Guild Wars 2

Gee, would ya look at that…I’d say a good 90-95% of those suggestions came from players…from losing servers…who identified the problems…provided the solutions….3 years ago…and were ignored…so money could be made.

Better late than never.

Ultimately, we’re all rehashing the same issue. PPT as a scoring system, needs to GO AWAY. It needed to go away 3 years ago, it needs to go away now. Even further on point, Anet needs to exert the effort to make something better to replace it. No, not “fix it,” not “patch it,” not “adjust it.”

Sit down. Come up with something new. Test it. Test it some more. Beta weekend it for a month so the players can find all the creative exploits. Test it AGAIN. And once you finally think you’ve got it, then REPLACE PPT.

These are problems they were informed about years ago. Both the world stacking, and coverage issues; among others. Anet’s response was to sell out to the money they made off the server transfers; and basically give the rest of the WvW community the middle finger. Only when WvW seemed ready to die, irreparably, on several non world stacking servers, did they suddenly start to “care.”

Good. They should care. They should have cared a long time ago. WvW is a separate game mode. It’s not PvE, it’s not organized PvP. The irony of ALL of this is that back in GW1, Alliance v Alliance was one of the favored game modes among pvpers. People liked the chaos and large scale battles. I would say it’s beyond me why Anet discarded this readily available clue that they should care about WvW; but I covered that. NCsoft made them sell out for the money.

So, again; if Anet is going to think about, maybe, daring to try to fix things that could have been fixed years ago; start by getting rid of PPT.

+1, and a Signet of Approval for the OP well said

World War III.3869:

NO.

I suck at JPs and even I can farm that thing. It’s ridiculously easy if you put the effort in. I do the thing on a freak of nature max sized Norn. If you cant do that thing 3 times in a month… C’mon… It’s easy!

The only guys I feel sorry for is if you’re disabled with one arm or something. I actually helped a guy out before with a vista that had one arm. As sad as it is, just like other games and life, if you have a disability, you won’t be able to do some things. Anet isn’t some store providing a ramp for wheelchair access. It’s a video game. They can’t really do anything for some of these people. People would lie and try to cheat through things. Hey I had the flu during Halloween and missed something, here’s my Doctor’s excuse, give me my cheevs and items please.

Realistically, Anet has some amazing support sometimes. Compared to some other companies I’ve dealt with. I’ve deleted items by accident, forged wrong kitten etc, they fixed it. This JP unfortunately they won’t and can’t change.

Winter Presense is a prestige item. It’s money + time + skill. Take away one and it’s 1/3 the item. Take gen 1 legendaries for example. Compare 2013 to now. Not so Legendary anymore.

First Halloween I wanted Ghastly shield skin. Spent a bunckittens, farmed etc, got jack kitten. Is that the way it should be? Sure they cost loads now but i’d never want them to nerf that for people who aquired them. I could buy one right now if i wanted but i prob never will due to being burned so hard with the key scam. It’s not the same.

Is it even special if every toon has one? without the money gate and JP thats what it would be.

Worry about the 10k drinks then the JP. Oh and the choir thing, it takes me days to complete a couple songs. Think freddy kruegar vs a chalkboard.

For the record, i’m willing to try and help anyone with the JP. The presents? most have trrouble with that. if there’s multipple people on the candy waiting for boxes to spawn, WAIT. Wait till you’re the only there if you have to. Take the middle route and spam space bar. Every now and then you have to jump on a diagnal one. The rest is simple and can be shown or watched in a video. Can use that same spot to catch your breath and take a brreak if arthritic. Me personally, I do better if i just keep going and go with the flow. Like a rythmn.

Actually, special skins and such used to be meta-achievement rewards for the festivals. Those requirements used to have a little “give” in what you had to do to achieve them. If you weren’t good at one thing, you got to make up the deference by being dedicated to dailies, or other content.

Really all you’ve done is reinforce the argument that there’s content some people are good at, and some people are not. If you’re good at JPs, great, but forcing everyone to do JPs, even those horrible at it, just makes it frustrating. Needlessly so.

For items with value, your argument of exclusive items, like exotics and such, holds some water. Some things are locked behind certain doors, and that’s fine. But a skin that no one else will benefit from? What’s the point holding over the heads of people who are just not good at JPs? Who does that serve? Who does it help? Who does it make feel better about the game?

So rather than removing the JP requirement, there should be alternate roads to getting the final reward. If it’s about dedication, you can make the alternates time consuming, or challenging regarding other content. 200-500 kills in snowball mayhem I could do that. Play 5000 notes in the choir bell game, or get 100 songs with 100% accuracy? I could do that.

But you pit me, and a lot of other people, against a JP, we will never get the reward. NEVER.

Ok, people who say “just dodge” Please remember exactly how many cliffs there are in this particular area. Especially beyond the entry area. Dodging can, in this case, prove to be as fatal as the attack, if not more so, if you fall off a cliff.

Added difficulty is great IF you’re in an event, IN a group. If you’re not, by the time you “carefully” wade through the mobs that are much more difficult and have a HUGE aggro range, the event you are trying to reach will be over, which means you wasted all the time you fought your way in that direction.

Harder mobs are great when they’re tucked away in a corner or an instance, but for open world where you participation is reliant on mobility as much as firepower, not so great.

I hope Anet gets the message and makes the mobs during events harder, and open world spawns much weaker.

Ok, so I think most of us can conclusively agree, that the Rev, in Beta version, is not acceptable. Ok, so it’s not even remotely close. However, saying so, takes no steps towards fixing this class. So let’s point out the collective faults of the class in one place, combine with, reasonable, suggestions to fix things.

Note: Your study does not have to be “comprehensive” just point out what you have worked with.

1. Weapons

a.) Hammer

In the case of the hammer, and in the case of the Rev in general, the concept is to be a slow, ranged heavy hitter. Unfortunately, in the desire to err on the side of caution, the Hammer just feels slow. Period. The hammer also doesn’t pierce through enemies, so you’re more than likely hitting 1 guy and maybe the guy next to him.

Solution 1: Dmg/speed Fix: I would recommend at least a 10% boost in attack speed, and a 15% boost in base dmg. (recommended)

Solution 2: Speed/dmg Fix: 20% faster attack speed, 5-7% dmg boost.

Solution 3: Condi/Pierce Boost Fix: 50% Chance on hit to apply torment, hammer throws pierce targets or do splash dmg upon first hit. Hitting a target with torment on it, cripples the target for 1.5 seconds. (recommended)

c. Staff

I really “want” to like the staff, and it’s obvious it was made for a healer doing melee range self defense, probably in proximity to a tablet. My issue is the globes, you can barely see on the ground. Also the dmg is relatively low for a melee range weapon.

Solution 1: Globe Scale Fix: make the healing globes about 20-50% larger so they can be seen. (recommended)

Solution 2: Globe Creep Fix: Allow the globes to naturally gravitate towards you after 1 second at average walking speed. So if you’re crippled and running away they follow and heal you till they run out.

Solution 3: Boon Standard Fix: The globes need to generate swiftness or protection as a standard effect. (recommended)

Solution 4: Dmg Fix: This thing is melee range on a class that isn’t really meant to be, it needs 20-25% more base dmg.

2. Armor

When I play a heavy armor class. I expect it to be heavy armor. Not tissue paper wrapped in a thin film of metal. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING that got close and wasn’t an NPC was near instant death. I’ve tried going for power, I simply died faster because of the slow execution times of my skills.

I tried a Healing>Toughness build with 4 variable armor stats. It was barely any Tankier and I lost basically ALL my power. Took me ~30 seconds to kill a boar NPC in Drytop.

Something is wrong either with how the armor stats are being read, or with the base stats for the class.

Solution 1: Raise the base stats of the class to put them more in line with the fact that my medium armor Engie has more sustain than a heavy armor Rev. (Recommended.)

3. Misc.

-Skills do not link well with each other. Recommend to revisit the overall synergy of multiple Legends.

-There is no “reliable” swiftness skill. Right now you either run staff and trait for the orbs to grant swiftness, or you have to combo. Please add 1-2 skills that grant swiftness in a slightly less cumbersome way.

That’s all for now.

I am…I think the words are…monumentally kittened….

I LOVED the mortar kit the way it was. I felt effective. I felt useful, more useful than I ever have on Engie before.

There is NO JUSTIFICATION that is acceptable for this nerf. NONE! If a Dev wants to dare have the audacity to come in here and TRY, go ahead, we want to hear it.

edit: Engie is about the only class I’ve played since the beginning…and this nerf..just literally took all the desire to play today out of me…I was so excited to get home and keep working with the mortar kit and a build around it….now…well..guess I’ll go back to retooling my flamethrower build…but..yeah…not feeling it.

+1 Please remove ground targeting.

Good, we get a slot. Seriously, no sarcasm, no underlying message. We got something for our dedication.

As a recommendation to Anet, from now on, if you’re going to dispense with accessibility issues as your business model, prepare future releases to have vet bonuses per pieces of the game already owned; or, provide a stand alone option.

Otherwise we’re going to go round and round every time a new expansion comes out.

Nevertheless, good to see a response. Now we can all go back to getting ready to be turned into newbies for 12 hours as of the 23rd. (Skill/trait changes, so new builds to research.)

Did Anet see this coming? Yes. Because NCSoft told them to expect it, when they shoved their money grubbing tactics down everyone’s throats.

Now why did NCSoft do this? Because most people do not grasp abstract concepts when they do not directly effect them in any way shape or form; or are perceived to have no direct effect.

The very, very, short sighted people who actually defend any of this, are just a group of people who don’t understand the concept of right an wrong, beyond very basic and observable terms. Namely because they aren’t forced to care.

If you have enough money, you aren’t going to care.
If you’re a new player planning to get both Core and Xpac, you aren’t going to care.
If you don’t value yourself, you aren’t going to care.
If you take more enjoyment from arguing a point, than being right about it, you aren’t going to care.
If you enjoy calling people with legitimate viewpoint, pretty much the only legitimate viewpoint, a whiner or a child; you aren’t going to care.

There are some very sad, very sick people out there that have this deranged notion that the consumer is responsible for everything all of the time, and that just because many companies do the same thing, it makes it right.

What they forget to realize is that it only works in the first place because all of them don’t care. They can’t be bothered to exert the effort required to stand up for themselves, or stand up for someone else, or at least stand up against a very nasty business practice.

They say, oh hey look at all those silly people, look how they waste their effort trying to get something to happen. Oh well, I rather not think about it. And then several million go buy without considering the consequences later which are.

The company can count on you being a sheep.
The company can count on pricing for whatever they want, you’ll buy it.
The company can cut corners as long as they manage hype, cause you’ll buy it.
The company can remain focused on churning through new players and rehash the old content.
The company can count on a great number of you to actually work counter to those who complain out of blind loyalty.

But you can bet those very same people when they see something THEY don’t like, will complain just the same, and wonder why “those other people” just don’t get it.

Because the company can count on you being a hypocrite.

I remember Anet before NCSoft…better days, they’d NEVER have done this. They would have spit on the idea. Shame on NCSoft and EVERY person who works for such a company.

Not gonna get into the ranger debate, or the thief debate, or the necro debate. I don’t play those classes.

What I am going to say is, thank you for finally giving the Engie some lovin’ and actually giving Juggernaut perma-stability. Flamethrower has always been a moderate damage condition spreader and pressure damage tool. The fact you had to rely on someone else to stay on your feet while using it crippled its effectiveness. It’s nice to see being a flame tank might be a viable build now.

That’s most important to me personally since I’ve run a flamethrower oriented build since almost the beginning of the game. That said, I am VERY pleased with the skill/trait adjustments overall. I especially look forward to seeing if the Personal Mortar’s Orbital Strike Skill has some actual distance on it, so I don’t have to frenetically try to set a mortar up on a wall under siege and try to fire off 1-2 skills before it melts.

If not, well, I won’t be crushed, because of all the lovin’ my class just received.

I get it’s not a tank class. The moderate health pool was a good enough indicator, I’m saying the “heavy armor” wasn’t working properly. WAY more damage being taken than against a medium armor Engie.

Look the real argument here is the GW 2 is not GW 1. Anet proved they could be trusted to accurately all those skills and thereby successfully insert new play-styles, classes, and skills into an existing universe.

GW 2 had proven that Anet is now willing to give portions of the community the middle finger (WvW) and play harder to the money side of things. This is not an argument that GW 2 should fail. This is not an argument that no one should pay for HoT.

This is an argument that ultimately the inherent trust that there will be BALANCE is gone. People keep saying in this thread “Well yeah, EVERY MMO does this.” Last I checked, Anet set out to have GW/GW 2 NOT be every other MMO out there.

Not gonna comment on skills really, because the weapon swapping, trait trees and skill balance are not done. Everything to point out has been said.

Just want to say, whatever Revenants were wearing it was NOT heavy armor. I tested it. My Engie was taking LESS damage from an Arid Devourer than my Revenant. So, someone didn’t get that right and it made it really hard for the class to appeal because it was super weak.

Ultimately, I LIKED not having to die as an engineer when there was a fight greater than 5-10 people. The bonus of fortitude was my reward for getting my WvW ranks. If that says as a baseline thing, cool.

On the issue of siege, Anet just doesn’t get it. The attack power of unmanned siege is 0. it will always be 0. If you raised the damage by 200%, it’s still 0. Siege is more often unmanned than not.

Because on MOST servers, there’s no appreciable defending force. There is the zerg, a few scouts, and the roamers, and THAT’S IT. Defending anything besides a keep is a massive waste of time, in 90% of cases.

1. In defending 1 structure against a massively superior force (which you have allowed by siding with the server stacking gold buyers, and not the people who work to win), you will lose 2-3 camps/towers.

2. When there isn’t a fight going on, there’s NOTHING going on, and let me tell you, scouting in a tower gets boring. Very, very boring.

3. There ware no appreciable rewards for defending anything. Ultimately, 3-5 silver in my pocket does not inspire me to run halfway across a map anymore, especially when I’m in the process of papering a T2 or T3 from the other guys side. And it’s sure not enough to make me stand there for hours on end, again.

You make money attacking, not defending. Defend a yak? 1 set of event rewards. Take an enemy camp? 1-2 yak events + the camp + mini chest from supervisor. Take a tower/keep/garri? Event rewards, + champ bag + additional loot from guards. Defend a tower/keep/garri? Stand on a wall and wait for 4 hours(or 15) for nothing to happen, maybe scavenge the resource nodes outside the walls, and kill critters.

So I’ll say it again. No. Appreciable. Rewards. For. Defending.

Ok well my thread to try and motivate the players to take the issues they have to the people who deserve the blame was infracted and removed, so I’m just gonna stop posting entirely.

Just wanted to say to the moderators, it was not my intention to break the rules, and for that I do apologize. That said, now I’m too scared to post anything, anywhere on the forums.

Just gonna say, Anet aren’t the ones we should be blaming, and that’s that. I’m done.

Anet, read this thread. The deconstruction of where you’ve been going, in our perspective is all laid out right here.

Let me expound a bit further even into the real world perspective of authority people generally have and how it effects you.

Most people spend their lives trying to deal with a world littered with liar, cheats, thieves, scalpers, opportunists, chiselers, demagogues, stone-wallers, deniers, and every other form of degenerate scum bag there is.

It is bad, it is really bad out there. I’m not saying that because I don’t think you’re people with lives and you don’t experience these things. I say it because I think sometimes your forget when you get into “GW2” mode.

So we, as people, expect a company to lie to us, cheat us, not communicate with us, etc. Because that’s what we’ve gotten out of a lot of the people we’ve dealt with in real life, and it’s the general M.O. of other game companies.

So when you’re silent on issues, when you move forward with drastic changes that alter the economy of the game, in your favor, and when you show seemingly no interest in taking responsibility or apologize for this action; it looks like the very model of a modern major-bully.

We don’t like that, because we come to our virtual worlds to get away from that sort of behavior. We’re sick of it. We will riot over it. We will get visceral and vitriolic over it. Most of all we will feel we are perfectly justified to do so because we feel so impugned by the forces controlling/influencing our regular lives that we will fight any of them with think we can actually take on.

So, going forward, here’s your checklist:

-Did we tell the player base about the idea?
-If no, Did we tell the player base in an well written, concise, and articulate fashion, explain WHY we can’t tell the player base?

-Did we tell the player base specifically what will be effected by the change?
-If no, Did we tell the player base generally what will be effected, and explain why we can’t be more specific?

-Did we tell the player base what patch the changes will come in?
-If no, have we explained why we’re unsure of our time frame?

-If there is a delay in release, have we explained why there is a delay?

-If there is a delay in release, have we put up a very tentative timeline for how long the delay might take?

-If there are bugs, does the player base consider them small, large, or game/community breaking? (You judge this by both in game communication and forum reaction.)

-If there are bugs, have we communicated the best subject to list the bug report under so we can track it properly, and get a better gauge of where the problem might come from?

-If there are bugs, have we communicated what stage of the correction process we “think” we’re in?
-If in data collection phase, remind the players of the best ways to send bug reports, and thank them for their assistance in collecting that data for you.
-If in bug tracking phase, specify what instances of events/actions seem to be causing the problems, and suggest ideas to get around the issues till a bug fix is out.
-If in bug fixing phase, specify a general timeline for bug fix release.

-We have just released a large or game/community breaking sized bug.
-Step 1: Apologize, seriously.
-Step 2: Proceed with above bug fix-procedure for communication.
-Step 3: Make amends. As in, you release a bug where loot doesn’t generate 50% or more of the time, you give your players 10 Champ Bags, or maybe 20 Gems, or some small event related gift, etc. (Do this about an hour or two AFTER you fix the actual bug, don’t dedicate your programmers to anything but the actual bug, before that.)

You did the above things with the Karka Event. You recognize the release of a single time big event, was a bad idea. You apologized. You explained why you couldn’t fix it. So, instead, you just gave everyone the standard loot everyone else got. It was right, it was fair, and it worked.

Engies have been given enough time to flesh out their existences. I see a few running around in a group. They’re still a rare, less understood, and highly demanding class; but people are trying them out.

I just want to say, I also posted in the Gem Conversion Thread and my post is also of a negative tone. That said, Anet did get the loot right for the labyrinth. It feels like year 1 loot and that’s a good kind of loot level, because it makes people feel like they aren’t grinding, unless they want to grind for extra.

So, though I have been very harsh and very critical of Anet this past month, I am at least happy to find something I can’t complain about. Truth be told there’s a lot I don’t complain about even when others do, and it’s only recently have I lost my faith in Anet. Up to that unfortunate point I was a die hard fan, which is WHY I’m so negative and so critical, this game means a lot to me.

More importantly, the ideals from which this game grew are important to me. And I see those ideals taken away by more “corporate” interests.

But anyway, Good Labyrinth, Good Loot, Overall Good Halloween thusfar.

I am so very, very tired of yelling at ANet this week. So. I’ll keep this simple.

/Signed

And also regarding the sudden and dramatic change in the exchange RATE of gold to gems being generated solely by the new build…prove it. Wait, you can’t because you got rid of the trend history.

Putting that aside, we know it’s a lie. We know it was a price fixing. I’ve seen patch shifts in the market before, heck I count on them to make ANY sort of real amounts of gold since you started nerfing loot. A regular patch will move the exchange by maybe half a gold in a DAY of play. A big patch usually moves 1-1.3 gold in a day.

Your new exchange moved it anywhere between 3-4.5 Gold in less than 5 hours.

The math doesn’t add up. It. Does. Not. Add. Up.

I started playing GW1, because is seemed cool. I stayed and bought Factions, Nightfall, and EotN because Anet grasped and suitably represented an ideal that had seemed to have long been forgotten by society in general.

That NO, not “everything” needs to be decided by money. That you owe your loyal players a reciprocated loyalty, and make visible, palpable, amends when a mistake is made, and you talk to them in a serious manner, and take none of their ideas for granted. That your responsibility to the craft of the game does not end once the money hits the counter. That intentional mediocrity for the sake of profit is not acceptable.

GW 2 placed a fresh face on a game I loved, better graphics, more freedom, more immersion; and at the start, those same ideals, steadfastly in place. Now. I increasingly question why, or even IF I want to play anymore. The graphics are still good, the freedom to roam is still there, the immersion is a little worn, due to time. But the ideals. The ideals that made me a player, fan, and customer; are dead.

I don’t know when or why, but someone killed them.

So maybe I keep playing for the vain hope I will see those ideals restored to the company, one day.

@Kaineng: I remember the first time my server defeated yours (like the fourth or fifth week of game release, way back when.) felt so bad, you guys had like 5 people…on all 4 maps.

That said, faced you guys for 1 round during the recent Tourny, you gave us some good fights. So, kudos and respect. Not really relevant, but felt like saying so. I respect servers that WORK to be good, keep it up guys.

I called for the guy who promoted this idea to be fired in another thread, I’ll do it here too. I’m not kidding either. You might find it “harsh” but the blatant favoritism towards large scale servers and greed in general has just reached a sickening point.

During the tournament I was a scout. I mean I was a SCOUT. 5 hour shifts, standing in a tower, doing nothing. Pulled a couple 12-13 hour shifts too. I wanted my side to win, I had the dedication to my server for that. We didn’t have the numbers for many “willing” scouts to rotate from active/scout statuses. Of course it meant nothing in the end, but that’s besides the point. I wasn’t the only one either, several other people subject themselves to this too.

It was the most painfully BORING task I have ever committed to one, one I’d have never attempted without the pride in my server that I have, and one I will NEVER do again. Ever. Because I’m done with WvW. Pretty much done with Anet too. I’m sick of this. I look at these forums and all I see are half hearted attempts to console a part of the playerbase that has reached levels of outright disgust with how things are going.

Now they come out with what is probably the WORST idea they could have possibly even contemplated. No, I’m out.

Oh and before ANYONE gets kittened about this not being “constructive criticism.” Well guess what, constructive criticism has yielded WvW as it is NOW. When you spit in someone’s face enough times, they’re gonna spit back.

Let’s see a Dev respond to THAT.

Nope, no suggestions, no begging. We should just STOP banging our heads against this wall. I mean who are these guys listening to? Really? No white swords? Whose friggin bright idea was this? Literally, who verbalized it, or put it down on paper. I want their name. I want them FIRED. Immediately! STOP COMING UP WITH HORRIBLE THINGS TO DO TO WvW!

Here’s my suggestions.

1. Outmanned Buff, the PPT value for held structures is doubled, for individual stomps it’s 3 pts without bloodlust, 4 pts with bloodlust. There is an immediate point gain equal to triple the PPT, based on the level of upgrades, for capturing a Keep.

2. The PPT value of structures goes UP the longer you hold/upgrade them.

3. Those who remain in the vicinity of a tower (3000 meters) for a full hour or more, start receiving a champ bag, every half hour. There is a 5 minute forgiveness timer in the event they need to jump out to protect a supply camp of something.

4. Basic Arrow Carts are so weak, commanders get angry when someone places one. Fix this, give them a 33% dmg boost.

5. Commander Tags: More colors, different icons. Take out red, it’s hard to see.

6. Redesign the towers to have MORE then 1 door. I don’t care if it looks pretty, just give defenders an alternate way to get IN.

7. Siege Disabler: Player movement speed reduced by 50% when held, and for 5 seconds after thrown, Cool-down on successful use of 20s, effect time reduced to 30 seconds, maintain radius and throw distance, can not be thrown through gates, reduce supply cost to 5.

8. Stealth trap, worthless, remove it. I think I’ve only ever seen it used once, ever.

9. Supply Trap, change the contact radius to a circle, radius of 1200, triggers ONLY when 5+ people enter the radius. Destroys 50% of carried supply, prevents the taking of more for 30 seconds.

10. New Buff: Defiance, Activates after 1 full hour of Outmanned, deactivates 1 full hour after Outmanned drops.

-100% MF
-75% WXP
-100% EXP
-50% Gold Drop
-50% Capture Point Contribution
-Immediate PPT score gain worth double the value of any tower, and five times any Keep, based on upgrades; upon capture.
-+The PPT value of held structures is worth x3, killing an enemy with out stomping applies 2 pts to score, stomping grants 5 pts. These, with or without bloodlust.

Do these suggestions seem heavily skewed towards helping defenders on lower population servers? Why yes, yes they are, because those are the people who need help. Who feel betrayed most by the current state of things. But if the defenders rally over and over and over, the bigger players can’t just bank 100k points and sleep for the rest of the week. Because that lead can be chipped away over the week.

Liston.9708:

Jeknar.6184:

KDXX.9520:

I want a kittening dev response and I want it right the kitten now!

How about the one from Devon I quoted on the post a little above yours?

Clearly didnt’ bother to read this thread either…….

Many many people understood this week would mirror week 1 based on devon’s response.

And as such, mea cupla, no argument. My failure to catch that bit of info. I consider this a response, even if I’m not happy with it.

Terrahero however raises a fair point, one must concede, a lot of people are fed up with seeing the SAME people.

I’m with everyone else is this thread.

I’m from SoR
-Week 1: GoM, Darkhaven.
-Week 2: Anvil Rock, Kaineng.
-Week 3: GoM, E-Bay
-Week 4: GoM, Darkhaven.

I want a kittening dev response and I want it right the kitten now!

I don’t care if you don’t like WvW, I don’t care if you don’t care about it. I DO and I paid for the game just like every other person who cares about it. I want a kittening dev response and I want it NOW.

Just gonna say, from SoR, if they try to merge us. I won’t quit. But I will kittening HATE Anet forever. I can’t even go to LA and call for more SoR to go to WvW anymore because it’s not server specific.

They’re probably all “but with mega severs we’re all one big happy community now!” No. I still hate BG, I still hate JQ, I always will, they RUINED WvW for everyone with their server stacking tactics. Anet ruined it because they let dollar signs block their view of what we warned them would happen if they allowed it.

I don’t give a kitten if you think “oh just another SoR QQing.” Causality has its place, in everything. BG stacks, Anet turns a blind eye, BG eventually wins by numbers and PPT; everyone tries to stack and WvW is RUINED. Period. That’s what happened, we all kittening watched it happen.

If ANET wants to try an honest “brainstorm” towards any sort of solution, they need to take responsibility for this monumentally “bad decision,” if not apologize to ALL of the servers ruined as a result. No, not just SoR, but the people who tried to fight, to recover after, all of them. No one deserved whats happened.

Until they take responsibility for the greed they displayed, there will be no serious discussion on the subject because all there will be is the existing bad blood.

We are NOT one big happy community.

Poll options

1. Gem Store, as is.

2. I would like to see a boxed expansion, like Factions and Nightfall for GW1.

3. I think downloadable content is the way to go.

4. I would like to keep the gemstore for aesthetic goods, with releases of payed boxed/downloadable content; and have Anet take steps to remove the effect Gems have on game/policy decisions.

5. I would like to keep the gemstore for aesthetic goods, with free living story releases, and some payable boxed/downloadable content with aesthetic exclusives; and have Anet “reduce” how much consideration Gems get in their policy decisions.

Argue that I’m QQing and just a bent out of shape SoR remnant if you want. That’s route is for " argumentative easy mode" and trolls. Doesn’t matter, because ultimately these things are happening. They’re readily visible to anyone who has played long enough and is paying attention. They need to be addressed.

Oh well “all’s fair in love and war,” right? Perhaps if we were trying to kill each other. But this is supposed to be a game and fun, for those who win AND those who don’t. How do you make those who lose have fun? By letting them fight their hardest, before they lose, so they don’t feel like they never had a chance.

So how does this relate to server stacking? Well because WvW was and is all about PPT; which are points calculated by how many objectives you control. If you stack you server in such a way that you have people on the field 24/7, while simultaneously taking those same people away from your opponent. You win, period, all stop. You Win.

Meaning, in the end, you don’t need tactics, don’t need experience, don’t need skill. You just need half your forces awake while the other side is asleep, or on the back end of 10 hour shift on their day off, trying to hold off fresh troops. Further disclaimer, there were and are some BG players/guilds with experience and talent. Not the point, point is the remaining time was filled with half baked merc scrubs taking an unmanned tower at 4AM North American Time.

That was not, and is not in the spirit of GW or WvW. So why was this allowed? Why was this “strategy” permitted to continue till BG was Tier 1 if only because of sheer SIZE? Gems. It all came down to greed. Blatant and obvious, inexcusable greed.

Transfers between servers cost lots of gems. Can you imagine the profit potential in allowing a server to move entire guilds? Dozens, and hundreds of people, all with multi-hundred gem transfer costs. So it was allowed, and WvW in spirit, and more literally on SoR; died.

Imagine what a monumental slap in the face it was to a very, admittedly, proud, server; to be told, they would never win again? No matter how many sieges they levied, how many zerglings they slaughtered, how many long nights were spent standing atop a fortress wall, watching for the enemy; by morning it would be all for not. And all for money.

Sure, other servers stacked after, followed BGs example. I hear even SoR tries to get some mercs now and again. The notion would have made us livid before, but what’s the point in getting mad now? We dropped, I don’t know how many tiers, and WvW is nominally empty most the time.

Anyway, that’s my personal anger. From an objective standpoint, perhaps they were in need of cash flow, and I rather have GW2 operational. It was still a bad decision, that broke my trust in Anet and enacted my severe distrust for NCSoft.

Let’s move on to the third issue that has arisen from Gems. Loot nerfs. The Devs can frame it any way they please. What it really is, is Gold constriction. Less loot, less gold to spend, less gems purchased with Gold rather than real world money. So then, what is the point of fighting a valiant battle with the forces of evil if, at the end, you don’t have something marginally economically sound for it?

Yes, friendship, the thrill of the experience, the memories; all just as important. But there is something to be said for that moment when you open a treasure chest and have the hope of something good. If there’s no meaningful amount of hope you’ll get anything for the effort, most won’t bother with it.

Finally, GRIND. This is a consequence, of both loot nerfs and gem inflation.; and another thing Anet promised to keep most of out of GW2. Before we continue, I realize that the things we’re talking about here are not required for gameplay. I recognize it, and accept it. I also say this. Anet promised to “not be like those other games.” That’s the promise I paid for. I expect them as a customer, to keep it.

In all those other games, there’s no reasonable hope you’ll ever get anything meaningful out of the gemstore, without paying, or obscene grind. I would like, and greatly appreciate if GW2 Gemstore was not the same way. I play more than most people, and I find my playtime oriented more and more towards Gold. I can’t, at the moment, imagine a casual gamer that plays 2-3 hours a day, could expect to compete with the current rate of gold inflation.

So, those are not all, but the most notable, and egregious offenses thus far. So then, I’ll keep it simple. Obviously, Anet still needs money. So what would we prefer, as a community; in the way of payment/content options.

Alright, now I’m going to say, first off; I have been happy (the whole first year) and disappointed (the back half of the 2nd year) with GW2. The fact that I have to even put a disclaimer as such is really depressing. That’s how hostile a lot of people have gotten to even discussing serious topics that effect the game. To a lot of people, if you’re not on your knees, groveling and being eternally grateful of everything Anet does, you’re QQing.

As I stated in another post, a while, back during year 1, I applied to Anet, twice. That’s how impressed I was with GW2 and the GW series in general. But I was more impressed with the very “not greed” oriented business model. Let me be specific, profits, yes, greed, no.

Now, I’m not so impressed, specifically because they’ve started enacting game/policy decisions that encompass precisely that. Further nauseating specificity, I don’t blame Anet, I blame NCSoft. To be totally honest, this is based only on my belief that Anet would never actively, or intentionally kill a game they love so much and invested so much work into.

All the obnoxious formalities out of the way, let’s get to the meat of the issue. Gems.

The Gem Exchange was a beautiful concept, and very unusually fair minded of a company to allow. I have over the course of my game play, secured a number of Gem Store items. I won’t bore you with the specific list. Furthermore back at the start 100 Gems was 20 silver. Because nobody HAD 20 silver. Old times right?

Then, the game got (more) popular, and inflation hit. Ok, no big deal, in the beginning; we expected this to happen. Expected it to go to 50s, 1 gold, 2 gold, even 3-5 Gold. Then, it didn’t stop. So came the unintended consequences, and poor policy decisions.

We can start with the most obvious a prevalent example, constant, continuous, hype-based releases of Gem Store goodies.

They could, barring some issues with quality control, whip up a batch of 24 dozen armor skins; and let us have at it. They could, release a copper, silver, gold varieties of salvage bots all at once. They could even simply produce a BIG release at the end of the Living Story Season, giving people to react to changing markets and save up their Gems for things they REALLY want.

But no. They do 1-2 week releases, over and over, forcing people into a frenetic journey to collect Gold fast enough to buy enough Gems to get an item that might be gone for a whole year after the sale ends. I won’t say “that’s not fun,” because for some people, it is. I am NOT one of those people. Most casual gamers, are not those people.

So, one can say, delivery could be improved. Variety, less hype, longer stretches between releases. Because if your cash flow situation needs to function like the commodities exchange on a stock market, you’re doing something wrong.

But ok, hey, nothing’s perfect, ever. That’s something that could be fixed. Sadly, WvW, was not so lucky. The second most, well, the polite way to say it is, money oriented, decision; occurred to WvW.

Now a preface, GW has always been billed as a game where experience, and skill trumps numbers in most cases. It was sold to us this way, as the promise that GW embodied to “not be like those other games.” And, for the most part, that promise was kept. Until WvW. At which point, someone, somewhere; said “greed is good.” The Result?

Server Stacking. Again total honesty, yes, I’m from SoR. Yes, I’m referring to the tactic BG used against us, in Season 1 and before. Yes, this is personal; because I loved WvW and was proud of SoR’s capacity to actually fight against superior numbers and win. My personal investment in the topic does not make it any less relevant to being a poor policy decision. However, I felt it prudent to be upfront about it.

Now then, what is server stacking? Essentially, for those who don’t do WvW, but might be concerned enough about policy decisions to keep reading; it’s the process by which one recruits entire guilds and transfers them to a server.

(continues below, sorry, I tend to be verbose and explanatory. I try to give people an idea what I’m talking about if they aren’t aware of something.)

Alright, first, the issue is not “we’re improving…such and such systems.” What is being taken as a slap in the face is “we cannot retroactively give these rewards to…”

Why the Kitten not? Or rather, why nothing at all? I get that retroactively applying rewards to so many accounts, with so many characters, could be somewhat, unfeasible. But to say “Vets, you get nothing” is insulting. Why?

Because you have in the past. I won’t point out all the examples, but the most prime example of this was the Karka Queen Release. The release initial battle release event occurring only one, was a poor choice of direction.

When every other game company I can think of would have just thrown up their hands and said “Well, we’re sorry for that, we’ll do better next time; maybe…” Anet took responsibly and said in no uncertain terms “We screwed up, it was a bad idea, we’re sorry.” Then they made at least a gesture to try and put some substance behind the words.

Imagine my surprise, when, getting home from work, knowing I missed the release event, to find a mail in my inbox; with the rewards from the fight. Yes, I missed the event, and I don’t have a memory of the massive, lag filled carnage; but in exchange I got a memory of a game company doing something they didn’t have to do. Because it was right, and because they wanted not just my, but all their players trust.

To then, two years later, turn around and say “sorry, we’ll do better next time; maybe…” is upsetting.

In fact it might be interesting for your company to know I have been SO impressed with GW1 and the first year of GW2; that I applied to Anet, twice. Yes, your behavior as a company inspired me enough to make me want to work for you, and with you all to make great games.

Somewhere along the line, something changed, someone started pushing the “merchandise everything, and get new meat for the grinder” mentality. I suspect it was some suit from NCSoft.

But whoever it was. The next time you get that person, or those people telling you to shove another set of fixes or changes we don’t ask for down our throats so they can make more money, you tell them the following.

“We’re Anet, and the way we did things made people want to work with us; everything you’re doing makes them want to uninstall the game. So shut up and let us do our thing!”

Oh, you dropped a Supply Crate with 3 bubbled turrets? Ok. Switches to flamethrower And we’re done here. Turrets might be useful in PvE, if you get lucky and the mob doesn’t bash it in. But in WvW, and sPvP, gg turrets. Look you can love the concept of turrets, I do. But you can’t play these denial games.

“Oh! This might be really useful in this ONE fight, or ONE tactical move.” If you have a skill/trait that is useful in only one specific situation, then it is a failure. This is especially so on an Engie. We are supposed to be masters of versatility. Yes, we pay a price in direct firepower for that, and that’s ok.

What they do to turrets though? Not ok. Not ok at all. When I saw “Fortified Turrets” before reading it, I said “Finally, finally they’re providing an overall defensive boost for turrets.”

Wrong. They’re providing a gimick. I don’t need another gimick if I’m running turrets. I need them to kittening live long enough to SHOOT SOMETHING!

I know it’s “best” to wait and see. But given the massive underpowering turrets have received in the past I generally can wash my hands of this trait in .5 seconds.

A projection bubble is useless in a real fight. I’m sorry is is.
1. Turrets are still so squishy, they will break with 1-2 AoE.
2. Defending against projectiles has never been a problem.

Want to know what IS a problem for Engies? Guardians with massive buff lines, including stability that will now have 3000 more hp than before, as if they didn’t have enough.

Class balance? WHAT CLASS BALANCE?!

You wanna fix turrets? Fix the kitten-ing HP, as in give them 10000-15000 hp + medium range armor, as base stats, then let them be trait-ed. Until this is done, I’m sticking with my flamethrower.

Affection/Liking Someone: An emotional bond formulated by a mutual agreement of preferences, symbiosis, and general good will. Based on personable interaction between 2 or more parties.

Respect: An aspect in formal moral codes specifically provided to hold oneself accountable for one’s own actions and virtues, regardless of the actions of any other party, within a reasonable scope.

People seem to have a serious issue separating these two concepts. Respect has no physical boundaries, none. It applies to all situations, and at all times. So when people say “it’s just a game,” in reference to interactions with other people, the obvious and immediate counter argument is “the fact it’s a game doesn’t absolve you of social responsibility.”

However, we are trying to regard the actions of an avatar, a representation of self on a separate, virtual, plane of existence. As such, two arguements unfold.

1. The Options Argument:

What is trying to be expressed is a wish for a broad spectrum of responses that encompass multiple play styles, in an RPG setting for various types of characters. For example, if you have a character you “see” as immature, and in bad taste" you want answers to the Scarlet Question that fit you character. This choice to play as a bad guy has no relevance to your moral compass, since it’s an active decision to play a certain character a certain way.

2. The Amorality Argument:

In this case, the issue rises when the person behind the avatar plays the avatar as an extension of self. I.e They find fundamentally no issue with the choices from a personal or roleplaying perspective. What this can in fact imply is that the user in question therefore has no issue with jokes in poor taste, or of poor timing. In turn this leads to a natural questioning of their moral stature, since and individual of higher moral intent would regard themselves above such disrespectful behavior.

Conclusion:

Please note, the fundamental requisite here is Respect, not Admiration. Scarlet was a kitten-ing psychopathic mass murderer. She got what she deserved. Personally, I’d have stood there and twisted the javelins in, if only to provide some greater sense of retribution for all those slain. But once the deed is done, there’s nothing more to that, and I certainly wouldn’t have cracked jokes about it after the fact.

Why? Because I, as a person, would not appreciate those victorious over me at any point to be just as disrespectful. That’s the only reason necessary, thought to many it doesn’t make sense. History is written by the victors, the addendum of right and wrong are written by historians.

Things that could have made the ending more interesting:

1.) Braham ends up crippled, potentially requiring Taimi’s Asuran tech to move around, which in turn provides Taimi with an outlet to shift focus from Synergystics to Statics.

2.) Marjory remains scarred, physically and mentally, from the explosion caused by Scarlet. This switches the role of Kasmeer from pretty blonde pet to actual caretaker in the relationship, while Majory tries to actually start getting over almost dying.

3.) An actual confrontation between Rytlock and Rox over the matter of the warband. Either rejection, setting Rox on the path to form a guild proper with our heroes, or acceptance despite Scarlet being slain by another, adding continued complications to friendship between Braham and Rox.

Any of those three possibilities link right into the events on the Breechmaker, so they make sense, and they add more spice to the story that was not there.

No one won. Everyone still lost. Lion’s Arch is gone. We killed one psychopath, that’s a good thing. We failed to stop her ultimate plan, and that’s very, very bad. No one should be holding a party. Laughing, cheering, celebrating? Wrong chord to strike.

The heroes are bruised, and broken, and should thus feel unsure of where they stand.

Gameplay additions that would have helped:

1.) Quests/tasks to help rebuild Lion’s Arch/help Refugees. I honestly EXPECTED something like this to be added, so we’d have something to do between LS chapters.

2.) Quests to flesh out how each of the heroes reacted, and internalized, the events at the Breechmaker.

I understand some of what goes into game making. I do. It’s always a fight between budget, resources, and deadlines. I have been a die hard fan of Anet and GW2 from the beginning. But these last 3-4 LS releases have broken my blind faith, especially the wrap up.

You set the bar high in the past guys. You can’t undo what you did, but here’s a few suggestions proceeding forward.

1.) Stop releasing Gem Store goodies till the next LS chapter starts.

2.) Talk to your roleplaying servers, roleplayers tend to, in my experience, be relatively good writers. Your writers need some fresh ideas, from people who know the lore. So go talk to the roleplayers.

3.) Anyone from GW 1 remembers the Mhenlo Incident, otherwise known as Factions. The Party, is a carbon copy of that same problem. We are the players, the story revolves around us. The Story can focus on an NPC, have to do with an NPC, require and NPC’s “choices” but making us stand around and do nothing is bad.

I liked a lot of the LS, contrary to most. I think blowing up LA, the center of player traffic, was actually a good story telling move. Scarlet was the perfect psychopath, with an ingenious scheme, who took several seemingly unrelated plans and forged them into something we couldn’t stop no matter how hard we tried.

But the properties of a good villain are thus.
1. They have a conceivable logic, if insane.
2. They are mercilessly brutal.
3. They escape regularly, and cause serious harm to the hero(s)
4. You have an inescapable need to stop them, and possibly kill them at all costs.
5. Even if you win, you never win, and you feel it.

So where is the LS go wrong? It became about Gem Store Goodies, and making social cues. You relied too heavily on the ham fist romance between Kasmeer and Marjory, and the equally ham fisted “big brother/little sister” family virtue of Braham and Taimi. Finally, you all but erased the value of your perfect villain by making it seem like we all accomplished some great victory that we all know we didn’t.

Lion’s Arch is still gone, the dragon’s are going to come more than ever, many thousands dead, many more displaced.

The problems with Engies are NOT with Engies, per say. Engies are to GW 2 what Mesmers were to GW 1. They are the high-maintenance, high versatility class. When I ran my mesmer in GW 1, when people asked, what do you run, the typical response was, the skills I need. Most people accepted that because mesmers could throw a lot of things together, but you had to know generally, what you were doing to play them well.

This is the same for Engies, easy to start, hard to master. The problems are these, they are a very high maintenance class to play well, almost unforgivably so. This will drive away people who want a simple class to play. Worse yet, they are a support class. In every game I have ever played, support class translates into either “weak class overall” or “less rewards.”

In this case, it’s less rewards. When you are running with a zerg, you are so strapped to dish out as much punishment to as many targets as you can that you aren’t even thinking about utility. All because otherwise you will get essentially no rewards for assisting with kills because your damage is too low, and you don’t get loot from the game for acting like a support class.

So you have a high maintenance class, with low rewards if you play it like you’re supposed to. Worse yet, is the effectiveness, or lack thereof, in zerg combat.

Engies are, in essence, mid-line fighters, and skirmishers. They have basically 0 stability skills, and only a few stun breakers which take up utility spaces most the time. That means with the current form of combat, with so much AoE lock-down on the field, you can literally pop every stun break you have and still sit out the entire fight unless you get lucky. Or worse, you’ll die without even firing a shot.

You can argue any of these points with me, go ahead. But you’re wasting your time. My Engie is my first and only really played character. I’ve tried others to get a general understanding, but Engie is my thing.

I’ve played support style, and walked away with a handful of loot.
Then I forsook utility to squeeze out as much AoE damage as I could, and made more loot that way. I didn’t like it, but I did it because I need gold to upgrade my gear.
On the subject of gear, I have an Ascended Weapon, made myself.
I’m stated with variations of P-V-T gear, exotic level armor, with one ascended piece.

I’m trait-ed, and set up for speed and pressure damage.

Because things have gotten so bad with all the AoE that if I stand still for more than 2 seconds, I will MELT. If I get caught by a thief in the open. I will die, because he doesn’t have to think about which of the 24-36 keys are best for the situation, he just stealths and kills my kitten . If I get separated from the zerg in a big fight, 7/10 times, I will get multi-snared and never make it back. My downed skills suck too.

These things are not knocks against the Engie. They’re about the style of game play that yields the best rewards, which is large combat, zerg style play. I do, just fine, in PvE, I can kill basically anything under Champion by myself, and Champs with 1-2 in assist. Heck, I take on groups of enemies of 4-5 with very little trouble, in PvE.

So really the issues for Engies lie in PvP and WvW. They’re not built for mass slaughter, they’re built for controlled slaughter. But that doesn’t get you the bags, and neither does providing support. And THAT is what’s “wrong” with Engies.

I’m still not sure why there’s a camp out there defending the current situation with PPT, aside from vested interests therein. PPT is broken, the numbers say so. People say the night cappers don’t make contributions X time greater than primetime players. They’re arguing with the math. Math everyone can SEE.

If you argue with math, you will lose.

1 tick spread from prime time.
275, 335, 385

1 tick spread from night time.
500, 95, 100

Extrapolation across 8 hour windows:
Scores contribution, prime time: 2200, 2680, 3080
Scores contribution, night time: 4000, 760, 800
Scores, total: 6200, 3440, 3880

Night Coverage, wins.

Further computations found that 4x and 10x are exaggerated. It’s about 1.5x to 2x the value in contributions. That said, what matters isn’t the 1.5 or the 2. It’s the X, which is the number of PPT, which influenced by the crushing difference in troops at those hours.

Stop arguing with math.

If you’re an Engie, sealth stomping is ridiculous since our 1/2 skills are targeted, our 3 skill takes for friggin ever to charge. But then we all know Engie down skills are pretty bad, just because.

Well made point Phantom. Given that skill lag generates on EU servers under normal conditions, and on NA servers for huge 3 way fights, a whole bunch of new, highly specific NPCs seems like a daunting workload for the servers.

I have no specific technical fix for that potential issue and would have to leave that portion of issues to the minds of Anet who have more direct knowledge of system capacity than I.

Nonetheless thank you for raising the issue.

Ok, let’s see the replies so far.
1 Troll
1 Person who ignores the fact that PPT is used to benefit the server as a whole with the global bonuses it generates.
1 Person so angry about the issue that they won’t accept anything other then a full trashing of PPT.

So in essence, no constructive criticism.

PPT sucks, no one’s saying otherwise. It was intended to serve a purpose, which was, to measure the overall capacity of a server to perform. It was also meant to include otherwise uninterested players by making a high score mean high bonuses in PvE and crafting. It failed in both regards. So yes, removal would be preferable, but adjustment is more likely.

As for the “get rid of PPT argument itself.” Ok, fine, I want PPT gone too. That said, what if they don’t? So what if it’s a crutch measure? you rather they do nothing to fix things at all? Seriously, look beyond “PPT needs to go!” Start looking at “No, we won’t do that.”

Because as things stand, that’s a very likely response from Anet.

Wow…even though I’m from SoR, which means technically we’re enemies….I sympathize, that…is really an awful thing. I hope it’s not someone from SoR that transferred to cause you guys issues. If it is, that person should be ashamed, and uninstall.

Conclusion Q & A:

Q.) We already have NPCs as part of upgrades, why do we need mercs.?

A.) Because those NPC guards suck, to be totally honest. They fight poorly, they don’t let you know what’s going on, and they can’t fire siege. I mean seriously, ambient creatures kill them.

Q.) Why should we give a crutch to servers that don’t exert effort to get 24/7 coverage?

A.) Because ultimately it’s not about will a lot of the time. There are a finite amount of players, and a finite amount of guilds in certain time zones. Servers with larger populations to begin with will always have a greater capacity to “buy” these guilds’ favor.

This is called Guild Wars. Not PPT Wars. Not Coverage Wars. Not Money Wars. Anything that levels the playing field so everyone can feel like they have a shot, even a slim one, is a good thing. It’s the right thing to do. That’s the long and short of it.

If you really think your human players are gonna have so much trouble against some somewhat better scripted NPCs, and objectives that fight back. Then you didn’t deserve to be at the spot you were at anyway. I say that to everyone, even my own server.

Q.) What are you concerns of keeps becoming “super fortresses” with 20 NPC run Superior ACs lining the walls and a full garrison of guild sponsored Champs?

A.) That is certainly a concern. My biggest actually. However, it’s something that can and should be addressed during the process of design, should the idea actually go through.

Furthermore, remember Mercs. #s are capped. Which means if you put them all in 1 Keep you lose the opportunity to control other objectives.

Q.) What about “Trolls” who would build empty siege, or replace Mercs and then disband their own to mess things up?

A.) These things could be address via how the queue functions, perhaps placing unused Mercs in the queue for the full duration of service and spawning them where needed, closest to the location they were originally assigned. Again, major design issue.

Q.) What if a full zerg switches maps to defend an objective already filled with mercs?

A.) It might be a good idea to have an insta-delete function to avoid abuses like that. But testing would be required to measure the effect.

Q.) Don’t you think this idea’s a bit ambitious?

A.) Of course, but then so would scrapping the scoring system that’s in place now and redesigning WvW around a new one. Anything that will fix WvW to be skill based like it’s supposed to be is going to take a good deal of time and effort.

That about wraps up my proposal. If you see any potential issues, or have any ideas by all means provide constructive criticism. I, of course, hope to hear from Anet regarding the idea too.

Also, this is place here because it’s WvW specific. If it was supposed to go elsewhere, my bad.

As everyone knows, and some are loathe to admit, PPT came with the unintended consequence of relegating the efforts of servers that don’t have 24/7 “coverage” to near nothing, and causing a rash of bandwagoning, and mercenary guild purchasing.

In essence the concept of “skill” winning in WvW is negated by the fact that people have to sleep and work. So, presuming that PPT is one of those things Anet will never scrap, I had a thought.

Mercenaries. No, not the guilds that have no real allegiances. NPC mercenaries. Hear me out, and I apologize if this is an old idea.

What is the biggest problem when people are sleeping? They’re not there to man siege or keep eyes out for enemies, or defend objectives. Well what if you could leave behind NPC mercenaries to man that AC, or notify what human players are on the map of enemy movements?

Think of it this way. Each player, can purchase/recruit 1-5 mercenaries. Based on a new Mastery.

(Mastery: Recruiter) (75 Rank Points to Max)
Lvl 1: Allow one Mercenary. Can be used to scout. (10 Rank Points)
Lvl 2: Allow 2 Mercenaries. Can scout, garrison an objective. (10 Rank Points)
Lvl 3: Allow 3 Mercs. Can scout, garrison, be assigned to siege. (15 Rank Points)
Lvl 4: Allow 3 Regular Mercs, 1 Veteran Merc. Scout, garrison, assign to siege. (20 Rank Points)
Lvl 5: 3 reg. Mercs. 1 Veteran Merc. 1 Champ Merc. Merc. Health and damage boosted 10%. (20 Rank Points)

Tasking:
Scout: Merc stays in a stationary spot, and remains stealth-ed, until a group larger than 5-15 (adjustable through conversation interface), passes in it’s field of vision. It then raises the alarm in Map or Team Chat, and un-stealths. Doesn’t fight back.

Garrison:
-Can be garrisoned in the courtyard(s) of towers or keeps.
-Garrison amount is capped to prevent overcrowding, pending issue, balance would need to be tested.
-Garrisoned troops would be equipped with “exotic” level stats/gear.
-Garrisoned troops yield to those of a higher Mastery Rank, i.e. a regular merc with the 10% health/dmg boost would replace one without, so the best mercs are used, and not blocked by inferior ones.

Siege:
-Merc assigned to siege auto attacks targets assigned, via conversation dialog.
-Merc can be set to target enemy siege, or enemy infantry.
-Merc “mastery” of a siege weapon based on its type. Reg. Merc. Mastery lvl 1, Veteran, Mastery lvl 3, Champion Merc., Mastery lvl 5.
-Mercs, yield, siege engines to human players and remain on standby till the weapon is abandoned.
-Mercs can not be assigned to Battering Rams, or Golems.

Payment:
-Mercenaries require upfront payment.
-Regulars, 30 silver/hr of service. If Merc. disbanded/replaced, the difference is returned to player, rounded to the nearest hour.
-Vets, 50 silver/hr of service. Same as above.
-Champ, 1 gold/hr of service. So if leave your champ Merc out for 8 hours it costs you 8 gold. This will discourage, somewhat, a complete Champ Garrison/Siege Running.

Death:
-Mercenaries that die re-spawn under certain conditions.
-Scouts re-spawn 5 minutes after death.
-Garrison re-spawns once the objective is retaken.
-Siege, automatically transferred to any empty siege on the map, 5 minutes after death. If all siege full, it remains in a queue. Separate queue from players.

Global Restrictions/Rules:
-The number of Mercs on the field is capped to the difference between your force and the largest force on the map +20. i.e. you have 20 players and the largest enemy force has 50 players, you can have 50 Mercs on the field.

The Why: Mercs. will be inferior to human players, and the number of players on a map will go up and down so a +20 cap is for balance and to account for changes in human troops.

-Mercs. that are over the limit are removed from the LEAST valuable PPT locations first, and placed in a holding queue. Every 5-15 minutes. Mercs will be re-added as spots pertaining to their assignment open, and immediately to objectives under attack by forces larger than 5.

The Why: The merc. queue and insta-spawn rules are to prevent a large enemy force from purposefully leaving a map to delete mercs at objectives they want and then rushing back in on an otherwise undefended objectives.

The 5-15 deletion process is to compensate for human players that need to switch maps momentarily to defend objectives that are on the verge of defeat in spite of mercenary presence and then wish to go back to the original map.

Truce tactics? Really? This coming from a Blackgate? REALLY?!

Dude, check yourself before you utter another foolishness. BG is in and actual Truce with JQ, and everyone but you, on the three servers know it.

Could the rest of BG please educate your lost little nubcake scrub?

A lot of things are killing WvW in general.
-Same Maps
-A refusal to address PPT, Zerg, and Class Balence Issues.
-An artificial bloat in server populations, i.e. mercenary guilds.
-As a result of the above, the general sense that money > skill. Spend money, buy Gems, convert to Gold, Buy Guilds, get 24/7 coverage, win.

What is the POINT of the Edge of the Mists map? Most of the time there aren’t any queues anyway. The only people who will be on that map will be players from the artificially bloated servers.

Back when Anet announce it’s 2 week update schedule, I said to myself “this won’t end well. They’ll get so caught up in releasing on time, that they’ll stop quality checking, or backtracking. Also gold inflation’s going to skyrocket.”

Guess what. Both things happened. Hopefully the Wintersday hiatus that Anet has taken is because they realized things were going too fast.

I can’t speak for everyone, but me, I bought this game because it wasn’t “just another pay to win, problems are ignored.” MMO. And Anet appeared to me to be a company that actually cared more about the quality of their product than the money it generated.

I have for the longest time been really unshakable in my determination to believe in Anet. But with the way they’re letting WvW languish, and their apparent refusal to seriously address it’s problems. Well…I think my Stability buff just ran out.

I actually had a couple of suggestions from another thread, I’ll post here, with additional modifications.

Version 1: (Distance)
-50% of Siege Mortar Range
-Add a 2nd, stationary, position for a “spotter,” having a second player spot, lets you view from a higher camera angle so you can actually hit things over walls, embankments, or the two foot high fence in front of you >.<
-Increase direct damage by 10-20%.
-Retains all other current attributes, especially Stability.

Now you actually have a mortar “team” functioning as a mortar team should, setup away from the main fighting, one guy shoots, one guy spots, 2-3 defend the mortar. The zerg clashes, and meanwhile the backliners are firing mortars and spells.

Version 2: (Damage + Toughness)
- Boost Health enough to make it on par with a constructed siege weapon.
- Direct Damage +10%
- Adjust the Trait that currently boosts range, to boost range an additional +30% over current boost and also make basic fire do burn DoT, on impact location for 3-5 seconds.

Now you have a shorter ranger mortar that can actually hurt the zerg in a meaningful way in short order if not destroyed, and can actually take the punishment it’s going to receive once the siege icon pops up.

Man I love my Engie, but I will be the first to say it’s high maintainence.

I run Medkit (slot 6), Elixer Gun (slot 7), Flamethrower (slot, and Tool Kit (slot 9)

And I use ALL of them to fight. To fight effectively as an Engie, you basically need to remember 20-36 keys. IMO.

Engies don’t rely on high HP to live, they rely on obscene amounts of toughness, and medium hp. At least that’s my personal take. I run a Flame Tank, which is basically an appropriately trait-ed flamethrower Engie.

I run both for PvE, WvW, and as anyone in WvW know, PvD >.>

What this means is, I’m mid-line combat, which annoys the Commanders to no end. “Are you Ranged or Melee?”

“Yes.”

But I digress, point is you’re going to be in the immediate area of the fight, so you want enough toughness to survive a short walk through the AoE, but enough mobility to make sure it’s a short walk.

Suggested Traits: Flame Tank
Juggernaut: Bonus Toughness + Might with flamethrower.
Power Shoes: +25% movement speed
Infused Precision: Swiftness on Critical
Invigorating Speed: Gain Vigor when you gain swiftness, you can dodge lots more.

What traits you want for damage is up for you, but those last 3 work pretty good for staying alive, as long as you keep moving.