When was the prime of WvW and why did you enjoy it?

[The Ventari Ele.5812]

@joneirikb.7506 said:

This is ironic, as most of the things in HOT came from ANet asking what players wanted forward. Even the Desert BL is based on player feedback on what they wanted for a wvw map.

You'll find that the Desert BL was what PvE players wanted!Anet didnt get any real WvW guild to test it!They were all youtubers and streamers.And they were a large majority of PvE players!

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@The Ventari Ele.5812 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:

This is ironic, as most of the things in HOT came from ANet asking what players wanted forward. Even the Desert BL is based on player feedback on what they wanted for a wvw map.

You'll find that the Desert BL was what PvE players wanted!Anet didnt get any real WvW guild to test it!They were all youtubers and streamers.And they were a large majority of PvE players!

DBL is fine as it is now though.

Because large zergs generally shun the map apart from reset nights, it has become the perfect place for small havoc groups to thrive.

These small havoc groups can Attack and defend structures on DBL without having to worry about getting rolled over by much larger zergs.

I know BG has a group of dedicated and skilled roamers who have made DBL their home. It has always been a ferocious fight against them on DBL as they love to Attack and tier up structures that they take. And as defenders, we would need to wrestle for control against them with similarly small numbers as the large zergs rarely care about DBL.

DBL has basically become a playground for small havoc guilds to contribute more meaningfully to the war.

[joneirikb.7506]

@The Ventari Ele.5812 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:

This is ironic, as most of the things in HOT came from ANet asking what players wanted forward. Even the Desert BL is based on player feedback on what they wanted for a wvw map.

You'll find that the Desert BL was what PvE players wanted!Anet didnt get any real WvW guild to test it!They were all youtubers and streamers.And they were a large majority of PvE players!

It's been too long and I can't quote or show directly, but I seem to remember that most of the requests for the map, before it was started on, was made by WvW players. Stuff like more Chokes, and better ways to fight against zergs, more ways to move about for roamers without getting run over by every zerg on the horizon etc.

ANet took those, put them together and made a map. The player base hated it, and no amount of pointing out that it is exactly what they requested helped.

The whole testing afterwards was another matter entirely, and several testers did report problems with it, but it was too late in development for ANet to make fundamental changes at that point (at least that what they said).

Though I agree with EremiteAngel that the map, now, is a good roaming and havoc map. I quite like it.

[wanya.1697]

I would say WvW was good until mid 2015 after that with HoT the powercreep and condi cancer startet which killed any competetiv desires in meas you now just need big group which pushes first and smashes all buttons as fast as possibleso server starts to skill lag and you win cause you casted the most condis first which will continue to tick whilst enemy cant cleanse themAnet really needs to remove dmg condis from WvW to bring it back into a serious mode instead of karma ppt train mode or skilllagfestfirstblobpusherswinmode we have now

[grave of hearts.7830]

WvW was fun for the first year

Now it's full of spies and trolls and it has became so rotten that you can't distinguish it from feces.

They could had kept it fresh by making it the PlanetSide of mmorpgs,with vehicles and bottlenecks and small group tactics and new maps and they could spice it with the living story when something big and purple was passing through the mists...But no,all they seem to care about lately is if anyone typed the N word and to pretend that they aren't dead in the water after the reforms so they won't lose their jobs.

[Aeolus.3615]

@The Ventari Ele.5812 said:

@joneirikb.7506 said:

This is ironic, as most of the things in HOT came from ANet asking what players wanted forward. Even the Desert BL is based on player feedback on what they wanted for a wvw map.

You'll find that the Desert BL was what PvE players wanted!Anet didnt get any real WvW guild to test it!They were all youtubers and streamers.And they were a large majority of PvE players!

EB and alpine are awfull maps as well, they are are easy to ktrain, pver's love it.Actually pver's just tend to say on EB.

[Elementalist Owner.7802]

The Mag cloud era circa 2017

No commander? No problem. Just hop into EBG and there are 24/7 cloud fights around SMC.

[RedBaron.6058]

I spent 95% of my playing time in WvW, since the very beginning. I leveled several chars from 1 to 80 at WvW. I remember playing until falling asleep on the keyboard during the WvW tournament, my best GW2 memories are all tied to WvW..:)

The saddest thing is that WvW is what distinguishes this game from the rest of other MMO's (like Warhammer Online has done before...) and ANet never invested in it as they have in all other game modes.

A better designed, evolved and supported WvW game mode could be a game in itself without all the rest and still have thousands and thousands of players for many years.

I am a very optimistic person but also a realistic one. IMHO, within 1 year NCSOFT will pull the plug on GW2. Maybe some other company acquire it or NCSOFT decides to make GW3 and keeps the IP rights but GW2 as we know it will cease to exist sooner than later.

May our GW2 memories last forever or at least as long as we can keep them alive...

Best regards.

[Gorani.7205]

The hight of WvW excitement for me was the time "of the content drought", before HoT. We still had server identities, professions had not established mandatory meta builds (+ the expansion's power creep) and the siege and supply game was strong. Choosing which upgrade to use, escorting dollies for the EWP, a network of scouts and caretakers on your server was a good time.With HoT, the "supply game" went away, established WvW were hit hard by the way the War Room was implemented into the GH system, making the tactics and improvements an extremely costly thing in the fist few months. That had hit the system so hard, it never really recovered from the bad reputation it got. HoT also gave us the DBL, which is a great map today, but was too restrictive and laggy (due to the energy tower event) when it was released. Also the first power creep profession had shown up and balance went down the road and has not recovered since.With the addition of the shield generators and AC posing no threats to people on rams or proxy catapults, clever siege tactics went down the drain. PoF than gave us the current condi & boon meta with red circles of death.EotM is just a by-product, that was not really impacting to WvW, because it did not server as an overflow map and has never really gained its own true WvW identity. Gliding and the Warclaw, the mastery was a nice feature and IMHO, has not contributed to the decline of WvW.

[Klipso.8653]

Now we just have instant melts from ranged pirate ship, instead of maneuvering until one zerg makes a mistake, those long fights were fun. Bring back the hammer train!

[jpsssss.7530]

mid HoT was my fave game-state

[Nidome.1365]

Before Anet had their first "free transfer week" was the best time for WvW. Encouraging transfers destroyed population balance and damaged/killed a number of guilds. Population imbalance severely damaged WvW and it has really recovered.Having WvW as part of world completion was also one of the best recruitment mechanisms for WvW. Many people came to WvW for world completion and stayed.

[KeyOrion.9506]

I do miss the days when there was Que's every single day. Every week. For months on end. Yes you had to wait, but at least the battles were constantly endless.

[losieight.4807]

A year before HoT came out and there were multiple small man guild's (5 man and under). Still remember the fights from tM, OHai, YARR, and countless others all the time. After HoT all my roaming guild pretty much quit. Didn't even make it to PoF

[Tiny Doom.4380]

Best of all were the Seasons. After that, the early days in general, before Megaservers. Losing Lion's Arch for rallying the troops did more damage than DBL in the long term.

I particularly liked the era when class skills mattered more and players had agency: Guardians protecting siege weapons, Warriors bannering the lord, upgrading structures by fetching and dumping supply and so on. All the automation from tactics and watchtowers and auto-upgrades and EWPs and so on isn't terrible but none of it is an improvement. I know people complained about having to do the grunt work but I always felt much more involved that way and there never seemed to be a shortage of people willing to do the work.

[aspirine.5839]

When there was not just one map blob. No idea how long ago that was.

[cyberzombie.7348]

Around 2014 during the WvW Tournament, back when GvG sieges and server pride was at its peak. Despite my server being consistently outnumbered, we knew how to keep our ground till the end and managed to make it to 3rd in silver. Now with the megaservers, it seems pointless for continue on since my server hasn't changed rank/tier in years despite assisting the larger ones that have moved up.

[Mbelch.9028]

@"ArchonWing.9480" said:The peak started in 2013 after the "You're violating my game mode" incident, causing anet to create the Obsidian Sanctum. The touranemtns led to their own problems, but it still gave off the impression that they were going to do big things with this game mode.

The peak ended in 2015 with the release of Heart of Thorns which basically violated the game mode. The power creep had made the formerly unnecessary Stab Nerf much worse. People had to grind pve maps for specializations that were pretty much required to fight, small guilds were destroyed with the advent of high guild hall costs and with it overpowered banners (later nerfed), watchtowers, fortified nonsense, and the most unpopular version of the Desert BL.

The worst part of the balance changes, namely stab and condi were made because uhh.... special types in pve wanted their builds to be buffed so they'd stop being kicked for being bad from instances. It didn't work and they still got kicked, and all we had was ruined wvw as collateral damage. This is not uncommon but in addition to everything else, made it particularly bad.

In addition, I felt HoT had taken away things people had and locked them as a pay feature. Guilds are the obvious thing here; people basically had to rebuild from scratch. But the most soulless, blatant example of this is the change to the waypoint system which was changed solely so they could add the emergency waypoint mechanic. WvW had more or less became abandoned, in the hopes that raids and esports pvp would be the future. And you all know what happened with that.

Honestly, I'd classify it as an extinction event. Many people would never return to WvW, or only play small bits at a time. For shame, really. 2016 was pretty much the Dark Age, though things would get better eventually.

What this man said.

[LetoII.3782]

@RedBaron.6058 said:

May our GW2 memories last forever or at least as long as we can keep them alive...

Best regards.

Crazy as it sounds, I'm pretty sure 10 years after it's gone people will talk about WvW like they speak of DAoC now.

Unless major, unlikely changes happen in the industry. But I'm betting on another 1982 before studios stop plagiarizing each other and try to be original again.