First, I want to say bravo with the two instances added for the fire and frost thing, it was much more interesting than the pitiful displays in the last two patches.
I’m one of those guys that have been here since closed beta, and am now at the point where I’ve played 1200+ hours. On my guardian lol. I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to in the game, pretty much (especially after the 1/28 patch wiped out hopes of progression in FotM). Each month, I read the patch notes to see if anything worth doing was added, and much to my pleasure, this month was the first. No more culling, and WvW progression. Wow. I just blasted through about 7 hours of WvW, and it was a blast!
I did glance over a few posts on this forum, though, and of course it’s impossible to make everyone happy. The main issue I’m seeing, however, is that servers are just mass zerging and fast capping to maximize wxp. I’m actually a little curious, if this is the problem, why is ANYONE crying?? lol maybe it’s different because I’m on Jade Quarry, and all day today we had a great commander everyone was following, but mass zerging (behind one coordinating commander) seems to be the best way to play WvW period. Organization, speed, power, reaction time, everything is easier. People are compelled to stick with the commander, too, because they gain wxp waaaay faster!
Now, some people complain, saying “but but but all WvW is becoming is all three servers running around with a mass zerg avoiding each other, capping and back capping points for wxp”, to which I say: lol you’re doing it wrong. If this is happening to you, grab yourself a commander pin, and take over. There are a few key points you should realize:
1) WvW is boring. It’s the same old dance to the same old tune day in and day out.
2) The new patch has everyone up in a hizzy over this world xp. WvW server populations will be high for a week or two, or at least until people realize that the bonuses aren’t so incredible — at least, compared to how long they take to get.
3) While everyone is all up in a hizzy over world xp, a good commander will notice that for a couple weeks, people want one thing: world xp. Boy, that was hard. You’ll see zergs doing events, even (such as warg/wurm/centaur/skritt). But it also brings one key point: EVERYONE wants to zerg. This is a commander’s dream.
4) If you’re still having trouble seeing where this is going, here it is: WvW is the same as before, except now there’s an incentive for everyone to actually unite together behind one or two good commanders.
Now, the reason I would say “lol you’re doing it wrong” if you are zerging around capping/back capping for exp while avoiding zergs is for one reason: you WANT to clash with other zergs! You can gain an easy 2k+ Wxp if you play well during a zerg clash. News flash: this is the fastest way of gaining Wxp. Now running around the world willy nilly it’ll probably be hard to run into another zerg by sheer chance. That’s where old WvW play comes in. Defend those towers and keeps! The choke points are crazy good for racking up hundreds of kills!
I dunno if I really have to go into more detail, but the way I see it, this is the best thing ANet could have done to help WvW. What a notion, people wanting to play it lol. Once the hype has passed, I think you’ll see the out manned buff popping up once in a while (also, awesome job there), and things more or less returning to normal. But to you who come to these forums to cry about how a welcome change of pace is ‘breaking’ WvW, lol. Just, lol.
Not to mention, each and every battle is now like the final clash in Braveheart. Removing culling is the most wonderful breath of fresh air this game has seen since Wintersday (which was more or less alright, as far as patches go for me). Just epic, epic battles
I may actually play this game again for a few weeks, who knows? :P