Guild Wars 2

My friday night consists of:
Waiting for reset.
Queuing the moment the names change.
Seeing 5 out of 15 of my guild get in.
Waiting around in the mist while listening to my friends pvp and playing the liaison between the alliance voice chat and my guild’s voice chat.
Heading to Lion’s Arch.
Farming Orr (might as well use this idle time wisely)
After 45 min one person in guild gets booted from the game.
2 more of us get in.
Slowly we get in 1 by 1.
45 min later my guildy that was booted gets back in.
This whole time I’ve been Queued.

This is after a 5 days of not being able to wvw because I’m on the winning side of a landslide match.

FIX THE QUEUE. I can’t begin to explain my overall disappointment in this situation. I have to Queue and hope that I’m not bugged.

The biggest thing I would like to see are in game tools that would allow communication. Most people are generally unsatisfied with the role that team chat and commander’s badges play. If nothing else the idea tossed around for a wvw wide chat and a map wide chat for each server might help. Again though most people don’t pay attention to chat or it ends up being largely dominated by trolls.

I don’t want to see something that is going to completely unbalance the match, but I would like to see something that is going to keep it consistent. Some of the ideas would never work and some might. The point of this thread is to get these ideas rolling.

If the success of your server relies solely on out of game alliances requiring people to run multiple programs such as jabber or multiple voips, isn’t that a tell-tale sign of something missing from the overall design?

I don’t think resets are a bad idea and based on the current swing between 24hr, 1 week & 2 week match ups it doesn’t sound like it would be impossible to implement. I’ve been what could be done to off set these devastating match ups and keep players playing for the full duration of the match up.

I posted a few ideas I had and a few that I’ve heard being discussed in another thread earlier.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Morale-The-4th-Enemy-solution-seeking-thread/first#post339854

I think you are right about players feeling like they can’t make an impact on the score. Reflecting population imbalances in the scoring would definitely add a bit of a fail safe, but would it be enough? Coordination and superior tactics would still win matches and that’s what it’s all about.

We are seeing it everywhere. In every tier Monday seems to mark the day that if you aren’t competitive then participation falls drastically. I’m seeing it in game & I’m reading about it on the forums. I’m seeing people around me become more and more unhappy with the game. This seems to be pretty common in every match up. Let’s face it, how many times are you going to grind you face against the wall before you stop trying to go in that direction?

The Devs suggestion to let the game mature scares me because we are losing interest by the day. If we let the community do what it does, then it will perhaps it will sort itself out. Eventually the servers will even out and eventually the Guilds will unite on their own and un organized servers without these mega alliances will start to make progress. But none of that is guaranteed and based on the current MMO market it’s only a matter of time before another game is attempting to offer the same large scale pvp experience.

What can we do?

What kind of come back mechanic do you think would actually keep people in the game? Here are a few examples in hopes of getting some suggestions or evolution of the ideas presented that might lead to some design changes.

1. Buffs – Swapping the orb buff with the out manned buff has been suggested. Changing the out manned buff to something more beneficial strategically is also an option. Perhaps even a buff based on huge score deficits and not based on participation.

2. Slaughter Rule – In many levels of sports you will find this in effect. Once the score becomes so overwhelming the match ends to save the loser any further humiliation. I don’t think this would ever be a viable solution, but it has been mentioned. Canceling matches early probably couldn’t be done easily and how would you decide something like that.

3. NPCs – Perhaps the NPC’s could play a role in turning the tide. I would imagine this would be hard to put in at this point, but it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps the losing team could meet certain conditions once the score hits a certain point and unleash a squad of NPC’s that would actually work towards evening out the odds.

4. Hard Caps or Diminishing Returns on PPT – Hard cap the scores gains. With a rolling point total the scores continue to snow ball and the insurmountable totals begin to surface relatively fast. Since it’s a piece of the pie type situation perhaps diminishing returns would work.

Ex: Once you hit 500 points per tick there is a set amount of time before that 500 gradually works it way down to 200 points per tick until the scores start to even out. This would still require effort on the end of the teams that are losing to get back into the match, but perhaps it wouldn’t seem so impossible or become mathematically impossible to come back well before the match is over.

5. In-game Diplomacy or Alliance Mechanics –
-Alliances- Let’s face it forming successful out of game alliances is the single biggest factor to winning in wuvwuv. Team Chat & Commanders badges are what we have to attempt to unite our own server in game and let’s face it. It’s just not enough. Perhaps there would be a way to form Alliances in game that would have alliance chat and features that would make coordinating a bit less cumbersome.

-Diplomacy- The point of 3 faction pvp is to allow weaker servers to unit against a greater threat, but I’ve yet to see that really happen. We usually see the exact opposite. An in game mechanic that would allow servers to communicate and form treaties that would help keep things competitive.

So there it is. A few ideas that I’ve had and a few that I’ve read. The aim of this tread is to keep things competitive and keep people playing. Let’s face it, winners and losers all agree that we have more fun when there is actually a fight.

If you are still with me at this point I thank you for reading and ask you what would you do? Do you think any of these ideas will work? Do you have any ideas of your own? Are things fine and no solution is needed?

BiP has been a staple of my gameplay right there beside Epidemic. This change is not good. The slight gain in DPS does not justify losing the lifeforce loss. I was already on the fence about Necro in WvW, feeling like most of my damage was fluff damage. I enjoyed spreading debuffs but even at 12+ stacks of bleed it isn’t a huge amount of pressure. Time to start power leveling an Ele. (Which I hate. They are like the justin bieber of casters)

Dagger all the way. To keep 10+ bleeds rolling constantly you need a diverse skill rotation with some long bleeds. Dagger OH is your butter if scepter is your bread.

I wrote this up for a guildy asking for advice concerning his Necromancer and remembered this thead.

I played my necro to 77 and have shelved him until a few things concerning the class are addressed. I love necro. I love the lore and really have played Necro through all the testing phases, but there are some issues with the class.

With all that said you can achieve success in every aspect of the game with Necro, but your options are limited. As far as wvw goes I would suggest going one of two builds.

1. The Plague Bringer (DPS)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNAW7YjMap7Nbub87JAJFXHd0DiNmZKFmzOA

The concept of this build it to use the staff or scepter depending on your range to stack conditions on one target and then to Epidemic all their conditions to everyone in range. If you do this on a marked focus fire target with one or more condition stackers going crazy you will absolutely wreck large packs of enemies. You are also carrying Plague Signet which is a tricky skills since it pulls conditions from your allies to you. If you aren’t careful it can kill you. You have two ways to dump your conditions. Consume condition acting as your heal will cleanse you and grant bonus healing. Plague signet on activiate dumps all your conditions onto your target.

The Pandemic Rotation -
1. Mark of Blood, Chillblains, Putrid Mark (Staff #2-4)
2. Swap to scepter if they are within 900 range
3. Start auto attacking while queuing up Grasping Dead(scepter #2)
4. On the third auto attack drop Grasping dead & immediately follow with enfeebling blood(dagger OH #5)
5. Cast Blood is Power (you can also use Plague Signet if you have any conditions on you to transfer)
6. Cast Epidemic
7. Watch them suffer

2. The Condition Clerk (Support)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fQAQNAW3djQad6NbaaM8JAJFYb90DuHX8IFBPMA

This build is has very low damage output, but is perhaps the only thing a Necro can do that is a bit different from any other profession out there. The goal of this build is to help your allies manage their conditions while attempting to debuff your enemies at the same time. With AOE targeted wells you can keep your distance. The axe is my main hand choice for this build since you can gain retaliation with Unholy Feast (axe x3) & can build vulnerability on your target. Any other alternate mainhand weapon set could be argued since your damage is going to be pretty bad no matter if you go condition damage or direct damage. But let’s take a look at what your options are for dealing with conditions….

(This build can apply some conditions & provide a little bit of AOE healing for your allies)

1. Well of Power – converts allies conditions to boons for 5 seconds (48 sec cooldown)
2. Well of Corruption – converts boons on allies to condtions for 5 seconds (36 sec cooldown)
3. Spinal Shivers – Strips 3 boons from foes
4. Grim Specter – (lich form #5) AOE Boon Strip on foes/Condition Removal on allies
5. Plague Signet – Draws conditions from allies/sends them to a foe on activate.

So yeah… there you have it. The staff is your friend in wvw and it’s mark based mechanic is pretty unique. Neither of these builds really open up til level 40. Most power based direct damage builds for necro under perform so that rules out a lot of our options. You can achieve some success using a power based build that relies on Death Shroud heavily, but I still feel they are still under performing. We also have some issues with some bugged traits that hurt builds as well. I’m hoping we see a bit of trait shuffling to synergize our builds sometime soon.

Stiggz.8421:

Islanders fight on.

IOJ! IOJ! IOJ!

Islanders….

hmmmm I like it!

We shall sport the name with honor!

Condition spec is great for a necro running with a group. If you are concerned with 1v1’s in WvW then a power/DS build will help you win those, but if you are playing WvW for the 1v1’s you might as well be playing spvp.

I rock a full condition spec and focus on epidemic. I’m an asset to my team and I debilitate entire groups of enemies. Mark a target call it to your party and have them dot it up while you open with your mark rotation, switch to scepter, drop blood is power & spread the plague with epidemic. Their entire team will then be pressured with 25 stacks of bleed (if you have someone helping you stack) & every other condition your allies afflict. Epidemic has no tells. There is no AOE circle. There is no indication that everyone within a 1200 range of your carrier target is about to get condition stacked. Maybe you didn’t melt one foe with burst, but you did take about 50% of everyone’s life bar and put the entire enemy force on their heels. It’s also incredibly effective when taking supply camps or dealing with guard NPC packs.

TLDR Condition spec is fine in WvW. I honestly want to switch to a power build as I close in on the last 20 levels to speed up my PVE experience and vary my playstyle a bit, but I feel the way I play my necro is just too valuable to the group I run with in WvW.

Yes please. Anything ingame that would help us function on a larger scale would be great!

After the recent drama, I’d like to take a moment to say there is no animosity towards ET as a whole. Obviously there has been some heated discussion centered around a certain trolling guild, but it stops there. We’ve had some great small skirmishes with TL & AA that have resulted in a some great pvp.

Soon you will realize that the communities you grief don’t want you. Your alliance didn’t want you. Now your server doesn’t want you. I’m wondering at this point exactly who does?

Well if it’s legit, they just fed the troll.

Please tell me this not the actual response.

What would be entertaining is if AA would step up and transfer off. You have already been ostracized from them and most of your server. I’m sure you would follow though, since your recruitment efforts are for naught. Your officers already confirmed that there has been no yield from your recruitment efforts.

Just a hint for the real world, big guy….

Don’t spit in someone’s face and then invite them to your team.

Your entirely mistaken if you think we care what RUIN finds entertaining. I’m more interested in getting a dev to tell me that it’s ok for me to go touch your siege equipment through exploiting the free transfers that are in place for another reason.

Amazing write up. Thanks for sharing. I ran a dagger/power/well build towards then end of testing phase and had a blast with it. In a 5v5 environment it’s a solid spec to play.

I can’t seem to quote on this one, but….

@Trae

“Think of it this way: there is construction on a road and everyone needs to get over into the right lane. Everyone sees the sign that says move over. Every car moves over when they see the sign well ahead of the lane being closed. Your guild is the car that goes to the very end and just forces their way into the lane. Is it against the law? No. Is it a huge fkitten move? Yes.”

Great explanation. Everybody considers being that guy, but most of us know better. On the internet being that guy is a lot easier since you don’t have to look the people that you are screwing over in the eye. Doesn’t seem to stop anyone.

@Kracin

You do realize that drama follows people that instigate it. There are lines and Archaos clearly crossed them, hence he is being called on it with proof. People reap what they sow and Ruin is no different.

I’d like to take a second to point a few things out to people that don’t understand the motivations behind these threads. What we are calling Archaos out on, needs to stop. It has no place in any match. IoJ can take a loss. We can take being curbstomped at our spawn point. It happened during Beta, It happened during the 24 hour match up and it might happen again.

Transferring over to a realm you are competing against and recruiting is not the problem. It’s pretty despicable and a shows a complete lack of honor, but it’s to be expected. Standing in Lion’s Arch trash talking the server while you recruit is a pretty low move too, but again isn’t a TOS violation. What is clearly against the TOS is entering our WvW and disrupting our efforts. It doesn’t matter if the match is lopsided nor does it matter if there is no chance we can win.

Per the TOS
“While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.”

I’d also like to point out that we are still there. We are still fighting and we are still taking points. Our small primetime warband has taken camps, towers, and we have pushed them back. Much of our server has given up and honestly I can’t blame them, but we are still fighting.

Keep the community informed.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1048gc/ruin_round_up/

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/64709-et-vs-sos-vs-ij-1week-format/page__st__150

Levian.6742:

There is already a stickied list of bugs, and they do read the forums even if they don’t respond to all of them. I personally think they haven’t done anything with the necro yet is because they are planning a BIG change for them with one patch

Don’t expect a massive reworking. Expect them to get a few traits working better, a few changes to damage coefficients & a few other small changes. Small changes make worlds of difference in GW2.

No one is applauding them for anything. That would be good publicity. The sad part is that you can’t see the valid complaints vs the illogical ones. Their PR guy has already admitted that some of the guild leaders actions are questionable at best. Placing a Golem wall at the spawn point when you are winning buy such a large margin is a publicity stunt. I’m sure some people won’t view it as negative publicity, but I know I do.

The people that complain about their tactics, unethical abuse of game mechanis and attitudes aren’t the target audience. It’s the people that see the screen shots and see all the complaints relative to them. They are generating recruits through negative publicity.

I love the lore and the Necro in general on a conceptual level. I have always loved death magic since my days of pen and paper role playing games, so in most games where it’s an option I go necro, warlock, etc

You are right that does work, but it’s a work around. If you are running a full condition based build and you get caught in combat with a weapon you aren’t traited or geared to run then you are at a severe disadvantage. We should not be penalized vs objects or in regards to contribution for running a condition heavy build.

Lets look past the immediate damage done. Past the strategic advantage it could have given. Past the wasted slot space. Past the detriment to the server’s population and wvw efforts.

It has more of an impact than that. It’s going to impact the game and the lifespan of wvw. Seeing this kind of behavior from players is going to deter people from even bothering. We’ve been matched against a server that is willing to go farther in every legitimate (and several illegitimate and largely unethical) ways of securing victory. This will become the normal behavior if it’s left unchecked. It’s already painfully obvious that is what will be happening in the top tier of wvw, but I fear it may spread and become the norm.

I’m sure the free xfers will be addressed soon by Anet, but the precedent is being set right now. If left unchecked people will do whatever they can get away with to win.

I’m with you. I used a staff/scepter+dagger build and used epidemic as the cornerstone of my wvw rotation. I’m able to keep up amazing AOE pressure, but what I can’t do is finish them off, but that is ok. It’s not about the kills it’s about holding/pushing the lines. The contribution system needs a bit of an overhaul in general, but necros and condition spammers need some love in the long run.

There also needs to be an adjustment to DMG vs objects as they are immune to conditions. It could take me all day to take down a piece of siege when a direct damage dealer could have it down in well under half the time.

Calling out the current wave of wvw jerks =/= complaining

Blaming Anet isn’t the answer though. These unethical players that will stop at nothing to win need to be called out to the community. Perhaps they aren’t violating the terms of service, but they are behaving in a way that will negatively impact the community.

Maximumpanda are you running for public office anytime soon? It really seems like you are saying one thing and doing another much like most American Politicians.

QSpec.4298:

I run an axe/DS build on occasion. It feels a tad weak, but it is a ton of fun.

What he was talking about I think we can safely call the “myth of the Necromancer”.

It is what the class was.

Namely, we are constantly going in and out of DS soaking up damage while dealing damage/adding utility/etc.

The actuality is that LF is hard to come by without a very specific skill/weapon build (take scepter for example… you get 2% life force every 10 seconds. With zero skills/traits to build life force as a sceptermancer you pretty much don’t have any).
PS Devs: this could be partially fixed by giving us 100% LF everytime we respawn.
Our DS damage isn’t even that strong.
Even though it is an extra health bar, it is blown through (much like our health pools).
Our CC is limited (a chill that puts us in melee range and a 1 second fear every 20 seconds).

Pretty much this. He is referring to the mechanic not a specific build. The raw truth is that the traits are really inferior to what other professions have to offer. Even if they were all working they would be underwhelming. I love switching to a guardian and an elementalist and feeling like I’m shopping for an amazing sports car with so many amazing traits. Then I go back to Necro and feel like I’m picking the best compact car for the job.

Right now what it boils down to is:

what you are willing to do to win…

If you are willing to server hop, poach, & not give anyone a fighting chance, you will probably achieve success. If you find these things largely unethical and want to push forward with a sense of pride, then you will probably not be walking away with a victory. However you will be walking away with your held high and that counts for more in my book.

vrgadin.1943:

Shinzou.1534:

I have been doing WvW for the past two hours now against ET. On the whole they are average, but their population in WvW is dwarfing us. They have the population to gate camp while simultaneously camp everything they hold, and even have a few left over to roam. They don’t have a lot camping the controls, but even 1 or 2 is enough to call in a wave of destruction if we try to take anything.

We take something and less than a minute later it is in ET’s hands again. Their server population may be lower, but they WvW population is overwhelming. They are at their population cap 24/7. While we are only fielding 30 to 40 most of the time.

The outmanned buff needs reworked, and the orbs need to be completely removed.

if we are average as you say….what does that make you, the loser?

there is nothing average about a cohesive server working together. guilds and mercs as one. (u notice i dont call them pugs) on ET we have no pugs

u also were most likely not fighting when we conquered the map initially. you are now fighting smaller warbands. if by some miracle you start taking some keeps, you will see us “average” exotic 80s come out to play, stick around.

and no…we earned those orbs and didnt “fly in” to grab them either.

So someone suggests you are average and you need to commence to bragging about exotics….

Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. I’m sure you are a credit to your guild.

Scynthetic.1236:

Psy.6153:

We have boycotted WvW this week until ET are out of this bracket, whoever is in charge of putting them down there needs a serious talking to.

Even if the rumors are true that ET threw some games to get dropped a bracket, whoever is in charge of matching them up should have half a brain to realise that they are one of the top ranked servers not down in this bracket.

Way to go on ruining WvW for 3 servers for a week

I know how bad it sucks getting matched up with one of the mega servers, but what is Anet supposed to do? There’s 4 servers that match up fairly well with each other, so what happens with the 4th? They sit out for a week until they can play in the top tier again so other servers don’t have to face them?

Well currently we have 2 servers sitting out because of it. So, yes let the other mega server sit out vs. allowing ET a week to farm while the other servers sit out and get little to no rewards/advancement. Not that this is a realistic solution, but the problem is very real and will hurt the overall game population in the end.

My guild took 10-15 in friday night and took and held some points. We defended and were able to hold ET off for a while, but once the second shift from ET came in it was a wrap. IoJ did ok, but it’s wasn’t long before ET just swamped the whole map. This is like a week long premade vs pug situation.