Guild Wars 2

Ganking and spawn camping are serious issues for new players and to be honest we need more people in WvW not less. It’s true there are other ways out of spawn, and learning to fight well helps but that doesn’t make it ok to encourage toxic behaviour like this. Neither ganking nor spawn camping help the players (on either side) or the game.

As for PPK, it’s largely irrelevant to me since I play in a low tier NA server and at off-peak times. I tend to PvD – not because I like this but because the doors are always there; players aren’t. I’m happy to get points if I can find someone to kill, and if they win then the points are theirs.

^ This is true – and PvP “daily” rooms are something Anet are aware of. You can get rewards quite easily this way. It’s sort of a PvP version of EotM but easier.

It is however no excuse for holding back WvW.

I think that was the point – a banner warrior would be a very uncommon build for WvW.

Warrior without banners can be done though – I ran a signets warrior for a while years ago before they nerfed the runes I used for perma fury.

I’ll make this short:

PvP match – one person goes afk in spawn and the game is unbalanced affecting the result. All the complaints are directed at the stupid person who was afk.

WvW match – one team has players “afk” for a while and suddenly it’s unfair and completely wrong that another team has more players on… Really?!

Zengara – I understand that you don’t like losing but you’re not helping yourself here.
Some examples:

• You say that you get “bags like it’s raining” during your play time and then complain that people get fed up with being farmed and wait until the zerg has gone.

• You complain about “night time guilds” playing at off peak times. Why are you in a guild? Is it because you enjoy the company of your guild mates, and that you play with them at times that you can get together? Yes? So do not complain about other people doing this either. All the guilds I know of exist because they are players who want to play together – just like your guild. But because they play at a different time to you this “is shady”… in other words underhand, deceptive and a form of cheating?

• You refer to “night time guilds”. This is self centred. You are telling us that even when the sun is up and it’s bright outside it must be night time for all players because it is night for you personally?!

Before anyone says anything I admit to an a slight L2Q issue (learn to quote). It’s early and I’ve not had enough caffeine yet – that’s my excuse and I’ll stick to it!

Differences in populations at different times of the day is part of WvW. The overall position of a server is dependent primarily on population (number of concurrent players)and when those players are on line (server coverage). Player skill and tenacity have a role to play in the overall score too – a good small group can demoralise and drive off a poorly lead bigger group, and players who stick around despite the odds can often make a difference.
This is how WvW is. Sometimes you will win, sometimes you will lose. Just accept this and enjoy the game.

Looking back on these ideas after another 2 months of playing the Deserted Borderlands, I still think that there have been some very good suggestions posted here by a range of different players.

In summary though, and what really stands out to me at the moment, the following point may probably be the most important:
The current Borderlands system divides a small defensive force up too much and is an attempt to copy EB – it’s not needed for Borderlands as EB fulfils the central battleground role better.
Returning the side keep waypoints to only being available when upgraded and for use by whoever holds the keeps would go a long way to restoring them as Borderlands.
The addition of a cap-and-use waypoint instead of the Oasis event could lead to the central area fights around a strategic objective that I think the Oasis was supposed to cause. Heck they may even be able to use the Deserted BL map as it stands? (<— controversial but possibly true).

What do those of you who are in fight guilds think of the Oasis area (without the PvE mobs) – does it have the potential to be a decent central area to fight in? Could it suit small and large battles? Or do we need a change – perhaps like the central tower idea mentioned previously?

Finally, Anet, could I suspect, introduce the changes I mention above to the existing map within a couple of weeks. Should they try them out for a while?

Jski – thank you for your comments.

Balancing the population will not be easy if it can be done at all. There have been different suggestions however that do not force people to play when they do not want to – this is never a thing that I would suggest or support. A quick fix is remake and rename all the servers – in effect reset WvW. People join afresh and perhaps the population will spread out. I have seen some ideas involving different over flow maps that could work. The mega server approach – although not an idea I like personally – would help concentrate more people into fewer maps.

As for class balancing – if this was separated from the other game modes so changes for PvP five man matches didn’t affect WvW matches then this would allow Anet to adjust each profession to be more evenly matched. The problem with this is that your character might behave a little differently in WVW than it does in PvE or PvP. No-one is suggesting that any class should be able to take on 20+ people! It is true however that the stability changes that were brought in have caused a much bigger problem in WvW than they fixed in PvP. It is this connection that I believe needs to be broken: perhaps you misunderstood me – I’m not asking for anything, I simply summarised what others have already said.

Gennyt – when I started reading the WvW forum (before HoT) there seemed much more of a balance between positive and negative threads. I understand the reasons why this has changed, and agree with many of them, but again I’ll state my opinion that repeating complaints that have been previously made many times is unlikely to have any positive effect effect. Does it even help to “let off steam” as it were?

If you think I’m wrong then so be it, and yes, suggesting patience is a big ask, not because of this community but because of the history of this game mode. However if we are not to be patient then what is the alternative?

One of the reasons for asking about Guild swapping in WvW within your idea is that being in more than one guild can be advantageous. I can’t be the only person who has claimed a camp for one guild and then a tower for another so we can have two sets of buffs. This wouldn’t be possible within your idea.

I understand about the empty borderlands – I’m in the same situation.

While I still disagree with the adventures idea on principle, at least it would be more down to personal choice than the current PvE content like the Oasis. It shouldn’t be gated against other player though – that’s not a good idea. Quite a few of the veteran and respected WvW players started by coming in for map completion and staying because they enjoyed the game so much. I’d say don’t lock doors that might help the population grow.

Like the signature too – reminds me of the 80MB maxtor I put on a RLL card… Happy days.

I like the participation idea. Sounds interesting.

Commanders having X rank before being able to tag up won’t work properly though. I’d rather follow a good Commander on his alt account than follow someone who has gained their rank through EotM and now feels qualified to command because of reaching the required rank.

I think one of the nicer ideas I’ve seen for WvW rewards involved reward tracks like in PvP. If you added mastery point tokens to these and made progress determined by participation perhaps the two ideas would work together?

Missed your post Tspatula. Not sure how much I agree, but I’m definitely not in favour of scrapping servers to make “equal-ish large armies”. There needs to be some play option for these yes, but there are players who enjoy the small group warfare and other players who prefer roaming, and some who enjoy all three play styles. I don’t want to see them forced to play in large armies any more than I wanted to have to grind PvE for my guild upgrades.

I definitely agree about direction for WvW. If they did scrap and start again it does show they listen, but listening too much could see them start all over every week! I’d still like to know what they are working on, in general terms, just so we hear something.

To be fair though, the original 3 guild Alliance idea wouldn’t have worked due to the variation in size and activity of guilds. Fortunately there were other suggestions as to how to deal with this issue.

Edit: to remove last sentence on reflection.

I agree with almost all of this except the waiting for over 3 years bit. Being honest, I spent the first year enjoying WvW and it was new enough not to need an overhaul. The second year was still fun too, so I can honestly say I’ve only been waiting for the overhaul since HOT was announced.

It’s an interesting thought that you brought up Subversion, although reverting stability and adjusting scoring doesn’t seem like it should take a year or more (but I’m no code monkey so I can’t say for sure). However without any communication everything is speculation, and is likely to remain so until Anet spring their Surprise! overhaul upon us .

And Psizone is right, you can’t stop people complaining especially when they feel there is so much to complain about. But it does get tiring reading the same complaints again and again, and I doubt they will be attended too any quicker than they were the first few times they were raised.

It really saddens me to see so few of my WvW friends on any more, and even fewer commanders tagging up. Then you get those who do try hard to make the best of what we have, like Knob, seeing their hard work unravel because of a crazy random match (I’m on IoJ so I understand both his pain and his post all too well).

I know those who are waiting patiently are fewer than those who moved on. My experience tells me the player base is shrinking with fewer new players entering WvW than veteran players leaving.
Those of us who are left are waiting as patiently as we can for the promised overhaul and the more frequent communications… and we will definitely need to be patient because it looks like a long wait ahead on both counts.

Missed your post Psizone – and I agree that patience would be helped if there was some communication about what is happening. I’ve never disputed this.

The WvW will be our number one priority statement has been clearly proven to be somewhat economical with the truth: we have had PvP season 1 occurring before the WvW overhaul, and PvP season 2 being released soon with evidence of development work on the match making system and some class balance. So no – it isn’t the number one over-riding priority for Anet.

Whilst I agree with you, I still don’t believe that a now repeating stream of complaints will speed things up.

I know we’ve been waiting for three years for some proper attention to WvW – but not for this overhaul. I’d say at most about two years for this and perhaps in all seriousness just over one. During the past three years many things have changed including the WvW lead at Anet and probably the development team (that includes personnel or size – I have no idea and they don’t tell us).

I do not support a longer delay than is necessary to do a proper job, but I also cannot see the sense in throwing a tantrum and demanding that Anet do something immediately to fix this issue or that issue, nor to be honest do I see the point in continuing toxic behaviour on this forum.

The lack of information from Anet is deplorable and can only serve to affect customer relations in a negative way. They know this and we know this. There is however nothing to be gained from continuing to repeat the situation: if anything was going to be done then it should have been done before now.
The only hopeful option left for us is that they really are working on a major overhaul and that it will make (genuine) improvements based on the many good ideas put forward over the last year or so. Wishing this overhaul to happen now does not change the coding or time required, and probably won’t affect the resources assigned to the job either.

I have clearly stated I would welcome more information or confirmation, but Anet policy seems to be like mushroom farming. It’s not just us however, the changes to the PvP season 2 match making system were announced on Reddit and on the new eSports website, but no official link or mention in the GW2 forums or game notes. In other words this is a company wide problem and not aimed directly at WvW. To be honest I can’t see it changing however much it really needs to.

So that leaves me two viable options: be patient, or walk away. I’ve made my choice and you’ll make your own. But a third option of stay but keep complaining? I really can’t see how that helps any more.

I also would like some indication that the WvW overhaul is still under way and is making progress. I’d be even happier if we were given some very broad outlines as to what it covered – just general headings would do at this point.

I do however think we need to be patient.
Two key areas that need addressing are WvW specific balancing of classes and 24 hour population imbalance. I suspect that in both cases a serious rewrite of parts of the game are required, and for developers who are working on someone else’s code this would take time. I’m prepared to wait and see what happens in part because I would like to see things done properly and in part because I feel I have no other choice.

However, while waiting patiently works for a while, it would be nice to see a post that says something like: “Still working on WvW overhaul. We’re having to rewrite a lot of code to separate the game mode properly but it will allow us to respond quicker in the future.”
I’d far rather see that than: Silence, followed by more PvE content.

We already have the flagging features you mention. How’s that for quick service from Anet!
Commanders can nominate Lieutenants within their squad. The Commander or the Lieutenants can place map markers or use target markers (so you can tag the Lieutenant leading a separate group within the squad).

The walls on the old keeps (Bay and Hills) and I think the towers too had simple crenelations (raised sections to take cover behind). Don’t recall seeing these on the new map but I may have simply overlooked them.

We have cannons, AC and wall repairs. Try a balister for your mega-rifle. We have vertical cliffs – lots of vertical cliffs. Gliding isn’t going to be a priority for a while so bombing runs will remain a thing of the future.

Ladders could be a new siege type, I think that might work. Say 50 supply to build on account of being a quicker method of entry than a ram or cata would be? Ladders should be target-able and subject to both knock-back and pull to topple them. I think every class has one of these skills somewhere. Perhaps also have NPC guards target ladders as a priority to topple then switch back to players.

It’s good that you’ve shared your ideas. I disagree with them on a few counts, but hey that’s what discussion is about right?

1. Mega-server may or may not come to WvW but if it does it will bring the same problems we see in PvE maps where party and guild members cannot get into the same map instance their friends are in, or the EotM problem where you get put into a map that is K training and you want to fight but have no way to select a different map instance (or you want to K train and have no way to select a different map instance…)

2. Like many other players I am a member of several guilds. I can see your idea might suit players who are members of a single WvW dedicated guild – and there a still some of these left – but what about everyone else? For example smaller guilds or large PvX guilds that do a bit of everything? Binding guilds to a side for a week could easily mean that I have a guild on each side, or one side is made up of large but casual guilds resulting in a very uneven match. What happens if I swap guilds in WvW – do I change sides? Finally we have the facility to chat to any of our five guilds in Guild chat – an opportunity ripe for simple mistakes or outright spying.

3. I’d want to see how well the new match up system worked before even considering this. Under the present system many matches have obvious winners from the start. Sure you get an occasional surprise but most of the time it’s too predictable – and that would be even more of an issue for gambling on matches than it is for the players taking part.

4. Ah, the old “add more PvE content”. You might well get Anet to use this suggestion but it’s not what most WvW players seem to want. I suspect you’re actually after the mastery points not the PvE content but you do need to word suggestions carefully, especially since I’m sure I saw a thread that suggested Golem Week a few months before it occurred…

I think the second biggest problem we face in WvW is that so many players have such different ideas of what they want it to be. There is no easy solution that suits everyone: PPT and PPK players, small and large guilds, casual and dedicated players, server motivated players and I’ll-fight-anyone motivated players.

I doubt Anet has sufficiently detailed data to know who levelled up in which maps. WvW level and hours played will be held in our account information as total values. I doubt this includes detail, and certainly not a history of where and when a player gained levels.
I suspect Anet can access historical map population data but I doubt this includes a list of specific characters. I think it more likely to be based on the number of client requests for data each map instance gets (in other words how many players are on that map). Collecting and retaining information about who these requests originate from would be a lot of data to collect and store for little benefit – so it doesn’t seem likely that this is done.

So I come back to my original intent and question. How can Anet tell who plays WvW and would make a reliable and effective tester for new content? If you look through the posts here you’d be forgiven for thinking that everyone has left WvW entirely, that all the major guilds have disbanded and only a few inconsequential players remain to enjoy the PvE aspects. This is of course untrue – the API data clearly shows structures flipping so there must be players on those maps.

So, who is left? We, the players, should know, which is why I suggested we list guilds, commanders and even players who we know are still active. I thought the list would be useful, however judging from the responses so far most people who have replied either disagree or don’t understand the basic idea.

It’s a sad indictment of this forum community that the most popular threads are the negative ones.

I’ll leave this with one final statement for Anet – in case they read this.
If you want some idea of who else you could invite to test WvW ideas, you might look through the sticky thread about the Desert Borderlands and select the players who actually gave thoughtful and constructive feedback, whether you agree with what they said or not.

It’s good to put forward ideas. It would be even better if we as a community could have some sense of being involved in the development of WvW.

Good luck in finding the fights and fun you seek. The new maps feel bigger and you can easily miss other players because the maps are so convoluted – they look empty but there may be a few people scattered around. It does seem a bit of a haunted wasteland though doesn’kitten

Yes Anet could ask people to sign up, or ask everyone to join in. But they won’t. They could even look at their metrics, but I’m not sure if these include individual time in WvW maps, or indeed whether the metrics differentiate between EotM and “real WvW” (simply looking at WvW rank would not do this for example).

This thread isn’t intended as a popularity contest. It’s an attempt to identify those guilds and commanders that we as a community would consider representative of our game play.
There may well be too many names to select them all (assuming more people post) but the alternative is that Anet selects players for testing who they believe participate in WvW; and this will be based on either:
a) players they have met during their own play time (which limits the servers, tiers and time of play)
or
b) players that publicly play WvW – ie streamers.

I’m simply proposing that we, the community, put forward another list for them to look through too – that’s why I asked for reasons.

There are times when my server has been in a match-up dominated by another much more populated server. Usually when this happens the stronger server takes EB and holds this and their own borderlands as a minimum. They then pillage the remaining borderlands whenever they get bored.

Your proposal would mean a smaller server would not even be able to sneak into another borderlands to gain any points – we’d have no choices at all – fight in our BL, or try to take Stonemist against superior numbers.
A server dominating like this would only need to take and hold Stonemist to guarantee winning the match-up. Sorry but I think your suggestion would make it easier for a larger server to dominate a match and that’s not helpful.

You said that you’ve only recently returned to WvW after an absence. You may have missed the fact that we no longer have a “home” borderlands at all. Each BL map is like EB now with an area we’re supposed to defend, and push out from there into enemy territory. This is why the side keep WP are not accessible to you on what used to be your home BL, even if you control the keep. I think the idea was to bring three way fights to each Desert Borderlands but in the lower tiers all it did was split an already small defending force up, not sure how it plays out in the higher tiers.
I know this is a different issue and don’t want to interrupt your thread – just thought I’d mention it because currently Anet is trying to get every server to be active on every map even when they don’t have enough players.

Assume the following (because they seem likely based on past experience)
1. Any Anet employees who do play WvW don’t cover all servers and all time zones.
2. Following on from 1 – Anet may not actually know who would make a representative sample of players to test things as they develop the WvW update.

Whilst I would like to say everyone should have a chance to help, this may not be possible for early testing…

So who would you recommend to be asked to test the new WvW update, and why choose them?

I’ll start the ball rolling:

A big Guild: Knights of the Rose because we’re a large PvX guild that has a decent WvW presence at reset and some players who play WvW off peak. We also have players from a number of different servers, so a cross section of tiers and play styles.

A small Guild: Lemmings are Lost because it has a few dedicated WvW players who are still to be found playing WvW – mostly roamer and small group activity.

A Commander: Ins – don’t know him/her personally or even which server he’s on but he’s posted some sensible ideas and seems to understand many of the different aspects of WvW. I’d trust him to represent us fairly I think.

I have run alongside several good WvW guilds on IoJ. Sorry I haven’t named you all, but I’ve not been on as much as I used to be and I’m not sure who is still active.
If you’re on the forums please add more suggestions.

I have to laugh at all this although I feel sad at both the current state of the game and the constant moaning about this issue (which is always one sided for some strange reason).

My server spent many many months being steam-rolled in NA T3 by the “drop down” server from tier 2 while four evenly matched servers tried to fit into three spaces. The only time we didn’t face an out-manned buff – at any time of day – was when we had a queue to get into the maps. Was it fun? Not really. Did I have a tantrum? No. Most people gritted their teeth and played on. For months. Some moved on to other servers. What happened is what happened.

So why is there this sense of outrage about any server having a numbers advantage at times of low population when it’s fine to have a bigger zerg or more dedicated WvW guilds and therefore a numbers advantage at any time?

Why should PPT favour times when the servers are equally matched? It never did in the past. The response always seems to be something about “It’s only the actions of a FEW players and that’s not fair because we can’t recover”. Tough. That’s how things are sometimes. I’ve been in enough battles now to know that sometimes the tide can be turned by the actions of a few players. How is this different?

WvW isn’t about having fair numbers or fair fights. It’s about doing the best you can with the team you have against two opposing servers. That may be in fights or it may be capping stuff, but the idea that somehow it must be fair is genuinely wrong… or are people going to tell me that actually the maps should limit the players to equal numbers on each side (even then you would have to take account of player ability somehow to make it really fair). Sound ridiculous? That’s because it is.

If you generate a scoring system that is completely fair then everyone will have the same score. How does that work out then?
Oh – we don’t want all servers to get the same score? Perhaps it should favour one server over another on numbers then? Or is it to be who can buy the most skilled guilds? Or who has players on and when they play? – errmmm…. did I miss something but isn’t that what we have at the moment?

I agree that Desert BL doesn’t appear to have been designed by anyone with a good grasp of what WvW is actually about, but the way it was launched actively drove players away and that really was part of the problem. If there had been a good reason to stay and learn the map I think people would have done so. The current apparent emptiness of these maps does WvW no good at all.

If a new map is introduced in a more positive way, and feedback is sought and responded to, then I think the new map would have a chance. Someone should explain this to Anet if they don’t already know. Just trying to be helpful

In PvE:
Players go through the cut scene and swarm the starting waypoint.
There are story lines and events for them to do.
Players spread across the map as they complete the map events and get drawn further into the new area.
Eventually more experienced players start showing players who are new to the area around.

In WvW it’s very different:
Players log in and spawn.
They move out into the map and create events – taking a camp or whatever they can find.
They notice that an enemy has taken SE tower (for example) and want to hurry to defend it…

… and this is where it is crucial that the new map is easily navigable straight away. Within minutes there is action on the other side of the map that players need to get to. This doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be little hidden areas or faster or sneakier routes around, but it does mean that any new player should be able to get from A to B easily using the mini-map.

This is a key part of what went wrong with the Desert Borderlands map. The change meant experienced players who knew their way round the old maps suddenly had that skill taken away – it’s bad enough making us feel like noobs again, but the frustration that comes from not being able to do something you used to be able to do easily is infuriating. Older players will know what I’m talking about, and the younger players will find out in due time: eventually your body does this to your mind.

So a new map needs time for players to learn it. Where will they find their regular fun during this time? In the case of Desert BL many players turned to EB to avoid the frustration.

A sensible suggestion to reduce this impact is to have a period where players can use the new map to get acclimatised – possibly during a public (everyone invited) beta test. And be aware learning the new map will probably take several weekends because players will still be fighting each other and making plenty of new events by capping stuff. If you really want to encourage players onto the new maps try adding some map specific WvW rewards and title tracks: in effect bribe the players to play the new map.

I’m sure I don’t need to add any remarks about listening to feedback after the map beta tests. There are plenty of threads that do this already.

So that’s my thoughts. Have I missed anything that could help Anet if they ever introduce a new WvW map again (not looking at design features – other threads have covered those).

All proposals are effectively meaningless unless the times quoted are Server time – this is the one constant value that anyone and everyone can set on their mini-map. Thus it is the only sensible point of reference in a world wide game.

I believe the EU servers reset at 6pm(?) server time – which would make the times the OP suggests understandable.

One problem I would foresee (on first glance) is that some players such as myself enjoy smaller group play. I’ve tried big blobs in EotM, and I can spam 1,1,1,1 as good as anyone, but I feel that smaller group encounters more often revolve around skill and strategy and I enjoy this challenge.
I would like to be able to play in a map where I’m likely to be in a group of 3 to 15 (or so) taking on other groups in the same range. I know I’m not alone in this desire – it’s one reason why some of us have stayed in the lower tier servers rather than transfer.

Not sure how your proposed system would allow this but I hope there would be a way. Perhaps there could be a selectable designated “lower population” instance?
Or perhaps the default maps might have a lower cap and the overflow maps a much higher population cap (I’m thinking that when you have a large influx of players log on they will be looking for big group fights?).

OK – but if PPT takes a penalty when there are less players on so that a few players don’t influence the outcome of the match unfairly then surely we must also ensure that PPK is scaled UP for people who play at off peak times. After all, it also wouldn’t be right for the big groups to unfairly influence the outcome of a match simply because there were more people around for them to kill – and it so much easier to focus down a target when you have more players around you.

So there’s the other half of your fair solution then – scale PPK right up at off peak times to account for both the lack of players to kill and the fact that it’s harder to kill them.

I like the idea of retaining servers and using over flow maps for large population times. As long as this doesn’t result in guilds or groups being split between two maps too much I think it could be interesting.

Players who complain about “night capping” just do not understand that there is no such thing. How many times do we have to tell them that the world is round.. I mean come on guys and gals – we’ve moved on in the last century or two.

There is definitely an impact caused by population time imbalance, and I accept this. Like all population imbalances it causes problems in some match ups, and it would be good to find a way to even out populations across servers AND across times. Like all population imbalances it is caused by player choices too – and that makes it hard to fix properly.

The term “night capping” is offensive to many players whose prime play time is not the same as the “peak population” times. Players who use the phrase are defining themselves as selfish and arrogant (night is defined as when I am asleep and the fact that the rest of the world is in daylight is irrelevant. What? Really?!).

To resolve population-time-imbalance we do NOT need penalties or other biasing.We simply need a roughly even spread of players at each time.
So if your server has a lack of players on at a particular time then be welcoming and encouraging on the forums and in game. If you spend your time complaining about players from another time zone don’t be surprised if they don’t want to help you out.

And remember this also – if OCX players (for example) or EU players (for example) on a NA server have grouped together so they can play with their friends at the same time as their friends – tough. It’s very likely what you’ve done yourself – but somehow they are wrong to do so and you’re not? Hmmm….

If I have read your OP correctly you were fighting inside the enemy keep?
If so the problem is not so much the new revive changes but more because the keep WP is not contested for the defending team so they simply “WP to the same keep” and run back into the fight. Apparently this is intended (ANet know about it and haven’t chosen to fix it).

WvW needs to be kept separate from PvE – there are too many areas where one would annoy the other. However I wonder how things would be if we could use a couple of different PvE maps as a WvW dedicated instance with hearts replaced by PvP style capture points. It would need some work…

Just off the top of my head:
- Replace hearts with PvP style capture points – three different tiers so a small circle is worth less than a medium is less than a large (like camp tower keep).
- Deployable walls/barricades as part of siege (there would be supply issues to look into)
- There would need to be a WP system to allow players to move easily around the maps (and a way to discourage these being spawn camped – possibly a No Traps zone with a debuff that builds up to cause damage if you linger too close too long – like the frost aura in the fractal with the ice elemental)
- no PvE based mega laser boss event (too cheesey – don’t mind befriending locals to help defend objectives though – at least that makes story sense).

Some of the PvE maps have ruins and other areas that are already partially defensible. I can see that this sort of idea would a) save making new maps, b) provide familiar surroundings and c) give plenty of space (which may or may not be good).
Not sure whether some/all the PvE stuff should stay – you need it to make the maps feel realistic (villagers around North camp Alpine for example) but you don’t want to be battling against PvE exclusively instead of finding players.

Perhaps a more PvE like open map would help attract some PvE players into WvW?

A couple of recent threads have set me thinking about the dedicated defenders I used to see in the home borderlands. I’d like some more info on whether these players are still there, have moved on or are (becoming or have become) extinct.

I’d appreciate it if you have the time to give brief feedback on a few questions:

1. How often do you play defence? Always, sometimes, occasionally? Never?!

2. Which maps do you defend? EB, BL, both?

3. Briefly, how do you spend your time on each map you play? Do you look after a whole map, small group of objectives, just stay and guard one place?

4. Are you usually solo or part of a team when playing defensively?

Not sure I can see how this could work. One week you have Alpine and plenty of players who know what to do and where, then next week you have Deserted BL and almost all the action will be in EB.
Since match up s are decided weekly, and ANet seems to be trying to mix these up a bit again, you’ll have people who will play/won’t play and a ton of complaints about “We would have won that if we had the right map”.
You can’t make match ups a 2 week duration without making things even more stale – so I seriously doubt a rotation will be as helpful as you might think.

DAL: I understand what you mean now that you’ve explained it properly. If the timer aspect is a problem this could be avoided by making the siege salvageable by the original player as I suggested in my original post. This would also fit with a requests= in earlier forum threads to make siege identifiable (set a playerAccountName tag on siege that can be used to identify who dropped it and perhaps also who can salvage…).

I have in the past spent plenty of time both placing siege and refreshing it. Your reaction to my post made me think back and I can’t recall seeing any pre-placed defensive siege since the Deserted BL launched. Whether this is because there are no players to refresh it and it is lost or because people don’t defend any more I don’t know. Perhaps this makes the problem of defensive siege salvage moot in itself?

Anyway, whether siege salvage would work or not is, like any idea, worth a quick discussion even if it is finally dismissed. I’m not trying to solve a problem here, I merely put an idea up for consideration and invited feedback. You gave your opinion – so thank you

Err… yes? You did spot where I said it either needed to be the player who set the siege or by anyone after a suitable cool down; as long as this is longer than it takes a paper ram to knock down a fortified gate (or similar siege/target combo) then removing the siege after you’ve used it is much less annoying…

The problem is that while everyone agrees that population imbalance is a problem, it is one that has been caused by players migrating to certain servers rather than by WvW itself. Since the problem is caused by players how can Anet (or NCSoft) be expected to fix it?
I’ve read a lot of proposed solutions in these forums. They tend to be either “give us megaserver maps” or “merge lower tier servers into top tiers” with the implication that the lower tier players will then be happier.

I’d rather see the top tier servers closed and the population distributed among the lower tiers where the players can do some good. Before you flame me over this because this suggestion has annoyed you now stop and ask yourself why the same suggestion is considered ok for a low tier server but not the other way round… arbitrarily forcing ANY server to merge will upset players and is usually something that is suggested as being done to other people for that very reason.

I like the idea of resetting the servers every year – have suggested this myself – but it doesn’t fix the problem it just resets it to a starting position. Ultimately the best option is for us to fix this as players ourselves, but I’m not sure how we do this in practice.

I’d like to see the ability to salvage fully built or part built siege, getting supply in return.
I’d suggest the following conditions are applied to this:
-Supply refund is less than the build cost (half of what has been added so far? random?)
-Salvaging can only be done by the player who placed it (to stop troll salvage) or make it any player but after a sensible cool down time (how long? Five minutes?).

Reasons behind this request:
-Refund of supply from salvaged siege would occasionally tip the balance when assaulting objectives (saves running for that final 4 supply you need)
-Allows troll siege or wrongly placed siege to provide some supply (so it’s not a total loss)
-Allows removal of siege so it doesn’t give away your favourite spots when the enemy zerg next sweeps round…

What do you think? Is the idea useful? Can it be done? Should it be done?

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/36989122 – 27 minutes and 8 seconds.

Gliding has been looked at but there are more important things to fix in WvW right now.

For me the new WP system represents a fundamental shift in WvW thinking. Imagine three borderlands defenders: before they would be on the same map and could support each other easily in response to an attack (calling in reinforcements if necessary). The chances are these three defenders would be spread across the map but still able to reach any destination easily within a short time.

Under the new system to protect the same amount of territory the same three defenders would be one per borderlands. So there is only one person on each map to respond to a threat, and even if they call on the other two for support (this would be via guild chat I guess since map chat is not cross-map – hope they’re all in the same guild then!) even if the other two defenders respond they now face a run the length of the Borderlands they map into. All this means there is more time from “Help!” to help arriving.

If you add to this the fact that most people on a map like to have some company, even if it’s only in the map chat window, then you have three solitary players where once you had three colleagues. This, along with the fundamental shift away from having a “home” area means that WvW has changed and we players have to try to adjust our world view to match. The problem for me is that while I’m sure it was made with good intentions, I’m not convinced this change has been fully understood by Anet or that it has made for better play.

The point is, I fear, we don’t have a home Borderlands any more. Each team now has a spawn and a WP in their third in each map. I think Anet thought this would cause more fights as people fought three ways over each map. Not sure it’s worked out like that though.

Here’s a previous discussion: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Borderland-WP

I have been there upgrading towers and keeps in the small hours of the day. I know the old costs, and the time it took. I also know that most players prefer to be attackers – and have no issue with this. I like a mix of both.

I have never had a commander complain about me spending time staying in the Alpine BL keeping an eye on and upgrading our stuff. I’ve only ever done this because I wanted to, and I know a number of players who actively preferred to do the job of caretaker in the old BL maps. We were often instrumental in spotting enemy attack and rallying players for a fight. Now there is no reason for us to stay.

Isn’t the attackers aim to cap stuff or kill players (or both). The only time attackers really want to see defenders is when they’re looking for the fun of a fight. How many times have you been in a group that tapped a keep, found no defenders and so waited for defenders to turn up? Didn’t you just go ahead and cap it anyway? This is what I tend to see when I’m on Cecilia: cap and move on rather than looking to cause defenders to sacrifice their time, or are you referring to capping stuff in an opposing BL to draw opponents out of yours/EB? That’s a valid strategy but again it relies on someone being home to notice and put out a call…

If defenders are away attacking another BL then they’re not defenders by definition; and there are few if any defenders on the BL maps these days. If you own all the objectives already why stand around doing nothing? No defenders means no opposition and no opposition means no fights… and that was my point: it’s not good for WvW.

The ideal system would be a fixed upgrade path as now (no trolling), with zero cost to the player as now, with X number of dolyaks required but triggered by player interaction at each location.
Currently the upgrades have remained passive and don’t encourage active participation in defence and that gives players less reason to stay on the map.

Calm down! The removal may only be temporary.

Think about it – what better protection from gliding players than flying raptors?
Now that WvW gliding has been put on the back burner, UFO Raptor has been stood down until the next “scramble” alert.

The original WvW system required manual input to start upgrades. This required defenders to be on the map to nurse the structures along. It also had problems – cost and trolling to name two – but if you didn’t look after your BL you got paper structures. One or two defenders could tend a whole BL (and gave roamers a running target…)

The post HoT system made everything automatic – this changed the emphasis completely: no need for defenders at all. It was also a pain for attackers who could do nothing to stop the upgrades (you could delay them but not stop them) so you’d log in and find yourself facing fully fortified everything. As an attacker the best you could hope for was run a big enough group to ignore the upgrade status or flip stuff quickly if you could catch it in time. As a defender the only time you visit a camp/tower/keep is if you see swords on it, and then the challenge is to get there in time to do anything about it.

The updated post HoT system means the emphasis on action still lies with the attackers. You must kill the dolyaks to postpone upgrades – indefinitely if you keep killing the yaks I guess. Still no human input needed from the defending side.

The thing is, I think the original system makes more sense. If there was no one on to start upgrades then you had a paper BL. Let’s face it, the upgrades benefit the defending server and should be their responsibility.

The new system requires an attacker at each objective killing the yaks coming from each direction. To be honest this is great if you want an excuse to get Yak-Slapper but beyond that who’s going to hang around to just keep killing the yaks? As soon as you think you can take the camp/tower/keep you’ll do it and move on.

I can’t really see the advantage tbh. Blobs will still take stuff with relative ease whatever the upgrade status. Roamers will either take stuff if they can or move on or maybe kill yaks while waiting for reinforcements. The only real change to game play is that the whole auto upgrade process is slower by default.

At least with a manually started upgrade there was a reason for defenders to be on the map, and that’s when you get people calling for help to repel an attack and that leads to more fights. The current version of the upgrade system still does not require defenders to be present on the map – and I think the game play is the poorer for it.

John Corpening didn’t rule out gliding in WvW in the Guild Chat interview, he simply said they had other priorities to fix first… and I agree with this. I’ll take my icing after the cake is baked properly.

However he didn’t then go on to mention these other priorities are the overly complex maps and a falling player population so who knows what will happen.

Nope – it’s not us T8 or T9 people.

I’m in NA tier 8 (IoJ) and although it takes a couple of of us about 15 minutes to do the event the damage it does to gates makes life easier – I’d say even in T8 we’d save time overall. We tend to do the event if it comes up simply because if we don’t someone else will and then we’re worse off. Whether there’s enough people on the map to take advantage of the damaged gates is another, more serious, issue.

I was simply highlighting the “official” reason (not my own!) for why this is being brought in. As I said, make of this what you will.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/36989122 36 minutes and 12 seconds.

The change is in response to “feedback from players that the event takes too long”.

Make of that what you will, but that’s the official reason given.

Saving WvW (if it can be done) requires resources to be committed by Anet, a commercial company. Perhaps one of the reasons that Anet has not seemed to take WvW as seriously as they could is that it probably does not generate much revenue for them. I think there is a missed opportunity here, so I’m going to imagine a WvW vendor that takes Gems and ask what would have appealed to you. All ideas welcome, from the serious to the seriously fun.

I’ll start with a couple to get the idea rolling:
Custom Golem skins (new item).
Guild claiming fireworks (already exists, unavailable atm but I liked them.
Guild “upgrade” so dolyaks from claimed camps show the Guild logo (new item).

So… what would you have bought in WvW?

Even though I’m an optimist at heart, and really want to enjoy WvW, what makes you think a Beta of the WvW overhaul will help? It didn’t before – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/So-why-the-HoT-WvW-Beta-ppl-didnt-complain Past experience tells us that the Beta doesn’t happen until things are almost finished at which point Anet don’t want to change anything major even when they are clearly told what will happen.

I really want to believe that Anet will get it right this time, but the stony silence does not inspire any more hope than the persistent “we’ve been working on WvW improvements for over a year” statements.

I’d rather see posts like this:
“Hi, I’m a WvW Dev and we want to make it easier to get around in a new bigger borderlands map. Which would you prefer:
a) A permanent way point in the keep nearest your spawn
b) Shrines that give a movement bonus when capped
c) Dolyaks that move twice as fast and grant a speed buff when you’re near them”

At least this way we could point out problems before the development gets to the point where they won’t change anything and we’d feel we had some choice (limited yes but a choice none the less).

Thanks for taking time to post a reply Tyler, and welcome.

Please correct me if I’m wrong (and now I know you’ll all do that because I’m seldom right…) BUT

If I recall correctly, as a commander when I tag up I can set the squad to be public (hot join) or open request (request to join) or by invite only (you can only join if invited to by the squad/commander). Guild Wars News

This feature, implemented by ANET already allows for players to be excluded from joining the squad if the Commander desires. How is it better to see a tag you can’t join than not see it and be unaware?
I understand the attractive lure of tagging up – I do it myself occasionally and it does give a good focus for any roamers or pugs on the map, but I can’t see how a closed squad tag would cause any more of a “problem” than we can already have, while it would be helpful to the guild groups using it.

Perhaps a solution is to implement an option for a closed squad tag and make it a different shape icon (or just outline and non filled?) so people know whether they can join or not.

But surely the Oasis event is functioning as the designers intend?

It provides a reason for everyone to rush to the middle and fight things (and sometimes other players)
It provides a regular opportunity to take a break from trying to find your way to the next objective.
It provides a way for small and determined groups of people to bring ALL the enemy gates on the map to 25% health or so, thus giving them a chance of taking a whole borderlands more easily while no one is looking (or was that previously called “nightcapping” ? Don’t know, I might be getting confused there).
And finally it provides a comforting PvE event suitable for both casual players who drop into the Deserted Borderlands and yet also suited to more experienced and dedicated WvW players who, we’re reliably told, all secretly enjoy PvE stuff really (go on, admit it, you know you do, Colin said so).

Ok, so there is tiny a bit of lag, BUT at least it’s fairly applied to all servers…

Sadly, although intended to be what I would call “tongue in cheek”, I suspect this may be closer to the embarrassing truth than I intended.