Guild Wars 2

Meet Skuggbjörk, my mesmer who is endlessly fascinated my humans, hence adopting her human nickname and their sense of fashion.

After reading this forum I used the LFG tool with trepidation. I had never done any dungeons apart from with friends, and well… honestly, the horror stories here were legion. Especially as I have only done a few runs before, and some of the dungeons I wanted to run were completely new to me.

However, all three separate pugs were friendly and efficient, I learned where to stack and were to stand and there were really no issues what so ever even when we died repeatedly (CM path 2, I’m looking at you and your explosive barrels…)

So yeah, just a thank you note to all you strangers out there who are nice and helpful in pugs.

Easier transition from PVE to PVP. Just a helpful NPC with answers and advice to standard newbie questions would help bridge the gap a LOT. If there is interest, I can write a list, because oh boy, do I have them.

Coming from PVE, the PvP experience is seriously weird. The barrier to get to your first battle is higher than if you are a total newbie I think. At least for me.

So, I finally managed to understand how to outfit a character. This can create a lot of problems for people from PVE, just because we keep looking for things that are not there and is afraid of consequences that do not exist. For example:

I was looking for ages for a trait reset guy like in PVE, but then found out that there is a little button on your character. Very handy, but if you come from PVE it is very hard to find. Why looking for something you don’t even know might be there?

I also spent forever trying to figure out how to get the runes out of my ‘starting’ armor, I could equip new things from my locker alright, but how to transfer the runes? I was petrified that I might accidentally destroy something that I needed later, only to find out that you can get all sigils and runes for free from a vendor. Also something that is completely weird for someone from PVE. The same goes for the ‘standard’ armour, I ended up having to destroy it because it didn’t want to go into the PvP locker. Very counterintuitive.

In fact, this is the third time I have gone in to try to outfit a character, the other two times I gave up. SO yes, this process could be clearer.

And then I figured I should fight a battle. Having read the forums, I realized that the tournament was not for me. But there was this other guy. It was solo queue, team queue and something weird that I assume might be custom arenas?

However, I was earlier given the advice not to do solo queue but hotjoins. Where do I find the hotjoins? I feel like I have looked everywhere.

Coming from PVE, it feels like the process of fighting here might be clearer. We don’t need to be taught how to use siege or cap points, we need to be taught how to equip our characters and where you should begin to fight if you are new.

And yes, I asked in mapchat, however, not a single reply.

jayvux.4128:

-Is it the rewards (skin, achievement points, mini pets, etc)?
-Is it the story?
-The zerging?
-Challenges?

Note: LS= Living Story

Update w/ question: And whatever you are playing it for, how would you rate its quality from 1 to 5 (5 being the best)?

For variation. I mainly play it because it’s fun, relaxed contents that sometimes have meaningful rewards, most of the time does not. At best it is something new that happens, at worst… well, I can just look around then ignore it then.

Mostly I play it for new enemies and areas.

I’d rate it about 4 in general for me.

((sneaks in and waits for updates, this is pure gold))

bri.2359:

I was out-of-game for 6 weeks when Anet revamped Teq. My server (Gunnar’s Hold) did it a coupe of times back then, but no more.

I happened to be in Sparkfly once when Teq spawned and it was so odd seeing no one else around. I even asked in LA last weekend if the server does Teq anymore, and the response was a rather emphatic “no” …

Would like to give it a go, but I do not know of any EU server or guild that does Teq.

Far Shiverpeaks does it mostly daily, we even have a special teamspeak channel set up for it. It is great fun! On the weekends we have even had two overflows…

Continued from above:

So what should you have done?

Well, if it was the insane genious you wanted to go for, then you should have given that impression from the start. You should have had people refer to her as that, and not as a sweet talker, which gives an entirely different impression.

Secondly, you should have had the Aetherblades have another reason than fear for following her. Has she helped them with tech for their ships? Led them to new plunder? Promised them things she now has to deliver? Have an Aetherblade Captain that works WITH her, not FOR her.

Thirdly, if you want to make her unhinged, then make her really unhinged. Make her talk about things that are not there Make her actually care about the things we have stopped and ruined, right now it is like nothing can make her mad and that’s just boring. Also, remember that we take NPC talk for granted. If you want to sow doubt about whether something improbable, then have both opinions there.

For example:
Asura 1: “I hear she studied at all the Asura colleges.”
Asura 2: “If by studying you mean quit when things got too complicated.”

That way you give people the option of forming their own opinion, instead of having the characters tell us what to feel.

I can understand if you wanted to put in all roles in a single character to make things more efficient story telling wise since you do not have a lot of time in the game, but this is not the way to do it. You have created a character who is good at everything, and the way you show it is by having all the other characters telling us that she is good at everything. That is not the way to do it, you made that mistake with Traherne once.

If there is any interest I can write up a through analysis of dialogue and what might have worked better, for both Scarlet and Traherne. Just have to find out whether there is a full dialogue script somewhere. I obsess way too much over these things daily (I’m a published writer).

But anyway, love this discussion, has not jumped into it before since character/dialogue analysis seemed to be a bit of derailing.

BobbyStein.2315:

Can you provide an example where you felt a dialog exchange between two or more characters in the Living World story sounded forced, was written too formally, or the performance didn’t fit the situation? We strive for natural sounding dialog (in an unnatural world) and we hold table reads in advance of every recording session, so we have the process you’re describing already in place. Granted, dialog is often subjective and what sounds natural to you doesn’t to me and vice versa.

I know this was not a question for me, but as I have been thinking a lot about similar things I thought I’d chime in.

For me the problem with for example Scarlet is not her actual dialog, it is in your mixture of archetypes. The reactions of the other characters just don’t make sense on a grand level.

For example, I am assuming that at heart, Scarlet is the mad genious archetype. If one goes by the short story detailing her background, and the various advanced technologies used. It also fits the way she was driven insane by her visions, and her whole work with portals. In fact, her whole ‘allying of complimentary forces’ feels very much like alchemy, trying to create new things in order to influence reality to do what she wants (free the Sylvari from their enforced fate?). That is all fine and well, BUT…

Here comes the problem. You have taken the mad genious archetype and fused it with the madly giggling chaosbringer (like Harley Quinn or the Joker). This archetype has an entirely different feel, and is almost never seen doing those kind of grand designs. A little crazy is fine, but people are more prone to accept it if it is more on a Dr Doom level of crazy grandstanding, if she behaves and talks like a manic ten year old girl, people will be expecting Harley Quinn with a cartoon hammer to bonk people with.

Which adds yet another problem. her manipulative skills. When rumours started to spread about her, we were first (in flame and frost) led to believe she was a manipulative sweet-talking plotter who worked behind the scenes. Then, in the Aetherblade content, we were hinted that she was a thoroughly dangerous person who could easily threaten people with death if they crossed her. The Aetherblades were implied not to follow her from love, or for profit, or because she had given them awesome tech, they followed her from fear.

And these things do not add up. I applaud you for trying to make complex characters, but this is a videogame. You have a VERY limited amount of time to make an impression, and you have to front load a lot more things. Not the story development, but character strength. Right now my personal reaction to Scarlet went like this:

1: Oh, scheming mastermind, I wonder who it is. Is it someone we already have met?
2: So the pirate leader is afraid of her? Cool! She must be awesome, I love strong female characters.
3: At the queens jubilee: What? She’s basically Harley Quinn? Who has studied at all the Asura colleges? And can fight that well? WTH? She’s a Mary Sue!

So yeah, for me at least you set up one impression and then broke it in a million pieces. And I don’t even hate the character, I am just… sad she was not better.

Well, thanks for the advice. I guess I’ll start out with what’s familiar to get a feel for things. Now only to choose between ranger and mesmer… Ranger seems to be more forgiving for beginners, but everybody always seem to hate them. I guess I’ll just avoid the spirits…

Going in of my ele with my fresh air build would make me melt sooo fast I think.

I hated my Ele until I finally sucked it up and finished levelling her. Then I hated Ele some more. Then I found about the ‘fresh air d/d build’ and suddenly I loved Ele SO much. It did all the damage I was expecting from the start, coupled with fun and very risky gameplay.

Unfortunately it is not a very viable build until you’re max level… But try d/d in general, it is at least not boring.

… will I get eaten alive?

Wait, don’t answer that, I am new so obviously I will. That whole skill thing… No, what I want to know is what the attitude is towards noobs like me?

I’ve played the game since launch, leveled a couple of characters and played some WvW. There, the entry point was easier since you could always hide in the zerg, but with the meta increasingly shifting towards zergs it’s just not as fun. I miss the old GW random arenas. But, since PvP is so completely different to the rest of the game, the step feels huge.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid of losing, I am just worried that I will let my team down. After all, I know nothing, and the builds seem quite different in PvP. How do you guys feel about total noobs in your games? What should I avoid not to be too annoying? Any good advice?

Right now I enjoy playing my sword/warhorn power ranger (I know), my fresh air d/d ele and my phantom mesmer. Have a max level guardian, but not too fond of the playstyle, and is experimenting with an engineer that feels cool.

Do not remove the evade on the greatsword!!!

That is my first reaction. Of course that is based on the fact that the only current use for the greatsword is in a defensive manner. If it is changed to be more offensive, I might learn to live with it.

However: We are medium armour. We are squishy. All our offhand options are aggressive damage dealers. We have no access to any other defensive weapon utilities than the greatsword. I think you have to think about this from a different perspective, if you want to raise the damage, buff maul. That would enable more synergy and spikes. Having the evade on swoop is a bit counter intuitive for me, isn’t it supposed to mainly be a gap closer? Maybe try to do something with the block instead, that one feels fairly useless outside duels.

I spend most my time in various PVE areas of different levels, and the population feels about the same as it was when I started. Far Shiverpeaks is by no means a top server, but we do teq regularily and the temples gets cleared.

However, right now there are a lot of reasons for low population:

- I noticed that when you start out, some areas have a lot less people than others. For example, even when I level a charr, I tend to go to Kryta to do hearts and map exploration. Some zones just have a better feel than others.

- Also, a lot of people level the early levels through the personal story, where each event locks you in an instance so you don’t interact with the world. My current thief (she’s lvl 24 too) has probably spent most her time within instances, only being in the world to run to the next area or do the odd event and heart.

- Another thing is that by now a lot of people have started power leveling, especially at the low levels since one of the birthday gifts (you get them when your character turns one year) is a scroll that immediately gets you to lvl 20. So the early areas gets even less populated.

- Yet another thing is the living story, at the start of each update a lot of people is doing that rather than their normal playing, thus ends up concentrated in specific areas. Right now that is in Harathi hinterlands among others. This dies off once people have completed the achievements, starting again once the next update happens.

- So far there have been no server closures or merges, which would be an indication that at least the population is somewhat healthy on most servers, but if you feel that your server is empty, you might want to guest at another one and see how things are there. That does not cost money, and is very easily done. Your xp and living story will be exactly the same, the server only matters in WvW.

Thank you Kristen, I really hope my T3 light cultural armor will have some of its depth back. Right now it looks like dried leaves, even with acrid dye.

A suggestion: Allies!

If by half the turn, the two losing servers have just a small amount of points, have them ally against the larger one. Not sure how that would work with leagues though.

Problem four: Making outnumbered suck less

Servers are never going to be completely balanced. But right now you need to consider alternative ways to make the game more fun when it is imbalanced. While many have suggested to get more points if you fight stronger opponents, all this would do is to make the points gap smaller, and the servers ‘seem’ more balanced. The difference would still be there, so that might even be more harmful in the long run. Instead I would suggest a few other things to at least spread the zerg:

• The ‘crowded’ debuff. If there are enough people within a certain distance, you get the ‘crowded’ debuff.

This works like a combination of vulnerability and poison, you take more damage and you heal for less. The ‘crowded’ debuff do NOT apply inside friendly fortifications. Not sure whether it should work or not within enemy fortifications. That is a big balance question.

• Make things to do in towers/keeps

Right now there is almost no time to defend a tower/keep against a zerg. With ram mastery and superior rams, people can break down doors faster than people can run there. Even if you have scouts that alert you, there is no way to reach there in time. You need a garrison. The problem is, that if you are outnumbered, chances are you won’t have people to do that, and you need those people to go out and take over camps, run dollies and the like. What is needed is a way to get the casuals to stick around in a tower, and have something to do there that feels useful.

Why not removing the crafting stations from your own home border and sticking them in keeps/towers? Maybe a BLT guy in the keeps? Little crafting stations in the towers? Bank access somewhere?

Maybe even other things? Little mini games? Target shooting birds from the walls? A spy-glass you can aim at different other areas to see what goes on there? Anything really, just give people something to do while sitting there that’s not just staring out into space.

Problem three: coverage wars

Servers are never going to be balanced. Especially not in time. At the same time, you need to let the people who play at those hours have fun/not feel useless. This is hard, but I have a few suggestions, all tied to the outmanned buff:

• It is not possible to upgrade castles/towers/camps if your opponent has the outmanned buff.

That at least means that even if you lose your upgraded borderland over night, you won’t face fully fortified positions the next morning. If you are concerned that people will move back/forth between borderlands to take advantage of this, simply tie it to be outnumbered in 2 of 3 borderlands or something similar.

• When you have the outmanned buff, you have more/harder NPC’s.

A lot of people have mentioned this, and I think it might work. Siegerazer is nice, but too limited.

• When you have the outmanned buff you have better rewards.

I am in general loathe to include combat stat boosts. But it might be worth testing for the more passive stats. Why not a MF boost? Or a gold earning boost? Maybe even WxP post? Bonus bags from taking towers/keeps? Right now a lot of people would rather go PVE and get some money to buy siege later instead of sticking around to cap a camp they will lose five minutes later and risk being steamrolled. Make the server ‘downtime’ a time when you can earn good money stuff to spend when the primetime starts again!

Problem two: Queues

Theoretically queues are a good way to make coverage more even. However, in order for that to work people need information about how big the queues are. It can be exact or general, but people need to know a few of these things:

• Your queue position
• The general queue length right now
• The general queue length in average on that server during primetime hours.

The two last doesn’t have to be exact, they can be color coded. Green-nearly no queues, red, long queues.

Especially the last one needs to be information available for a server, just like the WvW potential I was talking about earlier. If they are not, people cannot make informed decisions to move servers.

Also, guilds needs to be able to move

If you cannot just move it straight up, make a way to ‘dismantle’ a guild and get some of the influence back, like breaking down equipment. You could give the guild leader a bunch of guild influence pots making up a largish portion of the guilds influence. That way people can move server and it will be a hassle, but you won’t lose everything you have worked for.

Problem one: Accurate metrics

As many have pointed out, world population has nothing to do with WvW population. I can’t help but wonder if the simplest solution (number of hours played in www per server) is more complicated to show than we like. So here is another ideas for Anet to indicate what servers have a strong WvW coverage:

• Take all the accounts on the server that was active last month and add up their total WxP. *

This gives a rough indication of the total WvW potential of a server. Even if people don’t log in currently, if they have amassed WxP, then they could potentially log in if it was fun. It also factors in an organized core vs tons of relative newcomers. It seems that this should be a simple enough metric to filter from the data, and should at least be somewhat immune to the fluctuations of not logging in that week because we are getting steamrolled/steamrolling someone else next week.

I’ve leveled four alts to eighty so far, mostly for when I’ve felt like playing something different.

Mostly I’ve been doing standard PVE exploration, with a bit of crafting here and there. I’ve been in no hurry, I’ve been wanting alts to have a new way to play the game, and the slowish leveling progress lets me see what playstyle suits me.

Alts makes the game for me, both in looks and in playstyle. Without them, I’d be bored already. Sometimes I feel like it should go faster, but for me that mostly means that maybe I don’t like playing that class after all. Since I don’t bother with ascended yet, there’s no problem gearing them up as they go. Ascended is a different kettle of fish, but I don’t really need it in PVE and I don’t have the skills in WWW to really make use of that extra oomph. I need practice more than I need ascended.

So yeah, it feels like this system was made for me.

Thank you for this thread! I normally play close combat Ranger and Mesmer, and my Ele has languished in the no-man’s land of lvl 60. I just never could find anything that I loved, and then I tried the daggers and was blown away. I just made 80, and this thread has given me so many tips on how to make my character work. Super job!

I do love my D/D but I will give the focus a try…

PVE
1. Guild halls/player housing and how to do this.

2. Class balance (pick one class, and discuss the skills, traits, bugs, pros and cons in depth over all the different playing areas, www, pve, dungeons and pvp. I suggest starting with ranger, engineer, or necro as these seem to be the most problematic in certain areas. If you do one profession at the time, it will be easier to focus. Also, do not start with warrior or guardian as these seems to be in the best place atm)

3: Cosmetics (dyable weapons, scars and tattoos, town clothes usable in activities, town clothes usable in battle maybe with special title for completing things in town clothes)

I almost exclusively duo with my ranger, and it’s really fun.

You can duo very well with ranger/ranger, we do have more group utility than you’d think. And since it sounds like you are going PVE and questing, you can work well together.

If your wife want an axe, do it. They are condition weapon, but it can also work very well with crit damage, because they hit so many people and if you have a sigil that procs on crit (like fire blast for example) it can turn into a mass murdering tool. My power ranger often runs with two axes or axe/warhorn depending on whether I want the fury/blast finisher or more mass murdering power. If she likes cats, but they end up dying too fast, have her try a drake as the second pet. They are nasty and durable, do good damage and area damage. And their F2 is one of the best. You might want to entice her to try the sword, it is a love or hate thing, but if she likes it, it can do crazy damage.

If you want to play a ranger as well, to complement her go for traps and conditions. The shortbow works well with that, and sword/torch as secondary is fun too. Or double warhorn, or off hand axe if you want more mob killing capacity. If you have fire and frost trap, you have great combo fields together with the water field you already have. Her cats (and she if she has sword) can leap through it, your projectiles will burn/chill, and if you have drakes they will have blast finishers with their tail swipe. Area healing is really nice. And the axe twirl on the offhand axe. I almost always have a trap even though I am mostly a power/crit ranger, just because the synergy is so nice.

I would urge you to try anything but a bear, they are nice, but sadly so very, very underpowered. Drakes can live through mostly everything and do lots of damage too.

If you want to try another profession, ranger/thief is fun and the combo I normally use. It works best if you both have a few fields/traps, and it will be the ranger/pet’s job to hold the mobs attention. Both power and power/condition builds work well for that, and drakes are simply the best.

I will keep my ranger where he thrives, open world PVE. I will stick with my mesmer or guardian for dungeons or WWW. Business as usual in other words, this patch didn’t change a thing for me.

Sadly enough.

I could not agree more. It is a rare day I do not run double drakes, at least in PVE. They are just too handy.

In GW1 my main was a mesmer, and my secondary was a ranger. I loved them both.

In GW2 my main is a ranger and my secondary is a mesmer. Neither has anything in common with the professions in GW1, but I still love them both.

The OP is not wrong, but alas some my favorite things are simply done different these days. Combo fields are replacing things like burning and poison arrows, and a lot of our interrupt utility was stolen by the thieves it seems.

I miss being the controller on the battlefield. I miss the feeling of mwahahaha when you interrupted someone (not chance that I mained mesmer and ranger back then). I don’t get that now, the whole subset of skills just doesn’t exist in the same way. I miss them.

But does it ruin the game for me? No.

I have got other things instead, my close combat touch ranger is suddenly an integral part of the build rather than something you force him into, and I can use so many kinds of pets. Yes, the AI needs some serious work, but I love being able to switch it up.

My illusionary weapon mesmer build which was kind of kitten back in the old days is suddenly viable, and I have a rapier. A rapier <3. Yes, conditions and confusion really need some fine tuning again, but I like the core.

So I really miss the old GW1 professions, but this is not GW1. I love this style of gameplay a lot more, and I am having a lot more fun with it. Besides, it wasn’t until Elona that I felt that GW1 really took off, so I’ll give anet a few years to iron out the kinks.

I do solo PVE farming, and it can be surprisngly profitable if you just want to be a bit zen and run around. I hate dungeons.

My current farming build I use everywhere from Orr to Frostgorge is:

0, 15, 20, 5, 30

My gear is all magic find (don’t need better stats in most PVE), and with runes of the traveller, some cheap peach tarts and magic find on my torch it adds up.

For pets I always has my river drake, he’s tanky and has a blast finisher which is great since I use torch and usually have a trap or two. The other is one of the cats, usually the jaguar or lynx.

For weapons I run with either sword/torch (for lots of single target mobs like in frostgorge), or axe/torch which gives great tagging. The other weapon slot tends to be shortbow or axe/horn with the sword/torch or greatsword if I use axe/torch. The shortbow is mainly when plinking bosses in events, it’s handy against abominations and giants in Orr.

The thing is that for good PVE roaming farming you should be close combat. Your pet will have no issue hitting targets, and with a few aoe traps and a greatsword you can cleave through mobs fast. The bows just don’t kill things fast enough, in world PVE our pets do crazy damage to try to play around with beastmaster and drag out your sword. Also, with this much magic find a lot of the money will come from rares. I have little time playing, usually an hour a night doing dailies, and I usually finds at least one rare during that time.

Good luck!

You have all these snazzy town clothes and we never get to show them off.

My suggestion is that mini games like keg brawl and crab toss should be done in town clothes. Not only would it make sense since we don’t use any armor bonuses anyway, and professions do not matter. It would also make it seem like more of a fun pasttime than a full on battle.

If/when you implement the bar brawl, this should definetely be the case.

If it is a bug, it is a most awesome bug. At least now I am convinced the backpack is alive!

A friend of mine picked a sclerite shield when he finally got his weapon ticket. He already had the backpack on his asura.

Imagine our surprise when we find out that when the shield is on the back, it covers the entire tentacled mess. Or, well, that was no surprise. The surprise was that when he grabbed the shield to wield it, the tentacles were gone for a second, then the whole creature skittered from the shield to his back and locked on as normal.

Seriously. Whoever designed the interaction of those two things, GOOD JOB!

+1. I agree completely here, a lot of good ideas for the rewamp!

I love the drakes. They have on demand blast finishers since they use their tailswipe when you swap them in. The breaths are more viable now, and pack a lot of punch. But my main reason is that I can do bleed on crits for both drakes, cats and sharks, which are what I usually run. They are great in zergs too.

I do a trap ranger with double drakes, mainly because of on demand blast finishers. I do mostly close combat fighting though, but then the drakes are gold. The traps gives great fields for combos.

LOVED this dungeon, and I usually hate running dungeons. This was nice, fluid, cool story, cool mechanics and wonderful bosses.

Took my double drakes into a dungeon today, and they performed admirably. The added HP made a huge difference, at least if you’re traited into beastmaster. Still not running spirits though, at least with the occasional exception of the elite for mass ressing.

I just want more than one pair of pants for my female light armour wearers. Is that too much to ask?

At least now they have said that they will balance PvE and WvW separately, so maybe we will have workable WvW pets eventually…

I feel OP in PvE (except some dungeons), but I retired my ranger in WvW when the guard was nerfed.

Sureshot.6725:

The better solution would be to lift AoE cap on mechanics/skills that blow up or blow out the stacks while leaving the AoE cap for damage unchanged.

That is actually a good idea. Not sure what the cap is already on skills such as tornado (my ele has just reached lvl 40). But zergbusting skills would be a nice addition.

Tallis.5607:

I’d like to see some super-quality siege that doesn’t expire, this whole siege-ticking is a pure waste of time.

I agree. The problem is how to not ´have the map overflow with useless troll-built siege that never decays until a respawn.

Maybe a possibility to salvage siege? breaking it down for a fraction of supplies?

I’ve been thinking about ways to make for more interesting tactical play, break up zergs. One of the things I have been considering are new variants of siege equipment, both for variation and more flexibility.

1: Siege Devourer: I miss this fella from GW1, riding him was my favorite pasttime. I would suggest movement somewhat like a golem, limited close combat attacks, and a ranged blast somewhat like a mortar. If golems can be said to be mobile rams for breaking down doors, then a siege devourer is a mobile mortar/treb.

Their uses (besides looking awesome) would to have mobile artillery capable of adjusting to where the zerg moves. To ‘build’ them I would suggest replacing the ‘building’ command with ‘feed’. Or perhaps have the critter being outfitted with harness and stuff for the siege.

2: Falconet: This is basically a lighter type of cannon, that is mobile (not fast tho). Or it could be some sort of asura contraption that fulfills the same role, maybe a lightning gun that also can stun.

Their use would be to have lighter siege you can reposition to deal with zergs running around and attacking the wall at many different places, as well as being able to build and then roll it to positions where other siege cannot be built (like on walls that can be broken down).

3: Spike pit: This is a large area of hidden spikes, which will activate when someone walks into it and cripple them, much like the ranger spike trap. It will persist for a short while, the disappear. It will be hard to spot unless you are paying attention. Large cap on how many it hits.

This is the thing I REALLY want, mainly for the tactical uses. I love open field battles around things like supply camps, tunnel openings and bridges. However, much of the battlefield is never really used. With the spike pit, suddenly you can do ambushes. Place a line of them along the road where the zerg usually roams, have a scout keep an eye on it, and then rush down the cliffside once the trap has been sprung. Or, use them to slow the zerg down, have scouts place them along the usual zerg rush routes.

4: Supply cache: A supply cache is basically a small box you build from supply, which when placed automatically refreshes siege in an area around them until the timer runs out. This way you can make sure those expensive guild trebs do not die just because you go to sleep and nobody else remembers to refresh them.
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I just want more varied siege weapons, not overpowered, but to enable more tactical play. I think these three would fit in nicely, and make for more varied play without being overpowered. I have also included things to make fighting in the rest of the world more enticing, and help include things like ambushes and traps. If anybody has other suggestions, please, put them down. I have deliberately not included things like flamethrowers, because they do not fill a new role, they just add damage. Barricades and camouflage will be too overpowered I fear, I have not figured out a fun and balanced way to deal with them.

I’ve been thinking about ways to make for more interesting tactical play, break up zergs. One of the things I have been considering are new variants of siege equipment, both for variation and more flexibility.

1: Siege Devourer: I miss this fella from GW1, riding him was my favorite pasttime. I would suggest movement somewhat like a golem, limited close combat attacks, and a ranged blast somewhat like a mortar. If golems can be said to be mobile rams for breaking down doors, then a siege devourer is a mobile mortar/treb.

Their uses (besides looking awesome) would to have mobile artillery capable of adjusting to where the zerg moves. To ‘build’ them I would suggest replacing the ‘building’ command with ‘feed’. Or perhaps have the critter being outfitted with harness and stuff for the siege.

2: Falconet: This is basically a lighter type of cannon, that is mobile (not fast tho). Or it could be some sort of asura contraption that fulfills the same role, maybe a lightning gun that also can stun.

Their use would be to have lighter siege you can reposition to deal with zergs running around and attacking the wall at many different places, as well as being able to build and then roll it to positions where other siege cannot be built (like on walls that can be broken down).

3: Spike pit: This is a large area of hidden spikes, which will activate when someone walks into it and cripple them, much like the ranger spike trap. It will persist for a short while, the disappear. It will be hard to spot unless you are paying attention. Large cap on how many it hits.

This is the thing I REALLY want, mainly for the tactical uses. I love open field battles around things like supply camps, tunnel openings and bridges. However, much of the battlefield is never really used. With the spike pit, suddenly you can do ambushes. Place a line of them along the road where the zerg usually roams, have a scout keep an eye on it, and then rush down the cliffside once the trap has been sprung. Or, use them to slow the zerg down, have scouts place them along the usual zerg rush routes.

4: Supply cache: A supply cache is basically a small box you build from supply, which when placed automatically refreshes siege in an area around them until the timer runs out. This way you can make sure those expensive guild trebs do not die just because you go to sleep and nobody else remembers to refresh them.
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I just want more varied siege weapons, not overpowered, but to enable more tactical play. I think these three would fit in nicely, and make for more varied play without being overpowered. I have also included things to make fighting in the rest of the world more enticing, and help include things like ambushes and traps. If anybody has other suggestions, please, put them down. I have deliberately not included things like flamethrowers, because they do not fill a new role, they just add damage. Barricades and camouflage will be too overpowered I fear, I have not figured out a fun and balanced way to deal with them.

Ragnar.4257:

2. The ease with which gates can be melted down by 50 people auto-attacking, and dropping 10 rams on it. If you want to capture 4 towers, it is currenty far more effective to keep your group of 50 together and take 1 tower at a time, rather than splitting in to several groups. If there was a cap on the amount of damage a gate can take per-second, or gates/walls were significantly buffed so that it requires a good half-hour of attrition and blocking supply to break them rather than 30 seconds of bursting, then it might be more effective to split up.

I do love the idea of a damage cap per second for gates and walls. Buffing them would only increase zergs, since small man teams suddenly could not take anything. But to cap the max damage they can take would make everything above that number useless.

Honestly, that is a brilliant idea! Can’t see any drawbacks.

Lepew.7890:

1. Increase map size- right now the maps are small enough where one can go from any point to any other in 5min. This means a zerg can form and respond to anything. This is not very rich or interesting in terms of WvW complexity. What you really want is if you commit your main force to tower A, they will not be able to respond to tower B. You get this by making the map larger so that single zerg must subdivide into multiple forces employing zonal defense. When you subdivide a force, that requires organization and coordination, so a larger map would favor coordinated organized play over mindless zerging.

I agree. Especially on the home map, redeployment is scary fast with organized teams with the garrison waypoint. One risk though is that it will be harder for small teams/roamers to get to the distant places. Already most are slower than a zerg (few have constant swiftness), and the risk of getting killed is very big if you don’t have stealth/good flee mechanics. So the map and spawnpoints needs to be carefully placed to allow a good spread while limiting zerg response.

Lepew.7890:

2. Refreshing siege- you take a keep, spend time and effort to siege it up, and unless you refresh siege, it disappears. This means you have people dedicated to this thankless task at no WvW gain. Anet needs to find a good way with getting rid of the siege refreshing task. I know several people who will happily fortify and place siege in clever spaces, only to be dismayed when they log off for the night and all of it vanishes. This drives placement of siege from positions of strategic value to positions where anyone will be likely to see it and refresh it later.

Again, agreed. There is no simple solution here though, since people already troll by placing tons of useless siege and interrupting proper weapons, and they are a drain on the server.

Maybe some sort of supply box? You can build one for a fixed number of supplies (maybe half the weapon cost?), and if placed next to a siege it refreshes it automatically for a set number of times, like 5 hours or something. That way you can make sure that the siege you REALLY need will stick around.

I am aware of all the trouble that goes into making a balanced map for three forces. Anet has done a wonderful job on the WvW maps, however, things gets a bit boring after a while. So here is my (somewhat simplish) suggestion if they lack the manpower to balance everything perfectly:

Keep the same map design, but change the skins. That way you don’t have to worry about balancing them, while at the same time giving the players at least some varying graphics. Maybe even tiny changes.

For example, the current map set feels very krytan in spirit. Why not make an ascalonian one with a charr feel to it? With tar elementals and deserts, and lava and those lovely autumn forests. Maybe ghosts instead of quaggans.

There could be a maguuma jungle asura/sylvari set, heavily overgrown and with actual forests that hinder LoS and spiders everywhere. A golem laboratory instead of the quaggans.

There could be a shiverpeaks inspired snow map, with kodan mercenaries and polar bears and a lake that is semi-frozen.

Every week you could have a random theme for either of the maps, 3 for each border, 1 for the EB. That way things would be visually more interesting. If you want to, you can have it on a strict rotation. For example:

Week 1: EB: Kryta, Blue: Ascalon. Green: Maguuma, Red: Shiverpeaks
Week 2: EB: Ascalon, Blue: Maguuma, Green: Shiverpeaks, Red: Kryta
and so on.

That way, even if the tiers are frozen, at least the home map will vary.

I am aware of all the trouble that goes into making a balanced map for three forces. You’ve done a wonderful job on the WvW maps, however, things gets a bit boring after a while. So here is my (somewhat simplish) suggestion if you lack the manpower to balance everything perfectly:

Keep the same map design, but change the skins. That way you don’t have to worry about balancing them, while at the same time giving the players at least some varying graphics. Maybe even tiny changes.

For example, the current map set feels very krytan in spirit. Why not make an ascalonian one with a charr feel to it? With tar elementals and deserts, and lava and those lovely autumn forests. Maybe ghosts instead of quaggans.

There could be a maguuma jungle asura/sylvari set, heavily overgrown and with actual forests that hinder LoS and spiders everywhere. A golem laboratory instead of the quaggans.

There could be a shiverpeaks inspired snow map, with kodan mercenaries and polar bears and a lake that is semi-frozen.

Every week you could have a random theme for either of the maps, 3 for each border, 1 for the EB. That way things would be visually more interesting. If you want to, you can have it on a strict rotation. For example:

Week 1: EB: Kryta, Blue: Ascalon. Green: Maguuma, Red: Shiverpeaks
Week 2: EB: Ascalon, Blue: Maguuma, Green: Shiverpeaks, Red: Kryta
and so on.

That way, even if the tiers are frozen, at least the home map will vary.

jojojoon.8607:

The #1 reason why regular wvw players (not pve) run in a zerg is to take advantage of the aoe cap limit. When an opposing player puts down an aoe, the best counter is not to spread to avoid the aoe but to have everyone zerg up and clump together so only 5 people are taking damage. It makes no sense but it is what it is. Unless this changes, people will continue to run in zergballs since it’s the most effective way to fight.

That is a very good point. I did not think about the zergballs here, just the maneuvering zerg. We do ball up in keep attacks, and unless siege has a LoS it is a good defense. I agree that this is not how it should be, logically.

However, how to resolve it I’m not sure. For me, raising the AoE cap has too many other negative effects, and I really, REALLY don’t want this to turn into WAR. It is a tough nut to crack.

style.6173:

I agree with everything you said other than #8. I’m not a fan of NPC stuff in WvW. Also for #5, I think there should be an icon for GUILD teams. That would allow your guild members to see their commander without cluttering up the map for everyone else.

I can respect that. And an icon for Guild teams would be an awesome idea! That would be especially great for the smaller guilds and striketeams! If I get killed and lose track of where they are, it’s sometimes hard to find my way back if I am not on the TS at the moment.

So, what should be done about zergs?

Let’s face it, a zerg (by which I mean a large mass of people) is needed a lot of the times in WvW. And zerg vs zerg can be awesome when it works right. BUT these things needs fixing to make it easier to play:

1: Skill lag (especially with 3 server clashes)

2: Grey out the names of defeated players. A lot of the time I find it hard to AoE in the fury of combat, because it is hard to spot if people are dead or alive, because the mass of red names covers everything. This makes my AoE often hit nothing in moving combat, especially with casting time and skill lag.

3: Shorten server names/no titles. I don’t need a novel for each enemy.

Also, there needs to be incentives to break up the massive zergs that forms for no good reason. I would suggest:

4: Commander colors. Make it possible to choose your commander symbol’s color. That way you can easily say things like ‘follow the red commander to get supply’ in mapchat. Yes, they have names, but especially at the start, it is hard to keep track off, and even now I sometimes end up following the wrong commander if I am focused on other things.

5: More leaders. Either make it possible for commanders to deputize people so they get an icon as well (maybe a slightly bigger dot in the same colors as the commander), or make it possible to buy lower level of commander for cheaper sums. If there is only one or two icons on a map, of course everybody is going to get drawn to them. But if there were lieutenants as well, there are more spots to focus on for people who are not organized, thus they will get spread out more evenly.

6: Make it worth defending: Right now we defend for pride, and to keep the upgrades we have. But, a lot of people are not interested in defense, because that is boring and gives them nothing. It is awesome fighting to take a defended keep and I wish everybody to have that experience of true carnage and war, so make it worth it for the brave ones in there.

7: Make the smaller tasks count. Killing dolyaks gives a lot. Protecting dolyaks gives nothing. We need to have more things smaller teams/roamers can do on the maps.

8: Anti zerg siege: It would be interesting with more varied choices of what to build for your supply, especially for use in the open field and to encourage tactics. Arrowcarts are nice, but why stop there? For example, spiked pits could be dug so people could lure zergs to run after them only to be crippled. Maybe setting a herd of cows on fire to drive them into the zerg, or other weird things used in ancient warfare.