Guild Wars 2

Wow, all this craziness over a fictional election. Some people must have real problms when it comes to actual voting in real life huh?

Or, more likely, the outcome of an in-game election must actually impact their lives MORE than real world things. /sigh.

I just ended up with a ton of these Support Tokens and plonked some in each box, with a bias on the Kiel side because I preferred her straight-up ‘not-a-crook’ character.

Do I care who won? Not so much. Will I enjoy whatever new content comes out of it. Yessir.

Now could all the Kiel-haters ask yourselves just HOW much the result of the election has truly runied your whole life… then take a deep breath, turn off the computer and go for a walk.

Am I the only one thinking that the naming system is stupid? You go all the way from ‘Invader’ thru ‘Colonel’ and ‘General’ and right to ‘Legend’, then… you become an ‘Invader’ again (albeit a ‘bronze’ one). Greeaaat. That sounds all-powerful, not. I can’t wait to work my way up to the coolest title ever only to go back to the lowest.

Why on earth, if they wanted to do the bronze/silver/gold thing, didn’t they just put esentially the three colours of name in the same category; so bronze Knight > silver Knight > Gold Knight > Platinum Knight etc etc BEFORE you get to beign a Major?

This would also ease confusion in knowing at a quick glance how ranked your opponent is. See a bronze invader, in a flash think it’s a regular one and that it’s a newb, when in fact they are rank 150!

Seriously Anet, switch it around!!

This, like, well everything in WvW may have been suggested before. If it has, sorry for the repeat thread.

But please Change the colour of dead players’ names to Black or Grey!

I feel this simple fix would ease the confusion felt by so many when running into a fight, freaking out that it’s a very BIG fight, then after popping all your specials realising that, no, most of the red names were dead ememies and in fact you just missed the fight altogether.

A fair few times I’ve run from an engagement where I looked to be vastly outnumbered when actually most of the enemy were dead and I could have in fact made a difference to the two or three of my team still fighting!

(Yes I’m a wuss, I balk at charging alone into a mass of red to rescue a lone dude who is being steamrollered. I do still do it… sometimes )

But the difference it would make to my confidence if there were a lot of black names on the ground and consequently less red ones would be a huge boost!

I agree with OP, a corpse-timer would be ideal.

In fact the corpe-burning suggested in an earlier post would be rather fun, since the enemy could now hasten your respawning so you don’t get even that few moments of extra spying that tells your server which way the mob that killed you went. But, that info would be subject to the conscientiousness of the killers. Do you linger to burn or run on at risk of being watched?

Bryker.5719:

Bumping the cap to 10 would create more interesting fights (IMO). Zergs could still clump for buffs pre-fight. Spreading out (instead of clumping even more) when AoEs start to hit. It would help spread out the fight in a larger area instead of just a mass ball of players.

^ This.

If you think about it, stacking and blobbing is not how warfare is supposed to work, becuase real life doesn’t have a magical AOE cap. If your army groups up in one place and the enemy has a mortar, you’re all kittened.

I know booning up before a fight is a good thing, but rolling in as a bunched mass of people should be punished.

AOE cap also means that overwhelming numbers can never be defended against, becuase you can sit there arrowcarting endlessly and the randomness of the cap means that the people you hit with shot 1 are a different lot to those you hit with shot 2. I’ve arrowcarted a huge blob of people for ages and gotten very little loot to show for it. Now when they spread out a litte, cap ceases to be a factor, that’s when I get bags all round my feet.

Yes, increase the cap (I agree that removing it entirely may not work mechanically), so that the standard format is: bunch up for boons then spead out to provide too many targets for the enemy to blitz in one go!

TL;DR Ingame warfare shouldn’t encourage blobbing up by taking advantage of a magical umbrella called AOE cap. Make it more realistic!!

Never underestimate the power of the Blue Dorito! Yesterday in EB people were running aroudn like headless chickens, and all the chat was basically a whinge-fest about who is or isn’t in Teamspeak, whilst our keep wall was being merrily trebbed to death from SM. Suggestions for counter-offensive came and went, all ignored.

Suddenly PING there is a blue dorito! The map population flocked to it, and within 15 mins we had all our local towers and camps back, some pretty loot bags and the enemy ran off to attack an easier target. (Poor Arborstone, you got our Dzago rebound I’m afraid).

But yeah, if you log on and you own a commander tag and there is NO commander on at all, do the server a huge service and pop it up. I know it can be a bugger trying to command a disorganised mess of people, but BELIEVE in the power of the Pin.

If you Dorito, they will come…

I have to say I disagree with Ballads in the ‘never look at the score’ comment. It’s a very defeatsist attitude to simply say that final score is entirly decided by off-hour coverage. I’m not saying that it doesn’t very often work out that way, sure, so don’t think I’m naive. However, I just don’t like the “it’s not my problem” attitude. “So my server loses, bah, nothing I could have done at all to help so I just roamed and ganked.” This is NOT a very patriotic way to play.

I know the game is about fun, but can’t it be about both? I for one love running with whatever commander/zerg is going, but if I can see a useful strategic objective that I can get on my own or with 2/3 others, I’ll quietly call out for helpers and go claim it.

How many times has a garri or an EB keep been lost simply becuase the defenders were ultimately supply-starved. I did that. My little camps which may not mean much per-tick could make or break a Hills attempt. My flag-flipping gives me an early warning system for a possible attack somewhere else. On the other hand, careful avoidance of flag-flipping when appropriate lets me confuse the enemy as to my group’s location.

As for point contribution, never underestimate the possibility of a good ninja. 4 people (of which I was one, not commanding) with 2 golems flipped four towers, one keep and had a jolly good shot at garrison before the enemy got around to blobbing us to death. It was a fun run, and who knows, we may just have been the tipping points that made us second instead of third that week.

TL;DR ….. Sure, don’t obsess about the points and whether you are 1st 2nd or 3rd, don’t let it ruin your experience if you are losing. But for heaven’s sake FIGHT anyway!! Cap whatever you can! Stop people flipping your camps! One person or a small dedicated group can make a difference.

But you don’t have to believe me, of course. I just like to do the rousing speech thing

As for the other L2P WvW suggestions, all good ideas. (especially the ‘nicknames’ of places thing!) My fave tip of the day – LEARN what to do in a golem before you drive it. Cliff-fallers and portal-missers just annoy the team.

It’s an interesting idea, and I see the feeling behind it: that all the champion lords are essentially a boring necesary fight to geta claim circle. So yes, I agree that the fights could be made more complex and dynamic, but I personally wouldn’t like to see players taking on this role exclusively.

First reason: who would EVER choose this fate? You’re running round the map with a zerg or group capping stuff, but no, you don’t get to follow the train, you have to get off here and stand still for as long as you want to hold that tower. The thought that the moment you leave it’s just like putting up a free claim circle to the opposition? Awful!

I’ve done my fair share of sitting atop the Garri watergate for, oh, say, a few HOURS scouting for incoming attacks, and as soon as I leave, I ask for someone else to take this most boring duty. You can imagine the number of players who leap at the chance to give up their WXP training round the map for that responsibility.

Even if your WXP ticked up whilst being a Lord, I personally would rather be doing something and getting no xp for it than doing nothing. The benefit of the current Lords is that they never get bored and they never leave their posts. They are not human, and rightly so!

Second reason: only Lords being able to upgrade stuff would mean that even less people would put their hands up. I know I’d hate to be the one paying for every single upgrade. The way it works at the moment, anyone can fork out if they are feeling generous.

Thrid reason: So you’re the Lord, and the tower you occupy is zerged by a bunch of enemy. You have no other defenders, and you lose the tower. You feel crap, and you’re server thinks you failed becuase, well, you’re the LORD, surely you shouldn’t be overwhelmed so easily! You clearly weren’t a good enough fighter or whatever. Who wants that guilt? I know, given my generally dismal track record in 1v1 that I’m not the hardest person to kill. That makes me feel bad enough. Why would I want a whole tower or keep to literally depend on my PvP ability? Or anyones for that matter?

So, all in all, I favour NPC tower guards and lords. They will never tire of their duty, and so what if they are able to be killed by hugely superior numbers?

However, I think the NPCs could be spiced up, just as bradderzh said above. Different classes, different support troops and even the odd bit of dungeon-boss-like scripting could make the claiming more than just a foregone conclusion. I’d love to see a Mesmer lord messing us all up by putting uber-clones all around so we don’t know who to actually hit, or a Necro lord with a veritable army of undead minions. Also, these classes should not be static to each location, or again we’d all learn who is where and be so prepared that it would become commonplace once again. Every respawn of Lord could be a different NPC entirely, so if you took a tower by killing a Thief, he could be replaced by a Warrior, for example.

Perhaps another way to get players more active and concerned about the retention and upgrading of keeps and towers would be to really encourage guild claiming by rewarding guilds whose towers stay in your hands for the longest times with extra points, and again more points for the upgrades. That way, there would be less “tower down, on to the next” rolling zerging without any care for the land you just took.

For anyone who plays at odd times, pug is the ‘default setting’, simply because we don’t always log in to find a bunch of our guild already zerging around the place. (I don’t even think our while guild could constitute a zerg actually!)

I usually log into WvW alone or with my hubby, and we flip camps or whatever until we find out what urgently needs doing, what the commander’s train of followers is upto and where the juicy action is at.

Usually at some point we will be invited to a group, others we’ve bumped into whilst flipping a camp etc. I’ve had some excellent times running as a bunch of randoms kittneing off the enemy by cutting their supply lines, contesting their waypoints and ninjaing stuff.

I’d say ‘who needs a guild’? But then, I love my guild, I just don’t see them all the time, as they are European and I’m Oceanic. When I CAN run with my guild, I do. But ‘pug’ is never a second-best state of affairs for me.

I like the idea of salvaging siege. Lorewise, it could be called Seige Mechanics Mastery. Those brainy individuals who have spent time learning how siege is put together and taken apart, the fixers and the breakers.

A few points of difference though: I really don’t think 50 points for each rank would work. I don’t really think people are going to save up 50 rank points for a measly 25% recovery of supply, and to max it out you are talking Rank 250! Speaking as a frequent and dedicated WvW player who is still languishing below the 100 mark, this really isn’t fair. I think it would have to start low and increase, in the same format as the other ‘Mastery’ lines. This gives lower ranks the ability to choose the first ‘levels’ of all the rank-skills. No need to punish those who aren’t Generals or Colonels yet.

Also, rather than it being only all about salvage, they could add in ability to repair active siege. So your arrowcart is being AOEd – Siege Mechanic to the rescue! This would be really useful, and would add an interesting dynamic to the game, an extra element of difficulty in taking down enemy seige, and keeping your own seige up! Can you get your supply into that cata and keep it going for two more shots at the gate?

How about this overall:
Rank 1: Repair siege with 2 supply only. 3 POINTS
Rank 2: Salvage siege, recover 30% of build supply-cost 6 POINTS
Rank 3: Repair siege with 4 supply only. 10 POINTS
Rank 4: Salvage siege, recover 60% of build supply-cost 20 POINTS
Rank 5: Repair siege with 6 supply only. 50 POINTS
Rank 6: Salvage siege, recover 90% of build supply cost, plus a chance at recovering the blueprint. 75 points

Option – rather that repairing seige up to a certain amount of supply, it could just be a straight up percentage of machine-health, and only take time instead of supply.

Ooh I’m excited, this would be a really fun Mastery line. Good thread Taobella!

Dzags did a lovely job of running in circles on EB today. I think it goes like this: “To Mendons! Oh, no, they have a person/siege. Well then, to Anza! RawR! Oh wait, there’s ppl in that one too. Well, to Ogres! Yay, just a door! 40 of us can deal with that! Now, to Veloka. Oh crap, there are those people again. To Mendons!!!”

(all that, but in German of course.)

Really folks, we Roffians LOVE some satisfying open warfare. Fight us, don’t shrug and blob off in another direction.

ROF

As someone has already mentioned, upgrading is a double-edged sword. I’m always happy to spend my silver, but like Silinsar above, I do regard every camp or tower that I’ve upgraded as kinda ‘mine’. I then feel the need to babysit it, to protect the dollys and watch the ramparts for any sign of a zerg coming to steal my precious upgraded beauty. Of course, that means that whilst there’s some juicy capping going on elsewhere, I’m missing all that wxp becuase I’m dutifully sitting in my tower. Not really ideal.

Also I think understanding when to upgrade is something not a lot of people put any effort into. Like those who have to be reminded NOT to take sups from Garri when walls are in progress, there often seems to be very little careful thought exhibited to when to buy an upgrade, and also which is the most appropirate one. How many times have we rushed to defend a keep only to have the commander shout “Who the FECK ordered merchants – now there’s no supply?!”

My rule of thumb is that, whilst my gold is modest, I will spend it, BUT I will first whisper the commander to ask if they want me to upgrade and indeed what upgrade they would prefer. I only wish that, once paid for, anyone else would give a kitten to defend it

Shads… I feel your Oceanic pain. I’m a kiwi on a small EU server, which means that my playtime is perma-outmanned by the higher population opponents.

I think the idea about blocking fully dead revives would give an interesting new dynamic to fighting, whether outmanned or not, in a zerg or not. It would encourage the rezzing of downed players much more.

Seriously people, if you CAN get a downed person up, DO! On RoF we are quite used to going up against bigger groups/zergs than our own, but with obedient commander-following, stacking, booning etc, we do pretty darn well. The sad part is that the enemies just rally off any one of us who is downed, so it doesn’t matter if we were winning the fight, ultimately we’ll lose; we are simply ground down slowly whilst the enemy continues to jump up and up.

Also, blocking fully dead revival would stop zerg followers from lying dead in a pile for ages doing nothing useful. If I had a silver for every time a commander has to type “If dead, revive and run back pls!!”… well, I’d have a lot more gems to play with

Finally it would encourage players to take a little more care running round a place full of high cliffs with your map/inventory/traits open! Lying dead at the bottom of a cliff and plaintively typing, “lol, rez someone?” just slows up the group. If you had to curse your own stupidity all the way back from spawn, you might learn to watch your feet and know the safe jumping spots!

OP’s other ideas and bugbears have all be brought up time and again in various threads, and all we can do there is wait for Anet to listen. But I think your first comment has real potential!

Stay strong in the struggle Down Under mate. And remember, we may be perma-outmanned, but it means we spend less on repairs than everyone else, and just occasionally know the glory of 3-man-taking Stomemist

I am generally in the same camp as the OP, and suggested something similar myself in a matchup thread that once again found my server against FoW and Vabbi.

“…Perhaps something like free transfers to low population servers would help, or better yet the price of transfer could scale with the location of the transfer. Cheap as chips to go and buoy up the numbers of Vabbi, or a massive whopping cost if you feel like running in a T1 blob.”

I understand where you’re coming from, those people who’ve talked about the gold price as an investment and the lack thereof contribuing to lack of commitment to a server, but really, those who have that much gold to spend that they jump around all the time are not exactly showing a whole ton of commitment already are they?

This is why I think price scaling is the way to go. This would introduce a new factor into the decision of where to transfer. Just like at your supermarket, do you pay more for a top brand, or do you just want the product at the lowest price? Or somewhere in the middle? Small servers would benefit becuase little guilds that aren’t loaded but want a change of community could make an economic choice to transfer cheaply.

The best part with scaling is that it can change depending on how many people go to a server. Why have a static cost? The gem/gold markets fluctuate all the time? Why not have the price of server transfers fluid and dependant upon server population? This would go a lot of the way towards preventing another Kaineng-stlye event. If too many people transfer to one server, the price skyrockets!

I’ve heard some of the more hardcore and obsessive WvW players generally hating on upscaled chars, and I have to say, to hell with that kitten. I will concede that Reset Night is too important not to bring your A-game and contribute as much as possible to the war and I respect that rule. But 4am on a wednesday is play time for the level 8 mesmer I have no clue how to operate

I love taking all my toons into WvW no matter what level. I have yet to level one solely by WvW, as I tend to do a mix of both PvP and PvE, however once you are on your seventh or eighth character the prospect of hitting up Queensdale or Brisban Wildlands AGAIN is less than thrilling. For this reason my earlier characters roamed the whole of Tyria, my later ones have uncovered no maps but have some WvW ranks to their name instead.

I am one of those people who simply accepts that if I roam, I will probably die. I will give it my best fight, and sometimes I do well before I give the opponent the dubious satisfaction of stomping an immature inexperienced upscaler.

The best advice I can think of for trying to level a baby toon in WvW is: BRING A FRIEND.

It can get a little demoralising running with an 80 guildie, as you don’t feel like you’re making anything like an even share of the damage, but that kind of thing is good for pure xp-gain. When you just need to squeeze another 2 levels till you can put on your new Sword.

However, my best times have been in Upscale Parties. Me and hubby rolled a pair of warriors, invited a nearby baby ranger and went camp/flag/quag flipping. If it’s a quiet time, we may be cheeky and take a tower. It’s a challenge not getting walloped when you don’t have any special skills and in many cases haven’t even unlocked your weapons yet.

Just talk to your guildmates and see who has a char about your ‘age’. You’d be surprised the number of points that can be gained for your server with a little gang of roaming youngsters. I also find it’s a lot of giggles and very uplifting, since quite frequently one of us will /say “Hell yeah lvl 17!” and then the gratz will fly. I know it will be my turn in a few camps. We swap the loots we get and between us craft ourselves all new sets of gear at all the major level-milestones.

And so what if, when we meet a gang of 80s, or indeed one thief, we die? Repairs are so cheap at these low levels it doesn’t matter.

I think people in all MMOs have an irrational need to be the top level, like NOW. Why? Enjoy the journey. And WvW at low levels is a wicked fun journey.

Zerging is great too, as you will really get some bread-and-butter XP by tagging everything with aoes, but don’t ever let people tell you you a) shouldn’t bring an Upscale or b) shouldn’t roam with one. You can do it all, at any level. Just with a lot of rezzing and running!

All this trash talk is seriously wearing. The simple facts here are that silly matchups are occurring all across the board. There was maybe one sensible matchup this week, if you look at the day 2 scores MOST of the matches are complete walkovers. Very rarely do we see gripping close-fought battles that rage all week long and are finally tipped by who got Stonemist last.

I know there will be those few angry flaming types on these forums (saying unsportsmanlike and frankly ill thought out knee-jerk things like ‘delete the servers’ etc.), but for the most part all of us on RoF are not hating on FoW or Vabbi, we are just frustrated by the broken matchup system.

As a ROFfian, I’ve been both the steamroller of smaller servers like Vabbi and FoW, and I’ve been steamrollered in my turn by the like of Millers/Gendara. Neither is fun.

There simply shouldn’t be these massive population differences which make the game of WvW pointless. The game is about tactics and strategy, which are entirely negated when one server could have Napoleon Bonaparte himself as their Commander, but just don’t have the troop numbers to carry out the genius plans. I LOVE trying to guess what the enemy is up to, but what kittens me off is inevitability of victory or defeat.

I for one think that Anet could do more to help equalise the situation. Perhaps FoW and Vabbi could be merged to overcome their numbers problem, or maybe some of the largest servers could be fractured into smaller ones (though I understand that server-pride would see a lot of people outraged by these ideas). Perhaps something like free transfers to low population servers would help, or better yet the price of transfer could scale with the location of the transfer. Cheap as chips to go and buoy up the numbers of Vabbi, or a massive whopping cost if you feel like running in a T3 blob.

I would just like to see devs throwing suggestions for solutions out there, and not simply reading these perma-negative forum threads and shrugging. They had a brave new idea with the RNG – it didn’t work. Now let’s think up more brave new ideas.

Finally, to FoW and Vabbi, I look forward to being utterly thwarted in single combat by your many individually excellent players this week. You have my sympathies for being the perpetual underdogs, but maybe when we get some concrete solutions for matchups you’ll be able to show your true colours.

And kudos FoW for being really impressive and pulling together quite a serious crowd of people for reset. It was a pleasure to actually have to concede points to you.

Only an oceanic WvW player knows the joy of sneaking SM with only 4 people because it’s the middle of the night in Europe

Only a WvW missus yanks a pan off the stove because their partner yells – “Honey! Garrison water gate, now!”

Only a WvW player lets the phone ring and says ‘oh they’ll call back’ because you just can’t leave your AC.

Only a WvW player coolly holds a conversation with a next door neighbour who has popped round, whilst surreptitiously continuing to press ‘2’ on the trebuchet.

Only a WvW player spends the lonely night hours farming pearls so that quaggans can be quickly flipped when needed.

Only a WvW player wants to punch the screen when seeing people starting to build on another blueprint before the first is finished.

… only two married WvW players go to bed of an evening and talk about how much of the map will be lost by the time we get up. “Night night, love. Hope we still have Bay in the morning.”

Thanks everyone and especially Amos for detailed descriptions of things. I feel much more informed. I guess the shorthand for traits is just a thing you improve on by knowing the actual names of them, rather than just their function, which is what I tend to focus on. I’m gonna have a mess around with this bomb kit idea and re-trait up a bit.

Perhaprs Fireheart Rise is being problematic at this stage because I’m not doing it mentored, rather coming to the top end of the zone a couple of levels below – but I know that’s no real excuse because my baby guardian regularly decimates linked mobs three levels higher than herself.

Gear I know is an issue. I have a shocking tendency to leave my gear on 10 levels outta date whilst I play catchup the respective craft to kit myself out again!

Anyhoo, once again, thankyou all. I feel much better equipped to trawl all the threads and learn all the build combintations. Those Flame Legion kittens are going DOWN!

Hi there

I’ve enjoyed my engi thus far, flirting with lots of different slot/weapon/kit combinations, favouring turrets at first then going to exilir gun and flamethrower, but with no serious build ideas beyond mucking about with it.

Now I’m going through Fireheart Rise and simply getting my butt royally kicked, all the time, unless in combo with another player. Seriously, I feel weak as a kitten when a single mob will take me until 50% health to kill and a group of linked mobs means death or run away. I’ve no idea if I kill too slowly or take damage too easily.

I’ve been reading these forums for help, but honesly I’m a little stumped because the jargon is getting in the way.

So, any kindhearted players willing to take pity on a lame duck and explain terms which are still beyond my grasp?

just an example from another post:
“So if you are HgH you could switch to the Elixirs you don’t use, Toss for the stack of might then switch back. FT you can switch to and activate IA then switch back because IA last like 45 secs.” …. Mindboggling to the unititiated!

What is a Static discharge build? A ‘CC’ build? A ‘TankCat’ build? Healbombing? HGH?

Any translations gratefully received

For my part, I remain a contented citizen of the Grove, aware of the teachings of Ventari, and yet equally able to renounce what parts of it do not resonate with my own personal Dream, which is simply great cooking. Mother Tree lets me cook in peace, and Ventari’s tablet can keep its other pontifications to itself.

I’ve travelled, met the dark courtiers of the Nightmare and heard their compelling arguments. Like all political factions, they talk the talk: say great things about freedom and rail against imagined opression, but their walk is only the lame shuffle of the bitter and twisted. Beautiful Faolin may have had good intentions, but her followers are in it for darker reasons.

For years I flirted with the idea of joining them, for I wondered if I could create some wonderful dessert to tempt them back to happiness. I even traded with them for ingredients they could bring me from their dubious connections with Orr. I don’t like the dragon, but he’s sitting on some wonderful truffles!

The real crux for me is the Nightmare shows no passion for great food. No matter how I plead I’ve never gotten one of the Courtiers to sample my decadent melting-centre chocolate omnomberry pudding. Subtle flavours and textures are not something I can see them getting excited about.

You may think I live at my stove and care nothing for the wider problems of the world, but you’d be mistaken. I know what peril faces us all, and I know my place in it. It was my Dream. An army marches on its stomach, and to take down Zhaitan, Tyria needs my culinary might. Even the sturdiest Norn will be fortified by my Moa-egg Snow Truffle Omelette in the morning before a fight. Food makes morale, and great food makes for great soldiers!

One day, when Zhaitan is vanquished, I may turn my mind back to the problem of the Nightmare Court, and see if I can introduce a cookery program or a gourmet pizza delivery service into their dark realms.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must check on my muffins.

— Oakenseed
The Cuisine Dreamer

7/10 – I like the original name, but I have a little bugbear about people giving all their alts the same names one letter different and such. Just seems to suggest you couldnt be bothered to create each toon with their own personality. Also, just a question – why on earth have all sylvari? Lovely race, but wouldn’t you want to try others? I adore having one of each!

My scantily clad Ele’s name is unfortunately simplistic, but then, the toon was made only a few days after the game came out before people decided plant names were cliché.

It’s ‘Oakenseed’.

I’m considering rolling a male sylvari warrior now… finding a powerful, macho name for a twig could be a challenge!