What is Anet's Vision for WvW?

Sviel.7493 · September 10, 2021

In the latest blog post, there's mention of systems being reworked to ensure the WvW experience reflects their vision...but I'm not sure we know what that vision is?

It may have changed recently with the recent new (old?) blood coming in. Here's the last time that I know of that they spoke somewhat directly on their vision for WvW: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

It's a blog post from 2013 by someone who, to my knowledge, no longer works at Anet. There's also ample reason to believe that this is outdated since the vision they lay out doesn't seem to have come to pass.

-It talks about how 'support' roles are not rewarded well and specifically says that players who repair walls are not compensated well for their service...but that hasn't changed?

-Commanders were supposed to get more tools. Squads definitely fit here, so maybe this one is legit.

-Guilds were supposed to be rewarded for taking an active, positive role. I don't think this has happened, but maybe some guild-focused players can comment?

-They wanted dynamic match-ups. I don't know if this has happened, but I do think they've consistently tried to make it happen so this is probably part of the vision.

-They speak of player 'roles,' specifically Commanders, Scouts, Siege Masters and Defenders. They say they want to "introduce more systems that encourage play within a wide variety of roles" and reward players who do those tasks so that they feel properly valued. I don't get any sense of recognized roles in WvW outside of commanders. Rewards have improved drastically since 2013, though.

-On PPT, they say this: "Right now our game rewards you for holding an objective, not necessarily for taking it, and overwhelmingly favors the last server to log out for the day. We have some ideas in the pipeline to try to increase scoring when people are playing the game and to make it much more difficult to keep your territory without actively guarding it." Since then, they've given some points for taking structures but also increased points for holding an objective. Skirmishes were added to reduce the effectiveness of being the last server to log out. In a general sense, I think their updates have made it more difficult to keep territory without actively guarding it, but those updates (like increasing map size) were generally reverted in some way.

-On siege, they say this: "We are going to take a much closer look at all of the siege in the game to bring it in line with where we want it to be. Arrow carts should be deadly for players who get caught beneath their hail of arrows, but there should be a viable way to counter them with other siege — we don’t think that “MOAR arrow carts!” should be the answer to every situation. WvW is a mix of players fighting other players and players fighting against the various weapons of war, so we’ll be introducing balance changes that will give you a reason to use every piece of siege at the proper time." That doesn't sound familiar at all. Trebuchets are still mostly pointless as offensive siege because distance isn't much of an advantage because walls are not scary for attackers. Ballistae are mostly worthless as well. They can technically do damage, but realistically aren't going to accomplish much. ACs are pretty hard to counter with other siege, but technically shield gens can do that...technically. I don't know if they ever took a closer look at siege but this doesn't seem to have been their vision.

-On zergs, they say this: "The zerg is an important part of the game, but it shouldn’t be the best strategy for victory." They further clarify: "

An important distinction should be made between large, organized groups of players making strategic strikes and mindless groups of players running around in a mob. The former are deadly and effective. The latter can be deadly at times but tend to be sorely lacking in strategy. Our goal is to continue to encourage organized large groups while giving small, tactical groups the necessary tools to put a dent into larger mobs of less-skilled players. We think that it can be fun to run around in a zerg — but we also think that the game should be about tactical acumen and skill more than sheer numbers.

In order to achieve that, we will continue to make tweaks to the scoring system to properly reward smart play and to make it possible for a server to prevail over superior numbers with superior tactics. We will also continue to make changes to siege weapons and introduce new siege weaponry to throw the balance in favor of well-organized groups while retaining the joy of jumping right into things for more casual WvW players."

I don't think the direction the game has gone in since 2013 has stressed tactical acumen and skill more than sheer numbers. It seems harder than before for a small, skilled group to beat a mindless zerg. Also, I have no idea what changes they were making to siege weapons to throw the balance in favor of well-organized groups. Maybe this was the plan when buffing ACs...but then nerfing them? It's possible that this is still their vision, but it doesn't seem that way?
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Does anyone know of a more recent time where they laid out their vision? I've seen bits and pieces of it here and there--mostly in livestreams with like 400 views--but not enough that I have a clear picture of what it is.

Infusion.7149 · September 10, 2021

Here's the rationale for Desert BL (2015):
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/essential-elements-of-the-new-borderlands/
(note the beta for it did not have as much of a lagfest on the laser event that was removed)

2015 squads/subgroups added: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-enhanced-squad-ui/

2016 we had a portable cannon for a short time.

Skirmish tracks were added in 2017.https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/updates-to-world-vs-world-skirmishing-and-rewards/

Warclaw (2019) which most people were opposed to:
https://www.mmorpg.com/interviews/guild-wars-2-developer-interview-tales-of-the-warclaw-2000108348

Conflux was added in 2020.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Infusion.7149

Sviel.7493 · September 10, 2021

The DBL post is a good reference, though it talks about a few new dimensions ("giving players the opportunity to make intelligent—or foolish—tactical plays in nuanced terrain") without addressing the majority of what the first post did. It makes an allusion to zergs here: "We want to give players solid reasons to keep their keeps, so you might find that running up to knock on your enemy’s front door with a big group isn’t the most efficient path to victory." But subsequent changes have ensured that zergs are still the most efficient path to victory so...which is it? Given that DBL was almost entirely reverted, I don't know if this is a good indication of what their vision is right now.

Skirmish tracks seem like a realization of wanting to give more rewards regardless of how people make their contribution. That's why the rewards part of their vision seems to have endured.

Warclaw...I don't see how that fits. It felt and feels like a random addition that wasn't thought through ahead of time rather than part of some larger vision for the game.

I had to google Conflux to find out what it was, but maybe that also fits into rewards?
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This is a puzzle with a billion pieces, though, so all of these get us a little closer I hope.

Infusion.7149 · September 11, 2021

DBL was a step in the wrong direction as the original iteration was completely closed off between towers and keeps. You had to kill rock walls in order to transverse the territory ("towers now wall off larger sections of the map and create real choke points"). After those barriers were removed the towers didn't have much strategic value, which is why map design is important. On Alpine BL you can siege a keep from a tower and vice versa and the same goes for EBG.

Skirmish tracks put an emphasis on gameplay every 5 minutes, sieging a keep constantly but not actually using siege or not killing players was penalized. Hiding in keeps as a thief or mesmer was penalized. If you like roaming or not playing in a large squad it is penalized unless you obtain outnumbered pips. It also put a tangible reason to level WVW rank beyond ~1K.

Warclaw was released for people to "get back in the fight". The initial iteration had 3 dodges (which was nerfed thankfully), no lance skill, and msot people consider the chain pull a waste of supplies to this day. At its inception the engage skill also hit 10 people so there were full groups of warclaws engaging on people and instakilling them.

Conflux legendary ring showed that the reward design is such that captures are as important as kills , if not more important.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Infusion.7149

Sviel.7493 · September 11, 2021

I'm not sure the Warclaw was originally meant for getting back in the fight. If we look at the announcement (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-warclaw-is-here/), they say:

Quote

Because of WvW’s unique design, we took a different approach to designing the warclaw’s skills. Rather than focusing on game-changing movement mechanics, which would have been broken in WvW, we focused on giving the warclaw unique skills that would enhance the existing WvW mechanics.

They then list Evade, Battle Maul and Chain Pull. The Evade part was later massively nerfed (thank god...), Battle Maul was also nerfed and Chain Pull has always been irrelevant. Thus, if their vision for the Warclaw had anything to do with its skills...that vision isn't really in the game any longer.

Meanwhile, the Warclaw is mostly used for running around as a zerg. It does let people more easily get back into fights, but the addition of the lance and removal of the dodges diminished that aspect. If we recall that their stated vision was to avoid "game-changing movement mechanics" as those would be "broken," it seems very strange that the Warclaw is now used exclusively for it's game-changing movement mechanics.

On top of that, one of the design choices they made on DBL (per multiple player requests over the years) was to increase how long it took for a zerg to cross the map. The idea was that this would make mono-blobbing less effective as it would be harder to respond to multiple attacks without splitting up. However, adding the Warclaw effectively reverted this change by making zergs faster. So is their vision to encourage splitting up or not?

Since the Warclaw's stated vision was an immediate bust and it's eventual vision went against previous updates and even the Warclaw announcement itself, it seems to me like it was thrown out just to have a mount in WvW. The skills were quickly slapped together with little thought and it was released without even rudimentary testing on if it could jump over objective walls and completely break the game. Thus, I don't think it's very useful for determining Anet's vision.
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At the same time, I think we have to understand that they may not really be able to give vision statements on specific aspects of WvW. Everything is on the chopping block per their last blog, so any vision statements they make may end up changing in the near future. It might be easier to just remain vague to avoid having to backtrack. Even general statements may be impossible. For example, in their last blog they say:

Quote

WvW is a complicated game mode that’s played in numerous ways. Some players enjoy fights, some enjoy taking objectives, and some enjoy running away from fights (he-he). Experiences can even vary wildly between shards (we’re looking at you, Maguuma). Finding the best solution for population balance that considers these differing playstyles is a challenging proposition and not something that we can do without your input.

This might suggest they're trying to please everyone, but they also say they are just 'considering' these playstyles so...maybe not? I don't think there's any path forward that pleases both the people who do objective-based play and the people who abhor objectives in WvW. You can't satisfy someone that wants to eliminate objectives and PPT to have an open-field team deathmatch while also satisfying someone that wants a robust territory control game. If you waffle back and forth or try to skate in the middle, you satisfy no one. It seems like their plan is to try and convince the Team Deathmatch crowd to care about objectives by offering better rewards...but I don't think that's going to work.

Making a statement to that effect would get them crucified. Whichever side they didn't choose would likely abandon the game as well. This may be ultimately unavoidable, but going the slow route may let them retain a few more players.

Infusion.7149 · September 12, 2021

I need to find the place it was written or said, but warclaw was definitely for people to get back in the fight. It might have been a let's play WvW stream from Arenanet.
edit: probably this one

The fact of the matter is the "fights" guilds that GvG in a corner of the map and don't do anything else have the EotM arena. In addition , if they deliver on the 15v15 PvP format that could satisfy some but not all GvG players.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Infusion.7149

Sviel.7493 · September 12, 2021

Here's a summary of that video:

Spoiler

-Ben P. was given a prototype and then worked on the skills.
12:40 - They considered how the Warclaw might break the game. Such as how it might be able to get into objectives over walls. They had one person (Cal, who also tested gliding) do the testing and acknowledged that they were going to miss some (they did catch many). One of the reasons they chose to do a WvW specific mount was because they wanted to be able to make changes without worrying about its PvE use.
16:20 - They didn't want the dash to be too high or too long.
19:00 - They experimented with many things for the evade.
20:00 - Considered that it might be too powerful in fights.
22:30 - They say many new players have entered for Warclaw and decided to stick around. They designed the unlocking to be a tour of WvW to teach new people how to play.
24:45 - They say people came back to them and said 'the Warclaw is fine, I was wrong.'
25:45 - Ben says it doesn't break the game like people thought it would. So far, absolutely no mention of shorter travel times.
~30:00 - They considered having a mount rental and were still considering at the time of the stream.
-The rest is narrative and sound design stuff.

Based on this video, they seem to have made more of a good faith effort than what the end product suggested to me. I was probably too harsh on them earlier.

They didn't say anything about what they actually hoped the Warclaw would do, however. There's plenty of talk about how cool it will be and a general sense that adding mounts to WvW was of course going to happen eventually, but they don't actually discuss why they chose these particular skills and why they gave it this hp pool and these evades, etc. There isn't any mention of wanting players to get back into fights faster. There's also no mention of the impact of making every player on the map move faster (except for a few comments about how being left behind by the zerg actually isn't a huge issue).

That means we're left to guess as what they were going for based on what they did. It's possible that none of the things I mentioned above were a concern--perhaps they just wanted a cool mount to bring new players into WvW and share some of the non-WvW updates with the WvW population. On that front, they seem to have succeeded. I don't think it was worth the cost if that was the only goal.

It doesn't bring us any closer to knowing if they want to increase or decrease travel times either.

Edit: Maybe I should mention why this is so important to me.
In any RvR game, from DaoC to Fantasy Earth Zero, there is an inverse relationship between inter-objective travel times and average player group size. If players can move quickly between objectives, their group size tends to grow as there is always power in numbers. If it takes a while to travel, group size has to shrink or else they won't be able to control much territory despite their powerful numbers.
WvW became a zergfest on ABL precisely because the primary objectives (the keeps) were all squashed into a rectangle about a third of the size of the map. Towers were never viable for defense since the southern towers are very biased toward the people in that corner and the northern towers took literal days to upgrade. Zergfests greatly compound population imbalance. I actually quit WvW (along with most people I played with) due to this.

DBL seemed like a step toward spacing the keeps out a bit more while normalizing tower upgrades and camp distance from keeps (and, therefore, yak route speeds and upgrade times). Among other things, I returned to WvW because it seemed to be moving away from zerg supremacy (while still enabling the occasional massive fight.) The Warclaw is a step back towards a single zerg being able to effectively control the whole map. I don't think we're all the way there yet (on DBL) as there were other steps away than just travel times, but if that's where we're headed then I want to know so I can get off the train. I feel like they've been yanking my chain for years.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Sviel.7493

Infusion.7149 · September 12, 2021

Okay I found the right one, sorry about that.