Guild Wars 2

Hi there, I just had an idea that could provide some variety to WvW. It’s known from a long time WvW players don’t like much PvE inside WvW, but there’s a big crowd who dislike zergs everywhere aswell.

Since players already have WvW zergs now, I think an alternate addition to WvW wouldn’t hurt those who aren’t interested.

The idea is: borrow Fractal agony and create special skirmishing areas around WvW.

These areas with high concentration of instabilities cause agony to people inside and have a stacking effect like Fractal 100 CM. In practice, players will only be able to stack so many before the self-afflicted agony start stacking up and dealing serious damage, therefore preventing the creation of a zerg.

It’s meant to be medium-sized fights on SELECT AREAS, and it’s meant to actively make a difference much like every other point on WvW. Maybe these areas could be attached to a keep/tower and have effects related to it, like decreasing agony damage from those holding the point but only by a small percent to retain the purpose for the area.

There are certain aspects of PvE that could be refactored to WvW to make sense and create more variety. I mean, adding too much PvE like NPCs is bad, but some effects would add more spice to the old formula that may not be as attractive to potential new WvW players.

If you have to buy or grind for this new agony zone, I don’t think many people will play in it

No thanks. We have more than enough frustrating mechanics and designs as is.

Foshan.8104:

If you have to buy or grind for this new agony zone, I don’t think many people will play in it

No, the mechanics are free. You don’t have to grind. It just works as such.

Swagger.1459:

No thanks. We have more than enough frustrating mechanics and designs as is.

That’s vague. Examples…?

Valento.9852:

That’s vague. Examples…?

Thieves that turn invisible and stay invisible, warp around map, engage and disengage fights at will and are able to kill you in split-second.

Zenith.6403:

Valento.9852:

That’s vague. Examples…?

Thieves that turn invisible and stay invisible, warp around map, engage and disengage fights at will and are able to kill you in split-second.

I know it adds up to the problems, but I expected something to do with the map per se, not class balance. I have a feeling ANet is ok with thieves as they are now, though.

I don’t think this is a good idea because it can cause toxicity. Adding this would cause people to be frustrated with those who don’t know what they’re doing — more than what already happens — and are making it harder for the rest of the group. People will ostracize people who are underperforming.

It works better in fractals because there is a limited number and it’s easier to avoid people. And in worst case scenario, you kick a person out of the group. It wouldn’t be very easy to avoid people in WvW and there’s very little that can be done to avoid someone who is accidentally or deliberately getting people killed.

Anything that causes people to be less happy to see other players is usually not good for the game. GW2 has been mostly trying to avoid that, by having exp/loot tables/gathering nodes be unaffected by multiple people for example.

People already complain about uplevels, rallybots, etc, but in general it’s always more welcome to have extra bodies rather than not having them. I’d much rather see something else implemented to address population imbalance.

For something in limited areas, it would be much preferable to have this in guild halls and such to spice up GvGs for those who want it.

There’s major trolling potential with this.
Guild A goes in to cap a tower, but Guild B from the same side runs in to help cap, only that puts them over the threshold to kick agony on and start killing everyone.
Guild A goes in to cap a tower, but a group of wandering pugs run in to get the cap too cause Guild A has their commander tag up, only that puts them over the threshold to kick agony on and start killing everyone.

Now you’re also forcing players away from areas and rewards and punishing them when they have no control over how many are in an area at any given time.

If you want try adding negatives to try and keep group sizes under control in certain areas, then I would probably suggest something like reducing player power in an area when they start to stack. So in a tower area if more then 20 players are in there then everyone takes a 5% stat reduction, if it’s more than 30 then 10%, more than 40 then 15%, more than 50+ then 20%.

But overall I’m not really for punishing players that way. As mentioned in the post above, it’ll cause more toxicity and players will turn on each other, guilds will definitely only want to run by themselves.

Or you could simply nerf fortifications and siege so that small groups are encouraged to spread out, rather than always having ample time to respond to the 2 hours it take to siege something because there are two people inside sitting on arrowcarts making it impossible for anything but a 50 man to do something.

I wish they would make an event week where all objectives are T0 permanently, no superior siege available, but with keep waypoints.

It would be so much fun.

I don’t think they’re going to make new maps, nor do I know if this would be the right way to do it. But heck this sounds fun:

This made me think of old Dune, and making a map based on that. Sort of like having a lot of sand, with some rocks here and there (small but safe). And whenever you’re on sand, the more activity the larger the chance to attract a sandworm, that will put a large aoe under groups of people, and keep trying to eat people off (near impossible to destroy, but easy enough to evade).

Basically, if a large enough number gathers, friend or foe, in one area, and makes a ruckus of themselves, a sandworm is summoned, and starts aoe (perhaps with knockdown) as it breaches the surface, and bite on anyone thats nearby, until the group disperse and hides on rocks.

The toxicity is a great valid point. We don’t want this. Reducing towers defenses though would decrease the value of holding points, and that’s counter-intuitive for a mode that’s not solely based on fighting (PvP is there for that).

I really think that one MAJOR issue with WvW is the concept behind world. You pick a server and automatically you’re set to that server for WvW matchmaking. We shouldn’t have linked PvE/WvW worlds. The idea behind world shouldn’t exist for PvE, only WvW, and you should at least rank up a few levels on Edge of the Mists before being able to choose a server, much like you need rank 20 on PvP before joining ranked.

The idea you are proposing kind of already exists and is even controllable by the players,

siege.

Dawdler.8521:

Or you could simply nerf fortifications and siege so that small groups are encouraged to spread out, rather than always having ample time to respond to the 2 hours it take to siege something because there are two people inside sitting on arrowcarts making it impossible for anything but a 50 man to do something.

I wish they would make an event week where all objectives are T0 permanently, no superior siege available, but with keep waypoints.

It would be so much fun.

All that will do is promote k-trains. Having easier targets to hit will not spread out groups when it’s easier and faster to take stuff and kill players with bigger groups. The biggest reason to have upgraded reinforced structures and siege, is to delay the enemy from entering until the defending side can muster enough numbers to counter them. You take away both of those and everything will just get run down by zergs. Also siege isn’t a problem if you go the the gate or wall that’s not protected, or I dunno actually not be lazy and desiege the area first or don’t build in dumb areas.

If you want to keep those structures at t1 you need to constantly hit them, which of course would be faster to achieve if you spread your forces on multiple objectives, only thing is most players won’t do this unless there’s a tag up to lead them. This was the biggest value of havoc groups on the map, but they’ve been chased away from the game for the most part by now. My havoc group use to tackle t3 towers and keeps all the time, but it’s not something that’s doable these days unless the enemy is out to lunch because of the changes from HoT.

Xenesis.6389:

My havoc group use to tackle t3 towers and keeps all the time, but it’s not something that’s doable these days unless the enemy is out to lunch because of the changes from HoT.

So then all your havoc team did was karma training? Because otherwise the rest of ypur post make no sense.

Old T3 towers in the early days of GW2 is pretty much T0 today.

Dawdler.8521:

Xenesis.6389:

My havoc group use to tackle t3 towers and keeps all the time, but it’s not something that’s doable these days unless the enemy is out to lunch because of the changes from HoT.

So then all your havoc team did was karma training? Because otherwise the rest of ypur post make no sense.

Old T3 towers in the early days of GW2 is pretty much T0 today.

In old days many things were different: stability was more reliable, there weren’t any power creep that scales wildly with bigger groups and ACs and ballistas weren’t a bad joke.

Dawdler.8521:

Xenesis.6389:

My havoc group use to tackle t3 towers and keeps all the time, but it’s not something that’s doable these days unless the enemy is out to lunch because of the changes from HoT.

So then all your havoc team did was karma training? Because otherwise the rest of ypur post make no sense.

Old T3 towers in the early days of GW2 is pretty much T0 today.

Huh? what the hell is T0?
There’s T1 and then the two upgraded levels.

No we didn’t k-train, we tackled towers that would get to T3 more often than not, namely the north towers in alpines. We also took T3 keeps under under 3 mins, the white swords timer which would open waypoints again in the old days. We did that with 5-8 players but had to resort to using guild catas, golems, and sneaky play to avoid zergs descending on us every time we hit something. It’s not like we had the luxury of 3 other allied groups running around taking stuff.

We use to have a thing called karma train fridays, in which all 3 servers would go to a map take everything in a circle, which meant everything was T1 for the entire day. You really think that scenario wouldn’t happen again by permanently nerfing structures to T1? You won’t break up groups unless you have tags running around leading them, and even that will not happen because it’s easier to flock to more popular tag/commander and run with their zerg. Players won’t even bother with defense if you can get in before they can kill your siege.

P.S You only need to look at reset night when maps are semi-full from all 3 sides, and every structure is T1 status and see how many groups are running around taking stuff. Most times it’s 1-3 groups depending if you’re defending or attacking, but most times of those times it’s one big fat zerg going around.

Valento.9852:

Foshan.8104:

If you have to buy or grind for this new agony zone, I don’t think many people will play in it

No, the mechanics are free. You don’t have to grind. It just works as such.

Swagger.1459:

No thanks. We have more than enough frustrating mechanics and designs as is.

That’s vague. Examples…?

We don’t need “agony battlegrounds” that force a highly disliked zone status effect on players.

Uh, no.

If you don’t like big zerg fights, just don’t participate in them. Avoid them. It’s easy to know where the zerg is: just read the map. If they’re on the map you’re on, you can also go to another map. Problem solved.