Zok.4956

Nothing is off the table. Not even rangers off the wall. 😉

At least it's not an angry rock CCing you (in trib mode).

There is already a discussion about EWPs. You might want to check out the following thread. There are some innovative ideas that Anet may also implement.

You shouldn't balance for just that. Just like you shouldn't balance exclusively for your "boonball blob is defending". You should try to balance for both scenarios, and if that's not possible, then for scenarios that actually occur most often in the current game. In such a way that both attackers and defenders have fun by balancing to a certain extent based on different numbers of attackers/defenders.

I don't think it has anything to do with a lack of imagination. But rather what the current reality is for many players in GW2. It seems to me that by "meaningful discussion" you mean to theorize without looking at the realities in the game. If a full Zerg actually hides in a structure waiting to be attacked and then defending it, that is a very rare exception (in my experience), but not the usual. And this passive Zerg cannot then be somewhere else. It is also the exception (in my experience now) that there are even fights when attacking/defending structures and the better one wins. In my experience, what happens most often is that a Zerg attacks when there are only a few defenders (and they can't simply become more because there aren't enough players at the time).

Thank you, yes, that is an important point. Anet is all about increasing interaction between players and that's why it would be bad if some players (even on other maps - these cowards) could hide from this interaction.

It depends, I guess. If the car has a color that you really like and that no one else can do, you might want the next car with that color, even if it isn't great in many other ways. I still remember how many GW1 players hated GW2 because it was completely different. One can assume that GW3 is very different from GW2. Maybe it won't be an MMO at all.

A distant friend (as a participant you shouldn't write about the closed beta) tried out the beta of Throne and Liberty (formerly called Lineage Eternal) a few days ago. While the mass battles surrounding sieges and world bosses are some of the most fun content in the game, the chaotic zergy nature of these brawls can get boring after a while and is at an even lower level than in GW2.

Good thinking. Anet could make it so that when an attack occurs, the attackers activate the WP and then only 70 players (attackers and defenders) can use the WP and then not only the WP is closed, but also all gates (for all teams!). So, first the 50 attackers could use the WP and then only a maximum of 20 defenders can come in. 50 against 20 seems to be a fair fight for the attackers and shouldn't last too long.

I agree. I don't know how that could be done. There is currently no global event like the Covid pandemic that has resulted in many people being at home and therefore playing a lot more in general, from which GW2 (and EoD sales) was able to benefit significantly. SotO probably brought many players into the game with the new legendary open world armor. But you can't repeat something like that at will. However, I feel like with some changes in the game, GW2 takes things from other games and becomes more and more like them. Possibly to get more players switching from those games to GW2. Of course with the risk that players who play GW2 (because GW2 is not like those other games) will no longer play. I believe that is the current strategy. Anet no longer dares to experiment with new things or innovations, but simply tries to continue what seems to be successful with more and more content bites and regular small expansions. In order to keep sales at the current level for as long as possible. I agree. NCSoft has already spoken about GW3 when asked by analysts. However, it is not really clear whether Anet is already developing GW3 or whether there are just thoughts about it. Because it is not clear whether an internal piece of information slipped out from NCSoft, or whether something was said incorrectly, or whether there was a translation error or something similar There are people who think that far too little content is produced for the number of employees that Anet has. So Anet inevitably has to work on other things. I'm not sure about that. Anet is working on two mini-expansions at the same time.

Just adding links to previous quarters for completeness:

Good idea. Put waypoints in all structures that all teams can use. This will be in line with Anets changes that "make fighting for—and in—objectives feel better for attacking groups" and "we also want to encourage player interaction so that large portions of attacks against structures don't feel like a slog with little payoff. " Because if a zerg has to wait 3-4 minutes to open a wall or gate, or if a zerg has to run through half a map before they can attack a structure, it will certainly feel like a slog with little payoff. There are no brakes on the hype karma-train. Choo-Choo.

Anet once mentioned that they are thinking about allowing server transfers again in WR after the team/server reassignments. Or they simply allow server/team transfers (as before). And then entire guilds change a server/team again. At the very beginning, Anet didn't want to allow server/team transfers for GEMs at WR/alliances. It sounds slightly different now.

Well, the point here is not to philosophize about any theoretical games situations, but rather what effects the changes have on the actual game play. And that's why many (rightly IMO) will talk about the unequal number of players when making changes like this.

Yes, my thought goes in that direction. However, it should of course be kept within limits and a single defender should not be so strong that he can take on a 50 zerg. This is just a basic idea, not a fully developed concept. BTW: I also think that you should have a certain minimum number of players to conquer a keep in enemy map territory and it shouldn't be possible to conquer an empty keep in enemy map territory with just two people.

One further amendment: Yes, I have read the patch notes and know what they say and what they intend to do with it. But I think they're doing it wrong, or probably just trying to make it easier for some zergs to ktrain. If it's really about good, epic battles in and around structures, then the defenders and defense should actually be made stronger, rather than weaker if the attackers have many more players than the defenders. Here's the reason: I once conquered an enemy home keep with another random player. OK, there was only one defender and he wasn't particularly good. But doing something like that shouldn't have been possible with only two people. It was kind of funny, but far from epic. A keep should be difficult to conquer. For me, epic, good fights are when you fight against opponents of roughly equal strength. So if a 50 zerg wants to conquer a keep, but there are only 20-30 defenders, the 20-30 defenders should be reinforced so that the 20-30 defenders can give the 50 attacking a good, epic fight (if attackers and defenders are at the same skill level). But if at some point there are 50 defenders, the defenders should be weakened to such an extent that the 50 attackers and the 50 defenders are equally strong and can also put up an epic, good fight (if attackers and defenders have the same skill levels). Of course, I know that this sounds simpler than it is technically and can also be problematic. But that would be a better solution if it were really about good, epic fights. Because those will only happen if the attackers and defenders believe they can win the fight and it neither seems hopeless nor is too easy.

I have participated in many great fights in the past in and around structures where defenders and attackers were comparable. Regardless of whether my group/team won or lost, or attacked or defended, the fights themselves were great. And some were quite long. Unfortunately, such fights are now the exception. What I see more and more are avoidance strategies in which the few defenders don't even defend because they have no chance against the superior forces of the opposing zerg anyway. They flip back empty structures and try to avoid the enemy zerg. I don't enjoy that kind of thing. The easier it becomes to conquer and the weaker and less fun it becomes to defend, the fewer players will even care about defending and instead of great fights there will only be empty paper structures. Like the old k-trains in EotM. Conquering and fighting should be fun. But defending should also be fun. If no one wants to defend anymore, there are no fights for objectives. Please don't quote me in a misleading way. When supposedly equally strong groups want to compete to see who is better, they naturally do so outside of aura-buf zones. This will not change even if the aura buffs are weakened, as long as they are not completely removed.

So it's a prequel to the sequel.

So 50 people are having a bad time because they can't steamroll 20 people? But the 20 people should be happy if they were run over by the 50 zerg? If 20 defenders can successfully defend against a 50 zerg, then the 50 zerg is so bad that it rightly shouldn't conquer the structure. If the players are fairly equally skilled, the 20 defenders can only slow down the 50 zerg until their own reinforcements arrive. And if there are no reinforcements, the structure is lost. This was already the case before the update. When equal/large groups wish to fight each other consentually, they usually do so either in an open field or in enemy third team structures. Then none of the two groups have these aura buffs. This works quite well if both groups want it. WvW used to have many different variants of gameplay in which players could (more or less) play whatever they found most fun to the advantage of their own server/team. If Anet now just wants to reduce this to (more or less) zerg fights where players are (more or less) forced to fight, then a simple solution would be to completely remove all aura buffs, gates and walls. But this probably won't lead to better fights, just that the players on a server with significantly fewer players will have even less desire to get steamrolled and then wait at the spawn or log out again immediately. Then WvW would have completely become EotM.

The answer is: Anet could, but doesn't want to. Because Anet doesn't care. Years ago there were regular ban waves in GW2 because Anet subsequently recognized unauthorized hacks based on the game data. At some point it apparently stopped. And sPvP is a dead mode that Anet is no longer interested in anyway.

It's possible if the email was from someone who was involved in RMT (real money trading) and if you don't return the email to sender. They maybe sold it for real money or for gold (to not pay the TP tax) to someone and then sent it to the wrong account.

I don't think it was a mistake to put mounts in the game. The real mistake (the original cardinal sin, if you will) was that mastery progressions were not limited to the actual "mastery maps" (HoT masteries and gliding only work in HoT maps, PoF masteries/mounts only work in PoF maps etc.) as was originally planned for this type of horizontal progression. Because gliding was such a huge success when HoT was released, but it only worked in HoT maps (not in Core Tyria), there were a lot of players (including me) who begged Anet to also be able to glide in Core Tyria maps. In hindsight I think that may have been a mistake. The mounts were also initially just a metroidvania-like way of map exploration. They all had very specialized tasks for specific parts of the PoF maps. But (after the positive experience with gliding) they could be used anywhere in the open world right from the start. And then at some point Skyscale came along and changed the game even more than any mount before it. I love using the Skyscale, but looking back I have to say that all the points that critics made in the distant past against the introduction of mounts in GW2 apply to the Skyscale. If Anet had managed to limit the horizontal progression of an expansion to just the maps and content of that expansion, we would probably have a better game today. Unfortunately, we now have to say that the mastery system of horizontal progression has reached its limits one step further with each expansion. And to me it no longer gives the impression that Anet has the will and creative power to improve the mastery system or replace it with something better. All expansions after HoT use the mastery system but have not improved it. And because there seems to be no further mount-progression after Skyscale (turtle is niche), it was re-released as an essential mount by SotO (BTW: It's completely OK that there is now a second way for new players to get the mount, good for them). The two biggest new features or selling points (for many players) of SotO are the Skyscale and the open-world legendary armor. However, neither can be used again for the next expansion, which will come this year. So what could it be instead?

I respect your statement/opinion that you didn't have fun with it. I don't want to dispute that, but I have a different experience/opinion. I also played when HoT was released and I had a lot of fun. BTW: When I was killed by the small and mean mini-raptors right at the beginning of Verdank Brink, I had to laugh out loud and felt like I was in Jurrassic Park. 😉 What you are describing is the Metroidvania-like progression and map exploration system of the HoT maps: The player must first find the right path, complete a difficult path or a task in order to get to a certain place. He has to interact with the content. And once he's done that, a shortcut opens up, a much easier and faster way (mushrooms, gliding, poison, etc.) through the map. Not everyone likes that, but I had a lot of fun with it when HoT was released. I still find this type of progression system much better than simply increasing the max level with each expansion (as is common in other games). HoT has become easier these days with various updates. And especially thanks to the Skyscale, a kind of universal shortcut for map travel, various of the Metroidvania-like game mechanics of the HoT maps can be ignored if players want that. I don't want to tell anyone how to play the game. Nevertheless, I think it's a shame because many parts of the content of the HoT maps have become obsolete and the content has been devalued because of Skyscale. And one more thing: It was once a core design philosophy of GW2 that players spontaneously work together in the open world to complete various tasks (ad hoc cooperation). HoT has implemented this very well with the theme of a hostile jungle in which you are stranded and in which you look for others and can only complete some tasks and survive together. You couldn't just roll through the undergrowth like in Core Tyria, you had to think carefully about your path and sometimes get other players to help you. And at the release of HoT, other players were always there to help if you asked on the map. However, if you didn't like this type of ad-hoc cooperation, you probably had a very difficult time in the HoT maps. Compared to Core Tyria, when HoT was released, it was probably too big a jump for many players who were not prepared for it. Anet should have built a ramp and introduced players to it better. I was and still am (just a little older) also a casual. I haven't forgotten what it was like. Even when I see mini-raptors today, and even though they are no longer really dangerous to me because of the power creep, I hate and love them at the same time. 😉

Thats the "overflow" system that is already in EotM. In regular WvW (not EotM) there is exactly one instance. Sure, on some servers/teams there are queues. But if you then start a new instance even though the opponents are still outnumbered, that would only increase the population imbalance even further.