Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
It is a good idea, but disagree with the results. How did you come up with direct damage and condition damage numbers? Are they based on actual optimal DPS rotation calculations or what? I suspect they are just opinions.
Warrior and berserker both have average sustain at best, even if you take all the defensive traits and utilities. The lack of protection and evades means that warrior is going to suck in a lot of damage despite high armor.
In general protection and evades is better than having a high armor when it comes to sustain. If you cannot be hit, then you take no damage and protection is -33% direct damage. Warrior definitely doesn’t have the highest sustain like your chart suggests.
However warrior and berserker both have very high control (hammer!) and also relatively high mobility. In your chart warrior has low support, but that is not true. Warrior has banners and shouts. Shouts can heal a significant amount (2200 hp/shout)
if using +1200 healing power amulet. If warrior ever gets balanced I would rather see warrior’s burst toned down a bit, but give it proper sustain, so it can stay in combat, instead of being a hit and run profession (that role fits thief/daredevil so much better).
I am also questioning why dragonhunter’s sustain is below guardians. Wings of Resolve is clearly superior to virtue of resolve and difference in the passive heal is very small. Both offer high sustain if you just build for it. Guardian/DH also has better mobility than necromancer, yet you rate them both the same.
Engineer has better mobility if you take rocketboots + mecha legs/streamlined kits. I know rocket boots is not meta and very few would take it over slick shoes.
Mesmer appears to be the weakest overall in the charts, despite chronaphantasma mesmer is probably among the best dueling professions. Well played chrono mesmer is very difficult to beat in 1 vs 1 due dual moa and defenses. Mesmer is also great for small group fights and mesmer has some of the best utility skills in the game: portal and blink.
Why is elementalist damage ranked so low? Staff elementalist has huge AoE both burst and dps. Yes, it would be a glass cannon, but the DPS is there.
Druid mobility is underrated. Druid can take both staff/greatsword or staff/sword+dagger, both options giving high amount of mobility, but also relatively good amount of evades.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I really hope Alpine borderland will be back with the lake. I have so many fond memories of the lake and I even dreamed about an underwater keep/tower there.
I will be severely disappointed if Arenanet will bring back revamped Alpine borderland, which is full of pve gimmicks like shrines, jumping pads, auto cannons etc. borrowed from the Desert BL. Just do minimal changes to the Alpine border and bring it back as soon as possible.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Alpine borderland was:
1. simpler & easier to learn
2. smaller & faster to travel = less time spent on traveling, more time spent on fighting and having fun
3. every tower had strategical meaning e.g. you could built a treb on it to attack nearest keep
4. supply camps were located closer to the other objectives, shorter distance for supply runs
5. Alpine borderland lacks gimmicks, which just detract from game play, like shrines, jumping pads, wind blowing you off the bridges, auto fire cannons etc.
6. The keeps and towers were much smaller, making them easier to scout
7. The original Alpine borderland had a lake. Underwater combat, yeah!
And last, but not least: the Alpine borderland felt more like home, more like a location you would want to fight for. Maybe because it had forest, meadows, lake, hills and snow and buildings also looked more normal instead of the alien design of earth keep of desert borderland.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Each game has its own set of “rules” that must be balanced within itself. You claim that “there should be a way to prevent teleporting”, yet one of the most successful competitive games of all time (League of Legends) has entire matches relying on the proper use of Flash – whose CD is huge but not-that high – and this without considering the many teleporting abilities that a lot of Champions have.
Well, of course the rules can be broken and nobody can condense complex thing as game design into just few rules, which would always applt. You probably misunderstood me. I tried to express that it is also possible to balance a very powerful ability like teleport without a hard counter by making it a scarce resource, in other words: make it really expensive to use (e.g. high mana/energy cost or life sacrifice) or give it a very long cooldown. Long range teleport which you can use very frequently without any cost will make the game very difficult to balance.
I’m not expert in LoL, but to my knowledge Flash has 300 s cooldown, which can by reduced masteries and enchaments, but never below 180 s. And that spell used to have shorter cooldown. It seems Riot Games decided to increase it cooldown multiple times, aka nerf it.
I know it is unfair compare to a totally different game, because the games have totally different pacing and mechanism, but a fairly equivalent skill in GW2 would be mesmer’s blink which has mere 30 s cooldown (24 s traited CD). That is a very low cooldown for a stun break which also serves 1200 range instant cast teleport. It is arguably one of the best utility skills in the game and the best stun break mesmers have. Increasing its untraited cooldown to 40 s wouldn’t necessarily be a bad move. Portal has 72 s cooldown, but can be used up to 20 times with 1 cast, which is massive.
Anyways I wish Arenanet would adopt the balance strategy seen in several other:
Frequent small updates. And please tone down the power creep.
Tone down the Hot specializations so that they are seen as choices instead of mandatory picks.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Even though this is just a comic relief, I think there is a lot of truth about it.
I have worked as game designer and programmer and I am still teaching game design. Few of the key principles of designing MMORPG, fighting and action game skills and mechanics:
1. Each well-rounded skill should do one thing well e.g. damage, utility or defense, maximum 2 from that list and that should be countered with heavy cost (mana, energy, sacrificing own life force etc) and/or long cooldown. E.g. a well-rounded defense skill only provides defenses and does no damage or does very little damage and offers no utility. If skill does two things well at same time it should never have a relatively cheap cost or cooldown.
2. Each powerful game mechanism requires a hard counter counter e.g. direct damage can be blocked, evaded or fire damage can be countered with complete fire immunity or partial fire resistance. The most problematic powerful game mechanics are invisibility and stealth, which some wise game designers leave out of their games. Invisibility could have “see invisibility” or “invisibility purge” or they must be balanced with extreme rarity and very heavy cost. Teleport could have a counter skill which prevents teleports happening or foils them (forcing random wrong target). Both teleportation and invisibility often allow to skip game content and can create very cheap and annoying tactics in pvp. Imagine how bad CS:GO would be with group stealth and teleports.
3. Fully passive mechanics should be clearly weaker than any of the active ones, more like secondary things.
(DISCLAIMER: This is far from a complete list)
It is very easy to break these rules and invent too powerful skills for your favorite professions. In general almost every game of this type starts to suffer from skill and trait inflation aka power creep. Year 2015 was very bad for Guild Wars 2 as the power creep was massive, first with June 2015 trait rework and later with HoT. Almost all got tons of power creep except the warrior.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
And bring back the removed amulets! We need more versatility, not less.
No. Just no.
I dont want to have celestial cancer again. The concept was one of the worst ideas the devs ever had. Almost as bad as the idea of the revenant itself.
Celestial was never meta for some professions e.g. I haven’t found any optimal celestial build for thief nor guardian. Celestial has relatively high sustain, but lacks damage without significant might stacking.
Before the amulet removal we had only couple of celestial builds which could have rightfully argued to be overpowered, namely:
celestial auramancer ele
celestial reaper necro
celestial druid
celestial alacrity mesmer
Alacrity mesmer is pretty much gone, thanks to alacrity nerfs. Celestial shoutbow warrior was already out meta a long time ago. Celestial engineer was already mostly superceded marauder scrapper. Now it is Paladin’s scrapper. Would celestial amulet make scrapper more overpowered, I seriously doubt so as hammer is a power weapon and by far the best weapon for engineer. Is the current paladin scrapper overpowered? Yes it is, but mainly because of hammer skills + certain traits, not because of the amulet.
Reapers and d/f auramancers still reign supreme. Removal of amulets didn’t change this!
People who blame celestial for everything really have a tunnel vision. If celestial would be so much better than everything else, why it is not more popular in pve and WvWvW? PVT has been standard for WvWvW since Autumn 2012 and berserker and viper and sinister are top choices for pve raids.
I hope Arenanet would bring not just celestial back, but also the other removed amulets like soldier (= high sustain, low DPS). I am fine if celestial is shaved a bit for spvp purposes, but I hope people do understand if celestial has equal amount of points distributed for all stats, it would utterly suck and it wouldn’t be optimal for any build.
Removal of amulets didn’t bring us more varied or more healthy meta. Just more burst and more blowout matches.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Engineer doesn’t need any buffs. The entire point of nerfing an overtuned class is because it’s overtuned, giving compensation for it would just make it overtuned in a different way.
I strongly disagree with healing seeds because condition damage is very prevalent and needs a counter.
*Problem here is conditions are very prevalent, they therefore need corresponding mitigation somewhere. I say give every class a grandmaster trait like diamond skin hidden in their defensive traitline but instead of replacing a current trait it is in addition to it.
Facet of Elements and Darkness are fine as they are.*
No! Then we’re back to square one with the old bunker meta. At least Mesmers can die now.
Your logic that if some profession is overpowered, we shouldn’t do anything positive to them is wrong. I suggested significant nerfs to scrapper and hammer, because I know that just a few small shaves to hammer will continue the status quo and every other engineer and their mom will be using the hammer. When was the last time you saw pistol/shield engi? Core engineer is not overpowered, scrapper is!
There is a general consensus among the engineer player community that medkit needs rework. It was voted as the least power/most sucky kit.
Giving engineer 1200 underwater weapon isn’t gonna do a dent to spvp balance, since underwater was removed, but I think all professions deserve 1200 range weapon underwater and engi doesn’t have one.
I agree that conditions need to be balanced better. The situation is even worse outside spvp, because gear + condition duration foods allows much higher condition power + condition duration. Burning feels too powerful with zero investment in condition power and bleed has felt weak since the trait/condition rework patch.
I do not however like passive super powerful traits like diamond skin was. I wish the traits would require more from the player.
Facet of Elements and Darkness are arguably better than the equivalent warrior shouts. Instead of adding even more power creep I would rather see most other professions pulled down to the level of warrior.
I think bunker mesmer took a serious dent in survivability with the alacrity nerf. If further nerfs are needed, then the reapplication of phantasms/clones + healing from shattering from them + mesmer’s ability to teleport and evade attacks should be looked upon.
In the general the amount of evades, blocks + CC went sky high with HoT. Evade there, daze, stun there, huge condition stacks, sighs, too often the game feels like a spam fest…
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Lol thief is not straight up UP, but you’re not going to find many people that agree that they nerfing. You’re talking about a MELEE AUTOATTACK. Seems that people have forgotten the embarrassing useless state that Thief was in during S1. Even now, Invocation Revenant is the +1 that old Acro Thieves wished they could be.
Have you read my long list of balance suggestions? I was suggesting nerfs to all professions and thieves were the ONLY profession with just one suggested nerf. I was suggesting more nerfs to engineer, which happens to be the profession I have played the most. With most elite specs toned down I think thieves should be in a better spot, but it is not a healthy meta if thieves can eat alive all other berserker/marauder professions.
At least thieves have a role. They excel at +1 and being mobile far/close capper. But warriors are in a sad state now. There is pretty much nothing other professions couldn’t do better. Surely some very skilled warrior player can reach diamond/legendary, but with equal skill level that would be easier using other professions. Gunflame berserker hits hard and gs/hammer is another popular build, but both too much of a one trick pony and I feel that long range sniper doesn’t even fit the profession’s original description at all.
Condition warrior is probably currently the strongest warrior spec for high level play now, but why go warrior, when you can play mercenary reaper or chronophantasma mesmer? Warrior has access to tons of CC, good burst and DPS. Warrior’s main problem is lack of sustain. All the nerfs to “tone down” shoutbow, basically gutted the entire profession + at same time some other professions enjoyed massive power creep and we got Herald revenant, which is so much better than warrior in most cases, I don’t even wanna begin…
(here are couple of decent condition warrior builds. I didn’t notice either of them in metabattle.com
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRApe8fnMdAtkiVhAmdAEliFiA7N52cnuIngXwKwIA8B7ZA-TJhIABcs/wQlBg9FAAwRBAA
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRAsc5enMdAVhgdhAmkCElilqA7d02antK9gYXOApA0ACAA-TphAABA8AA24EAwz+DGcEA44gAofZAA )
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Okay, lets say that is true. How are you going to fix afkers trying to lower their MMR?
I have suggested solutions to this in other threads and also suggested class balance issues in multiple threads:
We need to have either of the following match making system for ranked:
A) purely based on pip range and random selection between the range (in the long run everybody would get roughly same amount of “good” and “bad” team mates and opponents from the same pip range)
B) purely MMR based system, which aims for 50/50 and tries to get equal MMR on both sides. For this to work we need separate MMR for unranked and ranked (I believe we already have this), thus tanking in unranked doesn’t help to get easier matches in ranked. We also need a report function, which actually works. If players intentionally AFK or throw in matches, they get banned.
It doesn’t matter which algorithm we select, we also need to change how pips are gained. Current system is bad because it treats 0-500 and 499-500 loss the same way. Too many players stop playing when their team is behind by 100-200 points, even though come back is still possible. We should use the system from Season 1, when you could actually even gain 1 PIP when you lost a much higher MMR opponent by a small margin. And you would gain 2 PIPs if you won by a large margin and lost 2 PIPs if you won by a large margin- The win and loss streak system was really not needed.
When it comes to class balance, here is my short list:
Warrior
Needs more sustain e.g. revert warhorn nerfs or make it remove 2 conditions with quick breathing, reduce cooldown of “To the Limit!” to 25% and reduce it’s heal by 20% and make it have only 1/2 s cast time to have a viable burst heal, which doesn’t get interrupted all the time. Inspiring Presence is too weak GM trait, make it also give 20 % boon duration. Gunflame and forceful greatsword need to be toned down.
Engineer
Hammer has too much goodies + dmg at same time, increase cooldowns of skills #2-5 by 20%, remove triple leap finisher from #3 (much less sustain with water fields), reduce overall damage by 20 %. Even with these changes most would choose hammer over rifle or pistol/x. Engi shield needs to have it’s cooldowns reduced by 20 %. Increase harpoon gun and grenade kit range to 1200 (engi is currently the only profession which lacks 1200 range underwater!).
Stealth gyro needs to have 1 s cast time. Reduce effectiveness of rapid regeneration and adaptive armor to tone down engineer sustain without gutting the core engineer. Engineer medkit needs a rework, make medkit #1 affect also engineer and 600 range 360 degree AoE heal, and reduce cast time of medkit #2-5 to 1/4 s with much improved projectile speed or make them 360 range AoE effects affecting engi + up to 2 allies.
Ranger
Reduce heal from celestial avatar skills by 25% as they heal too much even if ranger has 0 healing power. Signet of stone take no damage reduced to 4 s. Reduce damage from HoT pets by 20%. Increase ancient seeds ICD to 15 s. Give pets a spirit mode when they deal no dmg and cannot use any of their skills, but are also immune to damage. It would be highly useful for WvWvW zerging + pve situations where AoE dmg is abundant.
Guardian
Make traps visible. Reduce trap damage by 20%. Numerous DH stacking tons of traps creates really unfun meta for wvwvwv. Spear of Justice, Wings of Resolve and Shield of Courage need all to be toned down.
Elementalist
Elemental Shielding should only grant protection to yourself. Burning fire needs 10 s ICD. Diamond skin should be changed: take 20 % less damage from conditions. Reduce invigorating torrents regeneration to 3 s.
Necromancer
Scepter #1 shouldn’t corrupt boons. Make scepter #3, feast of corruption corrupt 1 boon. Plague sending trait needs 30 s ICD. Signets of suffering should be toned down e.g. remove only 1 boon. Reduce deathly chill damage by 20%.
Mesmer
Signet of humility effect reduced to 8 s (still very powerful as it can be cast even when fleeing and cast twice using with continuum split. Chronophantasma 10 s ICD. Confounding Suggestions 10 s ICD. Well of calamity and well of action deserve 20% dmg buff (to give mesmers more AoE dmg, needed in wvwvw and pve).
Revenant
Facet of Light needs to be toned down. Cruel Repercussion should only 25% more damage (it gives guaranteed +50% in WvWvW). Increase face of darkness/elements/strength 20 s CD. Phase Traversal increase CD to 20 s and reduce unblockable time to 3 s. Enduring Recovery give 5 s of vigor instead, as it is too powerful for adept minor. I am not expert in revenant so I cannot comment more. Ventari felt weak to me.
Thief
Reduce dagger auto attack by 15%, basically partially reverting the changes. Thief is really difficult to balance, because it has so many escapes and so much mobility, making it the best +1. If you give thief more burst or survability it will make other berserker/marauder professions irrelevant.
And bring back the removed amulets! We need more versatility, not less.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
The match making system is clearly inferior to Season 1. Mixing MMR + division pip range was an epic mistake and I am still waiting for an apology from Arenanet. The current system leads to countless of pointless matches of either huge losses (and no chances of winning) and huge wins (and no chances of losing) as the “better” players are placed in team A and “worse” players in team B.
One guy did a math simulation to prove the MMR hell is true. See:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/The-nature-of-MMR-hell/
It is also obvious that the removal of amulets of was just a lazy band aid “fix”, which didn’t fix the core issue of the power creep since trait rework and most importantly the overpowered elite specs. Now we have more burst and less bunkers, but amount of builds seen is not significantly better or worse.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Excellent analysis, at least those of us, who have background in computer science and mathematics can appreciate it.
I am now waiting for Arenanet comments. Evan?
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Cloaking waters should have never made it to the game. Just remove it entirely!
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I am sorry, but I have to disagree here. Getting 7 wins using 3 different professions is easy. In fact I recommend any spvp player to master at least 3 professions, so you can change your profession if the team composition requires so. This is essential for a pure solo queue player like me.
I did the profession win achievements as shoutbow warrior (yup!), scrapper (engineer), reaper (necromancer), druid (ranger) and chronomancer (mesmer). I absolutely suck as mesmer, still it wasn’t really that hard to do execute dual moas (continuum split + signet of humility) and spam shatters and conditions. If you are playing that kind of build (similar to chronophantasma shatter), you have probably been used to playing a relatively simple faceroll build. Let’s face it: most meta builds and elite spec builds, which are similar to meta builds, are easy to play, even if you have almost no experience before.
E.g. try difference of meta scrapper using hammer, healing turret, slick shoes, elixir gun, stealth gyro aka standard power scrapper meta vs core engineer using rifle + medkit + 2-3 other kits. Latter has much more skills, more complex rotations, more difficult to play, yet far less effective than the meta build. With similar skill level the meta build will win hands down. Even with 2600+ h experience in the latter, even I had to tweak my build more towards the meta, because the meta is just so much better than. This should tell a clear message to Arenanet, some skills/traits are underpowered and some like scrapper hammer are way overpowered.
Just go to metabattle.com and select something you find might fit your play style, modify the build little bit if you feel like it and get the 7 wins using that. And practise the build a bit vs all the NPCs + in pve and unranked spvp and WvWvW before going ranked. But good ability to rotate + team composition > build in most cases.
You can even get into Legendary as berserker (warrior), as another thread illustrated. I do NOT play as condition warrior, like he did. Nor with GS or rifle, like most warriors seem to play, but nevertheless getting 7 warrior wins using zero condition power or so the above mentioned so called overpowered weapons was easy.
PS. I am pretty sure I have below average MMR and I am barely in Sapphire now. I have had long loss streaks at start, but then finally started to recover. I often get teamed up with bad players and I have lost most of my matches in Season 2, even though in Season 1 I had 55%+ win rate. So I know the “MMR hell”. Actually I think the term is misleading, I think the core issue is getting team up with similar MMR and matched vs players of similar division pip range, meaning that if your MMR is low, you will most likely get bad team mates, while enemy team has average MMR of that division, which might be higher. But if you manage to loss only little vs higher MMR team, your MMR should not change much at all , maybe even increase, so try all your games the best you can. Remember MMR doesn’t change immediately, unless you have a new account (then MMR is very volatile). If you have had hundreds or thousands of games before, few losses or wins don’t matter much in your MMR. But 20+ losses will already hurt your MMR. So do NOT go practice your build in ranked, do that in unranked, like I adviced above. To my knowledge unranked and ranked MMR are separated.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
That’s kinda what happens when matchmaking is pooling players of similar MMR per team but, not matching teams by MMR, only Pip ranges.This leads to a high degree of variance in teams.
This ^^
I really hope Arenanet would change this immediately, in the middle of the season. Numerous players have reported utter blowout games becoming a norm and most competitive minded players do not enjoy that.
I hope they would bring back Season 1 match making. It was NOT perfect, but even that is better than what we have now. And they must have the source code for that, thus we wouldn’t need to wait until they develop a new algorithm + test the code.
Either way the combination of MMR vs pip range simply doesn’t work. We must either have pure MMR based match making (aiming for even 50/50 matches) or do a random match within a pip range regardless of MMR. Using only pip range for the matching you would eventually end up in a division and tier, which has about your skill level of players and everybody in the long run would get roughly equal amount of both good and bad team mates, unless very unlucky or lucky. The only problem which would remain that on certain divisions you cannot drop down, so if you are positioned higher than your skill level you would still end up being stomped in most games using the algorithm I suggest.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
The old pip system used in Season 1 was far better as I have commented in multiple threads.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Makes a lot of sense. Arenanet also made a big mistake by changing the pip gain/loss system from Season 1. I think the final score should always matter. In other words if you manage to get a pretty close lose 400-500 against a higher MMR team, you should not a lose a pip or might even gain a pip, while that high MMR team loses a pip.
The current system is bad because 1-500 or 499-500 losses are both treated equally when it comes to pip gain/loss. Too many players stop playing after their team is losing by a large margin. Thus even more games become blow outs. The abundance of blow out games drives off a large percentage of competitive gamers.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
This is a good idea if the pip losses/gains would be tied to MMR, just like we had in Season 1. In other words: if you lose only little vs much higher MMR opposing team, you might still gain a pip, while the high MMR team lost a point. Or if you beat a higher MMR opponent, you can gain 2 pips.
The final point score should always matter. The current system is really bad because both 1-500 to 499-500 count as 1 pip loss. Too many players stop playing when the point gap gets large, thus we have a lot more blow out matches and most competitive players hate them.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Yes you can.
http://youtu.be/yiJ9fy1qSFI
But kitten is still a turd! Even if it looks pretty.
I really cannot see that any reasonable amount of work could fix the numerous problems Desert borderland has. They would need to basically start from scratch and use just some 3D model parts of the map.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
The reason they did it is so that "better"players climb up divisions faster. In theory it is great idea, in reality not so much if you take human factor in account. People don’t like to lose, also probably nobody is willing to get farmed for weeks so divisions balance out. That is why i suggested to add placement matches at begin of the season so “better” players get placed in higher divisions right away.
If the match making really works like this, then it is beyond stupidity. The vast majority of gamers around the world want to have a sense of fairness. Sports and game spectators around the world want to have a sense of fairness. Gamers hate the idea that big part of the their games are decided by in advance by giving the other side unfair advantage.
Now imagine a sports analogue:
Let’s put Serena Williams and Roger Federer in 1 team and match them against Mr and Mr Average who play tennis every 2nd Sunday. Of course the 1st would win, but what fun would the win be for them? And the audience would feel cheated and might turn their pity towards the losers.
A LOT of damage is already done. Arenanet can still fix part of this by:
A) introducing purely MMR 50/50 based match making it more like Season 1 (the code is there and I am sure most of the great players are already in legendary so this won’t hurt them)
or
B) scrap MMR and match only purely based on division pip range, meaning that you have in the long run even chance of getting both good and bad players from the division range.
This should be done immediately as the longer this continues, the less players will be left.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
So simply put you got farmed by players you shouldn’t be facing anyway.
Unranked matchmaking is different. It is still based on MMR so you will face enemies around your MMR there.
What is the point of putting all the high MMR players in one team and match them with low MMR aka bad players? This would skew the MMR ratings, unfairly inflating the MMR ratings of the winning side and unfairly lowering the MMR rating of the losing side. Meaning that a long loss or win streak at the beginning of season 2 could have a very long lasting effect. In other words some players get carried far with the inflated MMR which gives them better team mates and those who are very unlucky at start, have almost no way to recover, unless they suddenly develop ESL level of skills (not going to happen) or make a full premade.
I really cannot understand why Arenanet lets this blow out super high burst meta and awful match making continue. I like even games, not total blows, even when I am on the winning side. Maybe it is just me but I think there should be challenge, tight games and come backs, but not too many utter blowouts.
Sighs, still waiting Arenanet to fix WvWvW. Remove all that HoT and pve junk (SMC air strike, banners, shrines) and bring back the original maps without any of the new gimmicks. I am really sad the of state of this game. I would actually pay money to get the original pre-June 2015 game back (and be happy without any of the new stuff, even though gliding is cool). I also think spvp was better without all that power creep. Let’s call it GW2 Classic.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
I do not consider myself a good spvp player. I am just r54 and I know that a vast majority of the good players go their r80 already long time ago. Of course being r80 is not a sign of being good, just more experience than most lower rank players.
But let me share this:
I always solo queue and I play many professions. I am stuck in emerald t5. I have had only 1 win in past 10 ranked games. In Season 1 my win rate in ranked was 56 % and I also had above 50 % win rate in unranked outside the seasons.
My last ranked game was a 96-500 loss. Surely I didn’t play my best, because I died 2 times, still this is far less than my team mates did. I scored 60, which is a low score, but yet the highest personal score of my team. Do you think I am the #1 cause of loss for my team? Most of my losses are complete blow outs, so how can I alone draw my team so low? How do I get the feeling most of my opposing team have players which coordinate much better.
My son has sometimes been sitting next to me and watching me play. He is also surprised to me see me lost most of games, even when I do not die several matches in a row, score a lot of TOP awards, capture and defend points. Yet the final score is a big loss.
I tried unranked for a change (I haven’t played much any unranked during seasons). It was a completely different experience. I played scrapper engi and same build as I use in ranked. Winning in unranked was so easy. Enemy had no focus fire and I could fairly easy stay alive even vs two high DPS opponents like reapers (my engi build has more condi removal than most engi builds).
PS. I am afraid my current computer is not powerful enough to record video + play fluid at same time. If I will get a new computer in summer + a real vacation, I will probably try streaming, so you can see me playing, but I am mostly a WvWvW player.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
In theory the system should have settled in the first week . I really do not think there is a huge wave of skilled pvper joining season late to explain the large amount of blowouts this late into the season. The honest answer has to be that mmr is not a good enough reflection of skill.
Anybody who has studied statistics and understands mathematics and algorithms, understands personal MMR can be a highly inaccurate measurement of skill for multiple reasons:
A) your MMR doesn’t take account of your personal contribution into final score, but it is purely based on the success of your team. Team has 5 players, one player is just 20 % (40 % at best ;-) )
B) There is no solo queue and partial or full premades have a huge advantage assuming equal skill level, due being able to use TeamSpeak
C) The player base is very small, especially outside prime time
Thus you might end up matched with the same players again and again. If you are lucky you get good players to your team and you ride the wave of success to next divisions fast. Then your MMR might be indicating an overly positive result of your personal skill.
On the other hand, if you are unlucky, you get matched with the same inexperienced/bad players again and again (they are in your team), thus having almost no chances to win, despite your contribution. Of course I haven’t have access to large enough data, but I get the hunch that the downward MMR spiral is really happening for many players and not just imaginary.
The current match making algorithm is a very sure way to drive off a large percentage of the spvp population due completely unfair games (aka stuck in low MMR hole) and cause long loss and win streaks, no matter how well or bad you play.
The old system wasn’t perfect, but it was better.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
To summarize the issues people have brought up:
An accurate ladder rewards skill at the cost of queue time.
Reducing queue time would require frustrating players with imbalanced matches (either by skill, or just visual ladder badge).
Making the ladder more about grind gets more players to legendary, but there is no prestige.
Thank you for your reply, Evan. It is nice to know that Arenanet is reading these threads.
Despite I am personally not liking excessive grind, I am for increasing the grind if it leads to higher player base. Season 1 match making would be better than the current one. Neither is perfect of course. Just keep MMR of unranked or ranked separate, so that players could not intentionally lose in unranked to tank their MMR. And please let high MMR and legendary division player start from Ruby or Amber next season. There is no reason to play such players into division 1 at start.
There should always be incentive to get as high score as possible. The current system treats 0-500 and 499-500 loss the same way for your pip loss and this is BAD.
Small player base creates a lot of problems with ANY match making algorithm: either huge amount of blow out games or very long queue times. With very small player base MMR often becomes also very inaccurate. You need a reasonably large enough sample base and lots of played games to get accurate MMR.
This game mode really needs a higher player base, so Arenanet should do all in their power to make it more attractive for a large player base. I am well aware that in the lower tiers this would mean of a lot of inexperienced players and pve players. It is still better than spending big part of precious time waiting in queue.
Thank you!
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
@Deniara Devious.3948 At the end of the day. You would end up getting the system you are wishing for. Once the high skilled players get to higher divisions. All that will be left for you, are equal and lesser opponents to face.
This will work extremely well if players could lose divisions / tier in all divisions and make higher MMR players start in a higher division.
I am sorry, but any experienced game designer worth his salt will tell you what you propose and what Arenanet is now trying will NOT work. The only thing I agree with you is that higher MMR players or those who placed legendary division in previous season should start from higher division.
But you cannot tell to the player base: oh gee, just “enjoy” those utterly unfair and lopsided games for 1 month. Have another 50-100 of those blowout games more, but then it will get better. Or maybe not (no evidence that games got any better).
Players play for fun and rewards. Players like a system, which gives them a sense of fairness. Take out both the fairness and fun and a lot of players leave. Some never come back.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
@Deniara Devious.3948 You will be doing Season 1 mistake again and making it into a grind. The entire point of Season 2 was to stop everyone from getting to legendary. I am sorry to sound like a jerk but this is the reality; not everyone is suppose to be able to reach diamond / legendary.
I honestly believe Anet should make Emerald -> Legendary be able to lose tiers / division. This will stop the MMR hell in early ruby where players get bad teammates.
I am sorry but I disagree with you. I much rather have a grind if that means a larger spvp population and lower queue times. Than the current system, which will lead to tiny spvp population and impossibly long queue times.
You are advocating an elitistic system, which leads to diminishing player base. The current system is obviously an epic fail. The amount of completely blow out games is way out of control. What is the pleasure of winning 500-10 or losing 5+ times with 200 points or more?
I enjoy fair even games. I don’t mind losing 490-500 as I know it could have easily been the opposite 500-490 win. Maybe the loss was because of my own mistake or inferior build? Maybe something I could have done to make it a win? But if my loss is 80-500, then I know the game was just rigged and if I win with similar margin, I know the enemy had zero chances. I also don’t mind such huge losses or wins happen once in a blue moon, but if they become a norm, then…
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
The problem ANet has here is two-fold:
1. You can’t make people wait unreasonably long queue times for a match. People will get bored and quit.
2. You can’t put people into matches against foes who statistically will just stomp them into the dirt. People will get frustrated and ragequit.
Exactly!
300 or more point losses are rarely ever caused by a single player. If the end result is something like 80-500, it just tells the match making system is utterly unfair or broken and I have had more than my fair share of such games or even bigger losses and also a freaking 500-6 win. There is absolutely nothing competitive about winning 500-6, even though I was on the winning side (none of us died, enemy had absolutely zero chances). How many people would want to regularly spectate basketball games which end like 100-1 or 1-100? This is one main reason why GW2 spvp streams got so few views.
A lot of players quit because of constantly getting lopsided matches and diminished player base is a loss for everyone, especially Arenanet.
I also think part of the huge blowouts and wins are not caused by the match making algorithm, but these unwise changes:
A) removal of “tanky” amulets and “who bursts first to win” meta
B) you always lose a pip, no matter if the final score is 499-500 or 0-500, so many players stop playing when enemy has 150-200 point lead, even though come back could still be possible
C) losing a pip vs completely superior team is extremely aggravating, no matter how well you play, it doesn’t seem to matter what you do AFK or try hard, as you cannot carry a team alone. Frustration leads to less gaming and psychological thing to lose even more
There are ways to fix this problem, but it must all be done fast, not make players wait yet another week:
A) bring back the removed amulets as the current burst meta is just a recipe for snowballing, even though some players enjoy it. I haven’t seen that amulet removal lead to a more healthy or varied meta, instead we just got much more burst and tons of necros.
B) more fair match making (either based on MMR or division pip range alone, but not both)
C) rewarding pips based on the MMR difference e.g. if you manage to lose only little bit vs much higher MMR team, you do not lose a pip, you might even gain a pip and similarly if a high MMR team wins your low MMR team with low margin, they might lose a pip or gain none
What makes things worse: Arenanet doesn’t comment these threads and they don’t even seem to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it. I predict Season 3 will be a ghost town.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Well. This should be obvious. If a large percentage of players is experiencing very long loss streaks, they simply put this game mode or the entire game on hold. Diminishing player base means that less and less players play it. It also means longer queue times for the large percentage of players.
Maybe Arenanet didn’t see it coming, but any experienced game developer could have warned them that unfair match making is a very fast recipe to lose a lot of players for good. The completely unfair matches are not fun for the competitive audience. Fair, even games are still fun, but they have become way too rare.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
The combination of both PIP range + MMR does NOT seem to work. Blow out matches are way too common e.g. my last two games are a 46 – 502 loss and 500-105 win. Such matches should be extremely rare, but they are not. This is partially not just a match making problem, but the removal of amulets and the “burst 1st to win” meta with excessive damage and CC leads to snowballing. Thus both must be addressed to normalize this situation.
Some players, who haven’t played much spvp have extremely long win streaks and some decent players are stuck to loss streaks. It seems the beginning of the league did have a major long-term effect for many players. I had 56-57 % win rate in ranked during season 1, despite often playing as warrior. Now my win rate is 20 % or so. I haven’t gotten a single 3 win streak, but long loss streaks are common. I am not a great or very experienced player, but I usually get 3-5 top stat awarded per match, so I am probably not the weakest link of my team, at least not in every game. I always solo queue and I feel that the current system is especially bad for many solo queuers.
Arenanet must do some action as soon as possible, because the current situation leads to significantly diminished player base (I know already several who quit completely), thus lose-lose for everyone.
Suggested actions:
1) Reinstate the old pip gain/loss system. Now many players simply stop playing when their team is behind by 100 points or more. Previously you did not loss a pip even if you lost a match if your enemy team had higher MMR than yours. I remember even winning a pip from a close loss. The old system encouraged players to try their best to the very end, now too many players just throw in the towel, because 10-500 and 499-500 count the same (=loss).
2a) Random match making entirely based on division, giving slightly higher rating for partial premades and higher rating for full premades. No MMR involved in ranked
or
2b) Match making based on MMR, just like previous season. Aiming for 50% win/loss rate.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
The suggested EU reset time, Fri 18:00 UTC, seems very good. Friday would be much better than Saturday.
Oh those big fights and loots bags!
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I don’t understand why so many players repeat the mantra “get better”. If there is loss of 200 points or more, then it is not because of just one player making a mistake or two. Especially when it happens repeatedly in a very long streak.
There is more and more evidence the current match making is broken. If you had a high MMR before Season 2 and got winning streaks, the game will more likely give you good team players. But if your MMR was low and you were unlucky enough to have a long loss streak at the start of Season 1, you are pretty much stuck in a downwards spiral unless you team up with others. Solo queuers who end up in this situation are screwed until the match making algorithm is changed or MMR is reset. Now I wish Arenanet would offer players a chance to reset their MMR. I know several would even pay gems to do that!
There is simply a limit how much a single player can carry. If you see your team mates constantly dying like flies, you can still lose despite not dying yourself, holding and capturing points. You cannot stop your team mates fighting off point and doing other unwise things. And when this happens again and again, your team mates generally just get worse and worse and wins become even more impossible. Forcing players to team up will also lead to diminished player base, so I see that Arenanet has only things to lose here.
Blow out matches are way too common. (in my experience only 20 % of the matches are even e.g. 400-500 or so and the vast majority like 70% are blow outs). Blowout matches are not fun any competitively minded player: what is the fun of winning 500-100 or losing 100-500? And when the fun is gone, the players leave.
I really hope Arenanet addresses this problem very soon. They need to do something in the middle of this season, because already several players quit and more will continue quit.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Original poster has actually composed a very good list. I hope these will be adjusted in the next balance patch.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I know that it’s not normally done but because of the following reasons S2 matchmaking needs an emergency patch asap, even in mid season. Else, half the players may just quit in disgust due to futility.
And solo queue has become utterly futile for some of us at this point.
If you get on a losing streak it’s like a black hole that sucks you in deeper and deeper. I’m finally reached the point where all I draw is slaughter after slaughter after slaughter.
^^ this ^^
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
NO
Match making is so horrible that it takes all the fun out of the game. Almost every single match is totally lopsided. Either you win with large lead or lose with large point difference. You can almost certain predict the match result after 30 seconds in the game. Imagine if professional sports like soccer (football for us Europeans) would be like this: almost every game game being 10-1 or 1-10, the 1st team which scores wins by a huge margin. Almost nobody would want to spectate it and thus current sad state of spvp is one of the key reasons why GW2 streams have extremely few viewers in Twitch (who wanna watch such mockery of esports?).
I gave up ranked after having 20% win rate in season 2. In season 1 I had roughly 56% win rate. I always solo queue.
Now I tried 3 games of unranked. First game put me against 4+1 premade. A big loss. The next game I had felt some of my team mates were useless. The third game we had just 4 players vs enemy of 5. Several of my enemies were the same players the game had previously teamed me up with. Despite having just 4 players on our side vs 5 enemies, we won 500-328. I had finally chance to fight against some of my earlier team mates, winning them was so easy I could have basically had a cat roll over the keyboard and mouse. What is the point of such games!?!?
Where are the evenly matched games? Where is competitive gaming?
Another big problem of this game is the utterly broken meta. The removal of some amulets did NOT lead to a healthier or more varied meta. The big damage was done at June 2015 trait rework and the release of HoT pushed things even worse. The power creep is crazy. The developers have been unable to tone this down. Elites > core, making this game pay to win. Removal of amulets was a very lazy band aid fix, which actually did not fix anything. Instead of bunker meta we now have “burst first to win” meta, which leads to snowballing. Some professions, like tempest and scrapper are still able to bunker a lot. The amount of CC and damage is sky high. Does anybody expect that a large number of people in the Internet are going to spectate this!?!
While some players are having “fun” because they can win easy (due lopsided match making), all these problems will lead to a seriously diminished player base. I wouldn’t be surprised if 1/3 of the player base is gone for good before this season is over.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
1) Have a better match making algorithm
(current algorithm is so bad that even a purely random match making within same division would lead to better results. Almost all games are blowouts, either huge loss or win, very long win/loss streaks are too common. Those who are on the winning side most of the time stay, those who lose and lose all the time, probably quit and thus we have a diminishing player base)
2) Reintroduce solo queue
(essential to make solo queuers happy and have a growing player base)
3) Better class balance and tone down the elite specializations
(currently elite > core. Warriors feel lacking sustain, removal of amulets didn’t lead to a more healthy and varied meta, instead it lead to “who bursts 1st wins” meta, which leads to snowballing, so bring back the amulets)
4) Allow players to do something useful while in queue
(e.g. crafting, use mystic forge, do a jumping puzzle, duel inside cages)
5) Remove Skyhammer and Spirit Watch from unranked
(these maps are totally unbalanced)
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Where did you find this information? I did not see this in the patch notes?
But I am happy if the Oasis event is gone. It created so massive lag sometimes that it made the entire map unplayable (it did not matter if you were far from the event).
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I was never rooting for new maps. I was asking for:
- better skill/profession balance (HoT specializations + rev hammer made things just worse)
- solution for population imbalance (never addressed)
- fix the bugs & lag (new BLs gave us loads more)
- better rewards e.g. copy reward tracks from spvp (never address)
- less pve (new BLs gave us more)
I am surely NOT the only one.
If you think about popular competitive games like Counter Strike. It has been around already soon 17 years. Many of the maps have remained more or less the same for much longer than GW2 has existed. Yet CS players love to play these maps. I could just barely imagine the rage if the original Counter Strike maps would have been removed and replaced with a massively overdesigned map full of gimmicks and places where you can fall to your death and it takes forever to find enemies to fight with. The player base would have sunk and this is exactly what happened with GW2 WvWvW.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
Shuai Liu is not a mystery person. You can find his CV and the CVs of most other Arenanet employees from LinkedIn.
Here is the direct link:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/liushuai
Disclaimer: You might not be able to view the full profile if you only have the free LinkedIn account or your connections are too far from.
Shuai Lin is a server programmer, working for Arenanet LCC since Oct 2014 (1 year 6 months). Previously he has been working as senior programmer for Sucker Punch productions, Junction Point Productions, Vigil Games and NCSoft , Kaneva.
He holds a Master of Science degree in computer science and Bachelor of Science degree in microbiology.
He appears to be a programmer with very solid background in the industry + good education. He however does not have background as a game designer.
PS. Fun fact: several of the Arenanet server side programmers are female. I find this is cool as server side programmers (across the industry) tend to be male!
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I agree warrior lacks a specific role.
Warrior does NOT need more offense. I feel most warrior’s weapons are also balanced, except for warhorn, which weak after all those nerfs. The problem is that many other professions have unbalanced weapons e.g. engineer’s hammer.
Warrior lacks sustain. Even if you take a very defensive amulet + all the possible defensive traits + utilities, the warrior sustain is still supbar compared to similarly specced druid, revenant, scrapper, elementalist or reaper. “To the Limit!” would be a great burst heal, but it is prone to interrupts (1 s cast) and has too long cooldown. I would slightly reduce it’s heal amount to bring the cooldown lower. Berserker trait line still lacks sustain and offers mainly more burst capability, but really doesn’t make significant enough dent in bringing warrior sustain to the level of several other elite specs.
I would actually tone down gunflame damage + remove 10 % dmg buff from forceful greatsword trait after buffing warrior’s sustain. Warrior should be “da man” = able stay long time in focus and on target, instead of being a “hit and run” profession or long range sniper.
Some warrior skills, like stomp, have never seen any significant use any game mode, so those skills needs buffing or rework.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
The June 23 trait rework patch + HoT expansion completely wrecked the balance and lead to massive power creep.
I would pay to be able to play a pre-June 2015 version of the game again. I would pay more for a 2014 version.
I would do the same, just for the sake of WvWvW. The introduction of the Desert borderlands + all those gimmicks (banners, air strike etc) is just plain horrible and makes it much less fun to play. Each week they don’t give us the Alpine borderland back bleeds more players. The WvWvW population dropped significantly after HoT launch and never recovered. Luckily I play on one of top EU servers, so our server is still getting transfers from other servers. I can imagine what a ghost town the game is on lower tiers.
But it is not all doom and gloom. I find the old Tyria maps are more fun to play with the introduction of gliding. The HoT specs make soloing the content such a breeze = easy mode. Now if they would just give better rewards from map completion + dungeons. I never cared for the HoT maps, just not my style. In fact I haven’t done a full map completion on any HoT map and I did the HoT story just once, but I have done the original personal story + 100% Tyria map completion multiple times.
But no matter what is the game mode, Arenanet really needs to have better communication. They should daily reply and comment these threads and tell us what is the direction they are going to take this game. I also don’t understand why we don’t have proper open test servers. The only way to really test balance is to test play it a lot. I am sure many would volunteer to try out new shinies or cool changes.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Excellent post. I hope the developers read this and respond to it promptly.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
When after 1year+ of community driven competitive scene in WvW (regardless of 0 support from Anet) a developer interrupts a GvG by saying “Stop violating my game mode”.
Touché!
Sadly Arenanet has been clueless about WvWvW. It seems the developers think that adding a lot of gimmicks and pve is what most WvWvW players want. I am now talking about stuff like dragon banners, airship strike, jumping pads, automatic turrets which shoot fire or air blasts, which can knock you off and pve shrines to capture, more difficult and different NPCs for every new borderland keep and tower. I am sure the developers spent (= wasted) a lot of time developing these, even though the vast majority hates them.
For years WvWvW players have been asking for better balance in both meta and population. And less lag and fixing the glitches and bugs. Yet these main problems continue to plague WvWvW. We still got game breaking lag, druids and guardians can fly into air keep at borderlands and the boring pirate ship meta continues.
I see similar patterns in spvp as well:
Majority of players hate Skyhammer map, yet the developers have been forcing us to play that map in unranked. Outside seasons, you are forced to play unranked, so the reply “why don’t you just play ranked” doesn’t fix the issue. And we still cannot do anything productive while waiting many minutes in queue (I am sure all spvp players would be happy if there would be more options to do while stuck in queue).
The June 23 trait rework patch + HoT expansion completely wrecked the balance and lead to massive power creep. Removal of amulets did not lead to richer meta, instead we got lots of valid builds deleted. The current meta can be described as follows: “burst first to win”. Almost every match is either a huge loss or huge win as the utterly broken meta + match making together lead to snow balling. Basically the team which wins the 1st mid fight usually wins the entire match. Even matches and comebacks are way too rare. It is like watching soccer (= football for us Europeans) where most of the games are 10-1 or 1-10 and the one who makes the first goal wins. Real soccer is of course tons better and by far the most popular sports in the world. The world championship of football gather several billion viewers to TV screen. The final game is the most watched TV event on this planet. GW2 on the other hand gathers very few streamers and very few people watch those streams.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
I finally got my warrior win after 3 losses. I actually did NOT deserve the win. I feel that my team mates played better than me and carried the game. In some other games I have opposite feeling (feeling that my team mates are very low experience and I have to carry them). Enemy had very efficient meta builds, yet they lost despite my contribution was small. I managed to troll 2-3 enemies alone often though (I made as bunker warrior as you can possibly make warrior now).
But I agree warrior is the weakest profession now. And I play a lot of other professions.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
i get paired with ppl that attack necro’s minions instead of the players, so this is super fun ty ANET
I saw today my team mate attacking svavnir and instantly getting downed by that NPC. Winning with team mates like that is difficult.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
I got rank 12 by doing pvp in RA – solo que – totally random – the hard way. NO ts.
lol you meant rank 12 gladiator?
I thought you meant rank 12 HA/Tombs for a sec.
lol RA is not even real pvp
Actually to get rank 12 in Random Arenas (RA) in GW1 required much more games (probably like 50000 matches), time and investment. RA with purely random teams when enemy teams were often premade (using syncing to get a premade team into random). I was only rank 9 in RA, always solo queue as well.
But back to topic:
The match making does seem to be broken and the meta as well. Current “burst first to win” meta leads easily to snowballing in matches and come backs are extremely rare. For example I have had 56-500 loss at worst. My last game was 502-6 win (zero deaths in our team). I was druid in both matches and tried my best in both. I think there is something fundamentally wrong about the match making and meta because utter blow outs like this seem to be very common.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
PPK is overall a bad thing.
The PPK has very little effect in the final score, yet it has significantly increased gangking, exchanging kills and other toxic behavior, also making the game mode less newbie friendly (if you never played WvWvW and wasn’t smart enough to stick that blue dorito, you will be ganked over and again, probably never coming back).
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Do you think warrior warhorn is good? Have you seen any warrior’s lately run e.g. axe/warhorn or perhaps mace/warhorn?
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
What we got is not a balance fix. More like very minor polishes.
Balance was thrown out of the window in the June 2015 trait system rework and the introduction of Heart of Thorns made things just worse. The power creep is just crazy. The removal of amulets was a very lazy attempt trying to balance things. We didn’t more varied builds, instead we just got even more professions and builds side lined to oblivion. And like usual the communication in these forums is close to zero, when it comes to actual spvp or WvWvW balance. The only replies we get here have pretty much nothing to do with balance. We don’t even know the direction this game is going towards.
I would understand if this a completely free to play, but I am sure many of us invested quite a lot of money on this.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
(edited by Deniara Devious.3948)
And, actually you got a point on the elite specs. I never really noticed it before, but they are all focussed around covering aspects, where the class should be weak by concept. The question remains: why?
Except for warrior’s elite spec berserker. Warrior’s biggest weakness right now is lack of sustain and berserker really doesn’t help much with it. I am very well aware of “Savage Instinct” and “Dead or Alive” and “Eternal Champion” traits and use them on my warrior build, but still the sustain is subpar compared revenants, druids, auramancers, reapers, scrappers etc. The problem is that the core warrior spec sustain is too low for the current meta.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]
Try WvWvW instead of EotM. It is more challenge. Most of the above advice is good. Use birthday booster (= double WXP gain!) + follow your zerg or put tag up yourself and lead your side to victory!
I have gotten full hero point unlock to many of my alts that way in WvWvW. Some of them have been severely under geared e.g. some gear is blue level 65 gear (I didn’t tell other Deso players that my alt commander char had so lousy gear, haha ;-) ) Now I made yet another full ascended set from the loot I got from WvWvW. And I regularly fight against servers like FSP. Getting 14 levels with my method should take less than 8 hours, probably like 5 h in total.
Deniara / Ayna – I want the original WvWvW maps back – Desolation [EU]