Guild Wars 2

FWIW I’m on Blackgate and I’m not one for blobbing. I prefer 20-person groups. Enough for it to be MMO but not enough to be overzealous. (I hate it when sometimes we win a fight with a blob against a lesser amount and act like it was skill.)

However some of the commanders I like to follow are very good and their guildmates are fun to be around. It’s the nature of socialization that they tend to attract more players. Which leads to a blob effect. So blobbing is inevitable when you have a minimal amount of talented commanders in your pool — or minimal amount logged in at the time.

Last night, I looked at our preliminary server groups to see who was going to be on what color borderland. The blue map was quite empty. Most of the guilds were slated for red and green. Not sure why. (I’m not in a guild.) One guild had split into two 20-ish man groups for one color — and I was certainly proud of them for doing that. I wasn’t there to see what happened in the end. So I can’t vouch for their merit. But they’re good people and I’m sure their intentions were to break down the blobfest. Two other guilds had their normal 30+ queued for a different color although I doubt they got that many on the borderland at reset.

EBG I don’t even look at. PUG central and always packed with craziness.

Then there was blue. Two commanders were queued for it and their numbers were very small. 10 in one, about 15 in another. This was the queue I joined because I wanted to steer clear of the blob. I missed being with my favorite commanders. But seriously those other borderlands were packed!

Turns out that TC was broken up into 20-man squads. That was great and all. But when the BG commanders tried to fight them, the fight would attract all TC squads and it ended up being an overwhelming fight. BG lost a LOT. heh So much so that I decided it was more worthwhile to roam and havoc than to give TC a constant influx of points. Then that got old.

So I went to play Overwatch. The end.

As far as YB is concerned, I don’t plan to sit this week out. But it sure gets boring some days when you’re only fighting 1 other server for the most part. I’ve always been on BG and would miss my friends. But if it would balance the servers, I might be willing to move.

edit: changed 20+ to 20-man for clarity

My GW2 experience is me trying to stay in WvW 99% of the time and not play PvE at all. I don’t want to play HoT content. Having to play the PvE content to get my Minstrel ascended gear would’ve been .. frustrating.

Having said that, it wasn’t that bad at all! I’m sure the experience will be different for newcomers. But for us vets, this is doable. This is just one of several ways to reduce PvE. I’m sure there’s one for fractals .. but I’ve NEVER done those so I cannot give a workaround.

Here’s how I got my gear…

Prerequisites:
- Extra or available ascended gear
- Spirit Shards
- Level 500 crafters
- Gold to buy the tradeable HoT ingredients. For minstrels, this was 100’s of gold. They ain’t cheap! But hey, who has time for PvE content, right?

HoT CONTENT (approx 2-4 hours)

1) Grind at least Itzel Mastery I. Do it in the Verdant Brink.

While you grind, open up as many [Large] Airship Cargo containers as you can. You want to at least get 3 Minstrel’s Jewelry Recipe Books if you plan to make jewelry.

You should have enough Airship parts for…

2) Buy the Minstrel’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia for armor
3) Buy the Minstrel’s Orichalcum Imbued Inscription for weapons
4) Buy the Exquisite Freshwater Pearl Jewel for jewelry

Now you’re done with HoT. Whew! That’s it!

Now just make the insignias and/or inscriptions to convert your extra/available gear into 4-stat combo gear using the Anthology of Heroes approach.

For jewelry, you will need to use those recipe books for each type of trinket. Then craft them. In my opinion, it was worth it.

If I missed a step, please respond and I’ll fill in the blanks.

Though annoying, this didn’t bother me that much being as it was only towers being hit .. until trebs started hitting garrison from within the citadel. Or was I seeing that wrong?

Cerby.1069:

deriven.1465:

T
Replace Dolyaks with players

Ever see that movie enemy at the gates with Jude Law? You know the scene with the Russian prisoner, dressed as a german soldier, crying as he was forced to crawl through the snow trench to repair the german telephone lines? Remember what happened next? ya…that is what i thought of when reading dis.

Netflix doesn’t have it on streaming. Argh! I’ll rent it on Amazon and get back to you.

HazyDaisy.4107:

First off, why would you want to get rid of Fluffies? Secondly, some players are trolls, imagine needing that one last piece for a sup ac at south Bay, but Bob has it in his inventory and went to north camp to wait on the 4 min RI.

Good point. We get trolls now with supply. Ugh!

As for fluffies? What if you were transformed into one? And your skills reflected the abilities that a claimed supply camp provided? Hmm .. might be strange though. Yak-slapping would have a whole new meaning.

Tyler, Gaile, and the ANET team … thank you for listening to us. I know that “listening” does not equate to “doing”. I certainly appreciate the dialogue.

Since you’re making the effort, I’ll make the effort of writing out some ideas. Why not? Some of these may be original, probably not. All ideas are considered independent from one another but some do work well together.

inb4 .. my ideas are dumb, unoriginal, written before, etc. I apologize in advance for not searching and reading the entirety of the supernet interhighway.

Replace Dolyaks with players

Have players perform the duty of supply runs. Something that BDO sort of brought to my mind. A player would go to a supply camp, press and hold F (I guess) to start stacking up supply on their back or whatever, then slowly make the trek to a destination — being encumbered and all. Note: a trek doesn’t start until the stacking of supply is complete .. just like Dolyaks. Only X number of people can stack up supply, based on a camp’s bonuses. Supply cannot be “used”. It can only be “delivered”.

Same abilities for Dolyaks may be applied to this user. Same death reaction (where supply drops from them) may be applied to this user. People following this user will get the same perks as following a Dolyak.

Why?

• To turn off one aspect of the autonomousness of WvW by giving players another role
• To reduce the zerg/blob on a map by creating more small groups
• To increase the need and purpose of small groups
• To give the supply run more immersion

Replace supply-to-siege with craft-to-seige

Instead of grabbing supply and rushing to a spot to use it, have players create siege parts with supply at camps, towers, and forts. Then when parts are ready, a player can drop down a siege blueprint and other players — with the right parts — can construct the siege. If I recall, Dark Age of Camelot did this.

Crafting can be done everywhere. But supply camps would be best as tower/fort supply would further diminish.

Make them tradeable. Mailable? Separation of roles between crafters from fighters. Crafters craft and send to the front lines via carrier.

Replace or add some WvW abilities to increase crafting .. maybe as a whole or for specific siege.

Possibly even increase/decrease effectiveness of siege based on crafted parts’ quality (eg basic wheels + fine uprights + exotic battering ram = x% effectiveness). The higher the quality, the longer the crafting takes or the more supply it needs from the camp.

Do NOT however require crafting to need anything else by supply from the camp. Don’t make this too complicated.

Do NOT allow siege parts to carry over reset night. Defeats the purpose then.

Why?

• Promotes another reason to keep a camp and protect it
• For reset nights, stops the mad rush to forts and towers because siege parts first must be made. This implicitly breaks down zerging/blobbing because there is no mad rush with numbers to a fort/tower until parts are available
• Introduces more proactive strategy and planning by making sure people have the right parts versus just having supply
• Increase players’ participation and feeling of worth, such as those that do not want to fight outright

Diminish ownership over time

Introduce NPCs that would slowly get stronger to overcome a camp, tower, or fort. They would appear and attack the owned properties sentries and mercenaries and eventually be so strong that they will win — unless players start paying attention and kill them. (Claimed places would be more able to defend themselves.)

In order for these NPCs to reduce strength, players will need to kill the NPC lead (eg a bandit commander). Then the following NPC lead will be a lower class NPC (eg a bandit lieutenant).

Interval of NPC “event” would be consistent with WvW population.

NPCs need to be strong enough to not be a one-shot. Maybe introduce a break bar?

Why?
This idea stems from night-capping and/or passive ownership being a problem. The best solution I could think of was to eventually make the ownership of a property go neutral if no one is around over time.

Now scouts have another role when watching over a tower or fort. Gives them something else to do. Maybe even reward them with some bags. If siege-crafting were introduced, gives crafters a break from the grind — and maybe bags.

Add more territory

Overwhelm WvW with enough borderlands that players have to break the zerg in order to maintain their score.

For every X number of servers in a server-link, increase the number of borderlands by Y.

For simplicity, let’s say the borderland is EBG for now. Hopefully this would promote the creation of another EBG-like borderland where all three servers have ownership and no one has an advantage.

Examples:

2 servers in a server-link. Let’s say Y = X/2. Add 1 more borderland.
3 servers in a server-link. Y = X/2. Add 1 more borderland.
4 servers in a server-link. Y = X/2. Add 2 more borderlands.

Incredible feedback all around. Can’t thank you all for taking the effort to do so.

I was thinking along the lines of an investment where you take the risk and hope for a return. Because you are an investor, the “client” would have to be more engaged and continue to sell that idea. (To get more investors naturally.)

I do see your points-of-view though. I recall when I invested in the Oculus Rift that, when Facebook took it, we backers felt betrayed. It was hard for us to read Oculus Rift articles thereafter. But lo and behold we receive the final product for “free”.

Contrary to that, I am not a whale. I don’t go and buy everything in the store. (Anyone read about that guy spending over $30,000 on Star Citizen ships?!) But I would like to support the game in some other way, even if it’s $20/mo for no return. I have friends do that for EverQuest, WoW, etc. They rarely play but continue to shell that sub. I’m not thinking subscription — that’s a bad idea. Rather a similar thing to Star Citizen where people who want to pitch in per-month (or whenever they want) .. they can. I guess it’s still called a sub. I don’t know. It’s a contradiction but I guess you get the idea.

Anyway it was just that: an idea. I miss the game .. well .. I miss the pre-HoT WvW to be exact. If ANet told me tomorrow that bringing the Alpine borderland would cost X extra in the budget, I’d stupidly reply “shut up and take my money!” Because that’s what this fan would do.

Would ArenaNet be open to players helping to fund a specific module of the game? Either by a crowdfunding project or perhaps by an in-game item purchase?

I am not an active player of the game presently. I do however have some disposable income that I would be happy to give to the GW2 WvW cause — specifically. “Module funding” so to speak. I want to support the development of WvW just as I am supporting Camelot Unchained for similar reasons.

But I don’t want to play the game in its current state. I’ve grown tired of EBG and hate the desert borderlands. (My choice and opinion, mind you. I don’t speak for others of course.) I don’t do PvE or PvP. Therefore right now I check periodically to see how the progress goes .. and I wonder if the budget is there for radical change (or fix or rollback or whatever your goal may be)?

I like the in-game item idea because we can easily support an existing or future module with a few clicks. The in-game item has no value to the player — that is, there is no reward or guarantees. And since it’s crowdfunding, we know that we are gambling with trust. In return you would provide more regular updates to said module. Be it by email, or special forum, etc.

Right now I’m guessing a small percentage of players who have disposable income but have no need for Gem store items .. may increase your budget without any need for reward other than your voice and updates — which you do, but we ask for more frequency.

Perhaps a poll sent via email to active and inactive players would shine some light on the idea?

Example suggestion.

I really like the use of teleports in the keeps. I was wondering if we could have more of these in strategic locations? And could they only work for the defending party? For example, a teleport from the outer gate to the inner gate would be nice. Specifically one from the outer gate to the controls that affect the wall defense configuration. (The controls that say “Reconfigure”.)

Another request is to have color-coded teleports (or maybe just ground textures) that could guide players to the best route to other keeps. I’m pretty sure our toons get tired of falling off ledges just to reach a destination by the shortest path possible. There’s bound to be a better way to reach keeps. And if it’s a netcode thing (e.g. we can’t port you too fast because the netcode doesn’t like fast moving players over wide distances .. aka speed-hacking), then perhaps delay the teleports like you delay the “Reconfigure” controls.

Here’s the entrance from player perspective.

Would it be possible to darken the entrance to the Blistering Undercroft (aka Fire Keep) such that it shows up better on the overhead map?

I’m guessing you would have to darken the texture of the stairs leading down.

I wish my ele could do that much damage and survive. I think I need to roll a necro. lol

Experienced the [near-]perma-stealthed experience last night in EB while running down the road from Anz to Speldan. It’s a pretty open path other than the hillside. Anyway I got 2-shotted to the downed position. If not for my new ability to go into mist mode immediately, he would have killed me before any other players approached .. and then returned to stealth mode. I lived .. usually do when I experience a thief. So they aren’t as overpowered as people tend to believe.

In other games, this idea of thief was fine. I personally would be fine with this. But would rather this BE intended rather than perma-stealth still being an on-again/off-again game design issue. Either I hover over my don’t-get-2-shotted skill button while running solo or I run blind because I KNOW what to expect.

I don’t play a thief. Regardless I say make it perma-stealth and let it alone. I would rather have a sense of “this is how thieves’ stealth works” 100% of the time rather than waiting for patch notes (and undocumented notes) to constantly change it, thinking it needs tweaking.

What I would suggest is to make stealth permanent, leave the thief’s damage and health as-is, and just make the player walk slower while in stealth. You know, like what most people imagine “sneaking” to be. Worked well for another game. (Pretty sure this has been suggested several times though.)

Best post this week!

As a BG “player” (if you can call this playing), I pretty much hop around killing rabbits while — every once in a while — seeing a couple ET/HoD running around, probably doing supply camp runs or world completion .. somethin’.

A few times, I walked right up to an “enemy”, sat down, stood back up, waved, watched the “enemy” wave back or dance, hopped, and went on my merry way. The borderlands have become PvE zones with the occassional brawl for .. karma, I guess.

The idea to go back to 1-3 WvW resets for a while: +1
The idea to introduce paid server transfers: +1

If the ranking formula does not include server population, it should. But only after server transfers are locked down.

If needed, I’ll make a video or two. But I just want to say (and I’m sure it’s been stated) that this is throughout the game. I thought, “what area is really barren as a good test location?” and came with Fields of Ruin in the Ebonhawke area. So I ran around the outer circle of the Stronghold of Ebonhawke to see what would happen.

The first round I saw maybe 4 players in the area. 2 of those players didn’t appear until I was right up on them. Also an NPC worker didn’t appear until I was right on them.

The second round I didn’t notice anything.

The third round, another new player appeared right when I was upon her.

Now .. this area is extremely low populated and low assets (I would assume). And since my system doesn’t matter I can only assume that this is a server-side issue.

My system is very top-of-the-line as is my 50MB symmetric bandwidth.

What I really find interesting in my observations and in so many of the videos made is that the PETS always render and quickly. A good example is to run into the Trading Post of Lion’s Arch and notice how the pets show up for all of the players who don’t show up until seconds/minutes later. Then leave the TP, go down the stairs, and observe the lizard pet that appears on the right building where the 3 NPCs will eventually appear. I can literally go back and forth over and over and reproduce the same results. Why are the 3 NPCs not even rendering until later? (Even when no other players are around?)