Guild Wars 2

Some mmorpgs have this feature to prevent some skills and ccs to be overused and spammed by “many” people. This system can be added to wvw areas to prevent cc spam or hammer stun trains in wvw.

Example : When you get a stun/fear/knockdown/blowout etc. for the first time, you are inflicted with the cc skill’s full(100%) duration or potency. Then it decreases to 50%-25% respectively for 2nd 3rd times, then you gain immunity against ccs for a duration in fight.

If you are doing guild raids or coordinated raids in wvw, you will see that 80% of the guilds are using cc trains to defeat enemy. This just makes wvw fights unenjoyable and short in duration. There aren’t enough stability or stun break or any counter-ability for this continuos cc spam of “numerous” players. Make wvw fights depend more on tactics instead of cc spam. With current system if a guild has more hammer warriors and lf eles they automatically win, because the other team can’t even use any skill. They can use 5-10s stability and a stun break to evade the first impact, but after ? This diminishing return system can prevent multiple uses of ccs by multiple ppl respectively in a point of fight. And it can allow lower scale(10-15 person) guilds to have fun against organised and crowded raids in wvw too. Please don’t obligate us to do large scale(30+) raids including at least 10-20 person cc groups. I wanted to provide a constructive feedback instead of just showing the negative point, thanks.

I’ll leave MM out of it, because that is the only build that (ignoring some basic problems that we still have) is actually decently balanced right now defensively.

The problem is they’ve basically put all of our defense, right now, into two things. Ridiculously high eHP through Death Shroud, and conditions. The problem is these things don’t translate well into actual fighting. eHP just isn’t good enough when it doesn’t let you avoid CC or huge bursts. Same with conditions, that demand that you pre-apply them and keep them applied, yet they can usually be removed with ease (its only our damage conditions that get left usually).

The problem is we have no way to invalidate a hit of our choosing, or make it through heavy focus fire. We can’t have mobility to escape, which is fine. But that means we need some way to make it through focus fire, which we just don’t have.

Essentially our only “defense” right now is ensuring that we never get into the situations that we don’t have the ability to live through. No other class in the game has this as an innate problem to their class.

TLDR at the bottom.

During 2013 we have seen many changes to the dynamics of sieging / defending in WvW. The two major ones being the introduction of siege enhancing WXP traits and the changes to how blueprints work (combined with achievement boxes). In essence, this has resulted in;

1) Siege weapons and in turn superior siege weapons are a lot more plentiful.
2) Siege weapons are stronger.

Previously, high level siege weapons such as golems and superior rams saw limited use because of their high cost. Playing on Devona’s Rest, I saw a maximum of 5 Omega Golems during my first 6 months in WvW. When the price of such siege drops by 80-85%, and with the high inflation in GW2, it’s not hard to imagine the consequences: Today you can double that number and call it a standard golem rush in that same tier.

Just like with most other parts of the game, it seems that the WvW developers are
disconnected with the implications of risk / reward. This becomes very evident when looking at ram mastery. Previously, the risk of using rams was that you were in a very vulnerable location while doing so. The reward was that it was the quickest way of getting inside a fortification. Through the new traits that is no longer the case. The risk has been mitigated and the rewards have increased. The same can be said for golems. Previously there was a high risk of losing large amount of gold in a golem rush gone wrong. Again, that is no longer the case. When ArenaNet decides on making a WXP trait line for a certain piece of siege, it really does seem like they sit down and ask themselves; what are some of the problems with using this siege? This is completely backwards. I feel that the trait lines are almost always poorly or weirdly motivated.

Anyway, what are the results of these changes?

3) Want to defend a paper tower / keep?
Lets hope you have a bigger blob ready inside because there’s nothing short of a shotgun treb that can defend that gate against 2-3 rams of either quality.
4) It accentuates the problems of night capping.
Having to start the day with paper everything was already painful enough. Now you have to leave an entire zerg in your borderlands because even if you siege up your towers and keeps, you won’t be able to intelligently defend them with a smaller force until they are at least somewhat upgraded.
5) It incentivizes karma trains.
When defending was possible but unrewarding, people still did it. Now that defending is both hard and unrewarding, people don’t do it. The PvP aspect of WvW is almost completely dead. Make sure you are the biggest blob on a map, and if you aren’t then switch to one where you are. After that PvD the crap out of it and swap places with the enemy blob once you are done.

Is this what the WvW development team is driving for? I don’t know, but personally I think it makes for uninteresting game play which rewards the bigger numbers even more than it already did before. To me, WvW would be a much better place if one or more of these changes would be implemented;

6) Change superior siege power to normal siege power, and reduce the effectiveness of normal siege.
7) Increase the durability of walls and gates.
8) Revert or rework the changes in 1) and 2).

TLDR; Siege is too strong, it makes for uninteresting game play.
Nerf superior siege or
buff gates and walls or
revert / rework some of the changes made earlier this year to make WvW more fun.

JonPeters.5630:

Necromancer:
_For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

Perhaps the place where the efforts should be focused is on the Dhuumfire trait, rather than removing a bleed stack here and there. Given the introduction of this trait was what pushed necros into the overbearing condition burst they are now, it seems the logical place to focus balancing efforts.

Rather than get rid of the trait, changing it to inflict Torment instead of Burning would have many positive effects.

1. 4 stacks of Torment is roughly the same damage as Burning if the target is moving. However, unlike Burning, Torment stacks can be adjusted in intensity without affecting far more than just the troublesome trait. If the damage remains too high, reducing it to 3 stacks of Torment is quite doable.

2. Torment is already in the condition necromancer’s burst rotation/arsenal. As such, adding more stacks will not make a negative difference on cleansing potential of condition removal skills against a necromancer’s burst. In fact, by removing burning, you improve the capability of other classes to cleanse the damaging conditions as one fewer slot is being taken up.

3. Torment already has built-in counterplay to mitigate the damage output. Even if cleansing the stacks is impractical in a situation, not moving at least limits the damage received.

4. In the PvE environment, Dhuumfire is close to a useless trait as any foes where the extra damage is really desired will usually already be burning, usually from Guardians and Elementalists that cause it as a side-effect. This would allow condition necromancers to contribute more in PvE, which is currently their weakest area.

5. If the necromancer and a burning user are both targeting the same opponent in PvP or WvW, the total damage output will be increased. However, the counterplay will be exactly the same. This is a good thing, actually, as a single foe being targeted by multiple opponents should have a significantly harder time surviving. In a PvP environment, however, you either have a 2v2 with one player getting focused by his opponents, or you have a 2v1 and one person free to capture points or create a different 2v1 elsewhere.

6. Many Necromancer players have been asking for better access to Torment. At the same time, many are displeased with the introduction of Burning. This change would satisfy both complaints.

I believe this would prove more effective at reigning in condition necro damage than removing bleed stacks off of skills. Having one more axis of adjustment, reducing required cleanses, and using something with built-in counterplay for the “burst” damage will all improve the situation.

DevonCarver.5370:

It is also the case, that we want people playing all the parts of the game, so there are always going to be optimal ways to get specific rewards and those may not always include WvW. We are building the whole of GW2 and we try and balance things across all the game types.

Look with all due respect for the great work provided.. i dont really care so much what -you- want me to play in my free time.
I (you remember … the customer .. which provides recurring revenue through so many of your gems) enjoy a specific aspect of this game which is wvw. apologies. play how you want was advertised. great, here i am. dont try to hassle me now.

Without trying to be picky about the sentence in special, the core message still comes around like a Fast Food service stating: “yes eh we appreciate your interest in our burgers but you have to eat 9 chicken nuggets with bitter sweet sacuce before i can pass you the burger you ordered. sorry kid. dont like it ? well too bad for you. allergic to chicken ? well pass it to your friends. we do like our chicken nuggets and think everybody should enjoy all possible flavours our kitchen can provide.”

For myself, I never saw an instance nor did i ever saw any town beside the start towns.r do i care about ? not. at. all.

Could make them buyable, achievable, whatever but anyway present in or through wvw.
the guys with the least time are regurally the ppl with enough spare money to buy gems trying to catch up with the scolars, students etc in their clans and stay competitive enjoying the game experience with their pals.
you already abandoned some initial promises (no item spiral). i´d suggest to carefully elaborate and leverage further design decisions and the necessities for gameplay enforcements.
try to not turn borderlands sunken arena into an analogy.
customer loyalty is earned, not a given.

cheers,
nirax/ germany.

Moon.6371:

@ XRKUN:

So who (except Vizunah) would be able to challenge the o so precious first place of SFR in any matchup? Great coverage doens`t make a great name, it just seems to encourage lazyness and deluded egos… alongside with queue and lags.

Congratulations, XRKUN! Your “1” smashing abilities have promoted you to status of full zergling. Now get in the queue, zergling no. 518923242! Be proud of your name…ehm…number…whatever!

No offense, not even your fault but a simple fact.

Best regards

i forgive you that you might not have heard of me as you re playing on a noname server, in a noname clan in noname country.
but know that…i am the great ‘X R K’ seafarer’s finest, the one man zerg, the slayer of whole servers, the man that solo captured stonemist against the hundreds.
feel free to worship me kitten many others do.

but to answer your question, mortal:
of course there is no one to defeat us.
but maybe in future anet will allow SFR vs 2 servers vs 2 servers.
not that it will change a thing but your moral might last at least till monday.

kind regards and may you have the honor to see me on the battlefield.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The updates exclusive to PvE and PvP are hard to compare. Almost all PvP features require very intensive programmer and server support like solo queue, matchmaking, custom arenas, spectator mode, etc. Living story updates leverage existing technology to advance the story and expand content with new mobs, crafting recipes, dungeons, etc. PvP has few areas expandable by content; the main feature being maps which we release regularly. Balance updates affect all parts of the game and don’t come out for one any faster for one than the other.

Your team throws around the words “difficult” and “you don’t understand the amount of work” a lot, so I’ll counter with this:

If I was a child and I had to wear hand-me-down clothes, shoes purchased from a thrift shop and on my 16th birthday, I don’t get a car. If you tell me “I’m sorry son, we just don’t have the money for those things”. I could understand that and just figure that my parents would do it if they had the dough.

Now, if during this time and hearing the excuses, if my sister was wearing designer clothing, shoes, and on her 16th birthday got a new car, I think I would have a reaaaaaal hard time with that.

That’s what’s happening here. I’m tired of hearing, “I’m sorry son, we just don’t have the money” when my brat sister is walking around this place looking like Paris Hilton.

Gamadorn.2659:

Magnetron.5823:

Alright first of all, I do understand that there are players like you who like to fight without buffs and without siege, and do not have the skill level required for Spvp.

That’s why you guys come to WvW and are hiding in desolate spots to have your own ‘private’ fights.

But please understand the words that I will put here now, and share them with the rest of your community.

This is WvW, and WvW should be about WvW only. The whole WvW game mode was intended for using sieges in defence and attack, it is an unique game mode for a MMO.

Please give the respect to the WvW team and let them work with only WvW because that is their passion.

There is no GvG mode in GW2. Maybe someday in the future, but not now. So please can you guys stop being so much trolls in every Livestream, Forum, Newspaper, Twitter or what ever and stop spamming GVG GVG GVG.

I am sick of it, and so are a lot of other players.

Interesting opinion….however wrong it may be.

You could say the same about people on siege? They don’t have enough skill for sPvp or open field fights…so they need siege to get badges….I don’t think this statement is a fair assessment and neither is yours.

But you are correct in saying the game was meant to be about siege warfare and large scale combat. That was the intention….the problem was, they gave no system to manage large scale combat and point system as it stands heavily favors numbers and coverage.

Now I give them credit for attempting to fix the point portion with the upcoming releases (thank god)…. hopefully its the first step of many, but the reasons GvG’s exist is because like it or not the majority of people that actually play WvW regularly are in a guild and probably a guild that plays regularly in WvW, whether you are a 5 man roaming team with a group of friends (probably your own small guild) or a larger zerg busting guild.. while I respect the individuals that play on their own they do not make up the majority of WvWer’s. In fact I bet if all the WvW guilds left any server, the server would immediately fall to the bottom of the rankings….

Point being is that I understand there are different play modes, but the bottom line is, WvW is mostly made up of guilds and even newer players coming in, will probably look to join a guild that is WvW oriented if they like WvW….so why is the largest base of players in the game completely ignored? Ignorance and stubborness…that’s all. Anet is catering to a large group of people that they think exists, but don’t.

I think this is pretty much the true situation here. I’m not a big fan of dueling and GvG within WvW but I understand why both exist. Aside from the fact that many players simply enjoy those modes, the fact is that ANet has so totally messed up their original concept of siege warfare (for which there is a year’s worth of unheeded forum complaints and suggestions) that hardly anybody wants to play it that way anymore.

I personally prefer strategy-based WvW that includes both large groups and small groups, scouts, control of objectives, use of offensive and defensive siege with moderation, teamwork, and positional awareness … more like chess on a battlefield than single or group gladiatorial combat. But for all its original promise WvW isn’t that at all, certainly not anymore, and I don’t criticize anyone for using the maps to better purpose.

The devs have only themselves to blame for creating this mess, both here on the forums and in game. Make two lists … one showing the key changes/improvements to WvW that have been requested over and over again by players who actually wanted to play WvW as it was originally designed and promoted by ANet, and another that shows the modifications and additions that have actually happened since launch. The correlation is so low that statistically they would be classified as unrelated.

Can you remove it? We dont care about that.

Your WvW players.

Love these suggestions from people that dont actually think about them. All just to nerf Conditions across the board.

First of all, its hilarious because there is only 1 profession with 1 build in WvW running wild AND using conditions. As opposed to several builds across multiple professions that run rampant using direct damage. But yah, conditions are to blame. Go figure…

Even more glorious is the solution from these forum greats. Because that 1 build from that 1 profession is to strong we should nerf all conditions across all professions and builds. Even the builds that have been fine since release, even builds that are even terrible.
Thats like saying Guardians need a damage nerf because Thieves backstab hurts a lot.

They also tend to completely ignore Conditions just work a little bit diffirent from Direct damage. Dodging/Blocking a condition ability works just as well as dodging a direct-damage ability. But if i fail to prevent the ability, incase of condition damage i get a second chance to remove it after the fact.
To bad most people think that 1 bleed and 3sec poison is a good enough reason to blow all their condition removal. Thats like using your Immunity against a Warrior just autoattacking you. And then complaining you couldnt do anything against that 100b burst 5seconds later.
Learn to use your counters at the right time. You arent going to counter 100% of all conditions and you shouldnt be able to. If you could counter 100% of all conditions, condition builds would be redundant. If you want to counter my damage you should sacrifice something for it, just like i have to sacrifice (a lot) to deal with crazy direct-damage bursts.

What does numbers on a chart matter when the underdog server is still getting mopped up on the battlefield? It’s still going to be a kitteny experience. What are they going to do to change that?.

DevonCarver.5370:

We are not trying to only ever match you up against your closest comparable server. That was what was happening with the system before and it was bad. If you are saying you don’t ever even want the chance to try and show your skill against a higher ranked server, then I don’t know what to say.

We will continue to look into ways to change scoring to try and even out some of the population based imbalances, but that is not an easy task and it won’t happen during the season.

First, you should only ever match a server up against it’s closest competition, otherwise you’re sending lambs to the slaughter. WvW is not skill based it’s numbers and coverage based, maybe if you spent some time learning what the metagame has become you’d know that. Winning and Losing this said contest of coverage is subject to a snowball effect. The pick up groups who actually care about winning, once they realize they’re up against superior numbers, coverage, and adherence to the seige/zerg metagame, will get sick of constantly waypointing and the repair costs that’re never offset by the already meager rewards of the mode, much less the slim pickings of constantly losing in lopsided engagements. The contrary is also true, when the fair-weathers learn they’re up against an inferior server they show up in force, queue every map, and farm the opposition.

The players on a lower tier server in a match up with higher tiers just stop fighting to win, and just play for fun. This fun only really occurs in open field fights where siege is not a factor, with near equal numbers, which ultimately makes GvG’s more attractive than playing the Points-Per-Tick meta. The rewards aren’t anything great even when you zerg up to Karma-Train across the map, and if rewards are your goal, you’re not playing WvW for them. Put simply you pit lower tiers against higher tiers you discourage fair competition resulting in hallow victories against weaker servers, and excusable defeats against stronger ones. Not providing these balanced matches is a development failure on your part, not on our part for wanting the match-up to be fair. Skill is only a factor when all other variables are equal, it’s a really basic principle to understand. You throw a tier 3 server up against tier 1 server blobs and they could be the best gamers on the planet, and it wont result in anything but another tier 1 victory.

Secondly, there’s no need to “look into” the “population based imbalances”. The answer to that problem is the problem itself. Gee, populations are imbalanced, why not match populations up against equal or near equal populations? Here’s what you do man:

Step 1: pull the login data off the login server and chart it in an excel spreadsheet for WvW populations. Look at the peek hours for each server, and add that to the match making calculation.

Numbers and Coverage mater more than skill despite your unfounded reference to the contrary. If you want that to change you’ve got ALOT of work to do, and I sincerely doubt you have the budget, time, or the comprehension of the mode to pull it off.

Step 2: alter the point system that contributes to the world score so that they scale up or scale down based on population. Lower populations can score higher for captures and higher populations score less for captures.

It’s the exact same logic used when scaling PvE content for larger groups. Just look at the features in the game that already exist and see how they work, why they work, and where they work and use them in WvW. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.

Step 3: TEST IT BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! use the lowest NA tier server match-ups as the guinea pigs for all new features like this. Once they’re polished it bring it to the rest of us. Get the user feedback, listen to the user feedback, make your adjustments based on the user feedback, and then move into full implementation.

You know, Game Development 101; Useability Test, Alpha Test, Beta Test, then implement. Never go straight to implementation and then be forced into damage control with all your subsequent development time…that’s just stupid and costly. Though it would seem you’d rather never do damage control with your development time as basic and glaringly obvious problems have persisted since before you were in charge of the mode and don’t look to be resolved anytime under your watch. Way to avoid stupid and costly development re-work by just not doing the required re-work…clever strategy.

I think the devs care about pvp…

I think they actually believe what they say when they say
“we want people to think of this as the game you go to for PVP”

Why do I think that?
I know they put in the time to play their own game..
I saw John Sharp playing Eu solo que for a week straight, Stalker-status
(Through the leaderboards =D but that account has been moved? now)

These forums have become utterly toxic to dev replies though; one reply by Allie M. = kittennado,

One Reply by Jon S,= Kittenstorm the like of which has never been seen since /b/astards walked the earth.

I’m sure they care just as much as the rest of us playing pvp..
I don’t think you go into game design cause you want to make money
I think you go in there because you care; and cause it’s the coolest job in the world.
And their reward is what? a whole forum seething with hate?

So what happends now? How can the devs even make a post on this forum anymore?

It’s up to us as the pvp community as a whole to grow up, stop making troll posts, focus all our energy into 1 or two issues discuss it thoroughly in one thread constructively and lobby for a fix.

Why? Because;
“Short and long term goals which will go unnamed” sounds like the resources for pvp development are going to pve+ and nothing new is coming.
Unless you like zerg warfare.

Dragonite Ore, Account Bound (Refines into dragonite ingots, Artifice/Huntsman/Weaponsmith 450) – Comes from Temple chests in Orr, Megabosses, and Keeps and Castles in WvW.

Empyreal Fragments, Account Bound (Refines into Empyreal Stars, Artifice/Huntsman/Weaponsmith 450) – Comes from dungeons, mini-dungeons, jumping puzzles and camps/towers in WvW.

I’m worried about this, it implies that these materials are gained by capturing targets in WvW. Does this mean that if I invest 15-20 minutes in an epic tower defence that ultimately fails, like I just did, the attackers will get ascended mats and I won’t? :|

The wording’s unclear, maybe it’s just from any tower/camp/keep/castle related event? Would love clarification.

source – http://dulfy.net/2013/08/30/gw2-account-magic-find-ascended-crafting-and-legendary-weapons-revamp-preview/

Hello ArenaNet,

I am the guild leader of a PVP focused guild called Illegitimus. Our sole reason for jumping into Guild Wars 2 was because we shared fond memories of PVP from other RvR titles and were really hopeful that a GW2 could recapture that same experience.

We all quit at roughly the same exact time 3 months after release.

Why? WvW lacks depth. WvW is nothing more than a large group running around for XP. It has effectively become what AV became in WoW; a quick way to earn XP and get on with your day.

We were following rumors that WvW would see a major overhaul in August and now that the latest patch notes are out, I have to wonder if the team still cares about providing a thorough WvW experience.

Can we please get an update on what the status is on future WvW content releases.
I can’t be the only person who doesn’t care for the living story, crafting content, dungeons, or PVP zones. We want WvW to be a commercial success, one that lures PVP players in from other games.

Commanders are horribly executed and practically worthless beyond just having an icon to follow around the map.

In short:
Our guild is still together but we aren’t interested in coming back until WvW sees some major overhaul. We’re not particularly interested in new maps or stronger siege weapons, we just want more depth and reasons for people to stay spread out.

In long:
We have talked about several ideas, although you might not ever choose to include any of them, I’m going to list them out as options that we would be interested in.

Allow players to steal supplies from enemy Dolyaks
This would encourage the team that holds the supply camp to actually protect the Dolyaks on their paths of travel. This could even have some sort of reward to the guild that has claimed that supply camp. This even persuades players to upgrade the supply caravans instead of just capping them and moving on to the nearby keep.
This would encourage the opposing team to use tactics such as diversions, distractions, and flanking maneuvers in hopes to steal as many (or as little) supplies from the caravan as possible before reaching the destination. By stealing supplies they hurt the enemy stonghold(s) directly and allow the robber a chance to bring some much desired resources to the nearest keep.
The Mechanics
-When players are running with the 10 supply that they stole from the Dolyaks, characters have a crate in hand, remain unable to attack enemies, and walk 10% slower. If they want to attack, they have to drop the crate first. This encourages bodygaurds for the ‘runners’ as they won’t get far without protection (Anyone here play Pirates vs Vikings vs Knights on Steam?… it’s kind of like that).
To prevent malicious players from immediately building something just to waste the resources once they have stolen supplies, the runners cannot use the 10 supply to build anything. It must make it to a keep.
EXAMPLE :
If a team of 5 run in and only 2 steal supplies, the other 3 would (ideally) protect them all the way back to base. This even adds a new risk : reward type scenario where that group of 5 could potentially get 50 supplies, if they are all confident in making the run with no protection all the way back to the nearest keep. The ‘runners’ should be rewarded somehow for bringing supplies to a keep or camp that needs it.
If the defending team kills a ‘runner’ they should get some sort of bonus for having to leave the Dolyak slightly more vulnerable during that period of time whilst chasing down the enemy. When the supply is dropped, it needs to be picked up a returned to the Dolyak, otherwise the Dolyak will remain lower on supplies by the time it gets to base. When the supply is dropped it can be picked back up again by a nearby teammate (Think Keg Brawl, I’ll let ArenaNet decide if players can pass the supplies around from player to player too )

I bring this suggestion mostly to spread things out more but I also think that there is a certain bit of excitement that everyone experiences when stealing from the enemy. It’s that, "I stole the flag!!! running!!! running!!! Protect me!!! " type feeling, that feels so good.

Give Guilds more incentive to stay and defend keeps
If Guilds stay to defend a capture point, they should have more things to build and receive buffs for defending that area. This will help to slowly break down chunks of each zerg as capture points are taken.

Allow players the ability to harvest materials to build an additional building(s) that allows for the construction of craftable WvW items. Add mines or nearby trees that contain resources for the crafting of WvW items that only certain bases have access to.

Add quests to gather armor and weapons for the Quaggans and take them into battle with you every hour or so.

Please think of the WvW players that are holding out for something more.

Best,
Creaky

AndrewSX.3794:

Some see it just as “It’s WvW that’s how should be played”, some as “I want to smash people bare hands in excting fights, how the hell this laggy blobbing 24/7 running from fights building ACs everywhere is a pvp game mode?”.
.

This is where I think it gets confusing. They’re both right.

The problem is that there is not enough objectives to warrant splitting up that blob, or for smaller teams to engage in. This coming update gives more non-walled objectives for smaller groups to fight over while the larger blobs can tackle the larger objectives of the map. This also shrinks said blob. Another huge problem is that there is no tactical counter to this blob. I think this is the common problem people have and rightfully so. It doesn’t matter how well you play because a 50 man blob is always going to beat a 10 man blob. What if that 10 man blob had tools to tactically use against that mindless blob?

If you would be so kind as to read this post I made a long time ago;
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Real-tools-for-the-WvW-player/first#post2219173

A short quote for you here though;
“…Discourage zergs and then encourage smaller groups. This is not done with buffs or debuffs but through the use of tools enabling smaller groups to counter and destroy zergs with teamwork while at the same time encouraging smaller groups by giving more ways to effectively use supply and make a difference throughout the map.”

With this coming update we’re getting more ways to encourage smaller groups and to a lesser extent use supply. I believe they’re headed in the right direction with this. They’re not done but I do believe they are making progress. It may not be as fast as I want it to be but if they keep up with this I feel they’ll reach a good final product. I do have to admit I’m not a fan of some of these Mastery lines they’ve grown so fond of. They do not in any way advocate player roles.

Lastly, there is another group. There are those people that despise siege and don’t want to see any of it anywhere but at the same time want to blob and not deal with overwhelming numbers. Well I’m sorry but this is not in any way WvW.

mordran.4750:

Titan.3472:

I farm guilds said to be GvG oriented in wvw because they are not doing anything better than a harcore player oriented wvw or spvp would do.

Thanks for not understanding what GvG is all about, and also thanks for making a complete clown out of yourself. Your post really made my day. The only thing you farm is crafting materials in EB maybe, so go ahead, do your PvDoor and believe that it´s PvP.

WvW isn’t intented to be PvP. It’s meant to be WvW.

As a WvW’er…
I’m all for GvG and I support it 200% but the amount of disdain this is causing in a completely unrelated area of the game towards both plays and Devs is disturbing. We as WvW’ers need to understand the GvG’ers plight and none of us should be looking down on them as these people do often contribute to WvW itself. However, this is not in anyway how a respectable GvG community should be acting. Honestly I wish the GvG forum “scene” would more over to General Discussion area where it belongs until ANet as a whole, NOT the WvW team, gets their act together and implements real accommodations for said gametype. This way I don’t have to listen to the constant bickering between the entitled, god-complexed brats who claim to be GvG pros or god’s greatest gift to WvW and the people simply trying to remind them WvW may be where they took up residence but it isn’t their home nor should they expect those whose home it is to make special exceptions for squatters.

As a GvG’er…
It’s awesome that we got together and made an unofficial GvG league but we have to remember that we’re simply squatting in WvW. It isn’t where we belong nor is it somewhere we should force ourselves into. If they need to make improvements to WvW so be it. We shouldn’t be angry at them nor the people looking forward to the changes. We should be angry at the heads of ANet, the real policy makers, who after a year still have not made any movements to accommodating such an iconic activity such as GvG. We should not be embarrassing ourselves on the forums like this, hating on people because they make changes to their own home that might effect how well we can squat in it.

Its pathetic the mmo community is what it is. About 90% of the people think its just fun to come home from work and do what everyone else is doing, either killing NPC’s, or running with 40 other guys to feel like they are living lord of the rings.

A real pvper is someone who starts out zerging because they dont know mechanics of winning by relying on themself.

Then after a couple months, or even for me in daoc a year…learning it is pretty simple when my team outnumbers the other team…just find a red target that is already dying regardless of what ive done so far…and hit him with some attacks.

“ok im getting pretty good at this” happens in their mind

Then you find free time from work, life, cant sleep ect. ect. and you find yourself logging in at 3 in the afternoon or 3 am….

You are all of a sudden…by yourself or at most with a couple other realmies.

Along comes an enemy group same size, and you die instantly and say “what the hell was that…they must be exploiting”

Wrong. They know what their doing, and do it well. So you investigate.

Delve into theory crafting a bit, into what abilities you think they used. What blew you up instantly.

You say, “Man I am not gonna be made a fool like that again”

Until the next time you are on without your zerg around and it happens yet again.

“This is crap, I am tired of this, we had MORE people than they did, but we still lost”

At this point, a true pvper decides im gonna gather a group of guys I have learn to know or met gaming, and we are going to work to beat that group or groups like them. We can be good at this too!

And so the long journey begins finally where you avoid your own zerg to rely solely on the skill and talent / clutch reactions of the couple guys around you. Where the journey of becoming a true bad kitten begins.

(Or you run solo all the time and get respect from guys like us like crazy because thats hard as hell to do as well)

This isnt rocket science. It just isnt encouraged because it takes time, effort, and coordination most people just wanna sit on siege, feel epic, and eat a burger with their free hand because ez….is well, just simply easy.

How many people do you think would still be playing PVE in this game if PVE had the same attention, rewards and updates WvWvW has had? The answer is not kittening many.

I think most peoples sense of frustration with WvWvW actually stems from how close they came to getting something that worked for the majority of the people that wanted to have real RvRvR.

While we all hoped for improvements that mattered all we got was PVE in WvWvW (siegerazers), buffed up siege for carebears, stupid WXP with pointless rank/abilities and (even after improvement to it) crap rewards. And we lost the orbs.

It really says something about the game that when content that is released that is MIND NUMBINGLY boring such as chasing round different zones killing the same mobs for hours is enough to virtually empty WvWvW.

WvWvW guilds are drifting away. Even on SoR try and find a commander in WvW, you might be lucky if there is one on a map these days. Go to an event you can see 15-20 in line of sight without opening the map. Good commanders who led WvWvW leave the game faster and faster.

I am just as frustrated as everyone else, I’m tired of the same two maps, I’m tired of the carebear 3 button siege mentality and the karma train that never stops and certainly never fights. I’m tired of 2 rare drops and 1 exotic in WvWvW in 12 months versus more loot than I can carry in living world events (3 exotics and 5 rares in an hour in one memorable session). I’m tired of people ressing off Moas and other crap NPCs, tired of the downed mechanic, tired of Arena Net thinking that the crap they release for WXP ranks actually matters to anyone. And finally I’m jealous of PVE, though I rarely play it, who make me feel like an acne ridden red headed step child who they feel it is enough to hand a stale cookie to once in a blue moon.

Still, ESO isn’t far away. I’ll happily pay them the $15 a month instead of the stupid amounts of money I’ve spent in the gem store in orderto feel like I’m not some second class citizen to the guys who ran CoF to the ground or grind every day in some living world playground.

So Devon I thank you for that, truly – thanks for saving me from spending $80 – $300 a month on your game. You know where I’ll be and what you might need to do in order to get the people like me back. And if it turns out you don’t care, well then I guess we will both be happy

People do not seem to understand that Necromancers are weak in zergs, but excel in small groups. Reasoning? Their conditions get removed almost instantly. The only way a Necromancer can do well with conditions is a Corruption build and just waiting for a target who has a lot of conditions and spreading them using Epidemic. I have an 80 Necromancer, Ranger, and Engineer. With this lineup I would say these are pretty much equal with Engineer slightly higher mainly due to the fact they can launch grenades at 1500 range. Rangers can shoot at 1500 but with a long cooldown AoE it lacks a bit. I am leveling a Guardian and Elementalist currently and find Guardian to be unbelievably boring in zergs. Elementalist seems to squish at the very sight of an enemy but I think I may end up liking Elementalist.

Here is a little insight: conditions are weak in zergs because of the amount of condition removal and straight power deals more damage hence Warriors being better in zergs. The best thing to play in a zerg is something that can dish out straight damage, contain fire and water fields, give boons, remove conditions, and control. Elementalists can do them all except #1.
Guardians can do them all except #1 and #2.
Engineers can do them all except #3, and #4.
Warriors can do them all except #2, and #4.

I would say that the “best” class for WvW is:

1. Elementalist
   (support) http://intothemists.com/guides/107-staff_build_for_organized_groups
2. Guardian
   (support) http://intothemists.com/guides/351-wvw_ahguardian_video_guide_included
3. Warrior
   (melee) http://intothemists.com/guides/322-dreary_yews_hammerstorm_dps_warrior
   (ranged) http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s;4RKkO0a4F2VQ0;9;5T-9T;129A;13;059AL-V4-RV4u0;6Fz0-35-N_scpI

As for Warriors in zergs you MUST (MUST MUST) use the Battle Standard elite skill.

Efface.8460:

Until anet figures out that WvW truely is the bread and butter of this game, it will continue to die

Another game tried the whole “our story is awesome” approach….not too long ago

Too much competition in this industry to make such critical errors in resource management

Makes me wonder if their entire business strategy wasn’t to just cash out on the 6 month window of fame to begin with

It is. Nexon is the largest shareholder of NCsoft stock.

http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2012/06/08/NY21443

Also GW2 was responsible for 20%-40% of NCsofts earnings. [Source below] The same earnings being used to fund Wildstar development and other projects in the the pipeline. The majority of your gem store purchases do not help Anet, they fund future project which will receive the same “smash and grab” treatment GW2 has received. Why? Because like it or not Nexon is at the helm.

The manifesto didn’t lie. Anet was literally sold out and they had to change their goals for GW2 post launch (ascended gear, time gated grinds etc).

Don’t believe me? Check out the earnings report: http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

Basically, I feel real bad for Anet, but not bad enough to stop complaining, and complaining loudly.

also lol at this jumping puzzle name. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Under_New_Management

All of Devon’s replies came on two days out of the last 1+ month. He is not here consistently working with the community on solutions to the issues we have, he spends a day here and there telling people they WANT to do something about things and that is all. To me that says they are doing the bare minimum to keep WvWers from leaving the game. You can thank him for the work they have done on the rest of the game, but the work done on WvW is bad at best.

When they remove the lake, I think they should fill the entire area with the ruin like structures in front of the blue keep in ebg. That would be fun, like praag in WAR.

The only good thing in WvW were the lootbags, and they even destroyed that! Today a big group 20-30 people from the enemy was defeated, and i got not a single lootbag!

It is already pretty hard to make gold in WvW, and the rate of lootbags was pretty good. But now, yes the champion bags are nice i guess…

But what about PVE? There is a ‘FARM’ zone now to make gold, while the game never wanted the player to farm lol. And there you get normal lootbags + champion bags.

So why not in WvW?

Are you preparing to shut down WvW or something?

Do you guys hate your own game mode?

Did you guys fire the Original WvW team?

Since new patches, the whole WvW has graphic glitches.. The new effect LOD isnt working for WvW because it culls important enemy skills.

Seriously, i do not have a clue why your destroying your own game.

1. Create real “Team Arenas” that requires 5 players to subscribe to a ‘permanent’ roster, like in World Of Warcraft. Allow players to have a maximum of 2/3 teams so that players can learn to develop and progress as a team and not constantly switch between teams.
Create a rating and ranking system that can be viewed in game with certain statistics (win/loss) along with it.

2. Make “Seasons” that last 3-4 months with rewards (titles/special gear) at the end of the season. The higher the rating/ranking, the more prestigious the reward (e.g. Gladiator -> Duelist -> Rivalist, etc…)

3. A tournament at the end of every season inviting the top 16 teams for a “Playoff Invitational” with special rewards for the winner/2nd place.

4. Give more incentive for both casuals/competitive PvP players to play PvP. Currently, the daily/monthly rewards we get from PvP are things that we don’t need. We don’t need crystals or slivers, or salvage kits, or glory boosters. A way to incentivise PvP would be to reward players with gold/gems/tokens to exclusive gear only available to PvPers.
For example: a set of gear that costs 100 PvP Tokens which can be obtained from dailies/monthlies/team arenas mentioned above.

These suggestions have been met with general approval from the mist’s population. I hope this thread can be read by a Dev. These things are needed for the PvP in this game to move forward.

-Davinci

It’s time Anet realized this.

Why do we receive such little content compared to the rest of the game?

I planned on making a long post, but now I’d honestly just like an accurate response from a Developer as to why WvW receives almost no attention compared to the other aspects of the game.

Most games get you excited about a patch, but if you’re a GW2 WvW player… you’ve probably just learned to fear patches and expect them to break rudimentary aspects of the portion of the game we love.

That doesn’t seem fair or right.

Dan.2940:

Obscure One.4357:

Dan.2940:

You’re quick to judge a class by a few popular builds, there are many builds that don’t rely on stealth.

Dan.2940:

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive.

So many builds don’t use stealth to stay alive only most of them.

Truly you have a dizzying intellect.

EDIT

Taking my sentences out of context would make me sound confusing wouldnt it? I was first referring to glass builds, which rely on stealth, then i was making note that there are tons of builds that don’t rely on stealth. If you were to nerf the builds that DO rely on stealth, you destroy those builds all together.

There’s no context presented for which I could have removed them from. You made two conflicting statements, I pointed it out and now your attempting to defend yourself from an indefensible position.

Now, if I may provide you with crucial information that all the typical thief zealots always assume when anyone calls for a nerf to that class. I never once said OP or that I have any problem with fighting a thief…go ahead…scroll up…snoop around. I main Engineer, I shred thieves like a twinkie tossed into a fat camp, but it took months of dedicated play to learn to counter thieves…and when I say thieves I mean the only ones that’re a threat, the big damage ones that constantly stealth. A thief I come across better !@#$%ing stealth and do so frequently or he’s dead faster than you can say loot bag. If it doesn’t stealth and doesn’t do massive damage and its a thief, its what we call a “bad thief” and I’m sorry but I won’t consider sucking a viable build.

Now, the principal is it should take a sizable amount of skill and complex understanding of a class to do something that requires the same to counter. Well as I mentioned I was replicating the results of the highest DPS build in probably 6 hours of play, and by 10 hours was doing it consistently, and by 12 hours I was straight wrecking kids…but apparently everyone who plays hot join is trash has no skill and doesn’t count…

Dan.2940:

More people complaining about thieves stealth?
For the people complaining about it, have you actually played the Thief class?
Let me answer that for you.

No, no you haven’t.

You are asking Anet to nerf a class that you have little to no knowledge about?

Mesmers should be nerfed, and not have clones or phantasms, and guardians? Lose the virtues. Oh, what about warriors? They should be nerfed because 100 blades hits too hard.

Thieves are FAR from OP, and in most cases/builds, stealth is the only thing keeping a thief alive. If you have played the class, you would know that thieves are easily counterable, even if stealthing. Please STOP these whining threads on how thieves are OP, stealth is OP, remove stealth, remove thieves, rework the class…. You either need to get better at the game, or play the class to actually learn to counter the class, because in all honesty, it’s really not hard.

The same counter argument to the same argument. I nearly didn’t need to even read the post to know what it said.

Your ignoring the design flaws of the class in your admission of them. A visible thief quickly becomes a dead thief if he stays that way for any great length of time. It’s the basis for the class’ entire defensive mechanic. When I come out of stealth its when I’m immobilizing or basilisk stunning them in a smoke field off of a Backstab. If I cant get that setup, I don’t engage, and this no-skill-required class will let me stay in stealth until the end of time if that’s how long I need to wait for the opening. Everything else is just a blurr of HS spamming it which normally goes 8-9k backstab, ~4k heartseeker, ~5k heartseeker, ~6k heartseeker, ~7k heartseeker, and then I break off because that last HS rolls in as the revealed debuff comes off which puts me back in stealth (smoke fields for the win). If they survived that spike, one more backstab for 8-9k normally puts them down and then I refuge stomp. If initiative is ever looking like a problem I just activate a Signet and get at least another HS out of it (Signet Use trait).

You want to know how I know this is broken? I straight decimate people with it and I have a grand total of about 14 hours of play experience with the class. The skill ceiling is so low to master, yet the skill floor to counter it is so high that the problem is obvious yet time and time again the thief zealots show up waving their pitchforks and chanting its fine and everyone who loses to a thief is just a nub that needs to learn to play.

The class does one thing extremely well, and that’s be a petty one-trick-pony troll. Oh look…the thief stealthed…oh look he backstabbed again…oh look he’s spamming 2 again….oh look he stealthed yet again…oh look he’s using unload now…f’n troll.

I took the advice that you and those like you give and played the class and mastered it’s most optimal DPS build in one Saturday afternoon. The class is an unchallenging licence to troll, nothing more. The sooner you thief zealots realize that, the sooner we can band together and fix the !@#%ing class and its myriad of bad designs.

This is my Warrior. I run 0/20/20/0/30. Knight armor/shield. Zerker weps, and Rest Cavalier.

I use Lemongrass+ Melandru+Dogged March and sharp stones.

I’m a solo roamer in wvw. This build is in fact, OP, but not in the sense you mean it, in spvp not really, it however does make an excellent duelist build.. I can stand in necro wells, eat ranger traps etc etc. I have not lost a single 1v1 since the change. Cripple doesn’t stop me, CC doesn’t really stop me, nothing really stops me. I can replace Bulls Charge with whatever I want. Still 100% crit dmg while stunned + 10% dmg to stunned targets.

It is a very powerful duelist build, but that’s pretty much it. If I face any 2+ well played opponents nothing really helps, and that goes for any class,build.

But having close to 4k armor with mace/shield doesn’t hurt either. =)