WvW Problems - Would have it been better to just rework WvW completely?

[Deified.7520]

After playing this game for nearly 10 years and seeing multiple iterations of WvW and how its being played, I'm starting to think that in order to fix WvW it will probably need a top down rework. By the way some recent news talked, it made it seem like we're still a good 8-12 months out from the alliance release. Consideirng how long its been now (and going to be) to even get alliances working...I gotta say that I'm not confident it will solve the issues in WvW. And if just reworking it to start with would have been a better use of resources. So the problems I really see (and have seen for years, in some cases since launch).

 

1. Inconsistency - The gamemodes experience for players is so inconsistent mainly because it relies upon variables that are completely out of control of the player. One weekend you can have zergs on multiple maps, people playing, you're putting up some good fights, capturing stuff, etc. Then the next 3 weekends your maps are empty and you're getting decimated. One year your server can be doing really well, then next year most people quit and its dead. One night all the pugs are play together and helping the zergs fight. Next night 50% of your team can be roaming/afk so you can't stand up against some giant zerg the enemy team has.
2. 24/7 Coverage - In order to feel like you're making an impact on the map, you need to figure out a way to have 24/7 coverage. Because you can spend hours defending something, then go to sleep and you're server doesn't have 24/7 coverage. You wake up and everything was lost. It doesn't really feel all that great. Back when my current server had a bunch of "hardcore" WvWers, there was this issue where the servers we kept fighting against had entire aus or asia guilds that were playing on their server on off hours. And it turns out this was because they were getting paid to play on these servers where they had horrible ping so those servers could win the off hour fights. 
3. Objectives - nobody really cares about winning. Probably because of the above issues, so it may be a good thing as I'm sure many players would get frustrated if winning actually mattered. But many times when I play, the guilds or zergs care more about just having a fun fight rather than even caring about the objectives from a "win the game" standpoint. 
4. "Hardcore" vs "Casual" Crowd - Again this is an issue in many games. But how do you manage this relationship. You could have 15% of the playerbase who are hardcore WvWers and don't agree with anything I'm saying. Mainly because they had a bunch of WvW guilds move to their server. They only play with guilds. Etc. Then you have the other portion of the playerbase who aren't hardcore. They just hop into WvW when they feel like. Maybe they're in a PvX guild they go in with. So the issue is who do you cater to, who do you design around. I remember during the tournaments in 2014 seeing how wildly different servers played. You had 70% of the servers significantly worse experience than the rest of the servers. Where they couldn't field zergs, they couldn't fight, etc. 

 

Alliances may help the popluation issue whenever those come, but I think the inconsistent nature of the gamemode to begin with will result in most issues just reappearing. To me I think it wont go as planned. And after that happens, the developers should just bit the bullet and rework the gamemode. I think it should be like a Gw2 version of Alliance Battles of Gw1. You've got something like 25v25 or 30v30. You've got a few capture points. Siege is somehow intertwined into it. Uses the PvE gearing system and consumabmles just as it does now. It's all instanced/queue based instead of being the persistent-not-persistent world that WvW is now. You can take the WvW maps and split them up into smaller fight arenas so you've got maps for the gamemode to be played on already. To me this would be much better from a design perspective.

 

I mean all I know now is that ever week it seems like my WvW games are borderline dead. Barely able to field a zerg during the weekdays and maybe 2 zergs for a few hours on the weekend. Commanders always seem to get super frustrated as is normal in Gw2 and its large group content. And whenever these issues are brought up, everyone just says "Oh the only way to play is with a guild". If the game is at that point + the alliances + skrimishes only lasting like 1.5 hours at a time...it seems like we minus well just make the whole thing instanced. As we're already heading into that direction as the persistent design doesnt' seem to be working. Plus we haven't recieved really any updates to the mode (ignoring balance changes and new reward tracks tied to the living story) in years. I think the last major update was what, the desert borderlands? And that caused a ton of drama in itself. So its been a good 5 years since we've really seen a sufficient update to this mode. If WvW was even close to the population of open world PvE, I highly doubt the update candence would be 5+ years. So this gamemode obviously has a population issue. And I think the issues I spoke about above are a huge factor. 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Deified.7520

[Burial.1958]

The main Problem are the players themself.

[Riba.3271]

Issue is not needing rework. It is needing removal/fix of features that were complete misses since introducing.  Like claim buff and amount of dolyaks needed for upgrading... And so many more... Relinking system has exactly same flaws since introducing it.

[Deified.7520]

3 hours ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

The main Problem are the players themself.

How so? What are the players are doing wrong. I have my own thoughts on the concept overall myself, but I'm curious what specifically you're thinking of. 
 

 

2 hours ago, Threather.9354 said:

Issue is not needing rework. It is needing removal/fix of features that were complete misses since introducing.  Like claim buff and amount of dolyaks needed for upgrading... And so many more... Relinking system has exactly same flaws since introducing it.

 

Yeah I know what you're thinking of and I think that their plan was to try to make there be a persistent impact and satisfying one. That when you do finally get that upgraded T3 it feels "good". But it doesn't really. You don't even pay attention to the doyalks on your team in so many games. Maybe you have 1-3 people escorting them. But it just happens passively. And most of the week its the same exact structures that keep flipping for a wide variety of reasons (I will die on the hill that siege inside of one structure being able to destroy another structures walls will forever be a bad design). I mean its a good design to some degree in that theres a grouping of structures that are usually always T3. And its hell of a better design than the one before where you (if I remember) had to pay gold for upgrades? I can't remember exactly what it was. I know it involved supply but its been so long don't remember the specifics. But it doesn't really feel satsyfing or really that impactful since winning the game overall is such a low priority. All the fun is in two zergs fighting. Everything else is just pointless fluff. 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Deified.7520

[captrowdy.9561]

Adding more/better rewards would be a good start to get more players in. It’s open world pvp Inconsistency is part of the fun. 

[MedievalThings.5417]

5 hours ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

The main Problem are the players themself.

This isn't too far from the truth.

[Justine.6351]

5 hours ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

The main Problem are the players themself.

Yeah. People would rather cheese the game than get good at it. Can't really do anything about that.

[Absurd.2947]

10 hours ago, Deified.7520 said:

You had 70% of the servers significantly worse experience than the rest of the servers. Where they couldn't field zergs, they couldn't fight, etc. 

It's still like that. People think that alliances will change something, as if they haven't participated in the betas. There will be 2 alliances with people who can play the game vs all the alliances with people who can't. 

I had a discussion with "the average player" below one of their facebook posts. The average player mains a ranger and they spend MONTHS on every story episode in pve. And it's fine, it's high time people understood who this game is being developed for.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Absurd.2947

[SweetPotato.7456]

just a thoughts why people don't do anything on the map and only doing the most "lucrative" 

1 - more reward more reward more reward more reward 

2 - special reward for doing different type of activities, ie flip all the camps, ruins and sentry on red borderland , flip all the camps, sentries on blue/green bl. repeatable,  also maybe make this a challenge for the players, single players (done map in X minutes), 3 players team (shorter timer), 5 players team (example cap all camps without any of them getting reflip before they complete the map),  have a leaderboard every week end of week the best /most efficient players gets a rewards. (apply this to the towers and keeps)

3 - if you do things beyond daily  wvw reward you get extra rewards

4 - for defenders the reward will stack 1  successful defense 2nd successful defense 3rd successful defense etc during the reset day. 

5- roamers for flipping the most camps gets a special reward at the end of the day killing the most sentry  and guards 

 

place an npc at the spawn of each map, when you go out roaming, talk to the npc to activate the leaderboard. 

 

It's a competitive game mode, people wants to be know as the best player, you put a leaderboard on the spawn with a giant billboard. people are gonna come.

Edited March 27, 2022 by SweetPotato.7456

[enkidu.5937]

11 hours ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

The main Problem are the players themself.

Most people in WvW want to feel great with lowest effort.

 

Want ez lewt bags without learning to fight?

-> find a commander, join the boon blob, become a voice-controlled bot

-> com will tell u what cookie cutter build to use, where to position and to move, what skills to use and when

-> participate in meaningless field battles for the bridge at south camp . . . maybe it’s a historical role play, Idk, I mean there where lots of great historical battles that where fought at bridges 😏

 

Want to paint the map in your colors and banners?

-> find the people that play during off hours and join their full zone

 

Want to be the omega killer in roaming?

-> grab a cheese duel cookie cutter from the web

-> ignore all camps and dollies, forget about scouting, and be part of the pew-pew-invis-oneshot elite

 

Want to climb the ranks and win WvW?

-> transfer to the flavor-of-the-month stacking server and enjoy the endless queues

 

And if that does not work:

blame the newbs on your server and keep pretending that ppt and winning is completely meaningless 😝

[joneirikb.7506]

A different perspective: If it takes them 4-5 years to make Alliances, how long do you think it would take them to completely redesign the game mode ?

ANet understands where they earn their money, so the chances are very low that they'd ever put more resources (money, developers, designers, teams, marketing etc) into something else, like WvW. In all likely-hood, they'd probably terminate the game mode rather than re-design it. It simply makes more sense from the perspective of money+time. 

So if you consider WvW to be in " maintenance mode" it makes more sense. Alliances isn't here to fix or save WvW, it's to better work in the long run with less Developer involvement. Alliances can self scale the number and sizes of worlds, so the developers doesn't have to constantly keep track and maintain.

----

On the topic of consistency:

Edge of the Mist already does solve most of this, so would you like a WvW based mostly around the EotM-colour system? I mean the system is better capable of matching similar numbers through most of the day, but it still has problems with it as well. Notably this is where the comment "The main Problem are the players themself." comes in. As if the system creates 3 equally sized teams, but one dominates another, then players from the dominated team leaves because they're losing. Thus creating more uneven teams (The "Fair-weather effect"). As long as this happens, there isn't any way to create a system that will be able to create anything that "feels balanced". 

Considering the differences in player skill in this game/mode, you could argue that in order to make a system that would create a match that "feels balanced", you'd have to actually create a system that constantly switches players back and forth between the teams in order to create that "balance". A system that would try to rate players by how good/bad they are, and re-distribute them constantly on the fly. As players are likely to join and leave constantly, this would happen just as constantly to keep up. And I honestly doubt they'd be able to make a logarithm that could even figure that out. Not to mention it would destroy any remaining concept of "teams", even as little as that EotM had. 

----

On the topic of an Instanced BattleField:

On the whole I think this is a better idea in general, though I'd likely lump it into the PvP mode at that point since it is already a whole mode about creating instanced arenas. But it would be a completely different game-mode at that point. And it doesn't really satisfy a lot of the players that does like WvW for what it is. And for a lot of people, the imbalance of WvW is a good part of the charm. (Despite how much I think it makes for poor design)

* Now other things that would be lost in the translation is the sense of scale (whole servers, whole maps) and a lot of players actually enjoy those.
* Also the anonymity of numbers, if you made this into a 15-20 players per side then a lot of players that are not already invested into the mode would feel less inclined to try it because they'd stand out more. There is safety in numbers, and not just mechanical but social safety, for a lot of players it gives them the chance to try and experience the game-mode without really feeling that they suck (personal skill).
* Related strongly to the two above: But one of the core ideas WvW was designed around was to make it feel like a pvp version of Open World maps, including pugs ganging up into zergs to overcome things easier.

PS: If making it a separated instanced mode: Main rewards for staying until the end, not win/lose. Quit = no reward. That would be the single best way to work with/around fair-weathers.

----

Another option: EotM Instancing

Another option (that I personally am quite fond off, but realise they won't do at this point because of resources):

Remove the BorderLand system. Redesign the BL maps into BattleGround maps (Like EBG), they don't need to be 100% balanced, as not even EBG is. Make use of the rest of the games system to add/remove maps depending on the population shifts.

Start with 1 map, EBG. As the play amounts rise add another random map (AlpineBG, DesertBG, EotM, or more EBG) with no upper limit. And as player population decline, reduce the amount of maps again. Once a map is removed, just remove alls coring from it. If a map is added, reset it to start position.

Regarding queue's, balance this on the server with the middle population atm. So the server with the most players might get a queue. Example: 100/70/50 players. 70 would be used as the balancing factor, so no new map opened up, and about 20 or so players from the first server would be put in queue.

This will self-balance to a lot of things. Like prime/off-time, week days vs weekends, tiers, basically any shifting of population. It will also adjust to large differences in team sizes by forcing the largest into queue's, while still letting both other servers play.

/rant

[Junkpile.7439]

How you balance game mode that is open 24/7, 3 sides, some servers could have like 10x more players in maps and  players doesn't really even have any reason to try because winning or losing doesn't matter anything.  Match should last like max 3 hours, winning should matter, same amount players in maps whole time, same amount guild blobs in maps whole time, double teaming weakest server should be stupid move.  

Edited March 27, 2022 by Junkpile.7439

[subversiontwo.7501]

4 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

A different perspective: If it takes them 4-5 years to make Alliances, how long do you think it would take them to completely redesign the game mode ?

ANet understands where they earn their money, so the chances are very low that they'd ever put more resources (money, developers, designers, teams, marketing etc) into something else, like WvW.

Here is yet another perspective on it: I believe that there are two misconceptions that are very pervasive in GW2. The first is that WvW players do not buy things in the store. The second is that the casual solo PvE community make up a vast majority of players who buy things in the store, by simple virtue of open world PvE being the largest subset of the playerbase. I believe the reality is much closer to that the majority of the paying customers are made up of socially casual players. They are still casual, but they have much more of a regular playtime and they are more socially oriented. In that subset of the playerbase open world PvE is still the largest and most represented but a sizable part of that subset that earn them their money do play something else, like WvW.

Meaning: The differences among actively paying customers are much smaller than the differences when looking at player totals. They are close enough for the other things to become important for earning enough money.

I also believe that is what leads to the less than honest communication from ArenaNet on these issues. The subsets and communities that primarily play things like WvW or sPvP, while smaller, are likely important enough to keep the studio alive. I do however believe that the studio is acustomed to living off that smoke by now and that they have trouble motivating and equipping their resources to tend to it. This is why we keep seeing them say the right things but do the wrong things.

For example, that is why we in the same studio update, in the same paragraph, in the same breath can see them say "First, we’re actively working on addressing population balance with the WvW World Restructuring system" and "after taking a short break to release End of Dragons, we’ll be getting back to it". Only one of those two things can be true.

The same thing goes for the "cornerstone" meme which on the one hand probably has some truth to it. The same as how they have figured out that the vast majority of hyper casual solo players probably spend nothing in the store, they have likely figured out that the WvW populations (by virtue of being more casual and open, what the game excels at) are far more stable than the sPvP populations. Just looking at things today, sPvP seems worse off in terms of players despite, arguably, being given more over 10 years of GW2. WvW then becomes important, especially if that playerbase becomes a lynchpin for the studio. The problem is, again, that you don't pull, every, single, resource, off, a, cornerstone, game, mode, for, three, months, and, lie, about, it. If things are as they read, they literally just threw beta 3 into the new year to put up a facade of working on it. If things are as they read, beta 3 was just beta 2 running again to create an illusion of work.

Exactly what is true or what the actual data says, only ArenaNet can know. However, it's not like they are here to communicate that with us now, are they?

As for this thread as a whole:

1. Inconsistency: This is tied to the long rant above. The game mode can never be consistant if they developer does not put their money where their mouth is. They have to dig themselves out of the corner they've put themselves in by selling smoke for years and years. They actually have to make that investment and not just dangle the sugggestion that they have figured out that it is what they need to do, over and over again. We know it, they know it, everybody knows it. They need to hire, they need transparency and they need to deliver. Nothing else matters.
2. 24/7 Coverage: This is an age-old scoring issue that they have been given so many suggestions on for the past 10 years but never committed to solve. Again, commitment. They have been given easy but not very precise suggestions (like just making prime more valuable) as well as a number of more precise and flexible suggestions like various types of on-map population scoring factors. This has even been discussed at length how it could relate to Alliances or how it could tie into a larger vision of leaning WvW out for easier future development. They have a treasure trove of high-quality, qualitative feedback on it, going back 10 years. They just have to commit and deliver.
3. Objectives - nobody really cares about winning: And this is tied to the point above. Nobody cares because the developer doesn't care and because the coverage makes it broken. It has been broken for 10 years.
4. "Hardcore" vs "Casual" Crowd: I'd say this is the least concern. In fact, I believe that the Alliance system is robust enough to actually address this. I think the specific "time/effort modifier" they went for is the best option to deal with world-creation and this issue. The system seems to try to create equally sized worlds with similarily distributed chunks of hardcore and casual players. When that change comes it will not stop conflicts from emerging between more or less ambitious or active players. However, it will put more of a stop to entire worlds becomming more or less hardcore or casual in their collective identity. That's not a problem, the WvW mode is all about co-existance, that goes for ambition and activity as much as it goes for different scales and subsets of content. The world-world balance is the key, the internal relationships beyond that is for players to figure out and if they do not figure it out and become marred by conflict, that will likely show in their performance. That is as intended.

Edited March 27, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

4 hours ago, enkidu.5937 said:

Most people in WvW want to feel great with lowest effort.

 

 

 

Want ez lewt bags without learning to fight?

 

-> find a commander, join the boon blob, become a voice-controlled bot

 

-> com will tell u what cookie cutter build to use, where to position and to move, what skills to use and when

 

-> participate in meaningless field battles for the bridge at south camp . . . maybe it’s a historical role play, Idk, I mean there where lots of great historical battles that where fought at bridges 😏

 

 

 

Want to paint the map in your colors and banners?

 

-> find the people that play during off hours and join their full zone

 

 

 

Want to be the omega killer in roaming?

 

-> grab a cheese duel cookie cutter from the web

 

-> ignore all camps and dollies, forget about scouting, and be part of the pew-pew-invis-oneshot elite

 

 

 

Want to climb the ranks and win WvW?

 

-> transfer to the flavor-of-the-month stacking server and enjoy the endless queues

 

 

 

And if that does not work:

 

blame the newbs on your server and keep pretending that ppt and winning is completely meaningless 😝

 

 

u forgot the option about learning to fight in fighting guilds of 15-25~ ppl and wiping the hugely feared "boonblobs" with not even half of their size till they start hiding behind siege and walls...

 

and ur wrong in the last sentence: ppt is meaningless. "winning" doesn't really exist. its a perma running circus, u cannot win there finally. server+link change all 2months, players transfer in and out constantly... it's no set scenario.

 

tiers are meaningless. because, as u mentioned yourself btw, transfers without real restrictions do exist.

 

@joneirikb.7506 the mode also needs no complete redesign. it's basically fun for newbies, but it gets stale and worse after a few months, with every month. bc changes often had rather negative effects and totally ignored the existing mechanics.

for those who need examples: the warclaw. everything runs superspeed on it. buffed ganker groups, they can also always run away if they get under pressure (bc anet also nerfed warclaw speed in own territory, to make it more useless kappa)

then the time at which keeps show that they're in battle doesn't pop immediately often, but at the 5min timer. thanks to the warclaw, a 60 ppl blob can sneak a keep by just building golems and timing it correctly so that there's barely a sign of the "attack"

this made scouting annoying and due to queues, ppt blobs can always find one unprotected border which they can mindless drown in their clueless mass

Edited March 27, 2022 by kamikharzeeh.8016

[Xenesis.6389]

20 hours ago, Deified.7520 said:

After playing this game for nearly 10 years and seeing multiple iterations of WvW and how its being played, I'm starting to think that in order to fix WvW it will probably need a top down rework. By the way some recent news talked, it made it seem like we're still a good 8-12 months out from the alliance release. Consideirng how long its been now (and going to be) to even get alliances working...I gotta say that I'm not confident it will solve the issues in WvW. And if just reworking it to start with would have been a better use of resources. So the problems I really see (and have seen for years, in some cases since launch).

 

1. Inconsistency - The gamemodes experience for players is so inconsistent mainly because it relies upon variables that are completely out of control of the player. One weekend you can have zergs on multiple maps, people playing, you're putting up some good fights, capturing stuff, etc. Then the next 3 weekends your maps are empty and you're getting decimated. One year your server can be doing really well, then next year most people quit and its dead. One night all the pugs are play together and helping the zergs fight. Next night 50% of your team can be roaming/afk so you can't stand up against some giant zerg the enemy team has.
2. 24/7 Coverage - In order to feel like you're making an impact on the map, you need to figure out a way to have 24/7 coverage. Because you can spend hours defending something, then go to sleep and you're server doesn't have 24/7 coverage. You wake up and everything was lost. It doesn't really feel all that great. Back when my current server had a bunch of "hardcore" WvWers, there was this issue where the servers we kept fighting against had entire aus or asia guilds that were playing on their server on off hours. And it turns out this was because they were getting paid to play on these servers where they had horrible ping so those servers could win the off hour fights. 
3. Objectives - nobody really cares about winning. Probably because of the above issues, so it may be a good thing as I'm sure many players would get frustrated if winning actually mattered. But many times when I play, the guilds or zergs care more about just having a fun fight rather than even caring about the objectives from a "win the game" standpoint. 
4. "Hardcore" vs "Casual" Crowd - Again this is an issue in many games. But how do you manage this relationship. You could have 15% of the playerbase who are hardcore WvWers and don't agree with anything I'm saying. Mainly because they had a bunch of WvW guilds move to their server. They only play with guilds. Etc. Then you have the other portion of the playerbase who aren't hardcore. They just hop into WvW when they feel like. Maybe they're in a PvX guild they go in with. So the issue is who do you cater to, who do you design around. I remember during the tournaments in 2014 seeing how wildly different servers played. You had 70% of the servers significantly worse experience than the rest of the servers. Where they couldn't field zergs, they couldn't fight, etc. 

 

Alliances may help the popluation issue whenever those come, but I think the inconsistent nature of the gamemode to begin with will result in most issues just reappearing. To me I think it wont go as planned. And after that happens, the developers should just bit the bullet and rework the gamemode. I think it should be like a Gw2 version of Alliance Battles of Gw1. You've got something like 25v25 or 30v30. You've got a few capture points. Siege is somehow intertwined into it. Uses the PvE gearing system and consumabmles just as it does now. It's all instanced/queue based instead of being the persistent-not-persistent world that WvW is now. You can take the WvW maps and split them up into smaller fight arenas so you've got maps for the gamemode to be played on already. To me this would be much better from a design perspective.

 

I mean all I know now is that ever week it seems like my WvW games are borderline dead. Barely able to field a zerg during the weekdays and maybe 2 zergs for a few hours on the weekend. Commanders always seem to get super frustrated as is normal in Gw2 and its large group content. And whenever these issues are brought up, everyone just says "Oh the only way to play is with a guild". If the game is at that point + the alliances + skrimishes only lasting like 1.5 hours at a time...it seems like we minus well just make the whole thing instanced. As we're already heading into that direction as the persistent design doesnt' seem to be working. Plus we haven't recieved really any updates to the mode (ignoring balance changes and new reward tracks tied to the living story) in years. I think the last major update was what, the desert borderlands? And that caused a ton of drama in itself. So its been a good 5 years since we've really seen a sufficient update to this mode. If WvW was even close to the population of open world PvE, I highly doubt the update candence would be 5+ years. So this gamemode obviously has a population issue. And I think the issues I spoke about above are a huge factor. 

 

There's no real way to fix these problems while keeping the wvw game mode as it is, you would have to convert it entirely to instanced short duration game play(eotm or battlegrounds in other games) in order to manage most of these problems. There is no other way for anet to manage play times of players in a 7 day matchup involving all time zones.

 

Alliances will try to even out players over worlds so the coverage can be a little more consistent, so basically flattening out some of the servers that have excess pug populations and fill the rest. It won't solve all the problems, inconsistences will happen with population no matter what, because Anet DOESN'T have control over the player on when they show up to play, people get busy, they work, vacation, have raid schedules, or even guilds break up and they scatter.

 

I could care less about holding something 24/7, that's boring game play if stuff doesn't get flipped, but I do expect that upgraded stuff should be a war to take and should be rewarding to take or defend, it's what you work on upgrades for, not some 3min fight with a handful of golems blowing through two doors and quick capped, that's a T0 fight not a T3 one. I've suggested things to make objectives more valuable, but people really aren't interested in that, they're just interested in blowing stuff up in 3mins, or camping out a lords for "bags".

 

Winning needs to be a thing, that goes back to motivations to push players to care about it, but apparently anet has deemed it's mostly for rewards than glory.

[Svarty.8019]

On 3/26/2022 at 10:20 PM, Deified.7520 said:

1. "Hardcore" vs "Casual" Crowd - Again this is an issue in many games. But how do you manage this relationship. You could have 15% of the playerbase who are hardcore WvWers [..]

I've seen his kitten characterisation many times and I'd like to set the record straight.

 

"Hardcore" players aren't just the people who form squads with "compositions" and "stand in fields" and "only play for fights".

Hardcore players INCLUDE those who never join a squad, but are always in WvW, standing on a wall, perhaps refreshing siege, perhaps scouting. There are a great many of those players and they deserve our recognition.

If you want a label for "Composition Squads" or "Field-Standers", then please choose one of those names, but "Hardcore" isn't the right one.

 

So now your analysis of the mode is even murkier and opaque than I believe you intended, and I'd like to, with pride, apologise for that.

[Burial.1958]

19 hours ago, Deified.7520 said:

How so? What are the players are doing wrong. I have my own thoughts on the concept overall myself, but I'm curious what specifically you're thinking of. 
 

 

 

Yeah I know what you're thinking of and I think that their plan was to try to make there be a persistent impact and satisfying one. That when you do finally get that upgraded T3 it feels "good". But it doesn't really. You don't even pay attention to the doyalks on your team in so many games. Maybe you have 1-3 people escorting them. But it just happens passively. And most of the week its the same exact structures that keep flipping for a wide variety of reasons (I will die on the hill that siege inside of one structure being able to destroy another structures walls will forever be a bad design). I mean its a good design to some degree in that theres a grouping of structures that are usually always T3. And its hell of a better design than the one before where you (if I remember) had to pay gold for upgrades? I can't remember exactly what it was. I know it involved supply but its been so long don't remember the specifics. But it doesn't really feel satsyfing or really that impactful since winning the game overall is such a low priority. All the fun is in two zergs fighting. Everything else is just pointless fluff. 

 

They transfer and stack some servers because everyone only want to play in a winner team.  You can see that everytime when there are new linkings. There are hundreds of players transferring around.

 

Only a alliance system without any transfer is a fix for this issue.

 

Second Problem the Players who do not want join teamspeak or discord even for listening. A team with no organization is in a bad spot to fight teams with TS/Discord. Also proper builds and setups.

These are problems made be players

Edited March 27, 2022 by Grebcol.5984

[joneirikb.7506]

@subversiontwo.7501

I agree with your point that the major crowd does a bit of everything in the game, and not just pve/ow. But I also think that ANet has focused most of their resources on the PVE side likely because they judge that the players that plays a bit of everything will likely buy PVE related things or be more tempted by such.

Then again, it's hard to really say if players would buy more WVW related things from the gemstore if there was any, since there hasn't really been enough to give a good idea/sample.

And I still don't believe we will ever see major development on WvW. It will at best be a side project with Grouch and his 1-3 random stooges he manages to steal from somewhere else.

Edited March 27, 2022 by joneirikb.7506
Finally figured out how to mention, I am so smart! S M R T

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 3/28/2022 at 1:56 AM, joneirikb.7506 said:

@subversiontwo.7501

I agree with your point that the major crowd does a bit of everything in the game, and not just pve/ow. But I also think that ANet has focused most of their resources on the PVE side likely because they judge that the players that plays a bit of everything will likely buy PVE related things or be more tempted by such.

Then again, it's hard to really say if players would buy more WVW related things from the gemstore if there was any, since there hasn't really been enough to give a good idea/sample.

And I still don't believe we will ever see major development on WvW. It will at best be a side project with Grouch and his 1-3 random stooges he manages to steal from somewhere else.

I think we agree in general, but there is something I want to underline: My point wasn't that whatever slice representative of the recurring customer base is engaged in PvX. That may also be true to some degree. However, the point was mainly that players in said slice are casual but social and once they drop below that socially active slice there is little reason to buy anything so I don't think they do.

This leads to a misconception where people overestimate what "PvEers" buy while at the same time underestimating what "WvWers" buy. There is a far bigger difference in players than there is in recurring customers.
 

Spoiler

 

That can of course be wrong as it is based on logic rather than data. It is just logic and a feeling that I get when I look at what is or isn't said. For a long time though, the optimal way to play this game given cost and return has been to login every two months or so to unlock LW for free and then play for a couple of days. Playing that way it makes little sense to buy things in the store. Granted, such players, just like me, may look at the store as a mean to support the development and may just pick random things to throw some money at as a "thank you". Those players do however have very little investment in accounts or characters though as that mostly comes when playing more and interacting with others.

If I played like that I would play entirely for free. If I played a little more but kept it close to the vest and mostly just did more of the same, I'd still play entirely for free thanks to no sinks and conversion. That's the logic. That the tune has changed a little bit (or that the tune is on/off deceptive) is because I assume that Anet's data tells them the same thing.

I also believe that Anet has willingly let most of these socially-involved income streams (of which things like WvW transfers is one) keep things like LW free. It's a wonderfully weird house of cards not monetising the thing you spend most of your resources on and it likely comes of the back of successfully monetising things they don't spend resources on (of which things like WvW is one). It also says something about where they have positive interaction (and whatever insolation that creates, but that's an even larger topic).

So, we can discuss the whole cornerstone meme and how that relates to a reality of 1-3 stooges. We can discuss "the sky is falling" and "the mode is dying". People can comment on that in sarcastic hyperbole all they like, snarking about how its death has been proclaimed for 10 years, while black-on-white, there has been decline for as long: They are linking servers, they are decreasing server caps and they are decreasing map caps. Even more importantly: Alot of the content is the same tired-old tags, starting squads with a yawn to see if they can find something to do (and just telling people to copy whatever they can find on some metasite) and we transfer more for content than to win now. Similarily, you can hit top 250 in sPvP by essentially just entering it by now. However, while fair topics in their own right, there is little point in spending too much time mulling them over, and over.

The interesting question in all of that rather becomes: Can the studio maintain a full collapse of (organised) PvP content? It can be completely hypothetical. It is still an interesting question to ask and development to follow. Maybe they can sustain it, maybe there will be no collapse, maybe the decline will bottom out and all is well with just some random clouds and tourists. Is it worth taking the risk though? Is it not worth taking a chance on the game's potential instead? I mean, that is reflective of the effort put in, of the 1-3 stooges. The 1-3 stooges direction doesn't need World restructuring and, like you said, it needs no other rework. However, I don't think that sustains the mode from a collapse of organisation. The question remains interesting with that. I think that impacts the studio and game as a whole. I also think that alot of the posturing is about keeping appearances up while they've also caught some lucky breaks with some larger circumstances (again).

So I think the longer perspective in what's being said suggests that they can't afford to "lose" "us" but they still seem to have big trouble digging themselves out of that hole despite whatever successes celebrated in the studio update (assuming they now do have the muscle to hire and fix their internal balance issues, for some amount of time). It also feels like they have a bit of a tendency to relax when they catch breaks like this and that isn't good for them because they postpone making changes that they seem aware that they inevitably have to make. Then again, maybe I am wrong, maybe they can survive on solo PvE alone, even when competitors are not freefalling or botch their launches. Maybe the entirety of WvW is just another SAB. Only Anet knows. I'm mostly just interested in following it and reading into it (or meming about it when I find their [differing] treatment of players ridiculous).

 

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[kash.9213]

There should be more open world pvp not less and definitely not more small scale instances. I think you're right about Alliances not fixing WvW, but I think you got that other take backwards about what is needed. 

[Mixes.7164]

Nobody cares about winning because it's meaningless. What do you gain for winning? "A sense of pride and accomplishment"? Special rewards? Progress for a title? The only reason guilds care about winning is they're a ktrain ppt guild and that's all they can hope for or they're a fight guild trying to get a match with better servers. 

 

The players as you describe above, casuals that come in and out at will with no real attachment to wvw, generally contribute the least to their servers but are quick to complain about things others are/aren't doing without looking at what they could be doing. If you don't want to join a guild and contribute as that guild expects you to then that's fine, you can enjoy the game however you want. A big but here though is that can't expect those people that you don't want to join to help you or offer you anything. 

 

I actually agree wvw could benefit from a rework but cattering to players that aren't even invested in the mode is the wrong way to go about it. These are the same people that think fishing is too hard and they should get wall repair ppt endlessly. Not contributing players. 

[joneirikb.7506]

On 3/29/2022 at 9:17 PM, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I think we agree in general, but there is something I want to underline: My point wasn't that whatever slice representative of the recurring customer base is engaged in PvX. That may also be true to some degree. However, the point was mainly that players in said slice are casual but social and once they drop below that socially active slice there is little reason to buy anything so I don't think they do.

This leads to a misconception where people overestimate what "PvEers" buy while at the same time underestimating what "WvWers" buy. There is a far bigger difference in players than there is in recurring customers.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

That can of course be wrong as it is based on logic rather than data. It is just logic and a feeling that I get when I look at what is or isn't said. For a long time though, the optimal way to play this game given cost and return has been to login every two months or so to unlock LW for free and then play for a couple of days. Playing that way it makes little sense to buy things in the store. Granted, such players, just like me, may look at the store as a mean to support the development and may just pick random things to throw some money at as a "thank you". Those players do however have very little investment in accounts or characters though as that mostly comes when playing more and interacting with others.

If I played like that I would play entirely for free. If I played a little more but kept it close to the vest and mostly just did more of the same, I'd still play entirely for free thanks to no sinks and conversion. That's the logic. That the tune has changed a little bit (or that the tune is on/off deceptive) is because I assume that Anet's data tells them the same thing.

I also believe that Anet has willingly let most of these socially-involved income streams (of which things like WvW transfers is one) keep things like LW free. It's a wonderfully weird house of cards not monetising the thing you spend most of your resources on and it likely comes of the back of successfully monetising things they don't spend resources on (of which things like WvW is one). It also says something about where they have positive interaction (and whatever insolation that creates, but that's an even larger topic).

So, we can discuss the whole cornerstone meme and how that relates to a reality of 1-3 stooges. We can discuss "the sky is falling" and "the mode is dying". People can comment on that in sarcastic hyperbole all they like, snarking about how its death has been proclaimed for 10 years, while black-on-white, there has been decline for as long: They are linking servers, they are decreasing server caps and they are decreasing map caps. Even more importantly: Alot of the content is the same tired-old tags, starting squads with a yawn to see if they can find something to do (and just telling people to copy whatever they can find on some metasite) and we transfer more for content than to win now. Similarily, you can hit top 250 in sPvP by essentially just entering it by now. However, while fair topics in their own right, there is little point in spending too much time mulling them over, and over.

The interesting question in all of that rather becomes: Can the studio maintain a full collapse of (organised) PvP content? It can be completely hypothetical. It is still an interesting question to ask and development to follow. Maybe they can sustain it, maybe there will be no collapse, maybe the decline will bottom out and all is well with just some random clouds and tourists. Is it worth taking the risk though? Is it not worth taking a chance on the game's potential instead? I mean, that is reflective of the effort put in, of the 1-3 stooges. The 1-3 stooges direction doesn't need World restructuring and, like you said, it needs no other rework. However, I don't think that sustains the mode from a collapse of organisation. The question remains interesting with that. I think that impacts the studio and game as a whole. I also think that alot of the posturing is about keeping appearances up while they've also caught some lucky breaks with some larger circumstances (again).

So I think the longer perspective in what's being said suggests that they can't afford to "lose" "us" but they still seem to have big trouble digging themselves out of that hole despite whatever successes celebrated in the studio update (assuming they now do have the muscle to hire and fix their internal balance issues, for some amount of time). It also feels like they have a bit of a tendency to relax when they catch breaks like this and that isn't good for them because they postpone making changes that they seem aware that they inevitably have to make. Then again, maybe I am wrong, maybe they can survive on solo PvE alone, even when competitors are not freefalling or botch their launches. Maybe the entirety of WvW is just another SAB. Only Anet knows. I'm mostly just interested in following it and reading into it (or meming about it when I find their [differing] treatment of players ridiculous).

 

 

In simple terms, you say there is a bigger correlation between the type of "social" that a player is, than what type of gameplay they identify/prefer the most. If so, I'd agree with that. And honestly most of the rest you write. Making it a little hard to somehow spark up further discussion. Hmm.

But I think the question "If the game would collapse if they removed PvP/WvW" is interesting. Unfortunately it's not something I'd even attempt to guess at, since I don't sit on the numbers and statistics that ANet does. I'd say the best argument I can make on that, is that it would probably cost them more to remove it, than to just leave it alone and not touch it. The competitive modes are after all designed around needing less developer content than PvE modes are.

If they removed WvW/PvP GW2 would lose players that much is guaranteed. But how many would leave, how many would still have enough interest in PvE/Community/Guilds etc that they'd still stay. Some might still be soured and not willing to put cash into the game etc. And again, it's probably less cost to just leave it there and not do much with it, or put idle hands at it between other things.

And yes, it kind of comes down to the very mixed "signals" we get, where on one hand they talk about all the stuff they're going to do, and on the other hand we never see much of it. Which makes it very hard to really say what they want to do with WvW/PvP, because we've learned from long years of experience, that we don't trust what they say.

Yeah, basically not enough info to go from, and what little info we get, we don't trust. I'd probably have a better shot at deciphering ancient Egyptian scrolls. I'd really love to hear ANet talk about it AND show some numbers to back that up, but I sure wouldn't hold my breath.

[enkidu.5937]

On 3/27/2022 at 5:30 PM, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

u forgot the option about learning to fight in fighting guilds of 15-25~ ppl and wiping the hugely feared "boonblobs" with not even half of their size till they start hiding behind siege and walls...

I didnt forget those, thats why I started my post with "Most people in WvW want to feel great with lowest effort."

 

On 3/27/2022 at 5:30 PM, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

and ur wrong in the last sentence: ppt is meaningless. "winning" doesn't really exist. its a perma running circus, u cannot win there finally. server+link change all 2months, players transfer in and out constantly... it's no set scenario.

 

tiers are meaningless. because, as u mentioned yourself btw, transfers without real restrictions do exist.

Tiers are there so teams with high pop play vs each other in Tier 1-2 and teams with low pop play vs. each other in bottom tier. Its fundamental for matchmaking balance.

 

I always enjoy matches more when my team wins and climbs the tiers. I also get daily rewards and pips when I support my team in making ppt. Ppl just complain because they are burned out after years, thats all.

 

Winning vs. a server that has significantly more people is so rewarding.

 

Besides, ppt is not karma train, its fighting for objects, otherwise you wont get high ppt in the long run. Thats the basic game mechanic of every PvP team game that I know.

 

And ofc ppt is not just about winning the matchup, but also building waypoints, easy-to-grab supply depots, having upgraded objects where you can even defend vs. superior enemies, upgraded objects that you can reach in time before the enemy has flipped it etc. Thats why it can be extremely rewarding to achieve an upgrade for a keep vs. enduring enemy resistance.

 

I remember resets back in 2013 where we fought a full hour about a single camp and its dollies. The only reason why ppt and winning has become meaningless is because more and more ppl say and behave like its meaningless.

 

So, if home keep waypoint falls because the "meta" zerg is fighting in SMC for 2 hours, and the elite fight guild is too busy with GvG in nowhereland, then ppt and winning is truely meaningless. Ofc we can continue to blame it to the unbalanced server pops and wait for alliances 😏

[KeoLegend.5132]

I think instead of having multiple worlds we should have just 3 to pick.

The fights would happen in many instances and the results would be added at the end of the week, without one instance knowing the results of the other.

Its a crazy idea i know, but i believe it would incentivize more players to care about winning and thereso having 24/7 coverage

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

way less crazy than many other ideas, but there's probs still empty instances. and it may get difficult for groups that way to move into the same instances to fight each other