Guild Wars 2

ANET needs to do something big and fun in WvW. Typically, this means a map refresh as the runes and filling in the lakes just didn’t do it.

Create a whole new series of maps (same themes but just new dynamics, looks, areas, routes) right in time for ESO launch. That way, you renew interest and tear people who might convert. Do you want to play the game you know and invested in now that it has a whole new feel to WvW or take a chance on a game that could disappoint?

That is why I would expect BIG change to WvW (other MMO is really quite WvW based) and less real balance (save what you heard about going thru abilities etc). Boredom is the real problem that makes you convert to the new game more than frustration.

It is a “net new” challenge they will fact meeting with such a popular title coming online. Again, buzz or initial experience of that new title could change things but you prepare for good competition not assume it will be bad.

Hence, everything should come around late March/Early April or 2-3 weeks before your competitor launches. And if they dealy launch, you should delay your major updates too. Simply put, I want you to be so busy with the game you know that you don’t think about switching until all the bugs and problems of the new game are fully out there and people are getting frustrated.

King Amadaeus.8619:

I joined BS because Belle swore she was going to teach me how to play League of Angels.

I think I am quitting gw2 for League of Angels. It’s so addictive!

Not dieing but weird thing is the que is still here. It’s like the max population per server is brought down because a que and for what it feels like less people seems strange.

I am pretty concerned about WvW to be honest.

The way you guys are describing WvW in your lower tiers is an eye opener :o.

Ebay isn’t having too much problems with keeping our people logged in. Well…before the new LS hit, the second we got this new match-up of being against IoJ and CD, meaning no BP or DB, suddenly everybody came out of the woodwork. The second the LS hit, it became a ghost town, like WvW always does after a new LS hits. I suspect it’ll be back to normal on Friday night reset.

DivineBeing.2086:

I am pretty concerned about WvW to be honest.

The way you guys are describing WvW in your lower tiers is an eye opener :o.

It is pretty bad in lower tiers to be honest. Not like a wasteland, but getting there. There will always be things that give it false boosts in population though (reset Fridays, leagues, events, etc), but overall (speaking as someone who played T5-8 for the last two years) there has been a steady decline in players on average. If you play NA prime it is “ok”, but some servers might only have 20-30 (total in all maps) at given points in the day. It got to where you could roam on a BL and see maybe 4-5 people in an hour, just a waste of time really.

If the trend continues, more and more players will begin to either stop playing WvW/GW2, or transfer up in tiers. Now, obviously not everyone would go one of these routes, but even if a small percentage did, it would only serve to further decimate the lower tier populations. Everyone (myself included) thought eventually the “stacked” servers would un-stack due to queues/balance issues on their on accord, but now that does not appear to be the case. At the end of the day it is better I guess for them to play with 30-40 minute queues than to play for 30-40 minutes and get no fights.

King Amadaeus.8619:

DivineBeing.2086:

I am pretty concerned about WvW to be honest.

The way you guys are describing WvW in your lower tiers is an eye opener :o.

It is pretty bad in lower tiers to be honest. Not like a wasteland, but getting there. There will always be things that give it false boosts in population though (reset Fridays, leagues, events, etc), but overall (speaking as someone who played T5-8 for the last two years) there has been a steady decline in players on average. If you play NA prime it is “ok”, but some servers might only have 20-30 (total in all maps) at given points in the day. It got to where you could roam on a BL and see maybe 4-5 people in an hour, just a waste of time really.

If the trend continues, more and more players will begin to either stop playing WvW/GW2, or transfer up in tiers. Now, obviously not everyone would go one of these routes, but even if a small percentage did, it would only serve to further decimate the lower tier populations. Everyone (myself included) thought eventually the “stacked” servers would un-stack due to queues/balance issues on their on accord, but now that does not appear to be the case. At the end of the day it is better I guess for them to play with 30-40 minute queues than to play for 30-40 minutes and get no fights.

You are mistaken about queues on Higher Tiers. From what I understand, the only server that may get queues during the week, is BG. On JQ, we have no queue for EBG most of the time. Only time we really have queues is Reset night and MAYBE saturday night.

RedStar.4218:

Well on GoM things have been way worse. In fact, thanks to the leagues things have become incredibly better. Even if we had our ups and downs since then, it’s not been as worse as before the leagues began.

And since it ended, things got even better. Which surprised me, so I’m happy.

Wat

tluv.5821:

King Amadaeus.8619:

DivineBeing.2086:

I am pretty concerned about WvW to be honest.

The way you guys are describing WvW in your lower tiers is an eye opener :o.

It is pretty bad in lower tiers to be honest. Not like a wasteland, but getting there. There will always be things that give it false boosts in population though (reset Fridays, leagues, events, etc), but overall (speaking as someone who played T5-8 for the last two years) there has been a steady decline in players on average. If you play NA prime it is “ok”, but some servers might only have 20-30 (total in all maps) at given points in the day. It got to where you could roam on a BL and see maybe 4-5 people in an hour, just a waste of time really.

If the trend continues, more and more players will begin to either stop playing WvW/GW2, or transfer up in tiers. Now, obviously not everyone would go one of these routes, but even if a small percentage did, it would only serve to further decimate the lower tier populations. Everyone (myself included) thought eventually the “stacked” servers would un-stack due to queues/balance issues on their on accord, but now that does not appear to be the case. At the end of the day it is better I guess for them to play with 30-40 minute queues than to play for 30-40 minutes and get no fights.

You are mistaken about queues on Higher Tiers. From what I understand, the only server that may get queues during the week, is BG. On JQ, we have no queue for EBG most of the time. Only time we really have queues is Reset night and MAYBE saturday night.

I am not mistaken, because I didn’t say queues existed…I said: "Everyone (myself included) thought eventually the “stacked” servers would un-stack due to queues/balance issues on their on accord, but now that does not appear to be the case."

Since queues were not the issue everyone thought they would be (well outside of leagues) then the “great de-stacking” never occurred. (which is what I think you were getting at)

Question: (and really not sure what the answer is) Let’s imagine that ANet wound up with an amazing generation of servers that let everyone in queue in without performance issues. Would that make WvW better or worse?

Are we doing what if’s?

What if the entire PVE world was open for WvW and every server was on the battlefield at once? It would make for a long committed campaign and would require much more player organization and coordination and much more commitment to the game. We would have front lines of battle across the realm and intelligence reports about the battle activity would be vital to making your forces effective and so on and so forth.

Viking Jorun.5413:

RedStar.4218:

Well on GoM things have been way worse. In fact, thanks to the leagues things have become incredibly better. Even if we had our ups and downs since then, it’s not been as worse as before the leagues began.

And since it ended, things got even better. Which surprised me, so I’m happy.

Wat

RedStar is right, Ferrum. Leagues helped Gate of Madness a lot. I’ve said as much elsewhere as well.

King Amadaeus describes things at their worst. Before leagues, Gate of Madness was pretty depressing. ArenaNet needs to find a way to get people to spread out but as far as I can tell all they’re doing is fixing tier 1 problems by spending months developing a map. Drying up population one tier at a time is how WvW is going to die and it has been exactly doing that since launch.

That said, the way things are right now WvW in the low tiers still does provide great smaller scale fights that are a lotta fun. We’re not at the point where the servers are dead. Sometimes you can’t find much fights in off times but honestly it’s not any better if you’re lookin for roamin fights in the upper tiers either. The smaller community though does mean you’ll get to know a lot of the personalities in WvW. It’s very much like a small town.

Bombsaway.7198:

Question: (and really not sure what the answer is) Let’s imagine that ANet wound up with an amazing generation of servers that let everyone in queue in without performance issues. Would that make WvW better or worse?

Worse. Imagine having 300 people per side on a map. My ideal PvP encounter isn’t smashing two trains together, it’s an interactive encounter where I can use my character skills without being one shot by 50+ people laying DPS into me.

Others may disagree.

I really wish invasions could exist.

Cap an enemy’s EB keep to gain entry into that server’s Lion’s Arch and PvE maps, but marked as an invader. Rounding up an army and smashing into a server-wide Tequatl event would be epic beyond words. Then stick around to camp their dungeons and hunt players in the leveling areas until that server decides to band together and push us back to our home world.

That’s my ideal PvP encounter. It would also make for one hell of a Living Story.

styx.7294:

Viking Jorun.5413:

RedStar.4218:

Well on GoM things have been way worse. In fact, thanks to the leagues things have become incredibly better. Even if we had our ups and downs since then, it’s not been as worse as before the leagues began.

And since it ended, things got even better. Which surprised me, so I’m happy.

Wat

RedStar is right, Ferrum. Leagues helped Gate of Madness a lot. I’ve said as much elsewhere as well.

King Amadaeus describes things at their worst. Before leagues, Gate of Madness was pretty depressing. ArenaNet needs to find a way to get people to spread out but as far as I can tell all they’re doing is fixing tier 1 problems by spending months developing a map. Drying up population one tier at a time is how WvW is going to die and it has been exactly doing that since launch.

That said, the way things are right now WvW in the low tiers still does provide great smaller scale fights that are a lotta fun. We’re not at the point where the servers are dead. Sometimes you can’t find much fights in off times but honestly it’s not any better if you’re lookin for roamin fights in the upper tiers either. The smaller community though does mean you’ll get to know a lot of the personalities in WvW. It’s very much like a small town.

Haha, no I wasn’t asking about GoM doing better – that’s tremendously apparent, especially with all of the guilds big and small we’ve been helping over. I just bolder his first two sentences which seem to have contradicted each other. x3

EDIT: Never mind. Re-read Redstar’s post and realized I was emphasizing the “have been worse” as “have been worse since leagues”.

I’m on Borlis Pass and there’s a notable drop in participation, everyone seems to be pretty tired because any matchup envolving Dragonbrand is straight up PvDoor and we’ve been facing them for weeks. Plus, our guild raid starts well into the evening(server time), we get a few fun fights and a lot of bags. The magic hour comes, some people go to bed and like clockwork, the enemy guild groups pull pugs and turn into a giant, fps killing, open field siege addicted, map blob. Fun is over at that point and we leave them to their PvDooring. This happens every single night. At this rate, I don’t see this mode holding up in the long run and quite frankly, it would be all Anet’s fault.

Tier 4 is death for as long as Dragonbrand continue to be there.

Honestly, when GW2 gets released in China, they should just move SoS and DB to a new Asian bracket with 1/4/7/10 Chinese servers and merge Kaineng/Devonas on NA.

NA is wierd.
In EU even in T7 are great matchups.
And servers in T7 have PvE population as well.

Hule.8794:

NA is wierd.
In EU even in T7 are great matchups.
And servers in T7 have PvE population as well.

Well, kind of. During S1 we (~T4-6) got a bunch of strong guilds from T’1-T’3 due to the giant queues on their servers – just to leave right after again. But overall our base WvW-population is getting smaller and smaller each week. People are just getting bored.
The new map is kinda stupid IMHO, because it tries to fix a problem that shouldn’t be there anyway. Instead of creating new content aka maps for all, Anet rewards the servers with the highest population while the lower servers lose their players constantly for months now. And the more you play on the same old maps, the more you get angry about never fixed problems on these same old maps.

PS: and why the hell gets “T’1-T’3” without the ’ transformed to the word “kitten”? o_O

It’s dead for me. I suspect it’s dead for others too…

I only played WvW since Beta but since the end of the last season I probably played it for 30 minutes tops. It just got stale on me with the same server matchups, the same lame tactics and the same fact that it still doesn’t feel epic in whatever way. I also quit solo roaming… it’s just hambows, thieves and PU mesmers these days.

I’m playing sPvP nowadays but also there quickly losing interest…. the meta is just so spammy and skill-less and balance is so out of kilter, it’s a joke. And of course, class balancing is taking way too long…. two or more months till the next patch. Seriously?

Honestly, it’s dying a slow death even in Tier 1. At least outside of the NA time zone.

Whether it dies or not, it’s already dead to me.

Instead of wasting time on EoTM, Anet should be creating at least one new BL map and one new EB map to put into a rotation with the ones we have now. That’ll get some people back in. Oh well.

Honestly, I can say I’m just over WvW atm…Between waiting on the new map, wxp to reset, and being sick of roaming and getting zerged to death… I am currently “retired” until something new happens in it

SFR population crashed….
But i m not that concerned since in a moth im quitting www if they go on with the brilliant ferocity idea.

Only when we have tough match ups; otherwise you’ll see plenty of players around on ros.

Grav.3568:

Tier 4 is death for as long as Dragonbrand continue to be there.

Honestly, when GW2 gets released in China, they should just move SoS and DB to a new Asian bracket with 1/4/7/10 Chinese servers and merge Kaineng/Devonas on NA.

Our N/A is doing quite well now.

Phedre Scion.1520:

Grav.3568:

Tier 4 is death for as long as Dragonbrand continue to be there.

Honestly, when GW2 gets released in China, they should just move SoS and DB to a new Asian bracket with 1/4/7/10 Chinese servers and merge Kaineng/Devonas on NA.

Our N/A is doing quite well now.

Isn’t that like a race car driver saying he’s doing well even when he’s the only one on the track?

Yes you can be doing well as a race car driver if you are the only one on the track. Or as a jockey. It is a race against time. Self improvement has value so as a server if you are improving however much incrementally then yes you can say you are doing well.

Darkhaven is doing fine, great even. Bounced back after a horribly depressing set of matchups.

In TC it has been pretty empty the last 4 weeks or so. Not sure how we are still doing so well. I think it is really a complement to the hardcore WvW guilds there because we shouldn’t be in many fights right now

style.6173:

In TC it has been pretty empty the last 4 weeks or so. Not sure how we are still doing so well. I think it is really a complement to the hardcore WvW guilds there because we shouldn’t be in many fights right now

It could be due to the new Wurm event.

I know BG has been hit hard because of the Wurm event. When you see over 150+ users in a channel dedicated for the Wurm event, half of those users being from prominent WvW guilds….well you get what I am trying to say.

Even before the wurm event, lower tiers had noticeable decrease of WvW population. That’s the only reason why I and my guild transferred. We primarily WvW for fights and having very few or no fights bored us to tiers.

This game is not going to gain enough new players to compensate for players leaving the game. I believe only the top few tiers will have sufficient population for a viable WvW battles especially when new games get released.

King Amadaeus.8619:

DivineBeing.2086:

I am pretty concerned about WvW to be honest.

The way you guys are describing WvW in your lower tiers is an eye opener :o.

It is pretty bad in lower tiers to be honest. Not like a wasteland, but getting there. There will always be things that give it false boosts in population though (reset Fridays, leagues, events, etc), but overall (speaking as someone who played T5-8 for the last two years) there has been a steady decline in players on average. If you play NA prime it is “ok”, but some servers might only have 20-30 (total in all maps) at given points in the day. It got to where you could roam on a BL and see maybe 4-5 people in an hour, just a waste of time really.

If the trend continues, more and more players will begin to either stop playing WvW/GW2, or transfer up in tiers. Now, obviously not everyone would go one of these routes, but even if a small percentage did, it would only serve to further decimate the lower tier populations. Everyone (myself included) thought eventually the “stacked” servers would un-stack due to queues/balance issues on their on accord, but now that does not appear to be the case. At the end of the day it is better I guess for them to play with 30-40 minute queues than to play for 30-40 minutes and get no fights.

NSP has 25 stacks of bleed ticking and no way to cleanse them off….

Blackjack.2083:

NSP has 25 stacks of bleed ticking and no way to cleanse them off….

oh, we’re having 25 stacks of confusion in CD… we don’t know what to do !

yup, WvW is pretty bad in T5 and below , where generally during weekdays most server normally can only cover 1.5 maps at most of the time, Own BL and EBG.

Will be worse / better next week with the new map. Current BLs will be a ton of pv door, but servers stuck in a bad spot will now have even numbers once again.

hopefully… big hopefully, with the intro of EotM, comes the 50% reduced map cap for the main WvW map….

WoW Azizul i never think about that.
That will definitelly solve blobs issue. But is it the right way?