Guild Wars 2

Nope

Why?

Because getting a winning or losing score doesnt matter to me one bit. A difference of 1-3% of a buff to things isnt worth me caring about if my realm wins or loses. Not after 2 years of playing WvW.

Maybe if they made winning something I actually cared about, id be more concerned about score gaps and night capping. But since its not, they are at the bottom of my list of improvements to WvW that are needed.

Make the gameplay better, before you worry about keeping score.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Have to admit I love the concept of all representing guild members receiving a notice in the chat window when the WvW objective they’ve claimed is under attack.

but.. sometimes they just keeping getting pinged all day and I realize how annoying that could be. Maybe make it a separate chat channel.. ‘guild distress call’ or something along those lines.

yup, i suggested that in my post I figured it would be a an annoyance to some, so always make sure to have the option to disable things that bother people.

Another thing they could do to keep the “spam” down, would be to make it so that alerts couldnt happen more than once every 5 minutes. That way if a door was taken down to 50%, got repaired to 60%, then taken down again, it wouldnt send out a 2nd alert.

The concept is just to give the guild a quick heads up, a “look here”. Not a play by play announcement of whats going on.

scootshoot.6583:

Do you know how to code cause I wager changes of this nature will be a huge timesink.

Go learn C++ and send your resume to Anet.

Yes, how foolish of me, to suggest changes that require a development company, to you know, devolop something.

And fyi, I do code, for a living in fact. Im quite happy with my job. Im also quite aware of the reality that getting a job in the game industry is pretty rare due to the number of people trying to get in and the ridgid requirements to get in.

Anyway, timesinks arent bad, if the time you are investing is something that ultimately makes something better. Everything takes time. This is kind of an “er duh” thing. Looks like you are just used to the devs saying “programming is hard mmmmkay” as their excuse to why things arent progressing forward very quickly.

As Ive said in other posts, its nothing to do with how hard programming is. It has everything to do with priority. WvW is not a priority for them. Things that arent a priority, get fewer resources. Fewer resources means things taking forever, or often times, never getting worked on at all.

Still, thats not gonna stop me from suggesting a concept that I feel will enhance the depth of WvW gameplay.

I dont mean time investments. Tons of guilds already invest a lot of time into WvW. I also dont mean guilds spending money on siege, and repair costs.

What Im specifically refering to is guilds being able to spend a type of resource (doesnt have to be gold, in fact, probably best if its not gold), into elements of WvW, to help their servers battle.

This “resource” would need to be capped, for balance issues, and to encourage guild members to frequently contribute to gaining more of it back.

Examples of guilds spending whatever resource to help out in wvw:

1. After a guild claims a keep/tower/camp, the resource could be spent to speed up the upgrades to it. If a guild wanted to dump a TON of resources into the tower they just claimed, they could get really fast upgrades, but would wipe their supply or resource out.

2. Sentry alerts. Capture a sentry point, spend a set amount of resources, and have that sentry send 1 guild alert when that sentry is destroyed.

3. Caravans: Spend a set amount of resources (per caravan, purchase while next to it), to add swiftness until the caravan reaches its destination. Spend set amount of resources to add protection to the caravan until it reaches its destination.

4. Keep/Tower alerts: Spend resources to hire an NPC messenger, that will send out a guild chat alert when your guilds claimed keep has any door or wall taken down to 50% or less life.

(wvw alert messages could be enabled or disabled for guild chat, for those guildies who dont care to see them.)

Just some examples, not must haves.
The goal here is to add a sense of purpose for guilds to become invested in having a pressence in WvW beyond that of just being one of the common groups that hangs out in a specific BL. Where the hard work of guild members (earning the resource), can be spent by the guild, to help the battle for their server.

And here is the bonus:
Which ever server wins at the end of the week:
1. Increase max resource cap by 2%. So if your server wins 10 weeks of battles, each guild has a 120% resource cap. Lose for a week, and your cap gets reset back to 100%.

2. Guilds on the winning server each week gain a set bonus of resource to start the next week at (encouraging guilds to spend resources each week to win)

3. Servers that lose each week, get a 20% bonus to earning said resource, being the underdog. Also encouraging the winning server to work a bit harder to hold their position as winner.

Now, none of this is “This is exactly how it has to be”, but its certainly a good example of how things could be done. It solves a lot of the guild involvement (besides just having guild members in WvW), as well as a purpose for winning each week (aside from bragging rights). It also doesnt make WvW any more of “its own seperate game” (which should keep Devon happy – in fact, said resource could be something earnable in wvw AND pve.), but yet further adds depth to the existing WvW system as well as the guild system.

DevonCarver.5370:

If we didn’t encourage people to play multiple game types there would be many more empty maps.

WvW borderlands seem to have more players at any given time than 90% of the games zones do. Why not take the business to where the customers are? When a restaraunt sees that most of its customers are ordering hotdogs, it doesnt ignore that demand and try to focus primarily on Spam n eggs instead.

Are you intentionally not doing more for WvW in hopes that these players will venture back into the world and revist all these empty, desolate zones again? What exactly is anet trying to achieve here? Doesnt money drive most of the decision making? Arent there tons of potential customers in WvW at every hour of the day? Its like a bunch of customers standing around in a store, and the shop owner saying “Sorry, Im not gonna sell anything to you, please go next door to the other store if you really want to shop”

DevonCarver.5370:

Gadzooks.4687:

This is how I translate this most of this response:

My statement doesn’t require translation. WvW is a part of GW2, it is not its own game, it is not a standalone product and it is not separate from the game.

Where as PvE is part of GW2, and IS its own game. We have already come to the truth that focusing just on WvW wont feel “complete” because its not meant to. However, you can focus just one PvE and take in pretty much everything the game has to offer. In fact, there are players that ONLY PvE, and you never hear them saying “Ugh, why do WvWers get X, Y and Z, but not people who do PvE?”

Im pretty certain this is where most of the griping comes from when it comes to players saying they want more from WvW. Being able to focus on one part of the game (pve) and feel like you get everything, and then focusing on another part of the game (WvW) and feeling like you are missing out on a lot.

One might ask “If WvW is not seperate from the game, why does it feel that way? Since PvE is also not seperate from the game, but is its own complete game in and of itself, completely removed from anything WvW related”

I personally dont want WvW to be a seperate game, I just want it to feel complete, much like how the PvE portion of the game feels complete. You can run around PvE and think “Wow, they are really pushing the bounds of what they are able to do with this game, this is great!”… but when you jump into WvW, all I can help thinking is "
So much untapped potential that no one seems to care about. Look at all the things they COULD do, but arent. All the ways it could have been, but isnt."

WvW in its current state, would be like the PvE game, without the living world events, without content updates, without changes to dungeons to improve them, etc etc. If all the elements of Gw2 (wvw, spvp, pve, etc) are what make up the complete game, then why do only some of those elements ever seem to meet their potential, where as others seem to get barely more than the leftovers thrown on the floor (ie: WvW).

Its not about making WvW its own complete game, its about focusing on the different playstyles advertised with this game equally, and if you work out the left arm, you should also work out the right, else you end up like that silly man in that Shyamalan movie.

DevonCarver.5370:

Precursors do drop from the chests, but very rarely. I’d love to say you should be able to get everything ever from just playing WvW, but not only is that not going to happen, it’s not good for the game as a whole. We will continue to do what we can to improve the rewards available from WvW and there are some developments specifically relating to skill points that are coming soon to the game as a whole, but honestly if you want to get all the things in the game, you have to play all the game. Branch out, I suspect you’ll enjoy it. And WvW will still be there when you want to play it.

This is how I translate this most of this response:

“WvW is not the primary aspect of GW2. Its a side activity that offers some fun (and we will continue to keep trying to add bits of more fun), but if you want to really get a majority of what the game has to offer, you must play PvE. If you are looking for a complete package, large scale, open world PvP focused game, GW2 is not that game. If we were to focus on making GW2 that game, it would disrupt and hurt the PvE game we intended to be the main focus of things.”

The truth of the matter is that the devs created a car that looks like a ferarri, but drives like a yaris. It was a smart marketing move, because it sucked in all the large scale pvp gamers, despite the game not really being a game focused primarily around that. Unfortunately, it means that the next game that DOES offer large scale pvp, as its primary focused gameplay, gw2 wont be able to hold on to a lot of players who are only hanging around because of it.

Again… maybe if anet saw some sort of monitary gain from WvW players… but, in order for this to happen, they would have to sell WvW stuff on the gemshop. The permanent finishers are a good example of something that appeals to a WvW player, and has pretty much zero use outside of PvP. Others have suggested custom siege skins, custom commander pins, etc etc. All good ideas of things that could add a dollar value to WvW players for anet.

Will they do any of this? Doubtful. A year is a long time for a mmorpg in todays industry. This isnt EQ1 or UO, where taking 2+ years for decent changes and such to be added were common and gamers were willing to wait. Today, that sort of deployment plan just wont cut it. Too many other games on the market that gamers can run to if their current game is lagging behind.

The sad thing, Anet is sitting on a goldmine. WvW’s foundation is perfect, its just lacking pretty much everything that could be built upon it. I think the thing that upsets me the most is seeing what WvW could be, but isnt, and likely will never be. All because the people with the money seem to think they know what gamers want, better than the gamers themselves.

ManaCraft.5630:

I’d forget about it if I were you. While this remains an assumption on my part, it is still my firm belief that when A.Net first designed this game, they looked at WvW as a game mode that could, by and large, take care of itself and would need little to no maintenance. At the time, it seems the same attitude prevailed towards the PvE environment, which – as PvE gamers familiar with that period will tell you – was badly in need of endgame content. The clear focus, and somewhat singleminded goal, of A.Net is, and has always been, the development of the sPvP/tPvP format as an e-sport.

Since then we’ve seen the development of the living world concept for PvE and tons upon tons of new content introduced for that particular game mode. The e-sports aspect of sPvP/tPvP is slowly but steadily on track, now featuring tournaments with major cash prises, more maps, a solo queue with separate rankings, and so on. And WvW has gotten … well, what exactly? Apart from ranks that obviously lack proper playtesting and a WxP system that has skewed the balance even more towards zerging, we haven’t really seen much of anything. We’ve “gained” the removal of orbs, the ability to actually purchase gear with more than one stat combination for the currency we earn, and we waited for months on end for (sub-par) access to ascended trinkets.

But that’s not the real concern here. What I think is more troubling is that while PvE has its living world concept, and sPvP/tPvP is headed for e-sports, it seems that no such overall roadmap exists for WvW. After a full year, A.Net still seems to have no idea where they are headed with the format. WvW is still considered a format that can simply subsist with no improvements to speak of. Which is precisely why responses like this:

DevonCarver.5370:

New maps take a long time to be built. And even once they are built it takes a long time to get them tested until they are ready to be released. Rest assured, as soon as we can release new maps, we will. And, while it isn’t an entirely new map, you can look forward to some changes to the borderlands soon. Let’s just say you should get your krait killing in now.

accomplish little more than making it seem like we’re talking to someone who’s not really listening. Most WvW players have a pretty good idea what the format needs at this point. We need better tools to run non-zerg sized groups, more incentives to defend (and rewards for upgrading) structures, restrictions on waypointing, a handicap system of some sort to combat imbalances in server population, skins and other rewards that are unique to WvW – and most of all, we need new maps. These problems have been accounted for many times already in various threads and should come as no surprise to anyone with even the slightest amount of experience in WvW.

And you come at us with … replacing the krait?

Devon needs to take this post with him to the next WvW meeting and really take it to heart. Small team? Thats a hidden truth. Small team means that Anet doesnt place much importance on WvW. Small team means WvW is low priority. Small team means that Anet thinks that WvW isnt going to bring in $$$ as much as other aspects of the game. If Anet felt WvW was important as other game elements, it wouldnt have limited resources like such a small team working on it.

GW2 is a HUGE AAA title. There is no reason that a major part of the game, such as WvW, should have such limited resources or such a small team working on it. Nor should they have so much trouble giving what most people are asking for. People arent asking for uber weapons. People are asking for purpose. Make the weekly matches matter, make the commander pin matter, make a guild claiming something matter, make defending matter, etc etc. An experienced game developement company like Anet shouldnt have so much trouble giving players these types of things, yet almost every dev post makes it seem like this epic struggle to do so.

Here is a starter tip: WvW gemshop specific items and services. Things that will only show up or can only be used while doing WvW. (the finishers are a good example, now just keep adding stuff like that) That will help make WvW more profitable to start, which should give you incentive to increase the number of reasources working on WvW.

Amadan.9451:

we will soon see a post somewhere asking when the hills comes as a playable class in gw2, in 2 days i have seen asking how to create the mule class and when the commando will be available in game^^

i’m waiting for the hills to be released

Thats because Hills is the only class that is OP in WvW, PvP and PvE.

I guess the mods see a light hearted post about fixing a bug as a “suggestion” and moved my post to that forum. Sigh.

Ill have to remember that for any future bugs I find in the game :P

Astral Projections.7320:

You know hills have friends in high places.

hahah i love it.

Zylonite.5913:

[X-post from game suggestions]

As a WvW and PvP player, I notice that the achievement balance is totally screwed up in this game. For example 250,000 Total Kills in WvW Ultimate Dominator (almost 800 hours) gives a total of almost 50 achievement points when a living story 10 hour content give the same amount of points? are you freaking kidding me??? same goes for PvP achievement points…As a player who focuses on end game WvW and PvP this is ridiculous. Basically a PvE player can run some dungeon and frac or LS and get a lot more achievement points than WvW players.
Not really sure what ANet is thinking when they come up with these points but there is absolutely no balance between them….
For example, A WvW Ultimate Dominator title deserves at least 500 achievement points and not less.
This game is about guild wars where the guilds go to war to protect their home land (server) but unfortunately Anet is completely ignoring the obvious. Just read your game title again and realize what is all about.

1. Achievments are in no way game breaking when they dont work correctly or are not balanced well
2. Fixing achievements wont promote players to buy more things from the gem shop.

Because of these 2 things, anything dealing with WvW achievements will be very very very very very LOW on Anets priority list. Which means as long as they are working on the following….

1. WvW Ranks
2. Jumping Puzzles.
3. Living Story
4. The next limited time gemshop offer
5. Nerfing the FOTM class
6. Game breaking bugs

… we should not expect to see any work being done on WvW achievements

Thats just how companies work in the real world. Prioritize and persue.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d like to think I’ve shown that when I have a timeframe I can talk about, I do so, but there are many, many things that don’t clear up until closer to being ready to release. Rather than get all your hopes up with phrases like “We appreciate your concern and we’ll have a solution soon!” I try and be a little more realistic. In this case, achievements in WvW do not match the achievements in the rest of the game in terms of the amount of effort required to achieve them or the reward for that effort. But it’s not as easy as just saying “Let there be new achievements” We are going to have to do some complicated things to let people keep what they have already done in addition to adding new achievements. So, I’d love to be more informative in terms of date, but I don’t know either, so I can’t.

It makes me cringe when I hear “reasons” like this for why something is taking a long time. know that the “make it sound horribly complex to fix” is an easy way to get lay people to understand that programming a fix is going to take time, but what you are talking about is data, and data is easy to work with. HOW you work with it determines how complex it really is. This however, is irrelevant, because its most likely just a front…

A more realistic explaination of why it isnt going to be in the game sooner would be something like this:

“Fixing wvw achievements is going to take about a week of time away from a couple of our devs. However, there are many other game issues higher on the priority list that they have to work on first. Thus, while it might take a week to do, the higher priority stuff is going to take at least 3 months to finish before we can start on day 1 of that week.”

Making it sound like its some “overly complex programming solution” just makes it look like anet devs dont know what they are doing. Chalk it up to what really causes delays for pretty much any programmer – Prioritized tasks vs limited man power. Lets be honest, we would all love WvW achievement fixes, but they are hardly game breaking as they are now, and thus, can go another 6 months easy without it having any real impact on the game.

Im sure Anet can make these changes because they arent rocket science from a programming stand point. I dont however envy the dev team having to work within the confines of a probably harsh and limited priority stucture of what needs to be worked on first, vs whatever the flavor of the day “issue” is that players are asking for.

Pavel.8531:

Several months ago, we got reply from a moderator or something, that they know the achievements are unrealistic(after someone calculating the time needed to get yakslapper – I think it was 1 year… if you kill 609 yaks/day (too lazy to search for the buried thread)) and they are thinking to lower them to a reasonable level.
So! Expect this fixed after just a short time – year or two.

Nice to know… would be nice to get an update from anet on this at least.

WvW achievements have absurd goals to meet in comparison to pretty much 90% of the PvE achiements. By this I mean what it takes to complete the achievement, is far greater/higher than something comparable on the PvE side.

The amount of time and effort it takes to complete many of the WvW is easily 10x that of what it takes to complete almost ALL of the PvE achievements. Ive split my time about 20% PvE, 80% WvW, and out of my somewhat low 3100 point, only about 300 of them are from WvW. This just doesnt seem right.

Anet needs to seriously lower the requirements for some of the WvW achievements, especially now with the rewards you can gain.

U-verse – bay area California here.
Problem happened 3 days ago, then fixed itself later in the evening.

Started again today, with the new patch.

Makes me wonder if AT&T sees the GW2 patcher as some kind of illegal torrent transfer or something. Either way, what a horrible service. Wish I had other options other than AT&T, they have been horrible from the start.

Harbard.5738:

Gadzooks.4687:

Mmorpgs NEED minigames and numerous other activities for people who are “living” in the virtual world.

Mmorpgs need permanent consistant real content as well, and this is where GW2 is lacking. Its not that GW2 needs fewer mini games, its that GW2 needs more, permanent REAL content as well.

Well you said it yourself “real permanent content is lacking”. Is that really the time to roll out minigames? Especially when they’re not so mini anymore? Resources are finite you know. They don’t have a magic factory up there.

Im saying Mmorpgs need BOTH.

Most older mmorpgs seriously lack in the “other/minigame” category when it comes to content. GW2 seems to be one of the first mmorpgs to really put more focus on “other” content. We shouldnt ask them to stop doing this or to reduce it by any means. We need to be asking them to continue what they are doing but ALSO start adding more content of other types as well.

Developers shouldnt have to sacrifice one thing, in order to put time into another. Anet is a big enough company that they should have teams working on BOTH equally. Do they though? Thats the question. 10+ months would make many feel they dont. Perhaps its just a business decision as they tried to figure out if real content updates would be part of a DLC or expansion, rather than a content patch.

Recent comments from the devs have shined a bit of light on the situation though. They said they recently created like 4 teams to work on ALL types of content, and that each would work towards releasing content every 2 months, staggered apart from the other groups by 2 week periods. This means new content every 2 weeks. Lets just hope that 3 or more of the group isnt just focusing on mini game stuff. IMO, a wise choice with 4 teams is to have 1 for WvW, 1 for sPvP, 1 for normal PvE content, and the last for Mini game type content. That way each element of the game would see updates every 2 months at the max.

Mmorpgs NEED minigames and numerous other activities for people who are “living” in the virtual world.

Mmorpgs need permanent consistant real content as well, and this is where GW2 is lacking. Its not that GW2 needs fewer mini games, its that GW2 needs more, permanent REAL content as well.

With the recent massive changes to shortbow, its no longer a playstyle I enjoy. After spending so much time putting effort into the game to play the RNG to FINALLY get a ticket to pick up my Fused shortbow skin, im now wishing I could trade it in for the longbow skin instead.

Arenanet really should offer the ability to swap out things like this when they make such huge sweeping changes. Im pretty upset that all my hardwork were for nothing now.

Anyone know if its worth contacting support over this? Has anyone else even attempted it?

So many posts since release, often reference our classes name “Ranger”, and point out how “range” is the main part of it. This has caused TONS of threads about our class, and how it needs live up to the “Range” aspect better, since that is what the class is based on.

It made sense… up until now. Id like to take a moment to correct all these false beliefs about the name “Ranger” and where the class name derives from.

There is another word that makes up the main part of our class name: ANGER
This is what our class is about. ANGER.

The devs, imo, have done an excellent job making sure the class lives up to this too.

Dont believe me? Look at all the posts and comment from Rangers since day 1. There is so much anger from so many rangers. Its undeniable. Its working as intended. No more second guessing, or scratching your head in confusion. You now all understand what the “Ranger” is based on. Anger. If you dont want anything to do with Anger, play another class. Be wary of elementalists however, because their class is based on being “mental”.

Ranger is a pet class… as in…whatever other class we are grouped with, we are their pets.

Has anyone tested to see if the pet reduced F2 cooldowns with the improved AI pathing, actually allow them to hit moving targets now?

Honestly… 2 seconds vs 1.5 seconds… not the big of a change. If they werent hitting moving targets before, 0.5 second difference isnt going to help. Unless of course, there was some bug in the code, due to it being 2 seconds, that was causing it.

I honestly dont think pets will be able to hit moving targets with their F2 until the cooldown is instant, due to shoddy programming on anets part. Heck, they miss a lot of their instant autattacks as it is if the target is moving. Maybe the pet AI pathing will have fixed this. Ill keep my fingers crossed, but will not trust to hope…. there are other things on the horizon, and anet is quickly losing the chance to get my money from any future expansions or gem sales if they keep their current track record so stagnant.

Daecollo.9578:

So my thief just downed a ranger.

After almost downing it, the rangers pet interrupts me, then starts chasing me around as I try and kill it. Then downs me with a 6k hit.

Then it proceeds to rez the downed ranger, then they both destroy me.

Fun fun fun!

Next time dont use up all your init spamming HS

Mif.3471:

They do care about WvW. Proof being that they have been making a lot of positive changes lately.

Take your baseless QQ elsewhere.

Aparently 1 update with most of the changes (“positive” is an opinionated view) equals “a lot” in your book.

The only real “positive” change in my opinion was removing the culling. They did add the rank system in ONE recent patch, after MONTHS of nothing at all. And many would debate the rank system being positive or negative.

Reasons why I believe they dont really put much effort or care about WvW:

1. The length of time it takes for them to change or add anything (months and months)
2. The extremely limited testing they do with any new changes or additions to WvW. I bet a common thing heard in the anet offices is “Oh… wow… we didnt think about that happening” when it comes to the WvW changes they add.
3. Commander pins costing gold
4. Huge imbalance of item based rewards between WvW and PvE
5. Skill/Server Lag getting worse as time goes on.
6. Focus on zerg gameplay over anything else (even if unintentional – which points to #2)
7. Inability for guilds to be in groups larger than 5 people (in a game called GUILD wars.)
8. Map design and ZERO attemp to change or improve it (Too small, objectives are too close together)
9. Queue system is broke. Its more like a lotto than a queue, and sure as heck doesnt keep the number of players on each side balanced by actual numbers. All too often is 100+ from one server vs barely 30 on the other.
10. Complete lack of server wide and personal incentive to win each week, aside from bragging rights. (something as simple as awarding WXP buff to the winning side for the next week could help with.)

etc

These are things that have existed since BETA. Over half a year later, nothing has really changed. The biggest and only real change, is the removal of culling, which isnt an addition, but rather a FIX to a broken system that shouldnt have existed in the first place. The Ranking system is the only real NEW thing they have added in MONTHS and it seems to have been thrown together by 2 people who didnt have to test it or run it past quality assurance before pushing it live. Its like the people responsible for WvW changes and additions were given the task as a punishment, or like its that side job that only gets worked on when everything else is done, and there is extra time.

PearlGore.7419:

Dude… No way.

You make some valid points, many of which I cant debate against.

OP
Balanced
Underpowered

Those are the 3 states something can exist in when it comes to a game, especially pvp in a game.

Moving something down from “OP” doesnt automatically put it into the “Underpowered” category.

Its quite simple
Add a bunch of WvW related options to the gem store.

Right now, WvW players probably arent the games main source of revenue. Id be willing to bet that most of the gem sales (as in people spending real money for gems) comes primarily from the PvE side. Why should the devs spend much time at all on WvW when most of their money comes from PvE players?

If WvW players were a larger source of potential gem sales, the devs might actually care about spending as much effort on WvW as they do on the rest of the game.

Some gem store ideas (none of which are pay 2 win)

Tower/Supply Customization:
— Enhanced guild banners for guilds that take control of a tower/supply point. Things like particle effects (flame, electricity, dripping acid, etc) and other fancy things to really show off the guild that owns it.
— Custom Tower Doors: Several new and fancy options for changing a towers doors to look better than the basic, plain doors when your guild controls a tower.
— Custom Dolyaks: When your guild takes control of a supply point, the yaks will now carry your guilds emblem and colors, and have a different skin texture (based on the one purchased)
— Custom Guards: Give a custom new look to all npc guards that are part of a tower/supply point that your guild controls.
— Custom NPC Guard speech: Pick things for the NPCs to shout at enemies when they attack for NPCs that are part of a tower/supply that your guild controls.

Siege Customization
— New optional skins for existing siege models
— Guild banners/flags for siege built while active and representing a guild. (sorta like a food buff, siege built while active would display the banners)
— Possibly new attack effects. Change the look of the balista shots, or catapult rocks, or arrow carts raining arrows. Minor, but noticeable changes.

Player Customization
— Different types of pvp downed staking flags such as ones representing your server.
— New, custom emotes with PvP in mind.
— Unique PvP armor skins
— Custom Commander pins: Different colors and shapes for commanders to help distinguish themselves on the map
— 3 new mini pets: A Battering Ram, a Catapult, and a Balista
— Custom Titles

These are just some quick ideas. I cant say they are great, or awful, I just think SOMETHING needs to be done to make the devs care more about WvW, and figured that if anet stood to make money off WvW players more, they might seem to put forth a lot more effort and time into adding and improving all aspects of WvW.

Darek.1836:

Gadzooks.4687:

Darek.1836:

Gadzooks.4687:

Darek.1836:

Sorry to the guy above.. I didn’t mean fast attacks hit hard, but when you hit multiple times they do. And like I said, you cant counter fast attacks with blind and blocks, so you need confusion and retalliation to do that.

You are still missing the logic here

Weapon 1: does 50 damage, every second
Weapon 2: does 100 damage every 2 seconds

Weapon 1 hits you multiple times in 4 seconds.
Weapon 2 hits you only 2 times in 4 seconds

Both do the same damage to you

Faster weapons arent hitting you any harder over the course of them hitting you multiple times than a slower weapon is hitting you for with fewer hits. You just SEE damage numbers popping up over your head more frequently than with slower weapons.

No reason fast weapons should be penalized more in the case of confusion.

You seem to be missing my logic as well.

Cast 1 blind on weapon 2 = 0 damage every 2 seconds
Cast 1 blind on weapon = 150 damage every 2 seconds
Same applies to blocks or aegis..
This is why we need confusion and retalliation, because the counter what blinds and blocks cant.

Blind is a mechanic to prevent damage
Confusion is a mechanic to DO damage

trying to use one to justify the need for the other, doesnt really work

On that matter however, retailiation should do MORE damage to slower attacks, than faster ones for the same reasons as Im supporting for confusion.

Both retaliation and confusion should “hurt” players in a balanced and equal fashion regardless of their weapon speed.

So if someone with a 1 second attack takes 100 damage from retailiation, a person with a 2 second attack should take 200 damage. Over the course of 2 seconds, both take the same equal damage from retailiation.

Yeah you dont get what Im saying at all.

I get it, i just dont agree with it. You are saying that fast weapons arent hindered by blind as much as much as slow weapons, thus, someone who uses blind, isnt protected by it as much by it if they are being hit with a faster weapon.

Im all for making blind something that works equal for both fast and slow weapons. Thats far more balanced than say, a bandaid solution that impliments an offensive ability like confusion, that KILLS a player twice as fast, just because, as you pointed out, blind is only half as affective against them. Its never good to use 1 imbalanced ability to justify another ability that may also not be properly balanced. Issue 1: Fix blind, issue 2: Fix confusion.

Darek.1836:

Gadzooks.4687:

Darek.1836:

Sorry to the guy above.. I didn’t mean fast attacks hit hard, but when you hit multiple times they do. And like I said, you cant counter fast attacks with blind and blocks, so you need confusion and retalliation to do that.

You are still missing the logic here

Weapon 1: does 50 damage, every second
Weapon 2: does 100 damage every 2 seconds

Weapon 1 hits you multiple times in 4 seconds.
Weapon 2 hits you only 2 times in 4 seconds

Both do the same damage to you

Faster weapons arent hitting you any harder over the course of them hitting you multiple times than a slower weapon is hitting you for with fewer hits. You just SEE damage numbers popping up over your head more frequently than with slower weapons.

No reason fast weapons should be penalized more in the case of confusion.

You seem to be missing my logic as well.

Cast 1 blind on weapon 2 = 0 damage every 2 seconds
Cast 1 blind on weapon = 150 damage every 2 seconds
Same applies to blocks or aegis..
This is why we need confusion and retalliation, because the counter what blinds and blocks cant.

Blind is a mechanic to prevent damage
Confusion is a mechanic to DO damage

trying to use one to justify the need for the other, doesnt really work

On that matter however, retailiation should do MORE damage to slower attacks, than faster ones for the same reasons as Im supporting for confusion.

Both retaliation and confusion should “hurt” players in a balanced and equal fashion regardless of their weapon speed.

So if someone with a 1 second attack takes 100 damage from retailiation, a person with a 2 second attack should take 200 damage. Over the course of 2 seconds, both take the same equal damage from retailiation.

KnattyDreads.1856:

Ok, and what is the direct damage output of this mesmer that applies 9 stacks of confusion and has devoted his build, traits and gear to reaching 1700 condition damage? How long are the cooldowns prior to re-applying this many stacks (assuming you don’t dodge the shatter.)
The ‘black magic’ was tongue in cheek. And I am salivating over the e-tears of a thief btw.

Ranger, not thief…
/wipes his tears on is pet, who is still rooted in place trying to attack something that moved away.

Im not saying confusion shouldnt do 9000+ damage to someone. Im saying it shouldnt do it in 2-3 seconds.

If someone with a 1 second attack takes 2000 damage… then, by math logic:
Someone with a 0.5 second attack should take 1000 damage

Both would take 2000 damage over the course of 1 second.
If both attacked without stopping for 5 seconds, both would equally take 10,000 damage. (instead of how it is now…where the person with the 0.5 second attack taking twice as much damage.)

Nuzt.7894:

Zergs are part of the game, people who like that playstyle should be welcome to it, Anet just has to stop rewarding it over all other playstyles.

This sums up all that needs to be said about this topic

Darek.1836:

Sorry to the guy above.. I didn’t mean fast attacks hit hard, but when you hit multiple times they do. And like I said, you cant counter fast attacks with blind and blocks, so you need confusion and retalliation to do that.

You are still missing the logic here

Weapon 1: does 50 damage, every second
Weapon 2: does 100 damage every 2 seconds

Weapon 1 hits you multiple times in 4 seconds.
Weapon 2 hits you only 2 times in 4 seconds

Both do the same damage to you

Faster weapons arent hitting you any harder over the course of them hitting you multiple times than a slower weapon is hitting you for with fewer hits. You just SEE damage numbers popping up over your head more frequently than with slower weapons.

No reason fast weapons should be penalized more in the case of confusion.

KnattyDreads.1856:

covenn.7165:

shimmerless.4560:

You can cleanse, you can get out of the zerg, or at a pinch you can just stop hitting skill #1 and you’ll be fine.

Not entirely accurate or fair.

Not every class can cleanse without getting hit by it, in some case multiple times. Dodge rolling isn’t an option either.

Simply put, if you have any combination of multiple stacks and/or health that it will kill you to do anything, your only choice it to stand there for full duration (and try to avoid all the other damage coming at you)

Any disagreement with that?

I actually found it to be fairly accurate and justifiably fair.

I dont think I know anyone who considers your #1 autoattack to be what people refer to as “skill spamming in a zerg”. Very few classes in very few situations dont have auto attack on their #1 ability (engineers with grenades being an example).

I hate zergs, I run in small guild groups. And confusion still decimates me. Not because im a moron, but because the mechanics of the game require my class to react faster than say, a guardian with a staff.

In the time it takes most weapons to attack twice (2 attacks, which seems like a fair judge of when someone would break target to avoid taking more confusion damage), my shortbow has attacked 5 times. Another mesmer above mentioned how he could make someone take 5000-6000 damage each for the first couple actions someone did after he put his stacks of confusion on. 5k damage is probably an extreme uber gear case here so….

A mes with 1500 cond damage, will do 355 damage per stack of confusion
3 stacks of confusion = 1065 damage
5 stacks of confusion (very easily achieved by most mesmers) = 1775 damage

If someone with a slower weapon stops their autoattack after taking damage twice (2.5 to 3 seconds roughly), then that means they take 3550. 3550 is in no way “OMGOPABILITY”, but it is a nice solid hit. For someone with 20k life, its close to 20% of that in 1 attack.

Someone with a faster weapon, like a showbow, in the same time given (2.5 to 3 seconds), would take damage about 4 to 5 times. So while slower attacking players would take 3550 damage before they said “oh drat, I need to stop attacking”, a player with a faster weapon will have taken as much as 8875 damage. while 3550 wasnt huge, 8875 damage in 3 seconds (not counting any other damage they are doing to you), is a LOT of damage. For someone with 20k life, they have now lost about 44% of their life. Same time to react, just hindered more by the systems game mechanics because it makes no attempt to balance or compensate attack speed vs damage for this ONE specific ability called confusion.

1500 condition damage isnt even the max someone can attain either. Nor is only having 5 stacks of confusion. Ive frequently had 8 or 9 stacks on me for a couple seconds at a time, which leaves my 20k health pool at around 25% of its max. All in the matter of no more than 3 seconds. This isnt because im foolishly pressing my buttons and spamming abilities. This is because 1. shotbow attacks so fast, 2. its set to autoattack by design, 3. breaking target often isnt instantaneous.

The devs need to impliment proper balanced mechanics in this case. If they balance OUTGOING damage based on an attack speed to damage done formula, then they need to likewise base INCOMING damage for the sake of confusion on a similar formula. How they do this may be “black magic” to some, but I can asure you, as a programmer, this is only something that requires time and effort.

Valik Shin.9027:

I agree that we should be able to get gold faster in wvw or give us some type of other currency that we can get the good stuff with. As for achievements I don’t really care to much about them.

Achievements have no point, other than personal goal. They dont affect the game mechanics one bit. Which is why its even more confusing as to why Anet didnt create a larger, better group of WvW based Achievements for those of us who do care about them. They could have created 1000 of them, and it wouldnt have broken gameplay, messed with balance, or altered the mechanics of the game in any way or fashion.

Darek.1836:

Gadzooks.4687:

Id just be happy if they scaled confusion damage based on your attack speed.

Confusion is the bane of short bow users. 3 stacks of confusion from a cond geared player = 1000+ damage per action you do. Shortbow = about 2 actions per second. Thats 2000+ damage a second you take just because your #1 ability is on auto attack by default, and clicking the ground to break target isnt always 100% responsive. Imagine what 8+ stacks would do in this situation.

Even blizzard was able to grasp the concept of damage coefficients scaling differently based on how fast or slow you attacked. At the very least, Anet should make it so that each stack of confusion should only be able to apply damage no more than ONCE per second.

I know it may seem like Im switching sides here but I’m not really. Retalliation and confusion are the only ways to counter hard, fast hitting skills (like ranger SB and thief unload). We already have blocks, aegis, and blinds to protect against single even higher hitting skills so we needed a way to counter the fast lower hitting (but still hitting a lot), and one of these ways is confusion.

Just FYI… shotbow is fast hitting, not hard hitting. It hits fast, because it doesnt hit hard. Long bow hits hard, but slow. See the balance here?

The devs implimented proper damage to speed when it comes to the damage of someone using these 2 weapons. Now they just need to impliment the same logic, and same balance to confusion when its used on someone using them.

shimmerless.4560:

Gadzooks.4687:

Id just be happy if they scaled confusion damage based on your attack speed.

Confusion is the bane of short bow users. 3 stacks of confusion from a cond geared player = 1000+ damage per action you do. Shortbow = about 2 actions per second. Thats 2000+ damage a second you take just because your #1 ability is on auto attack by default, and clicking the ground to break target isnt always 100% responsive. Imagine what 8+ stacks would do in this situation.

Even blizzard was able to grasp the concept of damage coefficients scaling differently based on how fast or slow you attacked. At the very least, Anet should make it so that each stack of confusion should only be able to apply damage no more than ONCE per second.

Well, again, you can just take your skill #1 off autofire. You might say, “That’s APM intensive” but it seems Engies cope just fine with grenades, and they don’t even have the benefit of a locked target.

But they have the benefit of it being AoE, and not affected by line of sight. Lose one thing, gain another.

Weapons that are based around fast attack suffer, like you said, if taken off autofire. Dont really want carpel tunnel either from hitting my #1 key 100 times a minute.

The real solution here is for the devs to properly balance abilities in their game, not leave it up to players to make bandaid solutions and compromises to a system that is skewed.

Id just be happy if they scaled confusion damage based on your attack speed.

Confusion is the bane of short bow users. 3 stacks of confusion from a cond geared player = 1000+ damage per action you do. Shortbow = about 2 actions per second. Thats 2000+ damage a second you take just because your #1 ability is on auto attack by default, and clicking the ground to break target isnt always 100% responsive. Imagine what 8+ stacks would do in this situation.

Even blizzard was able to grasp the concept of damage coefficients scaling differently based on how fast or slow you attacked. At the very least, Anet should make it so that each stack of confusion should only be able to apply damage no more than ONCE per second.

… when it comes to what you can achieve and gain, compared to the things you can achieve and gain in PvE?

I think its time for the devs to do a revamp of many of the things you can “achieve” in WvW and to use PvE as a guideline. The 2 biggest imo are the following:

- Achievement points

I spend most of my time in game doing WvW. In fact, I leveled a character from 1 to 80 just doing WvW. And yet, I only have a mere 50 or so achievement points from WvW. On the flip side, over got near 2800 points from the only average amount of PvE ive done (No where near world completion either). Ive played in about 10 sPvP matches, and have 63 achievement points from that. WvW achievements need a complete overhall. Someone who spends a ton of time in WvW should be able to acquire a lot of WvW based achievements and points.

There really is no reason why WvW cant have a TON more achievements and points available to players who invest their time in it. The few achievements that do exist, have standards set to such high levels that you could do PvE 50 times over again and still finish before another person managed to get the WvW achievements.

- Gold and items

The sheer difference between money earning abilities in WvW and PvE are astronomical. Why the devs are so scared of letting rare and exotic items drop more frequently in WvW is just a complete mystery. Clearly, they dont have problems with players getting tons of rares, and frequent exotics in PvE. I can run a couple fractals and walk away with more valuable items than I would from 5 hours of WvW. And thats with 0% MF gear.

The sheer lack of rare drops especially, makes it a huge task for WvW players to acquire ectos. Lack of drops also contributes to WvW players not earning much Gold, hindering their ability to buy lacking materials from the Market. Its not that WvW doesnt earn any money, its simply that the rate at which you earn it in WvW is so much lower in comparison to PvE, when there really isnt a reason for it to be.

Both of these things make WvW gameplay feel hindered by the way the devs have set it up. Is WvW supposed to be something that supports a primary gameplay style? Or is it just supposed to be a side activity you do? If its meant to be a complete gameplay experience for those who dont like PvE, then it needs to feel balanced and equally as rewarding as PvE.

WvW players shouldnt feel like they need to go run dungeons just to be able to have the money to buy runes for their gear, or ectos to buy the ascended items they want. WvW players shouldnt feel that their days and days of playing WvW has amounted to a ridiculous 50-80 achievement points when someone can work 10% as hard in PvE and walk away with 500 points.

Its time to start tipping the scale to bring WvW up to the same level as PvE when it comes to the 2 things mentioned above. Im sure there is more that could be touched on, but I feel these 2 things should be the main focus to start with.

Im pretty sure the devs all know about these “bugs”. They are the result of not thought out code design, or unfinished, not properly tested game code. Only a couple seem to be something that might be considered “Working as intended”

At this point in the game however, removing them would make the ranger even worse than it already is, which would cause huge lashback for the devs. Kinda sad that ranger is in such a state that we think we need to be silent about “bugs” we have that give us small advantages, in hopes of them not getting fixed. Other classes do this when the bug makes them OP, for rangers it just makes us awful, instead of super awful.

Dungeons and other PVE is the same every time you do it. Your only real enemy is yourself.

WvW on the other hand, is different every time I enter it, and my own mistakes arent the only reason it can be challenging, thx to playing against real people, rather than an AI.

Doc, you do realize that saying that every persons opinion who disagrees with yours is “needless” or just “QQ” doesnt make your opinion any more right, or theirs any more wrong.

It simply means you have to resort to bashing a conflicting opinion because you cant form decent statements to support your own. Not much different than just a sophisticated way of saying “Yeah, well you’re ugly” to win a debate.

Why is this information such a big secret? I dont get it.

Players who hate the zerg already say lower the cap
Players who hate the queue already say raise the cap

How would telling us the actual number really change anything?

Id have to go back and read all the dev posts and interviews, but I could have sworn that they said “changes” and not “incentives” when they refered to “more to come” Of course, some of those changes could be more incentives.

And again, its not so much that bonus siege damage isnt wanted. Its just the amount of the bonus that is a joke. Small numbers just arent inspiring or noticeable most of the time. Buy 1 rank and get +1%? really? 1%?!?!? Do you realize how insignificant 1% is in PvP? If there were 25 ranks, allowing us to eventually get 25%, then that would be different. Unfortunately its capped at 5%.

The devs need to be made aware that their over cautious paranoia of giving too much of a bonus isnt going to cut it. Thats not QQ, thats simply saying “Giving a grain of rice to starving person because you are afraid he will choke on more, isnt going to help the fact that he is starving”

Its ridiculous how any remarks that dont completely agree with what the devs do, are labeled as QQ. Im gonna start incorporating that into real life.

Hangs a picture on the wall
“Tilt it about a quarter inch to the left because its not straight”
“Stop with the QQ for goodness sake!!!”

sells a cheeseburger with fries
“I asked for no pickles!!”
“Stop with the QQ and eat your food!”

Fits a pair of new shoes on a customer
“These are way too small, its scrunching up my toes”
“Stop with the QQ and just learn to walk”

docMed.7692:

Stop with these stupid QQ threads please. It is a carrot chase for people that like to chase carrots, which a huge part of the community requested in all aspects of this game. Nothing is obligating you to grind it out, nor is a fully WXP level’d player even remotely over-powered compared to a lvl 0. Yes there are benefits, but they are small and just worth it enough to work towards.

The community asked for incentives. Just because the devs gave us something, doesnt mean its what players wanted or care about. “Carrot on a stick” works for a horse, or mule, because they like carrots. Put a carrot on a stick in front of an alligator and it would care less about the so called “incentive”.

“Id like incentives to do X, Y and Z please”
“If you do X, Y, and Z, we will give you this bag of smelly trash, now get to work now that you have your incentive!”

It can really only be called an incentive if its actually something people want and care about. Its not even about the work of effort needed. People in this game would have been willing to do 5 times the amount of work to get incentives that were actually good. Instead, we asked for a cookie, and all we got were cookie crumbs.

Dont you know? Its about breaking the mold.
Big successful companies like Blizzard learned that players dont like small numbers. Giving them +1% to something wasnt exciting, and didnt really feel like you were gaining anything significant.

GW2 looks to break that mold. Stage 1 is with these new WvW abilities. Spend lots of time in WvW and you and your friends can earn up to 5% bonus to siege damage!

Arrow Cart only hitting things for 500 damage? Tired of it taking 40 hits with an arrow cart to kill someone with 20,000 life? Well just get your 5% siege damage boost, and you will soon be doing 525 damage with arrow carts? Now it will only take you about 38 hits with an arrow cart! Wow what a difference!!!

Peter.9406:

Now I understand why the devs don’t come on these forums, it’s full of whiney people who really don’t understand the game.

You admit you only PvE (thus only really having knowledge of PvE gameplay), but then say that other people who are complaining dont understand the game. Try to grasp the concept that the majority of people who are upset with ranger dont JUST pve. PvP and WvW exist even if you dont play them.

Just because Ranger plays acceptable for you in PvE, doesnt exclude the fact that there are still 2 other huge areas of gameplay in GW2 that you have no experience in. Nor does it exclude the fact that the ranger might actually need fixes and tweaks to make it a balanced class in these 2 other areas of gameplay.

Just because you might take side roads to work each day, free of busy traffic, doesnt mean people on the highways arent sitting motionless in rush hour traffic. Telling people “I dont see any traffic jams, you dont know what you are talking about” just makes you sound ignorant.

Elgwood.8240:

Options, uncheck “Show all player names”

Hit alt to see player nameplates after that.

But then I actually wont be able to see those players who think they are being sneaky by hiding behind the tree in WvW with their nametag sticking out both sides of the cover!!

The master plan:

Option A – Leave class broken:
—- Player is more likely to reroll new class and play the game longer resulting in more possible gem store sales and higher potential xpacks purchased when they are finally released.

Option B – Fix Class:
—- Player is more likely to get bored sooner and leave the game resulting in less potential gem store sales, and less likely to buy xpacks when finally released.

From release until now, look at the patches and changes for Ranger, and do the math yourself :P

What I find to be ironic, and depressing at the same time, is this:

Most rangers are asking for fixes. Not buffs, not increased power. Just fixes.

Fixes to things that should have been working correctly since release, but still arent.

Why other classes are getting buffs (not just fixes but actual buffs) while ranger is still stuck with very broken skills, pets and mechanics, is beyond my understanding.

Just a huge scar on the face of what would otherwise be a beautifully made game.