Guild Wars 2

Considering the low application of bleeds, few crits but fair amount of confusion and high hitpoints I would presume he’s running the oldschool combo of dire gear and perplex runes. One of the staff’s sigils is corruption and the off-suit seems to have a doom-swap (and not blight). That would leave two sigils which are likely to be straight damage sigils on an oldschool setup, so either malice or bursting, one on each set. It’s hard to tell with the current traits, but it’s possible that there’s a torment sigil instead.

Will this even be read, responded to, considered and prioritized?

The problem with the new map and the WvW experience at large is not very difficult to understand and after 3 years of critique it is fairly well defined. The real problem is that they have not been prioritized and instead we have seen Anet delve into other things while throwing out some half-hearted- or unfulfilled promises of commitments that have, arguably, had more of a negative impact than a positive one over time.

The map:

Anet should have a gander at the current industry-leaders of map-recyling over at Wargaming. When people ask for new maps, they ask for something that will shake up the routines, not something that completely alters the gamemode like EotM or EotM 2.0 (DBL). A good way to introduce new maps is to build upon popular elements on the existing maps and changing details, such as the blink- or siege coverage spots everyone has learnt. We don’t need restrictive elements that stops players from facing other players. New maps, as a focal point for design, was, ontop of that, something that the community held in low priority, even though it was shoehorned in with the expansion.

Everything else:

John Corpening had most of the issues noted down in his post a couple of months back. The only problem with his post is that we haven’t heard or seen anything since even though there is a general upset with the new map and the state of WvW at large.

The most common issues are: Far worse or less interesting rewards and progression than the other game modes (skins, titles, finishers, income etc.). Direct balance issues with regards to server population and group sizes (the stability nerf was a major culprit here). Indirect balance issues with regards to gameplay (players-structures), timezones and score/goals. General concerns about class balance (though, I would argue that GW2 and WvW overall has had one of the best class balances I’ve seen, even though there may be some issues or exceptions, it is an inescapable topic and something this game has handled relatively well throughout its time – most classes have had some role in WvW).

The foremost issue I have with the new systems is not necessarily the forward grind but rather how it creates a backlog and punishes players who have already played alot.

To give anyone an idea of what I mean, look at how the bottleneck isn’t the mastery points themselves. I have no problem with having to fetch mastery points. I only have little problem with attaching some experience bars to couple with the mastery points in the zones you do, but when you have to go back and re-do content you have already finished just for the experience grind, then it becomes ridiculous.

The same goes for trait unlocks. A good example there is starting a new character, like a Rev, and level it in WvW. You will gain double trait unlocks and by the time the character is 80 you have pushed enough WXP to go a fair bit into your specialization.

However, if you have 20 odd characters already, that WXP (or Hero point) grind is massive and far more taxing than the 10 odd levels of other games, since we’re essentially looking at a full 80-level grind, comparatively. Also, while it may be possible to play 2.5 trait lines now when hardly anyone has a full unlock it is going to be an issue to stay competetive and if you play 3 other lines while unlocking your specs we’re still looking at re-grinding content you have already grinded.

I already have enough WXP to unlock everything in the WvW trait list (and a fair chunk in spare) but now I have to do another 1600 (~80×20 for ~2.5 tokens / level) WXP levels to unlock 20 specializations that way. I also have to cycle all characters as the items are stupidly soulbound. Whether it’s WXP or Hero points it’s a question of re-grinding completed content which is bad design and horribly boring. At least the masteries and their experience grind are account-wide.

My third time now.

Killed the shielder first, killed all other small chak second, killed the veteran third.

Still bugged.

This week my server is looking at a 1st-2nd-8th matchup, so players not filling up the maps has not been a severe problem. The maps are decently populated.

The map however has been absolutely terrible this far, reproducing many of the issues with EotM and why players generally do not go there to play WvW.

The map is large and have too many routes, while the routes themselves are wining and indirect, making it difficult to catch up to or reconnect with pickup groups.

The number of related chokes and drops probably came with the idea to make it easier for smaller groups to choke off larger groups, but it tends to have an opposite effect and more commonly be the cause for big groups to stand on each side of the chokes or drops and poking ranged attacks at oneanother – making it difficult to overtake prepared positions unless you have numerical superiority, at which point you can just push through with more cooldowns to burn.

The new siege makes this even worse, as we’ve spent a couple of days now looking at two big groups at a time, dancing around oneanother and building shield towers, where neither group wants to commit to anything and thus we see no wipes and rather unlucky players caught out with a further distance to run back.

There is very little in the way of encouraging small groups to claim offensive positions to operate out of with larger structures, bigger doors and longer distances over which to communicate and coordinate with other players – as to encourage initiatives and breaking up from uniblobs.

Giving the experience some time to settle and grow on me, so far, I have almost nothing good to say about the new map. The first trends are moving the direction some of us feared when we first heard of the map. It’s all about trains, gaps and boring pirateship stalemates. I really hope the trends or the map changes, or there will be massives queues to EB for players who actually wants to play WvW. We’ll just have to try to stay positive until we can see players or developers turning something around.

I think the best solutions involve adding some conversion options like PvP (skins) and some rotation options like PvE (gamble). However, WvW have one problem and that is that its economy is poorly balanced internally in how WXP and tokens are earned. If you make a move to balance WvW income to PvE and PvP (which should be done), you would also need to revise the balance of how WXP and tokens are earned today, as they are very prone to karma-trains that will affect different servers and playstyles very differently. There have to be some diminishing returns and/or progression system similar to those other game modes.

Perhaps a diminishing returns system for tokens/dailies and a reward track for WXP/rank.

The only real issues that ever existed with stealth have been when something else in the game makes them useful to frontload or when there have been too great a distance between the various stealth classes.

So what does that mean? Well, stealth exist as an alternative defensive measure to tanking (I’m leaving the discussion about evades, blocks and mobility out because there is so much overlap on the classes, so it would only complicate the discourse) and it has mostly become an issue when there is such an overabundance of defenses that you can use your stealth offensively in a wasteful manner.

One typical example lie in how conditions only scale with two stats yet have been improved to challenge power-builds relying on three stats.

This has been common among most condi-builds on Mesmers, Thieves and Engineers, where stealth uptime in many cases have been better on condition options than power options. It is also especially true for the new trapper builds on Rangers as they don’t rely very much on crit to apply conditions.

Another typical example lie in when condition uptime-to-cooldown and superior management access lead to situations when players can pressure offensively and still have escapes or out-stealth opponents and yet have continued pressure and escape.

The summer fling Mesmers were a typical example of this, where abilities that were once mainly defensive (or were used offensively at great risk, overextending yourself and blowing cooldowns to attempt ending a fight) all of a sudden saw use in the offensive with alot of mediocre players turning to overly successful use of assassination builds. It is also commonly seen on Thieves who blow multiple cooldowns (step-leap combos etc.) and still maintain in-combat re-stealth pressure and escapes. It makes the wasteful useful.

So if there was ever any two issues they should have fixed, those would be it – making sure condition-versions always had access to less stealth and making sure doubling up on offensive uses was less useful. I find that interesting because it is essentially the opposite of what the OP is suggesting in how ways to deal with the latter would be shorter stealth times and lower ambush damage to force stealth to be used for quick escapes, similar to dash-styled evades, more often (and not as full resets either). Many classes have to make choices in that regard, to the offensive or defensive, while builds on some classes do not.

PopeUrban.2578:

Common misconceptions:

Thieves deal tons of burst damage!

False. Thief burst damage is no better than similarly geared and traited burst builds from any other class. Warriors have better burst while maintaining better sustain. So do guardians. So do necros. So do mesmers.

Thieves have sustain builds!

Everyone has sustain builds. Not all of them actually work.

Mesmers can’t kill thieves though!

Mesmers are more than capable of taking your average thief. You just chose not to build for it. Play a condition mesmer, you just killed a thief, or at the very least forced him off your point. We literally do not have the option to clear enough conditions, even if we take every single avaliable cleanse (which kills our damage)

100% PU was not OP, because thieves can stealth all over the place

Urban, are you familiar with the concept of strawmen in rhetoric? See, what you’re doing here is taking my post and respond to it’s style while making up a number of topics you pull out of your own hat to defeat. You are being very salty when at it as well, turning this Mesmer grumble thread into a Thief grumble thread in it’s place.

If you instead look at the conclusions you draw in your own responses (rather than the setup), you’ll see that they are not that far from the conclusions I drew in what you quoted. I can appreciate that you reacted to the sour tone of this thread, but I reacted to the tone of your post.

Let’s mull the periphery over again:

I felt as though I was quite clear in pointing out that every class gained alot of burst with the stat changes. I made that argument to underline that it’s not a Mesmer issue. You make the same argument for the Thief. I can assume you agree with me then.

I also pointed out that every class have options in stats and style to play more or less sustained. The argument was that with some styled devotion to sustain, power Mesmer builds are still glassy, same as how S/D builds are glassy even though they are not as all-out burst dependent as D/P. You were claiming the Mesmer had sustain, I was not claiming Thieves did, I was reminding you that none of them do even though both can adapt power-builds that are not 100% assassination styled (note: style, not stat).

Nowhere did I say Mesmers couldn’t kill Thieves. The interesting comment you make in that header though, is the one about conditions. They too, since the summer, are beginning to reach burst-levels (esp. with the popularity of hybrid builds) where hardly any class can cleanse enough conditions in small-scale gameplay. In fact, conditions much like power-crit tend to end up in a situation of burst-counterburst now (which has made transfer-abilities very powerful).

Back to the stealth issue that this thread grumbles about:

The reason stealth was improved for Mesmers was very likely that the disparity in stealth was so gapped that it influenced higher order decisions (how to group players etc.). Uptime is the important factor here and not just in whatever duelling scenario we find in sPvP. In several of the game modes (and sPvP is not excluded) the differences that used to exist turned old Mesmer stealths into a waiting game they’d lose every time – to the point where you couldn’t rely on them to perform a stealthing role – any time you used a stealth other classes could respond to out-wait you and that was a problem. It became a game of wasting cooldowns rather than interesting play-counterplay of stealth abilities.

That’s where all the peripheral discussion comes in, because if we can agree that many of the issues with burst, sustain, conditions and whatever else are stat-based and affect most if not all classes, rather than class-based and Mesmer specific, then the argument about who is the “stealthing class” falls as both classes are dependent upon it and there needs to be some similarities or semblence of balanced uptime.

We did not have that before the summer and the result of the rollback here does not put the Mesmer at a better position than before the summer – at least not beyond its ability to capitalize on the current unsettled power-crit or power-condi environments. Again, essentially all classes have some whacky assassin-style or hybrid-burst build that hardly any sustain or cleanses can deal with. Yet Mesmers are being handled rather heavyhanded on the trait level, leaving us on build options that are questionable even in comparison to the older spring traits (which people are beginning to make note of).

There is a rather troublesome cycle of identifying problems, creating new problems and rolling back to an even weaker position. While some of us can sympathize with you in how something was amiss with all the summer stealth, we expect you to be able to sympathize with how Mesmers were not in a particularily strong position before and that the gap in stealth was one of those issues that was identified – in more modes than sPvP.

That’s the “higher order” concern I have, I do not care very much about the Mesmer versus Thief situation, I care about the overall balance of stealth and Mesmers next to Thieves – because before the summer we had a development where Thieves played better with more Thieves than with Mesmers – and that reflected the position you entered into this thread with: That Mesmers are not a stealth class. Given the attention this discussion garners I think we can safely assume that it certainly is a stealth class, which means that Mesmer stealth obviously needs to be balanced both up and down.

However, a rollback on a single class is not the same as such a rebalance.

While some Mesmers are obviously sour about their candy being stolen, me, along with several other people commenting here, are more concerned about how several of the issues the changes were designed to correct are now being recreated. That includes appeal in taking two Thieves over a Thief and a Mesmer for purposes of stealth or how other classes may risk have better access to conditions chiefly associated with Mesmers and condition-bursting potential (if you read Archangel’s thread made around the same time as this one). Those are fair concerns and interesting discussions, not something to go hyperbole over in another class’ forums.

This thread deserves more replies.

I enjoyed that video.

PopeUrban.2578:

Here’s the deal.

PU mesmer was a better thief than thief. That was the primary problem. When the “class with some stealth” became better at both utilizing and providing stealth than “the stealth class”

You’ve discussed thief in your video without also recognizing the fact that thieves have zero sustain, zero ability to actually deal damage while stealthed, and are completely shut down defensively when revealed in the case of most stealth builds.

Mesmers are still relevant. You’ve still got stellar burst, good CC, and sustain the thief would literally give up a weapon set for.

Take it from a thief, they don’t care how much you complain when they hit something that hard. It has happenned to thieves over and over since launch. It’s 50%, and it’s probably going to stay at 50%

I find this quote very telling. It provides a good cross-section of belief among the players but I would also say that it outlines all the misconceptions: It states the expected comments but many of those comments are also clearly incorrect assumptions once you put them to the test.

Yes, the summer’s change was to bring about a better balance between thieves and mesmers as stealthing classes. In hindsight it would have been better to bring them closer together in other ways than just pushing the mesmer up only to bring it back down again.

The assumption the quote rides on would be that thieves are more dependent upon their stealth than mesmers (similar to comments a mesmer would lunge at engineers or rangers). The problem is that the summer-fling mesmer never had more stealth than thieves, better burst, more CC or better sustain. All of that incorrect.

Classes have one build at a time:

Very much like the thief, the mesmer can pick some dimensions of that based on builds – but while the power builds do not have more sustain, the condition builds does not have better burst or CC. In fact, the power builds generally have low sustain and any measure you can take to balance that out (through other weapon combinations etc., can also be done on thieves where S/D offer a more sustained style than D/P, even though it is never a tanky character same as how power mesmers always remain somewhat glassy).

The condi builds never had any particular burst or CC, that has been the balancing point of condi mesmer since forever (even if it admittedly isn’t a very good balancing point). The sustain there comes from the statbase and that is afforded to any condi-player, where even thieves can go a tanky full condi build with a fair amount of stealth-and-tick. The same goes for rangers and engineers even if they may have less stealth and more escapes or immunities. At least, that’s how mesmers perceive them.

Classes rather than builds or stats:

That’s a funny thing with all the complaints about various classes in the summer patch and the reactions afterwards, since almost all classes gained some build that exceeds into the extraordinary. It almost feels as most of the complaints come from players who have not updated their builds to capitalize on the changes (possibly because they don’t want to “cheese” it) yet the complaints often center around classes rather than stats or builds.

They also center around classes while some classes seem to spend more time pointing the fingers at others or being unhappy with their position. Like the thief talking about how nerfed the thieves are or the warrior and necro communities talking about how their damage have dropped – even though evisc and KS builds easily capitalize just as much on the stat changes as any other bursty builds, while the same can be said about any shroud-burst build whether it’s power or hybrid. That goes to show how they were in better positions before, rather than worse positions now.

Why the common class objections are odd:

In light of that, most of this feels more like a case of who yells the loudest than any sensible discussion about actual balance. Everyone has more burst, less defense (at least in offensive gear) and quicker condition application. That’s not a mesmer issue even if the class became trendy in that setting.

So while the summer’s mesmer stealth certainly became an issue, that had to be dealt with, and we began to see alot of mesmers while the situation undoubtedly became salty: it wasn’t because there is some favourable burst, sustain or control in the class and it is quite baffling that we should accept it on thieves (or other classes) because that has been the norm before. It’s easily as cancerous there, and maybe the way forward is not to stack more reveals but to snag 25% general uptime off the thieves as well and cap refuge at 7.5s too. At least that’s a point to consider in the discussion even if it isn’t a sincere suggestion.

Edit: I just watched the video :s

I was roaming with a friend who mains thief today, and he said something very poignant. He said “the order is restored”. That is very telling of what is going on at the moment.

The summer:

There were a number of issues discovered going into the summer, such as how condi-mesmers (while still probably the strongest overall archetype of mesmer builds, looking at builds and stats alone) were out-conditioned by other classes even on the class’ main condition type (at least as far as condi burst go) and where power-mesmers generally had stealth-competition issues in detail-demanding gameplay, where any composition it would presumtively carry would be outstealthed in a waiting game giving momentum over to opponents and both limiting tactical play and ideal compositions. Pant.

That last bit was tangled up, but essentially, what I’m saying is that in a competetive scenario where eg., thieves and mesmers competed we ended up with situations where stacking thieves became better than rotating in mesmers with a thief.

None of that is particularily eye-catching. Those issues were probably identified and that’s why we had the summer’s changes to mesmer stealth-time and an active more bursty onset of condition application, with more torment and higher stacks applied directly.

The outcries:

Now, there’s no denying that it synergized a bit too well and that these things went over the top with the stat-changes (everyone does more damage) and trait-tree changes (many classes were given the opportunity to combine more powerful traits).

Not that the “pre-stealth burst mesmer” is such a problem that the more cringeworthy parts of the community makes them out to be (they’re relatively easy to avoid for an experienced player – and most mesmers gained alot of experience of just that by anticipating thieves for two years), but there was nonetheless an issue. There was an issue with how PU combined with pledge, torch and an allround good defensive playstyle leaving condi mesmers with damage, tank, stealth and evasions. The only thing they weren’t very good at was catching players – so anyone could just disengage against such a mesmer and leave things at a draw – but there was an issue nonetheless when trying to fight such a powerful combination, so a change was undoubtedly necessary.

The reaction:

That’s where the problem errupts, because many of these changes are not very creative, they are just roll-backs that recreate the same problems the mesmers went into the summer with: being out-initiated and out-applied.

So, while I welcome changes and don’t necessarily see these particular changes as very disruptive, this thread was certainly to the point as well – because balance is about pairing the classes up and in longer term this sets us back to a point when something else (hopefully something that isn’t too strong) needs to be given anew to deal with the issues that were first identified.

Personally, I would have preferred something along the lines of splitting up the traits to force some choices instead.

Also, something should probably be done about the manipulation trait reflection breaking stealths, especially now that there is less go-to stealth to cover mishaps. Pulling oneself out of MI because it was traited is a rather amusing quirk. That would be a first step and then back to the drawing table to consider the issue of being out-applied and out-stealthed by classes less dependent upon it. I hope we don’t come back to the days when the perplexity runes were best used on engineers. That would be a sorry sight, hehe.

This discussion overlooks the most important underlying reasons for the behaviour of both sides. I would say that Kry, Jayne and Archon are almost reaching the topic with the comments on varied content, groups and transfers but not quite. I believe the OP is obscuring the reason why he’s so set on the interference or interfering with GvG on maps.

The underlying reasons are that various changes have created imbalances between differently sized groups and servers. As Archon mentions, a GvG generally ties up the same amount of players, but a point-minded player who is dominated elsewhere on the map feels as though those particular players, or their slots on the map, should go to help contending with a numerically superior force dominating him and his gameplay.

Even if the GvG does cause an inequal distribution of players, as two guilds square off and a third from one of those servers looks on, the issue is still the same: It’s perceived as an interference as the OP wants more players to other parts of the map, to fight a larger group of players. The OP then proceeds to interfere with the GvG and is unhappy when they self-regulate and kill him, while simple math would suggest that in most cases the scrims do not affect the overall outcome on the map, even though they may detract from a pickup group or not engage themselves with countering hostile pickup groups.

The issue is that the OP needs more players to counter the other groups on the map that outnumbers him. That’s likely where the frustrations come from – not the geographical space taken (conflicting definitions of space: players on map, rather than place on map).

At the same time, the same imbalances has made it more difficult for smaller guild-groups to play against larger pickup groups, so it’s not in their interest to play at the OP’s behest. We see more and more scrim-style (GvG) play as guilds have been made less important in the older roaming objectives or open-field style of play in the larger objective-oriented WvW-play. The balance of the game is essentially suggesting groups to find equally sized groups and a prevalence of scrim-style play is the result.

While the terms are similar, they actually sum it up pretty well – guilds have gone from skirmish to scrimmage.

I honestly find it a bit boring too, with so many guilds limiting their gameplay more and more to scrims, but the fault is on balance and changes, not the behaviour of the players as they cope and adapt.

Sometimes it would be nice to hear your line of thought on these things.

With a couple of changes in recent time you have created balance issues between a superior- and inferior force that makes players gravitate toward the largest servers and clump up on the maps (and cause those clumps to exhibit anger at smaller roaming parties or guild-groups on the map, because they detract players from main pickup groups) as numerical superiority determines most outcomes in WvW now, after changes like the stability change.

On another note, it has also made groups more unruly, making it more difficult for players who tag up to actually lead the players that surrounds them. Considering that they are what enable content in the process, that is a rather troublesome trend that risks creating larger differences between servers.

Then you seem to become aware of the issue, but only try to stave it off with changes to server transfers, while you keep adding even more gameplay changes that further stacks the game in favour a superior force: Fewer rallies (that required delicacy on part of a superior group) and counter-capping measures, like WP-spam and portal-sweeping (that is far more important to inferior forces on a map than to superior forces), while the proposed changes directly benefit the uninvested behaviour of a superior and successful group (eg., quick map access for 5-min sweeps, then send everyone to the next objective).

Also, while it’s nice that we can salvage WvW-gear (after three years), you should probably consider doing something about the extreme income-disparity and disparity in access to gear and skins between WvW and eg., dungeons. That one type of gameplay is more profittable and attended than another is common, difficult to manage and understandable or tolerable, but when it reaches differences of 1:10 the problem is clearly with you and not with an insatiable community. The differences have slipped so far.

With six pages running, everything I’m going to say has probably already been said – but let me chime in.

To discuss PU you need to look at it from a couple of different angles and in the context of current stat-balance.

Yes, the trait is incredibly strong as far as traits go and it has given the class another dimension in certain modes or aspects of the game.

At the same time, Mesmer stealth was an issue before and in high-end gameplay of modes like sPvP or WvW the Mesmer would be outstealthed and sidelined.

It’s possible that it would have been better to reduce stealth on other classes than improve it on the Mesmer, but time will tell as the changes have not settled in, stats are all over the place and further defensive changes will come with HoT.

That leads us to the next argument. Many of the issues people have with PU as a trait or Mesmers as a class at the moment stem from the fact that everyone has been given more offensive stats. That will be adressed somehow and the current situation with burst issues will damp down. Hopefully, too many traits have not been neutered by then.

In an environment where burst is more powerful, a bursty class (like the Mesmer) stand to gain alot.

That ties into the final comment: the human factor.

Good Mesmers have since long learnt how to use burst effectively since they’ve had few other options. It’s been an all-out class, so it’s players are also more likely to do well in a bursty environment.

Alot of the issues other classes seem to have with Mesmers now, for a few weeks, Mesmers have had to endure for years. They’ve developed anticipation and counter-burst strategies because they had to. As a Mesmer you’d counter a Thief by anticipation rather than reaction – and that issue had nothing to do with plasma steals.

For a Mesmer, anticipating other Mesmers’ burst is not too difficult and not very different to anticipating other classes. It seems more like other classes are not used to the Mesmer being able to do the same thing – same as they don’t expect such tremendous surprise-burst from Medi Guards or similar yet either.

MSFone.3026:

It will be interesting to see how the dmg increase to MW from MoF compares to the Dom GM of 25% (50% inactive). I can’t imagine they would have MoF be anywhere close to that kind of dmg boost, because ofc people would take both…

That’s a very interesting question, since by the looks of it, at the moment, the new traits are even more difficult to navigate with alot of baseline flirts.

The Dom GM looks incredibly strong with few other things appealing barring even more damage through vulns and the rip. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a huge fan of the shatter-rip builds in the past, but it’s just such powerful damage bonuses that the traitline is either required (if nothing else can match it) or niched (if Frag has balanced damage).

The same goes for both Illu, Duel and Chrono – of which shatter cooldowns, clone-dodge and runspeed are all subject to the baseline discussion and often required traits in a way that may risk boring build options in the future. I get that the idea is to not have access to everything and I have no reservations against that. Choices should be choices. However, each example mentioned are things that gameplay and the build is pushed into or would be dull without.

Everything else looks nice, plenty of options that I don’t mind being forced to choose from and give up respectively. There are likely odd builds that try out the new stuff, but going the obvious route would have you keep hugging them runspeed runes or nagging your friends about swiftness.

One way to deal with that would be, as MSFone brings up, to find a balance between shatters in Dom and Illu that don’t make either or both options obvious, with all the damage in one line and the shatter cooldowns jeering at you from the other. Mesmers had alot of things made baseline, but leaving the F-skill and runspeed issues in for this class make little sense.

This thread and the suggestions have a problem we’ve seen alot in all game design in recent years: Oppinions are collected, on some quantative decision-basis to be evaluated, and decisions are based on greater-good- and greater-application majority concerns without attention to the higher-order minority use that tend to drive content.

That trend is starting to blow over if you look at other games, so I hope that Anet do not go there with GW2 now.

For example, guilds are made more and more peripheral in an area of the game like WvW, as most players do not interact through their guilds there and rely on public pickup commanders. On the other hand, the guild is a “higher-order minority” as those commanders, in contrast to the players that follow them, tend to gain their experience as commanders through gameplay in a tight-knit group of friends in a guild or akin to a guild – in that more organized content – so sidelining the idea of guilds from the overall idea of content in that game-mode tend to lead to less commanders. Less commanders and the content they provide, because the process that encourages new commanders gets stifled (ie., the player as an enabler and in turn the game’s story-telling aspect). No stories are told and all players are affected by that in some way.

The use of tomes, or not, is similar in a way. They are (or have been-) used by those interested in- and capable of driving change. Most players do not use them and they are certainly not used in all areas of the game where the ease and applicable nature of shout- or signet mechanics is preferred. That, however, does not mean that tomes are not used, could potentially be used or does not fill some form of function. They do. They fill a function among groups that look at the game rather than trends and that is what creates new trends. Tomes were very popular early on the game even though they may not be very popular now. Very few concrete things have changed, they just don’t fit into the current dominant abstract ideas of how the game is best played. Taking tomes away may please players short-term and/or in popular game modes, but also leave the game with less potential and dynamics.

If the discussion is about the tome mechanics: Look at the actual tome mechanics to see that they are not different from other “form” mechanics such as Tornadoes, Liches or Rampages. They are forms. We see no calls for the removal of other forms. Rightly so, as the mechanic is not faulty, only, possibly, the set of abilities or certain abilities tied to the skills in question.

Look at the actual design and its’ potential instead of just looking at trends and common use. Long-term the game will be hurt if changes are only driven by unreflected oppinion to maxmize utility and/or please players.

Taking tomes away would be a mistake for those reasons.

There are basically two ways to look at the future of scoring in WvW (and WvW at large).

Either we reign in the coverage concept (that comes with ticks) or we build a completely new mechanical concept.

Captures, ticks and server numbers

If you want to keep so many points tied to captures and tick (over open-field encouragement and player-kills) you obviously need to do something about all hours coverage and point-distribution, such as making ticks in regional prime-time far more valuable than ticks in regional off-time. That would be enough to let whoever wins prime-time – when everyone has some coverage and where fights actually occur, to balance open-field and objective siege – also win the day and by extension the week. That’s the short-term benefitial and easily implemented option.

Kills and group numbers leading to server numbers

Long term, if you also want to deal with the issue of transfers, stacking and the most numerous servers becomming the most powerful through bodies on field (and AoE mechanics) you would do best to change the scoring mechanic itself to something akin to kills-per-death ratios or similar. It could be capture-based as well, such as captures per online numbers, giving more points when you don’t have queues etc, on some linear scale. However, for any such system, letting the kill-modifier be higher (and possibly also be kill/number or kill/death modified) is much more likely to yield positive results as it would encourage smaller groups (guilds) to engage larger groups (other guilds, server pickups) in open field and not just hold up in towers to cull numbers with siege weapons.

Scoring and numbers derived from combat mechanics

There are further options, as hinted above, to adress field-dominance with changes to combat mechanics (such as taking a look at the AoE cap and similar things), but it’s not as easy as to hastily remove caps or improve such damage since they serve a purpose to both balance numbers and offensive to defensive builds or tactics. That would mean that even details in the combat mechanics, if adressed, would need to be adressed with some scalable numerical concern (letting eg., the AoE cap glide based on numbers on screen or similar). It’s an intricate way to go about it that goes outside of the scoring portion, I just wanted to add it to provide some perspective on how scoring and numbers relate and point to other options or ways to approach changes.