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Relinking - make the next 2 months better

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

1) ANet has only N different ways to do the linking without creating huge population imbalances. I suspect that N is less than 1. ANet suggested to double the number of worlds, so that they would have more choice. But that suggestion was shot down fast by the players. In addition EU language specific worlds impose more limitations.

I’m thinking it’s probably time to put things back to a vote. We now have a more informed WvW population, that can clearly see the results of the link system.

I also believe the vote results would be different now. However don’t want voting. I hope for a game designer that wants to promote player generated content and competiveness. Unfortunately WvW does not have that kind of champion.

3) A solution would be to relink every week, but players wanted to have 2 months periods instead. There was a poll about it.

Actually, as per usual, the poll answers that ANet provided did not even have 2 months as an option for the players to select. It was a solution ANet decided on because the players were split between 2 other options.

Yes, that is more accurate description.

What can be done then? I’d say end world linking since it does so much harm to the game mode. ANet promised to rebalance the world populations before adding any meaningful rewards for winning a matchup, but that seems forgotten.

I would only support this if they get to making some adjustments to how population is managed.

I would much rather see relinks every week. Would permit adjustment for material changes in population. When material changes in population occur AFTER the relink, the situation would last for only 1 week, rather than for 7 weeks. Much less negative impact on opponent servers that didn’t get a material increase in population.

Two months, in my opinion, is way too long to suffer either the false sense of ‘winning’, or the agony of continued defeat, solely because your server didn’t win the “Luck of the Link”.

If we go for weekly relinking, ANet should also make the transfers take effect at reset and not announce link decisions before the reset.

The linking solved a real symptom when it was introduced: low tier matchups were ghost towns. Unfortunately the root problem was never solved. The devs have been too busy doing more important stuff, like jump pads, gliding and hay bales.

Without population rebalancing and a proper transfer policy or incentives, the world linking should stay.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Relinking - make the next 2 months better

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I just came back and I’m confused. Can someone explain the linking to me and where to see who’s linked? I know there is a new link tonight but that’s it.

Some info about world linking:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/World-Linking-Beta/first

You can see the current links on for example: http://mos.millenium.org/matchups

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Any news on Edge of The Mists upgrade?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Here is an easy way to provide ‘new’ content for EotM. Re-publish these already existing features:

  • jumping puzzle commander badge
  • deployable cannons
  • golem rush event
  • rock walls popping out of the ground
  • indestructable little cannons all over the place applying Cripple and tiny amount of damage to nearby players
  • jumping pads
  • jumping pads 2
  • hay bales
  • barricades
  • random areas where teleport skills say ‘no valid path to target’
  • gliding
  • missing wall segments
  • regions with extra thick border graphics
  • scores of meaningless non-stacking reward boxes within boxes within boxes
  • huge flashy reward box popup windows in middle of the screen
  • vertical design making players faceplant on every second step
  • invisible obstables blocking projectiles
  • mega laser
  • region stealth
  • living story Toxic hallucination
  • PvE events’ announcements as server messages in middle of the screen
  • guaggan lightning bolts
  • indestructable gate turrets

I’ll throw in few new ones:

  • random areas with reverse gravity
  • players and NPCs collision detection
  • commercial breaks

Then force the devs to play EotM. :P

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Relinking - make the next 2 months better

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

1) ANet has only N different ways to do the linking without creating huge population imbalances. I suspect that N is less than 1. ANet suggested to double the number of worlds, so that they would have more choice. But that suggestion was shot down fast by the players. In addition EU language specific worlds impose more limitations.

2) I bet they do consider the coverage. Unfortunately the players of similar time zones tend to flock on the same worlds. This is mission impossible without forced migrations. (linking is a form of forced migration itself)

3) A solution would be to relink every week, but players wanted to have 2 months periods instead. There was a poll about it.

What can be done then? I’d say end world linking since it does so much harm to the game mode. ANet promised to rebalance the world populations before adding any meaningful rewards for winning a matchup, but that seems forgotten.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Details on Catapult Changes.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Hehe so there is a benefit to keeping that coin stuck on the keyboard after all :P

“Active and engaging game play” :P

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Details on Catapult Changes.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Went in game to test it again. It could be 3.5 seconds for the bar to fully fill. I’m using the tick timer, so it’s hard to pin down fractions of a second. You must remember to account for the delay of the shot animation—it’s ~5 seconds until the rock hits a wall right in front of it, but not that long until the bar fills and it starts firing. Since the CD starts when the button is released or the bar is filled, that animation delay doesn’t affect dps.

For reference, it would have to be exactly 5 seconds to leave maximum catapult dps unchanged. Less than 5 seconds will increase it and more than 5 seconds will decrease it—assuming the damage multiplier remains constant at +100%.

GW2 wiki says the charging is 4.25 seconds, but the page has out of date information category on it.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Catapult

I have noticed the charge bar fills at faster rate when there is server lag. This makes it hard to aim from a distance.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Glider poll for players here since launch

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I cast a vote on “It could be made to work, but I would rather the devs scrap the whole thing and work on other things.”

In fact I am indifferent about gliding being part of WvW, assuming all the issues is has gets fixed. Waste of resources from my point of view, but PvE players seem to enjoy it. Maybe it makes WvW a little easier to access for them.

“work on other things” could mean three things. Maybe you could be more clear in the wording.

  1. go back to making scripted encounters and other boring stuff for PvE
  2. deployable cannons, golem rush event, living story invasion, grind for skins, not-quite-pve-level items as rewards, pve movement options to work around the DBL vertical design…
  3. fix server lag, bring back competiveness, rebalance world populations, end world linking, separate profession balancing from pve

Unfortunately the WvW development has been following the first and second options (Scoring and Stability changes aside). Seems like the devs ran away from the problems into their comfort zone of making PvE features. WvW development lacks vision and leadership. Unless the vision is to turn WvW into PvE.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Yet another workaround for the Desert Borderlands vertical design is released today. This time it was a very expensive one. Maybe it would have been cheaper to develop a brand new map instead.

Question: If you sum up all the hours spent developing the DBL map, and then all the hours creating workarounds for the vertical design, what is the ratio?

  • Develop DBL map

against

  • managing tickets and complaints about verticality
  • removing barricades and excess obstacles
  • fixing jump pads
  • adding hay bales
  • adding more hay bales
  • removing air keep fans
  • adding jump pads 2
  • gliding

And I feel we haven’t seen the end of the workarounds yet.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

There’s been some comments about how gliding would work in the current maps. When you look at it there are very few spots where gliding is an advantage. Remember, gliding ONLY helps defenders.
<snip>
Remember also, the maps are changing, we’re all going to have to relearn the maps.

Good analysis, Swamurabi.

Adding one: In DBL air keep defenders can combine Windfall with gliding to deal devastating damage on enemies while not suffering the 1 second self-stun. A defender can easily wipe 200 health from upto 5 enemies below making it trivial to finish them off.

Oh and the maps have already (partly) changed. Mesmer Blink skill fails with No valid path to target errors in more locations now. There is something wrong with ANet’s version control that seems to leak test branch changes to the live branch.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Out of rebalancing world populations

I don’t think you’ve thought that through properly.

Not sure what Anet can even do about rebalancing Worlds, when it is the players’ (and guilds’) choice where to move, and if to move. See also recent overtake of Vabbi (a bottom tier server) by a bunch of people, hiking it all the way up to compete with Far Shiverpeaks (a top-ish tier server), and then leaving it behind once they got bored.

As long as people can choose their server, and WvW remains server based instead of some other kind of grouping, this is not possible to control whatsoever from Anet’s side.

Shame about the recent Vabbi situation. But that’s nothing new. I remember giving up on welcoming new big guilds to my server but instead first asking how long they plan to stay.

I believe there is plenty ANet could do beyond of the current policy of setting worlds to Full status at whim. There must exist a migration policy they could adopt that would allow player/guild world choice, yet prevent bandwagoning and overstacking.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

“I do appreciate that there are people with different skill sets. But it can’t be that there is no-one left in the company able to fix game engine issues (lag) or major flaws in the WvW game design (population imbalance).”

So how do you “Fix” the population imbalance?

I mean really? Without breaking up guilds, communities, third party VOIPs and websites, how does one actually do that?

Every single suggestion I’ve ever seen on this forum and Reddit ultimately involves some people getting the short end of the stick and having to re-locate.

Fine if you are on the winning side but not fine for those people that also play this game and may have spent the same amount of hours as you in it, or even more.

You cannot simply quantify people into a mold because people don’t work that way therefore the game will not work that way as it is people driven.

Zerg servers gonna zerg, that’s how it is, the only way is to put them all together and leave them.

How to fix? I’m not a game designer. But let’s see…

The population imbalance is consequence of:

  1. players are free to transfer to whichever world they want
  2. better coverage equals more rewards, better world ranking, and better play experience

“Fix”:

Create an incentive to unstack, and let players/guilds eventually transfer to emptier worlds. The incentive could be over population based penalty on getting meaningful rewards and world ranking.

Yes, players on the stacked worlds would get the smelly end of the stick. They may continue zerging butwould find it less rewarding.

And how does that work with serverlinks?
You are on a low polulated, linked server, do you earn more rewards than your host server?
If you transfer away to get on a low server and suddenly you are linked, will you get a refund?
How will this improve bandwagoning, if everyone transfers to the only non-full host-server options for rewards afterwards?

I would end the world linking altogether. Add a new tier whenever 3 guest worlds become populous enough to stand on their own.

The quest worlds getting better rewards than their hosts would be only a transition phase.

To avoid empty maps due new tiers, reduce playable area. 3 maps per matchup only: EB, ABL, DBL. DBL is open only from 18:00 to midnight.

To weaken north position on the BL maps, increase dolyak redelivery timers from 10 seconds to 30 seconds in northern camps.

How will this improve bandwagoning, if everyone transfers to the only non-full host-server options for rewards afterwards?

Um, I didn’t quite understand your question here.

If you mean that players would only transfer to host worlds and still get full rewards: the over population is set so that only the guest worlds will ultimately be penalty free.

Edit: Wild guess.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

(edited by Korgov.7645)

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

“I do appreciate that there are people with different skill sets. But it can’t be that there is no-one left in the company able to fix game engine issues (lag) or major flaws in the WvW game design (population imbalance).”

So how do you “Fix” the population imbalance?

I mean really? Without breaking up guilds, communities, third party VOIPs and websites, how does one actually do that?

Every single suggestion I’ve ever seen on this forum and Reddit ultimately involves some people getting the short end of the stick and having to re-locate.

Fine if you are on the winning side but not fine for those people that also play this game and may have spent the same amount of hours as you in it, or even more.

You cannot simply quantify people into a mold because people don’t work that way therefore the game will not work that way as it is people driven.

Zerg servers gonna zerg, that’s how it is, the only way is to put them all together and leave them.

How to fix? I’m not a game designer. But let’s see…

The population imbalance is consequence of:

  1. players are free to transfer to whichever world they want
  2. better coverage equals more rewards, better world ranking, and better play experience

“Fix”:

Create an incentive to unstack, and let players/guilds eventually transfer to emptier worlds. The incentive could be over population based penalty on getting meaningful rewards and world ranking.

Yes, players on the stacked worlds would get the smelly end of the stick. They may continue zerging butwould find it less rewarding.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Hello, Mist Warriors!

/facepalm

Out of rebalancing world populations, eliminating server lag and separating skill balancing from PvE, Gliding was the one you chose to work on?! Seriously?

You still have not met all the goals of the Scoring changes: reduce need for off-hour coverage, reduce number of lopsided matchups, give teams real opportunity for a comeback, and decide matchup winner fairly.

I bet you next work on getting those PoF mounts, and HoT mastery track PvE crap to WvW. Oh, wait! You already added Blazing Speed Muchrooms (Blessing of Elements), Bouncing Mushrooms (jump pads) and Nunoch Wallows (more jump pads). Perhaps a more proper greeting would have been “Hello, PvEers!”.

I will give you some basic information here. The people working on server lag is most likely different from the people that worked on gliding. Server lag is more the domain of the network and infrastructure side of things. Features whether temporary or otherwise are likely done by designers and devs who do scripting, not network code.

It’s like saying “how come your hospital can’t do a brain operation when you have so many heart surgeons just chilling and sitting around” The answer is “because brain surgery is not the same as heart surgery and requires a different set of knowledge and experiences”

I do appreciate that there are people with different skill sets. But it can’t be that there is no-one left in the company able to fix game engine issues (lag) or major flaws in the WvW game design (population imbalance).

The scriptkiddies could still help server lag by refactoring computing and network traffic intensive skills traits and skills out. Hello, every HoT and PoF trait and skill. They could also fix minor mistakes like the infusion slots, reward box spam, DBL vertical design… Or add QoL features like build savers, mass refresh siege, guild-server tracker, leaderboards…

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Gliding and Territories in WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Hello, Mist Warriors!

/facepalm

Out of rebalancing world populations, eliminating server lag and separating skill balancing from PvE, Gliding was the one you chose to work on?! Seriously?

You still have not met all the goals of the Scoring changes: reduce need for off-hour coverage, reduce number of lopsided matchups, give teams real opportunity for a comeback, and decide matchup winner fairly.

I bet you next work on getting those PoF mounts, and HoT mastery track PvE crap to WvW. Oh, wait! You already added Blazing Speed Muchrooms (Blessing of Elements), Bouncing Mushrooms (jump pads) and Nunoch Wallows (more jump pads). Perhaps a more proper greeting would have been “Hello, PvEers!”.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

A quality of life proposal

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Agreed. Refreshing siege is not fun.

Adding another siege to refresh siege timers doesn’t feel the right way to go about the issue.

I’d suggest that players are not being able to reset the decay timers. link

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Mount in WvW or RIOT!

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

2) “Clean grass”. Your cow eat so much grass that 15 enemies fall though the ground and end up in an random HoT map.

Haha! Now that’s a punishing skill.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

The Next Expansion Expectations

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

gazilion of fire stack

power creep on single skill s (old backstab @1200 range unblokcable with high crit)

more aoe stacking with less CD’s

next specs need more power creep so they get “better” and players want to play them.

You, sir, have 20-20 future vision. All of the above will be covered by:

…unlock nine new elite specializations to customize your playstyle…

Pity not even one item from my list makes it into the second expansion. Maybe the third expansion then.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

The Next Expansion Expectations

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

The following WvW features will be introduced in the next expansion.

  1. World populations are rebalanced
  2. Server lag is eliminated
  3. Profession balance is separated from PvE

:P

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Has the time come for some Brave New Worlds?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I think I suggested a perfectly reasonable solution for guilds… no?

Each player gets to pick 1 guild – the currently active guild on the last character a player logged in with before the rebalance

Players that insist on staying together in wvw could form guilds and invite their friends (up to the maximum guild size).

Now keep guilds together when rebalancing servers

That leaves a lot of room for players to make mistakes. This equals to lot of unhappy players and lot of work for the support.

  1. “I set represent on a wrong character”
  2. “I set to represent wrong guild”
  3. “I was on vacation and didn’t have time to set my guild”
  4. “I forgot change guild represent”
  5. “No-one told me there was going to be reshuffle”
  6. “Our community is larger than guild size limit”
  7. “My guild leader kicked me out just prior reshuffling”
  8. “There wasn’t enough time to set up a community guild for the reshuffle”
  9. “Setting up a community guild is too much work”
  10. “I wanted to join community guild but I’m already at guild limit”
Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Vote to Delete Servers!! Make new Worlds!

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

EotM system is best, but it should be more balanced.

Those NPCs are always outnumbered. :P

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Vote to Delete Servers!! Make new Worlds!

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

How to improve it! <snip>

Thanks for putting so much thought into this. With diagrams and all.

In short:

  1. Kick inactive players from their servers every 3 months
  2. Give serverless players a free transfer when they attempt to join WvW
  3. Set servers’ Full status dynamically as the total WvW population grows or wanes

Did I miss something?

Base on the understanding I have on the servers, it aims to eliminate all the problems it has now.

Alas no. You need to give an incentive for over stacked servers to unstack.

Simply locking popular servers does not make players to transfer to dying servers. Players rather wait until the desired server unlocks.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

They fixed my yaks . . .

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

World vs. World
General

  • Made the following adjustments to participation grace times:
    • Defending caravans has been changed from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
    • Hitting a player/objective with a siege weapon has been changed from 1 minute to 2 minutes.
    • Capturing a shrine has been changed from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

Oh, that one.

True. It makes dolyak escorting little more rewarding.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

They fixed my yaks . . .

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

What? Dolyak bugs fixed?

  • That dolyaks at supply camps do not despawn when the camp is captured?
  • That a dolyak returning to a supply camp is not positioned where it appears to be?
  • That under server lag dolyaks randomly stop and stand still few seconds at a time?
  • That Caravan Guards spawn long time after a dolyak has left a camp?
  • That Invulnerable Dolyaks tactic applies to multiple sets of dolyaks leaving a camp?
  • That a dolyak at the Garrison south east gate sometimes gets stuck at the portal?
  • That the protective bubble around a player escorted dolyak is not always visible?
  • That dolyaks sometimes refuse to leave a camp to supply a friendly objective?
Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Has the time come for some Brave New Worlds?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

As many have pointed out, simply undoing the linking or blowing up the current worlds is not enough. We need something to prevent players re-creating the coverage imbalance: a migration policy.

The policy would be a set of rules that would make the system to converge towards balanced coverages by governing how players make transfers.

The current policy is ANet setting some worlds Full at whim. Further incentives are a transfer fees and the loyalty pip.

What would be a better migration policy?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Has the time come for some Brave New Worlds?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

The alternative I suggested is just that – an alternative fair idea. It’s a way of keeping our server identities, staying together as guilds, and a way of gaining recognition as individual players.
It’s not “factions like EotM” because you are not the Red team or the Blue team or the Green team – you score for your server, your guild and yourself. Nor is it megaserver like EotM because there are fixed maps.
I propose the idea because it keeps what I see as the best bits of WvW and gives more flexibility to both players and Anet. To my mind this makes it an idea that is also worth looking into.

It is good to see alternative ideas, even if they are repetitive. Changing the principle of the game mode is not a trivial task. When players pause to think about alternatives, they appreciate design of the WvW more.

Your suggestion is still a lot like EotM. The only difference is a fixed amount of instances (5 tiers) and players able to choose which instance to play in at any given time.

The server/guild/player leaderboards could easily be added to the current WvW if it wasn’t for the coverage imbalance. The Glicko rating multipliers were never enough to compensate. The is no fair way to reward players/guilds/servers at the moment.

Even if you do not consider it as factions consider these points:

  • There is no server community since it is only a label on a leaderboard. The map/team chat would include players from the entire faction.
    • Language barriers in EU.
  • No server is responsible for defending any tier. If objectives are lost, the loss is collectively suffered by your rival servers.
  • Having 5 tiers to choose from, the players will gravitate to a tier of least resistance.
  • There is no guarantee T1 would be the highest populated tier. (unless you set very low map quotas to bottom tiers)
  • There is no sense of progression for servers to fight from low tiers to the top tier. The server name may move up or down on a leaderboard but players see no other change.
  • 5*4 maps is a huge battlefield for a nightcapping monoblob to level out all T3 while avoiding any opponents.
    • And karma training monoblobs you will get when your pool all servers together and noone cares to defend.
Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Has the time come for some Brave New Worlds?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

… Isn’t it more obvious than ever that it’s time to activate the nuclear option? Let’s blow it all up and start over, so that we can begin to build our brave new world(s)

McKenna Berdrow suggested doubling number of worlds and then having players to settle the new worlds (New Worlds). The suggestion was not well received. We preferred to cling to our over stacked servers that we paid so many gems to get into.

I personally would not mind blowing up the current worlds. Guilds and communities must be allowed to stay together (within reason). There also needs to be a migration policy to guard against players re-creating coverage imbalances.

For example some auction system for guilds to re-populate the wiped out worlds. The biggest guilds can make the highest bids and get to settle in first as long the migration policy is satisfied. Guilds losing the auction have to choose another world.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Has the time come for some Brave New Worlds?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

There is another alternative.

So factions? You can already play factions in EotM.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Remove WvW Linking - Give Us Back Our Servers

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I highly suggest you go back and read all of my comments in this thread before you make attempts to play “gotcha” with me…

Edit- You obviously have the right to post, but do me a favor and make an effort to understand the chain conversation going on so I don’t have to continuously repeat or requote myself… Doing your part will avoid cyclical banter and help lead to more constructive conversations. Thanks!

The post you are linking is 1 year old. Things have changed since that.

About a year ago the world linking did improve the game experience for the least populated servers moving from empty maps to maps bustling with activity. A bit later the loss of identity crept in. The linking has removed any sense of competition from the game mode.

I would welcome fresh stats about the health of linked servers. What is the player retention (how many players stay for good vs bandwagoners)? Has the permanent and active population increased or decreased over the past year?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

WvW patch notes July 11th

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Thank you for the vendor. No more carpal tunnel bois \o/

Good workaround the poor inventory UI. Shaves 2 clicks off managing stacks of Skirmish Chests. I still need to double click each box and double click each tactic/improvement item that pops out of those boxes.

Now go do the apply workaround for the Tactic/Improvement boxes and Tactic/Improvement items themselves. And make the items stackable of course. And apply the same principle to every other box in Skirmish rewards and Reward Tracks. And make acquiring the boxes require no user interaction. And fix the UI not to display flashing boxes on right hand side of the screen…

Or you could just fix the inventory UI. But I’m not a developer. Maybe the 1,000 workarounds make more sense.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Remove WvW Linking - Give Us Back Our Servers

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

snipples

populations will never be equal if someone has a choice of what home world they want. instead of pushing for equal populations, which is counter productive to what wvw should be, push for smaller more organized squads getting the tools they need to defeat bigger ones. trying to equalize populations will always fail because that’s not the problem.

Players have had freedom to transfer anywhere they please and it has lead to stacked servers, bottom tier servers getting deserted and some ugly bandwagoning events. That’s why there needs to be a migration policy.

ANet has this brilliant system with Glicko that matches up servers with equal populations only. On top of that we saw all kinds of modifications: like different levels of randomness, resets, multipliers on victory points, even straight up manual rating adjustments.

System never worked because there are only so few teams playing (even fewer with world linking), the coverage determining success and no control over transfers.

If you go down the path of giving smaller servers handicaps, like 100% damage bonus or 50 Victory Points lead, any chance of competiveness goes out of the window.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Remove WvW Linking - Give Us Back Our Servers

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

I mean if you want most of WvW to return to a ghost town for the sake of server pride, then have at it.

Not like that.

Undoing the world linking would mean either merging servers, or forced migrations to rebalance populations across all servers.

If the number of tiers is increased, it would be wise to decrease playable area. For example closing some maps at off peak hours, or having only 2 borderland maps per matchup. Yeah, yeah, the north position in BL maps needs a nerf first.

In any case a migration policy is needed to prevent server stacking. In fact we needed it since day 1.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Remove WvW Linking - Give Us Back Our Servers

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

no dude. grow a memory. most servers were ghost towns pre links. I’m tired of ppl complaining and not using their brain to remember how bad it was.

Indeed. My guild did transfer out prior the linking because the battlefields (EU last tier) were too empty. The linking allowed the last tier servers enjoy active WvW again. Great.

Unfortunately the linking, like megaservers would, removed all the competition from WvW. No matter how well you play, the matchup has already been decided by ANet links.

The servers are still not equally populated. You cannot match up the first and the last tier servers even with multiple links. There goes the matchup variety. You will face the same servers again and again week in week out.

ANet even had to resort to manually adjusting Glicko ratings to get the matchups they wanted out of the system.

I would not complain at all if stacked servers were blown up, linking ended, migration policy introduced, and guilds were let to resettle the servers evenly. A fresh start.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Can we fix WvW reward tracks to be ONE chest?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

GW2 isn’t really known for its UI ease of use. But you gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come.

Why can’t it be that whenever I start the game it is the good times?

It seems a minor improvement in the UI would go a long way. For example have a developer set AllowMultiSelect=True property in the inventory list component.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Balancing Conditions for the Next Expansion

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Condition damage in large fights does not work because groups have too many AoE cleanses and shared Resistance. Conditions only work in small scale fights. I would like to see power, condition and hybrid viable choices for both fights.

If you take cleanses and Resistance away by adding the suggested condition mechanisms, new defensive tools are needed.

What kind of defensive tools would you add not to trivialize zerg combat and still keep small scale condition builds viable?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Can we fix WvW reward tracks to be ONE chest?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Click open chests,

There is no Consume All option for chests, or bags within those chests. You have to double click on every item to open.

I have give or take 5,000 boxes in my inventory. So there are 10,000+ unrewarding clicks looming in my near future. How is that for a good, modern UI design?

If you let 5000 boxes pile up in your inventory then the problem is YOU. My inventory is nice and clean becaue I’m not trying to brag about how many boxes I have. So, my advice to you is, clean up your inventory regularly during WvW and don’t let the boxes pile up.

So when I get rewarded (hurray!) I would CLICK on the box flashing on the right hand side of the screen. Then I would be rewarded (hurray!) with a huge popup window smack in the middle of the screen blocking my view and interrupting my play. I would have to CLICK on the popup window to have the box added to my inventory. Then I would go open my inventory by CLICK on the inventory symbol. To locate the box I would CLICK and drag the scrollbar. Once the reward box is in view I would CLICK-CLICK on it to open it to be rewarded by (hurray!) a blue armor piece and another bag…

All those clicks for every single reward box? Your advise is not helpful.

You click after combat has ended. That much should be obvious. And when there is a lull in the action, like running along to a target or at spawn(or in a keep or tower) you can clean out the trash in your inventory. At the end of your WvW for the day you open all the boxes that are stored in your inventory. I’m amazed that I actually have to type out the simplest procedure ever known to gamers.

You do realize you have clicked on those chests 10,000+ times already – more if you are above average active player. That is a lot of time taken away from actually playing WvW.

I don’t want to go: “everyone stop the warfare I am sorting my inventory”.

As for the routines, I do spend 10 minutes every time I log in only to clear the inventory. Not because I enjoy it. But because if I don’t I will get encumbered and I can no longer play the game mode I do enjoy. How is that for good game design?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Can we fix WvW reward tracks to be ONE chest?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Click open chests,

There is no Consume All option for chests, or bags within those chests. You have to double click on every item to open.

I have give or take 5,000 boxes in my inventory. So there are 10,000+ unrewarding clicks looming in my near future. How is that for a good, modern UI design?

You have DLPS. As you must be some sort of dumb to let that many boxes build up in the first place, then come on here and moan about it.

I guess the entitled generation wants even boxes opened for them as it’s too much effort and someone else should pay for it..

I would go further than just having the boxes already opened for me.

I would rather have an option not to receive any meaningless items. Only stat-selectable ascended pieces with max infusion slots, superior siege blueprints, effect-selectable top level consumables… If those only drop once per week, so be it.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Can we fix WvW reward tracks to be ONE chest?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Click open chests,

There is no Consume All option for chests, or bags within those chests. You have to double click on every item to open.

I have give or take 5,000 boxes in my inventory. So there are 10,000+ unrewarding clicks looming in my near future. How is that for a good, modern UI design?

If you let 5000 boxes pile up in your inventory then the problem is YOU. My inventory is nice and clean becaue I’m not trying to brag about how many boxes I have. So, my advice to you is, clean up your inventory regularly during WvW and don’t let the boxes pile up.

So when I get rewarded (hurray!) I would CLICK on the box flashing on the right hand side of the screen. Then I would be rewarded (hurray!) with a huge popup window smack in the middle of the screen blocking my view and interrupting my play. I would have to CLICK on the popup window to have the box added to my inventory. Then I would go open my inventory by CLICK on the inventory symbol. To locate the box I would CLICK and drag the scrollbar. Once the reward box is in view I would CLICK-CLICK on it to open it to be rewarded by (hurray!) a blue armor piece and another bag…

All those clicks for every single reward box? Your advise is not helpful.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Can we fix WvW reward tracks to be ONE chest?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Click open chests,

There is no Consume All option for chests, or bags within those chests. You have to double click on every item to open.

I have give or take 5,000 boxes in my inventory. So there are 10,000+ unrewarding clicks looming in my near future. How is that for a good, modern UI design?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Feedback: Pip Acquisition [merged]

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Pips are earned every tick and are awarded based on the following criteria:

  • Your world’s position during the skirmish (first, second, or third).
  • Your WvW rank.
  • Whether you’re commanding a squad with at least five people in it.
  • Whether you’re fighting while outnumbered.
  • If you’ve been playing on the same world for at least three weeks.

Almost everything here is wrong because the core issues in WvW have not been fixed first.

  • Skirmish position should not affect pips because the server populations are not balanced and because of the world linking. ANet manually decides the outcome of matchups. There is no player effort beyond of transferring to a correct server.
  • WvW Rank should not affect pips because it is making the game mode less accessible for new players, and because EotM WXP still counts towards WvW Ranks.
  • Squad commanding… fine, commanding is a lot of work with little rewards.
  • Outnumbered should not affect pips because it allows meta-gaming. However if you are outnumbered it is likely you are not getting any skirmish position rewards; 2 wrongs = right?
  • Playing on the same world for 3 weeks should not affect pips because the non-existing migration policy has already allowed server stacking. Forcibly rooting players on servers where they do not want to be is not a solution.

ANet: Rebalance the server populations like you said you would and suddenly so many issues go away. Just sum up all the work that has been wasted into patching things around this core issue: World Linking, Skirmishes, Victory Points redistributions, Glicko adjustements, 1-Up-1-Down…

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

When Does One Up One Down Start?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Due the population imbalances we will see lopsided biweekly repeated matchups. “Oh it’s an even week. I don’t think I will even bother to play. See you all next week.”

You’re making the assumption that server populations remain constant…any changes could push a different server up or down as a result.

There is still no migration control beyond setting a server full, transfer gem costs, and recently the loyalty pips. Stacking has happened and nothing’s been done to rebalance the server populations.

Server population size evolution is slow or stagnant, if not considering bandwagon transfers to/from a server. There is no mechanism that would gradually increase population on low tiers closing the gap to top tiers. Quite the opposite: players are transferring more up than down.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

When Does One Up One Down Start?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

1-up-1-down is a simple model players can understand without a spreadsheet. That’s all the good I can say about it.

Due the population imbalances we will see lopsided biweekly repeated matchups. “Oh it’s an even week. I don’t think I will even bother to play. See you all next week.”

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Skirmish Chests are terrible.

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Yes, the inventory UI is not fit for large amount of items. It is lacking the obvious multi-select, repeat action for all selected items feature. There is a disconnect between the WvW loot tables with hundred boxes per day and the inventory UI’s no more than 1 item per day designs.

Allowing to use boxes as currency at vendors would be just another workaround to overcome the shortcomings in the designs. Like the salvage kits’ Salvage All option. It would relieve the users’ frustration, but one can clearly see there is no end to such workarounds.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

[Suggestion] WvW changes

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

The problem is not WvW. The source of the problem is the PvE megaservers. Pity WvW never had a game designer able to defend the game mode from such designs.

Since your guild is a PvE guild I assume only a handful of guild members are attracted to WvW, and, I assume, you are all swimming in gold, it would be a trivial effort to collectively pay for the transfers of those few members. Target a low population server and it won’t even sting.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Ideas for how to improve pip system for WvW

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Worlds’ skirmish position (first, second, last) should not count toward pips at all. ANet decides the winner of the matchups by manual world linking and adjustment of the Glicko ratings.

The world populations need to be rebalanced. Just blow up all the worlds and the links, set up a strict migration policy and let the players repopulate the worlds evenly. Maybe set up an auction system allowing guild members to migrate together. Reset Glicko and leave the game mode evolve on its own.

All these PvE players flooding WvW will move back to PvE in the next content patch.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Legit Issue with Pip Chest Rewards

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Managing of hundreds of items is such a boring and laborious chore. The Inventory and Trading Post UIs are not fit for this many items.

But with few minor and rather obvious changes you could reduce the frustration:

  • Multi-select items (ctrl-click, shift-click, ctrl-a, drag-select)
  • Consume All option for selected item stacks
  • Sell Instantly on Trading Post option for selected item stacks

Attachments:

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

New WvW blog post June 1 2017

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Pips are earned every tick and are awarded based on the following criteria:

  • Your world’s position during the skirmish (first, second, or third).

Can we drop this criteria until the population imbalance, server linking and manual rating adjustments are solved?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

New WvW blog post June 1 2017

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Great news the skirmish rewards are finally ready to be revealed. But something essential is missing from the blog post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Let-s-Talk-Scoring/first#post6145749

  • In conjunction with population rebalancing, updating Scoring allows us to decide a winner of a match more fairly, and thus reward players more fairly
    • Currently we can’t give out worthwhile rewards for winning, as most match-ups are already decided before they begin

Where is the population rebalancing? Or how are the matchups not decided before they begin?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Defending vs. Backcapping

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

Thanks Sviel. Excellent post. This totally opened my eyes on the value of the ABL north towers. It’s a lot easier to prioritize defense with these statistics.

Would you be able to provide data for the EB objectives?

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

[Serious] What purpose do you give Eotm now?

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

EotM is for PvE players. It would be fair if it was migrated over to PvE, so that Living Story and whatnot would introduce new content and rewards to it.

Pack in the suitcase PvE designs from the desert borderland: vertical maze like layout, both old and new Jump Pads, hay bales, vertical portals in fire keep and around earth keep, earth keep mortar teleport pads, Lava Portals.

If EotM was on the PvE side, then maybe, just maybe, the profession balance team would give half a thought on large scale player vs player implications of their designs.

Good riddance.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

Conditions cause more lag

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Posted by: Korgov.7645

Korgov.7645

It is impossible to say why the GW2 servers have such a poor performance for WvW. You’d need to study the internals of the game engine.

From experience everyone can say that if 100 players engage in a big fight anywhere on a map, the whole map starts suffer from skill lag.

I’d guess WvW lag is caused by large number of skills and traits interacting with each other.

  • For example player casts an AoE skill. This becomes an event to handle by the server.
    • Event handler has to discover which 5 targets got hit and then apply the effect on them, creating 5 new events to process.
    • Event handler for each target loops through all relevant traits and effects on the target, which create, say, 20 new events to process.
    • Event handler for each searches for new targets and applies the effects on them, creating new events to process.
    • and so on.

Single events are fast to process but the sheer number of them overwhelms the servers.

There are some computationally expensive calculations: path finding, collision detection, searching and AI. Condition damage seems simple to calculate. Linear complexity at worst.

Conditions tick only once per second. They affect a known target (no searching needed). There aren’t any traits which trigger events from condition ticks. Like “every time you receive bleed damage, you blind enemies around you”.

Torment does not create new events but increases the damage received on the next tick. On the other hand Confusion ticks on skill use, and multi-attack skills like Blurred Frenzy make it tick 8 times. Ouch.

I suspect conditions count little or none towards the server lag.

Edit: Added a note about confusion and torment.

Sulkshine – Mesmer
This won’t hurt [Much]
Ring of Fire

(edited by Korgov.7645)