Guild Wars 2

This issue has been a sore spot since release for many a WvW player. Now that we are years in and no fix in sight, I pretty much have given up on them actually addressing this issue. The April 15th patch looks promising, but this oversight has gone on for a ridiculously long time.

This is a very reasonable tactic that makes immense sense in the right context. Preventing the strongest server in a match from flipping a weaker server’s T3 tower/keep delays the likely advance of said enemy. Sometimes harassing the stronger force is the best way to keep them from ticking more points and prevents them from dividing then conquering.

I have always enjoyed fighting YB both on BP and HoD. YB defends which is a refreshing change of pace. YB is also very well rounded. Your roamers are solid, some good skirmish teams, decent guild groups and of course like all mid-tier and higher servers the occasional zerg.

Despite what some have said, I have always found YB fighters to be respectful as well. I really don’t see the downside unless a player dislikes having to fight to take a YB occupied objective.

The easy fix is to blank out the screen. The better fix is to force players to port when dead. Solves numerous zerg balancing problems as well.

Big Erk.2058:

This is war. There is always espionage in war.

When an enemy dies behind lines, allies have to put a hoody and muffs over their head thanks to advanced dead soldier technology. I think spying has been part of warfare, but not from dead soldiers.

Conditions are incredibly powerful in small fights, mediocre in skirmishes, crappy in large group fights and nearly pointless in raid content. Basically they suffer from tremendous balance issues.

We have a competitive match up between FA and HoD. Thanks to that YB has even been able to hang in there and dish out some good fights. Can most of us be satisfied with a close competitive match and leave the chest thumping to a more appropriate forum namely the other match up website?

“Server Pride” is a ridiculous concept. The entire concept of a server in terms of game play is completely arbitrary. Separated servers in modern system design is a relic. Attaching a player to a server is about as modern as an Edsel and “drives” like one as well.

If ANet can ditch servers, they should. At this point I would be happy with a free-for-all map where the only allies are guild mates and guild alliances with everything else being open season. Certainly would be a better system than the old school server system in place now.

Incinerate.5876:

On topic:
How can the megaserver help with lag issues?

Off topic but far more important questions:
What can be done against the hackers?
What can be done against the lack of coverage on some servers?
GVG SUPPORT

Well in theory the server pool will have fewer maps running which could free up system resources that can be devoted elsewhere. Currently if a single player is on a map, the server has to render that map in memory and do a bunch of processing for that one player. If they pool players on fewer active maps, they should get a significant memory bump, better usage of caching and some processing power back.

This is all an educated guess because their PvE environment may have nothing to do with their WvW environment. The new system could also be in theory more resource intensive as the messaging between users might be more laborious than the savings they get switching the system.

This is by far my favorite steal course I run D/D when playing a thief… the mesmer steal is a pretty close second. When I land Bone Crack, the death rate is well over 50% thanks to a very easy CnD/BS combo. Bone Crack comes from other sources as well.

Also steal starts its cool down timer immediately after a steal not on use of the stolen skill. Walking around with a loaded stolen skill is often a free attack depending on the build. Steal, get stolen ability, wait a few seconds, use stolen skill on enemy, steal is immediately ready.

Good news for some of us on the Guild merger coming… probably a ways off but still glad to see this issue addressed.

Banzie.5248:

Kinda Annoyed we’ll be getting CD and SoR. Hopefully CD isn’t as weak as when we last fought them with the free xfers, been wanting to see how Dead SoR is. Still a boring week though. Would rather face SBI/Fa over and over for fights.

SoR was DEAD… majorly dead when I last fought them on BP. CD is certainly stronger mainly because they have some decent coverage. Up to IoJ numbers, doubt it but hard to know for sure since they have been getting hammered by big HoD numbers.

Karma is pretty much worthless. I have 10 million plus of the junk and that is after buying a ton of boxes and shards. Converting Karma to Gold via boxes is just a giant PIA. At least with WxP, I get some bang for my buck as well as an earned in game title. Even badges are good for gearing out alts. Karma… bleh.

Having been on BP for a year and a half I became accustom to hearing “For the Pass” when they charged into a hopeless situation. After switching to HoD, I have learned “HoDOR!” which has its own charm.

What is the battle cry for your server?

Soon….

Heartseeker and Black Powder should not be on the same weapon set. This easy combination is an abomination. D/D thieves at least have to land a somewhat risky melee attack to stealth (and yes CnD off of inanimate objects such as walls/siege is also stupidly broke). Every other thief build outside of D/P is tolerable IMO.

While EB on HoD is a free-for-all, there are plenty of solid skill groups running on BLs. FA will have to contend with numbers and quite a few guild groups. Keep in mind many of the transfers to HoD were experienced WvW players looking for a new home and not a “get out the PvE” player campaign. FA has the experience which gives them a solid edge, but HoD has a lot of excellent roamers and several solid skill groups.

Also, both CD and NS are not to be underestimated. They can both put together 40+ man zergs at various non NA-Prime hours. A couple hours ago CD wiped a nearly full HoD PuG train on EB with near equal numbers. They cannot sustain that momentum but against more competitive numbers do not be surprised if one breaks out and throws an upset in Silver.

etrigan.4213:

I really hope HoD is everything people say they are.

I actually hope they can pull off a win against us.

I doubt it, but here’s to hoping!!

I am not sure HoD can beat SBI, IoJ or YB much less FA. We do have a very strong population though and will fair well against any server without solid 24 hour coverage. Can we beat the hardened large skill groups… I am very interested in finding out.

We do know this much, HoD is probably a lock for at least 5th place. Where it settles between 1st and 5th is anyone’s guess at this point.

2v1 is a valid strategy but tends to work against the mid server in a tier. The first place server wants to stay there so they focus on the 2nd place server. The third place server often doesn’t want to deal with giant zergs from first place so they quietly attack second place. This means the second place server is frequently the server with a giant target on its back not the actual leader in the tier.

This is also why when there is one really strong server in tier, the other two servers have similar scores even though they may be very far apart in population.

Next week is the real test. HoD, NS and CD have much larger populations than they did when they landed in T5. HoD is FA sized most likely and while uncoordinated contains a large number of veteran WvW players. NS and CD both have solid coverage making them natural T4 servers IMO. They just cannot handle the body count being thrown at them.

azizul.8469:

we are under the impression that NSP beating CD now only because HoD allow them to, and most ex-CD guild focusing on CD at the moment. that’s all….

Both servers are getting equally hammered. The numbers they are facing are staggering for a T5. In these blow out situations, any server that starts to gain points gets focused so both servers are kept artificially low. We won’t know how they perform until they aren’t seeing a server with more than 4 times their numbers.

The same scenario is happening in all the Silver tiers at the moment.

I was massively surprised when GW2 announced servers. That isn’t a concept in GW and the “server” design is tired and worn out. Create character, log in, game puts player in optimized instance. This system works best for optimal game enjoyment by most people.

WvW isn’t much different. Players should select a primary guild and guilds should be able to duke it out. If they use a similar weighting system, they can solve almost every substantial lopsided match problem WvW currently has.

At any rate, it is GREAT to see ANet pouring a ton of development work into the usability aspects of the game.

HoD has been running an EB queue 24 hours since reset (almost). There has been a handful of hours where EB isn’t full but they have been really sparse and even without the queue EB is still “full”. I don’t know what FA or YB looks like but I haven’t been on a server with those kinds of numbers ever. Strange to see 100+ man queue at 5AM server time.

Chris.3290:

Anyone thinking FA is not going to run away with this needs to consult a doctor and get a CAT scan of the cranium.

Having faced Mag, SoS, IoJ, YB and DB in recent weeks, I can say this for sure: HoD is not ready for FA. We (HoD) have numbers but EB is a disorganized mess. Will HoD improve enough to win? Probably not. Will they put up a good fight, I think so. I am excited to see how it shakes out though.

I do know one thing, I miss BP. I yearn to hear “For the Pass!” as they barrel into a vastly outnumbered situation. I think I will have to EoTM that week when we face off.

I can see how the loss was a surprise since it isn’t readily obvious. I would log a ticket and ANet might be able to help you out but I wouldn’t count on it.

All of the silver free transfer servers are worth the move if you want to fight. Silver is full of wall to wall fighting of all sorts.

HoD is more populated by a good margin over NS and CD but it is very unorganized and there are map queues so getting on EB is a chore. The advantage to HoD is that it will likely finish in the top 5 servers and you will get a Mistforged weapon.

CD and NS both seem to have some solid fighters and decent organization. NS seems to have better overall coverage and they siege very well. They just aren’t as populated so they probably will not finish high enough to get a top tier WvW item as a reward.

If you don’t care about Season 2 rewards, any server will work fine in Silver. If you do care, HoD is the only one with free transfers… in Silver anyway.

I have been listening to these Epic playlists but have become a bit burned out on them lately:

http://y2u.be/dRLC2oI-HFI

http://y2u.be/TucKUi0jmHk

http://y2u.be/irxn8O3s8F8

http://y2u.be/pzjFk89zX18

http://y2u.be/x1hrMxzHKV8

I would log a ticket immediately just in case. Hopefully it is an oversight and players will have until the 28th to move over.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

In my experience, it doesn’t work. Map chat gets toxic when no one wants to duel. Everyone is a carebear, and it goes downhill from there. The fact that so many people here are willing to speak up against open world dueling is testament to this.

2 or 3 dissenters is not a testament. Also having played a half dozen MMOs with dueling, I have not seen any indication that map chat becomes toxic. I was hoping you would cite an example.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Clever of you though, to post this thread in the WvW forum, rather than the regular GW2 discussion forum.

I am not the OP but I do support the premise. I would like the ability to duel my friends and others with standard gear. I would particularly like this to happen without needing to spend gems to do so unlike the current arenas.

Buzzcrave.6197:

There is a reason why there is no trade option, just mail if you intend to trade stuff with your buddies.

The elimination of the direct trade option was likely to make it easier to track gold and item sellers as well as cut down on hacking. It also forced players into using the gold sink TP.

Liston.9708:

Ioj very well might beat YB, but much HAS changed. Militia was way more important in season 1 than [one] or [SE] which left. militia left wvw between seasons for champ farms, daily world boss train, and LS farms.

I am only going by what happened during the IoJ/YB/BP weeks. IoJ laid the smack down on YB and BP. You can see it in recent scores:

March 1st: BP barely beats IoJ and handily beats YB. BP begins to implode with losses.

March 8th: IoJ wins by a 50k margin over both BP and YB. More players leave BP.

March 15th: IoJ handily beats both BP and YB by almost 80k points. BP continues to lose players.

March 22nd: IoJ crushes BP and YB by just over 100k.

March 27th: Still undecided but so far IoJ is beating SBI while losing to the T2 FA. YB is smashing two servers that have lost a significant population.

These numbers can change with PvE participation but hardcore WvWers will stay till the end and right now IoJ seems to have more of those.

sirflamesword.3896:

Seems like alot of people are having trouble getting ganked by thieves while running back to their blobs.

Even skilled players get annoyed by P/D perma-stealth players that strafe them then run off as soon as a thief realizes they cannot 2-shot them.

Stealth has also become a serious issue with mesmer/thief condi-bunker builds in small fights.

CnD off inanimate objects makes tracking a thief down inside a keep ridiculously difficult. Those builds even move faster when stealthed adding to the problem.

There are legitimate issues with stealth beyond new players or zerg builds getting “ganked” by a thief. Oh and yes, I do have a thief. I have logged around 1200 WvW hours with the D/D weaponset on him.

P/D seems to be unchanged with the latest set of upcoming patches. I am guessing CnD off of inanimate objects (walls, doors, mortars, etc) is probably going to persist as well.

It could be adjusted we just don’t know for sure yet. Odds are nothing will change.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

The problem with dueling in the open world is the “won’t take no for an answer” crowd. These are the same people who post in these forums.

This has been addressed in several games already. There is a “Do not Disturb” option for duels in most games that offer them. Players can set their own preference and if they choose will never get a duel request.

BTW I still haven’t heard of a previous game where duels created a toxic environment. I also have not heard of a real reason why open world duels shouldn’t be allowed aside from the easily managed duel requests.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I’m older than most gamers. I’ll be 50 on my next birthday. I’ve likely forgotten more gaming titles than you’ve played. I don’t want to go back to any of them that had open world dueling. I was a sailor too, and I can be eloquently rude when I want to be.

I am not that far behind you and I was playing MuDs long before graphical MMOs. It is unlikely someone has forgotten more games than I have played. Quite the opposite in most cases being that my first computer was a TRS-80. I have also been writing software since the early 80s and still do today. I even have a spell named after me in a somewhat popular MMO for its time that is still around today.

I need some new tunes for killing my fellow GW2 players. I want to be inspired while I leave a bloody trail of corpses in my wake.

What is your favorite music playlist for WvW? Try to keep it near or under 10 songs.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Those of us who object to open world dueling do so based on past experience from many other games where the dueling crowd always becomes a toxic element in the community. We don’t want that here.

An example might help your case.

Siegerazer tough would be interesting. Bannering would be ridiculously powerful though.

IoJ will beat YB. They did handily for a couple weeks already and not much has changed on those servers. SBI is either IoJ sized or YB sized and we won’t know until FA isn’t in the mix. My guess is SBI is closer to IoJ or larger.

My picks and these are seriously up in the air:

FA
IoJ
SBI
HoD
YB
NS
CD
BP
SoR

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Straegen.2938:

“If the arenas allowed for WvW gear and food, then this would work but they currently do not.”

Then lets work on this, rather than open world dueling on the PvE maps.

Many of the “no dueling” crowd would support this, because as we’ve often said, our only objection to dueling is the “open world” part.

That would be the least they could do. Open world dueling is a better option. Those that oppose it have almost no grounds to complain. It doesn’t effect them unless they want it to so why object? Let players play the game the way they want so long as it doesn’t interfere with your game play.

I gather the stats will stay the same so multiple sets will be duplicates.

Freeelancer.2860:

Just to be perfectly clear, this means that if I have r95 and r5 character and 2 more r0 alts I’ll have 100 points in total for all 4 of the characters (or 25 on average), correct ?

WxP is summed across all your characters and then each character has access to the total of that sum. Basically, you would have almost 100 levels accessible to every character.

Lets say you have 115 total WxP levels after the patch, every character on your account could get Applied Fortitude. Any new character you create could select Applied Fortitude immediately.

Doug.4930:

In a word, no. You need to play thief to understand how difficult it is to land a back stab whilst even crippled. Movement reduced by 50%? No one would run a melee thief, it would be impracticable and pain full.

Thieves are already getting hit hard with the upcoming crit dmg nerf. This would make the class almost unplayable.

I play a D/D thief… almost 1500 hours on that build alone. BS is easy to land just not always easy to land from behind but that is as it should be for such a massive damager that requires no init to pop.

Besides the hot roamer builds for both thieves and mesmers are condition builds that use stealth to avoid combat. The other significantly populated build is the D/P troll which stealths from range.

It is significant but beatable. The main problem is in ascended weapons which have a higher base damage than exotic. That base damage is amplified by the multipliers making an ascended weapon hit noticeably harder on crit builds.

Good news is jewelry is easy to get just takes time. The back piece is also easy to get but expensive. Weapons are worth it but armor not so much.

Out of curiosity what would WvW fights look like if stealthed players moved half speed?

I have been playing a lot of stealth games lately and it seems the theme to them all is that stealth reduces movement. Could a slow moving mechanic attached to stealth make for better fights? Just asking.

There is no positive outcome to the current rally system. None. Almost nobody likes it and it is a laughable or irritating mechanic to most.

One need look no further than my old server BP to see what “Rallybots” do to a server. Practically nobody was hatting up before I left despite several guild groups running on a map. This is bad for inexperienced players since they cannot learn from the veterans and bad for the game in general since the “Rallybots” will likely become frustrated and head elsewhere.

Lets define the scenarios:

Roaming: Thief, Mesmer, Warrior

Skirmishing: Everything except Ranger

Open Field Fights: Guardian, Warrior, Necro, Ele

Siege Attacking: Ele, Mesmer

Siege Defending: Ele

So if all around usefulness in most scenarios is the goal, Ele wins simply because staff eles are great wall warriors and when played well are excellent in open field fights. In skirmishing, they have to retool for D/D but still solid.

If we are talking solely combat operations, Warrior. It is about the only class that excels in all forms of combat play without having to retool for each style. Although it does get better when it adjusts its build between skirmish and large group open field.

Head straight to Applied Fortitude (2500 extra health) in Defense Against Guards. Don’t put your points anywhere else until you lock that in. It does require 115 WvW levels but that is very doable in a short amount of time.

With some rare exceptions that is the best WvW skill unlock in the game. It makes you tougher and makes downing you more difficult so your group is better.

After that 4 notches in Supply Mastery which can generate free supply. If you plan on doing any fighting, go after Applied Strength in Guard Killer next.

style.6173:

@OP:

This should not be a feature within WvW. We don’t need people taking up queue places for this. Instead, if someone wants to test a build, they can:

1. Go to OS and duel someone
2. Go to PvP and choose a 1v1 custom arena

Missed the point/don’t understand the problem.

1. Cannot duel players on your own server so friends/guild mates cannot duel
2. sPvP builds are WAY different than WvW builds. If the arenas allowed for WvW gear and food, then this would work but they currently do not.

daydream.2938:

Yaks bend has gotten a huge influx of players the week before season2 . Im on bp and they are literally quing outnumbering us in our bl and eternal almost everyday.

Those aren’t new players those are their PvE players coming into WvW. It also doesn’t help that BP is down to about 4-5 five reasonably sized WvW guilds and most of them will not run a tag. If BP doesn’t get a solid PvE turnout, the numbers on HoD, YB and higher are going to be a massive problem. I miss BP already but I will not miss getting hammered for the next 9 weeks. I hate to say it but BP may finish in 7th or 8th place.

Grav.3568:

Since free transfers kicked in EBay has lost 2 more guilds and another has disbanded.

Free transfers will only work for T8 servers when they’re the only options that are free.

Sorry to see the once mighty EBay in the bottom. In the current system I guess someone has to be down there but the nice part is moving to more populated servers is still free.

Kobi Beef.3895:

I dunno about the other servers you posted but I’ve been in Yak’s Bend ever since the beginning recently switching to HoD. Yak’s used to be a competent force in WvW but recently after the all the guild migrations it has become a mess and a pain to watch, the only reason Yak’s is doing well this week is because of the broken servers that its currently matched with BP and SoR.

YB has a couple aces up its sleeve though. They defend as well as any server I have played against. They also rally their PvE populations well. I am not saying they will consistently win against IoJ, FA or SBI but I think they are strong enough to beat CD, SoR, BP and probably NS. HoD is a massive wildcard. I knew HoD had a strong population but I didn’t think the 3 map queues was real until I got here.

Berk.8561:

The game scales NPC encounters in PvE, not only by increasing the strength of NPCs but also by adding more of them. I know people play WvW to fight other players but why can’t the game improve the NPCs manning camps, towers, and keeps for a heavily outnumbered server so that PvDoor isn’t so trivial and an outnumbered player can fight among NPCs that don’t drop in seconds?

I think adding more PvE elements in to WvW is akin to fixing a gaping wound by putting a band aid on it. They need to fix the underlying problem of unbalanced match ups. This fixes the score, makes the matches more fun to play in and keeps the PvE content where it belongs.

DeadlySynz.3471:

It also benefits condition classes as there is no way to clear them

If they can get those condition skills off. In extremely heavy lag most of the time getting enough conditions to do anything is almost impossible.