I’m not sure if it’s been addressed, but all server merges/alliances are going to do is decrease the current rate of WvW’s demise. We’d see full maps for a short time, but as population decreases, even those will slowly but surely empty.
The real problem is total lack of new content, making the game mode stale. And by content I mean maps. No matter how you move population around, in the end, it’s still the same maps from 2 years ago.
A new EB and BL every 6 months (put into rotation with the old maps) will keep people around. In fact, that would likely remove the need for merges/alliances.
Just like the case with siege trolls, you really need to address the root cause of the problem.
They announced that they will regulary extent fractal when they released it, they forgot it. They said the same again when they released the fractured patch, and they forgot it.
They simply just dont care.
They are extending fractals regularly. Once every 12 months like clockwork.
With the LS coming back in November (maybe 3 episodes, taking us into wintersday, perhaps?) it looks like the fractals “update” will skip this year.
I this kind of tactics must be the part of the game. Server level tactics and cooperations are wonderful things
Server level tactics and cooperation are indeed wonderful. But losing on purpose as a strategy is not. It means your tournament design is flawed.
Remember the Olympic badminton scandal? Hilarious to watch (a fun watch on youtube) as both sides try to throw the match, but ultimately, pretty disgraceful.
Try out WvW? Try soloing dungeons? Otherwise, you’re pretty much done with the game.
So how many servers this time are in a position where it’s better to lose the matchup this week? Anyone done any analysis?
For example, NSP getting 2nd this week means it’ll likely be way overmatched for its last two matches putting it probably into 7th place at the very end.
On the other hand, getting 3rd this week means its last matchup will be identical to its first, so it would have a decent chance of getting 4th overall at the end.
This is not a matchup thread. Its purpose is to discuss the flaws of the current tournament format in hopes there could be some positive changes in the future (LOL).
Don’t merge servers. Disband them. Start with the top 6. That probably does more than disbanding the bottom 12 in terms of spreading out population.
Plus, there’s more server loyalty at the bottom than at the top: that’s the only reason people are still in the bottom servers, after all), so the damage done to communities is far less.
(edited by Lord Kuru.3685)
Does Anet ever act against hackers in PvP?
I’m pretty sure it used to be Healing Surge. Now it’s Healing Signet. Anyone else notice this?
No thanks then.
Of course it’s not going to happen, but theoretically, maybe smaller parties: 2 or 3 man dungeons would be a better fit for the mechanics of this game than 10 man?
I just want the option to switch between the new/old TP UI… the older version was WAY better, why fix what wasn’t broken.
So I’m not the only one. Please get rid of the “close window” button after you sell.
They didn’t say unique did they? I thought it was “no more than twice.”
Remove EotM from the game. That’ll bring a bit more people into WvW (though perhaps not that many since EotM is probably all PvEers?). It’s useless anyway.
The supposed reason for EotM was
- queue alleviation (most likely for China launch). It’s not needed. Queues are rare on most servers on most days.
- testing new features for WvW. It’s not needed. No new features have been tested, and it doesn’t look like any are coming ever.
… do they give any bonus items?
The solution is fire-and-forget conditions. There’s way too much data transfer right now with each condition stack needing to check the condition giver’s condition damage every tick.
… I don’t like how illusionary leap puts the clone at a random position next to the foe (they probably just copied and pasted the spawning behavior of the warden).
The way it was, the clone would appear next to you, but after its leap, would end up between you and the targeted foe: always.
- Create new BL/EB maps on a regular schedule so that WvW won’t be as stale. More people will play, and that will alleviate the population issue.
- Change ranking system so that winner receives the great majority of ranking points. That encourages the two smaller servers to team up and fight for first instead of 2nd. That way unless the winning server has much more population than the two other servers combined, it becomes more even.
- Delete the top 6 servers. Spread the population out to the rest.
- Fix trolling, griefing using GMs (like in dungeons). People stop playing/caring when they know all their work is for naught because of trolls/griefers. This fix brings people back in the game.
(edited by Lord Kuru.3685)
They’ve already said they’re not making any more dungeons.
Lol I don’t think it’s that bad just yet. Even in tier 7/8 the servers could field around 30 per map.
This is not even close to being true. Even on reset nights. For tier 5/6 even.
I think you are missing a much more obvious reason for this decline.
People were very angry with the NPE patch, and the smack in the face to veteran players that they saw it as. Many players quit with the launch of this feature patch. There are simply less people playing the game now.
Demand is dropping because there are less players. Sell prices are increasing because there are less players to farm the mats in the first place.
Arent the majority of the community PvE players? Miniature collectors, living story heroes, etc.? I dont mean to insult any1 as I’m no1 to tell others what to enjoy in this game… but did the changes really hurt the majority? Did they subvert fractal/dungeon mechanics, did any class get a serious pve nerf?
I dont think that the rightful moaning of the PvP community is enough to explain such a great decline in TP activity. PvE players stayed, didnt they?
Maybe the announcement that there would be no more dungeons contributed to some of this? Don’t forget the fact that SAB isn’t returning as well. Also, the really disappointing NPE. Maybe vets are finally getting sick of Anet’s excuses (“it’s a bug!”).
(edited by Lord Kuru.3685)
A player asked this question in the dungeons forum (question #3 is not relevant to WvW):
So say two buddies join a group on the LFG that is at the last boss, kick everyone out, then give the slots away to their friends.
1) What would be done to these players?
2) Would it matter if it was their first time?
3) Would it matter if the instance that they stole was listed by a seller?If you could answer those three questions, I think it would clear a lot of things up. We’ve heard vague, sometimes conflicting answers to these, and it’d be great to have an clear-cut response.
This was the dev response from Michael Henninger. (It’s a new policy, I’m not 100% sure whether it’s currently being applied):
- #1 & #2
1st offense would be suspension.
2nd time would be bye-bye.
– #3
It wouldn’t matter outside of doing bad things. A seller being involved is irrelevant to the outcome of our investigation.Also – any time an account has multiple notes for being a ‘bad seed’ we take those other things into account and make decisions on a case by case basis. That’s why you hear us spout that phrase so often.
Edit for formatting.
Anyone one else agree that it’s just as easy — or even easier — for a GM to determine whether someone is siege trolling, golem jacking/suiciding, or turning siege around 180 degrees.
So why no GMs for WvW? Why are we discussing automated fixes (that all have significant negatives, and even if implemented, won’t be coming for quite a while)?
P.S. And one of the worst griefing methods: draining supply during an attack by buying merchants should be just as easy to investigate (of course this one is a but more fuzzy in terms of determining guilt, but I’d say one warning after doing it twice then punishments after that should be fair).
- #1 & #2
1st offense would be suspension.
2nd time would be bye-bye.
– #3
It wouldn’t matter outside of doing bad things. A seller being involved is irrelevant to the outcome of our investigation.Also – any time an account has multiple notes for being a ‘bad seed’ we take those other things into account and make decisions on a case by case basis. That’s why you hear us spout that phrase so often.
Edit for formatting.
I understand this is the new policy. But can anyone (dev or player who has reported someone) confirm whether it’s currently being applied or whether its something that’s coming in the future?
OP is wrong: in PvE, everyone’s a winner!
Whoever initially developed WvW did a really good job. It has been able to coast with no support from Anet since then. And probably could have survived much longer had Anet given it a push, say, every 6 months with a new map.
Judging from the unanimously negative reaction to this tournament, I guess 2 years of inaction is about all that the community will accept.
The WvW results are in! The servers with bigger populations and better coverage have won! (Oooops I should let it happen first I guess…)
So the real strategy is to find out when the next tourney is scheduled and adjust your place in the set-O-three brackets. To win you want a more people and better coverage than the other two in your bracket. If you were last in the last tourney just throw a couple matches and manipulate the scoring so you drop one.
Its that simple folks. All of your internet message board bluster is buffoonery until its a fair play field.
Servers have been doing this since the first tournament. Several have outright said they did; others, you can tell from their performance leading up to, and during the tournaments.
The only real long-term solution I could see to this is by introducing Green Vs Blue Vs Red for the main WvW maps as well. But that could lead to a different problem of a loss of “server identity and pride”.
The day this happens, at least half of the WvW population, and probably almost everyone under T4, quits the game (or WvW at least).
You want to repopulate WvW: make new maps on a regular schedule, deal with trolls, griefing, and hacking. Give the game mode some support.
That said, Green vs Blue vs Red is almost the certainly the solution Anet chooses; since EotM was such a smashing success, of course.
To make it appear as if there’s new content in order to disguise the fact that there is, in fact, no new content. See also: collections.
The system has utterly destroyed the season.
These “tournaments” are fillers for when there’s no content to be released. Best to not take them seriously.
Anyway, not much you can do except skip the week, it’ll show up in their metrics and maybe they’ll act on that?
Yeah… so I’m using ballistas in the corner of the camp to “hold” supply. Later, right before the siege expires, I return and retake the camp if it’s not mine. And when the siege expires, I get an extra 100 supply in the camp.
Oh, duh, I see now. Well, it wouldn’t be ballistae because I did put forth a caveat of the refund being within a reasonable range of the depot, so no squirreling siege off in some corner of the map. The scenario you describe would have to be done with siege golems, but it would probably be better served for them to move the golem to their garrison and let it expire there (effectively becoming a piloted supply dolyak for the price of the blueprint) than to hide it.
Coupled with the previous concerns, golems will definitely need a different approach than other sieges.
I think you can probably find good places to hide siege inside/near camps such that even if they’re capped, those siege won’t be noticed (especially if its just capping against NPCs only): At lowlands, perhaps inside the house on stilts; at south camp, in the apple(?) grove; at vale, behind the fireplace.
As for behavioral issues requiring behavioral solutions: banning is the only way that I see working. It’s just whack-a-mole in this thread. Except worse; each individual troll solution hurts the honest player in some way. And the mole pops back up anyway.
No changes needed for Arah, perhaps?
- I come to your BL and take all three southern camps. I build balli with the camp’s supply in the back corner of each camp. I leave to fight in EB. I come back right before the balli expire with a small zerg and take those same camps back. Those balli expire and I have 200 supply in each camp that I create omegas with. (Yes, alternatively, I could create half my golem army now and come back later to create the other half for the same effect. Except that golems will be trolled away, see below.)
Oh no, I didn’t mean the siege will just dump the supply in any supply depot, obviously it would have to be a friendly one and excess supply being held should be purged when a depot is flipped.
Yeah… so I’m using ballistas in the corner of the camp to “hold” supply. Later, right before the siege expires, I return and retake the camp if it’s not mine. And when the siege expires, I get an extra 100 supply in the camp.
this problem is a purely behavioral one and not a mechanics exploit.
Apologies that this above quote is somewhat out of context, but it’s exactly the point. Trolling is a behavioral problem. Fixing it with mechanics is not the way to do it.
If you’re considering selling, be warned that ANet is more or less ok with whiteknights stealing instances from sellers.
All it takes is one kitten and a friend to join, kick you, and take control of the nearly-completed instance.
As long it isn’t “habitual” (which seems to have a very relaxed definition in this case), they won’t action the griefers.
Also, I’ve gotten forum infractions in the past for making a post requesting a staff reply, so be careful about these posts. They don’t like being asked direct questions — next time just be vague and cross your fingers ;-)
On the plus side, that also means that it’s safe to steal an instance and then sell it, so you basically break even.
You might even steal your instance back after enough sell-steal cycles!
I’d deal with WvW trolls by trying to band-aid each trolling method one-by-one and case-by-case instead of using the report system to ban the trolls themselves.
The money I’d save terminating the contracts of those who deal with reports I’d either spend on:
- chasing the next trolling method that the trolls come up with (remember that the trolls are still around).
- or maybe I’d declare victory after the two or three most visible and embarrassing troll methods are gone and buy some overtime for designers to create a couple more gemstore-exclusive items.
Oh, I’d also create zero new WvW maps and zero new dungeons. Maybe I’d add a new sPvP map that’s one long narrow beam in the sky; there’d be hammers as environmental weapons every few steps that come with only one skill: “Banish.” This map would be put into the rotation for both team and solo queues. Perhaps tournament play as well.
Maybe in a couple years?
First off I’d really love to have account names tagged onto the siege just like Guild siege has it’s guild tag, this MIGHT help cause the siege is no longer anonymous.
try this first and see if it helps…then try something else with it.
How is this going to do anything? Everyone already knows their local siege troller’s name. They work with impunity and don’t care if you know who they are.
DRAINING OF DEPOTS
The problem: the construction of useless sieges takes away from the supply depot and because of how the siege cap works, this can be repeated infinitely for a (theoretical) infinite drain on supplies.The solution: make despawned sieges refund their full cost back to the nearest supply depot (within a reasonable range, naturally) and allow full depots to hold excess supply. By making it a zero sum game the system cannot be abused to rob resources from the server.
- Doesn’t stop trolls from refreshing their own siege so they don’t despawn in the first place.
- Doesn’t stop the real problem of supply draining: buying merchants right before/during an attack.
- I come to your BL and take all three southern camps. I build balli with the camp’s supply in the back corner of each camp. I leave to fight in EB. I come back right before the balli expire with a small zerg and take those same camps back. Those balli expire and I have 200 supply in each camp that I create omegas with. (Yes, alternatively, I could create half my golem army now and come back later to create the other half for the same effect. Except that golems will be trolled away, see below.)
DESTRUCTION OF DEFENSES
The problem (1 of 2): an extension of draining supplies, the way that the siege cap currently works will cause legitimate defenses to despawn while useless sieges are built.The solution (1 of 2): if sieges will have ownership associated with them, then change the despawning system to prioritize by ownership first: meaning if a siege troll starts putting down siege to hit the cap, it will start despawning his own sieges before others, thus rendering his efforts pointless.
Imagine a troll dropping siege in the right places, and then despawning them himself by dropping more siege right before an attack. It’d be hilarious; for the troll.
The problem (2 of 2): dropping siege golems off cliffs destroys the siege and supply that went into it as well.
The solution (2 of 2): make any golem that is destroyed by falling (and while not in combat) count it as being despawned instead and refund the build cost as usual.
- We frequently leave golems at spawn in enemy BLs when we leave the BL, only to come back later to use them in an attack. What if the troll kills the golems when we’re gone and simply takes the camps back that we hold, where presumably all the supply has been refunded (if we even hold any camps)?
- Plus, it takes quite a bit of gold, effort, and most importantly, time, to build even a small golem army. None of that is refunded. The troll is still effective.
- Troll walks golem to nearest tower or even sentry and parks it for it to be destroyed by NPCs or real players.
- Troll dumps golem in the water in a less-traveled corner. They eventually despawn.
DELAYING DEFENDERS’ RESPONSE TIMES
The problem: swinging a slow, defensive siege around the wrong way to delay the effectiveness of defenses.The solution: make the direction the siege was placed the default direction, have the siege slowly rotate back to its default position when nobody uses if for a minute.
Troll drops the siege in the first place. But all backwards. (You don’t even need trolls for this, 1/2 of all players drop siege backwards already.)
That’s a serious problem if true. If 916 = 4% crit chance and now 926 = 4% crit chance that’s a real nerf. I suppose it’s offset by 10 extra Power and Ferocity though.
The formula for crit chance compensates for the 10 points:
Critical Chance = (Precision – 832) / 21
while it used to be:
Critical Chance = (Precision – 822) / 21
What’s the purpose of all these changes?
Base stats were changed from 916 to 926 (power, precision, etc.). Anyone know when this happened (9/9?) and why?
One person runs the spider gauntlet, everyone waypoints.
Mesmer portal bypasses this anyway.
Also the waypoint was/is directly on the inquest turret, causing players to take damage immediately, stopping other players from waypointing and/or killing players.
They couldn’t move it a few units away?
however, if a band-aid is all we can get, I’d like the best, cleanest band-aid possible please! One that doesn’t introduce a whole new set of problems.
Problem is that most of the solutions I see here are really bad for OCX/SEA play when there are no zergs, or even NA play when there aren’t enough people to fill more than one map (frequently the case below T5). I’m not convinced at all that a band-aid solution is better than nothing.
Anyone know why that WP only activates after no one needs it anymore?
You stop siege trolling, they’ll buy merchants during an attack. You stop that, they’ll suicide golems. You stop that, they’ll run around your towers, turning all your siege backwards (yes, I’ve seen this).
You have to stop the trolls directly.
Just look at the dungeon exploit situation in this very game. Band-aid fixes like invisible walls for two years did nothing but temporarily slow down exploiters. And now (finally) Anet has GMs joining parties to ban people.
It’s been 2 years since this game was outed. How was this fundamental flaw allowed to exist until now?
Actually, it’s worse now than before. Previously, you’d be protected from all but the worst griefers if you were the dungeon opener, but with the latest patch, there’s zero protection.
And if you read the dev quote from above, it’s basically saying reporting is useless.
Why OP complaining? You mean 4 episodes of LS in 6 months isn’t enough updates?
Pretty much any idea with cooldowns on supply/siege usage is going to be really bad for players outside of primetime.
Plus, how are you going to do an automated system for preventing stuff like griefing by buying merchants during an attack?
Like it or not, the solution is to have GM, whether volunteer or paid, or a combination of both.
But from the looks of it, we’re going to get some terrible automated system (3 siege in 3 minutes limit, seriously?) … if so, at least put it in EotM first so we can gauge how bad it is before it’s put into WvW. Isn’t that what EotM was supposedly for in the first place?
At the very least, remove them and put into EotM until a good solution is found (which IMO is to get rid of them altogether).
Wasn’t one of the purposes of EotM to be a testing ground for WvW? Or was that just talk?
- When a player places a piece of siege they receive a stack of “Exhaustion”
- A stack of “Exhaustion” expires after three minutes
- If a player has three stacks of “Exhaustion” they can no longer place siege
Three siege every 3 minutes? Have you ever, anticipating an attack, rushed to drop siege? You’ve never seen 4 rams dropped at one tower?
I know Anet wants to deal with siege trolls in the least costly, most automated way possible but you can’t. Siege trolling is one of those “I know it when I see it” things and you’re not going to get AI or automation that can do that without hurting honest players.
Try this:
- Player GMs. Many per server. (Volunteer, no pay.)
- They can only deal with those on their own server, but can, of course, communicate with other GMs cross-server.
- They work under threat of banning if they abuse their power.
- Perhaps several layers (a hierarchy of GMs) to prevent mistakes.
- Anet only has to monitor the GMs for abuse and not the entire population of players.
Four LS every 6 months by the time the next LS episode comes out.
@Lord Kuru, is there a thread in which it says anything indicating that they won’t ever add dungeons? Because I seriously doubt it.
There was an interview at gamescon. Ask in the dungeon forum.