Guild Wars 2

The fastest selling MMO in history surely isn’t dying.

Pitoni.3087:

I’m pretty new to the WvW scenario so I don’t know much about it.
My current server seems really outnumbered and with some lack of organization, (my first impression)

I used to play Warhammer online RvR, it seems similar to WvW, and I had a great experience with that. So I am looking for a server with more balanced numbers and a guild that is organized in WvW, and that doesn’t mind explaining why we are doing that move.
I don’t like just following the grouop around without knowing why that is important.

Hope to listen from you guys. If it seems vague, just ask and I will try to complement.

Thanks in advance.

How important to you is winning? You can take your pick of any of the top 9 servers and they’re all fairly organised (more organised as you go higher up the tiers), but then, you’re asking for “balanced numbers”, which by the very nature of WvW, doesn’t exist.

Fuzzion.2504:

Except for the implosion of SoR , BG still can still field 50 to 70 man blobs on atleast 3 maps at any given time.

40-60 of those being uplevel rangers

GO, OUR RANGER ARMY #BEASTGATE

I recommend going full soldier gear until you get a hang of what you’re doing, and slowly switching your gear out to a more glassy or condi bunker build as you see fit. WvW is gear dependant, but the importance of gearing influences what kind of role you play, rather than how well you do in a fight. A full cleric guardian will rarely beat a glass thief in a 1v1. It’s about builds and skill, not stats.

Your particular trait build has a far bigger impact than ascended gear. If you’re dying to people in ascended, work on your trait builds and skills. If you just copied a build off the internet, then you will fail at it 90% of the time as it was not tailored to your play style.

Hacks progress faster than the security measures that are designed to stop them. Cyber security is always playing catchup. You’ll never get a hack free game.

Buffy.9246:

Slininstien.7546:

Every server has a sort of day crew, all of them do. But to find a 24/7 coverage you’ll want to look at Dragonbrand/Tarnished Coast/Blackgate/Jade quarry

DB is lower tier than these and their day crew is worse than their night but if you’re fighting at night then it’ll work out. TC is moving up in the ranks getting alot of T1 transfers and so they’ll be good company. And obviously BG and JQ are the best servers in GW2 atm.

I wouldn’t say bg/jq are the best. They may be the best at spamming 1. Bg is a 90% pve server…from spending 1 week in T1, bg blobs are all zerk or uplvls.

We (JQ and BG) got the best coverage, but I agree, our average zergling is pretty awful. That’s also why you see BG’s WvW population disappear every time a good PvE update or Living Story update gets rolled out, hence the “outnumbered in every time zone” comment earlier. Our hardcore WvW population really isn’t all that big compared to what T1 servers traditionally had in the past. Especially in the Oceanic time zone, when we used to be strongest when our Oceanic crew was unrivalled, and now weakest (we don’t have a single dedicated oceanic wvw guild, PvX guilds and SEA/NA doing overtime makes up our ocx), over the period of just 4 months.

BG is a great server to log on and complete PvE events at any hour of the day though. Always get questions in champ train maps asking if there’s a train going from guests to the server. My usual response to them is: It’s not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “where”

Glass cannon staff elementalist. Plenty of challenge staying alive, plenty of fun dropping thousands of damage on your enemies.

Pretty sure this week is due to the Lion’s Arch event. But I have noticed a very steady decline in WvW population since last November.

SoR’s NA players collectively gave up, resulting in their Oceanic/SEA players bailing. Not sure FA had Oceanic to begin with. So yeah, SoS will PVDoor any server down during Oceanic, except for JQ. No other server has that kind of population during Oceanic

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

I think most of the previous generation have moved on from runescape, at least, I, and everyone that I have known that used to play have. Tis a pitty when the nostalgia strikes but being unable to go play the game I remember, oh well.

But… I don’t think fishing would really work, the primary point, I think, for fish and catchables to be introduced, would be as “Food” to “Heal” which this game doesn’t do.

Runescape was the kitten back in 2003

ANet could introduce fishing and use fish as crafting mats for cooking between 400-500

Smoked salmon anyone?

I sense a lot of racist undercurrents here. Some of the comments here are just outright disgusting.

What about griefing?

There’s no server that has no coverage hole. The best coverage is currently in T1 and T2 on NA servers. Current server with nearly no coverage hole is JQ so you can take a look there

BG currently lacks commanders in all time zones (not so much players, mostly just commanders, I’m blaming bandwagoners for this problem) so you’ll often log in to 1 commander with 20-30 people following trying to defend whatever we have on the maps.

TC seems to have a shortage of commanders currently during SEA timezone, but with SoR’s SEA moving to TC in the near future, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Take your pick

Raine.1394:

Reverence.6915:

Gene Archer.8560:

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

Ascended isn’t necessary to complete content. It’s there for people who are after progression.

Why hate on that?

Well then, it’s there for progression for the people that want it. What kind of progression are we talking about? I’ll answer for you: vertical. What is vertical progression? It is scaling character progression vertically in terms of power. That is, as time progresses the power level of the game will increase. That’s simply VP at it’s simplest. Not my opinion by the way, I claim no credit for my understanding of VP. Everything I know about it I learned.

So if the power of the game increases continually over time, does that make the treadmill optional for those who don’t wish to pursue it? Hardly. And, again, not my opinion. I simply know what VP is and how it functions in games. You can know it too and here’s a couple videos to get you started:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

http://taugrim.com/2012/04/19/why-games-should-scale-horizontally-instead-of-vertically/

I guess you can call it vertical progression. The difference is small enough that I consider it horizontal progression. Depends on your point of view. If you must have that BiS item, then sure, it’s VP. It’s just not worth the time it takes to craft for that miniscule stat increase.

Anyway, Legendary armor is going to be released in the future. Legendaries are locked to BiS, so it’s quite possible we may see 1 or 2 more tiers after ascended after Legendary armor is released.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

It’s just as well. Let people think that statistical advantages are meaningless because it demonstrates their lack if understanding when it comes to math and the desire for a level playing field.

I went back to WoW. Much less grind there and their cash shop is entirely optional. Unlike here.

Level playing field in PvP? You know sPvP doesn’t have item stats except for that amulet, right? Good riddance of such a narrow minded player.

Typing Chinese and having it come out in “bits” (best way to describe it) is really annoying. It’s like trying to read English with half of each word missing. That, at least, could be fixed… right?

Gene Archer.8560:

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

Ascended isn’t necessary to complete content. It’s there for people who are after progression.

Why hate on that?

Aioros.4862:

I edited my post a lot above.

Plus, you should know that i’m a lot biased against ascended gear, you can say it’s 0.00001% difference, it’s not going to change my mind. Plus you forgot to mention infusion slots and how vertical progression will probably follow with better infusions.

I came to GW2 in beta knowing this would not happen, and 3 months later they take my candy away. Fiends! :’(

It’s a pity you take this small improvement for personal character progression and ruin the entire GW2 experience for yourself, especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary. If you are the kind chasing after numbers as a casual gamer, this game isn’t for you.

Aioros.4862:

Reverence.6915:

Why aim for ascended at all then? You don’t need it to be competitive. I play WvW daily, either zerging or roaming, all in exotic armor and weapons with ascended trinkets being the only ascended gear I have (amulet + rings).

I feel the opposite, you absolutely do need it to be competitive. How can a stat advantage not be needed? In any situation.

Because the stat advantage is absolutely miniscule in a zerg. It’s slightly more pronounced in a 1v1 situation where, as an above poster mentioned, someone can get away with barely any hp due to a slight stat difference. In a group however, that difference is masked by composition (just don’t bring a ranger to WvW) and commander skill.

Ascended gives single digit bonuses over exotic over each stat in each piece of gear. Realistically, there are 8 pieces of gear (armor + main hand + offhand weapon) that will make the difference. The statistical difference is less than the food buffs you use in WvW. If you feel like cannon fodder over that difference, I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s your player skill that is lacking, not your gear.

Edit for your edit: the way I see it, ascended isn’t vertical progression in the traditional sense. You keep looking at this situation from the perspective of traditional MMOs. Player skill matters so much more in GW2’s case.

Aioros.4862:

I pretty much quit the game since i spent all my currency buying ascended accessories for my ranger main (yes, i was that dumb), figured i would have to go through all that again to equip a new main and then i saw the requirements to create ONE ascended weapon for a ONE build, and i stopped playing completely.

I’m a casual player, since that’s all real life allows, i can’t spend the time to get on an even level with other people in WvW, and i absolutely will not be cannon fodder.

Now i only very occasionally log in to say hi to the people in the guild and gain a level on a low level char.

Ascended gear 100% ruined the game for me.

Why aim for ascended at all then? You don’t need it to be competitive. I play WvW daily, either zerging or roaming, all in exotic armor and weapons with ascended trinkets being the only ascended gear I have (amulet + rings).

TooBz.3065:

When comparing two things, if the first is better than the second does not mean that the first is good.

That may be too abstract, let me spell it out. Just because Maple story (or whatever) has more grind than GW2 does not mean that GW2 does not have grind or that the level of grind is acceptable.

Depends on your definition of grind I suppose, and how you look at GW2.

If you look at GW2 as your traditional MMO, where you HAVE to get BiS gear to be competitive, then yes, GW2 is grindy. Incredibly grindy. I just shudder to think of the grind for mats required if I want to get BiS

However! GW2 is different in that those BiS gear isn’t necessary to complete any content available. It’s there as an end game goal that you’ll eventually obtain by playing the game naturally. Having ascended or legendary doesn’t make you any better than someone in exotics. It just makes you look fancier.

Why would you ruin your experience of the game by grinding it out? Just seems silly to me.

In any other MMO, your next tier of gear is REQUIRED to be competitive in either PvE or PvP, and therefore you have to grind for it. This isn’t the case in GW2, so I honestly don’t see any grind. I just log in, play WvW and sPvP, complete my dailies while killing enemy players, and accumulate mats through the loot bags I get from my kills (I make most of my gold this way, selling t6 mats is very profitable, still have enough left over to craft a bit of ascended). Is there a grind in what I do? No. There isn’t.

I just wish it was a little easier to level alts, since I’m not big on exploring. Like I said in my previous post, I’m used to grinding – not having anywhere to grind levels out is rather weird, and I hate champ trains cause of all the waypoints necessary (dat loading screen time).

stale.9785:

Vol.7601:

stale.9785:

There has been virtually no content added – one dungeon path got changed, one dragon event got broken, and they added fractals and southsun – but there’s nothing to do in southsun.

What an absurd comment to make.

How it is absurd? It’s the objective truth. There has been no permanent content. Take someone who played in September of release, but hasn’t come back till today, and what are we going to show him?

“There’s been a lot of living story updates, but there’s nothing to show for it, and you can’t replay them.” Otherwise, there’s fractals and Southsun. That’s it.

You could argue that it’s a good thing. You’re not rushing to catch up on a lot of content, which is one of the factors stopping me from going back to many MMORPGs. You can hop into the current living story without skipping a beat

thaooo.5320:

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild. And that’s just one hypothetical. Thank you for understanding.

Except that everyone has ascended trinkets since they’re time gated. So that comes down to armor/weapons. 8 pieces of gear at most, with less than 5% damage boost (someone can do the math for Soldiers/Clerics/Dire gear, pretty sure it’s like 2-3% difference). I’m sorry, but just… no. Tactics, composition and skill will prevail regardless of your gear in that situation.

I love the outnumbered buff. I take an uplevel with my friends and clear sentries and camps to level up

After Crit damage % nerf, there will be no reason to get ascended. Right now, the only reason to get it is for greater crit damage %.

And following on that note, in WvW, you don’t run zerker. If you do, even if you’re in ascended, you’re an easy kill. Roamers run hybrids and zerglings run full soldiers. With soldier gear, the difference is really, really minute. Thus, ascended really doesn’t make a difference in WvW.

The game is still great. 3 unique game modes that can entertain you for hours on end. Many end-game goals to set yourself. Plenty of dyes to mess around with and make your toon unique.

People have been spoilt by this game. The lack of gear treadmill, grind and sub fee has truly gone to their heads. GW2 set a new benchmark in MMO quality, but people can’t see that. They see ascended armor/weapons and say “gear treadmill” when it isn’t (at least, not until another tier comes out that isn’t Legendary). They point to zerker meta ruining the game when it only applies to a small section of PvE (higher level dungeons). They say there’s a lack of build diversity, when there clearly isn’t (I just ran 3 different builds for 3 different roles on my elementalist in WvW tonight).

Eh, I play the game how I want to, and it’s very enjoyable.

kitten that’s a lopsided match… I don’t think BG ever hit 695 matched up against t2 servers during season 1 leagues, and they were lopsided and boring as hell.

People complain about stale matchups, but I prefer balanced matchups to complete curbstomps.

Combo fields require a fair bit of coordination to pull off in WvW. That’s the nice part of it. They’re plenty easy enough to see anyway

Each rank up chest gives around 10-20 silver, so it’s pretty easy to make money in WvW now, provided you run with a decent guild and/or participate in karma training.

If you want open world PvP, come to WvW. There’s DE, resource collection, crafting stations, jumping puzzles and more for those who like a bit of PvE on the side.

Warriors stunning with Earthshaker and Guardians following behind with Staff spamming 1.

That’s your average hammer train right there.

BLANE.8346:

interesting way of zerging o.o

Majority of BG’s guilds prefer running tagless, with the exception of some bigger guilds like KnT, GoF and iCoa. When guilds are asked to tag up, the reaction is always like: “sigh do we have to? fine….”

On another note, there’s Blk from BG, remake of PLX

You’ll be back.

Iris Ng.9845:

By the ways, I know some splendid people who can get everything in your list (except the gift of battle) without the need to go to WvW. They don’t like zerging but it seems the only fast way to get to rank 30. Imagine the frustration.

I don’t know what tier you’re in, but in T1, zerging is the slowest way to reach rank 30. Stuff actually gets defended, so it’s pretty difficult to cap structures for wxp.

Anyway, reaching rank 30 takes me around 12 hours. Faster with outmanned buff. I have nearly 700 ranks in total across my characters. It’s the easiest part of legendary to obtain from my perspective.

jonnis.2946:

I didn’t mean it as a, you all know we have 150 people to use in a borderland. It was a hypothetical question intended to get a rough idea of what proportion you would want doing what. Its easier to define that if you have a total number of people to work with

Ah ok, a thought experiment.

If I had 150 people to work with for 1 borderland, I’d split up into 80, 30 and 30, leaving the rest as roamers and scouts. 80 to fight the opponent zergs, 30 to support the main zerg should a fight occur where they are outnumbered, and the other 30 to run supply and defend structures, both 30 man groups tagging in and out depending on their location.

The borderlands realistically has a cap of around 80 though, so it’s more like a 40, 15, 15 and 10 roamers/scouts that would be optimal for me.

Bao Lin Nda.1042:

Every T5-8 server has the same problem. A lot of player exit GW2 because there’s no new content and WvW is stuck in blobbing and coverage. Others stack on T1-4 before they exit. Scarlet already won.

A big reason why people stack on T1-3 (T4 isn’t really competitive in population) is to have people to play with in “off-hours”. JQ and BG, for example, don’t have an “off hour”. People can log on and have people to play with and against at any time of the day the same way they’d play in NA prime, albeit with slightly less people in a couple of maps the float team isn’t on. That would be the biggest attraction for guilds to move up tiers.

BG tends to have 1 main zerg of around 40~ish plus 1 or 2 smaller groups of 10-20 to work the borderlands on reset night. Rest of the numbers being made up of roamers. Works well.

We only get 1 zerg on each map at most during weekdays though, simply through lack of commanders.

To have versatility in roles in WvW. My guardian or warrior for a frontline tank, my ele or necro ranging from the backline (though my necro isn’t 80 yet, getting there). I also PvP with all my toons to learn how each class works.

It’s a good thing armor in this game doesn’t cost anything, or else I’d have a hard time gearing my toons up

Sucks to hear.

The problem with low rank servers is that guilds want to be in a server where their members are enjoying themselves i.e. has a decent amount of action, since the guild will slowly die of attrition otherwise. This just creates a vicious cycle when big guilds leave small servers.

I’m hopeful that Tournaments will give you guys a lift in population though.

There should be sales during holiday events and such. That’s the norm for most games.

Switching for a click-to-move game to a WASD movement game throws me off every time

Especially now when I’m playing Diablo 3 again in anticipation of their next expansion. Coming back to GW2 after a D3 session feels really weird. Feels natural again after a few rounds in sPvP though.

Eh, seems a bit awkward mapping 14 keys to a controller for my ele or guardian. I’m just too much of a PC gamer at heart maybe, to see the advantage with a controller.

I suggest you get into PvP and stick with it. There’s very few updates with WvW and tournaments for sPvP/tPvP happen frequently enough that it may interest you when you are playing. These modes are often exciting and hectic for the time you are playing them. They also don’t require a lot of your time. You can enter sPvP, play 2-3 rounds, complete your PvP dailies, and log off. Or, you can log into WvW, roam a bit, follow the zerg a bit, complete your PvE dailies and log off. Map completion can be achieved when you have a bit more time on your hands.

Bredegi.1943:

I remember when i had to get my GIft of Battle before achievement rewards were added, i had to do Obsidian Sanctum jumping puzzle every day at 6am. for a really long time to craft the piece i needed. and yes, unless i wanted to get killed 14 times before reaching the chest, i had to wake up 15minutes earlier so i could do a jumping puzzle before i went to school.
BUT, if you look at the bigger picture, legendaries are supposed to be difficult to get.. grinding is not the worst case scenario

Would you say it’s easier now with the rank 30 and 500 badge requirement (keeping in mind that rank up chests contain badges)? or before they added badges to achievement chests?

Darkbattlemage.9612:

Reverence.6915:

No one is being forced into WvW. Legendaries are game completion rewards. If you haven’t completed the game, so to speak, you don’t deserve a legendary.

The same logic can be applied to those within the pvp community who are groaning about being forced into PvE. Yet it seems acceptable that they can complain while the pve community is told there isn’t a problem.

Reverence.6915:

I personally think you need to get a certain amount of Glory (perhaps around 50,000) as well, for a legendary, so that all 3 aspects of GW2 are represented.

Why do we need to have an item represent all 3 aspects of GW2 if the person in possession only likes one? Shouldn’t the item reflect the tastes of its owner? Shouldn’t those who like Structured PvP be able to acquire a legendary that has requirements in their favorite game mode because it reflects their interest? How about WvW community being able to acquire everything they need or want from WvW itself, wouldn’t that make them happier than feeling they are forced to endure a game mode they had no intention of playing?

I brought the game solely because I liked what I saw in the pve side, I have no intention of trying pvp since it doesn’t interest me in the least. I don’t expect to receive a Legendary, nor do I actually want one. However I do think the opposition against legendaries having requirements in all game modes has brought up excellent points.

Because game completion rewards are cool and rewards me for trying out all of what the designers and developers of GW2 created.

There are already cosmetic rewards for only doing a certain facet of the game – it’s called titles (Been there, done that, Dungeon Master, Veteran of the Mists, Slayer etc). The whole premise of a legendary was that you’ve been in all parts of the game, and since that’s not the case, it needs to be changed so it does reflect game completion.

I won’t be getting a legendary any time soon because I hate running dungeons and exploration feels very dull to me. Whilst I completed WvW maps on 3 of my toons, my Tyria completion is only 61% on my main. That legendary at the end is a nice motivator to keep trying though.

Zanshin.5379:

Reverence.6915:

EoTM should be closed if there’s no queue.

I think people are taking this the wrong way.

I can’t talk for everybody but the reason I prefer EotM is because it’s better designed in all aspects: graphics design, level design, gameplay…
It just reminds me of how much the Borderlands are flat and plain. Every borderland looks exactly like the other borderlands. Every tower looks exactly like other towers. Every camp… Every fort… Every guard… Every event… They’re all the same. It’s just boring.

You want to punish people for preferring a map that is better done?
I think it’s the other way around. The Borderlands should be upgraded to be more exciting.
Add some verticality. Make each Borderland different. Differentiate each territory.

Visually superior, yes. Mechanically inferior (with the exception of mob mechanics). It’s just a pugfest. If you have 30 people with you in voice comms, you can steamroll the entire map. Boring.

Sins.4782:

Reverence.6915:

That’s why Ascended armor is a long term goal. Once you’ve settled down into your build, you can start building your ascended armor. Once legendary armours come out, then you can start going for that

Some of us enjoy build experimentation, and a lot of players play multiple builds regularly (PvE, WvW). And then alts. This is why having long term goals involved with higher stats is a bad idea.

Considering that if your build doesn’t involve crit damage (prior to Ferocity), the difference is like 5% in stats compared to Exotic, I don’t think this should matter?

Yimiko.8524:

Add an “explore” option so people can go into the maps without being involved in PVP combat in any way. That would be a hell of a lot more fun for PVE players than being forced into PVP for the sake of a few achieves.

Any player in the explore option only shows up as “explorer” and is counted as a green (friendly) unit by all actual fighters on the map, who would also show up as friendly “mist warriors” to explorers regardless of which world they come from, and all open chat would be blocked from explorers during the time they are in there. No cheap free scouting, no one forced into a game play style they absolutely despise.

So I can go in as an explorer, go into an enemy keep, and let my commander know how much siege is in there and where it’s placed? No thanks?

That’s why Ascended armor is a long term goal. Once you’ve settled down into your build, you can start building your ascended armor. Once legendary armours come out, then you can start going for that