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Phantom.8130

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  1. No, look. Unless they're able to queue up all 4 maps, pugs can still enter WvW as part of the server. The meta zergs on server discord may exclude pugs and be a turn off to pugs, but it's not stopping them from from entering WvW. Full guild alliances will. It'll take the problem that current exists, and accelerate it dramatically. What will happen is there'll be an initial bump in activity, then a snowballing dropoff into an avalanche.
  2. No, I'm really not. Pugs have always been around, sometimes in abundance. While there's less now than there were a few years ago, that's in line with the overall player attrition. There isn't currently a system that actively cuts that flow off. Guild based alliances will.
  3. There's one point that hasn't been brought up. Player attrition. Players come, players go, that's the way of all MMOs. However, if Alliances are based around guilds, pugs are left out in the cold. If there's limited spots, pugs will get excluded, and even forced out if necessary to ensure a guild can get their numbers in. We already see this happen on the maps dating back to launch. Some may not see a problem with this. However, who do guilds recruit? Pugs. No pugs, no recruitment. No new guild members. Then you factor in normal MMO player attrition, so over time guilds start to shrink as a result. Pugs have been forced out, they're not coming back. So, guilds will have to cannibalize each other to stay afloat..... for a while. But player attrition will inevitably whittle that away as well. Now you're left with one tier, no pugs for recruitment, and guilds rotting to death. What do you do?
  4. And as each of those changes were implemented, the population shrunk. Anet making changes to cater to people who don't think beyond their own immediate wants, and don't see the big picture, and don't care how it will affect the game mode has proven to be disastrous for WvW as a whole. If they actually want WvW to be a cornerstone, then they have to prioritize its long term well being first and foremost. As it stands, they backed the wrong horses, which turned the game mode into a joke, and drove most of the players out of it. They need to reverse course, and try to get those players back. Do I think that'll happen, though? Absolutely not. I think we're about to enter into the final stages of WvW's lifecycle. Anet has always mortgaged the future of WvW for small, short term boosts, and I see nothing that says they've learned their lesson.
  5. I remember being in 2 hour battles over keeps way back around launch, and it was much more fun than the 12 minute keep flips we have today. Counting down the waypoint timers, porting people into the garrison from the citadel, emergency supply runs, a real sense of urgency. There was emotional investment into holding that keep, and battles just felt way more important. Now, a blob shows up at the gate with 20 golems, get tickled by some AC fire, and just steamroll their way right into the lord's room. If there's too many, the sentiment is to just let them have it and backcap it when they leave. Rather than "they'll have to pry this area from our cold dead hands" now it's "meh, what's the point?" and that has an affect on everything else in WvW. Now, concerning PPT, an offensive push would be about taking a tower, and then using that to push the keep, focusing on one third, rather than going in and just papering a whole borderland. Towers should still flip, but they should require effort and some time, rather than just being glorified camps. You can drop 5 rams and punch through a gate before defenders can even get there, and it's even faster when golems are added into the mix. But if the attackers have to treb down a wall, now there's time for an actual fight to take place. Even if it's a 75/25 outcome in favor of the defenders, the towers will still flip fairly often, but there'll be ton of action involved with it rather than just blobbing down empty structures. Now, if we go with the lattice type design, even night capping becomes less of an issue, because the few defenders that are actually around can consolidate into a fewer areas, and focus on what's being attacked, mounting an actual defense. Rather than losing a bunch of 25 v 2 fights, as the map is quickly whittled away. Furthermore, smart map design makes it easier for defenders to hold their corners, but it gets harder to hold outside of your corner. And if you do happen to lose your corner, Siegerazer can be used to reclaim your keep and then you can work on trebbing your tower(s) back from there.
  6. In part, yeah, though that's what the towers should be for. To act as far exterior gateways to the keeps. Though, it also needs to be easy for defenders to get to where they need to be quickly, rather than needing to play catch up to the attacking group that has the advantage of mobility and choice. If each map was designed specifically for each server to hold a third, like how EB is, so that people stop trying to hold their whole borderland map, then there should be a whole lot of fighting over camps and towers, but less overall dramatic shifts in PPT. And if the thirds are designed Spawn>Keep>Tower, moving towards the center of the map, each server should have an easier time holding their keeps, while most of what's getting flipped are the towers, while creating lines of defense moving backwards. Let's say each server holds their third, and they have their third fully upgraded, with waypoints in the keeps. If they have to capture the towers to get to the keeps, then the defenders don't have to worry too much about the keeps, and instead just focus on the towers, which would also put more of the action in the middle of the map.
  7. Here's a loose sketch I came up with, using the same number of objectives as the current borderland maps, that actually puts the areas in logical positions: https://ibb.co/8x6HZM6 Though, I do like the idea of adding an additional tower to each corner in the south, just as long as they adhere to the triangle layout of the towers and keep in the north on that picture. Though, to be honest, we could probably do with LESS objectives on the map, so that defenders aren't so spread out, and can actually mount meaningful defenses. The should already be in/around the areas ready to defend, rather than being spread far too thin, then trying to rush in to defend after the wall is down and hoping the first few in can contest the ring long enough for the rest to get there. One other thing I'd like to touch on is that the game SHOULD be focused on PPT, but in order to get that PPT you should have to fight the enemy players at the objectives. No PvDooring empty areas, no fights in the middle of nowhere. "Fight at the nodes, not in between" is a staple of PvP in every other game, but for some reason that gets tossed out the window in WvW, and "open field fights" get glorified, because of a cascading number of issues. Bad map design being one of them. It should be a siege game. Set up trebs in a tower, use open field catas/rams to speed the process along, treb another tower/keep, take down the wall, push in and fight the other players in there, capture the area. While defenders set up defensive siege and use everyone else to fight the attackers under said siege, wipe them and counter attack. Long, slow sieges result in epic battles. Quick flips result in the areas being cheap, and people not caring about them.
  8. 1 - The Layout of the borderlands maps. Keeps should be in the backlines. Towers should be in the frontlines, covering the pathways. That's their whole purpose. The borderlands layout is horrendous in this regard. This removes the strategic importance of the towers, and relegates them to only being semi secure treb sports. I was hoping this would have been fixed with the HoT Map, but.... it was only made even worse as the towers can't even treb the keeps from their position, making them utterly useless wastes of space. 2 - The numerous bugs and exploits that have been reported by hundreds of people since launch that have gone completely ignored. 3 - One Blob to Rule them All. Zergs in and of themselves are good things. However, once they reach critical mass it becomes ridiculous. Use proximity based checks, if there's more than 25 people in a zerg, -2% movement speed to all of them for each person above 25 up to a max -70%. Why? Because large groups move slowly, and if you have 60+ people following your tag, you're well into blob territory where you can just PvDoor down a map without needing to drop rams and there's nothing the defenders can do about other than counterblobbing, which is bad gameplay and bad game design. 3 - Bad meta. Condition damage and boons aren't so bad in small scale, but but in larger scale they become major problems. They need reigned in, severely. 4 - Siege needs reworked. The general concept of it is good, but it doesn't seem like it ever got past that stage. It's directionless. Catas and trebs should offensive, and should primarily damage structures. Arrow carts and ballistas should be defensive. AC's should do heavy damage to players, but little damage to siege. Ballistas should do heavy damage to siege and little damage to players. However, before you can fix that, you have to fix the bigger problem below 5 - Walls are useless. Walls should not be deathtraps, period. They should not favor the attacker, period. They should give an advantage to the defender, period. Attackers just AoE the top of walls, killing any defensive siege, and any players who happen to be on them. Furthermore, the walls actually PREVENT defenders from attacking down off of them, completely contrary to their entire purpose. If you don't fix this, then the entire concept of the game mode as a siege based capture and defense game is completely ruined. 6 - Bandwagon hoppers, server stackers, and mercenary guilds Any attempts to balance the population are thwarted by people being able to just pile onto one server (and soon, onto one alliance) 7 - 24 hour coverage. Offpeak players shouldn't have so much of a disproportional effect as they do. While the tick based scoring system's helped a bit, there are other issues it hasn't fixed. Which server has the advantage, the one coming into NA prime time with t3 keeps and towers, or the one that had everything kept as paper for the past 18 hours? All due to off peak coverage. 8 - For rewards, you should get currency based on where your server placed in that week's matchup. 2 for first, 1 for second, and 0 for third. This currency can be traded in to a vendor to buy unique skins, ascended gear and materials, unique mounts, and other things you can show off that say 'Look, I won." Let people take pride in their success.
  9. Defensive siege right now is nearly useless against even a semi-competent pug group. The arrow carts just tickle now, and groups just outheal the damage without even bothering to get out of the way. Cannons aren't much better. If you're dying to them, that's a very severe L2P issue. If a group is turtled inside a structure, crack it open with catas or trebs, then kill them. If they have a counter treb/mortar, kill that first. If they have shield generators, kill those first. This is extremely basic stuff. At this point in the game's life, there's zero excuse for not knowing this, and it's just pathetic to come to the forums and ask for something that's been nerfed into the ground to get nerfed even harder because you can't figure out the very basics of WvW.
  10. I've been pulled into the inner gate at Hills Keep on the borderlands. Not through the gate, not up against the gate, not through the portal. Through the terrain, and stuck inside the gate itself. I was trying to jump and run in all direction with no luck. Clearly, what happened to me was a bug with the map itself, and not with any skills in particular. I've also seen attackers get pulled through the gate from the outside to the inside. There's even an old video of that happening to one of the WvW devs.
  11. Sounds like the old school d/d gank build, and that's literally all it's good for. A single quick burst, and then retreating. Great against unsuspecting solo roamers, but once you know how they operate and what to look out for they're easy enough to counter. They tend to avoid dealing with groups, because any competent group is too dangerous. They're also the cause of an ocean of tears on the forums going all the way back to launch, due to bad players not know how to deal with them, not wanting to learn how to deal with them, and simply going to the forum to screech for nerfs. They're ok in a roaming group, but not the best option. They're too squishy to be anything other than a rallybot in larger groups, and are pretty much only good for killing yaks and squishy solo roamers who aren't paying attention to their surroundings.
  12. As I just mentioned in another thread, I run a S/P daredevil build with mostly sentinel's gear. It doesn't do much damage, but it's extremely tanky and it's all about interrupts and disrupting enemy zergs. That gives it a unique function that doesn't really translate well when theorycrafting or number crunching. What it would really benefit from is more stability and better boonsharing. Rather than adding a new specialization trait line, however, they should focus on just improving the core pieces as specializations are already helpful but it's the core pieces where it's mostly lacking. Some examples would be to buff the portal to bring it more in line with the mesmer portal, adding stability and sharing to Bountiful Theft, all 3 tiers of the acrobatics tree could be improved dramatically, aside from Bandit's Defense the rest of the physical skills could be improved, aside from the portal the rest of the preparation skills could be improved, and giving Infiltrator's Strike 1 stack of shared stability instead of swiftness.
  13. I know I'm several months late to the thread, but I also run S/P, though with mostly sentinel gear. While, yeah, I hit like a wet noodle, that isn't my purpose in the fight. I'll give you an example from earlier today. We were in the fight in the lord's room in fire keep. I popped into their backlines and disrupted their refresh with pistol whip, they wasted their bomb trying to kill me while I dashed back to my group, who then just ran them over. It should be noted that I wasn't with an organized guild group, just some random pugs who responded to the callout. The group we ran over, for the most part was a single guild with a few extras. It's not something that can be seen when just crunching numbers, so most people don't actually understand what a properly built thief can bring to a zerg. Like in sports, it's the intangibles that aren't measured on the stats sheets. I just wish Anet would give us more access to stability and maybe better boonsharing.
  14. The issue back in the day was never really the orbs themselves. Sure, every now and then, someone would flyhack in and grab them, but then that person would get reported by everyone on the map. Hackers weren't the real problem with the orbs. The real problem was that the bigger server would get all three on reset night, and the stat boost would make the entire rest of the week completely pointless. If you were already outnumbered, having to deal with the bigger group having +150 to all their stats only made the situation worse. Now, when people wanted the orbs back, what we wanted was the orb objective, but not the stat bonuses. What we got was the stat bonuses and a knockoff version of sPvP instead of the orb objective, with bloodlust. Which also removed the quaggans, which actually served a pretty handy purpose, if used properly. As for the how orb objective should actually be implemented, we have to look at the actual gameplay itself. Let's be honest, the coolest part about the orbs were actually carrying them and making the mad dash to the altar, with your zerg defending you while the enemy zerg attacks. Like football. That in itself is a great mechanic. Sure, you could have an NPC be the carrier, but... that wouldn't be as fun. So there needs to be a way to ensure that the person carrying the orb is on the ground, rather than even opening up the possibility of them being able to fly in the air. Now, let's take a look at the football dynamic. What's the goal? Take the ball, run it to the goal line. Well, where's the goal line in WvW? Sure, the keeps were a good choice, since they could be defended, but if we distill the orbs down to just the "carry the package from point A to point B" then that opens up a lot of possibilities. They can have the orb spawn in the south camp on the borderlands, and need to be run all the way up to either the north camp or the garrison to "score". Now, it doesn't need to be a constant buff. Now it can be a point bonus, or a short term buff (just for the 5 minute tick counter, for example), or you could even use the stat buffs (but I don't recommend it). Though, the best options will incentivize attacking and defending the objectives, as well as the combat that ensues from it. Say, +10% PPT per orb for a tick, or a supply drop in an area of the scorer's choosing (good for offense or defense), or even bonus damage to or with siege. There's a lot of options that haven't been explored, and each would add a lot to the overall gameplay. EDIT: Forgot to add the anti-flyhacking dynamic. Once the starting point and the goals have been determined, you set up several checkpoints to mark the path that needs to be taken, to make sure that the person is on the ground, rather than flying over it. If the checkpoints are reached too fast, as in faster than would be possible with the best speed buffs, then have a mechanic to immediately report the account for hacking and boot the player out of WvW, returning the orb to where it started.
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