Showing Posts For Cactus.2710:

What Happened To WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Was even worse when I just rechecked it.

Jade Quarry +595
Blackgate +50
Sanctum of Rall +50

This is insane. Does Arenanet realize what they’ve done? I really hope they will speak up on this.

What do you expect them to do. People cry and cry about queues, now they give us a map that solves that. People cry for a new map, we get one. It’s the person’s choice where they want to play. It’s like asking Anet to remove EB because nobody plays the borderlands. You have no argument.

What part of “what we really want is for ANet to fix WvW” did you not understand?? WvW could and should be the superior PvP mode compared with EOTM (more extensive strategy, cleaner maps, less PvE, larger scale, more focused objectives, etc) but it has been crippled by an ignorantly designed matchmaking system and all it took was EOTM to prove the point. You act like we should be happy we got a turkey sandwich to replace the Thanksgiving Day meal that got ruined.

Dude people are going to play what they enjoy more. Also you are judging it;s population based on it’s first week of release. Of course it’s going to be high, but soon people may come back to wvw and play that again. You act like Anet should force people to play wvw instead of EOTM because you are shorthanded. It’s their choice. My server loses nearly half our wvw population every major PVE update, I don’t complain about that. People will play what they want to, nothing you can do to change that.

Work on your comprehension skills. I never said (or even implied) that ANet should force people to play WvW. What I said was that I and others would much prefer to play WvW if ANet had not ignored so many of its flaws … population imbalance and coverage dominance being the most egregious. You stated that we should be happy that ANet gave us EOTM and quit complaining that they still haven’t fixed WvW when the smarter play would have been to simply make WvW faction based like they did with EOTM. I ONLY play EOTM now … but the reality is that the success of EOTM mostly highlights what a blown opportunity ANet had with WvW.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

What Happened To WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Why not merge all servers into 3 different colors like in EOTM? that would fix population issues.

Gee, none of us ever thought of that before. Or repeatedly begged ANet over the last several months to do just that.

Oh wait …

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

The end of regular WvWvW

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I play WvW and I still play WvW. I take no part in EotM, only for the easy AP. I play WvW for the glory of my server. EotM is all server combined, I don’t want to play for just being green. I like playing for my server in WvW.

That made me snort my soda.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev Tracker: Suggested Improvments

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

What makes any of you think that the devs actually want you to know what they’re doing?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

What Happened To WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Was even worse when I just rechecked it.

Jade Quarry +595
Blackgate +50
Sanctum of Rall +50

This is insane. Does Arenanet realize what they’ve done? I really hope they will speak up on this.

What do you expect them to do. People cry and cry about queues, now they give us a map that solves that. People cry for a new map, we get one. It’s the person’s choice where they want to play. It’s like asking Anet to remove EB because nobody plays the borderlands. You have no argument.

What part of “what we really want is for ANet to fix WvW” did you not understand?? WvW could and should be the superior PvP mode compared with EOTM (more extensive strategy, cleaner maps, less PvE, larger scale, more focused objectives, etc) but it has been crippled by an ignorantly designed matchmaking system and all it took was EOTM to prove the point. You act like we should be happy we got a turkey sandwich to replace the Thanksgiving Day meal that got ruined.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

What Happened To WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I think WvW dev team is the worst among ANET teams in communicating with players and address real problems in game play. SPvP team got lot of heat but they actually do show up on forum to answer player concerns. WvW team just don’t talk at all and don’t even try to address the “elephant in the room” balance problems in WvW.

Seriously, just scrap WvW already and make some tweaks to EoTM.

What is the point of EotM by itself?

1. If I want to fight for my server, WvW is far better.
2. If I want loot, PvE is far better.
3. If I want serious PvP where my skill matters, tPvP is far better.

Fine, EotM appeals to certain playstyles. But I really think most of the people there right now are there only because of unfixed problems with real WvW. The solution is to fix them, not destroy what could be a great playstyle for no reason.

Where have you been for the last year? These forums have been full of players literally BEGGING ANet to address key problems with WvW. Virtually all were ignored, and instead of fixes we got additions we neither asked for nor wanted. The solutions for WvW have been there all along … no reason I can think of to believe that ANet will suddenly decide to embrace them.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

eotm and wvw

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

As I wrote in the EotM forum, I think this update may, unintentionally, end up having a major negative impact on WvW as a whole. I’ve never seen such lopsided matchups in tier 1 and tier 2 in NA in the months since I started playing.

It makes sense on an individual level for people to prefer playing in EotM over getting destroyed in a matchup they can’t win. But it’s going to be really bad for WvW as a whole, due to guilds abandoning servers that aren’t even trying to win, and other effects. Especially tier 1, where we now have 2 dominant servers and no third to give them a run for their money.

Or it could be the wake up call the devs were searching for to end the ‘coverage wars’.

3 faction WvW, be it randomly assigned colour match ups, or people permanently choosing a faction/colour, is the only way to keep these 24 hour wars even remotely competitive.

^This.^

It has been obvious (to everyone except ANet) for over a year that ANet needed to convert WvW to some sort of format that balanced populations. Players even “voted” population imbalance to be the number one most important issue facing WvW, but the subsequent CDI went nowhere because the dev didn’t agree. If WvW dies because of EOTM it would be poetic justice.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Could EotM actually end up damaging WvW?

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Will EOTM supplant WvW?? I most certainly hope so, but it won’t be EOTM that damages WvW … it will have been ANet’s total refusal to address the population imbalance and coverage problems in WvW over the past 18 months. WvW is still my favorite PvP format overall because I much prefer a more strategic playstyle, but ANet screwed it over so badly that I’ll be playing EOTM pretty much exclusively until I jump ship entirely.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Stealth is it over powered

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The one question I have head the most when playing in WvW is how can He/She hide for so long, not that I find the fact that someone can hide for so long unfair, If they have built there player that way so be it, What really seams wrong to me is once that player has entered combat He/She is able to hide again with-out leaving the area even whilst He/She is being hit, In my opinion that is so unrealistic and in some ways spoils what is a very good game, if the player had to move out of melee range before He/She could stealth again after entering combat I think it would be far more realistic this would still give a good stealth build the opportunity to hide in a camp but even then if they have been found by other player searching and taken damage they should have to move out of melee rage before being able to hide again. I myself have just seen a fight where one stealth player who was able to out fight 6 other players for over 15 minutes and even revive someone just inside the gate at Mendon’s Tower in Eternal Battlegrounds

I would like to know what other players think of the above

If you really wanted to know what other players thought about it you could have read the umpteen zillion other threads on the topic of stealth that have been posted here over the past 15 months or so. You know you can search the archives, right?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Do you even care about relationships?

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I don’t care if Kasmeer and Marjory are in love.. i just don’t want to see ANY romantic stuff, we have way too more important things to do instead of look at two people flirt patch after patch after patch.

LOL. Somebody referring to lore as “important things.”

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

What if EotM replaces WvW?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Has anyone considered that EotM could very well be the ‘wvw’ activity we have in GW2 moving forward, rather than the tiered, 3 server match-ups we have now?

Instead of facing the same 3 servers and having one server steamroll another, they would pool all servers and organize them according to color like they do in EotM. At reset, each server will be randomly assigned a color so that every week you would have new allies.

This could solve a lot of issues in terms of coverage or unbalanced play. They could still keep the Borderland/EB maps in addition to EotM, but this time you have three separate color servers fighting one huge match-up instead of several tiers with 3 servers each.

I (and several others) have been suggesting this for almost a year now. Individual server matchups are stupid and cause all kinds of problems that wouldn’t exist with instanced faction-based matches. I can’t think of a single downside compared to the present as long as there was a mechanism for players to join in reasonable-sized groups. Possibly EOTM is ANet’s way of testing it without admitting it … I guess we can hope (although that has bought us precious little except disappointment over the last year).

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EotM = "Skyhammer hotjoin on steroids"

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I don’t know how many complaints I have seen on these very forums about how the only thing to run is zerker and it needs to change and then they give control builds a place to shine on skyhammer and eotm and everyone freaks out. I think it’s utterly brilliant. Placement and positioning are king for this map and I think it’s a wonderful change from just pressing buttons.

Make up your mind fickle player base. Do you just mindlessly want to spam buttons?

I am beginning to think the player base at large just wants to whine about anything.

No one has ever said zerker is the only thing to run in sPvP or WvW.

Agree. Some people think that exaggeration is a viable debate tactic.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EOTM Population Caps

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’ve been trying to keep track of the info on EOTM but haven’t seen any indication of how many players on each team it will hold before the game fires up a new instance of it. Anybody know?

Bumping this since nobody actually answered.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Red vs. Blue vs. Green: outnumbered problem.

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I much prefer green vs. red vs. blue you get to play allied with other servers, 17th place gets to fight next to 2nd place, etc. I like it.
however, green, red, and blue assignment should be random. I believe right now, 1st = green, 2nd = blue, 3rd = red? If that’s the case, then these are the matchups:
1,4,7,10,13,16,19,22 = green
vs.
2,5,8,11,14,17,20,23 = blue
vs.
3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24 = red
more even than 7v8v9, for example, but still green has a clear advantage.

Not really. Add up the Glicko-2 points for all Greens versus all Blues versus all Reds and you’ll find that the differences in the totals are not striking. I’m not saying that there aren’t major population discrepancies in EOTM … I’m saying that Green being top dog in WvW isn’t the reason.

With all the PvE and achievements that are polluting EOTM the number of players currently there for each team does not necessarily correlate at all with WvW rankings (which of course determine Green/Blue/Red). I played Blue in a match last night and we had such a huge numbers advantage that we steamrolled everyone.

To their credit, ANet seems to have finally created a map that can handle a lot of players reasonably well, but to their discredit they still can’t figure out how to put approximately equal numbers of players on the map at the same time. They didn’t need to assign players to EOTM teams based upon WvW color … they could have made that random … and I doubt anybody is going to be playing EOTM primarily for the benefits that get assigned back to their server. They’re going to play EOTM either as something to do while they wait in a WvW queue or they’re going to play EOTM simply because they think it’s fun.

ANet still has some work to do.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

(edited by Cactus.2710)

Please take away bridge achievement!

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

That all said, they seem to be learning. Slowly, but they are learning.

Examples or it isn’t true.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EotM = "Skyhammer hotjoin on steroids"

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The map’s great. It really is. I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I’m sorry you guys run on the bridges when there are enemies there (doh!), and jump into 60 man zergs and think you’re going to live because you brought some stability. Ya 1v60 (doh!). You guys make me laugh. Try enjoying content for once, it can be fun that way. Lol
.

Actually, you make me laugh. Choke points are always where two large groups are going to battle it out, and bridges are choke points. Choke points are also the best locations to defend with ballistas and such. It’s ignorant to believe otherwise.

And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, zergs are the quickest and most efficient way to capture territory. I’m not saying that I’m thrilled about that kind of play style, but it is what it is … at least for now.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

(edited by Cactus.2710)

Please take away bridge achievement!

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

People are destroying bridges in keeps solely for the achievement, and it is sabotaging those that actually want to play the match. Please don’t allow people to continue to get achievements for trolling the players.

:-(

Thanks.

I’m always amazed that game devs can’t seem to predict the friction between players on the same team that sort of crap causes.

Diversity in a game should be synergistic, not conflicting. I’ll bet nobody at ANet even understood that comment.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EotM = "Skyhammer hotjoin on steroids"

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

ANet seems fixated on lame falling mechanisms, and they have been from the start. Although I know lots of people like them, I totally hate jumping puzzles (nothing much of a “puzzle”, actually) and EOTM seems like more of the same since choke points like bridges are where most of the action is always going to be.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

So who thought it was a good idea too....

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

So who thought it was a good idea too allow your friendlies to destroy your own bridges? There is a group on my side of EotM likely doing it to grind out the achievements….

Come on..

Agree … this was just plain stupid. It’s not as much a hassle as it could have been since the bridge respawns so fast, but it’s still just stupid.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EOTM Population Caps

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’ve been trying to keep track of the info on EOTM but haven’t seen any indication of how many players on each team it will hold before the game fires up a new instance of it. Anybody know?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Anybody able to access the EotM map?

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

<p>REMEMBER YOU NEED TO USE THE Semicolon ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

l sorry just trying to lighten the mood </P>

What? Admittedly I’m a bit tired atm, but really I don’t see the joke assuming it was one. o.o Who was this directed at, or was it kinda just an undirected comment so to speak?

Random posts make the world go round, thats the best part of the forums.

I don’t think it was a random jibe. The semicolon is required at the end of C/C++ source code statements. Forgetting to include one is a common error and I suspect he’s just comically pointing it out … although of course leaving out a semicolon usually means you don’t get past the compiler.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

EotM, are Hardcore WvW'rs going to do it?

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Will not have a large hardcore following due to lack of guild/group queue.

Because EB and the BLs do?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

If You Tolerate This...

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

My wife tells me that we will be eating roast beef tomorrow evening, and that we will be having guests. 2 and 2. Also a possibility, right?

And if the patch hits tomorrow, and we find that red name players are wearing Aetherblade skins, therefore proving my -assumption- correct, will you be eating your words with that?

Dude, chill. I stated clearly in my post that it was an -assumption-. They do not have to be correct!

Of course an assumption doesn’t have to be correct, but an assumption does imply that you think it is likely … and a silly assumption is still silly. The most valuable part about your idea is that it calibrates us for your future posts.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Don't Make Precursors Craftable

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Please, ANet, don’t further dumb down the game over these players.

LOL! Because RNG is so intellectual??

Thanks for the comment, though, because I don’t think I could make this stuff up myself.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

If You Tolerate This...

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

It was just wild ideas that came to me. We are supposed to fight Aetherblades in EOTM. We will be fighting rival server players in EOTM. 2 and 2. Just a possibility :p

The average level of all rational thought in the universe just dropped three points due to your post.

My wife tells me that we will be eating roast beef tomorrow evening, and that we will be having guests. 2 and 2. Also a possibility, right?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Queue improvements

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I guess you missed the “behind the scenes” matched with “transparency” bit. Either that or you don’t find paradoxical statements amusing.

I think they still missed it …

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Potential Game Breaker

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Low population wvw servers will bleed to death. Mark my words.

We dont need to mark anything, its already happened/happening.

^this^

I played on Devona’s Rest since launch and resisted leaving even when my guild did, but after several months of almost no viable WvW on that server I finally caved and transferred. The poor way that ANet made zerging gather more rewards than anything else encouraged transfers to high pop servers, but creating Seasons was the final nail in the coffin for the low pop servers … hardly anyone stayed behind after that.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Gw2 Lag

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

First of all, you probably mean “server-side” since ANet does not run their own servers … they lease server capacity in a lump sum from other companies. In the U.S. they lease capacity from Akamai … not sure who they lease it from in EU.

Secondly, do you play on a European realm? It seems from the various complaints I’ve seen that Europe has a much larger problem with lag than does the U.S. I’m assuming that whatever port to that leased capacity they’re using in Europe is not set up properly, but obviously I can’t say for sure.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Potential Game Breaker

in The Edge of the Mists

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Well, taking a look at the Edge Of The Mists update, there are a few fatal flaws in this whole thing. Flaw number one, it will pull people from all maps including current wvw players into a zone where ppt does not matter. Two, it gets rid of the queue for the higher ranked (stacked) servers so there is no longer any incentive to leave said server. Three, by pulling players and guilds from the normal wvw maps, the entire scoring system is completely meaningless for any server that does not already constantly queue the normal wvw maps, it does this by taking the already fluctuating amount of people in wvw and exacerbates the fluctuation. For say 2-3 weeks, your server’s wvw guilds hang out in EotM, you drop ranks, they get bored, then it’s karma training and you go back up in rank. Those guilds now have to work for their ppt, no more karma training, and it’s back to EotM, rise and repeat.
I could be totally wrong, but I doubt it. Players will flock to “New and shiny” especially a lot of the wvw players that have been begging for new wvw maps. Let me be the first to congratulate you, ANet, for not listening to your player base.

Since I consider WvW to be totally broken anyway, the considerations you list are all reasons why I’m looking forward to at least trying EOTM. They are all positive things, in my opinion. I’ve pretty much given up on main map WVW as now being very little more than hit/run zerging of towers and camps … I don’t even see zergs fighting each other very often. It’s unfathomable to me how ANet managed to screw that up so badly compared with what it once was and what it could have been.

My major reservation about EOTM is whether or not enough of the map won’t simply be a place for me to fall to my death.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Now that was cute. Laughably naive, but cute. Season 1 provided a structure and incentive to actually go to a high pop server and BE PART OF THE LARGEST GROUP THAT YOU CAN. The top ten keys to winning in WvW (in season or otherwise), in order of priority, would look something like this:

1. I’d put 24/7 coverage over high population
2. Is server organisation/communication not a component of skill?
3. Is commander skill/knowledge not a component of skill?
4. I specifically included that it didn’t necessarily succeed in this endeavour.

Please don’t bring the forums down by flinging mud.

What part of “individual” did you miss?

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

In what way was Season 1 a success? I can’t think of a single thing they did right and I can’t think of a single reason I would ever consider participating in a second one.

It provided a structure and incentive for people to actually go to WvW and BE THE BEST THAT YOU CAN BE I guess is what I would say if I were him. Whether it actually did that is up for debate.

Personally, I enjoyed having some structure over the top of the matchup system and would welcome a Season 2, but more tweaking wouldn’t be unappreciated.

Now that was cute. Laughably naive, but cute. Season 1 provided a structure and incentive to actually go to a high pop server and BE PART OF THE LARGEST GROUP THAT YOU CAN. The top ten keys to winning in WvW (in season or otherwise), in order of priority, would look something like this:

1. highest population
2. highest population
3. highest population
4. highest population
5. highest population
6. greatest coverage 24/7
7. greatest coverage 24/7
8. greatest coverage 24/7
9. best server organization/communication
10. best commander knowledge/tactics

Being the best you can be as an individual wouldn’t even make the list.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Why WVW is broken... really

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Ask yourself one question, if your guild/mates were not playing this game, would you still play it?

I bet most will say no, that’s how this game has failed, players have tried to pass on suggestions to the devs but get infracted and ignored, it could have been a great game, but the devs have fallen short.

Rec’d and bumped.

I look at it this way. If another game showed up that looked just like WvW except that it simply incorporated the best ideas that were offered by players in the two WvW CDI’s we’ve had so far (the ones that have already been totally ignored by ANet), how many WvW players would turn their back on this one and immediately go to the new one? I can’t imagine why anyone would stay. That probability should both embarrass and scare ANet.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

(edited by Cactus.2710)

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Question: at this current state of WvW, why would I care about winning it? And what can you do to change so I actually do care about the win?

My solution would be season 2.

“Anet, you should hire me, seriously.” (your sig)

Please no, not if you think Season 2 would be the solution to anything.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

“- Your team in EOTM will be based up the color your server has in the regular WvW maps … if your server is red in EB you will be on the red team in EOTM along with red players from other servers, etc.”

-Is this the right way to do this? Wont this stack the teams? Grouping all the winners together?

That’s actually pretty funny. It implies that you think skill determines who wins in regular WvW. It doesn’t … simple population does, and in EOTM populations will be more or less balanced.

Besides, even if your erroneous presumption was true, the “winner” from a lower tier would still be worse than a loser from a higher tier and things would pretty much equal out across all tiers.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I just dont see many of us ever entering EOTM. Unless servers start stacking just for the chance to get in.

You still seem to be thinking it’s an overflow map … it isn’t.

The greater question is whether or not it will be interesting enough for many of us to want to stay in it. Personally, my play style involves a lot of dodging and movement so I’m expecting to quickly get fed up with falling to my death. It’s like ANet decided that we needed a return to jumping puzzle mechanics in WvW. I’m not sure what’s so wrong about just being able to fight.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Dev livestream: Ready Up: Jan 31 @ 2PM - EotM

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Will all servers be sharing the same EoTMs?

- All servers from the same region will share the same EOTMs … NA will be on one set and EU on another set.

- Your team in EOTM will be based up the color your server has in the regular WvW maps … if your server is red in EB you will be on the red team in EOTM along with red players from other servers, etc.

- When one EOTM map gets full another EOTM map will open up.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

More variety in medium armor (esp male)

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Yeah well this can be stated either personally or by puttinf a link, and that’s no hard work. I won’t stop until we get a brief answer, be it positive or negative. A reaction at least, I feel fooled llike this.

You haven’t been here in these forums very long, have you. Here’s a pointer for you.

“World English Dictionary
black hole

— n
1. an object in space so dense that its escape velocity exceeds the speed of light
2. any place regarded as resembling a black hole in that items or information entering it cannot be retrieved "

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

All weapons, All classes

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I think they are about to open up all weapons to all classes because they keep saying in the balance discussions that they have a “surprise” for us. To me its the only thing they could be talking about since its about the only thing that would shake up balance in this game. Well besides all the nerfs anyway.

Unfulfilled expectation can be it’s own surprise. Just saying …

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Features on The Commander tag

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

There was a full CDI on the WvW forums with LOTS of good suggestions from the players on how to improve the commander system overall … communication, organization, functionality, etc. The dev’s sole takeaway from all that time and effort was that it might be worth some time in the future investigating the possibility of maybe implementing more colors for the tags.

There you have it.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

How to fix basic WvW problems

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Since the CDI has technically been nullified by the switch of people in charge and the existence of the “Three likes & Three hates” thread,

Has it? I think we need feedback from Josh on the CDis, given the push Chris Whiteside is putting into the initiative I doubt its been discarded. The 3 likes/dislikes thread has really served to confuse the issue.

Trust me, it’s been discarded. Several of us have repeatedly asked Chris and now Josh (no point in asking Devon) to summarize the actionable (as in investigate … not necessarily implement) items they thought were noteworthy from either of the WvW CDIs. Nothing has crawled out from either rat hole.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

(Though personally I wouldn’t expect anything. I don’t expect any of the concerns I recall reading about on WvW could really be handled short of chucking the whole thing in a trashcan and designing it all over again from the bottom up.)

Actually, we can at least agree on that. As with most things, it’s often cleaner to start from scratch than try to tweak something that’s complex. I’ve even made some fairly extensive suggestions to that effect in the past (several times in fact), but I’m pretty certain that the WvW group no longer has the will or the resources to do much of anything at all, much less a full reboot.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Of course, I will be representing a minority opinion here, but I really don’t want to design a game with the game developer. I’d much prefer they assume that role. I think it’s great to hear, understand, and incorporate good feedback, but I really don’t think that joint development is appropriate or possible.

It’s worth noting we’re not developing it with them so much as this is a place they can listen to our ideas, concerns, criticisms, and communicate back when possible about them . . . on a central topic rather than on a broad range of them. So a more focused sort of forum.

I’d say we’re behaving more like a “focus group” than “collaborating developer”.

It’s been noted several times during the CDIs, however, ideas and input are not guaranteed to be included or acted upon. There was only a promise to listen and discuss it, not to use. The final call still is on ArenaNet.

So you pessimists out there? Yes, that does technically mean they could use absolutely nothing from the CDI threads and still be “in the right” about it.

Don’t be inane, OK?

Don’t require me to repeat things publicly stated

First of all, the players weren’t the ones who coined the term Collaborative Development Initiative, or CDI. ANet did, and they were the ones who specifically proposed that devs and players jointly discuss how the game could be improved going forward.

Which is mostly in response to the players jumping up and down and throwing hissy fits over the direction the game goes every time they make a decision. Lost Shores, Scarlet, Ascended, WXP, Scarlet, Daily/Monthly Achievement revamp twice . . . Scarlet . . .

It almost feels sometimes like they threw up their hands and went: “Fine, you don’t want us making the game, your turn”.

Secondly, there was a commitment on the part of ANet to actually discuss the ideas raised in the CDI. That’s what “collaborative” means and at least for WvW it didn’t happen. It isn’t collaborative if one side just sits there listening and doesn’t respond in any manner. That’s called a wall.

Can’t attest to what happened on the WvW CDI as I wasn’t around for it and honestly don’t have much input on it.

What I can say is they have no contract to use anything discussed in a CDI thread if they don’t want to. That’s their right, and anyone who wants to start their argument on “we decided…” forgets who it is who are the developers. Collaboration or no, there’s a point where one side is the company making the game and the other is the consumers.

Forgive the analogy, but it’s almost like a discussion between employees and their boss. Sure, there can be a suggestions box outside the office and weekly meetings about “how can we improve our business”, but the boss is still the boss and they still have to make the decisions. Presumably, of course, they’re making them for sensible reasons instead of “this was suggested by Tom and he’s dating my ex”.

I didn’t say anything about USING anything from the CDI. Try to pay attention. What I did say is that ANet made a commitment to LISTEN and RESPOND to the ideas raised in the CDI. They said they would do that when they set the kitten thing up and that’s what “collaborative” (their term, not ours) means. They didn’t do either. Go look for what ANet captured from the 23 pages and 1,150+ posts that were a part of the WvW Population Imbalance CDI … you won’t find it. You won’t even find more than four or five posts in total from the dev who supposedly ran that CDI, and those were mostly dismissive. You can find that there if you care to.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

We already have the forums and feedback is the purpose of the forums. What I don’t understand is the purpose of the CDI. Personally, I’m not pessimistic, just searching for signs of intelligent life.

. . . on the Internet?

Though, seriously, from what I can gather the CDI is a focused topic the forums agree on (as much as they can) and the devs put up a topic for people to weigh in, every now and then dropping in their own input. Then they bundle it all up and take it to a meeting room to discuss it in private.

Sort of like the last time I went to a bureaucratic focus group meeting. Seriously, it’s a thing I took part in once where a school board wanted feedback from administrators, students, parents, and teachers. They invited about 200 people to a convention hall on a Saturday, provided coffee, donuts, and fruit, and had a stage where someone from the board stood up there with a transparency film (remember those?) and a projector taking notes. As well as easels with paper and Sharpie markers in the lobby. End of the day they packed it all into boxes and took it back to the administration building.

Surprisingly the CDI has a better track record for listening and comprehending than that school board

I’m reminded of a town meeting in VT on the Bob Newhart show. He said, “what we need here is a stupid alert.” I like Bob Newhart a lot. CDI has to do with cooperative development. That is what I have a problem with. A game should not be cooperatively developed. That’s the job of the game developer. Hopefully they have some ideas whose time has come. The old Anet that marketed this game had a lot of great ideas. Those ideas seem to have faded to the extent they have interacted with the playerbase. Sad, really.

That’s pretty laughable, really. The great majority of the things that have been added to GW2 in general, and WvW in particular, had NOTHING to do with anything requested by the players. Did players ask for Scarlet? Did players ask for badly written Living Story content? Did players ask for more gear grind? Did players ask for siege mastery? Did players ask for more PvE in WvW?

Now go make a list of the thing that players HAVE repeatedly asked for and tell me how many of those things you see in the game?

I never said that collaborative development was a good thing, and in fact I think it is doomed to failure simply because I don’t believe that ANet is capable of sorting out the good stuff from the bad. I do think however, that good companies try to maintain a healthy and steady dialogue with their customers … they listen, they consider, they respond, and they act. ANet is woefully bad at that. It hasn’t been interaction with the players that has been the problem with GW2 … it’s the lack of it.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

(edited by Cactus.2710)

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Of course, I will be representing a minority opinion here, but I really don’t want to design a game with the game developer. I’d much prefer they assume that role. I think it’s great to hear, understand, and incorporate good feedback, but I really don’t think that joint development is appropriate or possible.

It’s worth noting we’re not developing it with them so much as this is a place they can listen to our ideas, concerns, criticisms, and communicate back when possible about them . . . on a central topic rather than on a broad range of them. So a more focused sort of forum.

I’d say we’re behaving more like a “focus group” than “collaborating developer”.

It’s been noted several times during the CDIs, however, ideas and input are not guaranteed to be included or acted upon. There was only a promise to listen and discuss it, not to use. The final call still is on ArenaNet.

So you pessimists out there? Yes, that does technically mean they could use absolutely nothing from the CDI threads and still be “in the right” about it.

Don’t be inane, OK?

First of all, the players weren’t the ones who coined the term Collaborative Development Initiative, or CDI. ANet did, and they were the ones who specifically proposed that devs and players jointly discuss how the game could be improved going forward.

Secondly, there was a commitment on the part of ANet to actually discuss the ideas raised in the CDI. That’s what “collaborative” means and at least for WvW it didn’t happen. It isn’t collaborative if one side just sits there listening and doesn’t respond in any manner. That’s called a wall.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I am definitely going to expose the impact between previous CDI and evolution in the live game when I get time (More observant community CDI members will already see evolution).

What about the WvW CDis? Seemingly nothing is coming from them. Devon has been silent. Josh has come in and created his own feedback thread which has served to create confusion on what is exactly happening with WvW.

I’m pretty certain I know exactly what is happening with WvW. I’ll summarize here:

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I would have to agree it would be nice to see from a High Level View what ANet deemed as valuable take-aways from previous CDI’s.

Unfortunately, in all good conscience, they can’t.

They’re working in a competitive business, and they cannot be distilling hundreds of hours and thousands of posts down into bullet lists of the best, most actionable items for the competition to skim off with no more effort than browsing the forums’ Dev tracker. Amongst several other reasons, that’s probably why they’re looking to move the combined proposal writing into player hands.

There are a lot of people taking a ton of time putting forth herculean efforts to favorably contribute to this process with little feedback on the resulting outcome of their suggestions.

As annoying as it sounds, the feedback has to come essentially no earlier than the preview the patch were the idea goes live.

That extra delay is one reason why I really hope that at that phase they are extremely diligent about drawing a line back to the CDI thread and even specific posts that inspired them. With the time between suggestion and delivery being so long and so carefully hidden, for there to be any sense of payoff they are going to have to work extra hard to acknowledge those contributions or all of our commitment is going quite rightly to dry up.

I was pretty excited to see Scarlet’s Hideout in this update and for her to not be in it. On the other hand I didn’t get to burn the place down and do racial dances in the ashes…

Should I count this as a personal success or just a bit of convergent evolution?

Without their commentary, I have no way of knowing if that CDI post had a contributory impact.

I am definitely going to expose the impact between previous CDI and evolution in the live game when I get time (More observant community CDI members will already see evolution).

Like you point out Nike, there have been some pretty obvious ones already, but I agree it would be exciting to call out changes in relation to previous CDI proposal/summaries.

Origins of Madness contains a number of evolutions that were heavily impacted by previous CDIs.

Chris

I consider myself observant as hell and I haven’t seen anything come from any of the WvW CDIs. I didn’t expect anything to be implemented in a short time frame, but I did expect at least some indication from you folks whether or not any of the many good ideas raised in those threads aligned with your vision of where WvW was headed. What we have instead now is a total reboot with the inane “3 likes/3 dislikes” thread from Josh. I was at least observant enough to figure out that there’s a bit of diversion going on here.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Best Way to Make Gold

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Go to work for 8 hours and spend the money of one work day on gems. Convert it to gold and be rich in a few days. Otherwise, this game will grind you into the ground over several months trying to make money with the rate of inflation vs lack of improved rewards over time.

I couldn’t have said it better.

And it’s obvious that this is how ANet wants it to be. GW2 isn’t P2P, but it certainly is P/2G (my attempt at “pay not to grind”)

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Feb 4 Patch - EOTM

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

This will not be tied to specific servers.

Players will be grouped with players from different servers based on their color for the week….e.g….. all “red” players will be grouped together.

To pure PvE players: so sorry that you have to deal with the “inconvenience” of dealing with PvP in a map that was SUPPOSED to be a long-awaited WvW update.

To WvW/PvX players: so sorry that ANet decided to cram more LS into WvW after very clear feedback that it wasn’t welcomed. At best, we might find some PvE players end up liking WvW. At worst, enjoy the extra loot bags.

To ANet: one of the abiding laws of any creative endeavor from art to cooking to development: “KNOW WHEN TO STOP.” Too much spice ruins what could have been a good meal. That last dab of paint in the lower right corner just changed the entire feel of the artwork. Too much Scarlet shoved down players throats may cause massive aversion to LS and the game.

To those who can extract fun from this new content despite the unwelcome fusion of PvE/ LS and WvW: enjoy!

-Still waiting for the “real” WvW update of account-bound wxp.

Well stated.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

CDI- Process Evolution Phase 2- Update

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Would be nice to know what suggestions people made in the last CDI actually got paid attention to and are being looked at for implementation.

Chris himself actually specifically promised me directly in a forum post that we would get such a summary for the WvW Population Imbalance CDI from ANet’s point of view. It never happened. I keep trying to remind him of his promise every once in a while and we still get nothing.

After many, many pages of discussion and lots of very good ideas in the WvW Commander CDI all we got a couple of lines of dev summary that basically said that implementing different colored tags might be something to consider in the future.

If we can’t even get a reasonable summary of the key takeaways from these CDI’s I don’t think we should expect to ever see something concrete emerge from them. Lots of players, me included, were delusional enough to think that ANet was finally serious about responding to their player base, but these CDI’s are looking more and more like just a cynical attempt at defer/defect PR to calm the unrest in the forums.

A rat hole is a rat hole no matter what you call it.

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]

Feb 4 Patch - EOTM

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

How will EotM work anyway as a WvW map? If it’s a single overflow, that means there will be a lot more than just red/green/blue I would think. Unless they assign you as a color when you get put in there. Is it going to be fully open PvP then? or?

A lot of us are praying (really hard) that this isn’t tied to servers – otherwise it is just one more thing that makes the large servers more enticing than those who actually need the people.

^this^ … really hard

D/D Thief who prefers mobility to stealth … so yeah, I die a lot
Stormbluff Isle [AoD]