Guild Wars 2

We did a few tests over the week on Piken square, getting as close to a real figure as possible to the number of people on a map. Throughout the week we’ve counted guild numbers, friendlies following commanders and guild groups and those in structures, during periods when there have been queues.

Although we don’t have server data or absolute figures, most reports have been giving numbers between 55 and 65 pretty constantly, but without taking into account any afk or solo / duo groups. I think taking into account this we should give an error margin of around 20+ so I would imagine 85-90 is the current limit at the top of the spectrum.

I do want to say that we of course can’t be perfect with these figures, but they do seem pretty constant. But adding to it, it does seem to be pretty uniform over all arenas, and judging by forum based posts, across all servers.

The following is pure speculation on my part:
It is also too early to be shouting at arenanet also, in my opinion. For all we know, they may be reserving 100 spaces for testing in order to see the effects of adding a new map with a limit of said 100. Before they would implement it, they would for sure have to check to see how well the maps behave under actual player behaviour with reduced limits. The goal may be to add a new map, and thin down the numbers per map thus reduce Zerg mentality, while still giving all the wvw experience. It has been said that the maps are too small for the numbers, also, so that may be another factor they have considered.

Again, the above paragraph is pure speculation, and a dreamed up opinionated good outcome possibility, not based on any rumours or announcements. And I don’t know why they would have kept it all so quiet.

I hope this is helpful to those in this thread looking for information!

Just a shout out to Dius and Yak for their fantastic play and amazing fights over the week! We’ve been looking out for you a lot because you are so fun to fight and the battles can go either way. Also a mention to Ldf of AR for the constant action you’ve been giving us . I’ve seen both a vast increase in my badges and in my repair bills as a result! Keep up the good work, your guilds are going to bring your servers far.

Katiechops.6807:

You all worry too much, wvw is for hanging out with your guild, charging about like nutters, doing a bit of pew pew, having a few beers, trying to get yourselves killed in the most kitten manner possible, mocking each others deaths, doing some tea bagging then finishing the night doing some RP as a guard on the keep battlements discussing the lost cat.

What she said ^ but in a posh English accent.

Also, thank you to Augory Rock guilds (LdF, NA, and others I cant remember off of the top of my head) on Gandara borderlands a little earlier this evening for the endless action at Shedaran Hills and the general vicinity around it! That was absolutely fantastic action there. More of that please! I want your badges and I’m happy to trade some repair bills for them >:3

KinkyWarrior.1879:

Dius see’s TUP group at Arahs hope Ruuunnnn!!! reaches the top of the hill Ah screw it, might as well have a crack! ATTACK!!!! :P

Also… Vier… I will find you in that TUP mass and one day… I will kill you! <3

Nah you won’t

Dranul.2094:

I do apologise to the 2 new recruits (their 1st day) into throwing them into easily the baptism of fire, intense, organised opponents they are likely to face. Atleast they got to enjoy hours of zerg busting beforehand.

Looking forward to getting as much practice in this week as possible.

Cheers for the action all, especially RG.

To be fair, if anyone ever tried to baptise me, I would probably burst into flames.

But seriously, those fights were so much fun, I have no idea what you’re apologising for!

Caid.4932:

Had a fun fight against a few tup and randoms between hills and greenlake for about half an hour tonight on their bl, completely pointless for all involved but was enjoyable. Which i guess is the point of wvw.
Would’ve happily spent the night screwing around fighting you lot but i need sleep

Ahh haha, yes, it was great fun! And a proper challenge, too. The team work on both sides there was amazing. Much commendation to all involved! Especially my ex guildmate in Semnome [SN] because I may or may not have gone for you a bit more than I perhaps should have >.> <.<.

All in all, the past couple of days have been fantastic in wvw, I’ve had a great deal of fun and seen some fantastic fighting all around. All servers should hold their heads high, the quality of play has been great.

Twinklefairy.6739:

Anyone care to explain what this fella was doing?

From a guild on Gandara, at first we thought he was a spy as he was sitting in bay, we thought he was just giving information about numbers/siege placement until he started sitting outside the wall you guys (Gandara) were trebbing and absorbing the treb shots with focus #4.
We were genuinely confused.

He went over to Piken Square in order to get spots for his map completion. Gandara hasn’t been on the green side for aout 6-8weeks or so! He hasn’t been relaying any information and is working with you guys in wvw this week. And yes, he does make himself useful often by absorbing siege fire on walls and other siege on the battlefield. Make use of him while he’s there, he won’t be spying or telling us anything, and if at any moment he does, he won’t be in the guild any longer! SN has a good name and plans to keep it that way. We do understand his frustration at not being able to get certain points on the map

And ill add that while we were trying to taking DB yesterday, he was there defending it with you all, and I’m pretty sure he was making a point of killing me as often as possible XD

I’m shocked and appalled by the behaviour I’ve seen in these threads over the past couple of weeks. Theres been minor misunderstandings and issues long since passed that have been dug up from the grave over and over or been taking well out of proportion because one side wants to seem like they take the moral high ground. On another day, Gandara and Piken Square could have been like brother servers with fantastic battles and good feeling on the forums.

I won’t be foolish enough to call any person or server out on being completely innocent, everyone plays their part. I would like, however to apologise to piken square for the baiting and accusations that have been flung your way over these passed days. You’ve played well, fairly and admirably, and have outplayed us on most turns. You’ve earned your reputation and deserve to keep it. Before anyone brings up any alliance talk again, that was discussed, dealt with, answers and apologies given, and dead and buried literally last year.

I am disappointed to see many names of people I play closely with continuing the bad feeling in this thread. I hope we can look past all of this ridiculous scenario and be more friendly with each other.

Pride is both a wonderful and terrible thing. If you attack people’s pride in their play and their loyalty to whatever it is they’re loyal to, be it family, friends, down to things like employers or even server worlds on a game, the attacked will defend it. You can’t throw derogation towards people, don’t expect them to just sit there and go ‘Ok, yeah, cool!’ because that is not how the world works. It’s just adding fuel to the fire, and to be honest, that fire shouldn’t even be there in the first place. Now we’re just burning bridges for no reason.

Moving on from that, tonight was an interesting night in Gandara borderlands. We found ourselves at a loss when attempting to take back DB for a large portion of the night, even though piken square were outmanned for the majority of the evening. Between TUP, EXE and another guild with 2 letters… UL? Not sure on that last one, attempt after attempt to take the bay was met with with a forever increasing repair bill. We did manage to take the bay at around 11, but somehow we lost it again within minutes! The great Gandaran Zerg was met with some fantastic team work and navigation from the Piken Front, and we were not prepared for that level of play!

I take my hat off to commander eze and his guild on our server for a stellar job tonight, and those from my guild who supported Gandaran borderlands. We pushed hard and against a formidable enemy, and held well. It wasn’t an easy evening, and everyone worked hard together!

Let’s enjoy the rest of the week, and fight well. If I saw a stop to the trolling and the baiting, and Ill feeling in this thread from this post on, it would make the start to 2013 much nicer for me, and everyone else involved. Peace and love guys? Make war, not arguments.

DonRobeez.3560:

Quite an exciting match already! It seems that Piken Square really wants to prevent Gandara from gaining points aswell. But don’t worry, if AR agrees, you will end up 2nd, just behind us.

Enough of the alliance references, that was last week, this is a whole new war!

I spent a bit of time in Gandara borders tonight, where we came up against TUP and is it.. TDNA? Thats entirely wrong, but something like that. The organisation between those two guilds is fantastic. Even when we looked like we had it under wraps, suddenly we didn’t!

I was trying out my guardian today, and I don’t think I will again XD I think I’ll stick with ranger and Necromancer

Wamgor, are you an Asura?

Harmonizer.4210:

AHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!

Gandara …

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc140/Mechfierce/gw231_zps3564f6dc.jpg

Comon guys, just because you’re losing doesn’t mean you need to hax. Wall jumping past first gate into Hills… ahahahah!!

Oh well, we’ll continue to kick your kitten despite your leet haxing skills. roflmao

You failed a mesmer sweep, got caught out because of it, and now you proceed to rage onto the forums and simply make yourself look bad. Im glad you seem to be the only one, don’t bring your server down by shouting “HAX” every time you get caught out.

Aside from that, looks like Piken have picked up momentum and are fighting well. I hope we can get more in the battle field and give you a proper fight throughout the week

Maltra.7890:

WOW what a long discussion!

a contribute to this match:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lCRpSy6LA3s

I love you guys! I really really do!

Wamgor.9347:

Raeyne.5086:

I’ve had a great evening moving between the borderlands, seen some pretty intense fights and towers falling from one hand to the other, and points being everywhere! It seems no one is done fighting just yet, and it may well come down to the wire!

Had one particularly long spread fight against a thief in TUP who was shooting down our dolyaks, must have been 4-5 minutes of facing off as I lay trap after trap and went through pet after pet, as he went from shadow to shadow. I managed to win with 8 health left by luring him under water. Seriously man, my heart was about to give up at the thrill of that long long fight! I cant help but feel that he expected me to be to usual ranger glass, and that expectation gave me the edge I needed. (Im far from glass build!)

Going to ignore for the most part, the double standards of gandara and tonight cough double team cough in PS BL… 50+ GD & 50+ AR vs 30 PS… well atleast gandara didnt take hills… Gandara must be using jedi mind tricks on AR I mean they chose to ignore you capping their homeland for hours too instead focus us… then in eb they again chose to ignore you and focus Piken… as its part and parcel of W3 with or without alliance

I see more false accusations of fair piken players… fair enough if its the same old people who have been reported to us before and hopefully get banned for exploiting(small minority every server has some), but ive seen quite a few legit and fair people being brought up who I know dont exploit and are being slandered with no evidence just assumptions which is pretty wrong imo and tarnishes both servers reputation, one for spreading lies and other for having lies stick.

As for quote and the TUP thief you were on about, that was probally me but it wasn’t a duel, i never targeted you (if its the action north east of bay in gandara tonight) i was hopping around alot and just attacking dolyaks, while being chased by 5-7 Gandarians plus having to deal with 5 veteran guards… killed one dolyak, the other got lucky and regen’d plus i was having to deal with alot of heat which i blew all my cooldowns on. If its not me not sure which thief your on about as I haven’t seen many on today. If it wasn’t me sorry

As far as I recall it was on ps borderlands in early evening. I had gone to get supply from red water as it was the only supply camp we had at the time. We ended up around just under the bridge?

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Raeyne.5086:

You seem to be well onto the right track now from these suggestions. As a rule of thumb, I never go into a dungeon with less than 2500 armour without food buffs.

Just curious, why 2500? Are you melee or ranged? I personally tend to get away with 2.2-2.3k armor with liberal use of dodge/evade skills.

I switch between weapons a lot depending on which part of which dungeon. I prefer short bow / longbow when I can get away with it, but let’s take fractals for example. On the dredge level I will equip a great sword as it gives me good defensive abilities as part of my usual attack layout for when standing on buttons.

Or on Jade Maw, as half the monsters reflect projectiles!

Over all on my build I like to find a balance and without sacrificing too much offence, be able to look after myself for the many occasions that require it.

As for why 2500, this is just the number which keeps me feeling happy, it’s at the level at which I take low damage, and I achieve it easily while still holding the vast majority of my offensive power. As nice as it would be to be able to run glass, stamina isn’t infinite, and many attacks are unavoidable. At this level I next to never go down, yet my health may drop low, but not too fast that my healing can’t recharge.

Of course, being at range in some fights means pretty much immunity to damage, but those are few and far apart!

I’ve had a great evening moving between the borderlands, seen some pretty intense fights and towers falling from one hand to the other, and points being everywhere! It seems no one is done fighting just yet, and it may well come down to the wire!

Had one particularly long spread fight against a thief in TUP who was shooting down our dolyaks, must have been 4-5 minutes of facing off as I lay trap after trap and went through pet after pet, as he went from shadow to shadow. I managed to win with 8 health left by luring him under water. Seriously man, my heart was about to give up at the thrill of that long long fight! I cant help but feel that he expected me to be to usual ranger glass, and that expectation gave me the edge I needed. (Im far from glass build!)

As proud as I am of Gandara for doing so well this week, those of us who spend a lot of time in WvW know that we really are highly disorganised, and very few of us actually expected to have any form of fighting chance. How we managed to get this high has been something of a momentum and whether or not we can pull it together to fight as a unit and organise properly as a server will be key as to whether we can hold our achievement to make it this far. I don’t believe anyone came into this week thinking “Oh, Piken! We can take them on and give them a run for their money!”

Seriously, only 4 weeks ago it felt like our guilds were more at war with each other, rather than working together for Gandara as a whole. The high challenges we’ve faced have really helped get us on the right path, and facing you both this week has really given our WvWers a sharp, much needed learning boost! (Even for myself, of course, I feel like I’ve become far better this week, despite my repair bills hitting a record high!)

Regardless of the above paragraphs, I have seen co-ordination from Gandarans on a much higher level this week than I had witnessed before. To my fellow Gandarans, be proud of everything you’ve achieved!

On a slightly more negative note, I did spend over 30 minutes this afternoon during a fractal run with friends having someone on Piken whisper me insults and obscenities (which Im afraid to say, after a point I had to report, then ignore). I’m sure (s)he is a one off, however! I would love to hear from people off of the fora more often, but don’t use peoples tags and names in order to start that kind of behaviour! I only hope it was someone hoping to troll and get a reaction, and not their genuine opinion.

All in all, its been a rough week for everyone, regarding our introduction into the tier! I hope next week we can start a clean slate and leave all the ill feeling behind… And beat each other with pointy objects rather than sharp language, like uh… civil.. people?

We will meet the challenge head on next week, and I hope we leave a lasting impression as a server with a direction (no, not down!), and not as that one server that made it up to this tier, once upon a time.

You seem to be well onto the right track now from these suggestions. As a rule of thumb, I never go into a dungeon with less than 2500 armour without food buffs.

Being a glass cannon you can output massive damage, sure, but that doesn’t help if you’re dead from 1-2 attacks.

I also try to keep power and precision balanced with each other. Although I’m a large fan of critical hits, so I have sigil of accuracy and ranger runes. With a short bow I crit 65% of the time using toughest/precision food, and hit for 1000 or so per crit… Obviously varying depending on the enemy.

On top of that, as I use short bow, I have a little in the way of condition damage, not a lot though, as it is chancy on ranger, depending on availability of mobility and flanks.

Jarul.8635:

Whatever you had for Xmas dinner I also want please.
I’ve never before seen such heart in these kind of posts, other from my own server kringe, you would make a fine role player!

Thank you! Well, in ‘real life’ while I’m not managing shops for a popular tax avoiding coffee shop brand, I both help organise and partake in LARP systems around the UK (as well as Japanese conventions, any cosplayers here? Irrelevant! Anyway!) so role playing isnt something I’m a stranger to

I woke up at 4 this morning thanks to one of my cats, and spent the next 2 hours capping towers burning through all my siege. Thanks to everyone who was helping me out during that time! We were mostly unopposed. I went back to bed at 6 and was happy to see we still had everything when I woke up again at 11! Keep it up Gandara!

As for celebrating Christmas, don’t be so childish, of course we do, we just do it on the 25th! I understand there are many places across Europe that celebrate it on the 24th so there will of course be some disparity over these few days!

There definitely seem to be indeterminate values associated with wvw that aren’t based on the interval based on holding various structures. However these make very little difference by the looks of things, and breaking them down without understanding the coding behind it would likely be impossible with so many variables happening at once in wvw.

Look at it this way! Every useful thing you do benefits in some way, so keep being useful ;D

I love wvw and really do enjoy it, but there is no progression there at all. I could go into culling and class balance, but that’s covered pretty much everywhere else on the forum! What I would love to see is a progression system put in place that rewards players. Not based on the achievements you already get, mind.

What I would like to see is tags that go alongside names, much like guild tags, but discernible from them and in relation to your progression in the wvw areas. Such an idea would be to have ranks such as private, specialist, major, leutenant etc. But in addition to that, have different progression trees, and some which are related to class, some to account. For example:

Account based wvw progression titles such as:
- Private
- leutenant
- Major
Yada Yada based on your progress, eg general kill count and defense count.

Character specific progression titles:
- Specialist
- Tracker
- Assassin
- Defender
These based on how you play.

Then you could end up with titles such as Specialist Leutenant. Okay, that doesn’t sound great, but you get the idea for what I’m aiming for here! Maybe have symbols for each rank instead of the actual name.

A further addition to this would be to incentivise the process by gaining remuneration on a daily or weekly basis in the form of siege weapons based on your rank. Say, for example, 7 random siege per week per rank?

Another thing I would like to see is much nicer wvw armour. Skin wise, more than stat wise. And the abilty to tattoo your guild emblem onto any part of the armour, not just from buying the guild specific 1g things.

A mild increase to the targets hit by aoe would be nice, also.

The final thing I would like to see is the ability to see all guild members and friends on the maps, not just party members! I feel this would be a very simple but massive boost to wvw itself!

It’s been a fantastic week for w3 this week. I’ve really been enjoying the fights, and things are taking more turns than a race driver in a mental home. A big thank you to both piken and AR as (apart from the occasional invulnerable exploiter, although that goes for all 3 servers, I’m sure) all fights seem to have been fair and honourable. All sides are fighting with every tactic known to man, I swear! There’s always something going on. My repair bills are reaching a record high this week… But it’s oh so worth it.

Piken, a major commendation to you guys for the organisation and skill of your wvw guilds, you guys seem highly coordinated and work together really well.

SagePoete.3216:

The real name of this post is not Piken square Vs Gandar Vs Augury Rock, its Piken square + Gandara Vs Augury rock…

On which parallel dimension are you playing wvwvw? We’ve probably had much more focus on piken than AR! The reason for being in last is rarely to never because the other servers are teaming up against you! Also, we’re now in 3rd… Is that because piken and AR hae teamed up?

What I mean to say is… No.

What a great week of wvwvw that was. Kept me busy for hours on end.. And I usually get bored so easily

A big thanks to everyone who participated, if I could chose a server I would like to merge with one day in the future it would be far shiverpeaks, you guys are class. Unfortunately I witnessed more alt-f4ing from FR to keep such a high opinion of them! Regardless of that, they fought well and gave us a great week of war

All the guilds and individuals that worked together this week to bring it all together were heroic! On behalf of myself and SN, a big thanks for everyone’s efforts and gargantuan repair bills

And anything that makes Tortun rage over guild chat for our entertainment is fantastic

Awe, who are you trying to convince, us or yourself? :p

I have to agree that the traits are somewhat poorly done.

I play guardian, necromancer and ranger, however the ranger does seem to lack in comparison. I believe it may be due to too much faith being put in the pets effect on the class. As a guardian (all around support build) I will out damage my ranger (toughness/power/precision), and outlasts both the pet and ranger in time alive (not including a pet swap), the effect amplified against groups of enemies.

I would like to see rangers more viable as a single entity with certain builds, rather than the pet being necessary to keep up with the other classes… Because my pets spend a lot of time being downed.

Another thing id like to point out is rangers are wvw fodder, especially when defending on a wall, where they should be strong. We must stand at the very edge of the wall to get line of sight, at which point aoe makes swift work, and it’s usually a matter of seconds before we get pulled off… Because we are on the edge

I can only agree with this. I was stuck at level 8, and took a total of around 8 dedicated hours over 3 days to find a group to get passed the level.

I found a group on day 2 (after approx 5 hours of dedicated trying to find a group/make a group), but the fractal bug hit on the maw boss and kicked me from the game, even though I could still read the guild chat, the area itself seemed to completely lag out, and I eventually got kicked from the game entirely, not gaining credit for the completed dungeon.

The main issue was that people only want to do level 10+ now for the dailies.

I got kicked out just at end of Maw boss for the third time running. Didnt get credit for passing level 8. Have to redo it now. Why havent you fixed this yet? Can you give me the progress Ive earned? Ive been trying to pass this and wasted hours doing so.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback, and those I’ve spoken to not in the thread.

There’s a wide view of opinions going around about the portals. One of the most interesting points I’ve heard is that while all abilities that affect an area or group of people are limited to 5 targets, except the portals.

I’ve also heard that given the way a Mesmer is designed and generally played, portals are very much within the character and play style of the mesmer, so any changes would have to be pretty minimal. Their trickery is their key component in world vs world. They perform at their best when they can trick their way around things. They tend to have mediocre damage. I can attest to this personally as I was 1v1 against one earlier after a sweep of a keep, and went through 12+ clones and illusions and still managed to win. Not through any particular skill advantage, but through sheer stats. (I was playing a guardian).

The culling issue comes up an awful lot, too. Would fixing the culling issue mean that the stealth wearing off would be much more noticeable and help stop those pesky mesmers running in and hiding so well?

The last argument I heard that I found was compelling was that if portals are terribly changed, what utility does the Mesmer bring to wvw? What could they do of particular use to the team as a whole?

I’d like to take a moment to say that I do not think it is a particularly unfair advantage, portals are a very great and well implemented portion of the skill set. My frustration is I find that when they are used to completely bypass walls as this can take a lot of the fun out of the siege element of wvw, as it has become a standard way of taking high tier places instead of epic battles at one gate after the next. Ive heard the tactic ‘Breach the main gate and get some mesmers in to hide, go an attack another tower then portal into the keep for a surprise attack’ many times.
It’s no an unfair advantage, my world does it as much as our opposition does, but does it add or take from the value of the wvw experience? I don’t want to put across that any opinion is particularly right, it’s just one of many opinions, and I would love to hear more from people as to how they find the issue.

Let me start off by saying Im a massive fan of WvWvW, and spend a lot of my game time there. I love how it works and plays and really enjoy the experience. However I find the mesmer portals to be a little out of whack… Especially in 2 tier castles (As in castles and keeps with 2 doors, not 1. Not upgraded to 2 tiers)

All sides can use the mesmer portal advantage, but I find it takes so much out of the battle aspect of the game. EVERYTHING is now “Get a mesmer is before they repair the gate” or something to the same effect.

I think that mesmer portals are a great idea, I do, but I think they need to be limited. In WvW you can portal and entire army inside a fully repaired gate. In tune with how long stealth works in wvw due to lag issues, theyre very difficult to catch.

There-in lies the problem… They portal entire armies, by passing defences and making wall and gate conflicts obsolete.

My girlfriend plays a mesmer with me in WvWvW and I can see all the things that happen. She will portal 5 golems and a “zerg” right up to the inner gates of a keep on a frequent basis. And in turn the enemy will do this to us. There’s real challenge in that, and thats the approach everyone is going for now.

My idea is to not restrict the distance or usage of portals, but here are a couple of thoughts of how to adjust them for wvw:

1. Have a maximum body limit who can use the portals, say 10 people max can use a portal.

2. Inability to create portals in opponents territory.

What are the communities thoughts on this matter?