Guild Wars 2

I would only critizise the assignement to a division based on 10 matches. It will need a couple more to get a proper assessment. As an example: I started my season with 7 losses and hence in bronze. In 1 day, I could make my way up to gold. My “true” division is hence higher than bronze.

I perfectly understand the reasoning and motivation of the devs for making this step. However, I hope that the next seasons will have a more accurate first assessment (e.g. based on the prior season).

Everyone needs roughly 100 matches until he/she is in the “correct” division. This is how the system works. Judging now based on the first impressions is hence unfair.

I hope that the next seasons will to a certain extent base on the previous results in order to mitigate the problems next time.

I am positively surprised by the skrimish-idea. I could experience two advantages.
1) The players stay until the end of a skrimish. They also try to win the skrimish/become 2nd. So the incentives to play WvW increased.

2) Even if one server is clearly dominating, the other two server still have an incentive to fight for position 2. I saw more ppl. still motivated despite the fact that the chances of being first were close to 0.

onevstheworld.2419:

snip

My critique is mainly that I got the impression Arena.net was not well enough prepared for this situation. Thats also why they celebrate how great the situation was handled. Maybe it was handled well by the individual (I wasnt there). However, as a group there must be a clear guideline what to do. The steps e.g. programming must be ready before the patch goes live. That was missing.

When it comes to the communication, there should be a clear order of where and how it will be communicated. E.g. giving information on twitter and reddit is a waste of time. There should be 1 main communication plattform and the rest only refers to this plattform. The devs have other things to do then communicating. However, the players should be updated constantly especially about the expected down-time.

I cannot say much about whether or not the roll-back was impressiv. However, I want to add some suggestions/learnt lessons.
It can always happen that a patch is not working the way it should or causing more damage than anything else. There should be a standard procedure how to react to such a situation. You can even communicate the procedure in order to decrease surprises.

Before a patch is implemented, a backup should be created. In case the patch causes problems, the backup should replace the latest version. This should be possible to do pretty quickly since it is just a “replace”-command. The system must be made ready for the replacement before. Then, the downtime of the game would decrease.

When it comes to the communication of the problem, you quickly worte a message here in the forum. I would also make sure (as a standard procedure for this case) to direct the player to the main plattform through which you would like to communicate. This can be e.g. your support website (as this link is already in the error message). Please also make sure to communicate, when the problems are solved. I sat yesterday and refreshed the News-section of the forum. Until now, there is no information about the game being online again. I know, you communicate through multiple plattforms. However, you should think about where the main information should flow through (e.g. the support website) and communicate it accordingly.

I dont know to what extent my suggestions are implemented already. Neverthless, I would simply communicate the procedure so that we know whats going on.

NA-servers are easy to link. EU-servers with the language restrictions pretty hard. We dont have insights into the player statistics. Hence, we have to trust the ones who have that they make the best decisions.

JTGuevara.9018:

HoT traits and builds have RUINED wvw and pvp. The powercreep right now is absolutely absurd.

It took you this long to realize?

Sarrs.4831:

There is no reason to believe that there was any aberrant behavior that would invalidate the poll. The poll was clearly worded, and the outcomes and requirements of the poll were clear. There is no reason to believe that participants in the poll did not participate in good faith.

You can answer a question in best faith. If you do not interprete the question the way it was intended, you will get a biased result. Furthermore, a couple of other biases are not accounted for (which I will not explain in detail).

Sarrs.4831:

Sure. But is the survey necessarily the best way to do that? ANet uses a multilateral approach when it comes to obtaining feedback; they use the surveys, they use the forums, they use Reddit and other external sites. They also track in-game activity and connect that with poll respondents.

The topic is the validity of the survey and not of all other approaches.

Choppy.4183:

What was unclear about the last question?

I cannot remember the last question. However, I remember the question about the next tasks of the WvW-team. The discussion in the forum about the question was very extensive.

And it’s not that I don’t think Anet shouldn’t care why people voted the way they did, it’s that the marginal benefit of probing that would be greatly outweighed by the cost. It also has the starting assumption that people have a clear and accurate reason for their preference.

Here we enter the economical arena and the area of thinking. I simply have a different opinion and I would leave it there.

Choppy.4183:

gloflop.3510:

Showing how to conduct a survey correctly would take me at least one lecture. I recommend a good statistics book instead.

Just to show one example here:
Has anyone ever asked themselves why there is something called cronbach’s alpha? The reason is that survey participants understand the questions different. Despite the fact that the author of the survey tries to use neutral formulations, this may not be perceived neutral by the participant. Hence, normal surveys use multiple questions for the same topic.

Some surveys, yes. Other approaches combine surveys with more involved interviews with a smaller subset of the sampling universe to better interpret survey responses. Triangulation via non-survey data is better still.

But which approach to use depends on what you’re trying to achieve. On the question of whether to keep dbl in rotation, why should Anet care so much about why people want it when the cost of probing that brings little gain but would inevitably lead to considerably fewer responses to the central question?

Anet is basically holding referenda here, not conducting behavioral research. It’s for that reason that their methodology is perfectly acceptable, and even superior to what you seem to want them to do.

Triangulation would be wrong, I agree. However, I did not voice for a triangulation. My example was about making clearer questions. If I think about Switzerland and the referenda there, making clear questions is partly a huge problem. The interpretation varies too much…
Furthermore, I disagree with your argument that anet should not care about the reason for the choice of the players. It helps them understanding what the players actually want and this is the aim of the surveys.

The risk of emergency WPs is that the enemy anticipates the usage. We had the problem before with the “normal” WP opening every 3 min. I think it belongs to the game and should not be changed.

Choppy.4183:

gloflop.3510:

Surveys are only as good as the person who creates it. They provide an outcome dependend on the question asked and the answers possible. The outcome has to be analysed and interpreted. In our specific case, we can ask many questions but it only provides us with a hint on what the opinions among the players participating is (not among all players). However, it does not tell us anything about why the players voted for what they voted for.

From a scientific perspective, the design of the surveys is simply horrible. I would not allow anyone using the data for a further analysis.

By all means, please provide your scientific critique of their survey methodology.

Showing how to conduct a survey correctly would take me at least one lecture. I recommend a good statistics book instead.

Just to show one example here:
Has anyone ever asked themselves why there is something called cronbach’s alpha? The reason is that survey participants understand the questions different. Despite the fact that the author of the survey tries to use neutral formulations, this may not be perceived neutral by the participant. Hence, normal surveys use multiple questions for the same topic.

Surveys are only as good as the person who creates it. They provide an outcome dependend on the question asked and the answers possible. The outcome has to be analysed and interpreted. In our specific case, we can ask many questions but it only provides us with a hint on what the opinions among the players participating is (not among all players). However, it does not tell us anything about why the players voted for what they voted for.

From a scientific perspective, the design of the surveys is simply horrible. I would not allow anyone using the data for a further analysis.

My solution: 1 IP-adress=1 server. That will stop the $5-$10 accounts from spreading around.

I would like to show how a pvp-match for me normally looks like:
1) I queue and after ~3 min. the queue pops up (at night it takes longer)
2) I wait 1 min. until the game starts
3) After 3 min. of the match, I realize that it will be an easy win/horrible loss
4) After 8 min. (roughly) my prediction after 3 min. becomes true
5) the game is over and I can queue again!

I counted Celine’s matches (previous post). In 4 (out of 10) the losing team had more than 350 points. In my own history, it is just 1 (out of 10). I dont mind if I cannot reach legendary. I dont mind losing a game. I mind if I queue 3 min. + 1 min. waiting only to get beaten up/have nobody to fight against. Why should I play PvP then? The real problem for me in terms of matchmaking are such blow-out matches.

@Tyler: Do you want to have a discussion about each point or will this happen at a later stage?

I like the idea. Instead of having few large world, we would have many small once. We can create more dynamic matchups with a higher degree of diversity.

However, the answer to the question if I would transfer to a new world would be a “no”. Why? I like my current world. I know my current world. We have all infrastructure (guilds, TS, etc.). Why shall I waste my time with building up something new? I got no incentive to do it.

I understand your irony.

For me the biggest problem are blow-out matches. Losing 499-500 is bad luck. Losing 0-500 is not at all enjoyable. Then MM has failed.

Jong.5937:

I have to say it’s great to have this level of interaction with the team, but this poll is bad.

After all the discussion on scoring, I could see two polls that might have worked:

1. “OK, thanks for all your ideas! Here are some of yours and some of ours, tidied up a bit and consolidated. They span the full range of ideas expressed. Please let us know which path you think we should take.”

2. “We’ve read all your comments and thought about them. Here are our revised suggestions. Please vote on them.”

The current poll_sounds_ like they have just ignored the feverish discussion on scoring, which they initiated, are just going ahead with their original ideas and all we get to do is set the order in which they are done. It may not be like that, but as we’ve had no feedback at all on the “talk scoring” thread, what are we supposed to think? At the very least this poll should have been backed by a document which defined what each of the options now meant.

I totally agree. It remains unclear whether the team read the discussion and whether the team actually adjusts their plans accordingly. I can recall a thread with Hugh in the PvP-part. He started a discussion, made a summary and asked clarifying questions. He led the discussion the way it should be. Maybe WvW-team can learn here from PvP-team.

It is unclear what acutally is behind each choice in the survey. Hence, it remains unclear whether the results are potentially biased and consequently useless.

Baldrick.8967:

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll repeat myself.

The simple solution to night capping is simple: reduce the points per tick of holding an objective, increase points for actual actions (defending/attacking/gaining an objective/killing players/killing dollies etc).

Result= much less points scored for holding everything for hours while no one is around, no more +20-30k points gained overnight.

People who play off hours are still rewarded equally, so no need to program some awful multiplier (quick, log in 30 accounts to Deso and afk in spawn so we get a higher multiplier – see how easy that was to game?).

I think this could lead to a good solution. More players on the map mean more action e.g. through flipping objects. If points for flipping, defending,… are introduced and for holding reduced, the primetime gets more attention than the off-time. The night-capping problem would be mitigated.
What I read right now, sounds like the team sat at one table and collected their ideas. Everyone had his/her approach for mitigating the night-capping. It is a nice way to tackle such a task. However, in the end we need 1 system and not 50 (although all of them may work). Hence, I would voice for implementing one thought through system like granting more points for action.
I personally oppose ppk because I fear it may discourage taking risks. When I attack a heavily defended structure, the risk of whipping is higher than when I attack some wooden structures. Hence, either the attacking team goes for wood or the defending team gains many points despite the fact that they have equal or less amount of players.

The skrimish-idea is from my perspective really nice as an event. You can grant rewards after a 2h-matchup or after a series of skrimishes (e.g. 1 week). However, what matters for me is the position in the ranking (I like between 5-8) in order to ensure diversity in the opponents.

And one more suggestion- Trebs should not be allowed to be placed inside structures.

I just want a shorter range (not much, just that you cannot hit the red keep from sm and vice versa).

Xenesis.6389:

That’s kinda ridiculous.
With the current system when you see your server is losing from saturday on, do you log out and not bother to log back in till next friday? or do you play for the fun of playing wvw even if you have no chance of making a come back?

Many do the first. I call them good-wheather-player. It will increase because the feeling of losing will increase due to the number losses. It is behavioural theory.
Furthermore, with the current system small victories are possible like avoiding to slide in the ranking.
Moreover, the winning team normally lowers its pressure when it feels it is winning. The night-shifts become shorter and they dont run for every white cross. It makes WvW for the weaker server easier.

Even if you’re losing a time slice, your actions will make a difference in the next time slice, so go out and keep taking and papering enemy structures, or prepare and defend your own. Or log out and let the enemy keep their T3 structures which may award more points and make it harder for your side to catch up in points, that’s up to you.

Short-termism vs. long-termism (also behavioural theory). The majority of the players thinks short. Otherwise you would see a lot better defence and people upgrading objects. In reality the opposite is true. You even see players complaining that there is the “caputre and hold” guild mission.

I asked some questions about the new system before. Since I did not get an answer (which I understand given the thousands of posts), I will continue on the basis of what I think the answer would have been.

Skrimish:
The idea is nice. Now it makes sense to fight even though the matchup seems to be lost. You can still win the skrimish and get a reward for it. Now the impact of one very strong time-period is mitigated.
I just have doubts about the practice. What happens if I realize after 15-30 min. that my server will not win the skrimish? Will I now try to defend the last t3 keep with all possibilities or will I logout. From my experience I would say, more people will logout than in the current system.
What is the consequence? All those who normally play during these periods, will face a much emptier map. They will complain and in the end either quit WvW or move to another world. Both will lead to less players in WvW.

Primetime:
Currently you say “a primetime is what we define as such”. I understand the problem of one server logging out in order to limit the loss in points. Hence, I would suggest that a primetime is defined by the number of players in total in all matchups in one datacentre. Then one server leaving has less impact than in one matchup. The drawback is especially in Europe that you have country-server. They have a certain coverage and cannot adjust by gaining new players from other regions (language barrier).

matchup:
If a new glicko-system is introduced based on the wins/losses in the matchup based on the skrimish-system, it will have the effect that the off-time will have less influence on the matchups. This will lead to more blow-out skrimishes in the off-time (and the consequences described above).
If the matchups are assigned as before, then you will introduce a system through which you can determine a “winner” according to your defnition, but you will not tackle the problem of off-time capping.

Conclusion:
My conclusion doesnt change. I see the new system very critical. You will cause more trouble than you solve. I dont see any other better system except of course the existing.

The polls are nice, they just have one drawback. This one new thing nobody knew he would need but everyone appreciates. Thats what made Apple strong, cannot come through the current system. Through polls only improvements of the current system are possible.

blackgamma.1809:

so that being said. how is a 1v1 duels different, from a player roaming between camps and being forced into a 1v1 fight when a theif or warrior comes out of nowhere and tries to kill you. its literally no different at all

In a forced 1 vs. 1 I would help my teammate. I mean, we are one team. In a duel, I will get flamed for helping (as Josh xt showed).

But the question to you as well: How do you differentiate whether it is a forced 1 vs. 1 or a duel?

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We want to improve scoring for a few big reasons:

• Reduce the need for 24 hour coverage by reducing the effects of off-hours capping (night capping)

And reduce the number of players who will consider it as worth to stay up all night. Just keep it in mind!

• It’s not okay that the time periods with the smallest number of active players have the largest impact on the score

Every tick counts equal at the moment. I doubt the “largest impact” story. It has the same impact.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• That feeling of hopelessness when your team is down 100,000 points after a single day

100k behind after 1 day is really a lot. Now roughly half of the matchup is played and in not even a single case the difference is 100k and you talk about it after a day? I have doubts that this ever occurred.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Changes to Match Structure:

• We’ll split the week long matches into 2 hour time slices we are calling ‘Skirmishes’
• Warscore is used to determine the winner of a Skirmish
• Skirmishes award varying amounts of Victory Points based on placement
• Victory Points are used to determine Match victor
• When a Skirmish ends, Warscore is reset, but actual map-state remains unchanged

If I understand it correctly, you will abandon the tick and replace it with “skrimish”. How will the matchup be determined? Traditionally or with the new rules? I fear other imbalances with the new rules. Let us say a server has a strong primetime and a weak off-time. With the old rules, the primetime was weighted more and hence the server climbed in the ranking. It got opponents which actually had a chance competing with them in the primetime. Now the sever will fall until it can compete in the off-time.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• Teams will still want to win as many time slices as possible, off-hours coverage is still important, but less dominant

I dont get it. I simply dont understand what you want to say here.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
• During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
• During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
• It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

I got several questions here:
First: Why a maximum of 3? Why not 2.9 or 3.1? It sounds to me as a random number.
Second: How will you account for public holidays? It will be relatively easy in NA. Think of the EU. If there is a French public holiday (and only in France), French servers are normally crowded, the rest not.
Third: How will you account for cultural differences? Especially in the EU not only time-zones but also culture plays an important role in when you have free time and when you have to work. Best example is the “Spanish Siesta”. Another example is the German strength between 5-8 in the morning. I can see the flames coming.
Fourth: How will you ensure that I actually understand the scoring? Now I get 2 points, next I get 5, then 3? I dont have a master degree in guild-wars-scoring and I will not try to achieve one.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Last Stand

• Last Stand describes the final day of any week long matchup
• During Last Stand, Skirmish placement Victory Points are multiplied
• This is intended to make the last day of the match as exciting as the first, and provide a final comeback mechanic for teams that are behind

and this will cause an imbalance again. A server now only wins and constantly wins because it has a good friday? Especially when we think about the cultural differences among Europe. In some countries the people work more during the week and less on Friday, in others on Friday as much as on Thursday.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Reduced the Score Tick Timer from 15 minutes to 5 minutes

• This will guarantee that every objective is grants at least one score pulse before it can be flipped by another team.

Keep in mind, it will change the strategic behaviour.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Upgraded Objectives Score Higher

• Each tier of objective upgrade increases the amount of score per tick

It does already implicitly. It is easier to defend if it is upgraded. Hence, I will keep it longer. You will add another reward. You may cause an imbalance. Keep it in mind!

• The goal is to incentivize defending your upgraded objectives and assaulting opposing upgraded objectives

I dont expect any changes in the behaviour. Currently t3 gets more attention than t0.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Points for Kill

• The amount of score earned from PPK will be increased, so that it contributes more to the overall score.
• As a rough number, PPK may increase to 3-5 points, rather than 1, with diminishing returns on killing players who have been alive for less than 5 minutes.

Which means that I will try to avoid more battles which seem to be unbalanced. Which means that suicide missions (e.g. in order to kill a treb) will become less attractive. You punish for lower population and thats exactly what you wanted to change. I would go rather in the opposite direction and abandon ppk.

All combined I would say: The model will cause more trouble than it solves.

Zetsumei.4975:

Also most importantly, if someone were to interfere in an agreed duel I have no respect for them whatsoever. (I personally dont enjoy duels myself, theyre too static for me I prefer the chaos of open world and using terrain to get the jump on 2/3 people but I most definitely respect others’ duels and as a personal rule will not interfere in even-numbered fights). If you stumble upon an agreed duel, have the decency and honor to walk on.

I will not discuss your solo roaming further since the topic is duelling. The problem is the word “agreed”. Yes, when someone duels and just duels, I dont care (although i dont like it). However, is the person between my keep and sm waiting for a duel or a dolyak? Did the two players fighting next to the pathway or in front of our bay agree to fight each other or not? Of course I can ask. But do I have the time for it? There duels become annoying. Hence, I voice for a duel-area. I would be less annoyed by duellers, the duellers less by interruptions.

Zetsumei.4975:

However, im also well aware that this can often be the reason for an overwhelming winrate in 1v1s along with there being no matchmaking meaning you often fight people not experienced enough in the game so I actively go looking for 1vx’s as the challenge.

And there we have an entirely different setup. You allow others to join your fight or better to say, you seek for 1 vs. 2, 3. You will not start flaming me for “interrupting” your duel. You probably go to an area controlled by the opponent and start flipping sentry points/camps. The major difference is that you are looking for a challenge (as you said) and not a “fair” duel. Im personally fine with this behaviour.

I would oppose destroying supplies because it would be unlogical. I understand that a dolyak delievers supplies. However, that it destroys some… How should this be done?

Where I see some potential is that the dolyak explodes when it reaches a gate and does some damage to it. The damage should be pretty small (less than 10k). A tower should be opened by players and not by dolyaks.
I would like to add that I am not sure whether there needs to be a change. It probably has to be tested.

Josh XT.6053:

gloflop.3510:

Josh XT.6053:

To those screaming “Duel in guild hall, eotm or OS” – I have bad news for you. I don’t know ANY of the people I am dueling ever lmao. We usually just run in to each other, bow and go. We don’t just have a community of duelers looking for duels, its usually people solo roaming who run into another solo roamer.

Thats leads my question. Do you prefer duelling in the open field in WvW or would you prefer duelling in PvP? Your opponent gets chosen similar to normal conquest/stronghold, the map is designed for duels, you get opponents from all worlds including your own, the armor/weapons are independent of your gold account, nobody can disturb you, etc.

WvW for sure.

PvP builds are very limited, there isn’t a whole lot of build diversity there and the armor spec is way different. In WvW, I can mismatch my gear, build for more of certain thing or build for more balance than PvP can offer.

Since they dropped Celestial amulet from PvP, I rarely go back. They should have just nurfed it a little bit, not removed it all together.

I think the celestial amulet is a good example why I disagree with you. The celestial amulet was removed from PvP because it led to imbalance between the builds. There is no such control in WvW. A victory in a duel has hence no meaning. You won, great! I can also run faster than a little child.

Now you left PvP because you cannot use the celestial amulet. In other words: I am not OP anymore, I will not play anymore. Learn other builds, other classes. That would be an example of your skill.

I know you will flame me now. I dont care!

Josh XT.6053:

To those screaming “Duel in guild hall, eotm or OS” – I have bad news for you. I don’t know ANY of the people I am dueling ever lmao. We usually just run in to each other, bow and go. We don’t just have a community of duelers looking for duels, its usually people solo roaming who run into another solo roamer.

Thats leads my question. Do you prefer duelling in the open field in WvW or would you prefer duelling in PvP? Your opponent gets chosen similar to normal conquest/stronghold, the map is designed for duels, you get opponents from all worlds including your own, the armor/weapons are independent of your gold account, nobody can disturb you, etc.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

In the coming weeks we plan to hold more polls. Just like we are currently polling about the Reward Tracks and Participation beta, we’ll poll about the World Linking beta as well.

When you do a poll, please keep in mind that unsatsified players are more likely to show their complain than satisfied showing their satisfaction.

I see the skill-lag coming

We had a discussion about improvements to PvP in the PvP-section of this forum. One often named suggestion was to allow for 1 vs. 1 fights. I think that would be the optimal solution to the dueler-issue. It would allow them to fight against all other players who are willing to fight from all other worlds (not just 2). Furthermore, the effects of gold are mitigated. Food, armor, booster, etc. dont matter in PvP. It is therefore from my perspective more skill-based. Moreover, you cannot be interrupted by any other player.

A player next to sm can have multiple motivations. He can search for someone to duel, he can also wait for the next dolyak to kill or he can pretend to be a dueller and secretly hit sm. In the first case, I dont have to care. In the latter two, we have to chase him all over the map that he learns to leave our stuff alone. Furthermore, I come along 2 players fighting. Did the one player attack the other or are they having a duel? I have other things to do than to watch how the action will continue. I saw many cases where a player was attacked and friendly players passed by who thought it would be a duel where in fact it wasnt.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Since it’s clear that this is a big concern for players, we’ll fix it.

Fix it with the next update and let the flamers flame. You will never be able to get everyone satisfied anyway.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• For the last 6 months, I’ve been told daily by players how great and well designed ABL is/was. This was our opportunity to see if they’d still feel that way, or think ABL needs additional work just like DBL.

ABL is a terrible map. An empty DBL is just worse.
Do you want a ABL-improvement-thread? Go for it an open one. I know the map well enough to say something.

btw. if you are looking for general points to improve, I would like to have a shorter treb-range. An inch should be enough. I don’t think it is right that you can reach the red keep on eb from sm and vice versa.

I think the entire discussion about nightcapping is nonesense as long as we dont know how the change shall be conducted.

I am a little bit puzzled. We havent heard any concrete plans yet. Nightcapping (or better said off-time capping) is a problem. Sure, I agree on this point. If an objecte is heavily defended, taking it should count more. I understand the argument as well. It all sounds nice. I am just trying to figure out how a fair system should look like. Shall we close WvW between 0-8 am? That doesnt sound like a solution.

@anet: I have the experience from PvP season 2. Please think twice about the consequences, the implications and the potential possibilities to manipulate. If you want, introduce the plan in the forum first.

Both projects in the survey sound nice. However, I have some doubts that they actually work as planned. E.g. nightcapping leads to the question what a fair distribution between day and night is. I mean, if a world captures a tower at 3 am, is it actually worth less than a tower at 3 pm? What shall we say to the players who work hard at 3 am to capture the tower? “Thank you for your effort. However, what you have done was unimportant”?“You dont have to go to WvW at night. It doesnt matter anyway”?

It is similar with the area control. It sounds really nice on the paper. However, I have some doubts that it works as nice in reality as on the paper… I wish arena-net all the best.

godz raiden.2631:

If I hold the opinion that the clouds in the sky are made of bubblegum flavored unicorns, that’s my right, but that doesn’t mean others have to accept my opinion as reality.

RESPECT not accept! I want my right to hold the opinion that the clouds in the sky are made of bubblegum flavoured unicorns. You dont have to take it as yours. Especially not attack me for my opinion as you did with the words “grow up”. There you are attacking my dignity.

godz raiden.2631:

That’s not what is classified as a dueler, that would be a roamer. Roamers are players who moving around the map and when they see a player that looks like a vulnerable, easy kill, they jump on that target.

Congratulations, roamers see you as easy prey. Get over it. Roamers don’t care if you’re having fun dying to them. They don’t care if it annoys you. You drop a loot bag, and sometimes, if the roamer is lucky, you’ll put up a decent fight instead of running to the nearest door.

Learn to fight against players that jump on you out in the open, or sit in a tower all day afraid to come out and play, it’s up to you. But roamers aren’t going to suddenly change what they’re doing just because your fee fees got hurt.

Ok, let me describe the setting better. I run from my keep, an enemy stands at the side. He is at the normal duel position. Shall I regard him as a dueller or roamer? I get closer, close to my guards and it is vitually impossible to get me down before Im in. Then he attacks lightly. Then he wants to push me into a duel. Of course the player is bored but Im not there to entertain him! From a strategic perspective, his action makes no sense.

I know how to fight. As I pointed out before, I have played a number of PvP matches with some success. I just dont think such fights belong to WvW! There needs to be some strategic value, some likelihood of getting me down. I experience it so many times that this is not given. It is a bored dueller waiting for an opponent.

Anyone can attack you, it doesn’t have to be a dueler. And attacking other players is simply part of the game mode. It can be annoying, sure. Many other things can be annoying too. As long those are not against the rules, staying away from “annoyances” is the only thing you can do.

Im not saying that it is against the game mechanics/rules. Im just saying that I dont like it and I dont want to get attacked or insulted because I state an opinion others may not agree with (as some here did).

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Btw, why don’t you ignore duelers? You can just pretend they are not there and they won’t annoy you anymore, right?

They dont leave me alone. I suddenly get attacked right in front of sm (we hold it). Of course I can just walk straight forward and get inside. Does it annoy me anyway? yes!

Xenesis.6389:

You’re on a serious trip dude. Points per kill is in the game.

Please take back the trip. I dont take illegal drugs and dont want to be put anywhere near it. As far as I remember it was one of the critiques for HoT. Please excuse if I dont look up the forum now. I have better things to do. I couldnt fint any evidence in wiki. The game release note were also not helpful (in any direction).

To the rest of your post: WvW is more than just flipping something. It is a highly strategic game mode. Duelling simply annoys me in my way of playing and I expect you to accpet my opinion.

gloflop.3510:

gloflop.3510:

I want you to think about it and give an honest answer. What would you say about a duelling area in hotm? You dont have to wait for opponents, you get opponents from all servers, you dont have to wait in a q to get on a map, you can actually be rated according to your skill, you can be sure that your opponent has proper gear (and not all blue). I dont see why you should prefer the side of sm towards a duelling arena!

1. Classes/builds are not balanced in 1vs1, so even in PvP duels are not always fair.
2. PvP is very limited when it comes to (viable) builds – and this limitation doesn’t lead to better balance -> see above.
3. In a duel both player agree to fight each other. If a player feels disadvantaged, he can always refuse a duel.

1+2 I agree but think that PvP is still more balanced than WvW-builds.
3 I experienced different… Lets leave it here.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

gloflop.3510:

It is a WvW map, not a PvP map. There is a small difference. PvP is about killing other players. You get points per kill. The points per kill were taken out of WvW. It brings nothing to the tick and hence no points for the team. WvW has a much higher focus on strategy, objects and large scale fights. It is a comparison of a world in total with another world in total. There is a game mode for players who want to compare their skill with other players. It is called PvP.

WvW isn’t called PvP to distinguish it from structured PvP, but techically both game modes are PvP. And sPvP isn’t more about killing players than WvW. It is about gaining score to win a match. Killing players is part of it, but not the main goal. It is possible to win a match without a single kill. Dueling in PvP is as “unofficial” as dueling in WvW. Some prefer dueling in PvP, others dueling in WvW – both has advantages and disadvantages and both is done “just for fun”. Which is all what matters, it is a game after all (same goes for zerging, roaming, scouting, GvG, watching fights, PvD or whatever people enjoy to do).

Any player can do whatever he wants as long as he doesnt disturb/annoy me. I dont have patience for players who take “their fun” on my costs. Annoying is in my perspective allowed as long as it is in line with the philosophy behind the game mode. Duelling belongs from the philosophy to sPvP. I think there we agree. I see the disadavantage of not having a 1 vs. 1 arena there.

I tend to disagree with your definitions for sPvP and WvW. SPvP is more about killing, WvW about holding objects/structures. Yes of course you could win without a single kill. However, the game mode is structured the way that it is highly unlikely to do so. I think I never won when my team had not a single kill.

General remark: I stated my opinion. I stated my perception and beliefs. I originate from a country which still applies the freedom of speech. I expect that you respect my opinion.

Nocturnal Lunacy.8563:

That being said…. The skill lag is awful. And well I get irritated when I die cuz skills 6-0 will not activate and hence the tweet spam.

There are three possible explanations for skill-lags. Either your computer/internet is too slow, the connection to the server somewhere in between is too slow or the server is not appropriate/too slow/bad connection. I personally rarely experience skill-lags. I live in an area with good internet connection. An gw2-update loads with 5 MB easily. I dont know your equipment/connection. However, could you check whether that was the problem for the lags?

Nocturnal Lunacy.8563:

I’m sure anet has already heard enuf time about the 2 hr queues.

Both (Short queues and many players on the maps) is sadly not possible.

Puck.9612:

This is a joke right?

No its not. Duels and GvG do not belong to WvW from my perspective. GvG has a really nice area in Obsidian. I went there to watch. My preferred option would be a PvP map because then the teams have equal opportunities in terms of classes/builds.

azyume.6321:

Ask for the roamers, to stop attacking them because only want to do daily and missions? Yeah, that’s called PvE, they are in the wrong place if can’t handle the player versus player aspect.

I dont care about dailys. I care about my area, my towers and keeps. I care about scouting, defending, team tactics, etc. and clearly not about some random players rushing around. Let me add that I also play PvP (with some success).

azyume.6321:

As has been pointed out and apparently some people conveniently ignores is that duelers are usually roamers. You know, those players who engage the other roamers trying to flip your camps, the ones who flips your own camps back, kills sentry, yaks, give important intel about zerg movements and tracks, refresh siege, kill the enemy zerg tail.

I’d like very well to see a server function without any roamer, want to see the zerg go rolling through all and wasting time and their ppt bringing 50 people to flip camps and go on searching the other zerg and etc.

I think my playing style would be considered as roaming as well. I do what you decribe. I flip our camps, flip our own camps back, kills sentry, yaks, give important intel about zerg movements and tracks, and refresh siege (just to go through your list). The only thing I dont do is that I camp around sm and wait for someone to arrive or I dont stand in a group of 5 outside a tower waiting for a player to come out. I fully understand it when I get attacked while flipping a camp or while running around in the enemy’s territory. I fully understand that fighting a threat is part of the game mechanics. However, I dont understand e.g. the extreme case. A group of players in front of our spawn waiting for someone to come out and farm. I personally would consider the behaviour even as coward style.

I would like to add that I understand players who want to duel. However, I think it would be better to implement the option in PvP. The dueling around sm is annoying. I remember getting flamed because I killed one of the duellers. Then I went to a duel and won. Afterwards I did what I normally do. 3 min. later I got flamed for not allowing a revenge. I dont want to duel!

I want you to think about it and give an honest answer. What would you say about a duelling area in hotm? You dont have to wait for opponents, you get opponents from all servers, you dont have to wait in a q to get on a map, you can actually be rated according to your skill, you can be sure that your opponent has proper gear (and not all blue). I dont see why you should prefer the side of sm towards a duelling arena!

azyume.6321:

It is a PvP map, so is it too much to ask from people to understand and keep that in mind when they enter the WvW realm?

It is a WvW map, not a PvP map. There is a small difference. PvP is about killing other players. You get points per kill. The points per kill were taken out of WvW. It brings nothing to the tick and hence no points for the team. WvW has a much higher focus on strategy, objects and large scale fights. It is a comparison of a world in total with another world in total. There is a game mode for players who want to compare their skill with other players. It is called PvP.

From my perspective 1 vs. 1 fights as well as 10 vs. 10 or 15 vs. 15 should be implemented in PvP. Why so? It starts with fairness. All players in PvP have the same (potential) armor, weapons, etc. Furthermore, they dont interfere in the normal attacking/defending. It is annoying when I want to check if a tower is under attack and get stopped by a player who thinks it is fun to fight a player who doesnt want to. It gets even worse when we talk about groups chasing me. I sometimes run to our zerg and they rolled over them but that cannot be the solution. What annoys me most are those players who camp in front of the spawn. When you already control the map, then leave us some space to breath! It like jumping on a dead body. Dont you have some honour?

Edit: Fights up to 5 players are already possible in PvP arenas (hot-join). However, I would enjoy if arenanet develops more in this direction and gives the players an incentive to leave WvW.

I still agree with OP. The maps are too large and complex. Yes, once you know the pathways life gets easier and yes, if you hold garri and can use the wp, you get around comparetively quickly. However, you dont always hold garri, sometimes it is contested and sometimes you need to go from the air to the fire keep. It all takes ages then.

Furthermore, I consider the keeps as simply messy. The keeps are big and as a defender I simply have to get from A to B quickly inside. A larger keep with lots of stairs is the last thing I would like to see then. It made me hate scouting! If I actually want to defend a keep, I would have to position 2-3 scouts in one keep and need to put up lots of siege (many options to attack). To be honest, I agree with the majority of the players who simply dont do this work and leave the keeps aside. Yes, I run to them when they are contested and yes I defend them, but no I dont do much more.

In one part I disagree with many prior posts. I like it that the towers in the north have little strategic value. They still have value for the tick. However, I hated the trebs in the towers opening my garri on ABL. I hate on eb that you can open sm from the red keep (and the other way round) as well. The attacker should be on the open field. The easiest fix would be to shorten the range of trebs just by an inch.

The entire situation reminds me of the problems in PvP last season. The dev thought very nicely and carefully through a theoretically great model. They just made 2 mistakes. 1) They forgot that theory and practice are two different things. 2) The majority of the players is not sopisticated enough to learn and understand the great model.
Dont understand me wrong, there was lots of work involved and lots of good ideas were implemented. DBL is good example. The elements of the map are/were great ideas and nicely done. Just if everything is put together, the flaws appear. Someone really on top should have noticed what went wrong and changed the direction.

DBL are great. They just have one big problem: They are too large. It takes too long to get from A to B. The keeps are too large. It took me ages to check every single wall/gate. I need a simpler structure inside.

If I just take the air-keep as example. There are plenty of pathways up and down which are just useless (unless you want to hide). There are basically 2 ways from the outer south gate to the inner south gate. It is similar for the north or middle gate. The rest of the keep is useless. When I die in the keep, it takes long to run from the middle-keep to the air-keep (not to talk about citadel).

One more rather tiny problem I got with DBL is, that the armor repair is too far away from the wp. If I take the air-keep as an example (again). I would have to walk up the stairs for repair and then down again.

I think the demand is not for a ranking as such. It is rather for a differenciation between “test-mode” and “rank-mode”. unranked is test-mode. If a player is bad in ranked, he gets flamed with the words “go unranked”. Now all players are in unranked. How to flame the bad players now? Welcome to the core of the demand! In fact we are talking about matchmaking.

Matchmaking is difficult to understand and highly intransparent. I would suggest starting there instead of thinking about a 24/7/30/365 ladder. One option could be the demand from last season. Make mmr visible. Show the players how and why they are matched against/with certain other players.

More colours have from my perspective a low priority. There are other things to implement in the game which have a much bigger influence on the fun-factor. However, if more colours should be introduced, your post is already a good guidline.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I don’t know what would be available, but I’d suggest that ideas might best stay within the normal color ranges, even the standard 9 (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, brown, white).

A colour has to be detectable on the map and on the mini-map (btw. I had some problems with blue when Im in a large squad). Furthermore, it needs to differable to the other colours. Of the selection above, blue, red, purple and yellow already exist. Orange will be too close to red and green will look like the landscape. However, I can be wrong. It needs to be tested. I think it should be easy to test since you only need to put a new colour in the symbol and save the file. You save it under the same name as e.g. blue and replace the file in the game directory. Next time you load the game, the symbol should have a different colour.

I would like to draw the attention away from the question “which colour”. The colour can only be judged in the game. What we should discuss instead is the specification of the colour and the number of colours needed.

morrolan.9608:

3. The rate is too slow in comparison to spvp.

I read it now more often. If I take the amount of time invested, I tend to agree. In a ranked match, I will get at least 500 points (I think that was the amount in case of a loss) per match. 1 match lasts (with queue) roughly 10 min. If I consider a win/loss rate of 50%, I would achieve 1000 points every 10 min. In WvW, that are maximum of 550 points per 15 min. So lets say roughly half of PvP. Now comes the big BUT. PvP is (for me) much more stressful. I have to react all the time, look everywhere. Commanding in WvW is similarly stressful. However, running behind a commander means 1 battle (stress) and then 5 min. running around (no-stress). In other words, if I take the amount of stress/energy invested, I tend to consider the WvW pace as equivalent to PvP.

Gaile Gray.6029:

1. How do you feel overall about reward tracks?

I have a surprising answer to it: I dislike the rewards. It sounds surprising since we should be happy to get something. However, I dont play WvW for rewards. I play WvW for the fun, the server and for the fights. Rewards attract players who only look for rewards. Yes, WvW used to be a good way to lose gold. That should be reimbursed somehow.

2. What are your thoughts on the rate at which you gain participation?

The answer here will not be too surprising after reading my first lines: I dont care much. 550 per 15 min. (normally I got 550) means 1 box from the reward track per 15 min. Thats a quite steady pace.

3. How do you feel about the rate you earn reward track points?

Since the tick is assigned every 15 min., it is exactly right. I work for the tick, I get my reward with the tick. It is as in rl. When a painter painted a room, I pay him. Not every second!

4. Overall, what are your impressions about the types of reward tracks we have?

I think most of it was copied from PvP. Hence, it is old-fashioned and not impressive at all. If you want to grant some rewards, then PvP-reward track is a good starting point but just this.

5. Are there any other reward tracks you would really like to see?

Short answer: WvW-related rewards. Instead of some green boots, how about some catapult blue prints? Other option: give me gold straight (and my inventory will like it).

the patch was a huge step in the right direction!