Guild Wars 2

docMed.7692:

This new map sounds very cool and I’m excited to learn more about and hopefully be part of the development process!

• edit ** Thought about it more; less-server allegiance doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think it may present an issue for the larger population server. With the seasons enabled though, there certainly will be a population issue an Server A having a much larger pop than Server B/C.

Q: What objectives and/or incentives would be available for Server A on a potentially empty opposition map?

We aren’t quite ready to talk about how we are addressing that, but it is a top-level consideration for the success of the map. It has to be fun when you are the only world and be fun when full of all three worlds. Once the testing begins we’ll talk more about the mechanics we intend to solve that problem.

We’ll get some sort of schedule out as soon as we have the matchups. I’ll post it up on the forums and then we’ll find a way to get it out more broadly as well. The matchups aren’t locked in until the season actually starts. So, while EU is ready, NA won’t be ready for 6.5 more hours.

Shads.9468:

I’m missing something here.. how is this going to balance population imbalance? The queue was a reason to find a new home. Now, with what is effectively a fifth map you’re just.. oh forget it. I give up.

This is not, I repeat not,, intended to fix population imbalance. This is intended to address the population of people who are in the queue. We will make moves to address population imbalance as we can. This has nothing to do with that.

Vol.5241:

I really hope the crown jewel of winning seasons isn’t stacks of ascended materials.

I have at least 5 stacks of fragments and ores and I don’t need to be making ascended weapons since I have legendaries.

The ascended materials are in the chests that are awarded for completing specific achievements in the WvW Season 1 achievement group. They are attainable by anyone and are in no way related to your placement at the conclusion of the season.

Sanduskel.1850:

DevonCarver.5370:

The rewards included in season 1 achievements should help to address this. Very specifically the ascended crafting materials. It is also the case, that we want people playing all the parts of the game, so there are always going to be optimal ways to get specific rewards and those may not always include WvW. We are building the whole of GW2 and we try and balance things across all the game types.

We will continue to make strides, however, to make WvW feel more rewarding, especially in this type of area.

Thank you. If you want people to play all parts of the game, when will the vial of essence be available as a drop at the same rate that it is in the fractals? It currently appears that you want to force people to do fractals, even though some of would rather quit than do those. Thank you for your perspective.

We are in the process of making a change to the requirements for most things that take the vial of essence to make them acquirable outside of the fractals. We don’t have more to announce right now. We 100% agree with the premise of that statement in regards to fractals, however.

Vol.5241:

Can you share some type of features on this map?:

1.)Are there going to be camps, keeps, towers? Control points? New stuff?
2.) When you successfully release Edge of the Mists as a map to join, is it going to be constantly updated and act as a ‘beta’ for new ideas?

We’ll discuss the specifics of the objectives in the coming weeks. Each region will have unique objectives, which will all have unique mechanics. These are still in development and so will be subject to change based on the feedback from the test.

The map will likely not be updated any more frequently than the other maps, however, we do hope to use this process of public testing to try out other additions or changes to WvW on a large scale.

Niim.9260:

DevonCarver.5370:

2) Some of the things we are building into this map are the first step towards eventually making headway on the server imbalance issues. We have some ideas that we are going to implement, but the first step is eliminating the queue. We’ve seen, regularly, that when we make a major change to WvW, people flood the game type and get stuck in queues. This will allow them to at least experience some of WvW when those changes occur.

A follow up question. Given the above, is it possible that ANET will reduce the number of people being allowed on a map to help fight skill lag and server imbalances once those displaced players have the opportunity to play on the overflow map?

That is a very unlikely solution at this point in time. We are still working to eke out performance improvements that would combat skill lag. We would prefer to see more people on the maps, if feasible. We will do whatever is in the best interests of WvW and the players who play it, at the end of the day.

MeatShield.1983:

I like the idea of adding a new map, but I am concerned as a mid tier wvw player that has seen players already leave to higher tier servers. I felt like the long queue times was the one incentive for players to leave T1 servers for lower population servers. Now this will be gone. It seems that there will no reason to not be on a T1 server now. Should I just plan on saving gems to transfer now?

This is a totally valid concern and from our point of view the only answer to it is that WvW and winning in WvW is what people want to do. If that is not the case, that is a problem with WvW, not with this new map. We want the existing maps to be the place everyone wants to be and if that is the case, then jumping to the high tier worlds will keep you from playing in those maps. We clearly have more work to do to make WvW as good as it can be, but this map is intended to solve a very specific problem, queueing, while also giving us the space to work on some other issues we think WvW has generally. It is also the case that we will take things from this map and push them back to WvW generally, it will just take time.

Okaishi.8320:

Would it not be a better idea for the Edge of the Mists map to not be tied to the WvW matchups? If one server is dominating their matchup they will be more inclined to visit the Edge of the Mists, however there probably won’t be many enemies for them to fight.

An alternative would be for the overflow maps to fill up with players from all servers. Green servers would be on the green team, blue ones on the blue, etc. I think there would be a higher chance for players to find good amounts of action this way and a lower chance for one side to be completely dominating.

I realize this is hardly a question for a FAQ and more like a suggestion, but I couldn’t resist :P

This option is very much on the table, but we want to see how the map plays before we make that final decision. This is just one part of why we are doing this large-scale test at this stage in development. We want to be able to make these decisions based on feedback from people playing in the map and we want to be able to quickly iterate based on that feedback.

Swamurabi.7890:

Are you going to try to balance the sides that test the Beta map?

Will you also test an auto-balance feature in Beta that could be rolled out to the current WvW system?

After release, will you continue to add Beta features for this map that might make it into the main WvW maps?

1) We will do what we can, yes, to make sure the matchups are as balanced as they can be in this format.
2) That is not currently something we are planning on. WvW will continue to be world based, an auto-balance tool would invalidate that concept.
3) We won’t be adding beta features to this map, but if the testing is successful we will entertain the idea of having additional tests of this type to look into major feature or rule changes prior to putting them into the live game.

The rewards included in season 1 achievements should help to address this. Very specifically the ascended crafting materials. It is also the case, that we want people playing all the parts of the game, so there are always going to be optimal ways to get specific rewards and those may not always include WvW. We are building the whole of GW2 and we try and balance things across all the game types.

We will continue to make strides, however, to make WvW feel more rewarding, especially in this type of area.

OrangeSquash.7541:

Is the guild representative who fills out the survey, the person who will be carrying out the testing?

No, the entirety of the guild would be involved, assuming they want to be. That person would just be a point of contact for the guild members and would be responsible for organizing feedback and keeping in touch with the development team.

Niim.9260:

First I generally like this idea. I think it can solve a lot of issues unrelated to ques and I look forward to seeing how it is implemented.

That said, this solution is really about helping those that have stacked to T1 at the expense of everyone else. This will have a negative impact on servers already struggling population wise and it will have a cascading effect on unbalanced match-ups, which is really most match-ups.

My question, for the FAQ, is how do you predict the new map will effect unbalanced match-ups? I am not asking you to solve the problem here, but I want to know that they are known issues.

The first point is that, regardless of the number of worlds that see queues, there are still tens of thousands of people in queues on a daily basis. As we launch in new territories, we are currently in Beta in China, we want to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone.

The second, and larger point, is that this map is not intended to solve the unbalanced servers issues. This is a first step towards a few things.
1) We are creating a place that we can test significant changes to WvW in a near to live environment. This will help us make major changes to the meta, scoring, etc. while being reasonably confident in the results of those changes.
2) Some of the things we are building into this map are the first step towards eventually making headway on the server imbalance issues. We have some ideas that we are going to implement, but the first step is eliminating the queue. We’ve seen, regularly, that when we make a major change to WvW, people flood the game type and get stuck in queues. This will allow them to at least experience some of WvW when those changes occur.

I hope that explains it.

Grotesque.6479:

Q1: How does the overflow work? Is it possible to fight against other servers? Is it combined with EU and NA or just one specific region?

Q2: Will there be any advantages to get on the map? Such as a King of the hill thing that grants buffs, or will it be one giant pit to fight on at equal grounds?

Q4: Would ArenaNet have any plans on supporting the GvG scene in general after the release of the map? Such as supporting Teams, building features for competing GvG Teams?

Q5: Can you enter the map from the good ’ol WvW UI Panel? Will there be portals for it in major cities / Border Waypoints too?

Q6: Can you place siege on the map? Or is it limited to player skills and teams only?

Q7: Will there be new specialized Commander Tags? Or the option of using a tag for your party / guild only?

Q8: What will the max players be on a map from one server?

Q9: Where do you base the applications on from joining the BETA? Are anyone able to join or those heavily invested into WvW / GvGing? How many players from each guild are able to join up?

Q10: Will there be open space areas with plenty of room to muster GvG (i.e. like the south camp on a borderland)?

Q11: What do you view under ‘We want the best WvW experience’? What is the goal of WvW and what would be the best WvW experience with the addition of this map?

Q12: Is there a certain respawn area like a border waypoint of the likes, so teams are able to regroup / gather? Or is it one giant pit with random respawn?

Quite a lot, will drop more later. Hopefully you have the time to reply, that would be much appreciated!

1) The current iteration is that you will only be matched up against the other worlds in your current WvW matchup. That is one of the many aspects of the map that we will be actively getting feedback on from the community and the testers.

2) The map has objectives, from resource camps to keeps, much like the other WvW maps. Once people get into the maps we’ll talk more about the specifics of those objectives. But this is not going to be far removed from WvW, just new.

4) We’ve stated that our current goals are to support WvW. Guild vs. Guild is an intriguing game mode, but one that we currently have no plans to support. The WvW team is focused on WvW. If we decided to build GvG, there will be a team that is in charge of that game mode, but it will not be the WvW team.

5) Yes to the dropdown. We haven’t put portals in the cities yet, but most likely we will.

6) Siege is intended to be an important part of the map. Again, this map is WvW so there will be objectives, siege, etc.

7) This map will not include any updates to the commander system as part of its rollout. We believe improvements need to be made, but the focus of this map is the content itself and not the commander system.

8) It’s our policy not to release those numbers. And we haven’t settled on that yet. This is something we will be experimenting with over the course of development/testing. It will be somewhere from the limit on the current maps, to some number less than that.

9) There is a link to the registration form in the blog post. We are looking for any and all guilds to come. This is going to be the largest scale test of this sort we’ve ever done and our goal is to include all members of guilds that are accepted. There is no cap.

11) The goal of this map is to provide a place for the thousands of people who queue daily to be able to experience the WvW experience rather than being left out. There will be massive battles, epic sieges, stirring defenses, and crushing defeats on this map. We want as many people as possible to be playing WvW and as we expand into other territories we want to make sure they don’t experience the massive queues that we saw at launch in NA/EU.

12) There will be safe zones, much like on the other maps. We are also going to work to make these areas more conducive to comeback mechanics. We don’t want people being camped and we’d like to solve that with this map.

rhodoc.2381:

DevonCarver.5370:

Jayne.9251:

The survey link doesn’t work. Just a heads up.

It’s the wrong link, apparently. It will be updated. In the meantime, this is the actual link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GW2_WvWCommunit

Should everyone who wanna be tester register here? or only 1 representative person from guild will registeR?

1 person per guild, please. The idea is that we’ll use one person as a point of contact. More registrations will not increase the odds of your guild being involved.

Jayne.9251:

The survey link doesn’t work. Just a heads up.

It’s the wrong link, apparently. It will be updated. In the meantime, this is the actual link:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GW2_WvWCommunit

Zepher.7803:

I don’t want conjecture or “player tests” I want actual Official Responses.

and I would like everyone to plead in this post for the dev’s to answer.

Can we please have the actual numbers regarding WvW Server capacity limits.

What is the ACTUAL maximum allowed number of players per server?.
Does it change depending on the 3 servers in a matchup?
Does it change during the night/day?

Thanks

While we won’t give exact numbers, I can answer the last 2.
No, No. The numbers are the same at all time and for all matchups.

There is a blog post in bound, it just hasn’t been posted yet.

Those of us that are comfortable with it will probably mention where we are playing, but not everyone wants to broadcast which server they regularly play on. There will likely be a number of servers with Anet represented.

The matchups are not determined until the end of the matchup prior to season start. We could give you an estimate, but that might change.

Yaro.3251:

The idea of outmanned buff is to give enough incentive for more people to join the war on the losing side. Not to make those who are already on the map stronger – that would be unfair.

Whether these incentives work as well as they thought to be by developers – I don’t know. Only thing I know is buffing any side of the fence combat-wise, be it losing or winning one, is unfair. Orbs kinda blow in this regard.

Even more specifically, the original intent was to make it so that players had some little boost to playing even though you might be getting beaten. The main reason to not make it overly beneficial is that it creates a disincentive to have a full map of players at that point, which is where the balance comes in.

I’d just like to make a note of one thing that I think people aren’t considering when they transfer to stacked worlds. You will not, repeat will not, be able to receive the reward based on overall world place in the league, unless you achieve the meta achievement for the season. If you aren’t able to get into WvW much, you won’t get the rewards. So it is absolutely taking a risk to transfer to a world that has a large WvW population.

Chris.3290:

Don’t laugh about the EU/NA merge, I’ve been thinking about it and I’m starting to believe that it may happen on some level (maybe a post-season between the top 3 of both zone?)
Think about it, they have been adamant about the 2 leagues about the beginning. They are adamant about the effects of bloodlust.

What could their big announcement be, that they need to have it translated perfectly before they can let the news out?

There are only three possibilities that come to mind:

2. Changes to the bloodlust. Either a change in the amount of bonus stats, in the places needed to capture, or even a cooldown before it can change hands.

“Think about it, they have been adamant about the 2 leagues about the beginning. "
The post is about the nature and number of leagues in NA.

Other points here:
1) My understanding is that we literally can’t match NA and EU servers up. It is about the physical locations of the data centers and the speed at which data travels. So, until that changes, interleague is off the table.
2) We are making some changes to bloodlust in advance of the season. More specific details will be out in the near future, I’m not sure when exactly.

leviN.4390:

Hey DevonCarver, us bottom tiered server would like for you and your WvW decision buddies to join us over the next course of 7 weeks of WvW fun.

And I mean for you guys to actually participate. Not looking at stats and numbers from data collection. Join one server, a week and actively participate

Then actually get back to us with a written report on how fun it is

Sincerely

All bottom tiered servers that has kittenised by league

I will be on NSP throughout the duration of the season. And I will be getting the meta achievement.

Hi everyone,

The build coming on October 1st is going to contain a change to the way the WXP booster from the gem store functions with the consumable WXP drops from the game. Once that build is live, the boost will no longer affect the consumable item. It will only affect WXP gained via gameplay from that point on. I just wanted to give you all a head’s up and let you know that if you were holding on to either for the purposes of boosting the gains from the consumable items you have until the build on October 1st to do so.

Devon Carver
WvW Coordinator

titanlectro.5029:

DevonCarver.5370:

We will have an announcement about the NA leagues and seasons generally soon. But there are changes coming in.

Could we get an ETA on this announcement? So much suspense!

Probably Thursday, but I can’t be 100% sure as we need to get translations and editing done before it can go live.

Lord Kuru.3685:

If they did listen to us, it’s only because of drastically declining WvW numbers (as stated in Devon’s infamous alpha forum post).

To head it off at the pass, there have not been drastically declining WvW numbers, or even marginally declining numbers. WvW continues to be as strong as it has been over the past several months. We made some decisions internally and were able to accommodate changes that it didn’t seem feasibly originally and that’s why the changes that are going to be announced later this week happened.

Penguin.5197:

Even a cap raise to at least ten would still be too much? Because at the moment it sometimes feels like 5 is too small

Raising it even one would have significant performance impact because you need to think of it over an equation that causes that to multiply very quickly. Until and unless there are significant changes in the engine, which isn’t on the table, we will not be raising the cap on player skill AoE.

Dese.1382:

MiLkZz.4789:

Imagine you taking down 1 gate/wall of a a keep/tower. Imagine 50 people inside which ain’t that abnormal. Imagine they all chaining their aoe into the gap. Good luck walking through and surviving.

Aoe cap is there not only for the servers, but also because some things will be just impossible to cap and some classes will be rediculously OP. Like Ele and ranger, no. If aoe is unlimited, make healing unlimited aswel and all the other spells. But OOPS, we are back to 0 than…

So yea aoe cap is there for a really really good reason.

There is a dev post flat out saying, in plain english, its there for the simple reason of server performance.

I will say it again. If the cap were raised performance would suffer greatly. That is why it hasn’t been changed.

We will have an announcement about the NA leagues and seasons generally soon. But there are changes coming in.

The main issue currently with rewarding support classes is the way that participation is determined by the game. It makes it much harder to provide sufficient incentive to people doing things like healing, defending, etc. We have some ideas to try and improve this situation, but it is complicated. The best example I can give is the events to escort the supply dolyaks, which literally just say you helped if you are standing there when it ends, which is not an accurate representation of much of anything.

Until the systems are all capable of properly determining support, it’s difficult to properly reward support and defense. We are working on solutions that I hope will make it somewhat better, however.

I wanted to post here as well. This is due to a bug in the UI that makes it appear as though a team doesn’t have control of the points they in fact have. We are actively investigating a fix and will get it in ASAP. It is not the case that a team can acquire the buff while holding fewer than 3 points.

There is currently a bug with the UI of the events. It is not possible to capture the buff with fewer than 3 ruins held, it’s just that the display isn’t updating properly and it appears that way on occasion. We are aware of the issue and are doing our utmost to fix it ASAP. Thanks for the report.

Fuzzion.2504:

Regarding the changes

In the positive

1. Roaming has become way more fun
2. Adding stat bonus as a reward is a good step forward
3. Added incentive to WvWvW
4. Use of heights as strategy was factored in during the map design
5. Greatly increased the need for everyone on that particular map to work in unison
6. Surprise tactics by rushing on said occupied point creates anticipatory jitters
7. Some use of water combat is still in-play
8. Felt like I was playing in an entirely new map. It was a good feeling for the stalemate feeling we had in the BL.

In the negative

1. Roaming has become harder for duos or singles
2. Stat Bonus is too much. 25 would be better than 50.
3. Increased Lag reported by all players
4. falling off the map into unintended areas ,i.e. map glitch
5. 3 out of 5 cap points should be increased to 4 out of 5 to balance reward and sacrifice

Overall, I think the WvWvW team are heading in the right direction.

-Fuzz

Fuzz, thanks for the feedback. A couple of responses:
1) The lag is an issue we are aware of and a result of a bug we will fix as soon as possible.
2) Please report any and all places you can fall out of the map or get stuck. We will continue to address those as we can.
3) The buff is something we will continue to think about. There are alternative frameworks for the buff that I think we will at least look into.
4) For now, we will stay with 3/5 because it makes it easier to capture and harder to hold. If it turns out that this doesn’t function the way we intend it to, we will re-evaluate it accordingly.
5) Roaming in the middle is absolutely more difficult, however, travelling the edges of the map shouldn’t have become any more difficult. At least that’s how it played for me yesterday.

Again, thanks for the input, and for playing.

TheAmpca.1753:

Why don’t we get WXP for capping/defending these.

It’s far too easy to flip them just to farm WXP. One thing that is coming soon is an addition of WXP consumables to the player loot bags, which should make a pretty big addition to the amount of WXP you get from being in the area, assuming you are killing players. As to adding it to the general capping of the points, we’ll have to consider that pretty carefully before we make any changes.

Season 1 is going forward as we described, however nothing about future seasons is set in stone. We’ll take a look at the data we get from the first season and will absolutely make adjustments so that future seasons are even better than the first one.

My concern with four leagues is simply that there isn’t enough variety at that point. I could very well be wrong, but we are going to try season 1 this way and then we’ll take a look at how it played out.

Stice.5204:

You could increase rewards for defending by simply increasing rewards for killing enemy players, since defending logically implies fighting off enemy players. That would be less subject to abuse than increasing the rewards for the current “defend” events where you can get full participation credit by using 2 supply to repair a section of outer wall while the enemy is already beating on the inner door.

This only works when and if players are actually there. Currently, defending a dolyak can mean fighting off a wave of enemies or escorting them without seeing anyone. It should provide a reward either way, but we can’t do the latter in any good way currently.

Super Riceman.8702:

Maybe make the Dolyaks move faster per nearby ally, increased by up to ten allies. There would be incentive to guard them since it is helping your team overall even if you are not participating in big fights/being in other areas.

Conversely there would be more incentive for the other team to split up into small teams to stop these faster dolyaks

The issue is not about an in-game reason to defend them, it is about the way we actually determine who has defended them. Currently, you can get credit by standing near them when they finish. That is clearly not a good platform for delivering rewards.

We will be adding to the line at some point and it may also involve revisiting the line as it currently functions. But yes, I agree it needs to be better.

Shiren.9532:

I primarily PvE but I still don’t see the actions over the last year as reasonable attempts to make ascended items fairly available to WvW players. I don’t care what you’d like to do, I only care about what you actually do.

Speaking as someone who has only gotten Ascended gear via WvW vendors, I’d say that’s nonsense. Speaking as a developer, we are continuing to make this better, which is not to say perfect. There will be more ways to acquire the ascended mats as part of the season and we will look into adding yet additional ways after that.

It sounds annoying, but it doesn’t rise to the level of griefing in the sense that we could or would take action. We try not to get involved without rock solid proof of someone doing we feel is worthy of a ban or suspension. Not only would this likely never quite attain that level, it would be incredibly difficult to prove the intent behind any action like this. We would rather err on the side of caution in these instances.

Radiology.3597:

That’s because there is no incentive to defend. You get NOTHING to defend except spare change-like wxp and karma. There literally is no reason to defend, there is more reason to let the ball drop and recap. And for a game where keeping the points you have is equally as important as gaining points from other sources, they sure do a bad job of rewarding the defense.

If you give incentive to defend, you will have the opportunity to kill something that isn’t programmed.

I said this in another thread, and I’ll repeat what I said here for clarity, the issue with rewarding defending currently is a problem with a way the content is built and how it determines participation. Until we solve that problem, we won’t be increasing the rewards for defending because it is far too easy to game the system. That is why escorting Dolyaks is not very rewarding. Once we do solve that, we will make big moves to incentivize defending so that people who are helping out, whether it be escorting yaks, or defending objectives will see more rewards for doing that.

While it is very unlikely we would put supply runs in straight up like this, it is very likely something of this nature will make its way into the game in the future. I too think there would be a serious value to allowing supply to be strategically moved by players. One note is that we would not likely set it up such that players could pull supply from a depot and move it to another directly, because that would almost definitely create some serious conflict and open the door to griefing and sabotage even more than it already is. It’s definitely on the table though.

timidobserver.7925:

People already harass each other over enough stuff. Whether it be builds, what profession they are running, what food they are running, and so on. I’d suggest removing the idea of controlling that from consideration when making these decisions.

This argument boils down to “Well it’s happening already. So let’s just do whatever.” I agree that people harass other people and part of what we try and do is mitigate that. So, we wouldn’t make a change that would exacerbate that, unless it had a major pay off. This doesn’t fit that criteria.

Doing so would invalidate the time people spend acquiring that gear. I think the heart of your post is in the right place, but what we would rather do is make possible for people to get the gear by playing WvW with a sprinkling of PvE, rather than the other way around.

insanemaniac.2456:

why we wont see a useful outnumbered buff:

scenario — player enters map where his server has outnumbered. server loses outnumbered. other players harass him to leave so server can be stronger.

Correct. The idea behind the buff is to incentivize you to show up even if you are outnumbered by pulling out some of the disincentive for losing a lot, but if we put anything too good on it, it will cause serious problems between players. We don’t want it to be something that people fight over, harass each other over, or generally cause a worse play experience because someone takes away the buff because it is our goal for the maps to be full and for no one to have the buff.

A couple of points. We are going to move more and more towards trying to increase the rewards in the rank up chests. As for the lack of rewards for defending, it is really a limitation of the way the content currently exists. We are working on solutions to it, but we always face the problem that making a major change to existing, working content is very dangerous and has to have a very long test time. Defending is super simple to get credit for right now, and because of that it’s difficult for us to put a serious amount of rewards on it. If we did, it would incentivize people to stand around, repair a wall for a second or two, then jet off. Until we fix the way that content determines who deserves rewards, we can’t bump the rewards as much as we’d like to.

We absolutely agree that defending is not rewarded well enough and we will address it when we have the best solution.