Guild Wars 2

Anet already drove me out of WvW, now that I am interest in PvE content and farming up a Legendary, I now have to go back to a game mode that Linking has made me despise? I foresee many more hours of Overwatch in my future.

That’s a variant definitely worth looking at.

1 tower per Keep, Owning the tower gains the Keep Defender a buff, not owning the tower = Keep with no extra buff.

2 Towers for the Garrison. 2 towers = double buff 1 tower = single buff No towers = normal level upgrade no buff. This would take out Penalties/Debuffs on the Keeps/Garrisons
Also it wouldn’t be as difficult as having to obtain multiple. The buffs should still be strong enough to make taking the tower(s) a priority prior to attempts to take down Keeps/Garrison.

I like the Yak idea. I left out camps and yaks as I figured I had enough to work with on the towers for now without spreading the focus to thin.

Eventually after (if of course) the towers show promise, even owning the Keeps could end up with an effect on the Garrison. But one step at a time or we could end up in a worse situation as far as balance goes.

Shademehr.1397:

Daemonne.5018:

I think the highest I’d like to see us linked (since we have to be linked) is T4/T5 Seems like a happy median.

The irony is that many ET recently transferred to T4/T5 and lots of them weren’t happy with it for whatever reason and went back to ET where they subsequently got shoved into a T1 matchup.

Which in turn makes T4/T5 look pretty darn good now huh? :-D

Melanion.4892:

Physics doesn’t need to apply in a game where I can conjure fireballs from my hands and call meteors from the sky.

You can’t take real-world logic into a game that doesn’t accept real-world logic.

And yet, said fireball cast from your hands still cant be cast directly at the enemy unless you are standing at the edge of the walls… ;-D

Johje Holan.4607:

Some observations I had when reading your proposal:

• I don’t think this needs to be done on Alpine since the towers there are already useful.

Yes, towers are useful in Alpine, but I was looking at a more direct link between towers and Keeps/Garrison. Trebs can be counter trebbed by a decent team. I was hoping to establish something that makes the towers a necessity to hold (by either side) to tip the scales to be favorable in taking the higher objective.

• How easy would this be to code? Would it be easy to change Desert to this? Easier than moving the towers on Desert? If so I think this would be fantastic for DBL.

I honestly have no clue :-/

• How will players react to stronger fortification?
  • People like to ninja stuff with small groups. Ninjaing would be harder.
  • They didn’t like the stronger gates that were implemented. Or the higher cost to guild catas.

Ninjaing would most likely be relegated down to Towers and Camps. Which would be more feasible than a small group taking an entire Keep or Garrison. The stronger gates would not be on the towers, and taking the towers would diminish the strength or the fortified K/G gates and walls.
Although I can only hope many would accept the reasoning behind this and agree. People have different perspectives on things so I don’t expect everyone to agree.

• Defensive siege should not be any stronger than it is now in terms of player damage – people hate how strong AC damage is.
  • However, if the current max AC damage is what you get with owning the nearest towers AND AC damage would be less otherwise then people might actually love it that way.

This would not affect placed siege, only the upgrade siege inherent to the Keep/Garrison. Cannons, Mortars, Oil.

If populations were relatively similar I think this would be great. My main concern is that this may make the stronger server even stronger. And only add to the imbalance if it exists. I don’t know that it would, it may help the weaker server. But that would need to be fleshed out.

I agree with this, although I am viewing my suggested change to actually cater to the smaller groups.
As long as towers are kept, smaller groups would have a better chance at defending Keeps/Garrison from the larger. If the larger takes the towers, they will have to split their force to keep the towers (and in doing so keep the debuff against their objective) or risk losing the towers to a turn over and once again facing a strengthened Keep/Garrison.

In retrospect to my OP pertaining to Buffs and Debuffs from towers to Keeps/Garrison occuring at the turn of the Tick clock, maybe it should occur as the Towers are actually flipped. Thus you would time your assault with the turning of a tower, and the defenders have a chance to regain their defensive posture if they can get the towers re-flipped quick enough.

Thank you, I would love to see the towers have more of a direct affect on the Borderlands.

Doesn’t seem like the idea is catching any interest in this sea of negativity going on in the WvW forums though.

I am tired of complaining about linking. I wanted to submit a positive idea for WvW.

Towers can be easily ignored for use other than for PPT or placement for siege. I would like to see towers have a greater effect on Keeps and Garrison on Borderlands.

With 4 towers, be it Desert or Alpine borderlands; North East, South East, North West and South West, there is great potential for these towers to have great effect on Keeps and Garrisons.

Eastern Towers would affect Eastern Keeps as Western Towers would affect Western Keeps.

All 4 towers on a borderland would affect garrison.

To start, let’s take the Keeps and Garrison and reference them as if they are all currently max Upgrade Level of 3. Fortified Walls and Gates.

These should be impervious to PvD, they should take incredible amounts of resources to batter down.

Let’s take Eastern Keep for this example.

For each of the Eastern Towers held by the homeland server, the Easter Keep gains an additional bonus to defensive status for Gates and Walls. Defensive facility siege will have higher health and deal more damage.

For each of the Eastern Towers held by the invaders, Keeps defenses receive a penalty to defensive status for Gates and Walls. Defensive facility siege will have lower health and deal less damage.

Edit: One eastern Tower held by Homeland and One Eastern Tower held by Invader would result in a natural Level 3 defense in the Eastern Keep

Bonuses and penalties should not be high or low enough to cause major imbalance but enough to make capturing the towers by either side worth taking the time to do.

Garrison

The Garrison should indeed more so than Keeps be mostly invulnerable to being easily conquered by an enemy, no matter who holds it.

In order to bring the Garrison’s defenses down to a penalized state, all four towers must be taken.

2 towers held by the enemy will bring the Garrison’s defenses to the normal level 3 Fortified state making the facility attack-able, 1 tower held by the enemy will make the Garrison attack-able but just barely and take even more reduced damage to Gates, Walls and Siege.

If all four towers are held by the defenders, the Garrison will be impervious to damage.

Upgrades or downgrades will follow the Tick Timer so timing will be important, especially for the Garrison.

Quick list of Pros-

Towers actually become useful as strategic targets. (other than PPT or Seige placement)

*Blob forces may have to decide to split to attack Keeps/Garrison as well as defend towers from being retaken.

*Medium sized roaming groups may decide that sitting a tower and defending would be a better use of their resources as in order for the enemy to take Keeps/Garrison, they will potentially need to take the towers first.

Towers will once again become a good spot for combat chances.

*Off Hour Crews (small/medium roamers) will have to spend a greater amount of time and resources to flip an enemy borderland while everyone else is sleeping.

Quick list of Cons-

Small/Medium roaming groups will have little to no chance of stealing Keeps or Garrison and most likely be relegated to camps and towers.

See * points from Pros list (Depending on point of view)

Please give your thoughts.

Currently I am basing this on fully upgraded Keeps and Garrisons. I’m not sure if anything level 1 or 2 should be affected the same.

Add Pros and Cons

This was pretty rushed but I think the concept is solid if not all the the specifics.

ThomasC.1056:

From what I’m reading here and what I’ve also read in other topics, the main problem is an original misunderstanding about WvW is or should be.

I totally relate to your experience. I’m not so good at PvP, even if I can enjoy a fight that’d feel different of a 25s stunlock+spike and run away if that didn’t work. I like people who play.
I don’t like being in a blob and just running, trying to hit something before it’s destroyed and get some loot and XP.
I like to spend some time to take a camp and a tower, and escort dolyaks to upgrade the tower. I like to use cannons, AC and mortars to give the oh-so-naive blob in front of it that’s a bad idea to come to close.
I liked to rush to fire keep shrines to switch the fire turrets back on, or swith the wind blowers back on near air keep too, and give the oh-so-naive blob trying to take it a hard time.
I laugh at he pack of players of my own server who naively thought they could take on T3 Bay without even holding the camp and the tower.

Yet, if you read carefully what’s written all around by some ppl, you can see that :

• Ppl enjoying taking, holding and upgrading objectives are more or less considered as PvE players that shouldn’t be in WvW
• Ppl using siege weapons to defend their towers/keeps against blobs (it’s always against blobs…) are called “siege huggers”
• Fire turrets or wind blowers are called “gimmicks” and broadly despised because of the movement impairing they cause.

But, truly, if you think about it… Those things are just plain, and totally normal in a game mode that involves sieges and strategy.

The reason why they’re not liked is because they give blobs (mostly) a hard time, and don’t make taking an objective a casual after-work leisure trip. The reason why they’re not liked is ppl just want to take the highway to “the place where omething happens” and do not consider ambushing or shortcuts as viable enjoyable ways of playing, nor do they accept some places to be hazardous for sole defense purposes. The reason why you don’t see what you enjoy is ppl mostly think about attacking objectives. Siege weapons are liked to open doors and walls ; never to defend them (siege huggers).

The reason why WvW doesn’t taste like a tactics and strategy game mode, focused on objectives taking, holding, ugrading is ppl mostly don’t care the slightest about all this. Lots of ppl just want “epic fights” or “large scale PvP”… For actually no other purpose than just fights. If you think in only “epic fights” or “large scale PvP”, then you don’t need objectives for more than excuses for fights. Then you won’t like siege weapons because they’re indeed unbalanced (their purpose is to allow outnumbered ppl to hold a place). Then you won’t like DBL because it has movement impairing places, and it requires you to think to remember the paths.

And this naturally leads to the 2 main things more or less everybody sees : blobs running around, full of “casual after-work players” that just want to gain loot, and not think too much about what’s going on, just out of boredom. And you see guild fighting other guilds, because this can be a reason to fight when everything else feels tasteless.

This is the original sin of WvW. Some ppl consider it’s a game mode that it’s not, and that doesn’t (yet should) exist in GW2. And some of those very same ppl are actually killing it in a “If I don’t enjoy it, then nobody should” behaviour.

^This, so …much…THIS ^

+1’d

Although, I do like Alpine more. Maybe because that’s where I started and have fond memories.

I am on ET… I will be sitting out as well.

Now I don’t speak for everyone on ET but there are more than a handful of us who would prefer to not be linked with a T1 server. Blackgate has some good peeps, I’m not knocking anyone, ,but yeah Blobfest… No.

I think the highest I’d like to see us linked (since we have to be linked) is T4/T5 Seems like a happy median.

PvE Meta Events I love using the build I took from this thread…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/page/2#post6180929

I’ll just have to start pressing the guild to focus on some RAIDs muahahahah.

Something I would love to get into.

TFoR (Best Monty Python voice) “Ahm not dead yet…”

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Also, we’ve noticed that once the total number of votes has reached a certain threshold , votes tend to stabilize, and doubling or tripling the number of votes tends to make very little impact on the final result.

Yeah, alot of people in America feel the same way about Presidential Elections…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid

I have alot of fun with a variant of this spec, although I swap Lightning Reflexes for Sun Spirit.

I have soloed much HoT with the build from this thread. Good survival-ability, Damage is all Condi but things melt pretty quick even after the fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/page/2#post6180929

Very good build for joining Meta Events.

They could always add a Break Stun to One With Nature… If this makes it OP then increase CD to 30sec?

Arch Angel Ruvania Darklight

atheria.2837:

I looked through this thread and I didn’t see a single WvW build that includes staff. Staff is amazing.

Another build type missing – Condi Druid – I know at least a good strong hybrid towards condi + damage mitigation is possible but I can’t find a single one.

I use this for Condi Druid. But it does not include Staff.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/first

Hello again, I am once again posting that I still love this build. I link this thread to anybody I see looking for a Condi build.

Budman.2934:

Daemonne.5018:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Just curious, what world do you play for? I’m looking at the current breakdown of votes by world right now, and nearly every world has voted in favor of World Linking. There are a few that are 50/50, and one that is against it.

Who would have thought that the polls would show that the larger pop servers are enjoying the influx of bodies to assist in their Blob Fests, while not showing how much the low pop servers hate it.

Do you truly believe the 2 answer poll that does not allow for any stipulations on what we do and don’t like about the server linkings would truly represent a fair vote?

Larger servers vs smaller… I’m surprised it’s only at 75%

Why could my answer not have included that hey yeah, I would be ok with server linkings if they allowed the lower tier servers to continue to enjoy the WvW playstyle we are accustomed to by linking us with a medium or low pop server. I would enjoy linking if the top 2 tiers were left alone.

But I am stuck with do i like Linking or Not. So my choice was no. Being linked with BG (great group of people by the way) and running against other Blob servers is not fun for many of us who are accustomed to fun closely matched battles with the servers who are of similar size.

But polling us is still going to show Yes greater than No as the Host servers house greater numbers by far.

so your all for server linking just put all the low tier servers together and leave the big ones alone that’s something I can agree with

however you have to remember this is just the first step of many be patient and don’t get frustrated over the first few weeks of something new this is just a precursor to what anet it trying to do

I hear what you are saying, but at this point many of us are already turning away from WvW because of the frustration. As much as we love WvW (in our playstyle of the lower tiers) it is just to frustrating to play the blob game that we do not like. Log in, get into a map (I am not all that fussy when it comes to queues, I’m pretty patient) Run around to take something, oh look Blob wiped Respawn, lets go try taking something else, oh look the other blob wiped Respawn, lets try another map, can’t queues too long and we won’t all get in together. Ok, lets go PvE.

We even see the frustration in our fun commanders. Group isn’t conforming well to the new style of WvW and when we wipe out group twice our size you can hear it in the commanders voice how disappointed they are getting, and guess who starts getting the tongue lashing… Ok thanks for that….Let’s go PvE…

I mean hell, the friggin repair guy at the spawn point asked me how my family was doing, each, individually, by name… think I’m there much?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Just curious, what world do you play for? I’m looking at the current breakdown of votes by world right now, and nearly every world has voted in favor of World Linking. There are a few that are 50/50, and one that is against it.

Who would have thought that the polls would show that the larger pop servers are enjoying the influx of bodies to assist in their Blob Fests, while not showing how much the low pop servers hate it.

Do you truly believe the 2 answer poll that does not allow for any stipulations on what we do and don’t like about the server linkings would truly represent a fair vote?

Larger servers vs smaller… I’m surprised it’s only at 75%

Why could my answer not have included that hey yeah, I would be ok with server linkings if they allowed the lower tier servers to continue to enjoy the WvW playstyle we are accustomed to by linking us with a medium or low pop server. I would enjoy linking if the top 2 tiers were left alone.

But I am stuck with do i like Linking or Not. So my choice was no. Being linked with BG (great group of people by the way) and running against other Blob servers is not fun for many of us who are accustomed to fun closely matched battles with the servers who are of similar size.

But polling us is still going to show Yes greater than No as the Host servers house greater numbers by far.

I am very happy with the SB – A/T Condi build I am using.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/first

Good survival-ability and I can solo most difficult HPs in HoT. No, not the Mushrooms lol but one extra person and the Mushroom Kings are doable :-)

I’ve decided to leave WvW and focus on PVE if the Linking stays the way it is. Even if my guild decides to stick with it. Small servers are going to kill off WvW for small servers.

We Just Don’t Like The Blob Mentality of it.

Very happy with sb.

This must all be coming from an sPvP perspective. PvE I’m melting mobs.

Thank you for confirming that I’m not the only one seeing this.

…is not affecting Boon Durations.

I understand there is a tool tip bug for the Hero Stat window not showing the increase to Boon Duration% BUT….

When I cast boons with or without staff equipped while having the Honorable Staff trait selected (and I have tested this without the trait as well) my outgoing boons duration has no difference.

Neither shown on the tooltips for weapon skills; active skills such as Retreat, Hold the Line, Stand your Ground; or even on the boon buff icons themselves (when cast and moused over) show a difference in countdown time.

The staff skill reuse timers are reduced correctly, but not the boons.

Please review and see if this is a Bug with all or just me.

Thanks,

Dae

Versuvious.2568:

Not sure in PvP because I don’t use staff on that mode, but it does increases Boon Duration on PvE and WvW, but there’s a tool tip bug and you wont see the added boon duration on your hero stats window.

(p.s 11 months issue already and they did nothing in fixing the tool tip / hero stats window bug on this, oh well they did not fix our mixed up traits and useless utilities after June 2015 patch and other succeeding patches prior to that either)

Is it a tooltip bug if when I cast my boons the countdown timers when mousing over the boons do not increase when cast with a staff rather than a Hammer in hand?

To me this is a trait that is not working. If I cast Stand your Ground I should be having over 10 seconds of Stability yet I am getting 9 currently. If I cast Might I should be getting 17 seconds on my stacks, yet I am getting 15. This tells me that Honorable Staf is not increasing my boon duration.

Now the time is minimal at the moment but I am gathering and crafting gear to boost Concentration and get boon duration close to 100% but if Honorable Staff isn’t working on the boon duration like it is suppose to then it won’t be quite as worth it.
That’s a 20% cut I will be taking in boon duration.

Now again, the staff recharge is working correctly. The countdown timer and the skill tooltip are adjusting correctly when I add or remove the talent. My Shouts and Concentration Tooltips and timers do not adjust.

This is beyond the Hero Stat window.

Kaim.5483:

It increases boon duration when you equip a staff AND are using the staff. It doesn’t increase your boon duration when you’re using your other weapon set.

Understand that.

Fjaeldmark.9043:

The tooltips are bugged. You get the boon duration but the tooltips don’t update.

Hmm, but when I cast a boon it doesn’t cast for the extended time, unless the tooltips are bugged to showed the increased time continuously. But that wouldn’t make sense as I have unequipped the staff as well as changed out the Trait to check my castings.

Is anybody noticing Honorable Staff does not seem to be increasing Boon Duration time when Staff is equipped or is it just me?

Staff skills timers are reduced but boons are not increasing.

I have swapped from staff to hammer and tested my boons, as well as removed staff and re-equipped and tested my boons. No difference.

Anybody else notice this or am I missing something?

Sporting the Rascal Gear

I don’t know how it will do in sPvP but in World PvE meta events and WvW
this guys Sb/AT build has been fun as hell and I have adopted my Druid as my new favorite.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid

I re-rolled Ranger many times prior to hitting even level 20, I was just not having much fun, then we received the insta 80 from HoT so I decided to just go ahead and make my Duid. Ran around with Longbow and Staff once I hit Druid and was still feeling Meh about it and returning to my Necro pretty consistantly.

After remodeling my Druid after the OPs build, I haven’t played my other toons, except my Guardian when needed in WvW, since.

I will also mention that this is the first Condi build I have used on any of my characters. I love it.

For me it has nothing to do with “Server Pride” I’m okay with Guild pride and the other guilds we pair with on our server. For me it is not wanting to be paired up with a T1 – T3 server. ET is paired with BG, and once again while they are a friendly bunch or guilds on that server, that playstyle is not what the lower tiers were about or wanted.
The people from the lower tiers who wanted that, transferred off long ago. Also we have people from top tiers who transferred down to get away from that.
Anet is doing a great job with their plans and focus on WvW. Personally I just feel they went about it a bit wrong with merging anybody with kitten (not 100% sure about T3 though)

If Anet flat out merged us with another lower tier, all would be fine. There wouldn’t be that lingering question of “is this it?” With a top tier, well I would actually consider transferring down for the first time since I began pre-launch. It’s just not my preferred method of WvW. In fact, I gave it a chance right up until they reactivated Alpine, and even once during. The blobs are just too large, many and annoying for our float groups.
But now, I am just content to sit back and explore the PvE world of this game, maybe get into some Raid groups finally.

Yes, this is a live Beta and as a Beta the Devs want feedback. That is what we are doing here, on both sides of the issue. Now, I don’t agree with how the OP went about his title. In fact I paid more attention to the responses than to his/her original post as his/her title set the tone and I prefer calm and rational discussions to the hate mail.

Ran your build over the weekend, LOVE IT!

I have not gone Condi on any of my toons, but now I can definitely appreciate it.

have you made any changes or updates to your build?

I’ve been running this guys build

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid/first#post6138348

Love it.

Josh XT.6053:

I also look at this from a business perspective, which is sometimes hard to do when you’re the customer.

Having 24 servers is expensive, 12 servers is likely half the cost. It is hard to justify having the bottom 2 tiers at all because there was probably a total of 40 people tops a week (between all time zones) on those servers that even entered WvW. From a business stand point, those 40 people aren’t supporting keeping those servers open.

Keep in mind, your $0-$100 you spent to buy the game/expansion doesn’t go too far. Lets say every one of the 40 people paid $100, that is $4000. Now that is enough money to buy a decent server, but it wouldn’t be enough to host it. So basically the lower tier servers are losing money.

Now all of that above is assuming the way that their servers are set up – they may all be hosted on 4 physical servers for all I know, but if each server has its own physical server, that gets expensive quick.

I have no issues with linking or merging servers. Anet just did it in the extreme. Bottom 2 tiers could have been merged maybe even bottom 3, larger populations but with playstyle more in common. Even if things did escalate, it would happen over time and and we wouldn’t be thrust into the zerg mentality we see on the top tiers.

Bottom tiers would stick to their playstyles until they gradually adapted an appropriate playstyle that works with a slightly higher population of players, hopefully never becoming a zerg ball of greater than 30 in one group and definately no more than one of them at a time.

Josh XT.6053:

If you don’t like where you were paired with, transfer to a lower population server in the bottom tier.

As it currently stands, we have 5 tier 1 servers in NA. Blackgate, Yaks Bend, Jade Quarry, Dragonbrand and Tarnished Coast. The populations of those servers are incredible, and they were already incredible before the world linking. In my opinion, none of those servers should have been linked with another server, but its fine I suppose. I am on Blackgate and I would be fighting queues rather the server linking happened or not.

But I came from the bottom tier server, been on ET since the game launched, why should I have to pay to once again move to a bottom tier server?

…and I agree those top 2 tiers should never have been part of the linking process :-)

Thank you Anet for bringing back Alpine maps BUT, I am still focused on the server linking issues.

My playtime in WvW has dropped considerably because I still dislike T1 WvW tacitcs. I’ve played in the BLs consistently since the linking began and I can definitely say for myself and for quite a few members of my guild and the guilds we run with (no not speaking for everyone) that we still prefer the mid sized battles that take a somewhat moderate amount of skill in knowing your character and team, tactics and a decent leader calling out commands to take down an enemy party or defensive team guarding a tower or keep to the mindless full server zergs that can appear out of nowhere and destroy anything in its path like it was the Nothing from the Neverending Story.

Again I must point out that the T1 BlackGate guild members are very friendly and helpful. This is not the issue. It’s just that the wrong servers were linked. T8 to T1 is still in my opinion not what was needed. It was overkill.

I don’t know if anybody elses opinions have changed from their initial responsiveness to the linking, but I would ask them to keep their voices heard. We do not want the Devs to feel we’ve just become complacent and accepted the change.

The roll out of the Alpine maps has everybody focused on that, but please take the time to keep the linking topic alive as well, whether you are for or against, all opinions are welcome.

Dae

At some point “linking” will have to become merging. We have low tier servers that pay or get donations to help pay for low tier server Team Speak. These do not get used now due to everybody jumping on the larger server TS servers.

At what point are we supposed to let these small TS servers just die? Are we going to go back after the Beta? Are we going to link with another server and have to obtain all their TS info again and get their server admins to grant permissions anew? Will they trust us on their TS since maybe the next round we will be enemies?

Problem is, the small tier servers just don’t have any answers as to what the future truly holds for us. Large servers have no worries, there would be no possibility of their getting dismantled and losing their name.

Just another piece of the identity loss of small servers.

BUT, I won’t leave with complete negativity. Although the Big Zerg playstyle sin’t something I want to do all the time, the occasional rolling ball of decimation is sort of fun for about an hour a week.

Also a shout out again to Black Gate for being a friendly host server.

Dae.

T1 problems…

/15charrsinabar

FogLeg.9354:

I think you need to create new thread to include poll. Not completely sure tho..

Anet is reading these threads on our views and are going to be running a poll themselves.

ET had a visitor from Anet in our WvW because of these types of threads. One of my Guild Leaders had a nice long discussion. They are taking our views into consideration and again will be running a poll.

LoneWolfSpectre.6412:

wyther.8372:

I have now logged over 13 hours trying to get into WvW and still a no go for me. Granted that is not straight time, but i can only play at certain times and I will NOT enter borderlands as they are pathetic attempts at WvW maps (great if they were PvE though).

I hope you all have a great time and this isn’t a whine thread at all. I am glad ANET is trying something and we are (forcible) guests on your alls tier so I expected to wait a long time, but this has gone past ridiculous. Have fun and fight well. I am not going to be trying anymore to get in. Best wishes to both conjoined servers!!!

I should also mention, I got down to single digits two times:

First time: #3 in queue…5 seconds later 10 in queue, 1 minute later 34 in queue, within 5 minutes back to 73 in queue (after waiting 4 hours)

Second time: #7 in queue about 20 seconds later went to 24, within 3 minutes went back up to 53 in queue.

Gilkin

Hey brother

I’m sorry you’ve been facing hardcore queue times. EBG is just one of those maps primetime. But the DBL are huge fun Especially with the changes they made and all the new players on em. I really hopeyou an give them an opportunity. You can run with me and my guild at any time. message me in game and ill be glad to get you in and show you how fantastic and fun it could be.

-Mr. Bear

Gilkin, Moses the Bear has a great guild to run with. I made it on the first night (or was it the second, I think I was the ONLY ET to make it in on Reset night though) and connected up with them. I had fun even though I am not partial to the Blob gaming that Anet has tossed me into (no Bears group was not the blob group)
Hook up with them.

Dae- ET TFOR

dank.3680:

I think you completely misunderstand me and what is actually going on.

Let me make it perfectly clear.

THIS IS A MERGE.

The addition of the word “dynamic”, means that THE MERGE – CAN – BE – ADJUSTED – AS – NEEDED – TO – PRESERVE – POPULATION – BALANCE.

I’m sorry I know this sounds angry, it is only meant to be blunt because I am becoming frustrated.

They chose to name a “dynamic merge”, as “linking”, most likely to avoid “game is dying servers merged” panic.

Ok. I see what you are saying, but I understood it as not truly merged, Dynamic or not, because they won’t be adjusting IF there is still a balance issue. They will be swapping “linked” servers around in 3 months regardless.

ET wont always be with BG. There’s no permanency in the design whatsoever at this stage. So Merge in any form does not fit.

Now if I am incorrect and the current servers that are tied together at this point in time are what the Dev’s have in mind for the final result then Dynamic Merge does make more sense.

Edit: I should have stated that I see what you are saying about Dynamic Merge as the servers would stay that way until of population shift “in WvW” called for a different dynamic.

dank.3680:

Daemonne.5018:

dank.3680:

After playing only wvw for 3 years and QUITTING THE GAME because****** of low population and even t1/t2/t3 being dead in comparison to the game mode that was so fun and vibrant in it’s first year.

I just can’t understand how you are trying to justify purposely having dead servers. Even t2 which I visited before this patch only had action during prime, the rest of the time it was dead game.

And yeah this is a TEST, trying TO **balance the servers. Not make dead servers for thin skinned folk who can’t handle embracing a new community.

ANET is finally mending my broken heart by revitalizing the WVW population and making it fun as hell again.. You are here trying to ruin that, so yes I will continue to speak out against idiots trying to sabotage an amazing game mode.

I guess there’s no having a civil conversation with someone as angry as you.

I’ll move on.

I’m not angry I’m just very passionate about this game mode and don’t want to see the recent progress reverted just because some people are so hung up on a kittening server name.

I wish they would just have the guts to come out and call them merges. Linking was a dumb term, when in fact (confirmed by a DEV quoting me when I said this) it was meant to mean “dynamic merge”.

I can understand and respect that. It’s not so much the server name that we are trying to preserve. I and others with me have no issue if servers merged and we had to give up being Erradon Terrace. It’s the change in game play many of us don’t like. It seems like one tactic now Blob or die mainly. Although that is oversimplifying the truth greatly.
Also it is the loss of identity other than just the server name. As it stands, there is no way to recruit onto our server. “Hey come join the guest server that will still offer you blob play because of the linking but no real home…” I have played GW2 since open Beta as well. LOVED the game, stopped playing for two years when life became crowded with other priorities (once your baby starts walking, you don’t get as much time to purely focus a game haha). I came back to my old friends and family in my guild and have been having a blast. We love the low tier playstyle, while at the same time wanting a little larger community to fill out WvW more. We are proud of what we built up. Nothing should be wrong with protecting that.

Now I truly cannot give you a point of view from the Top or middle tier. But from the low tier, merging T7 and T8 or even linking them to test it out in various temp mergings would have been perfect for us to at least try. I won’t pretent to tell you it would have been the perfect fix, but I surely would like to see if it would work.

Linking was done initially so that they could easily revert the changes. It would be a nightmare to fix if they had actually merged the servers only to find that it may have been a mistake. (this is paraphrasing from an Anet member we had in our ET WvW party Monday night)

I truly believe that mergers should happen. But a low tier should still be available for us who prefer the non-blob tactics of pitched battles. The one thing I personally HATE about this is hitting a tower or keep and this avoidance tactic of running when the call out of “Spotted” comes across chat. We are used to nice semi lengthy battles at the gates or walls. Not something that usually ends up with an easy roll over :-)

But I do truly understand and respect your point of view.

sparc.3649:

I just hope this IS only a TEMPORARY “fix” to revitalize WvW – and that they’re actually working on a LONG TERM fix in the background!

It’s a Beta. It’s not permanent. By using this method they can easily “Unlink” and set things back without having the headache of finding a fix if they had actually Merged servers.
They will take a poll and see how the community feels about this after whatever time period they have set this Beta to end.
The problem is that the communities all have different view of how this is going. Top tier servers love the influx of bodies to suppliment their losses over time. Low tier servers (not everybody but a good majority of teh people I have spoken with and many posts here also) dislike the change in gameplay to the “Blob” mentality as well as loss of server identity.
All we can do for now is rationally voice our opinions so the Devs have constructive feedback.

dank.3680:

Daemonne.5018:

Kirito.2195:

I’m sorry for bumping this nonsense, but I find this thread SO contradtictory after looking at Blade Of Gandara’s past posts and I feel like it just has to be called out. She made a thread just 4 months ago titled
“Requesting-free-transfer-for-servers-in-t8”

• “We need free transfer!! Or merge the servers! Pls make it happen ! Anet atleast visit t8 to see if theres anyone playing wvw. We are only active ones left and we might leave soon making the server empty.”
  (oddly enough this thread shows up in the history but apparently is deleted when you go to view it.)

And let us not forget the artfully crafted speech…

• “T8 is dead. 5 ppl on all maps for entire week..
  CAN ANET PLS DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS ? Or do they not care at all ??? Alot have quit already and expansion just came out..
  DOES ANET EVEN VISIT T8 TO CHECK OUT WHATS HAPPENING ?”

You cried about dead game, plead for server mergers on the official forums, now you’re here complaining after Anet stepped in and did something… What?

Very valid complaints which many of us feel Anet took the wrong or extreme route on.
Many wanted lower tier servers Merged. Anet Merged low with Top, effectively engulfing the lower tiers into non-entiy.

But it’s a Beta and as long as we give out feedback, Anet will have our responses to gauge how to act next.

To answer Blade’s question about if Anet has ever been to T8, we had a visit only a couple of days ago during our Rally night on “ET”
One of my Guild leaders had a nice long conversation with Hamm.
One thing I will say is that it looks like there will be polling in the future to gauge our reactions to the Linking.

So you wanted 10 active people instead of 5? You wanted your server to still be dead? Like it or not Anet made the decisions they made in order balance* the population across the *entire game, sorry you aren’t a special snowflake.

I am unclear on who you are responding to. 10 people? That number is a bit skewed.
Blade’s numbers may be a tad under exaggerated as well. While our servers were not quite DEAD, they were in need of a population boost. Just not the kind of boost that destroys more than just a few servers.

By the way, Anet made the decision they made in order to TEST how it would balance the servers. This is by no means the end all be all, and it won’t be arbitrarily done either. Anet still plans on using player feedback. Not “unofficial” forum feedback but an actual poll of the players.
I am not sure where the 52 – 7 with 55 undecided came from that Kirito spoke of but if that is indeed the true numbers of people playing WvW then we are truly in trouble LOL

Also, These aren’t mergers. if they were then at least one of the issues of complaint would have been made moot. Server identity. As of now, all of the Guesting servers are not represented in any way in WvW. Not in name not in score. Guesting servers are not represented by Glicko from my understanding. So now the Hosting servers will move accordingly and the guesting servers will rotate out to fill the ranks of another hosting server in what, 3 months?

The main point of concern is not Queue times for WvW, no mater what the fix, there will be queue times on Reset night and most likely in EB. Most of the issues focus on a loss of identity as well as a huge change in playstyle for those who preferred low tier servers.

Bottom line though is until Beta is over on this , we will still voice our opinions because that is how we make sure Anet is aware that not everyone is okay with the decision.
Even you voice your opinion about things you don’t agree with in WvW or changes you want to see. You will continue to voice them until a fix is in place that you like whether people agree with you or not. You want to be heard by Anet that you are unhappy with the current situation.

Not everybody is going to see eye to eye. Nothing wrong with voicing our disagreement.

X T D.6458:

I am not against this concept per se. However, hypothetically whats to stop an enemy commander/zerg from targeting those from lower tiers servers because you could be under the assumption that those players are not used to big fights and therefore easier to pick off. Everyone having the same server tag, gives a little anonymity. Its kind of like targeting those with certain guild tags or higher ranks, I would bet there are quite a few high ranked people who would rather be able to choose what rank they can display so they would not get focused. Now of course these are not the only factors, and what I stated is only hypothetical, I’m not bashing on those from lower tiers lol.

ET would still be marked easily. We’re the ones who don’t know to run after someone called out “Spotted”
We’re the ones who run headlong into blobs because we’re not used to avoidance tactics :-D

PabbyGaul.9682:

HoD and Eb didnt have any problems I know of. Eb commanders were leading HoDdies just like Ebs. They made us an icon in their ts and permissions for wvw channels and the same was done on HoD ts for Ebays.

However…It would be nice to know your linking partner before reset if its going to change because atleast you could do alot of the coordination beforehand rather than on reset.

Also so me good points as far as small scale…maybe just let AR, ET, and DR hang in their own tier 5. So t1 has no linkings, and t5 have no linkings. Everyone in the t2-t4 gets paired. This will make t1 a more constant struggle I think and keep glicko more volitile at the top and allow servers that pop up to kitten face off on even single server terms. Also if ppl want to have small scale wvw in t5 they can do that.

So they said it was easy lunk and unlink worlds so this might be a good solution…simply dont link top 3 and bottom 3, let them have their own tiers.

1st DR had just pushed out of T8, I believe they belong on the higher tier for their hard work. Grats to them for making it happen prior to linking.
2nd Tier 8 isn’t completely against linking, just not so high up. A tier 8 and Tier 7 linking would be the better choice. It would give us the larger but not overwhelming community we are looking for (In my opinion along with some others I converse about this with)
Now I say linking because it would definitely be something we’d want to test for a few months as they are doing now. If after 2 or 3 linkings, shifting around to find the balance that suits best, then merging wouldn’t be a horrible idea. Personally I don’t mind the loss of a server name as long as my community stays intact and not engulfed into non-existence.
Linkings make it tough to recruit, mergers give you actual bodies on YOUR server.

Drawback: Making friends through each Linking. May cause mass exodus to your new friends servers if the mergers didn’t go your way once again unbalancing the populations.

Norbe.7630:

ah,
think of the 3 months as a learning experience not just for you but for your entire server, you may or may not have that chance to do so
maybe one day, for your experiencing that moment, you can lead your server to greatness in battle, even recognize your server as the friendliest and most hospitable in terms of linking
you see linking/merging is not that bad, it adds opportunities… many opportunities

Let me clarify another point. In 3 months there will be another linking. If we don’t voice our concerns now during the first 3 months, then Anet is going to feel that everybody is happy with the change and it could turn out worse for us.

We don’t want to just wait for the polls to roll around for our opinions. We need to let them know from beginning to end. Many views may change in time. Opinions may differ from start to finish. I may even grow to like the “Blob” mentality (doubtful but I never thought I’d like Sushi either) It’ll be a good way for them to gauge the response over time as well.
So it’s not so much that we are coming to the forums and voicing in anger, we are just making sure that we are heard and not drowned out or forgotten that we are in disagreement.

Betas need feedback. We will oblige :-)

gennyt.3428:

Daemonne.5018:

gennyt.3428:

Do we win something for the week now?

I think he/she means the Tracking Rewards

I suspected as much. IMO the reward track is OK. I can’t get excited for the smaller things that should have been implemented a long time ago. With all the account bound PvE only gear and stuff, I’m even less excited. I’m reserving a descriptor like “awesome” for bigger changes.

---

I’ve yet to see the benefits of the serving linking. When I finally get through the queues, it’s still the more of the same. Seige spam and engagement evasion. The kind of stuff that helped bump GW2 down to my secondary MMO.

Though the stab changes look good, haven’t had enough decent clashes to really check it out yet.

I would like to see more WvW geared Rewards. Greater Siege (not sure if its in any of the rewards yet) maybe some new Battle Gear skins :-)

Engagement Evasion. See that’s not something we had on low tier servers. We saw people we clashed. Sometimes it was 20 on 5, sometimes even amounts. Largest “Blob” was maybe 35 people and that could be fended off for a bit if you reached a tower and bunkered long enough for reinforcements.
There certainly wasn’t a second Blob waiting to sandwich you.

Hell, the people in Kaos and ALS from AR can tell you that in small vs medium group, your skill is going to outmatch the numbers. With this T1 pairing, the numbers are just going to roll you.

Norbe.7630:

ah,
think of the 3 months as a learning experience not just for you but for you entire server, you may or may not have that chance to do so
maybe one day, for your experiencing that moment, you can lead your server to greatness in battle, even recognize your server as the friendliest and most hospitable in terms of linking
you see linking/merging is not that bad, it adds opportunities… many opportunities

I agree, only if it was done with servers of similar size and community. If ET was linked or merged with IOJ and or AR or some such server, we would have much in common. The cohesion would be great. But being Linked to BG (great bunch of peeps, Especially Moses the Bear) we are engulfed. Our tactics are useless unless we hop onto the tail of some roaming Blob.
We like who we are. We would have transferred to a higher tier if we wanted it drastically different. Things change yes, but let our change be gradual. Let us work up to it. Let us have a voice in our choice.