Guild Wars 2

Inspired by a thread from the sPvP section, i decided to make this thread.

We as players have tons of ideas, suggestions and such that we want to see in WvW. Some are bad, some are decent and some are super awesome. unforunately, Arenanet can’t make/try/experiment everything. They have to make decisions.

But to be honest, i’m wondering if the size and order of content updates is going in the right direction. And i feel that the living world approach is problematic.

The idea is that we get new content bi-weekly. For PvE this seems to be ton of content and casual players can barely get through the amount of new achievements in time!

sPvP seems to be getting a lot more popular (a lot of full rooms and short queues for tournies) because of decent sized updates. That said, there is a lack of love in sPvP as well. ;o

But WvW. Obviously, the first year was ment to polish WvW. While we still have skill lag, culling is gone, most exploitable mountains and such are gone and we have seen quite some quality of life improvements. We also recieved a new rank system (which doesn’t interest me that much to be honest) and other small things like a NPC commander that helps out and such.

But the whole experience in WvW, hasn’t changed. And i think that this is a problem if it continues. It feels EXTREMELY stale. And small content updates, won’t magically change this. People will simply burn out SLOWLY. Oh look, another skill line and some profession balances! Are you sure you don’t wanna play another week or so? Just to try it out eh? You step into a map and everything feels the same however.

You either care about pts and scout a bit or zerg around with a commander, causing skill lag while taking objecties. Or you are a hardcore raiding guild that doesn’t care about pts and wonders what to do in a map where everyone hides behind siege. Guess we do some GvG eh?

Let’s compare the formats (roughly):

PvE updates:
+ Every type of player seems satisfied!
+ Big content additions! Often include new maps, achievements, skins, lore and more!
- Achievements are used as carrot it seems (?)

PvP updates:
+ Everyone is getting more and more satisfied. Hotjoin, SoloQ and Team Arena.
+ Decent sized content pushes. New maps, mechanics and polish in general.
- Achievements and glory rewards are still a bit lame.

Now, to WvW!
+/- General polish seems decent but where is the map iteration? Why can we still shoot trebshots from objective to objective? Why are the centaur/skritt camps still there? Why are such big portions of the maps unused?
- Updates cater a lot more to casual players than hardcore players. (guilds recieve no love, mindless zerging is encouraged,)
- Small content additions (no new maps, no new skins, no exclusive things, almost no new mechanics) Heck, we even had a mechanic removed!
- Despite a decent rank system, the actual achievement/title system is pathetic and has been since launch.

So yeah, let’s compare the extremes. PvE players have more than enough to do every two weeks with JUST the new content while WvW players have to look at another WXP rank that they don’t have the pts for. And on top of that, i doubt that most people care about these new rank lines that much. They are such small additions that nobody is amazed, or excited. We don’t feel different after a content update. Yeah, i spent 5 seconds looking at the new skill line and what it does. But no, i’m not amazed. My WvW guild has an entire different roster than it had at launch. None of the updates made older members return. The game feels the same to them and the reason that they left has not been fixed/changed.

Why? Because WvW has different type of players as well. Shock! I know! Some enjoy solo roaming, some enjoy scouting, some enjoy trebbing all day, some enjoy zerging with a commander, and some like to raid with a guild for good fights. Are all these players getting enough attention? No, i don’t believe so!

Will these small content pushes keep us all interested or will we slowly burn out? I believe the latter. I believe bigger content pushes are needed to keep us interested. And this is not something Devon can fix alone. We know he wants to improve this format, but he simply needs the time and tools. This is something Arenanet has to allow as company.

- Looking quick at the future. We will recieve an achievement overhaul. Great! Better late then never but, it’s defy not going to be a gamechanger. It won’t make people return. While it looks like a hard thing to change for Anet (i’m not sure why), it’s not going to do much. I suggest that this is not your first priority!

- We will recieve iteration in the borderlands map. Awesome! It’s time to get that lake out of the way and see an interesting mechanic return. Will it encourage people to keep playing or even return? Possibly! But it really depends on how daring Anet is willing to be. Make a big change! Excite us! It’s not a new map but make it more than we expect! This has and should have priority. Can’t wait!

Here is the order of things i suggest but i’m very much interested in what the other players have to say.

1 – Bigger iteration on current maps

Decent sized additions and fixes that bring a fresh air in WvW. New mechanics, new map themes with the old layout, improvements in the layout etc. Things that do not take ages to design tho!

2 – Encourage different playstyles but keep others in check!

Simply put. Reward guilds for their supply spent/kills in a week with a ranking perhaps? Skill lag is not fun and neither is mindless zerging. Discourage this behaviour with the use of traps, lower downed health maybe? Why are there almost no PvP centric skill lines?

3 – Iteration on rewards
Why does PvE have exclusive skins, backpieces and such? WvW could do with exclusive rewards. The WvW armors and weapons are NOT popular/common. They are ugly and i have over 8k badges atm. And yeah, i have more than enough siege. We get currency as rewards, but we can’t use it on nice things. This can’t be too hard to implement right? PvE recieves new skins atleast once a month… Come on, when is it our turn again? Exclusivity isn’t the biggest evil in the world… Rewards for winning a server matchup. Let’s bring it on! I’m part of a raiding guild and while we cared about our server ranking at first, we really don’t anymore. Like.. not at all. We used to stay up late and protect towers for example. Now we only take an objective if we want to lure enemy players to our location for fights.. I want to have a reason to take it serious again.

4 – New map(s)!

I know it sounds like a daunting task but a new map(s) is eventually needed imo. When everything is polished, rewards are fine, every type of players is having a good time, new content needs to be added. I understand that it’s a lot of worth but it can be done. And a new map could be a new EB that switched with EB bi-weekly or a totally new map that only opens up at random times! Get creative, bring us some new and exciting!

Obviously, this is the order i would like to see but if there are other things that need priority or are missed. Please speak up!

tldr; Will the living world approach make it too hard for Arenanet to add interesting and big content additions to WvW before people burn out and quit because of staleness? We gotta see exciting new content mroe often! Can you deliver Anet?