Guild Wars 2

I am playing @vabbi, and i have to admit, that current situation totaly sucks.

We are medium, closer to low population server and we may have even during the prime time "
the “outmanned” buff. Without even speaking of night. This leaves us no chanses when we are put together with high population servers. Worst in this is that we are having no fun of playing during our prime time sometimes – all your motivation is gone, when u see the scores, then u enter the battleground and see full battleground of fully upgraded towers/keeps etc and rest of motivation is gone.

My thoughts of fixing this situation probably are same with many other people:

Give us normal outmanned buff, not those useless magic find bonuses. Also, it could be possible to create “Overhelming” buff for enemies, which would weaken them and reduce supply and point incomes.

Also, i think that floating value for max. players at the map, which would not let player differences at the map between servers no more then 10% would be just amazing idea to realize. It would easy do 90% of balancing, would bring skill, not zerg factor to winning wvw, and would motivate high populated servers to transfer for lower populations.

MidnightSun.7964:

A lot of the opinions you’re drawing about this game come from aspects of WoW that you seem to enjoy. That’s all fine and well, but you have to remember that this isn’t WoW. I can agree with you on some aspects of the end game in GW2, but on others I totally disagree. You have to look for what motivates you to continue to play the game. If GW2 doesn’t have what you are looking for then the bright side is that you don’t have to pay any more money, and you can always come back free of charge. To each their own, so I hope you find game that suits your style.

Game promotions were disleading.
Elder dragons, who appeared to be chickens.
World Versus World, from creators of Lineage2 – NCsoft, appeared to be a sandbox for kids.

If I’d knew this from start – i think, I wouldnt buy the game. Still, i like dynamics events, graphics, artworks, but level-design spoils evertything.
Bright side that there is EVE online left yet, guess ill have some fun there

Seraskus, if castle does not gives points for victory itself, you do not have to stand and fear nearby – you just avoid castles. As it should be. Castles should be epic. They should be sieged only if there is no other options to advance further.

And you really dont have to think and plan a alot here – you just have to analyze, what is the server prime time, enter with 20man per map right after 90% of prime time players go to sleep, and recapture all map. And you will win. Easy

Wraith, i cant imagine, how you are able to enjoy tournament spvp/spvp if you had played seriously arenas in wow. At all if you had played wow BG’s. I dont talk about wow equipment grinding etc, im speaking only about level design – how terrain and mechanics of battleground are made.
Same, I cant imagine, how you are able to enjoy wvw if you had really played L2 sieges seriously (not speaking about equip grinding, again).

I suppose, you probably just didnt played these games when they were on top of their popularity(for me at least), till about year 2007.

What is worth 10% of crafting crit, if I can collect full exotic set in 1 month, and after that I dont need to craft anything at all? I’d say it’s zero motivation, for me.

Had you played L2? Castle sieges there where also reapeating event, but it was epic and fun, just because it was not casual event.

Im not saying they should be 1 per month event, I’m saying they shouldn’t be as casual as they are, that 10 man in 10 minutes can capture tower. I’d like to feel a bit “epic”, when my guild suceed to capture even small tower, not to feel that tomorrow(or even after 10 minutes, if we leave it) this tower will be already recaptured, just because itself it has no power – we leave wvw and after 10 minutes it may be recaptured.
After all, i play WvW because of mass PvP, not because I like to destroy walls with trebuchet. And I remember, that even L2 with it’s completley old mechanics, with almost no normal siege weapons had really fun mass pvp. Simple example is that after gates was broken, first priority was to finish defenders, not to go and reclaim castle, as it is in Gw2. Why is it so? The answer is in game mechanics, L2 sieges were more epic and non casual.

And I’m not saying anet has to take and copy AV or whatever – take best from there. I had spent alot of nights on classics WOW AV, it was very good and fun battleground. It had very good aspects, which could be taken from there.

I know how to play these maps, mate, but I dont like this way – I call it “Player vs Terrain” because it makes you more problems than players do.
I am able to play good and win myself by using over9000 out-of-line-of-sights, but I don’t like it, i really think pvp should have something more connected with face-to-face combat.

When I say wvw map is complicated, i mean some ridiculous alps, useless lake in center of the map, over9000 fortifications on small land square.. there is simply left no space to have good, fair face-to-face combat. There is simply no 10.000 square yards of plain field for good battleground army-vs-army. You either defend keep, either siege it. Because they take all the space.

And about learning from WoW and L2 – these game were played by generations of gamers just because their PvP levels are very good designed, GW2 does not yet. That’s why anet has to learn and take solutions from there. Because, some things are classics and you just can’t make them better. Its like Ohm’s law in physics – you have to take it as it is.

About explorable modes: I did few. Cant say they are easy, but they are not challenging. These are two different words, you know – hard and challenging.
I dont know how about you guys, but I am excited to do some progress in the game, it should have a target, like to kill some big bad dragon named Zaithan, or whatever. Its not about the rewards, its about target. It’s not challenge for me to make explorable mode. I know I can. Its challenge to spend some month preparing for some grand event.
There is no challenge to go explorable mode dungeons, since I finished last PvE encounter in the game(And Zaithan definitely was positioned this way). There would be a challenge, if it would be on my way to last pve encounter.

Story modes are piece of cake, they are so easy, that they became boring after first 10 minutes. Our party was just #$%ing amazed by that you kill final PvE boss with spamming “1” button with cannon, and you even have no options to lose.
And I even won’t comment option of running from waypoint back to encounter, if you got defeated. It’s just nonsense.

Speaking of wvw – i am in a highly organized guild with over 200 members, we had some very organized(siege weapons, team speak, squad, tactics etc) and serious wvw against other pretty organized servers and it was boring. Yes, it may be exciting first day, but on the second day, when it repeats, its not.
Its boring just because comes to sieging walls and gates, anyway. And if enemy overhelms – you just run fast back to your fortifications and start to shoot with canons. Then prime time is over, and random PUG’s recapture all our progress…

Also I did tried sPvP, tournaments also. They are bad level-designed, too small team sizes for such big maps. They are about terrain fights, control points. Not about player fighting. But, you will probably not understand, if you havent really played seriously arena or oldschool battlegrounds in WoW

And this is not only my feeling, we’ve discussed all last evening at teamspeak with friends this theme, and everyone agrees me..

WvW:
You should redesign it completely. First of all, WvW should be somehow motivating to win.
For example, some big and tasty PvE world bosses could be unlocked only when your server collects some wvw point amount, and, for example, this point amount resets monthly, so you really have more motivation, than getting “+10% something”.

Second is same as it was at sPvP – map is too complicated, at least most of it should be battleground, not battle in the Alps. Study from Lineage2 castles. Study from WoW oldschool alterac valley.

Players should play war there, not “Siege the gates” game.
Level designers should read some history books describing fortifications – keeps, castles etc, to understand where and what for they were built. When I’m playing at WvW, I can clearly see, that level designers did not understand fortification mechanics.

I’ll just give some ideas here, that your level designers are missing -

• Fortifications shouldn’t give you victory points. Fortifications are for protecting key locations and supply spots, which could give you victory points. Points for victory should be collected via things, which for this war is started – resources, or some magical artifacts, or just % of terrain controlled,

• Fortifications should be constructed in the places, where no other fortification weapons could reach them. They should give you strategically map advantage. All terrain around the fortification should be either impossible to walk, either it should be plain, easy for targeting terrain.

• Game shouldn’t be about sieging the keeps 24/7 – it’s fun only when its uncommon. This is why fortifications should have better protection, sieging it should be a grand event, which would take couple days, and, therefore, fortifications would be recaptured during two week period only few times, even if they are in the key positions. In contrast, currently fortifications are being recaptured like 10 times per 24h, I suppose. Can you imagine this in real? It’s nonsense!

• Instead of now, when it looks like “oh, we are losing, lets retreat to that tower”, the game should push armies to have big face-to-face field combats, where is no nearby fortifications for retreat. Fight or die.

What would I suggest you to do, to make WvW better:

• Maps are redesigned, main part in the maps should be more or less flat. Maybe rivers, but not huge useless lakes. Remove vast of idiotic Alps.

• Fortifications do not give you any points. Points are being collected only trough controlling terrain %(which is the land separated from enemy with your armies and fortifications) and resources.

• NPC functions and powers are improved for using them during non prime time.

• All fortifications are removed from the map. Guilds can build their own fortifications on locations they want, same as it happens with arrow cart construction, but requiring vast more time and resources.
• Complete construction could take few days, while some of fortification functions could be used while construction is in progress. No two fortifications nearby. It could like “next fortification no closer, than 3x trebuchet range for tower, 4x for keep and 5x for castle”.
• Fortifications are way harder to capture, destroying gates and walls should take vast more time, hours or days, but repairing them also should be very hard, especially, when under attack.
• Collecting points from WvW should unlock something very tasty for players, as I suggested – unlock grand pve world event for server.
PvE:
Just make it Epic, Challenging and hard. We want raids, wipes, and realy hard to complete events. I think your over spammed about casualty of PvE already, so I won’t repeat write a lot here.

I understand, that there is low chances, to see these changes, just because “$%^&” already “happened”, but I hope this will help to make some improvements, also I hope to see other player replies here!

I’ll separate this into 3 parts – sPvP, WvW, PvE, since all three of them are disappointing. If A.net really want to make this game be fun, good and attractive, then you will definitely have to redesign all these 3 game aspects. I for each theme, i’ll first describe, what I do not like, then what is the concept problem and then, what are my direct suggestions to fix concept, so I’d like discussed game content.

First suggestion, which is common for both, PvP and PvE – change, or modify your level designer team. Get people who had experience playing at least Lineage2 and WoW. These two games has really stuff to learn from them.
If you don’t understand, why do people play Lineage2 for years, and why did WoW arena & battlegrounds(AV, WSG, AB oldschool battlegrounds, of course) had success – you won’t be able to make good neither WvW, nor sPvP.

sPvP redesign suggestion:
sPvP maps are too complicated and team size unbalanced with map size. That is what i do not like in sPvP.
At the pvp, players should fight other players, not the terrain. Watch and find differences between sPvP and Arenas & Battlegrounds at WoW. Differences are that arenas’n’BG’s are very simple in level design way, while they also suggest players a lot of “out of sight” spots. They are easy to learn, they are really “battlegrounds” not “battle labyrinths”.
Also, they are designed for appropriate player amount. Current maps in sPvP should have at least 15 man per team, i’d say, and tournament sPvP makes you to play 5 man at map, which should be played with 15. I hadn’t seen any real pvp while played tournaments. Sad.

I don’t ask you to copy arenas and battlegrounds, but this stuff in the wow is something what is played for years, because its good and you must take best from it, in order to do something better.
Redesign battlegrounds, remove details and labyrinths, PvP there is main, not artworks, or terrain, or capturing points. It should be about being able to “PvP good”, not “keep yourkitten on the capture point and survive”

Sorry my English, fixed that

Alot of people hadn’t played the first part, they want other stuff in the game, like raiding etc

Also, GW2 pvp isn’t the best i’ve seen in mmo…

I demand Guild wars 2 with hardcore mode and inferno difficulty:D

Writing this post right after completion of personal story. Actually, same reaction as mine felt all my party members after slaying Zaithan, so I will try to write on behalf of them also.

What I’d like to say, is that GW2 is good, but, far from making me want to continue play it. Why?

Because there is no challenging content for me.
Whole game story is spinning around great and terrible elder dragon Zaithan, and what we were expecting IN THE WORST CASE – is that Zaithan will be very tough world event with alot of wipes, exciting mechanics and challenging at least somehow.

What it really appeared to be? Boring 5 man event with very good art designers work and completely no challenge, it was like 5% harder, than to kill a rabbit.

You probably will say, that there are explorable modes for PVE challenges.

Well, first of all – everything should have a target. I am not interested in any of these dungeons after I’ve completed FINAL game boss. It’s done, PVE is completed. They could be exciting, if they would be on my way for completing the game.

Second is that 5 man dungeons are not exciting just because they are too small.

You will probably say, that then I should go to free world pve bosses, but they are just simple zerg span’n’tank, no really serious challenge, neither serious reason “why” to kill them.

Speaking of PVP -

WvW is awesome idea which is total fail in reality.
First of all – there are no real target in wvw. Keeps aren’t real “guild halls”, they don’t give any bonuses to the guilds owning them, WvW dominating itself doesn’t gives any real bonuses.
Second is that it should be MASS PVP, instead of which it is online massive SIEGE THE GATE game. nothing more. I don’t know.. I’m not feeling excited to siege the keep if I know that:
a) it won’t give me any real bonuses
b) I know it will be recaptured after my guild prime time is out.
c) All this will repeat tomorrow

I have a feeling, that game designers should be people, who at least have played and understand mechanics of “WHY” oldschool wow Alterac Valley and oldcshool lineage2 sieges were AMAZING AND COOL. Then they will understand, why current GW2 wvw – sucks.

I’ve wrote a lot of critics for now. Not like i’d like to say GW2 is bad, but entire endgame disappointed me completely.

How I think it should look?

I’d say you had to make PVE harder, challenging, WVW should have motivation, it could be connected with PVE, for example, it could be that Zaithan pve event could be opened only if your server had collected enough WVW points which would reset every month, so you would really have to collect points and fight for domination. Sieging any keep should be a grand event, very hard and time requesting, it should be big victory to capture keep, may be couple days long, so during 2weeks period, keeps could be recaptured only some few times, not like over9000 owners over the week. I’d even say, this game would be amazing, if you would had to build these keeps first, same as you build arrow cart, you’d had to bring the supplies and build the keep, then defend it etc. This would be fun, this would be challenging. It would make keeps more valuable, it would make game more exciting..

Anyway, I hope Anet will read this, I hope other players will also reply here with their ideas and feedback..

Best Regards

Fulcrum Ex
Lvl80 asura engineer
Savior of Tyria
Vabbi EU