Guild Wars 2

I think if you want a sampling of how many people like vertical maps, look to EoTM. One of the main reason people play on it is because the fights are more interesting. I think if you revert back to the alpine map you will see an increase in the number of people moving to EoTM. Add more fast travel options to the DBL, but don’t revert.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

robotempire.2451:

lil devils x.6071:

I dont think anyone thinks they are that great, I think you misunderstand. The ONLY way players that left and to stop those about to leave is to bring them back temporarily while they design a new map that is designed from the ground up to keep players engaged in nonstop PvP action the entire time they are on them . It breaks down like this atm:

( Just to be clear we are talking about thousands of players currently)

• Bring back alpine Pre Hot NOW= players come back and agree to wait for them to do other changes.
• Do not bring back ALpine = Guilds waiting for an answer leave for good, and those beckoning them to come with them on other games already NEVER. COME. BACK. the end.

That is the decision being made here. No rosy tinted lens, players are angry the results of beta were ignored and they went ahead anyway. You are asking them to let the guilds leave the game for good. Players do not want them to keep playing on Alpine forever, they just do not consider the game playable at all due to the DBL, and returning Alpine is a show of good faith.

I don’t want players who consider desert BL to be unplayable to come back because I don’t think people who think like that are very good players.

I play a bunch of other games but I still make time for WvW because there is no other game that does RvR combat right now at the scale GW2 does. I don’t think people leaving to go play other games is a big deal. Good, go, have fun doing something else.

I also don’t think a “give me back my ball!”-style temper tantrum about the Alpine maps should be something the devs give two kittens about.

If you have read through the reasons ppl have given as to why the DBL is not a great pvp/wvw map or the ABL is a better one you would realize that nostalgia has little to do with it. All I see from you are empty claims. Can I get just one good argument as to why you disagree and throw all players disagreeing with you in the same “not very good players” basket?

I think you cannot say the DBL’s are bad as they have all the PvE stuff in them and removing those would make them totally different. It would be like adding those to the ABL’s, when they were new, and then saying remove them.

People are forgetting that we were all burned out playing the same old crappy ABL maps. People just forget most times.

My top 5
1. Bring back alpine
2. Rework stability and profession balance
3. Significant better rewards
4. Server population
5. Less pve, more pvp

-map rotations on bl

-multiple map selection with player caps and shorter game session(like eotm but with alpine/desert as choices)

-rewards for winning map session

-cross server play ( EoTM system but not based on color)

-gliding in desert map

- in game events to draw players into the game mode

-good luck

Dusty Moon.4382:

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

robotempire.2451:

lil devils x.6071:

I dont think anyone thinks they are that great, I think you misunderstand. The ONLY way players that left and to stop those about to leave is to bring them back temporarily while they design a new map that is designed from the ground up to keep players engaged in nonstop PvP action the entire time they are on them . It breaks down like this atm:

( Just to be clear we are talking about thousands of players currently)

• Bring back alpine Pre Hot NOW= players come back and agree to wait for them to do other changes.
• Do not bring back ALpine = Guilds waiting for an answer leave for good, and those beckoning them to come with them on other games already NEVER. COME. BACK. the end.

That is the decision being made here. No rosy tinted lens, players are angry the results of beta were ignored and they went ahead anyway. You are asking them to let the guilds leave the game for good. Players do not want them to keep playing on Alpine forever, they just do not consider the game playable at all due to the DBL, and returning Alpine is a show of good faith.

I don’t want players who consider desert BL to be unplayable to come back because I don’t think people who think like that are very good players.

I play a bunch of other games but I still make time for WvW because there is no other game that does RvR combat right now at the scale GW2 does. I don’t think people leaving to go play other games is a big deal. Good, go, have fun doing something else.

I also don’t think a “give me back my ball!”-style temper tantrum about the Alpine maps should be something the devs give two kittens about.

If you have read through the reasons ppl have given as to why the DBL is not a great pvp/wvw map or the ABL is a better one you would realize that nostalgia has little to do with it. All I see from you are empty claims. Can I get just one good argument as to why you disagree and throw all players disagreeing with you in the same “not very good players” basket?

I think you cannot say the DBL’s are bad as they have all the PvE stuff in them and removing those would make them totally different. It would be like adding those to the ABL’s, when they were new, and then saying remove them.

People are forgetting that we were all burned out playing the same old crappy ABL maps. People just forget most times.

It would not change them being annoying to navigate AF nor less filled with bottle necks. It would also not make objectives valuable strategically as oppose to merely just PPT. It would also not make the tower/keep bosses not world event-like mechanically.

1) Stab change – get this pirate meta to kitten and give us back some decent melee

2) Get rid of the pitiful strategically inept BL map – either bring back Alpine or change desert so that towers/keeps have some strategic value, there has to be a reason to hold/defend structures (see alpine for guides to this). There are some decent ideas on the new map – i like the sentry effect, shrines and some of the tower bonuses are good – tactivators etc – but many need toned down drastically – airships/stealth. You also make keeps so bloody huge that you also need to add a sentry effect to a newly taken keep so that hiding enemies can be tracked, spending so much time in a mes hunt is kittened.

3) PPT needs to die as the only MU deciding factor, the PPK change is a good start but i think PPT need to at least be reduced to be 50% of score. Change a kill to be worth 5 pts, maybe change the tic to every 20 mins to make fighting much more important a factor to deciding a game. And kill some kitten EU servers, bottom 6 or 9 and redistribute the players with a free switch

4) Better rewards would be nice or ways to spend excess wxp level points on something

5) Fix siege, line of sight, overall damage could be reduced and preferably get rid of crappy splash damage where you can place a cata on one side on a hill and the damage goes right through to walls on the other side. Buying superior siege with excess hero point was a good introduction

and lastly stop with the kittenkittenitten PvE in WvW. Yes a high % of players play all game modes but that doesn’t mean we want PvE mixed with out WvW. STOP puting crap PvE events in WvW.

Finally re-read the bit between 5 and this sentence till your eyes bleed and you take notice. ty

Tengu Talons.7921:

-map rotations on bl

-multiple map selection with player caps and shorter game session(like eotm but with alpine/desert as choices)

-rewards for winning map session

-cross server play ( EoTM system but not based on color)

-gliding in desert map

- in game events to draw players into the game mode

-good luck

I know that it is about feedback and I respect ur “need to add/fix list”, but I just can’t stand it… Thep oint of WvW is that it last 7 days, not 2h, for 2h u have eotm and that should be enough atm. At this point Cross server play would be hard to implement. If not based on color then what? Based on rating? Like 1+2 servers against 10+11 against 6+18? I don’t get it m8… As for glidding… For real? What about those that don’t have HoT? PvP is supposed to be equal for everyone. Also gliding on WvW map would be pretty OP… U would be abale to get form keep to camp all the way down without even running for a while…

Fixing WvW: The Melee Train is a Part of the Answer

I’m going to approach the issue of battle philosophy, balance, and what makes WvW combat enjoyable and epic.

Looking back at all my past experiences and the fights I’ve enjoyed most in WvW, it’s all about those moments where the melee train is rolling through the enemy forces in an epic fashion. I’ve pretty much only ever run Necromancer/Reaper in WvW, and it’s those times where as a smaller organized force we’ve been able to train through the larger more disorganized force and at least have some kind of chance to overcome the odds stacked against us; those are the moments that I feel the adrenaline burst and endorphin release. It’s kind of like sex. The melee train based playstyle also makes even fights fun and exciting with constant movement, repositioning and less pirate shipping around one another and less waiting for cooldowns.

The melee train is sadly becoming a thing of the past, but the solution in my opinion, is to re-imagine battle philosophy by recreating ranged classes to be able to run closer to the melee (more hybrid builds) and to lower the amount of CC so groups can have some opportunity to train through one another. The pirate shipping; standing around and watching your enemy until they flinch or get bored or have cooldowns up is not working.

Fights like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6lukCWKyE are what we need again.

Ways that this might happen are:

• Spread out necessary frontline skills that only guards possess now to one or two ranged classes like elementalists/tempests. Currently two guardians is the bare minimum for a frontline group. We need more flexibility in this.

• Give each ranged class options that enable them to more easily run frontline or hybrid. The Reaper is a great example of a step in the right direction.

• Reduce the strength of crowd control (and conditions?).

• Empower stability.

On another note, lower the effectiveness of the cancer keep upgrades like chill fields and emergency waypoints and reduce the overall power of siege which is notorious now for ending the days of the good old fashion keep fights.

P.S. – For balance purposes this may mean also giving melee classes some hybrid/ranged options. We see this playing out well with Dragon Hunters and Revenants currently, which are both considered powerful classes.

Cephas.4293:

Fixing WvW: The Melee Train is a Part of the Answer

I’m going to approach the issue of battle philosophy, balance, and what makes WvW combat enjoyable and epic.

Looking back at all my past experiences and the fights I’ve enjoyed most in WvW, it’s all about those moments where the melee train is rolling through the enemy forces in an epic fashion. I’ve pretty much only ever run Necromancer/Reaper in WvW, and it’s those times where as a smaller organized force we’ve been able to train through the larger more disorganized force and at least have some kind of chance to overcome the odds stacked against us; those are the moments that I feel the adrenaline burst and endorphin release. It’s kind of like sex. The melee train based playstyle also makes even fights fun and exciting with constant movement, repositioning and less pirate shipping around one another and less waiting for cooldowns.

The melee train is sadly becoming a thing of the past, but the solution in my opinion, is to re-imagine battle philosophy by recreating ranged classes to be able to run closer to the melee (more hybrid builds) and to lower the amount of CC so groups can have some opportunity train through one another. The pirate shipping; standing around and watching your enemy until they flinch or get bored or have cooldowns up is not working.

Fights like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6lukCWKyE are what we need again.

Ways that this might happen are:

• Spread out necessary frontline skills that only guards possess now to one or two ranged classes like elementalists/tempests. Currently two guardians is the bare minimum for a frontline group. We need more flexibility in this.

• Give each ranged class options that enable them to more easily run frontline or hybrid. The Reaper is a great example of a step in the right direction.

• Reduce the strength of crowd control (and conditions?).

• Empower stability.

On another note, lower the effectiveness of the cancer keep upgrades like chill fields and emergency waypoints and reduce the overall power of siege which is notorious now for ending the days of the good old fashion keep fights.

P.S. – For balance purposes this may mean also giving melee classes some hybrid/ranged options. We see this playing out well with Dragon Hunters and Revenants currently, which are both considered powerful classes.

Exactly, We need old good meele trains… At this point I would like to add 1 thing to ur comment… Buff warrior! As he was terribly nerfed over last year patches and now isn;t asm uch viable as used to be. Expecialy “worker” build. It was meta and should stay meta build for frontline warriors… would be amazing to have those old times back ^^

I could ramble on, there are many more things to talk about here but the guts of all of this is:

1. Balancing Populations and Servers, considering instance based WvW (similar to how pvp and eotm currently queue maps, this would automatically balance numbers and enable all players to get into wvw without wait times on eb or bl’s).

2. Fixing stuff that should never have been broken in the first place ie: Stab

3. Understanding the needs of all the game types not only PVE, WvW players do not want to see excessive amounts of PVE content inside of WvW, nor do we want to deal with terrain or siege that ultimately takes away from the excitement of fights with other groups / guilds etc.

4. Listening to the community of players before making changes, which is hopefully what this thread is for!

5. Having support teams that can correctly analyze feedback and developing content aligned to the needs of the game rather than making content for the sake of having it.

Eyan.8960:

I could ramble on, there are many more things to talk about here but the guts of all of this is:

1. Balancing Populations and Servers, considering instance based WvW (similar to how pvp and eotm currently queue maps, this would automatically balance numbers and enable all players to get into wvw without wait times on eb or bl’s).

I don’t think if it is good one… 1. problem is language diffrence for EU… we have DE, SP, FR and international servers here so this might be quite difficult to follow commander speaking german when u knwo only english + ur native language. 2. problem are trolls… with megaserver / instance way of playing WvW trolls will be up aswell, as they have any server loyalty anymore. 3. Problem are taxis, waht would hold ppl from doing same stuff as in Eotm? Ppl will just taxi themself in and if they won;t make taxi system ppl will complain that they can’t play with their friends / guild m8s etc. So it can’t happen fur to community ><

That said something must be done so what about deleting all servers making 1( as we have megaservers for pve and pvp anyway) and make new “coalitions”, “alliances” or however u call it that ppl will be able to join and those things will have capacity treshold so ppl won’t overflood it. That way devs will have clear image of numbers of WvWers… The problem are once again guild m8s and friends that want to play together and numbers… cos let’s say that capacity will be 600 players( 100 per border + 200 as reserves) what will happen when half of those will stop playing? They would lose their spots over some time of being absent? And even if they could log in every 2-3 days just to not lose this spot…

As result there is not a single good sollution to balancing population except mixing some low tier servers together AND week of free transfer so ppl will be able to find their own WvW paradise :P

Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine
Revert back to Alpine

Srsly tho, new map is beyond broken.. Its looks cool and all but its not playable.. it would be better to see it placed in pve as meta map or smth really.

And the balancing for wvw? Are you finally plan to separate balance between modes?

Mike O Brien.4613:

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

If not reverting I think at least bringing the old BL’s back in a rotation. Would bring more variation to WvW and not mean throwing away good maps that a lot of people like.
And if the counter argument that different BL’s different week would cause inbalance arises, well there is no balance as it stands, so why start there.

Taking most suggestions made here into account WvW could become even worse. Seems like most people fancy a flat small map with no objectives whatsoever and just two groups of warriors beating each other up. Please notice that there are also people including myself not to unhappy with WvW at the moment and are more likely not posting here, because they don´t have major complaints.

Actually – and this comes to my own surprise – I think the current state of WvW isn´t that bad. To me it seems that most people are just struggling with it cause they are to lazy or to unwilling to adapt to changes.

1. The current stability works fine. To revert the changes now, after many of new abilities were introduced since, is not a good idea. Quite the contrary I feel as a backline much more useful in zergfights now. The old melee trains were boring and skillfully not challenging. Now front liners have to show much more ability than just pressing one, but to learn movement and timing their skills right.
But I agree that the overall balance could need a bit of evaluation. But please don´t just listen to the lobby that whines most and carefully look into each class.

2. The Desert Borderlands get many bad remarks. I used to dislike them too, but now after a few months I got quite used to them and their mechanics. Compared to the alpine borderlands they are much more aesthetically pleasing, offer more strategic options for roamers and feel so darn repetitive in their overall design. I agree that some changes in the positioning of towers are needed to give them strategic value. A rotation with the Alpine Borderlands and open waypoints on all keeps owned by the team would do in my opinion. And if you should be able to fix the heavy lag issues I would favor the bringing back of the oasis event.
PvE elements are fine. The Alpine Borderlands had the ruins, now the Desert Borderlands have the monuments. I don´t see a big problem here, but much more the ability for small roaming groups to make a difference. The oasis event was quite fun too – if it worked without lags.

3. Don´t even think of touching siege. The constant complain about people who use siege is ridiculous, its a fine element which gives much more strategic opportunities and therefore more gameplay value. I really like the shield generators how they work at the moment. It is true though that some siege positions especially for catapults (like the one under the bridge of Veloka) are quite bugged and need to be fixed.

4. Scoring is fine how it works now. By buffing PPK you discourage small groups even more to take on fights when outnumbered, but more encourage them to stay in their tower or run away which doesn´t help.

Adding a few more comments because we’re supposed to speak now or forever hold our peace.

1. The design in which a single player could keep a waypoint contested forever is outdated. It makes no sense. There are classes & builds that could do this forever and never get caught, never die, they’re absolutely not at risk “tapping” the keeps. Even if you do kill whoever’s tapping the keeps, they can get back to the keep before the waypoint opens up again. Remember WvW (as with all other game modes) is supposed to be fun. Making you constantly run the extra mile isn’t fun when the keep is not at risk and not under siege.

The waypoint should only be contested if the keep itself is contested. I feel you should be required to setup siege, and the keep door/wall should be damaged by 5% before you could contest a keep’s waypoint. This way the waypoint doesn’t stay contested forever and cause grief to everybody attempting to have fun. People doing it are just trolling anyway, they aren’t exactly doing it for the greater good most of the time.

As for what if the walls are open and doors are down? Well then that’s a true contested keep, then the waypoint should by all means be contested. At which time an emergency waypoint should be the only thing that gets popped when cooldown is ready. All is fine there as designed.

2. Siege warfare is a bit over the top these days, and that’s to put it lightly. They were bad before, but they got worse with HoT expansion and the new Desert BL’s. I think everybody accepts siege as part of the WvW game mode. And players are also fine with siege on siege, when you use siege to kill/destroy other siege. But when it comes to siege on players, that’s when it gets really annoying. Everything gets amplified when you have a map blob sitting inside a fully fortified, siege-capped keep, raining siege on you for hours. It’s cancerous, they kill fights and what little fun there is left in WvW.

I don’t know if the tech is available but the game should be smart enough to scale the damage siege do on players. Meaning, if you have over a certain number of players, that’s fairly equal to the enemies, then your siege should do less damage to players. They should remain powerful against other siege, but they should do less damage and cause less disruption to players when you have equal numbers or outnumber the opponents.

On the flip side, the game should be smart enough to know when you are outnumbered, sometimes greatly outnumbered. At which time siege should do a bit more damage to players to give you a fighting chance. The reason people are so tired of siege warfare these days is because you have large map queues & blobs hugging siege for hours. They create an environment in which it’s impossible to take a keep. This didn’t used to be the case pre-HoT.

Laying siege on waypointed & fortified Alpine Garrison/Bay/Hills used to be hard. But they were not impossible. If you had the stomach and organization you could do it, it would take a long time, but you could do it. These days, with the introduction of guild upgrades, banners, chilling fog, airstrike, iron hide, shield generators, etc.. add on top of the choke point design of Desert BL’s, it can create an impossible scenario where an equal or larger force sits inside fully sieged up keeps and don’t have to fear losing at all. So the only time you could crack that keep open is during offhours when they have no coverage.

Nobody likes to do this, nobody takes pride in cracking fortified keeps during offhours. But the game has made it so you have to do it this way because you sure aren’t going to do it during primetime. This is just not fun. If all the siege, guild upgrades, etc.. are to remain in the game, you need to develop tech to properly scale them. I know you likely won’t take all these things out because you have already coded them all in. So to compromise, there needs to be tech developed to scale the damage and effectiveness of siege & guild upgrades.

So for an example, if you have a queued EBG, and you hold a fully fortified smc that’s siege capped, the airstrike should do much less damage and have longer cooldowns. Chilling fog should also have longer cooldowns. Arrowcarts should do less damage. Banners should do much less damage & hit less targets. Iron hide should only reduce damage by 10% if you outnumber the attackers.

On the other hand, if you have the outnumbered buff on a map, and you’re trying to hold onto your keep, siege should do more damage to attackers.

Nobody is asking for taking keeps to be made simple. Taking fortified and defended alpine keeps were not simple or easy. But they were at least doable, and you could get enjoyment out of a long siege as long as there was plenty of action on the map. Sieging alpine garrison, bay, or hills often gave you a mix of siege vs siege and open field battles. These days looking at a blob sitting inside a fortified, siege capped keep, you just want to barf and logoff. Fun is what will draw players back into this game mode. Right now it’s not fun, and the downward spiral in WvW activities and population across all servers is proof of that.

And before anybody tells you things are fine, siege is fine, Desert BL’s are wonderful, guild upgrades are fantastic, banners are the next best things ever, etc etc etc… I’d just answer with the above. The downward spiral of activities and population across all WvW servers is proof that things are not fine, that HoT additions are not fine. If the game mode is fun, people would be playing it, it’s that simple. The equation isn’t complicated. Fun = more people playing, population goes up across the board. Not fun = less people playing, population nose dive across the board.

Alpine wasn’t perfect, and yes pre-HoT things grew stale. This largely had to do with Anet promising us big changes were coming to WvW with HoT expansion along with new wonderful maps. So players waited and waited for that big patch. Now, I don’t think anybody expected to see things get worse, but sadly things did get worse. No one expected Desert BL’s be so terribly designed for combat & movement. No one knew that the design team would forget the importance of battle flow and strategic assets such as towers. The new gimmicks, guild upgrades, banners, etc.. proved to be extremely disruptive to player vs player action. All these new things introduced with HoT just made WvW not fun to play in. There are pockets of good action. But you just don’t see the epic battles we used to get with Bay, Hills, and Garrison.

— 1) I offer an alternative solution and general concept in reponse to the “revert to the Alpine BL” suggestions – Change all Shrine buffs to give us X minutes of (probably out-of-combat only) Superspeed instead of the current 5 minutes of nothing.

I believe this one change will drastically change people’s opinions on the new Desert Borderlands. Why?

a) When the new BL came out, people were shocked at the design, so much so that some actually timed how long it would take to run from one strategic point to another. It was comparable, but noticably longer, by about 40%. And I looked at the shrine buff and was like, “oh, it looks like the new maps were designed to incentivize us to take the shrines to run 40% faster, so we can move faster on the map and thus make it feel about equal to the old Alpine BL”. But as we all know the current shrine buff actually does nothing.
b) Letting people move faster will encourage them to explore the map, learn it, and adjust to it.
c) People will be more prone to go defend if they can get to the objectives as quick as they used to. Even if the tower placements are now “useless”.
d) This is a WvW only fix, so no possible negative effect on sPvP or PvE.
e) This will help you narrow and filter the opinions of players that want the Alpine BLs back due to nostalgia/lazy resistance to change/hate the strategic layout of DBL, and who would actually enjoy the new BLs given the opportunity, the way it was seemingly originally designed.

— 2) Before addressing Stability, I believe the core problem actually comes from this: Give us the ability to see all the CC skills. This includes the radius of Red circles, White circles, Enemy vs Friendly, Everything, fix them all with consistency.

Scenario A: We all know the Dragonhunter Longbow 5 skill and elite trap are devastating in WvW when they hit. I argue that if we could actually see the red circle of where the shots were landing, and additionally could distinguish the difference between enemy cages and friendly cages this would change the entire feel of WvW fights for the strictly better, before you even make any changes to stability. As a bonus, I’m sure many sPvPers would love you for this too. And it’s completely ridiculous that one of the solutions for the invisible cage problem is to uncheck a checkbox in the Options menu.
Scenario B: Why is it that when I Overload Fire, Water, and Earth there is a nice white circle showing me what I’m hitting, and when enemies do it there is a nice red circle, but when I Overload Air it’s just a big distance guessing game? Why does the post-overload storm not have a white circle and have a different radius than the visuals would imply? I’m sure all professions have issues like this, and fixes across the board would be a huge improvement to ALL game modes.

In summary, instead of just going back to Stability, first let us have an opportunity to adapt. When you changed stability then added all these invisible skills and boon corruption without giving enough stacks of Stability to compensate, it was just too much and left no room for adaptation. At least start by letting us see and react to the CC, then we can tell whether or not you just need to give us more stacks per skill or if you need to scrap the whole thing and just go back to old stability. There is currently not any reliable data for us, the players, to say whether we want the old stability back, because we can’t even tell what’kittenting us.

— 3) Population Balance, Autoloot, and increased rewards, but more specifically wrapped up into one suggestion, – Make WvW a more viable method to obtaining Ascended Weapons and Armor.

We know the rewards for playing WvW are garbage. Even more of our rewards are left on the ground as we try to concentrate on our group fights and can’t spam F on the fly, or we sit in downed state as bags pop up next to our corpses. I believe you can kill three birds with one stone by focusing on making Ascended Weapons and Armor reasonably obtainable from playing primarily WvW. This includes increasing the raw gold we can earn/hr of time in WvW starting with giving us Autoloot. I don’t think you fully appreciate just how terrible it feels for the gamer psyche to see that one missed bag (or an imagined missed bag) and think “that could have been my precursor”. Over. And over. And over.

People already come and play for the fun, despite the negative gold earnings. If you actually throw us the smallest of bones and give players both a short-term and long-term reward incentive, you will automatically address some of the population balance issues before even trying to fix them.

— 4) Ungate the WvW Guild Hall upgrades from the massive amount of PvE nonsense. Give us a method of earning the upgrades another way.

This is still just flat-out unacceptable. A Level 38 or whatever Guild Hall just to get +5 Supply? etc. Most of our small roamer/defender guilds were killed by this.

Look, I’ve been a big defender of the Desert BLs. I can tell by how they were designed that they were designed with fully upgraded guilds in mind, with all the Tactivators and Upgrades and Claim buffs. And I’m thankful for being on Tier 2 with tons of fights and strategies. But it took way too long to get here, and we’re not even fully covered (as in, getting full buffs at all major objectives).

I don’t even have a recommendation in mind, other than something simple and dumb like slashing the price/requirement of all WvW Guild Hall upgrades by like 80% across the board. Once again, there is just no way of earning anywhere remotely enough to build a WvW Guild without just exiting WvW and doing something else. As a bonus, addressing this would help the population balance issue.

— 5) Glicko – fix it, or change the matchmaking.

I’ve seen threads every once in a while of people looking at the Glicko algorithm and how it wasn’t working, and it all fell on deaf ears. Well let me summarize it in the easiest way possible.

It took 32 weeks of Dragonbrand winning in a row to finally move from Tier 5/6 to Tier 2, where we were actually matched up with opponents appropriate enough to give us a loss. Let me say that again: 32 WEEKS. IN A ROW.

That is completely absurd from a matchmaking perspetive. Even something as brute force and simple as {1st place winners go up a tier, 3rd place goes down a tier, every other week} would be way better than this. I sympathize with Tier 1 as they have to go months and months fighting the same opponents, when in Tier 2 we already have people complaining about fighting the same servers, even though it has “only” been several weeks. I think a lot of the complaints about tournaments and matchups come from the same raw core of the static nature of your possible opponents week to week. Make it more dynamic, somehow, anyhow.

— 6) Oh yea, please stop putting swords on structures for NPC battles. These false alarms are miserable.

1. Please do not design by simple tabulation of player feedback.

What players are asking for with Alpine IMHO is to set free the fight lanes of DBL and increase ease of access to those lanes. Alpine suffered from not enough chokes on immediate approaches to objectives that would break up zergs. DBL puts too much of a maze in the fight lanes (garri->side keeps) between objectives. No one can see each other. You’d have to really fix both maps. Temple and Forest may be good examples of such design where there are relatively open fight lanes between capture points with immediate chokes around the points.

2. What do players mean when they say rewards?

I’m in favor of sPvP style personal rewards (in addition to current player loot bags) and exposition of an individual player’s contribution in WvW, like personal score in sPvP. Ricky’s also suggested ladders for different things since PvP players like to have something to brag about, like Top Silly Person ladder. I guess that would be analogous to Top Condition Remover in sPvP maybe. TBH even PvE players like to have those kinds of titles.

3. I would not have put skill balance above population balance, but I can see that skill balance would have much more immediate an impact in play experience. Make playing melee fun again.

1. Stability
2. If you keep Desert maps, add gliding to them.
3. Design so that 5-15 person havoc groups/guilds have a place. The groups larger than roaming and smaller than the 20-25 person fight groups/guilds and zerg groups/guilds matter too.
4. Make sure objectives matter, if people want to stand in a flat field and GvG just to fight, give them an arena.
5. Fix speed. The idea of terrain restricting movement wasn’t bad, it just was a constant annoyance for everyone rather than kittenual mechanic. It should restrict large zergs more than smaller groups and individuals. Individuals and small groups should be able to escape larger groups rather than constantly getting steamrolled by a perma-swiftness zerg from which a few people can burst out to slow them down. At a minimum, the outnumbered buff should include a 40% speed buff.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to help bring attention to what we believe could be improved. You guys are awesome.

Now for my “OVER-THE-TOP” DEMANDS!

1. Bring back Alpine. Please, for the love of God. At least any siege placed there could be countered with other siege. In the new maps there are unbelievable amounts of places where people can be invulnerable with their arrow carts (go through walls without sight, etc.) You also have the added issue of porting. There are too many places inside of “Fire” Keep for example where anyone with a teleport skill can utilize it in the most non sensible ways. It doesn’t seem like that was intended, and it leaves the doorway open for hackers. I am a firm believer in not allowing one person to be able to sit on an invulnerable arrow cart (out of reach and behind a wall) and defend against an entire blob because the siege cannot be countered quickly enough. Siege is an important role in the game, but come on. When you take the active War out of Guild Wars 2, you bore your player base. Why do you think so many have left after the new maps made it nearly impossible to counter something?

2. Please make the upgrades on camps a little less time consuming. They never get upgraded in time to experience the fun little things that were added to them.

3. Please stop implementing PvE nerfs into your WvW and PvE. Separate your issues, depending on where the problem is. If a blind stack is too OP in a Maguuma meta event, please kitten it thoroughly with tests in fights before you make it completely worthless elsewhere. (AHEM… Druid <3…)

4. Something needs to be done about the buffing on keep lords. Two people should not be able to take a lord down 10 times faster than a blob. If anything, defending a lord should be the thing that makes it stronger, not the other way around.

5. I have been on bronze, silver, and gold tier servers throughout my time on Guild Wars 2. I have seen full-on ghost towns down in bronze and purely unbalanced population in silver and gold. I wish there was a way to separate your slots based on WvW vs. PvE. The one thing ESO did right was their PvP with only three alliances to choose from, meaning those actively in WvW are hardly ever outnumbered to the point of being unable to fight point-wise as a whole. I’ve seen a sad lack of balance here, especially down at the bottom servers where your player base is mocked for lacking the “skill”, when it’s more about the numbers. How can a server improve if not enough people are there playing the same game mode? I know that asking for something like this is a bit much to expect soon, and it’s not an easy fix, but given that you’ve already been able to successfully implement a mega server for PvE, please do something about your server selections when it comes to WvW. I don’t know if there are too many servers. You don’t want everyone waiting in queue for hours on end like they did upon the game’s first release. Maybe because people aren’t excited about WvW anymore, there are just more people doing PvE than WvW these days, but perhaps when the other things people have mentioned are finally fixed, and the majority of WvW players return (if they do) we’ll see what the population issue is and if there is a way to fix it?

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

“Nim” from Jade Quarry’s Born Villain [CAIN]

1. Remove Edge of the mist

2. Conditions, they are way, way too strong. Rebalance please

3. Server matchups should have a fail safe so that you cannot meet the same 2 servers week after week in a row (8 weeks same servers cmoon)

4. Rewards – Add reward tracks to the WvW ability point system. Give us skins-armor, weapons-siegie skins and other stuff. for example these tracks can unlock after you have unlocked all the existing standard tracks.

5. Guild upgrades – some are still too strong. siege and lords take less damage is too strong, no player damage to gates is boring, stonemist air bombs time is stupid etc etc

1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

1- Revert the Stability to what it was before, with no stacks. Conditions should be nerfed atm, a player or a group should not be able to use conditions are primary source of damage, which at the moment they are. They destroy the team work necessary before to kill enemy groups because no group can cleanse the amount of conditions and corrupts that are applied by several of the classes in the game also making the enemy groups tankier and again much more harder to kill even tho they are still able to deal a huge amount of damage using conditions.

2 -Revert to the Alpine Borderlands, maybe with some changes in the future but reverting to then its a must atm.

3- There should be rewards exclusive for wvw like a legendary backpack, that PvP and PvE possess. Also a Player should be able to use get access to runes in someway in WvW without having to grind PvE events. Example Durability Runes.

4- Close Servers, rework the server system but something must be done, especially balancing the EU non national servers.

5- PPT importance should be Diminished due to the fact that the server that possess more off peak activity wins. Fights(kills) should act as a significant and more impact score mechanic

1. The overwhelming consensus seems to be to not fix but to do a full revert back to Alpine. I agree.

2. Separate Pve/Pvp/Wvw skills. You already have them saved when we go into them. Now find a way to balance them separately so that when you need to nerf things like Well of Precog because of the Raids, it doesn’t screw over the WvWers who may have been using it as an invuln.

3. With that said, revert stab changes back to pre-stack.

4. Rewards. Seriously… Been wvwing since beta and you feel like a pauper compared to all of your PvE buddies. I dont need riches but a reward track like the PvP tracks would be great. Also, we really need a legendary backpiece for WvW, PvE has one, PvP has one. We really should get one. Make that happen please

5. Move away from the importance of PPT based play to PPK being the bulk of the score. Im not saying PPT shouldnt be a part of it, but sitting in all of your towers and keeps with 50 acs, 10 gens, 5 trebs and all gods other siege all day shouldnt generate a win. Getting out and fighting and killing all the things should.

EST.5014:

My idea:
lets have
1 Eternal
2 Alpine
1 Desert Borderland

I really like this idea. DBL top center, EBG bottom center, Alpine to each side.

Fix up the DBL and that is the map that the ‘loser’ of the prior week gets, as defense is a little easier there with small groups than on the old Alpine maps. Make DBL a little smaller, cut down the ‘fall to your death’ spots a bit (except on Air keep, as that is part of the strategic point), and have the waypoints work for the server that owns a keep, period. Maybe have tunnels between the far points and the oasis that only work if you ‘own’ both ends?

Kylden Ar.3724:

EST.5014:

My idea:
lets have
1 Eternal
2 Alpine
1 Desert Borderland

I really like this idea. DBL top center, EBG bottom center, Alpine to each side.

Fix up the DBL and that is the map that the ‘loser’ of the prior week gets, as defense is a little easier there with small groups than on the old Alpine maps. Make DBL a little smaller, cut down the ‘fall to your death’ spots a bit (except on Air keep, as that is part of the strategic point), and have the waypoints work for the server that owns a keep, period. Maybe have tunnels between the far points and the oasis that only work if you ‘own’ both ends?

EB, AB, DB and an Arctic map would be better.

Can’t force losers on a particular map, should just be rotation.

thankitten.6307:

2. The old BLs. It’s understandable that lots of time was put into the new BLs, but the old BLs just encouraged open field fighting so much more than the new ones do.

Definitely agreed with statement.

People don’t play wvw for the siege and the arrow carts, they play it because gw2 has an amazing combat system in large scale fights. It gets people excited when they come across another group their size in open field and you know the best team omes out on top.

Not true. Ask YB how many arrow carts their blobs stand behind.

Phedre Scion.1520:

Please revert back to the alpine bl

This seems to be almost everyone’s request now that they saw the new bl and how disappointed they are with it.

MIKE O’BRIEN! Thanks for your response, it’s nice to see that ArenaNet is taking this WvW situation seriously. It’s been a dangerous few months since the HoT launch, what with the words “neglect” and “dead mode” flying around.

That said, my top concerns for the WvW game mode’s remedy and ultimate revival would have to be:

1: The stability changes affecting the combat meta game, forcing melee players into very passive roles unless they effectively flank their opponents while they are occupied with another force. This has been going on for far too long, and it’s made the caster’s role in the zerg far outweigh any heavy armored class aside from the Revenant’s Coalescence of Ruin.

2: Keep/Tower/Camp/Castle upgrading should become manual again. Even if the mentality is to avoid personal currency investment into an objective so as to not hinder players who get stuck scouting, by having players actually have to click a button and choose their upgrades, it adds another element of strategy (Do we want cannons for defense? Or should we rush for walls and waypoints?).

3: I see that the Borderland’s reversion is on the table. I am all for moving back to the Alpine borders. This new map is far too large and prevents players from rejoining should they fall in battle.

4: The new rally mechanic is perhaps a little too intense. If we could meet in the middle and have a death rally 3 players, I think that would be a nice compromise.

5: The new scaling values of keep lords, and the SMC lord in particular is far too high, if any sizable force is going to take the lord down in any reasonable amount of time. If you also consider Iron Guards making the lord take Half damage, this creates for an SMC lord fight that lasts longer than the two forces confronting each other. It’s out of hand.

MomentofWeakness.1246:

Please focus priorities around fixing the following:

1. Fix Stability (Bring to Previous Form)

a. The stability nerf/change in WvW has caused WvW battles to become stale, and one-dimensional. It used to be that there were three distinct groups (the melee train, casters, and pick team/gank) in WvW that helped shaped the Meta and each group which contained two or more classes filled a unique role/purpose in the game-mode, which were of equal importance and significance to victory in any battle. No doubt any class could modify its role to some extent because of the versatility of Guild Wars 2’s class design but this was the general breakdown of how things used to work.

b. The stability change has caused melee players to be powerless because any disable instantly removes a stack of stability from the melee player. The problem with this change is that the amount of stacks initially given is not enough to balance out against the overwhelming number of disables being thrown towards the melee player. For example, siege such as the catapult, shield generator, and trebuchet, all which have disabling effects on their primary skills can remove a stack of stability on less than 10-second intervals (ex: shield generator skill (#1) [Force Ball] which can hit 50 players on a 4-second cool down and removes a stack of stab every hit). Often times when siege is placed, there is more than one piece of siege placed down so the amount of disables is generally magnified. In addition to siege-based stability-stack-removers, there are a plethora of skills that every class has access to which also contribute to stability-stack-removal in fights. Some examples would be [Unsteady Ground], [Static Field], on the Elementalist, or [Reaper’s Mark] on the Necromancer. There is nothing wrong with these class-based skills, but they do contribute to stability-stack-removal along with siege and many other class-specific skills not mentioned here. The overarching point being that there are too many ways for stability to be removed and not enough ways for it to be applied in fights on the scale that WvW supports. As a community, WvW players understand how the stability change may or may not contribute to a better PvP environment but in WvW it has crippled the game mode and the Meta.

c. The stability change has not only negatively affected melee players. Classes such as the Thief, Mesmer, and Necromancer have suffered as well. These classes are particularly good at boon-removal. Yet, since the arrival of the stability change, these types of skills which remove boons have been devalued. The most prized boons to remove tend to be protection and stability and when you can by-pass all boons by using disables, the need for boon-removal skills is diminished.

d. The stability change did not just affect primarily melee classes such as the Warrior or Guardian either; it is not as feasible to run an Elementalist or Necromancer in a more melee-centric role because of the stability change (ex: D/D Elementalist).

e. The stability change heavily favors large groups because they can send out a greater number of disables and subsequently damage than smaller groups can. This gives larger groups an advantage over smaller groups who rapidly lose their stability and mobility which essentially renders them immobile and vulnerable to overwhelming amounts of ranged pressure and siege fire (which also removes stacks). One of WvW’s greatest aspects was that a smaller group could defeat a larger group with skillful play and chemistry, this is no longer possible with stacks-based stability. Prior to the stability change, winning fights through more organized/efficient/skilled play was something that many guilds worked towards being able to achieve and helped create and sustain many WvW guilds.

2. Overpowering the Defender/Siege Wars 2

a. Currently the defensive force is extremely overpowered. There are a multitude of options for the defender to overwhelm the offensive force. Most notably the shrines, design/chokes on new maps, pact fleet air ship, chilling fog, nerf to omega golems (golems can no longer hit siege above walls), shield generators, cloaking waters (EBG), sentries, banners, emergency waypoints having unlimited respawns, etc.

b. The problem with having the scales tipped so heavily in the defenders favor is it takes the excitement away from the game mode. The offensive force should be equally powerful in fights. When defending is too easy, the battles become stale and there is nothing suspenseful about defending structures. Offensive forces need to be able to have an equal chance against the defender. A good start to fixing this issue would be revert Omega Golems back to their previous form so they can attack siege above walls, returning the waypoints to their previous form because the emergency waypoint is far too powerful in its current form and while I do like the emergency waypoint conceptually it was more engaging to be taking a keep and expect the enemy force to either run back from their Spawn or Garrison and try to save their structure or teleport in via their keeps waypoint if possible, and finally limiting offensive siege somewhat so that there isn’t 10+ arrow carts around a choke.

c. Keep/tower/camp lords are too strong and take forever to kill (most obvious with the Stonemist Castle lord) which doesn’t allow structures to be stolen through map manipulation and strategy which is unfortunate because it took away the important role that havoc guilds used to play in WvW matchups through sniping structures with a few players who took it upon themselves to tackle a large task (greater effort should equal a greater reward and havoc groups also manipulated the map this way and created a fog-of-war on the mini-map). Keep/tower/camp lords should only have these effects when a server is under the influence of the “outnumbered” buff. During times of equal population, servers should have an opportunity to punish each other for being out of position and not using available resources (mini-map, scouts, sentries) to keep an eye on the enemies movements and actions.

3. Rewards

a. WvW players should be able to earn new types of armor, runes, sigils, legendary weapons, legendary armor, food recipes, etc. when they are released by playing WvW instead of having to leave the game mode and the difficulty for earning new items should be equivalent.

b. WXP Points should be a currency earned through WvW play that can be spent in lieu of going to PvP or PvE and earning those game modes specific currencies so that WvW players can access new armor and items when they are released like players in the other game modes are able to (when you hit rank 10,000 you should still continue to earn WXP points for currency purposes even though you have reached maximum rank).

c. A WvW track similar to PvP would be a nice new feature that might also incentivize players to continue daily play in the WvW game mode.

d. There should be a WvW currency or some other form of reward given to anyone who participates in WvW based upon their placement and participation during that week. This reward should allow WvW players to earn something on the equivalent level of someone who invested the same amount of time/effort in PvE so that WvW players can properly gear their characters and afford necessities for the WvW game-mode.

4. WvW Titles/Achievements

a. Removing the old WvW titles and replacing them with new ones caused uproar in the community because many players had been working on the WvW achievements for three years and had only asked that the requirements be toned down, not the names of the titles which were highly sought after. The new names for the achievements and their complete re-work caused many players to be upset with Arenanet for taking away all of their efforts and essentially casting them aside.

b. In this video from Reyana’s interview with Colin Johanson and Mike O’Brien at PAX South 2015, Mike O’Brien says the following between (0:48s) and (0:56s) “We have always made a promise with Guild Wars 2 to respect players time and investments in their characters.” Yet, the multi-year investment(s) thousands of WvW players made towards the highly sought after WvW titles were tarnished and not respected as promised.

c. Link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMaqOSE1Kx8

5. Outnumbered Buff (Population Balance)

a. Many of the new Heart of Thorns exclusive features should be only usable during the outnumbered buff so they empower defenders when the defender is significantly outnumbered. These features include: Hardened gates, hardened siege, iron guards, the dragon banner, centaur banner, and turtle banner, chilling fog, cloaking waters, and the pact fleet air ship. Allowing these features to be exclusively used when a server is “outnumbered” will help players feel like they have the ability to balance the scales and protect what they own. Both the chilling fog and the pact fleet air ship’s cool downs should be increased to 45 and 60 minutes respectively.

b. In addition to providing tools to defenders specifically when they are outnumbered, it would be ideal to also give additional incentives to players to join the map while outnumbered so that WvW population can improve overtime back to a healthy level. Non-player based buffs such as % increases to: WXP, Gold Find, EXP, Supply Carry, Badges, 25% movement speed, etc. would help players be incentivized to play the game when the odds are against them.

c. Players who are “outnumbered” should be rewarded higher than normal until their server’s population reaches a near-equal level to the other servers because it takes more effort for WvW players to make an impact on the map, get kills, etc. when outnumbered.

d. In the WvW panel it should tell players in PvE/PvP which maps are outnumbered and their potential reward(s) if they choose to join a map that is outnumbered. If a player joins a map that is outnumbered to help out their server they should receive a residual effect on those rewards (non-player based buffs) that last 1 hour after the outnumbered buff drops (unless they leave WvW) to encourage them to keep playing and reward them for fighting against the odds.

---

Thank you Arenanet for reaching out to us!

^ This.

In all honestly though, these suggestions above are exactly what I was thinking about and would love to see happen, there is a few extra things I would like to see changed or added in regards to Scouting.

Scouting is not the most rewarding thing in the world, but it is a job especially during WvW Seasons that are important. If there is a WvW reward system implemented I would love to see some reward of some sort for Scouts.

Give some love to the Havocers, Roamers and Scouts of World vs World please, ArenaNet. <3

Swagger.1459:

Kylden Ar.3724:

EST.5014:

My idea:
lets have
1 Eternal
2 Alpine
1 Desert Borderland

I really like this idea. DBL top center, EBG bottom center, Alpine to each side.

Fix up the DBL and that is the map that the ‘loser’ of the prior week gets, as defense is a little easier there with small groups than on the old Alpine maps. Make DBL a little smaller, cut down the ‘fall to your death’ spots a bit (except on Air keep, as that is part of the strategic point), and have the waypoints work for the server that owns a keep, period. Maybe have tunnels between the far points and the oasis that only work if you ‘own’ both ends?

EB, AB, DB and an Arctic map would be better.

Can’t force losers on a particular map, should just be rotation.

That would be ideal long term, but until they make an Arctic (or other themed map, maybe caves?) we should try and work with what they have now and not invalidate all their work.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

This is a great thread. It’s constructive. We’re all reading it and referring to it in team discussions.

As we said in the AMA, our top internal priorities have been population balance and rewards. From this thread, your top five priorities are, in order:
1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

Yes, we will take the feedback and make stability, general skill balance, and fixing/reverting DBL our top priorities. We’re not currently working on scoring and that has to be a longer-term project.

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance. He’s looking for the wins for WvW that don’t screw the rest of the game.

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

I want to reiterate that everything we work on either ships in April or starts beta-testing on Live servers in April. We’re locking down dev work for the April release soon — next up is localization, QA, integration and regression testing — but we’ll extend the deadline for WvW skill balance.

There is one thing that doesn’t need to get wrapped up into the April release: Friday night resets. That doesn’t require a Live build. We’ll do it.

Mo

I’m happy with all of this, with the possible exception of 4. If 4 means getting rid of/ merging servers, then please don’t. A good portion of us that have stuck with our servers in the lower tier are there because we want to be. We like the community and sense of server identity that we have gradually built up over the years. If we wanted to move servers then we already would have. The option is still there after all. I do not see how forcing players who have stuck with the game to move against there own will is a good basis for a restructured WvW.

T6 NA is actually quite populated around prime time, so merging would simply create large queues at prime time, whilst not addressing the population gaps at the times people are saying are ‘dead’ now anyway.

Surely improving the appeal of WvW to attract more players into it would be a much better method of improving the population of WvW.

As a side note, should you decide to close servers down (and I really hope you don’t), please give community leaders decent notice. There are TS servers and community websites that are in place for nearly every server which don’t come free. I would hope you would have the decency to give adequate warning so that they aren’t needlessly renewed.

Merging servers for WvW would fix the population imbalance, but, yeah, it would also take away server pride and identity. So I’m not definitely in favor of it.

Mike O Brien.4613:

Hi all,

This is a great thread. It’s constructive. We’re all reading it and referring to it in team discussions.

As we said in the AMA, our top internal priorities have been population balance and rewards. From this thread, your top five priorities are, in order:
1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

Yes, we will take the feedback and make stability, general skill balance, and fixing/reverting DBL our top priorities. We’re not currently working on scoring and that has to be a longer-term project.

Karl is working specifically on WvW-focused skill balance. He’s looking for the wins for WvW that don’t screw the rest of the game.

We’re investigating whether to fix or revert DBL. They’re both a lot of work. These next couple days will be your last chance to give feedback before we make a decision, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

I want to reiterate that everything we work on either ships in April or starts beta-testing on Live servers in April. We’re locking down dev work for the April release soon — next up is localization, QA, integration and regression testing — but we’ll extend the deadline for WvW skill balance.

There is one thing that doesn’t need to get wrapped up into the April release: Friday night resets. That doesn’t require a Live build. We’ll do it.

Mo

I don’t post often but this is worth responding to. Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to communicate with us as much as you have since stepping in to this role. I like your list but I’d rearrange a few things.

1. Stability & Skill balance – without a doubt these are the top priority.

2. Fix or revert DBL – I don’t see how you can fix it to a point that it provides the spaces and playing type that the Alpine map does. Tirzah’s work on this map IS phenomenal, though, and it has great merit and potential to be an amazing PvE zone. Her work need not be wasted, just implemented in a different (and more fitting) game mode.

3. Population Balance – Obviously an ongoing issue but a worry for me here, and I’m sure for many others who’ve invested themselves and their money in supporting a community, is how this will affect those existing establishments.

4. Scoring – The score only matters for some people. I’d argue, it matters to the people who are still playing and not so much to the people who left when the map and skill (primarily stability and CC) changes eliminated the fights. Also very closely tied with #3. I know the theory is that scoring creates the need for fights but I think it has been demonstrated a fair bit that we don’t need a scoring incentive to fight each other, we just need the opportunity. For me the scoring is only on the list to satisfy the vocal minority.

5. Communication – You NEED someone who actually plays and is involved in this game mode to be a conduit between the community and the developers. Not a “Forum Expert”, not a handful of streamers that curate their game play to attract viewers and make money, but people from the normal Guilds that play WvW. Most of those Guilds have 50 or less members and aren’t Really Big Things in a dozen other games … these small, normal, average Guilds are (were) the core of your WvW population. Find someone there you like, hire them or contract them as a remote worker and let them talk to your community – let them talk to your developers – let information pass back and forth.

You have no idea how much fear and trepidation there is about the forthcoming WvW “overhaul” that everyone is talking about but no one is actually talking about.

Yknow, as a side note, as much as I’d love to go back to ABL, It would be such a shame to dissasemble the new map and see it thrown into the oblivion as it had never existed.., is there any chance to save it up for a future PvE/EoTM content? I’m pretty sure it could find a new home in a PvE environment, that being said. ABL is still the best way to go for WvW.

And before I forgot.. WvW Reward Tracks!, pretty please..?

Kasteros.9847:

Cephas.4293:

Fixing WvW: The Melee Train is a Part of the Answer

I’m going to approach the issue of battle philosophy, balance, and what makes WvW combat enjoyable and epic.

Looking back at all my past experiences and the fights I’ve enjoyed most in WvW, it’s all about those moments where the melee train is rolling through the enemy forces in an epic fashion. I’ve pretty much only ever run Necromancer/Reaper in WvW, and it’s those times where as a smaller organized force we’ve been able to train through the larger more disorganized force and at least have some kind of chance to overcome the odds stacked against us; those are the moments that I feel the adrenaline burst and endorphin release. It’s kind of like sex. The melee train based playstyle also makes even fights fun and exciting with constant movement, repositioning and less pirate shipping around one another and less waiting for cooldowns.

The melee train is sadly becoming a thing of the past, but the solution in my opinion, is to re-imagine battle philosophy by recreating ranged classes to be able to run closer to the melee (more hybrid builds) and to lower the amount of CC so groups can have some opportunity train through one another. The pirate shipping; standing around and watching your enemy until they flinch or get bored or have cooldowns up is not working.

Fights like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA6lukCWKyE are what we need again.

Ways that this might happen are:

• Spread out necessary frontline skills that only guards possess now to one or two ranged classes like elementalists/tempests. Currently two guardians is the bare minimum for a frontline group. We need more flexibility in this.

• Give each ranged class options that enable them to more easily run frontline or hybrid. The Reaper is a great example of a step in the right direction.

• Reduce the strength of crowd control (and conditions?).

• Empower stability.

On another note, lower the effectiveness of the cancer keep upgrades like chill fields and emergency waypoints and reduce the overall power of siege which is notorious now for ending the days of the good old fashion keep fights.

P.S. – For balance purposes this may mean also giving melee classes some hybrid/ranged options. We see this playing out well with Dragon Hunters and Revenants currently, which are both considered powerful classes.

Exactly, We need old good meele trains… At this point I would like to add 1 thing to ur comment… Buff warrior! As he was terribly nerfed over last year patches and now isn;t asm uch viable as used to be. Expecialy “worker” build. It was meta and should stay meta build for frontline warriors… would be amazing to have those old times back ^^

Agreed. Also,
1) All the tactics /improvements need to be nerfed. like Iron hides is 10% DMG reduction and hardened gates is 10% less dmg from PVD. Also needs to be made cheaper and not require PVE. Each game mode should be able to stand on their own. Part of the solution might be reward tracks or letting dungeon/map meta runes be bought with badges.
2) Reinstate stabs or fix it or buff it. Maybe a rune set that gives stab when within 600 range of an enemy?
3). Give Roamers /small guides back +5/whatnot. BLs need to be changed to make things more strategic and roamers easier way to get to palces. Barricades should be nerfed for instance.
4) Give way more ways to deseige. Siege humping with a zerg should be discouraged, not rewarded a it is now. Maybe better ppk over ppt? Maybe points from structures and kills from siege should be altered? Less incentive to run away from fights. The mode should be more of WvW, not WvE, not Seige versus player
5) Commanding should be rewarding, instead of draining gold though using siege and feasts/whatnot.

I can’t imagine the new maps being reverted, they are absolutely amazing. I honestly think people have not given them a shot, the mob decided early on that the rewards weren’t worth the effort of learning the map, and now the mob is rallying to destroy the maps altogether. I say increase the rewards and entice people to play the maps more. Make the guild buffs more attainable which will add all new dynamics to the game. The maps are so masterfully made and routes planned out, going back to the boring rolling hills of the Alpine maps will be such a letdown. Please, please don’t throw them away at the whims of the majority.

I’m likely this change and MO taking over game design.

I’m really happy to see the changes coming.

About stability: Easiest fix is to to double the stacks in WvW. Let players test that. If it feels better, if it still feels low, increase the multiplier

Map: I really dislike the new BL map. I’d like to see it removed. The challenge with it is that ANET spend a lot of time on creative map design, new keep lords, PvE events, etc. What happened is that they forgot that at the core people go to WvW to zerg fight or roam fight and capture/defend towers. The fighting isn’t set up well on the map.

New Map: If you ever decide to create a new map, don’t get all gimmicky. Ensure a lot of open places for fights, make it a big triangle and make each side virtually a copy of the other. Add a stonemist type structure in the middle and you are good to go.

Reset: So excited to see reset being moved to Friday. That is a great move.

Rewards: Definitely need something here. PvE people have a legendary backpiece and will eventually have legendary armor. PvP people can create a legendary backpiece. Give WvW something legendary that can only be earned in WvW (real WvW, not EotM farming).

Zachariah.1397:

I can’t imagine the new maps being reverted, they are absolutely amazing. I honestly think people have not given them a shot, the mob decided early on that the rewards weren’t worth the effort of learning the map, and now the mob is rallying to destroy the maps altogether. I say increase the rewards and entice people to play the maps more. Make the guild buffs more attainable which will add all new dynamics to the game. The maps are so masterfully made and routes planned out, going back to the boring rolling hills of the Alpine maps will be such a letdown. Please, please don’t throw them away at the whims of the majority.

How about fix the map or give us a different map that doesn’t have the issues then the reward wouldn’t matter as much? So no, even if they doubled, tripled or gave 10 times the reward I wouldn’t play the map in it’s current state again.

I suggest work towards rotating the maps, rather than flat our removing the new one. I really got sick of the old map after 2.9 years… The new map has its fair share of problems, but so did the old one.

It’s best that you revert the old borderlands for now since it’s not certain that your idea of “fix” is the same as other peoples’. The newer maps look nice, but there’s a verticality to them that discourages fighting and makes basic movement a chore. Even the stairs inside of the new keeps seem out of place, and they only serve to make arbitrary chokes every other turn. Also, the placement of towers need to matter. If a tower has no real strategic placement then it discourages the capturing, defending, and overall usage of it. This also kinda leads into the lack of defense of keeps which are now auto-waypointed, but that’s that an argument for another time.

In short…buffing the npcs and swapping back to the old maps would be an easy “fix”, BUT you would also need to revert the supply costs of catas to retain the balance the older maps had. I really doubt that wvw players would be sad to see the old maps come back until the new ones are retouched. The new maps don’t need a total remake, but a rebalance of the layout, world events, npc mobs, and structural defense buffs seems kind of inevitable.

1. Revert HoT changes to the game mechanics. I feel these changes need to be made regardless of which map is used for the borderlands. Waypoints should only be available on T3 keeps and not restricted a specific team. Auto-upgrades should be removed so player interaction is required. Reduce the health of lords for solo roamers and large groups. Also don’t display the enemy’s location inside objectives.
2. Reduce the size and complexity of the borderlands map. Solo roamers should be able to respond to white swords. There should be less paths available to encourage more fights. Barricades should be removed since they hurt solo roamers. Reduce the size of keeps and towers so it is reasonable to play hide and seek with mesmers and thieves.
3. Fix guild upgrades. Many of the tactics are overpowered and should be nerfed or replaced. WvW upgrades shouldn’t require PVE currencies (shovels).
4. Balance professions and improve build diversity within each profession. Playing PVP and WvW isn’t as when your primary profession and/or preferred weapon set is not viable. WvW needs a stability buff and a reduction to CCs.
5. Improve rewards in WvW. Add more rewards for solo roamers and defenders by adding events. Events should appear when triggering upgrades, repairing walls, and building mortars, etc. These events will also help introduce new players to WvW.

I agree that the northern towers had strategic importance on Alpine due to them being able to treb garri, which is not the case on Desert. However I am not sure Bay and Hills are any more or less “meaningful” than fire and air keeps in terms of map strategy. I know I am in a tiny, tiny minority here but personally I kittening hated defending Bay so much. It was most often a 4-hour stalemate, where defenders held off until our NA guilds went to sleep or logged out of boredom, and the JQ/TC/YB megablobz would log in. I couldn’t nail down specifics for you on why but to me, Bay sucked, the layout of Bay sucked, Bay was a defender’s nightmare if you were even slightly outmanned. Yes under ideal circumstances things could go well but fighting outmanned as we so often did especially the year before HoT, “ideal circumstances” were pretty rare.

Sorry to rant about Bay.

IMO there are two groups of players who don’t like the Desert BL:

Group 1 – Tried it, didn’t like it, thought about why they didn’t like it, can articulate why they didn’t like it and maybe, potentially, offer fixes for those things they don’t like.

Group 2 – Alpine BL was their Wooby, and ANet took their Wooby away and replaced their old, cuddly, warm Wooby with some cruddy old new blanket ANet said was their new Wooby but it wasn’t really Wooby. These players know how their Wooby feels against their face and they won’t be tricked into liking a new Wooby. In fact, the old Wooby was totally perfect in every way and this new wannabe wooby is total garbage in every way. I bet that new wooby doesn’t even smell like spit on the corners or have a poop stain from when they were a baby or worn-out parts from being rubbed for so many years like the real Wooby.

ANet will never, ever be able to satisfy Group 2 with a new map because Group 2 doesn’t want a new map, they just want their Wooby. I think Group 2 should just be dismissed out of hand since every change will make them miserable.

Group 1 players leaving is a problem. I was among those, though the thing that drove me mad and had me uninstall was the lack of communication. I play a couple other games now but I still make time for GW2 though since they started communicating again. Hopefully that keeps up.

“All our problems are caused by Desert BL!” is just as counterproductive as “Everything is fine!”

1. Fix the coverage problem.
2. See #1.
3. See #1.
4. See #1.
5. See #1.

Mike O Brien.4613:

“your top five priorities”
speak now or forever hold your peace.

1. Maps are too big , especially on lower tiers, the emptiness is ridiculous.
2. Roamers -HoT Killed gameplay in WvW for roamers, bring back elements where an individual can be effective in gameplay.
3. WvW guild hall upgrades only achievable in WvW and make them not as powerful.
4. Make the outnumbered buff way more powerful if you can’t balance populations.
5. Rewards, if i spend 10 minutes running to a keep 1 spike is not enough… Increase the rewards a heap to help us get back the people that we’ve lost and then some!

1. Bring back Alpine, these maps were designed for leggionaries, current map is designed for marathonians. Just to much runing and effort to get fights. It’s not fun. Compared to spvp it would be like you made map two times to big, and if someone loses the fight, he have to spend 3/4 his time runing back. New maps are not bad in their core design, they are just to big, and seem like to much ideas tried to be stuffed into one thing. So you overkilled your design, but it’s always about learning something, so it’s not a bad thing to bring back Alpine and tweak it now that you know what works and what not.

2. Condi dmg is strong as it is, it builded up with buffs to fire dmg, and now chillomancers. It would be in good place, but you nerfed food that gave -40% condi durr to -20% condi durr while giving new sources of increasing condi durr in condi spec. Now with the arena size, condi dmg is over powered to direct dmg it counters the toughness, and w/o toughness you get devastated against blobs. So you put players in impossible situation without counters other than cheese mesmer boon share (resistance build up).
3. Rewards, just copy how it’s done in pvp for starters – count kills, claims and defending.
4. Increase size of the arena (100% Obsidian), make it have wvwvw builds not pve, and place wvwvw timer in guild hall, same as in wvwvw. It’s QOL change, but needed one.
5. Start supporting GvG format, as it envloved in GW2. Now ESL is on it, you can maybe stream it or just promote it with news or interviews with top guilds. Accept it and support it: http://play.eslgaming.com/guildwars2/global/gw2/open/ladder-gvg-europe/rankings/#!?page=1

Reverting back to the Alpine Borderlands is probably one of the most immediate and easiest fixes that can be done to improve WvW in the short term. While I know there are some who prefer the Desert Borderlands, I think that the lack of activity on the new maps speaks for itself and is perhaps the best indicator of the majority opinion. The feedback I receive as a commander is generally negative and mainly centred around the verticality, difficulty and length of navigation, lack of incentive to attack/defend (free waypoints, no strategic placement of towers, can’t use many waypoints), and frustration of design aspects like barricades, air/fire turrets, rock walls and excessive CC from Keep lords. It is also clear that the map is designed for more people than most servers can field during off-hours.

Fixing all these issues would understandably take some time and I think the better option is to go back to the Alpine map ideally with the minimum changes necessary to accommodate today’s WvW. Reverting back to the Alpine Borderlands won’t be a silver bullet to solve all the problems with WvW but I do think it should be a priority to help stabilize the current population.

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

psizone.8437:

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

Swagger.1459:

psizone.8437:

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

Why has EotM done so well? They nerfed a lot of champ trains about the time EotM came out so those players migrated to where they can run in a circle getting champ bags. True story.

Let EotM stay. I honestly don’t want players with that style of play in WvW.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

psizone.8437:

Remove EotM.

There are more players playing EoTM (especially on the green side) 24/7 than there are on a few servers entirely.

We need those players integrated back into the normal maps before whatever you have planned for a population balance fix.

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

Why has EotM done so well? They nerfed a lot of champ trains about the time EotM came out so those players migrated to where they can run in a circle getting champ bags. True story.

Let EotM stay. I honestly don’t want players with that style of play in WvW.

Because players are still there playing.

I know you don’t like eotm, but let’s not carry elitist attitudes and insult players who enjoy a game mode. We want to build the pvp community, not divide it.

Swagger.1459:

Removing eotm won’t improve wvw unfortunately or force players back into wvw.

WvW needs to stand on its own merits. You don’t kill a popular pvp game mode in hopes to get a handful back into wvw on your server.

WvW doesn’t appeal to everyone, just like eotm doesn’t appeal to everyone, so we don’t need to create more negative feelings toward the pvp side of the game by removing one for another.

Instead of thinking this way, we should look at the reasons why eotm has done so well and apply some of those elements to wvw.

People love EotM because it’s a karmatrain, you earn lots of loot, karma, experience. Occasionally a guild will run there just to run over a zerg of uplevels for a laugh. It’s essentially Queensdale train 2.0.

If we leave EotM as is and Anet apply their population balance fix before the reward system then people will flock from EotM to normal WvW and cause another imbalance, possibly destroying the fix they had just applied. People will go wherever the rewards are handed out.

Granted, they could implement the new rewards before the population fix and give enough time for players to swap over themselves but in the end, EotM will end up a ghost town. And if they allow you to earn the rewards in EotM then more players will flock there since you’ll be able to earn them faster there which could make WvW lose even more players.