Guild Wars 2

What the topic says

For me wvw is just a place I like to go to kill people, so as long as people are there it’s fun for me, but people aren’t there now.
What would make it fun for you?

the crowd, the ensuing chaos, and the competitiveness

Zackie.8923:

the crowd, the ensuing chaos, and the competitiveness

So like population balance? Personally that’s never really been an issue of mine but yeah lots of people feel the same way

The alpine bl without any of the crappy HoT changes. The only change I would like to see is change the cost of upgrades from gold to karma or badges.

Those epic fights at bay.

This is a hard question for me cause im being way to much biased on other games im playing…. after trying a few other mmo’s i think i cant touch WvW again, but they would need to overhoul to much what they have to be a glimpse of what other mmo’s have in this area.
-To much gimmick based game.
-easy to cap stuff, bring blob clear siege with mesmer portal plus necros and eles near wall and spam siege to drop wall extremelly fast, or hide in treb wars game.
-no value besides ppt.
-poor mechanics.
-poor design and tactical complexity, it has been getting worse and worse, Anet tryed to make it better with the new BL, but players want easy fights and places to hide if they were loosing, Anet improved BL with lots of choke points to be used but theres no need to use them with the “space range meta” wrecked class balance….GG
-no value being in reward for do WvW, spam 1,1,1,1, in pve is far more lucrative.
-no incentivation.
-WAY to much redundancy.

I think all of this needed to be changed to get me in wvw again.

• Support for the major playstyles that made themselves quite obvious over the years.
• Population balancing so I can log into active maps and matchups that aren’t encrusted with mold.
• Better rewards as a result of better team balance and incentives for players to clash instead of running.
• Separate combat balance for WvWvW.
• Various maps in rotation that don’t make me feel like I’m a lab rat

Then I’ll have legitimate reasons to harass my guild into coming back!

A reward track.
WvW skill balancing.
That’s about it. I’m on TC so I’m not too worried about population, but the matches are rather lopsided (Who is fort aspenwood again?)

At this point I very much doubt that anything could make wvw great again.

- Smaller maps which are easier to navigate so we can get into group battles fast. I hate searching for action it’s boring and doesn’t add to the experience. Commander tags are meant to help but a lot of maps are tag-less or empty with no indication if there’s anyone there except via map-chat.

- Less PvE event items. The only PvE elements I can handle are the NPC toons guarding towers and camps. I can see a need for them during low population times, but I don’t understand why PvE events exist in WvW at all. Isn’t that what the PvE part of the game is for?

- Some reward incentive to make the play feel worthwhile, this way I don’t have to split my time earning gold in the oh so boring world boss train. I think a session in WvW should be as rewarding as any equivalent session in PvE, fractals or PvP.

- All WvW guild buffs to be earned in WvW, this would encourage WvW guilds to actually exist. Doing PvE to WvW is the dumbest thing I can think of and I can’t believe this was suggested let alone implemented.

- Some sort of nemesis feature could be fun, so often I get killed time and time again by the same person, it would be fun if I actually kill them there was some sort of recognition of the achievement. This is done is many other games through a map message or something.

- A WvW window that displays all the action (can be tiny and toggled off), that way people won’t have to map-chat asking if there’s anyone in the map, they can see the action ticking in a dialog window live.

- Really there are so many quality of life things the developer could borrow from other online competitive games in the interface. More options for the player is always good as long as they can be easily toggled on/off.

WvW works best when people care about the outcome of the match. When you feel that your contribution is important, and winning is valued.

So get rid of tiers, get rid of stale match-ups. Alter scoring so nightcapping and K-training don’t rule the day. And then let people fight.

Return the waypoints to the way they were in the Alpine borderlands. That would go a LONG way to players getting to the action for fights. I’m not going to say “bring Alpine back,” because the reasons they can’t just turn it back on were covered in the AMA. But one reason they were so superior to the Dedert BL’s is that they had nice open spaces for fights, and players could actually USE the waypoints on the map without having to capture a specific keep on an enemies borderland to use the WP.

How difficult would it be to code the WP’s to spawn on tier 3 keeps and make them uncontested for the home team until they were attacked? It couldn’t possibly be that difficult, could it? Players have been asking for this in just about every post on this section of the forum.

While a number of people have left the game due to a lack of fights, others play the game to Ktrain or win. I roam and it is my opponents that bring the fun for me.

I personally think all play styles should have a place but honestly believe those who left due to the changes or even lack of changes to WvW are gone.

I would think the company should concentrate on returning fun for those remaining.

IE some like gadgets and pve gimmicks in wvw some do not so, remove all from one map and leave them in the other.

NB I +1 d StormageddonBK’s post with my caveat above.

The old borderlands and the waypoint system to them
I know nearly a thousand that would return to the lovely old maps

this desert BL is awful ….

pre-HoT WvW maps and mechanics + WvW abilities & rewards tracks = greatness

Zackie.8923:

the crowd, the ensuing chaos, and the competitiveness

+1

1. Complete nerf of siege damage onto players
2. Removal of barriers towards fights (such as the perma contest on waypoints)
3. Removal of crappy terrain that makes it hard to find other players to fight
4. Introducing more end-game rewards for playing WvW (especially for ascended and legendary item crafting)
5. A rethink on the server system, perhaps by merging servers.

PrinceHades.3615:

Those epic fights at bay.

underwater
that point when you realize you have white gear and dont have a clue what any of your skills do LOL
the times, they were good.

Elites to be unlocked in WvW….

Being fully specced fighting someone with only 30 points in their spec is stupidly designed, it’s not fun for anyone.

Also, it would go a long way for guilds who want to get back into zerg busting but can’t due to it’s WvW members not wanting to PvE to unlock elites to allow for team building and class switching.

fun times :p

-More players by reducing amount of server choices and/or alliance/battlegroup system.
-Siege’s effectiveness on players greatly reduced, but siege on siege should still do full damage.
-Greatly reduce the usage of ppt as means to scoring.
-Make capping empty towers and keeps less rewarding to reduce players avoiding fighting & “musical keeps” like they used to call it in Warhammer Online. Backcapping is lame.
-Disable guild upgrades such as chilling fog, airstrike, iron hide, stealth fountain, etc..
-Removal of annoying elements that interfere with player vs player interaction, such as rock walls, cripple fields, invis fog, barricades, etc..
-Make waypoints something you work for again, and waypoints on your own home BL’s should be accessible by home defenders like it was with Alpine. The way waypoints work on fire/air keeps don’t make any sense.
-Reduce effectiveness of guild banners unless you are outnumbered, the game should be smart enough to scale banners properly based on whether players using banners need the extra help or not.
-Make towers strategic caps again like it was on Alpine (assuming we’re keeping Desert).
-Change up servers you are fighting against on a much more regular basis to keep things fresh. It’s boring to fight the same guilds/players every day, every month, and in some cases all throughout the year. Of course if alliance/battlegroup system goes in, this won’t be an issue.
-Add reward tracks in WvW much like the one implemented for sPvP. WvW players are willing to spend money also, so more unique skins for WvW players such as siege, armor, weapons, keep/tower upgrades, etc..
-For crying out loud, auto loot please. You know in BDO they have pets you can buy in cash shop that’ll loot for you. I don’t care if I have to buy something in the marketplace, I would buy it just so I no longer have to spam the loot button while attempting to engage in player vs player combat.

After stability-update the “FUN” had left the building…

Example Zerg Fight on a bridge:

Before Update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7NI0WC1eIs

After Update (6 min is the first fight – before there is running , running, running and running…): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEUaN3u6pE4

Since update Melee classes were destroyed in large scale fights. So people don t run melee anymore.
But the most guilds were running melee so it s no surprise no guilds are left.

Alpine Borderland.

That it feels like you do something to help your server.

Bring this back:
Alpine Borderlands for the actual non-pve fights.
Stability rework – Back to the old stability-system.
Maybe some sort of personal reward aka “hard to get transmorgs” for certain WvW-Achievments.
Make WvW meaningfull, right now there is no incentive to make your server win over the course of a week – maybe put in 1st / 2nd / 3rd tier rewards, depending on how each server does in the current match-up.

For me it is roaming. I feel like the game mode is forcing players to use HoT. Every encounter is some stupid reaper necro or dare devil thief. I just miss the random classes you could fight. Every kid is running the same boring thing. I seem to remember a lot more variety pre-hot, at least I made some cool interesting builds with necro. Today I encounter a necro for example and think “ok….chills…reaper…chills…reaper…chills…reaper, oh look he’s using torment sigil”. Just getting boring, MORE DIVERSITY.

I’d quite like to see PvP amulets implemented into WvW. Damage in WvW is just way too high so maybe this will reduce it somewhat. It would also allow new players to get into WvW as soon as they prefer without the fear of stat disadvantages other than those gained from food buffs, sigils and rune selection.

Simonoly.4352:

I’d quite like to see PvP amulets implemented into WvW. Damage in WvW is just way too high so maybe this will reduce it somewhat. It would also allow new players to get into WvW as soon as they prefer without the fear of stat disadvantages other than those gained from food buffs, sigils and rune selection.

imo i think a pvp amulet system for wvw would be great, however reducing the stats is not.
anyway i think its too late for this because a lot of people grinded for their gear solely to use it for wvw. how would we recompensate all of these players? it would be impossible to do without a buff to hackers, i.e. account hack and salvage everything kinda deal.

agreed, we all log in with legendary like armor and assignable trinkets, in which we can select from any variety of stats. – no legendary skin of course, and we can apply our own skins.

- i don’t like the spvp set up either, so a copy of that system won’t do.

+1 for less Power creep, then again organized groups now boon share, almost perma boons to counter it.

For me a new map isn’t going to fix it. The June 2015 balance patch and later HoT destroyed the balance GW2 once had. The game in it’s very core element is lacking and no map can fix that.

The power creep introduced by the June 2015 patch altered and changed many builds and removed others entirely. Too many traits became baseline or got merged. The patch introduced many passive abilities (for example the infamous Self Regulating Defenses) degrading gameplay even further.

HoT made everything worse. We got even more passives (passive Stability and passive CC being among the worst), powerful abilities with extremely low cool downs and unprecedented damage and sustain levels. Balance and counter play were thrown out of the window. Elite specialisations became the only way to play, forcing a new play style on many veteran players if they wanted to stay competitive. Furthermore, the Elite specialisations didn’t add any depth to the combat. On the contrary, they dumbed it down even further. Player versus player combat became mostly unenjoyable.

For me, the only way to make the game enjoyable again is to undo the June 2015 patch (no baseline traits, unmerge the traits, remove the useless traits and replace them with the secondary effect of the unmerged traits) and to severely nerf Elite specialisations.

Stand The Wall.6987:

anyway i think its too late for this because a lot of people grinded for their gear solely to use it for wvw. how would we recompensate all of these players? it would be impossible to do without a buff to hackers, i.e. account hack and salvage everything kinda deal.

I own several sets of Ascended armor and multiple Ascended weapons and I wouldn’t mind to scrap them without compensation. Ascended gear added nothing good to WvW and the game as a whole. If WvW gear was scaled down to Exotic level, combat would be a lot more enjoyable (along with undoing the June 2015 patch and nerfing Elite specialisations).

• Fix the power creep.
• Delete the new BL, revert 99% of the new features introduced in HoT: airship, stealth fountain, etc.
• Remove the guild grind, helping make small guilds relevant again.
• Hire a new game director who is willing to view the game mode through the eyes of those who actually play the game mode.

None of these will happen.

One thing is for sure, that time is running out for Anet to make some decent changes to wvw to bring people back. 1 out of 5 of the wvw guilds that I belonged to post HOT are still active and that last one barely. Sooo many wvw guilds have died since HOT.

I know that some are waiting to see what the April wvw patch produces before coming back.

People in this thread are all making valid points re wvw.

-Revert the June 2015 patch-bring back stability and melee relevance
-Revert to pre HOT maps and state or bring new maps without banner, airships, chilling fog, shield generators, stealth pools etc-many wvw guilds are small so are completely -disadvantaged with the HOT changes
-Scoring needs to discourage backcapping and k-training
-Siege nerf
-Rewards need to be increased so that they are special, relevant and wvw currency needs to be made to be much more useful. Wvw is not self sustaining as it is, have to pve to get gold for food and equipment for wvw.
-autoloot essential
-server balance in population and coverage essential

PvP and PvP activities becoming an integral part of WvW.

I could hardly care less about the siege wars, though they’re here to stay and fixing scoring /nightcapping/bandwagoning would do a lot to improve the situation for players that do enjoy siege. Personally it’s the battle I turn up for, not what it means. Would just as happily do a PvP dungeon.

It’s the running around in circles capping undefended points that needs to end.

This thread seems to boil down to reverting wvw to how it was pre-2015 (stability included) with better rewards, pretty much all there is too it really. Which is extremely ironic because of this video.. The hype was reaaaall, they did a good job fooling me last time that’s for sure. Great job.

Anyways though this is just another suggestion thread so I may as well put out my kittening since I got this far.

• Remove shield generators
• REMOVE fortified gates please.
• Nerf Chilling fog and Airship cooldown by like a god kitten kittening kitten KITTENS KITTEN hour.

Edit: You should NOT be able to use these stupidly overpowered Keep buffs whenever the hell you feel like it rather only when you actually need to use them for niche situations. For example when you have the outnumbered buff, or simply as mentioned once an hour so it emphasizes tactful usage. Not a 5 minute cooldown or whatever it is so any willynilly pug can have a blast watching an entire enemy force melt with one button. It is beyond me why they catered so heavily towards defending objectives while completely ignoring any means of taking objectives. /rant

-Thanks.

Removal of all siege except rams.

Kirito.2195:

This thread seems to boil down to reverting wvw to how it was pre-2015 (stability included)…

No thanks, stability was just broken back then as getting all your stacks stripped by DH bow 5 is now, just in a different way, having stab up 70+% of the time was beyond ridiculous, you basically had it whenever you remotely needed it, and boon spam vastly outstripped boon removal, which is why under the old system hard CC was virtually useless and it was all about immobilize.

Now add that boon spam power creep has gone to new levels of absurd with durability runes that are considered too broken to even exist in PvP, wanderer / commander stats, the new boon duration food, Sigil of Concentration and heralds pumping out boons 24/7, plus yet another boon- resistance that negates immobilize, going back to the old system would be even more broken than it was when the game was so “balanced” we had 60 man melee trains running about.

What is actually required is some middle ground option for stability that lies somewhere between the two, so hard CC is useful without being obnoxious and that melee actually requries more than rolling your face across the keyboard as it was under the old stab.

zinkz.7045:

Yeah I agree with you that’s a good point. It’s definitely a difficult balance, and this has always been a yuge debate with quite fierce opinons lol. Do we want the facerolling arguably no-skilled hammer trains with venomshare everywhere or do we want to pirateship for 15 minutes widdling down each zerg in a chokepoint? The soultion definitely isn’t just to revert old stab, I see that with the points you made but holy lord what we have now is barely playable.

Stab nerf has mad it very un fun. I mean it could be ok if some classes had more ways to get it and basically everything that does give stab gave many many more stacks than it does. I find myself perma cc’ed almost constantly. Even in very small fights I down somebody I hit stand your ground dolyak singe etc for stab. I proceed to stomp. My stab is melted before I even see it show up on my buff bar and I get knocked back from my stomp.

Dirdyy.1648:

After stability-update the “FUN” had left the building…

Example Zerg Fight on a bridge:

Before Update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7NI0WC1eIs

After Update (6 min is the first fight – before there is running , running, running and running…): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEUaN3u6pE4

Since update Melee classes were destroyed in large scale fights. So people don t run melee anymore.
But the most guilds were running melee so it s no surprise no guilds are left.

+1

They have taken away the fun, long and interesting fights. Now everything melts from ranged. Running through all red rings and traps and crap is horrible.

Defending towers and keeps is a pain. There are so many unecessary walls and rooms and long windling stairs everywhere. Hills and Fire Keep as an example. I have no problems defending an objective solo for hours, I find it quite rewarding, but on these maps…ugh.

All those fun fights at old Bay. Defending Hills. Being able to report when the enemy zerg passes Bay going north and meeting them for a good fight. All gone.

Never play WvW with the outmanned buff.
Never play against a siege humping, backcapping, avoid fights server.
Remove banners, airship, stealth fountain, fog
Let melee play WvW again.
Encourage PvE players to try WvW.

Zackie.8923:

the crowd, the ensuing chaos, and the competitiveness

^^^ This.

Add to that some decent stuff equivalent to what I get in HOT PVE meta maps on per time spent basis and a better / reworked scoring system so my efforts are not all in vein when winning fights, especially against overwhelming odds, and skill rework so I can hop on my condi builds for big battles instead of being stuck on power builds, and it’d be golden.

I would really enjoy WvW more as both a driver and a player if we could surf zergs again. Bring back old stability and make melee viable! #throngsurferwarrior

1 – A LOT LESS CC ACROSS THE BOARD!!! LET US FIGHT!!!

2 – Population controls. Anyone remember Fantasy Earth Zero? That game only allowed players in if the other side had players coming in too.

3 – LESS SIEGE WARS. MORE FIGHTING.

4 – STOP FORCING PVE. Every Stat combination, Rune, Sigil, etc, can be bought with badges.

For me it’s very simple: It is population balance.

In risk of sounding like a broken record: It is also population balance in the understanding that “population balance” = scoring system + stability mechanic.

Rolling the stability back would not only balance range to melee again. It would most importantly balance larger servers to smaller servers (and eliminating one of the largest reasons that players move to overpopulated servers). It would secondarily, but almost as importantly, balance guild groups to server groups again, making sure people joined guilds to diversify tactics. It would also recreate the added dimension of the ripping-to-control mechanics over just control-spam again, which, to me, had much more appeal in how it enouraged smart team play on a good offense-defense balance (making rip, control, damage a three-stage process) over just mindless spamming all in one place.

A better scoring system would bridge the divide of “PPT servers” and “fight servers” that has existed since the prelude to the first season. It would give everyone a reason to compete on the same premises for the same goals. The divide has only ever existed because the system has been inherently imbalanced and has split servers accordingly.

There is alot to gain in resulting behaviour from those two rather small changes.

A reason to go out there and fight.

RodOfDeath.5247:

For me it is roaming. I feel like the game mode is forcing players to use HoT. Every encounter is some stupid reaper necro or dare devil thief. I just miss the random classes you could fight. Every kid is running the same boring thing. I seem to remember a lot more variety pre-hot, at least I made some cool interesting builds with necro. Today I encounter a necro for example and think “ok….chills…reaper…chills…reaper…chills…reaper, oh look he’s using torment sigil”. Just getting boring, MORE DIVERSITY.

Roaming has always been about the cheese build of the month, with a generous side of hacking. New cheese emerges with every patch.

Unless WvW builds are separated from PVE builds, there’s never going to be small/solo balance.

The most important things for me are a) community and b) less frustration. I want to play with together with my friends (right now that’s my server) against about equal enemies.

The situation in T9 right now is that UW or BT need their 600+ tick to move up to T8 again where Vabbi and RoS can’t do anything apart from night-time (when there more equal fights than 3 vs 20) or PvD.

Bonus points if they introduce mechanics which reward witty playing over numbers.

1. Population balance
2. Remove EotM – The purpose of this was to give people a place to go during long queues. That’s no longer needed
3. Buff stability. I miss large scale fights
4. Remove desert BL and bring back alpine
5. Remove PvE junk that was added during HoT
6. Create a legendary armor reward track