Guild Wars 2

NickDollahZ.5348:

Well I’m guessing one of the things holding them back from making sigil and weapon stats work on kits is the balance. If they just did it without doing anything. Nades would get even more out of hand. Once they get the rifle weapon damage and stats. Also having the sigils proc with them. There will be very little reason damage wise to switch out of the Nades kit.

This line of reasoning is bullkitten IMO because it is purposely putting Engineers at an uneven level. If balance was an actual concern, you would implement a mechanic across the board and THEN balance abilities (read: give everyone use of sigils/weapon stats and then balance other abilities around that). You don’t purposely exclude a profession from a major mechanic — that creates imbalance itself.

Edit: I want to just state that I am not saying you are “bullkitten,” because you were just bringing up a perceived issue. I think the rest of your post is spot-on in your analysis.

coglin.1496:

I believe a lot of players use both, so they can swap from damage to support in an instance.

What were your thought on how this would effect everyone who doesn’t use a build like yours before you made the suggestion?

Edit: Hand got it first

I really don’t see it as a problem, since everyone that is making a Elixir and/or Flamethrower build already gets both. This change doesn’t change ANYTHING for those people. This just opens up builds that only want to use one or the other kits.

“Trait: Autotool Installation: Turrets are self-repairing (now with slightly faster repair). Additionally, turrets at full health when picked up have their cooldown refreshed.”

Man… running healing turret would be awesome! Infinite 5K heals for me!!!

coglin.1496:

I think your use of the term “convoluted” is a bit misleading here, and I think I understand the point you are trying to make. I have to disagree with it though. So what if I have to hit 2 key strokes? or hit a key twice for a secondary function on a skill? Engineers use those skills all day for their general and original purpose of said skill. The only difference in using that skill in a fields, is to do the exact same thing we do all day to execute the skill, only we direct it through a field. That doesn’t actually make it more tedious. At least not in my opinion. I think it is your perception that makes it appear tedious.

My point really wasn’t about taking advantage of combos; I was more trying to point out how many more key presses we have to make to use our abilities. <— This is what I am alluding to when I use the term “convoluted.”

@coglin:

This is what I mean by convoluted:

List of Engineeer’s Blast Finishers:
Bomb TB — 3 second delay, field must remain active
All turret detonate — 2 Key presses (deploy, detonate)
supply crate — 1 second delay
thumper TB — Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this a reticle skill? (i.e. 2 key presses)
rocket boots — On Demand use (instant), but launches you and knocks you down.
Shield #4 — 2 key presses
Mine gadget — 3 key presses

List of Guardian Blast Finishers:
Judgment — 2 key presses
Mighty Blow — 1 key press
Shield of Wrath — 1 key press

Engineer’s Leap Finisher, requires 2 key presses
Theif’s/Guardian’s/Warrior’s Leap Finishers all require just a single key press.

Just an example how a lot of the Engineer’s mechanics are convoluted and more tedious than other classes.

I think what makes the Engineer feel underpowered by many/feel hard to play is this:

Simply, the Engineer is the most convoluted class in the game. Sure, there are some things the Engineer can excel at, but it still requires a very convoluted process to execute.

Example: every single blast finisher, save for two, requires 2 or 3 key presses to use or has a 3 second delay.

So you are saying the cooldown will countdown from 16 seconds to 14 seconds (2 second duration) it will then jump to 20 seconds and countdown to 0 (2 + 20 = 22 second duration)… Wow, good catch!

Mindfazr.4976:

Im at work so I cant completely recreate my rotation

Drop thumper turret
Drop Rifle turret
Drop med Turret
—-can take a breath and chill at this point, but next parts have to be done F’ing quick
Drop Big ole Bomb
Drop Smoke Bomb (will detonate before big ole)
—once ring shows
Drop supply elite in circle
detonate med turret
detonate thumper turret
detonate rifle turret
use Thumper toolbelt

I usually do it without the med turret, I keep medkit for swiftness

Also insert "Switch to Pistol/Shield and use Ability 4 twice (Magnetic Inversion)’ this step between “drop Smoke Bomb” and “Drop supply elite in circle” for even more blast finisher fun!

Toroth.1453:

Eh, I was in EB both before and after the patch and honestly it seemed as though CD and SoS were more preoccupied with the Halloween event than with WvW. No doubt we took the lead that morning due to our numbers immediately after the patch though.

I was also in EB and saw SoS (PRX) make all of EB blue within 1 or 2 hours after the patch reset and were spawn camping SoR and CD. I did read the “I guess the only thing to do now is get candy corn” messages in Map chat, but I took it as a joke… I guess others (a lot of others) didn’t see it the same way?

Mara.5372:

Actually going to step in SoS’s Oceanic defense here and say this.

Alot of SoR knows Oceanic players do not have the best connections/internet providers. That patch was a good chunk. We also knew people would be distracted by the Halloween event.

Here was some of SoR’s ( or atleast EPIC’s thought process last night. )

" So, after the patch, straight to WvW, it’ll be empty most likely."
“Ok.”
" Oceanic people are going to be loading this patch for hours. We should make our move now."
“Ok.”
" Ques are instant."
“Ok. But.. What about candy corn?”
“There’s candy corn in WvW.”
“Ok. WvW it is!”

You can’t really blame the Oceanic players on SoS for losing everything last night when they couldn’t even connect. Instead, the NA players should have foreseen this and held out until the night time forces were on, instead of trick or treating. Can’t really blame NA at the same time for playing the game either.

We’re there two resets last night? Because I could have sworn EB was 100% Blue within 45 minutes of the reset when I was playing.

@Frizz

You really should just edit out your last paragraph.

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” Mark Twain

It actually depends a lot on the situation, as the previous posters have pointed out. Delaying a siege is nigh impossible without pre-existing siege in your keep (this should always be the case).

However, here are some things you should keep in mind when assessing the situation:

Are enemy siege weapons already up?

If no — You have time, ask for reinforcements, check your siege situations, drop a cata behind the door and pull a little supply from your keep if you need it. You also have time to make a supply run to the nearest supply camp (assuming you control it).

If yes — How much and what type? If a single ram, you still have some time. Call for reinforcements, solidify your own siege. Do they have 3 Rams/a Catapult up? You have very little time, start thinking of ways to delay them. Remember: you have an inner-keep, use it and make sure you don’t die.

How much siege the opposing force has up is a big determinant of how your battle will go.

My guild was in a similar situation, it was 12 vs. 40ish on our garrison. We decided to flank the attackers, leaving 2 people in the keep to man siege, and using a Mesmer portal to flank them on the south. Our flank cause half of their zerg to turn tail and run, while simultaneously trapping half the zerg in range of our siege. This wiped out half their force, forcing them to regroup, and by the time they could come back en masse, we were able to beef up our defensive numbers to match theirs.

Daisai.5879:

@Carighan you are the wrong who is wrong here.
DPS has nothing to do with elitistjerks or wow.

The fact remains that a warden is a DEFENSIVE skill and yes its stationairy only so is a aoe made by any class.
Chaos storm is stationary and wont move on its self for example.

Berserker is a OFFENSIVE skill so it makes more sence and should do more damage then a defensive skill like a warden.

Anyway, when someone starts linking a damage from a skill with a game like wow and “elitistjerks” i tend to not even bothering to discuss with such a unexperienced player.

I just started playing a Mesmer alt, so everybody correct me if I am wrong, but aren’t virtually all Mesmer abilities Offensive/Defensive in nature? So this whole idea of “iBerserker is offensive so it NEEDS to do more damage” is ludicrous.

Let me break it down:

iWarden punishes players that aren’t paying attention (standing in its attack area) by doing a tone of damage; conversely, it is easily mitigated by being stationary. Once it is no longer doing damage, it can be used defensively to reflect projectiles, apply confusion (another thing that is offensive/defensive). So you can see the duality of the ability.

iBerserker is the same way; it does slightly less damage than iWarden, but it is way way way more reliable in applying its damage (cannot be countered simply by auto-walking for 2 seconds). Additionally, iBerserker applies a cripple, which allows you to kite more easily and keeps melee off of you. This, again, is an offensive/defensive ability.

So your whole argument is null and void (puns intended) because the abilities of this class are not intended to be binary.

Chupa.2035:

I have just tested it out and you can get a water combo field. Using mines for blast you time them to blast when the white circle from the healing turret appears and in that second you blast and get the water field combo. Not easy to get but possible. I suggest using the toolbelt skill for more reliable effect.
And thank you Kryptorchid for showing me this, and since it is a combo field it should have the same ratios as the one i stated.

The trick to hitting the Water Field from the turret is to not rush yourself. It seems the sweet spot is between .25 and .5 seconds AFTER you have placed the turret. If you get a feel for it, you can get easy heal + regen + blast combo heal (from detonating the turret) every 16 seconds and still have your toolbelt skill if you need a water field in a pinch.

Chupa.2035:

Kozai you got me on this one. I have only tested water field with myself and only the aoe heal(blast finisher) and not the solo heal(leap finisher)or regen(projectile finisher).
I think it would be logical to use the ratio from the one who made the combo field but I don’t know since i havent tested it yet. Will bug a friend to help me test it soon.
Also I have just found this wiki page with the ratios for Water combo field so will also have to check if they are right. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Water_Field
And if you didn’t know the toolbelt skill of healing turet makes the combo field.
kitten my slow writing. Kimbald allready answered your question and it seems I am wrong on this one. My bad.

Placing the Healing Turret also creates a Water Field (and subsequent field every time the turret “ticks” it’s regen), making a quick, Place Turret > wait .5 seconds > Detonate Turret a powerful burst heal.

Didn’t see if this was specified.

Coldviper.6794:

Surprisingly even with all the supposed bandwagoners, queue’s have been more reasonable than ever. However that could be due to our breaking off the lead and pretty much sealing the deal. Also I don’t play during primetimes so maybe those are bad. And weekends are almost always horrifying even before winning. Took me 5 hours once this last weekend. Of course I don’t know the secret so I might have been screwing myself by requeuing, but others have told me I should, and then not zone.

Luckily I’m always on friday during change so as long as I don’t crash or d/c I’m good. Saturday is a different story though. However these free transfers are still bringing the type of people over here that I really don’t want to play with. People who want to be carried, roll the fotm class… just… ugh… Get out! Learn to play for fun. Winning is fun sure, but steamrolling WvW is boring. That’s why falling to tier 2 is horrid.

Free transfers and the short cooldown at this point should be stopped. Paid transfers, and maybe a week cooldown or something. That’s more reasonable. Then people will stop just rolling over to the winning server like many of the people have posted here just to be “undefeated”. Or at least stop letting people roll right into the overpopulated ones.

Welcome to the club! HoD has been screaming this since Day 1 of the official launch.

The joke is on us, the customers, because this IS ArenaNet’s form of “balancing” WvW and it is NOT going away… ever! What better way to bring “balance” than let people play merry-go-round with the front-running servers, only to kitten off the server’s original inhabitants forcing them to a) transfer, or b) lose a huge chunk of their population when the queues get so long everyone else bails for the “up-and-comer”?

mcl.9240:

“The last data I saw had an overwhelming majority of transfers from servers with long queu times (generally from winning servers), to servers with short queu times (generally to losing servers). There are some people going to the winning servers, but the simple truth is the vast majority are not.”
— Colin Johansen, game director.

This doesn’t tell us kitten, to be honest. Here is an example of how this is misleading:

100 people transfer off HoD to low population servers
100 people transfer off SBI to low population servers
100 people transfer off JQ to low population servers
100 people transfer off ET to low populations servers

300 people transfer off low population servers to HoD.

So a “majority” of transfers are off high population servers, yet the population of one of the highest population servers keeps on growing.

I think we need a little more explanation on this “transfer population’s” distribution.

Example:

100 people transfer from HoD to Kaineng
100 people transfer from JQ to Crystal Desert
100 people transfer from SBI to Blackgate

200 people transfer from Kaineng/Crystal Desert/Blackgate to HoD.

So in this example, a vast majority of players are transfering off high population servers, yet one of the most populated servers actually increases in population because more people have that as their destination.

Don’t you get it? Server transfers are always going to be free! What incentive do they have to end them? Just look what it did to HoD. HoD was unbeatable, everyone transfers to that server diluting the “skilled” and organized WvW population on that server. This continues until people on the server get completely fed up with the situation and leave, making another server "the best’ by default. Now people flock there… Vicious cycle repeats.

It is their built-in mechanic to balance out powerhouse servers. kitten ain’t goin’ nowhere.

/auto run

Now you just mitigated 25k damage!

You shouldn’t need to determine the velocity from DAOC to do what you want to do, since you are talking about relative DISTANCES. If the time it takes to get to the DAOC keep is longer than the time it takes to get to the GW2 keep, you can say either a) the DAOC keep is farther away than the GW2 keep, or b) you move slower in DAOC than you do in GW2.

About #1:

I agree, I think the transfer lockout should match whatever the duration of the matches are.

About #2:

“Night capping” would be an issue in 24-hr matches as well… The only time “night capping” isn’t and issue is on Friday and Satruday, since those players complaining about “night capping” can stay out to “night cap” themselves.

Also to note: quickness increases the speed at which you can revive someone as well. Use it to your advantage to get those teammates back up!

RamonDomke.9638:

The free character transfer is NOT a core mechanic of the game – but instead a launch only initiative to balance out server population (to actually prevent the above mentioned ‘possible scenario’). It will go away at some point.

Here’s your problem. Leaving free character transfers open may have helped spread players across multiple server, but it allowed the WvW populations to congregate on a few servers. I have no idea why we even have PvE servers in this game? You have overflow, USE IT. Place everyone into the same PvE pool — no more population problems for PvE. Now you just need to redistribute the WvW populations on to smaller teams so you can’t have a situation where all the WvWers flock to one side, which is a current possibility.

@CardboardBox

Your point about only the ET BL being full (and having a queue) and the other BL’s and EB not having a queue is an issue that ArenaNet can help fix, though alliances already help by sending their players where they are needed. Quite simply, ArenaNet needs to either a) show us the amount of players in each WvW zone and how many are in queue, or b) just let us see the kitten map — we can draw conclusions from there about where our server population is lacking.

@Eigen

Additionally, the enemy cannot repair a gate getting hit with a catapult, because of the damage and knockback it does through the door.

What Casia said.

No one I read was complaining about the double team. What I did see were posts from SBI/ET/JQ/Random Guy stating the “downfall of HoD” after 1.5 days of a 7 day battle, and HoD players coming to say why they were down.

Did I say it was easy? No, in fact I said it would take work to do, but it is something the players actually have some control and ownership in doing, rather than spinning their wheels trying to figure out ways for ArenaNet to fix it. ArenaNet has their own data that they are using to formulate solutions (if ArenaNet even thinks this is a problem).

All my post was saying is that the server has players on it 24/7, vastily more than the cap in WvW. If they want a better WvW experience, they need to get their large "off-peak population interested and engaged in WvW.

So I assume to emailed this to ArenaNet, right?

Kracin.6078:

Kryptorchid.7620:

Kracin.6078:

Kryptorchid.7620:

I just want to point out. SBI and ET, the two servers complaining about the HoD “night-capping,” have had Heavy and Medium populations, respectively, throughout the night. The problem isn’t that you don’t have people playing; you just don’t have people queuing.

Edit: I understand that other servers do in fact have very low nighttime populations, but then again, you only need 500 people to cap WvW.

of course, every server has a huge number of people…. the full servers are pushing ridiculous numbers of people and only 1k queue at a time for WvW on those servers… we obviously aren’t talking server population, because ET is in the top tier with medium pop. and the only other medium pops are kaineng and devonas rest.

the server pop itself has nothing to do with the fact that no one is queuing, because only a certain portion of people playing the game in general will be queuing for WvW, and likewise for Spvp…. cant say i have ever done Spvp yet except in beta either. so count me out of that population. same can be said for 95% of my guild as well.

it is of course, the number of people participating in WvW on given servers.

And my point is:

A server with 20k+ players currently playing on it (correct me if I am wrong, I remember ArenaNet saying they increased server caps to 40K, and just conservatively estimating that “heavy” = 50% of the server online) can’t field 500 players to WvW?

/facepalm

a server could still have 100k population and still only get 300 people at a time in WvW….. the difference is that servers like hendge have people who flocked to it specifically for the purpose of WvW after it was on the top bracket and ended up being the popularity vote for server transfers….

come on man, stop being dense

I am not being dense and statistically that is close to impossible. I am making a point that there are plenty of people on these servers; the fact that they are not queuing for PvP isn’t HoD’s problem. It is the Server Community’s problem. Overall, people on those servers just do not have the overall pride and desire to fight like HoD does (this is partly due to the high concentration of WvWers on HoD, and also a defeatist mentality of the other servers), so they don’t win. So the people complaining about “the night zerg” of HoD, do in fact have the population to make one of their own, but it will take work to organize and get people involved in WvW.

The other issue, like you state, is the player’s who flocked to HoD. Once again, this is not at any fault of the players on HoD; ArenaNet is at fault for letting free, unmitigated transfers to every server.

If the community on each server can’t band together to mobilize their already existing, playing populations, then what else can be done?

Kracin.6078:

Kryptorchid.7620:

I just want to point out. SBI and ET, the two servers complaining about the HoD “night-capping,” have had Heavy and Medium populations, respectively, throughout the night. The problem isn’t that you don’t have people playing; you just don’t have people queuing.

Edit: I understand that other servers do in fact have very low nighttime populations, but then again, you only need 500 people to cap WvW.

of course, every server has a huge number of people…. the full servers are pushing ridiculous numbers of people and only 1k queue at a time for WvW on those servers… we obviously aren’t talking server population, because ET is in the top tier with medium pop. and the only other medium pops are kaineng and devonas rest.

the server pop itself has nothing to do with the fact that no one is queuing, because only a certain portion of people playing the game in general will be queuing for WvW, and likewise for Spvp…. cant say i have ever done Spvp yet except in beta either. so count me out of that population. same can be said for 95% of my guild as well.

it is of course, the number of people participating in WvW on given servers.

And my point is:

A server with 20k+ players currently playing on it (correct me if I am wrong, I remember ArenaNet saying they increased server caps to 40K, and just conservatively estimating that “heavy” = 50% of the server online) can’t field 500 players to WvW?

OP, what you did there, I see it.

/clap

I would definitely transfer. I mean, if you regret it, you can always transfer back….

(Yes, that is a backhanded comment to ArenaNet about keeping transfers open WAY too long on the top tier WvW servers)

I just want to point out. SBI and ET, the two servers complaining about the HoD “night-capping,” have had Heavy and Medium populations, respectively, throughout the night. The problem isn’t that you don’t have people playing; you just don’t have people queuing.

Edit: I understand that other servers do in fact have very low nighttime populations, but then again, you only need 500 people to cap WvW.

@Will

I am curious what your server’s current population is listed as on the “World Selection” menu. I can’t check since I am at work, but I think it would be interesting to see a comparison between WvW population and Server population. Can you or someone else you know check that?

Sky.9347:

Kryptorchid.7620:

Recently.1043:

Dunno whats funnier, the oceanic hod guilds talking kitten when they roll over the map against empty towers and keeps, or the NA hod guilds that take credit for the work that happens when they are asleep.

What’s really funny is that SBI has had Full/Heavy population 24/7 this match and doesn’t field WvW players, even with a HUGE population online. This “only HoD has 24/7 coverage” is a myth. Both ET and SBI have sizable populations 24/7 (in the case of ET they go from Full/Heavy to Medium) — time to convince those players to actually queue…

I am interested in solving this problem. Any idea how we might convince players who aren’t interested in WvW to queue up and fight back against overwhelming odds and sink a lot of coin into repairs, upgrades, and siege?

I’m not a very good salesman, but since it is my responsibility to correct this W3 participation imbalance I really could use some advice here.

It really is an interesting problem, because you have two types of players how are not queuing — those that have no interest in WvW and those that don’t queue because they are losing.

The first group should, quite frankly, be ignored. No reason to give “PvEers” incentives to join a PvP environment that they have no interest it. The solution lies in giving the second group of players a reason to join.

Ideally, those players would be like me and a lot of other players in this game — you just love PvP you will queue no matter what; obviously this isn’t the case. I don’t have an idea of a solution, but I think the direction of discussion should go the way of persuading the second group on non-queue-ers (read that carefully, lol) to participate.

cryptomega.3745:

To be completely honest, at 0500EST this morning (0900UTC / 1700 HKT), HoD had just broken the 500+ PPT.

The player ratio on the board across all three homelands was > 5:1, even when we managed to hole up all 10-15 people on the map into the last keep. In other words, had either ET or SBI pulled every player into one BL, there actually might have been some good pvp (which is what we all want, right?)

That doesn’t particularly mean much in the grand scheme of PPT as the other maps would have been empty. Though it could be (and is) argued that in any 5:1 “token resistance” scenario you might as well be fighting by yourself, and isn’t much fun from the winning side, either.

I would also like to point out that, at 5:00 EST, SBI had a “Heavy” population (more than HoD) and ET had a “Medium” population (less than HoD).

Recently.1043:

Dunno whats funnier, the oceanic hod guilds talking kitten when they roll over the map against empty towers and keeps, or the NA hod guilds that take credit for the work that happens when they are asleep.

What’s really funny is that SBI has had Full/Heavy population 24/7 this match and doesn’t field WvW players, even with a HUGE population online. This “only HoD has 24/7 coverage” is a myth. Both ET and SBI have sizable populations 24/7 (in the case of ET they go from Full/Heavy to Medium) — time to convince those players to actually queue…

Hmm, that sure seems like they are dominating primetime…

I liked the Human male Theif I saw: Thieven Stealberg

Roland Falantyr.3290:

Kryptorchid.7620:

silvermember.8941:

Kryptorchid.7620:

Implementing the systems listed above, that supposedly are designed to “not punish NA players,” are instead punishing coordination, preparation, and understanding of the WvW system for servers that a) field 24/7 populations or b) have a strong Oceanic presence.

I think the only thing that has merit is hiding the score, but then again, someone will just make a spreadsheet to track everything.

WvW is a battle between 3 servers. If one server is fighting against nobody it defeats the purpose of even having WvW be about 3 servers. In theory, at the end of the week the winner should have outplayed the other 2 servers, in most cases however the winner is decided because they manage to amass a lead when nobody is fighting against them.

It doesn’t take any coordination to fight against no enemy does it? Anyways, it doesn’t matter the scoring system needs to be fixed so it doesn’t reward fighting against nobody.

Actually, TA has shown it takes a ton of coordination to fight against no enemies — they setup an alliance to field people 24/7 (note: not completely fill the server 24/7). ArenaNet allowed people to transfer to HoD, which exacerbated the problem in “off-peak” times. So props to TA and the rest of the players on HoD for understanding the system. Shame to ArenaNet for not realizing WvW would be so popular.

While true that TA did nothing more than use the system to their advantage, I still believe that stacking servers has hurt the game.

Its sort of the same problem people had when Lebron and D Wayde colluded to play on the same team in Miami. It wasnt wrong per se, but went against the spirit of competition that makes the game great.

In the past, the best pvpers did not collude and conspire to all join the same server to stomp pick up groupers. The best guilds used to go to underdog servers to prove their mettle. What the heck happened?

I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that the servers weren’t stacked by the alliances — they were stacked by ANet allowing unmitigated free transfers since day one and doing NOTHING about it for high population servers.

Example: HoD was full during NA peak hours on Day 1 of the official launch; however, anytime the server didn’t have “full” activity, people could and did transfer. Since NA peak is 6PM-1AM EST roughly, that is 17 hours where people are free to jump on the HoD train.

Same things happened with NS, SBI, JQ, etc.

ArenaNet kitten their game up, plain and simple.

silvermember.8941:

Casia.4281:

Ascii.9726:

Some system maybe that makes all points on the maps (Camps, Towers, Keeps & SM) worth a % less of there value.

What also might work would be making value change constantly depending on WvW population, for example

at 100% filled instance for all 3 servers (so 100% / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 10 Points
Towers – 20 Points
Keeps – 50 Points
Castle – 70 Points

This would ideally be primetime population and therefor points, during off-peak hours were say one server is 70% (the EU-night capping guilds) and others say 30% each (so 43% total / 100% wvw population);

Camps – 4 Points
Towers – 7 Points
Keeps – 22 Points
Castle – 30 Points
(43% of value rounded up/ down to nearest 1)

This kind of system would reduce the effectivess and mass lead given to higher EU populated US servers whilst still promoting night cappings for additional points (the more EU players you would get on, the more overall % wvw population so more points)

Thoughts?

Oh no, we are about to lose, SM. everyone log off to make our point loss lower.

Variable points based on participation create a system where it can be advantageous to not log in on purpose.

And they still get points so whats your point? And it will be during off peak hours so the strategy of logging of wont even be effective.

Random Player on your server: “Oh kitten! We are getting pushed out of all our maps! Quick, everyone log off so all those capture points tick for 1 point, and then log back in and cap everything in 15min.”

silvermember.8941:

Kryptorchid.7620:

Implementing the systems listed above, that supposedly are designed to “not punish NA players,” are instead punishing coordination, preparation, and understanding of the WvW system for servers that a) field 24/7 populations or b) have a strong Oceanic presence.

I think the only thing that has merit is hiding the score, but then again, someone will just make a spreadsheet to track everything.

WvW is a battle between 3 servers. If one server is fighting against nobody it defeats the purpose of even having WvW be about 3 servers. In theory, at the end of the week the winner should have outplayed the other 2 servers, in most cases however the winner is decided because they manage to amass a lead when nobody is fighting against them.

It doesn’t take any coordination to fight against no enemy does it? Anyways, it doesn’t matter the scoring system needs to be fixed so it doesn’t reward fighting against nobody.

Actually, TA has shown it takes a ton of coordination to fight against no enemies — they setup an alliance to field people 24/7 (note: not completely fill the server 24/7). ArenaNet allowed people to transfer to HoD, which exacerbated the problem in “off-peak” times. So props to TA and the rest of the players on HoD for understanding the system. Shame to ArenaNet for not realizing WvW would be so popular.

Implementing the systems listed above, that supposedly are designed to “not punish NA players,” are instead punishing coordination, preparation, and understanding of the WvW system for servers that a) field 24/7 populations or b) have a strong Oceanic presence.

I think the only thing that has merit is hiding the score, but then again, someone will just make a spreadsheet to track everything.

Mesmer Portal outside keep > Blink + Stealth > Mesmer Portal inside keep.

Knock down two walls.

Stack your group together on an Engineer, have an Engineer place Throw Mine and a Rifle turret next to each other, place a smokebomb, Engineer uses Magnetic Inversion (everyone gets stealth) + Detonate Mine (more stealth) + Detonate Turret (more stealth), for a total of 6-8 seconds of stealth, you all walk in with the enemy unawaresss.

These are all valid ways to get the drop on defenders trying to split your group. Use them.

OP, I agree with your ideas and concerns, but I do disagree with “no point to WvW.” Am I the only person who doesn’t give a kitten about getting exotics and just likes fighting other players?

@ Wolvards.6973
It’s not a matter of culling though. Sure culling sucks, and when/if it gets fixed, it will make countering portals easier, but you can already counter them! If you see a portal, nuke it with as much AOE as your team’s got. The counter exists; use it.

Mayama.1854:

Mesmer blinks into an enemy zerg, uses portal, baaaam 50 invisible enemys lagging and killing the kitten out of your zerg. No way to counter it because the server needs sometimes almost a minute, no exaggeration to render the enemys which spam aoe into your zerg. The problem is not the portal or the ammount of people you can port its the abuse (and yes its an abuse) of a server problem.

Are Mesmer portals invisible? News to me. So what if the players don’t render who use the portal? You can still see the portal itself, right?

Pro-tip: If you see a Mesmer Portal, AoE the kitten out of it until it is gone.

I think part of the solution to queue times is pretty obvious, and it is something The Secret World has done, and the infrastructure already exists in GW2:

1. Combine the PvE aspect of the game so everyone on every server plays in the same world, and use multiple overflow servers to handle the combined populations. 100% open access and interaction for everyone in the game.

2. Make WvW “teams” instead of “servers.” ArenaNet should use their data to compile the maximum size of a WvW Team (say 5,000 players?), and allow the players to choose the team they want to be on. Maybe even give guilds a priority so they can organize on the same team.