Guild Wars 2

Completely agree that we shouldn’t remove any content that is soloable, there need to be targets that can be taken solo.

That said, I don’t mind making those fights a bit more interesting (with more variety and better AI’s etc). And making upgraded camps harder, I’d say that is fair. But keep the base camps fairly easy.

For my part, I don’t really want more guards, but would like to see the guards be a bit more interesting than the same 2 bola charrs and blind shot bandits over and over. Would like to see some more variety, more different guards, a bit more random which one you meet, and have them work together better/more. And give them all some AOE’s so they can actually hurt you for bunching up.

Just using the extra guards (Zealot and Ritualist for ex) that comes with upgraded camps and randomize them in with the old two for all camps etc would be more interesting. Best of all, use the PvP training dummies, they’re much more fun to fight against, randomize some 3-4 of those as camp defenders. At least I’d be having some fun if people don’t want to fight.

Not a dueler myself, though I run with a few of them. But from what I’ve seen, a lot of the duels are spontaneous, and not organized or planned. So they just sort of “happen” wherever we happen to be at the time.

I do agree that I think it is silly to duel around SMC and in the middle of the roads etc, and I often tell them that they should stay out of sight if they want to duel, but you don’t always have communication with the opponent etc.

It is as it is, and as long as the duelers accept that they can get run over or move, it isn’t a problem. But for some reason, it is often the non-duelers that seems to have a problem with if… can’t figure out why.

Jeknar.6184:

Nuzt.7894:

EotM is to big to be put in the rotation imo. That and the fact that its available 24/7 if you like it that much, no need to add it. DBL, personally not a fan of but if it was only 1 map vs 3 and rotated out after a week I think it would be bearable.

But EotM was never used as an actual WvW map tho… It always been looked down as a karma-train map for pve players who wanted wxp. The results of trying it in the place of EBG for exemple are unexpected… No wait, they aren’t. WvW players just hate everything, they will just hate it like they hate everything else.

The Truth.

Steelo.4597

An interesting point there, what do you give/upgrade/add to a game, when the main content are other players ?

If they have a game, that is balanced (close enough), and have a RvR function that is function-able but not perfect. If they want to sell more or sell expansion packs etc, or make players pay for more, what do you give them ?

Curious since the ones I’ve seen or heard about seems to have gone pretty bad once they start expanding on them. At some point people just don’t care about more skins and toys they can’t use in wvw anyways

Lots of people do.

I for one use Exotics on most of my characters, including the second account. Think only my Guardian is fully in Ascended minus the backpack.

Several of the people in my guild or that I run with often runs mostly Exotics with Ascended trinkets.

The stat difference really isn’t that big. As people have said before, focus on getting the weapon because of the increased damage. And fill up with trinkets as you can get those for laurels+badges, or rings as free drops in fractals etc.

Armor just cost a lot for fairly minor increase.

Jeknar.6184:

joneirikb.7506:

Don’t mess with ruins, I think they’re fine as is.

SINK THEM! AND BRING BACK THE QUAGGANS!

Hush you, there is no worries about that happening, ANet won’t put more water fighting into the game. For good and bad, do like the small bits of water there is on ABL currently, but don’t want to have a Ranger/Pirhanna death zone where you’ll never be able to rout those darn rangers from. On the positive it would make thieves useless in that area.

Rule #1 Play what you enjoy.

Thief is very good at roaming, but not very good at zerging. The problem here is that Roaming generally require more out of the player than zerging.

But for roaming they are very good, great/best mobility, lots of access to stealth, and decent damage. The main problems are that Thieves are very squishy and generally dies if they’re caught, so you have to learn to use your active defenses constantly to keep alive (stealth, blind, dodge, evade etc).

Pistol + Pistol, Don’t know how well that will work in general WvW, depends on your other weapon set I guess. I’m a bit out of the meta, so I’ll let others talk more about builds.

Thief is a very fun class to play, really enjoy it myself. It can be an absolute kitten to play against however.

Hmm, it would be difficult to add more capture points to the existing maps without heavy rework. So I honestly doubt it will ever happen.

But assuming it is possible:

Camps could probably be split up, by letting each camp give half supply per yak, you could double the amount of camps, and place them more inward instead of the outside ring. This could create more lanes to go capture, and giving more targets for roamers and small havoc groups. But I don’t think 12 camps would fit on most maps, 9 perhaps, and I have no idea where to place them.

No idea about towers, I feel that they don’t do anything, so I just don’t see much point in having more of them.

Keeps I think could work well with 2 capture areas, even 3 for SMC. So you have to split up into 2/3 groups to take a keep, and fight against 2 lords. This way defenders could try to game one of the capture points to contest. Might make for some interesting plays if defenders decided to stay instead of running.

For other things, probably wouldn’t be a problem to add a couple more sentries, but I’d be more interested in seeing them slightly replaced to be more effective, more of a priority.

Don’t mess with ruins, I think they’re fine as is.

The Shrines on DBL are actually 9 capture points, so DBL actually has more capture points than ABL. But the whole middle of the map is unused so something could fit well in there, would love to see a big Aztec arena that somehow rewarded fighting and winning fights. But don’t know how to execute that without falling for any number of pit-traps.

My problem is that anything I think about turns into something large and complicated. So I really don’t know what I’d suggest, but I love the initiative!

Justine.6351:

NPC AI and skill set could be improved.

I still don’t know why we haven’t seen “don’t stand in aoe for more than 3sec” implemented like it was in gw1 10years ago because everything was being solo aoe farmed.

Create a third camp NPC that always spawns with lord, guard and scout and give the npcs full weapon skill sets and a couple utilities:

Camp Lord, make guardian with sword/shield, shelter and purging flames.

Veteran Guards, axe/shield, mending, “for great justice!” and bolas.

Veteran Scout, sword/pistol, withdraw and ice Drake leeching aura venom share..

Veteran Skirmisher, shortbow, water spirit and lightning reflexes, attempts to maintain 300 or more distance from target.

I don’t think they should make camps harder by adding more npcs or increasing thier toughness/vita, but they could atleast make them respectable opponents.

Would actually like to see some variety in the npc’s, different types and skill sets and what not. All npc’s should have 1+ aoe’s, otherwise they’re more annoying the less players fighting them, and less annoying the more players.

Especially would love to see the AI’s used in the PVP training dummies, just tweak them with a few more aoe skills. Really like them, and would love to see them used in more places of the game.

Nuzt.7894:

No but its like doing a kitten job. they should have used population or the pitiful excuse of a scoring system to determine which servers should have been merged with others and then done a full merge instead of this kittenized version of god awful.

To be fair, a huge part of the problem isn’t the fault of the linking, but the population. When people move around and transfer left and right, and a huge fair-weather presence that just gets larger over the years as more and more veterans burn out. I don’t envy them for a second to have to try to balance that stuff.

And if they did hard merges we would be stuck with all the same problems we had before, more population/guild stacking, more coverage stacking, less variety in match-up’s, and that we would just be delaying the very same problems we had for hte last 3 years.

The linking isn’t perfect, it is a trade-off between advantages and disadvantages, just as merging would be. So far I still think there is a slight advantage to the linking over merging myself. But to be fair, either case is just a step toward EotM.

Low WvW population servers getting the shaft?

What, we’re getting a own Staff skin ?!

Sorry, couldn’t resist :p

That might actually have made people transfer to smaller servers, just imagine all the skin hunters running around to small servers, wanting the skin, and then complain that they can’t get it because they’re outnumbered!

Talking about stuff that should be considered trash. Non superior sigils/runes. Can I get an option to make them be considered trash, be put in my oiled bags, and auto sold at vendors with sell trash ? Please ?

The ability to chose what to consider trash in general, so people (other than me) could set bloodstone and dragonite as trash, and auto sell it for coppers. (Or just remove account bound so all my guildies can fill my banks with Dragonite!!!)

Teon.5168:

morrolan.9608:

Teon.5168:

I mostly play wvw in GW2, and I have absolutely no desire to try CU, after reading MJ’s comments about how it would be designed with the hard core grinder in mind. Thanks, but no thanks. Been there done that before with DaoC, and while it was fun at the time, MJ sounds like he wants to go even more hardcore and grindy with CU, and I have absolutely no desire to do that anymore. Makes the game too much like a job.

Thats pretty funny considering how grindy GW2 is, and there is no indication that CU will be hardcore in a grindy way AFAIK.

You have to be kidding. Did you ever play DaoC(or Everquest, LotRo, CoH, AoC, Aion, etc) in its original, exceptionally grindy form? And Mark Jacobs wants to make CU even more hardcore than that.

It took many months to get to the highest levels in those games, unless you could spend 8 hours+ a day in front of your monitor. GW2 to get to highest levels takes mere weeks, even for a casual player. And yea, it takes a lot longer to get legendaries, but they aren’t required to be successful in the game.

People who think that GW2 is grindy make me chuckle, as it is so easy compared to earlier mmorpgs. Have you ever played an mmorpg that had serious death penatlites, (where you lost gear, xp, etc.) only gave xp for very certain things, or required you to grind killing thousands of npcs for certain goals???

Think Korean mmorpgs. (they’re far worse than the original grindy mmorpgs were here in the states, but you get the jist….)

GW2 is a casual player’s paradise, imo. That is the main reason that attracted me and my wife to this game……we wanted to get away from the really nasty grinds….and this game has delivered that.

Maybe 10-15 years ago I would have accepted that kind of grindy mmorpg, as that is all there was, then. But, GW2 has proved that playing an mmorpg doesn’t have to feel like a job, as the earlier mmorpgs were. It can be just about fun, and playing the game on your own, casual schedule, and STILL making substantial progress in the game.

+1 for good post. Summed things up very well.

Brown Fang Thump.9482:

Although I realize I may be in a minority here, I’d like to see WvW designed more in a strategic, capture-points-centric manner. Many WvW players play “for the fights” in a way that attempts to turn every map into a huge PvP deathmatch. What I find is that these players are the most vocal about not getting scores for killing, despite the fact that the game mode was never designed to depend on killing as the primary scoring mechanism (that’s what sPvP is for). Personally, I think most of these players aren’t good enough at fighting to excel in sPvP and use WvW as a way to feel better about playing PvP the way they do; but, as long as we’re all having fun, that’s the real point.

WvW should be a strategic wargame, not an excuse to exploit the ability to zerg-up and feel like you’re contributing whether you are or not.

Also, though it wouldn’t be intuitive for PvE or PvP players, I’d like all WvW rewards to be directly associated with the relative amount of effort each individual player has expended in each encounter. This means that if you do 500 damage on a random player while you’re in a massive zerg that is steamrolling through soloists and small parties, you get what you’ve earned (a minuscule reward for minimal effort), while if you’re a soloist who takes down a 3 player party you also get what you earned (large reward for overcoming greater odds). This could be based on the metadata that’s already regularly collected to support the game or the same metrics that scale NPCs.

WvW doesn’t need to be a huge PvP arena because sPvP is designed for PvP. WvW, like PvE, needs to maintain its uniqueness. Part of that uniqueness is making the way WvW plays more Warhammer tabletop and less Unreal Tournament.

Although I can understand where you’re coming from, I will have to completely disagree. Trying to turn WvW into an actual strategy games (RTS) has quite a few short falls that I don’t think you could overcome (Since Players are your warrior models, you don’t have good enough control over numbers, quality, directing them where needed, cooperation, or them even doing anything you want at all etc).

It would essentially have to work like an old RTS game called “Majesty”, where you basically have to bribe mercenaries to get anything done at all. And I personally have no interest at all in playing a Strategy game :p I’d prefer the more casual open world pvp style it already has.

Wouldn’t mind seeing rewards scale depending on how many there are around you though. 80 people run down 1 roamer, well thats a loot bag divided 1/80. Enjoy your 2 copper.

But honestly the main reason I responded to this post was: Seriously, you’re bringing up WARHAMMER tabletop game as an example of a strategy game ?! :p Oh man that is all kinds of kittened up. I gave up that stuff because GW couldn’t write a decent rule-set if the entire earth’s survival depended on it! (Switched to WarMachine instead, they got pretty good rules!)

Would rather want to see some work on re-designing siege in the game, before adding new/more etc. I do think Siege has its space, but never did like the current iteration.

Hard to specify just why, I just find all the siege really boring to use, especially the Ram where I have to sit click 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1 etc. Would have liked to see siege work in a different way, perhaps Ram’s that doesn’t have a "user" as it is now, but auto rams as long as someone stands near it, and perhaps rams faster if more people are near up to max of say 5. And rather limit so you can’t fit more than 1-2 rams near a gate. Make them more combat hotspots instead of boring spam 1.

And all the siege on walls, and how they work and interact, how you get killed before you can man oil or cannons on the wall etc. I think that looking into those and re-design it would be much more important and FUN than just adding more siege to the current mess.

Guild Aura with -75% siege damage ? one iwht -90% siege damage and perm stability while on siege ? How far do we have to go to be able to use wall-siege ?

franandlaura.1382:

So - why not consider a debuff for having too many players from the same server in close proximity to each other. Say, anything over 25 gets an "overcrowded" or a "constricted" condition that reduces offensive stats.

Wish we could. But unfortunately ANet has a game design philosophy that you should never be sad to see another player. Which means they will never add any game mechanics that in any way will discourage more people together. This is one of the largest design problems with WvW currently.

Purely by PPT standards, it *is* better to split up to take objectives (except defended keeps). So the problem is rather that people doesn’t *want* to split up. Probably some interesting psychological explanations for that, wish I was competent to analyse it and figure out how to break it.

One idea I’d love to see implemented *if* they actually decided to remove that design-lock, is that the rewards (all, including reward track) got divided by the total amount of players. So 80 players in a zerg taking a camp, would get 1/80 of the normal progress on reward track, and wxp, and silver (I mean coppers...) etc. I imagine the karma-trains would deflate quickly.

Also like Puck’s ideas.

Ugh, just remove legendary from the game.

I guess I’m the special little snowflake then...

I’m sitting on enough ascended materials to craft.... well probably 2 full sets of armor, and a dozen weapons. But I’m completely strapped by Dragonite ore and Bloodstone dust. (Got decent with the emp star thingies though)

My wet dream would be that these where tradeable They would cost me next to nothing to buy in huge quantities.

It seems I’m near allergic to anything in the game that actually rewards Dragonite Ore for some reason, so I never get any at all unless I specifically prop up on some pills to keep me awake and run with SW for a few hours.

Ah well, I haven’t run into anyone else having this trouble, so I guess we need some more ways to make use of them. Personally I think just reducing the drop rate by 0.1 and reducing the numbers needed for all receipts by 0.1 would go a long way toward negating this issue. The whole 100 to craft a bar just feels like numbers for numbers sake.

Unfortunately the linking was grossly imbalanced by sheer lack of effort in determining population and player activity by the people making the polls and using them as a scapegoat to not fix their mistakes.

Question:

What if, at the time of linking, and the last 2 months statistics said that the current match-up would work very well.

Then once the linking actually happened, all the fair weathers wake up on some servers, goes dormant on others, and a bunch of guilds and players that moved around to get on large server of preference, moves around to somewhere else again.

How are they supposed to ever get accurate numbers and statistics to create balanced links/servers/tiers ?

---

In this case, would there be any difference in re-linking ? Say they changed it this week, and gave Kain to SF group and ET to DH group.

Now say the new DH group "wins reset", and all their fair-weathers will be out in storm (DH got lots of fair-weathers), and suddenly all the fair-weathers in CD+BP will go dormant, and suddenly situation is reversed. (Toss in a few random transfers as well for good measure).

Geo Storm.1630:

I haven’t been playing gw2 very long but WvW is where I spend all my time so it’s a shame that the Outnumbered problem doesn’t get some attention. I left swtor because they nerfed the game and took away the pvp servers so I was really happy when I started playing this game.

You guys have raised some valid concerns but I still think some Outnumbered buffs could help even if it is applying the very smallest advantage if not for the sake of moral and people not abandoning the server in the least.

From all the posts I’ve read people have developed a loyalty to their guild, tags and friends so they would prefer to stay on.

I was just trying to think of a solution that would help the problem. I can’t tell you how many times there are only like 6 of us on the ebg map and we are standing at SOS wp with no keep or towers and just waiting for the zergs to go elsewhere so we can take our keep back. Pretty sad…even the tags leave. And I hear people saying I’m out of here because this sucks!

(Added line breaks for easier reading and responding)

This is primary a Population and Fair-Weather problem. Which means that ANet would have to fix those two first, since they are the main reasons for the whole “Outnumbered” problem.

It isn’t a bad idea to work on the Outnumbered ability, it’s been discussed often over the years on this forum, and some interesting ideas has come forward. But the core of the gameplay of GW2 is the very decent combat system, and too big changes to the stats will negate the skill aspect of the combat, which is one of the main draws for many.

So to improve the Outnumbered you’d have to look more at things that gives a team a chance to do something without screwing over the combat. I added some examples in my previous post, where the idea of the bonuses is to help the defenders to keep up in defence through supply limits/use, and siege compared to an outnumbering enemy.

What we do not want, is to have 5 players standing with the same stats as Tequatl + lots of blocks and invulnerabilities etc, basically un-killable, one-shoting people running around killing entire zergs alone, because its 5 vs 100 players.

Also, ANet’s general philosophy regarding the design of the game, where “you should always be happy to see another player.” means that they will never create any game mechanics that will punish you for having more players. This leads to both:

• It will always be an advantage to zerg/blob
• Outnumbered will never become relevant enough that players start yelling at others to leave the map so they can get the Outnumbering bonus.

Agreed with and like near all your suggestions.

Then you posted this, and I had to scratch my head:

Npc guards and lords updated to wear Triumphant armor, and Mistforged hero weapons.

:p

I kind of like the idea of "no repair" on capture, would be interesting to try a week, to see how it turned out. Just imagine a whole map with no walls left standing after a couple of karma trains

Tongku.5326:

The idea that stat boosts would somehow ruin everything, skew all fights to point of no return, and somehow affect WVW as a whole is simply and plainly false. And I will point the proof of it, which is from this game (GW2), and from this game mode (WvW).

Remember Guard Stacks ? There have been countless times when equal size groups would clash and often the group without the guard stacks would mop the floor with the group that had them. This is a perfect example of a stat boost such as the one I am referring to.

Even now, how many times every single week do 2 groups clash in SMC and the defending side has it guild claimed giving themselves stat boosts ? Map is qued on both sides, the attackers without stat boosts still take it.

Therefore, I would LOVE to see guard stacks re-enabled while under effect of outnumbered buff. Further restrictions could be applied, for example have to have outnumbered buff for at least 5 minutes + experience PVP combat, or some other trigger.

But that sort of a stat boost, and implimented in such a way, would give the outnumbered side just a slight edge instead of it being overwhelming and would be overall better for the game as “hit and run” and guerilla tactics would be slightly more effective.

I agree that the Guard Stacks wasn’t game-breaking in the stats department. When I argue against Outnumbering Stats above, I’m referring to when players want the “Outnumbered” to equalize them in stats to the enemy, as in the example I used above where 1 Outnumbered = roughly 2 other players in Stats. This is what a lot of people asks for. Problem is that the amount of stats to make that plan effective also vary entirely between the relative skill level between the players in question.

There are other advantages that could be added to “Outnumbered” without directly messing with huge stat boosts. A simple example that could replace your example would be to receive a certain amount of automatic Might stacks from Outnumbered, applied every X seconds.

Also a few things I and others have suggested before:

• Faster build/repair while outnumbered
• Carry more supply while outnumbered
• Stronger guards/lords while outnumbered
• Take less damage while on siege when outnumbered
• Modify so you can hit more enemies with skills when outnumbered (+7 to +10)

Jeknar.6184:

joneirikb.7506:

While servers like DH that has a notorious fair-weather population, brings out all the grandma’s and the kitchen-sink..

If our god and savior Grampa ever return to these lands, Dh will be glorious again. But now, even god’s spokesperson (Arius) is absent. Darkhaven has been forsaken even by the most loyal of it’s players.

I miss Arius and his rants, he was the last reason I still used to read the toxic-forums.

• The primary reason and use for the “Outnumbered” is Warning. Not to make you able to compete with enemy numbers.
• The small numerical bonuses are there mostly to reward those that still dare the dark waters.
• When you’re severely outnumbered, the general best idea is to start Roaming, which one of the others described very nicely in another thread as “being as annoying as you can”. The best way to “fight” against an overwhelming size enemy is to frustrate them, Send 1 guy to take every camp on the map at the same time, start cataing towers in 1-2’s and force the enemy to split up to deal with you. They will usually just get bored or frustrated and leave.

That aside, the why we can’t have stat boosts or other goodies on “Outnumbered”.

Because of how the "Outnumbered works for the whole map, adding stats or other advantages to it will create a lot of unbalanced situations.

• If Server A is karma training at Bay on Server B’s ABL. And Server B has a scout at NEC when a Server A roamer attacks the camp. Server B Scout will have an unfair advantage in stats, on top of the camp guards, vs Server A’s roamer that might have nothing to do at all with the group at Bay. The lareg group at Bay might even join the map in the middle of the fight between the scout and roamer, and mid fight give the Scout an advantage.
• Same situation with a 5 vs 5 havoc group from both sides, meeting to fight over SET, while Server A gets a large group joining the map to go to Bay.
• Zerg Busting or other very organized guilds that specialize or train on beating larger groups of un-organized enemies. So Server A has 20 players in Server B ABL, and Server B has pulled a zerg from EBG to chase them out numbering 40. The Server A group has trained, uses voice com, runs specific builds, classes, squad setups to maximize group synergies, and in general specialized themselves on killing twice their number of unorganized players. And all of a sudden they’re getting EXTRA stat bonuses as well ? In this case the 40 pugs are the guys that needs that outnumbered buff!

Further reasons why this just doesn’t work:

The difference in player skill. Going to use number 1-9 to simplify player skill for these examples, where 9 is top and 1 is bottom.

• 5 Server A Defenders at skill 5, defends a tower against: 10 Server B Attackers at skill 5. And the outnumbered buff roughly boost so that 1 person equal 2 enemies in relative stats. This is fair and even, this is the ideal situation and how people that want a Outnumbered buff to work.
• 5 Server A Defenders at skill 3, defends a tower against: 10 Server B Attackers at skill 7 (Organized guild group, that also likes to PvP). With the outnumbered buff still boosting roughly 1 defender = 2 attackers in stats. At this stage the outnumbering buff doesn’t really do much at all, it will make them survive a little bit longer, or 1 more might be able to run away. The difference in skill between the sides means that the stat difference matters that much less.
• 10 Server A Scouts at skill 3, tired of being ganked by enemy roaming group, gangs together to ambush and kill them as they attack a tower. Server B has a roaming group of 5 players at skill 7, they’re not very organized, running random roaming builds, but are in voice-com. In this case the Roamers would be able to pick apart the Scouts without the Outnumbered Buff, but in this case they also have the stat buffs, and will completely dominate the poor scouts.
• I have seen a single roamer (my crazy guild leader) charge solo into un-organized groups of 20, kill 10, down a few more, until they finally manage to kill him. Had he gotten an outnumbered stat bonus in addition to this, he would have taken all 20 solo. Is that really what you want ? (This would be 1 Roamer skill 9, vs 20 zerglings skill 1)

Edit: Just figured out how to make proper bullet points!

Jayne.9251:

If you don’t write for a living, you should.

+1 piggy for this.

Akkeros.1675:

population and server activity levels over 24 hours should be all that is needed to link these servers. why is it being made so ridiculously hard?
but yeah, agree with OP, system is being used improperly atm and no longer fits

Example, if we based this on the participation of this linking, they might have large activity and population from the servers linked with CD, but low with the servers linked to DH and SF. So they re-link based on those numbers. Then when the match start, say all the servers linked with CD ends up on the smaller links, dominated by an angry mob of DH+EBay+GoM+FC etc all linked into 1 link.

Now what happens ? All the Fair weathers on the earlier CD linked servers (CD, Kain, ET, BP) goes away, and the population/activity of those servers crashes. While servers like DH that has a notorious fair-weather population, brings out all the grandma’s and the kitchen-sink.

Using only the activity/population numbers could create a larger trap than even spit-balling it.

Vihar.5780”

2. So long as you have transfers available, Glicko will always have problems. With open transfers available, the 1 up, 1 down system would actually work better, since it can compensate for massive transfers in a short period.

Agreed to both points.

Chris Barrett.3280:

One of the bigger problems with 1-up-1-down is that at natural barriers, two teams would commonly swap week after week, leaving three teams (the one that went up, and the two that remained where it was) getting steamrolled every other week.

In general regards to this topic:

I agree with a full reset of Glicko at each linking, set every server to the baseline 1500 glicko, and let us work out new tiers each link. The first month will be chaotic as heck, and then the last month we will start seeing who fits into what Tier, and the last couple of match-up’s will be about as expected.

As long as the Glicko allows fast enough movement, that should work well enough to create a good mix of match variety, and some predictability at the end of a link. Different people like either one.

I wouldn’t mind trying a 1up/1down system myself, but I can certainly see the problems with it over time. It would require some mix up to work out, and the Linking might do that.

I don’t like the current links either. I for one didn’t vote on the links because I couldn’t decide, good and bad with both.

But that said there are still advantages to linking over merging, it is just that whatever you get will have consequences. No matter what people suggest or ANet tries to add to the game, will comes with good and bad, and someone has to compromise. (Recently that has been us, through the voting)

* Even if this current link isn’t working very well, the linking system does allow for re-linking every 2 months, giving us very different match-ups. Something that wouldn’t be possible with flat out mergers, as you know people would stack again and create new Glicko walls. (Granted Glicko needs to be changed for linking)

* Linking does allow to put enough servers together to compete against a larger/stacked server. If glicko didn’t fubar T4 right now, we could have seen how that worked.

Where Merging would once again leave us entirely at the mercy of server stacking. In the long run lead us to more stale match-up’s, tier locks, and the usual reject tier empty of folks (except me, as I’d transfer there).

While Server community isn’t exactly the largest thing right now, with mini EotM-Links (for some of us), Merging would be the final straw for that.

That being said, Glicko needs to change (or go) ASAP. I’ve also come to the conclusion that it is utterly impossible to balance population in this game, no matter what ANet or anyone else tries to do, a pile of fair-weathers just transfers around and mess it up, or just stop playing until they’re winning again. Short of stopping transfers, there isn’t a think ANet or anyone else can do to stop that.

Jeknar.6184:

joneirikb.7506:

Just replace EBG with Tangled Depths

Even PvE’rs hate Tangled Depths… I cannot even fathom the reaction of WvW players at the mere sight of this.

I can: “Give us back Desert map! Golem week! Anything but this! I miss my t8 dead ET and all!”

Hesacon.8735:

joneirikb.7506:

Just replace EBG with Tangled Depths

I would have a lot of fun with that, but most people would be upset.

And obviously, no glider! We can’t have that in WvW! :p

Just replace EBG with Tangled Depths

Basically, you’re asking for ANet to setup 3 specific "Vanilla" servers, that doesn’t work with HoT, and works as of 2+ years ago. Don’t see how they would want/benefit from that. Personally I just see it as a further split of the communities.

Heard some rumors that Blizzard was considering doing this, and setup some old vanilla wow servers, someone more interested in Wow than me would have to confirm that.

Diku good post.

Cerby good posts.

Teon.5168:

As has been said about many different mmorpgs that have attempted WvW/RvR, including DaoC........"it could have been so incredible", ie, the potential was there.

But then again, as I have said previously in this thread, and others......I don’t think that sort of intention was ever there for GW2’s WvW.

I’ve made no attempt to hide that I think WvW is a casual non-competitive keg-brawl kind of game, essentially the "Beer and Pretzel" variant of PvP. And that is the impression I’ve gotten from everything I’ve read from ANet on the matter, like the text that ArchonWing quoted:

WvW is designed to accommodate players that would not normally participate in PvP. For instance, the high player limit means that a new player can get involved without immediately feeling pressured to contribute. In addition, objectives are available for a variety of group sizes, so players don’t need to be members of dedicated guilds in order to be productive.

I can’t really understand "why" they actually created it at all, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you consider their focus on PvE and PvP. So the only reason I can sit back with is that they created it as that metaphorical "bridge" between the two modes. Which obviously hasn’t worked that great.

I actually think that WvW as is/was is/was open ended enough that different people found different things they liked in it, which also means that focusing on one aspect at the cost of another will ruin the mode for others. So they’re also a bit stuck in their open design.

I think that EotM is essentially the end "evolution" of WvW, (Takes a small break for the booing to stop), it focuses very well on the casual aspect of WvW while keeping it open ended enough that anyone can find something to do. But by this time we had already built communities, and started getting hung up in the scores and stuff.

If it is one thing that the Linking has showed me, it is that at this stage I don’t care if we’re EotM’ed instead, because it makes little difference to me since the effect is about the same. If they made EotM use the existing WvW maps as well, lots of people that isn’t on a fairly big host server wouldn’t notice a difference.

(Still miss/like my old server community)

---

On to something completely different:

WvW as a mode seems to have attracted a lot of different type of players, it has functioned as sort of catch-all for players that doesn’t feel satisfied with the rest of the game (PvE+PvP). WvW is a very varied bunch.

Players that wanted larger scale PvP
Players that wanted huge battles
Players that wanted defence/siege
Players that wanted to Gank
Players that wanted more challenge (than PvE care-bear land)
Players that wanted more serious group/party/guild play
Players that wanted an actual community
Players that wanted consequences for their in game actions

etc.

Several of these are because PvE is too limited/simple, you can solo almost entire Tyria, and Dungeons become running down a formula pretty quickly as most just want to run through them for rewards. While sPvP is 5vs5 max, and gives a fairly limited amount of variety.

The question becomes, how else could you satisfy those same people? Don’t really know. If you try to make the mode serious/competitive you will end up with other problems, you will run off most of the Casuals, and limit the recruitment pool. If you make take it even more casual than it already is, there will be no more skilled groups in the game as they will be bored to tears.

I think that it is essential that they keep the kind of balance they have somehow, but perhaps give some different outlets for it? (Example, having different maps for different levels of casual vs serious)

But honestly, I’d really love to hear what ANet’s goals/design was for WvW back at launch and now at present time. What they actually wanted to accomplish with the game mode, and how they feel that worked.

/rant

Pretty much agree with what Teon and ArchonWing said.

I wouldn’t mind if Kaineng swapped to the smallest one, but I honestly don’t know how much we would add at this time. (I haven’t played much lately, so don’t know numbers etc).

But I’m betting most of the guys I usually play with, has been wondering why they don’t have an Outnumbered buff, and wondering if the game is bugged

Iirc they (ANet) said they would be adding a banker in an update sometime.

Balthazzarr.1349:

World linking has gone a LONG way to causing my game play to drop significantly. I’ve said it before in here and will say it again… my WvW has gone from about 95% of my time in this game to maybe 50%. My time in GW2 has gone from about 20 hours a week to probably 5. This is directly due to the linking. Not whining, not taking shots.. just is what it is. I’m just not happy much in this game anymore.

There truly isn’t an incentive to win any week (not that there ever was since there never was a reward for winning).. but now that we don’t have a set home server any more we mostly just run around doing what we want for guild missions and maybe some havoc then head off. I’ve never seen more people standing around in keeps and spawns than I do now (since this reward thing started)… and yet they removed the crafting stations so people wouldn’t stand around? roflmao.. just makes me laugh.. I never used them but almost never saw people at them either.

On my alt account on FA last night some people were complaining in EB that FA was disorganized. Huh? Well the FA people I know are very organized… oh wait.. there’s another server attached.. could it be possible that people still feel disjointed and not really a “part” of the home server?

After all is said and done, the little that was done has caused a lot to be said, and a lot of good people to just stop caring.

ANet if you even read these things anymore I hope you’re coming up with a permanent solution that doesn’t involve world linking… because from what I see (with almost all my friends) it has seriously caused a LOT of us to spend a lot less time in WvW!

Said it before, WvW Linking makes it feel like EotM.

Also agree with everything Jim said in this thread.

Honestly, what about putting crafting stations in Heart Of The Mist (the pvp lobby).

People already use it for the same purpose as they used the WvW maps anyways, all the services, except for crafting, at one place.

Personally always wanted them to make a own "server map" or something similar to cutting out Citadel from ABL and make it into a own server specific map, as part of WvW, serving same function as HtoM.

* Allows us to go all the services without affecting queue’s on playable maps.
* Can be encouraged to all server mates to use, instead of fighting over queue
* Can be static even over Reset since it is only 1 server, to use for preparing for reset.
* Recruitment
* Never have this argument on the forums ever again (One can hope...)
* Sigil stacks still drops because kitten!

Personally I would like to see the Bloodlust to stay only on the 2 Alpine maps, so there isn’t 1 for each team. That way perhaps there would be some fight over it, one server is going to be without the bloodlust so perhaps roamers etc might be more interested in fighting to keep it. Want to see how that works.

No real ideas about the Shrines, but I wouldn’t want to remove the way they work just to add bloodlust to them.

insanemaniac.2456:

yes, it is competitive. but the competition is to rally more people to your server than the enemy can rally to their server. it is not a gameplay skill based competition, it is a political savvyness based competition.

Haha! Great description, love it

Would be kinda funny if some bored guy on ANet went "ah kitten this..." and made a randomizer for all npc’s. So they’re random race, gender, appearance etc. Can just imagine the complaining at the forums "I CAN’T TELL THE NPC’S APPART! ANET IS RUINING WVW!!!!"

(Short version) Think I answered your last post on this, but here goes:

(1) No.
(2) Don’t really care either way.
(3) No. Too many design faults for that.
(4) Don’t care about points, they’re just there to create match-up’s.

(Long version)

Designed to be casual. Some of the designs that limits the game mode from being competitive, and some other reasons like player attitude etc:

• Teams: Server population, plays what they want, when they want, how they want, builds they want, do what they want, participate when they want, leave when they want. You essentially have a mostly random team. This is impossible to plan around, and removes any “strategical” aspect to this game.
• Even/Balance-Population/Coverage: Server structure simply won’t allow it. Servers will have strong and weak time periods no matter what, and uneven populations. There is no way to fix this unless ANet sits down and play Tyrant and manually move people about servers, and adjust again to move more every time someone rage-quits (justified) for being move to another server.
• Stacking: Server structure again. As long as this is the solution for most people, players are going to bottleneck themselves to try to jump into the most desirable servers, and the bottom half is going to be feeling like a wasteland. And this is a player created problem.
• Score: Main problem is having a scoring system for avoiding enemies, when you can just back-cap, karma-train empty objectives, and ride the Ticks. ANet’s Philosophy for the game as a whole is actually limiting WvW a lot, especially that they will never punish players for grouping together. Scoring in a competitive game mode should come from fighting each others, directly or (less for) indirect conflict.
• Boredom: When the most effective strategy for WvW is to bore your opponents to death, or make them rage-quit, there is something wrong.
• Fair-Weather: When the largest part of players doesn’t bother to fight back when beaten, and rather just go elsewhere (pve, pvp, dungeon, hot, log-off, etc) when they die or their zerg/group is killed. Thus starting the chain-reaction of more people leaving, until only the bitter veterans are left, and everyone else just stands in spawn AFK waiting for a CMD or does something else. Is this World vs World a massive pvp game mode? Or AFKvsAFK, massive amounts of AFK’ers sitting waiting for the enemy to be bored, so it’s their turn to karma train ?
• 24/7: Teams + Score + Population/Coverage from above, means there are almost never a fair fight anywhere, thus not competitive.

(Possible competitive mode)

If they wanted to make something Competitive out of WvW, I think they could manage something based on it, but not WvW as is. Mentioned before:

Structured pre-arranged team matches, where 1-5 guilds work together to form a team/alliance/war-group something, and arrange a time with an enemy team to meet up and play for 1-2-3-4 (pre-determined) hours on a specific map based on WvW.

Example maps: Cut out SMC from ebg and make it a own map. Probably one for more open fights like a big arena/os arena just larger with some more terrain. Basically a few different ones for different aspects of WvW, so people can fight in different ways.

• Teams: organized and pre-arranged. A max limit, and you can kick people that sabotage etc. You can train, organize, and make anyone on the team use teamspeak, proper builds etc, and set up roles for the fight.
• Population/Coverage: No longer an issue, X vs X enters, plays for Y time. Fair.
• Stacking/servers: no longer an issue.
• Fair-Weathers: no longer an issue, kick them off the team if they do that.

But this would require ANet to make another mode, a sort of in-between of PvP and WvW. And might sound crazy similar to what a lot of people want as GvG. And I’m not even going to go into the argument of using PvP or PvE stats/gear.

/rant

What isn’t balanced is the numbers. Any class can so this with AoE’s, I’m sure that with big enough numbers Guardian Staff #2 can also do the same.

This complaint is not about Ele/Necro.

And nothing is balanced in WvW.

Morte.5916:

Why is EOTM based on worlds at all?

Why not send incoming players/parties to whichever team is smallest?

They would need a technology/system for that. And one that doesn’t split people from guilds, friend lists, and servers too much up etc. So they need some sort of static setup, instead of just sending each person to random place.

Say you’re in a guild of 20 that decides to play EotM together, as you join the system picks the first and sends to red, next to blue, third to green, forth to red etc. That wouldn’t be very fun either. But on the other hand, an organized guild with 20 members will most likely win an entire EotM match alone if they want to.

The largest problem isn’t that red/blue/whatever is outnumbered, but that if they lose once, then a bunch of players leave, thus making it outnumbered. If you just keep adding people to that instance of EotM you end up with more people just afk’ing at spawn, or leaving because they “lost the map” and got no commander etc.

So sending all new players to the losing sides of EotM isn’t necessarily going to fix anything.

Knob.6835:

I’ve come to accept that these conversations will never end.

Amen.

Thank you for the answer.

"X T D"

Will there be a midweek reset of scores if this is implemented on a Tuesday?

Remember them saying before that they had to change maps on Tuesdays due to patch releases, so seems likely.

"Crise"

Will bloodlust be added to Desert borderlands to have parity with the two Alpine maps… the mid section of the map is currently basically unused, is it not?

I would like to see, am curious about, how it would work without even number of bloodlust. If there is 2 bloodlusts, perhaps players become more interested in it, and actually fight over it ? I’d like to see that, love the ruins area, favorite place to fight.

Uhm, you’re digging up a year old post again.

Oh so that is what those color thingies were. :p

Guess I’m in the "Oh, that guy plays PvP" camp then. And less clutter.

I’m a bit tempted to say I want a DBL sized huge roman arena. Nothing but one huge field. But no one would take that serious.