Guild Wars 2

It boggles my mind how many people have left WvW. How can there be this many players but servers still have a hard time covering both EB and borderlands?

It seems to me that the lack of rewards from WvW are really taking its toll :/

I hope A-net devotes more time into WvW to catch up with it’s sPvP love because right now players like me seem unwanted.

Lack of rewards/loot drops and that only a few select classes dominate, so if you are not one of these classes may aswell avoid it.

Not really millions of players. I thought they had sold 2 million accounts? Many people have multiple accounts, and many people got banned and bought new etc. It would be unreasonable to think that Arena Net could maintain over 100,000 players in WvW at all times. That being said, something needs to be done to incentivize people to transfer over to lower populated servers. The issue is much much more prominent there.

Lack of rewards and cosmetics is a big part of the problem I think.

Mubarizun.6435:

It boggles my mind how many people have left WvW. How can there be this many players but servers still have a hard time covering both EB and borderlands?

It seems to me that the lack of rewards from WvW are really taking its toll :/

I hope A-net devotes more time into WvW to catch up with it’s sPvP love because right now players like me seem unwanted.

what tier are you talking about? I know on the weekends in my tier its usually full all the borderlands obviously people or more people work during the week so you see less people. I doubt you will see queues all threw the week

I am an active WvW player since launch.

I have 7 real life friends who also started at launch.

3 of them no longer play due to moving on to other hobbies.

1 logs in on patch day, then logs out and starts complaining about stuff. WvW killed his love of this game due to his desires not being fulfilled or something.

1 logs in once a month.

1 logs in only during school holidays.

1 refuses to log in at all other than to maybe do BLTC stuff, but not actually play the game.

I am sure other people know people who no longer play. Those are the accounts that are sold, but are not active. It adds up to numbers that do not play in WvW.

means less queues for my guild :P

But i can safely say that if this game had a sub they wouldn’t have more then around 5-8 servers left in EU tops. and i can say that im not playing because the game is super fun, im playing because playing WvW with my guild is very fun.

Millions copies sold doesnt amount to millions people playing.

Anet somewhere in oct claimed that have 400k concurrent players and figures should be based on that..

And..i.think it is widely known why wvw lost its charm even though some people and anet dont agree to it.

I wouldn’t still be playing if it wasn’t for my friends in my guild.I only loggin to game , because i know that whatever i do in game , if i’m doing it with my guildies , i’m gonna have fun.

But other than that , no the game is not fun by itself anymore.WvW needs some love…Hope to see it on March…Without a new prospone…

I agree with your sentiment. I’ve always marveled at how few a percentage of GW2 players play WvW.

There’s nothing mysterious about why people don’t WvW. You get nothing to show for the time you spend there unlike every other activity in the game. No gear, no star next to your name (like with map completion), no “rank” system, no bragging rights….nothing. Seeing another guy in PvE, there is no way to tell whether or not he’s a WvW star.

Merely saying “Oh it’s a lot of fun” is not enough. “Just fun” isn’t good enough given that you can also be having fun in other parts of the game and have something to show for it. sPvP allows you to rank up, get cool /rank emotes, and sweet gear. There’s something to achieve. Something to look forward to. Something to show to others and say “See – I’m awesome!”.

Others say that if your server is winning you get PvE benefits. True, but those will happen regardless of whether I participate or not. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma.

It might be more attractive if it even meant something to die in WvW. Like once you die there your character is erased – meaning true hardcore mode. That’s a real sense of danger and excitement. But right now, there’s no penalty. Armor repairs are not bank breaking.

There are two reasons I enter WvW:

1. Jumping puzzles to get badges for legendaries. I destroy the siege weapon plans.
2. Map completion.

And when I enter a WvW map, I broadcast my intentions to get as many people to come with me. Someone once told me to help them take some keep. I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Long story short – introduce better incentives and people will come. Otherwise forget it.

bhagwad.4281:

I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Did you know that WvW points also giving you bonuses in PvE? Like Crafting bonuses etc?

I’ve been playing since the betas on TC only. Rolling, deleting and re-rolling alts as usual (its a disease, I know). Exploring & playing in open world and blithely ignoring dungeons, spvp and WvW. Not my style…I thought.

But for the last few weeks, I’ve been playing wvw. And enjoying it immensely. And this from an avowed soloist in all games. That said, there are a lot people out there who hate pvp in any form. I was one of those and I just lumped wvw into that playstyle and ignored it.

Its not spvp. But until you can convince the general populace to lay aside their stereotypes and give the style an honest chance for a few weeks…it will probably stay the way it is.

i spend /hour in wvwvw 6.5 +4.3 +1 silver /30 minutes – 25 silver/hour for food buffs
i have 24 % magic find (from triforge pendant ) and i make arround 2- 300 kills /day but i barely cover food buff and some repair costs unles i follow the zerg and capture /defend keeps and even then i end up with max 3 gold profit /day.
Considering that i play an thief, wich allows me to have minimal deaths ratio , i find that many ppls lose money in wvwvw, even without spending an cooper on upgrades.
Problem is rewarding , wich is low, too low atm.

Quentin Fields.1295:

bhagwad.4281:

I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Did you know that WvW points also giving you bonuses in PvE? Like Crafting bonuses etc?

Which is actually kind of silly, since you can’t really do both. And since the economy is all linked, there’s no “I’m increasing gathering for the good of my server to bring down prices!” factor either. This is one thing they should toss out and go back to drawing board. Despite the whining from “fair play” types…would actually make more since to give bonuses for WvW that help your side in WvW…

bhagwad.4281:

And when I enter a WvW map, I broadcast my intentions to get as many people to come with me. Someone once told me to help them take some keep. I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Long story short – introduce better incentives and people will come. Otherwise forget it.

the fact is : you get better loot on friday that on saturday, you got 10% more hp and take 10% less damage from monster, you heal for more and all those bonuses. And that players who play wvwvw, keep those bonuses up for you every week, when you grind for your ascended and legendary.
You already benefit from that, but again those bonuses should apply only to players that play wvw.

Budchgon.2108:

Lack of rewards/loot drops and that only a few select classes dominate, so if you are not one of these classes may aswell avoid it.

I guess you might as well avoid dungeons as well because even a smaller selected classes dominate. Not saying all classes can’t do dungeons, but certain classes, I.e. warrior is on easy mode in pve. So if you want both wvw and pve then warrior is the way to go.

bhagwad.4281:

There’s nothing mysterious about why people don’t WvW. You get nothing to show for the time you spend there unlike every other activity in the game. No gear, no star next to your name (like with map completion), no “rank” system, no bragging rights….nothing. Seeing another guy in PvE, there is no way to tell whether or not he’s a WvW star.

Merely saying “Oh it’s a lot of fun” is not enough. “Just fun” isn’t good enough given that you can also be having fun in other parts of the game and have something to show for it. sPvP allows you to rank up, get cool /rank emotes, and sweet gear. There’s something to achieve. Something to look forward to. Something to show to others and say “See – I’m awesome!”.

Others say that if your server is winning you get PvE benefits. True, but those will happen regardless of whether I participate or not. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma.

It might be more attractive if it even meant something to die in WvW. Like once you die there your character is erased – meaning true hardcore mode. That’s a real sense of danger and excitement. But right now, there’s no penalty. Armor repairs are not bank breaking.

There are two reasons I enter WvW:

1. Jumping puzzles to get badges for legendaries. I destroy the siege weapon plans.
2. Map completion.

And when I enter a WvW map, I broadcast my intentions to get as many people to come with me. Someone once told me to help them take some keep. I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Long story short – introduce better incentives and people will come. Otherwise forget it.

Not everyone needs a cookie for doing…. every silly thing.

Pavlov would love you guys.

Mubarizun.6435:

It boggles my mind how many people have left WvW. How can there be this many players but servers still have a hard time covering both EB and borderlands?

It seems to me that the lack of rewards from WvW are really taking its toll :/

I hope A-net devotes more time into WvW to catch up with it’s sPvP love because right now players like me seem unwanted.

I like tall girls with long hair, especially those with eyes nearing the color red. And I like it when they dress up simple, and don’t wear to much make up.

Now you might like the same kind of girl or something different. But it also means we both like girls.

Now there are guys who have different points of view. Some like short girls, chubby girls, and some guys don’t like girls but guys too. Or some don’t like anything at all.

Where am I getting at? Simply a person likes something which may or may not be similar to another. As we have so many players in this game, not everyone likes WVW. Some might find SPVP better and more appealing. Some might prefer dungeons, or PVE, or being a master BLTC tradesman.

This game caters to everyone’s needs and likes. Not everyone wants to kill another person’s character.

And FYI, people aren’t playing PvP in general because the PvE in the game is solid and addictive for a free to play game. Successfully combines the addictive Diablo-style loot grinding with popular elements of MMOs (instanced dungeons). And they have made LOTS of wins in the PvE arena (no fighting over gathering nodes or mob kills, awesome exploration, very robust auction house.) I can go on and on how great this game is for PvE if people ask me if they should play… especially considering it’s free to play and very early in it’s lifecycle.

If they ask me about PvP, best I can do is stay silent. In both forms, it’s worse than Warhammer Online and even Warcraft. In fact, I’d say DAOC an old school style game that is way out of date is better designed than this one… and I don’t see it changing unless they stop clinging on to design concepts like “we’re gonna be an e-sport!” and “it needs to be so fast-paced that it can keep FPS twitch types happy” and “we gotta balance for 5v5 and smaller”….

bhagwad.4281:

There are two reasons I enter WvW:
1. Jumping puzzles to get badges for legendaries. I destroy the siege weapon plans.
2. Map completion.

Lol. And herein lies the problem. You and the people like you, take the fun out of it all by trying to get virtual items with virtual titles with virtual money with real life time that amounts to absolutely nothing in the end. Those who WvW enjoy the competition, the battles, and the challenge and so tend to PvE just to get gear for WvW. I can guarantee that if there was a viable way to get the necessary stats for gear just from WvW, PvE would be an empty place.

No cookies / No players

Quentin Fields.1295:

bhagwad.4281:

I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Did you know that WvW points also giving you bonuses in PvE? Like Crafting bonuses etc?

I’ll get those bonuses even if I don’t personally participate.

Pervasive problems with WvW retention:

1. It’s hard to reconfigure your character. WvW isn’t grinding Orr. You don’t have 200 gold to burn on duplicate exotic sets to support new builds. It’s unlikely at best for most WvW players to have a full set of Berserker and Soldiers and Cleric and Carrion and Rabid …

Nevermind that some of those stats are a kitten to acquire.

And builds are tied to gear.

2. To reroll you have to PvE.

3. ANet took a lot of soul and identity out of the system by hiding player names.

4. Queues are a kittenblock.

5. Servers where queues are a myth are also the servers where the WvW scene is comparatively inactive.

6. Maps are slightly smallish, resulting in less flexibility.

All these factors contribute to eroded player retention, and most of them are design choices from the result of WvW being a secondary/tertiary game mode (e.g. low priority for ANet).

I think part of the reason is because its so hard to get any small group or solo action in WvW without getting zerged down. Personally, as an ex DAoC player, all I did in RvR was 8 mans and solo/small group stealth wars. There really isn’t much room for this in WvW, at least not that I have seen. If I am wrong please correct me.

I also agree with the guy above me about names being taken out. It was great in DAoC to know the names of the people you were up against. It gave it more of a community feel. You knew the names of the good RvR players, and every time they made a kill in chat with the appropriate color (Red, Green, or Blue, for Albion, Hibernia, or Midgard). It was also helpful for knowing what was going on in the RvR areas.

What are you talking about? This game is the best game i have ever seen and also the w3 is. (i play MMORPGs since 7 years)

Ashanor.5319:

Personally, as an ex DAoC player, all I did in RvR was 8 mans and solo/small group stealth wars. There really isn’t much room for this in WvW, at least not that I have seen. If I am wrong please correct me.

You can do:

1. Supply camp flips
2. Dolyak assassination
3. Quagg nodes
4. Block reinforcements / respawns
5. Assault tower for harass/distract (low chance of actually taking one)
6. Any PvP that occurs while doing 1-5 above

The map is “smaller” than DAOC’s, but not by so much that there isn’t stuff to do for a 5m. A strong 5man can put forth a lot of map control (well, supply control) if they are not countered. And if they are … well, you wanted PvP right? Kekek.

Raf.1078:

I’ve been playing since the betas on TC only. Rolling, deleting and re-rolling alts as usual (its a disease, I know). Exploring & playing in open world and blithely ignoring dungeons, spvp and WvW. Not my style…I thought.

But for the last few weeks, I’ve been playing wvw. And enjoying it immensely. And this from an avowed soloist in all games. That said, there are a lot people out there who hate pvp in any form. I was one of those and I just lumped wvw into that playstyle and ignored it.

Its not spvp. But until you can convince the general populace to lay aside their stereotypes and give the style an honest chance for a few weeks…it will probably stay the way it is.

I feel much the same way about PvP. Got no use for it since I stopped playing CounterStike. And was amazed at how much I enjoyed WvW. Still haven’t bothered with sPvP, and unless a guildie finally drags me, that wont change anytime soon. But I’m tired. The tiers are to restrictive and static. We’ve (GoM) been locked in matchup with Henge and Haven for what seems since December. At first they denied it, but now they openly admit they are in alliance against us (as if the even split of our BL while theirs remain ignored wasn’t obvious), despite both servers having a higher pop then us, never mind combined. Am sick of the same matchup, it’s as kittening boring as saying it’s ok to have the same two teams show up to play your local whatever sports team, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…………….. Hell, even with them both on us we usually are in second, we used to being outmanned and are good at it.
But for the utter lack of reward for keeping on keeping on, while having to deal with the utter boredom of always playing the same servers = I haven’t logged since the last reset except to map clear my new guardian, hell, I hadn’t jumped into the mist since before the reset. Tedium takes it’s toll. It’s not like the servers one tier above or below are so out of reach they can’t rotate matchups. Course you also have the brain damaged breakouts making it pointless to upgrade anything as well, so nothing is. Since as soon as they are, the 2 server alliance comes and rolls thru reducing everything. So why bother kitten away coin on what wont matter? Yes, I know they can be stopped. I have. Point is, the tedium has beat all the care out of me, so I don’t.

bhagwad.4281:

Quentin Fields.1295:

bhagwad.4281:

I asked why and how I could benefit…and he wasn’t able to give me an answer.

Did you know that WvW points also giving you bonuses in PvE? Like Crafting bonuses etc?

I’ll get those bonuses even if I don’t personally participate.

Which is exactly why I suggested in the suggestion area that those who don’t WvW not get the bonuses. Much kvetching and whining ensued. But as my previous post tells. Other reasons leading to utter boredom mean, I no longer WvW. Did last night for the time it took to map clear GoM BL, Messed around for a bit, then said why am I bothering? And left. Maybe if they ever bother to reset servers, and mix up the matchups so it isn’t the same kitten 2 server alliance against us for over a month, I’ll give it a try again. Till then, so much meh.

Zosk.5609:

And FYI, people aren’t playing PvP in general because the PvE in the game is solid and addictive for a free to play game. Successfully combines the addictive Diablo-style loot grinding with popular elements of MMOs (instanced dungeons). And they have made LOTS of wins in the PvE arena (no fighting over gathering nodes or mob kills, awesome exploration, very robust auction house.) I can go on and on how great this game is for PvE if people ask me if they should play… especially considering it’s free to play and very early in it’s lifecycle.

If they ask me about PvP, best I can do is stay silent. In both forms, it’s worse than Warhammer Online and even Warcraft. In fact, I’d say DAOC an old school style game that is way out of date is better designed than this one… and I don’t see it changing unless they stop clinging on to design concepts like “we’re gonna be an e-sport!” and “it needs to be so fast-paced that it can keep FPS twitch types happy” and “we gotta balance for 5v5 and smaller”….

Diablo, what, where? I see no tons of loot on the ground and you pick up just the best items and then check the stats and what not. Here it’s more like…well, just straight up boring grind for meager loot (unless you’re a TP player).

As for WvW, yeh, a lot of players around, but sadly not in WvW. Lion’s arch is overflowing 24/7, WvW often empty-ish. I can see why some people don’t like it perhaps, you get rolled by zergs, it can cost a lot, culling, stupid respec limitations, bad commanders, no patches from Anet to spice things up …and idk what else

That shouldn’t really come as any surprise. It’s been that way in every game that I have ever played that had both Pve and PvP anyway. Pve has always had the larger community.

The PvP community always appears to be more vocal, but that is often because all their outlet for expression is limited to just a couple forums. Compare that to the sheer number of forums for Pve.

New rewards and better rewards are not going to change that balance. People play this game for fun. If they don’t find WvW fun, it will not matter much if you give them a piece of cake instead of a cookie to play. There will be some difference to be sure, but generally the people who play alot will still play alot, only now they will have bragging rights and something to show for it. The player who hates running into zergs or being in a zerg will still not come out to play. The players who likes or dislikes roaming solo or in small groups looking for combat on a smaller scale will still do or not do that.

Let’s get real. What would be the reward that would be so great that it would enduce someone to play a part of the game they do not enjoy? Ascended Gear? Lol How well did that turn out? Everyone can now get that by doing dailys. Simply put, they will not offer something in WvW that someone can’t get in any other part of the game. They never will. Players do not have to craft, or do WvW, or PvP, or Pve to get something.

Pretty much typical design that you get the same sorts of rewards, if not exact, no matter what sort of play you do. It’s not in this game, yet, but it’s already been announced. Think it’s silly to pretend it’s not going to bring more people out… yes people play MMOs for rewards, that is not news.

I think many will be disappointed though if they come out if they’ve played other MMOs with a format like this… the classes and combat is not designed for it is the primary reason although somebody posted a list above that contains many others (culling, zerging, death penalties, etc)

Yea as a previous poster said. people do PvE for better virtual stuff and grind for better virtual stuff which is boring. I do WvW for little reward but i get out of this game what i bought it for…….FUN!
Wow you have Eternity i bet you had a barrel of laughs farming that. I have a normal Exotic sword and did i have fun getting the gold for it? kitten yea i did!

Raf.1078:

I’ve been playing since the betas on TC only. Rolling, deleting and re-rolling alts as usual (its a disease, I know). Exploring & playing in open world and blithely ignoring dungeons, spvp and WvW. Not my style…I thought.

But for the last few weeks, I’ve been playing wvw. And enjoying it immensely. And this from an avowed soloist in all games. That said, there are a lot people out there who hate pvp in any form. I was one of those and I just lumped wvw into that playstyle and ignored it.

Its not spvp. But until you can convince the general populace to lay aside their stereotypes and give the style an honest chance for a few weeks…it will probably stay the way it is.

Same here..honestly, I think that WvW is the funnest part of the game, and wish that more PvE players would give it a fair chance with a good group. Being on TC, I really came for the PvE community but now I play WvW almost exclusively.

There is plenty of room for small group action. 5-man builds with good synergy and tactics can defend against zergs. I’ve personally watched a guild group win a 10 vs 40 in open field combat in T2.

High numbers makes it very hard to coordinate buffs, positioning, and defensive skills, something that small groups can exploit for a major advantage over a zerg group.