Guild Wars 2

Josh Davis.6015:

This is something we’ve been monitoring for a while. We’re looking at a couple of different options here, but we do need to be careful making changes to something that is so integral to PvP gameplay (and as a note, we’d be making changes to PvP only).

Below are some suggestions I’ve seen on this forum over the past few months. We wouldn’t do all of them of course, but I figured I’d throw them out and see how you folks feel about them.

• Implement 1-to-1 rally policy, similar to WvW. This means that only 1 player would rally per enemy killed, rather than up to 5. Would likely be the downed ally closest to the enemy player.
• Cap the range at which someone can rally.
• Bring back PvE-downstate policy
• Shorten revive/downed “invuln” buff.
• Reduce healing per tick when rezzing.
• Further reduce downstate HP
• Adjust outlier revive skills (Function Gyro)

How about, instead of cleansing conditions when you go into downstate, you cleanse them when you come out of downstate instead? This would allow you to “pre-cast” poison/damage to make stomps easier, while also allowing a revived person to actually be revived, whereas sometimes they might drop 1s later due to condis.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sviel.7493:

I don’t think the OP wants to change the base camp, just the upgraded versions. Solo flipping base camps is something that should stick around (though the swords delay is too long). Given the time and effort needed to get a camp up a tier, though, it would make sense if it made them take more than a few seconds longer to flip.

A tier 1 camp should still be soloable by a strong roamer, but perhaps in 90 seconds instead of 30. A tier 2 should take a couple minutes alone and a tier 3 should be a real challenge. Solo players can still keep camps down but they can’t just run up on the north camp that’s been defended for 6 hours and flip it while the home team is in the loo.

I still don’t agree. A camp that passively reaches Tier 3 shouldn’t have any special advantage. If the team wants to keep the camp, they should defend it.

Did you read his post? They’d still have to.

Camps definitely need to take longer to solo. I remember challenging myself before HoT came out trying to see how fast I could take a camp, and I was able to kill all the camp guards at some camps in under 10 seconds consistently. It’s probably easier now with HoT powercreep. Even keep lords are way too easy to solo right now.

I wish anet would run more than 1 poll at a time. This is an obvious “no” but it’d still be worth polling if it didn’t take up the “poll of the week”.

In non-siege scenarios, this won’t be used at all. Siege goes from 100 to 0 too fast in open field fights, and actually trying to repair siege just means you’re a sitting duck for enemy wells.

When sieging a structure, I feel like this would help a coordinated offense more than defenders. It seems like everyone above me forgot you could repair rams/catapults, or the shield gens to protect them, or your own ACs to kill the enemy ACs. Just because its siege related, doesn’t mean only siege humpers can use it.

Instead of refusing to use something new, learn to adapt and you may find that it’s actually better for you. It’s only a beta, so if it turns out to be unhealthy for the game you can vote against it later.

Yeah, I’m not too worried about people pvdooring fortified hardened gates (though, my opinion may change if it becomes common), but pvdooring paper hardened gates instead, especially on reset night.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I think the expectation that 3 or 4 few players should be able to stop a “large skilless blob” is unrealistic and the developers should not build overpowered defences to facilitate this.

I don’t think 5 people should be able to defend against 30+, but the 30+ should do it with actual siege, not autoattacking a gate.

If the 30+ can only get the gate down via PvDoor, there’s either something wrong with them (aka, they’re baddies), or there’s something wrong with siege wars that drastically tilts the game in favor of the defenders. The latter is very untrue, especially since HoT, but even if it was, finding out that problem and fixing it is a much better idea than allowing PvDoor again.

Basically, if a group can’t take down a gate/wall via regular means, why should they be allowed to PvDoor it down?

I think it should be like how it was before HoT, t1 reinforces the walls, t2 reinforces the gates, and t3 fortifies the walls. No fortified gates.

Exploits “favoring the outmanned side” are still exploits. Its stupid not to fix them.

If we were that concerned about helping the losing side, how about we make all objectives invulnerable and remove all non-PPT scoring? That way, each server will always hold their starting keeps & towers and it’ll be a 3 way tie for first every week! Problem solved, yes?

Offensive sieging has never been easier thanks to HoT. If you need PvD in order to take stuff, you’re not as skilled as you think.

If a large group is defending, if they were any good you wouldn’t be able to pvdoor anyway, so you should have no trouble taking down the gate/wall by other means.

Hesacon.8735:

How dare anet has people step out of their comfort zone for optional equipment that doesn’t provide any real advantage over other commonly available equipment.

You don’t think the new 4 stat combos provide a real advantage? Even though they have more raw stats than 3 stat combos & have stats not found in 3 stat combos?

“Reduced the nonsiege weapon damage reduction granted by Hardened Gates from 100% to 50%.”

Why would you ever want to bring back PvD? PvD is everything that’s wrong with WvW, as it means a large skillless blob can take everything away from small groups with no counterplay. I’ve been on both sides of PvD and it’s not fun for anyone, so I have to ask: who wanted this change?

DeWolfe.2174:

Cake.4920:

Do you need a reality lesson as 20 is still less than 100?

Why should that matter? What if 20 can achieve the work of that 100? They are still automatically worth less even though they are far more efficient?

It works the other way too. What if 100 can achieve the work of 500? They won’t get any more points either for efficiency. At least the 20 can try to get more people on the map.

DeWolfe, would you rather have a 50% chance at winning $100 or a 10% chance of winning $300?

Do you need a reality lesson as 20 is still less than 100?

DeWolfe.2174:

Cake.4920:

But those people will matter more to the score than if they played in primetime.

Consider two scenarios:

1. There are 20 people WvWing on each server, with a 1x multiplier.

2. There are 100 people WvWing on each server, with a 3x multiplier.

Each person in scenario 1 is worth 65% more than a person in scenario 2.

That would only be true if the PPT awarded by Keeps, Towers, Camps, and a Castle inflated by 65% per tick. Which, it does not and never has.

Do you need a math lesson?

20 people who win a 1x multiplier skirmish = each person is responsible for 1/20th of the base victory points
100 people who win a 3x multiplier skirmish = each person is responsible for 3/100ths, or about 1/33rd of the base victory points

1/20th is 65% more than 1/33rd

But those people will matter more to the score than if they played in primetime.

Consider two scenarios:

1. There are 20 people WvWing on each server, with a 1x multiplier.

2. There are 100 people WvWing on each server, with a 3x multiplier.

Each person in scenario 1 is worth 65% more than a person in scenario 2.

Jiminy.8340:

For the timeslice. The Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier is based on timezone. The ‘primetime’ zone. The other 18 hours are the redheaded stepchild.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
• During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.

If you have active WvW during non primetime, you score just as much as primetime.

Jiminy.8340:

Last night, BG and DB were queued for WvW in the middle of ‘non-primetime’, that is, OCX time. No PvD – just three large factions fighting one another. With the new system, that will be all for less value than those in primetime though.

What an entitled primetimer.

Did you even read Tyler’s first post? Scoring is based on activity, so if you have active WvW outside of NA hours, you still get full points.

DeWolfe.2174:

We’re fighting for a share of the total, always. Those 10 OCX players are fighting for a portion of the whole 100%, just as those 100 NA players are. If anything, I could argue that it’s not fair those 10 OCX players are doing 10x’s the labor of the NA players!!! They should get 10x’s the rewards!!!

“Since I’m (OCX) worth so much, I should be rewarded even more!”

What an entitled nightcapper.

DeWolfe.2174:

Dawdler.8521:

10x the labor? What labor?

Have you ever solo’d a keep lord? That’s a whole lot more effort and skill than doing it with 30+. The point was, you still have the same amount of territory to manage with less man power.

Must be nice having undefended keeps to take. I’m sure your pve is more skillful than pvping for a keep.

Currently, you can upgrade bay from 0 yaks to t3 from SW camp alone in about 2.5 hours w/o slotting upgrades. If you slot upgrades, you can get it under 1.5 hours easily. Not to mention, there are two other camps that can give supply to bay

Upgrading a northern tower on the other hand, will take about 7 hours (w/o upgrades). And there’s only 1 camp that gives supply to it.

Ansau.7326:

Then we have the coefficient of people playing. As at off-times there are less people playing their, their efforts are counted less.

Quite the opposite. Because less people are playing, your efforts matter much more, not just in war score, but in flipping/upgrading objectives. Even with these changes Oceanic players will be more valuable than NA players.

Yeah. I play all around the clock. But even on OCX/SEA servers, there are often just as many if not more NA players. They were only considered OCX/SEA servers because they have more OCX/SEA compared to other servers, not because their OCX/SEA outnumbered their NA.

Tyrx.2471:

Ogre.3124:

Que the “offended OCX/SEA” forum poster trying to keep their advantage over NA players on NA servers.

You know it works both ways, right? There can be tiers with supposedly “NA” servers which have a much greater OSX/SEA presence compared to their NA presence across all 3 servers. The proposed system would punish these tiers even when they have queues on all maps. In this situation, is it fair for NA players who may not have queues on their maps to get a bonus over their queued OSX/SEA counterparts?

I think ArenaNet really needs to confirm if bonuses will be based on an ever-changing time which is dependent on population activity, or if they will be limited to fixed times that never change. The original announcement doesn’t really make this clear, and that’s where most of the complaining is coming from.

Name these 3 servers that have more OSX/SEA than NA.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• Warscore for Caravan Kills, Caravan Delivery and Sentry Capture should increase by at a similar rate as PPK.

Please please please go the other direction with this. Dolyaks are currently worth way too much, often outscoring the objectives they deliver supply to. Small roaming squads are currently the most efficient way to PPT, and they still will be even after a nerf. At most, yaks should be worth 1 warscore under the current system.

Sentries suffer from another problem, in that they only award points on cap instead of on tick. This means that if you own a sentry, to get the most points out of it, you should let the enemy cap it, so you can recap it later to get a point. If you increase the points per capture on these, you may just end up with servers sentry trading.

SailorSpira.9371:

When you tell them they’re not as important because the map isn’t qued they’re going to start losing enjoyment and losing players.

But if the map was queued, they’d be able to do less.

Reverence.6915:

Night capping needs to be fixed through population balancing. Not artificial multipliers.

Even if every server has the same amount of population throughout the day, those playing at night still contribute more war score per person under the current system.

Heimlich.3065:

ANet has said that spying & wasting resources is A-OK in the past. I disagree with that judgment absolutely, but they have decided they want it as part of their game.

Yeah, they definitely didn’t say this, gonna have to ask for a source.

Heimlich.3065:

Tiny Doom.4380:

This isn’t a sandbox or a free-for-all arena. It’s a competitive league with matches and a scoring system. It needs to operate that way and if there is a widespread desire for a more open, player-based, non-score oriented game mode, be it free-for-all or Guild vs Guild or whatever then that needs to be separated off and developed appropriately. These aims and purposes are not compatible and cannot operate effectively in the same gamespace.

I disagree completely. WvW is a free-form sandbox gamemode. There are a great many mechanics that developers never intended which are used in different proportion among servers. Some servers have large population, some servers have talented spies with accounts on other servers, some servers have crass spies & meddlers that destroy supply and waste tactivator cooldowns, some servers have crafty and talented use of siege.

Yeah. Playing against your own team is against the tos, and even if it wasn’t, it would obviously be against the spirit of gw2.

This is the kind of person who defends spawn trebs.

It’s fine. Many people (including me) who quit wvw in the past are coming back this week to see the new matchup/changes.

dolyaks need to be worth 1 point at most, its ridiculous how much score they give

Adolph kitten.9 420

nice numbers

I know its also not the best metric, but lookup kills/deaths and see how “overstacked” t1 is.

http://wvwintel.com/#1019
http://wvwintel.com/#1017

t2 has 32,146 kills total at time of posting, while t1 has 25,465 kills.

Actually, can someone else confirm t1 numbers for me? Site seems buggy for me

edit: t1 kills showing to me as 33,369 now

Dayra.7405:

The last test of T1 vs T2 was last Sept. (week 35/2015, http://mos.millenium.org/na/matchups/history/313) where Blackgate played in T2. At that time the 280pts distance between Blackgate and SoS and FA got confirmed.

Not the best example. I wasn’t active at this point in time, but I can guarantee you BG pushed hard in order to stay in t1, while SoS and FA tanked because they definitely didn’t want BG stuck in t2. Week 36 would be a better example, but it probably has problems too.

Obtena.7952:

Jeez … Guardian was never NOT in the meta. These ridiculous ideas are from ranters trying to convince everyone that Guardian/DH is a horrible class. Funny that they got some of you.

Outside of low tiers, Gar/DH def wasn’t meta in season 1. I climbed to legendary solo, and I’d rank them as either the weakest or 2nd weakest class.

Dayra.7405:

Not really, it’s not Glicko’s fault that NA tiers are so separated by Glicko, it reflects your stacking behavior quite adequately.

The match-making based on Glicko can generate very varying matches, look at this weeks EU T1-4: 3-1-8, 9-2-4, 10-11-5, 8-7-12

Do you know the populations of NA servers, or you just making up bullkitten? The way anet’s glicko system works, its nearly impossible for glicko to transfer between tiers. Look up the history of NA servers: T1 servers have had 2100+ rating since mos launch, T2 is generally around 1900, 8th ranked server has a big glicko drop from 6th, with 7th somewhere inbetween. Do you think NA somehow perfectly maintains this ratio of stacked servers? Or is it more likely that the glicko system is fundamentally flawed for wvw?

Anet’s glicko system has been fundamentally flawed since release. The entire thing needs to be scrapped, and the new borderland only makes things worse.

I play during all timezones, on a rotating schedule. On the few days I actually feel like PPTing, I never do so during primetime, because it’s so pointless. On a bad day of playing during the “night”, I easily contribute 2x the points per manhour of a good session of PPTing during primetime. On good nights, I could contribute 5x as much points. That’s why people complain about nightcapping.

Evan Lesh.3295:

It keeps new players without an accurate rating from playing with experienced players who have similar, but accurate ratings.

If the ratings are accurate, why keep these players from playing against each other?

Two posters claimed I’m probably a scrub and I need banners to win. My posts are pointing out that the banners are anti-scrub, so if I was one I would be posting in support for their removal, not defending them. I never claimed that the posters said banners can’t be used by both sides, I’m only showing how their logic is flawed.

ArchonWing.9480:

If A, then counter with A. In that case, how would you reject any idea as long as one side can duplicate what the otherside does?

If A, counter with A, wasn’t my idea of “is this okay”, rather it was my response to those that say A can only be used by one side.

Whether something should be in the game should be decided by if it makes the game better. I think banners do, for reasons outlined in my last two posts.

Offair.2563:

Well now use your own brain. Anti blob weapon? If a small group has access to them as an anti blob, the blob can have double banners as the small group.

This logic…

If you haven’t noticed, banners are tied to structures, not the size of a blob.

briggah.7910:

Aww your only tool you used to kill people is getting nerfed. Looks like you’ll have to learn to fight or roll a rev and spam 2.. Takes a working brain to realize this shouldn’t even have been added in its current state..

Substance E.4852:

Need for OP crutch detected.

If WvW is so kitten clogged with “noobs” as you guys say it is then you shouldn’t need such a tool to win. The only people who want this easy mode crap to stick around those who can’t fight without it.

One thing Offair did notice is that the other side can use banners too. If both sides can use banners, then having them in the game doesn’t help me…

…unless the banners help different types of groups more than others. So who do banners benefit more: the small coordinated skill group or the large uncoordinated pug group? Due to the aoe cap being increased on banners, and the many counters available, obviously the smaller, more coordinated group benefits more.

So, if your group is getting rekt by banners, the problem is fixable. Either get your own, or get good. However, getting blobbed is not fixable. You can’t just summon more people. With banners though, you can kill the blobs that lack skill.

I like blob fights, and I don’t need help in even numbered battles. What I don’t like is groups winning based on numbers, not skill. Banners help even the numbers game.

Fellfoot.8156:

Maybe they’re catering to the noobs that like the banners?.

I’m not sure what you mean by this.

To me, the dragon banner is an anti-blob/anti-noob zerg weapon. Unfortunately, the majority of the remaining WvWers are terrible at this game, so when they get killed by one they complain instead of learning to adapt. When you create something designed to punish the majority of your playerbase, you’re going to get a lot of complaints even if its overall more healthy for the game. Anet succumbed to the pressure and appeased the masses, further casualizing the game in the process.

Sad to see anet cater to the noobs complaining. The counter to this banner was having a working brain.

Since you can only put them on a camp, and the cost is decently high, I don’t think they’ll see much use.

But because hit & run tactics are very tedious for defenders, I’m kinda glad we don’t see them often. Not sure how to fix this problem.

Confusion wasn’t only used in glamour bombs, it was also cancer while roaming. Once you used up your cleanses, it wasn’t worth using any skills if you had confusion on you, and you can’t win fights without using skills.

Confusion and retaliation were balanced for spvp where the damage they did was lower. Changing the wvw values to spvp instead of pve values makes sense, and was a welcome change.

ArchonWing.9480:

10 people owning 50 people zergs sounds fine.

10 people owning 50 people zergs because the former pve’d enough for it, well….

Go PvE heroes! They were right. You guys really are into PvE!

Banners are extremely cheap, only about 3.5g per banner, and it lasts until the objective is flipped. Commanders might drop 3.5g worth of siege just to attempt to capture a keep. Do you complain about pvers using superior siege or high quality food too?

Kitiara.2706:

Crucifier.6457:

Once you have the upgrade, you need a level 300+ scribe however, which probably sets one back 500g+.

500? Try adding at least 1 zero to that. (Im 400)

Dulfy’s guide said that at ~20s resonating sliver prices, you could do 1-400 with 600-750g. Now it’ll cost a bit more that prices have gone back up, but the guide also includes crafting wvw schematics which also means that the money is being invested into upgrades. Scribing is much cheaper now.

Also, if you have a good server community, you should be able to find a scribe on your server willing to craft upgrades for you. I found a couple on mine that are willing to do it for free, but I tip them anyway.

I mean, you don’t have to dodge. You can just walk out. I’m assuming you haven’t seen it before, but the path it creates is very slow and distinct. It’s very hard to actually get hit.

KayCee.4653:

its not easy to dodge when there multiple banners creating fire road side by side by side. if you dont have a leap you are definitely going down

I haven’t experienced this, so I can’t really say much, but dodging out of one is so painfully easy that I don’t see two or three being much harder unless you’re in a choke.

KayCee.4653:

and if you are blobbing then how do you push when any push will get those two or three roads and wipe you out. It was better when people didnt know how to plan it into any strategy, but now its getting annoying.

bait out the banners w/ stealth and fake pushing. they either bite and waste their banner or if they save it until they know you’ve committed, they wont get nearly as good of a dragon breath off.

or split up your blob, or use portals

Offair.2563:

Now tell me how do you dodge all the other stuff going on in fights? Rev hammer 2 or perhaps the dragon banner #1. All the other out of control damage skills etc.

I would buy this crap if it was a 1v1 and the other had a banner and i dont. But this is complete BS.

This is more of a CoR problem than it is a dragon banner problem

Esprit Dumort.3109:

I think it’s more the fact that it’s another item that makes a strong group stronger.

Quite the opposite, it makes fighting large groups easier. That doesn’t stop large groups from using it, but would you rather be 30 v 60 with no banners on each side, or 30 v 60 with 2 banners on each side? I’d say my chances are better with banners on each side.

Sadrien.3470:

Alloy.2839:

How much does a Dragon banner cost? If anyone knows the price for 1 banner, and the approximate price of the guild grind to be able to craft one. Is this P2W?

It’s more than 5gold per banner atm.

Quite a bit less than 5g actually. They’re very cheap. The money argument makes no sense to me, as people are willing to pay thousands of gold to upgrade their guild hall, but not a few gold to get an “op” banner?

I don’t think people realize how easy it is to dodge the dragon banner #5. Unless you use it against a mega blob or in a choke, everyone who is not lagging will just dodge out of it. Pirate shipping with a dragon banner would be stupid, because your not going to land any impactful #5s and you’re just gonna end up spamming the #1.