Guild Wars 2

Well one way to adress server transfers without interfering with the rest of the game (like forbidding transfer to high population servers, which might be something bad in some rare cases) would be to make it FREE to transfer AWAY from overpopulated WvW servers (maybe only to low populated WvW servers). This would allow people that are stuck on servers with long queues (that don’t transfer because of the cost) help in a big way. Also let guild leaders take their guild (with all upgrades!) to another server because most active WvW players are part of a WvW guild and this would allow guilds from overpopulated servers to transfer the whole guild for free and without any drawbacks to low populated WvW servers!

This would allow players and guilds to leave overpopulated servers without loosing anything.. and there are no major drawbacks (at least none that I can think of) for any player…

Making the transfer free would also allow to forbid transfers to that servers! Let’s say a player (in most cases a PvE player I guess) wants to join that server for the only reason that some friends are playing on that server. If transfer is forbidden he obviously can’t do that but his friends can change severs for free! So they still have the possibility to play with each other and if you implement guild transfers they can also take the guild that they made with them!

These changes would also reduce the problems that a reduction of WvW map caps would create because players that are facing long queues can transfer (for free) to servers with no/smaller queues.. I think the idea of lowering the caps is suggested for more than the reason of population imbalances.. it would also reduce skill lag what is the next major flaw of WvW that also favors overpopulated servers (if skills dont work and therefor tactics are irrelevant the larger amount of players wins most of the time..).
But in my opinion a reduced map cap can only work if the already announced overflow map is ready because in the beginning the queues will be massive.. additionally I would implement my previous stated idea first.. That would limit the effects of a reduced cap by a large amount!

Since the issue should be clear by now and most of the ideas I have can already be found in this thread here another minor fix that won’t solve the problem but could help a little.. It should be rather fast to implement since the new GvG area in obsidian sanctum comes out relatively fast (I heard it’s planned for november) and this change should take less afford..

Remove the jumping puzzles from all borderland maps and attach them as 1 jumping puzzle to the obsidian sanctum. If the league system continues this way (with achievements for jps) it will force many players to theses jps at the start of each season (it was really massive at our server…). This would reduce the amount of “missing” players a little and remove the necessity for jp fans to “steal” manpower from the WvW community. The removal of that area from the map could also possibly reduce lag issues a little.

My favorite solution to this would be to add it to the end of the obsidian sanctum and increase it’s difficulty and reward.. WvW jps seam mindless since blueprints can be bought at the trading post.. If you would increase the amount you get from jps while reducing/removing the blueprints you get through kills this map might lure some players from overpopulated servers to the sanctum (or at least it could give WvW players something to do while in queue…).

So I red here that outnumbered buff and the new borderland bloodlust have nothing to do with server population.. Here’s the reason why I think that’s wrong and how to adress that.

The bloodlust buff is a mechanic that highly favors the server with higher player numbers. Fixing it would therefor reduce the advantage an overpopulated server has. Fixes like that won’t solve the problem completely but reduce it’s effects ingame.

If you have a larger zerg it’s easier to send out ppl to get the buff and defend it. Since there is a decay in capped camps (they go neutral after a while) a group of up to 5 players has a hard time to cap 3 ruins and defend them. For starters that decay needs to be removed what will reduce the number of players you need to get the buff. Because it’s much easier for the larger zerg to send some ppl out than for the smaller once. Secondly the stat buff is just wrong here because it helps the larger zergs massively. My idea would be the following:

- Remove stat bonus from bloodlust buff
- Add the stat bonus to outnumbered buff
- Remove magic find/experience bonus from ounumbered buff
- Add magic find/experience bonus to bloodlust buff
- Award (one time) 10 points for a server when getting a bloodlust buff
- Award 5 points for a server that interrupts an enemy team from getting bloodlust (while the timer is running)

In my opinion this should help smaller servers (a little) while also keeping bloodlust attractive. Getting it is even a little risky because the other server can interfere and get 5 points what adds a lot of gameplay options. (Bloodlust still gives points for stomping).
As I said not a fix for the problem but yet another way to lower it’s effects (multiple others have been stated before..).

In my opinion balancing server population should be a long term goal (transfer stop to overpopulated WvW servers, free or cheaper to weaker servers) but the advantage the server gets through overpopulation must be addressed as soon as possible. Things like leagues and borderland bloodlust just made this advantage even more significant what’s definitely the wrong way to go.

Ps.: Please merge borderland JPs into one and add it to obsidian sanctum what should have a separate queue. This might be a minor thing but having queues and a smaller zerg because there are 10+ people doing jumping puzzles is frustrating…

I got some ideas about reducing the influence of night capping and the strength of larger groups attacking and taking objectives without much skill. I didn’t read every post in the thread so I apologize if something was already mentioned..

1. Arrow cart resolution bug: With this bug you can shoot other (mostly defensive) weapons which you actually shouldn’t be able to. This gives larger groups the opportunity to destroy well placed defense and force a zerg vs zerg fight over a structure.. in which mostly the larger zerg wins.. Fixing that would make defending structures with lower numbered zergs way easier.

2. Don’t let every team have access to every upgrade because most upgrades finish at night and have influence over the whole day what makes night capping that important. For example on borderlands the “fortify tower” upgrade at the northern 2 towers is only available for the owner of the borderland. As well as Garrisons “fortify keep” and “build waypoint”. Furthermore “fortify keep” and “build waypoint” upgrades should be completely removed from the hill and bay keep. And at the 2 southern spawn towers the “fortify tower” upgrade should only be available for the team with the nearest spawn. This would greatly decrease frustration over things that got taken at night and brought up to t3 until the morning and make it easier to get presence on a one-colored map. For eternal battlegrounds “fortify tower”, “build waypoint” and “fortify keep” should also be disabled for enemies at your keep and the 2 towers next to your spawn. “Fortify keep” and “build waypoint” should also be removed from SM for all teams, because getting a t3 SM is practically impossible at day but easy at night and the influence of a t3 SM castle changes the whole day.

3. Reduce the time a corpse can exist without going to a waypoint to 1 minute. Large zergs can always rezz their people in no time what makes reducing them very difficult. If corpses despawn after 1 min players could defend enemy corpses and deny rezzing. Additionally you could reduce the times you go to downed state before you’re instantly dead to one and/or cap the amount of players that can rally from 1 downed player to 3.
This would greatly reduce mass rallying in large zergs. (And with the waypoint changes above the walking distances become larger what would make it way easier to reduce a large zerg to a smaller one).

4. Reduce the amount of/Remove siege blueprints from drops. Only make them buyable or as a reward through rank up/achievement points. Normalize prices once again, would greatly reduce 20+ omega golem attacks (which are mainly made by the zerg with the higher number of players (—> at night)

5. If you enter a golem remove ALL boons from you (some classes can keep up swiftness) and make golems immune to mesmer’s time warp. Highly increase reaction time of a server against large golem attacks.. with a large enough zerg doors are gone in no time.. (also reduce the amount of mesmers needed for efficient golem attacks)

6. On borderlands map the southeastern spawntower can be attacked from the hill keep (with trebs). The southwestern tower can’t be attacked from the bay keep.. Remove the ability to shoot this tower with trebs from the hill keep to make it possible to gain a foothold that’s kinda save even if you don’t own the hill keep (the ability to shoot that tower mostly helps the dominant server —> the server with night capping/larger numbers)

7. Add a “Hire Scout” upgrade for all towers, keeps and SM that gives out a map-wide notice whenever a wall/door looses more than 10% Hp within one minute. Reduce the need of scouts which are more important for the lower numbered servers than for the flooded ones because you often need the same amount of scouts but have a lower amount of players. Also scouting is very frustrating…

8. On home borderlands mesmers can make a portal at garrison, use a wp to go back to spawn and open a portal there. This should not be possible. I guess sometimes it’s an advantage to smaller zergs as well but in most cases it helps the stronger server (golem ports, switching map and instantly be at garrison while it’s attacked…)

9. Borderlands garrison south inner gate (through the water) isn’t upgraded when the other gates are. This makes it very easy for large zergs to get through the door really fast.. Would be a good time to finally fix this bug…

10. Reduce skill lag.. Skill lag is another factor that favors larger zergs because it takes the skill out of the game what means that higher numbers almost always win.

This is all that I can come up with right now but all of these mechanics/bugs are giving the stronger server (with night capping/higher player numbers) a big advantage what really isn’t necessary. All these changes wouldn’t really solve the server population imbalances but greatly reduce the strength of the server with more people what would decrease the effects of the problem..

Why Server Population needs to be balanced for WvW:
- Coverage influences the score massively
- In most cases the larger Zerg wins battles (at least for public zergs)
- Loosing due to the number of players is no fun
- People stop playing after a few wipes → Even larger disadvantage
- Higher population often leads to PvDoor what’s no fun
- Even matches are the most exciting!!

Possible Solution

Decrease Map Capacity: One server can’t be outnumbered as hard as right now and queues would be longer on overpopulated worlds what would lead to server transfers to lower populated servers. I could imagine that this would also solve the skill lag problem. The problem is that this seems to be impossible until the WvW overflow map.

Let WvW activity influence the transfer cost: Something like compare the hours spent in WvW of each server and let that number influence the transfer cost. That would encourage transfers to lower populated servers. There could also be a maximum value at which it gets impossible to transfer to a server but free to transfer off that server. Obviously the easier solution which should also be easy to implement..

Decreasing disadvantage without balancing population: In my opinion these would only be short term solutions, because a balanced server population would make WvW much more fun. You could for example increase the effect of the outnumbered buff or increase durability of Gates and Walls at night (probably would only work for Europe). More Guards at night or even while outnumbered would also be a little help. Making a tower upgrade called “Scout” which sends a message to the whole map as soon as a wall or gate looses 10% HP within 1 minute would make scouts less needed what will increase the number of active players as well (35v55 is a little better than 30v50). There are many possible ways to decrease the disadvantage through numbers without balancing it out.

1) Population and server balance (decreasing number of players on each map by maybe 10% ; let WvW activity (like the total amount of hours spent in WvW each week by all players of the server combined) influence server transfer cost (or make transfers to low end servers free while a transfer to top servers is impossible) ; balancing rewards to get more ppl to play WvW (imo PvE just hands out rewards to easy.. stuff like reworking CoF p1 and increase difficulty of champion zerging might help)

2) Skill Lag (decreasing number of players on each map by maybe 10%)

3) Map Size (to small for the amount of players: decreasing number of players on each map by maybe 10% ; remove Waypoint Upgrade and replace it with something like a scout that informs the whole map as soon as a gate/wall gets below 90% ; increase map size/rearrange map to reduce amount of unused areas (like northern corners of borderlands))

(4)) Reduce amount of mobs (especially the aggressive ones), remove rally when killing such mobs

(5)) Massively increasing the rewards at the end of a match-up especially for the servers that made second and first place to reward winning (most ppl don’t care about the amount of points the server gets because zerging and PvD grant greatest rewards)

Eu is a real mess this week…
While rank 2, 3 and 4 fight each other rank 1 is matched up versus rank 9 and 13…
Who thought that this is a valid matchup? Rank 1 versus 13?? Thats 12 ranks difference!

Or since only the points matter.. 326111 points difference! Rank 13 has 17% less points than rank 1 and they are matched up against each other?

Right now Rank 1 leads with 157226 points over the 66628 points of rank 13 and millenium.org says they will rise about 25k points with that result.. When they have only 42% of the points of the best server in the matchup? How hard do they have to lose to get into the negative? 20% of the winning server?

There has to be something wrong!

As far as I know there is nothing more in W3 up until now…

Heres a little trick i’m using at this part but I don’t think it’s something to special .. (I’ve done world 2-3 tribulation mode 4 times up until now, did it like this every time)

1. Jump to the ledge on the right side
2. Jump to where the first cloud spawns (land on top of it)
3. Before the electricity starts jump to the next cloud
4. Stand on the corner of the cloud until you get damaged by the electricity
5. After taking damage and falling move forward (while knocked down) to the part free of spikes (you are invincible for a short time after taking damage, you can even jump after standing up)

That makes the first half of that room quite easy… the second part isn’t that hard as well.

Even.6570:

There is the checkpoint just in front of me, no mobs, nothing weird, well let’s go, then spikes pops out of nowhere and… who’s fault?

That’s exactly what I meant with: If the way looks to easy, there will be a trap
Mobs are also often (not always) an indicator for a trapless spot..
But yeah you’ll definitely run in some traps, but there a lot of traps that you
can skip through observation/thinking…

Tribulation mode is fun but most of the difficulty comes from not knowing the path..
After the first playthrough it’s quite easy and only takes about 30min to 1h per path (in world 2, 10-20min in world 1). I wished it would’ve been more difficult after knowing all the traps…

I like the design very much, reminds me of my old plattformer days… Also many of the spikes are pretty clear.. World 1 has different ground hights wich tell you pretty much and on many parts the way just seems so easy that there just must be a trap..
Just always choose the most difficult way and you avoid a lot of them.. Also try to walk on the edges of plattforms as often as possible to avoid a lot of them..

Since the hotfix tribulation mode of world 2-2 has 2 major bugs.

The first save point right after the teleporter part is bugged. You always respawn right on top of the spikes right before the save point. Sometimes you can make it past those spikes but each death after that part costs you 3-4 lifes…
What makes things worse is that the next checkpoint (where you have to activate the cloud) is bugged, too. After activating it and dying you respawn at the checkpoint after the teleporter part.. What is in the middle of spikes…

Has no one of Anet even tested tribulation mode with the hotfix? How can you miss something like that? The bugs occured in 2 player mode, don’t know if they exist on single player (but don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t…)

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well, of course it was for you. Do you know why? You played in normal, so you knew the overall patterns, traps, etc. Again, that’s common sense. For those that didn’t, and don’t really desire the challenge, that’s what infantile is for.

Well I played infantile again just now and 90% of the time you can walk over rainbows and skip almost everything.. Didn’t really find a part that I would call hard in infantile.. Could you make any examples please?

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I would agree with your opinion about ‘not all content is for all players’ if the previous standard was exactly the opposite. In the first SAB, it was accessible to all players. Yes, all. So, that kind of makes your point moot as far as SAB.

Granted, Queen’s Gauntlet is set for a certain player that wants a deep challenge. But, this? I’m afraid not. Going for World 1 to World 2 was like night and day.

I find World 1 to be just some kind of tutorial world where mechanics are shown and where’s no real danger.. So imo ramping up difficulty that hard is the right move (world1’s difficulty is a joke in comparison to every plattformer I ever played).. After world1 and world2 5 months have past what should lead to an overall skill increase of the GW2 players. The etherblade JP is just another example of the increasing difficulty of jumping stuff and people who made that shouldn’t have any issues with W2 infantile

Ardenwolfe.8590:

As far as skilled players not complaining, and non-skilled ones complaining. Well . . . duh. That’s like saying all the happy people never seem to use customer service because they’re not having any issues. But, the unhappy people use it because they’re having massive issues.

I don’t meant complaining I talked about posting at the forum at all. And with that I just wanted to make clear that ANET shouldn’t overreact because of this thread because there are a lot of people that are absolutely happy with SAB but don’t post their opinion here.. To answer the question if it’s too hard it might be better to look at the data of how many people started which SAB mode and finished it, gave up, how often they died, how long it took them, how often they completed it… instead of just looking at a thread where almost only the ppl that have problems with SAB post their opinion (what makes it totally biased).

Ardenwolfe.8590:

That’s not to say this isn’t still true, with World 2, but the learning curve even in Infantile Mode, went from casually easy to brutally evil.

Are we playing the same world 2? I have to admit I finished world 2 before playing infantile but I died 0 times at my first playthrough of infantile.. After playing tribulation I don’t intend to play normal yet infantile again except for the achievements because it’s so kitten easy (what makes it to boring)…

As I stated several times before ppl just have to accept that not every content is made for every player.. doing that is just impossible..

Imo infantile should be for people with no experience with plattformers while normal should be for ppl with some experience or ppl that finished infantile and want to put in some lifes and effort.. While tribulation should be for people that played a lot of plattformers and do want to die often as in the good old days where finishing a video game meant you have put in a lot of effort and tried really hard…
I myself even think tribulation mode is too easy and should be even harder…

You just have to accept that the skill gab is quite large and people that have huge problems in normal mode and have to spent more than 10 coins for all 3 zones of world 2 are skill wise on the lower end.. If you make content to easy many people will get bored so there has to be content (and a lot more than there is right now) that is a problem for many players… Since you can get all the achievements in infantile mode it shouldn’t be a problem to just play that.. But maybe some people are feeling bad with only playing “infantile” mode.. Maybe Anet should’ve called infantile normal and normal hard and ppl would be happy…

Also in my experience the lower skilled players are the ones that mainly post on the forums, high skill players just come here to look for news and post rarly.. So don’t overreact to all the stuff posted here, I know a lot of people that are playing SAB and having fun without even knowing this thread even exists.. Almost none of the people I know complained about the difficulty of SAB and most of them finished world 2 tribulation mode up until now..

You cry about difficulty in normal mode and to long levels while 5min ago we beat w2-3 tribulation within 1h with 2 ppl (where we had to wait at every checkpoint until both were there, what makes it even longer)… Seems like duration is fine if you know what to do and difficulty even in tribulation mode isn’t that hard… Just stop crying and start trying..

And Josh, please don’t keep in mind that you design content for everyone.. Just don’t.. There is no content for everyone because skill differs between players.. Normal should be beatable for the non-experienced housewife next door? imo no.. Easy mode is made for that..
What is a challenge for many is easy and thus boring for some.. You have to create content for casual and low skill players as well as for hardcore gamers and pros.. And the chances that these groups enjoy the same content are quite slim…

PvE only had a small amount of really hard or challenging stuff to do… The halloween jp, queens gauntlet, high level fractals, etherblade goggles and tribulation mode (most of that wasn’t even hard enough… and I don’t even want to add world 2 normal to that list) and that’s it…

No one can tell me that dungeons or any other content are difficult.. even arah is a joke..
Lupi? Is a joke.. The whole PvE aspect of the game is way to easy and now ppl cry at something that’s medium difficulty because they got everything for free up until now..
The game is out for a year now.. The skill of players should grow with time so the challenge you guys create should become harder and harder over time… All I can say and ask for is… Please keep throwing out hard stuff.. The more the merrier I’ll be!

I still think the difficulty of W2 is just fine and can’t understand the lot of complaints made here.. Some ppl are asking for fixes that I totally can’t agree with…

For example instant reset or back-port after falling into the rivers in w2-1 wouldn’t be good at all.. U can use the rivers to knock you back and stop at a stone/crocodile to save a lot of time what is a really fun mechanic that I do not want to miss…

Also I don’t see a problem with the instant-kill traps in W2-2.. you can spot them quite easy and if you don’t open your eyes it’s your fault you die…

Dodge Jumps are absolutely not necessary in normal mode.. you need them in tribulation mode but can finish w2 normal mode without using that mechanic once…

The easiest way to make it through the gong tower is to just activate the gong and instantly die once.. then run to the exit and wait there for the gong.. finishing it the normal way is kinda hard but absolutely manageable, too.

Rewards are fine, too.. I would even play it without any kind of reward.. if this was a standalone game for 10-15 bucks I’d totally buy it! Josh, you guys did such a good job! The design is just awsome! What’s wrong with playing just for fun?

Also ppl have to realize that just not every content is made for everyone.. I find most of the content to be to easy in gw2 to such an extend that it isn’t even fun to do.. I’m glad that there is finally something challenging as tribulation mode (witch I intend to finish the 3. time in world 2 today..)

You could argue that playtime is “too long” an maybe split the whole thing up into maybe 4 zones (don’t have to be 3 imo) but if you’ve finished normal mode once the time it takes to finish it a second time is way shorter.. I can imagine that after a few runs some ppl can finish world 2 in 1-1.5 hours (I intend to speedrun it at some point as well).

Many ppl seem to play SAB only because of the achievements (which can all be obtained at easy mode) or the skins (well this time it’s not just a free farm living story.. and if you finish easy mode a couple of times you should be able to get some skins as well) but not because playing stuff like this is fun for them.. I guess all ppl that played old platformers know what I mean and compared to many of them w2 normal is just a joke..

Please keep up the good work and don’t give to much about all those whiners.. I’m looking forward to W3 an I would be sad if W3 gets dumped down in difficulty and made as easy as world1.. Difficulty should rise even more in W3.. Maybe you could also just add in a new difficulty for W3.. like easy (~as hard as easy w2), normal (as easy as normal w2), hard (harder than normal w2), tribulation (please try to stop me..)
There’s need for more content with that level of difficulty (also loved queens gauntlet and the diving goggles at the etherblade jp).. We need more of this stuff!

After I found and red through several pages of this thread I must admit I’m kinda shocked.. I don’t think that world 2 normal mode is too hard by any means.. finished it the first day in a couple of hours… Up until now I also got 2 of the green and 2 of the yellow weapons.. today I rushed through all 3 maps of world 1 tribulation mode in about 1.5 hours and that was on my second playthrough.. finishing all 3 maps of world 2 in normal mode took me about 2.5 hours today and I didn’t even use the eagle shortcut and I’m quite sure that I’m not familiar with all the other shortcuts that exist… I gotta admit there are also some parts that I still need some practice on.. Only world 2 tribulation mode still takes me 4h+ but I’m totally fine with it..
To be honest I would be quite disappointed if the difficulty would be toned down or if world 3 and 4 wouldn’t be at least as hard as world 2.. would prefer it if they would be even harder and I would be glad if it’d be quite a bit..

But in my opinion most video games that are released the last couple of years are way too easy.. also I find the difficulty of most of the dungeons in GW2 so easy that I totally get bored.. I guess the problem nowadays is that most ppl want everything fast and without putting some kind of effort into it.. kitten I miss the good old days

So please I beg of you don’t reduce the difficulty of the SAB.. Not every person needs everything for free.. And you would destroy the content that I find to be the most fun since quite some time.. After the first guides pop up difficulty will be dumped down anyways..

Ps.: World 1 normal mode is way to easy.. I can finish it in about 30min without dying once.. It really was the right decision to go up with the difficulty… No fun for gamers who know the good old tryhard games that can’t be found anywhere nowadays.. don’t make the same mistakes as WoW… Everything is fine with easy mode for normal ppl, normal mode for ppl that want to put in some effort and are willing to sacrifice some lifes and tribulation mode for hardcore gamers..

PPS: Not every content you guys put out has to be for everyone.. there are always ppl that are unhappy and imo it’s the right decision to also put out stuff that isn’t created for the masses but for players “niche” players that want something different and challenging.. but I still can’t understand how ppl have that big problems on normal mode.. the fish tower and the zelda/gaiden homage are both quite easy parts if you just keep your eyes open..