Guild Wars 2

Anet. Look here, I’m one of the so called White Knights of these forums. I’ve been supportive of many things that have happened in game, from RNG mechanics to rewards. But today is different. The blog post about WvW changes made me do a double take.

Location upgrades

I’ll briefly address this. I like this idea a lot. It prevents spies and trolls from slowing down and preventing much needed upgrades to Towers and Keeps. No more shouting at pugs for stealing the last bit of Supply when a WP is at 99.9% complete. And it gives more emphasis on defending Yaks as then stroll from the camps, and they speed up the guaranteed upgrade progress. Good job on this change.

Player skill changes

In an attempt to make WvW more friendly for Casual gamers, it feels Anet completely forgot about the Veterans. One of the incentives for ranking to high levels was to be able to max out our WvW abilities. By reducing the require amounts of rank to get good traits, Anet took away one of the carrots that made me want to gain as much WXP as possible. Sure I love the competition, and capping a Keep after a 4 hour battle. But playing the same maps over and over, year in and year out, Veterans tend to need whatever carrots you can give them to keep playing.

It’s no secret that WvW lost a lot of good players due to stagnation. Some commanders resort to running raids in EotM just to change things up for their servers. Casual players won’t understand how Veteran feel after playing a map for the last 6 to 10 hours to keep PPT up. Vets need something more in this game mode. A new BL in HoT is a start, but Anet should offer more incentives to reach rank milestones. Perhaps they can offer something for players for each 1,000 rank they get. Free Precusors at Rank 2,000? Gems bonus like Achievement Point milestones. A personal message from Colin? Something. Anything. Because Veteran commanders who lead servers are few, and when a well known and respected raid leader takes a break, servers tend to become headless chickens without anyone else popping a tag. It’s a snowball effect, because enemies who like to combat good opponents can get bored if no one puts up a good fight. Then they leave or take breaks, and the cycle continues.

In closing, it’s my opinion that Veteran WvW players need more than just server loyalty to keep this game mode alive for the next several years. Making Casuals feel welcome is all good. The more players in WvW, the better! But please Anet. Think about Veterans too. Consider our feelings and needs. Give us some sense of progress once we max out all our abilities. Give us a reason to have high ranks besides titles like Gold Invader. Give us a reason to play WvW a lot more than to just meet the daily achievements.

I believe thats not the problem. The problem is that there arent any good mechanics in WvW for gameplay. EoTM, although a radical example, exposes this flawed WvW design.

I say fix that, along with the Reward system and this mode will become more fun.

Knighthonor.4061:

I believe thats not the problem. The problem is that there arent any good mechanics in WvW for gameplay. EoTM, although a radical example, exposes this flawed WvW design.

I say fix that, along with the Reward system and this mode will become more fun.

Could you expand on this? What would make for good mechanics?

The mode will become more fun, if:

1) ANet fixes finally once and for all all of the WvW Achievements!!
2) Anet improves the rewards for Badges of Honor, so that the currency finally gets some VALUE and offers stuff on a long term basis that players can use it to get alot of WvW unique things that you can earn only via spending Badges of Honor.
3) Defending Places becomes finally same as much fun and rewading, as claming things in WvW, currently defending is totally underwhelming, because its completely unbalanced compared to the offensive playstyle, There exist not even any defensive WvW Traits to help you out defending more effectively the location, because everythign that helps you to defend places can be destroyed in a matter of seconds by a zerg and walls can be bombarded and nuked permanently with AoEs, so that you have no chance at all to defend your places, without gettign instant killed by that AoE spam, cause you have no Home Advantage at all like having better defense and offense when attacking foes that are lower standing than you and havign a better range when atacking from a higher position … which would be mechanics that WvW needs to make defending places like Towers/Keeps better and easier for the defensive side
4) Anet needs to implement class specific WvW traits, so that all classes in WvW can develop class specific WvW Progression and Roles that add alot more depth to WvW, like a Thief becoming able to steal Enemy Siege and to sabotage Enemy Siege or to infiltrate under stealth enemy locations, to espionage enemies to get important enemy information to use it strategetically, like beign able to read the enemy chat, like being able to see enemy movement on the minimap ect. thats all important intel for a thief to gather like a professional spy role they could fulfill in WvW
5) adding more character progression ..theres 10000 WvW Ranks, thats content that should get filled also with progression in WvW and not just only laughable barely 10% of that with the upcoming changes which drastically reduced the required amounts of RP to max everythign that we have now.
6) improves the WvW Rank rewards to be more substantial, than just 2 stupid blues and greens 99,9% mostly of all the time, a ridiculous low amount of money (19-25silver) where 1 Gold at least would be alot more appropiate (retroactively received also in timed multiple % steps over a course of 4 steps, 25% per step retroactive money rewards every few months to not overwhelm too much the economy with a flood of gold!!)
Someone with say for example 1000 Ranks would receive then 1000* 75 silver = 750 Gold over the course of 4 timed steps = 187,5 Gold per Step.
That would be a large win for alot of veteran players, which i think woudl be appropiate for the amount of time spent in WvW to reach such a high rank, when you could have spent that time also with farmign dungeons and ending up with far alot more gold, tons of tokens with that you can make even more gold from salvaging dungeon equipment for ectos…

Theres alot of unused potential for alot of more new WvW traits, especialyl in the defensive and supportive areas, because everythign that we have so farare only offensive WvW traits that make it alot easier to defeat players/npcs mostly.

We need to see WvW traits like:

Trap Mastery
Medic Mastery
Escort Mastery
Reinforcement Mastery (one that was once seen in a dev video, still not implemented)
Assault Mastery (one that was once seen in a dev video, still not implemented)
Tower Defense Master
Keep Defense Master
Camp Defense Master
Shrine Defense Master

and alot of other things which could significantly improve the whole WvW Experience of this Game Mode alot.

7) Some of the current WvW Traits should get merged together.

I just hope, that once HoT is release, that we will see for some time after that via Feature Packs finalyl some significant improvements for WvW, cause otherwise I think this game will die daily more and more, especially now with those upcoming changings, which make WvW for WvW veterans just only alot more unappealing to keep on playing it, as unrewarding and stale as this game mode has become…

^ These all sound like amazing ideas, it would certainly add a new level to WvW and give us a reason to use our badges, rank points.. I seriously like the WvW specific skills you mentioned!

Class specific traits would make for some interesting mechanics.

As for defense changes, I agree that defenders could use more love. However, increasing defense of towers is a slippery slope. If your zerg happens to attack a T3 tower with a proper defense waiting inside, it’s a lot harder to cap already. Gate pushes can be deadly with properly placed ACs on the inside. Cow drains on gates hurt as well. If the zerg decides to drop catas to take down walls, counter catas/trebs/motors can take them out.

guard stacks have always been a pure power creep factor for veteran players.

one of anets biggest concerns with pvp as a game mode is that you can enter it at level 1 and be on a level playing field with others. one of anets biggest concerns with pve is the ability for a player to return to the game after x amount of time and not be completely left behind due to power creep over time.

guard stacks is one of the things that is unreconcilable with those ideals, and i feel like those ideals are far more important than letting people who play a lot get power creeped for playing. so im glad to see the stacks go away.

for one thing, itll make my roaming life easier. as an example… very many times im able to head to a camp defense, and maybe i die. so i go to the next camp, cuz it was kinda close, and maybe someone else comes to help me. but i cant forget that at the first camp i had guard stacks, and maybe my enemies didnt. now at the second camp, they definitely have guard stacks, and i definitely dont. why should they get an advantage like that? anyways, again, glad to see the stacks go.

Yes. What do I get as a veteran for having spent 100s of gold on upgrades, with everything maxed out for a year, and over a thousand of rank points just sitting there idle?

Grats casuals. I would say that a large portion of veterans have become casuals due to how boring and pointless it is to win, or do anything other than try to get a champ/heavy loot bag. Especially with Silverwastes just excrementing out t6 mats at you for no effort, or cost to you, whatsoever.

All the changes mentioned are being kept as part of expansion instead of added to current gameplay, which is lame. There’s not even a release date yet.

Instead we get bugs all over the place with the forever contested towers and keeps. More incentive to go pve.

I share many of OP’s concerns. While it is commendable to cater to more players getting into this game mode, I feel there just isn’t enough substance to ensure this mode’s longevity, There needs to be more towards the high end as well. But it’s not just about rewards and stuff. It’s about communication, and I do feel the frequent WvW frequent flyers club needs more attention; as they are the ones that keep the servers active so that they are more than mere karma trains. I think many of us have been very patient, but at this point pretending the game is perfect will do no one any favors.

Please, listen and let it be known that you are listening. Don’t have to agree, just let it be known people are being taken seriously.

I just want to have a hope that in 3 years this game will still have a place for me. I’m sure that sentiment is shared by quite a few people, and we’d be willing to work together. Cooperate, not make demands, btw.

But that’s just me. If nobody agrees, that’s fine too.

With SPvP, players not only have the competition to reward them with good and exciting fights, but they also get unique rewards like the mini llama track. They have tournaments all the time. They have multiple maps to play on. WvW Veterans with maxed out stats only have competition (when available). And one new map coming. That’s it. Each rank up chest gives something small, but unless it’s an exotic drop, it’s not much to cheer about.

I’m on both TC and Maguuma. With my time zone (end of NA and beginning of OCX), there’s more action on TC, so I main there. When I switch to play on Maguuma, the BLs and EBG are empty. All the commanders who played in this time zone have left, so Casual players have no carrot to WvW. Then it gets boring for other servers, since they steamroll our empty Towers and Keeps, and have nothing else to do. So while attracting Casuals with ability buffs is one thing, without leaders to lead, they won’t stick around long enough to contribute.

My issue is that stacks arguably created more build variety and enhanced balance. Nobody can complain about the stacks being OP when in a fight against another player with equal stacks, regardless of the class composition; stacks tightened the relative gap between health tiers and kept a lot of condition builds in check b reducing their relative damage per tick in the small scale. 2500 extra HP for some builds is absolutely necessary to function, and 100 power/condi damage has helped a great number more find viability.

I’d be fine with seeing as cost reduction – after all, it does suck to get those points, and you need to be putting your ranks in the proper order to get the most benefits early on, too – but frankly, I see the changes to AS/AF as being purely detrimental to veteran players and the balance of WvW as a whole.

sPvP might be more “fair,” but it’s extremely stagnant, boring, and frankly, monotone. It’s been entirely figured out, and only some specific class/build models can make it to be competitive. The rest is sub-par and ruled out. This doesn’t happen in WvW; I can make a ridiculous build and make it work just as well.

So since no one will have stacks, don’t this just keep everything even anyways, I guess the only winners are though players who are not level 500+ in wvw, right?

TJgalon.5012:

So since no one will have stacks, don’t this just keep everything even anyways, I guess the only winners are though players who are not level 500+ in wvw, right?

Well, it’s a combination of things that make this a problem, not just losing the stacks alone. Without more incentives for Vets to keep playing WvW, Casuals won’t stay. A few random pugs running together will see the enemy zerg, and just run away. No capping of Towers or Keeps, just Sentries and Camps. Even roaming with a good havoc team with 10 players isn’t fun when you have 60+ people chase you around the map.

Edit – One more thing. It would be nice for the WvW Devs to visit the forums more often to add comments or thoughts to these discussion threads. It’ll make us feel like someone cares, even though we know they read most posts. The seeing a Red Post gives a visual acknowledgement of this fact. We do appreciate the Red Posts on serious bugs and status updates of said bugs.

the bottom line as those who have said it in this thread and others since the announcement today is that those of us who are veterans and are in the 1000s of rank had very little to play for outside of “the fight” as it is before they laid all this out today…now, the difference between a gold rank and a “newb” wvw is even further diluted and there are no real advantages or rewards for someone who is a veteran of wvw while pve and pvp both have and have their “carrots” constantly adjusted and improved over time, those of us who truly enjoy good wvw have no tangible goals or rewards and have the feeling now of being nerfed with only a new map nad nothing else to motivate or inspire us to continue playing besides “the fight”

Wall of text, but who knows, maybe Anet finally reads it Ignore if you are short on time: TL:DR agree with op.

I agree OP. ATM being t2-4 server, we keep losing and losing people. Some to boredom, some to cute new releases (Hello Witcher 3 and Final fantasy 15 expansion), but mostly the stagnation gets people away. And people taking a break (especially commanders), make a snowball effect. Eotm is good example. Commanding as red is a challenge these days. Green is super rampaging, and if you get killed by them to often, demoralize will settle in to fast. So you gotta avoid them. On top of that, you gotta cap fast enough or people won’t be satisfied. Every time someone commands, and tags down, it incredible often happens, nobody tags up and everyone sits at spawn 1-5 min and then just leaves, leaving a completely deserted map.

Wvw has this also but in lesser sense due to the ‘duty’-feel it has to fight for your world. But lately stagnation, bandwagons growing stronger, with fewer opposition then ever, no new content at all, not even wvw tournement, no wvw trait etc, makes people bored. Even the revision of basic profession traits, wich is announced to go live before HoT could be enough ‘content’ (not really, but hey it’s something tangible) could make people excited enough to try other builds.

I remember being wxp rank 100 on two chars (i like char hopping). Anet said, no WXP REMAINS SOULBOUND. right, so i farmed my kitten off to get ranger and necro 150+. Me happy that i did it, but also dissapointed that I didnt have like some others both buffs on one char. Then they said ‘we gonna merge it anyway’ me woooot! I played wvw and had fun, wxp was a nice progression but not my focus then so much. I became a bit bored. I sometimes came in wvw, then realized how nice it would be to have all wxp maxed and have all those abilities. Seeing all those early ‘cow damages supplies’-traited people i was like, I can’t stay behind now Can I? New goal emerged: farm wxp. The last 150 points were less exciting (mortar and Canon) but still, It was something that kept me in the game then. In the hope for new traits, and just to get decent titles (Gold, platinum) I started resuming the Wxp goal a bit (secondary ofc to having fun in wvw). Now i hear this, i will have even more left over trait points, ouch. Nothing against casuals, but this is again a ‘while you have kept the game very close, and are the most loyal to us, technically you earn us to few money, we need more players, and at this point, only casual players are a broad enoug public to get the sale going good enough’. Same with NPE. Have not leveled a single char the normal way ever since that update, haven’t even done story mode, because of how it works now.

Not paying for upgrades is lovely, I often would love to upgrade keep, but ouch 50-200 silver. I sometimes did it, but sometimes said, ‘no way, enemy who is stronger then us take it next hour probably, why spend this’? At camps it was a lesser problem (5 silver is truly nothing), but still, good it’s removed there also.

While I approve part of the ‘automatic upgrades’, I hate the passive part this brings, boost to nightcapping (and thus bandwagon servers, as if it isnt bad enough). It also brings dolyak killing a huge strike. Sometimes i’m all alone on map. So what to do then? I roam and kill all dolyak, even if i die from gankers, killing dolly with my last down strike. Now however? useless imo. The biggest risk is stonemist castle. If you siege is up like a madman (Vizunah square and others had a good go in this) it’s hard to take. Especially if both enemies also fight each other while in sm (making it easier to defend with AC’s.) What will happen now? SFR (and the lead server fighting Blacktide in bottom bracket), will cap SM the last time before one side goes to bed and the cappings stop. Upgrades will automaticly commence. Right now, getting supply in SM is hard, paying those 10g on upgrade is also hard, preventing a cap in wooden state is also very hard. Result? Stonemist remains a very open target for all servers, wich weaknesses. But in future not attending stonemist for an hour might give the server a lot of problems. Failing to nightcap it will result in fully sieged, waypointed, fortified stonemist. and this will repeat every day. This will make EB very stale against servers like SFR, it will prevent the cappings of close towers like Wildcreek, Anza, Durios, Quentin etc, because SM can be ‘treb sieged’ up to the sky so to speak, to attack/defend these structures. This means offence, against anything that server owns is quite hard. Then let alone the waypoint they can use to use way more offence to get your stuff. I hope when this escalates, because of this ‘at the moment’ oversight of Arenanet, that they suddenly will have to make solutions to imbalance, even though it clearly seems they don’t want to do that atm. It’s like breaking the meta in pvp, they can’t sit back and do nothing, they have to fix it. Hopefully in wvw this has similar effect. Cause right now, even on T1 EU if you kick about 30 more commander (veterans) into boredom/stagnations/break etc the snowball effect will be uncounterable, and wvw wil have very hard time to recover. This is not doomstalk, I want wvw to succeed. I hope it. I wish it. But playing there, day in, day out, (wich Anet doesn’t do almost at all in EU t1), gives a broad perception of what is going on, how much activity is there still in the gamemode etc. Since HoT is at least 5 months out (we can’t pre-order yet, we all know we would be able to if the launch was close), the Wvw update maps (and specializations meta overhaul) will take huge time to set, and by then players will be used to ‘not playing gw2, their expectations will be higher then ever for HoT to succeed. (simple way it is), if HoT is not ’super good’ (I repeat their expectations went up by not playing the game, it’s weird but this is the psychology of gaming world) they will not come back, leaving wvw in a problematic place.

Also before Anet starts to think (maybe they already do), enough new casuals come, we have no fear: Some people are not made to command. While I tried sometimes, and didn’t fail epicly, I miss the skills of a super leader to really bring the best out of a Raid. Other people have this trait however. You cannot replace that trait, it’s either something you have or not. I have tons of experience, am a very good scout, but even then, this is sometimes not perfect for commanding. This problem is big also for casuals. They are behind in experience in wvw, when to defend/offend, when to go ‘balls deep’, or when to retreat in fights etc. This will not just suddenly come out, and even less so if wvw gets more stagnant. So this is a crucial part of wvw: keep the veterans in. In pve/pvp this is not so much a necessity, but because of the crucial role of commanding, and the unique traits required to become a ‘teamspeak’ commander, this is a problem for wvw. Time to start brainstorming Anet. I know HoT is your priority, and looking at what you posted two days ago (changes to wvw blog), this were some quick decisions made. It’s time to sit together for weeks coming up with solutions to the posted problems. Yes sorry you lost that time to HoT, but wvw needs it. I play PvX btw, so i’m not biased when I say wvw needs most attention. This is a veteran knowing it has to be done (9000 hours playtime) unlike the Anet staff. (sorry but playtime is important when it comes to feeling the community as a whole and what is important for community and what is not. Metrics, nor short playtime can immitate that).

While I approve part of the ‘automatic upgrades’, I hate the passive part this brings, boost to nightcapping (and thus bandwagon servers, as if it isnt bad enough). It also brings dolyak killing a huge strike. Sometimes i’m all alone on map. So what to do then? I roam and kill all dolyak, even if i die from gankers, killing dolly with my last down strike. Now however? useless imo. The biggest risk is stonemist castle. If you siege is up like a madman (Vizunah square and others had a good go in this) it’s hard to take. Especially if both enemies also fight each other while in sm (making it easier to defend with AC’s.) What will happen now? SFR (and the lead server fighting Blacktide in bottom bracket), will cap SM the last time before one side goes to bed and the cappings stop. Upgrades will automaticly commence. Right now, getting supply in SM is hard, paying those 10g on upgrade is also hard, preventing a cap in wooden state is also very hard. Result? Stonemist remains a very open target for all servers, wich weaknesses. But in future not attending stonemist for an hour might give the server a lot of problems. Failing to nightcap it will result in fully sieged, waypointed, fortified stonemist. and this will repeat every day. This will make EB very stale against servers like SFR, it will prevent the cappings of close towers like Wildcreek, Anza, Durios, Quentin etc, because SM can be ‘treb sieged’ up to the sky so to speak, to attack/defend these structures. This means offence, against anything that server owns is quite hard. Then let alone the waypoint they can use to use way more offence to get your stuff. I hope when this escalates, because of this ‘at the moment’ oversight of Arenanet, that they suddenly will have to make solutions to imbalance, even though it clearly seems they don’t want to do that atm. It’s like breaking the meta in pvp, they can’t sit back and do nothing, they have to fix it. Hopefully in wvw this has similar effect. Cause right now, even on T1 EU if you kick about 30 more commander (veterans) into boredom/stagnations/break etc the snowball effect will be uncounterable, and wvw wil have very hard time to recover. This is not doomstalk, I want wvw to succeed. I hope it. I wish it. But playing there, day in, day out, (wich Anet doesn’t do almost at all in EU t1), gives a broad perception of what is going on, how much activity is there still in the gamemode etc. Since HoT is at least 5 months out (we can’t pre-order yet, we all know we would be able to if the launch was close), the Wvw update maps (and specializations meta overhaul) will take huge time to set, and by then players will be used to ‘not playing gw2, their expectations will be higher then ever for HoT to succeed. (simple way it is), if HoT is not ’super good’ (I repeat their expectations went up by not playing the game, it’s weird but this is the psychology of gaming world) they will not come back, leaving wvw in a problematic place.

Also before Anet starts to think (maybe they already do), enough new casuals come, we have no fear: Some people are not made to command. While I tried sometimes, and didn’t fail epicly, I miss the skills of a super leader to really bring the best out of a Raid. Other people have this trait however. You cannot replace that trait, it’s either something you have or not. I have tons of experience, am a very good scout, but even then, this is sometimes not perfect for commanding. I also play the medium armor profession a lot lately, wich are a problem to command with for Zerg vs zerg. This problem is big also for casuals. They are behind in experience in wvw, when to defend/offend, when to go ‘balls deep’, or when to retreat in fights etc. This will not just suddenly come out, and even less so if wvw gets more stagnant. So this is a crucial part of wvw: keep the veterans in. In pve/pvp this is not so much a necessity, but because of the crucial role of commanding, and the unique traits required to become a ‘teamspeak’ commander, this is a problem for wvw. Time to start brainstorming Anet. I know HoT is your priority, and looking at what you posted two days ago (changes to wvw blog), this were some quick decisions made. It’s time to sit together for weeks coming up with solutions to the posted problems. Yes sorry you lost that time to HoT, but wvw needs it. I play PvX btw, so i’m not biased when I say wvw needs most attention. This is a veteran knowing it has to be done (9000 hours playtime) unlike the Anet staff. (sorry but playtime is important when it comes to feeling the community as a whole and what is important for community and what is not. Metrics, nor short playtime can immitate that).

To address one point in PA’s posts, nightcapping timezones will be very interesting with the automatic upgrades. Servers with really small OCX/SEA populations will find it extremely difficult to cap a T3 Tower if they only have enough supply to build a regular Ram or Cata. It’s not like you can reliably run more supply from camps, because that would mean you’d have to leave built siege undefended. Veterans will have more patience dealing with his, but Casuals will probably just ignore capping Towers all together. Killing Sentries don’t provide the PPT necessary to say competitive.