Guild Wars 2

Crap! I forgot about the new living story release.

GoM goes where the shiny is… Here is hoping that this new release is super short and/or boring!

Solstice.1097:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

madchatter.7964:

Solstice.1097:

Victoitor.2917:

HoD player here. Looked at mos.millenium score and envied your fight. Came to post about it.

meh its just gom and DH focusing us. something I wish servers would do more often but it sucks to be on the receiving end.

o.O Last night, we kept hopping back and forth between bay and hills because we had a zerg from each server on our map… in this close of a matchup, I’d say all three servers will feel focused.

I’m going to back that up with SCIENCE and squiggly lines. Every possible combination of a double-team has already happened with each server taking turns being the victim. FC seems to have gotten hit really bad on that last one, though.

This morning is Gom’s turn. Fun being in 1st place yea? 10 PPT ouch

Ya, ouch.

This match up is still anyone’s game, and will probably be that way until the last second.

Solstice.1097:

titanlectro.5029:

Solstice.1097:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Solstice.1097:

Fun Fact

The PPT in this match so far is dead-even.

FC – 57,925
DH – 57,970
GM – 57,665

It’s non-PPT points that is giving FC the lead

FC – 34,488
DH – 29,533
GM – 31,272

Guess we’re just killing more of you than you’re killing of us?? /shrug

Congrats on having those yaks and sentries on lockdown.

Pretty sure we just have a lot more kills from being targeted more often.

It is probably mostly yaks.

• Yaks are 3 points a piece.
• Sentries are 1 point a piece
• Spiking (not kills) grants at most 1 point per spike.

Edit: On second thought I’m not sure… It sure would be nice to have that data.

i dont think the difference in yak kills is huge among servers. also yaks are not 3 points the points vary depending on how many players killed it. this is to quote devon carver.

That is old info, they standardized it to 3 points per yak. Before that change, you could get up to 10 points per yak if enough people attacked it.

Reference: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Killing-a-Dolyak-VS-killing-a-foe/2536106

Solstice.1097:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

Solstice.1097:

Fun Fact

The PPT in this match so far is dead-even.

FC – 57,925
DH – 57,970
GM – 57,665

It’s non-PPT points that is giving FC the lead

FC – 34,488
DH – 29,533
GM – 31,272

Guess we’re just killing more of you than you’re killing of us?? /shrug

Congrats on having those yaks and sentries on lockdown.

Pretty sure we just have a lot more kills from being targeted more often.

It is probably mostly yaks.

• Yaks are 3 points a piece.
• Sentries are 1 point a piece
• Spiking (not kills) grants at most 1 point per spike.

Edit: On second thought I’m not sure… It sure would be nice to have that data.

Every last one of these “I should get to skip queues” threads is selfish and elitist…

You made your bed by stacking servers, sleep in it.

Wow! What an insanely close match up so far. I was not expecting this.

Thorson.9218:

Speaking of those numbers, glad to hear that GOM is “converting” their PvE crowd. When PvE folks come to WvW and have a positive experience like yours are (i.e. winning!!!), they tend to have fun and stick around. Our PvE folks, on the other hand, are coming in and for the most part getting rolled over by the zergfromhell, and off they go back to PvE. Sigh….. At least we are Outnumbered pretty much 24/7, so with no repair cost we can Leroy Jenkins!!!! into battle just for the ROFLs.

The winning certainly helps, although it remains to be seen if the PvE crowd will stick around or not.

It is also worth mentioning that the GoM WvW community has been making a strong effort for over a month to reach out to the PvE community. We had begun to make some good progress and then the super shiny achievements really kicked it into high gear.

It’s only fair to warn you, the GoM PvE players are quick learners. It won’t be long before they can farm WvW as easily as the frostgorge champ train. That said, the fact that WvW is not reward/time efficient will probably save you.

Is anyone going to read the official thread on skill lag? You guys are seriously barking up the wrong tree. It has nothing to do with culling or rendering.

Skill lag is caused by large groups of players clumped together activating AoE skills. Each skill has a lot of added calculations because of all the potential targets, and everyone is AoEing at once: 300 AoEs, all triggered in the same second, all with 100+ potential targets. Each tick of damage applied to each person requires a complete stat/trait/equipment/condition/boon calculation. This creates a massive server load in less than a second, causing CPU usage to spike to 100%, causing lag.

Queue and Skill Lag are two COMPLETELY different issues.

Skill Lag is not remotely a new issue, you’re just noticing it more because more people are playing. Do a little research and learn about it, the devs have been VERY clear as to why it happens and what they can and cannot do about it.

The queue issues are due to more people playing. There is nothing wrong with the queue, it is working just fine. The problem is that people stacked servers too much, and now not everyone can play. This is a PLAYER CREATED problem, one which players were warned about. Most of the people with serious queue issues did this to themselves.

In addition, Anet does have a long-term solution to queues in the works. Once this rolls out, it will remove this negative side effect for stacking servers.

Zylonite.5913:

There is no benefits to bringing PvE and WvW players together (other than guild missions).

Please don’t include LS JPs in WvW maps and please don’t include PvP finishers as LS achievement for PvE players.

Just accept the fact that the player base enjoys different aspect of the game and that is the end of it.

The WvW maps are already queued up to the throat and no need to encourage new PvE players into WvW temporarily for some JP and no contribution to the server WvW score.. If a PvE player want to focus on WvW then that is a different story and should be fine and they can follow the commander and what not.

I hope the WvW seasons continue as planned and it is a great addition to the game but please give it some thoughts before adding all these unneeded PvE stuff into it.

I completely disagree on almost every point.

Transfer off your stacked server if you are complaining about queues.

You were warned: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Well-played-Anet/2924568

Next question: How many Queue QQ threads can people start?

From: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Well-played-Anet/2924568

DevonCarver.5370

I’d just like to make a note of one thing that I think people aren’t considering when they transfer to stacked worlds. You will not, repeat will not, be able to receive the reward based on overall world place in the league, unless you achieve the meta achievement for the season. If you aren’t able to get into WvW much, you won’t get the rewards. So it is absolutely taking a risk to transfer to a world that has a large WvW population.

You were warned.

Frankly, its about time that there was a downside to stacking T1. Unfortunately, this will not be that downside. The excitement will die down and T1 will be back to normal soon.

Q: What happens when one server has 100 people in queue and the only server has only 10? Will those 10 have anything to do other than be farmed?

Q: Will the Bloodlust warpoints on stomp work in the Edge of the Mists?

1) Wardrobe/Skins
2) RNG
3) Guilds

1) Population Balance
2) Reward Balance
3) WxP for Alts

Some sigil testing:
air = yes
blood = no
earth = no
fire = yes
water = yes

I would keep going, but it is seems pretty clear that spell effects work, others do not.

Did some further testing.
1) You get might for any skill cast while in fire (including healing/utilities/any conjure/etc)
2) Lingering elements does not work
3) Lava axe auto attack fires pretty consistently at 1 attack per second. (used 15 charges used in 15 seconds)

1) Half the spawn rate of the bosses.
2) Double the spawn rate of the other doors.

This will make it a lot more like the Labyrinth last year, which was my favorite PvE event in the history of the game.

Zelyhn.8069:

Does it work with utilities (signet, arcane spells, glyphs, conjuring the weapons) ?

No it does not. (Or at least, it never used to. They could have changed it in the patch I suppose).

I used the labyrinth last year to farm XP, that is much harder to do this year. The bosses slow things down, an it feels like the doors spawn slower.

Others used the labyrinth last year to grind for special skin drops. To my knowledge, there are no special drops to farm for this year.

I believe these are the reasons for the different tune this year.

Unfortunately I’m at work, so I can’t check. But you are right that you have to stay in fire.

You guys… ARM posted this thread. Just move on…

I tested it, Pyromancer’s Puissance and Lava Axe do actually stack!

That’s right, you get two stacks of might per auto attack.

The lava axe auto attack has a .5 second cast time. This means ~4 stacks of might per second. After about 6 seconds, you will have 25 stacks of might. Depending on your might duration, it could even last for another 8 seconds or so.

(P.S. I know a that most people don’t use Pyromancer’s Puissance, but I’ve been using it for months in my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhEmKbwR5wjDAkCnEeQADJUeMzO2A-jUCBoLAUBAZPFRjtmpIasqZER16FYWzCR2zp2lATKATUGB-w)

Its so funny watching NSP try to convinced the rank 23/24 servers that getting stomped is so horrible…

We know.

The fact that we are still on these low ranked servers says something. If you played for silver league, that would say something too. If you tank to play in bronze league, that says something else…

IoM, I admire your persistence.

/salute

From http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/397784/page/1

Copied here for this discussion

Devon Carter

GalaxCosmos

4) When will bloodlust be changed?

4) The build on October 15th will have the initial changes to bloodlust. We want to see the impact it has during seasons before we make any additional changes to the buff. We think it still needs improving and we want it to be something that encourages servers that are falling behind in the battle to take the buff without overpowering servers that are already winning. That’s a complex balance to meet, which means we will make changes as needed to get closer to that.

Devon Carter

Luvpie

1. Are there any plans to remove the stats from bloodlust buff & change it to something like mf/wxp/exp/karma gain instead so that the server with higher population doesn’t get stronger?

1) The goal of the bloodlust buff is to impact the gameplay in WvW, not to simply provide additional rewards to players that have it. That being said the intial version of the buff is overly strong and we will be addressing that next Tuesday. The best version of the buff is one that incentivizes small groups to get the buff so they can come back if they are behind in the matchup, rather than one that only provides rewards incidental to WvW.

Devon Carter

Atherakhia

There have been comments on the forum about how bloodlust is changing. What do you have instore for us and why are you unhappy with the way bloodlust turned out?

1) Bloodlust will be getting a major reduction in the stat bonuses for the time being. We have some additional ideas for ways to improve the buff to incentivize its use as a comeback mechanic that we haven’t finalized yet.

From http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/397784/page/1

Copied here for this discussion

Devon Carter

drwhom

3) Recently free transfers returned for low pop servers and were discounted to medium ones. Why are transfer costs dictated by total server pop and not WvW pop or rank? The guesting system means nobody should have to transfer for any reason but WvW. It seems silly that it costs the same to transfer to GoM as it does to SoR. Will we see more aggressive attempts in the future to address the population imbalances between servers?

3) Hopefully yes, but nothing is determined right now. When we have more to say, we will do so. We would like to be a bit more aggressive about this, but need to make technical changes to be able to do so.

From http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/397784/page/1

Copied here for this discussion

Devon Carter

Gjon

In my opinion GW2 has gone from very alt-friendly like GW1, to the exact opposite of that with the additions of ascended gear and WvW ranks. Will we be seeing real improvements to this (like account-based WvW ranks) anytime soon?

This is something we have been discussing very seriously recently and we agree with this assessment. It’s important to us to maintain a sense of individual character progression while still encouraging alt play in WvW. We have some plans for this as it relates to WvW that I hope to be able to talk more about soon. In the mean time, all I can say is that we agree and we’ll do more to make WvW alt-friendly in the coming months.

Devon Carter

Celcius

3) Any plans to make WvW progression account wide? I know you guys have been against this in the past, but this system does not correspond with pretty much the rest of the game. All the currency based progression in the game is account wide as well as sPvP.

3) We are discussing this and we will provide more information when we know how we intend to address this issue. It is important to us that World Ability Points are a character specific progression system and that when you spend those points your characters feel like they are distinguished from one another. It is also very important to us that people with more than one character don’t feel like they shouldn’t play all of those characters.

Devon Carter

rasli

3. On a related point, many players are worried about what they perceived as power creep in WvW, with the wvw rank guard ability lines and the recent addition of bloodlust stat buff, and many would prefer to have a more leveling playing field regarding to stat (as it is also easier for playing alts). Can you share with us what is the Dev’s team’s view on this and how are you planning to address it?

3) We want to make WvW more alt friendly, especially the rank system. However, WvW will never be balanced entirely as that is not feasible. We value the time players put into the game and we prefer to reward you with some abilities, items, etc. that reflect that. A skilled player can still take down a less skilled player with more ranks, and that is how we like it.

Devon Carter

morroIan

1. Why are arenanet so against WvW ranks being account bound? Character bound ranks do nothing but limit a players experience in WvW which will lead to burnout and players leaving sooner rather than later. Especially when combined with the ascended weapon system which only serves to limit our experimentation with builds.

1) We want their to be value to the time you spend playing the game and the way we do that is by rewarding you for that time. We think the WXP system needs to be more alt friendly, no doubt, but we also want you to be progressing your characters while you play the game. We think that the attachment you build with individual characters is important and that is part of the reasoning behind the current version of the system.

Anet has announced free transfers again.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/preseason-sale-world-transfers/

However, there is a BIG problem. These transfers are based on SERVER population, not WvW population.

Here is some current data:
Rank 11 Borlis Pass (high pop, 800 gems)
Rank 15 Kaineng (high pop, 800 gems)
Rank 18 Henge of Denravi (high pop, 800 gems)
Rank 22 Gate of Madness (very high pop, 1800 gems)
Rank 23 Anvil Rock (very high pop, 1800 gems)

Anyone else see a problem here?

Want to win the league? Just stack HoD for cheap and win bronze league…

Anet, if there is still time, please change the transfer prices to be based on world rank.

Omne.4603:

What I hear: I want more characters, but I shouldn’t have to work as hard to max them all out because thats inconvenient for me and does not fit my definition of fun.

What you should hear: It is impossible to max wxp, if you choose to play more than one character you will be left behind on the power curve.

Vol.5241:

How about wait for the Q & A happening in 15 mins..

Isn’t that tomorrow? Or did I get that wrong.

DevonCarver.5370:

2) We are making some changes to bloodlust in advance of the season. More specific details will be out in the near future, I’m not sure when exactly.

Source of Quote

Any news on these changes to Bloodlust? We now only have 10 days until the leagues start, and no news of changes were included in the patch preview.

Please keep bumping this thread until we get an answer.

Great idea!

BlazeQ.1095:

No because server population doesn’t = WvW population.

QFT

Hey Gizmo,

I’m the guild leader of Phoenix Ascendant [ASH]. ASH is a medium sized, hybrid PvE/WvW guild on GoM (although we tend to lean toward WvW).

We are a guild that likes to have fun and eat cupcakes. Here are some videos of us from the last year.
Dec: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a22BKwCatlQ
Apr: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-0xrZYwCGg#t=6m50s
Two days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggyMscOzfHU

We are a pretty active part of the GoM community (thegateofmadness.com) and use the GoM community teamspeak. We do have some other guildies without a mic, but they still listen in on the TS.

If you are interested in joining us, talk to me or one of our officers (titanlectro.5029, madchatter.7964, TempestBrewer.2146, paragus.2578, sirjarros.4107, doublebb.6574).

Roy Cronacher.1576:

DrTenma.7249:

Leak patch notes already.

Karl and I will be doing a stream before the patch to ‘leak’ the majority of the changes. =)

When/Where will this stream be? I can’t seem to find it.

Luvpie.8350:

[Referring to T6-T8] Next 9 servers….. Sorry I don’t pay attention to these matchups but I think they should be close looking at ratings.

Overall I love your idea, however you are wrong about this point. T6 and T8 should not be in the same league.

So my assumption was wrong! Thanks for the clarification, Colin.

I look forward to seeing whatever solution you guys decide to roll out.

Lord Kuru.3685:

The fewer alts we play, the quicker we burn out on the game. All these alt-unfriendly features are going to hurt the game badly in the long run.

I completely agree. I was so excited about alts in this game, right up until world ranks and ascended gear…

My ele will always be my main, but I loved having the freedom to switch classes from time to time. Now it feels like I’m hurting my progression.

Are you guys kidding? WvW generates tons of income. A large portion of the WvW community has spent 1800 gems at least once…

Lurch.9517:

To be fair, there is no way that Devon Carver can be as out of touch or incompetent as the disparity between what he says and what he delivers suggest. I can only think that he does very much want what he says to happen but ends up being forced to take whatever he can get then takes a deep breath and ‘sells’ it to the community.

You could very well be right. I know it has been referenced before that when it comes to rewards/currency, he is controlled by other teams. He can pitch his ideas, but they decide. That said, he has gotten us some pretty nice stuff before (like cheap exotic weapons/armor, and a 10 laurel discount on ascended jewelry).

Sarrs.4831:

I have a better idea.

Make WvW rank/abilities account-wide.

Ta-da!

I would prefer this too, but Devon has made it quite clear that account bound WXP is off the table. (Even in that quote I posted at the top of this thread).

Instead of arguing for what we can’t have, I’d like to see Devon be successful on his “personal goal to improve the experience for playing alts in WvW.”

Brutal Arts.6307:

Badges currently feel like a side currency added onto the other cost, even though it should be the other way around. So long as it only cost badges and not 50 laurels/gold.

They probably could do just badges, because it is limited in another way. You can only use the scroll once per alt. Its not like you could farm badges and abuse it.

DevonCarver.5370:

We will be adding more liquid WXP that will be purchasable, likely with badges and some other currency, soon. As in, less than a month. I’ve made it a personal goal to improve the experience for playing alts in WvW. And to cut it off now, we are not making WvW rank account bound.

Based on this comment, I had assumed that the liquid WXP for badges was intended to make life easier for alts in WvW. Perhaps my assumption is wrong, but it seems reasonable to me.

However, this WXP for laurels will have the opposite effect, for one simple reason: The only people with extra laurels to burn are people WITHOUT ALTS.

If you only intend to play one character, and have already got all your ascended gear, then you probably have hundreds of extra laurels to spend. Pumping an extra hundred World ranks into your main character is definitely possible, and probably more rewarding than selling the unidentified dyes.

However, if you like playing alts, you will NEVER have extra laurels. There are simply too many ascended trinkets to buy.

As such, WXP for laurels (in it’s current configuration) actually makes the game less alt friendly. If you don’t have alts, you get free World Ranks. If you have alts, you will be constantly starting over at rank 0.

Here is what would work:

GW2 already has a nice, alt friendly leveling system: the level 20 scrolls.

For badges/laurels, sell a level 50 WXP scroll, like the level 20 experience scrolls you get for character birthdays. It will only be useful for alts, because it does not add 50 levels, but rather sets you at 50 levels, no matter how many levels you already have.

The only problem with this scroll would be the rank up chests, but that could easily be solved with the bonus chest system. Just give them 2 chests for the next 50 levels (like Anet did when the chests were first released).

If you like this idea, post a reply and hopefully we will get noticed!

tl;dr
WXP for Laurels only works if you dont need those laurels for alts.
Make a Level 50 WXP scroll (like the level 20 experience scroll) instead.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

The recharge for unsteady ground will stay the same or about the same as it is currently. Also there are a few other nice staff changes coming in that patch as well. =)

Super excited! I’ve been playing staff ele almost since launch, I can’t wait for this buff!

Any other teasers, Roy?

covenn.7165:

skullmount.1758:

Well I must not be that good of a staff ele, cause I’m pretty much always caught. I think I’ve gotten away maybe ~10% of the time.

Lightning flash, mist form, and staff cc will only get you so far. As long as that distance is behind a keep or back to spawn, or lets you break combat to port… then you are fine. You can try running FGS and using 3 and 4 to help you some, though even that wont get you away from the more mobile thieves/warriors/rangers/etc. but it will help you a lot.

The better option is to never have a staff out when away from the zerg or the safety of a structure

Are you kidding? You can escape anything with swiftness + FGS, if you can survive standing still to cast it. My escape plan is always: 1) use CCs/cantrips to gain a little breathing room, 2) FGS

Granted, I use runes of the centaur, so I can maintain swiftness even when holding the FGS. The swiftness dramatically increases the range.

When they release the update to unsteady ground, it will be even easier.

Zeroskillz.4983:

I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ll have a lot more before the weeks over. Stories of how SFs superior strategies won them many great battles against those soldiers in the Alamo.

Wow, you just made my day.

covenn.7165:

Cynz.9437:

covenn.7165:

There is one place staff is useful on an ele… and that is fighting zergs. Everywhere else, ele’s are absolutely free points. Stop whining about nothing.

everywhere else maybe… but we talk about wvw here

Catch a staff ele solo = free points.

Catch a staff running havoc = free points.

Catch a staff ele on the edge of a zerg = free points.

Catch a staff ele in a zerg away from a structure that doesn’t have people willing to kill you off of them = free points.

Catch a staff ele pretty much anywhere away from a door they can’t port through or a wall to hide behind = free points.

Honestly, there isn’t a worse class/weapon combination in the game than a staff ele away from a zerg or a structure they can hide behind. Even other ele’s running different weapon sets look at staff eles as free points.

I am not complaining about it, it is just the way it is. The weapon set excels in zerg fights and around structures. There is nothing to complain or whine about here. Besides dragon tooth is scepter… all the staff abilities are line of site or ground target.

^^^ This perception (true or not) is why you will rarely run into dedicated staff eles in WvW.

If someone is brave/stupid enough to stick with staff ele (like me), shouldn’t he get to be effective in some way?

Now if you are talking about dragon’s tooth that is scepter ele. In this case, the ele is literally hugging the wall… just kill him. If there is an entire zerg protecting the scepter ele, well good for them. I have never seen that before.

(P. S. catching a good staff ele is not easy. The free points are the d/d eles who switched to staff to AoE a wall.)

I’m confused, I just assumed this was a “make Devon feel the pain of being on the bottom of a league” thread. However that idea was not even mentioned until half way thought the thread. What is the OP’s problem with NSP?

sounds like someone likes kicking up drama, and I’m not referring to the Anet dev…

What is the map limit again?