Guild Wars 2

I still have major concerns about the impact adding a zone of this type will have on servers who’s population numbers are currently struggling. I can see the benefit it offers to those who have constant overflows, but there are real potential negatives to implementing this at a time when it will dilute the spread of people in WvW even further and, probably, be considerably less fun on those servers where overflows are non-existent. I also worry that it will be yet another incentive for people to flock from low pop servers to high ones.

Ideally, they need to merge servers or come up with a better solution to populations. Minimally, I think these maps need to be untethered from servers and fill from all servers on queues until overflow conditions are met. Let’s work toward evening the play experience and make it fun for those on all servers – not just those in the top 4-5 populated servers.

DevonCarver.5370:

Sticking to the lines of transfers, what are reasonable restrictions to place on players after they transfer? No WvW for the rest of the match? No WvW for 24 hours? Would that help any or would it actually exacerbate the problem?

When transferring to higher ranked server, I think restrictions have to be multifold and palpably punitive. At minimum, blocked from WvWing for at least one week. I would also add some kind of PVE ramifications – something along the lines of temporarily (and significantly) reducing magic find on a sliding scale based on how high ranked the server you are transferring to is.

Likewise, I would look at rewarding people who choose to transfer to lower population/ranked servers – no cost at minimum (possibly even giving people gems who transfer to low population/losing servers) and a temporary increase in magic find in PVE and WvW.

akanibbles.6237:

styx.7294:

I think this would be a fantastic and fresh change for season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcO6Xo8eJ8

Where instead of 3 servers fightin the servers are split by 3 colours and fight each other with WvW guesting allowed to servers within your colour.

this please. excellent refreshing concept. ++++++++++++

This seems like the perfect solution to the issue. It would really level the playing field, give everyone a chance to see different aspects of WvW and probably eliminate queues on every server.

Win Win Win.

The one thing I would add to the conversation about future living story steps is that I would like to see them avoid what happened with Tequatl post event.

While it is ambitious to design a fight for 80+ coordinated players, it isn’t practical or enjoyable for the majority of players, especially on lower population servers (please dont make our only option be to guest).

In my opinion, the lower threshold for scaling for anything shouldn’t be higher than 20 players (up to as many players can fit in a zone for the upper level scale). That way, even if events arent something done regularly (during or after an actual living story event step), organized guild groups (or just random groups formed in chat) can still tackle and enjoy the content.

And many of us are extremely happy with the 2 week cadence for releases. Im glad to hear you are staying the course on that.

Population imbalance doesn’t have to be a thing at all.

I know it isn’t a simple shift, but I would like to see GW2 move toward invalidating the idea of a home server when it comes to accessing parts of the game. There are three things they would need to do to accomplish this (probably more, but these are the three I can think of) -

1. Share guild influence and boosts between members across all servers.
2. Completely remove all server transfer costs and cooldowns from the game.
3. Establish a way of determining WvW teams that has nothing to do with servers.

The third is obviously the sticking point. I’ve seen some great ideas in this post. If one could be implemented that didnt potentially separate friends from playing (which is happening now, btw – with friends on different servers), then it would make every aspect of the game more fun.

To put it simply, server choice shouldnt matter in this game for anything. A new player choosing Eradon Terrace or Henge of Denravi as their home server should have the same fun game experience that a new player choosing Jade Quarry or Tarnished Coast does. At most server choice should be about who you want to hang out with in Lion’s Arch.

I know it would take work, but it would add longevity to the game, even the playing field (eliminate population imbalance) and make sure EVERY player in the game has the same access to enticing and fun gameplay, regardless of which server they choose.

Empty(ier) servers are a bigger issue than servers that are “too full.” Until something is done to improve QoL/competition on those servers hurting for people, they have no business worrying about servers that have long queues.

People getting away from long queues on full servers is one of the only reasons smaller servers can even hope for new WvW blood. If anything, the queues on the most populated servers need to be longer.

If your problem is long queues, then just transfer to a different server. There are plenty out there that have shorter or even no queues that could use the people.

Its hard to have sympathy for these posts as long as there is even one server with little or no queue.

Unfortunately, until a real plan is in place to deal with severely underpopulated servers, the end result of this will most likely be, at best, the introduction of more content that is only relevant to a smaller percentage of players and, at worst, actually damaging to the enjoyment of the game for many (by draining even more people away from low pop servers).

For those on lower servers, it makes it kinda hard to get excited about this announcement.

I also worry considerably about the impact this will have on low population servers. Currently, the biggest incentive for a guild to move from kitten a low population server is to avoid queues. This removes that incentive.

Lower population servers are where the most help is needed right now – in both WvW and PVE. With the current trend toward content designed only for huge groups of people (Tequatl being the example on the PVE side and this on the WvW side), everyone is going to want to play on very high populated servers.

Rather than come up with a new map that gives high populated servers something to do in WvW during their 10 minute queue, I would rather see development effort toward helping lower populated servers get more enjoyment out of the game – maybe through linking lower pop servers together for WvW (and maybe for less populated PVE maps as well) so that we have the numbers to enjoy the content in the same ways the higher tiers do (then you can worry about addressing overflow issues for EVERYONE).

Right now, the experience between playing on a high populated server and a low populated one is too different. Get us all to the same level, and then worry about things like this.

1. PVE Class Balance
2. World and group event scaling (specifically on lower population servers)
3. New Guild Mission Types

1. Better balance between direct damage and support/condition damage stats (reduce efficacy of power/crit damage – improve non-direct damage stats – fix issues with condi stacking and inability to damage environmental objects).

2. More dungeon paths like Twilight Assault (far and above better than any other dungeon in the game imo).

3. Realistic scaling of world events (80 people for an event like Tequatl is too high for many servers, especially now that the LS step is over – if it scaled down to 20 – while remaining challenging – more guilds would feel comfortable porting down there more often).

4. New guild missions and guild mission types

5. Better dispersion of “mission-critical” abilities to all professions, specifically reflect walls/bubbles and instant AOE rezzes (e.g. warrior banner rez), both of which can invalidate many fights.

I’ll add my voice to the praise as well. While I’m glad there are mindless zerg paths in the game for those that want them, I think dungeons really shine when the group has to work together to get past obstacles. It gives a sense of teamwork and can pull a group (even of pugs) together. Did this dungeon four times last night just because I enjoy that aspect of the game so much.

More like this in the future, please.

Between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. eastern the last two nights, game has gone from running perfectly to experiencing unplayable lag.

If people guesting to your server is becoming an issue, grab large groups of friends and guest to some of the lower pop servers – where you can then expand your circle of friends.

The idea that a “server” kills the boss is a concept we all need to get away from. Outside of WvW, it should be the GW2 community. If you have subsets within that community (your guild and friends list), coordinate with them to find an emptier server (there are a few) where you can take on the Tequatl challenge together – like I said, you may even make new friends in the process. With guesting, its free and easy.

Coordinate with your friends and you will find a place you can all play together on this fight pretty easily.

The only thing that needs to be changed is the removal of the griefable turrets. Even a few people not coordinating or, worse yet, griefing, ruin the fight for everyone else and make it impossible to finish.

There have to be mechanics for dealing with scales and poison clouds that don’t present this issue – while still requiring some coordination from at least a percentage of the population (maybe turrets people can run/place for poison clearing and dart guns for the scales – with the boxes the turrets and guns are in requiring protection just as the current fixed emplacements do now).

As it is, the only solution is to identify people who are willing to (and know how to) do it right and convince them to camp/sit on the turrets for a couple of hours til Tequatl spawns again.

This single mechanic seems to be the biggest hurdle many servers are having – and it isnt because they arent up to the fight – its because they cannot reliably control who is working the stationary turret guns.

Shiren.9532:

LostInSmoke.2590:

People that are actually on that server should take priority over guests. Guests should get kicked off server if its full, to make room for people on that server.

Why should someone on a low population server (say Devona’s Rest for example) be deprived of a chance to fight with a large group just because they have to guest? Do we need even more reasons to abandon lower population servers?

It should be first come first serve.

Fully agree. The server you are on shouldnt have such a huge impact on your enjoyment of the game – and the unfortunate truth is that not all servers will have the numbers to consistently field teams at tequatl.

The only option for those wanting to actually see the latter phases of the fight shouldnt be to have to transfer – guesting is a legitimate part of the game and is there for a reason. Were all playing the same game.

(I havent guested yet – still hoping to be able to help my server get to at least 75% health, but if numbers start to wan at the event due to people getting fed up with not even getting to the more interesting mechanics, I may not have a choice but to do so).

I think upping the timer is a valid approach. It wouldn’t take anything away from those who are able to complete it in 15 minutes (they could even add an achievement and/or title for doing so) while still giving every server – even the smaller, less organized ones – the chance to see the latter phases of the fight without having to resort to guesting. Win-win.

Im not saying it is the hard truth, but alot of players in PVE have the perception that the metagame is focused around three things -

1. direct damage
2. reflection walls and bubbles
3. occasionally useful utility traits that can invalidate fight mechanics (most notably mesmer portal)

Anything else is seen as superfluous and, by some, as a detriment to the group. It’s why you see all of the requests for (and complaints about) groups wanting just warriors, mesmer and guardians (with the occasional thief).

Ive seen friends playing an engineer or necro (and playing them well) told outright they are arent welcome in lvl 30+ fractals.

To achieve balance in dungeon/fractals play, this perception has to first be changed, specifically -

1. direct damage needs to be equalized across all professions and there probably needs to be some detriment to bringing multiple glass cannon direct damage dealers to a group (other than just everyone has to dodge more).

2. condition damage can be strong, but suffers from extreme diminishing returns when you have more than 1 or 2 condition based classes in a group (due to the stack limits) or you have environmental walls, turrets, etc that dont take condition damage. Condition damage builds need to be just as viable in groups as direct damage (even when you have multiple condition damage classes).

3. As much as we love them, a line needs to be drawn on “must have” utilities such as reflection walls and portals. Either every profession needs access to them or no profession should have them. Bringing a specific profession, such as a mesmer or guardian, because they perform one task leads to exclusionary practices.

Finally, as many have said, the meta itself is out of balance right now. It looks like support builds are getting much needed help – it would be nice to see control get some of the same love – to bring the “soft trinity” they discussed at launch (damage, support, control) into actual play.

I still love this game, but it worries me when I see people I like to play alongside excluded because they want to play an engineer or other profession that isnt guardian, mesmer, warrior.

The new Tequatl looks awesome and seems like a huge step in the right direction for open world content (which is where this game can really shine, imo).

What has me most intrigued/curious, however, is the following:

“We’ve adjusted all of our bosses to make them more challenging and fun! From the Megadestroyer to Golem Mark II to the Fire Elemental, bosses in Tyria are more dangerous than ever!”

I would really like more information about exactly what they mean by “adjusted.” Is it simply changing boss stats or have new mechanics been added to some of these fights?

ArenaNet is faced with a bit of a catch-22 here. How do you reward winning servers without also incentivizing people to move from lower ranked servers to those winning servers?

There has to be some kind of palpable reason for people to move to the servers that lose each season that in some way offset the prestige rewards offered to the winning servers. At minimum, the bottom ranked servers in each region (NA, Europe) should have free transfers to that server up until the next season starts – with transfers to the winning servers blocked completely during that same time period.

Without that balance, they risk ending up with the vast majority (more than now) of serious wvwers concentrated into a smaller and smaller number of “winning” servers – with all others offering an experience that is considerably less fun than it is now.

Like many other responders so far, I am really enjoying the living story.

Stay the course, Anet.

If champion boxes dropped as rewards from completing "group events’ rather than simply dropping from champions, it would solve a few issues -

1. People would “farm” events rather than the champions themselves, encouraging them to actually complete events rather than delay them
2. It would reward people for tackling challenging events that may not include champion mobs
3. It would reward groups of all sizes for these events (rather than encouraging people to form zergs)

As for champions not associated with group events, they would probably need to be looked at and have events added to them.

As far as champions in dungeons, I could see that one going either way (making every champion an event vs just not having them drop the champ boxes). Dungeons, with the gold+specific token rewards, are pretty profitable already.

I think this is a very reasonable request.

Arah Path 1 has some of the more interesting fights in the game right now, but the scarcity of waypoints in this dungeon makes it more frustrating than fun.

Threads like this are dangerous. We get too many people yelling “why are you playing favorites with XYZ race/profession/zone/etc,” and developers will start to feel obligated to contrive or rotate watered down storylines to suit everyone rather than focusing on well knit narratives.

I understand the desire for players to feel a racial or class-based connection to the story going on, but I dont want to see that desire get in the way of creative storytelling.

Not sure if this would even be possible but -

Implement a feature similar to the custom sPvP arenas – let us purchase a custom mini-game arena that we can set to play alongside friends or open to the public. Guilds (and other groups) could have their own little southsun survival or kegbrawl matches – and ArenaNet could profit off of it similar to the currently available custom sPvP arena setup.

The 2-week unlock for it drops for free off of alot of the fights down below, so if you arent willing to pay for it with gems, hold out a bit – chances are you will get one.

We said the same thing about Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat – and they are coming back in the form of fractals.

Our job is to make sure that ArenaNet knows the elements of the game that we love the most and encourage them to do the same – ie, bring them back in some more permanent form in the future.

As an example, when I saw the group fight areas in the lower area of Queen’s Jubilee, my first thought was – that concept would be perfect for a new kind of guild mission (admitting that, of course, I haven’t actually played any of the new content yet).

As for the individual arena fights (six upper domes), it seems it fills a role currently unmet in any current permanent game features. Its too early to tell, but it would be something I could see myself wanting access to long term.

So, as we see these things, let’s make our specific interests known – rather than just saying “temporary content sucks” (not that the OP said that in any form.

Removing the queue/cap = issues with culling and group size

Instancing = upsetting people who dont like instances (see above) and spectator issues

Queuing = short wait time

etc, etc, etc

Sometimes (read – almost always), even the best solutions are far from perfect – and someone somewhere will be unhappy.

These activities sound like insane fun, but i realize there are always limitations to what can be done – and I trust they will adjust if it is needed to make it more accessible/fun/etc.

I see a ton of complaining (from the same people over and over) but no one proposing a better way to do it.

IMO, it’s way too early to be concerned. Let’s see how it plays out in game first.

Looks like a nice summary/way to keep caught up on what is going on at a glance.

Thanks for this link.

If the Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat are an indication of how they plan to design future dungeons (and, more importantly – revamp existing dungeons), then I have no concern – the future is bright.

That said, I think there are several mechanics they can incorporate more often to make dungeons more fun and engaging.

The two things that could be improved are a. how much teamwork is required to down a boss and b. the need for player reaction in fights (outside of simply dodging out of a red circle).

For teamwork, I would point to the last fight in the dredge fractal, Mai Trin, the Taskmaster in SE path 2 or Ghost Eater as prime examples.

For reactive fights, the best examples are Giganticus Lupicus, the last boss in SE Story, and War Minister Shukov in SE path 2.

To the point of CCs – yes, I would like to see them have a greater impact on dungeon fights, but there are other mechanics they could take advantage of as well – environmental levers/weapons, player placement, boss placement (kiting and keeping a boss in/away from a particular area), the need for target switching, add management.

While there is a place for “dps boss while avoiding red circles,” I would like to see more diversity in the fights.

Finally, the one thing I don’t like is dungeons that are obviously designed for pugs who never type or talk to one another. While there is a place for that kind of gameplay, I would love to see at least 2 of the 3 paths in each dungeons designed for actual team gameplay (note that I am not saying anti-PUG, but rather anti- "PUGS who refuse to communicate).

Im very happy with the current direction of the game, but if I were hard pressed to make a list -

- New Dynamic Event chains and open world mini-dungeons (open world should be priority in this game, imo)

- Revamp of the dungeons – specifically focused on making more difficult paths (at least one) in each.

- More guild mission types, including large scale, complex boss fights

- More Fractals

- Continuation and evolution of the living story system

- Trending away from zerker/DPS focused content

I love most of the mini games, and think their plan moving forward (rotating mini games) is a good one that allows these games to coexist beside the more visceral content (dungeons, DEs, etc).

I say keep throwing mini games at us – as long as they come alongside dungeons, DEs, story quests, JPs, fractals and all of the other goodies we love.

Something for everyone (with optional achievements tagged onto each game element) – hard to argue with that.

I think the Living Story model of content is a great idea and, for the most part, I’ve enjoyed what they have put out so far.

I also think we really haven’t seen its full potential yet. I look at the early months/chapters as testing the waters to see what will and won’t work. I look forward to where they can go with this model (which I much prefer to the “all at once” expansion model).

I think people just need to be a little patient – continue to provide feedback (reasonable, thought out feedback) about what we enjoy and what we think could be improved – and we will see some pretty amazing things.

Mobile barrier – Erect a small wall at the engineer’s location with X health that stops enemies from passing without first destroying the wall.

Dispersion Turret – A turret that can be targeted by friendly players that turns any single target attack into an AOE – cloning the effects and spreading them to 5 enemies in X range.

Visage Swap – player takes on the form of one opponent and opponent takes on the form of the mesmer for X seconds. Other enemies can then attack their ally (who looks like the mesmer) and ignore the player for a few seconds (basically, drop aggro).

This is awesome news. These are (in my opinion) two of the best dungeon experiences we’ve seen in the game and should make outstanding fractal maps.

I think this is an indication of how much ArenaNet listens to players. People complained about living story not having a palpable impact on the world – the election definitely does that. People complained about the removal of minigames – were getting a permanent rotation of “popular” minigames. People complained about no permanent content – were getting one of the two most popular dungeons back as a fractal.

I think people have been a little quick to dismiss the living story. I only see a bright future for this game as they perfect the LS and find new ways to continually update the world we game in.

Unfortunately, with any modern game you play – especially an MMO – there will always be a percentage of the playerbase that will experience a sub-par experience due to purely technical reasons.

Developers have to draw a line somewhere – balancing between delivering a fun game and making it technically accessible to as many people as possible. Given that most of the people you see are not having these issues, I think they have succeeded.

At the same time, it is sad that some people – due to either their connection, their geographic location or their network – will have these issues. Unfortunately, if developers tried to cater to everyone in these situations, the only MMOs left would be 8-bit side scrollers and online card games.

It took a while, but I beat him legit. Only real advice I can give is to watch his patterns. I found that by leading with water (which he immediately interrupts) and saving the Sylvari master ability until late in the match is the best way to go.

Maybe they should make the reward from the final boss in these event chains scale based on player participation in the DEs leading up to that event.

Djemo.7153:

Well for there sake and ours lets hope these 2 week patches actually bring something worthy of note for other classes veeery soon.
Fingers crossed for some living light armor for the Necros to look kitten.

I wouldnt worry about the Necro. Halloween is just a few months away. If it’s anything like last year, you will have plenty of armor options for the necro (I love my shoulders and weapon skins from last year). Combined with the stuff from Arah and weapon drops like Reach of Zhaitan and crafted items like Eye of Rodgort, I think the necro is covered better than most professions.

Seems to be happening to everyone.

I think it has something to do with the PvP login servers. The list of matches is empty for me and I cannot access/see my custom arena.

Logged in to do some pvp and my custom arena is gone. Went to the regular list of matches and the list is empty. Click “Play Now” still takes me to a match. Additionally, I keep getting a pop up message about log in servers being down (but Im in the game at the time).

Most concerned about the custom arena as that is something we spend real world money on.

spoj.9672:

Buttercup.5871:

It’s a no-brainer. It’s the dominion of the winds.
There’s even a tengu in the picture, I think. Look close.
Edit: make that two tengu. One is wearing very funky armor.

Thats a charr and a tengu.

That might be a Chick-fil-a billboard.

In response to the OP – my vote is for Dominion of the Winds, or at least the first step in that direction.

I dont think we’ve really seen the new way of doing things in action yet. It’s worth waiting to see how it turns out quality wise. With overlapping teams, they should be able to keep the pace without rushing anything.

I have high hopes for the every 2 week cycle. As someone adroitly stated above, I would rather have fresh content every 2 weeks and risk missing something than have content every 1-2 months and end up sitting around with nothing new to do.

Agree that GW2 is the best MMO ever made – and is getting better with every update.

MMOs, however, are gauged differently from other games. While single player games are usually judged on their entertainment value at launch, an MMO is judged by what it offers players TODAY. Its a pretty demanding standard to live up to.

I think ArenaNet has the systems, resources and funding in place to keep the game amazing on a day to day basis well into the future, but – as with any MMO – only time will tell.

With that in mind, for the foreseeable future, GW2 is my MMO of choice.

I think alot of people are getting tied up in the semantics and missing the big picture.

The way I understand this video blog and other recent posts, there are now four dedicated teams responsible for adding in new content and “adapting” existing content every two weeks. That can include everything from changing something in a current dungeon to adding new DEs to new minigames.

I think people see the phrase “living story” and think “oh, that’s what we saw at the start of the Flame and Frost event” – which was the first time Anet used the term. My understanding is that these teams will be responsible for alot more than just adding in a few scopes and mini-instances. I dont expect the living story to look like the first weeks of F&F, but rather to look more like the current state of Aetherblade events or the latter weeks of the Southsun events (both of which I loved) – with potentially changes to every aspect of the game.

I find this approach exciting. Every step in the living story (F&F, Southsun, Dragonbash, Aetherblades) has been slightly more detailed and better than the last. If they continue to improve on the process and keep up the aggressive pace they’ve outlined, it should make for a (continued) great game.

I think the other concern is that people believe that, just because they have these 4 teams, that everything else will be ignored. First, based on recent statements by Anet, there isnt much that the Living Story teams wont touch (including exisiting dungeons). Second, it sounds like there will always be QA, balance, etc teams working alongside the LS teams.

Im excited for what they can potentially accomplish with this system. The game isn’t perfect, but I (and many others, apparently) really like the direction they are taking.

Absolutely still love the game, but there are a couple of little things I would like to see addressed -

1. Lack of guild management tools, most specifically an in game event calendar.

2. The strength/viability of pure dps builds compared to support and control builds is too great. There is little reason to roll anything other than pure dps.

3. World encounters, especially large scale fights, should be tougher.