Guild Wars 2

BrickFurious.7169:

3. This is a more general WvW complaint, not specific to the new HoT WvW content. There’s a lot of general complaints I could throw in with it, but there’s no point, since Anet said they’re working on fixing a lot of these core issues. If this is a problem for you, right now you either have to play and have fun despite the issues, or find another game to play in the meantime.

I hope you aren’t holding your breath while waiting for that. Still waiting on them to deliver some very basic things they said they would at release. Even as something a simple as making the WvW achievements more reasonable took over two years…..

When it comes to developmental priority, WvW is literally in the back of the bus. Sorry, but they haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.

cillard.3986:

So about the HOT changes, new and old maps alike:

1. The servers are lagging in fights far worse than they did prior to the xpac. This applies to both the new maps and EB equally, and makes the game unplayable large fights because none of your buttons respond. This is a game breaking problem.

Agreed.

The new maps specifically:

1. They are too big. The levels and layers make the maps not just ‘large’, but greatly so. If the servers and code could handle more players, this may be a nonissue. Unfortunately, the game is performing far worse than it used to, so adding even more players into the mix to ‘fill’ the map isn’t currently viable. Also, this does nothing to solve the problem on less active, lower tier servers.

Addressed this a bit in my previous post to this. Really think this is just going to be a L2P thing while people learn the new maps. Travel times in them are really about the same. Agree that the performance issues exacerbates the feeling of the maps being too large and those need to be addressed.

2. They are too convoluted. Too many twists, turns, and elevation changes. Some of this can be attributed to learning the new maps, but even after spending extensive time in beta and post xpac launch, my opinion on this has not changed. Perhaps allowing gliders in WvW would solve some of this? Can’t say without testing.

Basically same as my response to #1. The really twisty/turny parts of the map are really meant for roamers anyway, as it’s typically the shrines that are in the off-the-beaten-track parts of the map. The pathways between main objectives are fairly straightforward. Gliding, while it would be awesome in WvW, would completely break it as players could likely just glide over walls and gates.

3. Too many gimmicks. The concept fueling the implementation of these gimmicks is sounds, unfortunately its was flawed from the very beginning in their design. Splitting up forces and fights to reduce the blobs is still a great concept, but introducing all of the buffs and debuffs just makes the game more frustrating to play.

You addressed this in another post, but for other posters: just saying “too many gimmicks” is not helpful. I don’t know which gimmicks you are referring to. I have to guess (in this case I know you’re mainly complaining about air turrets, and the stealth sand and crippling fields around earth keep).

4. The super laser PvE event. Looks, this PvE even can be fun as hell when you have three sides fighting for it and you can actually hit buttons and have them fire off abilities. Unfortunately forcing action into one place in a map you designed to split people up is more than a bit counterproductive. It is a really neat idea, but the game just can’t handle all those people in one place at the moment. IF you can work our the server lag problems it may be kinda of cool if you can work out the timing of the event to correspond to some metric regarding server peak times.

I did this event with 3 large teams fighting in the last stress test, there was no lag, and it was amazing. Tons of fun. This complaint really boils down to the lag/performance issues, it doesn’t seem to be a complaint about the oasis event itself.

5. The keeps…… god these are absolutely beautiful. Whoever did the artwork did an amazing job on them. From a play standpoint, not so good. The gimmicks (god the stupid overkill on gimmicky crap!), size, and defensibility are all problems.

The shrine gimmicks for each keep? Or do you mean some other gimmick? They are large, which makes things interesting for defense. Though they also buffed defense through guild upgrades and T3 gates, so I’m kind of glad the keeps are large because it means attackers have a better chance of actually breaching one before they are discovered.

6. The chests and scrolls. The chests should stack in inventory and remain account bound. The notarized scrolls should be made account bound. Tyler said the chests being account bound were a bug and it would be fixed. This would be a huge huge mistake.

Yeah I agree the design for this seems somewhat lacking. They’re trying to encourage individual character progression, which I get, which is why they want the scrolls to be soulbound. I dunno, we’ll see.

7. Autoloot. Enable autoloot in WvW and make it purchasable from WvW points and not masteries. Nobody wants to freaking grind masteries in PvE just to be able to do something they should have always been able to do from the beginning in a game. Seriously, it is just archaic in modern gaming to make you loot bags off the ground.

Autoloot from masteries doesn’t work in WvW anyway. Tyler said they’re thinking of ways to add it to WvW, using WvW ranks perhaps. Regardless, it was annoying to find out that it wouldn’t work in WvW, it was the only reason I thought about getting it.

8. Speaking of loot bags ….why do I still see everyone else’s freaking loot bags on the ground. Fix that kitten already.

Yeah this bug is annoying.

BrickFurious.7169:

1. I really think this is going to be a L2P thing. After spending probably 10 hours total in the new BL, I feel like I know it really well, and it really doesn’t feel convoluted.

I spent more time than that during beta.

The only thing I do in this game is WvW. 10 hours on the map could be a single rainy weekend day for me…..

It isn’t a L2P issue and frankly, I find that comment to be horribly insulting. The maps themselves are laid out in a very bad manner. It is that… period.

BrickFurious.7169:

They’re trying to encourage individual character progression, which I get, which is why they want the scrolls to be soulbound. I dunno, we’ll see.

No, that is what one dev said they are trying to do. The reality doesn’t match that statement.

1. sPvP progression is account based

2. WvW ranks are account based. They were character progression, but ANET purposefully changed it to be account progression.

3. Masteries are account based

4. Ascended / Legendary gear progression is account based.

Not only that, nearly everything is in this game is account based. Don’t believe everything you read just because it is a Red name posting it….

cillard.3986:

BrickFurious.7169:

3. This is a more general WvW complaint, not specific to the new HoT WvW content. There’s a lot of general complaints I could throw in with it, but there’s no point, since Anet said they’re working on fixing a lot of these core issues. If this is a problem for you, right now you either have to play and have fun despite the issues, or find another game to play in the meantime.

I hope you aren’t holding your breath while waiting for that. Still waiting on them to deliver some very basic things they said they would at release. Even as something a simple as making the WvW achievements more reasonable took over two years…..

When it comes to developmental priority, WvW is literally in the back of the bus. Sorry, but they haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.

Of course I’m not holding my breath. But even though WvW has the potential to be a lot more fun once they fix the core issues, I’m still having fun regardless. I also don’t play WvW exclusively (lot’s of sPvP and occasional PvE).

And since you’re still here and writing on the forums, I hope that means you’re still having some fun too. If not, then no amount of substantive complaining is going to help you, you’re really better off just moving on to sPvP/PvE or another game.

cillard.3986:

BrickFurious.7169:

They’re trying to encourage individual character progression, which I get, which is why they want the scrolls to be soulbound. I dunno, we’ll see.

No, that is what one dev said they are trying to do. The reality doesn’t match that statement.

1. sPvP progression is account based

2. WvW ranks are account based. They were character progression, but ANET purposefully changed it to be account progression.

3. Masteries are account based

4. Ascended / Legendary gear progression is account based.

Not only that, nearly everything is in this game is account based. Don’t believe everything you read just because it is a Red name posting it….

And what is the one new thing they added in HoT that is individual character progression based? Elite specs. You have to go out and get hero points on each individual character to unlock them in PvE/WvW. Hence they want to make unlocking elite specs in WvW an individual character thing too. Are you arguing they should make unlocking elite specs an account wide progression mechanic too, even in PvE?

cillard.3986:

BrickFurious.7169:

1. I really think this is going to be a L2P thing. After spending probably 10 hours total in the new BL, I feel like I know it really well, and it really doesn’t feel convoluted.

I spent more time than that during beta.

The only thing I do in this game is WvW. 10 hours on the map could be a single rainy weekend day for me…..

It isn’t a L2P issue and frankly, I find that comment to be horribly insulting. The maps themselves are laid out in a very bad manner. It is that… period.

I disagree. (?°?°)?? ???

Edit: forum fail, that was supposed to be the table flipping emoji.

Tspatula.9086:

BrickFurious.7169:

“50% gimmick” unfortunately is still just as vague as “too much PvE”, I still have no idea what you’re actually complaining about there. The oasis event? The air turrets? (which, btw, I will actually complain about those; there needs to be some kind of visual warning before they go off, like they light up or something right before they fire).

Well, in my limited experience so far, the air keep traps especially the ones in the lords room are just overdone. things auto upgrade way too fast (though I am pretty sure that is probably the first thing that will get changed when we start to see changes). It’s obnoxious to get flipped around every few seconds without warning. The outside air traps make an already difficult terrain to maneuver even more so, I have yet to experience a fight as an incoming force there but it gives an overwhelming advantage to the keep. The rock walls that pop up are just silly. And the fire traps and so on…. I haven’t experience the stat boosts but for sure, all of these fairly powerful environment upgrades absolutely should not appear automatically, some of the auto upgrades are fine but others need to have some work associated with them in my opinion.
I have yet to experience the laser event but something that basically destroys all objective gates on the map seems crazy OP to me. Some aspects of the new map are going to end up being just fine after we learn them, the 40% speed buff from the shrines goes a long way to making travel easier, but there will need to be a lot of tuning and tweaking for them to play well…

It only destroys paper gates, upgraded gates just get damaged.

And I think the one change they could make to auto-upgrades would be to make it so that yaks are no longer optional (I’ve been arguing this since auto-upgrades were first announced). Say an upgrade takes X:XX amount of time PLUS X yaks that successfully reach it in order to occur. This brings back a lot of the strategic value of yaks that was lost with the recent changes. Everything else about auto-upgrades I’m a fan of.

cillard.3986:

I didn’t see sPvP players being forced to grind out masteries and hero points just to be able to sPvP…….

Can you use masteries in WvW? I’m not nitpicking, I’m genuinely curious. I haven’t looked that hard at it, since I’ve only gotten a few of the HoT masteries myself.

As far as grinding out hero points, I had to grind out levels to WvW, and leveling in WvW itself felt like a chore of weakness back at release. Instead, I went to PvE and knocked out the leveling before going back to WvW. In the past 3 years, Tomes have basically made it so you get free level 80s, and people have become comfortable with the fact that you don’t have to spend any time progressing your character for WvW.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of forcing character progression on any form of PvP, but Open World PvP has always fallen victim to this extra effort. Usually structured PvP/arenas fall victim to it, too, but GW2 is one of the lucky few MMOs (if not the only?) that doesn’t have gear-based sPvP.

They could have probably made hero points easier to earn in WvW, but unfortunately it’s not something I know much about, since I had map completion before on my Necro, and just popped into HoT for a few of the challenges to max out my Elite spec. If it’s really that bad for strict WvWers, that’s pretty unfortunate, but not something I would personally gripe much about.

Cogbyrn.7283:

cillard.3986:

I didn’t see sPvP players being forced to grind out masteries and hero points just to be able to sPvP…….

Can you use masteries in WvW?

Not any that I am aware of. That isn’t what I was saying though…

Diku.2546:

WvW players will return in a month or two, but only the top tier worlds will probably enjoy the Full WvW experience.

not really, Im on JQ and you might get some confrontation on reset night in EB, but most of the time its zergs doing PvD for scrolls rather than engaging other players. It’s sickening how WvW has turned into, and the new BL maps is an epic fail on ANet’s part. They REALLY dont get what WvW players want, not a clue.

MrSilver.5269:

Random.4691:

Dear god please consult your WvW players, you have managed to butcher WvW in one foul swoop. It’s not even that I personally hate the new maps, there’s just no one on them in T4 which makes me assume that they really are just that bad.

Same in T2. You can go for hours without seeing anyone else on the borderlands.

After last night in T2, I’m pretty tired of hearing this. My guild of about 15-20 responded to a defense event at our garrison. We were just finishing up checking out the new secret quaggan room so were all sorts of unorganized, but we showed up. We got wiped then came back for more. We were trying to get organized and wait for everyone to regroup. What did the other group do? They left! We were bewildered.

Please stop telling me there’s no one because of the map.

Cogbyrn.7283:

They could have probably made hero points easier to earn in WvW, but unfortunately it’s not something I know much about, since I had map completion before on my Necro, and just popped into HoT for a few of the challenges to max out my Elite spec. If it’s really that bad for strict WvWers, that’s pretty unfortunate, but not something I would personally gripe much about.

I have 6 characters I play in WvW depending on what my guild needs on any given night or what we are doing. The most amount of map completion I have on any character is 20%. This is pretty common for WvW primary players and is true for half the people in my guild. /shrug

This is why people are complaining so much about the scrolls being soul bound, especially after paying money for an xPac only to have ANET to openly admit the wvw game mode wasnt a priority.

/shrug

The maps are not that big honestly. I just got back from holiday and started commanding on the new BL on my first day back while being sleep deprived. I did get lost multiple times, but not to the level where I absolutely had no idea where I was. I mean the minimap is there for a reason and yes some of the keep entrances are hard to find, but that’s just an experience thing, once people are more familiar with the map those types of things should no longer be an issue.

As far as “too much PvE” goes I actually disagree with that. Other than the dino event in the middle that we did for a Guild Mission, I don’t recall ever running into a random mob all the NPCs we encounter were part of the defensive force of an objective we’re trying to cap.

With complaints about not seeing any other players, my experience is similar to Chaba. My group had around 10 people and we were doing the dino event for guild missions as mentioned. Then we got jumped by around 20+ SoS, had we been organised and in the same area we probably could’ve put up a better fight, but since we were spread out all over the place gathering orbs, their group basically rolled over small groups of 2-3 of us then moved on to the next group of 2-3 until we were all wiped out. At the time we had the outnumbered buff on, so clearly both TC and SoS had sizable numbers on the map. We decided to stay and see if we could ninja some stuff while TC and SoS fights each other and yet we saw none of that. SoS took fire keep then the outnumbered buff disappeared… We proceeded to take the entire map with pretty much no resistance.

I too come from a similar background as yours. WvW was my passion, and the new maps have just ruined it.

The massive population in EBG as compared to the new maps (full of nothing but PvE) just goes to show how unpopular the new maps are.

ANet has really left WvW in the dust… again… This is so utterly disappointing and sad that I cannot even begin to express it with out using a mountain of expletives.

rchu.8945:

Diku.2546:

WvW players will return in a month or two, but only the top tier worlds will probably enjoy the Full WvW experience.

not really, Im on JQ and you might get some confrontation on reset night in EB, but most of the time its zergs doing PvD for scrolls rather than engaging other players. It’s sickening how WvW has turned into, and the new BL maps is an epic fail on ANet’s part. They REALLY dont get what WvW players want, not a clue.

Yes…ANet really doesn’t seem to get what WvW players want…in my opinion.

They’re really trying though.

WvW players will return…

I know I will…but the overall health of all WvW Communities will continue to struggle to survive.

I feel ANet is lacking a good WvW vision & a solid a Map Mechanic that would nurture & allow our WvW Communities to grow & thrive.

Diku.2546:

rchu.8945:

Diku.2546:

WvW players will return in a month or two, but only the top tier worlds will probably enjoy the Full WvW experience.

not really, Im on JQ and you might get some confrontation on reset night in EB, but most of the time its zergs doing PvD for scrolls rather than engaging other players. It’s sickening how WvW has turned into, and the new BL maps is an epic fail on ANet’s part. They REALLY dont get what WvW players want, not a clue.

Yes…ANet really doesn’t seem to get what WvW players want…in my opinion.

They’re really trying though.

WvW players will return…

I know I will…but the overall health of all WvW Communities will continue to struggle to survive.

I feel ANet is lacking a good WvW vision & a solid a Map Mechanic that would nurture & allow our WvW Communities to grow & thrive.

Some of us might return, however I know I have ran with 1 guild raid in wvw since HoT came out, and I’ve only played outside of that a few days. (Then again I was in BnS/BDO beta’s..lol) I didn’t like the new borderland map much, due to the complexity and how it’s not friendly to new wvw’ers. (Plus many other reasons.)

Borderlands used to be a fav of mine more than EBG, and now it’s vice versa..lol

ANet never understood that WvW is what GW2 is about.

ANet invests a lot of time and resources in everything else but not much in WvW.

WvW is the best feature of GW2.

Kill WvW and GW2 will die…

It’s quite obvious how Anet thinks, by making more PVE inWvW they think more PVE players will try out WvW and fill the maps, well thats how Anet grand plan suppose to be but it backfired and It killed off the new maps, only a handful of players are running around on the new maps while the rest either stopped playing or queuing up for EB.

BrickFurious.7169:

cillard.3986:

BrickFurious.7169:

What more PvE? I see this complaint thrown around so much, yet I highly doubt everyone means the same thing when they say it.

Your entire post is one giant disorganized complaint. You make a direct reference to the oasis event, and then you sort of complain about shrines. That’s it. That’s what you call “increasing the PvE to biblical proportions”. Holy drama batman. Next time try attacking those two issues directly instead of making me wade through the TL;DR morass that was your post.

And map layout design itself is not PvE. I don’t care how complex the map is. It is the “E” in which PvP takes place. You can complain all you want that the map is too complicated. I disagree. Whatever. But saying that making a map design more complex is “too much PvE” is ridiculous. That doesn’t even make any sense. How could you possibly measure the amount of PvE in a map’s design? What do you do, count all the cliffs? There certainly aren’t any more random mobs in the new BLs compared to the old ones, so you can’t possibly be talking about that. If the new maps make you walk farther, that’s too much PvE, is that it? For crying out loud, at least be more specific with your complaints instead of this random, generic whining.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with this forum.

So why do you bother, if your only contribution is to attack the person and their method of complaining instead of the issues they raised. It isn’t that hard to get the gist of what that person is saying.

Because I don’t actually know what the OP is complaining about. His entire post boils down to “too much PvE” (he repeats it over and over). The gist I’m getting is that he doesn’t like the new map because it’s too complex, and he doesn’t like shrines and the oasis event. Why doesn’t he like shrines and the oasis event? Because it’s “too much PvE”. I have nothing to go off there. I can’t argue against his subjective opinion; if he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it, that’s fine. But he’s trying to make prognostications that the new BL will be the “death knell” of WvW.

Why do I bother? Because I’m desperately searching for substantive criticism of the new BL on this forum so I can try and figure out why many people hate it so much. I’m sure Anet is doing the same so they can sort through feedback on possible changes they should make. And this post offers none of it. This forum has been deluged with poor quality complaint posts and it’s frustrating.

I’m sorry my post struck you as rambling and incoherent. I’ll try to be more clear, however I have a suspicion that this really isn’t about “not making sense” and more about you disagree with me. Which is fine.

So, my apologies that in my frustration I exaggerated about PvE content in WvW. Let me try to be more precise. There are groups of players that define themselves as WvW focused. That is where they spend 90 percent of their gametime. Of people who identify WvW as their game focus, I cannot name one who would ask for PvE events in WvW. It’s the last thing on earth we would want. The Oasis event is the ultimate zone-wide event, and completing it has potentially extreme consequences on the WvW of the map. The laser destroys paper keep doors, takes reinforced doors to 20% and fortified doors to 50%. All without any WvW involved. How is this accompled? Through a PvE gather quest.

That to me is a huge slap in the face to WvW-dedicated players. It is the last thing on earth WvW focused players would ever desire. And if you are primarily a PvE player who casually drops into WvW for time to time, the PvE event in Oasis is mediocre and sub-par to PvE activites to be found all over the entire rest of the game. To me, allowing a PvE event to have such tide-shifting impact on WvW is fundamentally at odds with what WvW is about.

The PvE event is a big frustration. But another one is the map design that includes, in my opinion, a ton of environmental gimmicks that interfere with server vs. server combat and make me feel like I’m striving to “beat” the landscape more than I am striving to beat other players. To me, that’s a similar but different complaint than complaining about a PvE event that includes killing a bunch of monsters for a gather quest. This is about a map design that treats an map-area for WORLD vs. WORLD combat like a pve leveling map. I don’t want to run into earth barriers, or portal mazes, or environmental stealth fields, or be trying to solve the puzzle of how to get up three levels of verticality and then over a chasm in order to reach my objective. I don’t want to be “challenged” by the environment. In WvW. the environment should basically look nice and stay the frick out of my way, not asserting itself as a “character” in my WvW experience. Other PLAYERS are the only characters I want to be influencing my WvW experience.

I do understand how another person might not see these issues as distinct, but I do.

The last thing I’m critical of is the design philosophy of “breaking up zergs” why I feel like the new maps have as one objective. Now, there’s lots of different of opinion on this one, even among full time WvWers. I get that. But I believe that WvW means WORLD vs. WORLD. Large scale, raid vs. raid battles. WvW is not just SPvP on a bigger map, in my opinion. I understand that zergy combat can be frustrating due to numbers imbalances. I also argue that in the long run, the challenges of population and force sizes are part of the overall fun. Again, WvW isn’t designed to be artificially balanced matchmaking.

I’d also like to point out that if you are simply running around following a pin, not in a team or guild that WvWs and not willing to participate in voice comms, then your overall experience of large scale fighting is going to be pretty dull and frustrating. Participating in voice comms with what we on JQ call a “main force” is anything but "mindless zerging. It’s some of the most interesting and potentially tactical large scale fighting around.

My and my friends sometimes go roam in 5-mans or less, and that’s fun too. And yes, we have to avoid the main force (“or a mindless zerg, those exist too”) but that’s just part of open world WvW. I don’t actually believe that most dedicated WvWers seriously want that to change. The new BLs however go out of their way to force that change. And worse still, they do that mostly by environmental gimmicks and PvE events that periodically destroy what players have worked hard to capture and keep through a PvE laser that has no player vs. player component to it at all.

That sucks.

Now, you disagree? Totally fine. I can completely respect that. And I may not be the best writer in the world. But don’t come back and say I have no point or its all nonsensical gibberish. You just don’t agree. You might have a better argument than I do for your opinion. That’s also fine. I can accept that too. But let’s just get real here.

I dont realy play wvw since expansion. Not because i enjoy the new, ultimate jumping puzzle pve but because there is a 50 men q on eb and others are empty.

I don’t know why the new BL is like EOTM. I thought it was fairly clear wvwvw players disliked EOTM, and that the people who went there were cross tier gvg guilds trying to fight and people farming levels and ranks.

Maybe they were trying to get new people in since they played EOTM, but the trouble was people went there for ktrains and levels, not fighting.

@Selwynn: I’m one of those who would self-identify as WvW focused, and I personally think WvW needs more merging between PvP and PvE. I think there has to be a way you can incentivize both types of players to participate in WvW and contribute meaningfully if you direct them with the appropriate carrot. I hate saying it, and I don’t understand it, but so many MMOers don’t play MMOs for fun, they play for reward. I think that reward needs to be guided, and can be guided, so both sides find enjoyment.

I also don’t think the laser event is rewarding for both types of players. It only really matters for PvP players (making an objective easier to take), as a PvEer could receive the same reward for the same locations just zerging around at a different time. It isn’t that the event is solely PvE, because it’s technically a competitive gathering event. You can run over and sabotage other groups of players to keep them down while your world continues to gather. It’s just that nobody really cares that much, because 5 mins after something is taken because of the event, someone else will probably take it back anyway.

I worry that if you make the game too PvP-only, what you’ll get are only PvPers. In my experience, especially in larger-scale PvP, PvPers quit regularly if the going gets too tough. They transfer guilds, transfer worlds, leave the game and blame it for their “loss”, or they try to stack the deck in their favor, removing competition.

PvEers aren’t infallible by any means, but with the right events, they would serve as a target both for attack and defense. Ideally, it would be like a caravan roaming through the wild. It’s a target for being attacked, and therefore it should have defense.

The main issue is that you have to make WvW more rewarding than PvE training in the direction of something PvEers want, so they risk the failure of not getting it all the time. Also, if it gets really popular, you might deal with queues again.

I just honestly think WvW will continue to dwindle unless they make the map feel more like an open world environment, complete with players who don’t necessarily want to fight.

I’m not trying to convince you, just sharing the opinion of someone else on the WvW spectrum. Personally, I exclusively want to be fighting people. I just also want WvW to feel more like open-world, and less like a big sPvP map (which it does actually feel to me, even with the maze-y maps and NPC-defended objectives).

Let us cast our minds back to DAoC’s early days, why did everyone flock to emain/Hibernia’s BL? Because the terrain was simple, elegant. Green rolling hills with stands of trees/forests, a lake or 2 here or there and the core castle objectives for each zone.

That simplicity made it the best BL for running around killing people, the terrain was not a hindrance in any way. Sure fights did occur in the other BL’s but emain/Hib was always pumping.

Wind forward and i dont understand how designers have lost this. Adding complexity to a map != “depth”, for me it just interferes with the point of WvW.

These maps have some good features, the art team has done amazingly well, i like the diversity of the keep lords, each feels different. The boons you can gain from the shrines are okish, the sentry’s tagging you on the map is a nice feature as well.

The original alpine maps had more than enough verticality, i dont want to be grappling with the terrain constantly as it gets in my face whilst im trying to WvW. It’s like you really want to WvW, you really do. But Anet just keeps shoving stuff in front of your face going what about this? You like this right? How about this instead then, you like this? No, get that kitten out of my face i just want to go kill stuff.

There are a few perplexing things about the new map as well, it feels as if it was built with the idea that you could use a glider. But at some point after the map had been designed they pulled that option. And it feels far too big for the numbers Anet caps their servers at.

1 for me… i used to go on and on playing wvw for hours..
Usually reset nights i would play straight for 5-6 hours nonstop and had continuous fun during that..
Las days after hot i logged to wvw 3 times..
1st time on the new BL i got bored of so many gimmicks and so few actual fighting involved after 1 hour and went pve on maguuma for some masteries.
2nd time i went ebg and did a whole 4 hours tour..
3rd time again on new BL after 20 mins i was already jumping around in circles in base camp and then i just went: know what.. kittenhis…bak to pve world.. ebg had 40 queue and i decided not to wait.

I really hated this new bl…

Shrines giving 40% speed.. rocks spawning blocking your way… wind pushing you from bridges.. buffs that makes you able to jump from olimpus and take no falling damage…mega mortars cannons… gathering event…
If we described this on the forum 3 months ago noone would ever imagine we would be talking about wvw..
Maybe someone would mention EOTM…
But never wvw

So many things could have been done..
Way easier btw… and would have made WVWers happy.
With the new BLs you manage to ruin the game mode to a lot of players..
I just dont see the reason
PvE players have the pve mode
Hybrid players have EOTM mode
Wvw players have EBG now
Tks…

High-population servers likely do not have too many issues with the new maps’ size. Unfortunately on the lower tiers, the increased size and vertical complexity makes the maps ghost towns.

I’m all for small-group havoc play, which involves a lot of solo flipping and the “PvE” aspects of WvW, but I view the megablob-type of play similarly in that it’s usually not possible to discern what’s going on. Simply not encountering foes is strictly boring, though, so making the maps are big as they are hurts everyone not in T1 a lot more than it should.

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

I’ve got some suggestions, which while some are fairly complex (and others very basic), would likely heavily improve WvW and make this game extremely distinguished from any other competition. I know ANet has the resources in due time, so while these are substantial, I imagine the format’s success would make them worthwhile.

- Cost reduction/free upgrades but still a manual upgrade path requiring supply and corresponding yaks.

- Giving keep defense objectives good and distinct rewards by a new wallet currency that is gained only via defending objectives with substantially increased rewards based on a participation system, like in the HoT maps. Currency can be spent at a defense merchant for things like superior siege, exotic equipment, and ascended materials.

- Guaranteed defensive siege rewards for completing a “defend” objective as to allow defenders to build siege at no expense or leaving the objective, scaling based on participation.

- Removal of the laser and reversion of guild fortifications to being easily-accessible by smaller or newer guilds.

- Removing/heavily changing the large-scale combat effects which provide huge benefits to those involved in the environment, such as the massive areas of group stealth, immunity to lava damage, no fall damage, etc. Tertiary objectives are cool, but shouldn’t provide massive fighting benefits and make fights utterly one-sided. Small bonuses like bloodlust were on the right track as they gave small advantages in the form of mere stat increases rather than huge terrain bonuses and other immunities.

-The sandstorm idea is cool for mobile groups to go undetected, but the areas it covers are too large and cover too many locations. etc.

- Keep lords and objective defender health needs to be brought down to where it was, but simply with more extensive scaling. I tried taking SMC with around five people a few days ago, and after 15 minutes of attacking the lord, we got the lord down to around 20% and then got blobbed. It took us almost an hour to get in to begin with. I don’t see why after breaching it should be so overly-difficult to cap, since breaching is meant to be the hard part/point.

(The big one, but what would be a sweet implementation to really hammer down on WvW)
- A formal system for scouts to report enemy locations. A “war table” or something in keeps would be a really cool way for players to inspect enemy movement patterns reported in by scouts. This way a more formal game strategy can be applied through the use of scouts to get info, strategists in base to interpret and provide a game plan, and the actual people fighting on the field. This can also make scouting and strategic play more rewarding by allowing scouts to report information to the strategists which can assign their own forces to combat an opposing force or move elsewhere. If the objectives are completed by the “assigned” forces in a time period, the strategist and scout gets personal reward for leading his team to victory. Think of it like an RTS, except the agents on the field are real people, and the strategist is merely theorizing on what will happen, per the scouts’ information. This still requires communication with the frontline commanders to actually succeed, and can be rejected. But if things play out like the strategist expects from the scout’s information, everyone gets individually rewarded, from the scouts to the strategists to the people fighting themselves.

This way, with systems above, defense agents also gain rewards by defending a keep to protect the strategists. Everyone is rewarded fairly and the nature of WvW becomes completely overhauled into real large-scale fighting with as much complexity as the users want, with no dependence on lame tertiary objectives supplying overly-inflated boosts. Large-area stealth fields then have a place and purpose for movement or hiding, but scouts can also overcome this.

I don’t mind the new maps persay. I don’t think the maps are technically “too big” its just too vertical. Getting anywhere without a glider is extremely tedious and not intuitive. Even with knowing some of the shortcuts getting people to places to defend is horrible. Also the verticality doesn’t lead to exciting fights and makes it harder to find places to engage in large pug v pug or guild v guild fights, so no one goes there to fight. On top of that because it takes so long to get to places as a commander, things are almost always upgraded and it actually takes a decent amount of time to ktrain a BL vs Ktrain ebg. So even pug commanders and blobs prefer EBG over the BL’s because you can cap things faster and find fights….defending home bl means nothing anymore, since waypoints are always there and things auto upgrade….so if someone slams your bl you can just have a few people take it back later. So everyone floods EBG and then just backcaps the BL’s when necessary. It’s pretty horrific.

Well, the one thing I can definitely agree with is that the new maps are too all over the place, too many twists and turns and elevation differences and portal doorways needed to get here and there, etc. – definitely NOT something you want to have to deal with if you die and have to run back to catch up with your group/zerg. As others in this thread have pointed out, there’s a reason that on most nights EB is the only map with a queue. Hopefully over the next year AN will get its act together. Otherwise all of us old DAoC players might be permanently migrating to Camelot Unchained when it’s released.

Selwynn.2758:

So, my apologies that in my frustration I exaggerated about PvE content in WvW. Let me try to be more precise. There are groups of players that define themselves as WvW focused. That is where they spend 90 percent of their gametime. Of people who identify WvW as their game focus, I cannot name one who would ask for PvE events in WvW. It’s the last thing on earth we would want. The Oasis event is the ultimate zone-wide event, and completing it has potentially extreme consequences on the WvW of the map. The laser destroys paper keep doors, takes reinforced doors to 20% and fortified doors to 50%. All without any WvW involved. How is this accompled? Through a PvE gather quest.

You wrote a lot more in your post but I want to address this part in particular, because it is at the heart of my complaint about your original post and you repeat it again here.

I’m honestly not trying to be pedantic here, but I’ll repeat myself again in different words: Calling the oasis event a “PvE event” is not only nonsensical, it’s not helpful at all in describing what you’re really complaining about. You think it is clear that when you call it a “PvE gather quest”, that we should understand the criticism you are trying to level, and it isn’t clear at all.

The oasis event is an objective, in a PvP map, where enemy players can interfere with your ability to complete it. By that very definition it is not a PvE event. In a PvE event, the only enemies that can interfere with your ability to complete it are computer controlled characters or computer controlled environments. Just because it is possible that enemy players will not be present at the oasis event does not qualify it as a PvE event. I have participated in oasis events where enemy players were contesting it, and trust me, it felt nothing like a PvE event.

The Oasis event is the ultimate zone-wide event, and completing it has potentially extreme consequences on the WvW of the map. The laser destroys paper keep doors, takes reinforced doors to 20% and fortified doors to 50%.

This seems to be your true complaint, and it is clearly stated (thank you). You bury it in all your talk about “WvW-focused players” and “PvE events” and its value is nearly lost because of that. Your problem with the event is not that it is “PvE” (it isn’t). Your problem is that it has the potential to be too impactful. You didn’t say this, but perhaps you also agree with other players who have said the event may favor overpopulated servers because of this. These are all very valid criticisms that, should they prove truly problematic, will need to be addressed by Anet.

I don’t mean to single you out in particular; as I said, the quality of criticism in this forum has taken a drama-filled nosedive since HoT launched and you are hardly the only culprit. I’m only making an example out of your post as a way of highlighting the desperate need for better quality and more clearly-stated criticism. Many, many posters have taken to calling something they don’t like about the new WvW map and changes “PvE”, thinking that this adequately describes their complaints, when it doesn’t at all.

It’s extremely important that what players are actually complaining about is made crystal clear. Because changes to existing WvW content and the development of future content hinges quite a bit on this kind of player feedback. And if it isn’t clear, as others have mentioned, players are likely to get exactly what they asked for (but not what they really wanted).

Been playing WvW over 13k hours from beta.

Now…it saks HUGE!!!!
Anet totally faked us.

So big +1 for me indeed.

Selwynn.2758:

The PvE event is a big frustration. But another one is the map design that includes, in my opinion, a ton of environmental gimmicks that interfere with server vs. server combat and make me feel like I’m striving to “beat” the landscape more than I am striving to beat other players. To me, that’s a similar but different complaint than complaining about a PvE event that includes killing a bunch of monsters for a gather quest. This is about a map design that treats an map-area for WORLD vs. WORLD combat like a pve leveling map. I don’t want to run into earth barriers, or portal mazes, or environmental stealth fields, or be trying to solve the puzzle of how to get up three levels of verticality and then over a chasm in order to reach my objective. I don’t want to be “challenged” by the environment. In WvW. the environment should basically look nice and stay the frick out of my way, not asserting itself as a “character” in my WvW experience. Other PLAYERS are the only characters I want to be influencing my WvW experience. (emphasis mine)

I want to single out and respond to this part of your post as well, since it seems to echo many other players’ complaints about the new map. This also seems to be related to your complaints about “PvE” in WvW; it seems that any time something other than a player influences your experience in WvW, you refer to it as “PvE”.

I’m going to be frank about this part of your post, and in particular the part I bolded at the end. It’s contrary to the way that WvW has been designed from the very beginning. I don’t think any amount of changes Anet makes is going to satisfy you in this regard, because your complaint goes against the core design of WvW. WvW is not about what you seem to think it is about.

The core gameplay of WvW involves enemy players manipulating the environment to challenge you and get in your way. And your response must be to try and manipulate the environment back in your favor. Literally every objective in WvW works this way. Enemy players take keeps and towers, which erect walls and gates that get in your way. If they hold those keeps and towers for a while, the walls and gates get stronger and become even more of a hindrance. Players erect siege weaponry to deny access to areas, or to take down the gates and walls so the environment becomes more favorable to them. And then there are secondary objectives (initial the orb mechanic, then the ruins/bloodlust). This was all present in the core release of WvW.

HoT has changed the secondary objectives to involve the shrines. If you don’t want to run into rock walls or stealth fields, you have the option of going and taking control of the earth shrines so you can turn off those environmental effects. Once again, just another example of players manipulating the environment in their favor; this is hardly out of step with what WvW has been all about from the beginning.

There is certainly fighting that takes place over these objectives, of course. But WvW isn’t just about fighting, nor has it ever been only about fighting. It’s a large, objective-based PvP game mode, not team deathmatch. Fighting is a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. Many players who only really care about fighting formed GvG guilds so they could fight against each other. Which is fine really; many servers have arrangements where those guilds focus on fighting while other guilds focus on taking objectives. But the basic fact is that everything about WvW, from the score to primary game mode mechanics, revolve around objectives that manipulate the environment based on player actions.

Once again I feel there is some valid criticism buried within this part of your post. It’s certainly possible for Anet to design objectives that aren’t fun, or that don’t involve enough player vs. player combat, or that are so overwhelming that they negate other objectives. I think time will tell whether these new objectives Anet has designed end up being more problematic than fun.

But once again you dilute the value of this part of your post, this time with the part of it that I bolded. The bolded part undermines the rest of your post, because it outs you as a player who doesn’t seem to enjoy the core aspect of what makes WvW WvW. Based on that part of your post, it seems to me that the game mode just isn’t designed to fulfill your interests, and that it never has been. I don’t know if that truly is the case. But if you do actually enjoy the basic design philosophy of WvW — a large-scale, objective-based PvP map, where players manipulating the environment to the detriment of other players is just as much a part of the game as combat with other players — then you need to focus your criticism on the ways in which Anet has implemented that design philosophy, and not on the philosophy itself. Otherwise your criticism will only fall on deaf ears, as any WvW developer worth his/her salt will immediately recognize that you are not their target customer for this particular product.

DeceiverX.8361:

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

This is actually my biggest gripe too, though it isn’t related just to the new BLs. As you suggested, auto-upgrading is fine, but inevitable upgrading is not. There needs to be some way for enemy players to prevent an upgrade from happening besides just capturing the objective. I think the most obvious and easy change is to make it so that a certain amount of yaks are required to reach an objective before it upgrades (in addition to the timer), similar to how upgrades were gated by the number of yaks that reached them prior to HoT.

Thank you, contributors to this thread.

I think it highlights both differences in experience, and the need for changes in the new borderlands.

I suspect the speed buff from shrines was added specifically because the designers realized the maps were bigger and harder to get around.

Some of the “gimic-y” stuff – the central cannon, infinite fall, wind blasts, sandstorms … we might be better off without and removing them might streamline server processing and reduce lag.

Unless the map size is reduced, I’d keep the speed buff, possibly increase it to 50%. Shrines would effectively become ruins with a different bonus.

BrickFurious.7169:

DeceiverX.8361:

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

This is actually my biggest gripe too, though it isn’t related just to the new BLs. As you suggested, auto-upgrading is fine, but inevitable upgrading is not. There needs to be some way for enemy players to prevent an upgrade from happening besides just capturing the objective. I think the most obvious and easy change is to make it so that a certain amount of yaks are required to reach an objective before it upgrades (in addition to the timer), similar to how upgrades were gated by the number of yaks that reached them prior to HoT.

I completely agree with this sentiment. The problem is that there were many many threads, with many many post, clamoring for an easier time defending. As much as I do not like it, there was a vast amount of post demanding a change to help defenders. Now guess what we have?

Melanion.4892:

I wvw fairly frequently. Rank 2265, mostly roaming in groups of 2-5 or going around with groups of 15-20. I only ktrain when I’m incredibly bored.

I actually like the new map. It’s a welcome change, the only trouble is nobody wants to be there. There are plenty of opportunities to play with the environment to beat people while outnumbered. Worst part is that nobody is there to fight. My roaming buddy and I spent about 2 hours on the borderland last Saturday and Sunday, then again this Friday, each time during NA prime. The fights were actually fun. Terrifying fights on the ledges in the southeast. Only thing I could ask for is more people to play on the map, whether it be a zerg or roamers. It’s a great map for a smart zerg and even better for roaming.

Tl;dr: don’t write off the new map so quickly. Learn the map. Play the map. When there are more people on the map, it’s going to be more fun. As it is, it’s fun when people are playing.

This ^^

The new BL maps need time to become familiar with again, just like the old maps. Give it more time.

coglin.1867:

BrickFurious.7169:

DeceiverX.8361:

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

This is actually my biggest gripe too, though it isn’t related just to the new BLs. As you suggested, auto-upgrading is fine, but inevitable upgrading is not. There needs to be some way for enemy players to prevent an upgrade from happening besides just capturing the objective. I think the most obvious and easy change is to make it so that a certain amount of yaks are required to reach an objective before it upgrades (in addition to the timer), similar to how upgrades were gated by the number of yaks that reached them prior to HoT.

I completely agree with this sentiment. The problem is that there were many many threads, with many many post, clamoring for an easier time defending. As much as I do not like it, there was a vast amount of post demanding a change to help defenders. Now guess what we have?

I like the other changes Anet made to help defending (T3 gates, guild upgrades), I just think they went too far by making yak-less, inevitable upgrades a possibility, and that this is a change they should backtrack on slightly. Managing supply lines is supposed to be part of the strategy for defense, and this change makes supply line management less important. I think the other buffs to defense are sufficient and stand on their own; inevitable upgrades both overbuff defense and make defensive strategy more boring.

I now understand why it takes a “year to design a new map”, the new map is very pretty but totally unsuited to its purpose.

Thank-you to the OP for so eloquently voicing the same frustrations I have. Pity, only the customers are listening.

BrickFurious.7169:

The core gameplay of WvW involves enemy players manipulating the environment to challenge you and get in your way. And your response must be to try and manipulate the environment back in your favor. Literally every objective in WvW works this way. Enemy players take keeps and towers, which erect walls and gates that get in your way. If they hold those keeps and towers for a while, the walls and gates get stronger and become even more of a hindrance. Players erect siege weaponry to deny access to areas, or to take down the gates and walls so the environment becomes more favorable to them. And then there are secondary objectives (initial the orb mechanic, then the ruins/bloodlust). This was all present in the core release of WvW.

That has got nothing to do with what s/he was talking about.

morrolan.9608:

BrickFurious.7169:

The core gameplay of WvW involves enemy players manipulating the environment to challenge you and get in your way. And your response must be to try and manipulate the environment back in your favor. Literally every objective in WvW works this way. Enemy players take keeps and towers, which erect walls and gates that get in your way. If they hold those keeps and towers for a while, the walls and gates get stronger and become even more of a hindrance. Players erect siege weaponry to deny access to areas, or to take down the gates and walls so the environment becomes more favorable to them. And then there are secondary objectives (initial the orb mechanic, then the ruins/bloodlust). This was all present in the core release of WvW.

That has got nothing to do with what s/he was talking about.

I saw the connection, personally. If you’re taking the angle that Selwynn was specifically talking about the terrain, then even in Alpine BL, terrain was utilized when possible to provide an advantage. Standing on the roof of the entrance to SW camp, using stairs and walls in towers/keeps for strategize advantage, firing down from walls to harass those who are sieging your objective, gathering behind buildings then running a surprise push back at an enemy force when they get close.

GvGs take place in open fields to ensure a fair environment for two groups of players. But WvW has always involved utilizing everything, even terrain, to maximum effect. The Desert BL takes that to a bit of an extreme, but at the end of the day all it really represents is more toys. More chokepoints, more ledges, more environmental defenses.

It’s fine if you want to just run around on an open field, with sporadic buildings that have walls. That’s a personal preference. I personally prefer taking stock of my surroundings when faced with a fight, so I like an environment that is more dynamic.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I saw the connection, personally. If you’re taking the angle that Selwynn was specifically talking about the terrain, then even in Alpine BL, terrain was utilized when possible to provide an advantage. Standing on the roof of the entrance to SW camp, using stairs and walls in towers/keeps for strategize advantage, firing down from walls to harass those who are sieging your objective, gathering behind buildings then running a surprise push back at an enemy force when they get close.

GvGs take place in open fields to ensure a fair environment for two groups of players. But WvW has always involved utilizing everything, even terrain, to maximum effect. The Desert BL takes that to a bit of an extreme, but at the end of the day all it really represents is more toys. More chokepoints, more ledges, more environmental defenses.

It’s fine if you want to just run around on an open field, with sporadic buildings that have walls. That’s a personal preference. I personally prefer taking stock of my surroundings when faced with a fight, so I like an environment that is more dynamic.

You taking it upon yourself to answer every single post critical of WvW development? Or just trying to shout down the criticism?

Your final paragraph is as much of a strawman as the post I was responding. Its about the preponderance of artificial constraints placed upon players in the new maps. Natural terrain designed in a way that can be used as an advantage by 1 side is fine, the alpine borderlands had some of that. But in the new maps there are entirely artificial obstacles that are simply annoyances, everyone I play with agrees with that.

Tspatula.9086:

BrickFurious.7169:

What more PvE? I see this complaint thrown around so much….{snip}

Look an honest examination of the new borderlands reveals a sort of obsessive fixation with Z-axis tech that Anet brought out with the HoT maguma maps. It’s fantastic in the PvE maps, and gliding is genius, but it’s simply out of hand in the new borderlands map. That, and clearly aesthetics trumped all other design considerations. It’s in the guild halls too, massive areas, but the Arena, the really functional part of guild halls is too small by at least 25%, but a 100% increase is really what’s needed. There is no focus on the core gameplay of WvW, the new maps are at least 50% gimmick (and I think I am being generous here)
Play devil’s advocate and support Anet all you want, that’s fine, but EotM, and now this new borderlands clearly show Anet’s tin ear to what the WvW community need and their lack of understanding how WvW works for serious guilds. I have no doubt that they will continue to “tell” us how WvW should be played, regardless of the obvious fact that NONE of the devs are serious WvW players and none of them are willing to admit that they don’t understand the game mode very well.

Agreed. I really think the new BL is a really pretty PvE map that got stuffed into WvWvW. And not because of the NPCs, I could care less if there are some dinosaurs hanging around a watering hole (though I find it funny how they managed to make the cannon effect so damaging yet so visually underwhelming), I’m talking about the actual design of the map.

With the new stability, line of sight and pathing, fall damage, the rally system, the AoE cap and many WvWvWers’ tendency to blob (and leave when they can’t) you’d think there wouldn’t be that many narrow passages, high ledges and platforming. Getting blown or punted off walkways, having rock walls sprout from the ground, gambling and losing at the “I don’t have the buff, will this fall kill me?” game becomes a bit tedious. Especially when the annoyance starts to overshadow the value of your goal. WvWvWers have had to put with a lot and so people avoiding this map and opting for packing EB is quite telling. At least in EBG with the new sentry reveal, if I see dots on the map and head in their direction I’d find people, on the new BLs, the impeding terrain often just turns it into to chasing ghosts.

morrolan.9608:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I saw the connection, personally. If you’re taking the angle that Selwynn was specifically talking about the terrain, then even in Alpine BL, terrain was utilized when possible to provide an advantage. Standing on the roof of the entrance to SW camp, using stairs and walls in towers/keeps for strategize advantage, firing down from walls to harass those who are sieging your objective, gathering behind buildings then running a surprise push back at an enemy force when they get close.

GvGs take place in open fields to ensure a fair environment for two groups of players. But WvW has always involved utilizing everything, even terrain, to maximum effect. The Desert BL takes that to a bit of an extreme, but at the end of the day all it really represents is more toys. More chokepoints, more ledges, more environmental defenses.

It’s fine if you want to just run around on an open field, with sporadic buildings that have walls. That’s a personal preference. I personally prefer taking stock of my surroundings when faced with a fight, so I like an environment that is more dynamic.

You taking it upon yourself to answer every single post critical of WvW development? Or just trying to shout down the criticism?

Your final paragraph is as much of a strawman as the post I was responding. Its about the preponderance of artificial constraints placed upon players in the new maps. Natural terrain designed in a way that can be used as an advantage by 1 side is fine, the alpine borderlands had some of that. But in the new maps there are entirely artificial obstacles that are simply annoyances, everyone I play with agrees with that.

Honestly, you provided no substance, so i challenged you to try to squeeze it out. And i personally think many criticisms that have been posted are very shallow observations at best. I also disagree with some of them.

I have my own thoughts on the Desert BL that I’ve posted. Not all of those thoughts are positive. Are we not allowed to challenge the angry mob in an attempt to refine the feedback and improve the game mode we love?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Honestly, you provided no substance, so i challenged you to try to squeeze it out. And i personally think many criticisms that have been posted are very shallow observations at best. I also disagree with some of them.

How about you just ask for more detail then.

You ask for more informed criticism rather than just shouting insults at the devs then when you get it you criticise that as well. Yes I could go into even more detail but I think the thrust of the argument is clear and this is a user forum not detailed test feedback.

morrolan.9608:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Honestly, you provided no substance, so i challenged you to try to squeeze it out. And i personally think many criticisms that have been posted are very shallow observations at best. I also disagree with some of them.

How about you just ask for more detail then.

You ask for more informed criticism rather than just shouting insults at the devs then when you get it you criticise that as well. Yes I could go into even more detail but I think the thrust of the argument is clear and this is a user forum not detailed test feedback.

Well, yeah. Of course i criticize/challenge the feedback as well. I’ve been trying to share what i think during that criticism so it can be challenged as well. Ideas don’t grow from complacency.

And this isn’t a test feedback forum, but players are demanding ANet listen to them. If you are giving vague feedback or assuming a meaning is clear, you only have yourself to blame if any changes made aren’t in the direction you want.

morrolan.9608:

BrickFurious.7169:

The core gameplay of WvW involves enemy players manipulating the environment to challenge you and get in your way. And your response must be to try and manipulate the environment back in your favor. Literally every objective in WvW works this way. Enemy players take keeps and towers, which erect walls and gates that get in your way. If they hold those keeps and towers for a while, the walls and gates get stronger and become even more of a hindrance. Players erect siege weaponry to deny access to areas, or to take down the gates and walls so the environment becomes more favorable to them. And then there are secondary objectives (initial the orb mechanic, then the ruins/bloodlust). This was all present in the core release of WvW.

That has got nothing to do with what s/he was talking about.

Aww, now don’t be a tease, please enlighten us about what s/he was actually talking about.

coglin.1867:

BrickFurious.7169:

DeceiverX.8361:

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

This is actually my biggest gripe too, though it isn’t related just to the new BLs. As you suggested, auto-upgrading is fine, but inevitable upgrading is not. There needs to be some way for enemy players to prevent an upgrade from happening besides just capturing the objective. I think the most obvious and easy change is to make it so that a certain amount of yaks are required to reach an objective before it upgrades (in addition to the timer), similar to how upgrades were gated by the number of yaks that reached them prior to HoT.

I completely agree with this sentiment. The problem is that there were many many threads, with many many post, clamoring for an easier time defending. As much as I do not like it, there was a vast amount of post demanding a change to help defenders. Now guess what we have?

The thing is, defense being “overly-difficult” was a consequence of a lack of rewards going to defenders; not that it was too difficult. Defense was done quite successfully by small groups given a fairly fortified structure, but because that was all that was truly needed, and because such sieges demanding for substantially larger numbers for defense were so rare, the number of people needed on active defensive duties was very low, and thus the rest of the players interested in the action of combat and/or necessary rewards for the upkeep of food/upgrades/etc. would be effectively forced into the offensive. With this push, the number of attacking vs defending players became largely disproportionate, and an emphasis on blob tactics in some instances depending on the keep reinforcements (dependent on coverage to maintain upgraded structures) made defense a very non-viable way to play in general.

Ultimately, the problem stems from lack of rewards for non-aggressive players and a lack of things to do while defending unless a major assault is performed. Without the matter of rewards resolved, nothing will actually ever change, if not get worse.

The fact that this escaped the minds of the developers working on WvW is unfortunate for the sake of the format and the game in general. I hope to see some of these issues resolved in the near future, as I understand quite a few people are upset and are looking for alternatives.

DeceiverX.8361:

Ultimately, the problem stems from lack of rewards for non-aggressive players and a lack of things to do while defending unless a major assault is performed. Without the matter of rewards resolved, nothing will actually ever change, if not get worse.

I’m trying to see how that is the case. The costs associated with defense have been halved (by removing costs for upgrades). The only cost now is siege. The cost associated with offense has remained roughly the same. It had already seemed to be that most guilds and players did not bother performing the long siege or investing much into the costs for offense. If an offensive “rush” was not successful, most players did not bother with offense.

coglin.1867:

BrickFurious.7169:

DeceiverX.8361:

My biggest gripes with the new BL’s are the absolutely ridiculous buffs given to defenders through auto-upgrade being solely time-based and not even coming close to how slow or difficult the process was. Defense has turned into a “set and forget” process, for the objectives will upgrade quickly enough to largely defend themselves.

This is actually my biggest gripe too, though it isn’t related just to the new BLs. As you suggested, auto-upgrading is fine, but inevitable upgrading is not. There needs to be some way for enemy players to prevent an upgrade from happening besides just capturing the objective. I think the most obvious and easy change is to make it so that a certain amount of yaks are required to reach an objective before it upgrades (in addition to the timer), similar to how upgrades were gated by the number of yaks that reached them prior to HoT.

I completely agree with this sentiment. The problem is that there were many many threads, with many many post, clamoring for an easier time defending. As much as I do not like it, there was a vast amount of post demanding a change to help defenders. Now guess what we have?

I agree, I do not think the improved defense is a problem. With 2:1 or 3:1 numbers a smart attacker can still prevail. You just can’t drive head down into a defended tower or keep with your zerg and expect to win anymore. I’m OK with that.

Undefended towers will still fall, even keeps. Two nights ago we took East with just 7 characters.

The problems I have are size (translating into time), complexity of the map, access to earned guild WvW tools and to a lesser degree gimmicks (like the cannon).

The current crop of bugs really don’t bother me that much, they are irritations rather than critical issues. They will be solved.

To be clear, I think the art and design is beautiful – just too much of a good thing.

PvE, size, terrain complexity, events, rewards, have all become a blur. I have spent time in the new borderlands. I’m not educated enough in game design to contribute to the conversation.

I can say this: I don’t want to live there.

My background is similar to Selywn’s, and got me thinking back to DAoC , Chorazin made it worse (though sentimental rose-coloured specs, to be sure). I’m not a PvEer or a WvWer, I’m a roleplayer. I want a land I can belong to and feel engaged with. DAoC provided that. Guilds held keeps for weeks. Our banners flew from the turrets. Captures took planning and organization and time. I knew every inch of the land (including the dangerous parts) and there wasn’t a location I hadn’t died defending.

The Alpine land may have had its issues, but it was home. There were farms and houses and people. I could make my small contributions to defense, scouting, blobbing as needed. Yes, there were some bad neighborhoods (skrit, centaurs, the occasional harpy) but they were relegated to the edges. Our banners flew from the turrets.

The new borderland, while certainly a great place to visit and explore, is not ours. It is a hostile landscape packed to the walls with violent critters, impersonal rambling ruins, and weird stuff.

(Seriously, kill your darlings when it comes to the clever tricks. It would be a great playfield if I were a pinball trying to conquer the Winchester Mystery House.)

Like Heart of Thorns, it is beautiful, mysterious, alien, indifferent, it runs on its own, I am extraneous to it, and at best I am but a transient invader. That is not a homeland I can feel invested in.

Hello Roac,

I echo the same sentiments, it doesn’t feel like home. I’ve lived and breathed WvW since launch. I was previously RvR on Warhammer in the Darklands and Badlands servers, loved running in Praag, Chaos Wastes, etc. Those were tiny maps compared to the new Borderlands but they felt more liveable.

But the new Borderlands won’t stick, I tried hard. But the UX just doesn’t work.

I don’t know how many of the old timers feel that way but I don’t think we are alone in this.

I have taken a hiatus since the launch, and have stopped gaming because there isn’t any other good WvW game out there.

GW2 WvW pre-Hot was the last good one.

FW

Roac.3871:

PvE, size, terrain complexity, events, rewards, have all become a blur. I have spent time in the new borderlands. I’m not educated enough in game design to contribute to the conversation.

I can say this: I don’t want to live there.

My background is similar to Selywn’s, and got me thinking back to DAoC , Chorazin made it worse (though sentimental rose-coloured specs, to be sure). I’m not a PvEer or a WvWer, I’m a roleplayer. I want a land I can belong to and feel engaged with. DAoC provided that. Guilds held keeps for weeks. Our banners flew from the turrets. Captures took planning and organization and time. I knew every inch of the land (including the dangerous parts) and there wasn’t a location I hadn’t died defending.

The Alpine land may have had its issues, but it was home. There were farms and houses and people. I could make my small contributions to defense, scouting, blobbing as needed. Yes, there were some bad neighborhoods (skrit, centaurs, the occasional harpy) but they were relegated to the edges. Our banners flew from the turrets.

The new borderland, while certainly a great place to visit and explore, is not ours. It is a hostile landscape packed to the walls with violent critters, impersonal rambling ruins, and weird stuff.

(Seriously, kill your darlings when it comes to the clever tricks. It would be a great playfield if I were a pinball trying to conquer the Winchester Mystery House.)

Like Heart of Thorns, it is beautiful, mysterious, alien, indifferent, it runs on its own, I am extraneous to it, and at best I am but a transient invader. That is not a homeland I can feel invested in.