Guild Wars 2

I posted the following in a thread in the guru forums, but I think it sums up my primary discontent with the mechanics in WvW right now.

Just a disclaimer, it’s not a rant, nor am I asking for a handout (the below mechanic helps servers winning AND losing). I just wanted to point out some issues I see that leads to the current imbalance within the servers.

I think ANet failed to give us the tools we need to succeed in a FactionvFaction environment, so right now the cards are stacked in a large guild’s favor.

Before you take this the wrong way, here’s what I mean:

I came from Aion. In that game, you have groups as the primary “party”, 4 groups forms an alliance of 24. 4/5 (forgot x_x) Alliances forms a League.
There is group chat, alliance chat, and league chat.
You see your alliance’s position on the map.
There’s alliance vice captains to mark stuff (multiple marks for targets, also can mark ally healers, leaders etc)
Alliance vice captains can do /alert chat, which pops up in everyone’s screen as big yellow letters. This is across the entire league.

As a result, you can easily organize 100 people into a highly organized zerg. They don’t need to be in the same guild, or don’t need to all speak english. There are marks, there are spots on the map to see where everyone is, there are people giving directions via /alert.

Then you have GW2, where it’s extremely hard to keep track of the other group even if you guys are in the same guild! Limited marking abilities, can’t see where your guild members are on the map if you happen to have 2 groups….
Commander Squad doesn’t show you where everyone is on the map either, and no alert chat.

So essentially, we rely on VoIP/Map chat to communicate and direct the zerg.

And you can see clearly the difference between a HoD zerg (everyone on VoIP because they are in the same guild alliance) and a zerg from another server (not on VoIP most of the times and not in same guild, so no guild chat either)

This basically means as players, we have to work a lot harder to organize. This is NOT a QQ thread, TA did the right thing by laying their foundations before launch, this includes more organized handing-over to offpeak, shift management etc….

I’m just pointing out that the rest of us are playing catch up, because TA (and of course AA and RUIN) put down the work before hand. However, because of the lack of tools in game mechanics, the catching up process is happening very slowly.

So ANet, if this thread doesn’t get lost in the swarm… please consider revamping the Squad/Commander mechanics so the rest of us can be better organized and give HoD the fight they deserve!

I do tend to agree that, in General, this Ame is severely lacking in party/guild/alliance mechanics. Ironic for a Ame named guild wars.

When I first saw a commander and joined his squad I though “finally, a way to keep track of more than 4 other people on the map”. In reality absolutely nothing changes, except form the fact that you can talk in a new chat channel, and the commander can give orders. Why can’t we, at the very least, see everyone in our squad on the map? Very strange.

I’ve never played Aion. But from what you describe it has quite a nice system for organizing players. I’m envious.

The squad system could definitely use some enchancements.

This is definately a large contributor to the issues in WvWvW right now. The lack of tools to facilitate coordinating the large numbers of people that WvWvW is supposed to be about is a fairly major oversight.

drwookie.6391:

I’ve never played Aion. But from what you describe it has quite a nice system for organizing players. I’m envious.

Western players probably wouldn’t like Aion. It’s a korean grind game :p

However, it has gotten Map systems and party UI down completely. I think the Map system is one of the best in the games that i’ve played. (saving locations to memos, drawing on map can be saved and sent to the party, etc)

It’s a faction v faction game, and those mechanics def helped in organizing players from different guilds in a large scale battle.

Phaedryn.3698:

This is definately a large contributor to the issues in WvWvW right now. The lack of tools to facilitate coordinating the large numbers of people that WvWvW is supposed to be about is a fairly major oversight.

I think once we have some sort of an upgrade to the current commander system, other servers might have a better chance at closing the gaps.

Please take this in to perspective, if you are in a real wartime situation let’s say… Are you given all the tools you need in order to form your own group of soldiers to fight?

I feel as though the less we are given, the more we are made to work on our communication with other people, and work tactics. If you are looking to really get in to things, you end up figuring ways of communicating to accomplish your end goal. My recommendation is to contact those around you to see if you can form your own squads and organization within your community.

Good luck!

Adding an alliance/raid feature to combine several groups should be one of the first aspects of WvW implemented. I cannot believe it’s not in game. The squad feature is unsatisfactory and really pointless if we can’t see everyone in it on the map.

Jedbacca.6297:

Please take this in to perspective, if you are in a real wartime situation let’s say… Are you given all the tools you need in order to form your own group of soldiers to fight?

In a wartime situation you are given all the tools you need to lead your regiment/battalion/company/platoon/squad/fireteam to fight. Yes you are. In fact, most of them are highly advanced compared to what would be given in Guild Wars 2 to help us organize WvWvW.

But we are not at war, we are playing a game… (so like a virtual war )

I don’t see why a game couldn’t give the players a easier time to get organized. It’s not going to suddenly make one side have magical tactical advantage, right? It’s more of an ergonomics point of view.

I’m a design major so… these kind of thing bugs me, but it’s just my 2c

My guild took a look at its close knit community, and decided to double/triple its numbers rapidly due to the difficulties of managing a pug zerg. It totally changes the nature of your gaming community, and officers have to work twice as hard to keep everything on the up and up.

The great resource that anet gave us for just this purpose is being able to join multiple guilds. Your guild too small? Can’t get enough money for General?

Join one that can.

Khalous.7430:

My guild took a look at its close knit community, and decided to double/triple its numbers rapidly due to the difficulties of managing a pug zerg. It totally changes the nature of your gaming community, and officers have to work twice as hard to keep everything on the up and up.

The great resource that anet gave us for just this purpose is being able to join multiple guilds. Your guild too small? Can’t get enough money for General?

Join one that can.

But it does suck that you can’t see the position of your guild members on the map, even if they are not in party.

I do like that their name is in yellow so you can spot them out right away in a zerg though.

To each their own, but I personally think its fine.

The game has a map that shows fighting, so you know where action is, there is of course a global channel so it isnt like people cant communicate with the whole map.

If the changes you suggest happened, everyone would hop in a PvP map, join the Zerg group and then just follow around the zerg. And if you havent noticed most of the time sides chicken out on facing each other unless they have an advantage.

Sometimes 4 to 1 is required to instill bravery.

So it would end up, "Oh Zerg A is bigger than us by 15% so we should just sit in our start zones.

As it is now, there are individuals running around, small groups, guild groups, and small guild armies.

There is little point in trying to WvW as an individual or even in a group or two, if the different realms are always in a massive 40-80 person zerg.

I dont think forcing everyone into a default zerg is a good idea, as it is now you can enjoy solo hunting, or duo. (Please lets not argue semantics, the choice of by yourself in the dark, while everyone else is on the same page lumped together isnt much of a choice when your opponent is the same)

You can also make specialized guild groups and hunt as an elite team.

And having 30 guilds auto organized into a pile doesnt shout Guild Wars, makes it seem more like Realm Wars.

But the experience is for the players to create, so you might find fighting top servers is like fighting a highly organized army, or you may find the fights against other servers with smaller highly experienced groups using guerrilla tactics. Or you may see a ragtag scatter of people running around in a loose horde from fight to fight.

Jedbacca.6297:

Please take this in to perspective, if you are in a real wartime situation

Stopped reading there. The game is designed to be fun to play, not to be a real wartime situation simulator. OP is very much correct that the map and organization tools suck in WvW.

I think the idea is to mimick the feel at minimum.

An actual alliance to guilds, and an alliance chat…. like daoc…. is what this game lacks severely

Eve Online has been doing large scale warfare the best for ages now and has the tools for the job built right in. Corporation (guild) tools are much better than what we have now, add in the tools to create an Alliance of corporations with options for taxation or a monthly Alliance fee along with tools for Diplomacy and War Declaration and you have a solid and robust system that doesn’t require massive planning or recruitment outside of the game.

Furthermore with time spent levelling certain skill trees you have the ability to become a squad commander (1 + 9 players), a wing commander (5 squads) and a fleet commander (5 wings) for the maximum benefit of a structured 250 man fleet. Each of those commanders are able to provide buffs to the structure below them.

But that may be asking too much, I’d be happy with the simple ability to form in game Alliances and some Diplomatic tools for WvW usage and of course a better squad/raid interface.

If Guild vs Guild is ever going to happen then I’m sure they have plans for these tools in place already.

Mytheos.7205:

And having 30 guilds auto organized into a pile doesnt shout Guild Wars, makes it seem more like Realm Wars.

I never said the guilds should be “auto organized”, I’m saying there should be changes to the commander structure for those who joins voluntarily.

There will not suddenly be a lack of small groups, as some guilds like to go hit up supplies and enemy yaks(like mine).

And WvW is not exactly “guild” wars, it’s Realm wars… isn’t it?

Jedbacca.6297

Please take this in to perspective, if you are in a real wartime situation let’s say… Are you given all the tools you need in order to form your own group of soldiers to fight?

Ok, so lets do it like this. Since we’re in a “real wartime”, all your loot should stay with your body. There should be perma-death. And you can’t use skype or teamspeak or anything. Is this “war” enough for you? Shouldn’t be, it still seems pretty softcore to me.

But seriously, do not tell people that the game client shouldn’t be improved with things that enable inter-player / inter-guild collaboration if the next thing you’ll say is that you should “talk to people around you and organize”. It doesn’t really make sense.

Mytheos.7205:

To each their own, but I personally think its fine.

The game has a map that shows fighting, so you know where action is, there is of course a global channel so it isnt like people cant communicate with the whole map.

If the changes you suggest happened, everyone would hop in a PvP map, join the Zerg group and then just follow around the zerg. And if you havent noticed most of the time sides chicken out on facing each other unless they have an advantage.

Sometimes 4 to 1 is required to instill bravery.

So it would end up, "Oh Zerg A is bigger than us by 15% so we should just sit in our start zones.

As it is now, there are individuals running around, small groups, guild groups, and small guild armies.

There is little point in trying to WvW as an individual or even in a group or two, if the different realms are always in a massive 40-80 person zerg.

I dont think forcing everyone into a default zerg is a good idea, as it is now you can enjoy solo hunting, or duo. (Please lets not argue semantics, the choice of by yourself in the dark, while everyone else is on the same page lumped together isnt much of a choice when your opponent is the same)

You can also make specialized guild groups and hunt as an elite team.

And having 30 guilds auto organized into a pile doesnt shout Guild Wars, makes it seem more like Realm Wars.

But the experience is for the players to create, so you might find fighting top servers is like fighting a highly organized army, or you may find the fights against other servers with smaller highly experienced groups using guerrilla tactics. Or you may see a ragtag scatter of people running around in a loose horde from fight to fight.

Wait I don’t understand. Having 30 guilds organizing (you said auto, but how it would be auto is beyond me) and fighting other guilds does not shout out GUILD WARS to you? Am i missing something here?

To your other point about the map showing fighting. The problem with that is if a small group of players get into a little battle, that shows up on the map. All the sudden you have 4-5 different battles going on and you don’t know which one to join.

I personally think they need at least a guild function or show guild members on the maps in wvw.

I think Anet needs to improve guild functionality before it attempts to improve alliance functionality or add it. I have to use a spreadsheet to track when last guilds members log. MOTD doesn’t get shown when it’s changed or when users login. I think showing people’s account name in bold always and showing character name in faded text will allow users to associate account names better since people are creating 2-3 alts already.