Guild Wars 2

juicifruitz.6251:

Cactus.2710:

Jaxs.5830:

Nothing new means nothing poorly implemented as well. Good to look on the positive side of things.

Because the stuff that does get implemented gets implemented so well?? What game have you been playing?

To be honest, the only positive thing I see on the horizon is EOTM … and I’m half guessing lots of us will never see it at all if it comes out after April 4.

I could be wrong, but I believe you misread the intent of the post you quoted.

I took it as the implemented stuffs, well lets be honest here and say since Alpha testing, have been implemented in a manor beneath which Anet should strive for at an absolute minimum, but rather than looking at it like that, they were choosing to look at from the other side, which is the nothing new, so nothing poorly implemented again side of the things.

OK … I’ll buy that. I think I probably read his post too quickly the first time through.

Jaxs.5830:

Nothing new means nothing poorly implemented as well. Good to look on the positive side of things.

Because the stuff that does get implemented gets implemented so well?? What game have you been playing?

To be honest, the only positive thing I see on the horizon is EOTM … and I’m half guessing lots of us will never see it at all if it comes out after April 4.

Katz.5143:

There are a lot of excellent suggestions in this thread.

For me, horizontal progression is infinitely more important that vertical. I tend to look at vertical profession as the “job” and the part that you do just so that you can have time, money, etc for your fun things (hobbies = vertical progression).

So what would I love to have for my hobbies?

1. Armor and weapon skin collections. Obviously for this to work, we need an unlock/storage system.

2. Housing and cool stuff to put in it. Quested, crafted, random drops, whatever the source, it makes your house or personal instance more, well, personalized.

3. I’d really like appearance items added to the crafting professions. Armor, weapons, housing items.

4. Titles. More and more titles and a variety of ways to get them (see LoTR for an example of fun ways to get many titles).

All of the hobbies listed above can be incorporated into current zones and activities. I would suggest updating each zone to have a zone specific set of appearance armor, house items, appearance weapons, recipes, and so forth. The karma hearts could be updated to carry these items. The karma merchants all over the land that carry the same few cooking items should be made more region specific with a variety of items.

Some of the most fun I had was locating all the cooking materials my chef needed and locating all the pets for my ranger. I would love more scavenger hunt style things to find.

Agree on all of those. All are horizontal and could be fun.

Rift also had lots of odd and fun ways to get TONS of cool titles … see http://rift.zam.com/wiki/Title_%28Rift%29

Minato.5294:

I was running with a commander the other day and he couldn’t communicate with his squad because he was message suppressed. This isn’t the first time this has happened since commanders need to ping a WP to regroup when running to camps to build golems or wiping to a large opposing force. Commanders shouldn’t be message suppressed or at least not get suppressed when trying to communicate commands such as gathering at pinged WP or POI, stacking, or blasting fields.

This was discussed pretty extensively in the recent WvW Commander Collaborative Discussion Initiative … which of course means that absolutely nothing will ever change about it.

chemiclord.3978:

Personally, I think Arena.net just needs to not say anything about their vision.

It’ll just be thrown back in their face by bitter, spiteful fans if they don’t meet every single bullet point by year’s end.

Ever consider what it is that makes fans bitter and spiteful? Didn’t think so …

lordkrall.7241:

Finnway.2183:

^^ Where did you get the idea they’re releasing a new zone in 2014? I’d like a link to that. Unless you count the new WvW map as a new zone (personally, I don’t).

But the WvW map IS a new zone.

Honest question: Have we ever been told that EOTM is accessible by anyone at any time? I.E., is it more than just an overflow map?

Ignoring for the moment copyright infringement issues, imagine what would happen if a different game developer introduced a version of WvW that simply offered balanced faction-based (red-vs-green-vs-blue) matches and addressed only a handful of the other most significant complaints that players have had with ANet’s version over the past year. Players would flock to it in droves and leave GW2 in their rear view mirror, never to look back. To me, that’s an amazing situation … that ANet could be trounced by some other company simply by fixing a few things in WvW that ANet has been unwilling to do.

Draygo.9473:

SoulSin.5682:

A suggestion:

Remove the whole server vs server crap that obviously never worked in 20 years of MMo history and transform it in a big Red Vs Green Vs Blue battlefield.

Um, it hasn’t been TRIED in 20 years of MMO history. If you want to make an argument to change something you can start your post with something better than a half-truth.

If you want to accuse someone of playing loose with the truth you’d better be certain you know what you’re talking about. You don’t. The 3-faction open world PvP portion of Rift called Conquest was exactly a Red-vs-Green-vs-Blue format, with players able to choose which team they wanted to play on when they queued. There were some HORRIBLE flaws with Conquest, but the lack of server alignment was not one of them.

I have a suspicion that ANet couldn’t run WvW on any of the PvE maps even if they wanted to. I’d bet that they have segregated the software for the various game modes so significantly that there really isn’t much overlap. Probably a bad decision on their part, but I’ll bet they’re stuck with it.

Jaxs.5830:

Vena.8436:

Edge is, at the very least, a very carefully designed map that has built on a lot of the flaws of the old maps and improved. Give it a try! There’s some great mechanics in there… though I still miss the yaks.

Is the plan to still limit edge to the current matchup? If so I think its as huge a waste of time as any empty plots of land in WAR ever were.

I thought Edge was going to be open to all servers simultaneously, with multiple instances opening up to handle whatever demand was there. If it is limited only to the current matchup, that’s just stupid.

ANet does not use their own servers for GW2 … they lease server capacity from Akamai and ANet doesn’t even know which pieces of hardware are running the game at any point in time. The only reason for anything to be organized by realm is purely due to some decision … there is no hardware constraint.

Crimson Riddles.3892:

I think everything is fine, if anything WvW gained population by attracting the PvE achievement hunters…

Seasons served its purpose.

It probably served its purpose from ANet’s point of view, but from a player point of view it didn’t improve WvW at all … in fact it did just the opposite.

Vena.8436:

There.

1.) ANet could transition to instanced matches. There is no reason that I can see to retain the server-vs-server-vs-server model, and it is the single biggest flaw that breaks WvW. I still greatly prefer to battle in a large scale format requiring teamwork and strategy, and while ignoring PPT is the only sane thing to do anymore it is not my preference at all. I am deeply sad that WvW has forfeited what it could have been, and for that … yes, I carry a grudge against ANet.

2.) Almost everything that ANet has added to WvW since last winter has encouraged zergs (I’m going back further than just a couple of months). You don’t have to take my word for it … the forums are full of examples. Ranks, points for kills, silly achievements that draw in PvE’ers in droves, the emphasis on flipping objectives instead of holding them … all of that can be accomplish best by running with a zerg. To be honest, I often find running with a zerg to be fun as well, but it shouldn’t trump everything else. The league system is another example … everyone jumped ship to high pop servers where there are so many people playing that roamers and scouts (even if they gather some goodies along the way) contribute proportionately far less to the success of the server than they did last winter.

3.) At least we agree on this one

4.) I wasn’t really just referring to maps when I mentioned content because more importantly I think there are fresh things that ANet could add to existing maps beyond the rather wasted bloodlust bases, but let’s face it … Southsun was a new map and just about every LS instance has been a new map. I did say that I’m anxious to give Edge of the Mists a try, but I think it’s pretty obvious that WvW doesn’t get the love that other elements of GW2 get, and that has to affect how motivated (or not) WvW’ers are to stick around.

5.) I don’t see how it is petty at all to be severely disappointed that the topic voted by WvW’ers as the single most important issue to be addressed by the CDI process went absolutely nowhere. Chris Whiteside himself directly responded to me in the CDI process development thread promising that he would ask Devon Carter to summarize the key ideas gathered from those 23 pages of player comments. Nothing ever came of that and we still don’t know which, if any, of the hundreds of player suggestions struck any kind of chord with anyone at ANet. Nobody has ever given any reason for the black hole that CDI turned into or offered any indication it would be readdressed.

As boring as it may be to you to see these points continually raised (and not just by me), imagine how frustrating it must be for all the players who care about WvW to see nothing ever being done about them. If you can so readily accept the status quo for WvW, that’s fine … but all that tells me is that you have lesser expectations for the game and what it could be. From all indications, though, you’re exactly the kind of player that ANet wants for WvW … somebody who might play fairly often but doesn’t much care what the game looks like as long as they get to socialize with guild mates and mess around a bit. Maybe no other alternatives show up and we’ll all be stuck with you here in GW2 by default, but if any game shows up and delivers what WvW COULD have been, I can pretty much guarantee that players will leave here in droves. That prospect alone … that some other game publisher could attract a large player base simply by offering WvW implemented as ANet could be doing themselves … is probably the strongest and most ironic indictment I can think of.

Poxheart.2845:

Cactus.2710:

Poxheart.2845:

Raven.9603:

wvw lost population because the season is over. it will be like it has always been: dropping everytime some pve crap launches, spiking temporarily for Edge of the Mists and maybe Season 2, before disappearing completely when ESO launches in april (which is pretty soon in the grand scheme of things). Not that ESO will be great or anything, but for the WvW population, it only has to rise above the low GW2 bar of near-zero wvw development.

It’s bar does not rise above.

How so? If I understand the situation correctly, the TESO equivalent of WvW (the Alliance wars) hasn’t even been included in the beta yet. So on what exactly do you base your comment?

I’m going to put the odds at 100:1 that you don’t reply with anything specific.

I’ve played the ESO equivalent of WvW at max level and there is a myriad of reasons for my comment, but going into specifics would get my post deleted (I’ve seen it happen to others). I will say that there was as much, if not more, zerging as in GW2.

Well, at least you responded and I thank you for that. I’d certainly like to hear the specifics of what you think is deficient, though. If you ever decide to post a summary somewhere else you should at least be able to post a link to it here without getting redacted.

Poxheart.2845:

Raven.9603:

wvw lost population because the season is over. it will be like it has always been: dropping everytime some pve crap launches, spiking temporarily for Edge of the Mists and maybe Season 2, before disappearing completely when ESO launches in april (which is pretty soon in the grand scheme of things). Not that ESO will be great or anything, but for the WvW population, it only has to rise above the low GW2 bar of near-zero wvw development.

It’s bar does not rise above.

How so? If I understand the situation correctly, the TESO equivalent of WvW (the Alliance wars) hasn’t even been included in the beta yet. So on what exactly do you base your comment?

I’m going to put the odds at 100:1 that you don’t reply with anything specific.

Vena.8436:

Looks about the same as before seasons…

Cactus.2710:

Reasons why WvW participation might be declining:

Your perseverance (or lack of anything better to engage with) amazes me. Its been over a year, let it go already. Though your exaggerations never cease to amaze and amuse.

Not as much as your persistently sycophantic support of ANet amazes me.

If you read my comment with anything approaching moderate comprehension you’ll notice that I didn’t say that WvW participation was declining … and in fact I stated that I couldn’t tell if it was or if it wasn’t because I play on such a low pop server. I simply listed some major issues in the game that in my opinion were the most likely negative factors if indeed participation was declining as the OP suggested. Please describe where I exaggerated anything in the five items I listed, or for that matter in any other part of what I wrote. Now THAT should be amusing.

Valik Shin.9027:

Cactus.2710:

bob.8632:

Cactus.2710:

Hardly anybody cares about defending, and most players don’t even care about PPT anymore.

Aww man you had me until that line…Most of the people that do not care about PPT anymore is because there is a point in the player-evolution of WvW that you realize that PPT is a failed metric….

Just like the winning team in PVP, the winning team in WvW is not necessarily the best (skill, strategy, player wise). PPT = Who held the most points during the week for the longest, 90%+ of the time that goes to the server with the biggest population in WvW that particular week.

At least in PvP the matches are somewhat balanced, just think of what people would say about the “scoreboard” in PvP if you had 15v5 or 3v10s…..All you need is enough people to stand in those circles bro, with that in mind that is why many people could care less about PPT.

I never said that PPT wasn’t a failed metric. PPT clearly IS a failed metric … precisely, as you say, because population and coverage trumps EVERYTHING else. However, WvW was designed around PPT under the erroneous assumption that matches WOULD be more or less balanced (how ANet assumed that would remain the case is beyond me) and the fact that nobody gives a rat’s kitten about PPT anymore is pretty stark evidence of the game’s failure. That’s what I was trying to point out.

Idk if anet thought it would stay balanced as much as they didn’t think people would take it very seriously. From the start they said it was designed to be casual

Well, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs for the players to take the game more seriously than the developers do, and for the players to care more whether it survives or not. To be honest, I think the original vision for GW2 did include a solid emphasis on WvW … I just don’t think the same people are in control any more and I think ANet’s current attitude toward WvW can be more accurately described as damage control rather than sincere reform.

bob.8632:

Cactus.2710:

Hardly anybody cares about defending, and most players don’t even care about PPT anymore.

Aww man you had me until that line…Most of the people that do not care about PPT anymore is because there is a point in the player-evolution of WvW that you realize that PPT is a failed metric….

Just like the winning team in PVP, the winning team in WvW is not necessarily the best (skill, strategy, player wise). PPT = Who held the most points during the week for the longest, 90%+ of the time that goes to the server with the biggest population in WvW that particular week.

At least in PvP the matches are somewhat balanced, just think of what people would say about the “scoreboard” in PvP if you had 15v5 or 3v10s…..All you need is enough people to stand in those circles bro, with that in mind that is why many people could care less about PPT.

I never said that PPT wasn’t a failed metric. PPT clearly IS a failed metric … precisely, as you say, because population and coverage trumps EVERYTHING else. However, WvW was designed around PPT under the erroneous assumption that matches WOULD be more or less balanced (how ANet assumed that would remain the case is beyond me) and the fact that nobody gives a rat’s kitten about PPT anymore is pretty stark evidence of the game’s failure. That’s what I was trying to point out.

chrisgr.3849:

i will ad 1 more question
is anet realy cares about WvWvW at all???cose atm many servers have the feeling that anet is troling with them

That truly is the real issue here. In theory almost any problem can be fixed (and certainly the major issues with WvW can be), but in practice there needs to be recognition and willingness to do so. ANet has demonstrated time and time again that they have neither.

ykyk.2740:

You should identify your server, so that the other 2 servers can come in and laugh at you.

You get my vote for the most incomprehensible combination of thread title and comment gibberish that I have seen in these forums since launch.

Reasons why WvW participation might be declining:

1- Total frustration with imbalanced matches and no action from ANet to fix it after more than a year. Bonus points for a stillborn population CDI with over 1,100 player comments that ANet couldn’t be bothered to summarize or even acknowledge.

2- Expanding emphasis by ANet on zerg mechanics for playstyle, PPT, and individual rewards. The hive mentality gets boring for anyone after a while.

3- As the result of #2 above and the ill-advised league system, mass player migrations causing lag and long queues on top tier servers and barren wastelands on low tier servers … neither of which makes for viable game play.

4- Total lack of new maps or meaningful new content. The Edge of the Mists might have some promise, but we don’t have even an approximate timetable for it and in any case it’s pretty sad that what was intended as merely an overflow distraction sounds more interesting than anything else that has been added to the game since launch.

5- Continued indifference by the devs to the overall plight of WvW. Why should anyone stick around when thus far the most likely action from any of the “collaboration” discussions is that we might see multiple colors for commander tags.

I can’t actually tell whether or not overall WvW participation has declined or not since I don’t hop servers, but I can categorically say that the breadth of the play style has steadily eroded over the past year. Just about everything that ANet has changed in WvW since launch has narrowed the focus of matches. Hardly anybody cares about defending, and most players don’t even care about PPT anymore. I remember some truly exciting mass warfare from last winter, with commanders plotting strategies to catch opposing servers off guard and intense battles over just about every piece of real estate. But little of that happens anymore and over the last several months players had to resort to creating their own game modes to keep things interesting … while ANet merely resorted to gimmick rewards to draw otherwise disinterested PvE’ers into WvW so they could claim high participation.

WvW might still be floating, but it’s taking on water and there other boats are on the horizon that look far more promising … if for no other reason than the fact that the developers of those other boats have studied the leaks in this one and are working hard to avoid them. Whatever participation WvW retains can almost solely be credited to the fact that there currently is no other viable option. ANet has had this entire past year to learn from their mistakes, work closely enough with players to fix them and develop solid user loyalty, and head off the challenge from the new games. But they didn’t … and they still aren’t. Every single item I listed above, with the possible (and indeterminate) exception of EOTM, is still sitting in an inactive file somewhere.

Dawdler.8521:

It really doesnt work to go after the population of a server. This imbalance will always be there and is impossible to take away. Hell it even exist in T1 – having outmanned buff when the enemy servers bring 60+ man mega blobs on EB is good fun :/

The only way to help the “underdogs” is to completely revamp the score system. No more PPT. Reward actually taking objectives from strong opponents, not holding them against a weak one. Right now, the score is 100% based on sieging up keeps and staying inside them to win. You dont fight the enemy to win, you just have to sit there on your arrowcart all day long. It doesnt have to be that way. Score should at the very least be 50/50 between taking and holding keeps, but personally I think it should be 75% offense and 25% defense.

But unfortunetly it probably just cause an outcry from the servers that siege up a paper keep 10x more than other servers siege up T3 Garrison.

Anet obviously want to reward people sitting on arrowcarts all day. They havent even nerfed the damage or increased the cost yet – that in itself is proof that Anet want this type of gameplay, they dont want the underdogs to have a chance at winning.

It is not true that there isn’t a solution to the population problem. The solution is to break WvW free from the server-vs-server-vs-server system, but just because ANet is unlikely to ever embrace it does not mean that it couldn’t be done.

It is definitely a shame, though, that ANet is so unable or unwilling to fix what is by far the single biggest flaw in what could otherwise be an awesome open world, strategy-based PvP mode.

Don’t apologize for missing the WvW population CDI. ANet pretty much dropped that whole topic like a hot rock anyway and I don’t expect anything significant to come from it.

I do like your idea, though. It’s sort of a guesting option that benefits both the player and the server he/she guests to, and without much chance for abuse if the guesting destination is at least partially random among the various low pop servers.

Rift had a somewhat similar feature for their PvP warfronts, where a player could end up as a “mercenary” for the other team if the queues were unbalanced. Some players didn’t like it, but most far preferred balanced matches to blowouts, and many players found it fun to occasionally play against friends and guildmates.

The only downside that I can think about your suggestion is that most guested players would end up as pugs, but there’s always the slim hope that something positive might come from the recent commander CDI to better integrate pugs into the battle. In any case, it would probably spur more use of TS by pugs … and in my opinion that’s a good thing.

lordkrall.7241:

There is a rather big issue here.
If the matches are too random people will complain about steamrolling/being steamrolled, if the matches are less random people will complain about always facing the same servers.

Don’t really see how they could solve that however. I suppose they could alternate between the two now and then, but that is not really a solution either.

ANet could transition to instanced battles that are independent of servers. With all the server hopping that has gone on, I certainly don’t find much merit in the “loyalty” argument.

Palador.2170:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I haven’t been participating in this CDI stuff partly because I really don’t see much coming from it.

Please, take part in the CDI threads.

Even if you don’t think it will make any difference in GW2, there’s a chance that the devs of the other games coming out soon are watching GW2 and trying to learn from the mistakes being made here. A good argument for or against something may stick with them and improve other games down the line.

It’s far cheaper to learn from those that came before than it is to make the same mistakes yourself, after all. And who knows? If GW2 doesn’t adapt on its own, then pressure from those other games may force them to rethink and improve.

Good point … but wow, what an indictment of ANet. It is truly sad when, after 16 months of being ignored on almost all issues, the only reason we have for offering further feedback to ANet is the hope that some of it will be noticed and taken to heart by OTHER upcoming games. In all reality, though, I suspect game developers like ZeniMax already have a huge database of player feedback mined from these forums, which is more than I can say for ANet. I’ve seen more published comments from the TESO devs regarding what they plan to do to avoid the key complaints from GW2 players than I have from any ANet dev.

MrDmajor.7084:

My number 1 change is for GW2 is for it to be more like this game:

http://youtu.be/4XvJNQ8_3GM

^These people know how to make an MMORPG, and THIS game is what GW2 wishes it could be when it grows up.

Cool post, and dead on target. The level of failure on those commitments is of staggering proportion.

Lurker.6539:

Nobody said “Yay, there are toxic offshoots in WvW”. All I heard was "Get this PVE <insert curse here> out of WvW.

What about a way to positively link PVE and WvW performance?

What if there was a statue to each god in the keeps (and maybe towers) of WvW. If when the temple in PVE was PACT controlled, touching the statue would confer a boon whose intensity or duration was scaled to the influence of the server in the current WvW match? And that same boon was available in the PVE versions of the statues.

But don’t touch them when the temples are not PACT owned, and the statues have a dark brooding presence.

Say what?? You correctly state that just about everyone wants PvE out of WvW, but then you propose a system where PvE and WvW are not only much more tightly and intensely linked, but is also dependent upon players who couldn’t give a rat’s about WvW??? That’s illogical beyond human comprehension. It’s like saying that the number of points the Spurs get for free throws in their game against the Warriors should be dependent upon how many fouls the Clippers have made in their game against the Bulls.

Cactus.2710:

Sadly, I’m pretty sure that now even Chris would just as soon sweep the whole topic [the stillborn WvW CDI on population imbalance] under the rug.

Considering that he just answered someone’s comment else about a half hour ago and ignored this one, it’s pretty clear that’s exactly what is happening.

I’m done caring …

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Looks like there is a summary by Devon there to me, and has been for a month. Maybe I misunderstand what you are asking for, though.

I asked for a summary of what Devon felt were the actionable ideas collected from the WvW Population Imbalance CDI once it was closed. That doesn’t mean which things would get implemented … it means which items struck enough of a chord with Devon that they might get investigated for possible further action. Chris promised to ask Devon to provide such a summary, but we never got it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/CDI-Process-Evolution/page/3
(post from Chris from 15 days ago … about 40% of the way down the page)

Let me ask it this way. Based upon everything you’ve read from Devon Carter in response to everything that came up in that first WvW CDI, what exactly do you think he plans to pursue in any fashion? Seriously … please list what you think Devon gathered from our efforts. We got ZERO feedback on his honest impressions of anything … not what was worth investigating, not what was worth more discussion, not what was impractical or outside ANet’s vision for WvW … nothing. The best we got was a couple of admonitions that we really shouldn’t expect anything at all. It’s not collaborative if only one side takes it seriously enough to actually express an opinion.

Sadly, I’m pretty sure that now even Chris would just as soon sweep the whole topic under the rug.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Finnway,

This will be the last CDI of the year as the topic applies to WvW, PVE and PVP, and also we can take the extra time to keep it open for a while over the holiday period.

Exciting!

Chris

I hate to be a broken record, but you realize that Devon never did a wrap up summary from the WvW Population Imbalance CDI like you said you’d ask him to do, right? As it stands now, none of us have the slightest idea what he thought was worth pursuing from 23 pages representing over 1,100 player comments, and all of us pretty much expect that nothing will ever come of any of it. In case you forgot, I was the one you directly responded to when you said you’d ask him to do that, so either you let it slide or he did.

The first “giant” gift I got contained exactly one pile of bloodstone dust and nothing else. That’s one pile … not one stack. The same stuff that most of us were throwing away about by the thousands not too long ago.

I think I would have preferred a lump of coal. I haven’t bothered to open another gift since, and most groups I’ve been with totally ignore them.

Sorry .. I just realized this was a Burnfall thread. My mistake.

You’re delusional if you think ANet is going to commit the resources to significantly upgrade any of the core game software for GW2.

ANet doesn’t own their own game servers … they lease capacity from Akamai. If by “platform” you mean the software that manages everything, that would be a full scale rewrite and isn’t going to happen … ever.

NargofWoV.4267:

It is difficult to work on Balance when a lot of classes have a variety of ways to play them, like a Ranger that can be great in 1 on 1 fights but the same build is pretty useless in Keep takes, defends or zerg battles.

How do you balance that?

As much as I’ve loudly complained about imbalance in WvW, my ire is directed toward population imbalance only. I agree that class balance is an issue for many players, but we at least have a CHOICE of which classes we play. We don’t have any control at all over population imbalance … certainly not as individuals.

I play a non-burst thief because I like the mobility and the play style, and in many situations in WvW I can make a contribution even though I am next to useless in other situations. That’s my choice, and if I wanted to be more useful in other situations I could level a different class. But if my server is forced to play against servers with significantly higher populations I become useless in almost ALL situations, and the game becomes MUCH more restricted for me, and that’s just not right. My only recourse then becomes to switch to a stacked server, and for the health of the game that’s just plain stupid. Other games are on the horizon that specifically promise to be better for this, and that’s going to rip WvW a new one.

Population imbalance and class imbalance are, in my opinion, totally different issues for WvW.

Meglobob.8620:

WvW is not mean’t to be ‘balanced’ in any way…

Its really small scale warfare 5-100 player groups vs 5-100 player groups, with solo roamers.

Just like the ‘real world wars’ it is not balanced at all. In the real world wars are won by the side with most industrial capacity, ie…produce more weapons than opponents, better technology, better co-ordinated, better use of logistics and best communication.

WvW reflects that very well.

The only part of GW2 which should be balanced is sPvP, there is no need at all to balance WvW or PvE.

Yours is possibly the most ignorant post I’ve seen in months. Population imbalance has a HUGE influence on the nature of WvW. In imbalanced matches (i.e., most of them), player interest drops off dramatically after reset because players know that the match isn’t going to give them good mass battles, trying to capture and defend objectives is a lost cause, and anyone dedicated enough to play is going to be limited to a small subset of the intended play style.

Nobody is saying that WvW needs to be “fair”, as in every team having the same access to skill, organization, communication, and leadership. But WvW DOES need to be balanced in terms of population. People can still have fun playing 5v5 pickup basketball against a better team, but NOBODY has fun playing basketball 5v2 and the same holds true here.

ANet doesn’t embrace fixing the population imbalance in WvW because they don’t know how to do it, so they spout the same “it was never meant to be fair” garbage that you did, but if they actually meant it there would never have been queues by server (it would just be one mass queue for the map) and they wouldn’t have had to implement high fees for server transfers or prohibit guesting for WvW. The “servers” in GW2 (including WvW) are not fixed hardware servers. ANet leases server capacity en masse from Akamai … it’s a distributed system and ANet never actually sees the specific hardware that the game runs on. The whole idea of “servers” in GW2 is a virtual environment.

Population imbalance was the number one issue for WvW as voted by the player base, but it got short sheeted in the CDI process and nothing has come from it. Your post just rubs salt in our wounds.

Aza.2105:

SpehssMehreen.5897:

When the edge of the mists come out we can all play there and not in the WvW borderlands, few if any will play there, even now a proper wvwer would know that ppt is just an arbitrary number, Most people will be in Edge of the Mists and its overflows, much to the discontent on devon carver who wants server “competition”

WvW isn’t about competition, its about coverage. Should the winners get better rewards for having better coverage? Its not showing they won because superior strategy and tactics. But only that they had more people around the clock then their “competitors”.

The only thing that superior rewards for the winners would do, is cause players to server hop to the server with the most coverage so they can win.

I’m confused. Spehhs never said anything about rewards there. He only pointed out that Devon insists upon hanging on to server matchups when the last 15 months have shown it to be such a failure in terms of balance. DC has even stated unequivocally that he doesn’t believe that balance is important in WvW, which of course is probably why the population balance CDI never went anywhere.

Spehss is probably correct … Edge of the Mists is likely to be the number one destination for WvW’ers, at least until a better game comes out, simply because it has a greater chance of being balanced.

Nike.2631:

Cactus.2710:

I saw a comment in one post in the Commander CDI thread that implied ANet was considering a reboot of the Population Imbalance CDI since it was pretty much a failure the first time around (even though it was the #1 requested WvW topic by players). Any truth to that?

That was Chris Whiteside, and as he seems to be in charge of the CDI I’m thinking if he says it he has the power to swing it. They may change their mind between now and then and the WvW might go on break for a rotation the way PvE is right now, but I think your odds are pretty good for getting a second crack at it.

Though personally if its going to be more “here’s what the consensus/mob rule think” summaries without one word of actual interaction with the people trying to put forward ideas I don’t see a lot of reason to bother. They could just run a survey and figure that sort of thing out 30 times faster.

Hopefully we will indeed get another crack at it, but I have the exact same reservation that you do. I keep harping on the fact that collaborative development isn’t collaborative if only one side is actively participating as has been mostly the case for WvW. And in the case of the commander CDI, I’ve seen FAR FAR better summaries from two or three of the players (maybe even from you, since I’ve seen you being pretty active there) than I have from any dev.

I saw a comment in one post in the Commander CDI thread that implied ANet was considering a reboot of the Population Imbalance CDI since it was pretty much a failure the first time around (even though it was the #1 requested WvW topic by players). Any truth to that?

DevonCarver.5370:

gidorah.4960:

probably because i prefer function over form and action over talk i really don’t care about how functional improvements are presented and if it is done in small batches or big. It also sounds like devon isn’t willing to drop his pet projects and direct his resources to fixing wvw’s big problems which is something the wvw community was ok with under habib.

Chris has called you out on things before, and now I’m going to do it. This is not acceptable for these threads. You are not engaging with the discussion, you are not proposing solutions, you are instead using this as an opportunity to berate me, my team, and the studio for the direction we are taking the game. You are making serious extrapolations about things with little to no actual information. The decisions we make in terms of what projects to work on and when they get released are made with the interests of the game as a whole and the studio as a whole. No one person is working on “pet projects” as you term it, we are working on the game.

Please be respectful to all of us and contribute to this discussion, if you are going to continue to post in this thread.

Actually, you haven’t said which direction you’re taking the game, and that’s pretty much the point here … you aren’t actually responding to player suggestions. You’re simply collecting inputs and telling us not to count on any of them actually being taken to heart. I’d really, really like to know where you stand on anything that’s been offered here by the players. Collaboration is not one sided. We all had high hopes for these initiatives and we’re trying to be respectful, but to be honest it seems like we had higher standards and higher expectations for them than you did.

If this gets me banned, so be it. I can’t take things seriously if I’m not allowed to be honest.

chestonu.8059:

Cactus.2710:

I do believe that some of the devs at Anet want to hear what we think, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the ones responsible for WvW actually intend to do anything about it. Anyway, I’ll drop out of this altogether until I see something more positive from ANet. Let’s get back together in three months and compare notes, OK? In the meantime, carry on the good fight.

What you want is a promise of a timeline. They cant give that, because their bosses haven’t approved it yet. This is a company, and like any company, there’s a decision making process that they themselves do not control. Stop asking for what they cannot promise, because…well… they can’t. It’s not their job to do so. They gather the info, send it up. It is considered, maybe tweaked, decided on, then approved. Then work begins, that work takes a certain time, then it is rolled out.

Now, as for what we the players want, that’s what this is about. Info gathering. Talk to the players, get a reaction. Maybe get some good ideas. It’s brainstorming, the very first stage, not final cut update development that you seem to be looking for.

I for one am content they even ask us. Many game companies don’t even bother to ask the players anything. You get what you get, and you will like it. ANet is making an effort, you just might not see the fruits of that effort for a few weeks or months.

TL;DR: You expect too much (promises), too soon (now). Learn to be patient, and good things will happen.

Nonsense. I don’t expect a timeline and I’ve never asked for one (check my previous messages). What I have repeatedly asked for is a summary of the key player suggestions that the devs feel fit their vision for the future direction of the game … WvW in particular. If they say that something seems like a good idea but will take an indeterminately long time to implement, so be it. If they say that something else simply doesn’t match how they want the game to be played, so be it. If they say that they like a suggestion and intend to investigate it further, great. At least we’d know what their specific opinions were.

So far both of the WvW CDI threads have involved players offering lots of ideas and lots of discussion without any dev response regarding which ones they think make sense or not. It’s not collaborative if the only thing we get back is not to expect much from the process. Instead, it has been just a one way flow of thoughts, from players to ANet. Nobody has the slightest idea what is potentially going to happen from now through the foreseeable future. How is that in the slightest "collaborative?’

I’ve played this game since launch and patience hasn’t bought us anything, but yeah, I’m getting really tired of complaining. Which means, of course, that I’m also getting really tired of caring one way or the other.

brittitude.1983:

Cactus.2710:

chestonu.8059:

Cactus.2710:

Certainly the CDI on population imbalance was totally pointless, for pretty much the same reasons. Absolutely nothing … not even a summary of key items to explore … has come of it.

Let’s keep this On-Topic to Commander System, please. Complaints about other areas of the game belong in those topics, not here. Thanks

Ahh .. you mean the one that was locked over a week ago. Gotcha …

But in any case I wasn’t trying to derail this thread. I was simply replying to Conner’s comment that we weren’t getting much encouragement that this thread would lead to anything actionable on the commander system either. If you believe otherwise, what specifically would that be?? Please quote the dev response that supports it, because here’s the “collaborative” dev response that sticks out for me:

“If you are expecting to see any of the things we have discussed happening quickly, you should adjust that expectation. Some of it could, but the simple fact that we are discussing it here is not a promise to that effect.”

Here you go:

DevonCarver.5370:

4: Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d say there is significant room for improvements of functionality as well as the possibility that a completely overhauled system would better serve the needs of the WvW community and the PvE community.

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

DevonCarver.5370:

It is important to us that when we introduce new UI elements we have fully fleshed out their place in the rest of the game UI.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I think overall this discussions will help shape the feature and backlog list of things to do with commander which could lead to many ideas here spawning improvements. As for time frame thats not really what this thread is for so I’ll dodge roll that question.

DevonCarver.5370:

We’d rather build one system that can work for both areas of the game for the sake of clarity.

Perhaps the largest question I still have, how would everyone feel if the only changes to commander were the smaller scale ones? The other stuff is super interesting and has a lot of promise, but is also a major task and one I can’t make any guarantees about.

DevonCarver.5370:

It also means that through that discussion we get a better sense of the best versions of many of the things we intend to work on at some point or ideas for changes that can be made to existing parts of the game.

DevonCarver.5370:

The guarantee is that we will discuss the design of them as a community to better inform our decisions. That means, in many occasions, we will end up doing almost exactly what gets discussed.

I hope all these help dispel the idea that nothing will come from this. I believe that based on reading everything the devs say that they are actually optimistic and want to know what we think.

Let’s move on.

Cute. You realize that he didn’t say anything specific, don’t you? There isn’t a single thing in his comments that reflect any of the player suggestions thus far.

I do believe that some of the devs at Anet want to hear what we think, but I’ve seen nothing to indicate that the ones responsible for WvW actually intend to do anything about it. Anyway, I’ll drop out of this altogether until I see something more positive from ANet. Let’s get back together in three months and compare notes, OK? In the meantime, carry on the good fight.

chestonu.8059:

Cactus.2710:

Certainly the CDI on population imbalance was totally pointless, for pretty much the same reasons. Absolutely nothing … not even a summary of key items to explore … has come of it.

Let’s keep this On-Topic to Commander System, please. Complaints about other areas of the game belong in those topics, not here. Thanks

Ahh .. you mean the one that was locked over a week ago. Gotcha …

But in any case I wasn’t trying to derail this thread. I was simply replying to Conner’s comment that we weren’t getting much encouragement that this thread would lead to anything actionable on the commander system either. If you believe otherwise, what specifically would that be?? Please quote the dev response that supports it, because here’s the “collaborative” dev response that sticks out for me:

“If you are expecting to see any of the things we have discussed happening quickly, you should adjust that expectation. Some of it could, but the simple fact that we are discussing it here is not a promise to that effect.”

Conner.4702:

DevonCarver.5370:

Chidori.9483:

I fully expect major projects to spring from this initiative, in fact, I thought it was the point.

The point of this initiative is not to create major projects but to discuss the basic principles behind the design of our game with you all. That can mean explaining why we didn’t do something one way or explaining why we did do it a certain way. It also means that through that discussion we get a better sense of the best versions of many of the things we intend to work on at some point or ideas for changes that can be made to existing parts of the game. It is not a forum for making demands of what we absolutely must do, nor should the expectation be that whatever we are talking about right now is going to show up next month. If you are expecting to see any of the things we have discussed happening quickly, you should adjust that expectation. Some of it could, but the simple fact that we are discussing it here is not a promise to that effect.

If this is truly how you see this than you might as well shut the CDI down right now as it will be utterly pointless because you do not want to participate. Honestly most of your posts drip of unwillingness to actually do anything.

The CDI was set up to help developers make content better, which you seem extremely apprwhensive about.

Certainly the CDI on population imbalance was totally pointless, for pretty much the same reasons. Absolutely nothing … not even a summary of key items to explore … has come of it.

brittitude.1983:

Chidori.9483:

DevonCarver.5370:

It is not a forum for making demands of what we absolutely must do, nor should the expectation be that whatever we are talking about right now is going to show up next month. If you are expecting to see any of the things we have discussed happening quickly, you should adjust that expectation. Some of it could, but the simple fact that we are discussing it here is not a promise to that effect.

Nothing I said indicated I expected these changes next month, in fact I suggested seeing the minor changes in 6 months. I’m not sure what your turn around is but I do remember a Dev mentioning that resources are already allocated out to projects for the next 4 months.

I’m sorry if you read it as a demand, I was trying to answer your question about priority.

I fully understand that if an idea is not promising, or cannot fit into the infrastructure of the game it will not happen. However, if it can, why not? Not tomorrow obviously, I do not even expect major changes to be made in 2014. This is a great game and I have high expectations as to where it can go, and I completely understand that it will take a lot of time to realize those expectations.

I think Devon was replying specifically to your “I fully expect..” statement. I believe that the point was to temper player expectations. And while you may not have indicated a demand like “I want this now!” a few other posters have indicated feelings similar to that statement. Others have said things like “these [insert topic here] should have been there day 1!” or " I can’t believe an MMO wouldn’t have [insert topic here]!" or “We have waited a year for changes!”, etc. Those aren’t strictly demands either, but they are semi-antagonistic and rather unhelpful in fostering productive discussion.

We have a great opportunity to offer ideas and suggestions, but even Chris mentioned multiple times that not all ideas are feasible or fit within the pillars. But even bad ideas should be heard because it could prompt internal brainstorming.

LOL. Just about every statement Devon has ever made on these forums has tempered my expectations of when and if any improvement of note will ever happen for WvW. I think he has been completely successful in that regard.

havoc.6814:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

My point wasn’t that we don’t want large fights we love large fights but we want a mix of large and small fights, different tactics and tools for players to use to approach any battle or situation. I think the commander tool could help solve these problems in all situations.

This.

There are some really bad ideas in this thread. Everybody seems to want the commanders to have a great increase in functionality, even to the point of some ridiculous requests for better rewards for being in his squad and following like a good drone. This will not end well.

WvWvW used to have such incredible depth. You could always zerg, surely, but you could also roam, scout, join a havoc squad, defend, whatever. While most of those things are still possible, they are on the decline. Roaming or being in a small squad is a death sentence the minute a zerg steamrolls the area. There is no real reward in WvWvW for skill, just for following the tag like a mindless drone. WvWvW has already turned into a mindless champion train farm like that in Frostgorge Sound.

The zerg has turned into a blob, and WvWvW has turned into Blob vs Blob vs Blob. There are fewer defenders, roamers and havoc squads than ever before. Anybody doing any of thes things will be screamed at for not following the commander. We’ve all seen the rage in team chat at those who dare to do their own thing. The depth of the game has been lost in a great part due to the blob, and the commander is what creates the blob.

The blob does not refresh siege, build defensive siege, or upgrade towers. The blob even makes most of those defensive upgrades pointless. It does not hunt for mesmers in captured towers and keeps. Those individuals who do this will be left by the blob to a certain death as they later try to make it back. The blob is a karma and loot train which only moves from point to point capturing towers and camps and keeps in an endless cycle. The blob rewards mindless conformity rather than rewarding skill and individuality. The blob allows the casual pve’er to get greater rewards than the hardcore wvw’er who does care about the depth of the game and will defend, roam, and refresh siege.

Commanding today is all about personal glory and the desire to stroke ones ego. What is truly missing in every commander I have seen is the most common and sought after trait in real world commanders: responsibility.

I would like to see the commander system reworked to reward responsibility, and punish the lack thereof. Rewards should be given for doing responsible things, like refreshing or building defensive siege. The commander system should support the creation of multiple groups as opposed to a single blob. The karma and loot train should not be rewarded for destroying the depth that was WvWvW.

My suggestions for doing this:

• Limit the credit for taking objectives to a set number of people – not just everybody in the circle. call it a max of 10 people for a camp, 20 for a tower, and 30 for a keep. Have inclusion in the reward be either random or based upon skill usage during the taking of the objective. This way a zerg of 80 people means that a majority won’t be rewarded for being mindless drones. That will encourage them to stop being such, to do something productive. This will preserve the integrity and the depth of the game rather than destroying it.

• Make blueprints account only and raise their price. Making them trade-able was a serious mistake which basically made them a non-factor in the game. Throwing down siege should mean something. It should represent a commitment to take or defend an objective. Established defensive siege should hurt if it is allowed to disappear due to neglect. Armies of dozens of Omega Golems should simply not exist.

• Allow commanders to assign Lieutenants and give them a temporary smaller tag, color coded to represent their assigned activities. This allows a commander to break up a blob into useful components to bring some of the strategy back into the game.

• Add a seperate communication channel and seperate markers for commanders to communicate with lieutenants

• Include squad functionality for lieutenants.

Honestly, there is so much promise in this game mode, that it would be an utter shame to have it reduced further into the karma train mentality that it is quickly becoming.

Great post. Unfortunately, just about every change to WvW since launch has degraded it from that vision, and I sincerely doubt that anyone at ANet associated with WvW has the same perspective of what it could and should be as you (and I) do.

Nike.2631:

Josh Davis.6015:

Citizens,

We have invited 1000 additional guilds to the public testing of Edge of the Mists. Please have your guild leaders check their email inboxes! If your guild didn’t make it in this round, don’t lose hope! We’ll be adding more guilds in the coming weeks.

For those of you already invited, we’ll be running two tests today:

9AM-11AM PST
5PM-9PM PST

Thanks again everyone! We look forward to seeing you in Edge of the Mists.

So… Exactly what mechanic exists in the Edge of the Mists that you’re ignoring solo, unaffiliated WvW players in your testing?

I mean, if its not built with players like me in mind, I’d be happy to know in advance to never go there.

LOL. Not only did they ignore you for invites, they ignored your query.

Fluffball.8307:

Oh man, I didn’t think about that in a zerg context. There HAS to be a damage cap, surely Anet wouldn’t be so shortsighted as to give a zerg of 20, 30 warriors 30k heals.

LOL. Because ANet has so thoroughly thought out the effects of other recent changes before implementing them?

aspirine.6852:

What annoys me the most is that most of these new skills are created with the zerg in mind. Or am I getting paraniod here.

What change in GW2 over the last several months HASN’T promoted zerg activity?? Even in PvE, just about everything that passes for new content rewards, or even requires, large team behavior.

Stuwy.9352:

I was hoping for a good spectator mode:

not one taking slots

In sPvP, it doesn’t

And personnaly, I would watch it on Twitch, to listen to a podcaster bringing it to life

Second, learning ennemy patterns is a way to get better at the game.
It will improve the general meta of WvW.

So I dont see any problem with that
In competitive esport, they all watch replay to get better…

So instead of live or with delay, if we can get replays…

“Slots” aren’t the issue. If you want to stand there and watch the action the game has to process and send all the same information to you that it does to everyone else. That means you add to the lag without contributing anything. Even a delay would simply shift the impact. It might be a nice idea, but ANet’s crippled system isn’t capable of handling it without harm.

Grind exists in GW2 for two reasons. It’s easier for ANet to implement than interesting new content, and it tends to push players into spending more time in the game.

By the way, a big LOL for the guy who said that it isn’t grind since it takes a long time to accomplish.