Guild Wars 2

(4 November) Tonight, my guild (albeit small – all 7 of us) did a run through WvW (Borlis Pass).

We started helping out a fellow guild in EB. The map there was pretty evenly divided – we were getting about 180-200/tic – and after flailing around there generally, we decided to break off and stir up trouble in the enemy borderlands to draw people off of EB.

Pretty much without interruption, we jumped on to Kaineng and took Farmstead, and then circled back to take Depot. We picked up a couple of PUGs, and were able to grind through the wall in about 4-5 minutes using two cata’s. With 9 of us, fairly well geared and used to working with one another, taking the lord down went pretty fast, even with his increased toughness.

We shifted over to Anvil rock and did much the same; first starting with Outpost, heading over to Depot, taking Farmstead again for more supply so we could drop two rams to speed things up.

In all of this, tearing apart their BL, we saw exactly one (1) AR player trying to slow us down.

We got ambitious next; we resupplied and headed to Palace, taking two shrines along the way.

Here we lucked out, finding a wall already almost 80% down. We dropped a cata, fetched more supply, and then went in. It was rather difficult finding our way around, and ended up on the SW inner gate. We got the rest of the way in without resistance and after a hard fight, took the keep.

Total time – 3 towers, 4 camps, 2 shrines, 1 keep, about 1 hour, 45 minutes during which (outside of EB) we saw no more than 3 AR or other PC’s.

We finished in our own BL. There a modest AR zerg/oversized havoc group – 20-30 total – had broken through the outer defense of our Garrison. The 7 of us plus a few others went to the defense. With the new layout, and limited siege, we were able to turn away 3 successive assaults on our inner gate by the zerg. Total time before they lost interest was about 30 minutes.

Summary: We had a blast. It was very neat to be able to mount an effective defense – 10ish players versus 2-3 times their number. The AR group I think could have beaten us, but didn’t manage their supply or what siege they used effectively. We were able to use the defenses effectively to break their rams, and, then chase them back out.

We had the option, but chose not to mess with the monster center of zone siege cannon on either enemy borderland, though a couple of the folks who had run with us split off to prevent anyone from activating it in ours. Our conclusion was – activating it really wasn’t worth the time.

We missed seeing numbers; a very small number of enemy players could have prevented us pretty easily from accomplishing much of anything. It implies most of them were either in EotM or EB (or Maguuma…).

The new properties of the towers, siege and guards seemed to work as ANet designed and intended – to shift the balance back somewhat towards defenders – and force attackers to be both better organized and creative.

Crossing distance is still a big issue – even taking advantage of the buffs at shrines (which we used). It is really noticeable shifting from EB to a home borderland just how much more distance you need to cross, and how much harder it is to get to places. Further, the complexity of keeps themselves in specific, is irritating. It slows down the attacker – but is just as much of a hindrance for the defenders. It took several minutes for us to find our way into the new Garrison and just find where it was being attacked; easily 2-3 times as much time as the trip out of Citadel to Garri took in the old maps.

Once there, the consensus was, we liked the layouts and the mechanical changes which make defense easier and force attackers to think, but dislike the increase in size and gratuitous complexity of some of the structures. Our thought is they could have been designed with much of the same creativity and artfulness, and but far simpler to find our way around in.

Give us gliders in WvW and we may overlook this

Best regards to Anet and the rest of y’all

Hezekiah MacFarlane, The Black Dogs, Borlis.

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

Yup, we had a blast.

There was some open field fighting on EB, but not much. There could have been on the borderlands, but I think for reasons already explained, the groups weren’t there. I’d rather they were; even if I’m not participating in them, they add a lot to the whole tempo and spirit of what happens in WvW.

The fight defending our Garri was fun – at least as much as an open-field GvG or ZergvZerg fight, as far as I’m concerned.

So, to your bait, the open field fighting was missing – and I do think that’s a critical part of WvW – and needs to be addressed. But other pieces which are good and fun are still there.

If nothing else, I mention what seems to be working right so it doesn’t get screwed with. I’m sorry your open field stuff is missing. I really hope things change to bring it back for all of us.

jdallen.5179:

Once there, the consensus was, we liked the layouts and the mechanical changes which make defense easier and force attackers to think, but dislike the increase in size and gratuitous complexity of some of the structures. Our thought is they could have been designed with much of the same creativity and artfulness, and but far simpler to find our way around in.

This is the conclusion of the new maps. It should be more compact and there is no need of the siege laser. The general design is pretty nice and refreshing.
I would still prefer three diffrent maps including one being the old alpine map.

Had nice camp fights with my friend yesterday dueling a three man romain group. First two we won, then they got there revenge twice ^^.
The thing was we did just use a small corner of the map.

An the maps don´t look to be desigend for open field battles. I like the positional layout ist just feels to long to run around an find soemone … also the build in traps are a bit nusiance. Don´t know if this is a good thing.

Spent 40mins on bl, saw no enemy, suicided by jumping off cliff into some lava river. It was a blast… I mean burnnnnn.

Well… I guess after nearly 2 hours headbanging against those new “taking forever”-doors a 30min. garri defense is indeed a blast…

Some people really enjoy ppting, If this fella and his friends had a blast then all the power to them. If jdallen.5179 and his buddies want to ppt, the new bl’s are the best place at the moment as almost everyone dislikes them at the moment. If I was on BP I’d give him a raise and a friendly fondle.

If you’re looking for fights, sounds like a 10-man group was on your home bl.

Happy to hear that you & your server mates had a good time. Unfortunately, lower tier servers just don’t have the population to cover all maps especially 24/7.
One flaw in your post: You are not privy to other servers’ TS. AR didn’t leave out of boredom. We got a call to help out on another map. So, take it for what it is worth. Your defense was valid but the outcome of that situation remains in the area of “Unknown”. Again, another result of too much area being covered by smaller populations-something that the new maps make even worse IMO.

rhejeckt.5791:

Happy to hear that you & your server mates had a good time. Unfortunately, lower tier servers just don’t have the population to cover all maps especially 24/7.
One flaw in your post: You are not privy to other servers’ TS. AR didn’t leave out of boredom. We got a call to help out on another map. So, take it for what it is worth. Your defense was valid but the outcome of that situation remains in the area of “Unknown”. Again, another result of too much area being covered by smaller populations-something that the new maps make even worse IMO.

Thanks for giving perspective from the other side. Sometimes, defense truly is nothing more than outlasting the attacker until they have something more important to do. BTDT, from the attacker’s side as well.

The primary problem again comes back to size, size, SIZE.

To others of you putting down PPT… the best way to attract another group to where you are if you want a fight is to start flipping their stuff. We’d have been happy to tangle with another havoc/counter havoc group. Also, some of us like seeing our servers win… which requires PPT. Our puny group of 7 was keeping 20-30 PPT or more in our column for about two hours. All how you look at it, how you approach it.

(Sidenote: I do think there is a lot of energy being sucked out of WvW by the new HoT content; I was out of WvW pretty much for almost a week. I think things will pick up once the newness of that has worn down some. Even with that, the structural issues in WvW will still remain.)

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

My gibberish as a reason.
Outside reset night, was mostly a empty map yes, with few defenders trying to upgrade towers and castles, and this was/is one of the t4 NA servers before the new bl.
The fights outside reset nigh were people that had to drop EB and rush to deffend some t3 castle or keep, was rare due not having that many players playing, even that would end being blobbed up by the enemy against a empty BL soon or later, this is what my gibberish tells, many of the players want job done easily as the older bl’s, instead of adapting to the new ones.

There are several issues on this map, that is out of question like the automatic updates, the big central event that can be done with a smaller force withing a few minutes.

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

t4 NA server

found your problem

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

t4 NA server

found your problem

All Aeolus pointed out was normal WvW for the vast majority of players on servers without 24/7 coverage before HoT. So what is T1’s excuse?

Chaba.5410:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

t4 NA server

found your problem

All Aeolus pointed out was normal WvW for the vast majority of players on servers without 24/7 coverage before HoT. So what is T1’s excuse?

excuse for what? we routinely had fights in tier 1 to defend our waypoints or take down enemies waypoints on the borderlands, now you get free waypoints and free upgrades, so no one cares.

plus we’re all carebear ktrain kittenters in tier 1, doncha know, so we’re in maguuma pveing still.

Blix.8021:

Chaba.5410:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

t4 NA server

found your problem

All Aeolus pointed out was normal WvW for the vast majority of players on servers without 24/7 coverage before HoT. So what is T1’s excuse?

excuse for what? we routinely had fights in tier 1 to defend our waypoints or take down enemies waypoints on the borderlands, now you get free waypoints and free upgrades, so no one cares.

plus we’re all carebear ktrain kittenters in tier 1, doncha know, so we’re in maguuma pveing still.

Excuse for having WvW population comparable to a T4 server.

Yep, everyone is doing PvE. That’s the real “problem”.

Blix.8021:

Chaba.5410:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Aeolus.3615:

Blix.8021:

Steelo.4597:

Soooo you did 2 hours of PVD for ppt and then busted some rams defending your garri, all of this while not having a single open field fight – and you had a blast.

these must be the type of people anet is trying to sell wvw to now

and in a few months, they’ll probably be the only type of players left, anyway

WvW mechanics are ppt tower farm, on 3 equal maps, and eb zergfarm, people just want stuff w/o effort anyway reason they want the old maps right?

The old BL’s were mostly alone with 3 or 4 defenders so was a karma train fest for the bigger servers, is this what people call fight??

Isn’t a the WVW problem a bit more serious, than the new map, isnt the how wvw works the problem itself, it got improved but the actual mechanics didnt aconpany it evolution?? ?

Your gibberish seems to be implying that nobody ever fought on the old borderlands, which is entirely untrue

t4 NA server

found your problem

All Aeolus pointed out was normal WvW for the vast majority of players on servers without 24/7 coverage before HoT. So what is T1’s excuse?

excuse for what? we routinely had fights in tier 1 to defend our waypoints or take down enemies waypoints on the borderlands, now you get free waypoints and free upgrades, so no one cares.

plus we’re all carebear ktrain kittenters in tier 1, doncha know, so we’re in maguuma pveing still.

Don’t know about you, but my WvW game is all about getting the best possible score with whatever resources I have available. I’ve been on Borlis straight along for 2+ years when we were bumping T1, when a bunch of our WvW guilds and players got into disputes with each other and started transferring to places what would pay them to move, or, they thought they could get whatever it is they though they were after.

Mind you, I wish them well, and hope they found it.

So, staying behind, with the guildies I have who’ve done the same, sometimes it is just keeping control of one keep while the rest of the map(s) are hostile colors. Sometimes its finding half a dozen or so pugs to hop on to an enemy BL to flip camps and the odd tower until enough folks get drawn off of other maps to chase us down.

The satisfaction I find is in the PPT number that is just that much better for our side while I’m on.

What everyone else does, well, that’s up to them, and I"m not about to tell them what to do or how to do it.

They want to join me, Great we’ll have fun. Not excited by it? Please! Go find what you need!

The thing about WvW, unlike any other aspect of GW, is that you, your guilds and your server have much more power to shape what happens on the map(s). That was what drew me to it originally, and continues to even with the problems it has.

/rant on/
You want better WvW? You can’t fix the maps, the only thing you do control is what you and your guild and server mates do. One way to fix that is find guilds on opposing servers in a map and issue challenges; you decide what the challenge is, and throw down. Do some leg work, organize yourselves, don’t expect it to be handed to you on the platter.

That’s the criticism I have of you folks complaining about the lack of open field fights. You want more population? Recruit. You want better fights? Help lower tier/less powerful servers bring people into play to give you more fights. Asymmetric match ups get boring, fast. You’ll have the most fun when you can encourage participation by a worthy opponent, who as a chance to beat you.

Contrary-wise, I love being outnumbered, I love being the underdog, because by kitten, it means I’m earning every point I put on the board and every spike I put into a downed enemy. Will you beat me in the end? Almost without question, but I will work to make you sweat, if I possibly can.

Sorry, but “must be the players Anet want’s to attract”… bah. I’ve been here, been playing all sorts of WvW, still going.

OK, /rant off/.

Do keep giving Anet feedback. By kitten, they do have a lot of work to do. Don’t write yourselves out of possible solutions which could work even if Anet doesn’t lift a finger. Take control, write your own legends.

Well said.
/15 chars

One thing that i believe, is how much our experience is divergent, there are 2 aspects that we are in agreement:

- Central weapon event is not good, should be disabled while theres no solution.
- Automatic upgrades need also to go, that gives less care to BL, since stuff is harder to take does not make sense to fully atomize it, i am from a smaller server yet i believe this was to much.

.. and sorry the bad english.

btw holding towers could give access to the guild to explore some places for mining resources as example for X time, i think this would even make the smaller guilds into wvw.