What would you like to change about WVW to stimulate your participation?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

29 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Yes and no. Roamers are still going to roam. The issue you point out is players trying to farm rewards versus roam. 

What roamers? I've practically all but left WvW and I've roamed since beta.  

As sPvP for all its toxicity gives me more rewards when playing it, due to the somewhat high winrate there.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants more combat and less fighting npcs or chasing perma run thieves / wbs / mes / the few soulbeasts left / etc. etc.

There's little skill to roaming because of the PvE gear / consumables / etc. and there's 100% less reward than just farming, either by flipping nearest camp or just going to EBG and playing tower ranger.  I can't tell you how many bags I got by just double barraging a giant zerg, and it was the most non-interactive experience ever.    

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

What roamers?

Mileage varies. In T1 this relink and found plenty. In previous links T4, and found plenty.

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I've practically all but left WvW and I've roamed since beta.  

lol. Sorry have only spent 15K hours in game so far so I didn't intend to imply others experiences. 

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

As sPvP for all its toxicity gives me more rewards when playing it

Did I come across as other game modes reward more? Please let me know so I can adjust posts.

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

There's little skill to roaming because of the PvE gear / consumables / etc.

I go round and round on replying here and will leave it alone. 

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

and there's 100% less reward than just farming, either by flipping nearest camp

Depends on how you define reward. But will go with what I think as you meant as makes no difference. Agree.

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

or just going to EBG and playing tower ranger. 

This is kind of like a meme, so not sure where you are going here. I play a lot of melee builds and if some one is good at keeping me at range I don't blame them. It just means to me I didn't build to account for that.

1 minute ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I can't tell you how many bags I got by just double barraging a giant zerg, and it was the most non-interactive experience ever.    

 

This is more about understanding how participation works. I am not saying its right or wrong. I can't speak for others. When I roam I don't roam for me, I am looking to roam to give my side more. I am looking to give my side more options to win. Mileage varies here. When roaming I am looking to create breach options, stop other roamers and havocs, scout and create options for tags to use as an advantage. 

[Tanek.5983]

I first played WvW back when it was WvWvW and was still needed for world completion, so my views on the matter may not align very well with how WvW is played these days. I've dipped in and out over the years since then, mostly for a Gift of Battle, sometimes just for a daily achievement (I have not been in much at all since the start of the Wizard's Vault and the PvE/WvW/PvP choice).

The zerg or "blob" style of play wasnever to my liking. I would join now and again as needed, but my preference was always progress via other means when possible. This was actually one of the things that interested me about WvW from the beginning. I know it has changed since, but the idea of having a hybrid PvE/PvP area where completing PvE objectives could help your world was interesting. I was never going to be good at the PvP, but running a mission to get an NPC race on our side was something I could do.

The zerg style is much less interesting to me and, I think, serves to make the overall feel of WvW much more large scale PvP than hybrif PvE/PvP, if that is even the goal anymore.

Again, WvW has changed a lot since the start. Players today might not want (or ever have wanted) the type of hybrid play that I'd join in on. It should be made something that fits the players who want to be there. It is just that, if there does happen to be a swing back in the more hybrid direction, I'd maybe like to try it out again for more than just a slog toward another Gift of Battle when needed. So I'll still keep an eye on where things are headed.

[kash.9213]

8 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

I first played WvW back when it was WvWvW and was still needed for world completion, so my views on the matter may not align very well with how WvW is played these days. I've dipped in and out over the years since then, mostly for a Gift of Battle, sometimes just for a daily achievement (I have not been in much at all since the start of the Wizard's Vault and the PvE/WvW/PvP choice).

The zerg or "blob" style of play wasnever to my liking. I would join now and again as needed, but my preference was always progress via other means when possible. This was actually one of the things that interested me about WvW from the beginning. I know it has changed since, but the idea of having a hybrid PvE/PvP area where completing PvE objectives could help your world was interesting. I was never going to be good at the PvP, but running a mission to get an NPC race on our side was something I could do.

The zerg style is much less interesting to me and, I think, serves to make the overall feel of WvW much more large scale PvP than hybrif PvE/PvP, if that is even the goal anymore.

Again, WvW has changed a lot since the start. Players today might not want (or ever have wanted) the type of hybrid play that I'd join in on. It should be made something that fits the players who want to be there. It is just that, if there does happen to be a swing back in the more hybrid direction, I'd maybe like to try it out again for more than just a slog toward another Gift of Battle when needed. So I'll still keep an eye on where things are headed.

It sounds like what you want is open world pvp, but people freak out at the mention of even opt-in open world pvp like Starwars Galaxies had which was built around the pve elements. 

[Tanek.5983]

4 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

It sounds like what you want is open world pvp, but people freak out at the mention of even opt-in open world pvp like Starwars Galaxies had which was built around the pve elements. 

No, I don't want to see PvP in the open world. I was talking about other elements of PvE that used to be utilized more in WvW. 

Edited February 23 by Tanek.5983

[kash.9213]

55 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

No, I don't want to see PvP in the open world. I was talking about other elements of PvE that used to be utilized more in WvW. 

You're not going to get the dynamic you were describing otherwise. Opt in pvp wouldn't be any different than people plowing through a mob since they can't touch you unless you opt in. Even in old WvW what you're calling hypbrid pve/pvp was just pvp with a few mobs around who really don't make a difference. You can fill your time better than standing around waiting for Hyleks to respawn or whatever. 

[Tanek.5983]

34 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

You're not going to get the dynamic you were describing otherwise. Opt in pvp wouldn't be any different than people plowing through a mob since they can't touch you unless you opt in. Even in old WvW what you're calling hypbrid pve/pvp was just pvp with a few mobs around who really don't make a difference. You can fill your time better than standing around waiting for Hyleks to respawn or whatever. 

I'm sorry I still did not describe it well enough for you to understand. My fault. Feel free to ignore my post. 😁

[TheGrimm.5624]

I think to engage players, you want to give them goals. In order to encourage them to not just stack we need balance in PPT and PPK. The reason I favor reasons to win is the same. A group that just stacks can still lose since they didn't both attack and defend. So they might have won in one way and lost in another. The end goal is to have both attackers and defenders at a given objective. We want to encourage fights but allow the game mode to self-balance when a side leads the other two. There needs to be encouragement where it is not a 1&2 versus 3 but a 1vs2&3. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

15 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

I first played WvW back when it was WvWvW and was still needed for world completion, so my views on the matter may not align very well with how WvW is played these days. I've dipped in and out over the years since then, mostly for a Gift of Battle, sometimes just for a daily achievement (I have not been in much at all since the start of the Wizard's Vault and the PvE/WvW/PvP choice).

The zerg or "blob" style of play wasnever to my liking. I would join now and again as needed, but my preference was always progress via other means when possible. This was actually one of the things that interested me about WvW from the beginning. I know it has changed since, but the idea of having a hybrid PvE/PvP area where completing PvE objectives could help your world was interesting. I was never going to be good at the PvP, but running a mission to get an NPC race on our side was something I could do.

The zerg style is much less interesting to me and, I think, serves to make the overall feel of WvW much more large scale PvP than hybrif PvE/PvP, if that is even the goal anymore.

Again, WvW has changed a lot since the start. Players today might not want (or ever have wanted) the type of hybrid play that I'd join in on. It should be made something that fits the players who want to be there. It is just that, if there does happen to be a swing back in the more hybrid direction, I'd maybe like to try it out again for more than just a slog toward another Gift of Battle when needed. So I'll still keep an eye on where things are headed.

WvW is not all large scale. Havoc and roamer play can also give you options to increase your challenge and I wouldn't discount them. Both large and smaller scale are also not mutually exclusive as you can create builds that work in both. So if you on are on tag and then breakout it can still be done on the same build. 

[red.9862]

1. Balanced gear, just like sPVP. People with legendary have the upper hand against exotic and ascended, giving them the ability to switch builds at any time (let alone infusions and 5% more stats just from the gear), which in a fight of 10v10 can mean annihilation.
2. Less invulnerability and reflects, the amount of reflects some classes can provide is insane making ranged combat pretty much useless. I've seen small groups that can pull 90% of the time reflect shields up.
3. Ability to defend objectives with smaller groups, outnumbered just means you're gonna die and you have to just sit tight and see everything flip, especially in cases where there's no tag available at certain times of the day. I have no idea how this could be accomplished but maybe if a team is outnumbered the points could get tougher to capture as fast? maybe? idk. I know some changes are coming up soon and I like them, we'll see :>
4. More exp/pips for solo play, especially during outnumbered. There's so many things a small group can do and when there's no incentive to do it they simply don't. If there was higher rewards to come and play when a map is outnumbered then it'd bring more people in. The problem right now is that if there's no commander up everyone is just sitting around doing next to nothing during those hours, make it so people can get exp/pips from bringing dolyaks to upgrade objectives, give them more rewards when they capture a camp or sentry point, and more when they successfully take a point. Make it rewarding so that people will want to go in at all times of the day.
5. This might trigger some people, but I'd add a skill to the warclaw to glide like when using the glider, same dynamics, it's really annoying to unmount and glide, however I'd make warclaw vulnerable to pulls when gliding so that it works just exactly as the glider, but mounted. It'd save so many people from doing the thing when jumping from an edge, especially on the desert borderlands XD
6. Make commander tag cheaper, there's people with a lot of experience in wvw, but since wvw is not a good gold resource / hr like other game modes, 300g is steep. Hell, I'd even make it a free commander pass for whenever there's no tags on just for the sake of having someone leading around, even if it's a bad commander, something is better than nothing. Or make a track to unlock it.
7. A way to avoid tag pinning and stream sniping, there's people that use streams as a way to spy on other teams, and we can't control what the streamers do or don't do, however GW2 could put a rule of delaying the stream with at least 1 minute delay.
8. People that are just spying and using space in the map to create fake queues are annoying to say the least. Make an algorithm that detects the user activity, if they're just sitting there without doing anything (taking objectives, killing players, etc.) just kick them after a few minutes? say 30?
9. Make WvW a way to earn competitive money, why is every other mode profitable and WvW sucks at making gold when WvW is a huge part of GW2. I'd spend all day in WvW if I made more money from it per hour, but currently... it's mostly pve content that makes the money (fractals, fishing, etc) I'm not saying WvW has no gold generation, it does, but it'd be nice to increase it to match the other available content in the game. As for sPVP, since gear is balanced so the amount of gold "needed" is close to nothing. But in WvW since gear, food, siege, etc. play an important role, gold matters.

Edited February 26 by red.9862

[Jeydra.4386]

"Something to play for" would be by far the most effective way to stimulate my participation, but I remember the WvW seasons from many years ago when there was something real to play for, which led to people playing like crazy. At one point my server was queued on all four maps 24/7. ANet said afterwards that it led to a permanent decrease in player population, so we're unlikely to see this happen again.

Without something to play for I doubt there's much/anything that will make me play more. I already play a lot of WvW, and it's enough.

Edited February 26 by Jeydra.4386

[Mabi black.1824]

3 hours ago, Jeydra.4386 said:

Without something to play for I doubt there's much/anything that will make me play more. I already play a lot of WvW, and it's enough.

I like what you wrote. My purpose with this post is not to drive people crazy to play WVW more than the ''right time'' that each of us can devote differently for 1000 reasons. It's just figuring out if the ''quality '' can be better, if we can identify 3 or 4 points that can stimulate participation in this mode.  I've come to this, why WR arrives, and my experiences in the various beta weeks, They were more or less the same. Each group (on the same server) goes its own way, and sometimes I've seen them go in opposite directions on purpose. So here we are, figuring out, whether to switch from a perpetual format to a seasonal format, whether we add maps, whether we balance the classes better, whether we change the mechanics of Boomball etc etc. In short, what should ANET focus on in order for WVW to be more engaging for players. 

keeping in mind what I wrote at the beginning. '' What is WVW''

Edited February 26 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

On 2/24/2024 at 10:21 AM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

WvW is not all large scale. Havoc and roamer play can also give you options to increase your challenge and I wouldn't discount them. Both large and smaller scale are also not mutually exclusive as you can create builds that work in both. So if you on are on tag and then breakout it can still be done on the same build. 

Example yesterday afternoon, Sunday I went online, our desert border quite under control, except that 5-6 enemies in group keep resetting and cutting all the camps, until I arrived at my favorite camp. South Air Keep Field. There my warrior turns into a thief. I can get out of the fight at the last second by taking advantage of the height. So I forced them to stand guard. So they split into 2 groups. So they slowed down their action of devastation. until at the party they joined on my side first 1 then 3 then it turned into 6vs6. A party for everyone. Content generates content. it starts one way and ends another. but it is always content. There was never a tag on the map those 2 hours or so except for ewp and then disappear. But I felt like I was working for my team, even though our tag was on another map.

[Luthan.5236]

I would like to see it removed completely. And having a team based PvP with 10-20 vs 10-20 and match duration 20-40 minutes (on average) - would be more fun. To make the current WvW more interesting it would need a lot of changes.

Most importantly the participation time actually should get removed. Annoying when you can't play the way you want. Better to play it safe - and recap a camp every 10 minutes near spawn. Instead of actually participating when you might get killed and have to walk back a long way ... struggling to keep participation up. (Depending on the state of the map when you have to walk far to encounter something to tag/kill.) [At least in Obsidian Sanctum the timer should be fully disabled. Annoying to go there to to the guild mission and to lose timer/participation.]

Then of course the actual goals of the game mode should be more important: Remove the points from kills and make it more rewarding to defend/upgrade stuctures. (*) Roaming is boring. Big zerging as well. Small split groups - that is fun. And maybe 10-20 vs 10-20. If defending and upgrading actually was important it might be more fun to target (or to have to defend) multiple structures. Instead of 1 zerg going somewhere and not caring about anything else. (Porting back every now and then if a T3 keep is under attack but mostly ignoring other structures.)

Main problem is still that you do not feel like having contributed anything - with a long match when you are logged out most of the time. (I mean ... even when playing a lot most people probably play less than 12 hours each day + 7 days a week.) Normal PvP does not have that. With servers getting removed it will be even less interesting. (When linking already removed a bit of the fun to play for "your" server.) Unless you are hardcore organized in a guild playing WvW as main game mode. (Where for me it is the 3rd game mode - after PvE/PvP that are more interesting.)

---

(*) Higher tier structures should give more rewards. Maybe even more the longer they are hold. To make it easier to counter: More points when held longer but reduced defensive boni when held longer. (Walls weaker, objective Aura weaker.) With some peak values maybe. This could give incentive to defend - but also make it not toooo overpowered for the strongest team if one team is really pwning. Camps should do more than just giving supplies. If a dolyak did not arrive for 2-3 minutes at a tower/keep let the walls/objective aura get weaker as well. Or let it tick less. (Extreme case - but would be the most fun: Let just towers, keeps, SMs give points each tick - if supplied by Dolyaks regularly to also get people to defend the camps and supply routes.)

[Mabi black.1824]

16 minutes ago, Luthan.5236 said:

And having a team based PvP with 10-20 vs 10-20 and match duration 20-40 minutes (on average) - would be more fun

I subscribe to your every word. But I have to tell you that I would like it for a major SPVP update that we have today. Not for WVW.

WVW are huge teams. and 24/7 is a feature. at least for me.

It's still risky for WVW, because if you spvp like that you'll see a good number of guilds spend hours playing there, which they take away from WVW. That could be the reason why we haven't seen it yet.

Edited February 26 by Mabi black.1824

[Luthan.5236]

And that is why I wrote also some additional stuff in my post above. I wonder why some people enjoy the big zerg fights or just fighting mainly? (And looking down upon others that care about the points from the structures.) If you wanted combat only they could make a flat-terrain map and put 50 players from each team there just to fight each other. No structures needed.

A lot of interesting tactics can come from having to split the limited (map can only accept a limited number until it goes on queue) number of players. But if people mainly go for big zerg fights it can get boring. At least for me. I would prefer if even intense fights about single camps happened - with trying to upgrade them. (Even leveling a solo guild atm lol. Maybe one day I will also buy the expensive objective aura upgrades and claim a camp. 😄)

Main thing should not be the combat (player strength or how good they can zerg and apply their boons) but the overall strategy/tactics. (That is what I also like in small-scale combat in the 5 vs 5 in PvP where I greatly enjoy the maps with good secondary mechanics that can turn around a lot.) In WvW it seems they at least tried somethign with the buffs from the altars in the borderlands - to get players to play all maps. But those buffs do not seem much of a big deal + I would prefer if more splitting on the same map was required. Including a bit more stuff (like I tried to think of - with the camps and walls maybe getting weaker if no dolyaks arrive for a few minutes) could add more interesting stuff.

Nothing is more boring than 2 zergs just staying somewhere (attacker vs defender) and going back and forth with no one really getting major kills. (Timer for participatoin gets lower ... and it is boring and feels silly it the people just run back and forth. Immediately leaving the map if something like that is happening and no other "action" is available. Or I will stay and watch if some camps can be recapped to keep up the timer while doing something else and only checking every 10 minutes lol.)

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Example yesterday afternoon, Sunday I went online, our desert border quite under control, except that 5-6 enemies in group keep resetting and cutting all the camps, until I arrived at my favorite camp. South Air Keep Field. There my warrior turns into a thief. I can get out of the fight at the last second by taking advantage of the height. So I forced them to stand guard. So they split into 2 groups. So they slowed down their action of devastation. until at the party they joined on my side first 1 then 3 then it turned into 6vs6. A party for everyone. Content generates content. it starts one way and ends another. but it is always content. There was never a tag on the map those 2 hours or so except for ewp and then disappear. But I felt like I was working for my team, even though our tag was on another map.

Love that. I have talked about Momentum a number of times. That does apply in both larger and in smaller scale but less in smaller scale. In Havoc or smaller scale Escalation is also a thing. At times people have said there is no reason for small scale but I don't think they have known what they were seeing when open field fights or camp fights turn into a mob versus a mob. Two players meeting and engaging. It draws the eye of others or there is a shout out in map champ. More players and more show until OJs are triggered and then a potential floodgate opens up and some where that really should have drawn that many. Escalation creates hotspots that are centered around keep or SMC but can be just as much fun. And it is purely player driven content which keeps the game interesting to a some of us. So from me, +1 and good hunting.

[TheGrimm.5624]

I do wonder if we couldn't adjust PPK to encourage players to actually use the three sided nature of the game mode. A lot of  players bring up more balanced matches. But unbalanced matches are impacted by a number of things. Three big ones in my mind are: unbalanced population, coverage which is similar to the first and players sabotaging themselves. By the last I refer to them going for the wrong targets. Green is strong and they are 12 yaks from making SMC into T3 with a WP, lets go attack Red's Garri as they are trying to take the SMC lord from Green. Sure there will be times when this makes sense but quite often more its because that would be easier versus facing the stronger side.

That makes me come back to considering a change to PPK. Now I use an example of Green and Red above but in reality this would be a fluctuating scoring system that would rank the servers at the beginning every skirmish period based on weekly score. Servers would be ranked 1,2,3, or in the cases with a tie or beginning a new weekly match up, with assigning them in the same position. So in this example we have servers ranked at 1, 2 & 3 normally. Players from 1 would be awarded 1 point when they defeat players from 2 or 3. Players from 2 would be rewarded 1 from defeating 3 but 2 from killing 1.  Players from 3 would be reward 2 from server 2 and 3 points when defeating those from server 1.

Quite often we see coverage as a big issue in balance and I have to wonder if this would not just help players creating bad matchups on their own but also impact the other two issues. If a siding is winning just due to population or coverage issues adjustments to PPK above might help in rebalancing that issue while also tempting those that do want to win to not just go for the easy kill but go for the bigger target as in the one that is leading for the week. Better matches do draw more people. This might help with that. Some people might just open the WvW tab see that their server is way behind and call it an early week and go do other things. The closer the score and they might think, maybe if I lend an extra hand maybe we could take this week and jump out there to join in.

[Mabi black.1824]

15 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

That makes me come back to considering a change to PPK. Now I use an example of Green and Red above but in reality this would be a fluctuating scoring system that would rank the servers at the beginning every skirmish period based on weekly score. Servers would be ranked 1,2,3, or in the cases with a tie or beginning a new weekly match up, with assigning them in the same position. So in this example we have servers ranked at 1, 2 & 3 normally. Players from 1 would be awarded 1 point when they defeat players from 2 or 3. Players from 2 would be rewarded 1 from defeating 3 but 2 from killing 1.  Players from 3 would be reward 2 from server 2 and 3 points when defeating those from server 1.

It's a good suggestion. It could be useful, stimulating, and directing where teams are willing to put their content. On the one hand, you have a simpler but less profitable situation, and on the other hand, you have a more complicated but more profitable situation. Surely it's something that could help.

[Areann.1304]

My biggest problem with WvW is that it has always felt meaningless. Capture, lose, capture, lose, ... Hardly anything stays conquered during the night and every week you lose it all again anyway. And it seems that it's more about round the clock coverage than any skill or organization. You can tell if a commander knows their stuff but even they can't really win against twice the numbers. The difference between rewards is very strange to. Find a time where you can capture unopposed and you'll get a lot more rewards then during primetime where you have to fight hard for every single tower. Getting loot-bags from players is irrelevant since mobs drop those better and for far lesser effort. Every solution always comes back to the same problems:

• Servers are region bound so nearly everyone wants to play wvw at the same time.
• Letting points and rewards depend more on killing players, will make it toxic to people who aren't that good at it.
• Letting points and rewards depend on capturing will just make people less inclined to defend
• Letting points depend on holding the longest will let the side with the best night shift win.
• Most people today play after work/school and the unpredictability of wvw can be to frustrating to relax.
• If you want to duel, you're in the wrong place. If you wan't gvg, you're in the wrong place. If you want rewards, you're in the wrong place. So when exactly is WvW the right place?

I've been trying to get more in to it for years, but I seriously still don't get the point of it all.

[Areann.1304]

Oh i just thought of something. How about a leadership board of how much you contributed to the score of that week and maybe link rewards to that.

[kash.9213]

38 minutes ago, Areann.1304 said:

Oh i just thought of something. How about a leadership board of how much you contributed to the score of that week and maybe link rewards to that.

They would hopefully base the rewards off of standardized thresholds and not comparatively to everyone else and where everyone rank on the list. A lot of people might not get anything otherwise and might feel like trash never seeing their names climb. 

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Areann.1304 said:

Oh i just thought of something. How about a leadership board of how much you contributed to the score of that week and maybe link rewards to that.

Leadership boards sound great, until you're one of the people who figure out you can't provide the time required to crack the top 10 or 50 or 100 or even 500, and you just don't bother and go back to not caring as usual. Not to mention the hard carry a group does for numbers, there's people with over a million kills, and how did they achieve that? by only ever running in a zerg every day, these type of players would dominate most of the leaderboards.

Do leaderboard, but for not for generous rewards, if at all.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

When defending would be properly recognized and rewarded by the game.

[TheGrimm.5624]

3 hours ago, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

When defending would be properly recognized and rewarded by the game.

It is, but it is biased trying to avoid kill trading. So if you are a defender and make a bad call, help your side. Go deep, hit as many as you can and stay up to be hit by as many of them as you can. That will flag them as attackers and allow your server mates to get defense credits. So turn that issue into a positive. 

In movie terms it translates to:

Never just give up if you are pulled or turn a bad corner, give it a shot and fight it out since it may help your side out in the long run.