Guild Wars 2

I am not in FUN but I have been disappointed by the attitude displayed by some of these people. The prestigious [LING] guild supports unity – or at least peaceful coexistence – and the things that have been said by certain people with the Commander tag and their associated supporters have been quite insulting and divisive.

Everyone on the server should feel welcome in Wuv, and feel like they have a valued place helping our shared cause. I can’t help but feel that certain parties’ actions have been ruled by their egos rather than the pursuit of fun or the success of the server.

Let’s not be one of those servers with elitist guilds sneering down their noses at everyone about how badly they’re carrying them and whatnot while conveniently ignoring everything done that doesn’t involve them. Let’s work together and put aside egos to make SoS a better place.

Lower population as a server or lower population in Wuv? I was online a short while ago and the numbers of people actually fighting outside the SoS spawn in EB looked pretty even, maybe slanted towards ET.

I’m not sure what IoJ’s spawn looked like, but they controlled more than SoS at the time.

There’s no need to make some silly “alliance” anyway. Just focus your efforts on the winning team if they’re doing that well.

Unfortunately, given they pretty much control everything at this point both SoS and IoJ are presumably already doing that and it’s not working well enough.

I agree with what you’re saying in general, but I feel your 1. complaint is missing the point. It’s not about time zones – population imbalance is an issue at all hours of the day, even prime time, and the game doesn’t really do anything at all to mitigate it (quite the opposite due to the snowball effect).

A good system to correct for population imbalance would address the time zone issue, but it’s also needed to address imbalances in population at all times. It’s not just time zones doing it.

Also, with supply – the other problem is you can’t carry as much when you’re outnumbered. You really need to be able to carry more in that situation.

Can’t the cost from upgrading things just be removed entirely?

Gold sinks in this game really seem like a cure that’s worse than the disease. I feel like inflation would be a small price to pay for being able to use waypoints without worrying about the cost or upgrade keeps, or being able to PvP without worrying about repairs.

You’re totally right, though – the payment method doesn’t match the usage model.

That sounds fun to me! The spotting tool idea is pretty cute, too.

One thing you haven’t mentioned is combo finishers, but it’s still a fun idea and it’d be nice to have a longer-ranged option even if it was a kit.

There’s been a lot of discussion in some quarters about night-capping, as it’s been called by some, and how the scoring system should be changed to minimise its impact. A few different suggestions have been proposed; most of them have glaring flaws, but those are seen as minor compared to the problem they’re attempting to solve. All of these scoring adjustments are missing the point, though.

My server, Sea of Sorrows, was suggested as an unofficial oceanic server and ended up with a strong oceanic presence as a result. It very frequently smashes other servers in oceanic prime time with very little resistance – in one instance, after some preliminary fighting around a keep, which we won, we deployed siege weapons and took it without a single defender ever appearing on the walls.

There’s another side to this story, though. As the Americans start waking up, the population flips – oceanic players go to sleep and very few people from Sea of Sorrows seem to be online relative to other servers, and the gains, even if quite well-fortified, are lost in short order. Throughout the American morning and afternoon, Sea of Sorrows gets massacred, largely by not having as many players online as other servers.

In US prime time, numbers pick up and things start to be retaken, the scores start to even out – but even then, I was able to get into Eternal Battlegrounds without a queue around the start of prime time, and the opposing faction borderlands very rarely have a queue and the server performs extremely poorly there until the oceanic prime time begins again.

I’m sure you’re seeing the pattern here: it’s not a problem with people being awake at whatever time, it’s a problem with numbers. Being outnumbered in Wuv is just an absolutely murderous disadvantage at any time of the day and it seems to me (and logically so) that relative numbers are the overriding predictor of server performance at any given moment.

In other words: it’s not a scoring issue and there is no scoring solution for it. It’s an issue with numbers being far too strong an advantage, and the solution is to address numbers being such a powerful advantage. I don’t know what the solution there is – I’d probably personally go for a buff to the combat power and supply-hauling capabilities of outnumbered players, based on how outnumbered they are. Limiting the number of active players has also been proposed, but I don’t think that’s a great solution.

I don’t think “lol qq noob l2p” is the answer, as has also been proposed in places. Trying to coordinate better is fun. Trying to convince people to actually log on or to get into Wuv even though they consistently get murdered is not fun, it’s work, and people are not going to do it on a scale sufficient to fix the problem. They’ll just struggle along for a while, then eventually give up, or maybe only play on weekends so the imbalances are minimised.

Either way, scoring changes aren’t the solution. They’re a symptom, not the problem. Player vs Door is awful gameplay. It’s no fun at all, other than the brief entertainment of “hey the pie is all our colour lol” (which is entertaining, to be sure, but no substitute for actually getting to, you know, play).

I’d like to see the population problems addressed so that the Wuv game can really prosper, being both fun and competitive.

It seems to me like you should look into how to do better with your guardian at level cap. It’s probably something in your playstyle if you’re having that much trouble with it.

Engineer is a bit of a mixed bag. The most common complaints I’ve heard is it feels like it lacks punch, is a bit lacking in polish and a bit… scattered thematically, maybe? There are a lot of complaints all around, but it’s still a fun class to play and lets you be creative in some pretty cool ways with the kits, especially in PvE.

I love the grenade kit for so many reasons but spamming 1 all the time feels like it’s risking damage to my hands. I agree with the posts saying that it being out of balance with the other weapons is part of the problem, but I would still like to be able to use it without physically injuring myself.

ben.7418:

Blackgate here and the sad part is, this is entirely, 100% true. Been playing WvW every day since BWE and I wake up disappointed every morning when I see a server just destroy us in the after hours with ZERO realistic strategy to overcome this.

Even teaming up 2v1 seems like a gigantic mess waiting to happen. Yeah, a few guilds could get together and say, lets team up and not attack one another? Problem is, the amount of pugs and non-guilded players also playing won’t have any idea, throwing a considerable monkey wrench into a team up strategy like that.

But besides that, who cares? Even if the 2v1 strat allows you to crawl back, you’re both just going to lose it in the after hours when all is said and done. Not only that, but who’s right is it to claim a tower or camp when the 2v1 succeeds? How is that supposed to play out? It’s just not viable.

You don’t have to collude with the other team and say “let’s not attack one another.” Just focus your efforts on the dominant side where practical and encourage people from your world to do the same.

It’s meant to be a sort of natural balancing mechanism. If someone else takes the lead you can focus on them instead (or not worry about it if it’s close enough).

I totally agree with the cost issue and the logistical ones. Costs are way too high, and the way of paying for things (one person selects to upgrade and pays a billion silver) doesn’t match the usage model (tens or even hundreds of people can benefit from the upgrade). If the cost of upgrades was spread out over the population of the map then it’d be a lot more bearable, as even the most expensive upgrades would cost around a silver across your whole team, but as it is it feels pretty awful.

The logistics thing is a big issue too. It’s not so much knowing where the enemies are as knowing where the friends are; there’s just very little sense of what assets your team has available and where they are currently engaged. It’s pretty awkward when you’re fighting in a large number of different locations (and your team might well be fighting in half a dozen locations or even more) but have no way of telling if help is coming, if help even exists, or where you are really needed.

Being able to get people in the right spot seems like it’d lead to more satisfying and even battles overall.

I think the only real solution is to address the heart of the issue: outnumbering the enemy being such a decisive advantage. Steps should be taken to minimise the impact of population advantage.

At the very least, the logistical advantages of having so many more players (and being able to carry so much more supply) should be addressed, as well as the advantages of having more money to throw at siege equipment and upgrades. Realistically, I think it has to go further than that – the underpopulated side needs bonuses to damage, healing and survivability to help even it out.

One side getting crushed because they don’t have as many people online just isn’t really fun for anyone.

What about multiple guild claiming? It makes sense to me that more than one guild could announce that they’re defending a castle and have multiple banners up there, and it fits with the general game design philosophy of not being able to inconvenience other players with your actions. Just let all the guilds’ buffs apply, but not stack.

It’s not the repairs that bother me personally, it’s the upgrades. I feel like the entire supply game is just swamped by the huge costs of upgrading things.

I can’t help but feel that the Wuv game would be improved greatly if the costs on both of these things were removed.

Mange.8324:

That’s pretty dirty of them if it is the case, hopefully mods start replying on these sort of topics sooner than later.

It’s a really bad conspiracy theory anyway. A lot of people are holding out on buying upgrades because “who cares, it will just reset eventually” – even though most stuff flips so often that it wouldn’t matter.

It’s great to hear that more information will be coming soon, though. I hope issues like the retaliation vs siege weapons, AoE through geometry and server population imbalance are addressed as well!

Doom.8647:

Divinorium.8952:

Doom this would kill completely the act of defending a stronghold since you will be rewarded for that just every 6 hours.
Remember in this case defending you are denying the points for a world. but not actually bringing your world back in the competition.

Could also do points for a successful defense as well, couldn’t we? The players are already rewarded individually (with XP/Karma/Coin) for both attacking and defending. What if a successfully defended stronghold also got a team points? Either way, the current system creates a lot of frustrating problems for servers without a large 24-hour population (which is most of them). I think it should be re-evaluated and redesigned, so you and I definitely both agree on that :-)

EDIT: Additionally, rewarding a world points for successfully defending keeps would make attackers think twice about attacking a difficult stronghold. I think it would make large WvW tactics more valuable and interesting in the long run. Players would have to strategize in order to take heavily defended strongholds so they don’t attack/fail/attack/fail/attack/fail and cause the other team to get more points for defending.

One of the core design goals for Wuv has to be that you can never hurt your team by being there. A player should be able to join in and run around having fun without worrying that they’re somehow helping the enemy team.

Both this and the suggestion in the OP fail that test. The system in the OP would mean that if you’re on a map that’s dominated by the enemy team (say they have more numbers than you, or better organisation) the best thing for you to do in terms of winning is to leave the map. That is a horrible setup for a game to have.

Similarly, the suggestion in the quoted post means that you can directly hurt your team by taking risks like attacking an objective without overwhelming numbers or certainty of success. It’s a design that discourages interesting play and encourages zerging.

These suggestions all miss the point, anyway. The problem isn’t the scoring system and it’s frankly bizarre that you’re fixated on that. The problem is that uneven numbers are ridiculously punishing. They not only mean that your damage output, healing output and damage-soaking potential are lower than the other team’s, but they also mean you have less money to spend, get fewer free blueprints (or none at all, since if the sides are stacked it’s likely you won’t be able to do the jumping puzzles) and can carry far less supply – not to mention, you’ll have huge issues reliably holding camps or getting dolyaks anywhere, and constant camp turnover will probably leave you without the essential double dolyak supply upgrade.

That isn’t just a score issue. It’s a fun issue. It’s not fun to get zerged down without being able to fight back because the second you go near the edge of a wall you get hit by five AoEs and have to retreat. It’s not fun to mindlessly roll over keeps or, worse yet, take them with literally no opposition.

The game mechanics are what need fixing, not the scoring. Population should give as little advantage in gameplay as possible.

SixSins.7610:

I have a question. I had assumed since sometimes it gave the finisher and sometimes it didn’t that it was tied to the Healing Mist skill. The turret says nothing about a combo field, but the Healing Mist does. I always blow up the turret when I need quick healing and the overcharge is down, so I always use Healing Mist at the same time by pressing the F1 key more than once. I thought it was a timing thing with Healing Mist’s circle coming up before the turret had gotten far enough into it’s explosion. That’s why I thought it was unreliable, because the timing was VERY sensitive. Is it possible to do it without using Healing Mist? Because I’ve never seen it happen. Before I learned that it is possible to cause the Combo myself that way, I had never seen the combo happen on it’s own but I just blew it up at the end of the fight without using Healing Mist. If anyone has reliable and tested info, please let me know.

The healing turret generates a water field very briefly every time it fires. The field only seems to last for a fraction of a second, so you need to time it very precisely, much like Regenerating Mist.

The turret fires immediately when you drop it, so you can perform the combo very reliably by dropping it, waiting just a moment and then detonating it. You can also combo off it with whatever else you feel like, but the timing is tricky (with the exception of that first firing just after you drop it) because the field is so brief.

I actually prefer the way the medikit works. It makes it consistent – the kit’s button brings up the kit, the tilde brings up my weapon. There’s no chance of ending up in the wrong state by pressing the button twice or something.

It certainly seems to be a bug, though, as mousing over the medikit shows the second ability use is meant to stow it away, and it doesn’t.