Guild Wars 2

Seems like TC is dead now. When ever i go in at around midnight EST it used to have active guilds running zergs, more and more I’ve seen less commanders on at this time and now about 6-8months later its dead at this time slot? what the heck?

Bring back desert BL as roamer maps alongside Alpine zerg ones.
I got more play with smaller active roamer groups in wvw then i do with empty inactive nobody around apline zerg ones. When ever i logged in at this time there were often different groups of roamers, guilds/pugs that enjoyed DBL. Imo the epic maps were fun and a refreshing change of pace (though obviously looked like gliding was taken out at the last minute). I didn’t mind the new fights and even with a smaller group it was still easy. Plus stumbling across the enemy provided fun team fights that wasn’t dependent on who had larger numbers but who had better skills.

To put it simply i was in the minority pool who liked DBL.

Sinbold.8723:

Sinbold.8723:

While the new borderlands are very pretty to look at in some areas (but not others), and have unique towers and tower lords, the main thing people don’t like about them is the maze-like feel and constricting passages, or “choke points”, as well as a complete lack of open space for any type of large scale fighting. Well, I take that back. There IS a large open space, but it’s on top of what used to be knows as “Bay”, now known as Undercroft, or “Fire Keep”, but there’s almost no reason to go there unless you want to take the shrine located there, and it’s not really flat enough for a good fight. In Alpine BL, we had lots and lots of nice flat land to fight in. Even the south towers had a lot of nice flat area in front of them where many battles would be fought, with enemies coming from their spawn point to attack the tower, or on their way to hit Hills or Bay. None of those types of places exist in the new BL’s.

However, my server has been fluctuating between tier 4 and 5, and we see a LOT of action in the desert borderlands. Groups of 5-10 have been trying with mixed success to take the Air and Fire keeps (old Hills and Bay), and because of the sheer size of those keeps, they are sometimes difficult to defend. Larger groups have better chance of success, of course, but if you and 2 others manage to take the Air or Fire keeps while a few are defending it, it’s quite a battle. If more defenders show up, of course, you’ll get stomped. And not all of this action is in “prime time”, which is nice.

see -great roamer maps

I know something big happened, but it doesn’t seemed like it helped at all, just hurt WvW.

I predict that another third of players will leave when the desert borderlands come back.

(So far I haven’t been wrong with any predictions – just saying)

Jana.6831:

I predict that another third of players will leave when the desert borderlands come back.

(So far I haven’t been wrong with any predictions – just saying)

Gonna have to agree with Jana. Feels like the coffin needs just one more nail to seal the deal.

Jana.6831:

I predict that another third of players will leave when the desert borderlands come back.

(So far I haven’t been wrong with any predictions – just saying)

Well clearly the majority of WvW community prefers easy content that they can just faceroll thru with zergs. but i’m saying bring desert maps back along side alpine ones and use desert maps as roamer maps. Design it that way. make them smaller maybe, but break up the zerg mentality. That way roamers have a map and Zergs have a map, Id also assume to be on top of the leaders board taking 1 – 2roamer maps would help out a little.

but besides this…

The system currently seems broke from how it used to be 1-1.5 years ago when i was more active in wvw. Maybe its just my server -that i won’t leave because i like my non WvW main guild here. So switching servers or “badwaggoning”/ -linking stuff- only seems to hurt the population on TC WvW. Or maybe alot of WvW’ers have just quit the game? fed up with the disaster of WvW since Hot Launch?

TC might be tanking to open up, who knows.

And in case you want to know what killed wvw:
Free transfers
Ferocity Patch (reason: condis were OP and being tanky didn’t really help afterwards)
Stability changes
Players locking tiers on NA /scoring in general
June 23th Patch
HoT- Elites
Desert Borderlands
Linking

It might appear to you that recent changes made people quit but in fact it’s a long line of poor and/or risky decisions.

To your DBL: I’m still usually a solo roamer and I really hated that map – also there’s solo roamers/havoc groups/zergs/blobs why trying to force people to play only one of it? DBL is only suited for havoc groups.

Not really a prediction when players have been bleeding out of wvw for years now. Only one event really saw a huge dip in active players for wvw in a very short period of time, and that was the release of the expansion which brought a lot of other problems not just the new map.

The other half dozen reasons it’s been dying

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Timeline-Situation-Explained

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Returning-player-Why-is-WvW-dead-anyway

Xenesis.6389:

Not really a prediction when players have been bleeding out of wvw for years now. Only one event really saw a huge dip in active players for wvw in a very short period of time, and that was the release of the expansion which brought a lot of other problems not just the new map.

The other half dozen reasons it’s been dying

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Timeline-Situation-Explained

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Returning-player-Why-is-WvW-dead-anyway

thanks those links are helpful

LOL, thanks for the links. Never saw the youtube vid below. No wonder wvw kept losing more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXDXeVoWclc

Oh goody, another wvw is dead thread. How original.

Actually its more a “what happened” and “why does my server suck now” kind of thread by a non active/occasional wvw player who is only doing it only for legendary crafting and guild hall scribe crap. (If i had my old internet speeds i’d be more active)

Anet happened to WvW.

Kelly.7019:

Jana.6831:

I predict that another third of players will leave when the desert borderlands come back.

(So far I haven’t been wrong with any predictions – just saying)

Well clearly the majority of WvW community prefers easy content that they can just faceroll thru with zergs. but i’m saying bring desert maps back along side alpine ones and use desert maps as roamer maps. Design it that way. make them smaller maybe, but break up the zerg mentality. That way roamers have a map and Zergs have a map, Id also assume to be on top of the leaders board taking 1 – 2roamer maps would help out a little.

Every map is a roamer map in T4. Come on down and join the hype! :P

RodOfDeath.5247:

LOL, thanks for the links. Never saw the youtube vid below. No wonder wvw kept losing more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXDXeVoWclc

Ha!

And I think WvW is slowing down because the old crowd has gotten tired of doing the same thing after 4 years. It’s essentially running the same circle every day. Adding a reward track for running circles doesn’t revitalize it. I know everyone wanted it, but it’s not a fix for the monotony. And adding new maps is risky if they turn out to be poor.

I wish ANet had a contest or something of sorts where players actually drew out and submitted a map concept for them to design and work with. Rather than gambling a surprise map that’s going to be a hit or miss.

A seperate balance for wvw would have been nice. Many times balance for other aspects of the game have taken the fun out of playing professions. After 4 yrs it would be nice to pick and choose your profession upon entering and have full confidence that it competes at equal level and is fun. I’m sure by now most of us can play most if not all professions with competence, yet when we go in we have limited weopons we can use simply because it isn’t optimal or doesn’t feel synergetic with particular traits. You can see proof in every profession forum, many are asking to make this weopon better or that weopon better or fix this trait or that trait. Not enough choice imo. If playing your profession is fun then the game is more fun. The rewards for wvw past and present aren’t really suited to the game mode and the players that focus on wvw. All this and pretty much what everyone said above is what happened to wvw.

You think your server is dead? You may want to come visit T4.

It is a four year old MMO. That is the single biggest reason for population fall off. Few players PvP or RvR in games for that long and new players actively avoid established PvP since they typically come in at a massive disadvantage.

There have been plenty of fairly sizable WvW changes… some have been pretty bad and others decent to good. We haven’t seen that great WvW patch but I don’t think an MMO can afford to invest heavily in a small group of players in their game.

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

The amount of kills have gone up globally but that is simply a result of population density and not increased participation.

The activity peaked after server linking prior to the addition of ABL. the month following the reintroduction of ABL activity experienced a steep drop off.

IMO, ABL erased any gains provided by rewards and server linking.

The blob fighters got what they wanted … and didn’t stick around for very long anyway.

I’m not sure who these changes were a win for. WvW will never be organized like sPvP due to the technical difficulties of having such a large number of players. The lag effects will remove any hope of skill based results.

The lag is the main reason the DBL should be used. Anet is not in a position to solve the WvW lag problem from a technical standpoint, however introducing maps that spreads the players out and encourages small group play would reduced the impact of lag effects.

In many ways, DBL was the right course of action. But since there was a vocal blob fighting group, Anet reversed course. And now the blob fighters complain about the things they complained about prior to DBL, LAG.

All you can do is shrug, and find something else to do. I’m working my way through my library of other games at the moment.

TorquedSoul.8097:

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

Roaming sucked on DBL. Partially because of the WP system and partially because of the numerous obstacles. Each side often had long runs to fight each other. We nearly stopped playing WvW during that time since none of our guild wanted to PvE on that map any longer and EBG had hour long queues.

Alpine roaming is far more fight central. All three sides can engage easily particularly when Bay or Hills has a home turf WP.

“People quit because of AP”
No, they just realized that this game is a mess, no matter whether it’s DBL or AP (people were blaming DBL when it was still the only BL for all problems wvw had). Eventually they gave up and the number drop is from wvw being a mess, not because the AP came back.

“Different balance”
The problem right now is:
We have a pvp team, no wvw team and a balance team. The PvP team can only juggle with runes and amulets, they can’t change the traits. They have to inform the balance team what traits are a problem. The other problem we have is that the damage is calculated differently in pvp and wvw – so what appears “too weak” in pvp might be “ok” in wvw. So, we already have 2 different modes which are already “balanced” differently.

In the end the best right now might be to separate PvE from pvp and wvw and have the pvp team balance the game – the damage has to be counted similar in both modes though. That will lead to pve players being confused once they enter wvw or pvp but it’s the best they can do as the pve balance for all 3 modes just doesn’t work.

ETA²: Pvp balance really is enough for wvw – it has been in the past when things weren’t that messed up (before June last year). Only thing we need now and then is that someone has a look at large scale combat – but the changes for “balancing” that are comparatively minor.

Straegen.2938:

TorquedSoul.8097:

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

Roaming sucked on DBL. Partially because of the WP system and partially because of the numerous obstacles. Each side often had long runs to fight each other. We nearly stopped playing WvW during that time since none of our guild wanted to PvE on that map any longer and EBG had hour long queues.

Alpine roaming is far more fight central. All three sides can engage easily particularly when Bay or Hills has a home turf WP.

By small group play, I am referring to more havoc play than blob play. I’m am not referring to duelers.

Jana.6831:

“People quit because of AP”
No, they just realized that this game is a mess, no matter whether it’s DBL or AP (people were blaming DBL when it was still the only BL for all problems wvw had). Eventually they gave up and the number drop is from wvw being a mess, not because the AP came back.

It would seem that they realized this after the reintroduction of ABL. The conclusion one can reach from this is that DBL wasn’t the problem. And that those who preferred DBL may be playing less while those that demanded ABL got what they wanted and realized it didn’t fix other bigger problems and then proceeded to leave after getting what they asked for. The net result is that you lose on overall participation because now you have lost those that had a strong preference for DBL.

What I find entertaining is that the more they listen the WvW community, the smaller the WvW community gets.

Somebody with Anet needs to consider what makes games fun and stop listening to the those who zerg the forums. I’m fairly certain at this point that most people who play MMO’s really don’t know why they play anymore than a donkey knows why it chases the carrot hanging on that stick from string in front of it.

Straegen.2938:

TorquedSoul.8097:

If anything the alpine maps have hurt activity.

Roaming sucked on DBL. Partially because of the WP system and partially because of the numerous obstacles.

Roamers on my server like the DBL because of the many paths to camps etc.

Hacks, Mega blobs, server linking, the list goes on take your pick..its getting harder and harder to find a decent commander running in wvw at any time.. and forget romeing that’s just not happening when the other server cant beat you 1v1 so they come back with a blob to make sure they can get the job done..lol or the newest exploit OP immortal revs/mes…other then when I can join in on my guilds weekly runs ive been kinda not bothering besides the match ups have become stale as hell..its always the same servers on each other…

A moment of silence for Wvw. It was a beloved game type which many of us enjoyed and grew up playing. From the guild raids to reset nights and even pugmanding, it brought many of us together not only as players but as a family. Alas the time has come as it will for this game as a whole. Rest in peace wvw, we all will miss you dearly
Thank you.
*single tear rolls down eye *

I only have around 11k hrs played in the game. Mostly in WvW, so the only absolute I have learned so far is;

People on the forums kitten a lot.

See you on the battlefields, whichever they may be.

elkirin.8534:

I only have around 11k hrs played in the game. Mostly in WvW, so the only absolute I have learned so far is;

People on the forums kitten a lot.

See you on the battlefields, whichever they may be.

Meh, I have standards.

TorquedSoul.8097:

The conclusion one can reach from this is that DBL wasn’t the problem.

DBL was a problem: A lot of people quit because of it, EB was “overqueued” and more people quit. It’s not the core of the problem, sure.
And you already said it yourself: Those who liked the DBL weren’t “The angry zerg that came to the forums” – it was/is few.
I think the biggest indicator of the health of wvw and what this game needs are GvG guilds – if they vanish the mode is really doomed (and they didn’t even use the DBLs). And I think most of them did vanish.

ETA: I have no idea whether or not I’m right with this, but in my opinion the since June/Oktober 2015 messed up balance is the reason why wvw is dying. If they would fix that and reintroduce 3 DBLs people would still queue EB because the DBL as they were were unsuitable for wvw. And the reason why the DBLs were designed like that was because anet listened to the people on this forum.

Jana.6831:

TorquedSoul.8097:

The conclusion one can reach from this is that DBL wasn’t the problem.

DBL was a problem: A lot of people quit because of it, EB was “overqueued” and more people quit. It’s not the core of the problem, sure.
And you already said it yourself: Those who liked the DBL weren’t “The angry zerg that came to the forums” – it was/is few.
I think the biggest indicator of the health of wvw and what this game needs are GvG guilds – if they vanish the mode is really doomed (and they didn’t even use the DBLs). And I think most of them did vanish.

ETA: I have no idea whether or not I’m right with this, but in my opinion the since June/Oktober 2015 messed up balance is the reason why wvw is dying. If they would fix that and reintroduce 3 DBLs people would still queue EB because the DBL as they were were unsuitable for wvw. And the reason why the DBLs were designed like that was because anet listened to the people on this forum.

I have a chart of the activity drop off after the reintroduction of ABL. Its quite dramatic. Activity was rising from linking and rewards and then just plummets after ABL is introduced. I cant say if activity wouldn’t have slowed if they had kept DBL, but neither can you. We can only deal with the reality presented. And in this case, it activity took a dive after ABL came back.

TorquedSoul.8097:

I have a chart of the activity drop off after the reintroduction of ABL. Its quite dramatic. Activity was rising from linking and rewards and then just plummets after ABL is introduced. I cant say if activity wouldn’t have slowed if they had kept DBL, but neither can you. We can only deal with the reality presented. And in this case, it activity took a dive after ABL came back.

You already said that yourself, didn’t you?
The population dropped after HoT/DBLs and then even more after the introduction of the ABLs because that was when more people realized that wvw has far bigger problems than the DBLs – doesn’t mean they were good or suited for wvw.

ETA: And that’s why the population will continue to drop. In my opinion it’s the balance, but I might be wrong.

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Jana.6831:

In my opinion it’s the balance…

It IS the balance, although in this case not the only reason, it’s always the balance. The class you play (or in this case, the game-mode too) dictates how you play and in that way it also influences what you have fun with within the game itself. It’s by far the most important factor that dictates fun gameplay.

From game balance a meta-game is derived and as such how the game mode is actually played. We have a dichotomy in which the game devs think a clever move is to maintain balance as equal as it can possibly be between all the different game-modes, which is, within the very roots of the idea, a clearly wrong move , or, by just listening to their arguments, more like a fallacy … as proven by the diminishing numbers.

Khenzy.9348:

From game balance a meta-game is derived and as such how the game mode is actually played. We have a dichotomy in which the game devs think a clever move is to maintain balance as equal as it can possibly be between all the different game-modes, which is, within the very roots of the idea, a clearly wrong move , or, by just listening to their arguments, more like a fallacy … as proven by the diminishing numbers.

Having the same balance for all 3 game modes isn’t neccessarily wrong, just that they dumbed down the game with HoT and balance all modes on PvE while balance isn’t important for PvE at all.
And thanks – I’m really wondering why others quit wvw as it often doesn’t seem as if the balance really is at fault but that “people just became bored” which I don’t really believe but which of course is a part of it.

All is well again in WvW. BG vs JQ vs TC duking it out in tier 1 just like old times. Fate is smiling down upon WvW!

Is WvW going to be rejuvenated? The magic 8 ball says…

shakes

“Better not tell you now”…I’ll take that as a yes!

MY god, how many “Is TC dead” threads have there been over the last few week?!

Well TC was the probably most packed server on NA – at some point it had to hit them.
I mean how many “wvw is dead” threads have we got? So it’s Tier one to them and wvw for the rest of us

People still arguing that dbl killed wvw? cause as pointed out a million times, it wasn’t the only factor. The map hasn’t been in the game since like april and we’re still losing players. I’m sure we never got back the havoc guilds that were lost, and gvg has died off, plus spec balance is out of whack and no sign of it ever being anywhere near balanced with it in the hands of the spvp team, who only balance to that game mode and not everything else. Not to mention the whole condi vs boons direction combat has taken since the trait revamps and elite specs. /gag

TC may be the most packed server in NA but those people are not in WvW .The queue is relatively low through out the day considering what I’ve experience in other tier 1 or 2 servers . Just finding someone to tag up can be a challenge in its self.Many of the die hard WvW guilds left a long time ago.

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

Aurika.6751:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

OK. So in anticipation of ABL being reintroduced the DBL haters excited played on DBL’s driving up activity levels until ABL was released and then promptly left.

You can interpret the data anyway you like.

In regards to the best way to calculate activity, I use both capture data and kill data. Neither is a direct reflection of how many people are present as only Anet has that info and wont release it. I imagine the correlation of activity to population is not perfect, but I am guessing it is pretty strong.

But believe what you like.

You do bring up an interesting point. That the blobfight (tactics) players will return the game if and only if Anet commits to serving only their interests and ignoring the interests of other play styles (RTS, map based strategic.)

What I do find funny about the blobfighters is that they refuse to accept that the lag caused by such large numbers is not something Anet is in a position to solve. Short of having cookie cutter classes and skills with zero theory crafting, I don’t think they can do it. Meanwhile the small ball gameplay of havoc/RTS play is the playstyle that is possible with limited lag and it is being marginalized.

From a technical side, Blogfights are just impractical. Lag battles are not fun.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aurika.6751:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Aileras.9460:

Can you show us the chart please? How did you gather the data for it?

Chart attached below.

Some key points:
4/16/2016: WvW Rewards and DBL changes implemented.
4/23/2016: World linking implemented.
4/30/2016: On 5/3/2016 ABL reintroduced.

There is more information in the patch notes if you want to line up changes to the activity level.

I calculate activity by adding the total kills with the the total capture volume. I define capture volume as the sum of captures as the old 15 minute tick score for each asset captured. For example, every time a camp is captured, I add 5 points, 10 for towers and so on.

It was not the reward track and DBL changes that caused the participation spike. It was the promise of ABL coming back. Many guilds returned to the game during that two week period. Once those people came back, Anet managed to fumble the ball and participation has dropped, but it is still higher than it was during the travesty known and the DBL maps.

I suspect that with the release of one ABL map during the rotation and deplorable cannons (to go along with repair hammers) we will see an even larger drop. There’s only one sever I can think of that will enjoy those two changes, which is Yaks Bend with is siege humping culture.

Every time Anet has done something to please the fight oriented people in WvW they have had a participation spike. Whenever they pander to the PVD/siege/PVE crowd the participation has dipped.

I also do not think capture data is the best indicator of participation. I can bring out a five man team and flip all of the southern towers/camps on 2-3 maps in 15 minutes. They is not a lot of participation…that is five people flipping a lot of stuff because of a lack of participation. If the other servers had participation they could (and used to) prevent that form happening.

OK. So in anticipation of ABL being reintroduced the DBL haters excited played on DBL’s driving up activity levels until ABL was released and then promptly left.

You can interpret the data anyway you like.

In regards to the best way to calculate activity, I use both capture data and kill data. Neither is a direct reflection of how many people are present as only Anet has that info and wont release it. I imagine the correlation of activity to population is not perfect, but I am guessing it is pretty strong.

But believe what you like.

You do bring up an interesting point. That the blobfight (tactics) players will return the game if and only if Anet commits to serving only their interests and ignoring the interests of other play styles (RTS, map based strategic.)

What I do find funny about the blobfighters is that they refuse to accept that the lag caused by such large numbers is not something Anet is in a position to solve. Short of having cookie cutter classes and skills with zero theory crafting, I don’t think they can do it. Meanwhile the small ball gameplay of havoc/RTS play is the playstyle that is possible with limited lag and it is being marginalized.

From a technical side, Blogfights are just impractical. Lag battles are not fun.

It is not an interpretation of data. It is something that actually happened. Several full guilds came back in anticipation of Alpine returning and have since left because of the changes that have happened since that time. Many of those guilds are actually playing Albion Online now. they found the state of WvW so bad that they are in a game designed to be played on a smartphone that is still in beta.

There also was a second big factor that drove activity in that short time period. Several guilds in an alliance moved from YB to TC. That shook up the tiers and caused a lot of activity while servers because very active to secure their positions.

Blackgate (who had been hibernating again at the time) and JQ came back to life full-time in an effort to stay in T1. YB pretty much died though (the alliance had just left and their siege culture did not allow them to win fights when the doors hit back).

In T2 there non-stop fights between FA, DB, and TC. TC was trying to crash into T1 and FA/DB were trying to prevent it. Several former TC guilds led that resistance effort after leaving their home server because of the alliance arriving.

With that context, your numbers make sense and it has nothing to do with people preferring the DBL.

Aurika.6751:

With that context, your numbers make sense and it has nothing to do with people preferring the DBL.

First, guilds and players moving from one server to the next impacts the rankings but doesn’t necessarily impact the activity. Moving activity from one server to the next doesn’t lower activity. So that three paragraphs of guild shuffling you describe is pretty much irrelevant to global activity volume.

Second, Full guilds coming back and then remembering why they left isn’t much of an endorsement for the importance of the ABL maps. If DBL were such a major contributor to the population loss, I would have expected more players to stick around. What is clear is that this all important group of guilds/players isn’t interested in playing the game unless they get 100% of what they want. I am guessing that even if they are given what they want, they will want something else anyway. It seems to be a theme.

Makes me wonder how much of the player population is being lost trying to satisfy those who will never be satisfied. Its like these people are intentionally trying to sabotage WvW for their own entertainment. Have the trolls be elevated from the forums to the game design itself?

Anet seriously needs to STOP listening to its players and design a game that is actually entertaining. They need to work within the technical limitations and produce something that is appealing from a gameplay perspective.

The biggest problem with WvW is that Anet itself has no vision of the game mode. Its turning into a poll generated catastrophe.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Snip 8<
Anet seriously needs to STOP listening to its players and design a game that is actually entertaining. They need to work within the technical limitations and produce something that is appealing from a gameplay perspective.

The biggest problem with WvW is that Anet itself has no vision of the game mode. Its turning into a poll generated catastrophe.

^This

smiks…before anybody replies…yes…I’m the kettle, but at least I have a vision…grins

In the end ANet has to be the Pilot flying the plane.

You get 1 chance to take off & land right. Do it wrong & you could loose lives.

Lucky ANet isn’t in charge of flying a 747, but you can’t really blame them either…given that the current WvW Game Mode has a built-in mechanical design failure.

Even a Top Gun pilot can’t fly a plane with defective ailerons.

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

TorquedSoul.8097:

Anet seriously needs to STOP listening to its players and design a game that is actually entertaining. They need to work within the technical limitations and produce something that is appealing from a gameplay perspective.

The biggest problem with WvW is that Anet itself has no vision of the game mode. Its turning into a poll generated catastrophe.

Yep I agree and have been saying similarly since the poll driven approach became so pervasive. They clearly have no developer at anet with any vision for a large scale pvp game mode. Whats more they have actively sabotaged player created enhancements rather than encouraged them.

morrolan.9608:

Snip 8<
Whats more they have actively sabotaged player created enhancements rather than encouraged them.

^Amen +1

@TorquedSoul
Your data is interesting:
- Do you have graphics for only kills and only caps as well? Better make two separate graphics instead of summarising variables that aren’t exactly equal signs of participation.
- You don’t have enough weeks before the changes. Any reason for leaving them out?
- When I look at this graphics, the first thing you should do is make the axis start at zero istead of at 1500000. Why? Because it should you how marginal your “steep drops” truly are. At least if you want to be taken seriously by people that know something about statistics.
- The only thing you can say from this graphics with any statistical reliability is that there was a rise in kills/caps after the wvw-chances following 4/9 and that there is a more or less stable kill/caps-sum after 5/21 on a higher level as before 4/9. Those small increases and decreases after 5/21 are in the margin of error and from a statistical view it is invalid to analyse them.
- Concetration of people has actually a negative impact on caps (defenders make it harder to cap, less objectives to take with linked servers) and there is no reason why it should have a higher impact on kills because two 2×2 fights in ds-bl would result in same death count as one 4×4 in alpine.
- A small decrease of players (1-3 % per month) is normal and is always to be expected as new games appear and old players get bored of the game. It has nothing to do with the performance of the developer and will happen in any case.

—> I would say it shows that the new changes (not only the BL, but also tracks) brought a temporary increase in kills/caps and that this increase was partially temporary (completely normal for any change, players trying out the new stuff) and partially persisted since 5/21. So I would say this data hints us into the direction that the changes were good for wvw. We cannot separate the impact of the changes though, because the changes happened to close together and were additive, so we don’t know if it were the reward tracks or the alpine BL or both that participated to the higher stable level after 5/21.

To the people complaining about Arenanets “lack of vision”: I would say their vision is to give the people what they want and they try to find out what we want through polls. The problem with this is as always and also here on the forums:
1. different people want different stuff, but most of them are a minority. The loudest are often not in the majority, because their vision is too extreme.
2. many people don’t know what they want before they could try it.

Rink.6108:

Snip 8<
To the people complaining about Arenanets “lack of vision”: I would say their vision is to give the people what they want and they try to find out what we want through polls.

For clarity…that’s your idea of what you think ANet’s vision for WvW is.

There has never been a formal statement from ANet about what their vision for WvW is.

It would be nice to know what it is.

WvW is the way it is…because the vision that would provide a compass & direction…is simply not there.

Using Polls to justify all these changes…just leads to a poor product when paired without a Concrete Vision of where WvW needs to be going.

That’s what the heck happened to WvW…imho

For a Better Long Term Solution to WvW – Google Search – wvg world vs globes

Rink.6108:

To the people complaining about Arenanets “lack of vision”: I would say their vision is to give the people what they want and they try to find out what we want through polls.

Thats not a vision for the game though, it reflects their lack of vision in that they don’t know how to improve it.

Rink.6108:

The problem with this is as always and also here on the forums:
1. different people want different stuff, but most of them are a minority. The loudest are often not in the majority, because their vision is too extreme.
2. many people don’t know what they want before they could try it.

2. is exactly why they should have game designers experienced in this mode.

What was hard for a few WvW Zerg/Havoc guilds that I have friends in, is that when APL came back (thank god, as DBL was too big and took too long to go from one point to another if under attack), is that some servers haven’t won a match up since server linking, however were winning them before, causing some WvW guild mates to bandwagon, therefore decreasing the server’s WvW focused guilds.

I know in mine (wont mention who), were outnumbered almost all the time (even in most downtimes for other servers), and people are tired trying to run as a havoc in any BL, only to be met by blob after blob no matter where they go. I understand that WvW is about working together and 3+ years ago when I first started WvW was more strategy oriented (Portal bombs for example, portal omega/alpha teleporting with 4 mesmers…etc). Now its all who can blob the hardest. Things have changed immensely. I still try to WvW because of it but where there are more blobs now than even 1 year ago, makes creating WvW build video montages a bit harder as ppl will duel, but then get zerged. I am aware that PvP exists, however you cannot use a builds full potential in PvP with use of food/consumables, mixing stats and more open field.

I am still holding out faith in Anet knows what they are doing and will continue to improve the game.