Guild Wars 2

I don’t see how this will prevent trolls from wasting tactivators. Will you body block when a known troll approaches the tactivators? Will you send a strongly worded whisper when you catch a troll? Let’s say you see someone pulled a tactic clearly to waste it. What will you do?

These were the queues for Gandara. “Gandara WvW is dead” is a laughably false claim.

Warlord.9074:

Thats bcuz SoS and SBI are the newest bandwagon servers.

I’m sure that’s why SBI is demolishing the T2 matchup

While we’re at it, can we also hide our character levels from allies? I hate being kicked from squad just because I’m “level 3 and don’t contribute to the fight at all”. Whether I’m level 3 or level 80, I can still use ballistas just as well.

Johje Holan.4607:

People complained about everything back in the “golden days” too. Lots of rose colored glasses around these forums.

Absolutely. I see it today too. Seeing how many people claim “HoT killed skills/class balance” then insist on creating a series of “legacy” GvGs proves it. They make it seem like every class and every skill and every gear were perfectly balanced before HoT rolled out. Is the current meta great? kitten no. Was pre-HoT meta amazing? Hell no.

I started WvW almost 2 years ago and I still play it everyday. I whine about WvW everyday too. I whine about the meta, the rewards, the map designs, the tactivators, the blobs, the coveragewars, the siege, the skill balance, the bandwagon, and the lack of a feeling of accomplishment when servers win a week’s matchup. I still play WvW a lot and have never invested so much time into any other game.

So you think the gamemode is dead? It might be. That’s all perspective. I wasn’t playing the game during the “back in the golden days of WvW” that people glorify all the time, but I’ve had tons of fun over the past 2 years and I’m still having tons of fun. Frustrations and all.

I think we all have to realize that Desert Borderlands will not be going away anytime soon. I know a lot of people absolutely despise the Desert BLs but I think it’s in everyone’s interest to suggest improvements to the Desert BLs, rather than constantly calling it a failure and asking Anet to remove it completely. A few weeks before Anet removed the Desert BLs and brought back Alpine BLs, there were some big changes to the Desert BLs that I really thought significantly improved Desert BLs. After that change, I actually started enjoying my time in the Desert BLs, instead of complaining about every little thing about the Desert BLs. IMO Air keep especially got huge improvements. So to attempt to get Desert BLs at least half as popular as Alpine BLs, will Anet rollout any more patches for the Desert BLs?

If yes, here are some changes I would like to see.

• Fire Keep: I still think Fire keep is a disaster, even after the improvements that Anet made to Desert BLs. The biggest flaw of Fire keep, I think, is the area just outside of the inner gates and walls. The design of all other keeps/garrisons/smc allow many angles of attack for the attackers and many ways for defenders to slip by the attacking zerg into the inner. Fire keep, however, has only ONE way for anyone to access the inner gates/walls, which is the big open area in front of the supply depot. Attackers and defenders eventually have to funnel into that small opening, not to mention the annoying little pillars which you have to jump through for passage. I suggest that Anet adds more ways to enter Lord’s Room. That’s my biggest complaint about Fire keep, but there are a few others, like the stairs being too narrow.

• Sand Dunes: I think this was one of the biggest complaints that fight-oriented guilds made since Day 1 of Desert BLs. With huge wide open areas, fight guilds should – in theory – absolutely love the Desert BLs, but I can’t help but feel like every single open-field fight is quite literally an uphill battle or downhill battle because of how massive the sand dunes are. I suggest reducing the sizes of the sand dunes again. I believe Anet addressed and somewhat fixed these in the Desert BL overhaul, but I don’t think they were enough.

• Absolutely random crap in the way: These I can’t exactly address in general terms because I find them one-by-one. There’s a big fat tree Southeast of the Northwest tower that I think I will name Camera Molester. Every time there’s a fight near that tree, your camera gets tangled in that tree and you will be looking at tree branches for the rest of the fight. The trees near the Skysplitter (R. I. P. in Peace 2015-2016) are not as bad as Camera Molester, but they are all definitely the runner-ups to that title. I don’t think they need to be removed, but rather shrunk down width-wise and height-wise. Please get rid of random crap like that Camera Molester. This issue also ties into the next point:

• Map Navigation: The multi-level design of the map had everyone complain about the map being too big (or at least feeling too big) since the release of Desert BLs. I personally never had any issues with the size of the map, but rather the path from any Point A to Point B was always too round-about. In Alpine BLs, if I want to get from Southwest spawn to Northeast camp, I could probably figure it out all on my own even if were my first day in WvW. In Desert BLs, however, with that same situation, I would either end up underground next to Fire keep or next to the Skysplitter (R. I. P. in Peace 2015-2016) looking for a ramp up a sheer cliff Northwest of Air keep. My suggestion would be to make the entrances to every camps/towers/keeps easily accessible with wide pathways. Why do I say “wide”? It’s because “mini jumping puzzles” seems to have been the theme when Desert BLs were being designed. For example, if I want to get from North gate of Fire keep to the Northwest camp, I have to jump up 3 or 4 small ledges. Why? Why is that even there? Just make it a wide pathway. The wooden bridges leading to South Air keep were definitely improved, but they could still use more. The bolded statement is what I think could save Desert BLs. People complain about Desert BLs because the time it takes to get to a place is ridiculous: the map’s not big, it’s just that the Desert BLs were designed with the phrases “Narrow pathways”, “Sheer cliffs”, and “small cliffs you have to jump over”.

If Desert BLs are here to stay, I would much rather fun on them, not question the intent of the map developers every time I run into Camera Molester. Oh, and please keep Skysplitter dead. That was such a bad idea that I don’t even know what to suggest other than just forget it ever happened.

Please share what you want changed about the Desert BLs other than “remove it from the game” because that’s not going to happen.

SnikleFrittz.8369:

Kind of ridiculous considering the server is at “Full” status and it gets Anvil Rock as a partner at “Very High” status. Bravo Anet, bravo. These matchings are getting worse and worse. You matched Crystal Desert, a full server, with 3 other servers as well? Give the employee who came up with that idea a raise, he clearly knows how the games populations work.

Where are you getting all of these population levels? Anvil Rock is a “Medium” population and Crystal Desert is a “High” population. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World

For the past couple of days, we’ve had double digit queues for EBG and the entire map queue following the tag in EBG. How many did the tag have in TS with him? 5-8 max at all times. The TS info definitely depends on who the tag is. Crystal Desert TS and Eredon Terrace TS seem to be the most active. I haven’t used Kaineng TS cuz I have yet to see a Kain tag. I use the word “active” very loosely because I haven’t seen more than 10-15 in the same channel because of how complicated this TS situations seems to be.

I definitely thought it was extremely weird that Anet was making so many positive changes to WvW after shafting the game mode for over a year. Then Anet throws this wrench to remind us.

I believe it happens when you use a movement skill (i.e. Guardian Greatsword 3 or Reaper shroud 2) then use dodge during and/or after right away. It really is annoying when I shroud 2 towards my tower then try to dodge inside – only to be stuck in place and run over by a blob

2. The reward participation seem to be at a good pace. Obviously I’m not paying any attention to my participation during the battles, but every time I hovered my mouse over the participation after doing something, it looked like it was where it should be.

3. The reward track itself does seem a bit slow to me. I’m saying it’s slow purely by comparing it to the PvP reward tracks. I think it’s slower because WvW tracks lack the potions that grant significant boosts to the rewards.

4. The types of rewards seem average to me. I’m happy that I will be able to unlock dungeon skins eventually now, since I almost never do dungeons. I’m sad that the Verdant Brink and Auric Basin reward tracks are not repeatable, meaning that I will eventually have to go back to those maps to grind out Airship Parts and Lumps of Aurillium for runes and sigils. Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention to the rewards, but the reward tracks don’t seem to give me stuff that I find useful in WvW.

5. Relating to the last point, I think it’d be great if you made a few reward tracks that gave the HoT sigils and runes as rewards.

With all of that said, I’m absolutely loving the reward track system. The amount of time and effort I put into WvW now seem rewarding, allowing me to play GW2 for the gamemode that I love.

1. Skill Balance – At the moment, I think only Guardians, Necro, Ele, Rev ,and Druid are relevant in WvW with the other classes being too situational.

2. DBL – I’m all for the “Wow” factors of the new Desert maps but they absolutely have to be changed thoroughly to encourage fights THROUGHOUT the map rather than just the narrow lanes between keeps. However, I think it’s going to be extremely hard for the devs to cater to everything that the WvW community is asking for in the BLs. I imagine it will be a very back-and-forth patch-after-patch cycle if Anet decides to edit the Desert BLs. Maybe Anet will change some cliffs to be smaller, make keeps smaller, and put something else in the oasis event. I can guarantee that the first several changes will not be enough. I’m of the opinion that it would be so much better if the Alpine BLs come back with whatever small new additions Anet thinks will liven up the old BLs.

It’s important to note that the above 2 points absolutely have to keep the “fight-oriented” spirits of WvW

3. Rewards – I think the best way to implement a reward system in WvW would be to have something like PvP reward tracks with a WvW-exclusive legendary backpiece. I’d love it if the reward track gave some mats essential for Ascended crafting. Essentially, I don’t want to leave WvW in order to play WvW. Currently, I absolutely hate going into PvE to grind ingredients, gold, etc. to fund my WvW builds. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with PvE; it’s just that I do not enjoy fighting NPC mobs over and over. I know Anet has said in the past, “no one just plays one game mode”, but believe me, there are tons of people like me who only leave WvW to do PvE dailies and grind gold/mats.

4. Population balance – I think this can only be solved by implementing all of the other points I have listed above as well as the dreaded megaserver/server-merging. I think, at this point, any server below Tier 4 has an unsustainably low population. Given that the WvW population as a whole has plummeted in the past year or so, I think there are too many servers. Who knows, if Anet completely nails this WvW overhaul, we might need more servers in the future, but I do not see this happening before the second coming of christ. I think Pop. balance is the most sensitive out of all of the issues because of server loyalty and the chance that friends may be separated. I suggest free server transfers for a few months and possibly delete Tier 8 servers (maybe even Tier 7 too) and allow those players to join any other Medium Pop. servers.

5. Fight-oriented design – Anet has obviously come off as being against this design in WvW, especially GvG/fight guilds. I think Anet should seriously rethink this direction of developing WvW. I truly thought Turtle/centaur/dragon banners were going to be a homerun until I saw what they did. They should absolutely be used to encourage fights by being a direct counter to siege. Turtle banner should have a skill that makes all/some nearby enemies immune to siege damage for a short period of time (solving the hated open-field siege situations). Dragon banners should be able to kill siege extremely fast and be able to kill arrow carts in unreachable spots – something that Ele’s Dragon’s Tooth did in the past. Please remove the unnecessary upgrades in SMC that frustrates everyone who plays WvW for the fights: Chilling fog, Airship, and Stealth fountain to be exact. I know a dev already struck down this idea but please please please reconsider the Private tag idea. There are players in WvW who like to take their runs very seriously and want to improve teamplay rather than running a massive train all over Ebg.

I think this is only my second or third time that I’ve posted on the GW2 forum. I’m posting only because I get the feeling that the devs are finally taking WvW development seriously for the first time in over a year and I want this greatest game mode in gaming history to bounce back.

I would love the Friday resets. 8pm EST would be the best in my opinion.

Last week, I was doing the oasis event with a small group and there was an enemy group competing against us in the event. I was carrying the last cog to win the event for our side and an enemy mesmer tried to snipe me as I was on my way to drop it off. Did I get absolutely murdered like I usually do? No, the lag was unbearable for both me and the mesmer and almost none of our skills were firing correctly. The mesmer eventually gave up and ran away.

The free character slot expansions are given to those who have bought HoT and bought GW2 before January 2015. I’m not sure if you get the slot if you bought HoT after end of July 2015.

People who bought Base GW2 after January 2015, pre-purchased HoT before end of July 2015, and bought both Base GW2 & HoT from the official GW2 website get their Base GW2 purchase refunded.

I started playing gw2 earlier this year and fell in love with the game because of WvW. Watching footages of previous WvW tournaments, however, made me realize that 2015 has probably been the most boring year for WvW with the lack of a tournament. I still hope it’ll happen this year though!