Guild Wars 2

Lot of changes made this patch, some of which may be good eventually, But while some of the basic ideas are good, the implementation is not. With the current rate of fixes/UI changes/etc it doesnt look good, feels like the game is going to probably feel even more unpolished for some time

Traits:

• Starting at 30 is bad, leveling, the amount of interesting things you get for leveling always felt low, now it feels lower. Its too bottom heavy now.
  • this change is the most odd, really feels like you gained nothing here. The leveling process was actually one of your strengths, now it feels pretty bad. I really think you need to roll back to starting at 10.
• The UI feels clunky, before you would click on what you wanted to change, now you have to click on what you want to change, then look to the left scroll and click
• The level 80 quests require you to play events which are currently pretty unrefined, and have some flaws in the dynamic event/event lines
  • High Priest requires you to do an escort which notoriously overspawns champions and enemies who kill npcs super fast
  • Grenth scales really poorly with lots of people around, and retraining people who dont listen is ehhh
  • Karka queen event is super rare now, and apparently bugged, or not very intuitive on whats required to make it happen.
• Essentially you are highlighting some things that work kind of poorly right now

World Events

• Not enough variation in events/options

• NEEDS notification now, even more than before. I have no idea when most of this stuff can even happen and figuring it out via looking at patch notes and translating PDT is really not fun and takes you out of the game.

• A lot of your content feels very bad in a large scale event. Slowdown, inability to tell whats going on. Mobs that take forever and one shot players. Pretty fun with small numbers and mid range numbers, really bad/boring/annoying with 40+ yes now you are creating situations where this will be more likely. (there are some events which feel good with big numbers, but its not that common)

• feels a lot less dynamic world, things can happen now.

Wardrobe

• for the most part, functionally a definate improvement
• UI is really bad, and feels a bit confusing
  • interaction with other things on hero panel is also confusing
  • skins need to have more organization options and UI settings
• From what i have seen on development until now, you guys really cant push out UI changes that much, so this type of refinement probably will take awhile/or use up resources that are needed for other content. So while this seems like a small thing, it will either bottleneck new developments, or be put on the backburner, kind of sad.

Ferocity Change

• Makes Power builds feel weak.
  • not just talking berserker here, any build which was focused on direct dmg feels less worthwhile (any combination involving crit dmg)
  • the game wasnt too great at making you feel powerful as you level up/gear up, now it feels even less so.

• weakness creep feels a heck of a lot worse than power creep. (deflation feels worse than inflation)

Overall the game feels generally unpolished now, Some of this is highlighting things that werent too great to begin with, some of it is newly introduced. So the game feels like it needs polish, at a time when the game also feels like it needs something new. Back when the game/events were new, the fun of new content/challenges adventures and not knowing what was around the corner made polish not as important. But now that all of this is old hat, the lack of polish and regression in some areas tends to grate against the nerves when you play.

At the end of the day i just felt like i would probably need to log back on when you improve the new basics, and hopefully finally have some new content (big stuff, missions, over arching quests, new weapons, proffessions, animations) to play while enjoying the new basics.
However since we are going on two years and the game doesnt feel super polished, and there is not that much new… yea.

Ok first of all,
Luxury items that are also endgame items matter, because they eat so many good in their creation, and effect the value of connected goods. right now id say a lot of items prices are determined directly by their value in the equation of making legendaries, and ascended.

2nd of all forget the idea that its only the richest of the barons, Its more like the top 20% of people or something.

The key here is its not about the super wealthy its about the upper class. The people who can make 1000 extra gold in 3 weeks versus the people who have yet to even get close to 1000 extra gold in .3-1.5 years.

There are a few people who saved for 6-7 months, but my guess is most of the people who participate in the precursor market can make 1000 gold in about 3 weeks or less.

The data that might be useful to see, is see where the wealth distribution curve starts to make its sharpest changes, and then investigating the player who is in the mode and the mean

did a rough calculation how long it takes to get dusk on 4.5 gold a day earnings, the answer approx 230 days. (considered as well how much it goes up in the time it takes)

point is, not that many of the participants in the precursor market are not wealthy, and most make way more per week than normal or even above average players. Its not just an issue of the dude with 1000000 gold, its the dude who can make precursor money in a week.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Essence Snow.3194:

Wanze.8410:

simply quoting to let you know I am responding to you

Tbh idk if there has to be a negative to act in a positive fashion. Making something better imo is justification enough for change regardless of coming from a negative or not…..ie always striving to improve for the sake of betterment

“Dont fix what isnt broken.”

If you cannot find a definitive problem, there is zero reason to “fix” what does not have a problem.

There is a problem. not being able to identify your problem exactly just means you cant identify it, it doesnt mean it doesnt exist.

many many many people could put the
if i dont see a problem their aint a problem on their tombstones.

Wanze.8410:

Just a general question:

Assuming someone actually manages to prove that people that make lots of profit on the tp are bad for the game and we find a solution on how to minimise profit margins on the TP, how do you prevent people from attaining personal in game wealth with gems to gold conversion?

Well even if they find that tp profit is having a bad effect, that doesnt mean the solution is to minimize profit. There are other solutions.
Also, the reality of the gems to gold conversion has to be considered, not just the theory. AKA their types of buying patterns, and also their numbers.

not that i think its a great idea, but you will be able to change sometimes, because you can get charges for playing spvp now.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

But roleplaying a zergling and being forced into one gear set and a small handful of trait builds is apparently fun?

actively managing and dealing with damage done to me, damage i do to the enemies, my own recovery, and playing in ways that synergize with those around me without debilitating my playstyle is fun.

your zergling comment is irrelevant to trinity, that more about what type of numbers you prefer to do content with. And really other than living world, most content can be done with 2-10 players. There is also tequatl and wurm, but wurm requires roles and organisation to succeed, and tequatl is mostly about organizing people to do what they are supposed to do.

I played the game from release, to this day, my biggest desires at this point are new experiences, and new mechanics/playstyles and new challenges. I have at no time wished i could be back in a trinity.
Thats why i play this game.

So now the question becomes, do the wealthy effect the value of high end items? Thinking about logical ways to decide this without data is hard. There are lot of vague terms here, like wealthy, average etc. Also there are many ways to look at it.
Lets say you look at it logically from a supply/demand standpoint

Item X has a high demand and a low supply (i say this is true)
Item X can only be reliably obtained by highest bidder (i say this is true)

logically this would suggest that the people who have money are the deciding factor for the value of this item.

another way of looking at it.
The market competition for dusk is say 866 gold (to start competing to get the item)
This means anyone who has not earned 866 gold cannot begin to compete
How much of the population has ever had 866 gold at one time?

Essentially i think that the truth is, the super rich 1% probably dont effect prices that much, because they are such a small amount compared to the volume of high end goods. But what about the 5%? what about the 10% what about the upper 15%
if the difference in earning between the upper 25% and 75% is huge, it means that 75% of people have to go to extreme measures to achieve what the upper 25% can achieve.

and thats really the big issue here at the end of the day. To compete with the upper echelon, you must join them. You must become one of the upper 25%, and the problem is that doing so, currently you have two options, farm hard and fast or play the TP. The tp is the most effecient method because it can earn more money than other activities when done well.

The big problem is one method is essentially generally, under our current systems degenerative play, and the other is playing the TP. Neither of these things is what the game was marketed as, or highlights the game features.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Prince Rogers Nelson.7652:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

On a personal level, having a sense of Entitlement isn’t bad or wrong. But I did say that you can’t use that an excuse to spread the wealth. Communism failed because of the same ideas you’re pushing. So if we already know it’s a bad idea, and proven through the collapse of countries, why are you still pushing this to happen in the GW2 economy?

That’s actually not why those countries failed. Not even remotely. As a rule of thumb, if Reagan said something, the opposite was probably true.

But boy, oh boy, I do NOT have the energy for a poli sci 101 argument on the gw2 forums tonight. I’m saving it for wvw reset.

If you compare a country based on Capitalism, and one that’s based on Communism, you’ll notice that one is prosperous and one isn’t. It would be similar to what some are advocating for here.

If you impose a mandate that all players must have equal wealth, then you eliminate the need for any type of reward structure. GW2 then turns into a single player console game, where the end game is just starting over with a new character.

first of all, communism has yet to exist it is an ideal that has never actually been implimented.

second of all communism is not an just an economic policy. Capitalism is an economic policy.

btw Pure capitialism fails, this is known, the most successful economies right now, including america are mixed economies.

Now, im not saying everyone needs to have even wealth, just pointing out that the whole capitilism vs communism idea is mostly theoretical and has no real analogs

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

heres your problem smooth, to you this is a debate.
a debate is essentially a game where the goal is to win. You supress ideas that are against you and try to win for your side.

Now if this is a discussion, in which we are looking for solutions, then data sharing per request is useful.

In order to discuss solutions, there first must be a problem. So since there is no problem, it becomes a debate on why you perceive there to be one.

phys.7689:

i dont mean control in terms of absolute god control i mean rather simply this.

the person with the most money decides how much something of value costs. If i want dusk and he wants dusk, he can pick his price, i cannot compete with him.

The point is this, dusk is marketed to the people who are probably in the top 25% of wealth. This means for 75% of people this endgame item is out of reach. This problem will only grow as the disparity grows.
When the richest 25% are at
100000 average gold
other 75% are at 100 average gold, you create a situation where regular players cannot compete for items.

this is why wealth disparity is a problem

Another false statement. All 100% of players have access to Dusk via RNG. Assuming your 25% number is accurate, that only means 25% of the population can get “instant gratification by purchasing it”.

Also, the rich don’t determine overall prices. Supply and Demand do. As John said, even without TP Barons, prices would be roughly the same.

Responses to you
* 1) you shouldnt be debating weather there is a problem or not either, you should be discussing it. I do not know if there is data or there isnt. Im merely pointing out that any suppression of data with the intent to win a debate, is not condusive to problem solving/engineering.

• 2)far as your rng method of obtaining dusk, that does not exist, because it is rng that means there exists cases where some one will never get one at all. The mere fact this exists means that there is no true method to obtain precursor, there is a chance. The only true method, is to buy existing precursors.

Endgame items are the driving force behind item value
this is just a concept i want to make clear here, luxury items effect the prices of anything related to their production, because now that the game has matured, these are the items with consistent demand.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Fyrebrand.4859:

Bryzy.2719:

Bad balancing + communist style gameplay = boring = loss of players

I lol’d at describing GW2 as “communist.” GW2 is basically the game saying: “play how you want, create your own build, combine skills/traits how you wish, perform any role you can manage.” It’s a “free market” of ideas and skill sets. You can quibble about game balance and whether or not X build is as viable as Y build, but the fact is people are free to make those mistakes and experiment.
By contrast, a traditional “holy trinity” MMO says: “This is your role, this is what skills you must use for that role, this is what you are allowed to wear, and any deviation is punished.”

Bryzy.2719:

I’ve noticed more players recently giving up this game/logging far fewer hours to pursue real life or other gaming ventures. I’ve no idea if this is a legitimate trend (it most likely isn’t in the scheme of things) as I don’t have access to Anet’s playerbase statistics.

/sigh
Why even bother saying something like this? I see this tired cliché all the time. “I want X in GW2. In my opinion, people are leaving the game because we don’t have X. Therefore, I am right.”
You said it yourself, you don’t have access to ANet’s playerbase statistics. Of course some people do leave the game, especially if they’ve already played for hundreds of hours. It happens all the time, in every game. But new people come in all the time, and some other players do come back after a break (myself included). I didn’t quit because there was no “holy trinity.” In fact, I’d probably quit if there was.

The fact is, we don’t know if more people are leaving than staying, at what rate people leave, or why. It’s not data you can factor into your argument, and is a non-sequitur best left unmentioned.

Anyhow, my take on the “holy trinity” is:

- it was a necessary evil for a long time, providing the nearest semblance of a “game” that massively multiplayer online infrastructures could manage, given the technology at the time

- MMO devs still fall back on the trinity today mainly out of laziness, familiarity, and lack of imagination

- It consistently results in 3/5 players waiting around for upwards of 40 minutes or more to get into a dungeon. To this day, I’ve yet to see any trinity-based game provide an adequate solution to this colossal waste of player time — despite the fact that these games are incredibly focused on dungeons as the delivery method for all endgame PvE content.

- 2/3 roles in the trinity have no place at all in leveling & soloing, and if you want to do them effectively you have to take gear & skills that utterly dismantle your ability to be efficient while solo or in the open world.

- In abandoning the “holy trinity” GW2 did leave some good mechanics behind, and created some new dilemmas that have yet to be solved perfectly. Still, I would take the worst aspects of GW2’s combat over the best aspects of the trinity model, any day.

1. My wait times are on average 10 minutes for a random during which I can do other things to occupy myself.

2. Remedied with allowing people to switch specs on the fly. I have both a healer and a dps spec.

Any other criticisms which aren’t mired in 2005?

its boring, not fun, and not for me. but thats probably why i play GW2 and hope it keeps improving over all the trinity games.

John Smith.4610:

3. The prices of high end goods are VERY close, if not exactly the same, to what they would be without any “TP Barons” wanting those items. There’s too much velocity for individual rich people to influence the supply/demand equation all that much, which is the only control they have if they aren’t manipulating prices.

I think you mean the prices are close to what a normal player could earn in the time it would take them to get one, or some such type of data.

It might be ineresting to see what type of data are you using to figure that.
Is it the amount of precursors created compared to the amount of hours played, then multiplied by the amount the average player makes= cost of precursor

Is it the amount of materials spent on average creating one in the forge?

The formula tells a lot here honestly.

william dj.6953:

@Essence Snow, very possible I misunderstood that. Won’t be the first time. I would like for you to answer my questions in the second and last paragraph of that post though.

the part I just edited in. If your answer is regardless of time spent to gold earned should be equal. And you are very persistent at using real life situations. I would have to believe you feel a heart surgeon should earn exactly what a paperboy makes.

Should the guy who works 80 hours a day with back breaking labor earn less than the guy who works 80 hours a day watching market trends?

Who can say, too many factors too many situations. The answer in our society? whoever can make people think what they do is more valuable. But that doesnt really mean one is any better than the others.

who should get paid more firefighter or heart surgeon?
teacher or banker?
architect or electrician?
land owner or share cropper?
who knows

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

This is spiraling. Let’s stop discussing possible “solutions”. Before discussing a solution you must first prove a problem. I have yet to see any evidence internally or externally that there is a problem.

Speculation on player wealth is not evidence of a problem.
An anecdote is not evidence unless it demonstrates a systemic problem.

Logic and reasoning are the only evidence we can have at our disposal, data points are something only you have access to.

Heres why having wealth disparity is bad.
People with an abnormal amount of wealth control the value of highly desirable items.

Now im not going to say they are manipulating or whatever, but the fact is, if you want to get an item that is highly desirable, you have to compete with people who can make much more than you can in the same time frame on the market.

Imagine you and a rich man have both lived your life in the pursuit of cool cars. Bill makes a cool car. You cannot compete with rich man for this car, even if you have put in equal work, because he makes more per unit of time than you do. In fact his earnings are geometric (to a limit) while yours are only additive.

Now, while this might be ok, if he was a better car man than you, he is not, he is simply better at making money.

Essentially endgame is controlled by the wealthy

This is false. While it’s true that rich players can influence a market, they cannot control it. Even with high end items, new ones are generated daily. Rich players can keep buying it to try and corner a market, but their wealth is not infinite.

If you want to control the Dusk market, you must be able to not only prevent players from having their Buy Orders filled, but you must also be able to have the lowest priced listings so you can sell them. You have to be able to do this constantly, as new Dusks keep on being generated. Then you have the problem that you’re not the only rich person, so competition in the same market will drive prices down, thus lower profits.

i dont mean control in terms of absolute god control i mean rather simply this.

the person with the most money decides how much something of value costs. If i want dusk and he wants dusk, he can pick his price, i cannot compete with him.

The point is this, dusk is marketed to the people who are probably in the top 25% of wealth. This means for 75% of people this endgame item is out of reach. This problem will only grow as the disparity grows.
When the richest 25% are at
100000 average gold
other 75% are at 100 average gold, you create a situation where regular players cannot compete for items.

this is why wealth disparity is a problem

Smooth Penguin.5294:

So in essence, you want John to help you validate your speculations as to why you think there’s a problem with the economy?

Part of debating is to bring forth evidence that backs your position. You can’t come to a debate, defend your position, and then ask the opposite side to provide evidence that would adhere to your theories.

heres your problem smooth, to you this is a debate.
a debate is essentially a game where the goal is to win. You supress ideas that are against you and try to win for your side.

Now if this is a discussion, in which we are looking for solutions, then data sharing per request is useful.

John Smith.4610:

Flippers increase liquidity and bring prices closer to equilibrium, almost always lowering prices and providing preferences to other players. I see no reason why anyone would want to stop that.

every cog in the economic system brings value to the system, from the material gathers to the crafters to the gamblers to the hunters.

The question is why do the flippers have comparitively geometric earning potential while all the others have an additive earning potential.

Why repeatedly balance item aquisition crafting recipes, monster kills, but never balance TP wealth gains?

I know you guys want money to be the main currency, and be the most valued thing, because you sell currency. However, you are messing up the game if the only way to succeed in a timely fashion is to play the TP, because the games is not sold as a TP game.

In a game ruled by money, where most of the endgame can be purchased, the one who has the most money wins the game

John Smith.4610:

This is spiraling. Let’s stop discussing possible “solutions”. Before discussing a solution you must first prove a problem. I have yet to see any evidence internally or externally that there is a problem.

Speculation on player wealth is not evidence of a problem.
An anecdote is not evidence unless it demonstrates a systemic problem.

Logic and reasoning are the only evidence we can have at our disposal, data points are something only you have access to.

Heres why having wealth disparity is bad.
People with an abnormal amount of wealth control the value of highly desirable items.

Now im not going to say they are manipulating or whatever, but the fact is, if you want to get an item that is highly desirable, you have to compete with people who can make much more than you can in the same time frame on the market.

Imagine you and a rich man have both lived your life in the pursuit of cool cars. Bill makes a cool car. You cannot compete with rich man for this car, even if you have put in equal work, because he makes more per unit of time than you do. In fact his earnings are geometric (to a limit) while yours are only additive.

Now, while this might be ok, if he was a better car man than you, he is not, he is simply better at making money.

Essentially endgame is controlled by the wealthy

Now at the end of the day, as to the complete point of the OP and taxes, there really isnt good reason to believe taxes would help the situation, its most likely TP users would simply pass the taxes on to the consumer. The only real reason to increase trading post tax is to increase the maximum gold sink, but truth is it would probably effect everyone pretty evenly

The idea of punishing the rich is irrelevant.

Anet has no problem punishing any player in the best interests of the game. They have done it repeatedly for the sake of the economy by nerfing various money farms, and actions they feel are too profitable. There is no reason to discuss whether anet should punish the rich if its in the best interest of the game, that ship has sailed long ago.

The next problem is a problem of game design. An integral part of game design is rewarding people for winning the game, and rewarding them for playing the game in ways that enhance the experience.

The TP rewards people for not playing most of the game the way its intended to be played. In fact the whole pursuit of profit is generally destructive to the game as a whole. If you have a goal, spending your time doing anything but playing the TP is a waste of time. To be most effecient, you can probably mix playing the TP with doing whatever is currently the latest degenerative gold farm playstyle while you wait.

John Smith says its a tautology that rich people have an advantage at luxuries

Luxuries in GW2 arent real luxuries though, they are the main goals of the game. They are the only reward for playing the game after you have completed the map, and the goals that are supposed to keep people playing

Nike.2631:

Bogdanus Magnus.8143:

Viking Jorun.5413:

I don’t get the offense of mixing different Asian cultures to achieve an entirely new one. Cantha is not Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. It’s Cantha. The sooner NCSoft comes to accept it as it’s own culture within a fantasy world, the sooner development can begin on it. ^^

You, my friend, said in three lines everything that has to be said.

If someone made an obvious FANTASY setting where Mice-people in their quest for racial purity started marching Cat-people into ovens, no one is going to say “what a novel fantasy setting you’ve come up with.” If anything the very first post on that game’s boards is going to be “You cast the Jews as Cats??!? And somehow its the Jews’ own fault they get put in ovens now because they used to hunt the Mice-people?!!? Are you insane?”

No argument of “but its obviously a fantasy setting” will mean jack squat.

That you don’t understand the minefield that Cantha tramples through is pretty much the EXACT reason why the game shouldn’t go there. There are hot-buttons you just don’t push in a mainstream game. Its ignorance of the context those “fantasy elements” are drawing on that creates the problem in the first place.

they have already done this in GW2 with the moletariate. And it isnt handled nearly as well as cantha was.
First of canthans werent demi humans, second of all Cantha had less in common with any one group.

Regardless, the truth is i think NCsoft just didnt want it being to similar marketing wise to blade and soul. China is the big money, and they dont want to take from their own market too much.

The whole political thing is pretty fake, games and fiction borrows and reworks reality all the time. In fact it is probably more the case than not. Asian companies have been making European settings in their games for years, mingling norse /olympic/ pagan /indian almost everything in game whenever they want. I also dont think GW ever had a huge outcry of political waves.

Makes more sense its a money and marketing thing.

By your responses to the last guy, you would still have the same battle imbalances, because the pugs will log off after getting rolled.

Truth is for WvW to work it kind of needs organisation and some permanance. Servers arent arbitray in WvW, they essentially save your teams progress, which allows you to actually be a team

I think your aim isnt really the best, because you are focusing on even numbers by any means, when probably a better solution would be one that tracks and matches groups based more on their populations than their ratings.

I think for WvW to succeed it needs to better define its servers and better regulate them. WvW teams need to get more information and more classification. Now that servers are only really going to be about WvW, anet can make some progress on this front.

Hannelore.8153:

I am a bit confused how everyone is arguing that as -casual- players, you won’t be able to catch the -hardcore- bosses. Er.. What?

You aren’t casual if you’re trying to catch such content. Its was implemented for the sole reason of appeasing hardcore players who wanted that content.

it was made for people who want challenging open world fights, now its made for whoever can log in at three specific times.

dont think its a good idea

ManaCraft.5630:

phys.7689:

It is essentially exactly what people who want WvW not be server based want.

Quite the opposite. It is a far cry from what we have been asking for. If you think EotM is an accurate representation of the “serverless” models that were presented in the CDI thread and elsewhere, you need to go back and give them a second read. In the meantime, kindly take your strawman someplace else.

uhh, did you even read the OP? he basically said its just like EOTM

Kalyani.1453:

When players log into WvW, they should be assigned a certain color for 24 hrs based upon each color’s population and total points. This would even out matches and still provided a chance for players to defend the garrison etc. If a team of players enters WvW for the 1st time in a 24 hr period, they should be grouped together. This way, players could still enjoy the ability to play with friends. Then, for WvW tournaments, rewards could be placed on individual points accrued, with a higher prize range (ex: players 1-50 receive a legendary weapon, 51-150 receive an ascended weapon chest, etc.)

With the mega server update being released for PvE server balance, this change to WvW would relieve even more stress on servers as there would be no need/desire for a single server to be overpopulated as Blackgate is. Also, no one server would then dominate over the other, creating a happier gaming experience for all.

Essentially, this would be like combining the EotM gameplay with the server guesting system and megaserver matching system.

where is the strawman? The major difference between his idea and EOTM is you get awarded for personal kills and it lasts 24 hours.

My beef with it, is serves no purpose other than killing random players in no context, which EOTM already does. Maybe he and you want a better EOTM.
But why mess with WvW when EOTM is closer to what you want, just fix EOTM.

What exactly is it you want anyhow? how is it different than EOTM in its basic structure and implimentation.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Until people get the idea of server pride out of their head, this will be the inevitable demise of WvW. Variations of the OP’s idea has been brought up in the past with good support. The way they are suggesting wouldn’t work though due a concern being brought up on severing the community and splitting players up.

Something to keep in mind to, the reason we might not see many improvements in WvW or even any new maps is because we have no real justification or reason to receive it.

What good would a new map do when the bottom 4 Tiers can’t field enough players to currently fill the maps we have now? Hell, T1 doesn’t even have the populace to field all 4 maps at once. I play in prime time and outside the initial que of maybe 20-30 min, I literally can map hop at will after that.. So why would we need a new map?

The way I see it (unfortunately), is there is not a lot of interest in WvW on the grand scale. The only way people will concretely (IMO) gain more interest in WvW is to break the stale match ups.. aka.. level out the playing field..aka…even out the population. The only way that will happen is if servers merge together, or a variation of the OP’s idea is implemented. Then once Anet see’s WvW has enough interest that it’s filled mostly throughout the day, then we may actually see the goodies we want.

WvW is more popular than you think.
New maps can be rotated in and out
Wvw without servers is not really that much of a hook. EOTM essentially handles that market completely. It is essentially exactly what people who want WvW not be server based want.

Myth Shaia.4856:

phys.7689:

Being green team is meaningless to me. green team is different every day, green team is my enemy one day and my pal the next. Green team is different in every single instance. I cant really root for green team they are just a random mob with no permanence or consistent traits or charachteristics.

Being overrun 4:1 or even 7:1 is meaningless to me too. I feel like a bag not even another face. The primary issue is to not turn WvWvW into EotM that would be redundant, it is to turn it into something better than EotM but better than the current imbalanced system that is WvWvW.

the best thing to do is solve the problems then.

WvW should have weight classes determined by server activity, people should essentially play within their weight class, if they begin to get a higher average population they move up the very next week.

Server transfers should have specific time period, and people should have to work toward server affiliation, to get credit for server linked rewards, like season rewards, WvW bonuses, etc. They can make server transfers from highly overpopulated servers to underpopulated servers reduce the earning time or perhaps give mercenary bonuses, of course, they should be only offering a number of slots that the server seems to need to be on par for that weight class.

Anet should begin heavily promoting server identity and make wvw world more of a long term thing rather than just a place you go for fights.

People should select their WvW allegience later on(or you can go in and level 1, and then select server), and with more information in game of what the server stats are like.

i believe the true culprit is matchmaking and server stacking for rewards and easy transfers.

I also think that they should break the day into 3 parts and award 3 match points per day. They should also award special points for performing well versus the odds (the amount can be determined later) For example if a server performed well against 3 times the number, they get some extra value, However if the server with 3 times the number also outplayed them, they will get the bonus points instead.

what im getting at is they would be better off changing the systems that mess up WvW rather then essentially deleting it.

Myth Shaia.4856:

phys.7689:

EOTM feels like pointless and useless endeavor to me. I mean its fine to run around killing people, but i prefer to run around killing people for a purpose. Have actual objectives you know, and a reason to take them aside from karma training

You may have missed the actual objective of EotM then…and it has its own objectives too, and when you win, you get a oooooh, ahhhh supply drop in your Borderlands keep…I mean that’s really sad as a prize…really. And I do not see how karma training in EotM is any different from karma training in WvWvW or EBG…

ManaCraft.5630:

But I’ll agree that an EotM-style system is not the answer – not because the idea of alliances is bad, but because EotM removes far too many choices from the player, which in turn makes the socialization you speak of impossible. How are you going to form a community when you can’t even decide which alliance you represent, which map you play on, or even whom you play with? It just doesn’t happen.

It’s only if you create a system where players retain those choices that things get interesting.

So, suppose ANet expands the Squad system and the Commander system, they really need to. Like-minded players join the Commander’s squad and they queue up for a map. They go in as a squad. Make the squad have a player limit and you can even create multiple squads from the same server and queue up for the same color map. Essentially you could create ‘raid squads’ that have specific objectives and roles to play.Good enough?

The choices you mention, socialization and community building….join the same guild, what’s stopping you from sharing a TS? Make a friends list…

you are missing my point, EOTM is self contained, but the people there are not people i have any affiliation with, we really arent working for common purpose other than self profit and the thrill of the kill. In WvW you take objective so that you can win, and help the people who also work towards the same goal. You work directly against the other team.

Yes EOTM has objectives, but none of them actually helps the organization i have joined much. Nothing that happens in EOTM really matters. This is why it bores me. I fully get why people prefer it, and it does what it does fine, but it should not replace WvW, its best as it is, something people do when WvW is too full, or they just want to have some good natured mass pvp.

Being green team is meaningless to me. green team is different every day, green team is my enemy one day and my pal the next. Green team is different in every single instance. I cant really root for green team they are just a random mob with no permanence or consistent traits or charachteristics.

EOTM feels like pointless and useless endeavor to me. I mean its fine to run around killing people, but i prefer to run around killing people for a purpose. Have actual objectives you know, and a reason to take them aside from karma training

Xae Isareth.1364:

phys.7689:

lordkrall.7241:

Xae Isareth.1364:

It’s an exploit because then you sell Eternity to get most of your money back, whilst keeping both the skins.

Since people get legendaries mainly for the skin, you basically just got 2 legendaries next to free.

Not supposed to happen.

But you have made those two weapons with those two skins and thus you should have them unlocked.

Just because you can get your money back for something doesn’t mean you haven’t made it.

What if I make something tomorrow, get the skin for it, and then in 1 year that item itself is worth way more than it costed me to make it? Should I lose that skin then if I decided to sell it?
Wouldn’t that invalidate the whole purpose of the Wardrobe?

You might not like it, but calling it an exploit is quite silly.

unlocking a skin generally account binds it from what i gathered, so you can never sell anything you unlocked.
This is different for eternity

HOWEVER, you are not getting a sword skin that actually changes its blade based on night and day like eternity. If you wanted to get the equivalent functionality you would have to either make two ascended weapons, or you would have to transmute it all the time.

Also people are forgetting every time you make a legendary you use massive karma and map completion, and wvw, they are also forgetting that eternity costs will not be recouped, because eternity doesnt for as much as twilight and sunrise combined anyhow.
sunrise cost 3k
twilight cost 3k
eternity costs 5k

so it really aint that bad.
Just to make it even more different, they should recolor the hilt of eternity or add some small eternity only effect.

You’re not getting Eternity, but I don’t really see how that fits into the argument, since its about getting Sunrise and Twilight in a way its not supposed to be obtained.

5k-500g-3k-3k=1.5k. That’s getting both Sunrise and Twlight at half the cost of 1. There’s a market correction argument but its hard to predict which way the correction will go because of how this is set up.

like you said, you are only considering market value here, which is going to change regardless. What you are then talking about is an economic issue, not really a game balance issue.
Fact is, you cant get eternity skin properties without making an eternity.
fact is you spent 1.3 million karma 500 skill points, 500 badges of honor and 1000 dungeon tokens getting sunrise and twilight, AND need to give up at LEAST one charachters maximum legendary allotment to make it these two items, to somehow limit its unlock would be a really bad idea.

The costs of materials we cant really figure in here too much, for some people the costs are a lot, for others its one day TP trading, in which case all that non buyable stuff that straight up requires time and effort is a lot more of a loss.

guardian.6489:

Calixtus.8617:

Perhaps an Anet member or 2 should join TTS or one of the other cross server guilds set up for big events to actually understand how these guilds work?

What’s funny is that there are actually 2 Anet Devs in TTS right now. While they don’t join our Teq raids very often they were often part of our initial wurm attempts and one of them was part of our first post-patch kill.

So you can imagine most of TTS is quite surprised we weren’t thought of when this new core system was being designed.

different devs are on different projects, and you were probably thought of, but this change was going through no matter what. Its clear just from how guild influence is completely wrong for this system, that every other concern is thought of as taking a back seat.
Fact is this change needed a bunch of systems to be in place to actually work. None of those systems are in place.
things like
Boss trackers
changed map travel functionality
Guild influence tied to servers
Reworked dynamic event system and restructured connections of main to shard.

its clear this decsion was decided on first and everything else was jury rigged into the system. I mean, thats how things go sometimes, but i still think its a mistake to so hastily implement this change without properly tweaking existing systems to back it up.

also i dont think it really gets to the core issues of the game. The game is going on two years old now, the big thing it needs is new lasting and interesting content. Aside from LA getting blown up the game is fairly similar to what it was day one, and nothing new is on the horizon. They also havent figured out how to deal with a maturing game population(level/experience wise)

SirMoogie.9263:

phys.7689:

world permanence is gone, this is why they had to kill the boss interactions in ORR, which is kind of sad, because although they didnt use it much, that type of trigger would have been an interesting design tool going forward.

And with it one of the major selling points that brought me to the game (the other being a connection to the lore from GW1). With it gone I will have to turn to the only other MMO I am aware of that is promising a game that focuses on open world events that give players a feeling that their actions matter in shaping the world, EQ Next.

Somewhere along the line MMOs went from offering interesting open worlds to explore and forge communities that help the world grow to offering “theme park” content that tells you what you should be doing and when. GW 2 really had systems in place that could have offered a different experience, but apparently they’ve decided to abandon those tools for a Living World release schedule that tells you what you should be doing and now a megaserver structure with schedule that says you have to be somewhere at a specific time or you’ll never see these events. So much potential for this game squandered.

yeah looks like EQnext is going to take up the GW2 release torch here. They said they wanted to influence developers, and they have, its a shame that they are not going to lead that innovation any more.

They definately are showing the world isnt nearly as big a focus for them anymore with megaserver changes as they are currently implemented. To be honest most of the dynamic events in living world have not been on par with the initial games dynamic events, and they are actually going to destroy a some of the good ones, like ulgoth chain which is one of the better chains in the game.
Its action packed, it makes sense, taking you on a battle ranging all of the major centaur camps, it ramps up well increasing in difficulty and tension right up to the boss.

kitten shame really

Urxx.6840:

village idiot.1436:

Subscription model is bold? Backward maybe. This game made 116 million dollars last year i think.

Yes subscription model in 2014 is bold. Zenimax even had a Forbes article saying they would fail because of subscription. Buy-to-play or Free-to-play is what mainstream is nowadays. Going the subscription path means you are setting expectations a lot higher than you were back in 2003, and that means you have very little margin for error.

village idiot.1436:

The heart of the dynamic events system is being ripped out.

The most important events will be static, repetitive and heavily regimented. Rates that we do events will be slowed down and player choice severely limited.

The dynamic events system was one of the primary appeals of the game for me.

Dynamic events were a great concept on paper, but in reality they have failed IMO. Being this repetitive they break immersion. Also, they take a lot of storytelling out of the game, compared to traditional quests.

I was a fan of the event system, but right now I’d rather take a well written and smartly done traditional quest system over dynamic events.

The sweet spot would probably be to have both. I think the mistake here was to found the whole game on DE, and leave storytelling only in the personal story.

dynamic events and quests arent mutually exclusive, they can even work together to enhance each other. And the reason why dynamic events seems bad to you now, is probably mostly because they havent expanded on it much/well since the game released.

As far as dynamic events repeating, im fine with that, without that you have just desolate areas with nothing ever happening, which is basically what happens in most traditional quest systems.

I think traditional quests may be good for overarching plotlines, and telling/unlocking player related stories. I also think dynamic events were supposed to evolve and change, but anet seems to have abandoned them. Especially as a storytelling medium.

Anyhow ive played other traditional quest systems recently and the meat and potatoes of them pale in comparison to dynamic events. The Overarching plotlines and stories tend to beat dynamic events, but i GW2’s equivalent is personal story and living story, and the main problem there is that neither was very good as an over arching plotline, and neither really developed a long term player goal, which is the two things traditional quests usually handle well.

lordkrall.7241:

Xae Isareth.1364:

It’s an exploit because then you sell Eternity to get most of your money back, whilst keeping both the skins.

Since people get legendaries mainly for the skin, you basically just got 2 legendaries next to free.

Not supposed to happen.

But you have made those two weapons with those two skins and thus you should have them unlocked.

Just because you can get your money back for something doesn’t mean you haven’t made it.

What if I make something tomorrow, get the skin for it, and then in 1 year that item itself is worth way more than it costed me to make it? Should I lose that skin then if I decided to sell it?
Wouldn’t that invalidate the whole purpose of the Wardrobe?

You might not like it, but calling it an exploit is quite silly.

unlocking a skin generally account binds it from what i gathered, so you can never sell anything you unlocked.
This is different for eternity

HOWEVER, you are not getting a sword skin that actually changes its blade based on night and day like eternity. If you wanted to get the equivalent functionality you would have to either make two ascended weapons, or you would have to transmute it all the time.

Also people are forgetting every time you make a legendary you use massive karma and map completion, and wvw, they are also forgetting that eternity costs will not be recouped, because eternity doesnt for as much as twilight and sunrise combined anyhow.
sunrise cost 3k
twilight cost 3k
eternity costs 5k

so it really aint that bad.
Just to make it even more different, they should recolor the hilt of eternity or add some small eternity only effect.

Peacenote.1698:

anzenketh.3759:

village idiot.1436:

The heart of the dynamic events system is being ripped out.

There are still plenty of dynamic events in the game. I would not necessarily call the world bosses the core of dynamic events.

But the way I understand it, it’s not just the major events that will be impacted by this. The point of dynamic events was to make the world seem living. To make you feel like you had an impact in the game. If you failed an event, waypoints would be contested, NPCs would stay dead until you revived them, and so on.

Currently, unless I’m in overflow, I can swap to an alt, or pop to a city and back, to find the world the way I left it. On the megaserver, if I switch maps I might be placed on a different map when I return based on how many players are present from my home world, who I commonly play with, how full the map is, etc. So a node that I was going to go and gather might have disappeared. I might swap to an alt to bring a different toon only to find the event I want to help with never started. I might even be able to “event hunt” by popping back and forth between maps when I’m not in a party, each time being evaluated by the system: “You will simply arrive in a map and be assigned to the version of that map that makes the most sense for you.”

All of the criteria for map placement seems to be centered around population and people you know or have played with. Nothing is being mentioned about experiencing a map that most aligns with how you left it. If I’m in a party, sure, I’ll probably go back to where I was, but what if I’m just cruising around on my own?

So from that standpoint I do feel like the heart of the dynamic events system has been ripped out. Everything is being changed to focus on having specific people the system thinks I want around, rather than the state of the world. The outcome of an event will have even less impact than it already does. It will only be meaningful to the current map I am in for as long as it exists. And that map, and its state, will disappear if there aren’t enough people to sustain the version of the map. The version might exist for a long time, or it might exist only for a few hours during a peak time. And if I leave, I might not find my way back.

world permanence is gone, this is why they had to kill the boss interactions in ORR, which is kind of sad, because although they didnt use it much, that type of trigger would have been an interesting design tool going forward.

New maps will probably start from state zero, so the idea of working towards a better area, is out the window. Nothing can ever matter in this system because every map is supposed to be self contained, and not connected to any overall structure. Essentially dynamic events that matter are out the window.

I think they need to take a second and figure out how to make the world dynamic, and make peoples events matter while using this system. Though ill admit, it will be a lot more limited, i dont think they should give up on the potential of dynamic events, It made the game really fun, and the on release areas really shined because of it.

Wanze.8410:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

….. substantially reduced rewards for farmers…..

I think this is what Anet is trying to accomplish, to stop players farming through degenerative gameplay. And i second that.

I think boss trains are probably the most generative type gameplay they have. Basically people are grouping together, and traveling the world and doing big events. This is supposedly the thing anet most wanted.
the major reward of benefit is limited to one per boss per day, and a champion chest isnt much better than a champion bag, but takes more time.

So yeah, i dont think this is about degenerative play. I think they believe they have too many events compared to the number of people interested in them. They want it on a slower schedule so that everyone who wants to do it is doing it at the same time, and there is a lot of people around.

A better solution IMO is have a low base amount of World Boss spawns, and have it increase with population actively killing things. This way when there isnt that many players, you dont have a lot events with no people, but when there is a lot, you have more events to choose from.

Its a logistics thing, maybe they figure if they have multi events they wont get as much population per event.

WDring.4703:

As a recent ‘bandwagoner’ to HoD, I find this excuse of bandwagon server slightly null. Yes HoD got a lot of transfers, but the people who transferred are now HoD members. If you scroll up on this post there is a lot of ‘HoD are going to get crushed etc etc’ but as of now were 30k up on FA and with an outnumbered pug group we were wiping FA guild groups all morning. So carry on with the ‘Hordes of Denravi’ because despite the trash talking a few days ago, HoD haven’t had the ‘beating’ we were promised yet.

Well if you take out the negative connotation, i think you can see that it is pretty accurate, maybe your group is doing some hotshot gaming, but overall you guys basically have numbers in off peak times that most T2 servers dont have. I will admit that FA is weaker than before, the loss of those guilds is noticeable. I dont really have a problem with a server building their community though. Only thing is anet may have made it a little to easy to jump around here.

To be honest i hope with this megaserver change, Server hopping becomes way more limited, and rewards become more heavily based on your longer history. Once servers become primarily WvW based, i think its ok to limit transfers to specific times a year, and reduce tournament based rewards to virtually nothing till people have contributed a certain amount to their new server.

Lets be honest nothing is gained in WvW by server transfers, it basically takes away from some and gives to another, but its never actually based on what the WvW servers need. I ll be honest, i havent seen this type of off hour coverage even from the 3 teams ahead of us. The Volatility introduced via server transfers is too drastic and off balancing.

Hmmm i think yaks bend may come out on top again, they are really stable and focused, they always perform better than expected. They could even pull a number two this week, which would make it hard for FA to come back for the number two spot. Unless something major changes throughout the weeks, HOD pretty much is a lock in for first place. The only way to take em out is with alliances, but honestly not sure thats even enough. Yesterday in off hour they had more than FA and Yaks combined.

Dont know how the rest of FA feels about alliances though. I’m all for it though haha. After all its what WvWvW was made for

Jason Segel.2908:

Not VERY long, and this is just analyzed for PVE bosses and champions/dynamic event bosses or whatever.

Why is there a bleed stack limit in PVE?

…..

That is insane, how can you allow condi users to be shoved to the back of the bus and have us deal 65%-76% less DPS, the only reasonable thing to do now is add more health to bosses to compensate for the extra damage conditions will now be doing, and take away the limit on bleed stacks on bosses. Or even possibly bump it up to 50 or 75 stacks? or possibly make poison/burning stack? that would go a long way in making us condi builds happy.

They actually did explain the reasoning, evaluating every single dmg tick per second per player is taxing on the server. When spread over a great many people at once.

Thats an overworld problem, comparing it to people in dungeons, sorry but to be honest you should not be doing as much damage as somebody with every single stat dedicated to dmg, in fact you are doing better than you should be imo, because while they have 3 dmg stats, you have 1-2 and can get pretty competitive numbers

Not to mention your formulas assume constant DPS over 10 minutes from DPS players which is not accurate, they have to dodge, move, use defensive skills etc. (and will have to do this more if they make AI better) in which case their dps drops to extremely low, while condition players remains high.

Condition damage is not suppose to do burst dmg like direct damage, its supposed to be constant pressure and attrition, i would say in dungeons and small group play it is in fact over performing. And keep in mind it only requires 1-2 stats to get full benefit.

In large scale pve, they may have to come up with something, but i dont really now how the server deals with the data, so i dont know the solution, just dealing with what they said awhile back.

Razor.9872:

To solve the WvW problem and levitate the server identity problem, I propose this:

Along with map, say, team, party, whisper, squad, and guild chats…

have a server chat

there, calls for help can be requested and like-minded people can voice their needs.

yeah i was thinking along these lines as well, they should probably change the term from server though, because its meaningless as a server now.

*chat gets a filter or special color for when server member is talking, that only server can see (like you said)
*your server gets an icon or some means of visually identifying who is in your server by looking at them (icon next to name is good)
*server is called mist allegence
*new players dont select it at start up, they talk to new npc who explains it, or when they first try to enter wvw

These would make server more centered as being what it is going to be now, WvW and creating a filter for similar player types.
they could have some charts giving people data on what type of WvW server people are joining, Comparing average queue time, population during key time frames, and how much the map fills on average and or how competitive it is.

They could add some small pve info for some, like RP, general language, unfortunately, not many servers have a strong idenity pve wise.

THE Dentist.5960:

Once again, the Rodney Dangerfield of Silver League. NSP gets no respect, lol. Proud of the hard work a lot of people have put into it. Been a much more fun matchup against BP and SBI, compared to having the masses of HoD. Keep it up my fellow NSPers.

Btw my prediction is

HoD
FA
SBI
YB
IoJ
NSP
CD
BP
SOR

I think SBI and Yaks is hard to figure, I think IOJ could compete with them, but i dont know if they have the desire/belief.
NSP is def doing better, they went from barely making silver,to moving up3-4 spots.

FA isnt completely out of it, still got to see what happens in weekdays, and FA ability to adapt to the situation. But it will be tough. Even if we win one, HOD could take it back, and if we win, we will probably see them often

Laylie.5703:

mango.9267:

Djamonja.6453:

5:00 AM server, HoD ticking 415, YB 245, FA 35. I believe that is game, set, and match? Coverage is king.

This looks a lot more like double team than just straight up coverage. Not sure if it’s intentional or what, but kudos to HoD and YB for maintaining it.

Not a double team at all in fact on reset YB and FA were doubling teaming our BL almost the whole night. It is common sense to shut down the person in second place and ignore the one in third so you get more points against that person in second place.

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t think any number of guilds leaving FA mattered, and this is definitely not an organized double team. HoD has T1 numbers of people playing, and FA has never had that. We almost never queue any map, we just have a good bit of dedicated people that jump from map to map.

This will simply come down to if HoDs population sticks around or not. Nine weeks is an awfully long time.

Ques dropped significantly this week I don’t know what FA’s ques are but we do not have T1 ques except on reset night maybe even then it wasn’t huge.

FA was never really a high queue/pop server we had dedicated skilled people, but now, i think we lost some of the good field commanders. anytime i log on outside of na primetime, doesnt seem the tactics are sound.

Also, hard to deal with consistent numbers everywhere with out current population. Probably need some community building, but who knows if we can do that.

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t think any number of guilds leaving FA mattered, and this is definitely not an organized double team. HoD has T1 numbers of people playing, and FA has never had that. We almost never queue any map, we just have a good bit of dedicated people that jump from map to map.

This will simply come down to if HoDs population sticks around or not. Nine weeks is an awfully long time.

theres a difference in the leadership of militia with these guys.

well this changes much, henge is looking like their coverage numbers may blot out the sun. They will also probably get better as the tourney progresses. If FA manages to have back and forward with henge, this will open up the whole league, as the top servers may suffer losses, mid teir may keep winning.

Of course HOD could the leagues, which would mean FA taking multiple losses due to the Swiss style. If FA takes multiple losses, some one else will come up, while FA gets a win against them (if FA doesnt lose spirit and fall)

Not looking great for FA, looks like we actually did need those 2 expereinced guilds who left and that 1 that disbanded. Gonna be rough

Well gonna be a bit more interesting now for everyone.

Nike.2631:

Omne.4603:

Wtb expansion for this.

Ok, realpolitik time:

While to many outside of eastern Asian the region looks like one big blob of dirt and a few island occupied by a lot of people with epicanthic eye-folds, the region is actually filed with a complex array of cultures and ethnicities that on the whole hate each other and have been killing each other for thousands of years right up to and including some massive atrocities in the last century. Seriously, ask the man on the street in Osaka and Shanghai about their opposite number in the other city and odds are you’ll hear things that would make the klu klux klan blush. During my stay in Japan I had some of the most pleasant folks imaginable go absolutely feral over things as small as casting a Chinese-descended actor to play a nominally Japanese-American character. We’re talking Hollywood day-to-day business as usual taken as a call for lynch mobs. Ugly.

Now introduce a bunch of dudes and dudettes from the American west coast who have a fondness for Asian architecture/visual stylings and maybe a little understanding of feudal cultures but little or no grounding in the actual historical events of the region. They roll out a setting featuring a mash-up of cultural cues about as insensitive and inappropriate as decorating a classical synagogue with swastikas to people who grew up in the cultures being mangled.

It kittened some people off. And it should. Rather than put a historian on staff to spot check a setting that’s largely unworkable from the ground up they have wisely decided to just NOT put their foot in that particular wolf-trap again after getting out of it once already by gnawing that limb off.

but i highly doubt blade and soul was historically accurate, and it did fine. And they definately mixed up cultures, with ninjas, kungkittenusers, magic etc.

Nerelith.7360:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

A five hour window in between boss rotation rounds is super inconvenient.

Doing mega boss fights involves a LOT of standing around and waiting already, but at least right now, after fighting Tequatl or the Wurm, you can head right on to the Karka Queen without having to wait another 40 minutes. :\

So the champion train suffers? and this is a bad thing how?

I think you are confused on what champion trains are. It is people killing 5 or 6 champions on one map repeatedly looping.

megaserver has little to no effect on champion training. In fact, it will probably be easier to champ train, as the system will probably make sure every train map is mid level, but not super full, which is the optimum champ train population

Maybe you mean world event boss train, but that wasnt really OP, you can only get the good rewards once per day per account anyhow. So basically it will nerf people fighting a bunch of different bosses every day at random times, and promote them doing it every 15 minutes on the dot, with the same exact bosses for every time frame.

problem
Dealing with large scale or World events under megaserver system requires some different solutions. Current anet plans are to have a 15 minute schedule with one event happening at a time. This causes a number of issues

*1 static world event times limit participation if your playtime is consistent.
*2 world event variety becomes very limited, you will fight the same bosses, in the same order at the same time day after day
*3 less player choice, under old system, there was often events spawning in same time frame, this will never happen again
*4 Doesnt play well with dynamic event systems, hence many pre events will often be edited or cease to be connected

*5 requires rigid boss structure and unification in design. Each boss will have a max timer of 15 minutes to fit in the schedule. Also each boss event/chain will be encouraged to be 10-15 minutes long even if it doesnt fit the design/purpose.

Solutions

• first and foremost, I think regardless of change, one thing that should happen first is, some UI/design. Better than a schedule, or any system some clear UI information would help let users know what events are available in a given time frame.

• I feel for this system, having more choices that you can choose from is better, than 1 option. IE, its better to be able to choose from a group of say 2-3 events in a time frame than only have 1 option

• In the long run, i think some randomness, and some fixed is probably a good bet, you dont want to make something feel to monotonous or predictable. Every day should offer the possibility of being different than last.

• putting together the above ideas, I think it may be good to have:
  • An event tracking UI that can be enabled or disabled (like tracking specific achievements). This piece makes users aware of what the options are.
  • I think that in it would be a good idea to have the amount of events that can pop within a given time frame be based on overall active(in fields killing stuff) population. This makes it a little more dynamic and decreases over-zerging in peak times.
  • Dont make every event guaranteed to be 15 minutes, its actually fun to have some events that are longer or shorter, as long as they are appropriately rewarding. A really focused 7 minute battle gives a different experience, and design than a longer 20 minute stamina fight.

• keep the possibility open to have some more events that have a base cooldown, and then need players to execute a chain, or meet some conditions before completion. While this wont be uniform on every map, Its a big loss to not be able to essentially force an event through player action, and i think it fits the concept of the world events to have these sorts of mechanics.

Problem:
Double waypoint fees and double loading times.

Under a megaserver system the game doesnt know what map you will be placed on when you open your map, this makes contested waypoint information invalid.

solutions

*Uncontested waypoints, on first click pick what map you will be queued into, this gives them access to waypoint information. the secondary waypoints then load into the map, and you can select which waypoint you want. This will get rid of the double load situation, and double cost situation.

*Map travel becomes two step, you click the map to travel to it, BEFORE any main assets load, the game gets map info and asks you to pick a waypoint. It then loads the asset info. This will be a single load time, although staggered. you will get one cost. the disadvantage is that you will lose access to your current map, so i think the first solution is a better one.

truth is, megaservers are here, and they arent going anywhere. Anet will implement it.

But such a large system, that the game was not built for is going to touch a lot of other systems, its going to cause problems. Anet has come up with some short term solutions, but many players don’t feel excited about these solutions. So lets run through our concerns, at the same time looking what type of solutions would work while still under structure of the megaserver implementation.

problem is that, if you fight for the separatists, you would be fighting yourself. See who is right and who is wrong in the war 250 years ago isnt really the issue. The issue is you got big powerful dragons to fight, and you need the char forces to help do it. The separatists in the lore are still randomly attacking charr and anyone associated with them, which is a problem for the war on the dragons, they are messing up their food supply, supply chains, assasinating unification figures etc.

So essentially joining there side would be something you would have to do to the exclusion of all pact activity and dragon fighting.

While it might be interesting if you could do that, youd also have to be an enemy to players, so essentially pvp in open world. Its a pretty big change in focus to turn it into an open world pvp game.

Blaeys.3102:

Kasteros.9847:

i’m obligated to represent my guild only(it is law of this guild) so i can’t be in any other.

Time to look for a better guild.

If the only way a guild can keep members is to disallow membership in others, then that is a strong indication of the strength of the guild.

that might be true, except the guild system makes it so that you kind of need people to be representing so you get influence, so you can level up guild so you can unlock guild stuff etc.