WTF is Anet doing to WvW?

[Chaos God.1639]

9 hours ago, Aratoa.7398 said:

Nerfing boons allows for more mistakes to be made and exploited by the opposing force. You're talking as if everyone is performing perfectly 100% of the time, they aren't. Even the best guild with the best comp is continually making mistakes of some sort. Currently, those mistakes are being covered by a variety of things but especially boons. What does it matter if you mistime a stab skill if you're already rolling with 10+ seconds of it? or protection or any other boon really. You reduce those boons, reduce the duration and whatnot and you'll see groups getting wiped more which is healthier for the game.

The current meta commits the greatest sin of all in PvP style games because of this type of coverage of mistakes: It's boring. 

 

what I see is that some people act like this game is a FPS/ping pong game. they think they will defeat another enemy in one shot. we already see the nature of gw2. stalemates/draws are possible. it's the nature of games like gw2 in general. even in ping pong you can get long matches.

you can take a lot of other games as an example and get the same situation, long fights with no clear winner. the only games that mostly don't have this are fps games. but still in games like battlefield both opponents can fire at the same time and defeat each other.

the worst part is that gw2 engine isn't perfect for wvw battles and so it's not always clear whats happening and you can eventually get rock/paper/scissor game, where luck will decide who is the winner.

there are other benefits of having "permanent" boons. for example, inexperienced players PVE (who want to create legendary items) can be protected, inferior/different builds can be used, more to experiment,... the game won't be Meta Wars 2. To me meta also means that there is something unbalanced in the game. ofc everybody will have own opinion, there is just no point in ignoring all the benefits and thinking that changing the boons will solve everything. in games like battlefield, vehicles can change the battle result,...

[One more for the road.8950]

It's starting to feel like some things that were touched upon right as the changes came are starting to sink a bit into the mud, so adding this for my own piece of mind.

A very big part of the problem is the population, coverage and type of players difference on the servers, especially in EU where, as mentioned, the flaws with the system started to become extremely visible after the relink before the changes. With two servers dominating their MUs against almost dead or weak servers to the point people just logged in and out on all three sides due to lack of content. Prime example was WSR being linkless starting in T5 and crawling up the tiers while people just logged out in their MUs. The how and why's have been explained in threads to those that doesn't understand a few times in the recent threads. Nothing mentioned further down has anything to say or helps if server balance is as skewed as it's been lately.

A sense of achievement, or pride of achievement, is important to have fun in a game mode like this as it's the main motivation driver. It's kind of the general definition of having fun in the game mode. Every single debate in these last threads boils down to the simple fact that how you gain this vary. This is both where all the different play styles comes into the equation as well as everything about defending, attacking, balancing, metas, counterplay, countermetas, and so on. And it needs to be understood, or at least addressed, that removing ways to gain this pride or sense of achievement makes the game mode moot to those that gets their fun taken away. Trying to deny others their fun or sense/pride of achievement doesn't help the game mode towards your preferred ways, it just makes them.... leave. And removed your own ways of gaining sense/pride of achievement in process.

You can't make people like the same things you do. Simple as that. Making rules and strategies that servers "have to/should do" catering to your preferred type of fun and "explain away" what these last changes have done and how to get around it 👏does 👏 not 👏work 👏. And then I am not even touching upon the discrepancies in server population and coverage. Any perceived power over a server is a construct. If you think the communication is kitten, be an example. If there's anything you think should be done on a map, go kittening do it. Don't expect others to, don't blame others for not doing it. If you aren't able to yourself, get better.

By getting better I mean in ways that fits your way to play, style, level of skill, ability and effort invested - for some it's to time when to try to take a camp or a tower while things are happening other places, for some it's understanding what the skills do and how the synergies work, for some it's cooking up builds able to 1v3, for some it's how to have a main objective like EBG keep ready for an all out assault, for some it's building a comp that work in the intended or certain way, for some it's becoming a better commander in their preferred content, for some it's figuring out where to place siege so watchtower can't see you, for some it's learning to play other classes or builds, for some it's learning how to follow a good commander better, for some it's how to organize, for some it's how to help commander with callouts in fights, for some it's building up a core guild group, for some it's being able to swap builds on the fly, for some it's how to scout in a way that's helpful, for some it's to learn what's actually helpful to bring to a voice squad, for some it's being able to adjust to new balance or meta changes, for some it's when or how to use tactivators, for some it's just basic understanding of what other players and/or commanders can or cannot do due to game, player or map limitations.

It's not a sin to be carried nor a detriment to you, but not understanding that people can't be carried if there's no one to carry is on you. You might not like people doing battles on south camp, but the people doing that is what will carry you in another setting be it defending a keep or have a zerg rampage on a map. You might not care about tiering and sieging up a keep, taking camps or putting in the right tactivators but people doing that is what make them able to scout and stall things until you can go get a fight. Being a commander not understanding how players often doing other content are carrying you in the type of content you offer is kind of shameful if it takes too long to sink in, though.

If it doesn't matter what you do because the end result will be the same no matter what, why would you? Why would you repair or try to defend a keep if you aren't even getting kills, participation or ticks for defending? Why would you try to become a better player if it doesn't matter as it's just about hitting any skill that's cooled down? Why would you try to become a better commander if tactics and strategies are moot as long as it's about getting numbers and boons up? Why would you go voice to command to time the squad better and help new people learn if it doesn't really make a difference? 

If you like it or not, actual living people is the main content in this mode. They're not NPCs, neither on your side nor the enemy sides. Even if you prefer PlayerVsDoor other people is your main content as someone else have to take the objective so you can too. And killing the diversity kills the population, which then kills your content, no matter what you want it to be. And it will affect your rewards, WxP, loot bags, kills, k/d ratio, PPT, PPK, weeklies, dailies, server population, pool of recruits, pugs, roamers, available commanders, whatever floats your boat or is more important to you.

You can't build the mode and classes/builds/skills based on a dream scenario with balanced server population, coverage and content because nobody has the same dream scenario and servers and links are currently nowhere near any balance. Be it devs or players with "good ideas". I don't pretend to have any quick fixes or some super insightful knowledge on how to do it, but that much I know. But I do expect people getting paid to do it doing it better than I or any other regular player would.

Edited April 29 by One more for the road.8950

[Mabi black.1824]

2 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

A sense of achievement, or pride of achievement, is important to have fun in a game mode like this as it's the main motivation driver. It's kind of the general definition of having fun in the game mode. Every single debate in these last threads boils down to the simple fact that how you gain this vary. This is both where all the different play styles comes into the equation as well as everything about defending, attacking, balancing, metas, counterplay, countermetas, and so on. And it needs to be understood, or at least addressed, that removing ways to gain this pride or sense of achievement makes the game mode moot to those that gets their fun taken away. Trying to deny others their fun or sense/pride of achievement doesn't help the game mode towards your preferred ways, it just makes them.... leave. And removed your own ways of gaining sense/pride of achievement in process.

While what I've read and written is a good description of this mode, I'd like to understand how these latest changes are supposed to negate a playstyle or how they can deny that someone can be satisfied with their goals. If it's better to group up with 5 or 6 teammates to close a wall, am I denying you defense? Or am I suggesting that you team up with others? If I reduce the supplies in the tower, am I denying you a defense? Or am I suggesting you get out of that tower and protect even why are camps more valuable than before?

If you want to contribute and score points by killing or capturing structures, you are free to do so. Who prevents you from doing so. If you want to shoot with a small guild group of 15 players and a larger group, you are free to do so. Who prevents you from doing so.

Personally, I feel that all playstyles are still all safely and freely playable with these changes. What I would suggest to the development of Anet is that if you want to stimulate the content, if you want offense and defense to meet so as to aute the iteration between players you have to keep the '' time '' under control I don't know how it was abused before but the contestation of the golem before gave more time to the defense and generated very good iterations. I like the idea that a wall is more complicated to close, especially where you have double walls. Because the enemy comes in and then the defense responds And then the content emerges. We should get stronger walls so we give the defense more time to get organized, to come in to play with their attackers, or we risk saying hello to the content.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 4/17/2024 at 6:42 AM, Galmac.4680 said:

If they can't implement alliances they don't want us to play it at all.

Ahh, now there's a logical explanation! 🤣

[Mabi black.1824]

On 4/28/2024 at 2:59 AM, ZTeamG.4603 said:

It's a shame that WvW has never really received much developer attention over the years, which is probably in no small part due to it not really having anything directly monetizable

Since I think this too, some time ago I made a suggestion to the development . It's something that harks back to GW1. And we also had WVW weeks of event to prove that it's doable, my warrior if he killed an enemy of another class I could load his secondary abilities (or something similar) into the bar it's been a long time. So I suggested putting the skills up for sale. Each player can only charge 1 skill from another class they are playing. 

You go to the BLTP and buy a 24-hour ticket rather than a 7-day or a 1-month ticket. You'll need gems, and it's going to be more expensive in reference to its durability. This generates a flow for ANET ( directly from WVW, or if they prefer also from PVE , why not , although I would prefer to make it exclusive to WVW so we also better attract new players or returning players ).   as well as opening up to a series of new constructions for each class. New playstyles. More fun for everyone. In short, everyone wins. also wvw.

Edited April 29 by Mabi black.1824

[Chaba.5410]

4 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

This is both where all the different play styles comes into the equation as well as everything about defending, attacking, balancing, metas, counterplay, countermetas, and so on. And it needs to be understood, or at least addressed, that removing ways to gain this pride or sense of achievement makes the game mode moot to those that gets their fun taken away. Trying to deny others their fun or sense/pride of achievement doesn't help the game mode towards your preferred ways, it just makes them.... leave.

Playstyles are player inventions - many of which were initially influenced by the player's computer specs (let's be honest about that - someone on a potato is going to relegate themselves to less zergy activities).  The way some posters here have commented makes it sound like they think devs are supposed to balance around playstyles.  Just because a player decided they were going to escort yaks all day doesn't mean the devs have to now balance yaks against zergs otherwise the escort is going to quit playing.  There are no set roles in this game because devs never created them.  Devs only created an arena with a population cap, siege, player killing, and node capture.  They composed choices players can make within that arena and whichever choices are optimal can and will change over time.  This is the sandbox nature of WvW.

Edited April 29 by Chaba.5410

[progenitex.8465]

7 hours ago, Chaos God.1639 said:

what I see is that some people act like this game is a FPS/ping pong game. they think they will defeat another enemy in one shot. we already see the nature of gw2. stalemates/draws are possible. it's the nature of games like gw2 in general. even in ping pong you can get long matches.

you can take a lot of other games as an example and get the same situation, long fights with no clear winner. the only games that mostly don't have this are fps games. but still in games like battlefield both opponents can fire at the same time and defeat each other.

Boonballing isnt even giving you long matches, because long matches do have an outcome of a winner and loser. Boonballing at this current state is a never ending fight with no one ever dying. 

To put it in your example, boonballing right now, is like in a ping pong match where both players never get tired or run out of stamina and there is zero degradation in their play.

If you ask me, i wouldnt want to play or watch a match thats like that because its not entertaining or fun.

 

7 hours ago, Chaos God.1639 said:

there are other benefits of having "permanent" boons. for example, inexperienced players PVE (who want to create legendary items) can be protected, inferior/different builds can be used, more to experiment,... the game won't be Meta Wars 2. To me meta also means that there is something unbalanced in the game. ofc everybody will have own opinion, there is just no point in ignoring all the benefits and thinking that changing the boons will solve everything. in games like battlefield, vehicles can change the battle result,...

this isnt PVE, if a player is bringing a PVE build to a pvp mode, they are going to have a bad time. Inferior wvw builds are suppose to lose. Meta builds are optimal ways to play the game mode but not the defining way to play. A good player can play a inferior/sub-optimal build and still win if they are skilled, the good player simply put themselves at a disadvantage in doing so.

In any game, there will always be a meta because good players optimize what is absolute best and most effective. There are meta shifts depending on the changes to the game but there will always be meta builds. We are currently in the boonball meta and its not fun for anyone because there are no fights that are meaningful and thats why this thread exists for players to voice their discontent about the current state of wvw.

 

Edited April 29 by progenitex.8465

[Gorani.7205]

On 4/28/2024 at 2:59 AM, ZTeamG.4603 said:

It's a shame that WvW has never really received much developer attention over the years, which is probably in no small part due to it not really having anything directly monetizable

WvW players (of the past, at the hight of GW2 after the launch of HoT)  would throw gems/real money at them for customizable guild siege (like the winter's day catas that hurled presents), dollies of guild claimed camps having other skins (like winter's day present dollies), guards wearing the guild armour or are replaced by other races/factions etc.) Or more fancy banners and decoration on claimed towers and keeps...

There was a demand and ideas about cosmetics , they have just never been picked up.

[TheGrimm.5624]

21 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

All structures being reset to T0 doesn't say anything about content. 

This is a question to most. During your servers' prime time now, are most of the keeps T0 or T1? Personally that is what I am seeing. What are you seeing from your side?

[TheGrimm.5624]

21 hours ago, DarkK.7368 said:

Reading a bit in this topic, is a bit heartbreaking. When I play with my friend, she usually says "I love that I can disconnect my brain and relax and kill and do stuff and get rewards", specially when finding a commander. She tries hard to play good, of course. But we are in the zerg with no responsability, just spam aoe stuff, and if you go down, wait to be revived.

Ouch. I Roam, Havoc and Pugmand. Part of the no responsibility is the tag just using too many to do a thing. This is also what I call tag dependency and it makes players stand in towers when there is no tag since they should already know what needs to be done without one. 

21 hours ago, DarkK.7368 said:

No compared to small scale fights where you get almost all responsability, and if you fail, you lose. Here people talking about strategies... Indeed something that long time I don't see and it hurts. I guess that's why I'm more into PVP. It would be nice indeed to experience that type of big commander groups with experience and strategies in WVW again, and not the called "boon ball"... But I almost never experienced another thing, I thought it did not exist in WvW XD

Large scale can play like small scale but most tags don't try it these days since there is no reason to win. But I agree the reason I like to Roam and Havoc is it ups the ante. How much can you do with how few. And if you have a lot, how much can do at the same time across an area and regroup when you need to. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

21 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Numbers = Advantage

Organized = Advantage

Meta = Advantage

Voice = Advantage

Revive skills = Advantage

Target Caps = Advantage as you get more numbers, throw more aoes, mitigate more aoes.

Boon/Support spam Game Mechanics = Should not be an advantage one set of players get to take full advantage of, applying infinite boons should have a proper counter of removing those boons. Some classes fart and spam out boons. If you don't want counters in the game for that, then you have to place better/strict restrictions.

Snow ball mechanics are not fun, especially in a pvp setting, unless you're bad and want all the advantages in a game to carry you through everything, like using cheat codes in a single player game. Then you are just a pathetic player that doesn't actual enjoy sport or competition or challenge, stop saying you want competition when you roll up on a map with 50 players.  

Stop being biased and do your jobs as a developer, and balance the game properly to all players and groups. There's no excuse that it's too hard, it's too much work, you can only bother balancing to big fat 50 squad groups. It's pathetic and sad it's gotten to this point, not everyone wants to play in 50 squads. Everyone should have the opportunity to play the game how they wish, whether that be a scout, roamer, havoc, defender, builder, dueler, zerger, blobber, as whatever they wish but that means all 9 classes and not shoehorned same support into 4 out of 5 for every single group.

Not be hampered because some meta blob decided to break everything because nothing stops them but another meta squad of 50, it's pathetic that you think only those players should "feel better" about playing the game, pathetic you continue to destroy the morale of defenders every single patch, it's pathetic when you nerf boon strips every single patch when I see groups in game calling for more boon strips, it's pathetic you continue to punished the little guy so "your friends" can "feel better" about rampaging through maps. All this wouldn't be a problem if the game was matching groups up in instances, but it doesn't, it's a mismatch across 24/7 in open pvp zones.

Maybe start playing the game outside of your blobs and walk in others shoes before you continue down this pathetic nerf parade because you still think somehow in someway boon blobs are still not strong enough and breaking into T3 objectives in less than 5mins is somehow still too slow. The game still extremely fun from 1-25 sizes, but above that it "feels like a slog with little payoff" fighting those groups.

Your small rings did not promote more pvp interaction, it chased it away, your tactical game play now is more players using siege to hit those circles in smc and run away as soon as the ring goes up. More often than not an objective will flip without defense counter because guess what, more objectives are paper and players have less time to respond! especially if they're caught in a 2v1 on them which is happening even more on the weakest side, so congratulations on continuing to make the game mode worse.

This is kind of still the question. What were the groups that were failing to take structures using as tactics to take it? Were they just just leaving a bread trail straight to the objectives? Were they not draining its supply first if it was full? Were they not employing their sides Roamers and Havocs? Not doing hit and runs to soften it? What it seems like is they were expecting to take it in one shot. How many servers leave more than 1, at best, in objectives when there are no fights around it? All servers should use defensive scouts. But that's part of the issue, scouts take time to get the word out and defenders take time to arrive. What I also question is how often are there equal population in a given time zone, across all maps in a matchup outside of perhaps reset? Given that at reset even odds might be good that there will a 2 v 1 against a weaker side that is down at the moment even during equal population times. 

Appreciate changes in the game mode and development time, but groups that wanted to break into T3's were already doing so before this. Add the failed attack event as discussed to help the sides that were trying and failing if it was an issue of players feeling that the time was not well spent. If this was an issue of a tag not informing their squad that this was a hit and run or weakening to drain supply though, that's kind of a tags fault personally of not being honest with their group. Even worse if they didn't use all their resources to get a thing done. We have large scale, small scale and roamers. Any side should be at a disadvantage if they are just using just one of the three versus using all three.

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 hours ago, Cael.3960 said:

As an example, this used to be the case with Mag and SMC (and perhaps still is, my server hasn't fought them in several months so I can't say for sure). With most of a map population sitting in SMC with tiered walls, fixed siege and placeable siege on every gate, many servers ignored the place altogether.

Going to pull this bit out. If any of these changes were made due to a Mag issue, it was a mistake. Rule#2. If in doubt attack the side that holds SMC. It's a three sided game. If two sides decide to ignore the side that holds more than the issue is the game mechanics rewards the sides to go for an easy win versus targeting the side that is in the lead or holds a stronger objective. A better change might have been to remove the WP from SMC all together. A side can still own it to gain its value but not gain the advantage of fast travel outside of EWP.

[TheGrimm.5624]

13 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

We are all children of Latin. We are all children of Rome. 2000 years later.😉

lol. De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum.

Not wrong.

[TheGrimm.5624]

10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

I'll ramble a little more 🙂

(Nope not talking about balance, because that's handled by a different team)

If you look back at ANet and WvW, you can see that every time they spot a problem and tries to fix it, the same patterns follows. They identify the problem as it is as that point, they come up with ideas and plan out a solution, they start working on it, and when they finish it and release it, well the situations changed because of the time it has taken.

On launch the problem was massive queue's, so they identified the problem, through out a solution, and started working on EotM. By the time it was released, the queue's wasn't nearly as big a problem any-longer, because it had already taken a good while and the situation had changed.

World Restructure is probably the most extreme example of this. Back when they held polls and actively asked on the forums etc, and they narrowed things down to a couple of things that needed fixing and they set population as the top one, and started working on it (and then got pulled off, put on pause a few times, and then started again with a skeleton crew etc. Usual stuff). So bunch of years later, while WR is still going to be useful (for the background systems if nothing else), the situation has changed, and other things are affecting the game-mode/player-base more.

So if I was to point out the main problem with ANet regarding WvW development: They're reactive and their work-flow is too slow to keep up a constantly changing player-base. This could be because of various reasons, examples:
* Awkward/complicated tools/programs
* Low priority/resources (money and devs for ex, being told no by bosses)
* Company philosophy/design restrictions (overdevelop and only released mostly polished content).

At the same time, if they constantly tries to re-consider their priorities, then the long development process will work even harder against them, and nothing would ever get done.

I'm not sure how they can change that. I'd make a guess that the thing that separates a veteran "realm vs realm" team from the rest is honestly just experience enough to be able to spot which direction the player-base is "roughly" heading, and start building counter measures before hand. From what I've seen ANet seems to change people around too much for anyone to be allowed the time to build up that kind of experience.

----

The only thing I'll say about balance is that it feels more like a conflict of departments. You have the balance team, and they're ordered to prioritize X over the rest, and only make small numerical changes for Y and Z when needed. And when you then put a bunch of mostly system-engineers on the other teams (like WvW) that might not be very versed in actual combat and balance, it will be near impossible for them to come with meaningful input or to argue against the balance team.

As I've suggested before, the WvW devs should still be able to make changes to Siege without interference from the balance team (Assumption on my part, since Siege is WvW only), so they could potentially use those to make sweeping/drastic changes (like mass boon-rips, big damage, etc). But in that case you got to realise that chances are high that the WvW devs are unlikely to be very good at balance, and those numbers would probably be all over the place, and they'd have to go by trial-and-error to find some good numbers for things. I'd expect anything from 3-6 months of highly random changes.

----

One related point, changing participation, is the single most powerful way ANet has to change player-behaviour at this point. If you got plenty participation for defence, players would defend. If you got participation for dying to another player, players would happily suicide into each others.

A lot of good points. 

Take the conversation about boonballs as well. We have had boons since forever. What impacted them along the way. The Hammer (read melee) meta. Players that weren't in groups reacted to it as range it down which potentially lead to more boons. Which lead to more strips and conversions which moved us to the pirate meta. More range and less hammer trains. Which lead to projectile hate meta to counter the pirate meta and again potentially increased the boons. Then they looked at pirate meta and said the issue is the boon removal so nerf the strips and counters which leads to the current boon meta.

Joined a squad recently that wasn't doing well against another, their complaints were there were too many boon removal on the other side and they couldn't counter that even if I also say there is not a good balance to boons versus antiboon. So I get it, there are a lot of sides to the conversation. Balance is a moving target.

Still go round and round. The thing that keeps running through my head is the balance team stream where it was said that more strips and conversions were removed due to what melee wants to be hit with that when engaging and moving into a fight. Which is not the same as what melee wants to jump into another side while they have all those boons waiting to receive their melee attack. Boon vs antiboon balance is another point to juggle. 

Some of the changes are reducing range AoE targets which lead to more boons. Should ranged AoE be 3 and Melee range be 5 and meet in the middle? Ideally the end goal is melee, ranged and support all being needed and the challenge is finding the right mix. That applies to small and large scale. For roamers, you want CC options to combat them both but not be OP that there is no reason for groups nor to allow a group to CC lockdown a smaller group. It's not easy.

[TheGrimm.5624]

8 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

It's starting to feel like some things that were touched upon right as the changes came are starting to sink a bit into the mud, so adding this for my own piece of mind.

A very big part of the problem is the population, coverage and type of players difference on the servers, especially in EU where, as mentioned, the flaws with the system started to become extremely visible after the relink before the changes. With two servers dominating their MUs against almost dead or weak servers to the point people just logged in and out on all three sides due to lack of content. Prime example was WSR being linkless starting in T5 and crawling up the tiers while people just logged out in their MUs. The how and why's have been explained in threads to those that doesn't understand a few times in the recent threads. Nothing mentioned further down has anything to say or helps if server balance is as skewed as it's been lately.

A sense of achievement, or pride of achievement, is important to have fun in a game mode like this as it's the main motivation driver. It's kind of the general definition of having fun in the game mode. Every single debate in these last threads boils down to the simple fact that how you gain this vary. This is both where all the different play styles comes into the equation as well as everything about defending, attacking, balancing, metas, counterplay, countermetas, and so on. And it needs to be understood, or at least addressed, that removing ways to gain this pride or sense of achievement makes the game mode moot to those that gets their fun taken away. Trying to deny others their fun or sense/pride of achievement doesn't help the game mode towards your preferred ways, it just makes them.... leave. And removed your own ways of gaining sense/pride of achievement in process.

You can't make people like the same things you do. Simple as that. Making rules and strategies that servers "have to/should do" catering to your preferred type of fun and "explain away" what these last changes have done and how to get around it 👏does 👏 not 👏work 👏. And then I am not even touching upon the discrepancies in server population and coverage. Any perceived power over a server is a construct. If you think the communication is kitten, be an example. If there's anything you think should be done on a map, go kittening do it. Don't expect others to, don't blame others for not doing it. If you aren't able to yourself, get better.

By getting better I mean in ways that fits your way to play, style, level of skill, ability and effort invested - for some it's to time when to try to take a camp or a tower while things are happening other places, for some it's understanding what the skills do and how the synergies work, for some it's cooking up builds able to 1v3, for some it's how to have a main objective like EBG keep ready for an all out assault, for some it's building a comp that work in the intended or certain way, for some it's becoming a better commander in their preferred content, for some it's figuring out where to place siege so watchtower can't see you, for some it's learning to play other classes or builds, for some it's learning how to follow a good commander better, for some it's how to organize, for some it's how to help commander with callouts in fights, for some it's building up a core guild group, for some it's being able to swap builds on the fly, for some it's how to scout in a way that's helpful, for some it's to learn what's actually helpful to bring to a voice squad, for some it's being able to adjust to new balance or meta changes, for some it's when or how to use tactivators, for some it's just basic understanding of what other players and/or commanders can or cannot do due to game, player or map limitations.

It's not a sin to be carried nor a detriment to you, but not understanding that people can't be carried if there's no one to carry is on you. You might not like people doing battles on south camp, but the people doing that is what will carry you in another setting be it defending a keep or have a zerg rampage on a map. You might not care about tiering and sieging up a keep, taking camps or putting in the right tactivators but people doing that is what make them able to scout and stall things until you can go get a fight. Being a commander not understanding how players often doing other content are carrying you in the type of content you offer is kind of shameful if it takes too long to sink in, though.

If it doesn't matter what you do because the end result will be the same no matter what, why would you? Why would you repair or try to defend a keep if you aren't even getting kills, participation or ticks for defending? Why would you try to become a better player if it doesn't matter as it's just about hitting any skill that's cooled down? Why would you try to become a better commander if tactics and strategies are moot as long as it's about getting numbers and boons up? Why would you go voice to command to time the squad better and help new people learn if it doesn't really make a difference? 

If you like it or not, actual living people is the main content in this mode. They're not NPCs, neither on your side nor the enemy sides. Even if you prefer PlayerVsDoor other people is your main content as someone else have to take the objective so you can too. And killing the diversity kills the population, which then kills your content, no matter what you want it to be. And it will affect your rewards, WxP, loot bags, kills, k/d ratio, PPT, PPK, weeklies, dailies, server population, pool of recruits, pugs, roamers, available commanders, whatever floats your boat or is more important to you.

You can't build the mode and classes/builds/skills based on a dream scenario with balanced server population, coverage and content because nobody has the same dream scenario and servers and links are currently nowhere near any balance. Be it devs or players with "good ideas". I don't pretend to have any quick fixes or some super insightful knowledge on how to do it, but that much I know. But I do expect people getting paid to do it doing it better than I or any other regular player would.

Well said and worth the repost.

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Gorani.7205 said:

WvW players (of the past, at the hight of GW2 after the launch of HoT)  would throw gems/real money at them for customizable guild siege (like the winter's day catas that hurled presents), dollies of guild claimed camps having other skins (like winter's day present dollies), guards wearing the guild armour or are replaced by other races/factions etc.) Or more fancy banners and decoration on claimed towers and keeps...

There was a demand and ideas about cosmetics , they have just never been picked up.

This. I still think they are missing out on gem sales with siege and ammo skins. Said it before and will again. They will get there. But I also still think that gem sales are used too often as a reason for lack of development. Not sure if I fully agree with that since some of the largest whales I know are WvW players. 

[XenesisII.1540]

14 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

This is kind of still the question. What were the groups that were failing to take structures using as tactics to take it? Were they just just leaving a bread trail straight to the objectives? Were they not draining its supply first if it was full? Were they not employing their sides Roamers and Havocs? Not doing hit and runs to soften it? What it seems like is they were expecting to take it in one shot. How many servers leave more than 1, at best, in objectives when there are no fights around it? All servers should use defensive scouts. But that's part of the issue, scouts take time to get the word out and defenders take time to arrive. What I also question is how often are there equal population in a given time zone, across all maps in a matchup outside of perhaps reset? Given that at reset even odds might be good that there will a 2 v 1 against a weaker side that is down at the moment even during equal population times. 

Appreciate changes in the game mode and development time, but groups that wanted to break into T3's were already doing so before this. Add the failed attack event as discussed to help the sides that were trying and failing if it was an issue of players feeling that the time was not well spent. If this was an issue of a tag not informing their squad that this was a hit and run or weakening to drain supply though, that's kind of a tags fault personally of not being honest with their group. Even worse if they didn't use all their resources to get a thing done. We have large scale, small scale and roamers. Any side should be at a disadvantage if they are just using just one of the three versus using all three.

Most of them don't do the prep work anymore, they don't need to, they just sneak onto a map and break though outer before defenders notice. People complained about siege, but they never took the time to destroy them until they're inside, the "meta" doesn't really include long bow rangers and staff ele's so they don't bother with siege on walls until they break in, when was the last time you saw a "fight" group bother with using a ballista for counter siege? They would rather double round build 3-4 catas to break a wall under heavy fire than spend 40 supply for one ballista to clear a wall, because the meta lets them sit in aoes as much as they want.

Now with the supply nerf and 50% change it's harder to close up objectives once, let alone twice, let alone if there was a double team attack and multiple walls are down, forget about it. That's where the prep supply drain work went to, nerf to the supply storage and mass repairing walls/gates after one attack.

Most times now it's either a double team and defenders don't have enough to cover both, or they're busy with one side while the other free train caps everything else, or stuff is paper so it can't even hold out long enough for defenders. Notice how no one wants to double team Mag though, but they do it all the time to each other. Prime time most objectives look like reset night, towers flip with little to no conflict, except it doesn't have the 4 map queue population as reset night. 🤷‍♂️

I just feel like if defending is not going to part of the back and forth of conflicts anymore then they need to rework objectives and take out the upgrade system. Their whole philosophy  now is fights are suppose to happen "inside" objectives? but the whole point of walled objectives is... to keep the bad guys out........ 🤔🤷‍♂️ So I don't see a point to have walls anymore,  if you've nerfed it to the point that it's only effective for one conflict, cannons can't even kill rams before the gates go down, they're pretty much destroyed the Eco structure of wvw where they expect everything to be one shot taken.

Might as well turn everything into a camp and just let the lords have 10 min RI's, after the 10 mins camp turns neutral for whoever is there fights over it. Rinse and repeat for your massive "small ring pvp interactions".

Once again I will say, nerfing down all the defenses isn't going to solve the problem of why groups run away from bigger groups in the first place. Seems everyone is missing this point. If you want to have those old school nice open field fights of 25-50 vs 25-50 then ask yourself what it would take to have those 25 stick around to fight 50 in the open field. 50 boon blobbers can only be challenged by 50 boon blobbers is the problem they need to look at and solve. Not nerf another defense at objectives or skills because 50 can't find a fight.

[prototypedragon.1406]

https://youtu.be/soqBc056A9Q?si=K6ujxPfgEZgq2VrQ in terms of smaller numbers fighting against bigger numbers utilizing timing and repair of walls were a interesting way of dividing and conquering  https://youtu.be/5lAWFTKpRTs?si=UaJ8FCMlRAFsVJIl Even arrowcarts farms even if they were rough at times.

[One more for the road.8950]

6 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

While what I've read and written is a good description of this mode, I'd like to understand how these latest changes are supposed to negate a playstyle or how they can deny that someone can be satisfied with their goals. If it's better to group up with 5 or 6 teammates to close a wall, am I denying you defense? Or am I suggesting that you team up with others? If I reduce the supplies in the tower, am I denying you a defense? Or am I suggesting you get out of that tower and protect even why are camps more valuable than before?

If you want to contribute and score points by killing or capturing structures, you are free to do so. Who prevents you from doing so. If you want to shoot with a small guild group of 15 players and a larger group, you are free to do so. Who prevents you from doing so.

Personally, I feel that all playstyles are still all safely and freely playable with these changes. What I would suggest to the development of Anet is that if you want to stimulate the content, if you want offense and defense to meet so as to aute the iteration between players you have to keep the '' time '' under control I don't know how it was abused before but the contestation of the golem before gave more time to the defense and generated very good iterations. I like the idea that a wall is more complicated to close, especially where you have double walls. Because the enemy comes in and then the defense responds And then the content emerges. We should get stronger walls so we give the defense more time to get organized, to come in to play with their attackers, or we risk saying hello to the content.

In all honesty, you have the answers to these questions in this thread or other recent ones I have seen you in posted by either myself or others, so asking these things makes me question your comprehension or motives to ask. If it's due to Google Translate or other things I don't know, but I am not going to go off track muddying the waters even more.

[One more for the road.8950]

5 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Playstyles are player inventions - many of which were initially influenced by the player's computer specs (let's be honest about that - someone on a potato is going to relegate themselves to less zergy activities).  The way some posters here have commented makes it sound like they think devs are supposed to balance around playstyles.  Just because a player decided they were going to escort yaks all day doesn't mean the devs have to now balance yaks against zergs otherwise the escort is going to quit playing.  There are no set roles in this game because devs never created them.  Devs only created an arena with a population cap, siege, player killing, and node capture.  They composed choices players can make within that arena and whichever choices are optimal can and will change over time.  This is the sandbox nature of WvW.

Let me put the entire paragraph you quoted here, with the sentences both in front and after that you removed, as I think you perhaps aren't understanding what I am trying to say here.

 

9 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

A sense of achievement, or pride of achievement, is important to have fun in a game mode like this as it's the main motivation driver. It's kind of the general definition of having fun in the game mode. Every single debate in these last threads boils down to the simple fact that how you gain this vary. This is both where all the different play styles comes into the equation as well as everything about defending, attacking, balancing, metas, counterplay, countermetas, and so on. And it needs to be understood, or at least addressed, that removing ways to gain this pride or sense of achievement makes the game mode moot to those that gets their fun taken away. Trying to deny others their fun or sense/pride of achievement doesn't help the game mode towards your preferred ways, it just makes them.... leave. And removed your own ways of gaining sense/pride of achievement in process.

I am not sure what your post quoting this paragraph has to do with it. Pride or sense of achievement has nothing to do with balancing around anything. It has to do with motivation to play. If someone is escorting dolyaks, it's not escorting dolyaks that's giving them a sense of achievement, it's tiering up a keep or towers. For defenses, points ticking in or whatever. Of course play styles are player invention, it caters to their motivation to play. Obviously.

[Chaba.5410]

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

Of course play styles are player invention, it caters to their motivation to play. Obviously.

And what I'm saying is that games aren't designed with personal motivations in mind.  It's just a board with a ruleset and what players do with it is up to them.  Rulesets can and should change otherwise we end up with tic tac toe.

And I think what you are calling "sense of achievement" is actually something else.  Because once you've achieved something, there's usually little incentive to keep playing.  Why do people play games?  Because there is something fun for them in it.  Once you've achieved mastery over a game (like tic tac toe), it's no longer fun.  Once a borderland is "secure", players usually hop maps because it's no longer fun on the other map.  When a zerg attacks, then it's fun because the results of the yak escorting can be realized.  If no one attacks, they just log off out of boredom from waiting.

Edited April 29 by Chaba.5410

[One more for the road.8950]

6 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

And what I'm saying is that games aren't designed with personal motivations in mind.  It's just a board with a ruleset and what players do with it is up to them.  Rulesets can and should change otherwise we end up with tic tac toe.

And I think what you are calling "sense of achievement" is actually something else.  Because once you've achieved something, there's usually little incentive to keep playing.  Why do people play games?  Because there is something fun for them in it.  Once you've achieved mastery over a game (like tic tac toe), it's no longer fun.  Once a borderland is "secure", players usually hop maps because it's no longer fun on the other map.  When a zerg attacks, then it's fun because the results of the yak escorting can be realized.  If no one attacks, they just log off out of boredom from waiting.

I... am not sure you understand how being a supplier of entertainment works.

[Chaba.5410]

Just now, One more for the road.8950 said:

I... am not sure you understand how being a supplier of entertainment works.

Why don't you ask some questions about my understanding that confuses you then?

[Chaba.5410]

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

I... am not sure you understand how being a supplier of entertainment works.

How about I ask you a question then?  Is the grinding that all these suppliers of entertainment design fun because at the end you get a big sense of achievement?

[adammantium.8031]

Some of the observations I've had recently WvW. I play mostly day time EU, so relatively quiet hours with one server with clearly the upper hand.

 

There are too few opportunities to counterplay in defense.

Early in the game's life-cycle, I felt we had roughly the following philosophy around siege. Flame rams did the most damage, but made you the most vulnerable to siege and were higher risk. Catapults were in second, allowing you some distance from arrow carts, but were slower and vulnerable to ballistas, cannons and other players. Trebs were supply-expensive and slow, but safe from most enemy siege, and would often necessitate players coming to fight you.

This is no longer a consideration.

A catapult's range can be exploited/maximized to be used for bother outer and inner walls (Bay south side, Hills on the zig zag cliff, Desert Keep on north east, SMC), making sieging very supply-cheap and too fast to respond to.

Power-creep from boons and heals, and nerfs to structural integrity and disablers, means defensive siege is often irrelevant.

It no longer feels possible to disrupt enemy groups with good use of defensive siege and thus slow them down (I did not say stop entirely). The most effective counterplay left is to use trebs with cows for supply drain so prevent them hitting your next vulnerable target.

I would consider reducing the range of catapults, or maybe reducing their HP to make them more vulnerable to opposing players and/or siege. Reduce the hp of flame rams and/or make them more vulnerable to arrow cart damage.

 

There are fewer decisive moments in large scale battles.

As others have said, the current meta is just horrible. These boonballs are no fun to fight. Players need tools to make enemies vulnerable and add more strategy and thought to encounters. 

I'd also say that the change to rebuild walls and gates has also removed opportunities for some of the most fun moments. 

I would consider making boon strip builds more effective again.

 

Changes to keep lords are meh.

I might not have noticed if this wasn't in the patch notes. Far less of a change compared to how the desert BL keep lords were nerfed (which was fine, by the way, air keep lord was no fun).

 

Changes to the capture circle are good

Smaller quality of life thing, but this was a good change.