WvW Changes April 16th 2024

[Ashtaeroth.3940]

20 minutes ago, Draygo.9473 said:

Sure, after all the attackers left and no one is defending :D. 

Well, this is what happens when the defenders get pushed by the attackers and then there are no counter attackers left. It's been like this since friday, neither blue or green bothers to go into EB anymore. How's the karma train now? The borders have some action yeah so you can do the dailies but even that is max 30 people. And this is on EU T3.

https://i.imgur.com/iK9iKUb.jpg

[TheGrimm.5624]

"we also want to encourage player interaction so that large portions of attacks against structures don't feel like a slog with little payoff."

This also means they still haven't figured out the offense event that hasn't been released yet that still pending from the event changes. 

 

[Cael.3960]

Nerfs to skills which took advantage of higher target caps to push overtuned damage, nerfs to Chaos Aura and boon generation, nerfs to barrier generation, nerfs to brain-dead auto-attack chain damage. 

But man, oh, man, the BOON BALLS WON GUYS! THEY WON! Anet loves BOON BALLS so much they nerfed capture boundaries into the ground. They nerfed walls into the ground. They nerfed Presence of the Keep and Guild Objective Aura into the ground. They nerfed siege golems so they can't hold camps into the ground. They nerfed Flame Ram Iron Will into the ground. THE GAME MODE SUCKS! I can't collect bags by ignoring group content and sitting inside a friendly objective for hours on end. God. They just don't get it, nobody wants to group up in an MMO anymore. Why can't we just have another Drizzlewood map or a proper Tower Defense mode? 

Step away from the defend-a-wall meta and you'll see that what the game desperately needed was a reason for players to get out of their comfort zone instead of camping inside friendly objectives. Defenders had such an overwhelming advantage with fortifications/buffs/siege that in many cases the only way to flip them was WITH a boon ball because anything else was suicide. With these kind of nerfs you're actually less likely to see boon balls attacking tiered objectives because you don't need massive sustain to punch a hole and survive overwhelming disadvantages. It encourages player-vs-player interactions, which is at the heart of the game mode. It also encourages defenders to organize a defense, jump into coms, rally around leadership and strategize sally's against groups and siege rather than bunker and wait. Maps will see more activity because there's more to do when tiered objectives aren't sieged up to the point of discouraging all but the biggest and best comped squads. Boon balls have never been the problem, the problem was the meta which required them to effect any meaningful change of ownership on a map. 

 

I get it, players who prefer to stay safe on/behind a wall and retreat to safety the moment they're vulnerable will be very upset by these changes. Players who rarely, if ever, use their class skills will be upset that they can't just build siege and use it instead. Ultimately it's a PvP mode; the focus should be on players fighting other players with class builds and individual skill rather than the environment or with special actions. 

Honestly, the nerfs to almost all zerg-meta builds are going to have a significant impact on the game mode as is. People who don't play a wide variety of classes or squad sizes from full 50-to-solo really have no idea what kind of shakeup all of this means. Personally I'd like to see more boonstrip/corrupts and a consistent target cap upon all skills as well, but nerfing the greatest overperforming aspects of the current meta which have entrenched a very stale game mode for half a year is a big step forward. 

Edited April 16 by Cael.3960
clarification

[One more for the road.8950]

19 minutes ago, Ashtaeroth.3940 said:

Well, this is what happens when the defenders get pushed by the attackers and then there are no counter attackers left. It's been like this since friday, neither blue or green bothers to go into EB anymore. How's the karma train now? The borders have some action yeah so you can do the dailies but even that is max 30 people. And this is on EU T3.

https://i.imgur.com/iK9iKUb.jpg

EU the last three weeks two out of five MUs have been ridiculous like that every week.

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Memories of battle are no longer available for purchase from Dugan, and some of the merchant's purchasing options have been updated.

For those of you who have been more focused on everything else about the patch, you might have missed this.

PSA: If you purchased your weekly WXP from Dugan yesterday, congrats!  You can go talk to Dugan today and purchase it again!

Edited April 16 by Chaba.5410

[Codename T.2847]

Goofy kitten changes... A bunch of truly randoms will more often than not lose stuff yes, but I don't know man... maybe it's just my weirdo side coming out of me whenever I log on to WvW talking, but I always liked the almost battle RP side of WvW, sprinkled with the funny social interacitons ofc, and not the part where PPT keeps getting easier by each patch, from defensive tools getting nerfed through the wall changes to the smaller rings. -.- They esentially just promote this idiotic, robotic kTrain mindset and I'm not sure if I like it... you can still develop good strategies with teammates but it's only something that *maybe* helps you instead of always paying off, once some big map blob decides to reaaally capture all your stuff it's joever, unless you outnumber them : ( and even then...

Edited April 16 by Codename T.2847

[ZTeamG.4603]

It was already extremely difficult to do anything while outnumbered, and Anet's determined to make it impossible. Wasn't this kind of karmatrain gameplay they're "balancing" towards what they nuked EotM for years ago?

[ArchonWing.9480]

Honestly outside of the golem changes, most of these changes are inconsequential. A lot of people contesting these days are just feeding bags anyways.

My main problem is the reasoning of "making objectives feel better for attacking groups". I want to say that there seems to be a great deal of bias in statement. So in their minds, defending is too easy, even though I would probably wager about 5 gold, that they don't really know what defending is like, and I know where their playtime goes.

I would say the biggest problem is requiring people to repair up to 50% to patch something up, and I'm just going to say that I am not solo repairing that kitten.

I think at this point, without about 5+ willing to actively defend on the map, that it is a waste of time and your server doesn't want to keep that stuff anyways. So just play accordingly and just ignore every callout that's not a serious attempt at trying to keep it. Just my opinion. That is the intended gameplay anyways.

Edited April 16 by ArchonWing.9480

[XenesisII.1540]

Yeah imagine wanting to play defense in a game mode made for siege warfare with enclosed objectives.

How silly of us, we should all be in south island fighting each other team deathmatch style.

 

8 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

With these kind of nerfs you're actually less likely to see boon balls attacking tiered objectives because you don't need massive sustain to punch a hole and survive overwhelming disadvantages. It encourages player-vs-player interactions, which is at the heart of the game mode.

It also encourages defenders to organize a defense, jump into coms, rally around leadership and strategize sally's against groups and siege rather than bunker and wait. Maps will see more activity because there's more to do when tiered objectives aren't sieged up to the point of discouraging all but the biggest and best comped squads. Boon balls have never been the problem, the problem was the meta which required them to effect any meaningful change of ownership on a map. 

I get it, players who prefer to stay safe on/behind a wall and retreat to safety the moment they're vulnerable will be very upset by these changes. Players who rarely, if ever, use their class skills will be upset that they can't just build siege and use it instead. Ultimately it's a PvP mode; the focus should be on players fighting other players with class builds and individual skill rather than the environment or with special actions. 

Pretty delusional if you think boon balls will stop using their advantage to farm easy keeps now, or forcing players into lords rings is now going to get them into coms to fight those groups. The genie bottle is already open, there's no popping the cork back on. Also stop being toxic and maybe you'll get people to join your guilds and coms.

The extra activity you think it will produce, all that does is allow more sneak captures, because no one cares to defend a T0 objective, they'll just recap it in 5mins. Yesterday on JQ, we were attacking Darkhaven keep to get them off their T3 smc, do you know what NSP the 3rd team did? they attacked our T0 towers with their zerg instead, not double team DH on their side, not attack their SMC, they took two T0 towers with no defenders around. That sound like good activity to you?

You boon ballers ever asked yourself why other groups will hide in objectives instead of fighting you in the open? Maybe deal with that issue instead of breaking down the walls they hide behind, deal with those issues so that they don't feel the need to hide in objectives and have to use chokes on you, because making it easier to break a wall between you all doesn't change the reason why they're not facing you head on in the first place. Boon balls, especially the map sized ones is the problem and will continue to be a problem. At some point these continued nerfs will kitten off enough defenders so they don't bother to show up, we'll just go take your stuff while you're in ours.

Edited April 17 by XenesisII.1540

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, Yolaus Kriff.3465 said:

You neckbeards and your desire for being able to endlessly defend a keep with 3 dudes against a zerg, this patch it for you.

WvW is a massive team sport. And I'm glad its pushing towards combat, and not long boring siege/troll/countersiege games. 

Well if you can't understand why 3 neckbeards aren't willing to fight your side with more than 3 neckbeards directly, I think that's where the problem is.

[Cael.3960]

2 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Pretty delusional if you think boon balls will stop using their advantage to farm easy keeps now, or forcing players into lords rings is now going to get them into coms to fight those groups. The genie bottle is already open, there's no popping the cork back on. Also stop being toxic and maybe you'll get people to join your guilds and coms.

The extra activity you think it will produce, all that does is allow more sneak captures, because no one cares to defend a T0 objective, they'll just recap it in 5mins. Yesterday on JQ, we were attacking Darkhaven keep to get them off their T3 smc, do you know what NSP the 3rd team did? they attacked our T0 towers with their zerg instead, not double team DH on their side, not attack their SMC, they took two T0 towers with no defenders around. That sound like good activity to you?

Exactly which part of the build changes upset you the most? The smaller capture circles, the nerfs to walls or the nerfs to stat buffs for friendly defenders? Or was it the use of siege in ways which were not intended? 

If you take a moment to read further, you'll see a massive list of nerfs to almost all the over-performing aspects of the current 'boon ball'. And yet, apparently, they've gotten even stronger in your opinion. I'm curious as to how you figure that's the case when there's less boons in that boon ball, less damage in that boon ball, less support/barrier in that boon ball whereas the only thing taken away from a defender is fast and easy wall repair and compensatory stat buffs for defenders (which, by the way, also work for that 50 man boon ball you love to hate if they decide to camp a tiered objective as well). That's the big problem with defensive play and defensive players; you have a reliance on force multipliers but have no concept of how it exponential the advantage becomes with equal numbers. Your problem isn't the boon ball, it's not having enough people or organization to mount an effective defense. If the expectation is that a casual militia SHOULD be able to stomp a well organized, better compted enemy group of superior numbers... I think you're seriously misjudging what the game mode needs right now. 

Further... you describe a story where no one attacked a T3 smc and opted to flip T0 towers instead. Sounds like the attackers realized what a slog it would be to flip a sieged up T3 objective and decided it was more fun to fight something they could actually land a blade on. Which proves my point; when defenders have such an overwhelming advantage that it discourages attack, you see the k-train T0 flip meta because it's the only way to get a fight without taking 600 arrow carts to the face. Honestly, you gotta step out of your tunnel vision and see both sides of the problem here. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Ashtaeroth.3940 said:

Well, this is what happens when the defenders get pushed by the attackers and then there are no counter attackers left. It's been like this since friday, neither blue or green bothers to go into EB anymore. How's the karma train now? The borders have some action yeah so you can do the dailies but even that is max 30 people. And this is on EU T3.

https://i.imgur.com/iK9iKUb.jpg

But if you have only 30 players this isn't a defense too strong issue but a population coverage issue honestly. 

[KrHome.1920]

I like that ANet adresses troll gameplay: def golems, def rams, wall repairing while half the defenders are outside, overheat (one of the last remaining oneshot builds) ...

Just the timing is weird cause the game mode has far bigger issues currently.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

Laughable.
 

[ArchonWing.9480]

Some class related WvW changes. These at the least seem more decent and is aimed at lowering some of the more dominant dps builds.... not sure if that makes anything else a contender

Guardian

• Symbol of Protection: Reduced the symbol damage coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in WvW only.

Engineer

• Photonic Blasting Module: Reduced the damage coefficient from 3.5 to 2.5 in WvW only.
• Prime Light Beam: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike 10 targets instead of the intended 5

Warrior

• Scorched Earth: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only.

Mesmer

• Chaotic Transference: This trait no longer shares chaos aura with nearby allies. It now grants regeneration to nearby allies when you apply chaos aura to yourself.

The mesmer nerf was to remove the utterly dumb thing of weakness spam  by zergs though at the same time and in typical Anet fashion also kinda destroyed that trait.

Guardian hammer was significantly overbuffed and that was inevitable, because it resulted in a spam 1 gameplay. Other things are a bit overdue maybe. 

Edited April 16 by ArchonWing.9480

[Codename T.2847]

54 minutes ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

EU the last three weeks two out of five MUs have been ridiculous like that every week.

I agree, my main is on WSR for years now, and it's either boring as sh*t domination, or on alt it's boring as sh*t getting dominated. xD On main I'm honestly just there for the pals and banter anymore, I have very little interest in keeping the cogs turning as of now... and it shouldn't be this way, but it is. Well this issue is kinda not on-topic but still interesting to bring up

And no I'm not (or only rarely) some spawn camping doofus, gankbanging freak or voice squad elitist who people claim all WSRers to (simultaneously) be, I care about quality and sorta evenly matched weeks, reminding me of those days where we fought the other big dogs like FoW or Vabbi. As annoying as we might have been we provided entertainment for eachother at the end of the day and saved the misery for smaller or more casual servers :,D

Edited April 16 by Codename T.2847

[One more for the road.8950]

7 minutes ago, Codename T.2847 said:

I agree, my main is on WSR for years now, and it's either boring as sh*t domination, or on alt it's boring as sh*t getting dominated. xD On main I'm honestly just there for the pals anymore, I have almost no interest in keeping the cogs turning as of now... and it shouldn't be this way, but it is. Well this issue is kinda not on-topic but still interesting to bring up

And no I'm not (or only rarely) some spawn camping doofus, gankbanging freak or voice squad elitist who people claim all WSRers to be, I care about quality and sorta evenly matched weeks, reminding me of those days where we fought the other big dogs like FoW or Vabbi. As annoying as we might have been we provided entertainment for eachother at the end of the day

Yeah, I have alts and enjoy a wide variety of game play as well, but it's become ridiculous. I said in a post another place in this subforum a couple of days ago that the system is flawed and that in EU those flaws are getting extremely exposed at the moment. And it all gets... boring.  Very boring. When you have a couple of hours to relax and game a bit and you log in just to look at the maps and log out again after seeing a few chat lines, it's disheartening. If you're dominating or the dominated, lack of content is lack of content.

Edited April 16 by One more for the road.8950

[Nihzu.6352]

Why does it have to be flat numbers for walls/gates repairs and presence of the keep?

Why not proportional to the war score? If you're getting roflstomped during a bad matchup, defense is pretty much all you have to work with...

I'll throw in a freebie: destroying enemy siege should net you some sups, make it a WvW ability if you have to.

Edited April 16 by Nihzu.6352
typo/clarification

[One more for the road.8950]

22 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

But if you have only 30 players this isn't a defense too strong issue but a population coverage issue honestly. 

It's the "MUs with dead servers and/or monster servers"-problem, if you're "lucky" you get one of each in the MU.

[Ashtaeroth.3940]

23 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

But if you have only 30 players this isn't a defense too strong issue but a population coverage issue honestly. 

Yes, it is a coverage issue now, because people have steadily stopped playing. And I never claimed it was too strong defense thing: "when the defenders get pushed by the attackers and then there are no counter attackers left"

Meaning, when defenders get rolled over, they leave. As in... leave. They don't attack back. Just stop playing. 2 weeks ago the defense fights were poor, nobody really bothered, had a week of a break and come back into this. It's been a steady decline in fights for objectives unless it's a quick flip of an empty thingie. Now that the defense boons(for clarity the things mentioned in the patch notes) are getting ever worse, why bother to fight at all?

[random.9803]

Seems as though someone is in an alternate reality , love the changes to thief ,wait what nothing done

[Cogadh.1845]

Just delete the mode and make a boonball v boonball arena already as that seems to be the only thing the designers can see. Anyway, Im out. This mode is now boonball only, pugs, scouts no longer welcome and I'm done with huffing copium that the devs wont keep going soley in that direction.

[XenesisII.1540]

41 minutes ago, Cael.3960 said:

Exactly which part of the build changes upset you the most? The smaller capture circles, the nerfs to walls or the nerfs to stat buffs for friendly defenders? Or was it the use of siege in ways which were not intended? 

That the ideas come solely from boon ballers/gvg'ers who have a one track mind.

 

41 minutes ago, Cael.3960 said:

If you take a moment to read further, you'll see a massive list of nerfs to almost all the over-performing aspects of the current 'boon ball'. And yet, apparently, they've gotten even stronger in your opinion. I'm curious as to how you figure that's the case when there's less boons in that boon ball, less damage in that boon ball, less support/barrier in that boon ball whereas the only thing taken away from a defender is fast and easy wall repair and compensatory stat buffs for defenders (which, by the way, also work for that 50 man boon ball you love to hate if they decide to camp a tiered objective as well).

Yeah let's ignore all the counters like boon strips and defensive stuff they've nerfed, while they added all those alacrity and barrier spams that they're now reversing, but not reversing the counters, yeah boon balls totally are weak now. 😏

 

41 minutes ago, Cael.3960 said:

Further... you describe a story where no one attacked a T3 smc and opted to flip T0 towers instead. Sounds like the attackers realized what a slog it would be to flip a sieged up T3 objective and decided it was more fun to fight something they could actually land a blade on. Which proves my point; when defenders have such an overwhelming advantage that it discourages attack, you see the k-train T0 flip meta because it's the only way to get a fight without taking 600 arrow carts to the face. Honestly, you gotta step out of your tunnel vision and see both sides of the problem here. 

We were on DH side popping oj's keeping them busy so that NSP could go cap smc. Simple map politics, they choose two easy towers on our side instead. Eventually the T3 smc fell, the "slog of a fight" doesn't seem to matter when 3 teams are up in there all the time.

Tunnel vision, lol that's funny given the boon ball biased balancing the past 3 years. Kitten everyone else on the map only that boon ball group matters. 😏

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Polls is how we got 2 months between relinks for the longest time and desert bl as redbl.  Polls sound nice until you realize that the playerbase can be wrong too.

Well if you prefer the other option of 6+ months between relinks and 3x DBL for that duration...

[Triptaminas.4789]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Some class related WvW changes. These at the least seem more decent and is aimed at lowering some of the more dominant dps builds.... not sure if that makes anything else a contender

Guardian

• Symbol of Protection: Reduced the symbol damage coefficient from 0.4 to 0.25 in WvW only.

Engineer

• Photonic Blasting Module: Reduced the damage coefficient from 3.5 to 2.5 in WvW only.
• Prime Light Beam: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike 10 targets instead of the intended 5

Warrior

• Scorched Earth: Reduced the number of targets from 5 to 3 in WvW only.

Mesmer

• Chaotic Transference: This trait no longer shares chaos aura with nearby allies. It now grants regeneration to nearby allies when you apply chaos aura to yourself.

The mesmer nerf was to remove the utterly dumb thing of weakness spam  by zergs though at the same time and in typical Anet fashion also kinda destroyed that trait.

Guardian hammer was significantly overbuffed and that was inevitable, because it resulted in a spam 1 gameplay. Other things are a bit overdue maybe. 

Holo and warrior target cap changes just promotes boonball further, as divide between skill and quantity of players is increased.

With few holos and zerkers u could spanked dummer blobs because of wide target caps, now this option is removed. 

People in forums somehow miss this crucial detail in this patch, yes the holos and zerks was silly, but the wider target caps allowed small outnumbered groups to stand it's ground and trim blobs. Wvw pushes further and further into pve "stand in place and mash every button" playstyle where skill or maneuvering doesn't matter, only numbers does.

I play less and less, this is just intellectual masochism at this point, if not habbit of gw2 playing I would have rode into sunset long ago

Edited April 16 by Triptaminas.4789