A Chat w/ Roy and Cecil About WvW Development Goals

[Sheff.4851]

2 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

We are not harping on. We point out the problems that anet introduce in the faint hope that someone, somewhere, will listen to what we are saying and act like it matters. The reason people repeat points is that we're not sure that our points are being noticed. There is zero feedback from the devs on our points.

You are happy with the current WvW situation, clearly.

Any stream that doesn't probe the devs for problems people are having in WvW is just a PR avenue for anet.

I hate to keep repeating "just go watch the stream" but we cover at least two problems that people are having in World vs. World. We discuss the loss of community associated with the shift to the Restructuring system, and the advantages and disadvantages of that system. And we also cover the difficulty in balancing around timezones and play styles, and crafting a game environment that a diverse population of players can all draw enjoyment from. You can utilize the timestamps in the video to locate these sections. They are at 21:00, for the limitations of Restructuring, at 39:10 for balancing around diverse populations, and then there's also a discussion at 51:22 about the biggest problems currently facing WvW (that do not include balance because, despite peoples' beliefs, Cecil and Roy are not involved in profession balance).

I agree with you. My intent was not to produce a PR avenue for ArenaNet. Which is why I probed them for problems that people have in World vs. World. Do I enjoy the gamemode and the Restructuring system overall? Yes, absolutely. But enjoying the game isn't a drawback, and not every piece of media about the game needs to be critical just because some players aren't having fun. That's unreasonable.

[Gauis.2768]

9 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

You are happy with the current WvW situation, clearly.

Any stream that doesn't probe the devs for problems people are having in WvW is just a PR avenue for anet.

Please tell me how did you reach this conclusion that I am happy with the current WvW situation???  I have yet to state a single point on the state of the game and my argument has always been about the lack of engagement from the devs and how the devs go about handling feedback if any? Scroll up and quote me saying x is better than y? Or I am okay or happy with x over y?

 

And I agree with you that devs avoiding questions will just make it look like a PR stream thus I said for them to come out with a statement on their decision and whether the players are happy or not with the statement is another issue. Because that is the first step to get an engagement, a proper conversation going.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Thing is it doesn't really matter what this team does, because the primary reason people don't care is that the balance team's philosophies have failed the mode to the point that the combat itself isn't really any fun and is largely devoid of meaning outside of "big boon bar go brrr."  Reality is, even if scoring is perfect and the systems underlying WvW were utterly flawless and could bring player satisfaction in the end result of a win or loss, the question needs to be asked:  "Is the act of playing WvW itself any fun?"

To most players, the answer is simply a flat "no."  To most former players, it has entirely to do with profession design and balance, and a limited scope of others like how Warclaw and sentry buffs slashed efficacy at small group havoc.  The PvP experience here is just weak because the builds and tactics alike state either "when it comes to scoring, play in a big group or play off-hours, otherwise it sucks to suck."

There are no alternatives and every unique trait and effect that could possibly offset boon dependence has either been nerfed, deleted, or replaced with boons.

People talk a big game about strips, but strips still play into the boonball meta, because there are no existing counters to strips; the best way to deal with them is just access to more boons.

For boonball to go away, boons themselves need to be less powerful of a play strategy, and boonless builds need to be more present as viable alternatives to deal with strips.  This means colossal nerfs to concentration or even its downright removal and a revert/rework on tons of traits that were changed in the name of PvE group support viability, and even bigger reworks in the realm of reduced CC and removal of tons of powercreep.

And frankly, I sincerely doubt the skills/class/systems team or whatever they call themselves these days will deliver on that in the name of WvW.

Until then, there's absolutely nothing bringing me back to the game, because the entire PvP combat experience in GW2 is just outright bad thanks to how the classes have been designed and balanced.

It's not strictly their fault; it's just if their only answer is "that's not in our ability to change and rests on the skills team," who we never hear anything from except when new weapons/skills/traits are introduced with expansions, then frankly they might as well state outright they'll never be able to improve the experience.  Because that communication would honestly do them more favors and let people quit with closure rather than wasting their time and flaming.

Edited July 22 by DeceiverX.8361

[Shadow.2097]

There are larger issues than just balance when it comes to the Boonball and large guild culture which often evades these discussions. That is player behaviour. The boonball offers extreme sustain to the point that yes, in many cases, it really is not possible to compete without such a group of your own. At prime times when there are available players on all sides, boonball fights between 2-3 boonballs can produce entertaining fights for those kind of players, and thanks to the ease of play newer players can jump in and meaningfully contribute, in an ideal world where boonballs clash with boonballs. However, the real issue on the behaviour side of things is how players are aware of the lack of counters, and utilise the boonball specifically to target less active servers without one. It is all too common for boonballs to avoid each other and work together to pressure the 3rd server which is less active, or has a pug community. My current server has no commanders and no zerg players, even with a map queue it's near on impossible to stop one boonball, and in many cases when one boonball appears, another one does too. These groups never clash with each other. It's considerably more lucrative to PPT and farm the bags of the less active pug server. This is driving pugs away from the gamemode. They cannot hope to contribute because their only opposition is boonball. Even in boonball vs boonball situations, half of the groups in EU will hop maps and leave after their first loss. There's no incentive for these groups to actually fight each other. Roamers and pugs are bored of having no tools to stop a boonball. Large scale competitive fight oriented players are bored of chasing border hopping boonballs who won't engage in a fight they can't win with ease. Unless there are considerable changes to how the boonball is utilised, then I fear for the long term health of the gamemode, because every aspect of this culture is unsustainable long term. Additionally, large guilds historically have not been present in World vs World outside of their scheduled raid hours. All to often maps are completely dead, then suddenly 60+ comped players appear, take everything they please, then all log off after the raid is done, leaving a completely empty map for the opposing pugs to take as they please with no resistance because the boonballers on the most part, no not partake in WvW outside of one. It's boring, and uncompetitive for everybody involved in it's current state. 

[Skada.1362]

every class needs to have atleast 1 boon rip on every other weapon skill/trait/utility skill for wvw in its current state to be fun. also bring back big cap circles and warclaw stomping, maybe then, as a cloud, you'd be able to actually fight back vs the utterly broken giga blobs.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 7/20/2024 at 8:18 PM, Sheff.4851 said:

I think I spent a brief amount of time on BP when CO/ShW were also there. Maybe around that period?

Wait I think it was when I was playing with Strike Force [SF] which at the time was BP I think. I was just a pug from the Ferguson crossing link, but man that was the most fun I’ve had was when they ran around

Edited July 22 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

It is my first foray into doing this kind of interview content, and I think there's some noticeable production issues (open mic, Discord notification, not having facecam for Roy and Cecil). That's stuff I can improve in the future. I've learned a lot from this process already.

Question sources in particular, I just synthesized from communities I'm in. YouTube comments people have left, teamchat conversations I've seen, Discord communities I am a member of, and overall topics and discourse on these forums, and on Reddit. It's not really specific "Player X said this, how do you respond?" It's more of a general overview of big topics.

Also, just for disclosure, this stream was something that I initiated and organized, that ArenaNet agreed to participate in, and the list of topics that we discussed on stream were discussed and okayed beforehand. Transparency and communication on an individual player's stream is a privilege, and I didn't want to initiate a conversation about any issues that would make ArenaNet staff less likely to do these kinds of things in the future.

Your stream was good even if I was distracted while watching versus listening. You did a good job of focusing on questions that can be answered versus those that might be of interest that can't be answered. I don't agree with some post thoughts but great focus and keeping in a tone that direction can be provided without giving a way of detail. Will watch again and will watch for other feedback you can get from them. +1 from this poster.

[Chaos God.1639]

10 hours ago, Skada.1362 said:

every class needs to have atleast 1 boon rip on every other weapon skill/trait/utility skill for wvw in its current state to be fun. also bring back big cap circles and warclaw stomping, maybe then, as a cloud, you'd be able to actually fight back vs the utterly broken giga blobs.

the last time I remember we started to lose fights is because we didn't have enough healers and not because of the boons. I was support then. it's possible to spam healing skills because there is no mana and when there aren't enough healers then big groups will suffer. so currently big groups can survive, because of the healing/support classes based on my experience.

if you are going to nerf the defensive boons then big groups will need to have more support/healers to be able to survive.

So for the players who complain about boons, after nerfing the boons, this game will probably become support/healer meta.

I think the word boonball is already losing its meaning. also just because some boons are OP doesn't mean that every boon should be nerfed.

Edited July 22 by Chaos God.1639

[Dawdler.8521]

8 hours ago, Hesione.9412 said:

Any stream that doesn't probe the devs for problems people are having in WvW is just a PR avenue for anet.

Well I for one would like to see the expression on their faces if someone can straight up ask them when the missing DBL cornerstone fix is coming for this cornerstone game mode.

People that’s been waiting for 8+ years are dying to know.

(them explaining how such a fix for a single missing box shaped art asset is more work than releasing multiple expansions and countless LS would be a bonus question but maybe we don’t need to go that far… maybe)

Edited July 22 by Dawdler.8521

[Hesione.9412]

19 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well I for one would like to see the expression on their faces if someone can straight up ask them when the missing DBL cornerstone fix is coming for this cornerstone game mode.

People that’s been waiting for 8+ years are dying to know.

(them explaining how such a fix for a single missing box shaped art asset is more work than releasing multiple expansions and countless LS would be a bonus question but maybe we don’t need to go that far… maybe)

I like the cut of your jib.

[Sheff.4851]

6 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Wait I think it was when I was playing with Strike Force [SF] which at the time was BP I think. I was just a pug from the Ferguson crossing link, but man that was the most fun I’ve had was when they ran around

You definitely will have run across me, then. I popped into Strike Force raids somewhat regularly. 🙂

[Cael.3960]

I feel the major divisive point of this discussion is the feeling that being outnumbered in a defensive role makes for an unsatisfying experience.

I should also add that the feeling of being significantly outnumbered/overwhelmed is an unsatisfying experience for all aspects of WvW regardless of the role a player chooses, but this encourages insight outside of many players' narrow focus and thus is not a relevant talking point within an echo chamber. We're not here to talk about ongoing population imbalances among servers, we're here to complain about the state of seige-vs-players and the "unstoppable boonball meta". 

To be honest, this is a situation which is difficult to balance without active player engagement. Being outnumbered on a borderland is as much a community/team issue as it is a game-balancing one. If your community/team doesn't respond to call outs, if there isn't a substantial militia population available to put out fires, or if the general level of experience/skill/coordination of a team is considerably less than the other team what you're really asking for is a developer-implemented handicap to overcome a player-based reluctance to engage with the game mode. The issue with such a handicap is that while some teams/servers may need something like this to even out the win/loss ratio so that both sides feel satisfied, teams/servers that ARE capable will use this same handicap to much greater effect. 

10 defenders with 5 arrowcarts and a comped party capable of pushing enemy groups can handle twice their number on a wall or gate. 10 Defenders manning trebs/shield generators can hold that same stretch of wall or gate almost indefinitely against three times that number if skilled and coordinated. Factor in supply drain via cows/traps, siege use to knock the players off rams so that the rams can be burned fast by DPS and other siege, a 10-man roaming cloud harassing the enemy group or placing defensive siege in blind spots... A defending group that knows what they're doing can make a siege so unpalatable for another group that many casual players will try once, fail, and spend the rest of the night flipping t-0 towers instead. Add in a 40-man defensive boonball to this mix and very quickly the odds of even a quality group taking down a tiered objective become very low. Why bother attacking a fortified position if you know you're going to fight tooth and nail for 3-5 minutes before you even get a sniff of a reward from it?

Plus, all this comes with the understanding that even should they break through the walls and push on the lord... the 'content' might just run and abandon the objective without a fight anyway. This has frequently become the case when fight groups encounter heavy-PPT servers who see siege/walls as the first and only line of defense.  In the time it takes a large attacking group to flip one of these objectives they often lose most of their third on a map. A PPT team doesn't need to 'win' these defensive events to succeed in their matchup, all they need is to occupy a majority of the enemy team for a long enough time so that their teammates can balance the PPT by flipping the rest of the map. Quite often all that's needed to pull a 'boonball' off a keep is just to attack one of their tiered objectives instead. If they can't blow straight through to the lord and kill it in less time than it takes to pop OJ's somewhere else, most will just abandon the siege instead.

I've seen a 40-man cloud build half a dozen arrowcarts, a couple catapults, and a treb  in less than 10s just to pound the lord room of a t-1 tower that was under attack. They didn't even need to enter the tower to defend it, just siege it up on the open field to the point where a comp'd group couldn't sustain long enough to kill the lord. When the attacking group abandoned their attack just to preserve the squad, that 40-man cloud just ran away. No fights given, just siege. A successful defense without actually 'defending' anything. 

Now let's buff arrowcarts so that they strip and deal more damage. Let's make trebs cheaper and reduce the cooldown on shield generators. How about tactics that implement a 'burn' mechanic on any hostile siege within 1200 range of a wall? Let's make catapults and flame rams more susceptible to damage from guards and siege. Let's make operators on cannons immune to CC and take 50% less damage. Why not make it so that attackers dying in the objective funnel their supply into the objective's supply hut? Because defenders need the help and the game devs should acknowledge this and give them anything they ask to keep them playing the game. No, it's not a skill issue. It's not a community issue. It's not a strategy or coordination issue. There are absolutely no drawbacks to improving the defense ability of solo and small-scale groups that much larger groups can abuse in a multiplicative fashion.  Players don't need to learn to use the tools they already have, they should be given more and better tools so they can continue to ignore them while others use them to much greater effect. 

It's always the same complaints. At some point, I feel, even the most community-first developer has to acknowledge that you can't satisfy everyone. Especially those who refuse to engage in any other gameplay except the very narrowly defined one they currently enjoy. I would encourage people to try a variety of WvW experiences before demanding large-scale changes to drastically improve the ease of success for their preferred style of play. There's a pretty good chance that what you want for yourself comes at a cost which is not healthy to your own future enjoyment, you just aren't able to see the repercussions because there's no foundation for any other perspective. 

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

27 minutes ago, Cael.3960 said:

If your community/team doesn't respond to call outs, if there isn't a substantial militia population available to put out fires, or if the general level of experience/skill/coordination of a team is considerably less than the other team what you're really asking for is a developer-implemented handicap to overcome a player-based reluctance to engage with the game mode. The issue with such a handicap is that while some teams/servers may need something like this to even out the win/loss ratio so that both sides feel satisfied, teams/servers that ARE capable will use this same handicap to much greater effect. 

I would argue that groups do not play the objective because they have their own ways to play. This can happen in may multiplayer competitive game modes when there is no reward for playing the objective which if scoring can become balanced could be possible to implement in the future.

[Sheff.4851]

40 minutes ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

I would argue that groups do not play the objective because they have their own ways to play. This can happen in may multiplayer competitive game modes when there is no reward for playing the objective which if scoring can become balanced could be possible to implement in the future.

Correct, which is why we spent quite a bit of time in the developer interview talking about how shared goals can be developed that make players want to work towards the same reward payoff. Currently, that's not the case, but the gamemode would be healthier if it was, in my opinion.

[Loke.1429]

On 7/20/2024 at 11:05 PM, Sheff.4851 said:

Similarly, the wall change is a buff for defending groups, if anything. When walls repaired at 10%, it was exceptionally easy to build one catapult, fire it three times, and break back into the objective. Now that the threshold is 50%, yes, it's harder to close. But it's also much harder to reopen, especially if you're depriving an attacking group of their supply. It makes it easier to cut off reinforcements, and grind down a group inside one of your structures.

While I do support most of the recent changes, this quote is disgustingly pure bs. Why even waste the time to type it?

In general there is a fine balance between making undefended captures fast, which is good, and making them so fast that defenders cannot possibly react in time for a surprise attack, which is bad. I believe the negative feedback comes from the last part happening more often now.

I dont know how to do it perfectly, but a "timeout" mechanic like Structural Invunerability was very boring for attackers. The trick would be to find a way to give defenders a way to delay attackers a bit in a way that is also interesting for the attackers. The current siege weapons do not provide this, probably partly because of the balance. As an example for a partial solution, just buff the arrow carts, e.g. arrow carts +100% damage if it hits 10 attacker, and -50% damage debuff to attackers siege weapons, both only if there are no other manned arrowcarts within 900 range (so ac isnt overpoweree if there are many of them). Something like that or any other way to let a 1-5 defenders delay e.g. 30 attackers a small amount, so that other defenders would be able to arrive is necessary. The large defending group should be able to arrive in time, and normally have to choose between defending this or that or attacking this or defending that. It is very bad if "defending that" is never a valid option unless they actually waited inside the tower. Alternative example is that scouts need skills or something to visually alert possible defenders (accross maps) in advance of an upcoming attack (with numbers! 🥲). I mean some way to help a chat scout become almost as effective as a discord scout, at informing possible defenders that are currently distracted / otherwise engaged, and therefore not reading the chat. The last part describes me very often.

Edited July 22 by Loke.1429

[Loke.1429]

On 7/20/2024 at 11:47 PM, Sheff.4851 said:

If nothing stops you from repairing it further if you want to, what's the difference between 10% and 50%?

Lack of supply, those 10 enemies that had time to run back in

[Loke.1429]

On 7/21/2024 at 12:09 AM, Sheff.4851 said:

For example, when we lose keep fights (and it happens often) it's not because there's one devastating push. It's because we slowly bleed off players who aren't on stack, get picked, get knocked off walls, etc, and they can't make it back in if the walls get repaired behind them. Eventually, if we get ground apart inside of an objective, we have to pull off. So that's the defense tactic that I have the most familiarity with, even though I'm usually the one who's on offense instead of defense.

I found the lack of mention of proper positioning, and dismissal of the possibility of one devastating push to be a fitting description of what is wrong with balance.

[XenesisII.1540]

I want to say, some of these posts I've made in this thread have been some of the highest rated I've ever had in my time in the forums, and I know there are a lot of people who don't like my opinion. And I'm not saying that to brag about it, I'm stating this because it means there are many others who most likely feel the same way about the game right now, and maybe it's something anet should take note of, even as small of a sampling it may be. There are people who leave the game without even posting a reason why, but you're still at least getting feedback from players like me who don't want to leave the game, but feel like they have to look elsewhere.

Game might be super great for the organized right now, but it's getting demoralizing for the rest of the game mode who are being ignored and pushed out due to balance problems or WR or wvw changes in general the past year. We can hand wave that off as usual to "there's always going to be someone not happy", but every once in a while, there should be an effort to look into what people are not happy about, and not from just one group of players. I'll leave the thread at that, happy hunting as my friend Grimmy would say. 🍦

[Sheff.4851]

37 minutes ago, Loke.1429 said:

While I do support most of the recent changes, this quote is disgustingly pure bs. Why even waste the time to type it?

I typed it because, in my experience as a commander and attacker, not being able to get my respawns back into an objective is what costs me fights most of the time. That's mostly why I bothered to type it.

[Sheff.4851]

13 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

I want to say, some of these posts I've made in this thread have been some of the highest rated I've ever had in my time in the forums, and I know there are a lot of people who don't like my opinion. And I'm not saying that to brag about it, I'm stating this because it means there are many others who most likely feel the same way about the game right now, and maybe it's something anet should take note of, even as small of a sampling it may be. There are people who leave the game without even posting a reason why, but you're still at least getting feedback from players like me who don't want to leave the game, but feel like they have to look elsewhere.

Game might be super great for the organized right now, but it's getting demoralizing for the rest of the game mode who are being ignored and pushed out due to balance problems or WR or wvw changes in general the past year. We can hand wave that off as usual to "there's always going to be someone not happy", but every once in a while, there should be an effort to look into what people are not happy about, and not from just one group of players. I'll leave the thread at that, happy hunting as my friend Grimmy would say. 🍦

Likewise! The interview is my second most viewed video of all time for its first two days, losing only to a review of the upcoming scoring changes, and has seventy likes. It's currently approaching 2000 views, and about 6% of those have come from the traffic generated from this thread. And while the traffic generated from this thread is much lower than the one on Reddit, which had about three times the amount of views and contributed to twice as many watches of the video , the forums have definitely generated more conversation around it.

I think it's a great reminder that there's multiple communities within World vs. World, that all have different interests and perspectives, and I appreciate you contributing to the visibility of this one and helping the video reach more people. I've had conversations with people about this topic that only saw this discussion on the forums, so I think it's definitely shared a different perspective than people here might be used to, and that's gotten them interested in having more in-depth conversations about it.

[Loke.1429]

On 7/21/2024 at 8:07 AM, XenesisII.1540 said:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/67967-game-update-notes-february-25-2020/ The apocalyptic patch. 

If you want to understand the problems, start here. I thought this change came from Solar and CmC, and figured it wouldn't last so long. I was very angry with such bad changes. You nerf damage this heavily? Guess what, healing and support is overpowered. Doesnt take a genious to see that, yet here we (still) are with this meta, where that is the major problem. Also the nerfs were not targeting everything, so some untouched damage became relatively overpowered as a result.

Edited July 22 by Loke.1429

[Loke.1429]

20 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I typed it because, in my experience as a commander and attacker, not being able to get my respawns back into an objective is what costs me fights most of the time. That's mostly why I bothered to type it.

I respect your honesty. It would be better to start with that instead of the flawed logic. I would respect you more if you enjoyed the difficulty of those mechanics and overcame them, instead of trying to get them removed to make your fight easier inside an enemy keep.

[Sheff.4851]

23 minutes ago, Loke.1429 said:

I respect your honesty. It would be better to start with that instead of the flawed logic. I would respect you more if you enjoyed the difficulty of those mechanics and overcame them, instead of trying to get them removed to make your fight easier inside an enemy keep.

I'm confused. I thought that the wall repair change was good, because it does make my job more difficult. It means my squad needs to play tighter to tag, pay attention to supporting their party, follow my movements while I break line of sight, deal with defensive siege, etc, otherwise they're going to die and never make it back into the objective. That's why I've been saying the wall repair change from 10% to 50% was a good change, because it benefits groups that are actively defending an objective, pressuring attackers, and running supply to maintain repairs at crucial times over the course of a fight.

I have not tried to get those changes removed, I think they make my life more interesting as a commander that attacks objectives.

[Loke.1429]

23 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I'm confused. I thought that the wall repair change was good, because it does make my job more difficult. It means my squad needs to play tighter to tag, pay attention to supporting their party, follow my movements while I break line of sight, deal with defensive siege, etc, otherwise they're going to die and never make it back into the objective. That's why I've been saying the wall repair change from 10% to 50% was a good change, because it benefits groups that are actively defending an objective, pressuring attackers, and running supply to maintain repairs at crucial times over the course of a fight.

I have not tried to get those changes removed, I think they make my life more interesting as a commander that attacks objectives.

Ok, let me put it in plain text: No, you are wrong,  since it now 1) takes more time to close it, 2) takes more supply to close it, 3) reduces the supply drain and time wastage of attackers when they have to build siege for a 10% wall. As an example I could repair to 10% multiple times, with the same time usage, and destroy or delay their new siege. If that delays 10 people for 1 more minute, that is important. That is gone now, as they can just run in. In my opinion the worst part is 1) as I am longer removed from the fight and more enemies can enter while I am repairing.

There are literally no positives for defenders in that change. What you listed as posivive could also be done before the change. It is not new, which is why I said "flawed logic". Rep it to 50% so its harder to reopen? Yeah I could do that before also.

Also that "running supply to maintain repairs at crucial times" happens less frequently because of 1) taking so long that the keep is already captured.

Edited July 23 by Loke.1429

[igmolicious.5986]

Would personally like to see an "emblem of the defender" that awarded after a set number of participations in objective defences (repeatable like conquerer and avenger) that could be traded for worthwhile items from wvw vendors (maybe something similar to the "shipment" boxes from volatile magic vendors or at the very least exchangeable for emblems of the avenger to supplement purchases that require those). Something that would make it a little more worthwhile to defend objectives.

Side note: would also love to see wvw enhancement stations to go along with the wvw feasts.

Edited July 22 by igmolicious.5986