Guild Wars 2

I personally don’t love either map.

The basic design of Alpine was pretty linear, simple, and open. Meaning, for the most part you were able to travel from North & South or East & West with basically nothing except another player getting in your way.

The design of the Desert map brought in new “barricades” that hinder players from moving, mostly, North and South. You must break through them, and as a solo-roamer or small group, this takes a while. Otherwise you’re basically forced through sentry points that will mark you. However, it is moving East and West on this map that is vastly different than Alpine. Again, in Alpine you had nothing really to bar your movement, but in the Desert there are massive vertical cliffs (especially on the east side) that you must navigate. It may not look far, but these areas add in a lot of S-turns, on top of “possibly” needing to go through a barricade again, or around it, depending on your heading. These narrow passes could add flavor to some fights, and are used as “choke-points” but most groups simply avoid them and will pass through the open Oasis before returning to the more rigorous terrain and an objective.

There was a fine-line I think where verticality was acceptable. If we rated Alpine and its relatively level sloping hills as a 1, then the Desert could be a 3. So, more or less something between the two would be acceptable as terrain-“flavor.” Anything that doesn’t double or triple the time it takes to go across a map could potentially be alright.

Then there is all the additional PvE-nonsense added in. We shouldn’t even go there but essentially a group of 5 players (or less) could do a meta event just like in PvE and open up all the enemy tower/keep gates and start walking in as they please 5-10 minutes later. Basically WvW players tend to lose money (at least commanders and other dedicated people) buying and placing siege in these locations to fight other large groups. There really is no great income source in WvW. Then here is this meta-event that shoots the gates wide open and those handful of people walk in and break everything and cap the tower before you realize where they are.

WvW players don’t want to run around maps completing meta-events and letting the PvE-content fight the war. They don’t want one-sided buffs (No Fall Damage for instance). They don’t even want to scrap over said meta-event because 2 sides always lose (if it happens at all) and then poof; gimmicks.

They want a level playing field on the map 100% of the time where player skill is the main, sometimes only, factor that determines an even-numbered fight. (Obviously not all fights are closely numbered) You want stealth? Here is your mesmer, engineer, and your thief; not a mini-asuran sandstorm creation even if it is cool. I think a lot f us would agree the ideas are cool, the map looks cool, but it has too much gimmick and too many roadblocks.

Unless there is a rotation between maps there is going to be a lot of angry players. The people who liked the alpine BLs will soon realize the game has changed and the HoT changes are coming with them. They will be back on these forums complaining. The people who actually took the time to learn the Desert BLs & grew to like them will be complaining. This is going to be a lose lose situation for anet. Hate to be in their shoes… Good luck

Durzlla.6295:

So, I’m hardly a hardcore WvW player, and I was actually a pretty big fan of most of the desert borderland and HoT changes, but I’m very clearly in the minority of this.

So I was just wondering why you, actual WvWers, like the Alpine Borderlands so much more than the Desert Borderland.

Basically, WvW is boring as hell when there is no enemy to fight. A lot of servers were slowly dying away months before HoT release but people stayed around because HoT was going to change many things anway so there was chance things will get better.

Now the HoT got released and all WvW guilds lost their upgrades. To get upgrades back, all the guild memebrs had to grind in new PvE maps for several months. This meant the time they were wasting in PvE they did not go to WvW. So WvW was empty.

Of course the major WvW problems that were actually causing it to die were not solved with HoT – population balance, nightcapping, scoring etc.

Empty WvW with much less players then before meant pretty much everyone left was able to join one single map now – EB. So the BL maps were left even more empty and boring. There was no enemies so there was no reason to go into BL so many players never bothered to learn those maps. Instead, they simply decided new BL maps were the cause WvW had less players now. WvW players did not “like” Alpine maps, the maps itself were bad too, they just like to fight enemies and because they remember fighting enemies before the HoT they think bringing old maps back will magically bring all the players back too.

Again, most people hanging on these forums are not even playing the game anymore. People who play the game, and enjoy it, have no reason to post in the forum. So, after the current maps are replaced, again, there will be many players who enjoyed current maps, get upset and come to forum to post angrily about this change. So it has to be changed back because “everyone hates Alpine maps”. And the circle continues.

Knob.6835:

Can’t wait for all the old threads about how horrible the alpine BL’s are come back.

Counter with…hey remember that desert bl? Main issue with alpine bl was that after 3 years anything will be stale and boring, I think that was the main issue, and that’s perfectly understandable, there were other flaws ofc. However the alternative proved to be unpopular in a far different way, for many its simply not a fun map, for a variety of reasons, and that’s what matters most. If people are not having fun, they will move on.

I for one am not going to go back to doing all the upgrading for an entire server. No thx.

Super Kruegs.8967:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Super Kruegs.8967:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Just remove them – problem solved.

This. Was asked since… forever

By mostly T1 players because of Yaks Bend.

It’s just as bad in T8. I’m new to tier 1… but it’s not just YB, anyone uses them, kills the fun. Then wonder why nobody comes back “for more”… Thinking is hard.

Funny I can’t remember the last time I died to an AC. If a tower has too many ACs you build an open field treb so they have to come out and fight…. Using more than one tactic is hard.

Lel. Then they counter your treb with a mortar or another treb inside the structure. You can also build a balli to counter it from another location, or build an AC in another place that can’t be countered by your open field treb. Siege humpers will always have ways of countering your outside siege cause they have access to the same siege and much easier access to supply all while having walls/gates to protect them from actual players. Countering siege with siege doesn’t create fights it creates siege wars which is always fun amirite?

If you are building an open field treb somewhere that their siege is already facing your build site you are doing it wrong. Walls to protect them lol. Ele’s can kill most wall siege. If you want to not use siege from the wall you have to jump up on the lip to get yanked down.
There is nothing wrong with AC’s in EB but in the cancer bl I will agree with you.
I do have a question, why do people complain so much about AC’s instead of shield generators and tractivators? In my opinion those two things do far more to make fights not fun than arrow carts do.

Wrong facing right facing either way it’s boring. If you’re inside the keep and you get killed by an ele or necro you’re bad IDK what else to tell you. There’s literally a wall between you and them get off the kitten wall. If you’re talking about siege placement there’s almost always a vertical option for ACS that make it impossible to be killed by any toons and take out offensive siege. It’s basically 1 1/2 classes that can kill/damage siege on walls and the one (ele) has to be playing staff and other isn’t really good at killing folks on walls (I mean if you’re gonna sit in wells you have bigger issues) anything outside of cannons which most classes can do also.

Either way one could make the case (and I will here) that less defenders shouldn’t be able to defend against many more offenders it makes a stale game. Why should 5 siege humpers be able to defend against 20 attackers? Now imagine that same scenario with even numbers it makes offensive gameplay near impossible, and at best super boring countering siege sites all raid. That’s the issue with HOT and buffed siege weapons. There’s no fluid gameplay. SMC is pure gimmick now, the BLs are PvD or foiled by a much smaller defensive force. It encourages PvD not PvP as taking anything defended is at best too difficult and at worst painfully boring. If it’s worth defending (AKA fortified keep) defenders should come. If you don’t have enough defenders you shouldn’t be rewarded for your lack of coordination and/or population by OP defensive siege.

To answer your question people do complain about tactivators/shield generators it’s just filed under “HOT gimmicks” not siege. There are issues with ACs everywhere the damage is too op when traited especially with condi builds. I think most W3ers would like to die at the hand of another player who outplayed them not some casual perched on an AC coat tailing. It’s not like GW2 is a hard game there’s 2 weapons, 4 utilities, and one elite skill. ACs are EZ mode win so it causes salt with people that attempt to take the combat system somewhat serious.

Lastly there are effective ways to kill offensive siege without defensive siege. If you have one person with a smoke field and 2 other people that understand blasting you can usually stealth up enough to get to the siege and get a burst off on it. Sure you might die but this is RvR. If you portal stack and push out with 3-4 people you can usually disrupt a siege and eventually stop it even if the other server has more numbers. Have a melee player push out as a distraction then have your range players bomb the siege, or disable, or pop a tag to rally people, or call out in your TS/map chat the attack. There’s so many non-seige options but people are too lazy to get gud at the combat system they just like their 1 button bag machines.

Why should 5 players who took the time to prep the tower be able to hold off 20? Because it’s an investment that’s why. If you die to AC fire you need to look at your build. The whole point is for my backup to show up while you are sieging so I can jump off the wall and collect your bags. Now if you want to change the wall so I don’t have to jump up on the lip of the wall to range you and I could still be hit from player aoe’s then sure nerf them into the ground.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Aeowia.7214:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Just remove them – problem solved.

This. Was asked since… forever

By mostly T1 players because of Yaks Bend.

It’s just as bad in T8. I’m new to tier 1… but it’s not just YB, anyone uses them, kills the fun. Then wonder why nobody comes back “for more”… Thinking is hard.

Dusty Moon.4382:

Just remove them – problem solved.

This. Was asked since… forever

This comes off as pretty short-sighted.

The players that want this are largely going to be turned off by any changes that don’t shift WvW towards a simplistic GvG scene. Either Anet is going to support that (thus killing WvW as RvR) or they’re going to hamstring themselves courting players who will abandon them anyway.

volpenvieh.3201:

Or when the commander needs a quick break. Hell, 2 minutes wouldn’t even be enough to go to the toilet. Or answer the door/phone. Or grab a drink.

What’s real life again? LOL Wish more people thought like you do.

Silverstone.4539:

If more than 2 minutes AFK in WvW you should be kicked back to LA. simple.

You know that wvw is not only fighting, right? 2 minutes would be very annoying for scouts (especially if we get back the alpine borderlands where you can often scout several gates/walls from one position without having to move). Or when guilds are gathering up on a border. Or when the commander needs a quick break. Hell, 2 minutes wouldn’t even be enough to go to the toilet. Or answer the door/phone. Or grab a drink. Or standing in front of a t3 gate waiting for it to open.
You really want everyone who has to leave their computer for more than TWO minutes to have to queue up again?

Afk people probably aren’t a real problem anyway. It’s either a lot of people running around off tag while the commander is struggeling against blobs or people at crafting stations etc. (but the latter usually won’t bother to get through queues so it’s not really an issue either). The people you think are afk aren’t really afk, they just don’t want to follow the commander for whatever reason. So changing the max idle time wouldn’t help matters, it would just make things more annoying for others.
Trust me, I’ve played WvW for quite some time now and witnessed commanders having less than 20 people on tag while there was a queue on the border and less than 10 people “afk” in spawn + keep combined.

There are queues again? What?!

Piken yesterday had queues on 2 borders + eb.

This is going to be long, so I’ll put a tl;dr up front: A healthy WvW meta-game must be able to support viable strategies for all servers whether they have exactly even numbers or if they are temporarily outnumbered to a moderate degree.

Details follow~

In any conflict, the best strategy will be exploited in full by all sides. Thus, when designing a game that centers around conflict, it is of paramount importance to consider what the optimal strategy is. Ideally, this strategy should not be self-sufficient—if it is, then no other strategies will be viable. In addition, it is even better to have several strategies that compete for the top spot. This is referred to as having a healthy meta-game. Here, I want to talk about the current contenders for best strategy in WvW and where we might want to go. First, I want to look at the strategies being employed by the current top servers. I’ll evaluate them based on how healthy they are and how effective. Second, I want to talk about what balance between offensive play and defensive play is healthy. Third, I want to propose a way to make mobility in WvW maps more dynamic and more reflective of player’s choices.

YAK’S BEND

Currently, the top server (Yak’s Bend) uses a strategy that is based heavily in aggressively recapping lost objectives and protecting those that are owned with massive amounts of siege. They also value communication and an extensive network of independent scouts. Most of the server is somewhat weaker in straight fights than their competitors, but their excellence in other areas means that doesn’t translate into losing points. Some parts of this strategy (communication and scouting) are fine. Other parts (massive siege defense) are stifling. The first two components are not self-sufficient—the last, however, appears to be. So long as there are people to man the siege, there’s no need for anything else.

However, I haven’t heard much in the way of people attempting to counter-act this strategy. A battery of Arrow Carts is likely vulnerable to one or two siege disablers—potentially thrown by stealth classes. The absolute worst thing to do is to attempt to engage the enemy head on, but this was the prevailing strategy of the day before the rise of YB and it has stubbornly stuck around. Since this is not likely successful under a hail of arrows, YB’s siege defense appears impenetrable.

There are several choices for reducing the effectiveness of siege bunkering. First, the siege cap can be lowered so that not as many Arrow Carts can be built. This sounds appealing, but it is too blunt of an approach. Either there will be room for enough Arrow Carts or there won’t—rather than diminishing the strategy by giving players tools to counter it, it simply disallows the strategy entirely. Second, Arrow Cart damage can be reduced to players. However, this falls into the same trap as the first. Third, Siege Disablers can be made less expensive. This would help, but might not be enough on its own. However, WvW should be about strategy versus strategy—not wallet versus wallet. Just like in PvP, no gold investment should be required to compete. There may be more that can be done here, but there first needs to be an effort to overcome the strategy before we can conclude that it is oppressive. Therefore, making the existing potential counter more easily available is a good first step.

JADE QUARRY/BLACKGATE

I’m lumping the number two and three servers together as they tend to use variations of a single strategy. They both focus on gathering in mid-to-large size groups and winning fights before taking largely unguarded objectives or in fighting in or around the lord’s room. In both cases, their defense and offense revolves around winning a large-scale fight.

Given even numbers, this is probably the most basic and also the healthiest strategy. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes oppressive with even a slight population imbalance. Even in a perfect tier with strictly even server capacity, if there’s any point in the day where one side has more people logged on, they will win every fight unless profoundly out-skilled. In addition, if one server brings much more people to the fight, they will win. Thus, if this is the best strategy, the only way to counter it is to bring more bodies to the fight. Any other strategy is choked out. This leads directly to the blob mentality and to the tendency for groups to focus solely on winning fights. This strategy is weakest defensively when more than one objective is contested as it forces the group to split up or abandon something. It is weakest offensively when attacking an objective fortified by siege. There is no need to diminish its effectiveness in terms of winning fights—we only need to make sure that it is employed in specific instances instead of being the default and the most effective. On defense, there is nothing stifling about this. It is potent but also has clear weaknesses. On offense, it is powerful once it gets through walls, but is less effective at actually breaking into an objective since an assault on a single point is easiest to mitigate. However, it is largely shut down by siege defense. Two things should happen to both boost this strategy while also keeping it in check offensively.

First, something must be done to allow in-the-moment counters to siege. As discussed earlier, it would likely be best to fit siege disablers into this role. The idea is not to make siege defenses totally ineffective, but to give them a weakness that can be exploited. The group, when it uses the tools at its disposal, should be able to win or lose any fight based on how well it uses those tools. Second, uncounterable offensive siege must be addressed. Whereas defensive siege can be killed by using height advantages or made irrelevant by assaulting from a distance, proxy catapults are impossible to deal with outside of abandoning the defensive structure to fight head on. Their existence means that defenders must fight the group at their strongest point or wait until the walls are down and use siege bunkering. If a way to break siege defenses becomes prevalent while proxy catapults exist, then the only way to deal with this strategy will be to use this strategy. That is the very definition of oppressive.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE BALANCE

Inevitably, population is the largest factor in determining what a healthy WvW looks like. It is fair to be slightly idealistic—we can assume that populations are reasonably even since, if they aren’t, no attempt at balance will be successful. Our goal should be to create a model that works for reasonably even total populations but does not fall apart during temporary imbalances throughout the day. That is, there should be viable strategies for every server at all times, whether they have the lowest current population, the highest, or even.

If the only way to defend a structure is by bringing a force of comparable size, a server that is currently less populous has no viable strategies for defense. On offense, they can only hope to attack and take a structure before any defense is established. In other words, players are encouraged to avoid interacting with other players in any way. Thus, it must be possible to defend with a smaller group than the attacking enemies. However, to avoid making offense futile outside of overwhelming force, this defense must be limited by supply. The components of this set-up are already in place: It is possible to counter offensive siege (save for a few exploits such as proxy catapults) so long as there is supply to build counter siege. Offensive groups have the advantage of hitting first, so they will likely do supply damage even if the assault ultimately fails. Finally, there is no way to replenish supply from within an objective (save for a single tactic with a 15m cooldown), so it will ultimately fall. Skilled offensive groups will be able to drain supply faster or breach the walls before supply is drained and then move on to a straight fight where their numbers will give them an advantage. Meanwhile, skilled defenders will be able to slow the enemy advance so that their server’s prime time gains stand. This model holds up both for even numbers and for inevitable imbalances.

If the only way to successfully assault a structure is by bringing a force of comparable size, a server that is currently less populous still has viable strategies for offense. They are unlikely to take any defended structures, but they can gain points by killing Yaks and flipping camps. If they are crafty, they can drain structures of supply and then converge on one and flip it before the defense can reorganize into a comparatively sized group. Offense’s advantage over defense lies in its mobility. Granted, with lower population, they must have allies defending or must be much more skilled in offense than their enemies are in defending or their server will hemorrhage points. The end result of this is that servers can either switch between offense and defense based on population or have some mix of the two with each individual player choosing the role they are best at. Thankfully, the components for this are already in place—they are simply overshadowed by more oppressive strategies.

MOBILITY

On the Alpine maps and EBG, mobility is created by waypoints and relatively flat terrain. On the Desert maps, it is created and restricted by waypoints and holding certain objectives. The particulars of this are up for discussion, but I want to suggest creating a more dynamic means of mobility.

Consider a new piece of siege: the Teleporter. It would function as a waypoint that is powered by supply. It would need to require a substantial amount of supply to set up—say, about 100, and would then cost at least 5 supply to use. It must be fragile and also fairly large so that it cannot be hidden easily. If found undefended, it will be easily destroyed, so it will either need a sizeable force nearby or a great hiding spot.

The idea is that large groups can get their members back into the fray quickly at the cost of dedicating supply to build the Teleporter and then draining member’s supply on use. Meanwhile, roaming groups can create a base of operations deep within enemy territory to better go about their trickery. Since it drains supply, it won’t be ideal for blitz attacks since it limits how much offensive siege can be built after using it. Defenders will have to be wary of enemies owning camps that they can reach from a nearby Teleporter but will be amply warned since the camp is not owned.

Defensively, the Teleporter will allow players to get into the fray but at the cost of draining the lifeblood of their defense: supply. Either they take supply from the besieged objective or they spend precious moments running to a camp before returning. Once the walls are breached, any Teleporter will be quickly found and destroyed. This would serve to both increase player interaction and also speed up sieges if it causes supply to drain more quickly.

CONCLUSION

The ideal meta for WvW should be multi-dimensional. That means that any one strategy should have its limits. Siege bunkering should be weak to a well-placed disabler. Blobs should not be able to bypass their weakness (single-point sieges) and skip to their strength (running things over). A skilled WvW assault group should be good at breaking up to quickly crack a structure and/or drain it of supply and at fighting together once the walls are down. A skilled WvW defense group should excel in countering siege, draining enemy players of supply and scouting assaults before damage is done. Additionally, population imbalance should be manageable on at least a temporary basis: If two servers have diametrically opposed high population times, the winner should be the one that attacks and defends the best at the appropriate times—not necessarily the one that karma trains hardest when it has the advantage. If a server has more low-pop times than high-pop, they should be able to compete by defending better than their opponents so long as they can also go on offense when needed. A server that has more high-pop times should not automatically win unless they do their jobs well.

P.S. It is necessary, when all is done, to make such things visible. There is currently no meaningful tutorial for WvW. At the very least, players should be able to have access to a list of guilds that will be willing to show them the ropes. They also need to know exactly how scoring is done.

Zenith.6403:

What makes a person type essays like these on the forums?

A genuine passion for the game itself and what once was in attempts to improve upon it.

zhonnika.1784:

BG has never, in my 3+ years playing them, avoided fights by leaving the borderland to go PvD empty structures instead. If they want PPT, they’ll beat it out of you… not your doors.

Yep! Been playing against BG since the long ago times of SoR/BG/JQ. If they are beating you in PPT they went through you to get to their objective. Not over, not around. If you won the fight, you were sure they were coming back for round 2 or 3. The fights came first. They know how to use map politics, how to fight.

Yeah, but Alpine BL with the HoT stuff will be the same kitten…
I can’t imagine defending hills without the ability to build a WP…
Or with those guild upgrade…

Yes, skirmishes are great, but they should be encouraged rather than forced. A group should skirmish to save a camp because they want the supply. They have the option to avoid the fight and lose at least 5m worth of yaks instead.

A skirmish is also required once the walls are down on an objective. Most of the epic WvW fights I recall happen in the lord room’s and courtyards of keeps. I absolutely don’t want to change that.

However, if a skirmish is required to keep the wall up as well, then there’s no chance for a server that is temporarily less populous to launch a meaningful defense. They clearly can’t skirmish once the walls are down, so they have to desperately keep the wall up as long as they can. If they’re denied any options for doing so, they might as well log off or go attack undefended objectives elsewhere.

Point being, safe sieging does not encourage fights by trying to force them. The only time safe sieging results in a fight is when there was going to be a fight anyway because the defending server had enough people. Whether or not the walls go down, if you have the people you’re going to want to kill the defenders to stop all of the supply damage being taken.

sparc.3649:

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Yes but until WvW map completion was in the game whole forum was filled with PvE players complaining about it. And if Anet is to listen complains in the forum (reset time, BL maps), they can not possibly put it back.

I am not denying I got into WvW because of map completion. I had no interest and no knowledge about WvW and was just trying to get my 100% map. I was hooked. But I still think forcing PvE players into WvW is bad idea, same way like forcing WvW guilds grind guild upgrades in HoT maps is terible idea.

If you have a bunch of cracked jars that are leaking water faster than you can put it in, would you waste your time trying to make sure they have an equal amount, or would you try and seal the cracks first?

If they eliminate servers they will drive more people away.
If they eliminate too many servers you will start seeing huge EB queues during NA prime, forcing people to play the kittenty deserted bl, kittenty EotM, or kittenty PvE while they wait. A lot of people will just log off instead.

They need to fix the bigger problems first (which includes kitten near everything they’ve done since the stability change). Once they make the game playable again we will get a better idea of what the population for each server is. At that point they should remove all of them and come back with (fewer) new servers with different names.

I’d like to see a pvp setup in wvw myself. I see people linking their gear in map chat and just shake my head.

Sadly, I can see everyone jumping to a T1 server to get their flashy symbol or title.

It will just be a “hey i Joined _ and zerged for __ to obtain ____”

Scale damage based on charging time. Point-blank might be safer with fewer counters, but it’ll take way longer and likely the siege will get destroyed or reinforcements can be called in for the fight outside.

Imho, cannon and AC fire radius need nerfing to make ballistae more viable as anti-siege solutions rather than just humping tons of AC’s.

Chorazin.4107:

BG and JQ could use some smaller man roaming groups.

I long for the world to be as it was like in the before times when groups large and small roamed the land. * points a scraggly finger to crude carvings on a torch lit cave wall *. Now there is only the Zerg taking the weak in their quest for gasoline…I mean doors. They say the Creators still watch and their return is soon upon us. But the land is naught but dust and hope is all but gone.

briggah.7910:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Server mergers will NOT fix ANYTHING. IF A.Net merged the servers in NA, for example, there would still be no coverage (or very little in SEA) and too much in EU and NA time. So, there would be waiting lines to get in NA and EU and nothing for SEA.

There is no way to really get 24 hour coverage by forcing mergers. Sorry to say.

So what is the fix? tbh I was always against it as well but lets face it, people from each tier have complained about populations dropping. Who wouldn’t want more people to fight during prime time maybe besides T1? I get what you are saying and yes it would probably not make much of a difference on coverage but at least there would be more people to fight. Who doesn’t want more people to fight??

Also if they did merge some servers EoTM would be used for what it was made for in the first place and that is a waiting room for your war map queue to pop. That was the sole purpose of why that map was created and it isn’t used for that one bit.

There is no fix that I can see and that is the issue, with merging servers. It will only exacerbate the issue further.

The only fix, I can really foresee, is A.Net forcing (meaning they picking them) Alliances between NA, EU and SEA guilds and then making WvW 3 Alliance battles of the same size but this would only work if glicko was removed and all kittening mechanics were also (arrow carts, shield gens, ALL TACTIVATORS, any PvE on the BLs and EBG and lowering wall and gate HP – at T3 you cannot ‘man-mode’ gates which is stupid). I don’t think A.Net has it in them to do this.

I can’t see voluntary alliances because big guilds will align with big guilds and the multi-server guilds will be able to throw the battles to one side or another easier.

There is NO EASY FIX and no matter what happens 50% of the players (minimum) will be unhappy. This is a lose-lose situation and this is due to A.Net ignoring WvW fixes for PvE- period. After all, A.Net did say that most WvW players are in reality PvE’ers. All you need do is look at this attitude to realize what A.Net thinks, of WvW, and why WvW is in the state it currently is.

PvP and PvP activities becoming an integral part of WvW.

I could hardly care less about the siege wars, though they’re here to stay and fixing scoring /nightcapping/bandwagoning would do a lot to improve the situation for players that do enjoy siege. Personally it’s the battle I turn up for, not what it means. Would just as happily do a PvP dungeon.

It’s the running around in circles capping undefended points that needs to end.

For me a new map isn’t going to fix it. The June 2015 balance patch and later HoT destroyed the balance GW2 once had. The game in it’s very core element is lacking and no map can fix that.

The power creep introduced by the June 2015 patch altered and changed many builds and removed others entirely. Too many traits became baseline or got merged. The patch introduced many passive abilities (for example the infamous Self Regulating Defenses) degrading gameplay even further.

HoT made everything worse. We got even more passives (passive Stability and passive CC being among the worst), powerful abilities with extremely low cool downs and unprecedented damage and sustain levels. Balance and counter play were thrown out of the window. Elite specialisations became the only way to play, forcing a new play style on many veteran players if they wanted to stay competitive. Furthermore, the Elite specialisations didn’t add any depth to the combat. On the contrary, they dumbed it down even further. Player versus player combat became mostly unenjoyable.

For me, the only way to make the game enjoyable again is to undo the June 2015 patch (no baseline traits, unmerge the traits, remove the useless traits and replace them with the secondary effect of the unmerged traits) and to severely nerf Elite specialisations.

Stand The Wall.6987:

anyway i think its too late for this because a lot of people grinded for their gear solely to use it for wvw. how would we recompensate all of these players? it would be impossible to do without a buff to hackers, i.e. account hack and salvage everything kinda deal.

I own several sets of Ascended armor and multiple Ascended weapons and I wouldn’t mind to scrap them without compensation. Ascended gear added nothing good to WvW and the game as a whole. If WvW gear was scaled down to Exotic level, combat would be a lot more enjoyable (along with undoing the June 2015 patch and nerfing Elite specialisations).

Simonoly.4352:

I’d quite like to see PvP amulets implemented into WvW. Damage in WvW is just way too high so maybe this will reduce it somewhat. It would also allow new players to get into WvW as soon as they prefer without the fear of stat disadvantages other than those gained from food buffs, sigils and rune selection.

imo i think a pvp amulet system for wvw would be great, however reducing the stats is not.
anyway i think its too late for this because a lot of people grinded for their gear solely to use it for wvw. how would we recompensate all of these players? it would be impossible to do without a buff to hackers, i.e. account hack and salvage everything kinda deal.

I’d quite like to see PvP amulets implemented into WvW. Damage in WvW is just way too high so maybe this will reduce it somewhat. It would also allow new players to get into WvW as soon as they prefer without the fear of stat disadvantages other than those gained from food buffs, sigils and rune selection.

PrinceHades.3615:

Those epic fights at bay.

underwater
that point when you realize you have white gear and dont have a clue what any of your skills do LOL
the times, they were good.

I like some of the things about the new map but there are a lot of things I do not like either.. I think we have to think about the health of the game mode as a whole and going by the forums the majority of players do not like it and even if it was changed some I think they would still not like it. I even said a few things that they should change/remove in the new map but now I don’t even think that would make people happy.

I’m trying to think about the future of this game mode because I LOVE this game mode and just want to hop in on any map and find fights. Since the majority would rather see the old maps return they have convinced me that this is the right way to go. I have had some fun fights on the new maps but its only like a few fun fights a week, if that and the rest of the time is in EBG. I don’t even react to many BL call outs like I used to do in the past because not many will join me in going to try to defend something lol

In the past, even in the lower tiers, during primetime you could pick any map and go out and try to make fun fights. Its just not the case with this map. You try to bring out fights and nobody even comes to the maps to defend.

To sum it up I hope they do whatever they need to do with the old maps to bring them back asap before they even try to attempt to fix the new map. I don’t think many people would even give a fixed new map a chance and it will all be a waste of time. Since most would rather have the old maps back I too now would like to see the old maps return before a fixed new map comes into play.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Solo roaming at the very least is absolutely dead. Roaming over all is not, just that most people are in groups of between 3 and 6, which is in part why solo roaming is dead.

The size of the new borderland, the size of the groups most people roll in, structure defenses post HoT, sentry tracking and specialization power creep have pretty much obliterated solo roaming. Unless you’re a Dare Devil or a Scrapper, you’ll just get ganked constantly and will have nothing you can at least attempt to capture because it takes forever to solo upgraded towers now.

The stubborn ones like myself still roam alone. I’ll find the odd good fight but it’s hardly worth the frustration of all the deaths I suffer in the process. It’s just unfortunate that I dislike roaming with others and that roaming is my favorite thing to do in WvW because if you’re alone you won’t live long. Seems like 90% of the time you find a good 1v1/2 more people sprout out of the ground like weeds and you just get overwhelmed or zerged.

While blobby roamers have been a thing, I believe that solo roamers are less common for an additional reason. That is, the game has become so pointless that the only reason some people even log in is to play with friends, hence the group roamers.