Guild Wars 2

Grim West.3194:

Look, the problem with WvW is that it isn’t competitive on a meta level except outside of the game. And there it is easily exploited and abused because the devs don’t have the courage to fix it.

But at this point you can almost guarantee that the ANET devs will never address the most basic flaws in their design. If they haven’t had the courage to do it by now, they never will.

I don’t think it’s about courage — but interests; they want the game to be just like it is now. I can’t describe it, my post will likely be deleted if I do – so think about it. I do.

It’s my way or the highway, really.

They talk about working with “the community”, but that is very divided, though we can guess which part of community they favor (hint: see what kind of game this became, the kind that loves doing these things)
So don’t expect anything, even more so, that they are super silent about what is their focus. Just look at past patches: the reward system (that’s fine, though not perfect), gliding (still needs borders fixed), buffed cata damage (just died recently from a single cata hit, GG, was “fun”), and so on – nothing about balance or bringing back any level of competitiveness… basically it’s a game mode where you can do your dailies or get some sort of item for a legendary. That’s it.

“I feel sorry for the people who still have hope the most.” (Sacrx, 3 years ago)
RiP.

atheria.2837:

Most duelers are toxic – they need to be removed from WvW.

In any case, I wish they’d be addressed and moved off WvW.

This is why we can’t have nice things. Judge people one by one, piece by piece. Toxicity and broad generalization are the problem, not dueling…

GvG and duels are the purest form of PvP, they should be embraced, instead of being vilified; if you want skilled players on your side…

I guess that is the problem though, WvW is seen as an exclusive place for unskilled zerging and PvD by some – and sadly they are right, most of the time.

You can run Guild Wars 2 in Diag Mode, just create a new shortcut to the exe you use, and add /diag at the end of target line (a space between)
Read here for more, search diag on that page:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments
This will create a NetworkDiag.log text in your My Documents\Guild Wars 2 folder, with tracing route data and more.

You can also watch your current ping and packet loss and more in Windows Resource and Performance Monitor, just create a shortcut to:
C:\Windows\System32\perfmon.exe /res

Also google Gw2.Launchbuddy, a program that allows to choose asset server and more, in case you need that. Not my program so the risk is yours if there is any, read first about.

Lastly the skill lag is server side, what you can see in-game on the option panel is not the real ping, but ping + estimated server delay (or something like that, a dev posted this info somewhere, google it), and no matter what you do, your PC or internet quality, there will still be massive lag, even in PvE, just switch rom map to map and see that your ping is different, depends on time zone, events, bugged maps (like the new one) and so on.

Tweak your end, could help a bit, but the part that is server side will remain as it is.

Lacuda.8543:

Duels in WvW are hardly uncommon, you see them everywhere and the guys usually harass/give incredible attitude to you if you happen to slaughter their counterparts from other servers. Then the whispers start.
Obsidian Sanctum had a revision done to it to encourage duelers to move along to more appropriate territory. The Mists has literally set up servers to have a 1v1 capability. They even gave us the ability to great arenas in our guild halls!
Yet still, see groups of players dueling in WvW being a general annoyance to everyone, and when you mistake their group for roamers they act like we’re the problem.
They claim they do it mostly for their dailies.

My solution? Simple. Create a dueling daily/set of dueling dailies that work in Obsidian Sanctum’s arena, and that area only. Put a button in the “B” tab that teleports straight there, call it “Duelists Arena” or some such thing.

Duel isn’t an “issue”. They are people that bow politely to each other and want a somewhat fair fight, likely stop hitting on downed, follow some rules of what skills aren’t allowed, eventually using a mirrored class & build (both having same or very close), and so on. I have a great respect toward these players. They don’t need safe place, go on and bother them, that speaks volumes about you; duelers can take care of themselves – or should.

No, they aren’t the problem, rather everything else in WvW it is, such as:
1. the “competitive” player versus door, where human players kill gates & walls & NPC to “win”
2. the “competitive” avoiding of each other, if our side doesn’t greatly outnumber the other side
3. the “competitive” stacking of servers, to make running over other less stacked servers, a trivial matter
4. the “competitive” ganking called “roaming” where larger numbers chase down single players
5. the “competitive” skill balance that isn’t made or at least adjusted for WvW use
6. the “competitive” whining on the forums for every pointless “issue” when WvW is… I don’t know anymore which word describes it properly.

Oh, and I’m not a dueler. I should start doing it though, since team fights are beyond dead or extremely rare, GvG is past death, and the doors rarely hit back…

Serenity.6135:

Tiawal.2351:

In sPvP isn’t balanced either – but still, it’s better; there is something, beyond the semantics of that term, “balance”. Has to be here as well, otherwise giving up is the only option left.

Because the mechanics of PvP are different. In WvW it does not matter how many people the other side has on the map, it does not stop you from playing like in PvP. The matches have a timer, teams are small, and can only have a fixed number of players.

WvW needs it’s “mechanics” as well. Whatever is called, that doesn’t matter. Just the end result matters: not having a game won, even before it started – as it is now. It’s not like failure is the norm.

In sPvP isn’t balanced either – but still, it’s better; there is something, beyond the semantics of that term, “balance”. Has to be here as well, otherwise giving up is the only option left.

Serenity.6135:

There is no such thing as population balance because people are not static constructs. Players take breaks, do not all play at the same time, for the same amount of time, leave the game etc. You cannot have actual population balance in a game mode that is based on having 24/7 matches, it is not hard to understand. In PvP it is possible of course because you have small teams in set matches with short timers. WvW is an entirely different creature. There will always be imbalance because it is the nature of this content, plain and simple.

You are missing the point here: it’s not about making it equal, but not having unsurpassable differences, and that is beyond just player numbers: it’s time zone coverage and quality of the players or groups too.

These have to be achieved by systems in place, that are simply missing: rating the value of each and everyone, keeping that rating updated, distributing it evenly. Long term realm loyalty rewards for loyal players and even higher, but short term rewards for those who volunteer in going where they are needed – just like PvP rewards, when you are asked to switch to the other team. There has to be systems in place for all these.

Otherwise is a complete failure. Why do it when the “winner” is already decided? There is no fun playing this way, beyond a certain point, and that is until finding out that “it’s nothing here, move on”. That’s why players do GvG instead, because the fight system is fun, but since the rest is not, this can’t last for long.

There has to be a better way, unless the target of this product are new players only. This could have been more fun than anything in GW2, but was anything but fun (except the somehow even fights), and was even more frustrating because of the lack of explanation; that what is this game mode? I thought this was a competitive game mode:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

But it isn’t. Again, not because all sides aren’t having the same “rating”, but because the rating difference is so huge that there is no competition at all. Can this be solved? Are the problems unsurmountable, because varied reasons? If not, let us know, so we can move on. Thank You!

Raymond Lukes.6305:

I’d like to start off by saying the WvW team works hard to keep up with forums and also reddit. Your feed back and discussion is awesome and we love reading what you guys have to say. The unfortunate reality is we cannot reply to every post and so it may seem as though we aren’t reading things.

I’ve stated in a previous thread that deleting worlds and letting players choose a new world is something we have considered in many forms. At this time we do not have a solution that we feel solves enough of the issues with population balance while also hitting enough of our requirements for a change to be made.

As I said above we love the discussions and suggestions you guys have for WvW this particular problem is tricky as you guys don’t have all the details we are working from. A lot of the ideas we’ve seen have been well thought out and detailed they fall short because you guys are working from a limited perspective and not solving the whole issue.

We can’t help then and your post is very useful clearing that up. We can stop trying to propose solutions.

What we still can do, is to communicate our piece of the puzzle, and it’s up to you to find ways to assemble it into a whole.

Here is mine: WvW in my view is a competition, that is so one-sided at the moment, that there is no more competition – so it’s pointless. There has to be a challenge in acquiring a win, otherwise it’s not fun. That challenge has to be achievable for all teams. “Taking on achievable challenges is a secret of happiness”, let’s say fun. Of course just watching the in-game landscape can be “fun” too, but this is about the fun of improving, becoming better player, improving teamwork – these all need achievable challenges, including content for newbies, advanced up to highest levels.

This is why you have tournaments on hold – which is good decision by the way – until solving “team balancing”. This is the most important problem, by far.

New system is needed, more than everything. By far the highest priority. Expansion will bring even more imbalance, solves nothing.

When one side can’t fight back: the game is over. It’s just as boring and pointless winning easily, than being wiped, with no chance to last a while. No CHALLENGE at all.

And that is what’s happening, and good fights, that can last a while, are extremely scarce. The skill balance doesn’t helping either. The whole system needs to become competitive. It is not. It’s very one-sided.

Delete, reform, change, doesn’t matter how: CHANGE is needed. But there is no answer, so what we can do? Play something else, right? Don’t be surprised if WvW loses players constantly.

Chrono.6832:

I tried the repair, I reinstalled, cleared cache also. Nothing worked.

Don’t do that. Someone else in my family logged in from my PC into her account, and her team chat works just fine in WvW, with same settings (or very close), same install and dat and so on.

It’s account related. The database of your account, the way how your account is linked to team chat server – somewhere that link is broken or incorrect. Has to be fixed somewhere on the server(s), not on your PC.

I submitted a ticket 5 days ago with more details, no answer yet, support is likely busy with expansion.

Maybe. The realms should had long time rewards attached to loyalty: all legendary items and more, special skins after every 1+ year of loyalty, flags, emblems, shining glory for guilds and many more. Balancing would have been easier that way, giving extra incentives to losing realms, making it most profitable game mode, while also most competitive. Could have been the best RvR ever…

Only if…

Malkom.5607:

Just a culture shock for me – WvW so very different to a few days ago when I knew the distances to places, shortcuts, how long to get there, and whether I might make it in time.

Think I’ll give it a few days rest, see how things settle down then go in again – try to readjust – try to figure out new tactics, try to have fun

I can sympathize with this, there are many things that were more fun before in WvW. Those times won’t return, but we will remember forever the fun moments.

I already posted that I love it, but this won’t help repeating it. Instead of focusing of emotions – though those are also very important, we have to focus on reasoning, in order to reach a consensus or compromise. I hope the devs have a summary of the substance posted here, the “whys and wherefores”, and how those can be solved – if needs to be solved.

For example:
Problem: Gliding possible into enemy objectives, in certain circumstances.
Solution(s): Remove boons from player in gliding state, move borders to better spots – or even add neutral zones in-between (no gliding zones) where needed, add high damage & unremovable long debuff to those still entering it, and so on

There are also subjective “problems”, those that conflict with what a player was used to be a norm or at least thought it is, such as:
- there were relatively “safe” zones inside the enemy territory, now they are exposed because gliding… well, that territory belongs to the enemy, or it is close to it, tread carefully
- gliding adds another new escape option, one that cannot be followed, they shouldn’t be able to glide while in fight mode… but it’s an advantage given to those owning the area, so it’s normal to have an advantage – comparable to the objective gates, where the owned can enter only, and more fair “run away” option than stealth, leaps, teleports, and similar. It’s not a glider related problem, though that adds a new way to that “running away” feature – that isn’t forbidden, and should be solved together if ever is considered to be solved (removing escape options). At least a defender now can get away, without specifically having a gank squad to stealth it.

We don’t know what the “majority” thinks, but likely most are neutral about this. Of course there were far more important issues to be solved, but that’s again not a reason to be against a feature. I like if the enemy can respond fast, to any attack we make on their objectives, because I hate taking something without winning a fight there. Gliding reduces the time I always felt as wasted, and adds a far higher percent that is filled with action, not boring walking.

Population balance, competitiveness, WvW focused skill balance and more, are still higher priority than anything – including gliding. But we can’t stop time and undo this decision: it’s way too late. It’s done. I love it, but still disappointed that those more important things aren’t addressed. Still, if we want to be heard, we should behave like intelligent beings, so our voice can be considered as one that cares about this game mode.

I had doubts, but now that gliding is in: I LOVE IT. It’s a-maaaaa-zing, to just glide down, instead of jumping and getting into “fight” mode from the slightest bug on the terrain. Running even with swiftness is just horrible, so slow it is… or it seems, when can’t wait to just get into fray, into those fights that are the only reason to log in.

There are still bugs, unforeseen pulsing stab skills that allows unintended gliding, map lines that could be a bit more semitransparent, borders moved to better place – even neutral space if needed, and so on. But even if this would be exploited (by gliding into red space), it’s still better, than getting back to the “old ways”, to that looong, slow walk, to get back into action.

Tweak it & keep it.

It’s an advantage for those owning that territory. Stealth is even worse. Leap and teleport away the same. If it’s the running away the problem, all these should be solved. The “no running away” rule must be consistent – allowed or not. Old ways or new, doesn’t matter, the same principles applies to all.

I had doubts, but now that gliding is in: I LOVE IT. It’s a-maaaaa-zing, to just glide down, instead of jumping and getting into “fight” mode from the slightest bug on the terrain. Running even with swiftness is just horrible, so slow it is… or it seems, when can’t wait to just get into fray, into those fights that are the only reason to log in.

There are still bugs, unforeseen pulsing stab skills that allows unintended gliding, map lines that could be a bit more semitransparent, borders moved to better place – even neutral space if needed, and so on. But even if this would be exploited (by gliding into red space), it’s still better, than getting back to the “old ways”, to that looong, slow walk, to get back into action.

Tweak it & keep it.

The more one plays, the better becomes, the more desires a better challenge – since the old becomes way too easy. WvW needs a higher “tier”, whatever is that, or the better players will leave – if there is any other game they can find that “next level”.

For newbies is fine. If you just spend a few months, it’s your first MMO or PvP, likely you are astounded of all these “whining” posts saying that WvW is too easy and boring. But soon you will feel the same, you will crave a fight that can test you and help you improve further. See in Chess for example, a level 1600 rank vs 1000 rank is rarely challenging for the 1600, but it’s very difficult for the 1000. It’s just an example of course. WvW needs “challenging content” for those “1600 rank and higher” who are still needed here, because those “rank 1000” need them.

This is where GvG could fit in. The new fight over territories could be a way to make this a reality – open field limited space, where only 15vs15 can enter, from either side (even if it is 3 way). Anything else as well. The “old and boring” place a ram at gate and cata, and so on can stay too. All these can complement each other. Just keep the best players busy with some RvR kind of 10 to ~20 team based PvP, that is on their level.

Limiting player numbers to half or 1/3 of what we have currently, could reduce these moments, when you have to try multiple times firing a skill, turning fights into a lottery event…

Are the players ready for 20vs20vs20 fights? or 25 each side, maybe 30? Because we have 80+ each side now, and we know what happens in a 3 way. Reworking skills and boon/condi calculations could help, but looks like they aren’t designed with large fights in mind anyway.

Let’s not fight this PvE vs. WvW nonsense, I play both PvP and PvE, just mostly only one thing in every game (either just PvE or PvP), and certainly both types have skilled players, new players and bad players (whatever is that).

WvW here has & had, amazing players, who fully earned, multiple times, the right to wear full legendary sets; because their fight mastery – real “legends” of PvP; but they never cared about such rewards. Playing well and improving is the greatest satisfaction, all is needed are good enemies and a context that allows fun fights.

The sad thing is that many players in WvW aren’t “required” to improve, they are “rewarded” for being carried by others, or just by being afk there, and even when they are working against their team. Would be nice to have the luxury to just kick them, as the PvE raid can – I mean about those who really, really don’t care at all.

WvW needed from start a system such as sPvP has, regarding gear (except the normalized amulets). This legendary armor won’t solve that need, very few will get it, and in most cases not the best players. Reward is based on grind here in GW2, as in “effort” and time wasted, or savored — but not skill, very rarely is any “skill” involved.

Straegen.2938:

CU is far too old school for my liking and still fairly buggy in the betas.

There is no CU yet, it’s just a game project in development, currently in Alpha state, close to first Beta, so can’t be put on this list – yet. About bugs in a project that is not even in beta… that’s… no comment. But it’s the only real upcoming competitor to WvW, though WvW could still have it’s own niche: converting PvE players to a fun, team based PvP. More games is better, it’s not like there can be only “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all…”

Satenia.9025:

When compared to raids, obtaining the legendary armor through both PvP and especially WvW takes literally no skill at all. Just simple time-investment.

…WvW, which is THE game-mode with the lowest skill-ceiling of them all: Hide within the zerg and auto-attack, that’s about it. And yet again, you get rewarded for losing.

That is different topic, but another huge problem; that’s why WvW became extremely boring and frustrating to those of us who don’t just “hide and auto-attack”. But don’t even compare “skill” required to PvE vs. PvP. Good players are still “miles” ahead that dumb AI and scripted events – but indeed are still far better (though repetitive and guessable) than many “humans” in WvW, just don’t be “inclusive” and think that every PvP/WvW player is like that.

I don’t know the details, but likely it’s still a huge grind and gold investment, beyond the items that can be acquired with WvW tickets. That means that it’s still out of reach for most WvW players, since the gold income is still extremely low, if one plays nothing but WvW. It’s still a “gift” only to those who do both WvW AND PvE. There it is, the “skilled” PvE farmers, they are loved in this game. Thanks for nothing! That’s what we deserve for touching a PvE focused game.

HatSimulator.9362:

Tiawal.2351:

Territories is great ideea however. This could be the start of moving away from boring “siege wars” to territory capture and holding, encouraging a split up into multiple smaller groups.

what makes you think territories will make wvw less seige wars and more competitive? I am interested to hear about it because so far my guild and i just think they are to give you the placebo effect of owning land.

This first step won’t change much, but opens a way to give points for each territory – instead for buildings, though could be for both, just territory should be worth more, OR just simply capture and hold building as well, when one owns a territory. The building could change ownership when a territory is captured.

Still would be a long way to compromise and find ways to decide which way to capture one territory or the other, by capturing the building on it – this is siege war, likely will be like this at start – vs. having a capture point on the field, that gives the building as well.

These changes will appeal to both open field and siege war lovers, a mix of these at least, but still won’t make WvW competitive in itself. For that to happen WvW needs a reason to win, a reason to improve – such as having a top tier with great rewards and great fights, and getting into that tier requires players to improve and keep being good at what they do. I wrote more about that ideea here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Competitive-tiers

WvW needs to regain it’s lost soul: COMPETITION. This extremely boring, braindead, zerg vs. empty building capture, must go now.

Main problems to be solved:

1. Population imbalance:
server linking and so on. We know that is still far from being “balanced”, and I don’t mean equal forces, but at least giving every side a “chance” to last long enough. Not to win, but at least be able to fight back.

2. Reason for improvement:
there is none at moment. One can just press buttons mindlessly for years and be carried by others. WvW want to be “inclusive” and that sounds great, but should never encourage complacency and parasitic behavior. This is the main reason why we are losing good players and it’s unacceptable: we should lose bad players, those who don’t care about learning, don’t care about their teams need — in a “team game”.

3. Meta, balanced for WvW – not made for PvE and in the best case – slightly tweaked. Though asking for skills designed around WvW would be too much, so slightly more tweaks would be still a huge step forward.

How to solve 1 & 2:

I don’t care if you came up with any other ideea, just NEEDS to be solved.

My ideea would be, based on current state – to create NEW worlds, NEW system, though just the way of picking players and “balance” these teams will be NEW, at least at start. WvW would look like this:
Tier 1 – Top Competitive Scene: Best Guilds (treat guilds as a whole, with a single rating), with non-guild “Best Players” filling empty spots
Tier 2 – Advanced Tier: those who couldn’t fit into the top, and advanced enough to not be in newbie tier
Tier 3 – Newbie Tier: you should get it…
You need a rating system, but for the start use anything. Players & Guilds can drop to lower tier, based on their performance. Or advance. Give far better rewards at top, so everyone is encouraged to improve.

Or just do anything else, but make reward effort and performance only, not parasitic “participation”.

Grant Gertz.7524:

When the August 8th update is released, WvW and PvP players who own Heart of Thorns will be able to upgrade their WvW and PvP ascended armor to have legendary attributes!

Great news, thank you!

This is a nice surprise. Not the gliding in itself, we will see if that can stay in WvW, but the fact that WvW isn’t completely abandoned. And THAT is great.

We have to be open to change, otherwise we are already dead (not the game is dead, but us). I know that Anet tried some weird things like the golem week and added those no-skill airship & dragon banners, overpowered AC damage to annoy fighters and make them leave this game, and more. We came a long way, and they mostly pushed away those who wanted a fair and competitive, skill based environment. Thus the “hate” has very strong foundation here. We still have to move on and accept those changes that could improve the game mode. Gliding is one of these, albeit further tweaking will be needed maybe.

Territories is great ideea however. This could be the start of moving away from boring “siege wars” to territory capture and holding, encouraging a split up into multiple smaller groups.

WvW became extremely boring lately because the post-HoT meta (WvW needs badly a WvW focused skill balance), pointless k-train or pip-train – instead a competitive scene with consequences. We need a reason to compete and a meta that makes it fun to do it. Even if accommodating different play styles would require a compromise.

Change is good, if it is a good change. Maybe this isn’t, or isn’t enough. Still is great that work is being done and slowly we can start to hope again that WvW will be reborn from the actual post zombie state (because it’s worse than dead, for years now)

Though not everything will be implemented, sometimes the devs can and should get some ideeas from useful feedback, about the effect that certain game mechanics have on players.
This is about how the rewards are given, more exactly the need to click with mouse, since Enter or Space or some easy key doesn’t work, and then being locked for a while into that pop-up that takes focus, and all these are happening when there are a lot of enemies around (loot and boxes are less problem when nothing is happening)

Also think about that many games we play or may have played, and how loot is handled in each. I won’t list it here, but many or most handle this better, so it’s something that definitely can be improved here (if the technical reasons vs. cost and so on allows it), without resorting to such drastic measures as refusing loot, requested in OP.

Those chests wiggling at the side, sometimes multiple of those, and the click area is bugged (you need to try multiple times and to upper side) are almost constant, very annoying. Rewards should be a joy not a nuisance.
Just place those in the inventory, skip the need for all those clicks… About bags in bags and so on… minor sigils not being markes as trash items? Click with mouse is a pain, allow use to do it with keyboard keys… and allow to open everything at once, except content in hidden bags.

Edit: For those who still don’t get it why the OP (and not just the OP) is upset: it’s not the loot, or receiving rewards is the annoyance — but the WAY is handled the giving-receiving is so bothersome that leads to hating all those rewards. Give it nicely, show that box on side and then place it automatically in the inventory (some are placed if it’s ignored, I think, haven’t tested, but sometimes I just ignore them, though the animation IS very annoying if you do that) When busy during fights (that’s most of the times), we can’t do clicky-clicky and then have middle screen covered with a pop-up…

Crafting just prevents those who don’t like it, to obtain anything from this pip-system. Too much PvE everywhere, way too much…

This turned into joking thread, understandable…

A WvW leaderboard, for both guilds and individual players would be an extremely useful tool, since server balance could be based on this (also time spent by these players & guilds, contribution into overall skirmish score, and so on, specifics could be discussed if and when Anet decides to consider implementing it, but KDR could be a start)

Beyond the “leaderboard” we also need an “alliance” system (this isn’t about battlegroups), it’s something similar to guilds, but server-wide structure: alliance chat, alliance roles (class & more), rating set to each member by leaders based on commitment and skill separately (faithful scout vs. skilled fighter), i.e. 85/40, 30/90.

One of the greatest failures of WvW system is the idea of being “inclusive”, which sounds great when it’s about accepting new players (less skilled), though even an “exclusive” system would need to welcome new blood; but the current gives no means to separate trolls and leeches, many times the map is full and queued with these, and they can’t do anything else but in the best case spam the chat with toxicity. This is what resulted from making a competitive team game mode that is inclusive towards those who aren’t team players.

WXP rating or even kill numbers are pointless, both can be farmed with no skill at all. WvW game mode never liked skilled players, it’s almost designed against them: any troll can still get on a cannon or AC and destroy a fight, and then wonder about why nobody returns…

There is no way to determine the skill level based on any stats currently in use. KDR could come closer than any other, but certainly isn’t an accurate measurement, both kill & death numbers depends just as much or even more on your team and the teams you were fighting against, as your own skill. A list to be used when balancing servers could still be useful, including one for guilds too.

The OP would be a good QoL improvement… but WvW guilds, comprised of WvW only players (yes, that’s a thing and there are many such guilds) NEED ways to upgrade their (now “abandoned” state) guild, based on WvW activity and only WvW. As it is now, one MUST do PvE and also spend a high amount of gold, something that WvW only players don’t have.

I don’t know how can this message passed on, in the most respectful ways, to those managing the fate of the WvW game mode: WvW guilds are one of the conerstones, of any kind of RvR. Since HoT expansion they are in an unsupported or unwanted state. If this was a deliberate message; that WvW only players aren’t welcome in GW2 WvW, then we got it; keep things as they are – but if wasn’t, please fix it.

Beyond what I said above, I agree that currently you have to be a very, very good player to be able to fill that sometimes vital role of giving what your team needs most at that given time; versatility means just mediocrity if isn’t timed close to perfection.
That is if playing a versatile role. Otherwise it’s just warmly recommended to stick to a heal & support role (re. staff ele in WvW group context)

I still wouldn’t advocate/lobby for a one-sided buffing of staff ele, but for a wide set of re-balancing or countermeasures “against” what HoT did: that is allowed for most classes to be both more tanky or sustain than previously, while also allowed an increased damage output – both of these simultaneously. This is a problem affecting most classes now, and should be balanced together. The game was more fun and meaningful before, when you had to give up something in order to gain an edge in the other direction.

I think it’s a buff, and a good one, could be very useful.
As for the damage in water attunement comments… that was never a DPS mode.

The only part I can agree with OP that WvW needs balanced around 20 or larger groups, though the sPvP balance (that’s around teams of 5) it’s still better than the PvE version we (still) have on many things. Balancing skills specifically for WvW mode would be most welcome (and badly needed in many cases)
But again, this is a good change.

Aurika.6751:

I am able to max out my skirmish tickets by Sunday with minimal … time commitment.

“Minimal time commitment” is 2 hours per 7 days = 14 hours, that’s not enough to reach diamond chest, idk what is the least needed even at Diamond Legend + being tag for 5+ player squad + on leading server + being outmanned = x hours, where x is more than 14 hours.
So the OP is clearly sarcasm.

It’s about tickets only, the rest of pip rewards are chests in chests with a lot of clicking worth 5gold per 50 chests… that’s laughable. The tickets are fine though, just need further tuned.

No, pointing out flaws (real or subjective) is not a problem, no need to give them what they “really want to hear”… also being civil is related to ones background, not everyone understands that being diplomatic, tactful & considerate leaves the door open for positive answers and reactions.

It’s not specific to these forums at all, the whole internet & “humanity” is mirrored here. Anet also need to read behind emotions and insults, when that is possible, because most things can be improved, including the ways feedback is given and received (or ignored).

Sladi, I don’t think Anet understands satire… but yes, the tickets per week is a bit low, ~2 weeks needed for one ascended armor/weapon, and you have to spend more than 24 hours per week (or more) to get them. I would suggest double amount of tickets than we are currently receiving with each pip chest (and not increasing the max. that is 175, because already requires playing a lot of hours to get them)

I’m running my music player in background, adjust volume for each, there’s a mixer too for Operating System level. Discord has options to adjust volume for each player or even mute. GW2 can run without music if you want yours. You can have all those 3, adjust volume so you can hear all, as you wish. Don’t follow commanders who talk in ways you don’t like, find a group that you like…

You can’t compete and win as a group, if you fight a group with good coordination, unless your group is better – then you don’t need any coordination, since you already have better “coordination”… because no amount of words can make a group play over their own level, though inspiring and motivating can do wonders. But OP situation is not such a case, and groups that need no leader or driver in order to excel are the exception.

Want to have “fun” and listen music in peace? Do that. Play alone, play your own way. But unless you can guess & follow what the group leader wants in a group you are “following”, you better listen to calls…

You mean Crystal Desert is using Teamspeak, not Discord? After Discord I couldn’t go back to TS.

Anyway, if you can’t hear the calls, you can’t follow them and you can’t know what your commander is trying to do… You aren’t playing as a team anymore, even if you want to. You can guess it sometimes, but not always. For more complex movements you will be lagging behind, and that really means being useless in many situations. I’m sorry, but it is true.

Even if you can hear the calls, but can’t react fast enough, you aren’t useful in that action. I wouldn’t be either, and I’m no newbie. It’s almost like in those western movies: you got to be quicker or you are dead. Your team can’t be if your commander has to type the command, delay on reading it, that window of opportunity gone. Now if all of you played a long time together, you all very good, you may react instantly and together, and calls aren’t even needed — but you aren’t Delta Force level yet, very likely (and even them are using signals so it’s that). Bunch of random player can’t have that coordination without a good enough commanding on voice chat and good enough player to react fast to calls. Otherwise the other team, the one having that coordination — will always win. In such a team those who are lagging behind, or not participating in that specific action (not knowing what the others are doing, and believe me, you can’t guess it, I can’t guess it, and I’m no newb), as you said “don’t matter”.

Option is fine. Disabling for everyone is not, because sometimes we need to talk with the “enemy” to arrange a GvG, something ad-hoc, and discuss details. Also during GvG to send the “gg” message or something.
Also the “Block” you mention: those who whisper in that manner deserve at least to be blocked and it’s not up to me, but they should be further punished, actions should have proper consequences. Maybe one day. One can hope.

I don’t know about “freedom of choice” and so on mentioned above, but WvW should have means to obtain the best possible gear that is usable in WvW — just by playing WvW and WvW only. No PvE at all.

We have many players logging in after months of absence (they left because HoT), and still have to tell them that “you MUST do the Living Story, only the first part of each new map, in order to enable those reward tracks that allows earning those new currencies, needed for buying ascended trinkets with the new stats”. They don’t want to spend time in PvE, and their gear is pre-HoT, and there is no way to get the best gear and run optimal builds without going into PvE and spending hours there. It’s not like you can skip all the NPC dialogue, for those players means hours and hours of unwanted content. So they leave the game again. I can understand them… I never hated PvE so much before, I even liked it, but not after doing Guild Wars 2 Living Story content. WvW requires spending a huge amount of time in PvE for getting gear and upgrade Guild – why there isn’t a WvW Guild option, for WvW players? Your fighting guilds had to recruit PvE players, spend gold or leave the game tired of all these PvE requirements that wanted their time to be spent elsewhere, and not in WvW. It’s clear that we, non-PvE people, aren’t welcome here still.

I won’t start searching now for quotes but many Anet devs, already acknowledged many times, that lag comes from the game engine limitations. Of course the extra condi & buff calculations post HoT made things even worse, though they also optimized the code many times, including a major rework about 1 year ago or so.

Based on experience, playing in huge battles, it’s 100% sure that maximum player limit in WvW should be under 120, even 90 or 60, depends on how condi & boonshare heavy is a fight, which means 20 to 40 on each side (3×40 = 120)

The current limit is about 60 to 80 per side, so a 3 way SMC fight could have 150+ easily, which leads to a total skill lag and strange things, like condis not expiring and so on.

But as you all can see, there are many complaints on WvW forums, and skill lag is rarely a top issue. The players want huge fights and Anet wants to allow as much as possible, so the “blame” is on both. I want it too, but not above the skill lag limit. There are devs who would agree with me, but it’s not up to them to decide the upper player limit. Likely there are economic reasons behind this, which is okay, and a juggling on this fragile line: allow many to play at once until the red line of skill lag happens. Total player numbers per side & map are adjusted dynamically, so in case of sever skill lag likely less players are allowed in… though it’s already too late then. Again, BOTH sides want to push the limits this far. This is not about server hardware, not your hardware or internet, though could be, but isn’t in majority of cases, so can’t be solved. And there isn’t a single MMO engine out there that can handle massive numbers without this kind of lag… at least one is in development though, had to be built from nothing.

What choice we/Anet have:
1. limit maximum player numbers per map to ~90 (30 each side)
2. keep it at ~180 (60 per side) and live with what today’s tech can offer, it’s not like skill lag is permanent

Of course boonshare & condition codes can be further optimized, but realistically one can’t expect that to be done in a short time, and would mean a complete redesign of many things, so this is the least likely to happen.

Note that there are many kind of lags, this was about server side lag related to game engine limitation, as in handling requests above the limits. You still need very good CPU, fine tuning your settings, great internet (no packet loss, decent bandwith, low ping, no problems on the route), decent GPU, and so on… but no matter if you have all that, server side skill lag won’t be solved, not even with server upgrades, but with a new game based on a proper engine.

I wouldn’t mind if siege damage would be increased, or more precisely adjusted as needed (maybe one shoot kill isn’t a good ideea either), but siege should affect ONLY siege, and not players.

I don’t care about siege wars part, it’s the worse part of GW2, together with “fighting” NPC’s. Siege and NPC’s, doors and walls, and sometimes a zerg chasing a solo player… these all made a very bad reputation to GW2 WvW. Instead we need new ways to put players on the map, so both sides have players – who WANT to fight with their swords, not spaceship meta and shooting from the top of SMC. A new matchmaking system, even if the 24/7 have to go, servers have to end, replaced by teams balanced constantly just like the PvP mode has… Let there be fun fights, not this solo shooting with a cannon into a blob that ktrains mindlessly.

Aitadis.8269:

One of those cons is no longer relevant as Anet wants players and guilds to stick to a server or you will have a drastic decrease in rewards from the new pip system.

I really don’t care about their “pip system”, just want to fight players who want and are able to fight me back, in a team of 10 to 20, or 5 to 15. That’s the ONLY part in the entire GW2 that could be and still is FUN, despite huge balance problems. This is the part – team fights – that should be the core around which WvW to be rebuilt and balanced… because this can be fun for years, never getting old, just give a background, a reason to fight forever: a realm, a ranking system, something that remembers and shows your improvement.

The new update & rewards are welcome, could bring in more new players (and they could become good players in time, there is always a start), but gives nothing competitive, it’s just capture focused again. Also server identity is gone, loyalty wasn’t rewarded ever, so no, they don’t want sticking, not yet. There is still no reason to play, beyond bags & legendary gear – no fame system, realm loyalty sytem, no reason for epic fights between teams. I love fights, but even I see it as not fun for a long time this fighting without a reason. Something is missing; the heart of the RvR system: caring for your realm and your realm remembering you for that, the inspirational part, that makes you to carry on and don’t give up. Capturing things that nobody cares of, for loot that soon isn’t needed anymore (though is good, but after you are geared is pointless) doesn’t inspire anyone to fight.

Larka.7683:

Do you think it’s worth it having them instead of them sticking with the main zerg?

Are you imagining that anyone can order players around or define how should they play or what they should do? Anet could, with game rules and so on, but not the players.

We can’t kick that troll that is there building trash siege just to waste supply, those who troll in chat for years and reporting them leads to a temporary ban in the best case, or all those other players that are hurting the team more than if they weren’t there. We can’t kick hackers and cheaters… and we are then called names because these lovely teammates. If one does this, the whole server does that – at least that’s the mindset of those accusing blindly, without thinking. Ever you heard that server X does that and that, and they should wake up and make their players do that something else?!!

Nobody can tell a server what to do, the most that can be done is pleading and begging and imploring: please get on discord, please run useful builds for team fights, please do that and please don’t do that. What a mess, right? Yes, it is.

Don’t ever accuse or blame or even use a way of talking about a server, the whole server or any kind of majority or minority like an entity: because it’s not. Guilds are, because their members agree to adhere to some common objectives, but only regarding those.

Would be a dream, having alliances between guilds and players that are aspiring to work together. WvW should be Alliance vs. Alliance, where anyone who is actively working against the alliance or not contributing – are removed by the Alliance. But no, WvW has to be “inclusive” – and it is… now try to compete while your “own” members are playing against your team, willingly or not knowingly and so on… Try to be a member who deeply cares about own team: welcome to hell poor soul; you can even cry and bleed, but no matter how much you will suffer, you won’t be able to change those who don’t care or are against team play. And then you will have to read things like these: insert your server name, is doing this and this, and is like this and that (bad things), and they should do x and … You will be heartbroken, like many of my friends who cared and played WvW before me…

This ideea of “let’s have an inclusive” team vs. team game mode, without caring of solving the problem of trolls or the non team player mentality players domino effect on the entire game mode is just… not smart (to say it politely).

All I care is having good fights, that is open field with no siege involved and where both sides can last a while, doesn’t matter which side wins. But the score is based on capturing objectives mostly, and I can’t stand that boring build siege, stay there doing nothing until wall/gate/etc goes down, then kill those NPC, though it’s fun if there are even numbers and both sides are fighting — without siege, or at least just very few siege…
That’s how many or most?! players feel, so the “score” means nothing – because the FUN is in good fights, the boredom is in capture & siege play.

It’s absolutely pointless looking at (mostly) PPT based score anymore. That part of the game died long time ago, when realm identity was dissolved with transfers, and later annihilated with megaserver… not even talking about the linking farce that is going on lately – there is no — insert server name here — anymore. RIP.

Chinchilla.1785:

I. You can’t really make consistent content for a divided community unless you’re willing to sacrifice one half tbh.

II. Unless you make WvWvW into just…WvW.

I. Yes there are many type of players in WvW, but Anet should know that, and focus on what keeps WvW alive and fun: and that is — competition, both fights and PPT together. The new players evolve in time, from simple things towards those parts which require a lot of knowledge and skillful execution (though this skill ceiling should be made even higher, instead of lowering it with gear and passives), so there always remains something to aim for: becoming better.

A. Fighters (those looking for competitive challenge)
a1. Duelers
a2. Party size, up to 5
a3. Small scale 10
a4. Medium scale 10-20
a5. Large scale, 20-40
a6. Lag inducing Blob Zerglings, above 40 (if 3 sides met and each have ~40, massive lag may occur, depends on the number of necros and the builds used and so on, GW2 servers can’t handle more than a 20vs20 fight without server side skill lag)

B. Gankers (those who want to be certain that their enemy can’t win against them, can’t even hit back)
b1. Solo gankers (burst builds with high mobility or stealth or similar)
b2. Small group gankers, up to 10
b3. Medium towards large, 10 to 40 (this happens on at least one certain server, when too many of them switches to their gank character and they effectively can wipe larger badly organized groups)

C. PPT-ers (those who are concerned with the score, the capture of objectives, siege building and maintenance and use, defending of at least upgraded structures)
c1. Defensive personnel: defensive scouts (stationary or mobile), “siege refresher” (is that a term?), repairer, siege builder and user, and so on
c2. “Havoc”: tiny, even solo, or small groups, towards medium, focused on capturing (avoiding fights mostly)
c3. Karma trainers or PvD players (player vs. door), usually zergs which desperately always “needs more numbers on tag/pin” even when they hit 50 sized squad, because the larger their group, the faster they can capture. Many of these usually don’t care about defending at all, but still contribute to PPT enormously.

D. Achievement hunters or legendary weapon makers or just gatherer or anything that is there just for that, and after that they are gone. Definitely not looking for fights or care about PPT or anything.

E. Trolls, spies, drunk and other internet dwellers, and all that, many times reported, but still allowed to play the game after 4-5 years of doing it, intoxicating the chat with their antisocial activity

F. There could be more, but most players aren’t clearly type A or B or C, but a mixture of those 3. Sometimes because there is nothing else to do, or doing C leads to A, but most have a clear preference towards doing one type of gameplay over the other.

II. About 3 realms or just 2, as in WvWvW or WvW: you are right, the Thri Realm system is harder to balance IF there are no reasons for the two weaker sides to focus on the leader — and in GW2 WvW rarely are, so WvWvW is a balancing failure. There should be. Also considering that their servers can’t handle 60vs60vs60, the approximate size they allow to met (in SMC for example), having just WvW instead would reduce the server load. The WvWvW system is great, but needs an engine that can handle it, and game design to avoid constant lopsided matches, were the WEAKER is focused, instead of the strongest.

• * *
  WvW could use “new content”, now toys and shinies, but I’m afraid Anet doesn’t have devs for that. If the WvW dev team is very small (some say we don’t even have any WvW dev team), then they should focus on making the matchups alive, not empty and already over a few hours after reset. Because that makes WvW “empty” for the rest of the week, at least for some of those categories above ^ and that is: having competitive matchups, lasting a whole week. We need skills balanced to WvW fights, we need gear, all stats that are used in WvW, that can be acquired easily by new WvW players – inside the WvW game mode. We need… many many things. Adding new content such as airship and portable cannons and so on — NO, just stop, at least until everything else is fine.

If you can play during NA evenings (on NA servers), then maybe there will be some activity, if you are lucky. Most activity happens during reset and weekend days. In the rest, finding something that fights back, it’s getting increasingly rare. Unless you like PvDooring, because that kind of “activity” is still alive.

Good luck on your search! I also wish to be on an active server that fights another active server. Please tell us if you can find any tier with “an epic PvP experience full of cunning strategy, earthshaking sieges, and pitched battles between hundreds of players”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

There are still a few good players left, who love the fights in this game. It’s a huge struggle though, because fights are really, really scarce.

The big problem is that none of current GW2 game modes are focusing on fighting: PvP is about capture and hold, just as much as kill, or even more; and WvW is… I really don’t know anymore: “an epic PvP experience full of cunning strategy, earthshaking sieges, and pitched battles between hundreds of players” quoted from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

But current NA T1 reality is that over 90% of the time, it’s just PvDoor (as in player versus NPC “defended” structures) or somebody on siege (which adds zero fun anyway). The rest of 9% one side blobbing down the other. With no chance to fight back at all.

Just too much PvDoor and nothing else. Actually the new PvE maps are more challenging and more rewarding…

You really should do something, anything, with how you handle matchups. Or just let us, those who want to fight, have a way to GvG any guild willing to, regardless on which server they are on. Something like this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/QoL-Request-Mega-Server-Obsidian-Sanctum

It’s time to place balancing numbers over server identity. Use the same system as in PvP, encourage switching side during matchup, to balance every timezone/skirmish. Reward individually, based on accumulated contribution.

SixVoltCar.5248:

“make it insanely hard to cap”
They tried that, it was called the desert borderlands, and we all hate it. Learn to defend your points or learn to backcap, the game mode is about coverage not gvgvgvgvgvgvgvgvgvg ex dee.

It is hard to cap anything at desert bordeland? It’s the same as everywhere. Now if the circle would stay up (the one after the lord or NPC’s are gone) for 10minutes… that would be different. Still very boring if nobody will come to defend. Even more boring. Capping is just boring… Has to be a conflict there, a reason to want to cap it and defend it: rewards, realm ranking, and more. This boring dead cap and move to next is more boring than PvE, reasons are needed to do it… given by the game.

Btw it is explained anywhere in wiki or anything, why to do it? For “fun”? For a PPT that is manually fixed and leads to nowhere? For… really, why to cap? Why to defend? Realm pride was removed, realm rewards never existed, the loot always was just junk compared to far easier PvE content… I did it for those rare fights that sometimes happened, but those are scarce now, though still fun.

Give us reasons to “cap” those things. To care about all those objectives. Something. Anything. We are worse than the GvG’s you didn’t like at south camp: they at least enjoyed fighting each other.

If you ever would waste time trying to fix this map, these things I would need:

1. in map view (after pressing M, that’s the default key), I NEED to see lines with arrows on them indicating the direction you can go, at least the major & shortest routes to each objective. If you would ever draw such a mao, you would see what a huge maze and mess it is… but at least I would have an ideea which way to go

2. remove fall damage completely on that map, or allow gliders, or reduce height to similar the alpine map has, with similar elevation smoothing

3. increase move speed 3x times or reduce the map size 3 times (consider the maze pointed out at #1 above, that adds to travel distances)

4. remove all those buffs and annoyances given by shrines and similar, turn them into bloodlust points

5. add more shortcuts to to travel through keeps, place those shortcuts right next to gates… but the keeps still need a complete redesign, height is way to much, see point #2 above

6. remove all those decorations on ground that make teleport evade skills fail or even targeting fail with “no valid path to target”

7. that golem keep lord should stop blocking our own team when defending… really

I likely forgot a few other things, thanks for reading, and don’t worry, I will stay away from desert borderland for now.

“Make it insanely hard to cap” — now this is a really GREAT ideea!

You know, when the capping “circle is up”, how much that lasts? 5 seconds or so? Make it 3 minutes overall (any number, subject to be tweaked until an ideal value is found), but longer if that it is a T3 keep, and keep it as it is, if it’s a sentry for example. Adjust based on the objective value (camp, tower, aso), upgrade level, and most importantly: based on the distance from spawn (give more time on desert bl, test it how much is needed). Also add a 30s loading time that your game needs when porting from another map (this value varies)

This way the defenders will always have time to run there and try to defend. The attackers can still split and attack multiple objectives at once, forcing blobs to form multiple smaller groups, or they will lose multiple objectives while gaining one.

This will help reducing lag too. Will bring in action, since you will have time to fight at each objective that is under attack. No more “karma train”, ever, unless there are no defenders at all… in which case is the same situation like it is now, so won’t be worse.

You could even remove gates and allow constant enemy access into every objective. WvW won’t feel as dead as it is now. Objectives would require defending or at least watching over… but for a start just keep gates, one change at a time.

Increasing capping timers shouldn’t be something you have to work for ages in secret. Instead work on new metrics, to achieve server balancing based on merits and contribution and K/D rating and more, and not on overall sheer numbers.