Guild Wars 2

Malediktus.9250:

So when will this double moa mesmer madness nerfed? 1 Moa is already too OP enough and can be a game changer. But two moas in a half decent mesmer hand is way too OP.

If you can’t beat a Mesmer in the current meta you should quit. Double moa or no.

shrek.1046:

Nope I know I’m average, but I don’t even get teamed with players on my level. I continually got teamed with players who don’t know how to rotate, don’t know how to rez, don’t know how to stomp, don’t know how to play the secondary objectives.

Agreed. I might be average, but some of the players I have been teamed with have clearly never played before.

Malediktus.9250:

I think most people play for fun and not for #eSports. So why should they accept days of getting crushed so some arbitrary system starts to work?
You could say all the bad and mediocre players should not play the first 1-2 weeks, but then the “racers” as you call them cant speed through. Not to mention people will loose MMR if they get farmed by those “racers” and get worse and worse people in their team. The whole system is a bad joke, I would even consider it a doom-loop for soloQ players. You loose because of average players on your team to “racers”, your MMR drops. You get worse people on your team. You start loosing to teams you normally would win against. Your MMR keeps dropping. The ocassional win here and there wont outweight the 75-85% loss rate you get in this terribad system.

This. The current system is the worst fun I have had in PvP ever.

EDIT: And then I get matched against 4 necros. Until other players switches so 5. Anet you have really lost the plot.

These are great changes and look like they address the biggest issues in the current system. Much more significant ones than SoloQ, which I say as a mainly solo player. Thanks ANet for taking our points on board.

Just get rid of PU completely and give us something else that fits Mesmer better. It is a lame trait that should never have existed. If you want long stealth, then go thief IMHO.

Questions: And answers

One sentiment I’ve read is that mesmer has gotten a LOT easier to play. Are you enjoying this?

Not sure that it is a lot easier to play. It is a lot more effective though. Certainly top tier now.

For me, the grandmaster mesmer traits have been an absolute candy store. Which GM traits have been your favorite?

Most of them good. Wasnt happy happy about the loss of Harmonious Mantras due to conflict with DE. But the changes to mantras have ameliorated that loss significantly.

Prismatic Understanding (PU) has proven to be a really strong trait for shatter builds (PU shatter). Do you think this needs adjustments?

Yes. I would just get rid of it. Stealth should be a thief characteristic. Combined with shatter it is bonkers right now. Mesmer should be the art of deception not invisibility.

Another build I’ve seen around is a power block/Chaotic Interruption build. Have you tried this out?

No – I will be running Dueling and Inspirations come the Chronomancer and want to develop the playstyle that will work with that – so sticking with Illusions as a stop-gap.

Normally, mesmers really only took Dom, Dueling, Illusions in PvP. Are you taking Chaos and Inspiration at all?

Loving inspiration adds a lot to survivability except for a full shatter hit

Mesmer got a lot of conditional recharge abilities (reduced recharge on staff when you have chaos shield for example). Are you liking these?

Not using them

Mimic got a huge change. Are you using this at all?

Yes – loving it with blink and decoy. Cool down is perhaps a bit long but still worth it

Time Warp gained slow and now can be traited for resistance and super speed! Are you using this at all? Would you take this over the other elites?

In PVE yes – in PvP no.

How have your fights against other mesmers been? Do they feel skillful?

Mesmers are a lot harder these days. Used to be easy meat but now a single mistake and you are in trouble. Also get blindsided and hit by a bezerker then shatter much more often. Too much cheese these days – they need to change the stuns and the invisibility.

Mesmer is my main, though I also love a bit of bunker guard and S/D thief.

Inspiration adds a lot more durability to Mesmer since the changes. But frankly I am not finding any more or less difficulty with any classes though there are a lot more conditions around.

Haven’t touched the PU build myself and in fact have switched from sword / torch to sword / sword to get my head around one less stealth and blocks instead for the chrono build I will surely be using.

Those mesmers I have come across die just as easy as before – even the stealthy ones.

I agree with WoC’s proposed changes. The rest is just QQ in both directions.

Firebird.8324:

Everyone wants pure Glicko2 leaderboards back,

Really? How do you know that? Seems like a pretty unsubstantiated statement and in fact, as it turns out, an incorrect one.

I agree with the OP. I didn’t like Stronghold that much so far and was chatting with my team mates and reminiscing about Fort Aspenwood from GW1, which I loved. It made me think about what was different as in many ways this is a similar game mode to that but not as enjoyable for me. It clicked that it was the spammable NPCs that was just dull – yes they had them in FA, but they were on a set timer and most of the action other than killing the lord was all PvP. This is definitely too much PvE for my liking.

Had three ranked (EU) games yesterday between 10.15pm and 11pm GMT. First two on my Guardian which I am fairly new to.

Game 1: Other side had three thieves. Decent game (Legacy) which we won.

Game 2: My side had three thieves, including two who were in a duo on the opposite side in the prior game. Again a decent game (Forest) which we won.

Game 3: My side had three guardians, so I swapped to Mesmer, which I have played a lot. One of the worst games I can remember (Khylo). Gave up on treb after a couple of minutes as no-one had made it to clock tower by then. Initially my team-mates were three capping close. Finished 500 – 175 (ish) to them. Bad bad game.

So two decent games and one really really bad one. Not sure what happened there but it was a serious mismatch. (And in all three matches the class balancing was appalling, even if you ain’t interested in that).

Justin ODell.9517:

infantrydiv.1620:

…

I’m going to bring up the ‘party has deserter but won’ scenario with the team.

A potential issue with this is that the team of 4 is now the only group with something to fight for, as the team of 5 (with no D/Cer) is not getting points regardless of outcome. You might see a lot more teams of 4 winning in that situation…..

But as bad as anything is the OP whispering another player to berate them and tell not to play (at least that is what the screenshot seems to say to me). Frankly that is at least as big a problem as bad match making – people who think they are pro, harassing other players.

It is one thing to tell your team to focus on points or such (and try to help them improve if they are newer players): to tell them to stop playing is not acceptable. Tells me pretty much all I need to know about a player.

Archaon.9524:

New Leaderboards = Farm

Pretty epic for a game that is tryharding to be esportz lol

So you weren’t asking a question at all? You just wanted people to post in support of your view, which is this.

Would you be happy with any leaderboard that didn’t have you at the top of it? (Top not having to mean #1 btw)

GhOst.4019:

And yet another useless thread full of people who don’t read other threads first. ALL “crap” (old Solo Q) maps will be removed on the 16th. We are in between seasons and nothing you do right now matters anyway. Matchmaking is turned off right now until the 16th as well. If you can’t handle a couple weeks of crap, then wait it out 1 more day for all the changes to take place. 100’s of threads made on the same subjects that don’t even matter; because these things you hate are only in place for 2 weeks.

Just trying to figure out if this is ironic or not?

If you had read the other threads perhaps you would understand the problem.

The problem is not that matchmaking is turned off and suddenly on the 16th all will be well in the GW world.

The problem is competing agendas. Balanced games and wait times.

Once you have read the other threads and have a more meaningful contribution please come back and share some more wisdom.

Chase.8415:

I have Comcast and I have never disconnected once from the game that wasn’t part of a denial of service attach or run into lag issues.

Then you are lucky. As I said, BT Infinity is the best internet service available to me in London – I don’t have connectivity issues otherwise than in this game. 4G is not really an option in London either.

Although the forums represent a minority of the player base, that is more likely to be an issue in regards to game mechanics (as the people on these forums are not likely to represent the “average” player). As regards to hardware issues I do not see that the demographics will make a difference. If lots of people posting here have connection issues that means it is likely to be a problem for the silent majority. I don’t know where you get the “7 people” estimate from; perhaps you meant “700”, which is the number of replies in the thread on EU latency issues.

In any event, ANet have acknowledged there are issues with connectivity.

Chase.8415:

… but the fact is the mass majority do not have connectivity issues…..

What is your source for this “fact”. Lots of people have DC issues; have you not read the many posts on the forums complaining about it?

I have the best fibre broadband connection available to me (BT Infinity) and I still get lag spikes and the occasional DC (probably one a day). Your suggestion would be what? Don’t play PvP?

Lopez.7369:

It’s interesting how many people complain without reading for five minutes to find out what’s going on with the matchmaking.

Let’s see what happens. Sadly ANet are balancing two things: matchmaking and queue times.

The problem is always going to be that good premade teams don’t have enough opposition (particularly if they avoid each other deliberately) and so after a certain point the lambs will always get thrown to the wolves.

When they tried to improve matchmaking to avoid unsuitable match-ups the queue times for the better teams became too long. Hard to see how that will change.

Personally I think matchmaking should be the priority. I have no interest in 1/3 of games being scrubs due to bad match-up which they are right now. I am happy to wait in PvE until a decent match comes up. And if teams are not able to wait then they should think about going solo. If they don’t want to do that then they have to be prepared to wait – can’t have it both ways.

PS: PS ANet if you are going to insist on persisting with a mixed queue can you at least fix the call target issue so that it shows up for your team and not just those you were in a party with prior to entering. Party groups really do not need an even bigger edge and this has to be something you can at least fix.

There is no reason why you can’t be both competitive but also “casual”. That latter dimension is often a function of time and many people do not have enough of it to want to participate in finding teams and sorting out all the VoIP stuff that goes with it.

Premades that steam roller even good solo players are good because they spend the time playing together and know automatically who is doing what on a team. Plus they have voice communication to coordinate and respond dynamically to events as they occur..

For Pug groups it is hard enough to get people to press the “ready” button let alone agree where they are all going at start. Even with good teams it can take a while to find the flow of the group but I have seen lost games turned around as the team finds it’s balance. This is very satisfying but against a premade this is never an option as the game is too far gone by then.

So overall it is almost impossible to have a pug team beat a premade unless they are very bad.

This not only affects the enjoyment of the game it also affects the statistics in terms of win / loss rates. It is meaningless to include the stats together when they are auto lose games.

I would much rather go back to SoloQ and spend time PvEing whilst waiting for games. However if you are going to insist on giving me auto loss games so team players aren’t waiting so long in the queue then at least don’t make my stats look any worse than they already would be for the time you are making me waste by sacrificing me to coordinated teams. If win / loss ratios are irrelevant now as a result which I think is likely then don’t show them at all.

There seems to be a misunderstanding of the word competitive.

SoloQ may be vastly more disorganised and such teams would not be able to compete in TeamQ but that does not mean it is not competitive within itself.

Obviously there is a greater level of randomness in entirely un-self-selecting teams but that simply means different tactics are required. Perhaps in fact greater tactical awareness as those tactics need to be adjusted on the fly to your team situation.

It is a different game mode for sure but it is nonsense to suggest it cannot be competitive.

And nonsense to suggest that people who prefer the more ad hoc randomness of Solo play should be forced to play in a premade team.

It is definitely better than it was a few days ago. However, I am still losing around 2/3 of games which suggests it still needs work. I used to win around half my games in SoloQ which sounds about right over the long run. I do have a high rank and wonder if the matchmaking overestimates the impact of this on my skill level.

hihey.1075:

Really, start getting better instead of complaining. ……..
The problems we have now are infinitely smaller than the ones we had before.

You seem to be deliberately missing the point. It is simply not a question of skill (if that is what you mean by better).

There are many people who liked SoloQ and the new system is no substitute. It is less enjoyable, less balanced in many games (not all) and, in my personal recent experience, despite claims to the contrary, full of far more unpleasant players than I was used to encountering previously.

manveruppd.7601:

That’s not the case at all. Queue times for solo arena were much longer than team arena in recent months, at least on the EU servers. Solo arena was dead! They killed it off BECAUSE it was dead, because it was only populated by a small dedicated hardcore who would flame their teammates if they lost and flame their opponents if they won.

I haven’t found the waits that long in SoloQ over the last couple of months – very rare to wait more than a couple of minutes even off-peak. I quite liked the wait time to gather some crafting materials which you could do because no requirement to queue in Mists.

I never saw much complaining about queue times either so ANet are solving a problem that did not exist and replacing it with a genuine issue. Perhaps they will sort the algorithm out to prevent solos getting rolled by premade teams – if not it will cause many folks to pack up their PvP boots.

manveruppd.7601:

At all costs please don’t bring back solo queue. It was a toxic environment, and its existence was completely illogical in a game mode where teamwork was such a huge part of the game. Its population was tiny, and composed only of ill-tempered, kitten-talking people who only cared about their leaderboard ranking, plus a few people trying out builds they weren’t ready to bring into team queue. It was 3 parts playing, 7 parts smack-talk. And now that we have an unranked queue, it’s not necessary .

Do you think so? Bit of an over generalisation perhaps? Personally I made quite a few friends in the SoloQ. And I can tell you that I have never met as many abusive, smack-talking, body jumping players as I have in the last few days. Much, much worse than SoloQ.

You don’t like it fine. You don’t have to play it. Those of us who did now have less choice than previously. And I don’t see that “Unranked” offers the same choice at all – still able to get pre-made teams but added to that the potential for lots of people who just don’t care – so even more afk’ing in game or spoofing around generally.

Still don’t see the logic for the merger at all except perhaps there were not enough pre-made teams around to sustain the TeamQ. Personally I would rather wait (though not in the Mists) for a decent game against others who want to play on the same basis as me. That is what I had before and don’t now.

Justin ODell.9517:

The shortest version of that story is that we believe there is more value in having an unranked place for people to play.

I suppose time will tell on that, as ultimately what is valuable has to be a decision for the players to decide. It is entirely possible there are many players who want a competitive game, but don’t want to spend time forming teams, yet don’t like getting steamrolled either. If that is a large group (who previously made up a core part of the SoloQ community, which seems likely) and they give up playing (not unlikely after my recent experiences) then your hypothesis about value may be flawed.

I can understand that there were improvements that could be made to the matching algorithm but did this require also the merging of SoloQ and TeamQ. Not sure how this was supposed to help but it surely hasn’t.

I am sure all the work on the algorithm is worth it just restore SoloQ as an option. Most major issues improved instantly.

Sorry but it is a much much worse experience for people not in premade teams. Courtyard just makes me want to quit in a way Skyhammer never did.

It is less fun and doesn’t seem to solve much of the 4v5 issue.

I quite like waiting around and doing some resource farming in PvE land. Now you make me wait in the Mists.

Please just put it back to how it was.

Lopez.7369:

Even if someone is genuinely disconnecting, he should be punished. People with crappy internet shouldn’t be queueing in the first place.

Totally disagree. I have fibre connection and I still get at least one DC a day on a long session. I will always log back in and continue on within a minute. I don’t have a problem with other games and don’t see why I should be punished for ANet’s poor servers.

Thoth Divine.8642:

Once again, I cannot stress how important it is to fix this issue as soon as possible. Keep the no profession swap rule, but give players a chance to recover from a short disconnect. 2-3 minute timer is plenty of time to restart one’s computer and it is still possible to recover from that and push for a win. I’ve had it happen more times than I can remember.

This is so true. I would currently get at least one disconnect per session despite having the best internet connection available in my area (London).

ANet knows about the lag issues and DCs currently as there enough posts on this issue. It is insane not to factor this into the dishonour / ladder system.

As others have pointed out players who stay in the instance but go AFK or refuse to participate once they think a game is lost (often far too early) are ruining games at least as often as those who leave the instance.

I’m having same issue on Blazeridge Steppes. “Network error. The inability to connect to Guild Wars 2 may be caused by internet routing issues or a server network failure”
(Code=5:11:3:159:101)

It is a lame skill (overpowered if it actually hits) . It is embarrassing to use it. So I don’t. Doesn’t fit the mesmer concept or ethos. Something else in its place would be nice.

Sorry – I disagree. I have a high end PC and broadband but this game has its own problems. Sometimes it is fine but others I can DC 3 times in a game. Nothing else has problems with connection. ANet needs to fix connectivity and to make sure games don’t start 4 v 5 which is a major is issue

Only had one DC today – a good day. I did manage 3 in one game at the weekend.

Oh …. the rush to get back online so people don’t put me in that other "bane of this game " category the " quit cos I’m losing" camp.

Can’t really see how anyone is arguing that necro after patch isnt broken. I’ve seen nothing this bad since beta – it is just daft pure and simple.

C’mon fellow Shiverpeakers, we are better than this.

It is in both DZ’s interests and UW’s interests to focus on us. DZ don’t see UW as a threat and UW would rather be 2nd than 3rd. Nothing wrong with either of those propositions or the obvious result that flows from them.

I haven’t been on much this week but the key question is whether it is fun to play. We haven’t been totally outmanned and slaughtered at every twist and turn. We seem to be having lots of good battles. I had fun when I have been on.

Not sure I would be wasting gold on upgrades this week but apart from that it is nothing like the horrible match ups we had several weeks ago as we plunged through the rankings.
We have come a long way since then – let’s enjoy the best of it this week and look to the positive.

We dont have any queues any more (chance would be a fine thing) as our loyal Russians couldn’t stand the heat and sailed away.

Ne’er mind. Shiverpeaks will endure. And return.

Good luck in your new home.

DaYeL.1495:

ATM i have to think to my mates fun, i can say the challenge of servers with good organization but who lack in numbers is very interesting.

A core of well organised guilds but lacking the numbers is exactly the problem faced by Far Shiverpeaks. We operate an open TS channel for everyone and the last few weeks have seen us come on in leaps and bounds in terms of inter-Guild co-operation.

Not sure why we weren’t on your list but we are definitely worth a look.

Check out http://www.farshiverpeaks.com/ for more information on many of the Guilds on there.

We (FSP) were still getting our act together at the start of the week, but we are really starting to see results from the coordinated efforts everyone has been making to turn things around – special mention has to go to Maloki, for her part in that, but lots of people and guilds (like DW and AoA) deserve credit.

Great work from everybody means we might be staying in this tier if we keep it up. And then onwards and upwards.

Is there still “server pride”? Hell, yeah! Go Shiverpeaks!

Sure GW2 is just a game. But the best MMOs are more than that.

Made some good friends on LOTRO over the years. And many RL friends are here with me in Tyria (once again). Making lots more through our die hard efforts to stop the WvW rot.

Pixel smashing is all well and good but it needs a reason. Server pride is a big part of that for me. And not letting down my friends, old and new.

Go Far Shiverpeaks!

Zumy.6318:

FSP it will be. Ill be levelling my d/d elementalist though, as I see vast use for massive cc in smallscale and mesmer and thief are a bit of a faceroll. So I will be joinig WvW sporadicaly on my mesmer to get to know the server.

That is good news Zumy welcome aboard.

In order to get the most out of the experience, do drop by to the server forums as it will help you understand who is doing what and when.

http://www.farshiverpeaks.com/forum/

If you are a player on the server you can get access to some of the other areas of the site, which aren’t open to non-FSP players. Just drop by once you have registered to:

http://www.farshiverpeaks.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0

And ask for access. It also gives you details of our open TS channel, which you will want to sign up to for coordinating on the strike team raids.

Wytche.8327:

That link worked Jak Shadow, tyvm

Wytche, I saw that you were our newest member on the FSP board. Welcome.

Anyone can register, but if you are a player on the server you can get access to some of the other areas of the site, which aren’t open to non-FSP players. It isn’t necessarily so clear from the site that this area is available.

Just drop by once you have registered to:

http://www.farshiverpeaks.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0

And ask for access. It wont necessarily change your life, but we do have some interesting discussions and are always pleased to have people drop by and share ideas with the rest of the community.

Wytche.8327:

I tried the link to the public server but no success so far.

Try this, it should work.

http://www.farshiverpeaks.com/forum/

Just come along and hang out. And when you want to do more, we’ll be glad to help you find a home.

I know we will welcome home the prodigal children of the Shiverpeaks too, once our renaissance shows that we are not only worth fighting for, but that we are fighting for all that we are worth. And fighting well.

Aprille

You should definitely think about joining one of the bigger guilds – for WvW it does make a difference in terms of always being able to find a party to travel with, which means less chance of getting ganked but also more chance to make a difference doing strategic capping.

My own small Guild of 11 just joined Destiny Warriors for this reason and several other smaller guilds are doing the same which is helping with our improved coordination.

And Army of Albion is making is making big contribution on the server too so check them out.

Even if you don’t want to join a guild in the end then at least sign up to our server forum www.farshiverpeaks.com and jump on to the open Team Speak server.

Go Shiverpeaks!

Zumy – try Far Shiverpeaks. There are a few Guilds that specialise in the type of thing. And there is an open TS3 server. Check out www.farshiverpeaks.com for more information. Or www.dynasty-warriors.net for my own guild which I would recommend……

A proud server, with a proud history. Help create its future – you won’t regret it. Being able to say you were there when we stood tall and turned the tide – be part of that story!

Orb removal is a good thing given its current implementation. It is what many of us asked for and thank you to ANet for listening to us.