Guild Wars 2

Rauderi.8706:

WvW is sagging for the same reason it generally sagged in DAoC.

Tactics don’t win a three-way server bout, population and 24-hour coverage do. Until WvW forces zergs to split up to claim and retain their territory, and until smaller populations can do specific things to win over larger ones, WvW won’t be close to even or fun.

They don’t win the overall match but tactics certainly win individual fights and even sometimes the overall PPT during a particular timezone hence why WvW focus for a lot of people moved away from the overall result.

The issues with pop spread are exacerbated more with GW2 than they were with DAOC due to the server system as opposed to a faction/alliance system with flexible campaigns.

The decline has been further affected dramatically by HOT and the changes in it which have been received almost universally poorly. There was a decline before HOT but it got way way worse with HOT.

Starfleck.8392:

I don’t understand how placing players in teams with similar MMR ratings is fair. Ultimately, isn’t that just placing the top 5 MMR players on one side and placing the lower 5 MMR players on the other side? Assuming we’re talking about an average solo-queue Emerald game, for example, the system tries to place someone with others close to their rating, while simultaneously placing another person with others close to their rating on the opposite team. One is closer to the high-mmr players and gets a high-mmr team, while the other gets stragglers by default, resulting in lower-skilled teammates and earning a loss.

We’re still waiting for an answer as to whether the above is how matchmaking will work.

Zetsumei.4975:

Honestly they seem to be pulling a trion move right now. Taking a potentially great game (archeage) with a promising future and sacrifice its years by turning it into a cash cow to make short term money.

Yeah the shared inventory slot is nothing but pure greed on their part for instance.

leviathan.2148:

Second of all, I lost hope for any major elite spec overhaul or gyros overhaul. They would mention it if they were working on it.

Yes its really disappointing, whilst scrapper is good overall the elite mechanic is still so poor and it seems like they aren’t working on it at all.

Malchior.5732:

I forgot Tempests even had Warhorn :^)

I occasionally see an ele using 1 in a match and just laugh at them.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Configs have been updated. There should be less of a spread in ladder positions now.

Part of the reason this is happening is because this season matches on both MMR and ladder position. Someone could have a lower ladder position, but have a very high MMR. Since they have to sit around a long time waiting for close MMR players, their ladder search range is also increasing at the same time.

1. You need to test things better
2. The pip system needs to be adjusted so players don’t lose a pip when facing a premade of 4-5 players.

Also what about losing pips when a team member dcs has this been fixed? Considering you’re making other changes I would hope that was a priority.

My thoughts:
1. How are the metrics interpreted to analyse most successful parts of the game? eg. dungeon running has decreased due to the lack of rewards is this taken into account?
2. Concentrating on developing for the most successful parts of the game based on my experience is code for the budget is being cut so the dev focus is being narrowed.
3. Why are the WvW changes being made with no significant testing? The new rally mechanic in particular could have unforeseen consequences.
4. Gliding good I guess
5. Changes to squad also good.

Aedelric.1287:

700 gems for one slot, are they mad?

No just greedy.

So much for WvW being the major focus after HOT.

Nusku.3941:

“We’ll also be changing scoring so that each enemy player killed in WvW will grant 1 point of War Score to your team. This change was made in order to allow players who focus primarily on killing enemy players to contribute more to the team’s overall success.”

What makes you think we care about points per kill? It seems like Anet never reads forums,

They communicated these intended changes a while ago and asked for feedback, the feedback for PPK was almost universally positive so I’d say you were wrong.

My issue with thw announcement is they are implementing the new rally mechanics seemingly without much testing despite people expressing reservations about the consequences of it.

Lord of Rings.5371:

Airship Defense, Dragon Banner and other War Room updates

were probably created to demonstrate the value of Guild Hall Upgrades

where Anet hoped to create an arms race that would generate

game activities and additional gem sales.

Yes god forbid they actually create a well balanced game.

As to your last question no not really.

Tobias Steele.2071:

Myinate.1894:

morrolan.9608:

BG and JQ have concentrated in EBG cause they largely hate the desert BL, YB are not doing anything innovative just not concentrating on EB. Guilds on BG and JQ literally don’t care that it means they lose PPT. As for winning because of multiple commanders its actually more because you have a well known pugmander running a zerg long hours backcapping objectives constantly while BG and JQ are fighting in EB.

JQ hates the Borderlands…Yet we see SoX and Kill both spend their raid times attacking/defending borderland keeps!?

But yeah, you guys are all about the fights…well…fighting after you’ve pinned up, gathered a group that is at LEAST double the number of players YB has (30++ to deal with a 10man roaming group). Seems if you don’t have the numbers…one lost skirmish… and you run off the map, or camp siege in a keep until the map blob can back you up.

Whining about a server going for PPT when you ONLY fight with a map blob.

What confuses me is the fact that I rarely see the “Fight” servers (JQ & BG) ever fight each other in my game time.

Quote for absolute undeniable truth.

Won’t speak for Kill but its absolutely not true regarding SoX since HOT. Most of the time SoX has been running between 12 and 15, sometimes it gets up to about 20 in the last few days.

Odokuro.5049:

How is it that JQ/BG stayed in T1 this long if they didn’t care about PPT? Close to three years or more, as two of the top tier WvW servers, and yet are being beat by a server that’s been in T1 for what, a few months? Like what tricks/tactics did you both use to get there and stay there as long as you have, if not PPT’ing and only “Fighting”….

Its been clearly stated that its mainly been since HOT.

Mortifer.2946:

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release.

No they didn’t. They clearly thought they were going to be able to survive on living story style updates. That revenue obviously died so they had to do an xpac which they probably began working on around 18 months ago.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chronobunker I can see slipping though the cracks, same thing with Reapers and Tempests. But the others, it’s just plain dumb, no one put their foot down to say that’s a really bad idea.

In all arteas of the game so many dumb ideas get implemented that its clear their review process at design level is almost non-existant.

Caliburn.1845:

One of the reason almost no one cares about PPT is because there is no reason to care about PPT. Winning the week is meaningless.

Yet you’re on YB with DK.

Valkyriez.6578:

Voreo Sabrae.5416:

Why isn’t not losing pips with extremely close games a thing?

Ive had 3 games today where we lost within a 5 point margin and i still lost pips.

Its like it doesnt want to encourage people to even try

You hat an equel chance to win, and you lost, so you lose a pip. I’ve had games where I’ve lost by 50 points and got 2 pips because we had a less then 40% chance to win.

There are 3 outcomes: gaining a pip, not gaining or losing a pip and losing a pip (OK yes you can gain or lose 2-3 pips that doesn’t matter for this argument). Losing by 5 points is effectively a double loss since they effectively have a 2 pip loss on a game where a marginal decision probably had an effect. By not gaining a pip they are effectively losing a pip from where they should have been so yes very small losses should have no pip loss.

Aidenwolf.5964:

They can plan another xpac all they like. I wish them luck but they won’t get a sale from my household. I don’t even go into HoT maps.

At this stage my feedback to anet is the same, I won’t be buying another xpac.

Surprised not to see Elementalist Scepter being more prominent. Also mesmer scepter isn’t as weak as some other weapons but it does need some work. Ranger shortbow is definitely one that needs a rework.

Starfleck.8392:

I don’t understand how placing players in teams with similar MMR ratings is fair. Ultimately, isn’t that just placing the top 5 MMR players on one side and placing the lower 5 MMR players on the other side? Assuming we’re talking about an average solo-queue Emerald game, for example, the system tries to place someone with others close to their rating, while simultaneously placing another person with others close to their rating on the opposite team. One is closer to the high-mmr players and gets a high-mmr team, while the other gets stragglers by default, resulting in lower-skilled teammates and earning a loss.

I’m still waiting for dev feedback on this point. Is this how the system will work?

Swagger.1459:

Colin…

“WvW overhaul has been in development for over a year now. There are lots of core things we still need to do including population balance etc.”

Very curious and excited about the “population balance” statement…

Your thoughts?

Nothing more than what was said by John Corpening ages ago so nothing to be excited by yet

jessiestiles.9437:

morrolan.9608:

What is your deal? There are 4 seasons, crossing division threshold achievement carry over from 1 season to the next throughout the year. Therefore it can be done without getting to diamond.

You’re ignoring the fact the achievements need to be unlocked first before they can be worked on and progress made before unlocking them doesn’t count. So what you are suggesting is impossible.

Explain why you think so in detail then.

forum bug fix post

Rebound.3409:

where’s that written? If it’s been said or written somewhere then i admit my bad.

It was stated before season 1

jessiestiles.9437:

Im sorry. You will need to get to diamond. But on the bright side an ascended back piece would be almost identical to a legendary (except the skin) with selectable stats and a different coloured font for about 100 gold and almost no requirements and you can get it now.

What is your deal? There are 4 seasons, crossing division threshold achievement carry over from 1 season to the next throughout the year. Therefore it can be done without getting to diamond.

Rebound.3409:

Can’t u understand it’s down to how many seasons there will be? It’s useless if they are cross season and u only get 2 seasons…because even with cross u won’t be able to get all the division passes u need.

There are 4 kittening seasons!!

Rebound.3409:

U didn’t answer my question, if i get ruby in all seasons do i get the guarantee that i will have the backpack yes or no. Nobody….literally NOBODY can answer this question?

If i made it to ruby it pretty much understood i unlocked T3 already..in fact i finished 90% of T3 i just need the daily grind + 3x division passes (which is the main problem). Problem is am i obligated (even so) to get to diamond (at least once,spanning all seasons) in order to get the backpack? Because if there are only 3 seasons that means even if u get 3 times ruby u won’t have the backpack.

Can’t you read they have answered it above the crossing division threshold achievements are across seasons

ozma.3498:

These are welcome changes, but until solo queue and team queue are separated, PvP will remain unenjoyable for a significant portion of the playerbase.

I assume this change was made as a result of the PvP population not being large enough to support both separate modes without queue times getting out of control. I understand this, but for myself personally (and I’m sure many others), I would actually rather have long queues than constantly face premades.

I’d love to see a tickbox in the UI where players can opt in/out of the merged queue. For example:

[ ] Free-for-all (solo queue and team queue) – Average queue time, 2 minutes.
[ ] Solo-queue – Average queue time, 10 minutes.

No perks or anything. Just the benefit of knowing you are going to face a pure solo queue team.

Can we at least get some kind of comment from the devs on this issue? No disrespect intended, but it seems like you guys actively avoid addressing this aspect of PvP that so many people hate. There have been probably thousands of posts about it, and yet you guys won’t even acknowledge it. Why?

They have answered this, yes you will.

wanderguy.5627:

The way leagues are atm, it’s impossible for a casual player like myself to get the legendary backpack.

Why would you expect to get a legendary as a casual player?

jessiestiles.9437:

morrolan.9608:

jessiestiles.9437:

Right so if you cross 4 divisions this season it won’t count if the achievement is still locked?

I guess not if you haven’t done enough achievements to get each year of ascension. If you get to ruby this season you should get to year 3 of ascension. If you haven’t done the other achievements along the way to ensure you get the overall achievement this is your fault is it not?

Refer my previous post which I made an error it is 45 day mandatory requirement in a 50 day single season over the holidays (and during wintersday festival) to unlock Ascension IV. Otherwise no back piece. Seriously?

But it continues into next season.

Starfleck.8392:

I don’t understand how placing players in teams with similar MMR ratings is fair. Ultimately, isn’t that just placing the top 5 MMR players on one side and placing the lower 5 MMR players on the other side? Assuming we’re talking about an average solo-queue Emerald game, for example, the system tries to place someone with others close to their rating, while simultaneously placing another person with others close to their rating on the opposite team. One is closer to the high-mmr players and gets a high-mmr team, while the other gets stragglers by default, resulting in lower-skilled teammates and earning a loss.

Since this is the impression many people are getting Evan would you be able to explain this further? Because it seems counterproductive.

jessiestiles.9437:

Right so if you cross 4 divisions this season it won’t count if the achievement is still locked?

I guess not if you haven’t done enough achievements to get each year of ascension. If you get to ruby this season you should get to year 3 of ascension. If you haven’t done the other achievements along the way to ensure you get the overall achievement this is your fault is it not?

jessiestiles.9437:

Erik Waananen.6089:

Galandil.9641:

Eolirin.1830:

If that’s the case, then the achievement text needs to be changed, because it straight up says ‘in one season’.

That’s the case, devs stated so. In the end, one needs only to reach Ruby twice and Sapphire twice to get the precursor during all the 4 seasons this year.

So, yes, the backpack is pretty much grindable and that’s it, the League system was thought out exactly with that idea in mind (that’s why the “not-losing-pips-every-rank” system is on up until you hit Ruby).

Hey there, folks! My name is Erik and I’m the newest member of the PvP design team.

I think that there’s still a bit of confusion out there about progress regarding the PvP legendary backpack and so I just wanted to pop in and clarify once again that you DO NOT need to complete all of the legendary backpack achievements in a single season in order to acquire the backpack itself. I think the achievement text that Eolirin is referring to is for the “Primordial Legend” achievement, which, while it does require completing in a single season to finish, is not linked to your Ascension progress in any way. Some players who climb to higher divisions faster than other players will naturally be able to finish their legendary backpacks sooner, but again, the achievements for the backpack can be worked on over the entire year’s lifespan of the Ascension achievement category and do not need to be finished in a single PvP league season. Hope that clarifies some things!

Seriously 1 year? And how many seasons is that? Because we need to cross 4 divisions in a single season 4 times and lots of us wouldn’t even have unlocked 4th ascension yet because of the daily time gate. So we will need to have 4 more seasons? Or will getting to legendary in one season be necessary? If so what percentage of people even make it to legendary.

We have 1 year to get the legendary backpack, this is 4 seasons.

The Ace.9105:

NeHoMaR.9812:

Brazzi.2045:

soo…. um…. MMr tanking and premades stomping pugz will still be a thing, same kitten all over again?

That “mmr tanking” is only a problem before ruby, no? Now, the premades are a problem, a real one, but at least they are going to be of your division, I suppose, and not legendary people with an amber (that is also legendary because is using alternative account)

No, what I understood from their post was that mmr only affects your team. So tanking mmr gives you worse teammates. What matchmaking does in season 2 is that it matches you against players in same point range (pips?) without using the mmr matchmaking and uses division as your mmr against your opponents while keeping your personal mmr as an indication of your teams skill level. This system tries to get players who have same mmr than you in your team.

Typically this happens now to me. I’m only ever matched up with players in my range now.

Chaith.8256:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Another note: We’re making some changes to allow high division players to get matches faster to help combat the long queue times.

Hopefully this issue is still addressed properly in light of:

• Divisions becoming more of a hard determinant of the pool of people to play with.

• A legend in a group takes an opponent group full of legends too before a match can begin.

Seems like a recipe for infinite queues with hard limits on who you can face in high divisions.

MMR expands in the search for opponents. So far, divisions have proven to be totally static and not able to expand.

There had better be some big behind the scenes tweaks, or queue times for legend in season two will be an all-time level of unplayable.

Given anets record I foresee this being a huge problem in S2. Dunno why they just couldn’t tweak the way mmr adjusts for groups and decrease the rewards high level players get from grouping with players more than 2 levels lower than them. Too hard I guess.

AFAIK all similar foods, ie where the effect is the same with toughness or vitality the toughness food is more expensive so toughness is regarded as the greater asset.

Evan Lesh.3295:

The Ace.9105:

Snip

I’m not entirely following some of what you said, but I will say some things back to see if it helps:

Solo players each have a Glicko rating and a ladder position. Both are updated at the end of a match based on the results and values of the other team. The Glicko algorithm does not care about fair matches, it merely takes results of matches and updates ratings according the the outcome. As for Glicko vs Elo, they perform the exact same function for our purposes, but Glicko is more accurate.

Is the ladder position your divisions and number of pips?

Buy Some Apples.6390:

This game is not what is keeping me playing, it’s my guild!
If my guild were to go play another game, I would go with them in less than a heartbeat and never look back at this shambles of a game!

I’m the same, I probably would have left the game 1-2 years ago if not for my guild.

I use something like this build for running in larger groups:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASncoC1XhdeBGpC0ehlKji+tr79O86KmuScZCgyD-TVCEABP8AAA4CA4kyooUiwlSw20B0o6Pxs/ATKNIFwTjBA-w

Swapping elixir s and elixir b and mix the trinkets to get a base level of armor and health you’re happy with. Medic Gyro and Bulwark gyro both have excellent toolkit skills for WvW zerging.

For roaming use something like the meta pvp build on metabattle or the p/p condi build.

Xillllix.3485:

So the small changes in the Holiday Sneak Peak are due in the next update or with the WvW Overhaul? When is the WvW Overhaul released anyway?

Not in the next update, at some indeterminate point in the future. I would guess that thee changes if they go ahead will come before the actual overhaul. At this point I think all the proposed changes have been received 100% favourably except for the down state change.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Why would anyone play this game? The queue times are insane. I just played a few games after barely playing for 18 months and not at all for 6 months. Guess what I observed:

I have to queue for 8-10 minutes even at the lowest league level. Pretty funny really. And this is at prime time. On EU which is busier than NA I suspect.

Really, I am sure the game is doing amazing and PvP is growing.. I am sure Anet.

lol

I’m sapphire, almost ruby, and my queue times are 3 mins maximum and thats outside of prime time.

gennyt.3428:

I don’t know. Looking at some of the other changes. They added T3 gates, tougher lords, auto upgrades and barricades in the same update that gutted guild catapults and heavily gated guild buffs. The days of some random player popping an upgrade from their personal guild and yelling “+ 5 sup on south camp” are done and done.

This is anet, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Those contradictory design decisions just show how poor the WvW project mgt and development is. There is literally no-one at the top integrating the various design choices into a cohesive whole that adheres to their overall design goals.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

morrolan.9608:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

I’ve gotten 3 ascended armor chests (no weapons) from the reward tracks so far since the leagues started. I play around 5-8 matches per day depending on my mood :P

So yeah, they still drop

3! I bet you’re the type to have had multiple precursors drop as well.

In my 3.5 yrs, only 2 has dropped lol

I would love to have had 2 drop, been playing since beta and have had zero precursor drops.

Xeno.4610:

I fully agree with the OP. Nerfed stabi + even more buffed hard CC with HoT is in my opinion very wrong direction. I loved strong melee position in large scale battles. It made the fights more dynamic and interesting. But obviously the devs think different – they want to buff backline casters with tons of AoE and CC who just stand and spam all the skills.

Actually I truly don’t think they understand the consequences of the change to stability even now.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

I’ve gotten 3 ascended armor chests (no weapons) from the reward tracks so far since the leagues started. I play around 5-8 matches per day depending on my mood :P

So yeah, they still drop

3! I bet you’re the type to have had multiple precursors drop as well.

Tongku.5326:

There really are no good PVP games out right now, some on horizon but who knows how they will turn out. Camelot Unchained looked kinda good but it’s a persistant sandbox, meaning it will suffer from same population / nightcapping issues that this game has and the devs will do absolutely nothing about it, they’ll just chalk it up to “sandbox”, therefore it will suck.

That depends, I don’t think it will have euro servers and it will have a campaign structure with 3 factions rather than servers so its far more flexible in dealing with those issues. And by that argument any RvR game will have population balancing issues.

No. of knockbacks and pulls need to be reduced.

What is this I don’t even………………………………

Problem with the game is how effective bunker specs are and you want to make that worse.

msalakka.4653:

morrolan.9608:

msalakka.4653:

The DBLs cater to zergs and blobs, which is the only thing we ever faced when matched with Elona, RS, or Kodash.

Funny considering how the desert BL is meant to break blobs up.

I find it difficult to believe that was ever the intention. Everything favours large numbers, from barricades to the PvE event.

Well there are the many many many choke points, far too many really.

msalakka.4653:

The DBLs cater to zergs and blobs, which is the only thing we ever faced when matched with Elona, RS, or Kodash.

Funny considering how the desert BL is meant to break blobs up.