Guild Wars 2

WALL OF TEXT ALERT

So this is a question that has a million answers depending on who you ask but in one way or another I think all people can agree that post-HoT WvW feels bad compared to pre-HoT, this is coming from someone that still enjoys WvW. Thinking about it for a while, I think I have been able to work out some of my feelings about WvW and I’m going to try and express my thoughts on what I’m going to call keep fights.

The Ideal Win/Loss Ratio

I believe that a group winning 100% of fights is going to create a negative outcome for all sides, firstly for the losing side because they will not enjoy the game. I’ve seen many guilds quit because they were on the losing side for too long, including my own, and a lot of these people blame matchmaking or population imbalance for the state of the game. After these people quit the winning groups are left with no one to fight, a common complaint comes up: Unchallenging fights can be as bad as no fights.

I saw a video online: a psychologist talking about young rats play fighting. The larger rat, while capable of winning 100% of the time, will only win 70% of the time so that the younger rat will keep coming back to play with him. I’ve talked to guild leaders about it but no one is happy to lose fights on purpose: Shifting your win rate from 100% to 70% for the sake of your opponent is not something people find easy or enjoyable.

Keep Fights: Pre-HoT vs Post-HoT

Thinking about it some more I come to the conclusion that keep fights play a major role in the spread of the win rate between servers. If a map is unbalanced the natural outcome is for the defenders to be pushed back to their keeps, which gives them better odds of winning fights against attackers. Kind of obvious. This is the part where I think I can put this bad feeling of mine into design terms.

The Advantage of Bannering Lords and Waypoint Gaps Pre-HoT

The major difference between pre-HoT and post-HoT keep fights is that there are no post-HoT keep fights. Attackers are very effectively held off by siege, siege disablers and tactivators, if they manage to get into the lords room they will generally be able to take the keep. The outcome of this is more population imbalance complaints. Pre-HoT it was much easier for a larger force to get into keeps but the defenders also had more options for defending against a force that was inside the lords room. Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights. Prolonging lord room fights allow a smaller force to potentially cut off reinforcements and whittle away at the larger force.

While defenders have a better chance of keeping their structures post-HoT it’s often done with no fighting involved. A larger force will poke a keep, be showered with ac’s and siege disablers, leave before a fight can happen and then continue to win against anyone that fights them open field. If the population is imbalanced this is a bit of a lose-lose situation for everyone compared to pre-HoT keep fights, where a larger force would kill as many people as they could before getting repelled. While some people found it frustrating to take a keep with banner warriors, this is a situation where both forces get to fight and the smaller force gets to win. If your goal is fights then everyone wins. This also created a more natural connection between ppt and fighting.

Conclusion

Keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen, keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-HoT gameplay that has now been removed.

I don’t think this will solve everything and I understand that skill balance might make it impossible to return to the pre-HoT days of keep fights. However, this proposal is a tangible and realistic starting point to start bringing WvW back on track.

Pretty good post. Spot on

In my opinion, I think the game is just 4 years in now and aged. Just your typical mmo trend.

All gw2 modes seem a little boring and not what they use to be, pve/wvw/pvp/dungeons. Next mmo will come out and people will flock to it, say its the best thing ever and gw2 killer, then the cycle will continue.

Some very good points here. There’s a balance that needs to be hit to make it work, and we’re currently not at that balance point.

SubHonour Guard.6498:

Pre-hot it was much easier for a larger force to get into keeps but the defenders also had more options for defending against a force that was inside the lords room. Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights. Prolonging lord room fights allow a smaller force to potentially cut off reinforcements and whittle away at the larger force.
[..]
In short I believe that keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups, which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen I believe that keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-hot gameplay that has now been removed.

Many of these points have been identified many times over many many posts on this forum. But they remain as valid as ever because;
. A R E N A N E T . N E V E R . D O E S . A N Y T H I N G . A B O U T . T H E M .

RodOfDeath.5247:

In my opinion, I think the game is just 4 years in now and aged. Just your typical mmo trend.

All gw2 modes seem a little boring and not what they use to be, pve/wvw/pvp/dungeons. Next mmo will come out and people will flock to it, say its the best thing ever and gw2 killer, then the cycle will continue.

This poster has the feelz yo.

Who needs logic and good game design, right?

Who needs improvements?

Accept whats coming down and just feelz…

a lot of great points where brought up that need to be addressed.

Definitely not a new idea, I’m hoping that by being specific about why attacking a keep is so much worse now that we can see improvements. From an outsiders point of view it can look the same since taking a keep pre-hot could still take hours just like it does now but the way it happens is what makes it enjoyable or not.

As well, small groups or even singles could jump in and banner a lord and keep things from flipping until reinforcements would arrive and this was incredibly motivational for both the small groups and large groups. There were real contests in the lords room, 3 way fights that were epic. It was exciting! Now, not so much.

SubHonour Guard.6498:

Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights.

All you needed to say was this part. Those things that prolonged the fights were pretty fun.

mmmm… yep.

I think the horrendous problem this game has in any pvp is the no-balance at all. An i thought aney sold wvw as the endgame…

RodOfDeath don’t forget they also use the chants of : great improvements in wvw soon and wvw will be our primary focus

Nah… just think as soon as the new expac comes out aney will begin to work in the new new expac.

anduriell.6280:

mmmm… yep.

I think the horrendous problem this game has in any pvp is the no-balance at all. An i thought aney sold wvw as the endgame…

RodOfDeath don’t forget they also use the chants of : great improvements in wvw soon and wvw will be our primary focus

Nah… just think as soon as the new expac comes out aney will begin to work in the new new expac.

My post got deleted and infracted, thanks for recognizing it should have stayed cause it was cold hard truth lol

Svarty.8019:

Many of these points have been identified many times over many many posts on this forum. But they remain as valid as ever because;
. A R E N A N E T . N E V E R . D O E S . A N Y T H I N G . A B O U T . T H E M .

Because they have only a couple of people working on WvW, its essentially in maintenance mode at this point.

Hi there im on mag and play for fights and i think theres nothing wrong with wvw

Your statements about the win/loss ratio seem good. It’s not groundbreaking material, but you express it clearly and fully. Your observation about being pushed back to keeps is also good. Unfortunately, the rest of the post seems to abandon this starting premise. As we shall see, it is later contradicted in full.

OP

The major difference between pre-HoT and post-HoT keep fights is that there are no post-HoT keep fights. Attackers are very effectively held off by siege, siege disablers and tactivators, *if they manage to get into the lords room they will generally be able to take the keep. *

This statement is not quantified and also does not draw on universal norms. One of the primary complaints about DBL on release was the that lord’s were too powerful and made it too easy for defenders to arrive and win a fight. In addition, lords in DBL scaled to zerg size whereas before they melted instantly to a zerg. You say you miss things that prolonged lord room fights but don’t mention that they’re now much longer by default. We should also note that popular complaints said that the lord rooms were death traps—these were taken so seriously that Anet changed the map to address them. Yet, here, you say the lord’s room is just a victory lap. How so?

Moving on, you say that attackers are “very effectively held off by siege.” By this I assume you mean places where defensive siege can destroy proxy catas without dying to meteor storms. This changed nothing about non-proxy catas. In addition, there’s more room around the east keep walls than on ABL so catas can be built that aren’t proxy. There’s also high ground to launch an assault on every keep so they can actually be built in place where it is difficult or impossible to destroy them with siege from within the walls. In other words, the only attackers that fared worse are those that couldn’t imagine any way to hit a wall other than rubbing their noses on it. The truth, then, is not that offense has no counterplay but that defense finally has a bit. That’s not a problem if it isn’t taken too far. After the turrets were removed, it hit a pretty good spot. If you’re talking EBG, there wasn’t much change. Unless your opponent has many shield gens working in perfect tandem, they can’t protect the whole wall.

You mention siege disablers which were not changed. There are actually more ways to block them post-HoT than before.

You also mention tactivators, ironically, despite the most effective one being a waypoint that does the thing you later claim to miss so much.

While defenders have a better chance of keeping their structures post-HoT it’s often done with no fighting involved. A larger force will poke a keep, be showered with ac’s and siege disablers, leave before a fight can happen and then continue to win against anyone that fights them open field.

Beneath your stated complaint seems to be the common gripe that people can destroy your super aggressively placed siege without an open field fight. Try backing up from the wall a bit and seeing what happens. If there’s a force to fight you, they will fight because they can’t keep the wall up forever (unless you’re really bad at sieging?). If there isn’t a force to fight you, there was never going to be a fight anyway.

Keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen, keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-HoT gameplay that has now been removed.

Once you get into the keep, a larger force will absolutely steamroll a smaller force assuming equal skill. This is a tale as old as the Orbs of Power. The only time the smaller force can put up meaningful resistance is during the fight to get into the keep. Since that fight was fairly absent pre-HoT, population imbalance led to easy wins and server stacking ensued. Now, the fight takes a little longer and isn’t as faceroll easy as putting catas on a wall and spamming AoEs up top. Post-HoT the defenders can claim a few victories by stalling an assault even though the offense always wins in the end unless the apparently glorious keep fight takes place.

You talk about a 70/30 win ratio but describe a situation where the zerg always wins. Trickling in via waypoint only shifts a fight if there are pretty close numbers to begin with—otherwise you just get run over. The keep fights you’re looking for were not a product of waypoint flashes and banners, but of fairly even populations clashing and one side having the advantage of quicker reinforcements. Those fights are simply not possible with more than moderate differences in population.

WvW needs to be fun for the loser. When the loser doesn’t have fun and quits, there’s nobody left to lose except the winners.

Sviel.7493:

One of the primary complaints about DBL on release was the that lord’s were too powerful and made it too easy for defenders to arrive and win a fight. In addition, lords in DBL scaled to zerg size whereas before they melted instantly to a zerg. You say you miss things that prolonged lord room fights but don’t mention that they’re now much longer by default.

This is true for forces that are similar in size but for largely uneven fights this does not prolong the fight long enough for a smaller force to be particularly effective. For more similar sized fights the lord is powerful enough to reduce the duration of the fight by killing the attackers faster. A mechanic like bannering the lord does not increase the lords ability in combat so it has a smaller effect on the actual fighting, allowing the players to fight each other more. Pre-HoT garrison fights could last hours once inside the lords room.

Sviel.7493:

We should also note that popular complaints said that the lord rooms were death traps—these were taken so seriously that Anet changed the map to address them. Yet, here, you say the lord’s room is just a victory lap. How so?

Killing the attackers for you is not prolonging fights, it’s reducing them. A force large enough to overcome deathtraps will generally be unkillable by the defenders on a smaller timescale and a force similar enough in size will be killed much more quickly.

Sviel.7493:

Beneath your stated complaint seems to be the common gripe that people can destroy your super aggressively placed siege without an open field fight. Try backing up from the wall a bit and seeing what happens. If there’s a force to fight you, they will fight because they can’t keep the wall up forever (unless you’re really bad at sieging?). If there isn’t a force to fight you, there was never going to be a fight anyway.

Assuming that the problem is one server having a 100% win rate against the other the keep fight will happen because the smaller server cannot push out and win. This doesn’t mean there can’t be a good keep fights, just that one side needs a major advantage. The nature of the advantage is where we disagree, I believe mechanics that reduce the fighting between players is uncompelling.

Most commander’s gripes with keeps is not that they are unsiegeable but that they are not worth sieging. The time it takes to siege a keep now is far longer and the fights you get inside are shorter. It’s far easier for the force to leave and wait for the enemy to come out, a situation which robs the smaller force of the advantage they need to win.

The waypoint tactivator is not inherently bad but is just a less effective version of what was previously in the game.

Sviel.7493:

Once you get into the keep, a larger force will absolutely steamroll a smaller force assuming equal skill. This is a tale as old as the Orbs of Power. The only time the smaller force can put up meaningful resistance is during the fight to get into the keep. Since that fight was fairly absent pre-HoT, population imbalance led to easy wins and server stacking ensued. Now, the fight takes a little longer and isn’t as faceroll easy as putting catas on a wall and spamming AoEs up top. Post-HoT the defenders can claim a few victories by stalling an assault even though the offense always wins in the end unless the apparently glorious keep fight takes place.

You talk about a 70/30 win ratio but describe a situation where the zerg always wins. Trickling in via waypoint only shifts a fight if there are pretty close numbers to begin with—otherwise you just get run over. The keep fights you’re looking for were not a product of waypoint flashes and banners, but of fairly even populations clashing and one side having the advantage of quicker reinforcements. Those fights are simply not possible with more than moderate differences in population.

Anecdotally, this is all false and my experience is the complete opposite. The best example of this was garrison, where mesmers would portal people inside from spawn, warriors would wait above the lord to run in and drop banners and everyone else would repair holes in walls and gates. People would build ac’s that forced the attackers to move and that presented an opportunity for defenders to cc people and pick them off. Fighting the attackers at the gate is fundamentally different from fighting them in the lords room since the defenders have more control over the reinforcements. If you can control all these elements the only thing stopping the defending force from pushing the attackers back is time and it was a very meaningful resistance.

Well yea, balanced fights are ideal in pretty much any game. But Anet’s current rating/matchmaking system is not really conducive to matchups that are balanced. Even if you could still banner the lord over and over, isn’t that just a band-aid on bad game design? A few warriors dragging out a fight endlessly?

I think the bigger problem is inconsistent coverage for most servers, and a poor matchmaking system. There are only 2 servers left with decent coverage: BG and JQ.

SubHonour Guard.6498:

The Ideal Win/Loss Ratio

I believe that a group winning 100% of fights is going to create a negative outcome for all sides, firstly for the losing side because they will not enjoy the game. I’ve seen many guilds quit because they were on the losing side for too long, including my own, and a lot of these people blame matchmaking or population imbalance for the state of the game. After these people quit the winning groups are left with no one to fight, a common complaint comes up: Unchallenging fights can be as bad as no fights.

I saw a video online: a psychologist talking about young rats play fighting. The larger rat, while capable of winning 100% of the time, will only win 70% of the time so that the younger rat will keep coming back to play with him. I’ve talked to guild leaders about it but no one is happy to lose fights on purpose: Shifting your win rate from 100% to 70% for the sake of your opponent is not something people find easy or enjoyable.

I mostly agree upon that one, even if I somehow think the “winning group” will keep on playing for the sole pleasure of trolling and burrying the outmanned server deeper in the mud. Think about spawn camping, or such things…

SubHonour Guard.6498:

Keep Fights: Pre-HoT vs Post-HoT

Thinking about it some more I come to the conclusion that keep fights play a major role in the spread of the win rate between servers. If a map is unbalanced the natural outcome is for the defenders to be pushed back to their keeps, which gives them better odds of winning fights against attackers. Kind of obvious. This is the part where I think I can put this bad feeling of mine into design terms.

The Advantage of Bannering Lords and Waypoint Gaps Pre-HoT

The major difference between pre-HoT and post-HoT keep fights is that there are no post-HoT keep fights. Attackers are very effectively held off by siege, siege disablers and tactivators, if they manage to get into the lords room they will generally be able to take the keep. The outcome of this is more population imbalance complaints. Pre-HoT it was much easier for a larger force to get into keeps but the defenders also had more options for defending against a force that was inside the lords room. Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights. Prolonging lord room fights allow a smaller force to potentially cut off reinforcements and whittle away at the larger force.

While defenders have a better chance of keeping their structures post-HoT it’s often done with no fighting involved. A larger force will poke a keep, be showered with ac’s and siege disablers, leave before a fight can happen and then continue to win against anyone that fights them open field. If the population is imbalanced this is a bit of a lose-lose situation for everyone compared to pre-HoT keep fights, where a larger force would kill as many people as they could before getting repelled. While some people found it frustrating to take a keep with banner warriors, this is a situation where both forces get to fight and the smaller force gets to win. If your goal is fights then everyone wins. This also created a more natural connection between ppt and fighting.

Conclusion

Keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen, keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-HoT gameplay that has now been removed.

I don’t think this will solve everything and I understand that skill balance might make it impossible to return to the pre-HoT days of keep fights. However, this proposal is a tangible and realistic starting point to start bringing WvW back on track.

That part bugs me more, because you’re reducing “keep fights” to “PvP fights around a keep”. Yet, defending a keep can involve more than just PvP, and your example of AC’s shower is fair in that case. The issue here is you’re totally dismissing the PPT part of defense.

Also, about keep (or tower) fights : some other day, we were a bunch of 5-6 players defending a tower, and another 5-6 players were trying to take it. Who won ? The most skilled ? Nope. Only the ones who go to bed the latest. Yet, there were PvP fights, there were siege fights etc. They were killed ? They spawned back. We were killed ? We spawned back. Until one had to go have dinner, or just left to do something else, or went sleeping. And so the tower fell. This honestly made me feel really bad, because all that defense eventually was pointless.

So, I understand the idea of “making keeps fights longer”. Yet, on another hand, I feel like it’s only a small part of a bigger issue.

SubHonour Guard.6498

This is true for forces that are similar in size but for largely uneven fights this does not prolong the fight long enough for a smaller force to be particularly effective. For more similar sized fights the lord is powerful enough to reduce the duration of the fight by killing the attackers faster. A mechanic like bannering the lord does not increase the lords ability in combat so it has a smaller effect on the actual fighting, allowing the players to fight each other more. Pre-HoT garrison fights could last hours once inside the lords room.

Largely uneven fights are not the sort that would last for hours pre-HoT. The lord would drop and, unless contested, the ring would cap very quickly due to the number of people in it. Bannering the lord would buy a bit of time but, since the lord died so quickly, it didn’t make a big impact if you didn’t have the forces to make use of the extra time.

Post-HoT, the EBG/ABL lords live longer but are still a non-factor in a fight. How do you feel about those? On DBL, lord rooms and inner keeps are generally bigger so there’s more room to fight, but the lord creates an area of advantage for the defenders. This means that it’s hard to take a defended keep with even numbers and the defenders, when pushed to the lord, have an advantage. Is this not what you wanted?

On the other hand, if the offense manages to kill a defender, they gain more of a foothold. They don’t lose all of their progress every three minutes while slowly dying of attrition.

Assuming that the problem is one server having a 100% win rate against the other the keep fight will happen because the smaller server cannot push out and win. This doesn’t mean there can’t be a good keep fights, just that one side needs a major advantage. The nature of the advantage is where we disagree, I believe mechanics that reduce the fighting between players is uncompelling.

Allow me to clarify my position. I am not an advocate of reducing fighting between players. However, I recognize that if everything caters to unmitigated PvP, small population imbalances wreak havoc on the game mode. I also recognize that WvW is more than just unmitigated PvP. Thus, I seek mechanics that are less vulnerable to population imbalance. Sometimes that means a reduction in fights, but as fights are the most volatile component in terms of population, that is occasionally necessary. There must be a balance, of course, but we cannot simply say ‘more fights always.’

As to the nature of the advantage, I want it to be something that the offense can play around.

A 3 minute free WP is too powerful. A 30 minute WP on a stick is, as you said, far less effective. We should note that Emergency WP had a 20m CD initially and was raised because players complained despite the same thing existing on a 3m CD pre-HoT. What CD length would you prefer and why?

Bannering the lord can’t be blocked and resets the ring timer. It is too often ineffective for a force that needs an advantage and needlessly annoying for the offense. The best case is when there isn’t any real population imbalance but you just need to buy a bit more time for your zerg to come over. Having a powerful lord that doesn’t die instantly, on the other hand, still gives time for a zerg to respond but also gives a tangible advantage to defense. If the offense has enough room to disengage from the lord without leaving the keep, all is well.

Anecdotally, this is all false and my experience is the complete opposite. The best example of this was garrison, where mesmers would portal people inside from spawn, warriors would wait above the lord to run in and drop banners and everyone else would repair holes in walls and gates. People would build ac’s that forced the attackers to move and that presented an opportunity for defenders to cc people and pick them off. Fighting the attackers at the gate is fundamentally different from fighting them in the lords room since the defenders have more control over the reinforcements. If you can control all these elements the only thing stopping the defending force from pushing the attackers back is time and it was a very meaningful resistance.

In other words, the defenders would use multiple tactics that the offense could not play around to draw out the fight indefinitely and win by attrition. That sounds like it could be very fun for the defense (I enjoyed it) but terribly frustrating for the offense. They have to kill the lord, kill every warrior on multiple levels of the keep, camp the places where mesmers could drop portals and somehow keep the gates open all while fighting w/e defenders are around and dodging ACs. That sounds less like a fight than like mass torture.

Sviel.7493:

In other words, the defenders would use multiple tactics that the offense could not play around to draw out the fight indefinitely and win by attrition. That sounds like it could be very fun for the defense (I enjoyed it) but terribly frustrating for the offense. They have to kill the lord, kill every warrior on multiple levels of the keep, camp the places where mesmers could drop portals and somehow keep the gates open all while fighting w/e defenders are around and dodging ACs. That sounds less like a fight than like mass torture.

The point is certainly for the defenders to find it enjoyable over the attackers but in my experience it can be equally enjoyable for the attackers to fight and lose in those situations. It wasn’t a foolproof defense either as you’ve pointed out.

It’s feels bad because it’s big frigging mess. Anet just drop all players that have totally different goals, play style, skill level, gear and so on in 24/7 game mode. It just can’t work. It wouldn’t feel bad if match would last 2 hours, every side would have same amount players (not some duelers who would just take real players place) and every player in map would try to win.

“So this is a question that has a million answers depending on who you ask but in one way or another I think all people can agree that post-HoT WvW feels bad compared to pre-HoT, this is coming from someone that still enjoys WvW. Thinking about it for a while, I think I have been able to work out some of my feelings about WvW and I’m going to try and express my thoughts on what I’m going to call keep fights.”

For me HoT made it worse but it was already bad. WvW simply has no meaning or purpose and the rewards aren’t on par with any other game mode. All the WvW maps were broken before HoT even released. ABL and EBG both had mechanics that I wouldn’t deem healthy competitive or fun. Especially ABL.

“The Ideal Win/Loss Ratio”
On a server scale, I can agree. Losing too many times kills communities when WvW is a game based off population. Losing too many times overall as a server is mostly a reflection of population, imbalance and match-making. When I say losing I’m referring to PPT and score not fighting BTW. Although fighting can have the same effect on an individual. One must also look inward as to why they are losing. With the dynamic of WvW, losing can be largely out of your hands.

“Keep Fights: Pre-HoT vs Post-HoT”
Keep encounters should promote fighting. Keep encounters during primetime should be at an optimal state and right now it’s far from that. By design a fully upgraded keep is intended for three way engagements and this breaks down due to population imbalances and the use of things like tactivators, indestructible wall buffs, emergency waypoints and the scaling of lords. One of the biggest things that break keeps in this current year is the abuse of supply lines and how easy it is to gather supply for a defence.

“Bannering lords”
I actually liked bannering a lord, because it was tactical and made it so you could respond in time. But as said countless times in 2017 you’re lucky to even get to the lords room with all the keep defences.

Overall, I think ArenaNet is clearly not listening to us and I don’t think they care about WvW. That’s how I feel about the state of WvW regardless of what they say. They have these stipulations on the community and if we disagree I feel like it’s just too bad for us. They aren’t willing to change their terrible designs. So sadly I think these threads garner no change and they probably skip over half of it even though the community of WvW clearly agrees with most points posted.

The biggest reason WvW feels so bad is because WvW has no meaning, no purpose and no drive to achieve winning what so ever. I don’t know how many times this needs to be said before they get it. When there is no drive to play competitively, all mechanics start to break down.

Certainly there is much that Anet could do to help increase the attraction and enjoyment of WvW, however, all the blame can not be placed on their shoulder’s for the current state of WvW. Indeed, I find that the biggest problem with WvW is self-inflicted by the players themselves.

Every time I am in WvW I see at least one person complaint – “server is dead, time to move to [insert top tier server here],” because our server loses so often, and cant put up a decent fight. This attitude just ensures that some servers will always face-roll their opponents. The result of which is, boring game-play for the winners and frustration for the losers who eventually just leave.

The way to keep WvW fun and challenging for EVERYONE is for the people on the high population, highly-skilled servers to switch to the struggling servers. Yet it always seems to work the other way round with people bailing the servers that are struggling to jump on a winning server, thus perpetuating the biggest problem with WvW…a lack of fun, entertaining, competitive fights.

In keeping with the theme of encouraging last ditch defensive fights in the lord’s rooms, PPK has to go. I’ll happily go back to the days of throwing myself into the fray time and again to try and save a keep, but not if it just means feeding points to the enemy every time I die. Better for my team to just recap later instead.

Grav.3568:

In keeping with the theme of encouraging last ditch defensive fights in the lord’s rooms, PPK has to go. I’ll happily go back to the days of throwing myself into the fray time and again to try and save a keep, but not if it just means feeding points to the enemy every time I die. Better for my team to just recap later instead.

If the keep is upgraded, it’s worth dying for in terms of score as well.

Sviel.7493:

If the keep is upgraded, it’s worth dying for in terms of score as well.

Is it?

I can think of quite a few X/Y/Z matchups where X and Y have an equal or greater share of the PPT score, but are both losing to Z by more than double because Z is farming them for PPK.

I’m also in the camp of players that enjoyed those lord room last stand type keep fights. The whole dynamic had this tension that built to that lord room fight that started from breaking outer, then on to breaking inner and finally the scramble in the lords room; banners included. Much like how Street Fighter accidentally created combos and move-cancelling, bannering the lord and the small window where the WP became available after defend events became fun things that players actually played around and used. The sad reality is that we are way past simply reinstating that lords can be bannered to recapture those epic lord room stands.

Like others have already stated here, the defensive tools available are miserable and oppressive (also keep in mind they’ve been nerfed down significantly from their release). Almost in their entirety they are so unbelievably poor in concept that I almost think that the dev’s were actually aiming for the troll factor.

When we get to hold HoT design choices up to compare with the vanilla game, am absolutely blown away both by how generally ‘right’ the core game got things (I’m not suggesting it was by any means perfect) and just how much of a dumpster fire HoT is in terms of gameplay and design philosophy.

Sviel.7493:

Grav.3568:

In keeping with the theme of encouraging last ditch defensive fights in the lord’s rooms, PPK has to go. I’ll happily go back to the days of throwing myself into the fray time and again to try and save a keep, but not if it just means feeding points to the enemy every time I die. Better for my team to just recap later instead.

If the keep is upgraded, it’s worth dying for in terms of score as well.

Not under current scoring, it’s not.

Frost.5017:

Like others have already stated here, the defensive tools available are miserable and oppressive (also keep in mind they’ve been nerfed down significantly from their release). Almost in their entirety they are so unbelievably poor in concept that I almost think that the dev’s were actually aiming for the troll factor.

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

The current WvW devs have absolutely no idea how to develop the mode, there is no expertise in large scale pvp at anet whatsoever.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

The biggest reason WvW feels so bad is because WvW has no meaning, no purpose and no drive to achieve winning what so ever. I don’t know how many times this needs to be said before they get it. When there is no drive to play competitively, all mechanics start to break down.

If they incentivize winning it just encourages stacking, which has been a problem since day 1 with Titan Alliance even though there were no rewards whatsoever back then, not even the paltry bonus chests each week. Or how BG stacked every tournament. Or how Mag is the dominant KDR server to the point where they complain about BG doing nothing but running from them and tank to get out of T1.

When/if skirmish rewards ever materialize and if they scale with performance will there be any reason for me to stick on a server that routinely gets 2nd or 3rd place? If the game essentially tells me and everyone else I’m better off bandwagoning that won’t bode well for the health of the game mode.

I have to admit I actually agree that there is no purpose in WvW. Population balance should be addressed at the same time as rewards, but I don’t see how they can do it. Trying to balance 24 hour(or 7 day) slices, even if accomplished, means nothing with regards to a particular skirmish.

coro.3176:

Sviel.7493:

If the keep is upgraded, it’s worth dying for in terms of score as well.

Is it?

I can think of quite a few X/Y/Z matchups where X and Y have an equal or greater share of the PPT score, but are both losing to Z by more than double because Z is farming them for PPK.

A T3 keep gives 20 points every 5 minutes. PPK is only 1 point. A T0 keep gives only 8 points and, depending on the keep, takes a average of ~5 hours to hit T3 again. If we estimate ~40m at T0, ~1.kitten T1 and 3h at T2 then your server has 8 T0 ticks, 18 T1 ticks and 36 T2 ticks that could have been T3. That’s a difference of 96 + 144 + 646 = 886 points.

So, in contrast, dying a couple of times to avoid losing the keep pales in comparison to losing the upgrade’s contribution to points. A full map blob can wipe over 10 times before they start losing points on it.

When you see score disparities that aren’t reflected in PPT, it’s more likely due to one side having bloodlust, more Yaks completing their routes (ie: not random structures in enemy territory and camps flipped), or an earlier disparity in PPT.

morrolan.9608:

Frost.5017:

Like others have already stated here, the defensive tools available are miserable and oppressive (also keep in mind they’ve been nerfed down significantly from their release). Almost in their entirety they are so unbelievably poor in concept that I almost think that the dev’s were actually aiming for the troll factor.

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

The current WvW devs have absolutely no idea how to develop the mode, there is no expertise in large scale pvp at anet whatsoever.

Agreed and pretty obvious, they have no idea how to manage their product and that is a huge part of why wvw has failed along with esports pvp. Leave pvp to the big boys anet.

Visiroth.5914:

If they incentivize winning it just encourages stacking, which has been a problem since day 1 with Titan Alliance even though there were no rewards whatsoever back then, not even the paltry bonus chests each week. Or how BG stacked every tournament. Or how Mag is the dominant KDR server to the point where they complain about BG doing nothing but running from them and tank to get out of T1.

There’s more to incentivizing the mode than just rewards.

This is right on point. This requires you to rework siege, rework t activators and upgrade system and then rework keeps which requires arena net to put in time and effort which is not gonna happen.

ThomasC.1056:

Also, about keep (or tower) fights : some other day, we were a bunch of 5-6 players defending a tower, and another 5-6 players were trying to take it. Who won ? The most skilled ? Nope. Only the ones who go to bed the latest. Yet, there were PvP fights, there were siege fights etc. They were killed ? They spawned back. We were killed ? We spawned back. Until one had to go have dinner, or just left to do something else, or went sleeping. And so the tower fell. This honestly made me feel really bad, because all that defense eventually was pointless.

Which is exactly why flipping at a higher pace is so important to make both sides feel like they did something for balanced PPT. You would have lost the tower much earlier yes, but you would have traded situations – how many ticks could the defenders hold it? One more? When it flips the former defenders will fight to keep the new defenders from ticking more than them, etc. For healthy action, your tower should have flipped like 5 times where it only did it once.

Its when you get bogged down in utterly futile fights with no tactics on either side – one will just keep ticking safe points and the other just need the patience to be logged on longer – that the game become boring for everyone. Because people stop trying. The higher the tier and the more siege, the worse it becomes.

CrimeMaker.8612:

requires arena net to put in time and effort which is not gonna happen.

^^ this. Nobody has faith in the brand anymore.

Because every one running condis and unless you have a bot rev at your feet your going to die with in sec of a fight because there no amount of condi clear that can deal with the chilling death spam or burning spam in the game atm.

Dual boxing is legal if you pc can run gw2 2 times your good.

Oddly no one has brought this up but i think it fits.

How wvw players are moving over to the condi meta.

this is a very well thought out and comprehensive discussion thank you Mr. SubHonour Guard

Sviel.7493:

snipples

jesus dude, I read one sentence and had to stop. chill out!

Sviel.7493:

coro.3176:

Sviel.7493:

If the keep is upgraded, it’s worth dying for in terms of score as well.

Is it?

I can think of quite a few X/Y/Z matchups where X and Y have an equal or greater share of the PPT score, but are both losing to Z by more than double because Z is farming them for PPK.

A T3 keep gives 20 points every 5 minutes. PPK is only 1 point. A T0 keep gives only 8 points and, depending on the keep, takes a average of ~5 hours to hit T3 again. If we estimate ~40m at T0, ~1.kitten T1 and 3h at T2 then your server has 8 T0 ticks, 18 T1 ticks and 36 T2 ticks that could have been T3. That’s a difference of 96 + 144 + 646 = 886 points.

So, in contrast, dying a couple of times to avoid losing the keep pales in comparison to losing the upgrade’s contribution to points. A full map blob can wipe over 10 times before they start losing points on it.

When you see score disparities that aren’t reflected in PPT, it’s more likely due to one side having bloodlust, more Yaks completing their routes (ie: not random structures in enemy territory and camps flipped), or an earlier disparity in PPT.

I had to go look this up. If the wiki is correct: “Alternatively killing or stomping an enemy will add 2 points to the War Score (PPK = Points Per Kill), additionally stomping an enemy with the Borderlands Bloodlust effect will add 1 point extra.”

Stand The Wall.6987:

Sviel.7493:

snipples

jesus dude, I read one sentence and had to stop. chill out!

What post are you even referring to?

Honestly the Lord scaling needs to revert and bantering lord needs to return. If the enemy blob is melting the Lord then there is a job for a class called warriors to banner the Lord until allies get there.

RodOfDeath.5247:

In my opinion, I think the game is just 4 years in now and aged. Just your typical mmo trend.

All gw2 modes seem a little boring and not what they use to be, pve/wvw/pvp/dungeons. Next mmo will come out and people will flock to it, say its the best thing ever and gw2 killer, then the cycle will continue.

Well yes and no… You have to admit, this game is 4 years old and still has people that play (some very religiously as a matter of fact) just for WvW.

The game hasnt died like most mmo’s and honestly its still drawing people in with the new content and expansions.. so i see it going for at least a few more years.

Eventually something will come along and kill it.. or WoW will go actually free and people will flock back over there.. maybe… who knows.. at least they havent killed it by nerfing all game modes for one game mode like some did (SWG) for example.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Honestly the Lord scaling needs to revert and bantering lord needs to return. If the enemy blob is melting the Lord then there is a job for a class called warriors to banner the Lord until allies get there.

I prefer they reduce a quarter-half of NPC health and reenable banner lords

Oh and btw… the only thing wrong right now with wvw is there there is no reward really.. even with the new tracks.

Back when most of us played WvW it was for chances at loot you couldnt get anywhere else.. OR for the server bonuses if your team was winning.

These days most people dont play WvW because of the server stacking issue they let get out of hand with MAG JQ and DB… we all know what happened to i wont go into detail.

The fact remains however that glicko is broken, there will never be another wvw season, sadly, and there is no reward to wvw now really other than the occasional ascdended armor/wep chest drop (which is still higher than anywhere else in game except for fractals) and the pride factor..

The reward track lines were a nice addition, but not really worth it since the loot they give kind of sucks once you have what you need from them.

They really need to bring back wvw seasons.. BUT before then.. they need to either break up some of the larger servers or just invent a new system for wvw scoring and matchups.

The worst part overall is that if you hack in wvw (which mag players are well known for) Anet will NOT ban you.. so expect to see tons of people walking through keep walls, exploiting up unclimbable hills or just being completely unattackable.

trueanimus.4085:

They really need to bring back wvw seasons.. BUT before then.. they need to either break up some of the larger servers or just invent a new system for wvw scoring and matchups.

Seasons were a mess, not the least of which was due to the divisions that prevented stacked servers from rising up to a match they could be competitive in.

@Sviel
your first one.

Svarty.8019:

SubHonour Guard.6498:

Pre-hot it was much easier for a larger force to get into keeps but the defenders also had more options for defending against a force that was inside the lords room. Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights. Prolonging lord room fights allow a smaller force to potentially cut off reinforcements and whittle away at the larger force.
[..]
In short I believe that keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups, which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen I believe that keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-hot gameplay that has now been removed.

Many of these points have been identified many times over many many posts on this forum. But they remain as valid as ever because;
. A R E N A N E T . N E V E R . D O E S . A N Y T H I N G . A B O U T . T H E M .

This is the biggest problem. No amount of begging, pleading, yelling, arguing, and no matter how well spoken gets anything done it seems. They’ve created the most bitter game mode possible and don’t understand why.

LordEnki.9283:

Svarty.8019:

SubHonour Guard.6498:

Pre-hot it was much easier for a larger force to get into keeps but the defenders also had more options for defending against a force that was inside the lords room. Bannering the lord and using the keep waypoint between events were ways to prolong lord room fights. Prolonging lord room fights allow a smaller force to potentially cut off reinforcements and whittle away at the larger force.
[..]
In short I believe that keep fights are important for keeping a 70/30 fight win rate between uneven groups, which is important for the longevity of the game. For this to happen I believe that keeps need to be redesigned to prolong the fights in keeps, not the fights to get into the keeps. Examples of this can be seen in pre-hot gameplay that has now been removed.

Many of these points have been identified many times over many many posts on this forum. But they remain as valid as ever because;
. A R E N A N E T . N E V E R . D O E S . A N Y T H I N G . A B O U T . T H E M .

This is the biggest problem. No amount of begging, pleading, yelling, arguing, and no matter how well spoken gets anything done it seems. They’ve created the most bitter game mode possible and don’t understand why.

I wouldn’t say bitter, per se. It would be a whole other post. Anyway, I’d say Arenanet don’t WANT to know why the playerbase is divided. They want to address WvW as though it is the same as all the other content in the game. I suspect this is a philosophy disseminated by the head honcho himself.
i.e. Forget what exists and make a new system. That’s how development goes with Guild Wars 2, if you hadn’t noticed.

They don’t like to modify existing content because it’s difficult (expensive in terms of man-hours) because they have to have new programmers understand the old code (written by people who moved on – Hello Amazon Games), which takes up valuable programming time. They want the new programmers to spend all their time programming, not reading and pondering.

So it is logical that Arenanet doesn’t WANT to understand why the players are unsatisfied with the gamemode. I know we’re all disappointed in the company because of this. I thought that my opinion of NCSoft was brought to a low when they canned City of Heroes, but Guild Wars 2 has really put a downer on things. Such amazing potential… I know, I know, we’ve all said this much before. I’ll stop now before I cry.