Guild Wars 2

One Vets Feedback On WvW

Having run a guild since EQ1 which has mainly focused on PvP environments, I along with the rest of our guild were very excited over the release of GW2. Obviously GW2 WvW is not open world pvp, but due to similarities with Daoc which is still one of the best pvp centric mmo’s to be release we decided to jump in. Now that a large portion of the guild has hit 80, geared up and is PvPing in WvW we are able to give some feedback on what needs to be tweaked in order for GW2 to grow and sustain a quality player base after the initial newness has worn off.

Gear grind VS Character development.

Once we hit 80 (which is very easy to do in GW2), the only options to further develop your character is through the acquisition of items. Farming items isn’t new, but grinding for gear being the only real activity to in developing your character after max level is a very bad design idea. EQ1 eventually added AA (alternate experience) which allowed you to further develop and customize a character after maxing out which you would earn while farming for gear. Daoc had a great realm point system in which you were able to further enhance your character which you earned while pvping. Both systems allowed you to gradually develop a character while doing what you would normally be doing. Both systems had attainable goals while being taking many hours of play to fully max out, which is the beauty of the design.

WvW Design

One amazing aspect of Daoc RvR was the huge team unity, pride and general feeling of “all for one”, before they allowed players to roll toons on all three realms and cross log, of course. Allowing instant server transfers in GW2 makes this non existent on most servers. Players simply transfer off losing/low pop servers as soon as the status of a top tier server goes from “full” to “high”. Server transfers should be relegated to players going from full pop servers to lower pop servers and for players that were not able to get on the same sever as their guild at the start.

It’s amazing how simple ideas and concepts seem so hard to implement properly. I don’t presume to know anything about the technical end of video game design but creating shields, cloaks (why aren’t they in game again?), robes , etc.. open enough to accommodate a properly sized guild emblem seems pretty basic considering everything else I’ve seen. To top that off, we are charged a gold piece to at this to one piece of armor or weapon, why? You are making it an annoyance to represent your guild for some reason, that is a mystery. What’s even worse is that once you apply the emblem to something the armor can change appearance and in most cases so small it’s not even worth applying. In a game like Daoc which got it right, as time past, guilds could be recognized solely on their emblems and banners which made you feel immersed in the RvR and added more excitement to the whole shebang. The only fix for this I could imagine would be to add cloaks which would display guild emblems that can actually be seen and recognized.

Continued..

At first during beta the WvW maps felt very large, large enough to lend itself to small scale open field battles. After taking guild groups into the borderlands it’s very obvious that the zones are WAY TOO small. When leading a group I prefer to split off from he main zerg trying to push the action elsewhere in the zones and look for some smaller scale fights but there is really no point. The smallest control points (scout towers I think hey are called) just flip flop back and forth with no real meaning, the smaller towers/forts can be sieged by a small force but the enemy can get to any point on the map very quickly, unless you’re tearing it down with a zerg the chances of getting it down are slim if the enemy is at all competent. All objectives are very close to each other, so unless you are picking off random stragglers running from one objective to another 99% of the fights end up at someone’s front gate. Occasionally you will find a decent fight at a supply camp but those even end up with one team running to their nearest holding. The fix to this game breaking problem is to double, if not triple all the zones, change those little scout flag markers to little tower houses to give them some strategic significance. This would allow for more strategy , for smaller groups to actually make a difference and would allow for some open field action.

All borderlands are copies of each other?? You guys did a great job in the variety and look of all the pve zones, then when it came to your main draw, the feature most people have been clamoring about for years you simply cut and paste the same zone. We all assumed in beta these were placeholder zones and on release the WvW zones would be three unique areas which is how it obviously should be. If someone is looking for uniformity and repetition they have SPVP. The fix for this would be to actually design 4
unique zones which would play out differently.

The WvW queues are simply atrocious, and for guilds who want to actually WvW together it’s game breaking not to mention impossible if you’re looking to get into the EB. As a guild leader we’ve had players queued for 45-1hr trying to get into a particular WvW zones we were focusing on that particular evening. Needless to say that’s silly and due to the queue, jumping from one WvW zones to the other in order to help back up your teammates who might be losing is impossible. Originally imagined as a large WvW area comprised of different battlefronts to fight over has turned into four little Aterac Valley’s.The beauty of Daoc’s RVR system is that you were able to travel around and support your realm against and enemy push or strike deep into the heart of and enemy territory to cut off teleport points which actually contributed to the overall war. This does not currently exist in the GW2 and will never with the current zone design.

I could go on but these seem to be the issues I hear about on a daily bases. I can only hope player feedback is seriously taken into account and acted upon, in it’s current state I can’t see players who have purchased GW2 for the WvW sticking around.

Maggnus.3841:

At first during beta the WvW maps felt very large, large enough to lend itself to small scale open field battles. After taking guild groups into the borderlands it’s very obvious that the zones are WAY TOO small. When leading a group I prefer to split off from he main zerg trying to push the action elsewhere in the zones and look for some smaller scale fights but there is really no point. The smallest control points (scout towers I think hey are called) just flip flop back and forth with no real meaning, the smaller towers/forts can be sieged by a small force but the enemy can get to any point on the map very quickly, unless you’re tearing it down with a zerg the chances of getting it down are slim if the enemy is at all competent. All objectives are very close to each other, so unless you are picking off random stragglers running from one objective to another 99% of the fights end up at someone’s front gate. Occasionally you will find a decent fight at a supply camp but those even end up with one team running to their nearest holding. The fix to this game breaking problem is to double, if not triple all the zones, change those little scout flag markers to little tower houses to give them some strategic significance. This would allow for more strategy , for smaller groups to actually make a difference and would allow for some open field action.

All borderlands are copies of each other?? You guys did a great job in the variety and look of all the pve zones, then when it came to your main draw, the feature most people have been clamoring about for years you simply cut and paste the same zone. We all assumed in beta these were placeholder zones and on release the WvW zones would be three unique areas which is how it obviously should be. If someone is looking for uniformity and repetition they have SPVP. The fix for this would be to actually design 4
unique zones which would play out differently.

The WvW queues are simply atrocious, and for guilds who want to actually WvW together it’s game breaking not to mention impossible if you’re looking to get into the EB. As a guild leader we’ve had players queued for 45-1hr trying to get into a particular WvW zones we were focusing on that particular evening. Needless to say that’s silly and due to the queue, jumping from one WvW zones to the other in order to help back up your teammates who might be losing is impossible. Originally imagined as a large WvW area comprised of different battlefronts to fight over has turned into four little Aterac Valley’s.The beauty of Daoc’s RVR system is that you were able to travel around and support your realm against and enemy push or strike deep into the heart of and enemy territory to cut off teleport points which actually contributed to the overall war. This does not currently exist in the GW2 and will never with the current zone design.

I could go on but these seem to be the issues I hear about on a daily bases. I can only hope player feedback is seriously taken into account and acted upon, in it’s current state I can’t see players who have purchased GW2 for the WvW sticking around.

Well said. The queue issue is a huge deal at the moment. WvWvW requires an organized effort to be successful in, and the queue makes doing so nearly impossible.

Would also like to see the removal of the scoreboard, and scoring system, as it just reinforces the AV like mentality, and leads to the idea that a specific match up is a lost cause and everyone should just wait for the reset.

1) Exotic gear is obtainable through playing WvW. Karma falls like rain, and this can be used to buy armour from Orr. (All this requires is zoning in to Orr when the temples are under Pact control). Also, badges can be used to buy Exotic weapons. Have no info on Trinkets yet.

2) Size of Map: Different Strokes for Different Folks. ArenaNet clearly wanted a game where the non-hardcore player could quickly find some action in a group context. This is why GW2 has sold 2 million copies, to what, DAoC’s 250k subscriber base.

3) Sameness of Maps. In this area, ArenaNet is veering more towards repeatable battlegrounds than a persistent “realm”. Just a different design choice, no better or worse than DAoC, just different. It does make it more “gamey” than “worldly”, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

4) Queues. Again, this choice on the “gamey” side of things, rather than the “world”. ArenaNet wants a relatively balanced fight for the average player (timezones imbalances aside). So far, the most serious impact of queues is only on the top servers, and huge guilds, wherever they may reside.

5) Players sticking around. How many people actually stuck around in DAoC? As was said above, 250k. GW2 is currently at 2 million sales. We’ll see which game form, WvW or RvR is ultimately successful in the long run.

Queues are bad because winning servers are being flooded with free transfers. If you want to get your whole guild in, you should transfer to a low pop server. And who cares about guild xp and such, it’s only been 3 weeks… if you intended to play for at least a year, 3 weeks is nothing.

Agree with this in its entirety, and Arena Net would be wise to read and consider what was said here.

I would add that I want to be able to see the WvWvW maps BEFORE pick one to get into. I want to know where my time would be best spent for the team, and going in blind is just pointless.

Thrumdi.9216:

1) Exotic gear is obtainable through playing WvW. Karma falls like rain, and this can be used to buy armour from Orr. (All this requires is zoning in to Orr when the temples are under Pact control). Also, badges can be used to buy Exotic weapons. Have no info on Trinkets yet.

2) Size of Map: Different Strokes for Different Folks. ArenaNet clearly wanted a game where the non-hardcore player could quickly find some action in a group context. This is why GW2 has sold 2 million copies, to what, DAoC’s 250k subscriber base.

3) Sameness of Maps. In this area, ArenaNet is veering more towards repeatable battlegrounds than a persistent “realm”. Just a different design choice, no better or worse than DAoC, just different. It does make it more “gamey” than “worldly”, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

4) Queues. Again, this choice on the “gamey” side of things, rather than the “world”. ArenaNet wants a relatively balanced fight for the average player (timezones imbalances aside). So far, the most serious impact of queues is only on the top servers, and huge guilds, wherever they may reside.

5) Players sticking around. How many people actually stuck around in DAoC? As was said above, 250k. GW2 is currently at 2 million sales. We’ll see which game form, WvW or RvR is ultimately successful in the long run.

1. Who cares how fast karma falls, gear is the only thing you are working for in the end.
2. Defending small WvW maps? The entire concept was to be different then SPVP for players who wanted something more open.
3. Defending copy and paste WvW zones? Obviously you will defend anything GW2 or just like to be contrary.
4. Design choice to have people sitting in queue’s for hours?
5. Go play WoW if you base the quality of your game on $$ earned. Daoc is ancient with an out of date engine and combat mechanics, but the overall RvR system is still better then anything currently on the market.

Fed.8594:

Queues are bad because winning servers are being flooded with free transfers. If you want to get your whole guild in, you should transfer to a low pop server. And who cares about guild xp and such, it’s only been 3 weeks… if you intended to play for at least a year, 3 weeks is nothing.

Play a year? This system has nothing to keep people playing for a year.

Thrumdi.9216:

1) Exotic gear is obtainable through playing WvW. Karma falls like rain, and this can be used to buy armour from Orr. (All this requires is zoning in to Orr when the temples are under Pact control). Also, badges can be used to buy Exotic weapons. Have no info on Trinkets yet.

2) Size of Map: Different Strokes for Different Folks. ArenaNet clearly wanted a game where the non-hardcore player could quickly find some action in a group context. This is why GW2 has sold 2 million copies, to what, DAoC’s 250k subscriber base.

3) Sameness of Maps. In this area, ArenaNet is veering more towards repeatable battlegrounds than a persistent “realm”. Just a different design choice, no better or worse than DAoC, just different. It does make it more “gamey” than “worldly”, you pays your money and you takes your choice.

4) Queues. Again, this choice on the “gamey” side of things, rather than the “world”. ArenaNet wants a relatively balanced fight for the average player (timezones imbalances aside). So far, the most serious impact of queues is only on the top servers, and huge guilds, wherever they may reside.

5) Players sticking around. How many people actually stuck around in DAoC? As was said above, 250k. GW2 is currently at 2 million sales. We’ll see which game form, WvW or RvR is ultimately successful in the long run.

You cannot compare populations of MMOs when one is pre-wow. Wow brought in millions of new MMO players, changing the face of the genre completely. Pre WoW, 200-300k players was a very successful MMO. Trying to determine “better game form” based on these numbers is completely pointless.

The intention of the post, from my perspective, wasn’t to complain. Rather to compile issues with the system itself. While this constant topic is getting old some points that were made (ie fights, zones, Queues!, and the queuing system itself. ) need to be repeated to get the devs to do anything about it.

Honestly on the topic of gear as a reward for WvWvW, I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I feel like the stats on the gear are terrible for my class. There is only 1 set for medium armor, but 3 classes that use it. The stats are just not ones that I want, so the drive to save tokens to buy gear with is not a good motivating force for me. I may end up buying the chest piece for for the purpose of transmuting the appearance of it for the stats of something else that’s actually good for me. There should be something more to shoot for, and don’t mention that 500 tokens for a prereq of the legendary I will never live long enough to get counts, it doesn’t.

Many points made, many posts written.
Maggnus named a few points that can be used by Anet to make WvW more fun.

It doesnt have to be DaoC copy, but i expected a little more from the maps.
In youtube people talked about massive maps, well massive comapred to Alterac Valley

There should be a little more focus on small objectives like Spawnpoints to make it a little more dynamic.
Also we could use 1 map 10x the size of borderlands with many spawnpoints and strategic locations / keeps / orbs / towers / forts etc etc.

And most importandly Free transfer needs to stop now…..it realy does.
Far shiverpeaks had 2 hours queue after the WvW list got reported queeu increased to abnormal time’s ive been in a queue for 5 hours to get into a Borderlands…

Server balance is not getting effect with free transfers Anet…..Hey my server lose !!! migrate to winning server !!!
Hey this server lose !!!! migrate to the new winning server !!!

Or read the forum and check the reported WvW ranking list and instandly transfer to the best ranked server.

It was a huge mistake if you ask me.

But lets wait and see, Anet brought us a very good game
They worked very hard the past years and GW2 is still a little baby making their 1st steps like any new mmo does.

It needs time to grow and mature….give them the time to do so even if things look like total kitten now.
Or just quit untill things and balance settle down.

Great post Maggnus

The realm rank reward system from DAOC is very good, it keep people playing and building a character…for YEARS. without something like this people feel like they hit a wall and cant make their character any better so they make an alt or quit.

Gear is NOT a good reward system! In most cases the gear gets replaced with better gear from pve or crafting. and then you feel like nothing was ever accomplished

a reward system allowing small stat increases , hit points, armor, crit chance, weakness chance, hitpoints, armor factor, or anything similiar is a very good reward system allowing the player to always work towards making his character better

You make some good points, but I think realm points were a big part of what broke DAoC, they turned a team based game into individual players finding the most efficient ways to farm RP, turning DAoC into 8v8 PvP rather than three faction warfare.

That being said, I think your other points have a lot of validity!

Thanks,
Matt

“a reward system allowing small stat increases , hit points, armor, crit chance, weakness chance, hitpoints, armor factor, or anything similiar is a very good reward system allowing the player to always work towards making his character better”

This would be great. Nothing massively powerful but subtle progression would go a long ways.

Oh please, please, please, not “Alternate Advancement.” Please not that. Anything but that. You should go grind AAs in another game. We already have 80 levels instead of 20 (or 0), and you continue to earn XP at level 80 for skill points which can be spent on things.

Meanwhile, I’m playing WvW because it’s fun.

A lot of good points raised

And by the way, the DAoC 250k vs GW2 2 million issue..WoW has 9 million subs, McDs has sold over 1 billion burgers, etc. there is not necessarily a correlation between quality and such numbers, though there is one between competent advertising/branding and size of playerbase. DAoC has been around for over a decade, I think we simply want to see changes that will make people want to play GW2 for the same length of time if not longer.

I want to address some of points OP made.

1. WvW: You make reference to the flip flop.

A. Thats what differs current day games from games that came out 10 years ago. 10 years ago you grinded your butt off, then had epic battles for hours and days, got something, held it for a while to savor its taste, then entered conflict again. There realistically needs to be timers put in to each structure to prevent the fast hand swapping flip flop. The supply camp seems to be the only real timer based thing where you cant just immediately do it. And by immediate, i dont mean zero seconds. Each structure in the game should have some form of legitimate and relevant cooldown. Thats the thought of hardcore players. For everyone else, they just want to continually zerg around and destroy stuff like they are in a FPS game. Thats the evolution of the genre. Customer Service and accounting have demised that the way to satisfy the largest customer base is to give everything to everyone, Obama.

B. An awesome related example. Planetside 1 – yes.. I went there. Capping a base was an endeavor, and for years – bases and towers werent 5 min flip flops of possession. You had epic battles, and it felt like you got something done when you won. Along comes Planetside 2. The devs, in all their wisdom, think that to get a larger playerbase, need to design the game more akin to the traditional FPS market. That means basically turning your game into a gigantic COD/Bf3 map. Structure capture starts to lose its meaning, and the complaints there are identical to what we are seeing here.

2. OP Gear and Armor assessment: I run around naked mostly. I really don’t care about gear. Thats a young mans game, I’d rather focus on having fun in WvW, let the young bucks spend countless hours on their pixelated validations of their time. I got really nice breasts, and I am letting everyone see.

If you hate long queue time, go to Devona Rest or Kaineng.

Some servers need a challenge.

1: On the issue of flip-flopping:

I agree immensely with the feeling that bases are changing hands too fast, and I believe it has to do with a major overlook in the design of WvW mechanics, and that has to do with the importance of supply and supply camps.

WvW has objetives to groups ranging from small (scouts) to large (keeps and castle). During development, we were told that these would enable both small and large groups (and guilds) to have fun (and do meaningful things on the battlegrounds).

The problem is that, while it is really easy for a small group to capture a camp, it is also fundamental for a medium or large group to do so when on their way to a larger site. This makes it impossible for a small group to hold a small camp because more often than not you will be overwhelmed and defending it. Ideally, each objective should have its importance tuned so that only groups of similar strenght would consider fighting over it.

This being said, there should be a good, direct reward to lone players accompanying an organized group in a siege. This is to prevent the zerg from mindlessly rushing small-value camps just because they are easier to capture.

What they desperately need is a mechanic which recognises and rewards guilds for successful WvW. For whatever reason, a lot of people like to jump ship and get on board a winning server, much like it happened in DAOC which lead to very lopsided battles as you had turncoats flood your realm from ‘loser’ realms.

However, it is invariable one or a small number of guilds which provided the vast amount of leadership and coordination. In DAOC our guild jumped from Midgard who had been constantly fighting the other two who were permanently allied together and losing terribly to Hibernia who was the whipping boy of the 3 just because we were sick of all the flogs who flocked from everywhere to get on the gravy train.

Three months later Midgard was dead and Camelot was the new king but Hibernia was a good realm and nobody needed to ally, one didn’t dominate and the environment was better for everyone and the rats fled as quickly as they had come.

In essence, it comes down to the individuals and the guilds themselves what kind of environment they want to play in.