Guild Wars 2

There’s another one I’m waiting on called Blessed Online that allows customized skill system similar to the 8 skill bar system in GW1, holy trinity (healer, dps, nuker possible), you can set what skills to activate when you press 1 – 9 with specialization branches after you reach a certain level (for example Cleric -> Priest, or Cleric -> Paladin tank, still in beta, they’re revamping their skill system even more for NA release in 2017, check it out:

Custom skill system setup: https://youtu.be/UnzmzoDWF6I?t=8s
Realm vs Realm (custom build ranger): https://youtu.be/1_XaNSXpzSE?t=43s

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Guardian Elite Specilization: “MONK”

*Grants single target healing skills to selected allies in the heat of battle
*Gain new utility healing skills that require a target to be selected before being cast
*New utility single target healing skills now require energy

New Utility Skills:

1. Word of Healing: Heals target for 5…81…100. Heals for 30…98…115 more if target ally is below 50% Health.

2. Watchful Healing: (10 seconds.) Target ally gains +100…300…400 Health regeneration and gains 30…102…120 additional Health if boon is removed early.

3. Healing Ring: Heals adjacent allies for 30…150…180. The caster is not healed.

4. Infuse Health: Heals for 10…29…36% of half your current Health. Lose half your current Health. Cannot self-target.

Possible traits:
- 100% of power and 100% of precision are converted to healing power
- Gain 50% of healing power based on toughness
- When you remove a condition on yourself, remove it on allies in party as well
- etc.

Keeping it brief, the intention of this post is to generate constructive feedback and discussion with regards to the commander/party/squad UI systems while keeping coding minimal, as guildies and new players transition from PvE into WvW especially, I’ve noticed challenges in keeping teams focused/intact or guiding them since PvE has a very different play style than WvW:

1. When players enter a WvW map and no commander tags are up, they get confused and scattered and stand in the spawn or keep, is there any way to improve the “party UI” or add a tooltip so players can join existing that are active when they enter WvW? The reasoning being that when no tags are present, small parties does not seem to form easily, if party finding is not hidden under friends list, it’d help with forming teams between strangers. (1st screenshot attached below)

2. In a guild raid in WvW (10-man) or while roaming with a 5-man party of random strangers, can the squad “Markers” be somehow enabled? Alot of times we’d have to CTRL + T a person in the group to follow, but when confronting enemy and calling out targets, we lose sight of who the leader of the group was causing confusion, it’s only after the battle that we’re able to retarget our team lead. (2nd screenshot attached below)

Possible solution: Can the game auto assign a “marker” to the team lead that first created the party/tagless squad group? And when there’s no team lead, a prompt similar to the one when there’s no commanders pops up asking existing party members if they want to be “marked” to lead the group?

3. In a WvW zerg, can player names in the same “subgroup” for example have a different color than rest of squad (which is all blue)? In the heat of battle, it’s hard to tell where your other 4 subgroup teammates are with all 30 blue nameplates on screen. (3rd screenshot attached)

4. 50man Squad: can additional markers be made with numbers and/or letters instead of only green arrows/red hearts? Right now Alt + Shift + 1 to 9 allows markers (green arrow, red heart icons etc) to be assigned to people in squad, however confusion comes when these icons don’t reflect squad interface. (4th screenshot attached) In Battlefield commander system for example, you can clearly see who Squad A is in both the interface and map, easily seen/traceable by both commanders and players.

Comments/discussions welcome! Please keep it constructive!

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Since a lot of nameplate suggestions are coming up in this thread I figured I would let everyone know that the simple nameplate feature will be coming. Simple nameplates will be an option to replace either enemy or everyone’s names with a colored icon – red, green, or blue – and the only thing that will show besides the colored icon is the guild tag and commander tag. We want to reduce nameplate clutter in WvW and not add to it, which is why a nameplate suggestion was not one of the 3 proposed solutions. Also it should be noted that titles do not display in WvW (outside of a soon to be fixed bug where they display to squad members.) So displaying your world name through the title system would not be a good solution either.

That’s a great idea!

Does this mean a blue team member will see enemy as:
Red Invader, Green Invader? This format (with no guild tag) would be great! Players won’t be able to tell who the commander is by guild tag, hence more fair.

However for the allies/teammates on the same blue team, would it be difficult for players to team up with people they know since allies now have no name tags? And what about people in squads/parties? Maybe only people in groups can see eachothers’ names + guild tag? Everyone else outside squad/party would just read: Blue Ally?

As well, what about profession nameplates from GW1 and blue party numbers? Would this encourage team play + party search while at the same time de-cluttering nameplates? (screenshot attached)

Currently it’s really hard to tell who is in your sub-group with a 50man zerg, what if people in your subgroup had full names/guild tags displayed while other allies in zerg have nameplates like Blue Ally?

What do you guys think?

Eval.2371:

I’ve been looking around my self, incase the 4th just does not cut it for me, any recommendations other than black desert and FFXIV?

Can’t believe I’m saying this after so many years with GW, but I’m currently waiting on this game, coming this fall, they borrowed alot of good elements from GW and GW2 + other mmorpgs like air combat and dynamic class system that allows both trinity and/or individualized class combat mechanics, google it: Revelation Online

https://youtu.be/FnVARwA0Kcs
https://youtu.be/jSaDqW7WEpI

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

On September 9th we added Skirmishes to the game. Now that everyone has had a chance to play them, what are your thoughts on Skirmishes? If there is anything, what would you like to see changed/added?

The Skirmish point system is a great start, however gameplay still falls back to the same zerging behavior, some improvements could be:

- score points/counter on top of screen when players enter WvW in order to encourage “capture” of objectives as an alternative to zerging
- bigger reward for captures and holding of objectives would encourage tactics & dynamic combat aside from zergs
- encourage individual builds that sychronize with eachother when capturing camps
- currently if it’s zerg vs zerg, the higher skirmish score is always the side with roamers capturing camps while the big armies are duking it out

Please take a look at the following GW1 commentary on how Alliance Battles works, it had some great designs back then that can be “adopted” to enhance GW2 WvW scoring and player behavior:

https://youtu.be/qI54ui_wj9I?t=5m5s

favorite quote the commentator mentioned in the video was: “…some of the fights you can’t win…the control points are more important…”

https://youtu.be/1sFMS2vwMj0?t=4m5s

Yes, due to the design of WvW, many things should’ve been balanced since launch, rangers are actually very versatile with a good commander, check out this video with a full squad of rangers that took on a full havok meta if it’s any encouragement:
https://youtu.be/iJqEEWPqTxA

- please re-focus from siege polls to enhancing “WvW team gameplay/tactics”
- add a join squad UI/button when players enter a WvW map or enhance party UI
- fix player “stuck” bug during combat, seems to trigger after a dodge roll while fighting enemy zerg, player has to swap to 2nd weapon set in order to “unstuck”
- players in sub-groups needs their name a different color other than “blue”
- “find group” tool hidden under friends list, should be together with party/commander menu (top left corner) of UI
- need option to allow sub-commander leads in squads to capture camps simultaneously
- lieutenants need an indicator or tag beside their names
- display “squad sub-group” health bars so team mates will care
- build templates like what others said above
- give veterans a reason to come back again
(screenshots below)

Borderlands…2 months in the future:

Red Commander: “Need help repairing treb in Garrison! Blue blob here!”
Red Player A: “How do I join squad? No button?”
Red Commander: “Sent you invite!”
Red Player A: “Got it!”
Red Commander: “Get repair hammers at siege NPC, also get on TS!”
Red Player A: “Got hammers, don’t have TS?”
Red Commander: “Download it here…”
Red Player A: “just joined TS, need permission!”
Red Commander: “someone please give Player A permission!”

crickets

Red Commander: “there, gave you permission.”
Red Player A: “Thanks! On my way!”

System message: Blue team has taken Red Garrison!

Red Commander: “Too many! Rally! All please join squad and TS!”

crickets

Red Player B: “How do I join squad? I’m kinda new”
Red Commander: “Sent you invite! Join TS!”
Red Player B: “I don’t have TS?”
Red Commander: “download it here…”
Red Player B: “thanks! what channel?”

crickets

Red Commander: “Get repair hammers at siege NPC, also get on TS channel X!”

System message: Blue team has taken Red Tower!
System message: Living world 3 is now live!
System message: You are outnumbered!

crickets
crickets

Red Player B: “there a tag on?”

crickets
System message: Blue team has taken Red Camp!
crickets

Hello,

I’m looking for WvW Blackgate sniper roamers to team up with in Eternal Battlegrounds. I occasionally team up with longbow users in order to have some fun roaming aside from blobbing, this includes team build tactics with different longbow classes + builds, “tag pin sniping”, stealing camps, contesting keeps and causing other chaos while the main zerg fights enemy zerg. If you’re into small 5-10 group roaming/tactics aside from blobbing, feel free to friend me or give me a shout next time in EB!

Thanks for reading!

IGN: Woop S.7851

Characters names: Woops, Woop S, Woop R

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Assuming the community votes to keep the borderlands map rotation strategy, we’ll want to eventually automate this process, in a non-disruptive way, but before we would start that work, we’d need the community to prioritize that project over other WvW needs.

Thanks for the response, however, if desert borderlands does end up sitting beside the 2 other Alpine maps, will the community have a “say” towards whether a 3rd map should be worked on right after, or whether attention should be focused towards fixing existing WvW problems that has been present for years such as: new players not knowing how to join a squad (no UI), or how sub-groups can’t see their team mates in squad for correct boon share? (Everyone’s name is blue) Or how the UI/mechanics still encourages blobs as the main play-style (which is fine for some) while roamers and 5-man tactical groups mechanics are already there, but not supported by the squad UI?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Hey guys, below is a list of upcoming polls you are likely to see, in roughly the order you are likely to see them.

Thanks for the constant communication, it’s working great and appreciate it!

Mixed Borderlands – Do you want a mix of Alpine/Desert Borderlands maps?
- Yes, if the 3 Factions (linking servers) system won’t cause overflow, or if server infrastructure allows it, you’d then have 9 maps working at once without much overflow during peak times (8 borders, 1 Eternal battleground fight map)

- No, if server architecture can’t handle it with latency/overflow issues

World Linking Schedule – How often should we relink worlds?
- For 9 maps (8 borders, 1 Eternal battleground fight map): Once every 2 weeks, players need more time to capture and fight on the map
- For 5 maps (current borders/EB with 3 Factions linked): Once every 1 week similar to now

Deployable Mortars – Do you want to be able to buy and deploy Mortars?
Deployable Cannons – Do you want to be able to buy and deploy Cannons?
Repair Hammer – Do you want to be able to spend supply to repair siege?

Init function “handicap”:

-> If Faction 1 score doubled Faction 2’s score OR If Faction 1 score doubled Faction 3’s score
-> Return “yes” for Faction 2
-> Return “yes” for Faction 3

-> If Faction 1 score >= Faction 2’s score OR If Faction 1 score >= Faction 3’s score
-> Return “no” for Faction 2
-> Return “no” for Faction 3

-> etc.

Special Mention
WvW Priorities – What do you want the WvW team to prioritize next?
- WvW gameplay UI/mechanics/commander tools that drives strategic tactics, team work, and non-toxic collaborative player behavior (see attached screenshots)

Zerg-blob playstyle -> currently supported by commander UI: YES currently supported by Mechanics: YES
Strategic playstyle -> currently supported by commander UI: NO currently supported by Mechanics: YES
Roaming playstyle -> currently supported by commander UI: NO currently supported by Mechanics: YES

Dreamers’ Notes related to above:
- Same sub-group in squad can’t tell who’s in the same sub-group while in zerg, all names are blue
- No sub-group (lieutenant) lead, when tag dies, everyone scatters
- New WvW players don’t know how to join squads (no UI)
- New WvW players don’t know why sub-groups/parties works best in 5’s
- Team builds are non-existent
- Shareable Build templates like in GW1 needed?
- TS (external program even though useful & sometimes toxic) has too many spies
- Commander tools needs enhancement

Hate it? Love it? Comments/feedbacks always welcomed!

Tyler Bearce.3427:

So again, one of the major advantages of world linking is that worlds will be periodically relinked as populations drift over time. To keep relative world populations roughly in balance. So if hypothetically the triple linked T4 worlds all filled and became supermassive T1 worlds, then that advantage would be normalized at the next relinking.

Yes, you’d just re-calculate this during reset, system would scramble the worlds and cross-match again, end goal is to achieve a balanced 3 faction system, regardless of number of worlds linked to each faction, less servers is always easier to work with…less is more.

You could…

1. Calculate/snapshot player numbers for each server taking into account the following conditions:
- Total number of players on that server during reset
- Total # of active players out of total number of players that “actively participated in WvW” for that server during reset
- Duration of snapshot taken: Once per week for all 12 servers

2. Cross-match the 12 servers and group them into 1 of the 3 factions

3. Rinse and repeat each week, you can even log the data and do #2 using a ‘counter’ manually due to time

Note: Since people are always coming and going to WvW from PvE, certain weeks you’ll have example combinations like below, but Pop numbers would equalize or be very close, which should work in the long run:

Week 1: 2 servers VS 4 servers VS 6 servers (1st snapshot)
Week 2: 1 server VS 3 servers VS 8 servers (2nd snapshot – certain players jumped onto 1 of the winning servers)
Week 3: 1 server VS 1 server VS 10 servers (3rd snapshot – more player migration to strongest server)

However, do consider having player’s name tags represent their SERVERS’ naming convention within that 1 FACTION to encourage mini-squads and multiple tags (For example Kaineng silver invader on the map would appear as *an ally to a Fort Aspenwood silver invader on the same side), this would change the dynamics of the battle + *allow player association with server identity. The strongest 1 server (faction) will be forced to strategize against the other Factions consisting of 10 sub-groups on the map at once, you’d also be able to minimize spies since the 1 server FACTION with a zerg can’t be at 10 places at once…

As well, you could give handy caps to certain servers depending on scoring + rewards…you’d need some tweaks to the current system in place to compensate for above server FACTION structure…

Comments/thoughts welcomed!

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We blow up, and then completely reform worlds quarterly, with a lot of additional rules governing the formation of worlds (dynamic number of worlds, keeping guild members together, not mixing languages, attempting to balance coverage, etc.)

Afraid you’ll have to blow up the servers since linking have already caused imbalance/stacking, there’s no way around it now. If you do blow the servers up, consider simply using 3 factions with 12 servers, EOTM already has something similar in place for 1 map, maybe you can spread this method over to the 4 main maps without too much overflow, this won’t impact gameplay much since the play-style/norm for all maps are still zergs:

1. Blow up the servers

2. Calculate/snapshot player numbers for each server taking into account the following conditions:
- Total number of players on that server during reset
- Total # of active players out of total number of players that actively participated in WvW for that server during reset
- Duration of snapshot taken: Once per week for all 12 servers

3. Cross-match the 12 servers and group them into 1 of the 3 factions with 4 servers on each side

4. Rinse and repeat each week, you can even log the data and do #2 using a ‘counter’ manually due to time

5. However if you don’t blow up the servers, you can still use 3 Factions, except you’d need to accept the fact that there’ll be scenarios where it’d be 2 servers VS 4 servers VS 6 servers at times due to mitigation of pop imbalances, but end resulting population # would be balanced across the 3 Factions would be normally distributed.

• This will encourage server loyalty since players won’t risk paying so much gems only to have joined the wrong “Faction” leading to population stability. Players would then only transfer and risk gems due to guild loyalty or friends/family, of course this will only work on the premise of blowing the servers up initially.

Comments welcomed!

Mistress Collisto.1546:

Majority of my guild who used to WvW have stated they quit because unless they are with the zerg they are looked down at and they grew tired of mindless zerging. The few others have stated it was getting stale, same old. Not a one said it was a shortage of numbers

Agree! Bump! Finally someone that shares the commanders’ dread and gets it, I’d argue that blob/zerg is a play style (currently supported by tags/squads UI), roaming is a play style (currently not supported by UI/mechanics), tactical scoring/strategy is a play style (currently not supported by UI/mechanics), but when zerging is the “only norm” (with us or against us type of mentality), and spying is seen as a play style, that’s a WvW game design/mechanics flaw, and it should not be downloaded to players.

I’ve been messaged by spies before too, some do it as revenge against toxic commanders on their own servers’ TS, some mentioned it’s due to boredom where the WvW game mechanics offered nothing more than mindless zerging…the strange thing is I agree with them from a game mechanics perspective, the game encourages toxic commanders due to frustration generated while conforming to the zerg blob norm, and if that fails, of course they’d lash out against his/her followers, and why would followers not spy back? If the game mechanics encourage toxicity instead of collaboration, then there’s major flaws in the mechanics that needs fixing.

Again, WvW mechanics drives player behavior, ANET please focus on the mechanics! It’s not about server merges nor zergs/blobs. If I told your commander I can destroy his zerg in an instant when I login to my friends’ TS account no matter what team build they use, will he/she still command when blobs are the ONLY play style? Will they even command? And would server merges even matter?

Root of the problem is the WvW Gameplay Mechanics, not servers merge, design/mechanics drive player behavior. The loss in agency revenue where clients leave game is due to loopholes/mechanics unchecked, it does not matter whether it’s 100 vs 100, or 500 vs 500 from any server, you’re still confined to the zerg norm while spies still run rampant. Did you know a single player can take down a whole zerg just by logging into his friends TS? Meanwhile, new players just entering WvW still don’t know how to find a team, or how to join a squad, or how boons like might works, or how he’s standing right next to a spy in the zerg for that matter.

Oh look! A tag! Maybe that’s what I’ll follow since everyone else follows it…that must be how WvW works…after 10 minutes the squad gets wiped including him, the commander quits due to player rage/blame, the spy laughs infront of the monitor while we’re here debating about blobs & server merges…from a poll…that no one saw until today…facepalm! And the vicious cycle continues…

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Scoring changes that have already been voted on. (Time-slice scoring/Skirmishes)

• If population improvements won that poll, then we’d poll again to ask what type of population balance feature you want to see worked on.

Thanks again Tyler for checking this post on a weekend. Just wondering however, can there be more elaboration/detailing exactly how time-slice scoring/skirmishes + population balance improvement features will work? And will these mechanics impact, or become impacted by server merges we decide upon now? From my understanding, one element (server merging) seems to be a technical feature/function that only impacts pop numbers, while the others (such as scoring time-slice) are game play mechanics that drives player behavior. Is server merging correlated to how you guys plan to carry out time-slice scoring & pop control in the future? Because in the current WvW gameplay, 100 vs 100 players or 500 vs 500 players from whichever server still results in the same results: blobs & spies. Was this the intended design or will score time-slice alter that in the future? Thanks!

I’d argue that TS is good, but not everyone uses it, and spying has been rampant again since server merge, till this day there has been no solution put toward to fix it. This might put some TS users off, but the core issue is not TS or communication, it’s the current blobbing behavior in WvW. As long as the enemy can hear/spy on you (TS or in your squad), they’d gain a major advantage. If the WvW mechanics + scoring discouraged zergs, there’d be more subgroups running around capturing camps at 3x the speed, and each build/person in that group would pay more attention to what they or the commanders are doing since their lives depends on it. In-game commander commands to subgroups can not be “spied” upon as they can’t be seen or heard. How does an enemy zerg attack 3 subgroups in 3 different locations with 3x the capture/scoring ticks? The mechanics of commanding/scoring in WvW should drive player behavior, not TS, and definitely not Zerg Wars.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

the next time we ask players to determine which feature work we prioritize, additional World Linking improvements can be one of the options. Players may want improvements to World Linking, but perhaps not at the expense of delaying improvements to Scoring.

Server linking did resolve the issue of lower tiers getting left out, however it worsened blobbing zergs. Agree with above players that these polls are ambiguous since they still does not focus on the “core mechanics” of WvW. I still remember the good old days of GW1 alliance battles where the game mechanics and scoring actually encouraged strategy, team work while discouraging zergs, the score system back then actually “punished” the side with huge blobs since they can only be in 1 place at 1 time scoring, teams that were split up into small groups captured 3 places at once, tripling scoring, please look at the core WvW mechanics, you can merge this server or that server, but at the end of the day WvW is still “Blob Wars”.

P.S. server spies have increased dramatically since “blobbing zergs” are easy to counter once the opposite side knows their position & commander name. I wonder why spies never worked in Alliance battles in GW1?

~Woop S

Dawdler.8521:

If you want to have incentives for less blobbing and spreading out, then you should be looking at the commander system instead. On top of that a more flexible marker system would allow us to more visibly change the purpose of a group instead of just a color.

Bump thread! I couldn’t agree more in terms of the blobbing issue, Dwadler brings a good point where the commander system should be focused upon in order to have a variant towards blobbing. One idea could be to encourage “sub-groups” with lieutenants using “numbered” tags for his/her team to see, it would allow strategic planning by commanders that are not into blobbing around (screenshots attached), a toggle option can be in place depending on the commanders’ style of play. It’s how “Alliance battles” in GW1 thrived and this would also enable focus towards player builds/class/combos, the very lives of the sub-group and lieutenant would now be dependent upon it to capture/survive. I’m unsure as to whether these ideas are feasible or not, comments welcomed and this post is a great start! Please keep thread alive! Thanks!

~Woop S

Gaile Gray.6029:

Feel free to post anything reward-track related in this thread!

1. How do you feel overall about reward tracks?
Similar to PvP, works pretty good

2. What are your thoughts on the rate at which you gain participation?
“Zerg” meta-style of play is still the trend, is participation calculated based on squad attendance of a zerg or proximity to the commander? What if the player is AFK? What if the player is in a party of 5 or 10 roaming held a tower against an enemy force of 50+? Does the roamers obtain more participation points due to the impossible odds? Similar idea to GW1 alliance battles where when Kurzicks(invaders) have pushed Luxons(defenders) to their home map Kaanai Canyon, Kurzicks received double points since the map was harder to win at.

3. How do you feel about the rate you earn reward track points?
Rate gain is fine, but earning points is somewhat grindy and encourages zerg farms instead of squad tactics at times, what if the reward track points can be tweaked with “variables” that encourages non-farming behavior? For example a commander gets +100 extra points for taking 10 keeps, a lieutenant in the same squad gets +50 extra points for helping the commander, a scout (assigned) gets “shared participation points” and +20 extra points for monitoring enemy, and rest of players in squad each gets +10 extra points for helping to take 10 keeps? It would encourage player participation instead of players joining with a farmers’ mindset.

4. Overall, what are your impressions about the types of reward tracks we have?
Reward tracks such as “Triumphant” armors are great, but anyone can grind/farm it, would a "extra perk item attached to it work? For example, a lieutenant that helped the commander take 100 towers also gets 10 Invader honor tokens that can be used to “upgrade” the “Triumphant Helm” to create a “Lieutenant Triumphant Helm” or “Lieutenant’s tag”? Both showing prowess and functional in big battles for micro-managing subgroups in the commanders’ zerg. Or maybe a commanders battle standard back piece? (Again similar to GW1 Kurzick or Luxon elite armors that needed tokens such as amber/jade as a major component to craft)

5. Are there any other reward tracks you would really like to see?
- Any additional rewards that can “improve” WvW battle strategy + tactics, not neccessarily always armor skins, but “unlocking” abilities, for example: “Gain +20 Toughness while you’re within 600 range of your subgroup”, this would encourage heavy armors to always stick to their subgroup members. OR: “While in combat, gain +20 precision when standing near another of the same class”, this would encourage for example rangers to stay together in a subgroup within a squad, or a mix of rangers and warriors since both conditions above would be true, hence creating “dynamics” of sub-groupings within squads.

- Sometimes to improve visibility for squad members, current commanders/lieutenants use glowing weapons an/or ascalon mage potions (glow) to be easily found in a big fight, this can be something to reference for rewards as it “improves” WvW battle strategy/tactics with usable + functional elements

- Commanders’ custom tag graphic/symbol could be a reward/ability instead of the current generic tag symbol

- Commanders’ war flag/battle standard/glowing armor piece/helm: can be a back piece to show prowess, but also easily identified in the midst of zerg battle chaos

- Lieutenants’ war tag: can be earned as a reward and becomes visible in squad once assigned as a lieutenant, useful for subgroups to identify for tactical maneuvering. For example commander in subgroup-1 holds bridge against enemy and issues a command to a Lieutenant that rallies subgroup-2 to run siege supplies back.

- Scouts’ “badge/tag of bravery”: earned by supporting commander while monitoring enemy movement, can be displayed similar to how “mentor badges” are shown in PvE

- Dolyak herder badge?

- Defenders’ shield skin? for successfully defending 100 towers as an infantry?

- Invaders’ mask skin? for successfully capturing 100 towers as an infantry?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please post constructively to share your thoughts on this subject. Please post on topic and let’s make this really useful!

1. Map Urgency (macro environment that alters player behavior) - EOTM has 3 hour timer for scoring, GW1 alliance battles was designed where the team that reached 500 points 1st won the round, hence there’s an urgency present. A zerg of 20 captures a tower can only be in 1 spot while opposite team with 4 small groups attacking 4 different towers scores faster before round ends. This would involve timers which is subjective to design.

2. Team Tactics (commander & friends) - encourage squad tactics, enhance party/squad/lieutenant/commander UI/Usability (screenshot below example), the commander is not just a zerg head, but a tactician, other game systems gave commanders alot of tools such as marking on maps where to attack etc. The current “markers” are hidden away and barely gets used, it was a great feature, but needed a further push in terms of design.

3. Rewards ratio (scaling) - A team of 5 capturing a tower gets x3 points/rewards than a 20man zerg just as an example, combine this with #1 above would encourage squad tactics instead of just all zergs. What about 1 person scouts? Do they get rewards for scouting a zerg blob or tower that ensures the commander tactical decisions leading to victory?

4. Encourage team ups (User Interface/Experience) - Will players be encouraged to team up entering WvW? How do they join commanders after entering map? What if they wanted to join small 5 man parties instead? Where is the UI to support that? (screenshot below)

5. Class combinations - There needs to be a purpose to team combinations, else stale zerging will result. For example an ele that speed buffs, guardian that buff/empowers, warrior that tank the tower champ etc. Combinations can offset over-zerging as well. Combined with #2 and #3 above, every team member’s class/role within a 5 man party now matters when speed capturing a Tier 3 tower.

*Please refer to ‘GW1 Alliance battles’ and the reasons behind each detailed design decision, you guys nailed it years ago! All the designs were golden!

Jon Olson.8439:

They are squad visible.

Woa, thanks Jon for the quick reply! Especially on a weekend :-O
Lookin’ forward to Tuesday!

Yea, would be nice to be able to see team mates more easily in the subgroup, also curious about the new markers and whether it’s “squad visible” or “subgroup visible only”, guess we’ll see Tuesday

Jon Olson.8439:

Subgroups and squadmates have different dots already. Though the difference is subtle. see attachment — subgroup is on the left

I’ll pass on the feedback to the team.

Would something like this work? (Screenshot with explanation)

Note that this screenshot concept is a bit dated, but since lieutenants can now be assigned, would it make sense for them to have a mini tag? Even if it’s just a number, this way everyone within the “subgroup” can follow him/her incase the commander dies, the subgroup just rally to the lieutenant, and “subgroup colors” would make it easier for players to follow/clump together while having the correct range for “boon sharing”, otherwise it’s a sea of blue names on the screen.

Thanks Jon!
~Woop S

First, thanks for the update, I’m sure the community appreciates it!
Secondly, I’m going to play the devils’ advocate here and mention that there has been posts with constructive suggestions in the past to WvW deleted for whatever reason, but overlooking these I’m sure everyone still wants WvW to live on so here we go…

Gaile Gray.6029:

Objectives upgrades will no longer be automatic based on time. They will upgrade based on dolyaks that reach them. Smaller groups can now prevent an objective from upgrading by preventing dolyaks from reaching that objective.

This was a great feature since 1st game launch that encourages small group play, yes please revert it back

Gaile Gray.6029:

Supply cost for all catapults are being reduced by ten supply. The layout of the Desert Borderlands map has increased the number of catapults required to take some objectives. We agree with your feedback that also increasing the cost of catapults pushed the balance too far towards defense so we are tuning that more towards offense.

Yes please revert it back, though justification would be on statistics of “supply” gathered as well as possibly reverting “1”, just “1” borderland map back to the old one for A/B testing justification (screenshot attached)

Gaile Gray.6029:

Points per kill will be turned on and kept on. This is to more directly recognize the contribution that fighting other players adds to the success of the world.

GW1 alliance battles had this feature, worked very well, but it had a capture point “hold” timer if I remember correctly, and the matches were really short, hence this may/may not need A/B testing with the Bayesian Approach (screenshot attached)

Gaile Gray.6029:

The number of players who can rally off a single kill has been reduced from five to one. Players will also no longer be able to revive defeated players while in combat. You still will be able to revive downed players while in combat. Both of these changes are designed to help fights resolve and to give smaller, more skilled groups a better chance against larger groups.

Needs A/B testing with the Bayesian Approach (screenshot attached)

The reason I keep mentioning the Bayesian approach is due to the fact that I am unsure how or what took place at the “interview with the commanders”, in order for changes to have positive effects down the road and to deploy them with accurate iterations and not be based on “subjective” data that may create incoherence, a speedy statistical method can be applied in order to improve accuracy.

A/B testing with the Bayesian Approach can be read here at the GDC: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020201/A-B-Testing-for-Game

~Woop S

Google cached screenshot of a discussion thread the wvw forum thought police “deleted” (screenshot attached), google it and judge for yourself.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oPiiNLfrMjwJ:https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Squads-are-Awesome+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

The post had was pure suggestions and feedback on squad UI after release, yet was deleted by the thought police, apologies to the programmer and hope he’s ok!

Not going to say anymore here as this thread may get deleted too, judge for yourselves. As a veteran player since gw1, all I can say is good luck all!

Anyone seen or used the new squad system? Does it work yet?

Spurnshadow.3678:

Nice work.

Thanks!

Here is a video I’ve found by their dev team, it was posted on gw2’s official youtube and talks about the squad UI system + subgroups after the beta weekend, really hope it turns out good!

https://youtu.be/-YYroiWJ9y0?t=2m19s

Svarty.8019:

Woop S.7851:

Svarty.8019:

How do you make new subgroups? I had a go with it and couldn’t see how.

I also had a very hard time getting one person into squad with me, but this is already documented in the bugs, iirc.

The subgroups function wasn’t on this beta,

Strange. I guess we had one rogue commander who had figured out how to do it.

Just found out after watching 1 of their live streams, after you get people into the squad, it seems you have to “press & hold” left mouse button on 1 of the green player icons, then drag their icon into the top left grayed out tag symbol, no wonder I couldn’t get it working during beta…

Entenkommando.5208:

Can you add the option to chose wether you still want to see the other commanders? Especially in WvW where you have 3-4 different commander groups running around it would be nice if we can still chose to see everything ourselfes.

Ah, I believe their staff already mentioned it’s not enabled yet during the beta test weekend (from very top post in this thread):
• Ability to hide other commander tags is not yet enabled. Currently your squad’s Commander tag will be highlighted when any tag is hovered over to make it easier to identify.

meltdown.5870:

its kinda strange that GW2 developers ..dont spend a few moments to see how this can be done,,other game developers solved theese issues 10 years ago

Indeed, alot of things can happen when developing a game, and sometimes it’s not just due to technical limitations, but an vast array of agency or human complications. I guess all we can do now is cross our fingers

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy your time using the new Squad UI.

Squad UI Additional concept with updated ideas and notes (screenshot attached), player green icons can be another color and can be round instead of boxes, but that’s just me.

Alot of times players won’t even know how to join or access a squad, especially those new to game. Why not encourage team play? And have the squad UI show up when they join a WvW map", the commander can then use the squad interface to arrange them accordingly for organized play…(concept screenshot attached).

Alot of times players won’t even know how to join or access a squad, especially those new to game. Why not encourage team play? And have the squad UI show up when they join a WvW map", the commander can then use the squad interface to arrange them accordingly for organized play…(concept screenshot attached).

Branden Gee.2150:

I can’t say what feedback will and will not make it to the actual release of the Enhanced Squad UI, but it’s all appreciated!

This is from another thread for WvW squad UI:

For WvW only…

A better way might be to simplify it based on player/commander’s mouse-click events…(concept screenshot attached)

**Since there’s limited screen space, it might be better to “remove” player names from the icons since in battle you’d have no time to read them anyways…

Also thought about the simplified UI with bars in vertical fashion adopted from another post (credits to that poster), it’d work for 10 man raids for sure with condition floaters to the right of each player health bar, but you might run out of space on the left side with 50 people if it’s WvW…

Original post link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Beta-Weekend-Enhanced-Squad-UI

Thanks!
~Woop S

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy your time using the new Squad UI.

Just noticed the color idea above might create chaos with rainbow unicorn minimap dots happening since there’s up to 50 players in a squad at one time. A better way might be to simplify it based on player/commander’s mouse-click events…(concept screenshot attached)

**Since there’s limited screen space, it might be better to “remove” player names from the icons since in battle you’d have no time to read them anyways…

Also thought about the simplified UI with bars in vertical fashion adopted from another post (credits to that poster), but you might run out of space on the left side with 50 people…

Svarty.8019:

How do you make new subgroups? I had a go with it and couldn’t see how.

I also had a very hard time getting one person into squad with me, but this is already documented in the bugs, iirc.

The subgroups function wasn’t on this beta, I had the same issues inviting people into the squad, the players said they saw the invitation but could not join at all, had to tell people to manually join by pressing “M” key, then right clicking my tag to join…I crashed quite a few times as well due to it, quite buggy for sure…

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy your time using the new Squad UI.

Agree with poster above me, boon/condition displays would be great! Not sure how difficult it’d be to color code, but just throwing this out there for a quick UI idea (attached) – Note the “attack, defend, move” buttons would only appear when a subgroup is “selected” in the menu…