Lukasz.9476

I sincerely doubt the person making the claim is running no longer officially, and technically, supported OS. You cannot run newer versions of CEF on Win7 because it lacks appropriate dependencies. To the best of my knowledge, it's simply impossible the way it's coded. Really hope Anet is not going to pull the plug on Coherent as soon as they decide CEF switcheroo is working well enough, that'd massively kitten me off, never mind make the game unplayable. There are a number of reasons quite a lot of people stick with Win7 as their gaming OS past the artificial EoS date, and last I heard GW2 doesn't like any flavor of Linux.

Same issue, forcing Coherent worked again. Weird that Anet would push this update knowing kitten well this was going to happen from the LAST time it did. Chrome framework no longer supports Win7, they better not kitten well remove Coherent option anytime Soon™

As per title. After a decade of playing with no issues, suddenly can't even launch the game because new versions of Chromium, that you switched to, do not support Win7. Considering the game worked perfectly well until now, and I'm still greatly enjoying it, "really bloody annoyed" is to put it mildly. Please provide backward compatibility to the OS the game was launched on, and purchased as supporting.

How exactly? If your group is below 10 people, removal of target caps won't affect it. If your group is above 10 people, it'd encourage you to split. Now you're presenting two targets for enemy AoE, while they eat it all. Smaller groups will always be at a disadvantage. They should. But removing target caps would allow teamwork and cooperation to increase their effective damage against a less organized blob. This means that, even outnumbered, it would encourage participation. Realistically, right now you can't do much against a boonblob without corresponding numbers on your side. This does exactly the opposite of encouraging fighting, and making it fun. The fact that objectives are too easy flipped, and have no realistic value from a player's perspective to commit loss of effective reward stream, is a side issue. But it would help if smaller groups could hold off larger ones, because it - again - encourages participation even against the odds. Which now is pointless, because you're just feeding without changing the inevitable outcome. That boonblob will still flip, and you are unlikely to even delay them (pulling invul or managing to sneak a siege disabler, something very rarely seen nowadays as well, aside). Participants grouping together to take higher value objectives because the gameplay implementation demands it is not a problem. Gameplay implementation actively encouraging blob action, and penalizing everything else, is. Especially when it comes at the expense of the very objective-based game mode it takes place in.

Because that's irrelevant. Active defense is not a problem. Delaying is not a problem that you make it to be, either. Even assuming population parity, which rarely happens nowadays anyway. Or at least will be less so if you shift reward scheme from its current ADHD implementation that encourages flips at the expense of everything else, including any kind of maintained presence on the objective that gets flipped. The more you devalue objectives by making them easier to flip, the less positive feedback to the player in terms of feeling of accomplishment you create. The fact reward system completely discourages defense aside. Dunno, maybe the difference is as simple as you being a CoD player, while I prefer ARMA. But you admit that current state of WvW is not fun, yet argue against any potential changes to it because it MIGHT have a negative impact on gameplay? Top discussion there. Oh yes, the larger group that will already curbstomp the smaller one anyway, and definitely will do so without any loses in any decent skill parity with current implementation, will be so greatly advantaged by the smaller group capacity for breaking up larger blobs. Nope, better not to give WvW servers with smaller population the opportunity to achieve anything, because that might be exploited by more populous servers that already don't even need that advantage to dominate /s I see you constantly offering (dubious) objections, but no examples of constructive approach to the problem.

This is what Chaba is oh-so-conveniently ignoring. There is no built-in incentive to defend. It's all hinged on player pride, and even that is actively penalized. You defend? You don't keep your participation up reliably. You don't get objective rewards reliably. You don't get Champ bags reliably. You don't get the occasional player bag reliably, because it's a rare case you will have enough defenders around you to actually punch back at the generally numerically superior attacking group. Anyone who's in it primarily for the rewards will just blob for best results to them, at the expense of the team and intended objectives. Blobbing gives you much faster rewards. It's safe. It's reliable. You want to rely on player pride for defense? Then set up support for it in-game. Put in WvW pannel screens with ladders for guilds, if not individuals, listing not just the amount of flips and kills they generated attacking objectives, but for defense. Hell, make guild-claimed locations display increasing amount of flags around the place the longer they hold something. Provide a visual feedback that stimulates this sense of "pride" you think is all that's needed to get people to defend objectives that, mechanically, will penalize them with lower reward trickle. Or you could tie in reward scheme to actually maintaining posession of objectives. Something that was the original approach, until population inbalanced forced changes necessary to maintain the less numerous servers with at least some presence. You don't want people to "sit around" during sieges? In itself a big "what?", because I never lack for things to do, but sure, let's pretend that's all there is to do right now. Add more tools for active participation in siege. Truth is, most are already ignored. ACs can be facetanked in a boonblob anyway, and these were the only real danger to a larger group back when you had to build a shield generator or two just to get through that broken gate/wall. Apparently that was too much effort for the "ktrain" loudmouths, though. So give people some flimsy portable "Canthan rocket" carts that let them fire wide AoE barrage of "fireworks" knocking people down and/or blinding. At a high angle, so it works better against fortifications and can damage ACs on third floor of SMC. Give them a "net thrower" cart that creates a length of AoE field that first immobilizes, and if you don't react fast enough (which should be part of a second) and pop stun-breaker to dodge and/or port away from there, you get pulled. Give them a deployable "siege mortar" that can target enemy siege emplacements at an angle (ballistas have problem with obstructions) with fire fields, and make ALL siege engines (except perhaps the golems) more susceptible to fire damage. Simply put, provide more interactions for both attackers and defenders to use. So you don't "stand around" during siege, you do fun stuff with immediate positive feedback that apparently is the real core of intended gameplay in WvW. Make it possible for smaller groups to at least break apart, if not wipe, larger less organized blobs. Boonstrips should come faster than the omni-present boon vomit that happens now. Target caps have no place in WvW - if some professions get greater damage out of their skills, that's the opponent's fault for bunching up, not an issue with the profession itself. Teach people small unit tactics again, because then you have a dynamic environment where everywhere around you there's some action to jump into. Not just one tag and majority of the active population behind it, doing constant flips that are the best time/reward investment, while ignoring defense of objectives altogether. But first of all, though, fix the goddamn population issue, and constantly linking MAG with another high-pop server is probably not how you should approach it. If a bunch of other servers simply lack continuous presence in sufficient numbers to offer resistance, bunch them up together. We don't need multiple instances of dead maps with ktrains of the dominating server roaming looking for some poor PvE scrubs trying to daily or whatnot. We need maps with similar number of participants on each side at most times. Maybe Alliances will fix that, but they have been coming Soon™ for so long I'd rather see much faster linking job done to address the issue right now, not wait forever till Anet figures things out years on from now. Anyway, wrote more than I did in years watching this clusterchuckle develop, and probably with the same end result, so back to lurking. Not like I get the feeling of engaging with someone discussing things in good faith, either, when it comes the main opposition to the presented ideas.

"Myeah, if you could read what I wrote again, and try to understand this time, that'd be greeeat, mkay?" Which part of 1. Population imbalance is a the primary issue with WvW balance right now, and should be addressed first 2. Objectives being taken too fast, and reward system actively discouraging defending any objective, make it even less fun is difficult to understand? You think flipping objectives even faster will lead to more fights? Lol. It's already hard to get people to defend anything, much less when they are provably outnumbered to the point they will just feed the attacker without achieving anything in turn. Not even slowing them down so that tag doing chain-flips on another map might be persuaded to actually swing by and try to defend, because, as things are, that's actually less rewarded than just ignoring the objective-based gameplay. The "defending team" doesn't care about the structure. There's nothing in current implementation that encourages it - quite contrary. And no, I did not reach "the same conclusion," since you keep conflating the two issues together pretending like turning WvW into effective open-map blob vs blob fight (even IF Anet somehow manages to balance out population) is somehow going to be not just more rewarding, but fun experience. You want that, ask for a separate game mode. In the meantime, at least give tools to players so that skilled performance is rewarded, not just ignored by boonblob of sufficient number advantage. Remove target caps. Remove restrictions on siege weapon damage. Force players to start playing in smaller groups, if not push multiple objectives at once, instead of reinforcing "everyone to the zerg, we'll just chain-flip ignoring any defensive actions" approach the way the new reward system does. I don't know how the Desert BL played. Didn't do that test, pretty sure I was taking a break from the game altogether back then. Just because it wasn't implemented in an engaging way, though, doesn't mean this can't be done. In the meantime, the changes over time absolutely did not lead to a better WvW experience, just fed the "insta-reward" ADHD crowd at the expense of the objective-based gameplay itself that this mode is supposed to be.

This is about as stupid of a conclusion as you can reach. You will absolutely impact server population by increasing or decreasing difficulty of taking objectives. You can argue how it'll happen one way or another, but if you're making it even easier for more populous servers to dominate, that'll drain what remains of their opponents' already lacking active participants numbers. You want to see more fights? Then design the gameplay loop around forcing them. Current reward scheme does exactly the opposite. Ticks don't matter as much as participation. You get more karma just moving unopposed from one objective to another, minimizing time-to-flip by avoiding fights. The entire set of rewards right now is quite literally punishing defense, because not only do you not get any of those rewards for defending, you're actually potentially blocking your opportunity to get rewarded for attacking. It was already difficult enough to get people to respond to defense calls. Particularly when everyone knew the attacking force is superior in numbers. Increasing difficulty of NPCs in target locations would at least allow lower number of defenders to participate without just pure ineffective feeding. The game mechanics should actively encourage smaller groups working simultaneously on multiple objectives. Doesn't mean the objectives should be possible to flip with just one or two people. Tiering up should have massive impact on how much force you need to bring. Holding camps and towers should be essential for your chance of success against keeps and SMC. It's not, and now this lack of defensive presence is further encouraged by reward scheme that actively penalizes defending. Hell, the best gameplay experience I've had in WvW was back when there were NO rewards, because at least then people played for the fun of it, and the pride of defending some objective for as long as possible. SMC flips would happen after half a day of constant attrition against enemies with tools to hold even against 2-3 times larger attacker groups. It was more difficult to achieve, but also far more rewarding when it happened instead of current "we just need more bodies and can walk right in because AC target cap and damage limitations, lulz" implementation. And, ultimately, it promoted fights - because unlike you, most of the people I played with did not just stand around twiddling their thumbs, but participated. Either with support, wall-pulls, or by setting up assisting siege weapons. Yeah, sure, MAG can repaint an entire map and hold it at T3 forever. The problem there is not with fortifications being so difficult to take, as apparently Anet understand it, but the fact that MAG can have near-constant coverage of maps and active population. Often against servers that turn dead as soon as their prime time. Which may or may not coincide with "north america" server designation, see several SEA-dominating servers that have no off-time presence. This is not an issue with how slow/fast you can take fortifications, this is pure population imbalance issue. And should be addressed first, before attempting to balance out everything else. That said, solo flips should be restricted to sentries and untiered camps, and even then only if you had a good build and knew what you're doing. Tier-ups should be direct force multipliers requiring much greater attacker force even without enemy presence. Siege weapons should do much more damage, and not be kitten by target caps and "can only be damaged once per second." At least then you'd see more people involved in direct conflict with opposing players, because they would have a chance to achieve something other than just be a bag that didn't even make the boonblob flinch. And if you add mechanics that required holding multiple objectives before being able to move to higher-value ones, this would encourage fights everywhere. As an example for EBG. If your keep is in hands of enemy, the siegemaster starts an event at spawn. This helps you retake the keep. This, in turns, generates similar assistant NPC force to retake inner towers. The towers then generate assisting force for taking, and holding, of the two camps. Once that's accomplished, each side sends assisting force toward outer towers. All in turn contribute toward attack on SMC itself. Put some AoE automated long-range weapons into towers and keeps. So that holding those locations provides assistance during assaults on "linked" locations (keep-inner towers-camps-outer towers-SMC/outer towers enemy side), targetting and damaging defensive siege weapon emplacements. So that even if your server is during its off-time, you can still attempt to engage with opposing players with some posibility of success. The more you spread out importance of holding locations, the smaller the defensive presence in each. You don't like "long siege?" For me, that's the whole point of the game. As I wrote the first time, if all you want is PvP fights, ask Anet to make an open area map just for that, and let me play the objective-based team game mode I enjoy in turn.

Hell, it's not even that. The fact of the matter is that, until something major is being done to address population inbalance (and the way people game that with alt accounts), there will always be at least one team that's severely understrength for the intended matchup. From my experience, it's frequently two servers with the dominant one having tanked on purpose just to farm easier. So the logical choice would be to give what few remaining players still are around to bang their head against overwhelming enemies some tools to at least get a feeling of achieving something, or see the population drain till you're only left with unopposed servers having full map dominance. Dunno, maybe that's the end goal. It sure as hell isn't what I'd consider "fun" even being on the curbstomping server. I've been on that side of things when ours was, years ago. Things were so boring I left altogether for over two years.

What good faith? You started with expectation that objective-based gameplay gets in the way of whatever you want to do, what discussion is there left to have? You don't like sieges in a game mode based all around sieges. The average forum poster does not represent the average player. Never mind that gameplay balance should not be based around wants of the most vocal minority. My whole point was that most objectives, including camps, should not flip every time they are off timer just because someone has a few more people in their group, never mind a competent solo roamer came around. The flips should result from organized gameplay that requires teamwork to overcome defensive fortifications, not just five catas and a boonblob. So that you need to place siege to create multiple breach points, to avoid defenders holding a chokepoint. Something that should be happening, but gets rolled over by even mild numerical advantage right now. And, yes, the attackers would need to bring larger numbers. That's my whole issue with how things are right now. Things are way too easy to flip around as soon as RI wears off. Even by single roamers, never mind 2-3 people doing havoc caps while enemy boonblob is otherwise occupied. If this was my game, I'd tie flips to some NPC-based mechanic (like the siegemaster event that pops up when someone gets completely spawn-locked). So you'd need to hold camps to flip towers to flip keeps and SMC. Make the objectives matter, not be just source of PPT. Instead, the new reward scheme goes even further, by actively penalizing competent defense. Or maybe they do that because most people, if given a choice, will take the easy "win" even before in-game rewards come into play. Why do you think Maguuma got so stacked over the years? And yes, the whole "gameplay" currently revolves around who gets to run around with the larger group. Target caps encourage this. Anets love of boonspam doesn't help, either. Hell, last time we went against Mag their entire guild groups would just log off as soon as they faced similar numbers, so please do tell me again how "so-called" it is.

Sounds like you just want WvW to be all about PPT/ktrains that log off as soon as they lose their number advantage, and the occasional roamer ganking some poor PvE scrub trying to daily. No, thanks. So I do wonder what exactly is the point of the kind of objective-based game mode that WvW is to you, all things considered. Also, doubt you're in position to speak about the preferences of general player population, much less whether those are desirable from gameplay and balance perspective. Then again, until Anet decides to finally solve the population disparity problem, everything else is pointless anyway. And, considering they keep linking Mag with other high-population servers anyway, that doesn't seem like much of a priority to them, either. I suppose at least I learned who the changes Anet makes are directed at. Personally, I don't like uneven fights, and will always advocate to give the underdog some manner of advantage to keep their players active. Otherwise, your player population will drain until the dominant servers find empty maps only, exactly as is happening, justifiably so, to Maguuma now.

Then maybe they should be made more enjoyable? Maybe more people should have to use their own deployable siege weapons, or ensure proper defense of the deployed ones from enemy counter-attacks? How many times you've seen siege weapon duels lately? Because, in my experience, near all of the time it's one dominant team setting up a four or five catapults, ignoring any AC or counter-catapult fire coming at them, and breaching under a minute. I could count on a blind carpenter hand's fingers the amount of times I've seen open-field trebs set up to address enemy defenses. Hell, if you think siege in general is boring, why not ask Anet to make an open field map just for people like you so you don't have to worry about pesky siege gameplay in the first place? Considering the presence of fortifications in WvW since its begining, that'd clearly be a better choice for you. Personally, I'd rather see expansion of tools to work with in the supposedly intended objective-based gameplay, not turn it into Benny Hill-montage-like constant string of flips one way or another. Then we both would get our entertainment, because I don't see much fun in "who has the larger boonblob wins" "fights." Which already happens once in a blue moon, anyway, because population balancing, the thing that should be the first and only thing on Anet's list of things to immediately address, is completely screwed up. Making it even more difficult for less-populous servers to hold any kind of objectives doesn't sound like a "solution" to me. But hey, the new weekly rewards were so well thought out that they force teams to hand over keeps and SMC from time to time anyway, so all's well, right? /s

I don't know if somehow I landed outside Anet's intended "target audience" or something, but over the years the changes are all going in the wrong direction from where I stand. Fights should not be all about who brings the larger boonblob. The increased amount of boon sources, without similar increase of available boonstrips (also, incidentally, turning a lot of builds/professions unsuitable to roaming), introduction of target caps, and basically all the changes that went into letting boonblobs facetank any damage thrown at them (as long as they have enough support) ends up simply increasing the advantages of higher population teams against their opponents. The fact that apparently defensive positions now should be destroyed faster, and easier, is just a mind-boggling choice. Even towers should be difficult enough to take (something that should absolutely not be possible with 2-3 people, much less solo), and keeps/SMC should require hours of actual active participation against any kind of defensive presence. Instead of stopping map-wipes so common with time-zone-specific advantage of one server or another (unless it's MAG, which will inevitably get paired up with another high population server, because ANET wouldn't have it any other way /s), they decided to make it even easier? If bag-farming guilds have such an issue with OBJECTIVE-BASED gameplay, give them an open map to challenge other guilds on as a separate game mode. The whole sodding point of WvW, at least to me, is gameplay based around sieges and defense of fortifications, not running around the field looking for PUG groups to bag. The whole mode has been steadily getting less and less entertaining, and instead of making it fun, Anet apparently wants to cater to... whatever crowd their changes are intended to get excited about them. Revert the damage nerf to deployable siege weapons. Increase durability of all supervisors/lords so that there's ample time for the owner team to react and defend. Make teamwork matter more than just boon-blobbing. Remove bloody target caps. Address the complete lack of boonstrips in multiple professions' skill lineups, if not rework boons to be less omnipresent. Make player actions - and teamwork - matter, and be enjoyable, not just a string of constant PPT flips, because it's near impossible nowadays to get a decently matched group fights anyway. All I'm seeing is just changes making it easier for dominating servers to dominate harder, at the expense of everyone else. Then again, shouldn't be much of a surprise by now.

Maguuma should've been used to prop up low-population servers so they can get some genuine WvW fun every now and then, not be constantly linked with servers that result in such "fun" and "competitive" results: https://tinypic.host/i/totally-balanced.b33wQ https://tinypic.host/i/totally-balanced2.b35BA Oh well, at least there's the new Dwarf Fortress UI to figure out instead. Good job, Anet. Make sure you keep them open for transfers till at least the end of this link, that is sure to milk all the server hopper gem purchases. Not like the state of WvW matters from a player's perspective, I'm sure the Alliances will fix it Soon™ /s

I'm usually comfortably under-100 when it comes to ping (I'm in the US, characters created on the JQ server), but today the ping is 2000-3000 - in Lion's Arch instance only, as far as I've noticed so far. All the other zones I've been too (PvE and WvW) are working fine, it's just Lion's Arch. Trying to log into the game with a character left in that zone often results in "client lost connection" or whatever the message is after a really long loading screen period (oddly enough, I can often hear the ambient NPCs talking through the "Loading" screen!). When I can finally log in, it takes literal minutes for a WP click to work - assuming the game doesn't lag out and/or crash in the meantime. Is anybody else similarly affected?

~~According to cheevo tracking, I have successfully completed 9 "rift closings" I just did my three-in-a-day on a character trying to figure out "Helpful Hero" achievement (return lost items). According to all information I could find, the items to be returned are supposed to be added to the collection automatically on successfully exiting the collapsing rift. This hasn't happened even once to me. Talking to the NPCs spawned near the return point doesn't do anything (though I'm not surprised since my 'cheevo collection is empty). Is there some specific pre-condition that unlocks the collection (and therefore access to the collection item spawning), or is this simply bugged?~~ Edit: Apparently what almost nobody seems to mention is that you need to go to a specific location while the rift is collapsing and escape using alternative portal. Hah. Well, that would explain my issues - please feel free to delete this thread :)

Unblockable still can be countered by any source of healing, gearing up, dodge, evade, or whatnot. Stealth pop? You'd better catch that thief with a CC before it happens, and have enough of those to counter stun breaks. Doesn't exactly feel like an appropriate comparison, and neither does the example of mud slide (damage isn't that high, and you can counter the CC with stability), but it might be just now frustrating I find playing against a competent stealth user. Especially one that has access to an ability that overrides supposed designated counter to it, Dagger Storm being "better" or not.

If anything, WvW should first provide mounts for all players. As somebody who only recently came back to GW2, and had no mount until recent xpac sale, I can guarantee you that having a mount is already a huge advantage over people who do not have. Not just enemies, but teammates as well - I could generally barely keep up with the zerg without a mount, and I ran sword/warhorn warrior with savage leap AND pretty decent swiftness uptime. Running to an objective after a zerg only to see it flip right before you get there (much less get any "lord" xp/loot) is no fun, I can tell you that. I like the changes. It's easier to dismount a rider now (though, imo, it still takes too much damn damage to do so), killed players don't just magically reappear in a distant fight a few seconds later, but I feel that there's a huge oversight in mount implementation. Why the dickens do mounts ignore immobilize/cripple/stun/confusion/anything else? Having a few "pull" abilities do something is hardly enough when you can mount-trolo right into somebody, tank their opening damage with the mount with impunity, and decide whether to engage then (when they already may have used their initial damage burst), or trololo away. The lance throw being one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) WvW skill is also idiotic extension of this whole "pay to win" mount implementation.

I don't really see why it would hard-counter. Anybody running a specialized "traps" build will have access to far more of those skills that any "healer" can deal with, much less if the fields require specific interaction. The game already has supporting code for handling it (since it detects field presence on players), just add a check for field type and remove/ignore as necessary. Conquest games require presence on capture points. Anything that prevents it should have a counter, and currently I don't really see any to a trap play. Yes, some specs can do condi conversion (and I actually have two of those that I used to great success), but that's a trade-off in other areas. Double cookie points if Anet also added elemental fields interaction, so even if you don't have a "heal/cleanse" ability, casting a fire field over that water AoE enemy just used to heal their team disables it. Dunno, though it would be a nice addition to existing mechanics.

My personal pet peeve is that Deadeye gets very-low-cooldown Shadow Meld that also happens to eliminate the designated hard-counter to stealthing in terms of Revealed. What's the point of using anything that puts Marked on a class that can freely ignore it with over half a cooldown advantage over any ways of applying it? At least core Thief can be prevented from doing hit and runs with it, even if they are incredibly annoying (for me, next to untouchable) when used well in that regard. Especially if you're running a melee class.

Just had a rather unfun PvP match that was lost due to simple mechanic - condi pulse fields locking out points. There's really no counter to several enemies trapping a field, and the other team really just needed two of them to hold, with occasional help from others when we tried to pile up on a single node. Whether necro wells or DH traps (and we encountered both), your choice is to either walk in and eat it (basically, weaken yourself before the fight even starts), or wait for these things to expire and lose points. Not sure what other option is there, especially when if you try to engage somebody camping a trapped point, they'll just back into the protective area of their trap anyway, and there are only so many condiclears you can pull at once. Anyway, why don't things like guardian symbols that clear condis from allies interact to negate such traps if cast over them? Or, more appropriately, why not make it so whenever a pulse field intersects one that has opposing effect, either both are negated, or the later-cast one overrides the previous? At least there'd be some more interaction between profession abilities in that regard, not just fire-and-forget-because-enemies-either-eat-it-or-wait silliness. For that matter, this isn't even something solely pertinent to PvP games, as anybody trying to get through a defended corridor in WvW can attest to. Would be nice to have some way to counter trap fields of whatever origin.

Current state of EBG. Red - BG, Blue HoD, Green JQ: This is not isolated example of just how bad the state of WvW is right now.

Now sure how you see that as a solution (aside from gold trading being something Anet disapproves of last I heard). It does nothing to address the problem. It's not a case of "you feel that you need" - there are highly placed ranked players that likewise point out balance issues with expansion specializations vastly outperforming cores. I should not be forced into a situation where my initial investment, that also included sPvP as part of the experience, requires now additional purchase just to avoid frustrating power imbalance. Again, this is not something that is coming just from "lel, l2p noob" people, and other threads on these boards confirm it. Even if you want to hand-wave my personal experience and conclusions based on playing with, presumably, other people of similar enough skill level. This is not a case of core builds being misused or unpopular because xpac specs are newer, but because they are simply better at what they do. Which is why they are the "meta" in the first place.

Perhaps because it's pretty disingenuous to pretend like expansion specializations don't offer much more than core classes? Like "meta" or not, the reason these (all xpac last I checked) builds exist is because they perform much better than alternatives. It's easy to say "try to find a way around it" when you're facing something that can do more things, better, and easier. Which is pretty much how a lot of the major offenders behave. Not to mention that it's far more difficult to figure out the weakness of something you can't get your hands on to test.

Low expectations. Allow me to elaborate - I just recently came back to GW2 after about 7 or 8 years of a break. I loved WvW even back when there were no rewards for it, but time and other interest made me put the game aside. I paid full price for the base game. I can't afford the expansions right now, which basically means WvW is a lot of running around far behind the "zerg" getting picked off by the usual mounted enemy players. The fact that in WvW gear imbalance (when I left, exotics were highly sought-after, and a precursor weapon already got you in the top-tier performance bracket, heh) compounds class imbalance between xpacs and core game didn't really make me want to hang around much, despite really liking, conceptually, that game mode. This made me check out sPvP. The first tens of matches were a very interesting learning experience, but the longer I play, the more the power imbalance between core builds and expansion specializations becomes clear. Sure, maybe top players can take something core and still win against others, but what I see from the effects of the xpac specs is that they massively lower the skill level necessary to get extremely good results. Hell, I just had a match where my DPS warrior was getting out-healed by SB's pet after I managed to drop the owner. I had matches where my DPS thief was doing 300 damage to enemy SB while I was getting critted for 3000 by each barrage hit. Then you have the nigh-invulnerable FBs running around, Daredevils trololoing through entire groups with near constant evade, Weavers, and bears, oh my. I don't have great hopes for any incoming changes, because I strongly suspect they will have an even greater impact on core builds than they do on the "meta" xpac ones. I saw somebody on this forum throw a very interesting suggestion - give core professions also a "specialization" line - whether by turning one of the already existing ones into "core-only," or a brand new. Make them not just a poor man's choice for (at my skill level) mostly feeding, but actually capable of going against the "meta" xpac builds. Again, I'm not a "free-to-play" account. But if having expansions is required to have a non-frustrating experience in PvP, especially at lower skill level, you won't be getting too many players to sustain the usual attrition of player base.