The reason why so many WvW players have been abandoning WvW for sPvP or even other games is not because WvW isn’t strictly balanced. It’s because it’s not even slightly balanced.
Considering that balance has been the #1 concern of players around here since HoT came out, I can’t believe you didn’t know that.
Provide some way to counterplay the worst of them. Confusion should have remained only dealing damage when the target uses a skill in PvP and WvW. Torment should only take effect when the target moves. Burning should be reduced when the target dodges.
Pay-to-win has never been a sensible way to balance a PvP-oriented mode. You want to be more powerful than other players, learn to play better than other players.
People don’t do it because it’s a jumping puzzle with a very poor reward. Only time I head in there is for guild missions (and with any luck I’m not the random one who doesn’t receive credit at the end!)
I’m thinking about how it could work redesigned, but the jumping puzzle part is a stumbling block. If this was competitive, trying to do PvP in a jumping puzzle would be far too annoying.
If there’s going to be something to fight over in there, the jumping bits have to go. After that perhaps a 2-hourly event where the first server to capture the top wins a chest + 25% reward track progress or similar.
I’m strongly in favour of this, for a couple reasons.
1. It’s easier to balance the available stat combinations without forcing people to re-gear.
2. The PvP stat totals are far more sensible than what you run into in WvW. Because you don’t have consumables and ascended stats, PvP doesn’t have the same problem with high-damage bunkers and one-hit kills.
People will quit over the amulet because of having all there time spent grind asc wasted.
No. I have 7 full ascended sets so far and I’d much rather have the amulet as it means I don’t have to craft another set every time I want to change stats.
(edited by Ben K.6238)
Must be running very high armour if 9k is the worst you’ve seen.
That’s going to make it worse by the way. At the moment, the minimum possible score is half the maximum – look at T2 for this week for what that’s doing to the server ratings there.
With 5/4/3, it’s 60% of the maximum. JQ would be losing rating simply by being in that match, even if they held the entire map for the entire week.
The fact that they don’t, and the match is actually a lot closer than the skirmish placements would indicate, is why it won’t be a total farce, but it does effectively make it impossible to break rating walls between tiers. We’re lucky JQ’s rating is close enough to TC that they can swap tiers at the moment.
(edited by Ben K.6238)
If we’re going to get a Mirage, I’d like to see something based around subversion. Remove the damage from shatters in exchange for corruptions, boon steal, soft CC (chill, slow), use F5 for swapping with a random clone.
Then rather than new utility type, let’s see better use of an old utility type: phantasms. They were meant to be the replacements for hexes, and with the amount of boon stacking going on, it’s about time they became those replacements.
For example, a phantasm that causes a target to apply knockdown instead whenever they try to cast stability. A phantasm that causes endurance, initiative, energy, adrenaline to degenerate. Another one that causes single-target damage to the target to be AoE instead, or mirrors damage dealt to the casting mesmer until it runs out of HP.
The whole point of this would be to limit the amount of direct damage a Mirage can do, in exchange for the ability to disrupt enemy defence and offense by reversing the effects of abilities.
That I’m the first one to say WvW is doing much worse is probably a symptom of its doing much worse.
The rest of the game seems to have improved so long as you’re not too worried about balance.
Sounds like a great way to end up dead
Actual pleb here, unranked but probably bottom of bronze league. Mostly I play WvW but I’m finding that’s a bad place to get good at thief/daredevil.
I’m going to try it in PvP instead. What should I focus on when trying to pick up thief, to be less of a burden to the team? I’m averaging 300-350ms ping, am I wasting my time on this class?
And that’s the problem. You could make every skill on thief deal 10k damage, the class is still poorly designed. Because you are solely reliant on reflexes, use this or that teleport/evade/stealth in time, or you just die. Other classes get WAY more room for mistakes with all the passives, not even talking about the fact that for thieves to do meaningful damage, you have to be insanely glass to begin with.
Pretty much sums up my attempts to use thief.
I have more survivability on a naked ele. Thief requires good reflexes and low latency to pull off. It’s a fascinating class though, so I haven’t given up just yet.
I’m considering it for sure, but not for WvW. As far as I’m concerned it’s already gone, so I’ll just be pleasantly surprised if they add something to WvW I want to see. (Even fixing the balance would be a nice surprise.)
There’s a few on SBI, but most of them (e.g. Izzy) don’t play WvW any more. Mike Z pops in from time to time.
The only difference with 2-1-0 in the end would be faster rating changes.
Aside from running a few cleanses (which is compulsory in the current balance situation) ghost thief problems are easily solved by dropping a stealth trap and sitting on it.
1) Yeah, I know there are many limitations with the game engine, which is a shame.
2) Charrs have many more war machines then just the “Charr Bikes,” and I think it would be fun if they add them into WvW. Since WvW should be like a war zone.
3) The “Castles decorate idea” is to have the Castles to be somewhat similar to Guild Hall, but for WvW. I think it’ll give more reasons for WvW Guilds to hold a Castle and defend it. Instead of what we have right now, which is take a keep or a castle and have it taken 5 minutes later. Besides, it will add more meaning and personal connection for players to defend their castles.
Extra charr siege might be OK with sensible spawn limits. If they go adding big objects, I’d hope their position would appear on the map to give some extra warning – I don’t mind the addition of the charr tanks and siege towers, so long as they can’t be used in secret.
As for the castles – I’d like to see those on their own maps, specifically meant for guilds to hold, and with set vulnerable times to make it possible for that guild to defend without having to play all day.
Your other ideas – airship and navy combat – sound really interesting too. I think they would need maps designed for it though.
Something I’ve wanted to see for a while is a PvP dungeon – take the concept of Obsidian Sanctum, but rather than trying to reach the top of a jumping puzzle (no wonder I never see any foes in there anymore!) it’s a 3-way instance with an objective that only one team can achieve, and no respawn (can only be ressed by other players).
(edited by Ben K.6238)
You can’t even get near him without freezing to death from his aoe.
Actually you can.
Sitting under him out-healing the freeze, while everyone else wonders what that idiot is doing, is a great way to counter the boredom (and proof the fight needs adjustments).
None – all of them look a bit silly on charr. Black Citadel “Engine” included.
SoS is a good option if you want an easy ride. NA is small these days and has difficulty achieving much; the OCX has always been massive and never really had to try, thus player for player they’re easily the least skilled OCX on any NA server. Main reason they’re ranked so low is they lose everything again in the other timezones.
But you don’t want to be on a server where there’s no-one there, or your WvW experience is going to be quite awful. Unfortunately the options aren’t great elsewhere in the lower tiers. I’d actually suggest a T1 server because you’re going to be playing with decent numbers against decent numbers. Mag or Blackgate, assuming they’re open.
The nuances of the system are gone. It’s either win, or don’t.
And what’s exactly the problem in that?
You can’t mitigate losses, or extend leads, by playing for place. You can’t actually achieve anything unless you have the coverage to take enough territory to win most of the skirmishes. Standing your ground until you get the opportunity to make it count is meaningless – it’s karma train or go home.
The problem is it’s a brainless system that takes all the intrigue of the three-server matches and throws it out the window.
What would be the point of trying to doing all that work ( and trying to also have fun, when there is a good chance you’d probably get in 2nd place which wouldn’t matter because 2ND and 3RD PLACE HAS THE SAME POINTS!!!!!
The point is to play for 1st place and not for 2nd.
Problem is, when 1st place is not attainable due to timezone coverage differences, there’s no point trying not to come last.
And if you’re trying to catch up to a leading server, there’s no tactical advantage in trying to push them to 3rd.
The nuances of the system are gone. It’s either win, or don’t.
The bristlebacks around Eastwatch in Auric Basin are a good test of survivability.
Damage you can test against anything that doesn’t have a ranged attack or gap-closer. There are several champions you can solo this way, even in level 80 zones. Rotbeard for example.
Good law. Why did it take China to come up with it -.-
Because businesses and accountants don’t like transparency where the money they make is based on perceived value. Using TP as an example, the price of some Precurors are incredibly low, despite the fact that the legendary crafting should had otherwise set a floor on the price. It costs 500g to craft the Energizer, but they sell for 150g on TP because theres very little demand for them.
Legendary crafting sets a soft ceiling, not so much a floor.
In effect, if you can craft any precursor for 500-800g, it’s not going to sell for much more than that because crafters will undercut the price. However, if the drop rate is higher than demand, it could sell for less.
I don´t think China is a backward country… They are surprisingly advanced in a lot of things. Even their questionable things are very modern…
Indeed – China is still middle-of-the-road on a per-capita basis but because of the population, they’re a wealthy country for trading purposes. And because political decisions are based on long-term stability rather than short-term electoral victories, they can pass legislation that would be very difficult in a democracy. That can be a good or a bad thing; it’s up to them to make it work.
(edited by Ben K.6238)
Well, there probably aren’t too many people who have never bothered with raiding who’d give feedback, so I guess I’ll be that one.
- I have not tried the raid. I do know some people in my guild who could, but there aren’t 10 who’d be interested. We’re a WvW guild who occasionally play PvE for a couple hours.
- I never expected much from raids, and my expectations were met. It would be interesting to be able to see the environments but I’d much rather have PvP dungeons.
Yeah, there’s already arenas in guild halls, so I don’t see the issue with similar designated fighting spots in cities and even out in the open world where it makes sense.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Bane
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Brawler's_Bout
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stoneguard_Gate
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Last_Whiskey_Bar
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Butcher's_Yard
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vollym's_Battle_Pit
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ashford_Forum
I’d prefer no new class, personally. With new specializations coming out there’s really no need for it. Monk itself is made redundant by the guardian, which has usurped basically all its attributes and some of the paragon’s as well.
If we’re going to have ‘new’ something I’d prefer a new race to reduce the balancing quagmire. It would be impossible to play in story content from LS3 and earlier, but at least that has no side effects for everything else.
Actually I was surprised they had a female version on charr – it’s something of a rarity. Unfortunately, like the Imperial outfit, it wasn’t a good idea in this case.
I’d be re-evaluating WvW from the bottom up – looking at what they know now, I’m sure they’d have designed WvW differently in the beginning.
Then it’s just a question of doing an Eye of the North/GW:Beyond in GW2 – without making a completely new game, how can you build it to capture the re-evaluated vision?
Probably a bit too ambitious for a dwindling playerbase, but if they do it right there’s plenty of players to re-gain. And of the existing ones – let’s be honest, apart from the combat no-one’s going to miss any part of the current WvW design. Capture the combat, make it work better, and build a WvW system around it that actually excites people again.
1st off Nobody really knows what would be good for wvw. I see posts about make it more defensible!! Hmmm wouldn’t that stall fights and just kill small roaming play? Give more rewards (gonna make server stacking more) make it about k/d then people will just blob and alt f4 to work around it…..looking at u Mr m server
That’s not really it… everyone has a plan for how to get there, but no-one knows where they’re going.
While ANet lacks a goal for how WvW should function, it’s no surprise that they are chasing shadows trying to improve it. The only thing we mostly agree on is that the original design didn’t work.
But we don’t even agree on why – personal opinion here, ANet seems to have decided it just needs more polish to make it work, while I’m convinced the foundations are broken.
They’ve always been overpriced, aside from the rare occasions where they’ve handed one out for free.
I’m not paying more than 15 gems each – that’s all they’re worth.
I don’t remember 2014 being a good year for WvW. After two years without the structural changes to WvW needed to make competition possible, we then got competitive tournaments anyway, which predictably eviscerated the playerbase.
The only thing that worked better then was the class balance. The game mode itself was in a very poor state due to the failure to acknowledge that a game where players are rewarded for victories that they have no control over (except joining the bandwagon) can not be satisfying to play.
Not really. I actually love the variety HoT introduced, I’m just not a fan of the power creep.
If they could tone it down a little it’d be great.
7-month necro. Wow.
Oddly, of the 5 points I listed, the only one that hasn’t been addressed was right at the top: class balance.
No respawn. That would be all.
GW2 would have the better PvP by far, if only it had GW1’s game modes.
1. Lack of variety in WvW content
Everything there revolves around capturing and defending points on the map. I’d like to see the system expanded to include other things, like GvGs and PvP dungeons.
2. Disappearance of personal story characters and meaningful side-quests
The ability to do optional sidequests with characters you meet along the way adds a lot to the depth of lore and replayability. GW1 did this well.
3. Lack of individuality
Everyone has the same idle loop, walk/run animations etc., and if you want to gear a charr or sylvari to look like they’re not just squeezing into human clothes, you’ve got about two options. There’s a quote from Ghosts of Ascalon: “Look at her armor. Look at her mannerisms. She’s from the Ash Legion, or I’m a skritt.”
It would be nice to see that sort of character reflected in the game, too.
Personally I’d like to see the Bane put to use as an arena. There’s plenty of other fighting pits in the overworld too, particularly in charr lands.
I called it Shameless
Scoring improvements included loot improvements – which will be more useful than matchup changes that make no positive difference to the player experience
I don’t pretend to speak for them, but I haven’t known them to complete a next big priority in 22 days before.
I am gonna guess that 97% of the gw2 community is male.
Perhaps not: 2009
Although the percentage of male players may have been greater in the past, currently only 60% of MMO players are male and this percentage continues to shrink as more and more females are starting to play MMOs.As to sex of characters. I have 10 level 80s and 3 I’m leveling to 80. Of those 2 are male.
Why do people just inherently believe statistics that go against not only their own common experience but that of everyone they know? Look at everyone you know who is a gamer, are half of them female? No? Not even close? Me neither, neither is that true for anyone I have ever asked or anyone I know who has asked the same question.
Statistics are like theater, what everyone expects, doesn’t sell.
I think of the core group I play with and come to 6/14 female. I might be forgetting one or two people, but that figure seems accurate enough to my experience.
Who would transfer into such things and why, and even if some would do for a while, the rest will remain the same problematic mess as it is.
That’s the question that’s being asked in this thread.
I’d suggest alliances of guilds would transfer into such servers, particularly those who have no attachment to the rest of the server they’re currently on. It’s a space they can play together and get more diverse matches at the same time. Recruitment wouldn’t be too bad because of free transfers to their worlds/alliances.
This system is essentially a way to better balance matchups by having some guilds declare that they don’t mind being moved every two months.
Just use the suggestion that has been proposed numerous times since you linked the servers.
Color and server abbreviation. For example this week in T2 you would have Red Gold Soldier AR, or Red Gold Soldier YB.
They are both clearly marked as the red team, if people are still confused by that there is no helping them.
On that note, all this talk about confusion…
If the name is red, I kill it, if it’s green I investigate what they are up to or go find red names.
No confusion…
Kill red, always kill red names
If they’re red and from different servers, they can kill each other too. You can exploit that when fighting them.
If it turns out they’re actually on the same server, that’s where confusion comes in.
1. How do you feel about this proposal?
2. What, if anything, would you change about this current proposal?
3. Would you be interested in transferring to a new free world?
Honestly I was hoping you’d revisit the idea – because it allows people to form alliances without being stuck in one world.
If possible, I’d suggest these linked servers actually be created by guild alliances, but I know that’s a tall order.
I’d immediately transfer to one of those worlds.
There is no reason not to support this idea. It limits risk, it solves problems, it doesn’t present new problems.
Yes there is.
It only works if all the servers are closely balanced.
The servers are not closely balanced.
So it doesn’t work.
Choose only one server with the largest collection of known top roamers and havok guilds, drop a few guild names for reference.
NSP , SBI , YB and mag got some decent roamers/havoc
worst would be HoD
I’m on SBI and I haven’t seen them
Apothecary gear!
Less vitality, but perhaps even more sustain. We shall see
This is a good suggestion, but let’s not forget that rewarding activity doesn’t have to be flooding the player’s inventory with salvage trash. I would find it very rewarding indeed if there was some high score list to acknowledge those who do useful work: capture camps, kill enemy players without getting killed and defend towers. Naturally in lower population servers there’s less competition for top spots.
Even with no other rewards attached, that’d be really good to have.
I’m wondering if it’s possible to get this data via API in the meanwhile.
You can’t just go and start blocking so many people really. That’s not practical since even the trolls actually have useful information at times.
Sure you can – I have a couple guildies who blocked dozens on day 1. (Their block lists were already hundreds of people long, so that was hardly a surprise.)
Surely trolls are not the only ones with useful information. But even if they’re not blocked, I’m not going to show up to defend something if the only person saying it needs defending is some muppet whose word I don’t trust anyway.