Guild Wars 2

So just thought I’d put up a bit of positivity amidst the many threads of valid, constructive and sometimes emotional criticism found in this section. I’m sure you guys/gals at Anet have thick skins, but it can also be tough to only hear critique on your labour of love day-in and day-out . More forum criticism than praise is of course perfectly normal. People who are enjoying the game, like me, are too busy playing and typically don’t spend time posting our great experiences here, while frustrations get aired frequently.

So let me be clear, I love this game. In particular, I LOVE WvW, warts and all. I’m confident that Anet will keep improving all aspects of it, within reasonable time-frames. I’m also not concerned about the declining number of people playing. This is perfectly reasonable and to be expected.

Anet, you’ve already shown that you respond to our feedback e.g. by adjusting SM’s keeplord position and points, 7 day transfers, removing orbs etc. Some, myself included, might not always agree with exactly how you respond, but the point is that you are responding. Thank you for that.

As you’ve hinted, there are already plans in place on changing/improving things for WvW. You’re also working on it already, and some of it is about to go-live i.e. the comment on culling being fixed in the next patch (THANKS). Being in the IT-industry myself I know that designing/developing/testing/releasing these changes is a mammoth undertaking and you have so little time! So thank you for all the time and effort you are putting in every day and also just for being awesome. Adjusting from an iterative/creative environment to supporting such a massive user-base must be a big challenge/change for you guys, so keep at it, your doing great

Looking forward to seeing what you do with:
- Culling. Will we see enemy armies when we should?
- Turtles. Working as intended? AoE buff/healing caps perhaps??
- Orbs. Can the flying hackers be stopped? Tough one I’m sure. But also, what advantage should an orb give?
- Outmanned buff. Will it help eventually help those with their backs against the wall?
- Thieves. Will WvW become Thiefwars? Are counters to invisibility required or will the playerbase solve it themselves?
- Keep/Castle. Should they be harder to take and cheaper to upgrade?
- Rewards. More things to spend badges on? More/consistent drops for kills?
- Nightcapping :/ If only global servers were possible. kitten you physical reality! Should there be some adjustment to potential points based on number of opponents on the map? Does that make it too easy to grief? Should NPCs scale to assist? Many good ideas to be found in these here threads.
- Transfers and guesting. Guesting plse, and long WvW lockouts for transfers …

Cheers.

/signed. Need more positive posts like this, less whiney/complaining posts.

Agreed, WvWvW is loads of fun, good job so far Anet, keep it up.
There’s some issues, but I’m sure those will be fixed in time.

I agree.

WvW is fun for what it’s made to be. A grand battle ground where you go in to assert dominance as a server.

Numbers don’t matter, you can show your ability with less. If you are a person that likes to have fun, you will like W3. I know I do even if I am loosing by 300k, as long as I can go and enjoy some open world skirmishers I’m happy.

P.S. I wish guards were not tied to each other, than a solo player can have even more impact.

I’d just like to interrupt here and whine for a few minutes about how great WvW is.

Thank you, its a lot of fun and real neat.

HabibLoew.2590:

Hi all,

First and foremost: Thank you for the positive feedback! We work hard to make WvW fun for you all and it’s very gratifying to hear that you’re enjoying it.

Now I need to make a bit of a clarification about culling being fixed. I think you’re referring to this post in the PvP forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-fix-this-sooner-rather-than-later-Vid-attached/first#post622762

We have a fix for culling in Structured PvP but that fix does not yet extend to WvW or PvE. The issue is that Structured PvP uses small maps with small player counts so we have fewer challenges to overcome with regards to resources like cpu and bandwidth. We are doing the work to extend the culling fix out to WvW but that change will not be in the next patch.

Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification . Ah well, with regards to WvW culling, I’ll go with what Darwin didn’t actually say: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Or even, re-adapt to it not changing xD and just keep levelling my thief … heh, if you can’t beat’em … jokes I love killing me some thieves with my ele.

Altie.4571:

P.S. I wish guards were not tied to each other, than a solo player can have even more impact.

It is possible to solo capture a camp, I’ve done it several times on my warrior =)

I like how WvW has a mix of big battles and small battles, and anyone can contribute whether in a group or alone.

I just want to say I agree that WvW is awesome and to say thank you for it. I also want to thank you for how responsive you have been, and I know that you are only going to make WvW better as time goes on.

I am a bit disappointed about the culling issue though, but I recognize it must be extremely difficult to fix.

If culling is related to rendering large numbers of players how can it happen in sPVP with only 16? Why did it only start happening after release?

HabibLoew.2590:

Now I need to make a bit of a clarification about culling being fixed.

Culling cannot be fixed with the current game engine.

That’s unpleasant but honest answer although I understand why it cannot be said in public. I assume it would take some drastic trade-offs to “fix” culling, such as downgrading the quality of appearance of players, but this is a tricky solution as aesthetics form an endgame that also drives gold sales.

For this reason I’m not disappointed by this news, but as GW1 veteran I am disappointed by lack of attention skill balance is getting in GW2, lack of so many bug fixes, and generally speaking lack of PvP quality. I would be more forgiving if this game was called otherwise, but GW1 was absolutely brilliant from the very start in every way (both PvE and PvP). I must admit I thought that later on rare skill balance updates in GW1 were the result of game being old, and not a new trend that would continue in GW2.

Regards,

Ianervan.3415:

Culling cannot be fixed with the current game engine.

Was culling there at launch? Because I don’t remember seeing it until a patch. Not in sPVP or WvW.

Ianervan.3415:

For this reason I’m not disappointed by this news, but as GW1 veteran I am disappointed by lack of attention skill balance is getting in GW2,

HabibLoew.2590:

Hi all,

We have a fix for culling in Structured PvP but that fix does not yet extend to WvW or PvE. The issue is that Structured PvP uses small maps with small player counts so we have fewer challenges to overcome with regards to resources like cpu and bandwidth. We are doing the work to extend the culling fix out to WvW but that change will not be in the next patch.

I enjoy the WvW a lot. Anet has done a great job.

I am distressed that this issue is not a big enough priority for you to fix.

/signed on this

I’ll add that I hope Anet devote more ressources to developping this aspect of the game. I think it’s trully how it shines and will keep going in the future.

HabibLoew.2590:

Hi all,

First and foremost: Thank you for the positive feedback! We work hard to make WvW fun for you all and it’s very gratifying to hear that you’re enjoying it.

Now I need to make a bit of a clarification about culling being fixed. I think you’re referring to this post in the PvP forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-fix-this-sooner-rather-than-later-Vid-attached/first#post622762

We have a fix for culling in Structured PvP but that fix does not yet extend to WvW or PvE. The issue is that Structured PvP uses small maps with small player counts so we have fewer challenges to overcome with regards to resources like cpu and bandwidth. We are doing the work to extend the culling fix out to WvW but that change will not be in the next patch.

Thank you for responding and clarifying. I (and I’m sure I speak for many here) really appreciate getting feed back from Devs. You’ve acknowledged the issue and advised that you are looking into it. I would love to see a page showing what is being worked on but I’m guessing that could have some detrimental results in the community.

We have to be patient and give A-Net time to fully test solutions rather than rolling out hot fixes quickly which may break other functions.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

RE: WvW culling…..

I have dueled many thiefs, and seen many PvP videos like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G5-ERrK7OY (When he is fighting 2 melee thiefs in the first min)

I always see the thief when I expect to see him (i count to 4)

It just isnt an issue for me to be honest and im playing on a good laptop

this is not a troll, it just appears to happens with some…..

They render fine for me (Playing on lowest settings for high performance and FPS)

im using nvidia using the sweetfx shader .dll and tweaked the card to run at full performance for high frame rates

HabibLoew.2590:

Hi all,

First and foremost: Thank you for the positive feedback! We work hard to make WvW fun for you all and it’s very gratifying to hear that you’re enjoying it.

Now I need to make a bit of a clarification about culling being fixed. I think you’re referring to this post in the PvP forum: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-fix-this-sooner-rather-than-later-Vid-attached/first#post622762

We have a fix for culling in Structured PvP but that fix does not yet extend to WvW or PvE. The issue is that Structured PvP uses small maps with small player counts so we have fewer challenges to overcome with regards to resources like cpu and bandwidth. We are doing the work to extend the culling fix out to WvW but that change will not be in the next patch.

That is very disheartening because it’s a major issue and have been for quite a while.

/Signed. I love guild wars 2 and the PvP especially. You are doing a great job Anet!

morrolan.9608:

<me too> especially fixing some some large early changes made during beta when they only had 1 person working on balance who couldn’t have possibly analysed the solutions properly.

This. I was very surprised they haven’t looked at the elementalist again since the single person beta changes?!

morrolan.9608:

Ianervan.3415:

Culling cannot be fixed with the current game engine.

Was culling there at launch? Because I don’t remember seeing it until a patch. Not in sPVP or WvW.
<snip>

There were for some, but for many of us – a patch caused it.
Until that patch, I could render the enemies, but occasional had ability lag.
After the patch, I couldn’t see many enemies – especially in EB, but ability lag was a bit better.

I’d rather have ability lag than invisible enemies though.

So the issue was there, but changes in a patch broke it further.

I love WVW, but I truly hate having downed state in PVP.

There’s a reason why no other self-respecting PVP game has tried it, it’s a bad idea.

mjharrison.3209:

I love WVW, but I truly hate having downed state in PVP.

There’s a reason why no other self-respecting PVP game has tried it, it’s a bad idea.

I hear this a lot, but don’t quite get it. What’s so wrong about the downed state? It makes ganking harder, but otherwise it seems to add another tactical layer to combat.

PinCushion.7390:

mjharrison.3209:

I love WVW, but I truly hate having downed state in PVP.

There’s a reason why no other self-respecting PVP game has tried it, it’s a bad idea.

I hear this a lot, but don’t quite get it. What’s so wrong about the downed state? It makes ganking harder, but otherwise it seems to add another tactical layer to combat.

I’m sorry……. but you have no idea what you talking about. Please explain how it adds another layer of tactical combat since all you do is spam 1 or 2 buttons depending on your class. Not to mention some class’s downed abilities are way more stronger than others. Having the downed state in WvW also discourages small scale group pvp in WvW because having more people around you makes it harder for people to pick you off from a zerg since numerous people can just rez you in 2 seconds.

Yep, thanks Anet. World vs. World is the best PvP arena I’ve ever seen in any game. The best evidence is the involvement of players.

I wonder what he got infracted for on his post? Weird.

Razeo.2309:

PinCushion.7390:

mjharrison.3209:

I love WVW, but I truly hate having downed state in PVP.

There’s a reason why no other self-respecting PVP game has tried it, it’s a bad idea.

I hear this a lot, but don’t quite get it. What’s so wrong about the downed state? It makes ganking harder, but otherwise it seems to add another tactical layer to combat.

I’m sorry……. but you have no idea what you talking about. Please explain how it adds another layer of tactical combat since all you do is spam 1 or 2 buttons depending on your class. Not to mention some class’s downed abilities are way more stronger than others. Having the downed state in WvW also discourages small scale group pvp in WvW because having more people around you makes it harder for people to pick you off from a zerg since numerous people can just rez you in 2 seconds.

It adds another tactical layer to combat because it makes farming zergs in hard hitting strike forces more difficult. Those strike teams now have to make a decision. Do they avoid the zerg altogether, tail them and pick off stragglers, waypoint back home and tag a keep on the other side of the map in an attempt to split the larger zerg, harrass them to slow them down, bait them into a choke point or friendly keep and call in reinforcements, etc. etc.

Those are tactical/strategic decisions.

Even the decision to stop fighting to finish a guy off vs. keep fighting his buddies while occasionally smacking him to keep him down is a tactical decision.

As opposed to the “Everyone gear for burst damage and gank as many zerglings as possible before bailing out” decision that would be THE decision without the downed state.