Guild Wars 2

I’m here to sign this as well. The news of individual colors as separate purchases gave me a case of cognitive dissonance. It defeats the purpose of having colored commander tags.

Having the option to choose what color you’re tagging up would at least help break the zerg up. One theoretical example would be Queens Jubilee. Imagine having six commanders with different colors. Each commander would yell in mapchat, saying “Green needs two more”, “Blue need four”, “Pink needs only one more,” etc. Another would be Jungle Wurm; each commander would yell out how much they need in numbers. Finally, the Marionette fight showed that mapchat can be used to organize a pick-up group. If it were implemented back then, it would have been easier to organize by yelling the color tag of the commander rather than typing in their name and, in turn, forcing people to hover over their tags to get their name.

For WvW, it would help out by splitting a zergball when it reaches capacity. If Blue Commander wants to be defensive, they can broadcast that in mapchat and refer to Red Commander as the aggressive commander. It can also be a color coded rule within the WvW community. Red commander is aggressive, blue is defensive, green is a guild run zerg, pink would be someone roaming or scouting.

Purchasing individual colors stifles ease of organization. Imagine a map where there are two commanders, and both commanders want to split up to cover more ground. But both commanders have the same colors as tags, and the whole thing reverts to the old ways.

I’m trying to think of reasons why this current model was chosen:

One reason I can think of is guilds would be purchasing these for their designated commanders. Guild A is designated as the Blue commanders guild, whereas Guild B is designated as Red commanders guild. If this is the case, then they should have the commander tag purchasable by Influence.

Dear Anet. Where do I start.

1: You make all your WvW decisions for 2 years based on PvP.

2: You create a system that pulls people out of team based WvW, and turns into a place where people just ktrain until they are platinum level nubcakes.

3: you claim “fixes are coming soon” for, again…forever.

And when you MAKE THE FIXES, YOU CHARGE US FOR THEM? Seriously?

You guys bank on the whiny people on the forums just being a small part of the bla bla bla but let me tell you something, Commanders are already frustrated with this game and its bleh system of command. If the handful of good ones on each server say kitten it, it WILL effect your bottom line.

Maybe you dont care because your off developing my little pony the bloodthirsty adventures. It sure as hell feels that way.

How about doing something that doesnt frustrate your player base.

Can’t wait to see what other brilliant features are in store for WvW in the feature pack now that they’ve set the bar incredibly low.

Okay Anet, you can charge me 300 gold per tag… if you make WvW actually profitable enough to afford that.

This is a pretty poor decision and really makes me question if ArenaNet understands why we want colors for tags in the first place. It’s not a vanity thing. It’s so that we can easily coordinate multiple groups on the same map.

This is a baffling decision and I urge ArenaNet to reconsider.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Ragnar.1546:

ItIsFinished.9462:

Because the description said they were “Unparalleled archers”……

Unparalleled to a quadriplegic maybe.

Even that’s an overstatement.

Stephen Hawking made the Ranger and George Bush assisted with the Pets.

Mardi Gras mode confirmed. Dust off those steel drums, it’s time for a parade!

Vayne.8563:

Let’s be logical for one second. You called it. Guild Wars 2 is one of NCsofts most popular games. It’s still making money as of last quarter. No company just abandons their most popular product. We already see signs that Wildstar is slowing down and it’s only out a couple of months. It’s taken a big hit already.

So what is NcSoft going do to, really? Abandon Guild Wars 2.

Take a look at NCsoft’s financials. Yes, it’s a Korean company, the accounting rules are different, but their investor relations people do publish quarterly in English.

NCsoft is still Lineage. The original Lineage. They have a number of other games, but none of them have made it big. GW2 was a big chunk of revenue for boxes back two years ago, but that dried up after a couple of quarters. It’s a few million dollars a quarter now, I assume mostly from gem sales but a few boxes are still being sold.

I don’t see a liability on NCsoft’s balance sheet for its commitment to continue operating GW2 (indefinitely?) for people who’ve bought the game. Under U.S. accounting rules my assumption (I’m an engineer, not an accountant) is that they would be required to reserve part of the revenue from box sales, recognizing it over a period of years, matched to the cost of running servers, paying their ISP, keeping a few employees around, etc. I can’t find anything like this on NCsoft’s balance sheet so speculate that under Korean accounting standards they were allowed to recognize all of the revenue from box sales when the boxes were sold. This means the only money available to keep the servers up (much less provide new content) is from ongoing gem sales.

Under these circumstances, customers who don’t buy gems are a liability (they consume server resources but provide no revenue) and neglecting the issue of deserted worlds driving away potential new customers, ArenaNet is more profitable if people who don’t buy gems all leave the game.

Anyone think I’ve missed something here?

La Goanna.8142:

Xillllix.3485:

They’re probably just letting this game die slowly. The lack of WvW updates, having to fight the same matchups for 8 weeks in a row, megaservers and goal-less EOTM has fragmented the community to a point where most people are getting burned out.

Took the words out of my mouth. Once again all of this is starting to give me an impression that someone higher up wants the game to die off… Which doesn’t really make much sense, considering that GW2 is one of, if not – NCsoft’s most popular NA MMO at the moment, with a newly added dev team of 400 people.

I heard that the dev team didn’t answer any player questions or complaints regarding the game’s future at Gamescom either; that definitely doesn’t bode well. Really hoping that Anet proves us wrong eventually, because it’d be such a shame to see a game with this much potential die young.

Let’s be logical for one second. You called it. Guild Wars 2 is one of NCsofts most popular games. It’s still making money as of last quarter. No company just abandons their most popular product. We already see signs that Wildstar is slowing down and it’s only out a couple of months. It’s taken a big hit already.

So what is NcSoft going do to, really? Abandon Guild Wars 2.

Businesses plan stuff over months and even years, not weeks. Things like expansions. They make annoucements when they do when it makes sense to make them. Now if the game is still earning money at a constant rate, they have less reason to make annoucements. Anet is tracking who logs in and for how long they play. And how many players log on.

So much panic from people who really have nothing to go on. All we really have to go on is NcSoft quarterly reports, which show the game profitable, and stuff like Raptr which shows that the game has pretty much remained in the top 20 games (not just MMOs games either) since release. That’s not easy to do. ESO has already fallen off the top 20 and it’s much newer. Why would anyone abandon this game? It makes no real sense.

The problem is Anet isnt’ telling us what’s going on. That’s the problem. But you know, if Anet is still paying voice actors to do voices for content that comes out every two weeks, that says something too. Voice actors don’t come cheap. You don’t let games die and then pay voice actors lots and lots of money.

Anet needs to say something. That much is certain. Too many people with too much time to worry about what’s not happening, not because it’s not happening, but because Anet hasn’t said anything. That’s why I posted a thread about Anet needs to have someone talking to us.

But realistically, when SWToR wasnt’ doing as well as it was supposed to half the staff was laid off. When TSW didnt’ do as well as it was supposed to, a third of the staff was laid off. If that happened, we’d hear about it. It’s not happening. The game isn’t dying. There’s no reason to believe it’s dying.

Lack of information doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.

Well see the thing is with Kudzu, one could, if they so chose, to make a perfect argument about how the weapon is beautiful and the most suitable legendary for rangers, down to every last detail, including that added on excuse for a bowstring that looks like a last minute detail, which one could argue completes the feel of the ranger down to every last detail, including that nice little metaphor for a class mechanic.

If one so chose to do so that is. Not saying that I think that or anything. I love the forced 30% dps mechanic that makes rangers beastmasters by default.

Access to scissors so I can cut off any clothing that hangs below the waist. :o

want group support?

take 2 points into nature magic, Circle of life.

You die? who cares, you drop a condi cleansing water field lasting 12 seconds…. Even in death you’d help your allies.

Want pets to work in GvG? take guard + malicious training + krytan drakehound. Drop guard on the flank of the enemy zerg so pet stay AWAY from the damage. then activate F2 and Entangle to trap some backliners to be easily picked off.

Can rangers work in GvG? yes, without a doubt.
Will ONE RANGER, do the work of 2-3 other classes ? NO IT WILL NOT.

However, taking a ranger with piercing arrows (since most GvG’s doesnt have much long range combat) and Rapid fire can deal some serious damage. Not to mention Barrage cast time was slightly reduced (which makes it slightly less suicidal to use).

Even in full zerk, rangers can bring a sun or stone spirit, drop it, and grant a little group support.

McWolfy.5924:

pets dont have cleave dmg, pets cant fight against multiple targets, pets cant hit moving targets. ele have 90k dmg within a second, thief have 80k. ranger dont have fields or blast finishers or even mass cc. a tanky warrior do the same dmg with hammer as a zerker ranger + cc
somewhy devs think pet is an advantage
(btw ranger will be better as now)

Ranger’s have the best mass CC in the game, so perhaps you should log onto yours again wolfy, because you are making yourself look like a fool.

That being said, to address the main point, the pet is what really limits a ranger in a GvG. It’s X amount of useless damage in a scenario like that. Pets are great, don’t get me wrong, but they won’t get the job done in a GvG. Another issue with ranger is to compare with a thief or mesmer on the backline, they have to sacrifice a lot of survivability, or at least more than a mesmer or thief would. This is coming from somebody who has played a ranger in a GvG, and humbly acknowledges that is not where rangers shine.

Having said that though, to say something like Wolfy did just shown a complete disconnection with reality when it comes to ranger.

Another tip if you’re going to solo roam, is to record your fights and watch them later. You always remember it if you make some big mistake and totally mess up a fight, but you tend to forget, or not notice at all, the little mistakes. When you watch a clip of yourself, you will see what you should or shouldn’t have done in a fight and learn much faster.
I’m not saying you should watch every fight you have, but perhaps those close ones where you wonder why you got beat. Or those you barely win, but thought you could have done better.

I’m on Gunnar’s Hold as well. I mostly solo roam, but do join a zerg on rare occasions. I’ve never had anyone comment on the fact that I play a ranger or told me to get another class. It really doesn’t matter that much in a zerg.

Malediktus.9250:

DevonCarver.5370:

I’ve said it before, and I will repeat it here. We are aware of the problems with the WvW achievements and will be doing more to address them in the near future. Currently it is more complicated to solve the problems than I would like, which means we need to have a fully comprehensive solution before doing anything.

It was promised to change the WvW achievements for 2013 already, we are soon 8 months into 2014. I guess its save to say you wont change anything

Initializing ArenaNet PR Doublespeak Translator
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Input?

“I’ve said it before, and I will repeat it here.”

Processing…

Output:

“Stop pointing out our glaringly obvious lack of substantive improvements to WvW!”

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beep
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Input?

“We are aware of the problems with the WvW achievements and will be doing more to address them in the near future.”

Processing…

Output:

“We’re stalling for time by pretending to care about your concerns without any intention of doing anything about it.”
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beep
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Input?

“Currently it is more complicated to solve the problems than I would like, which means we need to have a fully comprehensive solution before doing anything.”

Processing…

Output:

“It’s complicated because it’s impossible to come up with a solution when there is no dedicated WvW development team and no budget allocated for improvements to this area of the game.”

I have to kindly request someone take over running the “ArenaNet PR Doublespeak Translator” application in my absence as I’m likely on my way to another all-expenses payed vacation to the tropical paradise of BANanaville courtesy of our fine friends at ClubAnet. Don’t forget to run the BS scanner once per week. Cheers

P.S. If you like this post, you might want to quote it as it’s likely going to…ehem…disappear very soon.

Salutations fabulous frequenters of the WvW forum!

I’ve returned from an all-expenses payed vacation to the beautiful tropical paradise of BANanaville, courtesy of the lovely people at ClubANet.

So, I see the following update has been made to WvW in my absence:

World vs. World
Fixed an issue preventing the WvW armorsmith vendors from selling to level 60-69 characters.
Fixed an issue in which Build Master II caused the incorrect amount of supply to be spent when building burning oil, cannons, and mortars.

So I ask you, “What is there to be angry about?” Can’t you see they’re pouring their heart and soul into making WvW reach its full potential with all the frequent updates and improvements to this spectacular game mode?!?! Please cut them some slack and give them ALL the credit they so richly deserve.

Well, that’s it from for me for now. I’ll likely be off on another fantastic holiday getaway to BANanaville in the very near future. Meanwhile, keep it classy WvW peeps!

P.S. You can kill the messenger but not the message.

Why arent people angrier? Because Anet deletes all angry posts.

For a long time people said things like:
“WvW is going to die”
“something needs to change”
“this is not working”
“servers are dying”
etc

Those people were met with “everything is fine” and/or “why do people keep complaining”. All of those “complainers” warned those people that when the complaining stops, that is the time to really worry.

Well guess what?

My dad bought a bar many years ago. It was one of those places that never stayed open for more than 6 months before he bought it. It was know for a rowdy crowd and nightly fights. Like the bar in Roadhouse.

My dad did not have Patrick with his KungFu throat grip. Instead, if someone couldn’t control their behavior, they were "86"ed for life. The rowdies were gone, nice working people who just wanted to dance and relax with their wife or date felt safe. My dad kept the place going for 15 years.

WvW is like a rowdy bar right now. The hackers are running the show and ruining it for everyone else. When people say “roamer” I think “hacker” since I run into so many when I’m roaming. They are everywhere. Guy ran right thru a 20 man zerg solo….never slowed, and his health bar hardly wiggled.

A lot of folks just are not coming into WvW because they are tired of fights they can not win because of the rampant cheating. Why is it so hard to report someone for hacking? Shouldn’t there be a “hacking” option in the report function?

Why aren’t we getting weekly or monthly reports of x many people banned? If there was some kind of proof that people were getting banned, others might be disinclined to join the hackers bandwagon. (Of course, if no one is getting banned, there is nothing to report)

If the problem is being ignored, as many have speculated, why not change the policy? Just tell everyone that “mods” are allowed so we can all zoom, speed, teleport, invisibility hack (sorry….“mod”) and level the playing field.

can someone kindly tell me how do I know if a thread already exists? given that research in the forum does not work?

thefantasticg.3984:

I don’t do that silly PVP stuff like WvW or stupid point capture.

So, PVE is where I stay.

Most “exclusively PVErs” use the above statement as excuse because they can’t stand being stomped by other players.

I pretty much finished everything that exist in PVE, but I still find PVP is a huge depth of ocean for me to explore. Stop claiming that PVP is stupid if you can’t learn to improve yourself. Any sane person knows it is way more indepth than shallow and silly computer AI in PVE.

RoyalPredator.9163:

I’m thinking about how will it affect me. On the LB and GS part, really nicely.
Not sure if I will sacrifice 1500 range tho… it is essential in WWW if you don’t want to catch a random spell in the face. So this should be added to the upcomming buffs for Longbows.

I’m sad because it isn’t Today’s patch, and yeah… propably have to wait the end of Tournament at least. Let that end with really crappy ranger state ^^ lol?

I’m not a professional economist, but could manage time to fix rangers and else before a hyped Tournament. Right now, it seems a pounch in eSport’s face… well…

There’s 2 sides to that. Assume you patch ahead of the tournament and don’t leave enough time for any bugs to get fixed with the tournament coming up and make people play an even buggier game.

The small PvP community would only get smaller with the outrage that would come from that, because they would rather have a working game that they could practice with no matter how broken the balance is, than a broken game entirely.

Not to mention patching today would basically swing the next qualifiers this weekend as far as advantages/disadvantages go. People would argue that teams are getting carried by a shifted meta instead of deserving to be there all together, and certain players “top tier” egos would make them speak out against the tournament and take any mindless drone followers into that mindset with them because “it wasn’t as competitive as it should have been because they made changes that shifted the meta instead of letting the meta play out which all the teams have practiced, not to mention all of the bugs, etc etc etc.”

It’s like a tightrope walk for ANet, and just saying, but because ANet is providing the gems for the weekly tourny winners in PvP, I’m pretty sure they I know whose side of the situation they land on when deciding to make changes.

I DO think that the least they could do is patch the game after the ToL but before gamescom, since gamescom is a LAN tournament. They could just patch the live game, but keep the LAN servers they are going to be using in the old version so the meta doesn’t shift for the competitive part of that event, but the rest of the players get the patch they want sooner than having to wait for a tournament that admittedly most people just don’t care about when you weigh it against getting a balance patch.

Especially since the Gamescom tournament isn’t even a competitive event to begin with. It’s a team that practices and plays together and won the first ToL EU side against super pugs of NA and Asian players; some of the NA players haven’t even been on a competitive team for a while, and are just well known players that used to play competitively.

So I really don’t see why the balance of the game for that particular tournament even matters at that point. It’s a pick-up game with a bunch of personalities there for show-off, ego stroking, “funzies.” The rest of the players would rather have their balance patch than cater to such a silly event.

Unfortunately to me this just reads as "We’re not actually working on anything, but I am not allowed to say that or I’ll lose my job".

Developers are posting just fine in other sections. The things the ’WvW team’ is supposedly ’working so hard’ on to the point where they cannot even spare a few minutes within the past YEAR to give any type of life signs what so ever... These things are incredibly hard to believe, and it is much easier to believe a WvW shutdown is coming.

Sorry Mark, but I think you understand yourself where the frustration comes from if all WvW gets is a “we’re working on something we cant talk about”. Because the past 2 years we got the same answers and most of the time the actual “something” turned out to be not what the players have asked for.

Either you say “we’re working on commander squads/guild commander tags but we are in a very early stadium of development” and show some progress within the next month (for example screenshots or ready up streams) or people wont believe you.
Good luck though.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

A few people decided to start digging through the forum and bumping old topics, not to contribute to conversations there or post new and insightful comments to breathe new life into the topic, but to be disruptive and to try and “prove a point”.

Hi Mark,

I am one of those few.

To be specific the threads I’ve historically ‘red bumped’ were to do with:

1) Commander tag
2) WvW Achievement Points

These points are not new to people who follow the forums. I’m sure many people would feel that we don’t need ‘yet another’ topic created on them. So you can say that my necros failed to post an insightful comment, only to be disruptive and try “prove a point”, but I honesty think the real point was missed.

I didn’t have to post an ‘insightful’ comment because I didn’t need to. I breathed new life into the topic because of the simple fact that the obvious was made clear.

That is for over a year you’ve discussed a revamp to the WvW AP’s which has not happened. You’ve discussed a revamp to the commander tag along with a CDI to back this up for over a year and yet, nothing.

Am I disruptive to the GW2 community? I like WvW, I want WvW to be better and I bump things, that seemingly get lost so that new players realise that their ideas are not so new and concurrently helps give perspective to veteran players.

You can argue the merits of altruism but in some respects that’s beside the point. What I did was use the system presented to us, the limitations that comes with that to highlight a point. That is, a developer posted to state they were working on/wanting to make changes to said topic, that seemingly hasn’t happened.

Tbh I think I’ve been very constructive, it creates accountability. The ‘political fallout’ from that, is why we are now having this conversation. Not because I’m being ‘disruptive’.

One mans rebel is another mans terrorist.

Mark, I have a possible solution. The majority of people think that because a thread/post receives no Developer feedback that the Devs have abandoned this forum. I do understand your position in that they do not have the time to reply to every post although they do read many. Currently you identify the posts that a Developer has replied in with a red flag. Perhaps you can add a different color flag that will inform the public on whether or not the thread has been read and taken into consideration even though there is no reply? At that point a reply would not be totally necessary as long as we know that someone has viewed our concerns. Currently there is way of knowing.

Just a thought.

Edit: I thought it over and refined it.

Let us say we have 3 threads concerning
1) Mounts
2) New maps
3) Arrow cart field of view

If the developer team has no interest in working on Mounts in the foreseeable future flag the thread gray. If it is under consideration such as new maps but pushed out until time permits flag it yellow. If it is currently under development/in process such as arrow carts ( okay I am hoping ) but with no ETA then flag it green. The current red flag can be left automated as it is now when a Dev posts in a thread. The other 3 can be a toggle for developers only that they can click on accordingly.

It may even clear up many repetitive threads!

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Again I can assure you, the developers are reading the forums regularly, even though they don’t have time to post a reply to everything they read. Additionally, as I read these forums probably more than anybody here, I regularly compile reports for the competitive team to make sure they are up to speed on your concerns and desires. Does this mean your every wish will be granted? No, it does not. What it does mean is that the team is regularly being made aware of how the community feels about the game and what features, content, etc. that you like, dislike or want to see in the future. What it also means is that we take note of when you all ask for or suggest a feature that is currently under development, so that down the line, when it’s actually released and a bunch of people clamor to the forums to complain that “nobody asked for this” (you know who you are), we can refer back and be secure in the knowledge that somebody did, in fact, ask for it.

I would just like to point out, and I hope you realize this, that the first dev post in MONTHS in this subforum since the tourney reward debacle was… yours. To tell us to shut up and stop bringing up old threads.

It’s not about developers reading this forum and not having time to reply to everything. It appears that they have no time to reply to anything.

I’m glad you’re compiling reports. What exactly do those reports contain? A lot of the threads over the last couple of months have simply been people asking if there’s anyone still answering phones over there, and that’s because we keep calling, the phone keeps ringing, but there’s nobody on the other end.

I’d simply like to point out that your follow-up post to the sticky feels somewhat ironic to me, and even the sticky itself perhaps a bit insulting, in that the only response that we’ve gotten to let us know people are reading this forum is that someone got a little miffed over thread necros and decided that it had to stop.

If you think your post ended up being longer than it had to be, it didn’t. We needed to hear it. All of it. People are leaving. People have left. People have been considering if there’s any worth in investing our time and money in this game anymore, and we absolutely, 100%, needed you to write every single word of that.

Using the “It’ll be ready when it’s ready” excuse was OK when the game was in alpha and beta, but no longer.

The game is out, Living Story gets HUGE updates every two weeks, whilst WvW has bearly got a thing in comaprison!

I understand that you are stuck between either saying nothing and getting flamed, or giving estimated timeframes on things and then getting flamed when those timeframes are not met.

Either way things are going south fast. But thank you for your posts, that’s all we’ve been asking for; some sort okittennowledgement that we EXIST, we are here, we play in WvW, and we want more replies other than being threatened with infractions and bans.

A hello here a how-do there, it makes the difference, but all we’ve had is silence, and silence can drive people to do crazy things, and I think we’ve proved that. And yet you continue to tell us to be silent….??

There are still a whole load of games to be released this year, and with each one more players are leaving due to not knowing the future of this game mode; so they tell themselves “why bother playing any more, I’ll just move onto something which has more solid foundations and solid plans for the future of the game”, atm GW2 only has more Living Story.

A business model for any game is to attract MORE players. LS only attracts current players who want to get their achievement points, and then they go off to their other games a day or two later.
Create a new borderlands map for WvW, and you’ll attract the old players who have left, and most of them will stay on for weeks to months!
Add some WvW based gem store items and people will buy them. Coloured commander tag option, or other things; as previously stated by devs teh community has some good ideas, they just need to be implemented.

This clearly points to the fact that if you want to increase your player base numbers, WvW must get at least some major updates, not just minor fixes!

me

okittennowledgement

Awesome filtering