Would you play Vanilla GW2 combat?

[joneirikb.7506]

Ok so (about) 1 week since I posted, and I got a lot more votes than I had anticipated, I honestly keep thinking this entire forum is like the same 30 people over and over. 😛

Honestly quite surprised that 73% of the voters would have liked Vanilla-combat, I didn't really think it would do better than 50% tops. I assumed more posters would be too attached to their new toys from HoT+, guess the current meta really is so bad that people would sacrifice anything to get away from it...

My one disappointment was that more people didn't select "rant bellow", I was really looking forward to those.... kudos to the two of you that did!

[Leaa.2943]

I would love for them to add this as a special thing like downstate week but instead vanilla or maybe add a new map where you can join and only play vanilla wvw. Obvioulsy nota map for WvW it self but a special map.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Nah, we talk about the hate for boonblobs but vanilla had the strongest incarnation of stability and parties were literally 40% guardians, not to mention today's one shots aren't anywhere near those back then. I think a lot of people would backtrack really fast.

I think the best time was after they fixed HoT, when there was a decent balance etween strips and boons though nor perfect since some classes still weren't included and there was still that minstrel nonsense but at least not every support was full minstrel. It was pretty cool until PoF ruined everything; honestly this game would be so much better if that was deleted from the game*. Maybe you can keep your mounts.

The only thing I'd like from vanilla is being able to wp in during defense events, instead of having it being held hostage behind guild upgrades.

*Well, to be fair, SotO is the worst expansion

Edited June 14 by ArchonWing.9480

[XenesisII.1540]

13 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Nah, we talk about the hate for boonblobs but vanilla had the strongest incarnation of stability and parties were literally 40% guardians, not to mention today's one shots aren't anywhere near those back then. I think a lot of people would backtrack really fast.

I think the best time was after they fixed HoT, when there was a decent balance etween strips and boons though nor perfect since some classes still weren't included and there was still that minstrel nonsense but at least not every support was full minstrel. It was pretty cool until PoF ruined everything; honestly this game would be so much better if that was deleted from the game*. Maybe you can keep your mounts.

The only thing I'd like from vanilla is being able to wp in during defense events, instead of having it being held hostage behind guild upgrades.

*Well, to be fair, SotO is the worst expansion

Yeah end of HoT felt pretty good to me balance wise.

Although I did get a kick out of the scourge madness to start PoF. 🤭

But yeah it's been pretty much down hill from there, especially post 2020 apocalypse, where support overwhelms/ruined everything. 😏

[ArchonWing.9480]

28 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

But yeah it's been pretty much down hill from there, especially post 2020 apocalypse, where support overwhelms/ruined everything

Ah yes, the temp turned perma fixes and why entire kits are useless because so many skills do 2 damage.

 

Kinda the history of this game.

Except the Dx11 change maybe.

[Cyninja.2954]

The question is here: how many want vanilla combat because they dislike the current focus on blobbing with little counter play, and how many actually want vanilla combat?

I personally would much rather have them change their approach to balancing within the current combat implementation than go back 12-14 years.

Not everything was roses during vanilla and many of the issues we see today are not even combat related.

For example: the ppt trains we see now are a result of reward changes but they directly affect what type of combat content players get.

It's ironic that for this game mode, having less rewards meant having better content due to a different type of player feeling attracted to it.

Edited June 14 by Cyninja.2954

[joneirikb.7506]

3 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The question is here: how many want vanilla combat because they dislike the current focus on blobbing with little counter play, and how many actually want vanilla combat?

I personally would much rather have them change their approach to balancing within the current combat implementation than go back 12-14 years.

Not everything was roses during vanilla and many of the issues we see today are not even combat related.

For example: the ppt trains we see now are a result of reward changes but they directly affect what type of combat content players get.

It's ironic that for this game mode, having less rewards meant having better content due to a different type of player feeling attracted to it.

I posted this topic because I personally don't think ANet is going to change their current approach to balancing. For various reasons, like WvW not being a priority, and the balancing likely is too complex for them at this point, and I think they lack the expertise/experience to balance the game around a PVP format at this point. So it is what it is, and for WvW I'm ok enough with that, it's more chaos than competitive-pvp anyway.

The reason I picked the end of 2014 before the 2015 changes to Stability and later HOT/trait change, is because it's the time I remember where most types of play had the most kinds of counter play, and generally some of the highest returns for player skill. There where certainly problems, the GWEN meta for zerging for sure, but we also had options for zerg busting to counter zergs, and counters to those again to just run off in small groups and play PPT until they got bored. Personally always enjoyed roaming more at that time.

Regarding the non-combat problems, yeah most of those certainly wouldn't change or go away with a "classic-gw2", a large part of it is just game-life-fatigue, it's hard to care about any kind of point-systems for 12 years, so just rolling wvw back to 2014 wouldn't really change that. And rolling back to 2014 would also include removing all the reward systems added to WvW since, which certainly would scour a lot of people, and send many running out of the game-mode.

There are a lot of interesting social reactions that something like this could have (but I do overall agree that it wouldn't have been beneficial to the game as a whole). The post was just me being curious about what people would be willing to sacrifice/trade in to get what some/many would consider a better balanced game state. And picked the last point where GW2 was still actively balanced around sPvP primary.

I'm not sure I could say how much having "less rewards meant having better content due to a different type of player feeling attracted to it." rather than just saying that different players are attracted to games at different times in their life-span. The kind of players that goes into a new game tends to be more "explorer" like, and enjoys the novelty of experiencing games when thing are new, have to experience things for yourself, and figure things out. Once games gets "solved" and everything put into guides, those gamers tend to get bored and move on, and new types moves in. I tend to see it similar in most types of games, once the game is "solved and guided", most of the early game-life balance settled down, and difficulty spikes usually been rounded out. Then the population slowly shifts toward "completionists" of various types, that want to do everything in the game without having to figure things out for themselves. In GW2 terms we get achievement hunters, gold-per-hour farmers, fashion/skin/etc collectors, legendary hunters etc. The one thing I find they all have in common is that they never want to go and "explore" something or be surprised, they seem focused on progressing down a shopping list to get what they want/reach their goal.

But yeah, I don't think going back to 2014 balance would make players more "exploring" for lack of a better word. Better balance usually doesn't make for a "better game" despite popular belief among a lot of players.

Anyway, thanks all for posting your thoughts, it's been enjoyable reading all the replies.

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The question is here: how many want vanilla combat because they dislike the current focus on blobbing with little counter play, and how many actually want vanilla combat?

I personally would much rather have them change their approach to balancing within the current combat implementation than go back 12-14 years.

Not everything was roses during vanilla and many of the issues we see today are not even combat related.

For example: the ppt trains we see now are a result of reward changes but they directly affect what type of combat content players get.

It's ironic that for this game mode, having less rewards meant having better content due to a different type of player feeling attracted to it.

We have always had PPT trains and PPK trains. I am not sure that has changed over time. Rewards are better now, but still subpar versus other modes. We do see more players during Call of War events, is that just for Leggo armor or something else? I am not sure.

The troublesome balancing line is retaining players in regards to keeping things fresh and losing players due to removing builds they have created over time and felt like why did they spend all that time on. A third side of it I would say is flattening everything so that there is no difference and trying to find balance while removing fun. Interesting game play is an aspect that keeps the game mode new to players in WvW where as our environment and mechanics are rather stale after all this time. 

We cycle thru "metas" due to players, and the devs react to that based on various factors. I use as an example the idea of of the last pass on anti-boon. It was something along the lines of what melee player would want to charge into an enemy group and have their boons stripped off. Where as another way to look at it might be, why would a melee player want to jump into a group that was fully stacked with boons. 

I admit I am on the side that there will never be balance, it can't be done unless we all have 2 skills, 1 rock to hit with and 2 sticks to throw. 

Now to fair Joneirikb I may need to fall back into the rabbit hole of the forum archives for 2013-2014 and see if it doesn't still look what we see now out of curiosity and for what have been resolved. It's lunch time so cya in a bit, if you don't see me by reset send in a rescue team please.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Point again, not meaning for anyone to hit all the links, just reviewing topics that were around at the time as a reference, some might look familiar. In the end I think this might be one of those, "Ah remember the days of yore, weren't they grand"? "What, you mean when we ate mud for breakfast?" 🙂 

So 2013 is around : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv?page=700

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-need-to-be-fun-for-losers-too Issues with walls, encouragement for everyone to try and win

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/In-my-opinion-paying-transfers-will-create-problems Stale matches, bandwagons, beginning of paid transfers, stacking/server balance, lack of rewards

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Delete-this Going after server in third place versus reasons for 2&3 to target server on top

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Paid-Transfers-A-massive-mess-up Impact of paid transfers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Tier-Predictions-in-a-Month Issues in server hopping

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/I-quit-WvW-every-time-because-of-revives Downstate

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Break-out-event Changes asked for and then people are OMG what happened, now we solo those NPCs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/SoS-transfers Population balance and how to get around it

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Fort-aspenwood-needs-you-and-your-guild Coverage

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Crystal-Desert-good-transfer-server - Mass transfers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Night-Capping-and-YOU - Evolutions in scoring, population, coverage

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Scenario-You-are-the-lead-WvW-map-designer - new maps

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Servers-Transfers-price-big-fail going from free transfers to paid

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Mesmer-Ele-Thief - class balancing

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Incoming-AoE-nerf-and-rezzing-in-WvW - Large scale versus small scale

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvWvW-Queues-issue-Merged-Threads - Pre EotM, queues and what can we do, queue bugs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Do-you-still-feel-server-pride lol, no comment

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Update-No-WvW-Rating-Reset - Way before 1 up and down, stale matches, players moving around, free transfers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Why-is-everyone-complaining-about-Zergs Do things really change?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Implement-Winner-Moves-Up-Loser-Moves-Down - Early talks of dealing with stale matchups

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Instead-of-Reviewing-the-Math-lets-Remove-it - Same matchup issues

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Requesting-WvW-status-update - Feedback and communication

Matchup threads, matchup threads, matchup threads, matchup threads lol

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Orange-swords - Changes to numbers triggering Ojs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-won-t-become-what-we-hoped-it-would - Some players expecting somethings, others other things, forums being why me why isn't this like this other game (been there done that have the t-shirt)

Lots of issues with culling.....

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Stop-Transferring - lots of issues with transfers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/T1-server-lag-unplayable - sound familiar

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Stealth-in-World-vs-World-needs-a-nerf - 1k replies

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/6-months-from-now-everyone-will-be-a-Commander - too many commanders, lol

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/How-would-you-fix-Zergwars - the more things change the more they stay the same

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Get-rid-of-all-Nourishments-in-WvW - Seen a number of issues on consumables, find that odd but again in the period seemed to have been an issue to posters, maybe people didn't want to craft

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Are-there-any-even-tiers - matchup issues

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Blog-post-on-new-rank-system - Being of WvW ranks

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Issues-I-have-have-with-WvW-XP - Post WvW abilities and rank

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/A-discussion-between-zerg-and-non-zerg - efficiency discussuions

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Observations-about-tier-8-and-math - server placements

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Extremely-unbalanced-profession - Classes, armor sets, back and fourth on paper rock scissor

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-players-who-run-supply-for-repairs - lol, walls repairs

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Why-are-you-following-us - The go away meta

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Separating-the-WvW-Reset-times-for-NA-and-EU - Glad that's not still a thing

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/My-solution-to-downed-in-WvW - Like clockwork

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Official-WvW-Patch-Notes-4-30 - AC and siege mastery, timers, swords after 30 seconds

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Petition-for-the-Arrow-Carts-to-ArenaNet - AC a viable defense is one comment

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/After-patch-current-top-3-wvw-classes - Buffing/nerfing, changes to which classes

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/State-of-WvW-Anet-its-getting-boring - Lack of maps, reasons to win, things fixed, auto-loot, stackable loot, invis tags, quest fixed

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Current-System-hampers-World-Completion - Fixed WvW maps no longer needed for map completion

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hard-core-WvWers-tier-4-below - Tier Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Eternal-Battlegrounds-jumping-puzzle-griefing - JPs what the what

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/big-changes-coming-to-wvw-matchups/ - matchup variety

Ok enough rabbit hole though some interesting reads. 

Edited June 14 by TheGrimm.5624

[Sviel.7493]

As a strictly non-zerg player, I wouldn't give up DBL for anything.  Combat balance is terrible at large and small scales, sure, but my WvW experience is mostly in situations where combat wasn't an option to begin with as it is my role to split off from allies and harass large groups of enemies.  The ability to move about the map unseen, take various paths from here to there and set up stealth siege to soften walls is just too critical.  On the defensive side, ABL keeps have significant double-wall points for catas, can be sieged from the safety of towers or camps with tiny chokes for entrances and proxy catas on the outer wall can also hit inner.  The top towers take twice as long to upgrade too.

DBL drastically eases several key issues in my WvW experience.  I burned out on ABL long ago and I'm not interested in going back.

[joneirikb.7506]

Quote

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Get-rid-of-all-Nourishments-in-WvW - Seen a number of issues on consumables, find that odd but again in the period seemed to have been an issue to posters, maybe people didn't want to craft

Going from memory here, so expect errors: But people used to dislike food buffs because they cost money, and with how low wvw income used to be, people wanting good food bonuses lost money. This and the gold cost to upgrade objectives where iirc the two main "costs" of playing WvW.

Quote

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Eternal-Battlegrounds-jumping-puzzle-griefing - JPs what the what

Oh yewah back when Obsidian Sanctuary was actually a part of EBG... glad that got moved to a own map.

----

Overall, most of those threads where about things separate from the actual game balance though. And more related to the multitude of problems of WvW as a mode (and not the combat in particular). Most of which we still have today, and are no closer to fixing.

Mostly meant the actual combat changes/balance for the topic/poll. Honestly because in many ways I don't think the rest has really fundamentally changed very much 😛

[Zekent.3652]

As in current vanilla balance? No

[joneirikb.7506]

1 minute ago, Sviel.7493 said:

As a strictly non-zerg player, I wouldn't give up DBL for anything.  Combat balance is terrible at large and small scales, sure, but my WvW experience is mostly in situations where combat wasn't an option to begin with as it is my role to split off from allies and harass large groups of enemies.  The ability to move about the map unseen, take various paths from here to there and set up stealth siege to soften walls is just too critical.  On the defensive side, ABL keeps have significant double-wall points for catas, can be sieged from the safety of towers or camps with tiny chokes for entrances and proxy catas on the outer wall can also hit inner.  The top towers take twice as long to upgrade too.

DBL drastically eases several key issues in my WvW experience.  I burned out on ABL long ago and I'm not interested in going back.

Personally can relate quite well to this. I do like DBL personally, if there's one thing I personally would have kept if going back to a pre-hot version it's DBL honestly.

[joneirikb.7506]

1 minute ago, Zekent.3652 said:

As in current vanilla balance? No

Topic is about basically rolling back the game balance to 2014, undo every single change and addition to characters up to that point. To back before HOT, trait changes, and the stability nerf of 2015.

[LetoII.3782]

What, back when retaliation was primary dps and most of the game's classes sat on the sideline?  Blobbing wasn't any more challenging back then, opinions of the practice are what's changed.