Showing Posts For benjenx.6427:

Your top 5 priorities for WvW-Overhaul

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

As a former WvW player, with ~2000 hours in wvw, but not currently playing, I would say my structural priorities are:

1. Stability (the boon). Can I put this as all 5? WvW has unique circumstances, needs unique solutions.
2. Scoring, finding a way for matches to be competitive without exaggerating the population imbalance by time zone. There are more ppl in America than there are in OCX, so there are always going to be more players on during NA prime. That is not something Anet can fix. So scoring is what needs to change, either through PPK, or weighting ppt by global wvw population. I don’t know how to fix it, but it needs to be fixed.
3. Total population. There are too few people playing WvW right now for the number of servers that exist. WvW needs people like me, former WvW players, to feel like they can return. In addition, WvW needs new blood.
4. Rewards. There is no reason why PvP game modes can’t allow players to accumulate wealth. For some reason, adding gold to PvP game modes seems to be impossible. Just like in PvE and PvP, players need to feel invested and rewarded to keep playing, and winning your matchup every week is not enough, and aside from tournaments, players don’t push tiers, they xfer between them. So tangible rewards are key for encouraging this game mode. This is not a player asking for his game mode to be more rewarding, as I don’t play wvw for the rewards even if they are there. I just think that more tangible and numerous awards would be best for the gametype as a whole.
5. Consistent Updates and Events. This should probably be #1-5 on the list as well. With no flow of content and updates and events, WvW players feel disenfranchised, and develop an antagonistic relationship with Anet, more than any other game mode by a country mile. While rescources often can’t be devoted to a dying game mode, if WvW gets back on its feet again, it needs more obvious and sustainable support from Anet. Seasonal tournaments w/ transfer locks, a separate balance patch scedule, and more events like Sneak Attack. These go a long way towards keeping the players you already have, and more ppl visit the game mode.

I love WvW more than any other game I’ve ever played, and have pulled all-nighters commanding, sunk hours into theory crafting and working on server community. I would love nothing more than to feel that WvW has returned to a state where I can invest my time, and I sincerely hope that this update will begin the trek in the right direction. Thank you Mark O’Brian for being more open with your players, you do not know how much it is appreciated.

P.S. (GvG shoutout, RIP NA GvG)

The Arena Wait Time and GvG

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Hey Colin, thank you for your nice words! I hope that we can work together more to keep working on these Arenas moving forward!

The Arena Wait Time and GvG (take 2)

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Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

I’d like to shamelessly bump my own idea on a fix, and that is to have WvW player kills and caps somehow lower the time for unlock, pushing starting GvG guilds into WvW while they wait for their guild hall. I think this would be a good way to keep the guilds from secluding themselves from WvW.
In addition, it give WvW players an opportunity to work for the guild halls, and still have that feeling of achievement and effort, without having to do content they don’t particularly enjoy or participate in, kinda like how Legendary Weapons don’t require a PvP component.
Like I said in the OP, I’m not a game designer, but I talked to my computer pals and they said this change would be doable without a huge amount of Dev time, so I think its a compromise that both makes sense, and could be implemented without to much schedule wrecking.
To pull some balancing ideas out of my rear end, I might have it balanced so that guilds that raid 4-8 hours a day get it in 1-2 weeks, guilds that raid 3-4 hours get it in 2-3 weeks, guilds that raid 2-3 hours get it in 5-6 weeks, and guilds that raid an hour or less get almost no deduction.

The Arena Wait Time and GvG (take 2)

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

They said it would take two months to “unlock” guild arenas, not fully upgrade them

The Arena Wait Time and GvG (take 2)

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Well said, it’s good you took the time to do this, most of us just scream and yell and it gets us no where, myself included.

Maybe if we keep this one polite and constructive they will at the very least consider some tweeks.

I’ve found that ppl respond more positively to positive comments. Call me crazy…

The Arena Wait Time and GvG

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Yeah, that could work in the short term, but in about 3 days there would be too much competition for play time. Typically, there are 5-6 gvgs that go on across all the tiers during NA prime simultaneously right now, and with a bigger, healthier scene, having only one arena, with OS and BLs for overflows probably isn’t a viable solution.

The Arena Wait Time and GvG (take 2)

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Copied from the HoT main forum, as it is probably more relevant here.

So I want to start my wall of text by saying thank you to Anet. Thank you for noticing and dedicating development time to supporting the GvG community with this feature (small note, for now and the rest of my post, the GvG i am referring to is the current 15v or 20v deathmatch, not the Gw1 GvG of old). I really do mean that. This feature should allow our community to flourish and grow, increasing both the competitiveness in large scale Gw2 pvp combat, but also should help WvW by reducing the constant transferring of a chunk of the WvW population in order to pursue the fights we enjoy. I’m also excited about the bigger arena that is in development, and I appreciate that it seems like there will be continuing development in this area. I look forward to working cordially with Anet on this.

However, I am worried about the accessibility of Arenas for many WvW guilds. I am a member of [BMO] Adventurethyme currently located on Crystal Desert, one of the guilds in the “GvG Scene.” I have been involved in GvG/WvWraiding guilds for about 2 years now. And I think that this two-month delay really will hamper much of the enthusiasm for this feature.

Currently, many of the players who have engaged in GvG in the past are on hiatus, waiting for HoT, and watching to see how guild halls effect the scene. Many of these players have been involved for almost 3 years, found the Obsidian Sanctum a godsend, and have been active in feedback and the online community to try to facilitate a better, more healthy GvG scene. Many players are waiting to buy HoT until they see that the arenas work and are effective. If the arenas are so heavily timegated, then many of these players that would return will probably skip buying the expansion, and in the two months that it takes to unlock these arenas, these players may not see what they want, and may forget about the game entirely.

In addition, while many guilds remain for longer periods of time, the typical lifetime of a GvG guild is about 5-6 months. If for the first third of their existence new guilds are unable to fully participate in this system, and can only play against guilds who have been together for at least two months, or borrow time in an arena of another guild. This heavily impacts the accessibility of GvG, as new guilds will have a very hard time starting and sticking.

Also, GvG guilds, and many of the smaller WvW guilds in general, will have big problems producing these guild halls. Most PvE guilds tend to have tiers of involvement, with some number of players on every day for many hours, bulges in population during NA (or EU) Prime-time, with guild members mostly doing their own things, aside from organized guild events (Teq, TTW, Guild missions, champ trains, etc.) This allows guilds that have players that rep and hang out for several hours a day to rake in influence, and often times those players accumulate in game wealth through many of the ways PvE offers.

Most GvG guilds, however, are smaller, and often spend much of their time in WvW, seeking out fights in openfield, or GvGing in Obsidian Sanctum. In most cases, a given guild’s population trickles in, to whatever the guild’s size is peaking at the guilds scheduled raid time. Then, the raid lasts for 2-4 hours, and then most of the players go to bed.

It may seem frivolous to talk about guild schedules and attendance for bigger guilds, but most of the guilds who would utilize the arenas regularly, and specifically for this team deathmatch functionality, have a HUGE disadvantage in producing a guild arena. WvW isn’t very rewarding in gold, and GvG is even less so, which is fine as that’s not the purpose of those game modes, but buying influence to speed the guild hall requires huge amounts of in game gold and influence, which most of the guilds for whom this arena is targeted are sorely lacking.

A combination of these factors may lead to a diminishing and eventual disappearance of the community that all of this development time and effort (which I say again is MUCH appreciated) was intended to benefit. And that is not an ideal situation for anyone involved, game designers or players.

Now, I am DEFINITELY not saying that these arenas should be free and on demand at 12:01 pm PST on launch day. There absolutely SHOULD be effort expended in getting these arenas, and that is an important thing for the implementation of Guild Halls. I get that. I’m just worried about the scale of this SPECIFIC time for this SPECIFIC area of the Guild Halls and unintended consequences occurring.

In terms of constructive ideas, maybe make WvW kills or location captures a way to speed up the process somewhat. Or perhaps have competitions in a neutral guild hall with guild arenas as the reward. I am not a game designer, so my ideas may be stupid, but I have faith in both Anet and the community to come up with a smart solution that makes having a guild arena an achievement for any guild that has one, but is not un-achievable for many guilds who DESPERATELY want them.

tl;dr : I think that a long timegate on Guild Arenas will make them ineffective at addressing some of the concerns of players who are pushing for them the hardest, and I hope that we can find a smart way to address this before the expansion drops. Hopefully we can get a feedback thread started for ideas.

The Arena Wait Time and GvG

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

So I want to start my wall of text by saying thank you to Anet. Thank you for noticing and dedicating development time to supporting the GvG community with this feature (small note, for now and the rest of my post, the GvG i am referring to is the current 15v or 20v deathmatch, not the Gw1 GvG of old). I really do mean that. This feature should allow our community to flourish and grow, increasing both the competitiveness in large scale Gw2 pvp combat, but also should help WvW by reducing the constant transferring of a chunk of the WvW population in order to pursue the fights we enjoy. I’m also excited about the bigger arena that is in development, and I appreciate that it seems like there will be continuing development in this area. I look forward to working cordially with Anet on this.

However, I am worried about the accessibility of Arenas for many WvW guilds. I am a member of [BMO] Adventurethyme currently located on Crystal Desert, one of the guilds in the “GvG Scene.” I have been involved in GvG/WvWraiding guilds for about 2 years now. And I think that this two-month delay really will hamper much of the enthusiasm for this feature.

Currently, many of the players who have engaged in GvG in the past are on hiatus, waiting for HoT, and watching to see how guild halls effect the scene. Many of these players have been involved for almost 3 years, found the Obsidian Sanctum a godsend, and have been active in feedback and the online community to try to facilitate a better, more healthy GvG scene. Many players are waiting to buy HoT until they see that the arenas work and are effective. If the arenas are so heavily timegated, then many of these players that would return will probably skip buying the expansion, and in the two months that it takes to unlock these arenas, these players may not see what they want, and may forget about the game entirely.

In addition, while many guilds remain for longer periods of time, the typical lifetime of a GvG guild is about 5-6 months. If for the first third of their existence new guilds are unable to fully participate in this system, and can only play against guilds who have been together for at least two months, or borrow time in an arena of another guild. This heavily impacts the accessibility of GvG, as new guilds will have a very hard time starting and sticking.

Also, GvG guilds, and many of the smaller WvW guilds in general, will have big problems producing these guild halls. Most PvE guilds tend to have tiers of involvement, with some number of players on every day for many hours, bulges in population during NA (or EU) Prime-time, with guild members mostly doing their own things, aside from organized guild events (Teq, TTW, Guild missions, champ trains, etc.) This allows guilds that have players that rep and hang out for several hours a day to rake in influence, and often times those players accumulate in game wealth through many of the ways PvE offers.

Most GvG guilds, however, are smaller, and often spend much of their time in WvW, seeking out fights in openfield, or GvGing in Obsidian Sanctum. In most cases, a given guild’s population trickles in, to whatever the guild’s size is peaking at the guilds scheduled raid time. Then, the raid lasts for 2-4 hours, and then most of the players go to bed.

It may seem frivolous to talk about guild schedules and attendance for bigger guilds, but most of the guilds who would utilize the arenas regularly, and specifically for this team deathmatch functionality, have a HUGE disadvantage in producing a guild arena. WvW isn’t very rewarding in gold, and GvG is even less so, which is fine as that’s not the purpose of those game modes, but buying influence to speed the guild hall requires huge amounts of in game gold and influence, which most of the guilds for whom this arena is targeted are sorely lacking.

A combination of these factors may lead to a diminishing and eventual disappearance of the community that all of this development time and effort (which I say again is MUCH appreciated) was intended to benefit. And that is not an ideal situation for anyone involved, game designers or players.

Now, I am DEFINITELY not saying that these arenas should be free and on demand at 12:01 pm PST on launch day. There absolutely SHOULD be effort expended in getting these arenas, and that is an important thing for the implementation of Guild Halls. I get that. I’m just worried about the scale of this SPECIFIC time for this SPECIFIC area of the Guild Halls and unintended consequences occurring.

In terms of constructive ideas, maybe make WvW kills or location captures a way to speed up the process somewhat. Or perhaps have competitions in a neutral guild hall with guild arenas as the reward. I am not a game designer, so my ideas may be stupid, but I have faith in both Anet and the community to come up with a smart solution that makes having a guild arena an achievement for any guild that has one, but is not un-achievable for many guilds who DESPERATELY want them.

tl;dr : I think that a long timegate on Guild Arenas will make them ineffective at addressing some of the concerns of players who are pushing for them the hardest, and I hope that we can find a smart way to address this before the expansion drops. Hopefully we can get a feedback thread started for ideas.

Food for thought for ArenaNet

in PvP

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

+1 to all things in this post. Even the things that are contradictory. Keep the discussion going.

Commander Compendium : WvW Combat and Tactics

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Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Rangers just have no place in a organized zerg, sad, but true, that is just a fault of ANET, not the community for noticing this.

ANyway! Bookmarked! Thansk!

^A big ditto. For rangers, regardless of skill, the key number is 5. If the groups are larger than 5, in a fight where the ranger cannot simply hide and pewpew from far away, rangers are a liablility. And don’t start with the “really skilled rangers” bs. Really skilled rangers could be really skilled necros or eles, they just practiced a profession uniquely unsuited for openfield wvw combat. This is not because rangers or their players are bad. This is because of the fundamental mathematics that govern the game. PERIOD. This guide is not a roaming guide, this guide is not a GvG guide. This talks about WvW as a whole gametype, of which roamers and GvGers are but parts of the whole. And in terms of PPT, raiding guilds who GvG impact PPT FAR more than any roamers capping camps, unless the roamers are organized.

The single best matchup so far

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

I mean, as the EB commander through Thursday night/Friday morn, I know that the key to our win was our multidimensional pressure (hitting small objectives in all the bls, spreading out both servers and giving us opportunities to pursue big targets), and our repeated defensive fights within SM. As by 3-4 am i was a zombie, I can only give the fight credit on those fights to my server mates, and it was a really good machup all week long. in addition to all that, we had our “celebrity” EU commanders on early in the week, and you can see the big ppt bumps in the Mos map. But on thursday and friday, our big commanders had to work, so we got hit by the early thursday SEA bump really hard. It was an uphill battle from then forward, but the NSP players all came out, some by pulling all nighters, some by calling in sick to work, but in the end, we punched above our weight just like we thought we could. I’m just so happy to be able to lead, and to be followed by, such a great server.

The single best matchup so far

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

…. as far as I can DR doesn’t have 1 time where they vastly outnumber anybody…

DR owns late NA prime (12-2 PST).

The single best matchup so far

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

If it wasn’t for night capping NSP would suck eggs and that is a fact, face it, embrace it, and live with it.

You really don’t know what’s happened in this matchup, do you. NSP has been getting nightcapped all week, and myself and lots of NA ppl decided to pull all nighters tonight as part of a final push.

The single best matchup so far

in WvW

Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

Check out this score. Wow. NSP has about 20 NA ppl pulling all nighters, here we go, SBI’s SEA is waking up.

Scoring Discussion

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Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

I think scrapping ppt is a really drastic change. I understand why people would want it, but we have to remember, these population imbalances are not because of ppt game type, but because of the players. The fact is, population imbalances will exist as long as transfers exist. I suggest that the most important thing is that the game helps people when they are outnumbered. A couple things could go here.

—when outnumbered, siege refresh time goes to 3 hours as opposed to one
—bl defenders who want to defend objectives need to spend half their time as it is refreshing seige, and so objectives flip because of that.
—when a server’s “home” keep (EB keep, Garrison) is held by the home server, it gets 50-100 supply automatically, regardless of yaks, every tick. This would allow the outnumbered server to keep building siege, and attempt to stem the tide of enemy players

and some others.

I think the most important thing is that the players realize that changing the scoring drastically will have negative effects as well, just as ppt has it’s downsides. Therefore, I’m not for scrapping ppt in it’s entirety, its just small, structural changes that can fix some of WvW’s problems.

GvGs on Ready Up?

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Posted by: benjenx.6427

benjenx.6427

You know, it may just be a dream, but maybe we could get grouch in on the GvG scene? He likes WvW, but I have a feeling the developers hear GvG and think it is the same as GW1. It would be cool if any of the big GvG guys could get on Ready Up.

(Yes, I am aware this is unlikely, plz no troll comments explaining that below)