Guild Wars 2

1. PLEASE..Make elite specs freely available in WvW for expansion owners,like they are in PvP.I can play this game only casually anymore..and when i do,its pvp/w3..i dont give a kitten about Hot pve content and i cant be the only one.
2. Bring old Borderlands back in some form,rotate with the new one or just replace.
3. Make a “Neutral” borderland which has the new DBL Layout..this along with 3x Alpine and EB
4. One possible suolution is to rotate DBL with EB
5. Cut down Pve in DBL with big hand and make it more accessible(more waypoints?)

This and might actually start playing again.

1) Rotation with old and new Boarders
2) Proof of Heroics Accountbound, you weaken your team on some profs when you play without
3) Squadsize increased by 50 (in total: 100)
4) never ever bring pve events to wvw pls…
5) give a reason to the wvw rank points that are left after 900 ranks (auto loot etc maybe, but just skillable after reaching rank xxx)

Osu.6307:

zinkz.7045:

MomentofWeakness.1246:

That was because many people left when Anet changed stability and essentially rendered melee a second tier group of classes in WvW behind casters who are still dominating the meta even now (i.e. pirate-ship meta).

LOL, yes “melee” classes are second tier, poor guardians how do they cope, the lack of objectivity and hypocrisy is amazing, for second (or rather third tier) take a look at how engy/ranger/mes & thief have fared in large scale WvW for the entire game, at best bit parts at worst non-existent, where were the cries about those, ah that’s right nowhere, that “melee” classes were totally overrepresented, totally OP, for much of the game (and guards still are) was just fine.

As for the old stability it was just as broken as the current system, which is why you had 60 man “melee” blobs rolling face across the keyboard with unstoppable amounts of stab that would not be stripped & that rendered supposed strong long cooldown hard CC skills useless, it says a lot about how bad the WvW playerbase is, how similar it is to the mindless drones in Silverwastes, that some think a system was “good” with a mechanic so broken that it rendered hard CC useless and made ‘positioning’ and pushing braindead easy.

Lemme guess. You main a zerker LB ranger?

Your arguments make no sense. The old stability was not OP or broken, it was simply something that made melee viable in wvw. A 60-man zerg is going to roll over anything whether it is mostly melee or ranged, so how does that have anything to do with stability. I sense this is just another rant from someone who was repeatedly killed by a guild group that practiced hard and successfully honed their skills to such a degree that they could take on blobs twice their size. There is absolutely nothing mindless or braindead about that. If it was so easy, why didn’t you do it?

^ Exactly Osu.

Nice to see you guys working on a list of things to make wvw a better place.
For me population and server balance has to move up to position 1 or 2 because it is the key feature which makes wvw worth playing.
We need enough people in wvw and a good balance population for having interesting fights and to make common mechanics working.
Reworking stability is also important as bringing back the beloved ABL.
But without the needed amount of players and having interesting matchups those fixes are just there and not being used as much as I could be.

I appreciate your efforts and starting with these fixing and also having the possibility to test them in an upcoming beta test is a really good thing. Keep this up pls.
But again the population and server overhaul decideds if there is a future for wvw imho.

thx again for listening to the community and for starting talking to us. These are good signs and give us hope that maybe we will see the comeback of the glorious times we had over the past years.

Leonider

1. Rewards
a) WvW Reward Tracks (only active in your match-up’s maps) similar to PvP but with cool mists armor/back-piece, weapons, etc with selectable stats.
i) PPK adds a significant value to your Reward Track’s progression
ii)New stats / gear / trinkets / token reward tracks
iii) Traveled experienced WvW salesmen/women / Kodans who accept various rewarded tokens from an expensive looking office similar to the Black Lion’s in Lion’s Arch.
b) Bonus end of week rewards based on your completion of your WvW Reward Track that week. Chance of Ascended Chests.
i) Extra chances at additional Ascended Chests the better your server places at the end of the week. Servers that average x2 more active players than their nearest competitors (at the end of the week) do not get this bonus. Servers that are x2 less active players than their nearest competitor gain double this bonus.
ii) WvW First Place Tickets. For winning at the end of the week. Redeemable for food feasts or other stats trinkets (that are not already available). 50% less tickets if you have x2 more active players than your nearest competitor. Complimentory tickets for servers that are x2 less active players than their nearest competitor.
c) PPK tickets. Special tickets for killing players that can be redeemed for skins (weapon, armor, backpiece).
d) Armor and Weapon Skins exclusively for Badges of Honor + WvW First Place Tickets + PPK Tickets.
e) Legendary WvW Back-piece/Armor.
f) Redeem WvW Rank points (above traits cap) for special WvW Veterans Armor, Back-piece and Weapon Skins.

2. PPK Value Emphasis
a) Double PPK value in and around a player’s objective (1000 range from the outside walls / fences / ring).
b) Double Karma and Silver rewards for defense and attack if the player gains in player kill in and around any objective.

3. Additional Objectives to aid DBL map flow / strategy
a) Add additional Objectives that are only accessible by taking a Tower or Keep that allow for strategic progression across the DBL map.
i) These objectives must be counter-siegeable
ii) The staging area must be visible to all players and within bounds of reason, able to be pressured by player skills.
iii) There is no need for a staging area (tower, bridge, wall, platform) to every objective. Just a few that encourage progression from the aggressors and apply some pressure to defenders to take back the lost objective(s).

Examples of staging areas would be a platform (similar to that of Statuary in EotM) to the NE (behind the barricades) that can only be accessed after owning the tower, that allows players to fire Super Cannons at the outer gates and walls of Wind Keep.

Another example would be a summoning pit to the SW of the Necromantic Tower (NE tower DBL) that allows players to send a few explosive necro minions up the Eastern lanes to Earth Keep to target either the gate or walls outside of the keep (as selected by the player, wall busting minions or gate busting minions).

Another example would be an area to the NW where Ogres keep their pets and players can go to summon an Ogre raiding party. The Ogres will build either one superior ram and a regular ram or the equivalent in catapults outside of S gate/wall of Fire Keep (cata raid team or ram raid team as selected by the player). They drop banners (no war banner) to buff allies and fight with players on the outside of the keep. Ogre “Thieves” finish opponents who are in downed state. Only one Ogre raiding party can be summoned at any time.

At the College to the ESE behind the barricade, before the sentry and over looking the stealth sands pit could a an experimental fire lightning coil that launches slow moving projectile meteors (similar in style to those in The Searing) that do increased damage to walls and gates where they land.

All platforms/staging areas should make those players who use them vulnerable to retaliation if they are destroyed.

4) Allow WvW Objective Claiming features to be acquirable primarily through WvW

5) Adding a new Siege Trap from Traps and Tricks vendor
a) Add a new trap that when crossed reveals on map the location and numbers of enemies within 1000 range. Effect lasts for 5 secs.
i) Only one of these may be placed within 3000 range of each other, the last one replaces the previous.
ii) For 5mins after this trap has been triggered, if a player that has been ‘lit’ is killed all players gain 15% more Magic Find for that instance of looting.
iii) When the trap is triggered a flare is shot into the sky (don’t jump ppl, plz) and slowly burns down from the sky (shoot it high enough and fast enough that it shouldn’t be rendered unless you are looking at it, to avoid lag on low performance PCs)

Not 6) Autoloot

There is my list of things. I think once we have these in place we can see what happens with regard to pop numbers and pop balance.

1: Bring back old BL maps
2: Put rewards in WvW
3: Bring back interesting fights
4: ??
5: Profit

Howdy, here’s my 5.

Maps: I’d say bring back Alpine. The issue with Desert Borderland is that it has too many elements that aren’t really strategic and instead are just pure annoyances. If you really need something for players to gather up or take aside from buildings, why not bring back the orbs of power? If you brought back the orbs of power, you could split them up in three pieces, with one in each keep that give out smaller bonuses to the owning server on the map. The server that controls all the keeps on a map can then extend the bonuses with the orb of power onto other maps, thus I feel it would create more of a reason for people to defend their keeps. WPs on the keeps shouldn’t exist until it goes up to T3.

-On Upgrades: I’d say keep the amount of dolyaks required, but players need to be the ones to toggle the next upgrades. The map could let players know when it’s time to upgrade a camp, keep, or tower.

-On GH Consumables: Banners, Airship Defenses, Assault Rollers should be reduced more in effectiveness. Everything else I feel is fine currently.

Pop Balance: I don’t have much of an idea on this, but I don’t recommend guild alliances or server merges because that would kill off the final piece of what keeps people in WvW (their sense of server identity). Part of the problem with getting players into WvW currently is that there’s no way to let people know in PvE lands that their server needs some help in WvW(I still think that Team chat should be made into Server chat when in WvW and PvE). I’d also suggest that more people are made aware that WvW exists, I think some people don’t really realize that WvW exists at all honestly since the game currently doesn’t really go out of its way to let players know that the server they’re on is the server they’ll be fighting for.

Rewards: Part of the reason why people don’t come out to WvW is there’s no reason to do so and rewards I feel are one of the big reasons for it. WvW needs a reward track, and I also think that players who put in a good effort on the week deserve more loot as well. Perhaps a weekly system akin to the daily system can be made to better help recognize players who go above and beyond for their server, but the requirements should be high such as killing 250 players for example. There also needs to be rewards for winning the week as well, such as some old WvW tournament tickets, exotics (with a chance of ascended equipment), and money, while second and third place servers get rewards as well. Seasons could introduce legendary armor and/or backpieces. EotM would stay as it is, because it’s currently still quite rewarding even with the nerf.

Scoring: Scoring as it is right now is too much a steamroll effect and its not very competitive. I would say that PPK amounts should be increased up to 5, with 10 points being rewarded on a stomp. The amount of points that structures make should be greaty reduced in order to better emphasize that this is a large scale pvp zone. If a server should manage to gain all the structures in a BL, then it should give out a big tick just once and then they get nothing until enough structures are re-flipped. Servers in second and third need a boost to the amount of points they get, so they can keep themselves competitive unless the matchup is fairly close (around a few hundred to a thousand points from each other should work). I really feel this should be a higher priority, since this is one of the reasons people don’t really have much of a desire to win.

Skill Balance/Stab: I think bringing back old stability would be fine, but boon stripping/corrupting should make stripping stability more of a priority. WvW skills and PvE skills should be separate from each other, and condition application should be toned down a bit because many classes don’t have a good enough defense against heavy condition builds. Outside of that, I don’t really have much to add on the balancing front that hasn’t been said before.

Hopefully the feedback here isn’t done in some monkey’s paw fashion, I do wonder when details about WvW overhaul are going to pop up.

1. better rewards
in pve or pvp you get special items all the time and you can work toward a personal goal. fractals, collections, forsaken thicket raid there is always nice loot and something you might want. you exactly know how to get there. wvw reward? in wvw its mostly a good fight and the reward is the feeling of winning over another server or guild in a fight. i am level 600 something now and hardly see yellow or gold items, even after hours of fighting. give us somthing you can only get in wvw.
2. fix cc, stability, encourage more tactics in fights
the group which preassures the enemy with aoe/cc harder wins after several seconds if both sides actually fight. before the patch i remember real fights lasting several minutes. now its just test preassure – waiting – test preassure – regroup – test preassure – fake push – going back – regroup – preassure and win or lose over the enemy within seconds.
3. encourage fighting in groups / fighting as a team / give roamers a job to do / implement duels
there are a lot of people who dont run with the zerg. either they are just standing around and dont even scout, they mostly do anything. maybe implement some task lfg you can join for attacking a tower with random other people joining the task group. dont reward people for camping and sneaky killing without doing a duel. how many times i wanted to run to the commander and got kicked into death or insta bursted. i just hate those people.
4. make beautiful and useful places
the new boarders are really detailed and beautiful, but a lot of guilds and commanders dont like them, because its so huge. actually atm its just the place for gvg. make more and smaller maps, do a map rotation
5. fun
it must be fun

1) Stability, need to be fixed. Currently is considered by most all as not very useful.
2) Condi, too many stacks consider reducing the cap
3) New Maps – HATE THEM
4) Meaningful Wins – Allow Tier Winners to choose home color, maps (classic, new, mini eotm, something)
5) Reward Track, need a reward track that lets people focus on end game.
6) GVG Map, 20-20 maps that feed guild influence for wins

Not 1 of my top 5 priorities but it would be really nice to have autoloot: quick interact

1. Rewards, you should be able to get all the new sigil/runes/stats/gear by doing WvW only.
2. Maps needs to be more accessible with simply terran, I don’t want to spend 15 minutes running looking for people. You already made reviving fully dead players difficult so fights in large groups shorter since you cannot power revive people. This makes rallies nearly impossible.
3. Revert NPC and towers/keeps to pre-HoT. Tactivators are insane in what they provide. We have seige and better positioning to deal with attackers, we don’t need insane PvE instant gib airship bombardment in this game mode. WvW is massive player vs player, not NPC+players vs players.
4. WvW should be the end game like in every other game because you can never out smart another player, they get better and will one up you as you try to one up them. WvW should have the most unique rewards and grinds. You need to reward those with insanely high ranks so we can distinguish ourselves from seasoned WvWers to newbies.
5. Combine small population servers into big ones so we can fight folks from different servers.

As a long time small group/solo roamer (really the only game mode I played), I quit due to the WvW changes made in HoT. The biggest factor that caused me to quit was completely getting rid of the Alpine BLs (and the heavy condi meta which was/is just…..sigh). I tried the desert BLs, gave them a fighting chance, but they just don’t cut it for me. Feels like a mix between EoTM and skyhammer. Many friends of mine either quit for the same reason or solely play sPvP now.

The Stab changes didn’t affect me as much as i rarely ran with a group larger than 5, but I can definitely see how that just ruined guilds who liked to bust huge zergs.

My last complaint is this auto-upgrade system. I know many….MANY people who played WvW because they loved upgrading tower, keeps, etc. and defending them because they put time and effort into upgrading them. Shoot, I would even fork out gold during off hours to upgrade towers and defend them. There is no effort involved in this new upgrade system and now it’s “so what if we lose the keep, we can get it back and fully upgrade it for free.”

Personally, I want to make a return to GW2 I REALLY do, and if they revert back to the Alpine BLs, I probably will. I will even compromise and be cool with a weekly rotation of Desert BLs and Alpine BLs (although I’m more in favor of a full reversion back to the Alpine BLs).

To the people who say “why are you complaining about the new BL when EVERYONE wanted a new one in the first place.” Yes, we wanted a new borderland but NOT this vertical, confusing, big AF map. We wanted something similar to Alpine but…..new.

Cuppcakez

Nice one Anet, I tell you 3 things you need to prioritize before trying to fix WvW, and what do you do…..?! Well pretty sure I dont need to say it, we already know.

How are you going to fix things, if you ignore us?!

1. Split skills between gamemodes and balance around them.

for example: (just an idea maybe someone comes up with better ones) cc-skills which got no limit in all gamemodes at the moment could have some target-limit (10?) in WvW.

2. Borderlands:

Alpine borderland need a comeback -> imo most ppl thought we would get some rotation pretty early like 2 months at least after HoT release but we are still waiting.

Desert borderland need some rework in terms of nerfing some shrine mechanics (burn immunity, less rockwalls…), more transparency for navigating and hopefully that pve-event aka oasis event will never return (it caused massive mapwide lagg).

EotM needs to be removed in order to revive borderlands (just my opinion you don’t need to discuss this with me).

Eternal Battlegrounds…remove afk players more frequently to make room for active players.

3. Matchmaking seems kind of dull, frozen…call it whatever you like (my server kinda had the same server as opponent for like over 10 weeks with just 1 week break inbetween) → needs improvement…maybe some matchmaking-rating-reset from time to time?

4. Rewards…dunno maybe like these PvP-reward tracks.

5. “Fixing server population”: This imo will be hardest to achieve and may be a longtime project since WvW community on each server seems quite unstable unless the server is overpopulated in terms of WvW-players.

Finally this day it’s arrive; so as every day WvW player let me list the top 5 priorities and the possible solutions.

1)Stability: the current state need an improvement both in stacks and durations on all the related skills and traits, and ofc this specific rework it’s gonig to be valid only in WvW.
After this change the priority on skill balance have to go to the burst and low cd skills with 1200-1500 range (like Gun flame, Coalescence of ruin, etc) for finally put an end at the “pirateship” meta, and bringing back the fun in the fights.

2)Fix the DBL: this map have too much of potential for simply scrap it and return at the old ABL, where all the veteran players have already see for years the same things (tactics, sieges spots, structure vulnerabilitys, etc). These are my suggestions for made the DBL a more fun map.

-Towers: actually they are too big and they look like more as keeps (repairing/building alone inside when they are under attack it’s a nightmare), so if we consider the EB ones as tiny a medium size with two entrances for the DBL it’s going to be the perfect measure. In addition to this they have to be close enoght to the nearest keep, for hit the outer wall in one point with trebs as it was in the ABL; otherwise they havent a real strategic role.
-Keeps: in DBL are twice the size of the EB ones, so even here a little reduction it’s more than welcome. About the Rampart in particular the rockwalls from the shrines are just problematic for everyone and not really usefull, when instead they can be easily replaced with quicksands that pulse cripple.
-Oasis: this can become the heart of the borderland instead of “only every 3h” area; how ? Making it an official place for GvG and duels! The place it’s already set for this and just need some easy changes (fix bridges and hylek hallways, remove unnecessary rocks, move dinosaurs at sides, made the 3 priory encampments usefull and remove the barracudas from the water so it’s even possible do silly uw duels). Moreover; being the center of the map it’s provide an easy access to everyone, and devoid of any score it would be ignored from anyone not interested in gvg/duels.

3)Rewards: new ones are needed, and for sure they really have to value the effort put on it (so no more blue/green items); and about this i suggest a reward track that progress on a set % based on the number of enemy kills, rank up, repel events and dolyak escortings.
Clearly this reward track it’s not going to progress at all based on the eotm activitys, and it’s going to reward you even new tokens which together with BoH and PoH (and MoB?) are going to be used for gain unique wvw skins and much more from a new npc.
Another suggestion i want to make it’s about the defenders and their Really low rewards compared to all the effort and time spend on holding a structure, and this is my idea of how you can reward them. Every gold repel event successfully completed for a tower/keep (and not camps) reward you with a specific buff that stack in intensity (max 10 bound to the map) and not in duration (40 min and it’s refreshed every new stack) that you can use for open a chest inside every keep and tower that your server own. The chest can be opened only once per day for the specific tower/keep, and even after opened it in the place you are defending you can continue to accumulate stacks that you can use later for another place’s chest. The chest drops are influeced Only from the number of stacks; where the new tokens are ensured and based on the stacks, while in the rng part you can have a chance at someting unique for the wvw (minis, exotics, etc) that can even be sold to the tp.
About the stacks a grace period of 10 min for relog in the same map can save the efforts of hours in case of a crash, and it’s for sure really apprecieted.
As the defenders even the squads/zergs members need an improvement on the event rewards based on the tier of the structure the have manage to capture

4)Population Balance: it’s always the most tricky but there is a good way for improve it from my point of view, and it’s about reworking the Outnumbered and linking it to a way of getting new time limited buffs. Here my suggestions:

-Outnumbered: the standard numbers are already fine, and it’s going to have linked 2 different buffs (that don’t stack on each other) based on if you are a defending or assaulting.
As an outnumbered defender the buff it’s going to be: +20 to all 7 basic attributes, +25% movement speed and +10% wexp; you can obtain it only talking with the lord when outnumbered, last for 20 min, it can be refreshed until you are outnumbered and you lose it leaving the stucture area or the map.
As an outnumbered assaulter instead you have: +20 to all 7 basic attributes, +20% wexp and +5 max supply; you obtain it only talking to a new npc at the wp spawn when outnumbered, last 20 min, it can be refreshed until you are outnumbered and you lose it dying or leaving the map.

-Greatly Outnumbered: it’s going to give at few players the chance of made a difference even if outnumbered 6 to 1 giving +50% exp, +40% mf, +50% wexp and no armor dmgs on death; plus an improved version of the previous buffs.
As defender it’s become: +40 to all 7 basic attributes, +20% wexp, +25% movement speed, -5% of dmgs on the sieges you use and +5 max supply; you can obtain it only talking with the lord when greatly outnumbered, last for 30 min, it can be refreshed until you are greatly outnumbered you lose it leaving the stucture area or the map.
As assaulter instead become: +40 to all 7 basic attributes, +30% wexp and +10 max supply and -5% damage and condition dmg; you obtain it only talking to a new npc at the wp spawn when outnumbered, last 30 min, it can be refreshed until you are greatly outnumbered and you lose it dying or leaving the map.

5)Abilities (ex masteries): about this i want to suggest a couple of them; the Autoloot and the Parachute (no it’s not a glider).
While the first one It’s self-explanatory and already largely requested, the second one deserve some more explanations.
As an alternative to the glider in wvw its only function is going to be saving you from get smashed to the ground when falling from high places, while having greatly limited horizontal movements and an internal cd for don’t be abused. This way all the players that already got used to the glider in Hot will not feel anymore so much limited for playing in a such vertical map

I don’t mind which BLs we have but whichever maps we end up with they should cater to all the different things that people enjoy – fights, PPT or a mix of both. Right now WvW is very polarised, one camp just want fights, one wants just PPT. I think the BLs should really cater to both, that’s the competitive factor that is missing from WvW most of all atm.

Currently it is leaning too far towards defense, so much so that it compromises the strategy of WvW itself. Therefore I’d suggest if the current BLs are retained, make it easier/faster to get around (more waypoints/portals?), de-emphasise defending overall.

When you play WvW , it should have the feeling of urgency for everyone, and helping your server win every week should feel a bit more satisfying than it currently does. This to me is the most driving factor for most people who play WvW.

So I don’t mind which BLs we have or what small things are adjusted, if you Anet guys can maybe restore or enhance the things that address intensity/fun/strategy/server pride then I’m sure that you will please most of the people, most of the time.

Not being able to use waypoints in your OWN Borderlands west and east keeps is a disaster by itself

1 Bring the old maps back
2 Bring the old maps back
3 Bring the old maps back
4 Bring the old maps back
5 Bring the old maps back

1. Population control
2. Matchmaking
3. Remove Glicko
4. Population control
5. Better matchmaking

Personally I absolutely disagree with following statements here:

1) Remove EotM – everyone who suggest this should seriously get slapped into the face to propose to ANet to remove CONTENT from the game, only because YOU DONT LIKE IT /facepalm

2) Bring the old Maps back – hell no, we have had them for over 2 and a half years. They are boring as hell and only because Anet didn’t do with the Desert borderlands everythign right and perfect on first try, they should remove instantly everything again? god kitten it, give them a break!!! WvW has completely different problems, than what kind of BL Maps we have.
Yes, the current Map is far away from being perfect (too big, too complex, non roamer friendly, too much annoying effects, but that all is nothing that can’t be solved by Anet by making fitting adjustsments!! The only thing that should get removed is the Laser Event as part of making the map around 25-33% smaler and easier to navigate)
This part was good meant, but just failed.

3) Fixing the Server Population is hard – No, it is not, people just have only to give up finally on their pointless “Server Pride” that was mostly non existant fo the major part of the WvW anywyas as people bunny hop from server to server on demand, just to “win” the moment on, when there is something they want like rewards, then people instantly suddenly totally forget what Server Pride is the moment they realize that they won’t be on the winning side with the servr they are currently on!!
The easiest solution for the WvW Population Problems is to completely scrap this pointless Word v World v World System and to redesign WvW into a Faction Wars between 3 clear Factions which share players from among ALL SERVERS of a territory.

So all American Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions and all European Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions. This and only this change will solve also at the same time the Nightcapping Problems especially for European Servers where you have servers with many different time zones, what is a problem that you Americans DON’T HAVE, because you live all in the same time zone on the same continent.
Correct me if I’m not right with this :P

This change would make Tournaments for WvW in the future also alot ALOT EASIER.

4) Stability needs fixing – No, it does not, what this game needs on the other hand of Stability is currently FINALLY some concrete HARD CC BALANCE. the game is full with HARD CC Power Creep, simply too much HARD CC in the game without any real balanced protection from all this HARD CC SPAM.
What GW2 needs to get better balanced from this is some kind of HARD CC PROTECTION that works similar like the mechanic that prevents you from spamming Stealth – Reveal.
Somthign like this needs to exist finalyl for HARD CCs, that when you get stunned, knockeddowned, launched and so on, that your CHaracter then becomes for a short while like 4-say max 10s immune to any instantly following up next HARD CC’s, so that you simply can’t get perma stunlocked to death anymore!!!
HARD CC skills are very important SITUATIONAL skills that should be used at clever moments to turn the tide of a battle towards your favor, not to spam with it enemies to death to get cheap braindead kills ,because your enemy was unable to move for a freaking second and fight back at all!
THATS THE DUMB WHOLE PROBLEM that needs to get fixed finally and nothing else Stability is fine as it is, it’s HARD CC SPAM that is totally out of control and that makes fighting in WvW NO FUN, or do you find it fun to get killed, without that you could do anything at all!! Obviously NO, or? Buffign Stability creates only more Power Creep, the solution is NERF HARD CC SPAM TO HELL!! At least for WvW by making appropiate WvW centric Skill/trait changes by splitting off WvW Class balance complete from the rest of the game, giving WvW its complete own balanced skills and trait effects, that are specificly balanced for WvW Only.
This is somethng that should have been done already from RELEASE DAY ON.
Then we wouldn’t have all the problems that we have now…

Orpheal;

1)Eotm is fine where it is. No direct relation to the server score. Who is saying to remove it?

2) Bring the old maps back. Of course they should! It’s a numbers game, and with a map that clearly doesn’t work, the obvious choice is to bring the Alpine maps back until we can get some rotation of scenery that can supply enough interest to even enter the borderlands. As it stands, there is no significant interest on Desert. (EB is still the only map I have seen Q’d.)

3) I agree with you on this one as well. Divide the number of servers. And, yes; there is still such thing as server pride. It’s why most people in the lower tiers are still so motivated to keep playing even with the odds against them.
With dividing the number of servers, it allows a fresh start for most who are locked in to the lower tiers who don’t want to pay out of pocket to be in better odds. Server pride will be a clean slate once some new choices are made. People will rant and rave, but for the main end game focus of GW2, I think WvW truly needs some particular attention given to it.

4) Stability does indeed need to be fixed. (in my opinion.) I respect your emotionally charged answer, but lets face it; no one truly have the correct answer.

No, fix everything else before you force merge servers – especially on EU this would lead to a mass exodus ten times higher than with HoT.
I transferred 6 times, paid with gold. If I can do it 6 times, then everybody who thinks their server is too small can do it at least once.

And btw: I transferred back to the server I’ve been the longest to – so I guess one can say I have “server pride” but on the way I learned that all servers have got a community.

Orpheal.8263:

So all American Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions and all European Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions. This and only this change will solve also at the same time the Nightcapping Problems especially for European Servers where you have servers with many different time zones, what is a problem that you Americans DON’T HAVE, because you live all in the same time zone on the same continent.
Correct me if I’m not right with this :P
…

American servers have the same issues. It’s not the French or Germans tho but Chinese, Koreans, Australians….

EotM came close to solving this by lumping servers together in color coded “factions”. Sadly the extra rewards and easy power leveling leads to mostly zergs of uplevels looking for quick XP and loots. And there is no active or dynamic caps so…

Orpheal.8263:

So all American Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions and all European Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions. This and only this change will solve also at the same time the Nightcapping Problems especially for European Servers where you have servers with many different time zones, what is a problem that you Americans DON’T HAVE, because you live all in the same time zone on the same continent.
Correct me if I’m not right with this :P
…

The Factions system already exist and its called EotM. Whats the point having double of same thing? You are basically saying to scrap WvW and everyone join EotM instead.

Any server merge will mean a lot of players left in lower tier WvW servers will most likely quit the game as the "pointless Server Pride” is pretty much only thing they have left. I mean anyone who just plays for rewards or something similar has already left the lower tier servers long ago.

Have you ever even looked at EU server list? Ever noticed how its dominated by national servers? You go into german server and tell them they are now merged with French, seriously, I dare you. The international servers generally do worse just because their population cares much less about the server.

I think we should have golem rush week but all the time…that’s my suggestion to improve WvW…teehee… XD

1. BETTER REWARDS. People say WvW is the least popular of the three game modes, but maybe that’s because 10 minutes in silverwastes gets you more loot than an hour in WvW.

2. Balance population. I know there’s already incentives to move to lower tiers at a cheaper price but when it comes to three servers all being ‘very high’ population and still unbalanced, something more needs to be done.

3. Remove markings in keeps. All other classes get to use their abilities to the benefit of their server. Being a mesmer, a key component is stealth and deception. By being marked in keeps, it allows for a zerg to be lazy with sweeping and continue on to plow through the rest of the map, since half their job is done…all they have to do is follow the dot and that’s that. Mesmer portals are a valid strategy, just like creating groups of 40+ people to trample maps is too.

4. Rotate Desert and Alpine maps. I’ve come to appreciate the new maps, however they do favour siege and the lack of waypoints to east and west keeps in home BL needs to be addressed in these maps too.

5. Bring back WvW tournaments. I don’t even remember when the last one was, but I enjoyed it. There’s still merchants where you NEED WvW Tournament Tickets, but where on earth are we gonna earn them with no tournament occuring? Could possibly even use Alpine maps for tournaments only, and Desert maps for normal WvW.

The past few pages are basically repeating what Mike O’Brian said in his last post – they already knew and people just confirmed that this is more or less everybody’s top 5. I’m not denying that anet is like Professor Farnsworth in ‘The Late Philip J Fry’ “Whoopsie, got to bring her around again” – so chances are they will mess something up again – but they don’t have to post every other page to show us they read this thread.

How about removing the AoE cap in WvW

1. Bring back seasons
2. Remove Server based teaming
3. Deployable/Destroyable Waypoints
4. Gliding
5. Mist heroes I guess?

themunchies.5082:

How about removing the AoE cap in WvW

To much calcs needed server side… for that they would need to reduce cleave number of skills and even on AA cleave skills, for compensation.

That would be nice to see, weapons with cleave would be only some 2h, and then rework some AOEskills to hit more targets.

GW2’s play (combos etc) + WOW’s classic Alterac (legendary fights) = my PVP heaven!

So, my major wish:

1. Make EotM a 50v50 (20v20) PVP: many different maps to choose, each map opens, when its queues are filled (a map can open multipely); different maps = different play styles: more flat or more labyrinthine terrain (i hate the chain-bridge-design of current EotM), bigger or smaller maps, siege-oriented or fight-oriented… And pleeeease, give battles!! = maps with a clear goal = capturing foe’s main keep is win & end… Squads can join as a whole (getting their own map, without pickup players), and can wish a definite squad as opponent…
So, WvWvW would be for server-points-junkies, and EotM for fight-junkies.

(for stilistic beauty, you could call this new EotM “Songs of the Mists” = old mythic battle legends, which players can join and play)

And my minor wishes:

2. Let each server see itself as „green“ (players, keeps, towers, npcs) and the 1st foe server „orange-red“ and the 2nd foe server „violet-red“ (the foes see themselves as „green“ and their foes as „orange“/„violet“, too). That might be especially useful in 3-zerg-fights…

3. Siege weapons should have 300 (?) shots and must be refilled by supplies then (maybe automated by dollies). That avoids the annoying „tapping“… (Only shots, that do damage on foes, count here – to avoid trolling)

4. Sound-emotes for water-fields etc… when players cannot speak in teamspeak, the game could call their fields („water!“, „fire!“ etc) – only, if they come down at my position, and if i wanted this in options panel. (We have already sound emotes, such as “ah, refreshing!” or “oh, not my pet!”)

5. Miscellaneous: show current queue lengths (also „negative lengths“ = space to join), for all maps (including the map, i’m on); reserve player’s place on the map for 1 minute after disconnect or for class-change; have a built-in teamspeak for each battlemap…

Q’apla!

I think downed penalty should be lowered so if you go downed 2 times under 10 minutes = full dead.

guildabd.6529, that would be nice.

orjol.5309, i would prefer a continent with castles to take, and those castle be an extension of the Guild Hall.
Each guild could conquers and upgrade the castle on their own, add alliance and enemy system to declare war on that guild/alliance to take castle from the enemy group, guilds controlling resource camps to help their crafting and ascenced materials, etc.

Jolan tru.

1. Stop night capping

2. bring back old maps (sorry i did my best to give the new maps a try but there is too much running and lack of fighting, when you come home from work you want test your build vs other players not vs npc or sige. the new maps= run for 10mins> pve shrine>pvecamps>pve tower>pve over powerd tower boss> run 10 mins all the way south to pve cap the 2 towers at the bottom >pve cap far south camp(more running) then back to pve cap shrines because some lone wolf loser took it, rinse repeat.

3. increase score for player kill

4 return to the original friday night reset

5. better rewards.

My top 5

1. Autoloot (Even working if y are death otherwise you lose loot if y port and during the time of downstead, death and port you can´t get the loot.)

2. Fix no line of sight for e.g if y are a thief and y run on the Merlon and y can´t port in front of the zerk and port back because this message. practical it means death.

3. Gliding would be nice e.g. till a hight of y can glide and above only if y are not in a range of a keep.

4. balance stability ability so that these stacks aren´t melt so fast if y push an foe. Why: Since HOT e.g. Guards can use traps, every trap can stun or mesmer shild is also a lot of new cc and so on…. but the stability ability aren´t improved.

5. WVW seasons would be nice.

I am the guild master of Malefis guild, 100% WvW guild , at a stage , and up to the new borderlands, we where 500 guildies, could have raid 40 people any time of the day , we brough back vizunah from 16 to first in the rank in 14 month, then you put the new maps;
from 70% connected per day, we went down to 40 then 30 %.
The reason : borderlands. this maps killed the game , cause they dont give the opportunity to each player to play alone ,then meet another one and go together etc.
Too big really, huge as the mstake to change. You stilll have a chance to dont throw this game to the bin, so bring back old borderlands. for information i had 5000 hours on GW1, and i have nearly 10000 hours on gw2, and like the other, i really just play a bit now to say hello to the guildies, and check if borderlands are back.

I am the guild master of Malefis guild, 100% WvW guild , at a stage , and up to the new borderlands, we where 500 guildies, could have raid 40 people any time of the day , we brough back vizunah from 16 to first in the rank in 14 month, then you put the new maps;
from 70% connected per day, we went down to 40 then 30 %.
The reason : borderlands. this maps killed the game , cause they dont give the opportunity to each player to play alone ,then meet another one and go together etc.
Too big really, huge as the mstake to change. You stilll have a chance to dont throw this game to the bin, so bring back old borderlands. for information i had 5000 hours on GW1, and i have nearly 10000 hours on gw2, and like the other, i really just play a bit now to say hello to the guildies, and check if borderlands are back.

Orpheal.8263:

Personally I absolutely disagree with following statements here:

1) Remove EotM – everyone who suggest this should seriously get slapped into the face to propose to ANet to remove CONTENT from the game, only because YOU DONT LIKE IT /facepalm

2) Bring the old Maps back – hell no, we have had them for over 2 and a half years. They are boring as hell and only because Anet didn’t do with the Desert borderlands everythign right and perfect on first try, they should remove instantly everything again? god kitten it, give them a break!!! WvW has completely different problems, than what kind of BL Maps we have.
Yes, the current Map is far away from being perfect (too big, too complex, non roamer friendly, too much annoying effects, but that all is nothing that can’t be solved by Anet by making fitting adjustsments!! The only thing that should get removed is the Laser Event as part of making the map around 25-33% smaler and easier to navigate)
This part was good meant, but just failed.

3) Fixing the Server Population is hard – No, it is not, people just have only to give up finally on their pointless “Server Pride” that was mostly non existant fo the major part of the WvW anywyas as people bunny hop from server to server on demand, just to “win” the moment on, when there is something they want like rewards, then people instantly suddenly totally forget what Server Pride is the moment they realize that they won’t be on the winning side with the servr they are currently on!!
The easiest solution for the WvW Population Problems is to completely scrap this pointless Word v World v World System and to redesign WvW into a Faction Wars between 3 clear Factions which share players from among ALL SERVERS of a territory.

So all American Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions and all European Servers mixed up evenly among 3 Factions. This and only this change will solve also at the same time the Nightcapping Problems especially for European Servers where you have servers with many different time zones, what is a problem that you Americans DON’T HAVE, because you live all in the same time zone on the same continent.
Correct me if I’m not right with this :P

This change would make Tournaments for WvW in the future also alot ALOT EASIER.

4) Stability needs fixing – No, it does not, what this game needs on the other hand of Stability is currently FINALLY some concrete HARD CC BALANCE. the game is full with HARD CC Power Creep, simply too much HARD CC in the game without any real balanced protection from all this HARD CC SPAM.
What GW2 needs to get better balanced from this is some kind of HARD CC PROTECTION that works similar like the mechanic that prevents you from spamming Stealth – Reveal.
Somthign like this needs to exist finalyl for HARD CCs, that when you get stunned, knockeddowned, launched and so on, that your CHaracter then becomes for a short while like 4-say max 10s immune to any instantly following up next HARD CC’s, so that you simply can’t get perma stunlocked to death anymore!!!
HARD CC skills are very important SITUATIONAL skills that should be used at clever moments to turn the tide of a battle towards your favor, not to spam with it enemies to death to get cheap braindead kills ,because your enemy was unable to move for a freaking second and fight back at all!
THATS THE DUMB WHOLE PROBLEM that needs to get fixed finally and nothing else Stability is fine as it is, it’s HARD CC SPAM that is totally out of control and that makes fighting in WvW NO FUN, or do you find it fun to get killed, without that you could do anything at all!! Obviously NO, or? Buffign Stability creates only more Power Creep, the solution is NERF HARD CC SPAM TO HELL!! At least for WvW by making appropiate WvW centric Skill/trait changes by splitting off WvW Class balance complete from the rest of the game, giving WvW its complete own balanced skills and trait effects, that are specificly balanced for WvW Only.
This is somethng that should have been done already from RELEASE DAY ON.
Then we wouldn’t have all the problems that we have now…

I’ll admit I didn’t read your long kitten post (TL DR), but I do disagree about EOTM. (and I’d LOVE to see you even TRY to slap me >.>).

EOTM was a HUGE mistake in the first place and should have never existed – in the first place. EoTM is one of the things ruining REAL WvW. You see, we’ve had a problem with “population balance” almost since day 1. At least in terms of “server stacking”. People have always just thrown themselves around xferring as they felt the urge. So, you have too many people on T1, and maybe even a few under it, and they have REALLY long queue times (at least on the weekend) right? So what does ANET do about it? No, they don’t fix the actual problem, “population balance” (find a way to FORCE those players to a lower Tier server with no queues) – they throw the situation a BANDAID. That bandaid was EOTM, basically a kitten WvW megaserver. So rather than fix the core problem, they toss it a band-aid; and now look where WvW is!

If you put a BANDAID on a GSW it may (somewhat) slow the bleeding, at least for a little while. But point is, if you don’t seek REAL medical attention soon, you’re still going to bleed out!

Now, I suppose you could say, let it stay since it’s already here – and I may even be able to cope with that; IF – IF – IF (BIG IF) ANet were to actually FIX the actual problem at hand, POPULATION / BALANCE issues for WvW…

But if all they’re going to do is continue to throw us BANDAIDS for our gaping wounds, WvW WILL completely and fatally bleed out! It’s only a matter of time!

EoTM is just a part of the contribution to the bleed out! So for that reason, I could 100% support the complete removal of EoTM! Fix the issue at hand, AND remove EoTM – could only HELP REAL WvW!

Or, they could even leave EOTM alone (leave it in the game). Because, just maybe, once REAL WvW is fixed – EOTM will die anyway (or die as it’s known right now) because just maybe more people will want to participate in REAL WvW again rather than play in a pointless WvW megaserver! If we get the WvW wound stitched up, that bandaid might just dry up and fall off, on it’s own even, as it should!

my $0.02

If you get outnumbered on a map, maybe the objectives you own on that outnumbered map should tick higher as long as you control it? Like 1.5 times higher? And also the walls/gates and NPC’s (guards, lords, supervisors) are scaled higher also. Idk if someone else has suggested this, someone probably has, but, still, that’s my suggestion.

LionChain.7694:

If you get outnumbered on a map, maybe the objectives you own on that outnumbered map should tick higher as long as you control it? Like 1.5 times higher? And also the walls/gates and NPC’s (guards, lords, supervisors) are scaled higher also. Idk if someone else has suggested this, someone probably has, but, still, that’s my suggestion.

night shift commander: “Guys we just capped whole map, lets leave so that single muppet trying to backcap it will let us tick even higher!”

dont show nameplates und rezicon for deadplayers while in combat we cant rezz them anyway

fix HoT WvW Guildupgrades you killed all small WvW Guilds cause they will never get enough gold to get back there guild katas and +5 supply

its really not good to have no one at offtime who can claim something with +5 cause only a few bigger guilds can afford such guild upgrades

1. Get rid of environment stuff, like jumppads banners airships fogs.
2. Go back to the old guild upgrade system, so smaller guilds can activate stuff aswell.
3. Deserted borderlands please make it terrain flat as possible.
4. better rewards.
5. Stabilty fix yes please

I posted this about a year ago in the Population Imbalances CDI. It (mostly) still stands, so I’m going to post it again.

Very long, multi part post incoming. Fair warning :P
Proposal: Guild Alliances
Objective: replace the current uncompetitive system which consists of multiple reinforcing negative feedback loops with a new one that takes into account the current ‘facts on the ground’, is highly competitive, robust, and capable of continuous dynamic adjustments throughout the day faced with varying degree of player participation and play styles.
Method:
• Scrap the persistent 24/7 timeframe. Replace it with a series of time blocks which are individually scored and rated matches. Suggested time frames are 16 matches of 90 minutes in length (probably best), or 12 matches of 2 hours in length.
• Scrap all existing servers (which will be replaced by):
• Form Guild Alliances. (A detailed explanation of what these are follows after Method and scoring sections).
• Change the current queue option interface/system to offer these choices: Alliance, Group, Solo, Solo (low pop), and Challenge (A detailed explanation of what this means as well as implications is after Method & Scoring sections and Guild Alliances explanation.)
• Each match is on a single map chosen at random from the 4 available maps: EB, EotM, Alpine or Desert BL. The sides are filled out by placing Alliances first in order of their Glicko rating (IE first map consists of the top 3 rated Alliances which have queued for that timeslot, next map is the next 3, etc). If there are 1 or 2 Alliances left as a remainder, that map is filled out with the first group queue sides, etc. (This will be clearer once you read the detailed Queue Option section).
• Reduce map capacity for each faction down to the size of a squad. Squad size might want to be increased to 60, but this is debatable.
• All characters start with 0 supply at the start of each match.
• All objectives start at completely unupgraded, but the upgrade schedule is vastly compressed… 4 supply deliveries/dolyaks delivered per tier.

Scoring and Rewards:
• Match score follows current PPT rules with the following change: All player kills are worth 1 point, stomps are worth 2.
• All matches that have at least one Alliance present are considered rated matches.
• Rated matches result in glicko rating changes for the Alliances participating.
• Non rated matches have no glicko effects.
• Add a reward chest for the 1st place finishers at the end of a match that contains 1 each of the ascended crafting materials: (IE 1 Deldrimor steel, 1 Spiritwood Plank, 1 Elonian square, 1 bolt of Damask).
• The current World bonuses are reassigned to be Alliance bonuses and the trigger points would have to be recalculated based on what kind of scores an Alliance could expect given a reasonable amount of playtime during the week.

(con’t)

(con’t from previous post)
Guild Alliances – a detailed explanation
An Alliance is a new organizational level above a guild. While it could be used for PVE purposes, (an example being the various TTS guilds would make a natural PVE alliance,) the main purpose would be to provide the structure to build WvW teams around.
Maximum alliance size will need to be fairly high to account for differences in use and playstyle. Probably 8191 (that isn’t an arbitrary number, its 13 binary digits… the next lower would be 4095 which wouldn’t be enough for TTS.) No matter how large the total alliance membership is, the important limiting factor is only 80 will be able to be in an Alliance WvW match at the same time.
An account can be a member of multiple alliances at the same time, however any alliance can see exactly what alliances you currently have a membership in so they can spot potential conflicts of interest.
All Alliances will have their own glicko rating. This glicko rating is only affected by matches that the Alliance participates in via the Alliance queue. Since the rating is no longer a composite rating covering an entire server it will be much more accurate than current glicko is.
The Alliance will need to have their own rank structure with varying permission levels… this will have to include membership invite/kick, queueing authority, and permission setting authority.
You can add an alliance tag at the end of the current character display. Syntax: Character name [guild tag] [alliance tag].
Queue Option Interface/System – a detailed explanation
The revamping of the queue system is an important part of this change. I will go over each individual option in turn. It is important to know that the Alliance, Group and Solo queues are integrated together while the Solo (low pop) and Challenge options are special cases handled independently.
There will need to be a down time in between match time slots to account for glicko recalculation and to allow time for people to queue up, get a drink, go to the restroom, etc.
There will also need to be a roster confirmation cutoff time (probably on the hour mark) to allow proper matchup calculations.
Alliance Queue
This option is picked by an Alliance member who has queueing authority to kick off a scheduled alliance raid. Once this action has been taken, all alliance members online get notification that a queue request has been submitted (suggestion being an exclamation point on the WvW icon on the upper left part of their screen accompanied with an audible sound similar to when a player receives mail) and the individual who started the queue gets a progress indicator that fills up as other alliance members join the queue. This progress indicator could be quite detailed… IE like the WoW raid interface that shows group number, character name and color coded by class. The queueing member has 2 option buttons: Confirm and Cancel. Confirm commits the Alliance to play in the next match, the Cancel option stops the process to prevent an Alliance that isn’t ready or has too many no-shows from being forced to participate in a rated match.
Note: outside of the submission window the Alliance queue button will put you into a queue for your currently represented Alliance’s match IF a match is underway, you CANNOT submit a new Alliance queue request outside the matchup window OR have 2 separate Alliance matches active at the same time.
(con’t)

(con’t from previous post)
Group Queue
This is the option which people choose if they want more organized yet casual play, whether as entire guilds, fragments of guilds, groups of friends, etc. It will use megaserver technology to fill out sides, prioritizing from the largest guild formations to the smallest mixed groups. This is important because the first 2 map sides filled out via group queue could potentially find themselves matched against the lowest ranked Alliance(s) if there are not enough alliances queued for that match to make the lowest alliance match alliance-only.
Example: A megaguild decides to have a guild WvW night. They group queue with 16 5 man groups. They will all get assigned to the same map side, and will probably be 1st in line to be selected as an alliance match round out team if one is needed. The next map side consists of a 35 person guild, a 25 person guild and a 20 person guild, etc etc etc.
Solo Queue
This is what a player picks if they are queueing alone. Players from this queue will be used first to round out any gaps left in group queue maps, then will be round robin assigned to sides on new maps (ensuring as close to even numbers on all 3 sides as possible).
Solo Queue (Low Pop)
This is one of the two special queue options. Players who select this queue are NOT part of the pool selection for the Alliance/Group/Solo maps. They will be placed on their own map (s) which have half the pop cap of regular ones (IE 40 instead of 80 per side), round robin style. This is basically the roamer/duelist queue.
Challenge Queue
This is another stand-alone that doesn’t interact with anything else. The purpose of this is to allow Alliances and Guilds to do 1v1 fights, either rated or not. Hitting the Challenge queue button would bring up a submenu with 2 further options: Alliance or GvG. Selecting either will bring up another submenu where you choose who the Challenge will be issued to, whether the challenge will be rated/non rated and whether the scoring will be PPT or PPK (points per player kill) only. The GvG option would also have numbers scaling option (IE 10v10, 15v15, etc). Once the parameters were set, the Challenge would be submitted. The Challenged party would receive notification of the Challenge and could either accept or refuse. If accepted, the whole roster confirmation process would proceed on both sides and the match would start once both sides hit the Confirm button. In order to prevent griefing/trolling by making repeated cold challenges, a /challengeblock GUILD <guildname> or ALLIANCE <alliancename> list should be added.
(con’t)

(con’t)
SUMMARY/RATIONALE FOR THIS PROPOSAL
Current WvW is plagued by many limitations and issues inherent to its current form. If it is intended as the ‘3rd Pillar’ of the game alongside PVE and sPvP those limitations cripple the format’s potential to fill that role.
The structure of matches into a competitive format of glicko rated servers with wildly variable actual WvW populations semi-randomly matched against each other in a 24/7 scored matchup usually produces situations where one server has a clear advantage early in the matchup, creating a positive reinforcement loop for participation by that server’s members and a negative one for the other two. This means, in effect, that the only time the match is competitive may be on reset night… making the remaining 160ish hours of the week pointless and pretty boring for all sides.
The best servers are those who have all of the following: very high WvW participation from their server, a lot of organized guild groups as part of that participation, as close to 24/7 coverage as possible, as high a degree as possible of participation on that server’s TS, and a very high amount of coordination between that server’s players. Those servers are also pressure cookers that tend to burn out the players that function as their core fighting forces.
The problem is, there is less than a handful of servers in the NA/EU leagues that fit those criteria, with pretty much no chance of that changing because there are not enough active WvW players around to do that for every server, and human psychology combined with a severe lack of material rewards means that it is not very likely that many PVE/sPVP players can be enticed into becoming regular WvW players. Pretty much all the suggestions made so far are band-aids that either won’t fix the root causes or can trigger more negative reinforcement loops.
With that said, from what I’ve seen all Tiers can manage a fairly respectable turn out on reset nights, EOTM is pretty popular, and overall turnout increases dramatically during tournaments (at least for as long as it takes to get the meta done for the reward) which indicates to me that WvW shouldn’t just be written off.
So, what does the Guild Alliance proposal do?
Pros:
• Population imbalances are no longer an issue
• Coverage is no longer an issue
• Stale matches are no longer an issue
• Matches become much more competitive at any time
• Players have more flexibility in how they play the game
• Players are much more likely to be able to find fights that fit their style of play
• Players can choose Alliances that fit their playstyle
• Alliances actually will have control of their lineup instead of being subjected to the whims of the queue.
• Trolls can be easily dealt with by /alliancekick
• It allows both better separation between ultracompetitive play and casual while simultaneously providing a clearer progression towards competitive play.
• It provides better integration of the EOTM/regular WvW formats
• It allows increasing the overall rewards for WvW as a carrot to increase participation levels without worrying about hitting the absolute map cap of WvW (9600 in NA) causing queues which tear large holes in zerg busting guild’s formations and overall C3
• It allows for matches where guilds from an entire region are much more likely to interact with each other, as allies or enemies (group queue)
• Guilds can get better individual recognition because Alliance glicko rating will only reflect their efforts instead of an entire server.
• The Challenge mode establishes the basic framework for different styles of play that portions of the player base have expressed quite a bit of interest in.
• Its more economical for Anet because only as many maps as needed will be created.
Cons:
• The servers at the extreme ends of the spectrum (Tiers 1 and 8 ) will have issues forming the Guild Alliances. The Tier 1 because basically they would need multiple Guild Alliances which will inevitably cause community disruption and the Tier 8 because there just might not be enough organized guilds to form an effective alliance.
• There will be far less opportunity for off hours players to form Alliances, meaning that there will be fewer of them and hence less depth in Alliance play during off hours.
• I spoke with our guild’s resident A-net Dev and he said I shouldn’t expect that anything like this could be implemented quickly, it would require some pretty major changes. Please note this caveat: he made clear this was his own feel about the situation and in no way whatsoever represented an official company stance.

and anet plz be careful how you rredesign stab.
plz don´t make the mistake and just add a cd on loosing a stack like 0,3-0-5s or target limit cc skills.
of course it would be better than atm but it still would be bound to numbers and still give the bigger numbers advantage cause they will have more cc´s to get rid of your stacks fast or more cc´s and the samller group would still have in disadvantage in stab.

just complete stop let numbers change the way stab work/fell. just go back to the old system stab=duration and ignore all cc´s so all groups from 15-80 are equal in terms of stab. make it a bit more skillful with maybe stop stack in duration to better timing in partys is more rewarding but plz completly stop the bigger numbers=any advantage in stabilty. should be about timing group setup and coordiantion only.

Okay, WvW-Oooverhaul…

As I see it – beside combat mechanics (more or less stability etc) – you have that issue: there are 2 fractions: the PPT-lovers and the fight-lovers.
You could try to design maps, that are a compromise for the wishes of both sides.
Or you could consequently split those 2 play styles:

1. Make EotM a 50v50/20v20 fight club, called „Songs of the Mists“ (see my posting above)

2. Make WvWvW a neverending PPT war, called „Isles in the Mists“:

an archipelago with bigger and smaller isles, each isle is a map;
each server can try to claim and defend some or more, smaller or bigger isles;
switching from map to map (isle to isle) is done by ships, but ships cannot land, when population size of the isle is full (50% of population of isle is reserved for the defenders, 50% for all others);
all servers will fight in this archipelago, so it is a WvWvWvWvW…vW, without any reset;
when a server has earned 1 million points, a big legendary PvE event happens on this server (that will promote WvWvW under PvE players);
strong servers will earn 1 million points every weak, but weak servers will also earn 1 million points every three months, or so…
server ranking (for server pride^^) comes from recent territory size;
servers can build alliances;
maybe, guilds can also claim/defend isles (for the server, but get guild fame);
to spice it up strategically, different isles can hold special resources (for siege weapons or so), which must shipped … (ohh, maybe even sea battles :-)

There’s a lot of good ideas in here. Personally, I agree with most of them.

We need to get back the old Alpine Borderlands. We all miss the good fights there because the structures there had a lot of importance, specially arround the garrison (it could be under siege by trebs from the exterior towers.)

In my opinion, it needs a change though it had some PvE kittenty content on it. As example, tamini + skritt places could be removed and a tower MUST be placed there. This would give an extra position for attackers to the upper towers and the northern camp.

Of course, the WvW need a reward that makes sense for the game mode. We need to be able to get gold from it. Not lose it there. We need to play hours of boring PvE to get Ascended items, gold for siege, foods, etc. We NEED gold, loot, reward tracks, etc. This will make WvW survive by it’s own.

Also, the WvW tournaments is a must. We need something to test our server strength. It’s a war modality. We want to fight for our servers to make them prevail.

As well, WvW it’s a 24/7 gamemode, that can’t be changed at all BUT the kills should grant an important amount of points since it’s a war-based game mode. As example, each enemy kill should grant +5 points.

The skills must be balanced. Starting with stability, getting back the old one. And decreasing the condition damage since it can destroy you in seconds before you can make a melee clash beetwing zerks.

Also the size from maps should be increased but not just the size. Also the amount of structures. And adding small towers/gates as upgrade for near towers to block strategics points, to force the enemy to fight or to break that point. This can give very good results.

To force people to fight and take structures and defend them. Each time that any structure is upgraded it should give extra points to the server and by holding it X period of time, it should give extra points.

Killing large amounts of enemies on a defense or the battlefield must grant extra points based on the kills your server got in that time. As example, if you get 1000 kills in 1 hour, your server should get 2500 points. This should give more sense to larger fights.

I realize that I am a late poster on this, but I’ll try my hand here.

The Top 5 things I want from a WvW Change/Revamp.

1: First and Foremost. Make it Fun!

Allow me to explain this. I know that the developers and designers are very used to being the sole providers of challenge to their players, by their efforts are the means by which the game engages the players, but WvW is special in that it is the players that provide the challenge, we bring the game, the Developers just need to set the stage and allow us to play it out.

In this venture, and if a Developer is reading this, please don’t take this wrong way, and while I can see the care, the consideration, and sheer volume of work put into the Deseret Borderlands, they are, for lack of a better way to put this.. Too much. The emphases needs to be on the Players vs Players, not them struggling to deal with the Environment along with each other. When it comes to WvW, that is more the time to step back a bit. Don’t try to pit your skill against us, in fact, your job should be to allow us to engage each other in a fun environment. if I have to focus on the PvE in a WvW map, that pulls from the enjoyment of WvW. I enjoy working on capturing or defending objectives, not struggle to get around a canyon.

So, Keeping it Simple, Makes it fun.

2: Reward for Everyone!

Players won’t do something for nothing. Sure, we might do some things just to see what happens, but let’s be honest, often times, that is exactly what the developers don’t want us doing (evil laugh)

My Suggestion is that WvW needs its own style of Reward System.

PvE has, well a million ways to reward players. PvP has their Reward Tracks.

WvW needs to have their own niche in this reward realm as well.

First off, Lets be honest here, loot from WvW is lacking, from badges to gold, loot in WvW seems very bare bones to say the least.

_2-A: Fixed Rewards. _

Right now we have this variable loot drop based on contribution, that’s fine, but there needs to be a Fixed Reward for every Player, Camp , Tower, Keep Lord killed, that everyone that so much as hit them once, gets, no matter how much or little they did. This no one ends up feeling slighted during a WvW capture or conflict. Everyone should get something just for being a part of it. yes those that did more still get their extra loot for their extra effort, but everyone gets at bare minimum of loot.

Nothing Discourages players more than getting stiffed from a kill.

That brings us to.

2-B: WvW Contribution Rewards.

There is should a reward for how well you placed at the end of any given week.

1st Place – Reward Box (Bronze/Silver/Gold)
2nd Place – Reward Box (Bronze/Silver/Gold)
3rd Place – Reward Box (Bronze/Silver/Gold)

But this needs to be reserved for people that Contribute, not just log in one day at reset and never again for the rest of the week. The Way this would work, Bronze/Silver/Gold would be contingent upon how many WvW Dailies you did in a given week. A player would need to do at least 7 WvW dailies just to be eligible to receive the weekly award box at all.

So the Breakdown would be like this:
7 -13 WvW Dailies Done – gets you a Bronze.
14- 20 WvW Dailies Done gets you a Silver,
21 + WvW Dailies Done gets you a Gold Participation

This way, even if they could do all 4 per day, they would still need to be out there for at least 2 days doing stuff just to get a Bronze Box of however well their server placed. If they placed 2nd, they would get a 2nd Place Bronze Box.

For the Active WvW player, getting in 21 of a possible 28, would not be hard at all. So getting a gold would not be that difficult, and you would not ever need to do a day where you had to do all 4 dailies. 3 a day over 7 days would be enough for a gold. Equally so, even if you did all 4 per day, it would take you 6 days to get the gold.

What these Boxes contain, would need to be worked out.

I would wager they Should be something along the lines of:
5 to 10 Gold
Black Lion Key
Transmutation Charge
100 Badges.
a few Champion Bags.

3: Even More Reward.

Lets be real, nothing says “validation” more than having your own little items reserved for you. In this front I believe that Badges of Honor and Proof of Heroics should be the currency for “Invader” gear. However, I believe like Tiered Cultural Armor, what should be Offered is Tiered Invader Items.

What this means is that each Tier of Invader has their own Merchant with their Own Prices, that provides Exclusive Gear just for them. However, you can always access lower tier merchants, IE: A Silver Tiered player can still buy from the Bronze Tier Merchant.

What should be Offered:
Armor – and as opposed to it being solid in various sets, just set the armor to pick you own stats.
Weapons – Same Deal as Armor
Commander Tags
Food – Effects that are WvW Centric, IE: +5% Damage with Siege, +5 Supply Capacity
Oils – Effects that are WvW Centric. (See above)
Back Skins – Flags, Banner Poles, Etc.
Shoulder Skins- Flags, Banners, Etc.
Bracer Skins – Flags, Banners, Etc.
Siege – IE: Silver and Above Could buy Superior at Discounted Prices, Platinum and Above could buy Legendary Siege.

While anyone could buy the Standard Invader Armor currently available, with Each Tier starting with Bronze, would have their own Unique Skin Set for Armor. While the Weapons would be the same Skin, I propose that each tier has their own noticeable color theme.

I am sure this might take time, and my suggestion should be put in, Top Down, IE: Put in the Stuff for Diamond Tier First, and Then work down to Bronze Tier. That way, people can have something to work for, while no one is left with the “Well when do us Diamond Players get stuff?” I mean all know that if you play WvW long enough you will get Diamond Tier eventually. So put that in First, and let them know, more is coming.

This also stops people from just going into WvW to farm for Badges and Proofs, thinking they are just gonna buy something.. Nope.. gotta earn that new shiny!