Guild Wars 2

Warning, for all those who chose to only read half the text and then start moaning. I am not suggestion to change WvW, only suggestion a different gameplay next to WvW.

• Intro

I never understood when WvW friends and players moaned about the quitting the game, and looking forward to other games to be released. And shamefully enough I have seen many leave this game already.

Now I came to the conclusion I am myself getting bored with the status of WvW and the lack of attention of Anet to WvW and the different type of users.

I had a small spark of hope when Devon Carver and the Anet team visited multiple EU servers that they might finally listen to their players and view the different faces and gameplays that WvW can bring. But my fear got confirmed that this was simply nothing else then an “publicity stunt” to “show” they care about their users. Friends from the AG server told me their special visitors for a night simply zerg/blobbers themselves who love to siege and cap towers.
Therefore I have decided to poor out my heart and my pov.

• What kind of player am I, so you understand my pov

I have no intention of promoting myself or whatever, I write what kind of gameplay I enjoy so you better understand my point of view.

Before I did not dare to set a step into WvW due to the PvP aspect, until I needed it for the Montly. I concluded that WvW was actually a lot of fun. I joined a wonderful guild who was dedicated to winning the match together with their server. They sieged, worked hard for the points and on getting victory.

But quickly I grew bored of sieging, and decided to focus on the fighting aspect that WvW brings. So I left my friends and joined a guild that simply roams to find fights.

Now there are many guilds in this game who prefer to avoid sieging, and play this game for the thrill of the fight. For me and many others there is nothing more exciting than to face different organized groups and rely on skill and teamplay. Winning or losing, the thrill of the battle is what brings the best part of this game for us.

When I read sentences like this, I don’t know whether I should laugh at it or cry:

“Holding a tower against all odds with some smart siege placement and a bit of luck may be one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in a video game.”

Resource

• Looking at WvW

In the early ages of WvW there was loads of small scale action. Zergs existed of group of 20 players which was massive back then. But the face of WvW has changed during the time.

World vs. World (WvW) is PvP combat that involves hundreds of players. Three huge teams —each representing a server, or world—battle for control over objectives on four massive maps in week-long matches.

Each map – one for each server and a huge “neutral” center map – is loaded with objectives that are worth points for the team that claims them. Players can band together to lay siege to castles, raid enemy supply caravans, clash with other players in truly massive battles, wreak havoc behind enemy lines, or build mighty weapons of war like trebuchets and siege golems.

While players are in WvW, they gain experience and loot just as they normally do while exploring Tyria. Plus, when their home world is doing well or wins a match in WvW, all players on that world receive special bonuses and perks.

World vs. World—it’s PvP combat on an epic scale!

Resource

Anet has achieved their goal wonderfully looking at their perspective of WvW.

- It is available for each and every player, whether hardcore, pve’er or low level.
- Epic scale battles with so many players, players can’t even use their skill anymore.
- The use of siege to gain advantages.
- Being focused on points and large siege battles to cap objectives on the map.

But…

Anet prioritizes PvE above already. Updates they do add to WvW are singly focused on their goals for WvW such as more siege, more encouragement of blobbing by adding player rewards as WPX, Karma and fancy chests that might drop a precursor.

All with all more motivation for the casual (pve) player to go into WvW, and claim their precursor. The simplest way of doing this is of course do this in the form of a long blobby train of a huge amount of players. Because WvW is for a part about numbers, those with the most numbers will most likely win, and it’s an easy way to steamroll trough maps getting your quick WPX. The smaller more tactical groups with skill simply can get overrun by the large blob who presses 1111.

But hey, it is ok, this is what Anet has as their vision for WvW. And I think personally it is the players who are currently changing the face of WvW, though the things you add do encourage it.

Part 1.

• The point I want to go to, the other users

Dear Anet,

I am not saying to change WvW, because it is a joy for many other players the way it is.

But I feel you, Anet, fail to see the cry and need of the different users you have in this game.

I don’t know if you simply choose to focus on that single target group described above to fit your goals of WvW, and choose to ignore the other users/players of WvW. Or you are simply too blind to see the others users/players.

Looking at the WvW discussion sub-topic there are weekly topics such as:

- Single massive zergs is the game
- Well will WvW get more content?
- GvG – Let them eat cake!
- Can we have more incentive to not Zerg?
- WvW Skill Requirements?
- GvG idea
- Less Siege, Not More!

There is a very large community in this game who look for the different face of WvW. This different side relays on skill, not numbers.

For instance, there have been so many treads about the wish for GvG. A wonderful initiative was taken by your user to support this need by creating http://gw2gvg.com. This site shows the amount of guilds who enjoy the challenge of fighting as a guild versus other guilds.

But why does this initiative have to come from your user? Why can’t you see the different playstyles besides sieging and zerging?

There is a large community who enjoy this game for the skill, tactic and battles. For me and many others I personally I think there is nothing more exciting than the thrill of the battle versus other organized group, relaying on tactics, terrain use, personal skill and teamplay.
And this sort of play only gets discouraged by the encouragement of blobbing and WPX.

Now I would suggest if you really want to get to know your player, and continue developing this game for all the different users, lose the blinders. Listen to need of GvG, which I don’t understand why it is taking you so long to implement ( this is Guild Wars I thought). If you do visit servers, do this without your fancy red tag, join the guild group or the solo roamer on their adventure so you get an real idea of the different users and gameplays.

• A suggestion

Now I don’t want to go into the subject, implement GvG. You know very well what that is and there are many treads already about this.

This is an idea I personally would love to see.
Now, I am not a game designer, this is just an idea.

GvGvGv…

As the topics show there is a need from a large group of players to play as a guild for the excitement of the fights. To play as a guild versus other guilds, were you depend on tactics, skill and teamplay.

Why not create a system/game similar to PvP, but for guilds?

1. A large map similar to the current WvW map, without objectives as towers or keeps.
2. Only your guild members are you ally, all other guilds are enemy of each other.
3. As guild you can create a rooster of who will join in that raid, the system sees how many people you as a guild run, and sorts you into a map with guilds of * similar numbers* .
4. Not server dependent, you can face any guild on EU ( or US).

Now I hope I have written down everything on my mind. Anet please, you have a wonderful game with dynamic gameplay. But I feel you fail to get its full potential and listen to all your users.

Part 2

I had my computer roll a bunch of virtual dice and these came out. Based off the current scores for this week about an hour before this post, so they may slide around a bit before reset but it’s late enough in the week that the score ratios likely won’t change much.

Some notes on the image and methodology:
-Doesn’t predict what color anyone will be. So every permutation of colors for 3 servers on the same tier is grouped together (the alternative had me getting 1999983 unique matchups out of 2000000 rolls)
-The rankings/tiers given are the result of the randomized matchups. The graphs show the likelihood of a server being “ranked” at a given rank after randomization.
-Right side shows the 27 most likely matchups. I have every matchup that came out saved in a file, broken down by server, if anyone wants to see the results for their server let me know.
-Two million rolls is about as much as I can do in a single run, and it’s not currently set up to easily aggregate multiple runs. I may, in the future, do this, so the results can become more averaged.
-NA Only for now, I can do EU too if there’s demand.

Some general notes on matchups:
-The average deviation is decreasing. After last week, the average was 183.3531, this week it’s 177.2590 (estimated). This makes the likelihood of servers getting matchups far outside their ranking less.
-The decreased deviation is making the T4-T5 gap more significant. Basically there are two supertiers on NA right now, 1-12 and 13-24. This is most significant for servers close to the gap: Ehmry Bay (est. Rank 12 after this week) has less than a 10% chance of being placed in a matchup with T5 and lower servers, and Borlis Pass (est. Rank 13) has about a 10% chance of matching with T4 and above.
-Running the numbers from the end of last week, the T3 matchup for this week had a 0.4% chance of happening. The exact same matchup could’ve happened as T2 with an 0.8% chance, or even as T4 with an 0.002% chance. But, if the dice are feeling saucy, basically anything can happen.
-Well, not anything. Servers are still limited by their volatility in how far they can “move” via randomization. Sanctum of Rall (est. T1 after this week, ranking 2194.2, deviation 176.4) could not possibly roll lower than 2017.7, while Sea of Sorrows couldn’t roll higher than 1982.6 (est. T7, 1797.5, 185.1) so they could never actually match up.

Edit: Updated with corrected (+40) deviations and both NA and EU graphs!

Edit 2: I think I’ve worked out all the bugs. Fixed charts attached.

Wow

I’m sorry but this has to be one of the worst designed events ever

Thankfully I only had to wait 1/2 hour.

But to design an event around a two hour cycle – no clock – no notice

an ingame cycle that is different on every server, including overflows, no less

communicate wrong starting times

No announcement that the event has begun – I initially had a hard time telling the official fireworks from the player fireworks

and bugged achievement/reward for lots of people

I don’t think this one could have been messed up more if they had actually planned ways to fail

Grade of F- on this one ANet

Or make it only visible for allies. There’s a lot of people, my self included, who just rush upleveled targets because they drop like flies. I think it’s not fair for a guy who wants to level his 60’, and is being rushed even in teamfights by 80’s in full exotics/superior runes.
More like an upleveled tag is a free badge tag in 90% of most situations.

Further proof that they have no idea about the mindset of the PvP player base that I know so well. Most of us play alts. We do it to flesh out the team. We don’t have one glorious main with special footprints and unicorn trails. We have a selection of fully geared toons to fit the situation (to the extent that we are still able to ‘fully gear’ them while falling further behind via calandar gating loot aquisition).

4 Maps that have not changed, most of the time opponents don’t change. Now we can’t play different charcters to mix it up or we fail to ‘progress’. Get ready to get bored. If this is the new system I’d rather just didn’t do anything at all. Most people I play with are barely hanging on. Stomp on their fingers again.

Farsided.5248:

It’s not QQing. It’s a courtesy given by mature players to other mature players.

It’s whining.

I mean, it’s the JP in world vs world. If you don’t want to be attacked then do the jumping puzzles in PvE. There are plenty. Oh, you say you want badges of honor for your gift of battle? Then you better kill me to get those, cause I sure don’t like you PvE’ers who do the JP just for badges to get your Legendaries the easy way.

Why don’t you help your server instead of taking up queue spots. You’ll still get badges, you’ll be doing something new, and you’ll be helping get points. Everyone wins. Except, of course, it takes a little longer to do than the JP, I suppose.

But alas, why should there be any maturity on the internet?

We are telling you guys why we feel pvp should be allowed in a pvp zone, and you call us immature. Yes, absolutely.

Who cares if the jump puzzle awards siege and badges of honor. You are aware that even people who are not interested in PvP or WvW still need those badges for their legendary weapon right?

yes I do. That’s the exact reason i will occasionally camp the JP. You want badges of honor for your gift of battle? Then I’m making sure you actually have to battle to get them. Prepare your silver for repairs.

Basically those that sit and camp the jump puzzle for kills have no skill. None whatsoever. They wait for the opportune moment to jump somebody while the person is merely trying to mind their own business. There’s no other way for these poor people to farm their badges other then to form a small party and take out single players.

oh boy. Here we go again with the ad hominem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

While we’re at it I’ll link some other things fallacies you’ve just made

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

Personally, I find that funny since Anet has gone to such great lengths to try to make it impossible to offend players in the game by disallowing all sorts of names and banning tons of players for language, yet they leave in little commands like /laugh and put jumping puzzles in WvW areas which the developers knew would do nothing but make players upset.

what an enigma

I know it’s piling on at this point, but I have to say, reading about this has me immensely disappointed.

Add me to the list of people seriously reconsidering his spending his playtime on GW2 to somewhere else.

I feel almost… betrayed. I don’t play WoW because I don’t like WoW. Why are you turning GW2 into WoW?

This is thoroughly terrible. What makes this so much worse is this kind of thing is exactly what the game was supposed to avoid. An added gating mechanic, extra item progression instead of skill progression, and limited ways players can obtain the items. Even after all that crap Anet said it was in no danger of doing and designing a game that would never require such nonsense, it still wouldn’t be as bad if it wasn’t for this:

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

Start of. That is to say, the beginning of item progression and the one main factor besides lore that was being taken from GW1. When I got bored of the original, I knew I could come back even after years and an expansion and that I could pick up right where I left off and still be viable. My skill combinations may be out of date but I didn’t have to get new ones unless I wanted to but, most importantly, I NEVER, NOT ONCE, had to get new gear. My monk’s Elite Woven (originally known as the 15k Wanderer’s armor) could be, and was, used well into Eye of the North. Even after 7 years and thousands of hours, I only got 4 sets of armor and 2 were for Hall of Monuments. I never needed them. I liked the way they looked and wore them my entire GW career.

Now though, the complimentary items in addition to starting gear progression makes me think that other content will have their own gimmicky condition requiring the armor to complete the content. If I quit for a year or so again, it seems I’ll have to grind content specifically so I can catch up and play with friends. I wish I could say that I trust Anet that this won’t be the case but considering how much I’ve been burned (first minor things and now this), I can’t say that anymore.

I wish the WvW titles had tiers instead of just ‘ultimate X’

It’s going to take years to get any of those titles.

This is in response to the developer apology expressing that they won’t do a really difficult event limited to a holiday again.

Please, please, don’t do this. The clocktower was awesome largely in part to it being available for a limited time only. Various people have said they wouldn’t have minded if they could always come back, but the whole point of something like this is that it’s something not everyone will be able to do.

Guildwars 2 is a game that rewards skill above persistence. You can’t become more powerful than other people in WvW because you spent 10,000 hours grinding better WvW equipment. You can be better by playing better. If the clocktower was around permanently, sooner or later 90% of players would get through it, just through persistence and eventual luck. Having it only be available for a few days means it’s something people can be proud they achieved. It means it requires skill.

And yes, some people will get other people to do it for them. That’s effectively a cheat, and unavoidable. That’s true for literally anything you can do in the game.

Please include limited time, difficult challenges like this again in future holiday events.

For me, it’s the 1v1 survivability. Heck, even against PvE mobs, you can kite like no one else. Vigor on crits leads to rolling like I’m playing Katamari Damacy, and clones on rolls? Just groovy. Sure, those clones don’t take much damage and they can’t deal much either, but they can throw conditions all over the place, both in attacks and in death. Of any mage class, mesmers provide the most support and require the least.

I also love the amount of strategy that goes into the builds. Other classes seem to almost require a full 30 trait points in the +power line, but I’ve gotten way more mileage out of precision and toughness on the mesmer. The precision gets you crit bonuses, not just more damage. Truth: mesmers can’t DPS like elementalists. Who cares? Elementalists can’t use conditions like mesmers.

You want to talk about offense? Every other class is all about the pew pew. Yeah, even necromancers love to use skills as soon as they recharge to put out the most numbers. But mesmers? Nope, we gotta think hard about when we use them. We have to know what our enemy is planning to do AND what we plan to do about it, and all at the speed the enemy sets. Scepter 2, sword 4, and Mirror all have rather short timing windows for counterattacking, but when you can land them, you get to deal a chunk of damage, prevent some to yourself, and usually pull some other effect. Have you ever used Feedback on an enemy using Dagger Storm? Hilarity. Plain and simple. But you can’t use Feedback on a thief at any random moment to get that effect, you have to anticipate the dagger storm or have a real quick reflex to it. Mesmers absolutely EMBODY the phrase “learn2play.” Gear, stats, it matters way less to a mesmer when you can simply outplay your opponent. They are the monkey wrench of DPS calculations. They are the gum that sticks to your shoe. THEY ARE DARKWING DUCK, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT.

SAVE BESSIE!!!

- Gandara

Sounds like he was using a very glassy cannon build. Kill Shot is actually a joke compared to Rapid Fire, which even if you dodge one of, will still apply most of its (often superior) damage. KS’s only advantage is its range. It’s also incredibly easy to see from any distance. If he’s kneeling, dodge. It’s basically only good as a surprise move. As others have said, Kill Shot doesn’t do much damage otherwise, normally. Honestly I rarely see it go over 5-6k, which yes, is just fine on a profession that aside from damage can’t do a single thing to you; Warriors are not known for having clever tricks up their sleeves. And since the Rifle is single-target and otherwise has no utility (knockback, a cripple), I rarely bother using it, especially in WvW. It’s a ganker’s tool.

Now, keep in mind, I know you aren’t a Warrior player, but this is ALL Warriors do. Complaining about a Warrior dealing damage to you is like complaining that a Mesmer can make clones. Of course he’s going to do more damage to you than you can do to him – he can’t do anything else to you. It’s all he can do. He is otherwise completely worthless. He’s not going to become invisible, make a copy of himself, turn into vapor, throw up an impassable wall or anything else. He just swings big chunks of metal around and hopes he can overpower you with a couple of cripples and a Bull’s Charge.

Now, let’s consider your situation:

• You fought a Warrior 1v1
• You were alone in WvW
• He was alone in WvW
• He had an obvious glass cannon build designed only to gank people
• He could kill some random wildlife in the small window Vengeance allows (they don’t exactly explode when you look at them), meaning he was VERY glassy
• You apparently managed to down him anyway, despite his getting the opening crit shot – very glassy AND a bad player
• He was traited to rally on Vengeance, which normally using = death for the Warrior = he knew he’d probably die (again, he’s a ganker who is otherwise worthless to everyone)
• You actually gave him the time to USE Vengeance, knowing he’s a glass cannon, with his only defense being the second worst #2 downed skill in the game – his only weapon against you IS Throw Rock – the highest damage downed state skill in the game (and single-target)

It sounds to me like you were a pub doing what you should never do in WvW – go anywhere alone. And it also sounds like you encountered an idiot who had only one goal – gank solo pubs. Furthermore, it also sounds like he was a poor player, to get in a high crit opening hit but still die. In addition to that, it sounds like you spent too much time freaking out in the process. Also, in WvW, level disparity and equipment ALSO come into the equation. Were you level 80? Was he? Did you have exotics? Did he? Etc. Again, you’re complaining about a Warrior’s only options in combat. “His Throw Rock is so powerful.” Of course it is. His #2 skill is a single-target projectile that can be evaded, blinded, blocked, stability’ed away, etc. His #3 skill, which he should normally NEVER get to use, kills him unless he burns points for the trait to prevent it AND manages to use it AND manages to kill something. And you’re complaining that his rock does too much damage? “He hits so hard.” Of course he does. Again, this is all Warriors are good for. Even their DPS is eclipsed by other classes. They’re all about single-hit burst damage. It is all, they, do. Imagine a Warrior that can’t do any damage to you. How threatening is he to you? Because normally, when I see a Warrior, I think, “Free meal.” I can do all sorts of crazy tricks, and they can’t. They can only try to burst damage me, and that’s usually very easy to mitigate or avoid.

The lesson here is, the Warrior designed to do nothing BUT this was still terrible (and Warriors are indeed usually terrible), and you shouldn’t be wandering around alone in WvW. Remember, kids: if you see a Warrior, he’s DPS and will die very quickly after using his one good move. If he’s not DPS, and he’s alone (not supporting others), he’s probably a moron. Also, WvW is all about the buddy system.

Get eight hours of milk and don’t do school.

forthegz.5814:

This ranking system would be VERY LONG with ‘no end in sight’. […] This system would not reward players that simply ‘put more time’ into the game. It would reward players that perform better consistently, win more fights, kill more players per death ect. This system would reward you based on your individual skill and nothing else.

How do you determine the individual skill of a player adequately? Certainly not by simply counting kill/death ratio or win-rate of “battles” (where you have the problem of defining when a “battle” begins and ends). There are SO many other factors that would have to be included, too. For example if only your stats are used then what about supports not doing much damage/killing many people but helping their allies stay alive? Etc.

Besides i don’t see how your proposed system would NOT grant an advantage to players just because they’re playing often. This is a grind-for-stats approach that doesnt really fit GW2, given the fact that you already have to invest a bit of time into exotic gear to really be competitive anyway.

forthegz.5814:

Points are ONLY given for killing players, (siege weapons do not count).

That’s exactly the problem. What do you think will many people do if this system went live? Mindlessly wandering around looking to duel other people/groups to boost their rank instead of focusing on the objectives. Nobody will use siege weapons anymore, because this doesn’t increase their rank while at the same time their allies would get all the credit for it when the shot takes out the enemies before them.

forthegz.5814:

What % of damage you did to the player.

Another factor that goes against GW2 philosophy. Obviously people would go full damage to try to get the most points of the kills. This hurts teamplay a lot and therefore group-oriented WvW combat. It actually introduces a (damage-)competition between allies, which is exactly what GW2 wants to avoid.

forthegz.5814:

This system in my opinion allows average sized, but highly skilled groups to shine.

Such groups are rewarded in structured PVP and should play there, where skill actually matters. You’re trying way too hard to introduce some kind of skill measurement in a “just-for-fun” style of PVP. And after all, such groups do shine in WvW also, because they’re rewarded for taking/holding supply camps as a minority for example. Rewards are objective based in WvW and should stay this way. Your system would encourage mindlessly slaughtering each other in the middle of nowhere, which doesn’t contribute one bit to WvW gameplay. It would also increase the problem of zergs.

TL;DR
No, because Kill/Death Ratio, Damage to Player etc. as statistics for skill introduce competition between allies and discourage teamplay/supporting others while encouraging non-objective-based gameplay/zerging
No, because it gives people with more in-game-time an advantage over others, which is what GW2 has fortunately (!) removed (sPVP) or minimized (scaled up in WvW, exotics not that time-consuming to craft)
No, because even if you could accurately measure the player skill, why would you give a player an advantage in combat who already plays well and defeats almost every other player? To make it even more frustratingly difficult for bad players to get better and defeat players who are better than themselves?