Guild Wars 2

I’ve said it before, but I’ll throw it out there again.

Rewards balancing, to encourage not stacking is a simple solution.

Reward “pot (of gold)” is determined by skirmish placement.
Then each player each receives a share (maybe more shares for more participation).

The smaller server has fewer players, so each share of the pot is bigger.

Think of the rewards as pizzas, of varying sizes ( based on placement).
Then its cut up equally, and you get 1-x ( participation levels) slices of your servers pizza.

The fully stacked server may have a bigger pizza (assuming they win the skirmish), but it also has more mouths taking bites of that pizza.

People will balance themselves if they can get a bigger slice of pizza on a smaller server.

Linken.6345:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Linken.6345:

Edit2
Wonder when someone will ask for a sigil and rune eater.

It’s already been asked for. It’s just called salvage kit..

Oh when did they upgrade the salvage kits to destroy runes and sigils for materials?

I mean’t it was asked for, not that it was a thing. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that..

Linken.6345:

Edit2
Wonder when someone will ask for a sigil and rune eater.

It’s already been asked for. It’s just called salvage kit..

Isn’t there a bunch of them in TA:aetherpath?

You weren’t in the new zone by any chance?
Where there seems to be an abundance of chill..

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled

Not had chance to try it yet.
Any update on if the challenge mote loot can be obtained daily?

An interesting theory. Considering catihe’s line in the crack in the ice trailer, it seems plausible to me.

Of course, the dragons getting fidgety says nothing of us actually putting any of them down..

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

Crystal Reid.2481:

Accessibility in terms of “Hey, my 5 man Fractal group wants to try raids, but we can’t find 5 other players!” is also something we talk about. It’s just a much more difficult problem to solve.

This is by FAR the biggest accessibility issue that I’m aware of but I really don’t know how you guys can tackle this when the entire content is 10 players based and the build requirement more restrictive than anything else.

Guild groups is a possible solution, but after going through so many I can tell you its FAR from so easy to get the right one for you and your time frame. People who have a good and stable guild group for raid probably do not realize this.

Anet learnt this lesson in gw1.
Which is why party sizes dropped from 8/12(for max level/end-game content) to 5 for gw2.

Then they regressed.

Henry.5713:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Latest reward change?
Did I miss something that changed to what you can do with tokens?

That’s a typo. Supposed to be “last reward change”. Was talking about the achievement system which grants you a chest after eight unique paths. The one they added a while back.

ahh!
yeah.. That doesn’t really make me think they are going to do any more with dungeons unfortunately.

Latest reward change?
Did I miss something that changed to what you can do with tokens?

Yes, lets upset more players.
That is definitely how to stop the game mode from dying.
/sarcasm.

Rewards should be like a pizza, shared amongst all who participated during the skirmish.
(so big stacked servers actually get less rewards on an individual player basis than those which are largely empty).

The size of the pizza being determined by placement in the skirmish.

Perhaps the size of all 3 pizza’s should scale based on the total participants across all 3 servers for that skirmish also.

edit: each individual server, within linked servers each get their own equal sized pizza to share, amongst players on that server.

Zephyra.4709:

Not my cup of tea.

I think you mean cup bowl of quaggan

one with a black lion skin unlock item at the end?

+1
Just because this would be hilarious ( but terrible).

the solution is quite simple:
WTB build ( & gear) templates.
Load→ template→“pvp condi warrior”

/load into raid
Load→template→“raid ps war”

/load into wvw
Load→template→“wvw marauder warrior”

Pretty sure I’d have at least 5 builds saved for every single class..

morrolan.9608:

<Looks at T1 scores since reset> yes that JQ is really stacked isn’kitten I actually seriously believe anet thought JQ would compete with BG which just shows how out of touch they are.

Their current metrics apparently says JQ is bigger than BG.

Not sure where anet as a whole is getting their metrics from anymore though – it doesn’t seem to be the game.

Wanze.8410:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Wanze.8410:

Because its not used in armor crafting.

it’s used in weapon crafting.
What’s your point?

My point is that only ascended materials for armorcrafting are dropped in fractals.

did you realise the op I was asking WHY this is?

Wanze.8410:

Because its not used in armor crafting.

it’s used in weapon crafting.
What’s your point?

I had my suspicions they didn’t drop before the preview.. now its confirmed..

So deldrimor ingots, elonian leather, and bolts of damask can drop in fractals.
Why is spiritwood not in the drop table for the daily chests?

I’d go for option 2. it sounds simpler ( for players).

Especially with the name plate changes you just mentioned.

I like the idea of it no longer being “host” & “guest” but simply, members of a faction/alliance.

@ McKenna, It’s clear you’ve been reading these forums, and tried to really take on board the ideas discussed. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I appreciate your efforts to make wvw fun again

I’ve been hearing people claim server pride is dead for months. Now suddenly it’s being used as an excuse not to attempt to improve things?

if transfers are free, people will attempt to bandwagon onto the current winning server..
then they will get moved.. but that’s what happens now anyway.

There are queues in wvw? I’m on JQ.. apparently one of the most full servers.. What queues? I have not seen more than 2 maps queued in months, and that is only during the weekend.

Ultimately, on an individual level, I don’t think we as players will see or feel much change, initially.

However with more shards to put together, and potentially better matchup balance (this needs to be weighted by timezones, not just a simple "server X has Y players and server a has B players) it should be easier to create more balanced, therefore more fun matchups.

Also what anet is proposing would not require anyone to move. While giving us the freedom to choose to move if we want ( people may try to form new alliances, or simple bandwagon to an empty server that has known good allies, which happens currently anyway).

tl;dr:

+1, lets try it!
Worst that can happen is nothing really changes.

Seteruss.4058:

Etterwyn.5263:

Seteruss.4058:

if you’ re talking about actual numbers is about 3k i think if i;m not wrong.
If you re going for traveler runes be sure that your armor is for general pve.
If you’re talking about raids just forget them and go for scholar.

I’m assuming that 3k dps is taking into account a raid situation with maxxed buffs?

indeed.
Tested on golem and as far as i remember is somewere there between 2.5-3.5
Also be sure to take bane signet for the 100 power(120 traited but not worth the trait).

bane sig @ 80 is 180 power, 214 traited ( If i remember correctly). It certainly is not 100 power ( @ 80..)

Can this be extended to lieutenants?

I’d find this very helpful.

thrag.9740:

Coconut.7082:

thrag.9740:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Nice proof you got there.

Here is my guild killing gorse no updrafts this Thursday night. Incredibly non-meta composition. We chose this comp because we felt it was best with the classes we had available and who was comfortable with what.

8-1-1
chrono-rev-ps-condi ranger-ele-ele-ele
druid (magi)
ele (magi)

I think this video demonstrates that regular players can get kills without strictly following the meta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JSW8aExLyg

Yes it can be done with any composition, nobody denied that, so what is the point?

Oh sorry, forgot to mention, this group tried no updrafts with 5-5 and it was not pretty. The point is evidence to back ops claim that 5-5 may not be as good in practice as other comps. A typical player enters a raid with 9 other typical players, the best ways to get kills is to adapt to what your team has.

qt can post video of their 10 (exceptionally good) players clearing with 5-5 all day. But if your team only has 1 chrono who is good, and then 9 crappy chronos alts it doesn’t count for much.

edit: just to clear up, im not saying 5-5 is bad, im just saying it really isn’t that big of a deal what you run.

You’re still saying the strength of the composition has to do with the strength of the individuals.

The fact of that is, the better the players in the squad, the smoother it will be. Regardless of the comp used.

DeathReign.7821:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

You may be overlooking 20% boon duration from food in that build OP.
edit: also commander weapons are a good option..

edit2: I’d rather take herald runes for the prot uptime over leadership runes.

It means you need a little more commander gear than if you use leadership, but it makes tanking a lot easier. Also the prot uptime will just make runs much smoother.

Thanks for your input!

About the food, I’m trying to maintain 100% boon duration without the aid of food, and perhaps using offensive stat food instead. In my edit in the OP, I have a build with food.

Yeah I failed at reading..

Use boon duration food. You sacrifice less investment in gear ( such as exo vs asc trinkets) will end up counteracting any gains you get from using power/prec food.

You may be overlooking 20% boon duration from food in that build OP.
edit: also commander weapons are a good option..

edit2: I’d rather take herald runes for the prot uptime over leadership runes.

It means you need a little more commander gear than if you use leadership, but it makes tanking a lot easier. Also the prot uptime will just make runs much smoother.

OriOri.8724:

Khisanth.2948:

OriOri.8724:

Batelle.1680:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Just increase the kitten population per map. It’s ridiculous how fast they fill up. Compare it to WoW where you have hundreds and thousands of players in the same instance and then look @GW2 where the servers are full with 100-200 people. It’s kitten ridiculous in 2016.

I don’t thing the engine is optimized enough to allow this without completely destroying itself and our computers in the process. Never mind how trivialized the actual events would be with three or four times as many people doing them.

I would rather they deal with TD’s specific issues, as mentioned above. The map itself needs to be more appealing and more rewarding, and the meta needs some leeway so that it’s not so sudden death.

Exactly. TD suffers the same problem that TT does. It requires far more coordination from people who know what they are doing to finish it, and its rewards are on par with or worse than the other metas (or world bosses in TT case). The meta needs to be reworked, and the rewards should probably be increased a bit.

At the very least it should be updated so that a single lane failing is not an immediate failure for the entire meta event.

o_O?

TD doesn’t really need much coordination beyond “my lane is almost done, who needs help?” and maybe making sure Nuhoch has enough people to stomp.

The one lane failing it for everyone thing does render it pointless to even try to do the event unless you are pretty much sure that you will be able to pull it off.

Other than DS (which I’ve only done once, so I can’t speak for it), TD remains the only meta I’ve participated in where commanders can spend 30+ min explaining what to do throughout the meta to everyone involved and it will still fail because people didn’t understand well enough in a different lane. I take that to mean that this meta requires a significant amount of coordination. Though you are right, coordination is probably not the correct word here.

going clockwise:
lane 1: smash eggs, smash chak, smash big chak
lane 2:jump on mushrooms, press f. smash mushrooms, chak, & big chak.
lane 3: smash energy collectors, throw energy thingies at big golem. Smash chak & big chak.
lane 4: smash chak.. lots & lots of chak.

The funny thing is, if commanders were to keep it as simple as spam that in map chat, the zerglings would follow along a LOT better than the convoluted BS explanations most will try to give (it should be like 20s, not 30 mins of instruction giving…).

That is literally all there is to it.

A little positioning, dodging & melee for better dps would help. A couple of PS wars and quickness chronos would help immensely also. AKA, more people need to bring support classes/builds.

A possibility:

Lane event’s first tier to draw the chak out require significantly less. Essentially making it almost impossible to fail to draw the chak out if there are people attempting all four lanes.

it would still require some effort to get to t1 ( even if its only a 1-2 people, for example stomping 2-3 mushroom nodules each).
This gives room for people to show up to a map a little late and get a successful kill, or for lanes to assist much more easily. Or for players to redistribute if the burns are uneven across lanes.

Having some npc audio dialog explaining what to do, at the start of the phases & “draw out” events might help those who (still) don’t have a clue what to do. But this may not be needed if more people do the event tbh.

savacli.8172:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

However the way buffs share it still ended up with some missing some buffs, so we have some semi-rng ( positioning could influence it considerably) on dps, due to who gets buffs.

Great point. Ideally you can maintain proper positioning to maximize and correctly apply buffs/boons to the DPS squads. Realistically, there’s a lot of moving going on in most fights that make ideal positioning virtually impossible especially for those “hot feet” folks who have to maintain their “salad” buffs.

My guild refers to it as “the twitch”

Sounds like what shared inventory slots are for..

just to play devils advocate here, we sometimes ran 6-2-1-1.
However it was chrono&rev, druid, ps, 6 whatever else we needed for utility/dps.

However the way buffs share it still ended up with some missing some buffs, so we have some semi-rng ( positioning could influence it considerably) on dps, due to who gets buffs.
Also it’s a lot harder with soi not copying 25 stacks of might to maintain the might coverage.

Also with nature magic, tiger is 15s of fury, with some soi, druid can swap pets for CC just fine.

Id say 5-5 gives a lot more margin for error now to be honest.

Ranael.6423:

One issue is that some traits are actually condition or weapon specific so one can not change stats as a whole in that case.
Other than that it’s true that it would be much simpler to normalize giver’s attribute, doubloons, food etc but would be a strong nerf to condi builds, which are naturally already, lower because reaching the cap would not be possible without reducing condition damage.
For boon duration the same nerf would be expected, maybe not so bad for itemization fo character but then they should find a way to work towards the cap without adding toughness…..

things that change durations on a specific weapon, afaik change the base durations, and so are not included in the current 100% cap.

see:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Curse

Not sure what’s been mentioned yet..

Amalgamated gemstones
blade shards
chak eggs
reclaimed plates
ALL the intermediate crafting components (eg: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Thick_Longcoat_Padding
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jewel
)
agony resistance infusions (+1 to +9)
mystic forge stones
philosophers stones
mystic crystals
elonian wine
(lesser) vision crystals
milling basins
crystalline bottles
anything else sold by crafting vendors without a slot
tenebrous/shimmering crystals

blood rubies/petrified wood / future items like them
doubloons
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Universal_upgrade
baubles
siege master guides ( all 3 types we now have)

I suspect the power creep will continue with future expansions.
I’d expect future e-specs ti be on par with the current ones.
On the other hand balance will become even more interesting, when we have mutually exclusive trait lines.

I suspect the intention is for us to pick an E-spec most of the time, it’s just not working well yet since we need another 2-3 expansions worth of e-specs for it to shine.

To that end e-specs have to seem better than core trait lines.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diviner's_Amulet
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Seeker's_Amulet

power/concentration/prec/fero
power/prec/fero/concentration

I’d love to see both stats, along with:
power/healing power/prec/fero
power/healing power/prec/concentration

The last balance patch was for wvw.
PvE (Raids) got screwed over by it.

You really are out of touch with what’s going on..

Carighan.6758:

Going to throw something entirely radical out here:

What if Time Warp applied a unique, non-boon (to avoid to duration balance worries) effect which massively increases attack speed, not just 50%. Say, 100% at the very least.

Then make it so that outside of us Mesmers which bring it in a party-version, other classes only have self-only versions, depending on impact maybe even with unique downsides attached. We don’t, and it’s AE, but ofc ours is on a long CD and an elite.

That’d be a pretty good solution, no?

Oh…

Wait…

I wonder how many were playing long enough ago, to understand your joke..

Ryn.6459:

He means divinier pvp set. Would be supercool actually.

Diviners & seekers would both be great to have tbh.

Cecilia.5179:

What about a primer that costs 20-50s each time you use it? It would be amazing for expensive food but it would keep food from dropping below a certain price point. Why should food be expensive anyways? It’s kinda ptw when the food is insane like mussels gnashblade

A per use to activate primer could work.
I’d seriously consider buying them as long as they were less than say ~1g per primer activation.

a disease like effect from gw1 would be fun. especially on plague.
A debuff that applies bleed/poison, and spreads to additional enemies if they get nearby.
& can’t apply to someone who already has the debuff ( doesn’t reset timer to 10s..)

Balance condition stacks/duration & pulse time and radii to suit.

That’d be pretty awesome

RIP food prices..

ButterPeanut.9746:

While I agree that Time Warp could be changed to be improved a bit more, there is lots of false information in this thread.

Time Warp will NOT overwrite older stacks that are single stacks in of a longer duration. If you cast Time Warp on yourself with 5 stacks that have a longer duration than 2s (TW duration with 100% boon duration) that individual pulse of TW is NOT applied to you. It will only apply a pulse of TW if you do not have maximum stacks, or if one of your stacks is <2s.

This means that it is useful to use TW in CS. I’ve been using it at the very end of CS as to have the TW stacks applied as the WoA, ToT, and SoI stacks run out.

Video proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TV0Kd7zdY4

Reddit Discussion
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/58jv0l/raidschronomancer_a_test_on_the_new_quickness/

afaik, boons have always overwritten only if there is a shorter duration stack to overwrite.
But yes, it seems that nugget of knowledge is lesser known at this point.

I still need to play around with the rotations to see what I can do with it.
I’ll give the kitten the end of the rotation a try.

However, keep in mind, if you only use time warp, it will overwrite one of its own stacks currently.

The change I proposed simply removes that without actually buffing tw on it’s own.
It will make it play nicer with other sources of quickness, a little bit though.

The idea of tw affecting 10 people ( mass invis still affects 10 afaik..) is interesting.
Would make tw much more worthwhile in raids/wvw/open world. But it would still be a bit.. lacking in 5 man content. It does seem on paper like a much greater buff to the skill, though it may be justified(see below).
Comparing quickness and CD on time warp to well of action, tw actually seems quite weak to me. But other effects.. /shrug.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

My guildie is having similar issue with overriding, I was wondering about that. Theoretically it should only take 2 stacks at a time maximum, is it easy to reach cap because of it?

Point out to your guildie, only one stack depletes at a time.
You get a lot more than 2 stacks at a time with time warp currently.

A very minor tweak that is needed for time warp.

Change pulses to once every 2s, (from 1s), raise the quickness and slow per pulse from 1s to 2s.

Very minor change, quickness and slow duration the same, still takes the full 10s to get all the pulses.

Edit:
adding attachment for illustration purposes.

Sounds a lot like the original secondary profession quests in gw1.

Jayne.9251:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Jayne.9251:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Another possibility, would be to work the transfers so you change at the reset ( but can pay for your transfer/reserve your slot if there is one to reserve any time).

Could add a 1 week cd on transfers, though I’m not sure that would be necessary/desirable. Though this does hinge on the idea of factions being reformed weekly. ( should be doable.. anet does matchmaking in seconds/minutes for spvp..) never mind, It doesn’t if you have to wait till the next matchmaking, whenever that is..

This sounds like pvp and not wvw.

Even your scratched out post hints at that.

And the problem with poaching ideas from pvp, for a format people want more pvp oriented is..?

It’s not even remotely the same game.

If spvp was so optimal, you’d think they’d get more than 50 players for its big competition.

There’s a reason people play and are attached to wvw more than spvp.

So you think wvw is about the k-train & PvD?

ok.

Still not seeing your problem with taking inspiration from pvp.

Jayne.9251:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Another possibility, would be to work the transfers so you change at the reset ( but can pay for your transfer/reserve your slot if there is one to reserve any time).

Could add a 1 week cd on transfers, though I’m not sure that would be necessary/desirable. Though this does hinge on the idea of factions being reformed weekly. ( should be doable.. anet does matchmaking in seconds/minutes for spvp..) never mind, It doesn’t if you have to wait till the next matchmaking, whenever that is..

This sounds like pvp and not wvw.

Even your scratched out post hints at that.

And the problem with poaching ideas from pvp, for a format people want more pvp oriented is..?

Another possibility, would be to work the transfers so you change at the reset ( but can pay for your transfer/reserve your slot if there is one to reserve any time).

Could add a 1 week cd on transfers, though I’m not sure that would be necessary/desirable. Though this does hinge on the idea of factions being reformed weekly. ( should be doable.. anet does matchmaking in seconds/minutes for spvp..) never mind, It doesn’t if you have to wait till the next matchmaking, whenever that is..

Swamurabi.7890:

Belenwyn.8674:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

PierPiero.9142:

I suppose that Anet has the numbers of avarage player for server over the time. why not Try to plan a definitive link server and reduce the number of serves ? Instead of linking for a short period of time merge them in the bigger ..

I still think the opposite would be better. more servers, not less)

More servers ( or battle groups as they were called earlier).
With factions ( linked servers as they are currently).

so
currently:
linked server -> [server 1] & [server 2] &… [server N]

proposal:
faction -> [battle group 1] & [battle group 2] & .. [battle group N]

Moving to battle groups ( just a name to distinguish from current servers) with a greater quantity, but lower population cap means a faction ( or linked servers) has more constituent parts.

Mechanically not much changes from now. However it’s easier to balance with more, smaller blocks.

It also creates a way to force destacking of huge servers ( BG being the most obvious contender for destacking).

Ultimately as a player you won’t see a difference in membership of a battle group vs membership of a server. The difference is anet can potentially balance matches better. So anet can create a healthier competition.

Exactly, we need a system with WvW teams of defined size but with flexible numbers. Huge servers would simply send more teams than small servers. Bandwagoning would disappear since the absence of overstacked teams would not bring any advantage. The only delicate question, I see, is whether Arenanet should allow premade teams or simply fill the teams by itself – guildmembers will be put in the same team.

Standardised teams would also allow to give up tiers and glicko. It would lead to more variety in match-ups. You could introduce a ranking of the teams. In addition you could build a ranking of the servers. Compare it with the UEFA 5Y ranking, where all the participating nations are listed and ranked. The position in the ranking is driven by the performance of the national teams.

The current system with one team for each server will lead to permanent imbalances since Arenanet hesitates to permanently cols certain servers. Balance and free access to servers are mutually exclusive in the current system.

The guilds on servers that game the current system will be the same guilds that game the battlegroup system.

Step 1: Have everyone in your guild create an alt-account, maybe more. (assume that this hasn’t already happened)

Step 2: Have each alt-guild join a different battlegroup.

Step 3: Wait for Anet to create matchup, then play for battlegroup where you play with other battlegroups you like.

Step 4: Voids in opposing battlegroups, (by you not playing on your alts) will be filled by pugs.

Step 5: Win and profit.

The same can be done now.

What happens if your “alt account battle group” is teamed up with your “main account battle group”?

Sure, one could game the system, just like they can game the current system in the exact same way..
Only they would need a lot more accounts to do it ( GL convincing an entire guild to buy several alt accounts, and the future xpac’s and grind asc gear, and elite specs…)

Seems like a minority would go to that extent, especially if it required lots of accounts.
battle group switching ( which would cost gems most likely) would be more common…
Which shouldn’t be needed to get a fun matchup anyway.