Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

SAB isn’t temporary…it’s just not there all the time. The Flame and Frost dungeon that was temporary. SAB comes back periodically.

Now that’s truly comical … kind of like saying it isn’t night, it just isn’t day all the time. The word “temporary” comes from the Latin word “temporarius”, meaning “of seasonal character.” “Temporary” means EXACTLY that “it’s just not there all the time.”

You work very hard to do what you do on these forums, I’ll grant you that.

So ANet made a whipsaw change in the game to totally flip flop the dynamic. Who would ever have thought that could happen.

Zenguy.6421:

lordkrall.7241:

The main issue is that the feedback added by players are in most cases vastly different and in some cases contradict each other. So who should they listen to?

Yes, there’s a lot of contradiction and threads never arrive at a consensus on these forums. Which means that if you look to these forums for ready packed solution backed by common agreement you’ll be right out of luck.

But if you read deeper than that you’ll see that the good ideas do shine through as does the overall concensus of the community.

You only have to take a broader view of the WvW forum over the last month or so to for it to be apparent that:

• The Bloodlust buff has been a PR disaster
• GvG matters to enough people that it needs attention
• Imbalance between servers and its impact on match-ups is a huge issue
• The broken party functions and stone age commander system are ongoing issues
• There is a growing reaction against power creep in WvW
• The upcoming League is highlighting rather resolving all of the above problems

None of these things are new, they have all been apparent in these forums for a long time.

You asked “So who should they listen to?” Rather than follow a single instrument they need to listen to the symphony overall, because that’s where the bigger movements are played out and where the persistent themes will be heard. If Anet don’t have anyone who can do that for WvW, then they either need to get someone who can or accept that WvW will continue to be a difficult part of GW2.

That was extremely well stated. Too bad lordkrall won’t believe it and ANet won’t understand it.

tanachiouz.7628:

I really wish people wud stop moaning to anet about the wvw problems. Its the players themselves who fairweathered into the top tier anet did not force this apon anyone. Both tier misbalance and skill lag are both due to players not playing the game the way it was intended to be played . The players only have themselves to blame theyve stacked the top 2 tiers encouraged guilds to migrate hence players themselves have caused the problems with wvw now ur all crying foul to anet. This problem exists because most of you are fairweathers who pay to win i dont feel sorry for any of you at all suck it up fairweathers suck up the fact youve killed wvw cause your game basicly sucks.

Sorry, but I think that’s a ridiculously ignorant argument. I’ve played on Devona’s Rest since launch and experienced a very wide variety of server populations. In the beginning, DR had very low population, and since ANet so witlessly created WvW such that population and coverage was EVERYTHING, we lost every match for something like 12 weeks straight. Other guilds gradually migrated from top servers to ours in order to have a bigger impact, and we slowly advanced up to Tier 5 (maybe even Tier 4 for a week or two … don’t remember for sure) and had a lot more enjoyable battles along the way. After the addition of drop loot that encouraged flipping and zergs, and more recently the announcement of leagues, population gradually declined again and WvW is now virtually unplayable. Prime time on low pop servers means a small zerg flipping undefended camps, towers, and occasional keeps for the rewards while barely having enough people left over to bother hanging on to our own BL bloodlust points. It isn’t fun, there isn’t a lick of strategy involved, and rather little open field PvP. I loved the premise and promise of WvW, but if I actually want to keep playing it I will have to switch servers because what is left here is not WvW.

So don’t tell me that population imbalance across servers is strictly the fault of players. It isn’t. It’s the fault of ANet for designing a game mode that ENCOURAGES … almost forces … players to head to servers that already have high populations, and virtually every change they’ve made since launch has exacerbated the problem. Clueless game design is the problem here.

Time for an analogy (I love analogies). Let’s say that I buy a large section of land and create a competition that involves physical contact of some sort. I collect a one-time entrance fee from participants and have them sign up for one of about twenty different teams. I generate a schedule of competitions that pits three teams against each other at a time. Players get free beer and new shirts for whatever mayhem they are able to inflict upon other players on the field … individually or as a group … and teams that are winning are allowed to carry bigger sticks. Winning the match itself doesn’t count for anything at all, and after every match players are allowed to switch teams if they are willing to pay me an amount equal to roughly one third of their original entrance fee or refund back some of the beer I gave them. When players complain that the matches are not fair I tell them that they were never intended to be and that they always have the recourse of changing teams.

Sound familiar?? And if the players decide to mostly migrate to a few larger teams, is that their fault or is it mine?

All of this is exactly true. I’ve been on Devona’s Rest since about a week after launch, and WvW … plus the lack of a trinity … were the primary reasons I bought the game. There’s really no point in even trying any more, though. Players simply got tired of having population and coverage trump ANYTHING else they did, and bloodlust, siege mastery, and leagues have only made it more appealing to jump to higher pop servers. WvW in general has been crippled by the absolute worst game management imaginable … I’d like to think it was due to sheer incompetence on the part of ANet but the magnitude of it points to intentional scuttling. I would probably stay with GW2 forever if they’d fix this mess, but as it is I am anxiously awaiting the next game that makes a decent attempt at open world PvP.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Yet no one reads the things I post offering what the company is doing to make amends… They are so blinded by their hate and fury that they can’t see straight, where I’m patient and see through it all to the real efforts the company has made to fix things and learn like all of us do: FROM OUR MISTAKES!

Can you please list the significant situations where ANet has learned from their mistakes and materially corrected them?? I’m really curious which things you believe deserve such designation. Please be specific.

Cranbeculus.9321:

The only thing that this discussion has taught me is that Anet is far more interested in policing their forums than their actual game.

I fully agree, but I came to that conclusion early last winter.

Jayne.9251:

In game reporting does nothing. Take screen shots of verbal abuse, troll building (you will need multiple screens for this, fraps link is better) and any other form of griefing and file an actual support ticket under “violations” here: https://en.support.guildwars2.com.

Info they want to know:

1. When/where/which server
2. Griefers account name (add them to friends list)
3. What toon you were on when you witnessed it happening.
4. As many details as possible about the griefing, including chat logs and images to back it up.

Upload your images to a site like photobucket.com and include links to the images because Anet’s system automatically rejects images over a certain size.

Do not rely on in game reporting function if you sincerely feel this player is violating terms of service. The above steps helps anet help you. It has worked for me in the past with some pretty heinous griefers, but it does take about a week for them to investigate and take action.

Having to do all that sounds like griefer heaven. I mean, the griefer knows that if he makes himself a pain in the kitten for a few minutes that he’s going to make someone else spend a LOT more time putting together a report that ANet might actually follow up on … not to mention ruin even more of their in game time documenting all the information and doing all the fraps captures. No wonder that so few bother. GJ ANet.

Vayne.8563:

TooBz.3065:

Vayne.8563:

MrRuin.9740:

Vayne.8563:

See I don’t think so. I think it’s still on a moderate progression path…and they intend to stay that way..that is the gear progression is going to be relatively minor stat-wise compared to other games. You won’t need the gear to run dungeons.

That’s my prediction anyway.

Really? Its still the same thing though. If they add another gear after Ascended, say, with another ‘minor’ stat boost of 10%, then another tier after that…..its still vertical and will still divide players as the stat difference from exotic to whatever the current tier may be gets larger and larger. Just because they’re doing it in smaller increments doesn’t mean it’s not there or gets to be called something else.
Its like your power company throwing a power rate increases at you – suddenly hike the bill by $200 in one shot or by increasing the bill by $10 over time so they can claim its better than the other company who does it in one shot.

Unless the older stuff becomes so easy to get that everyone has it…which is doable.

Everyone sees vertical progression and they think full on gear treadmill…cause that’s how everyone else has done it.

If you guys can’t see the difference between this and other MMOs, I’m not really sure what else I can say about it.

This is what I originally thought ANet was going to do. Let grinders get the gear early and then open up more paths for the rest of us. But this isn’t what they’ve done.

Instead, they’ve used Ascended gear as a carrot to get people to do stuff they don’t otherwise want to do. You can see all ascended gear since rings as an effort to spread people throughout the world (when they obviously don’t want to).

First dailies were suppose to spread people around the world, but people just completed them other ways or hung out in the appropriate 1-15 zones for a quick fix. The mid level zones were desolate. Now with the ore and wood requirements you have to go into the mid level zones (or someone does).

I don’t think this is going to change. If anything armor will reinforce this.

I’m not sure what you think isn’t changing. They’re doing exactly what I thought they’d do.

First they come out with ascended rings and stuff that only fractal runners could get. Then they made them so you could get them with dailies and such. Anyone who cared about that stuff, should have had it by now, surely. Rings and amulets are pretty easy to get.

Which brings us now to weapons. Sure they’re hard to get. They’re like rings when they first came out. It’s like some people spent a couple of grand on a VCR and a few years later everyone could afford them.

So Anet comes out with these weapons and makes them hard to get. Only the people who REALLY want them really care. But eventually, if they do come out with something else, they’ll make these much easier to get. It’s always going to be the older tier that’s easier to get.

The only trick is to make it so you can always do the content with the older tier (which you can).

As long as that remains, I think they’re handling it okay.

To be sure, I’d personally prefer a game with only cosmetic progression, but that ship has sailed. To be precise it sailed last November.

I have enough ascended rings at the moment for my next three or four 80s. I get earrings from doing guild missions. This stuff really isn’t that hard to get.

But the weapons are. As long as I don’t need them…I don’t care…and why should I? So I can have a BIS weapon? So I can save two minutes or a 12 minute dungeon run?

It’s very much like people who have to buy the absolutely top of the line computer. They pay a lot more and six months later it’s 30% cheaper.

I can wait the six months.

Guess you don’t play WvW much, or if you do you simply hide in the zerg. It won’t be long that if you want to stay alive outside of a large group you will need that better gear. Players in other threads have done the math … the difference is pretty significant.

marnick.4305:

A.net takes feedback very seriously and has shown to do so on many, many occasions. Such statements as yours don’t help anyone.

Please list them. If there were as many as you say it should be easy to do for you … and humorous for the rest of us.

How do you know that griefing isn’t ANet’s idea of a feature to build tension in the game? How is it any worse than many of the other things they’ve implemented in WvW. It’s not like anybody (including ANet) takes this mess seriously anymore … at least not in the context of what it was supposed to be.

Sarcasm aside, after a full year of not doing anything about bugs, hacks, and abusers I don’t think you should expect ANet to do a kitten thing about griefers.

Vayne.8563:

Cactus.2710:

Vayne.8563:

Nice opinion piece…which is pretty much just that. A very long opinion piece, but you blow it at the end.

You say this could be avoided,. but you don’t really know that. It’s pure conjecture. I’m not sure you’d said anything here that hasn’t been said in countless threads.

LOL. Do you even read the stuff you post? If what he said has been stated previously in “countless threads”, maybe … just maybe … it goes beyond pure conjecture and maybe … just maybe … a lot of it could indeed have been avoided if ANet had just taken all that ’countless" feedback seriously.

Countless threads? You can’t count them? Are you sure?

More than a thousand threads? I’m sure you can count up to a thousand. It doesn’t even take that long.

Anet has metrics. Threads are very nice, but you know…they’re just that…threads. And people in those negative threads sometimes disagree with the threads.

And MMORPG forums are usually cesspools of complaint no matter how well a game is doing.

How many complaints are troll threads too, because I’ve seen a few of those (though I agree this one is not).

Complaints on forums are nothing to get excited about. They sure as hell don’t guarantee a majority opinion.

Uhh … you’re the one who used the word “countless”. I was simply parroting you. How could that possibly have escaped you??

Vayne.8563:

Nice opinion piece…which is pretty much just that. A very long opinion piece, but you blow it at the end.

You say this could be avoided,. but you don’t really know that. It’s pure conjecture. I’m not sure you’d said anything here that hasn’t been said in countless threads.

LOL. Do you even read the stuff you post? If what he said has been stated previously in “countless threads”, maybe … just maybe … it goes beyond pure conjecture and maybe … just maybe … a lot of it could indeed have been avoided if ANet had just taken all that ’countless" feedback seriously.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Cactus.2710:

Justdeifyme.9387:

Gw2 has a solid foundation to build upon, I think in a few years it will be the best MMO on the market

The core of GW2 (playstyle, the way abilities work, downleveling in lower zones, the concept of WvW) was pretty well done and it was the reason I switched to it. The problem is that the game was implemented on a crippling outdated game engine, there have been some major deficiencies since launch that have been ignored in favor of introducing some really stupid things, and there has been no permanent new content with the least bit of cleverness to it. The game has become totally frustrating both because of squandered potential and some really horrible decisions that deviated from its original promise and assurances. I would truly love for GW2 to clean up its act and hold me forever, but there hasn’t been the least evidence that the devs understand any of this and there doesn’t seem to be the slightest prospect that they will, so when one of the upcoming major MMOs finally get introduced I will reluctantly turn my back on this mess forever.

To be honest, Cactus, if you mean what you say – “[not even] the least bit of cleverness” to the content – I don’t think you are being very honest about wanting GW2 to improve. There has been a lot of stuff that has had some cleverness to it, that has been basically a good idea – like Fractals – denying that they are a good idea is really silly. Similarly the improvements to a number of areas, including Dailies, have been good (not perfect, but good). As have some of the events.

It’s also dishonest to say “[I will leave] this mess behind forever”, oh, for what, some other mess? Do you really, honestly think that TESO or WildStar are going to get more right than GW2? Because I do not. TESO has some serious issues right from the outset, and is pure Holy Trinity despte the Elder Scrolls Universe not supporting that, and WildStar, well, everything coming out of the WildStar alpha or beta or whatever it is says that it is an ultra-hardcore game in terms of time requirements, that you really have to play 6+ hours a day to get just about anywhere in it, which is fine for college kids and the like, but not for people with jobs.

I don’t think either of them has the solid sort of basis GW2 has to build on. Plus both are starting as subscription-based, even though we shall see how long that lasts.

Well, to be honest, I don’t do dungeons so I’ll grant you that fractals might have been well done. I was referring to WvW and Living Story .. just about everything added to WvW has been astoundingly misguided, and the Living Story content has been mostly a boring grind.

As far as TESO goes, I don’t have a problem with a subscription based game and most of the people I’ve seen commenting on WvW have stated they’d gladly pay for better content. I do have deep reservations about the Trinity in TESO since getting rid of it was one of the things I commend GW2 for, but from what I’ve read so far ZeniMax has said that they plan for all characters to have lots of leeway in how they play. How far that goes in terms of crossover between healing, dps, and tanking remains to be seen. At the very least, it’s pretty clear that ZeniMax is acutely aware of the major deficiencies of GW2 and is targeting those faults in the design of TESO. possibly it will disappoint me, but not likely any more than GW2 has … if only because GW2 had such great promise initially.

By the way, I played Rift for about 18 months and your comments sound exactly like what people there were saying about GW2 before launch. Different specifics, but same tone … “if you think you’re going to find anything better there you’re going to be sorely disappointed and you’ll be crawling back here within a month.” I was, but I didn’t.

Cuchullain.3104:

Agreed. I could care less about the score, what tier we’re in, or anything else. I just want fun, intense fights and on my server, these are getting as rare as exotic drops nowadays. All we do is run around following clueless “commanders” and knocking doors down. If we go up against a superior server, no one bothers to show. No one wants to incur idiotic death penalties (another bar to active participation in WvW that needs to go to attract PVE’ers) which is why people run rather than fight to the death.

The other night a commander tagged up and formed a small roaming group and we finally got to have some open-field fights with like-minded opponents. It was a blast.

The so-called “real commander” (PVDoor zergmeister) and his obnoxious minions gave us no end of grief for “accomplishing nothing” as if we should apologize for having fun. Did I mention we are like 100,000 points ahead and maybe it might be nice to allow our insanely outnumbered opponents to cap some stuff from time to time while we fight balanced groups in the fields? I’m fed up with the whole “we have to always win” mentality which is more about the commanders’ egos than fun for the rest of us.

ZOMG they just took a tower!!!!!! Everybody get to the WP and follow the commander!!!!

Who gives a baby cat.

If WvW was anything like it was supposed to be, it would take some strategy and teamwork to take a tower. I’m pretty sure that if tPvP wasn’t such an epic failure that you’d be happier there, but those of us who wanted PvP on a broader scale thought we’d be getting something different in WvW. And if we had, score would have been meaningful.

Sarrs.4831:

Cactus.2710:

I can understand why people think the score is meaningless because quite honestly it is, but where we’re at is like turning off the scoreboard at a football game and just having both teams run around tackling each other for their own amusement.

If nobody cares about the score at a football match, then sure, that analogy works, but people actually are very interested in knowing whose team is winning. Scoring in football is fundamentally tied to skill and ability.

Scoring in WvW?… Eh, not so much.

I didn’t say that scoring in WvW was based upon skill and ability. It isn’t … we all know it’s based upon population and coverage. My point was that ANet has so kittenized the original concept for WvW, and made the scoring so meaningless, that where we are now is analogous to turning off the scoreboard at a football game and simply engaging in the mayhem. It’s no wonder that GvG and fight clubs emerged to put some structure back into things … but they certainly aren’t WvW.

kailin.4905:

Now I don’t think a completely uncapped AOE is a great idea as it will just lead to another issue (and this is coming from a necro main). But I have a real issue with the idea that because anets servers and engine are so outdated that we are just supposed to accept that zerg play is the lesser of two evils. So your telling me that individually tracking conditions and an aoe cap of anything more than 5 will be too much stress on the system. But hey…lets keep making content in every facet of the game the shoehorns upwards of 300ppl into a small area….Then expect them to make precise movement and recognize spell cast animations with 150 spell effects brighter than the desert sun all firing off at once. All while getting at best 20 fps because the engine can’t handle the basic gameplay it was apparently designed to incorporate? Sorry I really don’t follow the logic behind any of this.

Yeah … I don’t understand that either. If the game engine is too crippled to handle all the people and their associated effects, why keep coming out with content that literally forces lots of people to pool all in the same place??

Totally baffling …

I think relying on rewards to “fix” problems with WvW represents capitulation to the fact that WvW fundamentally isn’t fun. I would MUCH rather see WvW changed to make it fun and entertaining for its own sake than to simply come up with a different way to distribute carrots. There have been lots of good suggestions from many players over the last several months on ways to possibly achieve this (all of which have been ignored). Mine has been the following:

If I had my way, I’d totally revamp WVW. I’d make matches instanced (more or less equal populations determined by dynamic queues), and I’d have matches start on a blank map … terrain features only, no structures. I’d scatter ore deposits randomly around the map (different for each match) so that the first thing each team had to do would be to scout for deposits and secure the surrounding land. Mining the ore would develop the camp, and the ore thus mined would be used as supplies to build towers and keeps anywhere on the map that players chose. Other gathering nodes (herbs and trees) could be incorporated and required for building (food for NPC workers, wood for walls, etc) as well. Towers and keeps would require a blueprint just like siege does now, with each blueprint costing Badges of Honor or some such non-gold currency. Siege (both offensive and defensive) would be pretty much as it is now, with possibly some changes (like backtracking on siege mastery) to address current grievances. Towers and keeps could be destroyed, but not captured … they’d have to be rebuilt, either in the same place or somewhere else. Supply locations (ore, trees, food) could be captured and recaptured, but would need to be redeveloped to be productive. Supplies could be stockpiled in keeps and towers by players.

I suspect that such a scheme would have some unforeseen (by me) flaws, but I think the general concept would entail much greater strategic play, require better overall coordination (possibly questionable in an instanced setting), broaden the contributions for a wider variety of players, and generate some much harder fought battles over key locations.

inb4 … it won’t take long before this thread ends up in the black hole known as the “Suggestions Forum” where all constructive ideas go to die.

WvW was always supposed to be a contest based on strategy-based open world warfare to capture and control territory … it wasn’t ever supposed to be simply another form of head-bashing PvP. Just because sPvP and tPvP have been epic failures doesn’t mean that WvW should take their place. The problem is that WvW has been horribly mismanaged by ANet, and the points tally wouldn’t be meaningless if the game design for WvW actually supported and encouraged the style of play it was intended to. Instead of what we were promised, we’ve gotten predominantly mismatched events with crippling deficiencies (bugs, hacks, lag), kittenizing distortions (bloodlust, siege mastery), and a total lack of updated content.

I can understand why people think the score is meaningless because quite honestly it is, but where we’re at is like turning off the scoreboard at a football game and just having both teams run around tackling each other for their own amusement.

Madora.9340:

Cactus.2710:

Madora.9340:

It’s not that complicated, believe me. I was thinking it could be done client side rather than on the server. All they would need to do is take a small scan every five to ten seconds for player characters. If that number is less than twenty, don’t do anything. However, if it is greater, then activate the debuff. Simple as that.

Also, with the limits removed, I ran the numbers of y=1.06^(20-x) equation to simulate the effectiveness. In a 35 people zerg, players would have 42% of their original stats while a lone player would have 303%! The numbers can always be played with to get the result you want, but at the end of the day, the zerg will eventually disappear.

Now I know you don’t have a clue what you’re proposing. Go ahead and do the calculation client side … the EFFECT of the constantly changing buff needs to be reapplied to everyone on all sides of the battle. That’s every bit as taxing to the game engine as if the calculation was done server-side.

Maybe I don’t have a clue, but this is when somebody who does has experience in that field takes my suggestion and actually works it out. It could be a bit much for the server, but how would we know until we tested it? Perhaps they should focus on optimizing their game first.

The problem is the game engine … it simply isn’t capable to do what you are proposing. I’m not saying your proposal is a “bad idea” … I’m saying it is not possible to incorporate it. Devon has already explicitly stated that they cannot even relax the AoE cap simply because the archaic game engine they built GW2 around cannot handle it, and he went on to state that there is zero chance they will be able to address those limitations (i.e., they will not recode the game to a modern game engine).

King Amadaeus.8619:

Straegen.2938:

I completely disagree. There is no game (that I am aware of) that has complex combat (fields, boon/condi stacks, dodge mechanics, positional damage, etc) that can handle this many players. DAoC is probably the closest and it is more akin to a text based MUD compared to the combat in GW2. Basically no game (that I know of) has rich deep combat and 100+ players running around.

While I understand your sentiment, anyone can design something so overtly powerful that it is not practical in its application. I mean you could probably design a combustion engine so powerful you might not even be able to design a frame to withstand it…But at the end of the day what good is that engine if you cant even use it? Sure its awesome to say “look at this marvel of engineering”, but if it cannot be fully applied then what is the point?

Then the question(s) begs to be answered: Why make the game if it can’t be fully implemented? Why advertise massive open world pvp, then develop an incredibly rich combat system that cannot be implemented on a massive scale?
Why pack maps full of people and handicap all that developer work so that it is even remotely playable?

The answer is simple: Poor planning, poor testing, poor execution.

I’ve tried to make this same point before over the last several months. It seems quite clear that ANet has some very talented people working on various aspects of GW2, but whoever has been making decisions has been doing a HORRIBLE job of synchronizing and coordinating everything to make sure that it all fits together. Why would anyone choose a game engine that was incapable of meeting the design objectives of the content and game play?? Why is there so much disparity and lack of synergy between story lines and game modes?? Why would anyone structure the game design so rigidly that fixes and upgrades brought the resource pool to its knees??

It’s baffling, and you don’t need to know a thing about software design to grasp the failure of integration here.

Justdeifyme.9387:

Gw2 has a solid foundation to build upon, I think in a few years it will be the best MMO on the market

The core of GW2 (playstyle, the way abilities work, downleveling in lower zones, the concept of WvW) was pretty well done and it was the reason I switched to it. The problem is that the game was implemented on a crippling outdated game engine, there have been some major deficiencies since launch that have been ignored in favor of introducing some really stupid things, and there has been no permanent new content with the least bit of cleverness to it. The game has become totally frustrating both because of squandered potential and some really horrible decisions that deviated from its original promise and assurances. I would truly love for GW2 to clean up its act and hold me forever, but there hasn’t been the least evidence that the devs understand any of this and there doesn’t seem to be the slightest prospect that they will, so when one of the upcoming major MMOs finally get introduced I will reluctantly turn my back on this mess forever.

CMstorm.8679:

I know some threads have said a while ago that there might not be a gw2 expansion anytime soon, but maybe there’s a possibility for a christmas expansion? It’d be nice to be able to get out into some new zones, though the map right now is still pretty huge, it seems really small suddenly cuz lots of people are jumping from zone to zone pretty much just for world-bosses now, and it seems to get redundant.

I realize that anet has spiced up the Teq fight and I think that’s awesome, adding more teamwork and different mechanics that makes the fight a lot more interesting and challenging… and also i heard that anet said they were probably going to fix/change/add some things with all the dragon bosses at some point that would make the fights a little more diverse than just everyone gathering in one spot, buff, spam and kill.

If a new area or zone were to be introduced sometime soon-ish, what area would you like to see open? Ring of FIre, Woodland Cascades, Far Shiverpeaks, Maguuma Wastes, BLazeridge Mts, Blood Legion Homelands, Crystal Desert/ Scavengers Causeway, Isles of Janthir, Tarnished Coast/ Strait of Malchor, the other half of Orr, Deldrimor Front, Dominion of Winds?
It’d have to tie into the story wouldn’kitten Maybe the living story could have something to do with a new zone… idk

Just some thoughts here :/

I’m not sure why you’d expect a zone expansion from ANet to end up any better than Southsun Cove did. It would the same people developing it. If you want any kind of clever new content, you’d probably be better off asking ANet to open up the game to third party mods.

Madora.9340:

Cactus.2710:

Madora.9340:

Rinzler.8072:

Madora.9340:

And yet nobody looks at my equation…

Too lazy to figure out what yer equation means.

I made an error in the equation, so I need to change that. It should actually be y=0.99^(x)

This isn’t an exact plot of it, but here’s an example of it;

http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/ae7/fixpic1.gif

You see, as the number of players within a particular radius (x) increases, the stat multiplier (y) decreases exponentially, which means that after a certain number of people is reached, it starts to drop sharply. By having the limit of this be about twenty people in a 3000 unit radius, a group of 25 wouldn’t have the same reduction of stats as would a 30 man group would.

LOL. We already know that simply recalculating bloodlust buffs when capture points flip practically freezes the game for seconds, and that it is an unavoidable result of ANet using an outmoded game engine. Devon has even recently stated that to be the reason they can’t relax the AoE cap. So what on earth makes you think that a more complicated formula calculated real time is in any way feasible?? It would bring the entire game to its knees,

It’s not that complicated, believe me. I was thinking it could be done client side rather than on the server. All they would need to do is take a small scan every five to ten seconds for player characters. If that number is less than twenty, don’t do anything. However, if it is greater, then activate the debuff. Simple as that.

Also, with the limits removed, I ran the numbers of y=1.06^(20-x) equation to simulate the effectiveness. In a 35 people zerg, players would have 42% of their original stats while a lone player would have 303%! The numbers can always be played with to get the result you want, but at the end of the day, the zerg will eventually disappear.

Now I know you don’t have a clue what you’re proposing. Go ahead and do the calculation client side … the EFFECT of the constantly changing buff needs to be reapplied to everyone on all sides of the battle. That’s every bit as taxing to the game engine as if the calculation was done server-side.

Wraistlin.6072:

Gamadorn.2659:

Wraistlin.6072:

Love how everyone is a game developer on these boards.

Granted there is always things that can be better and improved, but really guys how can you possibly know anything that truly goes on behind the scenes.

When your steak comes back well done and you ordered it rare….you have a pretty good idea what went wrong and you never once saw the chef make your steak…..

We don’t know all the details, but we can infer from the results we see and compare to similar processes other similar games go through with their processes. Your right we can never know 100%, but we can infer quite a bit with good observation

Very true, however you and I don’t see the chef ignoring the steak because he is perfecting some amazing dessert reciepe. If he focuses on the steak….then the dessert is mediocre. All we see is that steak isn’t the way we want it and have yet to see the dessert.

I’m saying there are always idea, changes, things in the pipeline for an MMO. It will never be perfect in any state at anytime in it’s lifecycle, much like it will never be finished.

You sound like the guy I was arguing with about five months ago regarding the horrible imbalance in most matches. He stated that we had no idea what ANet actually had in the works and that he was pretty certain we’ve see a fix “soon” (I’m pretty sure that ANet has somehow the trademark to that term). I bet him that we wouldn’t see any improvement for at least six months … one more month and I win my bet.

So far the “steak” (balanced matches, reduced lag, fresh content, etc) is still part of a cow eating corn somewhere, and the “dessert” (siege mastery, bloodlust, leagues, etc) has indeed been amazing … but only in terms of being unwanted and virtually inedible.

Madora.9340:

Rinzler.8072:

Madora.9340:

And yet nobody looks at my equation…

Too lazy to figure out what yer equation means.

I made an error in the equation, so I need to change that. It should actually be y=0.99^(x)

This isn’t an exact plot of it, but here’s an example of it;

http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/ae7/fixpic1.gif

You see, as the number of players within a particular radius (x) increases, the stat multiplier (y) decreases exponentially, which means that after a certain number of people is reached, it starts to drop sharply. By having the limit of this be about twenty people in a 3000 unit radius, a group of 25 wouldn’t have the same reduction of stats as would a 30 man group would.

LOL. We already know that simply recalculating bloodlust buffs when capture points flip practically freezes the game for seconds, and that it is an unavoidable result of ANet using an outmoded game engine. Devon has even recently stated that to be the reason they can’t relax the AoE cap. So what on earth makes you think that a more complicated formula calculated real time is in any way feasible?? It would bring the entire game to its knees,

Well, like all good threads this one got shuffled off to the forum of lost souls. I scanned through twenty pages of threads and found exactly one with any kind of response from ANet. How pathetic is that. No wonder most GW2 forums are filled with rancor … the respectful and constructive posts get buried alive here.

UrMom.4205:

The community warned the devs on the outcome of the buff and the leagues, yet they still went ahead with the buff as if nothing was wrong and are still going to force us into the leagues. Currently in my matchup the buff hasn’t been an issue (each server is constantly getting a buff or two). However in a blowout match it’s going to have some effect. I do know there are players that aren’t even playing because of the buff, so there is some loss in numbers. Once leagues start i’m sure the servers at the bottom of both leagues are going to lose even more. Nothin like the devs causing their community to dwindle :/

I’m on DR and as far as I’m concerned the damage from leagues has already been done. Last night during prime time we had maybe 20 people in all of EB, and we couldn’t even muster enough players in FC BL to simply stand on three of FC’s undefended bloodlust points. Very sad.

And those who said that bloodlust would encourage small roaming parties were just plain wrong, at least on the smaller pop servers. I haven’t seen ANY such activity in our last two matches … servers simply cap the points in their own BL and then go do something else since they don’t need to hold the points to keep the buff. As soon as one of the points turns an enemy color, it’s a simple matter to send a small group to retake it and retain the buff.

covenn.7165:

Stealth was just poorly designed and even worse in implementation. The unfortunate truth is that it won’t be changed because it is far too late for that to occur. Any significant change to it now will drive all the thieves away from the game and ANET can hardly afford that.

Not sure why you say that. ANet keeps making bullkitten changes to WvW and doesn’t seem to care whether players stay or leave. In fact, given the incredible limitations of the GW2 game engine, I’ve always suspected that ANet would just as soon see a bunch of us leave so that the remaining players wouldn’t have to complain about lag.

I pretty much agree with the OP. There is no way in hell that server-vs-server-vs-server matchups will ever give us fair gameplay, and unfair gameplay generates apathy and disinterest. I’ll bet there are FAR more players who want to participate in a fair match than there are players who primarily play for “server pride”.

I’d take the OP’s proposal a few steps further, though. Here are some concepts I’ve posted before:

My preferred solution would be to totally revamp WVW. I’d make matches instanced (more or less equal populations determined by dynamic queues), possibly shorter (3 days so to bridge weekly RL cycles?) and I’d have matches start on a blank map … terrain features only, no structures. I’d scatter ore deposits randomly around the map (different for each match) so that the first thing each team had to do would be to scout for deposits and secure the surrounding land. Mining the ore would develop the camp, and the ore thus mined would be used to build towers and keeps anywhere on the map that players chose. Towers and keeps would require a blueprint just like siege does now, with each blueprint costing Badges of Honor or some such non-gold currency. Siege (both offensive and defensive) would be pretty much as it is now, with possibly some changes to address current grievances (like backtracking on siege mastery). Towers and keeps could be destroyed, but not captured … they’d have to be rebuilt, either in the same place or somewhere else. Ore locations could be captured and recaptured, but would need to be redeveloped to be productive. Ore could be stockpiled in keeps and towers by players.

I suspect that such a scheme would have some unforeseen (by me) flaws, but I think the general concept would entail much greater strategic play, require better overall coordination (possibly questionable in an instanced setting), and generate some much harder fought battles over key locations.

Ricky.4706:

so you want to change the game because you guys have no loyalty ? lmao – that’s classic.

let me remind you that it’s your kind of thinking that left the game unbalanced to begin with. -the hand-

Oh get real. There has been SO much server hopping since launch that to base anything in WvW on “server loyalty” is simply idiotic. Bad game design is what created this mess, not player thinking. Players jumped ship because they couldn’t find the style of play they wanted where they were, and that tends to snowball.

You know a game is broken when the proposed solutions to its faults revolve around how to encourage fewer people to play it rather than more.

DevonCarver.5370:

Penguin.5197:

Even a cap raise to at least ten would still be too much? Because at the moment it sometimes feels like 5 is too small

Raising it even one would have significant performance impact because you need to think of it over an equation that causes that to multiply very quickly. Until and unless there are significant changes in the engine, which isn’t on the table, we will not be raising the cap on player skill AoE.

Well, at least that’s a refreshingly honest admission of failure.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Just about everyone I’ve talked to has said ESO sucks, but I digress.

I remember almost everyone on the Rift forums saying the same thing about GW2 before it was released, and that was back when Rift still had a pretty large player base. At the very least the ESO devs are TRYING to do the right thing … while ANet clearly is not. That alone will make me switch.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

Q: how come I can upgrade an EB tower to t3 with full supply and hold it against two tier 1 servers for 12 straight daylight hours almost completely by myself? How much coverage does anybody really need?

That doesn’t prove anything at all. Name the tower and I’ll bet it’s one that nobody bothers to capture because it isn’t really strategic.

Solstice.1097:

..the game is maturing and players are reaching end-game. they’ve found the class(es) they like and got their gear and appearance they are happy with and aren’t broke anymore, etc. Now they move on to PvP and WvW which is really the end-game for GW2.

The #s going up has nothing to do with WvW changes and has everything to do with the increasing average tenure of your player base.

GW2 WvW is a friggin awesome idea at its core. Just look at how much we all care, even pleading and begging on the forums to fix broken mechanics a YEAR LATER, and yet we are still playing the game despite how neglected we feel.

But why are we still playing? Because we know what WvW can and should be, and we are in love with THAT idea and it’s all of us collectively hoping it someday comes to exist that has kept us around so far.

In the meantime we have even attempted to create our own fun and competition to get us by; take fight nights and GvGs for example. Why did we? Because sPvP is boring and WvW is not competitive. Now those too are bordering extinction due to recent changes.

We are being forced to choose between either skill lag and queues or complete blowouts.

I feel that you’re making decisions based on WvW population #s that would have gone up anyway, and that if you could see a graph of what COULD HAVE been and compared it to reality, you’d realize how big of an opportunity continues to be missed here. Other games like ESO are watching you closely and learning from your mistakes. Lucky for you, there is still time to secure your game’s lasting place in the market. But I’m afraid that at this rate by the time you have enough “data” to realize what you need to do to fulfill the awesomesauce that GW2 WvW could and should be, everyone will have already moved on with prejudice.

TL;DR – your data is misleading you and the clock is ticking

" Other games like ESO are watching you closely and learning from your mistakes. Lucky for you, there is still time to secure your game’s lasting place in the market. But I’m afraid that at this rate by the time you have enough “data” to realize what you need to do to fulfill the awesomesauce that GW2 WvW could and should be, everyone will have already moved on with prejudice."

^This^ … exactly. If you follow any of the various interviews with the ESO devs, it’s pretty obvious that they are acutely aware of the major deficiencies in GW2 WvW (apparently more so than the WvW devs themselves) and are literally designing their game to avoid them. I loved Skyrim and I’m anxiously awaiting ESO …. BUT if ANet had actually made WvW what it could and should have been (balanced matches, capable of handling large numbers of players, updating content instead of extending the grind, etc) it is extremely unlikely that I would jump ship. As it is, I feel like I’m literally being pushed out the door by some weird combination of indifference and cluelessness on the part of ANet. If ESO lives up to what they claim to be doing, I’ll be gone and never look back.

ArchonWing.9480:

DevonCarver.5370:

We will have an announcement about the NA leagues and seasons generally soon. But there are changes coming in.

Ah, well whatever it is you decide, I’d just like a more in depth argument behind the reasoning. Then again, as long as you all are open to change, then anything can be dealt with.

LOL. Dream on.

All this chest beating is just stupid … doesn’t matter who does it or which server they are from. Skill and coordination can often win skirmishes against greater numbers, but for WvW matches in general population and coverage trumps everything else by a long shot … period. It’s a crying shame, because if ANet wasn’t so clueless on that point we might actually have matches where skill, strategies, tactics, and coordination were actually deciding factors. The results would tell the story instead of the chest beaters.

Blackjack.2083:

Sometimes I question how much, if any, common sense the Anet dev teams has. Ok I question it all the time truth be told. You guys have to be either incredibly ignorant or simply indifferent to WvW to expect the leagues to be a success. There is such a large discrepancy between the top 3 servers and everyone else in 12 team brackets that there simply is ZERO chance to win if you are toward the bottom of those groupings. You will lack the population and the coverage to do anything other than be facerolled. Having a league COULD be a lot of fun but in any type of competitive match that gives rewards to the victors the first premise is a somewhat level playing field. This is going to be a seven week trial, doomed to fail, that we get to suffer through.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any other major game (I’m speaking of WvW here) where the key devs so poorly understood how their own game works on such an awesome scale. It’s quite incredible …

Poledo.3256:

I always assumed it was so you couldn’t press 1 – auto attack – and go AFK.

You are giving ANet WAY too much credit, especially since they have already officially confirmed that their targeting system needs a lot of work (i.e., sucks).

I don’t think the problem is mouse related. I use a Razer Naga and I’ve had targets drop many times for no apparent reason at all. ANet knows that their targeting system sucks and have admitted to some of the problems. Just because they haven’t admitted to this one doesn’t mean it isn’t their fault.

Supposedly they will be fixing some of this in the October patch … keep your fingers crossed.

Ostra.3927:

Lordkrall.

Uhmm.. yes. Since your “experience” differs then EVERYONE else on this thread… id say you need to have some numbers to back that up. If you are betting on who is the liar in a lineup, you go with the guy saying the light is red, when everyone else is saying the light is blue.

Read lordkrall’s other posts (just click on his name). He is by far ANet’s biggest apologist and will say anything to defend them on every topic. One of my biggest LOL’s was him saying several times that ANet couldn’t implement many of the improvements and fixes players were asking for because of all the time it would take to calculate and test potential balance issues … and he said all that just before bloodlust was sprung on us.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was lying … he just isn’t in the least objective. I’ll admit that most of my posts now are negative, but they weren’t always. I’ve been playing this game since launch and really, really wanted to see it become everything it promised to be, but after months of disappointments and seeing how out-of-touch ANet is with their player base, I’ve become very jaded toward this game and the devs. Lordkrall, on the other hand, is like the mother of the two Boston bombers who is convinced they were set up.

lordkrall.7241:

Neeho.3859:

It’s hard to believe with all that testing this wasn’t recognized…

Testing can never find all issues and some issues might not even turn up on the testing-servers at all.

LOL. You’re so far up ANet’s backside that you can’t even recognize sarcasm when you see it.

SirMoogie.9263:

Because instances have benefits and negative consequences, and how much the game is instanced will depend on the type of game they want to make. Instances allow for building challenging, structured content easier as you can balance them to particular party sizes. They also allow for telling a more personal tale. However, they push players out of the open world and diminish the first M from the MMO acronym. In games with instanced raids, where those are the most rewarded activity, the open world becomes a leveling service, major cities become fashion shows, and everyone hides away in dungeons having their own private experiences that aren’t shared except among those in their party. A more organic world doesn’t need instances, as our world doesn’t have them. If a dragon attacked our world, we would not just send 25 people to attack it because it put up a sign outside its lair saying, “Maximum capacity 25”. We would use every resource available to us to destroy the threat. Instances also don’t affect the world around them, as the activities are contained in the instance.

As a roleplayer, I prefer a more immersive, organic world. One where challenges can be confronted by anyone that happens to see them and wants to take them on and one where doing so affects the world. I’m not saying Guild Wars 2 gets these things right, but it seems to be what they’d like. I think the game shows promise, but has much to do to get there.

I’m not much into role-playing, but I also prefer open world events that anyone can join versus restrictive instances, and I have to give ANet credit for trying to do that. The part that is unfathomable to me, though, is how BADLY they keep making these things.

Ghaste.2419:

I hope Anet will learn from this.

Good luck with that. I honestly cannot remember where they have learned from any of their major mistakes. The same ill-designed stuff just keeps showing up. I’m not sure I’ve played any game where the devs seem to show so little understanding of their own game and their own player base.

DevonCarver.5370:

As to adding it to the general capping of the points, we’ll have to consider that pretty carefully before we make any changes.

Ahh .. you mean like you did for the bloodlust buff. Got it.

Vayne.8563:

Cactus.2710:

Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here. ANet has already stated that the players who post on these forums represent a minority, so if they live true to that premise they will ignore your praise just as they have our complaints.

For the record, there are many things I like about GW2. I like the game interface (mouse control for movement, keybinds for abilities), I love that there is no trinity, I like the way downscaling lower level zones works, and I like the way leveling works. There are many other things I don’t like, however, particularly the way that sPvP and WvW have been so badly mishandled, and I absolutely hate the way that ANet has interfaced with their player base. For all it’s warts, Rift devs were able to maintain an active and viable dialog with their players, and they responded very well to most suggestions and complaints. Why ANet is incapable of doing the same is beyond me.

The bigger the company and the game, the harder it is to do this. Even smaller companies that grow larger have trouble doing this.

Rift has far less players and far fewer employees. It’s a whole different situation.

I played Rift for almost 18 months, primarily for the PvP and eventually for their version of WvW (Conquest). I can assure you that Conquest had as many players every match as any I’ve personally seen in WvW, at least up to the middle tiers.

And if Rift had so many fewer employees, how is it possible that they managed to be so FAR more communicative while still putting out patches and upgrades every week or so? The difference isn’t one of size or numbers. The difference … as any manager in almost any industry will tell you .. is attitude. I can give you countless examples of companies, large and small, that prioritize customer service and are highly valued for it. And I can give you just as many examples of companies, large and small, who consider customer feedback to be mostly an irritant and are abandoned at the first sight of something better. Guess what is going to happen to ANet next year.

VOLKON.1290:

LoneWolfie.1852:

VOLKON.1290:

LoneWolfie.1852:

-_- You have a problem reading what I just wrote…?

The way you wrote it, yes. Your refusal to clarify isn’t helping either.

They (about 10 enemies using 3 arrow carts with possibly max traits in arrow carts) started carting us (damaging us with their AOEs and the super carts) and when I got to the top of the staircase (after using a few water fields and even warbanners, yes, there are glass cannons amongst the 30 of us), I had approximately 4k HP left and was finally downed there.

The tougher professions who had 30 k or high heal (guardians) managed to make it to the top of the lord, but was ultimately no match for the arrow carts and streaming enemy players.

Ah, that clarifies it. So you’re saying that around ten people in a defensive position with superior siege (three ACs, designed to be anti-personnel) and time to use it were able to fend off thirty or so attackers.

I have to admit… I don’t see a problem here.

I almost never agree with VOLKON, and probably never will again, but WvW was never intended to be sPvP and I really don’t see anything wrong with 10 motivated defenders with three or more intelligently placed siege just barely holding off 30 attackers … some of whom were glass cannons and all of whom used siege to break down the gate in the first place. Don’t want to lose all your health to ACs before getting inside? Try catapults or trebs from beyond AC range. It sounds like you tried a brainless rush and got your kittens handed to you just as you deserved.