Guild Wars 2

These blogs are fun, quite true there.

Jhoul.6923:

Spoiler kind of

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/notes-from-rata-novus-partone/

First of all, I love this kind of posts.

I’m afraid for Taimi, since she is my favorite (Maybe cause she is just like my handicap niece). She decided to hold the development of here golem just like anet did to the legendary weapons (but this is cool, I do prefer how anet has worked since that decision) but for Taimi being alone without her golem means that she has no way of protecting herself…

Now, this sprout she is talking about… is it good… is it evil? Is it… my baby Mawdrey becoming a legendary? Tell me more!

I’m going to be on the look out for this journal entry in the web page.

Keep up the great work!

Jhoul.6923:

True… Maybe this is how she becomes a Scrapper! O___O <(mind blown)

Dawanarth.4601:

Maybe it’s a new Pale tree?

What? Scrappers are getting Legendary Mawdry’s that are in the form of Pale Trees!?

Nerf Scrappers!

:D had to do it.

mXz.4512:

BattleRattle.5420:

This sounds really interesting and has some very interesting ideas for new fights. However I think that making it a fight against Zhaitan breaks the story way to much as he is already dead. Even if it was a minion of his, it would still brake story.
That said making this a world boss fight for another dragon would be very interesting.

If it were made an actual open world event, it wouldn’t differentiate much from the Mouth of Mord meta fight. You defeat him in story just as well as you had Zhaitan.

Just the meta boss fight for the core game is missing it’s boss fight. They could/should also look into adding the Marionette as a boss fight for Lornar’s Pass as a timer event. Many people liked that fight as well.

The Marionette event and reward structure was spot on in my book. Agree, would have loved to see that one remain in game. Guild would give shout outs as its timer drew near and people would divert over to this event.

BattleRattle.5420:

This sounds really interesting and has some very interesting ideas for new fights. However I think that making it a fight against Zhaitan breaks the story way to much as he is already dead. Even if it was a minion of his, it would still brake story.
That said making this a world boss fight for another dragon would be very interesting.

There are however a few things that caught my eye:

• “Defeating a Champion Assaulter will reward players with a bonus loot chest for the sub-event.”
  This could in worst case scenario encourage players to fail the pre-champ event on purpose for the loot. I think it would be better to give the extra reward chest if you successfully prevent the champ event to encourage people to try and prevent it.

• “Dead players can not return to the fight until they are rezzed by players that are out of combat. WvW rules of reviving should be used for this encounter.”
  This is pve content, not wvw, to suddenly change how the rules will most likely only be confusing especially for those who have never done wvw. Besides, it just doesn’t seem fitting to restrict rezzing as such, and could possibly only make it too hard or frustrating for what good is.

• “Rewards are issued as ongoing loot similar to world vs world ticks. Contribution levels for a given airship are increased per tick based on that airships ability to land shots on Zhaitan."
  Interesting idea, but to restrict it per ship – I read this as each ships players get loot depending on how their ship is doing – can be very dangerous depending on how groups are divided to the ships. I can easy imagine some groups raging about newer players failing so they get less rewards. I think all ships should add to a single progress bar, so even if you are on 5 loosing ships in a row, you don’t waste your time and get no loot.

I appreciate the feedback, thank you.

The goal was to try and create a world boss fight that fit into the story arc. That’s the main reason I would want the Glory of Tyria present so we feel like we were part of that event even if not the main players leaving the story of the Destiny’s Edge in place.

In regards to the Champion Assaulter, it would only spawn if players were successful in blocking a defined amount of transports. If they aren’t they wouldn’t get a shot at the Champion and the extra loot. So if this came across as they can fail and get the event then I mis- worded that part.

Your points on the rezing is valid, key here is that I want to make the players stop and make a hard choice, do I need to get people back up or is there something more important. That’s one additional random element that might keep the encounter fresh, we didn’t do this so now we have to do this or this or risk failure.

There is a risk that you might a lame duck ship, wanted to reward people for doing the event but reward those that are doing better at it more. Could cause some strife but we did encounter that after the Teq rework and that seemed to pass pretty quick, but there is a risk.

Edit: Spelling

Winning / Losing

During the fight players can be downed and killed if not revived before they expire. Dead players can not return to the fight until they are rezzed by players that are out of combat. WvW rules of reviving should be used for this encounter. Players should not release, if they do they will be permanently removed the instance and receive no more contribution for the fight. It will be up to players in the instance to revive/rez their fallen comrades. If all players are killed then the airship is destroyed and added to the total required for Zhaitan to win the fight against the fleet. In the same fashion siege can be destroyed/repaired and rebuilt via the repair tools during the fight. But if at any given point in the fight all the siege is destroyed then the airship is destroyed and counted toward Zhaitan’s victory conditions.

Player Challenges

The challenges to the players will be in attempting to balance the assault on Zhaitan which adds to the players’ victory contributions while holding out against the counter attack by Zhaitan’s forces. DPS players might be needed to hold the decks, healers/rezzers to help the fallen or support the siege, CCers needed for Boarders and Champions and everyone to be able to free aim and fire at moving targets as the ship moves back and forth. Players will need to be mindful of how many of their comrades are down, how much siege has been destroyed and whether to continue the assaulter or try and bolster their defenses and rally their side. If Zhaitan is able to destroy enough airships or does not take fatal damage before the end of the event the Elder Dragon wins.

Rewards

Rewards are issued as ongoing loot similar to world vs world ticks. Contribution levels for a given airship are increased per tick based on that airships ability to land shots on Zhaitan. If an airship only engages and repels counter attacks they will be rewarded with far less rewards then a group going for the larger goal. An additional reward chest is issued when players are successfully able to spawn and repel Champion Assaulters and if the Airship is able to survive the entire conflict without being destroyed. Lesser and greater reward chests are also granted if the overall event has failed or succeeded.

Zhaitan Armor & Weapons

To reward players and create re-playability there should be interesting and inspiring rewards for the event. New Zhaitan Defender and Assaulter armors and weapons skins should be added. Potentially a new type of currency could be added or Arah tokens can be also rewarded in chests. These tokens can be used to directly purchase the Defender armors and weapons. The Assaulter can only be acquired via very rare random drops from the reward chests. Defender skins should be account bound on acquire but Assaulter skins should be account bound on equip and therefore trade-able.

If you made it here, thanks for the read, feel free to add in a drop feedback.

Bombers

Some inbound Dragons will be bombers that are simply doing flyovers on the airship dropping firebombs at random locations on the deck. These fires will burn with a undead energy that will damage both players that may enter into them or any siege that it might land on. These fires will burn for an extended time and can either go out naturally or be extinguished via tools from the fire control stations at the stern of the ship. Bombers can be destroyed prior to dropping their bombs if focused down by the cannons in the direction that they are engaging from. Again these Dragons might be coming in from any of the three sides. Players on cannons will need to engage these Dragons else players just on the deck will need to deal with the aftermath of a bombing run via extinguishers, healing of players or repairing of siege if needed. Bombers are most deadly once a boarding action is underway since players engaging with boarders will have further obstacles to avoid while fighting off boarders. Both the fires and boarders being of an undead nature means that boarders will not be hindered by these ongoing fires.

Transports

Transports are another type of Dragon that might approach from any of the three sides of the airship. If they are not destroyed before reaching the airship they will deploy boarders. Boarders will contain a mix of melee and ranged grunts, two veteran Siege Smashers and one Elite Assaulter. The grunts goal will be to engage players on the deck that are not maintaining siege. The Siege Smashers that utilize break bar mechanics will target siege with a devastating power attack if left unchecked. The Elite Assaulter will also utilize a break bar mechanic but will target players manning the siege and if left unchecked will deliver a devastating blow to the player if the attack is successful. A limited number of transports can deploy troops in a given time and are replaced by fighters and bombers once a limit has been reached if not repelled. However if a defined number of transports are destroyed before ever deploying troops then a
Champion fight will be spawned. See below.

The role of players on siege will be to destroy transports before they can deploy troops while people not on siege will be left to defeat and reply the boarders and or deal with the aftermath of a boarding action by rezzing the dead or repairing damaged siege.

Champion Assaulter

If a defined amount of transports are destroyed before deploying their boarders a Champion Assaulter might spawn. This transport is invulnerable and will deploy a Champion Assaulter to the deck of the airship. The Champion will employ a break bar mechanic and can only be damaged while stunned. While in assault mode the Champion will attack cannon emplacements damaging them and applying launches and knockbacks to players to dislodge them from the siege. During this sub-event fighter and bomber activity is decreased but are replaced by inbound transports trying to deploy additional grunts and a veteran Siege Smasher. If the Champion is defeated the ratio of fighters/bombers and transports are returned to normal. Defeating a Champion Assaulter will reward players with a bonus loot chest for the sub-event. This event could re-occur if the required number of transports to destroy is again meet later in the event chain.

First off: tl;dr version: This is a thought oh how a Zhaitan world boss event might work that follow’s the same trend of the Mordremoth fight at the end of Dragonstand event. This would be an open world Boss event of some significance that would encourage players to return for a large scale PvE style fight and rewards. Some of these concepts can be mixed and matched depending on the level of development requirements and is meant more for a directional concept for discussion and fun brainstorming. It could also be that I had a 3 hour drive into work so plenty of time to let the mind wander.

Story Relation

The world boss fight would play out as if the players in the fight are aiding on the additional airships that are present during the last stand of Zhaitan while it battles Destiny’s Edge on The Glory of Tyria. Players would join the ranks at Fort Trinity and embark in groups that would then assist in the assault of Zhaitan and its minions on board airships.

Event Mechanics

The event could run either on a timed event like other world bosses or on a Dragon Stand style timer that is related to the lands of Orr or potentially related to the capture of the Orrian-temples.

Once the event begins players gather in Fort Trinity and are able to board airships that are instanced for the fight. Though each airship is instanced its fight progression contributes to the larger event instance in that its success or defeat is added to the events overall success or failure.

The overall progress of the event is visible in each individual instance even if another individual airship’s fight is not visible to the player in a single instance. In this example both Zhaitan and The Glory of Tyria would be visible to all and be the visual sign of the progress of the fight. As players are successful the Glory of Tyria could either be seen to be more vigorously assaulting Zhaitan or Zhaitan shown to be hammering the Glory of Tyria if overall event is failing. The event would be timed and victory conditions would be based on how successful the airships were on their cumulative assaults on Zhaitan versus how many airships Zhaitan and its minions were able destroy. If players are successful then a cinematic would show the defeat of Zhaitan by the Glory of Tyria’s guns else the players would witness the evacuation and fall of the airship.

Overall Fight Mechanic

Each individual airship would be instanced to reduce the overall burden on servers and player’s PCs. An instance would contain 20 players that boarded the same airship. Either a dynamic party assignment mechanism could be used and/or allow players in parties/squads to join together. Once an instance is started it can not be joined by further players. The reason for this to follow.

Once the instance is started the airship sets forth to assist in the assault on Zhaitan. An instance stays active until one of the following events occur:
• Zhaitan receives enough damage from all airship instances to defeat it
• All players in an instance are killed
• The airship is destroyed by having all of its siege destroyed
• World Boss Event timer runs out

Once an airships’ instance is over the players are returned to Fort Trinity and if the overall instance is not yet over they may re-board a new airship to continue the assault again.

Fight Mechanics

The fight is broken into multiple stages and have mixed roles for players to fulfill. The fight is waged on an airship that has 8 cannons mounted down either side of the ship and 4 larger cannons which are twice as powerful as the side cannons mounted on the bow of the ship with a wide deck for boarding action fights. The stern of the ship contains repair and fire control mechanisms that are utilized for the fight. The mini-map for this encounter is centered on the airship showing the directions of Zhaitan and any inbound Dragons as well as icons for their types.

During the fight the airship is slowly turning from side to side with Zhaitan and the Glory of Tyria pictured further ahead of the airship. At any given time a limited number of cannons can be brought to bear directly on Zhaitan as the airship maneuvers through the raging fight. During the approach players will need to be applying direct damage via the cannons to Zhaitan while fending off Zhaitan’s minions’ counter attacks as they try to kill the players and destroy the airship.

The main role of the airship is to attack Zhaitan and apply damage to the Dragon directly via the cannons. The fight mechanic and challenge in this role is that the players will have to decide do they go with a safe shot on the body that applies little damage or chance a shot and miss at a more delicate part of the Dragon which applies greater damage while the Dragon and ship are slowly moving about. This means that players will need to determine their lead time and fire where they believe their target will be once the round reaches its destination.

Now while players on the Zhaitan facing portion of the ship are firing on Zhaitan they will also have to decide to fire on the Elder Dragon or at any of its minions that might be endangering the airship.

Dragons

The enemy Dragons will come in three forms. To simplify the example we will call them Fighters, Bombers and Transports.

Fighters

Fighter Dragons will arise on any of the three sides of the ship to fire on cannon emplacements in their range. These attacks will damage both the players that are maintaining that siege and the siege itself. Players will need to once again free aim at these targets to either kill them or disable their wings and make them fall away before they are able to destroy the cannon emplacement they are assaulting. If the Dragon is able to destroy the cannon before this happens it just falls back for a future assault. The goal of the players on the cannons will be to take down these targets and aid other stations. Players not on the cannons will be tasked with healing those on the cannon or repairing their siege via the repair tools available in the stern of the ship. Each repair tool will be able to repair a portion of damage before a new tool will need to be acquired. Since Fighters can appear on any of the three sides, players not actively attacking Zhaitan may also need to man cannons on the non-Zhaitan sides to repel these enemies.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Immob them, also any Cc kills them, I run the regular D/p thief build and kill them easily.

Running a ping pong ball of death right now on an alt. Agree with the above, wait for them to blow some initiative and then hit them with some CC. Once you have the out of sequence they are more open, save your bigger hits till then.

For the guild mission, you need to:

• Have guild team setup in guild tab
• Have at least 3 players defined in the team in the group
• Start the mission
• Start the queue and select that you are starting with your defined team
• and then meet the win criteria to get credit

If I am understanding you, you started the mission after the queue popped which might be the issue here. So far haven’t run into any issues with Stronghold guild missions of any sort so I think its the sequence.

Good luck!

One question that’s out there is when. News from last one was 4/28 so are we 23 days away from new one? Could work with just that tid bit alone.

CD was a good server to be paired with. Still sending them a hardy tip of the hat from previous link ups. Fun peeps there, cheers.

I thought after the pairings they did allow more volatility in the glicko swings. Was that just for the first time the pairing occurred?

Xernth.8561:

Making walls more useful to defenders using their character’s skills is a good idea.

Giving less incentive to use siege is not. Defensive siege is not overpowered; it is currently the only thing that gives the side with less players a reasonable boost. Yes, making walls something other than a kill zone for standing on them would help, but not enough.

DBL’s design started to introduce this. Even if the map was removed I am hoping that these concepts can be retro fitted into ABL and EB in the future.

Give you an example of why counter siege can be fun. Comm tag with a pug warband set up a counter treb spot on enemy keep in EB this weekend. It created an environment where both the defender and the third side tried to dislodge the trebs and attackers which prompted an increase in open field fighting as trebs were defended. In the meantime it created an environment where havocs were able to break off and try assaults on secondary targets that now had reduced defenders. This lasted for an hour and a half and was a blast even if in the end the defenders were able to push off the assault on the inner.

Now in this scenario would I fault the defenders from using siege, no. Should they be rewarded for repulsing the assault, yes. The counter siege also did what it was suppose to do and draw the enemy out to try and dislodge it. The third side was just looking for a fight but that is fine as well, the siege in this case poised them no threat but created an environment that triggered additional fights.

Can siege be used by a larger force yes, that’s why siege should not be made to be cheap, there should be a price to deploying it and have timers that need to be maintained. But defenders should be discouraged from defending by using it.

2 cents.

-1 here. The answer to siege is counter siege. Do larger forces use siege against smaller forces yes, but limiting it hurts the true purpose which is to allow a smaller force in a fortified position a better chance of holding out or making a larger force pay the price for taking a structure. A lot of time forces don’t counter siege which is the problem. There is a paper rock scissors on siege that a lot of people don’t employee. ACs are a close in counter to rams and PvD and wall catapults. Catapults and trebs are counters to ACs.

On top of that before anything would change with this would like to see the scoring change go in for more PPT per level of fortified structure. This change will create an environment where people will need to learn to crack those fortified objective and others to defend more. Additional to that is whatever ANet has in works about options for deploy-able cannon or mortar which seems to be additional counters to ACs.

Not opposed to upping the reward for people fighting hand to hand, but don’t want to discourage people to defend, I like PPK but it also creates the thought in some on why fight and lose since you reward the larger force. We don’t want even less incentive to defenders.

Teraphas.6210:

Wvw is already imbalanced by the fact of EB alone.

I would rather see anet work towards 4 (or more) unique maps with no “home” team.

Yes maps will always inheritedly favor one side. It’s anet job to try to keep the favoring relatively even.

If they keep the EB style over the borderland home team style we can continually add maps and have the queue ceiling and wvw population expand vs compete for a limited number of spots.

Having people not want to welcome newcomers because they may cause queues during an existing wvw players preferred time is one major flaw with wvw right now.

I think you hit it on the spot here. EB is a more popular map because it doesn’t favor a side which means it draws more people, and more people more fights which leads to people queuing where the action is.

Jeknar.6184:

Raf.1078:

And just like now? Where a lot of the adherents of the DBL have stepped back and are not playing.

I don’t think there are people who stopped playing when ABL came back…

There were, lost some people in WvW because of ABL. Also know people that just moved to EoTM. A number of us have been just queing EB as well.

Have a theory here, so its a matter to see if time proves it out.

The starting tiers of any division will hold the players that are having the worst time of it for any reason. Be that they are placed higher than they should be for whatever reason that got them there. Since the safety points are in place that prevents people from falling back in division the starting tiers act as these basins for people to fall into. You get enough of them there and then its a matter of fighting your way thru them and then you seem to into better matches.

So in this case as you approached the top of one tier you are now encountering the bottom of another which has a higher odds of holding people that should have been allowed to fall lower but were caught. I think that’s where the MMR hell bits come into play as well for some people if they encountered one.

So to get away from those spots your play needs to be on point or better, or you need people to queue with, or you play the lottery of a solo queuer and adjust to your team makeup to compensate for match imbalances.

Again theory, but I wonder when people found themselves on teams that seemed off, was it in the same final tier/first/second tier of divisions. Personally its seemed that teams had better balance in those mid tier matches then around the edges between divisions.

Agree please remove player number requirements. Since missions can be re-run on demand it would be helpful if players that have missed runs but can complete missions with less than the required amount be able to still run the mission.

Also on PvP missions please remove the time requirement since a number of the time limit on the mission might be used just by sitting waiting for a match to spawn.

Different people encountered different queuing behavior. Running at the same times gathers more information. Example, T3 after reward update, 1-2 DBLs queued up with EB. Week after ABL return, we were back to just EB outside of reset. So was that ABL that killed the population? Was it because of new and shinny stuff for people to try already worn off? 2 to 1 voted to keep DBL, that is a number we could all see, be it for whatever reason. So for the people that said remove, you really want 3 months (which start soon) of just DBL?

Choppy.4183:

Running them together is a great way to gather data though. Keeping dbl in play has received a surprising amount of support in the polls, and yet quite a lot of people have expressed visceral hatred toward it.

What people say they’d do and what they actually do are often not the same, so comparing what people actually play when they have three options (ebg, alpine, dbl) is useful data that can confirm or reject polling data, and guide Anet’s future development.

It’s not as though it has to be a permanent map configuration, and at least it gives players the option of playing what they want whenever they’re playing. My bias on this is I stopped caring about score some time ago and pretty much just do whatever seems fun.

That’s one of the key points here. Seeing side by side numbers on any new map is a great test to how a map is received. Doing this for any new map is important to gauge its reception. Closed tests may work to work out the bugs, but after that you need something to be live to see how it will be really played upon. Different people and different servers and different tiers all play differently. With those variables already in place there is little likelihood that a closed population in a beta will give you complete feedback and that’s if they are dedicated to testing, which most players won’t since they are not making headway in game while testing. And let’s face it, people don’t do well with change and if those players also aren’t comm tags they will be heavily influenced to go where their tag is versus facing things on their own. I think that’s why, for what I saw, there were more havocs on the DBLs since they adapted better. Not all tiers were seeing this, according to forum posters.

Threather.9354:

TheGrimm.5624:

morrolan.9608:

Threather.9354:

My opinion first glance is that as most of the people dont like DBL and people who like DBL dont mind alpine bl (because i havent seen them complain here that they only spend time in EB) is that having 3 alpine would be superior option.

Once again that vote has occurred and failed.

The 2-1 that voted for DBL already stated their opinion to keep, don’t build yours upon the vocal group that post. A lot of people don’t like confrontation on the forums and avoid it. That’s why we have more vocal people on both sides that do post and over post. People that were bored with ABL went to EB/EoTM/PvP/PvE. Know some people just now going back to ABL since the DBL vote failed. Getting a lot of questions on why did I pay for HoT when HoT features keep getting dropped. And before anyone says DBL wasn’t, go look at the HoT sales page.

So youre replying to me by replying to a reply that didnt read my post fully.
He only quoted first chapter of my post, he didnt read it fully, I said in my post that 3 alpine isnt an option, he just read a few sentences and got bored like a little kid and wrote a rage response to it.

I apologize, I was more caught up in people still saying a majority still think to remove DBL which after the vote was not true. The part of post that was quoted from your original was partial and your second verse counters it. And I did read it but as I said, caught up in the concept after reading thru the rest of the posts. My apologizes.

Xenesis.6389:

TheGrimm.5624:

And before anyone says DBL wasn’t, go look at the HoT sales page.

That’s a marketing throw in, the desert borderland access was given to every account type.

The wvw guild upgrades from the base game dumped into the guildhalls is what you paid for though, be angry about that.

True on the marketing but I also think they couldn’t figure out a way, nor would it have been a good idea to, limit play to particular maps based on purchases. But when you spend that much development as a feature to release at the same time as an expansion its more it was given free to people that didn’t want to buy the expansion. The concept of a new map encouraged a lot people to go HoT and then later they stated everyone would get it.

This could be interesting. But to do so we would need to replace 3 ABL with 3 EoTMs. EoTMs has overflows today meaning quite a number of people queue for it. So this would be like replacing EB. Why would you displace that many people playing it. And before you suggest no one does, please provide source numbers from ANet on the number of people queuing on each map. TIA!

morrolan.9608:

Threather.9354:

My opinion first glance is that as most of the people dont like DBL and people who like DBL dont mind alpine bl (because i havent seen them complain here that they only spend time in EB) is that having 3 alpine would be superior option.

Once again that vote has occurred and failed.

The 2-1 that voted for DBL already stated their opinion to keep, don’t build yours upon the vocal group that post. A lot of people don’t like confrontation on the forums and avoid it. That’s why we have more vocal people on both sides that do post and over post. People that were bored with ABL went to EB/EoTM/PvP/PvE. Know some people just now going back to ABL since the DBL vote failed. Getting a lot of questions on why did I pay for HoT when HoT features keep getting dropped. And before anyone says DBL wasn’t, go look at the HoT sales page.

EDIT: Threather.9354’s additional part of their post indicates that they thought that single borderland was not viable due to pre-HoT complaints wasn’t feasible either.

“But as already before HoT people were complaining that just having alpine is boring and were hyped about new map, I dont think its an option.”

OriOri.8724:

You do realize its more balanced to have 1 BL which is harder/easier to defend than the others and give that to the Red/Green server or whatever the colors are right? What isn’t balanced is giving the server that is predicted to win the exact same BL to defend as they will automatically have an easier time defending it. If a server is predicted to win then they should by all means have a home BL that is harder to defend as it will help balance the playing field.

And even beyond that. If something is hard to defend it goes both ways. As soon as someone takes it from you, it becomes that much easier for you to get it back……

There are a multitude of variables involved in determining which map is easier or harder and without running them at the same time it would be hard to measure this.

Just a few examples of variables that might be preceived one way or another:

• DBL, bigger structures harder for scouts, could mean easier for assualters, but bigger also means takes longer to get thru both walls before defenders show
• ABL, all keeps can be breached by a set of catas on outer walls never requiring siege replacement, but smaller therefore easier for scouts to call out
• Populations, if ABL has more its quicker to move about, quicker to move about means easier to K-Train and sweep clean
• Populations, if DBL has less people and bigger objectives means people have longer to run around and is slower to sweep clean
• Off hours and people pvding doors, NPCs are stronger in DBL and require more people, but if no defenders then its a matter of time
• EB has more time as a queued map then either ABL or DBL, some people will always stay EB regardless of what home map you have since it has more PPT potential then either home BL

And that’s just a couple of factors. So until there is some play time with both in play it will be hard to judge which is what and may require some back and fourth.

Crescendo Forte.4821:

Having different home types would definitely make a difference. Your home BL is meant to be your “gimme”. It’s easier to gain points and defend key objectives. Forcing a side into having a harder time for a week would just plain suck for that server.

The “gimmie” on any home map is based on having a way point that is always open that is deep in the map that gives the home side a quicker route to key targets. Both ABL and DBL had this feature. This is balanced.

Crescendo Forte.4821:

Source on that second point? Because that sounds awful. If they did implement it, I would still vote to have every server the same BL and have it rotate every 1-3 weeks or so instead of 3 months. No staleness that way, and no imbalance between servers.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-long-will-Alpines-last/first

Tyler Bearce.3427:

The current plan is to rotate the borderlands maps each quarterly update. That said, now that we are actively polling the community, perhaps we can start exploring other options.

For instance, nothing is really stopping us from having a combination of ABL and DBL maps running simultaneously. 2 of one and 1 of the other. If we polled that, and players approved it, then there’d be no need for the rotation, and players on both sides of the issue could play on their preferred map. The downside of course, would be any perception of imbalance that may arise from one map being considered the stronger “Home” map, but we could always give the more defensible map to Red/Blue and leave the less defensible map to Green.

Preception – ANet was not seeing this as imbalanced, they were concerned players might. Aka they were not seeing one map as being an advantage or disadvantage to players.

Crescendo Forte.4821:

I will argue that map type does affect population. As you said yourself, people left because things grew stale. People also left because they hated the Desert BLs. People also stayed because they liked the Desert BLs. I am not claiming that keeping the borderlands static will fix population issues. I’m saying that making them simultaneous will make your issues worse.

We will have to disagree, as I said, at the time of this post 74% of the people were for it therefore we know the percent that would find it unfavorable not to mix. I do not have numbers that ANet has, but I do believe we lost more players before HoT then we did after HoT and a large part of that drop off was due to staleness.

Xdreviuse Reborn.3276:

Crescendo Forte.4821:

Xdreviuse Reborn.3276:

Regarding your point about the two BL’s not being equal: WvW isn’t nor ever was designed with “equal” or even fair in mind. I think having a unique bl’s for each color could really change things up, and that’s why I voted the way I did.

There will not be unique borderlands for each server. There will be 2 Alpine and 1 Desert. I agree, World vs World does have room for unequal defenses. Each home borderland is meant to be much easier to defend for that server. In Eternal Battlegrounds (which is out of the scope of this conversation), certain sides have easier and harder keeps to assault and defend. My issue is that having 2 Alpine and 1 Desert will make one (or two) side(s) worse off for their Home Borderlands. I repeat, they are not making 1 borderland per side.

Actually, they did mention something about that… My guess is it will be put up to a new vote if this current one wins. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4lx2gx/may_31_new_wvw_poll/d3qwc2f

I repeat, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Would actually be an interesting poll to see how scoring would fair against a vote for an additional map.

Crescendo Forte.4821:

There will not be unique borderlands for each server.

Actually they said that voting for 2/1 would encourage them to create a unique one for each side. Check the older Dev threads under the Dev Tracker.

Point 1, EB and ABL are already different. Therefore this point is moot. Players are already used to differing point maps that also require different tactics. Having differing home maps wouldn’t be any different. Players are smart enough to understand that different maps might be worth more if fully controlled and decide where to go from there.

Point 2, ANet indicated it wouldn’t be three of the same map. Different maps and class balancing are not anywhere near the same types of balance issues. And since populations have never been in balance having a different map is nothing compared to time zone differences in populations. This is not an issue.

Point 3. People from both sides have said that 3 months of one map would have a negative impact on population. Currently 74% of people seem to prefer not to have that occur or favor having more variety in map selections. Which means if blocked by the minority it will create ill will in the 74% of voting player base which might further decline numbers or encourage people that support the game via in game purchases to spend that money elsewhere which hurts new development funding and weakens game mode populations further.

On top of that mixed maps allows new changes to be tested live and opens up more options for new maps to be introduced and played in live where they can be tested by all versus a few that may or may not test which results in poor feedback.

Voting for non-mixed maps votes for stagnation, which is where we lost player base before HoT. People left because of lack of changes and things grew stale.

I admit I was surprised to find more people then I would have expected be re-invigorated in WvW because of additional options in skins added to reward tracks.To ANet, please keep this up. Creating and releasing more armor and weapon skins via the tracks has some draw for people.

Stilk.6312:

that moment when anet changes the order of the answers of the poll – if that is not trying to influence the result my name is trump

I thought the behavior was showing you whatever option you voted for on top if you are re-entering the poll. Which might change it from the original order it was in.

+10. Please continue to release armor sets in game, it gives players more things to work toward. Good job on this one.

OriOri.8724:

I don’t like either of these options. Why couldn’t it be a simple

“Do you want to have simultaneous borderlands?”
or
“Do you want to rotate the borderlands?”

I don’t like having 2 ABL and 1 DBL, and I also hate the thought of having 3 months of ABL at a time. The two options I listed are enough to know whether the community wants simultaneous borderlands or not. And then after that you should have held another poll to get the details.

If rotating won then you should have had a new poll with a timeline (rotate every 1, 2, 3 months). And if simultaneous had won you should have had a new poll with whether we wanted 1 DBL and 2 ABL, 2 DBL and 1 ABL or 1 of each and you guys start working on a third BL map. But as it is this was a bad poll. I don’t want 2 ABL as I hate those maps, but seeing as how that is likely to win at this point, it means that I will never get 2DBL and 1 ABL which is what I would prefer

I think they did this since the other poll showed the favored mix in it already. The mini-acid test here will be if simultaneous passes and is implemented, how do queues compare to what they are now and how is the overall population impacted.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Hesacon.8735:

Yes. And those who hate desert should be thrilled that there is an option on the table to have alpine as a BL option full time. The alternative is rotating them where it will be alpine 3 months and desert 3 months. No variety, you have what you have. If those vote succeeds you’ll be allowed to play on the borderland that you feel like playing on on a given day.

^This. It’s better to have them both, so you can decide what to play when you want. Then to wait quarterly patches to play what you want instead. This way everyone can be happy.

Me being a vet I prefer to Desert map over alpine as well so.

^^^^ Third. Variety keeps things fresh. And with this structure we are even more likely to have another map in works. At this point in the game’s cycle I would have hoped for at least 8 maps in play if not more. The fact that only 2 (3 w/ EoTM) in play at a time does not create much variety.

If people are completely opposed to a single map, I really don’t understand why they wouldn’t vote for simultaneous maps. Again forget the argument about balanced playing fields, as long as the game does not enforce balanced populations that argument is moot.

Fatal.1347:

I think the people who do not vote cuz they do not have opinion should count as they do not care.
so if the vote ends like
2 alp 1 dbl 70%
3 dbl 3 alp 25%
do not care 5%
then people happy with results would be
2alp 1 dbl 75%
3 dbl 3alp 30%.
So in this case 2 alp 1 dbl is obviously more favorable. At least the percentage should be accounted somehow because it makes the option that requires higher percentage (this time 2alp 1 dbl) harder to acquire even though they have no opinion. f/e: If 25% vote that they do not care which option, and 5% vote for 3dbl 3 alp and the rest 70% vote for 2 alp 1 dbl, it would mean 2 alp 1 dbl CANT happen.

So reasonable decision is to account it somehow.

Actually I am afraid that some people are going back into the poll after voting and saying don’t count my vote just to see the current results and not realizing they just changed their vote.

Cheers to CD, was fun!

Cynz.9437:

Oh hell no, i xmuted mine right away.

lol, I did the same. Way to big, besides being able to craft the Legendary part of it was more of the point of it considering the number of times that I re-gear toons.

hmsgoddess.3869:

I should have clarified my commanding a bit;
1) I do like a good k-train once in awhile (like a few hours before reset; or night before reset)
2) I rarely have more than 10-15 with me. (I herd kittens for a living)
3) I tend to be a PPT commander, mostly a defense commander
4) I am on the Crystal Desert Server so population tends to be low and so we get our home bl rick rolled quite often, this requires a k-train like take back of our own map.

But your comment makes me a little mad too, but only in the sense that you are amplifying my whole problem with the WvW community as a whole.

EVERYONE plays WvW how they like it. Some like roaming, and havoc. Some like GvG, Some like Ktrain, Some like defense and PPT, Some like massive zerg vs zerg. Some people love siege. Everyone should be allowed to play the game their way. No one way is better, no more valuable than the other. In fact, I’d argue that all of the play styles when balanced on in the servers can actually work together to make a great WvW.
As a defensive commander I need GvGers to keep hardcore peeps busy so my stuff doesn’t get taken and I can move about the map.
I need people who like siege to help place and refresh it for protection against an invasion.
I need havoc and roamers to keep my camps going and cause problems for the enemies.
I need k-train people and zerg fighting to get my points going up even if its only for and hour or so. These also keep people new to WvW busy doing something worth while and not screwing up something else I need. Not to mention it gives new comers a chance to see how exciting WvW can be and possible make them fall in love with WvW like I have, making them a valuable asset to me eventually.

You are quite correct and this is a well composed example of why WvW needs all sorts of roles supported even if WvWers will look down upon each other at times.

Its when one group tries and to define what WvW is that we end up out of balance and that creates new issues.

I understand your point about not losing people, but that was part of the fun too. Course I also enjoy the risk of being attacked and being able to attack people while gathering and moving from one target to the next. Nodes were also spots to stop and check the map at to give your group or warband a rally point when figuring out where you were off to next.

As far as people saying gathering being pve, you kind of need money and material to outfit toons and to create superior siege. Why not be able to do that while in WvW versus having to go to another game mode. We don’t have open world pvp in pve zones, but this is a bit closer to it.

Anyway, still +1 to the OP from me. Good hunting (and gathering)!

Talking with others about this one and still think its has merit. I think something like this should be considered. You really want camps/depots to be your backbone in WvW that feed the larger structures upstream. This suggestion adds to that.

+1 here, in an ideal world would have the nodes that we have now, and add back in the ones in the open fields. Those created little points of conflict that would pop from time to time and gave havocs and roamers even more targets. So +1 from me.

This is a game. People are only empowered to do things if others allow them to do so. I would ignore these people and enjoy the game. If they violate ToS report them and let ANet handle them. If its an issue w/ voice comms, use another one. Sorry you are having to deal with politics in a game, that sucks but don’t let them stress you.

I can imagine some chaos in this environment when the serve linking occurred. Oh hi we are your rulers, o really? Reminds me of Eddie Izzard:

In any case, DBL should not return until ANet can decide or re-poll the community on rotation versus mixed. One question that remained was how many people voted for rotation thinking that meant DBL would not return. Does the current poll change peoples thoughts on rotation versus mixed. That and give the decision that is made some time to sink in. They have said rotation and quarterly but based on feedback that seemed to be the least favorable course. The reason I say let it sink in is that people do take some time to adjust and the recent polling is probably leaving questions in peoples minds. Would be better to have a date versus just getting a Tuesday note that WvW is shutting down for maintenance and now maps are different.

lil devils x.6071:

Mhmm.. see if you will be singing that song when CU comes out. I mean if PvD is your thang more powa to ya.

Sure the game carries on .. LOTS of games carry on with low population.

CU will be about an ever changing environment, if you can’t handle that in GW2, you are in for a very bad time in CU. I recommend practicing now.

lil devils x.6071:

A proper poll would have been one that was email invite only to WvW players past and present over a certain rank.

You and I agree on some things:

• Players that support the game should have fun
• That we need new maps
• We want as many people as possible
• We want to retain as many people as possible
• That people will quit if forced into a map they don’t like

Now where we don’t agree:

• People that have never encountered a map should have a vote – your concept of past people weighing in on a map that they didn’t try I disagree with
• That a map should favor zerg over all other, I want maps that encourage play for all sizes of groups
• X-Y-Z access fights, you are interested in flat, I am interested in multi-dimension fights
• That people will stay if given options on maps and mix dbs are ok since they offer choice
• That prioritizing people that left over people that have been here all along is the better target audience
• That one servers opinion is more valid then anothers
• That there is only one right answer, compromise is ok
• That pop was gained due to ABL, to me it gained after other changes but then dropped after ABL, but that was what I saw without having access to numbers that ANet has

We both want players in the game-mode, but disagree on what caused a decrease versus other factors.

Is it a bug or on purpose that the Speedy Yaks recipe still calls for an unpgraded version of resonating slivers and none of the others do? I know these are much more abundent now but it seems like a bug more than an intended.

Hesacon.8735:

I can see a zerg defending yaks as they trot along towards the enemy keep or tower. It also puts urgency to taking back a camp even if you’re under siege. It breaks up the defense since failure to attack the camp means more bombs at your gate.

Zergs I think will be impatient and just beat the gate down, but agree on the rest. If you are just sitting defending then you are going to have to react the siege else it will weaken what you are doing. Now think about it further, if you add in higher tier structures are worth more and/or killing yaks are more points and this idea fits well into those concepts and creates a more active game.

“Ok, do I leave them the camp and then try and kill their yaks as they approach the gate, will they jump me if I do. Do I need to go and recap that camp else I have bombs on both gates.”

Making players make decisions is a good thing. Mistaken tactics can create chaos which prompts more conflict, which is what WvW is about, conflict and fluctuation.

This is a very interesting idea. Make camps into assault mechanisms if they are controlled. So the dolyaks effectively become sappers. Some people might view this a PvE but to me its just another siege engine and does up the value of camps quite a bit. And camps create quite a bit of open field fighting so all the better.

This would solve a number of issues. One, at times its not productive to cap a camp unless it can be controlled for a number of ticks since if it spawns both yaks that sit there then the recapping of the camp will be worth more capture points then the control tick points were worth. Two it means the yaks stay in motion and continue to create mobile points of conflict. Three it creates a way for small groups to pre-assault larger structures which causes defenders to have to risk leaving the walls to block the lumbering assault.

Now to expand the idea:

• Allow them to be escorted for speed boosts, agree
• Allow them to be launched from the camp by interacting with them, “yah mule go” that gets them going by themselves
• Allow for new WvW upgrades that allows them to auto-launch
• Allow for packed versions that upgrade their supply drain, either case a yak that lands an attack shouldn’t drain as much as a real yak delivering
• Allow for a WvW upgrade that would cause an gate charge to be deployed that damages gate if no supply is in structure
• Now the counter here is that gate guards and roaming patrols on higher structured keeps might naturally block these, higher level of either camp or target objective becomes a race since upgrades up the chance of side blocking or not blocking the bomb delivery
• You might also have camps trigger their upgrade mechanic if they are able to “bomb” the target at the destination allowing them to create stronger attackers

Graphically there are a number of options:

• Yaks do the walking and drop a powder keg at gate when they reach it
• Leave the yaks as they are and instead the camp deploys skritt bombers (take a page from sPvP Stronghold)

+10 here, this is quite fun idea wouldn’t mind seeing people bounce around more.

OriOri.8724:

zhonnika.1784:

We won’t be silenced permanently. Sorry to burst your bubble there, sir. I’ll rail against these maps for as long as I play this game. As for PvE-ers knowing better how to design and run a map than people who play WvW….. um, what? I mean, I’ve heard some stupid garbage here before, but that really tops it.

How, really… how do you explain the resurgence in population in WvW with ABL coming back? It wasn’t reward tracks. It wasn’t world linking. It was the return of a map that makes sense for WvW. If we have to have this fetid dusty crap back, I only hope it remains to one map…. so that I never have to go there.

What? Silenced? You were the group silencing the majority. At some point you guys will have to grow up and realize that you are in the minority, and the poll is now proof of that.

A – Playing WvW doesn’t mean you know how to make a good WvW map. Likewise playing PvE doesn’t mean you don’t know how to make a good WvW map. That is some of the most absurd logic in this thread.

B – Whether or not you think a map is “good” has nothing to do with how other people see it. What matters is that people are having fun on the map, and a lot of people enjoyed DBL, and a lot of people still don’t enjoy ABL.

C – As others have pointed out this resurgence was in fact not due to ABL returning as it happened with the April update, which came a full 2 weeks before ABL were returned to rotation. The WvW population has been dropping ever since.

You can hate the DBL as much as you want. But you absolutely cannot speak for the community, and the community has said that they want the DBL to stay. Go nurse your wounded pride in a corner if you have to, but stop pretending like you are some superior player who is being oppressed because you don’t like a map that actually requires you to change how you play

Agree. In T3 we saw a surge after the WvW update before ABL. The number of maps being queued actually dropped after ABL came out, be that for whatever reason, but we went from 2-3 maps queued to 1. EBG being the consistent one queued.

Ven Zehn.6573:

For everyone against this idea: will it affect you negatively if it was done? If not, why are you arguing if not just for the sake of arguing?

Never get why people are against things that wouldn’t directly impact them. If anything more guilds with buffs are good things for everyone on that server. And its more about flexibility to support those guild members that maybe are on off times or missed mission runs but they could still knock them out solo.

Teon.5168:

Chances are, the dbls and abls will be in some sort of mixed configuration, so none of us really know what sort of participation there might be with a mixed bls sort of setup.
Hopefully that happens, as I think it would be interesting to see some sort of mixed bls setup.

Having mixed BLs gives people options to choose from. It also will allow ANet to get better metrics on map activity and allow them a work in progress spot for additional map changes. Be that to DBL or ABL or a new map.