Guild Wars 2

I agree with alot that has been said already. I played around with reaper in SPvP running a build similar to the standard power necro. I took spite, soul reaping, and reaper, and used marauder’s amulet. I used greatsword instead of my usual dagger/warhorn. Staff still feels mandatory due to the its range and utility.

Overall, I like the reaper, but unfortunately, it seems lacking in several areas. I felt like the greatsword is lacking in speed, damage, and mobility, especially compared to dagger/warhorn. The greatsword skills all look nice, but the auto attack and #2 feel way too slow. #2 doesn’t seem to do enough damage to warrant the long wind-up and the very easy to spot animation. #3 would be more useful if it had its range increased a bit. #4 is very nice in theory, but I don’t think it should root us while casting. Necros are generally very immobile and lack in defense. Having to stand still while casting a point blank skill means that we’re unlikely to land it properly, all the while taking damage that we can’t mitigate. #5 is nice, I really like having a pull on a melee weapon, but it did feel somewhat unreliable to use mid-combat for some reason, perhaps becasue I’m using my mouse to look around alot?

Reaper’s shroud #2 could perhaps be made to stop at your target, or drag your target along with you, as others have suggested. As it is, I felt like I was moving too far when I wanted to use it offensively, and not moving far enough when I wanted to get away. Other than that, my first impression of the reaper’s shroud was very good, and it’s nice to finally have a leap and good access to stability! In fact, I wish greatsword was a bit more like reaper’s shroud…

Overall, the shouts don’t seem very compelling to me, especially considering their relatively long cast times. I hope you will consider making them instant cast. I might end up using one of the utility shouts and the elite, but then again, I might just go back to using spectral armor and plague for the increased survivability. I’m probably going to need it more as a reaper anyway.

In DAoC, you could see enemies in stealth if they were really close to you. Like really close; if you saw someone in stealth, you had about half a second to react before they stabbed you. It was exciting since it made it possible to actively protect yourself against stealth by others means than spamming AoE mindlessly. Of course, if you were in stealth yourself, you really hade to be careful not to get too close to your target until you were ready to go all in.

Death perception is already really strong, otherwise I think it would fit nicely with that trait. Perhaps it could be added to spectral mastery. Have it “ping” like a sonar every 3 seconds or so while in shroud, and if a stealthed foe is within range, the necro can sense their life force. It should give a hint as to where the stealthed person is, but it shouldn’t reveal to others, as that would just ruin stealth. Then add a similar ability to a ranger pet or two and it’s no longer class specific.

infantrydiv.1620:

… Nope, it shouldn’t act as a placebo since you’ve been told that equipment level and rarity doesn’t make a difference. And they definitely don’t make a difference.

If you are looking for a game that you can gear grind and beat people in PvP just by having better gear, play WoW.

He never said he wanted a game with a gear grind, he only shared his observation that it feels different when he plays in exotic gear.

You have ruled out a “real effect of armor”, as well as a “believed effect of armor” (placebo), but what does that leave? Maybe the perceived efficacy of the character somehow influences the player? This is a role-playing game, after all, in which the player assumes the role of the character, so maybe this is not that far fetched an idea. And there are actually cases that show effects of placebo even when patients know it’s placebo (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015591).

Bran.7425:

Unfortunately, between the Warrior and the Guardian, Guild Wars 2 has exhausted most of fantasy class archetypes that use heavy armor.

I have to disagree. Dark Knight and Battlemage are two classes that would fit very well with heavy armor. Gladiator/Blademaster, Cleric, Skald, etc, could perhaps also fit with heavy armor. There could also be an engineer type class with heavy armor. Heavy armor doesnt necessarily equal soldier in my opinion, but could be open to caster or rouge type classes too.

Howell Qagan.9752:

LumpOfCole.4701:

Because commander tags are fairly common, I recommend adding to this suggestion that might also hit two birds with one stone:

For every person in a Commander’s squad, exhaustion from placing siege is reduced by 1 minute (making it so only a few people in the squad would reduce this exhaustion to zero). Because of this, the natural ‘Exhaustion’ period could be something higher like 10 minutes.

What this will do:

- Promote people following a commander to join their squad (“Join my squad so I can drop siege!”). This habit will make it easier for commanders to check supply as well.
- Exhaustion will affect siege trolls who don’t tag up and also get multiple people to follow them. If they do happen to go to this extreme effort, they will be easily spotted on the map for what they are since they’ll have a tag up.
- Promote legitimate defenders to tag up to drop siege and to create a focal defense point for people to see on the map.

Now I don’t want to give ideas to anyone… but literally any player can join any commander. Even from enemy servers. So this isn’t a solution, the troll would just have a few people join their squad from the other server. Or from the guild.

Well that would have to be fixed then. Obviously, only followers who are actually in the right map and server should count.

The problem with exhaustion is that it affects legitimate use of siege. Perhaps the squad system could be used lesser this problem somewhat. Say commanders with x followers can place siege without exhaustion. Troll commanders are unlikely to have many followers so it shouldnt be as easy as it is now to abuse siege placement.

I think the vote to dismantle would alao be very useful, as the players themselves would then be able to negate the troll/s, since trolls are usually only a small minority.

Like really whats the point of grinding for a skin, grinding for karma, or wvwing when you get nothing out of it except gold?

If I give you a ball and ask you to bounce it up and down, you might find it to be fun and do it for a while.

But if I ask you to bounce it up and down for ten hours straight, you’d probably get tired after a while and refuse to continue doing it. Why? Because you don’t find it fun enough.

Now say that for each bounce, you get points of some kind that can be used in exchange for a reward. If the reward is attractive enough, you just might start bouncing that ball again.

However, did the introduction of the reward make bouncing the ball fun again? No it did not. You might say that it’s fun because you like the idea of getting the reward. But the action in itself has not become more fun. In fact, if I remove the reward, you’d most likely stop bouncing the ball right away in protest, and refuse to bounce it again until I promise to give you the reward again.

If you think that you get nothing out of doing those things in GW2, then there is no point in doing them. Adding more levels or rewards will not make them more fun, and although you might enjoy hunting the levels and the rewards, the actions themselves are evidently not rewarding for you and are therefore pointless.

Imagine instead that there are no rewards at all in all of GW2, what would you be doing in game, if you would still be playing? Whatever your answer is, that’s what you should spend your time doing. If you get a reward for doing that, then that’s merely a bonus! Remember, it’s a game, and it’s supposed to be fun!

adozu.6398:

Oh c’mon, the only thing Anet manages to sell to wvwers is finishers.

/topic

How do you know that wvwers only buy finishers? And also, why do you think a change to the rally mechanic would hurt sales of said finishers? In the current system, random rallying will often prevent me from stomping, which makes me less willing to spend money on finishers.

This is only acceptable to me if the PvE maps are turned into WvW maps during the same time slot. I only do PvP and WvW and I will never be able to get map completion unless there are players to fight along the way.

There are so many interesting maps already, it seems like a waste to develop new WvW maps from scratch. I would much rather see them pick a bunch of PvE maps of varying sizes and environments (including cities), and turn them into 4-hour WvW overflow matches similar to EotM (but with PPT so they don’t turn into karma railroads). Here’s how I would do it:

- Select a few suitable maps. Perhaps through in-game polling

- Move all waypoints out to the edges of the map, tone down the PvE content (i.e. number of mob spawns and events), and make all hearts into capture points/objectives that provide PPT

- A few waypoints are assigned randomly to each world at the start of the match, and ownership of the waypoints are then randomly rotated between the worlds in certain intervals (e.g. 10-30 minutes), so as to avoid spawn camping, and further reduce the need for balancing (since there would be no designated “corners”)

- The player cap for each world is set relatively low on each overflow, but the number of worlds on the map are instead increased (e.g. from 3 to 9, or dependent on map size). Low population worlds are thus spread across fewer overflows, avoiding inequalities in coverage, while high population worlds are spread across a greater number of overflows, avoiding queues

- PPT generated from these overflows can be standardized, e.g.: x * (total points / number of overflows), where the constant x is chosen based on how many points these overflows should generate in relation to the normal WvW maps. This would further make high population and low population worlds equal, as a low population world that does well in a few maps, would get as many points as a high population world that does well in many maps

- Make it so that pre-made groups and guild groups are more likely to be pitted against other pre-made groups and guild groups of similar sizes

These maps would be all about open field fights and control of territories (from mountain ranges, caves, and valleys, to cities and villages), rather than siege warfare, so walls, gates, trebs, catas, etc, are not as necessary, which even further reduces the need for balancing. If certain areas turn out to the better than others, then more worlds will want to fight over them, thus making them more risky. Also, there can perhaps be some kind of resource system (similar to supply) that the worlds can fight to control, but it should be kept simple

I’ve hoped for city/urban map/s for a long time, so of course: +1

VOLKON.1290:

It doesn’t. Motion sickness is caused by a clash between what your eyes are seeing and what your inner ears are feeling with regards to motion. A bobblehead won’t cause this clash because your eyes see one spot of motion yet the overall is consistent with what your inner ears are feeling.

Basically it appears to be a made up story trying to get this little bit of fun taken away because he’s decided he doesn’t like it.

Last time I got motion sick from a game (it does happen) was a Medal of Honor type shooter maybe ten, fifteen years ago. I had to take Dramamine for a couple days until my brain learned to recognize the input properly and adapted. I’ve been fine since.

Are you saying that motion sickness can only occur in 1st person perspective? Wouldn’t it be possible that our brains are able to interpret motion in 3rd person in a similar fashion, although perhaps not as strongly? In that case, wobbling of your characters head would be a perfect example of a disagreement between the visual system and the vestibular system that you mention.

Either way, I’m pretty sure that people who are susceptible to motion sickness can become dizzy by simply looking at things that are spinning or wobbling (I know I can), even if it would not technically count as motion sickness.

• Start work on several new wvw maps of varying sizes and with varying objectives, suitability ranging from solo/small scale to full on zerg

• Add incentives for small scale fights in wvw on all maps

• Start work on several new spvp maps of varying sizes (e.g. one or two maps suitable for more than two teams)

• Add new spvp game modes (ffa, protect/rob caravan, destroy/save building, vip, king of the hill, man with the golden dagger, guild vs guild, etc)

• Add several scheduled daily/weekly/monthly/yearly pvp tournaments with rankings and nice rewards

• Make it so pvp ranks give some benefit in the pve/wvw world (if ever so slight)

• Start work on open pvp content (team, guild, or faction based, rather than world) such as pvp dungeons, pvp zones, and maybe even a dedicated open pvp server

• Try to figure out multiple strategies to increase build diversity

• Make a content patch without a nostalgia theme (unlike 8-bit adventure, christmas toy factory, halloween trick or treat, etc)

Here are some I’d like to see:

Shapeshifter (can switch between different forms like Elementalists can shift between atunements or Engineers between kits)

Druid/Shaman/Witch doctor

Berserker/Savage/Barbarian (medium armor offensive fighter)

Monk/Martial artist (light armor defensive fighter)

Good points. We absolutely need more game types and maps. If there will be a deathmatch/team death match type mode, I also hope they will add a mode with rounds (like counter-strike). The more modes, the better.

moiraine.2753:

Today monday 28th in 1:00AM GMT the build will come live in Europe.
5:00PM PST +8hours = 1:00AM GMT

It’s simple math.

So simple you got it a whole day wrong?

But seriously, whatever happened to “The customer is right”? If it says 28th, then most will expect it on the 28th, since the date is provide without reference to any time zones. Thus, the information provided is likely wrong for approximately half the market. Rather than having ~1 500 000 players attempt your simple math, maybe Anet could figure it out for us, and in the future provide us with approximate dates for PST and GMT.

Erasculio.2914:

HawkMeister.4758:

And you still endlessly repeat(aka GRIND) the same 3 dungeon paths instead of actually having fun and running some other dungeon or fractal for a change.

Your idea would make it inpossible to find groups for everything other than AC. Expecting ArenaNet to perfectly balance all dungeons so they offer the exact same “time:reward” ratio is ridiculous. There will always be a dungeon or a couple dungeons more effective than everything else; under an unified token system, people would only run those two dungeons over and over, leaving everything else empty. Someone who wanted to play Arah would never find a group.

And what would the gain be? Less inventory clutter for the (very likely few) players who keep a lot of tokens in their inventoires?

A compromise could be to allow some sort of market controlled dungeon currency exchange (e.g. through the TP). That way everyone can run whichever dungeons they want, and then exchange to whichever tokens they need. Supply/demand will take care of the time:reward issue, and fees and taxes will give incentive to run the dungeon from which you actually intend to buy the armor (without forcing you to grind it over and over).

In summary:

Each match consists of a number of rounds, and players only get one “life” per round. In other words, if a player gets stomped during the round, that player must wait until the start of the next round. Note that each round should only take a few minutes (2-5 min) so the actual wait until respawn is not necessarily long. However, this might still require a spectator mode to be in place, or else people might get bored. If done right however, having rounds instead of infinite respawn can be really fun, as it will facilitate team work and tactics over “mindless zerging”.

I have also suggested at least three new game types: bomb defuse (one team has to bomb one of 2-3 objects, the other team has to defend them), hostage rescue (one team has to rescue hostages, the other teams must defend them), assassination (one team has to kill the enemy VIP, the other team has to protect him or her). Each team will play each role once in a match. These three types can obviously be varied. For example, hostage rescue could easily become a “defend the caravan” type match, in which the objective of the offensive team is to kill a caravan of dolyaks, whereas the objective of the defending team is to defend the caravan.

I hope these ideas are appreciated. I welcome everyone to comment/discuss how they might be best implemented in a GW2 sPvP setting.

Specific game types:

Bomb defuse

The objective of the offensive team is to destroy one of 2-3 targets on the map (e.g. supply depot, bridge, etc). At the start of each round, one player in the offensive team spawns carrying a bomb. This bomb must be taken to one of the locations and then be detonated so that the object is destroyed. If the bomb carrying player is killed, another player can pick up the bomb. If all players in the team are killed, or if time runs out, the defending team wins the round.

The objective of the defensive team is to either kill all the enemy players before they can detonate the bomb, or use some type of Asuran gismo to defuse the bomb once it has been planted. They can also win by simply defending the locations until time runs out. Each player in the defensive team can defuse the bomb.

Hostage rescue

The objective of the offensive team is to sneak or break into the enemy camp and rescue a number of (NPC) hostages. Once the hostages have been found and talked to, they will follow the players in the offensive team back to their camp where they will be safe. The offensive team will win if they manage to either kill all enemies (thus automatically rescuing all hostages), or rescue all of the remaining hostages. If no hostages are remaining (e.g. everyone has been killed), the team which kills all players in the other team wins the round. Hostages can be killed by players of either team, but this is discouraged as it will lead to negative points to that player as well as longer respawn time the next round.

The objective of the defensive team is to keep the other team from rescuing the hostages, either by killing everyone in the enemy team, or defending their hostages until time runs out.

Assassination

In this game mode, the objective of the offensive team is to assassinate a specific player in the enemy team (the VIP).

The objective of the defensive team is to protect the VIP either until all enemies are dead, or until time runs out. The VIP has no weapon skills or utilities, and must thus rely completely on the other players in the team.

As an old Counter-Strike player, I would love to see some CS inspired sPvP modes. As it happens, Counter-Strike is one of the most popular and fun e-sport type games out there, so if it’s the goal of GW2 to become an e-sport, then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be inspired by the old master. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun, and I believe it could work really well in a GW2 sPvP setting.

Here’s my suggestion for new sPvP modes. First the basics:

Two teams of five to eight players fight each other over x rounds or x minutes (should take about 10-15 minutes per match). During the match, the two teams have to complete objectives and kill enemy players in order to win as many rounds as possible. Each round ends when either one of the teams has completed their objective, or when all the players in one of the teams are dead. Players who are downed can be revived, but players who are stomped can’t. Instead, they have to wait until the start of the next round, making it important to keep everyone in your team alive.

Like the current GW2 sPvP modes, players are rewarded with points for killing enemy players (e.g. 5-15 points per kill) and completing objectives (e.g. 25 points). Unlike the current GW2 sPvP modes however, the teams have different objectives. Usually, one team has an offensive objective (destroy, kill…), whereas the other has a defensive objective (defend, rescue…). When half of the time or rounds have been played out (e.g. 5), the teams switch roles, so that the defenders become the attackers and vice versa. When the match ends, whichever team has won the most rounds wins the match.

+1 to OP

jalmari.3906:

… i actually want even more jump puzzles and other minigames in wvw.

I’m with you, I too would like to see more PvP minigames, puzzles, and even dungeons. However, the problem with putting these in the same instance as a WvW map though is that the puzzles will be seen as a nuisance and a burden in the eyes of the WvW crowd due to the shared queue and population cap. This also means that many players may refrain from trying to organize themselves in JP using the chat because they don’t want to disturb the WvW effort.

In my opinion, these alternative forms of PvP should be seen as “just another way to enjoy the game”, as legitimate as anything else. And I believe the right way to accomplish this is to move them away from WvW, so that they do not compete over resources (players, pop cap, chat).

tagnut.8621:

Its fine as is.

If you want to play silly grossly imbalanced spvp and get pointless pretty pretties for it do so, but wvwvw is a different animal.

Yet WvW is even more different from PvE, so if your logic applies, WvW gear should be separate from PvE as well.

I have been entertaining similar thoughts as the OP. I think it’s strange that someone who has spent all their time in PvE has easy access to both forms of PvP, since they can transfer their PvE gear to WvW, while they get the same stats as everyone else in sPvP. Someone who has spent all their time on sPvP on the other hand, does not have easy access to WvW, since their sPvP gear does not transfer to WvW. So before they can fully enjoy both forms of PvP they have to level their character and grind for gear. Yes, it is possible to level and get gear in WvW, but unless you want to spend weeks/months doing it (at least in my own experience), it requires you to stick to the main zerg and hope for as many tower captures in as low time as possible, turning WvW into a grind.

In an ideal world, PvP and PvE players alike should be able to jump into WvW and have fun on equal footing. I would therefor like a system in which your sPvP rank and gear would somehow benefit you in WvW the same way that PvE levels and gear currently does. A couple of examples off the top of my head:

When joining WvW, I could be able to choose whether I want to join with my PvE gear or my sPvP gear. The sPvP gear could be normalized to be equal (or slightly lower) in total stats compared to similar level PvE gear. If it’s slightly lower, then there will still be incentive to finish the PvE aspect of the game for those that wish to do so. How much lower the totalt stats are could, for example, depend on PvP rank, so that exotic PvP gear + high pvp rank = exotic PvE gear.

PvP rank could count towards your “base” level in WvW. So if I’m rank 28 and join WvW with my level 2 character, then I get access to same traits and utilities as if I was in fact level 30 (2+28). Similarly, a rank 30 player that joins WvW with a level 50 character would have the same access to traits and utilities that a level 80 character would today. In this way, both PvP and PvE “levels” would benefit your character in WvW.

These changes would make WvW more accessible to PvP players, while not negating the influence of the PvE aspect of the game.

Just a few off the top of my head.

“Thanks!” – Uttered seconds before I jumped off the bridge that I was just revived on, only to land in shallow water and die again.

“Henge* is safe!” – Uttered countless times in tournaments (*Henge may be replaced with any of the following: Mine, Keep, Quarry, Waterfall, Graveyard, Mansion, Windmill, Clocktower)

“I’ll be there in a sec” – Uttered countless times in WvW as I’m about to take a shortcut that usually turns out to bring me straight into enemy zerg and/or a huge monster

Engel Angel.9076:

-“Turn into X pet” skill, like some of those heart quest where you get turned into an animal or a machine: maybe make it turn us into the same as active pet or something, that would be so cool

-“Wild animal comes to help” skill, where any green, and possibly yellow, animals in the vicinity comes to fight for us, that would be very cool too!

Morph and Charm would be cool skills :-) Not sure if I think it would fit the Ranger, or perhaps be better as a new class mechanic in an expansion though.

Psychrome.9281:

i would really really hate it if rangers got stealth, i choose ranger type classes because i do not like stealth mechanics and really think they have no place in MMOs in general. but i just thought i would voice my opinion here before all the OMG stealth would be awesome posts.

absolutely no stealth for rangers please

But Ranger type classes have stealth in many (most?) MMOs, so it seems like a strange choice of class if you want to avoid stealth. Besides, we were not talking about “stealth” as in a skill that makes you invisible. Camouflage should be a slow casting, easily interrupted, skill that allows the Ranger to use his surroundings to hide himself from sight. Moving while camouflaged would obviously negate the effect and make the Ranger visible. And so it would be nothing like the stealth that for example the Thief has.

4 would be cool :-)

As I wrote in another thread, I would like to see rangers be able to camouflage themselves and their pets. It would work like a long duration stealth skill, but the downside is that you can’t move or it will break. Good way to set up ambushes or avoid zergs.

Another idea is a skill that allows pets to track foes for you (e.g. sniff out footprints and make them visible to you so that you can follow them and see where the foe is).

Gulbrandr.9047:

So… you want a ~30% uptime, +50% movespeed buff. And in the downtime, it’s at 25-33% (nearly perma-swiftness). And you don’t see how that’s a bit crazily overpowered?

As stated, the passive part of the sigil does nothing while the active effect is on cooldown. If you choose to hit the active, you get +50-66% movement for 10 seconds, followed by 35 seconds of cooldown with +0% movement, followed by reactivation of the passive with +25-33% movement. In other words, activating the “speed burst” comes with a risk, as you will be without speed for a significant period of time following its use. As for perma-swiftness being crazily overpowered, at least two other classes already have easy access to 25-33% perma-swiftness (Thief and Engineer). It should not be a big deal to give it to the Ranger as well. It fits well with the description of the class, as speed is important in order to patrol large distances effectively.

Yasha: “Anyway OP- what is your “vision” behind this dream ranger? Like how do you see the skills playing out in pvp? That would help others understand your dream better.”

My vision was to establish the Ranger as the obvious “scouting class”. For that I think it needs better speed, ability to hide and ambush, and so on. The changes to the weapons are actually not that important to the vision, however I think some of them would be cool, especially those that fire out of Camouflage. But yeah, knockback should stay 100% chance on #4 for CC purposes. However, I like the idea of being able to ready the shot before an encounter and get some kind of bonus depending on how long the shot has been charged (e.g. +damage, +crit chance).

deepwinter: "1. Crossfire. No changes.

I’m not saying Crossfire is perfect and never needs to change, what I’m saying is that I don’t think changes are necessary to realize my vision. To me, the Shortbow is the weapon of choice when I have control over the fight, and I would primarily use it in small scale “up close” battles. Currently, I use Longbow for WvW and Shortbow for sPvP. However, if I could get speed from an utility instead of the warhorn, then I would definitely equip the Shortbow in WvW for those types of fights. I use it all the time in sPvP and I don’t think the positional bleed is a problem. In fact, it is very effective at stacking bleeds, at least the way I play it. I haven’t played warrior so I can’t comment on whether it’s too easy or not to apply bleeds for them.

You’re right. Maybe it should just stay 100% chance throughout, while damage and distance can increase with the charge.

So today while day dreaming, I was thinking about what changes I would make to the Ranger class to fit what I think is the ideal Ranger play style in WvW.

While I don’t actually expect these suggestions to ever become reality, I have tried to keep the changes balanced and in line with the spirit of the class and of the game. Also, I have assumed that all bugs have been fixed. What changes to the class would you make if it was up to you? Please be constructive and keep balance in mind if you want to play :-)

Without further ado, here is my Dream WvW Ranger!

Weapon slot 1: Longbow

1. Long Range Shot. Fire three arrows in rapid succession, each traveling farther and doing more damage than the previous one. If your foe is not within range for the first shot, the successive shots will not be fired.

First shot: 1200 range (1500 with trait)
Second shot: +150 range, +x% damage (e.g. x=10%)
Third shot: +300 range, +2x% damage (i.e. if x=10%, then 2x is 20%)

(Note: The average damage and speed should be improved compared to the current Long Range Shot)

2. Rapid Fire. No changes.

3. Hunter’s Shot. Fire an arrow to make your foe vulnerable. Chance to cripple your foe.

(Note: No changes except that the pet swiftness is exchanged or complemented by a x% (e.g. 50%) chance to inflict 4s cripple [-50% movement speed] on your foe)

4. Point Blank Shot Charged Shot. Ready an arrow that pushes back your foe. The longer you charge your shot, the more damage and the higher chance for a critical hit. Edit: I removed the part about chance to knockback, it will knockback 100% of the time even at 0s charge

Knockback: No changes.

Charge:
>1s: +10% damage, +10% critical hit chance, +1% critical hit damage
>2s: +20% damage, +20% critical hit chance, +2% critical hit damage
>3s: +30% damage, +30% critical hit chance, +3% critical hit damage
>4s: +40% damage, +40% critical hit chance, +4% critical hit damage
>5s: +50% damage, +50% critical hit chance, +5% critical hit damage

Range: 600 (750 with trait)

(Note: If there is no charge up, or only a very short charge up [e.g. <2s], the damage should be lower than the current Point Blank Shot. At the higher charges [e.g. >3-5s], it should definitely out damage the current Point Blank Shot).

5. Barrage. No changes.

Weapon slot 2: Shortbow

1. Crossfire. No changes.
2. Poison Volley. No changes.

3. Quick shot. Fire a quick shot while leaping. Gain swiftness if the shot hits.

(Note: No changes except that instead of jumping backwards, you jump in the direction that you’re currently moving)

4. Crippling Shot. No changes.
5. Concussion Shot. No changes.

Heal: Heal as One. No changes.

Util 1: Quickening Zephyr. No changes.

Util 2: Signet of the Hunt.

Signet Passive: Grants x% increased movement speed to you and your pet.
Signt Active: Doubles your movement speed for 10 seconds (Cooldown: 35 seconds, during which the passive does nothing)

(Note: x = 25-33%)

Util 3: “Track Prey”

Shout. Your pet will sniff out and track foes that have recently passed through the area.

Footprints of the x closest foes are made visible for 20 seconds (Cooldown: 120 seconds), select one footprint to have your pet track down its source (infinite duration).

(Note: x could be, say, 1-5 foes. The footprints could be visible on the minimap and/or in your normal PoV. Tracking could either make the pet run towards the chosen foe so that you may follow it, and/or simply keep the footprints visible indefinitely [unless the foe logs out/dies])

Elite: Camouflage. Camouflage yourself and your pet, making yourself invisible to foes.

Camouflage (300s). You and your pet are invisible to foes (Casttime 5s during which you cannot move; Cooldown 150s; Camouflage breaks if you move or enter combat).

(Note: Camo is different from Stealth in that it has a lot longer duration, however, you cannot move while camouflaged. Its purpose is to avoid or ambush passing foes).

Camouflage also replaces the #1 weapon skill in similar fashion to the thief’s “Backstab”, “Surprise Shot”, etc. Examples:

Longbow:
1. Sniper Shot. Fire an arrow from the shadows that make your foe vulnerable. The arrow does additional damage if you hit from the side or from behind.

Vulnurability (10s): 10% Incoming Damage.
Side Damage: x + 50%
Back Damage: x + 100%

(Note: x should be roughly twice the normal Longbow damage. Side damage would thus equal 3x damage [e.g. 100 * 2 * 1.5 = 300], and back damage about 4x damage [100 * 2 * 2 = 400])

Range: 1200 (1500 with trait)

Shortbow:
1. Assault. Leap at your foe and hit them over the head with your Shortbow. Stun your foe if you hit them from behind or from the side; knock them back if you hit them from the front.

Stun: 1 second
Knockback: 600

Range: 600

Same here. Happened 3 times today in sPvP. I have never had it happen before today.

To play the ranger the way I believe it was intended to be played, being able to sustain a high movement speed is very important for the class, as it allows the ranger to roam/patrol large distances as well as to get the appropriate distance between the ranger and its foe. However, to do so somewhat consistently today, you need to equip the warhorn and/or the rampage as one elite skill for the swiftness buff. The way I see it, putting these buffs on a weapon/elite skill is a disservice for two reasons:

First, the value of the swiftness buff is often higher than the fury and might these skills grant in combat, and so these skills usually end up being “saved” for when the ranger needs to move fast (e.g. in and out of combat). Thus, these buffs are not used to benefit the ranger in combat as much as they should be.

Second, the value of the swiftness buff is often higher than whatever weapon/skill would be chosen in its stead (e.g. longbow+shortbow, and the entangle elite skill). Instead, less preferred combinations may be chosen, simply to get the swiftness buffs. Thus, the benefit of the elite skill slot as well as the second weapon slot/off-hand slot is not as high as it should be.

I believe that the simplest and most effective solution would be to make the following changes:

• Remove the swiftness buff from the warhorn and rampage as one, preferably replacing it with combat related buffs instead

• Increase the movement speed of the signet of the hunt from 10% to 25% passive, and 33% (or higher) active. The active could for example have 15 second duration and 30 second cooldown, during which you do not gain the 25% of the passive

This would enable the ranger to cover large distances effectively, as well as give them a “speed burst” to get in and out of combat. It will only use up one utility slot, rather than an off-hand slot and an elite slot. Also, the buffs provided by the warhorn and the rampage as one might actually be used to benefit the ranger in combat, which is how I believe they were intended to be used.

That would just hide their symptoms. On the contrary, I’d say if a person has arachnophobia, exposure in a game environment is good as it might actually help them get rid of the phobia.

I know I’m nit picking, but you can’t take two separate lists, merge them, and call them “world ranking”. The scores on each list are calculated independently from each other, based on matches between the worlds in that region, which makes the absolute values of the scores strictly “region specific”.

Cool idea. I think people would get involved if they think there is a chance the features will actually be implemented. No rewards though (at least not anything tangible).

The way I see it, the purpose of the mercenary mechanic would not be to get perfect balance in all worlds, but rather provide a way to even out the numbers, if even just by a little, in the matches which are the most imbalanced.

If the players are divided as follows, as an example:

World A has 100 players
World B has 20 players
World C has 20 players

Then world B and C would not get 80 “mercenary slots” each (so that it becomes 100 vs 100 vs 100), but closer to, say, 30 (i.e. 100 vs 50 vs 50), or even less. Also, there might be a cost associated with mercenaries (as in the real world), so that it would not be used too lightly.

As I said, this is not an easy idea to implement.. and yeah, time will tell if it is actually needed at all. Although I bet some matches will always be imbalanced no matter how good the match making, so there might be a place for this.

As for buffs. I generally agree that “natural” is best. But sometimes, unnatural means are needed to compensate for real worlds mechanisms that are not in the game. For example, in the real world, a zerg would require lots of supplies and logistics to maintain. The buffs I was talking about would simply mimic the logistics problem, making the small groups faster and harder to track, and large groups slower and easier to track, just as you would expect in the real world. I’m generally against giving buffs that would influence the actual fighting (e.g. +vitality, +power, or whatever) though.

2. Guerrilla warfare

From Wikipedia:

“Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or “irregulars”) use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately.”

Basically, solos and small groups that are currently tagged as “undermanned” in a zone would gain a buff that gave them advantages in terms of movement speed and visibility (e.g. combat takes longer to appear on the enemy map), and perhaps something that enables them to more easily and efficiently raid caravans and camps, and perhaps even sabotage the supply storage of a point or something like that.

Conversely, large groups that are tagged as “overmanned” would gain a debuff that decreases their movement speed, make them more visible on the enemies map (thus easier to keep track of), and other similar effects.

3. Overstretching

In the real world, even the most powerful empires fall if they grow too large. At some point, the cost of keeping the empire going is greater than the available resources, at which point the empire collapses under its own weight. A similar mechanic could be put in place in WvW to make it harder for dominant worlds to capture the entire map.

Let all buildings have a certain supply upkeep that would be taken from the supply camp (automatically or through caravans). Under relatively balanced conditions, the upkeep should be negligible. However, the more points a single world holds, the higher is the upkeep per point. So, if one world holds almost the entire map, then the upkeep would be so great that losing just a couple of supply camps would lead to exhaustion of supplies, resulting in inability to upgrade, repair, build siege and so on, and perhaps even degradation of walls, gates and guards if the supplies run out.

Conversely, small empires could get a supply surplus, enabling them to more easily defend what they have.

Together with the guerrilla warfare suggestion above, this would mean that undermanned worlds could easily shift their tactics to camp and caravan raids, thus bleeding the dominant world until a more even playing ground is achieved.

Obviously the details, as well as pros and cons, can be discussed (to death). But I hope we will get more suggestions as well! How would you like to see these balancing issues resolved?

There are currently many threads discussing the problems with “nightcapping” and mismatches in the WvW. Not least from my own world (Far Shiverpeaks, EU) which on prime time does very well in WvW, only to lose it all during night, forced to start all over again the next morning. Personally, I don’t mind this all that much, as I like to do small raids (on camps and such) rather than keeps and towers anyway. In fact, I think I would be more annoyed if I was on a server which dominated the others, as that would mean that I had less enemies to hunt. But nevertheless, I can understand that many players are frustrated with the current situation, so I thought I’d try to get a constructive discussion going about ways to fix these problems without ruining the fun for other players.

Balancing issues are obviously not new to Guild Wars 2. In fact, similar problems exist in the “real world”. So I think it would be great to use the real world for inspiration. Of course the fact that this is a game has to be kept in mind, so realism should not be the ultimate goal.

Anyway, my hope for this thread is that players from all servers (dominant and dominated, nightcappers and daycappers) would try to come up with constructive ways to resolve these issues without hurting the fun of others. Here are some of my suggestions:

1. Mercenaries

Basically, low pop worlds or worlds that are currently tagged as “undermanned” in a zone could be allowed to temporarily recruit mercenaries from high pop/overmanned worlds (as long as they are not in the same match). This is already possible with free server transfers, but I’m suggesting some kind of in game tool that would make the process easier and perhaps more automated. If implemented well, I believe it could improve WvW balancing issues in several ways:

First, it would even out the numbers in a match, as low pop/undermanned worlds would increase their numbers, and high pop/overmanned worlds would decrease theirs.

Second, the concentrations of “night time players” (in relation to prime time) would spread out across worlds, thus evening out the balance between “night time crews”. Other than reducing the annoyance of nightcapping for those that have no night crews, it would also increase the fun for the night time players, as I imagine it must be pretty boring to play against doors all night. This way, even worlds where the primary player base is sleeping would be able to put up some kind of resistance at night.

Third, it would reduce queue times, as it will take load off the high pop worlds and put it on the low pop worlds that might not even have any queues to begin with.

Obviously, there would have to be some carefully thought out rules to govern the mercenary mechanic. For example, the mercenaries should only be recruited from worlds that have higher population, preferably worlds that are not undermanned themselves in any zones, or even only from high pop/overmanned worlds. Also, there should be no recruitment between worlds which are in the same match (to avoid sabotage, etc).

This is just something I thought of that I think would be fun, but the idea is far from finished. There are many more details that would have to be considered. Should it for example cost money to recruit? Should you be able to recruit any player on that server, or perhaps only special “mercenary guilds”? Should recruitment be automatic or require contact and negotiation? In an automatic system, a player on an overmanned world could for example simply chose to port to the undermanned servers borderlands/battleground instead of to their own.

The downside, as I see it, is that it’s most likely hard to implement. Also, there may be some issues with server pride (“You only beat us at x because you had mercenaries with you!!!”), and perhaps infiltration. Of course, these risks are “realistic”, and infiltration is a problem with free transfers anyway.

Enough about that. On to the second idea (next post).

Why not get the best of both worlds? There’s already a LFG tool in game, sort of. It’s just that you can’t really customize anything.

Here’s my suggestion: Make the LFG tool like a short form that you fill out. In this form you state, for example:

• What type of content you’re looking for (dungeons, vistas, pve, tpvp, spvp, wvw, etc)
• You can fill out in which zones you’re interested in finding a group and/or perhaps level of content (e.g. +50).
• If dungeons are chosen above, then you can also fill out specifically which dungeons you’re looking for
• Your LFG status is automatically updated, so that if you join a group the LFG tag is removed, and if the group disbands, you get the option to put it up again
  … and so on

Now, if I’m interested in starting a group for dungeon x, I would simply pop up the LFG-window, search for people of appropriate level and who are LFG for that dungeon, and then send them a message in whisper and ask them if they wish to join my group.

Also, there could be a “LFM” tag for groups, in similar fashion to LFG for players. So if my group has a spot to fill, I could simply add my group as LFM and state what we are looking for x (e.g. level, class) and content y (e.g. dungeon, zone, etc). That way, LFG players can easily find us.

The way I see it, this would make it easier to get groups together, but it would not remove the need for communication/community part of grouping. In fact, it might even encourage it, as people who want to group up for content that typically does not require a group (e.g. exploring) will be able to find like minded players more easily.

TL;DR: Improve the LFG system already in game by adding more options, such as type of content one is looking for, level of content, in which zones, etc.