Guild Wars 2

Before HoT, you could claim and buff locations. You could spawn plenty of guild banners. You could lead zergs across a map and fight other zergs both in open field and at keep walls.

After HoT, you can’t claim/buff anything because your guild has to both unlock its guild hall (pve) and fill the treasury a bunch of times (pve) and schedule aetherium upgrades (time-gating)…

After HoT, you can’t spawn banners/craftables because you have to be a scribe (pvButton) which requires tremendous amounts of new materials (pve).

After HoT, leading a zerg across the new BL maps means you may never see another zerg because the keeps are so big that going door-to-door takes a millennia, there’s 20 paths to get to the same spot instead of one tried and true path to catch people on, all the “quick movement” stuff relies on ONE player not sniping any of the completely out-of-the-way shrines away from you if you own the keep, there are barricades to intentionally slow invaders down (even though they’re currently borked and you can jump over them), people waste time farming at every location slowing/dispersing your zerg from reacting to stuff, defenders are given defensive tools way too quickly and every door and wall is built like a murderhole with 3-4 levels of vertical to deal with.

Oh and everyone knows that nobody’s going to be out there because they’re all either doing pve because it’s either new/fun/challenging or necessary XP/supplies/guild upgrading or both. Plus grinding legendary creations, plus having to do hero point runs for unlocking all their trait lines…

It’s not even that WvW is a little attention starved right now. It’s that the new content is actively driving people away from it…on purpose!

“Tried and true”… I think you answered your own complaint on keep sizes there.

Valentinus.3412:

“Tried and true”… I think you answered your own complaint on keep sizes there.

Then you have to decide what advantages both sides have in a keep take.

If it was too difficult to assault because the defenders knew the only way in was one or two paths, so you added a bunch of new paths in, then you have now made it too hard for defenders to be able to scout, siege, and man every path in before any coordinated 5-10 person group can blow open kitten. Maybe siege disablers need longer timers now. Maybe supply depots need to be in more places in the outer courtyard.

The keep should funnel to the lord room. Outer has lots of options, inner has few, lord room has one and it’s easily siege-defended. However, look at the fire keep. Not only are there a billion ways in from the outside that no 1-2 scouts could keep track of without being too slow to discover the enemy, but if two spots are hit at once, there’s ZERO chance at discovering both at the same time. Then on the inner, you could assault the walls/doors from about 30 different locations, with the ability to clear the walls as assaulters by getting access to high ground equivalent to that of the defenders…how is that legitimate keep building?? Finally, the lord room as two different ramp approaches and when they come together at the lord room door, there’s like a “wall” of columns that you can see/attack through as attackers. Some of your best weapons, like the inferno egg, are now behind the assault. The shrines are OUTSIDE the keep walls and assaultable by 1 person so there’s no way to maintain your lavawalk ability to use ANY sort of sneak attack as defenders that is inaccessible to the assault.

Who would design something like that if they wanted to make a defensible position? Nobody. Assault has so many advantages now as a result…AND even if things go badly for them for some reason, attrition is easy now because defending supply camps AND shrines AND rebuilding requires so much distance and/or people that anything other than T1 isn’t going to have the manpower.

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

This is so true. AND even if you want to get back to where you were, you are time-gated, you have to leave WvW to do it, you have level lots of crafters or gain lots of gold to buy extremely over-priced market items due to the surge of everyone doing the same content at once (AND simultaneously everyone doing the new HoT content and NOT potato farming for brown dye creation, etc.)…you are pulled in every direction into the game except WvW! Just to do things in WvW that you used to be able to do!

The guild situation is absurd, and really illustrates again, they forgot about WvW.

Let’s pve more to prepare for wvw.

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

How so?

When you make a complaint like that with no real reason to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple, “no it does’t”.

That whole shrine thing. Excellent example of how I feel about the Desert Borderlands map: some great ideas poorly implemented. How would I have done it differently? I would have made the 3 shrines actually a part of the structure of the keep that had to be built by players using supply. One shrine on inner that takes A LOT of supply. One shrine between inner and outer that takes a little less supply but still a lot. One shrine outside of the keep but within siege range that also takes a lot of supply to build. If attackers wanted to remove the defenders shrine buffs? Simply destroy them like a gate or a wall. IMO capping the shrines is just meh…

coglin.1867:

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

How so?

When you make a complaint like that with no real reason to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple, “no it does’t”.

The guild upgrades that you and your guilds have farmed influence for over the years of playing WvW has now gone to waste.
+5 Supply is the foremost important thing in siege building, assault/defense.
You got these upgrades by wvw-ing doing events, etc, unlocking them and they were time-gated before as you have to queue them up hundreds of hours long…
now gone to waste.
What’s more, the +5 supply capacity has been pushed back further than Guild Siege Suits, when previously, all you needed was Lvl2 Art of War..
Now you need Lvl2million PVE to get them.

They added WvW guild missions.

In my opinion, if the +5 aspect you could apply to a depot will make or break your guild, then your guild wasn’t a good one to begin with.

@Xenesis

I have this mental image of 3 players standing around with a Superior Catapult needing just 1 supply to finish it…as a defender builds an AC above them.

I usually do small havok…so having +5 to finish building siege helps. Building 2 Guild Catapults with a small team to breach a wall fast enough before the stronger World’s zerg runs us over…used to be pure joy.

Actually…now that I’m finished PvE grinding for my specialization…I can at least begin to get back to WvW.

Chiccotot.7296:

coglin.1867:

They added WvW guild missions.

In my opinion, if the +5 aspect you could apply to a depot will make or break your guild, then your guild wasn’t a good one to begin with.

When you make a comment like that with no real basis to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple “es tee ef you – no”.

I laughed on this one. You win my interwebs for the day brah.

Diku.2546:

@Xenesis

I have this mental image of 3 players standing around with a Superior Catapult needing just 1 supply to finish it…as a defender builds an AC above them.

I usually do small havok…so having +5 to finish building siege helps. Building 2 Guild Catapults with a small team to breach a wall fast enough before the stronger World’s zerg runs us over…used to be pure joy.

Actually…now that I’m finished PvE grinding for my specialization…I can at least begin to get back to WvW.

That’s what my guild did, we would take 5-7 people and build guild catas and quickly break and take T3 structures just before the enemy zerg responded. It was fun taking places that it would take normal zergs 2x as long with 3x the supply to get in doing it the lazy way.

Those days are done anyways with the new map keep designs and nerf to guild cata cost. Better to just do the oasis event on the dead maps and get most of the doors down.

The counter argument to the “my small guild should be able to +5 easily” is that why give such give such a buff to smaller guilds? A larger guild should have some type of an advantage – otherwise it is better to have 8 5-man guilds claiming everything on the map. Also on home BL, the large guild often uses their +5 buff to claim garrison to give the +5 bonus so their buff is tied up. A better argument is that player supply capacity needs to be increased or that the requirement needs to be made somewhat less difficult.

Pre-HoT, the bank guilds of individual players would often have enough influence to +5 structures which doesn’t seem right.

Because my guild already had +5 for years before the expansion, how’s that for a counter argument?

My guild also use to +5 to all three keeps regularly, we had alt guilds to provide the extra buffs. Large guilds tend to not claim any structures unless they really need to. Alt or bank guilds maintained their buffs by buying influence while some even spent more on upgrading structures, was that not a fair trade off?

P.S not everyone is in T1 or 2 where you have 6+ zerg guilds running around, a lot of smaller guilds operate in the lower tiers.

That’s what my guild did, we would take 5-7 people and build guild catas and quickly break and take T3 structures just before the enemy zerg responded. It was fun taking places that it would take normal zergs 2x as long with 3x the supply to get in doing it the lazy way.

Guild catas were too overpowered because of the supply needed. Now that they need 50 supply is much in tune with the rest of the siege.
I think the best option with +5 supply and all the other guild upgrades is either give them very cheap and early or don’t give them at all.

HoT actively drives people away because you need about 75+ WvW Ranks before you can get your elite, or just run and do it in a couple hours in PvE.

Fikfain.5849:

Before HoT, you could claim and buff locations. You could spawn plenty of guild banners. You could lead zergs across a map and fight other zergs both in open field and at keep walls.

After HoT, you can’t claim/buff anything because your guild has to both unlock its guild hall (pve) and fill the treasury a bunch of times (pve) and schedule aetherium upgrades (time-gating)…

After HoT, you can’t spawn banners/craftables because you have to be a scribe (pvButton) which requires tremendous amounts of new materials (pve).

After HoT, leading a zerg across the new BL maps means you may never see another zerg because the keeps are so big that going door-to-door takes a millennia, there’s 20 paths to get to the same spot instead of one tried and true path to catch people on, all the “quick movement” stuff relies on ONE player not sniping any of the completely out-of-the-way shrines away from you if you own the keep, there are barricades to intentionally slow invaders down (even though they’re currently borked and you can jump over them), people waste time farming at every location slowing/dispersing your zerg from reacting to stuff, defenders are given defensive tools way too quickly and every door and wall is built like a murderhole with 3-4 levels of vertical to deal with.

Oh and everyone knows that nobody’s going to be out there because they’re all either doing pve because it’s either new/fun/challenging or necessary XP/supplies/guild upgrading or both. Plus grinding legendary creations, plus having to do hero point runs for unlocking all their trait lines…

It’s not even that WvW is a little attention starved right now. It’s that the new content is actively driving people away from it…on purpose!

Daily – Ruins – still in rotation but where ARE the ruins?

No tags on BLs – almost ever

Fifty to Sixty against twenty-five constantly on EB

If it’s this bad that they opened up BG, didn’t take into account the players who play WvW versus those who don’t on any server before allowing even more of an imbalance, then why have WvW?

Why is Anet actively destroying WvW?

Why no Anet tags in WvW any longer?

Why no tourneys – some may not like them but they draw in the casual player like nothing else with WvW specific gear and goodies.

Anet, you may not like WvW, but we did.

Until the new BL maps and the changes in automating so much that solo players are locked out completely – and that’s for upgrades and for solo roaming.

Fifty to sixty players coming at one person – yeah, that’s skill.

Anet? When are you going to wake up and realize that this is the end game, not stripped down PvP that only encompasses a few players at once.

WvW needs a rollback.

Now.

coglin.1867:

They added WvW guild missions.

Which actually disrupt WvW! The maps have been so empty that it hasn’t been that noticeable yet.

Since Guild Missions can be restarted as often as a guild wants in order to get all their people through the missions, we’ve had instances where we ran out to take a camp, tower, or sentry just to realize on the way there that our server had already just taken it. So we go deeper into the zone or switch zones in order to get another sentry/camp within range of our timer. We have to ask people in /map to “please don’t take that one so we can finish our guild mission, we’re on our way there”. That’s a fine request if you’re looking for Poobadoo and coordinate with other guilds that need to kill him too. It sucks if your holding a camp is interfering with your ability to help out elsewhere on the map or you’re asking people to slow down their sieging to wait for you to reach the sentry before they cap it, etc.

The same is true of pulling guilds away from the greater mission to do things like run power cores because the event is only up at certain times meaning that Guild Mission is time-gated by the event. Its rarity drives people away from other objectives to run cores.

WvW Guild Missions are important, but by putting these artificially low timers on them and making them objectives that aren’t just something the guild would do in the course of WvW.

WvW missions have been one of the few good things in my experience, as the defense portion makes people sit around.

Also, if a guild is willing to jeopardize their server to pursue a guild mission, that seems incredibly selfish and nobody has a right to control the map like that. I would reject any such requests and tell them we could help arrange to do that at a slightly later time. It’s nothing communication couldn’t potentially solve.

The timer is crap, but that has to do with the overall poor design of Guild Missions.

It is like the situation with tower nodes. If the people are selfish enough to take advantage of the nodes and not help out, then it is a problem with the people. And some of the times this can be resolved by asking nicely instead of complaining about people on the forums.

@Samis

Awww…come on…if you’re in a larger guild…you have the advantage of troop numbers already.

So you’re gonna argue that +5 should be taken away from smaller guilds to preserve this advantage?

Also, keep in mind that the +5 buff is not exclusive to small guilds. Larger guilds can use +5 combined with their advantage of troop numbers.

Also, you “seem” to argue a view point that is similar to the warning sign that’s posted next to the carnival roller coaster rides.

You must be this tall to ride this ride.

If you encourage this attitude without adjusting the height requirements…WvW could start loosing riders who want to play, but can’t play because we’re not tall enough.

WvW in the end suffers when players are turned away from riding the game mode they were able to ride for years…before they changed the height requirement.

I hope ANet changes their mind before we loose the small guild community because they’re not deemed tall enough to participate in WvW…same can be said about roamers and scouts…because their roles have in some cases been removed.

The WvW ecosystem has changed drastically if you haven’t noticed…long term Community Health will be impacted if it continues.

Diku

Edit – Disclaimer…in my opinion…the WvW ecosystem is drastically impacted, but players will continue to play…just that it won’t THRIVE.

I think your being a bit dramatic – people who like wvw do so because its pvp, and those players will always like pvp… and pvp players will never suddenly PREFER pve for any reason.

Also, your just fooling yourself if you beleive wvw is just pure pvp, its not, winning in wvw is mostly about completing pve objectives and has nothing to do with killing players.

even spvp has a lot of pve in it and most competative esports has pve in it, Moba’s are heavily pve games where killing mobs, bosses and events usually decides the winning team more than their pvp skill

So this whole complaint about having to do PvE in PvP is just hyperbole.

@Snowman

I’m in NA Tier 6.

Just curious…What Zone & Tier are you in?

Different Tiers will have different observed viewpoints about the state of their WvW Communities in my opinion.

Recent changes has made WvW playing a lot less enjoyable in my opinion, but I haven’t given up on trying to get used to these changes.

I agree…WvW has many different mechanics and play styles…all are valid reasons why people choose to play it.

PvE capturing of objectives in WvW is part of this game mode.

Yes…this opinion just might be hyperbole.

Diku, even in Tier 1 there are only players during primetime (~6PM- 9PM pacific / ~9PM-12 midnight Eastern).

The guild upgrades are INSANE in cost. Even in a 500 man WvW guild you’re looking at about 7000 gold to access the +5 supply buff according to one of the guys in my guild.

The timegating means we won’t see the full ramifications of this farce until about two months later when stuff like invulnerable gates , supply drops, invuln dolyaks, and turtle banners are active.

Fikfain.5849:

So we go deeper into the zone or switch zones in order to get another sentry/camp within range of our timer. We have to ask people in /map to “please don’t take that one so we can finish our guild mission, we’re on our way there”.

Fik, when did we ever do THAT?

@Infusion

sigh – Small guilds, havoc teams, and roamers will be hard pressed to have fun in my opinion.

I’ll keep trying to enjoy WvW in it’s new incarnation…

This is not a threat to quit playing…

Me quitting would mean nothing to ANet or to other players.

It’s just a personal observation that I’m beginning to realize…but this might be a good thing too…I’m actually watching tv and going out to do other fun things instead of gaming all the time.

I’m sure other long standing WvW player’s behavior must be changing too.

I still like to WvW, but the reasons behind what motivated me are shifting to be honest. I’ll probably still WvW, but not as much.

I’m still looking forward to the former glory days…if ANet can get the right mix for WvW going again.

Personally….I still believe it’s the Base Map Mechanic that’s the single flaw that prevents WvW from flourishing.

Was playing with friends and guildies not your main motivation for WvW before? Because that is my main motivation, and nothing that has changed WvW, or guild systems, effects our ability to play and have fun together.

Hmm…my main motivation was playing for my Home World Community. I’m a PUG Commander…I run Solo camp capping & building up players to take larger objectives.

Currently troop levels are extremely low to non-existent from my perspective…which may change if we wait long enough.

Long term…I still believe players would rather server stack to the Top Tiers to have more fun…rather than want to migrate to the lower Tiers that could use some numbers.

I do enjoy my World Server…the Community is filled with a lot of good natured players, but lately it’s hard to muster up my own excitement to play WvW. It currently feels like a chore to try and get motivated.

Ok…I’m rambling…has nothing to do with trying to tell ANet what they can do to improve things. It’s just the feeling that is beginning to surface as more time goes by after HoT has launched.

Glad you can still enjoy things in WvW & have such a strong motivated group of friends & guildies that continue to play WvW where you are.

coglin.1867:

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

How so?

When you make a complaint like that with no real reason to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple, “no it does’t”.

Probably because its self evident that EARNED progress being deleted is annoying, and he’s not saying it will ‘break’ his guild. My guild is very annoyed about it but we are working to get it back anyway.

morrolan.9608:

coglin.1867:

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

How so?

When you make a complaint like that with no real reason to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple, “no it does’t”.

Probably because its self evident that EARNED progress being deleted is annoying, and he’s not saying it will ‘break’ his guild. My guild is very annoyed about it but we are working to get it back anyway.

I think you missed my point. My point was that it is not particularly constructive unless you name what aspect you feel were taken away with a little detail.

The other issue I see, is that your perceive something as “self evident”. I see some of these aspects through a different lens then you, as others do. We all have our own lens. It strikes me as very irrational to simply blindly presume they feel the same negative feelings as you do. I see no problem with it because they added great depth to the guild aspect. Such as filling demands for guild halls, guild arenas, and so one. As I see it, everyone started from scratch, at the same point t, when it comes to guilds. So if you want to have an honest discussion about it, perhaps it would be wise to drop the assumption, and explain a reasoning, when posting about an issue with something.

Poi t in case here, you continued to avoid offering an explanation, but instead, demanded I should be reading your mind for what you deem as " self evident". Which seems very counter productive in my opinion.

coglin.1867:

morrolan.9608:

coglin.1867:

Straegen.2938:

Someone pointed out in another thread that no game expansion should remove players earned capabilities.

HoT not only fouled up the BLs but basically killed the guild system for all but the most dedicated large guilds. Our small guild will never get back what we had.

How so?

When you make a complaint like that with no real reason to justify it, then the counter argument is a simple, “no it does’t”.

Probably because its self evident that EARNED progress being deleted is annoying, and he’s not saying it will ‘break’ his guild. My guild is very annoyed about it but we are working to get it back anyway.

I think you missed my point. My point was that it is not particularly constructive unless you name what aspect you feel were taken away with a little detail.

The other issue I see, is that your perceive something as “self evident”. I see some of these aspects through a different lens then you, as others do. We all have our own lens. It strikes me as very irrational to simply blindly presume they feel the same negative feelings as you do. I see no problem with it because they added great depth to the guild aspect. Such as filling demands for guild halls, guild arenas, and so one. As I see it, everyone started from scratch, at the same point t, when it comes to guilds. So if you want to have an honest discussion about it, perhaps it would be wise to drop the assumption, and explain a reasoning, when posting about an issue with something.

Poi t in case here, you continued to avoid offering an explanation, but instead, demanded I should be reading your mind for what you deem as " self evident". Which seems very counter productive in my opinion.

Guild upgrades. All of them. It is self evident, as long as you’re not being intellectually dishonest. Guilds worked hard to get upgrades, all upgrades were removed, replacement upgrades are behind extremely large material costs. It’s been stated numerous times in this thread alone. Only a troll would continue to play dumb at this point.

The Plus 5 Supply Capacity bonus is now a Guild Level 37 upgrade. The shortest/cheapest path I could find through the prerequisities costs 7000 gold and 50 days of Aetherium mining.

The Tier-1 consumable Sabotage Supply Depot requires 75 Flax Fibers to craft for every use. That costs over 5 gold at today’s market prices.

These are replacements for pre-existing gameplay features from WvW that were previously far more accessible.

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

Fikfain.5849:

So we go deeper into the zone or switch zones in order to get another sentry/camp within range of our timer. We have to ask people in /map to “please don’t take that one so we can finish our guild mission, we’re on our way there”.

Fik, when did we ever do THAT?

You weren’t on at the time, Jalis. It was earlier this week. Kept heading to the next sentry to see our own team taking them in front of us, had to switch zones. It flagged, we asked them to hold up before flipping. They kindly did. But it’s easily something I see that could start happening more frequently if more guilds started going back to WvW more than they do these days.

Who knew that new content would entice people into playing it… omg anet human nature op pls nerf. Seriously, give it some time, most of the WvW players will be done with HoT in another month and will be back for WvW. If they dont come back, then I would say that there are grounds for this discussion, but right now it is way too early to complain about HoT.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Who knew that new content would entice people into playing it… omg anet human nature op pls nerf. Seriously, give it some time, most of the WvW players will be done with HoT in another month and will be back for WvW. If they dont come back, then I would say that there are grounds for this discussion, but right now it is way too early to complain about HoT.

Not really; it’s already happened, for the most part. Ehmry Bay’s EBG rarely filled up until HoT released, and now it’s pretty much constantly full. WvW players have returned to WvW, but they are queuing up for EBG. The borderlands remain empty.

Yeah, weekend passed and still no-one there, hah. And our defense guilds were on the offensive, too.