Guild Wars 2

Potential Concerns

It’s unfair to give players from other regions a reduced impact on PPT
This solution provides a way for these players to still provide an impact in terms of their direct contribution to the battlefield. The fact is that against a server with limited coverage an overnight crew of 10-20 can monopolize an entire borderland or more, even though they may only be directly protecting one objective at a time.

I like roaming at night and I don’t want to have to deal with zergs
There are still options for late night roamers, especially since EBG is a large map with a lot of space for movement. This can also be a boon to late night roamers who may find it hard to encounter opposition when populations are spread across 4 maps.

I play from another time zone and I don’t want to miss out on the experience of having 4 maps to choose from
The window where maps are closed will probably not have to be a very long one, which means that this option is still available for players from other time zones. As well, blackouts would be staggered between NA and EU servers, meaning that these borderlands are never fully blacked out for a particular time slot. This change is meant to acknowledge that 4-map play during the slow hours of a server is simply not the same as 4-map play during its peak hours, and will never be.

Having overnight players spread means breaking communities
The goal of this idea is to renew communities and help existing ones stay strong, but one side effect is that existing overnight communities in high tiers may be broken up. I believe that this change can offer more in the long term for communities to be built and sustained in this game.

Substantial coverage differences exist across the day, not just overnight
Late night/early morning is when the coverage differences are most acute, and in addition to my experience I will probably be backed up by score graphs. The point of this change, however, is not to address issues arising from a preponderance of players, but rather from an overall absence across 3 servers in a matchup.

If there are other concerns about the impact this change might have, please share them! I invite you to debate the acknowledged concerns as well, and whether this change can actually be effective.

Question to players who play during their server region’s night watch: Would you enjoy WvW more if all players were consolidated onto EBG while populations were low?

tl;dr Close BLs at night and limit PPT to EBG. This will make overnight play more fun and help make all servers competitive. If you have criticism to offer, please read through the post first.

When this idea occurred to me, it seemed like a very obvious one, yet I don’t recall having seen it before. As such, I’ll explain the idea, the existing problems it attempts to resolve, and address any concerns that will arise.

Bear in mind I use the term overnight to refer to the time in a specific region, recognizing that players come from different time zones and therefore are not necessarily playing overnight. I myself am a Canadian (guild leader, commander, scout, roamer) playing on an EU server.

The Idea

It’s simple: At a certain point in the night WvW participation on most servers drops off substantially. My guess is that this is around 12am-2am for the latest time zone in the given region (NA or EU), although I’m sure Anet has the hard numbers.

The proposal is to shut down WvW on all borderlands at this time, suspend upgrades and siege despawn timers, and consolidate all WvW players onto EBG. Limit the PPT to EBG objectives. Once numbers begin to pick up again, likely 6-8 hours later, re-open the borderlands. Opening and closing of borderlands should be set times, this could be done differently for weekends.

I’ll just add that this idea seems to me like something that should have been present since release (EBG is, after all, Eternal Battlegrounds), and that the issue of coverage is not one that is likely to be solved by the main ideas proposed (scaling PPT off-hours, merging servers or creating alliances). Despite efforts to make lower tiers more attractive, this is an issue that will persist if no targeted solution is provided.

The Purpose

At the moment, off-peak coverage in WvW is a huge issue. This is particularly acute during the overnight hours, when some matchups will see a single server ticking 600 or above. It’s detrimental to the quality of play, the accurate assignment of ranking, and to the competitiveness of many servers.

Quality of Play: Night watch and commanding is very different from regular play. During hours where WvW participation is low, much of the effort has to be directed towards scouting, quickly responding to any threats, and often predicting enemy attacks. This has to be done across 2-4 maps, spreading thin the population of all servers and reducing the amount of action that the players actually find. It can be very frustrating to spend a lot of time upgrading during this period only to lose an objective because of the difficulty of tracking enemy movements. When it is possible to go on the offensive, taking of objectives will often involve little more than PvD.

This change will remove the necessity of border-hopping, ensure that all players who are in WvW during these hours will be able to find one another easily to work together, and minimize the number of upgraded objectives that might be lost by an outmanned night crew. Even if all EBG objectives are lost, they are usually the easiest to upgrade.

Ranking: Because a night crew can have a much bigger impact on PPT than an equally-sized daytime crew, the PPT may not accurately reflect a server’s competitiveness during peak hours. Consequently, servers may find themselves in lopsided matchups, which reduces the quality of play because there is little to be had in the way of either even battles or difficult sieges.

This change will ensure that differences in night coverage do not severely impact the final scoring of a matchup and a server’s position in the rankings.

Competitiveness: The two issues described above have contributed to the most chronic issue in WvW: the steady migration of population from low tier servers onto high tier servers. Due to quality of play issues associated with overnight hours, the population of players who normally play during their server’s overnight hours find the higher tiers more attractive.

Due to the consolidation of “overnight” players into the top tiers, servers that lack this coverage will simply not be able to find themselves matched up against servers that have this coverage, even if they are very competitive at primetime. This can make them less attractive to play on, resulting in a downward spiral.

This change will give two incentives for overnight players to spread among all servers rather than consolidating on higher tiers: Firstly, they can expect to find more competitive play on other servers if there is a lower player cap at these hours; and secondly they will wish to avoid queues that may appear at the highest tiers due to the restriction of WvW to one map.

Continued…

If they are going through with this, they have no idea what WvW is like during off-coverage times. Even during times when a server has coverage, trebs are necessary to delay the enemy if you are getting hit by both servers at once.

It is already incredibly difficult to defend without a matching force, and it is already impossible when the enemy brings omegas and you don’t have a zerg to kill them, now they want to get rid of the most important tools in tower/keep defense?

What is driving players off lower tiers is the quality of play. Without any tools to defend, there is no incentive to defend, and without any kind of defensive aspect the game will become much more 1-dimensional.

It would be a terrible idea to do this. Right now it’s the only defensive measure if your server is outnumbered off hours, and even then this doesn’t work against omegas.

They should have gotten rid of mesmer portals for golems in this game, it’s way too easy at the moment to get a portal out and waypoint. Instead they’re nerfing defense which will only hurt the servers that don’t have 24/7 coverage even more. It’s the fact that defense is more and more impossible that makes people tired of the 24/7 format.

There is much afowl about this.

Zerker warrior is still stupidly hard to kill if traited and played correctly.

However, Strength is a really dodgy trait line to go with. Restorative Strength makes no sense at all with healing signet, since you almost never use the active. You are probably better off adding to your Defense or Discipline line, you need to have much more condition removal than you do now and Cleansing Ire is a good place to start.

I recommend waiting until the 18th, there’s a high chance that Gandara will be a free server to transfer to. We finished the last season with second place in the silver league, we still have the same guilds and our commanders will be pushing kittence the tournament starts, so with the additional transfers that our unique position should bring we have a very good shot at winning our league.

The rewards are available at every league so there is no need to pay the exorbitant cost of transferring to gold league or dealing with its queues if you want a shot at a first place finish.

Cilag, I think that was the first day I followed while you were commanding. Got to be quite late in Canada

On that note, April Fool’s day is coming up. Just sayin’.

You can’t guest to a server in a different region.

Our server’s colour will almost certainly change this Friday, currently we’re matched against two servers that are several ranks above us so it is unlikely that a lot of those locations will be captured during this matchup, even if you get help.

Next week it will probably be very easy to get one of those borderlands if Gandara borderlands becomes a colour other than red. Other than that, I recommend staying up a bit as we have the most locations captured around midnight GMT.

Just stick it out, Gandara is an easy server to get map completion with since we get a mix of servers that we fight against so we’re never stuck with the same colour.

etrigan.4213:

People are tired of playing the PPT game when it only benefits servers that have better coverage. I mean why upgrade anything during your primetime when you know its going to be flipped after everyone goes to bed and/or work?

Its basically a catch 22 though, they don’t upgrade, and the people that play during those off hours are always on the defensive and getting screwed by having things not upgraded. Playing on the defensive all the time sucks. So people stack on servers to alleviate this issue, meanwhile Tier 8 and below servers are screwed for WvW population.

Couple all of that with the fact that the only new things in WvW are things that make defense stronger and/or take away population from WvW.

Changes listed here(feel free to add on):

1. WXP skills. There are some cool offensive ones, but on the majority the AC and Treb skills defensively out weigh the offensive traits. So basically you are stuck with AC wars instead of guildwars and normal RvR pvp. Not to mention trebs have annoying supply draining cloud or the fact that they still do damage through the door….

2. EOTM, lets face it, EOTM has stolen some population. Maybe not as much as people think, but couple that with people leaving WvW, and its effects are huge.

edit(forgot one):
3. Traps!! Oh look another defensive mechanic!

The fact that golems are now tradeable has made golem rushes and omega golems in particular far more common in this game. That’s a huge bonus to attackers, and it especially hurts servers when they have less coverage. There is basically nothing that a handful of defenders can do against a small zerg that has omegas unless the attackers are too thick to clear the cannons (which I have seen a few times).

No. T4-T6 are all very healthy WvW-wise. Our server has seen what T3 is like and we’re happy avoiding that mess.

Our introduction:

Gandara EU (aka Gandalf aka Gankdara) is a server that has an established WvW core with a strong respect for skill. Because of this respect for skill, we’ve been a favourite home for roamers and guilds that enjoy taking on larger numbers. If your guild enjoys arranged or impromptu open-field GvGs you will find a community of players that respects your right to battle. At the same time, Gandara has maintained a strong position in the rankings thanks to the consistency of its guild groups, commanders, and infantry. We held a position in Tier 4/Tier 5 for 45 straight weeks in 2013, pushing together for a second place finish in the Silver League.

Thanks to our stable position in that T4/T5 sweet spot, where we meet a variety of opposition and plenty of lootbags, many of the guilds that call Gandara home have enjoyed a long history here. This history is the foundation for Gandara’s community, where the ties are close and cooperation among guilds is second-nature. Whether that shared experience is from annihilating an enemy blob, being part of an off-hours roaming party, or just one of the random misadventures of WvW, the many personalities of Gandara have always found a way to come together and have a laugh.

What do I mean by that? Here’s a video to give you a taste: This is Gandara IV
There’s also a I, II, and III by the same videographer.

Other clips from a sampling of Gandara’s active guilds: Bloody Pirates [YARR] Cantankerous [CNTK] Dius Vanguard [DiVa] Friskyttarna [FRI] Insert Coin [IC] Silence of Dolyaks [SoD] Tchuu Tchuu Im A Train [TCHU] Yakslappers [YaK] Yolobus [YOLO]?

There’s our introduction. So what might your place on Gandara be?

We’re looking for guilds and players that can boost our coverage. Guilds and players that are active earlier than UK primetime and during EU daytime can help to fortify our presence at those hours, while anyone playing from other parts of the world will find a warm welcome among the passionate yet laidback players that make up our nightwatch.

Our primetime hours are now fully covered, thank you to all players and guilds existing an interest.

Thinking about joining Gandara, but still have questions? Try this list:

Is there a community TS?
Yes, it welcomes guilds without their own VOIP and is used in common for all open WvW events.

What language do you speak?
Name it, we probably have it. While we have some regional guilds that speak other languages, communication in the battlegrounds is in English.

Do you have a website?
We have an active and often bustling WvW forum, thisisgandara.com, with a private section and shoutbox for Gandaran players.

What is PvE like on Gandara?
Gandara boasts a very vibrant PvE community that is active around the clock, with a large PvE guild alliance that regularly tackles the most difficult world bosses.

Didn’t find your question? One of these fine Gandarans wants to hear from you:

Luranni
Mordorian
Jojenks

You are also welcome to drop me (Talleyrand) a line on thisisgandara.com

Do consider Gandara, currently in our matchup against GH and Desolation (5 and 6 ranks above us) we are holding our own, especially at primetime we have consistent coverage on EB and home borderlands, with guild groups often hopping over to enemy borders. There are many solo roamers (including Maskaganda and Osicat) and small-scale roaming guilds, including Black Thunders, Tchuu Tchuu I’m a Train, and Beyond the Wall, and a lot of players in the larger guilds will roam when their guild isn’t running an op.

Benjifu.8451:

Instead of being offensive towards what I’m trying to explain barrage can destroy an Ac in 3 uses, and to those people questioning my AC placement I know good spots.. But like I said the AoE red ring of damage hits misses where I’m standing but still damages the AC, I dont see how any of you havent experienced this before.. The fact walls are a no go when a tower or keep is being attacked to me is ridiculous..

You have expressed a legitimate concern (Defensive siege is vulnerable to AoE attacks), and phrased it in a very unfortunate way (“Ranger skill Barrage overpowered?”).

+1 to Matipzieu’s statement on enduring, inclusive communities. It enriches the game experience so much more to have familiar faces, guild, commanders when you enter WvW.

My experience is very different from Matipzieu’s, I play on a mid-tier EU server and started out as an uplevel looking for map completion and trying to do jumping puzzles. I followed blue tags, represented a tiny guild of friends from outside the game, auto-attacked doors and didn’t have VOIP software installed. Thanks to seeing the same friendly people on my server I took more of an interest in WvW and I’ve now been a leader of a WvW guild for a year as well as a commander and community leader for my server.

Server drain has been pointed to time and time again on these servers as something that needs to be addressed for the long-term health of WvW. Without a functioning WvW community it is harder to get new players involved in the game mode and there is little incentive for existing WvW players to stay.

Can alliances fix the issue? I doubt it, the issue is a downward spiral that will keep feeding back on itself, there is nothing to keep that grouping of servers from dropping to the bottom of the ladder, or even if they do win their matches, there is nothing to keep that success going after the alliance is dissolved. Unless you can encourage people to move to and stay on those servers I think that drain will persist.

Much of the problem is that almost every aspect of this game mode encourages players to transfer up the ladder rather than down it. Material rewards in this game are really set against, well, trying to hold together a community that might be falling apart already. With the introduction of EotM, queues are no longer a strong incentive to move down.

I think the Season 1 rewards were appropriate, if inappropriately advertised, but it seems to me that the improved rewards hinted at for the upcoming “tournament” will just encourage players to stack servers even more. It’s unfortunate that the ambiguous communication in advance of Season 1 led to a short-sighted community outcry and now this knee-jerk response which will simply undermine efforts to balance the servers.

cyyrix.6105:

This can’t be a real thread. In what world does R30 wvw even come close to approaching the grind that is required for the other parts of a legendary item? Casual players have little chance of acquiring a legendary as it is, this tiny change hardly affects that.

This is like complaining that Mt. Everest is suddenly too tall to climb because an extra inch of snow fell.

On the fourth page I found what seems to be the first post to point out the fact the getting a legendary is and always has been a grind. Thank you for it.

Getting to rank 30 is not a grind. If you’ve been playing this game for a year, you’ll have a +100% WXP booster. Use it, if you play WvW at a normal time it’ll take you much less than the 24 hour duration of the booster to rank up to level 30. Or use laurels and badges, your choice.

Getting all the other parts of a legendary? I challenge you to tell me a non-grindy way to do it, since I’ve logged 2400 hours and don’t yet have a precursor.

Which server is he on and how much does it cost to transfer there?

SkylightMoon.1980:

ParaldaWind.4523:

This thread again? It’s been explained a million times. Anything a ranger can do another class can do better.

Really? No other class has utilities as deadly as rangers trap, that pulse immobilize.
I think the funniest comment I saw here was by Radian who called rangers useless but then said mesmers are useful because they can pull things off walls. Thats not being useful at all. Mesmers are useful because of their timewarp, nullfield, veil, and thats about it. Most the damage from a mesmer comes from his bouncing greatsword and phantasm. 2 skills. You could easily say rangers are equally as useful because of their traps. Thats literally what a lot of classes are in wvw skill groups, just utilities. The mesmer is a perfect example of that. Rangers do have pretty poor aoes though, almost none. For constant aoe they can throw their axe which can bounce for about 1600 through a group is you spec him right for good damage.

It doesn’t do much service to rangers to say they’re just about on par with mesmers because mesmers are nearly useless in a large group spec. The reason you do see (1 or 2) mesmers is because there is no substitution for their two group utilities. The ranger group utilities really aren’t a comparison, the entangle is not effective in a large fight due to the fact that it’s destructible and has a target limit, and the water fields aren’t unique. But a thief running venom share could arguably do more harm than a ranger running entangle.

As for rangers playing a damage role, the fact that the “spike” depends on a projectile attack that can be blocked or reflected by a dozen utilities is reason enough to write it off.

Do whatever you like. Try everything. The people posting in this thread are trying to make you a solid contributor to WvW, a reliable zergling, and that’s respectable I suppose. Honestly it’s way too open a game mode to accept one way of playing.

If you really do have sound experience with PvE and PvP then you will know to be aware and pay attention. Learn what gets you killed and what doesn’t get you killed, what you find to be enjoyable, who you like playing with, and you’ll find a role.

So typical to see zero acknowledgement from AM players that it it’s simply wrong to abuse exploits like this. Fits right in with a play-for-loot, no respect for opponents, anti-PvP mentality.

The fault doesn’t just lie with the necros activating the signet, it’s every person who intentionally auto attacks to trigger the leech effect.

Of course, the necros are the easiest to single out, and if AM’s players are serious about opposing exploits they should collect info on which of their players who are using it and send that to the GMs. I commanded for a couple hours for Gandara and didn’t once see it triggered by anyone on my side.

There is no WvW to be done when another server just zone blobs and hits the easiest target then hops to the next map. Doing something else really isn’t an option for people who just want to WvW. Sure, not all servers are the same, but ArenaNet can encourage more nuanced playstyles by changing the mechanics of the game.

Removing PvD is the first proposed option, countering the siege power creep with improved defenses is another. Another issue is how easy it is to just golem rush, and that can be helped by boosting the supply cost of golems (since their increased availability has made the purchase of golems no longer prohibitively expensive for many players), perhaps also making it so they can’t be refreshed/stored indefinitely.

I would definitely report anyone on my side I see using it and collect a list of names to send in as a support ticket. Not interested in working with anyone who didn’t see the issue with this. Commanders need to tell people not to DPS the gate down, that way it’s obvious if someone is trying to exploit.

How to avoid this in the future: Remove PvD from the game.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I’d like to see masteries against particular classes.. scaling the same way as “guard killer” and “defence against guards” scales , except both of them rolled into 1 mastery.

…

You get the drift, I’m sure a final ability can be worked out that’s balanced between all classes.

You keep those silly ideas out of the developer’s heads. “Balanced” is not a term that can be used with respect to “grind”, if you have an issue with a particular class you l2p like everybody else, either that or keep on blobbing like I bet you love to do.

Edit: On second look, even disregarding the thief mastery suggestion this has to be a troll post. Not sure why else anyone would propose removing combat mechanics in order to make the game more interesting.

Gatvin.6510:

Tricare.2946:

No. This would ruin small group roaming. Also, you zerglings need to be killed on the way to your precious zerg.

I don’t think it would. I’ve always had three issues functioning in small groups.

1. Tracking enemy zergs
2. Respawning after getting rolled over by them
3. Finding something meaningful to accomplishing world goals that can be accomplished before zergs roll over me.

In my mind, this helps 2. and 3. More spawn locations means more ways around a zerg, and in that a waypoint that can be easily flipped gives small roamers a real impact that they are rewarded for.

What are you usually doing in small groups that this would inhibit?

Can’t really say #2 is an issue, if you’re a small group you need to be aware of when to leg it. Adding waypoints would really just help zergs to res-rush you and overwhelm with numbers even more so.

If the hike is the issue, then wait for the waypoint timer.

SeNoZinD.9874:

Necro: lolgoodjoke

Nah, blind stomp is pretty effective. Stealth only beats it (and all other stomps) vs. mesmer.

Not sure why people complain about stealth stomp when thieves have blind fields anyways.

ITT, Cri Up.9638 hits the climax of his year.

I think I need to clarify something on behalf of the OP.

The reason he’s looking for a buff above 50% health is because he’s never actually taken a target below 50% health.

I noticed in your advertisement you didn’t say what scale of combat you like, whether you focus on objectives or roaming etc. This is one of the most important things that a guild will consider when looking at you as an applicant, and also one of the things that you need to think about when choosing a guild/server.

Since match-ups are random, servers that aren’t at the top or the bottom of the ranking (http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups/) don’t win or lose consistently from week to week. However, the tier (where the server is grouped in terms of ranking) does impact your play experience in terms of what kind of numbers you will encounter. At the top tiers there are large numbers and action at all times, but little opportunity for small-scale encounters. At the bottom tiers you will have empty or nearly empty maps for certain times of day. If you only play during peak hours this may not be a problem.

Once you have some servers in mind, I would recommend looking up their community websites on the list stickied in this forum. There will probably be at least one community WvW guild on that server that is oriented towards newer players, so if you are relatively new to WvW in GW2 I would recommend joining one of these guilds first to learn the ropes. Once you’ve gotten to know more people on your server, you’ll begin to recognize the guilds and will be able to think about moving on to a more competitive guild with the kind of playstyle you’re looking for.

I typed one of my guild member’s e-mail address incorrectly on the roster sheet. Spotted the error after he said he got no e-mail. I sent a correction to the testing team and they fixed it the same day.

Gandalf’s community forums will remain (mostly) open to players from all servers, so anyone wanting to chat about the matchup or arrange GvGs is welcome to visit.

I won’t link directly since this isn’t meant to be a plug for the forums, but we are listed on the Recruitment Forum sticky.

Any other servers who have forums open to non-members are invited to inform the community using this thread.

No way. #SaveBessie #Gandara4ever #YOLObus

old skool shatter, thanks for reminding me why I played this class in the first place

Jaxs.5830:

You seem to be the perfect person to ask this question, something I have wondered about for a long time. Is the purple kool-aid actually grape flavored, or is it something else and just purple in color?

Check my post history, I’ve been very critical of some things the developers have done and directions that they’ve taken the game (e.g. the focus on siege abilities ).

I prefer discussing issues that actually shape WvW. This thread is just people complaining that they didn’t get the PvE-type rewards they expected. I wanted a fluffy pink elephant, but didn’t get one. Should I make a thread now?

Fixation on rewards is to be expected from a PvE player, but those kinds of rewards are trivial for people who focus WvW. When there’s still so much to improve in this game mode, how is this important? If it is important, can we discuss it in terms of how it will actually improve the game?

As Ill Conceived pointed out, if you compare the meta reward from this first season directly with individual living story meta reward, it’s really a matter of preference which rewards were better. Yet some people think one meta reward should make up for an entire year.

Righteous.4307:

King Amadaeus.8619:

Sure a WvW backpiece skin would have made a difference I guess…

Stop there.

No. What a trifle to make a whole thread about, to accuse the developers of not caring, to have some people (in not a few cases) rage quit over.

An exotic backpiece skin is merely a novelty, same as the Mini Dolyak is a novelty. Backpieces themselves are a dime a dozen. Let’s say you wanted a backpiece skin in particular, or some other sort of skin, and that wasn’t what you got. Well, the only specific reward I ever heard mentioned was the Mini, so I wasn’t disappointed when I got that and some other loot. It’s really a matter of personal preference. I like the monetary rewards because it means I can afford to gear up different characters with different armor sets so that I can try out different builds.

But you didn’t get what you wanted, so you stamped your feet and raged and poisoned your thoughts with PvE envy. If you look at the work that’s been done on WvW, however, you should realize that the team is actually starting to deliver things that the community needs. Not little shinies that would satisfy a PvE player, but real content. There was a long period of stagnation when the game came out, but now they’re listening. Listening with respect to things that actually matter, like commander tools and map design. They’ve introduced a whole new reward system to WvW, and just tested another one out. They’ve kept the combat interesting by continuing to balance the classes, introducing new armors and upgrade components. I’ve personally gained a lot of confidence in the way WvW is being handled now.

Like King Amadeus pointed out, and as I tried to point out, there’s a balance to be struck with rewards, and failing to maintain that has the potential (as we’ve already witnessed temporarily) to change the landscape of WvW for the worse. The last thing I want WvW to be is just another map where the zerg can farm mats and grind for skins.

We still have our own currency, and our own experience system, so new unique skins are always an option. I’ve heard new WvW skins requested in the past, so I don’t think this thread brings anything new to the table. But I am much happier that they allocate game development resources rather than artwork resources to WvW, as they are doing now.

That development and evolution is what I look forward to in this game, not some pittance like a backpiece skin.

Samhayn.2385:

Slender Khaldran.3297:

Kraljevo.2801:

First (virtual) world problems… Disgusting.

I for one played WvW every day in the season for about 3-4 hours each night. We had a lot of >>fun<< (yeah, some of you forgot what that is) battles and the loot was good as well.

I agree on the fact that the rewards could have been more WvW-specific, like blueprints or whatever, but I am completely fine with the current reward. Why? Because I played WvW for >>FUN<<. (Yeah, here is the word again!)

This new gamer generation is… What is this I don’t even..

So Kraljevo you’re so GENEROUS ! You’re a member of WVW Health Organization ?
You spend all your money to upgrade camps and towers ? You’re a so perfect player…

You are nothing except yourself, you’re the disguting problem here. You judge people without knowing what they do. On every serious WvW server, every one are complaining that they expected a skin (i don’t speak about ascended weapon or armor, i admit it’s ridiculous…). And in any case, i don’t care about your advise. I (we) just expect an awnser from Anet ! At the moment we prefer an answer (positive or negative) than anything.

if you want an answer this is not the sub forum you are looking for.

Shhhh we’re not allowed to talk, we didn’t win first place in the gold league so we’re not serious enough about WvW.

TooBz.3065:

Bertrand.3057:

Jaxs.5830:

lordkrall.7241:

Oh, thats funny, because based on the WvW guilds I have seen and fought with/against in WvW every single one plays for fun rather than rewards.

Why do you folks treat fun and rewards like they are opposing forces where you can have fun or rewards, but not both? There is no reason you cannot have fun and be rewarded at the same time.

I can go complete a world boss for a guaranteed rare, each boss, once per day, not to mention the chest full of other loot, often with another rare. Takes very little effort in most cases.

Yet something that took me 4 weeks to finish rewarded greens and a few other odds and ends. The only thing of value was the draconite ore, of which I can get the same amount doing 4-5 world bosses in one day simply by watching the timers.

Seems legit.

Oh, but fun and loot are opposing, at a certain point. Since the introduction of WXP and the ramping up of rewards we’ve seen an influx of players who are unwilling to fight, afraid to leave the zerg, and have no interest in any aspect of the game apart from capping structures. If WvW ever reaches reward parity with PvE, that will be the end of it, and there will be nothing but the zerg. After all, wasn’t that mass migration for the first couple weeks one of the main complaints about Season One?

Unless WvW play is motivated by something other than the desire for loot, all it will be is one more outpost for PvE.

Anyways, some descriptions of loot disparity in this thread are way more extreme than the reality. I was away for most of the Season and it took me a few days, at the very end of the season, to get all of the achievements. If you ranked up 50 times in WvW you assuredly got many chests, events, and loot bags in addition to the unique final rewards.

I think that the farmers in PvE want the maximum reward for the least about of time and skill. (see post above). Therefore, as long as gaining rewards in WvW is more difficult or more time consuming than running a champ train, WvW will be fine.

There’s a long way to go until it reaches that level.

I was addressing the sentiment quoted below. I know there’s still a rewards gap, but some people on this thread are making it out to be way more than it really is. There’s a lot of whining of how unfair it is without considering the knock on effects.

Righteous.4307:

I have yet to see one logical reason why WvW should not be on par with PvE rewards.

Jaxs.5830:

lordkrall.7241:

Oh, thats funny, because based on the WvW guilds I have seen and fought with/against in WvW every single one plays for fun rather than rewards.

Why do you folks treat fun and rewards like they are opposing forces where you can have fun or rewards, but not both? There is no reason you cannot have fun and be rewarded at the same time.

I can go complete a world boss for a guaranteed rare, each boss, once per day, not to mention the chest full of other loot, often with another rare. Takes very little effort in most cases.

Yet something that took me 4 weeks to finish rewarded greens and a few other odds and ends. The only thing of value was the draconite ore, of which I can get the same amount doing 4-5 world bosses in one day simply by watching the timers.

Seems legit.

Oh, but fun and loot are opposing, at a certain point. Since the introduction of WXP and the ramping up of rewards we’ve seen an influx of players who are unwilling to fight, afraid to leave the zerg, and have no interest in any aspect of the game apart from capping structures. If WvW ever reaches reward parity with PvE, that will be the end of it, and there will be nothing but the zerg. After all, wasn’t that mass migration for the first couple weeks one of the main complaints about Season One?

Unless WvW play is motivated by something other than the desire for loot, all it will be is one more outpost for PvE.

Anyways, some descriptions of loot disparity in this thread are way more extreme than the reality. I was away for most of the Season and it took me a few days, at the very end of the season, to get all of the achievements. If you ranked up 50 times in WvW you assuredly got many chests, events, and loot bags in addition to the unique final rewards.

Cool, I’m part of an extreme minority because I play GW2 to have fun.

This whole communism analogy? You’re barking up the wrong tree. Woof!

NargofWoV.4267:

Adian.8756:

Aeonblade.8709:

KrisHQ.4719:

NargofWoV.4267:

Finally, since “rewards” are all over this game, it begs the question, with your attitude why are you playing a reward based game? Go play chess.

wut

You said you didn’t need rewards, victory was reward enough. For the rest of us, that’s just plainly not true. MMORPG’s as a genre depend on rewards for time invested.

So as the poster said, Chess or another PvP game with no rewards would be a better fit for you

You want rewards and shiny pixels because you’ve been conditioned to wanting it. What kind of ‘rewards’ did Red Alert, Warcraft, Frogger, The Lost Vikings, Donkey Kong, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Mario 64 etc etc. give you?

I have zero clue, I have never played any of those games, yet I have played almost every single MMO since the dawn of MMO’s from Diablo to UO to Everquest to DaoC to WoW to Warhammer to Aion, every one of them rewarded you in game for doing in game tasks, either in pvp, wvw or pve. Anet let the wvw community down with this reward. They may deem it good enough, which obviously they do and I suppose they have their reasons. However, to me they have missed the mark and I think WvW will suffer because of it.

Eh, in making this statement you validated everything that Adian said. You have no experience with classic and terrifically successful video games, you only have a bunch of expectations that you carried over from other MMO games.

I never played any MMORPG before this one, but I love this one.

Aeonblade.8709:

KrisHQ.4719:

NargofWoV.4267:

Finally, since “rewards” are all over this game, it begs the question, with your attitude why are you playing a reward based game? Go play chess.

wut

You said you didn’t need rewards, victory was reward enough. For the rest of us, that’s just plainly not true. MMORPG’s as a genre depend on rewards for time invested.

So as the poster said, Chess or another PvP game with no rewards would be a better fit for you

I am curious to see how you would explain the fact that people have been playing WvW since the start of this game, when rewards were absolutely atrocious. It was a MMORPG then as it is now, why didn’t all those people just move to PvE?

Commander Visibility & Tools

The primary issue I have with the current squad system is that I’m simply not in the habit of making use of it. I’m not sure how common this is, but perhaps one way to encourage it is to provide a very clear visual indicator to a player once they join a commander’s squad (i.e. making the tag appear larger and a different colour).

If joining a squad becomes a much more widespread habit among WvW players, then you can start thinking about features like on-screen text (e.g. an automatic one when the commander waypoints), commander events (maybe have some light rewards like an achievement meter), reduced chat suppression, etc.

Commander Gating

I’m of the opinion that any extended or elaborate gating systems simply aren’t necessary. Commanders need time to develop, there’s often times when there aren’t enough commanders, and most commanders will have some off days.

That said, you could introduce mechanisms for commanders to distinguish themselves, whether with tag colours, commander ranks, or simply a public achievement tracker that lets the player see what a commander has done. None of this I believe to be high priority, though.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

I think the problem isn’t one of utility – people get the idea – but of trust. On our world for example, the ‘official’ TS server (which was nothing of the kind of course, but I digress) turned out to be run by a scammer who was using it to harvest personal details.

In terms of getting people on board, other than the trust issue there are two main points:

• Don’t spam the TS server address repeatedly, don’t abuse players for not using TS. That’ll just make people determined not to use it.
• Emphasise that you don’t need to talk, and in fact you don’t even need to own a microphone. Many people are uncomfortable talking to strangers on the internet, but would be happy to listen only (it’s basically no different from internet radio or a Youtube commentary at that point).

I think it’s important to make the information available. Since the most reliable way to get a lot of people on TS seems to be by posting the address constantly, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I definitely agree that people shouldn’t try to push TS on others though, I understand there are perfectly legitimate reasons for not using it and it’s shameful to belittle someone for not using it. Of course if you can’t use TS, you should respect a commander’s wishes if they only want people on TS following them.

I think the best way to get people to use TS is to make it fun. What brought me into playing this game more was coming across people who were lighthearted and had a sense of humour about the whole business of WvW, that may not appeal to the most hardcore (who will have their own voice comms anyways) but I believe it will draw in the broadest group of players.

Latinkuro.9420:

- The self proclaimed real WvW players say rewards don’t matter it’s enough for me kill players that’s how I have fun, the chest is just icing on the cake.
- The casual WvW players wanna see some proper rewards for time spent, killing is fun but getting properly rewarded adds more fun.

As a fellow WvW player pointed out to me, if the chest had good rewards, it just wouldn’t be WvW. It’d be a disgrace, frankly.

Yes!

I’m a dedicated WvW player, but I’ve been on a hiatus for several months. I returned to discover that there was a WvW season achievement, but having only a week and not much time in my schedule left to play, I didn’t think I’d get it. I made some decent progress in a couple of days so I decided to blitz it in one marathon session, played about 12 hours on my day off and managed to get it.

The rewards might be light, but I’ll treasure my Mini Bessie and the title. I was in it for the thrill of the hunt and crossing off the T’s, it was amusing to play WvW with thoroughly selfish goals. It was also nice to be able to finish a meta, which I’ve stopped doing for a long time now. I was even a bit naughty and turned my tag on in EB for an hour when another commander signed off to make sure I got my last three SM caps for the achievement.

I am sure it may not have been so easy on other servers, but the whole ‘7 weeks to complete it’ view is nonsense, I think it was a nice incentive to bring in some new players. Those who enjoyed WvW will stay, and thankfully those who were in it only for the rewards will move on.

Now, if only Mini Bessie would carry some supplies for me, I get tired lugging that stuff around!

Manuelito.6081:

TheMAC.1582:

Manuelito.6081:

Maskaganda.2043:

LampGhost.9658:

Bergflo.3867:

Yh, you really wanted that… we could feel that. GJ and thx for bringing ur lootbags in anyway and thx for founding PT. I really like to stomp you guys.

Bergflo.3867:

Yh our commander needed to go off and so we were even more unorganized in your last pushed as usual, otherwise we would have tried to give you a proper fight for sure.

It’s allright! there’s no shame in being proud of getting a lot of lootbags with siege when you’re barely able (or dare?) to properly fight us!

I get my daily ambient killer achievement killing PT guys. True story.

PT gets golden dolly finisher in exchange. True story.

Little things please little minds

…said the fox who could not catch the grapes.

That is not what the fox says.

aspirine.6852:

Deso played it smart and they won. They deserve congratulations without the whining on how they play. :/

Yes, they do deserve our congratulations. I’ve personally take it a step further than that.

In view of the magnificent accomplishments of Desolation’s mighty warriors, capturing first place in the esteemed Silver League, I’ve built a shrine in my home to the Gods of Desolation. In fact, this is my first time posting in a matchup thread this season, given that the very passing of one of Desolation’s brave soldiers makes me tremble with fear. In the center of this shrine I’ve fixed the image of an Omega golem. On the wings are the images of a gate torn asunder and the cast down bodies of those weak Veteran Guards who were unable to defend my own home server. I keep the candles on the shrine lit like so many scouts through the night, so that it glows in the dark of night, and when I pass it during the day, its magnificence leaves me humbled.

To this shrine I bring an offering each night to safeguard Desolation’s embattled fighters. Last night it was a dead squirrel. Tonight it’ll be a pigeon. I’m hoping to find a rat for tomorrow.

I believe that this experience that has brought us in contact with the ultimate victors in the Silver League must be commemorated, and I urge all my fellow players to do their part to honour these individuals from Desolation who follow a higher calling in their play. There can be no doubt that their total domination has been won through true excellence in strategy, tactics, and sheer prowess in all aspects that constitute this game that is World vs. World.

This was the right way to implement it and I’m glad it’s finally coming into effect.