Guild Wars 2

Dear Arenanet,

I have been quite interested in the details of WvW but am not able to figure these out so far.
So I would like to ask if Arenanet is willing to share the details?
This information is really nice to have to increase strategic organisation.

A couple of question I have are:
- How does siege despawning work?
- Do we have a siege limit? If so, what happens if we cross it?
- How many players can one map contain?

And probably more that I can’t currently think of.

Thanks in advance!

Despawns after 30 min, timer is reset if a player mans the siege. There Is a limit though not sure how many, it will not let you build more once the limit has been reached.

I would also like to know i placed multiple sieges in our keep built them came back 20 mins and 10 acs and 2 catapults despawned. Yet some of the siege i built remained

% of classes that on average play WvW

List top players re kills / to death ratio

Madthunder.6581:

I would also like to know i placed multiple sieges in our keep built them came back 20 mins and 10 acs and 2 catapults despawned. Yet some of the siege i built remained

Its been said that siege placed on the ground doesn’t despawn.

Also, what it the hp of wooden/reinforced/fortified walls and gates?

Ireniicus.2167:

% of classes that on average play WvW

List top players re kills / to death ratio

look in the WvW section of your achievements

morrolan.9608:

Madthunder.6581:

I would also like to know i placed multiple sieges in our keep built them came back 20 mins and 10 acs and 2 catapults despawned. Yet some of the siege i built remained

Its been said that siege placed on the ground doesn’t despawn.

Yet the siege is still despawning after being built within 10-20 mins.. which is odd because only a few despawn

Madthunder.6581:

morrolan.9608:

Madthunder.6581:

I would also like to know i placed multiple sieges in our keep built them came back 20 mins and 10 acs and 2 catapults despawned. Yet some of the siege i built remained

Its been said that siege placed on the ground doesn’t despawn.

Yet the siege is still despawning after being built within 10-20 mins.. which is odd because only a few despawn

I’m sure someone will blame the quaggans soon, however, I’ve seen siege despawn right in front of me, when it was at full health, both when it was in an area unaffected by the quaggans, and when we owned all of the quaggan camps, within 20 minutes of it being built. I’ve also seen siege get ignored for well over an hour and not despawn.

DemonCow.5328:

Madthunder.6581:

morrolan.9608:

Madthunder.6581:

I would also like to know i placed multiple sieges in our keep built them came back 20 mins and 10 acs and 2 catapults despawned. Yet some of the siege i built remained

Its been said that siege placed on the ground doesn’t despawn.

Yet the siege is still despawning after being built within 10-20 mins.. which is odd because only a few despawn

I’m sure someone will blame the quaggans soon, however, I’ve seen siege despawn right in front of me, when it was at full health, both when it was in an area unaffected by the quaggans, and when we owned all of the quaggan camps, within 20 minutes of it being built. I’ve also seen siege get ignored for well over an hour and not despawn.

Yeah its just annoying to spend 20 mins siegeing up a keep just to come back 5 mins later to most of it despawned and we owned all the quag nodes which makes me think something is up with the despawning because the rams we used to take said keep back were still there

In a tower you can build 12 weapons, or you cod at least.

IMO we need to know the EXACT capacity of player by server on a map…

the communication is very kitten with the dev and the tooltip of the game.. and just a simple HOW TO, a manuel for gw2 need to be done.. too many option are not documented or any at all…

2000 player in WvWvW all map 500 hundred per map.. divided not equally per server…
so we do not know how many we can actually be on a map.. It has been seen, queue to enter a map and having inferiority buff on the map…
so 500 with no reserved place by server.. ? 400 of the same server and 80 of the other and 20 of the last… non sense if it works like this,..

It’s pretty crucial information that players need to know.

Also, does anyone know how the wvw ratings are calculated?? I mean, precisely.

Seed.5714:

IMO we need to know the EXACT capacity of player by server on a map…

the communication is very kitten with the dev and the tooltip of the game.. and just a simple HOW TO, a manuel for gw2 need to be done.. too many option are not documented or any at all…

2000 player in WvWvW all map 500 hundred per map.. divided not equally per server…
so we do not know how many we can actually be on a map.. It has been seen, queue to enter a map and having inferiority buff on the map…
so 500 with no reserved place by server.. ? 400 of the same server and 80 of the other and 20 of the last… non sense if it works like this,..

A couple months back we had a queue on our home BL. When I finally got in, I had the ‘outmanned’ buff. Now, either a large chunk of the server logged or moved to another BL at the same time (possible I suppose) or the dominant server had way more than we did and that tied up the server.

I am leaning towards it being 500 players from all servers total, not 166 per server.

Of course, if ANet would just tell us, we could all know then

orchid.4726:

Also, does anyone know how the wvw ratings are calculated?? I mean, precisely.

Yes

orchid.4726:

Also, does anyone know how the wvw ratings are calculated?? I mean, precisely.

From Anet’s original post about it …

Deviation and Volitility are used by the Glicko 2 rating system (http://www.glicko.net/glicko.html). They’re not absolutely necessary for understanding the ratings but I know there are some folks out there who will like to have them.

Details have been requested so here’s the rest of what you need to understand how we’re using Glicko 2. These are fairly specific details so feel free to ignore them if you don’t get excited by math
Assume the shards are sA, sB, and sC. In order to handle a 3 way battle we treat each match as having two battles for each shard. So when calculating the new rating for sA the two battles are sA vs. sB and sA vs. sC. Likewise for sB and sC. Naturally, we do all the calculations before updating any of the data.
We use a Tau of 0.6 and a k of 1.0
In standard Glicko 2 scores are represented as 0.0 for a loss, 0.5 for a draw, and 1.0 for a win. We use a slightly modified version that takes into account score differential. I’ll explain how using the sA vs. sB battle as an example. To calculate the glicko score for sA in the sA vs. sB matchup we do the following:
sAPercent = sAScore / (sAScore + sBScore)
sAGlickoScore = (sin((sAPercent – 0.5) * Pi) + 1) * 0.5
where sAScore and sBScore are the raw scores from the end of the match.
That last transform is easiest to visualize as a graph . Other than that it’s all standard Glicko 2.
Have fun doing the math!

Syeria.4812:

orchid.4726:

Also, does anyone know how the wvw ratings are calculated?? I mean, precisely.

Yes

And if you carefully read that thread you will see several reasons why it’s a flawed system as applied to WvW.

MikeFerguson.8921:

Ireniicus.2167:

% of classes that on average play WvW

List top players re kills / to death ratio

I would love to show the percentage of particular classes that play in WvW at some point, but it isn’t part of our current plans.

Kill/Deaths ratio is something we would like to avoid having. We don’t want people changing the way they play because they would rather protect their KDR instead of helping their allies in the game. We want people playing and fighting, not worrying about deaths impacting their stats.

KDR only causes the same problems as repair costs already cause. Many people, including myself don’t like to help others in many situations because we worry too much about the repair cost. There’s no point in trying to fight or help others so much of the time because it only ends up in a repair cost for myself – it’s the same thing with KDR, I would get another death on the counter – yet that would still be preferable to repair costs, in my opinion.

Edit: By the way, thanks for answering people’s questions on the forums – I don’t see enough posts like yours. c:

Thank you Mike.
One more question, when are you guys going to join in as an Anet guild and sweep server after server?

Bon apetit

They tend not to play with their anet tags on in wvw as it attracts typically unwanted attention and resentment from players attempting to lead servers.

Thanks for posting Mike. Would you mind answering another question while you’re at it?

-Is dropping siege blueprints for other characters to pick up an intended function? It seems very bizarre.

:)

I still suspect its the general reason you don’t see the anet tag everywhere. At least a few other devs have attested to that. Mike here apparently has BoS.

Can they become account bound anytime soon? Can this thread become an AMA?

Yes, making them account bound would be a great plan in the interim as you investigate the harder issues you discuss above. As it stands, I have an entire bank slot dedicated to the silly things from different characters, and it’d make a lot more sense if I could just merge the stacks.

How odd. I figured it was something that wasn’t removed properly given it’s lack of documentation.

Also, I know you probably don’t want to comment on future plans too much, but could you perhaps give your magic 8 ball a shake and tell us if there’s any possibility of getting badges changed into some form that doesn’t take up so much of my precious inventory space?

Maybe make it like gold or karma but only account wide? (Also, why isn’t gold account wide? I hate deal with that deposit thing on my bank.)

wow this is the sort of communication people love thank you Mike!

I think it was Colin who stated in an earlier interview (during development) that people should never have to leave WvW if they don’t want to. Do you feel that you’ve met this goal so far (or was it a misinterpretation on my part)?

Thank you SO MUCH for the answers Mike, that’s the sort of thing all players need – communication, feedback, clarification; not necessarily just silent bug fixes, or upgrades and updates.
Awesome to see you posting here, and +1 to the idea of sticking this thread and making it an AMA about W3 that would be regularly visited and answered by a dev.

I can confirm the “max of 5 pieces of siege per 1000 unit radius” just from experimenting during long hours of the night.

Your numbers for finished siege despawn are off though. I’ve seen siege last hours and hours with no one touching them. Unfinished siege does seem to pop after 10 minutes though.

I understand the reasons for limits on siege numbers/placement/despawn time/etc, however, I think almost all players would agree 10/30 mins for unfinished/finished siege is way too short. Sometimes simply running to the camp to grab supply for it takes longer because of all of the random attacks on the camps/dolyaks/towers all over the map you are called to to defend.

With the limits to # of players/map/server, it’s impossible to man every defensive structure and still field a good size force to assault other camps/towers/keeps. We rely immensely on the various pieces of siege still being there when we have to run back into a tower under attack. With the current power of golems and superior rams, there simply isn’t time to build one before the doors are down.

As it stands now, the fact that a lot of siege actually remains in place long after someone touches them(except for trebs, they always pop) is probably the only reason W3 hasn’t succumbed entirely to a giant zerg-fest. Zerging requires almost no strategy. Defense, counter-attacks and supply management are the things which require a good amount of tactics and training. It would be sad to see them go.

Thx for spilling the beans so far =)

Back on topic: Is there any chance we might get some sort of an auto pick up for badges in wvw at least? I tend to lose a whole lot of them in each major fight it seems, and seeing that loot bag over there when I go down, unable to pick it up is kinda frustrating when it happens.

Obsidian.1328:

I can confirm the “max of 5 pieces of siege per 1000 unit radius” just from experimenting during long hours of the night.

Your numbers for finished siege despawn are off though. I’ve seen siege last hours and hours with no one touching them. Unfinished siege does seem to pop after 10 minutes though.

I understand the reasons for limits on siege numbers/placement/despawn time/etc, however, I think almost all players would agree 10/30 mins for unfinished/finished siege is way too short. Sometimes simply running to the camp to grab supply for it takes longer because of all of the random attacks on the camps/dolyaks/towers all over the map you are called to to defend.

With the limits to # of players/map/server, it’s impossible to man every defensive structure and still field a good size force to assault other camps/towers/keeps. We rely immensely on the various pieces of siege still being there when we have to run back into a tower under attack. With the current power of golems and superior rams, there simply isn’t time to build one before the doors are down.

As it stands now, the fact that a lot of siege actually remains in place long after someone touches them(except for trebs, they always pop) is probably the only reason W3 hasn’t succumbed entirely to a giant zerg-fest. Zerging requires almost no strategy. Defense, counter-attacks and supply management are the things which require a good amount of tactics and training. It would be sad to see them go.

^this^

/lots more characters

I’m not sure what’s happening here. All of a sudden we’re getting timely and useful feedback from ANet here on these forums. Any chance that Mayan calendar was off by a couple of weeks?

Is there any chance of a teaser trailer for the next patch?

THANK YOU MR.F

Great to see you post and talk to us. As the leader I am sure you are busy, but it warms us all that you took the time to talk. And than you for some great answers.

Not sucking up, just really nice to see you take the time to talk to us Mike*!

Why is there so much empty space along the borders of every map? Nobody ventures out there except for bots looking to be unnoticed.

In my opinion, spread the bases further to the sides of the map. It would make each map seem larger too, and more battles would take place between points.

MikeFerguson.8921:

Attic.1562:

Thanks for posting Mike. Would you mind answering another question while you’re at it?

-Is dropping siege blueprints for other characters to pick up an intended function? It seems very bizarre.

It is indeed intended (and bizarre). We would actually prefer to just make the blueprints tradeable, but there are a couple of funky code interactions that happen to make that impossible for us currently. It’s something we’d like to address at some point, but it’s not very high on the priority list currently.

On a similar train of thought, could you not make siege account bound in the meantime as a pose to soulbound? It would stop the need for much of the transfer of siege in that manner, as most just want to put the siege on another character of theirs. Would also make banking it much nicer.

Mike is still ignoring the question that many have asked. Why do some siege equipment seem to remain active past 30 mins when untouched, while others do not. It got nothing to do with quagan storm because no damage were done to them.

I seen many incidents where arrowcarts/catapults/ballista at garison will remain way past 30 mins of unused, while other times they disappear in 30 mins.

MikeFerguson.8921:

We’d like to make it more obvious that the weapons have some sort of despawn timer since it is a completely hidden mechanic, but we don’t have a way to expose that timer to players yet.

Why not just add a tab interface to the WvW window while in WvW? Have the main tab display the score, a second tab display the players and commanders active in your current borderland, and a third tab display each piece of siege in your current borderland. For players and siege, list the nearest PoI (since they’re predominantly in towers/keeps/camps/etc anyway).

This solves many problems if you can get something like that going. Don’t make it show info for all borderlands, or for your enemies — just your team in your current borderland.

While I think that’s a great idea, only issue with that is which piece of siege in about 30 other pieces .. it narrows it down a ton, but still a scavenger hunt in the end.

Edited to add: personally I would love to be able to mouseover siege, like you do spells, and see the expiry timer on it.

Jayne.9251:

While I think that’s a great idea, only issue with that is which piece of siege in about 30 other pieces .. it narrows it down a ton, but still a scavenger hunt in the end.

I’m not a fan of being told specific information in huge war games like this. It eliminates a lot of the pressure, which I feel is important. A coordinate system or something that would tell us exactly where things are relative to ourselves goes against what I believe should be the spirit of things.

I’d rather be able to pop open an interface, see that we have 50 players in a map, see that of those 50 players 30 of them are not in the jumping puzzle, and coordinate with team chat from there.

Same thing with siege: I’d rather know that an arrow cart somewhere inside of Hills was going to expire within 5 minutes than know which arrow cart was going to expire. I want to know rudimentary details and have our team’s skill take over from there, not have our “skill” come from reading spread sheets, if that makes sense.

It does, but you’re still going to spend 10 minutes running around hills checking all the siege to find the right one .. but I suppose reticking it all while there would help as well. Personally it would frustrate me to do the needle in a haystack thing, but that’s me.

gold, we are forced to go farm PvE to pay for upgrades and siege to run at full power. so Money is still a problem, no way to pay for the siege and upgrades needed. we use like 250+ gold each week, usely running out quickly and using more.

While you technically don’t have to leave WvW for anything(besides ascended gear), making money is much easier in PvE. That fact compels players to do more PvEing than they’d like to. I’m guessing that will change in the Feb patch?

Well Mike, for starter i think we need more stat spread for world versus world gear. Currently, the amount of armor and weapons are extremely limited, and we only have Soldier available. For some stat spreads/builds, we are forced to do dungeons in PvE., etc