Guild Wars 2

What I really want is an in-game calendar that allows people to better organize events and let people sign up if they plan to attend.

I think even the people who run it over and over every day realize that it is way too easy/exploitable for an explorable dungeon path and that its days are numbered.

It is true that people will always seek out the path of least resistance. However, when the path of least resistance is so mind numblingly easy and fast – yes, action needs to be taken.

At the same time, I think it is worth exploring why people run it so often and what take-aways can be incorporated into the greater game design. I think the one that really sticks out for me is “time versus reward versus fun factor” balance. If you compare CoF1 with something like SE Path 2 – the boss fights in SE Path 2 are much more complex and fun than COF 1, but fewer people (by a large factor) see the fights in SE path 2. This is because the trash in SE Path 2 makes them borderline painful to traverse. No one wants to spend 2.5 hours in a dungeon slogging through the same trash pulls over and over just to get to the more interesting boss fights.

Yes, COF needs to be changed – even the most diligent runners must see that. However, there are lessons to be learned on the design side as well – most dungeon paths (especially those with more interesting bosses) need to be shortened to varying degrees by removing the more monotonous waves of adds.

The second area is in rewards earned. On this one, I am of the school that EVERY activity in the game should offer similar rewards with unique activities (such as dungeons) offering unique rewards. In other words, ideally, 1 hour in a dungeon should offer the same gold reward as 1 hour doing dynamic events – only with dungeons offering unique tokens/lodestones and DEs offering karma. I know this is hard to accomplish, but it would make every aspect of the game more enticing and lessen the impact of something like COF path 1 on the economy.

For the record, I think this same system could be extended to every aspect of the game – including things like Keg Brawl (adding monetary rewards for participation and unique gear – possibly town clothes in the form of football uniforms). That way, it doesnt matter what you are doing in game – you still earn on par with everyone else but there are still unique incentives to do more unique activities like dungeons.

I think people are overreacting.

A few points -

1. According to the reports, it will be a new trait type, meaning not everyone will have it. You will have make a conscious decision to be a “boon buster.”

2. By selecting a trait that does this, you will, most likely, have to compromise some other aspect of your build – i.e. make a choice to be stronger in one aspect while weakening yourself in another.

3. The “improved damage per boon” is just one example. Another trait could just as easily be “gain 1 second of aegis for every boon on the enemy you hit” or “summon a jagged horror for every unique boon on your target.”

4. We haven’t even seen how this is going to be implemented yet. There is a lot they could do with this – and it will probably mean more choices for character builds, which is good thing. The reality is, we dont know.

Guesting serves a very important role – It equalizes the experience for all players regardless of their home server. I think people forget that the old system had issues as well – the largest and most potentially devastating of which was a lack of people at events on lower pop servers.

If you have to pick which of these two situations is best, the benefits of the current overflow system far outweighs the real past and potential future negatives that come with locking everyone off in disparate population servers.

That isnt saying the current system isnt without its flaws/is perfect – just that the solution isnt to turn the clock back and remove guesting.

I like the idea that someone posted about making the dragon/boss spawn timers universal between regular and overflow servers.

New Ghost Eater gets my vote as well – the new mechanics are alot of fun – even though Giganticus Lupicus and Kholer arent far behind.

Additionally, there will always be a place in my heart for Test Subject Alpha and Sure Shot Seamus. The first times I met those two particular bosses stick out clearly in my mind.

My guild runs SE alot. There are some really interesting fights in SE, especially in the “free the prisoners” path. As far as why people don’t, I know alot of people arent fans of the armor. Imo, it looks best on asura (little stormtroopers) or Charr (charr engineers in all SE gear with a flamethrower looks awesome), which are two of the less played races.

As far as not liking the dredge, they are my favorite opponents on my mesmer. Equip arcane thievery and null field and watch the group eat through them in no time. Without their boons, they are pushovers. If you dont have a mesmer (or a necro with wells), simply focus down the disaggregators to eliminate the gongs.

One really easy change that would make them much more friendly to lower level guilds would be to allow us to do guild bounty level 1 multiple times a week and have each count toward the guild merit cap. That way, we could still meet the cap each week, even though it would take us longer than a large guild. As it is, we have to do at least one lvl 2 or 3, which are FAR less friendly to small guilds, or not cap merits for the week.

Other than that, my guild is loving the guild bounty missions.

Engineer – Build Barrier. Remember the destructible snow walls in the pvp event at Christmas that allies could pass through but enemies could not – similar but with a different model.

Mesmer – Mirror Visage. Cause your enemy to look like your character and take friendly fire – causing its allies to attack it.

Necromancer – Corpse explosion (including dead players in wvw to eliminate corpse spies and mesmers waiting to rez/drop portals).

Ranger – Activate Pet Elite. Would activate a unique pet ability based on your pet choice- eg, hounds sniff out stealthed targets and traps, birds fly (teleport) over obstacles to attack, etc

Guardian – Negate Magic. Just like it sounds, it would destroy existing magic fields (including mesmer portals and necro marks in wvw).

My small guild did guild bounties for the first time last night and I have now never been happier with the game.

Going in, I had some trepidation and alot of the same concerns voiced in this thread. We are a small guild and exploring even two zones seemed daunting – so we asked for help. Our first step in each map was to ask in map chat if anyone had seen our bounty target. This allowed us to find our targets more easily (we did tier one bounties 3 times, so six targets) and enticed more people to the fight.

It also had a secondary effect. During the course of the night, my small guild gained four new members and formed an informal bounty alliance with two other small to mid sized guilds. It was AWESOME.

The one change I would recommend is scaling the time to find the bounties up a little – maybe to 20 or even 30 minutes – for the tier two and three bounties. It would make them more feasible for smaller guilds. Even relying on map chat, I could see some RNG issues related to the hunt (and we refuse to resort to pre-hunting targets – that seems incredibly boring).

Again, had great fun with the guild last night and made some new friends – win/win.

Misty Red Rose.9320:

Here’s a wild suggestion for the developers at anet. I’m not sure if it’s even doable, but it would help small and even medium guilds complete their missions. It might also help solve the issue of other guilds swooping in and killing a target before guild members who activated the event even have a chance to hit the boss.

When a guild activates a bounty, why not have it appear in the window the way other events do where you’re near them. They would only appear in the window of the guild who activated the bounty. Something like “Bounty Hunt! Prisoner 1411 was last seen swimming south in Bloodfin Lake” and “Poobado was last spotted near Wizard’s Fief” would pop up in every active member’s screen. Yes, members would still have to map and find them, but even a small guild of 6-7 players online could do it, and they would have a chance to get to the boss before some other guild swooped in and killed them, because there wouldn’t be any reason for a guild to sit and watch that particular boss.

Just a suggestion.

We have a medium sized guild and we did the 2 tier boss bounty twice and everyone loved it . Yet, it did require some coordination and we had at least 30 players each time. I’d hate to see so many GW 2 lovin players be locked out of many of these missions.

This sounds like a good idea to me. Love the guild missions, but having to babysit every single boss before the mission is boring, disproportionately difficult for mid sized guilds – and it feels contrived. An event pane or more precise information about the bounty’s location would make them much more fun – focusing the activity more on the fight while still leaving some of the hunt in (without making it impossible for smaller groups).

Support this poster’s idea alot.

This is still happening. Happened today to us twice.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We had them in story before launch, but what we found is that we couldn’t strike a balance between the amount we give for completing story mode, and the difficult difference. Our feedback was that rather than face the challenge of Explorable dungeons, high skill groups would just afk faceroll the much easier story mode content for the guaranteed smaller token amount. We tried several things, but couldn’t strike the balance, so we removed tokens from story mode as a reward and put them into explorable mode only as a reward.

I agree with this in spirit, but isnt this exactly what people are doing in COF path 1 now – afk facerolling easy content to farm tokens.

Interesting points from the OP. I think the constant balance to provide challenging content for hardcore players while not leaving more casual gamers behind is a tricky one to tackle.

The progression system in fractals seems like a step in the right direction and a good way to address the issue. It gives everyone access to the content, while still offering more hardcore players more of a challenge – with a slight reward for doing so (faster access to ascended gear and fractal weapons).

I also think it is a perspective issue. Power progression is so important in most other popular MMOs – to the point where it is the most important aspect of the game. While there is some power progression in GW2, it isnt the core premise of the game. Getting full exotic gear at 80 is simple. After that, everything is optional (VERY VERY slight bump with ascended trinkets and cosmetic changes to your character). Players (even hardcore) who take the idea of “fastest power progression possible” out of their mindset, have much more fun in the game. The game then becomes about experiencing the world of Tyria for casuals and seeing how hard they can push themselves (specifically in fractals and PvP) for hardcores.

The biggest concern I have is small PVE guilds remaining competitive as it pertains to recruitment and retention.

By placing the first mission at Rank 5 in Art of War, a tier dedicated to WvW in the past (and thus, something many small PVE guilds may have ignored completely up to this point), you are ensuring that smaller guilds who dont have deep wells of influence will not have access to these missions for some time to come – while huge guilds do right away (and will thus become more enticing recruitment-wise).

I understand the need to partition the content and make it something guilds – even small guilds – have to work for. It just seems that the requirements for the initial mission – specifically rank 5 in Art of War – may end up hurting small PVE guilds considerably right off the bat.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Each guild mission type becomes available through an upgrade that is researched in the guild tech tree. The first one is Guild Bounties, which does require Art of War level 5.

This makes me sad. My guild is primarily PVE, so we havent really leveled anything in Art of War (which includes mostly WvW upgrades). We are a mid-sized guild and were really looking forward to guild missions next week – but it looks like it will be considerably longer before we can do these missions.

The initial barrier to entry seems prohibitively high – especially for PVE guilds that didnt care about Art of War in the past.

Also, like others, the other chain we haven’t completed is politics lvl 5 (because there was nothing there). Any chance you could let us know if any of the other mission types will require maxing out that line?

Smaller guilds are going to need some love. Im not worried about mine, because we are pretty tight knit, but I could see these changes as a guild killer for some other small guilds – which would be a shame.

Love everything else Im seeing about guild missions, btw.

jwaz.1908:

This game has more anti-farming codes than any other game I’ve ever played. I can understand why diminishing returns was used as a kind of “fail safe” against exploits and such, but now that most exploits and bugs have been fixed, it’s merely become a hindrance to the way many people want to play.
I always here Anet talking about how they want people to be able to play the way they want, but diminishing returns prevents those who want to farm for hours a day, or do dungeon speed runs with guild mates, from doing so, and caters to the casual players who are only able to get one once a day, or even once a week.
Instead of trying to prevent your player-base from playing gw2 too quickly, embrace those who have gotten ahead and find ways to keep their interest, rather than inhibiting their play-style.

Its extremely easy to avoid DR if you dont stand in the same 5 square foot area for hours/days on end – or run the exact same dungeon path (and we all know which path that is) 20 times a day.

Small price to pay to make it even a little bit harder for bots and exploiters.

I run alot of dungeons and have never once ran into DR. The key is to stop trying to exploit certain paths and actually expect to have to put out a little effort for the better rewards.

I have no problem with my members repping for multiple guilds – in fact, I encourage it. It builds stronger ties across the server. When I see members dual repping, the first thing I do is try to make friends with the guild leaders of the other guilds they are in.

The way I see it, it is the guild’s job to keep members interested, through helping each other out and large group activities – not the player’s job to grind out influence for the guild.

If a guild cannot do that for all members 100% of the time (which none can), then the best option is allowing players to rep multiple guilds. Its a great system as long as guild leaders are willing to work with it – rather than trying to block it.

To those saying “rep or we will kick you,” I would say, if you really want them repping that often, then give them a real reason (other than punitive) to rep all the time.

Sounds like something that would fit well in the Suggestions forum of this site.

I have no problem with the monthlies as they are, but I would like something like this even more. Good suggestion.

HoD is still very much alive and active in WvW. We have fewer people and we are a few tiers lower than we used to be, but WvW is more fun on the server today than it has ever been.

Yes I would. I play to overcome obstacles and have fun alongside friends – loot is a part of that, but not the primary impetus.

Loot is only one aspect of the fun found in the game. Im glad it’s there – getting that special drop or crafting that unique looking weapon is fun – but it isnt the primary reason I log in to play.

I think you are criticizing the concept, but ignoring the implementation. 95% of the tasks included in the daily are things you will complete naturally as part of any game day’s play – kill diversity (unless you grind the same DEs over and over), harvesting, completing dynamic events, rezzing allies (both players and NPCs), dodging, combo fields. These are all things that you will get by just playing the game. The two outliers would be crafting (which, with only 10 items required, literally takes less than 10 seconds) and underwater kills (which I kinda agree needs to be removed from rotation, but it doesn’t take long either, so its no big deal).

Its easy to look at the system from a macro perspective and say “They are telling us how to play,” but the reality is they are simply rewarding us for things we would be doing anyway – with some (VERY) minimal sidetracking (which is a good thing, because they can use it to encourage people to go to zones or do activities where they have planted unannounced game/story additions).

Outside of making it so trivial that it means absolutely nothing (get reward for simply logging in), the only alternative would be to remove the the daily reward system entirely. I dont think any of us want that.

I love the way the game is now, but there is one point that I agree with, and that is the amount of higher difficulty content.

The temples (especially Lyssa and Grenth) feel like a step in the right direction, but we could use more. Ideally, I would like to see more fights – in all zones – that require at least a portion (but not all) of the group to coordinate.

I have high hopes that the guild focused event chains the developers mentioned in a recent interview will scratch that particular itch.

Regardless, Im very happy with the current game. Ive been at “end game” for a long time now and still always find something I want to do (without resorting to an alt).

I agree that the cost to transfer to a lower population world could/should be lower, but the cost to transfer to a very high or full server should be prohibitively expensive. 90% of the population in 30% of the servers would be very bad for the game. A wide gap between the two costs is a great way to encourage population spread. Im sorry that some have ended up in a situation they dont find ideal, but this kind of system is needed to keep things at least a little balanced.

Finally, if your guild really cares about getting you to their server, there is a way to make that happen. Ask them to take up a collection and send you enough in game gold to cover at least part (if not all) of the transfer cost.

In the case of both the fractal changes and the new dailies, what ArenaNet has done is to give us more tools and ways to play/group with each other. With the planned evolution of the daily system, this will become even more evident.

From the OPs post, it sounds like the issue is how the community chooses to use those tools. If you have issues with how people form or behave in fractals, then be careful of who you go to fractals with. Don’t group with the people who kick people at the last boss or care about every tiny piece of gear the rest of the party is wearing.

From a guild perspective, these are all great changes. The fractal changes allow me to include more people in our fractal runs. The daily changes cause people to give a little more thought to things like dodging or combo fields, making them better players for it.

As is typical on the forums, you are playing a game of “what if” and inserting the worst possible variables into the equation – and then blowing things way out of proportion in hopes of making enough noise to aggravate a developer and get a response.

Every one I talk to in game loves the changes and see them as significant steps forward toward a game where we have more say in how we play, not less.

The new dailies really work for me.

I see the daily rotation now as a way to see the many different types of dailies we will get to choose from in the future and decide which I enjoy the most now. As people have stated, the new system is less monotonous and really takes no more time than the old system did. It may require a little more forethought, but not much (and that is a good thing).

I love that a few took people out of their comfort zone – namely the daily dodge and the combo kill dailies. A few of my guildees complained about them at first, but changed their minds after putting in a really minimal effort. Having to actually think about those things (even a little) will make people better players.

Loving everything about the patch.

Favorite changes are the downscaling tweaks (not feeling super super powered in lower zones), the “cant run from waypoints in combat” change (dungeons feel more challenging now) and the ability to do higher level fractals with lower fractal level guild members (makes it much easier to pull an organized group together).

Less noticeable on the forums (but definitely evident in game) are the positive effect the laurels, Orrian Jewelry Boxes and improved drops are having on the economy. I was able to easily get the last few corrupted lodestones I needed to craft my second Jormag’s Breath this afternoon. I wasnt expecting that to happen for weeks.

There are several reasons I see for using guesting

- You have friends on other servers (many people do due to guilds taking advantage of free transfers)

- If a particular zone on your server feels dead

- Someone organizes a “special event” on a particular server and uses a forum/other communication to invite people

- more easily find groups for fractals or dungeons

- to max out collection of Ori/other harvestable items (I dont see this as an exploit and doubt Anet does either)

- to catch dragon events/other DEs (temples, etc) when you miss them on your server

The last two, I suspect, are the reasons we are limited to 2 worlds max for guesting a day.

Overall, these are positive reasons and will only serve to widen/strengthen the GW2 community. I will play on my own server most of the time, but do see myself open to guesting. Great addition to the game, imo.

Bllade.1029:

Bllade.1029:

Oh boy… I thought we were doing better than this in our T7 threads the past couple weeks. Lets keep that chest thumping on the down-low if we can, mkay? All three servers have been variously winning or losing the last few weeks, no need to get all superiority complex in here.

Yeah, I thought so too; ‘till HoD starting pointing fingers at Darkhaven for “allying with GoM.” I’m just trying to address those accusations, that’s all. No superiority complex here, just cold hard facts. We don’t need to team up with another server to win. May be hard to swallow, but the truth seldom is.

You need to stop with this chest thumping garbage right now. First, we pride ourselves on being good sports. These kinds of posts just make us all look bad. This is the tier where we match off in honorable combat and keep things classy on the forums. Second (and not really bragging – just pointing out), you guys didn’t win the most recent match, so I don’t think you are really looking at all of the “cold hard facts” when you make these kinds of statements.

DH will probably win this week, but I dont see anyone giving up any time soon (its not in our nature). The early lead is a little more significant than the one you had last week. I dont care if its because you got alot of transfers or if its because you are organizing better (either is a good thing). The only thing that matters is that we keep the fighting fun and discourse classy.

Like Talia, Havik, Vallena and others here, I absolutely love calling HoD my home server.

I’ve been there since the first open beta weekend in May 2012 (we were one of the smaller servers during betas as well). In that first few days, I met a lot of new friends – most of whom are still active on Henge of Denravi today.

Where I didnt enjoy the WvW gameplay when the server was rolling over others, I feel much different now. The current match is still anyone’s game (at 11 eastern on Friday morning) with less than 900 points separating second and third places.

As for PVE, most zones feel alive now. Even in situations where there are fewer players, you see the players that are there grouping and inviting others to play alongside them. And they are respectful and friendly as they do so.

I can count on one hand the number of times Ive seen someone behave like an elitist on this server – and mot of those people left months ago.

I love it here.

ski.4927:

Thanks for the words, Kerithlan. For now we are leaning HoD, but the research continues.

Ski, if you guys are still leaning toward HoD, you would be very welcome here – and would find it fun and challenging. HoD is a great place to call home.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to whisper me in game – Blaeys.3102.

Thanks alot for this. Im getting ready to hop in the car and drive five hours for a business trip. Wasn’t looking forward to it.

This video made my morning

Blaeys, my sylvari mesmer, is a derivation of Bleys, the wizard who taught magic to Merlin in Arthurian legend (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Bleys).

In my guild, I not only “allow” people to represent other guilds, I encourage it when it makes sense. Its unreasonable to assume that one guild will offer everything every player wants.

I think having a few members who split their time helps to build community – rather than damage it. We recently developed stronger ties to another PvE guild on our server thanks to a member who was splitting his time between the two. The result was more people to group up with in organized dungeon groups and more people to call out to when the guild is playing in a particular zone, tackling a larger group Dynamic Event or invading a zone in WvW.

The key is for guild leaders to embrace the system and what it offers them – rather than fight against it by telling members they cannot rep multiple guilds.

As I said in the similar recent post by someone from SBI, I think you will find this is the best thing that could happen to your server. It happened to my server (Henge of Denravi) and the community we were left with was awesome – helpful, fun and very (VERY) loyal. It was the best thing that ever happened to us – by far.

Additionally, the past week in WvW has been the best and most fun (and closest score wise) we’ve ever seen (including compared to the days when we were dominating). The lower tiers are apparently where the real action in WvW is.

It sounds like the OP has the right attitude – look forward to the future and focus on the loyal community that remains behind. These are the real MVPs and powerhouse players in the game.

Figured I better throw my voice into this as well. Im the GM for Contemporary Heroes, one of the guilds listed above.

Ive been on Henge of Denravi since the first beta weekend in May 2012. I watched the rollercoaster that was WvW on the server and the subsequent transfers following dips.

The people we have on this server now are the best Ive met in any MMO community. From the beginning, I have never had to search for long periods to form a competent group for any activity in the game – whether it be a dungeon, a fractal, a temple raid, etc.

My absolute favorite thing about the server, though, is watching map chat when someone asks a question – no matter how simple it seems, there is always someone willing to help with an answer. There is none of the typical “google it” or “l2p” garbage you see in less friendly communities. You don’t see that very often, but it is indicative of the people we have and community we have built on this server. I really love it here.

mjharrison.3209:

War Machine tucking tail and leaving to farm PVEers in a lower tier is the root cause of SBI’s downfall. SBI had a great community, and while i don’t blame people for leaving because we’re no longer anywhere near our former strength, i’m sad to see it dying.

Trust me, you will probably be much happier with the community once those who wish to leave have left. It happened to my server and we are much happier now – the community is friendly and cooperative and the fights are much tighter/more fun than they were when we were in the so-called “top” (ie, more populated) tiers.

Once it starts, you only have a few options – transfer with the masses or learn to build on the strengths of the community that remains. The second option is much more rewarding and fun.

Chips,

As someone who has played on Henge of Denravi since the early beta days, I understand what is going on with your server.

Let me offer you this, however – It is probably the best thing that could possibly happen. We lost alot of WvW zerg guilds when the huge alliance left HoD. What we were left with was a group of die hard, server loyal, community focused players who know how to have fun in WvW. WvW on the server is more fun than it has ever been.

We dropped a few tiers and are now in matches most weeks that are decided by only a few thousand points. The fights are just as intense as they were when we had huge numbers – only now the competition is tighter and the general attitude of most players is through the roof. We fight – we win when we deserve it – and we have a blast doing it.

I believe a major reason we are having so much fun right now was our “fall from grace” following the disbanding of TA. This happening right before paid transfers are implemented is probably a blessing in disguise for your server. You are going to end up with people you care about playing alongside – and, eventually, in a tier that is both fun and challenging (and, beyond that, as Humpink stated, tiers as a measure of skill are completely meaningless – especially when server populations differ so greatly).

This makes me very happy.

Not only will it allow people to play with a wider group of friends, but it should make it easier for those of us who WvW on smaller servers (and love it) to still find adequately populated PVE zones to play in as well. It basically eliminates the need for server merges. I was worried that guesting would be restricted to only those other realms where you had friends. I’m glad they decided to go this way instead.

It really feels like a win-win scenario.

And, Im sure cross region guesting is something ArenaNet would love to implement. There are surely technical reasons they do not at this time. You never know what the future holds, though. If its something enough people want, Im sure its something they will look in to.

It’s Tuesday and it’s still anybody’s match:

DH: 112,898+160
HoD: 110,256+300
GoM: 100,145+235

Screenshot: http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/5923/scoretj.png

Early on, the developers used a phrase – “easy to learn, hard to master.” I find that a pretty accurate description of the game and a good design philosophy that allows more people to enjoy the game.

cesmode.4257:

To add fuel to this discussion, what about those that insist trinity exists in this game? Those people that would say in a world event, or dungeon “Let me pull”. I had an argument with someone in map chat a few days ago when, at the start of a world event, he said “let me pull”. I pointed out to him that theres no such thing as a true tank in this game, and no healer to keep you alive.

Long story short, there are people that still insist that there is a trinity, that they can build their character via stats and trait lines to be as tanky as they want. You will not convince these people otherwise.

Then there are people that think the trinity was replaced with something else: Control, Support, Damage. A little less tanky, more movement and damage control. A little less healy, and more support via boons and heals.

Then there are those of us that think that people can build their character however they want, but do not expect to sit in the back and launch heals or condition removals…or sit in front of the boss and soak damage.

Thoughts on this?

Here’s my thoughts. To a degree, I agree with you. You can go into an instance with just about any group makeup and succeed. People need to just play to their strengths and understand the choices they made in their particular build.

For example, Ive built my mesmer to focus on reducing/mitigating enemy damage through blinds, dazes, snares and cripples – and increasing damage done through might, vulnerability, and retaliation. When the group heads into a fight, I look at the elements of that particular encounter where those mechanics are most important.

To your point about whether or not someone should be assigned to “pull.” I usually pull for our group, but not for the same reasons you would in a traditional trinity game. The main reason to control the pull is so that your group can choose where to fight and the rest of the group can pre-position. This makes a bigger difference than most realize. The second reason I usually pull is so that I can apply vulnerability and cripple to the target before the rest of the group engages. It ups total damage and makes it easier to keep the boss under control.

Finally, I have had some success “tanking” in some encounters. In the uncharacterized fractal, for example, I will pull the shaman to the opposite side of the room and keep him there while the rest of the group takes out the bunny, the veteran and the ettin. It just requires a very disciplined group. I find that, as long as I am the only one hitting a given target, I can easily pull him away from the group. Since the mesmer can gain vigor easily and has a lot of survival tools, it is usually easier for me to kite. Its not useful on every fight – again, its about assessing the situation and planning accordingly around the traits/skills/etc the group has chosen (versus simply memorizing the dance method used by most trinity games).

Edge.4180:

- snip -

The Tequatl example is a good one and brings up a tricky situation for ArenaNet. In these world encounters, where you dont necessarily know/have control over the people you are fighting alongside, how do you design a fight that rewards playing well and punishes playing poorly (ignoring mechanics).

I think Tequatl goes too far in one direction – making the fight too easy – and a fight like Grenth goes to far in the other – punishing everyone if even one person does something wrong – in that case, dragging shades to the NPC.

I love both of those fights as they are now, but could see where they could/should make the reward/punishment system more personal – while still requiring some coordination in the fight.

As an example – the simplest way is to simply kill those players who try to zerg Tequatl – give him massive stacks of retaliation and drop more deadly poison clouds between him and the bone walls during certain phases – forcing players to deal with the walls and adds. At the same time, you could make the bone walls immune to everything except the siege weaponry (just a couple of examples to make a point). To encourage/reward at least some coordination, make certain semi-complex activities required.

To encourage some coordination, make certain elements of the fight mandatory for success and remove elements that can be exploited to cause a fail (like dragging shades onto the npc in grenth). An example of a cooperative mechanic that couldnt be exploited would be to employ four switches for the asura mega-laser that have to be activated after the laser has charged up. Even though one person could do it, having 4 people coordinate would be much faster/safer.

There are many ways things like this could be done to spice up these – already fun – encounters and make them feel much more epic.

As I said in my earlier post, yes, there is still some polish that can be added – and if fractals are an indication, they are definitely doing that.

At the same time, the fights are more engaging than alot of people give them credit for.

Let’s take a very basic fight – the giant nightmare vine in Twilight Arbor. Yes, even if you do the fight “wrong” you can still beat it. You can waypoint death rush the fight even if you ignore all the mechanics.

The challenge is in doing it right.

Where one group just lets people die to volatile blossoms and does a straight dps burn on the big vine when it comes out, a good group will add layers of strategy – assigning a player with fast attack abilities to deal with blossoms, having heavy dps switch and burn the smaller vines, getting a “tanky” player to focus on additional small vines and the big one to draw fire from the more fragile dps, having a support class focus on removing poisons and laying down combo fields, etc.

You may say ,

“so what? the zerg group can still kill it.”

and you would be right. The difference comes in the definition of failure and success. For me, if I die a couple of times on the above fight, I consider it a personal failure. The punishment for that failure is a repair bill (which only affects me), where in most games, the punishment is not being able to proceed in the dungeon (which affects the entire group).

I think most people get stuck on this one element – that you are allowed to proceed in an instance even if you did a poor job on the boss and died a bunch of times.

Im actually okay with this because it allows me proceed at my pace while others in the group may be at a different level. I can measure my personal progression without completely hindering the groups ability to proceed. If Im new to a fight, I wont neccesarily hold the entire group back because I died. At the same time, I can see an argument for doing away with waypoint zerging and going with the system used in fractals (and do think, if they did, it would change most people’s perception about the fights).

Again, all of that said, I do foresee the developers only getting better at designing encounters – with more multi-phase and extremely complex encounters in our future.

As far as the trinity is concerned and as a final note – there are thousands of video games where it doesn’t exist and fights are still interesting (in fact, most don’t use it). In games where it does exist, it works because developers design fights around it. The rules of engagement in GW2 are different and the developers are designing around those. People just have to get past the “only one way to do an MMO” mentality and give ANet a chance to show us what they can really do.

They have already come out and said the January patch will be minimal and the February patch will focus on PVP, so I’m not expecting huge changes.

As far as “make or break,” I’m extremely happy with the game as it currently stands. That doesnt mean I’m not looking forward to what they have in store for us over the next few months.

Long term, I can only see one thing hurting the game for me – and that is fewer people playing across all the different zones. Even with the populations we had at launch, with all there is to do in this game, its really easy for people to become spread out and cause certain elements to feel “dead.” As new things to do are added, it will compound this – they will be a victim of their own success, so to speak. This seems like a very easy issue to fix though – through server merges, unrestricted guesting or implementation of some kind of “underflow” servers. I’m really hoping that one (or all) of those are on the table in the first half of 2013.

Hexin.5603:

kreese.9461:

fellyn.5083:

kreese.9461:

I disagree with sudden large WvW player base transfers to lower tier servers

It DESTROYS existing communities as they get overrun by the new comers
and the evitable tide of bandwagon riders

It DESTROYS tier balance

I disagree with the complete lack of reward for staying on a server

I have created a forum post on the suggestions forum to address this
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/WvW-player-base-transfers/first#post1169047

So if we move to high tier servers we’re only after easy victories, but if we move to low tier servers we mess up “exiting communities”. What are we supposed to do then? We tried fixing our old server and that didn’t work due to so many irreparable issues. Our community died. So again, what are we supposed to do?

Free transfers are only a symptom of the problem that Anet created with how the rankings work. If you absolutely have to blame some one or something, put the blame where it’s due: Anet.

you had 17 other options outside of T7 and T8 and i would say transferring down to T7 and T8 is the “easy victories” at least in the upper tiers you are facing equal numbers – I would never say you shouldn’t transfer sometimes things just don’t work out i get it and i would not say you or your guild and certainly not Kaineng is the problem far from it – it is the system currently in place which is exactly what my suggestion tries to address

Also as time goes by and word gets out Kaineng is likely to become a victim of many transfers that if the community there (including you) had an ability to choose would vote them off the server – it is one of the same things that caused TA to break up back in the day on HoD

We are not looking for ‘easy victories’. Moving servers loses all influence, guild bank, items etc and you have to rebuild it up again (including build time). It’s not intended for ‘yay we won a battle’, the direction we (NEO) … was to develop and build a wvw focused server and raise it from the ground up as such. There are some core elements in doing this, none of which we we able to do.

Trust me, these efforts were exhausted, and it took much time and planning by some of the guilds who also had similar goals.

It also takes time to get to know and learn about a server, guilds, and the people who have put in there all, develop relations, and learn about play styles and strengths. Personally, I’m here to contribute my efforts into all aspects of the server where I can. Many in my guild feel the same.

Yes, you are correct though in noting ‘as time goes on, the cycle will repeat’ … it likely will. I do not hold a crystal ball, and wouldn’t make such assumption to be able to tell the future, but in time… if things do not improve, and the windows always open… it will likely occur again. Over and over. Maybe to Kaineng, or possibly other servers. The system obviously needs some better mechanism’s in place to manage this. People do not enjoy being stalemated. Competitive esport players enjoy win lose outcomes to improve upon. Anet has the power to improve upon there systems. This has been suggested by many people on many threads. We will see what Anet has taken and improved upon next month. Until then, my efforts and resources will go to kaineng, and to supporting an environment and server with a focus on WvW, and developing relations, respect and understanding. Already I can tell you I have the utmost respect for the players* and guilds who are actually in (all servers this match), battling every day.

As I’ve noted in other places, I play on HoD and think it was a good move. We need more guilds to think this way – provided they remain respectful of the dedicated people who are on the lower tier servers when they get there (eg – they are there to help – not take over and do it for them).

A healthy spread of guilds and players from full all the way down to medium servers is a great thing for the future of the game. If it means we have a few weeks of uncomfortable matches while that takes place, then I say that is a sacrifice worth making for the long term benefits it provides (better population spread across ALL servers).

People keep saying that a large guild transferring to a lower population realm was a problem.

I play on a lower population server (one currently matched against Kaineng if that means anything) and I say it is part of the solution the game needs to stay healthy for years to come. We need more large guilds to choose to transfer from full to lower population servers – not less.

What most people on lower tier servers are afraid of is that the people that transfer will be jerks. I personally think the kind of people that will willing give up spots on the top tier “winning” server are exactly the kind of personalities that would fit with the populations on these servers.

There need to be greater incentives for transferring to/playing on lower population servers. That wil help to create a balance the game needs for long term health.

The problem isnt future tense – its past tense. The real issue was guilds jumping to “winning” servers and creating the imbalance in the first place. If some guilds are willing to begin correcting that imbalance, then we should support them – even if it means a few weeks of uncomfortable matches. The results would be worth it in the long run.

Also – as a quick aside/related note. If you are looking to make future friends or recruit new players to a guild, there is no better way than having a reputation for giving lower leveled characters (alts or mains) the benefit of the doubt in Ascalonian Catacombs or Cadedecus Manor.

And skill definitely trumps gear in this game. My guild took a group of sub-level 25 players into fractals just before Christmas – some fights were definitely more challenging, but we had a blast.

Ursan.7846:

I’m gonna list some dungeons, and bosses contained in them where I’d love to see you go AFK for 5 minutes and expect to survive. (Ignoring any exploits which allows you to afk and kill the boss, because they do exist but it’s not due to the boss mechanics.)

AC:
Kholer
Howling King
Colossus Rumblus

CM:
Sure Shot Sheamus
Wahlen

TA:
Malrona

SE:
Volkov

I’m gonna stop cuz I’m sure you get my point. And we’re missing some obvious ones like Alpha and Lupi.

Best post in the thread. Let’s add to them -

- Graveling mound fights in AC
- Victoria/Turmaine/Frost in CM
- Champion Vine/Laurent/Defiler in TA
- Nokk/Tazza/Taskmaster/Warmaster’s Golems in SE
- Balefire’s Ritual/Burntclaw in CoF
- Icefist/Creedbreaker/Andal/Wollam in HotW
- Alpha/Bjarl/Evolved Husk/Experimental Destroyer in CoE
- Lupicus/Alphard/Brie in Arah

Admittedly, a couple of fights still feel a little rough around the edges, but they are only getting better (Fractals show that pretty clearly). ArenaNet said they plan to make improvements to dungeon encounters – and there is still a long future of new encounters to look forward to.

I think most people dont give the fights a chance. They go in expecting the same experience they had in older MMOs – or even worse, graveyard zerg, and dont accept that the rules of engagement are different here.

Counterpoint – server transfers are still needed as populations are still significantly imbalanced.

The incentives should be for those people who choose to play on a lower population server – encouraging MORE (not less) transfers from heavily populated servers to those where people are needed. Offer the gem bonus for those people and guilds that move from a full world to a medium or high population server.

The reason the recent transfers caused issues is because populations were so out of whack prior to the transfers. If we encourage a better spread of people across all servers, it would serve to make the matches more even, ensure that pve worlds stay as full as possible and keep things exciting for everyone.

With that in mind, I would propose that the developers:

1. stop free transfers from lower to higher population realms. You can still transfer for free to a realm with a lower population than your own, but if you want to transfer to one with more people, it costs gems.

2. Incentivize people for playing on lower population servers. The gem/karma/XP boosts that you mentioned – except they would only apply to people playing on lower population servers (high, medium or low population servers). This would be a temporary mechanism until populations balanced out.

As I said – transfers arent necessarily a bad thing. Unrestricted transfers to highly populated servers, however, are. If allowed to continue unchecked, they will destroy the game on lower population servers.

Sounds like an awesome idea. Count me in -

Name: Blaeys (Blaeys.3102)
Main Character: Blaeys
Current Server: Henge of Denravi
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