Part One:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-to-Fix-WVW-5/first#post5822763
Part Two:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-to-Fix-WVW-Part-Two/first#post5828558
If you want to create a pve version of WVW fine, but don’t take away the true to form player vs player version.
WVW’ers are gimping badly to see a company develop a WVW environment that is cool and visually stimulating to do what WVW’ers do:
“WVW’ers want to fight each other in zergs both large and small, in small groups and solo, they don’t want to fight AI ".
The game needs to present a really cool environment with fairly simple navigation and is visually stimulating then get the heck out of the way and let PEOPLE fight PEOPLE. The new BL lords for example are cool, I give ya that, but they are pve lords. People when capping something don’t want to deal with AI from the keep lords because when the enemy shows up to defend it the AI gets in the way of true to form WVW. Once again players want to fight living, breathing, thinking, people and not lose or win because of the AI. They want to win/lose because the other PEOPLE flat out beat them either with more numbers or better players. All lords need to be dumb with a fair amount of HP’s as to give the defending side a tad more time to get there and that’s the only purpose for lords, not to be fun to fight. I understand wanting to try and add some flair to the game but where does it stop? The old borderlands and EB tower/keep lords seem reasonably tweaked and even tho the SM lord can be a small challenge when fighting players also it feels in harmony with the purpose of WVW. It’s best to keep the AI totally out of WVW, its just not what WVW is all about. The maps need to be simple yet engaging and easy to navigate and their should be a very small learning curve to getting to know a WVW map. Otherwise the game is getting in the way of the whole purpose of why we login everyday. I just logged out from the new BL’s after retaking a couple of keeps and fighting a handful of players trying to take another tower and I felt lost for words. Anet has missed the mark so badly with this new map is hard to know where to start complaining.
I hear a possible total rework of WVW is in the works, I have no idea if it true, but if it is I hope Anet has learned from their mistakes. The gaming industry badly needs a place for a ton of dedicated players to go socialize and kill each other. Its sounds sick but its a fact. A place that’s stimulating visually with maps that are easy to navigate and cool to run around in. Maps that don’t have a bunch of weird stuff on them. A company that realizes WVW’ers don’t log in to go explore a WVW map but are there to fight people, and capture, defend things with as little AI involved as possible. Some players want to be more involved in upgrading and scouting but when their are no scouts the game should alert players in reasonable fashion that something is under attack so they can go defend it(the white sword system works just fine). This isn’t asking to much and it seems like an easy request to fulfill yet gaming companies keep mucking it up. I might add, even though the white sword system works great allowing one player to close a portal off with one whack of a weapon is not good. DAOC require a certain amount of damage to a gate before a warning went off and it worked good.
I also understand and appreciate Anet’s desire to want to improve WVW but I’m sorry to say the effort was wasted on the WVW face-lift we have to date. Maybe some of these things can kick start your creative juices in the right direction if you truly are considering a total rework of WVW.
Not all but most players like to show off their cool swords or armor so maybe the game can give them more things to do just that. How about personalized ram heads that a guild can obtain, like a fire breathing dragon head on the end of the ram that does an extra 5% dmg to the gate and looks really cool(this could be expanded greatly). Maybe an asuran gizmo that attaches to a ram allowing the ram to work 10% faster and runs the ram so a player doesn’t have to, there could be several different kinds all with their own unique cool look. Gadgets like this are cool and could be something for a player/guild to show off yet they don’t really get in the way of what WVW is all about. How about personalize gate skins for towers that a guild has claimed that are 10% harder to take down and look really cool like a medusa head with snakes crawling all over the gate. Again something that doesn’t really get in the way of the game yet guilds can work towards obtaining to show off their cool factor. How about tower decorations or even tower skins that can be applied to a owned tower/keep, maybe guilds would take defending their claimed stuff more serious. Oh and why not have alerts to all guild members online when something they own in WVW is being attacked even if they are in the pve side of the game. DAOC used the guild chat to just spam a msg to the guild that a tower they owned was under attack and how many enemy were in the area and that worked pretty good. These sort of things add to WVW and peoples cool factor without messing up the WVW dynamics. It gives players something to work towards. Sure some of the real hardcore WVW’ers won’t be interested in these things but most WVW’ers would love this sort of stuff. I can envision this awesome SM skin that turns SM into this transparent shimmering glistening castle with a 20% boost to defenses that players awe at and is hard to obtain and costly to deploy. But it sure adds a lot of cool factor
. Or maybe the “Twin Angel” skin that adds two winged cool looking angels to the corners of a claimed tower and makes the walls 10% stronger, so many things could be done to make claiming a tower and decorating it a more rewarding experience for everyone. Not to mention some of these basic skins, gizmos could be sold off the TP and generate income for Anet.
Maybe also an arena in the corner of the zone for duels where two players can enter a fenced off area and duel while others watch. I don’t think dueling everywhere in WVW is a good idea, it could get out of hand. Dueling needs to be off in the corner of a zone with a neutral portal to port there.
Anet seems to be very consumed with the terrain of the maps EoTM, HoT, WVW BL’s all have one thing in common… “more difficult to navigate” . It works for pve but TD imho is a tad overboard with confusion. But in WVW I can’t stress enough that maps need to be simple yet engaging and Anet needs to look in other areas for ways to make WVW more fun without ruining the experience.
One more small thing, maybe next time don’t release a pve and a WVW upgrades/xpac at same time. Is WVW dead because people are in HoT or is it dead because people are quitting or protesting the new BL maps. The answer probably lies somewhere between those two scenarios. Personally I feel putting the new BL maps up against a new Xpac like HoT pretty much gave the new BL maps a death sentence but only time will tell.
Overall my take on the current state of WVW is this…
WVW population will probably increase as HoT becomes old. Will WVW population be what it was before or will it have grown or shrunk in population? My opinion is it will settle into a little less WVW player population than before HoT. People in general don’t like the new BL maps and even tho it will probably pull in some of the pve types a larger amount of dedicated WVW’ers will quit playing. The reasons for many WVW’ers quitting is mainly…
((((((BL maps are too confusing and dreary, too much of a pve feel to the BL maps, auto upgrades was a really really did I say really bad idea(should’ve just lowered cost to upgrade). Guild changes and guild upgrading is too expensive and treats small guilds like dirt (this is a big deal).))))))
WVW’ers don’t feel like Anet is going to listen to their complaints and if they do acknowledge anything it will lead to nothing being done. People are losing faith in Anet’s commitment to WVW and Anet’s ability to understand the WVW community. So in time WVW will get back to normal but with less players and GW2 will will just keep trekking along with more xpacs until NcSoft decides its time for a shot in the arm and announces GW3 or they let gw die a slow long death and milk it for all they can. It’s just the way business is, after all this is about profits or there wouldn’t even be a GuildWars to play. Hopefully along this journey future updates, xpacs or whatever will put the fun back into WVW.
Promise one last small thing. You do understand all these small things add up! But why take away guard stacks it was a nice little dynamic in WVW. If it needed to be toned down fine make so it only adds 50 power and 50 vitality don’t penalize all the people that earned it.
Good Luck Anet
Oleman SBI forever!
(edited by Noob.5908)