Guild Wars 2

1v1v1 implies there isn’t going to be “balance.”

Nuzt.7894:

The games selling point for you may have been massive battles, it was not the only selling point, WvW was suppose to cater to all play styles from solo to zerg.

What? That goes both ways, I am not saying there isn’t small scale things to do. Literally not my words below from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

This is how ANET described WvW, not what I believed it to be. I emboldened anything that emphasized scale.

“Join World vs. World (WvW) for an epic PvP experience full of cunning strategy, earthshaking sieges, and pitched battles between hundreds of players. In this massive war, three huge armies—each representing their world—battle for control of the castles and keeps, raid enemy supply caravans, and clash in open-field battles on five massive maps in week-long matches and seasonal tournaments.”

For focusedscale combat there is Spvp, that directly competes for the “small scale” scene with WvW’s lesser attempts. It is sold as such, where I emboldened the key words that were about brevity, small, and variety (everything that WvW isn’t):

“In Player vs. Player (PvP) matches, small teams of players compete to eliminate each other and capture strategic objectives on a map in short, fast-paced matches. In one match, players must battle over ancient ruins, while in another match, they may have to breach the enemy’s stronghold and defeat their lord.”

In conclusion, I don’t believe it is impossible for small scale things to exist in WvW (killing yaks, ganking, camp captures). But WvW by its own name, World versus World, is about massive something fighting massive something else.

Diku.2546:

…

It’s Sunday and reset was Friday.

It’s true…even a top competitor like Black Gate can loose & doesn’t win all the time.

Players need to stop complaining & work harder like Black Gate.

Take a look at the Skirmish Scoring screen capture taken just now.

Out of the 19 current skirmishes…they only won 18.

If this was football…Black Gate has the talent & is on par of being a Super Bowl team.

The remaining 23 of 24 NA servers really are talentless & can only be on par with being a High School team.

I’m with you buddy.

Shame on the rest of the 23 of 24 NA servers….you need to train harder & be more credible while you’re at it!

Stop blaming Black Gate. They can’t help it if the rest of WvW doesn’t have a lot of regular and dedicated players like they do. They also seem to put in a lot of overtime.

The moment a game “becomes like work” is when the realities of work set in. Burnout is a very real thing in work, and can be seen post WvW Seasonal Tournaments. Players overplayed (or overworked for this analogy) and eventually left after the burnout.

Don’t stress over “becoming like BG” because that’s just coverage wars….no amount of training will change that. Get more numbers magically.

Neither is it BG’s fault for 24 hour persistent game modes that lead to burnout.

Threather.9354:

Lot of you guys who play lot of wvw have most likely realised that currently taking t3 tower with watchtower guild upgrade is near impossible with smaller group.

Only if it’s not another empty tower to ktrain down.

Whole promotion campaign of when HoT came out was anet claiming that people dont need to run bigger group to cap stuff due to desert bls.

Where? Keep in mind that the original mission of WvW is for massive battles over objectives with siege: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Threather.9354:

Now that desert borders are only 1/3 of borders, I believe sniping would require some kind of a buff.
Claim buffs are cool itself but it+guild upgrades+t3 gates are bit overkill regarding defence.

I don’t understand how desert borders being 1 map correlates to the need of increasing mini-ktraining effectiveness.

Considering the game play of massive battles involving siege warfare, then a lot of the guild buffs just slow down the game mode on the whole. In most cases of post-HoT, ramming is a rare thing when fighting a balanced force over an objective.

Threather.9354:

Would you remove t3 gates or watchtower ugrade if you had to choose one?

A black and white question that doesn’t answer anything that is bloody grey. The game mode’s initial selling point is for massive battles. It is only with time as people stopped playing that we start to see servers die or dwindle down to smaller numbers. I am against appeasing the idea that less than 5 people should have it easy when capturing a T3 tower or even a T1 keep. That would only perpetuate ktraining, even if it’s scaled down to your group’s size.

If you really want to capture objectives with your small man force, then ask yourselves why doesn’t Silver Wastes satisfy you? The game mechanics at play are similar, but you will meet resistance that scales to your small group. You can even walk yaks, and actually get rewarded! Simple answer, no challenge from open world AI, but AI in empty T3 towers is even more lack luster. I am sorry if you are in a dead matchup where empty objectives is primarily the case.

Good luck!

Jacion.6302:

OP,

You’re level 11, you don’t even have all your classes skills, your equipment has 1 stat vs 3-4 stats, you probably have green armor vs purple and you don’t have 3 skill trees….and that’s for vanilla, let alone HoT specialty.

In the nicest way, your opinion is kinda invalid becuase you are playing 1/8th of your class

The short answer: he is not really invalid if you view it as WvW excluding potential new players with these “barriers to entry” as you just described.

Feel free to skip everything below this…for the long answer pulled from the Top 5 Prioty topic a while back (my own post actually): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Your-top-5-priorities-for-WvW-Overhaul/page/14#post6059450

Chinchilla.1785:

2. Learning To Play: one the longest lasting issues with WvW (and you can argue Gw2 as a whole) is the lack of teaching the playerbase how to play. This kills the population by hurting growth (death by population starvation is not good). This combat system is by far one of the best/fluid for MMOs, but also the most in depth.

The concerns for new players is addressed in this reply from former Forum Specialist ArchonWing.9480: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-is-over-RIP-the-dream

His reply to the topic addresses the concerns that a new player will be scared off by: dying to power creep, vague tutorials, map design, quality of life issues, and poor rewards. Minus the rewards/Quality of Life, having decent in game tutorials can resolve most of these issues.

Example of a new player/reviewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2p2s9piILg

• He admits in the beginning that his first review was poor due not understanding how leveing is done in Guild Wars 2.
• Even as playing on an ele it seems he believes fire is the only useful attunement (completely untrue in WvW).
• It doesn’t seem like he understands combo finishers and combo fields. Which is something I didnt learn well until I made my thief (I had already leveled the ranger to 80 by then!).
• Stated he really needed a friend to show him the ropes due to poor in game communication.
• Only shows he experiences EOTM style of WvW (and the scorpions are cool).

Again, without helping newer players the game[mode] will starve. It cannot fall solely on the playerbase/communities, and “vague tooltips.”

There are three examples I have come across that worked to educate the player base (listed by easiest implementation first). What is important is that these are in game.

Working Solutions:

A. Short Clips in game that show how to perform certain actions (such as combo fields and finishers).
Vindictus example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHHaOfpjmPU

B. Hands on approach! Require the player to perform the action or sequence in a separate instance (you can reward them for completing a whole “quest” line of training).
The fighting game Skullgirls does this well (skip to about 1:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Upgf1NTis
The Canthan Expansion for Guild Wars 1 had a separate questline that did this too: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Instructor_Ng See quests given:

C. Expand upon the hands on approach, but learning from instanced WvW game mode objectives. Perhaps even understanding what to do in small groups or large groups.
Guild Wars 1 had this for four of the pvp arenas, with AI : http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Team_Trials

Whew! Long! I still believe in the above’s relevance, but I wouldn’t rate it as number 2 nowadays.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I guess you don’t run a business then.

The game mode is not a business, and this is not a good analogy for WvW.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

One thing you don’t want to do is discourage foot traffic through your store.

In the days of crafting stations the game mode was still popular. By enabling people to sit at crafting stations hoping they would participate means they clog up the queue for those wanting to fight. Would it better to advertise jumping puzzles so players can spend time doing that, and hope that would be a segway into WvW itself? Your intention is right, but crafting stations/jumping puzzles is not right in an environment with limited space.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You don’t want to discourage those who go in for one reason and end up staying for another. You also don’t want to dry up any free advertising source.

No, I don’t. However, if “word of mouth” so to speak, is the only way WvW is getting advertised then something fundamentally is wrong in that regard. I also don’t believe that crafting contributed to increased player retention but neither of us can prove it. Again right intention, but not execution.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

1) free advertising gone: PvE people were actively promoting going to WvW. They no longer do this.

Mega servers decreased advertising for WvW more dramatically than removing crafting stations imo. Mainly by not being on the Lion’s Arch server you were hoping to recruit from…

Just a flesh wound.3589:

2) going in for one reason and staying for another: One thing that business people know is that getting people through the door is the hard part. Once there, selling is easy. The crafting was a “door” to WvW. It pulled PvEers into the maps. Once there they could “be sold” on playing on the maps. They might see a Zerg run by and join it. They might wander over and try to capture a camp. The point is, it brought them in and after that it was easy to check it out. Once checked out you might get a convert. This no longer happens.

If we’re going to continue this analogy, then the “door” should clearly advertise the game mode. The actual product the business makes isn’t being advertised. It’d be like walking into a Bed Bath and Beyond, then walking out with Call of Duty 4. This suggest something fundamentally is wrong. WvW is not being sold right at all. Hoping you get a convert to WvW is inconsistent if this is the manner you feel is best.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

To recap. Removing crafting was shortsighted on two fronts. It stopped free advertisment from PvEers and it removed the players who come in for a PvE reason and stay for WvW reasons.

No, it was a long term decision. Whenever a change is made to improve the game play or its accessibility that will always be a long term move (for better or worse). It enabled those that want to get into the action of WvW without waiting for a queue increased by the ones who ‘may engage in it after crafting a legendary from gift of battle.’ The “free advertisement” is debatable if it was ever measured, but that’s not how you would want to promote WvW directly, and doesn’t guarantee player growth nor retention. The staying for “WvW reasons” should be that the game play is a solid sell…sadly I think that is one of its issues.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

So, if ANet cared about promoting WvW to PvE players they shouldn’t have removed an element that both brought WvW to PvE players attention and actively brought in PvE players to WvW maps.

If they cared about promoting WvW they’d do it by better means…and preferable after an update with substance. Crafting stations is not it.

Swamurabi.7890:

To even come close to balance you need to first know the average player-hours per timezone for each server.

Or not even have 24 hour game modes that create coverage wars, and player burn out anyway.

:D

Just a flesh wound.3589:

1. Introduce new players to WvW. A lot of players dont even know that there is another game mode called WvW and they just stay in PvE.

If ANet cared about PvE people wandering into WvW and staying to try it out they wouldn’t have removed the crafting tables that brought PvE people into WvW.

PvE people used to tell each other to go to WvW for crafting, and now they don’t. That got PvE people in the WvW maps for a reason that was useful to PvE people. After that it wasn’t that hard for them to leave the crafting area and check it out.

I used to tell people all the time. Go to WvW. You can craft up there. I told random people in map chat. I told guildies. I told people on the forums. I gave instructions on where the icon was and how to select their borderland. Guess how many people I’ve told since the crafting removal.

Zero

Zilch

None

No one.

Multiply this by all the other PvE people who used to do the same thing. There is now no word of mouth by PvE people urging other PvE people to go into WvW to craft.

So, basically…WvW game play isn’t an influencing factor for those players? It’s worse than crafting? I think they did the right thing then.

As for advertising, they could try to advertise their expansions…and not rely solely on recycling Gw2 players across gamemodes.

There is also the option of closing EOTM to get more WvW players or closing “normal” WvW to get more EOTM players. Drastic options, but the reality is people stop playing WvW after a while, and indeed, Guild Wars 2.

Well I suppose if you want to be “heard by ANET” you would have to affect their metrics.

So maybe magically compel every WvWer to not play a week. Or sit in the raid lobby spamming in say chat, “Listen to Us [WvW]!” until massive amounts of people are reported….yay inciting protests?

Pretty sure I will get blerped for the suggestion!

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

I would really love to hear your reason for these adjustments. Hell maybe we should stack MAG. IDK whats up? you tell me?

They said to join The Best Guild On TC [Kazo]. You can trust my sources, they were certified by an eye doctor that specializes in contact lenses.

Inoki.6048:

The purpose of EOTM, other than farming karma, somehow eludes me. Everyone keeps complaining about this game mode, so why is it even there, why not remove it all together if everyone dislikes it, or idk.

Someone enlighten me.

I spent a great deal of time there since it’s more casual I guess except for when some elitists arrive trying to make a career there yelling at people when they do smth wrong and that’s when I politely remind them to keep it cool…

Back on topic, I don’t get what would you want to claim there. It’s a smaller map with fewer objectives. It would need an expansion. imo it’s pointless. It would mean creating more mess.

No. I would say fix WvW, focus on WvW so it’s more enjoyable. These polls and everything…… they’ve proven useless. I think what WvW needs is people who know what they are doing.

Well, when many played this game mode, and queued up all maps…the intention of Eotm was to give them a “lobby” to play in while they waited in queue.

It came too late imo when you consider 2 million players bought the game in the first 2 weeks while WvW at launch could only hold 20,000 ish at any given time…imagine if we could see those queue numbers back then!

As for claiming in eotm…why? All the upgrades accomplish is slowing down the game mode on the whole. Great, people will ktrain slower? Add on the fact that this functionality seems to take forever to implement.

Uhh…I am pretty sure I made an opinion on someone’s suggestion to artificially inflate point values of “smaller populations.”

From: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Suggestion-Skirmish-Scoring/first#post6328331

Chinchilla.1785:

Mikau.6920:

I feel there is no difference between the new scoring and the old one, is maybe even worse.

Why would there be a difference? Coverage still affects it the most, and scoring does not physically change population. You can fiddle with the scoring numbers all you want, but it will still be an inconsistent experience to the players unless they are moved around in a balanced manner.

Mikau.6920:

As suggestion, what about new points for each skimish:

• 5 for 1st;
• 4 for 2nd;
• 3 for 3rd.

In that way would alleviate the differences between the servers (the 1st isn’t 3 times ahead of 3rd, but almost 2 times). Maybe other values like 4, 3, 2 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd if the diference is too low?

Why would you seek to remove the ‘differences between the servers’ in a match up?

I am against artificially handicapping scores to make up for gaps in population (again, coverage helps current scores the most). What you suggest is to have match-ups linger on due to closer artificial scores despite drastic differences in populations.

This game mode lives and dies by its population, it is unfortunate and short sighted that people felt that scoring should take priority. I believe if population/coverage was resolved scoring would have been less of an issue….regardless that is another topic.

TLDR: Artificially inflating the value of a person (outnumbered or otherwise) is bad in that it doesn’t change their game state. They are still outmatched, or more correctly, mismatched against a blob with nothing to do. Fiddling with scores won’t guarantee good game play…and what sort of taste will be left in players mouths after being pushed out by score to “transfer.” Feels bad mang.

Why reset? It doesn’t solve any foundation issues…nor does it add anything new to grow the player base. :S

I am a broken record at this point, but 1v1v1 for match up variety (an effort to avoid zero-sum matchups) doesn’t work for snowballing still happens. Not to mention current servers cannot even handle a three way…

The other big foundation issue is 24 hour persistence…or shortened as coverage problems. Populations get mismatched whereby empty maps get “ktrained” with impunity, or they’re empty for large chunks on the clock (e.g. wasted server time).

gennyt.3428:

Inoki.6048:

A few things that come into mind atm. could resolve some issues:

- offering server transfers to entire guilds once in a while free of charge to prevent abuse
- but mainly, coding a proper algorithm to match people based on active (online) numbers
- eliminate the possibility to constantly hop from server to server, sort of you transfer now, you cannot for at least 3 months, or even more. sounds insane? sometimes you have to take drastic measures if you want to achieve something.

GW2 is aging, WvWvW is stagnant and the combat has arguably deteriorated. If they start nailing down people to servers for months at a time then expect another population dip. If you want to be radical then get to the meat of the issue and talk about the viability of the core systems instead of slapping a new coat of paint on a house with a crumbling foundation.

And its an overall inconsistent experience…even from the beginning with the idea of persistent, massive, while blending PvE+PvP was probably too much of a stretch to maintain an audience.

It aged poorly. There.

1v1v1 promise of “variety” only showed more issues, and persistence around the clock has led to even more issues…neither of which seemed to accomplish “fun” or “dynamic” and lastly… “rewarding tangibly or mentally.” It was a good experiment to show the gaming world however, and I hope the industry learns from it.

No. Your issue is not well thought out.

If it takes you a journey across the map to kill a guardian that goes through a portal…then do you see where I am going here?

Even if you aren’t chasing across the map. Don’t fight near objective portals expecting people to not use them. That is what they’re there for.

Regardless, the game mode is not sold as Spvp (where such portals barely exist). As someone stated, this isn’t an issue that applies to everyone. I would say a step further, that this is not an issue for WvW when given this mission statement of WvW:

“Join World vs. World (WvW) for an epic PvP experience full of cunning strategy, earthshaking sieges, and pitched battles between hundreds of players. In this massive war, three huge armies—each representing their world—battle for control of the castles and keeps, raid enemy supply caravans, and clash in open-field battles on five massive maps in week-long matches and seasonal tournaments.”

So expect people to play differently within WvW than you want, since it does allow for that kind of variety. Irony is this statement is dated in some regards…like tournaments (for good reason).

Source from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Not sure how I feel about this back on page 1, but to those just joining….it was sayed:

Chinchilla.1785:

Jim Hunter.6821:

So why even bother with the bullkitten thread about adding more servers to better balance WvW if you’re going to open BG again?

It was probably the massive SEA timezone exodus to WR (or whatever EU server) finally clicked. Not necessarily ANET.

And then…

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Blackgate and Jade Quarry both opened because they were below the population cap. Blackgate currently has a smaller population than Jade Quarry and some of the combined linked worlds populations (combined linked worlds population example being Crystal Desert + Darkhaven + Devona’s Rest combined has a higher population than Blackgate). With all that being said, we do keep track of the transfers that happen. Since we have been seeing an increase in transfer behavior with the past 2 world links, we are discussing whether we want to change how we calculate WvW world populations or if we want to lower the WvW population caps.

Followed by why developers probably don’t wish to spend too much time on forums where everyone and their cousin knows best. Hindsight is x-ray vision after all, right?

Jim Hunter.6821:

So why even bother with the bullkitten thread about adding more servers to better balance WvW if you’re going to open BG again?

It was probably the massive SEA timezone exodus to WR (or whatever EU server) finally clicked. Not necessarily ANET.

Diku.2546:

Jski.6180:

Diku.2546:

Jski.6180:

Diku.2546:

If we continue to use the original WvW game mode design…

Then the only viable way to “fix” WvW is to put extreme pressure on over-stacked servers to survive Socially.

Keeping Servers Full & Blocking players from joining it.

You’ll slowly torture the life out of WvW with this Long Term strategy…imho

How many real friends do you have in GW2 that you wvw with? Is this like faces book where you have millions of “friends?” At best you may have 100 loss friends that you wvw with and say 25 close friends. That not a big enof group that you cant move with them.

Agree…just me & 25 close friends is a drop in the bucket.

But I’ll call it…Pennies from Heaven…they add up like rain drops…imho

What else can anet do to try to balance out population with out simply focusing ppl to transfer where they need them to and stop ppl from transferring when they don’t. At least this way its a nicer way of doing it and you can stay with the ppl you like to play with. Beyond keeping things the same (something ppl are saying is killing wvw) this IS the only viable chose.

See my signature below.

While I am not here to oppress legitimate discussion of the OP. After a while of going back in forth on each other’s ideas for the original proposal you end up generating topic clutter. This clutter buries whatever initial point you wanted to send to Arenanet.

If you said your piece on the OP, then kindly refrain from over-posting on every page to allow others to contribute, and their voice to be heard by Arenanet as well. It is my opinion that we are not here to waste developer’s time scrolling through long posts (often created by a string of quotes like this one).

Good luck!

EremiteAngel.9765:

Given higher and higher access to damage, camps are getting taken faster and faster from a small scale/solo perspective.

From the time a camp is attacked by a solo roamer or small group, to the time white swords pop alerting defenders to check, the ring is already up and the camp is taken long before any defender reaches.

I suggest lengthening the time for the ring to fill for taking camps so that defenders have more time to respond to the white sword popping.

This game mode barely respects play time as it is. They slowed things down with, beefy npcs, hardened gates, shield gens, and now gate cannons. On the flip side, as you pointed out, HoT “Spam” balance sped up small scale stuff.

On the whole, I’d rather not slow down WvW anymore than it already is (including the lag!).

What if you only have 15 minutes of play time but want WvW experience? 30 minutes? 60 minutes? 2 hours? Etc.

How much of that time do you want players want to fight auto-attack damage sponge npcs on an empty camp?

In order to get closer to “competitive balance” is that you have to ditch persistent world, and the 1v1v1. Those are the two biggest game mechanics that go against balance.

I don’t think either one of those is an option right now…

Before eotm is brought up…
Eotm’s biggest issues is a map catered to ktraining (too spread for fights), and non-intuitive method of getting your group in the same zone that isn’t devoid of enemies.

Jeknar.6184:

Diku.2546:

Too many ideas, but no clear vision…imho

We’re gonna get lost without a good compass.

It’s Arena Net that decide the direction, not us. We don’t need a compass.

Feature creep usually feels directionless if you need it said a different way. New Worlds is another feature that will probably get mixed opinions. While it is indeed Arenanet’s choice, I also wouldn’t ask for player’s to decide a company’s overall direction for it’ll be split.

People who only play Guild Wars 2 will probably give a narrow perspective, but understand the small nuisances involved.

People who play guild wars 2, and other games (or even do other creative things) will give a broader perspective, but they may be aloof on the minutia of Guild Wars 2.

You can also see how Arenanet sold WvW from the beginning here, and compare it to now: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Trinibaje.7683:

Chinchilla.1785:

Remove the three lowest linked servers, and allow free transfer to those players. Give players that remained on that server an exclusive title achievement in recognition for their persistence. This decision is brutal, but keep in mind this answer assumes no player retention in WvW. The intention is that less linked servers means less maintenance. And perhaps the server boxes themselves could be used to benefit the rest of the cluster.

Why not remove the top three servers that are always full, that everyone else apparently always want to transfer to? Why always pick on the lower tiers? We don’t want to leave our homes, just as much as everyone else doesn’t want to leave theirs. And don’t tell me server identity doesn’t exist, that it’s about the guild…. that’s not true.. I’m in one guild, but run with a lot of others on my server and have for the last 4 years and I do miss that since the linking.

As much as I would like to discuss this with you, but I think it is better everyone addressed the OP instead each individuals thoughts. This way ANET wastes less time on seeing off topic arguments. The idea you question is “2a” based off the assumption the game mode would never get many new players. In that world, you will eventually have to remove the least populated three servers, or remove their playable maps. Unless you do not care for empty matches. Simply put, people stop playing and static servers WILL go empty. It wouldn’t be sustainable to keep a hotel for 600 open for only 100 or even less. It would also mean less servers/links ANET must keep track of.

“2b.” is based off a different assumption of growth. That proposed weight division match-ups at the expense of tiers so smaller could still exist to a degree.

I preface this by Tyler’s acknowledgement on his post a while back. I am not doing this in spite! It is my short answer, and for some reason it doesn’t put in Tyler’s name correctly:

Tyler Bearce.3427:

Update: Thanks everyone. The response was mixed, but there was a general lack of interest in the idea, so we’ll pass on it.

And below is the long answer:

1. Mixed. I understand your intention of having an easier time for balancing, and attempting to give larger spaces for guilds to grow. In practice, it’s not so much about the server space as it is about there is no growth in population. The only way to achieve growth is from hype after a seemingly big change. Then that growth is followed by issues of player retention, like if the game play is actually fun. In my opinion, game play holds back population interest.

2a. This answer assumes we have little growth and are working with our present population: I am not sure it would be applied to NA servers AND EU servers. EU servers have communities born out of language segregation. NA has no type of language barriers installed by the game. This is a change to consider when trying to subdivide language based servers.

Remove the three lowest linked servers, and allow free transfer to those players. Give players that remained on that server an exclusive title achievement in recognition for their persistence. This decision is brutal, but keep in mind this answer assumes no player retention in WvW. The intention is that less linked servers means less maintenance. And perhaps the server boxes themselves could be used to benefit the rest of the cluster.

2b. This answer assumes we gain a massive amount of players after some significant reason. As people have already stated, you can make servers by weight class (or population) and abandon the universal tier progression across all servers. People can play for their desired population (or weight in this analogy), without worrying about their Light Weight server being pushed up to Heavy Weight or vice versa.

Figuring in the additional links, you can then adjust the weight more easily by the additional servers. So a heavy weight would be equivalent to three links, a medium is two, and light weight is one. Or whatever measure you feel comfortable.

The big caveat: Either of my additions (and this proposal as is) will disrupt large communities.

3. No. The important thing is why. I have no guarantee that there will activity when I want to play. The problem with the server method is you are locked to it, regardless if the linked system is in play. If you played in Sea time zone (8am EST) but you are in the United States then your options are limited, and have to research before hand to find your perfect match. I would be more open to Time Segregated servers over this proposal if you allowed free transfers between different time zones, since it promotes player choice. In the end, if you promote player choice, and finesse the game play you are more likely to increase your player retention. Not saying people will play forever…

Gaile Gray.6029:

Hi,

The moderator team is going to have to do quite a bit of clean-up on this thread, so let’s get a few things straight:

• This is a well-intentioned thread by the World versus World Team. They are inviting your feedback and engaging on an important subject. Please do share your thoughts.
• To those of you sharing valid feedback, sincere thanks!
• The WvW Team is not involved with game balance.

A. Given the above, I am first assuming this aesthetic change will not greatly impact other potential game play issues.

1. Option 2. It is the only option to enhance the raw game play experience, and that to me is a long term change. From that perspective, the game play itself lacks clarity in communication, and giving a Team Color only helps by adding more visual communication. The colors are always there, while the server/alliance names would change too often.

2. I am indifferent on the guild name, but a simple [TAG] would suffice. We wouldn’t want to see a guild called MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm [MMMM] spammed across the screen every time they capture a camp.

3. In regards to “recognition issues”, not really. Desire for recognition is a player issue first, and might mean the game play does not satisfy them enough. However, aesthetics are the best way to solve said issue.

B. Given the above quote, whereby I assume this change will drain more effort from other game play changes.

1. Don’t do any or pick the one that requires less than a week or two.

2. Doing this will allow time to make game play changes that are more important than aesthetic identity issues.

3. Good game play changes will draw in (and keep) more players, so they can then form their own communities around their desired activity (in this case WvW).

Regardless of what is chosen, always try to ask, and predict: Will this help or hinder the game play? And why?

Jayne.9251:

Lol you’re telling me, are you?

Goodness.

I did, and this is where the OP topic of server pride gets derailed. I suspected trying to describe the emotion of pride and nostalgia with any logic might do this. I apologize if you are offended.

Jayne.9251:

And I’m telling you the same: adapt.

What? I have. I made my “community” or “team spirit” with people in guilds.

Jayne.9251:

I’d be very eager to know the percentage of organized guilds in WvW. I’d suggest it’s around 35%, maybe less. That number fluctuates, of course, because WvW guilds have never been the most stable — or longterm. There are, of course, exceptions.

So Anet should cater to 35%?

ANET doesn’t give out such statistics. You can at least count the number of host servers versus the now “dead pride-less waif child” linked servers if you wanted however.

Jayne.9251:

You can write all the walls of text you want, and randomly bold sentences.

Considering I was addressing 2-3 peoples’ notions in one post the length was required. Randomly bold sentences? I intentionally used bold on each sentence that was the main point to the short paragraphs. You didn’t have to read anything outside of bold.

It seems you missed the part where people stop playing games after a while, and so communities fall apart.

If it were me, servers would have never existed in the beginning, and we’d be bickering about guild pride where people just join whatever guilds because they’re mercenaries.

Jayne.9251:

A poll can determine majority view. Until then, knock yourself out.

A poll for what?

Jayne.9251:

Better still, make all these guild-centric changes to NA only and reset EU back to the solo server status and see which model is more populated a year from now.

Which guild centric changes? The major difference between NA and EU is the advantage/disadvantage of language barriers. This means people are segregated, and can remain segregated because of it.

TLDR: I wish specifics were discussed instead of gut responses.

Mmm, this concerns with a similar topic and so I think it is necessary to quote myself here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Blocking-as-a-stack/first#post6197550

Skip to 2. Regarding condi damage and degeneration.

Chinchilla.1785:

This is more of a symptom of not using past experience to alleviate potential problems of balance (e.g. in GW 1).

For the topic at hand: “block, evade, invulns, immunity (e.g. endure pain, resistance).”

1. In GW1 there used to be “Blocking” and “Evading” to avoid damage from physical attacks. Eventually it was determined they would only use “Blocking” for easier balance (e.g. they could just have unblockable hits instead of including unavoidable hits) That being said. there were still healing/enchantment spells to negate damage.

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Evade

In Guild Wars 2 there are more ways to avoid damage: block, evade (by ability), evade (by dodge), invulns (by abilities), immunity (by resistance, stability, and abilities), reflects, projectile destruction. Am I missing things?

Learning from the past in GW 1, it means things are harder to balance. To counter balance said things you have to put in: Unblockables (can’t be reflected/blocked but can be evaded), Unavoidables (lines and rings that can’t be evaded/blocked but can be passed over with stability), Boon Rips (removes immunity limited to stability and resistance not abilities). No counter for invulns besides loading them up on condis before hand.

2. Regarding condi damage. In GW 1, degeneration (mostly what condi damage is now) is capped, and damage is consistent. This is because it was armor ignoring, and functionally it was suppose to be spread across the party to provide pressure on a group’s healing ability.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Health_degeneration

In GW 2, due to the stacking system of condis to compensate for damage sponge enemies, their function is to “stay on target.” This is probably why people use it for roaming/dueling. This also means some classes still retained burst ability with condi damage alongside beefy-ness provided from some gear stat allocations.

Bear in mind, that degeneration and most of the hex system of GW1 were consolidated into GW2’s condi damage (no doubt with the intention of being easier to balance). This meant you didn’t need a condi cleanse and a hex cleanse.

And I still mostly agree with the above.

The OP is not a good idea as it is. It reminds me closer to Everquest 2’s mesmerize…which usually lasted 10-30 seconds and prevented indirect aoe damage. But your point isn’t missed.

GW1 solution was that you couldn’t be knockdown down while…knocked down. In more proper words, you were immune to the same hard CC for the duration of said hard CC. There was also a half a second-ish of recovery immunity. This way is less disruptive for small scale things, and it made timing more crucial over spam.

However, with HoT some abilities apply a bunch of hard CCs in quick succession…like Rev staff 5 that would make this approach require more technical effort. Yay? It would also mean spiking the same CC on a single area/target is less effective.

An aside is that immobilize should be considered for stability like fear and taunt are… or at least not have it stack passed 3 seconds. Something needs to be consistent there! If you look at other competitive games that care about balance you will almost find none have hard CCs longer than 3 seconds. Same with the inverse, or “immunities/blocks” are hardly longer than 3 seconds.

1 up 1 is great if evenly matched, but since population was never resolved…scoring and match making will forever be an issue making me not care for either option.

At best, for population disparities you can do a weight limit tiers like in UFC. A heavy weight would never have any chance whatsoever to be matched against a welterweight (google it for an adventure!) or light weight. It’s not like there is really variety in game play between said weight tiers, just mass difference (eg population difference).

This way, we don’t end up wasting the time of a light weight server being matched up to Maguuma and Blackgate for an entire week like we have currently. Keeping in mind there are other timezones besides prime, and resert night blobs.

Jayne.9251:

Chinchilla.1785:

I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

And this is why I say folks aren’t looking at things longterm. You’ve already buried the game and are picking at its carrion.

Meanwhile, there’s still people deeply invested in seeing it run a long time. Because of the community they’ve grown.

Your solution is short term. As is all the battlegroup and alliance junk.

What? My solution is based on what players actually do. As is proven so far, guilds have outlasted servers. One point people have been missing is that people stop playing this game. I suspect everyone’s hay-day was pre-Hot within the first 2-3 years of this game. 2 years is a typical point where games start to drastically decline in population…so it would make sense server populations to disappear too.

KILL was a community guild for JQ. FoW is a community guild for YB. cmd is a community guild for TC. I gave you this solution that you have actual control over. You do not need ANET’s intervention at all.

My actual concern is from fundementals. From GW1 to GW2 they did things backwards, and less innovative to match older MMOs. On topic, GW1 had no servers for people, and that focused it on Guilds. Eventually in the Canthan expansion they introduced Alliance Battles. That expansion gave large identity as Kurzick or Luxon. Both sides each had their players, guilds, and even art styles dedicated to them. But still no servers. Even a moving border indicated which alliance was “winning.” Regardless, you can come to the forums hoping ANET to bring back the old community, but they simply can’t force anyone to play again.

The idea of Luxons and Kurzick is probably a better example than NFL. As for me not understanding cross guild community’s on servers. I am in two guilds as indicated in my signature, and used to play during sea as a normal “pug” that followed SEA guilds. To put it bluntly, I don’t lack perspective in the long run. Even time-zones have their own communities (especially SEA since most did not speak english well).

I am telling you the “long term” solution for this: adapt. ANET cannot fix this aspect unless they magically overhaul the game play, and send out an aggressive ad campaign. Given their WvW team is about 2 people at a time; it is on you, the remnants of past glory, to push yourselves to play or not.

Because of the-lack-of-everything, the long term plan should be to make the game play more important. I can still go back and play GW1, because while people dislike henchmen/hero, they are a long term addition to GW1. I am willing to sacrifice those small servers for better gameplay (even SoR, since I was there when it was T1…).

Diku.2546:

I’m like Jayne.9251

While I do enjoy my own company, I’m in a guild alone. I prefer it that way.

I’m still emotionally invested “TO” my Guest Server.

Given the chance I’d work extremely hard to re-build my community that has a unique “team identity” if World Linking is removed.

If you are not going to create the chance yourself or put the effort in, then do the next best thing. Form a guild together, play together, and re-establish a new community that you can have an attachment.

Changing the words to team identity won’t fix anything.

Diku.2546:

It’s not about server pride…it’s about this unique “team identity”.

If WvW was compared to the NFL …World Server names would be like the Football team’s names.

Players & Fans are emotionally invested in their “team”. Win or Loose – Live or Die … you fight for your “team”. Put enough of these “solo” people that believe in the same idea together & it can turn epic. The Super Bowl franchise is a perfect example.

I’ve never heard of the NFL fixing things by linking or merging teams.

Playing from a Guest Server I play selfishly for the Host Server. It’s a toxic kind of game play because I’m not invested “TO” whatever Host Server I’m paired with.

Host Server Commanders need to win, or I switch to selfish game play, or I just quit playing. I don’t buy gems anymore, because there isn’t a reason to.

It’s not about server pride…it’s about this unique “team identity”.

NFL is not a good example of this at all. NFL is more of a gvg: the guilds are the teams, and the players are watching in Obsidian Sanctum. What you are trying to connect with WvW is where the fans on the stands get to jump in and play with the players… which defeats the entire example.

Community is always going to be a dynamic creation of the players, I’ll give you that much. The game may give you a fancy chat program to make those social connections…sure.

Server pride isn’t necessary to keep, and has been given up for sake of game play. Many have transferred servers to find better action with their guild communities as population dwindle over the years. It is your choice to attach yourself forever to a server that has disappeared. I am not saying your memories are invalid, but you should make the best of the limited time left in this game; all things end, so try to have fun with the game play before it does!

Xenesis.6389:

Chinchilla.1785:

but didn’t really hinder roamers.

Why do you need to hinder roamers? the last time they tried to do something like that we got barricades which everyone hated.

EBG doesn’t need a redesign, but it could use a face lift, or even mirror maps in different themes/seasons.

It was an observation. I said blobs get “choked up” while roamers can pass by easily.

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Did you not read their reply from 3 years ago?!

It takes them 500 years to design a WvW map from scratch and test it for balance!

I am indeed aware. I am also aware it takes a month minimum to switch the maps (i.e. desert to alpine or vice versa) But that doesn’t stop it from being an issue. o.o

As for them taking a long time, that is about personnel and resources. It’s very hard to give any sort of suggestions that have sensible scope without knowing the team makeup of the WvW Developers.

Judging by the poll, and recent addition of cannons. We can assume we have programming to a moderate degree, and limited game art capabilities. So it totally isn’t plausible to demand new maps. But again, it is still an issue.

To the OP: Emptiness is probably a match up issue involving people. A four year old map is obviously old, and will be repetitive.

Jeknar.6184:

Why does the most popular map needs to be re-designed if it is already the most popular one?

Proportionally EBG had about as many chokes as Desert Borderlands did at its inception. Assuming choke = a meteor storm’s diameter. These compounded chokes slowed down the zergs in route to objectives (that themselves are chokes), but didn’t really hinder roamers.

If anything, EBG is just less evil than the other maps when it comes to popularity.

That is the short answer.

This is the long answer.:

2. Maps

A. The only variety you will get from this game-mode is through maps. It is what directly affects player behavior. Making new maps is always an option. Because of the 1v1v1 we are limited in options for maps that are balanced on their own. The current three copies of the somewhat asymmetrical Home Borderlands systems fails since it relies on a balanced population 24/7 across all of them. This relates to coverage, and the 1v1v1 matchup so you know how systemic these issues are.

B. Circular-ish map design lends itself to Ktraining. With a 1v1v1 you will almost always get some form this. It is clearly apparent in Eotm. In the past it was performed in the Home Borderlands on Friday, and during the initial release of notaries it was seen on Eternal Battlegrounds. Even in non-full ktrains the third lowest server’s common option is to attack unoccupied objectives of the two larger teams (the basic Ktrain).

C. Switching to 1v1 maps offers more flexibility, and allows for a better scenario in case balance is necessary. If you were not here before, the initial Alpine-Borderlands underwent revisions (about 3-4 times), in addition to Desert Borderlands. To put it bluntly, the center of the asymmetrical 1v1v1 is cursed. So cease it, and transition towards 1v1.

Quoting myself doesn’t link the source here…RIP : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/What-do-WvWers-want/first

Hwarang.4789:

I’d imagine attacking unoccupied objectives would be preferable. However, due to the ‘swords’ icon appearing on the map, it notifies enemies that the objective is currently besieged by us.

I assumed you were asking from the perspective of a smaller server matchup. If it’s a paper objective with twoish superior catas those white swords shouldn’t be enough time.

Hwarang.4789:

How about splitting the zerg into a small group to attack other important objectives that we are more likely to attack, buying us time!

I don’t know how many people are in your match-up if you can afford to split up. The ideas still apply: don’t give the enemy points per kill, and undefended objectives would be easier for the split groups.

Hwarang.4789:

I’ve noticed that the members of a zerg tend to attack anything in sight out of boredom. If the small group were to split from spawn and leave behind a trail of red (in the case where I’m in red team), then the tag would be more inclined to go there than to us!

I suppose? It would depend if you can out cap said enemy zerg. It would basically be a Ktrain race. Ktrain is like a loop of events to farm if you needed reference.

Regardless, you need to understand that I am biased against pure objective game play. To me that style is like playing against a time gate (the wall or gate itself) to fight mediocre npcs (all the auto attack damage sponge AI inside).

I do not care about the winning the score, because playing only that way doesn’t stimulate my fun factor. :S

Strategy and Tactics? As you stated, real warfare doesn’t translate into this very well. In fact, real war is boring a lot of the times. Just watch Das Boot (movie about life on a German U-boat).

If you want to win I am afraid it’s less about tactics. If you want to have fun that’s also another story.

For “winning” if it’s even applicable:

1. Don’t die, it gives the team a point.
2. Attack unoccupied objectives, you waste less time and potentially die less.
3. Have more numbers in people, items, supply, siege, and anything really.
4. Stomp for more points.
5. Buy guilds to fill dead time-zones because Coverage and population wins (harder to do nowadays)

Now ask, are any of these things fun? I have my preferences, but it’s up to you!

Jayne.9251:

While I do enjoy my own company, I’m in a guild alone. I prefer it that way. A lot of people do.

Re-read this on its own. How does this translate to community? Who are these “a lot of people?”

Jayne.9251:

And it’s with those people that communities are born and help with the longevity of a game because people are emotionally invested.

Communities are not born based on single person guilds. If they are, name that server community. If we are going to talk about any investment, don’t put it all into a single bubble that will pop. In other words don’t put all your money in the housing market, or don’t put all your effort in ACT/SAT scores.

Jayne.9251:

Server pride has always existed. Look at people flipping out on here not even a month ago:

Server pride has not always existed. It didn’t on Guild Wars 1. As for the last, people flipping out on the forums does not reflect the majority of those playing WvW nor does it mean they flip out over ‘server pride.’

My recommendation is not to attach yourself to a server box in some random building, and hoping it never changes. Find like minded individuals, make a guild, and play together.

Is it convenient to have a server ts? Yes. It sucks to have to get a new one, but people stop playing the game for various reasons, and community’s will end this way naturally no matter what you hope for.

Furthermore, it is not necessary to have “server identity” for community to exist. Pulling from the giant list of issues with Gw2 found in https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/What-do-WvWers-want/first:

B. People’s concerns with server identity. I will get hate for this, but merging should have occurred over this linking concept that requires upkeep from ANET. The idea of community would actually shift to the Guilds themselves. See Guild Wars 1.

Even in Everquest 2, I had no real community tie to the server called “Kithicor” but rather my guild Unleashed. Does that mean I lacked a sense of identity? No. I chose people first.

After all, neither GW1 or 2 were called Server Wars.

What do players want? Everything and now. Which is impossible to grant in reality. :S

So I will preface this: all things end. It should be a goal to make the limited time more valuable, and fun. By now, if we are going by active population in WvW, the game mode did not age well. So it is better to ask why that is. The answers will be systemic, and hard to fully discuss in a single post. If we take player’s topics in this forum, half will be probably be useless to a developer, and most of the rest will be symptoms. Going off of those symptoms as a direction you end up with feature creep that ultimately only masks the illness, and gets perceived as directionless.

My long answer to OP:

1. Matchups/Servers:

A. The big issue is going with a 1v1v1 matchup that takes all the cons of a 1v1 and gives only “the illusion of variety” as a pro. Snowballing still occurs, and as is seen now, we end up with a squabble for 2nd place with two middling (or less) servers matched to a giant. The elephant is that the servers themselves could never handle a full three way fight.

B. People’s concerns with server identity. I will get hate for this, but merging should have occurred over this linking concept that requires upkeep from ANET. The idea of community would actually shift to the Guilds themselves. See Guild Wars 1.

C. Coverage/population balance, that comes with people’s initial interest in persistent pvp modes. I see this more in NA servers, but this idea of persistent doesn’t take into account peoples’ actual playing time. A huge chunk of NA will play for a 4-6 hour time-slot, and end up losing everything outside of that prime-time (the current score system only masked it up better). Lastly, there is a chunk of players in off hours who are not even matched up together, but inadvertently caused this disruption in coverage.

2. Maps

A. The only variety you will get from this game-mode is through maps. It is what directly affects player behavior. Making new maps is always an option. Because of the 1v1v1 we are limited in options for maps that are balanced on their own. The current three copies of the somewhat asymmetrical Home Borderlands systems fails since it relies on a balanced population 24/7 across all of them. This relates to coverage, and the 1v1v1 matchup so you know how systemic these issues are.

B. Circular-ish map design lends itself to Ktraining. With a 1v1v1 you will almost always get some form this. It is clearly apparent in Eotm. In the past it was performed in the Home Borderlands on Friday, and during the initial release of notaries it was seen on Eternal Battlegrounds. Even in non-full ktrains the third lowest server’s common option is to attack unoccupied objectives of the two larger teams (the basic Ktrain).

C. Switching to 1v1 maps offers more flexibility, and allows for a better scenario in case balance is necessary. If you were not here before, the initial Alpine-Borderlands underwent revisions (about 3-4 times), in addition to Desert Borderlands. To put it bluntly, the center of the asymmetrical 1v1v1 is cursed. So cease it, and transition towards 1v1.

3. Game play Loop

A. WvW has not aged well. One way is the siege playstyle, and how it is heavily inconsistent. Firstly, is the balanced battle over an objective that takes up most of a guild’s raid. Secondly, the ktrain where the objective is unoccupied. Finally, the off hour nothing where no side has much of any presence. Another systemic link is because had there been population balance the players once stuck in off hour would be fighting others. In addition time to siege increased by feature creep and progression: tactivators, passive guild upgrades, shield gens, cannons, and still trebs.

B. Separate balance for WvW. This is in hopes of facilitating future balance while making the fighting experience more valuable. With this long term decision it should in theory let balance be made by the potential WvW team.

C. Progression is a concern that is going to sound counter intuitive. The way it was handled in WvW could be considered feature creep since it was to appease people. There is also the gear itself where optimization requires even more time spent outside of WvW. Taking a step back, I think it is better to say people want recognition for their in-game achievements not necessarily statistical advantage. Too much statistical progression is a barrier to entry for new players, who will go to Eotm and probably stay.

TLDR: And it’s hella long! Read the bold only, but WvW has many connected issues that cannot be easily surmised in a single post, and probably not even a single five minute video. Sorry, it takes effort to fix! Try doing game art or programming! It all requires more than this post did.

Ignoring balancing concerns for this post.

If I were to use OP’s original video to sell the idea of “Roaming” to those returning or new players. It’d probably not work. From this perspective of trying to entice people back into roaming in 2016 it did not work on me…

The primary reason is that of inconsistency with the meaning of ‘roaming’ in WvW. I see you staying around a spawn area (one for the enemy at a waypointed keep, and a spawn camp itself). Counter intuitive to the word of ‘roaming’! The flip-side is this: running simulators are a turn off too. So I understand why you might want to sit near spawn points for the chance of instant action.

Basically, roaming (and most of WvW actually…) is unfocused, undefined, and totally inconsistent. It’s hard to watch all the way through, but can sometimes be fun to play. Usually we only see the 50-25 percent of the actual fun in videos.

When referring to scouts I am assuming we are discussing the ones sitting in objectives most of the time.

Yes, scouts, the most bizarre game dynamic ever to come out of Guild Wars 2. From a game design point of view, it is perhaps the least engaging thing you can do (and least rewarding)…it is a wonder why people would defend its existence against more automated means.

While I do not hate people that do scout well, but I find that they could be out there being more engaged in a more entertaining/rewarding interaction (‘roamers’ can do scout calls too…)

Mikau.6920:

I feel there is no difference between the new scoring and the old one, is maybe even worse.

Why would there be a difference? Coverage still affects it the most, and scoring does not physically change population. You can fiddle with the scoring numbers all you want, but it will still be an inconsistent experience to the players unless they are moved around in a balanced manner.

Mikau.6920:

As suggestion, what about new points for each skimish:

• 5 for 1st;
• 4 for 2nd;
• 3 for 3rd.

In that way would alleviate the differences between the servers (the 1st isn’t 3 times ahead of 3rd, but almost 2 times). Maybe other values like 4, 3, 2 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd if the diference is too low?

Why would you seek to remove the ‘differences between the servers’ in a match up?

I am against artificially handicapping scores to make up for gaps in population (again, coverage helps current scores the most). What you suggest is to have match-ups linger on due to closer artificial scores despite drastic differences in populations.

This game mode lives and dies by its population, it is unfortunate and short sighted that people felt that scoring should take priority. I believe if population/coverage was resolved scoring would have been less of an issue….regardless that is another topic.

EremiteAngel.9765:

vana.5467:

EremiteAngel.9765:

Have these 2 giants in WvW ever fought?

lol

I’d put all my money on AHMA if this ever happened (it won’t).

why not? they are both in T1 and both giants.

Timezone difference for one, but I suppose being on the same server sort of helps. AHMA is sea (and/or ocx?) and TW is NA and sometimes EU. Next there is probably the mentality difference. So far, I have only seen TW really just lead pugs with their group of 10-15, and usually only have interest in doing that. AHMA does do more private raids (or at least when Sea timezone had more activity in T1). Besides that, the only thing I have seen AHMA do is boon share like the rest of the Sea guilds have done for the last 2 years (e.g. ND, cA, SuS, whoever else is left… ). And to be frank, the gvg scene is boring with the current Meta (if that is what you were implying).

Yuffi.2430:

There have been several posts in the past months calling for this. It’s probably still too controversial since the majority of players are on the “host” servers and many of these would rather see other people (“guest” servers) pay the price for the state of WvW.

A complete reset maybe fair, but that doesn’t make it the best option commercially and Anet like any company needs to make money.

It is not impossible, a failing game (Evolve) did do something like that. You can probably youtube Evolve Stage 2.0. Is it an equal comparison? No, but the important thing you can take away is that it was a single Gamemode that was reset (important to note the free to play model switch too).

The glaring problem with WvW is that across the board…it is an inconsistent experience. Mixture of ktraining empty objectives with impunity, laggy blob fights, running simulator, and emptiness. Most of which you could probably solve with time segregated servers based on population data (note: that doesn’t mean objective persistence is lost, rather just paused.)

Yuffi.2430:

I must say however that I disagree with Aeolus – a lot has changed since the release of GW2 and WvW: stability, Desert BL, conditions, elites and the dev team to name but a few factors. The problem lies in integrating all these changes in a balanced way – and that’s not quite what has happened. At least a complete reset could coincide with separating WvW from PvE and PvP, allowing some fundamental balance changes to occur. Unfortunately to do this requires planning and time to code it all, and although this could all be neatly built into the next expansion I wonder if that will be too late.

For five years, that is not a lot of actual content. So far, we have had 2 maps added (Eotm, and Desert Borderland). One of which was voted out. Stability, and conditions is a feature/balance change that was more of a result from PvE balancing imo. I.e. conditions didn’t work on HP bloated enemies because they could not scale up well, so now they stack. Elites is slippery to count as content, and it alienated players to be sure. Is it content? Sort of, more closer to balance changes (since it affected balance the most). Initially it forced players out of WvW to get elites… yeah?

The game play loop of WvW did not change much. And actual content either changes or expands upon that (which is why Maps will be considered content by most people). Feature creep should not be look at as said content (balance, reward tracks, passive statistics from ranking, anything else that doesn’t affect the game play loop).

As for the addition of a dev team? Well, the idea is nice. I wish they were more than just two or so people…

Sort of exploitable like that. People have alt accounts they can leave in towers that they can just use a macro to not be afk booted. Free scouts! Not saying you cannot do that now with more monitors/computers, but auto marking would promote this exploit more.

At best, you could just get a ‘buff’ on groups larger than 24 who are withint 2400 range (e.g. use part of whatever the orange swords code is)

Thunderous March!

“You are within a large group, and therefore enemies will place ‘Marked!’ on you when they are within 2400 range.”

So at least smaller groups will be promoted by being more nimble compared to omni-blobs. Plus the immediate feed back that your group is greater/less than 25. Since it requires an enemy to be within range too, the effect of players adding in randomly is reduced.

Sadly I think we will get pve mounts before we get wvw content.

(Even though gliders and waypoints sort of circumvent the need for mounts).

Gudradain.3892:

@Chinchilla Is one of the goal of your change to make WvW competitive? If yes, you are not going far enough.

Indeed, WvW cannot be competitive until you remove the 24/7 factor but you also need to remove the 4 maps factors as there are too many players required to make it controllable.

For WvW to become competitive, they need to make it guild based, on one single map for a period of 4 consecutives hours max and probably only on the night the guild is available to raid. So basically PvP but in a WvW setting.

My point is that what you are suggesting is such a big change that if they were doing it, I would prefer that they go all the way and make a real competitive mode to WvW.

Obviously, the casual mode will need to continue. So one competitive and one casual.

No, my intention is to make the game mode more engaging across all time zones. Could that lend to competition? More than likely, but right now, we have mismatches in coverage fighting other mismatches on the NA servers. If you played in T2, you would understand that JQ is Sea heavy ktraining and carrying that server up the ranks against servers that lack Sea time zone. Irony is JQ’s NA is abysmal compared to the T1 counterparts it gets compared to. Overall, I wanted to reduce running simulator/ktraining and give a better chance that people will engage other people. Instead of people transferring around looking for the “promised land.”

Furthermore, splitting between casual and competitive hurts the population growth for both (Eotm vs. “Normal WvW”). Eotm was intended to be for overflow, but it devolved to where lower levels go due to poor up-level scaling formula, and community disdain for said up-levels in “normal WvW” mainly due to said formula (amazing how circular that issue is…). Basically, the current Normal WvW has a barrier to entry problem with community,stats,tutorial,etc so newer people stick to EOTM, eluding to a division in Casual/Competitive WvW wouldn’t work for the current population, or be a long lasting solution. Not saying those are the only issues with Eotm.

Gudradain.3892:

But back on topic, the ranking system I’m suggesting is just to fix the glicko mess in the easiest possible way.

The thing is this, you cannot really discuss score changes without mentioning or being concerned for match making. Each one affects the other. It is better to view it as eHarmony (not sponsoring them intentionally). It is about making the best match ups based on similar qualities. Right now, TC doesn’t have the quality Sea timezone compared to BG, DB, and JQ. So you could say, TC is not marriage compatible with those three during that timezone. As already stated, JQ doesn’t have NA timezone to be successfully matched with TC, BG, or DB.

Imo, if you rectify match making first, scoring will be easier or will conform on it’s own. In the case of time zone segregation, you will drastically remove the effect of coverage. If you just try to fix the janky glicko ranking system, it is more of bandaid (I think WvW has enough of those).The bandaid will not necessarily give quality match ups across the board, nor is it a sustainable system, and especially for mass exodus of guilds who look for “better fights” while leaving said server in bad match up for a couple of weeks (do I need to give examples of that?). Such a thing has happened often for sea timezone (more than NA ironically), but I am sure NA people are more familiar with a certain “alliance.”

TLDR: Go back and just read the Bold

Why have a ranking system with the current population anyway? As someone already stated population [coverage] affects the score the most in a 24/7 match. You can try to artificially inflate/deflate scores all you want, but it won’t change the amount of people playing.

Instead, abandon the 24 hours system, and just segregate servers based on time-zones. Probably in increments of 6 hours as an example. This means all points stop outside the timer by some manner. If there are enough match-ups of the same timezone, you can then consider having a tiered ranking system for given timezone.

1. Run a poll of the population asking their time slot they prefer to play.

2. Create servers that represent data from poll:

For example, assuming we’re using the NA servers:
1 match up for Sea Timezone (3 servers)
1 match up for EU Timezone (3 servers)
1 match up for OCX Timezone (3 servers)
3 match ups for NA timezone (9 servers)

3. For those that play for multiple time-zones, you can allow 1 choice in each other time-zone outside the primary one you chose. It should cost gems to transfer within the same timezone however.

This would mean for the so called “dead” time-zones will now have a higher chance of finding people instead of k-training empty towers or doing running simulator for 50% of the raid. If those are activities you like to do, I’m sorry that’s not the audience WvW should cater to imo.

There is a concern over of destroying “server” communities. I can somewhat understand that fear for those communities that are still even alive. You can argue the idea of ‘community’ would probably shift from server, and more on to guilds. Juxtapose that against the current problems of coverage (and bandwagoning).

TLDR: It’s easier to have meaningful rankings as a match is shorter in duration, e.g. make time-zone segregated servers representing populations based on a poll. This most definitely isn’t a new suggestion. Unfortunately, searching function on the forum is janky.

DeceiverX.8361:

Straegen.2938:

vana.5467:

Saw TW streaming last Thursday. Amazing group of about 20 players <snip>

The days of great large skill groups is definitely over if the current TW is amazing. I suppose a group can only get as good as their competition allows but they would get destroyed by the old school GvG groups. Remember the days of Mag GvG or guilds like Agg? Oh the Golden era what a wonder it was.

Remember when the game’s combat didn’t mostly revolve around passive effects and absurdly high defensive-ability uptime?

Yep, back in the days when they were concerned about vigor up-time. So much so they eventually nerfed it down to 50% from 100%.

To put it bluntly, it’s out of scope. You basically want to redesign a whole new game.

Currently the WvW team is only made up of a couple of people (if you believe the AMA a a bit ago). And usually the ones that do post on the WvW have the title “Game Designer.” The title doesn’t necessarily state what they know how to do (I have seen a programmer post in regards to crashes however). Though I suppose you can interpret their possible job description here: https://www.appone.com/applinkportal.asp?r_id=1144703&AdCode=client3018
That being said, I cannot say for sure what their inner workings are, but we can take in what has been done/not done at least.

To give a better analogy, they can definitely do a few weapon/vehicle mods/quest mods that you might see in Steam Workshop at about a rate of once every two weeks. However, your proposal is far more than that, and wouldn’t implement well even as iterations or in parts.

As for the joke, idk WvW is just too sad to joke about after writing this.