Guild Wars 2

I remember watching the HoT press conference and colin talking about WvW. How its an epic experience of ramming gates and taking towers, overthrowing keeps. This made me a little sad because it showed that they still believed that people playing WvW actually cared about those things.

Sieging means PPT and PPT literally means nothing in WvW. About a year or so after launch when the servers population began to diminish, and even before that, its been pretty clear that its impossible to every win or succeed in PPT unless you have a certain population. Its the worst it ever has been now, especially in T2, but we know whose going to win from the beginning of the matchup. From the beginning of the tournaments we know whod win, and thats what made PPT always so hard to take seriously.

Thats why as it stands now, people go for the fights. Whether large scale or small scale, you could gain a lot of fun from these fights, and you could even win if you were outmanned. That could never happen in PPT. Because of 2 reasons. You cant win PPT outmanned, and its incredibly unrewarding. If you could make PPT balanced then you could make it rewarding and then more people would do it, but thats not the way it is.

I feel like Anet still doesnt get this understanding from the community. I mean they are giving us a new map that sounds heavily focused around sieging when thats the last thing we need. Encouraging more sieging, PPT, only means it rewards the higher stacked servers and eliminates more open field fights. Thats THE WORST case scenario for WvW.

If they really wanted to make PPT important and wanted people to embrace it, then they shoulda fixed the PPT problem. Maybe they will in the expansion, I really hope, either a new scoring system or megaservers, we’ll see.

I wouldnt pay too much mind to anything said at a press conference. Thats all about publicity.

I used to think anet didnt know what they were doing with wvw, and I sometimes still do. On the other hand ncsoft makes a ton of money from gw2. I doubt they would not know of some of the key issues that make wvw a worse off place. My assumption on this matter is that the shotcaller makes the decision to include as many different types of people as possible to maximize sales.

That and nothing else.

What is PPT? I’m very new to WvW and since you mentioned that a lot in your post, I feel like its something I should probably know… <:C

PPT is kinda important to gauge balance and activity in relationship to the other servers in the matchup, but not much beyond that. Coverage wars to try win PPT is lame. What the new map shows us is that ANet wants to divert the focus back to PPT instead of the current player created open field/fights/GvG fun in WvW.

They should’ve just introduced an open map with interesting open terrain with 3 camps and a single castle in the middle, with all siege disabled except flame rams, and made it “King of the Hill” mode in WvW with points snowballing the longer you own it. It would still be a numbers game, but at least the fights on the map would be kitten amazing :P

Reverence.6915:

PPT is kinda important to gauge balance and activity in relationship to the other servers in the matchup, but not much beyond that.

This is exactly right. The score cannot possibly be competitive for a variety of reasons, but the one big one that automatically disqualifies it is the fact that the game is free for all between 3 teams. What PPT can do, however, is measure coverage for matchmaking purposes. Playing for PPT is ridiculous because it throws off that measurement.

What I would like to see done in WvW is to make it focus more on the battles rather than just on the war. More reasons to engage in actual pvp combat instead of sitting around watching siege do all the work. More reason to fight on multiple fronts for actual macro-level strategy.

Well think about it for a sec what do you put as a goal in wvw right now there a 7 day cyclical that is base off of ppt that plays into who fight who. You need some type of system to pair worlds up or your just going to have rng and well that is far worst then using the system we have now.
If there is nothing to work for that week just kind of a “reset” to non what do you think that would do to players over all it would burn them out becuse they would be fighting for nothing. Even if you put in items to get at the end of that week your still going to have ppl who burn out becuse they simply have the items already and there no more point into pushing it.

What you guys call Anet not understanding wvw your realty talking about the RvR problem and the limitation of what you can coxes ppl into doing. You can not make ppl into taking a keep for no reason you cant make ppl def that keep for no reason you cant make ppl play when its best time for them to play. There countless things that you cant make ppl do that comply destroys the ideal of an RvR system.

I think you do not understand what wvw or even RvR means. Its easy to point out flaws and blame the game makers but sit down and realty think about these flaws and you will find that most of them are HUMAN flaws that no one can fix.

You can not make ppl run in small groups they are more then like to run in big groups becuse its safer and humans aim for the lowest risk. You cant make them open field back to the risk problem and its far better to hid behind walls even with out wvw weapons. I can go on and on but its pointless to point out every thing wrong with RvR just understand this is NOT just a GW2 problem you see this in all other RvR in the past and RvR games to run (that the real fear the pure RvR games are going to have these problems but many times worst).

Yes you may not like being push off a high places to fall to your death but it IS a counter to zergs you may not like environmental effects and weapons but they too are a counter to zergs.

The thing you must ask your self what do you do to counter human nature.

Other RvR games being bad isn’t an excuse for WvW being bad.

Coldtart.4785:

Other RvR games being bad isn’t an excuse for WvW being bad.

It is becuse its a shared problem. Over time RvR games run into time zone problems keeping population active of keep them pushing for goal. Trying to keep ppl from just blinkering up and never “leave home.” To keep ppl some what split up and not run as a super group.
Simply put these problems may not be fixable unless you can changes the players.

Reward people according to server performance relative to glicko predictions over 15 minute intervals. Not a perfect solution but I believe it’s better than what we have. It would also encourage players to still play even when they greatly outnumber their enemies or are outnumbered.

Coldtart.4785:

Reward people according to server performance relative to glicko predictions over 15 minute intervals. Not a perfect solution but I believe it’s better than what we have. It would also encourage players to still play even when they greatly outnumber their enemies or are outnumbered.

Ok… so make it into every one stacks on one world then? You need both a reward and a punishment. Right now glicko rewarded is holding your places or going up and the punishment is drooping your places. This is true for T2 atm becuse T2 is 4 worlds.

If you did your rewarded system you would have every one on FA becuse T1 is mostly full kind of a 2ed best rewards in the game. Just images the inflation too how crazy it would be the number of pve player chocking out wvw players from even going into wvw. It would not fix any type of k-tarn it would push it into high gear.

For pvp of any type to be good is not to just throw items at players and hope it keeps them playing pvp NEEDS to be about pvp alone. Some items are ok but to just flood items at pvp players (rvr etc..) is to make the game type into a do one thing wait 15 mins do another thing etc…

A real “fix” needs to be aimed at the players more then the game. This could be done with holding info from the players such as removing swords add more risk to ppl to not just throw them self at an objective over and over until it falls down such as ppk that and so off times are not as point rich as prime times. To fix zergs you need ways to brake them up such as very hard chokes that have super risk of instal death from such as falling off and means of removing mass amounts of fire power from big groups in one shot such as supple traps. To give ppl a “goal” over the long run of RvR you need to have real cost for losing and wining such as dropping world you fight (T1 realy needs to lose geko over time if they do not get any from a week over and over.)

Turk.5460:

What is PPT? I’m very new to WvW and since you mentioned that a lot in your post, I feel like its something I should probably know… <:C

PPT stands for Points Per Tick. When you take an object in WvW you only get points for it if you’re holding it when the clock timer reaches 0:00. The clock starts at 15 minutes and counts down, so if you’re holding 3 camps when the clock reaches 0:00 you get points for holding those 3 camps but let’s say you lose the camp at 1:00, you don’t get points.

To be honest, it’s a really silly system that should have been fixed a long time ago. I believe changing the scoring system would really alleviate the whole hopeless feeling of being outnumbered with population imbalance.

Turk.5460:

What is PPT? I’m very new to WvW and since you mentioned that a lot in your post, I feel like its something I should probably know… <:C

Points Per Tick.

Look at the top of your screen while in WvW to see it. Works on a 15min interval (tick).

There is bit a flaw in the design of it though. Since the points only add to the score at the end of the 15min, people will often ignore capture until the timer is low. You get a tower with less than 5min left and you are guaranteed to have it for the tick since RI will still be on the lord. In addition to this, sometimes there is no point defending. It’s better to let the opposing team take it and then just get it back later before the tick if the opposing team takes it early. While this offers strategy, I feel it really takes away from the essence of what WvW is about.

SM being 35 points, it shouldn’t award the full 35 points to whichever side has it at the end of the 15min, instead it should award point based on how long you have it for the 15min.

If you have it for the full 15min, you get the full 35 points. If you have it for only 5 min out of the 15, then 5 is 33% of 15 and so you will get ~11 to 12 points.

This would make defending what you have more important then letting the enemy take it just to take it later.

Jski.6180:

snip

Clearly there’s more than just what I said that would be needed to make the system work, but being on a server that’s already winning won’t benefit you because glicko already expects you to do just as well as you’re doing, so you can’t get the top tier reward for exceeding your expected score for the tick by whatever % it’s tuned to.

Your argument seems to come from a bad premise in the first place. Most transfers to top tier servers aren’t for the sake of coasting to easy wins. Most fights guilds especially don’t care at all which server wins each week as long as they get fights, which they get the most of in t1 and t2. The reason why people tend not to want to be on lower tier servers is due to there being too little activity.

I believe that the Devs at A-Net have played WvW and they are doing what they think is right for the vast majority of players, not catering to the “just for da fites” types that cry the loudest.

For the record, I like “Da fites”.

However, I will not make any judgement until I see it in play, and right now, I am so bored of what we have in WVW I welcome anything new.

So, you havent set a single foot on the map and already a doom scenario. Honestly i can not wait for a new map to fight on even when its all about siege etc. Let’s see how it plays out and then judge and whine and moan?

2 simple things to make PPT viable.
1. Reward PPT winners. Not just during tournaments but every week. Why are we even keeping score anyway??

2. Introduce a handicap scoring system based on historical performance. This will give lesser populated servers a fighting chance.

If anet knew what WvW was about they would have :

Limited server populations
Not separated NA and EU servers
Not ignored the players
Not infracted players for posting problems
Not banned players for posting problems
Not sneakily create a sticky thread telling people to stop necroing old posts
Actually done what they said they were going to do in said necro posts
Told us the truth
Not lied to us
Not continuously say they cannot talk about anything
Communicated with us in ways other than infractions
Listened to all WvW players not just the ones they like
Fixed bugs glitches and hacks
Not appointed someone with only 2 pages of posts, none of which were in the WvW forums, for forum specialist
Not allowed the free transfers to go on for so long
Made WvW achievements which made sense before release, 20 more years!
Have a TEAM of DEDICATED devs working on WvW, not one or two every now and again when they feel like throwing a carrot in front of us
and so on.

And there’ll be at least double that list somewhere I just cant remember everything.
Not forgetting we were also supposed to have a WvW CDI again, which was postponed and we’ve never heard about it since.

Wow talk about not understanding WvW. Separating NA and EU is bad? Seriously. Transfer to the other region and reduce your ping 10 fold if you think it is such a bad idea.

ignore player? Sure. Cause most of them list horrible ideas.

lied to you? If you say so. I feel they learned over time and adjusted accordingly. For example they changed to add an expansion at popular demand.

they didn’t infract poster for mentions problems. They did it for doing g so in toxic ways that violated the rules.

they do not talk about anything, because when they do, you misinterprete it. Then accuse them of dishonestly based on your misunderstanding, or you jump to irrational conclusions.

are you literally suggesting they never fixed a bug?

In my opinion, players who misunderstand WvW to this extent are what is actually problematic.

coglin.1867:

are you literally suggesting they never fixed a bug?

Yes there are still fireflies in water camp and mosquitoes near klovan, it is costing me a fortune in bug repellent!

The problem isn’t that Anet devs don’t understand wvw. They understand it perfectly well. They are the ones who develop it. The issue lies in the fact that how they want it played (centered around large scale siege warfare and ppt) and how many of us players choose to play it are at odds with one another.

If they wanted us to have open field, siege-less fights on a regular basis they’d build the mechanics into the game to make it meaningful. But they do not. They’ve chosen to center the entire wvw experience around siege and ppt. And for some unfathomable reason they seem to have decided eotm style maps are a huge success and that’s what we’re getting. What led them to that conclusion I’d be interested to hear but complaining about it isn’t going to stop the inclusion.

Many of us have been very vocal in complaining about wvw over the past couple of years. What has that accomplished? Absolutely nothing. This is how they want the game played. There’s really no point in coming here and arguing because they seem very set in their ways in this regard.

tldr- Get used to how wvw is because it isn’t going to change.

Anet gets it. The issue is that you are jaded by your community/server politics.

Example: 2600 years ago, people thought the world was flat. They didn’t believe this because there was factual scientific proof. They believed it because everyone believed it so much so, that the belief was handed down every generation to the next generation. They thought the world was flat.

You’re argument on PPT is based on what the people around you are saying. The fact is, is that the more “stuff” you hold, the higher the PPT. The higher the PPT, the larger your score grows. Last i checked, the highest score of the week was the “winner”. Thats the point victory.

Now, if you are complaining about the moral victory, where a server beats down another server so badly, the losing server fields less people the next week, then that is a community-driven issue that needs to be addressed by both ANet and your community. Regardless, I see no proof that this means ANet “doesn’t get it”.

Kanebrake.6192:

If they wanted us to have open field, siege-less fights on a regular basis they’d build the mechanics into the game to make it meaningful. But they do not. They’ve chosen to center the entire wvw experience around siege and ppt. And for some unfathomable reason they seem to have decided eotm style maps are a huge success and that’s what we’re getting. What led them to that conclusion I’d be interested to hear but complaining about it isn’t going to stop the inclusion.

Unfathomable? Have you seen how many versions of EotM maps spawned by the population filling it up. When you have 15 copies of the map spawned, and 100 forums posters complaining about it, it literally says 3,500 players are out doing it, and only 100 are complaining about it. Why wouldn’t you believe that it is a success?

Kanebrake.6192:

Many of us have been very vocal in complaining about wvw over the past couple of years. What has that accomplished? Absolutely nothing. This is how they want the game played. There’s really no point in coming here and arguing because they seem very set in their ways in this regard.

tldr- Get used to how wvw is because it isn’t going to change.

Accomplished nothing? It brought complete map changes. All water areas changed to a entire new mechanic of blood lust. WvW exclusive gear, although limited. New WvW maps coming in an expansion based on those being vocal. WvW exclusive traits to invest WvW rank points into. Siege disablers. The list goes on and on. Tossing extreme hyperbole in the form of unrealistic accusations is no reasonable way to get anyone to do you any favors.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Unfathomable? Have you seen how many versions of EotM maps spawned by the population filling it up. When you have 15 copies of the map spawned, and 100 forums posters complaining about it, it literally says 3,500 players are out doing it, and only 100 are complaining about it. Why wouldn’t you believe that it is a success?

Edge has many people playing because they are leveling and farming karma/badges. That’s it. That is the only thing it has going for it. Notice you almost never find regular wvw focused guilds running around there. Because people simply do not like playing on it.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Accomplished nothing? It brought complete map changes. All water areas changed to a entire new mechanic of blood lust. WvW exclusive gear, although limited. New WvW maps coming in an expansion based on those being vocal. WvW exclusive traits to invest WvW rank points into. Siege disablers. The list goes on and on. Tossing extreme hyperbole in the form of unrealistic accusations is no reasonable way to get anyone to do you any favors.

Yes, they’ve made changes. Has it made wvw better? Are there now more people playing it than ever before? I mean if you read these forums and other places online you can’t help but get the impression that the pve player base is growing exponentially. Which means the wvw base should be growing as well. Yes?

But it’s not. The population is in decline. Has been for a long time. Nothing they’ve done has staunched the bleed of wvw players and guilds. Notice how quickly so many left to go try wildstar and archeage? Sure they came back but the fact they left is a pretty good indication that people are looking for something better. If I were Anet I’d be wondering what I was doing wrong that makes people so quickly leave. I’d also be thankful that to this point nothing else has kept their attention. It’s not that GW2 WvW is great it’s that it’s less bad than the alternatives.

It’s my firm belief that the development team need to have at least one passionate, regular WvW player. I believe there may be a lack thereof which has led to our current status.

Svarty.8019:

It’s my firm belief that the development team need to have at least one passionate, regular WvW player. I believe there may be a lack thereof which has led to our current status.

I have been playing WvW on a near constant and daily basis for the past year and a half. It is only in the past month that I have seen an actual bona fide Anet rep running around in WvW. I do not believe for a second that I just happened to miss them all the times they were on (assuming they were experiencing all servers equally). It is nice to know that they are finally starting to play the game they created 2 years ago under the conditions the player base is experiencing. Whether its too late or not for them to reverse the damage of inattentiveness will not be known until after HoT releases.

DevilishLyx.2340:

If anet knew what WvW was about they would have :

Limited server populations
Not separated NA and EU servers
Not ignored the players
Not infracted players for posting problems
Not banned players for posting problems
Not sneakily create a sticky thread telling people to stop necroing old posts
Actually done what they said they were going to do in said necro posts
Told us the truth
Not lied to us
Not continuously say they cannot talk about anything
Communicated with us in ways other than infractions
Listened to all WvW players not just the ones they like
Fixed bugs glitches and hacks
Not appointed someone with only 2 pages of posts, none of which were in the WvW forums, for forum specialist
Not allowed the free transfers to go on for so long
Made WvW achievements which made sense before release, 20 more years!
Have a TEAM of DEDICATED devs working on WvW, not one or two every now and again when they feel like throwing a carrot in front of us
and so on.

And there’ll be at least double that list somewhere I just cant remember everything.
Not forgetting we were also supposed to have a WvW CDI again, which was postponed and we’ve never heard about it since.

If you were not honest player, you would not make that long list. I believe you. I do not agree arena net ignore problem will make thing better, i do not agree arena net pretend there is no problem will make thing better. Again i believe you are tell truth and i hope arena net fix old problem before add new thing to the game.

I believe if a company refuse to to work with customer; nothing will change for better but for worse. That is 1 rule for company success: Work with customer. If a company Fail 1 rule: company will fail.

I can use many example for company who do that but i will not embarrass them.

I can use other example; like in relationship- if you are in relationship and you only see I, than relationship will fail. No matter if you buy other partner gift and present, relationship will fail. That is what company and customer is: a relationship. if company believe give new thing for customer will save company+customer relationship: it will not: very simple!!

I think that is what you are talk about and i understand.

Also company+customer relationship is important because of teamwork. No teamwork, Nothing will work: it will not last.

Here i want to share

http://www.indiemade.com/resource/making-customers-happy-how-give-great-customer-service

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/honesty-important-business-22624.html

http://www.the-happy-manager.com/articles/why-is-teamwork-important/

DarkSyze.8627:

If you were not honest player, you would not make that long list. I believe you. I do not agree arena net ignore problem will make thing better, i do not agree arena net pretend there is no problem will make thing better. Again i believe you are tell truth and i hope arena net fix old problem before add new thing to the game.

I believe if a company refuse to to work with customer; nothing will change for better but for worse. That is 1 rule for company success: Work with customer. If a company Fail 1 rule: company will fail.

I can use many example for company who do that but i will not embarrass them.

I can use other example; like in relationship- if you are in relationship and you only see I, than relationship will fail. No matter if you buy other partner gift and present, relationship will fail. That is what company and customer is: a relationship. if company believe give new thing for customer will save company+customer relationship: it will not: very simple!!

I think that is what you are talk about and i understand.

All that an MBA program is was explained to me by my close friends who went through their respective programs and said it was just a bunch of relevant case studies with about two weeks of relevant finance stretched out to 2 years (can’t really charge that much for two weeks lol). Still, here’s a case study that parallels what is going on here and we can all relate to and learn from.

Three cell phone companies (two being named after fruits and another being a SK conglomerate) all make smart phones. But one thought it knew better than the customer and continued to make its small screen qwerty key board phones with obsolete hardware settings because “it worked in the past” and “we’re a big name so people will buy us no matter what”. And when loyal customers complained that its phones were not as functional and attractive as the competition, they were told that’s just how it is, get used to it, and its a more “secure” experience. Suffice to say, they’re basically bankrupt and looking for someone dumb enough to buy billions of dollars worth of debt. The other “fruit” phone company, which buried the competition, made a great cell phone, but the screen was too small for many people’s tastes. And it stayed small because the founder “liked a cell phone that fit his hand”. People started to go to the competition because while the other phones weren’t as pretty, they were bigger…exactly what the consumer wanted. And, over his dead body, they made the phones bigger, reclaimed their loyal fan base and then some, and are now the most profitable company in recorded human history.

Take home message of the case study and a not so subtle message to Anet: Take care of the consumer/customer and they will take care of you.

Alteros.3019:

Take home message of the case study and a not so subtle message to Anet: Take care of the consumer/customer and they will take care of you.

Unfortunately, there is no other company that makes WvW-type gameplay at the moment. Anet is like the qwerty company before the “fruit” company came onto the scene. So don’t expect any improvement to WvW for quite a while.

the flaw of PPT is that it only count at the final tick of the duration for the point, means server A could have hold structure X for a duration of 14 minutes, but server B can simply steal the points by capturing it just before the 15:00 tick.

they should pro-rate the point based on the time of holding per 15 minutes.

azizul.8469:

the flaw of PPT is that it only count at the final tick of the duration for the point, means server A could have hold structure X for a duration of 14 minutes, but server B can simply steal the points by capturing it just before the 15:00 tick.

they should pro-rate the point based on the time of holding per 15 minutes.

The main problem with that, is that it rewards the server outnumbering that can hold entire maps (T3 example). It will just give the dominating server even more points.

Alteros.3019:

Svarty.8019:

It’s my firm belief that the development team need to have at least one passionate, regular WvW player. I believe there may be a lack thereof which has led to our current status.

I have been playing WvW on a near constant and daily basis for the past year and a half. It is only in the past month that I have seen an actual bona fide Anet rep running around in WvW. I do not believe for a second that I just happened to miss them all the times they were on (assuming they were experiencing all servers equally). It is nice to know that they are finally starting to play the game they created 2 years ago under the conditions the player base is experiencing. Whether its too late or not for them to reverse the damage of inattentiveness will not be known until after HoT releases.

Although we all claim to know the problems and can suggest how to solve them, we need some “boots on the ground” to actually experience it first hand, to know and love what’s great about it and to understand our frustrations. I believe that empathy is what is required to even begin to understand what makes WvW great.

ANet had a very decent and intelligent WvW team which understood WvW very well. But unfortunately that team was moved to drawing skins for the gem store content some time ago. Also the awesome people who developed EoTM are now working in the art team drawings Scartlet all day.

agreed less siege and PPT more fights.

as i enjoy random ideas that i think up on the spot, how do you all think a bounty system would work? the more players you kill w/o dying the higher your bounty rating gets. the higher your bounty rating the more loot people get from killing you.

as a roamer something like that sounds fun.