WvW Tactivators: War Room Banners Broken

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Posted by: Grimaldi.8532

Grimaldi.8532

Hello, I am the guild leader of a large WvW guild that has played in gw2 since beta. We currently reside on TC. I am also the owner of a lvl 52 guild hall, therefore I have access to all the buffs in the war room. I am also the one who started the movement to address server statuses with the advent of mega servers. I enumerate my background to give credence to my post and to demonstrate my impartiality in the discussion.

While I think the intentions behind the War Room upgrades was to create a meaningful reason for guilds to invest and upgrade their guild hall who are focused primarily on WvW I think a necessary discussion must be undergone to re-evaluate the nature of these upgrades and their current outsized impact in WvW.

Server statuses are dropping at an alarming rate, to put this in perspective, before the expansion of GW2 the populations were extraordinarily higher. A game that has not had an expansion in years had higher WvW populations than one a few months after an expansion with new maps, mechanics, and class specializations, I cannot think of anything more indicative of failure than this.

There have been numerous posts elaborating on the failures of the borderland map, the break bar mechanics in wvw, and other things. However, what needs to be addressed immediately are the War Room Upgrades. It is destroying one of the only vestiges us WvW players have left, fair and fun fights against one another. To put it bluntly the integrity of WvW is at stake as a competitive gamemode all because people did not realize the magnitude and abuse that such upgrades could bring when employed by serious WvW guilds.

In a 50man group, each person makes up 2% of the overall raid, outside of the driver each player contributes a fairly standard amount to the outcome of each encounter. However, with the advent of banners, one player utilizing but a few skills can have an outsized impact on the fight as a whole well outside of their 2% margin. In fact, groups are running around with 3-4 of the banners in large scale fights, fights of 100 players are being decided by 3-4 players and forcing those who want fair and fun fights that require strategy, skill, and teamwork to use these banners if they want to have a chance to stand against. Quite simply it is forcing players who want competitive and engaging game play to utilize the same perverse tactics simply to play in the gamemode they enjoy. All this is doing is driving players away from the game mode.

This needs to be addressed immediately. We must remove or severely reduce the overall effectiveness of these banners before it is too late. Simply telling players to target banners, Moa Banners, run your own banners, etc is not a solution, it is a callous attitude that is leading towards the destruction of the only reason most of us play this game, FIGHTS!

Furthermore, the broken nature of War Room Upgrades is not limited to just banners, but the aerial strike, amongst others. The purpose of this post is to start meaningful dialogue to address this dire situation before it is too late. Please bump this post or support this post to gain it attention, views, and more importantly a response.

Please upvote on Reddit as well!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/40smw9/crosspost_wvw_tactivators_war_room_banners_broken/

Regards,
Grimaldi

(edited by Grimaldi.8532)

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Posted by: DrummerX.8549

DrummerX.8549

I support this 100%.

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Posted by: Jatari Thundercloud.3794

Jatari Thundercloud.3794

Very valid points and i support this thread 100 % WvW for some of us is all we do its our whole Guild Wars 2 experience. I would like to add one more comment. A rotation of the new desert BL’s with the Old alpine BL maps. rotate every 2 weeks to keep things fresh and to bring back the richness of those old but good maps.

Defensive Tactical Commander
Server : Dragonbrand

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Posted by: Teltsa.9541

Teltsa.9541

What also disappoints me is the lack of Autoloot in WvW. You spend your time mastering that skill then in WvW gets the shaft. Also WTH gliding in all of Tyria.. Then there is this.

“The number of players than can rally off a single kill in WvW will be reduced from 5 to 1. This change was made to give smaller groups more of a fighting chance against larger groups and to make WvW combat have less sudden power swings in general.

Along with rallying, we’ll also be making changes to reviving in WvW. Players will no longer be able to revive defeated players while in combat. They will still be able to revive downed players. This change was made to lower the staying power of large groups. If a player is eliminated from the fight, they stay eliminated until either the fight concludes or the player uses a waypoint and runs back."

Also one upgrade in WvW is just unacceptable. They would never just make one upgrade to PvP or PvE .. SO why are we getting the crappy end of the stick.

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Posted by: DomAltares.8651

DomAltares.8651

I absolutely agree that there needs to be a discussion about the nature of some of these upgrades. I have the feeling that Anet thought things like these banners would help provide a bit of help to the underdogs and small groups in WvW. Unfortunately, as is often the case, they neglected the fact that what is ‘good’ for a small group becomes enormously overpowered for a large one. I personally see no need nor use for items like these banners that introduce PVE faceroll spam mechanics to what is supposed to be a skilled game mode.

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Posted by: Porqington.3189

Porqington.3189

Agreed. Almost every change to WvW in HoT had some form of PvE bias. I play WvW to fight other players not a 10 million HP SMC lord or some bullkitten air ships.

Bottom line get the PvE out of my WvW!

We Don’t Need No [STAB] – JQ

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Posted by: RainieChan.1093

RainieChan.1093

When Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ (HoT) first came out, I saw alot of commander and guild that were playing world vs world (WvW) everyday for a long time leaving the game. From what I heard from them, the issue was that you needed to buy HoT to play the WvW gamemode. I don’t disagree with them. The point being that now that the expension is out with all those ’’new’’ classes, all the one that you can play without the expension are pretty much irrelevent or atleast, way less powerfull then the one HoT introduced.

I really never understood why would Anet introduces those banners in WvW, or that airship in SMC. What is that? Broken mechanics, who ever spent 1000 gold in scribing can win? How is that fair? How those that make us want to play WvW? How ever, I like the airdrop upgrades that allow us to use a tactivator to get more supply every now and then, same for the upgrade that makes the supply go to 0 when the enemies take an objective. Those are not overpowered and they actually are a good add to the gamemode.

Beside this, there’s something I really enjoy with HoT, which is the new borderland map. Some may not agree with me, but I think that when you’ve learn the map it can be alot of fun. I like the mechanics with the fire keep where you can walk on the lava and also the mechanics in the air keep where you can jump all the way down. I still don’t think that the shrines are relevent and should be in WvW. Same thing with the new break bar. I like that the boss are more tanky, it gives us the possibility to defend, but the break bar… I don’t understand why they introduces it to WvW. I also like the new mechanics of the boss. To me, it just make us feel like that’s actually a boss and not just something to ’’tap’’ and ’’cap’’.

I also want to mention AoE cap and small ops. The fact that we have an AoE cap makes it completly impossible for small ops to defend anything. If we don’t have the numbers, we just have to let it go. The removall of AoE caps would allow small organized group to actually defend towers, keeps and actually it’s also giving them a chance against those big zergs that everyone complains about 24/7.

I also want to bring up stability stack. With the classe changes, there’s so many crowd control that stability is now useless. Is the new meta going to be ‘’who ever has 20 DH with longbows in a zerg win’’?

Concerning the new upcoming changes in WvW :
Upgrade : I think it’s a step in the right direction, but please give more job to our scout. Scouting, atleast to me, is boring and is only about sitting somewhere, waiting. Now they will have to protect dollies, which is great, but I don’t think the upgrades should be automatic.
Points per Kill : Good and Bad. It will either make the enemies want to fight more OR make them want to hide in towers and keeps behind siege, to afraid to get out and fight. i think trying it is a good idea and we shall see if it changes something or not.
Rallying and Reviving : To me this is gorgeous. Atleast for the rallying part, which mean we won’t see ‘’rally-bots’’ anymore. I also hope that the reviving will force the people to actually waypoint and port back ASAP instead of sitting there, waiting.

Mika

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Posted by: Floplag.4032

Floplag.4032

Fully supported, 100%

Any mechanism that so badly affect balance cannot be good. I understand wanting to help smaller groups to avoid blobfests, but you had to know the blobs were going to use these as well in fact moreso as they would have faster and wider access to them making it have no real affect on balance in the long run.

Facing a guild running 60 deep with banners is the epitome of urination into a strong wind, and is NOT a very enjoyable thing.

Personally it has degraded my enjoying the WvW experience as much as the new maps have, which is a whole other topic but spending 20 minutes just trying to get somewhere for a fight is beyond madness. Borderlands should be smaller maps with more important objectives, not the monstrosity they are.

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Posted by: Splattzilla.4692

Splattzilla.4692

Supported 100% and bumped.

(edited by Splattzilla.4692)

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Posted by: BOA smid.1783

BOA smid.1783

These banners have no place in WvW. None. I play for a guild on SoS that runs a max of 20 on a very good night, trending more towards 15 regularly. We’re a fight guild and our focus/desire/dream in WvW raids is to take on equal or slightly larger groups in a fair fight and test our mettle. This is ALL we want. As of now we are already fighting completely outmanned by almost every enemy we engage on our own. The banners take an already unfair fight and push it well over the edge.

My guild, being the size that it is, does not have the banners available yet from the war room. We honestly just learned how to access them from towers/keeps yesterday. We don’t want to use them, we just want fights straight up. But we’re constantly faced with massive numbers sporting numerous banners every night. The game as it stands is literally the least fun it has EVER been to date. The nights we do raid are typically met with miserable fights, to the point that a majority of our players either don’t log in, play other games, or the guild as a whole elects to scrim each other in our guild hall instead of venturing into the misery that WvW has become. I used to spend 95% of my time in WvW. Now that fights are so unfair and so miserable for my guild….I rarely step foot on the maps.

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Posted by: coronbale.3894

coronbale.3894

I am one of the main commanders of Sea of Sorrows NA, a T2 server currently hitting this issue as well. Whatever the game is, whatever the game mode, whenever a developer leaves something in the game so over the top like these banners, it forces the entire game population (whether that thing is a class or comp that is imbalanced, PRM in WoW arenas, a specific type of siege, or in this case banners) to either conform to this very specific thing or get farmed by this very specific thing. This causes a stagnation simply because anything that isn’t this item (banners) gets wrecked. That stagnation causes every team to get in line with whatever it is, be it banners, hammer train, battle/pirate ship, or whatever, and punishes any form of free thought or creative thinking put to the battlefield. Time and again, I have seen it take the high quality leaders and bore them into leaving for something else. With the high quality leaders will go a large portion of the population that is kept on that game by those leaders, leaving the game in the hands of lesser folk.

I do hope ANET takes these things seriously, and while they may have intended banners to break up the zergs, that is NOT what is happening. The zergs are picking up these banners out of necessity, and using them in every single encounter. This polarization of tactics has only one outcome…

Leader of [TSym]
Sea of Sorrows
IGN – Coron

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Posted by: Ipea.2974

Ipea.2974

+1
I fully support!

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Posted by: ades.1386

ades.1386

Ive worked closely with Coron and Grimaldi for many years in game now so I figure ill throw my 2c in also..

Anytime you can use 1 player/1 item to totally nullify the effect of an entire group (15+) from lets put this into matter of fact a PVE item (seriously why include forcing pve grinding into wvw?) the cost for these is so high it forces small guilds to play at a severe handicap to which there is no hope.

Lets say youve got a 40 man guild at high level guild hall you break out 2 dragon banners, a turtle banner and your sheer numbers against a small 15 man guild.. now before the small group could use skill and tactics of the map (ie chokes, walls, gateways, bridges) to try to hold their own, with these banners you can now grant a perma might, stab, fury, protection and throw it into you comp. The smaller team has 2 choices, either die or run.

This has been going on ever since banners came into play. Ill set up the daily situation we face in T2 on SoS, we are outnumbered nightly, somehow we manage to break outer SMC open, now we face frost damage, cold movement debuff, an absurd Airship with mass aoe damage every 3 minutes, cannons mortars, defenders and another wall in our way. All outnumbered there is no way the smaller team has a chance to coordinate an attack and it very well cant sit and wait due to the airship pounding down, so they are forced back out to wait for a cool down. While SMC gains more supply and upgrades automatically. giving the defenders more time to set up.

Being outnumbered in fights leads to other problems (which is being addressed instead of implemented swiftly) Lets say your side gets lucky and downs 8 out of a 30 man group (thats a pretty good chunk in wvw) youve now got a problem, that other 22 can still push you while their backline can simply stop WHILE IN COMBAT and rez those you just killed completely negating your teams efforts.

For small scale roamers:
Auto upgrades are the worst thing we can have happen to us, ill give a scenario your 5 man havoc comes around and sets up to take down a wall, its a fight against time as this wall is upgrading, refreshing its defenses, and again negating your efforts. Havocs have absolutely no way to combat these mega defenses in place. they are also shown on map by sentry taking out their small sneaky efforts. Solo caping a camp is time consuming and not rewarding due to the auto upgrade system made doubly hazardous due to the new BLs terrains defenses harming movement and reactions for your small defenders and reaction teams.

What we want as a community is a system that doesnt rely on PvE to be competitive, fair rewards for our efforts, server balance (not an easy fix I know), and most importantly to feel like our efforts are worth it.

We know a Beta Test is coming (we like this) what we need from it is hard open feedback and strong testers (veterans, hardcore wvw players, streamers, GvGrs, roamers and defenders) not a mass public advertisement similar to the new BLs where we waited and waited to ktrain around the map(That isnt normal WvW its advertising and false hope) that will be reviewed, edited and taken into deep consideration. 3rd we need a date, a hard matter of fact date (You are marrying us and the invitations are being sent out you cannot change the date and expect people to show up with no notice) Weve got a new family (new WvW forming but nobody knows whats going to happen) we need details of the frosting, cake(rewards) and life after the ceremony(beta test) in this case.

Crystal Desert

(edited by ades.1386)

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Posted by: Chris.3290

Chris.3290

Airships and banners are disabled unless Outnumbered Buff is active.

Even just did the planning and resolution for you guys, it’s just time write the code and add it to the next iteration.

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Posted by: Grimaldi.8532

Grimaldi.8532

I love Chris that would be a solution I think a lot of people could get behind until they could be adjusted more effectively.

PPK is coming soon, this needs to be addressed!

Thank you to everyone who has bumped this post so far, so many prominent voices from many servers who dedicate their entire gameplay to WvW. Hopefully even more lend their voice! They will listen if we all keep posting!

(BTW…last night I had my first taste of Venom Dragon Banner…..if you thought Rat Wells were bad….)

(edited by Grimaldi.8532)

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Posted by: BarnabyMalong.7561

BarnabyMalong.7561

+1

Extremely overpowered mechanic that has shouldn’t be in WvW (unless outnumbered, as was suggested. Even then, it should be strictly regulated (ie: can only be taken from SM and a Keep, limiting the banner use to 2 at any given time. Maybe even increase the CD for it).

And pairing the banners with venoms is crazy. With Grimaldi, I saw the Venom Banner at play, and it’s ridiculous. Devs need to hit the drawing board and reconfigure the idea and mechanics behind it.

+1 again!

Dragonbrand,

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Posted by: ades.1386

ades.1386

Airships and banners are disabled unless Outnumbered Buff is active.

Even just did the planning and resolution for you guys, it’s just time write the code and add it to the next iteration.

This is an amazing idea!!!
it would still support defending and help the numbers game. giving it to the outnumbered team provides a fair chance in a successful defense without it being abused by the larger team.

Crystal Desert

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Posted by: DoctorWunderbar.5037

DoctorWunderbar.5037

Airships and banners are disabled unless Outnumbered Buff is active.

Even just did the planning and resolution for you guys, it’s just time write the code and add it to the next iteration.

This is an amazing idea!!!
it would still support defending and help the numbers game. giving it to the outnumbered team provides a fair chance in a successful defense without it being abused by the larger team.

Except it is abusable and goes against Anet’s design philosophy around the ‘Outnumbered’ buff.

If a larger force is attacking SMC, what stops a large, organized group from leaving EB, having someone activate the AC130 gunship, E-waypoint, and then have everyone waypoint back in? Anet doesn’t want players yelling at other players just to get a buff, thats why they refuse to make the Outmanned buff give any worthwhile stat increases.

And the idea also says that guild groups big enough to even afford the upgrade cant use it, they have to leave it slotted and hope someone uses it for them. They don’t get to reap the reward of all their farming.

This solution mitigates a problem while causing 3 more.

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Posted by: Caliburn.1845

Caliburn.1845

I like the idea of banners, but I do think they need to be nerfed. Primarily Dragon banner.

I would go about it like this.

1) Remove the defiance bar on all banners.
2) Make Moa instantly get rid of banners.
3) Make Continuum Rift not work with banner skills.
4) Reduce range, and increase CDs on Dragon banner.
5) Possibly make all banners melee range only.
6) Move the banner tactivation levers to a locate right outside their respective tower/keep.
7) Make the tactivation levers be able to be destroyed by a long multiple person commune(steal that mechanic from PVE).

Caliburn.1845, Monsters Inc.
Darkhaven>Dragonbrand>Blackgate>Maguuma>Yaks Bend>Stormbluff Isle>Yaks Bend

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Posted by: ades.1386

ades.1386

Airships and banners are disabled unless Outnumbered Buff is active.

Even just did the planning and resolution for you guys, it’s just time write the code and add it to the next iteration.

This is an amazing idea!!!
it would still support defending and help the numbers game. giving it to the outnumbered team provides a fair chance in a successful defense without it being abused by the larger team.

Except it is abusable and goes against Anet’s design philosophy around the ‘Outnumbered’ buff.

If a larger force is attacking SMC, what stops a large, organized group from leaving EB, having someone activate the AC130 gunship, E-waypoint, and then have everyone waypoint back in? Anet doesn’t want players yelling at other players just to get a buff, thats why they refuse to make the Outmanned buff give any worthwhile stat increases.

And the idea also says that guild groups big enough to even afford the upgrade cant use it, they have to leave it slotted and hope someone uses it for them. They don’t get to reap the reward of all their farming.

This solution mitigates a problem while causing 3 more.

This would point it to only being able to use if originally outnumbered, the larger force would never be able to activate it. There would never be a chance for the team with more numbers to use the ship ever. If the buff went away the airship would stop and cancel out nulling it ineffective. SMC also would have swords up so you wouldnt be able to waypoint back into it and use the airship. Once the larger force came back and outnumbered the attacking team the banners, frost and ship would not be able to pop.

Crystal Desert

(edited by ades.1386)

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

+1, banners have no place in WvW in their current iteration. HoT introduced too many unbalanced gimmicks that ruined several game modes. In an effort to draw people to buy HoT expansion by offering these over the top gimmicks, you’ve lost so much more Anet.

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Posted by: seele der leben.7280

seele der leben.7280

Very well put, Grimaldi. As the leader of an SoS fight guild that focuses mainly on WvW, I support this 100%.

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Posted by: Kirito.2195

Kirito.2195

Support – hoping anet reads this thread. Turtle needs the nerf in particular imo. It has an uncapped AoE protection and stab. I believe if a Tempest uses it the protection is 40%.

Vyrinn

(edited by Kirito.2195)

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Posted by: coronbale.3894

coronbale.3894

I LOVE the outmanned idea. +10 and give that man a slice of Ukraine

Leader of [TSym]
Sea of Sorrows
IGN – Coron

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Posted by: Obligatory.8715

Obligatory.8715

+ 1
PvE-v-PvE-v-PvE
If none of this is changed ( Which has really ruined my WvW experience ) Anet will lose another dedicated player since Beta along with the other 10K+ people that left in the last 6Months+.

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Posted by: GermiFy.4210

GermiFy.4210

Fully support, great idea.

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Posted by: Forbes.1569

Forbes.1569

This post explains the current situation well- there is no longer a reward or reason to bother with coordination, builds and food so long as the enemy can out banner you.

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Posted by: Zoel.9154

Zoel.9154

Banners just need a complete rebalance. Look at mendons, look at the range and width of dragon banner 5. 2000 range?

Ok.

Ok. If you can look at that and tell me that’s ok, that’s fine. But look at it.

I still don’t really think the rally changes are going to help. I mean, I run a larger group and I’m happy to abuse it, but basically whats going to happen is the opposite of what people seem to expect. That’s an idea that came out of a world with old stability and no Revenants.

Zoel – GM of [coVn]

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Posted by: akeldama.6709

akeldama.6709

I support and empathize with the OP’s sentiments and concerns 100%. As numerous other threads and posts have likewise addressed, this desperately needs attention.

Though if Anet wants to salvage these banners as a tool to assist smaller groups moreso than larger zerg forces then they could still do so. Using a method of player detection, similar to that which communicates OJs on the map, the effectiveness of one of these banners would change dynamically depending on the number of allied/enemy players within a certain large radius respectively relative to any banner wielder.

It could be as simple as toggling between 2 tiers of banner effectiveness: full strength and half strength. After a certain threshold ratio of ally-to-enemy players is reached/detected the respective banner skills have their affected targets halved and/or their cooldowns doubled, etc. This would reduce the effectiveness of any banner wielder in a massive outnumbering zerg to not much more than that of just another player with some unique and nifty skills (albeit still useful if used properly, just not gamebreaking). Any banner in the opposing smaller force though would not experience this reduced effectiveness during that particular engagement.

This same dynamic reduction would also take place if this previously smaller banner group (~20 players) were to then run into an enemy 10-man later on; what was previously a great aid against the larger zerg force is now reduced in effectiveness for them, just as the previous zerg’s banner(s) had been. The 20-man is now not able to rely merely on the powerful banner to quickly decide the fight.

I dunno. Just spit-balling here.

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Posted by: Jatari Thundercloud.3794

Jatari Thundercloud.3794

As i said earlier WvW is a mainstay for many of us and has to be balanced properly for fight guilds ppter’s etc. Too much of the big stuff and smaller guilds smaller servers may disappear forever and that would be sad and reduce the competition which is what the world of WvW is all about.. It encourage’s people that have never fought to give it a try which makes pvp stronger in many different ways.

Defensive Tactical Commander
Server : Dragonbrand

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Posted by: T Man.4025

T Man.4025

Very well said, Grimaldi. I fully agree and support this!

Guild – [TF] Tactical Fury
IGN – Ironfist Legacy

(edited by T Man.4025)

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Posted by: Daddar.5971

Daddar.5971

Great post! In my opinion it’s too late to stop the snowballing effect the WvW ‘improvements’ have already had. Players looking for fights are finding them lacking, and so they leave. The more players leave, the more others are motivated to do so. We are already well past the point of no return in all but the top 1 or 2 tiers. Sorry to say it, but game over.

‘Elite’ in all 9 professions. I take mediocrity seriously!

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Posted by: Metapod.4729

Metapod.4729

Agree!

Do something a-net!

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Posted by: Visiroth.5914

Visiroth.5914

Dragon banner, at least, is indeed over the top.

Agreed. Almost every change to WvW in HoT had some form of PvE bias. I play WvW to fight other players not a 10 million HP SMC lord or some bullkitten air ships.

Bottom line get the PvE out of my WvW!

Higher lord HP gives the defending team more time to respond which leads to more fights. Only ktrainers want fast caps.

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Posted by: Lawrencii.1356

Lawrencii.1356

These banners have no place in WvW. None.

QFT.

¬ I A Euphy ¬ SoS ¬

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Posted by: Trajan.4953

Trajan.4953

+1 OP, 100% supported.

I am the GL of a rather large guild that focuses primarily on WvW and we are trying our hardest to adapt to the new systems that came with HoT but the bottom line is they just feel like gimmicky money sinks and cheese tactics that take everything away from the game-play that brought us all together in the first place.

CCCP….

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Posted by: LizardMoss.4596

LizardMoss.4596

Wralen Bonecall – necro on HoD

Look, banners are FUN. It’s a lot of fun to have 10 stacks of stability at any given time. I love it.
But, I bet it’s not so fun for a new group of players. Or people that are not running 50+. Or not really fun for anyone past the first three hours of having banners.
WvWvW is an amazing segment of game design, and it’s what really kept me in this game. With things that will over a while take up lots of gold to use, and subsequently win with, it absolutely pushes the idea that WvW is about to become totally pay to win. It simply will not be fun for those who like to learn new strategies and tactics. We play WvW because of the feeling of fairly winning over another group is the best reward. Curb Stomping and steamrolling groups of players without access to these banners will take 100% of the reward>satisfaction element out of this game.
We need a dedicated team working on WvW and interacting with the community, right now, it feels as though WvW is nothing but a fun minigame that is often unconsidered by the anet team.
I stand with Grimaldi and say that these banners change the nature of the game, and not for the better.

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Posted by: Daddar.5971

Daddar.5971

Look, everyone: follow the money. Collin clearly said they would be focusing on the things that have been ‘most successful’, and in our corporate culture, successful = profitable. Popularity brings profits. They have poured money/time into the design of DBL maps and guild upgrades. For WvW, these investments have brought a negative return on investment.

Therefore: WvW will get no further significant investment anytime soon. Collin said so himself: They are focusing on their successes, and WvW is a failure!. The dream is over. WvW will be left to bleed out. No number of impassioned forum posts will make an iota of difference.

‘Elite’ in all 9 professions. I take mediocrity seriously!

(edited by Daddar.5971)

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Posted by: Phantom.8130

Phantom.8130

I agree with what’s been posted here. Unfortunately, Anet has a “vision” of what they want WvW to be, which is really more like a hazy hallucination. There’s no real coherent overall design, just a bunch of things seemingly thrown in at random. From all accounts, the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, and everything gets tossed into a giant stew pot. Instead of using the beta tests to get real feedback and fix things, they just use them as free advertising opportunities and ignore anyone saying “hey, there’s a problem here”. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if the “Big WvW Update” will just be them tacking the attached plaque over the Asura gates in LA.

Attachments:

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Posted by: Abaddon.4135

Abaddon.4135

I support this post and encourage the removal of banners and airstrikes all-together. I would also add that the motorcycle upgrade should also not be in the WvW gamemode.

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Posted by: BrickFurious.7169

BrickFurious.7169

Honestly OP I have mixed feelings about banners, not all bad. I’ll limit my comments to the use of banners in WvW combat, as that seems to be the purpose of your post (I think the fact that they are locked behind guild hall upgrade levels deserves a separate discussion and is something I’m less enthused about).

Let’s look at a few facts. GW2 WvW combat is fun, and is probably one of the few things keeping players interested in this game mode, but it has hardly been without complaints. By far the biggest complaint I’ve heard over the years pertains to the extremely high value of pure player numbers in combat. Stack more players and win fights is a strategy that works absurdly well in this game with the minimal level of coordination that just a commander tag gives you. It is extremely difficult as a small to medium-sized skill group to kill a larger uncoordinated blob, and that’s really frustrating.

The reasons player stacking works so well largely have to do with rally mechanics (multiple rallies per kill) and the 5-player aoe cap. They’re patching the rally mechanics in 2 weeks (1 rally per kill), but have told us over and over that the 5-player aoe cap is a technical limitation. This means that once a group reaches a certain size they can completely ignore choke points and proper positioning, as it becomes increasingly unlikely that any enemy aoes on the ground will hit an individual allied player. All that essentially matters is whether the enemy they’re running toward is roughly the same size or larger; if an enemy group is smaller, large blobs can just roll right over that group with little fear for their safety. It has been like this since the game launched, you all know and I’m sure are intimately familiar with the frustrating feeling of being outnumbered in a fight and not even able to hold a choke against a 1-push blob.

It seems clear to me that the design intent of banners is to help turn the tides of this situation by creating a mobile weapon with an aoe cap higher than 5 (stationary siege like cannons and arrow carts already had a higher aoe cap but they are obviously less useful in group combat). Obviously this isn’t as ideal as making regular player skills hit more than 5 enemies (which would make smaller groups potentially more dangerous). But it’s still something.

Now perhaps tweaks are needed. Maybe dragon banners do too much damage. Maybe the break bar is a bit much (although it’s extremely helpful for locating the banner carrier). Maybe the shear amount of CC in WvW is the problem (dragon banner 5 is a joke to dodge out of, but is ridiculous when paired with the amount of lockdowns in the game mode right now). But the fact that there’s a mobile weapon that can damage more than 5 players sounds to me in principle like a great tool for enabling smaller, skilled, coordinated groups to take on larger unskilled blobs with greater lethality.

Everyone keeps saying things like “but Anet didn’t realize that larger groups could use these banners too” or “they should only be allowed when you have the outnumbered buff”. Seriously? Of course any weapon in WvW is going to be available to any sized group, it doesn’t make sense thematically or mechanically to have it any other way. The question we should be asking is, if indeed banners are designed to be anti-blob weapons, are there diminishing returns to their use by large groups? And the answer seems to me to be clearly yes. A large group using multiple banners and rampaging across a map is more likely than not to be far away from the objective where the banner originated, and the banners only last 15 mins. Go try and cap the tower or keep where the banner(s) originated (you can see which one it is by clicking on it on the map). If they insist on hugging that objective to protect it, then be realistic; they could have just filled the thing with siege and stopped you that way too. And the banners’ most potent abilities are area-control abilities like dragon banner 5, which by definition hurt larger groups more than smaller ones simply because they take up more space as they move around. Also, are pick teams not a thing anymore? I think it’s completely valid to suggest a coordinated pick team as a counter to banners since, you know, the dude with the banner has a break bar, he kind of sticks out. Perhaps the banner carrier should have a giant icon over his head, would that help?

I could go on but I think you get the point. I’m not saying banners shouldn’t be tweaked, but if we believe Anet’s excuse of technical limitations regarding the 5-player aoe cap, doesn’t this seem like a possible workaround? We’ve been asking for the ability to damage more than 5 players with attacks in mobile fights since the game launched, why the hate now?

I will agree though, air strikes as currently implemented blow.

(edited by BrickFurious.7169)

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Posted by: Tspatula.9086

Tspatula.9086

Agree completely. These banners are have no place in WvW, along with a lot of the design “features” built into the new boarderlands. At first, I thought the new BLs were OK, I just needed to learn them. Well, I have learned enough and I hate them….

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Posted by: Ishammael.5462

Ishammael.5462

Agree with Grim. I think everyone voiced my concerned as well. The new BLs and mechcanics killed my play style. I was typicaly a roamer/upgrader/scout/siege builder…and now I find myself wandering in empty maps…upgrading nothing. Only EBG has a little life now. And those banners… Unfortunately i went from 85% wvw to maybe 10% now. I wonder how long I can keep this up b4 I stop playing.

Elizabeth Jade

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Posted by: SilentKill.9586

SilentKill.9586

As a former guild leader of TIE and pugmander of Maguuma. The state of WvW is miserable. Players no longer take the time to learn a class or build or anything that takes skill. They run and grab these banners and sit back and laugh because they can 1 shot almost anything on the field. It is appalling and sad that anet has put something like this into a scenario that used to take skill and teamwork, which is something anet used to promote.
I played against FA last night that had no less than 9 banners with a full que blob. I am not saying that our guys do not use them no. I am sure they do.
Here is a hint anet MORE AND MORE people are leaving your game because you have screwed WvW to the point that no one wants to even play. You want to make money fine. Well so do we. We paid to play a concept that you have failed to provide for and instead of taking the time to get to know your player base, you just force non sense down our throats for the sake of making a dime.

Wake up anet gw2 will die soon.
Snoopysrevenge

Snoopysrevenge “They’re So Angry”
TIE Guild Leader
Mag Commander

(edited by SilentKill.9586)

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Posted by: Katiebrie Taulmaril.1658

Katiebrie Taulmaril.1658

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the posts here. As someone who is in WvW almost nightly, even with all of the new gimmicks and gadgets, I have found the use of banners to be the most annoying.
Since we are theory crafting ideas on how to temper the use of these banners, maybe have it so only one can be utilized at a time.
Example: If someone in the group is using a Centaur Banner then no one can activate a Dragon Banner.
Fighting a group with one is challenging, but fighting a group with multiples is useless.

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Posted by: Kanade.4397

Kanade.4397

I used to play a lot of WvW before HoT was released. What is the most heartbreaking is how many of the people I used to play with have left the game or are leaving because of the changes that were implemented with the expansion. I used to be able to log in every night and check my friends list or guild roster and see nearly every person in some borderland. Now I’m lucky if people are even online to play with.

I REALLY want this game mode to thrive, but A-Net is making it really hard for me to feel optimistic as of late.

Dont worry It is [COO]

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Posted by: Offair.2563

Offair.2563

Oh no white knight here yet to tell how to counter this etc. Anyway i do agree this bullcrap doesnt belong in wvw. Especially not in this state. Whoever came with this idea should get fired.

Big Babou, Ranger for life.
Madness Rises [Rise] – Banners Hold.
Don’t argue with idiots, they pull you down their level and own you with experience.

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Posted by: BLANE.8346

BLANE.8346

My experience with the banners showed me how imbalanced they are even when both opponents are evenly sized. It doesnt matter if a group has a few more than the other, without banners they lost.

Needs nerfing. Maybe make the wielder 4x more vulnerable so any thief can pick him off.

(edited by BLANE.8346)

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Posted by: Bearded.6485

Bearded.6485

After following Grimaldi in the past, and listening to his rants, having everyone in your guild banned from TS because they built an omega golem in North camp. I am absolutely SHOCKED AND APPALLED……… that I actually agree with him. Good Job Anet…… I feel dirty now……

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Posted by: etrigan.4213

etrigan.4213

After following Grimaldi in the past, and listening to his rants, having everyone in your guild banned from TS because they built an omega golem in North camp. I am absolutely SHOCKED AND APPALLED……… that I actually agree with him. Good Job Anet…… I feel dirty now……

I know crazy right?

Coron showed up too, its like double dirty. :P

ANET help us!

Nox – Fort Aspenwood
I AM BEST!