Guild Wars 2

So we have recently seen welcome and positive changes as far as:

1. Account-bound World XP
2. An area for GvG’s that does not interfere with WvW and vice versa
3. Something new to do while in queue (EOM)
4. An improvement in lag
5. CDI process to formally provide feedback to Anet
6. Season 1 – opened the WvW door for a ton of PvE players, boosting overall population
7. No longer required to do fractals to craft an ascended backpiece

The next major game with open world PvP is due to release in mere months, and I think that is very important to keep in mind when addressing the next most pressing issues with the current quality of life in WvW.

1. Server Populations – Amidst the bad, impossible, and repeated posts in the CDI topic there were also some fantastic suggestions. Some of the ideas would even solve a great deal of the current frustration without even changing game mechanics – in other words, easy to implement. One of those is the concept that PPT is only earned from your natural objectives and SMC, meaning max possible PPT is 255 and to win you must hold your points and deny enemy points, and capping server A wouldn’t give you a lead over server B.

2. Commander Functionality – Although Anet wants to wait until a full overhaul is ready, might I again state that there is a time limit here. Adding the simple functions of the ability to change tag color, increasing squad size, and making joining a squad as easy as right-clicking the tag on the map, will go incredibly far compared to how simple of a change they are.

3. Rewards for Defense – Something needs to be done, not only to reduce the karma-training which is no more PvP than a champ-train in Orr, but also because defense absolutely must be equally as important as offense for this game to be competitive. Start with adding a mastery line for defenders where they can get increased repair efficiency to an objective under attack, the ability to use contested waypoints more often, increased rewards for successfully repelling the attackers, reduced cost for purchasing upgrades, and even the ability to run supply yourself as a worker to increase upgrade progress, earning rewards when the upgrade finishes based on your contribution.

4. Matchmaking and Leagues – In the off-season go back to the old “tier” system but add a mechanic where if you win your tier by 100k+ points or win 3x in a row you move up a tier, and if you lose by 100k+ points or lose 3x in a row you move down a tier. The matches will be more balanced with plenty of variety and mobility possible, and it will reduce the inaccuracy of evolution scores we see in unbalanced matchups, helping to ensure the standings are more accurate to begin another season. Then when Season 2 begins, give advanced notice and make the cutoff date for server rewards 3+ weeks prior to week 1 of the season, with those 3+ weeks providing time for ratings to adjust to all the transfers that were prompted by the league’s announcement. To discourage sandbagging during those 3 weeks, add a pre-season meta achievement to the mix. Lastly, make the league 8 weeks long so each server plays each other server 2x times. Not some 1x and some 3×. (Currently if there are no upsets and servers won based on their rank, 3rd rank would get 4th place and 6th rank would get 7th place).

5. Limit Griefing – Allow a golem’s owner to take it over. Place a limit of trebuchets, catapults, and rams inside an objective to max 3 or 4 of each (I’ve never seen 5+ rams, catas, or trebs inside a friendly objective when the player was not purposely griefing). Create a more intuitive and automated reporting system for griefers where you simply right click, ‘report,’ choose WvW/griefing, and pick a category of known griefing techniques like wasting supply, spamming blueprints, and destroying golems. A player will be notified if they have been reported what the reason is, and if they receive too many reports they will be blocked from using supply, throwing blueprints, or using golems, depending on what they were reported for. Being reported for all 3 would require an investigation and potentially a ban.

I think this is a good summary of the most complained-about problems in WvW. My own preference for fixing WvW population imbalances is to add or buff the NPCs for the outnumbered server. I’d rather fight alongside other players but if they aren’t on, I’d rather fight alongside NPCs than fight alone while badly outnumbered.

I can win while slightly outnumbered while fighting among friendly NPCs in a camp, tower, keep, or while escorting a dolyak. One could win against a greater imbalance with more NPC held, without making any individual character unfairly strong.

And, yes, know players don’t want PvE in their WvW, but that’s what they already have with PvDoor against a badly outnumbered server and perhaps instead of it being laughably easy, it should be a bit more challenging? It’s not as if ANet doesn’t already have the code for NPCs to fight, for NPCs to fire siege weapons, and for NPCs to scale to the immediate challenge because they do all of these things in PvE.

NPC could possibly help but it’s more of a crutch than small group strategy. I think if defense were made more important and the scoring system did a better job of encouraging attacking the leader it would go a very long way with very little, if any, changes to actual game mechanics.

The ppt system is the biggest problem with wvw right now. The way winners are determined needs to be redone. Holding an objective that nobody is trying to take shouldn’t count for anything. Give points for capturing, upgrading, and defending, not for having such a big force that nobody is fighting you.

Also towers and keeps should go invulnerable during EU times on NA servers and vice versa. Same for Asian times when those servers open up.

Best thing about this thread is that not only it adresses the most major issues in WvW, but it does so in a positive way.

Good job on not whinning about silly stuff like many people in here. You have my respect, OP.

Agreed with what you said, and of course, keep the positive momentum! It should be our driving force as a community and not crying!

Solstice.1097:

NPC could possibly help but it’s more of a crutch than small group strategy.

It’s absolutely a crutch, but I think it’s the least disruptive of all of the solutions I’ve seen or could think of and outnumbered servers who are losing heavily in points need some sort of crutch.

Adjusting points doesn’t change the fact that getting stomped, spawn camped, and holding nothing on a map isn’t much fun for a greatly outnumbered server. Adjusting stats creates problems for players who want to test their skills against other players and consider things like the Bloodlust bonuses imbalancing. It also makes it difficult for players to kitten how effective their character might be in any fight, since the strength of their character and opponents will vary quite a bit.

I know the NPCs will help because I use it already with caravan guards, camp NPCs, and the mercenaries to help me hold and take camps while outnumbered.

Solstice.1097:

I think if defense were made more important and the scoring system did a better job of encouraging attacking the leader it would go a very long way with very little, if any, changes to actual game mechanics.

I think that rewarding defense would help, but it wouldn’t solve the problem that once the population on server drops low enough, there simply aren’t enough people available to cover every location that they’ve upgraded while their numbers were higher, meaning that even a handful of opponents can flip a fully upgraded site.

One other suggestion I’ve made is to give an underdog server (outnumbered or down by a significant number of points) instant warnings about attacks instead of delaying the swords for 30 seconds, but given how fast superior rams with mastery and golems can melt gates, even with an instant warning, the battle could be over by the time a defender runs to the tower and gets on the siege weapons inside. Having the NPCs start the defense when the enemy shows up could go a long way toward giving the defenders the time they need to get inside and help out.

Solstice.1097:

5. Limit Griefing – […] Place a limit of trebuchets, catapults, and rams inside an objective to max 3 or 4 of each (I’ve never seen 5+ rams, catas, or trebs inside a friendly objective when the player was not purposely griefing).

One thing I forgot to add is that I disagree with this part. I’ve often seen 6 or more trebs in the Red Keep on the Eternal Battlegrounds and all of them were justified and placed deliberately by players on my server (generally 3 in the lower keep aimed toward SM and/or Anz and 3 in the upper keep aimed toward Ogrewatch and Langor. And that’s not counting the possibility for a door treb or two. I’ve seen similar set-ups in the other keeps in the Eternal Battlegrounds, too, particularly in the Green Keep (to cover the four outlying towers) but also sometimes the Blue Keep (aimed at Langor and Bravost as well as the doors), and there are towers where I’d put 5 or more trebs given the time to build them (specifically Langor, which may need to broadside and counter-treb the red keep to take it back, and Jerrifers, where there might be two back by the lord’s room and another three on the far side to cover the Green Keep, Golanta, and Klovan). I can also imagine a griefer using such limits to build 3-4 badly placed trebs that are useless to prevent defenders from building the trebs they do need to properly siege up the site. So I’m not a fan of this limit. My preferred fix is to prevent new players from dropping blueprints or starting upgrades until they’ve been playing for at least a week and, during leagues, until league play has ended.

I suppose I should also point out that sometimes deliberate siege placement by one player can look like griefing to another player. For example, I’ve build flame rams in the middle of supply camps like Pangloss because the number 2 attack can be useful when being jumped by a small team to push them back (it does direct damage, 3 seconds of burning, and 3 seconds of fear).

Huge +1. Anet should definitely take note of this thread, great summary of WvW issues.

But WXP is account bound? Can someone fill me in on that?

Berk.8561:

Solstice.1097:

5. Limit Griefing – […] Place a limit of trebuchets, catapults, and rams inside an objective to max 3 or 4 of each (I’ve never seen 5+ rams, catas, or trebs inside a friendly objective when the player was not purposely griefing).

One thing I forgot to add is that I disagree with this part. I’ve often seen 6 or more trebs in the Red Keep on the Eternal Battlegrounds and all of them were justified and placed deliberately by players on my server (generally 3 in the lower keep aimed toward SM and/or Anz and 3 in the upper keep aimed toward Ogrewatch and Langor.

then i think a max of 5 would suffice. red as an example could have 3 for SMC, 1 for ogrewatch and veloka, and 1 that can hit anz.

or maybe even 6 total. Or maybe 3 max of one type per account (the game already keeps track of ownership). Or any other possible reasonable limit. I’m sure you understand the intention is to prevent someone from being able to throw down 15 trebs in the lords room and waste 1500 supply and siege cap the place

Berk.8561:

Solstice.1097:

5. Limit Griefing – […] Place a limit of trebuchets, catapults, and rams inside an objective to max 3 or 4 of each (I’ve never seen 5+ rams, catas, or trebs inside a friendly objective when the player was not purposely griefing).

One thing I forgot to add is that I disagree with this part. I’ve often seen 6 or more trebs in the Red Keep on the Eternal Battlegrounds and all of them were justified and placed deliberately by players on my server (generally 3 in the lower keep aimed toward SM and/or Anz and 3 in the upper keep aimed toward Ogrewatch and Langor. And that’s not counting the possibility for a door treb or two. I’ve seen similar set-ups in the other keeps in the Eternal Battlegrounds, too, particularly in the Green Keep (to cover the four outlying towers) but also sometimes the Blue Keep (aimed at Langor and Bravost as well as the doors), and there are towers where I’d put 5 or more trebs given the time to build them (specifically Langor, which may need to broadside and counter-treb the red keep to take it back, and Jerrifers, where there might be two back by the lord’s room and another three on the far side to cover the Green Keep, Golanta, and Klovan). I can also imagine a griefer using such limits to build 3-4 badly placed trebs that are useless to prevent defenders from building the trebs they do need to properly siege up the site. So I’m not a fan of this limit. My preferred fix is to prevent new players from dropping blueprints or starting upgrades until they’ve been playing for at least a week and, during leagues, until league play has ended.

I suppose I should also point out that sometimes deliberate siege placement by one player can look like griefing to another player. For example, I’ve build flame rams in the middle of supply camps like Pangloss because the number 2 attack can be useful when being jumped by a small team to push them back (it does direct damage, 3 seconds of burning, and 3 seconds of fear).

Good point, but I think there is a way to salvage this idea.

Large quantities of non-superior siege are a sign of griefing. Have a very low siege cap for un-upgraded siege but let superiors be placed in greater numbers/concentrations and you can still legitimately place siege where needed and reduce griefing.

The other thing I’d like to add is that we need to drive the AH price of regular ballistas up. Having some temporary event or drop that lets us upgrade ballistas more cheaply (without spending skill points perhaps) would push the price of the ballistas up making griefing more expensive.

Im bumping this thread. I like it.

Also can someone explain to me how account bound work ranks work? From what i understood is if you have one toon at r100 and one toon at r50, all your toons will be r150?

Natronix.9827:

Im bumping this thread. I like it.

Also can someone explain to me how account bound work ranks work? From what i understood is if you have one toon at r100 and one toon at r50, all your toons will be r150?

close. you’d be level 146 because the first 5 levels take less WXP than after level 5.

if you have 3 rank 100’s then all your toons will now be rank 292

I’m really looking forward to this. I have a 160, 115, and 85 and felt a little bit like I was being penalized for playing multiple toons.

Kitten awesome!

I have a rank 230, 130 ish, 120, 25 and maybe more? I felt penalized too… omg im so happy.

i may be wrong about the 146 but you get the idea. yea its awesome

Solstice.1097:

then i think a max of 5 would suffice. red as an example could have 3 for SMC, 1 for ogrewatch and veloka, and 1 that can hit anz.

To be honest, I think 3-4 facing Ogrewatch and Veloka are more important, and that may be because I play on a low-tier Bronze server that often fights outnumbered. My larger point is that players can legitimately want to build more than your limit, even if you can’t personally imagine it being necessary, which undermines your claim that there is no legitimate reason to build more than you personally imagine is enough. And as I also mentioned, your limit also creates the problem of griefers building siege in useless locations up to the limit in order to prevent useful seige from being build where it’s needed. Yes, it may be frustrating to see 15 trebs in the lord’s room but it would be even more frustrating to see 5 built in a corner where they can’t hit anything and not being able to build another treb where you really need it. You need to make sure you cure isn’t as bad or worse than the disease you are trying to cure.

I don’t think the griefing problem will be solved with overall build limits like this. I think it will be solved with limiting who can build (making it so that new players to a server can’t drop blueprints — the source of several types of griefing — or start upgrades — another major way to waste supplies. Even if you were to make the limits account-based (e.g., each account can drop 5 blueprints per site), I can imagine situations where that would thwart defensive players legitimately building siege for defense.

Out of curiosity, have you ever had trouble building siege that you wanted to build because of the existing placement limits? I have (several times at Jerrifers, in particular, but also elsewhere), and it’s quite frustrating not being able to build what you want where you want because the game prevents it.

abiyde.5064:

Large quantities of non-superior siege are a sign of griefing. Have a very low siege cap for un-upgraded siege but let superiors be placed in greater numbers/concentrations and you can still legitimately place siege where needed and reduce griefing.

Never underestimate the ability of a determined player to evade any limit with an exception, and this would still leave the problem that building non-superior siege in useless locations would prevent the legitimate placement of non-superior siege in useful locations. I honestly don’t think that the 9 silver per Superior Ballista blueprints or even 17-18 silver for Superior AC or Flame Ram blueprints would deter a griefer willing to spend $30-$50 for a throwaway account.

Berk.8561:

abiyde.5064:

Large quantities of non-superior siege are a sign of griefing. Have a very low siege cap for un-upgraded siege but let superiors be placed in greater numbers/concentrations and you can still legitimately place siege where needed and reduce griefing.

Never underestimate the ability of a determined player to evade any limit with an exception, and this would still leave the problem that building non-superior siege in useless locations would prevent the legitimate placement of non-superior siege in useful locations. I honestly don’t think that the 9 silver per Superior Ballista blueprints or even 17-18 silver for Superior AC or Flame Ram blueprints would deter a griefer willing to spend $30-$50 for a throwaway account.

anything that makes griefing more difficult or more expensive is still a step in the right direction, right?

I will point out that I put griefing last on the list in the OP because I realize its a very difficult fix. Some basic limitations could be put in place to at least limit it. I.E. no more than 5 blueprints per player in an objective.

The other points however I feel could make a much bigger quality of life impact with very little change to in-game mechanics.

Will birthday boosters still work properly? I have one running now and 2 more to go through.

Hexin.5603:

Will birthday boosters still work properly? I have one running now and 2 more to go through.

I don’t see why not.

Fixing the rewards for defending would go a long way to help things out. I see a two fold method. First rewards for players similar to the reward for taking the object. The event is already there the reward just needs to be the same. If the time is to short for that amount of reward then extend the time. Second when that event ends if the server is successful on defending they should be rewarded PPT.

Revan Malise.5107:

Fixing the rewards for defending would go a long way to help things out. I see a two fold method. First rewards for players similar to the reward for taking the object. The event is already there the reward just needs to be the same. If the time is to short for that amount of reward then extend the time. Second when that event ends if the server is successful on defending they should be rewarded PPT.

This would get a bit more complex than it sounds. Example one person tapping a gate should not earn PPT for the enemy. Also sieging a fully upgraded and defended keep can take 1-2 hours so we don’t want to award the defenders 25x what they’d get for capping a keep. We also cannot increase the defense timer without changing other mechanics (swords on map lasting too long from a tap, waypoints staying contested even longer).

For a simpler change the rewards need to be tied to directly helpful actions and not just standing inside. Killing enemy players and siege could give increased rewards within or around an objective. The current XP/karma for defense events can be increased, definitely, with a chance at a chest. I still think it would be a good idea to put it somewhere in a defense mastery line. Players would spend points to get the increased reward chance, but by doing so they would also gain some abilities to make defending more viable and less dreaded. The ability to run supply as a worker to speed up upgrades is something that is almost impossible to abuse and directly measurable of a contribution as well. Diminishing returns on rewards for captures can be implemented, or maybe just reduced rewards for capturing paper objectives and increased rewards for upgraded structures. This could help lean the karma train towards harder objectives, and people are more likely to try and defend an upgraded structure, thus indirectly encouraging more defending in general to occur.

Solstice.1097:

anything that makes griefing more difficult or more expensive is still a step in the right direction, right?

A key part of my point is that limits can be abused by griefers to prevent the building of legitimate siege by filling up the quota, in which case, it might make their job easier and the cure might be at least as bad as the disease. In general, fixes that prevent everyone from doing something should be a last resort. Eliminating town clothes from WvW stopped an abuse but also hurt players from using them for benign fun reasons, for example.

Solstice.1097:

I’ve never seen 5+ rams, catas, or trebs inside a friendly objective when the player was not purposely griefing.

Trebs/catas are incredibly useful for defense. In the higher tiers it’s not unusual to see quite a lot of defensive trebs in a keep. Sometimes way more than 5. The poison cloud is pathetically overpowered at the moment.

Solstice.1097:

I will point out that I put griefing last on the list in the OP because I realize its a very difficult fix. Some basic limitations could be put in place to at least limit it. I.E. no more than 5 blueprints per player in an objective.

I support your suggestions overall and the sorts of improvements that you are suggesting in general. It’s just that one particular one that I think is the wrong approach out of an otherwise good list, and I’m explaining why. Limiting blueprint drops per player per objective is more workable, but could still punish a low population server where there might be only one or two people who stay behind to siege up a captured objective. I’ve dropped and build more than 5 siege weapons pretty much solo in an objective myself (e.g., Veloka — 3 trebs, 3 ACs, 2 ballistas, Quentin Lake — 3 ACs, 1 treb, 1 ballista, 1 cat), but I could probably live with that limit if I had to and ask someone to drop blueprints for me if I exceeded it. There would still be the question of how to count open field siege. If there was no limit to open field siege, a griefer could just build it outside the walls.

My question is, how many of the serious griefers are long-term characters that would evade limits placed on new characters or new transfers? I haven’t seen much griefing on Eredon Terrace other than golem destruction, but I don’t dispute that it’s a serious problem and I’m curious what sorts of patterns they follow.

Solstice.1097:

The other points however I feel could make a much bigger quality of life impact with very little change to in-game mechanics.

I think the rest of your points are pretty sound and would very much like them to reward defense, since I often play defensively and lose gold or roughly break even playing WvW as a result. As I said in my first reply, at the very least, your points cover the most commonly complained about parts of WvW pretty well.

Solstice.1097:

For a simpler change the rewards need to be tied to directly helpful actions and not just standing inside.

You can’t really guarantee that the enemy will attack if you stay in a site, which is a big part of what makes defense boring, and that’s another area where I think NPCs can help. Have small bands of NPCs periodically harass the objective guards and give defense rewards for killing them, either with personal weapons or siege weapons. One of my favorite objectives to sit on and defend is Quentin Lake. Why? Because I can build a ballista facing the Hylek and use it to help us get the Hylek on our side, defeat the Hylek when they aren’t on our side, and pick off enemies who enter the Hylek to take or kill them (a surprising number of which die before they realize a ballista is hitting them). And the ballista can do damage fast enough (with mastery or a superior ballista) to kill the Hylek and Krait without having anyone down among them fighting when they fast heal. In short, playing with the Hylek camp gives me something to do while the enemy isn’t attacking the tower and trying to take it. Give the players something to actively do around all of the objectives that can be used to determine that they aren’t just a bot gathering rewards for sitting on a site. I know people in WvW want to face other players and not NPCs, but I think facing challenging NPCs is preferable to PvDoor and sitting around doing nothing.

I agree with you and I’m also in bronze so fortunately I’m not very experienced in dealing with griefing myself. I am still convinced there is an equally simple limitation that would at least make griefing more difficult without hindering normal play.

To the guy who said sometimes more than 5 trebs for defense due to poison cloud being OP – maybe a limit of 5 would be good in that particular case since it is so OP?