A new, mid sized PvP game mode

[SpaceMarine.1836]

I've been playing GW2 a lot past few years, mainly because I love the fluid combat and the class/build system. My favorite part of the game is inventing and trying different stats and builds combinations, and then testing then in PVP scenario (sPVP or WvW). While the build and combat systems are great, the PVP aspect of GW2 just bores me to death. The sPVP is tiny scale combat where you play on same old, small, outdated 3-4 maps that almost haven't changed since the game released in 2012. I just can's stand looking at a few small, same, repeating areas in a game which is all about vast open worlds.

The WvW doesn't have this problem. The maps are vast, and their subsections provide excellent variety of terrain and architecture to test and enjoy the combat in. Unfortunately, it has been artificially made to be as time wasting as possible. Most of the time you are not actually in combat. You are either waiting for some bar to run out (sieging walls and gates), for a timer to run out (capture timeout) or playing "run across the map" walking simulator. Often, when you finally get to the combat, you are rarely in a flow state, where you are constantly challenged at the edge of your capability. The game constantly fluctuates between extremely easy (you run around in giant blob overwhelming smaller blobs), or extremely hard (you get steamrolled by much larger enemy blob). The dynamic, mid size balanced battles on a large, vast open landscape many people imagine WvW to be are a rare exception. Something that happens rarely over 5% of the total time when playing WvW.

This is the infamous flow channel graph:

Flow Chart Image

The orange line denotes the ideal gameplay experience, while red is about what you get when playing WvW.

I am just so tired of spending 95% of my time just waiting to have that 5% moment of fun. I always liked Battlefield games up until Battlefield 1 (then it went downhill). I loved the open 64 player maps with non-corridor gameplay, and constant combat. That's about the scale of combat I am wishing for. Not the smaller scale battles of the CSGO/Valorant or GW2 sPVP type. To be honest, my ideal dream game would be just Guild Wars 2 with the Battlefield 4 64 player conquest mode and map size.

I wish we had a game mode like that. Something like WvW, but without the destructible gates, walls or capture timeouts. Every single capture area/circle would have a waypoint players can teleport to, as long as the capture radius of the area itself (the capture circle) is not occupied by any enemies, which would make it contested otherwise. This would have so many benefits:

- Players could finally just enjoy the great combat system in open world setting, without waiting to have fun. As soon as you die, you can teleport to the closest waypoint and get back into the battle quickly.

- There would be much more much smaller battles all over the map. This would be great not only for enjoyment but also for the framerates. GW2 engine was never built to handle the zerg amount of player characters on screen, no matter the graphics settings or hardware

- The mode would be self-balancing. Even if one team decided to make a big zerg blob and steamroll all the points, if other team had multiple smaller group, they'd just be able to flank/avoid the blob and capture more individual points at the same time, and therefore win

- The siege weapons (rams aside) could be relegated to equivalent of vehicles in Battlefield games. Players would get supply for capturing points, then they could use the supply to build catapults, trebs, arrowcarts, cannons, etc... They'd cost much less supply, build faster, and have easier and faster firing mechanic. You'd be able to build them at a whim and trade some mobility for firepower in scenarios where it makes sense. For example you could send 4 of your friends to capture a point while you support them with a catapult from a far, similar to treb mechanic on the Battle of Kyhlo PVP map.

- You could have fun even if the maps are half empty. Currently, if there's not enough players, it's usually quite difficult to mount sieges of the more fortified WvW areas. This mode would be fun to play at any player density.

 

I know it's probably never going to happen, but I just can not stop daydreaming about GW2 game with PVP that's actually fun. It's just such a nice dream, because the combat and class system is so good. I always jump into the game with excitement to try new builds and playstyles, just to Alt+F4 half an hour later, because I've realized I've just spent 90% of the last half an hour running in circles on an empty map with a big blob of players at 15FPS, while all I did was watching the health bars on walls and gates, hovering mouse cursor on a minimap icon watching a timer to run out, and when we finally spotted an enemy, they were dead before I could even select them. Then finally, after half an hour, I instantly died because I forgot to look to the left for 2 seconds while enemy blob was approaching, so I had 3-4 minutes of empty travel across the map again, on a mount specifically designed and crafted to be as slow as running on foot with switness, so that my time gets wasted once again.

Edited July 25, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

The dynamic, mid size balanced battles on a large, vast open landscape many people imagine WvW to be are a rare exception. Something that happens rarely over 5% of the total time when playing WvW.

Yeah, because the other 95% of people join EBG and go "CoNTeNt???" in chat when others have just been fighting 2h straight trying to defend HBL in a pitched battle against small guilds.

Filtering out the "this is going to be balanced because reasons" and "players are going to have fun because more reasons", your new mode just sound like normal WvW when implemented practically.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

18 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Yeah, because the other 95% of people join EBG and go "CoNTeNt???" in chat when others have just been fighting 2h straight trying to defend HBL in a pitched battle against small guilds.

This is another unfortunate part of the issue. There's so many interesting spaces to have battles at, but with the restrictive way the mode is designed, most of that space is unused and empty, while majority of the players is confined in few repetitive spots, in a giant concentration, so that everyone can enjoy their low framerates and constant bigger blob eats smaller blob battles. 😞 I can't recall the last time I saw the Dredge Cave on EBG. Just that part of the map alone is larger than half of the sPVP maps. 

It's about the right incentives. WvW has been largely unchanged for several years. There won't be any magic moment when the players themselves will suddenly overnight realize they've all been playing WvW wrong, and the next day, WvW will become totally different experience. Players will always do what the game mode design incentivizes them to do. The reason WvW currently unfolds the way it does is because boring, flowless gameplay style produces most of the physical rewards. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[kash.9213]

Have flagged open world pvp and adjust the world for supply routes and territories and then clean up and tighten up EBG map a bit as a persistent battleground in each alliance matchup to dip in and out of.

[Kozumi.5816]

PLEASE add a mid sized pvp game mode. The caatering to two extremes is so annoying at this point. BGs are WoWs most popular pvp  game mode by a factor of 10.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[SpaceMarine.1836]

What's even sadder is that we almost have exactly that - Edge of the Mists. All it would take is for EotM to have waypoint at every captured point, so players can quickly jump to battle if the point is captured and uncontested,  having same rewards as WvW, so the players have equal incentives to play it, and enabling mounts.

Just the other day, I was playing almost empty BL, because there was a giant queue at EBG, and everyone wanted to play where at least some fun is. We managed to scrub 5 people together and went to take one of the keeps. It was just 5 of us so we did not have enough supply to build enough siege stuff to break the walls down fast enough. Once we got to the champion on the capture point, literally 5 seconds later, giant enemy blob came and wiped us out in 3 seconds. The siege mechanic is there to always give enemy enough time to prevent you from capturing it, even if they are on the literal other end of the map, if you don't have critical mass of players.

The walls and gates are a mechanic to prevent players from having fun if there is not enough of them on the map. That's why it fluctuates between extremes where there is one occupied map instance with a big queue and rest of them are completely empty. There's a critical mass of player, below which you are not allowed to have fun. All you can do is run in circles waiting for the timers on the same two to three camps to run out. Sometimes you manage to even get a tower, if the large enemy blob happens to be on the complete opposite of the map. Of course, even once you get that tower, they will take it back within couple of minutes, just for the timer to pop up on it notifying you you are not allowed to have fun for next 5 minutes. 😠

This is just such an evil, malicious and torturous mechanic. You have a MMORPG with literally the best combat system out there, with a large scale PVP game mode designed to keep players out of combat for as long as possible. And when you finally encounter combat, it's more often then not the usual 15 FPS zerg experience where you are lucky to kill someone if the 20 players in front you you didn't do it fast enough.

Edited July 26, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Sahne.6950]

On 7/26/2022 at 6:14 PM, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

What's even sadder is that we almost have exactly that - Edge of the Mists. All it would take is for EotM to have waypoint at every captured point, so players can quickly jump to battle if the point is captured and uncontested,  having same rewards as WvW, so the players have equal incentives to play it, and enabling mounts.

Just the other day, I was playing almost empty BL, because there was a giant queue at EBG, and everyone wanted to play where at least some fun is. We managed to scrub 5 people together and went to take one of the keeps. It was just 5 of us so we did not have enough supply to build enough siege stuff to break the walls down fast enough. Once we got to the champion on the capture point, literally 5 seconds later, giant enemy blob came and wiped us out in 3 seconds. The siege mechanic is there to always give enemy enough time to prevent you from capturing it, even if they are on the literal other end of the map, if you don't have critical mass of players.

The walls and gates are a mechanic to prevent players from having fun if there is not enough of them on the map. That's why it fluctuates between extremes where there is one occupied map instance with a big queue and rest of them are completely empty. There's a critical mass of player, below which you are not allowed to have fun. All you can do is run in circles waiting for the timers on the same two to three camps to run out. Sometimes you manage to even get a tower, if the large enemy blob happens to be on the complete opposite of the map. Of course, even once you get that tower, they will take it back within couple of minutes, just for the timer to pop up on it notifying you you are not allowed to have fun for next 5 minutes. 😠

This is just such an evil, malicious and torturous mechanic. You have a MMORPG with literally the best combat system out there, with a large scale PVP game mode designed to keep players out of combat for as long as possible. And when you finally encounter combat, it's more often then not the usual 15 FPS zerg experience where you are lucky to kill someone if the 20 players in front you you didn't do it fast enough.

the thing your really mad about here is.............. THE WARCLAW.

Back in the day you could get 2 sieges and quickly hammer down a keep. If you were spotted it would take atleast a few minutes for the enemys to get there. Nowadays you hit the Waypoint and YEEEET your way to the keep and you will be there in no time.

Warclaw was supposed to be a "convenient" thing for wvw... but it actually messed up the balance between roamers and a zerg, and made avoiding combat WAYYY to easy.

[Dawdler.8521]

6 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

the thing your really mad about here is.............. THE WARCLAW.

Back in the day you could get 2 sieges and quickly hammer down a keep. If you were spotted it would take atleast a few minutes for the enemys to get there. Nowadays you hit the Waypoint and YEEEET your way to the keep and you will be there in no time.

Warclaw was supposed to be a "convenient" thing for wvw... but it actually messed up the balance between roamers and a zerg, and made avoiding combat WAYYY to easy.

But... you just described how roamers can get in position faster to engage the enemy in combat?

[Sahne.6950]

Just now, Dawdler.8521 said:

But... you just described how roamers can get in position faster to engage the enemy in combat?

thats true aswell.

But you cant deny the fact, that the time from someone calling "5 blue keks are trying to take hills" to "the cavalry arives" has significantly went down since the Warclaw was introduced.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

3 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Warclaw was supposed to be a "convenient" thing for wvw... but it actually messed up the balance between roamers and a zerg, and made avoiding combat WAYYY to easy.

This is a great example of creating new symptoms to cure other symptoms, instead of addressing the core issue. Avoiding combat is an issue because players are incentivized to do so. You get passive rewards for just moving around the map and standing in circles with giant blob of other players. Basically you get rewarded for passive activity. The most rewards I ever got in WvW was when I did not engage in combat almost at all. I was just moving with a giant blob and constantly staying under the commander tag. 

I could easily code a WvW simulator, where there is a pink dot and you are a red dot, and the red dot moves around the screen between few circles in a fixed path, and your job is to use WASD keys to stay as close to the dot as possible while it moves. That's what would reward you most of the score.

If there were no passive rewards, and active rewards would mainly reward just combat and points capture, players would have no incentive avoiding combat. And we would not need to have band aid measures like mounts which dont go any faster than moving on foot.

Edited July 28, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Dawdler.8521]

24 minutes ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

If there were no passive rewards, and active rewards would mainly reward just combat and points capture, players would have no incentive avoiding combat.

No we would only have incentives to stack worlds, gank, spawncamp and flip objectives while the enemy can intentionally deny you points simply by doing the best thing they can do in this scenario - not give the enemy any rewards.

Do we want a WvW where the best way to play it is to not play it?

[Leger.3724]

11 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

No we would only have incentives to stack worlds, gank, spawncamp and flip objectives while the enemy can intentionally deny you points simply by doing the best thing they can do in this scenario - not give the enemy any rewards.

Do we want a WvW where the best way to play it is to not play it?

 

Exactly this. Some of the things people are advocating are great strategies for making WvW dead content.

 

It's passable now but most of the suggestions I see are basically guides that should be titled "here's how we can make a huge chunk of players quit" and not "my idea to revive and improve WvW".

[SpaceMarine.1836]

16 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

No we would only have incentives to stack worlds, gank, spawncamp and flip objectives while the enemy can intentionally deny you points simply by doing the best thing they can do in this scenario - not give the enemy any rewards.

Do we want a WvW where the best way to play it is to not play it?

Sorry, but this makes very little sense. If what I proposed in the OP was implemented, then the possibility of spawncamping would actually reduce. In fact, current system actually allows spawncamping since on most of the maps, there is only one, at most two waypoints you can spawn at. If every single capturable area had a waypoint, it would not be that difficult for some players (thieves for example) to bypass the huge blob waiting in front of the spawn camp, and start capturing points on the other end of the map, where allied players could then spawn from. And if the enemy team just sat in front of the spawn camp, they'd be just sitting watching the whole map being captured by the "weaker" enemy. 

The best. condition. ever. for spawncamping, is to have only one spawn location, and that's exactly what we have now. Since it can not be any worse (0 spawn points), then the only direction to explore is the other one.

Edited July 29, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Sahne.6950]

#Petition to drop in from the sky, just like in battleroyale games? 😉

[Dawdler.8521]

29 minutes ago, SpaceMarine.1836 said:

The best. condition. ever. for spawncamping, is to have only one spawn location, and that's exactly what we have now.

Uh, what? We have 4 spawn locations with 10+ different ways to get out (not counting objective waypoints).

But it matter little if a server has given up or has too few peeps, because enemy will be hunting for reward. No point in trying to break out and dying if the only thing that gives rewards is killing - as I said, better to log out and play PvE - more rewards for me, no rewards for enemies just to spite them.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

They already had plans to add mid-sized PvP. The 10v10 game mode was in the works for some years, and last we heard was "almost finished" and that they just needed to get the UI sorted out, as it didn't support 10man PvP (which is strange, because it works just fine during the festivals).

 

Anyway that was a few years ago and we never heard of it again. 😞

Edited July 29, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Luthan.5236]

I have been wanting this for a long time. I came from another game that was similar to those shooter games - but 3rd person view and melee combat - with matches that needed 20-40 minutes to finish, hotjoin enabled and teams of about 10-20 vs. 10-20 fighting.

In WvW the overall goal is missing. Most people just seem to want to farm kills. And even if you try to defend and upgrade structures trying to win the matchup ... you are only online for a very small time of it - unless you play WvW a lot. Meaning there is no real sense of accomplishment.

PvP with the small fast paced matches on the other hand: There you can "feel" your win. But it is only 5 vs. 5 and conquest. Which I still prefer over death match (that game mode is totally stupid/boring). Afaik the GW1 hat some 8 vs. 8 or so - with different objectives on the maps.

10-20 players seem ideal - I think. And the match duration for about 20-40 minutes. (Possible to finish short if one team is clever ... or too much better combat-wise.) Gear options should be the same as in PvP (free changes with Amulets and stuff). The objectives should require that you split the team. WvW is too zergy. Conquest can be decided to played as a mini zerg lol - 4 vs. 4 while the thieves run around at the other objectives (5th player of both team).

Protecting a guy that turns into some siege. Holding some area so a door opens where others could move through (where defenders could defend at the opened door or re-cap the other area so the door will close). And things to influence the cooldown on respawn time - I guess that could make for the most interesting tactics. Also avoding matches getting too stalled.

Imo this thread should be discussed in the PvP forums - since such a game mode should be more close to PvP than to WvW. (A PvP with bigger numbers, more players per match - an different objectives.)

Edited July 29, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Dawdler.8521]

17 minutes ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

They already had plans to add mid-sized PvP. The 10v10 game mode was in the works for some years, and last we heard was "almost finished" and that they just needed to get the UI sorted out, as it didn't support 10man PvP (which is strange, because it works just fine during the festivals).

 

Anyway that was a few years ago and we never heard of it again. 😞

Wasnt also sPvP originally 8v8?

I remember when they added stronghold mode  it would have been perfect around 10v10 since you needed both offense and defense, 5v5 was just too few for it. But it went nowhere.

[Strider Pj.2193]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Uh, what? We have 4 spawn locations with 10+ different ways to get out (not counting objective waypoints).

But it matter little if a server has given up or has too few peeps, because enemy will be hunting for reward. No point in trying to break out and dying if the only thing that gives rewards is killing - as I said, better to log out and play PvE - more rewards for me, no rewards for enemies just to spite them.

Evidently the OP hasn’t played the mode quite as much as they may think.  

[SpaceMarine.1836]

On 7/29/2022 at 5:24 PM, Strider Pj.2193 said:

Evidently the OP hasn’t played the mode quite as much as they may think.  

Huh? Tell me which individual WvW map has more than 3 spawn points for one given team. The most you can get is 3 on EBL, if your team has the base, the forward post, and the middle. But the middle one isn't always there, and the forward post one gets tagged as contested almost all the time.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

On 7/29/2022 at 11:52 AM, Luthan.5236 said:

I have been wanting this for a long time. I came from another game that was similar to those shooter games - but 3rd person view and melee combat - with matches that needed 20-40 minutes to finish, hotjoin enabled and teams of about 10-20 vs. 10-20 fighting.

In WvW the overall goal is missing. Most people just seem to want to farm kills. And even if you try to defend and upgrade structures trying to win the matchup ... you are only online for a very small time of it - unless you play WvW a lot. Meaning there is no real sense of accomplishment.

PvP with the small fast paced matches on the other hand: There you can "feel" your win. But it is only 5 vs. 5 and conquest. Which I still prefer over death match (that game mode is totally stupid/boring). Afaik the GW1 hat some 8 vs. 8 or so - with different objectives on the maps.

10-20 players seem ideal - I think. And the match duration for about 20-40 minutes. (Possible to finish short if one team is clever ... or too much better combat-wise.) Gear options should be the same as in PvP (free changes with Amulets and stuff). The objectives should require that you split the team. WvW is too zergy. Conquest can be decided to played as a mini zerg lol - 4 vs. 4 while the thieves run around at the other objectives (5th player of both team).

Protecting a guy that turns into some siege. Holding some area so a door opens where others could move through (where defenders could defend at the opened door or re-cap the other area so the door will close). And things to influence the cooldown on respawn time - I guess that could make for the most interesting tactics. Also avoding matches getting too stalled.

Imo this thread should be discussed in the PvP forums - since such a game mode should be more close to PvP than to WvW. (A PvP with bigger numbers, more players per match - an different objectives.)

I agree, but the reason I discussed it in the WvW forum is that I would very much like it to be a WvW style mode, gear wise. ANet's response to every balancing issue in sPVP was "DELETE IT". We've had less and less amulets over the years. I for example love to play Celestial stats, since it's a great stat set for whenever you want to utilize as much as of what your class offers as you can at once. In sPVP, they just straight up deleted the celestial amulet, instead of putting work into some balancing.

[Strider Pj.2193]

On 7/29/2022 at 3:29 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Uh, what? We have 4 spawn locations with 10+ different ways to get out (not counting objective waypoints).

But it matter little if a server has given up or has too few peeps, because enemy will be hunting for reward. No point in trying to break out and dying if the only thing that gives rewards is killing - as I said, better to log out and play PvE - more rewards for me, no rewards for enemies just to spite them.

Each map and exit has a minimum of 3 exits from spawn.  That equates to 12 possible places to leave ‘A’ spawn to prevent ‘spawn camping’.

 

In WvW, if you are getting spawn camped, you are playing wrong.

[SpaceMarine.1836]

On 7/30/2022 at 6:22 PM, Strider Pj.2193 said:

Each map and exit has a minimum of 3 exits from spawn.  That equates to 12 possible places to leave ‘A’ spawn to prevent ‘spawn camping’.

 

In WvW, if you are getting spawn camped, you are playing wrong.

That's the thing. I never said spawncamping is a problem because I almost never got spawncamped. It was Dawdler's argument:

Quote

No we would only have incentives to stack worlds, gank, spawncamp and flip objectives while the enemy can intentionally deny you points simply by doing the best thing they can do in this scenario - not give the enemy any rewards.

My point was that more spawn locations can only reduce spawncamping, definitely not aggravate it.

Non the less, it's still kind of pointless. If you don't have enough players, then even 3 exit locations are joke. You can't really flank around the enemy blob, because once you do, you can not do anything with that advantage. You can't just "cap a point" because almost every point is behind a wall or a gate you need to siege down. Exactly for the reason to give that enemy blob enough time to get to you before you do. You can at best capture a couple of camps, which they capture back immediately, and then wait for 5 minute fun timer to run out. 

The only time you can successfully siege down the walls and gates before enemy gets to you is if you have quite a lot of players who have enough supply and manpower to build enough siege and siege it down fast enough. But at that point you probably have also enough players to engage that enemy blob directly. 

The whole problem with this game mode is that unless you have enough players, there's just nothing to do. You can't do anything significant if you don't gather critical mass of players. Playing on monday morning is often just straight up impossible. And if you finally get enough players, the game mode is designed to encourage large concentration of players running around in circles, instead of being spread evenly over the map. This doesn't make for fun gameplay or even acceptable framerate most of the time.

Edited August 1, 2022 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Luci.7018]

Lovely idea

What i would add , is that territory captured unlock nearby wildlife forms to help you progress in destroying "a part of the objectives HP"  .

For  example Supply Depots , allow you to right click an ogre that throw stones from afar at a keep(Bay) - Tower.

They loose hp with each shot and if an enemy is nearby (so the scouter can focus on killing the Ogre's friends-defenders , rather than aiming at him and his friends obliterate you 

 

Edit:Or gryphon (next to bay) get improved abilities (cc-slow full zerg) if it doesn't detect nearby allies + enemies based on numbers (marked).

Or use worms that create tunnels (visable if you you are 110 yard from them , or use the Keep stealth detection). Can teleport 10 people every 1min.

edit: you have 30 sec to live , no portal skills allowed

Or suicide chogas for zergs or jump to keep to damage the Keep lord (5%) and keep him in battle

Edited August 5, 2022 by Luci.7018

[Melian.5368]

Anet should have introduced more free new content with each new expansion. Mid sized wvw modes are one example. Why dont we have a capture the flag mode closing instanced content? The person carrying the flag can get a burdened debuff to prevent stealth and teleport. Why don't we have a defend the keep mode closing instance where one side attacks and other side defends? These will be of course 2 sided instead of 3, but 3 way could also be made. Instead we got a big Nothing. I'm sure ANet thinks because the majority of the player base is casual, it is not worth to develop these, but the benefits of having these options are huge imo.