Guild Wars 2

Hi

This is going to be a very long, very rambling post but I have time and I figured it might be helpful. First, you should know a little about me. I played warhammer online since release for a few years. I was pretty high up in the RvR strategy and played on both destro and order. I saw the progression through the entire lifetime of the game, from initial euphoria to ghost town to the ‘renaissance’. I’ve got a few things to say about WvW in Guild Wars 2.

Advice

1) The WvW sucks right now – and it’s not the GW2 team’s fault. It’s the people. 100% I can tell you right now that most people never played WvW style combat and it shows. I see the exact same thing that was seen in early Warhammer Online – large zergs, no organization, refusal to build siege, etc. Don’t sweat it, it takes a while. Most people are dumb, and the zerg (on every server) has it’s uses which I will explain later. The GW2 team did a lot of things right with the WvW, the first of which was to make 3 factions and have rotating matches. The castles are interesting, there are some really good strategic terrain choices that they made, and the siege is varied and useful. I will explain what they are doing wrong later.

2) This game is called GUILD wars, not PEOPLE wars. If you are not part of an organized guild, you don’t matter. It’s just a fact. You will have less than zero impact if you just run with the mindless zerg. Get out of the zerg, get into a guild setting. A lot of guilds suck right now, but that’s okay because like I said most people haven’t played WvW before. You will see a lot of people who say stupid things – “PUSH THEM BACK!!!”, “HOLD THE LINE!!!”, etc. You will see pubstar commanders giving bad orders. You will have to ignore the rabble and rise above it.

3) There are advantages to being the underdog. As the underdog, you control the action. One thing that people don’t often realize is that a server dominating is dominating for one reason – population. This happened in the early days of Warhammer, when Destro had a massive population imbalance. Order complained and complained, but soon people figured out that if you just left RvR, the ‘dominant’ server was the one that really suffered. For example, if Sea of Sorrows players were just not around during the US timezone, what would they do? Seriously, think about this. 500+ players flooding the WvW zone specifically for the chance to kill people and nobody to fight against? Boredom. Sheer boredom. This is what happened to Warhammer Online, and it destroyed the entire game because the matchups were static. GW2 will hopefully not have as big of a problem because the matchups are dynamic, but you can still use this to your advantage as the underdogs. When you own nothing, your objective should be to farm, not to capture. This is what Order did and it frustrated the hell out of Destro. Order would take a keep, figure out some cheap tactic (camping the top of the ramp with AoE) and farm the hell out of the Destro zerg. Sure, the keep was eventually overrun, but the fact that Order was manipulating the Destro kept the game interesting in a time of utter futility. Who cares if they own everything? That only means you’ll be able to manipulate their players easier when you do attack something.

4) Don’t fight in the open. These battles that take place in front of the spawn are pointless. Nothing is gained, you just waste time. They are the most horrible battles that you can participate in. It’s the worst move you can do as the underdog because you are delivering what the dominant server wants – action. Just stop.

5) Build siege. This problem mostly disappears when you get into a guild, but for newbies many people don’t understand that the siege weapons ARE the game. Every time I see Sea of Sorrows getting legitimately owned (not from pop imbalance), it’s because they refuse to build siege at a keep or are being outsieged.

(still going…)

6) The zerg is a mechanism for guilds to have fun. The unorganized, mindless hoarde you see on every server is full of bandwagoners and newbs. It’s the WvW initiation for many bad players. And you can, and should, exploit it. The zerg is easily manipulated, and usually led by idiots. There are few greater joys than defeating a zerg while outnumbered – it’s one of the best times you’ll have in WvW. Learn how to counter the zerg with siege, positioning, and teamwork as a guild. There are some really ownage abilities in this game that I never see getting used to their fullest extent. Also, ventrilo. Also, arrow carts. Also, baiting, keeps, feints, guardian bubbles, MESMER ABILITIES omfgmesmersareawesome.

What the Guild Wars 2 team can do to make things better in WvW:
I don’t know how many of these were already suggested, so bear with me

Underdog advantage needs to be increased based on how bad the matchup is. If there are 100 players vs 5 players, the bonuses need to get exponentially higher than 100 players vs 50 players. This will encourage more people to try to zone in when at a disadvantage. If you can take a single sentry and gain something like 3 badges from it, you’ll see a lot more action instead of the desolate environment you have right now.

Change the way players are kept track of on a map. This is really frustrating – being in a guild with 10 people and only being able to see 5 at a time. Guild members should all be orange dots on the WvW map, and should be visible from any location. Furthermore, there should be the option to tie multiple groups together into a warband (similar to how Warhammer Online did it).

Let us draw on the map. This is a huge one. Waypoints do not cut it. We need to be able to draw on the WvW map and have the drawings selectively visible to either group members or guild members or something along those lines.

Added suggestion – remove the orbs. Seriously, they are pointless and only serve to help the dominant side become more dominant. Get rid of the orbs.

And that’s all. I have to say, looking at the GW2 WvW they fixed a lot of the crucial errors from Warhammer Online. I have high hopes for it and have enjoyed it a lot (even though I’m a US timezone player on an Aussie server). Please, lets make this into the game that Warhammer Online was supposed to be.

Thanks for reading.

“Let us draw on the map. This is a huge one. Waypoints do not cut it. We need to be able to draw on the WvW map and have the drawings selectively visible to either group members or guild members or something along those lines.”

We can’t do this already? (can’t say I have tried outside of pve)

Interesting read. The suggestions are all really good except removing the orbs.
Changing the way the map keeps track of players would be great. I’d love to open my map and see where everyone is, with orange dots signifying guild members.

Jakula.1072:

“Let us draw on the map. This is a huge one. Waypoints do not cut it. We need to be able to draw on the WvW map and have the drawings selectively visible to either group members or guild members or something along those lines.”

We can’t do this already? (can’t say I have tried outside of pve)

Is there some feature I’m unaware of?

Seraphy.2374:

Interesting read. The suggestions are all really good except removing the orbs.
Changing the way the map keeps track of players would be great. I’d love to open my map and see where everyone is, with orange dots signifying guild members.

Why do you like the orbs the way they are?

You can draw on the map and your group will see it but it only lasts 5 or so seconds.

kylia.4813:

You can draw on the map and your group will see it but it only lasts 5 or so seconds.

Just figured out how – have to hold down shift. Thanks. Need it to last longer though, also having symbols for siege weapons and siege weapon range would be nice.

Aye, coming from WAR, Planetside, PotBS, do need more “managerial/leadership” tools. ATM the current tools really do lend themselves towards the zerg. Still find it hard to understand why we can’t see our guild on the map, it is called Guild Wars after all. I’m sure it will get there, after all the game is only 3 weeks old.

I suggest there is a world representative that is chosen democratically. The chosen representative will hold the position for some time and can be banished from the position if the people agree to do so. They have the option to talk to another representative from other server.
Therefore forming inter-server alliance will be easier. (can really help dominated servers)
The drawback if the dominating server ally with another dominating server to push a dominated server. (in the end they will turn their back on each other anyway)
(Just a suggestion though, if you think this is stupid then just forget it)

You can pay 100g at a vendor to become a commander. This should let your drawings on the map last longer.

I dont see a problem with the orbs. I see them change hands all the time in my worlds matchs’ either due to poor defense or great strategic attacks. People all claim they’re overpowered, but in the long run.. they just dont make that much of a difference. Not like a well placed trebuche

The orbs make a huge difference when one server has 3 of them constantly. We captured one last night for the first time in the current matchup and my life went up 2K. That’s a pretty big difference. Add another two orbs and I’d be getting a 6K boost to my life (21K base in WvW atm).