn’t think that invisible enemys would be a problem? But not only did you ignore this huge problem, you don’t want to solve the other problems the gamemode wvw has despite that those other problems have absolutly nothing to do with the culling problem? You have a completed game which took years to develop, so changing the majority of mentioned problems shouldn’t be that big of a deal for your team. It takes time, I know and accept that but clearly you don’t take the whole situation to serious given the fact that you still make silly holiday events instead of fixing the game. And please don’t try to wish this away with meaningless comments we where given in the past like “this is another team working on this and that”. I myself work in a company where developing software and taking care of IT-Stuff plays a major role and there is no way a programmer can’t fulfill other roles and program modules for wvw if you give him a specific explicit task. You just don’t seem to care. And thats really sad because WvW is a gamemode that created GIANT Communitys, who even made shiftplans, ranks, orga-teams, websites, forums, and endless more things I can’t add them all here. In a world where everyone cares only about themselves this is HUGE. That you are not willing to focus on that great microcosmos you created is a real shame. I’m sure everyone involved in bringing updates to wvw are working their hardest to improve the game, it’s the attitude of the people who are managing the development we are disappointed in.

Vincavec.8350 funcom sad we will have This, this, this, this and then they released the game and didn’t have 1 of what they said they would have, 2years later and they had 10% off what they sad before game was released and 5% off what they had promised after release.

Simple answer is Arena net do the right thing with not promising anything at this time in the update, because if they do they have to do that no matter if that mean that 10 other things have to be skipped, as it is now they can give hints and so and then in the end of January then give more info what we can expect.

Draygo.9473:

Edragor.9164:

@Colin:
Reworking the structure for a complete culling overhaul is indeed time consumeing and “binding” lot of resources & manpower, I would agree.

But players asking for a fast & simple fix to culling, just to be able to eliminate the Tactical problems they get with invisible players. In short:

Some ugly tag/nameplate/indicator shown is better compared to haveing to deal with invisible enemies.

(optional..for those who dont like to lose their “immersion” in pve…)

Would also give the team way more options to “delay timeline” for the real fix and wouldnt “tie” the “whole” team to 1 issue….rockstars or not.
Its about focus on a fast and maybe simplistic fix first, before “tieing” the whole team into a major overhaul…

…and being able to see mosquitos and the moa-duo at deepwaters bridge while players get culled…
tells me there are some easy and simple fixes at hand ;D

That is not a simple fix, that is the most complicated part of the fix.

What a person is wearing, the colors he chose, the weapon he is using is all data that is only sent once.

His location, his skill usage, status effects are what culling is about, because this data is actually expensive in bandwidth and cpu usage. If you switch to nameplating, these things would still have to be sent.

Basically your suggestion doesnt fix a thing in a simple way. And you need to realize that.

Yes and no.
Its about priotizing the data. I can still hit culled players with an anticipated catapult shot….
Shows me that the engine has not a lag, but graphical lag issue (for the most part).

…and I dont need to see their shoes, armor colors or whatnot for doing the catapult shot…but at least a simple, graphical indication marker/tag/sign is needed to percieve troop movements/reinforcements arriving.

Hell, even an ugly non-animated black box would be way more appreciated compared to not see the enemy at all.
And if the engine is ready, it may finish “drawing” the rest of the culled char.

Graphical details may be culled at a low offset value with no harm.
But the char position itself should have way more higher priority.

kanikani.2430:

Cliff notes:
-So no new maps in the near future
-1 week cycles for matches will continue
-Culling is being worked on
-We have talked about population issues but don’t design for it
-Paid transfers at some point in the future, but transfers are not that big of an issue
-Progression/rewards in Feb patch
-Live scoring no time soon (via website)
-Nothing major till feb patch.
-No UI changes (raid tools etc.)
-No changes to commander system

Did I miss anything?

thanks for doing this, you basically saved me the time listening to bad news. No UI changes (raid tools, etc) and no changes to the commander system is a shame. At least allow commander text to be coloured differently to it stands out from the usual spam. How simple would that change be.

progression is good, but its in feb.

I know its holiday season for people in the southern hemisphere but its really quiet in WvW at the moment. We don’t have the numbers to attack any BL’s except defend our own. that hurts.