I think adding them to Guild Halls is the best solution. Quick load times and the same convenience without the risk of filling up a borderland with non WvW players.
This. If they’re removed from wvw it’s a giant hassle. I haven’t been to a town in months, especially Lion’s Arch and it’s 5 minute load time vs. 10 seconds in wvw.
Or add them to Heart of the Mists. Or something. Crafting in town is such a giant loadfest. Waiting 5 minutes to craft a single thing is obnoxious.
No, not “this.” Promoting people to congregate in towns (and even LA) is an obvious intention of this change just as much as stopping people going to WvW who aren’t participating in WvW.
Putting crafting stations in Guild Halls will largely kill the towns, and towns are where people should want to (and need to) congregate…. it promotes a healthier player base by encouraging players to socialize…. especially new players.
~EW
They’ve done a bang up job at encouraging me to avoid towns like the plague because of the load times. Not a single one loads nearly at the rate of Wvw, sPvP, or the guild hall. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it probably takes 5-10 times longer to load town maps.
I already had to abandon the sPvP league because I was consistently getting 8+ minute queues at peak hours.
They’ve gone through great pains to make GW2 non-grindy. Nothing is more grindy than staring at a loading screen.
There are TP npcs all over tyria too, they might as well remove that npc from the borderlands too.
Shh, don’t give them any ideas…
But really, this is just a silly and uncalled for change that only has negative effects for the players. I’ve never seen more that 3-4 people at the BL crafting stations, so ‘space’ saving isn’t a proper reason. Maybe they should start with the people idling on the Citadel WP instead?
All they did is inconvenience WvW players who now have to port to LA or other cities (yay, long loading…) for crafting and proper bank access, potentially losing their spot on queued maps.
And it isn’t a question about needing this or that service, the crafting was there for nearly 4 years and now they take it away? Players expect a modicum of convenience. I would even advocate for crafting access in GH, EotM and the PvP lobby, because why not? The only reason they won’t do this is for short-term money grabbing via Royal Terrace/Airship passes. Typical greed at work.
Perhaps, as a guild hall upgrade, they could add all of the crafting stations to the market or the side of it. At least then people would have easy access to crafting stations from anywhere in the PvE map without cluttering the WvW maps (if that’s what wvwers are really afraid of).
ANet said that they were not going to put crafting stations in guild halls so that people wouldn’t basically become hermits. They are not putting them in guild halls so that players have to go to cities and “be” social.
People who PvE also WvW and vice versa. It was a convenience for those players to have that access in wvw if they wanted it. For one of my wvw guilds I did learn the “feast” type recipes of the foods we used so I could craft them at a moment’s notice.
The best tier of food/oils is not available from the Provisioner (which I find to be a huge waste of points in that line). I was also able to quickly craft myself new weapons/sigils/runes/inscriptions/insignias (for stat changes on asc weapons/armors). As a player who plays in all of the major aspects of the game (PvE, WvW, and PvP), this is a tremendous quality of life loss for me. It also makes me less inclined to WvW. What if I forget something? Keeps have to be upgraded to have bank access. Not everything can be passed through a guild bank (ie ascended gears). I simply refuse to buy something I’ve already made (foods/oils).
They could have moved them to EotM, which was made for WvWers in queue for a BL or EB. They could have even put in a new safe zone in Obsidian Sanctum (since NO ONE goes there). These options still keep the main WvW map populations low(er).
To be fair, I’m not exactly keen on socializing when I’m crafting or inventory-twiddling. Those times I am usually tunnel-visioning on my set task and don’t take any notice of other people.
That being said I had not used the stations in WvW either. But as others have suggested, if the primary motive is to avoid squatters and artificial population inflation, putting the stations in EotM instead would help at least as far as loading times and participation reset are concerned, right?
edit: Also, regarding people “idling” at spawn, are you sure they’re actually idling? I know I’ve sometimes waypointed back there first before getting up to pour a glass of water or whatever, because ten seconds is more than long enough to get killed on the open road and anyway the home base has supplies.
It wouldn’t be so bad, except towns in this game like Lion’s Arch take 5 flippin’ minutes to load. Wvw? 10 seconds.
I understand this will give them a better idea of population distribution, but it’s still a huge QoL loss unless they:
Add crafting stations to Heart of the Mists (sPvP lobby)
Add crafting stations to Guild Halls
This. I wouldn’t mind as much if there was another place to craft without losing your place in the PvE map. Yes I am one of those who has a boat load of alts camped around in various zones for easy access to my favorite bosses, events or resource nodes and yes I am extremely lazy but it works for my limited playtime.
On the bright side, this might single a change in focus for future WvW maps that might be more 3 side balanced like EB instead of borderland style where we might see the number of maps available sliding with changes in population.
~Xylla~ [oG] on Ehmry Bay [PiXi]
Xyleia Luxuria / Sweet Little Agony / Morning Glory Wine / Precious Illusionz /
Near Fanstastica /Ocean at the End / Blue Eyed Hexe / Andro Queen / Indie Cindee . . .
It wouldn’t be so bad, except towns in this game like Lion’s Arch take 5 flippin’ minutes to load. Wvw? 10 seconds.
I understand this will give them a better idea of population distribution, but it’s still a huge QoL loss unless they:
Add crafting stations to Heart of the Mists (sPvP lobby)
Add crafting stations to Guild Halls
To be honest, I wouldn’t add the stations to Heart of the Mists. The load in location is quite crowded at the moment and takes (me) nearly as long as LA to load into. I also play on a tablet though, so that’s my excuse for my load times.
PvP is a far more toxic environment than WvW. Enough people “idle” in the PvP lobby already spouting profanity and putting other players down. They hardly need more fodder with PvEers pit-stopping in there to craft something.
Almost all the people I know avoid LA (and to a lesser degree other cities) like the plague because the loading times are atrocious. If they really want cities to become social hubs, they should start with fixing that, and not with taking away what little conveniences WvW had.
As an active WvW player I just want to say that this is a very welcome change. I honestly thought this thread was going to be a “YAY they removed crafting from WvW!” thread.
Getting active players on a given map is a massively important part of an enjoyable WvW experience. Even 3 or 4 more active players can turn the tides in a given tick. So if this change keeps map queues down by a few players this a great thing.
I know you might think “But I wouldn’t go into a map that is queued to craft.” But the thing is, a map population can shift in an instant. If the main force is on another map and needs to move to respond, a few crafters can actually hurt their servers.
I know it seems lame, but just know that there is definitely a benefit to this change
for a community that was feeling a bit neglected for quite a while.
I didn’t realize the other side of things and am sorry to hear that this has a negative
impact on so many people.
Perhaps, as a guild hall upgrade, they could add all of the crafting stations to the market or the side of it. At least then people would have easy access to crafting stations from anywhere in the PvE map without cluttering the WvW maps (if that’s what wvwers are really afraid of).
ANet said that they were not going to put crafting stations in guild halls so that people wouldn’t basically become hermits. They are not putting them in guild halls so that players have to go to cities and “be” social.
oh good lord.. roflmao… like people crafting are being social. If that’s true then they really really are not thinking well. Make the halls a place to go that have all the stuff you need. Make them upgrades of course.. it’s not that big a thought ANet.. I’m not anti-social but having a spot IN my hall for my guild members to gather and craft etc makes sense. The thought that I might interact with other people I don’t know when I’m at a general crafting station makes me laugh. It doesn’t happen.. with the rare possibility of rp’ers that are looking for chat.. :P
They’ve done a bang up job at encouraging me to avoid towns like the plague because of the load times. Not a single one loads nearly at the rate of Wvw, sPvP, or the guild hall. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it probably takes 5-10 times longer to load town maps.
Yeah, this would be subjective… because I rarely notice a difference between loading times… with rare occasions when loading screens do take longer… but those times have been towns, normal maps, and even my home instance; not one category specifically.
they killed social in towns when they introduced megaservers so now everytime you go to a town you see different people cause it is another instance no idea why they did not make it like in gw1 where you could select on which map instance you wanted to be
ANet said that they were not going to put crafting stations in guild halls so that people wouldn’t basically become hermits. They are not putting them in guild halls so that players have to go to cities and “be” social.
Darling, we are already playing an MMO. =) We shouldn’t have to go to a city to be “social” with other players.
I use the LFG for my PvE purpose, yoloq in PvP or team up with friends, I’ll even argue with the pricks in the lobby, just last night I offered sage advice from my tenure as a player here in LA, but yes, I do spend a lot of my time playing alone. I like the idea of people but I don’t like people in general. The idea of the MMO is to have social opportunities with the ability to play as you like. Anet hardly needs to go to this extreme to force us to socialize. If want to do that then I’ll just log off and sit in my town square.
The work around with the guild bank to access your personal vault is a no go to me.
We need a regular bank/vault access now. Losing track progression, because you need to deposit items from your full bags via LA is not good.
PS: I never had the impression that WvW crafting stations contributed a lot towards queues (= lazy PvE players being idle there). Cities are no longer social hubs for servers. Megaservers killed cities as social hubs. That can’t be a reason for the change too.
Member of The Guildwars Online Guild [GWO]
Still keeps a volume of Kurzick poems ;)
I definitely thought it was extremely weird that Anet was making so many positive changes to WvW after shafting the game mode for over a year. Then Anet throws this wrench to remind us.
I so rarely saw more than 3 people at the crafting stations. And it was so rare that the map was queued. This update seemed like they were trying to answer a problem that didn’t actually exist.
WvWers need to craft things, too. :/ I get that the whole “We don’t want wvwers to have to leave the format to get what they need” message that they gave us before launch was thrown out the window with so many stat combos being pve-only, but this really wasn’t necessary.
But if that whopping . . . 3 . . . people is the reason Anet wanted to remove them, then why didn’t they just go in the opposite direction to fix the problem? Back during the beta weekend events four years ago, there were crafting stations on ALL the borderland maps. (Can’t remember if EB had them.) If they put the crafting stations back on all the maps, then that would remove the need to go to the home borderland, and so there’d be less risk of the (mostly non-existent anyway) home bl queue being taken up by crafters.
If ANet wanted, there are alternatives for the convenience of having crafting stations in one’s home borderland
Adding them to Edge of the Mists — that allows WvWers to craft without losing their reward track accumulation.
This won’t work if you switch between The Mists and Edge of the Mists. The participation tracking is separate, so your regular WvW activities don’t count for participation in EotM and vice versa.
Why not at least add bank access to each WvW maps if you’re going to do yet another pointless change such as this? Why is there bank access in the PvP lobby but not WvW????
Why not at least add bank access to each WvW maps if you’re going to do yet another pointless change such as this? Why is there bank access in the PvP lobby but not WvW????
Because we can use crafting stations for bank access. Oh, wait…
So, like EotM? I’d be perfectly okay with stations in EotM.
Of course. I’ve been in Obsidian Sanctum a few times (recently) and I almost never see people there. They could easily add crafting tables and banks there (with a safe zone). Most people I meet in the JP are A. trolls who enjoy killing people who just want to do the JP, B. there to duel, or C. there to gvg in the arena (which I also never see someone use).
I just watched Saving Private Ryan again, and verified that nobody on Omaha Beach was whipping up a Veggie Pizza in a stove on the beach at the time of the invasion.
Prep work like crafting should be done before entering WvW. Taking a up a queue spot to sit and craft is ridiculous.
Prep work like crafting should be done before entering WvW. Taking a up a queue spot to sit and craft is ridiculous.
Except people that go to craft hardly take your spot in the Q for very long. Often, some of them also go and roam their BL. So I seriously doubt anyone crafting is really hurting you or your server or anyone else as far as battles go.
I just watched Saving Private Ryan again, and verified that nobody on Omaha Beach was whipping up a Veggie Pizza in a stove on the beach at the time of the invasion.
That’s probably why the stations are were in the safe area of the citadel and not outside, for example, garri’s watergate.
So, like EotM? I’d be perfectly okay with stations in EotM.
No, that’s not what I meant as EotM would not be viable. What I’ve been saying since the Mega Server came out was that Worlds needed a specific place of their own. It needs to be a zone like the Citadel on Alpine BL, nice and pristine. There we can form up, craft, hit the TP, bank, etc etc.
As an active WvW player I just want to say that this is a very welcome change. I honestly thought this thread was going to be a “YAY they removed crafting from WvW!” thread.
Getting active players on a given map is a massively important part of an enjoyable WvW experience. Even 3 or 4 more active players can turn the tides in a given tick. So if this change keeps map queues down by a few players this a great thing.
I know you might think “But I wouldn’t go into a map that is queued to craft.” But the thing is, a map population can shift in an instant. If the main force is on another map and needs to move to respond, a few crafters can actually hurt their servers.
I know it seems lame, but just know that there is definitely a benefit to this change
for a community that was feeling a bit neglected for quite a while.
I didn’t realize the other side of things and am sorry to hear that this has a negative
impact on so many people.
If you’re worried because of queues, maybe you should move to a lower tier.
Also, those spots may not even be filled with active people. They could be new players, roamers, afkers, wonderers, explorers, pve.
If you’re worried because of queues, maybe you should move to a lower tier.
Also, those spots may not even be filled with active people. They could be new players, roamers, afkers, wonderers, explorers, pve.
I think adding them to Guild Halls is the best solution. Quick load times and the same convenience without the risk of filling up a borderland with non WvW players.
This. If they’re removed from wvw it’s a giant hassle. I haven’t been to a town in months, especially Lion’s Arch and it’s 5 minute load time vs. 10 seconds in wvw.
Or add them to Heart of the Mists. Or something. Crafting in town is such a giant loadfest. Waiting 5 minutes to craft a single thing is obnoxious.
No, not “this.” Promoting people to congregate in towns (and even LA) is an obvious intention of this change just as much as stopping people going to WvW who aren’t participating in WvW.
Putting crafting stations in Guild Halls will largely kill the towns, and towns are where people should want to (and need to) congregate…. it promotes a healthier player base by encouraging players to socialize…. especially new players.
~EW
With mapchat, guildchat and /say people already socialize as much as they’re going to. Forcing people into a lagfest of a city does nothing to improve that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen players having a face-to-face conversation in a city, except for perhaps the small percentage of the playerbase that enjoys RP. And if A-net is doing this just to make the game look more populated, that’s just cheesy. I don’t think a new player is going to care if there’s a lot of people in their field of vision in a city. They care more about population out in the gameworld outside the cities.
If this really helps with queues fair enough, but FWIW I can’t remember seeing more than 3 people at WvW crafting and it’s usually just me when I’m there. But things like stacking sigils are borked if people have to go to LA.
And yeah, adding a normal bank NPC next to the trading post NPC would be nice.
edit: Perhaps it’s not about queues. Maybe they didn’t like people who logged off at the end of a jumping puzzle, went to WvW for banking crafting, and returned to the JP when they left WvW. Or something like that.
like me? I have all alts that I am not really playing at flax farm, strongboxes in TD, or JPs. They pretty much only left to bank, TP, or craft….
Perhaps, as a guild hall upgrade, they could add all of the crafting stations to the market or the side of it. At least then people would have easy access to crafting stations from anywhere in the PvE map without cluttering the WvW maps (if that’s what wvwers are really afraid of).
Decent idea. I think it should happen regardless of whatever else they do with crafting stations.
But A-net also needs to realize that not everyone belongs to a guild with a guildhall.
It was a necessary change. The random pve players that just come in the use the crafting stations, are consider WvW players just stepping into citadel for just using them then leave a few minutes later to going back to pveing, those players cause the server population influx of being full status or very highl etc.
Removing it from WvW it’s a good idea. There’s gear vendors if you need some quick getup (it still needs back items in those vendors, though), and we don’t really need people wasting time crafting, we want them scoring.
The PvP lobby is to ‘close’ to LA to get crafting stations. You can just walk through the gate to get to the ones at LA.
But Guild Halls could use the stuff, they are too empty right now.
The guild hall is currently ‘missing’ at least all other 8 crafters, Black Lion Trading agent, Bank NPC (although scribe and the guild vault have access to bank), and NPCs that can only be found in the Guild Initiative HQ like the Commendation and Favor traders.
SUGGEST-A-TRON says:
PAY—ONCE—UNLOCKS—ARE—ALWAYS—BETTER.
No exceptions!
It was a necessary change. The random pve players that just come in the use the crafting stations, are consider WvW players just stepping into citadel for just using them then leave a few minutes later to going back to pveing, those players cause the server population influx of being full status or very highl etc.
If that truely is the reason for this change, to fix their WvW population statistics, maybe they should instead rethink their method of gathering said statistics. Counting just the number of people porting into WvW for a valid population gauge is probably the worst possible way to judge a server’s WvW population.
The PvP lobby is to ‘close’ to LA to get crafting stations. You can just walk through the gate to get to the ones at LA.
It’s not hard to get to other crafting stations, but the WvW one was the only one that allowed you to keep your “place” in the outside world. Going to Lion’s Arch means you lose it.
As an active WvW player I just want to say that this is a very welcome change. I honestly thought this thread was going to be a “YAY they removed crafting from WvW!” thread.
Getting active players on a given map is a massively important part of an enjoyable WvW experience. Even 3 or 4 more active players can turn the tides in a given tick. So if this change keeps map queues down by a few players this a great thing.
I know you might think “But I wouldn’t go into a map that is queued to craft.” But the thing is, a map population can shift in an instant. If the main force is on another map and needs to move to respond, a few crafters can actually hurt their servers.
I know it seems lame, but just know that there is definitely a benefit to this change
for a community that was feeling a bit neglected for quite a while.
I didn’t realize the other side of things and am sorry to hear that this has a negative
impact on so many people.
ive always thought the solution for this was to simply disable the stations when a queue is present. if there is no queue, who really cares?
I do wonder with the reward tracks / contribution algorithms that they saw people tagging a few things and then afking at craft stations. The five minute timer and constant flip of north camp may be a scenario where reward tracks kept ticking away from very minor contribution…..
It was a necessary change. The random pve players that just come in the use the crafting stations, are consider WvW players just stepping into citadel for just using them then leave a few minutes later to going back to pveing, those players cause the server population influx of being full status or very highly etc.
If that truly is the reason for this change, to fix their WvW population statistics, maybe they should instead rethink their method of gathering said statistics. Counting just the number of people porting into WvW for a valid population gauge is probably the worst possible way to judge a server’s WvW population.
And people who come from PvE to use the crafting stations also WvW and even if they don’t stay on that particular day to WvW. PvE is my preferred section of the game, but I do PvP and WvW. Also keep in mind that’s it not just PvEers who come in to use the stations. WvWers also use them. I’ve seen my guildies stop to poke their noses in them (for something from the bank or a quick craft of something they need). To say that is always only “random PvEers” who used the crafting stations is wrong.
I also agree if that is their only method for determining “server population” then that is a problem.
Perhaps, as a guild hall upgrade, they could add all of the crafting stations to the market or the side of it. At least then people would have easy access to crafting stations from anywhere in the PvE map without cluttering the WvW maps (if that’s what wvwers are really afraid of).
Decent idea. I think it should happen regardless of whatever else they do with crafting stations.
But A-net also needs to realize that not everyone belongs to a guild with a guildhall.
This is why I still support Obsidian Sanctum as a viable option for crafting stations. It’s a removed WvW map. It would also help those players who are not in a guild with a hall (yet). It also would be a good place for a “WvW 101” for newer players since you have the options of the GvG arena there other players from the opposing servers could also come to do the jp, troll people doing the jp, or just come to duel.
With mapchat, guildchat and /say people already socialize as much as they’re going to. Forcing people into a lagfest of a city does nothing to improve that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen players having a face-to-face conversation in a city, except for perhaps the small percentage of the playerbase that enjoys RP. And if A-net is doing this just to make the game look more populated, that’s just cheesy. I don’t think a new player is going to care if there’s a lot of people in their field of vision in a city. They care more about population out in the gameworld outside the cities.
Ymmv, but I’ve struck up multiple conversations with players that started with a single compliment from one of us on how the other’s character is outfitted…. conversations I wouldn’t have had, nor started, had I not been standing next to them.
It’s not about making the game look more populated… that’s a sad and cynical perspective… it’s about making sure people are going to WvW to play WvW now it’s becoming popular again. Simultaneously it’ll get more peeps together at the various towns because of crafting.
Many people might already socialize as much as they are going to for now, but it can’t increase or change if the opportunities aren’t there. New players might take more advantage of this opportunity than older players, but that doesn’t mean older players can’t/won’t.
ive always thought the solution for this was to simply disable the stations when a queue is present. if there is no queue, who really cares?
I think this is a really good idea if queues are the basis for this change. But it needs some slight adjustments. When there’s a queue, it’s already too late, since people could be already taking spots for crafting. Maybe the crafting stations could be disabled when the map is very close to the population cap.
a) if there is no queue it should be easy to leave, craft, and come back. Park your toon in Hoelbrak or Black Citadel if you are concerned about load times (not LA or DR).
b) if there is a queue, you shouldn’t be wasting a spot crafting stuff. People should come prepared on reset and other busy times, or you can alway buy on the TP.
