Guild Wars 2

Vova.2640:

Hopefully never…

This.

OPs post made me sad. Gotta play as much as possible while Alpine is here.

Steelo.4597:

when i use all stability skills of warrior (bad build) i still get like only 1/3 stab uptime and i can only give stab to myself.. :S so every raid is guardians, guardians, guardians – just because of teh stab. oh a warrior – uhm – move him out of my sight to group 5, thanks. that said stab is now better then before, but not as good as it used to be – dont see why you would have to wreck a melee train with hard CC.. better reduce the amount of soft CC they can ignore (98% duration reduce on cripple anyone?) and slow them down, then they are easy to avoid.

Truth. I miss my Warrior. Only Gandalfing with staff and gsw these days.

zhonnika.1784:

Hopefully forever. WvW feels like WvW again, not some hard to get around/attack blah place of sandstorms and broken dreams. DBL seems like a bad dream now, and I don’t ever want to go back there. Ever. Ever. Ever.

It does seem like a bad dream! I’m really happy that they switched back. Didn’t realise how much I missed GW2.
Sadly if the bad dream becomes reality again, I’ll take another break. EB is fine, but queuing up for it is a pain.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Personally, I do most of my gaming in the dark.

Likewise, except when daylight takes over here in the North™.
You know you’ve been WvWing for too long when the sun sets, and then comes up (at 2am).

Nevostrius.2758:

So.. my idea would be that we keep the 3 Alpine maps, but replace the Edge of the Mist Map with the DBL Map.

Not bad. Considering EOTM is hated by all† and DBL by most† of WvW players (†= personal experience), this would make sense.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

If you dare, make a poll asking for whether people want the DBL deleted forever.

I second this. And would ofc vote: YES, delete it with fire!

IDK about 3 maps co-existing. I simply do not want to play DBL. If there’s queue on EB or Alpine, lets say my guild goes there during the raid. I wouldn’t want to have to log in and then log out because I can’t play what I enjoy. If there is a rotation, at least people who don’t like Desert can take a break from GW2 like they already did.
Maybe just reduce rotation from quarterly. Or leave Alpine forever. (Or reduce size, verticality, tower, and PvE nonsense in Desert).

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

Personally, while there’s an Alpine option, I don’t intend to set foot in Desert. In that case, it’ll be a waiting game of queues for 2 borderlands: EB or Alpine, which isn’t really fun. (During the Desert BL era, there were massive EB queues throughout the night.)

So I’d prefer having proper WvW fun when Alpine is on rotation, and taking a game break when/if Desert comes back.

morrolan.9608:

They have pretty much said there won’t be any further tournaments but there will be other ways of getting the tickets.

I wasn’t aware of that. Sad news if true.

It gave an extra incentive for WvW! I was on a Bronze server during the last one, and it was lots of fun. Can’t speak for top tiers though.
The only thing that might be tricky now is server pride, which has been a bit wounded for some when mergers happened.

I guess it could be tricky while server pairings are still in beta.

That said, I would love to have another Tourney soonish, while we still have proper Alpine BL on! WvW Tournaments were some of the most fun times I’ve had in GW2. First one and Spring 2014, that is. Autumn 2014 was too trivial.

1. How do you feel overall about reward tracks?
This is such a welcome addition! Glad to see that all that time spent in the Mists actually brings rewards now. PvP-like track works really well. Thanks for this change!

4. Overall, what are your impressions about the types of reward tracks we have?
As ppl have stated above, a greater diversity of WvW-themes reward tracks would be great. By now, a lot of dungeoneers, PvPers will have had all of the dungeon-themed gear etc. The new armor is nice, tho.

5. Are there any other reward tracks you would really like to see?
Something that we use a lot on daily basis are foods and stones/oils. Maybe those pricey utility items like Master / Bountiful / Furious Maintenance Oil could be added to the track.

Also, thanks for bringing back Alpine BL! \o/
There is no feeback thread on that, so I’ll write it here: thanks, and I hope it stays for good!

Josh XT.6053:

It is not just nostalgia to a lot of people.
Not great places for open field fighting, too many choke points, too much PvE nonsense, maps were too big making finding fights nearly impossible.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Yeah I’ve never understood the argument that “the map is boring”. That’s like saying a chess board or soccer field is boring. The map serves a purpose, it works. You can have boring opponents but that’s not the maps fault. The dbl doesn’t work for the game mode, that was the problem.

Quoted for truth. So happy Alpine is back, it made me start playing GW2 more often. Had tons of fun this rainy weekend, having epic 3-way fights in Bay. Imo, WvW works better on smaller and flatter maps where its easier to run into fights instead of looking for any trace of an enemy and PvDing through the night.

I know its a long shot, but I hope Alpine stays for good (or it just gets re-skinned if ppl are “bored”, though IIRC players were bored by stale MUs, not BL). And if it doesn’t stay, well, I guess its useful to have a few months break for other games. Quarterly rotation of DBL is too long (personally), a bi-weekly or so would work much better for players like me who get grumpy in DBL. :p

Just a brief THANK YOU for bringing the Alpine Borderland back!
I’d posted in the Bring-Back-Alpine threads, and its really appreciated to see it actually happen. So thanks is really in order here.

Being too large and vertical, with little places for interesting fights, Desert BL really put me off GW2 for some time. Needless to say, since the great news, I’ve been playing as often as possible, and the last few weeks have been great! Didn’t realise how much I’ve missed the game until I saw the snowy spawn and old buddy Henry the Worm.
Excellent 3-ways fights between Piken, Deso and Kodash happened at Bay during the weekend – personally, WvW is so much more fun in a smaller space and with less pve elements.

Though I’m aware chances are slim nonexistent, I hope it stays permanently.

Osu.6307:

1) Flatten Desert BL and remove all the chokepoints. Make the keeps and towers smaller. I want a Desert BL, not a Canyon BL.
2) Rotate Desert and Alpine BL’s weekly.

Yes! This! Just yes!

My priorities:
1) Bring back Alpine. Preferably full-time. If you must, then rotate with the new BL, but only if vertical jumping buzzley nonsense is removed from it and castle sized are reduced.
2) Revert stability changes, making smallish guild group zerg-busters possible again.
3) More frequent Tournaments, but not simple like the latest one – more like Spring 2014.
4) It’d be nice if rewards were better, but imo that was never the point of WvW.
5) Return of the Alpine BL.

Reset back on Friday? Finally! Thanks. Now just give us back Alpine and I’ll come back to the game!

Alpine Borderland.

Or they could, you know, revert it back to when WvW was fun and playable, before the stab nerf from last spring.

briggah.7910:

guess you guys preferred the same ones you been looking at for years?

::shakes head::

If something is useful, looks well and works well, I don’t mind looking at it for years. In fact, these changes just for the sake of change, that end up making things silly or breaking them – that is something I’d prefer never to look at.

DeceiverX.8361:

I have nothing good to say about the new BL’s except they’re visually great and would make great PvE maps.

Too bad we’re not in PvE. Alpine design, please.

Indeed. The new maps are pretty, but design was never a primary issue with WvW. Also, especially with the Fire keep in the Desert BL – it’s massive and impressive so kudos to the designers, but when you’re running around looking for the enemy, stopping to admire the view is not your top priority, is it? And everything is tall. As a mist soldier, you only see the bottom part of everything and you don’t get the sense of this grandeur, so all that design is wasted. The only thing that enables you to appreciate this design are the vistas. And the verticality is making the gameplay annoying. I really don’t understand whose brilliant idea was to do that when so many WvWers complained about the jumping puzzley aspect of EotM.

Alpine BL was much more moderate on the other hand. It has gradiose structures etc, but they were more visible that on the new map.

So, I’m taking a break until WvW Tournaments, when they promised true WvW map Alpine is coming back.

Wow Anet. Just Wow. Of all the urgent things that they should could have “fixed”….

Who ever complained about this? After spending most of my “WvW career” in Bronze, I can say that this was an important tactic / a way to continue interesting fights.

Question: I didn’t get a chance to play yesterday. What exactly did they do with the “bug fix” mentioned in the Dec 1 post, about being able to teleport for a few seconds between Repel Attackers events?
Isn’t this how we’ve been defending for 3 years now? Or was there an actual bug.

Is timer still meaningful? Can we still spam WP?

If anyone who played after the patch can explain this, it would be much appreciated.

rchu.8945:

Maybe Anet can start a kickstarter campaign to fund this…

I’d probably support something like that. While I’m just 1 player, atm Anet isn’t making any profit on me (thankfully, I didn’t preorder HoT). There are might be more people that are only left with WvW. So if something positive is finally done about WvW, I’m sure there is at least some profit to be made.

Genuine shower-thought question here. Seeing that ArenaNet has a poor record of keeping up with the wishes/concerns of the WvW community, and how recent news/leaks from reddit seem to make WvW players uneasy, and how reset change caused an uproar, and HoT changes caused an exodus in WvW population, and how stability changes before that cause another exodus… you get my point. So, would it be possible to outsource WvW to another company?

Since launch, very little development was done on WvW as opposed to PvE and PvP. So it is reasonable to assume that WvW is not high on Anet’s list of priorities. Therefore, it might be more logical to get more devs that would be dedicated to WvW. Or, this is probably a long shot, sell it as a separate game.

Benefits for Anet: getting the game mode improved by still not doing anything.
Benefits for WvW players: get to play a game mode we all enjoy without constant thoughtless changes that cause population exodus, and hopefully better communication.

Would this be doable at all? Please, share your thoughts.

Tzozef.9841:

Question to all you guys,

I think it’s been mentioned by people before to bring Alphine Borderlands back, which I feel for myself.

But what do you think prevents Anet from making this decision, I mean, why not?

Yes, getting Alpine back would bring back a lot of WvW community which left because they didn’t want to deal with the EotM-y / PvE-y new BL and don’t have time/patience for super long EB queues.

What is preventing Anet in saving WvW by listening to the playerbase and making this simple change back into the old system?
Yeah, probably foolish pride / fear of admitting own mistakes. Or worse, they are not even aware that there is a problem because them blatantly ignoring WvW game mode and the WvW community is just that extensive.

Dayra.7405:

You have ANets words about the major overhaul sticky in this subforum. Just read it again: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Invitational-Statement-from-John-Corpening-game-director-for-World-vs-World/5350913

I am aware of this. Yet that was written before HoT. They had guilds testing the Desert Borderland, yet chose to ignore most the feedback and produce the BL that drove away so much of the WvW population. So you’ll forgive me that I don’t have much faith in Anet recognizing and dealing with the problem.

Wolfric.9380:

WvW is about: Strategic diversion, guilds and server pride.

Hear hear!

Offair.2563:

I’m worried with this. What exactly do THEY think is better?

Why, more PvE and jumping puzzles, of course!

cafard.8953:

Found on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3u7bo1/no_hope_for_legendary_effect_on_engineer/cxcqyvo

A bit sad that the devs are more active on Reddit than providing official communication.
It’s probably all the cupcakes that the PvE fans buy them…

Ario.8964:

At least for 1 map? Like maybe have red borderlands be the desert one and the other two can be the good old fashioned BL’s we love.

I support this wholeheartedly.
It would really help with the queue on EB. On Piken, we’ve had a 45+ queue yesterday.

Seriously.

My guild raided escorted Dollies weird-cattle-on-steroids last night. There was a queue on EB sadly. #realdollieshavefur

Anyhow, finding a group to fight in the vastness of the Desert Borderland was quite difficult at first, so we spent our “raid” time doing PvE nonsense. Such is WvW life post-HoT.
Later on, we were fighting the enemy at Hills. Wait, “fight” is the wrong word. We stood on the bridge with a shield generator and they trebbed us from a distance and we awkwardly looked at each other like on a first date, and people cursed Revenant hammer on TS.
After a lot of staring, we eventually broke through. I logged off and went to sleep.

And I actually found myself dreaming of fights in True Hills on the Alpine Borderland. The old cata spot, the chokes on the bridge and in the Lord’s Room, visible surroundings [not obscured by overly elaborate (pretty but useless) cliffs and canyons], reasonable verticality, the snowy breeze caressing the cheeks of combatants…

Never forget the perpetually christmasy Citadel, structures that we cared for and upgraded ourselves, watersports while looking for a mesmer in Bay, flatlands where we could easily spot an enemy group and engage, jumping that was only restricted to the Jumping Puzzles and not forced on the players, good ol’ Henry the Worm (for some servers on EU), and last but not least, wandering heart and soul of Home BL – cute n’ fluffy yaks, the Real Dollies that you want to hug.
You get my point.

So Anet, if you ever find yourself with the desire to make someone’s dreams come true, you can bring back a real WvW borderland – Alpine.
Until then, I’ll be in EB.

Server mergers are probably inevitable. Too many people got tired of Anet ignoring WvW, and they’ve left.

However, in addition to that, bringing back Alpine borderland would be an excellent start for encouraging players to come back.
It would make me more active, for example. Atm, I’m only playing EB, and other games.

No. No no no. No. No. And nope.
Megaserver already killed all server spirit in PvE. It was also the reason I started to play WvW only.
Merging some servers is likely necessary due to the loss of population after introducing the new map, but Megaserver is not the solution. It would make WvW like EotM – just k-train for levelling characters that no one who takes WvW seriously ever plays (except for occasional arranged GvGs).

Leeco.6705:

they will bring back the alpine bl during wintersday because its festive and snowy and the dollies are woolly…

PLEASE LET THIS BE TRUE!!!

Fat fluffy dolly = real dolly!

I fill my WvW void with:

1) Knitting a scarf as a Xmas present
2) Reading (so far, re-read half of New Jedi Order, and progressing nicely with the Malazan Book of the Fallen)
3) EB when my guild raids in EB

Only playing GW2 when my guild raids in EB (cause I’d miss my guild if I quit). I’m not having fun with the new BL, and the point of gaming is fun. So I agree with the OP – it’d be nice to know if GW2 plans to offer something (or bring back Alpine at least), or if I should leave GW2 for good…

NO! No no no. No, thank you! Megaserver already ruined this game, and with the pve-y, jumping puzzley, EOTMy mess of a utter new borderland, EB is the only thing that keeps me playing.

EOTM is not a positive development for real WvW, so no more features should be designed based on it.

Please provide us with some reasoning for the Reset change.

Is this something that people have requested? I don’t think I’ve ever read any complaints or heard anyone mentioning that something was wrong with Fridays.
Surely, if this change is made to accommodate HoT release, it could only take place that week, and things could go back to normal afterwards.

It’s unlikely that I’ll ever make it to another reset night now, so this pointless change makes me sad.
It would be nice if things that aren’t broken are not being “fixed” all the time. The EotM-y vertical map was already enough. With this, I’m happy with my decision not to buy HoT.

Linken.6345:

Nate.3927:

hedix.1986:

It gets tricky to find particular pieces of information among numerous news posts and threads, so I might as well ask here.

• Do we need to buy HoT to use Guild Halls?
• Do we need to buy HoT to play GvG in the Guild Arena?
• Do we need to buy HoT to continue doing guild missions, even when a guild does them in an instance?

Thanks.

1. Yes
2. I believe it’s fine if the other guild or a third party guild is hosting. But not sure on this one
3. No. The guild initiative HQ in LA is basically acting like a guild hall for guilds without hoT

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Some-questions-about-HoT/first#post5555517

1 No, if some in your guild buy hot and capture it you personaly dont have to buy hot

2 Most likely since they say new stuff will require expansion old stuff like guild bank and missions do not

3 No

Source the link above answers

Thanks for the replies and the link!

Q: Can we still continue with the basic game experience, i.e. guild participation, even if we don’t buy HoT?
That is, do we absolutely need HoT to enter Guild Halls, use GvG arenas and do instanced guild missions?

It gets tricky to find particular pieces of information among numerous news posts and threads, so I might as well ask here.

• Do we need to buy HoT to use Guild Halls?
• Do we need to buy HoT to play GvG in the Guild Arena?
• Do we need to buy HoT to continue doing guild missions, even when a guild does them in an instance?

Thanks.

Junkpile.7439:

Maybe dying should cost something. Put 50 silver death penalty in obsidian sanctum and whiners can blame these idiot farmers.

No thanks. People do GvG there. And WvW certainly has losses – food, builds, siege and insignificant rewards. Additional costs are not needed. But points for thinking about it – more than Anet did obviously.

Just disable kill count for OS – simplest solution!

Fix the lag please. Or you know, here’s a idea, revert the stability changes!
Less stab stack calculations, less laggy servers.

Agriope.4523:

This thread is hilarious.

“Skill” groups! Hahaha! The vast majority are just zerglings under a tag to feel good about themselves. Zerglings who have someone yelling for things in TS that they would know how to do and time properly if they were actually, you know, skilled.

Let’s see the AoE cap disappear now too, then we’ll see who the real skilled groups are.

You are really missing the point of this thread. Zerglings will still zerg. And in a blob, stab change won’t matter that much, it’ll be the same ol’ boring blob spam.
Instead, it is the people from fight guilds who are upset, because their skill (in melee) doesn’t mean much (blob numbers take away stab stacks of the few) and blob-busting is extremely difficult now, if not impossible. In Bronze, where most of the WvW guilds are blob-busters, this breaks the game. Also, it makes the fights extremely stale -pirateship meta is a staring contest. Little action = boredom. Only ranged classes are able to do anything. Whereas before, everyone could have the fun (a lot of GWEN groups turned into hybrids).

So yes, think about it if you haven’t realised the full implications of the stability changes yet. People who enjoyed challenge, organised fights and blob-busting are being damaged the most by Anet’s lets-make-all-lame-and-casual-and-trivial-nerf.
For the skill-less zerglings, nothing much changes – Guard staff 1 is still a go.

Skill should never be punished by the devs.

Would it be too much to hope they’re reverting the broken game stab chnages in WVW?

Alex Caputo.7863:

Last week I saw about 25 NightShift [NS] (who are top 3 gvg/fight guilds on NA) get completely demolished by about 50-60 HG. What would happen before the stab changes was that NS would completely steamroll HG due to their superior skill based play, players, builds, commanding, etc. I saw them get one pushed and demolished by HG due to the blow up of CC which is impossible to counter in smaller numbers. What Anet has done is encouraged mindless blob play instead of coordinated strategy amongst players. I found this to be extremely sad and a killer to the game in itself. The GvG scene is all but dead, since now the meta seems to be extreme CC with no frontline, making half the classes NOT EVEN WORTH PLAYING IN THIS GAME ANYMORE. As a result Ns, Syn and i believe Agg have quit the guild wars 2, making this a sad example of what happens when you mess with an already stable system. Losing these experienced guilds and players is a hardstrike on the WvW community. Anet please find it in your hearts to put the game back on track and set the stab changes to the way it was, encourage small man play to actually have a chance to beat superior numbers. Sincerely, all WvW players.

Hear hear.

I wouldn’t mind any changes as long as they don’t make experience and skill useless. Stability changes ruined skilled ZERG-BUSTERS – smallish groups of skilled players that dealt with big blobs. In Bronze, that is pretty much how most WvW guilds are. But no matter how much you push now, melee through all that red CC is impossible. New meta of pew pew at each other from a distance or just having a boring staring contest is NOT FUN.

I truly hope they revert the stab changes cause good playerbase that made up GvG/fight guilds will start leaving, and that will make for a much poorer game. And already makes WvW far less enjoyable.
Skill > numbers —> that’s how things should work-

Sorenstam Blackrose.8425:

hedix.1986:

People have already adjusted to the changes – it is called “pirateship meta”.

Bingo.

Got any good shanties?

Might I recommend Scottish pirate metal Alestorm?
Now, while those guys are fun, and I generally like pirates, pirateship is the worst thing that happened to WvW.

Gaab.4257:

Dirdyy.1648:

The problem is not that we r unable to adapt to a new meta.
We can of course use a new race/build/stats what so ever.

The problem is that it is NO FUN when 2 Zergs fire at each other with ranged weapons.

Ranged fights, there will be no winner.
And u can rezz u r teammate easy and there will be no loot bags for all.

What good is wvw when it s boring and the small loot will get even smaller?

Tend to agree.. pl will of course adjust.. but will it be the same level of fun in gameplay? That I’m not sure about.

Exactly.

People have already adjusted to the changes – it is called “pirateship meta”. It is NOT FUN AT ALL.
The issue is that even when adapted to the new changes, the gameplay is boring, not as fast paced as melee, and it killed the gaming experience that we enjoyed.
(Waiting for Revenant is not a solution: 1) playing pirateship until HoT is boring, ppl will quit. 2) Breaking the game to force ppl to buy the expansion is a horrible move and ppl should not support it.)

coglin.1867:

Zetsumei.4975:

Belenwyn.8674:

Wait until resistance and shield generators are available. This will shift the meta another time. Just pave your way with shield domes and say bye-bye to CCs.

Open field siege? That’s the ultimate disgrace for a fights guild, guilds with any dignity will quit before resorting to this as a norm.

So out of some artificial and irrational, self limiting “dignity” that you created for yourself, you will not take the logical ad advantage? That is your problem. No need to project your irrational sense of tactics on others.

This “dignity” is not a self-created problem, I’d be careful about calling it irrational. It is the heart and soul of WvW fighting guilds, and people involved with GvG. If you’re not a part of the scene, do not dismiss it so easily.
Dignity and codes of conduct, are what created a WvW etiquette, what drove the community for the last 2.5 years. What made the WvW we have today. We enjoyed big organised, structured fights – that take skill (it’s foolish to think that a blob busting group of 10 or 15 requires no skill). That experience is now taken away by the meta pushing for siege and ranged combat instead of fast paced skirmishes.

Anyhow, “dignity” is what drove the WvW community for years. What caused so many guilds to pay for gems to transfer and try out fights on different servers – I’m bolding this, because $$ seems all Anet cares about atm. Give us the fights that we enjoy (i.e. not pirateship) and you’ll still get that money. Take this away, and people will quit. Simple.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

-snip-

That can also be seen as breaking the game to pave the way for purchasable content.
“Welp, if you wanna keep enjoying WvW that’s not dull pirateship meta, just Revenant-up and $$€€ out for an expansion!”

Ultimaistanza.4793:

“E.g., you can spread out more, flank your enemies, use positional tactics such as higher ground and line of sight, focus your kills, clear your enemies Boons and use your crowd control on them after you bait out their Stun Breaks and defensive skills such as dodges—because you know, if you are spread out, their blob can only hit a small part of you, and that small part will likely fall, but meanwhile the rest of you get free pokes at them. And if you focus those pokes, you can bet they will see players fall, and fast.”
^^^^^^
This, all of it was in WvW before. This stabo change has not brought this. In fact, what this has done has caused this to happen less. Melee can not sustain. All they are there for now is purely to soak up damage and chuck out buffs/cleanses for range. The pre stability nerf combat was fast paced and more changing, while this is usually just pew pew range battles that favor the side with the more cc.

This.

fast paced melee (even hammertrain) >>> pirateship meta

Aomine.5012:

PLEASE NO!
I rather they never come back.
The ques, the lag, the blobs, the double teamed…
All the worst of the game will happen during the tournament.

Actually, it’s been a lot of fun, in Bronze at leats. Makes things more interesting.

As the title says, it’s been a year since the proper WvW Tournament. I wouldn’t count the Autumn one – it was short, achis were ridiculously easy and people didn’t take it too seriously.

Reasons for the Tournament at this time:
1) There isn’t much content until HoT drops, I’m sure playerbase would appreciate having something to do.
2) Apparently Alpine borderland will become Anet’s typical mistake of removed content™. I don not like it one bit, but c’est la vie. It would be nice to get a Tournament now to properly enjoy the Borderland while it lasts.
3) Enjoying open fights, without much PvE in the way and without jumping puzzle aspects, while it lasts (as much as it can be enjoyed with stab changes).
4) Matchups have been quite stale lately, at least in Bronze.