Is there a specific reason why WvW hasn't had any map updates for awhile?

[subversiontwo.7501]

16 hours ago, roederich.2716 said:

So I am talking about what is now the case.

still today people call the map out for not being able to travel fast enough and these people dont know what the shrines do, ask them next time they pest the air in your teamchat again and you will be surprised. These are all the little rambos who are influenced by the  gvg guilds players on their server who generally decline everything which doesnt look like an flat arena…. These „elite“ find something s.h.i.t. and it gets common opinion on the server in 90% of the pugs who then make the forums rambo here.

Let's examine what you're suggesting here:

The "elite" or GvG somehow influencing the common opinion on the forums: There are hardly any people posting here with any regularity about GvG, or from any strict PPK a perspective. In fact, tears about some "GvG elite" puppeteering things from the shadows is one of the most common remarks tacked on to any whiny, misinformed post here.

The same pointed-at players somehow speaking against DBL: DBL is actually a fairly decent map for GvG, plenty are held at the southern flats. People looking to do GvG or more or less small-group, duel-oriented roaming on DBL do not really hold an opinion. It works for their purposes, same as any other map.

The actual reason that DBL to this day remains a fairly poor map is that both EBG and ABL are designed with back-and-forth map control in mind. The objectives represent an area of control and by taking an objective or acting in that area you influence and exert pressure on the surrounding areas. If you take Wildcreek, for example, you can act against both SM and Green Keep, etc. Similarily, both SM and Green Keep can act on Wildcreek. DBL has nothing like that. The thought that went into the map was basically that they just needed to sprinkle out some objectives like on the other maps. If you take Air Keep then Necro is just another objective. They're more or less detached from one another and no amount of shrines are going to make that map as interconnected as EBG or ABL. Those who made that map simply never got WvW.

To put those words into pictures from various old guides:

EBG

ABL

DBL / DBL

Spoiler

More context:

That's also what makes your post somewhat amusing because with your fingers pointed at those mean elites who just want fight and don't play WvW as they're supposed to, you dress yourself as someone who wants to play the map: The very thing that DBL does poorly, as a map. The older maps are many times better for playing the map, eg., as a small group looking to havoc and be influential. I've said it before: When people sing DBL's praises it rather tends to be because fewer players play there and people in general care even less about that map. That's what they like about it, those mean elites are not there. If people play DBL and care about objectives, well, it's easier to beat your chest about defending things that fewer people care to attack or attacking things that fewer people care to defend. It's easier to pretend to be a big fish in a small pond. That's another problem with DBL as a part of WvW: It is not good for the collective scoring system to have a map that is so different from the core design and so less popular.

Ed. As far as the OP goes:

This is one of the reasons there are few new maps. Not that players have been unhappy but rather that the developer did not have anyone work on WvW and as a result they lost the competences needed to do good work. The other reason that Anet has mentioned in the past is that the WvW maps are somehow all one big map with some programming nightmares built in, so changing maps here is supposedly more difficult than in PvE which has another architecture. Arguably that too is a result of neglect leading to dated tech and competences lost.

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[katniss.6735]

So many long responses since yesterday. Good to see.

So what I'd like to do really is to have the community think up ways to make WvW more enjoyable. Just maybe if we can come up with a good outline they will have something to go on. If you can provide links to those already in this sub let me know. 

What I don't want this thread to be is a bunch of "anet doesn't listen" messages that solve nothing. Conflict kills creativity. 

[subversiontwo.7501]

38 minutes ago, katniss.6735 said:

So many long responses since yesterday. Good to see.

So what I'd like to do really is to have the community think up ways to make WvW more enjoyable. Just maybe if we can come up with a good outline they will have something to go on. If you can provide links to those already in this sub let me know. 

What I don't want this thread to be is a bunch of "anet doesn't listen" messages that solve nothing. Conflict kills creativity. 

While I can appreciate that you want constructive discussion, I would say that you are outright wrong about the last remark, and that there is little constructive discussion to be held by overlooking the truth 😊.

To affect change you need to hold to standards or accountability.

To have constructive discussion you need to get your ducks in row to set realistic expectations - or should I say, state facts so you can move past them (or keep discussion grounded around them).

Edited November 16, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

anet won't respond either way... i guess many people did expect sth with EoD, but nobody really wondered that nothing happened mapwise.

 

red border is just a flawed design. spawn behind north camp /(air and fire better accessable actually for attacker than for the homing faction etc)

 

and fyi, they didn't even bother to fix the half-zoom fire keep map view bug that for whatever reason appeared like half a year ago lol

 

and bro. the hay is fun and games, but absolutely not practical for fights. the garri mechanics are fully pointless, the air and fire ones also depend on the shrines. not a good design, because as with bloodlust, the higher number server can just flood these and usually u won't have bored elite spvpers who bother to tryhard 1v3s on there with this current balance (kinda doubt it's possible, i rarely even see 1v1 or 1v2 happening these days. its gank or run usually at "roaming")

 

people also ask for ages yet to revivie EotM, nothing happened on that too.

 

idk what @roederich.2716 is about, but gw2 overall is rather known as super casual game, and since the balance gets worse and worse, most tryharding groups overall did quit the game yet. many even did so years ago. idk what "gvg" elite u think to see, are they flying across the maps on their pink winged unicorns?

 

especially as the gvg people are those u will never see, as the 15v15 mode (which is the one usually referred to as gvg) is usually done in EotM arena. like these small groups have literally no impact on anything that the ppter blobs affect by any means

 

and the openfield gvg, which has been 20v20 up to 25v25 traditionally (during the last years) is as good as dead, as there's pretty much no guilds left that could even do that, but a handful. (on EU, idk if these even happen in NA, think not bc the NA guilds run far more sgvg sized  = smaller)

 

 

 

 

[Dayra.7405]

Whenever there was a change, there was loud protest on the forum.

So WvW-Game Designer was a very unthankful job, no one wanted and no one wanted to waste budget on something that got only protest.

Still we have a small team (1 person?) working (part-time?) on alliances. I don't think we deserve more given our reactions to changes.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Dayra.7405

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 11/16/2022 at 3:01 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Btw if anyone thinks I'm just a grump ole fart that hates everything that comes out of anet and complains about everything... I've praised and thanked Anet many times when they did put in the work on wvw. I've made many suggestions, I like to think I even had a small part in getting the objective wall/gate health percentages implemented from a qol thread I put up. Or when they swapped the guild auras +5 supply from t8 with the t1 magic find one, from one of the suggestions I had posted.

Or when my direct suggestion to make redbl the desert bl and the other two alpines (god I'm gonna get crucified now from the alpine and redbl peeps) Redbl = Desert Although both maps had it's supporters, the only real solution was to have them both running at the same time.

But you know, there's only so much of that you can do before you get tired talking to a brick wall, eventually you get cynical about the wvw situation and just make jokes cause there's nothing left to do.

Oh hey Grimm we talked a little about ebg back in the day too lol. Grimm and Xen discuss maps 🙂

 

Hey don't confuse emoji, us old grumpy peeps gotta hang. Oh sorry, wrong time frame. Sorry if you can't dig it. Maybe that's too far back.

Good point Xen. 🙂 Hence why I like forum peeps. Overtime we get to know each other and can think about it in differing levels that might have been different from what we were seeing and get the other side. Differing views is good for discussions in case there is too much groupthink going on. We all seem to like the game, else we wouldn't be here in Forum Wars 2. Or we are mental, maybe mental has more odds here. Oh well, this jacket hugs us back anyway, all good and these walls are comfy and soft. So be it.

[Sviel.7493]

To release new maps, Anet has to decide on a direction for WvW.  They have been extremely cagey on this.  I would not expect any movement on this front anytime soon.

ABL is a zerg-centric mess, but this is what some people want.  DBL made a huge number of changes with mixed results, but overall accomplished its goal of creating a less zerg-centric map.  Any map they release in the future will or will not include certain features that influence how zerg-centric it is.

If they lean into the zerg, WvW will continue to stagnate as that's a major factor in myriad issues with the game mode.  If they move away from the zerg, they will alienate the people who have grown to love the current mess with no guarantee of better new player retention.  It's not a great position to be in.  What they will do remains to be seen, but it seems as if the pro-zerg group has more support based on the changes they've made since HoT.  With that being the case...what's the point of a new map?  You can't really go more zerg-centric than ABL and still have a game mode.  You could simply reskin it, but is that worth the resources?

 

Anyway, this is something that definitely won't see any movement until after the alliances update is done.  I don't know if anything will happen then, but I'm certain it won't happen right now.

[Gorani.7205]

@Sviel.7493 Interesting argument

What could the focus of the map be for a future map? It could be more "event centric" and borrow ideas from Drizzlewood coast, like you have to hold an area during the event to be able to score on a secondary event. That would create fights over dominance of the area and allow players that prefer collections/supply management etc. activities to contribute as well. Towers could be choke points across the map and supply camps could be limited to one per side, so that the "event areas"  can create supply deliveries depending on whether you succeed or fail the secondary events.
Another idea could be a map where supply manages a lot and is needed so your structures don't deteriorate over time, meaning that if you can't get supply in, your keeps and towers will downgrade (instead of upgrade). Dolyak routes would be vital to be held open and small groups can starve out T3 keeps by flipping surrounding camps, because the keep will not be as strong after a few ticks.
What about a map that favours "the underdog" with additional ways to travel, like launchpads, tunnels, teleporting doors etc. "Spawn camped" servers would be able to exit spawn via other ways to get behind enemy lines. What about a map that favours big fights, that can be initiated by a "challenge event", where when two forces fight it out, the PPK would be weighted more? A map with more open water would make a big difference. Siege platforms could be "rail roaded" ships (like the one in Labyrintine Cliffs) that you need to conquer and can build siege on "siege slots". Those ships would sail past towers and keeps and you can shoot at their walls from bypassing ships.

"Fearing off" large groups with Necros was a big thing when EoTM came out, because of the "islands floating in the mists" idea. People did not like that a lot as it made zergs a lot more vulnerable to a few people with "fear".

[Kozumi.5816]

On 11/16/2022 at 12:19 AM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Oh noes, some customers don't like what you made, you should totally just ignore them for 7 years after instead of trying to improve your product for said customers. I dunno but maybe people would be happier to buy gems for some cosmetics to support the game more, if they bothered to read the forums, listened for a change, make some changes, even qol stuff, but no, just totally ignore them, and give your game a bad reputation on the competitive side, that's totally good for business I'm sure. "Hay guys you're totally a cornerstone, plz by gaems expansion soon okies?" Yeeeeeeah, good luck with that.

Any negative feedback I give this game on gaming subreddits gets downvoted to oblivion. They have the uber casuals and they absolutely love this game, that's all they need to sustain it and honestly all they really want.

  

On 11/16/2022 at 1:17 AM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Lastly, they get way more complaints in pve, yet still focus on pve content, it isn't about the complaints, it's more about where the money is, and for anet that's new pve players, everything else will take a back seat, even veteran players.

Uber casuals is all that matters and they won them over.  They're also cheaper to make a game for. Create extremely boring 1 and done story content with a bad story and casuals will play your game forever.

Edited November 18, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Riba.3271]

On 11/17/2022 at 1:56 PM, Dayra.7405 said:

Whenever there was a change, there was loud protest on the forum.

So WvW-Game Designer was a very unthankful job, no one wanted and no one wanted to waste budget on something that got only protest.

Still we have a small team (1 person?) working (part-time?) on alliances. I don't think we deserve more given our reactions to changes.

I think issue is that if you want net positive vibe from feedback, the encouraging posts contribute nothing and are waste of time and critisism on how change was implemented has meaningful purpose.

 

There have been lot of great changes to WvW like scoring, rewards and autoupgrading that very few people raised voice against. If youre saying devs should be able to implement bad changes like keeping asymmetrical system with unpopular map around and unfair linking system without any critisism, you're just wrong. What dev needs to do is: implement a change then listen to playerbase comments, even ones that come years after, that make sense then then adjust or revert it. Not hide in a corner shaking taking critisism personally.

Main thing is, they need to use logic. For example there is no logic behind why we have full unlinked servers in tier 5 every linking, whereas other full servers are in tier 1 with a link that allows transfers to them for super cheap. Another one is why claim buff stats reach so far outside objectives? Why can you be 4000 range from bay walls and still bay defenders have extra stats? Are fair duels not allowed to exist?

Edited November 18, 2022 by Riba.3271

[Daniela.6285]

Yes, wvw is the most important part in the game. 

[Justine.6351]

They don't know how to make a good wvw borderlands map anymore.  Likely the people that made Alpine bl don't work at anet anymore. So now only these huge lofty map designers exist and that doesn't make a good wvw map.

[Gorani.7205]

15 hours ago, Justine.6351 said:

They don't know how to make a good wvw borderlands map anymore.  Likely the people that made Alpine bl don't work at anet anymore. So now only these huge lofty map designers exist and that doesn't make a good wvw map.

I would argue that that Alpine is not a "good" map, but a "convenient" map that heavily favours the style of WvW ANet does not deviate from (since DBL) and that goes well with their "activity policy".
- Alpine is a very easy to travel map and mounts have made it even more convenient, because you can now walk even faster. It does not have to compete with EB, because distances are shorter there anyway, but outshines DBL because there you just can't "auto run", because of verticality (you either hit a wall, or fall down).
- Alpine offers very good visibility, because it has lots of open space and little verticality (Hills hardly counts, because everything happens on top of the hill and you can't traverse between the chasms and the area on top), whereas DBL has lots of verticality and passageways between the different levels. Players like Alpine, because they can see trouble from miles away and there is very little "secretive movement" of either roamers or bigger forces possible.

Together with the decision to automate upgrades, nerf siege and favour fighting in large stacked groups via balance patches, Alpine is the best map for that, because it offers the smoothest game play experience under the current circumstances. You can clearly see the initial intention of ANet devs to break away from the philosophy of Alpine with the Desert BL, but that never worked out, because without the failed "Laser event" there is no connective element on the map that ties together the towers and keeps, which are all "stand alone" structures. Without the laser event (that would target the gates of the keeps of those factions that lose the fight over the laser tower) there is no need to go to the center to fight with large groups, there is no need to map jump and help out at the event.  DBL is an incomplete map, while EB and Alpine are complete maps with their design idea working well.

[Xenesis.6389]

They could make a good wvw map, just make an upgraded alpines or ebg, leave the objectives where they are to keep the relation and flow between them, but change the scenery.

They could add more water to map to flood some areas, especially around bay. They could have parts of hills mountain side lost to erosion, and then create a bridge from the western hills to the west cliffs again. Maybe even the middle bridge in hills collapses and they put up the eotm wooden rope bridge to connect it again. Add auric basin trees in areas to block vision, create new ambush spots, like the area between garri and bay, or around the ne ruins which has annoyingly low trees, add a couple dozen years to them.

But the important part is, keep the objectives where they are so the map fits right in with og alpines.

[Justine.6351]

6 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

I would argue that that Alpine is not a "good" map, but a "convenient" map that heavily favours the style of WvW ANet does not deviate from (since DBL) and that goes well with their "activity policy".
- Alpine is a very easy to travel map and mounts have made it even more convenient, because you can now walk even faster. It does not have to compete with EB, because distances are shorter there anyway, but outshines DBL because there you just can't "auto run", because of verticality (you either hit a wall, or fall down).
- Alpine offers very good visibility, because it has lots of open space and little verticality (Hills hardly counts, because everything happens on top of the hill and you can't traverse between the chasms and the area on top), whereas DBL has lots of verticality and passageways between the different levels. Players like Alpine, because they can see trouble from miles away and there is very little "secretive movement" of either roamers or bigger forces possible.

Together with the decision to automate upgrades, nerf siege and favour fighting in large stacked groups via balance patches, Alpine is the best map for that, because it offers the smoothest game play experience under the current circumstances. You can clearly see the initial intention of ANet devs to break away from the philosophy of Alpine with the Desert BL, but that never worked out, because without the failed "Laser event" there is no connective element on the map that ties together the towers and keeps, which are all "stand alone" structures. Without the laser event (that would target the gates of the keeps of those factions that lose the fight over the laser tower) there is no need to go to the center to fight with large groups, there is no need to map jump and help out at the event.  DBL is an incomplete map, while EB and Alpine are complete maps with their design idea working well.

There is quite a bit "secretive" movement on abl its just in today's game everybody knows them.

[Sviel.7493]

On 11/18/2022 at 7:48 AM, Gorani.7205 said:

@Sviel.7493 Interesting argument

What could the focus of the map be for a future map? It could be more "event centric" and borrow ideas from Drizzlewood coast...

Event centric maps have been tried.  Early on there were the orbs of power, but they had to be removed in part due to rampant hacking and in part because they were a Win More mechanic that didn't add enough positive action to the game to offset the snowballing.  Later, they tried again with the Oasis event on DBL.  Even if we give them a pass on the lag, it was another Win More mechanic that didn't add much positive action.  It was an improvement over orbs since you could, theoretically, take advantage of the largest zerg going there by immediately sieging something important to them...but it still wound up a failure because WvW has to exist with no guarantee of population balance.  The largest server could zerg the event and still defend.  To be clear, I think the event structure and WvW structure are both ok in these respects, but they simply did not mesh well.

Personally, I want maps to focus on the fundamentals of WvW.  I want them to enable people to do interesting things that make victory possible in the long term even when outnumbered in the short term, provided relatively even populations in the long-term.  DBL made several important steps in that direction...but then Anet backed down from that direction, laid off many of the people responsible for the map design (though that was likely unrelated to performance), and started making changes that stressed the weakest parts of WvW.  Just like the Oasis and Orb events failed because the biggest zerg dominated them, WvW in general falls apart whenever a dominant zerg appears.  If you can't beat a zerg with your zerg, then you can't hold a single objective.  You might take some stuff here and there, but only by avoiding direct player interaction and only temporarily.

 

Part of the issue is that the players that continue to put up with WvW as it is grow accustomed to what exists.  For example, people go on and on about how important it is for objectives to lead into each other.  If you can't siege a keep from a tower, what's the point of the tower?  However, being able to siege a keep from a tower is, like the Orbs and Oasis, a Win More mechanic.  It doesn't let small groups apply pressure to large groups, but it does make it even easier for large groups to negate small groups.  If the point of WvW was conquest--that is, if the point was a one-time capture of a certain location, then such a mechanic would fit.  It would reward one team for making progress.  However, the point of WvW (from a mechanical perspective) is to hold valuable territory.  Thus, checkpoints that turn into protected siege areas aren't integral to the design.  If siege checkpoints are detrimental, they should be removed.  I believe this is why they were eliminated in DBL.  Instead, towers were intended to have the potential to restrict enemy pathing to make them easier to track.  Taking a tower was still a checkpoint of sorts, but instead of knocking down a wall for free, you now put a larger chunk of the map into play.  This wasn't a huge boon for zergs as walls don't mean much to them, but it allowed for small teams to get up to all sorts of mischief.  In short, it was a mechanic that allowed a server with fewer people to have some agency without giving a huge advantage to the server with the most people.

But, long-story short, Anet seems to have run away from all that.  How they plan to fix the fundamental issues with WvW is unclear--it doesn't seem like they have a plan beyond fixing long-term population imbalances.  Unfortunately, the key issue is short-term population imbalance so...

So, as I said in my first post, how can they possibly make a new map?  They replaced ABL in an attempt to fix various fundamental issues, but now they seem to have backed off from making any changes in that area.  Every event they've centered a map around has failed due to short-term population imbalance, but they seem reluctant to do anything to address short-term population imbalance.  The primary reason they made a new map was because further changes to the old map would not fix the problems they faced.  It wasn't for variety.  They're not going to make a third map unless it is necessary to fix some fundamental issue...but they no longer seem to have the will to fix them.  Thus, WvW flounders on without any clear direction.  ABL came back and will remain even if the game mode slowly chokes to death.  They can't replace it and can't update it, but they realized long ago that they can't fix the game's primary issues without getting rid of it.  Sucks to be them, I guess.

[Zombiesbum.3502]

On 11/16/2022 at 12:56 AM, Longpoke.8290 said:

Because most people play pve. 

It's a catch 22. More players play PvE = More updates for PvE = More players play PvE.

WvW has not changed since 2012. They've added a couple of features and improved the participation reward mechanic. But there are many issues with WvW, and they could be fixed (or at least improved).

-The overall WvW rewards suck (compared to PvE).

-Players are encouraged to zerg for maximum loot bags (it's not the zerg that's the problem, it's things like rushing to a tower boss and ignoring your allies or letting enemies destroy siege, etc.) The game punishes you for choosing side objectives, logistics, protecting certain areas, etc. over moving with the zerg.

-Outnumbered is outdated (the buff even still has the tooltip of armour not losing durability). The buff itself doesn't have any real benefit for players defending against larger teams.

-Walls are mostly useless to defend from, especially as a smaller force. You either get pulled from them or damaged very quickly with large amounts of AoE covering them. The walls themselves could grant defensive boons to up to 5 players per segment without breaking the game I think.

-Siege warfare needs updating. There are a lot of issues with the way siege is designed. Repairing needs buffing, superior siege needs a damage nerf, most normal siege should be free (or nearly free) of silver/badge cost, wheeled siege engines should be moveable, walls need to be steeper slopped and/or add machicolations (so you can realistically hit "melee catapults"), siege should be less vulnerable to zergball running it over (whether through additional siege mechanics (siege camps?) or more terrain changes).

-And obviously the borderlands need map adjustments, especially desert (it looks great, but is very unintuitive to navigate).

[Longpoke.8290]

2 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

It's a catch 22. More players play PvE = More updates for PvE = More players play PvE.

WvW has not changed since 2012. They've added a couple of features and improved the participation reward mechanic. But there are many issues with WvW, and they could be fixed (or at least improved).

-The overall WvW rewards suck (compared to PvE).

-Players are encouraged to zerg for maximum loot bags (it's not the zerg that's the problem, it's things like rushing to a tower boss and ignoring your allies or letting enemies destroy siege, etc.) The game punishes you for choosing side objectives, logistics, protecting certain areas, etc. over moving with the zerg.

-Outnumbered is outdated (the buff even still has the tooltip of armour not losing durability). The buff itself doesn't have any real benefit for players defending against larger teams.

-Walls are mostly useless to defend from, especially as a smaller force. You either get pulled from them or damaged very quickly with large amounts of AoE covering them. The walls themselves could grant defensive boons to up to 5 players per segment without breaking the game I think.

-Siege warfare needs updating. There are a lot of issues with the way siege is designed. Repairing needs buffing, superior siege needs a damage nerf, most normal siege should be free (or nearly free) of silver/badge cost, wheeled siege engines should be moveable, walls need to be steeper slopped and/or add machicolations (so you can realistically hit "melee catapults"), siege should be less vulnerable to zergball running it over (whether through additional siege mechanics (siege camps?) or more terrain changes).

-And obviously the borderlands need map adjustments, especially desert (it looks great, but is very unintuitive to navigate).

Well said. 

Gw2 WvW has so much potential. It just lacks the dev listening to our feedback. 

As much as it could be improved wvw still has a loyal population. I just wish gw2 read the forums more. frequently to understand what it needs. 

 

[Riba.3271]

4 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

-The overall WvW rewards suck (compared to PvE).

-Players are encouraged to zerg for maximum loot bags (it's not the zerg that's the problem, it's things like rushing to a tower boss and ignoring your allies or letting enemies destroy siege, etc.) The game punishes you for choosing side objectives, logistics, protecting certain areas, etc. over moving with the zerg.

-Outnumbered is outdated (the buff even still has the tooltip of armour not losing durability). The buff itself doesn't have any real benefit for players defending against larger teams.

-Walls are mostly useless to defend from, especially as a smaller force. You either get pulled from them or damaged very quickly with large amounts of AoE covering them. The walls themselves could grant defensive boons to up to 5 players per segment without breaking the game I think.

-Siege warfare needs updating. There are a lot of issues with the way siege is designed. Repairing needs buffing, superior siege needs a damage nerf, most normal siege should be free (or nearly free) of silver/badge cost, wheeled siege engines should be moveable, walls need to be steeper slopped and/or add machicolations (so you can realistically hit "melee catapults"), siege should be less vulnerable to zergball running it over (whether through additional siege mechanics (siege camps?) or more terrain changes).

-And obviously the borderlands need map adjustments, especially desert (it looks great, but is very unintuitive to navigate).

1. They buffed rewards multiple times and they're pretty decent now. They should definitely focus on balance and strategic fun of WvW rather than rewards. Its just ingame money and gameplay issues should come first.

2. Yes, rushing lords has been issue since addition of claim buffs and watch towers. Defenders can always muster so many more numbers since people know defenders win over 80% of the time unless enemy brings an actual zerg, and even then they lose to defending zerg. Defenders don't even need siege these days, and supply is so abundant that any damage you do barely hinders enemy.

3. Outnumbered buff is fine, it shouldn't provide stats or bonuses. Actually buffing it would promote blobs even more since larger servers would split up less since it wouldn't provide them better fights, just being killed by outnumbered bonus.

4 and 5. Walls lost some Hitpoints, siege costs less and shield gens block all siege fire. Arrow carts deal 50% less damage to siege now. That is why walls are useless, because arrow carts/trebs deal less damage to siege, shield gens nullify them completely, attackers have more catapults/rams and walls go down faster. Defensive boons sounds like terrible idea. Defenders need to have strategic advantage f/e, not combat. For example if you're defending with half numbers, you can stealth up as gate goes down, then close it once half enemy players are in. Defenders pewpewing freely from walls should not be viable strategy, like attackers using shield gens to block all defender siege shouldn't be either: because it is terrible for one side to not be able to do anything.

6. Desert borderland makes borderlands asymmetric across servers, which means unbalanced scoring. It is also VERY unpopular: while there are 2 alpine maps which share popularity,  desert is still far away from numbers of either one. That is why it should be removed, for fair scoring.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Riba.3271

[Zombiesbum.3502]

5 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

1. They buffed rewards multiple times and they're pretty decent now. They should definitely focus on balance and strategic fun of WvW rather than rewards. Its just ingame money and gameplay issues should come first.

2. Yes, rushing lords has been issue since addition of claim buffs and watch towers. Defenders can always muster so many more numbers since people know defenders win over 80% of the time unless enemy brings an actual zerg, and even then they lose to defending zerg. Defenders don't even need siege these days, and supply is so abundant that any damage you do barely hinders enemy.

3. Outnumbered buff is fine, it shouldn't provide stats or bonuses. Actually buffing it would promote blobs even more since larger servers would split up less since it wouldn't provide them better fights, just being killed by outnumbered bonus.

4 and 5. Walls lost some Hitpoints, siege costs less and shield gens block all siege fire. Arrow carts deal 50% less damage to siege now. That is why walls are useless, because arrow carts/trebs deal less damage to siege, shield gens nullify them completely, attackers have more catapults/rams and walls go down faster. Defensive boons sounds like terrible idea. Defenders need to have strategic advantage f/e, not combat. For example if you're defending with half numbers, you can stealth up as gate goes down, then close it once half enemy players are in. Defenders pewpewing freely from walls should not be viable strategy, like attackers using shield gens to block all defender siege shouldn't be either: because it is terrible for one side to not be able to do anything.

6. Desert borderland makes borderlands asymmetric across servers, which means unbalanced scoring. It is also VERY unpopular: while there are 2 alpine maps which share popularity,  desert is still far away from numbers of either one. That is why it should be removed, for fair scoring.

The rewards still suck. Increasing 0 by 100% is still 0 (it's an exaggerated example). I don't think the rewards should be insane, but there needs to be a higher raw gold amount in the reward tracks. After 2 weeks of WvW I made about 30 raw gold. In PvP I made 40 in 2 days of casual play. That's not even the best method of making gold either. The difference of rewards is staggering.

The issue with the outnumbered buff is it doesn't serve any real purpose. It's a whole lot of nothing. It's like getting a left shoe as a gift. The outnumbered buff doesn't need to give raw stat increments, there are a number of things it could grant without making an individual player more powerful anywhere on the map. Increase to repair rate per supply, aura's that reduce gate/wall/siege damage taken, stat buffs that apply only while on or within a friendly tower/keep, more damage against players using siege, etc.

The whole point of a fortified position is so fewer soldiers can defend against a larger force at the gates/walls. It's historically accurate to have defenders be at an overwhelming advantage against a straight keep/tower push. Attacking at range should be the go-to for attacking towers/keeps. The caveat being if they want to go for a fast capture before enough defenders arrive.

As for defending on a wall, it doesn't make sense to be instantly downed because I dared take a single shot at a blob. Walls should grant defensive boons to few defenders, or at least some sort of mechanic to give few defenders an edge. Currently when defending from a wall, the entire width of it is covered in AoE that does a lot of damage. I've literally stood on the back edge of a wall with engi mortar and still I take large amounts of damage from indirect AoE, meanwhile I can only hit enemies that aren't hugging the wall. This is just bad design.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Zombiesbum.3502

[Xenesis.6389]

5 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

The whole point of a fortified position is so fewer soldiers can defend against a larger force at the gates/walls. It's historically accurate to have defenders be at an overwhelming advantage against a straight keep/tower push. Attacking at range should be the go-to for attacking towers/keeps. The caveat being if they want to go for a fast capture before enough defenders arrive.

The point of the fortified position, in this game, is to delay attackers long enough so your defensive team can respond in time. Anet is also of the position that they want fights to happen on the inner parts of objectives, not take place solely on the outside, this is why they reduced wall hitpoints years ago. There are additional tools for defending that you need to use smartly, disabler, siege, tactivators, supply traps.

 

5 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

As for defending on a wall, it doesn't make sense to be instantly downed because I dared take a single shot at a blob. Walls should grant defensive boons to few defenders, or at least some sort of mechanic to give few defenders an edge. Currently when defending from a wall, the entire width of it is covered in AoE that does a lot of damage. I've literally stood on the back edge of a wall with engi mortar and still I take large amounts of damage from indirect AoE, meanwhile I can only hit enemies that aren't hugging the wall. This is just bad design.

I disagree. You should instantly go down if you, one player, decides to stand on top of the wall and take a few seconds to cast something down onto 10-50 people below, it would be no different of how fast you die in the open field against those same players by yourself.

You can be on the wall, but you have to be smart about it. Expect you will get pulled, expect you will get aoe'd, prepare for it, your complaint is you don't get to take free pot shots at a batch of players below you, using a weapon that already bends the targeting rules in this game, but the walls aren't there to full protect you, they are there to delay the attackers.

Defending is not meant to be one player firing their aoe to stop 50 players dead in their tracks by themselves while hiding in safe protected areas, one person using siege to counter siege is more appropriate. Because what happens when it isn't just you on top of that wall, when it's also 50 of you defending on top of that wall from safe protected areas, then in close fighting at walls and gates becomes entirely useless, yet close fighting needs to be promoted in order to create conflict and fights, otherwise you'd have siege war pirate ship game that the majority of players don't want to play.

Btw desert has high protected walls in many places, it's actually more of a hindrance to defenders, catapults are used almost 90% of the time to break objectives, even in some areas which are not so easy to counter and require you to take players to go out and kill. Hence most most fights take place on inner because players would rather let the wall go down, wipe the attackers inside if they can, then go out to kill the siege, so be mindful what you wish for "range as the go-to attack on towers/keeps", it already happens and does nothing for defenders except guarantee you lose a wall and have to spend more wasted time repairing later.

[Gorani.7205]

@Xenesis.6389 last post

Those fights inside a fortification can really only happen in keeps & the northern DBL towers. EBG & Alpine towers are just too small for that and most importantly they have only one passage in for the defenders. I think the two passages inside of DBL towers in general are the far better way to get defenders inside to counter attack an create fighting situations inside. Perhaps it would be a useful addition to the Alpine and EBG towers to add a second passage on one of the indestructible parts  of a tower and check how that goes.

I don't agree with the "You can be on the wall, but you have to be smart about it" part, because zerg AoE needs to leave areas of the top of the wall uncovered. AoE circles, aimed at the edge of the wall need to change somehow for that (and all solutions are either very difficult or will affect the skills immensely): Make walls higher? You would to make them a lot higher, so they can't warp around the top (possibly up to 600 range increments, which kind of means about 50% of their current hight). That creates an even bigger LoS issue with defenders on the top shooting down. Make them wider? I assume you need 25% for that, which will either expand the walls outward or inward. The later one will reduce the size of the courtyards a lot, "shrinking" the space inside a tower to fight. Reduce AoE circles? All hell would break loose. I don't see this as a option. Some minor stone slaps sticking out on the inner side of the wall so we can put an AC there that is not obliterated by two Eles with Meteor Showers within seconds might be a sensible addition that would not break the geometry of the towers. (and do something about the Oils and the locations of most of the canons)

[Xenesis.6389]

4 minutes ago, Gorani.7205 said:

@Xenesis.6389 last post

Those fights inside a fortification can really only happen in keeps & the northern DBL towers. EBG & Alpine towers are just too small for that and most importantly they have only one passage in for the defenders. I think the two passages inside of DBL towers in general are the far better way to get defenders inside to counter attack an create fighting situations inside. Perhaps it would be a useful addition to the Alpine and EBG towers to add a second passage on one of the indestructible parts  of a tower and check how that goes.

You're forgetting that it is a lot faster to reach objectives in alpine and ebg, but also most of the towers are opened by catas, not rams, rams are the option for a t0 tower with no gate upgrade, or smc inner which you have no choice. Also it's not a bad thing to have one entrance and force conflicts at that choke point.

 

The only reason you need two entrances for desert towers is because they're 2-3x bigger than the regular towers, they were also made to be choke points themselves with the obstructive terrain and barriers they use to have around them. Not that it even matters for the south desert towers as practically no fights happen there, I might have gotten into one fight the last ten times I was involved in capping those towers. Meanwhile just last night I was involved in long 3 way fights in the southern towers of alpine, which happens almost on a nightly basis.

 

4 minutes ago, Gorani.7205 said:

I don't agree with the "You can be on the wall, but you have to be smart about it" part, because zerg AoE needs to leave areas of the top of the wall uncovered. AoE circles, aimed at the edge of the wall need to change somehow for that (and all solutions are either very difficult or will affect the skills immensely): Make walls higher? You would to make them a lot higher, so they can't warp around the top (possibly up to 600 range increments, which kind of means about 50% of their current hight).

There's like only a few aoes that can reach the back of the wall, meteors which are much rarer these days as practically no zerg ele uses staff, ranger longbow 5 which has no los but not welcomed in zergs, engineer mortar which also manages to defy los with it's lob trajectory. Desert towers already have high walls, and practically no fights happen there, you can make them so high that people can't throw 1200 range aoes up there, but then practically only rangers would be able to shoot down from them too.

 

I personally have no problem operating on the wall, cause I do it with "teh smarts", I'm on my mount so I don't get pulled, I use stealth or have a port or stun break or stablity ready for when I go for a disable, I only throw aoes for tagging if there's nothing going on, and I quickly move back out of range of pulls and aoes, if I can do it why can't everyone else?

 

Regardless, no one is going to fight at the wall if the defenders have the full advantage and you can't touch them, attackers will just resort to using more siege range and more shield gens and maybe even acs to reach the top of the wall from range instead. The only thing that needs to change is the dummies thinking that standing on the lip to throw their 5 cap aoe is doing anything to 40 people below them.

The wall isn't there to fully protect you, it's to keep the enemy out.

[Zombiesbum.3502]

11 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Regardless, no one is going to fight at the wall if the defenders have the full advantage and you can't touch them, attackers will just resort to using more siege range and more shield gens and maybe even acs to reach the top of the wall from range instead. The only thing that needs to change is the dummies thinking that standing on the lip to throw their 5 cap aoe is doing anything to 40 people below them.

That's the point, when defenders are on a wall, a larger attack force shouldn't just be able to ignore them like they do currently. When I'm standing on the BACK of the wall, hitting enemies with arcing shots (so no direct fire), but still getting hit to shreds. How is that being a "dummy that stands on the lip". You need to spend less time on the forum and more time playing WvW if you really believe that standing on the wall in the current meta against an overwhelming force is going to achieve anything.

The main issue with WvW right now is that smaller forces in a defensive position may as well not even try to play against a much larger force. No amount of server balance will fix this issue, because there will ALWAYS be these circumstances as people are online at different times and there are different time zones (even an hour time zone makes a difference).

The game needs to give tools to players to defend when outnumbered, that is not to say they should be successful, the defenders should still lose the objective if the attacking side doesn't just bum-rush. But it's how you lose that matters in this case.

[Xenesis.6389]

9 minutes ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

That's the point, when defenders are on a wall, a larger attack force shouldn't just be able to ignore them like they do currently. When I'm standing on the BACK of the wall, hitting enemies with arcing shots (so no direct fire), but still getting hit to shreds. How is that being a "dummy that stands on the lip". You need to spend less time on the forum and more time playing WvW if you really believe that standing on the wall in the current meta against an overwhelming force is going to achieve anything.

I have almost 10k hours in 10 years, how much you got?

Played every class, played every role, scout, roamer, builder, defender, havoc, zerg, support, dps, boon stripper.

How about you learn to not get pulled off a wall before you cry about making safe spaces for you on a wall, learn where the actual safe spots are on a wall, you know, not directly above a zerg even on the back lip. How about you actually learn to use the tools to defend with instead of standing on the back lip of a wall lobbing mortar shots. Why don't you put on sneak gyro and go disable the catas or rams?

There are plenty of times where I held off an entire zerg because I got off a disabler, or got counter siege on them because they were too lazy to kill it in the first place.

 

9 minutes ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

The main issue with WvW right now is that smaller forces in a defensive position may as well not even try to play against a much larger force. No amount of server balance will fix this issue, because there will ALWAYS be these circumstances as people are online at different times and there are different time zones (even an hour time zone makes a difference).

The game needs to give tools to players to defend when outnumbered, that is not to say they should be successful, the defenders should still lose the objective if the attacking side doesn't just bum-rush. But it's how you lose that matters in this case.

You know you're not expected to hold everything for the entire week right? Yes every server has weak points in population, it's a week long game, it's not going to be perfect, there are times you will be outnumbered and lose stuff, and there will be times your own server will outnumber the other sides and take their stuff. The server balance will help with this a little as it spreads populations out more. Many have already noticed in the betas there's more players or commanders around them in their usual dead times.

 

Your job in outnumbered is to try and hold as much as you can under that pressure, and quickly recap what you can until you get more numbers. There's plenty of tools to slow down attackers or help rally, upgraded walls/gates, supply traps, disablers, well placed counter siege, tactivators/upgrades. These are all meant to delay attacks until your side can rally to defend and push them off, you are not meant to be a one man crew to mortar zergs away from objectives. If you cannot get the numbers to defend, you lose, move on to next objective and prepare. Almost everything has a counter in the game.

 

The game doesn't need fixing to adapt to you, it's you that needs to adapt to the game.