Guild Wars 2

From the recent patch notes. (Note: No explicit comment about Agony Resist Infusion slots being unable to hold Omni infusions)…

Improvements to Agony Resistance/Infused Gear:
All infused ascended equipment now has a special infusion slot for Agony Resistance infusions.
Agony Resistance infusions can be found in fractal reward chests.
All existing, infused ascended equipment has a +5 Agony Resistance infusion in the Agony Resistance slot by default, in place of the natural +5 Agony Resistance.
Agony Resistance infusions provide +1 or more Agony Resistance.
Artificers can combine two identical Agony Resistance infusions with a Thermocatalytic Reagent to create a single, more powerful Agony Resistance infusion.

Release information from last year:

There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.

While the +5 Omni infusion you can buy with 75 Fractal relics is not a crafting material and therefore obviously shouldn’t be able to be ‘crafted up’ – Omni infusions really should be able to be slotted into the AR infusion slot (but they can’t – I’ve tried) – otherwise, this is extremely inconsistent and requires clarification / fixing from Anet.

It’s somewhat obvious why they’ve done it – to increase the grindiness. It doesn’t really matter to me as I have all the infused rings I might ever need – but I think that newer players to fractals should be able to get at least +10 AR on an infused ring with 150 relics with 2 Omni infusions.

DraganBlack.7864:

The obvious thing is that there needs to be more dev responses.
One thing that became very apparent is that the WvW section only has one dev posting while pvp & pve have multiple devs. In general the amount of dev interaction is very low (except for pvp which seems to be on a good way, especially with all the posts by Justin ODell)

Indeed. It seemed that there was a genuine attempt by the devs to engage in the other CDI discussions which I genuinely applaud.

Phrasing this in the most delicate way possible, I was not left with this impression regarding the WvW topic.

Transparency and engagement with the WvW community doesn’t seem a priority. Indeed, the former is ‘literally’ against company policy.

With respect to improving the CDI process, I would agree that a summary of the key aspects of the discussion would be helpful – however, I would suggest this summary is appended / merged into a single post (perhaps one-several reserved under the opening post). (With checkpoint posts regularly created within the main thread).

I believe this also ties into the aspect of more focused topics. Grouping up / taking suggestions / votes from the community is always likely to lead to fairly open ended ‘topics’. However these fairly general topics are going to have some core themes within them.

Some of these themes have natural questions to provide a framework for further discussion if required. Some themes, might be dead ends for further discussion. For example, different themes within the WvW population topic emerged – including (but not limited to):

1. Scoring
2. PvE vs WvW Population Levels
3. Map Capacity
4. Population statistics
5. Unfair matchups
6. Transfers
7. WvW ‘Teams’

By creating succinct summaries around each theme, you both demonstrate that you understand them and bring the reader up to speed with the debate around each one.

Inspired.6730:

Individual rewards are fine and even beneficial, but they should be (and I believe mostly are) separated from server rewards and score. No doubt WvW should be made more popular and a significant part of that would be better individual rewards.

They’re dealing with the queues as they need to, but eliminating queues will if anything make the WvW population imbalance greater.

I just fail to see a fair option to force population balance. Everyone needs to pick a server based on their preferences. And WvW impacts this while PvE doesn’t nearly as much because you can guest wherever you want. So you keep guesting on Denravian if that world’s WvW is unacceptable to you while fighting for a different world in WvW. But asking for special allowances for Denravian because they can’t or won’t field a competitive force in WvW doesn’t seem right or beneficial to me.

Also, a lot of WvW players don’t jump to the top servers. If they did, everyone who WvW’s would be there and this discussion would be mute.

Individual rewards are fine. But any significant ones, you’d expect there to be a proportionally significant increase in individual effort. The WvW environment is competitive by nature. If you’re competing for rewards, then other servers are likely going to be able to impede you in getting them. I don’t see any major issues at present. There is simply the potential for disaster if handled wrongly.

For (an extremely artificial and unrealistic) example to convey this point, imagine a link between capturing / holding Stonemist X number of times and having Y% chance at a precursor. Some matchups might give people from different servers the same opportunity. Some servers might get screwed. ( Look at NSP this week for example ).

You may fail to see a fair option to have population balance, but that is what this thread is about. In addition, you seem to have completely misinterpreted my post. Denravi is merely an example of a server which has seen the good and bad in terms of transfers. For a more recent example, see Kaineng.

The point is, without any sustainable system for having balanced matchups, people are forced to pay gems to transfer to a server for the WvW experience they want. The experience on that server will change over time (naturally, or by other people paying gems to transfer to/away from it). At which point the cycle repeats, costing yet more gems.

Inspired.6730:

…

While one can feel bad for servers that have lower population and we can wonder if anything be done to change that, when a world’s population chooses not to fight the options are and should be significantly limited. You were able to compete and then chose not to. This is a group activity and in this regard it cannot successfully be regarded or considered at the individual level.

This is one of the good reasons to switch servers. If WvW is a priority for you, then you should go to a server where there are a significant number of WvW players. Perhaps some servers should just not have a WvW presence. Or maybe the bottom couple servers get combined into one WvW force. It could even be based on number of players who’ve participated in WvW over the prior period.

You say it’s a group activity and not to be considered at an individual level. But there are individual level rewards. Throwing more incentives or rewards into WvW is likely going to be biased towards certain populations or servers unless it’s a more even playing field. Is that fair / right?

In your mind we should just pay to transfer.
In a guild with upgrades? Tough. You’ve got to grind them again.

If your chosen server gets vast amount of queues so you can’t play as you like?
Tough. Pay for gems. Transfer.

If your chosen server sees an exodus / grows indifferent to WvW.
Tough. Pay for gems. Transfer.

As a member of a server in WvW, for the most part, you are at the mercy of the general WvW population of the server (aka bandwagon) and may have to keep paying Arenanet money transfer to find yourself in fun / reasonably fair WvW matches. I can see why Arenanet is more than happy with this as the status quo, but why are you?

It is precisely this stance which is alienating people. Perhaps whatever your server you play on hasn’t suffered from transfers. As a proud Denravian since BEW2, I’ve suffered from both sides of the imbalance problem. Neither is particularly fun.

DevonCarver.5370:

…
Solutions to the population imbalance would absolutely have to take that into account.

In addition, we don’t release specific numbers in terms of populations, queues, etc. and I can’t comment directly on those statistics. I’d be more curious to know what people think is the reason behind the fact that score is so directly related to the number of people on a server 24/7 and how WvW could be designed differently to address that moving forward. My personal observation is that the momentum you gain from even a small period of having more people online is so large that it can’t be overcome.
…

Firstly, I think we’re all glad that you acknowledge there is a definite population imbalance.

Secondly, you have a personal observation. Without any data you’re willing to share to actually back this up, the personal observations of the WvW community are equally valid. My observation is that there is a moderate positive correlation with numbers (actively participating) and point per tick. This leads me onto the next point.

You’re not willing to share data regarding queues and populations. What’s the philosophy behind this? Isn’t this sort of information exactly what’s needed to have an intelligent / meaningful discussion though? Why don’t we have any transparency here?

Whatever solution you put in place to address the population balance. How is this going to be measured going forwards? Are we just going to have a temporary fix and be at this point X months down the road?

Are you just trying to fix the perception of the population imbalance, or the population imbalance itself? (If the former, I would strongly recommend a ‘Somebody Elses Problem Field’. It worked in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy).

Regarding not releasing raw figures about queues and WvW populations.

Could we not have a ‘normalised’ view of server populations per WvW map averaged over score tick period length (ideally through the API). A percentage of the population cap and not an absolute figure. That way, this data can be taken and compared with PPT and you would not expose the actual numbers. We can then have a sensible discussion and see for ourselves what impact population has. One side of the argument is going to be in for a surprise.

If you’re not going to even consider the above, then my contribution to this discussions is “Quaggans. Lots more Quaggans. Infinite Quaggans.” Because otherwise, this thread isn’t a serious dialogue.

1) Testing / Test server / speed of releases vs quality etc.

2) Class balance

3) Guild improvements

1. Matchup Imbalance / Population / Coverage
2. Matchup Imbalance / Population / Coverage
3. Matchup Imbalance / Population / Coverage

I experienced this last year also and have completed it both years. With any luck, this issue might be resolved next year.

What I have found typically helps*, is not actually paying attention to the clocktower / clockface itself, but to the swirly green mist of death.

Compare the mist height when you’re trying to jump vs when you see successful jumps on guides etc. I personally have succeeded by jumping into the tower 2 faces after the breaking clockface just because the height of the mist etc seemed a little too early.

*No promises. You’re mileage may vary. Terms and conditions apply.

What’s to stop people bandwagoning to the ‘strongest’ alliance though?

I agree with the concept of having 1 super matchup of Red vs Green vs Blue.
Whatever other flaws it might have, I think the format is sound, but trusting people to spread themselves out sufficiently might not give the results you hope for…

An alternative to this?
I’d suggest the 3 teams being formed from current server populations, but in a more dynamic fashion. This is to say:

Green Team (#1 Server + #4 Server + #7 Server + …) vs Blue Team (#2 Server + #5 Server + #8 Server + …+ vs Red Team (#3 Server + #6 Server + #9 Server + …)

Where arenanet would still maintain some sort of server ranking system updated weekly etc. (How well your server has contributed to the overall score etc). Populations / PvDooring would hopefully averaged out etc.

You’d still have server pride, but server rivalries might be more ‘interesting’. This weeks allies might be next weeks enemies and vice versa.

Lots of alternatives with regards how many maps you have ( 1 BL per server + X ‘instances’ of EB, maybe even some new maps ) and also lots of different ways to rank servers etc.

(Regardless of the above, I’d actually be in favor of having Anet publish more metrics about each servers WvW performance. Average number of people in each map, average WXP per person, Average Kill/Death ratio etc).

Of course, the above would rely on a significant amount of work and a reduction in income stream from server transfers so we’re completely dreaming.. But ultimately, if WvW is going to have any form of longevity (particularly if & when official GvG comes around) then Anet is going to have to address the population imbalances somehow.

A single Megamatchup per region (properly handled / however implemented) seems like it’s the best way of achieving that.

Just my $0.02

If the fight stays such that a very large number of players are required to even stand a chance of doing this, I would go so far as to suggest the pre-event should be similar to the break out events in WvW and require a minimum of X players to gather / ready attempt to defeat the boss.

I posted in this thread about this. It seems like clones in WvW do not display any weapons at all when spawned. (In pve, things seem normal to me). They still perform the animations as if they did, and they still do the same damage / crit effects etc – so this is mainly a cosmetic issue…

…but as far as WvW is concerned, to an enemy, it’s even more blindingly obvious which are clones, and which is the real mesmer.

What we are waiting for is any information / attention from the developers in terms of whether this was actually an intended change, or simply yet another bug that slipped through their ‘testing’.

Actually. I’ve just restarted the client / tried testing further.

In pve, clones appear to spawn with the weapons.
In WvW, this does not appear to be the case (clones missing weapons).
My motivation to play sPvP is minimal – so someone else could verify there.

(Whether or not the player race/gender affects this – My mesmer is a female sylvari)

I might guess that this was a delibrate change in terms of WvW graphics / culling ‘optimisation’ – but if so, it’s a very big omission from the patch notes in my opinion.

Has anyone else noticed that clones don’t appear with your equipped weapons any longer when they spawn?

It’s a good job that some observant person in the QA team actually tested this patch while playing a mesmer. That’s what I might be thinking if this was self evident / seemed at all accurate.

As long as my air elemental tonic has legs (and a tail) though, that’s all that matters. Am I right?

The new strategy of less frequent but of supposedly higher quality is really paying dividends.

On a completely unrelated note – my mesmer clones no longer wield Vision of the Mists (purple aura or not) or even Bifrost.

Apparently, it was too easy to find the human player amongst the clones.

Should be a better match now that Kaineng has moved up. Let’s have a good week.