Guild Wars 2

Something as simple as “These comments do not represent the X server community.” would be sufficient. And no, standing up for what’s right, isn’t silly. Just rare.

Sarika.3756:

Three or four players don’t define a server.

They do if they are the only one speaking. Guess what, they were the only one speaking.

Silence is acceptance.

People that sacrifice the game for the betterment of only themselves or their guild, are selfish players. There’s always a way to make both thrive without destroying the other.

My watch is ended.

Great community, havocs, PPT guilds, guilds working on GvGs, all here. Communication and respect all around.

I’m sure ANet came come up with an option that helps the defending server besides an exploit. As it has been noted several times in this post, spawn trebs are often used against small havocs and in non “snowball matches”. It’s abusive.

Also, they can hit garrison as well (and therefore provide defense for it).

Fear not friends, there is no attempt here to hurt any server but only to push for removing exploits and making fair play. Here was a post made 8 months ago, before certain servers were in current match ups: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Siege-in-Invulnerable-Spots-in-WvWvW/first#post5358718

- Many consider it an unfair advantage because while it’s nice to say “Only when we’re outmanned or losing will we use this”, everyone knows that people will still exploit it when your towers up north are tier 3 sieged up inside, same with garrison, etc. That’s just silly.

You can put shield gens up there and then the trebs are never counterable, because there is no way to engage the players on the shield gens (you can’t walk up there).

If you’re having trouble because equal forces to yours is pushing you north, one of two things could be happening:

- Map politics, alpine was designed for the home server to be double teamed, just look at how it’s tall and not wide. In that case, defend garrison with all you got (with out abusing trebs), that’s some glorious stuff there.

- One server is pushing you and with equal numbers/siege/towers/garrison you’re losing. This is a skill issue. Many guilds/servers take pride in wiping out keeps with equal forces vs a huge amount of siege. People shouldn’t have to demand for an exploit or unfair advantage because the opposing forces have decided to run certain builds and train. On the contrary, do so yourself, it’s a lot of fun!

<3

Appreciate the post being re-instated, glad it’s being addressed.

To others:

There is no spawn camping here. The entrance to NW tower is right next to where you jump down from spawn. You have to walk passed it on the way to garrison, it isn’t spawn camping. Additionally, on the NW tower, the trebs fire over your head if you’re in that area, so again, it doesn’t really help with that. And for NE tower the spawn decent is farther north.

Lastly, you can use other siege to defend this siege. Without being able to engage the user of said siege, it becomes impossible to kill these. Glad it’s being handled at some point, appreciate all the responses and support.

This is an important item to address. Because we can’t kill spies or take them out of play, some sort of counter play needs to be in place. Apparently this is happening a lot in tier 2 =\

Support this thread!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Alpine-Border-Land-Back-Spawn-Treb-Bug/first#post6137870

Say no to spawn siege!

Heimlich.3065:

Build an arrow cart, treb, or ballista to destroy the offending siege. It isn’t an exploit, the siege is vulnerable to destruction, just like all siege is.

It’s no more an exploit than building trebs on the upper floors of Stonemist or building trebs inside towers to hit keeps (and vice-versa).

My argument is precisely that it’s not an exploit. How on earth could I be arguing that “[I] get an exploit if” when I don’t agree with the premise?

This is players from large population blobby servers arguing to change mechanics they they don’t like in order to adjust balance. It’s obvious why “most” disagree when it’s popular with blobfolk.

Fair point, you don’t see it as an exploit, most people do. There hasn’t been a piece of this siege I haven’t found a way to destroy up there, though in some cases your treb skill shots have to be perfect.

As someone else said, if they wanted siege to be built up there, the no siege buff wouldn’t be up there. You have to leap down or to a house and then throw the siege backward; effectively gaming the system. It’s not natural, so again, we see it as an exploit (as we did with the AC abuse years ago with eye infinity or whatever).

I’m on a server that at times has used this; we all call out the people that build it and tell everyone not to refresh the siege. It’s unethical to support what we see as exploits.

Just increase the siege no build condition. Pretty simple.

Most disagree Heimlich. It is an exploit though not horribly broken. It is counterable, most things are.

Gunflame was broken for a while. It was an exploit that it double hit, but was still counterable. Does that mean we just leave it and say “well there are ways around it so who cares”. Fair plays says fixing exploits is important.

Massive blob servers have zero to do with exploits, off topic argument is off topic. The argument that you get an exploit if you feel you can’t compete with a large blob is not the solution.

It shouldn’t be a hard fix anyways.

Mal has done some good.

ANet has no strings Mal!

No strings on meeeeeeeeeeeee!

It hasn’t been fixed, support this thread!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Alpine-Border-Land-Back-Spawn-Treb-Bug/first#post6135205

briggah.7910:

Johje Holan.4607:

briggah.7910:

played map for 5 minutes. realized i played this same map for years and left because the k-trainers are already out k-training empty objectives

Its the middle of the day. Coverage balance was not fixed by the server combinations.

Hopefully tonight all maps are queued in every tier.

maybe you are right and maybe ebg won’t be as blobby as it has been but after playing the updated desert bl and going back to this map I now see the flaws of this map

Like spawn trebs! =p

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

I’m going to make a long post on bandwagoning, naturally over time or forced (what happened with TC). This speaks against what has happened on BG over time (or JQ at one point).

Bandwagoning in any form is poor for the game and builds the glicko wall. What’s worse is when the way it’s done displaces players from their community or makes people stop playing. My main reason for leaving GW2: too much effing drama for a game that is just suppose to be fun.

Which is why I don’t understand the logic of “We want to destroy the wall, let’s bandwagon 12 guilds to a server that was already crushing their opponents.”

It sounds like there is some other motivation (or no patience and willingness to transfer constantly).

At this rate, if BG keeps having players login to their accounts again, it’ll be BG/TC/X. Basically, BG and TC won’t rotate. Is that what everyone is looking for?

Go natural folks.

I hope players start to get out the mindset of “we gotta transfer to X tier”. Tiers are not really a thing right now and they shouldn’t really ever be.

It’s a two prong problem:

1. Reduce incentive to move 10+ guilds to the server that is already dominating. That’s poor form and hurts the game (individual players don’t like being spawn camped on EBG while the enemy force puts WPs in all of the towers and keep on your side of the map to get you to log out, I’m sorry that HURTS the game, it doesn’t HELP the game).

2. Reduce incentive for the slow movement of guilds to one server (see season 1 where JQ bought MERC, BG bought ZD, etc.).

Both have to be solved for and people have to be willing to lose (or not get their non-stop I want to fight these people etc. me me me me me).

I’m going to make a long post on bandwagoning, naturally over time or forced (what happened with TC). This speaks against what has happened on BG over time (or JQ at one point).

Bandwagoning in any form is poor for the game and builds the glicko wall. What’s worse is when the way it’s done displaces players from their community or makes people stop playing. My main reason for leaving GW2: too much effing drama for a game that is just suppose to be fun.

Which is why I don’t understand the logic of “We want to destroy the wall, let’s bandwagon 12 guilds to a server that was already crushing their opponents.”

It sounds like there is some other motivation (or no patience and willingness to transfer constantly).

At this rate, if BG keeps having players login to their accounts again, it’ll be BG/TC/X. Basically, BG and TC won’t rotate. Is that what everyone is looking for?

Go natural folks.

The sass is real! Ok fair enough, so we don’t know. But it’s not answering exactly what I’m asking. Basically activity by account over time (last year) so we can see what’s really going on.

It’s something that has always bugged me because it’s not just about balancing servers, it’s about how much ANet puts capital into keeping WvWvW a relevant game mode.

Thanks!

Please support this thread if you believe that spawn trebs are exploiting, make Alpine great again: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Alpine-Border-Land-Back-Spawn-Treb-Bug/first#post6135205

Alpine Borderland is back today! Thanks for that.

With this change, we’ve already tested if spawn trebs work (building trebs from the invulnerability spots around the spawn areas that pour into Northeast and Northwest tower).

They still work. This was a prime exploit that much of the WvWvW community asked to be fixed because it allowed you to constantly treb NE and NW tower (even GARRISON!) with trebs that are very difficult if not impossible in some cases to counter.

It isn’t in the spirit of fair play or sportsmanship that appears to be very important to ANet. With the recent changes to DBL being so quick, I imagine this will be a quick fix (in short, expand the area at which siege can not be thrown to be farther out from spawn then it currently is).

Thanks for the rotation back to Alpine for a bit, variety is good.

Spawn trebs still work apparently, we’ve asked for this over and over again to be fixed. I’m posting a bug as well. Please address ASAP, some servers abuse this. Other servers don’t like cheating.

Thanks!

Torque, is there any way to check activity by account and location of that account over the last year (server wise)? I assume it’s only ANet that has this info.

One thing that really torques me (yes a pun) is that people assume “mass transfers, ET influencing BG a ton, etc.”

In short, from what I’ve seen is that people are just playing their accounts again. Our SEA guilds picked up (SEPH <3), our OCX picked up, more people on for NA. But it’s the same people that were here a year ago (with some small exceptions with people getting off JQ or YB and some ET people).

Any way to get that detail or not?

Thanks Torq! Appreciate the respect, but Rev is right on coverage.

Someone figure this out. The sky is falling, oh no!

Looks like the volatility is . . . there? Guess time will tell. We had rotation in tier 1/2/3 this week and tier 2/3 last week.

10 times out of 10 I command the group following me to leave duelers and roamers alone, no honor in running them over.

If they try to eat at my backline at all though, we turn and destroy.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Naithe.4271:

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

Can you stop taking side swipes at me without understanding what the reasons behind my thinking are. I know you don’t like me and that’s fine. I was completely transparent in all my decisions. So transparent that I write walls of text everywhere. If you have any questions just ask even though you can’t because you have had me blocked for the last year or so. Don’t ask for transparency when you are too afraid to talk please.

Also please don’t make assumptions. Tier 2 is healthy and competitive and fun. The issue with the system is that it creates walls. The walls create staleness. The community moves to try and break it. You call us a bandwaggon because we moved together with a plan.. But this has been happening in Guild Wars 2 for the same reasons that I give all the time as to why I made my decisions. I am sorry you do not agree with it but maybe you should try understanding and listening to the other side directly.

You should understand that the mechanics in GW2 enable mass movements of guilds and player base regardless of how organized the move is or not. You should realize the problem is the system in place because it creates staleness. Both this soft reset and an overall reset would make for rotation and both would be very temporary. This is why the entire system needs to be changed.

Mal, I believe you want this game to flourish. I believe you want it to grow like that little Sylvari you once were. There is no question in my mind you understand that for this game to do well, it needs players.

Please indicate where I said Tier 2 wasn’t healthy.

Posts you’ve made else where indicate 10+ guilds that all agreed to go to one server. That sounds like bandwagoning. I never said that was wrong; please indicate where I said it was bad for the game.

We both want the same thing, I just choose to do it honorably, not by manipulation or intimidation. You choose to do it whatever way you like; I just feel your way is bad for the game. I’m not here to throw stones, I’m here to stand up against what I feel destroys the game. How many guilds haven’t jumped servers and are doing well? A lot.

How many guilds/servers have been heavily disrupted and lost players due to a large number of guilds jumping to one server (think SOR)? If one could show you it was 50% of the server population that left due to these actions, would you care? I don’t know if it’s true, only ANet does, but that’s my suspicion due to player frustration that other guilds move in and “take over”.

There are bigger fish to fry besides server rotations and I don’t believe we have enough proof to show that ANet’s methods so far won’t work. It’s barely been over a week. I just recommended we wait a little bit. EU works because people are forced to spreadout due to language barriers (according to Chaba). Again, if the dream is to have a 6 server rotation, what’s the plan to split up the alliance to help with that? My point stands, you can’t have it both ways which indicates you’re not trying in the first place; you’re not stupid.

You and everyone that follows you is blocked because Silver said it was the only way to put myself above reproach that I didn’t listen to spies. I don’t, proofs in the actions.

Honor, everywhere.

Dhemize.8649:

Your “community” will be abruptly split when the next pairing is decided.

Then we will join up with a new server and go again, because you know, some of the community (not pointing the finger at you) want this game to thrive instead of putting dictatorship ahead of actually having someone else to play.

<3 ET

BG hasn’t had havocs or small groups in abundance for a long while. People don’t like to PvD in groups of 4-5. And I don’t blame them, it’s boring as F. That being said, it is very effective.

What small groups we do have are more than PvD players and do very well. That being said, ET seems to be working well and we have broken off parts of our main force to deal with the smaller 4-5 man groups from YB / JQ.

But doing so, is like pulling teeth.

Chaba.5410:

Naithe.4271:

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

Honestly, I don’t get what you are trying to say. Pushing for what? You didn’t specify.

EU is how it is for several reasons: they are concentrated in EU timezone, they have national language servers that stifle large population movements, and a social attitude of teamwork that is quite different from NA, which is illustrated by how more willing they are than NA as a playerbase to “spread out”. One cannot replicate the EU experience in NA by telling NA to simply spread out.

I never said telling people what to do was the solution, simply analyzing the situation where others have succeeded to the end some here desire (the EU situation).

Some people here, not particularly you, are pushing for a full reset and yet they stack servers. That does not makes a lot of sense, does it?

tldr: People should be more transparent about their true intentions, whatever they may be.

Chaba, probably to test results I guess. All babies have to crawl before they walk.

Torqued, agreed. The overall system just doesn’t seem to work well. Personally, I feel alliances can have limitations as well as it limits those that can’t compete due to connections, skills.

It sure would be nice to have a WvWvW objective from ANet (full servers, # of players, etc.). Besides being the best MMO, what do they want specifically for WvWvW?

Variety is the spice of life.

Borderlands get old, ANet changes them. Builds get old, ANet adds and changes them. Guess what happened when they did all of these changes? People left.

Guilds bandwagon to one server. Two reasons were given: 1. To help rotation (the dream, no strings attached, etc. etc. insert rhetoric here) 2. to play with friends.

In short, you can’t have it both ways. Yes that sucks, that’s how small the community is that’s left.

If you reset right now all glicko (not partial, not just increased volatility), you only temporarily provide variety. Because guilds have localized on a few servers (some by strong deliberate choice, others due to it being their original home and movement of other guilds slowly over time to specific servers), a reset will only temporarily provide variety. Stacked servers if remaining stacked will rise to the top. And then what? Reset again?

People posting here aren’t stupid or ignorant. You know this. So why are you pushing for it instead of spreading out if the dream is constant rotation? Has anyone reached out to EU to find out how they did it? My understanding is they spread out (not band wagoning) and they have a less PPT oriented environment, people care more about the fight engine and engagements.

I get that we have more activity now. Guys, it’s been a week since the patch. Let’s see how the community receives everything after one month let’s say? If the activity is there player wise, and Glicko is propped up, then maybe a hard reset makes sense. For now, and forever, we can’t see the future.

Or we can just try to keep gaming the system.

Honorade and stuff. Because you know Mal, for some of us (ok maybe just me) that’s my dream, and it’s real. No strings.

DeWolfe.2174:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

I just hung out with guildies in TS and mashed faces with YB in OS. It is NOT that bad

BG Q’d OS even!!!!! You had all 5 maps Q’d! Which hasn’t happened since I believe the first night of S1 or was it S2. I just recall fighting with Josh and Roy (devs) in the OS lobby. It was insane.

Season 3, we were hungry for revenge.

Spawn camping can be done even if you’re the inferior force in numbers, it’s a matter of skill. Realize that you can go toe to toe with an enemy force and if they are trained and focused, with correct builds, you’re going to get squashed, all the way back to spawn.

IMO, spawn camping results in people logging off because its not fun to well . . . do nothing.

But on that note, so is building siege at the spawn point where players can’t take damage. That also needs to be addressed.

Increase the range for no siege building on all borderlands out of spawn, particularly EBG green side and move out the legendary guards. Not everyone is hardcore and should hopefully enjoy the game.

Or we can continue to bleed players.

Rocket.1723:

too many TLDR posts in this thread! <jk>

DBL’s feel laborious…probably because of the previous stated barriers to navigating around them – I’m looking forward to the map changes when they happen because I’m thinking they will make me happy.

The ABL will feel nostalgic. I enjoyed running on them…remember the quaggan event in the middle lake? That felt a lot like PVE, btw. People complained about that until they took it out, then people complained about losing the water combat opportunity. I kinda missed the lake – it was a great way to sneak a massive number of golems up to watergate of garrison undetected

QFT, Quaggan’s 2016. Make it happen.

But Quaggans removed siege. We need this. Or a global decrease to siege cap (like a lot).

And Quaggans are cuties.

I’ve always felt DBL could be saved, I know Terza put a lot of time into it.

That being said, if Alpine is going to comeback, here’s my suggestions:

- Remove exploits, spawn trebs in particular. We play this game to win (PPT and fights) in the end, so cheats need to removed. Building siege that is impossible or extremely hard to counter (because the people manning them are invincible) MUST be removed.

- Limit or completely remove all of the HOT guild changes that make the game unbearable and hurt smaller guilds. Some things that were good with the changes include sentries, supply drops, temporary structure immunity and the tower radar.

- Change the way lords work. When I beat on a lord for 3-4 minutes because I have 50 people on me. It’s boring. It isn’t engaging content, it isn’t fun. This is PvP. I figure this was put in place to help the defending force save their structure. It isn’t the best way to do it, in my opinion. The other tactivators already help too much. Add in the lord break bar scaling, etc. Lords should perhaps scale with the upgrade on the structure. Only fortified lords should be extremely hard to take.

- Remove creatures or only put them in less traveled corridors.

- Bring the quaggans back. Honestly though, I think the rune area is nice from a fighting stand point and stimulates fights to help points per spike. I just always liked the quaggans and that owning or appeasing the quaggan areas DESTROYED siege. Bring this back!

So. Good.

Torqued, you’re certainly entitled to your play style. I PPT to a degree but really enjoy the fighting engine this game has. I appreciate the dialogue because I still feel that we’re passing ships in the night. I supported your analysis, and I quote “This is a really good analysis, nice work.” on the BG forums. Let me know if you want me to post the screenshots.

You won’t find me saying that BG should stay in tier 1 or fight just to stay in tier 1. I’ve never cared, so frankly, that’s a flat out lie or misconception (maybe you thought I was someone else).

I did say that if there were no fights for our SEA or OCX they would stop playing. Guess what, that’s exactly what has happened. And to that end, if staying in tier 1 keeps people playing because they have competition, then we should care about our SEA and OCX timezones. That being said, there is currently plenty of fights in tier 2 for those timezones it seems, so moving down wouldn’t matter. Please find the quote where I said “BG must always fight to stay in tier 1.” I’ve never cared.

On the note of frustration; heck yes I’m mad. I’ve been interviewed by ANet live, I’ve went into their studio several times, I was in the DBL Beta, I saw the DBL 18 months before it came out, etc. The point is, we constantly gave feedback, most of it was ignored. When HOT hit, GOF had 60 people online, within a month, it was down to 30. That’s not me being negative, that’s the state of the game.

Did I show too much frustration at ANet? Yes, I sure did. And I’ve done my best not to show more frustration even with in TS (you won’t find posts of me on this forum or any forum being overly negative without providing a bunch of suggestions; heck I don’t even think DBL needs to be removed, just tweeked). That being said, it wasn’t out of anything more than caring that players weren’t having fun in my guild; and with no power over it, I got frustrated. As a driver, I see it as my responsibility to make sure people have fun while I lead and my negativity didn’t help with that. That being said, ANet’s position didn’t help either.

You didn’t seem to pick up on it, but ANet has said to me directly, on these forums and by their actions that the numbers are down. They are going to remove DBL that took a year+ to build. If the general player base hadn’t diminished, and there was just an outcry from a crowd about DBL, they wouldn’t make this move. They are making it because they have the activity numbers, and they are down. Hence why they are asking the community what will get them engaged again.

With the current meta (and leaked potential patch notes as an indicator) they are reverting (or going back to a lesser degree) a lot of the changes that have happened, all because they believe those changes influenced a down turn in population (again I assume). If the patch notes are correct, they are cutting the number of servers. Some poor soul on these forums said that tier 8 has sometimes just 1 person on a border land.

Ok so take all of that into account.

Now, YB plays to the strengths of the current meta. But here’s the problem: That said meta (and guild buffs, DBL to some extent, etc.) are causing that downturn. Hence the ANet changes.

And then you say this “Regardless of your perception of my attitude, the fact is that Blackgate is actively driving away PPT players and putting themselves at a disadvantage. Blackgate will never beat Yak’s Bend until they are willing to become like Yak’s Bend.”

It’s on Page 1. You are telling people that it’s more important to play like YB, which that style seems to have influenced a downturn in players. Now you’re saying you never said that. YB wins because the same few set of individuals play ungodly hours. You know it if you are looking around. One of YB commanders will play for several days straight to make sure they win. But now you’re saying not do overtime and yet you’re saying we need to be like YB? I’m confused.

And that’s why I have a concern with it. It’s accelerating the downturn of this game, not the increase. It’s why I don’t agree with a lot of which you have to say. I want the game to thrive, not collapse. I think you want the same, but I think you haven’t taken a good hard look at what’s bringing down the game.

On your note for PvE players, I think you’re 100% spot on that we should try to get them into WvWvW. Some of the best players I’ve played with were originally PvE players before WvWvW (I was PvE for the first 8 months though I’m not a great player). Hence why we’ve been asking for WvWvW rewards to go up for ages, look back 3 years ago and you’ll see posts on it. Unless you learn the game mode and enjoy it, why WvWvW for 1 hour where you make say 2-3 gold compared to 20g in current PvE content. It’s a tough sell. Additionally, the best way in WvWvW to make gold is to fight and get bags, it’s the highest return on time (at least in my experience). Also there are no exclusive finishers, “good” looking armor, etc. that are only in WvWvW. Doesn’t speak to that type of player that wants unique stuff.

Also, I always said we needed more havocs on BG. People that like to cap stuff and fight with more dedicated focused groups not large in size. It’s a weakness, and YB has it in spades. Good for them, but with the player base decreasing, it’s hard to find those small elite teams.

So I think, in the end, we both want the same: WvWvW to survive. You because it’s new and fresh and fun and me because I want people to have fun (guilds in the end are a sort of family and when family leaves, it’s sad).

Let’s just make sure we take into account the situation for what it is.

“The first step in solving a problem, is identifying you have one.”

The way BG works hasn’t caused a decline on JQ, or YB, or tier 2, or tier 8 or whatever. I personally only influenced my guild and some of BG. I don’t have that much power!

It’s the game. Let’s say it for what it is and not promote the wrong direction to solve the problem.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Pensadora.9478:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Substance E.4852:

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

mulzi.8273:

Siska.8102:

YB is a boring opponent. Basically you have to drain their map of supplies, kill all their siege, get past all Anet’s cheese mechanics THEN you might get a fight. They’re like the guy in the drinking game bragging that he’s still sober at the end of the night. I’m all for sobriety but buddy pretty much missed the point or joined the wrong game. That’s YB, they’re in wvw to pve.

^this. In my experience, JQ and BL go after each other due to some pretty good fights. While these two are battling it out, YB is back capping, ‘stealth sieging’, PvD, etc.

Pointless to fight YB in this environment. When a BG zerg meets a JQ zerg, there is might stacking, pushing, healing, falling back, strategy, players actually hitting each other with class skills, etc. A fight with YB? YB sees another zerg they immediately drop 10+ siege on a choke point and siege hump, hoping to god the other team charges them. Only idiotic teams will ‘charge’ YB like that, zergs looking for fights will go elsewhere and leave YB to their PvD activities.

I can’t count how many times BQ has teamed up to take down YB. When 2 servers will not fight each other and gang up on the underdog what do you expect that underdog to do? YB came up with tactics to win against getting tag teamed. The only reason JQ and BG are fighting each other now is because neither of them want to be in third.

I’m pretty sure underdog’s are supposed to be small and not the obvious pick for the winner consistently. Not the “oh well that guy’s going to obviously win, just look at him” choice.

Sorry bro. Yb isn’t the underdog.

That is true. YB is so dominant at this point that BG and JQ don’t even try to win. Guilds that want to experience winning drop to tier 2. Even when they have a push week they don’t expect to win … they just want to tweak the glicko and use the week as a diagnostic test to gauge relative activity level.

Seriously, I’d strongly suggest that if a player had left a WvW-focused Blackgate guild that had a minimum participation level of a mere 2 nights a week for 2-3 hours each night, because it was too much to do, the ‘player’ should at least publish a disclosure that what is offered as knowledge about the inner workings of Blackgate or any other server has been obtained largely, if not exclusively, through the use of spreadsheets, and has little if any basis in actual experience with that server, the players on that server, or WvW for that matter.

Players who won’t play WvW for even a mere 2% of the total hours available each week, yet hold themselves out as somehow knowledgeable about all of what WvW is or should be, and of the server they don’t play on, make me think of snake oil salesmen of old: wanted everyone to believe that what they said was the truth about the curing power of the medicine, but didn’t use it themselves.

It seems you are addressing me directly with that comment … particularly the spreadsheet comment so I will offer a brief defense. But in the future if you want to address me personally, please PM me here or whisper me in game. I don’t think this is the forum these types of discussion.

The reason my play time was low on Blackgate was because I wasn’t having a good time. This was simply a matter of my compatibility with the existing culture on Blackgate.

Your suggestion that I didn’t spend ample time getting to know the community is false. I spent a considerable amount of time on the Blackgate forums trying to understand what the community goals were. When they finally told me that they (as a community) had abandon PPT style play, I apologized for pushing everyone to play PPT and then left for another server. I think I handled it properly.

As for the snake oil salesman comment, using data to reach conclusions is pretty common these days. Science, economics, and even games are modeled systems where our understanding is shaped by data. I don’t think I have to apologize for collecting and analyzing data. Anet provided the API so people could analyze it.

Changes are coming. We will soon know if BG has been making the right decisions to be successful in the long run. I imagine if Anet chooses to considerably boost PPK with an adjustment for KDR, removes siege, and then brackets the WvW playtimes to times to a couple hours around NA Prime, BG will be well positioned to be competitive again.

Let’s a get a few things straight here:

1. BG is successful already. They are in tier 1, have won all tournaments (sorry TC/JQ, match fixing for season 2 doesn’t count as a win, ok it does but you get my point). They have been in tier 1 for years, since the first year of launch.

Most importantly, they are enjoying the game in a way that they enjoy it. And except for a few guilds, MOST NA BG guilds from years ago are still around. KnT, SG, GoF, etc. even OnS if you will though they play on YB. All those guilds are doing well. While other servers have risen and fallen, only JQ and BG have really stood the test of time.

2. Your definition and statistics indicate bias. When someone says that WvWvW is declining, and you say “activity was up 1.8% last week”, that’s a data point, but it certainly is not a trend. You can’t play the high ground of “I’m using statistics” and then say something like that. You complete discredit yourself.

Seeing how players that have played for 3 years + have seen a massive decline in WvWvW with an inverted hockey stick turn happening at HOT, it’s down, and that’s it. Now you weren’t around for that, so I get your perspective, but it also means that your opinion is limited and you’re using weak 1 time data points to indicate a trend. Additionally, out of Anet’s own mouth (personally from my talks with them and in forum posts) they have admitted that numbers are down. Stop arguing the point, WvWvW and the game in general is in decline and that is not what you would expect 5 months after an expansion for a game that was very successful with it’s vanilla launch.

3. BG has never said “We only care about fights”, we have many PPT guilds. Right now we have like 1-2 guilds that do GvG scrims, that’s it! That doesn’t sound like a “fight only server”. A lot of players and commanders over the years have spent countless hours doing overtime to pull out the win. Right now, with no SEA left on BG, and YB pulling overtime or generally having players that like to PPT into the late hours of the night, they are going to win. BG in generally doesn’t want to spend the time to do that. We’ve done it. And guess what, we won when we did.

When numbers are somewhat equal (see reset and the weekends), BG generally wins in PPT. It shows that when we put in the time, we can win when forces are equal. And if we don’t, we won’t win and people are OK with that. Your solution is basically, “You guys won’t win unless you pull all nighters, lose sleep and do it non-stop, you’re losers if you don’t”. Unless it’s a tourney, I think a lot of us feel doing the overtime would be a loser decision.

4. Lastly, and most importantly, all of your slander about “BG is stuck in the past and is a server that hasn’t adapted, and therefore is losing” is not only obviously a lie based on our history but it’s also an indicator that you care less about the game surviving and more about just winning each week. Thoughts like that is what has led many players and guilds to operate in ways that destroys the game, doesn’t build it up.

When ANet put in DBL and made the game more bunker/cheese abilities focused, PLAYERS LEFT. They didn’t stay or play more, THEY LEFT. Why would you then support that direction if the direction ANet is going is making the game die?

Frankly, it makes zero sense.

“I think you’re just salty that once BOO came to the map and your vultron only outnumbered us by 15, you wiped the rest of the night?”

and

“WHOA just reformed so hopefully this will change. We’ve only experienced BG vultrons who refuse to engage us on an even playing field time and time again. But last night we (OnS, BOO, and DOC) faced off against WHOA+KnT for a total of 17 fights. It was constant action because WHOA didn’t care if there were times they were outnumbered and lost or whatever, they just kept fighting. Haven’t seen that in a while in any BG guilds.
The night before we had 1 or 2 even fights against XvX and/or GoF. Then they vultroned and brought MAS into the mix. So it was XvX, GoF, and MAS against 25 of us. 20 OnS+ 5 Pugs, and that has been typical.”

Someone lock this thread due to the rapid degeneration of cohesive logic.

Thanks.

In a word, it was shorter. A few things about Sviel’s youtube link:

- NE side spawn to garrison: 5:35 to 4:27, that’s 1 min 8 seconds, before it was 45 seconds from spawn to outer garrison and the keep was MUCH smaller, meaning the path to lords room was shorter in time.

- NW side spawn to garrison: 4:15 to 3:09, that’s 1 min 6 seconds, again longer, before was again around 45 seconds to outer.

- Additionally your path to Air keep didn’t even get close to an entrance and it was at 50 seconds. I don’t even.

- 57 seconds to fire keep, but again, you don’t get to the wall or even get close to an actual entrance.

Using warrior with speed and leap. Not going lord rooms to lord rooms.

Just from the spawn to garrison path, it’s already longer and I’m betting if you did it to the lords room, it would be even longer compared to the old alpine lord rooms of garrison.

It’s longer.

/end thread

Hello, this is Finality, I use to be the GM of GoF, at one time one of the largest WvWvW 100% dedicated guilds on Blackgate. The priorities you’ve listed make a lot of sense, and I’m glad to see that it is taking into account the many concerns people have.

My credentials are here along with input and thoughts to improve the current WvWvW experience. My guild has historically only run on the new desert maps so we can really vet if we like it or not. Here’s my synopsis and credentials https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/The-Plight-of-Dedicated-WvWvW-Guilds/first

Here’s your recommendations:

1. Stability & skill balance
2. Fix or revert DBL
3. Rewards
4. Population balance
5. Scoring

I’d recommend this:

Skill balance needs to include all of the very . . . overpowered and abused guild buffs (airship, banner, etc.).

I honestly think that Desert BL can be saved, a lot of the frustration comes from the guild buffs coupled with the map. I made some suggestions in my post on how to change the map.

Lastly, on rewards point: This has never been a major issue in my opinion for the dedicated WvWvW guilds. Better rewards would encourage players in other game modes to try out WvWvW.

That being said, one thing that MUST happen in WvWvW is WvWvW swag. In short, titles, cool finishers, etc. need to have some sort of exclusiveness to WvWvW just like the banners in PvP. I’ve played 5000 hours, mostly in WvWvW. I’ve commanded for 3 years. I have nothing to show for it except my reputation. It sure would be a level of pride to have unique banners based on say WvWvW levels (say level 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, etc.)

Best of luck, you have an opportunity to be the main RvR experience for players as your battle system is a league above anything else. As a business person myself, I don’t know your numbers, but I think if you look closely, you’ll see the WvWvW community is worth it (check life time value of a dedicated WvWvW player).

See below for a picture, I R confused? I assume this is a bug, tighten up area. Ignore the text

http://imgur.com/7UZR8tt

Yes, this is Finality, please move it back, people have been begging for months.

Seems late, 6:00 p.m. PST is better, but whatever, Friday is a step in the right direction.

Agreed, 100%. Skill to a healthy degree should determine fights. In other words, if a smaller group takes on a larger one and has a better comp, coordination and execution, as long as the number of forces on each side isn’t too different (say 50% or more), the smaller group should win. Challenges are fun for some of us.

Stability, banners, siege craziness, etc. completely puts a damper on this and has for a while. The contingent of blob busting guilds and small dedicated groups has diminished because at every turn they have been hurt by balance decisions.

The player base that gets excited about taking on bigger forces and winning by skill is turned off by these changes and that is the majority of the players that seem to have left or benched themselves. Those that enjoy the PPT aspects more or are more casual in nature have done alright.

If this WvWvW combat just turns into “my force is bigger then yours” we’ll just continue to see a-jamming and blobbing like we have for the last 3 months. Either that or pirate ship stand offs. You really do just watch the other force and wait. It’s not exciting

<3

Is jamming it down other people’s throats working? People leave and move on if they are not having fun, that simple. Yelling at them isn’t going to convince them. If anything, it’s going to 100% turn them off to anything you say. Is some one paying you? Are you that desperate to get other people to play? You sound like a CEO of a large company that says “Our customers JUST don’t get it, if they got it, they’d buy more of our cars, etc.”.

Mate, it doesn’t work that way.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/The-Plight-of-Dedicated-WvWvW-Guilds/first

I rest my case. Good riddance.

“Would it be possible to implement a toggle for a Commander Tag so that it would be visible only to your squad/party? (Or maybe just squad/party and other commanders) Would love this for roaming/guild groups that don’t want to be visible on the map, yet still have some order without having to be diligent with Ctrl+T on the leader.
It would be very much appreciated.
Thoughts/Comments?
Cheers,
Max”

This does not come across as being a cry-baby. Calling people names on the other hand . . .

This is Finality from GoF. I’ve commanded for three years. I’ve done a large amount of militia (open raid) commanding and also some private ones, though that is probably 5% of my total commanding.

Phantom, Archon and so many others are right here. By the same logic by some people here, EVERYONE should be able to join in a 5 player dungeon because, well, they paid for the game! Also, maps shouldn’t have a limit for world events, you’re excluding people that paid for the game, etc. Frankly, it’s not an argument that stands up.

To Archon’s point, please take an internal look and figure out: Has what you’ve done so far working? You have not supported smaller dedicated groups due to balance issues, banners, guild upgrades and even more indirectly nerfs to stability. How’s that working? Is providing access to a commander tag to everyone improved participation in WvWvW? Can you show that it would reduce numbers if private tags were an option? By contract you’ve lost some of the more dedicated players who are fed up with a lack of support. It seems your overall numbers are vastly down since HOT.

Maybe, listen to your customers who have historically played day in and day out.

BrickFurious.7169:

Naithe.4271:

BrickFurious.7169:

Naithe.4271:

Appreciate all the comments, a few things:

- Never said the lord was hard, I’m saying it’s not FAST with a few people and it should be. The mechanics can be unforgiving, but for small groups speed is everything (before you get caught).

- I agree 100% that yaks are easy to snipe, guess what, no one is sniping them because, well see above on small groups. People aren’t showing up.,

In my experience, I can kill a keep lord with a group of 5 people 3x faster than with a zerg. The scaling is working, the lords are super easy with a small group and take much longer with a big one. It takes longer than pre-HoT, but pre-HoT lords died so quickly they didn’t even serve a purpose. Making them take longer to kill was an intention design change that IMO was a good one (now it’s actually worth trying to go defend an objective after the inner gate is down, before it was pointless because there was no way you would ever get there in time). Try telling your guildies to spec in the guard killer line, it helps a lot (+20% damage to guards and lords).

Fair enough, I still think it should be faster for small groups only. For the guard killer line, mate we’ve been WvWvW for 3 years, we have everything maxed.

You’d be surprised how many vets failed to pick up that line after the trait reset because they thought it was “worthless” without guard stacks.

Fair enough, maybe time to remind my team

BrickFurious.7169:

Naithe.4271:

Appreciate all the comments, a few things:

- Never said the lord was hard, I’m saying it’s not FAST with a few people and it should be. The mechanics can be unforgiving, but for small groups speed is everything (before you get caught).

- I agree 100% that yaks are easy to snipe, guess what, no one is sniping them because, well see above on small groups. People aren’t showing up.,

In my experience, I can kill a keep lord with a group of 5 people 3x faster than with a zerg. The scaling is working, the lords are super easy with a small group and take much longer with a big one. It takes longer than pre-HoT, but pre-HoT lords died so quickly they didn’t even serve a purpose. Making them take longer to kill was an intention design change that IMO was a good one (now it’s actually worth trying to go defend an objective after the inner gate is down, before it was pointless because there was no way you would ever get there in time). Try telling your guildies to spec in the guard killer line, it helps a lot (+20% damage to guards and lords).

Fair enough, I still think it should be faster for small groups only. For the guard killer line, mate we’ve been WvWvW for 3 years, we have everything maxed.