Here is my wordy whine-rant about WvW, be forewarned. I’m also not on T1 so feel free to ignore me and continue your drama fight.
WvW is my end-game. sPvP is cool, but none of the other things I have done in the game help or matter in sPvP, so it is a side-game to me where WvW is the logical extension of all the other stuff I do in GW2. In the beta, WvW was awesome and new and huge and it showed me what a cool mode I was going to get to play, I don’t exaggerate when I say WvW sold me on the game. I have been playing since beta, and it is the same thing.
People learned of the borderland Hills catapult spot and it has been the first place I check for invaders every time swords pop on Hills. 2 years later and the access point and method for taking this keep has remained the same. That’s a metaphor for WvW on the whole – it was new and exciting 2 years ago, but it has undergone so few changes that the only thing mixing up the dynamics on any given server are fluctuations in population. When I played on Gate of Madness, we cata’d the crap out of Hills from that spot more times than I can count. When I played on Fort Aspenwood, it was the same. Now I’m on Eredon Terrace and the only difference is that I am inside Hills trying to use an arrow cart to stop enemies from catapulting the infamous Cata Wall.
There has been no evolution of gameplay within the mode. The shift I have seen in my whole time playing was towards GvG, and I think GvG is as popular as it is because these players have been doing this snore-worthy cata mission for far too long with no great variances, they have gotten so bored they now try to make their own fun. This goes back to my opening point, that for many people, WvW was the end-game. Those running guild battles in WvW are doing so because they like the ability to use their earned gear and built up characters to fight large scale battles, something that sPvP doesn’t offer. I agree with the oft-stated opinion that WvW battles are sloppy and laggy and all that messy stuff, but they are fun. Or at least, they were fun. Now it is all the same stack/might/water/blast, which is once again a product of how the game mode hasn’t evolved.
kittenfilterdodge Am I to talk about EotM too? There is debate about whether this is PvE or PvP/WvW or some mutant PvKarma mode, but regardless it is frustrating to me as a player. First, did you think that preventing me from walking in a straight line to any location would make the map feel bigger? All it does is kitten me off when I play a class who can’t spam movement. Second, did the designers of the map assume nobody would grief with the scorpion catapult suit? This just screams to me that either the map wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously (thus, isn’t really the answer to the clamoured-for expansion of WvW content) or the designers didn’t take it seriously (indicating WvW players are not taken seriously by the people making the game). Both of these are concerning to me because EotM is, for better or for worse, the closest thing to an addition to the WvW game mode we have ever seen.
What am I to think then as a player? My concern for my server is laughed at with the second season of free transfers (I honestly thought after Season 1 that the flaws here were REALLY obvious, and I trusted the people in charge to have noticed too), and I am told the solution to my problem is to pay you additional money to move to a new server, leaving behind all of my guild influence and server friends. I must say, I am reluctant to give money to a company whose only solution to my problem is to pay them money to leave the problem area rather than implementing any sort of fix.
Outnumbered was useful only for the fact that my bank wasn’t constantly drained to fix up armor, now in the wake of changes it doesn’t even have that simple utility. What am I to think when literally the only mechanic in the game meant to help the little guy is absentmindedly passed over after a major change to the game’s economy? I am seeing a pattern, a pattern whereby there are no fixes to my problems, only avoidance strategies. Coverage has never been solved, an avoidance strategy in the form of free transfers was put in place to allow those who were suffering under population imbalances to instead contribute to the problem.
In conclusion, what I always thought of as the end-game to GW2 is a neglected mode. I have no motivation to play any of the other modes, the gold I earn was all going to be spent playing WvW, the gear worked for was only going to benefit me in WvW, and with the introduction of megaservers, I can’t even use your game as a social platform to hang with my server pals. What the hell am I playing for now? The answer is I am playing Prison Architect instead. Check back in the future for more news, I hear. Why? I haven’t seen a reason to think any future updates will bring about positive change. I have been waiting for positive change since the orb of power was removed.
(edited by NonToxic.9185)