Guild Wars 2

Jana.6831:

EotM is pretty complictaed. It is imbalanced, it has got too many stupid PvE elements, the people don’t use it like it was intended to be used.
Unfortunately it has stayed as it is for too long, so removing it now wouldn’t do any good either.
And I partly agree – EotM players are a different breed BUT – there’s no reason to give regular wvw a shot and new players might think that EotM is in fact wvw and never give it a try. Also by removing it you would destroy the last bit of wvw a lot of the lower servers have got left (a friend of mine is on a dead server – he hopes for them to be green so he can at least play EotM) – That being said: EotM should be overworked and balanced too, but with a different mindset than regular wvw as the EotM plays have got different priorities.
And: The only thing that really bothers me is that EotM players have got diamond ranks.

How is eotm complicated?

What is imbalanced?

What are these “too many pve elements” compared to wvw?

Players are there playing so how is it not being used as intended?

“without rewards” and “remove xp and badges”….

I would be afraid for the game if some of you were calling the shots. GW2 would tank pretty fast.

I could imagine a blog post from some of you saying… “Since some of you customers are not real pvpers, and since eotm is not real pvp, we are removing all rewards and progress from the eotm game mode”.

It’s sad to see that some of you want to increase wvw population and build up communities, yet fail to see that eotm is pvp and could be a great resource for recruitment.

Also, eotm is fast paced compared to wvw so that’s appealing to players. I use to pvp pretty hardcore in other games and I find the pace of wvw completely boring as all get out compared.

And if you want to talk about rewards, well, I can farm SW and get 10x more loot and karma from there per hour. I can farm fractal 40 and get better loot drops and 3000 karma per 5 minute run.

What are we buying that’s so amazing with badges anyway? Nothing. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, because all players are entitled to rewards and progress.

Wxp issues in eotm for some of you? Eotm is still pvp and you’re doing the same activities in wvw.

Honestly, the devs can only do so much to build up the pvp side of the game, the players have to take better responsibly for coming together and forming a solid community.

[Mod Note: edited for flaming and unconstructive comment]

Silverstone.4539:

Maybe it was needed back in the day, when there was high population in WvW servers. But now, I think I see more people in EoTM than I do in WvW maps.

If Anet are true to their word and want to see WvW good again (i know, a little hard to believe right now), they must consider this.

EoTM is sucking WvW population. More so for the lower tier servers maybe. As you can go there to find more people from more servers. If there is a queue on all WvW maps, then and only then should EoTM be open, and for a shorter time, maybe 2 hours or an hour. If there is no queue for WvW. EoTM should be locked out. We are spreading what little WvW players we still have too thin.

Unless Anet has something new planed to fix the WvW/server population. This would be one way to start.

Hi,

There is a lot of buzz going around about the April live test update that includes population balance fixes and rewards.

Your request is like saying remove fractals so raids get more participation, but stuff like that won’t happen. Neither would canning spvp so you get more high quality commanders and havok groups that know how to beat up pixels pretty well.

Removing a game mode doesn’t mean another one will flourish. The people who are in eotm are comprised of many servers, so even if you were to close it you would only get handful amounts of people in wvw at any given time to fight for your individual server. Those amounts would be negligible.

Both wvw and eotm can coexist. It’s just that wvw needs some tlc and it will be ok.

Just move out of the red circles and things will be ok.

Puck.9612:

Swagger.1459:

ArchonWing.9480:

Pffttt, and I already got 8/9 specializations the hard way.

Granted, it will still be tedious grinding them in WvW, but at least you won’t have to leave WvW it. In PvE you could unlock the whole thing in a few hours, much less if you have any degree of social skills or click LFG while (non-EOTM) WvW would take 10-20 hours depending on what you do.

In practice this benefits mostly people who usually WvW, PvP’ers that don’t pve at all but sometimes go into wvw, or people that really hate the new maps. For anyone else, it’s still the same basically.

For my future Rev and for anyone else that still needs elite specs, that is a good thing.

Will also be great for future elite specializations so save them.

Bet you a dollar any new specialization gets locked behind a new currency

Hope not, but it’s entirely possible.

ArchonWing.9480:

Pffttt, and I already got 8/9 specializations the hard way.

Granted, it will still be tedious grinding them in WvW, but at least you won’t have to leave WvW it. In PvE you could unlock the whole thing in a few hours, much less if you have any degree of social skills or click LFG while (non-EOTM) WvW would take 10-20 hours depending on what you do.

In practice this benefits mostly people who usually WvW, PvP’ers that don’t pve at all but sometimes go into wvw, or people that really hate the new maps. For anyone else, it’s still the same basically.

For my future Rev and for anyone else that still needs elite specs, that is a good thing.

Will also be great for future elite specializations so save them.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

DeWolfe.2174:

FogLeg.9354:

Zephyra.4709:

Long text

Even you, who try to defend EotM can not provide any reason for it to exist. Yes, there was once many players waiting in queues. There is none now. Yes it was suppose to be testing ground. That never happened.

And when they roll out the big WvW update and it goes to Alliances, you’ll then know what’s been tested.

Very exciting!!!

Yup exciting to not be able to notice how many players have left.

Yeah, they spend more effort in making things look like the population isn’t dropping than they do on solutions to stop it from dropping to begin with.
I understand it can be difficult but how many times have they made changes that are in direct opposition to what people want. This is the only game I have played where it honestly feels like a case study on how much they can mess with a game and its player base and still be profitable. IMO they have done way to many things for it to just be bad decisions. Every other MMO I have played has stumbled on the way but GW2’s stumbles feel more blatant to me. Maybe its just the egos that are in charge and they want their vision no matter the cost but that is a really bad attitude to have.

Well, population balance and rewards are extremely important and being addressed this month.

I’m not exactly happy about things myself, and agree with some of what you say, but it’s not about ego. I personally feel it’s about staffing issues and project management more than anything.

We will have to wait and see what turn arounds anet will make.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Swagger.1459:

DeWolfe.2174:

FogLeg.9354:

Zephyra.4709:

Long text

Even you, who try to defend EotM can not provide any reason for it to exist. Yes, there was once many players waiting in queues. There is none now. Yes it was suppose to be testing ground. That never happened.

And when they roll out the big WvW update and it goes to Alliances, you’ll then know what’s been tested.

Very exciting!!!

Yup exciting to not be able to notice how many players have left.

It is what it is.

Everything will be ok, wvw will survive and start thriving again soon.

There is always eotm if you don’t like the new “real” wvw.

DeWolfe.2174:

FogLeg.9354:

Zephyra.4709:

Long text

Even you, who try to defend EotM can not provide any reason for it to exist. Yes, there was once many players waiting in queues. There is none now. Yes it was suppose to be testing ground. That never happened.

And when they roll out the big WvW update and it goes to Alliances, you’ll then know what’s been tested.

Very exciting!!!

I sense some bitterness here.

Don’t hate on eotm just because it’s a fun and fast paced casual wvw zone that doesn’t have any issues like “real” wvw.

The question now is…

Will anet scrap the “journey” and handle legendaries more like before?

I’d like to see matching sets of legendaries made for each weapon and have all the new ones sellable on the bltc so there are options outside of the grind.

It would also be awesome for players, and profitable for anet, if they sold legendary weapon, armor and back skins on the bltc and through the bl specialist.

Angel Heart.6739:

@ Swagger

True, but it happens on my WvW server, can deny things that really happen is that generalising?

You do have a point its not because it happens on SFR that it happens on evry WvW-server, i am sure there are servers out there where the guilds still work towards the win for their Server and leave EBG when its needed even when there is a Queue:-)

you are right ofcourse there needs to be more emphasis on actually fighting over the objectives wetter its defending or capping.

I apologize sorry i hurt your feelings :-)
my sincerest apology

What’s making you assume you hurt my feelings?

Sarrs.4831:

Swagger.1459:

Anet is now starting to be mindful of the over grind they have created and we will just have to wait to see where it all goes with collections and Legendary Insights.

“Over grind” seems a bit silly considering it’s a set of gear which you can swap to any stat, including future sets.

The first half of the sentence I spoke in general terms. If you are aware of things then you know anet is now being more mindful toward the casual experience this game was built on.

There have been a number of valid complaints about the grind, gates and time investment needed to progress and to achieve certain things, so the devs have mentioned reducing the “tedium” and being more aware of time investments needed. Pretty sure they will do a “tedium and time” check in all parts of the game, and this would apply to collections and crafting. Also, now that there has been such a backlash on the legendary weapon front, I’m sure all legendary systems will get a review and we will see weapons reintroduced and better paths to legendary weapons and armor as well.

@Angel Heart

“With all due respect Competion or not when there is a queue on EBG you can whistle for the lootbag-commanders to come, they won’t come until the queue on EBG is gone. If they get into a fight wetter it be on ts or teamchat the first thing you will read are the next words “Can we get back to defending Stonemist before there’s a new queue”

Can you deny that?

Maybe they got a guilty conscience seeing many of them after a hard days labour at Stonemist on EBG will go PPT and nightcap if they feel up to it, easy caps no fights no enemies?"

You generalize too much and should look at things from a broader view.

Killing the enemy is the core of player vs player. All else is secondary and “winning” is currently meaningless without greater rewards.

Honestly, what do you win for defending a structure?

Answer is nothing.

What do you win for placing in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place?

Nothing.

When defending and winning really matter then players may care more, until then it doesn’t matter what players do inside wvw.

LegACy.1296:

GoldenTruth.2853:

LegACy.1296:

…but does anyone know how many times the bosses in Salvation Pass need to be killed to complete collection #7-#12 for the Legendary Armor?

Just need to kill all wing 2 bosses once.

All right, thanks for the info. I think this settles one thing regarding ANet’s direction…

For the foreseeable future, even if there’s an easier mode for raid, player will NOT be able to get Legendary armor from that mode. (note: this is ANet’s current consideration/plan/design, not mine)

A short summary of how I get to that conclusion:
Basically anet see “clear the raid” as the requirement for getting legendary armor, NOT “grind the raid”. If Anet saw “grind the raid” as the requirement, if they make easier mode, they can simply make it so the requirement is either “grind the normal raid” OR “grind the easier raid longer”. But since the requirement is “clearing”, even if there’s an easier mode, the requirement can only be “clear the normal raid”, since there’s no equivalent of that requirement on easy mode.

Longer thought:
Initially I was theorizing about the actual implementation of “1/3 reward for easier mode” that Ohoni’s been proposing. 1/3 reward, which means the weekly shard cap is 33 instead of 100, which also means that players can only get ascended glove (the cheapest asc gear) after 5-6 weeks of raiding. Also lower chance of asc gear dropping. I got 40 LI and 4 or 5 asc gear from raid, which averages to 10-12% drop rate. So in Ohoni’s mode this will be 3.3-4% drop rate, which means player will get their first asc gear drop after 25-30 kills.

I’ll leave that discussion to another topic, and move on to another reward aspect: legendary armor collection. In Wing 1 we need to gather 5 spirit threads by killing gorseval 5 times, which means at best we can only get it after 5 weeks. In Ohoni’s mode player will need to kill Gorseval 15 times then, to gather 5 spirit threads, which means 15 weeks of killing gorseval, which is almost 4 months.

So far so good, since so far player needs to grind the raid to get legend armor, but problem is, on Wing 2 Anet changes their way of doing the armor collection. Instead of killing bosses multiple times, raider just need to kill the bosses once. Once a raider has cleared the wing, they can also pass the collection step. Which means for Anet, it isn’t important how many times a player do the raid, what’s important is that they cleared it.

Now that’s important. Anet has always like to “improve” stuff on the next iteration. Which means Wing 2 is closer to Anet’s ideal compared to Wing 1. This can be seen from how there’s no more achievement that’s similar to The Eternal achievement, or how the achi encourage new way to do the boss unlike the wing 1 achi.

So that means the wing 2 collection is closer to anet’s ideal compared to wing 1. Which means anet’s actual ideal is basically “legendary armors are for people who have cleared the current raid”, no raid grinding. And since easier mode supposedly “lengthen” the grind, it’s not compatible with anet’s ideal since there’s no actual grind involved.

Raids were rushed and are “develop as we go” content, so lots of things are up in the air.

The devs are basing difficulty of future wings based off statistics, and I made a quote of that in my op.

Legendary armor will require legendary Insights, so it’s not only about collections. The devs are currently figuring out how many Legendary Insights will be needed per armor piece. Yes, per piece. We also don’t know how collections will be handled, and so far there is only Envoy Armor 1 for the entire raid. Based off of the collection I will fully assume that we are going to have 6 completely different raids, with 3 wings each, to eventually complete a full set of legendary armor.

Anet is now starting to be mindful of the over grind they have created and we will just have to wait to see where it all goes with collections and Legendary Insights.

@Angel Heart

“if you were to follow the logic of some of the ppl helping the developers that come from the fighting and lootbag guilds
they are noobs not worthy of having their opinion asked they don’t know anything about WvW,
just the fighting and lootbag guilds know what is needed, is that right?”

First and foremost, the spirit of player vs player gameplay is fighting. Everything else is secondary.

Second, there have been zero tournaments for almost 2 years. Almost nobody cares about ppt because it’s meaningless.

Third, those “fighting and lootbag” guilds are the ones you want on your side come tournament time.

Fourth, don’t generalize groups of players, be grateful they are still playing. This includes those of you who carry negative attitudes toward players in eotm as well.

Fifth, yes, wvw is made up of many parts, but the fundamentals need to be worked on first. Those are population balance, rewards and skill balance. The rest will come in time, but there has to be a starting point.

TexZero.7910:

Swagger.1459:

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

Since you love to use my words completely out of context let me say exactly what i’ve been saying.

This portion is completely off topic… “Amalgamated Gemstones” which is the entire thing you’re referencing are bunk. Everyone can acknowledge that at the current rate the are not a sustainable market. Anet themselves even acknowledged this in their AMA.

Now that we’ve covered the off topic nonsense. Lets get back to raids.

Raids filled the whole in the game that was non-zerg, group content that was challenging and appropriately rewarding. Guess what was also acknowledged in the AMA, that raid participation is higher than in any other mmo and there’s no plans for an easy mode. The only plan is to do something for LFG.

You want to hazard a guess as to why they won’t be touching the difficulty ? It might have something to do with the remaining 98% of content out there. Heck, it might even have something to do with raids being designed around being challenging.

You know what they will never do ? Remove the unique raid rewards from the raids to cater to the people who actively refuse to participate in the content. And why should they, not like they’re handing out the Ascension or Ad Infinitum to people who don’t fractal and don’t PvP. So why, should anyone who doesn’t raid feel entitled to the Envoy Armor ?

Sometimes, as an adult you just have to accept the fact that not everything is fair and not everything is for everyone. Raids just aren’t for you, they never were and changing that experience so you can feel whole is an insult to the raid development team.

It’s completely within context. There is one area of the game that you want to be more casual friendly. So, like you, there are players who want an area of the game to be more casual friendly…

Your post history clearly shows your dislike for the way the economy has been handled and I can present your own quotes if you wish… There are players who do not like the way raids have been introduced… Same same.

You’re not going to deflect on this one.

TexZero.7910:

Astralporing.1957:

TexZero.7910:

Why is this one person suddenly any more relevant than any other ?

This one person isn’t.

TexZero.7910:

Why is this groups need (to have content changed to their whim) suddenly more necessary to do at the expense of others ?

Maybe because this group is much, much bigger, and them getting disappointed is going to hurt the game way more?

TexZero.7910:

and Why does the gem store have anything to do with this to begin with ?

Because it’s the main source of funding for the game, bigger than box purchases.

TexZero.7910:

If your entire argument is money talks, then please take it and leave as that’s never been a valid reason for changing content.

I sincerely doubt Anet’s in this for charity. Of course money talks, it’s business after all.

Except that the absurdly baseless claim was made by one person. That their money is somehow more valuable than someone else.

Maybe said one group, should just do the content then ? Or realize that there’s other content already out there for them to do, since by the admission of the person making such baseless statements they don’t care about raiding. There’s been at no point a valid reason for any attempts at a new mode of raiding that makes it worths the time or investment to even begin to attract the so called “bigger” group of people who are only after one thing, Legendary Armor.

I agree the gemstore funds the game, and i reiterate what makes your purchase any more valuable than anyone else ?

Yes, Anet is a business. It was their business decision to make content that had unique rewards tied to it. Those rewards push players to go above and beyond the rest of the content. PvP has a unique backpiece, Fractals has a unique backpiece, WvW will likely have one as well. PvE has every other skin imaginable, and Raids have a unique armorset, and weapon skins.

So why not go play the content as its part of the business model.

Just wondering Tex, you seem very anti difficulty setting for some reason and keep sticking to your mindset of raids needing to be purely “exclusive only” content, but that mindset drastically changes when it comes to economy related stuff.

You on the legendary weapon process…
“Instead of starting from the ground up and making the entire process something achievable by even the casual crowd, they’ve actually gone and pushed it into a very niche grind centric crowd.”

It’s very interesting how players are voicing the same sentiments about raids, but you seem to use more of a noninclusive attitude toward providing options for the casual crowd… Mind you, my suggestion also adds upward scaling too…

So I’ll leave some words of your wisdom to help put aside that anti casual raid mentality…

“It’s that sorta mentality that prevents progress from actually being made and the game from being fun for everyone and not the minority that hoard gold like skirtts hoard junk.”

“Yes it met it’s target goals, but in doing so it failed the average player base drastically and turns people away from actively playing the game. I’m saying this as a player who is a part of several large guilds and the same sentiments can be heard from a vast majority of anyone who is not new to the game.”

Astralporing.1957:

Sithis.3564:

Stacking in one place 99% is called hard? Granted Arah is not that easy

It is. The main problem with it is that it requires the most time.

Absurdo.8309:

And, dungeons were hard towards the beginning of the game because no one knew what to do.

And they became easier later because they were nerfed. Several times. Do you want the same happening to Raids?

Nothing needs to be nerfed, we will get difficulty settings instead.

Just waiting for Gaile to get the “green light” to make her announcement.

Chak glider and back piece.

Armors too…

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Puck.9612:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

sparc.3649:

JCKinz.2305:

2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.

^this^

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Link it to the New Legendary Armor!

Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.

I think that would revive WvW a bit.

This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.

As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.

There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.

Not an issue with paid players, since it would be for Legendary Armor, they would need to be paid players, as Raids are part of HoT Expansion.

Everything else is totally unfounded, Since it’s enticement is purely for the Legendary Armor, we have already purged the Casuals, by putting the raid up as a requirement, we are left only with skilled players that like a challenge.

Since They were ambivalent to the plight of the casuals to need to up their game to face the content, why should they expect to be pandered to in the face of this new challenge, you would think they would be excited for the chance to work towards such a goal with such opportunity to up their own game.

Maybe instead of including wvw in the legendary armor grind they should just give wvw its own set of legendary armor that is a different skin.

That way it could be achieved in either game mode but if PvE players want to unlock the skin for their fashion achievement (or whatever the hell it is they care about) they will have to play wvw

I already discussed an advanced Armor/Weapons skin table for WvW in my above post.

Building a Better WvW

Now think about this, In the current case with the Legendary Armor, Anet pretty much set the ideal stage for including WvW into this Armor Set, since they made it so that any player even thinking about doing this is first required to complete the Raid just to unlock the collection (and both raids just to complete it). That makes it the perfect gateway to move those players into WvW, since The Raid functions as a sieve blocking any Free2Play player and all but the most determined casual, unlike before where anyone that wanted Map Completion, either for title, or legendary, or just the fun of it, had to deal with WvW. That was design flaw, it drew everyone in, thus the problem was caused by too diverse a demographic.

With Legendary Armor that design flaw has been corrected, and it’s the perfect time to return the WvW requirement, as it would only apply to already self proclaimed “Hardcore” players seeking challenge, or the very determined casual player.

Both of which are exactly the kind of player we want to be… enticed into WvW and could in effect ideally contribute.

Since is would also be a much smaller group, it would not affect the majority of the game, the Raid Standard, This is the most opportune moment with the Legendary Armor Collection to return the WvW Requirement for completing a legendary again.

You can’t deny that.

And since the First Tier is already established, It would need to be applied to the Second, maybe Third Tier of the collection this would remove all but the determined players, and those people, well, they are exactly what WvW needs.

Forcing a requirement like that is not “enticement”.

Forcing people to do a Raid is not “enticement” either, but you are all for Anet doing just that. So why the sudden change of heart?

No I’m not and I’ve never said that.

I’m all for rewarding equally across the game, but anet won’t do that, so I provided suggestions to fill reward gaps in wvw by adding in ascended and some new legendary runes and sigils and infusions and trinkets.

I’m all for inclusive and challenging raids through difficulty settings, because it seems an option that anet would be more willing to do instead so all skill levels can do the content, experience the story first hand and be rewarded.

My bad. I did not recall correctly your stance. my Apologies.

It’s no problem, there are too many posts to keep track of.

We all have the same goal of trying to build up the pvp community, so we have to keep sharing our ideas to find things that stick and help keep pvp alive for the long run.

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

Puck.9612:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

sparc.3649:

JCKinz.2305:

2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.

^this^

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Link it to the New Legendary Armor!

Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.

I think that would revive WvW a bit.

This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.

As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.

There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.

Not an issue with paid players, since it would be for Legendary Armor, they would need to be paid players, as Raids are part of HoT Expansion.

Everything else is totally unfounded, Since it’s enticement is purely for the Legendary Armor, we have already purged the Casuals, by putting the raid up as a requirement, we are left only with skilled players that like a challenge.

Since They were ambivalent to the plight of the casuals to need to up their game to face the content, why should they expect to be pandered to in the face of this new challenge, you would think they would be excited for the chance to work towards such a goal with such opportunity to up their own game.

Maybe instead of including wvw in the legendary armor grind they should just give wvw its own set of legendary armor that is a different skin.

That way it could be achieved in either game mode but if PvE players want to unlock the skin for their fashion achievement (or whatever the hell it is they care about) they will have to play wvw

I already discussed an advanced Armor/Weapons skin table for WvW in my above post.

Building a Better WvW

Now think about this, In the current case with the Legendary Armor, Anet pretty much set the ideal stage for including WvW into this Armor Set, since they made it so that any player even thinking about doing this is first required to complete the Raid just to unlock the collection (and both raids just to complete it). That makes it the perfect gateway to move those players into WvW, since The Raid functions as a sieve blocking any Free2Play player and all but the most determined casual, unlike before where anyone that wanted Map Completion, either for title, or legendary, or just the fun of it, had to deal with WvW. That was design flaw, it drew everyone in, thus the problem was caused by too diverse a demographic.

With Legendary Armor that design flaw has been corrected, and it’s the perfect time to return the WvW requirement, as it would only apply to already self proclaimed “Hardcore” players seeking challenge, or the very determined casual player.

Both of which are exactly the kind of player we want to be… enticed into WvW and could in effect ideally contribute.

Since is would also be a much smaller group, it would not affect the majority of the game, the Raid Standard, This is the most opportune moment with the Legendary Armor Collection to return the WvW Requirement for completing a legendary again.

You can’t deny that.

And since the First Tier is already established, It would need to be applied to the Second, maybe Third Tier of the collection this would remove all but the determined players, and those people, well, they are exactly what WvW needs.

Forcing a requirement like that is not “enticement”.

Forcing people to do a Raid is not “enticement” either, but you are all for Anet doing just that. So why the sudden change of heart?

No I’m not and I’ve never said that.

I’m all for rewarding equally across the game, but anet won’t do that, so I provided suggestions to fill reward gaps in wvw by adding in ascended and some new legendary runes and sigils and infusions and trinkets.

I’m all for inclusive and challenging raids through difficulty settings, because it seems an option that anet would be more willing to do instead so all skill levels can do the content, experience the story first hand and be rewarded.

STIHL.2489:

Puck.9612:

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

sparc.3649:

JCKinz.2305:

2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.

^this^

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Link it to the New Legendary Armor!

Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.

I think that would revive WvW a bit.

This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.

As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.

There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.

Not an issue with paid players, since it would be for Legendary Armor, they would need to be paid players, as Raids are part of HoT Expansion.

Everything else is totally unfounded, Since it’s enticement is purely for the Legendary Armor, we have already purged the Casuals, by putting the raid up as a requirement, we are left only with skilled players that like a challenge.

Since They were ambivalent to the plight of the casuals to need to up their game to face the content, why should they expect to be pandered to in the face of this new challenge, you would think they would be excited for the chance to work towards such a goal with such opportunity to up their own game.

Maybe instead of including wvw in the legendary armor grind they should just give wvw its own set of legendary armor that is a different skin.

That way it could be achieved in either game mode but if PvE players want to unlock the skin for their fashion achievement (or whatever the hell it is they care about) they will have to play wvw

I already discussed an advanced Armor/Weapons skin table for WvW in my above post.

Building a Better WvW

Now think about this, In the current case with the Legendary Armor, Anet pretty much set the ideal stage for including WvW into this Armor Set, since they made it so that any player even thinking about doing this is first required to complete the Raid just to unlock the collection (and both raids just to complete it). That makes it the perfect gateway to move those players into WvW, since The Raid functions as a sieve blocking any Free2Play player and all but the most determined casual, unlike before where anyone that wanted Map Completion, either for title, or legendary, or just the fun of it, had to deal with WvW. That was design flaw, it drew everyone in, thus the problem was caused by too diverse a demographic.

With Legendary Armor that design flaw has been corrected, and it’s the perfect time to return the WvW requirement, as it would only apply to already self proclaimed “Hardcore” players seeking challenge, or the very determined casual player.

Both of which are exactly the kind of player we want to be… enticed into WvW and could in effect ideally contribute.

Since is would also be a much smaller group, it would not affect the majority of the game, the Raid Standard, This is the most opportune moment with the Legendary Armor Collection to return the WvW Requirement for completing a legendary again.

You can’t deny that.

And since the First Tier is already established, It would need to be applied to the Second, maybe Third Tier of the collection this would remove all but the determined players, and those people, well, they are exactly what WvW needs.

Forcing a requirement like that is not “enticement”.

We want to build communities the right way, and it’s not like this.

And no, I don’t agree with the cross over decisions anet has made. PvPers have been 2nd class citizens of the game and that’s what needs to change first.

STIHL.2489:

Swagger.1459:

STIHL.2489:

sparc.3649:

JCKinz.2305:

2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.

^this^

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Link it to the New Legendary Armor!

Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.

I think that would revive WvW a bit.

This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.

As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.

There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.

Not an issue with paid players, since it would be for Legendary Armor, they would need to be paid players, as Raids are part of HoT Expansion.

Everything else is totally unfounded, Since it’s enticement is purely for the Legendary Armor, we have already purged the Casuals, by putting the raid up as a requirement, we are left only with skilled players that like a challenge.

Since They were ambivalent to the plight of the casuals to need to up their game to face the content, why should they expect to be pandered to in the face of this new challenge, you would think they would be excited for the chance to work towards such a goal with such opportunity to up their own game.

You have to look at the bigger picture here.

If players wanted to be in wvw they would, legendary armor component hook will do nothing positive. Raid populations are not even big enough to make any difference here.

WvW needs its own set of rewards and personal progress, not gimmicks to force in players from a different game mode.

Redenaz.8631:

If ascended armor goes up in effectiveness, won’t demand for it go up as well, increasing the price and throwing the price-effectiveness ratio out of whack again?

Kinda reminds me of people who say legendary gear needs a stat boost, and I’m going to apply the same argument: It might seem too expensive for the advantage it provides, but it’s still in high demand. No need to intentionally make the demand even higher.

It will be ok if they improved the stats. The economy will be just fine.

Cyninja.2954:

Swagger.1459:

Cyninja.2954:

That would make ascended armor mandatory where it is now mostly optional.

That in turn would open a whole other can of problems.

As is, ascended armor offers min/maxers a nice goal while it keeps the actual requirements to stay competative reasonable. Not sure I agree with the idea to buff ascended armor.

There would be nothing wrong with ascended armor falling in line with weapons and trinkets. It’s more than fair or reasonable, and the cost alone justifies the stat increase.

The only players who would complain are those unwilling to build a set.

I own 4 full sets of ascended armor and I still don’t see the need to buff the stats on it.

Also trinkets are way cheaper than armor, thus while they are mandatory in pve builds now, they are easy enough to come by.

Unless you want to part with an even bigger part of the playerbase (the ones who play GW2 more casually) there is no reason to make ascended armor better. Or if you do upgrade the stats on ascended armor, reduce it’s cost by aproximately 70% (though that in turn would anoy people who made the armor while it was more expensive).

If you went through the trouble of getting ascended armor, be happy you have best in slot gear. That should be more than enough comfort. Alienating part of the playerbase is not necessary.

You yourself have mentioned that ascended armor is not worth the investment. That’s the problem, it should be made worth it and fall in line with other ascended gear.

Nobody is alienated from getting ascended.

STIHL.2489:

sparc.3649:

JCKinz.2305:

2) Reintroduce Map Completion (Gifts of Exploration) this is a necessary pipeline to bring new players to WVW experience.

^this^

I was actually disappointed to see it removed; it was a sure-fire way to get everyone to have to at least “stop in” WvW. Perfect time to “hook line and sinker”!

Link it to the New Legendary Armor!

Put in a Gift of The Borderlands for completing all 3 Borderland maps, and a Gift of the Invader for completing EB, and make them a required part of the collection to complete Legendary Armor.

I think that would revive WvW a bit.

This will just put people in wvw who don’t want to be there and it generates animosity toward the developers and the game.

As is, “play for free” players are not converting to “paid” players, so we don’t need more reasons for people to keep their wallets closed.

There are lots of rifts in this game and players are getting fed up with a lot of stuff, so let’s not encourage even more.

Cyninja.2954:

That would make ascended armor mandatory where it is now mostly optional.

That in turn would open a whole other can of problems.

As is, ascended armor offers min/maxers a nice goal while it keeps the actual requirements to stay competative reasonable. Not sure I agree with the idea to buff ascended armor.

There would be nothing wrong with ascended armor falling in line with weapons and trinkets. It’s more than fair or reasonable, and the cost alone justifies the stat increase.

The only players who would complain are those unwilling to build a set.

Ensign.2189:

They are. It’s just that most of the extra stats they give are extra armor instead of extra damage (as befitting armor), which unsurprisingly does not have a bit impact on DPS calculations.

I’m not sure we can use the “befitting armor” argument when it comes to stats.

Would be nice if ascended armor stats were on par with the stat increase that ascended weapons and trinkets have over exotics.

It’s definitely more than reasonable to up the stats considering the cost and time investment.

X T D.6458:

Swagger.1459:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Swagger.1459:

WvW is dying, that’s what is happening to every server.

Global capture volume went up last week 1.4%.

WvW as a whole.

So that means basically more people are capturing stuff, and PvD is somehow a measure of health for WvW now?

I’m not sure where you missed the parts where wvw has been bleeding out for a long time now.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Swagger.1459:

WvW is dying, that’s what is happening to every server.

Global capture volume went up last week 1.4%.

WvW as a whole.

WvW is dying, that’s what is happening to every server.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Why nerf condi? Getting wrecked by condi reapers while not having condi removal? xD

The condition system game wide has been poorly implemented. The problem is that condition and control effects can be used over and over and over.

As someone with many years of pvp experience, and who prefers pvp over pve, the condition system is very poor. As is the stealth system too.

This game was obviously built with pve in mind and stacking at bosses, not pvp. The devs are not making any changes to separate balancing because it will take effort and that’s something that’s not cared about at the moment.

Sarrs.4831:

Avarice.2791:

Make these forums great again!!!!

we should build a wall in front of the raid and make the casuals pay for it

Casuals helped build that wall, so all they want is a gateway. Until then, you’ll see the gold and ecto smugglers paying for passage through.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Jayne.9251:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Jayne.9251:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Jana.6831:

I think you’re underestimating EU players. We’re not just cattle to fill a time zone =)

Who thinks you are cattle? I think you are projecting. Maybe you simply don’t like North American players and project these negative views on to them to hide your contempt.

Either way, Anet will do what Anet will do. I doubt a lone dissenting voice from the EU will stop that.

Regardless, It is fun to watch all the different WvW factions voice their opinion in a quasi-reasonable fashion in an attempt cloak their real motivations.

She’s not alone. While I don’t speak for all of EU, if they wanted to play on NA, they would have by now. EU WVW is nowhere near as messed up as NA. There’s a (cultural) reason for that.

What cultural reasons would that be?

If you spent some time, say a year, playing EU, this would be starkly evident. It’s hard to quantify.

Honestly, this pairing idea feels more like we all got the same toys for Christmas, only NA broke theirs and now want to come break ours. :p

How exactly does NA break their toy? I’ve only been playing WvW for about six months. So fill me in so that I can better understand why EU players would be so adamant about not playing with NA players.

EU is in a similar boat and just as “broken” as NA. Your charts clearly show that.

Certain players are in denial to this and only look at the health of their server, not wvw as a whole.

RodOfDeath.5247:

I would believe it, JQs little lapdog BG isn’t being a nice little doggy and providing the heat they need to keep YB down in ppt. They’ll call on their next doggy in the window TC and the 2v1 cycle will continue. I don’t care who it is, I just roam, fresh faces to fight, sounds good to me let JQ or BG fall to T2.

You seem slightly bitter that it took wvw dying for yb to shine a bit

Malchior.5732:

Stand The Wall.6987:

hammer is notoriously strong in wvw. it should have at least some risk when using it instead of giving revs another tool to escape with.

The risk is when you don’t have a zerg protecting you.

Exactly, it’s just a 5 target pew pew weapon that’s good for hiding in the zerg and mindlessly spamming pve mobs.

In smaller pvp skirmish settings it’s basically junk, hence my suggestion to give it some movement utility on the battlefield.

Some of you really have to think how things function in competitive encounters, not just mindless zerg spam battles.

I really look forward to the difficulty scaling announcement because then we can all be one big happy family.

Watched this video today and I really agree with all the points in it. I believe we have the same things going on with GW2 currently.

GW2 is a good game, but I think it could be a great game. Never played GW1, but I keep hearing some great things from it and it seems like that “spirit” is lost in GW2. This is another reason why I’ve brought up city of heroes so often, because it really broke many mmo molds that I never see in any other game. In addition to that, the developers had a very strong presence and connection with the community. I remember the forums and beta boards having players and developers really coming together to make a great game. Sadly, though, there is almost no communication or bond like it here.

As the video points out, I believe developer creativity is being stifled here big time and there has been an extreme lack of communication, and these do not generate the level of player enthusiasm for the game. It was great to have that last AMA, but I think there needs to be more communication from the top with the players and a stronger reinvestment into the amazing team of developers that are at the company.

Edit- I will have a post soon about profession stuff, but I just wanted to say that I believe another of huge flaw with GW2 is profession development. The characters we play are central to all content created, yet are the most neglected. Hope this changes.

Anyway, here’s the video…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dJe2MESvdms

Cyninja.2954:

Let’s clear up some missconceptions.

ascended armor is worth it
No it’s not. I have multiple full sets. If at all the ascended sets make me less flexible since I’m more reluctant to switch to different builds. Back when I had 4 different exotic sets on my main I would try a new build every 2 weeks. The math has been done. Ascended armor (only talking armor) is aproximately a 2-3% increase in stats. Definately not worth the gold investment unless absolutely min/maxing and certainly not required for raiding from a stat perspective. Talking from a raid perspective not high rank fractals which require the agony resist.

ascended trinkets are worth it
Yes, they are. Biggest upgrade and easiest to aquire. Most are thrown your way by just repeatedly loging into the game, though there are more efficient ways of aquiring the different slots.

ascended weapons are worth it
Yes, less than trinkets but still on the “to get” list and the increase versus exotic is noticable enough. This should be your main investment gold wise. At 100-150g per weapon not cheap, but also attainable.

no armor vs armor
A full group of 10 people with ascended trinkets and weapons versus a group with full ascended everything will be at a disadvantage of 2-3%, not 20-30%. Math, read up on how it works.

ascended armor makes you a better player
Right, this also just in: Santa Claus is real, Trump would make a great president and if you stare right at the sun you do not go blind. Ascended armor though will show a certain type of commitment to the game (good and bad). If a raid leader feels he wants people showing this type of commitment it’s their call. You can’t force other people into smart decisions.

Summery
Get your ascended weapons and trinkets at your own pace. More importantly, make friends or join a guild if you are serious about raiding. Stop worrying about what others think or demand. If ascended armor was/is not worth the investment to you, stop trying to join groups that require it. Chances are high you would not enjoy playing with these people anyway.

So it looks like we need to upgrade ascended armors to make them more in line with other ascended gear.

Heartpains.7312:

Well stacking one server will lead to empty servers, which will lead to faster quitting I guess? =/

And that’s exactly why it should be RvRvR, not server vs sever vs server.

Kinda funny how some people want good coverage on all 4 maps at any time of day or night, yet they keep chest thumping about staying with the individual server model.

Zok.4956:

Vayne.8563:

There are a number of different ways to play an MMO.

Yes there are.

But one thing, sadly, that all MMOs have in common is repetition (some call it farming, some call it grinding, some call it progression) of content.

Vayne.8563:

Actually single player games are more suited to my personal taste than MMOs. Because when we got together as a group to RP, with a real life GM, we didn’t play for dice rolls, or trying to the same D&D module over and over. In fact, we didn’t have modules at all. We had a dungeon master who created a world/story that we moved through. It was much more like a single player game, but with friends.
(…)
Here we are, now, 40 years later, and I still want to capture that experience, and for a long time, that’s precisely the experience Guild Wars 2 delivered for me. A living, breathing world I could move through, with friends, exploring, hanging out, having a great time.

Never in all my years of Rping did we fight the same battle over and over again until we beat the boss. That simply wasn’t the game. I guess I’ve sort of thought of MMORPGs as a massively multi player RPG, rather than a massive multiplayer war game (PVP), or a massively multiplayer dungeon crawl, because my D&D group wasn’t really about dungeon crawls. Dungeons were never an end in themselves. Dungeons were a way of telling a story that furthered the campaign we were playing. The Fellowship of the Ring didn’t repeatedly try to get through Moria until they made it. They got through Moria as part of the story. This is why I come to MMOs. I want to play through a story with my friends.

As such, it’s less about putting in effort to beat a single boss over and over and more about enjoying a living breathing world, as much as that’s possible in a computer game.

When you had, back in the days, our “own” GM for your group he had the tools and created the world/content for you, in “real time”, or at least before every play of your group.

That luxury, I believe, is not possible with a MMORPG / computer game, because making content for a MMORPG is a very costly and time consuming task.

Thats why PvP is so fascinating for a game company, because the game developer just has to provide a “playing field” and then the players can play with/against themselves
and generate their “own content”, including drama and so on.

So for players that enjoy a “living breathing (open) world” and that want to “progress through a story” and that do not want to repeat the same content over and over there was a lot when GW2 started but after that, it was most of the time: “waiting for the next (small) content update and then play a little”.

I think we are coming to a sad realization.

I agree there is the repetition factor to mmos, but I’ve found that if classes are good and varied then content can be made more enjoyable.

A couple of people besides myself mentioned city of heroes, and in that game I had like 22 (or something) different characters to play…

Sure in GW2 we have some variety, but there is very little variation compared. GW1 was apparently much better when it came to classes so I don’t know why anet would intentionally drop the ball in this area.

Puck.9612:

Or maybe they’re bored because the game is dying and they are looking for whatever little bit of fun they can squeeze out of the game.

Yup.

It doesn’t matter anyway right now, and this will always exist as long as they keep the individual server vs individual server model.

If mega or alliances don’t happen to squash population imbalances then expect more people to stack for tournaments. I know I will for sure.

It needs to be less clunky to control and use. Have it follow the character by default. You can still keep the manual movement aspect, just have it tether to the character by touching the tablet.

LucianDK.8615:

Not really kitteneful suggestion for a ranged weapon, you dont want to be in the face of foes.

Axe 4 kinda covers the mobility aspect, but if you are dead set on a leap. Look at Unyielding Anguish on Mallyx. It could really use a range increase to be more useful.

Works pretty good on Druid staff…

Axe 4 is just a fancy melee skill. UA could use a range increase.

My proposal allows for a good positional skill that doesn’t tie you to a particular legend.

Retoree.7853:

no more legendaries! armor and weapon should be fine enough!

No way, wvw and eotm need paths to legendary runes and sigils and infusions and trinkets…

I agree with Vayne.

This reminds me of why City of Heroes was such a good game.

There is also a slightly higher armor rating too.

Rednik.3809:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Raid team is not in charge of WvW, LS3 or PvP.

Other teams could use more developers to finish their job. This is pretty common practice for anet.

Go read the recent AMA on Reddit.