Suggestion: Bring back the WvW Polls - Improve Communication (again)

My other thread was closed because it got derailed into name calling and what not. Also, I feel like the current sentiment deserves a more articulated approach, rather than repeatedly yelling about things. So here I am, attempting to suggest some way to improve upon the current lack of communication between Anet and the WvW Community, since there is quite obviously a major disconnect. And because you can't simply complain about an issue without attempting to at least offer a solution. Having said that, it feels like we're going around in circles because we were in this very same situation back in 2015/2016.

However, for the sake of progress and mutual understanding, let's try to keep this thread constructive.

April 28, 2016, Anet announced the first in a series of official WvW Polls that would give players the opportunity to decide on upcoming developments for the gamemode. Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, welcomed mostly due to the fact that we were actually getting some interaction from the Devs, however, we did get some decent improvements out of them like the re-worked reward system and squads. But it all kind of went to pot by the time July came around with the Deployable Cannon Poll that we will no longer mention.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, IIRC, the gateway for voting was either non-existent or hilariously low. Which allowed for a lot of conflicting interests from people who didn't necessarily care about WvW in the same way that a lot of regular/hardcore WvWers did at the time. This led to a lot of mixed signals on what the WvW Community really wanted which, coupled with the 75% win requirement, made things difficult to gauge. I only really remember the Simultaneous Borderlands Poll reaching that requirement.

Another issue were some of the ridiculous Poll ideas like the aforementioned Cannons (Sorry, I lied earlier) and the Repair Hammers, if anyone remembers that one, rather than asking about current and direct issues that were related to WvW at the time. Although, some of those issues still persist to this day.

A simple suggestion to improve the accuracy of the Polls would be to raise the barrier for entry to ensure votes from those who actively engage in WvW on a Daily/Weekly/Monthly basis by utilising the player hours/participation metrics. However, this then presents the issue of exclusion which, as we know, is something of a faux pas for Anet.

So how else can we ensure accurate polling results? I can't think of many other ways that don't include some sort of WvW prerequisite. And since there's already enough of a divide between the WvW Community and the PvE Community, maybe that is what needs to be worked on first?

As we know, Guild Wars 2 is considered by many to be a 'casual' game, however, there is challenging content in other areas of the game, such as CM Raids, that requires a higher level of gameplay in order to complete. I get that there are casual players who only want to join WvW for the Ktrain or to grind Reward tracks and relax but in a gamemode that is designed to pit Player against Player, Anet really needs to draw a line between what they want to be casual and what is considered to be hardcore. Because PvP content will always encourage hardcore behaviour and I personally feel that WvW was designed for a darn sight more than just a casual way to pass the time between PvE releases.

This, I believe, is the main reason for the divide between both WvWers and PvEers. And until Anet addresses it, we're constantly going to see backlash and derision over all future WvW updates time and time again. Further to this is the sheer lack information on official channels for communication with regards to WvW.

You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone that doesn't refer to these "official" forums as an absolute Cancer, mostly due to a jaded WvW Community experiencing years of neglect after launch and the repeated failure to communicate WvW Updates effectively, but also because of the influx of PvE players who come here simply to gloat or argue and laugh at our expense. Then there's Reddit, which only really sees Dev interaction for PvE content. So any WvW issues are much less likely to be posted there. And the less said about Dev interactions on Twitter, the better.

So other than these, mostly hostile, forums what do we have as a reliable means of communication? Ah yes, there's the unofficial WvW Illuminati Discord (which we're not supposed to mention btw) but that doesn't cater towards everyone since it's unofficial and invite only.

Something needs to change. Bring back the Polls, Anet. But maybe actually state your vision for future of WvW with new updates and the playstyle you would prefer to foster. More communication and transparency is the only way to cure the hostility residing in this forum.

Have a poll on whether people like or dislike mounts a week or two after the mounts drop.

The answer to whether the community should be allowed to have polls prior to feature implementation depends on whether like wins or not.

I remember a poll where the question were :

• did you want more balanced WvW ?
• did you want more reward ?

Guess what people choose ...Majority never think about long term impact.

The main issue with that kind of poll is mostly that, at least on our side, all players are lumped in as a a single entity. There are many players in WvW, from the "only true" hardcode wvwers, to the "I'm just here for dailies" casuals; from the roamer to the commander, passing by the zergling. All of those profiles have different experiences, wants, and oulooks on the issues and proposed solution to them. It's a disservice to everyone that all those profiles are shown as a single entity. Identically, attempting the polls to a single profile through various method is as much of a disservice, since it will alienate all other players.

Ideally, the results of a poll should present the opinion of the community as a whole, but also of each main profile, in order to get the opinion of each "archetype" of player.

There is an issue of implementation with that, though. While the general implication of the player in the game mode can be estimated through stats like the wvw rank, other, more complex aspects can't be as easily determined. Of course, the poll could let the user indicate their own profile, but this would leave the poll open to vote manipulation, allowing people to willingly vote in a profile that is not really their own.

I'd like to see the pools return. I'd like to see the return better. It'd be a boon both for us, and for ANet to better understand the various players in the WvW community.

There is a way to make an accurate poll

In Southsun Cove, there's an asura npc with a poll about what pets you'd like to see in your home instance

Anet could put some poll npcs in wvw spawn areas, each needing a different rank. So for example, one npc would only be for wvw players with a rank of 1000 to 3000, another for only 3001 to 5000, and so on

And home cities like Lion's Arch could have a npc for only rank 0 players

That way, Anet could find out what everyone wants

As long as PvE players outnumber WvW Players 1000/1 , polls are worthless.

Remember the Canon Poll?

What a fun time this was.

@"Aralicia.6157" said:Ideally, the results of a poll should present the opinion of the community as a whole, but also of each main profile, in order to get the opinion of each "archetype" of player.

i think anet has enough userdata to add a profile to each vote, but do we players really need to see the result?players will no matter how anet presented the poll, demand that anet will follow the pollresult. but we do not even need to see the poll.many WvW player like to be heard by anet, they want their opinion valued. for this they just need to partake in the poll to provide their opinion, but they dont need to know how others have voted, anet has to know.

but aside from that i am also of the opinion that we shouldnt exclude any player from a vote, just add a profile to it.

@Jura.2170 said:There is a way to make an accurate poll

In Southsun Cove, there's an asura npc with a poll about what pets you'd like to see in your home instance

Anet could put some poll npcs in wvw spawn areas, each needing a different rank. So for example, one npc would only be for wvw players with a rank of 1000 to 3000, another for only 3001 to 5000, and so on

And home cities like Lion's Arch could have a npc for only rank 0 players

That way, Anet could find out what everyone wants

This is actually an incredible idea. Thanks for suggesting this!

I fear if you give players a little they will run with it. That said in an ideal world and without forums imploding would love to see a rolling list of goals. Example, and just making some of these up:

Projects:

• Alliance system
• New Blue Home Borderland
• Siege Wallet
• Skill Splits
• WvW Vendor Improvements
• Legendary Jewelry
• New Reward Tracks
• WvW Guild Improvements

Upcoming Weeks:

• No Downstate Week
• Instant Dead and Port Week
• Double XP Week

Nothing with dates but kind of a running what's up. There would be initial backlash to this but once you have the player base used to a working list at least they wouldn't be as surprised or assume that the only thing that was released is the only thing that is in works. Again wouldn't probably work here, but...

@"KalasDelRio.8921" said:So where did it all go wrong? Well, IIRC, the gateway for voting was either non-existent or hilariously low. Which allowed for a lot of conflicting interests from people who didn't necessarily care about WvW in the same way that a lot of regular/hardcore WvWers did at the time. This led to a lot of mixed signals on what the WvW Community really wanted which, coupled with the 75% win requirement, made things difficult to gauge. I only really remember the Simultaneous Borderlands Poll reaching that requirement.

Your recollection is a bit off. ANet filtered poll results based on WvW participation and found that it never materially affected the result. There were problems, as there are with any poll that doesn't get 100% participation from the target group, but "mixed signals due to conflicting interests" wasn't one of them. It turns out merely that a lot of the most vocal responses are aligned, but not every WvWarrior is vocal about their preferences.(And to make sure things are clear: by WvWarrior, I refer to people who put in a substantial amount of time in WvW, not those just there for GoB etc. That includes zergers, roamers, and GvG.)

I'd like to see your original post updated to cut to the chase, because I think there would be a lot of value in ANet taking time to offer at least some choices to WvW. You could just say, "let's bring back the polls, here's why" without worrying too much about the past polls.

In this case, I think ANet could have said, "we're bringing mounts to WvW, here's some of the challenges, which of these alternatives do you want?" That allows them to set direction (something they get paid to be good at) and gives us some input as to the details (something that we can help with). We wouldn't get to choose if stealth remains in the game, but they might give us options as to how it gets altered.

And most easily, they could keep asking us about time between linkages. I suspect that the poll would always end up with the same compromise we have now (every other month). Even if that's true, I think it would make it easier for some WvWarriors to accept the status quo. (Besides which, we have a much better idea these days about our own preferences, after living through years of the 2-month system.)

@"KalasDelRio.8921" said:My other thread was closed because it got derailed into name calling and what not. Also, I feel like the current sentiment deserves a more articulated approach, rather than repeatedly yelling about things. So here I am, attempting to suggest some way to improve upon the current lack of communication between Anet and the WvW Community, since there is quite obviously a major disconnect. And because you can't simply complain about an issue without attempting to at least offer a solution. Having said that, it feels like we're going around in circles because we were in this very same situation back in 2015/2016.

However, for the sake of progress and mutual understanding, let's try to keep this thread constructive.

April 28, 2016, Anet announced the first in a series of official WvW Polls that would give players the opportunity to decide on upcoming developments for the gamemode. Seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, welcomed mostly due to the fact that we were actually getting some interaction from the Devs, however, we did get some decent improvements out of them like the re-worked reward system and squads. But it all kind of went to pot by the time July came around with the Deployable Cannon Poll that we will no longer mention.

So where did it all go wrong? Well, IIRC, the gateway for voting was either non-existent or hilariously low. Which allowed for a lot of conflicting interests from people who didn't necessarily care about WvW in the same way that a lot of regular/hardcore WvWers did at the time. This led to a lot of mixed signals on what the WvW Community really wanted which, coupled with the 75% win requirement, made things difficult to gauge. I only really remember the Simultaneous Borderlands Poll reaching that requirement.

Another issue were some of the ridiculous Poll ideas like the aforementioned Cannons (Sorry, I lied earlier) and the Repair Hammers, if anyone remembers that one, rather than asking about current and direct issues that were related to WvW at the time. Although, some of those issues still persist to this day.

A simple suggestion to improve the accuracy of the Polls would be to raise the barrier for entry to ensure votes from those who actively engage in WvW on a Daily/Weekly/Monthly basis by utilising the player hours/participation metrics. However, this then presents the issue of exclusion which, as we know, is something of a faux pas for Anet.

So how else can we ensure accurate polling results? I can't think of many other ways that don't include some sort of WvW prerequisite. And since there's already enough of a divide between the WvW Community and the PvE Community, maybe that is what needs to be worked on first?

As we know, Guild Wars 2 is considered by many to be a 'casual' game, however, there is challenging content in other areas of the game, such as CM Raids, that requires a higher level of gameplay in order to complete. I get that there are casual players who only want to join WvW for the Ktrain or to grind Reward tracks and relax but in a gamemode that is designed to pit Player against Player, Anet really needs to draw a line between what they want to be casual and what is considered to be hardcore. Because PvP content will always encourage hardcore behaviour and I personally feel that WvW was designed for a darn sight more than just a casual way to pass the time between PvE releases.

This, I believe, is the main reason for the divide between both WvWers and PvEers. And until Anet addresses it, we're constantly going to see backlash and derision over all future WvW updates time and time again. Further to this is the sheer lack information on official channels for communication with regards to WvW.

You'll be hard-pressed to find anyone that doesn't refer to these "official" forums as an absolute Cancer, mostly due to a jaded WvW Community experiencing years of neglect after launch and the repeated failure to communicate WvW Updates effectively, but also because of the influx of PvE players who come here simply to gloat or argue and laugh at our expense. Then there's Reddit, which only really sees Dev interaction for PvE content. So any WvW issues are much less likely to be posted there. And the less said about Dev interactions on Twitter, the better.

So other than these, mostly hostile, forums what do we have as a reliable means of communication? Ah yes, there's the unofficial WvW Illuminati Discord (which we're not supposed to mention btw) but that doesn't cater towards everyone since it's unofficial and invite only.

Something needs to change. Bring back the Polls, Anet. But maybe actually state your vision for future of WvW with new updates and the playstyle you would prefer to foster. More communication and transparency is the only way to cure the hostility residing in this forum.

Yes, but here's why people get bent out of shape to the point of name calling; Nothing infuriates me(and I hazard others as well) more than being asked for my feelings and suggestions on a matter by someone who appears to be in a position to make good on that feedback, only to have it completely disregarded/ignored. Don't waste my time.

Not trying to shoot the messenger here, but these polls often come across as distractions made with the intent to mollify the community until whatever changes, which have been more or less set in stone even before their announcements, are dropped on the community. It takes a lot of anger and bad publicity to budge most companies after they've committed publically to a bad decision. And even if they do budge they'll never apologise or concede that what they'd done was wrong or ill-advised. This, if only to save face.

As much as people vent their spleens here, try to understand where it comes from - impotent anger. Because this company's going to do whatever it does, regardless of input before or after their missteps.