Guild Wars 2

Sinbold.8723:

Apparently more than one thread was deleted. Logged in to check which of the many posts I’d made in the last 4 days on the WvW topic was in a deleted thread, and guess what? I now have NO posts from the last 4 days….. GG, Anet. Way to squash the rumor mill.

LOL, as if this is something new. This subforum has ALWAYS been swiss cheese with an emphasis on keeping the cheese. It is Anet’s forum after all, they have a right to keep it reasonable in their own terms, not ours. That’s just how big companies work.

Chaba.5410:

At this point, who cares?

Right? Clearly these forums are not for feedback to Anet, because they are going to do what THEY WANT with WvW not what we puny humans think we want….

Caro.2730:

I like BDSM.

Wow, given some of the things that get substituted with the word “kitten” I am surprised to see that particular acronym in these bleached white forums. It rubs the lotion on it’s skin…. LOL.

Heck, I like this alliance idea, even if it is exactly as advertised, but perhaps more than 3 guilds per alliance. some people are saying that 300 active players is not enough to fill the maps, but that is 75 players per map, 3 alliances so 225 people per map fighting which is very close to the current set up. The new borderlands would be fine with 75v75v75, now its normally 10v20v75 or 10v0v2. Looks like there will be a reward track so a reason to try to do well, and some sort of ladder for the king of the hill types. WvW is so stagnant now, even servers that move up or down end up losing players in search of something better. If this comes to be, it will reinvigorate WvW and guilds as well. I am going to remain hopeful for a day or so, until I sink back into the pit of dispair that is current WvW and HoT with maps like TD….

Wow, just tried to get a couple hero points on TD… everything about that map is terrible, just plain terrible. You can even stop to figure out where you are the spawns are sooo OP. Oh and TD is clearly the new meta, tons of condi, tons of immob, tons of burst damage, tons of hp, on mobs, and for sure there has to be a ton of them as well…

Jski.6180:

Players make pvp not the maps or even the game type. If you can fight another player that is pvp and its up to players on both side to keep it active not the game makers.

A lot of the aspects and design features essentially removed the motivation for a lot of serious WvW players. Auto upgrading and insta-WPs remove the incentive to hold things or scout things. The lazerbeemz actually tips the balance even more to the favor of the dominant server. I don’t disagree with what you are saying, but for me personally (on Maguma) now the borderlands are mostly PvD karma training, or getting 1 pushed by opposing blogs 2-4 times our numbers… neither of those “game modes” are particularly fun or interesting to me. WvW is a chore these days with almost nothing positive to show for time spent…

LET THE STACKING RESUME!!! ahhh the irony…

xbutcherx.3861:

YaYa.5879:

Before we had dungeons with nice rewards and fractals with ascended gear. With HOT they introduced a new content and murdered dungeons, and reduced the loot on fractals.
Does that mean that in the next expension they are going to nerf raids in order to force us to play to their new content?

New fractals = not ascended, kittenty rewards
New content + raid = need ascended
Need ascended for raids = need gold
Need gold = Buy Gems, Anet WIN!

Fixed that for ya……..

Roxanne.6140:

I don’t really think the maps are truly empty. I think the map assignment just needs to be reworked to address this issue. I believe there are multiple map instances opened but they are not systematically filled. When someone joins a map, he is not placed in a map that is most populated but assigned some other random map. These maps seemed to have been designed for large groups of people who know each other and want to play the map at the same time and coordinated to taxi each other into the same instance. Having a EOTM/WVW style of map assignment would not allow large guilds to join the same map as these maps would likely be filled before the guilds can fully join it. At the same time, it makes players’ life very difficult with so much organization work, and not being able to play the map whenever he wants to maybe because his friends or guildies don’t feel like playing it at that particular time.

Map progress may also be at play here, you lose any progress you have if you switch maps. I’ve staying longer in a particular map that gave me the option to leave because I wanted to preserve my progress. Map progress needs to be kept client side, not as a function of a particular map. But it seems more and more obvious that a lot of HoT is designed as a gold sink and to prevent significant gold acquisition.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Nothing in the game is truly “people driven” ultimately the game design is what gives the players in the game their objectives and funnels players to specific content. It always comes back to the design (good or bad, in this case I would say bad) the gaming community only goes after things the game design gives them incentives to. Never blame the community for targeting specific content. You can however, blame the community for just being rude in map chat, rude after being paid for a run, etc… Unfortunately I would say on the new HoT PvE maps the attitude of the community has become the worst I’ve encountered in any MMO.

ArenaNet would like to believe this is not true. There was a video they put up a while back when the game went free to play where they boasted about all the players lining up to help new players coming into the game…. That spirit is completely gone on the new HoT maps. What we find in map chat? People angrily venting (worse than this message board), people begging for help and not getting it. People offering absurd amounts of gold for help (and probably getting it), people complaining about not having enough on the map to do meta, gated content, etc… People asking for taxi’s.

From the heart, it’s absolute garbage and an entirely different experience than what we had out the gate when HoT launched not even a month ago. Anyone who reads a positive review of HoT and buys the game for someone as a holiday present as a result of review is following obsolete advise.

While the utility of gliding, mushrooms, etc.. and overall mechanic of mastery and elite specialization unlock add great value along with the new map designs which range from best in game (Verdant Brink) to horrid (Tangled Depths) ultimately the developer has failed to provide needed incentives to keep the game population on these maps and that is not a mild oversight it is a critical issue that has largely destroyed the experience of the game. Two weeks in I would have given HoT 10/10 for rating. Phenomenal. Today I would give it 4/10. I refuse to allow the community in the game to be blamed for a game design that has driven the population away.

if I were a designer or developer on the Gw2 HoT project I would take all this to heart and take it very personal. I would consider it my failure to deliver a sustainable, quality product and if I were a lead designer I would hold some closed door sessions to explore immediate action to patch things back together (namely incentives to get people back into the HoT map). To not take this problem seriously is to be delusional and (a bit arrogant) about the state of where things really are. Unless of course ArenaNet built the expansion only to provide a grade A experience within it’s first two weeks of release.

Again, the game studio’s design is what keeps players around. Don’t scape goat the problem to gaming culture in general or trends “oh this happens with every MMO expansion”. Well, perhaps it does because no studio has correctly innovated and provided incentives. If any ANet designers are reading this, might I suggest reading Tynan Sylvester’s excellent book Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences.

Wow! very well put. I would say you are spot on, or at least reflect my experience and feeling about HoT as it currently stands. I would add, that the new WvW map is an even more poignant example of poor game design and a rather vivid demonstration of a real lack of understanding of that game mode by the devs….

Lucky Shot.7650:

saturn.4810:

Yes, why bother? Wouldn’t you rather have fun in the game?

I have fun by doing raids and instanced content. Dungeons are dead, fractals are too, for raids I need to gear up more characters since different builds are needed. To do so I need to farm. But farming doesn’t net you anything, no items you need, no gold, no nothing. And I would enjoy it if I got any reward for the time I’m spending, or if I could reliably find working maps.

Have you tried the gemstore? It’s available for all your GW2 needs. Why be a poor farmer in game when you can be a rich gem owner. P2W FTW!

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Nedus.6952:

The Anet dev:

L
O
L

Well done, Sir

The sarcasm is real. +1

suffish.4150:

While I understand why most people dislike the map (I hated it at first), I have to say, I love tangled depths. It is by far my favourite of the HoT maps. I really like the confusing layout and I also like how there is actually underwater areas there, that’s actually one of the main reasons I like it.
Then there’s the meta. The chak gerent event is my favourite thing I have tried in gw2 so far and I am saying this without having completed it yet in 10+ tries over the last week. It is extremely hard- harder than the triple wurm- and the feeling of tension through the event is perfect. Just a few hours ago I commanded rata novus lane and we killed the boss with less than 10 seconds on the clock, only for ogre lane to fail by about 3%. I was annoyed that we were so close, but I loved the whole experience of it- getting updates from other lanes, reporting on each boss’s health, giving each other advice. Those events are what I love more than anything else in gw2, the ones where it really, really means something to succeed. I would like it if more events this hard and indeed maps this complex are added in future.

Totally! Like, I like poking my eyes out with chopsticks, it’s awesome how the difficulty scales once I’ve poked out one eye, then I poke out the other eye and force myself to throw the chopsticks in front of me and make myself have to find them, so I can poke my eyes out again. It’s exciting and rewarding. Well, to be honest, it’s only an idea right now, because it might not be a good idea to repeatedly poke my eyes out with chopsticks…. trying to find a balance between challenge and pointless.

Agreed. The cost of guild hall upgrades is beyond crazy and a MASSIVE gold sink. The same thing with Ascended stuff now… You need ascended now for the raid, so we’ll double the price of obtaining it. Cha.. Ching! gotta get those gems and convert to gold so I can buy my superior stuff….

DrMatt.9408:

I like the map, the design has nothing to do with the main sore point – which is the meta always failing

I disagree. Given the same amount of time on the other maps, I have a good sense about how to navigate around and also get to the various lead-up events. TD still has areas I have no clue as to how to get to…

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

ANET are focusing on Raids for the next few months, it’s important that the 200 people left doing them in a months time have content to play.

Yeah…. I just tried the raid with my guild for the first time, got through the 3 pre-bosses reasonably well. That raid is never gonna be run by a lot of people, just the timing alone is going to make it impossible for anyone without a fast computer and good connection.

Well, the completed silence on any of the really seriously messed up stuff in either PvE or WvW continues… Esports tho…. Anet loves their esports.

Phy.2913:

The map sits at T4 for about an hour, just repeating the few events after the chains complete. It’s boring.

Exactly, AND it’s really tedious to learn the layout, and even then getting around the map just is just plain awful. Not surprising that the meta never completes….

It’s a terrible map. way too convoluted, the meta never goes through…. Horrible horrible map.

Almost everyone has a dedicated Anet WvW suggestion box. Just write down your suggestions in a clear and remember, helpful manner and then deposit the paper in the nearest Anet WvW suggestion box (aka garbage can or recycling bin) where it will receive all the attention Anet deems appropriate for WvW.

So, while I totally agree that we in WvW get little dev lovin and I have little confidence that we will get enough down the line to really make a difference, right now all the game modes are messed up, one way or another. Players are screaming in every forum, but if you look at the Dev Tracker, there are basically no dev posts anywhere, with the exception of a few Esports (PvP) ones, and things related to the API or account issues.
My guess is they are in hunker down mode, working hard to fix stuff, and probably being told not to post anything in the forums. Based on how much is messed up with HoT I would estimate that we still have a few months before any dev lovin is coming to WvW in any significant way. They did move the way points so, it’s not like we are being totally ignored….

ArchonWing.9480:

…
The main purpose of that post in context as it were seem to me and bolded by me, would be the suggestion that people have been either, not on a server long enough, or not been on it recently enough to give an accurate description of the server itself. And furthermore, I don’t think bandwagoning is the sole reason either.

Well, I only noticed this today, I guess someone necroed the thread. As to the “other forums” I read them regularly for entertainment and/or rumors, but they really don’t represent any particular servers players or culture, so people should be warned in my opinion.
As to Monkey’s post, there 3 questions of which you highlighted the last one. And I do think one can get a very good idea of a server in a very short time if you are active in WvW in the main times that the server is populated, and actively participate in the server’s teamspeak as well as the server’s forums. WvW communities are really not all that big, and almost every server is organized. As to bandwagoning, or transfer ping ponging, perhaps my perspective is skewed, but I have been from BP to DB to HoD to now Mag and in my case, none of them were really my choice. But in my experience, the rate of guild transfers is staggering. My guild was extremely reluctant to transfer every time, but we were faced with declining guild participation due to essentially crappy match-ups, so transfer or watch the guild die. Server transfers is what is killing WvW in a big way, or maybe it’s just a symptom of the lack of attention by Anet leading to a stale game mode. I think the new WvW metric based server status is great, but probably too little too late.

Edit* Also, transfers aren’t screwing up a match or two, look at almost every Tier 3 and below, only one match up is anywhere near competitive… this is a big problem and it’s due to transfers up and down.

Jayne.9251:

I’d recommend going to www.gw2wvw.net and just reading the forum match threads to get an idea of server, um, personality.

What you see in those threads, trolls aside, is pretty much what you’ll see in map chat.

Trolls aside? Seriously? The only “content” that people post on that site is trolling. It’s a bunch of bored 10 year olds constantly trying to out-toxic each other.

dancingmonkey.4902:

What are some of you doing that you have been on so many servers?

Why are people transferring so many times?

How long have you been away from some of those servers that you can suggest you have any concept of the current community?

Where have you been? Over the last year, most serious WvW guilds have transferred from server to server like some crazy ping pong tournament with 18 tables and 54 balls all in play at once. All you have to do is look at how quickly servers get bandwagoned up the tiers, hit T2 and then drop like a rock, or YB who skyrocketed to the top of T1, you aren’t under the impression that those YB players just suddenly got “better”?
This is the reality of serious WvW guilds and players. The question is, what have you been doing that you haven’t a clue as to what has been the last year of WvW?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m going to sticky this thread, with John’s consent, because we feel it contains valuable information that forum members may wish to read.

Eh?!

The first post has information directly from John Corpening. Am I misunderstanding your question?

Well Gail, so far it’s just more lip service. The problem with John’s statement of purpose is the disconnect between the WvW community and John’s (Anet’s) vision of WvW. The new borderlands very explicitly demonstrate not only the vast disconnect of Anet’s vision for WvW and what the players want, but also the way every new “improvement” is going to come, as a fully developed system that is well beyond the point of making any changes. We are stuck with the new borderlands map, yet another “vision” not shared by the people who actually play WvW. Much earlier collaboration with us would have allowed YOU to eliminate many of the gimmicks on that map that hamper the kind of gameplay WE want. And while his statement is “nice”, clearly he is also in charge of Fractals, and their big “update” to fix your vision there won’t even come till December, and that is only a rewards fix and a minor fix to toughness scaling… WvW has always gotten some amount of lip service, until we see real iterative changes I for one am not impressed.

Kitiara.2706:

^^^ Exactly my point. (However, I knew you would get it )

Who loves ya baby!! Also, please ANET devs for the love of all that is good, make sure if you place an NPC to talk to for triggering upgrades PLEASE put them right in front of the supply like the Alpine maps. I would hate the idea of being able to simply run up to the supply depot an easily get supply, I much prefer to have to run around the supply depot until my F key interacts with the supply and not the dumb NPC standing there…. nuff said.

Ayrilana.1396:

Tspatula.9086:

It definitely should be shut down until they fix the bugs. It’s wrong to let people spend that much time at something only to have it bug out.

Then simply don’t do it. What’s wrong is to force those who are still willing to do it to wait until there is a fix when the instance is still quite doable.

I guess our definitions of “doable” aren’t the same. currently I have a 1 in 4 no bug completion rate, that is not doable, that is broken. Maybe when you’ve spent 2 hours trying to simply complete the thing you’ll understand why it should be shut down until fixed….

It definitely should be shut down until they fix the bugs. It’s wrong to let people spend that much time at something only to have it bug out.

Or fix it so, if you beat the first two prebosses, that if you leave the instance because your frustration level has gone to BERZERK! you can start with the Mordy fight….

Jski.6180:

Sich.7103:

the problem with the troll are the troll…. not the system…. Give tools to ban the troll… Or make guild alliance, and make the game guild vs guild… Then if you have troll in your team you can just kick it out… The problem in the server mode is that you can’t choose your ally, and then you have troll….
The previous upgrade system was very good, maybe except the gold cost (and this one never disturb me)… No need to destroy everything because anet is unable to ban troll / hacker (yes because we speak about troll, but what about the hacker who where never ban ?)

That the thing EVERYONE is a troll even ppl who do not mean to be. If your a new player you have no ideal what going on and to be able to chose an upgrade by any one is a significant cost of time for every one on the map. To keep it a chose of one person for a full world is a bad ideal. The auto upgrades you do lose a bit of personally and meaning to them but you stop making it a “dumb dictatorship” type of system.

Now there is nothing wrong with making the upgrade time longer and make the yacks more time reduction making yack def and ganking a lot more of a thing. But to go back to a single person chose type of system is not only a bad ideal but a dangerous one.

I think what a lot of people are talking about is simply making the available upgrades require an actual person at the camp or tower to trigger then when they become available, if no one is there, then the progression stops until the available upgrade is triggered. So there aren’t any choices per say, but structures won’t just go to tier 3 just sitting there. I also would like to see the timers on upgrades be a bit longer than currently set.

Heimlich.3065:

coolcat.4638:

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned at all because it is so far away from most guilds and so dang expensive right now is tactics. Before HoT dropped and it was in beta and we found out cost of tactics, it was actually interesting in a tower or a camp cause we wanted to try the new tactics. Waiting in camps for a dune buggy or towers for a dragon banner. I wouldn’t mind auto-upgrades to stay the same way if tactics became attainable instead of bank breaking like rest of stuff.

Tactics consumables are very expensive to craft. Crafting one instance of Sabotage Supply Depot requires 75 Flax Fibers + 1 Resonating Sliver. The material cost is over 5 gold per use.

That’s the lowest tier of consumable with a weak effect (denying supply at a captured objective).

I totally agree with the OP, there needs to be some manual aspect of upgrading. The current auto upgrades really destroys a key aspect of what was interesting in WvW prior to HoT.

And given the current state of things on the new borderlands maps, I am very nervous about what effects the “tactivators” are going to have… more gimmicks… not good.

Zioba.6182:

Oh… There are signs of… Well… At least something with moderation rights in this forum. One topic has been closed and one has been merged… So… Maybe if we all are verry verry quiet… If we don’t move, don’t even breath for a while… Maybe we can be lucky and spot one of those verry shy creatures, that most of us know only from old legends…

Our mordrem gardeners are always active making sure that the WvW forums don’t look anything like reality….

Also, the Devs aren’t posting on any of the forums, even the Esports, I mean PvP forums aren’t getting much. This was to be expected, there are sooo many bugs and poor design decisions riddled throughout HoT they must be in massive damage control mode. I would expect a few rounds of significant patches to HoT, not bug fixes, before we will see anything in WvW. And even though scribing punched most WvW guilds in the kitten, my guess is fixing that is very very low on the list of things to do…..

Ilvanor.1986:

- The prison. There is absolutely no reason for this other than for grief.

^This. It has to be the worst idea yet in GW2.

Oh great, now the boss is bugged at 25%.. I guess third time is a charm, or even more annoying. Third time now, wings bugged dead in the box. This is SOOOO FUN! and challenging, sooooo challenging

This is the worse, most buggy fight I ever. So your gilder wings don’t open you die and then just get to watch other people for 30mins because the boss has sooo many hitpoints. Anet hp does not equal challenging, it equals boring.

I just wasted over an hour doing the last fight only to die with the boss three quarters dead, not only are my hands hurting from all the dodging and lame “fight mechanics” now if I want to try again, not really sure I do, I have to fight the prebosses again. And for what? pretty much nothing.

Ultimaistanza.4793:

For those out there posting ideas for a better reward system and don’t read Reddit, here’s something Devon Carver mentioned on a thread in the GW2 Reddit a few hours ago;

“That is a large part of the issue. Essentially any change to WvW rewards has to be balanced against the idea that players, servers, etc. might collude with one another to just farm rewards. That said, there is one thing that is true of WvW, which is the actual rewards are higher than the perceived ones. Mostly because rewards come in a very small, but steady drip drip drip from kills, etc. That said, the mastery stuff is a different problem.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3rwlfk/what_is_the_justification_for_the_rewards_being/cws0kg9

I honestly don’t know why I keep thinking that somehow WvW will get better. This is worse than not understanding WvW, this is a complete write off statement. Basically, “yeah WvW rewards… really they are fine, you would know that already if you paid attention… anyway I have to figure out what to have for lunch. Laters!” It’s obvious by the lack of attention and “development” in WvW, but wow statements like these just hammer it home…

what are you talking about, the Devs are ON IT in WvW. Nerfing the gathering nodes was critical. If you were out there on the maps when those nodes going wacky, well it was quite game breaking let me tell ya…

but to be honest, as I have posted before, I don’t think there is any evidence that negative posting has any impact on the number of Dev posts in the WvW forums, well perhaps except in the case of Grouch… ROFLMAO Golem event FTW!!!

Interesting, I have also noticed that for the most part when I zone into verdant or auric maps they are not very populated at all. Hasn’t been possible to do much in terms of the meta events…

coglin.1867:

Yeah it seems to me that everyone in my circles enjoyed bloodlust, and EotM is packed 24/7. I fail to see how either of those can be deemed as failures.

So then you fully agree with us that Anet’s vision of WvW is something entirely different than how the core WvW players see it. And that EtoM was never designed to satisfy WvW players. Sadly, even though I think it was Colin that fully admitted that most WvW players hate EtoM over a year ago, the new map we got seems only to reinforce the mindset that gave us EtoM. It appears that not only does Anet not understand WvW, they also don’t seem to realize it either, or worse they think they will somehow move us in this direction that they think WvW should go in…
I still think we have months before we will see how the game play on the new borderlands is going to shake out and there is certainly the possibility that once people really understand the map game play will improve, but I don’t know, given the past and the length of time it takes Anet to make even modest changes to WvW, the new borderlands brings ominous portents as to the furture of WvW…. yes I said it. DOOM!!!!!!!!!!!

BrickFurious.7169:

“50% gimmick” unfortunately is still just as vague as “too much PvE”, I still have no idea what you’re actually complaining about there. The oasis event? The air turrets? (which, btw, I will actually complain about those; there needs to be some kind of visual warning before they go off, like they light up or something right before they fire).

Well, in my limited experience so far, the air keep traps especially the ones in the lords room are just overdone. things auto upgrade way too fast (though I am pretty sure that is probably the first thing that will get changed when we start to see changes). It’s obnoxious to get flipped around every few seconds without warning. The outside air traps make an already difficult terrain to maneuver even more so, I have yet to experience a fight as an incoming force there but it gives an overwhelming advantage to the keep. The rock walls that pop up are just silly. And the fire traps and so on…. I haven’t experience the stat boosts but for sure, all of these fairly powerful environment upgrades absolutely should not appear automatically, some of the auto upgrades are fine but others need to have some work associated with them in my opinion.
I have yet to experience the laser event but something that basically destroys all objective gates on the map seems crazy OP to me. Some aspects of the new map are going to end up being just fine after we learn them, the 40% speed buff from the shrines goes a long way to making travel easier, but there will need to be a lot of tuning and tweaking for them to play well…

BrickFurious.7169:

What more PvE? I see this complaint thrown around so much….{snip}

Look an honest examination of the new borderlands reveals a sort of obsessive fixation with Z-axis tech that Anet brought out with the HoT maguma maps. It’s fantastic in the PvE maps, and gliding is genius, but it’s simply out of hand in the new borderlands map. That, and clearly aesthetics trumped all other design considerations. It’s in the guild halls too, massive areas, but the Arena, the really functional part of guild halls is too small by at least 25%, but a 100% increase is really what’s needed. There is no focus on the core gameplay of WvW, the new maps are at least 50% gimmick (and I think I am being generous here)
Play devil’s advocate and support Anet all you want, that’s fine, but EotM, and now this new borderlands clearly show Anet’s tin ear to what the WvW community need and their lack of understanding how WvW works for serious guilds. I have no doubt that they will continue to “tell” us how WvW should be played, regardless of the obvious fact that NONE of the devs are serious WvW players and none of them are willing to admit that they don’t understand the game mode very well.

Distaste.4801:

butch.8136:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/10256/Guild-Wars-2-Heart-of-Thorns-One-Week-In-with-Colin-Johanson.html

They’re aware and working on it.

They were aware and working on it 3 years and 3-4 WvW lead designers ago, well at least nightcapping. The population issues were brought up during CDI’s and acknowledged, but like 99.999% of the WvW CDI suggestion nothing came of it. I would expect a “fix” in 1 year. Raids will come out in the next 3 months, the next 3 months will be dedicated to making those raids better and SPvP. 3 months after that it’s back to LS. It’s too little too late really, I don’t really see the WvW community getting reinvigorated for another round of being ignored by devs and waiting 3 years for major fixes.

They’ve wasted so much time on terrible updates. EotM was supposed to help with queued maps, of course at the time it released that wasn’t an issue at all. The Ruins of power…that are pretty useless All of the traps. The entire mastery system. Finally we have this new map that most people hate. I’m sure I missed some, but that just shows how forgettable they are. I really can’t say I have much hope for whatever nightcapping, population, or mechanics fixes they might implement, given the history it’s more scary than uplifting.

^this. OK, there’s really less than 2 months left of 2015 but to have no mention of WvW at all, not even a “and early in 2016 we hope to roll out some changes for WvW” is seriously bad. EotM demonstrated how really really bad Anet’s policy of not disclosing anything they are “working on” before it’s done. Many devs, including Colin irrc, stated that they understood that EtoM was not liked by the majority of the WvW community, yet here we are again after 2 YEARS. Same story, a completely finished map, no feedback from the WvW community on ANY of the design aspects, a map that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding the WvW dynamic. And I LIKE a lot of the aspects of the new map. Sure they are taking feedback from the community and then going into a cave and walking out with stuff YEARS LATER. It’s like getting feedback from the community saying we want LAMB for dinner, and them coming back a week later, no food in the meantime, and they happily present us roast TOFU. And then tell us, “it great right? You wanted food, this is totally awesome food.”
So I consider Tofu to be the EtoM analogy, so now we are starving because most of us don’t want to eat Tofu, more feedback is taken, we wait again…, and now we’re getting chicken nuggets! YAY… oh wait, that really isn’t what we asked for, why did they ask us in the first place if we are just gonna get chicken nuggets and not lamb anyway…
Here is the WvW dev process: OK, the players want lamb, good. Go to the fridge, uh oh, no lamb… well it would take a few hours to get lamb from the store… what have we got…. chicken nuggets!!! awesome, who doesn’t like chicken nuggets!! then they spend thousands of hours making tons of dipping sauces, cuz sauces. Of course, if they had simply gone out and got the lamb and served it, we would happy and they would have spent less total dev time doing it.
HoT is pretty awesome, Anet does PvE really well, and they are dumping so many resources into PvP cuz esports! that there is no way it’s going to be a massive cluster kitten, but I honestly no longer believe they have a single dev with ANY decision-making power who really plays or understands WvW at all. We want meat, but all of the cooks are vegetarians….

Wow, I must admit, I sort of thought that there was a chance that we would get some attention after the release of HoT, mainly because Colin and other Devs specifically said they were going to devote a lot of attention to the core issues of WvW. Well, I guess what they meant was “soon” after the release of HoT. Given past “soon” timeframes, I am guessing we’ll get a lot of nothing for the next 6 months to a year and then new fixes will suddenly arrive to solve all of WvW’s ills, only they will come without any discussion with the actual players in WvW… Some things never change.

EotM Nerfomatic!! It’s about time. It was absurd.

Well, remember that PvE right now is drawing a disproportionate number of people who normally would be in WvW, building guild halls, getting hero points, just checking out the new PvE maps. As things get going the WvW population should increase, and certainly things will improve going into the weekend as more people log on. Just realize, it will be months before any kind of equilibrium is established and until then, we really have no idea how the maps will play.

They are “tweaking” it based on results supposedly… AND it’s not supposed to be immediate, the population metrics are averaged over some time period, probably at least a month, so if a bunch of guilds left FA in the last couple weeks, it may not show up in the population level yet, but ultimately it will.
Personally I am quite happy with the results so far, lots of guilds have moved down to lower pop servers which is a great thing, not nearly balanced yet, but certainly more dynamic than it was before.

Wow, reset on Saturday night…. Can Anet be more clueless? the mind boggles.

looks like the best thread for the Squad UI feedback and suggestions is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Enhanced-Squad-UI-Feedback/first#post5555791

New Squad UI sooooo AWESOME!!! Having a squad “lieutenant” that could be assigned to someone in the squad who would have similar permissions as the squad leader and could carry out the functions of sub group composition, reorganization, and tasks. That way the commander could delegate these tasks if he or she choose to, so they can concentrate on strategy and tactics.

Spurnshadow.3678:

To all of you saying that if one can not handle the squad management that this new system will entail, then we shouldn’t command: I say you don’t command much yourselves.
(extra comentary)
It also seems to me that this was created more out of necessity for raids, rather than WvW, and it was expanded to accomodate the WvW community.

Well, based on my WvW experience you are in the minority as far as how commanders operate. But no worries, you can simply tell the people who follow your tag to party up and don’t let them join your squad. There, see everyone can have it however they want. We get a far superior squad structure, you get to continue to use the old party structure. Everyone wins!

ArchonWing.9480:

I really don’t understand why I can’t be my own party and in a squad. I don’t want to rely on a commander to decide that. Taking away options is not something I can really agree with.

I don’t know, personally. Sometimes I just like to chat with just party members.

I think this falls under the category of, you can’t have everything… personally, I think the tradeoff greatly favors the coming squad system over the previous system.