Alright, I don’t usually post, but I’ll bite, as this is a bit of a sore point with me. I’ve actually spent quite few hours in WvW, despite being generally terrified of any sort of PvP play in other MMOs. Much to my surprise, I kind of liked it, and even played rather heavily for a short stretch. I’m in a tiny guild and I don’t use TeamSpeak, so I’d try to find areas where I was needed and offer what support I could, usually following the lead of whatever commander (or person with half a brain) was online to coordinate. I’m not a brilliant player – most would consider me pretty casual, I don’t research optimal builds or try to min/max anything – but I like to think I’m pretty useful in some instances, and generally do more to help than harm. I’m hopeless in a 1v1 fight, but stick me on/under a wall and watch me go – nothing like a Charr with a massive skull on his head raining fire on the ramparts. I’ve racked up over 2000 kills (may seem small to you, but consider where I’m coming from here), so it’s not as though I’ve only just poked my head in.
Now, I only enter when I need a few extra events or veteran kills for a daily. Here’s why:
- Player Behaviour: /team chat, which I rely on in order to know where to go, is perpetually filled with juvenile sniping, name-calling, and mockery. Sure, I can block the offenders, but that limits the amount of info I get, particularly when commanders are among the guilty parties. I recognize that I’m probably on the older side of the player base and have limited patience for immaturity, but a lot of what I’m seeing is what I’d expect from a pack of 12 year olds, and I can’t imagine there are that many players legitimately in that age bracket. It probably doesn’t help that my server (Borlis Pass) went through a massive leadership meltdown earlier this year, but I’m not really seeing that much improvement despite a supposed recovery. Incidentally, this is one of the things that keeps me away from TeamSpeak. In-game chat is at least filtered and somewhat controlled – I don’t actually want to hear this nonsense.
- Respect/Elitism: from my experience both in game and on forums, it seems that due to my small-guild status I can never be regarded as anything better than another “pug”, and thus am apparently perceived as some sort of brain-dead zombie that needs to constantly be led by the hand and told what to do, regardless of what my actual actions demonstrate. This is supposed to encourage me to log in and help out? I once fully upgraded my entire home map solo, only to see the entire thing lost within an hour because nobody could be bothered to defend it. Every single person in WvW has the capacity to make a valuable contribution, regardless of the tag after their name.
- Power Curve: for the first few months after release, I could at least do a respectable amount of damage to an opponent before going down. Now, it’s immobilize, thief appears, health to zero before I can even react. Rinse, repeat, over and over. I can’t even run to a supply camp without it happening. That’s not my recipe for fun. And I at least have some experience to work from here. Can’t imagine what a new player feels like logging into WvW for the first time now. And no, the repair bills don’t help. It’s not as though it’s a back-breaking amount of money, and I certainly don’t mind paying the bill when I’ve been dropped after a spirited tower defense or an epic open-field brawl, but when it becomes like a toll for just getting from point A to B, it gets tiresome. I know this type of escalation is pretty much unavoidable in a game of this type, as “optimal builds” are discovered and new gear becomes available, but it does make things increasingly daunting for the casual player who isn’t necessarily interested in or capable of keeping up with that.
I honestly couldn’t care less about prestige, or legendaries, or any of that stuff. All I want to do is play the game and have fun. That’s it. Not much to ask. But in its present state, WvW just flat out isn’t fun for me, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one that feels this way.