Guild Wars 2

yanoch.7051:

It would have been simple to take the old BL and add a fresh coat of paint, reskin it and add a few new tactical siege location.

Imagine… Every variant with almost the exact same design as alpine had, but one border covered in ice and snow (Kodan inspired), one border that is a thick jungle with keep ruins burried halfway in trees (Magumma inspired) and finally a sandy desert border (Like the desert in the new border). EB would still be the classic Kryta grassland design.

Anet could have created all 3 maps quicker than this single new border.

Bleh. It was a dream once, when I first heard them say “desert”, looking at the then current border and thinking “this dull grassland replaced with sandy dunes and sandstone cliffs? Awesome!”.

Kulvar.1239:

How much time do spend in the same map before seeing DR?
I never noticed it myself.

It is incredibly noticable within just a single event. Join an event, kill mobs, get yellows, T6 mats etc with 8 out 10 items being actual loot… at the end of event get 8 spikes/fangs/soiled pants/nothing/etc out of every 10 mobs instead.

If you dont notice it then you have one of the lucky accounts, enjoy.

Fellfoot.8156:

@Dawdler Yes. You’re right. It’s not a good solution, but an idea to get people thinking. Thank you for giving some feedback. Perhaps do something along these lines only for replacing the “canon” thing with a crossroads tower/keep?

There are enough things to cap…

I would say replace it with something completely unexpected – a quaggan city with traders, crafters, etc where cross server /say chat is available. A neutral zone. Quaggans would instakill any player attacking another player from out of combat. There would be a portal from spawn there, with the flaw that Quaggans act like sentries so you cant stealth a zerg in.

What, I’m being serious, lol.

Play sPvP seriously? Buy it. You’ll need HoT to compete.

For WvW, its a little different due to higher variety of gear, player skill and roles. If you raid seriously, you probably want HoT to compete, but regular classes will probably be needed too. If you roll with zergs or duo/small group roam… Meh it’ll do fine. Only if you want to min/max solo roaming will you need it.

Fellfoot.8156:

2 fix) Remove all “fighting NPC’s” from the map and let actual players fill those roles and locations.

What a horrible idea. Low player density would become even lower. You do realize how many NPCs there are on the map, right? If players had to fill their roles – even assuming minimum manning – the entire border population would be preoccupied. No one would even be able to fight. If you just remove them all objectives would be dull as all kitten as you would just kitten into empty capping points and even emptier keeps.

People that like the border and see “hope” in it seems to think we can cram 300 people per side in there to fill it up. We cant. If we could, then Anet would only need 1 border and everone would be happy.

Sich.7103:

It’s good to see someone from anet here.
On my opinion, after playing the map for some hours now, I think we can learn to play on this map. This will take time but we can learn. And there is a lot of shortcut to take to make the path shorter.

There is no one from Anet here.

What you describe isnt the main problem. We can always learn new maps, paths, etc. Its really quite simple – the problem is density (ironically, considering how much stuff they packed into the map). The amount of players per square meters is not enough to maintain a fun WvW enviroment. This apply to both roamers and zergers. The players are way too spread out, with far too long distances between. And that’s just on one layer of the map. It got several layers, increasing the problem exponentially.

The only thing that goes through my mind when running around this beautifull work of art is what where they thinking?!. Its not fun to run around on and its not even fun to die on because its bloody work to get back. You quickly loose interest to go out of spawn.

I am reminded of ESO and how awfull their AvA was because it was simply too huge (in their case, far worse than the new border though). It was boring. Plain and simple boring. GW2 just did everything right in comparison, the perfect size and easy to find quick action packed fights.

Rym.1469:

What I see in general is that majority doesn’t want objective based maps, but just huge plain field where you could play WvW deathmatch and that’s it.

No, what people wanted was just a little more than the old border. Maybe 20% prettier. Or 30%. Not drowning in 300% overdesigned maps so convoluted people have trouble finding their way out of keeps.

Found a great qoute from a SWTOR interview on Kotaku just now though, lol.

“Life as a developer of an online game is full of regrets,” Maclean said. “We’ll never get better if we don’t look at things we’ve done with a critical eye and say, ‘ You know, that was stupid. Why did we do that?’”

Even if the maps had maxed out population and 250 man queue… They would still be too large. Your solution isnt about the new map at all, its something that has been brought up before it even existed.

xXBAKESXx.6731:

can’t people kitten off unless they have something nice to say anymore

Yes, because surely we would all appreciate threads with “I have no strong feelings one way or another” and “all I know is that my gut says maybe”. kittening neutrals.

You may also want to read up on the definition of “forum”.

Harper.4173:

Substance E.4852:

CindyKa.6137:

What annoys me greatly is people are pm’ing me accusing me of using an exploit when that is 100% completely false.

I either find this incredibly hard to believe or don;t care because it’s obvious that you just went and exploited some other fast source of xp.

No one gets that high in 4 days without dedicated farming.

Even doing the CoF farm takes at least ~12 hours of active farming.

It is possible if you can play 8-10-12 hours a day. I get what he’s saying because a few years ago that would have been me.
If you have the time you don’t need to hurry up – the problem is most of us don’t have that time anymore.

In other words, yes, that would be dedicated farming, lol.

“Normal” players only play maybe 2-3h a day. Personally I dont even see the rush. I am only rank 9 but already did like 90% of the first two zones with the next story mission in the third zone. Thats just one lousy weekend. Sure it will take some time to go through on other characters and max out elite specs, but again, whats the rush? We running late for something?

Sich.7103:

and please, make that the doly are required and not optionnal….
At least you can take back the supply camp or kill the doly to stop the upgrade…

IMO the most acceptable compromise between the new and the old system. Hell they could even make dollys 100% invoulnerable while escorting instead of “only” 90%.

Leaa.2943:

So what would we have wanted if they had asked us. Less pve stuff. Because we are not there to do pve at all. This they understand in pvp, because they do not put pve things in pvp maps that effect fights because they understand that it would be a bad thing and that we are only there to fight eachother not to do pve.

Well, except that the new sPvP mode is all about PvE and there are sPvP maps where victory is decided by PvE…

xXBAKESXx.6731:

I find it an awesome new thing which can help commanders keep track of things if they don’t have time to check the maps.

But commanders where never supposed to keep track of everything. Scouts are supposed to talk, be social in chat and on TS.

Some things dont need to be automated.

All the dailies relate to old border and EB.

Seems like Anet didnt even know WvW had dailies. Hm.

Infusion.7149:

• Fix Desert BL performance issues

Wont happen unless they redesign the engine (and hopefully make it better, not worse). They would never do that for WvW – we already know they wont do it for PvE either. Its simply too much work.

Sigh… I really hope they will get working on Alpine 2.0 – same design as before, just updated visuals by a notch with better layed out keeps instead of the unnaturally blocky ones (the one thing EoTM did really good).

Try running the client with Gw2.exe -repair

It should verify the main game and clear out the temporary files which I suspect might be messing with with it in your case.

DjGriffon.8461:

After 14 emails with tech support I was told that the OOM crashes that I was having dealt with me having windows 32bit OS, and that if i wanted to fix it I either had to remove some of the RAM in my computer to allow for the overlap in the amount of RAM between my processor and my video card because the 32bit system could not handle this.

I expressed my concerns that nowhere in the Minimum system requirements did it say anything about the differences between 32 or 64 bit OS. I was told that there was a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that these requirements could change at any time.

Now had I known there was going to be an issue with my system not working on the 32bit OS then I would not have paid the $99 for the upgrade. because silly me i thought that my quad core 2.33 processor and my 4gb of ram and my GT540 video card would be enough to handle this game like it has been over the last 2+ years that the game has been out.

I would highly recommend to just install 64bit OS. Your “low” specs today is irrelevant – the last x86 only desktop CPU was made in 2004 or somewhere around there. Windows XP should have been the last 32bit OS.

Most games, drivers etc are tested today in 64bit so unlike the early days, its probably smoother to run that instead of 32bit. GW2 is obviously one example, lol.

Diru.4531:

Notsoperky.2348:

I feel the removal of guard buffs was a bad idea. As an excuse they offer ‘barrier to entry’ and then turn around and say ‘go make 400 levels for your elite’.

Yeah that change and the reasoning was pretty silly. It only hurt low health pool, non-bunker players. A new wvw player is going to die in 1-5 seconds to a regular wvw player stacks or not.

Since the extra power was removed, its all fair.

This was rarely seen as an issue in 1v1 anyway, where specs and counters is what win the duel.

The far more unfair scenario was say 50 vs 50 fully buffed, one side looses and wipes for one reason or another but they decide to clash again… But now its the eqvivalent of 40 vs 60 because the winners remain buffed with guards and stacks while the loosers are effectivly punished by loosing guards, stacks and probably players, as if dying wasnt enough.

I am not sad to see that go.

The new guard line improve combat vs NPCs more than the old… which was kind of the point to begin with.

Slowpokeking.8720:

The majority of the Open World content should be soloable.

And the majority is, that’s the point.

NoxInfernus.2361:

Anyone remember Orr after the Game launched

I spent 4 hours doing Arah with guildies the first time. We didnt complete it. We just couldnt.

Today, players can solo it :/

misterman.1530:

I don’t know, maybe this was by design?

Dont think so. If I recall correctly, the waypoints are supposed to always be built, but when taken by the enemy side it would of course not be active (ie always contested).

Having them active when an enemy holds the keep is… stupid. I think its just a bug.

OneKlicKill.4285:

My issue is when you spen 20 minutes navigating to a hero point and then its a 5 man minimum group challenge which when attempted you lose and cant get back for another 30 minutes of climbing agian.

If they just simply made the Hero challenges soloable the game would be fine as is. I shouldn’t have to have 4 people minimum to play the game.

… Unless of course, its by design.

GW2 is an MMO after all. Not a singleplayer adventure game. Is it really that odd that you cant complete some challenges alone? You should easily be able to take 80% of brink alone for example. What if the other 20% is meant to be a little harder group content? Like, I dont know… a challenge of some sort?

Jim Hunter.6821:

My experience so far has been if I cut off yaks and camps they would just get the camp on the other side and wait until I leave to cap the one I was holding.

Even the camp by spawn is far enough away that I can’t wp and run to it before it gets flipped.

Aye, again a sign of just plain frustrating design.

I really wish they would take a hint from their own new map and borrow the helicopter teleports. That would “solve” alot of the distances traveled. Just allow us to make rapid response teams that are dropped at a distance from objectives, like a teleporter active for 1 minute or until 5 peeps have gone through.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Why can’t you find fights? The map literally tells you where other roamers are.

… which also means people know where not to run to avoid people. Most “roamers” run away from fights rather than to them, unless they know they can gank targets without loosing.

Ugh, I really dont get people sometimes.

You are complaining literally one day after release that you dont have all your masteries and elite specs.

Come back in 6 months. If you still dont have it on even one character… Well ok, maybe its a grind.

ArchonWing.9480:

• In 100 words or less, describe how the new BLs could be improved.

Simply put, they cant be improved. Its is a matter of scale. The new bl is just too kitten huge. Anet seriously took it too far. Its too late now, they cant “fix” this. Just look at the map and compare with EB. Stand in one keep, look at the next. Same for alpine. You knew where you where going. On desert, when you actually run around, the scale become insane. You cant even tell where you are going, you cant see crap. Its like running blind.

In terms of model scale, remember those little stairs up a keep wall or ramps up to a lord, where you can fit maybe 2 characters side by side? Well on desert you can see a ramp where 20 people can stand side by side. I’m not going to argue that its not pretty – it is. We wanted more complex designs on our keeps, like EoTM has. But not like this. Not at this scale. Its. Not. Working.

Best case scenario, I can see them adding more waypoints or some way of fast travel. Cause right now we’re literally running in circles in overly large keeps. They could add 20 keeps to the map and probably still wouldnt reach the density of the old alpine border.

The even worse part? Performance has taken a huge dump due the more complex map design. As if low fps when zerging wasnt bad enough.

Kalan.9705:

Why should it be vastly easier to gear character for wvw by NOT PLAYING WVW

Because only PvE players play WvW, duh…

In hindsight all I will say is one thing: these maps should not have been released with HoT. We should have had them either a month ago or a month from now. They are literally being choked to death by PvE content.

This was actually my very first annoyance when I checked out the map yesterday. In my 5 minutes there, I probably got 6-8 announcements and it annoyed me as hell.

I know what happened when a keep no longer have the same color it had the last time I checked, Anet. This announcement belittle our scouts and friendly map communication. Not everything has to be automated.

Then again the problems of size in the new map might be solved if all players where bots.

I never did the beta other than the first story mission but honestly… I’m not really having a problem. Yes, the map is huge as all kitten and complicated to navigate, but then again so was Straights of Devastation my first time there. Now I go through that half asleep with my 6th world exploration char. I dont expect anything different from this zone, what I clumsily did in 2h when getting in the zone yesterday I could do in 15 minutes today.

The events will still take time, but the zone will feel alot smaller when you completed it on your 5th character.

Wait… wait… just hold on there for a moment.

Are you saying that a skill thats been broken and unreliable for over 3 years, despite a redesign with how it works and at least 10 times Anet has said its been fixed… is still buggy?

You must be joking.

Katrina.8702:

Hope I’m wrong and I know it is extremely early but the roaming doesn’t look so promising. In 2 hours of solo roaming I had one fight. The map just seems to big with most of the time spent in walking.

As others have said, you have to keep in mind that we got HoT PvE content and the halloween event going at the same time. Overall WvW population is probably down to 20% of normal… If even that. At the very least, this will last the entire weekend. I expect population to be low for a week.

That said, the new map does scare me a little. Its about 2x the size of old borders, not because of the physical map being bigger but rather the “full square” being used, but at the same time having presumably the same population limit. That cut the players/area considerably, which is very bad since GW2 has always been that game where you can just jump into WvW for an hour and have intense battles.

I am certain that players will learn optimal routes, where the battlefields are etc but it will take time. Time WvW wont have if the border scare away players.

Now if only we could have 300 players per side on these new borders we could cut 2 of them just stick to one fully populated…

volpenvieh.3201:

Nighttime doesn’t mean that there aren’t any players defending, especially when you’re up against other servers that do have a strong night crew. However if you aren’t able to take out siege with casters and don’t have extra supply for acs/ballistas then yes, that’s a problem. I smell people from k-train server with the “what’s an extra 30 supply” and “build an omega and capture everything”-attitude.

Why did I bother with such a small crew? Because I cared about my server and it was fun to outsmart the blobs.

If its defended by equal numbers then yes, 5-10 people may have trouble capping a keep. Thats not a nighttime issue. Daytime, its would be the exact same thing…. well, except more dangerous since its a higher chance even more defenders will come.

Dasenthal.6520:

morrolan.9608:

Shukriyya.7629:

The title will mean nothing because pretty much everyone will have it, yaaaaay!

Its a joke title like Honorary Skritt so who cares.

Except that it’s not… People have been busting their Kittens to get that title since launch… yet another thing that Anet is invalidating from WvW…

(Hey… Lookey there, first post back and I’m already doubting Anet’s love… Good to be Back!)

Really? Somebody worked for a title they would realisticly achieve in 20 years? I very much doubt it. People gave up a long time ago.

Heavy and medium armor is pants, bikinis and possibly thin strands of spider webbing held together by magic.

Light armor is thick, bulging skirts made of 20 interlocking layers of silk or possibly Chobham plating.

Everyone knows this.

volpenvieh.3201:

With our tiny nightcrew consisting often of only 5-10 people we sometimes had trouble to even build 2 superior rams.

… then why even try it? Build an omega golem at a camp, run around and cap. Or build 2 normal rams. Where you in a hurry to cap things in or what?

I dont quite see the point of a nightcrew arguing the trouble of building rams to cap keeps defended by pretty much no one.

karik.8293:

My guild wars 2 folder is 23.5 gb at the moment,im sure it used to be 21 gb.
I think i read that hot will use 35gb,so im expecting an 11.5 gb download on the 23rd.
I could be wrong though.

Keep in mind that we already have probably 90% of the HoT content. Its just not activated. I seriously doubt 11gb will be added.

2500 luck is what you get in a few days anyway. If you have 200%+… you need like 2500 million billion for the next percent.

A Necro cant flee a fight, no… but fleeing is for chumps anyway. Its actually pretty good at roaming and probably one of the best solo camp cappers. Being able to seemlessly shift toward higher number of targets is great (you can roam as a wellbomber if you want).

I usually roam on my mesmer or necro and tbh… I am more successfull on my necro, lol.

I thought EB would remain? Borders have been stale ever since EoTM (say what you want about instancing, keep design is leaps and bounds better and visually impressive).

I am hoping we will see more siege work on the new map. Now, 95% of all sieges is 2-3 rams at the door or as many catas right up to the wall. Seeing more distance use would be great.

Jayne.9251:

Dawdler.8521:

Jayne.9251:

If HoT maps go EoTM, I may have cause to be …. negative.

Brig, come play with me on Piken. First couple weeks will be new placement exploration, can’t think of anyone better to join in the trials. (I’m NA, we play the same hours, unless you’re pst).

But how would the maps “go EoTM”? We already know its going to real WvW, ie take and defend stuff for tick. Its not going to be instanced. Everything else “bad” about EoTM is map design. Too many chokepoints on too many levels, driving brainless zerg rushes to extremes because that is the only way to push forward. Which isnt even that bad, we want more melee. It just blend poorly with current “normal” WvW meta, which make it a poor switch between the two.

I am curious to see what the new map bring… and how willing and able Anet will be to fix any potential flaw.

I meant mega servers like EoTM. There had been rumblings about it prior.

There have? All I have seen is people posting megaserver WvW as the magical “solution” to population and score issues. Thats not rumblings. Thats fever dreams. Never seen Anet say anything about instanced WvW but I guess I could wrong.

Jayne.9251:

If HoT maps go EoTM, I may have cause to be …. negative.

Brig, come play with me on Piken. First couple weeks will be new placement exploration, can’t think of anyone better to join in the trials. (I’m NA, we play the same hours, unless you’re pst).

But how would the maps “go EoTM”? We already know its going to real WvW, ie take and defend stuff for tick. Its not going to be instanced. Everything else “bad” about EoTM is map design. Too many chokepoints on too many levels, driving brainless zerg rushes to extremes because that is the only way to push forward. Which isnt even that bad, we want more melee. It just blend poorly with current “normal” WvW meta, which make it a poor switch between the two.

I am curious to see what the new map bring… and how willing and able Anet will be to fix any potential flaw.

Wolfs Shadow.7234:

Rym.1469:

Funny fact I saw, Druids start PvP match with 100% filled Astral Force.

funny fact necros are a light armor tank class. How does that work?

Presumably the same way glass cannons in heavy armor work.

morrolan.9608:

darkangelseductions.3084:

4. Can we get an HONEST answer and a direct, no B.S. answer to why you decided these changes were needed and why they were made. No more dancing around it, no more vague descriptions. Just an honest and true to form answer that would satisfy our understanding of your choices. Giving us vague and nonchalant answers that have been provided, have not given us a true understanding of this decision that ANet has come to.

I think the answer about moving reset away from when critical patches might be required was exactly why they have done it.

Or in other words, PvE weekends take priority over second rate WvW weekends.

Anet doesnt patch on friday. They patch on tuesdays and usually spend 5+ patches and 2-3 days fixing that patch. The “critical patches” you speak about is only needed because they activate the broken weekend content. This is in relation to normal weeks of course, HoT release weekend is a special thing.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

You’ll see things on map chat like: “Log off WvW we need to keep their tick as low as possible”.

That would be impractical with properly tuned population percentages, as even 1 server completely empty wouldnt be able able to bring max PPT down (at least not with my simple way of doing it). You would have to have all 3 servers coordinating to force it – or when PPT is lowered it would just come from one simple fact, poulation is low.

Plus, it wouldnt be that hard to link a global boon to it to boost the players, like +MF, karma, xp etc (always active on low pop, not like outmanned).

ArchonWing.9480:

Dawdler.8521:

OS is still used for the Arena every now and then though. With it being megaserver, that is gone.

But then again we are no longer really crowded on normal maps, even in high tier.

I don’t understand how the arena use would be gone with a EOTM style megaserver. The 3 servers involved will still be able to meet each other, because EOTM is based on color. It would just allow more people to be fought, but without the distractions of the EOTM map.

Obviously maps being full could be an issue, but ferrying to new instances could overcome that. Might even be possible to have cross server LFG fights or something.

Its the ferrying thats the problem. It simply take so much time getting the correct people onto the same instance. What if its full when 80% is in? Begin again, sigh.

If they make the instance list and populations visible maybe it’ll work. Like “join us in Obsidian #4, its only 5/250 players right now!”. I never really understood why Anet didnt do it before to PvE/EoTM. Its worked in other such games before (STO comes to mind, CoH I think? Cant remember, it was one of the hero games at least, lol). Guess they just dont believe in giving players control.

coglin.1867:

All this does, is reward server populations for having stacked prime time players. Why should they be rewarded for that bahavior?

Why yes, it does encourage players to play the game. Not only that, plenty of players at the same time, sometimes even with queues. Like some sort of popular MMO or something. Sounds horrifying!

Spurnshadow, you can give up trying to argue with Coglin and it’ll spare you a headache. Unfortunetly he remind me a little too much of myself – he likes to argue for the sake of arguing.

I have advocated this before by using something I call “WvW nighttime”.

Every hour, the game check total population (as in all 3 combined). If below a certain percentage, say 20% (still 200 players mind you), PPT max drops by 50% (700→350) and the score bar indicate its “night”. If population is above the threshold the next hour it check, it goes to “WvW daytime” with 100% gains. This day/night shift has nothing to do with real time, its pure server based on population.

Its simple, easily understood and would even the score curve instead of allowing nightcappers to stack too much points unopposed. It helps the issue without imposing any ridiculous multitude of rules. They can still nightcap sure, just not as effectivly in terms of PPT.

I also like the idea of dynamically closing borders based on population (freezing points there, limiting max PPT) but its far more complicated to implement.

I’d say Warrior before Guardian. If you make a tank Guardian everyone will just ignore him, if you make a dps/condi guard he will be far glassier than dps warrior. The warrior can also give all 3 easy perma swiftness, freeing up runes and skills (guard can, but mark just isnt as good for smaller numbers, you want multiple marks), not to mention better mobility than guard.

That said… I would probably pick another range. Condi trapper ranger should be great for it. Or of course another thief/mes.

No Walking.6349:

GvG will be done in guild halls from here on out, yet another reason to add OS to EotM.

Afaik, we still dont know if that function is fit for purpose? Personally I dont care – it was a long time since I lag did GvG – but I am not so sure we should toss it out just yet.

OS is still used for the Arena every now and then though. With it being megaserver, that is gone.

But then again we are no longer really crowded on normal maps, even in high tier.