A Chat w/ Roy and Cecil About WvW Development Goals

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Just now, Sheff.4851 said:

EvE was one I suggested. I'm just waiting to see where the confirmed Q&A is. Ashes of Creation and Pantheon are not MMOs, because a normal person cannot currently play them. Doesn't matter if they do daily Q&A, they aren't even out of alpha.

I can't do all the research for you, you will need to do more reading on their website and twitter.  Actually Pantheon you can currently play as a normal person with a pledge, I do currently and others play as well who are normal.  It does matter and a successful MMORPG Eve Online matters too.

[Sheff.4851]

2 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

A point that was raised in the starting post in this thread. When winning "matters", the shard that has the largest boonball coverage will win. What's the point in even playing when you know your shard is just going to help a boonball shard win? And you'll get nothing from trying your best?

I don't actually think that's true. Boonballs are a massive disadvantage for generating score. Four groups of 20 capping objectives will generate far, far more score than one group of 80 will, because the group of 80 can only be in one place at a time. The reason they're so prevalent now is explicitly because score doesn't matter, and so you can just stack every single player on a map together. But if you look at servers which, historically, have spent their time in T1. Servers like Maguuma, Sea of Sorrows, etc, those are explicitly not blob servers. They're small scale, havoc, cloud servers. And their position in the old tiering system reflected that.

As score becomes more important for earning rewards, expect boonballs to perform much worse on raw warscore measures.

[Sheff.4851]

1 minute ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

I can't do all the research for you, you will need to do more reading on their website and twitter.  Actually Pantheon you can currently play as a normal person with a pledge, I do currently and others play as well who are normal.  It does matter and a successful MMORPG Eve Online matters too.

I have, and can't find it, just a small collection of them from the last few years, so I'm just going to assume that EvE does not do a monthly dev Q&A, and that they are more intermittent than that. I'm glad they did one Q&A in July, but GW2 also did one Q&A in July, so that would make them equal in my book.

[Sheff.4851]

7 minutes ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

WvW does not gain new players exactly due to the terrible game play. The game play involved in boonballing is extremely niche and already has it's entire player base of people who enjoy that type of game play.

Why Anet designs a game mode for < 200 people, I'll never know.

It's impressive that three quarters of the entire WvW population tuned in to watch this stream live. I thought the viewership metrics were pretty good, but I had no idea it was that high. That's good to know!

[Hesione.9412]

2 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I don't actually think that's true. Boonballs are a massive disadvantage for generating score. Four groups of 20 capping objectives will generate far, far more score than one group of 80 will, because the group of 80 can only be in one place at a time. The reason they're so prevalent now is explicitly because score doesn't matter, and so you can just stack every single player on a map together. But if you look at servers which, historically, have spent their time in T1. Servers like Maguuma, Sea of Sorrows, etc, those are explicitly not blob servers. They're small scale, havoc, cloud servers. And their position in the old tiering system reflected that.

As score becomes more important for earning rewards, expect boonballs to perform much worse on raw warscore measures.

Smaller numbers of people can't defend. The boonball then goes on a flipping spree, which you cannot stop. You cannot take back your objectives because they can have multiple people on shared participation, who are scouting. You can't flip their keeps, which are now tiered up because they flood in to counter you as you try to attack. Your small group is carrying little supply (as a group, everyone has max supp) and only has enough supp to get one piece of siege on inner once you have outer down. (assuming you attacked from a place where you can't hit inner and outer at the same time). I have seen a warscore for my side as low as <50 because there are few on my side and a boonball on the other, and a third server that can't manage a boonball but still outnumbers my side. You don't seem to have any experience of being in this situation *because you are in a boonball*. I have. And I am telling you that you are wrong.

Or, you decided to get supp while some of your small number of people are hitting outer. You leave one on each cata and one to defend them. You come back to find them overwhelmed with 20 people.

Or, you have a slightly larger group, and have managed to flip a tower or two (none are higher than t2) so you decide to attack a keep as you've managed to fend off the defenders so far. You can't even get siege down because the defenders are now flooding into the keep and you have oil, cannons, and arrow carts on you. You realise the only reason you managed to take those towers is that they weren't heavily sieged up.

I, and others, are explaining to you just how advantaged the boonball is. You keep defending the boonball. You are ignoring the points we raised.

Re Mag: Mag was dying before the shards started because numerous groups who were good at clouding scattered to the four winds. That means that groups who are experienced at clouding now probably aren't sharded together. It also seems you expect that the small number of players facing the boonball can successfully cloud. I already said that the boonball picks a target and charges. They want kills because they can take the lord at any time. Clouding *doesn't* help. You have the same problem, you can't generate downs that will successfully translate into deaths.

[Sheff.4851]

11 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

Smaller numbers of people can't defend. The boonball then goes on a flipping spree, which you cannot stop. You cannot take back your objectives because they can have multiple people on shared participation, who are scouting. You can't flip their keeps, which are now tiered up because they flood in to counter you as you try to attack. Your small group is carrying little supply (as a group, everyone has max supp) and only has enough supp to get one piece of siege on inner once you have outer down. (assuming you attacked from a place where you can't hit inner and outer at the same time). I have seen a warscore for my side as low as <50 because there are few on my side and a boonball on the other, and a third server that can't manage a boonball but still outnumbers my side. You don't seem to have any experience of being in this situation *because you are in a boonball*. I have. And I am telling you that you are wrong.

Or, you decided to get supp while some of your small number of people are hitting outer. You leave one on each cata and one to defend them. You come back to find them overwhelmed with 20 people.

Or, you have a slightly larger group, and have managed to flip a tower or two (none are higher than t2) so you decide to attack a keep as you've managed to fend off the defenders so far. You can't even get siege down because the defenders are now flooding into the keep and you have oil, cannons, and arrow carts on you. You realise the only reason you managed to take those towers is that they weren't heavily sieged up.

I, and others, are explaining to you just how advantaged the boonball is. You keep defending the boonball. You are ignoring the points we raised.

Re Mag: Mag was dying before the shards started because numerous groups who were good at clouding scattered to the four winds. That means that groups who are experienced at clouding now probably aren't sharded together. It also seems you expect that the small number of players facing the boonball can successfully cloud. I already said that the boonball picks a target and charges. They want kills because they can take the lord at any time. Clouding *doesn't* help. You have the same problem, you can't generate downs that will successfully translate into deaths.

I'm not ignoring them, I'm listening to them. I just dom't agree with all of it. For example, my perspective as a boonball player is that it's pretty common for one boonball to wander around the map, fighting in and around objectives, doing some open field, and then you look at the map and you own absolutely nothing. We'll have people in map scout that multiple objectives are being attacked, and we can only pick one to respond to (because we are a boonball, and go everywhere together), and by the time we get there the attacking group has pulled off, the second contested objective has been lost, and we spent two minutes making zero contributions to score. That's the nature of a lot of boonball play, at least when I am the one commanding or playing with them. Maybe I'm not playing boonball correct?

[Zyreva.1078]

47 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I don't actually think that's true. Boonballs are a massive disadvantage for generating score.

That just got changed with the most recent scoring changes.

Edit: Right now that might just be for matchmaking purposes, but when we get to a point where winning "matters", it would be just another example of

13 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

...and ANet actively weakening anything that might stand in those players' way, to the detriment of everyone else in the game mode.

Edited July 21 by Zyreva.1078

[Ashen.2907]

On 7/20/2024 at 1:28 PM, Sheff.4851 said:

It's more that there is a large group of players that is interested in discovering and using the most effective techniques available to them in order to perform well.

...and ANet actively weakening anything that might stand in those players' way, to the detriment of everyone else in the game mode.

[Sheff.4851]

21 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

That just got changed with the most recent scoring changes.

Edit: Right now that might just be for matchmaking purposes, but when we get to a point where winning "matters", it would be just another example of

They'll continue to be a disadvantage even under the new system, I think. The PPK change from 2 to 3 isn't going to change the calculus much if it's 20 running from 80, becauae those engagements don't yield kills for either side. That's a change directed at increasing the impact of massive 50v50 open field fights contributing more to score. And while the objective capture buff does reward large boonballs rolling around capping everything, it sounds like defending a T3 objective is already close to impossible, so those scoring adjustments aren't going to have much of an impact. It sounds like it'll generally be T0/T1 flips, unless a large, coordinated, defense-oriented group shows up to contest a large, coordinated, attacking boonball, and that seems like it would be a fun time. Am I misunderstanding?

[Hesione.9412]

53 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I'm not ignoring them, I'm listening to them. I just dom't agree with all of it. For example, my perspective as a boonball player is that it's pretty common for one boonball to wander around the map, fighting in and around objectives, doing some open field, and then you look at the map and you own absolutely nothing. We'll have people in map scout that multiple objectives are being attacked, and we can only pick one to respond to (because we are a boonball, and go everywhere together), and by the time we get there the attacking group has pulled off, the second contested objective has been lost, and we spent two minutes making zero contributions to score. That's the nature of a lot of boonball play, at least when I am the one commanding or playing with them. Maybe I'm not playing boonball correct?

You still don't appear to be listening. If two objectives are being *simultaneously* attacked sufficient that scouts want both defended, then you're not facing a group of 6 players on a map. We're not splitting into two groups of three.

Edited to add: and 6 players aren't going to be doing open field fights against a boonball.

Edited July 21 by Hesione.9412
Mentioned in post.

[Zyreva.1078]

41 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

They'll continue to be a disadvantage even under the new system, I think.

Literally every single scoring change heavily favours boon balls over anything else. Every single one of them! From increased ppk (nothing can farm kills like a boon ball) over increased score for capturing stuff, while simultaneously making it easier to capture stuff (boon balls have an much easier time taking (upgraded) structures than anything else) to massively increased VP gain at prime boon ball time. Once again - completely onesided.

And it already shows when looking at the current matches on gw2mists and comparing it to how it looked previously - worlds with good k/d and high ppk percentage are now winning matches much more often - that wasn't the case before. And it's exactly those world that have boon blobs.

Right now it might even make some sense - to match boon blobs vs other boon blobs. But when winning becomes more than just a means of matchmaking, it will just be another slap in the face of everyone who doesn't want to run arround in a boon blob.

Edited July 21 by Zyreva.1078

[Cameirus.8407]

Fire the entire WvW team and get in new ideas, because right now its in the worst state its ever been in. Still massively unbalanced matchups, stomp or be stomped, not even off hours will make a difference anymore.

if you are on a bad side of a matchup, its miserable being spawn locked in prime, and off hours it does not matter at all really, so why bother.

I seriously cant believe that anyone who plays WvW could have possibly done what Anet has done to this gamemode recently.

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 7/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Gahagan.4302 said:

Right, so we talk about that in the video. I believe it's around the 1:10:10 timestamp. Basically, ArenaNet's current design philosophy is that the attack and defense of a structure should involve players fighting one another, not players fighting NPCs and objects like gates and walls. So to that end, you can see why things like Siege Disabler and Structural Invulnerability got changed. If there's nobody defending a tower, one person can pull SI and make an objective completely immune for a minute.

You could bait out the siege disables and the counter play for the attacker would be just deploy more siege, so was pretty easy to counter. I am not certain I have really seen anyone using siege disruptors while defending. Still see some being used by attackers to drop the oil faster. The damper is another that really shouldn't be setup in that tactic spot. The point of the invul was you had only 1 that was able to get there so far so that they could get the scout report out that trouble was under way.

Those both could probably be better redesigned into other ideas at this point or new tactics & tricks. Sticky knockback bomb that ejects players from siege with a 600 knockback and then applies slow as an example. Dampner pulses a aoe knockback around walls and gates as an another example instead of dampening. That way they are stopping the siege use by would act as more of a slowdown which the invul tactic was fulling the rule for. I understand their intent based on what they were saying but when you switch up the role with something that's not the same kind of role it changes the way it will be used.  

On 7/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Gahagan.4302 said:

That's not fun for an attacking group, if there's no defenders showing up in the first place.

And that's part of the line right there was kind of used. But it was even less fun to be that defender that tried to get in to pull it to allow more to actually make it to the fight. Roy did say balance to both attackers and defenders, but again both these still read as more power to the attacker.

On 7/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Gahagan.4302 said:

Changing Chilling Fog to Healing Mist

Changing chill mist so that it wouldn't create boons due during conversions was a fair ball. But again healing mists is another that just isn't worth slotting. It sounds the same on paper, intent is to slow down an assault. Chill them slow them down. Healing mist slow them down by healing you up and keep in the fight. One does that by slowing tyhem down everywhere, where as the other only works if you have already engaged them, so in effect it doesn't hit all of them. As when released it might have been better to change the effect into on that couldn't be converted to boons to achieve the same role as it had before. This one might be another that just needs a recreate or add new tactics. I tend to drop tactics into anything I see that doesn't have one, and I have to admit dampener and healing mists I do not slate. 

On 7/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Gahagan.4302 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. And if you're unable to down any players in that group in the first place, well, it doesn't really matter what the wall repair threshold is, or the exact effect of Structural Invulnerability anyway. You're just up against a larger, more coordinated group, and they were going to prevail regardless.

Not sure I agree here. Yes some players do close walls before clearing siege but a fair number do clear siege first. The difference is now would need a number of run backs so you need to either have one person be more obvious on repairing and you can't use the wait till they are just about there and close it on them tactic now. All it does is remove the choice from the defender do I fill it about the 10% or not? But with the 50 you leave the breach open longer and have the potential to just get run back over at the breach if the internal defenders are getting downs that are respawning and coming back. On the point about a respawning player dropping a new cata and dropping the wall again, true on number of shots but you would need 2-3 attackers to do that which means 1 was slowing down 3. Where as by the time a solo player can get a way back to 50 they may have let alot more back into while potentially taking fire.

I would have to error the 50% rate favor attackers versus defenders honestly. I say this as an attacker I know there will be targets around the breach to pick off and as a defender you might need 2 since there will be roamers looking to thin out defenders around breaches. 

Will have to re-listen a second time to see what else was picked up on, I admit I keep getting distracted by watching the fight so sometimes I missed part of what was said, found it easier to take in once I tabed out and just listened to the audio lol. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 7/20/2024 at 6:17 PM, Sheff.4851 said:

I've talked to a number of former public tags, and can really only speak to what they've told me, but what killed their motivation was actually the relinking system. The time that public tags spent investing in players, helping them grow, giving them resources, etc, was a high time cost. With relinks, the people in your squad may not be there two months from now, and knowing that you were training and leading a bunch of people who you may never see again was a motivation killer. Again, at least among the people that I talked to.

Roam, Havoc and since before the WR drooped while we had relinks was getting back into pugmanding to see what it was looking like and get a basis for how that compared to after WR especially with the idea that it would be dropping mega guilds to fill in for Alliances. The issues isn't really in time to train if you work with them, but it's time to get them to trust you as a pugmander. It's a big deal to manage their morale and make sure they are having fun. Its also about getting time to read your crowd if a pugmander is needed, would be welcome, and what you knew about what you might get, also what's on the other side. Sometimes the answer when facing another side that is just running with a map wide group is to use havocs, clouders and roamers to deal with it. Its also about knowing what invis tags that you might have that might be pulling bodies and dealing with other tags visible or not. With the WR there are still pugs for pugmanders to pickup, but a lot of alliances will bring their own tags so that slows down the time for both training and trust. Found during this first sort still can work but the first sort was 6 weeks so the next sort at 4 will be another interesting test. 

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

when did I say they had to have conversations with everyone who posts?  I said more discussions, engagement, Q&A sessions etc.  Planned and scheduled and organized.

It was this comment of yours that left me with that impression:

7 hours ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

" Instead we get side conversations with one or two people like what Sheff got or the odd forum post from a dev asking a single other forum user a question for clarification.  But apparently that isn't good enough and is considered "private" or "secretive" somehow."

Yeah, that isn't good enough.  

You described that there should be a conversation and I pointed out there was one here on the forum recently where a dev posted follow up question to someone and how this is an increase, but that apparently isn't good enough.  They also posted here during one of the past WR betas a basic questionnaire for forum users to answer.  I'm sure that example is not good enough either.

Sheff's video is another example of increased engagement, but this example is a problem because Sheff didn't notify this forum ahead of time, a condition which you added on after the fact.  So I get the impression that if specific examples are given to you about how communication has improved recently, how _there has been more engagement_, it'll never be good enough until devs are here answering everyone's posts.  Devs could probably even read this thread, have an AMA, and it still won't be good enough.
 

5 hours ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

I said more discussions, engagement, Q&A sessions etc.  Planned and scheduled and organized.

Literally a scheduled stream just last week that ended with devs asking people to leave their feedback here and on reddit where they will read it.  Planned and scheduled and organized.  Not good enough because it wasn't specifically a Q&A session and there was no promise to respond to feedback?

Devs have joined a lot of different discords and have popped up from time to time on them to have the type of engagement you are seeking.  Not good enough though.  There's no official GW2 discord like those other games you mentioned have so it's on you to find them and join them and you too can "engage".  Those official discords have a staff that moderates them, which brings me back to my field reps example of people whose specific job it is to discuss things with customers.

Edited July 22 by Chaba.5410

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

 

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

 

Xen, its to soon to relink this one, to soon I say. Still have toons shelfed from this one lol.

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Liked the interview, good to hear they are live looking at things. Sort of backed up the suspicion that they are now gathering data on player behavior and likely data to feed the algorithm better.

Just going to touch on the 50% VS 10% repair changes (paired with the invulnerability tactic changes because some elements go hand in hand).

For this it is important to look at how player behavior changes between a wall/gate being open and closed. The established approach in the past has always been:

1. clear the siege (and it is important to note, this can be done with a force significantly smaller defending force)

2. repair the wall/gate if it is in the defending interest to keep stragglers out

3. prevent stragglers from building new siege

What is important here to note is: this can be done relatively quickly. It is close to 100% effective in keeping stragglers and back-up out. It requires minimal supplies.

Another thing to note here is: the average WvW player does not carry siege with them, or not every one is willing to drop siege blueprints. Not every player will be carrying significant supply to build new siege. The larger a structure, the easier it is to close by defenders and harder to keep open by attackers.

All of these  aspects allow defenders to mitigate number disadvantages to some extent. Meanwhile it provides "content" to smaller amounts of players while they feel "useful" when say: your main defending blob will try to pressure the attackers while smaller number of players can approach defending the objective as described.

All of this does not work at 50%.

A similar thought process can be applied to the previous invulnerability tactic. This one is indeed very un-fun to encounter as attacker, but it also provided a great way to actually allow players to gather and face each other. One has to way the benefit here of actually allowing scouting and defenders to react versus being "trolled/delayed" by 1 minute because 1 defender got in (which by the way also made for content because attackers were encouraged to keep an empty objective empty).

The changes lately have been very focused on speeding up sieges and structure flips which if players had immediate movement or reaction to attackers would make sense, but in reality just shifts the priority away from defending. I believe some adjustments here would be in order.

The most important ideas here would be: how do we allow players to actually gather and react to things happening. For example: the recent emergency way-point change to have multiple available is great in allowing defenders to actually gather.

Final though, here is one possible tactic to consider:instead of giving defenders a invulnerability tactic which makes walls/gates immune, why not turn this into one which makes the structure lord immune (and give him a damage buff). This would have a similar effect in that it would allow defenders to gather/react, attackers are now forced into action (stay on the lord and heal through if possible, leave the lord room and engage defenders). Or it could lead to defenders using this buff to improve their next attack on saving the lord (think similar to air support in stonemist castle).

Well put. Just add another factor, sometimes tags tell players to not throw siege as well and some people over read that as in as don't throw to break back in so it makes them hesitate. 

[Sheff.4851]

33 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

You could bait out the siege disables and the counter play for the attacker would be just deploy more siege, so was pretty easy to counter. I am not certain I have really seen anyone using siege disruptors while defending. Still see some being used by attackers to drop the oil faster. The damper is another that really shouldn't be setup in that tactic spot. The point of the invul was you had only 1 that was able to get there so far so that they could get the scout report out that trouble was under way.

Those both could probably be better redesigned into other ideas at this point or new tactics & tricks. Sticky knockback bomb that ejects players from siege with a 600 knockback and then applies slow as an example. Dampner pulses a aoe knockback around walls and gates as an another example instead of dampening. That way they are stopping the siege use by would act as more of a slowdown which the invul tactic was fulling the rule for. I understand their intent based on what they were saying but when you switch up the role with something that's not the same kind of role it changes the way it will be used.  

And that's part of the line right there was kind of used. But it was even less fun to be that defender that tried to get in to pull it to allow more to actually make it to the fight. Roy did say balance to both attackers and defenders, but again both these still read as more power to the attacker.

Changing chill mist so that it wouldn't create boons due during conversions was a fair ball. But again healing mists is another that just isn't worth slotting. It sounds the same on paper, intent is to slow down an assault. Chill them slow them down. Healing mist slow them down by healing you up and keep in the fight. One does that by slowing tyhem down everywhere, where as the other only works if you have already engaged them, so in effect it doesn't hit all of them. As when released it might have been better to change the effect into on that couldn't be converted to boons to achieve the same role as it had before. This one might be another that just needs a recreate or add new tactics. I tend to drop tactics into anything I see that doesn't have one, and I have to admit dampener and healing mists I do not slate. 

Not sure I agree here. Yes some players do close walls before clearing siege but a fair number do clear siege first. The difference is now would need a number of run backs so you need to either have one person be more obvious on repairing and you can't use the wait till they are just about there and close it on them tactic now. All it does is remove the choice from the defender do I fill it about the 10% or not? But with the 50 you leave the breach open longer and have the potential to just get run back over at the breach if the internal defenders are getting downs that are respawning and coming back. On the point about a respawning player dropping a new cata and dropping the wall again, true on number of shots but you would need 2-3 attackers to do that which means 1 was slowing down 3. Where as by the time a solo player can get a way back to 50 they may have let alot more back into while potentially taking fire.

I would have to error the 50% rate favor attackers versus defenders honestly. I say this as an attacker I know there will be targets around the breach to pick off and as a defender you might need 2 since there will be roamers looking to thin out defenders around breaches. 

Will have to re-listen a second time to see what else was picked up on, I admit I keep getting distracted by watching the fight so sometimes I missed part of what was said, found it easier to take in once I tabed out and just listened to the audio lol. 

These are all really good points (and in the post below as well). I do think, for defense changes in particular, groups are still in the process of relearning what strategies are good. Siege dampener, supply trap, and a number of other tricks and traps available to defenders are seriously under-utilized right now, but eventually people will figure out how good they are.

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I don't actually think that's true. Boonballs are a massive disadvantage for generating score. Four groups of 20 capping objectives will generate far, far more score than one group of 80 will, because the group of 80 can only be in one place at a time. The reason they're so prevalent now is explicitly because score doesn't matter, and so you can just stack every single player on a map together. But if you look at servers which, historically, have spent their time in T1. Servers like Maguuma, Sea of Sorrows, etc, those are explicitly not blob servers. They're small scale, havoc, cloud servers. And their position in the old tiering system reflected that.

As score becomes more important for earning rewards, expect boonballs to perform much worse on raw warscore measures.

Agree here and I thought the bump to the PPK was to adjust that some, which was what they confirmed was their logic to it. Its a sticky wick though as I said hoping they don't bump it too much else it might encourage less organized groups from trying their hand against more organized groups. That was already around prior to the bump. That will be one to watch and am hoping they are running the numbers for it before and after and if it seems like impacts the number of fights over time.

[Gauis.2768]

28 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You described that there should be a conversation and I pointed out there was one here on the forum recently where a dev posted follow up question to someone and how this is an increase, but that apparently isn't good enough.  They also posted here during one of the past WR betas a basic questionnaire for forum users to answer.  I'm sure that example is not good enough either.

Sheff's video is another example of increased engagement, but this example is a problem because Sheff didn't notify this forum ahead of time, a condition which you added on after the fact.  So I get the impression that if specific examples are given to you about how communication has improved recently, how _there has been more engagement_, it'll never be good enough until devs are here answering everyone's posts.  Devs could probably even read this thread, have an AMA, and it still won't be good enough.
 

Literally a scheduled stream just last week that ended with devs asking people to leave their feedback here and on reddit where they will read it.  Planned and scheduled and organized.  Not good enough because it wasn't specifically a Q&A session and there was no promise to respond to feedback?

Are you able to share the link to the forum post you mentioned? I want to read it.

IMO what Sheff is trying to do is great. Opening up an avenue for engagement. The effectiveness is arguable. I cannot speak for others but the problem I observe is that players feel they are not being heard. Sheff is not Anet. And Anet is not Sheff. Sheff may represent opinions of a given group but not all. That's why we have forums so that everyone can be heard. Again. Sheff said he gathered some questions around. It's not his job but I can only compliment him for trying. But I'm not entirely sure where he got his questions from and what he determines worthy to be of a topic of discussion. Perhaps this video is more targetted to the recent changes.

You said there is a scheduled stream. This stream is schedule by who? Sheff. Not Anet. Why? Why is it that we have a community member doing this and not the developers leading this instead?

 

Also during the stream the devs also said to post feedback in the forums. I would like to know. Truthfully how often have you seen the dev engage in forum posts. Just look at the past week or month and count how many dev post you can see. I am not even talking about any questions or feedback. There isn't even an acknowledgement. "We hear you yadayada". "We understand that the community is divided on the recent changes blah blah." Nothing. Radio silence. So when they tell us to post in the forum and they will gather feedback. Do you see why certain members feel that it is just lip service and end up losing trust in the dev on listening to any feedback?

 

[Chaba.5410]

10 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

Are you able to share the link to the forum post you mentioned? I want to read it.

 

You said there is a scheduled stream. This stream is schedule by who? Sheff. Not Anet. Why? Why is it that we have a community member doing this and not the developers leading this instead?

 

Do you see why certain members feel that it is just lip service and end up losing trust in the dev on listening to any feedback?

 

Here's the specific post on this forum I was referencing:

There's also the small questionnaire soliciting for feedback to some follow up questions from one of the past WR betas here that I also mentioned:

 

 

Live stream announcement:

https://x.com/GuildWars2/status/1810781015436402939

Anet also retweeted Sheff's dev interview on their official channel and it looks like MightyTeapot also did a dev interview.  They retweeted his announcement too.



I do see why.  It's hard to tell if something you post actually gets read when there is no response.  What I've been saying is there has been responses and it's more than what we've had from like 2017 until the recent past.  Just not to the level certain players expect and how it's impractical to expect a response all the time.

[Sheff.4851]

49 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

Are you able to share the link to the forum post you mentioned? I want to read it.

IMO what Sheff is trying to do is great. Opening up an avenue for engagement. The effectiveness is arguable. I cannot speak for others but the problem I observe is that players feel they are not being heard. Sheff is not Anet. And Anet is not Sheff. Sheff may represent opinions of a given group but not all. That's why we have forums so that everyone can be heard. Again. Sheff said he gathered some questions around. It's not his job but I can only compliment him for trying. But I'm not entirely sure where he got his questions from and what he determines worthy to be of a topic of discussion. Perhaps this video is more targetted to the recent changes.

You said there is a scheduled stream. This stream is schedule by who? Sheff. Not Anet. Why? Why is it that we have a community member doing this and not the developers leading this instead?

 

Also during the stream the devs also said to post feedback in the forums. I would like to know. Truthfully how often have you seen the dev engage in forum posts. Just look at the past week or month and count how many dev post you can see. I am not even talking about any questions or feedback. There isn't even an acknowledgement. "We hear you yadayada". "We understand that the community is divided on the recent changes blah blah." Nothing. Radio silence. So when they tell us to post in the forum and they will gather feedback. Do you see why certain members feel that it is just lip service and end up losing trust in the dev on listening to any feedback?

 

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.

[Gauis.2768]

19 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Here's the specific post on this forum I was referencing:

There's also the small questionnaire soliciting for feedback to some follow up questions from one of the past WR betas here that I also mentioned:

 

 

Live stream announcement:

https://x.com/GuildWars2/status/1810781015436402939

Anet also retweeted Sheff's dev interview on their official channel and it looks like MightyTeapot also did a dev interview.  They retweeted his announcement too.



I do see why.  It's hard to tell if something you post actually gets read when there is no response.  What I've been saying is there has been responses and it's more than what we've had from like 2017 until the recent past.  Just not to the level certain players expect and how it's impractical to expect a response all the time.

 

Thanks for the info. Still reading through that forum post. Its an interesting read so far as most of the commentors are actually engaging and not giving meme replies. I came across one of the comment after the followup question by the dev. Not too sure how to quote from another thread but i set it to italics below. I feel like it is also a very strong sentiment to many amongst here. Its good that they are asking a question but at the same time players have been complaining about it for months and it really looks as though as anet havent got a clue. Nonetheless i still think its a good thing they are asking at least we know now they are actually reading it.

 

Well, tbh Roy's question was not directed to me but to Zekent who was saying "Big nerfs on boonstrips, big nerf on outnumbered rewards and now these recent changes, i'm sorry but it feels like ANet is actively trying to kill people's motivation to keep playing WvW ".

But that's it's directed to this or that player is inconsequential, what is important is the fact that a someone who is supposed to be in the WvW team (unless I missed something) is asking "oh please give me more input on that topic, I need to understand more about the issue you are raising" when the cycle boon buff / boonrip nerf has been, along with exploits needing fixing, THE hot topic for most post on the WvW part of the forums.

Asking that question means either he is aware of the problem but try to pass as someone just discovering it and that's immensely insulting to everybody that ever reported these issues OR he is truly not aware of the issue and that would brings the question about the real competence of the dev team.

All in all it does not reflect well on Anet.

 

 

Well I am not expecting the dev to reply every single thing. Thats impossible and frankly speaking most topics are repeated so it will end up as a copy and paste reply. I havent been lurking that long to know the difference from 2017 and now. But i think we can all agree it can be even better than what we have now.  Small steps to a better future I guess.

[Gauis.2768]

48 minutes 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.

I think that's a great spectrum of input you have gathered. I will suggest including the official gw2 wvw forum too. Although some topics are repeated and occasionally incoherent... there are definitely some old issues that should be revisited.

Yea I can understand your position. Ultimately the intention is to open up a conversation and not put them in a spotlight for interrogation. Like I mention in an earlier comment. What you have intiated is great. What I feel is that it should be Anet being the party to start this initiative. Well its better than nothing. What Anet wants to answer or not is entirely up to them, they may not have an answer to everything and I don't blame them. Others might harp on them on certain topics and even if ANet may disagree with it. I think putting out a statement on how they reach that decision may at least give people insight on what the devs thought process are. Of course, the players may continue to be upset. But right now we are just making wild guesses based on whatever decision we are seeing. Ignoring is not the way to go is what I want to say.

[Hesione.9412]

18 minutes ago, Gauis.2768 said:

I think that's a great spectrum of input you have gathered. I will suggest including the official gw2 wvw forum too. Although some topics are repeated and occasionally incoherent... there are definitely some old issues that should be revisited.

Yea I can understand your position. Ultimately the intention is to open up a conversation and not put them in a spotlight for interrogation. Like I mention in an earlier comment. What you have intiated is great. What I feel is that it should be Anet being the party to start this initiative. Well its better than nothing. What Anet wants to answer or not is entirely up to them, they may not have an answer to everything and I don't blame them. Others might harp on them on certain topics and even if ANet may disagree with it. I think putting out a statement on how they reach that decision may at least give people insight on what the devs thought process are. Of course, the players may continue to be upset. But right now we are just making wild guesses based on whatever decision we are seeing. Ignoring is not the way to go is what I want to say.

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.