Guild Wars 2

I’m not ok with trebs not doing dmg throught gates, its already difficult to defend structures when outnumbered

I don’t remember this but that would be a terrible change. Little a defender can do to stop superior rams now aside from the treb/cata defense.

(continued from above)

When you go out to WvW, you’re a valuable resource. Every server (even BG) needs every incremental player we can get in order to be successful out there. That scarcity and the player owning the supply—like a really nice job market—enhances both the value and play experience of the player. Inclusiveness is a key ingredient to creating a positive play experience. This is the part of the recipe that made DAoC so great. I remember way, way back in the classic days when Level 50s (max level in DAoC in 2001-2004 glory days) would run around lowbie zones welcoming new players to the game—I’m not kidding, by the way, even though this probably sounds insane in the MMORPG world post-WoW—and handing out gold and the occasionally semi-rare but pretty sweet looking piece of armor or weapon because they hoped that level 1 running around in ragged cloth and getting killed by a water beetle because they were having a hard time figuring out which key to punch to start swinging would grow up to be one more decked 50 out on the field when it counted.

The best part is that that inclusion is automatic: it just happens. You can’t not be included and benefit from inclusion, by game design. With an alliance system, there are additional barriers erected to inclusion. And if that doesn’t sound like much, it’s the difference between the LFG tool and map chat in Lion’s Arch. Yes, the determined and more socially-minded players will always have a home. But what about the people that play to get away from having to deal with all of that in real life, or who don’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to deal with yet more social situations like that? It’s really important to keep an eye on the new player experience when contemplating massive game design changes like this, not just on the jaded old vets who’ve been here for a while, because having the right mixture of old-timers and infusions of new players is the key to getting to celebrate the game’s ten-year anniversary.

COMMUNITY: This goes without saying. There needs to be a community for WvW to continue to be the experience that appeals to the players it does. Without community, WvW is just expensive, long-match PvP that happens in your PvE armor with a few doors and stuff in the way. With community, WvW is an explosive, heart-pumping, adrenaline-running and nail-bitingly epic experience. When S1 came down to the death match between JQ and BG and JQ was pulling ahead for the first three days of that week, I can’t remember seeing the players come together and fight side by side since 2002. WvW is intrinsically linked to community. For some, yes, the rewards and the EoTM experience are enough, granted. I’m actually very glad that the folks that love that kind of arms-length play have found a happy home. But for many of us, you can’t take the “World” from World v. World.

To put it simply: you’re just not going to get a video like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdecWAAJcMQ with the title “Blue Worlds Win Season 4.” Not going to happen. Personally I’d rather try to figure out ways to deliver this kind of experience to T2 and T3 and T4 servers, rather than reduce everything to generic colors that you can pick at will.

© Right now, without the ability to form alliances, Worlds and Servers are the only vehicle through which that enduring, inclusive community exists in GW2. Shifting the focus to Guilds and Alliances, as some posters have suggested, is probably the next best bet.

(D) Even if an Alliance system were substituted, this would be an enduring, but not necessarily inclusive community. I’ve already described my concerns with the inclusiveness versus inherent exclusiveness issue above, but I could in all seriousness see using guilds as a next-best platform. It would be a little bit like reducing the international system from relations between nations to a global patchwork of city-states (where some will be huge and powerful, your Londons, Singapores, New York Cities, and some will be tiny little Fresno, CA’s) but with alliances, it might be possible. I think a better solution would be to continue using worlds and building in an alliance system (with “alliance chat” and possibly some other in-game features) to cement, help create, sustain, support, and energize world communities. The more opportunities players have to put down roots, the more fun social players have, the more fellow kitten -kickers killer-style players have beside them in WvW, and the longer everyone plays, has a good time (and buys gems).

(post to be continued)

Hi Devon, T1 GM of a PvX (WvW active) guild here.
Firstoff, thanks for posting and hosting this CDI thread. It’s very good to see more folks from ArenaNet with their sleeves rolled up down chatting amongst the masses, which reminds me very much of the old “Management By Walking Around” – there’s a lot of good information out here, and I’m glad to see ArenaNet out speaking with their community. This kind of dialogue is really valuable for both the health of the game, the community, and for improving and innovating better game design.
This is a great thread, but I’d like to both offer a series of suggestions and a few very strong words of caution with the best explanations I can muster in the midst of a busy work week. Apologies if I’ve got a few typos, I’ve probably had as much sleep as many of the folks on ANet’s staff…
I also wanted to talk this thread over with my guildmates before posting, to make sure that when I posted I was also speaking for them as best I could. When you’ve been the GM of the same folks for over a decade, I guess it’s a hard habit to break.
I’d like to address two main topics that I’ve seen here. First, the issue of whether worlds should be abolished (I have some very serious concerns about this proposal) and secondly, possible changes to Stonemist (which, if executed correctly, could be very interesting).

1: There Must Be Some Form of Enduring, Inclusive Community: Servers/Worlds Are It Right Now

There have been innumerable posts from folks concerned about removing world identity and the communities that are created and fostered on servers, and very serious worries that this would irreparably harm if not destroy the WvW feeling, sense of pride and accomplishment, and possibly even WvW as a brand. I share these concerns and am somewhat alarmed that the notion of abolishing servers in favor of anonymous, randomized masses like EoTM. To me, that’s no longer WvW, that’s sPvP.

My guild and I are old-time DAoC vets. We were there in Classic and were really active during the golden days of SI and were very active both as raid leaders and in our server community during the ToA years. We have seen the best and the worst. What finally drove us out of DAoC—and away from RvR/WvW until GW2’s release a long, terrible decade later—was when DAoC’s developers began systematically damaging the RvR/WvW play experience against the advice of countless members of the community and their internals testers (which included myself every one of my officers). I am deeply concerned that a movement to remove the enduring, inclusive community aspect of WvW, which today is accomplished through Worlds/Servers, could begin a “spiral-down” process like that which finally killed off DAoC. However, rather than wave my arms and caution that the sky is falling, I’d like to spend a few minutes walking through the basis of my concern.

(A) To even matter, much less feel epic the way WvW should, there has to be a point to it that’s greater than personal gain. This should sound like a very familiar, comment sentiment across time and many, many games. The reason my guildmates and I were willing to go all out during Season 1 on our server, and for months before then, was because we felt like we were able to contribute to something bigger than ourselves and our loot bags. That sense of being a part of something bigger is a huge component of what leads us to play WvW/RvR style games, and why we’ve been dedicated to GW2 for as long as we have (since Beta 2). There’s only so much farming or sPvP you can take, as a guild of players who think and feel the way we do. While it’s fun to run dungeons, that feeling of contribution under uncertain circumstances is the best ward against boredom and staleness we’ve been able to discover. Without that feeling of something bigger, the value of WvW for players like us would be greatly diminished.
(B) This something greater is provided by enduring, inclusive community. I’d like to try to delve into just what that elusive ”thing” is that many posters have attempted to touch on when it comes to why worlds matter so much for WvW, whereas others have argued against them. To clear up the confusion, the best explanation I can offer is this:

It’s not about worlds, per se, it’s about an enduring, inclusive community. I’ve picked these three words very carefully to try to hone in and distill the meaning that I’ve been reading on these boards and elsewhere for a long time, and seen reflected on this thread.
(post to be continued)

From a design angle, it seems to me that we have an interesting force that we can leverage: if we can get server populations stable and spread reasonably well, and create environments where most people want to stay put, that will go a long way towards allowing the community and realm pride to heal. Agreed full with Nuzt and Bertrand above (+1 to both) that on low pop and up-transferring servers undergoing guild flight, we’ve got a hemorrhaging situation that needs a swift fix ( +1 to Baels.)

I respectfully disagree, however, that the only way to do this is by switching to a color versus color scheme. I think there are other options. The key here is to create incentives that match and ideally overcome the pressure to move upwards. If incentives to move downwards can be implemented, many entrepreneurial guilds will do just that.

It occurs to me that one option to do this is to leverage individual incentives (getting prizes, bonuses, winning stuff) and align them with community incentives (want to encourage down-transfers and then stability closer to the bottom).

Right now, we have tons of folks flocking to the major T1 servers. This is hurting everyone. A lot of that flocking is now being driven by the proposed very high rewards for S2.

I have a radical off the wall idea: would it be possible to implement and publicly advertise “underdog rewards”?

In effect, when you go to place a bet (say, horse racing, not that I have much experience with it) you get odds. The less likely you are to win, supply and demand say you have to get a big payout if it actually happens. Same works with investment. Interest rates on losing propositions are really high, etc, etc.

If the goal is to get some competitive feisty-oriented leaders to transfer down, there are a few tools that I would propose implementing:

(1) Identify hemorrhaging servers. Find some metric (and frankly, the best bet will probably be a combination of population, coverage, overall WvW score, and community assessment) and then target those servers for receiving large bonuses.

(2) Provide some baseline reward, or better yet guarantee of a reward, for playing a season/just playing weekly on low-pop servers. Ensure that there is lock-in so that players on high-tier servers can’t just “hop down” when it looks like they might lose. This needs to be a very real reward; an extra 20s chest every week is not going to do it. Extra shots at season end rewards, or guaranteed increase in end-season rewards (example: an extra ascended) I’m definitely willing to bet would. An example here would be in low-pop hemorrhaging servers to guarantee an extra 10-20% loot (say, one bonus ascended item would be enough to make a huge splash) for those that fight exclusively on these low-pop servers whether they win or lose. This will attract a lot of people, especially if it’s heavily advertised. While this would be messy as all hell at the beginning of the season, by sending a clear signal that this will be repeated in the future for all low-pop/hemorrhaging servers into the future, it will create a “reverse pressure” that helps stabilize population shifts upward. (Ideally, upward and downward movement would reach equilibrium and then stabilize.)

(3) There should be increased rewards for winning in a low pop/hemorrhaging bracket that are above and beyond those available in higher tiers. The idea is to equalize the risk/reward curve between playing on a T1 server and playing on a T5 server. I believe the bulk of extra rewards should occur here, in the “extra win award” space. Many players will attempt to maximize wins, and this could revitalize competitive guilds moving into low-pop spaces. Rather than use a one-size-fits-all hammer approach here, the more dire straits a server is in, the bigger the reward should be to help stabilize it.

To reiterate, however: this is a Band-Aid. A very ugly, messy Band-Aid. There is ultimately no substitute for building a strong community; these changes would just be designed to get people onto the ground on these low pop servers, a core requirement for beginning design changes and revamps that encourage people to stay on their home servers.

Longer-term solutions should ultimately reward server loyalty. The sorts of decisions that support and strengthen community building should be supported by in game incentives, though not so much that people that have real reasons to leave servers feel trapped. Incentives like extra rewards for low-pop/underdog servers (measured by objective indicators of how the server is doing) are a great first step, but they should be tied to dedicated play on that server to prevent abuse. The goal is to reward revitalization of the servers, not hot-dropping in at the last minute to pick up some extra loot.

Best,
Matipzieu KyA

Arena.net wants you to play WvW in order to get a legendary.

Deal with it.

Then Blame and Whine Wars starts.

That +0 tick, Almost makes me feel bad after the constant lootbags and wxp we get from wiping you guys in EB.. over.. and over.. and over…

Gandara will feel really bad for that +0 tick at 3am, I’m sure

Ps. I hope you guys don’t wonder why pretty much everyone hates your server ;D

silly thing to do. People only remember the trolls but don’t remember the good things the forums encouraged. Friendships between cross server guilds and friendly rivalry. The trolls will still be there when you delete the forums.

I think the mod team were doing most of the work in the WvW section modding the match-up thread and have now given up on all this effort.

Deleting the sub-forum won’t really help. Those people that you need to moderate will still post in other threads and match-up conflicts will bleed in to other threads.

Threads to promote a single video with be more I think since there is not a centralized place to post them like the matchup thread.

Threads that point out a grievance against one server or the other (hacking, exploiting, 2v1ing, zerg chasing roamer etc..) will increase because again people will not be able to post in a match up thread.

I agree with other posters that people will try to make match up threads on their own.

Honestly I mostly view this forum for the match-up threads and with out them I think maybe I will only view this forum once a week or maybe once a month. Furthermore I think this move gives me a very poor opinion on how Anet views the WvW community.

I hope another site will rise up that will take the place of the official forums. If Anet had not noticed that most of the websites we use is not by Anet. Server forums are run by server communities independent of anet. ranking and map websites are also independent of Anet only using the API. My link to Anet as a WvWer who could not care less about PVE is the WvW forums (which are now getting smaller)

What is stopping the WvW community to just leave this forums and set up their own that all servers use and abandon the official site once and for all?

come on Anet TESO is coming out next year, Wildstar has warplots for their large scale PVP , and CU is from the creators of DAoC do you really want give people more reasons to abandon your game?

Righteous.4307:

styx.7294:

I would much appreciate some kind of unique skins or finishers for WvW progression, indeed.

At the end of the day though I think WvW’s best reward is that it’s fun and you get to make friends on your server and other servers and if you’re good, you might even win someone’s respect.

This argument is invalid. There is no reason that we cant have everything that you listed AS WELL AS worthwhile/unique rewards.

YOUR argument is invalid as what may be “worthwhile” to you may not be to the next person.

With all due respect (guess how much), this whole thread stinks of PVDoor/grinders that fretted/worried/obsessed over Achievements and/or PPT for 7 weeks and are now “sore” about the reward, and instead of out and out foot stomping tantrums you are trying to mask it by saying things like “unique” and “worthwhile”….

At the end of the day, “the overwhelming majority” will OFC agree with your sentiment, because they are full of kids that want everything the easy way. In people’s mind they think they argue for a “unique” item, then ANET will come in and go overboard with S2 rewards….

It is an absolute joke, the worst kind of joke…..Who plays WvW for loot/skins anyway????

Most of the serious players have less than 10% map completion (most of that being in Orr for karma temples), couldn’t tell ya where a world boss spawns, and have crappy looking WvW skins….Do you know why? Because none of this kind of QQ matters to us.

That’s right, I said it!

#1: It enticed me to join in on the WvW Action (Mainly sPvP, PvE, Fractals, You know the rest of the GAME!)
#2: It enticed my Guild to join in the WvW Action
#3: Anyone who’s completed any Event/Living Story understands that ANet doesn’t give you the world. Welcome to the reward system WvWers ;0)
#4: I’d do it again regardless if my Server place 9th (again :P)

LOL @ Request For:
#1: Ascended Weapons

Props @ Request For:
#1: Special Finisher (Mainly because it’s consistent with the sPvP Rewards)

Congrats to the Season 1st Place Winners! Keep on being Smexy!

I feel the same way. I’m a mini collector, I started out doing the achievements entirely to get the dolyak and I have no regrets. Anything else in the chest was just a bonus.

Although the real bonus was finding out I actually really enjoy playing WvW. I don’t know why it took me so long to start but it’s really nice to have an extra thing to do in game now.

Bazzoong.7145:

Best item in the game is the miniature Dolyak!

I named mine Betty III, I know she is special, she is no ordinary miniture Dolyak infact she is a Miniture Giant Mutant Space Dolyak.

Finally a Dolyak that follows me around, albeit a small one.

Would be fun if having one in your inventory allowed you to carry +1 extra supply.

Yes his video was…eye opening indeed.

I specifically want to hear about why a select group of spvp players are the ones crafting the experience of the multitude. Early access to build/profession changes etc. Its as if anet wants to artificially create superstars for their esports league.

I’m not surprised at all most of them managed to get on the same team in solo q when it came out. Need to make top of those leaderboards. Get the name out there.

Oh well.

lordkrall.7241:

WvW is supposed to be WvW, not GvG, this have been stated by ArenaNet several times, and thus GvG in WvW won’t be supported.

Get out of your heads the GvG.

Listen to the vid. GvG is just the tip of the iceberg.

What Sacrx say is that every single problem of WvW that we had at launch and still now after 12 months has been reported multiple times by them more than 6 months before launch and has been ignored because in talks with Devs they said quite clearly “WvW will be extra causal has no value and we’ll take care only of Spvp cause it will be esport”. And that’s just the first thing from alpha that he unveils, because the rest of the vid goes on with that kind of news.

That is the matter.

A lot of people in this thread seem to not have actually watched the video and are falsely making assumptions about its content.

Its not just a piece of opinions. He shares some of his opinions, but he also reveals some events that happend in the past. For example back in Alpha.

These are not opinions, this is stuff that happend and things that were actually said by devs. And even if you completely disregard all his opinions, the facts are pretty disturbing aswell.
How a miniscule portion of the spvp community basicly got elevated on a pedestal, allowed to dictate the meta and given headstarts and early warnings about upcomming changes. To name one.

How devs flat out refuse to take criticism and shove a frontman for the masses to just carrot on a stick players. How there is a constant drive to just get players into spvp. How WvW was deliberately left with many glaring issues, some of which can simply never be fixed anymore.
How arenanet refused to attempt any form of balance for WvW (point in case, perplexity runes for over a month now)

How the devs flat out refuse to acknowledge spvp as an esport has failed, and sacrificed other gamemodes that have proven far more popular for the sake of spvp esport.

These things alone i find very shocking, wether or not i agree with his opinions.

I know people have been banned for posting the link, I’m sure plenty of you can find his youtube channel and the video he posted 9/12/13 on the progression (or lack of) in GW2 in terms of WvW and GvG.

Sacrx, and moreso Red Guard, is a guild held in high regard to the community and so their opinions on the game DO matter very much. I myself, being heavily invested in WvW, and currently interested in the growth of GvG, am HIGHLY concerned about the state and future of WvW and GvG because someone who knows so much about the game has pretty much been ignored.

If I get banned for mentioning it, so be it, but I believe it is in the large interest of the WvW community to hear an official response from Anet. I believe many WvWers are playing in belief that you guys are serious about this aspect of the game, but if we are just being funneled to sPvP for Anets dream of an esport, then I’m wasting my time in hopes of progress, and will sadly take my leave.

I really am baffled how many people in this thread completely missed Aneu’s point.

It’s not about GvG. I’ve been trying to express this for awhile, and while I doubt anyone will really listen now, I’ll try again.

It’s about respect and acknowledgment. GvG is, on its own, not a separate gametype. GvG has always just been a way for the more organized open field guilds to ask, “I wonder who’s the best?” and simulate open field fights in a controlled environment. I cannot think of a single guild that GvGs more often than they raid in WvW, and that’s because GvGs are meant to prepare and improve a guild’s open field strategy.

Personally, I raid 5 days a week for 3 to 5 hours a day. I have over 3k hours logged, almost all of it in WvW. Most of my guild members have well over 1k hours logged in WvW. I am sure that Aneu’s guild, Sylas’s guild, Dranul’s guild, Jericho’s guild, Odinzu’s guild, Naytron’s guild, Tzenjin’s guild, etc, all have similar numbers that they could attest to. We are a significant population of very dedicated players who happen to like to focus on open field fights, and we feel ignored, and honestly, disrespected.

None of the changes that have been implemented since Devon Carver has arrived, save for culling, have helped our playstyles or communities. Every single time we try to point this out, we’re either ignored, brushed under the rug, moved to a different subforum, had our posts deleted, had our thread titles editorialized by the mods, or been responded to in condescending and stubborn ways.

We just want good fights. This game has some of the best group combat that I’ve ever played, and the fights that I do have are incredible, but I really fear that ignoring this segment of the population is going to lessen a lot of the fun of the fights that we would normally have. Sure, orbs affect GvGs, and that sucks, but did you ever think to wonder WHY orbs might suck? GvG is a simulation of open field combat. Anything that negatively affects GvG combat or skilled fighting (ie, non-siege fights) also will affect the open field mechanic of the game. Open field, which, in my opinion, is one of the few true end-games in GW2.

So, yes, GvG being ruined sucks for guilds like mine, however, it’s not the problem. The problem is the clear lack of understanding that Anet displays of their own game. The problem is the lack of communication to arguably the most active segment of the community. The problem is that we really — REALLY — like this game, but the parts of it we like are being slowly taken away from us for no apparent reason.

That bothers me.

How about a certain percentage of the players just get literally taken out of the equation? Say there are 40vs40 people fighting. Within a certain geographic range, after certain lag thresholds have been exceeded, a number of them are mutually made invulnerable and otherwise unable to interact, ideally even indirectly. Hits of them miss (with a message that it’s due to rationing), hits against them miss, their AoE fields, while still affecting some of your allies, don’t do anything against you and vice versa.
For example, in the situation RoyHarmon visualized, if there were 5 players with each 4 relations for a total of 20 interactions, it would get cut down to 5 players and 3 relations each (one 2), for a total of only 14 interactions.

It would greatly prefer this over the current unplayable state.

Slightly dramatic topic title but the issue is a real one.

So in six weeks of having these random matchups, we have had
Rof vs Vabbi vs Fow (complete blowouts not fun for either side)
Rof vs UW vs Arb (UW had as many people as the other two combined)
Rof vs Ros vs Wsr (only proper matchup)
Rof vs Gandara vs Miller’s Sound (9 ranks difference, huge population gap)
Rof vs Vabbi vs Fow (complete blowouts not fun for either side)
- This is AFTER we had gained 50 rating by doing relatively good against miller’s and gandara…
Rof vs Gandara vs Drakkar Lake (again, 9 ranks difference)

It basically feels like arenanet is trying to make us all change servers so they can go to an 8 tier server. I can understand random matchups and everything, but we basically feel like Anet is trolling the living crap out of us.

I’d like to know how on earth this system is suppose to be any good if we keep getting these matchups? Rof is a healthy low tier WvW server but it seems someone wants to change that. These matchups have just taken the kitten and if you can’t get us more then one out of five balancaed matchups then feel free to go back to the old system.

There is a reason we are not in a T3-T5 server, because we don’t like blob fights and skill lag, so it would be nice if we wouldn’t be forced into these kind of matchups every other week. This goes for allot of the lower tier servers, we all hate your new system so lets learn from it.

it’s called any class

just press #1 skill and follow blue triangle

World vs. World Build and Repair Mastery
Take your siege tactics to the next level with the Build Master and Repair Master World vs. World ability lines! Use Build Mastery to build siege weapons more quickly, or put points into Repair Mastery to use Supply more efficiently for repairing walls and gates.

Build Master I: Spend 4 supply at a time when building siege
Build Master II: Spend 6 supply at a time when building siege
Build Master III: Spend 8 supply at a time when building siege
Build Master IV: Spend 10 supply at a time when building siege

Repair Master I: Spend 4 supply at a time when repairing
Repair Master II: Spend 6 supply at a time when repairing
Repair Master III: Spend 8 supply at a time when repairing
Repair Master IV: Spend 10 supply at a time when repairing

This is what happens when you have people that don’t know PVP in charge of deciding what trait lines make it in to world experience. I can just see some poor underling that works for the WvW team making a futile attempt to convince a marketing guy that Defense Against Guards is a horrible idea.

I would love to see the statistical distribution of world xp skills.

Hi guys,

Me and my guild are really interested in GvGs and I know alot of other guilds were too. Sadly there was never a way to keep track of your progress and most importantly compare yourself to other guilds, until now!

I’d like to present a website where you can:
- Compare yourself to other guilds
- Keep track of your previous matches
- Check your wins and losses
- Challenge other guilds
- Add your guild’s contacts
- Add your guild’s website, youtube and twitch stream
- Check the agenda with upcoming GvGs

And there’s going to be alot more in future releases!

Please take a look at:

http://gw2gvg.com

And if your guild is interested in Guild vs Guild please add your guild!

It is still in beta, I tested it alot, but there might still be some bugs in it. If you find any please let me know!

I do not like the path they are going with this stat bump for this wvw ability. Every other ability is very situational this one is global and affects individual player’s stats. Don’t say well you have to go kill guards first because we all know that the guards are a joke. This ability should only allow you to kill the guards or protect you from the guards more not other players.

it’s funny because you could make the entire line give nothing up until rank 10 and the same people would still get it just for the stats.