Guild Wars 2

I am rank 152 and have been playing GW2 for about 650 hours since launch. Personally I cannot see myself putting in hundreds of hours more into a game mode which hasn’t evolved over the years (reward tracks/new reward systems is no evolution, just a new carrot on a stick). The last update did nothing to make the game mode feel fresh again, but I really like the increased activity the new update brought – that’s why I am following some commander again killing some Gand or FSP toons.

There is no chance I will ever get the new rewards, because 3-4 hours a day is just too much for me to handle with my girlfriend asking for attention, other hobbies and games also taking their toll. Yes there are more games with a better story and better large scale battles. However it has been fun again, so I’ll stick around a bit until I’ve had my fill of WvW.

I think the only way to fix the scoring system is to make it actually mean something. This can only be done by implementing a couple of fundamental changes:

-Add a lose/win mechanic to WvW. Once a world loses control over their home turf on each map, their out of the game. Once you lose your base on a map, you can still join, but only on selected areas around the former home.
-Make matches last much shorter. Aim at something like 2-3 days.
-Points should matter, but only used as a tie-breaker, controlled towers and keeps should be weighted much higher for the tie-breaker.

Having a shorter duration for each matchup should balance coverage wars a little and making it possible to drive an enemy off a map should help guide players, add relevance for each player and make actions more meaningful for the average player.
Give players a goal, so they feel important when taking something.

You cannot advertise a game solely with updates. You need to coordinate those updates with a huge expansion pack. Regardless of how big those updates seem to be, they are nothing compared to a big expansion pack. Just take a look at how Blizzard does it.

That and I agree with Shadow Blade. GW2 got no soul.

TPMN.1483:

" commanders are seen across wvw maps."
-> No. This enables spying of high priority targets for other servers to know where the Zerg is. Just place one second account in any of the maps From another work. Don’t like this idea at all.

They can do this already by placing second accounts where it hurts (in the map that is most contested). I’d even prefer doing this than placing some toon on some irrelevant bl.

Imo, aside from tactical management tools for commanders, WvW desperately needs more variety and better gameplay to support strategic groups and roles. Blobbing and zerg trains cannot be the end to war-like/mass pvp. Hence, I’d do the following until WvW gets such improvements:

Change commander gold gating into reputation based gating. Every hour or so all players who participated in WvW may rate a commander on the same map on a five-star based system. 1 star is bad, 5 is excellent. Commander tag costs are reduced to a couple of WEXP points and badges of honor and made account bound, because otherwise commanders may dodge rating. Highest rated commanders may use tools like map-wide chat in different colors for announcements and communication and trackers like leaderboards are added to make them reknown on their and across servers. The higher the rating, the further the tag may be seen on a map. 5-Star commanders are seen across wvw maps.

For a start, I’d scale score tick depending on all sever’s coverage during a time step (1 hour?) and how big the difference in coverage between two servers is. Just like the usual rating system, I’d also add a bonus for over and underperforming servers during that time.

You cannot compensate coverage difference with buffs, but you can equalize point ticks based on such data.

I would like to see a lot of changes to WvW in general that can be implemented in a good commander system.

-Add squads to commanders: each squad consists of 5 members. Each squad reports to only one commander. (something like a specialized party)
-Being in a squad or with a commander squad unlocks the ability to spawn/teleport close to the commander or squad member under certain circumstances (e.g. not in combat, range limitation, upgrade at keep, others I can’t think of right now)
-Add more tools to commander/squad commanders to set targets, waypoints etc
-Add a shout system to commanders/squad commanders via party panel (retreat, stack, charge, follow etc)
-Add a spotting system: Sighted objects may be called out for squad or commander squad. Objects marked like that appear on minimap within certain range and as long as a single member actually has sights on that target. When object breaks line of sight, the marker is lost.
-Disposing of objects, capturing objects etc add to the commander score (future use)
-(Change aoe limit to 25 or more, change retaliation to buff your character instead of mirroring damage to the target, should break zerging)
-Improve or add commands like supplyinfo

These points should add a lot to WvW and improve gameplay. Ofc, it changes how it is played, but improve gameplay in the long run by reducing the effectiveness of zergtrains. Spawning or teleporting may encourage tactical play a lot and make it easier to design bigger, more complex WvW maps.

Am I the only one who thinks of splash damage as a blessing for gameplay and natural counter to bad position play and bad habits (zerging)? Zerging will never cease to exist until people die like locusts caught in a hurricane of flaming bits and bytes. Change retaliation to a personal thing. Turn it into something you apply to yourself and a designated target (like a symbol or something) . If you think aoe deals too much damage in wvw give players the ability to protect themselves (there are enough options already, tho), but don’t promote a counter to a counter. Counter play is what renders games interesting.

Personally, GW2 lost so much due to insecurity on ANet’s end. The game was praised for its new concept of a living and breathing world that came with dynamic events that told stories of specific and sometimes overlapping zones. What we got was great, a game that truly felt like an RPG. A game where your choices and actions mattered. In a small scale true and on a timer, true, but it still mattered.

ANet then turned away from the very core pillar of this game. It replaced most of the new content with quests. One time quests, that tell a story, but it is executed so badly that many people miss a lot of lore, because of bad presentation. I am not against story pieces forming slowly and painting a bigger picture, but everything feels so disconnected, fragmented.

Instead of adding player-driven content to the zones and expanding on the DE system, we got heavily scripted quests on a timer. Players need to rush through content, so they don’t miss an achievement or some hint on the backstory. I don’t want to be rushed, because playing is my leisure time. I want the game to wait for me, not the other way around.

From my point of view, GW2 has degraded a lot and lost a lot of the true potential it had in the beginning. Everything feels so generic and meaningless. Sure, we can vote on something, but does it really change anything. Like the story of GW2, which starts good and then gets really bad and bland, GW2 has devolved into something I don’t like and don’t support.

Some time ago Colin said that making expansions helps devs and players sync what they want. So far ANet has been doing whatever they want and a small percentage of players is throwing hundreds and thousands of dollars in their direction. Please, give others a reason to do the same.

After release, there hasn’t been a single content update I’d consider worth my money. And no, quality of life improvements is not content. This is how you build long lasting customer relationship.

Not ordered by priority:
1. True soloQ
2. Join sPvP and tPvP from anywhere in the game world
3. Multi-team tPvP
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4. Some kind of progression that actually acts as tutorial. Meaning a new player can only tPvP if rank x. I like the concept in LoL, because it makes sure new players learn a lot about the game before getting into serious business.

GW1 had dishonoured debuff, which excluded you for any kind of pvp for a lengthy period of time. I would do the same in GW2.

Imo, dodging should not make you invulnerable in any way or form. It is just an 11th skill that makes you invincible for a short period of time. If you look at the game design in general, you’ll see that dodging is the core problem of the gameplay in both pve and pvp, because it simplifies gameplay into who got the most dps and most invulnerability within a timeframe without any regards to position play. There is no such thing in GW2, only jumps, retreats and circling around your enemy hoping to get behind him as much as possible so he misses an attack.

By design, dodging should reduce the collider of your character, so you are harder to hit, but not let you evade all damage. GW2’s gameplay is not about dps, control, and support, but dps and dodge.

I will wait for the patch notes to go live before saying anything. It is not like ANet never ever said something and it turned out to be different from what was promised.

Imo, the one thing that is missing in WvW among everything else is your lasting impact on the battlefield. Currently, I don’t feel I am important at all, just another guy running a zerg or following one. Everything in WvW is so kitten casual – everything resets way too easily and there are no real losses for your team other than some points on the scorechart missing.

WvW feels so generic, because you play that kitten chart, not the opponents. If there were objectives and goals that rewarded realms for specific actions and a series of actions instead of simply holding objectives then the game would be so much better. Everytime I log off from any WvW session I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Ok, I got x badges and y karma and killed another 100 players. However there is nothing to be proud of at the end.

I know that I am repeating stuff over and over again, but think campaign gameplay. Imagine if you’d need to take a series of objectives in order to lay siege on a final structure. If you manage to take that structure your realm is rewarded with x points and the enemy is driven off of that section of the map. I think you get the idea. WvW needs global objectives that are more important than periodic and unpersonal ticks to some score. Such objectives would also help to rally players behind an objective and give them some direction without the need of commanders.

WvW will not improve significantly as long as the current gameplay exists.

ExaFlare.1390:

It even makes us dodge when we respawn if we tried to dodge before dying.

I know how you feel.

Personally, conquest in GW2 would gain a lot if it was like conquest in LoL.
1) You need to actively capture points. Just standing in the area is not enough.
2) Team score automatically increases only if your team holds more points than the other team.

Killing players could reward more or less in different situations to reward good play.

1. In order to capture a point, you’d need to channel a couple of seconds to get it. Captured points recover if uncontested. This would add a lot to build diversity and tactics. E.g. You could no longer use one bunker to guard a point against multiple foes and harassing just for the sake of harassing would be viable.

2. This solves two problems:
-Turtling a capture point when score is high enough is no longer viable.
-A comeback is much easier to do when you can stop the enemy from gaining points. This would add a lot to drama in battles.

Edit: A conquest system like this is much easier to scale with the numbers of players. Just add more nodes(but keep the number odd) and if you want add dependencies among them to control the flow and direct players in pug match. Just think of Onslaught or Warfare in the UT series. Much can be learned from these game types and GW2’s pvp expanded to cater to different group sizes and different maps/secondary objectives.

Imo, they should turn siege weapons into complementary weapons, not dominating weapons. When I first heard about WvW I imagined BF3 or combined weapon warfare on a big scale. Unfortunatley this is not the case as we all know. ANet should keep infantry only battles viable for all players at the same time as making siege weapons worthwhile.

I would make a couple of changes to improve WvW:
-Turn all siege weapons into deployable or mobile siege weapons.
-Deployable weapons take time to setup and cannot fire immediately.
-Deployable weapons can easily be destroyed and are slow.
-Mobile siege weapons sustain some player damage and a lot of siege weapon damage, they deal less damage against players and are more effective against other siege weapons.
-That way at least two different types of siege weapons can be used and siege lines broken.
-Turn siege weapon blueprints into realm blueprints, thus turning siege weapons into global resources. Realm blueprints are limited in number and this number depends on the number and quality of occupied outposts. Realm blueprints are global and do not need to be bought. Special (individual) blueprints add visual effects to siege weapons or buff them in some way.
-At any time there are enough realm blueprints to take and hold outposts, but a realm also need to manage it’s resources. Holding a structure for a longer period of time now rewards a realm with more deployable siege weapons.
-Add strategic value to secondary outposts: Holding a camp yields more realm blueprints, thus increasing the importance of camps and their defence. Camps could yield different types or numbers of blueprints to add strategic value to them. Same goes for towers as they could mark a territory and its benefits similar to Total War and other games.
-Each deployed siege weapon despawns fairly quick if manned for only a short period of time. This way no two outposts can be spammed with siege weapons and siege weapons need to be placed carefully.

Unlike many other devs in the industry, ANet’s dev teams are mixed and matched according to their (management) priority list. At least that’s how I understand the whole process of allocating additional resources for a job according to interviews, dev blog and forum posts. I take it, a skeleton crew remains busy with a single activity and request help from other devs in the studio. Also, ANet seem to use a very low hierarchy when it comes to who got what to say.

This is wrong for two reasons.
1. You need people, especially programmers, to stick with the code they are working on or you will always need additional time for people to get to know the code again after they return, thus slowing down the process and increasing overhead costs. Also, you lose focus on the important things. You know the things that are really important for a specific format, but may be on low priority overall.

2. You lose focus in a specific format. Each time you evaluate feedback from someone outside the team, you lose time and money during the process of evaluation. People may have awesome suggestions, but these suggestions shake up your view on things. You know how many people worked on the skill updates in Diablo 2? Just one. A single dedicated soul, who didn’t give a crap about anyone’s opinion, because he knew exactly what he was doing.

Feedback is fine, but if there is no one with a clear goal and vision of the game, then the game gets nowhere. Going one step forward, two steps backward, two steps forward, one backward is the usual result of having no goal.

I know this is a very controversial topic, but from my point of view, the really important features that are currently missing in the game and have been missing since beta, take so long because of the points above. There is a huge number of things that create longevity for a game and there is a huge number of missing things that create a void in a game that I am not familiar with coming from GW1.

You don’t need artificial progression to keep a game going, but basic features that keep people interested and entertained. As long as people can set their own goals in a game, it will never get old. This is true for both pvp-oriented (ladder, leagues/tiers) and pve-oriented (achievement/reward-progression based on challenging content) games.

I am still hoping for a basic ladder system in GW2 more than half a year after release, which was a launch feature of its prequel.
———————-
As every post of mine, this one too is based on personal view and preferences.

Imo, they should get rid of the sword symbols and replace them with two symbols. One that shows exactly your server’s strength at that position and one that shows an estimated number for the enemy group. The enemy symbol should only appear when foes are within an ally’s FOV.

That should provide a lot of info for players of different roles and increase battlefield awareness for all.

Edit: Typo

Yay, another post about improving WvW, imo.

This is a list of things I would like to see in order to improve WvW significantly. Some things may already be known from my previous posts. My goal is to turn WvW in a more sandboxy environment and promote player-driven content instead of the controlled space we got. Additionally, I would like to see refined roles for WvW like scout, support, dominator etc and make it easier for everyone on a server to plan ahead and direct players.

Hud:
- Add symbols for enemy and allied groups on the map.
- Symbols have a different size and color according to the size of the group in an area and allegiance.
- You still see all your allies in close proximity, but now you also see all allied groups represented by symbols on the map.
- You also see all enemy groups on the map as long as they are in anyone’s FoV. For enemy groups there are less symbols to keep things uncertain.
- Enemy symbols popup a couple of seconds after detection to keep the element of surprise.

Smaller Tools:
- Add traps that either detect other traps, other players or deal damage to other players.
- Once a trap detects a player, it stays active for 2 seconds revealing all nearby players and marking them on the map.
- Right before a trap triggers, all players hear a distinctive sound warning them. If they retreat at the right time, no detection occurs.
- Since all players hear the sound, the enemy may already know you are coming, but doesn’t know of your actual strength.
- Add smaller deployable fortifications like sandbags that block player movement and projectiles until they are destroyed.

Bigger Tools:
- Add high armor, low damage vehicles to pvp.
- In turn reduce hitpoints on static fortifications.
- Add different kinds of vehicles that are good for different purposes: hold a position, charge, transport, anti-vehicle.
- This should encoure players to fight on the battlefield and make it possible to stall enemy movement without relying on pvdoor.
- Vehicles are limited by number, but may be rebuild at any time. Unlike stationary siege weapons, they need time to build, which means they are not instantly built once all supply is transferred.

I’ve already posted a number of posts about how WvW is lacking depth in so many ways. Most notably it fails to respect YOUR impact on the battlefield. Everything just keeps resetting again and again. The next time you join WvW, you respawn in a secure area and have to do everything again. Your achievements are not worth anything.

Sure, for sPvP it is great to have everyone on equal footing and not to be able to take a bonus into the next fight, but WvW is supposed to have a peristent effect. The only persistent thing in WvW is the point tally, beyond that there is nothing but swapping objectives. No battlefield progression, no campaign progression, no server progression.

If ANet want to add depth to WvW by adding scaling skills, stat boosts etc then they are doing it wrong. A better/improved/more sophisticated reward system only cures the symptoms, not the sickness.

Sorry for my ignorance, but I don’t see how limiting access or separating players more is a good way to increase WvW’s popularity. The devs need to make sure players can have fun in WvW whenever they want to, not when a slot is free. You wouldn’t want to wait for a spot to PvE either, would you.

Even Warhammer got an RvR area that is multiple times bigger in size. ANet needs to greatly enlarge the continent where WvW takes place and then make sure people actually care about the things they get and don’t feel meh about it and just retake it.

Just take a look at other games, see how they handle battlefield progression and server pride and then analyze what WvW got. There is a lot to learn about true RvR.

I am going into depth with my posts but there are a lot more problems in WvW like how to lead players to important battles in WvW so people group up as naturally in WvW as they do in PvE, how to inform players about movements of the own team, so they can plan and strategize, how to make fights really interesting and not based on rushing and being rushed etc.

In this game you cannot read your opponents well. Let’s take MOBAs as an example. Specificall LoL. As casual or easy the game is for DotA purists, as easy it is to read your opponent. You have to decide whether you want to engage, take the risk or not and you can factor in a lot of choices that are visible to you. For example, would you engage Annie if you knew she could stun and nuke with Tibbers? In some situations you can do so, in others not so much. In GW2 you are never confronted with such decisions. You are either overrun by an enemy zerg or you overrun them yourself. This game is shallow in so many regards it is astonishing considering the prequel.

At least give us more mobile siege equipment or other tools so we can form a front-, mid- and backline ourselves to add some depth to the game.

You are right, SlimGenre, and the only way to increase the WvW populace is to allow for more players to participate in this format simultaneously. That is why I want more maps for WvW and for maps to flow like maps in PvE.

I don’t see how what I am wishing for is related to esports in any way or form. I just want server/battlefield progression that goes beyond acumulating points and actions to actually mean something for more than the couple of minutes inbetween swapping objectives. Note that I don’t talk about sPvP at all.

No two months without my contribution to improve WvW, imho.

I already mentioned how I would like to see WvW driven by battles between two places instead of the constant run and gun type gameplay, which is then followed by long periods of siege weapons vs reinforced wall.

Since I don’t want to say the same couple of things all the time, I came up with a couple of new ideas or wishes to turn WvW into a real war.

1. Add hundreds of slots to WvW so not only a very small fraction of the playerbase can experience WvW at the same time. In order to achieve this, we need more maps. I don’t mind if the new maps are just copies of the same for the time being, but this is very important to make WvW bigger and a worthy competitor to Planetside 2 and the upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO.

2. Add a campaign system to WvW. This should be done by stitching all maps together. First, add a couple of exit points to every map, at best, give it the size of half the map width. Then enable shortcuts to other maps for teams for holding key locations on every map. As a result, you could drive an enemy server off a map for a while by killing all of them on the battlefield and then taking the special location, which is used for map travel.

This should add a lot to the server progression of WvW and make fortifications actually worthwhile. You won’t lose things too easily and whenever you lose an objective it actually hurts. Taking shortcuts is a good way to cut supply lines. The whole shortcut system could be used to implement real supply lines. Outposts near the frontier could send caravans, which carry supplies and blueprints to fortify the outpost on the other map.

The whole thing adds battlefield progression and a sense of achievement.

3. Add more smaller structures to WvW maps, which can be used to break line of sight and prepare ambushes. Right now, the best way to prepare an ambush is to exploit the culling issue in any way or form. Smaller structures could also be used as encampments and forward base. Also, add more environments to make fights more intense and varying. Add cities, which can be destroyed and buildings which can be used for vertical combat etc. There is a lot of potential yet to be used.

4. Finally, replace orbs with regional bonuses. They should not overlap with guild bonuses, but give an incentive to take points or a number of nearby points. For example, holding two or three towers in a line should make it easier for the defending team to hold that line. Add something which contributes to protecting an area at same time as promoting battles in between objectives. In this case, once you hold these towers NPCs guarding the front gates of the respective towers leave their place and march to hold the line, which players established.

In highly contested areas key locations should provide regional bonus similar to the orb. However the bonus should not be attached to an object that can be taken away, but to a trigger. Once battles intensify around the key location the bonus automatically triggers for x minutes. This should help turn the tide without promoting a snowball effect. Once a player leaves the area the bonus vanishes. This could also be used for tactics. Let the orb trigger, fall back, and then return in full force.

I feel ANet has only scratched the surface of WvW and hope they are inspired by their direct competitors to enhance and improve this format.

Thanks for reading.

Omega.1473:

The problem is that some of the “issues” people are complaining about are not akin to bad breath. They’re more akin to “likes trashy television”. Some people don’t find anything wrong with that and actually some people like that.

People are complaining all over these forums about the “shallowness” of the combat and the “lack of roles”. Not only do I completely disagree with the basis of those complaints, I vehemently fear the developers listening to those people because the current complexity (which is quite deep, just vastly different from what everyone is used to) and forced generalization are ideal in my opinion.

Bad breath would be more like having a really buggy game, nobody likes that. But the things you’re complaining about are a matter of taste. For all of the good you like in this game, changing the combat to make it more interdependent, allowing for greater specialization or hard coded roles would just flip the coin for me and put me in your shoes. I’d love so much of the game, but there would be that light of glaring hatred for certain aspects and my hatred would be more than yours because I would have had what I liked taken away.

The whole point of the role-discussion is that you are actually not rewarded by the game for choosing a different role. There actually is only one role that is rewarded design-wise. That is dealing damage. You don’t get any rewards for cc’ing or supporting your group. Most bosses and all major ones are immune to knock-back and know-down among other effects.

GW2 is supposed to be played chaoticly, but tactically. There are a lot of things that don’t allow people to fill actual roles in combat whether pve or pvp. You have to be highly mobile, have good timing on your dodges and a high dps to destroy everything. Mobs are badly designed and most of the monsters cannot attack you while you move. This is a design flaw among others. There are so many things that don’t work together and put the game’s combat in a shallow light.

I am moving away from the original topic at hand. In this thread I want to concentrate on the game’s design and what is actually missing for a number of players and why. I mentioned all the above for specific reasons that would cater to my playstyle. I don’t want the enjoyment in a game to become routine, like running a dungeon 10 times to get x tokens or to collect 500 gold to craft a legendary item. I want a repetive game that makes each minute unique for various reasons. I already listed what is missing, imo, in this game (e.g. challenges and rewards that challenge in pve, not mindless grind that gw2 actually is known for.)

I don’t want to change the game for everyone. I want to improve upon what is already there and add things for players that don’t want to do the same thing everytime they log on.

Edit: Clarified and removed some typos.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Go play another game if you don’t like this on, me and many other’s (game one plenty of awards this year so its doing something right… or at lest better than the other game’s this year))

I dont understand why you people hang around the forums the game’s to big for you to really harm it at this point

Since this is directed at me, though already answered, I am going to reply anyway.

I truly love the game for a lot of components, the world, the lore, the combat system (though shallow), the pvp and wvw and for what it tries to be. I’ve spend hundreds of hours already and I want to continue having fun. That’s why I am still posting, suggesting things that might improve the game and things that would definately improve the game overall.

If you think this way of telling the devs where their game is in disarray or needs help is wrong, then maybe try to look at this way from a different perspective. You are in love with a pretty woman/handsome guy, who is nice, has a lot of respect for you, you can talk to her/him about anything really etc. but there is one thing that’s not cool: Her/his breath smells really bad. Are you going to tell her/him?

I would and I also do.

TheDaiBish.9735:

OP:

You say you might sound nolstagic, but most of the stuff you complain about was in GW, and most of your suggestions go against GW design:

• In GW, a lot of the game in PvE was farming, whether it be mats, platinum or rep.

• You say about keeping PvE skins in PvP, but it’s exactly the same as in GW1 where PvP skins were earned in PvP.

• Same with stats. Should be baseline in SPvP to stop it becoming time over skill.

Not saying I disagree with your suggestions. Just confused by your implying that these weren’t in GW1.

Also, some of your wording is confusing i.e when talking about progression, vertical progression doesn’t make other progression forfeit.

TL;DR – While I agree PvE could have more, I’m confused where the ‘nostalgia’ is

Most of them were in GW1 and are nowhere to be found in GW2. I am sorry if I confused you with my wording, but I am proposing these points for further discussion because some were implemented in GW1.

For clarification I am gogin to answer to the three points you raised:

• In GW, a lot of the game in PvE was farming, whether it be mats, platinum or rep.

• You say about keeping PvE skins in PvP, but it’s exactly the same as in GW1 where PvP skins were earned in PvP.

• Same with stats. Should be baseline in SPvP to stop it becoming time over skill.

1. Yeah, GW was a grindy game, but it didn’t take long to get competivite gear. It wasn’t great looking, but solid. You never had to farm, in fact, I never farmed and did well (got 50/50 HoM points).

2. It’s true, you can get pve skins in pvp, but only with tournament points, which takes much more time for the average player to get. The average player could get the same skins in pve much easier and with little effort. Only a handful if any skins were pvp exclusive.

The thing is, in GW1 you could join PVP (any) with your pve gear or choose to go with a pvp template. Therefore it’s the best of both worlds.

3. I am not argueing about keeping a power plateau. I am argueing about bringing pve skins from playing pve to spvp.

“Also, some of your wording is confusing i.e when talking about progression, vertical progression doesn’t make other progression forfeit. "

Yes it does, whether it is based on levels or gear doesn’t make it any different. The new gear makes the old gear obsolete, thus making other forms of gear-related progression useless. Hence I am trying to discuss other forms of progression (gear hunt via challenging quest lines).

PvP (sPvP and tPvP):
First and foremost, do not segregate pve from pvp further. Instead combine the best of both worlds. How do you do that?

-Let players keep their pve weapon skins. Retain the power level of gear.
-Let players keep their pvp weapons skins. Offer them ways to have similar stats as pvers with the same/similar play time and progress.
-Add leagues to the matchmaking system. See Starcraft 2 for a good implementation.
-Add a ladder system to achieve two things: Make individual and team progression transparent and add goals for pvp enthusiasts.
-Add observer mode to increase pvp awareness and let players learn from other players.
-Add more game modes to pvp. (GvG)
-Change the layout of current maps to make 5vs5 and 8vs8 enjoyable. Afaik only the newest map supports both team sizes.

I know there are more things, but for know these should suffice. Feel free to add to this discussion and keep it going.

The only way to proceed in this gamemode is to take and retake fortifications, there is no inbetween and no way to add some sort of player-driven war. To solve this issue, I suggest giving more tools in the players hands. Retain static keeps, tower and supply camps in the world and enrich WvW with dynamic player created content. I am not talking about players building keeps or tower on their own, but about players shaping the battlefield.

For that, I would like to see the following:
-Add more mobile siege weapons, against both man and fortifications. Give us tanks, artillery, jeeps, hovering vehicles (within reason) to make battles last some time and fights to evolve anywhere on the map.
-Add more defensive structures which can be constructed by the players. Give us sandbags or other forms of path blockers to make defending small areas easier, give us anti-tank, anti-vehicle weapons and anti-artillery shields.
-Make all of them destructable and scatter the remains on the field, let us use those remains for cover and sight blockers.

Let us shape the meta on our own and see what we can come up with.

Add 4: Commanders
Give commanders more meaning than being zerg magnets.
-Let them set waypoints for their squad.
-Let all squad members see every other squad member on the map.
-Add a commander interface for different things like waypoints, notes on the map, different groups/strike forces.
-Most of all, let people from a server vote on their commanders. Not everyone is fit for command and a commander should be respected and not something you grind for.

WvW:
WvW is only about swapping strategic points and culmulating points to go up in tiers.

I know this one is a provocative claim, but hear me out. Currently there actually is a lot of strategy and tactics involved in WvW and that’s great, but the way WvW plays is promoting one thing the most, being mobile, exploting bugs (wall climbing), exploiting skills (portal) and capturing strategic points. Hence it plays really fast and you have to be careful all the time to not get stomped by an enemy group.

While this sort of gameplay is fine for the first couple of months, it is getting stale at some point. I blame four things for the state WvW is in.
1. Map design
2. Objective design
3. Lack of options
4. Commander

Add 1: The maps themselves don’t allow for much freedom in how to move your force around. From a distant view they are designed well. The defending server always has the higher position when pushed back, all servers are on equal footing in EB. However there are some glaring issues with the current map design.

-Some strategic positions can be trebbed too easily and these trebs defended too easily. For example the south east tower can be bombarded from the east keep without any hope of retaliation.
-There are way too many chokepoints to exploit the culling issue (including portaling around) and people are forced to stay there. It is way too easy to exclude another server from a map in the borderlands. Breakout events are curing the symptoms, but not the sickness.
-Lack of interesting landmarks to use strategically. Towers and keeps are usually used as base of operation and to siege other points, but there is no way to use some land for that. More on that later.
-There is no way to establish frontiers or borders between opposing factions (also see lack of options).

Add 2: Right now, the best way to cap everything on the map is to be highly mobile in all regards. Quickly run from A to B, use the ideal number of siege weapons to bring down a wall or gate if not fortified, try to fend off opponents who try to retake it and then proceed to the next target. The only thing that slows this whole process down is the fact the fortified structures take a lot of time to break.

This is also where the map design is at fault, but the overall objective design is the major issue here. WvW lacks some sort of objective progression and ways to defend what is yours. As the defending team you cannot establish a perimiter, which can be hold or breached, you can only reinforce walls. For that you need supply camps that may be taken way too easily.

To add more depth, I would revamp how strategic points interact with each other and how players can shape frontiers on the battlefield (also see lack of options in this regard). As a dev you could get inspired by Battlefield or other games that incorporated a progression system for strategic points. In Battlefield you need to clear to objectives to proceed to the next two. I am not saying you (ANet) should copy the respective gamemode in BF, but that approach achieves two things:

-Always keep players engaged and guide them to where the major battles might unfold.
-Adds progression to a capture-type gamemode. Any side won’t get easily stripped off past achievements, which would promote establishing defences beyond upgrading walls and gates.

Add a way to attack behind the lines and you would enrich WvW tenfold.

Add 3: Currently the is only one way to play WvW effictively:
Run from A to B, nuke all scouts on the way, establish siege weapons according to your plan, wait for the structures to collapse, then take everything inside. While this meta is good for the way WvW is designed and how the leaderboards are setup, it disregards a whole section of WvW, namely PvP.

This is written from my personal view on the game and coming from a GW1 veteran. I’ve played both games since release, hence some of my paragraphs might sound nostalgic about the prequel.

Needless to say, there are a lot of things done right in this game, but imo there are also a lot of things that could be done better considering the prequel and other games aswell. If you want, add ‘imo’ to every paragraph, but here is how I feel about this game. For readability I am going to split my points into the categories pve, wvw and pvp.

PvE:
Why does pve lack depth?
-Because with the introduction of another gear tier, any form of progression is forfeit.
-Because you can do nothing but farm to get somewhere in the game. The personal story doesn’t count because a single max level rare item on completion does not prepare you for the endgame.
Why is that?
-Because progression itself means that you achieve something by doing something else. You don’t progress if you actually stand still when both your and the enemy power keeps scaling. See the age old discussion on vertical gear progression.

How do I solve the issue?

I perfectly understand the reason why another tier was added. It is a short-term solution to keep players motivated who actually like getting new gear. However it breaks a lot of moving parts in the game design of GW2 and causes headaches. One problem is, it further segragates pve from pvp (more on this in the pvp section).

Another is the introduction of a gear treadmill by design itself, leading up to the level increase in the future. As soon as people have to grind for the next best-in-slot ascended gear at level x old content gets obsolete. At least that’s how it will be given the current downscaling system, which only downscales character attributes not gear.

Therefore I propose these improvements:
-Improve the scaling system of the game to also include gear stats. Then no content will ever get obsolete.
-Rethink your strategy on how to refresh the hunt for items in GW2. Adding another tier to gear with a stat increase regardless of the amount, is actually a gear treadmill. Instead add long quest chains which reward players with shiny and unique max weapons. These should be doable with more than 1 player and counter the high impact of RNG on players in this game. Also, it would track actual progression of your character.

Hence, add more and more scavenger hunts or challenge quest chains (whatever you want to call them) in the future of GW2 and design the most difficult content for those players. It will then feel like you have achieved something as a player. Farming something and playing RNG should not be the only way to go somewhere in a game. Also, improve reliable rewards from the personal story.

In GW1 town clothes are something you can pull over your current armor, which means they are just like skins inheriting the same stats of that armor. It worked pretty well there and a lot of players actually fought in costumes. Needless to say if you could fight in town clothes in GW2, it would provide more incentive to buy them in the cash shop.

I don’t want to go into this whole VP discussion again. Just promote another long-term reward system. Instead of focusing on new gear tiers to reward players for completing long-term goals/keep players playing the game, add rewards for completing achievements. Add new tiers and dependencies among them to provide some sort of progression and add cosmetic stuff that doesn’t affect the player’s performance alone or in a group.

As rewards I would like to see the following:
Unique skins for weapons and armor
Unique animations/sfx for abilites, projectiles, etc
Unique character animations, for example dances, trails, footprints, walking cycles
Unique emotes in both pvp (finishers) and pve
Unique town clothes
Unique other stuff, like being able to fight in town clothes

Titles alone are not rewarding enough. Don’t let such potential go to waste when looking at new ways of progression. Enhanced stats are not the only way to spell character progression.

The history lesson should be how Turbine introduced a similar content system in LOTRO or Blizzard did in vanilla WoW. Both failed miserably and had to revert the changes. Difference here is the introduction of Ascended gear goes against one of the basic principles of the Manifesto (yeah, people remember that). Also, as others have pointed out, the new gear is superior to exotics.

Simple, make content that is worth doing multiple times by making the content itself right and the gameplay deep and fun. I played GW1 for 7 years, because it had great pvp and good gameplay.

After reading the blog post from Murdock I decided to burn the bridges leading to GW2. I have accepted all the smaller promises being broken, because the designed systems still work together quite well. Looking at the comparison image of the two rings, which plainly says gear treadmill is coming soon, I was first shocked and then disappoint. There was so much I loved in GW2 coming from GW1 and so much was still in place or reminding me of the sequel in a good way. With the new update GW2 will become a generic MMO with no selling point that is still true to what the devs said a while ago.

This post will probably get deleted soon and my account infracted again. I am sorry for not contributing to this discussion, but I am sad now.

Dear ANet, please hotfix this discussion as you did with dye drop-rate being to high.

Kain Francois.4328:

souldonkey.9534:

From the linked article:

This sounds literally EXACTLY like “Hey guys, so the Mursaat have this thing called Spectral Agony, and yeah, it’ll kitten you up. Oh, also you can’t see them. You need to ascend so you can see them and infuse your armor so they don’t 2 shot you. Here, go talk to this dude. He’ll have you do some junk and things and you’ll be all set.”

Am I the only one that sees this or do people here honestly just get the jollies from complaining about stuff no one knows anything about yet?

Thank you for echoing what my other post said. This could very well be a good thing too due to the return of the Mursaat.

I quote from the recent article "Arenanet begründet diesen Kurswechsel mit dem Feedback der Fans und Spieler. Die Aufwertung der eigenen Ausrüstung sei für viele eine große Motivation. Weiterhin motivierend dürfte auch sein, dass die aufgestiegenen Waffen sogenannte Infusions-Slots bekommen. Dort baut man “Infusionen” genannte Upgrades ein, um die Waffe noch mächtiger zu machen."

Which says item progression is a big motivation for many players. Ascended weapons have infusion slots, which can be upgraded to make weapons even more powerful.

Lordrosicky.5813:

btw can you craft this gear? If you have to do dungeons = I am quitting obviously.

The article doesn’t say anything about new crafting recipies. It just says Ascended items may drop (as a reward) in the new dungeon and Ascended items are infused, which means infusions can further increase the stats. Ascended items probably take infusions and sigils/runes, but this is just speculation from my part.

The article doesn’t specify the usage of Ascended items, which tells me they are not bound to a place or time.

Heimlich.3065:

Pawlegance.7012:

…

The translation is correct. The soul of this game is going to die with the next major update.

The translation is correct? Exotics will no longer be the pinnacle of the value-flagpole? What will I do?

Well, run the new dungeon over and over again. Add found infusions (probably also tiered) to the slots of Ascended weapons/armor and repeat. No need to go for exotics at this point anymore.

The End:
If you made it to this sentence, I applaud you for your endurance. I won’t add a TL;TR, because important thing are already pointed out in bulletin points. Feel free to add something to this suggestions, but please do not hijack this thread. Thank you very much for reading and giving it a thought or two. I hope you don’t find too many typos.

For making WvW more RTS-ish I would like to see more of the following:
- Control and fight over resource nodes. We have supply camps, but adding unguarded rich resource nodes with harvesters for all sides could prove entertainnig.
- Add more movable vehicles to WvW. We have tanks and airships in PvE, why not translate them to WvW to make fights more vertical and more about combined weapons and tactics.
- Add buildable structures. We got towers and keeps which may be upgraded, why not add fortifications that may be build by players to make things more sandboxy, more uncontrolled. Have dynamic battle lines.
- Give the players more power to shape the battleground. There is a lot of potential waiting to be utilized. Don’t let everything rest on the shoulders of the infantry.

The Onslaught Mode, Add Mechanics to sPvP and WvW:
Given the concept of conquest as the primary game mode and the lack of structure and poverty of tacitcal opportunites, I got inspired by a popular game mode in the Unreal Tournament series. It’s name is Onslaught/Warfare and got a couple of things that can be translated to and used in sPvP and/or WvW. Onslaught is based on capture nodes that build a web of connecting points. Players can only capture or destroy nodes that are connected. Nodes need to be linked with the enemy core to make it vulnerable to attacks.

Why adapt Onslaught/Warfare for GW2 for both WvW and sPvP or at least one of them?
- Because it adds an easy-to-follow structure to players and observers alike.
- Because we already got maps that support a node-style play and node webs add interesting tactics, like cutting links between nodes.
- Because once taken, a node could give access to something or buffs the team.
- Because designers can add different styles of webs and add nodes as they please. Nodes can be set active or inactive according on the number of players and dynamics they want to enforce. This can get interesting for (custom) tournaments (if customizable) and it scales well with the number of players on a single map.
- Things like orbs can be used for different tactics. Push a battle line or defend one. (Note: Orbs may be picked up. Once equipped, it makes the nearby orb invulnerable to attacks. Once it reaches a neutral node it is immediately capped and protected for a couple of seconds.) Hence orbs could be used in both sPvP and WvW (to an extent).
For example orbs could be used to protect fortifications built by players. Give orbs a purpose

Needless to say, both modes combined could add a lot to GW2 and make it much more interesting for both sPvP- and WvW-enthusiasts. Use the potential and add a deeper and richer experience.

Introduction:
Imo, both WvW and sPvP lack depth in modes and maps. Therefore I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking about ways to make things more interesting without breaking everything that is already there. These ideas are neither new nor original, but may contribute to a more interesting gameplay based on other options or a more structured approach to the systems in place.

Imo, a lack of different team compositions may also arise from the lack of opportunities for players to take in order to achieve their goal. I will be going over a skill design decision first and then proceed with listing suggestions that either together or alone could be used to make the flow more interesting without obscuring too much of what is going on from an observers point of view.

The Skill Level And Skill Ceiling:
Coming from GW1 there is one thing I miss in GW2: abilities with a high risk and high reward or even gameplay with the same appeal. The player doesn’t have to take risks or has the choice to take risks if desired, because there are no skills that are designed that way and no counters that really hurt.

Additionally, I really miss opportunities to shutdown an enemy. I know there is confusion and chilled, which may be a good way to stop buttonmashers from mashing buttons, but you as a player can rarely utilize chilled against players effectively. In GW1 you can punish players with DShot or Diversion by reading their actions and their style of play, in GW2 you can do that, but you cannot really exploit it.

I suggest separating the increased skill recharge time from chilled and turn it into another condition all by itself. Then add it to skills which can be used as interrupts so players have tools to control their enemy.

Back to the former point: lack of high rik, high reward skills. There is one skill in GW1 I always think of when I want to distinguish a good player from a mediocre one: Frenzy. With a little knowledge of the game, you as an observer could always find out how good a Warrior actually is by watching him go into frenzy and cancelling it at the right time. In GW2, there is a frenzy on steroids without any kind of downside that really hurts for the duration it is active. I know there is a version from the warrior with a similar effect, but having a 100% increased DPS while getting 50% more damage is for one not comparable to the version of the origional (33% IAS, 100% more damage) and cannot be exploited that easily if you get destroyed in the process.

I know, GW1 and GW2 play completely different, but we can observe what’s wrong with such a buff when exponentially increased in skill permutations like Time Warp. I would like to see several skills reworked and function similar to the one found in GW1. Make it cancellable, make it buff, but remove the battle-deciding factor. Imo, a 33% IAS or increased action activation would suffice and turn it into a tool of opportunity. Not something you activate on recharge regardless of the situation.

The Game Modes And Elements Of Play:
I would like to see more structure in both sPvP and WvW. Right now, WvW fights are won by those who can exploit the culling problem and other game mechanics better than their opponent. SPvP fights are won by the mentioned broken IAS and tactics that cannot be controlled. I am going to suggest additions that add more tactics and possibilities for both the players and the devs to make gameplay more interesting. I borrowed both ideas from two game I liked to play and think these concepts can enrich GW2.

The C&C Mode And One Step Further:
I am primarily targeting WvW with this. C&C mode is very similar to the concept of WvW in the way of embedding an RTS style mode in a game in which players create a single character. For the sake of place I won’t go into details on the original mode, but you might want to check out this link if you are unfamiliar with the concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%26C_Renegade

Hence I would like to see more efforts towards making WvW battles more about fighting between keeps or other points with a bigger focus on combined arms battles. ANet missed the opportunity to draw players from Battlefield and other big (upcoming) titles like Planetside, which offer these fights. However the foundation is there and new maps and additions to WvW with new weapons and mechanics could draw a lot of attention.

In GW1 you can map a key to self-target, which is incredibly useful for healers and support professions. It shouldn’t be too tricky to add this functionality to GW2, since both engines share a couple of basics.

Imo the camera should behave like the one in GW1. No need to add fancy rotating cameras on dead players, automatically doing something if you are too close to something or any other stuff. Just make it clip through too close objects and give the player full control over the camera. Also, add first person view. Simple things like that would make a lot of things easier. I even see things that look like artifacts, if I get too close to a low wall in WvW. The camera jumps back and forth within half a second or less, which creates an awkward feeling.

You could do two things: Drop bundles (banners) near a dead mob and as a Mesmer create portals, which ports them to dangerous places.

I agree with GW2 needing raids. By that I only mean content for large PvE groups. I already get all the raid fun in WvW, but GW2 definately needs raid mechanics and content. The Commander title is a joke in WvW and totally useless in PvE. Orr or any future endgame area should be designed to be a map-wide group effort with a couple of Commanders leading groups. ANet wasted so much potential with level 80 content and promised so much epic times. At least that’s what I got from their PvE endgame content preview.

Endgame content should be hard and challenging on more than one level.

There is a huge number of things they’ve said and changed during development. A lot of these things draw me to the game, a lot of things are still there, a lot of things are gone and affecting GW2 in a negative way. Just take a look at their “When it’s ready.” philosophy. GW2 isn’t ready yet. There is an immense number of bugs and exploits, hacks etc making the game not that much fun as it should.

At first I gave in to all the promises they made on blog posts, then I realized ANet is too, a developer you cannot trust on every word they say.

Most of the gold sellers use keywords that can be easily identified. Just filter all messages containing a number of those keywords and gold sellers will never be able to advertise again. You won’t solve the problem with this, but suppress it for the average user.

Smackjack.5071:

Seen it ages ago,so how does this fix gw2’s fov again?

GW2’s fov is designed to be low. You only get sickness if you sit to close to your screen. Sit further away, problem solved.