Another WvW Feedback Thread

[Zombiesbum.3502]

Intro

Old player here who has somewhat recently returned to gw2. I'd like to share my stance on the current state of WvW. It's better than the older versions (with the orbs of power and poor participation criteria) from what I remember, but it still has much more improvement outside of server match-up balancing. I am quite surprised at how little WvW has changed from when I last played in 2012 and 2015. And while I do think there is merit in "don't fix what's not broken", I don't think that applies here. I am going to be critical of WvW because I want it to be good, not because I hate the game. So please keep that in mind while reading.

 

Server Matching

Speaking of server matching, it is clear that matching and linking servers in order to achieve balance just isn't enough. Time and time again servers are either completely dominated through numbers at particular times or have nobody to fight because of the severe number difference. This is obviously very unhealthy for the mode as it only means less and less players are going to engage with it. So, what are the other options? Balancing through mechanics may help alleviate some of the pressure of population imbalance. I'll leave some "brain-stormy" suggestions below:

• Dynamic scoring based on the current position of the server (including point difference).
• Based on server score, certain advantages are given to losing servers. Stronger tactics, constant emergency waypoints (even in lvl 1 or 2 keeps), etc. 
• Winning servers (based on score difference) have to hold onto objectives (not just flip them) in order to start to gain points (Idea here is to split players).
• Better Outnumbered buff (and please fix the tooltip as it's outdated as it still consists of gear durability). Maybe grant players with stability/protection/resistance/resolution on friendly walls? Or the ability to resurrect with temporary invisibility at your current location after a short delay (15-20 seconds). 

 

Lack of Explanation

A lesser issue is the lack of explanation. I've seen people often complain about "newbs using tactics for no reason". Part of the problem is that there is no explanation of what each tactic does or the restrictions/costs of using them. When I started playing again, I didn't know what these levers were. There were these different symbols that meant nothing to me, and if I pulled any, what then? Can I pull them all? Is there a cooldown? What do they even do? These are questions I had when I joined WvW. 

Another problem is: why does it matter if a server wins or loses? What is the overall goal of winning? Should there be a reward tied to winning as a server? Not necessarily, but I do think the game should tell the players where their server stands among all other servers. I think it's important to give players more of a reason to want to win for their server.

Additionally, the game should explain the difference between war score and victory points (or just exclude war score).

 

End of the week

Another issue with WvW is towards the end of the week, the population dies off. There are two reasons for this (in my opinion). First is that the repeatable pip chests are really bad. The second is that as the week draws to an end, the match is already decided. What's the point of trying if the match is already decided right? Some obvious solutions are:

• Increase the rewards from repeatable pip chests.
• Increase match scoring as the week draws closer to the end. Meaning the last day points are worth more than the first day.

 

Rewards and Participation

I've already touched on this in the previous point. But the rewards for WvW are bad, like night and day bad when you are comparing them to any other game mode. An argument I see often about WvW rewards is; "But WvW isn't about rewards, it's about fun". And my reply to this common argument is; Remove rewards from PvP and PvE, then see what happens.

As a general rule I also think certain WvW dailies are toxic to the mode. How many times do you hear "come for daily keep" after someone has put up an emergency waypoint to defend a T3 keep? While a player shouldn't be forced to help in this situation, the daily task also shouldn't dictate what they do in WvW. And the problem isn't WvW dailies themselves, it's ones that push players towards particular goals. 

Another issue I have is with the Participation. Obviously, this is way better than the 2012 version(s) where you'd have players bot-following Dolyaks. And I get it, there needs to be some system in place to combat AFKing and long-idling. But I really think the current Participation mechanic needs improvements. Currently the participation punishes players for taking a losing fight (dying), guarding points, scouting, and even pressuring towers/keeps with siege. I think currently these things should count towards participation:

• Increase Participation for hitting walls/siege/players with siege (it's not enough).
• Grant Participation for standing near someone else hitting walls/siege/players with siege.
• Hitting enemy players grants Participation.
• A way without using traps, for a player to gain Participation through calling out an enemy force (I'm thinking something like the call target function that works when 3 or more players are near the called target).

 

Siege Warfare

This topic is going to be in a few parts as there are a lot of minor issues or grievances I have, as well as some quality of life I'd like to see.

Catapults: I think we can all agree that melee catapults are thematically dumb right? But currently it's an effective way to storm a tower/keep for 2 reasons. It's more DPS (or at least a perceived higher DPS, which is important), but most importantly, they are impossible to destroy via mortar fire (unless from another tower/keep). There is a very simple way to "fix" this issue, catapults can damage themselves with the AoE.

Mortar: I think mortars do way too much damage to siege. In my opinion, mortars should be more about disruption than absolute defence. One solution to this would be to drastically reduce the damage to siege engines (and players), and instead to provide knockback that ignores stability.

Mobile Siege: As indicated, I think certain siege engines should be moveable at a somewhat slow pace (like walking speed?). Things like catapults, rams, and arrow carts. It always did strike me as immersion breaking that these couldn't be moved despite having wheels. And yes, I know, certain variants of the same siege don't have wheels.

Superior Siege: I really dislike superior siege engines as they are currently implemented. The damage increase is far too much, and it makes regular siege obsolete. It also contributes to walls being undefendable because they fall like paper machete. There are really three solutions I see to "fix" this issue. The first is the easier solution of reducing the damage bonus to something more reasonable (like 15-20%). The second solution is to make superior siege work slightly differently or have downsides to a damage increase. The other solution would be to change damage increase to health increase. Though I think this last solution would have the reverse effect on some siege, making the superior a waste of supply/resources.

Siege Durability: On the topic of siege health, I think certain siege is destroyed far too easily by players. The problem being that all a team needs to do is ball-up and run over siege, even if the other team contests them, the siege is going to be destroyed. Additionally, certain defensive siege (cannons and oil) is often useless, not only do they get destroyed by non-siege weaponry quite quickly, but players can't even use them without getting one shot by 30 AoEs (which is another topic). I think at the very least cannons and oils should have a major damage resistance against players, but I also think cannons should have a slight range reduction and be unable to shoot "backwards".

As for field-siege maybe there could be some new mechanic that allowed teams to reduce the damage to deployed siege that is a certain distance away from tower/keeps. Maybe a deployable siege camp of sorts which provides nearby siege with durability? Or maybe any siege placed outside of a tower/keeps range (like 2000 range) should have damage resistance against players. I'm just spit balling here.

Disassemble/Convert Siege: Why does siege have to belong to a team and be unusable by others? Thematically it doesn't make sense. Pretty "simple", allow players to convert enemy siege and/or disassemble their own/enemy siege. Would this open the door to trolling? I don't think it has to be, and certainly no more than any trolling currently. I also don't see many players that "troll siege" to begin with.

Defending: As pointed out earlier, part of the problem with cannons and oil is even if you can use them, it's often impossible without getting pulled (even if you are out of LoS for some reason) or just instant killed by mass AoE. And while I wouldn't want to see a mechanic that completely removes attackers being able to pressure wall defenders, the act of wall pressure is too one-sided currently. I think if a player is operating a walled siege defence, they should gain stability and be only affected by 1 or 2 AoEs. This still allows them to be pressured, but not instantly killed.

Siege Price: More aimed towards newer players, I think siege prices (badges and silver) should be drastically lowered (maybe with the exception of golems). I don't see a reason to tax players for regular siege, especially in a mode that already has a very low reward pay-out.

Siege Duration: A minor gripe here. I'd like to see the expire rate of siege be soft-lifted. Essentially, when a siege engine is built, it doesn't start to expire. Once a certain threshold of siege has been built on the map, then every siege after that threshold has an expire time. This is more aimed towards having defensive siege not expire because people didn't refresh them.

EDIT: Keybinds: I did forget to mention I'd like to see separate keybinds for siege (as with the warclaw). This is more of a quality of life change I'd like to see.

 

Zerging

I really don't mind zergs in WvW, maybe I am a minority with that view. However, I do think balling up on the commander is way stronger than it ever has been, and I think the main reason for this is due to AoE blocks/reflects (and to some degree stability and other boon stacking). These AoE abilities are very problematic within a WvW setting because they have no attack/missile limit. Meaning as long as a group is coordinated, they can chain these together and be nearly unkillable. And there is no counter to this play other than mirroring it, which is quite toxic game design in my opinion. I'd like to see these abilities get a limit (just like every other AoE). Will this stop balling-up? I highly doubt it, but that's not the point, the point is to make a coordinated group not completely unkillable.

 

Map Design

Of course, I am going to talk about the desert map. While I really like the artistic design of the map, the layout of it is awful. It is very unintuitive to navigate, sometimes you have to go north in order to go south, up to go down. It really is a nightmare for anyone who hasn't either played the map a lot or studied it. The other issue being that the other borderland maps don't mirror it in the slightest, making the balance between maps pretty wide. But assuming the other borderlands get the same treatment somewhere down the line, then the issue of poor layout/pathing would be the biggest one.

Additionally, one thing I've always kind of disliked about the borderlands and eternal battlegrounds is how disconnected they are from each other. Yes, they all matter for score, but that's not my point, they feel disconnected. And I think a more seamless connection to each map would help fix this minor gripe. When I open my map, it would be nice to see the actual connection between maps. This is really a small issue, but one I think is more important than one might think.

I would also like to see some sort of "map rotation" for WvW. PvE content has had so many extra maps, while WvW has had only minor adjustments to maps and one new map. I really think if Anet wants to keep WvW continually active, they need to have something fresh every now and then. Games need to evolve in order to not stagnate, it's the simple truth, even a game like league of legends has map updates that significantly change the way it's played. Even when people aren't completely happy with the changes, it still makes the game feel new and less abandoned. Which is also an important topic, if a mode feels abandoned (even if it's not), people are less likely to engage with that content.

 

Objectives

The issue here is the lack of objectives around the map (and/or their importance). You can count on one hand the things a player can do in WvW to help their team; that's pretty bad. There should be additional mechanics for players to engage with, even if it's something like collecting oil (like in the mists). But also, these objectives should matter, which brings be to mercs. They need a rework of some sort. As a general rule, NPCs defending an objective is completely meaningless from the time I've spent in WvW. I also think mercs shouldn't just attack camps, but rather also attack towers/keeps, enough so to force players to defend them every so often. The point here isn't for the mercs to be a force on their own, but to create pressure (like super creeps in league).

 

Flipping

For those unfamiliar with the term flipping, it's the act of taking a T2-3 objective with the goal of removing those tiers. While I don't hate the idea of flipping, I think it needs some adjustments in its current design. For example, if a team loses an objective, they have a set amount of time (after the invulnerability wears off) to retake the objective without losing the previous tier it had. This means if a team wants to flip, they have to take an objective and make sure it isn't taken back immediately. 

 

Conclusion

That's all I got for now. I might have forgotten something I wanted to mention, I'll update the post if that's the case. Also, if you don't agree with any of these points, I'd like to hear why. Please refrain from playing devil's advocate or being a contrarian for the sake of conflict. Thanks for reading.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Zombiesbum.3502

[Corabelle.3254]

The counterplay to damage should be avoiding it not eating and it healing through it

 

So no, supports do not need to be buffed.

[Zombiesbum.3502]

24 minutes ago, Corabelle.3254 said:

The counterplay to damage should be avoiding it not eating and it healing through it

 

So no, supports do not need to be buffed.

I'm not sure what part you are referring to.

[Sviel.7493]

While I won't reply to everything at once due to length, here are a few points that have changed since you last played:

 

Melee Catapults: are even worse now.  Anet updated siege to deal increased damage the longer you charge it.  I think the idea was that players might use siege at range if they weren't taking a damage loss.  Unfortunately, as you said, the primary reason for melee catapults is that they are safer than ranged catapults so players now just fully charge shots right next to the wall.  And, for reasons I cannot explain, due to the charge bonus damage compared to the cooldown, there is a slight DPS gain for charging shots.  In short, Anet attempted to solve the issue (maybe?) and instead just buffed siege damage across the board.

 

On a related note, wall health/defense was nerfed to try and encourage fights inside of objectives.  Obviously, this just led to more things being flipped before sufficient defenders showed up.  I cannot believe the person who came up with that change ever played outside of EBG.

---

 

Desert Map:  where do you have to go north in order to go south?  Just like the Alpine map, there is a clearly marked road on the ground that will take you straight from one objective to a neighboring objective.  There are multiple roads between objectives so you can zig zag if you wish, but it isn't necessary.  There is also, ironically, less verticality on the main roads than ABL (see: NET switchbacks) though more verticality on alternate paths.  This could be, as you said, the difference between someone new to the map and someone who has a lot of time on it, but I'm curious to know what parts specifically are causing issues.

[Zombiesbum.3502]

14 minutes ago, Sviel.7493 said:

Desert Map:  where do you have to go north in order to go south?  Just like the Alpine map, there is a clearly marked road on the ground that will take you straight from one objective to a neighboring objective.  There are multiple roads between objectives so you can zig zag if you wish, but it isn't necessary.  There is also, ironically, less verticality on the main roads than ABL (see: NET switchbacks) though more verticality on alternate paths.  This could be, as you said, the difference between someone new to the map and someone who has a lot of time on it, but I'm curious to know what parts specifically are causing issues.

I would like to tell you exactly where, but I can't recall. Which either says my memory is bad, or the map is as I said; unintuitive. But mostly it is quite easy to get lost within a keep due to all the stairs going down, and then up with 90 degree angles. I think complex designs are fine if they are somewhat uniform. But when every keep is almost alien to one another (in terms of layout), then I think that is a problem. 

Again, I would like to emphasise that the desert map looks good. But it doesn't feel good to play on. Maybe I am a minority on that, but from what I've heard/seen, other players seem to share a similar view. I've even seen one player straight up refuse to go to desert map after a commander (that he/she was following) made a call. Kind of telling maybe?

Edited December 3, 2022 by Zombiesbum.3502

[Corabelle.3254]

22 minutes ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

I'm not sure what part you are referring to.

 

Yeah I actually posted in the wrong thread my bad

[Sviel.7493]

27 minutes ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

I would like to tell you exactly where, but I can't recall. Which either says my memory is bad, or the map is as I said; unintuitive. But mostly it is quite easy to get lost within a keep due to all the stairs going down, and then up with 90 degree angles. I think complex designs are fine if they are somewhat uniform. But when every keep is almost alien to one another (in terms of layout), then I think that is a problem. 

Again, I would like to emphasise that the desert map looks good. But it doesn't feel good to play on. Maybe I am a minority on that, but from what I've heard/seen, other players seem to share a similar view. I've even seen one player straight up refuse to go to desert map after a commander he/she was following. Kind of telling maybe?

You're not alone, though the reasons people dislike the map are...complicated.  I often hear people complain about things that are just not true which makes it kind of difficult to figure out what the real issue is.

In this case, it makes sense to hear that you were lost within a keep.  They are much larger and the sidekeeps both have switchbacks where you must go up stairs or a ramp in one direction in order to ascend a second ramp in another direction.  There also aren't clearly marked paths inside.  I can understand feeling lost when you first enter them.

 

Personally, I play on the Desert map almost exclusively these days.  It feels great to me but, obviously, everyone's mileage may vary.

[Luthan.5236]

I still prefer EBG the most - it is just designed in the most comfortable way: Not much vertical stuff. Easy to move around. And the big castle in the middle. Alpine borderlands are okay as long as you do not try to move too far away. On home towards the 2 keeps - is okay. Towards the enemy tower near the small spawns ... too far. Takes too long to walk.

The Desert borderlanes are similar but have the additional problem with being set up more vertically. I like the different approach to the towers and the NPCs defending them. But the map layout ... is annoying. I prefer to stay near the zerg casue it takes much longer to get back to some place should I get killed. (Walking around solo ... too annoying. :D)

Yes it might get easier once you play the map a lot - if you like it. The problem is: To start to like it ... it might need a lot of playing there (and training) first . So ... since most rewards I can earn can be gotten with avoiding the desert BL ... I try to avoid it.

Rewards: The repeatable chest probably is not a big issues. Since that one requires hardcore grind - only reachable by a small part of the WvW players. They should focus on keeping the casuals more interested. Or the "interested player that plays a few hours each day" instead of the "guy that solely plays WvW as game modes and puts in the effort to grind for hours every single day to max out the chests.

Currently I get only the wooden tier each friday for the +1 the following week. With playing normally a lot (while not trying to neglect other game modes too much) ... maybe finishign the first half ... would already be a big feat. Finishing all the chests is pretty grindy compared to PvP where you just play about 3 matches each day for the whole season ... and finish about 1-2 weeks early. Since this runs much longer and does not have a system similar to WvW: There they wanted to reward the veteran players balancing it with a veteran player with max WvW rank in mind (that guy gets a ton more pips from the additional ones for higher rank but getting to those higher ranks is hardcore grinding).

The main focus definitely should be to get people to have fun - and getting them to play the gamde mode as intended (making it fun to cap and actualyl defend).

Being able to keep the upgraded tier once you recap ... might only encourage recapping (discsourage defending). And the alliances system ... will only affect matchmaking (balancing the population). How the players behave (some just prefer to fight mindlessly ignoring objectives) ... won't be fixed by that.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Xenesis.6389]

Welcome back to wvw. This is a very long post to break down but let's go...

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Server Matching

Speaking of server matching, it is clear that matching and linking servers in order to achieve balance just isn't enough. Time and time again servers are either completely dominated through numbers at particular times or have nobody to fight because of the severe number difference. This is obviously very unhealthy for the mode as it only means less and less players are going to engage with it. So, what are the other options? Balancing through mechanics may help alleviate some of the pressure of population imbalance. I'll leave some "brain-stormy" suggestions below:

•  
• Dynamic scoring based on the current position of the server (including point difference).
• Based on server score, certain advantages are given to losing servers. Stronger tactics, constant emergency waypoints (even in lvl 1 or 2 keeps), etc. 
• Winning servers (based on score difference) have to hold onto objectives (not just flip them) in order to start to gain points (Idea here is to split players).
• Better Outnumbered buff (and please fix the tooltip as it's outdated as it still consists of gear durability). Maybe grant players with stability/protection/resistance/resolution on friendly walls? Or the ability to resurrect with temporary invisibility at your current location after a short delay (15-20 seconds). 

First you need to ask the question, do you really want to give more points to a weak server to stay competitive, even to the point where fuller enemy servers may tank to avoid a higher tier, and now the weaker server gets forced into a higher tier facing even bigger servers?

I'm all for giving extra help to weaker or under populated servers, but I would try to keep bonus scoring points and stats to a minimum. We also have the WR system which will help a little with population balance, well if they ever manage to figure out how not to misplace guild members every time, but eventually that may even include sorting players by time zones.

 

Stronger tactics, sure, not an issue for me. Btw the ewp is based on time held of the objective not it's level (1hr in order to slot it), and it also has a cooldown, which I guess would be ok to lower the cooldown in outnumbered situations. But you would have to convince anet to also build a dynamic system for this, and I doubt they would. It could also potentially lead to toxicity as organized players tell unorganized players to get off the map so they get the better advantages.

 

You also need to convince anet that two strongest vs weakest is a bad snowball effect to have in a three way game. This is a big reason for most players to hit a side, there's less resistance, we're no longer in the age of play using map politics, not many players think about this anymore, but instead go for what's the easiest or convenient. I've pitched the idea of a overwhelming buff instead, which is the reverse of outnumbered, the side with the largest population on the map gets this "buff" which could help promote the two weaker sides to go after the strongest side(more loot of course would be the carrot on the string here).

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Lack of Explanation

A lesser issue is the lack of explanation. I've seen people often complain about "newbs using tactics for no reason". Part of the problem is that there is no explanation of what each tactic does or the restrictions/costs of using them. When I started playing again, I didn't know what these levers were. There were these different symbols that meant nothing to me, and if I pulled any, what then? Can I pull them all? Is there a cooldown? What do they even do? These are questions I had when I joined WvW. 

Another problem is: why does it matter if a server wins or loses? What is the overall goal of winning? Should there be a reward tied to winning as a server? Not necessarily, but I do think the game should tell the players where their server stands among all other servers. I think it's important to give players more of a reason to want to win for their server.

Additionally, the game should explain the difference between war score and victory points (or just exclude war score).

Wvw is a sandbox mode where you learn from experience and gathering information, just like every other zone or game, whether you are doing it on your own or learning from others, even by simply asking the questions in chat. There's is too much information for them to plaster this up on some neat and tidy blackboard for all to learn from. Players need to go out and experience the game mode, instead of waiting for the experience to be handed to them, even if that means accidentally pulling a tactic. But there is the wiki which can also be accessed in game wvw and world information.    https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World

As for the reason to win, for self pride these days I suppose. Over the years players have figured out a few things about the illusion of winning. Stacking servers and time zones means you will win most of the time, your skill doesn't really matter, numbers is all that matters. We had end of week rewards, but one server would win practically every week. We had tournaments where the winners were predicted even before it started, much like any sport, but the difference was the stacking was so severe that players that weren't on those servers just stopped caring because there was no chance. Burnout also became real during those times. We may get those tournaments and increased server rewards again in the future, if/when WR ever fixes the player created lopsided bandwagoning problem that plagues servers every single relink now.

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

End of the week

Another issue with WvW is towards the end of the week, the population dies off. There are two reasons for this (in my opinion). First is that the repeatable pip chests are really bad. The second is that as the week draws to an end, the match is already decided. What's the point of trying if the match is already decided right? Some obvious solutions are:

• Increase the rewards from repeatable pip chests.
• Increase match scoring as the week draws closer to the end. Meaning the last day points are worth more than the first day.

End of week scoring was actually proposed back by anet when they were talking about the skirmish mode, including your dynamic scoring point above. Rewards from repeat chest could use an improvement (in fact the entire track needs to be improved as tickets need to be evened out as well), but then you'll start another loop of people complaining about never getting to repeat chests in the first place so they missing out on more rewards. 🤷‍♂️

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Let-s-Talk-Scoring

 

Quote

 

Potential (controversial) additional change:

• While the above change takes steps to bring the value of off-hours coverage in-line, there’s a good chance it’ll still be overvalued. If that’s the case (and we’ll eventually poll on this), then we have plans for an additional system.
• This is the Action Level – Victory Point Multiplier system
  • This system would multiply the Victory Points awarded by Skirmishes based on map populations and time of day.
  • During prime time hours, the multiplier would always be at it’s maximum of 3.
  • During off hours, the multiplier might stay at 3 or drop to 2 or 1, depending on on activity level.
  • It’s important to include map populations as a factor, to make the system more fair for off hours players and its important to include time-of-day as a factor to prevent a winning team from trying to keep the score muliplier low by exiting WvW

Last Stand

• Last Stand describes the final day of any week long matchup
• During Last Stand, Skirmish placement Victory Points are multiplied
• This is intended to make the last day of the match as exciting as the first, and provide a final comeback mechanic for teams that are behind

 

•  

Both were never implemented as they probably felt skirmishes did a good enough job of keeping scores at proper levels (no run away scores in any time zones that completely ruins a match a day into it, it was limited to two hours at a time).

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Rewards and Participation

I've already touched on this in the previous point. But the rewards for WvW are bad, like night and day bad when you are comparing them to any other game mode. An argument I see often about WvW rewards is; "But WvW isn't about rewards, it's about fun". And my reply to this common argument is; Remove rewards from PvP and PvE, then see what happens.

As a general rule I also think certain WvW dailies are toxic to the mode. How many times do you hear "come for daily keep" after someone has put up an emergency waypoint to defend a T3 keep? While a player shouldn't be forced to help in this situation, the daily task also shouldn't dictate what they do in WvW. And the problem isn't WvW dailies themselves, it's ones that push players towards particular goals. 

Another issue I have is with the Participation. Obviously, this is way better than the 2012 version(s) where you'd have players bot-following Dolyaks. And I get it, there needs to be some system in place to combat AFKing and long-idling. But I really think the current Participation mechanic needs improvements. Currently the participation punishes players for taking a losing fight (dying), guarding points, scouting, and even pressuring towers/keeps with siege. I think currently these things should count towards participation:

• Increase Participation for hitting walls/siege/players with siege (it's not enough).
• Grant Participation for standing near someone else hitting walls/siege/players with siege.
• Hitting enemy players grants Participation.
• A way without using traps, for a player to gain Participation through calling out an enemy force (I'm thinking something like the call target function that works when 3 or more players are near the called target).

We've discussed this over hundreds of times in the forums, not much more to add at this point.

Players know it's bad.

Anet knows it's bad.

When will they ever look at it, who knows, maybe after WR, probably never.

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Siege Warfare

This topic is going to be in a few parts as there are a lot of minor issues or grievances I have, as well as some quality of life I'd like to see.

Catapults: I think we can all agree that melee catapults are thematically dumb right? But currently it's an effective way to storm a tower/keep for 2 reasons. It's more DPS (or at least a perceived higher DPS, which is important), but most importantly, they are impossible to destroy via mortar fire (unless from another tower/keep). There is a very simple way to "fix" this issue, catapults can damage themselves with the AoE.

Mortar: I think mortars do way too much damage to siege. In my opinion, mortars should be more about disruption than absolute defence. One solution to this would be to drastically reduce the damage to siege engines (and players), and instead to provide knockback that ignores stability.

Mobile Siege: As indicated, I think certain siege engines should be moveable at a somewhat slow pace (like walking speed?). Things like catapults, rams, and arrow carts. It always did strike me as immersion breaking that these couldn't be moved despite having wheels. And yes, I know, certain variants of the same siege don't have wheels.

Superior Siege: I really dislike superior siege engines as they are currently implemented. The damage increase is far too much, and it makes regular siege obsolete. It also contributes to walls being undefendable because they fall like paper machete. There are really three solutions I see to "fix" this issue. The first is the easier solution of reducing the damage bonus to something more reasonable (like 15-20%). The second solution is to make superior siege work slightly differently or have downsides to a damage increase. The other solution would be to change damage increase to health increase. Though I think this last solution would have the reverse effect on some siege, making the superior a waste of supply/resources.

Siege Durability: On the topic of siege health, I think certain siege is destroyed far too easily by players. The problem being that all a team needs to do is ball-up and run over siege, even if the other team contests them, the siege is going to be destroyed. Additionally, certain defensive siege (cannons and oil) is often useless, not only do they get destroyed by non-siege weaponry quite quickly, but players can't even use them without getting one shot by 30 AoEs (which is another topic). I think at the very least cannons and oils should have a major damage resistance against players, but I also think cannons should have a slight range reduction and be unable to shoot "backwards".

As for field-siege maybe there could be some new mechanic that allowed teams to reduce the damage to deployed siege that is a certain distance away from tower/keeps. Maybe a deployable siege camp of sorts which provides nearby siege with durability? Or maybe any siege placed outside of a tower/keeps range (like 2000 range) should have damage resistance against players. I'm just spit balling here.

Disassemble/Convert Siege: Why does siege have to belong to a team and be unusable by others? Thematically it doesn't make sense. Pretty "simple", allow players to convert enemy siege and/or disassemble their own/enemy siege. Would this open the door to trolling? I don't think it has to be, and certainly no more than any trolling currently. I also don't see many players that "troll siege" to begin with.

Defending: As pointed out earlier, part of the problem with cannons and oil is even if you can use them, it's often impossible without getting pulled (even if you are out of LoS for some reason) or just instant killed by mass AoE. And while I wouldn't want to see a mechanic that completely removes attackers being able to pressure wall defenders, the act of wall pressure is too one-sided currently. I think if a player is operating a walled siege defence, they should gain stability and be only affected by 1 or 2 AoEs. This still allows them to be pressured, but not instantly killed.

Siege Price: More aimed towards newer players, I think siege prices (badges and silver) should be drastically lowered (maybe with the exception of golems). I don't see a reason to tax players for regular siege, especially in a mode that already has a very low reward pay-out.

Siege Duration: A minor gripe here. I'd like to see the expire rate of siege be soft-lifted. Essentially, when a siege engine is built, it doesn't start to expire. Once a certain threshold of siege has been built on the map, then every siege after that threshold has an expire time. This is more aimed towards having defensive siege not expire because people didn't refresh them.

EDIT: Keybinds: I did forget to mention I'd like to see separate keybinds for siege (as with the warclaw). This is more of a quality of life change I'd like to see.

 

Catapults - hurt themselves? I guess.

Mortars - they are fine as is, already easy to kill, should still have one decent siege killing counter siege as cannons are practically useless on rams as is, and catas have their own shields to block shots along with shield gens.

Mobile siege - we had a beta on mobile cannons, players weren't fond of it. We have golems as well anyways. Siege placed on bad spots need to be punished, the player who placed the bad siege should learn from this the next time they drop siege, this is why we have siege placed on the back lip of walls, not in the middle of it.

Superior siege - I don't agree. Regular walmart siege should be taken out of the game, there's more than enough free sources for  superior, there's no need for regular. Siege already does little zergs and blobs, there's no need to further nerf damage, get out of red rings if you're dying to them.

Siege durability - Cannons and oils should get a buff in siege damage, cannons cannot kill rams before a gate goes down, and if the attackers don't bother to kill a cannon or oil or mortar before laying down their siege, they need to be punished somehow for this. Oils do way too little damage to rams, not to mention their shield only lasts for 10s, while it takes way longer to kill rams and you're also still vulnerable to condition spam. The time to break a gate compared to the time for an oil to kill the ram should be comparatively the same, with some outside factors like disablers and shields playing a role in delaying either side from killing first. I know their excuse was to have a reason for close range break ins, so rams need to be strong, but not to the point where objective siege is useless. I also think balistas need to be more effective at killing siege.

Disassemble/convert siege - Do we really need a more complicated system around siege? Bring your own supply, build your own siege, cap the objective and be on your way.

Defending - No to auto stability on wall, learn when and when not to be on the wall, have your own stability, stealth or stun breakers ready. You throwing your 5 cap aoe on a group of 40 below does nothing to them.

Siege price - you can get siege for free through reward tracks, you can pay badges or heroics for siege which again for free if you just play the game, paying by silver is just another option, there's no reason to lower prices.

Siege duration - the question is, would that delay promote players to check more often or less often on siege to see if it needs refreshing? 

One thing to note about siege, a lot of players don't like fighting in them, yes it should be annoying for the enemy, but not to the point where it completely drives players away from even attacking that objectives, or forcing them to bring an entire map boon blob to take every single time. And while defenders would cheer at holding a keep for 7 days, it would also mean you're missing out on more action, and possibly on more participation and rewards that come from objective conflicts. Smart, not spam, placement of siege should be rewarded, attacking and defending siege need to balanced in their own conflict of what is destroyed first(as I mentioned with the oil and ram situation that should be improved).

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Zerging

I really don't mind zergs in WvW, maybe I am a minority with that view. However, I do think balling up on the commander is way stronger than it ever has been, and I think the main reason for this is due to AoE blocks/reflects (and to some degree stability and other boon stacking). These AoE abilities are very problematic within a WvW setting because they have no attack/missile limit. Meaning as long as a group is coordinated, they can chain these together and be nearly unkillable. And there is no counter to this play other than mirroring it, which is quite toxic game design in my opinion. I'd like to see these abilities get a limit (just like every other AoE). Will this stop balling-up? I highly doubt it, but that's not the point, the point is to make a coordinated group not completely unkillable.

Very little aoes have projectiles to block, like engineer grenades and mortars as an example. Aoes do have a limit, most can only target 5 players at a time over 1-5 pulses which is more than enough time for a zerg to move and basically only get hit once by it, and most of those that could target 10 have already been brought down to the 5 cap. While you mention a coordinated group using chain aoes is nearly unkillable, this is also true in the reverse, aoes are less effective on those groups especially when they have more numbers to spread soak damage (this is why some of them were using the reapers "Rise!" skill to produce more dummy pet targets to soak damage), support heals, and boons to spam for defense.

The problem isn't aoes kill potential(it's in fact the lowest it has ever been), it's the defense is too one sided to also kill those groups. You now have to get through stability and aegis and shield spam and open specific windows through boon strip and cc  bombs to get damage on them, and then it's random 5 targets every pulse (whomever is standing near the middle is more likely to get hit, this is why you don't run down the middle of aoes). But the boon ball has been discussed to death, and anet and their guild friends love this type game play, as every patch they find ways to spam more boons and nerf more boon strips.

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Map Design

Of course, I am going to talk about the desert map. While I really like the artistic design of the map, the layout of it is awful. It is very unintuitive to navigate, sometimes you have to go north in order to go south, up to go down. It really is a nightmare for anyone who hasn't either played the map a lot or studied it. The other issue being that the other borderland maps don't mirror it in the slightest, making the balance between maps pretty wide. But assuming the other borderlands get the same treatment somewhere down the line, then the issue of poor layout/pathing would be the biggest one.

 

Additionally, one thing I've always kind of disliked about the borderlands and eternal battlegrounds is how disconnected they are from each other. Yes, they all matter for score, but that's not my point, they feel disconnected. And I think a more seamless connection to each map would help fix this minor gripe. When I open my map, it would be nice to see the actual connection between maps. This is really a small issue, but one I think is more important than one might think.

 

I would also like to see some sort of "map rotation" for WvW. PvE content has had so many extra maps, while WvW has had only minor adjustments to maps and one new map. I really think if Anet wants to keep WvW continually active, they need to have something fresh every now and then. Games need to evolve in order to not stagnate, it's the simple truth, even a game like league of legends has map updates that significantly change the way it's played. Even when people aren't completely happy with the changes, it still makes the game feel new and less abandoned. Which is also an important topic, if a mode feels abandoned (even if it's not), people are less likely to engage with that content.

We've discussed desert to death. Wvw will most likely never get another map after desert disaster start, they barely put any developmental resources into wvw as it is.

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Objectives

The issue here is the lack of objectives around the map (and/or their importance). You can count on one hand the things a player can do in WvW to help their team; that's pretty bad. There should be additional mechanics for players to engage with, even if it's something like collecting oil (like in the mists). But also, these objectives should matter, which brings be to mercs. They need a rework of some sort. As a general rule, NPCs defending an objective is completely meaningless from the time I've spent in WvW. I also think mercs shouldn't just attack camps, but rather also attack towers/keeps, enough so to force players to defend them every so often. The point here isn't for the mercs to be a force on their own, but to create pressure (like super creeps in league).

I've proposed dynamic events for wvw multiple times, through random events like a supply cache showing up, or random territory hit with random fractal instability. We had orbs but they were fly hacked and anet couldn't stop that so they took it out entirely. We had quaggan mercs but that got replaced with ruins to put the orbs power back in the game. We also pve events, which early on wvw players said a big fat no to pve events in wvw at all. In the end most players want to fight players, not npcs, there are players who prefer fighting npcs than players, but they already have a vast pve game to play for that.

Also I'm sure there's more than 5 things to do in wvw. Roam for fights, dueling, ganking, scouting for enemies, gvg, zerg for fights or ppt, defend/attack an objective/sentry/camp/tower/ruin/shrine/merc camp/keep/castle, fortify objectives, escort dolyaks, repair, long range sieging. The question for the player is, do they bother going out and finding these things to do, or do they just wait for an orange sword or tag to show up to bring it to them.

 

8 hours ago, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Flipping

For those unfamiliar with the term flipping, it's the act of taking a T2-3 objective with the goal of removing those tiers. While I don't hate the idea of flipping, I think it needs some adjustments in its current design. For example, if a team loses an objective, they have a set amount of time (after the invulnerability wears off) to retake the objective without losing the previous tier it had. This means if a team wants to flip, they have to take an objective and make sure it isn't taken back immediately. 

But why? then players could just avoid the defending fight altogether, and just reflip to keep the bonuses when the enemy leaves. Or the enemies would then just wait until whatever time you set for this to wear off anyways. There would be less urgency for players to defend something like this. Possibility of completely losing the upgrades gives those players the urgency to defend in the first place, it's practically the only reason to cause no one really calculation points for this.

[Zombiesbum.3502]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

On 12/3/2022 at 11:47 AM, Zombiesbum.3502 said:

Flipping

For those unfamiliar with the term flipping, it's the act of taking a T2-3 objective with the goal of removing those tiers. While I don't hate the idea of flipping, I think it needs some adjustments in its current design. For example, if a team loses an objective, they have a set amount of time (after the invulnerability wears off) to retake the objective without losing the previous tier it had. This means if a team wants to flip, they have to take an objective and make sure it isn't taken back immediately. 

But why? then players could just avoid the defending fight altogether, and just reflip to keep the bonuses when the enemy leaves. Or the enemies would then just wait until whatever time you set for this to wear off anyways. There would be less urgency for players to defend something like this. Possibility of completely losing the upgrades gives those players the urgency to defend in the first place, it's practically the only reason to cause no one really calculation points for this.

Part of the issue is that objectives go down way to quickly, and obviously making them take a lot longer to capture via giving wall HP buffs isn't what players want, right? Will there be situations where a side will ignore defending an objective? Sure. But I don't know if that will be the norm. Especially if let's say, the time to retake an objective would scale with the server's overall point lead. If your server is well ahead of second place, then you'd get no-less time to recapture objectives. Sort of another layer of reverse-snowball.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Siege duration - the question is, would that delay promote players to check more often or less often on siege to see if it needs refreshing? 

The point is that refreshing siege is a dull job that doesn't reward players. And obviously allowing siege refreshing to grant participation or rank exp is probably asking to be abused without severe limitations. It's also silly that siege goes "poof". It would be more immersive if siege HP decayed over time and could be repaired. But I'm not sure if players would be a fan of this sort of gameplay, and it would probably just result in ignoring siege entirely.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Siege price - you can get siege for free through reward tracks, you can pay badges or heroics for siege which again for free if you just play the game, paying by silver is just another option, there's no reason to lower prices.

If the price is meaningless, then there is no point in having a price, right?

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Defending - No to auto stability on wall, learn when and when not to be on the wall, have your own stability, stealth or stun breakers ready. You throwing your 5 cap aoe on a group of 40 below does nothing to them.

I'm talking about cannons and oil. They are mostly useless as you've already pointed out. And the reason for that is you don't get to ever use them, you get 1 shot (maybe 2 if the force isn't very large) before you have to jump off and re-boon/heal. That doesn't strike me as an intended design for these.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Disassemble/convert siege - Do we really need a more complicated system around siege? Bring your own supply, build your own siege, cap the objective and be on your way.

Do we need any more systems? No. But you should realise that details are often what defines a game as being great instead of good. And I find it pretty immersive breaking that siege is in this state of "dump and forget". 

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Siege durability - Cannons and oils should get a buff in siege damage, cannons cannot kill rams before a gate goes down, and if the attackers don't bother to kill a cannon or oil or mortar before laying down their siege, they need to be punished somehow for this. Oils do way too little damage to rams, not to mention their shield only lasts for 10s, while it takes way longer to kill rams and you're also still vulnerable to condition spam. The time to break a gate compared to the time for an oil to kill the ram should be comparatively the same, with some outside factors like disablers and shields playing a role in delaying either side from killing first. I know their excuse was to have a reason for close range break ins, so rams need to be strong, but not to the point where objective siege is useless. I also think balistas need to be more effective at killing siege.

To be fair, I don't think the idea is for oils and cannons to destroy rams outright, but rather the players operating them. The problem of course is you can never operate them without exploding.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Superior siege - I don't agree. Regular walmart siege should be taken out of the game, there's more than enough free sources for  superior, there's no need for regular. Siege already does little zergs and blobs, there's no need to further nerf damage, get out of red rings if you're dying to them.

So, essentially remove regular siege, and call superior siege regular siege because there won't be regular versions of superior siege anymore? It just seems silly to reduce wall HP, keep superior siege and remove regular siege. The problem with superior siege is it's just replaced regular siege. This is just really bad powercreep design. And obviously the "easier" solution of reduces the numbers doesn't change that. It's why I think superior siege needs variations compared to their regular counterparts. If that means all siege is now too weak, then sure, buff up all siege damage. But the way superior siege has just made regular siege obsolete does quite annoy me. 

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Mobile siege - we had a beta on mobile cannons, players weren't fond of it. We have golems as well anyways. Siege placed on bad spots need to be punished, the player who placed the bad siege should learn from this the next time they drop siege, this is why we have siege placed on the back lip of walls, not in the middle of it.

I couldn't find anything of mobile cannons. In any case, it would really depend on how they were implemented. For example, if players could move at a pretty quick pace while firing, then that would be pretty unbalanced and unfun to play against. But generally, when I think of mobile siege, I'm more thinking on the lines of you can either move slowly, or fire. Additionally, giving some siege the ability to be moved is another variation of how to differentiate siege from a balance perspective.

If siege shouldn't be moveable. Then Anet should at least remove the wheels from all variants of siege.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

but then you'll start another loop of people complaining about never getting to repeat chests in the first place so they missing out on more rewards.

I just don't see how this is a factor. Those who do get to repeat chests are simply putting in more hours playing WvW. And even at 6 pips per tick, you'd need 171 minutes per day of WvW to get to repeat chests. It's kind of like someone complaining they don't get to raid as often because they don't play enough. 🤷‍♂️

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Wvw is a sandbox mode where you learn from experience and gathering information, just like every other zone or game, whether you are doing it on your own or learning from others, even by simply asking the questions in chat. There's is too much information for them to plaster this up on some neat and tidy blackboard for all to learn from. Players need to go out and experience the game mode, instead of waiting for the experience to be handed to them, even if that means accidentally pulling a tactic. But there is the wiki which can also be accessed in game wvw and world information.    https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_versus_World

I still think the game (not just WvW though) should better explain what things are and do, or at least direct players to where things can be explained or experienced. And obviously not everything needs explaining, some things are self-explanatory. Is this an issue that is urgent? I don't think so. But I think it's definitely a QoL thing that is going to help newer or more casual players be more immersed into the game without spending additional time researching the game's features.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

As for the reason to win, for self pride these days I suppose. Over the years players have figured out a few things about the illusion of winning. Stacking servers and time zones means you will win most of the time, your skill doesn't really matter, numbers is all that matters. We had end of week rewards, but one server would win practically every week. We had tournaments where the winners were predicted even before it started, much like any sport, but the difference was the stacking was so severe that players that weren't on those servers just stopped caring because there was no chance. Burnout also became real during those times. We may get those tournaments and increased server rewards again in the future, if/when WR ever fixes the player created lopsided bandwagoning problem that plagues servers every single relink now.

This is why I think rewards should probably not be a thing here. Of course, players are going to jump ship in order to get rewarded. That's just toxic game design at that point.

 

On 12/3/2022 at 10:15 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

You also need to convince anet that two strongest vs weakest is a bad snowball effect to have in a three way game. This is a big reason for most players to hit a side, there's less resistance, we're no longer in the age of play using map politics, not many players think about this anymore, but instead go for what's the easiest or convenient. I've pitched the idea of a overwhelming buff instead, which is the reverse of outnumbered, the side with the largest population on the map gets this "buff" which could help promote the two weaker sides to go after the strongest side(more loot of course would be the carrot on the string here).

Part of the issue is that the game is designed in a way for that isn't intended for 1st place to always be "ganged up on". Which undermines the whole point of a 3-way war. Being king of the hill isn't the objective. The objective is to be higher up the hill, which is what creates this issue.

The 2nd placed server is going to focus its efforts on the next closest-point-server. If 1st place is 1000 points ahead, ignore them and focus on 3rd place to stay 2nd place.

3rd place is always going to focus 2nd place to catch up.

While 1st place is going to focus on 2nd place to stay ahead.

 

And this is also ignoring what players tend to do, focus on the weak for easy earnings. Which, when the scores no longer matter to players, that's exactly what happens.

 

Edited December 7, 2022 by Zombiesbum.3502