Guild Wars 2

- Intro

WvW is often an information battle that can be rather opaque for some servers, guilds, or just weekend warriors. This thread is an idea thread meant to bring reduce the impact of WvW’s biggest barrier to entry which is a distinct lack of information.

The question on most players mind when entering a WvW map is: “Where is everyone? Where should I be? How can I be effective?” All these questions can be answered with information!

- The Status Quo

Currently in WvW we have a mini map with Commander Icons, and if you’re close to other players, green dots on a mini map. This is hardly graceful and players in the south of a map will have to ask in /team, /map or /guild for information. The same applies to a mumble server: “Where is everyone?”

- Why the Status Quo Might be Important

Organization should be rewarded, but I firmly believe that everyone well have more fun if more organizational tools are available to all players of GW2 via in the in-game client. My idea could be seen as “rewarding casuals” or some other line of thought, but for the serious business guilds and groups on Mumble etc, this will only amplify your presence on the battlefield, so read on!

- Pigeon Power! Wait, what?

My idea is based around a Personnel Tier 2 upgrade that can be built at Towers, Keeps and Castles. The upgrade would be a called something like a Carrier Pigeon Roost (or some cuter animal) that offers everyone on their current WvW map some information. Namely, how many friendly bodies are in a given Tower, Keep or Castle’s immediate vicinity. This upgrade could EASILY be rolled into an existing T2 Personnel upgrade.

It is important to note that numbers are represented as “1+, 5+, 10+, 15+” etc. This way exact counts have to be done by hand. Please refer to the attached graphic.

- I Hate Pigeons and Want Them to Die

Carrier Pigeon Roosts would be exposed and able to be laid to siege in much the same manner as Burning Oil is currently. The Roost would have roughly the same highpoints as Burning Oil. Invaders could siege the Roost and deny defenders their precious airborne information if the Roost is fully destroyed, but hopefully not before more defenders arrive to protect their precious birds! Destroyed Roosts would regenerate in the same manner that destroyed cannons and oil do. Aka, you will need to rebuild with supply!

- Keeps are Better Than Towers If You’re a Bird

But it is no paradise! Keeps offer the Roost protection from invaders but not from expert trebuchet fire, or if Invaders have breached the outer walls!

- Wait, These Pigeons Will Make Turtles Out of Us All!

The Roost upgrade does give more power to defensive play, and that can be a bad thing, however, in order to counter-balance this possible upgrade (that can be removed) commanders would be able to represent a rough number of fellow combatants in their local area of influence in a modest 2,000 radius. If there was a need for a limit a suggested three commanders at a single time could use this buff. First come first served.

- Time, Time is on the Defenders Side and the Sticky Spy Issue

Now having real-time head counts will not work. It would be confusing, hard on the server and prone sabotage from WvW server hopping spies! In order to counteract this effect the pigeons would only be able to fly so fast. All number counts would be updated every minute give or take ten seconds. This would apply to Towers etc as well as the Commander with the numbers count active. This gives a not so realtime understanding of the battlefield. If information is critical (or critical that it be hidden) then players, /team and Mumble will always be the best way to up to date information!

- Your Graphics are Ugly, and I Hate You

This is a mock up idea that I would appreciate your positive feedback or constructive criticisms on. The attached picture is only to aid in understanding and is rather rough.

- Too Long!

A Personnel Upgrade that allows semi real-time information on the map screen about defensive player head-counts around Towers, Keeps and Castles. Commanders could have an “offensive” not so real-time headcount in order to counteract this defensive advantage.

If you have any questions please ask, I will be happy to clarify my thinking. If this thread needs to be moved to Suggestions, I will understand but I wanted the WvW community to see it and a lot of WvW types read WvW religiously.

Thanks for reading!

Mock up image hosted externally: http://i.imgur.com/jOhqo.jpg

Obscure One.4357:

Relax, he’s not making it any worse. What’re they gonna do? Ignore us harder?

Ahaha..

Sad tears.

mistsim.2748:

it’s not a troll. im not at all noticing any huge imbalances due to bloodlust. in fact, you CANT notice any difference as it’s basically microscopic. im in JQ (third place atm) and we usually have 1 orb anyways.

Of all the North American servers Tier 1 is the only competitive tier with any consistancy. This has happened because of a departure from other NA servers in terms of population and coverage. This led to a wide points gap between even T1 and T2. All NA T1 servers have 24/7 coverage.

On non NA T1 servers the buff is prone to further snowballing the effects of off-hours PvDing from the dominant server with more coverage than their competition. They will be more likely to control the orbs and help further push the dominant server’s off hours coverage advantage.

Phantom.8130:

that would be all well and good, except…… there’s one key problem with all of it. the money people spend in the BLTC doesn’t go to Arenanet it goes to NCSoft. who then use that money to fund their other MMOs, including wildstar. so when you put in your credit card numbers, and think you’re helping to support Anet, you’re not. you’re helping to support wildstar. and, THAT, ladies and gentlemen is the reason for all of the focus being on 2 week living story stuff instead of the entire rest of the game. what they’ve been doing is setting up spring break and mardi gras, then filling the BLTC with souvenirs, and then try to lure as many tourists in as possible. those of us who have been playing the game since launch are the locals, and aren’t the target customer base for the giant tourist trap that GW2 has become. so they couldn’t care less about us. they only care about the money they can get out of the tourist they bring in with their constant stream of party events and worthless souvenirs, which are then used to fund the next big project.

+1’ing this hard.

There are actually two modes of WvW.

Regular WvW

and

QvQ

I submitted a bug report dealing with a new item that was introduced recently that if combined with a rare set of circumstances WILL crash an entire wvw map for 5-15 minutes.

I reproduced this bug 3 times this evening. I am sorry to anyone who was caught in the mess it caused.

Anet, please pull up my account and check my bug report. I dont want to go into specifics on this forum.

Yeah I would be happy if it autofired 10 times then needed to be pressed again even. Just something to remove the pain of holding down 2.

I barely can chat while trebbing because my WPM is so bad. :\

Asudementio.8526:

I am under the impression that those in your camp cannot be satisfied. You want something unattainable or something already past. Sure you’ll say you only what x,y, and z, but if you are ever given them suddenly the terms change. A lot of people in this anti-Devon crowd are in the business of complaining.

The most fundamental thing I want is a real commander system. I don’t know about the rest of the people in “my camp” but I am sure most of them have a long standing issue or two that they would have liked to see addressed months ago.

Some possible issues that come to mind!

(in no real order)

1) Commander System
2) Party UI
3) Updated Maps?
4) The majority of exploiters going unpunished
5) Too much focus on siege
6) Skill lag
7) WxP soulbound
8) Lack of WvW specific rewards
9) Population disparity leading to lopsided matches
10) Zerging causing one dimensional fights

Pick one? I don’t know, if you look at it there is a whole lot there for people to be upset about. Again, my number one problem is the commander system. I am sure other people have their own “number one” problems.

Fix like 3 of those 10 things and I have a feeling the vast majority of angry people here would change into “Well, they are working on it at least…” If that seems to be unattainable, or somehow relegated to ~the past~ I don’t know what to say. I certainly wouldn’t be as involved if I felt that way. But for better or worse, I feel that WvW as a mode can change.

WxP is too tied to vertical progression so it isn’t a huge success with the PvP/WvW crowd. And that is all we’ve really seen from Devon’s involvement beyond lip service. “Soon” only works so many times.

They now have EQN and ESO to worry about. Twelve months from now their player-base is going to be 1/2 if not 1/4th of what it is currently if they do nothing.

Three things that could majorly save WvW’s behind:

1) New Commander Tag options (will reduce zergs if properly done.)
2) New maps or a heavy overhaul of existing maps.
3) On-site GMs that can observe exploitative player behavior any time of day and act accordingly.

Instead we get a “mastery”. Next week its going to be Golem Mastery with +25% Bonus Damage as the 5th trait. (Sarcasm.)

WvW is player driven, but if your players are fed up (and we are) then they will leave and all that free player driven “content” will go with them (and it is).

Shame on you Anet. Or rather Shame on you NCSoft/Nexon/Anet.

I would murder your most precious pet if this ever happened. I would blame YOU.

The sole reason I do not play sPvP is because of how its gear system works. No I don’t want to unlock how I look again, thanks, I’ve already spent over $50 on transmutation stones alone.

Anet doesn’t appear to care about WvW or the people that play it.

EFWinters.5421:

But precursors drop from rank chests!

Said no one.

Also give us the ability to kick people who are offline from world v world. We have been asking for this for a year.

Same with commander tag stuff.

bradderzh.2378:

Around lvl 5-7 on a number of alts (yeah I ain’t gonna stop playing them all just because Anet wants me to)
It’s a broken system anyway. Just got to rename karma farm to Wxp farm and we are good to go.

Anet missed an incredible opportunity to reward the guys who defend those camps, buff those yaks, build oil, and all those little things that make those wooden structured turn into actual fortifications.

A million times this…. THIS!

Building up a broken cannon/oil should = WxP. Repairing a gate is currently the only outright “defensive” thing that currently rewards WxP if a tower/keep/castle is defended or lost.

Someone awesome (Hydro <3) suggested that there be WxP based yak escort upgrades that people could build on yaks such as a potent flamethrower. Give people that want to escort yaks and sit in towers on sentry a reward or small advantage like the current system rewards zerging!

level 80 – Coral = Level 9
level 60 – Urrid = Level 6

This is playing a lot in T2.

Sieg.8439:

We do have some great commanders on TC, I think the numbers do play a large factor though. TC is in a unique position in that we have a dual community; strong WvW support as well as a large mass of RPers. I know RPers may not necessarily be top quality WvWers …

Many RPers are the types that can stay behind and sentry (we still do this right?) because they are talking to people while they keep watch. This is a quality most “pro” WvW’ers lack so I wouldn’t ever say that RP’ers are a “mass of bodies” to throw on the problem. A lot more RP people WvW than you think.

And yes, TC does have some great commanders. Sometimes they tag up and give other maps hell. Sometimes they don’t.

With so many new faces and the changing meta from our most recent encounter with
SoR there is plenty of learning to be done on for old and new players on TC alike.

The old manner in which TC played has evolved (devolved?) and it is very interesting coming to grips with it. As far as the match RNG, welp.

SoS you’re unhappy but you’re out there every day making the match possible. Mags too gets to swag from time to time.

Have a smug salad and good fights everyone.

souless.1935:

I think no one can point to a comment where Devon or ANY member of AN team has been disrespectful.

DevonCarver.5370:

There are some big things we will be talking about in the next few weeks that should hopefully help you to understand what we’ve been working on. If that doesn’t satisfy you, well… “I’ve got a ball, perhaps you would like to bounce it.”

Now, context means everything. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701162/quotes

This is from the American cartoon The Simpsons. In this episode Lisa meets a new pretty girl that is in all respects her intellectual superior. Lisa, for much of the episode is portrayed as someone playing catch up to retain her status at Springfield Elementary. In the following scene Lisa meets Alison’s father.

Professor Taylor: Hi Lisa. I’m Alison’s father, Professor Taylor. I’ve heard great things about you.

Lisa: Oh really? I…

Professor Taylor: Oh, don’t be modest. I’m glad we have someone who can join us in our anagram game.

Alison Taylor: We take proper names and rearrange the letters to form a description of that person.

Professor Taylor: Like, er… oh, I don’t know, uh… Alec Guinness.

Alison Taylor: [thinking] Genuine class.

Professor Taylor: Ho ho, very good. Alright Lisa, um… Jeremy Irons.

Lisa: [looks worried] Jeremy’s… iron.

Professor Taylor: Mm hmm, well, that’s… very good… for a first try. You know what? I have a ball. Perhaps you’d like to bounce it?

In the above quote Professor Taylor is being dismissive of Lisa, her intelligence, and her desire to be seen as an equal. How can I not make a comparison?

Going back to the quote Devon recently made:

There are some big things we will be talking about in the next few weeks that should hopefully help you to understand what we’ve been working on. If that doesn’t satisfy you, well… “I’ve got a ball, perhaps you would like to bounce it.”

Devon is assuming in some part, the role of “Professor Taylor”. He states that changes are coming to WvW and that if we (the WvW community) are not satisfied, that he feels that he can be dismissive of any outstanding complaints. [Professor Taylor giving Lisa the ball].

I suppose this is reaching though. After all, it requires context.

Reading comprehension is a precious commodity.

Ragnar.4257:

These are the new maps guys!

They may look like the old ones, but they’re brighter!

haha +1

These colors make my eyes bleed.

ShadowMaster.5708:

I am sure this was to help colour blind people.. if you were colour blind i am sure you would be happy. Live with it guys

That was the only thing I could think of.

They could have given each team a unique shape ( Circle, Square, Triangle ) and kept the old colors AND made the map more readable at a glance but…. NOPE.

We now have Eyestrain Red, Retina Ripper Green and Deadly Blue.

Way to make NPCs totally overshadow players. Anet, get your kitten together.

Bowulf.9726:

Something I feel like a lot of people forget… We don’t PAY anything for GW2… Unless you want to. How much content has been put out there at no extra cost to any player that gets to enjoy it? All of it.

I’ve invested $500+ into GW2 along with an unhealthy 2,500+ hours (most of it in WvW). Some of us are very attached to the game we only want to see improve. Specifically the WvW people need more than we’ve been getting. A new mastery every two to four weeks doesn’t cut it. We need quality of life changes, and better tools to play the game on a day to day basis, not a longer WxP grind that facilitates zerging or tower trading.

Midnattsol.4503:

If you get off your high horse and actually suggest, or give positive feedback? Perhaps they’ll be more inclined to tell you what’s going on.

Nope. I have been posting positive feedback / suggestions since the game came out and it has not once been addressed until I had a fit which allowed other people to echo similar frustrations. THEN, Devon actually answered some questions addressing why long standing issues affecting the player-base have not been addressed in a timely manner and will continue to be issues for some time in the future.

I’ve been bumping two versions of “a better commander system” for months now. No feedback. No pop in from Devon “Hey, nice ideas, but implementing this is more complex than it first appears.” Nadda!

Get people to express their frustrations and bam, more answers than we’ve had from a wvw developer in months. Odd?

I wish it wasn’t this way, I prefer a polite exchange of ideas, but this took enough squeaky wheels to get some grease.

And no I don’t hate Devon. I hate Devon’s bosses. Devon’s the poor guy who actually has to work and produce, his middle manager bosses squeeze him for hours and funding. Whee~ what fun.

Oh I hate the new culling, and the population imbalances all that nasty zerging that comes with it!

Can’t we dress in bright red, stand in a line and fire charr-bore muskets at one another until we find a noble winner? It would be a little like a duel, but on a grand scale!

I would call it, War.

TC is on the verge of giving up it seems. (shrugs) have fun in T1 SoR.

And its terrible. This happened as a result of the 2/26 patch. Please look into it and fix.

Conversation and the exchange of ideas is action.

Thank you for not going through with one of the worst ideas you’ve come up with yet. We’ve been saved.

If you want to have a gold sink, put it where there is gold. PVE. WvWers are a broke lot.

Efface.8460:

Until anet figures out that WvW truely is the bread and butter of this game, it will continue to die

Another game tried the whole “our story is awesome” approach….not too long ago

Too much competition in this industry to make such critical errors in resource management

Makes me wonder if their entire business strategy wasn’t to just cash out on the 6 month window of fame to begin with

It is. Nexon is the largest shareholder of NCsoft stock.

http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2012/06/08/NY21443

Also GW2 was responsible for 20%-40% of NCsofts earnings. [Source below] The same earnings being used to fund Wildstar development and other projects in the the pipeline. The majority of your gem store purchases do not help Anet, they fund future project which will receive the same “smash and grab” treatment GW2 has received. Why? Because like it or not Nexon is at the helm.

The manifesto didn’t lie. Anet was literally sold out and they had to change their goals for GW2 post launch (ascended gear, time gated grinds etc).

Don’t believe me? Check out the earnings report: http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/earnings.aspx

Basically, I feel real bad for Anet, but not bad enough to stop complaining, and complaining loudly.

also lol at this jumping puzzle name. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Under_New_Management

Ahmrill.7512:

Only a WvW player still keeps posting suggestions about revamping the Commander and squad system…. and actually thinks they might do it soon.

Only a WvW player feels the sting in this.

Only a WvWer knows that one simple change like this would add a whole new lease on life for WvW.

Actually TC – FA Forum Relations have never been better.

It is so ~refreshing~

We’ve been asking for a real commander and squad system for more than a year. Many other issues you see people complaining about have also been around for months.

It took them three months to fix an exploit that allowed one team to simply walk into the borderlands Hills keep.

People are fed up. We tried the honey, its time for tar.

Gadzooks.4687:

The sad thing, Anet is sitting on a goldmine. WvW’s foundation is perfect, its just lacking pretty much everything that could be built upon it. I think the thing that upsets me the most is seeing what WvW could be, but isnt, and likely will never be. All because the people with the money seem to think they know what gamers want, better than the gamers themselves.

Seriously. +1.

Lots of crying here…

The reason people are zerging more is because of WXP and the end of culling. While I’m sure we will see more zerging, the meta wvw will change again and then the collective wvw community can move to crying about the new meta that a post culling world allows.

Nice saves on TC BLs Bay PRO. If you had been 30 seconds slower on many occasions then some of these people would really be crying. Can’t wait for more good fights and zerging like the ravenous undead later this week!

Long live the zombie coast!

This picture captures the match perfectly.

lets all just calm down its not like Anet has done anything wrong this week. Sometimes mistakes can be made and…

what?

I would say join TC but good kitten-ing luck ever joining this server. FA is a good server.

I bet you 800 gems that the developer that coded the commander and squad system has left Anet and didn’t bother to properly comment their code so now Anet has no clue how to “fix” the commander system.

Just like the eve billboards…

This is going to be so awkward when were back in a week. The rating system is, odd. Then again CD or FA might get somehow bumped down by IoJ and then bounced back up from T4 in two weeks time.

At least everyone is getting a nice change.

NARF! I say NARF!

FA >—-slapfight—-< TC annnnnnnd KN over here just bored.

Then again I am on TC and I am bored. Please post something fun! I am stuck here another hour…

There is no shame in a Shame Ram. <3

Important feature missing since beta.

Randomized match ups have effectively killed many hardcore player’s interest in WvW. I don’t know how this is a “good thing.”

More and more casual and hardcore players are fleeing to the top NA servers (zergs and lag woo!) and again, I don’t see how this is a good thing.

Anet, you should want to generate interest for your game, not actively destroy it through inaction.

This thread is a call to action. Which, unsurprisingly, you’ve taken for baseless moaning. While ESO is most likely going to be a joke of a game, don’t be shocked when plenty of players leave and don’t come back.

I will still be here, wishing you guys had someone able to grow your WvW communities, not actively destroy them.

Wow… Someone taking time on their day off to actually answer community concerns? I love this guy!

I posted about this a week ago. Here is a nice pic of a (dead) bot ball.

Urrid.4593:

Well, when we finally broke Blackgate’s iron grip on their borderlands our little party came across a “ball” of krait-farmers-bots in roughly the same spot. It was odd because they all had different guild tags.

Arena net can’t even ban regular bots so I didn’t bother reporting them. Most of them reset moments after they died.

Those orb bonuses must really help these bots! Also the price of krait droppings has devalued drastically. (Click 1-month range http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24289 ) Now farming the lake and protecting pearls have even less incentive! Way to go!!!

Score Update!!!

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

A good mechanic but terrible and unclear patch notes. Thanks for the clarification.

mikal.9502:

Very impressive by TC and FA right now. SOS has 5 people in EB so what do TC and FA do? They each attack SOS and take towers that are undefended rather then fight each other. So much for how these mighty titans like a good fair fight. They avoid each other like the plague beating up on a severly undermanned server. Welcome to the new WVW ghosttown.

Trust me, you do not want to QQ about a “2v1”.

Crying in a matchup thread only brings more pain. Because tears are delicious.

Chris.3290:

For us on SoS, the proof is in the pudding. We have not had queues like this since February, and it shows in the score and the fights.
For every SoS person whining, we have two more people coming out of the woodwork to put up a great fight.

This is how you do it. Also +1

Mayoken.9851:

Dragonbrand warriors if you are reading this.
KEEP PUSHING HARD!!

Yes yes, keep pushing hard. TC will be there, on the weekdays, waiting for your tired little legs to be put up in rest and then and then!

MUAHAHHAHA!!! AHHHH HAHAHAHAH!

~cough~ so how are things?

:D