I’m not a fool, but I argue otherwise because it’s pretty presumptive to assume a dip is solely because of one decision, in one game, when NCsoft has other games going on under its name. Not just Guild Wars 2.
There’s a bit of myopia in this whole argument you’re putting forth about how GW2’s woes with the Ascended debacle that November/December is the sole possible cause of the stock for the company falling.
Not the massive technical issues Lost Shores suffered for their first ever attempt at what would become the Living Story.
Not any other decision for any other game which may or may not have started with the word “city” which still outraged a lot of a lot of people. More than Ascended, I would say.
Not financial issues elsewhere.
No, it has to have been Ascended’s announcement in Guild Wars 2.
it’s not presumptive at all. it’s understanding how stock trade works. entire companies have gone bankrupt due to single bad decisions. hence why large companies like to have multiple projects going on at once. if one fails, they’re not crippled by it.
the thing about the stock trade is that it moves extremely fast. you can be rich in the morning and poor by lunch, only to be rich again by closing. it’s not a slow gradual process. when something happens, good or bad, the stock begins moving quickly. which is why the plummet happened. something happened (the company moved their product in a clearly unpopular direction), it was bad (as displayed by the public outcry), and the stock dropped immediately. if there were multiple factors over the course of a couple months, the stock would have gone down gradually. it didn’t. it dropped like a rock when ascended was announced. the entire process took a little over a week.
in fact, if you take a look at the NCsoft’s financial report, when they announced ascended gear in november, their stock value plummeted.
I’m completely sure NCsoft’s stock has everything to do with GW2 and not with other stuff or other outside influences. It is totally and solely because Ascended was announced.
everything? no, and i never said it did. a significant portion of their stocks? yes, and only a fool would argue otherwise. their stocks didn’t drop down to being worthless, but they did take a significant hit that they still haven’t recovered from. given that gw2 was the most publicized project of theirs at the time, and the massive disapproval of the direction it took (as displayed by the sheer amount of public outcry on these very forums), one would have to be blind not to see the relation the two things have with each other. it’s called deductive reasoning.
Sure… I can see a bunch of brokers over at the korean stock exchange going “WHAT?! Ascended gear?! SELL SELL SELL!!!!!”
nope. public disapproval. that’s what they’d be looking at, and any stockbroker worth his salt is going to know how public views the company they have money invested into. if they don’t do research into everything surrounding where their money is tied up, they’re not going to be stockbrokers for very long. no decent stockbroker is going to invest blindly, and hope they get lucky like they’re in vegas. they’re going to become very familiar with the company and the product, so if the company makes a decision that the public dislike, the stockbroker sell or short sell the stocks instead of losing their investment.
Currently, we the players are the shareholders of this game. Since the game will have a life span that none of us can predict, the deadline is when the game dies. So the blog post that ANET uses to inform the players of their intent, should be looked at as such, a statement of intent, with a proposed timeline. But just like any other development project some things go quick some don’t. By looking at them producing a document for their shareholders, us the gamers, it is not advertising what they are doing it is stating what they are trying to do. Now does it bother me that they don’t get things done. Yes. Do I think they need to get better at researching their statement of intent to better reflect this. Yes. But I also understand what they are doing and look at though that perspective.
no. we’re not. the shareholders are the people that own the stock in NCSoft. they hold shares of the stock. hence the word shareholders. we’re the customers. if we were the shareholders, we would be seeing a portion of their profits.
and yes, we do have different mindsets on how these things are. i actually understand the language i’m using. i don’t jam my own imaginary definitions into them, and then argue against universally accepted sources.
in fact, if you take a look at the NCsoft’s financial report, when they announced ascended gear in november, their stock value plummeted.
I’m completely sure NCsoft’s stock has everything to do with GW2 and not with other stuff or other outside influences. It is totally and solely because Ascended was announced.
everything? no, and i never said it did. a significant portion of their stocks? yes, and only a fool would argue otherwise. their stocks didn’t drop down to being worthless, but they did take a significant hit that they still haven’t recovered from. given that gw2 was the most publicized project of theirs at the time, and the massive disapproval of the direction it took (as displayed by the sheer amount of public outcry on these very forums), one would have to be blind not to see the relation the two things have with each other. it’s called deductive reasoning.
i’m sorry, but using the dictionary definition of words is in no way shape or form “stretching things”. in fact, quite the opposite. making up the definition of a word to suit your whim is stretching things.
look, all that matters is whether or not they called public attention to something. that’s all. everything else is semantics. your own personal definition of words doesn’t change that. they called public attention to something, they advertised. end of story. no amount of verbal tapdancing will change that. if x, then y. they x’d, so it’s y. i’m sorry you don’t understand that, but that doesn’t change anything. they advertised. they drew attention to their game by something they stated publicly. whether what they stated was true or not doesn’t matter. it ONLY matters whether they stated it. which they did.
Again, I am not making anything up. I live in the real world where everything is not dictionary defined. I don’t have to use a dictionary to make sure I understand a concept or use it to support thin arguments.
As for stretching things, I didn’t mean the dictionary definition of advertising. I made it clear that I meant your use of the word media was stretching things. Real life applies here to and I and understand that social media and traditional media are not the same thing. I also understand that the dictionary definition of the word media was never meant to include twitter and facebook and pintrest. The definition you so love to refer to is older than any internet social media. We have a dictionary from 1973 here at the office that says what the online definition does. Twitter and its ilk did not exist back then. Again, context.
You say “all that matters” is X. No. That is all that matters to you and probably others like you. There are those of us that believe you are wrong. We believe you do not understand the difference between advertising and desire or intent. All that matters is that we do not believe they were advertising what would be happen, but rather expressing their desire for what they would like have happen. It isn’t verbal tap dancing, it is perspective. I understand completely what you are saying. I just don’t agree with it.
i live in the real world too, and in the real world an advertiser that tries to make up their own definitions for the words they use in advertisements needs to shell out a lot of money in lawyer fees.
dictionaries update their definitions each year to keep them relevant. and you are arguing against those very definitions and yes you are verbally tapdancing to avoid admitting that you’re flat out wrong. you have your view, and empirical evidence is counter to that view. so instead of accepting that you might be wrong about something, you’re trying to shoot holes in the credibility of the dictionary?
also, when i said “that’s all that matters” it’s all that matters in this particular conversation. this one currently. between you and i. that’s all. and yes, for this particular conversation, that is indeed all that matters. you can argue anything you want with everyone else. the conversation here and now, between you and i, is “was it advertising?” the evidence says yes. your own imaginary definition says no. evidence always beats imagination and verbal tapdancing. just ask clinton. he tried countering evidence with imagination and verbal tapdancing, and ended up getting impeached.
They do have a point that, and I do agree, the addition of ascended as it currently stands goes against Colin’s original statement (that we should have BiS by lvl 80). However, as time progresses and people build the crafting, it will get to the point where people will be able to craft a set of ascended for a character when it hits 80. We’re just not at that point yet. Allowing people to acquire some of the account bound materials prior to hitting 80 will help this.
Additionally, should they listen to our requests and implement additional ways of acquisition, that would also help to bring it into line with the other armors, and make it more readily obtainable by lvl 80, imo. We just aren’t there yet…
Can’t really argue with that. Well, I could, but it would look silly. I believe at the time of the statement the intent was indeed for characters to hit 80 and have the best (i.e. exotics) available to them, and through crafting, the TP, etc. that was certainly the case. At the time what he was was most definitely true, however the community wanted more so they created ascended without violating the principles of the manifesto (the statement is outside the manifesto, as we all know).
I think it’s also clear Colin misspoke a little due to the fact that you don’t really see level 80 drops until you hit level 80 as opposed to by level 80, so taking one statement made in an interview on the fly as gospel is an error in my opinion. At least I didn’t see an exotic 80 drop until I hit 80… not sure on others.
Agreed. At the time of the statement, I do believe that was their intent, and their general line of thought. Essentially, by 80 you should have enough materials to craft a set, or enough gold to buy a set, or enough karma to get a set, or even enough dungeon tokens (1380 really aint so much) to get a set… of full exotic gear. However, they were also probably thinking that it would take people a little longer than 36 hours to do it. (If I recall, the first person to hit 80 only took roughly 36 hours, and then decked himself in full exo)
However, at that point the cry was raised for ‘more’ by the community, as you pointed out. As many have actually pointed out in the various arguments over ascended gear. At which point, they had to step back and re-think their approach.
We do have other statements from Colin, which may hold truth, but only Anet really knows one way or the other on them. Things like ascended having been originally planned, but not making the cut. That’s something I could take with a grain of salt, since it’s not uncommon to develop and then not have it necessarily make the final deployment. He’s also said that they had a time frame that they thought it would take people to get exotics, and we blew them out of the water. That I can completely believe. Considering they launched without having Orr finished, I can believe they honestly thought it would take people more than a few days to max their characters out. They probably thought it would take close to a few weeks. Faulty planning on their part, but it is what it is. There are also other statements, but I won’t go into them all.
Essentially it simply boils down to the simple truth that businesses have to change and adapt with the ebb and flow of their customer base. What may be one’s initial intent may not pan out exactly as planned. Unfortunately, many (if not most) player’s aren’t as flexible and aren’t as willing to accept change.
the thing is, though, it certainly wasn’t the entire community. in fact, there was a lot of people who repeatedly argued against those calling for a gear treadmill to be put in. in fact, if you take a look at the NCsoft’s financial report, when they announced ascended gear in november, their stock value plummeted. it took months for it to even stabilize and never gained back how much they lost. it was clearly a bad decision that being pushed by a minority. instead of caving, anet should have just said “no. that goes against our intention for the game and the expectations given to our customers. we’re not going to flush our game down the toilet because a very vocal minorty can’t accept that this isn’t WoW.” and the entire debacle would have been avoided. they would have lost those who would were calling for a treadmill, but would have kept a lot more players in the long run.
you said, multiple times, that advertising is, and i quote, “a guarantee or promise” the dictionary defines it as “the act of calling attention to something, especially through the media” not a guarantee or promise, just calling attention to something. the two are nowhere even in the same neighborhood as each other.
now, let’s take it one step further. things like blogs, facebook and twitter are referred to as social media sites. the internet as a whole is a form of the media. meaning, anything an arenanet employee writes on one of those, somewhere they know for a fact that many people will be reading, is indeed calling attention to something through the media. writing things into their own wiki page would also be considered advertising, because they’re posting it there as a representative of their company.
let’s apply this to to the topic. did they promise anything? no. did they call attention to something, especially through the media? yes. did they deliver on what they called attention to? not even remotely. is this a reoccurring pattern with them? yes. are there always people who try to redefine the english language and twist logic to make excuse after excuse for why Anet consistently fails to deliver on what they advertise? yes.
Well, I believe that you are stretching things more than a little. Maybe it isn’t, but I believe that most people can extrapolate that the definition of advertising in the media does not include statements or discussions on social media outlets. If it is an actual commissioned ad to the side with artwork and was paid for with the intent to promote a determined product or service, then yes, that something on a social media site would be advertising as set by the definition.
Just because something uses the same name as something else, does not mean they are the same thing. “Fruits of our labors” most generally doesn’t not refer to produce you would find in a grocery store. I think that I am and that others should be able to tell the difference between traditional media and social media. They are not the same thing just because the have the word ‘media’ as part of their name.
I also think that people should be able to differentiate when they see ads with artwork of Scarlet with a release date for content and when someone is discussing intentions of things they would like to see happen.
As someone who advertises for my company, if I put an ad in the paper saying we will be offering X product for 50% off in February 2014 then that is advertisement. If I say I would really like to offer Y product for 25% this sometime this year on my facebook page, it doesn’t mean that it is going to happen. It just means I want it to happen. It isn’t advertising, it is statement of intent. Nothing more.
I find that taking things too literally and so rigid by definition only leads to frustration for some people causing them to mislead themselves as to intent.
I often wonder what happened to taking things in context, deductive reasoning, and reasonable extrapolation.
Again, I believe that everything that ANet advertised by conventional means was indeed implemented. Everything actually promised as the OP set forth, also was indeed done. Everything else was statement of intent that many I believe are trying to twist into some sort of guarantee. Which it was not.
i’m sorry, but using the dictionary definition of words is in no way shape or form “stretching things”. in fact, quite the opposite. making up the definition of a word to suit your whim is stretching things.
look, all that matters is whether or not they called public attention to something. that’s all. everything else is semantics. your own personal definition of words doesn’t change that. they called public attention to something, they advertised. end of story. no amount of verbal tapdancing will change that. if x, then y. they x’d, so it’s y. i’m sorry you don’t understand that, but that doesn’t change anything. they advertised. they drew attention to their game by something they stated publicly. whether what they stated was true or not doesn’t matter. it ONLY matters whether they stated it. which they did.
The reason ascended was introduced makes perfect sense in my opinion. They simply didn’t expect exotics to become so plentiful and easy to get.
This is incorrect and has been proven to be so by quotes in this thread.
No it isn’t.
You couldn’t possibly be more wrong. Collin Johanson himself said, and I quote, “everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game.”
Actually you’re wrong. All level 80 characters do and did have access to the best statistical loot in the game. You don’t reach level 80 then have to go through a series of weekly dungeon and raid runs to eventually get access to the best statistical loot… it’s all available as soon as you hit 80.
In other MMOs (like WoW for example) you’d have to level up to 80 (at the time for me), then you’ve only just begun the grind of trying to gain access to the best statistical loot. You’d run dungeons to get gear for heroic dungeons and raids, only to get gear for the next raid, ad infinitum.
The best statistical loot in the game is available as soon as you hit level 80. Before you could get it overnight. Now it takes a little longer if you’re driven to getting ascended.
herein lies the issue. he didn’t say that they should have access to it by the time they hit 80, he said they should have it by the time they hit 80. two very different meanings. to use an analogy, we have the internet. we can order almost anything over the internet. so if i wanted to buy a giant pink fluffy bunny costume, i could. i would have access to a giant pink fluffy bunny costume, and so do you. but i don’t have a giant pink fluffy bunny costume, and i’m going to assume you don’t either. to go a step further, if you go to any high school or college on the planet, you have access to drugs. that certainly doesn’t mean that every high school or college student is in possession of drugs.
it isn’t a matter of availability. it’s a matter of whether it’s in their possession or not. according to what colin said, every level 80 should have the best statisical loot in the game in their possession. that’s not how things currently are.
now, as was pointed out, they stated their intention, and they achieved it. for them to double back and say they didn’t expect it happen is disingenuous at best.
You are looking at what Jheryn has been saying from the wrong direction. Yes using the internet to state something could be a form of advertising. But from and development stand point, ANET was making a statement of intent about what they was working on. Which in my view is not advertising the features, but letting the community know this is what we are working on and hoping to have it in game by the end of the year.
If you look at the blog post that the OP referenced, they actually implemented most of the items they listed, we got official responses to some they would be postponed until 2014. Jheryn has been arguing in this thread that advistising was not the proper word to be used to describe what ANET posted, which it isn’t, but as you stated in your post it could be assumed it was because they was using a type of media to do it. But the word advertising on this thread wasn’t start by Jheryn, he was responding to another poster that was using the word. So I don’t see how anyone was trying to redefine the English language here, just like how I view what they wrote as a statement of intent from a development stand point. But I see things this way since I am a developer also (not games). I see advertising as what stores to do sell products or tell us about sells. The blog post in question was made for the GW2 community to give us an idea of what is coming.
here’s the thing. what anyone’s opinions are doesn’t matter. we’re dealing in the realm of facts here. the fact is, advertising is defined as calling attention to something. which they did. it’s like math. if a, then b. did they call attention to something? yes. they they advertised. how they worded it, and even really what they stated in it is completely inconsequential. all that matters is that they called attention to something, which they did.
now, with jheryn, all i said that his definition of advertising (which he states as “a guarantee or promise”) was incorrect. according to both dictionary links, it was indeed incorrect. because the definitions in both were “the act of calling attention to something, especially though the media”. who originally used the word advertising in the thread is completely inconsequential because his argument was based around his own imaginary definition of a word. he was the one stating the incorrect definition, meaning he was defining it as something else. or, redefining the english language.
did they deliver on what they called attention to? not even remotely.
Actually… they delivered on a lot of it and addressed most of it in some relatable form.
let’s look at the list from the OP.
Professions and balance
-There will be new unlockable skills and traits.
Precursors, and legendaries
-New legendary weapons.
-New types of legendary equipment (possibly a trinket).
-New precursor acquisition methods (I am aware that Arenanet later announced that this would be postponed)
sPvP
-New map types.
-It will be possible to gain legendary weapon skins in sPvP.
-Additional rewards and growth will be added to the major competitive sPvP tournaments.
they really didn’t deliver on very much of that list at all. by and large, the bulk of what they’ve done is cement their reputation of all bark and no bite. and reputation does play a large part in the well being of any company. as they continue overhyping, and failing to live up to that hype, the public perception of their company takes a downward turn. as public perception dips, so do sales.
while they are able to come up with some great ideas, their execution of everything is just flat out sloppy, at best. i don’t mean bugs, i mean poor design and poor PR. it’s quite unprofessional. however, it doesn’t fall onto the shoulders of every single employee. it falls onto the shoulders of those who are in charge of those two particular jobs, who are failing to do their jobs. truth be told, what anet really needs is an enema, because there are a few people causing tremendous problems for the company as a whole. if they clear out the crap, they can work on regaining their positive image without monumental hindrances. there are thousands of people lining up for those jobs, who can and will do them much better than they’re currently being done. at the end of the day, it is indeed a business. they need to either all be doing their jobs, or get people in there who will. having some do their jobs while others shoot the entire company in the foot isn’t a good business plan.
they’ve been lucky so far, because they haven’t had any decent competition, but that’s not going to always be the case. when actual competition presents itself, the customer base is presented with a choice of two. go with a company that continuously fails to deliver on their hype, or go with anyone else. many many people will go with anyone else, regardless of who they are, simply because they’re sick of having their hopes built up to always end up disappointed with the results. that’s not to say that people will be any happier with the other company, only that they’ll no longer be giving their money to arenanet.
advertising (which is a guarantee or promise)
advertising. you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means.
and neither does websters dictionary, either. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertising
I did not use the word ‘advertising’. I was quoting someone who did.
And your dictionary definition proves what I was saying. There were no paid ads or publications announcing the coming of some of the things ANet said they wanted to do 2013 and did not. Advertising is played out in the media. Many dev statements were not. Advertising is a publication of intent or release. In other words, a guarantee of the release of something.
There were plenty of commissioned artworks and ads for things they did do. Scarlet, The Queens Jubilee, The Bazaar of the Four Winds. All had ads for their content. Some of the things that people are complaining about here are merely things the devs SAID they would like to do in 2013.
Here is an expanded definition of ‘advertising’:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/advertisingWhen a grocery store releases an ad that says they will have bananas on sale for X dollars per pound on certain dates, they must honor that. When a store employee says, “I would like to see bananas go for X dollars per pound on certain dates.” The store is not bound by the employees musings. Same rule applies here.
let’s….. take a looks here, shall we?
you said, multiple times, that advertising is, and i quote, “a guarantee or promise” the dictionary defines it as “the act of calling attention to something, especially through the media” not a guarantee or promise, just calling attention to something. the two are nowhere even in the same neighborhood as each other.
now, let’s take it one step further. things like blogs, facebook and twitter are referred to as social media sites. the internet as a whole is a form of the media. meaning, anything an arenanet employee writes on one of those, somewhere they know for a fact that many people will be reading, is indeed calling attention to something through the media. writing things into their own wiki page would also be considered advertising, because they’re posting it there as a representative of their company.
let’s apply this to to the topic. did they promise anything? no. did they call attention to something, especially through the media? yes. did they deliver on what they called attention to? not even remotely. is this a reoccurring pattern with them? yes. are there always people who try to redefine the english language and twist logic to make excuse after excuse for why Anet consistently fails to deliver on what they advertise? yes.
is it worth it to return for the game itself? not even remotely. if you weren’t happy with things before, almost nothing has changed so you’ll just end up back in the same position. if you have friends and a guild here, then that would change matters. they can make it worth it to log in again, but if you have other avenues to hang out with them that would be the better option, by far.
it would dramatically improve the game. the strategies could evolve beyond “let’s form a giant wad of flesh and blow ourselves up before tapdancing around in that other wad of blown up flesh” choke points could be held a lot easier. positioning would become much more important. smaller numbers could take on larger numbers if they put themselves in the right places to do so. it would be far more about actual strategies and tactics than manipulating gimmicks and flaws in the design.
however, it would take work and money for them to do, and would benefit WvW, so we can be sure that this will never happen.
advertising (which is a guarantee or promise)
advertising. you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means.
and neither does websters dictionary, either. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertising
kites and pirate costumes were OP, they needed to be nerfed. because nothing’s more terrifying than a pirate with a kite.
Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.
How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?
if a commander has the functions to be able to assign everyone where he wants them to be, then the full queue should be the limit. if the squad consists solely of their zerg, then it’s fine at the 30 it’s at now.
PvE commanders are most useful for farming champ trains.
money is a horrible gate for commanders. i can go farm PvE and buy a tag without having a clue about even the basics of WvW. i can go farm PvE and buy a tag, only to use it to troll people. money has zero bearing on the knowledge and leadership abilities needed to be a good commander. money only measures how good someone can farm PvE or buy gold. furthermore, ranks aren’t a good measure either, because all that measures is how well someone can follow a dorito and spam 1. it doesn’t measure their knowledge or leadership ability. a tutorial, with a test to cover strategy and tactics that players can fail, is a much better way to go. the key, however, is that the test has to actually cover strategy, and that a player CAN fail. don’t hold anyone’s hands and coddle them. if they can’t do the job, they shouldn’t be allowed to do it. it’s just that simple. read the Art of War, it takes about an hour to get through. those are the concepts that need to be known. anyone can get everyone in the queue to assimilate into a giant wad of flesh to facemash against anything in their path. not everyone should be leading, however. “distract where they’re strong, attack where they’re weak” is an extremely useful strategy that rarely ever gets used, in favor of “spam 1, get loot bags!!” because there’s a lot of people with tags that never needed to learn anything about strategy. if they ARE required to understand strategy before being able to lead, strategy will become an importance facet of the game. right now, it’s not. it’s just blobs blowing themselves up, before trying to blow the other blob up.
there’s a lot that needs to be done to the commander system to make it useful. right now, it’s just a waste of 100g, because it’s just a dorito with a supply check. as a result, right now there are very few commanders, and countless hoards of zergmanders. there’s a lot more that goes into WvW than just grouping up into a giant blob and just facemashing against anything in your path. the commander system needs to account for that, or no matter what changes come in, it will functionally remain exactly how it is currently.
starting with the tag itself, it needs several options. party/guild/squad/map was mentioned earlier, and that sounds like the ideal designations. furthermore, different colors were also mentioned, and those are crucial for running multiple tags on the map. guilds should have a way to unlock replacing the tag with their guild logo. these options should be able to be selected from dropdown menus when you hit P to create a squad initially.
chat suppression is devastatingly detrimental, so that needs to go. it pretty much cripples a commander that isn’t using a third party VOIP program.
for the squad system, an overhaul is needed. it’s a complete waste right now, and as such, no one bothers to use it anymore. here’s what it needs. it needs a small raid frame, listing the sqaud members’ names, classes, supply count, and level. the squad members need to have little yellow dots on the minimap at all times, just like the little blue dots for party members. the raid frame needs to be broken down into 6 groups of 5 players, with each group able to be custom named in the UI. so you have your hammer train, your utility team, your melee damage dealers, your ranged damage dealers, your scouts, and even your sentries in the towers and keeps all in one handy dandy UI, with their locations all known to you. furthermore, up at the top center of your screen, next to your own supply count, needs to be the total supply count of your squad.
the functions themselves need adjusted as well. /supplyinfo needs a MUCH larger radius, as well as being able to target people individually and check their supply level as well. the map tools need to be able to be used via the minimap, just like pinging and the personal waypoints. if i have to open the map up, and pick an icon from a drop down menu, i’m effectively blinded to anything going on around me. have the icons appear on the panel on the right side of the minimap. that way i can just pick one, and place it through the minimap, and be done in less than a second.
there’s more. when it comes to siege, a commander should have more control over it. now, you could have them being the only ones able to place it, but that would mean that a map would be crippled without a commander around, and that the commander would have set up every single bit of defense on the map. which would place entirely too much burden on the commander. however, troll siege is a major annoyance. to deal with that, a commander should be able to flag a piece of siege to be able to be broken down for half the supplies it took to build it. it will help deal with troll siege, and yes, they’ll also use that ability to break down siege they built on purpose. just put a failsafe onto it, where 10 people have to confirm the flag, so troll commanders can’t just run around breaking down useful defenses. sure, it will result in the zerg getting a bit more supply, since they’ll be able to get back half of what they used, but they can spend that supply to build defenses, or they would need to take less from the camps, so those who are building the defenses are able to do so.
also, there needs to be a better process to get it than to just fork over 100 gold. personally, i think there should be a tutorial that acts as a test based on the strategies and tactics used in WvW, with failure being a very real possibility. but anything is better than just buying leadership.
for right now, though, simply making it possible to have different color icons, and a way to have the icon only visible for your squad members, would be a major improvement, and hold people over while you work on a complete fix.
i’d be all for doubling the amount of supply that can be carried. there’s a major reason why it wouldn’t benefit zergs nearly as much as smaller groups. where’s that supply coming from? supply management when leading a zerg has far more to do with where and when you can pick supplies up, than how many people can carry supplies. say i have a 40 man zerg. now, they can hold up to a maximum of 400 supplies right now, but that means that they have to drain 4 camps to get it. if it’s doubled, then can hold up to 800 supplies, but would have to drain 8 camps to get it. most likely, they’ll hover around 200 supplies regardless of size, unless they stop by a keep and fill up there. because when you’re being pressed, you don’t have the luxury of the time required to lead your zerg in a circle around the map to cap and drain all the camps. at best, you could flip a keep and get 500 supplies, minus however many you needed to use to take it. so 6 superior rams (3 per gate), costs 300 total supplies, so you’d end up with an extra 200 to work with. that’s assuming there’s no complications. if one set of rams get taken out, now you’re down to 50 supplies as profit. most likely, you’re going to grab 1 or 2 camps, and get all those bodies back to where they’re needed.
and if they do happen to to stop in a keep to fill up, no problem. that keep would need to have several upgrades done to it just to be able to hold that amount, and it would take time for it to fill up to that amount. plus, if we drain it, now that keep is low on supplies to repair or build defensive siege. so it becomes vulnerable.
either way, zergs really wouldn’t be affected all that much, but small groups would get a major boost. because a 5 man group can flip a camp and drain it, and end up with enough to actually do some damage. defenders would be able to set areas up a lot faster, so defense would get a boost as well. (though they still really really do need to increase the rewards for defending)
now, i want to preface this by saying that i understand why there’s not regular quest reward for the yak escort missions. bots were cluster escorting the for the gold xp and karma, and then selling the profits. however, we have a new currency that can’t be sold or even transferred, WXP. so if the escort missions rewarded WXP, there wouldn’t be any risk of bots because there wouldn’t be any actual cash profit to be made from it. in fact, i’d say that the escort missions should reward a large than normal chunk of WXP to make up for the lack of xp, gold and karma being handed out.
and if it turns out that players are grouping up to escort the yaks….. GOOD. that’s the whole point. there’s not going to be full scale zergs escorting the yaks unless that yak absolutely needs to make it to its destination, which is good gameplay. mission accomplished. if people try doing zerg escorts to farm WXP, they’ll end up bored out of their mind, with zero badges or gold to show for it. that would last a couple of days, at most, before people went back to normal gameplay. only this time around, the people who do escort the yaks would be getting a reward for their efforts, and maybe a few other people would join them to help out.
at the very least, yak escorts could and should be part of the season achievements. those should be there to add incentive and teach new people to play the game as intended, not to steer people even further into the skid of massive full server blob karma trains. there’s far more than enough rewards for that already.
however, this is all moot until defense is addressed. if server B is constantly getting rolled over by much larger numbers during one of the time periods, those few people on server B are just going to eventually quit. if the maps are set up how i laid out here: however, this is all moot until defense is addressed. if server B is constantly getting rolled over by much larger numbers during one of the time periods, those few people on server B are just going to eventually quit. if the maps are set up how i laid out here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Beside-bug-lag-Bal-how-to-improve-WvW/first#post3024534 this helps tremendously. entire areas can’t be flipped in 20 minutes if the areas are actually laid out to support each other, and the layout of the areas themselves are actually helping to defend each other. so a smaller group can collapse back and hold their own. which helps keep off hour population on smaller servers from getting completely discouraged and giving up entirely. coordinated offenses would still have successful pushes, however, just slapping everyone into a giant blob and facemashing would eventually be halted by the smaller force, who could collapse in defend, and then recover. meaning, actually enjoying their playing time, instead of just getting constantly reamed any time they log in. combine this with the methods above, and things will move towards an even competitive playing field. instead of a lopsided one dominated by who can collect the most off-peak coverage this helps tremendously. entire areas can’t be flipped in 20 minutes if the areas are actually laid out to support each other, and the layout of the areas themselves are actually helping to defend each other. so a smaller group can collapse back and hold their own. which helps keep off hour population on smaller servers from getting completely discouraged and giving up entirely. coordinated offenses would still have successful pushes, however, just slapping everyone into a giant blob and facemashing would eventually be halted by the smaller force, who could collapse in defend, and then recover. meaning, actually enjoying their playing time, instead of just getting constantly reamed any time they log in. combine this with the methods above, and things will move towards an even competitive playing field. instead of a lopsided one dominated by who can collect the most off-peak coverage
(edited by Phantom.8130)
the problems of population imbalance boil down to two key issues: server stacking, and night capping. the servers that fill themselves to the brim with 24 hour coverage will beat a server that only has 18 hour coverage every single time. the solution to this requires several steps to be taken. first, the maximum number of players possible on each map has to be set and well known. 80 will work. next, the queues have to be actual queues, not the random lottery it is now. get in line, wait your turn, get onto the map. the ways to bypass that need to be fixed.
ok, now that a limit is set, and people know about it, the goal is to get the surplus players from the top tiers to spread out to the lower tiers. this isn’t all that hard to accomplish, actually. the first step is to make the bronze leagues free to transfer to, and even beyond that, allow players who do transfer to those server to retain all of the guild influence and upgrades they had. then moving to spread out isn’t punished, and they’re reward for helping to even things up by having lower queue times or none at all. silver league should have a moderate cost attached to them, and should also allow guilds to retain their influence and upgrades. gold, however, should have a very large cost, and guild should lose their influence and upgrades. this will encourage transfers to go to the servers that need the numbers, instead of servers that are exploding at their seams with people.
ok, next, night capping. now, it’s been stated that no one’s time should be treated as any more or less valuable than anyone elses, and i agree with that. so…… we need to look to hockey for the solution here. hockey games are made up of three 20 minute periods. in between the periods, the zamboni takes care of the ice. for WvW purposes, this would translate into three 8 hour “periods”. each with it’s own score being ticked. these scores woudl operate the same as the current scores, meaning at the end of the week, each server would have three scores. period 1, period 2, and period 3. but…. that doesn’t fix the problem entirely, because “why upgrade when we’re just going to lose everything during the period where we’re outnumbered?” so…. these periods also need to have their own sets of map states. basically, like different instances, with them rotating automatically every 8 hours (with a small downtime while the state of the previous instance is saved, and the state of the upcoming instance is loaded). so if a server owns their entire borderland at the end of period 1, when period 1 comes back around again, they’ll have their entire borderland exactly how they left it. instead of owning the entire borderland during period 1, getting pushed back to just their north during period 2 as people go to sleep, and losing it all during period 3 while they get night capped to come back to nothing when period 1 comes back around again. next, make each of these periods worth 1 (i dunno, let’s call them “medals”, though they can be called anything really) at the end of the week, there would be 3 “medals” that could be awarded. so, using hypothetical numbers here, say server A ends up with 125,000 points during period 1, 50,000 points during period 2, and 75,000 points during period 3. server B has 100,000 points during period 1, 75,000 points during period 2, and 30,000 points during period 3. server C has 50,000 points during period 1, 100,000 points during period 2, and 150,000 points during period 3. which means, server A won period 1, they get 1 “medal”. server C won period 2 and 3, so they get 2 “medals”, and server B didn’t win any period so they get 0 “medals”. which means server C wins the match and gets 5 points in the season rankings, server A came in second and gets 3, and server B came in last and gets 1 point.
(continued)
(edited by Phantom.8130)
1: commander functionality, first and foremost
2: proper incentives vs artificial incentives (a complex topic in itself)
3: direction and balance (including class balance, matchup balance, as well as bugs and exploits that throw balance out the window, what gets added/removed and why, such as the orbs and WXP system)
They have had since beta to get this done, not sure why they are as lazy as they are. If it is not laziness it must be incompetence either way not good for the customer.
They have also said lots of things that were not accurate, or out right lies, so why believe them on this one? When it is actually working I will believe it.
it boils down to resource management. they’ve hired 4 new teams for the living story, while they have one team (if it’s even large enough to be considered a team) for WvW. there’s a huge gap between what they’d like to do, and what they’re realistically able to do. essentially, until the bigwigs get a clue, the developers are pretty much handcuffed, and sadly are the ones that catch all the flak. if given proper resources and support from within their own office, they could very well take care of all the issues that have been plaguing WvW for the past year. however, they’re crippled by what amounts to overlords that only care about turning a profit, and has the final say in all decisions. money talks, after all.
i have two additions to what i posted above
first is siegerazer. he needs altered. with the new setup i proposed, have him able to go to two places for each server. their “heart” keep on their home borderland, and their keep in EB. that way he’s actually a breackOUT commander that helps people get a solid starting area when they have nothing, instead of a break IN commander that people just activate to get a free supply refill.
next would be an additional piece of REAL incentive. now, i’ve never played DaoC, however, people have stated that there was a big PvE dungeon in it that needed to be unlocked by a server holding a relic. this can easily be adapted to GW2’s WvW. how? simple. alter the bloodlust area. have it so when a server claims the bloodlust buff on a borderland, an NPC spawns in the ruins, and begins running his way to that server’s heart keep. once he gets there, he goes to where the orb altar used to be and starts a casting animation. if a server is able to claim the bloodlust buff on all 3 borderlands, and is able to escort these dudes all the way to their heart keeps without him getting killed, a timer begins. say, 10 minutes. now, during these 10 minutes, the server has to capture SM if they don’t have it, or (most likely)defend it if they do. because at the end of those 10 minutes, a portal will open up on the 3rd floor of SM that leads to the big PvE dungeon. however, if they lose SM, or any of their heart keeps during that 10 minutes, all 3 dudes disappear, and the whole process needs to be started all over. furthermore, move all those ascended materials and champ bags that have been dropping off of the tower/keep lords to the mobs in that big PvE dungeon. so now, people want to get to that dungeon for the awesome loot, and in order to do that they need to hold their heart keeps, and in order to hold their keeps they need to hold their towers to protect their heart keeps, and they need to hold their camps to upgrade those areas to make them easier to defend. meaning, every area has significant REAL incentive to capture and defend, are strategically placed, and aren’t a stone’s throw away from each other.
now, i’ve heard that a map takes about 8 weeks to make, which means that if they start now, they can get this all taken care of by around the time the first season wraps up. they could even wait to release it until after the second season ends, and include a functional commander system along with it, and make it the uber-WvW update, and bring countless people who left BACK to the game, so that those people can spend their money in NCSoft’s cash shop, instead of another company’s.
Not a priority, clearly the majority of the player base had been asking for the leagues for a long time..
the thing is, leagues in itself was a good idea…… a year ago. before free transfers wreaked their havoc, and servers were at least somewhat close to something that could be called even, population wise. but now? the winners are determined before they even start, and it’s just a matter of finding out which end of the blowout most servers are on each week.
sure, the end points might work out a bit better, but the matches leading up to that point are going to be absolutely brutal. people aren’t going to enjoy being on either end of the spawn camp fest. and if a game isn’t fun, what exactly is the point of playing it?
as of right now,
6. Maguuma: 1,765.465
7. SBI: 1762.844
keep the pressure up mags, i’m really hoping to see you guys make it into the gold league.
EDIT: in other news….
15. Kaineng: 1256.344
16. NSP: 1252.153
17. HoD: 1235. 423
(edited by Phantom.8130)
the fact of the matter is, if this were an actual war, the people who decided to build their keeps and towers how they are right now would be dead. and not just dead, they would be dead, and their kingdom would be overrun in 20 minutes, and they would become laughing stocks. there’s a reason people built their areas with their defense in mind primarily, because it friggin’ worked. the methods evolved over centuries. what worked was kept, what didn’t worked was laughed at and tossed aside. putting your keep on the front lines, while putting the areas meant to support them behind them, is like putting your nuts on the outside of your jock strap. people who lead with their giblets often get them chopped off.
and here’s the thing. if those areas are too hard to attack, it’s a lot easier to alter the landscape to make that easier than it is to try to alter everything because an area was impossible to defend. just raise a hill, and there’s a new treb spot. mission accomplished.
and until everything on the map has REAL strategic purpose, people aren’t going to give a crap about them. why should they? points? screw points. if it’s “if we lose that tower, our keep will fall” or “if we take that tower, we can start pressuring their keep” people will see the line of logic and start following it, and WvW will be what it’s supposed to be. a siege and open field based massive PvP system, instead of “a farmer’s wet dream.”
New maps would be welcomed.
Bigger maps.
about new maps, this is something i completely and heavily agree with. however, it can’t just be “new maps”. in fact, they could actually get away with using the same maps that they’re using now, but just changing the locations of some key things.
see, the issue with the maps is, and always has been, they’re not designed strategically. they’re designed for convenience. the keeps should be the high priority areas. meaning, they should be in the back lines. not all stuck right next to each other on the front lines. the towers should be there to help defend the keeps by being placed on important choke points leading up to the keeps. not placed in a giant square.
it’s a matter of incentive. if i need to take a tower to have a better chance of taking a keep, there’s actual incentive to capture, as well as to defend, that tower. if it’s just there for points, that’s an artificial incentive, that’s easily discarded entirely, which there is ample evidence to support that happening a long long time ago.
using the borderland map, for example, here’s how you do it. first, trim down the size of the citadel. it’s a gigantic amount of worthless wasted space. it’s artificial filler. next, move the garrison up to where the orb alter and north camp. that becomes the “heart” of the home server. that’s their most important area. meaning, you build their portion out from there. pull the two northern towers up, and have them sit on the east and west side of that. right where the inner and outer paths converge now. they now have significance. they defend the choke point, and are within treb range of the garrison, so if they go down, the garrison is in direct jeopardy. meaning, people will need to defend them. next, you get rid of the skritt and the centaur. they’re useless annoyances now anyway. you put camps where those are. those camps send yaks to the tower on their side, and then it moves along to the garrison. take the north camp and stick it where the garrison currently is. have it send two yaks out, on either side, to go to the tower and then the garrison. you can even add two more towers between the northern towers, (at the switchbacks leading up from the NW and NE camps, though the switchbacks themselves can be moved north a little bit.) and that camp to act as forward observation posts. these will get flipped often, so there’s still fast action going on. and now? now the north of the borderlands is fixed. everywhere has a REAL reason to capture AND defend it.
but, you can’t just stop at the north, there’s still two more thirds left. and here’s how those can be fixed too. take the bay, flip it, and stick it where the SE camp currently is. and then take the hills and flip it and stick it where the SW camp currently is. yep, switch which sides they’re on, and stick them in those corners. now those are the “hearts” of those thirds. leave the NE and NW camp basically where they are (just slide them south a little bit), as well as the south camp and the SE and SW towers. they’re peachy. add a new tower where the hills used to be, and a new tower where the bay used to be. much like the towers in the north, these are placed there to support their keeps. they have REAL purpose, to both capture AND defend.
and here’s the kicker, by moving the hearts away from each other, you create more room between each third. meaning, there’s no need to make the maps bigger, because now there’s a ton of open field to fight through, and zergs can’t get everywhere in 15 seconds. people have to play smart. and not only do they have to play smart, they’re naturally encouraged to play smart. because the actual layout is done in a strategic manner.
(continued)
I like how WvW has disappointed players so comprehensively and reached such a low that people are seriously discussing the coordinator manipulating matchups for his personal enjoyment.
That this conversation is happening not just here, but on every cusp server in the game points to a pretty catastrophic failure of the WvW match-up system. Now if AR and GoM get the flu, and HoD (my server) and Kain take a PvE Holiday, perhaps someone will learn what it’s like to play at the bottom of the Big-Handed Proctologist League.
the funniest part is that if there were any sliver of trust left in most people for the devs, this conversation probably wouldn’t be happening, or would be laughed off and joked about.
The odds of NSP rolling 23 and 24 must be astronomical.
“RNG” right?
yeah, it is rather….. interesting that NSP has gotten matched against the two lowest ranked servers, so that they’re guaranteed to lose rating points, on the last possible week for their rank to change. if kaineng wasn’t tanking on purpose before, this would be a good time to start. a week long PvE event could be just the thing that’s needed, if nothing else, they’ll at least be able to farm a ton of gold.
i don’t participate in GvG, but i feel this is a very positive step in the right direction. the GvG community was growing and thriving, and honestly was outgrowing WvW. there was a lot of unnecessary static flying around, and this should ease a whole lot of it.
don’t get me wrong, a fully supported complete GvG system would be ideal, but this is better than how it was before, and waaaaaay better than it is currently with the bloodlust buffs in play. this also gives the chance for the GvG to grow and thrive even further, and really show Anet how big it can become.
to devon, i have no problem criticizing you when you make a mistake, but i’m nothing i’ve i’m not fair and tell you when you did well. this time, you did extremely well. thank you.
This is a PVE game. Since the release when i read there is not open world pvp i realize that this is a pve game with some pvp minigames and modes. No more than that.
PVE/coop-mode is “one time play only” how many times you play a coop game or single player game? one, two maximum. If you play it more is because some reward like “achievements” (the worst thing ever in game history to gain gameplay hours and replayability) or items. Arenanet cant abuse with items tier (already done with ascended anyways) but no like WoW.
PVE NEED content to keep players playing it. PVP no, who like pvp play it anyways, the same map, the same mode for years without reward or achievements, who play PVE need rewards and content constantly because pvp is fun, But pve is fun one time, is one time experience, no more.
This is a PVE game. Arenanet need to keep it alive and all resources goes to that.
while you’re pretty right on all accounts, there’s some important stuff you’re overlooking. PvP players don’t enjoy countless bugs and exploits throughout the game. see, the general consensus of what WvW has needed for over a year ain’t new content. it’s things working right, and quality of life improvements. that’s it. that’s all. while yes, sure, there have been occasional requests for additions, or new maps, or new siege, the VAST majority of the requests that have come since the betas is to just make the game mode work properly, and for better tools to work with. those are not unreasonable requests, those are not even major request. those are how things should have been since day 1. if ford sells a car where the tires randomly explode and there’s a hand drawn picture where the steering wheel is supposed to be, ford is getting sued into oblivion. this is pretty much exactly what WvW players have been forced to deal with for over a year now. we just want our steering wheels.
I totally agree with you.
There are a lot of quality of life changes that community is asking for long time ago and too easy to implement and arenanet only ignore them focusing on pve content.
In online games i only enjoy pvp. For pve i have a LOT of GREAT single or coop games.
Like someone said above, arenanet is ignoring the most loyalty community, the pvp gamer, who play the game until the end, because, pve players will move to the next mmorpg with new shiny content.
I think pve in online games is a slow dying mode. Is true a lot of peoples play it actually and in the past, but the problems is always the same from the beginning, the need of constant new content and poor re playability.
Global Agenda, a mediocre game in my criteria, has a interesting mode: A player can join a instance/dungeon as a enemy. Is something like (not the same) left4dead. If a company polish that would be amazing, a boss/mobs or mechanic controlling by another/various random/anonymous players. Like L4D.
A company need to habituate players to do some PVP in their online games content, risk something for win more. Not to bet for the safer and be another pve farming game of the moment.
that’s kinda sounds like how a DM worked in NWN. though, the DM system was a bit more in depth. they could spawn monsters as well as non-hostile NPC, and could also possess them to control them directly. they could add chest and loot, and could award xp (which would probably need to have some fairly strict restrictions on it in an MMO). they could add traps as well, which could be placed on doors, chests or just over a square on the ground. they pretty much had all the tools they needed to recycle preexisting maps for their own PvE or RP adventures countless times.
not having that option has really sapped a lot of the enjoyment, as well as the longevity, out of MMO for me. going and killing the same mobs, in the same order, with the same tactics over and over and over gets really stale really fast.
This is a PVE game. Since the release when i read there is not open world pvp i realize that this is a pve game with some pvp minigames and modes. No more than that.
PVE/coop-mode is “one time play only” how many times you play a coop game or single player game? one, two maximum. If you play it more is because some reward like “achievements” (the worst thing ever in game history to gain gameplay hours and replayability) or items. Arenanet cant abuse with items tier (already done with ascended anyways) but no like WoW.
PVE NEED content to keep players playing it. PVP no, who like pvp play it anyways, the same map, the same mode for years without reward or achievements, who play PVE need rewards and content constantly because pvp is fun, But pve is fun one time, is one time experience, no more.
This is a PVE game. Arenanet need to keep it alive and all resources goes to that.
while you’re pretty right on all accounts, there’s some important stuff you’re overlooking. PvP players don’t enjoy countless bugs and exploits throughout the game. see, the general consensus of what WvW has needed for over a year ain’t new content. it’s things working right, and quality of life improvements. that’s it. that’s all. while yes, sure, there have been occasional requests for additions, or new maps, or new siege, the VAST majority of the requests that have come since the betas is to just make the game mode work properly, and for better tools to work with. those are not unreasonable requests, those are not even major request. those are how things should have been since day 1. if ford sells a car where the tires randomly explode and there’s a hand drawn picture where the steering wheel is supposed to be, ford is getting sued into oblivion. this is pretty much exactly what WvW players have been forced to deal with for over a year now. we just want our steering wheels.
Looking at how Anet interprets their metrics I wouldn’t be surprised if Anet interpreted all the PvE’ers karma training during awful mismatches as WvW doing well.
As evidence: their recent TA/Forward Up debacle… “TAkittenis the least run dungeon in TA, so let’s get rid of it” — despite the fact that it was least run not because it was a bad dungeon, but because it had serious issues with the final boss.
actually, i’m pretty sure you’re correct on that. when dwindling numbers are mentioned, they’re say “not according to our metrics” yet they only thing that’s been on the rise are the karma trains. so basically, anyone that was interested in doing WvW is leaving. anyone interested in doing PvP or GvG is leaving. anyone that wants to farm ascended materials are flooding in and Anet is so out of touch that they pat themselves on the back and think they’re doing a good job. the sad part is, in a couple months when everyone has their ascended weapons, the numbers will plummet and Anet won’t have a clue as to why. they’ll probably credit it to the seasons not being long enough, or some other irrelevant delusion, and continue pouring gasoline onto the bonfire.
But they are meaningful as long as anyone has interest in them, and several people still do.
I dare you to find me one person in the game who cares about PPT. And when I say ‘cares’ I mean, would continue to play for PPT even if all rewards were removed. No champion bags for killing lords, no WxP, no ascended materials, no experience, no karma, no gold.
that…… actually sounds rather ideal to me. granted, i’ve never been too keen on PPT, since the way it’s set up makes it too east to fake (fully upgraded garrison and paper bay being worth the same amount), but i’ve always felt that WvW shouldn’t have any costs or rewards. the true reward should be kicking the crap out of the other guys, taking their land, and not letting them have it back. expansion across the map. the cost would be the reverse.
rewards just pander to farmers who would rather be using a botting program than actually playing the game. costs just punish people for playing the game. neither really has any place in a competitive game mode.
if PPT took into account the actual strategic value of an area, instead of just the overly simplistic arbitrary blanket denominations they have now, then it would actually be pretty decent. then again, it would help if they put any thought into strategic placements of those areas when they created the maps to begin with. the keeps are set up in a triangle, the towers are set up in a square, and the camps are set up in a circle. it’s like the map design was inspired by a 5 year old who was learning their shapes. EB is a bit better, but still extremely generic and bland. there’s no…. purpose to any of the areas in WvW. no reason for anything to be where it is, and even less reason to try to have control over those areas. ok, i hold a tower. why? because it gives me points. so freakin’ what? if that tower rested in a choke point that separated my back lines from the front lines, then it actually has meaning, and a reason to want to have it. it does something. right now, the only areas that do anything are the new bloodlust areas, but the stat buffs are the wrong thing.
the root problem is, they have complete ignorance of the subject matter they’re trying to create, obviously haven’t bothered to do any research into it, are too arrogant to ask anyone who may have a clue for help, and just slapped whatever crap they could in there and called it a game. PPT should mean something. as it stands, it’s a loose general idea of how well a server is faring, provided they’re holding what currently passes for strategically important areas. however, it’s completely trivialized by karma/WXP trains that don’t bother thinking beyond “i’mo make a circle, and use lotsa rams!!!”
this controversy needs a cool “-gate” related name
gvg-gate? kelvei-gate?
how about vio-gate?
and, to be fair, Anet violated the hell out of the game mode long before the GvG scene ever began.
Somewhere in the back alleys of the net, the Glicko entity is hoisting a cold one and asking…“Miss me yet?”
no. and i never will.
Then you never wanted parity in the first place.
nah, see, the glicko system was never designed for being used anywhere close to the way it was being used here. it’s designed for a 1 person versus 1 person competition, or at least 1 stable team versus 1 stable team. it doesn’t take into account varying population over the course of a single week long match, nor is it intended to be used in a 1v1v1 format. overall, it was the wrong system to use entirely. parity is pretty irrelevant at that point. any point system that doesn’t involve RNG would have an equal amount of parity to it, if not moreso. the problem wasn’t switching from a glicko system, it was Anet sticking RNG where it doesn’t belong, and doing a poor job of it at that.
Glicko wasn’t the perfect system…but was it really worse than what you have now? Of the 2 systems, which was better overall?
I’d take Glicko back in a heartbeat over the system now. And probably over leagues too…though, to be fair..that remains to be seen.
to be fair, that’s the same as setting two bowls of crap in front of someone and asking which one tastes better. the thing with Anet is, and always has been, their execution. they come up with something that could potentially be great, but implement it in the worst possible way so that it ends up being nothing but a giant detriment to the game. the randomized system is no different. it could have been pretty decent, they just made the range entirely too wide. at the time it was first implemented, being able to face a server 3 ranks above or below yours would still result in a fairly fun match, while allowing for a lot more variety than what glicko was giving. sure, there’d be some tougher and some easier matches within that range, but nowhere near as bad as the 7+ range in either direction that Anet ended up going with. those matches were entirely pointless, and nowhere near fun.
also, for the record, they’re still using the glicko rating system to sort out the ranks. they just jammed RNG into the actual matchmaking system, but the glicko scoring is still deciding how well each server is doing in all of those blowouts. hence why a server can get absolutely demolished and still gain rating points.
with ranking systems, honestly, the simplest solution is usually the best. a while back, i proposed 2 points for coming in first, 1 point for coming in second, and 0 points for coming in third, with only the previous 10 weeks factoring into the overall rank. it would have resulted in pretty much the same ranks that both systems produced, allowed for decent variation, and allowed the imploding tier 1 serves to drop and freshly stacked lower tier servers to rise much faster. but, apparently, “chess is where smart people is, so their stuff gotta be the bestest! and we can’t ever have too much RNG” so we ended up with the disaster that we’ve all just had to deal with.
going back to the “good idea implemented poorly” thing, the seasons really are the same way. at launch, the seasons would have been perfect. the servers were much much closer in population than they are today, so each league would have actually been close and exciting. when they opened free transfers, and kept them open for so long, any hope for WvW was stomped out. they’ve tried making some (once again, poorly implemented) changes, and pretty much peed on WvW’s grave. for all intents and purposes, WvW is Anet’s Ilum. it really is hopeless at this point, and the only real reason to stick around is to watch with morbid curiosity to see just how bad they’ll screw things up before they finally pull the plug for good. i’d say we still have another 6 months of three stooges like calamities before that happens.
it’s pretty basic really. numbers without context are meaningless. numbers are there to assist with the context, but can never outright replace context. it’s like people who simply quote stat sheets in sports, yet are completely ignorant of any intangibles that aren’t represented on said stat sheets. those people tend to come up with wildly outlandish theories, especially when it comes up to thinking up trade proposals. the rosters they tend to dream up would get absolutely demolished in reality, because they’re completely one dimensional. without context to gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter, the numbers are actually more of a detriment than helpful, because unless someone knows exactly how to interpret them, they’re almost guaranteed to misinterpret them. and those misinterpretations leads to false conclusions, and if someone is banking their business on them, those false conclusions lead to bankruptcy.
the sad part is, this isn’t some sort of advanced insight. anyone that has a high school education should be aware of this. as far as mathematics go, this is a very basic level. however, the basics tend to be the first thing people forget once their ego tells them they’re flawless. and then things unravel from their during their giant downward spiral of a reality check. which, in most cases, is extremely amusing to watch. or, to put it another way, pride goes before the fall, and america’s funniest home videos taught us that seeing people falling can be absolutely hilarious. especially if they get hit in the groin at some point during it.
Why, why? Why. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Why.
Edit:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-world-season-1-begins-october-18/
“In the case of North America, the top six worlds will comprise the gold league and will battle each other in a clash of titans over a seven week period.”
So, as of October 18th, Maguuma is doomed to have garbage matchups for an entire seven weeks. I’m so excited and definitely looking forwards to seasons, wow. WvW is in a phenomenal place right now and I am definitely not contemplating xferring servers/going to another MMO. Not one bit.
actually, it looks like if maguuma really takes it to DB all week, you guys could gain enough to get you in contention for the gold league. you’d have to be relentless and merciless this week, to get as much of a boost as possible. then the next two weeks would be a pretty close race between you, DB and SoS. so, at least for the next couple weeks, your WvW performance will actually have some significance for you three.
Somewhere in the back alleys of the net, the Glicko entity is hoisting a cold one and asking…“Miss me yet?”
no. and i never will.
Then you never wanted parity in the first place.
nah, see, the glicko system was never designed for being used anywhere close to the way it was being used here. it’s designed for a 1 person versus 1 person competition, or at least 1 stable team versus 1 stable team. it doesn’t take into account varying population over the course of a single week long match, nor is it intended to be used in a 1v1v1 format. overall, it was the wrong system to use entirely. parity is pretty irrelevant at that point. any point system that doesn’t involve RNG would have an equal amount of parity to it, if not moreso. the problem wasn’t switching from a glicko system, it was Anet sticking RNG where it doesn’t belong, and doing a poor job of it at that.
so…..let’s see here……
the leagues are being changed to 3 in NA, with 1 league of 6 servers and 2 leagues of 9. so…. 1-6, 7-15, and 16-24. now, devon has announced he’ll be on NSP. which, according to: http://mos.millenium.org/na is at the top of third league. so, instead of being in the middle of one of the leagues, and getting an accurate sample of how things are working, he’ll be at the top of the lowest league. and suddenly, all of the recent changes make a lot more sense.
thanks god for that…. <3
and did you just call me girly name in public? omfg now everyone HERE will call me it.
jesus embarrassing…
don’t worry emma. we won’t call you emma, emma. it’s not as embarrassing as you think it will be emma.
if someone thinks that the majority of the WvW players are in tier 1, they need to spend some time outside of tier 1 and get a healthy dose of reality.
People don’t like the notion that the fight they are in is inherently unfair, remove the stats. Its killing a lot of fun in wvw.
It promotes 2v1ing the top server. Which is how it should be.
Keep the stats, it gives an incentive for the 2 less powerful servers to attack the most powerful server together. The buff should have some power, if it has no power, then there will be no point in getting it, and there will be no point to go to the new content area.
Strategy and skill still overwhelms the stats. We have had even large scale fights, where we had no orbs, and the other server had 3, and we still wiped them consistently.
Oh? I haven’t seen any change in how servers choose their targets.
Bloodlust does not promote 2v1ing the top server, there is nothing in the mechanics that make that so.
I don’t know how I can explain this in any simpler terms. But I will try.
bloodlust = power
servers want power
power = points
2 servers fight 1 server to take away power
humans are hedonists that follow the path of least resistance. if one server has the buffs, and two don’t, those two aren’t going to team up against the one that does. they’re going to go after each other, while the one with the buffs take from both of them at will. we’ve watched exactly that happen over the past year. the few times the two weaker servers attempted to team up against the stronger one, it’s been a complete disaster, because trying to organize two servers into a truce is downright impossible, and the instant one shot gets fired it’s over. so no, the buffs won’t promote a 2v1 against the server that has them. it will continue to promote the two even servers to fight against each other, while the stronger one whittles them both down.
if they were too arrogant to pull the plug on ascended gear after the monstrous thread, and their stock plummeting, they’re sure as hell not going to fix any of the damage they’ve continuously done to WvW. at this point, it’s a lost cause. the only thing we can do is sit by and watch with morbid curiosity at just how horrible they can make a game that had such an incredible amount of potential at launch. like scientists watching a flesh eating plague consume some test subjects.
if they were set up that the siege has to do damage/kill something in order to count, that could prevent people from just building thousands of pieces of useless siege somewhere. though, that in itself could be an achievement, with a title that the person can’t get rid of.
either way, it would be nice to get something back for the thousands of pieces of defensive siege i set up.
Defending has been dead for months. Anet has been buffing siege and incentivizing karma trains, so don’t defend. Just wait for the queue zerg to move on and then take it back. Welcome to the game as developed under Devon Carver!
oh, yeah, that’s another point i forgot to mention. the karma trains, which are now the WXP trains. with the WXP ranks, people have been mass grinding, and ignoring pretty much everything else on the map. since they decided to stagger the release of the ranks, all it did was artificially extend the lifetime of the grinding, and now that’s pretty much set in as a habit to most of people. it’ll take a severe change in the system to stop that, and an even longer time to break everyone out of that habit. for a company that said “we don’t make grindy games” before launch, it really seems like that’s all they’re actually capable of making. this isn’t grinding for superfluous cosmetic changes, this is grinding as a game mode. it gets to a point where people are actually telling each other not to defend or upgrade, because it slows their grinding down, as well as servers coordinating with each other for more efficient grinding. which results in the players that do bother with defense growing frustrated and eventually giving up. those who defended because they enjoyed it leave, while those who defended because it was needed just assimilate into the zerg.
there are strategic advantages for defending, however the lackluster rewards for anything involved with defending usually ensure it doesn’t happen. sure, there may be tiny handfuls of people who do understand the importance of setting up defense, but they don’t get a whole lot of support, and end up losing gold on the whole thing.
the key to defense isn’t to focus down the attacking players, it’s to take out their siege so that they’re unable to attack. defensive siege placements, if they’re set up ahead of time and maintained, make it so that can be done without taking much damage. this allows for a smaller number of defenders to deal with a larger attacking force. it also gives those defenders another option: to pin the attacking zerg somewhere. they can keep the zerg there, by playing a bit of cat and mouse. let them think they have a chance, but always keep it just out of reach. the attacking zerg focuses on the area, and isn’t available to defend another area. this allows for a couple smaller groups to claim quite a bit of the map even if outnumbered.
however, this isn’t really possible if the areas have no upgrades, no defensive siege, and no defenders. which…. tends to be standard, since there are far more rewards for zerging, and almost nothing for defending. in part, it’s on the players for not chipping in, but there’s a large part of the blame that falls on Anet since they’re the ones who have been adding more and more incentive to zerging. if they stopped adding further incentive to zerging, and really focused on adding incentive to defending and maintaining the areas, as well as taking away the numerous punishments that exist for those things, then more people would be inclined to do it.
There are 15312 great ideas about GvG including yours. I dont know what Anet is trying to do.
if you’ve taken a look at the hype videos that have come out for wildstar, it’s kinda obvious what NCSoft is trying to do.