Guild Wars 2

FrizzFreston.5290:

Disabling tactivators in Alpine would lead to a huge logistics problem from guilds who have put in lots effort and are putting effort in right now to get said upgrades in their guild halls.

While I agree that these tactical advantages should be more universally available to all guilds, and that there may be some really badly balanced ones, doesn’t mean they could simply ship Alpine without the support of these tactics and tools.

Instead of destructive feedback (Throw it out, disable it, etc) it’s much better to come up with suggestion that doesn’t immediately screw everyone else but yourself over.

Also, WvW upgrades are definitely one of the cheaper ones. I don’t know if the scribe update will lower the costs to make paper for example, but if it does, this automatically decreases the cost to activate many of the scribe recipes.

It’s not everything, but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

It should be made very clear, that these changes are being requested by the majority of the wvw players in GW2 due to wanting to save the game and prevent the majority of the wvw players from leaving it. This is not a " bunch O’ haters whining". This is the last " Hail Mary" being taken by numerous guild leaders and commanders that have been here through thick and thin before many walk away from the game and not look back. This is not something really " negotiable". If they keep the gimmicks, players are not coming back, and that is the end of it. Forums will grow quiet, servers will be merged into fewer and fewer numbers until the end of it’s days. You are talking about ignoring the majority of WvW players, thousands that have been dedicated to this game from the beginning. The reason we are trying so hard to get this fixed is there is no way we can get them to come back to the game otherwise. We are only asking for what it is going to take to keep the population from drastically declining even further.

As one of the largest 100% active WvW only guilds prior to HoT who has in fact gone and earned this garbage, It is MORE of a problem that it is in the game than if they gave us something we actually want in it’s place. We have offered NUMEROUS ideas on what we can do in place of the current Guild upgrade system that would make everyone cheer instead, and that should be considered a viable option. Forget the nonsense about " reducing costs for scribe.. blah blah blah".. what we need to hear is everything used in WvW is easily and readily available just by playing and enjoying WvW.

Most important, they should start with returning EVERYTHING guilds had taken from them prior to HoT and leave those alone. When you pay for new content, that does not mean you have everything you already earned removed from you and now you have to work 100x as hard to get what you already had back. Then for those specific upgrades that they had to work their tails off in HoT for, they get to charge them for free from now on. Keep buffs, + 5 supply ect all get charged for free unless you speed them up. Then for many of these other upgrades ( including banners ect) there have been a great variety of suggestions, they just have to make sure that whatever they replace it with is better than what they had before. Giving guilds bulk stacks of superior rams, cats trebs ect would be much more appreciated by guilds than banners..

The Key here to resolving this is to actually think about what the players want and would like and listen to their requests rather than think up a bunch of PvE gimmicky nonsense no one wanted in the game and force it down their throats.

lil devils x.6071 the problem is that Anet needs to recognize there are WvW players and PvE players and PvP players and players that play multiple modes as they want.
Until Anet thinks there are PvE players that occasionaly play WvW, and PvP players, things will never go right.
And then after they understands these types of players, they need to look what those groups want.
While PvE player want mostly to afk cleave trought NPCs to a chest to get loot, PVP players want to oneshot enemy, WvW players dont want any of those.
Those glorious days before HoT where only one class was able to oneshot and it was tricky and not reliable. Those days when WvW was not about onepush enemy or die in that push, because you could take few hits of damage.
With skill balance, Anet should change damage calculations. Or make a WvW bonus only that will give players 1000armor and 10000 health when entering WvW.
This would help against that silly damage power creep introduced with HoT.

And then they can have tactivators like they want.

Hule.8794:

lil devils x.6071 the problem is that Anet needs to recognize there are WvW players and PvE players and PvP players and players that play multiple modes as they want.
Until Anet thinks there are PvE players that occasionaly play WvW, and PvP players, things will never go right.
And then after they understands these types of players, they need to look what those groups want.
While PvE player want mostly to afk cleave trought NPCs to a chest to get loot, PVP players want to oneshot enemy, WvW players dont want any of those.
Those glorious days before HoT where only one class was able to oneshot and it was tricky and not reliable. Those days when WvW was not about onepush enemy or die in that push, because you could take few hits of damage.
With skill balance, Anet should change damage calculations. Or make a WvW bonus only that will give players 1000armor and 10000 health when entering WvW.
This would help against that silly damage power creep introduced with HoT.

And then they can have tactivators like they want.

I agree ( except the part about the tactivators.. just no I am scared about how many tactivators they want), the issue is “WvW” only players actually bought this game to play large scale battlefield PvP where you can fight for hours enjoying the challenge of the fight itself, not to PvD ,Kill npc, get chest or one shot enemies.. They have to " unhook" it from PvE and PvP and give it it’s own space to flourish. They have to treat it like a large scale PvP gamemode separate from the rest of the game and self sustaining if they really want to see it do well. Each of the different game modes has a particular type of player they draw to the game, and due to the way WvW has been mismanaged, they have been alienating the WvW player from the game entirely. Even the GW1 fans that have been with Anet from the beginning .. it is like they don’t even want to listen to what they asked for in the Gw1 surveys they used to create GW2 anymore. I remember when we asked for large scale PvP, these were our write in answers.. and they said that was what they were giving us.. then they didn’t even bother treating it like a PvP mode and it just doesn’t make sense. WvW needs it’s own balance.

Why bother putting the game mode in the game that the players asked for in the surveys then making it to where those very same players consider it unplayable at all? All I ever have done on this game is play WvW from Day one, but I can’t even stand to set foot in WvW now because I know it will just make me uninstall it.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Yes.

That said, we’ll be increasing the cooldowns on all tactics by 5-10 minutes. Also, once the scribing costs come down, as part of the april build, we can start looking at rebalancing their actual effects as well.

No! dont! kitten read the forums. everyone hate that crap!

Many many people like the system of tactics. It only needs some adjustments here and there.

In absence of a tactivator system, any objective has three variants based on tier, and the variables are really just how much the non-player elements (walls/gates, guards) might slow down a capture, or if defender players are around, a little more siege (cannons/mortars/oil) might be available to them.

I do like that tactivators introduce some variation into the objectives that we’ve probably all captured dozens if not hundreds of times. The floor plans sure aren’t changing, nor are the wood/stone/metal gates and walls. An objective becomes a little more scary if you know there’s Iron Guards to slow down your force long enough for the defender zerg to maybe race in to reply, or if you’re baited in to an ambush, Chilling Fog might punish the fact you committed.

As it stands with thin populations, I’d suggest it’s very easy to take objectives whether with a duo, havoc or a full zerg, well more than half the time there won’t be a sentry in a given objective (even in T2), there may be hardly anyone on the map, period. If one or two defenders do manage to respond, great, they may have a tactic to activate to deter invaders, they will also have some objective aura to boost their vitality, power and whatever else to help them punch above their weight so it’s not just a glorified PvD looking capture.

The tactics sound like they’re getting some rebalancing, much like the ingredient costs for scribing to even make the schematic stuff that goes into a tactivator slot. It’s especially the extending of cooldown which I figure will encourage or put more value on “baiting” a tactic being activated, which we already do (feint SMC to get a panicked airship pull, maybe we’ll be coming back in 3ish minutes when we know it’s on cooldown… or taking your garri in a BL because we know you’re all in SMC waiting for us to come back). Not that Airship will ever be a thing in Alpine, it’s SMC only, but we all understand baiting a bomb, the non-passive tactics are the same deal.

Funny to see many being surprised about the fact we won’t get the old borderlands back in their original state. Never learned from the past?

Offair.2563:

Funny to see many being surprised about the fact we won’t get the old borderlands back in their original state. Never learned from the past?

I think people were hoping Anet had finally learned from the past.

The original state was rubbish, so it’s not going to make much difference

Brokenbone.8759:

In absence of a tactivator system, any objective has three variants based on tier, and the variables are really just how much the non-player elements (walls/gates, guards) might slow down a capture, or if defender players are around, a little more siege (cannons/mortars/oil) might be available to them.

I do like that tactivators introduce some variation into the objectives that we’ve probably all captured dozens if not hundreds of times. The floor plans sure aren’t changing, nor are the wood/stone/metal gates and walls. An objective becomes a little more scary if you know there’s Iron Guards to slow down your force long enough for the defender zerg to maybe race in to reply, or if you’re baited in to an ambush, Chilling Fog might punish the fact you committed.

As it stands with thin populations, I’d suggest it’s very easy to take objectives whether with a duo, havoc or a full zerg, well more than half the time there won’t be a sentry in a given objective (even in T2), there may be hardly anyone on the map, period. If one or two defenders do manage to respond, great, they may have a tactic to activate to deter invaders, they will also have some objective aura to boost their vitality, power and whatever else to help them punch above their weight so it’s not just a glorified PvD looking capture.

The tactics sound like they’re getting some rebalancing, much like the ingredient costs for scribing to even make the schematic stuff that goes into a tactivator slot. It’s especially the extending of cooldown which I figure will encourage or put more value on “baiting” a tactic being activated, which we already do (feint SMC to get a panicked airship pull, maybe we’ll be coming back in 3ish minutes when we know it’s on cooldown… or taking your garri in a BL because we know you’re all in SMC waiting for us to come back). Not that Airship will ever be a thing in Alpine, it’s SMC only, but we all understand baiting a bomb, the non-passive tactics are the same deal.

Wow, and I thought tactical strategic thinking of tactivators was all but dead. Well maybe not really, but at least impopular.

Definitely refreshing between all the negative reactions.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Yes.

That said, we’ll be increasing the cooldowns on all tactics by 5-10 minutes. Also, once the scribing costs come down, as part of the april build, we can start looking at rebalancing their actual effects as well.

Does Arenanet not realize that is is actually the primary problem people have? The issue that so many people are having is that it is nearly impossible to break into defended keeps in the first place. This means people bunkering inside keeps and no fights. Don’t look at the top layer of complaints. Look at what caused people to actually despise the maps in the first place: tactivators, banners, ridiculous lords, doors immune to player damage, stronger walls…..all while under siege fire……this is the actual stuff that is frustrating the WvW community so much. Before bunkering and stalemates weren’t nearly as big a deal because it was easier to break into keeps and force engagements.

Alpine would turn into people bunkering in keeps, and we’d have the same problem as desert borderlands even if these abilities are just toned down. Please really consider removing some of the said mechanics instead of toning them down.

Let me reiterate, the frustration comes from the ability of players to bunker and the offensive force having very little chance of breaking that bunker. It is the stalemate factor that is frustrating, that no matter how good your guild is you’re not going to get through – supply run after supply run – still very little chance to get to inner.

I agree with making the outnumbered buff actually worth having, like increase siege damage dealt, or whatever. Nobody cares about gold/magic find in wvw.

I appreciate the response from an actual developer. I believe I speak for the majority when I say you don’t deserve any negativity from the community. However, you must understand our frustration when it comes to our favorite game mode getting a sweeping change for the worse. Some people can’t adapt to change, and many just don’t like certain things about the HoT release in relation to wvw. That said, here’s my take on the alpine bl’s, and wvw as a whole.

I’ve played wvw since gw2 came out. Large scale fights in the open spaces on the alpine BLs are some of the best wvw experiences I’ve ever had. The desert BL does not have that many open spaces for large open field fights. The layout of the ABLs is favorable to the home BL, mostly downhill, whereas on the DBL is actually the opposite, I’ve found. It’s very easy to go to the border waypoint on an enemy DBL and make a break for fire keep (for example), and to keep going all the way to the northern towers before you’re intercepted.

Tactivators are kinda cheesy, imo. It would be great if they were fixed to be either another passive effect and/or a personal trap/trick like a siege disabler. As for guilds who managed to build up their war room, replace the tactivator upgrades with more wvw buffs of some kind.

All in all, these are forums, where people come to complain. You can believe that the silent majority accept tactivators because they don’t say otherwise, but the wvw guild I was with altogether quit because of the HoT changes to wvw. Players are leaving, and wvw is the best endgame content this game has to offer. My advice? Don’t make a sweeping change to wvw, make small ones, and have developers show up in game to ask players who are currently playing wvw what they should change. You know that old wvw is better than new wvw, so go in the totally opposite direction you did after HoT release. Less pve elements, more open field fighting scenarios, etc.

Also, realistically, if you look at towers, Bravost for example, it sits next to a bridge. What is the point of taking a tower if I can just walk right past it!? The only purpose it serves is PPT. Why not make it more like dynasty warriors, where you have to take the tower to get deeper into enemy territory?

ALSO ALSO, why do ladders exist in the world and yet we need catapults to knock down tiny walls!??

Cephas.4293:

Alpine would turn into people bunkering in keeps

It was already! How quickly people forget. And that was a result of the buff on AC damage combined with the introduction of pirate-ship meta, all reinforced with HoT and DBL.

I play in T1 on EU and really we don’t see those bunker…. Or if they are defender we find other way to get in the keep, or we just go elsewhere…. If all the ennemy are in the same keep to defend, then just spread and take other stuff… They will go out, or loose because they have only 1 keep…

Sich.7103:

or we just go elsewhere…. If all the ennemy are in the same keep to defend, then just spread and take other stuff… They will go out, or loose because they have only 1 keep…

That’s the heart of the turtle strategy. You spread out and take other stuff, yes, until your server doesn’t have the numbers to spread out like that. “Just go elsewhere” is exactly what happened to servers playing against that strategy. People want to fight other people, not long-siege or PvDoor.

yep, ofc, but if you do a lot of ppt those turtle server will go down on ranking and you will fight other servers….
You want to fight another server, make them loose so much point that they will loose ranking…
And about population, you don’t need a lot of people to take keep or tower…. If there is no defenser it’s very easy…

Yes thanks A-Net I love those airship bombs that 100%→1 hp my tank guardian. Sorry I’m not skilled enough to dodge those 1/4 second orange circles that deal 5k damage per shot that ignore block and hit me 7 times in 1s time and hit me at any point in SM. I had no idea airship bombardment can hit me though a castle wall.
While your at it why don’t you change lord champs to raid bosses that scales with players with instant wipe mechanics. Wait that sounds absolutely insane and idiotic? Well that’s what 99% of the community is telling you but your too r-kitten to figure it out.

I don’t believe that everything is black or white. in my opinion removing some tactics will actually harm wvw (or atleast the outnumbered side) while others will only improve our wvw experience. Many ppl tend to think that all tactics are ewul … but some actually help as a last resort vs servers with double ur numbers, while others are kind of useless.

Some examples:

Minor supply drop (gives 100 supply): I think this one is the most versatile tactic, u need to play smart to use it efficiently. Lets face it, it wont save you against a blob if u only have a few ppl inside ur keep. But…if u are against, lets say; 6 enemies that place siege outside a tower you solely defend, you can use those 100 supps to place a bali or an ac in such a position that will kill the enemy siege b4 they breach into ur tower. They will eventually cap the tower if they insist but u may force them to resupply 2 times till they do and choose diff spots for their siege… so I believe that one supports outnumbered servers and rewards smart play.

Emergency WP (Creates an uncontestable wp for 1min): This one is an example of a bad tactic. The team that uses this will be able to restart the fight instantly and for 1min to have every1 that is dying coming back. Discarding any fear/consequences of death so usually it supports the side that has more people that play badly. In theory it may help an outnumbered server by keep porting back, but in reality…I’ve seen it mostly abused by the strongest side (that plays poorly) to reset the fight 2-3 times(it becomes tiring). The reason why it is mostly abused by the strongest side is because if they outnumber u it takes near the reactivation time to kill every1 so… by the time you have killed them all they can reactivate it (20mins cd). It needs to either be removed or nerfed…

Chilling fog (chill for 1min): Sounds…impressive, but…it never changed the outcome of a fight for me… I don’t think it is that good.

Dune roller (summons a charr motorcycle that grants high mobility): Utterly useless but… extremely fun to use. I don’t know why would any1 want that removed?

Invulnerable Fortifications (walls and doors become immune to all sorts of damage for 1min): Useful to give you enough time to call buddies to help you defend. can be used effectively by both the outnumbered and the strong side. I don’t think removing it will help or damage wvw.

Armored Dolyaks (Dolies gain increased health/toughness) : Useless in general like most of the camp upgrades. Camps flip so easily and fast that they are only a waste of resources.

Cloaking waters & Airship defense: Completely broken. Those tactics only help the already stronger/winning side I believe they should finaly remove them both. The side that controls sm for that long to enable those is already strong enough for a fair fight and doesn’t need boosts. Not to mention that those are super expensive to craft, so its easier for the server with the most wvw guilds/ppl to use them, which makes them even more unfair. AD though is sooo impressive that I will miss its visual effects if they choose to remove it

That’s just my opinion ofc but… After countless times of using them, I think that most of the tactics don’t have such a great impact to the balance of wvw. With the exception of some (that need to be nerfed or removed) most tactics are only giving diversity to wvw or are just useless.

Don’t judge poorly every tactic cause some are overpowered. Anet needs to fix those, not to remove everything that is HOT related.

PS: Don’t forget the countless guilds that will start whining after having all their already-payed upgrades removed without compensation.

DO I want to see tactics/npc/gimmicks/other garbage inserted in to Alpine? No.

Probably quite easy to figure out who spent money getting the right level of crafting to make these things, then check if they made anything else that benefited the guild, then refund 50% or something of the money to those that only made wvw stuff.

One minute of invuln is so OP and game breaking it’s not even funny- and for the weaker side trying to sneak an attack, it’s a killer.

What we need is for wvw to be recognised as it’s own game mode, and skills, etc balanced around that concept when you step into wvw, just like Guild Wars used to do for pvp. Until that happens, wvw will leak players who get fed up with cheese mechanics and the other rubbish inserted to make it more like pve than pvp.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Yes.

That said, we’ll be increasing the cooldowns on all tactics by 5-10 minutes. Also, once the scribing costs come down, as part of the april build, we can start looking at rebalancing their actual effects as well.

5-10 minutes frankly means very little. The effects of having a banner for just a single fight or offense can frankly set the tone for the rest of the week.

Can they please just be removed entirely? I understand that content featured and produced in HoT doesn’t want to be redacted for PR reasons, but in all honesty, banners are really just an objectively bad addition to the game for numerous mechanical reasons, which ultimately and individually tie back to production costs/the systematic removal of small/community guild effectiveness in WvW and an over-emphasis on massive guilds dominating the WvW scene, which ties back to population concerns and server stacking, all of which are fundamental problems in the format which supposedly are trying to be addressed.

Baldrick.8967:

One minute of invuln is so OP and game breaking it’s not even funny- and for the weaker side trying to sneak an attack, it’s a killer.

The weaker side/smaller team will need much more time to break the wall or gate so the 1min invulnerability will be more important vs a stronger force which will be able to place 10 superior catas instead of 1-2. The percentage difference between starting the attack and finally opening the wall will be higher the more siege you use. So even if it helps both sides (stronger/weaker side) it is stronger against massive numbers of siege.

DeceiverX.8361:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Yes.

That said, we’ll be increasing the cooldowns on all tactics by 5-10 minutes. Also, once the scribing costs come down, as part of the april build, we can start looking at rebalancing their actual effects as well.

5-10 minutes frankly means very little. The effects of having a banner for just a single fight or offense can frankly set the tone for the rest of the week.

Can they please just be removed entirely? I understand that content featured and produced in HoT doesn’t want to be redacted for PR reasons, but in all honesty, banners are really just an objectively bad addition to the game for numerous mechanical reasons, which ultimately and individually tie back to production costs/the systematic removal of small/community guild effectiveness in WvW and an over-emphasis on massive guilds dominating the WvW scene, which ties back to population concerns and server stacking, all of which are fundamental problems in the format which supposedly are trying to be addressed.

You are right. Even if the use of banners is interesting and nerfed alot already, they change the mechanics completely and grant a great deal of grp support/damage to just one person (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Saved_by_the_Shell). Having said that though I don’t know how they could remove them without guilds starting to complain about how they lost valuable resources to unlock those. They cant (and will not) keep every1 happy. I would h8 to be an anet developer atm :P

One important problem of the tactics/improvements/claims is that they neglect casual small guilds that were made for roaming/strike teams. So many of those guilds became useless and abandoned. I think nerfing the wvw ghall costs and level requirements would help the matter a lot. Ow and also tie the claim ability to structural buffs to avoid troll guilds because even if troll guilds reduced dramatically with the introduction of ghalls (costs etc) there are still guilds that claim a keep permanently without any buff (Enemy guild?).