World Restructuring Perma beta - Coming soon

[Chiral.8915]

WR beta will be in place (permanently) after June 14th. Rejoice for WvW is saved....or not (time will tell). 

Other changes also coming:

- Tier 5 in NA and Tier 6 (LOL) in EU. 

- A 6th guild slot 

The May 21 update also brings some quality-of-life and balance adjustments, largely in response to the feedback we’ve been monitoring since our last round of changes on April 16. We’re continuing to observe the impact of recent changes and expect to iterate more on WvW systems in future updates.

• The health bar for objective lords will now be displayed in the event UI, making their status much easier to track. Pro tip: clicking the lord’s health bar in the event UI will make them your active target. Works for PvE events, too!
• Siege disruptors will now be unblockable.
• We’re increasing the base-level and tier 3 supply capacities for keeps by 50 and increasing the amount of supply granted by the Supply Drop tactic by 100 to add some power back to defending.
• The Chilling Fog tactivator now heals allied players every few seconds for its duration instead of chilling enemy players.

We’re also planning a round of WvW changes for the July 16 release that are focused on scoring adjustments. We’ll be back in a few months to talk about those changes in more detail!

 

Thoughts:

Extra tiers will just dilute the server populations more than they already do, which even if it reduces queue times, will be an overall negative for the wvw experience in the lower tiers. I hope I'm wrong. Siege disruptors being unblockable is fine, since they don't actually "disable" siege anymore. I wish they'd just reduce wall/gate repair to 25% of max and not increase the supply capacities; the change seems like a wash to me. Chilling Fog healing players might be helpful, but let's be real, it'll probably be something like 100 hp every interval (ie: useless). 

The scoring change is the most interesting to me. For far too long, PPT via objective capture and holding has been the majority of scoring. Increasing points per kill would go a long way towards making WvW more balanced. It's not fun to win a match simply because your server has more off hour players (OCX/SEA for NA players, etc) that can PvD harder.

Edited May 14 by Chiral.8915

[CrimsonRise.7650]

Yeah, I agree adding another Tier will be a mistake, especially as someone who played this game mode, when there were several more tiers and many empty or underpopulated worlds.

They can't fix the queue bug(s) either, which was made much worse, due to the bonus event they ran, during the last beta.

That, while Guild and player distribution, was so bad during the last beta, so now they decided to turn it on permanently , before it is even close to being ready, is baffling.

Edited May 14 by CrimsonRise.7650

[Charybdis.9042]

Quote

"Siege disruptors will now be unblockable."

Take a moment to consider that a golem rush will suffer from perma-disable while punching the gates.

Quote

"We’re increasing the base-level and tier 3 supply capacities for keeps by 50 and increasing the amount of supply granted by the Supply Drop tactic by 100 to add some power back to defending."

 Increasing the wall rebuild threshold to 50% has pretty much killed off the one defence trick that felt so rewarding if you could pull it off: splitting an enemy zerg in two with a wall close. That 50% level also makes it more difficult to close off a gate, and those in a boon-ball that do die have a much easier time re-running to the fight.

Quote

"The Chilling Fog tactivator now heals allied players every few seconds for its duration instead of chilling enemy players."

Honestly I haven't noticed any benefits from the lord channelling/break bar, so a burst of healing on a 15 minute cooldown doesn't feel like it is going to help the defenders much. Chilling fog doesn't much seem to affect boonball either.

 

Thank you for acknowledging that the last round of changes have significantly shifted the balance away from defenders though. Would it be better to engage in rebalancing the last changes made now that there is actual experience of them, rather than turning this into an arms race of new changes?

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

So they're introducing the thing they've been working on for years that doesn't really fix any of the actual problems of WvW, especially all the ones they've introduced recently.

They've rolled back their defending nerfs a bit, but not enough to actually make a difference. Can't upset all those boonballers, can we?

And they are increasing the number of tiers at the very point their changes are driving people away. Can't see that going badly.

Are we supposed to be excited about this?

[Triptaminas.4789]

Two more weeks to flatten alliance curve 

[Polar.8634]

i generally had positive experience with restructuring betas, except for last one when i was on server stacked with guilds (they made "alliance" megaguild) and enemy teams even stopped come out by the end of the week. There should be some mechanism to pair guild stacked servers so more puggy servers have a chance to have fun.

[Cameirus.8407]

So disappointing they ignored the huge negative response to the previous betas and are pushing ahead with this. oh well. they had an opportunity to really listen to the community about the actual issues in wvw, but instead pushed ahead with something that does nothing to address the issues, and instead creates a whole host of new ones.

[Dawdler.8521]

People during the beta be like: "OMG THERES SOOOOO LONG QUEUES GAME IS UNPLAYBLE, FIX IT NOW ANET!"

And people after the beta be like: "LOL ANET WHY ADD ANOTHER TIER?!!"

[Chiral.8915]

18 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

People during the beta be like: "OMG THERES SOOOOO LONG QUEUES GAME IS UNPLAYBLE, FIX IT NOW ANET!"

And people after the beta be like: "LOL ANET WHY ADD ANOTHER TIER?!!"

Probably because the ideal way to fix it is to either optimize the game code or improve and optimize the hardware/connection. However, the world doesn't always work in the most ideal way and what we get is a fix that sometimes creates more problems that it solves. 

[Medusa.7346]

So they're just going to kill WvW, then. What will they name the new version? AvA? GvG? No, this is a terrible idea that will kill the game. They've vastly underestimated how many casual WvW players there are who don't run in massive guild blobs 24/7.

[Dayra.7405]

39 minutes ago, Medusa.7346 said:

So they're just going to kill WvW, then. What will they name the new version? AvA? GvG?

It's still WvW(vW), just that the worlds/teams now consist out of linked guilds and guildless peaople (no wvw-guild selected), instead of linked server.

Edited May 14 by Dayra.7405

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

The scoring change is the most interesting to me.

What scoring change?

[Batercus.6257]

This is just making WvW more generic. If this had rotating maps with new mechanics and stuff it would draw more folks in.

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

Tier 5 in NA and Tier 6 (LOL) in EU.

Well, who does not expect a high population when the thing starts?
 

2 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

The health bar for objective lords will now be displayed in the event UI, making their status much easier to track. Pro tip: clicking the lord’s health bar in the event UI will make them your active target.

Haven't seen anybody asking for that but it's awesome. 👍

2 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

We’re increasing the base-level and tier 3 supply capacities for keeps by 50 and increasing the amount of supply granted by the Supply Drop tactic by 100

The actual problems on my server with the supply tactivator:

1) People don't touch it. Run past it.

2) People don't set it (they rather add the the dumb chill tacti)

2 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

The Chilling Fog tactivator now heals allied players every few seconds

The dumb tacti sounds now even worse.

[Chiral.8915]

11 minutes ago, Lucy.3728 said:

What scoring change?

They haven't specified what the exact scoring change will be. Just that they'll be looking into it around July 16th.

[Gop.8713]

If they make winning meaningful, which isn't likely, then scoring by kill would be a disaster. Ppls are already afraid of fights now when there is no consequence to losing. If losing matters you'll just have ktrains avoiding each other all week . . .

While I preferred disablers, I think the siege disruptors are underutilized and perhaps the change there will encourage more ppls to give them a shot . . ?

[XenesisII.1540]

Why are you all freaking out about another tier... they can just adjust it back down to 4 tiers if the extra space is not needed in a month after, you remember they will be recreating worlds every 4 weeks right? They can change the amount of worlds they want to create whenever. They're just making sure there's space for any returning players. Just like when relinks first happen there was a influx of returning players. Relax. 🤷‍♂️

As for the supply change, lol. Yeah 50 extra supply totally fixes the needing to repair to 50% problem, totally. Oh ok guess we can pull the 200 supply tactivator if it hasn't been trolled, or wasted when the objective hasn't reached T1 at least, cause you know towers start with 100 supply cap.

Lord ui change.... yeah we totally wanted to go deeper with playing with the lord mechanics in the pvp mode, totally. Thanks for the tip, if we hit tab he totally doesn't show up on my target first.

Siege disruptor is now unblockable, woohoo... yay... who cares, no one uses them, it's pointless, waste of supply.

Chilling fog tactivator now heals, "cool" I guess, since I brought up it would have been better for the lord heals as a tactivator instead. But really, there's a greater issue continuing to be ignored, so whatevs, keep pushing for your "small ring interactions to feed the boon ball".

PPT changes coming in a game mode where more than half the players already don't give a kitten about points anymore. This will be interesting, let's see if they do anything beyond giving 2x PPK. They've already turned objectives into train stations.

July balance patch, get your popcorn, another horror movie on the way. 🙄🍿🍧

[Omega.6801]

Perpetual Beta-mode for WR will be the inofficial end of development. It probably has ended months/years ago but putting it in "beta forever" will be an excuse to finally bury it for good without actually having to say so. Everything said on the matter affter that is PR speak. "We will iterate on the system and iron out some kinks" - yeah sure you will, why would you, it's not like there's a deadline to anything now that the project is in perpetual beta.

[krill.4902]

i think this is the wrong way for changing wvw : Lack of server identity, too much small group play without investment, no real stake, no server community. Depending on the server the reactions are different but with experience, we know how the server reacts, there it’s soft it lacks punch and balls.

 

[Lucy.3728]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Lord ui change.... yeah we totally wanted to go deeper with playing with the lord mechanics in the pvp mode, totally. Thanks for the tip, if we hit tab he totally doesn't show up on my target first.

It's for the defenders you dork 🤣

I click like crazy to get him in target to tell the commander how much he has left.

[ArchonWing.9480]

4 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

Tier 5 in NA and Tier 6 (LOL) in EU. 

Wtf straight up delusional lol. The idea that there are queues everywhere shows where they spend their time.

Maybe they should clear out the wall runners

4 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

A 6th guild slot 

Actually useful.

4 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

The health bar for objective lords will now be displayed in the event UI, making their status much easier to track. Pro tip: clicking the lord’s health bar in the event UI will make them your active target. Works for PvE events, too!

Pretty good qol. Now I can ignore braindead scouts.

4 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

Siege disruptors will now be unblockable.

This isn't bad but still not that much of a fan.

4 hours ago, Chiral.8915 said:

• We’re increasing the base-level and tier 3 supply capacities for keeps by 50 and increasing the amount of supply granted by the Supply Drop tactic by 100 to add some power back to defending.
• The Chilling Fog tactivator now heals allied players every few seconds for its duration instead of chilling enemy players.

Wow, they read my posts about supply drop/fog. This depends on how much healing it actually is but it basically is air conditioning now.

I would probably still not take it, because now witness the power of a ballista and a treb but  occasionally on some expendable camps it is viable to troll with chilling fog already.... this may actually be useful to make it a retreating point.

Understandably these changes are only actually useful if you understand the combat system, which means most people aren't going to be able to use it at all.  But then again it's also a matter of scale. 20 hp/s fog, for example,  isn't going to do too much and this game has traditionally really despised that kind of thing.

They really need to address the gate/wall thing.

Edited May 14 by ArchonWing.9480

[Chiral.8915]

I want to be able to put airship defense on T3 camps 😎

[XenesisII.1540]

23 minutes ago, Lucy.3728 said:

It's for the defenders you dork 🤣

I click like crazy to get him in target to tell the commander how much he has left.

Ok you got me there lol 🤭

Useful for like 5 people that click ally lord. 🤭

[ArchonWing.9480]

Knowing lord health is kinda important to decide how much time you have to contest if needed. If it's up you don't need to contest at all. Or just knowing when to leave if it's not viable to contest. You also will no longer need the infamous "they're on lord" message.

This will be especially useful in places like hills; inner is a death trap and it is very difficult for individuals to check the lord health

[Leaa.2943]

I am reading this over and over and then i just laugh. Like the reason there are que on the betas in the past is because PvE join WvW for the BUFF. When buff is gone PvE leave WvW. Like litterally on the hour the buff vannish PvE logs out. I mean do you not even have tools to see this? I mean i can see this without any sort of tool, because the min the buffs are gone, ques are as well. 

And this will be fun in EU. We gonna have primetime which are 2 hours out of 24 hours where there will be activity. And then depending on what alliance you are in or forced up on (if not choosing a wvw guild) You might have karma train guilds running, but the alliances with servers that only do fights against guilds, it is going to be 2 hours and then nothing. 

Amazing to make worldrestructure based on NA where there is several prime and forgetting that EU only have one. And consider how you made it unfun and even impossible to defend anything i see a large dipp of players inc that have no reason to play WvW anymore because there is only 2 hours and then nothing or karmatrain, which i can do in Silverwaste and get way more loot for that instead of trying to kill a boonbubbleblob who cover up the whole capcircle making it impossible to do anything outside of prime. And even then i ask my self why would any guild come and defend tier 0 structures to start with so homeborder will be deadspace and i guess we are all back to EB again.

 

First part of the info made me laugh, second part made me cry because it feels like Anet want to make WvW in to something it never was.