Guild Wars 2

11/10 would wyld hunt again.

Trolling aside, I liked reading this!

May the hunt continue!

That’s some devotion right there. Grats!

X T D.6458:

Remove it entirely, along with the other garbage

+1.
Wtf is it even doing in a PvP mode.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Stand The Wall.6987:

Dawdler.8521:

The correct answer to that is:

What about it? What are you even talking about? Why would they even get a voice?

That capture activity goes hand in hand with fights is a given fact. Because thats what the WvW gameplay mode is. If you only focus on fights or the server is “fight guild” heavy, it drops like a stone in the rankings. Its only the capture activity of pugs that allow a server to climb. Which is what gives the fights to everyone.

im talking about a group of people that dont care for ppt the way it is now. thought that was obvious. my bad. why? i think youre underestimating the amount of people that would rather just play the game the way they enjoy it, which is small team skirmishes. instead of running across the map, only to be zerged down or worse not find anyone.

capture activity promotes fights. to say they are the sole cause of them is ridiculous. often enough capture points are completely uncontested. ever play a game with a deathmatch mode? its a proven fact that people play them for deathmatch.

WvW deathmatch? Just post the weekly kdr for all servers and declare I winner. I don’t see why we need to destroy wvw to give you what you want. Some of us still like the game that anet created.

The whole approach in this thread is to create a WvW revamp that does what current WvW fails at: giving us good fights 24/7, with multiple sides, no focus on point capping, use of siege and fighting over strategic elements, with a place for guilds.

You’re free to disagree, but it’s not because you like WvW in it’s current state, that everyone else likes it. As a matter of fact, current WvW activity shows that a big share of WvW players have stopped playing, and more are doing that unless something changes.

Link.1049:

Sounds like you want something that already exists… pvp.

This has been commented on before. Read the thread and then try again.

Copied from another thread.

… people have fun fighting most of the time and because they get a sense of achievement from fighting off an attacking force in a tower, or inversely they get a sense of achievement from conquering a heavily guarded tower.

But didn’t you know, warrior IS back! I am playing warrior all the time now,… on the forums.

/sarcasm

All hail the mighty PPT overlords.

Seriously though, guys, what makes you think PPT is in any way important? Do you really think people will stop capturing structures because there is no PPT? I have been in a lot of WvW guilds over the course of 3 years, and most of them did not care about PPT even one bit. What they cared about was the amount of people fighting on different sides.

You seem to have everything mixed up. Yes, PPT balance is an indication of activity, but it’s not the reason WHY there is activity. The reason WHY there is activity is not because there is PPT, but because people have fun fighting most of the time and because they get a sense of achievement from fighting off an attacking force in a tower, or inversely they get a sense of achievement from conquering a heavily guarded tower.

If you really want to hold on to your point that PPT > Fights, go ahead, but lets agree to disagree on that then.

Also, Torqued, I am not “against” capture activity, quite the contrary. My idea was to just peruse for example eternal battleground the same as it is, but with one change that there would be several smaller groups with equal numbers instead of 3 unbalanced ‘servers’.

Capturing would still have a place in there, however it would not be in favor of PPT, it would be in favor of your guild/team winning against the other guilds/teams.

There’s two options there: team deathmatch (i.e. last team standing) or capture X structure (i.e. map domination).

My point is that World vs. World as we have it now is inherently flawed. There is no balance at all, which makes some servers overpopulated while others are completely dead. Someone (I forgot who) made a thread about their server Crystal Desert having three people against a whole blob. I simply do not believe ANYONE is pleased with a situation like that. I know some people like to PvDoor, but come on, if that’s what you like to do, you’re probably better off playing PvE or EotM.

My point is that population balance, along with many poor design decisions – such as overpowered gimmicks, overpowered elite specs, maps filled with pve – is slowly but surely killing this game mode. What I propose is taking the problem at it’s root and eliminate balancing problems by allowing a predefined number of people per map.

I believe that making a Guild vs. Guild mode like it should have been made LONG ago, would actually bring back a lot of players who are interested in that kind of thing. Would it kill WvW? Maybe initially it would, but it has been dying for years.

And as you say (and I already pointed out earlier) big group debuffs are as bad as they are good, so they’re not the right way to go.

How to fix warrior.

Step 1. Log out to character screen
Step 2. Delete your character
Step 3. Make a reaper
Step 4. ???
Step 5. Your warrior got fixed

Quaman.9167:

They don’t need to be kept from pvp, they just need to be nerfed down to core classes level.

Yeah, it would be lame to lock them out of SPvP entirely. Just need to be brought in line, so either nerf elite specs or make core specs viable.

Take guardian ‘virtues’. The new form is a lot stronger (perfect example is courage), with no real downside.

This comes closest to the truth probably.

Team > Elite spec > Class > Build > Personal skill

• Bad team ->RIP game
• No elite spec -> RIP you

Also “A > B” does not mean that A undermines B utterly and completely, it does mean A puts more weight into the scales than B, C, D. It’s a matter of gradation.

A really really really skilled player can still win with a non-elite spec warrior using a non-meta build, but he will have to be matched against bad players.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Quotes

1.
You managed to capture the idea better than I did. I really like your illustration for the EB map, it’s so simple and yet it’s exactly what I would like, maybe not too heavy on npcs though (so focus stays on PvP).

Also, what about just making the entrance towers to stonemist the places where the teams can spawn? I mean Quentin, Ogre, Wildcreek, Anza, Durios etc?

2.
Also like you say SPvP is not the place for this:

• SPvP allows too little build customization, just think about the number of people running the same builds… WvW has a lot more variety)
• The focus on point capture is lame. We want death matches, simple as that.
• SPvP is too limited with regards to teams: 5v5 is nowhere near as epic as 5v5v5 or even 5v5v5v5v5.
• Guilds have no real meaning in SPvP, in WvW at least you can capture and defend your own tower.

3.
Would they turn into zergs when each group is hostile? For example have 6 groups instead of 3 but each is enemy to the other? I’m not sure they would start teaming up unless there’s an in-game alliance system (which I suggested but am not entirely convinced of). If you put the cap at 10 people per group it’s still only 60 people (many maps have/had 60 people running at prime time, per server).

Swagger.1459:

The only way gvg would work is if it was a supported mode in heart of the mists with rewards offered.

That’s what spvp should have been from the get go.

Many people have played the ‘self-made’ Guild versus Guild for years even when there were no rewards and no support from ArenaNet. I completely agree SPvP should have been this (I am thinking of you GW1 GvG with 8 players).

I also think a game mode like the one I propose has the significant advantage over WvW that you could play anytime you like and the maps wouldn’t be empty, because you draw players from all servers, and you can queue up independently. The matches could also have a time-limit like SPvP if that’s a good idea (so they don’t drag on infinitely).

Also, to prevent any misunderstandings, I do not claim my suggestion is “how it should be”, I am just trying to get a discussion going, because in my opinion we need something like a GvG, Deathmatch-oriented gamemode, and it could stay alongside WvW and SPvP.

Serious.6940:

snip

I agree that diminishing returns on blasts, boon share the larger your number could work. In general I dislike the idea of nerfing rewards for people who like to play in a big group though.

Also the “nerf big groups” approach has several pitfalls like the predictable- “Hey you’re lowering our rewards, go away”. Also, how will it measure your rewards, since you get rewards for kills but also for capturing stuff. So if you solo a camp and at the last second a 30 man zerg comes to leech, you get a crap reward?

Just giving a few points for discussion why this might not be the best approach.

Well, do we really need a new map for that? I could see it working on EB, just by adding new spawning locations between the existing ones?

Also about the PUGs and randoms, what if you could queue for a server and get matched into one faction with other people queuing up randomly? Sure, it wouldn’t be as good as a full guild team, but Pick-up Groups aren’t as good as guild teams in normal WvW either.

FogLeg.9354:

The idea sounds ok to me but the numbers may need to be raised. 5 people is probably too low and they should perhaps join PvP instead. Lots of guilds can easily bring 20+ players to the raids.

Yeah true. I called it small scale for a reason though, and in small scale 10 is absolute maximum. Also, many core WvW guilds might have trouble bringing together 20 at the same time.

Hey girls and guys. [Edit: adding feedback]

1. The future of World vs. World
World vs. World is as many here realise slowly becoming less and less attractive for people to play, the population on several servers has dropped significantly and match-ups are more often a complete blow-out due to population imbalance. Several other features have also worsened the state of WvW.

Yet, there still are a lot of people posting about it and that shows people actually are passionate about and care about it’s future. The current thread is a proposal to either ‘implement’ a new game mode that takes the best of WvW and replaces it, or exists alongside WvW.

Many players are interested in what is called the “small scale”, “roaming”, “havok” scene. Currently it is not really supported in any way and zergs or blobs have a huge advantage. Smaller groups have many disadvantages due to buff sharing, stability nerfs, aoe caps.

2. Guild-based World vs. World
The core idea is to give guilds a WvW gamemode that allows them to queue up in small squads (my original thought was between 5 and 10 people per group) with any player from any server. Each guild group on the map is hostile to any other guild group. By limiting the number of players per side significantly you reduce any risk of population imbalance.

The precise way this could work is entirely subject for discussion.

• Number of squads per battlefield: the number of squads could be more than the current 3 sides, but as high as 8 sides for example, because of lower numbers per side.
• Guilds: claiming structures could display your guild banner in the map, which makes guilds somewhat more meaningful.
• Match timer: there could be a timer which determines the end of the match-up, so instead of a full week fighting the same guilds you would get some choice as to who you’re fighting.
• Solo players: there could be a queue for solo players or guilds that can’t fill up a full group at a certain time, so for example 3 people can get matched with 5 others to fill a 8-man group.
• Serverwide pool: player pool for the queueing up could be serverwide, so no more restrictions based on what server you’re from.
• Bigger squads: higher player numbers could be possible, but remember that it’ll start looking like EotM then, and it will be less about guilds, and more about pugs.
• WvW maps: one option is to simply recuperate the current WvW maps and mechanics like they are right now.
• Death matches: as Stand The Wall proposed it might just be better to make a smaller map with purely death matches (see his post).
• Temporary alliances: to add more than just “killing enemies” there could be alliances between squads. Possibly with friendly fire, and max. 2 groups allied?
• Guild gimmicks and auto-upgrades: based on preference these could be disabled in these wvw instances.

3. Proposed goals
- Eliminate population balance as a problem
- Stop PvDoor and place focus on fights
- Make guilds meaningful again, GvG leaderboards?
- Bring back the sense of achievement
- Solve the problem of empty maps

Swagger.1459:

Nothing short of having a competitive gvg mode with all the bells and whistles and rewards and ladders and tournaments… will do anything to inspire guilds.

Thanks for any feedback!

yanoch.7051:

I would rather see the OLD BL back and they should add a layer of polishing on it. I think they should add a some new siege spot to take advantages of the new siege.

I stopped playing in November after playing GW2 almost every night since launch.

- They removed old map that were superior. Those map were better in scale and the navigation was much more fluid. Vast and open map will always be better than corridor. I know why they did canyon and I understand they wanted to reduce the lag by closing the long range view. The new map lack the charm and simplicity of the old one.
- Auto upgrade is horrible. Each server had dedicated peoples that were involved in upgrading and protecting stuff. It might be too late to bring that back.
- I played warrior and they pretty much destroyed it. (I don’t ask top tier. I like mid tier with a good fighting chance again most classes)
- They killed the pretty good balance they had post expansion. (Elite spec were supposed to be balanced to their basic counterpart.)
- Pirate ship meta is horrible. (Stability and movement nerf)

The things they are looking after might tickle me back BUT so far all effort they made left a sour taste in my mouth. (Supposed warr buff as an exemple.)

All of the above. I used to play small scale several evenings in a week with my guild, but since HoT , I and everyone in my guild have quit the game.

Another very straightforward reason why I dislike DBL is that I do not care even one bit about capturing empty towers/keeps. I simply want to get out in the field and fight. In eternal battlegrounds that’s really easy to do, and in the old borderlands it was too.

In DBL there’s just too much running, a lot of obstacles and no flat terrain. If they want to make Desert borderlands good, they just need to restart from scratch and make a new map with slight verticality, many passages and the same scale as Alpine Border.

Haven’t you read Kierkegaard?

Either/or

Whatever you pick, you’ll be sorry.

/Cheerful note

^_^

Great work @Stand The Wall & Arcan Soulstorm.

Some visuals would be pleasing, but really nice initiative!

@Loosmaster; don’t get your hopes up too much.

I see one babystep in the right direction atm:
- they plan to revert reset time
- Gaile likes our thread

But it will take a lot more, as you and Peterson have said.

(This is your chance, ArenaNet, take it or leave it.)

Some ideas from my side: the forums are in general not that easy to oversee, like it’s not the best to filter out primary postings and reactions or off-topic posts.

ArenaNet could launch some new platforms on forums and in-game for doing stuff like voting, sending your basic concerns in etc.

Svarty.8019:

Everybody EXCEPT 709 didn’t vote for this.

Over seven BILLION people didn’t vote for this!

So make a petition thread about who does not want Alpine borders back… Guess how many votes you’ll get. xD

lil devils x.6071:

sparc.3649:

lil devils x.6071:

sparc.3649:

It is not and SHOULD not be a priority to bring those CRAPPY BORING OLD maps back!

Just sayin’ – why would they make progress out of reversion… To revert (bring back old maps) would be a step BACKWARD, BAD idea!

Snip

Bla bla

Yes, you and your two friends enjoy the DBL.

I lol’d. A real stinger.

DocHoliday.9218:

Gaile Gray,
consider this post as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Want-the-old-maps-back-172-Signs/first

Subtle. Me likey.

@Ricky: can’t +1 enough.

Magira.6390:

gennyt.3428:

Magira.6390:

gennyt.3428:

Magira.6390:

Jayden Ennok.3687:

Magira.6390:

I have leveled now 7 Elite over WvW. Everything as a solo Roamer. For none of activities for Roamer it needs the elite. I can NOTHING better after I have the elite. For Zerger is may be different, but that is not my part and uninteresting to me.

The difference is more noticable in small scale rather than in zerg.

Where exactly? I am now during the 8. Elite and can relate exactly how long it took each with and without elite for the taking a Camp, Tower, Shrine etc. Nothing has changed significantly. Situations against other players during the day (When I roam, not at night when all are on the road) are so rare that it does not matter.

So you’re judging where the elite specs are based on your solo robot smashing on a freaking PvP map. Seriously? Calgon take me away.

I assume that a playstil that brings the fastest Progress, is clearly one that is provided by ArenaNet for. Not you? ^^

I’m not really understanding what you just typed there. Either way, the OP was asking about WvWvW, you know, the place where PvP happens and you’re reply was “I can PvD (PvE) just fine and I don’t fight other players so HoT makes no difference.” Is that really a healthy gauge for how the HoT specs perform in WvWvW? No.

Your perspective has nothing to do with reality. For ArenaNet WvW clearly is PVE, recognizable by the PVE Gear, the PVE mechanisms of leveling and getting the elite and many others. I would also prefer to WvW would work with PVP rules, but it does not.

No, no and no!

Please, let me draw you a line. On the line, your position is o.

SPVP———-WVW —-————-…—————————EOTM—-o—-PVE

Nightshade.2570:

1. Allow players to invite each other to duels in Heart of the Mists.

Sounds like fun.

Also it makes sense if you think about it. Can’t have all these top class battle machines sitting there, they need to train!

Spurnshadow.3678:

@ Gaile

I’ve made lots of posts with well thought out suggestions over the years. Many of them can’t be boiled down to five bullet points. If you’re actually interested, look through my history. I’m sure that will also lead to threads with other good, constructive criticism.

Or you can link these threads with a small reference to their content. I’m pretty sure they can’t take the pain of going through everyone’s individual post history.

Loosmaster.8263:

I think he was killing mobs because that was all there was!!!

Positive. :p Are you crying or laughing now?

Cyanon.1928:

Sirendor.1394:

Cyanon.1928:

Inspired by the very useful post from Sirendor.1394 @ the WvW forums.

Lets share constructive posts on this subject!

Don’t know what I posted that inspired this, but nice!

I’m sorry, that was a mistake I made on the OP, I already corrected it, I wanted to say Dayra.7405 instead!

Thanks a lot for your reply anyway!!!

Haha, that’s what I thought. ^^

Never hurts to throw in some feedback.

Just want to bring this up for discussion again. Still seems like a good idea to me.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Limiting profession stacking isn’t an cure, because it doesn’t address the root problem. Some profession(Elites) are simply better. That is why players elect to use them.

Balance the professions in Pvp so they each represents a balanced play style and you’ll see some diversity in teams. While some elite spec’s are currently so strong, you’ll see those stacked continuously.

Better balance=more diversity=less likely to see the same professions over represented.

I agree completely! Adding a “no-more-than-2-of-x-class” rule is plain lazy.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Sirendor.1394:

3. Mandatory: SoloQ vs. TeamQ
Premades versus. Solo players is just too easy to exploit for the premades. The advantage of premades is too big over Solo players, ergo, really should not be in the game.

would you do this for both ranked and unranked? why or why not? how would you enact this? do you think it would solve the underlying problem of an unorganized team?

my opinion on these questions:
only ranked. there are clearly a large pool of players that enjoy solo q’ing, they shouldnt be cut out of the picture. while i respect their decision, q’ing by yourself automatically creates a huge vacuum of winning probability versus a teamQ. im sure some like the challenge and still some others get good games versus a team, but that viewpoint is few and far in between. i would go a step further and disable teamQ’s in unranked. so basically instead of ranked and unranked its soloQ and teamQ. this would probably have a big effect on q times tho so idk.
i dont think it would solve disorganization, not completely. it would have to be combined with another change, and the one that fits the bill is voip. imo voip would do waaaay more for the game then, say, esports. voip brings everyone together, whereas esports shines a small light on a few. having a few cameras on your product doesnt do much when there are basic needs that have yet to be met.

Hey Stand The Wall.

Some quality questions and remarks you have there!
There used to be Solo and Team arena, before the introduction of unranked and ranked arena. (wiki link: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2014-12-02) Solo and Team arena have been merged into Ranked, while Unranked served as a completely new mode.

Your suggestion is somewhat problematic because the way things stand now is that ‘Ranked’ is only available during the leagues. That means if you allow only Solo Q in Unranked, nobody will be able to match up with friends in between the leagues.

What I was thinking is that there should just be a complete split between the two. People who prefer not to look for a group should be able to match up with others who just jump in the game for a quick match. People who prefer to get a team or a group of friends together should get the same opportunity. I just think these 2 should not be mixed up in the same queue. Maybe there could be Unranked and Ranked mode in both Solo and Team, I don’t know. I’m sure there are others who can come up with a smarter, more elegant idea than this, but that’s all I have.

Big big problem you pointed out correctly is queue times… currently there is no split between solo Q and premades, though the MM ‘should’ match premades against premades when they are available. This doesn’t work well on off-peak hours though.

I also really like your idea of introducing in-game voip, like many games have it. Shouldn’t be mandatory for anyone though, some might not like it in general, others might not be able to do it all the time.

There was a poll out there somewhere too… anyone remember the link?

Nvm found.

I support this. Should have been done long ago.

Cyanon.1928:

Inspired by the very useful post from Sirendor.1394 @ the WvW forums.

Lets share constructive posts on this subject!

Don’t know what I posted that inspired this, but nice!

I made this a little long, so going to edit on the go (just 2 points so far)

1. Mandatory: Balance between core specs and elite specs.
This is probably the biggest issue in PvP right now. It affects diversity, competitiveness and ultimately fun.

A- Diversity
In one sense it harms diversity by making Elite specs overpowered compared to core specs; this makes core specs downright unplayable or at the very least weaker. This guarantees that, apart from the exception, core builds are ignored as an option.
Result: many existing traits, utility skills and weapons go down the drain.

In another sense elite specs harm diversity because they serve as a trait line bound together with a weapon, class mechanics and utilities. This forces the player to use these specific weapons, utility skills and class mechanics.
Result: every player running elite spec runs the same thing.

B- Competition
Diversity is certainly tied to competition, but let me focus on the main problem for competitiveness. Elite specialisations essentially divide the playing field into two categories: those who bought HoT and have access to elite specs, and those who didn’t and can only access core specs. Because core specs are weaker than elite specs, players using the latter have an unfair advantage over the others.
Results: blow-out in fights and matches when one side is stronger by virtue of using an elite spec (remember WvW), no challenge for players with an elite spec, core players giving up on the game.

2. Quality of life: Queuing outside of PvP lobby
It was in the game earlier, and there really is no reason not to have it back. Players don’t want to sit in the lobby waiting for a match, it bores them. Yes, there’s the possibility for a chat, but people who want to chat will go there of their own accord, so just leave the others to their business until the queue pops.

3. Mandatory: SoloQ vs. TeamQ
Premades versus. Solo players is just too easy to exploit for the premades. The advantage of premades is too big over Solo players, ergo, really should not be in the game.

X. Idea: Split PvP from PvE & WvW
Some people have mentioned splitting the balancing of classes between the different game modes. This might also be connected with the idea of splitting PvP as a whole off from the other game modes. Why not make SPvP available for sale seperately, or even making a free-to-play version of it? Hell, the core game is already free-to-play for anyone, and SPvP is accessible for anyone with a free account too. The advantages of this are especially big on the side of esports, queue times, population. This is not my idea, but has been detailed in a thread.

More on this idea in this thread by Phaeton.9582. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/sPvP-needs-its-own-business-model/first)

[… more to come…]

Waw, well done you guys! Playing core warrior soloQ really takes a strong stomach! :p

Woop S.7851:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please post constructively to share your thoughts on this subject. Please post on topic and let’s make this really useful!

1. Map Urgency (macro environment that alters player behavior) - EOTM has 3 hour timer for scoring, GW1 alliance battles was designed where the team that reached 500 points 1st won the round, hence there’s an urgency present. A zerg of 20 captures a tower can only be in 1 spot while opposite team with 4 small groups attacking 4 different towers scores faster before round ends. This would involve timers which is subjective to design.

2. Team Tactics (commander & friends) - encourage squad tactics, enhance party/squad/lieutenant/commander UI/Usability (screenshot below example), the commander is not just a zerg head, but a tactician, other game systems gave commanders alot of tools such as marking on maps where to attack etc. The current “markers” are hidden away and barely gets used, it was a great feature, but needed a further push in terms of design.

3. Rewards ratio (scaling) - A team of 5 capturing a tower gets x3 points/rewards than a 20man zerg just as an example, combine this with #1 above would encourage squad tactics instead of just all zergs. What about 1 person scouts? Do they get rewards for scouting a zerg blob or tower that ensures the commander tactical decisions leading to victory?

4. Encourage team ups (User Interface/Experience) - Will players be encouraged to team up entering WvW? How do they join commanders after entering map? What if they wanted to join small 5 man parties instead? Where is the UI to support that? (screenshot below)

5. Class combinations - There needs to be a purpose to team combinations, else stale zerging will result. For example an ele that speed buffs, guardian that buff/empowers, warrior that tank the tower champ etc. Combinations can offset over-zerging as well. Combined with #2 and #3 above, every team member’s class/role within a 5 man party now matters when speed capturing a Tier 3 tower.

*Please refer to ‘GW1 Alliance battles’ and the reasons behind each detailed design decision, you guys nailed it years ago! All the designs were golden!

Some gold suggestions here!

About the map urgency. I don’t know if it’s okay to bring this up, but there’s another game I play that could lend us some ideas here. The general gist is a PvP scene with 3 sides fighting, getting matched up randomly with 20-30 players per side, on any map of your choosing.

On the map each army has several lines of attack [usually up to three lines, named A/B/C/D/E]. You can choose what line you fight from by picking your assault team (basically one unit of the army).

On each line there are several ‘bases’ or capture points that you need to conquer against the enemy. Usually starting at a base like D1, then moving up to D2, then to D3, then to D4. If you are unable to capture D2 for example, you can’t capture D3. Once captured these bases allow your allied players to respawn there if killed. If the base is contested you will spawn at a random location out in the field, so you can’t just camp a base. After conquering bases you converge to the middle of the map where there are usually 2 or 3 big capture points (O1, O2, O3) that you need to conquer to win the game.

The enemy sides also converge to the middle of the map, and it becomes a giant mayhem of skirmishes between players of the three sides. Zerging is higly unproductive, because that makes you stand out and easy to kill. Strategy in this game is very useful and can secure you victory (for example by cutting off their lines; by sneaking behind their lines etc).

On top of all this, there’s a timer. Usually one of the three sides is defending the middle zone, and they win if the timer runs out and they still hold the middle points (O1-O3). The other sides win if they capture these points before the timer runs out, and they are rewarded with extra time each time they cap something back. The longest game I had was about 1 hour.

[For reference: the game I’m talking about is a free steam shooter and it’s hard to master, but it has great strategy and long drawn battles that are really enjoyable once you become good at shooting and detecting enemies, I wont call it by name here]

Hexalot.8194:

Serious.7083:

Most professions gain over a similarly equipped and skilled opponent without HoT. For this reason Elite Specs should not have been introduced into WvW or PvP at all.

Then good luck getting anybody to buy HoT.

I disagree with Serious in that I think it’s okay to have elite specs in SPvP and WvW available.

What I do think is that the core specs need to be brought up in some ways so they are as useful as elite specs. Of course it’s okay that elite specs bring something new to the table, and they give you a different strategy of some sort, but elite specs as a downright buff to core specs is wrong.

And on the “Good luck getting anybody to buy HoT”: it never hurts to have better balance. PvP players who have the feeling they get wrecked by specs that are behind a paywall are less likely to play the game AND less likely to buy the expac.

A PvP player wants a leveled, competitive environment with a lot of diversity. That’s what is lacking right now.

1. Remove or nerf guild gimmicks (airship, fountain, dragon banner etc)
2. Reinstate WvW buffs for guilds that had them unlocked before HoT.
3. Balance elite specs against core specs
4. Remove auto-upgrades
5. Bring back alpine borderlands or rework desert borderlands

Also important:
6. Move reset nights back to friday
7. Stability revamp
8.

makku.2508:

When roaming (solo or small scale) you’re nothing but a walking loot bag for anyone with access to elite specs.

Pretty much this. Though, as a veteran roamer I have been able to kill less skilled players with elite specs, they had a big advantage over me. Reaper for example is way harder to kill on my core warrior running GS & Sword/Shield, and I definitely cannot win against skilled players. Luckily I haven’t forgotten when to dash. :P

Substance E.4852:

Lord Kuru.3685:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Elite specializations are just another build option. They’re not necessarily better than the existing builds, they just present different play style and build opportunities.
If you’re running a good build you should still be able to counter most things that people can throw at you. Understanding the elite specs would be a smart place to understand, but the only disadvantage you’re at is that you can’t use an elite spec (which is only a disadvantage if you wanted to use one).

Totally false. Elite specializations were advertised as “just another build option” but the reality is that having them makes you significantly stronger.

In sPvP? Yes, undoubtedly. Anet was shameless in their intentional power creep to get the pvp crowd to purchase the xpac.

In WvW things aren’t so black and white. Some builds are better but some still rely heavily on base skills and traits to the point that not having the elites won’t make a huge impact.

You’re still going to be using a staff on Ele for example.

Yes well that’s true, but in general elite specs are a definite power boost compared to core specs and guilds without a guild hall, so I would argue that by introducing HoT the competition in WvW has been diminished to an all-time low.

DeLys.5380:

Yes, and I said the reason they are leaving is due to population imbalance making WvW unplayable for some servers.

Population imbalance is as much the result as the cause.

Veles.1405:

If you do not take this chance to make constructive suggestions, then you give up the right to QQ.

That said, we need more information from Anet before we can provide useful feedback. If we do not know the plans then all of our suggestions are based on what exists right now. When planning a major overhaul, everything could change and our ideas could be invalid. I look forward to the upcoming blog post and hope that it comes sooner rather than later so our ideas can be included in the design process rather than just during beta tests.

I have waited years for a WvW overhaul. Keep calm and carry on for the next month (or so) until we get more information so we can discuss the positives/negatives and work with the devs to improve WvW in a way that benefits all of us.

1. The forums are full of constructive suggestions; anet never even comments on them
2. Agreed, information should definitely be shared before the beta phases.

sparc.3649:

erKo.9586:

Where did u get this info? They should start reading the forums and they would understand what they have to do with WvW – starting with taking back old maps.

lolz, NO

New maps are VERY welcomed!

Welcomed by a tiny minority.. if you saw that petition, on first day 150 people supported it.

ArchonWing.9480:

Can I have… Wait you play WvW.

~ Thanks.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Vayne.8563:

I’m 54…but I feel like I’m 108. lol

All is Vayne.

Muhahah. Never forget.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/gf-left-me-coz-of-ladderboard/first#post3350685

Archon.6480:

Seyiwaji.4082:

@Opening

I don’t know what you are talking about, i am in Diamond T5 and i play Power mesmer.
I don’t have any issue.

Skill really does matter in this game.

Hum? Are we playing the same game?

#reaperadise

I think the situation GW2 is in is a lot worse already. For me it feels like a self-enforcing spiral.

WvW hinges on one thing and one thing only: population. If people dislike new maps, guild upgrades etc, people leave the game. This in turn, influences the people who do stay: they have less people to fight with and against. Because there are less people to fight with and against, the ‘stayers’ are forced into playing less, for example, just on primetime. But the more people start disliking the new maps and features, the more leave etc etc etc.

The longer ArenaNet wait with a solution, the more people will have already left and the more they will need to do to get those people back. Right now, I don’t believe giving us alpine borderlands back will be enough to bring back all the ones who have left the game.

Edit:
@Elmo: I kind of agree that the class balance and power creep are bigger issues than the Desert Borderlands…
And I think my point is, there’s so many things that can be done wrong in terms of gameplay, and they all affect population, which in the end is the one determining factor in the success or failure of WvW.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Why do so many people seem excited at the prospect of GW2/HoT failing?

I don’t think anyone in their right mind wants to see GW2 failing and shutting down. People that deliberately want GW2 to die are really short-sighted and vengeful, something I disapprove.

I get it that people are angry and want to vent their frustrations. Personally I am not at all happy with the direction this game took with HoT: particularly the profession balance in PvP and WvW; grind walls for things we could access before; gimmicks in WvW borderlands and overpowered guild additions behind grind wall.

That said, I really really really hope ArenaNet makes a sharp turn toward a more balanced PvP environment, improvements on WvW and less grind in general (yes, the no-grind manifesto).

TLDR; I rather cry than cheer if HoT and GW2 fail.

uraldum.8513:

People playing what’s strong instead of what they enjoy is a big reason sPvP isn’t all that fun.

Nailed it.

Thing is, you can’t blame individual players for playing strong builds because IF Arenanet actually did their job and balanced the kitten out of this game, this kitten wouldn’t happen.

PyrateSilly.4710:

I go into WvW about every day. I see lots of people playing on all sides. Not sure why people keep saying the it’s dead.

What server are you on if you care to elaborate?

Went into WvW shortly around 3pm today and saw 2 friendlies in the whole of EB… And 3 enemies. You might want to restate that your server isn’t dead, but a lot of other servers are.

Coldtart.4785:

Oh look my expectations for the overhaul have dropped from zero to zero.

/thread

runeblade.7514:

Warlord.9074:

good warriors don’t use meta battle. Bad ones should just go play rev. Warrior is too hard to play right now for people that need to copy builds. Thats honestly how I feel about it. Seriously and it’s not to be mean.

Those Good Warriors should submit their build to Metabattle then.

Did you read anything Warlord said? Putting their builds on metabattle will not help any of the lower-skill players be good. Even half decent warrior builds are outranged by meta builds on every other class.

TLDR: builds won’t carry you if you want to play warrior

In my opinion making elite specs balanced would benefit both 1) Players who didn’t buy HoT – 2) Players who did buy HoT – 3) ArenaNet itself. Allow me to explain:

1) The first group will have a decent chance to play this game without being killed by someone with an elite spec regardless of personal skill.

2) The second group will also benefit from this, because it will make the game more competitive again, and allow for more diversity. Right now you have to run an elite spec to win, so that’s not good for purchasers either.

3) This is also good for ArenaNet itself, because a lot of people have quit the game because the meta is dumb and elite specs are overpowered… they wish a level playing field.