Guild Wars 2

I’m also stuck in a “match is about to begin” state as of 8:30PM EST (2/20/17).

Solo, unranked experienced this bug starting 8:30PM EST (2/20).

I just came back to try out new content. I played about 10 PvP games, and all (yes, all 10) were against premade teams. I’m assuming solo queue just means fodder for premade now? What happened to the solo only queue?

Completely agree! If they are going to have a trend of adding “raid” content (as in, requires coordination between a large group of people), then they need to make raid instances and also the tools to help manage however many people are required. I’ve been continually stuck in overflow servers with many AFK people who got bored of waiting on timers. These last several major events have been a complete disappointment. Perhaps Anet should reconsider how often they release updates given the poor quality of the last few.

Sadly, all I’ve seen in WvW lately is zerg vs .zerg. There is a definite lack of incentive to try any other tactic. Right now WvW will favor whoever manages to bring in more people, which really cheapens any kind of strategy. I hope the next WvW patch (hopefully this month) address this issue.

This is my biggest gripe about the game. There is a staggering amount of incorrect, misleading, and/or uninformative tooltips on just about everything (traits, skills, runes, sigils, etc.)

I find that Well of Darkness on my necro is a good counter to most thieves. If they stay inside the well, I drop a bunch of marks on the ground for them to enjoy. Other wells can work well, especially if you are built for them. Most glass cannon thieves cannot stay inside wells for too long before taking too much damage. Just be sure to give yourself a stun-break.

This trait needs to be turned off or replaced, as it is much more detrimental than helpful. Why it still exists in its current state is beyond me…

I don’t believe many people are concerned about night capping, but rather the gigantic differences in population that occur throughout a day (whether that be night, midday, or morning makes no difference). There needs to be a mechanic that either balances populations or allows lower populated realms to adequately participate. As it stands, realms that do not have 24/7 full representation will lose to those that do. WvWvW success should not be based solely on population/representation.

The bonuses from orbs give too much of a bonus to an already winning side. I’ve been on both sides of having all three and none, and the difference is quite noticeable. There have been a number of alternatives suggested that would make orbs desirable and not overly detrimental to those without. I think they are nice addition to WvWvW (similar to DAoC’s relics), but they need to be properly adjusted.

Guards need to scale based on the size of defender/attacker ratio. Someone made a very nice post about “event” scaling. If guards were scaled properly, guards would be able to provide a challenge (serve their purpose) regardless of the size of the attacking force.

WvWvW has a lot of issues at the moment. Not everything is broken, but I fully expect Anet to make plenty of changes to the mechanics that are simply not playing out well now that thousands of people are in participating in WvWvW.

I’ve seen this happen quite a bit, as well. The WvWvW system has many flaws at the moment. Having a three-minute window after capturing where the victors’ can nominate their guild for claiming might be a good idea. After the 3-minute window, the guild with the most support from its members (and has an officer of appropriate rank) claims the keep. This way it requires good representation from a guild to claim it (meaning they will hopefully honor their guild and defend it).

Sadly, yes, it’s mostly a sea of ranger pets and clones on a door (I’m surprised they are part of the hit cap as they are not technically players). Although, I can’t really blame people for not wanting to hit a door, since AoE can be placed on the other side of it to hit you (obviously an unintentional bug, but who knows if it will get fixed).

But, back to the OP’s topic, I can understand the need to make zerg tactics less rewarding and preferable (let’s be honest, it’s cheap, especially when the attacking force dramatically outnumber the number of defenders). The idea to make guards scale to the size of the attacking force is a decent suggestion, but it needs to take into the consideration the number of defenders. For example, if a keep has 50 defenders, is it fair to punish 50 attackers (which would be a zerg)? If a keep (or any base, in general) “event” scaled based on ratio of defender/attacker, then that would be interesting (of course, you are going to get a lot of hate from people who strictly rely on zerg tactics to accomplish anything). If there are < 75% defenders, I would be in support of guards starting to spawn more rapidly (or even higher tier champions if totally imbalanced). Additionally, it would be nice if guards were actually “intelligent” and gave priority to attacking siege equipment. For example, having roaming guards attack NPCs over real PCs is upsetting. Ah well, it’s an interesting idea, and would make WvWvW more interesting for me, at least.

That picture is priceless (and, that is from someone on CD). I’m sure it’s quite boring for ET, but at least they are providing some amusement.

While your comments are reasonable, there is really no way to force pre-80 players to not queue for WvWvW (even though it is obvious that under-geared and under-leveled players are a detriment). Also, CD isn’t exactly brimming with WvWvW players atm; we can typically get in bgs quite quickly if there is even a wait.

Communication is an issue that really should be addressed by Anet; better chat channels would be great (as most players aren’t going to bother with a server voice chat, or are already using voice chat with their guild – one can only have so many conversations). We have a botched commander system where the only qualification was duping guildmates to buy a tag for someone. Some commanders are helpful, but most are not (I think they just wanted the Commander Star of Awesomeness next to their name).

The supply system is subpar, and there is no way “force” players to contribute buying upgrades. The game is young, and most people are still outfitting their characters so there is some hope that money won’t be such a huge issue in the future (only time will tell).

I had a lot of fun over the weekend, it’s a shame the growing trend is great WvWvW over the weekend and patiently waiting for Friday during the weekdays.

It’s snowing, and the workers are obviously cold and taking a break.

I also seem to get a horribly low rate of badges. I’ve done many hours of WvWvW as an ele and only have about 200 badges. Although, part of this issue (maybe a big part) is that I am sure I have passed up “many” bags. Also, I have played as support ele for a good portion of my time, and I don’t believe support is rewarded for their help. I guess just being pure dps is the most rewarding at the moment.

Badges would be great, if the drop rate wasn’t low and relied on looting bags that are mostly missed because you are forced to constantly move in combat (and have a very small loot range). Also, badges are only rewarded for kills and champion mob loot. If badges were awarded for other WvWvW goals (supply/camp takeover, not just jumping puzzle (which imho is really out of place but does gives badges)), then they would be a reasonable resource.

I’m quite sure Anet is being cautious of the economy; they’ve made several posts stating how they keep a close eye on it. They do not want to foster economies that would be off-putting to new players. Imagine joining only to realize that everything on the AH was 50x more expensive (not much fun); this is what happens if inflation gets out of control. New players are very limited in the resources they acquire, and such a scenario is not fun for new players. Sure, inflation happens, but it does not mean it should not be actively countered.

Whether the pulling of supplies is intentional or not, the system is designed poorly. On CD we have people (some possibly just not bright) that will pull supplies from our keeps because they are too lazy to get it from the supply camps. Yes, eventually (hopefully) these people will understand what they are doing is wrong, but the supply system shouldn’t be designed that it is necessary to “constantly” spam, “do NOT pull supplies from X!!!” This also makes a big assumption that people are listening to zone chat, and not in some other tab or in la-la land. There are alternative to the current system, and, frankly, they make much more sense than what is currently implemented (and, as a bonus, avoids potential abuse).

The problem is that upgrades/blueprints shouldn’t be purchased with individuals’ gold, but rather an alternative currency earned only in WvWvW or an altogether alternate system. Unfortunately, WvWvW is “end-game” and is designed to pull money out of the economy to stop inflation. There is a need for alternative money sinks that are not directly tied to upgrade/blueprints but still relevant to WvWvW (I’ve made other posts about suggestions). Sadly, WvWvW suffers from a lot of problems that are linked to each other in some way, and change will likely be slow.

There are some good suggestions in other threads, although there are many different issues regarding WvWvW. I’ve given alternative solutions for the supply and upgrade issues in other threads attempting to be somewhat constructive.

One big issue is a server’s economy. Do they have a lot of “wealthy” players? If so, then they will certainly have an edge in WvWvW (siege is very costly). WvWvW should not rely on spending gold on an individual basis to bolster keeps and buying seige. Instead that burden should be shared across all participating WvWvW players. The problem is that WvWvW has a very big economic impact, and I am sure any change would be scrutinized. Right now, WvWvW is a tremendous gold sink and is designed to pull money out of the economy that is not recycled. If they don’t have a gold sink at “end game”, then gold will rapidly lose value and cause economic issues (currently lower level players only garner so much money from heart quests and drops). Alternative solutions to “requesting” gold from players could be a WvWvW tax (not optimal, but just throwing it out there), backpacks to carry additional supplies, consumables, skins/textures, buying upgrade sigil/marks that cost both gold and karma, etc. I feel bad for those dedicated few that dump 5g in a few hours and the rest of the server contributes nothing. The game is young, only time will tell where all this is headed.

We’ve already been up against a 24/7 server (Jade Quarry) who had a huge night crew, and it’s primarily why CD had a huge plummet in WvWvW population (thanks free transfers; hopefully JQ is now home to most of our former scrubs). Most servers do need a night crew, and I am sure many will be happy when we can have a match that lasts a week instead of just a weekend. It would be nice if Anet eventually implements a reasonable solution to population disparity, so that population size doesn’t simply dictate victory.

It’s obvious people are abusing the system, and it highlights one of the flaws of the current system. While I like and admire Anet, the current WvWvW setup is clunky and really should be changed to a more elegant system (one that does not foster abuse of any kind, and requires server cooperation and not individuals’ gold to keep bases upgraded).

The problem with CD is that our presence in WvWvW greatly diminishes in the morning hours, and any gain we make during typical US prime-time hours disappears in the morning. We gave it a good push in the beginning and took the lead briefly and then slipped as we inevitably lagged behind due to morning losses. Last night we made another push and got two orbs, and then lost them in the morning (no surprise). People are not interested in continually dishing out gold and karma to bolster keeps that cannot be defended by our sparsely populated morning crew (no offense to them, they tried). Many people have left to other servers that have 24/7 representation, and, yes, Anet is to blame for this trend (that shouldn’t have been allowed, and hopefully they are seeing the repercussion of that mistake). The same thing happened to us last week, and we simply cannot keep up with constant representation (and lost more people back then, as well). I honestly don’t blame the people who leave; Anet should have had the foresight to anticipate what would happen due to WvWvW population disparity. CD will continue to fall in rank until we can be matched with other servers that share the same issue.

On another note, the game is still young and more people are interested in saving their gold to equip their characters in exquisite gear; a brief upgrade to a keep is not worth the gold when your side is obviously in last place. The exploits, consumable issues, supply dumping (the general supply design is poor and has fundamental flaws), and constant need for individuals (and not the entire server) to pay for keep maintenance with gold (and not a WvWvW only currency), are only some of the problems that need to be addressed before WvWvW really takes off. For now, the winning servers will be the ones that can constantly deploy players 24/7 and are willing to pay the gold to constantly upgrade keeps and buy blueprints. I certainly wouldn’t leave CD and my guild just because we aren’t able to compete in a broken WvWvW environment; there’s always real PvP in sPvP. Hopefully Anet will address the issues plaguing WvWvW soon because it has great potential.

Sadly, whether this was intentional or not, it demonstrates the flaws of the supply design. Chat is constantly filled with people saying, “Don’t pull supplies from ‘X’!!!” Inevitably, random lazy person who do not want to go to the supply camps pull from the base and stunt the growth of the base. What’s just as bad is that your server cannot place any punishment on people who willingly do this. Not only does this put the base in a bad position, it’s a huge slap in the face to the person who spent the gold and karma to upgrade the base.

Bases should have two stockpiles of supplies. One stockpile is used exclusively by the base and is filled solely by yaks. Another supply is a reserve that individuals can dump extra supplies in and is freely accessible to all. Of course, both stockpiles would have limits, but this would address people purposefully stunting the growth of keeps (which is an ever-increasing problem). Keeps would pull from their supply stockpile the necessary materials to build upgrades.

Side note #1:
It’s my personal opinion that upgrades should not cost gold/karma, but rather are built based solely on “time” held (and, of course, ample supply from yaks). The capturing force members would have a 3-minute window (after lord defeat) to cast their vote for priority of upgrades; they captured it so they should have direct input on its progression. At the end of 3-minutes, the votes are tallied and the keep begins pulling supplies from its stockpile to begin building (ties could be resolved by coin toss). The reason I suggest this alternative is that with the current system many players feel punished for investing in keeps; there is no server-shared responsibility of covering costs. Using time as resource means that the server has a collective interest in protecting the keep to ensure all upgrades are built.

Side note #2:
Blueprints should be available for purchase by karma and environment drops (not gold). Making siege equipment purchasable by gold caters victory to the wealthiest (and likely most populated) server. Gold should not be a factor beyond repair bills (yes, there should be some negative effect associated with death to make it meaningful.)

Side note #3:
Mobs (not event associated) and harvest nodes should be meaningful if they are present in WvW. Make them drop supply (or use them for other events). Nothing says fun like waiting in line to grab supplies at a camp while 10+ people hover over the crates. At least I could do something productive in killing all the useless mobs to gain supply while I wait.

If Anet needs a gold sink, they can put in backpacks that allow players to gather 5/10/15 more resources, and expire after a set time duration or death. This would be a constant money sink (which is helpful although not required).

I have a ton of other suggestions, but I am already veering off topic. In short, there are issues that need to be addressed before WvW is really balanced out. It’s only been a month so there will be growing pains; it is understandable.

On top of the already mentioned points, many players simply refuse to invest gold since it has much more value outside of WvW. This problem becomes even more apparent once a large score deficit occurs. They should have implemented another currency that is earned and spent (only) in WvW to upgrade bases and purchase blueprints. Make it tied to the countless number of mobs that wander around the battlegrounds or other events, in addition to base takeovers. WvW players are already punished by a much greater incidence of death penalties, less loot, and mediocre experience. Asking them to pay gold (and a lot of it) to stay competitive is a bit overkill.