Guild Wars 2

Just curiosity here, but if YOU could redesign WvWvW from the ground up (i.e. throw out 100% of what currently exists), how would your vision of a “perfect” WvWvW work?

Sweet merciful Dwayna bless me. You ask players to create ideas for the perfect WvWvW, but sadly I think a quote will probably hold true here. From the Rust, and Garry’s Mod developer. Garry Newman,“Players are useful at conveying mood and a feeling. They’re not game designers, their ideas generally involve making it so they can win at the game more.” Quote from here. While the guy comes off abrasive to me, there is a point. A lot of posts here do tend to favor certain play styles when it comes to WvW’s feedback.

I get that the OP’s wants people to post their perspective on their version. But how useful is this really to the current WvWvW?

All I can say is, without trying to exclude other play styles is this: change WvWvW to WvW. This opens up more map opportunities, and increases balance viability of said maps. This also removes the laggy elephant in the room when it comes to three-ways by full forces. I would go on to say let maps reset once every 2-3 hours to decrease effects of coverage, but I’m willing to disregard that.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t change that much. The original conception of WvW still works to a degree, it has just been grossly underdeveloped, malbalanced and left to rot for too long – so long that the developers seem to have lost perspective on the concept.

What I would do comes in a couple of very simple steps. Steps that are visionally simple at least but where implementation may not be as simple.

I would:

1) Get rid of- or greatly reduce the transfer costs to allow the playerbase to reset balance themselves. Overall, GW2 has managed their business model very well. The one exception is WvW, Worlds and transfer costs that leave the WvW community, and only the WvW community, to (no matter how indirect) pay for content. Some players transfer to win others transfer to find an environment that maximizes their particular preference of content and so forth. What they all have in common is that they transfer for reasons tied to content (favourable content, matching content), the system encourages it and that is a deplorable business practise where players essentially pay for the game several times over just to re-access their preferred content.

2) I’m on record here saying that I believe that most of the common issues we rehash and harp on about on this forum (nightcapping, scoring, population imbalance) are all related. This time I am not going to go into detail on how it could be adressed but to solve the problem the developers need to come up with a scoring model that encourages people to spread out (and a business model that allow them to do so).

I am under the impression that creating such a system would solve both A] population imbalance and B] nightcapping (since nightcapping is essentially just a night-time population-imbalance issue – and not an issue were servers to have more compatible off-hour populace that could compete there and thus not make night score slant day score). Furthermore, I believe a balanced scoring system with more equally populated servers and even matchups would lead to more open field fights even if the scoring factor was still primarily tied to siege content (I say that as more of an open field / roaming / guild-level player myself).

3) This would allow for a balanced and self-resetting system that would allow the developers to focus more of their time on easily-implemented content design such as improving the Guild Halls (for guild-level content), rotating more maps (like certain Tank-games) and rewards more in line with the wealth of other game modes (ascended items, unique skins etc.). Rewards that wouldn’t be an issue in a better balanced system.

The current system is not conceptually bad, it is just balanced very badly and managed with poor vision and dubious practise.

A map roughly the size of DBL with no objectives, only obstacles. Hills, forests, lakes, etc.

Everyone killing everyone 24/7. Only safe places are spawns and “recovery camps” which are circular capture points that function similarly to supply camps but without NPC’s and a weak wall surrounding it. 10 players can destroy the wall in 30 seconds, 30 can destroy it in 10. Prevents turtling but still gives a place to hide/regroup if things get hot.

All sides are granted a buff called “Versus The World.” The more allied players you are with the more damage you will receive. This buff begins to stack when more than 10 players are travelling together.

Every two hours a “Killing Spree” begins. This event lasts for only 5 minutes and marks every players position on the mini map. Being killed during this event times you out for the remainder of the Killing Spree (maximum of 5 minutes if you are killed at the very beginning) and the winning side is granted access to a “Charr Car Parlor.” Entering this shop allows players a one time Charr Car use that ends on death. This shop can be destroyed by enemy players but spawns in random locations.

There are 3 oasis on the map that any player can use. Entering the water randomly heals one player on the map for 100% of their health with a 60 second cooldown. The player healed has a chance to also be the player that enters the oasis. More than 5 allied players entering the water at the same time instead marks these players on the enemies map for the next 60 seconds.

EDIT: I wrote all this down on the spot so I’m already having second thoughts about some of it, namely the “Versus The World” buff. I’d like something that prevents people from blobbing up and mowing down smaller groups or it would be a really crappy game mode. Everyone would move to one server like we have happening now but it would be twice as boring. I’m not sure a buff that causes you to take extra damage is the right choice but something that deters people from the hive mind at least. Small scale skirmishes happening all over the map would be really cool to see and play, imo.

Subversion.2580:

Truth be told, I wouldn’t change that much. The original conception of WvW still works to a degree, it has just been grossly underdeveloped, malbalanced and left to rot for too long – so long that the developers seem to have lost perspective on the concept.

What I would do comes in a couple of very simple steps. Steps that are visionally simple at least but where implementation may not be as simple.

I would:

1) Get rid of- or greatly reduce the transfer costs to allow the playerbase to reset balance themselves. Overall, GW2 has managed their business model very well. The one exception is WvW, Worlds and transfer costs that leave the WvW community, and only the WvW community, to (no matter how indirect) pay for content. Some players transfer to win others transfer to find an environment that maximizes their particular preference of content and so forth. What they all have in common is that they transfer for reasons tied to content (favourable content, matching content), the system encourages it and that is a deplorable business practise where players essentially pay for the game several times over just to re-access their preferred content.

2) I’m on record here saying that I believe that most of the common issues we rehash and harp on about on this forum (nightcapping, scoring, population imbalance) are all related. This time I am not going to go into detail on how it could be adressed but to solve the problem the developers need to come up with a scoring model that encourages people to spread out (and a business model that allow them to do so).

I am under the impression that creating such a system would solve both A] population imbalance and B] nightcapping (since nightcapping is essentially just a night-time population-imbalance issue – and not an issue were servers to have more compatible off-hour populace that could compete there and thus not make night score slant day score). Furthermore, I believe a balanced scoring system with more equally populated servers and even matchups would lead to more open field fights even if the scoring factor was still primarily tied to siege content (I say that as more of an open field / roaming / guild-level player myself).

3) This would allow for a balanced and self-resetting system that would allow the developers to focus more of their time on easily-implemented content design such as improving the Guild Halls (for guild-level content), rotating more maps (like certain Tank-games) and rewards more in line with the wealth of other game modes (ascended items, unique skins etc.). Rewards that wouldn’t be an issue in a better balanced system.

The current system is not conceptually bad, it is just balanced very badly and managed with poor vision and dubious practise.

You think the player base is going to reset balance themselves? LMAO, the player base is the reason there is so much imbalance. By reducing or eliminating transfer costs you are only going to make it that much worse.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’m not sure a buff that causes you to take extra damage is the right choice but something that deters people from the hive mind at least.

The method could be refined but the idea behind it is solid. There needs to be a negative incentive to escalating combat sizes that is inherently intrinsic, i.e., not an extra reward chest at the end of an entire week.

Devils Toy.9205:

You think the player base is going to reset balance themselves? LMAO, the player base is the reason there is so much imbalance. By reducing or eliminating transfer costs you are only going to make it that much worse.

I suggest that you try to make it to point two before hitting the reply button next time. ~This is why [these forums] can’t have nice things.

If you implement a ‘negative to escalating combat sizes’ as a literal negative buff, people will be upset to see other players join them. It would not be hard to do more harm to a party with your presence than good if you’re new. Anet has also stated they’re not going down that path.

Instead, we should look for ways to make smaller combat sizes naturally more beneficial. SpellOfIniquity’s idea doesn’t allow for this as it’s just pure combat and thus numbers are always a boon (unless you include a negative buff). This is where objectives come in. Depending on their number, what it takes to accomplish them and how spread out they are, they make splitting up into smaller teams a better choice in many situations. You have leeway in the details of the objectives but removing them altogether isn’t going to work.

Subversion.2580:

Truth be told, I wouldn’t change that much. The original conception of WvW still works to a degree, it has just been grossly underdeveloped, malbalanced and left to rot for too long – so long that the developers seem to have lost perspective on the concept.

The original concept…

WvW was meant to be uneven in terms of population. This unevenness was supposed to be balanced through map design, (and possibly Orb mechanic). Moving from matches made by rank to matches made by a roll that randomized the ratings upset that balance IMHO. Right now, a stronger population team could get Red and be given an advantage via the maps that was originally meant for a weaker team.

I think WvW needs to go back to that somehow so that map design acts once again as part of the population balance and a different solution made to address stale match-ups. Maybe something like returning to match-making by rank; if your team gets 1st you gain a single rank (not necessarily tier), if your team comes 2nd no change in your rank, and 3rd place team loses a rank.

If I could redo WvW, I’d try to find a way to incorporate all servers into the same conflict, thus eliminating a lot of the population imbalance issues. The main items are:

1. Smaller borderland maps that connect to 6 other maps (i.e. a hex-shaped grid map that connects into a hex-grid, kind of like a Catan map). Each map consists of a central castle with 6 towers at the borders. Control of the map’s castle makes the whole map switch to your team color. Team color maps that are adjacent to each other boost the supply delivery rates of each other (a blue map that is surrounded by blue maps would have 6 times the delivery rate of a blue map that only borders 1 other blue map. A blue map that is completely surrounded by red and/or green maps would have NO supply deliveries at all, since they are cut off from friendly maps. Managing supply would be a matter of controlling contiguous territory, not capturing camps and escorting Yaks.

2. Removal of most Way Points. Maps that have fully upgraded castles or are completely surrounded by friendly borders would have a WP for all allied players to use. If no friendly/allied WPs are available, Home Server players can WP to their home server, even if they don’t control the castle (they’d WP in at a border nearest a friendly map), which can act as a “breakout” mechanic for teams that are getting stomped badly by distributing the players (instead of forcing them to res>charge into the maw of prepared defenders).

3. Simplification of siege into a 3 Defense (Shields, Ballistae, Trebuchets)/ 3 Attack (Shields, Catapults, Rams) rock paper scissors system that basically requires a balanced use of all types to successfully attack or defend a structure. Prevent Attack siege from being built inside towers/castles or Defense siege from being built outside towers/castles (I might even suggest limiting defensive siege to fixed nodes on the walls). Siege damage to players would be eliminated (catapults and trebuchets would still knock players back).

4. Rebalance of walls/gates so that attacking walls is generally seen as too time consuming against fully upgraded structures, but OK for basic ones.

5. Fully “safe” maps (with all 6 borders friendly) should have some events pop up so that players who are focusing on upgrading/defending backline maps have a way to earn rewards.

I think that the decision to pit 3 servers against each other was short-sighted and based on the assumption that all servers would not only have equal populations, but would have equal participation in the game mode. By interconnecting all of the servers, the players can now space themselves out as needed to capture and control smaller maps. This would promote more targeted goals which in turn promotes more active conflict and thus more enjoyment for everyone.

No such thing as perfect as everyone has their own ideas. Thus you will never have perfect. My main issues are imbalance and Anet messing with Glicko. Both need fixing badly. Then we can wok on other underlying issues, such as night time capping and such.

Sviel.7493:

If you implement a ‘negative to escalating combat sizes’ as a literal negative buff, people will be upset to see other players join them. It would not be hard to do more harm to a party with your presence than good if you’re new. Anet has also stated they’re not going down that path.

Instead, we should look for ways to make smaller combat sizes naturally more beneficial. SpellOfIniquity’s idea doesn’t allow for this as it’s just pure combat and thus numbers are always a boon (unless you include a negative buff). This is where objectives come in. Depending on their number, what it takes to accomplish them and how spread out they are, they make splitting up into smaller teams a better choice in many situations. You have leeway in the details of the objectives but removing them altogether isn’t going to work.

The concept of breaking up zergs appeals to me as well, but I agree that a straight up negative buff would probably create more problems than it would solve.

A total rework of the AoE/condition/boon systems could help. Right now a zerg can stand in as much fire as it wants due to all the boon sharing and group healing going on in a stack of people. If conditions/AoEs have much larger target limits and boon/buffs were redesigned to be mostly for single players rather than groups we could naturally spread out the zerg without punishing players for grouping up.

Another map :p

Thanks to Sviel and Chaba for good posts with talking points.

I see where Sviel is comming from and I get that it is hard for us to conclude any outcomes without details of any such would-be system. We can only really deal in broad, sweeping hypotheticals. However, I would like to reply, that we approach what you call “negative to scaling combat sizes” from two different perspectives. The definitions can be up-ended. In my world “smaller size benefits” is more prone to create exclusivity, but I also get that Sviel is perhaps talking more about “more smaller size content” (to encourage a behaviour rather than direct benefit or advantage).

I don’t envision a system that provides benefits to underpopulated maps but rather one that lessens the drawback of it – a system that makes you “lose slower” in such scenarios and not a system that in any way allow you to draw advantages from telling people not to fill up the map. It also assumes applying the design to the map- rather than the team “tables” to make sure it affects all contenders equally at once. If that makes any sense? Ie., if you choose to see it as a “debuff” it’s a debuff to a map, thus all teams on it, and not any one team on it. I’ll leave it at that, we’re already down in too much detail (and de-rail) for what this thread aims to discuss.

As far as Chaba’s post goes, it’s just really hard to find a map-design that can balance a spread of population imbalances since it would need to take grading into account. Designing concrete content (such as design- and art integrations) around shifting needs is just incredibly difficult (whereas designing balance or sheer numbers around it is not).

I’m not really opposed to either of your approaches I just don’t see them as effective- or design-effective enough. They would leave the developers to re-develop alot of map content to find balance in a shifting environment. That is better done on less design-intensive- and less binary mechanics. I like maps being adressed in some ways that both of you mention, but I don’t see that dealing with the balance issues effectively. It has other benefits in terms of content: letting other aspects of the larger content issue indirectly deal with the balance issue whereas I want to let the balance issue indirectly deal with the larger content issue. The goal for all of us is better content but I find the balance issue more important (or more of a hinderance) than you two do.

We’re sort of back at square one where MT started off: I listed the scoring-, population-, and coverage issues as hinders that I don’t believe you can work around to solve the larger WvW content issue. Map stuff is fun to talk about but I don’t see it as a work-around to the balance issues or effective enough to be a work-around for the larger content issue.

I don’t really recognize what I was talking about in your post which suggests that I’ve been unclear. A concrete example should help, no?

Say there’s a map with 7 Dragonballs. The objective is to capture more of the Dragonballs than the other team(s) and take them back to your base.

Staying a blob means that if you find a Dragonball, you’ll likely win the fight over it and can transport it back to base in safety. Splitting up means that you may lose some fights over Dragonballs, but you’ll be contesting more of them at once and will end up winning anyway. In order to compete, the blob will have to send small raiding groups off to stop you from taking 6 Dragonballs while they take 1. The groups can be strong enough to snatch the Dragonball or just enough to slow you down.

In this way, the blob cannot win by itself but there is an advantage to having larger sized groups provided small groups still exist.

My version of perfect WvW:

1) Kick out Buff Food first, make Buff Food PvE Only Items so that Buff Food can be there more interestimg and impactful, without that it can turn out to be a danger for WvW Balance

2) Completely redesign all Maps and the WvW Format in itself.
Away from the silly server based format and change it into a “Faction System” which shares its players among all servers.
No more idiotic discussions about “Server Pride”, you can have instead “Faction Pride”

3) Completely rework the World Reward System into a Faction Reward System
Each Faction rewards players with unique things.
You can change the sides if you wan,t but if you change sides, then you count for some time as “Deserteur” and players in PvE that are from the Faction that you were before can attack you in PvE, if you have “Retribution Mode” active for PvE.
Retribution Mode is a risk/reward system for everyone who participates in it, but it is not a forced thing, every player can decide for themself, if they want to be part of this optional “PPK Gameplay”.
To make one thing from begin on clear, if you ppk an Deserteur Palyer in PvE, you don’t steal anything from them, nor do you steal as survivor anything from your Headhunters. Deserteurs and Headhunters gain from successful defends/ kills their own unique reward currency that can be used to get from it rewards that are gainable only this way, like a unique Deserteur/Headhunter Armor Set.

4) Instead of a 3 Way Battle Royale we have now with the redesigned Maps a 4 Way Faction Battle, that will ensure that Battles are more balanced and we won’t see anymore these kinds of boring 2v1 battles where always 1 side can get easily hold down the whole time. Its more unlikely that something like that will happen in a 4 side battle scenario when all four sides are equally strong.

5) No Borderland Maps anymore that are designed around the point, that each side has some kind of “homeland bonus by design”
Instead all the redesigned maps are based on equality, no side starts from some kind of advantageous central place.

6) Each map will be themed after something landscape/gameplay element based.
- One Tropic Island heavy Water Combat Related Map including Naval Battles
- One Desert/Sandstorm based Map that requires alot of tactics and strategetic maneuvers together with environmental gameplay
- One Sky based Gliding Map that is strongly designed aroung the Y-Achsis (like merging EotM with Eternal Battlefield) including Sky Battles with Gliders
- One mystical misty Forrest with lots of underground catacombs (Roots & Tree Crown) based map with less verticality than in the sky map, but more than in the desert map
- One dark postapocalyptic after eternal war screaming map, one that looks like some kind of “nightmare” for all of those that are kind of imprisoned inside of it
- One snowland map with lots of rocky and icy valleys and mountains with blizzards (if you want no sandstorms in the desert instead)

7) Complete rework on the whole WvW Progression System and its rewards, away from the idiotic 10000 Ranks over to a true skill based rank system where rising up in the ranks requires also player skill and not just grinding unendlessly exp points.
If I see a General in WvW, then I want to know, that this player truly also has more player skill, than for example a simple Private together with the Commander Features beign part of that rank system. Beign Commander should not be something, that should be buyable by players, leading others needs to be earned by skill!!
WvW needs to become more “military” – its war, it needs to feel like war between factions and this flair do you receive only, if the whole gameplay feels also more like being in military with true ranks and orders, where ranks are also meaningful and impactful by unlocking features for the player, what the player can do in WvW

8.) Implement the Mastery System into WvW in its own unique version by providing unique class based WvW Masteries which solidify the ROLES, their Strengths and Weaknesses for each class in WvW.
Example for Thief. As a Thief in WvW you should have the Roles of playing them either as Rogues, Infiltrators, Saboteurs or Assassins.
Each of these Roles should completely change the way how you can play out your character in WvW due to different gameplay elements you can do with the class specificly for WvW designed only.

9) Completely rework and rebalance the current WvW Traits as “Basic” Masteries for all Classes and improve them with alot of new ones that make WvW more interesting

10) Rebalance all Skills and Traits of all Classes specificly for WvW to reconsider there, that we are there not limitied on 5v5 battles, but battles of much larger scales where aspects like AoE skills, crowd control ect. needs to be completely different designed to be halfway balanced

11) Completely redesign the game aspect of “Siege Weapons” and make offensive as like defensive game aspects equally worthful for scoring with stronger points for successfulyl defending, because defensing a place is alot harder, than invading a place – especially if you are outnumbered or in a strategetic bad situation where the enemy has the environmental advantage over your side

12) Complete rework of the Supply System, making Supply an alot more tactical important element of the whole WvW gameplay for the factions
Splitting up simple Supply into 4 different types of needed Supply that will be important for all sides
- Food/Water
- Ore
- Oil
- Wood

13) Not all Siege Weapons can be freely deployed anymore everywhere, so bigger the Siege Weapon, so more limited will be the spots where you can actually place them to prevent that siege weapons get placed at total illogical spots in the maps where they completely destroy all immersion.

Sviel.7493:

If you implement a ‘negative to escalating combat sizes’ as a literal negative buff, people will be upset to see other players join them. It would not be hard to do more harm to a party with your presence than good if you’re new. Anet has also stated they’re not going down that path.

Instead, we should look for ways to make smaller combat sizes naturally more beneficial. SpellOfIniquity’s idea doesn’t allow for this as it’s just pure combat and thus numbers are always a boon (unless you include a negative buff). This is where objectives come in. Depending on their number, what it takes to accomplish them and how spread out they are, they make splitting up into smaller teams a better choice in many situations. You have leeway in the details of the objectives but removing them altogether isn’t going to work.

Valid points. As I’d said in the edit, I came up with it all on the spot, so I didn’t take the time to think through all of the consequences. I considered a lot of variables but 10 minutes of writing isn’t going to cover all the bases.

Since the OP was asking for our own personal ideas on a “perfect WvW”, my own is basically a giant 24/7 team death match. I’m not personally interested in capturing or defending things, I just want to fight be it large or small scale, though preferably small. Large blob v blobs can be extremely fun at times but the lack of effort needed makes it boring after only a few hours.

It’s a shame that there doesn’t seem to be a happy medium where players avoid blobbing but no one gets excluded.

I love WvW but the combat in GW2 is far more entertaining than siege wars. Maybe if objectives were much, much larger with fixed siege and multiple floors, it might be fun to battle your way through the gauntlet. As it stands, it isn’t usually much of a battle, nor does it feel very rewarding, to capture an objective. Huddle in a corner trying to outheal all the arrowcarts and PvDing is pretty much as exciting as it gets.

I don’t know how it could be achieved, but .. split up the zergs.

GW2 heavily rewards zerging. If a player is doing something and another player comes to help, they both get the same rewards. Scaled up to WvW levels, this causes zergs. Zerg fights are fun and all, but IMO, the game is at its best in small encounters. (say, 2v2 up to 15v15).

Anything that could encourage many small groups on map rather than one big blob would be an improvement.

When I play pvp and one team has a numbers advantage the match is rarely fun, even on the winning side. 4 v. 5 is just not fun.

With the current way servers work, and the way population is distributed almost every wvw match-up is significantly unbalanced.

So get rid of servers as they are currently designed, they don’t promote good even fights, or reward effort, or are even particularly fun.

Create a new server system, one that is more responsive to population shifts, yet still retains the sense of community our current servers have.

@SpellOfIniquity
I’m interested in your vision of perfection as it’s very different from mine. I want to try and understand it better so that I’m more adept at figuring out ways to make the actual WvW more fun for both of us.

In this 24/7 death match, would population be controlled automatically or would it retain the server system? That is, are servers part of your vision or is it just the death match that’s key?

I actually think WvW is mostly fine outside of balance problems. Some changes would be nice, like merging servers and having fewer links and other stuff.

Balance wise though its awful, just plain awful. All of the powercreep that HoT brought still needs to be toned down, a lot. Resistance needs to either be flat out removed or heavily nerfed, with conditions being rebalanced around that. The amount of condi and boon spam needs to be reduced by a lot as well. Some skills still do too many things and need to be redesigned to have fewer effects.

Sviel.7493:

@SpellOfIniquity
I’m interested in your vision of perfection as it’s very different from mine. I want to try and understand it better so that I’m more adept at figuring out ways to make the actual WvW more fun for both of us.

In this 24/7 death match, would population be controlled automatically or would it retain the server system? That is, are servers part of your vision or is it just the death match that’s key?

Servers would stay, tiers would not.

I like communities and the different personalities that each server has. I feel like if there’s no objective other than killing each other, you at least need the incentive of fighting for something.

To be clear, I’m okay with how WvW is and I don’t mind if it doesn’t change. I don’t make a lot of complaints because if I’m not having fun, I’ll stop playing. But in my ideal GW2 world, WvW would be 100% PvP focused. Solos, duos and squads dotted around the map each fighting for the glory of their server. GvG’s and roaming would flourish, lag and boon spam blob meta would die.

Mine is simple really.

For the devs to enjoy working on and improving wvw because they want to see the game mode succeed and grow.

In the end, I think that’s the only way you’ll hit near perfect in wvw.

The problem with this question is that every person you ask is going to have their own idea of what ‘perfect’ wvw is. Some like to scout/siege/sentry, others like to zerg, then you have the roamers, guild groups, and havocs. Changing any part of that instantly closes someone out of the way they play the game, in favor of the way you want them to play.

Perfect WvW? Would be condi free. Im a dreamer.

zhonnika.1784:

The problem with this question is that every person you ask is going to have their own idea of what ‘perfect’ wvw is. Some like to scout/siege/sentry, others like to zerg, then you have the roamers, guild groups, and havocs. Changing any part of that instantly closes someone out of the way they play the game, in favor of the way you want them to play.

It’s not a question that translates well into direct game updates, but it’s useful to see what people dream about. We can take those dreams and try to hit as many near-perfects as possible.

Add:

• limits on the number of catas/rams that can be placed within range of a wall/gate, and limits on how many golems can exist across an entire map.
• mechanics unique to the servers winning/losing a WvW match. For example, 1st place servers see no white swords on their own structures, while 3rd place servers have a map-wide enemy radar instead of just around sentries.
• a hard limit on the amount of time players can have stealth and swiftness when in combat, to prevent easy disengaging from fights.

Fix:

• Transfer costs. Double them for transfers to T1, halve them for transfers to the lowest tier, free to servers that exist in name only.
• HoT skills. Most HoT builds can’t be countered by vanilla builds due to power creep. For as long as this exists, GW2 is effectively a pay-to-win game.
• The ability for attacking servers to clear defensive siege from the outside of walls. AoE should not spill over the tops of walls so easily.
• Dailies. Monument, land claimer and caravan killer are too easy, while keep capturer can be impossible on a losing server. SM should also count as a keep for daily purposes.

Remove:

• PPK. What’s the point in throwing myself repeatedly into a losing battle if I end up just handing more points to the enemy?
• Points per cap, because it discourages defense in favour of k-training. Defense should be encouraged as it requires two sides to directly engage each other, while k-training doesn’t.
• DBL. This map is so horrible for WvW that I had to quit the game during the time it replaced Alpine entirely. Even now I avoid it for anything other than easy dailies.

mtpelion.4562:

Just curiosity here, but if YOU could redesign WvWvW from the ground up (i.e. throw out 100% of what currently exists), how would your vision of a “perfect” WvWvW work?

This has been a really interesting thread to read. Thanks for opening it!

As Subversion pointed out, you really can’t get a working WvW system unless players are encouraged to spread out. There’s always factors pulling them together – guilds for example – so to make it work you have to start by breaking one of GW2’s core tenets: that you should always be happy to see another player.

There may be a few ways to resolve it. My thought is that you should have to compete with other players on your server for the best rewards. This could be done using leaderboards – e.g. the one who kills the most unique enemy players each week gets an entire reward track for free. These leaderboards would be per-server, which means you have the best chance of winning the reward on a lower-populated server.
There’d be a few different leaderboards for weekly rewards, of course, for both individual players and guilds, and they’d need to be carefully selected so that sabotaging your own server, or trading points with players from another server, would not be convenient ways of getting ahead. But as a motivation for players to spread out rather than bandwagon, it seems viable to me.

The second thing that needs to be fixed is class / gameplay balance. Presently we’ve got a few builds that can do far too much damage, and a few that can absorb far too much damage, to the point where if you’re not using something that’s blatantly OP you can’t compete unless you’re very, very good.
The offensive damage potential just needs a bit of tweaking to bring the high-end numbers into line. We shouldn’t be seeing any skills doing more than 10,000 damage in one hit unless the target is naked. Condition stacks should be capped against players.
Defensively, the main problem is healing – if you’ve specced nothing into healing power, you should get very little healing as a result. If you want crazy regen, you should have to sacrifice all of your offensive power.

Solve those two issues, and I’d be happy with the WvW maps as they are, no further changes necessary. Since we’re asking about perfect though, I’ll bring in another two things that would just add some variety.

- 3-way PvP dungeons. Bring the Fissure of Woe and Underworld back, but with 10-player or 5-player groups queueing. First to kill the final boss gets the reward, and gives their server a boost. No respawn – if your team can’t res you for 5 minutes you’re out.

- Guild castles. Once a day you can attack or defend them in GvGs. Winning guild gets a reward for the guild and participating players, and the castles count towards PPT.

Where trusted relationships and mutual respect has organized guilds listening to scout call outs to get the fights. And both sides are rewarded: guilds get to test their mettle vs map blobs, scouts rescue structures. Win-win.

Havoc crews stomping other havoc groups. Duellers respond to emergency call outs and mercilessly stake the enemy running back from spawn. Seamless coordination and teamwork. A place where every play style is recognized as having value. A symphony.

And I get to play conductor.

I’ve been toying with the idea of bringing something new and fresh to WvW and how to extend the mechanics of open world battlefield. Not exactly an overhaul or idea for a “perfect gamemode” but I thought I’d post it in the thread anyway.

Add a completely new map, “Harbour of the Mists”.

This map would be roughly the size of Alpine Borderlands, and would offer a completely new roaming-friendly mechanic; the map could only be entered solo or in a party of 5 players maximum. The map would be completely free of server ties, meaning every solo player and party on the map would be hostile to each other, even those from the same server. Food and utility items would be disabled on this map.

The map theme would present a long-forgotten, abandoned port town with a surrounding area consisting of woods, hills and lakes. The town area itself would be very urban, much like Divinity’s Reach or some other major town, but in a smaller scale.

The objectives on the map would be mostly camps and a few towers, but with static defences, such as a basic arrow cart and a low-powered cannon. Parties would fight over and hold these objectives for minor buffs that last for ten minutes. After capture, players could use these objectives as resting places for as long as they are held; NPC’s could be hired to guard the objective, and a waypoint would unlock, letting the fallen party members teleport to their friends.

The town in the harbour would obviously be the most dangerous zone; minor buffs like teleport-to-friend items (only usable on this map), short stat buffs etc. would be scattered here and there in the buildings for players to find. The town would also hold the major objective of the map (equivalent to Stonemist Castle); a mansion once owned by a great lord. The party that captures the objective gets a major buff “Warband”. The buff allows the party to send a call to other parties on the map, and the first one to answer the call will join that party, uniting two hostile groups together and forming a 10-man Warband for one hour. Other players on the map can then decide to hunt down the Warband, or attempt to retake the mansion to form their own Warbands for slightly larger-scale fights. After the buff ends, the Warband members will again be two separate parties hostile to each other.

The player limit on the map would be 10 parties (50 players in parties) and 15 solo players, limiting the total amount of players to 65 on the map, to keep things lag-free and roamer-friendly. The map would have multiple instances; one full map would result in the next opening up.
———————

I have only toyed with the idea, not thinking too closely on the mechanics; how it’s going to affect other WvW maps (or if it will at all), balance issues or mechanic conflicts. What do you guys think? I’d love to see ideas or improvements for a smaller-scale WvW mode like this. And to be clear: not in my wildest dreams I think anything like this will actually be ever added to the game, but I like brainstorming around the game’s capabilities just for fun

Add a new map which will be active only Saturday for an event called “The Great War”.
“The Great War” starts at a specific hour. (guilds will have time to prepare)
“The Great War” has “x” rounds.
Every round is “x” minutes/hours.
Your world acquires points only by killing enemy players.
After “x” deaths you get teleported out of “The Great War” .You cannot join again or you can join with different character(depends which option players will like more)The next player in the que takes your place.(you wait for next week)
The map has only obstacles – lakes, rivers, hills, castles(which have few entrances)
No siege weapons, no objectives.
The map is big enough to give space for roamers to run from the zergs and to ambush people who replaced the dead and try to reinforce their zergs.
You are safe only at the spawn, the castles dont have any shiny teleports to get you to safety, they can be used only to ambush people in the narrow spaces.
After the rounds end, the world which won most rounds wins. If there is draw between 2 worlds, the winner is determined by the total amount of points in all rounds.
Only the winning world gets reward. The reward should be nice because its once per week( gold to craft ascended/ ascended mats/ black lion keys)

I’d simply go back to how things were a few years ago. Before stab changes, before condi buffs, before all the crap changes made for the sake of pve that sucked all the fun out of wvw, back when we could put 30 points into a traitline and had better build variety. If I could find a private server somewhere that plays an old version of the client, I’d be all over that. I don’t suppose any of you happen to know of one?

A wvwvw with no skill lag

1. Move to an alliance based system (server system does not work due to its inflexibility)
2. Reduce the effectiveness of siege against players.
3. Better gameplay balance
4. QOL items to encourage players to play, like leaderboards.
5. No aoe caps
6. Equal rewards with pvp and pve
7. Rewards track that simply rewards currencies, no kittening inventory fillers.
8. Squads restricted to 25 players or a method such that it will be optimal to have up tom 25 players and extremely sub optimal to have any players above that.
9. Greater rewards for taking defended structures and no, or very, little rewards for taking undefended structures. The number of defenders the greater the rewards.

no queues and a built-in dps meter for squads/parties/teams.

On a scale of 1 to 10, this thread and the posts in it have got to rate a solid 9.95 for utter pointlessness. On the same scale, probably a 5 for amusement value.

There is no wvw dev team. Therefore, posting ideas for a ‘better wvw’ is a pointless exercise- although some of the ideas at least have amusement value if nothing else.

Baldrick.8967:

On a scale of 1 to 10, this thread and the posts in it have got to rate a solid 9.95 for utter pointlessness. On the same scale, probably a 5 for amusement value.

There is no wvw dev team. Therefore, posting ideas for a ‘better wvw’ is a pointless exercise- although some of the ideas at least have amusement value if nothing else.

I think the majority of us realise that. I suspect major WvW changes might come with the xpac but IMO tying WvW changes to xpacs is an extreme mistake. ESO does not do that except with balance changes. There needs to be a WvW team constantly developing it.

Devils Toy.9205:

Subversion.2580:

I would:

1) Get rid of- or greatly reduce the transfer costs to allow the playerbase to reset balance themselves. [..]

2) [..]a scoring model that encourages people to spread out

3) This would allow for a balanced and self-resetting system

You think the player base is going to reset balance themselves? LMAO, the player base is the reason there is so much imbalance. By reducing or eliminating transfer costs you are only going to make it that much worse.

I am with Devils Toys on this one, I think that there should be VERY FEW but NOT zero opportunities to switch server – perhaps two free transfers every year or, one every six months.

IMO;

1. People should be committed to their World
2. Your World should be prominently displayed on heroes panel to remind people that WvW is an option
3. Fluff idea: There should be world-specific Titles based on the WvW ranks, The intent is to help people dedicate themselves to a server and to display their WvW credentials in other game modes.
   Example:
   • A FSP player attains “Far Shiverpeaks Mithril Invader” rank on that server.
   • When they do so, they earn the same text as a title.
   • If the person transferred to Gunnar’s Hold they would earn the new title;
     Gunnar’s Hold Invader.

my idea of perfect WvW is soemthign that goes in oposite direction form what Anet thinks a game is.

-I would love a game that players would had to atack other players structure
-I would love a game that didnt lag to the broken aoe/cleave spam to carry bad players, and enforceing pve crap class designs.
-I would love a game where players didnt get rewards by just spamming 111111 and atack empty structures.

Meanwhile ic Anet increasing the rewards by capign structures…. to shut up most players, and call it a QoL patch, so players can keep farmign towers and keeps.
^This is the quality of dev’s and what i believe Anet is all about.

4years game, looks like it didnt have patch besides addition of broken and dull to play elite specs.

The mode has to do what it originally did;

1. It needs offer a variety of playstyles
2. It needs to allow some player decisions and actions to affect the outcome
3. It needs to offer a sense of ownership (objectives), investment (upgrades), belonging (zergs), community (squad/team/map chat)
4. It needs to offer scope for player-deployable objects to affect static objectives

… all of this without mentioning scoring or rewards – which are what Arenanet are reportedly working on at the moment (29/04/2017).

Svarty.8019:

The mode has to do what it originally did;
(…)
… all of this without mentioning scoring or rewards – which are what Arenanet are reportedly working on at the moment (29/04/2017).

That’s all they can do…. hide the problems with rewards…

Svarty.8019:

The mode has to do what it originally did;

1. It needs offer a variety of playstyles
2. It needs to allow some player decisions and actions to affect the outcome
3. It needs to offer a sense of ownership (objectives), investment (upgrades), belonging (zergs), community (squad/team/map chat)
4. It needs to offer scope for player-deployable objects to affect static objectives

… all of this without mentioning scoring or rewards – which are what Arenanet are reportedly working on at the moment (29/04/2017).

I think you’re right here, but if you make me shell out cash for upgrades again I’m going to strangle someone.

I’m already invested in the structures I protect—both emotionally and in terms of dropped siege. Some things I guard just for PPT reasons, but the things I guard most fiercely are those that I’ve nursed from fresh flip to T3. Making me pay for the upgrades means it’s only going to be one structure at most and not in every play session. I won’t be breaking my back trying to guard paper towers.

Seriously though, does anyone know how i could just play an earlier version of the game before all the catering to pvers? wvw was great a few years ago before all the changes. I want to back to the old trait system and before stuff like dire and perplexity existed.

Sviel.7493:

if you make me shell out cash for upgrades again I’m going to strangle someone.

For the sake of clarity, I meant emotionally invested, not financially.

Lineage 2 siege system > any …

coro.3176:

I don’t know how it could be achieved, but .. split up the zergs.

GW2 heavily rewards zerging. If a player is doing something and another player comes to help, they both get the same rewards. Scaled up to WvW levels, this causes zergs. Zerg fights are fun and all, but IMO, the game is at its best in small encounters. (say, 2v2 up to 15v15).

Anything that could encourage many small groups on map rather than one big blob would be an improvement.

So you mean desert bl? Too bad it’s not always viable to coordinate pug groups without multiple guilds that’s cooperating, so you end up with a lot of people absolutely hating it.

My vision for perfect WvW is putting big fights inside structures. That’s when it’s most fun, for me, and what brings all the elements of WvW together.

I think we need more dramatic fighting inside keeps.

I like Desert map Air and Fire keep Lords. They have the right amount of power – sometimes enough to swing a fight and lead to an outnumbered victory. This is a fun thing that should not be changed. Well done, Arenanet.

The old last-gasp, desperate Lord room fights tend be very rare nowadays. In the past, these battles could last long enough for the third side to participate and lead to great, epic battles in the keeps.

I would like to see the return of (or a new replacement for) several features which were removed for dubious reasons;

1. the “bug” that meant people could waypoint into contested structures,
2. the “bug” that meant people could banner-rez Lords.
   These are what made WvW more dramatic and exciting.
   While Emergency Waypoints are fun and cool (well done, Arenanet), they are also on a long timer which is six(?) times as long the “bug” – this is too long and often leads to zergs capping before defenders can arrive.
   Nobody really wants to cap stuff without a decent (read: even) fight, first!

I also believe that the Desert map Garrison walls need to be reappraised regarding which walls are destructible. At the moment, there are too few options to counter point-blank siege here – this is one reason that there aren’t enough fights at this keep. (On a side-note, I’d like to see the whole structure redesigned from the ground up. It’s horrible even for defenders).

There are plenty of opportunities for the map guys to make changes to the WvW maps, but I’d keep a copy of the current maps so that reversion is an option – WvW players are notoriously picky, but I’d also be looking to change the layout of ABL hills – it simply doesn’t make sense to have a really long wall at one side that people can;

1. put lots of holes in, and
2. just walk past
   In the attached picture you can see, I would remove the blue wall and replace with gates at the positions of the red lines. It would mean shorter journeys for dolyaks, but upgrading hills is difficult anyway.

Everything in this post is my opinion – please explain why, if you disagree.

On the picture above, I missed the inner south gate, that should be the blue line, too. Sorry.

Go back to the summer of 2013 and actually have the dev team devote resources to the game mode to support the growing Pro Scene that was GvG before Blood Lust killed it.

That time period was perfect for WvW b/c we started to see the players create a scene which could have easily become a pro scene. You had like 5 guilds per non clustered SERVER who GvG’d and participated in the GvG website. If the devs would have nurtured that scene it would have grown into a extremely popular Pro Scene