Would the Old launch Devs Be Embarrassed if they Saw what Their WvW has Become?

[prototypedragon.1406]

Asking for a friend 😉

[XenesisII.1540]

Yes.

[Gorani.7205]

Original intro to WvW

Well, I took from that old video, that managing resources would be vital, canons and burning oil would be dangerous for attackers  and SMC would "require a major effort by an army of players" to conquer. You would earn XP and loot like in PvE and if you "cap enough points, everyone on your server gets bonuses".

Sounds like the WvW we play now?

First streaming of WvW

Izzy Cartwright - "small scad tactics, something I do a lot when I play" (at about 20 seconds in) ... that's how the times are changing over a decade.

Edited May 18 by Gorani.7205

[Gop.8713]

I'm sure that they would have expected a the game mode to change and evolve over time so I doubt they would even be surprised, much less embarrassed . . .

That's not the same thing as saying that I think this is where we would be if we had had continuity of development over the entire lifespan of the game . . .

[Sviel.7493]

Some of them are still around and, I imagine, not embarrassed.  Original WvW wasn't perfect and they knew it, but some players largely rejected their big update plan and that was probably harder to deal with than the current state.

I don't really know what we gain by speculating on it.

Edited May 19 by Sviel.7493

[ArchonWing.9480]

WvW?

You mean this entire game.

In 2012, Gw2 was fresh because it stood out with a lack of a gear treadmill, open endgame, and a emphasis of skill > gear. Players would rely on active defenses like dodging. Support was a team effort. That's why everyone has skills to affect allies. Damage was a team effort. All and all, the game went out of its way to make sure you were glad to see another player.

Of course, there were flaws. There was a lack of truly engaging endgame content and goals, and the UI was ancient and clunky. But those things could be polished over time.

12 years later and all they can aim for is like 2 pve maps and a few paragraphs of AI generated story. And maybe like 5 new currencies that won't matter by next year,  Also you may do 50 tedious tasks for 1 AP.  Are you really going to convince people to try it out again because of that?  No creativity, and just throwing random changes out without any regard to the current balance. The most exciting content they had lately was a Strike Mission CM they made too hard... by accident.

But of course the game's reward system pretty much  doesn't reward challenging yourselves. Difficult things tend to be one off for the achievement, and thrown in the forgotten pile.

The greatest problem is there is just no foresight or anything about sustainability. Well, granted, 12 years is a very long time in the gaming world.

Oh, as for WvW. Well, what about WvW? Honestly, the rest of the game has gotten so much worse, there is only WvW if you ask me.

Edited May 18 by ArchonWing.9480

[Lucy.3728]

2 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Well, I took from that old video, that managing resources would be vital, canons and burning oil would be dangerous for attackers 

Those points didn't change. At least in small scale that I usually play in the early mornings (lack of players).
Sure if you're a large organised meta zerg you can sustain it, but destroying canons and oil (and mortars and trebs,... whatever dangerous is in range) before dropping the siege is still a thing in large zergs.

2 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

SMC would "require a major effort by an army of players" to conquer

Like 2-3 players now if there aren't human defenders.
I prefer at least 5 though, to make things easier and faster.

2 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

You would earn XP and loot like in PvE

Character leveling in wvw and thus skipping open world was so nice a decade ago xD

But I doubt it was as good thing for wvw.

3 hours ago, prototypedragon.1406 said:

Would the Old launch Devs Be Embarrassed if they Saw what Their WvW has Become?

Don't know the old devs.

But wvw didn't keep me playing GW2 back then. I quit after a year after release. And now I've been back and playing wvw for the past 3 years.

I like the current meta change experiments.

I wouldn't want the wvw from over a decade ago back.

Edited May 18 by Lucy.3728

[urd.8306]

3 hours ago, Gorani.7205 said:

Original intro to WvW

Well, I took from that old video, that managing resources would be vital, canons and burning oil would be dangerous for attackers  and SMC would "require a major effort by an army of players" to conquer. You would earn XP and loot like in PvE and if you "cap enough points, everyone on your server gets bonuses".

Sounds like the WvW we play now?

First streaming of WvW

Izzy Cartwright - "small scad tactics, something I do a lot when I play" (at about 20 seconds in) ... that's how the times are changing over a decade.

I really would play that. When will it be released?

🥹

[Danikat.8537]

Some of the original designers are still around. The recent studio update mentioned some staff had been working for Anet for 20 years, and there will be others who have been around since GW2 launched (Josh Davis, who wrote the article, for one).

35 minutes ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Character leveling in wvw and thus skipping open world was so nice a decade ago xD

But I doubt it was as good thing for wvw.

You can still do that, you get Tomes of Knowledge from rank up chests and reward tracks, and Testimonies which can be used to get hero points. I'd say it's even better than it used to be because if you have a WvW character already you can use them to earn the tomes and testimonies then use them on a new character, skipping that awkward phase where you're too low level to really do anything even with level scaling.

Although I once levelled a character entirely in HotM (back when it was active) and it was fun, but I wouldn't have done it in real WvW because I'd feel like I'm not pulling my weight.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

4 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Yes.

That.

[joneirikb.7506]

To be fair, gw2 was rushed out, and the devs themselves didn't know how half the game would turn out when released. I'm not sure how much of that was in WvW or not, still I wouldn't expect WvW to have been the only completed part. I'd expect a bigger thing\change would have been 2014's change away from PVP\esport focus\balance, and instead prioritize PVE\raids from 2015\hot onward. Since the entire combat system was built around sPvP in the first place, abandoning that likely shocked most of the developers at the time that had been developing this from before launch.

But tbh, most developers tend to be used to dumbing down gameplay over time to fit the playerbase better 😛

[Lucy.3728]

13 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Since the entire combat system was built around sPvP in the first place,

Explains the complex system. Too complex for a casual pve game.

GW1 was, in comparison, like a controller with 2 buttons 🤣

[Gorani.7205]

15 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Those points didn't change.

When it comes to supply, it did change after HoT's auto-upgrades. I don't really want the time back, where you had to pay gold (although I am not sure how much things like EWP and reinforced walls cost back then) , but paying for upgrades with supply was a thing I wish they had not given up.

[pollen.5834]

I can't see why they would be embarrassed particularly. I suspect, if you asked, most would be proud that it's still going and still popular. Big test of the mode coming though. My personal feeling is that Alliances will cause an exodus of players in the same way as no-choice Desert did back in the HoT days. Maybe it'll be ok. Let's hope so.

[Dawdler.8521]

18 hours ago, Lucy.3728 said:

Explains the complex system. Too complex for a casual pve game.

GW1 was, in comparison, like a controller with 2 buttons 🤣

Ironically, it was also built around larger sPvP battles. I believe it was 8v8 originally? Today it’s pretty pathetic and Anet only doubled down on it with lower and lower player counts. Now we have what, 2v2 lol? 

[joneirikb.7506]

Well GW1 is interesting since it's built around PVP as well, but is just a very different type of game. It's part of why a lot of the old userbase in GW2 is so baffled, because GW1 was balanced as a PVP game from start to end, and GW2 started as a sPvP balanced game, and then suddenly nope, even when they made a really good combat system for it. You can see a lot of growth problems they've had with adopting it for for PVE.

[Gazrul.3086]

On 5/18/2024 at 7:31 PM, Gorani.7205 said:

SMC would "require a major effort by an army of players" to conquer.

Well, this part is still true. At least for T2/3 SM. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, Gazrul.3086 said:

Well, this part is still true. At least for T2/3 SM. 

Depends, with or without defenders?

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 5/18/2024 at 1:31 PM, Gorani.7205 said:

Original intro to WvW

Well, I took from that old video, that managing resources would be vital, canons and burning oil would be dangerous for attackers  and SMC would "require a major effort by an army of players" to conquer. You would earn XP and loot like in PvE and if you "cap enough points, everyone on your server gets bonuses".

Sounds like the WvW we play now?

First streaming of WvW

Izzy Cartwright - "small scad tactics, something I do a lot when I play" (at about 20 seconds in) ... that's how the times are changing over a decade.

Interesting blasts from the pasts here. 

[Gazrul.3086]

5 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Depends, with or without defenders?

With defenders of course. It's not easy to flip a T2/3 SM during the day and the evenings.

[XenesisII.1540]

It took them 6 years! to release new wvw rewards and get WR working, while they released 2 pve expansions in the same period, how can anyone not be embarrassed for that?

But they had a problems in the middle of that so it doesn't count!

Ok ok...  it took them 3 years! to release new wvw rewards and get WR working, while they released 2 pve expansions in the same period, how can anyone not be embarrassed for that?

Let's not even mention the embarrassing class balancing the past 4 years....

😐☕

[TheGrimm.5624]

Just now, Gazrul.3086 said:

With defenders of course. It's not easy to flip a T2/3 SM during the day and the evenings.

But its quite easy to make into swiss cheese and if you focus the owners Garri and make them decide one or the other than 2-3 can take it. The difference is all the nerfs over time. Take the devs from the second link, they were worried about getting thru a reinforced tower with 5 in the group and 3 followers. That's 4 cats which would burn thru it in extremely short order and then they would just need 1 to take the tower these days. Now consider what a Warband or Zerg could do compared to a Havoc they had. That second vid to me shows a pretty big difference and not sure the current devs even think that there is anything but full squad play. 

 

[Mikhael.2391]

Yes they would

[adammantium.8031]

Don't think they would be embarassed at all. They should be hella proud that a game mode is still enjoyed 12 years after release with frankly very little love.

Incredibly longevity, and a testament to what they had and what they've failed to build upon.

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

WvW feels like the end of Empire Strikes back right now. Everything that could go wrong has. The Evil Empire has already won. Hope is bleak, it's gonna take a miracle for them to hire someone who knows what they are doing and doesn't use the old dart board system for fresh ideas. For now Boonball is imposing its will on the galaxy. 

 

Tune in next week to see what new things anet does to improve WvW! Right? It can't get much worse? Right???

 

I'm calling it now, no form of PvP in gw3 because we are all too mean for wanting to enjoy the mode we all play this game for! It certainly isn't the story....