Guild Wars 2

They’re working on it :-) scnr

What would be nice is a different number depending if it’s your own structure (EB keep / Hometeam BL) or an enemies’. Right now bootstrapping your home corner with 5-15 people – quite a common number in bronze league – takes more than an evening. When you’re spread out, an enemy group of 5-10 people can wreak sufficient havoc to force everyone to defend the keep, while camps go lost to roamers. Effectively, the numbers are much higher than the 1.5 hours for T2 / 3.5 hours for T3.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Agree that they need to do something about populations on Servers, forget server pride, players just leave to more populated servers and that server ends up lacking players, even for fights. That’s the problem with transfers and no server being full anymore.

There’s nothing they can do about difference in coverage as of now, there isn’t enough players to make that side of WvW, actually competitively balanced.

Empty servers are just the symptom, not the reason (for some, refer to my earlier post). Merging servers might buy some months of breathing space, but it won’t fix the issues of WvW.

FogLeg.9354:

Deaeira.2651:

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Hey Vabbi (waves). We can probably get to fight you soon, if RoS continues to drop. Do you have any guilds left in Vabbi that raid every night? Cause atm all we have to fight is that blobby WSR server-wide pug-group that keeps increasing steadily as we kill them until they eventually overrun us by pure numbers and it becomes not fun again. RoS has no guilds to fight.

Holla to all FoWers! I wouldn’t say we’re ready for T8 again – during the rise to T6 at the beginning of this year, some guilds from BT and RoS joined Vabbi, but the inevitable stop in progression and the relase of HoT made the whole bubble implode again. Some guilds left for WSR and the rest of us has been slowly reforming. There are not many commanders left but since we arrived in T9, we have sufficient coverage to recruit the one or other newbie. Still, the fights with UW and BT have been quite balanced (and fun for a change! waves at UW and BT) – but that’s definitely not sufficient for T8.

I’m pretty happy about the superior siege. Less time spent clicking at the mystic forge and useful too.

sayori.4836:

LJMaster.6214:

Yet GW2 is still the 2nd most played MMO game.

Also server pride is stupid. It’s a video game, who cares.

I don’t care about the server, I care about the people I meet every day in EB.

Besides, the problems of WvW are not only the low numbers of bronze league, otherwise people wouldn’t be leaving WvW in masses – the patches this Tuesday go into the right direction ( e.g. the strength of keeps correlates more with the number of people defending again. e.g. there’s no more retaking of a fully upgraded borderland after nightcaps and the oasis event can be done in 5 mins by 3 people who can go back to their usual business afterwards), but there’s still a lot to do.

An important part is better class balancing: right now some builds win against 3+ enemies or can 1-shot kill most other builds. What I find particularly frustrating is the long timeout of DH traps, which have more of a minefield feeling when the DH is long gone and the trap just insta-kills you out of the blue.

Getting back into fights is still a huge problem. Especially if you don’t own the second waypoint in the BL, you can forget to respawn and run back for a defense.

My third critizism is that WvW achievements are hidden behind such a high material barrier, that new wvw-only guilds are practically useless. If it takes 10-20 people a constant contribution over multiple months to obtain basic upgrades like tower or keep claiming, having a 10 people wvw guild is just useless. This leads to a consolidation of a few number of guilds per server without new ones forming. Also, if one of three guilds of a server becomes defunct (e.g. the leader having no time to play anymore), it takes months to replace.

FogLeg.9354:

100? I wish. Zerg? Whats that?

FoW has maybe 20-30 players logging into WvW anymore during day. Spread them over 24 hours period and well… you can see where it goes. Thing is, that is about the population of last 5 EU servers, some even having less people now.

So, again, whats the point closing those down? Most of those players in last tiers play in last tiers because they dont like to play in tier 1. Do you really think forcing them into tier 1 by closing down servers they like to be is good solution?

Long time Vabbi player here, we’re also around 20 spread over the day – thought I don’t belive the WvW problems go away by merging servers. Especially if you don’t find a way to keep the server communities intact.

Ha I was right… I already predicted in summer that Mesmer will be the first class which will be toned down – it was fun while it lasted. Now if Revenant, Dragonhunter and Reaper follow, we might have an even playing field again. One more X-mas wish: make thief a unique class again

Gaile Gray.6029:

An Update from our Balance Team:

As developers, we try to push certain aspects of gameplay that align with our vision for the game, but unfortunately things don’t always pan out the way that we hoped they would. A current example of this is the bunker meta that has formed in PvP over the past two weeks across all tiers of play, from Amber Division all the way up to our Pro Leagues. We’ll be honest: we’re not happy with the current meta, and it certainly doesn’t do a great job of showcasing the things that make Guild Wars 2 great, namely our action-based combat.

While our post-HoT balance strategy is to deliver a major balance update every quarter, we do want to emphasize that if glaring issues arise during seasons we won’t hesitate to address them. To this point, on Monday we announced that we’d be making a few mid-season balance changes. After lengthy internal conversation driven both by discussion on our own forums and on other platforms, we have decided to implement one more additional balance change with this week’s update.

Mesmer:

• Well of Precognition: This ability now applies distortion instead of blur and prevents capture-point contribution. Casting time has been increased from 0.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds, and aftercast delay has been reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0 seconds.

A fair number of gameplay implications can arise from such a seemingly small change, so we want to be very clear with all of you regarding our intentions. First and foremost, we understand that this change may have impact on other areas of the game, and that is precisely why we’re viewing today’s change as a short-term solution. We’ll be revisiting all skills in our end-of-January balance update, and we’ll be sharing the specifics of the planned changes with you in early January. In the interim, because this skill will be classified as "no-cap”—meaning that it does not contribute to capture point progress—we’d suggest that you keep an eye out for mesmers using this skill in PvP matches, as they could potentially cause you to decap a point in a way similar to the stealth function. The change to this skill will now also prevent you from interacting with certain channels objectives, such as supply piles in Stronghold or the Meditation buffs in Temple of the Silent Storm.

This change will be included our in hotfix later today.

Alicornus.7095:

Well, it’s not like they can make it much worse, can’t they? Either they manage to fix it this time or they’ll merely speed up the sink into insignificance.

Your wishes are so easily fulfilled: just remove the crafting stations from the BL and you’ve got it worse.

There’s one thing I’d like to add: the borderlands should have a significant advantage for the home team. Significant here means that even a weak server compared to the other two can keep control of most of their BL. Then even when your server gets crushed ppt-wise, it is still possible to find interesting fights.

Gold tier problems :P (scnr)

I have to admit the hardest point in my summary was the suggestion on changes. My problem is that my expectation for a borderlands map go into a different direction: simple layout, simple mechanics and smaller than the current one. My main feeling is that the desert borderlands is a lot about the environment, but little about the players. For instance, the fire keep is beautiful, with tons of places to discover (and hide in :-) ) but I completely lose orientation in a fight in there. At the same time I have the feeling that three zergs could be in there at the same time without ever meeting. Because there is so much visual interference, it is even harder to spot an enemy team attacking. Similar things hold for the other two keeps, with a bit of variation of the theme. I don’t have a clue how to change this without scrapping the new borderlands. That’s why I’m so depressed.

Disclaimer: I am from one of the smallest servers (Vabbi) and have been playing there for about 2.5 years.

• Describe a typical hour for you in the Alpine Borderlands in the past. For example, What size of group were you running in? What kind of tasks did you run? What activities did you do?*

The group size was 1-3, mostly scouting, defending and camp-flipping. Also tagging up for defense.

• Compare your experience described above with a typical hour spent in Eternal Battlegrounds, if you went there at all. Does your style of play change between the 2 maps? *

I went to EB for zerging, but was there only rarely.

• Compare your experiences described above with an hour spent in the new borderlands. *

Running around alone with a tag, hoping someone might join. Using the crafting stations. Sometimes I can motivate a few guildies to have a team which gets sufficient momentum to take structures.

• Describe the nature of combat in the borderlands in the past. How have the new borderlands impacted this paradigm for you? What style or build changes might it cause? For example, knocking people off cliffs or into lava might play a more important role. *

It varied pretty well, holding keeps against double our numbers to killing roamers and dueling. In the new BL, we were outnumbered for half an hour and did not meet the enemy. The feature we used most is the ability to jump down from air keep for a surprise attack and the hell hound transformation in the fire keep.

• In your experience, compare the time it takes take a structure or objective here, then it did in the past. *

Usually noone is defending in the new BL, retaking a keep takes about the same time, but at least 7-10 people, wheras before 3-4 people could manage when there was no opposition.
With active defense, it takes significantly longer to take a structure. The EB zerg takes 45+ mins to retake the whole borderlands without opposition.

• How is the loot and wxp for you compared to in the past? Will it be able to sustain whatever you are doing? Did it take a hit, or was it improved? If you are planning to unlock an elite specialization, do you think you were helped or hurt in these regards? Do you think you could pursue any other in-game goals just by playing WvW? *

Specializations can be unlocked with WvW rewards, that’s fine. The drops are similar to before, with some greens from the level-up replaced by the resource nodes. My funds stay stable at around 60G, what I earn is about what I spend on siege.

• How will the map change impact the long sessions (multiple hours) you spend in WvW? *

Before I was playing WvW in the BL nearly exclusively. When I still play WvW, I go to EB but right now I spend more time farming potatoes to level scribe. With my server being close to go down to tier 9 because of losing several guilds, my motivation to play WvW is barely there anymore.

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

On an abstract level: let small groups (2-3 ppl) have more impact again. Redesign keeps such that you can find an enemy zerg in time. E.g. let a fully upgraded keep show
groups of a certain size (say 20+ people) or make keeps better viewable. Something independent: make a reserve exit from the hometeam spawn, right now the two exits can be
covered by a small group of enemies.

• In 100 words or less, describe how the borderlands work to a new WvW player. *

Either people are overwhelmed by the mechanics and the layout and leave pretty soon or they take shrines and sentries. Since the BL is empty, noone answers to questions or gives an introduction.

• In 100 words or less, describe how the borderlands work to a veteran WvW player that is new to the maps. *

It’s still an effort to get to know efficient paths but it’s doable. You might tag up, but without guildies it’s highly unlikely to attract sufficient people to take a keep. Fully upgraded camps can be soloed by pulling, towers are doable with catapults. Keeps need the EB zerg.

• Which map am I most likely to find you currently, if you’re on Gw2? *

In the guild hall or Metrica Province, when it makes sense in EB. In the new BL mainly for crafting and about twice a week when we manage to have sufficient people.

I would also be interested in how it’s working out… Right now i’m playing a shatter/condi hybrid but this sounds like a nice replacement.

For a low population server like Vabbi, the new borderlands can not be defended. Before, the average number of persons in the map was 5-10 but right now I am usually alone and outbumbered when I enter the map. Even with everyone back from playing HoT, those numbers are highly insufficient to defend the map. It might become better, but right now, even finding the attackers in one of the keeps is a challenge. When you do find them, there’s a good amount of siege present, but without the players to use it, it doesn’t help. Also low population servers are hit harder by the distances because there’s usually just one emergency response team taking care of all three keeps.

When it comes to suggestions on what to do: Especially on small servers, people just stay out of principle. I believe a merge of servers would rather make them leave than enjoy the game again. What could be a possible help is to rotate the old maps with the new maps in a ratio depending on server population. (The rotation was promised before HoT anyway)

tl;dr
- Before 5-10 defenders of the BL map were enough, now it feels like 15-30
- Reasons: map size, too large keeps, more siege structures than defenders
- Proposition: enable map rotation and give small population servers more frequent access to the alpine BL (but always 3x the same one)

When HoT comes out, I’d like to try to hit F5 (*), jump down a cliff and get ported up again before I get smashed. I wonder how many enemies will jump with me :-)

(*) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Continuum_Shift

Then I want Palawa Joko for Vabbi.

That’s more like it :-) You even got two of our T3 keeps today… see ya and have fun…

As Vabbi player, i can relate to the feeling. I haven’t forgotten how hard it is, when people are frustrated (or looking for new challenges), leaving a strongly diminished amount of people fighting an even tougher battle. I can not help much, but I wish all WSR players the strength to carry on. The phase will pass, let’s see how the situation will be in a few months – people’s choices are quite unsteady, so perhaps also to the better (for WSR i guess, because then we might be the ones getting a beating every week again ;-) ).

Independently of the current situation, there is an underlying problem though: when your server is third out of its current matchup, it will get better spirits fighting the servers below for a week. But the bottom rank server loses every week, with exactly this spirit-taking effect of people leaving, because nothing works out at all. I’m not talking about just losing, but being utterly destroyed every week, which kills all the fun in WvW. I don’t have a good idea on how to tackle the problem, but I think it needs to be adressed by the dev team.

(Edit: Typos)

Perhaps one could also point to Scepter 2 ( Illusionary Counter – Counterspell ), that feels a little like GW1 punishing, even though it is reversed. Applying the Confusion condition is also quite similar to GW1’s Visions of Regret. So yeah, I see some similarities – but GW2’s gameplay is much less tactics, perhaps apart from smaller scale WvW battles.

Dear ArenaNet team!

During the last days I experienced more disconnects(*) than usual: yesterday I had at least 5, today is the third. Friends on the same server (Vabbi) have experienced similar issues. Is there a known problem / workaround for this? Especially living story instances and WvW become quite frustrating when one needs to start from the beginning.

Thanks for looking into it!

(*) This is the kind of dc where you can still use the ingame chat and move around, but no action like using a skill or talking to an npc can be taken. Logout (F12) and selecting a character is sometimes sufficient, sometimes a full relog is necessary.

Ah ok, then I will re-check it… thx for the feedback.

Regarding QoL #1, Temporal curtain… my impression so far was that it only works on myself and does not stack with any bonus. Which is a pity, because as a mesmer there are only few skills which you can use for buffing the group.

Hi! Weekends are usually better for me, but since I’m quite unsteady with my playing, I’ll go for the majority

IGN: Aleria Thingoriel
Server: Vabbi
Playstyle: PvE,WvW (weekends)
Role: Scholar

With megaservers running now, is threre a way to get to Gandara?

We did HotW yesterday, it was fun! Thanks for organising!

SInce I’m not playing much with the Scepter, I was interested in your opinion on the Torment condition which was added to Illusionary Counter (Scepter 2). Does it make a difference during gameplay?

Reporting back: works again for me too (After removing the Application folder a second time, GW downloaded 8 files and worked again)

@vince: yes i tried deleting the application folder, but it didn’t help.

Ah and I have an addition: it seems only the display is buggy – i can hit enter to select my character and the game seems to load. At least i can hear my character’s chanting during casting, if i hit the keys.

I have the same problem – at first the login screen didn’t have the entry fields for username and password (which changed), then i got the game update and experience now the same problems with the black screen.