Guild Wars 2

I know there’s issues with the first season, but perhaps we can give some constructive feedback on how to improve things for next season.

I personally enjoyed the leagues. Instead of an endless ladder treadmill, you had a relatively short competitive season (at least it was the case in EU, for the most part), with a finite beginning and end, thereby establishing short term goals you could work towards as a server.

I liked that I knew who I was facing several months ahead of time. And while I wasn’t the biggest fan of the achievements, it did expose a good number of exclusively pve players to WvW. Some even fell in love with WvW like we all have.

I also like the idea of it being a competition, and even though my server won’t take the crown, I think the competitive part, coupled with reward, made it interesting .

However, based on your experience, what would you like to see implemented for next season?

Here’s mine:

+ Lock transfers once league starts. Server transfers really only affect WvW. Pve players can choose to guest if they want to try another server. I suggest leading up to the leagues, there is another deeply discounted transfer sale (people can choose what fulfills them more — community or reward (both if you’re lucky) ), and then once leagues start, no more transfers allowed until the season is over. Send out an email to all accounts and lock it on announcements at game login screen, two weeks prior letting players know so they can decide for themselves. Do not just post it on the forums

+ Let people know what they’re fighting for. First season the rewards should be a surprise to award those who diligently went out and fought for their server. But season two let them know. Now it’s a gamble when you switch servers, part of a bet really, (everyone predicted JQ would sweep), so it makes it interesting as to where you choose to leap (or stay, if you’re like me and you don’t really care about reward). What makes this interesting is more for the lower tiers (and subsequent population dispersal), because winners of EACH league get the big prize. In lower tiers the chance to win is more volatile, which means organized groups could head to a lower sever and feasibly bring it in first. Human nature is to stack onto one server, but if a few guilds kept it quiet they could feasibly dark horse the destination server and pull off an epic win. With server transfers locked in this could provide some stunning upsets.

+ Put the league schedule out two weeks before it starts Yes that means an early ranking sampling, but it would allow players the chance to flag issues and potential problems, like all green map the entire league match, or unbalanced overall league scheduling matchups for one or more servers. They won’t be able to please everyone, but it could flag anet on potential issues.

+ Eliminate or severely reduce achievements The idea was nice, a way to lure those who hadn’t tried WvW into the maps, but the fallout was epic. Guilds left servers because of the queues, pve players were harassed, it wasn’t pretty. Smart servers learned to work with the pve crowd. Others just were not prepared for the onslaught (yes, even though fair warning was given months prior). The achievements all helped the server in some way, because the goals earned points, but perhaps a reduction — something that could be completed in one full day, might be a wiser approach? Gets new players in, but reduces the fallout. I do like that you had to work a bit to get the key, but perhaps tone it down a bit.

So any other ideas?

I know there’s a lot of raw feelings out there about the leagues. Try not to make this thread about that. Instead give solutions/ideas you think might improve things when/if we hit Season Two. What do you think they could add that would make next season better?

This might not be entirely relevant to leagues, more of a general thing.

Stop dangling new carrots in front of players as a substitute for solving problems

Includes leagues, new masteries, living world rubbish, achievements … the league system isn’t awful. What’s awful is population issues, lopsided matchups and no balancing mechanisms, queue problems, performance issues … new maps are amazing and I’m sure everyone is grateful and appreciative of the amount of work put into those, but the player base only has a limited reserve of patience when it comes to the glaring problems that have plagued WvW SINCE RELEASE.

Honestly if there is at least an ATTEMPT to address these problems to any appreciable extent, season 2 could be a success without changing a thing from season 1. Even a progress report is nice. There’s only so much of “we believe this is an issue and we want to fix it as soon as possible, but here’s Flame Ram Mastery” that people can take before they give up.

Not have them any more.

“Living Story” league rewards.

The win a key upon procuring X achievements was a huge mistake. The intention was for it to keep rewards in the hands of actual active WvW participants, and away from half-hearted PvE’rs. While that was not a means to in an end in itself, there was good logic behind it.

However, all that ended up happening was WvW maps got filled up with your typical PvE zergs which ultimately interfered with the hardcore, focused, dedicated WvW communities. This also had an impact on league server performance (some good, but more bad). Once the PvE crowed had completed their living story tick box, they flittered away again leaving a scarred and ruined server league matchup for the dedicated WvW’rs.

Yes, have more rewards for WvW participation. But attaching it to “living story” was a huge mistake. The content of the achievements was all wrong too. It was perfect for grindy PvE’rs to come in and do (it was zerg friendly. Karma train to completion. No actual PvP needed). This needs to be rethought and reimplemented.

I could think of two things I would change right off the bat.

Not having Living Story enemies on the map. Having NPC monsters kill off enemies needed for objectives is never a good idea. Instead of being an interesting wrinkle, it was an aggravation. It’s especially annoying in a league environment.

Make sure that the achievements actually add to the mode instead of subtracting. Why do you have achievements for barrier destruction when you have wvw rank bonuses for siege equipment? Now you have a situation where people seeking out the achievement are interfering with people with more interest in the task at hand. There are probably more examples of achievements getting in the way.

Now that I think about it, there’s one more thing I could think of changing for the league. The scoring system. To be honest, I think the scoring system places too much importance on coverage and not enough on the skills of those in front of you. I don’t know how to fix this but I feel as though a league environment can not coexist with the way scoring works now.

In before the eventual second season starts:

+ We need the edge of the mist
+ Free transfers to servers
+ Give 1 month for the servers to adjust with the new population and edge of the mist
+ Create a distinction between PvE server and WvW servers
+ 3/4 weeks of qualifications
+ Reduce the number of servers

For the league :

+ (EU) Gold league with the first 6 – Silver league for the next 6 – Bronze league for the last 6 ( 18 server i think would be more than enough with the edge of the mist and obsidian sanctum implementation )

+ Less achievements, no more “farmable” achievements like temples

+ Lock the server transfers

+ Fair schedules ( in season 1 some server had the same color for weeks, there are server with an harder schedule than others )

+ No LS, that imho was lame to introduce

+ Create theacher NPC that gives the new people all they need to know in order to help theyr server

+ Create a schedule Tab in WvW panel, giving all the information needed, like ladder; the next matches;

Only 2 things..

1) Lock transfers when league starts (Doubt this happens as it removes Anet’s cash cow for 7 weeks)

2) Cap levels so level 1 trash characters cannot zone in to WvW. At its present form, anyone with a 2nd spy/troll account can log in with a freshly rolled level 1 to troll opponent supplies and spy on commander movement / teamspeak. When a new opponent changes hand the following the week they can just delete the level 1 and start a new trash character on the next server (never pay transfer costs this way).

There’s too much whining from the “core” wvw players about PvE and PUGs. You guys act as if you’re special or something. I started playing two months ago, was mostly PvE as I was still learning the game and levelling my characters. I went into WvW not because of some tick box in living story, but because I wanted to try it out now that I had two level 80s and had done dungeons and zone completion, and just finished my personal story.

I fell in love with the game mechanics and even bought a commander tag after a week of play, it was awesome! While there I realized I could complete a series of achievements for season 1. Do I feel I am “part of the wvw core” now? Yes, because I’ve spent a lot of time loving the format in the past week.

But I do not want to identify myself with people whining over the “PvE Invasion” and looking at PvErs with scorn, as if they were some second class citizen or some alien invader come to ruin their beloved home. That’s nonsense.

If the problem is queues, don’t blame PvE, blame Anet for having sub optimal servers.
If the problem is “People stealing supplies from siege to repair” then stop whining about people not defending points, that’s what this guys is doing you know!
If the problem is people getting on the ram instead of you who have ram mastery, then put up your own ram or just chill, watch for enemies and let him do the work. Shouldn’t you be thankful to catch a breather?

Seriously what’s with all this pent up frustration, have some fun it’s a game you know!

I would remove score and add guild and personal rewards.

Mochann.5298:

…
If the problem is “People stealing supplies from siege to repair” then stop whining about people not defending points, that’s what this guys is doing you know!
…

Now, buddy, I know you mean well and all, but the instances where Repairing is part of defending a place, rather than making its defence impossible, are the minority, really.

Mochann.5298:

If the problem is queues, don’t blame PvE, blame Anet for having sub optimal servers.

Is the same problem we had several month ago with GvG guilds, many where upset because those guilds where “wasting” manpower ( which I do not agree with ), but I see red when we have the bloodlust buff and still see people farming them, that’s a waste of manpower.

Mochann.5298:

If the problem is “People stealing supplies from siege to repair” then stop whining about people not defending points, that’s what this guys is doing you know!

No, they’re just stealing important supplies, a real defender will do anything in its power to destroy the catas/trebs/rams, even at the cost of 10 lifes.

Mochann.5298:

If the problem is people getting on the ram instead of you who have ram mastery, then put up your own ram or just chill, watch for enemies and let him do the work. Shouldn’t you be thankful to catch a breather?

Yes you do that, then lets see if your zerg has enough supplies for the second gate, or to build any of them

You are still new to WvW, you will understand someday

change the achivements…. remove sentry and yak killer for something else. also make JP’s not have to do all 4, just 1-2

The new map will fix queues which was one major problem, so well done Anet for that.

The other major problem, is lack of competition between servers, basically I said Vizunah Square would win the Europe league weeks before the league started and guess what they did with 35pts out of 35pts. Silver league again easy to say before start Desolution would win…they are not competitive.

The only way to make them competitive is to introduce a handicapping system…

Anything else is minor problems, like reworking the achievements, making sure the rewards are interesting etc…

I have to say personally I enjoyed the leagues overall and hope there is a season 2.

1. Figure out solution to population issues or some way to alleviate it with handicapping mechanism.

2. Make the different leagues match up better – if that means putting only three servers in a league then so be it (I’m looking at you NA T1).

3. Change the scoring to 5 points for the win. Zero for 2nd and 3rd. To encourage ganging up on the top dog.

1. The matchup schedule should include at least 4 matches of servers in the same tier. Using T1 NA as an example, it should be something like: SoR/JQ/BG SoR/JQ/T2 SoR/JQ/BG BG/JQ/T2 SoR/JQ/BG SoR/BG /T2 SoR/JQ/BG. This way you will all more balanced matches while also still maintain some level of variability. Also map politics on same tier match will change as season goes on.

2. Need to add incentives for servers with no chance for top spot in the league to keep fighting. Maybe reward based on improvement or something similar.

3. Related to 2, the points for the matches should also be scaled based on score difference in the match. Winner of the match can still take 5, but second and third place will receive point based on how close their score is to the winner with 3 and 1 as minimum point respectively. This will encourage servers to fight to the end even when winner is determined.

4. The achievement idea is good as it attracts new blood to WvW. But you need to make sure you launch edge of the mists first before similar thing is implemented for Season 2.

Fix the server population imbalance issue so that every matchup isn’t a guaranteed blowout like it is now.

Yes, I know this could be said about any matchup system and not just the leagues, but that doesn’t make it any less true. No system can cover up the fact that some servers are grapefruits, and others are just grapes.

I would shorten the matches to 3 or 4 days and redo the brackets a bit.

SOR/JQ/BG
TC/FA/SBI/MAG/SOS/YB
The rest

• Try to balance populations before the start by offering discounts/free transfers to lower population realms.
• Then lock transfers for the duration of the league.
• Limit the season to 4 or 5 weeks. 7 weeks is too long and too exhausting.
• No more achievements locked to a specific zone (Eternal Battlegrounds/Borderlands).

Most importantly however, ANet needs to…

• Change the scoring system. Add a catchup mechanic, make kills matter, encourage defense and rewarding taking out upgraded towers.

Make the league non-server specific.

Break the Server versus Server versus Server paradigm by creating a number of WvW Armies/Teams and allow people to sign up for them regardless of what server they belong to…maybe require a signing fee (5-10 gold)—which would show the level of commitment the player is making (that could go into a pot of money to be used for end season rewards).

At the same time keep the “casual” WvW server v Server model with random match-ups of comparable servers.

So in effect you would have two WvW instances…look at them as a Pro League and a semi-pro league.

One thing i would change would be:

NOT having them.

Sreoom.3690:

Make the league non-server specific.

Break the Server versus Server versus Server paradigm by creating a number of WvW Armies/Teams and allow people to sign up for them regardless of what server they belong to…maybe require a signing fee (5-10 gold)—which would show the level of commitment the player is making (that could go into a pot of money to be used for end season rewards).

At the same time keep the “casual” WvW server v Server model with random match-ups of comparable servers.

So in effect you would have two WvW instances…look at them as a Pro League and a semi-pro league.

All of WvW should be non-server-specific. ANet’s insistence on a server-vs-server-vs-server format is the single most significant failure of WvW. All other faults could be addressed with simple evolutionary changes, but nothing is going to overcome the birth defect that is the current match format. It is incomprehensibly crazy to have a competition that is so dominated by population and coverage, and then create matches that have zero control over population and coverage. I simply don’t understand their thinking here, or their inability to grasp that it needs to be fixed.

So many things so little time, its unfortunate that many solutions that would make leagues great for everyone would require a large overhaul of WvW.

My biggest issue is the queue. Not that there is an influx of people, but that the queue isn’t FIFO. It is, get in and wait some random time. I want to know that I am number x in line.

Ken hit the nail on the head.

By saying the Queue, and wanting to know where he is in it.

I will further that statement by saying that Edge of the Mist is more a bandaid ona gushing wound as the points gained there dont help your PPT and instead of running arpund doing other things while waiting for a Queue to pop, you could be thrown into a battleground thats sole purpose will be to deflect your attention for the very purpose we want in WVW. Sure youll get more blues and greens and some wvw xp, but your still in a Queue.

As far as leagues go, they serve no purpose currently, they dont prove skill and dedication, perseverance and loyalty.

It just proves numbers and coverage will always win

folly dragon.4126:

Ken hit the nail on the head.

By saying the Queue, and wanting to know where he is in it.

I will further that statement by saying that Edge of the Mist is more a bandaid ona gushing wound as the points gained there dont help your PPT and instead of running arpund doing other things while waiting for a Queue to pop, you could be thrown into a battleground thats sole purpose will be to deflect your attention for the very purpose we want in WVW. Sure youll get more blues and greens and some wvw xp, but your still in a Queue.

As far as leagues go, they serve no purpose currently, they dont prove skill and dedication, perseverance and loyalty.

It just proves numbers and coverage will always win

Virtually EVERYTHING that has been added to WvW since launch has been intended to deflect our attention from its core faults instead of fixing them.