Showing Posts For Cactus.2710:

Population of Edge of the Mist

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

OK, Devon. Please take note here. Just about everyone who has posted in this thread would LOVE to see Edge of the Mist open to all servers in the region (24 in the case of NA). Nobody cares whether they are aligned with their own server or not … they just want to fight against comparable numbers.

Now let’s mentally migrate over to the “collaborative” thread on WvW population balance and consider whether maintaining server identity during WvW matches is really worth all the imbalance it causes. Wouldn’t it make far more sense to fix the population imbalance in WvW by transitioning to instanced matches with controlled populations?? The root of almost every balance issue in WvW (overall population imbalance, off-hour coverage disparity) lies in the laudable but failed server-vs-server-vs-server format. It’s time to abandon it and replace it with a better system.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’ve had several ideas and read all 20 pages of this post and here is my FINAL SOLUTION if it were up to me:

Phase I

Transfer system is the best place to start since it will be the easiest to fix, immediately making stacking less desirable and offering an incentive to de-stack.

Transfer fee = (9 – tier) x 300 gems. Transferring to tier 5 or lower comes with a “rebate” upon transfer. Rebate = (tier – 4) x 300 gems. Rebates can only be received by accounts active more than 90 days with no rebates in the previous 90 days, and only when transferring “down” one or more tiers. Transferring to tier 1 comes with a probation period where some WvW functionality is restricted for a period of time. It also comes with an option to undo the transfer and receive 50% of your gems back. Transfers, including “undo’s” take effect until the weekly reset following your transfer.

Phase II

Scoring change – no longer do you receive points for holding enemy structures. You only earn points for holding what is naturally yours. You win by capping enemy structures to deny their points, while holding your own. The game becomes more strategic and scores become visually closer. You still earn points for stomps, dolyaks, and sentry caps and these become a much bigger factor in the overall score. Currently they can be up to 30% or more of the score, under this system they would likely make up 50% or more. Bloodlust and dolyaks become potential game changers.

Phase III

Actual changes to the game mechanics.

Waypoint contesting mechanic is revised to allow 1 player every 12 seconds to use waypoints that are contested, however the waypoints stay contested for 10 seconds after the event ends, meaning there will not be a “split second” for everyone to spam in during a continuous siege. This allows people to slowly WP in and starting sieging up to try to slow down the enemy while the main force runs there. Previously you could wait 2.5 minutes and spam a 50-man zerg in. Now in 2.5 minutes you’ll have 12-13 people inside with the rest on the way.

Outmanned buff now allows you to see enemy players on your mini map within X range.

Zergs of 40+ even when not in combat create an orange troop icon on the map showing their location.

Other possible good ideas here!

LOL. What part of that achieves population balance?? Did you forget which thread you were posting in? And don’t tell me that your first suggestion does that, because it won’t.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Relax, no one is suggesting locking transfers or servers. Well some might be suggesting it but it will never happen.

ONE PIECE of the puzzle is how to fix the transfer system.

We can all agree it should be based on WvW pop instead of the current PvE population, since PvE has guesting and transfers are mostly for WvW reasons.

People/guilds often leave their server due to drama/attitude within their community. When they look for a new home they often check into several other servers before making a decision. Those decisions can be heavily influenced by the cost/reward system in place. It is not a short-term fix but it is very important long-term necessity to fix this system.

It is also probably the easiest place to start as it does not involve changing gameplay or game rules in any way.

It’s also like the surgeon trimming your fingernails because it’s easier than working on your badly broken leg … and just as useful. ANet needs to >force< WvW match populations to be comparable just like every other properly designed game has done, but I no longer have any faith that they will do so.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Not going to read most of this thread, so forgive me if this has already been covered. Anet, have you found a way to fix the zoom hacks? It makes defense near impossible when you have somebody right outside of the inner wall of your keep, able to shoot arrows from an arrowcart directly into the lord’s room, hitting him, his NPC helpers, and any player that’s in it. And that’s without the gate or wall being taken down. It’s not fun, and is more frustrating than anything that you can’t get rid of the person there because of the zerg near them aiming at your position.

Here’s someone else who can’t read the thread topic or the first post from the dev.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

tier 1: 2000 gems
1 tier or more up: 750 gems
1 tier or more down: free

People talking about mass guild transfers are missing the point IMO. Any kind of population normalisation is good where WVW is concerned.

And why would this lead to population normalization?
Would people suddenly start transferring just because they changed the prices?

One of the very few times I wholeheartedly agree with you, Changing server transfer fees will fix absolutely nothing.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

Seriously? That’s your best take-away from this discussion so far

This is so frigging depressing ….

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The people who keep suggesting a handicap system or giving ppt bonuses are not gettingit. The score means nothing if your not having fun, getting steam rolled constantly by far superior numbers to the point where logging off is more enjoyable than playing is what needs to be fixed. Don’t kid yourselves you didn’t win because the ppt was tweaked, you still got your kitten handed to you by 2-5 X the number of players. Would it really make people happy to say " we were spawn camped for 7 days, but we won because the numbers up top said we did".

^this^ … and it discourages me immensely that so few posters here seem to get it. If the PPT and score adjustment advocates got their way WvW would still suck and they’d be back here again in a month to complain about how this server or that was manipulating their populations to affect the PPT, or how the score adjustments didn’t account for something, or some other such bullkitten. The ONLY way this game gets back to its premise of a large scale open world strategy-based PvP mode where the winner is determined by team work, communication, strategy, guile, cleverness, and skill is if ANet is willing to implement some scheme that balances the actual player populations during the majority of the match.

I have rather little hope that ANet will have the conviction to fix this, but even less so given the number of misdirected posts focusing on PPT bandaids instead of the surgery that’s really needed.

Not to sound argumentative but what are your suggestions for addressing the situation?

You have been pretty adamant about being against ppt adjustment saying that it could be manipulated (How if its based on a running average each hour?) or how its doesn’t change game play (You are still outnumbered….etc.).

The people making these suggestions are not looking for instant answers but long term solutions. Read my post above with an objective view and make points to why its bad or good, this is what this discussion is for: Idea generation and player input on suggested fixes.

Every suggestion will have positives and negatives to it.

Please remember that major changes require major re-work in coding (eg. may take months to implement) which I feel is too long to let slide but that is just my opinion.

I’ve already made my suggestions several times, including once earlier in this very thread that you could have easily discovered if you had bothered to actually read my posting history. There are several thoughts in that post that go well beyond how to balance populations.

In a nutshell, I think the server-vs-server-vs-server model is doomed to failure no matter what restrictions (map caps based upon lowest population), incentives (outmanned buffs or rewards), or score adjustments (handicaps or graded PPT) people try to use as crutches. In my opinion, the only viable solution is to abandon the server format and migrate to an instance-based matchmaking model of some sort. There are various ways that could be accomplished, but relying on second and third order influences to control the overwhelmingly dominant first order effect (player population) is just ridiculous. It won’t work, and if ANet agrees with folks like you they will spend a lot of time and effort coming up with some crutch that still doesn’t make any of us happy.

To some extent, Devon was correct when he said that WvW matches were never intended to be “fair”, and that’s because superior strategy, superior skill, and superior teamwork should always win the day. But superior NUMBERS at a macro level should never determine the breadth and depth of the experience players have in the match, and that’s exactly what will happen even if the final score says differently.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The people who keep suggesting a handicap system or giving ppt bonuses are not gettingit. The score means nothing if your not having fun, getting steam rolled constantly by far superior numbers to the point where logging off is more enjoyable than playing is what needs to be fixed. Don’t kid yourselves you didn’t win because the ppt was tweaked, you still got your kitten handed to you by 2-5 X the number of players. Would it really make people happy to say " we were spawn camped for 7 days, but we won because the numbers up top said we did".

^this^ … and it discourages me immensely that so few posters here seem to get it. If the PPT and score adjustment advocates got their way WvW would still suck and they’d be back here again in a month to complain about how this server or that was manipulating their populations to affect the PPT, or how the score adjustments didn’t account for something, or some other such bullkitten. The ONLY way this game gets back to its premise of a large scale open world strategy-based PvP mode where the winner is determined by team work, communication, strategy, guile, cleverness, and skill is if ANet is willing to implement some scheme that balances the actual player populations during the majority of the match.

I have rather little hope that ANet will have the conviction to fix this, but even less so given the number of misdirected posts focusing on PPT bandaids instead of the surgery that’s really needed.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Remove everyone from every servers. Rename 24 global servers (no more NA or EU but GLOBAL): make everyone choose a server after these change : implement a lower cap on population on every of these server. Start leagues. Here you have 24 random servers that have all equals chances. Next season repeat the same: remove everyone from servers, rename them all, etc…

This^^ With the exception of keeping NA and EU separate for lag reasons.

Remember, this is a thread about “World Population”. It needs to be even across servers. Right now it is not.

actually, this thread is less about fixing population imbalance, and more about addressing the problems it causes.

Then in my opinion this thread will be a waste of time. Just about every proposal I’ve seen to simply address the score imbalance caused by population imbalance would either be ineffective or could easily be abused. If we aren’t going to see some serious effort from ANet to equalize match populations then WvW is doomed and I will go find something else to do until ESO or some more intelligently crafted game comes out. You can equalize the score without fixing the population balance, but you can’t equalize the scope and entertainment value of the match without it. It’s that simple.

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

(edited by Cactus.2710)

Why is Performance Never/Rarely Addressed?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

He also reminded us how dangerous it is to make live server changes to a live game so they try to get everything absolutely perfect ;D

LOL … just LOL

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Hey everyone,

I wanted to chime in again and say that the discussion around population imbalance and WvW has been really wide-open and interesting. There are some definite things we’ve learned from reading your responses and some really interesting ideas in here as well. The goal of this initiative is to foster discussion about the game and for that discussion to help us make better design decisions in the future. I think there have been some good points raised in this thread and I’ve definitely seen some new ways of looking at the problem. This particular issue is very thorny, which makes it a bit more difficult to wade into the conversation. Population affects so many other areas that it makes it complicated to untangle it and get actionable ideas. We believe that between the studio and the community we can find new ways of looking at the problems that can lead us to great solutions, and we appreciate your taking the time and energy to share your thoughts. Hopefully we can all take WvW and Guild Wars 2 further by being able to work some of these problems out together.

I wanted to further discuss a couple of ideas. Firstly, several posts have called for reduced map caps in WvW. The problem that would create is that we’d be allowing even fewer people to play in a given period of time if we were to do that. So I wonder if there is another way to accomplish the same goal, while not disenfranchising people who would now be unable to get into the maps? It’s a hard problem because the more populated servers face long queues while the less populated ones face empty maps. From my perspective there aren’t a ton of good options, which is why discussing this problem is pretty important.

Secondly, there has been some amount of discussion about the nature of server transfers and how that affects population. I think there is some space for us to make changes there, but there is always going to be a tradeoff. For example, what if we restricted or completely eliminated transfers during a season? I think it has some positives, but it might be overly damaging to people who aren’t intending to bandwagon, but legitimately want to change servers. It may be the case, though, that that number is so small that it is worth the cost. Or, what if we prevented people from transferring to the higher population servers, but not all of them? Again, it runs the risk of being a burden on some number of folks, but it may be worth the cost.

Again, this is a good discussion, it’s really important to consider the costs to any action and to remember that our goal is to do the best thing for as many of our players as possible.

Thanks for posting, but I’d like to point out that once again neither you nor anyone else bothers to show up until the players get frustrated and the thread turns testy. How can you not understand that you are encouraging the exact negative behavior that these collaboration threads were intended to address??

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Population issues could mostly be solved this way:

Your server’s historical performance should set an expectation/goal for the next match based on who you’re fighting (their ranking/performance). A winner will be picked based on the percentage of the goal that they reach. The goal calculation should be based on probably the last four matchups or something along those lines.

Ex: In BG/SoR/SoS this week, it could be said that BG will have a 250k goal, SoR a 200k goal, and SoS a 100k goal.

Now if BG gets 300k, SoR gets 160k, and SoS gets 130k, SoS would technically be the “winner” because their percentage of goal was 130%, as compared to BGs 120% or SoR’s 80%.

This way every server has a relatively even chance of winning, and you end up playing for a goal that is achievable for your server. You can still “win,” even if you’re the underdog, two tiers out of your league.

Winners for a particular week get a prize of some kind. Bonus WXP or ranks, Karma, gold, and/or something like that. You will also see that the winners will change from week to week, because servers that do exceptionally well one week will have a higher goal to reach for the following week. Then, because it’s percentage based, the less populated servers in their matchup will have a better chance at getting a higher percentage and will probably fight harder for it.

You don’t “win” if you’re the undermanned server and all you are able to do is cap camps and kill yaks … and that is exactly what happens even if your score says you were “competitive”. Returning the enjoyment to WvW requires that populations be more or else equivalent so that everyone has roughly the same ability to engage in all those aspects of the match that the game design calls for.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Maybe you guys should start thinking a bit about what/how you write?
The kind of posts we see here right now is most likely a sure way to get them to shut down this initiative and not do it again in the future.

At this point, what would we have lost? That’s a serious question. We haven’t had a single informed, positive bit of feedback from ANet throughout this entire thread (no … I don’t consider Devon’s posts to be positive since he doesn’t seem to accept that population balance is the objective) and there has been zero collaborative content at all. I desperately wanted this thread to amount to something substantial, and there have been many, many worthwhile suggestions by the WvW player base in an effort to hold up our side of the collaboration. Where is the corresponding participation from ANet?? So far all we know is that the devs have finally managed to get their caffeine fix.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Sure, those devs are free to post on the weekend if they want to!

Keep in mind that some devs have families, or may have prior obligations/plans on a weekend, while some other devs may have a lot of free time on a given weekend!

Well, OK … but that just tells me that many of us here have a stronger interest in fixing this mess than they do. The great majority of players who post here have busy real lives as well, but somehow we find the time to scan the thread and post an input or two.

More than just the lack of participation from Anet’s side, though, is the apparent lack of awareness and buyin to the issue itself. The core problem is that WvW populations are fundamentally and woefully unbalanced (hence the title of the thread), yet read carefully this last relevant post from Devon on the issue:

“The way that we try and find answers to the types of problems raised in this thread are by trying to get to the heart of the issue. Saying things like ‘populations aren’t balanced’ doesn’t lead to any productive solutions because they all involve things like drastically redistributing the populations of the game. Finding the core reasons for that like ‘score momentum is overpowering’ allow us to attack the actual problem. What I hope to get out of this is a sense of why people think that the population causes the scoring issues, because that is something we can find a solution to. As part of that it’s important for us to more clearly explain why we’ve made some of the decisions we have made so that we talk about the reasoning behind those and how they’ve been in practice.

These threads are intended to be a discussion about the design of various aspects of the game and how the team and the players view them. Our decision making in terms of what actions we take and what we are already doing have to take a wide range of things into account including available resources. So it was never my intent to imply that we would jump to do the things mentioned in this thread because some aren’t feasible, some require resources we don’t have, and some might already be in progress."

There are three troubling aspects to that response:

1. Devon doesn’t really accept that population balance is achievable or even desirable.
2. Devon prefers to focus on score balance, which as I and others have stated several times does NOT make WvW more fun. The severely undermanned side will still be squeezed out of much of the enjoyable game play even if the score is comparable by granting them point bonuses for their restricted subset of play.
3. Devon has already started hedging on what remediation will occur as the result of this “collaboration.”

After all those many frustrating months of being ignored we saw some promise by the creation of this thread … only to find that it’s headed to the same limbo that we were in before. I would have thought that you folks would have gone overboard to make sure that didn’t happen, but you haven’t at all held up your side of this “collaboration.” If you can’t recognize that, there is no hope for us at all.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Funny you should mention that because Devon made a post about 2 hours ago

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Updated-Obsidian-Sanctum-coming-in-November/first#post3149053

The thing is that IF he would just drop in and say: “We are still looking” people would whine about him not saying anything useful.

You never cease to amaze me …

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Pretty disheartening when you see the number of Dev replies in Living World thread compared to this one, but not surprising.

Quite logical though.
They have WAY more people working in the Living Story teams than they have in WvW, thus it is much easier for that team to get some time to read and post on the forums.

If we accept your excuse as being “logical” we can also pretty much expect that it will take WAY more time for anything to come from the many suggestions posted in this thread.

Besides, what the hell is the point of calling it a “collaborative discussion” if there is virtually zero involvement from the dev side. Remember Devon’s famous “WvW was never meant to be fair” statement? My suspicions were that that his heart was never in this initiative in the first place and I had hoped that I would be wrong about that, but the available evidence says otherwise.

Collaborative my kitten .

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

Server v Server and Server pride

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The point isn’t whether server pride is a good thing or not … the point is that server pride doesn’t hold a candle to the many other advantages (for both WvW and PvE) of being on a high pop server. I’ve stayed on Devona’s Rest (which for a while had a credible WvW population) since launch but I have to guest simply to participate in almost any PvE event and I don’t even bother with WvW (my favorite game mode) anymore because it is so hopelessly screwed up. The mere fact that so many folks have transferred from one server to another (often repeatedly) should (but apparently doesn’t) tell ANet that server-vs-server-vs-server is a failed concept.

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

Dual Wield Weapon Stats

in Thief

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Abilities 1 – 3 go off of MH damage, 4-5 offhand. The STATS on the weapons affect both.

Yeah … certainly I knew how the abilities work, but I swear I read that only the stats on the main hand weapon determined attack power even though my experience says otherwise. Maybe I just read a piece of bullkitten.

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

Dual Wield Weapon Stats

in Thief

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’ve read that weapon DPS is determined by main hand stats only, but that’s not what I see when I equip various weapons while dual wielding … i.e., my attack points go down when I equip a poor offhand weapon ( I run a non-burst dagger/dagger spec). Can anyone help cure my confusion here? Thanks …

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’m pretty sure the thread is about POPULATION IMBALANCE not PPT IMBALANCE. so please.. most people in wvw dont give a rats kitten about PPT, but they do care about being steamrolled 10v70 all the time!

This … a thousand times this. PPT doesn’t mean squat to me if I can’t play WvW to the same extent as the team with a much larger population. If I have no hope of taking a tower or keep, or holding my own when my group runs into an enemy group, that removes a large segment of the game play EVEN IF my side is able to keep the score close by capping camps or picking off stragglers. I really, really don’t understand why so many people here don’t understand this.

Just because the score is close doesn’t mean that the game is fun to play.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

The more i think about it the more i agree with devon. the best comeback mechanic to fight the lopsided scores is to SIGNIFICANTLY increase the rewards for killing the first place server. if we got champ bags from players on a server beating us by 100k points our fairweathers would show up with all their friends to farm the winning server and we wouldnt see such a slump at the end of the week when we fight. while it wouldnt fix nightcapping it would fix the morale problems nightcapping causes.

sigh …

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I believe that all these posts suggesting score adjustments based upon population differences totally miss the point … which is that it is not fun to play when you are significantly outnumbered. In my opinion, the ONLY way to fix WvW is to come up with some way to roughly balance populations in a match. Otherwise we will get the situation where, in an extreme example, an undermanned server can keep the score close by mostly capturing camps or killing yaks. That’s not a full spectrum of the WvW experience.

I suppose that the suggestion to automatically form an alliance between B and C if A has a dominant population presence might help, but that’s pretty much just a way to balance a 2-way battle …. it no longer is the 3-way conflict originally intended. In my opinion, a better method would be to keep the 3-way format and implement a forced mercenary system like Rift did with their warfronts … although I’ll admit not everyone would like that.

In any case, score balance does NOT equate to game play balance. If instanced matches with equal player caps for each faction (notice I didn’t say server) are the only way to achieve game play balance, I say do it.

The idea of adjusting PPT/rewards according to population differences makes players realize that easy battles does not equate to easy PPT/Rewards, which is the one of the main causes of population stacking.

In order to make population spread out on its own, you need to create incentives to do so. Given choice of joining a stronger group or weaker with same rewards for the win which would you choose?

Now if you create a population ratio which determines rewards/ppt, you place a question in the player’s minds: Do you want easy battles with little rewards or challenging battles with great rewards?

As I said in previous posts I don’t feel like its a punishment for stacked servers as they make up for the smaller rewards with increased frequency of taking objectives. Weaker servers have greater rewards/PPT because of the difficulty in fighting against superior numbers.

There is more than one reason why people migrate to stacked servers. One is that of course it is easier to get loot and achievements if you roll over your opponent (it’s totally baffling to me that ANet wouldn’t have anticipated that), another is that it is extremely limiting to be on an undermanned server and have to slink around the edges trying to find something useful to do without getting mashed, and a third is that there is always something cooking on a stacked server while half the time you can’t even find any team mates at all off hours (trust me … I’m on Devona’s Rest and know whereof I speak). My basic position, though, is that I don’t believe ANY incentives will offset those things enough to create balanced matches. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … ANet needs to set up some sort of forced population balance in order to recapture the spirit of WvW that existed for a couple of months shortly after launch. There are a couple of ways of accomplishing that, but instanced matches between arbitrary factions is the most straightforward … and spare me the argument about undermining server community when rampant transfers have made that nothing more than a ridiculous excuse for not doing anything.

In case you still can’t figure it out, I don’t play WvW for rewards. I play WvW for the fun and enjoyment of large scale strategy-based open world PvP … period. I want ANet to fix WvW so that it plays like it was supposed to be … not bribe me with rewards so I’ll settle for something less.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I believe that all these posts suggesting score adjustments based upon population differences totally miss the point … which is that it is not fun to play when you are significantly outnumbered. In my opinion, the ONLY way to fix WvW is to come up with some way to roughly balance populations in a match. Otherwise we will get the situation where, in an extreme example, an undermanned server can keep the score close by mostly capturing camps or killing yaks. That’s not a full spectrum of the WvW experience.

I suppose that the suggestion to automatically form an alliance between B and C if A has a dominant population presence might help, but that’s pretty much just a way to balance a 2-way battle …. it no longer is the 3-way conflict originally intended. In my opinion, a better method would be to keep the 3-way format and implement a forced mercenary system like Rift did with their warfronts … although I’ll admit not everyone would like that.

In any case, score balance does NOT equate to game play balance. If instanced matches with equal player caps for each faction (notice I didn’t say server) are the only way to achieve game play balance, I say do it.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I still think that 24h coverage is the main issue and the solution is to merge american and european servers, so we should have more 24h coverage servers and more fun matchups, at least the golden league servers must have all a 24h coverage.

While an interesting idea, merging EU and NA servers is a technical impossibility. They have to remain separated.

It is not technical impossible. That this one is out of question regarding the involved work for your current architecture is a different thing, but it is technical doable.

It might be technically impossible if they are leasing server space from one company in NA (Amazon?) and a different one in EU. ANet very well might not own their own servers since MANY companies now lease space from giants.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Still waiting for Devon’s responses, Chris Whiteside is all over the LS Collaborative thread as the coordinator, why is he not taking the initiative to approach us?

Not sure about anyone else, but I never expected Devon to be very collaborative in the first place. He hasn’t shown much interest in that sort of thing in the past and I suspect he isn’t very on board with it now. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy, but his view of WvW seems counter to what most of the community has been asking for and he’s pushed out a lot of things we begged him not to.

And in case you forgot, it was Devon himself who so famously answered our complaints about population imbalance with the statement that “WvW was never intended to be fair”, so I don’t think he’s even sympathetic to the topic in the first place. I guess we’ll see ….

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

Could we talk about Tequatl?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I think it’s fine. The only downfall is the loot. I think they should of made it more rewarding, especially for players that are able to defeat the boss. Teq was or is unique compared to other bosses around the game. It took more than a 8 player group and auto attack. I would love to see some of the other bosses change to that.

I couldn’t disagree more about loot. If the event isn’t fun, increasing loot doesn’t make it more fun — it just means you’ve added extrinsic rewards to compensate for the fact that the gameplay isn’t something you enjoy.

That’s exactly the wrong tack.

^this^

And it is something that ANet refuses to learn.

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

Could we talk about Tequatl?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I’ve participated in a Teq kill about 80 times and all I’ve ever gotten are a few exotics. I keep hoping for the ascended box, but I have not been so lucky yet. As I will never, ever craft an ascended or legendary anything (because I hate grinding), I see this as the only way I will ever have an ascended item.

LOL. Suffering through Tequatl more than 80 times for much less than you could get in the same amount of time doing champ runs isn’t grinding?? Please tell me you don’t vote.

I emphatically hate the grind in this game, but I’m pretty certain that you could acquire all the mats (gather or buy using gold you got from selling gear you farmed) to craft an ascended weapon in the time you have devoted to Tequatl (counting both actual fight time and the time you spent getting organized for the fight).

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

About Marjory's Dagger

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Something like this, from concept to completion, takes months. You overestimate yourself.

Nonsense. You’re just making yourself look silly with comments like that.

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

Food to OP

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I was thinking about it today and I think food in its current form is way to overpowered. I was thinking of a way to balance food out so that its more viable for everyone.

Basically you would have 50% chance to get the food buff, A 25% chance to get the buff x2 and a 25% chance to get a debuff called food poisoning. Food poisoning would give a reduction of stats for 1hr. The only way to remove it would be to take antidote that would be a cash shop exclusive item.

What do you guys think?

I think those are completely appalling ideas and you should get a three day ban for even suggesting them. The last thing we need is something in the cash shop that gives a competitive edge, and the next to the last thing we need in the game is more kittening RNG.

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

Achievements causing friction

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Creating disparate objectives within a game that requires teamwork and shared objectives among players is ALWAYS a bad idea that causes friction and animosity, and it’s a pit that ANet has repeatedly and spectacularly fallen into.

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

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I second adjusting PPT to be higher/lower based on the population at any given time.

As I just stated above, that might adjust the score but it doesn’t really fix the game play. We still end up with matches that are skewed by population differences. Just because one side gets more points for doing something because they have less population does NOT mean that they are able to play the game the same way as the side with the greater population. Think about it for ten seconds and you’ll see what I mean. HOW we play the game is the important aspect here … not just the score … and equalizing the score is NOT the same as equalizing the game play.

PPT as a function of player population is not a fix for anything worthwhile.

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

(edited by Cactus.2710)

Collaborative Development: World Population

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Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I think I’m going to be going against the grain of just about every other post in this thread, but I simply don’t see how server-vs-server-vs-server is EVER going to give balanced matches … and balanced matches are what we are all looking for. Buffs and point adjustments for population differences might tend to balance scores BUT THEY WON’T BALANCE GAME PLAY. I’ve played GW2 since launch and came here specifically for the promise of WvW … large scale, open world, strategy-based PvP requiring teamwork among varied player roles (armies, scouts, small raiding teams, etc). The score should be a measure of how well we do that, but the actual enjoyment comes from the process … not the result.

As long as population and coverage trump everything (and they always will), some other scheme needs to be in place to set up matches instead of simply having interested players from three difference servers show up on the battlefield. I’ve thought about this for months and I see no other way to do than to change to a red-vs-blue-vs-green faction type of format with defined player caps for each instance. The original concept of server-vs-server-vs-server was supposedly that server loyalty would be a dominant theme, but the mass transfers of players looking for better matches has put the lie to that premise. Most players want competitive, full spectrum open world PvP WHEN THEY WANT IT above all else, which means populations and queues need to be controlled effectively. the only way I can see that ever happening is with an instanced format. Make it so that teams of players can join together and make it so that multiple instances can be run at the same time.

That would be my major desire, but while spending all those hours trying to figure out how WvW might be made more workable I came up with the following additional thoughts. Consider them or reject them as you see fit, but at the very least I feel we need to abandon the server-vs-server-vs-server concept.

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

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

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

Thief playable in pvp with 250ms~350ms ping ?

in Thief

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Plan on dying a lot as a thief if you average 300 msec pings.

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

What other zones have Champ Zergs?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

If the train on your server kills the champs too fast, just guest to a slightly lower population server that you can keep up with … the champs will still go down very quickly.

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

WvW Not Fair - You Shouldn't Expect It To Be

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

  1. Initial “pure” glicko-based tiers. Lead to stagnation and servers being locked in unbalanced matchups for ages
  2. Mildly randomized (within certain rating range) matchups surprisingly still lead to unbalanced matchups. It’s either you (royal “You”, server) stomp or you being stomped. With occasional fair weeks.
  3. Seasons. Ultimate equalizer. Everyone will get a chance to meet everyone. But look, there are still unbalanced matchups happening! Not fair, not fun!

TL:DR meh

That’s thinking inside the box as if those are the only logical possibilities. All of these use the same flawed PPT system that encourages karma training weak objectives/servers, lack of defense, and in general lack of WvW strategy. Strategy SHOULD be fun. But it’s boring for a reason… because the system is flawed and meaningless. Stacking new features on flawed foundations lead to flawed features.

Seasons are great for match making (for Maguuma at least) but PPT is still meaningless. More than ever. There’s no incentive to play WvW as a strategy game. And that’s a flaw.

“There’s no incentive to play WvW as a strategy game. And that’s a flaw.”

This …exactly, and emphatically.

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

Stop the Champtrains!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

I can’t kill them on my own but there is a huge pressure in the chat NOT to kill a champ before a train arrives. And I don’t like that. That is my message.

Well, what you’re doing is telling people to stop how they want to play so you can play how you want to play… Ironic..

You’re missing my point. If people want to kill champs with others, fine to me. They can do so. If I’m ordered to not kill a champ, that’s a different story. And yes, I know i can make a report, but I don’t feel like that. I want to play the game.

So … because you don’t like people telling you in game how they want you to act you come here to the forums to tell them how you want them to act. I don’t think we’re missing the point at all … you are.

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

The "F" key

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

This is one of the stupidest ideas Arena.net has come up with.

With so many to choose from, I’m curious what you used to rank them.

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

WvW Not Fair - You Shouldn't Expect It To Be

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

It is indeed a PvP game mode, but it has always been advertised as an unbalanced game mode.
That has always been said, since before release.
The fact that people don’t seem to accept that it is supposed to be unbalanced doesn’t mean that it being unbalanced is wrong.

Actually, it does mean it’s wrong. WvW is set up as a match between three servers, with objectives and points scored for accomplishing those objectives. If being unbalanced was part of the original plan, or if it was fully acceptable, there would be no point in having a score or even in having matches … and certainly not in having leagues. We’d simply join an open-ended map much like the PvP servers in other MMOs and bash heads as the opportunities presented themselves. And players organizing their own formats like fight clubs and GvG skirmishes wouldn’t have been so actively discouraged by ANet. Clearly ANet intended us to take seriously the points and win/losses, and even I don’t think they are so stupid as to intentionally design WvW such that “it was supposed to be unbalanced.” . It just worked out that way and they don’t know how to fix it.

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

Increased skill lag in WvW. Possible cause

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Not really.
The extra processing this would introduce is probably minimal.
There always was a boon sharing calculation, which Anet admit is a large factor in the calculations but the addition of a simple binary flag test to select party members could actually reduce the overhead.

Curiously, this morning in Garrison, we had a three way server battle with at least 50 on each side (probably more but who’s counting). We had virtually no lag throughout. It was delicious.

Besides, lag isn’t the problem. It’s the queues.

I won’t dispute your anecdotal experience in Garrison, but aside from that I’m pretty sure you got everything else wrong. Lag is indeed a HUGE problem (and not just in WvW), it has indeed gotten considerably worse, and things like boon sharing involve much more server-side calculation than just looking at a bit to see if someone is in your party.

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

A great step in the right direction...

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

to the Dev who came up with this beta testing idea, you deserve a big promotion!
Hopefully more of this will be implemented in Spvp as well, I think it will make the release of this map and any other new features that will be tested this way 10x better.

I’m pleased that ANet has finally adopted this sort of thing, but “the Dev who came up with this beta testing idea” probably died of old age long before ANet was even formed.

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

[Merged] Skill lag issue

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-state-of-skill-lag-and-server-optimizations

Performance is something that is being worked on for the entirety of the game. We are aware of the issues and are in the process of addressing them as rapidly as we can. Please go to the above link to get more detailed information as Bill is really the point person for all of this work right now. While the impacts of performance are quite clear in WvW, it is not isolated to just WvW and we are in the process of making these changes to the entirety of the game. Direct questions and concerns to that post.

Interesting that you point out that the horrible skill lag isn’t limited to WvW. I and others have been trying to say that for months, but some here refused to believe it and claimed it only occurred in stacked WvW battles.

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

[Merged] Skill lag issue

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Check out the advance information from the ESO devs … they see what’s going on here and are clearly targeting GW2’s inability to properly handle mass battles.

Unfortunately they failed to learn from everyone else’s mistakes and have already killed their own game by making it P2P.

I’d bet that the majority of serious WvW’ers would gladly play the equivalent of 50 cents per day to play without skill lag. There are a hell of a lot of people who know that ESO will be P2P and are still anxiously waiting to see if it lives up to its billing. I’m not saying that ESO will be what I want to it to be because I’m not in the beta, but if it doesn’t have skill lag it won’t be the P2P model that keeps me from playing it.

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

[Merged] Skill lag issue

in WvW

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

^

Which is why they need a new map or two in tandem with reducing map cap.

Yep which is why I believe they will be reducing the map caps (to what extent: who knows) once the “queue maps” are released.

The biggest issue is that when they established their “baseline” for this game to operate in terms of WvW, it did not take into account 3 servers pooling all of their players on the map into 1 spot in 1 huge fight. (100% of the map in a 1v1v1) And it really should have, or the worse reality was that the number-cap was so low (if they did take 100% of the map population fighting each other into account) when they realized it: skill lag was a better option at the time.

When you design a system with limits, you have to take into account the worst case scenarios, (in this case the largest server load) you could possibly have to set those “limits” (in this case: map caps).

Think about it for a second, when do you get skill lag? Usually the larger fights involving all 3 servers or 2 servers with large amounts of people. So if you get skill lag in a 30v30v30 (90 players) then the cap would have likely had to been lower than 30 players per server, in which case skill lag would have obviously been a better (but still not good) decision to live with.
(All of those numbers are just pulled from thin air, there are too many variables to be assigned to get a true hard number on actual combatants it takes to create skill lag 100% of the time I would guess.)

Exactly this. ANet designed a game for target player populations that was incompatible with the engine and resources they decided to run it on. It’s an example of horrible development coordination and we’re all paying the price for it. They could have cut down the combat mechanisms, reduced the visual effects, or paid for better software and hardware … but they didn’t, so their only recourse now is to try to walk a tightrope between crippling ability lag and epic queues. Check out the advance information from the ESO devs … they see what’s going on here and are clearly targeting GW2’s inability to properly handle mass battles.

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

Dailies gone mad!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Just how many dailies do we need? I count 15 today and wvw camp capture is even in there twice for good measure.

Are they going to continue to expand indefinitely until there is a choice of 40 or 50 a day?

I’m failing to see the problem here.

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

[Merged] Ascended Armor Impressions

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

bear in mind these codes were leaked guys, the armor may not even be finished yet or those codes maybe from skins that anet have already dropped and working on better ones. And if that isnt the case I’m sure anet have seen the feedback on the forums and will change the armors anyway now. Just wait it out until the codes are released offically.

Your optimism is charming.

More like delusional …

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

Mounts

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Mounts would seem to be one of the things that least need to be addressed in this game.

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

Please don't make us craft ascended armor

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Why would a PvP’er care about ascended armors ? They wont be in PvP formats since the gear is stat capped. If you mean WvW, that is not classed as PvP by Anet therfor does not apply.

Pretty sure he meant WvW and WvW vendors. Even I could figure that out.

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

Magic Find?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

Something major in GW2 not working as purported … how unusual.

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

Collaborative Development- Request for Topics

in CDI

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

WvW:

1. Instanced matches for population balance
2. Fixes for exploits and griefing
3. Revisit siege mastery

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

Feedback Integrity Deserves Design Integrity

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Cactus.2710

Cactus.2710

1) It’s not sample size that matters with forums, it’s selection bias.
2) ArenaNet shouldn’t have to put anything to a vote or “listen” to anybody. They should, perhaps. And they do, sometimes. But the demands I’ve seen (not necessarily by you, Cactus, so please don’t take this personally) are ridiculous.
3) Nielsen sucks and consistently misrepresents viewership. It’s a joke that advertisers take it seriously.

Actually, ANet pretty much does have to listen to its customers. Any company who doesn’t do that dies. I agree that many of the complaints and suggestions are ridiculous (not mine, of course) but there have been some very common sentiments expressed in the forums over the past year without the slightest acknowledgement, response, or action from ANet … and the recent outreach initiatives seem to indicate that they finally recognize their peril. Angry customers make for very bad publicity that is very hard to explain to the board of directors.

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