Guild Wars 2

State of thieves… hotjoin pvp fine. tpvp, not as great.

Ricky.4706:

it almost looks like a mix between wvw and spvp. wouldn’t work for zerg mentality as most of them could get kicked off bridge easy – meant for small 4-5 man teams – like spvp.

interesting – can’t say I like or dislike it yet – it really depends on the ’epic’ness’ of the fights – that’s what makes wvw exciting imo – those epic 50 vs 50 vs 50 man fights

this may appeal more to small guilds – and pugs that roam more than zerg. might not appeal to the casual / pve’r as it’s more dangerous than roaming with a zerg – so it’s more pvp than pve.

as much as everyone likes to call big wvw zergs – strategic – it’s really more casual because you can join and be epic in like 1 minute – it’s a rush to have those massive fights. being in big crowds is fun.

I think this map might appeal MORE to the PvE types than to a WvW or PvP type. It seems structured more to small groups killing NPCs.

The other issue is that the map seems too big for an overflow map on anything other than T1. I guess we will see.

It will be interesting to try the new map. I’m not really sure why there is a focus to make NPCs play differently. It is just surprising that ANET hasn’t gotten the message that people don’t want to fight NPCs in WvW.

I’d love to see the stats of how many people are playing the toxic mini events in WvW. I doubt it is many.

Polismassa.6740:

Sorry to CERN and Agg/EP for not giving you guys good fights tonight. So much of our guild got stuck in queue. This is a weird night in that we’re doing great map wise and terribly fights wise.

SF always brings the fights. Can’t wait to see you guys later in the week when full guilds can get into the map.

Lighter.5631:

i believe caed does not stack stealth on his dp thief.

So everyone should just go with the standard GC builds?

SuKHoi.2063:

Since the warrior is going to be nerfed to the ground, I’m considering switching to my guardian as my WvW’er. Anyone else having the same thoughts?

LOLOLOLOL. You made me laugh. You are worried about the most OP class in the game getting nerfed? Here is what you should do then. Wait for when the patch comes out. Find out the new OP class. Use that. Problem solved.

Conncept.7638:

Cool.

Are any mechanics being implemented (or tested I guess) in this map to the end of spreading players out and rewarding organized positioning and coordinated skill use over stacking and spamming? And if any such mechanics work out, is it possible they’ll spread to the core maps?

Sigh. You don’t get it. A lot of people zerg in large groups because they enjoy it. No one forces people to do it. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it.

Also, if you think a zerg is just stacking and spamming, you play with the wrong commanders.

DevonCarver.5370:

titanlectro.5029:

I promise you that Devon is looking at all of these metrics and measurements you are theorizing RIGHT NOW, he just doesn’t share them with you.

This is literally true. We don’t share those numbers as a company policy, but we have them and I am looking at them right now.

Still better to use WvW server rank as the mechanism to determine transfer costs. A server’s WvW is well known by everyone and easy to understand. That way you can keep the population secret and yet players can understand why a server costs a certain amount.

Sanduskel.1850:

Yeah everyone else, including anet just needs to l2p, lol

Your messages always make me lol. You come across as bitter.

As to everyone else… Personally, I do not care whether permastealth is nerfed or not. It is really only effective in 2 areas: WvW roaming to escape, or in PvE to regenerate health. It is not a viable spec in sPvP or tPvP or in WvW zergs.

I think thieves should be much more upset about the changes to evades

JonathanSharp.7094:

@ 2on2/3on3: A lot of you guys really seem to like this idea. So do we. We’re looking at game types which encourage this style of play. Another thing we’re looking at it combining the size of fights with larger tactical/strategic implications, so that there is something fun going on the micro level (the actual fight) and the macro level (the map overall).

I think it should be separated by hot join and custom arenas. In hot join, 5v5 would be a lot more fun. In custom arenas it should vary between 2 and 8 depending on what the person wants to do.

I’d also like to see a 1v1 tournament option. That would be the most interesting leaderboard by far. It would also help you on balancing issues.

Jamais vu.5284:

GvG
Don’t look far. GW1 already laid down the basic concept perfectly. Run secondary objectives for boons, assault base, kill lord. With the improved engine I’m sure you can handle additional things that would make it even more interesting, like traps or siege weapons (not the same as WvW siege weps).
This should be a sPvP game mode. It’s only associated with WvW right now because there is no real alternative due to team sizes. Regarding that, I think you should use variable team sizes ranging from 5-20, but fixate your tourney GvG team sizes at 8, 12 and/or 15.

No, no no. PvP is way too basic for GvG. The beauty of GvG is a whole group of people, typically 15 or 20, that all have different armor, trinket, food combinations. It adds so much more to the strategy.

The smaller fights are fine for PvP, but for real competitive play, people will use the new OS map in WvW.

clint.5681:

Nobody.

No one is more important than the other and everyone paid to play the game so they all deserve a fair chance to play WvW. I understand where many of you are coming from with these threads on how to change the queues, but they need to stop. Almost every thread with an idea wouldn’t work and Anet wouldn’t support it.

A queue should simply act like a queue and thats it.

Agreed. FIFO

DevonCarver.5370:

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

I see a lot of others disagree with the payment idea, but I do think it is the right first step. Here is an idea for an overall solution.

First, transfer costs: These needs to be cost prohibitive in order to be effective. It should be something like this:

T1: 3000 gems
T2-T3: 2000 gems
T4-T6: 1000 gems
T7-end: Free

Second, the rewards. Wxp, karma, xp, magic find, gold, etc should be buffed the lower the tier. This is how I’d do it:

T1: 75% of rewards of today
T2-T3: 100% of rewards of today
T4-T6: 125% of rewards of today
T-7-end: 150% of rewards of today

Jaytee.9513:

Cactus.2710:

Solstice.1097:

style.6173:

Titan.3472:

Remove everyone from every servers. Rename 24 global servers (no more NA or EU but GLOBAL): make everyone choose a server after these change : implement a lower cap on population on every of these server. Start leagues. Here you have 24 random servers that have all equals chances. Next season repeat the same: remove everyone from servers, rename them all, etc…

This^^ With the exception of keeping NA and EU separate for lag reasons.

Remember, this is a thread about “World Population”. It needs to be even across servers. Right now it is not.

actually, this thread is less about fixing population imbalance, and more about addressing the problems it causes.

Then in my opinion this thread will be a waste of time. Just about every proposal I’ve seen to simply address the score imbalance caused by population imbalance would either be ineffective or could easily be abused. If we aren’t going to see some serious effort from ANet to equalize match populations then WvW is doomed and I will go find something else to do until EOS or some more intelligently crafted game comes out. You can equalize the score without fixing the population balance, but you can’t equalize the scope and entertainment value of the match without it. It’s that simple.

You need to look at the reasoning why people bandwagon or stack populations. If you don’t address those it will just re-occur. Look at my above post to see the problems a “faction” system could produce.

I feel for your frustration at unbalanced matchups ( I face them on a regular basis as well —-—>ehmry bay is my server) but Anet is trying to not alienate the large player base on tier 1 servers with longer queues (which I feel is the players own fault).

At least they are acknowledging the concerns and asking for feedback.

Wrong. Without touching world population (that would be a convenient name for a collaboration discussion), we are just putting a band aid on the problem. The only solution to keep servers balanced is to separate PvE server from WvW server. This way they can actively manage the cap of players on each server. That will force even numbers.

Without a “World Population” fix or discussion, people will always navigate to the winning server. That’s also the answer to why people bandwagon.

The only way to balance WvW is to balance population. Unforunately, ANET is not willing to do that. We need 24 even population servers that all fight. This way battles are won through tactics vs through coverage differences.

The league concept is good. The breakdown of the league is a fail. In NA, they grouped the wrong servers together.

The questions:

1. Who can buy more guilds, BG or JQ?
2. Where did SoR go?

and the most important:
3. Does anyone outside of those 3 servers really care who wins?

It isn’t possible to say the most useless class in WvW. It depends on the scenario:

Roaming Solo: Guardian. Not sure why you’d ever do this to yourself? Not a good roaming spec compared to the others.
Roaming Group: None. It all depends on team composition
Zerg: Thief. Yes, they have blast finishers, but so do other classes. A zerg doesn’t need thieves to be successful.

Titan.3472:

Remove everyone from every servers. Rename 24 global servers (no more NA or EU but GLOBAL): make everyone choose a server after these change : implement a lower cap on population on every of these server. Start leagues. Here you have 24 random servers that have all equals chances. Next season repeat the same: remove everyone from servers, rename them all, etc…

This^^ With the exception of keeping NA and EU separate for lag reasons.

Remember, this is a thread about “World Population”. It needs to be even across servers. Right now it is not.

The trait should either be:

1. 50% to gain one initiative on crit with a cooldown of 3 seconds
2. 100% to gain one initiative on crit with a cooldown of 6 seconds

Big Tower.5423:

Not to sound harsh, but ive never heard of either you or your guild :P

and that has to do with P/P how?

You are missing the most important part of the conversation here. If you read through the balance notes or other threads, the main complaint is around the healing signet. It is ridiculously OP at the moment. What it needs is a cut to its base heal and an increase to its tie with healing power. If someone wants to run zerker or soldiers, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to stack more heal power, it should heal for more than today.

kyro.8162:

I wonder how the matchup thread will look next week. (BG, Mag, and SoR)

Will be fun to watch

Buzzcrave.6197:

All the baddies d/p will now quit, thus making less QQ on thief! So be happy about it!

Huh? Do you even play thief? The change will have little impact in tPvP since permastealth isn’t a competitive spec.

In WvW, people will just switch over to more dps builds which will end up causing more QQ.

Rigel.3092:

No buff required; learning to duel better is.

Learning to read is a skill too.

This is a bad move. It should be 8 seconds initially and then another 8 seconds every time it is reapplied. Why should guardian swiftness add 1 second well warrior warhorn 4 stacks?

Swiftnesss should stack.

It depends what you mean by PvE. If you are referring to dungeons, other classes are much better to take along. If you are talking living story, thief is fine.

Didn’t like your first post, and don’t like your second one. ANET is very unlikely to support such a thing anyway. What’s next? The people with the highest achievements in PvE no longer have you go to an overflow server?

Queues aren’t really an issue anyway. If they are for you, go to a different server.

TheAmpca.1753:

1) As much as I and everyone sane would like, this wont happen, Devon has already said no
2)No, you shouldn’t be punished for being better. If anything keep what we had right before season where the lower pop servers had cheaper transfers
3)No, this would create too much elitism and would stop new players from entering WvW as well as non hardcore WvW players. Not everyone wants to wait in Q to get into WvW only to grind some ranks just to wait in Q less next time.

1. There is an easy solution to the issue and hopefully ANET will listen… Make the world rank account bound, and make the skill points as a currency. In other words, if I am level 600, I have 600 points to spread however I want across my alts.
2. Don’t assume rank with skill. Ranks are easy to obtain. Rank just shows who plays the most. Transfer should be based on overall WvW server rank.
3. Agreed. Queues need to be neutral.

I don’t like the change to critical strikes 15. If they made the ICD 3 seconds instead of 5, I think it would be fine.

Yusei.1370:

Well, D/D is getting a big shot in the Dec 10th patch. I am not gonna complain and cry about it as theres nothing i can do. I’ll just say the theif was the class that explained my whole playstyle and i had the most fun with this class. Well i just have to get the most of my theif before Dec 10th since this will completely destroy 0/30/30/10/0 builds.So yeah thx anet for lettin me having this epic time with my theif. I might switch to another class tho i don’t like other classes playstyle or basically i am gonna leave the game. Heh some of you guys may think i am just overreacting to this patch and at one point i do agree, its just too sad for me to see the nerf and to see my fav playstyle dead and also guys i am not a perma stealth theif. Therefore, thx anet and also thx GW2 community. FAREWELL GUYS

Huh? D/D isn’t impacted all that much and may in fact be stronger. It is D/P that just got smacked in the face by the nerf bat. S/D evades are the other that will be hurt.

@OP:

You are right that the healing signet is the problem on a warrior. All of the other nerfs in the december preview are not needed.

Plain and simple. If a warrior wants to run zerker or soldiers or the like, the healing signet should heal for less than today. If the warrior wants to focus on a healing power build, it should heal for more than today.

Should be exciting. Looking forward to it.

Narcarsis.5739:

They’re buffing thieves, not nerfing them. Possibly too much.

Actually, it is more than certain builds are being buffed and certain builds are being nerfed.

The issue I see is that ANET is pigeon holing thieves more into the 3 hit dps builds. All this is going to do is cause way more QQ on the forums.

AnarchyMike.2597:

Speaking from a WvW warriors perspective:
The nerfs to staggering blow and earthshaker seem unwarranted and hamfisted. .
I’d prefer it much much more if hammers scaling with damage stats, mostly crit and crit damage, was looked at since thats whats proving to be overpowered in small scale battles and sPvP instead of nerfing the base damage which also affects warriors in pvt or knights gear.

ANET is nerfing the wrong thing. These nerfs are not needed. The problem with warriors is the healing signet. That needs a lower base heal and a higher tie to healing power.

Sanduskel.1850:

Thieves don’t need 1200 range, sorry. that’s not our role. I love these changes. the scrubs who relied on perma stealth will be purged. good.

All of your messages are the same. Stop complaining about getting pwned. It isn’t productive and makes you look bitter. Seriously, just practice and then you won’t need so many alts.

GilbertSmith.1725:

I really don’t like the changes to Symbol of Swiftness for Guardians. When I’m roaming with my friends in WvW or PvE, I find it impossible to keep up with them if I’m not traited into shouts with Retreat and Save Yourselves, even when using Symbol of Swiftness. The symbol was the best way to at least give me a chance of keeping up with the +25% speed classes. No one is going to stand still in a 800 wide circle in order to get swiftness. Swiftness is about moving, not sitting there waiting for 3 pulses. This change will just make shouts even more important for guardians, and they already are used way more often than consecrations, meditations, spirit weapons or signets. I main guardian, have around 1000 hours on him, and from my experience with him this change to the symbol will make me play my quicker moving, 25% speed gain thief or warrior, just because I hate moving around so slowly.

My suggestion for this would be to increase the initial pulse to at least 6 seconds of swiftness, and then do 3 or 4 second pulses after that. Using it on the move is the best thing about this symbol, and I hate to see that diminished. Other than that, I love the rest of the changes.

I cannot agree with you more. In fact, it should always have been 8 seconds for running over the symbol, and then another 8 seconds if you already have swiftness. In other words, make it work the same as the warhorn #4 on warriors. That will stack duration. Adding 1 second doesn’t make any sense.

I still find it odd that the most OP item in the game is untouched. The issue with warriors is not their stun or their damage, but the amount of their passive heal. The signet needs a major change. It’s crazy that someone can run a zerker set and still get 400 hp/sec.

Instead the healing signet needs to have its base heal reduced and increase the tie to healing powering. If someone wants to run zerker or soldier’s, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to run all clerics, it should heal for more than today.

Coloxeus.3480:

Most Weird Changes is the thief’s Quick Recovery (Acrobatics)
Gain 1 initiative (10 secs cooldown) ? is a bit weird maybe make it 1 initiative / 7secs. cooldown

I agree with this. No one is going to select that trait for 1 initiative if the cooldown stays the same.

The Primary.6371:

Ironic for the thief change, only see three builds being viable for pvp and wvw roaming (since the thief can never zvz in wvw). First one is Sleight of Hand spec while the second is simply the standard 25/30/x/x/x spec. Infusion of shadow trait will never be used and virtually the almost perma dodge spec will slowly be snuffed out from tpvp picture. Final is the p/d condi spec which seems to endure no matter what changes anet try to throw or take away from the thief. One could argue about what will happen with the 0/30/30/x/x or 0/20/30/20/0 specs but another could answer sorry not viable anymore or not as affective.

It’s actually ironic that ANET has put a huge effort on trying to ensure that each class has multiple viable weapon specs. With these changes, there will only be one viable build in PvP, a D/D GC build. In WvW roaming, there will be two builds, the D/D GC build and the P/D condi spec.

Windler.4815:

Butter.3024:

Sreoom.3690:

OMG. Play the frigging season before you whine about losing. Sheesh.

This is a horrible mentality, I guess it’s because you are on JQ so you kind biased

Really? JQ is a server that likes good fights. We get two days of solid fights out of the T2 servers. That’s it. Now everyone is either doing spvp or pve due to no one from the T2 servers want to get in. They’re done with this week. I’m assuming the way you’re kitten, that you’re from BG. That’s just the type of server BG is. They can’t fathom a server wanting good fights as long as they win. So how about you get off our d and know that we’re not the ones that created or wanted this mess.

The bigger issue is that ANET didn’t listen to us about the league breakdown. 1-3 should have always been by themselves. It’s not a fun fight for anyone when they are matched up with anyone else.

Overall, I’d say a good patch. Just a few things that I hope you’ve considered.

1. Thief: Infusion of shadows. This will make the d/p build not popular. I guess we will see, but I think you will not see many people playing it anymore. I hope I am wrong about that though.
2. Warrior: Healing signet. I didn’t see any changes to this. It’s a big part of the problem with warriors. I’d prefer to see the base heal but by 25% and the tie to healing power increased by a lot. In other words, if someone runs a zerker or soldier’s build, they will heal for much less than today. If they run a cleric type build, they will heal for more than today.
3. Guardian: Symbol of swiftness. The change to add 4 seconds of swiftness if you already have swiftness is a good change. Reducing it to be per pulse though is a bad move. I’m thinking more about WvW here, but that reduction will force guardians into running retreat in order to maintain swiftness. Not a good move.

Swagger.1459:

It’s frustrating to retrace your steps for loot bags while participating in wvw. There are more important things to worry about during battles and competitive play than scavenging around for earned rewards.

Have there been any statements regarding considerations for loot to be automatically placed into your inventory bags after a kill? Perhaps a mention of a pop up chest that accumulates your rewards? Something? Anything?

Not an issue for me. I press f as I run.

Uncle Shags.9017:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Warriors are pretty strong right now, but will be seeing changes in an upcoming patch.

We like how they can be tanky, and we like how they can do DPS if they want. We also like the CC they can bring. We just don’t like them doing it all with 1 build.

Ok, so being able to perform 3 functions well is too much. So how do you plan on implementing this? Are all classes going to be affected? There are many, many builds that currently excel at 3 things at once.

I’d loooooove to know another class that can DPS, heal, and CC like a warrior.

Besides, there are only two classes that are OP right now…. warrior and necro. Those need the changes.

Astewart.8415:

Hope the nerf applies to PVP only.
This is what I absolutely hate about MMOs. The constant changes to classes and powers after you become comfortable with a particular style of play.

And it isn’t always something being “overpowered”. It’s like changing the size and shape of the ball in the middle of a football game.

No. Warrior has always been OP in PvE. That is fine though. The problem is that these nerfs need to apply to WvW as well. Warrior is broken there.

thefreezingvoid.8516:

I assume you are talking about JQ getting 3 weeks of t2 match ups?
If so, would you shut up about the unfair schedule already?
Even with the easy match ups there is a good chance JQ will not get gold, depending on what happens in BG’s and SoR’s match ups.

Besides hardly anyone in JQ is happy about the t2 match ups either. Many of us are afraid what will happen when we have to face a t1 server gain. Will we be too rusty? Will too many AC hunters still be clogging up the queue’s not realizing that this isnt another easy match up?

As well its painful to watch other match ups and realize your powerless to help. To watch BG ticking 500+ against SoR. Seems to me BG have an easy few match ups as well.

But here is my question, if BG end up winning a land slide despite JQ getting the schedule they got, will people still be crying unfair? For instance if BG keep beating SoR the way they are, JQ have little to no chance of winning despite the supposedly unfair schedule. Especially since BG pulled the wool over SoR’s eyes and got them to help force us to 3rd.

Will people still be crying unfair?

Only someone in JQ would think this is a fair schedule.

1 hour is fine. It encourages people to actually play some defense.

@OP:

I like what you wrote. Some of the gameplay changes would be a lot of work. I personally would just be happy with splitting PvE world from WvW.

Shonie.5297:

DevonCarver.5370:

Saying things like “populations aren’t balanced” doesn’t lead to any productive solutions because they all involve things like drastically redistributing the populations of the game.

But drastically redistributing the populations of the game is exactly what needs to happen…
That is the solution. If you’re not willing to do that, there really isn’t much discussion to be had.
Find a way to balance out the populations.

This ^^. The point of this thread needs to be discussing ALL possible options for how to address population issues. Not all can be implemented of course, but they should be discussed and analyzed.

I just feel that there is a huge disconnect between what Chris and Devon said. If what Devon said is true, we might as well close this thread, because there isn’t a lot of value to be gained. If what Chris said is true “1: This initiative is all about discussion.”, then I see a lot of value.

Again, this thread is around “World Population”. If we can’t discuss “World Population”, why are we all wasting time here?

Butter.3024:

No comments? No changes? No apologies? Nothing? Just plain out ignore?

They aren’t going to change it now. Heck, if they wouldn’t take feedback that the breakdown in the leagues was wrong, what makes you think they care about the schedule?