WTF is Anet doing to WvW?

[MarkBecks.6453]

On 4/17/2024 at 6:25 AM, MaLong.2079 said:

Anet is on a mission to end individual play in WvW. That is all.

Maybe, just maybe, USA in on a similar time zone, while EU players come from the 4 corners of the world including Australia, New Zealand and South America which means that the EU model should never have changed so drastically because for some players there is no zerg or boonball or much going on in their usual playtime. The Difference is 6-8 hours East for oz and 6-8 hours for South America West. There is no one size fits all. In my opinion, as much as people want to convince themselves the game is thriving, but EU has 1 full server only gg.

[Chaba.5410]

8 hours ago, MarkBecks.6453 said:

Maybe, just maybe, USA in on a similar time zone, while EU players come from the 4 corners of the world including Australia, New Zealand and South America

Huh?

Edited May 6 by Chaba.5410

[Odrson.1463]

•  Make Zone (Keep) Buffs (much) stronger again BUT reduce it's values per player affected.
  So small groups can defend better but large groups can have a fair fight against other large groups and one does not have to kite out of the buff area.
  
   

 

• Add splash damage to catapults that damages themselves and other siege if too close to a wall. (Friendly Fire)
  Maybe even to players but that is debatable. This would allow for a more fun placement of siege and siege counter play.
  
  
  
  
  Generally speaking I think the changes to WvW do help and are positively perceived by our zerging groups but are ruining the fun and balance for other group sizes.
  To make WvW better it is crucial to increase the incentives for smaller scale play to be relevant other than flipping zones every 5 min left to right.

[Intrudjeeer.1570]

I still consider 20 organised killing a whole map of 70 unorganized or what is the max number, it is already taken too far. They dont kill because of skill, but because of the 20 having perma defensive boons. At this point it is boon vs boon not wvw.

[Mufasa.8415]

Boon pylon characters are a huge issue in general I've noticed. i had a group of about 5 people last week and we kept running into a single guardian that we could not damage, lock down or anything. yet he was still able to drop some of us. it was ultimately a stalemate because we had numbers but we could not detour them in the slightest. 1v5 and they never lost more than maybe 5% health.  The incredible amount of cleanse, stun break, invul, movement, healing and still be viably combative that any one class can have is strikingly lopsided for a few classes. As a ranger i have only a few stunbreaks and one that gives me two stacks of stab for a single second you cannot compete on that level. what would be nice to see as well is "True Sight"-[can see invisible/cloaked enemies (doesn't reveal them) and you also can't be blinded-Self Target Only]. Also if you're invul you should still take on conditions from attacks aside from maybe cc related debuffs. Idk how many times I've been in a fight and I just am not allowed to land anything at all because multiple invul procs(ele's and guardians I'm looking at you).

I otherwise like the state of wvw towers and keeps as they are now they feel appropriate but I have been m.i.a. for years too so my reference point for comparison is almost non-existent.

[Sonork.2916]

4 hours ago, Intrudjeeer.1570 said:

I still consider 20 organised killing a whole map of 70 unorganized or what is the max number, it is already taken too far. They dont kill because of skill, but because of the 20 having perma defensive boons. At this point it is boon vs boon not wvw.

So what is skill then in ZvZ?  If not optimizing for whatever meta is in play atm?  i feel your post couldn't be more wrong imo.  So the 20 players that organize, build an optimal comp, and then coordinate movement to kill a 70 man blob are not skilled huh?  Really curious what you think skill is in this game.

[Kunzaito.8169]

I rarely post anymore, and this will probably get lost in the maelstrom here, but I have been saddened and disappointed by the continued deterioration of the WvW experience over the past couple of years, and the latest couple of rounds of changes have made made me finally want to give up on it entirely. I've spent most of my playtime in WvW over the last 10 years, through many different metas and many different changes to my server (TC) which is now nothing at all like the jokes the older players still like to make about us. 🙂

For many, many years now my server has had no guilds and no organized presence outside NA prime other than a dedicated bunch of random pugs. Roaming for smallscale fun, ninja caps, and, if we played well, being able to defend our main stuff was what we played for. But over and over again changes keep being made to favor these huge, comped groups in comms, and the wants of popular commanders.

Defense might have been overpowered if this were still 2012 and servers were clashing with equal numbers, but with server stacking all I ever see during OCX, SEA, and EU is one side with an overwhelming map queue taking whatever they want.

TL;DR for below: Taking away all the mechanisms that smaller, unorganized groups have to even the odds against the big blobs doesn't incentivize the blobs to shrink or magically get more people to play on the outnumbered side. It just means we log off, they ktrain empty maps, and WvW as a competitive mode continues to slowly die.

 

So here is a cascading/compounding list of the issues:

1. Boonball meta -  As I'm sure it's been said dozens of times here, being able to run a group that can stand with absolute impunity under any amount of defensive siege,  and run around inside an objective as long as they want farming kills until they get bored is broken.

2. This is partially due to choices made with specs/skills/abilities (Boonstripping is far harder and less common than boon application and sharing, strong synergies across various zerg builds) but also in the nerfing defensive siege. It used to be that taking out siege at an objective was an absolute priority because otherwise your attacking zerg would get ripped to shreds. Now zergs just shrug it all off. ACs barely scratch a zerg, zergs have so much supply that cows and pots are ignored, etc.

3. Same thing has happened with tactics over time. Many of them were useless from the start, and the rest have been nerfed to pointlessness over time:

• Zergs used to fear dragon banners, find the holder and spike him down if they could because 1 DB could WRECK an attack. Now, who cares? Turtle banner used to at least be decent at killing rams, Centaur had  some use in ZvZ. Now you get yelled at for slotting anything but DB, which isn't even good.
• Invuln walls becoming Siege Dampener is laughable. The whole point of invuln was to give your scouts time to rally a defense. A zerg with 6 rams or catas is not slowed down by that damage reduction, it's as useless as Autoturrets.
• There never really were good tradeoffs - for most slots on most objectives there was a clearly superior option. But I don't think the solution was to make all of the options so bad that it doesn't matter if you slot anything at all.

3. All this seems to me that it's because commanders don't want to attack strategically or over time. It's all about pips or keeping part up or whatever I guess. All I see now is golem rush or shield gens + 6 rams. I see one or two attempts at overwhelming brute force, and on the chance they don't cap they just move on to easier things. Maybe you'll get your outer towers opened by 3f SMC trebs if that side's feeling bored.

4. So the only way you could play as an outnumbered, less/unorganized defense force, was strategically:

• Tap walls closed - slow down their return. Can't do that anymore.
• Disable siege, give time to get it down or get your reinforcements in. (Honestly, with all the projectile blockers classes have access to + shield gen/cata bubble, if you get a disabler in as defender the attacking group messed up big time.)  I don't even see anyone use the "disruptor" version now, and if they do, it has no discernable effect.
• Allowing golems to contest camp rings was invaluable to keeping some supply coming and made sentrying a camp a useful activity that also provided small fights. Now by the time you call out the 2 or 3 enemies are inc, there's no way you can hold the ring for anyone else to show up.
• War of attrition - hit the backline, build siege, buy time. If they can ignore siege and instarez their downs, all you're doing is feeding bags and people quit.

Some people here seem to think that server stacking and blobbing are the result of objectives being hard to take. I'm here to tell you it's the result of human nature - lots of people just want easy rewards, and they're still gonna stack up the same servers to get em. The only thing that can be controlled is whether that's just going to be fighting doors, or whether you can provide an incentive/fun for people on the low pop servers to log in and play too.

 

Dev's specific questions:

1. Personally I think all the defensive nerfs (siege dampener, siege disruptor, wall/gate repair, objective aura) should be reverted.

2. I don't share that guy's opinion on strategic cata usage, but I do think defensive siege getting nerfed to oblivion has been a long process, not limited to just the latest changes.

3. Keep lord change is utterly irrelevant/unnoticed. I've never seen them use the skill (big zergs have plenty of CC) and can't possibly see it doing anything to turn the tide for an outnumbered defense.

4. Double teams have been a problem for awhile during any TZ where one side overwhelmingly dominates, but they do seem worse lately.  The big gorilla takes what they want, and whichever side is not being attacked does what they can to not attract their attention, meaning backcapping or maybe hitting the victim's BL.

 

Final note: Unrelated, but can you adjust defense event daily/weeklies? Having the ONLY thing that counts be "killing an enemy who killed a guard within the bounds of the objective during the defense event" is both rare, highly specific, and difficult to explain (people CONSTANTLY ask how this works in chat).

Edited May 7 by Kunzaito.8169

[Sleepwalker.1398]

5 hours ago, Kunzaito.8169 said:

• Tap walls closed - slow down their return. Can't do that anymore.

This is just killing any sort of defense. Cos now you either don't have supply. Or you have supply and wasting time to repair till 50% while enemy is already on lord. It's just stuffed.

[Aeolus.3615]

On 5/6/2024 at 7:10 PM, Intrudjeeer.1570 said:

I still consider 20 organised killing a whole map of 70 unorganized or what is the max number, it is already taken too far. They dont kill because of skill, but because of the 20 having perma defensive boons. At this point it is boon vs boon not wvw.

Well a bad group of 50-70  with very very poor boon spam can  be defeated by a permanent  boon groups of 20-30  with 100% uptime quickness, quickness will carry those 20 by a lot on top of the AOE and the spam, even on minstrels stats.

There's a few boons that can carry a lot, quickness, alacrity, stability, if a group can overboon itself and keep the it at max stacks and durations like some groups do (even with 10 players ) it all that matter to win.

* alacrity  can carry to some extent it will help the spam of some skills if ammo based the better.

Overall Zergs who control large amount of players want to be carried by numbers or by boons or both and by a lot  and devs even more look at the classes they don't main... rofl..., there will be no fix to what cause this disgraceful lamer bunker meta of boons and the wvw changes that only help zergs that are being carried by minstrels and boons will stay.

We like or not... it is how ANET want WVW to be played... EOTM 2.0.

Edited May 7 by Aeolus.3615

[Widebody.5071]

But isn't that what defending was all about, a small group stopping/slowing down a bigger group? Why is it good for the attackers but not for the defenders? Instead of boons the defenders are using maxed masteries and expertise on the siege equipment. Anyone can do the same thing but since they don't desire to they'll just try to ruin it for everyone else.

The skill comes from being able to talk nerfs into classes and objects they don't want to face. No matter how they win it's all manipulated in their favor, be it officially or in the dark. 

[Chaba.5410]

33 minutes ago, Widebody.5071 said:

But isn't that what defending was all about, a small group stopping/slowing down a bigger group?

No?

Bigger groups defend against smaller groups all the time too.

A small group delaying attackers has always been a map politics strategy commanders of large organized groups have relied upon.  If you're a tag playing WvW "as intended", you've got scouts giving you numbers so you get a sense of how long it takes them and you're timing your movements across the map and picking when and where to hit based upon mostly the little windows of opportunity between attack and defense.  You're going to get through the walls of that T0 keep with your zerg instead of running immediately to defend your T3 keep because it's going to take the attackers longer than it will take you.  Bonus if there's a handful of players at your T3 giving you more time.  You're taking a chance because maybe you're trying to pull the attackers off to come defend their keep, like a game of chicken.  Who will flinch first?  Or maybe the attackers don't care about a T0 keep and are trying to get you to move to your T3 instead of taking the T0.

You win the map politics game when you control where your opponent ends up on the map.  There's a lot of commanders who don't do this anymore these days.  They are wholly reactive and get pushed around then everyone cries "we are being double-teamed!" or "why do we only own garri?".  The best public commanders in this game in the past knew how to control and influence where their opponents went and knew how to break double-teams.

Edited May 7 by Chaba.5410

[Widebody.5071]

6 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

No?

Bigger groups defend against smaller groups all the time too.

A small group delaying attackers has always been a map politics strategy commanders of large organized groups have relied upon.  If you're a tag playing WvW "as intended", you've got scouts giving you numbers so you get a sense of how long it takes them and you're timing your movements across the map and picking when and where to hit based upon mostly the little windows of opportunity between attack and defense.  You're going to get through the walls of that T0 keep with your zerg instead of running immediately to defend your T3 keep because it's going to take the attackers longer than it will take you.  Bonus if there's a handful of players at your T3 giving you more time.  You're taking a chance because maybe you're trying to pull the attackers off to come defend their keep, like a game of chicken.  Who will flinch first?  Or maybe the attackers don't care about a T0 keep and are trying to get you to move to your T3 instead of taking the T0.

You win the map politics game when you control where your opponent ends up on the map.  There's a lot of commanders who don't do this anymore these days.  They are wholly reactive and get pushed around then everyone cries "we are being double-teamed!" or "why do we only own garri?".  The best public commanders in this game in the past knew how to control and influence where their opponents went and knew how to break double-teams.

But that's what so many people keep saying... constantly. I don't disagree with what you say but every now and then have to throw their logic back at them, if it's good for one it's good for all. Why deprive others from enjoying the game as they like if they themselves are always complaining and triggering change in the direction of their desire?

[Mistwraithe.3106]

19 hours ago, Kunzaito.8169 said:

TL;DR for below: Taking away all the mechanisms that smaller, unorganized groups have to even the odds against the big blobs doesn't incentivize the blobs to shrink or magically get more people to play on the outnumbered side. It just means we log off, they ktrain empty maps, and WvW as a competitive mode continues to slowly die.

Great post and a pretty good summary of what many of us are feeling.

[Chaba.5410]

19 hours ago, Kunzaito.8169 said:

TL;DR for below: Taking away all the mechanisms that smaller, unorganized groups have to even the odds against the big blobs doesn't incentivize the blobs to shrink or magically get more people to play on the outnumbered side. It just means we log off, they ktrain empty maps, and WvW as a competitive mode continues to slowly die.

I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say.

Let me rewrite your sentence to illustrate where my confusion lies.
When smaller, unorganized groups can even the odds against the big blobs, it incentivizes the blobs to shrink or magically get more people to play on the outnumbered side.
I'm sure that's not what you intended to say.  It's kind of the corollary of your statement.

Additional thoughts:
- What if taking away all the mechanisms wasn't meant to incentive getting big blobs to shrink?  I never saw where this was the intent of the recent changes.
- What would incentivize blobs to shrink?
 

Edited May 8 by Chaba.5410

[Sansar.1302]

On 5/7/2024 at 12:16 AM, Sonork.2916 said:

So what is skill then in ZvZ?  If not optimizing for whatever meta is in play atm?  i feel your post couldn't be more wrong imo.  So the 20 players that organize, build an optimal comp, and then coordinate movement to kill a 70 man blob are not skilled huh?  Really curious what you think skill is in this game.

The current meta is totally devoid of anything that vaguely resemble skillful play. 

[ArchonWing.9480]

On 5/6/2024 at 3:16 PM, Sonork.2916 said:

So what is skill then in ZvZ?  If not optimizing for whatever meta is in play atm?  i feel your post couldn't be more wrong imo.  So the 20 players that organize, build an optimal comp, and then coordinate movement to kill a 70 man blob are not skilled huh?  Really curious what you think skill is in this game.

Skill is being a part of a 70 person group and losing to a 20 person group. That would take a lot of effort.

One would have to try very hard to play that badly. I am sure not even being afk would have the effect. Like you'd have to play in a manner that actively griefs your team, eg hot wps, bad transfuses, mortar kit into reflects, reflecting moas into your group and punting downed enemies back into the zergs, etc.

Edited May 8 by ArchonWing.9480

[joneirikb.7506]

6 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

- What would incentivize blobs to shrink?

Just because I find this an interesting idea to ponder:

• Mechanics that punish larger groups
• Making Points important again
• Changing loot so you get less the more players around you

I think those are the only ways that I can think of at least. It's just too natural/instinctive for humans to want to run together, for a lot of reasons. Just that feeling of safety and anonymity from sitting in the big group and throwing ranged attacks out, so you feel like no one is looking directly at just you and how you perform etc. Even if ANet for some strange reason changed all three of those, I think players still WANT to run in big groups, even if it wasn't "effective", just for that previous mentioned reason.

However much it would amuse me personally, I don't think they should remove large groups (zergs) from WvW for that reason, a lot if not most players that play the mode in one way or another enjoys it, taking that away would effectively shut down any and all recruitment to the mode (and likely make legendaries much more expensive! Muaahahaaaa!!!). But yeah, if they want to bring back more variety to the mode, those are the knobs I think they have available to adjust in order to find ways to reward: smaller groups, map politics, splitting up etc.

Would depend upon what they wanted, but I gotta admit I haven't seen them really wanting anything different than what we got, so I'm not exactly holding my breath here.
 

[Mabi black.1824]

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You win the map politics game when you control where your opponent ends up on the map.  There's a lot of commanders who don't do this anymore these days.  They are wholly reactive and get pushed around then everyone cries "we are being double-teamed!" or "why do we only own garri?".  The best public commanders in this game in the past knew how to control and influence where their opponents went and knew how to break double-teams.

This is literally how WVW is meant to be played/interpreted. This is a PvP fighting game, but also a strategy game. If you play with these 2 aspects in mind you won't even have to search for content, because they will present themselves to you (as expected) if you take into account only 1 of these aspects you will miss out on quite a few fun things along the way.

[Mabi black.1824]

6 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

When smaller, unorganized groups can even the odds against the big blobs, it incentivizes the blobs to shrink or magically get more people to play on the outnumbered side.
I'm sure that's not what you intended to say.  It's kind of the corollary of your statement.

I guess Kunzaito expressed himself badly, or the automatic translator made some mess. Because the day that the smaller, unorganized group cancels out the larger, more organized group, will be the day we break WVW for real. 

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

4 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I guess Kunzaito expressed himself badly, or the automatic translator made some mess. Because the day that the smaller, unorganized group cancels out the larger, more organized group, will be the day we break WVW for real. 

It's already been broken. When the answer to every question of tactics is "boonball", it's kittening broken.

What's best for taking objectives? Boonball. What's best for defending objectives? Boonball. What's the counter to a boonball? Boonball.

The fact you don't see that as broken just reinforces that you are perfectly happy with one solution to all problems. You're looking out on what you perceive to be a sea of nails, and chittering happily about how good your hammer is.

The rest of us don't see it that way.

[Mabi black.1824]

27 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

6 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

- What would incentivize blobs to shrink?

Just because I find this an interesting idea to ponder:

• Mechanics that punish larger groups
• Making Points important again
• Changing loot so you get less the more players around you

I don't think I agree with what you're suggesting, or better yet I don't agree with the question you mentioned. This is a large-scale PvP game. The maps/environments they provided us with have a capacity/capacity of 80vs80vs80. Why should we ask ourselves to discourage group play? What is the purpose of this question? Why do you want to roam with your 20-man guild group? Who is stopping you from doing that? Get your 20 friends together and play the mode. You'll find a team of 20 enemies, and it's going to be a lot of fun. You'll find a team of 30 enemies and it'll be even more fun. You will find a team of 40 enemies, it will be a great opportunity to test yourself, take advantage of everything you can exploit, and find out what the limits of your group are. You just have to learn how to manage what your demands are. Do you just want to win no matter what number comes your way? I'm sorry and luckily WVW doesn't work that way.

[TheGrimm.5624]

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Bigger groups defend against smaller groups all the time too.

For me, this was rare if ever. Were they waiting or replied, these are different?

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

A small group delaying attackers has always been a map politics strategy commanders of large organized groups have relied upon. 

Haven't seen that after tourney days myself.

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

If you're a tag playing WvW "as intended", you've got scouts giving you numbers so you get a sense of how long it takes them and you're timing your movements across the map and picking when and where to hit based upon mostly the little windows of opportunity between attack and defense. 

Can agree there but there are a lot of ifs involved. 

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You're going to get through the walls of that T0 keep

2 Cats are going to burn thru T0 or T3.

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

with your zerg instead of running immediately to defend your T3 keep because it's going to take the attackers longer than it will take you. 

No, have seen T3 drop quite often before a larger force can reply.

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Bonus if there's a handful of players at your T3 giving you more time. 

Handful at T3 mean they are dead if a zerg attacks. 

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You're taking a chance because maybe you're trying to pull the attackers off to come defend their keep, like a game of chicken.  Who will flinch first?  

I understand this game and have played it, but now this just means if you gamble a T3 you will lose it.

14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You win the map politics game when you control where your opponent ends up on the map.  There's a lot of commanders who don't do this anymore these days.  They are wholly reactive and get pushed around then everyone cries "we are being double-teamed!" or "why do we only own garri?".  The best public commanders in this game in the past knew how to control and influence where their opponents went and knew how to break double-teams.

Agree and this also applies to Havocs and Roamer play even though posters say this can't be possible. It does happen. But when we talk defense versus offense its all moot if there is no time to defend. 

[Mabi black.1824]

22 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

The fact you don't see that as broken just reinforces that you are perfectly happy with one solution to all problems. You're looking out on what you perceive to be a sea of nails, and chittering happily about how good your hammer is.

The rest of us don't see it that way.

Seeing things differently, especially in a forum is just a good thing. Or at least I think that's just a good thing. That said, it often happens (everyday) to see a smaller group on the map erasing a larger group. I often read in this forum about how easy it is for 20 players to clear 40 players. So let me figure out where the hammer and nail is? What are the opportunities you are missing at WVW? What can't you get?  And what would you like to change in this regard?

[Sonork.2916]

15 hours ago, Sansar.1302 said:

The current meta is totally devoid of anything that vaguely resemble skillful play. 

You can hate the current meta all you want, but you are factually incorrect in your statement.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

12 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Seeing things differently, especially in a forum is just a good thing. Or at least I think that's just a good thing. That said, it often happens (everyday) to see a smaller group on the map erasing a larger group. I often read in this forum about how easy it is for 20 players to clear 40 players. So let me figure out where the hammer and nail is? What are the opportunities you are missing at WVW? What can't you get?  And what would you like to change in this regard?

The only occasions I can think of recently where 20 players have beaten 40 in WvW are when the 20 were in an organised Zerg and the 40 were not. Potentially this is fine, organised should have an advantage over disorganised. The problem is if the 40 can’t even scratch the 20 even in defence of an important objective and have no realistic way of slowing them down or avoiding just getting farmed if they try.