Guild Wars 2

These days it’s nearly universally accepted by the WvW community that EoTM has not turned out to be the breath of fresh air we were hoping for to re-invigorate WvW. At best it’s a fun way to waste an hour or two between ‘proper’ WvW sessions. At worst, it’s a toxic PvD karma-train.

But why is it this way?
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I’m going to try and give a fair and balanced analysis here, and not just QQ.

Because, if you look at it without the benefit of hind-sight, on paper EoTM is quite a good idea which solves many of the problems players were complaining about this time last year.

No new maps. Queues out of control. Server populations meaning either nobody to play with or play against. Always the same opponents, no new challenges. Week-long matchups dominated by coverage rather than the skill of those participating.

EoTM in theory solves all these things. It’s a new map, which you never have to queue for, and can play while queuing for ‘main’ WvW. Although it’s not 100% guarunteed, you are much more likely to find both allies and opponents in EoTM at any time of day, than in the regular maps which have large empty periods. And the matchups are short enough to be played through in a single sitting, rather than committing to an entire week.

All good so far.
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So what’s the problem? Well, several reasons have been cited for why it isn’t working out.
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First, it doesn’t contribute to the ‘main’ WvW effort, the server rankings etc. However, this is precisely as it should be. Before EoTM was released, people were worried that having additional map instances would give servers with massive populations even more advantage over smaller populations, as they would be able to earn PPT with all their extra players, while the smaller server didn’t even have enough players to fill the main maps, let alone EoTM. So no impact on PPT was pretty much a requirement for EoTM.
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Second, the random instances, short matchups, and no long-term colour affiliation mean there is no “community spirit”. Nobody cares if you win or lose. You don’t feel a responsibility to do the best for your team and help each other out, because your team will very soon be gone, maybe never seen again.
However, is this not the same in sPvP? In soloQ and tPvP you are randomly matched up with people who you might never see again, and you are only allied with them for a few short minutes. Yet, in tPvP people feel an obligation to try and win the match and help their team.
So why does it work in PvP and not EoTM? Is it because there is no reward for winning an EoTM matchup, whereas winning in PvP awards rank points, leaderboard positions, and other rewards? But how could that be applied to EoTM without bringing back the original problem of population-imbalance meaning rewards are more about transferring to the right team, rather than actual skill and effort?
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Is the problem too much PvE/PvD? I think this is a factor, but I also think it’s only a minor one. We have PvE and PvD elements in ‘main’ WvW. We even have PvE elements in sPvP. I don’t think they dominate the map so much that it detracts from the PvP potential. It’s just another factor to consider when confronting your enemy. That said, it should be noted that the Righteous Indignation buff on vets/champs completely dictates the flow of the matchup. If there was no RI, just a diminishing return on loot for killing the champ, would that change things?
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The champ/event rewards (xp/karma/bags) are too high when compared to other parts of the game? This is definitely a real factor. EoTM has become one of, maybe even the most popular way to level up alts. Toning these rewards down would certainly mean we see less karma-training in EoTM. But would removing the XP/Karma train entice the WvW/PvP crowd to return to EoTM? Or is the presence of the train a completely separate issue which has no bearing on PvP?

Continued…

One of the big gripes is Cliffs, Cannons, and annoying buffs (Cold, Overgrowth-regen, Kodan-armour). Cliffs and bridges do bring some interest to a map, but IMO there are way way too many of them. So many chokes reduce nearly all fights to “meat-grinder forward”. There is little room for flanking manoeuvres or feigning retreats, no room for backline to kite melee. The few open spaces are covered by those atrocious, obnoxious cannons, which not only fire by themselves, but also repair themselves. Just….. urgh.
However, that feels like nit-picking. We’re happy enough to throw ourselves into the meat-grinder of garrison-watergate or SM lord-room for the sake of the server, so the fact that the terrain of EoTM isn’t great can’t really explain why the map is shunned.

Is the reality now that EoTM is an unnecessary map? The days of 2+ hour queues we saw in Season 1 are long gone. Even in Tier 1, a queue longer than 20 people is a rare sight. Is there no longer even enough PvP population left to populate EoTM? If EoTM were adjusted to be more PvP-friendly and rewarding to tactical-play, and if all the farmers/trains were removed, would the result be large-scale PvP in EoTM, or would the result be an empty map?

Just…. thinking out loud, to see if there is anything here that can be salvaged for our dying game-mode, and trying to be constructive rather than whining.

Ragnar.4257:

If EoTM were adjusted to be more PvP-friendly and rewarding to tactical-play, and if all the farmers/trains were removed, would the result be large-scale PvP in EoTM, or would the result be an empty map?

Empty map. All the people who play wvw purely for the fights are busy fighting each other in real wvw and don’t want to play in the cramped, awful eotm landscape. All the people who play for capturing and defending points don’t want to play on an imbalanced map where there is zero incentive to capture and hold something.

Just as you say, the terrain and the long distances you have to run in-between with all the cliffs, NPC’s and traps, make it a map I don’t really enjoy.

It’s not a WvW map with a good balance or flow to it, hence why it is mainly a Karma train map IMO, so if you want good fights that makes use of strategical advantages – I’d rather spend my time in WvW on the Borderlands.

Well flow probably isn’t that good when blue and green can’t even get out of spawn.

EotM has nothing to do with WvW. It’s a Queensdale train and fast level up tool wrapped into one. If they nerfed the champs to give one box per day, EotM would be a desolate wasteland.

A nice start would be removing WXP gain from EotM. Used to be that fighting someone with a high rank meant that you were facing an experienced opponent. Now, when I watch from a distance as a Silver rank Guardian stands in front of one of my phantasms, spamming his staff auto to kill it, I don’t need to ponder where all those rank points were accumulated.

In my PvE guild, EotM is frequently recommended to new players as a way to level up a character fast. That, and loot farming, is all it is used for. I guess it’s useful for Arenanet because it falsely bolsters the numbers; you have loads of PvErs pretending to play WvW, so you can look at server stats and say the WvW community isn’t writhing crippled in its death throes.

I’m not sure what, if anything, you can do to salvage that particular map, beyond the obvious reward nerfs that ANet is never going to make.

All of the above.

Everything you named is why EOTM falls short. And all of it together at the same time is even worse.

Solution:

1. Fill in all the holes that you fall through – including space between bridges.
2. Remove the NPCs and extra siege and stuff.
3. Make the Red Keep not have all those destructible walls.
4. Plop it in WvW proper in place of the Borderlands or Eternal one week and see what happens.

Even if you couldn’t fall of the edges, it would still be a terrible map in wvw during seasons or whenever people actually care to win. Whoever designed the map obviously didn’t know there were things called superior ACs in this game. Green keep has 3 floors of platforms to build a dozen ACs in, and blue keep has narrow walkways and bridges you have to go through.

EoTM was a fix meant for overflow issues, which servers were having. They added the “Supply drop” just to make the winning team feel special and accomplished. :-)

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Just as you say, the terrain and the long distances you have to run in-between with all the cliffs, NPC’s and traps, make it a map I don’t really enjoy.

It’s not a WvW map with a good balance or flow to it, hence why it is mainly a Karma train map IMO, so if you want good fights that makes use of strategical advantages – I’d rather spend my time in WvW on the Borderlands.

Agree with this sentiment and others like it above.

Putting the scorps next to the red keep and creating a giant choke point/kill box at blue keep is a design disaster.

• Playing with anonymous people (basically megaserver) means no community, which means no one cares about winning or losing.
• Map is too busy. Basically a giant version of the reviled skyhammer.

Second, the random instances, short matchups, and no long-term colour affiliation mean there is no “community spirit”. Nobody cares if you win or lose. You don’t feel a responsibility to do the best for your team and help each other out, because your team will very soon be gone, maybe never seen again.
However, is this not the same in sPvP? In soloQ and tPvP you are randomly matched up with people who you might never see again, and you are only allied with them for a few short minutes. Yet, in tPvP people feel an obligation to try and win the match and help their team.
So why does it work in PvP and not EoTM? Is it because there is no reward for winning an EoTM matchup, whereas winning in PvP awards rank points, leaderboard positions, and other rewards? But how could that be applied to EoTM without bringing back the original problem of population-imbalance meaning rewards are more about transferring to the right team, rather than actual skill and effort?

Well, pvp is designed to be more competitive. At least when I play it, I seek to defeat the other team and/or improve my skill. Chances are you are more likely to encounter someone in it that also shares such an attitude and perhaps you could friend them and work on getting better. Rarely are you going to find a friend that wants to work on karma training harder. So it gets taken a bit more seriously than wvw. The nature of wvw is more uneven, and I view it as a more casual activity where you hang out with your server mates and work together to get stuff done.

So when it comes to EOTM, winning or losing has no real value to me. We’re just here to train. In fact, it’s more efficient for everyone to avoid each other and maybe blob into each other at the very end just for kicks. Victory is often decided by who has the larger train, and I guess one could improve by doing it faster, but it’s not particularly engaging. So yes, while karma training occurs in wvw, at least there are familiar faces where you can have better conversations with while you continue to press 1.

The terrain to EOTM doesn’t help either. It’s too large, filled with narrow passageways.

In the end, it carries no long lasting effects. At least in wvw you can have rivalries between servers. But nobody cares about the rivalry between frostreach and overgrowth because it keeps changing. In PvP you can brag about skill. And so no amount of rewards will change this. In fact, the better rewards of EOTM compared to wvw make it even less likely to be taken seriously— it’s more of a glorified pve than anything else now. This is just your stop to level uplevels and collect funds to do something else. I don’t think it’s really a bad thing since the ex-queensdale folks need a place to congregate casually, but it certainly feels lacking.

Also, it really sucks to zone into an empty map. That seems to happen a lot as blue. Or maybe red. I can’t be bothered to care.

EoTM is a wonderful place. It’s full of fantastically skilled players and doesn’t fall short in any respect at all- it has something for everyone.

People seems to care lot about winning/losing in EotM. Map chat rage is huge when zerg lose fight and won’t get dragonite or loot.

1. The map is “pretty” but as someone who is more about good fights, its a disaster, its a web of way too many choke points, platforms riddled with LoS and fall damage issues and cheesy NPC interference (those ridiculous auto turrets, movement decrease buff etc). Even for those who want to play the siege aspect of the mode, it’s horrible.

2. If this was attractive to guild groups, I’d go more often since it meant fighting organized forces with other organized forces. It would be the same thing as we do now on classic maps since we hang in our own TS channel and pm/map chat whatever info is relevant. Some of those people end up on your friendslist and the following week you can send them pms, “hey we’re in eotm, get in here” or “you’re going down <3” depending on the colors. Things would stay fresher, longer, at least for me.

the Players ruined EotM simple as that, the chokes are great the cliffs are great I can’t wait till this is wvw for realz, so many ways to mess with zergs it’s insane.

EotM has no point.

Most of the people I see there are uplevels, and as a Wvw Player, I use it to level alts as craft leveling became too expensive and it at least is sort of like WvW. I can only assume the 80s I see there would have been part of the PVE queensdale train.

For me, there’s two main factors that prevent EotM from being taken seriously:

1. Rewards for defending are still woefully inadequate. This fact, coupled with the fact that it’s far more profitable to karma train, means that nobody really bothers trying to defend in EotM. Everybody just joins a round robin train where people just cap undefended points. On the rare occasion when a server does defend, usually the attackers just give up and go elsewhere rather than fight.

2. Victory in EotM has an inconsequential effect on your main server. It gives you a small boost in supply, but I’ve never seen this supply actually be enough to turn the tide of a battle. If the scores in EotM were added to each server’s individual score, or if victory in EotM gave a more substantial boost like increased stats, then players might be more concerned with winning.

Too Long Didn’t Read

1. Too unbalanced for actual matchups. Green always has the advantage.
2. Maps doesn’t lend itself to fights. There are only a few spots where larger groups can fight.
3. Vertical aspect. The map lends itself more to running away from fights
4. Focus on NPCs. If I want to fight NPCs I can do that in PvE. That’s why this map is more PvE than WvW.

To sum: EotM is a PvE map where you can kill people.

I think EotM could be turned into a really good fight map, if a mayor fault that also exist in WvW would be solved:

only conquest is rewarding! defense is not

E.g. the champ only drops if you kill him, why doesn’t he drop a chest for anyone in the objective at the end of every successful defense event?

The big problem with EotM is that rewards are tied to capping stuff and not actually winning the match. Give people some achievements (30-45min worth) to do per match, so as to weight the minimum participation needed and have people commit to an instance. Then all winners then can just be mailed the rewards if their color wins.

As they presented the new map as a place to fight while waiting in queue, I was pretty exited. It came out, I never enter EotM while I am in queue for the real WvW-maps. I only enter the map when I want to level a twink.

The reason is: There is only PvD/PvE in EotM. No epic battles, only karmatrain, no defense. A few times there are commanders that defend and search for fights, then it is really fun. But these are only few.
Also the map is way too imbalanced. The overgrowth-buff is just a joke.

You mentioned already good points on why EotM is, what it is right now.

In my opinion These two major things must happen so that EotM is a cool place to fight:
1. Rewards for defending! As Dayra said, why not let the Lord of a Tower/Keep drop a chest for the guys that defended the objective? Also do that in real WvW.
2. Personal rewards for winning a matchup, as roamzero said. Nothing that effects real WvW but something like a chest with blueprints and stuff in it.

Imagine how much fun EotM would be if Anet realized those things. I like the map, there could be really really cool fights and sieges.

PS: The WXP-earns shouldn’t be that high in EotM, IMO. msalakka said why.

Lord Kuru.3685:

• Playing with anonymous people (basically megaserver) means no community, which means no one cares about winning or losing.

this, this, and this some more. the cool thing about wvw is the community that is built from it. Server pride comes in and you band together with your server mates for the battle. I love jumping into wvw and seeing the familiar faces. Hop on server TS and fight for the matchup that week. It’s even more so during seasons (at least for me, i play the ppt game about half the time, makes it somewhat interesting). They can fix every single problem mentioned above in the other posts, but the fact is everyone still wouldn’t care. If they ever bring Megaservers to the core WvW game, well that will be my cue to leave the game.

UrMom.4205:

Lord Kuru.3685:

• Playing with anonymous people (basically megaserver) means no community, which means no one cares about winning or losing.

this, this, and this some more. the cool thing about wvw is the community that is built from it. Server pride comes in and you band together with your server mates for the battle. I love jumping into wvw and seeing the familiar faces. Hop on server TS and fight for the matchup that week. It’s even more so during seasons (at least for me, i play the ppt game about half the time, makes it somewhat interesting). They can fix every single problem mentioned above in the other posts, but the fact is everyone still wouldn’t care. If they ever bring Megaservers to the core WvW game, well that will be my cue to leave the game.

Okay,

But then why do people still try to win in tPvP ? There’s no server-pride there.

Why do people make an effort for their group in a dungeon run? There’s no server-pride there.

Could the reasons people still make an effort in those scenarios, be translated into the ‘meaningless’ framework of WvW?

Where I think EOTM falls short: The decision to make it an overflow map.
The map was clearly designed to be a permanent map that goes with the other wvw maps in normal competition. The decision to turn it into an overflow map feels like it was a last minute decision. Why enter such an awesome map just to be in queue for the regular competition maps?

The overflow map decision also caused anet to instead have server based sided to have color based sides. This makes it difficult to do any kind of coordination outside of simple zerg karma trains. You’re not talking to your server. You’re not using your server’s voice comms. You’re using the chat because half your allies are from a different server.

Lastly because it is an overflow map there is no reason for normal competition to spill into it. All you get for winning a match is 400 supply dropped into your citadel on your home BL. For the winning server this means nothing, their keeps are all supply capped at 1700. For a losing server… well you won’t win in eotm if you can’t win in normal matchups and that 400 supply won’t get you very far. The incentive is not strong enough to compete on that map for real. This leaves it to turn into a karma train like Queensdale before the boss nerf.

I don’t know about anyone else but repetitively killing bosses for loot is not a game to me. There is no skill involved in it. I log in to be challenged. If I wanted to just mindlessly farm i’d play Farmville. That “game” is designed for that. GW2 is better than that.

well I’m more in eotm now then wvw when you’re out number way too much of the time and eotm is good for karma and wvw exp.

I know how to fix www and end this pvd crap
-caping camp 5s
-caping tower 25s
-caping keep 50s
Reward will increase with tier of object and there should be rewards for defending object

If the keep cap is going to take 50 seconds they’ll have to remove warrior banner rezzing

Ragnar.4257:

But then why do people still try to win in tPvP ? There’s no server-pride there.

Why do people make an effort for their group in a dungeon run? There’s no server-pride there.

Could the reasons people still make an effort in those scenarios, be translated into the ‘meaningless’ framework of WvW?

Rewards are the biggest factor in both, and it is also why people make an effort not to fight each other in EotM.

They are also small enough that you know your personal contribution will be enough to decide the outcome of the run.

In addition tPvP guarantees balance from a numbers standpoint.

WvW and EotM lack the above, although WvW has server pride to play for and EotM has decent rewards if you avoid fighting.

If you want to stop EotM being a karma train, and improve participation in WvW in general, the issue is the rewards from both… specifically that the rewards are bad across the board compared to dungeon speed clearing, and what rewards that exist are skewed completely towards rapidly flipping as may objectives as possible.

Arenanet’s biggest design issue since game start has been consistently awful time/effort vs reward calculations in all parts of the game. Going into detail on this would require a very large post on its own, so I’ll only deal with WvW here.

WvW’s single greatest problem as a format is that the economy was set up to mirror a modern civilian/miltary relationship instead of a feudal one. Doing WvW is a lousy way to make money, and playing PPT defense is actually a NEGATIVE income. (Upgrades and sup siege cost money yo, and you don’t make anything at all sitting in a keep/tower scouting and refreshing siege).

Want an easy, fast, low programming resources required way to fix WvW/EotM in one set of small changes?

If a guild has a tower or keep claimed on a map, every member of that guild on that map will get an automatic gold reward every PPT tick = 50 silver for every upgrade and guild WvW buff active. The guild itself gets the same amount added to the guild bank. Those guild WvW buffs become unlimited range and apply throughout the game except spvp. Add 2 new WvW guild buffs: +10% gold find and +50% WvW experience earned. The WvW status map would be upgraded to show the claiming guild’s banner and name. To reduce the chance of “claim-griefing” a minimum claim requirement can be put in place… something like 5 active members within the last 24 hours for a tower or 10 for a keep, activity being defined by an amount of achievement points earned which a bot could not get.

To balance this out, on the offensive side attackers get a guaranteed rare added to the capture reward for every completed upgrade. Yes, that means a fully upgraded tower or keep will award 12 guaranteed rares upon capture.

As a further incentive towards the PPT side, change the weekly bonus chest award to a system that makes each week a ‘mini tourney’… each week will have a series of WvW achievements available that contribute to a meta achievement. You’ll be able to partially complete the meta in EotM, so if you are stuck in queue for regular WvW you won’t be hosed.

Suggested is 10 3 tiered achievements rewarding 1/2/3 achievement points per tier, with the achievement goals reflecting what a dedicated WvWer could reasonably do given 2-3 hours play every day in an environment where every major objective will actually be fought over. The meta achievement reward would be something like 50 g + some random items for 1st place, 20 g + some random items for 2nd, 10 g + some random items for 3rd. It would also be nice if there was a set of WvW armor similar to the tourney reward weapons that you would have a random chance to get a piece of from each week’s meta chest… odds of getting one piece being better depending on your placement but not low enough that some poor schmuck stuck perpetually in 3rd place wouldn’t have a good chance of getting a full set in one year of completing the meta every week.

Putting the above suggested changes in place as a package would completely change the current dynamics of WvW and servers. It sets up a “push-pull” performance related reward system based on server/guild/player organization, skill and activity. It also provides a huge incentive to destack, because every WvW guild will want to have a claimed fortification.

In addition: expand the leaderboards in the following ways:

For guilds keep track of #ticks of objective claim, average level of upgrades achieved, total player-kills gained by guild members, and total WXP earned.

For players have # of successful captures, # of successful defenses, Player kills, WXP earned, and PK/death ratio.

EotM, as a map, is fine for combat. You’ll find thread after thread on these boards asking for changes to the regular WvW maps which are in place in EotM. If you’re having a hard time dealing with fighting in EotM, it really is a “learn 2 play” issue.

well said Vercinorix.3021.

I agree with Vercinorix , great idea !

Vercinorix.3021:

WvW’s single greatest problem as a format is that the economy was set up to mirror a modern civilian/miltary relationship instead of a feudal one.

I beg to differ. The feudal system is there, just not in the direct rewards. At the same time, PPT is expensive, and more often than not people don’t pay for it enough. It ends up falling upon the individuals that care about something other than the rewards offered to us currently.
EotM is broken, and so are the rewards. It’s not about the rewards though. The challenge contributes to the fun, but to a point.

Vercinorix.3021:

If a guild has a tower or keep claimed on a map, every member of that guild on that map will get an automatic gold reward every PPT tick = 50 silver for every upgrade and guild WvW buff active. The guild itself gets the same amount added to the guild bank. Those guild WvW buffs become unlimited range and apply throughout the game except spvp. Add 2 new WvW guild buffs: +10% gold find and +50% WvW experience earned. The WvW status map would be upgraded to show the claiming guild’s banner and name. To reduce the chance of “claim-griefing” a minimum claim requirement can be put in place… something like 5 active members within the last 24 hours for a tower or 10 for a keep, activity being defined by an amount of achievement points earned which a bot could not get.

No, this wouldn’t work. Not only we would have guilds claiming everything on all maps without buffs, as well excluding and denying the chance for small guilds to make a contribution to WvW by granting their own buffs.

Besides that, the +50% of World Experience is way too much. Not even the outmanned buff gives that much, current +25%. We also have the WXP booster, which you have to buy with gems from TP, that gives the same +50% buff. Anet won’t give guilds something that might hurt their market directly; And the 10% of gold find is already available for guilds through banners: Guild Gold and Magic Find Banner and Guild Heroes Banner. With guild banner, guild buff plus account bonus given from achievements, again it is way too much.
Example:
Guild Banner: +10% of gold from kills
Guild Buff: +10% of gold from kills
Achievements: + 3% of gold from kills
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Total: + 23% of gold from kills

With that kind of booster, I am sure people will go back to the old PvD in WvW again, killing every NPC and creeps for the gold. Not to mention the ones doing in EoTM would be very happy that their farm will become more effective.

In my opinion the issue with WvW is not lack of rewards, but being a gold sink with the amount of gold you need to spend to upgrade structures. There a lot of upgrades and each one is expensive on their own way. I’d suggest to lower the costs of upgrades and include karma to make up for it, but of course, nothing exaggerated. Something a casual player is able to afford since, let’s face it, Guild Wars 2 is a game for casual players.

azyume.6321:

Vercinorix.3021:

If a guild has a tower or keep claimed on a map, every member of that guild on that map will get an automatic gold reward every PPT tick = 50 silver for every upgrade and guild WvW buff active. The guild itself gets the same amount added to the guild bank. Those guild WvW buffs become unlimited range and apply throughout the game except spvp. Add 2 new WvW guild buffs: +10% gold find and +50% WvW experience earned. The WvW status map would be upgraded to show the claiming guild’s banner and name. To reduce the chance of “claim-griefing” a minimum claim requirement can be put in place… something like 5 active members within the last 24 hours for a tower or 10 for a keep, activity being defined by an amount of achievement points earned which a bot could not get.

No, this wouldn’t work. Not only we would have guilds claiming everything on all maps without buffs, as well excluding and denying the chance for small guilds to make a contribution to WvW by granting their own buffs.

Besides that, the +50% of World Experience is way too much. Not even the outmanned buff gives that much, current +25%. We also have the WXP booster, which you have to buy with gems from TP, that gives the same +50% buff. Anet won’t give guilds something that might hurt their market directly; And the 10% of gold find is already available for guilds through banners: Guild Gold and Magic Find Banner and Guild Heroes Banner. With guild banner, guild buff plus account bonus given from achievements, again it is way too much.
Example:
Guild Banner: +10% of gold from kills
Guild Buff: +10% of gold from kills
Achievements: + 3% of gold from kills
———————————————————-
Total: + 23% of gold from kills

With that kind of booster, I am sure people will go back to the old PvD in WvW again, killing every NPC and creeps for the gold. Not to mention the ones doing in EoTM would be very happy that their farm will become more effective.

In my opinion the issue with WvW is not lack of rewards, but being a gold sink with the amount of gold you need to spend to upgrade structures. There a lot of upgrades and each one is expensive on their own way. I’d suggest to lower the costs of upgrades and include karma to make up for it, but of course, nothing exaggerated. Something a casual player is able to afford since, let’s face it, Guild Wars 2 is a game for casual players.

You make the term ‘casual player’ a dirty word like the term ‘liberal’ in politics. I just find it condescending and annoying.

WvW could have more clearly defined goals but then people would complain. You will never get the zerg mechanics out of the game since it is used so profusely in PvE for World Bosses and Champs.

I do wish there were more choke points were a small group could hold off a zerg – as that would have a big impact on the matches.

Hmm so agree that is a casual game, which anet made sure to stamp everywhere to attract more players is bad? Easier to accept that fact than just ignore. I am doing nothing to the term, I just made a statement. You saw it the way you wanted and got offended over nothing. It is a casual game with a good chunk of casual players, the maps, the events, the world and the Living Season are a good proof of that. But that doesn’t add anything relevant to the threat, isn’t about that it is about EoTM and WvW.

One way to try to balance things out would be to reduce a bit the offensive reward and make the defense the same one, although it is way more complicated than just that and can be easily exploited, even with bots, probably one of the reasons anet never implemented.

Vercinorix.3021:

If a guild has a tower or keep claimed on a map, every member of that guild on that map will get an automatic gold reward every PPT tick = 50 silver for every upgrade and guild WvW buff active. The guild itself gets the same amount added to the guild bank. Those guild WvW buffs become unlimited range and apply throughout the game except spvp. Add 2 new WvW guild buffs: +10% gold find and +50% WvW experience earned. The WvW status map would be upgraded to show the claiming guild’s banner and name. To reduce the chance of “claim-griefing” a minimum claim requirement can be put in place… something like 5 active members within the last 24 hours for a tower or 10 for a keep, activity being defined by an amount of achievement points earned which a bot could not get.

To balance this out, on the offensive side attackers get a guaranteed rare added to the capture reward for every completed upgrade. Yes, that means a fully upgraded tower or keep will award 12 guaranteed rares upon capture.

So you’re saying that for every siege and guild buff active in a keep or tower that said members get 50 silver? Just for one tower/keep? WvW would go from being one of the least profitable game modes to the absolute most. Dedicated WvW players with even 1 tower or keep would rake in hundreds of gold every week. Just for one tower!

What would stop me from claiming a tower or keep then mass building siege to increase my own gains? The potential for exploit is enormous. If you want to lower the coin amount and reduce the amount of things that increase the coin gain, then it would be fine.

The following would work better with your example without being broken, “For every tower or keep that is claimed by a guild, said members receive 3 silver for a tower, 5 silver for a keep, and 15 silver for SMC every PPT tick. For every guild bonus in a claimed tower or keep the amount of silver increase is 1. Max 1 tower, 1 keep per WvW map. Members of a guild with towers/keeps claimed among different WvW maps will only experience the money gains from their current map (EX. Member of guild X only gains coins from the map he is currently on even though his guild has claimed forts in the other 3 maps.)”

For offense, instead of the 12 rares, do something like this: “Capturing a tower rewards 5 silver as a base amount, this is increased in increments of 2 per active upgrade in the enemy tower. Capturing a keep rewards a base 10 silver as a base amount, this is increased in increments of 3 per active upgrade; if the keep has an active waypoint inside, an extra reward of 15 silver is given.” SMC could be similar but it rarely is upgraded far before it flips.

ShadowStep.3640:

Vercinorix.3021:

…

So you’re saying that for every siege and guild buff active in a keep or tower that said members get 50 silver? Just for one tower/keep? WvW would go from being one of the least profitable game modes to the absolute most. Dedicated WvW players with even 1 tower or keep would rake in hundreds of gold every week. Just for one tower!

What would stop me from claiming a tower or keep then mass building siege to increase my own gains? The potential for exploit is enormous. If you want to lower the coin amount and reduce the amount of things that increase the coin gain, then it would be fine.

The following would work better with your example without being broken, “For every tower or keep that is claimed by a guild, said members receive 3 silver for a tower, 5 silver for a keep, and 15 silver for SMC every PPT tick. For every guild bonus in a claimed tower or keep the amount of silver increase is 1. Max 1 tower, 1 keep per WvW map. Members of a guild with towers/keeps claimed among different WvW maps will only experience the money gains from their current map (EX. Member of guild X only gains coins from the map he is currently on even though his guild has claimed forts in the other 3 maps.)”

For offense, instead of the 12 rares, do something like this: “Capturing a tower rewards 5 silver as a base amount, this is increased in increments of 2 per active upgrade in the enemy tower. Capturing a keep rewards a base 10 silver as a base amount, this is increased in increments of 3 per active upgrade; if the keep has an active waypoint inside, an extra reward of 15 silver is given.” SMC could be similar but it rarely is upgraded far before it flips.

Please read what I said carefully. Only fortress upgrades and WvW buffs would provide income. Players would want to place siege to protect their base, but that would be an expense which is also limited by the siege cap.

Yes, making WvW potentially THE single most profitable way to play Guild Wars 2 is very much the intent. Considering that WvW requires the highest time commitment, the most coordination between players, has the greatest costs, and involves beating other players determined to defeat you WvW SHOULD have the highest potential rewards. Please note though that my suggestion’s rewards structure is VERY MUCH performance based.

Assuming that both of my suggested new guild WvW buffs are implemented, and that a guild can pop ALL of them, initial revenue would be 6 g per hour. Everything else after that would depend on A) how successful your guild is at holding the fortification,
how successful you are at upgrading said fortification, C) how well your guild does on the rest of the battlefield.

To put this in perspective, 6 g per hour is about what you can expect to earn running a full-bore non combat karma train in EotM with MF booster, omnom bars, karma booster, WvW booster and Birthday booster active; converting all karma gained to cash via linen salvaging. 6 g per hour also doesn’t even come close to what you get when speed running dungeons with nothing but guild buffs active.

I’m sorry, but your suggested rewards are too weak to achieve the desired results. Let me again offer an example to put things in perspective. An average dungeon speed clearing group can do AC all paths, CM all paths, TA U/F, SE 1/3 and CoF1/2 without too much effort in 2 hours. Doing that will give you ~19.5 gold cash, ~800 dungeon tokens, 36 champ bags, 32 ground chests, 240 emp frags, and roughly 10-11 skill points plus whatever random drops you pick up on the way. That works out pretty easily to 15+ g an hour, minimum. It gets better if you’re actually really good at it. The only thing you need to do this is have 5 people who know the dungeon speed run paths, know the encounters, and are geared properly. People who are interested can start doing this like clockwork roughly 1-2 weeks after buying the game. It also can get pretty boring because there is little challenge and it is so predictable.

(continued next post)

Why is all this important?

Consider what are the common complaints about WvW: matchup outcome determined mostly by coverage, lack of reward in general, existing rewards skewed massively towards offense, rewards being negative for people doing PPT critical activities such as scouting, upgrading, placing and maintaining defensive siege., lack of recognition towards guilds and individuals.

My suggestions offer a low cost way to fix all of these issues.

You might ask: how does this fix coverage? During week 1 of WvW season 1 my server had all 4 maps queued 24/7. This had never, ever happened before. Turnout was larger than normal on week 2 as well but dropped to normal turnout by week 3. Normal being some queues at NA prime, outnumbered buff on 3 out of 4 maps at all other times.

Where did this huge influx of players come from? Not from spvp, world bosses, general world pop… those activites had very sparse numbers for a very long time. The only possible place they could have been hiding was dungeons and fractals. They came out to do the Season Meta, then went right back to dungeons.

This is proof positive that the vast majority of this game’s player base is rewards-driven. Only difference being who wants to exert what degree of effort for specific reward levels.

They killed the QD train and people want to go somewhere to fast level their alts without spending money on crafting.

eotm to hard for wvw players – they fall down cliffs all day

hannah mee.7925:

They killed the QD train and people want to go somewhere to fast level their alts without spending money on crafting.

Well, just remember it is a PvP map and if someone wants to PvP on that map and they kill you because of it. Don’t fault that player, fault your own decision for going to a PvP to mindlessly zerg.

People should PvP more in EotM as it would make it less farmy and more what it is supposed to be, a step between full blown WvW and PvE, not a farming map.

I think at the time when Anet started to build the map guilds were a lot smaller. There was time when a group of 15 players would be a blob and 20+ a zerg. Time passed, mother blobs starter to appear alongside with the buffed ACs & traits, guild groups grew bigger because Anet didn’t bring anything for the smaller groups. All the updates have been feeding and rewarding blobs while making the life of roamers/havoc groups more miserable, thus guilds had to recruit even more people to be able to compete. When EotM finally came out it was too small for the guilds that had grown so big.

On the other hand the terrain, the chokepoints, cliffs and bumpy hills is amazing small scale heaven, a perfect map where one could escape dead/blowout matchups but sadly as it is, Anet didn’t address the very same problem that is haunting wubwub today. PvD & blobbing is more rewarding than breaking the group into smaller groups so there is nothing else but 3 zoneblobs to be found in this map. Not to mention the turrets and all the silly NPCs on top of that. I have to admit I’m quite fond of the sentry turrets tho. Makes it so much easier to find people (The poor leftovers trying to reach the blobbery!).

Sorry Verc, but making rewards guild based is a recipe for disaster. Just imagine the fall out from claiming a tower with a small guild and then sieging it up, then sitting in it all day semi-afk. Would a big guild come to defend it, or would they think ‘let it flip, then we can claim it for ourselves’. People would end up either trying to join the biggest guilds or feeling left out if their guild doesn’t manage to claim anything or isn’t big enough to qualify under your rules. People would also just not bother to defend some other guild’s claim.

Your system does have some good ideas though- but trying to make it balance so that it just doesn’t reward the guild that can claim fastest is beyond me. If you made it map wide then people would just afk camp the map and you would have endless queues, as well as very few defending anything as most wouldn’t be active.

It’s very hard to come up with a solution that isn’t easy to exploit or favours one particular group at the expense of all others.

Baldrick.8967:

Sorry Verc, but making rewards guild based is a recipe for disaster. Just imagine the fall out from claiming a tower with a small guild and then sieging it up, then sitting in it all day semi-afk. Would a big guild come to defend it, or would they think ‘let it flip, then we can claim it for ourselves’. People would end up either trying to join the biggest guilds or feeling left out if their guild doesn’t manage to claim anything or isn’t big enough to qualify under your rules. People would also just not bother to defend some other guild’s claim.

Your system does have some good ideas though- but trying to make it balance so that it just doesn’t reward the guild that can claim fastest is beyond me. If you made it map wide then people would just afk camp the map and you would have endless queues, as well as very few defending anything as most wouldn’t be active.

It’s very hard to come up with a solution that isn’t easy to exploit or favours one particular group at the expense of all others.

This is so true and that is why it is taking so long for A.Net to implement something. Balance is important.

Vercinorix.3021:

EotM, as a map, is fine for combat. You’ll find thread after thread on these boards asking for changes to the regular WvW maps which are in place in EotM. If you’re having a hard time dealing with fighting in EotM, it really is a “learn 2 play” issue.

What? No. Keep EotM junk out of WvW. We do not need more PvE in WvW.

The reality is that EotM is not balanced. Even if you took out all rewards, it would still be heavily favored for green.

Apocalypse.5239:

well said Vercinorix.3021.

varcinox is full of it… i love my green and 5c for fliping wp garri!!!