Wvw Devs, have yall ran out of ideas 💡?

[Knighthonor.4061]

WvW developers,  have yall ran out of ideas 💡?  What's been holding yall back from adding new content to WvW?

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Partly it is the players.  It is a bit of an old meme, but the "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" mentality really holds the devs back from trying the more wacky and crazy ideas.  

Another part is the budget.  It is hard to get good monetization from WvW.  

[Dawdler.8521]

We got the tactivators moved on SE tower in DBL which obviously drained this years WvW budget wtf more content do you expect?!

[TheGrimm.5624]

36 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

We got the tactivators moved on SE tower in DBL which obviously drained this years WvW budget wtf more content do you expect?!

Your killing me smalls lol.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

We got the tactivators moved on SE tower in DBL which obviously drained this years WvW budget wtf more content do you expect?!

We also got the nodes in Crankshaft Depot moved.
I don't know, maybe i pulled and killed too many boon balls as they tried to grab nodes after taking the tower.

[Dawdler.8521]

15 minutes ago, Sleepwalker.1398 said:

We also got the nodes in Crankshaft Depot moved.

Sorry I meant the nodes I hallucinated another massive change 😑

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

what wvw devs? 😕

[SweetPotato.7456]

they make all the small fixes but can't fix Speldan X not showing.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

Answer was stated already but we players are the answer. They added new stuff to wvw up until the dbl, and the amount of player backlash on the map was so angry and loud that they made multiple changes, and then brought alpine back, and then world linking happened. Of course they wouldn't be thrilled something they were excited for got shot down so bad( with players STILL wanting it removed). After world linking the wvw community was obviously split on what players want from wvw which continues to this day, and can be seen just reading these forums. You can't blame them for not making content for us, the wvw community that can't agree on what even most of us want.

[disForm.2837]

There's no lack of ideas, not like we had a continuous flow of new features over the years. Also, it only takes a simple search on this forum to get fantastic ideas.

Reality is, WvW is in maintenance mode, it's that simple. They just fix a few bugs and roll with balance patches (because PvE changes, nothing for WvW specifically). 

Just look at PvE, despite delays and whatnot, they always have a roadmap. That's because you don't develop features in a day or a week, it's always planned. 

I'd love to be wrong and they announce new content tomorrow, but Anet WvW history says it's unlikely.

[Woof.8246]

I wish there was a system , where as long as you play (more placibo lvls) / or find hidden mobs (theres a clue if you are outnumber for more than 2 hours) which allowed to unlock forms :

a) You become a sentient void castle  (top down view- cannot see the enemies , you see footsteps like Reksai from LoL) and you can use "bite + dark holes that teleports enemies away +  throw bookcases + create tunnels for allies  + teleport/freeze the Lord keep away ,or become one for some secs use enviromental weapons-run and find health potions" attacks , if swords + no allies are nearby .

b) You become a semi transparent huge demi-god that cannot be damaged by players  , standing behind the commander in the open fields , that you can place aoes ,and as long  as people stand in the circle (or trick enemies to step in) , (or as long as you have the outnumber buff and the commander is in combat) , people can sucrifice their boons to give you more attacks , such:

1)  create a field with huge swords , that offer condition removal buffs on you + ranged protection , or the comander gets un-coruptable stabilty that shares with allies

2) If the Commander with his zerg break the swords  or purpose , before the energy is drained from standing near it , the demi-god can throw shards/lighting (Skyscale's Fireball mechanic) to enemies to corrupt from getting boons for 30 sec

3) The more kills near the demi-god , offer bloodlust (attack speed and vampirism) , while the looser get increased fleeing speed (kite) . 

4) If the demi-god , hit the other demi-guy , he also fills him special bar that allows him to create a "battleground of the gods arena" , where everyone will get petrified in 15 sec and the first 30 people that step in a circle from each side , will participate in the enclosed space . And whoever wins , the other team's petrified members are  teleported to various locations .

5) The gods can become huge dexteretous stone  lizzards every 10 sec , that are going to perma-petrified after that period (create enviromental areas , where people can hop) ,and the goal between the 2 gods , is to have an irelevant 1v1 from the rest of the zerg , and whoever can get the most times the closer to random spawned "Orb of Power" location , while avoiding the others ranged attacks and have more hp , he "contest the "Orb"for his team . If the Commander flees away from his transparent demi-thing , the lizzard mechanic is disabled and the Commander and his server is locked out of a random boon for 20min , but get slightly moving speed (stacks with outnumber).

 

c) Get a mystery box (chance , while attacking/defending solo vs a huge  zerg , or outnumber) , that allow your enemy (pesky thief) and you (Unkillable Necro) to random reroll and may the odds be in your favor

Edit: where everyone in a castle siege gets the old Enginner Rifle (with AK-47 kickback?) and a crosshair , for some "more balanced approch for big vs small zergs" , and if people  stacks it will be bad for them . Or Toyapocalypse figures with slow-but dragonball ki like , snowballs attacks for some mins

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Woof.8246

[TheNurgle.4825]

20 hours ago, Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

Answer was stated already but we players are the answer. They added new stuff to wvw up until the dbl, and the amount of player backlash on the map was so angry and loud that they made multiple changes, and then brought alpine back, and then world linking happened. Of course they wouldn't be thrilled something they were excited for got shot down so bad( with players STILL wanting it removed). After world linking the wvw community was obviously split on what players want from wvw which continues to this day, and can be seen just reading these forums. You can't blame them for not making content for us, the wvw community that can't agree on what even most of us want.

This is bigger than most ppl think. Also game is quite old so you can not rework or improve major feature since "veteran" players would demand compensation and you would have more drama on forums and who know where else which create bad image for game.

[Spurnshadow.3678]

21 hours ago, Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

Answer was stated already but we players are the answer. They added new stuff to wvw up until the dbl, and the amount of player backlash on the map was so angry and loud that they made multiple changes, and then brought alpine back, and then world linking happened. Of course they wouldn't be thrilled something they were excited for got shot down so bad( with players STILL wanting it removed). After world linking the wvw community was obviously split on what players want from wvw which continues to this day, and can be seen just reading these forums. You can't blame them for not making content for us, the wvw community that can't agree on what even most of us want.

You have a very skewed view of history.

The players were outraged and pushed back against DBL when released, but that was because it was a disaster.  The game crashed every 2 hours when the central event happened.  The framerate dropped to near nothing whenever anyone went close to the middle zone.  There were a lot more NPC monsters than what's there now that were red and you'd aggro all the time, slowing you down when running from point A to B.  The map is about the same size as Alpine, but they had barriers that had to be destroyed to move beyond spawn if controlled by the enemy.  If you were solo or in a small group, these took forever to destroy.  There was no movement from the shrines if I recall correctly.  There were tons of ways to enter the keeps by jumping or gliding in that they took years to fix.   I could go on and on.  All of these problems were presented to Anet in the beta and they did nothing to fix it.  So yeah, the players were outraged because Anet presented us with a steaming pile of garbage and it was the first map update since launch.

World linking was not presented as a new feature.  It was designed and meant to be a temporary band-aid because world population was so low.  They said they were working on a plan to have a more permanent solution, they just didn't know what it was going to be.  They never got around to it.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

2 hours ago, Spurnshadow.3678 said:

You have a very skewed view of history.

The players were outraged and pushed back against DBL when released, but that was because it was a disaster.  The game crashed every 2 hours when the central event happened.  The framerate dropped to near nothing whenever anyone went close to the middle zone.  There were a lot more NPC monsters than what's there now that were red and you'd aggro all the time, slowing you down when running from point A to B.  The map is about the same size as Alpine, but they had barriers that had to be destroyed to move beyond spawn if controlled by the enemy.  If you were solo or in a small group, these took forever to destroy.  There was no movement from the shrines if I recall correctly.  There were tons of ways to enter the keeps by jumping or gliding in that they took years to fix.   I could go on and on.  All of these problems were presented to Anet in the beta and they did nothing to fix it.  So yeah, the players were outraged because Anet presented us with a steaming pile of garbage and it was the first map update since launch.

World linking was not presented as a new feature.  It was designed and meant to be a temporary band-aid because world population was so low.  They said they were working on a plan to have a more permanent solution, they just didn't know what it was going to be.  They never got around to it.

You're both right.

Spurnshadow is right in that the map was insanely buggy and broken at launch, and contained elements that the general WvW population didn't like at all (PvE elements, barriers, etc). The devs at the time assumed that the community wanted PvE with added PvP elements, when in reality the average WvW player just wants a mildly interesting place to fight with some environmental factors (like objectives, terrain etc) that has minimal PvE interference in said fights. The draw of WvW has always been fighting other players, not against PvE meta events or against literal walls/barricades, the original devs totally misunderstood that and ignored any input that contradicted their vision for the map. 

Dinas is right in that even after they went back and changed a lot of these issues (yes, they took far to long to fix, but still), 90% of the player base wholeheartedly rejected DBL out of spite and refused to play it. I remember seeing a player numbers statistic when all borders were DBL which showed that the three borders each had 10% of the activity of EB, if stuff was fixed and people enjoyed the map you'd expect far greater player engagement than that. People actively avoided playing on that map. I was in a guild once that specifically did their drunk raid on DBL, because even if they were plastered the chances of running into substantial resistance on that map were basically nil. Sure, the original devs didn't do a good job with the original state of DBL, but you can't blame them for not wanting to do new stuff when the reaction to the last thing they did continued to be vitriolic years after the offending elements were patched out.

Edit: anyone who's been here for a long time probably remembers the video of that dev that tried to break up a GvG behind windmill because they were "exploiting his game mode". That is a pretty good representation of the issue in microcosm: the dev expected players to fight against the stuff they created for them in the map, and got upset when the players ignored the map and just wanted to fight other players and prove who was better. The dev's creative vision never matched the player expectations, and both parties got kitten as a result. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Jugglemonkey.8741

[ArchonWing.9480]

Are people really defending devs blaming the players because they can't take criticism? lmao

When you do a bad job, you take responsibility for it. You don't just shirk back into your hole when people call it out for what it is.

Like players gave tons of feedback during the beta for DBL , and they ignored all of it. Then what players said would happen happened*. Attempting to blame people for saying mean words afterwards is revisionist.

And this is not the first or last time. They introduced the warclaw, made a few changes to it, and then pretended it doesn't exist anymore despite its impact on the game mode. Also what about those lockboxes they introduced a few months ago and then they cut the supply of keys mostly?  Yea, so that's not an isolated incident either.

* Edit: Also there's a huge tendency for their announcements to be essentially set in stone, as it seems all the changes are already in place ready to be implemented so feedback doesn't actually matter to prevent something bad, only after it happens. The recent rune fiasco is a good example because there was no way they would delay the expansion and rip it out by that point. But at that point it was only then they realized from players the potential issues so they scrambled for a solution that may be coming next year, while giving a explanation that really just seemed like it was written by ChatGPT.  Unfortunately, this is expected behavior at this point.

Edited October 22, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Like players gave tons of feedback during the beta for DBL , and they ignored all of it.

And then the WvW forum community promptly ignored all that and nearly voted to destroy WvW with the 3x DBLs for 3 months straight thing... People barely played the beta because it wasnt "live" like the WR betas, it was a completely separate client that few used.

At least they did eventually make DBL 2.0.

[XenesisII.1540]

21 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

And then the WvW forum community promptly ignored all that and nearly voted to destroy WvW with the 3x DBLs for 3 months straight thing... People barely played the beta because it wasnt "live" like the WR betas, it was a completely separate client that few used.

At least they did eventually make DBL 2.0.

Not the mention the second beta they didn't even message everyone about it, my guild participated in the first beta but got no email for the second one, I had to take a chance to dl the separate client again to see if I was in.

[Woof.8246]

What if we took the new " Skyscale "seek events mechanic , where it guides people to explore the map and get  ancient shards (or do guitar hero) that allow you to go in each Castle-Keep's "shadow realm" , with the goal to face an endless horde of npc guards and survive for 30 sec and then try to aim to do as much as damage at "secondary  Lord" that will spawn . The more damage you do to him  , the less HP the normal Boss + door will have in the real game .

The defenders can see the enemy + horde of defencing npcs as as semi-transprent ghosts that cannot be be damaged , but you can use CC on him (or use arrows cards , trapdoors) and watch him die from the one-shot defending npcs . Or you can speak to the secondary boss , to become  his "champion" that you can use real skills , or transform into the 2nd boss

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Woof.8246

[RlyOsim.2497]

A few years ago they stated that WvW wouldn't be getting any content in the expacs anymore as WvW content will just be released 'when it's ready'. There's much to say here but, in essence, alliances/restructuring was the carrot at the time but that can hardly be considered anything other than an absolute joke at this stage ('2024 btw, kind of'). So what does that statement mean now? For me at least, in the context of the last ~4 years of WvW it's very hard not to read it as 'WvW won't be getting any content'.

I don't think they have run out of ideas I think new stuff is just not on the table at all. Ultimately, I think the reality of WvW is that it's in maintenance.

Edited October 22, 2023 by RlyOsim.2497

[ArchonWing.9480]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

And then the WvW forum community promptly ignored all that and nearly voted to destroy WvW with the 3x DBLs for 3 months straight thing... People barely played the beta because it wasnt "live" like the WR betas, it was a completely separate client that few used.

At least they did eventually make DBL 2.0.

I don't remember exactly but that poll wasn't well worded. It was all or nothing.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4p13ub/desert_borderlands_will_stay/

"65.5% No: The Desert Borderland map should continue to be supported. 34.5% Yes: The Desert Borderland map should be permanently disabled."

So it was either delete the desert BL and return to alpine, or keep all desert BL.

There was no disable the red BL temporarily until they can fix it. Or the actual solution which was to mix it up.

Edited October 23, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Woof.8246]

I understand that's  too late  to redisgn the WvW where PvE people can build settlements>towns>keeps like other games , or invest into building it from OW events items and then trying to defend it by doing minigames vs the PvPers (or something nono pvp-like) , so you can get more skirmish tickets at the end.

But could there be a "semin-safe zone" (gray-not the brown area) that when you get low hp , you board a rocket , or a charriot of Skirt come and save you and teleport you into a random location ? You still drop loot and exp  for the enemy .and you can walk off by pressing "F" . This is mostly aimed to new players that when get 1-shot they feel bad . Or generally in  that area   players could do 30% less damage , less healing and randomly single boons are removed .

 

The gray area is limited , if a tower-keep is occupied for too long (from any team) .Or the shadow of the Keep from the roating sun , captured  at a specific time , pierce that zone and slowly widen it . And if the  "gray area" has more mass vs the "pvp one" , each server is rewarded for more rewards  (if bases keep flipping all the time , then that means Dominant server will not be too far ahead , either that they went for the rewards too , or the lessers servers try to maintain the "grey zone" balance)

Edit:Or the area can be limited by playing minigames ( settlements>town>keep>Mad King Tower , or Skyscale races in WvW) and the  top 3 players can vote to either limit or expand 

Edit2:Skyscale race , with bombardment sidequest . Or beetlerace , throwing invisible no-boons--areas bombs, and getting rewarded afterwards

Edited October 23, 2023 by Woof.8246

[TheGrimm.5624]

16 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I don't remember exactly but that poll wasn't well worded. It was all or nothing.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4p13ub/desert_borderlands_will_stay/

"65.5% No: The Desert Borderland map should continue to be supported. 34.5% Yes: The Desert Borderland map should be permanently disabled."

So it was either delete the desert BL and return to alpine, or keep all desert BL.

There was no disable the red BL temporarily until they can fix it. Or the actual solution which was to mix it up.

And then when Game Directors changed again Moe said the forums say remove DBL and so they did. Then the forums were flooded by the players asking where did the DBL map go and WTW. Which was then reverted. In short as above stated isn't that off that the forums are a fickle place and some people like change and some people don't so there are a lot of the mixed messages. Another note to above is DBL was 2nd map. EotM was first and if you haven't visited lately and were on the forums when it was being discussed then you could see a lot of the complaints about ABL at the time being played out. People wanted towers to have more control of the map, more choke points, open areas and paths that funneled people. More interesting keeps versus keeps that you could take just by single siege placements. Players were asking for more map diversity as well and differing mechanics. You had people that then loved it and others that hated it. DBL is now kind of like that from server to server and it sounds region to region.

[RisingDawn.5796]

The WvW Lead Dev left the company, back in May, if you missed the news.

They still went ahead with the June Beta, but Alliances and anything else, not smaller scale in terms of Dev Resources, has put aside for now, until they hire or reshuffle back the scenes, 'if' WvW is really a cornerstone to them.

[XenesisII.1540]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

And then when Game Directors changed again Moe said the forums say remove DBL and so they did. Then the forums were flooded by the players asking where did the DBL map go and WTW. Which was then reverted. In short as above stated isn't that off that the forums are a fickle place and some people like change and some people don't so there are a lot of the mixed messages. Another note to above is DBL was 2nd map. EotM was first and if you haven't visited lately and were on the forums when it was being discussed then you could see a lot of the complaints about ABL at the time being played out.

People wanted towers to have more control of the map, more choke points, open areas and paths that funneled people. More interesting keeps versus keeps that you could take just by single siege placements. Players were asking for more map diversity as well and differing mechanics. You had people that then loved it and others that hated it. DBL is now kind of like that from server to server and it sounds region to region.

I don't remember the discussion about maps before dbl, I didn't pay attention to the forums as much back then.

But...

Towers having more control of the map? why? the north towers already did control north paths to garrison(which has the cata double wall access, and isn't even blocked like this in dbl), you can treb the keeps from 3 of them(technically 4 but that's hitting gates of hills instead), and most of the walled objectives have multiple choke points to fight in, even the towers. The towers on dbl sit alone and serve no purpose because they weren't even real chokes with breakable barriers around them, they even moved the waypoints to the south towers to make them interesting chokeholds, but then they screwed up side keeps with that move. Those tower aren't even defended much other than maybe reset night.

There's way more terrain choke points in dbl, but most people don't use them all, too many pathways when people just use whatever is the quickest/common route because mounts and gliders weren't even part of the map yet. Alpine is way more open but has way more space for good open field fights which happen very often, which makes it a very good mix for open field for mass fights or objectives for choke fights, while also still having plenty of good areas for open field choke fights(bridges and camps in south areas for example) instead of dbl try harding to have every single area be a choke, (which is impressive being that it's a "desert" map).

More interesting keeps? sure, but not twice the size and longer to get to and scout around, no one wants to drop siege on outer areas cause it's a waste that you'll have to refresh yourself, and too many separate areas to worry about. Earth keep is actually decent getting from one side to the other, but too many hidden outer areas in fire and air you need to scout, while in bay or hills one look can scan over multiple areas at once. 

The map could have been better if they bothered, but they tuned out long ago, whether it's bruised egos over the backlash(people keep bringing this up but it happens in pve too and they do fixes there), or they really didn't care to develop wvw much anymore due to whatever reasons of money time interest.

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

I don't remember the discussion about maps before dbl, I didn't pay attention to the forums as much back then.

But...

 

May have to see if the forum archives go back to the EotM design discussion days or if it was the forum version before that one. I want to say it was something along the lines of the towers being a barrier but not a direct threat to the keeps like we have on ABL.

Edit: Xen, wow ok that's a crazy rabbit whole in the archives lol. Will have to look at that not while working. Found some of the polling threads from 2016 but ANet was using a feedback site at the time for the polls.

Edited October 23, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624
Edit: Rabbithole