Guild Wars 2

Yes, though give the state of transfers and the total back-burner WvW is on, I’m not sure why I do. But I really do. :P

Terrahero.9358:

Point 3 and 4 i care very little for. 3 is just about which guild has the biggest playerbase, and i can already tell you exactly which guild(s) will rank top in the world. Based entirely on sheer numbers, rather then anything else. Numbers to massive they can populate entire maps on their own, and in doing so deny other guilds time to gain points because they are stuck in queue’s.

I would argue that it takes work to get and then keep large numbers in a guild. So the fact that the larger the guild with active players in WvW, they higher their rankings would seem to be completely appropriate to me.

Point 4 you suggest you do not want players who play more WvW to get advantages like that , but you do get access to special WvW utility skills.

It does not seem like an “advantage” to me if the skills are only usable in WvW. If you don’t want to WvW, why would you even care of it has some different utilities?

Not to mention i feel a massive burden to make it all balanced.

True.

Considering ANet is already struggling to even remotely approach anything resembling a balance i’d call this a bad idea. First fix what we have, then add more.

In my opinion, this is a gross exaggeration. I wish people had longer memories, and could remember the days of real imbalance. I want continuing balancing, but kitten – the current state is nothing compared to MMOs I’ve played.

I put this thread exactly where I wanted it – in WvW Discussion.

@Sunspots: I love my WvW experience too. I’ve also watched the number of participants dwindle and dwindle. I hope you’re not having that experience on your server and I am really glad if you aren’t.

Regardless, it will only help and not hurt one bit of ANet addressed the sad disparity between rewards for play in WvW and reward for play in PvE.

Catrenna.4298:

Gw2 was just picked up by a professional gaming league and a WvW update is confirmed in February.

February?

Six months post release?

WvW will be dead by then and the people who would have been most interested in it will have moved on. Many already have.

Here are some things that I think ANet could do to breathe new life into WvW and keep WvW exciting and active in the future:

1. Make WvW provide equivalent rewards to PvE

For the amount of play time we invest, a person should be able to make equivalent gold, acquire an equivalent amount of drops at an equivalent rareness rate, acquire honor badges at a rate equivalent to the ease of obtaining PvE dungeon tokens, and acquire an equivalent amount of rare crafting materials. A person should be able to choose to either play 5 hours in PvE or 5 hours in WvW and receive equivalent reward for that choice.

2. Make obtaining top stat gear in WvW equivalent to obtaining top stat gear in PvE.

Right now, as we all know, the only means for obtaining ascended gear is to PvE. ANet has said they regret rolling ascended gear out in the fashion, and promise to make acquiring such gear accessible “through other means” in the future. Well that’s nice. But there needs to be a way to acquire the top teir gear exclusively through WvW at an equivalent pace as PvE. Period. I should be able to choose exclusively to WvW and feel that I am at no disadvantage whatsoever from someone who chooses to PvE all or most of their playtime. PvE and WvW are not at odds with each other. People should be able to do what is most fun to them without feeling like they must do something else in order to compete.

Right now, I don’t trust ANet to make WvW an equally viable way to get geared. I hope they make it “better,” but so far PvE is the fastest, and sometimes only (in the case of ascended gear) way to do this. That needs to change.

3. Rank Guilds in WvW both in sever and across servers

In sPvP, you earn “Glory” points for your participation. In WvW, players should earn a similar kind of “points” for participation in various ways. The only difference would be, this points add to your guilds total points. Guilds would then be ranked on their own server, and ranked globally across servers. An individual’s contribution in WvW would add to the guilds overall points, and thus ranking. Points could be awarded for captures and defenses, the way gold, karma and experience are awarded now. Additionally, individual actions which as killing players, going on a kill streak, and various other things could contribute as well.

Having guild rankings based in this way is not the magic bullet that “fixes” WvW, but if taken in consideration with other changes, it would be a very nice low-impact way to encourage WvW participation, and add to a sense of guild pride and community.

4. WvW only utility skills, Player WvW “Ranks”

This might sound controversial at first, but if you hear me out I think you’ll find that it is not too radical. Imagine if there were a pool of, say, 10 utility skills per class that were unlockable only through WvW and usable only in WvW. Imagine if they way you unlocked these utility skills was by achieving new “ranks” in WvW. And the way you acquired new ranks was by the same point system I’ve suggested to contribute to Guild rankings.

Now, the way stuff like this usually goes wrong is that they make WvW-only abilities in a tiered system. So for example, there are some weak abilities that can be accessed at low rank, then some medium ones at middle rank, and some super powerful ones at high rank. That approach is a terrible idea.

I don’t want players who are able to devote 10 hours a day to WvW to be specially rewarded over players who are only able to play 2 hours in a day. The way around this is to have no tier. Have each ability cost a certain amount of “points” to purchase – just like PvE utility skills and skill points. Only have them all cost the same amount.

If one or two utility skills in the same class are considered to be “super awesome” then the first moment you have enough points to purchase any uiltity skill, you can purchase that one. So everyone gets some access to some cool WvW-only utility skill choices, but no one has to feel like they are at some major disadvantage if they can’t play 80 hours a week.

Conclusion

I’m sure there are many more great ideas out there. But these four things are things I believe would breathe fresh life into WvW and help keep it fun and active for the future. Number one is something they can and should do immediately. There really is no excuse for not fixing this in my mind. And even that would really go a long way to making things better.

Draygo.9473:

I’m also kinda confused as to what exactly the wvw community wants. They havent been ignoring wvw in the least, changing or adding maps takes a huge amount of time and resources. I mean they could tweak the scoring system to make pvd less worth it… but most PvPers want a stable system that works. Right now more or less wvw is pretty stable.

There’s a clear answer to this question, which I thought I already gave.

I want WvW to be as viable of a way to (a) earn gold (b) acquire drops © get top level gear as PvE is….

…so that I could (if I choose) play only WvW at lvl 80 (if not before) and be at absolutely zero disadvantage from someone who only PvEs or only casually PvPs.

Pretty clear.

VCR.9721:

Somewhere towards the end of the recent State of the Game Discussion, Jonathan Sharp mentions that in the upcoming monthly updates for January & February will be “themed,” and one of the themes for either of those months will be World v World!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hByqoWsnz-I

So let me get this straight…. out of six months, ONE of those months will be “WvW Themed?”

No, sorry… that does not answer my questions. Not in the slightest.

1. Head Start, Prior to Release.
2. 565 hours
3. app. 20 gold
4. Yes, 2 80s
5. World vs. World. Period.
6. Nope.
7. Nope.
8. Nope.
9. 1 to 2.
10. I don’t care.
11. I don’t care.
12. 400 Weaponsmithing
13. Nope
14. No, I don’t. Because I’m here to WvW and right now you cannot effectively make money, earn loot or gear up from WvW compared to PvE, which I have no desire to do.
15. World vs. World Content and equivalent reward to PvE.

This is a general question, belonging in General Discussion. Why? Because WvW is not supposed to be some “mini game” side event in Guild Wars.

Dear ANet,

Right now I can’t play the game I want to play, which is one of the things you’ve identified as a goal for the game. I’m a hardcore WvW player. I came to Guild Wars 2 because it claimed not only to offer this gameplay, but to make it a major focus of the endgame.

I did not play Guild Wars 1, except for just the casual appearance here and there. Why not? Because it had no world vs. world. I have been waiting for a WvW game for the better part of the last decade, ever since Dark Age. And ANet said that GW2 would deliver.

ANet, you launched GW2 with an excellent foundation for Word v. World, and you deserve praise for that. There were many, many things done right from day one. But since opening day, WvW has been completely ignored with priority give to everything else in the game but one of the major pieces of its endgame.

Nearly every “update” to WvW since release has been negative. Remove rewards from escorting Dolyaks because of unintended farming. Remove Orbs of power (a significant tactical component of WvW without which WvW feels more stale) because of imbalanced bonuses and exploiting.) Remove. Eliminate. Remove.

We have had three major content updates since release and not a single one of them including anything for World vs. World.

October: Mad King pve loot and events. How much did I participate in that? About one hour. Why? Because gosh darnit, I’m here toworld vs. world!

November: PVE loot, a new endless PvE dungeon for people to farm like insane lemmings, new gear with better stats only attainable through PvE while impacting WvW. Content, bonus, or player reward updates to WvW? None.

December: Winter’s Day. Over two weeks of even more PvE content to encourage everyone to further ignore WvW, delivering the message loud and clear: WvW is not considered to be a substantial part of our endgame, even though we told everyone it would be. Do you plan any more increased stat gear that’s only attainable through PvE again? This is the third month in which major content updates from Anet include absolutely nothing for WvW.

That sucks.

ANet, you have said that you want people to be able to play the game they want to play, and make that experience rewarding for them. Do you agree, that I have a right to be frustrated and disappointed?

I play WvW. I don’t want to endlessly farm scripted PvE content, and I won’t farm that to get gear. I feel that I am being completely left behind by you. There is no path to full tier gear through WvW. The reward system for participating in WvW is completely substandard to PvE.

— I can’t make gold at the same rate as you can in PvE
— I can’t acquire loot at the same rate you can in PvE.
— I can’t acquire the highest stat gear in WvW as you can in PvE
— I can’t acquire gear at all at the same rate you can in PvE

Why?

I’ve extremely frustrated right now, but still in love with the “hope” that ANet will refocus and see WvW as a substantial part of their endgame, and probably the thing that will keep players coming back long after the pve crowd have gone back to WoW.

I see no one has a response to my post.

No one can seem to explain what the actual big deal is about portals that does not boil down to them or their server being terrible.

Portal Bombing? My server says: bring it on! Usually its free bags for us.

I just don’t understand all the fuss about portals. I play Tier 1 WvW. My two lvl 80s are a Guardian and an Elementalist. No Mesmer.

Portal “Bombing” is not any sort of “I win.” It’s one strategy among many. In fact, our sever tends to shout “Free bags inc!” when we see an enemy portal. Enemy portal bombs can work, but they just as frequently lead to an enemy zerg wipe, as our side locks down that portal and demolishes those pouring out of it with mass aoe, cc and condition dmg.

Portals are just one tactic of WvW that sometimes works and sometimes does not. I cannot figure out why there is so much crying about it. I can only assume that on lower Tiers people just don’t know how to play or something.

Peetee.9406:

I see nothing wrong with the situations that OP gave.

If you want fair and balanced PvP, there is sPvP.

EXACTLY.

I play sPvP too, and enjoy it. It is designed around balanced matches of small teams where individual skill really stands out. Identical gear, balanced teams (i.e. an auto-balance mechanic) small number skirmishes.

Please don’t walk in here and demand that a different kind of pvp game be turned into the same kind of pvp game as spvp. I’ve been waiting 10+ years since the early days of DAOC for WvW like this, and I’ll be kitten if I want people crying about large scale siege warfare screwing that up.

You have every right to want even team, balanced pvp matches. That’s why ANET made “structured” and “competitive” pvp, or Spvp.

I have every right to want large scale, large army siege warfare, and that’s why ANET also created WvWvW.

Vendal.8697:

Selwynn.2758:

Siphaed.9235:

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

You need to play sPvP and stop crying about large scale siege warfare.

That’s what WORLD v. WORLD is. If you don’t coordinate with a skilled world v. world guild, and you don’t participate in a voice chat for your server, then yeah you will be the first one in here crying about the kitten “zergs” screwing up your little few-man rolling groups.

However, if you have those things, you’ll discover that on good WvW servers, there IS NO ZERG. However, there ARE large coordinated, strategic armies following commanders, dividing into teams and tactically seiging objectives and defending territory against other large scale coordinated enemy forces.

That is EXACTLY what WvW is supposed to be about. This from a fanatic Dark Age RvR player.

There is room for “gank” or “ninja” teams, for small guilds fielding 10-15 on the battlefield, even if they for some reason do not want to participate in server wvw chat or run with tactical commanders. But small groups will always – and should always – be at risk from the main armies. That’s what large-scale siege warfare is all about.

Get rid of your so-called “zerg?” That’s why ANET made different styles of PvP. So my “fun” doesn’t have to get “screwed” by your fun and vice versa. In addition to the myriad of actually places for successful small squad play in WvW, there is also sPvP and Tourney play, for those who can stand any scenario in which their 5-10 people might run into 25-40 and get killed.

As far as WvW goes, welcome to the battlefield, son. Quit crying and start coordinating.

That would be true if you did not have guilds with large number of members moving from low ranking sever to low ranking sever just to get there WvW titles with out any real resistance. You can voice chat zerg what ever you want but when you are out numbered 5 to 1 not much fun.

Actually its plenty of fun, as we have the outmanned buff regularly. Having it be fun requires you to work with other players, communicate and listen to strategy and coordinate with others on your server. You have to care about the big picture of what is happening on all four maps at once, and you have to want to work together with other guilds to coordinate simulaneous efforts in every zone. If your server can’t do this, that’s a server problem, not a wvw problem. I don’t want Anet catering to your kittene server and screwing the competition up for those of us in T1 who devote nearly 100% of our game time to wvw

Xolo.3580:

What happens in WvW says a lot about the game. Hasn’t anyone noticed that there are no real battles going on? There’s just swiftness buffed zergs steamrolling around and “PvDoor” (a term someone here coined which I had to steal).
Outside of fortifications I’m either in a zerg that totally wins or in a zerg that totally loses, the outcome of battles is decided by sheer numbers and loading times of characters. I never thought I would say this, but in WoW mass PvP was never so bad because the game provides/provided enough opportunity to play good. In GW2 there is very little of that… yet.

What we need to figure out is how the WvW experience differs depending on what Tier you are in.

Because in Tier 1, there’s no PvDoor. This is what I mean when I say that, there is never a time when the enemy servers in T1 are all “asleep” so that we can just go pound gates and take with reckless abandon.

Instead, even at 3am PST, there are enough people on that you have to force them to commit player resources to certain maps, and, if you are able to do this and coordinate your own team well enough, you just might then be able to go speed-cap some territory on another map. This often fails, and sometimes works.

In these instances, even in US off-hours, there is battle. Some of the strategy becomes more about trying to coordinate well enough to take a keep so fast that the enemy cannot respond in time, but it sure as hell is not that there’s no fighting or no one to fight.

However, once again, if you’re not in a solid WvW guild or you refuse to use voice comms, you won’t know any of this bigger picture. So any time you happen to take a door without the whole enemy force being there, you’re more likely to go “waaaa PvDoor” instead of having a clue what’s actually going on.

Yes, WvW includes sometimes jamming the enemy up elsewhere for the purpose of assaulting a point while they are distracted. That’s not PvDoor. That’s siege tactics.

But on a different tier, you may find that everyone really does go to bed and so you do nothing but bang on doors without any response all night long. I’m sorry if that’s your case, but that is a problem with YOUR server, not a design problem with WvW.

Cirus.5748:

World vs World is one of the best PvP gaming experiences to ever come out, you need to look at the bigger picture, there is so much more to this then just zerging. 10 organized people defending against a 30 man zerg, = roasted zerg, even when that zerg is organized. It’s all about tactics and strategy. There is a way to counter those 3 catapults with even just 1 person defending. That’s right, 1 person can stagnate a 30 man zerg.

I think one of the major problems of WvW is that most people haven’t dug deep enough to truly understand it and instead choose to point out the things that they didn’t like and demand change when most of these things are there for a reason, for every problem there is a solution.

And that’s because most of them roll in, are not members of a WvW guild community or alliance, do not coordinate with commanders and tacticians in a server’s voice coms (or possibly worse, in lower tiers may not even have a server wide voice comm), and run around without a play or ANY sense of the bigger picture of what’s happening, then run right toward an enemy army (so-called “zerg”) that they would have KNOWN about had they been in voice chat or in a good guild with scouts.

Then they come to the boards and cry about WvW being a “mindless zerg fest.”

Sorry, but its not the “zerg” that’s mindless.

Siphaed.9235:

..and I’m not the only one thinking this. It’s become a complete zerg fest and is nowhere near what it was made out to be.

Scenario #1:

Group A of 5 players attacks a tower with a single ram. Group B with 25 players sees orange swords at tower and swiftly gets there. Group B wipes Group A with ease, where as Group A barely did 10% damage to the door.

Scenario #2:

Group C of 30 players quickly builds 3 catapults on the side of a tower aiming to the wall and start to attack. Group E of 5 players is trying to defend said tower and while heading there the tower already flips. Group C heads to supply camp before Group E even makes it to tower. If Group E attacks tower, see Scenario #1.

Those are common scenarios, but without the semi complexities of setting up a single Mesmer who does a portal drop 50yrd out, sets up group/self stealth, and then rushes into the middle of a group of siege defenders and pops the exit portal. All of a sudden you go from defending it with a few arrow carts and Ballistic (an easy tactic to stall the enemy, though not slaughter them), to a pointless defense that gets wiped in 30sec or less.

Anti-zerg mechanics such as AOE is not really AOE at all…because of a lock on 5 players. You can’t make people scatter when you hit only 5 of them out of the 30 there; it just doesn’t happen. Siege isn’t scary at all unless you have a bunch of it…but you have no time to set it up before the zerg rolls over the place.

Things need changes. Zergs need to …die.

You need to play sPvP and stop crying about large scale siege warfare.

That’s what WORLD v. WORLD is. If you don’t coordinate with a skilled world v. world guild, and you don’t participate in a voice chat for your server, then yeah you will be the first one in here crying about the kitten “zergs” screwing up your little few-man rolling groups.

However, if you have those things, you’ll discover that on good WvW servers, there IS NO ZERG. However, there ARE large coordinated, strategic armies following commanders, dividing into teams and tactically seiging objectives and defending territory against other large scale coordinated enemy forces.

That is EXACTLY what WvW is supposed to be about. This from a fanatic Dark Age RvR player.

There is room for “gank” or “ninja” teams, for small guilds fielding 10-15 on the battlefield, even if they for some reason do not want to participate in server wvw chat or run with tactical commanders. But small groups will always – and should always – be at risk from the main armies. That’s what large-scale siege warfare is all about.

Get rid of your so-called “zerg?” That’s why ANET made different styles of PvP. So my “fun” doesn’t have to get “screwed” by your fun and vice versa. In addition to the myriad of actually places for successful small squad play in WvW, there is also sPvP and Tourney play, for those who can stand any scenario in which their 5-10 people might run into 25-40 and get killed.

As far as WvW goes, welcome to the battlefield, son. Quit crying and start coordinating.

Honestly I find this OP by the Dev to be a pretty d-ck move. I re-read it just now, and I feel like I was perfectly justified to be anticipating, based on his post, changes to some utility skills or at least a few other “significant improvements” in this patch, even if it is a work in progress.

If major Ranger improvements weren’t going in this month, then really the "we’re so excited but we can’t really tell you about it, but you see some big changes to utility traits first – post should have waited.

HellsMachine.4083:

I haven’t had rendering issues since the last big update, if you still are then perhaps it’s time to upgrade your system.

My system is fine, it still happens.

If you have the minimum specs required by Anet, then you have full business kittening about BUGGY gameplay. Don’t give me the “get a new system” BS.

Keep in mind, as the OP said, the rendering issues are making a lot of issues with thieves and stealth far more complicated and frustrating.

It’s hard for me to be sure how much needs to be done, what I know is that right now there are a few things that are pretty big issues. Stealth camp blocking and stealth stomping are two of them.

Uh, yes.

15Chars

Did SBI just give up or what?

Latinkuro.9420:

WvW the way it was meant to be:

- walls and doors harder to break takes more time to break through giving the defenders a chance to actually get there
- secondary entry points to keeps this makes it more strategic for siege equipment placement and troops positioning
- only siege weapons can damage doors and walls stops players from zerging doors and walls
- remove AOE 5 player dmg cap from siege weapons, makes siege weapons something to fear again
- remove orange sword they promote zerging removing these swords forces servers to have defensive strategies, player communication, scouting parties and less zerging. It also places a vital importance on having lookouts at key map locations to convey enemy troop movement.

I think people should be required to post what Tier Sever Matchup they are in.

I think there are a lot of different WvW experiences depending on your bracket and that leads to a lot of different ideas about what works and what doesn’t.

Rieshaus.7486:

Well, since release
- they lowerd the badges drop rate
- no xp for dolyak-scouting
- took the orbs
- ?

I think the next patch (why next, there wasn’t a first?) will be something about… I don’t know, little houses instead of towers ? Seriously, if you compare how many fixes, events and “coming up”-Interviews there is in PVE and s/tPVP, I don’t expect nothing for WvW in the next 6 months. Optimistic.

I remember prior to release a dev interview in which they described sPVP as “competitive” PvP and WvW as “non-competitive” PvP, then went on explain that essentially WvW was sort of just for fun…

Now if that attitude was representative of devs before release, then I suspect they sort of thought that sPvP would be where the major player pvp attention would be, with WvW being sort of a occasional fun thing not to be taken too seriously.

Instead, WvW is as serious and competitive to those of us who regularly participate as sPvP is, if not more so. It’s bringing communities together, building grand server rivalries, and becoming one of the key features of GW2 that sets it apart from many other MMOs (for now.)

Kinda wonder if Anet isn’t sort of having to restructure its priorities to emphasis WvW, given that the player base is taking it way the hell more seriously than Anet seemed to play for.

Don’t get me wrong, I think WvW is really great and on the right track, but it also has not been a focus AT ALL for updates, additions, or development at all. In fact, all ANET has done is removed stuff…

I’d like to see that change and change soon.

I would like:

1. Rendering Fix, whatever it friggen takes
2. Loot automatically to inventory
3. Dead (Dead, not downed) enemies nameplates are GREY instead of RED
4. Content update: Darkness Falls equivalent

— NO to removing enemy “colors”
— NO to any individual ranking system (Guild contribution system, more detailed sever rankings with additional categories, yes)
— NO to anything in PvP that increases stats via grind/reward
— NO to all the nerf cries. I play a Guardian and a Ele, so I’m not the target of most nerf cries right now. But I still think they are stupid. Enhance under-developed classes before reducing anything.
— NO to nerfing Mesmer Portals. I’ve been on the winning and losing side of mesmer portals, and it is one of the more interesting and fun strat elements of WvW.

As you can see, all in all I think WvW is really on the right track, and not in need of massive changes.

Nope.

WvW daily since 2 weeks after release.

To a form DAoC RvRer, who has desperately been seeking world vs. world pvp as good as Dark Age for the last ten years, this is a sad and scary day.

Orb hacking was a problem, and the statement that orbs may return once those issues are address is hopeful – if I could really believe that it won’t just fall by the wayside.

DAoC relics and assaults on the ultra fortified relic keeps plus the relic runbacks were some of the best wvw experiences of my life, and fighting over the relics was something that kept wvw (or RvR as it was known) going strong and interesting for a long, long time.

It is true, that relics (like orbs) granted bonuses to the realm that controlled them. And it is true if there was a dominant realm, this was no minor buff. But it did not break the game, instead it inspired even more rich and creative community. It lead sometimes to 2 realms vs. 1 realm alliances. For those frustrated by being double teamed, those alliances never last, but they are a counter balancing force to dominance. Sometimes it lead to huge rallies by the losing realms who managed to come together, coordinate and take those relics back.

Relics and the bonuses they gave were fantastic things, even if sometimes dominance was lopsided. That’s part of the excitement of WvW. If you want perfectly (artificially) balanced matches, you have STRUCTURED PVP. What I want in WvW is the chaos and the challenge of imbalance. I write this as my server is in last place in our matchup this week, same as last week. That’s OK by me. After some initial crying, it is motivating us to rally together and get better. It’s fun.

Actually, its incredibly fun.

Again, I’m OK with some balancing changes to Orbs, and I’m begrudgingly OK with them being TEMPORARILY removed until hacking can be sufficiently addressed. But please, please, please, don’t get rid of the mechanic in which each server has some objects with some worth to their server efforts to attempt to capture, return, and defend. That is a KEY dynamic of exciting WvW.

I thought it was always the intention of ANet to eventually have paid transfers and greater than 24hour tranfer delays – I thought this was related to the ramp-up to the full two-week WvW cycle?

Some people are saying “this is what ANet intends.” Is it? Pretty sure they said the was not their intention for free and unlimited xfers to be permanent.

So my reason for posting is – I believe that the continued extension of free and essentially unlimited transfers is dramatically hurting WvW and needs to end. I may have been the plan to extend them a bit longer, but it turns out they need to be stopped and they need to be stopped now.

I actually like it a lot.

It’s true that 65% of the time, its simply a delay before your actual death.

But its that 35% of the time when a teammate revives, or you managed to down an opponent and rally that make it so much kitten fun.

So another week of me logging into the game eagerly mashing the WvW menu only to discover that we dominate 3/4 or more of the entire WvW maps.

This adds to how most WvW has been to date — brief periods of stiff competition and amazing fun a midst a sea of lopsided contests without any meaningful gameplay (due to lack of competition, not quality of the WvW concept.)

So let’s take a brief trip down memory lane from my perspective, shall we?

My server, Jade Quarry, had a brief period of being #1 very early on. However, it was also a time when mass queues were causing a lot of server transfers. During this “settling out” period, Henge sever began their rise to dominance.

Within a week of their wins, messages were filling discussion boards about people transferring to Henge and looking for guilds, etc. This began the mass transferring to the “winning” server, leading to disproportionate and fully lopsided game play.

Then Henge’s major guilds called it quits. Leading to a massive exodus from Henge as tons of people transferred to the new #1 – Jade Quarry.

Now once again, Jade Quarry controls most of the map most of the time. It’s boring and a complete disappointment.

I’m not bragging because it has NOTHING to do with JQ being “better” – it has everything to do with free server transfers that are completely ruining competition for WvW.

Anet, you must* have a system of boundaries for the masses if you want to have any kind of fun, competitive gameplay. You can’t just have “faith.” Free transfers ruin competitive balance. Period.

I am a veteran DAoC player and I have been looking for a WvW (or as we prefer to call it, “RvR”) game for years and years. This is my last hope. And the environment you have created for WvW gameplay is absolutely fantastic.

But you are killing it by refusing to enforce some balancing boundaries to promote decent competition. It’s incredibly sad to me.

And the longer you wait to fix it the more difficult it will be to rebuild community, as people are already losing interest in what they would otherwise feel 100% passionate about.

PLEASE, DO SOMETHING.

STOP FREE TRANSFERS.