Guild Wars 2

The Super Adventure Box got me to play Guild Wars 2 for the first time since early December. It’s awesome!

However, I completed all of the content (including all achievements) and still have not earned anywhere near enough bauble bubbles to purchase a single weapon or backpack skin.

If I want something to commemorate my playing of SAB, I’ll have to grind for it.

Completing all the SAB achievements should bestow the player’s account with at least 40 bauble bubbles so players who demonstrated their mastery (of World 1) without an excessive time commitment can still get something.

Which reminds me, when are additional worlds coming?

I tried some WvW tonight after taking a hiatus since the 12/3 patch debacle.

At one time my phantasms were nearly 100% reliable. Now, they are less than 50% reliable — possibly much less. I feel like my favorite class was dealt a massive blow from which it will never recover.

So much time wasted with this silly game. While I understand “Goodbye” posts are pointless, it helps give me closure. The good news is I can start being productive again! It really was an amazing few months.

I’m providing this disclaimer because many people who say what I am about to say are not often being completely truthful. The following is a very honest and sincere statement and request:

I haven’t played my Mesmer, or GW2 (outside of a brief login), since the December 3 patch. My reasons are summed up reasonably well in the thread I started here.

Whether or not I continue to play GW2 hinges entirely on the forthcoming “Winter’s Day” patch. In addition, I have played significantly less since the previous rounds of phantasm nerfs were introduced.

I do not believe that setting the attack delay of the Mesmer phantasms to a quarter-second will be sufficient in balancing the class in both PvE and WvW.

For PvE, it is difficult to maintain high enough damage output in dungeons, even with a glass-cannon build.

For WvW, the brief delay in the phantasm’s attack allows the intended target yet another opportunity to nullify the damage. This compounds the already heavy-handed reductions to phantasms’ summon reliability that were introduced in November.

The end result makes the phantasm-dependent Mesmer significantly less fun and less effective to play.

How to fix the Phantasms. These solutions are considered an either/or and assume the .25 second attack delay fix goes live:

1) Leave the current damage output on phantasms unchanged but allow the phantasm to be summoned on invulnerable and dodging enemies (as it was pre-November). Line of sight and blind will still affect the phantasm summon. However, equipped weapon sigils will transfer to Mesmer phantasms. For example: an Illusionary Berserker would have a chance to proc the Sigil of Fire on critical hit if the Mesmer has the sigil imbued on the equipped greatsword.

…or…

2) Increase the damage co-efficient of the power stat for Mesmer phantasms so that high damage builds can effectively damage opponents relative to the risks they take in dungeons and WvW. Do NOT change phantasms’ summon reliability to pre-November levels.

…or…

3) Leave the current damage output on phantasms unchanged but remove line-of-sight requirements for phantasms that attack at melee range. This allows for better survival tactics and more damage potential/utility in dungeons and WvW. I.e. The Phantasmal Warden will appear nearby an enemy whether or not the Mesmer has direct line of sight, but the Phantasmal Duelist will still be subjected to line-of-sight rules since it appears near the Mesmer. Blind will not prevent a phantasm from being summoned, nor will an enemy’s roll or invulnerability.

…or…

Some other creative solutions.

The bottom line is that without a buff, phantasm/greatsword Mesmers still suffer with yet another completely unnecessary nerf. Almost any Mesmer who relied on phantasms also slotted traits to enhance them and therefore never experienced an attack delay. Even a quarter-second delay is too much without some sort of compensation. Meanwhile, some class specs are running wild with power (cough Dual Dagger Elementalists) and still continue to receive buffs!

My request isn’t so much an ultimatum as it is a plea to fix the class I sunk hundreds of hours into. If not, well, I won’t be fooled twice. Here’s hoping for some serious Mesmer and phantasm love next patch.

On the very first iBerserker I summoned to test its functionality: The coyote in the WvW borderlands moved out of range and the phantasm whirled from behind the tree and did not hit it at all.

On a subsequent test I noticed the delay in attack: about ~1 second. I’ve not seen a delay in attack as I’ve always given my phantasms fury via trait. This so-called delay since BWE2 has never existed for me until today.

You nerfed my spec. You nerfed it again, and finally you nerfed it into obsolescence. Meanwhile, I still get insta-killed by Thiefs who can’t be caught, and well-played D/D Elementalists are invincible.

After investing hundreds upon hundreds of hours into this class I quite literally feel betrayed. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed I ever played this game and convinced my friends and family to play it.

Now that iBerserker has a delay before attacking, can miss outright, and has a low chance to hit moving targets due to attack delay, I can finally say my spec has been utterly destroyed.

I put so much effort into finding my own niche with this class. I never read a spec guide or depended on anyone else’s techniques. I carved out my own play-style. The Mesmer nerfs up until 12/3 required me to adapt and accept a slightly less-powerful character.

As of the 12/3 patch, my character is dead. The phantasm spawn-to-attack delay creates too many variables that can prevent the phantasms from performing as expected. At this point it’s either respec, reroll, or quit.

Even if the devs acknowledge this as an issue, it can take weeks or more to be fixed. This isn’t something I can just deal with in the interim. It is fully game-breaking. Furthermore, there is no guarantee any such fix would be an acceptable one; I suspect it won’t be.

I can confirm the bug described by the OP. For now, the only workaround is to slot the trait offering “Phantasms have fury.”

Additionally, if phantasms behave like normal attacks, why don’t they receive sigil benefits from equipped weapons? Thanks.

hobbes.6178:

I like your ideas. But traveling deep into enemy territory taking 12-15 minutes with no stops? I don’t think you realize how massive that would be or how long 12-15 minutes really is.

Fair enough. I tend to think big as WvW should be big. The timing is arbitrary. It just needs to “feel” like a journey to go from the heart of your territory to the heart of an opponent’s.

Right now, we’re talking ~3 minutes gets you to any objective on the map. Not so epic.

Now that orbs lopsidedness has been removed, server transfers curbed, and the match-ups starting to settle in, my three biggest complaints for WvW (with included solutions) are as follows, in order:

Problem 1) WvW maps are way too small — no sense of scale, no journey, can respond to any area on the map within seconds to two minutes, the threat of death without resurrection is virtually meaningless.

Solution 1) Create massive WvW maps with keeps, castles, PvP/PvE dungeons and areas (almost completely avoidable), and some open planes with no NPCs. Make travel times deep into enemy territory take ~12-15 minutes with no stops — dying out in enemy territory without a res should be punishing.

Problem 2) Outside of taking keeps, there is nothing to do or fight for in WvW.

Solution 2) With the larger maps introduced in Solution 1, many intertwining WvW objectives can be implemented. Orbs of power can make their return as the hardest objective to capture and made even harder to defend (orbs don’t like being outside of their rightful castles — ouch). Add WvW dungeons with other objectives that can strengthen siege or provide temporary boosts to players’ power/defense, and control certain portals to specific places in the WvW map. Etc, etc… give us lots to do.

Problem 3) Complete sense of anonymity reduces rivalries.

Solution 3) Add WvW ranks and progression, introduce weekly leaderboards sortable by guild, server, or player including: most heals/kills/captures/longest held/least deaths, etc. and give people something to boast about as both an individual and as a server or guild. To make this all worthwhile, introduce the option for players to have aliases in WvW or simply show their player names when targeted. To limit abuse, disallow communication between servers when either host party is in WvW.

Feel free to defend your overpowered build.

I actually main a Mesmer and have played many specs. As a previous posted pointed out, the DPS on this D/D Ele build is too great. When I bunker spec my Mes, I have negligable DPS — why should you get to be an armored cannon? Sorry, it’s too good.

Strodor.6051:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This build is drastically overpowered. When I first started going up against players using this build, I called it the “armored cannon build” because that’s exactly what it is.

This is pretty much THE Elementalist build for WvW. This build is going cookie-cutter and needs a nerf for good reason. The “only 0.1% of players are capable of playing this way” argument is completely inaccurate. The same argument was once used for Mesmers, and look what happened to them.

Learn to counter it and you’ll be fine. We need to be close to you to do anything, so use any immobilize/stun you have.

Our main damage skills are fairly easy to evade if you know what to look for, See a ball of lighting coming at you? dodge just as it hits you. This will also stopped you from getting knocked down as most players will use updraft just as they hit. Same goes with burning speed, use whatever you can to get away and keep your distance from us.

I’m sorry, please don’t try to play the L2P card. I can dodge every lightning ball and bolt. I can even come at you from behind when you don’t notice me, have complete control of the fight, stun you in between attacks, and still lose.

The problems:

1) DPS is significantly reduced against you.
2) Your HP regenerates rapidly.
3) Your DPS is on par with a glass cannon Mesmer.
4) Your mobility is second only to Thief.
5) Your sustainability is greater than a Necromancer..

All of these features combined makes the build too strong and too popular in WvW.

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. This build is drastically overpowered. When I first started going up against players using this build, I called it the “armored cannon build” because that’s exactly what it is.

This is pretty much THE Elementalist build for WvW. This build is going cookie-cutter and needs a nerf for good reason. The “only 0.1% of players are capable of playing this way” argument is completely inaccurate. The same argument was once used for Mesmers, and look what happened to them.

This event was not a “gimme.” It was HARD to find where to go. I died getting there. I went to the wrong area once or twice. I got frustrated, but I never gave up. People who completed this event were treated to some nice rewards. Those who missed it or neglected to put enough weight on its importance did not.

P.S. I did not get a precursor.

Network lag and frame-rate are not related. I’m surprised at how many people are unable to make this distinction. Because of this, I found it difficult to find out just how many people around me were suffering from network issues. I’m certain there were some, but not all of them as severe… and like I said, returning to the waypoint and running back seemed to magically solve the issue OR it was fixed around that time.

The Ancient karka event chain was challenging, rewarding, and exciting.

The only unacceptable issue was the network latency/lag that plagued SOME of the overflow servers (not sure why this happened). I only know this because when I went to waypoint resurrect, I was stuck at the loading screen and had to restart. I came back to a completely different overflow, and this server lagged horribly during a part of the event that had absolutely no lag on the previous overflow server. The lag was severe — experiencing up to a 10 second delay at times. Returning to the waypoint and walking back to the fight seemed to resolve the problem (or it was probably a coincidence).

Thankfully the network latency subsided before the final stretch so the event’s last half-hour was quite nice.

In addition, the event was a bit tedious, and the culling/rendering issues were in full swing here.

HOWEVER, I can tell this was intended to be a difficult fight. People who kept getting near the Ancient karka and then complaining about dying were completely foolish. People often just laid around without waypoint ressing too (though as I said I did encounter an issue with waypoint ressing). The problem is this event left lots of excuses in which players could scapegoat their own inadequacies to issues with the game itself.

Sure there are some legitimate concerns, and I think there needs to be a lot of work done on culling and ways to prevent massive lag spikes in the future (which is probably related to their ISP backbone and not the servers being unable to handle the event).

I look forward to the next event. Thank you ArenaNet.

Renegadeimp.8439:

I couldnt say. But what we do know is that they were developing another engine for 3 years, then suddenly decided to scrap it in its entirety and make the one we have now. Then they released it early while it was still buggy to beat MOP.

I would go into detail about what happened in beta, but it will just earn me another suspension.

That is very interesting. I wish there was a way I could learn more about this.

Have you ever noticed how many GW2 bugs are considered “really tough to fix” and how even the most seemingly simple bugs remain unchanged?

Have you noticed how class changes are mostly just number and on/off toggle switches? There are virtually no mechanics changes.

Have you noticed how the game engine has received practically zero underlying improvements since launch? Issues such as skills working unpredictably, line of sight quirks and entity rendering/culling continue to remain unimproved.

I have, and I also have a theory as to why: The game’s original senior developers and programmers are not working on Guild Wars 2 any more; they’re probably working on building the framework for that MOBA now. So a completely different team is stuck with fixing, maintaining, and improving GW2 content they didn’t even spearhead.

This was intended to be and remains the last MMO I will play. I was really happy with how this game started. This new patch has done nothing but let me down.

No matter how you look at it, their solution was to make phantasms unreliable. With LoS bugs, random issues which seem to prevent berserkers from spawning, iberserker undocumented damage reduction, and blindness and invuln causing additional failure, a game mechanic of complete unreliability was introduced into the mesmer class.

I sure had my fun. Sad it ended so soon. Let Elementalists and Thieves reign supreme.

…and Necros, and Warriors, and Guardians.

Redamz.5038:

Please look at the damage of iBerserker and make the line of sight nerf only affect WvW and PvP. Terrain is just too buggy in the game and you get “obstructed” half the time.

I’d rather play as Moa than how is the mesmer now.

The problem is the same thing happens in WvW and the same catastrophic results occur.

Not only does this ruin the Greatsword Mesmer build, the iBerserker seems to randomly not fire even when in range, with line of sight, and under no affliction. Furthermore, there seems to be a damage nerf on top of the already flaky reliability.

I too fell in love with this game and had the only thing I loved about it taken away.

The good news is Thieves and Elementalists are much more awesome than Mesmer now. So, you know, you can flavor of the month train to it like everyone did to the Mesmer.

I can confirm Mesmer damage nerf on Greatsword Berserker. I’m done with this class until Mesmer is fixed.

So wait, a Thief can appear and instantly strike me dead like God himself, then be ready to do it again to someone else within seconds, but you want them to take a 10 second inconvenience on a three minute timer out of the game.

That’s using your head.

Love the change, got tired of noobs crying/taunting.

….but I fully agree about disliking the fact it’s an anonymous experience. Player names should be over their heads or otherwise easily identified.

However, under no circumstance should anyone from the other team be able to message me when either one of us is in WvW. Make it so ANet…

…but they won’t because there is no WvW team.

Xenesis.6389:

HabibLoew.2590:

Currently WvW uses the same skills as PvE, so PvP balance changes do not have an impact on WvW.

Really should start labeling changes on the patch notes as spvp changes rather than just pvp to avoid confusion.

This.

In addition, I would like to see some adjustments to WvW separate from PvE. I can already get 1-shot from some Thief builds. I imagine this will only worsen when the new ascended gear hits. Why didn’t these changes make it into WvW?

As of the November 15, 2012 patch, Phantasms must obey laws of attacking. They no longer spawn if the Mesmer is blinded, if the target is invulnerable, or if the target is out of direct line of sight. That’s fine — I guess (completely invalidates Mesmers on keep assaults in WvW, that’s for another topic).

However, now that Phantasms must obey the general rules of attacking, why weren’t weapon sigils allowed to affect phantasms in the process? It’s completely unfair that Phantasms only get the burdens associated with a direct attack without the benefits.

As the topic asks, do any of the class PvP changes apply to WvW? The patch notes did not specify sPvP, and I consider WvW to be part of PvP. For example, does Healing Ripple heal the same in WvW as it always has or is it suffering a 50% reduction? Does Cloak and Dagger suffer the same reduction in WvW as it does in sPvP? Etc.

If you find the jumping puzzle is camped, leave and try again in a couple hours or the next day. If you give the campers nothing to do, they will leave. Nobody does WvW to stand around and do nothing. If you let your frustration get the better of you, you’re in for a long night.

Calling the jumping puzzle in EB a PvE maze is laughably inaccurate. There are players in there, they will kill you, and yes it’s fun. Stop pretending that it’s not PvP if you can’t PvDoor. I’m grateful there is something to break up the flow of WvW every now and then.

chronus.1326:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

chronus.1326:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

This added layer of gear allows you to keep doing the things you have been doing and loved since launch.

Ellaborate. I don’t know how it has anything to do with things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5IUm-Dt60U
This is what we were doing in Guild Wars.

This is what you are doing in WoW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pceMK9Fxz3U

I don’t see the connection.
I think you were misinterpreting Guild Wars.
Guild Wars was a game about several different levels of fun. Not illusionarry carrot progress.

Your response to my post is nothing more than a few egregious red herrings. The only way this even relates to what I wrote is the fact that you quoted it.

But you did, however, ask me to elaborate on what fun things you have been doing in Guild Wars TWO since the beginning. You’ve been leveling up, gearing up, and exploring new content. This next patch adds more gear and more content. Sooner or later we’ll probably get more levels or pseudo-levels which constitute something of a soft-cap.

They never promised not to add new gear, and they most certainly never promised a complete lack of character progression post-80. If that was the case, I would have never bought this game. Who wants an MMO that’s all carrot and no stick? I was sold on the fact that it’s MORE carrot and LESS stick.

The funny thing is that you still don’t get it.

I don’t give a rat’s kitten about the gears. I was having the same gears through years in Guild Wars. I bought them once and kept them for years and only switched when I found a better-looking one. Gears are nothing but asthetics, parts of the “character” of your character.

Maybe you are clueless becaue you don’t know better. You don’t know anything but how to farm and grind and you have grown to like it already.

I think I can count on my ten fingers how many time I have farmed in Guild Wars. I didn1t need to. I was poor and I couldn’t afford Envoy weapons, but I never needed them and not having them didn’t make me worth any less than anyone, not even by 1%. I still did 35 out of my 50 point in HoM points, finished all four games, and completed my legendary skill hunter achivement, which was something that I was very proud of. And I have experienced and loved every… single…. aspect of the game.

So I’m sorry if your box-thinking can only allow you to see things in carrots and sticks, but the fact is that Guild Wars 2 was supposed to rescure you from that box instead of allowing you to compress it’s boundaries to the size of your box, if you get what I mean.

So I cannot blame you but I guess we can say that WoW forever doomed the mmo genre by simply existing.

I know it’s hard, but try to keep your ego out of this. You’ve now inferred that I am or ever was a WoW fan in both of your posts, then used that irrational springboard to make other (completely inaccurate) generalizations about the kind of player I am and how I lack the capacity to understand your “elevated thought processes.”

I go way, WAY back before WoW, I would dare infer my MMO roots are much deeper than yours.

Next, you’re talking about Guild Wars 1. In fact when you aren’t accusing me me of being a WoW fanatic, you’re telling me how GW2 should basically be a clone of GW1.

You really aren’t giving me an argument. You’re just trying to proclaim anyone who disagrees with you to be: 1) stupid or incapable of understanding you, 2) a WoW fan who doesn’t understand how MMOs can function differently, and 3) not up to your standards because they don’t want Guild Wars 2 to be Guild Wars 1.

Not only that, you didn’t address ANY of my points in my posts. You didn’t address my thoughts on progression post-80, how “looking cool” can be seen as insignificant, or how acquiring Ascended will somehow be so much more grindy than acquiring exotics.

MrDmajor.7084:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

I don’t understand where all this rage is coming from. Progression is very important in an MMO, but raid-style grinds are an awful way to go about it. I have a feeling ANet thinks the same way.

This added layer of gear allows you to keep doing the things you have been doing and loved since launch. I’m excited, my friends are excited. I just don’t get the rage. People fear change, I guess.

Everyone I have talked to in-game ranges from excited to indifferent about the Ascended armor. This makes me believe the extremely loud complaints are actually from an exceedingly small representation of the player-base. When people are satisfied with something, they generally don’t go out of their way to write about it.

Do you HONESTLY think people are against “progression” or the fact they would shoe horn a tier between Exotic & Legendary stats for no good reason after telling everyone “Exotics = Legendary stat wise… don’t worry”. You really really can not fathom why people would be a little miffed at being told one thing to entice purchase , then getting switched upon purchase?

Yes, I honestly believe the naysayers are clearly against character progression post-80 because they are attacking the very weakest form of it: minor stat increases via gear. More powerful forms of progression would be level soft-caps, unlockable skills post 80, additional weapon slots, etc. A few more stat points does almost nothing compared to the more dangerous alternatives I listed.

ANet’s data was clearly telling them “looking cool” isn’t as big of a draw as they had hoped — or that everyone just picks the one dungeon they want and that’s it. ANet is not going to add this new tier “for no reason.”

chronus.1326:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

This added layer of gear allows you to keep doing the things you have been doing and loved since launch.

Ellaborate. I don’t know how it has anything to do with things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5IUm-Dt60U
This is what we were doing in Guild Wars.

This is what you are doing in WoW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pceMK9Fxz3U

I don’t see the connection.
I think you were misinterpreting Guild Wars.
Guild Wars was a game about several different levels of fun. Not illusionarry carrot progress.

Your response to my post is nothing more than a few egregious red herrings. The only way this even relates to what I wrote is the fact that you quoted it.

But you did, however, ask me to elaborate on what fun things you have been doing in Guild Wars TWO since the beginning. You’ve been leveling up, gearing up, and exploring new content. This next patch adds more gear and more content. Sooner or later we’ll probably get more levels or pseudo-levels which constitute something of a soft-cap.

They never promised not to add new gear, and they most certainly never promised a complete lack of character progression post-80. If that was the case, I would have never bought this game. Who wants an MMO that’s all carrot and no stick? I was sold on the fact that it’s MORE carrot and LESS stick.

I don’t understand where all this rage is coming from. Progression is very important in an MMO, but raid-style grinds are an awful way to go about it. I have a feeling ANet thinks the same way.

This added layer of gear allows you to keep doing the things you have been doing and loved since launch. I’m excited, my friends are excited. I just don’t get the rage. People fear change, I guess.

Everyone I have talked to in-game ranges from excited to indifferent about the Ascended armor. This makes me believe the extremely loud complaints are actually from an exceedingly small representation of the player-base. When people are satisfied with something, they generally don’t go out of their way to write about it.

itawashii.4087:

What’s wrong with this kind of tactic? Tactic is tactic, easy deal. QQ more

If so easy deal people not use. You nub ah no skill haha cry for you server.

I have been playing MMOs off-and-on since 1997. I primarily love player-driven conflicts. As such, I really love WvW in Guild Wars 2.

I would like to say that I LOVE the idea of Ascended gear. It shouldn’t be too grindy, and it shouldn’t be significantly more powerful than exotics. However, gear progression in some form SHOULD exist — just don’t make me raid endlessly for it.

Giving players all “carrot” is not a good idea if you actually want them to “stick” around.

I know EXACTLY what the OP is talking about as I have had it happen more than a few times myself. Granted, getting insta-stomped is quite rare.

I will define instant-stomp as getting stomped by a player (jump-thrust animation plays) before your downed action bar appears. It’s like a double quickness buff, but we know quickness stacks only in duration.

It happens, it sucks. I don’t know if people are hacking (including latency manipulation i.e. lag hacking) or the server is lagging. One thing I can be certain is that my ping is VERY low at all times and I have a solid, stable connection to my ISP.

One thing I did not make clear as the OP is that I do not necessarily want to see everything I used as examples of potential things to come added to the game. I really was just throwing it out there in search of some answers from ANet. These are my personal opinions:

1) Bigger/more maps, YES PLEASE, especially bigger maps and more to do on them.

2) See above.

3) WvW dungeon? If it’s done EXTREMELY well and separate from current WvW zones.

4) WvW mini-dungeons? I wouldn’t mind seeing more of these, I like them.

5) rule changes/implements for imbalanced scores? I think score needs an overhaul and the current score should be for back-end server matching only.

6) WvW abilities associated with character ranks? Probably NOT a good idea unless purely fluff or VERY minor, then I would love it.

7) Changes to how players are identified in the field? Torn on this and therefore I don’t care either way.

8) WvW player ranking lists? I love the idea but agree it is individualistic. But I also think that’s not inherently a bad thing. There could be guild ranking too!

9) Integrate WvW with gem store more closely? Clearly this is something that would benefit ANet (and then benefit us with more WvW features) and should only be done in a way that does not provide players with unfair advantages and only if WvW isn’t generating enough interest in the gem store.

The WvW jumping puzzles are amazing and prove how different and fun WvW is when objective focus shifts. We need MORE stuff like this to further differentiate WvW from arena combat.

Also, in case you missed it (as it was one of your main points), WvW is not an arena-style game, though it does share superficial similarities. Allowing outside factors to be among the greatest influence in WvW (super siege) proves my point — at least I think it does. Jumping puzzles further illustrate how different WvW is intended to be.

You derailed my thread about WvW because I, in three words, briefly addressed the fact you made a logical fallacy while moving to my next point. You responded with four paragraphs of nothing related to this topic. My shortcoming was falling for your game of moving the discussion to something entirely different.

So to SAVE this thread and get the discussion back on track, I ask people of their opinions on additions to WvW, if ANet should say anything to us, or if they should add anything at all.

EDIT: Forgot to add the fact that WvW is not an arena because you can bring in as much siege as you can afford, including upgraded super siege. These are game-changers and are a prime example of how WvW is most certainly NOT an arena and NOT equal.

dirtyklingon.2918:

pretending my post has logical fallacies when your post is the opposite of logical is a logical fallacy.

also it’s unreasonable to expect people to be logical.

also logically, you should attempt to explore the full breadth of what is already offered before you start demanding more.

logically, countering arguments with little more than calling them a logical fallcy, with illogical 2ndaries, is illogical, and unreasonable.

/facepalm — I’m going to pretend this isn’t a troll and that you actually believe what you wrote.

1. I pointed out exactly what it was you said that is a fallacy. You want to know which fallacy? The WoW clone comment was of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Your other comment, suggesting that there should be no grind for WvW gear was simply ironic because there is a ton of grind in GW2, it’s just not nearly bad as other games — but it’s there.

2. I expect people to be logical, even though you told me I wasn’t being logical, then added that I shouldn’t expect people to….. be…. … (psst. that’s called a circular logic fallacy). Moving on…

3. I’m not “demanding” more now. I’m asking what, if anything, is in store for later, and if they would grace us with a sneak peek. There is a world of difference here (putting words in my mouth? That’s a strawman fallacy).

Narkosys.5173:

The thief sucks for WvW now that we have been nerfed into the ground and expect further nerfs till there is no thief class left.
So I run my engi which destroys everything and is in reality OP.

Mesmers and Warriors are also very good.

I’ve been playing Mesmer since beta, I’m quite good at it and best most any other Mesmer I come across. Tonight I saw a Thief on my team that put my Mesmer to complete shame.

If you want to be simultaneously unkillable and a killing machine, the clear choice is Thief. Mesmer or Elementalist is a distant second choice.

The highest ranked WvW servers have a ton of Thieves; coincidence?

If you give players all carrot and no stick, you will have many less hungry players. When people aren’t hungry, they don’t eat. If they don’t eat, they’re not buying food. If they’re not buying gems, ANet stops making money!

Next, you can’t compare a game of WvW that lasts an entire week to a game of LoL that doesn’t even last 1% as long. WvW is not an e-sport. It’s not fair, it’s not designed to be fair. You said it yourself, if you want fair, play sPvP. If WvW were also just as fair, it would cannibalize players from sPvP. There is plenty of reason to help out the underdog in WvW. There is plenty of reason to give more to do in WvW.

Another logical fallacy is to suggest that if WvW does add some sort of progress then it becomes a WoW clone. That doesn’t even make sense. There is a ton of progression in GW2. That’s the thing that makes you feel like you truly made your character into what it is.

Hard lines are drawn in a sporting arena. In a sandbox, you make your own lines. Personally, I don’t like playing inside the confines of pre-existing norms, and sometimes WvW lets me escape them — only to glue right back into place when needed.

Making the maps bigger, adding more to do, these things expand the arsenal of creativity in WvW. I think many of you would agree. If you didn’t, sPvP would probably satisfy you just fine..

So how about it ANet? Wha’cha got coming for us?

Yep, ANet needs to make WvW profitable or they’ll have no incentive to expand on it. Obviously, the idea of buying advantage would RUIN the game, so that’s not what I meant. For instance, consider the idea of adding WvW titles with small fluff and/or minor abilities. They could then pop the WvW rank boosters in the chests much like EXP. Everyone will get there eventually. Same concept.

Outside of that, let’s look at WvW map size. I can get anywhere on these maps within a few minutes. It makes death meaningless. It makes feint attacks meaningless. It basically limits your strategy to who can place trebs in the right spot first. I am of the mindset that says you should seriously consider the risk of marching deep into enemy territory. It shouldn’t be something you do every single day all the time.

Also, a WvW dungeon is not PvE. A PvE dungeon is PvE. I’m talking about a large-scale WvW dungeon, one that doesn’t fill up queues for the borderlands/battlegrounds. There is nothing wrong with mixing in a little PvE with WvW.

Also, I love the EB mini-dungeon. If you are in there griefing your own team, well, you’re allowed to ignore the irony here.

Seeing player names in the battlefield helps build rivalry. You might care about who you fight. Simply block (or allow the option to block) communication/mail from one server to another if either party is in WvW. That is quite easy to do since the framework is already in the game.

Removing the orbs did help to balance WvW, but not a lot. Barring some exception, most games are still decided in the first 24 to 48 hours. How about some other WvW objectives? For example, something like an orb that can change hands frequently, or something to buff your server outside of WvW, etc.

This really isn’t meant to be a suggestion thread, it’s meant to ask ANet what they are working on and I threw in some examples of things they could very well be doing, and I just asked them to throw a bone. We’ll see….

So we know ANet is looking to fix culling (player pop-in), and they plan on some super secret fix to alleviate queues (which their lack of new WvW content seems to be fixing for itself), but what actual additions or changes can we expect to WvW?

1) Will we ever get bigger or more WvW maps?
2) Will there be new goals for WvW outside of objective capping?
3) Can we expect a sprawling WvW dungeon?
4) Can we expect more WvW mini-dungeons?
5) Will we see some rule changes or implements that make being the winning team more difficult and the losing team more easily rectified?
6) Will there ever be special WvW abilities associated with character ranks?
7) Will we ever see changes to how players are identified in the field?
8) Will we ever have a WvW player ranking list based on a series of metrics (most healing, most kills, most assists, kill/death ratios, most trebuchet hits, most keeps captured, hero of the day, etc.)?
9) Will you implement other cosmetic, time-saving, or informational advantages to help make WvW profitable for ANet?

C’mon ANet, please throw us a bone for what’s to come…. a few bones even!

bot guild? o.O

…..

^ Whoa quite a lengthy argument for a segment of people who would get booted out of WvW anyway if they disconnected. If they died within 10 seconds of lagging out they probably had it coming.

In addition, if their Internet only flaked out for a second, they might be able to get back in before they were removed from WvW.

Really this seems like win/win ….assuming ANet ever does anything about it of course…

I understand that removing orbs in the short-term is a necessity. However, this sounds like a semi-permanent decision where something similar MAY come along in the future.

There needs to be more to WvW than just a simple war for arbitrary territory that provides no incentive, advantage, or reason to hold it outside of it simply being there.

While orbs were an acceptable mechanic in the early stages of GW2’s WvW lifecycle, many players are expecting an evolution beyond the orbs. Simply taking them away in the long-term without working on something bigger and better to replace them is going to drive a lot of players, including myself, to become bored with WvW at an accelerated rate.

It is obvious to me that WvW is the most popular of GW2’s features. This doesn’t surprise me at all, but it seems to have surprised ANet. I have seen sPvP servers completely empty but still a healthy population of WvW players in the wee hours of the morniing.

There needs to be a statement of intent for WvW. What are you working on? Can we expect big changes and additions to WvW? Please let us players know. I see these kinds of announcements for sPvP, such as for upcoming paid tournaments and guild arenas. What is coming up for WvW outside of resolving player queue times and removing orbs (in other words just fixing or outright removing things that are broken)?

Turtling shouldn’t NEED a counter. It should be ineffective by its very description: “Everyone stack tightly in the same space.” That should NEVER be a good idea in WvW. It shouldn’t even be possible, but technical limitations need to allow it, so at least make it something zergs do if they want to die, not win.

Anyone who actually defends the use of this tactic has no concept of good game design (or sportsmanship) whatsoever.

…As for portals, just limit its utility such as:
1) Apply a debuff (as someone mentioned) when they use a portal which prohibits them from using another portal for 45 seconds. Or…
2) Allow a portal to carry only up to 10 players before it closes.

This seems to have been moved to the Suggestions sub-forum where no one will read it. Oh well, I’m pretty sure these issues are shared by just about everyone who plays WvW.

Spawn camping is just a symptom of other WvW imbalances.

ALT-F4 requires relaunching the game. That’s not really worth it. Pressing ESCAPE and clicking log out -> character select is very, VERY worth it. It’s actually one of the very few tactics that works against getting rofflestomped by a winning team. After all, they probably have queues, and the losing team probably doesn’t. You’re only out of the game for a few seconds. There are some utterly cheesy tactics out there, this is just another one.

This should obviously be fixed, but done so after some WvW balance changes are implemented.

WvW was great fun for awhile until so many issues were unearthed and never addressed. These issues are removing the charm from WvW and need fixing ASAP:

1. Free server transfers must be disabled AND 1 to 2 week suspension from WvW for paid x-fers needs implementing.
2. Culling issues need significant improvement. Players should always be visible at max range or very close to it.
3. Orb hacking and other 3rd party exploits need to be stopped (far camera zoom, teleport, etc).
4. Additional means for a losing team to make a comeback need to be implemented. There are countless ways to achieve this.
5. Player stacking must become a detriment, not a viable tactic to counter AoE.
6. Mesmer portals need retooling to limit their extreme effectiveness in WvW (i.e. portal placement can trivialize traveling in the already small WvW zones).

In addition, the following should be added to further expand on the WvW conflict, not just fix its current issues:

1. Larger maps to increase sense of WvW scope and help to dissuade the zerg mentality.
2. WvW dungeon that helps to constantly fluctuate WvW populations on all three servers
3. PvE rewards for WvW success.
4. Incentivize smaller forces in battle.