Guild Wars 2

It is hard to get upset over something that has always been in the game and I would say the opposite, that people are wasting way too much time kittening about queues instead of demanding some solid answers on the skill lag issue because that is really where the pain is if you are someone who loves WvW. Something is seriously wrong there and the only thing I know ANET can do to fix it involves making the queues worse so the more we scream about queues the less the chance ANET will risk giving us any improvement on skill lag. If we have to pick priorties, don’t you think skill lag is more important than borked queues that we’ve always managed to work around before?

The queue system has never been a queue and was always “broken” if you thought it was one, been that way since launch. A lot of players actually quit the game in the first two months using ANET “unique” queue method as their main motivation although some did also try transferring down to lower population worlds as well but they were mainly the crowd looking for large scale 24/7 epic three-way combat without limits so to be honest, GW2 was not going to be the game for them in the long run anyways.

The problem has never been how the waiting time functions but that us the players are so kitten unpredictable in our play habits and so typical in our dog-pile to the top attitudes. Not to mention the whole 6 months of free transfers because guesting was more complicated than originally planned. Lets face it, our clamoring and $$ made this game launch 6 months to a year sooner than it should have and we have to live with those consequences. It sucks that methods to better incentivize balanced WvW populations across servers were never implemented but then again, we are such a fickle lot good luck to any dev who tries to herd this bunch of moody charr cubs. They need psychology majors for that.

Lifewaster.5912:

I’m suspect Anet increased the borderlands map caps at start of leagues which is the root cause of the issues.

If this were true wouldn’t they have hotfixed it back to previous levels by now from all the squalling all over on the forums this weekend? I mean that is what I thought at first as well but now I am not so sure after seeing that quote from Devon saying they never want to lower those caps and would prefer to increase them. I was so hopeful when there was a patch to download today. /cries

The reason the queue bug has never been a priority for fixing was because most of the time most servers didn’t have queues so it has been a non-issue and there was a lot more important stuff to work on. We were warned the League might result in queues in the top tiers and that we should not stack at the top but we did not listen and now we are pitching a fit over something we did to ourselves so yeah . . . hard to see why ANET would want to prioritize fixing it.

And for people complaining about skill lag at the same time being upset over queues . . . the one thing ANET can do (and has done in the past) to help skill lag only makes the queues longer so you have to pick one or the other to up in arms over for now. Every time ANET has tried to lower the WvW map caps which would help address the skill lag issue we all have screamed bloody murder about the resulting queues so again, this one is on us. ><

I have a new theory where fixing the queue system and creating the new overflow map started around a year ago and required some major code overhauls so ANET decided to best thing to do in the meantime while working on something they knew had to be in place before they could start taking WvW to the next level was to do as little as possible to please the WvWers so we would lose interest and stop making the queues worse. . . And it was working too up until the League got going but low and behold they announce the upcoming overflow map at the same time. Coincidence? I think not.

Yeah if the 2hr queue wasn’t enough of a kick in the nuts the skill lag tried to make up for it with comically funny clown car types of fights. The hilarity of warping yaks, supervisor RI that lags for extra 20 second of invulnerability, skills firing at random times and never knowing what will work when certainly got a lot of laughs tonite. Luckily our guild doesn’t take this stuff all that seriously so we could make jokes about it all nite but I am sure there was some ragging somewhere. The best one I heard all nite is that ANET decided to change the game to turn based combat to fix lag and we started taking rolls to see which skill we would try next. ~^

1. Lower WvW map population caps (would solve many of the population imbalance, zerg, outmanned buff & skill lag complaints in one fell swoop)

2. Skill Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag ><

3. Increased commander pin functionality including guild or colored pins

But I have to say ANET is prolly scratching their heads at population imbalance being the top issue here since it is actually the one thing totally within the players control and the one thing all we do is make worse with our poor choices so yeah . . . how are they suppose to force us to stop being idiots?

Rama.6439:

If your Idea of fun is a dead Battlefield then yes I guess it will be. But all the good fights are in the Gold, and will stay there probably for awhile.

I think you might be a bit wrong about the Gold League unless you enjoy lag, queues and 6 weeks of unbalanced fights. ~^ There will be one week of intense 24/7 battles in the Gold when JQ, BG & SoR get matched which will probably be so laggy and queued up as to drive the rest of the casual players away from Tier 1 forever but I am sure they will be happier without us around anyways. ><

This entire thread should be mandatory reading for anyone looking to transfer into tier 1. Ya’ll raise a lot of interesting topics for discussion. I wish people could just enjoy the game for what it is and not get so worked up about winning all the time.

I’ve been on JQ since beta for the people not the wins but ANET sure as heck doesn’t make it easy for us to start over or build up our in-game communities or else I would be happy to find a new home in the interest of balance. Just seems so pointless when everyone keeps jumping around all directions with mega blobs being most rewarded so until ANET gets on those underlying issues I don’t expect things to change all that much no matter how aware we all are of what the real problems are.

yeah it is definitely not line with a given number of players ahead of you for sure. Think we’ve had that figured out for quite awhile so prolly best to quit asking and try to find a place to play without regular queues. Tier 1 is going back into queue nightmare just in time for season 1 to start. ><

doesn’t it work both ways? I’d say the devs are probably more deserving of respect than a lot of the whinny self serving posters that tend to inhibit forums such as these and it is not surprising after spending too long reading some of the over-reactionary end of the world my way or the highway types posts on these forums that we might end up with a few frustrated devs around. Just a thought and yeah that other thread is full of some great examples of why it is better not to visit game forums. Let’s all chill awhile around a campfire and make some s’mores or somethin instead.

They need to lower the WvW map caps on the borderlands so the NA Gold Medal League has those longer queues Devon tried to threaten everyone with as punishment for superstacking and give guilds a one time free transfer down to a lower League world. I also think guilds should be able set a world as their “home” server with a way to earn transfer unlocks in game to move guild members to that “home” server. I know that sounds like it could end up too easy to move between worlds but it would require players to make an investment with a guild and that guild to make an investment in their members for a stronger overall community that could then be used to help create better balance within the each of the Leagues.

oh thank goodness, was worried there for a bit I would have to go outside in the rain over the next few weeks to avoid the PvD vs lower population servers. 6 NA teams in the gold league makes a lot more sense for the sake of competition. Delaying the start of the League is a good thing as well as they might actually get more better data on the Bloodlust buff and have time to tone it down a bit before things getting going <fingers crossed> and then they can delay it again far enough to avoid happening in the middle of this years Mad King Thorn event.

They could try free transfers to everywhere but the top tier and then watch how that fails to do anything to help the situation as the bandwagoners continue to pay to transfer into tier 1 whining about imbalance the whole way and maybe finally figure out they have to do something to fix this broken mess of kittens they created. ><

Free transfers were never a good idea in the first place but we got stuck with them when guesting was broken and it set a precedent for lazy behavior on the part of the player-base. Team isn’t winning? Well you shouldn’t have to resort to anything drastic like trying harder, just pick up and move somewhere new. Don’t find what you are looking for there either? Just farm up some more gold or drop some cash in the gem store and you are on your way. Now the darned gem sales for world transfers are written into ANET operating budget and they can’t seem to imagine a world without that extra cash flow.

TBH there hasn’t been an MMO since DAoC that has had any sense of community or server pride and that was only in the beginning years of Dark Ages when players actually needed each other to accomplish stuff because it was hard to make it alone. I don’t have time to return those kinds of MMO’s either but I still long for that sense of belonging and was very hopeful we could recreate a lite version of that here in GW2. Dang difficult without any support structure in the game or forums for community building but whatever, I gave up on that dream last year when I realized paid transfers would be added too late to do any good.

As much as many might be hoping for a Hollywood pron star completely vanished orb bloodlust buff pretty sure ANET is not going to reverse course at this point. I’d be happy with a Brazilian using either the OPs method of across the board stat decrease of 50% or the previously mentioned tone down by limiting the bloodlust effect to only the map it is fought and won on with nothing for EB so the even stat crowd has a place to play.

ANET has already said they want to encourage diversity of play-styles and not punish people for playing in a certain way. It makes no sense the bloodlust buff applies to the Eternal Battleground and we are already starting to see some backlash between groups of players on different maps on the same team arguing about the most “efficient” way to enjoy the game. Borderland teams are getting frustrated with EB frequenters because they are not doing anything to help maintain the bloodlust buff or prevent the other side from holding it when the math does stack up in favor of keeping a stronger presence in the borderlands now. This is the exact sort of behavior ANET has repeatedly said is the reason we can’t have stat buffs added to things like the outmanned buff, because the players will begin to try and dictate more strongly how and where others spend their WvW time. It is bad enough that the new meta is to figure out ways to avoid being spiked at all costs and having your teammates kittened off at you when you die doing something silly. I like to be suicidal sometimes.

At the same time, the center lake area on the borderland maps is now a bit too crowded and chances of having a good small skirmish overrun by a blob passing through have greatly increased. I think they should also add two additional cap points in the northern mercenary camps (skrit and centars) that would require capture from those mercs (beat them into holding the point for your team until another side comes along to defeat them to keep the PvE event bit they put in there). This would give more meaning the northern part of the map (I would not be opposed to a bit of global warming up there to thin out the snow some either since it can be darned difficult to find your loot bags in the glaring whiteness but not at the risk of waiting longer for changes to be added). It would help spread out some of the action and give the home team a bit of advantage on their own map as it should which we currently don’t really get much a feeling of.

I would also propose with 2 additional cap points taking the total to 7 that control of 4 would be required to maintain the bloodlust buff unless your team was outmanned, and then it would revert to 3 points like it is currently. That would seem like a fair and decent way to help the lower population side without it being something that would make players try manipulate it (and each other) for a strategic advantage. I think the outmanned team should have the time it takes to flip the captures points decreased for them as well but that might a lot harder to code.

I think those simple fixes, many which have been mentioned by others previously; a bit of a buff stat shave or the buff effect limited to its own map, and the addition of 2 more home team friendly cap points with a lower cap points held requirement for undermanned teams could really help turn this mess of a patch around. Leave EB alone and let the duelers have a place to play, keep the awesome new terrain and give the seldom used northern areas more traffic. Sounds like a win win to me.

actually, as nice as the new areas are for zerg breaking and smaller scale tactics, the maps are too small in size with the points much too close together to support the current number of players from each side allowed onto them. Not to mention that lower WvW map population caps would actually solve a ton of other issues, lag and forcing super stacks to break-up or face large queues being foremost amongst them. Being outmanned in off peak hours would be less detrimental if it was by 20 instead of 40.

For people jonesing for huge epic zerg lagtastic battles, they could keep EBs cap higher but the borderlands really need to be adjusted downwards for the new center caps to work effectively. The zerg can still run amok thru the center and defend at bay, hills and gari when needed without breaking apart. It is obvious they can’t make the maps bigger so lets have less people in there to ball up so we can see better small scale action.

Of course it is to late if Leagues are coming next month. I think those ought to be delayed a month while this stuff settles down as any gold medal in the middle of a meta shift isn’t really going to mean all that much.

The outmanned buff defiantly needs to do something that helps to combat the situation of being outmanned and facing an enemy with 3 stacks of Bloodlust and no ability to break it off them. This solution sounds as good as any and might help ANET with their concern about keeping players from acting negatively when more join the map to wipe the outmanned buff out. Something will have to change and it would be better if that changed happened as quickly as possible. I don’t even play in an unbalanced match-up, just in off peak hours and that alone is enough to know it does not work as currently designed, can’t imagine how much more clear that must be in most of the other match-ups out there.

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547:

I’ve posted this before. But here it goes again:
-Reduce map caps to about 60 per map
-Lock transfers to top 4 servers
-Open free transfers for 1-2 weeks
-Close transfers

You’ve posted this before and I think I’ve even quoted it before agreeing with you. I’ve been begging for this sort of solution since back in April when ANET stealth increased the WvW map population caps (and hence increased instances of skill lag) as a solution to so many issues all at once but we continually see backlash from the player-base against the idea of lower WvW population map caps due to some crazy notion that it will destroy communities or ruin chances for epic battles. Heck, at this point EB can keep its bloated map population cap since it is a skill 1 spam lag fest in there anyways. Until the player-base can get their act together to agree on something there is little chance ANET will act on it which is sad because MMO players are not for acting on their own best interests.

and yet at the same time, Bloodlust has the potential to not change hands often enough which creates the opposite problem during outmanned timezones. I was going to go with the “wait-and-see” attitude on Bloodlust before I made a fuss but it doesn’t seem like we need to wait much longer to agree something just don’t add up right with it. The maps are awesome tho and I have some of the most fun fights this week.

PredatoR.5247:

The rumors upset our friends and I just wanted to verify that Aggression is going to stay on Jade Quarry possibly up to our last day on Gw2.

I also believe no more transfers are needed, Fort Aspenwood and Dragonbrand could use guilds if there is an intention on having more than 3 “competitive” servers.

Glad to have Agg around, ppt isn’t really anything special, all that matters is you are having fun with friends. Enjoy the game. Love seeing the score staying tight through Monday this week, hope to have more fun fights in the new lake playground tomorrow.

Also agree no more transfers are really needed into the top 3 NA, everyone has their stronger and weaker zones but it seems a nice competitive pace now, please lets not drive anyone to overstack up again in the recruitment armsrace. FA & DB deserve #‘s for another good match-up tier and I hope any guilds considering making moves head there. Queues are only just starting to be annoying again so lets not make them worse at all or say bye-bye to your casuals. Yes i know, we don’t count for kitten in the big WvW picture but trust me, makes a diff when we don’t show up for weeks at time and queues will do that almost as quickly as new PvE content. ><

Excellent idea Paralda (hope you copy pasted into suggestion forum as well) and kudos for trying to think outside of the GvG box. I see this as a boon to many different kinds of play and addressing multiple issues at once which makes it an even more powerful idea. I feel a lot of the complaints against Bloodlust might be overblown once we get our hands on it and see how quickly and easily the buff changes hands but that does not negate the very real consequences of mismatched timezone high population worlds or how much it would suck to combat 3 stacks of Bloodlust when your team only has 30 players to cover 4 maps in the middle of the nite.

I hope at the same time the outmanned buff can addressed to provide a more reasonable useful bonus, something done to incentivize population balance between worlds and all of this can be done quickly before season 1 starts up next month. Good luck ANET!

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547:

DevonCarver.5370:

bradderzh.2378:

We, the people of lower tiers, don’t mind testing our metal against tough odds. We do however mind it when the servers with the most players and best coverage gets the best rewards purely for the numbers reason only.

But as you said in another topic, wvw isn’t fair. All rank 12 has to do is throw enough matches to drop to rank 13 and get the best rewards.

So, as I’ve said before, we are still looking into ways to try and alleviate those problems, but that is also what WvW is like right now, so while this season will create new rewards and new incentives to play, it isn’t as though this is a brand new problem. We want to make it so that skill is more important than sheer numbers and we have some ideas. None of them are so easy/safe to implement that they are going to happen in the near-term.

Could I make a suggestion?
When the Sept 17th patch comes out:
1) Reduce map caps
2) Lock transfers to the top 4 servers
3) Allow free transfers for a week or 2
4) During that time, have shorter matches like we had on launch to rebalance stuff a bit.
5) Revert back to paid transfer system when season 1 starts

I am sad to see your suggestions have not yet generated a bit more discussion Use Your Illusion since they are exactly what needs to happen for this League idea to be anything other than a lot of facerolling through matches by the top tier worlds and will have no chance in kitten of happening if the community does stand up and say we want these things because we’ve had so many vocal screamers against these sort of solutions in the past.

Come on guys, if ANET is going to do this (and I don’t expect them to change their mind) then we as a community need to be solidly behind the things have a chance of improving the situation. I would say making the outmanned buff provide a player kill = points system as suggested previously would also be of great benefit once the League starts but there is a lot of problems that should be addressed before the thing gets going.

sadly, to correspond with the more negative threads we just happen to be seeing more dev response lately so I hope it doesn’t go to the negative nancey’s heads that being abusive on the forums is the way to get attention. I would bet it has a lot more to do with time and things to share than all the venom being spewed around here lately.

And it’s PAX weekend to boot, shouldn’t you guys be out partying soon? I have to miss PAX this year so have fun out there for me!

The more red tag threads in WvW forum the more I actually get to read since I’ve decided to stop reading most of the trash on here and only check into the meaningful conversations . . . oh wait . . . I think Devon just tricked me! ><

Wow, when did everyone become such AP kittens? Seriously you guys, PvE gets all those rewards so easily because it is mind numbing and boring . . . whereas WvW is a long term thing with new and never experienced before possible encounters around every corner. I think ANET designed it to take a really long time to advance because they mistakenly thought you all like PvP for the fun and the thrill of combat against a completely unpredictable element, ie; other humans instead of AI. o_O

We shouldn’t need rewards to be having fun out there. Granted, it is a bit irksome to see your PvE bro’s sporting shiny new goodies all the time and reaping in the cash or earning new recipes so I agree with folks asking for more shiny fun stuff in WvW equivalent to LS rewards but I don’t see why that has to revolve around more AP. The AP chests are not that cool anyways, especially once everyone has the rewards from them. It is just another form of deflation.

this is nothing new and I wouldn’t say the Devs don’t care, just not sure they can do anything when we insist on stacking the top tiers and having huge three-way battles in SM. There is something funky about SM that makes lag 10X worse than other areas. They could lower the map population caps but then we would all be kittening about queues again so we are kind of stuck with it for now while they keep working on those behind the scenes fixes which sometimes seems to make it better in some places and worse in others. No good solutions I fear. I’ve been starting to see lag ghosts other than just yaks in WvW lately and that has me more worried than regular skill lag if it becomes the norm.

for any still looking for a youtube link to a vid of yesterdays livestream, it can be found here.

Everyone needs to chill out and read this very well put post from Castaliea again. Kudos man, nicely said. I dare say WvW still had a lot of other more necessary changes needed that will not revolve around GvG but we should be working together to get all this stuff done for everyone, not arguing about which faction of the community is more important or has the bigger balls. ~^

Castaliea.3156:

WvW isn’t intented to be PvP. It’s meant to be WvW.

As a WvW’er…
I’m all for GvG and I support it 200% but the amount of disdain this is causing in a completely unrelated area of the game towards both plays and Devs is disturbing. We as WvW’ers need to understand the GvG’ers plight and none of us should be looking down on them as these people do often contribute to WvW itself. However, this is not in anyway how a respectable GvG community should be acting. Honestly I wish the GvG forum “scene” would more over to General Discussion area where it belongs until ANet as a whole, NOT the WvW team, gets their act together and implements real accommodations for said gametype. This way I don’t have to listen to the constant bickering between the entitled, god-complexed brats who claim to be GvG pros or god’s greatest gift to WvW and the people simply trying to remind them WvW may be where they took up residence but it isn’t their home nor should they expect those whose home it is to make special exceptions for squatters.

As a GvG’er…
It’s awesome that we got together and made an unofficial GvG league but we have to remember that we’re simply squatting in WvW. It isn’t where we belong nor is it somewhere we should force ourselves into. If they need to make improvements to WvW so be it. We shouldn’t be angry at them nor the people looking forward to the changes. We should be angry at the heads of ANet, the real policy makers, who after a year still have not made any movements to accommodating such an iconic activity such as GvG. We should not be embarrassing ourselves on the forums like this, hating on people because they make changes to their own home that might effect how well we can squat in it.

1) is a major pet peeve of mine. You can’t make assumptions about a game from the title alone. The lore of Tyria can be an interesting education, I suggest giving a few of WoodenPotatoes videos a listen. The name of the original chapter of this game wasn’t even called Guild Wars . . . it was The Flameseeker Prophesies . . . which was obviously too long so they used the name of the wars preceding the game to tie the 3 chapters together with a history of decades full of bloody battles.

Of course it is helpful to remember that the original purpose of Guild Wars was not be a PvE oriented game but one with a strong PvP focus where PvE was to be a quick and simple tutorial . . . but the players didn’t see things that way and ANET was forced to change their plans midway through to please the majority. Sadly I think they learned their lesson for GW2 and gave up on their PvP focused dreams other than that illusive esport chance they seem so intent to set up for sPvP. I am still not even sure how we got WvW out of the original yet despite all its issues, I am glad to have a such open world 3 faction competitive fun casuals can enjoy along with the hardcores. /cheers

Getting really sick of seeing the name of this game being touted around as some reason for anything else we do or do not see in game. >< Doesn’t anyone here know any Guild Wars lore? Sheesh. You all need to go watch some Wooden Potatoes videos, his stuff actually makes it all pretty entertaining.

Totally support GvGers having their own place to play and enjoy the open PvP aspects of this game which should include a new map with less or no WvW objectives but there are a lot of more important problems in in WvW that need solving first.

Jayne.9251:

Hickeroar.9734:

lordkrall.7241:

Hickeroar.9734:

This simply isn’t true. :/

It is very much true though.
The vast majority of WvW:ers don’t GvG.
If they did we would never have any actual sieges or real fights.

GvG is done by a small (although quite vocal) minority of the WvW population.

That “vast majority” you’re talking about are the one-dayers who make no difference in the outcome of WvW. They show up for completion and leave. Their presence makes no difference and does not count.

I don’t GvG myself but I support it because I think it brings something of value to guilds that work hard in WvW. But saying someone’s presence in WvW doesn’t count is elitist and antagonizes a certain preconception a lot of people do have about GvG. Every person who heads into WvW to fight for their server, even in the process of getting map completion, matters. Every player counts, regardless of level of contribution. Today’s map completionist can become tomorrow’s vet.

I agree with Jayne, GvGers would get a lot more support from the casual WvW community if they would lay off some of the attitude. Most of us would love to see a place for you all to go play so everyone can find their idea of fun in this game. IMO they should pull the Obsidian Sanctum out from EB, make it its own map, throw a nice open field on top with some minor spawn camps and some fun terrain in between to create a ganker GvG paradise map all of its own but WvW has a lot of more pressing problems I would like to see addressed first (commander pin flaws, skill lag & zergballs).

Hopefully the GvG crowd will be able to find enough ways to enjoy the game a bit longer till ANET has the time to add a new map with a different focus. I don’t expect the new orb mechanic to include any serious stat buffs but I support your efforts to get confirmation from the Devs as it is a legitimate concern.

XII.9401:

SniperCoEPoE.2081:

Guild Wars 2, when trolling in the forum is more appealing than playing the game itself

lol 1st sign the game is going down the drains.

Well for WvW right now anyways. PvE farmfest kinda waters everything else down.

after they merged a couple of threads I thought maybe these forums were going to go through a major overhaul of making official threads for certain topics to help keep feedback more organized because someone was actually going to be looking it. o.O I still have hope but that seems like a lot of work to clean up such a mess when maybe a WvW suggestion subforum could be more helpful?

Was pleased to see Devon’s response on the general commander issue in that while it is not something they already have going, that they will be soliciting ideas from the community on what we want to see when they are so I guess just hold on to those ideas for now. This forum is full of great ones on the subject so should not be any problem getting feedback from us when it is time.

Obscure One.4357:

…now you’ll have to excuse me. I promised I’d eat a bowl of baby kittens with a spoon every time a PvE lover trolls the WvW sub-forums. I’d eat something else but the forum swear filter makes me do it…it’s pure evil…

Thank you for discounting all casual WvWers for not being hardcore enough to post on these forums. As much as PvEers out number the WvW crowd (4 to 1 I would guess, maybe more) casual WvWers probably outnumber those of you who take this game format a little too seriously so yes, our opinions are completely worthless in this discussion. <rolls eyes> And forum users are outnumbered even 2x more than that! I think the dragon bash might have been on the only part of the living story I’ve spent any time on just because I wanted the skins so yeah PvE is pretty far from my interests. As for what you have to do to kittens . . . I suggest you get some help being less obscure if you need validation so badly.

Lalnuir.4957:

Limm.8401:

YES.
I have effectively stopped playing my alts after the introduction of Guard Leech and Applied Fortitude.

Same, 2.5k hp for face rolling a few guards is a significant advantage.

And here is the crux, you can’t have it both ways but ANET is trying to walk a mighty fine line in between the two. Either we have power creep or we keep a level playing field. WxP being character bound and hard to earn with minimal rewards is good for the long term health of this game. Since GW2 WvW is still so far from ideal and what I imagined it would be from the manifesto then I still have hope for the future if we don’t push the devs into more significant power creep. I don’t want this to be another game where noobs are punished for joining the game two years later than majority. If they head out into WvW for the first time and see Diamond Legends everywhere they are not going to stick around, especially if we continue to perpetuate the false premise that time > skill.

At least this way players have to make some choices about what they do with their progression time. Sadly for some of the more obsessive who feel like they have to have every possible gimmick and advantage possible to enjoy their characters, this might mean less time on their alts but I still think the majority of WvWers are having plenty of fun playing the game as they choose being “sub-optimal” because they decided to spread their WxP across characters. Maybe I don’t care much about the rank stuff just because I do not spend a lot of time killing guards or messing with siege so it is hard for me imagine everyone making such a big deal about over it when there are so many other much more important issues that are impacting everyone’s idea of fun in this game.

If there is a fix to made here it should be low priority and not as simple as make WxP account bound. Lets try and trust ANETs loyalty to their vision of this game and if it is not one you find enjoyable there are a ton of other games out there that reward time invested very heavily.

Obscure One.4357:

Avatar of Belle.9623:

No. Am I the only one who doesn’t really care what my WvW title is?

I play on multiple alts and I like to do different things on each. My solo-roamer characters are all about guard defense and offense. My zerg characters have supply or various siege mastery. I like being able to customize my characters for the different things I like to do.

Most people do not share in your desire of being sub-optimal. The meta allows for a single character to have every trait at the same time, so that’s the player goal. Now would I like it better if it encouraged your usage of it? Hell yes! But the way it’s designed right now it makes no sense a character bound system unless you enjoy not benefiting from X amount of time you’ve put into WvW where X = the amount of time you’ve spent on alts.

No! I agree with Belle, I don’t give a flying monkey kitten what my WXP rank is and it totally baffles that so many of you do or think you are somehow sub-optimal in this easy cake walk super duper casual version of PvP. They made the WXP stuff total fluff because it is not the point of the game, just a little extra bit for those who get so freaking progression obsessed.

Sorry but you all are trying to make WvW into serious business when really it is just suppose to be fun without all the kitten measuring but whatever floats your boat, just don’t go and ruin a decent game geared towards the majority for the sake of the obsessive minority. I am heading for 8 alts in this game and rotate regularly between them depending on what I want to do on any given nite. What WXP rank they are never figures into my decision on what to play and yet according to you all that makes me a terribad player . . . I might be but not for any reasons as lame as that.

Don’t worry Belle, most of the people I talk to don’t care about WXP either but they are not the types you will find posting on message boards which is why this thing looks so skewed in favor of something most people don’t really have much interest in. /shrug

EU/NA split definitely hurts any chances of having more then 9 or so balanced worlds with decent competition across timezones. The problem is we all wanted to PvE with our friends and locals back before guesting was working so we have places like SoS were all the aussies went to hang out that threw a monkey-wrench into WvW balance.

We have never tried to set up PvE communities in this game that were timezone based instead of WvW centric and we never got into the habit of questing heavily for our PvE content which sort of keeps everything out of whack on the WvW side. At this point there is no good solution outside of those that are player based which means we have to make conscious choices not to expect (or demand) 24/7 action across worlds and spread ourselves back out but I only see the opposite happening so yeah . . . best of luck there.

I believe they have stated that improving the commander system is something they are looking at but we have not yet been given any information on the direction they are planning to move with those changes which I think might have some folks nervous. On the bright side, the private commander / guild commander issue has been discussed by this community fairly heavily since beta so it is not like ANET can plead ignorance to our wishes. The only question is what fits in with their vision that they have the resources to bring to us in a timely manner. I think this was listed in the improvements they hope to address before the end of the year which is pretty vague and hopefully not so far away. =/ Looking forward to hearing details on these upcoming improvements soon.

flurries on the weekends no less. Poor guy works so hard he only has time for forum fun from home. I would say Devon’s job is not really PR related either, I think he might actually be the WvW lead with real responsibilities besides handling the peanut gallery. o.O

butch.8136:

Get your krait killing in + changes —-> removing a big part of the water?

Halleluiah! Please let it be so, one of the great ideas that has been swung around on these forums since beta was for some drought to strike and dry that dang lake up.

the queue system is extremely broken, you should not be seeing queues that long but yeah it does seem a little weird the hours we would be extremely outmanned vs BG or SoR are suddenly getting queues now that we are rolling over t2 and 3 servers. =/

kzar! He isn’t making zergs in GW2 tho but still see him around from time to time.

As for what would happen in GW2 without AoE cap, we all know the answer, the servers would completely crash.

This is a much better solution to the problem than creating WvW overflow maps for worlds with all 4 WvW maps queued but we can correct the queue problem ourselves by spreading the heck back out and stop stacking the top 4 servers. >< Granted, I would be in favor of ANET finding a way to let that happen without us having to pay for it and making sure we didn’t do something too stupid like tip the scales too far on a lower tier world. The problem is the age old one of server population =/= WvW population so they have to find another metric to lock things down with.

Ahmrill.7512:

What they need is a new overflow WvW zone where players can fight each other for fun. Points don’t count towards the score, but you can still earn Xp/karma. Once your spot in que comes up you can hop into Eb or a borderland.

This at least gives us some entertainment while waiting in the que lottery.

Gonna disagree with my guild GM so I will have to pay for my insubordination later on but I don’t think we want ANET wasting their time on designing an overflow WvW zone for queues that only exist on the top few tiers, mainly on reset nights when too many people moved to those servers and there are a ton of outmanned and empty maps across the rest of the worlds we could be playing in. ><

ANET has much bigger fish to fry (like private pins and skill lag, eh boss?) and we all have the power to correct the queue problem within our own control. We as players need to decide to stop stacking on the top tiers and quit treating WvW like it is failure unless all WvW zones are capped 24/7. We are being unrealistic in our expectations and making the game play suffer for it, not to mention making skill lag worse.

Now ANET could throw us some bones with free guild transfers to bottom level tiers with guild unlocks in place or do some wild and crazy stuff in conjunction with GW2 first birthday where we all get sent “home” to our server of origin for a couple of weeks with a way to transfer for free to our chosen guilds “home” server. Either way, the best solution is for players to spread back out so we don’t have to deal with darned bugged out queue system that upsets everyone when you think about how nonsensical it is.

I think the fact that we are seeing more queue complaint threads since last week might mean we are entering an era of lower WvW map populations caps to help with the skill lag issue but of course I have no data on that. With JQ slumming it down in the lower tiers these last 3 match-ups, it is hard to know if our recent increase in queue times on weeknights is due to lower WvW map population caps or fair-weather WvWers showing up only when we are winning by a large margin.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

It would also be nice for Anet to admit that the problem is on there side and thanks to the engine they used.

Pretty sure they have done this . . . more than once. Skill lag isn’t talked about very much since all the work is going on behind the scenes and apparently so far not netting a lot of noticeable results for the players but they have been working on it since they took culling out which was their original post beta attempt at making the problem less visible . . . literally. They’ve never dodged responsibility for it either so lets give credit where it is due. You can fault the design team and the public relations team for not working with the skill lag trouble shooting team and maybe for not being in better communication with each other and us but you can’t say ANET has been blind to this issue. These things apparently just take a lot longer than any of us (them included) would like.

BillFreist.1527:

Here’s a copy/pasta response i made the other day on the topic.

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BillFreist.1527:

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear

First off, I do realize that I kind of ninja’ed in a response in a post that had nothing to do with addressing skill delay. The reasoning behind that was simply that I wanted to make it clear of why I wasn’t spending much time on the issue that I was addressing there. I’d like to say that I pride myself in keeping things as transparent as possible with you guys.

That being said, I know that seems contradicting since I haven’t really said anything on the matter since. I’m doing my best to lurk in the shadows here in the forums more often and chime in where appropriate. Frankly, I just don’t always have something to update you guys on .

But! I do have a small update for you today.

Over the past several months (boy time can really fly by), we formed a small team (myself, with the help of a couple others at times) around addressing the issue of skill delay in large groups of players. It’s actually a part of our Skills and Combat team that are responsible for balancing and, in the near future, introducing new skills, traits and other combat improvements. When tackling such a large project, you don’t just dive in and start shooting from the hip. It takes a lot of research, data and planning to really start addressing the issue at hand. The past few months have mostly consisted of these things (referring to data gathering).

As of recently, really as of just a couple days ago, we’ve gotten to a point where we have the data we need to take the bull by the horns and get down to business. Meaning that I hope that the results start speaking for themselves in the coming months. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean we haven’t already made several improvements, just sadly that they weren’t really noticeable from a players standpoint (but have made a significant difference).

It’s not just skill lag that we hope to start resolving in a more noticeable way, and even eliminating one day, but getting PvE culling disabled game-wide. These two projects are beasts that really go hand-in-hand, which is why we’re working on them simultaneously.

Now this brings me to another seemingly tight-lipped change; PvE culling. You may have noticed that we temporarily disabled it in Frostgorge Sound for a short duration. That was us, lurking in the shadows, gathering extremely vital data. We’re making great strides in getting that removed, and hoping that happens really soon.

That’s all I have for today, but hope to have some great news in the near future. Ideally moving forward I won’t need to update you all, as the results should start speaking for themselves.

<3 Bill

So assuming you didn’t skip all of that…We are chipping away at it and hope that you, the players, start noticing an improvement soon. But to answer the initial question, no, there aren’t any significant changes coming in the August 6th release. There’s mostly client-side goodies in that build.

-Bill

Thank you very much for the details on how your team is working on tracking the problem. It was assumed something like this would have to be going on for any sort of real solution given how shoddy and anecdotal player based evidence is but it is comforting to have confirmation of the seriousness you all are approaching the subject with. I agree with others that skill lag is now a lot more than just a game resources problem and has been impacted deeply by some game design choices so I hope all sides of being investigated thoroughly.

I would say your data tracking project could do with some testing of lower WvW map population caps for completeness and hopefully we are starting to see some of that now. Slightly lower WvW map population caps are not going to ruin the big guilds or destroy the WvW communities in the top tiers as some knee jerk over-reactionists claim but might do a lot of good for WvW sustainability in the long run while more tech based solutions are investigated.

I think there is something weird going on this weekend. There is a certain type of skill lag that we are all more familiar with related to big 3 way battles in and around keeps that behaves a certain way but the skill lag I’ve been experiencing this weekend is very different which only complicates ANET problem in trying to fix things. It is hard to explain but skills and actions that never use to lag during typical battles like dodge and F skills are much more laggy making me think there is some network isp problem staking on top of the already typical skill lag. I’ve seen some weird stuff lately, warping and such so not sure what is going on.

On the bright side, seen more queues on a late Monday nite than normal, maybe we got lower WvW map caps sometime recently? That would be cool to test out if this weird other stuff wasn’t going on.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Hule.8794:

You can invite players. You can kick players. You can whisper players. Even if they log out. But in WvW, this is not functional.

I’ve done all those things in WvW.. how is it not functional for you exactly?

It is extremely buggy in WvW and rarely works in the same manner as it does in PvE. Now maybe if we were better informed on how the party system is different in WvW we would better be able to maneuver around those bugs but it is very frustrating and difficult to manage parties in WvW since it seems to follow a whole other set of rules.

I knew Ahmrill would jump on this thread with glee since pointing out the flaws in the commander system is his pet project. I cannot imagine anyone at ANET is blind to these problems that have been pointed out them since BETA but I’ve long since run of excuses to make for the length of time it has taken for these simple seeming things to be addressed.

Those nice little extras may not seem like much when you are building a huge glamorous world but after nearly a year of living in that world, it is the absence of those little things that tends to make disillusionment breed into contempt. We are all likely starting to feel the same burn out of having playing a little too much WvW and “done it all” to where the small stuff seems to weigh on us more heavily. Maybe summer has just gone to my head but I have a lot less faith in anything changing anytime soon. Hopefully it just a case of summer gamer blues for me but this game just isn’t exciting me lately. /cries

I don’t think layers will happen, too messy and inconsistent with the direction ANET has said they want to take the game. Despite how much I may disagree with their approach on things in WvW sometimes, they do tend to stick with their vision and for that I have to give them credit.

They can’t make bigger maps, I am pretty sure they’ve run into a limitation there already and then there is the danger of making more maps for the worlds that already can’t fill the ones they have. I would say one new map is all it would take to alleviate a lot of the tension, a map that does not have traditional objectives that count towards the score and has more open space for roaming, ganking and GvGers. The EB jumping puzzle could be pulled completely out and put into the new map as the underground component and replaced in EB with more underground tunnel access between keeps and towers with some traps and fun sneaky ways for out manned opponents to accomplish things.

Then maybe they would find they need to tweak the borderland maps a bit, maybe even make them a bit smaller with fewer keeps and towers and much lower population caps so the battles taking place there actually feel like they have an impact. I’d be in complete favor of those kitten lakes drying up as well. >< Hate water fights in WvW. Instances of WvW is just not the best answers of all the many ways they could address these issues.

good heavens no, not ever. They should be doing the exact opposite and maybe even some freaking crazy stuff like sending us all back home to the server we started out on with one free world transfer and lock outs on full servers. Hopefully they are working on something interesting that will do the trick and simultaneously address the super stacks at the top, the skill lag, the blob meta and the queue issue.

I still think lower WvW map population caps would be a good start but that would only make the queues worse for the short term and kitten everyone off for awhile which is probably the last thing ANET can afford to do right now. Too bad, WvW has so much squandered potential.

They cannot seem to fix skill lag without our cooperation which we’ve been refusing to provide with our insane need to super stack into the top tiers for a chance at 24/7 constant action but no matter how hard we try someone is always going to have outmanned hours some of the time.

ANET gave us culling shortly after release to help combat skill lag issues from beta and we promptly told them no thank you so they went back to the drawing board figuring ways to deal with it. We got the AoE caps early on to help with the problem but that was not enough. Then they gave us more WvW settings to let us attempt to throttle the issue from our end so they are obviously not ignoring the problem but always seem a bit behind and slow to respond probably because these changes take a lot longer than I would imagine.

I have a feeling the powers that control the server population caps and maybe even WvW map populations caps are not the same guys working on the skill lag issue or we would not keep seeing those caps going up while skill lag keeps increasing. >< At this point they cannot take the caps back down without providing some incentive for us all to spread back out across the worlds again because of the queue rage that will inevitably ensue when they do. So we get to be trapped in a vicious cycle of increasing skill lag and stacking in the top tiers. /sigh

DeWolfe.2174:

Like any skill, dealing with lag is something you learn. Then it’s not really a problem.

I have to disagree with Ms DeWolfe , no matter how much you learn to cope with skill lag it is still a serious problem, especially as it is becoming increasing difficult to avoid just by staying away from the big battles when they bring entire maps down to a one key spam fest. Or we can all just fill our mega blobs full of Wave of Wrath spamming guardians. =/ I’ve very much enjoyed battling with FA for all the chances at small scale fights where I am able to use all my skills but I fear we’ve been mucking up their less laggy tier with our bad tier 1 habits.

Welcome to JQ mong, visit the forums and enjoy getting know our honeybadger WvWers.

JQ’s issues are just fine thank you very much. Don’t really see where people get the idea that JQ is anything other than just too big to be in Tier 2 (if only for SEA coverage) and a little too small to be in Tier 1, given the size of SoR and BG who imo are just way too big which would make us just right in my perfect world. Jadielocks ~^

I would need more information before making a recommendation other than to stay away from BG for being full but if you are just a solo it prolly doesn’t make much difference. I would say you might want to consider adding Fort Aspenwood to your short list. Not a full server and some serious fighters over there who don’t see as much skill lag as the bigger ones (depending on who they get matched with).

So how about this evening while The Toast is hosting their Dolyak Parade on I assume the TC borderland for the bigger WvW guilds to frolic in, Fort Aspenwood throws a small-manpalooza festival over on the FA borderland. Our kittens don’t start getting out till PST primetime but we are super casual meaning we royally suck so why don’t you other small scale squads come farm us for kittens-n-giggles and one last fling with our new roaming buddies.

Maybe just for one nite FA can stand for Five Assaulters.