Guild Wars 2

Samhayn.2385:

The problem with faction based war would be at this point a lot of people have chosen a faction that may not be inline with the people they generally group with in wvw and thus split people apart. Not a bad idea if it started this way just not a good one at this point.

What is the difference between recreating GW2 WvW to have factions versus players abandoning GW2 altogether for a different game that knows how to create balanced faction-based matches? I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what will happen within the next year if ANet doesn’t get a clue.

Solstice.1097:

Personally I prefer to fight for the pride of my server.

Capturing or defending objectives would feel pointless if I have no loyalty to my team.

Clearly the majority don’t share your view. If they did, we would never have had all this server hopping. Besides, I fail to see the “pride” in getting face stomped and doing nothing but providing loot bags to your enemy … and that’s exactly what happens in the many severely unbalanced matches that server-vs-server-vs-server creates.

Team pride trumps server pride … they aren’t necessarily the same at all.

lept.4692:

Cactus.2710:

Snowreap.5174:

I don’t see a problem here. This is what’s commonly known as “pipelining” in the computer business, where you start work on a second job well before the first one is completely done.

When you have large teams, with individual team members specializing in small parts, this is just how things need to be done if you don’t want to have a lot of team members sitting idle most of the time.

-ken

Except that we were promised a summary before moving on.

…

This is a great example as to why any sort of reply needs to be thought of carefully. I am only using the quotes you provided, but nowhere in there did I see any sort of promise being made. The community often has a tendency to read too far into developer responses and make too many assumptions based on what was written.

Well, in that binary world you apparently live in, I could either take Chris’ reply to me to mean that we could expect some sort of summary before the commander CDI went full-blown live, or I could expect nothing in particular to come from the population imbalance CDI in any definable time frame. Given that CDI stands for “Collaborative” Development Initiative, which would you have interpreted his directly-quoted reply to mean??

Samhayn.2385:

It may be the fact that they haven’t a game plan yet. Really outside of forced relocation (never going to happen) there is no way to balance wvw population cross servers. That’s why most suggestions leaned on changing the scoring system to make being on a stacked server less important and hopefully from there spreading people out to avoid ques and mega zergs and such.

Even if they don’t have a game plan (which I am almost positive they don’t) they should have been able to summarize the key points they thought they received from the player comments. And that is what Chris said we’d get by now.

Snowreap.5174:

Feedback about what direction they are taking requires them to have already decided what direction that will be. The act of deciding requires them to review a design proposal and approve it. That’s a task that takes time.

But before they can approve the design proposal, then need to communicate it to everyone involved in the approval process, so they have time to review it. This includes people outside of the WvW team because the changes might impact the underlying infrastructure, basic game engine mechanics, UI design, translation, etc. Communicating the proposal is another task that takes time.

But before you can communicate the proposal you need to decide what the proposal should include and write it up. That’s another task. Unless your proposal is approved on your first try, it will often be based on a previous one that was rejected. The time to prepare and discuss all the previous ones can’t be ignored either. You see where I’m going with this?

-ken

What I see is that you’re missing the point. We had a WvW Population Balance CDI with 23 pages of comments from the player base without a single response from ANet identifying what they thought was worth any sort of followup. There is NOTHING “collaborative” about that. I’m not asking for the action plan … I’m asking for their summary of the player feedback as they saw it, and whether any of it fits their own view of what would make WvW better. That doesn’t require ANY of the things you describe. It only requires summarizing the thread feedback and comparing it to the supposed vision for the game.

As far as I’m concerned, roughly 1,130 user comments ended up in a black hole in spite of assurances to the contrary.

Snowreap.5174:

I don’t see a problem here. This is what’s commonly known as “pipelining” in the computer business, where you start work on a second job well before the first one is completely done.

When you have large teams, with individual team members specializing in small parts, this is just how things need to be done if you don’t want to have a lot of team members sitting idle most of the time.

-ken

Except that we were promised a summary before moving on. As I said, I wasn’t asking for or expecting a flow chart of future fixes … just feedback on what ANet felt were the directions they would take based upon player feedback.

Besides, WvW does NOT have a large team with individual team members specializing in small parts. They have a small team with a handful of devs, and the lead dev is now fully involved in the commander CDI. I know what pipelining is, and this is not it.

King Amadaeus.8619:

I don’t want populations balanced.
I don’t care about the score, as far as it affecting whether I choose to play WvW or not.

But some people do, and that only adds to the population disparity that you see each week. So with that in mind, I am in favor of finding some way to alter the scoring (handicapping) so that the points aren’t such a blowout and people still feel the need to show up and play.

The problem is, without reasonably balanced populations (and totally ignoring score), it means that the team with the lower populations is not able to effectively participate in the same breadth of play that the higher population does does. Running around killing yaks and road guards is a woefully lesser experience (even for me as a thief) than being able to mount a serious attack on a tower, or seriously defend it. For me, it’s an issue of fun and opportunity, not score.

style.6173:

We did know the commander functionality was going to be discussed.

I do hope the world population part is revisited soon though. That is the single biggest issue with WvW.

Yes … certainly we knew that the commander tag system was going to be the next item discussed, and it was within that context that I directly asked Chris Whiteside if we’d be getting any real feedback on population balance (by ANet’s admission the number one concern expressed by the WvW player base) before we moved on to another topic. I never asked for a timeline for any fixes … only a summary of what ANet considered to be the directions to follow as a result of the population balance CDI. Clearly we aren’t going to get that, which makes all of this just seem like a smokescreen.

Quotes from the Chris Whiteside thread in the general GW2 discussion thread on “CDI – Process Evolution”:

Cactus: “Any chance we can get some meaningful feedback from the first WvW CDI thread before we move on to another one?”

Chris Whiteside (from six days ago): “Regarding your question Cactus I will ask DC to do a summary of valuable points garnered from the discussion. He is however away for the holiday so we should be patient in that regard in terms of a reply.”

Reality: We now have an active CDI thread going on commander tags with zero summary, or feedback of any sort, on what ANet considers to be the key actionable items from the original WvW population balance CDI.

sigh …

Skeletor.9360:

First:This isn’t a flame post or troll post.

When we watch sporting events or have any competition the idea is to have a somewhat level playing field. GW2 totally fails this test. Some servers are outnumbered by entire whole digits 2+times. Regularly 4 or 5 times.

So when you are on top of the charts know full well that it is completely meaningless…….and I can hear it now…“the top pop servers are balanced”…really? try fighting a low pop server with even numbers…They fighting much tougher fights than yourself probably will crush the “top” server. Top…ya right that is a good one!

There is no attempt at all to balance this problem.

The solutions are easy and I personally could implement the coding change in a weeks time. (I’m giving myself 39 hours padding!)

Given this problem is so easy to fix yet isn’t makes a person wonder what the problem could be.

The problem is that ANet doesn’t seem to agree that it’s a problem. Devon Carter has flat out said as much, and he didn’t even bother to participate in the CDI thread on WvW population balance. I honestly don’t believe we will ever see it fixed.

Prysin.8542:

well, we get what we ask for.

First we cry about too little stuff to do in WvW. ArenaNet listens and adds LS features, simply because experience has shown that LS features are the most effective and engaging way to get attention to a section of the game.
Then we cry about achievement hunters and all that. ArenaNet listens and tones down the LS features.
Then we cry about WvW being dead again…

Garbage. If ANet had actually listened to the WvW community there wouldn’t be much, if any, PvE in WvW at all. The reason that LS crap shows up in WvW is that WvW is messed up, the devs don’t know how (or aren’t willing) to fix it, and LS is an easy crutch to divert attention from core issues.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I have asked the PVE thread if they want to move ahead with the proposal of 1 topic running at a time with a week of conversation around it. Once 3 topics have concluded (1 for each area) then we would have say 3 days of a single CDI process evolution thread and then back to the next topic.

Do we feel like this is a good cadence to move forward with?

Note this should accelerate our combined experience with the CDI and thus does not preclude us all deciding to change the model should we find that we are at a point to do so.

Chris

Also note that i think if we move forward with this proposal that the first area topic would be in WvW, then PvP and then back to PVE.

Chris

Any chance we can get some meaningful feedback from the first WvW CDI thread before we move on to another one?

Swamurabi.7890:

I would suggest that in the future, if you plan on having more discussion threads, you do something to keep the thread on the first page. This thread has been all the way down to the middle of the second page twice so far.

You mean like have a dev actually contribute to a “collaborative” discussion on WvW? Not gonna happen …

style.6173:

Maybe ANET forgot about this thread.

Forgot? Probably not.

Ignored? Most assuredly.

Shadow Blade.1324:

while its good that the initiative continues and you hopefully learn things from it, one of the major issues is that you wont talk about future plans, this creates the issue of having you go off and develop things and have no direct feedback on them till they are ready to launch and cannot be changed, do you really want another 200+ page thread of wild speculation and distress because you announce a new feature/ direction days before its patched in?

we need to know about things at a point where our feedback can still make a difference in how its implemented or have it scrapped and reiterated. We also need to have an idea of long term plans ie what are you doing once all the ascended gear is out? should we expect a level cap increase, will achievements ever be meaningful? etc.

So that we can in good time contribute to the development of the systems/ design
otherwise the feedback is meaningless as you will thank us for it say you have taken it on board and we will likely not see any indication of how it has been integrated into the decision making process

for this to be successful the last part is really important, we need to see it making a difference, otherwise whats the point, you may as well continue saying “thanks for feedback we will ignore it and are doing X anyway”

Boy … that comment had WvW written all over it.

folly dragon.4126:

Ken hit the nail on the head.

By saying the Queue, and wanting to know where he is in it.

I will further that statement by saying that Edge of the Mist is more a bandaid ona gushing wound as the points gained there dont help your PPT and instead of running arpund doing other things while waiting for a Queue to pop, you could be thrown into a battleground thats sole purpose will be to deflect your attention for the very purpose we want in WVW. Sure youll get more blues and greens and some wvw xp, but your still in a Queue.

As far as leagues go, they serve no purpose currently, they dont prove skill and dedication, perseverance and loyalty.

It just proves numbers and coverage will always win

Virtually EVERYTHING that has been added to WvW since launch has been intended to deflect our attention from its core faults instead of fixing them.

Sreoom.3690:

Make the league non-server specific.

Break the Server versus Server versus Server paradigm by creating a number of WvW Armies/Teams and allow people to sign up for them regardless of what server they belong to…maybe require a signing fee (5-10 gold)—which would show the level of commitment the player is making (that could go into a pot of money to be used for end season rewards).

At the same time keep the “casual” WvW server v Server model with random match-ups of comparable servers.

So in effect you would have two WvW instances…look at them as a Pro League and a semi-pro league.

All of WvW should be non-server-specific. ANet’s insistence on a server-vs-server-vs-server format is the single most significant failure of WvW. All other faults could be addressed with simple evolutionary changes, but nothing is going to overcome the birth defect that is the current match format. It is incomprehensibly crazy to have a competition that is so dominated by population and coverage, and then create matches that have zero control over population and coverage. I simply don’t understand their thinking here, or their inability to grasp that it needs to be fixed.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback i will make sure to do a summary and list actions on Monday.

I don’t want to derail the thread but i would also like to know how everyone would like the next topics to be chosen. Simply would you like to vote again or would you like us to pick the second topics on the respective lists?

Finally i have said this many times so for those that have seen it repeatedly please forgive me for the repetition, but once again i want to make it clear that the only ‘feedback’ i have asked the team not to spend their time on are those comments which are not productive. Specifically comments with no actionable substance. Whilst it is nice to see positive commentary we spend a lot more time discussing and negative criticism so we can learn more and improve the game.

Again for the feedback on how to improve the CDI,

Chris

Would you like for us to list all the honestly constructive comments that were raised by many players on the WvW CDI thread that received ZERO acknowledgement, or comment, or encouragement, and were totally ignored in the dev’s lone summary? Please give us some honest interaction on that thread before you open up another … otherwise please quit wasting our time and getting our hopes up for nothing.

Conner.4702:

The whole LW collaboration thread to me was just more of the same. Players making suggestions. That is NOT collaboration. Devs need to put in their concerns and ideas as well. Would the playerbase like this, would going in this direction be a good idea. You don’t have to disclose anything that is currently being worked on to do so. This brings me to another point. Don’t use “we can’t talk about this” as a way to shut down something when it isn’t an issue to begin with. You can talk about things without revealing details. I felt that a lot of posts were being to defensive as if you are trying to justify your actions. Among them the 2 week release schedule. Not wanting to discuss it now means nothing will change for the next 8 months and then it might as well be to late. Nothing should be off limits. Yes, you have a schedule for the next 4 months already. That does not mean you ignore things because you don’t want to think about it or change it right now.

In short devs need to bring more to this table than they have. You say it is important than treat it as such. Don’t merely ask questions or be defensive in your replies. Also try not to manipulate. Quite a few posts were pushing towards something you wanted. It might have been subconsciously, but that make it a good thing.

Now while the PVE thread had at least some interaction the WvW one was just sad. I really don’t feel Devon Carver is suited for the position as lead. As I don’t see him truly understanding the problems with WvW. To me it seems he’s in an ivory tower ignoring the masses below. WvW has a lot of problems. A lot of them boil down to bad implementation to begin with and I don’t see that changing even though redoing some of the things would greatly benefit things in the long run. What the WvW team does though is making a inherently bad situation worse and worse.

Great post, and right on target on all points.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Thank you all for making the first CDI topic discussions such a good start. The next phase as mentioned at the start of the initiative is for us to discuss how we could better evolve the process around CDI. The key areas for me personally are as follows and based on my interactions on the PVE thread:

1: More focused Topics.
2: Summaries of discussion/direction every three pages.
3: More time to post.

Please know the expectation isn’t for you to list your top three, this is just how I did it. This is a discussion primarily and next Monday I will post the actions so we can evolve the CDI best working practices immediately.

Thanks again for your involvement,

Chris

Except that the WvW CDI was NOT a good start. There was hardly any collaboration from ANet at all and we don’t have a clue where any of the discussion is likely to lead. You’re pretending that you can “evolve” something that never actually happened in the first place. There were some pretty kitten good ideas raised by the players and even some valuable discussion on the pros and cons of many of them, but for all practical purposes that all disappeared down a rabbit hole.

“Collaboration” means some minimum amount of give and take, feedback, and honest discussion on what’s desirable, what’s feasible, and what’s going to be pursued. Please point out where ANY of that happened. If you’re not willing to holdup your end of this thing please don’t frustrate us with another false hope.

style.6173:

I think the whole CDI concept was great. The one for the living story and the one for PvP showed great interaction.

I do recommend getting more ANET presence in the WvW thread next time. That one felt more half hearted than the others. We didn’t really have any collaboration there. I don’t think the summary really captured a good part of the dialog either.

Exactly. The WvW “collaborative” thread was really weak with almost no dev interaction, and the posted summary fell way short of capturing the gist of the ideas raised in the thread … or even it’s intent. The thread was supposedly about dealing with population balance and the dev summary homed in on adjusting the scoring mechanism. Not cool at all …

So if you really want these CDIs to be useful, first and foremost please make sure that there is actually some collaboration involved.

AntiGw.9367:

Cactus.2710:

AntiGw.9367:

Charak.9761:

Is anyone even surprised at this point? All the temporary content pushing bug fixes off the todo list.

Temporary content is done by entirely different teams than bug fixing.

So the guys that fix the mistakes aren’t the ones that created them? That’s one of the worst ways to do things, and most industries have abandoned that grossly ineffective system long ago, but if you’re right it makes it obvious why so few bugs actually get fixed in a timely manner.

That’s not what any of the quotes is talking about.

The first on implies that Arena.net somehow fixes less bugs because they prioritize temporary content.

The response says that temporary content department basically works independantly from the other ones, and allocating more resources to one does not mean that the other works less efficiently.

You are pretty much saying that there is a bug fixing department that is separate from the content departments, and if so, that’s a disaster. No modern organization in any industry works that way any more, and it’s the idea of having them separate that is inefficient … independent of what kind or how many resources are in the bug fixing department (if there indeed is one).

Nike.2631:

I suspect “grow a skin” is in my top three. You cannot have individuals with 100% hit rate at responding to approving posts and a <4% rate of responding to critical insights and suggestions for improvement.

Unless all you’re looking for is a rubberstamp on decisions already made.

It sounds like we were following the same CDIs ….

AntiGw.9367:

Charak.9761:

Is anyone even surprised at this point? All the temporary content pushing bug fixes off the todo list.

Temporary content is done by entirely different teams than bug fixing.

So the guys that fix the mistakes aren’t the ones that created them? That’s one of the worst ways to do things, and most industries have abandoned that grossly ineffective system long ago, but if you’re right it makes it obvious why so few bugs actually get fixed in a timely manner.

Vorch.2985:

1. More feedback in threads from relevant development team members
2. Better focus on the topic at hand/less off-topic discussion
3. More transparency of the CDI meetings. (What are you guys discussing? What has no chance of making it in the game? What suggestions are you taking seriously?)

^this^ … a hundred times ^this^

It’s not a discussion if we’re the only ones posting, and it’s not a collaboration if we don’t have a clue what reactions you guys have to our suggestions. CDI shouldn’t be where the players post a bunch of ideas and you guys go off on your own to decide which are relevant, which are desirable, and which are feasible. There needs to be a LOT more give and take in these discussions, and I was particularly disappointed that a couple of the CDIs were so lacking in that regard (pretty sure you know which ones they were).

Waffler.1257:

Cactus.2710:

Waffler.1257:

morrolan.9608:

Waffler.1257:

The math is not very strong in you.

No need for insults, I didn’t calculate the 10% others did in other parts of the forum.

Believing statements by random people without question is the leading cause of stupidity.

Trying to support an argument by doing simplistic calculations that don’t take everything into account is hardly more intelligent. The folks who have done the math have laid it all out here on the forums for everyone to see. The fact that you weren’t able to follow it, or care enough to find it, doesn’t make everyone else stupid.

It does, however, say something about you …

You seem like an angry little person, try reading my original post. A guy speculated on the increase in armor value for ascended armor. I stated that it would likely be 5% since the increase in damage value for weapons was 5%. Guy responds to me and says it isn’t 5%, it’s at least 10% and provides no evidence or calculation. I show that the increase in damage value from exotic to ascended weapons is exactly 5% with a simple calculation to support my original claim that the increase in armor value will most likely be 5%. Then some person frustrated with his life comes in here and spews a lot of garbage that makes no sense in the context of my statement. Work on the reading comprehension skills bud.

Not angry … just intolerant of ignorance and bullying. The guy said that “the increase in damage” (i.e., the net damage effect on your enemy, which is all anyone not you would care about) was closer to 10%, which it is. You considered only the base weapon damage (simplistic) to get your 5% and then called him math-challenged and stupid for taking the word of someone other than you. The folks who have calculated the 10% (actually 10.3% if I remember correctly) laid out the math in great detail and anyone who wanted to should have been able to understand it … it isn’t “random” to follow the math and accept the conclusion.

He was right, you were wrong, and you insulted him. So who’s the sorry little person here?

azizul.8469:

ykyk.2740:

Winner up loser down guarantees unbalanced matchups every other week, I really really really don’t see what’s so hard to understand about this. The “T2” matchup will have one T1 server and one T3 server in it every other week, which everyone knows will be a really stupid matchup. This has been discussed ad infinitum.

as if the current random blow out is any better….

It isn’t … but replacing one bit of stupidity with another doesn’t solve anything.

The only way for decent matchups is for Anet to somehow get control over player populations. My opinion is that they need to go to instanced matches, but there are other ways to skin the cat.

The problem looking forward is that ANet doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in actually balancing populations. After all the suggestions that popped up in the WvW “collaborative” thread, Devon seems to think that adjusting scores solves the problem, so what we’re likely to get is continued blowouts on the battlefield with close “matches” on the scoreboard. How anyone thinks that would be fun is beyond me …

Waffler.1257:

morrolan.9608:

Waffler.1257:

The math is not very strong in you.

No need for insults, I didn’t calculate the 10% others did in other parts of the forum.

Believing statements by random people without question is the leading cause of stupidity.

Trying to support an argument by doing simplistic calculations that don’t take everything into account is hardly more intelligent. The folks who have done the math have laid it all out here on the forums for everyone to see. The fact that you weren’t able to follow it, or care enough to find it, doesn’t make everyone else stupid.

It does, however, say something about you …

In spite of how many times these hate-stealth threads show up, and in spite of the fact that just about every survey ever taken on these forums list thieves as one of the least useful classes in a group environment (which covers a very large portion of GW2), these threads do serve kind of a valuable purpose. They identify which players don’t really know what they’re doing and instead mistake “irritating” for “overpowered.”

eisberg.2379:

Cactus.2710:

Ahh … I see the disconnect between us here. You think I have a reading comprehension problem and I think you have a logic comprehension problem. In my book, “pay more than” and “pay the same as” are pretty much the same determinant (I didn’t say equal) … there is a difference) if, as you suggest, cost was a key factor in a player’s decision not to play a pay-to-play game. Nobody is going to NOT play a pay-to-play game simply because it costs essentially the same as a free-to-play game. I wasn’t arguing that people pay more for a free-to-play game than a pay-to-play game … only that if indeed the costs are at least similar it doesn’t matter.

I never suggested that cost was a key factor in in a player’s decision. Nor was I commenting on anything of that sort or alluding to it. The person I was responding to, based on his post, believes that people, in general, tend to spend more on free to play games than on sub games. I was commenting on that based on what I have read from experts in the industry.

Also, there is no logical reason to think that “More than” and “Same as” are the same thing. That very thought right there is illogical.

I didn’t say they were the same thing. I said they result in the same thing … and that is entirely logical.

eisberg.2379:

Cactus.2710:

What I typed is pretty clear in relation to what I was responding to. My example about my brother goes in hand to what I stated prior to that example. The example does not contradict in any way in what I said, it is an example that supports it. What part of the post did you misunderstand? The whole thing.

How about you tell me what you think I said? Because apparently you feel that I stated something that I never actually said, meaning you didn’t comprehend my statement correctly.

Also, you have no idea what my reading/composition skills are for you to make that comparison.

You realize you didn’t say anything there, right? I mean, you really didn’t.

But to clarify what I gathered from your first post, the guy you responded to was pointing out that most people who complain about the cost of pay-to-play games end up spending virtually as much on free-to-play games (cash shops, etc). Your reply certainly seemed to be an attempt to contradict his assertion (are you saying it wasn’t?) … in spite of the fact that the costs you list for free-to-play (industry averages and your brother’s example) are within round off error of the average cost of a pay-to-play game. Your opposing contention was invalidated by the data you offered that instead supported his, and I find it really odd that you can’t understand that.

Nope, read his quote that I was responding too. Keep reading it till you can comprehend what he said, this is where your comprehensions skills began to lack.
He said more, not equal to or less than. There is this “myth” if you will, where generally people believe that most free to play MMO players spend more than a subs fee per month on free to play MMOs. I was just stating that is not the case based on what I have seen industry professionals have stated over the years in various interviews/blogs/reports, ect. What I stated was not just for him, but for other readers as well, who I responded to may or may not believe that most free to players spend more than a sub fee per month, but given his quote that I used I wouldn’t be surprised that he did since it seems to be a common belief among MMO players. I was responding to this common myth based on his what he stated in the quote I used from him in my post.

I find it odd that you can’t understand that More is not that same as equal to or less than. He stated More than, I stated Less than, those 2 are completely different. Also, you are the one that added my brother spending more money over a 3 year period to get it to equal $12 to get that “rounding error”, not me. Also though I couldn’t remember the exact numbers at the time, I knew it was a lot less than a subs fee per month on the average, and it is. $74 a year for males, and $111 a year for female. We know that MMOs are mostly males, which means most paying customers are spending ~$6 a month on the average, that is far far from a “round error” that you injected into my example.

[/quote]

Ahh … I see the disconnect between us here. You think I have a reading comprehension problem and I think you have a logic comprehension problem. In my book, “pay more than” and “pay the same as” are pretty much the same determinant (I didn’t say equal) … there is a difference) if, as you suggest, cost was a key factor in a player’s decision not to play a pay-to-play game. Nobody is going to NOT play a pay-to-play game simply because it costs essentially the same as a free-to-play game. I wasn’t arguing that people pay more for a free-to-play game than a pay-to-play game … only that if indeed the costs are at least similar it doesn’t matter.

KOPPER.1458:

Q: Do a lot of players really expect to only play an MMO for a month or 2? I go in hoping and or thinking that I am going to play for several years. This isn’t always the case but never do I think to myself “going to play this for a month and then move on”

I don’t even bother trying a game I don’t think will hold me for a long time, and I resist like hell changing. But I will change if/when I lose faith that it will be or become what I expect from it.

KOPPER.1458:

" As it is, unless something changes dramatically in WvW between now and when TESO comes out, my days with GW2 are numbered. "

Man are you going to be disappointed.

“And you claim to play WvW? There is SO much broken about WvW in this game, and sPvP in GW2 doesn’t hold a candle to that which can be found in other games … Rift among them.”

What is it currently that is broken about WVW that needs to change in order to make it more balanced and fun. What is found in other games in reference to WVW that GW2 just doesn’t stack up?

I ask the same question above about sPVP.

I played rift exclusively long before it went F2P in all it’s aspects so I’d love to know what your view is about this. Honestly asking, no sarcasm intended.

Maybe I will be disappointed in TESO … maybe not. I really enjoyed both Oblivion and Skyrim so any carryover in form and fit from those games will be a plus, but the most encouraging aspect of TESO for me is that ZeniMax has been pretty obviously targeting the major flaws of GW2 WvW for the alliance-based PvP portion of TESO.

And what is so bad about WvW? For starters, the result for any match … EVERY match … is virtually predetermined based solely on the relative populations of the respective servers in the match. Population and coverage trumps all else and nothing else even comes close. That alone breaks it for me, because unlike many WvW’ers, I don’t play WvW just to bash heads in a zerg and collect rewards. I played WvW because it purported to be large-scale, strategy-based, team-dependent, broad-scope warfare that keyed on contributions from individual scouts, small raiding teams, and larger armies combined over the course of a full week in order to achieve a victory. Very little of that actually is the case anymore, and instead of bug fixes and corrections to the population imbalance that we’ve begged for we’ve gotten award mechanisms that encourage players to greatly narrow their focus on offense and practically abandon any semblance of defense, siege enhancements that take the place of player combat skill, and a ridiculous league format that generates consistent blowouts. And what’s the most likely change in WvW that will come from the recent “collaborative” thread with the devs? Dynamic adjustments to the PPT ticks so that the server being spawn camped or at least restricted to a small subset of the game play so that the loser of the match will still end up with a score close to that of the winner even though all they were able to do was kill a few yaks and cap a few camps. I don’t now about you, but the final score means nothing to me if I wasn’t able to participate in the same full range of activities as the opposing team because they steamrolled my team every time we tried. I’ve posted in several other threads that I think ANet needs to convert WvW to an instanced format, but I no longer have much hope they will ever do that.

The problem with GW2 sPvP is that every version is essentially a capture-the-flag format. You get a different map each time, but the mechanism to win is boringly identical and the maps are small and cramped to boot. At least with Rift most (not all) warfronts had a different mechanism and except for the library one they had some size and space to them. The biggest problem with Rift warfronts is that there were rather few of them, but that’s also the case with GW2.

Now I will readily admit that Conquest, Rift’s version of three-faction, large scale, strategy-based PvP was an abject abomination, and my disappointment with it was the single reason I left Rift to come to GW2. WvW in GW2 for the first few months seemed to be exactly what I was looking for … except for the population imbalances … but virtually every change since last winter has moved WvW in the wrong direction (spare me the part about removing culling because it was introduced in the first place to cover up capability deficiencies in the game) while nothing has been done to fix the core issues.

So I hope TESO does it right … but if they don’t I’ll probably have to settle for doing warfronts in Rift. GW2 does sandbox PvE better than any other game, but they don’t do PvP/WvW (my preferred mode of play) nearly as well and logging on simply to do my daily is getting old.

VOLKON.1290:

matjazmuhic.1649:

Cloudwalkernz.1328:

LOL unlike the OP, I actually looking forward to a sub based MMO. Why? you may asked. It is because like a lot of people I am sick of all the so called free to play MMO. I always end up spending more money than I am on a sub based MMO. Also I am sick of the RNG and P2W rubbish.

As far as GW2 goes, it is fairly good value for money. Sadly, maybe because it has no sub, Anet don’t seem to be able to afford to make an expansion like a sub based MMO lile WoW which has just announce yet another expansion. Something that no doubt will help them to bring back a lot of old players and new alike.

As far as B2P, I think only Ever Quest Next is following that model. Every other new MMOs are either sub or f2p.

I’d rather pay monthly for a really good game aswell.

I’ll say this… after GW2, it had better be one hell of a game to come out to convince me to cough up a subscription. I’m going to want a static-quest hub free world, amazing combat, continual content updates, back rubs, free sandwiches coming out of my computer, you name it. I don’t see how anyone now can compete with ArenaNet for quality and quantity to such a greater degree that a subscription could be considered warranted.

And you claim to play WvW? There is SO much broken about WvW in this game, and sPvP in GW2 doesn’t hold a candle to that which can be found in other games … Rift among them. I migrated to GW2 at launch specifically for the PvP and it has been the most disappointing aspect of the game by far. If it weren’t for the fact that the sandbox PvE of GW2 is pretty decent I’d have been gone long ago. As it is, unless something changes dramatically in WvW between now and when TESO comes out, my days with GW2 are numbered. I’m actually hoping that ANet proves me wrong because I’d honestly prefer to stay here, but unless they do it will be either TESO or back to Rift for me.

hints.8036:

I don’t like toxic. Its done in a way that feels unintegrated/addon. But I LOVE the idea of integrating PvE and WvW (kind of like in other MMO) and with lore to go with it.

Here is an idea to make it more integrated.

How about, in EB, if we capture every point of one color (tower, sentry, etc..), the legendary defender at that spawn loses its invulnerability and becomes a level 100 champion. If we kill it then we will then be able to take the enemy asura gate to their Lions Arch. Once we are there, we can kill enemies at their home server and every NPC.

We can then do pvp in pve :-)

Keep your day job.

little ceasar.9254:

Nice post. I agree wvw can be a lot of fun when you get the right mindset on it. There are still issues that need resolved but progress is being made and only the constructive feedback from the community can help that. Otherwise enjoy it for what it is, a game.

Constructive feedback from the WvW community over the course of several months didn’t get us ANYTHING … not acknowledgements, not responses, not actions. There is over a year’s worth of forum history that you can browse if you don’t believe me, and if you can spot anything positive to come out of the WvW “collaborative” thread that was just closed please point them out for me.

A game is only a game if there is enough balance to make it one. Otherwise it’s just an experience.

eisberg.2379:

Cactus.2710:

eisberg.2379:

Cactus.2710:

eisberg.2379:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Pretty hilarious that those who boldly exclaim “I will never buy a sub” possibly pay out more per month than those who do.

According to MMO developers and analysts over the years, a very very small number (compared to the number of people who spend money on the game shops) of people actually spend more than $15 a month on free to play MMOs. Basically the initial investment might be high, but over time it averages out to be ~$15 a month or less for the vast majority of the paying customers. Take my brother for instance, he spent an additional $150 on the game right from the beginning, so yes his initial investment was high, but now he is averaging ~$10 a month, and that number will keep going down till he buys gems again, in which he doesn’t see a need for a long while.

LOL. The average subscription-based game only costs about $15 per month as well. You’re even contradicting yourself with your brother’s example. If your brother plays the game for three years and buys gems once per year in the future, he will have averaged just over $12 per month for that entire period.

Hope you don’t vote …

yeah, before you decided to insult me, you should have comprehended what you read first. Reading comprehension is important, and people should have strong reading comprehension skills before voting.

LOL again. Please describe (specifically) what part of your post I misunderstood. And then I’ll point out to you how you composed it wrong in the first place. Trust me, my reading comprehension and composition skills exceed yours, but if I turn out to be wrong I will admit it here.

What I typed is pretty clear in relation to what I was responding to. My example about my brother goes in hand to what I stated prior to that example. The example does not contradict in any way in what I said, it is an example that supports it. What part of the post did you misunderstand? The whole thing.

How about you tell me what you think I said? Because apparently you feel that I stated something that I never actually said, meaning you didn’t comprehend my statement correctly.

Also, you have no idea what my reading/composition skills are for you to make that comparison.

You realize you didn’t say anything there, right? I mean, you really didn’t.

But to clarify what I gathered from your first post, the guy you responded to was pointing out that most people who complain about the cost of pay-to-play games end up spending virtually as much on free-to-play games (cash shops, etc). Your reply certainly seemed to be an attempt to contradict his assertion (are you saying it wasn’t?) … in spite of the fact that the costs you list for free-to-play (industry averages and your brother’s example) are within round off error of the average cost of a pay-to-play game. Your opposing contention was invalidated by the data you offered that instead supported his, and I find it really odd that you can’t understand that.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

EverythingXen.1835:

There are simply too many free to play/buy to play options out there for me to ever consider paying a sub for an MMO again.

Agreed. See, some people understand what I’m saying. It’s not hard to grasp.

Thanks for the reply.

Didn’t you just say that you weren’t going to post on this again?

eisberg.2379:

Cactus.2710:

eisberg.2379:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Pretty hilarious that those who boldly exclaim “I will never buy a sub” possibly pay out more per month than those who do.

According to MMO developers and analysts over the years, a very very small number (compared to the number of people who spend money on the game shops) of people actually spend more than $15 a month on free to play MMOs. Basically the initial investment might be high, but over time it averages out to be ~$15 a month or less for the vast majority of the paying customers. Take my brother for instance, he spent an additional $150 on the game right from the beginning, so yes his initial investment was high, but now he is averaging ~$10 a month, and that number will keep going down till he buys gems again, in which he doesn’t see a need for a long while.

LOL. The average subscription-based game only costs about $15 per month as well. You’re even contradicting yourself with your brother’s example. If your brother plays the game for three years and buys gems once per year in the future, he will have averaged just over $12 per month for that entire period.

Hope you don’t vote …

yeah, before you decided to insult me, you should have comprehended what you read first. Reading comprehension is important, and people should have strong reading comprehension skills before voting.

LOL again. Please describe (specifically) what part of your post I misunderstood. And then I’ll point out to you how you composed it wrong in the first place. Trust me, my reading comprehension and composition skills exceed yours, but if I turn out to be wrong I will admit it here.

eisberg.2379:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Pretty hilarious that those who boldly exclaim “I will never buy a sub” possibly pay out more per month than those who do.

According to MMO developers and analysts over the years, a very very small number (compared to the number of people who spend money on the game shops) of people actually spend more than $15 a month on free to play MMOs. Basically the initial investment might be high, but over time it averages out to be ~$15 a month or less for the vast majority of the paying customers. Take my brother for instance, he spent an additional $150 on the game right from the beginning, so yes his initial investment was high, but now he is averaging ~$10 a month, and that number will keep going down till he buys gems again, in which he doesn’t see a need for a long while.

LOL. The average subscription-based game only costs about $15 per month as well. You’re even contradicting yourself with your brother’s example. If your brother plays the game for three years and buys gems once per year in the future, he will have averaged just over $12 per month for that entire period.

Hope you don’t vote …

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

It’s not the price of the subscription for sub based games that turns some players off, it’s the idea of continuously charging a player to simply play a game that has already been purchased.

Sorry, but that sounds inane. An MMO isn’t some game that you play offline on your computer. It requires ongoing support in the form of server costs and (if it wants to survive) some level of fresh content. One way or another the player community as a whole WILL be continuously paying for a game it has “already paid for.” Whether that comes from a subscription fee or some coerced demand (notice I didn’t say forced) from a cash shop is irrelevant on a macro basis … the cost is still there that needs to be covered.

And to say that it’s the principle of the fee and not the amount is pretty incredible. However you look at it, less than 50 cents per day is trivial compared with other entertainment options such as cable/satellite TV, or a movie, or a concert, or your internet connection, or a ticket to a basketball game, or Netflix, etc.

There are many things I like about GW2 but several more that I greatly dislike (gear grind, broken and imbalanced WvW, poor communication between devs and players, WAY too much RNG, etc), and if the next MMO comes from devs who care enough and are smart enough to avoid those deficiencies then I will gladly pay a modest subscription fee to reward them for their ongoing efforts.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

ANET kinda used a cop-out and basically said WvW being imbalanced is working as intended, apparently. If someone has the precise quote feel free to drop it here.

Even if they didn’t say it, their actions pretty much show it.

Devon Carter was the dev who stated that “WvW was never intended to be fair.” He went on to refer to things like better tactics, better skills, better coordination, etc always giving one side or the other an advantage, but his other comments (the very few that he posted) in the WvW “collaboration” thread (now closed) make it very clear that he does not feel population imbalance is either a core problem or that it is fixable. He has promised to summarize the ideas offered by the player community, but we haven’t seen it yet and I’m expecting it to focus on PPT adjustments and not game play balance.

Elmo Benchwarmer.3025:

Yes, yes and yes.

Getting Ascended gear of any sorts simply isn’t fun. I can see why people want it in PvE but WvW is PvP. An even playing ground is key to a successful PvP format. Aside from the obvious artificial barrier Ascended gear introduces it generates even more power creep (like there wasn’t already enough: WvW server buffs, bloodlust, WXP ranks, food, etc.) something that is already harming the game now and will only get worse over time if it doesn’t stop.

^this^ entirely … something that ANet completely and inexplicably does not understand.

I periodically farm certain zones for mats (Harathi Hinterlands for fragments, Dredgehaunt Cliffs for iron and seasoned wood, Sparkfly Fen for platinum and hardened wood) and I will typically make a run of an entire zone without ever seeing another player even during prime time. I’ll bet that the champ troll in Sparkfly Fen and the champ fish in Dredgehaunt Cliffs haven’t been killed in the last six months on my server. Granted that Devona’s Rest is practically dead (I wouldn’t be surprised if half the participants in the major events are guests), but still … there’s something wrong when the great majority of the “physical space” in the game is not being used by anyone.

warriorjrd.8695:

Just a thought, but wouldn’t this eliminate most population imbalance problems?
I am currently on Desolation, or Tankolation as some would put it. Regardless of how we got into silver league, we don’t really belong there with the surge in numbers.

If a server got points on capture, it would make defending an objective so much more important, you wouldn’t get replies saying “We can cap it back later for the tick” because if they capped that tower or keep that team would get X amount of points. This would also help when a server goes to sleep. As I said being from Deso, most nights/morning when the enemy sleeps we tick atleast 500. This continues until they wake up which varies with the server, but is still usually enough time to get us 10k ahead Saturday mornings. If you only got points for capping things when you capped them, then come Saturday morning we wouldn’t be out of reach. Yes we will still have capped a lot of objectives, but the enemy server could, when they wake up, put up a great fight and cap them back plus some.

I think this would really help with population imbalances and encourage smaller roaming so you can flip more things ( camp snipers, more guild groups etc).
I just thought of this while looking at my server’s tick earlier, but I’d like to know what you guys think.

Sigh … I can’t believe that anyone would post such a suggestion after spending even three minutes thinking about it. All it would accomplish is to encourage all three teams to flip objectives back and forth for the various non-point rewards, and it would always result in essentially a stalemate since by definition over the course of a week each server would have captured every objective an equal number of times. It would have exactly the same affect as awarding each team in basketball one point for every possession (which are always an equal number) instead of scoring baskets.

chemiclord.3978:

And here is why Arena.net has gotten into the practice of lumping everything they say with a million qualifiers rather than “straight talk.”

The idea isn’t for ANet to stop promising anything, or to apply qualifiers to everything they say … the idea is for ANet to follow through and actually deliver what they project. If I’m a company and one of my suppliers decides that their solution to poor delivery is to stop promising me anything, they stop getting my business.

Same thing happens if you buy a plane ticket, the plane is late, and rather than try to offer an estimated departure time the airline simply tells you nothing because they don’t want to be wrong. A few repeats of that and you stop flying that airline.

The problem isn’t one of unrealistic expectations, it’s one of unfulfilled projections. And please don’t drag out that tired excuse about software development being difficult and unpredictable. It’s only difficult and unpredictable if you didn’t initially establish the proper core structure and/or aren’t very good at what you do. EVERY reputable software company has deliverables and a time frame for executing them … ANet should be no different.

It beats the hell out me why ANet didn’t follow through on a checklist after all the criticism they got for not having one back during the Scarlet invasions. It’s just stupid not to have one.

My wife and my son have both done all 24 (I was with them when they did them) and both have only gotten credit for 23. They’ve gone back and redone them all and STILL only have credit for 23. Lots of wasted time and effort for nothing ( and no, don’t tell me that repeating a bunch of things you’ve already done for no return is fun in it’s own right). It’s bugs and silly omissions like these that give a game a bad name, and GW2 certainly deserves it in this case … especially since they promised to address the lack of a checklist after Scarlet.

Zepher.7803:

I love it, you gotta watch where you step, be aware of where your fighting, and kill stuff!

I hope they do another vid with the 2 people switching spots, I wanna see her wooping some mobs into puddles on the ground hehe.

the designers spent a lot of time on this and I say THANKS!

Yeah … that works fine if you just stand in one spot and spam your #1 key. It’s a different story if your game play revolves around lots of motion, dodging, and flying attacks (and no, I don’t mean Heartseeker).

Besides, it doesn’t count for squat that the designers spent a lot of time on it if it still has major flaws.

Jaytee.9513:

The more I look at this the more it screams just place a dynamic population cap on all the maps.

Total population of each server should be within a certain percentage of each other period. If one server starts having more players, queue starts and players get placed into queues if they switch maps. This way players can get moved out of wvw at the Undermanned servers whim (Undermanned server’s zerg moves map OP server has to move to defend) and balance the population.

Make transfers free for a while to let players move to a server they feel wont have queues.

A dynamic cap should have been in place at the start-up of the game to prevent this debacle we are now facing.

You’ve been around here on these forums long enough to be able to understand what a poor idea that is … for all the reasons that have been posted here that you either didn’t read or don’t understand.

I had at least some hope for Edge of the Mists, but if it is going to be a small map with cramped spaces where you fall to your death a lot … the hell with that.