Guild Wars 2

WvW got harder, deal with it

I agree with everything you said but you missed some big ones.

-Most fights occur around objectives but the new gimicky PvE mechanics discourage fighting. You don’t want to fight in an area where the enemy is getting free stealth or you’re constantly burning.

-Auto upgrades that don’t require supply remove the reason that most roaming fights occurred. The keeps are full supply and will eventually upgrade so the defenders just sit on the wall and wait for you to get bored.

-The lack of WP’s at T3 gives no incentive to hold anything. The WP’s you get are instantly given to you when you flip a structure so what is the point in defending when you can just flip something back.

-The new map rewards blobbing and helps the dominant server steamroll.
The skyhammer event is going to be one by whoever has the most bodies, which will usually be the dominant server. Auto upgrades reward whoever has the best coverage and make it take that much longer for the weaker server to get their stuff back. The barricades only hurt roamers and small groups, zergs PvD through them in seconds. The increased run distance, lack of +5, and change to the supply cost of G catas (not to mention auto fortifications) makes taking things solo or with a small group a ridiculously tedious task.

I full agree with all what you say Nedus and Puck… Actually WvW begin to be the new eotm with permanent KT…

xXBAKESXx.6731:

WvW got harder, deal with it

Not harder, just worse.

Taking camps is easier without having to deal with the constant blind spam, towers are easier since you only have to deal with 1 npc rather than a small lords room full of them, but everything takes so much longer and the small scale fights that made things fun have dried up.

With the increased size of the map and the lack of WP’s on the side keeps people didn’t even bother trying to stop me from taking anything in the south. They just waited until I moved on to flip it back.

People ar doing other content so it’s no surprise WvW isnt so full offighting at this moment

xXBAKESXx.6731:

People ar doing other content so it’s no surprise WvW isnt so full offighting at this moment

People are doing other things because WvW has turned into PvE without the rewards.

xXBAKESXx.6731:

People ar doing other content so it’s no surprise WvW isnt so full offighting at this moment

So… after a few weeks you expect the population levels to go back up to what they were?

Acctually no, I think they will increase more over time due to the HoT release and new players upgrading full, more players coming into WvW.

I know I, who am usually 100% WvW, have been in PvE most of the week. This, even though I really enjoy the new map.

People say it is normal that wvw maps feel empty atm, because with HoT realese many players are in PvE, wait a week or 2 bla bla bla bla. That is stupid.

No it’s not. On the SFR server when the Halloween, Christmas, Easter events are on, the maps are always empty and we have trouble keeping up our score. Now combine that with the release of a new expansion with a new class, mastery system, guild hall grinding, new PVE maps, and the fear of exploring and learning the new BL maps, no wonder the population is low. All the focus right now is on PVE. I wonder how sPVP is right now.

Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?

Not really. I scouted yesterday Undercroft and it’s quite easy: 1 treb for each of the 3 outer gates, 2 carts on the edges next to the oil on the North and South outer gates to protect the walls, and 2 carts on the platform for the outer east gate walls, and at inner is easier, only 2 trebs for each gate and only one cart at the top to cover both inner walls. You sit at inner and from there you can see both North and South outer gates. You will not see the East one, but usually no one attacks that one. The same thing was with old BL Bay. You had to travel a lot from the North gate to the South one, you also had a lot of walls, the water walls, and the inner area was even bigger then inner Undercroft.

Sieging, upgrading and scouting in WvW was just for an elit part of players.

And the “elites” will shout at people that took supplies from garrison when the upgrades were important or a wall needed repairs. The auto-upgrade goes like this: if you scouted your keep for long enough and protect it from invaders then you deserve an upgrade. Also building siege is faster since you use the supplies inside instead of doing 10 runs to the nearest camp (which was never always 100% available) to build that 120 supplies superior trebuchet.

You don’t want to fight in an area where the enemy is getting free stealth or you’re constantly burning.

This implies more cooperation from the commander to send a 1-2 players to get that one shrine to remove the stealth, fire etc.

The keeps are full supply and will eventually upgrade so the defenders just sit on the wall and wait for you to get bored.

The supply is only for people to build siege and repair stuff. If your keep has 1100/1100 supplies but all the siege has expired or was never built, it’s pretty much the same thing as before. You also know exactly which objective has upgrades and when they will finish by clicking on it on the map. So if you see that rampart gets fortified in 30mins, then you better knock on those defenses quickly before they do so.

The lack of WP’s at T3 gives no incentive to hold anything. The WP’s you get are instantly given to you when you flip a structure so what is the point in defending when you can just flip something back.

Only rampart and the 2 spawn towers have those WP. It’s a way for people to easily defend their starting objective. I don’t agree with the WP in rampart, if it were to me I would only leave it in the spawn towers only. Already servers that started at the north side of the map have an advantage and quickly take over the rest of the map. A WP in their main keep only gives them more advantage.

The new map rewards blobbing and helps the dominant server steamroll.

Blobbing will always exist as long as an aoe cap exists. Making these maps larger helped with diminishing the blob, but not eliminating it completely.

towers are easier since you only have to deal with 1 npc rather than a small lords room full of them

Actually right now towers and keeps are harder to cap because of the new bosses. Btw, some bosses summon minions (necropolis).

Woohoo positivty !

I think the issues are:
1- 3 copies of this map is too much for the current tier populations
2- Map may be too big for the map population cap
3- There are not enough waypoints (maybe having a tent you can deploy for respawn or waypoints in camps?)

Otherwise personally I love the design and graphics.

People are right, once pve dies down in a week or 2 the population will rise in wvw. History has shown us this. Of course history has also shown us a couple weeks after that with the new stuff worn out, people will move on to something else.

So befor to long populations should be back to what they were before HoT. And that still isn’t enough people to fill those maps.

@ Bakes. I said that the map is too big and not friendly, but it has nothing to do with people playing PvE these days.
This map is wrong, for the forementioned reason, regardless if there is a group of 10 players or there’s a kittenrom all 3 servers. So you can’t dismiss the whole thing with “weeeeee, people are just in PvE, chill out dude”, because that is not the point.

@ Puck. Yes, like i said there are other problems (some bigger than others) and btw i agree with those you mentioned. But i believe the 4 ones i wrote are the most important/mechanics changing ones.

@ Catalin.
-You can say “it is just PvE effect” and i can say the opposite, point is: it is irrelevant for the real problem i meant to expose. I don’t care if in the map there are only 5 players or a whole quee. The point is the same: the map is still too big and bad designed for fighting purposes (especially in some areas).

-Believe me, i don’t mean to offend you in any way but “1 treb there and 1 ac there” is miles and miles away from what i meant when i said “effectively sieging these keeps, to make sure that each area is covered”. And, again, these keeps are so massive that good siege coverage is virtually-not-so-vistually impossible/expensive/tedious to do etc.

-These are not about elites scouts. Everyone get mad a “who started fortify?!?” “who built these rams inside the keep?!?” etc. That is irrelevant for the subject we’re talking. And in your response you bypassed completely my main point: scouting was hard and with no reward; they didn’t fix this in the right way, so now scouting is irrilevant (due to auto upgrades) and impossible (again, massive areas to scout, impossible/expensive siege etc).

Xillllix.3485:

I think the issues are:
1- 3 copies of this map is too much for the current tier populations
2- Map may be too big for the map population cap
3- There are not enough waypoints (maybe having a tent you can deploy for respawn or waypoints in camps?)

Otherwise personally I love the design and graphics.

We need battle camp fields to control map areas like armies did, instead just only the towers.

wonder if that would generate more field fights?

I agree with the op 100%. Wvw is and has always been about fighting other players. The argument of “wait a few weeks everyone is in pve getting new stuff” is just wrong. We had more people on than usual, everyone wanted to try out the new stuff and was excited. Until we spent an hour looking for either of the other teams with out much success. When we did find another group they would run away because no one wanted to fight in the chokes. I normally play 4 hours+ on reset night, but I lasted about an hour and a half. By the time I had left a 1/3 of our guild had already logged due to being bored?

"Catalin.5341"

Blobbing will always exist as long as an aoe cap exists. Making these maps larger helped with diminishing the blob, but not eliminating it completely.

This deserves a +1 and some recognition.

"Xillllix.3485"

3 copies of this map is too much for the current tier populations

Worried about the same thing, granted I’ve been stuck in bronze for a long while, but I keep thinking that a single copy of this map would have been sufficient (Thought the same about Alpine BL as well).

Big +1. Completely agree with all your points.

Wvw as it is right now will die very soon. No doubt about it. Anet has to make changes NOW or it WILL BE too late…

I agree with OP on all 4 points.

As long Anet isn’t willing to understand that PvE <> WvW we shall not get what WvW deserves. They need to start thinking how to make WvW fun for those who like WvW and not how to make WvW appealing to those who like PvE.

In my eyes all things u mentioned and many others are related just to this fact. They have started to plan things from wrong end.

If people who play WvW like WvW more people will play WvW. Simple as that.

Hate the new maps, I just chill in EB now. Hopefully they go back to the old maps.

Ciao Passero

Nedus.6952:

1. New BL is not friendly.
Some people may say “well it is new, you just have to get used to it” but that is not the point. The point is: the map is indubitably bigger and with a complex layout, especially in particular areas.

I’ll give the benefit of doubt for at least 1 month , the first few days it seemed so, last night I had a different experience.

Nedus.6952:

2. Defending strategy is dead.
[…]Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?[…]

Attacks are not immediate, you have plenty time to react. I assume the meta will be to build siege where is needed rather than pre-emptive build it. Siege and refreshing was tedious, to the point I’ve already abandoned it on old BL

Nedus.6952:

3. Scouts will die.[…]

4. Attacking strategy is dead. […]

Well, assuming this on day 4 is way too early, but I know how you think.

Last night I had the first taste of fights in BL after 3 days of almost free k-train, and it was pretty much fun. I actually felt being able to contribute even more than usual as a solo roamer. I still think stuff could be interesting in the future.

( What bothers me now are the guild halls upgrades and claiming stuff…)

I have the feeling that they want to make those BL work with mega servers. It’s way too huge for the current WvW pop.

Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?

That’s actually quite easy. I already built extensive siege in the air keep at every outer AND inner gate AND wall plus extra siege on the plateau in the west. It took me 4 minutes to refresh everything. Get to know the structure and you won’t find it so big anymore.

Ychiju.7960:

Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?

That’s actually quite easy. I already built extensive siege in the air keep at every outer AND inner gate AND wall plus extra siege on the plateau in the west. It took me 4 minutes to refresh everything. Get to know the structure and you won’t find it so big anymore.

People arent willing to give it a chance, but all the people who like the xpansion arent on the forums crying they’re in game enjoying it

xXBAKESXx.6731:

Ychiju.7960:

Like, can you actually stop for a moment and truly immagine and visualize it how it would be riddiculous to siege such a big area AND REFRESH that siege?

That’s actually quite easy. I already built extensive siege in the air keep at every outer AND inner gate AND wall plus extra siege on the plateau in the west. It took me 4 minutes to refresh everything. Get to know the structure and you won’t find it so big anymore.

People arent willing to give it a chance, but all the people who like the xpansion arent on the forums crying they’re in game enjoying it

You are living proof of the flaw in your statement

I think, as a scout, defending will focus more on inner/core areas until a certain level of comfort/transport within the new maps transpires, as people learn new tricks.

If it’s impossible to cover every outer area of a keep, focus on what you CAN do. Then expand from there.

@ Dawntree
Ciao Dawn! Mi fa piacere sapere che sei ancora su GW2

-Yeah, i understan that to get a better idea of the whole thing it takes some time, however not so much. I didn’t say “whole map is super duper impossible to navigate and there’s not a single spot that is suited for fights”. Actually i really like some spots. Very open, good looking, some small edges here and there so you can get a small advanate from heights etc etc. But then again, after wandering the map while paying attention, nobody can deny that some areas are awful for WvW purposes and definitely need to be remodelled a bit.

-Since you can’t WP to “new bay” and “new hills” actually there is not plenty of time to react to attack (not to mention that like i said imo this new WvW doesn’t incite to be a scout, so many flip will just happen unnoticed).

-People think it is too early to jump at conclusions because "you need to see it when there are more players " and stuff like that. But it doesn’t matter if there is just 1 player on the map (you) or a full que from all 3 servers. It is irrelevant for the real core point: autoupgrades removed the importance of people to pay attention to structures (if they really want to PPT), that + big areas to scout/siege made scouting process more useless, irrelevant, expensive, boring. Resulting in no strategy defenses, and that = 0 real challenge in attacking as well.

“Stuff could be interesting in the future”
Altho i focused on underlining the big problems, I actually like some of the new content. And yes as long as you’re with friends and such you can always find things interesting and have fun even in the most awful WvW scenario possible to think. However, i’d like to see WvW still focused on strategy. But for the reasons mentioned here and in OP, the new WvW is going to lose a masssive chunk of strategy.

@ Ychiju
“Get to know the structure and you won’t find it so big anymore.”
Like veryone else here, i surely am miles and miles away from being expert of this map, however, i can tell you i am not talking at random. I have spent quite some time to take a good look at things.

It is not the first comment about siege, so now i’ll explain myself a bit better.

Let’s compare older Hills inner with with Harrier’s Palace inner (just as 1 of the many possible examples).
Hills inner: few acs by W&N gates, treb at the end of bridge (maybe some ACs there as well to be turned towards W/N sides when enemies breach an ally group holds) and some AC back of lord room.

It is a great example of good & balanced siege coverage, for both sides. Overall few siege, so not too expensive for defenders and not too BS for attackers.

Now, Palace inner yard is so BIG that If you actually manage to siege so that any possible hot spot is covered (breach spots AND open spaces where your zerg holds the line vs enemy zerg) the results are terrible: expensive to siege/crazy to refresh as defender, BS and frustrating for attackers.

But ofc it is never going to happen (good sieging was expensive/boring etc in older BL alredy, here you have 0 motivation to even try to do good sieging).
So, back to square 1, siege defense will be ineffective/not used → 0 strategy in defending → 0 strategy for attackers.

Besides, this is not just about sige. You need to notice all the other minor&major consequences of these changes. Just another random example: how do you even sweep for mesmers in such a massive area? You don’t. It would require a full zerg to spread out for a couple of minutes. That is never going to happen. People will lose interest in sweeping. Small/big groups can hide and flip back stuff in a snap (alredy happening as we speak).

^And there you go, back to square 1, the game doesn’t make it easy for you to care about structures. No real care for defense, no real challenge in attacking. Everything is just mindless trainining around.

My only big complaint is that it is harder to +5 objectives so I can carry 20 supply again.. I’m pretty unhappy with the Guild Catapult changes too, but its whatever, they killed roaming anyway so why not kill the roaming siege along with it. Go play PvP if you like small many stuff cuz #ESPORTS.

xXBAKESXx.6731:

WvW got harder, deal with it

i think u missed the point completely….like by 1.6 million miles

There is only one issue with WvW.

Desert maps are completely deserted.

#esportz

I honestly feel bad for anet. They clearly put a lot of effort into EotM and the new BL maps, but they just keep giving us high quality stuff we won’t want at all.

It feels like when someone you don’t know that well gives you a hand-made scarf for Christmas, and you live in Southern California. You’re like, “I needed a swim suit” in your head.

On the other hand, there have got to be tens of thousands of posts on these forums saying what we want for WvW maps are simple maps with wide open spaces, easy to understand layouts, and little to no added mechanics.

After trying some of the pve maps which are similar in feel to the borderlands one, I can’t help but feel that the wvw maps are like the pve maps without gliders.

It’s just a feeling, but I think the map is actually begging for gliders.

Tao.5096:

There is only one issue with WvW.

Desert maps are completely deserted.

#esportz

The irony of a huge map being named Desert Borderlands… full of tons of “stuff” most of the people I play WvW with don’t like.

That’s exactly what I realized a few mins ago while reading another thread. We’ve been pronouncing it wrong all along. It’s not desert as in a hot, dry, sandy place, it’s desert as in deserted… It’s the Desert-ed Borderlands… at least for now.

Fellfoot.8156:

Tao.5096:

There is only one issue with WvW.

Desert maps are completely deserted.

#esportz

The irony of a huge map being named Desert Borderlands… full of tons of “stuff” most of the people I play WvW with don’t like.

That’s exactly what I realized a few mins ago while reading another thread. We’ve been pronouncing it wrong all along. It’s not desert as in a hot, dry, sandy place, it’s desert as in deserted… It’s the Desert-ed Borderlands… at least for now.

And that’s exactly what I meant.

Thus, I believe we should have another map – Alpine which is Single just like EB.

Desert map isn’t bad – in my opinion the only problem with it is that Keeps and towers are way too spacious.

Honestly, for me, the perfect option would be if:
- Blue had Alpine as Homeland
- Red had Desert as Homeland
- Green had Forest like map as Homeland

Plus, should rework EB a bit – make it bigger, add more objectives for Scouts etc. and make it more suited for blob exclusivity – since it already is and won’t change in fact.

Just to make sure that we don’t lose focus on OP, i’d like to remind/clarify few things.

1. The map feels like desert not because “people are in PvE; things will get better in the future”.
The map is too big and (in some areas) bad designed for WvW purposes, regardless if it is empty or full. In fact, i played in that map even while at least 1 server (mine) had quee in it. It still didn’t feel right due to size and layout.

2. The new map (by itself) is NOT the main problem.
Indeed, like i said, size&layout affect WvW in many ways (moving/roaming, fights, scouting, sieging, refreshing, sweeping etc etc, just to make few examples). But what makes you notice/feel even more all these negative things is this: there are no possible WP upgrades to keeps. With slower movements, any kind of “action” (any kind, really) feels additionally long&boring.

So yeah, new map is directly and indirectly a big source of evil things. But don’t go tunnel vision like “oh, it is the map because the map”.
Keep in mind that they changed A LOT some of the core WvW mechanics, not just “a map”.

I don’t like new auto-upgrade system without need for supply.
I mega x10 dislike waypoint without t3 upgrade, make defense much less valuable then offence.

It would have been simple to take the old BL and add a fresh coat of paint, reskin it and add a few new tactical siege location. The new Shield generator siege is enough to spice things up by quite a lot. I barely WvW if I’m not in EB and I spend over 4500 hours in WvW over the last 3 years. All that auto upgrade feel less involving.

This is way too big and over designed. It seems they don’t know anything about finding beauty in simplicity.

Was chatting with guild chat yesterday and he asked how could the make it worst. I told him wait for the underwater dragon expansion and the new underwater Borderland.

yanoch.7051:

It would have been simple to take the old BL and add a fresh coat of paint, reskin it and add a few new tactical siege location.

Imagine… Every variant with almost the exact same design as alpine had, but one border covered in ice and snow (Kodan inspired), one border that is a thick jungle with keep ruins burried halfway in trees (Magumma inspired) and finally a sandy desert border (Like the desert in the new border). EB would still be the classic Kryta grassland design.

Anet could have created all 3 maps quicker than this single new border.

Bleh. It was a dream once, when I first heard them say “desert”, looking at the then current border and thinking “this dull grassland replaced with sandy dunes and sandstone cliffs? Awesome!”.

Given the fact that you could get into action, within 2 minutes of walking in the old borders, makes the new borders lackluster and boring.

I really miss the “instant action” part of WvW atm.

Agree with all of what the OP said.

-Honestly I think this is the death of WvW as any server below position 3 will have almost nothing to do.

-Guild raids won’t even exist because it’ll be to hard to find anyone or get to a pre agreed point before half the raid gets bored and logs off.

-I’ll speculate and say that 30-40% of the guilds will disapear into the guild halls for GvG’s and the new guilds that come in to WvW will get bored quickly and leave.

-Omni blobbing will be the new thing as roamers now have nothing to do except look for other roamers, scouts are redundant and defending is pointless if no work is put into upgrades.

I sometimes wonder if all this was intentional on some level, to make it so tedious and awkward that WvW dies and they don’t have to keep it running anymore, they’ll eventually shut the WvW server down or atleast cut the numbers of servers at best. They are then free to concentrate on more monitisation and the pro1337360nosc0p3 eSports that they are 18 months to late to promote. coz lets be honest no one watches guild wars 2 eSports except those that actually play it.

It’s a shame coz i do give Anet props for what are really nice looking maps and intresting mechanics, except the automation of upgrades and removal of WP’s, But it seems apparent that to me that 90% ofthe dev team were stocked to put all this into action before asking themselves the motivation of these changes from the higher ups who have on numerous occasions utterly dismissed the WvW community and even gone so far as to insult us.

R.I.P WvW and it’s a shame coz it is/was the only worth while Realm versus Realm game out there with the combat to make fun, other RvR games are just meh.

It’s not a question of WvW being harder, harder is the wrong word to use as it’s jsut going to be bloody awkward and tiresome.

ArchonWing.9480:

After trying some of the pve maps which are similar in feel to the borderlands one, I can’t help but feel that the wvw maps are like the pve maps without gliders.

It’s just a feeling, but I think the map is actually begging for gliders.

You just want to yell “DEATH FROM ABOVE!”

This is common problem in modern day development where everything is done in secrecy and brought out to beta testing with huge hype. It doesn’t really matter how the product looks like or how it feels as in this point it is way too late to change what has been made. End users get whats coming. Period.

If some day people could actually review the plans before developers start coding them, amount of crap coming out from end of the tube could be reduced significantly.

The first time I jumped into the new borderlands I found a large zerg to follow. We had no problems breaking into the (formerly) Garrison and continued to pound on the Keep Lord for awhile. Then a huge enemy zerg ported in and my game crashed.

Haven’t played WvW since.

The thing is, ANET was clearly informed of the issues with the new map very early on in the beta process. Not only that, many of the WvW guilds that were invited to the beta became so frustrated with its design and concept, that they stopped playing it all together because it wasn’t fun.

The art work is beautiful, but clearly someone in a position of power at ANET made the decision to push ahead with the work that was already completed instead of listening to their target customers providing feedback. This was just another mistake in a long line of many when it comes to WvW… like lack of support in general that has driven entire guilds (and their PvE / sPvP players) away from the game.

1. Too much vertical shift

2. Too large, convoluted, and confusing

3. Too many gimmicky mechanics

4. Too many PvE elements.

They were clearly informed of this from day 1 of giving players beta access. They chose to ignore it.

I have been doing more PvE and PvP since WvW just isnt fun atm but i would like to add a few things.

1- Daily rewards werent right

You have this giant Expansion and the first 2-3 days your having veteran creatures and ruin rewards and me and 2 friends are looking around this giant map going maybe we missed them some where.

2- No foraging

There was no plant,wood, or mines to side track you from looking for stuff on a new map and now they just added holographic ones and our keeps,camps and towers. It really just feels very cheap.

Im sorry but WvW got smashed in this expansion. The map thing is a whole different issue but to me the little things werent done right. PvE to me is awesome in the expansion and the new area is incredible. PvP is fun still even with some major balance issues but the dynamic of it didnt change.

WvW didnt get the attention it needed and for those who focus mainly on WvW and are not enjoying right now i feel for since it looks and feels like no one gave thoughts to it.

Also ….the lag is horrendous when actual big fights happen on the new maps. So despite the size being able to support a larger population by design, the implementation appears to be able to handle far less.

That is pretty much an across the board failure.

Perhaps if focus is shifted toward active, stimulating, and stable game play instead of ‘shiney’, this train wreck can be salvaged…. not holding my breath though given the history.

I just wanted to add that a group of two to three people takes several minutes to blow up a barricade.

Infusion.7149:

I just wanted to add that a group of two to three people takes several minutes to blow up a barricade.

This is pretty easy to solo within 30 seconds.

Masori.3528:

Infusion.7149:

I just wanted to add that a group of two to three people takes several minutes to blow up a barricade.

This is pretty easy to solo within 30 seconds.

So whats the trick? Tried to duo a barricade yesterday and after about 15s, the hp bar wasnt even down to 99% – it didnt move at all. Needless to say, we gave up.