Guild Wars 2

Regrets of Sini.6083:

tPvP gets attention proportional to participation.

I disagree, it isn’t that lack of participation is causing Anet to focus less resources to PvP, it’s that less focused Arena resources from launch have led to lack of participation.

Examples would include the time taken to bug fix pvp issues to things like new content for PvPers and the free transfer mechanism (which was kept in place for pve reasons but had a huge detrimental effect on WvW)

nerva.7940:

u guys need to chill out and be patient. many good SPVP additions are coming over the next few months. im pretty sure they understand how important SPVP is for the game. balancing, ladder, and obs mode on their own can hugely improve the experience. and all those things are in the works.

What is the source of your timelines? Nothing that extensive has been promised “over the next few months”.

The point by the OP is well written. I too feel the same and I had thought that GW2 would be that MMO. But after launch the focus seemed to be PVE… I still don’t understand… from extra content, to free transfers that messed up WvW, to very limited additions to Tpvp (paid – which has very long queue times because noone plays it).

Most of my RL friends have stopped playing. Overall comments – fun pve but limited in content type, WvW had issues, Tpvp was not fun due to a lack of a ranking system.

I am shocked by the Dev response in this thread. There does not seem to be any acknowledgement of the excellent points made in Pray’s post. You should realise that the folks posting care for the game, they would not post if they didn’t…. a lot of peeps, (e.g. 5/7 RL friends) have just stopped playing without a post.

Since GW2 is not sub based you don’t have the automatic feedback that comes from cancelled subs but I am sure your Tpvp population statistics would prove that less people are playing.

I would advise that Anet do not further alienate supporters by making very limited posts that also suggest they do know understand or care about the problems highlighted.

The biggest issue i see is that without leagues or a ranking system, new or casual groups get stomped hard and give up trying. There needs to be progression in PvP… fair enough they made a non-gear based progression game, but since it’s skill based, you need to focus on help folks get matched with similarly skilled people. Paid and Free is too simple and with the current paid structure does not work.

I dont understand why Anet feel that PVE will make them successful.. other games give more content to PVE focused players. GW2 was always about the PvP and how finally we were going to get a PvP focused game. But look at how little has changed for PvP since launch compared to constant stream of content in PVE.

A bad decision in my opinion.

Paid structure if making the hardcore tpvp teams farm for tournament tickets thereby taking away one of the things that Anet was saying… that it would help separate hardcore teams from a lot of noob tpvp players.

A ranking system is sorely needed. As it stands, it just discourages new or casual tpvp groups.

It would help if they would direct free transfers to servers that actually need them instead of to any server.

Free transfers are a problem. I’ve been posting about this since the first week. Until now servers like HoD have not experienced the problem as much. But as soon as folks get a whiff that the top dog is going down, they will jump ship fast and for free. Anet really need to close free transfers down for the health of all WvW.

Anet – Forget night capping, what are you doing about helping low pop realms?

- Any plans for the outmanned buff to be an actual asset to lower population?
- When are you removing free transfers, which currently lead to a migration to the winning server?
- When are you fixing guild transfers so rep isn’t lost?

etsmith.9025:

what most aren’t realizing is effecting the scoring eventually will become a double edged sword. at some point YOUR server will be the “nightcappers” and will have limited returns on your scoring.

That’s fine, it’s all about mechanics that encourage the greatest number of players to play… thereby a win for us all. Right now, folks are giving up with WvW after a night capping run or due to pop imbalance. Either they disengage from the game or they add to queues on Winning servers. An imbalance is being fed.

Reasons :

1. Server transfers are locked for 24hours – so the period for WvW should also be 24hours to prevent exploits and server population movements to the winning side.

2. With 24hour matches, pop imbalance and night capping isn’t so much of an issue. Matchups change all the time and organized servers will do well on the weekends.

Everyone should just transfer to HoD or another server with heavy oceanic presence so they won’t have to face the night capping issue. Apparently, PVE’ing doors is fair for points in a PVP setting. There are constructive ways like boosting night guards and boosting the “outmanned” buff that can help the realms with lower night pops so they dont get steamrolled at night, and give up the next day during the prime time hours. I am very disappointed that Anet are not even considering any help for low pop realms

Arkaini.6247:

But it wasnt just our so called “NightCappers” who took everything, we had things on the up n going before they come on.

So I recall reading a post with a screenshot from the match on Sunday night and in it, after a weekend of fighting, HoD were like 40k? behind the leader in 3rd place. So, that was all part of the plan then. Nice, lull them into a false sense of security

@Draygo – the issue with Kaineng and Devona’s isn’t night capping, even during primetime Borlis built up a huge lead…. overall your servers are severely underpopulated.

And this thread wasn’t trolling, I was just pointing out that currently free transfers allow you to move to a server with high off-peak presence, in the event that night capping is something that upsets you.

Anet have said that the player base should disperse but still allow free transfers to high pop/winning servers and they do not provide any incentives for folks or guilds to move (and in fact guilds lose out on influence so actually its a disincentive).

Eivene.9127:

Like others have said, EVE players did this. They got organized and they pulled it off. I see no reason for us not to be able to do the same.

Isn’t EVE on one server? I don’t get why Anet have specified different regions for their servers if they actually intended everyone to just play together regardless of where they are from.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

I really just want hotjoin to be 5v5. You can still have 8v8s just give us 5v5 hotjoin servers too. It will also better prepare people for the size and scale of tourny matches before they go in and be more competitive. Im sure tons of servers have empty hotjoins… just make 1/2 5v5 and 1/2 8v8

Agreed, at minimum two hot join options… one 8v8 for total noobs, one 5v5 for tournament practice. 8v8 on 5v5 maps is silly.

Still no word on PVP plans.

Free transfers. That’s right, if being night capped on or being dominated due to imbalance is really upsetting you… just transfer to a server like HoD that has a good population 24/7.

Until Anet implements some incentive to transferring to lower pop servers and removes the bug that takes away guild influence AND removes free transfers to high pop/winning realms, the only way to deal with any WvW issues is to use the one tool that they have put in place. Transfer your troubles away

As for me, I enjoy being on an underdog server like Borlis Pass, but I’m facing the reality that we currently have and I am tired of all the QQ on these forums. Your QQ maybe valid, but Anet isn’t focused on PVP atm.

Krakah.3582:

The server imbalance could be easily fixed with incentives for players to jump ship to lower ranked servers. More karma/tokens buff for moving to the under dog server? There’s a lot of options ANET has not taken to resolve the server PvP pop balance.

THis, this this. Why Anet is not doing anything I do not know? Some of these like incentives to transfer to lower pop realms are logic, not something that need data.

Check out Dev Tracker and look at the long list of dev responses on PVE related matters within the past month. Look at the patches and see where PVP improvements have been implemented.

PVE in this game is not enough to keep PVErs satisfied (no gear treadmill, raids etc), imo they will be leaving anyway… so it baffles me why Anet are not giving the same level of attention to their core player crowd… PVPers.

Kracin.6078:

come on, lets face it, we are in a world where it is much easier for people to find loopholes in programming… as the programming becomes more complex, and brand new systems are developed for things…. new exploits and hacks are found and have to be dealt with.

obviously a net doesnt want anyone cheating in WvW.. this doesn’t get them ANY money… unlike blizzard and D3 where they profit from cheaters who sell tons of items.

Anet wants to keep player base because that is who supplies their money, consistent play.

just give them some room. they are a small team working on huge things. and i have faith they will get to it as soon as they can, and the other 500 things people want including updates and new content items as well

Why are they focusing on PVE so much though? That’s where I feel their focus is right now but I just don’t understand – they are so inactive on the pvp forums and no word any significant PVP changes. What are they doing to balance server pops? Free transfers to high pop servers are still up.

It’s funny that HoD complained about ET and SBI ganging up on them, when it was obviously a valid strat and the whole point of 3 way warfare to take out the top dog.

And now no more complaints about that, and instead just defending their point accumulation through night time PVE. Obviously WvW is 24 hour and so Hod’s strat is also valid…. but overall, i do feel that PVE points cheapen WvW as a whole.

I wonder how many weeks Hod’s night crew will keep winning before other servers just stop playing or more players transfer over. I don’t see nigh wins as being very sustainable… folks say that night crew servers will get match with each other, but what if there’s only one server with the majority of the NA night population? Doesn’t sound like fun times.

Totally agree with the poster above. Anet need to provide PVP feedback on what they see as a problem and plans for both WvW and Spvp. Everyday, there is huge Anet activitiy in PVE related forums… and yet nothing in the two PVP ones. Why are you sinking your own ship? Most your PVE focused players are gonna jump to other MMOs anyway.

Angelus.1042:

GW2 = Lets focus on PVE and Zerg V Zerg which gets boring after a few days (WvW) and forget about the real PVP.

There are issues in WvW that are not being addressed either. I think the patch yesterday was mainly devoted to PVE, with only one line PVP related… I just don’t understand it… GW2 seemed to be a pvp focused MMO with pve added on. And Anet are treating it like it’s the other way round?

For example, free server transfers are badly affecting WvW populations… but they are keeping them in because PVE guesting is not yet up… it’s like they have made a decision that most of their customers are doing PVE and they need to address that first.

Spvp and WvW needs Anet feedback. It’s been a month since launch and everything thus far seems to be very PVE focused in terms of their priorities.

Rebound.3409:

- For the server that has low population in WvW and have trouble keeping up, popup a message for the local spider-farming folk asking them if they want to join wvw to help

- Player X Y and Z should have the same amount of slots available to join WvW. Right now i have a very vague feeling it isn’t like that. Let’s say i am from server Z and even coordinating ppl, i see a ton of X and Y players… When players try to join and try to make our odds equal…a big “que message” appears…which tells me X and Y took our spots. Limits have to be imposed.

- Start matching up servers NOT ONLY on score but also on daytime/nighttime pressance AND WvW active population overall…otherwise u will always have 1 sever exterminating 2.

Right now WvW is not fun and in time discourages anyone to play. Either the map is empty because u win everything and u are limited to random supply skirmishes or puzzles OR u get stomped and let’s be serious…. I won’t waste time in a game that should be leasure/fun but instead getting stomped 10 to 1, or bored because the map is empty. I prefer exiting the game and playing something else.

Haha, that would be awesome… a pvp window opening up in PVE to bring folks into WvW!

Please stop the QQ about being 2v1’ed…. that’s the whole point of 3 faction warfare… take it as a compliment that the other two realms both see HoD as the greatest threat.

Anyway, what’s the current score?

They can also help low pop realms with a bigger outmanned buff (which is currently useless).

I just don’t get it. GW2 has a massive PVP population… it beats other MMOs in that category, and yet they are compromising the PVP experience for PVE guesting reasons????

Is there any ETA on when that stupid guesting mechanism is going to be implemented so that it stops affecting population jumping due to losing?

Artermiz – just explain to me how bashing down a door and killing an NPC with no opposing players in the vicinity = PVP?

If you haven’t tried to take a keep or fort full of defenders then you aren’t doing PVP, you’re doing PVE.

Kiviar.7063:

As it stands now the second someone gets a population advantage they win, that is it. I could have told you yesterday when the queue population figures were out that N Shiver were going to dominate this round, because they have on average 30 more people on than Anvil does.

That’s a great point. If a server is being totally outmanned, making each player on the smaller force hit harder and last longer will keep the pvp flowing.

I’m on Borlis Pass (currently ranked 3rd lowest in WvW).

Goal – have as many competitive games as possible, with close matches for added tension, strategy and wvw fun.

My suggestions…

- Disable free transfer to High pop servers.
- Add an incentive for transferring to the lower pop servers and highlight them as “Recommended” servers on char creation to funnel new players there.
- Fix it so Guild rep is not lost on transfer.
- If a player transfers, they should be locked out of WvW for the duration of the match (I believe this was mentioned as something Anet was going to do in beta. Right now, this is causing folks to transfer to winning servers for the benefits of owning up the WvW area.)
- Switch Outmanned and Orb buffs so spawn camping doesn’t take place.

Free transfers while these week long games are going on are killing the servers that are getting stomped, why put up with a week of getting stomped when you can simply transfer off? Anet is keeping up transfers for PVE reasons… very bad move.

The PVE Night Warriors strike again! LOL

Any server that wins because of a night crew aren’t pvp’ers. There should be a separate list tracking the real pvp skilled servers.

Free transfers are really bad for these servers like Borlis in the bottom half of the table when put in conjunction with 1 week games.

As for why we dont build siege, Ehmry’s numbers always guarantee at least one force that is taking the camps in numbers while the others are roaming. Folks dont want to waste money on siege since it probably won’t get built in time before the zerg rolls in and also because even if a keep or fort is upgraded and sieged up, the night population is so low EB caps everything before the next day’s main group gets on.

In short, it was a stupid matchup as over half the WvW matchups have proven to be (doubly stupid because free transfers were not brought down when they began).

I see a lot of bottom tier servers emptying out with free transfers this upcoming week. Another week of being camped outside of spawn is not fun, and its even worse if part of the reason is because folks are free transferring off.

It takes a lot of skill taking on Doors and winning. And it’s great that the needs of a few off-peak players and randoms from around the world are setting the skilled servers apart from the crap servers. Pvp skill is all in how many real players you avoid when you play.

Free transfers are bleeding a lot of the servers that aren’t winning. Anet are keeping free transfers up for Pve reasons and frankly it’skitten

Nice try, but if you care about WvW, I would actually suggest u just transfer off like half the population have already done… and while it’s still free.

They announced that they are limiting free transfers to 24h but that still doesn’t help a server like Borlis that has a low population. If the next matchup is as bad as this past week, expect a ghost town.

Queues are bad because winning servers are being flooded with free transfers. If you want to get your whole guild in, you should transfer to a low pop server. And who cares about guild xp and such, it’s only been 3 weeks… if you intended to play for at least a year, 3 weeks is nothing.

Totally agree. Right now we got server switching due to losing (feeding a cycle of worsening decline for low WvW pop servers) and also on the competitive/high rated servers there is spying going on.

I think they are keeping free transfers open until they implement guesting. If this is the case then I am really astounded… because their main feature is PvP not PvE… if they are making gameplay decisions based on Pve… that is a really bad move IMO… and biggest misstep I have seen them do.

Respekt from borlis haha

2 sides being camped at spawn by one side means something is not working out properly. As i’ve mentioned in other posts, i’ve seen a couple of peeps jump ship because transfers are super easy and free.

Yeah if you are bored, free transfer to a server that is doing badly.

I’m on Borlis Pass also. I feel your pain.
1) Free server transfers have sent two peeps i know elsewhere for more competitive WvW.
2) Outmanned buff does nothing to help.

Having said that, I find dominating WvW to be boring and i transferred here two weeks back from a server where the queue time was over an hour sometimes.

I would like a close game in WvW with tension and map level strategy. I’m not sure what Anet are going to do to help servers like ours

Nick.3926:

It sucks that the system is working for you guys, but I think it has more to do with the players then the actual system.

I’m on Stormbluff and we are against the #1 and #2 servers and it looks as balanced as I could possibly hope. http://i.imgur.com/TbfH2.jpg

I dont understand though out of a match between the 3 worst servers how one could dominate the others so hard unless those 2 servers have severe pop issues, which then it’s not the WvWvW systems fault, but a fault of those 2 servers.

As time goes on though, the matches should become more evenly balanced. As of right now they only have a little bit of information to base the rankings off of, but as more matches are played and won/loss the likelihood of having an evenly performing opponent will only increase.

The problem is that folks are transferring off the servers that are doing badly compounding the WvW issues… Anet is letting them get an easy free quick transfer.

Guys pointing the fingers at players are naiive about human behaviour. Right now free transfers exist to servers that are already overpopulated. Right now one week games are active, and if you want to get some competitive WvW then you are more likely to transfer.

Anet wishing that the playerbase disperses needs to be backed up with action. Right now the outmanned buff is pointless, free transfers to high pop servers are still up, and servers have been matched with what looks like a disregard for their own ranking list.

Totally agree with the points the OP has made. Not happy about Anet silence on this though.

Helheimr.2485:

There’s another issue with it; if you die you don’t respawn with the buff and have to leave the battleground and re-join it in order to have it active again.

Yeah they need to fix this and buff the buff… right now it doesnt make any difference if your team is being camped at the spawn… at the very least it should help break out of the spawn area.

Honestly, i’m not sure what is going on over at Anet over the free transfer issue. Free transfers to already high pop servers should be closed. If you want to go there, u should pay.

If this is about Guesting not being implemented yet… then wow, really wow cos that would be Anet catering for PVE reasons when WvW is what is going to keep peeps playing.