Ironically, the WvW Beta buff gives +15% exp from kills despite kills no longer giving exp.
I’m pretty sure they’re not doing it haphazardly. I don’t know as much about the EU scene but the fact that they didn’t just merge every server speaks to the careful hand they’re using in this process.
Dolyaks spawn much more frequently than 4m intervals. There’s only kitten delay on their respawn (5m if killed) so they tend to jump out every ~2m or so, depending on the camp. As such, your estimate of PPT to PPYak ratio is way off.
That said, I can’t agree with the way you figure PPK into it. The best killscore always goes to the server with the most people…skill isn’t a real factor. Making it such a huge chunk of the score will only serve to exacerbate the current population issues.
Also, winning fights already translates into points because that team can then take an objective. There’s no need to categorically make those fights also generate direct points on such a large scale. It simply means people are winning while they’re winning which, inevitably, leads to snowball scores.
You only get proofs of heroics when you rank up and only if you open the chest that appears in your inventory.
As to the rest…unsure.
I often run a scout tag but it tends to confuse new players or those that aren’t part of the server community. It would be useful to have a different shape so that people can tell where we have eyes without having to all be in the same squad.
Minor bugfixes weren’t a part of the update, probably due to higher priority things taking up all of their time. For example, the eastern earth shrine still doesn’t give it’s blessing on capping it—you have to manually interact with it.
I think players forget how EB was always queued first before Alpine borderlands.
I have fond memories of being outnumbered on home BL while EBG was queued. It really didn’t feel any different.
Today, though, there were many more people in the BLs than there have been of late even though EBG wasn’t queued. Some were old, some new—one was a friend of mine that I was showing around. He was sort of in awe with how the map looked and was disappointed to here that ‘that flat grassy thing’ was coming back. Obviously, he has no idea about how WvW actually plays, but I thought it was amusing…
1. How do you feel overall about reward tracks?
It seems purely positive, though I’m not personally all that excited by a few more greens/blues and tomes of knowledge. It might be too much to have Supply Traps and Disablers thrown in. The armor at the end is nice, perhaps, but I can’t say I care too much about it either.
In short, there’s a reward track but it doesn’t really feel rewarding yet. Also, I wish I could cash in my participation on leaving instead of waiting for a tick.
2. What are your thoughts on the rate at which you gain participation?
This part seems fine. I play largely solo—defending and roaming. I do think that participation should be awarded for killing enemy siege and such but I haven’t been checking closely so that might already be in place.
3. How do you feel about the rate you earn reward track points?
Fairly slow, but that seems appropriate. I’d be willing to go slower if it meant the rewards were more than salvage-bait.
4. Overall, what are your impressions about the types of reward tracks we have?
I don’t care about most of the stuff. That may be atypical, but I only use the track that awards silky sand (for guild stuff for wvw) and the new ‘wvw’ track. The latter I’m still trying out.
5. Are there any other reward tracks you would really like to see?
Anything with a more aggressive wvw focus would be nice.
This makes capping towers first the only choice, not just the best choice. It won’t lead to diversity in strategy. I like the goal, but I can’t support this method of achieving it.
@Fogleg
I’m not saying that the changes were bad, just that they were nowhere near the ‘big wvw update’ I was expecting. It sounded like they had been hearing criticism from the beginning and were working on several fixes that would all be rolled into one mega-patch…but instead, they made overdue quality of life changes that seemed more like a month’s work than 3 years. Part of that is because they’re releasing things in pieces, they’ve said, but since there’s no info on what’s yet to come it is becoming harder to hold out hope.
This update was in response to a poll of these forums and reflects that in that it is more of a QoL and GvG update than any sort of WvW thing. Perhaps they just didn’t have time to address things (which is a hard pill to swallow), but I’m not stoked about waiting several months to a year just to get hints about whether this is the sort of game I want to play going forward.
I don’t know the answer to a basic question of if defensive fortifications are supposed to be a defensive force multiplier or a speed bump. I can wait if it’s the former…I’d rather spend my time elsewhere if it’s the latter.
They said they want it to be dynamic eventually, but the tech isn’t there yet. They hope it will be automatic in the future.
I don’t think there is scaling on power.
Too many people died under the oil pots, must nerf.
I hopped on the oil today and mildly annoyed a group attacking my gate. I don’t think it downed a single person, nor did it do much damage to the rams. I was also, in a separate attack, on a cannon…it took like 5 shots to bring down a ram. The handful of assaulters were actually doing more damage to the cannon and me than I was to the rams. Considering how useless Cannons/Oils are most of the time, it’d be nice if they actually did relevant damage.
That said, I agree with this change to remove condi scaling…we just need higher base damage.
They fixed this, finally, as they should have. Now they need to fix conditions working against structures. Not just in WvW but in pve as well.
They did this in fractals already.
It no longer scales with gear so that it is consistent with the power side. I imagine the damage will be changed so that it is still somewhat of a threat, maybe, since that seems like the whole point of the fire shot.
The Desert borderlands map layout has been updated with a large number of adjustments to improve navigation and create better spaces for fighting, especially around the three keeps.
GeneralBarricades have been removed entirely.
Added hay bales in some locations to negate falling damage when players land on them.
With the removal of barricades, towers are sorely lacking in immediate strategic advantage. The upgrades that can be put on them are still nice but what is the point of taking them now? The scout tower upgrade would be nice if it were automatic.
I haven’t seen any hay bales anywhere, yet. Perhaps they’re not on my usual paths?
Fire Keep
Reduced the number of fireball turrets in and around the keep.
The lord room now has more of the lava covered and additional bridges leading into it.
Widened many of the pathways outside the keep, leaving less lava exposed.
Opened new routes leading to the keep.
It is now easier to navigate around the outside of the keep due to the removal of some barriers.
Half of the sand dunes above the keep have been removed.
Moved some creatures, like the Veteran Sand Wurm, to compensate for this change.
These changes seem mostly good, though I’m worried about the significant elevation disadvantage the keep has now. Due to the elevated assault positions and low ceiling over the keep proper, it seems largely impossible to counter enemy siege. A ballista will be out of range. A treb/cata will hit the ceiling or some overhang while an enemy projectile will slide under it.
I haven’t seen the inner keep yet because I can’t stay connected long enough to retake it, but I’ll edit once that happens.
Air Keep
Reduced the number of wind turrets in and around the keep.
Changed many locations that were accessed via jump pads to be sloped terrain or staircases instead.
Added additional staircases leading up to the lord room.
Improved the layout of certain walls that were difficult to defend.
Widened many of the bridges outside the keep.
Opened new routes leading to the keep.
It is now easier to navigate around the outside of the keep due to the removal of some barriers.
The bamboo bridge area south of the keep has been simplified, and the terrain has been raised.
On the north side of the keep, the top jump pad no longer pushes a player high enough to get onto the bridge. It doesn’t serve any function, actually, so I assume it wasn’t intended.
Also on the north side of the keep, the western rock outcropping was scaled back to allow more access to the keep…but the mortar wasn’t moved. The mortar now floats in mid-air, totally useless.
On the northern outer wall, there’s a staircase that now allows players to get up onto the wall…and that’s supposed to make it easier to defend? There’s no room to place any defensive siege that can cover the area without being instantly killed. It’s now slightly easier to get a disable off, maybe, but being pulled is certain death. Unless there were more changes in the pipeline, the stairs did not come close to accomplishing their stated goal.
South inner is no better. It’s still a pain since targeting something placed in the corner of the wall/rock is super difficult, but it’s at least possible, now. Unfortunately, there’s no place to build siege that isn’t in elementalist/ranger range. It’s also easier to use an outside AC to clear inside siege than it is to use inside siege to clear an outside AC. Again, the changes did little towards accomplishing their stated goal.
That said, thanks for trying. I’d rather you acknowledge and attempt to solve the problems than do nothing. Unfortunately, your efforts didn’t pan out this time…I hope there’s a repass before the next quarterly update.
Doing something about proxy catas would be a more judicious use of time than reworking individual walls so that they have a chance of repelling groups that don’t contain a single ranger or elementalist.
The layout changes outside of the keep seem ok. That’s something I’ll have to play around with more
Earth Keep
Added additional staircases leading up to the lord room.
Widened the canyons outside the keep.
Removed many of the teleporters that were in the canyons.
The layout changes seem great so far. Not sure what the note about teleporters is for, though. Some were removed since the area was flattened, but that only seems natural. None of the others seem to have disappeared.
Of note, the Northeast wall on Rampart is even harder to defend than the walls on Airkeep that you changed. Also, due to the diagonal hitbox bug, the catas there can take down both inner and outer. Are there plans to do anything about that?
WvW Skill Changes
Most of these are just adding caps onto walls and what not. It’s nice, but only affects groups larger than 10 and only in fights. If the wall effects are lumped together, there were only 5 skill changes. 2 for guardian, 2 for warrior and then walls. Only the wall change really seemed WvW specific and, to my knowledge, none of the skills were split from their PvP/PvE counterparts. I know this isn’t everything, but can we have an idea of what else is coming? And how soon?
On a related note, are there any ideas about changing how AoE maps onto walls?
Other Changes
The UI stuff is nice, though it still doesn’t communicate how scoring happens very well. As in, at all. Being able to see how long objectives have been held and what their upgrade status is at a glance is nice. Reducing the maximum health scaling is ok, though it seems like a zerg-oriented change. It depends on the cut-off for maximum scaling, I guess.
The new merchants and WvW spec are all good too. Fluff like that is totally appreciated—and necessary for quality of life.
Absentees
-The only siege update was a nerf to Shield Generators, which was warranted. There was no change to, perhaps, make siege a meaningful part of gameplay rather than a tedious formality. Most siege placements are still to minimize the amount of interaction your opponent can have with it (very successfully, I might add) while also maximizing damage output. As long as those two goals can be achieved concurrently, there’s no point in doing anything interesting with siege.
-Server rewards weren’t addressed either. Personal reward is necessary and a great addition, but without a reason for servers to want to win matches, we’re still sort of dead in the water.
-Killing enemy siege still doesn’t give credit for a defense event.
-The guards in Southeast Camp still do not aggro when the supervisor is approached from certain angles. They are still not in the ring, either. I imagine the other camps where this was the case are the same.
(edited by Sviel.7493)
I read the whole thing and am continuing to keep up with it. There were no direct answers to my questions but it did sound like they weren’t holding anything back. I’m kind of baffled as to how this can really be it…but oh well.
I wonder what the big WvW update we’ve all been waiting for is, though. They added a single reward track, new armor and tweaked a handful of HoT skills. Meanwhile, there’s a useless, floating mortar at north Airkeep now, the final jump pad on the north side doesn’t push a player high enough to get on the bridge (or anywhere), and siege play went completely untouched.
If we have to wait another 3-4 months for them to even talk about those things I’m probably going to call it quits. Rewards are nice and all but they don’t do me any good if the gameplay is rubbish.
Does anyone not from maguuma agree with spawn camping?
from what i’ve seen, a few, from t3 and up.
It would make sense that with a larger population, it becomes less offensive and more strategic. A large population can afford to entertain a fight at the camp and still have multiple teams capping in bl’s and using side exits, so it can be a distraction tactic as well. It does come down to population, when your spawn camp, your side exits and borderlands are covered by the enemy.
maguuma is talking about side exits, and bls…..but maguuma also has the population to cover all corners…..what makes matters worse is the 2nd opponent takes advantage of the scenario and caps on the camped server in fear of retaliation from the larger server doing the spawn camping. so in essence it’s a 2 v 1 – despite that it wasn’t intended to be.
maguuma forgets that they are not the only enemy on the field when they post in favor of it, but in reality, the 3rd server ends up attacking camped server and only defending against maguuma. thus double teaming indirectly and exacerbating the issue.
I’m not part of the SoS EBG crew but I can assure that most of our commanders get their kicks out of hitting Maguuma. DH doesn’t bring much fight and is also a non-factor in the PPT game…though it’s not quite as wet noodle as SBI, so that’s cool.
There are dozens of threads from the beginning of WvW that detail the suffering that happened while waiting for rankings to sort themselves out. Whatever problems we have now, a reset would surely make them worse.
While it obviously makes putting up a solo cata more of a chore, the change was sorely needed. The impact on roaming was 1 more supply run. The impact on zergs was cutting the amount of placed siege almost in half.
I don’t think that this is a good way to solve the problem you’ve laid out. Since, as you mentioned, we can already wear down their supply, killing the people would be somewhat redundant. People can’t do anything without supply.
It does lead to fights being all or nothing, though, but we need a different way to address that.
I don’t think that this is a good way to solve the problem you’ve laid out. Since, as you mentioned, we can already wear down their supply, killing the people would be somewhat redundant. People can’t do anything without supply.
It does lead to fights being all or nothing, though, but we need a different way to address that.
It doesn’t take towers to apply pressure to a keep. Even as a solo roamer, I can force keeps to lose supply or, at best, break even.
However, in order to mitigate the effectiveness, realize that the gates on the keep will be paper even when it’s upgraded unless the team has held their NWT for at least a day (reinforced) or 3 days (fortified). Meanwhile, if the assaulting team has held their NET for a comparable amount of time, they can blast all of the siege out of the bunkered keep which will force them to expend supply and, if well-coordinated, buy time to do serious damage to or breach the perimeter.
Though, any server that bunkers so hard that they ignore their towers/camps will not have any chance of winning. Of course, we need a good carrot on the end of the stick to make things really work as best they could, but that’s a problem for another thread.
@joneirikb
Yeah, it’s really hard to be sure about the numbers. The abilities themselves would also need to be tested, I think. I’m not really married to anything so long as they promote varying styles of play. If seasons ever return, I think it would be interesting to see several different strategies (like in e-sports) rather than everyone trying to be the most massive zerg.
@Dawdler
I wanted to give them the option to bunker in their keeps while increasing the opportunity cost (no Research from towers) and giving their enemies a way to deal with it. Since the PPT is concentrated in the keeps, they’ll have to fight for them rather than just running around capping whatever happens to be near.
@Fogleg
Only keeps get more points when upgraded. The result is that less points come from PPT overall and a small team can put a bigger dent in it by denying upgrades. It doesn’t ‘solve’ nightcapping and I don’t think anything will—but it does lower the runaway score effect.
@Korgov
You’re using the total number of objectives on all 4 maps. Also, yak spawn rates are high enough that more than 4 spawn for each path each tick.
On any given borderland, there are 145 points from structures today. Meanwhile, enough yaks spawn to give over 215 PPT. Anet calculated the loss of PPT for a server that held no camps to be 66%, though that includes the loss of the 5 static PPT for owning the camp.
EBG throws it off some since the yaks there all end at SMC and thus don’t give any points to 2 out of 3 servers.
I know I usually look at things that are or have been, but this time I want to propose something that may be. This is not a map-specific proposition, though I use the DBL names for towers because they have unique identities. It assumes that the HoT WP system remains in place, though it attempts to move it closer to the old style.
Goals
-Increase the impact of the Borderlands on EBG in order to promote WvW as a single war rather than 4 maps that have nothing to do with one another.
-Increase the sense of a homeland border to make it less attractive to trade borders with an enemy instead of fighting them offensively and defensively.
-Increase the strategic and tactical importance of holding towers.
-Reduce the effects of off-hours capping in terms of scoring without diminishing the importance of player’s actions during this time.
-Increase the importance of roaming and scouting on the borderlands without unduly impacting EBG or punishing large groups.
-Allow servers to fine-tune their own win conditions. Specifically, allow them to gain more points from PPK if they work towards that or gain certain defensive advantages.
-Introduce mechanics to deal with the imperviousness of siege bunkering.
-Increase the diversity of siege assaults.
-Create a more dynamic weekly flow so that the game feels different and encourages different approaches as the week goes on.
Restrictions
-Avoid giving combat bonuses: Players do not wish to stomp opponents because of higher base stats.
-Avoid PvE mechanics that interfere with fights: Because they’re just annoying.
Current System
Every 15 minutes, points are accrued based on the number and type of structures owned (PPT). These points account for ~40% of passive points on the borderlands while PPYak (from yaks arriving at their destinations) count for the remaining 60%. Objective upgrades do not factor into PPT. Player kills give 1 point (PPK) regardless of stomp. Waypoints are available only at certain structures (1 per team per map) and come online as soon as the objective as flipped.
Proposed System
-Ticks now happen every 60 minutes rather than every 15 minutes.
The idea behind this change is to further shift the point distribution to PPY and PPK since those are much more easily influenced by small teams and solo players. In addition, a borderland that isn’t seeing any action at all no longer accumulates as many points. This should allow servers that are vastly outnumbered to have a better avenue to keep the score from blowing up.
-Keeps now reward more PPT based on their upgrade status. Base PPT is 50 with an additional 25 PPT earned per tier to a maximum of 125 PPT. Due to the tick changes, this results in between 50% to 125% of the current PPT. Other structures will tick for 25% of their current PPT.
-Waypoints are now initially available at T3, though they are still restricted by server.
-Towers now progress various Research Abilities every tick. This only applies to towers on one’s home BL—while a team can hold enemy towers for PPT and PPY, they will have no effect on Research.
All Tower Devices can be trebbed (with mastery) to destroy 10 Energy per shot. Losing the tower drains all energy but does not reset Research. Once the Research quota is met, the tower does not have to be held to benefit from the passive effects.
NWT – Academy: Restoration. Gates on all maps may only upgrade to the maximum tier allowed by this research.
25 ticks allow Reinforced Gates.
75 ticks allow Fortified Gates.
Every yak thereafter builds 50 Energy within the tower’s Device. The Device can only be activated from within the tower and, after a 1 minute delay, repairs the gates and walls of the targeted allied objective (on any map). The repair is done for 3 minutes at a rate of 1 Energy = 1 Supply and drains 30 Energy per minute—not fast enough to repel attacks. Multiple damaged gates/walls are repaired simultaneously but cause Energy to drain faster.
NET – Necropolis: Corrosive Fog.
25 ticks allows for Corrosive Fog.
Every yak thereafter builds 50 Energy within the tower’s Device. The Device can only be activated from within the tower and has a 1 minute delay. When used, fog is created around the perimeter of an allied non-camp objective that deals 1,000 damage per second for 60 seconds to enemy siege within 600 range of the perimeter. This costs 100 Energy. If the fog targets an enemy camp instead, it reduces the supply in the camp to 0 and prevents supply regeneration for 5 minutes. The fog has no effect on players.
75 ticks allows for Fog Blast.
For 500 Energy, Fog Blast deals 100,000 damage to all enemy siege in an allied or enemy structure after a 1 minute delay.
SWT – Outpost: Bloodlust.
25 ticks allows for +1 PPStomp.
Every yak thereafter builds 50 Energy within the tower’s Device. On a successful stomp in any map, 10 energy is drained and +10 points are gained.
75 ticks triples PPK and PPS. The bonus points from Energy in the tower are not affected by this.
SET – Depot: Waypoint Gizmo.
Every yak builds 50 Energy in the tower’s Device, even before Research completion. For 1,000 Energy, a restricted WP on an enemy keep may be unlocked until that keep flips.
25 ticks allows WPs at T2.
50 ticks allows WPs at T1.
75 ticks allows WPs at T0.
Ideally, this system will create a varying importance to towers depending on the specific servers in the map. When facing a server that focuses on fights, it would be prudent to hold their SWT as much as possible. At the very least, keeping them from getting yaks into it will prevent them from gaining massive points.
Conversely, a fight-oriented server would do well to pressure an opponent’s NWT to keep their gates fragile—forcing a combat oriented defense. They might also wish to develop their own NET in order to deal with a heavy bunker situation.
I don’t expect that everything will work out exactly as planned, though. Adjustments—big and small—are likely necessary.
Is there a way that you can provide data from the past? I want to get an idea of the scope of WvW’s decline—both in actual population and the magnitude of the fights.
Compared to that, Maguuma roamers are neither talented in fights or strategy…just numbers.
Bring a friend. I’ll 1v2 you
That’s not what I’m here for, sorry.
My T3 experience so far… watching us go neck and neck with Maguuma and SOS. Then watching Maguuma pull out gigantic server blobs to run the map and spawn camp us for about two to three days so as to get enough of a lead where they felt we were no longer a threat and then back off. Watching them siege our spawn while spawn camping. Watching them put an emergency waypoint on our keep to spawn camp us. Watching Maguuma pull gigantic blobs whenever they feel like they can’t retrieve an objective with some of their faceroll easy melt roamer compositions. T3 has been a blast. I can’t understand why more people don’t play World vs. World…
The first few days with Darkhaven in T3 were great, but after the weekend it went downhill very quickly. I look forward to another ~2 days of fun at the next reset, at least.
I have to agree that Maguuma is my least favorite opponent (and I spent a lot of time facing YB). The corpse jumping and laugh spam suggests a dire view of their sportsmanship. They also tend to run Dragon Hunters/Reapers en masse, which is fine, but is not as interesting as the more varied builds I saw from other servers. They also have a nasty habit of hiding multiple mesmers in everything which forces long sweeps after every wall breach. Again, it’s a legitimate tactic, but they push it to the extreme. I’ve actually had to bring out the stealth traps and, most surprisingly, actually seen mesmers get caught by them because they were so repetitive in their hiding. I know at least 4 Maguuma mesmers by sight, at this point.
The best roamers I’ve seen were on SBI, probably. Some were pretty bad but a few gave me fairly epic fights. Some just flipped camps but there were others that could traverse the entire map without tagging a single objective or being lit of by a sentry and then, in a matter of 35 seconds, flip north camp. They came in a variety of builds and skills—I remember a condi Druid that loved to solo the southern towers if I ever took my eyes off of him and a burn Guardian that could ‘ghost’ all over and flip things before I had a chance to defend them.
Compared to that, Maguuma roamers are neither talented in fights or strategy…just numbers.
I definitely feel you on this, though I’m sure it’s staying in rotation. That said, there might still be technical issues with quickly changing the maps.
Where is this merchant missing from? EBG? EotM? One of the borderlands?
If there are no supplies, how do the invaders get through the wall and how do the defenders attempt to stop them? There must be meaningful gameplay around the fortresses walls or there’s no point in having them—they’ll only be seen as an impediment to the fight that is tedious, but not challenging, to bring down.
1-A keep and the two camps feeding into it generate 101 PPT. 5 for each camp, 25 for the keep and 33 per camp for the yaks that travel each tick. In other words, flipping all of the camps for a keep reduces it’s PPT value to 25%—It’s even more extreme of a drop for a tower. The mechanic you’re suggesting has been in the game since HoT dropped but it was never communicated to players in-game so, of course, they don’t realize how much of an impact they’re having.
2-That would see more use by everyone but roamers. There’s no way to restrict it either…nor does it really seem necessary since ballistas are already so cheap.
3-I don’t think this would make roaming more meaningful, necessarily, but it is almost a workable idea. I don’t like the kind of behavior that it promotes, though, and imagine it would see more use with gank squads (parties or just running squadless) than roamers.
(edited by Sviel.7493)
What’s the point of this? It’s as much a stripped down version of WvW as the GvG scene is. I could see it as a lacking replacement for WvW (much like GvG) but it wouldn’t work alongside it.
Also, if it uses the same system as WvW, it’s going to end up being a 20v20 melee because the walls will fall when supply is gone or well before with tricky siege placement. Conversely, the walls could never fall if supply is infinite and then there’d be nothing but a stalemate. The more concessions you make to keep those things from happening the closer you get to actual WvW…at which point, why bother?
There are so many things wrong with this, though. For starters, EBG is a more skirmish-oriented map that, of course, devolves into zergVzerg. The borderlands, both of them, place far more emphasis on tracking enemy locations and dealing with them (or their supply) before they reach an objective. While there is some overlap, the two maps support different styles of play.
To make a borderland into an EBG map would require a huge redesign, no matter the starting point. Even then, it wouldn’t be as good as something that was meant for the job from the start.
If you’re planning to transfer because of merges, why not just wait a week and transfer if merges are announced? Should be the same result as if you transferred now—maybe slightly more expensive.
I reduced the number of guards to be consistent with EB and ABL.
EB & ABL camps start with 1 Supervisor, 2 Scouts and 1 Guard
DBL camps started with 1 Supervisor and 4 Guards
Ok, that’s fair.
I thought the increased number of guards was supposed to make camps more difficult, so I didn’t peg it as a map only thing. Since I’ve been on EBG maybe twice since HoT dropped, I didn’t realize that camps were different there.
Since they’ve made updates to the Desert maps in builds after the return of Alpine, I imagine they’ll be coming back.
Why reduce the number of base guards, though? Perhaps there’s some other motivation, but that doesn’t seem in line with the other two changes. Since the second change isn’t a big jump in power and the third is more of a bugfix, why weaken camps with the first change?
I used to run almost full tank prior to HoT since my job was not to die. Soon after, I switched to off-tank because there was just no way to survive the new damage levels. Also, even in a camp full of guards, the new elite specs were only mildly annoyed by our combined damage.
I would not bother doing anything on a tank guardian except maybe zerging. Roaming is for burn guards and dragon hunters.
Meta events are not the answer as they effectively restrict playing to that small area. When they happen so often, the whole game becomes about the meta event. Also, people need to be compensated for popping in and doing w/e at any time—they should have to work for no reward because they couldn’t participate in this event or couldn’t succeed it during their run.
Also, the event gives no incentive to defend either. Why watch your Ramparts when you can go siege and enemy tower for a treasure trove?
The problems that made them stop doing seasons (population imabalance/the lack of viability of WvW with temporary population imbalances) still exists, so don’t expect them back anytime soon.
Ok, I like this Tyler guy, lol~
I distinctly remember being accused of advocating for more PvE when I said that guards should all aggro and that, maybe, there should be ranged guards in higher tiers.
It amuses me, also, that people complain about more PvE without articulating what it means. The Oasis was by far the strongest argument, but the PvE there came with huge PvP potential (though it didn’t work out for other reasons). There are fewer aggro mobs on DBL than Alpine, too, and the veterans are even more out of the way. Doesn’t anyone recall the wolves around Garri? The raptors around SWT? The coyotes around SET? The ice wurms near NET? The eagles near Bay? The bears/raptors/eagles/wolves near Hills?
The only time I get tagged by an aggro mob on DBL is a single Winged Jackal thing on the way from Rampart to Airkeep. There’s some rock dogs near SW spawn but they don’t aggro yaks and I’ve never fought them. I think there are plated behemoths near SE spawn but they aren’t on the road or in any area I ever need to go. I suppose the Oasis has aggro stuff but, as much as I run through it, I never have to even go out of my way to avoid things.
Yeah, I saw the title and thought you were talking about fighting a Chronomancer…depends on how many people were there, I guess.
It really annoys me to see people make blatantly false claims about DBL. There are legitimate reasons to dislike it and some people hit on those—but there are also gross exaggerations. Worse, there’s the idealistic and false claims about Alpine, as if people have already forgotten it. And then there’s all these zerglings and wall ornaments claiming to represent scouts.
Why can’t we consider things with some semblance of objectivity? Why all the drama?
What I’m seeing in the offending elite specs is a preponderance of CC, defensive skills and damage.
DH in particular is silly as it has massive melee damage in the form of traps, great ranged damage, a ranged nullifier that lasts very long and a wall of reflect, then an array of blocks, immunities, knockbacks, pulls, etc. They just cover all of their bases too well.
Contrast that with old warriors that could knock you around quite a bit but did less burst damage and were vulnerable to being kited from range.
Reapers, on the other hand, reprise the necromancer’s role of being monsters at close range but being vulnerable to kiting…except with their increased ability to chill and newfound mobility, it can be a bit overbearing. Still, I would be remiss to nerf power reapers too harshly. The true problem is the condi reaper as they can do all of their damage from range but still benefit from the enhanced survivability. Problems inherent to condi aside, there’s no way to fight them—every choice is wrong.
Scrappers are harder to pin down because I don’t see them as often. They seem to have permanent swiftness/super-speed, great CC/damage and utility to boot. I think they’re too strong but I don’t really know what to change about them.
I thought Power of the Mists only applied while on a WvW map. Clearly, the wiki says otherwise, but I wonder why I’ve been so consistently told as much.
At any rate, I don’t think it’s very visible at all to the average player…no incentive system is effective if it goes unnoticed.
Since my job, as a roamer, is to protect soft targets like camps and sentries, I’ll totally ambush people if I get the chance. I don’t have anything to prove—I’m not trying to become the best there ever was or some nonsense.
This idea makes me pretty nervous, but it may be good nonetheless. I’d tie it to overall score, though not PPT—that way, people don’t rush out of the game mode as soon as they get a high tick. Also, having it take effect only after the end of the match (for the following week) would make it less volatile.
The biggest flaw that I can see is that the people working for the reward are going to be in WvW too much to actually benefit from it.