Guild Wars 2

RyuDragnier.9476:

IMO for seasons, the day they announce the new one, all transfers between servers should be WvW locked until the season is over. Oh what’s that, you wanted to transfer and stack a higher server just for the rewards? Too bad, you can no longer enter WvW for 3 months until the season is over.

This would drive some players out of the game and wouldn’t bring many if any in. This would also not solve anything since servers would still lose to coverage and population.

IMO locking the tiers is the problem since it traps overly strong or weak servers into tiers they should move out of. If they rewarded players for participation rather than being on a server with better pop/coverage, seasons would be more engaging for many players and feel more fair.

Jeknar.6184:

Just because the players turned it on a giant karma train, doesn’t mean it was designed for that…

It probably wasn’t intentionally designed but the overall design lends itself to this style. The long runs, easy falling deaths, stronger veteran/champions and multiple physical barriers that must be knocked down to progress discourage skirmish and roaming which in turn focuses players into zergs.

Servers were stacked when transfers to all servers was free. Servers were stacked when transfers to all servers was paid. Point is servers will be stacked… period. Happens in every game whether it is named a faction, realm, etc. Doesn’t matter if they have transfers or do not allow them at all.

No game that I know has ever cracked the population/coverage imbalances in a server driven design. DAoC had it, SWToR has it, GW2 has it, ESO has it, etc. Ultimately game designers need to leave the server design system completely if they want a better PvP, RvR, WvW system.

Skosh.1483:

At least someone reads the forums/announcements.

In fairness, this announcement should be in the wiki.

Scoreboard for guilds and players should have been put in a long time ago. I know WvW is meant to be a group effort but a lot of players would double down if it meant getting bragging rights.

bob.8632:

IMO Xfer to ET.

best answer!

I don’t think treb and cata shots observe a Z axis so I think the same shot hitting on top of the wall would have damaged the rams. Still a great shot though.

Best I can tell WvW is about ten percent the efficiency of PvE. Maybe it is because in PvE my focus is on making cash, but after 3k hours in WvW almost all of the money in my bank account has come from PvE or playing the TP game.

Nameplates should be obscured when the player is behind an object. It is difficult to “surprise” another player since the nameplate almost always shows through or around even large structures.

They should also not show until players are within attack range of each other. It is really difficult to sneak up on another player since they can see the nameplate coming from a mile away.

Hate to say it but I see about the same number of people on today as I did a year ago. I am not saying that many of the issues raised aren’t valid but people are still playing WvW even with the migration of players leaving to play something new. Seems WvW rewards do pull in achievement hunters in and some stay. If we add in the EoTM zergs, probably more playing today than a year ago.

The food trolls have become very annoying. They place cheap junk food around items that require use so that players end up losing their often expensive food. This happens trying to open chests, build siege, etc.

My suggestion is pretty simple. Whenever a player attempts to eat a group food, have a confirmation prompt that the user has to click yes on. This would end a griefing problem and hopefully is a very minor and easy change.

Having seen months of giant golem rushes over the past year, one thing has become clear to me. Golems should have a fixed lifespan of an hour or two that cannot be refreshed. They should not work like fixed siege. Watching a server build omegas for a day or two on a map then rush dozens of them when the enemy population is low is a great strategy but a poor mechanic.

These same golems are often used over and over to keep a map flipped. They are rushed in such large numbers with rotating shields that defending even relatively fortified objectives is incredibly difficult.

I am not complaining about a specific incident as I have been on both sides of these attacks, but attack siege and siege mastery has become too powerful.

Owners should be able to kick others from the golem. This would solve the runaway new golem build issue.

IMO golems should have a very short lifespan. This build 30+ golems all day and then rush everything on a map when the population is low is a poor mechanic. Golems should have a 1 or 2 hour lifespan that cannot be refreshed.

Season 1 had match fixing.

Season 2 had plenty of coverage and transfer issues.

Season 1 and Season 2 were pretty much the same except Season 2 went much longer. I am guessing Season 3 will have the same issues because the fundamental problem with WvW is that population and coverage win. So long as this is true, the problem will remain season or no.

If you don’t want thief or warrior, try this build. I run it nearly full time. It does very well and is easy to play:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQJASRjMd0FajHmdwJaAmgCdnPBfwxEIAU+ETBA-TFCEwAQuAAtU/hrSQDPBgmK/arLAwhAI2+DBAQA4m38o38o3sMAMjB-w

hihey.1075:

P/D thief’s weakness are conditions? U joking right?
A P/D thief has 2 (pseudo) full cleanses: Hide in Shadows (cleanses every damaging condition + gives 4s of stealth in which the thief will cleanse 2 additional conditions) and Shadow Refuge (which provides 16 seconds of stealth, enough to cleanse every condition he suffers). Also add Shadowstep, for 3 instant condition clears+stunbreaker. Coupled with a lot of vitality thanks to Full Dire armor and a lot of Sustain thanks to Shadow Rejuvenation, a P/D thief is the ONLY condi class which can go toe-to-toe with a Condi Necro, because he can simply outsustain the necro.

HiS does not cure every damaging condition just three (the three easiest to reapply I might add). Also it is on a 30s timer, has a cast time and can be interrupted. It does not cleanse confusion, clear or torment hence TorFear builds being a big problem P/D builds. The other problem is that most of a thief’s effective clears puts them out of combat and removes pressure. The hut has its own problems such as fear… one fear while a thief is in a hut and game over against a decent player.

The thief’s evasive nature and range does not work on conditions. Add in a low health pool and that leaves a P/D more vulnerable to condi than direct damage which is my point. P/D thieves excel against direct damage builds but struggle with heavy condi application builds like most other small fight builds do. No class to my knowledge can out strip condi application in small scale fights.

I believe he means Crown Pavilion bosses… here is the guide:

http://dulfy.net/2014/05/22/gw2-festival-of-the-four-winds-achievement-guide/

yanniell.1236:

Even the lost of a skill is evolution. Like our tailbone, for exemple. It’s a common mistake to associate evolution with an increase of complexity. Sometimes, something that used to give us an evolutionary advantage “suddenly” is not needed anymore or even becomes a liability, and that’s when natural selection steps in.

Evolution cannot exist with complexity. Sure there are forms of evolution that reduce complexity but this would never occur if species did not mutate into a more complex form to begin with.

To my original point, neither evolution or natural selection apply or occur in GW2. Players may specialize and acclimate their builds but nothing new is developed or introduced.

Junkpile.7439:

Seems to me that this silly living world kitten is only good way to get ach points. Why i can’t get 100 points if i kill 1k PvE players in EotM?

Living Story is by far the fastest direct way for AP. Dailies/Monthlies used to be a decent way to get sustained achievement points as a player could get around 500 in a month with minimal effort. Recent changes to the dailies has made that a much slower process.

WvW APs are ridiculous, everyone knows it and developers are aware. Unfortunately the developers have shown no recent interest if rectifying this problem.

Condi removal in small scale fights is quickly saturated by the ability of many builds to apply conditions. The “just use cleanses” argument simply doesn’t work in small scale fights. I run a strong condi removal/reduction warrior and some condi bunker builds light me up with no chance of keeping them clear. Two decently played condi-bunkers are virtually impossible to tank.

Food also doesn’t work as a solution since at best it offsets their food. Even though it is only an offset it is still nearly a required food since it can run off the short lived condis opening up stack removal skills to cleanse the big damagers.

Its not like the publisher is coming out with a competitor MMO in the next few weeks… oh wait.

PU Mesmer is probably the strongest WvW dueler right now, but that doesn’t really make it a great roamer as it is pretty slow. Its weakness is condition like most small fight builds.

P/D condi thief is a very strong roaming class right now but not particularly popular due to the D/P cheese builds most thieves gravitate towards. It plays similar to a PU Mesmer but has more stealth. Its weakness is condition like most small fight builds.

Warrior is probably the king roamer/dueler/skirmisher right now. Wicked fast with high levels of sustained damage and is incredibly easy to play. Small group fight builds manage conditions pretty well and can handle most 2v1 situations. They do have BIG blind spots with condition evasion and condition bunker builds.

Guardians and Necros have some fantastic skirmish builds but due to limited escape capability they don’t really do as well roaming.

This isn’t evolution. This is specialization and acclimatization. Evolution implies a change in complexity and the builds aren’t any more complex just more specialized.

If a class could create a new skill that is a result of environmental changes, THAT would be evolution.

bob.8632:

Oh look you mean in terms of PPT…No one cares about PPT…LOL

Some people care about PPT and winning the tournament. Some players have burned themselves out playing in the tournament. We aren’t all the same and there are other ways to enjoy (or not) GW2.

bob.8632:

Perhaps the best way would have been eliminating Gold/Silver/Bronze and just made the tourny 9 weeks of swiss style scoring through all servers.

I think a shortened season with win move up lose move down would suffice. This way T6 servers aren’t facing T1 servers and while it have some ambiguity in the results they would be pretty minor by comparison to the current system.

I have a friend who assigned it to the shift key then bound their base attack to the left click and shift left click. This way in the middle of the fight they just hold down shift, spam their base attack and collect loot without thinking about it.

Sreoom.3690:

Solution to combat zerg = #RemoveAOECap

As has been pointed out in a buzzillion threads this is a horrible idea. GW2 being so AoE heavy is one of the major reasons zergs stack and a massive source of its skill lag.

This and a “Use All” on certain items in the inventory namely Luck. I know the low level ones can be crafted but that is PIA in itself.

1) Pretty much any server Tier 1 to Tier 3 is going to have a decent population most of the day.

2) Guardians have several options but by far the most popular ones are tanky zerg builds. Check the guardian forum for more information.

3) Level 80 exotic armor bought with badges from WvW vendors or karma from Orr karma vendors works fine and is cheap. You will want to concentrate on getting ascended jewelry and an ascended weapon long before considering ascended armor.

4) Go to Edge of the Mists for leveling. It is a great way to generate fast levels, karma, badges and WxP. Spend your WxP on Guard Defender and Applied Fortitude which is a BIG upgrade for a guardian. At a 115 WvW levels you can effectively walk around with an extra 2500 HP.

Would never work in this game. The lag would be abominable. Fields couldn’t work. Conditions would be a disaster. This is just a bad idea no matter how a person looks at it.

Transferred away from BP to HoD. I miss BP but would only go back if all the drama and backbiting has died down.

I would also consider a switch to Mag if the price comes down since our guild is a small skirmish guild and Mag is centered around our style of fighting. We wanted to go there originally but nobody in our group wanted to shell out a ton of gold/money to get there.

I will probably just stay put since HoD is a nice enough server. It is way too disorganized for my liking but that probably comes from so many independent guilds transferring here.

The loot bags that players drop are actually pretty decent. They sell for four-point-five silver give or take but more importantly…. they STACK! I get tired of GW2 loot management which is at best a chore so these are welcome drops.

Bloodwort MacFangho.4638:

No.. I want new players who need an incentive to come and try WvW, like what they experience, and so stay to become experienced WvW players who will add to our WvW experience..

Right here… Most hard core WvW that don’t want newbs in the mix and they are missing the larger picture. If we don’t funnel the vastly larger PvE player base into WvW, WvW populations will die off. WvW needs a constant stream new blood to replace those that are constantly leaving. Exposing PvE players to WvW is a good thing for the long term survival of WvW which lets face it isn’t the most inviting place most of the time.

KittyRiv.5291:

This is an incredibly stupid thread trying to bring real world logic into video game mechanics.

Plenty of video games adhere to these sorts of unwritten guidelines. Stealth is rarely a high speed mechanic in most games. Heavy built warriors are rarely the fastest class in fantasy games. The entire concept of most “medium” armor classes in fantasy games is that they are generally evasive and/or the fastest. In this case we have only one medium armor class that can lay claim to speed and it is a stealth class which is sort of absurd as well.

Realist.5812:

If you’re bringing mobility weapons, you’re building for mobility. Not sure why you’re trying to argue otherwise. Guardian and thief have a low cool down shadow step on their swords, so why are you singling out warriors leap? Which as explained above, has significant drawbacks compared to shadow steps.

I don’t think you know what you are talking about. The warrior sword has an immobilize, cripple, bleeds, leap finisher and a double damage attack in the right scenario and they all cleave for a limited AoE. I won’t argue that its leap isn’t as good as the guardian or thief but those are exceptionally good skills. Coupled with the warrior warhorn and suddenly a warrior can be a healing and condi removing beast with group speed boost, vigor and a blast finisher.

The GS is a great warrior weapon especially coupled to the hammer. HB alone is crap, HB on top of a player that has used their last stun breaker is one of the hardest hitting skills in the game. Paired with Mobile Strikes, trying to hold a warrior in any kind of immobilize is pointless. Rush and Whirlwind are wickedly good skills and even its Bladetrail cripple is good. There is no wasted skill on this weapon actually… everything is good in the right scenario. Mix in Forceful Greatsword and a warrior gets a great might generating engine by simple hitting Whirlwind through a group. Most players cannot run from this single weapon nor can they catch it.

Add in the minor trait Warrior’s Sprint and a melee warrior gets a 25% speed boost without having to add in a signet, wear special runes or use some trick mechanic to keep speed up all the time.

The ability for it to basically ignore travel distance can suck hard. Being able to hop on top of the entrances in the southern BL camps is extremely powerful. Not as powerful as CnD off of walls and gates but still one of those places a player should simply not fight a thief much like avoiding eles in front of doors.

Start the season using the current rankings then go with a winner moves up loser moves down system. No brackets as suggested.

Due to the unbalanced population and coverage in servers, substantial awards should be given by participation. Namely players get tickets based on their WvW achievements. These achievements should be lofty and tiered. Lets say create 5 tiers with 100 tickets per tier with each tier being significantly more than the previous. 500 tickets would require a great amount of WvW play. They should have a temporary vanity award for servers based on where they placed.

I agree the leagues should be much shorter, probably 4 weeks at most.

Andrew Clear.1750:

Shouldn’t be changed, it is a good form of strategy. It can create the fog of war effect.

My suggested change would have no effect on the “fog of war” since a keep would still show swords just not a contested way point. One player should not be able to undermine a large group effort so easily. Contesting a way point is so ridiculously easy right now it is laughable and there is virtually no way to defend against.

wads.5730:

so you basically want to be able to spawn rush your way to victory in order to defend something instead of actually having to play good.

Currently one player can screw up hours of effort and plenty of money by a group of players with virtually no risk to themselves. Also how can “play good” overcome a stealth heavy thief contesting a way point for hours?

The current mechanic even in the best scenario is to wait for the way point to open and jump there in the middle of the fight. How is this “play good”?

bob.8632:

You are right, it is the people who understand that much of WvW is meaningless and find fun in it still everyday that are missing critical thinking and logic….

The point I was trying to make is that the way and amount one player enjoys a game isn’t the same for everyone. Some players do not enjoy getting run over by more powerful servers week after week after week after week. Some players do not enjoy beating up enemies in a 10v1 scenario virtually every fight. Some players do compete for score some don’t. Ultimately a players threshold for boredom, enjoyment, etc is personal. Telling someone they should do XYZ and they will enjoy the game more is naive.

Some players are going to get burned out no matter what ANet does but IMO more of them will do so in league play than not.

The Sic Em reveal is nearly useless in killing a thief. I only have to stay away for 4s which is incredibly easy since most thieves excel at evasion even when visible. Afterwards I can immediately CnD off the pet, NPC, wall, gate, etc when Reveal is finished. That assumes you actually land the thing which has its own problems.

This brings up the biggest problem with pets and thieves… CnD on a pet is so ridiculously easy I don’t even bother tagging a ranger since that can be blocked, dodged, etc. The pet on the other hand is just a free cloaking device.

Two things a Ranger should have to deal with thieves. The first is a knockdown trap. The thief version of this trap is probably the best way to kill a thief I know of. The ranger being a trap master should access to this. The second is a shout that reveals stealthed players on a relatively short timer. It could be Sic Em or something else but a ranger really should be a natural counter to stealth.

Realist.5812:

A warrior built for mobility has terrible damage output, terrible group support, and terrible everything EXCEPT mobility. If you get killed by one, you weren’t playing well enough, because it is one if the worst builds for combat EVER.

Warriors with certain weapon sets give up very little in terms of sustained damage output and gain plenty of sustained speed.

Warriors by design should be able to close a gap quickly but they should not have a high sustained speed. My Hammer/GS warrior can pretty much out run 90% or more of the builds in the game in a footrace and while it lacks burst DPS outside of HB the sustained damage is very high. If I decide to run in a fight with my warrior, I can pretty much only be brought down by a minimum of 5 players and they better have a ton of control thanks to the builds high armor/invulns/condi removal. I routinely jump on 3+v1 situations knowing I stand a good chance of killing someone and still be able to reset the fight for more rounds. This is less about my skill and more about the power of warrior mobility.

Hammer warriors do almost everything well or better. Their only real downside is that they can be a somewhat boring class to play thanks to their relative ease to master.

I am guessing it helps that a good number of recent FA transfers came from BP.

bob.8632:

Who cares who you face??? Sure its nice to fight some different groups, but not much worse to fight the same servers. I agree being locked in this swiss system is not ideal, but it is not burning anyone out with half a brain.

Log in when you are out manned 24×7 for months and then post your opinion. This isn’t about some slightly lopsided match ups that are stale. This is about servers that have no business fighting each other for MONTHS. Players get frustrated hurling themselves into no-win scenarios for months. Game burn out happens and leagues go a long ways towards accelerating that for some players… it happens to a lot of players.

I am on the other side… sometimes we KTrain out of boredom. Eventually this will be over and we will be handed our collective kitten s by stronger servers which oddly is a good thing for my server.

People with a half a brain that aren’t getting burned out or don’t understand why other would are likely missing the half that has critical thinking and logic skills.

As some have pointed out a mid-season transfer is pretty risky. I would not have advised it and do not advise it for players considering it. The chances of getting screwed on rewards are higher when doing this.

Something should be done about waypoint contesting in keeps. For too long it has been ridiculously easy for a stealth or running class to tag a gate, run off and repeat every three minutes. Sometimes this goes on for hours and due to the power of stealth in some cases is almost unstoppable.

I am all for the keep showing swords as soon as something is damaged but the waypoint should remain open when a single player is strafing a gate.

The easy fix is to prevent the way point from contesting until a gate or wall falls below a certain threshold. I personally believe it should not contest until a wall or gate is breached and after that it should stay contested until all breaches are closed.

One thief can still keep a waypoint contested without showing themselves long enough to do anything about it. If one gets inside a keep, a half decent one is impossible to kill without a massive manhunt and even then often requires multiple stealth traps and getting lucky.

Make it short.

bob.8632:

I mean hell, there is nothing different about the tournament than there is any other week of wvw, no point in “burning out”. I play the same in the tournament that I do the other 30-something weeks of the year (accounting for 2 seasons), it is all the stackers/ppt-tryhards/etc that usually get burnt out.

Until people realize that playing to “win on the scoreboard” is not really “winning” anything, than this type of issue will continue.

There is a big difference for some servers as they are now trapped in tiers they don’t belong. This effects that server and all servers facing it. Leagues unfairly locks servers in for far too long. Happened in season 1 and now in season 2.

HoD is ready to move up, FA/YB/SBI is ready for them to move up. SoR is ready to move down and everyone in that tier will welcome a stronger challenger. I am sure Mags/DB is looking for a non T1 server to fight. I don’t know what is going on over in EU but I bet it is similar in several tiers.

Prysin.8542:

How and what that would be, i dunno. But a random event/capture/defense triggering a mass gambit would be hillarious.

I have long thought the easiest solution to the unbalanced matches and the PPT problem it creates is to have multiple dynamic objectives rather than static structures. Servers would get points by completing and holding objectives that change each tick. There would be multiple objectives per map and this would force servers into splitting their forces or risk losing a lot of PPT. Objective difficulty could scale based on current server population imbalances.

This system solves all sorts of problems and would create a more engaging experience.