Guild Wars 2

I have the fortune of being able to chat about game design with a lead designer at a very influential game developer. One of the most interesting things he’s told me is that while a lot of gameplay problems have fairly simple solutions, the true challenge is delivering these changes in a way that doesn’t frustrate a large portion of the playerbase. Though I didn’t understand at the time, I’ve come to realize that managing expectations is extremely important to the long-term happiness of the playerbase, and that failing to do so can create more problems than whatever you were trying to fix in the first place ever did. What solidified this belief is what I’ve witnessed in the defiant response to Bloodlust in the Borderlands. Whether you agree or disagree with the implementation of Bloodlust, it’s hard to argue thakittenrepresents a major change in WvW. It’s also hard to argue that this change hasn’t fractured the community and engendered resentment between various groups of players. I feel like, regardless of the new gameplay, WvW is worse for it because of the damage it has done to the community. These problems could have been avoided by better managing the expectations of the players.

Something that content developers (be it game designers, writers, artists, etc.) struggle with is the concept that their creations are not entirely theirs. The communities around these works guide their direction just as much as the people who created them. Often, only minor adjustments are required to accommodate the communities, but sometimes there are more extreme cases. Take Super Smash Bros. for example; it was designed as a casual party game, but it developed a large tournament scene. Another example is My Little Pony; it was designed as a television show for young girls, but it developed a large adult male fanbase. I feel like WvW also belongs in this group. It was designed as a more casual PVP environment that simulates war (and all of its unfairness), but it became the place where competitive players went to have large-scale, evenly matched, open field battles with few objectives involved. In cases like these, the developers need to make a decision: is it worth changing our vision to accommodate this new demographic? Are we equipped to deal with the backlash that comes with heading in a different direction than the one they expect? If a developer does not ask these questions, they may be faced with an angry, fractured community – just as ArenaNet is experiencing with WvW.

I feel like this was a long time coming. This development team has implemented many controversial changes, and in doing so they have failed to adequately manage player expectations and have failed to clearly communicate their overall vision to the community. They have not changed course based on the evolving play styles of their players, and in doing so are going in a direction that is not in their best interests. Community is critical, and as I stated before, these divisive changes damage the community. A common argument is that players who were not playing according to the intended WvW rules are disruptive and harmful to the overall campaign. It is not hard to see that they will need to become even more disruptive to the campaign in order to continue playing in their own way. Why implement changes that incentivize players to do this? It speaks to a lack of understanding of the community and all its facets, and things are only going to get worse if the developers do not become more transparent and more in-touch with ALL of their players.

I really hope this debacle is a wake-up call to the WvW team. Where you sit on this side of the Bloodlust debate should not be your primary concern right now. I would be more concerned with the lack of community management and understanding that the WvW team is demonstrating. Unless they realize that game design is so much more than creating gameplay systems behind closed doors, we’re just going to have more controversies and fights in the future. We’re already seeing established members of the community leaving not because they’ve stopped enjoying the game, but because they’ve lost faith in ArenaNet. It is way harder to regain faith and trust than it is to fix a gameplay problem. I just hope the WvW team comes to understand this before it’s too late.

DevonCarver.5370:

No. That is not a possibility at this time. The point of the buff is to affect the WvW game mode as a whole disabling it on your character would lessen the value of the buff to a server and completely invalidate the whole point.

It makes me sad that a game with such an astoundingly good core design is being kitten ed away so hard.

This is really a shame. Employees need to learn that as long as they represent their company in public, their actions will be taken as the official company line. Players are going to see this as confirmation that ArenaNet hates GvG, and it’s just going to reduce trust and confidence further. That’s the last thing ArenaNet needs right now.

DevonCarver.5370:

We are focused on making WvW as fun as it can possibly be and we will continue to make changes to WvW with that in mind.

Your changes have focused on making siege a stronger and more central part of WvW while the community at large wants siege to be a supplement at best. I can’t help but feel like we’re not on the same page here, and it’s making the players resentful.

Straegen.2938:

My guess is they think changing up the system may refresh it and adding in rewards will bring more players in. Both are probably accurate, but a lot of animosity has developed from players who have been routinely mismatched.

We’ve already seen the effects of mismatched matchups. Players have been clamoring for them tighten the matchmaking range. ArenaNet is responding by making it significantly larger. THIS is where the animosity has come from: ArenaNet’s constant refusal to respond to any criticism and fix any of the problems.

When you introduced randomized matchmaking to try to break up stagnant matchups and add variety to WvW, it sounded like a reasonable enough goal. Some matches in particular were very stale and driving people away. However, I’m very concerned that the current matchmaking system is doing even more harm. I’m looking at the point range in this week’s NA matchups and it’s kind of absurd:

Tier 1: 56 points. The top three servers are fighting each other once again. This is fine.
Tier 2: 277 points. This is the fifth time in the last seven weeks that Sea of Sorrows has had to suffer Tarnished Coast and it’s becoming a running joke.
Tier 3: 367 points. Yak’s Bend lost WvW guilds because of their horrible matches, and how do you reward them? Make them fight the fifth rated server. How does this help anyone?

I could continue going down the list and it would be the same stuff over and over again. I could look over at EU and see a similar pattern in many of their matchups. This really has to stop. Furthermore, this radio silence from ArenaNet has to stop. Keeping quiet is only going to frustrate more and more people and drive more and more people away from the game. How many more posts like this one will it take for ArenaNet to actually address this problem? I get that there are some pretty big fish to fry with WvW, but I can’t imagine that tightening up the matchmaking search parameters is a particularly long-term task. Please do something. It’s not fun for the stompers and it’s not fun for the stomped.

XselectX.9026:

man its just soooo funny heavy wvwers really dont get how much more attention they get then pvper and still kitten

I’d rather get no attention than changes that actively damage the game.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Again, I don’t think this is something that needs to be nerfed because they don’t know how to play against it. That would be a learn to play thing.

I disagree. Stealth, more than almost any other mechanic in any game, is extremely frustrating to play against even when you know how to deal with it, and typically makes the game less fun. This is doubly the case when you add high burst damage to the same kit. It was the case in League of Legends, Monday Night Combat, Guild Wars 2, etc. The only game I’ve ever seen that had tolerable stealth was Team Fortress 2, and it was extremely limited (until Valve started messing it up with crummy items). If a lot of the thief’s power budget is tied up in a mechanic that has a lot of gameplay/balance drawbacks, then isn’t it in thief’s best interest to have it significantly toned down so he can be stronger elsewhere?

I have some disorganized thoughts about the most recent changes. Here they are in no particular order.

The stat boost is the most criticised part of the changes, but I believe the point bonus on stomp is also unhealthy. The stat buff just has too much player downside. While WvW is a casual format at heart, there are still tons of players who play(ed) it seriously. I don’t see the gain in alienating your core audience with a new mechanic that doesn’t draw new players in. Devon Carver has publicly stated that the goal for Bloodlust is to create a gameplay mechanic that unifies and impacts all maps. This is a reasonable goal, but it absolutely should not come at the cost of the enjoyment of the players who are most invested.

Do some people who like the buff? Sure. Are there more people joining WvW than leaving? I can only speak for what I see on my home server, but the answer right now seems like an overwhelming “no.” Add the evidence that the buff is actually causing lag, and you have a pretty clear case that Bloodlust has done more harm than good

As for stomp points, I think these are harmful to the game even without stat boosts. From a balance standpoint, the bonus is game-warping on larger servers. From a gameplay standpoint, the bonus creates many unhealthy incentives. First, the balance issue. Let’s compare Bloodlust to Stonemist Castle. Stonemist Castle is worth 35 points every 15 minutes. That’s 2.33 points per minute. You don’t think a T1 server that has queued every map can manage 2.3 stomps a minute, or 0.58 stomps a minute per map? Of course they can. They can often manage well over that. Over 80 stomps per 15 minutes is not unreasonable for T1. Should Bloodlust really be worth twice that of Stonemist? That seems absurd to me. On the other hand, for smaller servers with coverage gaps, the buff can do almost nothing. Between the stat points discouraging play at off-peak hours and there simply not being many players out, the amount of stomps drops off dramatically, rendering the buff more or less inert. This is actually a symptom of an even bigger problem with WvW (the 24/7 week long matchup), but that’s another topic for another day.

The stomp penalty also encourages people to play less. First, small group roaming is discouraged. A group of 2-4 is zerg food unless you’re playing a highly mobile class. You’re also discouraged from running on a map where you’re outnumbered since there’s an inherently higher risk of dying, thus feeding points. You also have unhealthy cases like players logging out when they’re about to be stomped. If a game mechanic encourages you to log out in order to avoid consequences, that is a serious problem because it’s not even a game mechanic. Finally, you have the fights themselves. It’s Stomping during big fights is often suboptimal. That players are faced with an awkward decision: play optimally to win the fight but get fewer points, or play suboptimally to get more points but risk losing the overall fight. Why would you force this decision on us? Having tension in some decisions is good, but not when you’re forcing us to choose between the intrinsic reward of winning a fight and the extrinsic reward of gaining points.

I don’t really see any way to retain the mechanic while fixing the problems. You can’t fix the balance issue unless you want to start rewarding half or even quarter points, which then just makes it even more pointless on lower tier servers. You can’t fix the gameplay inventive problems because even at low values, players are still punished for going for “hero” captures or risky moves. It means that the optimal play is actually very passive, methodical, zerg play, and that’s way less fun.

Finally, though this is of little consequence, I have a serious problem with the name. It’s poor design to use the same word when naming two different game mechanics. The power stacking sigil has always been called “Bloodlust,” and using that word to describe an entirely different game mechanic leads to confusion and a loss of clarity. Seriously, couldn’t it have been called “Spoils of War” or something?

Hopefully this gets some people thinking.

League of Legends put server performance as its highest priority. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have gotten out of 2010 as a healthy game. People don’t enjoy playing games that don’t work properly. ArenaNet would do well to learn that.

I dunno about the rest of my server, but the reason I haven’t been playing so much is because the game just isn’t fun anymore. I don’t know why ANet is so opposed to giving players a way to just have an honest scrap without all these uninteresting secondary objectives in the way, but with the AC change, you can’t even have an open field fight anymore.

katniss.6735:

Anet seems downright clueless when it comes to pvp as a whole. What the hell are you doing to WvW?

It’s so strange that a company that built its brand on high quality PVP now seems to be one of most incapable of balancing PVP. Maybe my source was right that all their best PVP people left the company and the people left behind don’t know how to do it…

Thanks for this. The GvG issue is clearly one of the biggest pain points in WvW right now and I’m glad to see you’re addressing it.

I still think two games should run every day: One from, say, 8 PM to 8 AM, and another from 8 AM to 8 PM (EST). Servers would have separate ratings and matchups for each time zone, and players would be able to participate in both. Yes, there would be many problems to iron out, but I think properly implemented, it would be more fun for everyone than Coverage Wars.

swinsk.6410:

shouldn’t be that hard to code

These words are like nails on a chalkboard to a programmer…

Nightmare.8351:

Pretty much this. You’re all missing the point. WvW isn’t about ‘fair open field fights’. It isn’t about GvG. It’s not about individualism. It’s about the entire server cooperating to win against two other servers. If you get the option to take away that buff for the sole purpose of fair fights and small, even combat, then you aren’t helping your server. If that isn’t what you want, then go PvP.

Yes, I understand that PvP doesn’t allow the larger 15v15 or 20v20. Yes, I understand that it’s something that should at least be done. But it doesn’t belong in WvW, and band-aiding that onto WvW isn’t something that should happen.

The outstanding problem is that a significant amount of players have started playing WvW in their own way that’s a lot more fun than the way ANet wants it to be played. With every change they make that compromises the way these guild players play, resentment grows and the community fractures further. Something needs to be done, and the way Devon and the team are currently going about it is not the way to go.

Retaliation is super uninteractive. Getting hit should not be a long-term offensive strategy.

Dranul.2094:

DevonCarver.5370:

No. That is not a possibility at this time. The point of the buff is to affect the WvW game mode as a whole disabling it on your character would lessen the value of the buff to a server and completely invalidate the whole point.

Devon, it’s become quite resoundingly clear that the WvW ANET team do NOT understand the jewel in their crown, that is WvW open combat. By hook or crook you guys actually made an amazing fast paced, free flowing combat system – that you ARENT even aware of.

Open field combat is frankly amazing (when your servers aren’t lacking like kitten). You do nothing but shun this type of gameplay, revolving every single aspect/update about siege wars. You are either blind to what you have or just plain ignorant, obsessed with your vision of the game, when in reality what you gave the players is far superior to what you intend do deliver. Yet you keep making mind boggling changes that hinder any sort of balance, making everything revolve around zerging and siege. Hell you call coverage SKILL << congratulations.

You really should watch some videos of guilds in action, I am not even suggesting GvG videos (you can’t even bring yourself to say it) I’m talking guilds taking on the masses. Rewarding skill and teamwork taking on superior numbers. Now though, you want to give the servers with the most coverage 150 to each stat.

Please Devon Clarify what “vision” what “insight” there is to rewarding skill less easy moders stacking on the top servers, running in their giant blobs with even more stat bonuses?

Or in English, how about a statement on what is your vision of WvW. Please say sitting on an AC is still one of the most exciting things you’ve ever done, please.

Yours sincerely, one avid WvW open field combat loving Guild Leader.

I think this really succinctly sums up the feelings of a lot of the community. We’re so defensive because we feel like we’re losing the fun of open field combat for a system that is less so. We’re fighting back because we actually enjoy this game and don’t want to see it go down this path. I hope ANet realizes this before it’s too late.

Why do you have engineers so low, Ostrich? Stun break on Elixir R being removed hurt them that much?

Thief is really hard to buff because the game gets far less fun for everyone else when he’s actually strong. He needs a mechanical rework.

It’s just another matchup where the servers all have different peak times so it becomes a matter of which server can PvD the hardest when the other servers are asleep.

(Except Oceanics always win because there’s always at least SOME people around at NA peak.)

Titan.3472:

I vote to ban GvG oriented guilds to a specific server where there is no pve and no wvw only a single map with no npc that allow them to play 20vs20 and leave the whole world in peace : and guess what : they would be happy lol

It may surprise you to learn that most organized guilds play considerably more WvW than GvG, and that pretty much every server’s standing in the rankings is a result of THEIR work.