Guild Wars 2

The ‘new direction’ with the addition of the Fractal Dungeon and the Ascended Gear is a dark day here in GW2 land. I went back and re-watched the Manifesto and listened again to the devs tell me how this was going to be different. Now it is more of the same tried and tired level based crap ….

There is more in play here than just another gear tier, which in itself is enough to start me surfing for the new games coming out. The whole concept of the Fractal Dungeon has added level based PvE content akin to end level raiding.

As a leader of a largish guild, I am already seeing the drama associated with end level raiding. This person is at level 10 and doesn’t want to redo level 2 because they are on the treadmill …. blah blah blah. Joe is at level 8 and there are no level 8’s around so its grind a PUG time. Sally was out of town last week and is still looking to do level 1 …. she has pretty much given up on doing that with her group of friends and likely won’t even do it.

It used to be great …. a reasonably short trip to level 80 and decent gear and you could run any dungeon with your friends. I could play my WvW and jump into a dungeon with some of my guildies if they needed a 5th …. those days are done.

Fractals have added exclusion to the game ….. and I thought this was all about inclusion?

Folks are saying no big deal? Yes I think it is a big deal and will end badly for AN …. And as to complaining that something that has not happened? It’s already happened.

my 2 cents …

As a most time WvW player, the addition of another Tiered Gear Set that impacts WvW is a deal breaker for our guild. The only reason ANET did this is they think it will bring in revenue. A lot of us that can’t play 24/7 bought our exotics but could care less about spending RL cash on Legendary skins … However, ANET put the stats on it cause they feel a segment of players will pay for stats. And certainly some will … but not this guy. I already paid and this addition goes against everything they promised.

Shame on you ANET!

Add whatever gear skins you want to the game and make it take a bazillion grind hours to get it. No problem. The addition of a new gear stat tier that impacts PvP and requires grinding just put GW2 in the same lame category of everything that came before.

I guess we will be following the new game release sites ever more closely and certainly will not be looking forward to GW2 expansions.

Shame on you ANET …. hey I swung a sword and now I have to swing it again a million times grinding content to get stats ….

The OP fails to realize that entire purpose of having three faction PvP is so temporary alliances form ……

But that said, speaking from an SBI perspective, if we were to ally with anyone, we would ally with JQ in this match.

I was playing on the JQ Blue Map last night. We took Woodhaven for the express purpose of trebbing Garrison and driving Henge out of YOUR GARRISON KEEP. We had three wall section trebbed down and we sat in Woodhaven waiting, wishing, begging JQ to go get their garrison keep back. The heavy lifting was done.

But no …. instead of attacking Henge at Garrison with its outer walls splayed open, JQ attacks us at Woodhaven.

Bottom line is that was silly play by JQ and failure to read the situation on the map.

No malice intended against JQ here as we love playing competetive matches against ya, and have a lot of respect for your play ….but you blew it in this situation. We had the olive branch in hand brothers …

Nothing wrong with the ORB mechanic …. they are not overpowered by any means. If you are logging out because the other side has 3 ORBS you are placing far too much emphasis on them. They regularly switch hands in the games I have played in.

And I also like the concept of organizing something to take an enemy ORB. It adds something to the play IMO.

I can only surmise that it is a points total thing ….. who you played and how many points you won or lost by. I play on SBI and JQ has finished ahead of us most times we played. However, generally when we lost to JQ it was by a scant number of points. And JQ did not beat SBI every time they played …

Some AN clarification would be helpful. How is this calculated?

A thoughtful post by the OP …. my comments follow.

First, I think that peoples view of problems with WvW will be largely a result of the server they are on. And while the OP focuses on specific game mechanics, I would suspect there are other issues at play.

I play on Stormbluff Isle and here is my take on the issues …

On the Orbs ….

There is no problem with this mechanic. The buff is not overpowering. And, the server that gets three first does not always win. Trust me when I say that Henge is not kicking our butts because they always get 3 orbs within 40 minutes of map start. They did this again this map, but now ET, SBI, and Henge each have one. We are going to have learn how to counter that …. and we will … Henge is winning consistently due to great around the clock coverage, good communication, good coordination, and good play; not because they control ORBS more often than not.

On Siege Spam ….

Siege must remain a key component of WvW. It is where the strategy comes into play and also provides an avenue for Joe Average PvP player to get in there and make a difference. Siege should not be the prerogative of the full time PvP player or the fabulously wealthy only.

Sure arrow carts are powerful and a dime a dozen. They also have seriously limitations and are easily destroyed. Further, like all siege engines, they require supply to setup. If there is a limiting factor on how much siege can be setup, it should be supply … not gold or badges.

I have seen half a dozen ballista, a like number of arrow carts, and a few trebs get totally wiped by a good group using speed, guardian bubbles, and stealth bubbles.

By the same token, I have seen a huge zerg continue to attempt a straight up bridge crossing into the face of a dozen siege engines repeatedly …. over and over … getting wiped every time. Are these the people that think there is too much siege availability?? Is flanking not in their vocabulary?

On World Queuing and Server Population ….

The 3 way match works. If cross server chat was on, it would just be a huge pile of spam crap.

Temporary server alliances, can easily be formed off board and would be driven by the major guilds anyway. It is easy enough for an enterprising guild leader to get in contact with a guild leader(s) on another server to try and form something. I know how to contact the guild leaders on competing servers if I need to and it wasn’t hard to get that information.

Even though there are defiantly around the clock coverage issues and population issues on a number of servers, going to a 1v1 approach is only going to make that worse than it already is. It won’t make the contest any more personal as the OP suggests and would remove the ‘opportunity’ to collaborate with another server. And even though this opportunity is not present in game, it is certainly there outgame for someone that wants to make use of it.

What is wrong with some self balancing? It’s free and it is a simple thing. If you do not like where you are, switch servers.

On Rewards …..

I only have one question ….. do you really think your server is going to fight harder and win more because the winners get an extra 100 badges? I don’t think so.

And, if you think servers that feel they cannot regularly win now are complaining, watch what happens when we attach a big reward for the winner ……