Stop Treating WvW like a GvG environment

[Barraind.7324]

On 9/2/2024 at 9:45 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

All major guilds in entire EU/NA can fit within a 500 man guild? 

Not sure if impressive or sad.

It just takes one alliance doing that to ruin it for people who are trusting the system to do what the system was intended to do. 

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Barraind.7324 said:

It just takes one alliance doing that to ruin it for people who are trusting the system to do what the system was intended to do. 

What does that even mean when the system would be doing what it was intended to do?

"It just takes one to ruin it" is implying a negative effect for many alliances doing the same thing - which would be the complete opposite of what the system was intended to do.

People are also trusting the system to place their 500 man guild on the same team, as the system was intended to do.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, RlyOsim.2497 said:

stems from this:

 

Looks like anets preferred way to play WvW tbh

[RlyOsim.2497]

3 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Looks like anets preferred way to play WvW tbh

thats why the meta is sometimes referred to as china meta!

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

On 9/7/2024 at 1:17 PM, Chaba.5410 said:

 Like you wrote, most players willing to do so are already doing so.  If a player was never "doing so", why would that ever change?

It likely won't change, because the recent changes that keep happening seem to keep pushing people toward the zerg heavy serious play. Those that weren't already in on this type of thing now either have to join up or as I was saying became indifferent and forgot about it. This SAME type of behavior happened during mono servers, except a lot of servers couldn't effectively train the pugs(I do love how you used that term because it was the case back then) and many players instead just transferred off and up to higher tiers. This behavior eventually led to World Linking, and now World Linking has led to WR. If this current trend keeps going I will not be surprised if we drop another tier in the next 2-3 Restructures. I feel like a broken record stating that some matches are either dead or just horribly mismatched even during primetime, and feel more like a game of musical chairs/duck duck goose/hide and seek as you and enemy groups roam around trying to find similarly sized "content"(though some groups are just like pac man and will try to eat anything).

My thing is it feels like a sport where if you want to keep playing the rules keep changing from being open and broad to tight and narrow or you can't compete. Many games like to tout the line of "easy to learn, difficult to master", but Gw2 just seems like "easy to comp, medium effort to train, yet difficult to find meaningful competetive combat". Sorry for my super late reply but I usually only get to read/post during about 25 minutes of my lunch break at work 😛

[Leaa.2943]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:07 PM, Chaba.5410 said:

 

I mean that looks like EU boonbubble meta that you see every day on the borders. I dont see anything special here, well except the cc spam seem to be missing whilst in EU there is litterally 1000000 pulls over and over and over and over and at some point i just can not take the boring kitten any more and log off. Hell yesterday i even whispered a friend of mine who run a small group that they can have bay, noone care anyway and i don't either. They did not take it, they logged off too. WvW is so unfun right now. 

And you don't have to reply i just needed to blow off some steam, and it is not even aimed at you since we never have any inspireing conversations ever, you just happen to pull up a video of something i see every day in EU and i got sad.

[uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784]

On 9/2/2024 at 7:36 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

Small reality check for some people here:

Unlike the common theme which some forum regulars who are unhappy like to believe: numbers in WvW are not down. Activity is about where it was before WR was added (this week up because of the anniversary event).

If you expect for the developers to do a 180 here, they will certainly not do that based around WR having "failed'. The limited numbers we can see just do not paint that bleak a picture. In fact I am pretty sure that overall teams are far better balanced now compared to before. The outliers are smaller.

The best thing you will or might see is further improvements to the system, ideally some which mitigate some of the "new" issues.

So where does that leave you? You can keep complaining, give constructive suggestions, adapt, or leave. I'd say the chances of WvW going BACK to a server system are very slim to none at the moment.

In know it is an old post. Sorry for posting after a while, but this is interesting. If you do not mind sharing, where do you see these statistics? How often are they generated? I'd like to see how the player numbers vary over time myself.

Edited September 12 by uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 9/9/2024 at 5:33 PM, RlyOsim.2497 said:

thats why the meta is sometimes referred to as china meta!

That's all regions.

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784 said:

In know it is an old post. Sorry for posting after a while, but this is interesting. If you do not mind sharing, where do you see these statistics? How often are they generated? I'd like to see how the player numbers vary over time myself.

There are multiple sites and all are mentioned in this thread, for one you have:

https://kills.werdes.net/#/matches/archive/

which also has historic data.

Then there is also https://gw2mists.com/matches/eu

That said, here is the tally for this week so far:

T1  92521K   94928D

T2   100007K  102406D

T3  96912K 99.455D

T4 79007K 81668D

T5  75800K 77986D

Total: 444247K  456443D

Well on track to hit 500K kills and 500K deaths by end of the match-up. That would be around 9% down from last weeks peak (which benefited from a partial anniversary buff as well as some players going for Woad armor which can now be bought). At current values, 22 hours early, we are down around 19%. EDIT: and before any one wonders, I left out all the rest like K/D etc because I really didn't feel like spending 30 minutes on doing that math again. The formatting is due to me using the sum online website and didn't feel like a lot of editing. Not like actual numbers matter to some people.

For reference, this is what the numbers were 22 hours from now last week Friday the 6.9.24 (22 hours from now):

Quote

T1 104923K 108333D   K/D  1/1.24/0.67
T2 101411K 104756D    K/D  1.15/0.97/0.78
T3 129183K 132605D    K/D 1.28/1.16/0.58
T4 115876K 119634D    K/D 1.33/0.88/0.8
T5 90089K 92838D        K/D 1.16/1.04/0.7

Total: 544,482K  558,166D
K/D average: 14.74/15: 0.9826
K/D median: 1  (0.58, 0.67, 0.7, 0.78, 0.8, 0.88, 0.97, 1, 1.04, 1.15, 1.16, 1.16, 1.24, 1.28, 1.33)

Edited September 12 by Cyninja.2954

[Mike.3196]

On 9/7/2024 at 12:26 AM, Chaba.5410 said:

The ridiculousness of this statement though is evidenced by the numerous complaints on this forum about boonballs. Can have equal numbers but one side loses because the other is in a 50 man organized squad which forum suggests needs to be nerfed because the other can't remove boons.

I agree it's very healthy for game boonblobs have no counter unless you match boonballs with same numbers I agree. I agree as well boonballs is currently saving the game and reason why people are playing wvw cause boonblob is fun 

[Mike.3196]

On 9/7/2024 at 12:37 AM, Chaba.5410 said:

Organize then if that's the counter play. What's wrong with that?

If your don't see the issue what typed  I think that's a play issue understand what's wrong with that 

[Mike.3196]

On 9/7/2024 at 9:49 AM, Chaba.5410 said:

1) I don't find that to be true at all given some of the gameplay I've seen the past few weeks.  Show how it's true.

2) Two equally skilled forces with "proper comps" can indeed stalemate and that's been seen throughout the years across different metas.  The whole point of the GvG movement was to eliminate variables like differences in numbers and builds in order to play around more with skill.  It's like watching a great football match where the teams are so evenly skilled that the score remains 0-0 and the only goal that happens is because one team made a mistake, but that single mistake doesn't happen for like 45m of game time. 

3) This isn't the first years of the game anymore where a larger percentage of the playing population didn't know anything about builds and what is effective and not effective in WvW than they do now.  Yea, it's going to be harder to find groups to "pick on".

 

My remark was in reference to your assertion that devs are programming "equality of outcome".  If they really were, then why would you believe that zerg-busting by a handful of specialized players is dead?  Equality of outcome would be seen in things like giving outnumbered players a stat buff big enough to have 5 players go against 30 and win.  Or a return to high damage arrow carts.  The kind of zerg-busting I think you are thinking of would require these kinds of advantages to be given to the outnumbered players.

Once the GvG movement started putting their builds and comps up on websites like Metabattle, it began the wide-scale diffusion of that information to other groups that didn't GvG, no longer confined to each individual server's forum/website/teamspeak.  The devs didn't do that.

Wait I think you think boonballing is hard I understand and requires skill in 4 support compa I understand now

[Mike.3196]

Until gvgers have limit to amount reses and supports u run it will never be competitive.  That will never happen because players need crutches and improving and learning scary 

[Leger.3724]

I don't understand how anyone can look at Guild Wars 2 pvp videos and think it's anywhere close to fine. The zergs show off how skill-less and awful the combat truly is but even small scale it's ridiculously bad too.

It needs to be driven home to Arena Net - your combat is awful, overly complex and completely devoid of any skill. What kept this game afloat was casual, social pve and nobody offering an alternative to wvw. It's why they had to abandon raids 3 years after introducing them as an example... the combat sucks and nobody wanted to learn it.

And I'm sure we'll get people chiming in that it's actually great or whatever other nonsense. If the combat was good, people would be playing end game content and pvp in large numbers. They are not. The only reason you're saying good things about GW2 combat is because you've wasted thousands of hours of your life trying to master a bunch of gimmick builds and you're above average among the tiny group of people who participate in pvp. That doesn't make you good at video games or Guild Wars 2. That makes you stubborn.

 

Edited September 12 by Leger.3724

[kash.9213]

36 minutes ago, Mike.3196 said:

Until gvgers have limit to amount reses and supports u run it will never be competitive.  That will never happen because players need crutches and improving and learning scary 

True. Most games I've played with large scale pvp though have had or made out of necessity some kind of persistent battleground. Right now, those persistent fight areas are guild blobs or boon blobs rolling around sustaining all of their stacks and durations because sieging doesn't provide that like Anet intended way back when. Sieging right now is more familiar to a police swat raid than an epic elongated battle for territory. 

The gravity of the blob is going to pull players to it for dip in and dip out persistent fights except for when SMC is lit up by all sides or there's a good combo of tight blob with legit composition attacking a border keep and experienced pugs defending. Blob fights just have to last a while right now until they don't have to anymore. 

[devastoscz.9851]

14 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

I don't understand how anyone can look at Guild Wars 2 pvp videos and think it's anywhere close to fine. The zergs show off how skill-less and awful the combat truly is but even small scale it's ridiculously bad too.

It needs to be driven home to Arena Net - your combat is awful, overly complex and completely devoid of any skill. What kept this game afloat was casual, social pve and nobody offering an alternative to wvw. It's why they had to abandon raids 3 years after introducing them as an example... the combat sucks and nobody wanted to learn it.

And I'm sure we'll get people chiming in that it's actually great or whatever other nonsense. If the combat was good, people would be playing end game content and pvp in large numbers. They are not. The only reason you're saying good things about GW2 combat is because you've wasted thousands of hours of your life trying to master a bunch of gimmick builds and you're above average among the tiny group of people who participate in pvp. That doesn't make you good at video games or Guild Wars 2. That makes you stubborn.

 

Lol, why are you even playing then, if you hate the principal mechanics of the game? I actually find GW2 combat to be awesome. If anything, the combat system is what's kept me in the game, no other game has come close to this level of active combat in an sandbox pvp scenario. I don't play end game PVE (other than fractals for money) because I find it kinda boring after a while. As for sPvP, I played it for years but the population decline made matchmaking a nightmare and I got into playing WvW with my friends instead.

I find it amusing that a lot of people in this thread say that group play "isn't fun" and yet there's a fairly active GvG scene and the borderlands are "invaded by boon blobs"; ironically,  the only times where the maps are queued are when comped groups are around. I think the overarching WvW population just happens to disagree with "zergs aren't fun" , because if these zerg hating people were the majority, the comped groups wouldn't even be able to get on map. And yet, every reset, at the highest population time in the game..... the zergs always get in.

I do think WvW needs objectives that cater to smaller groups though. I think small group play can definitely be more exciting and should have a defined purpose in WvW, especially within major objectives.

For example, borrow some Skyhammer mechanics for keeps, where a smaller ring needs to be fought for and capped and only 5 players can join from each side and that would have some impact on the main keep cap. I'm not sure if a giant laser from the sky should down 50 people in a keep, but at least properly delay an attacking force; they could make it a tactivator with a short cooldown.

Even splitting the single cap point into 3 points that need to be held and can be contested within a keep would be interesting, forcing a large attacking army to disperse somewhat. New World had something like that and I found it made for a very dynamic system. It could even tie in with keep upgrades so higher tiers of keep have more cap points. I could see SMC having this is as well, considering there are 3 floors.

 

[Leger.3724]

2 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

Lol, why are you even playing then, if you hate the principal mechanics of the game?

 

There is no alternative.

There was an alternative for a hot minute with New World wars and that was pretty fun. New World suffered from a gear grind and the war content being walled off to the vast majority of players, the inability to interact with anyone outside your server. I was on a war roster for a bit, I had top 5 speed runs for gold capes in M10s for a bit when they launched that.

If Guild Wars 2 had the New World combat system I'd be enjoying it a lot more.

You're taking this the wrong way, the majority of my gameplay is logging on with a guild to boonball and steamroll other boonballs. I'm probably on many of those videos on the NA server if anyone records. Do we win every fight? No. We win most though. I'm just saying when you bring dozens of people together with an objectively bad combat system - it really highlights the problems and they need to keep this in mind while developing Guild Wars 3. 

Hell, the reason WvW still survives is because you can run large boonball blobs. The reason sPvP is dead is because you can't and nobody wants to learn the convoluted gimmick combat system. A zerg can mask that hence why WvW still has a playerbase and sPvP does not.

I've probably posted as much in some of the other threads - boonball isn't a problem. The fundamental combat design is a problem. The fact cloud groups are so easy to survive in while providing so much damage is a problem. Thief is a problem, not because it's OP but because you can initiate and escape so easily. And you can run gimmick builds that do what the thief does with willbender, with some of the engineer specs. Run through 50 people with invulnerable on. There is too much garbage bloat in this combat system that people mistake for their skill and ability. If we forced a million people to play this game daily - the people talking about GW2 combat being good would be nobodies and suddenly they'd have a problem with the combat design of this game. Anyone who thinks the combat design in this game is good is just a status groupy. They're part of a group they feel is special and don't want to lose that feeling.

Edited September 13 by Leger.3724

[devastoscz.9851]

7 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

There is no alternative.

There was an alternative for a hot minute with New World wars and that was pretty fun. New World suffered from a gear grind and the war content being walled off to the vast majority of players, the inability to interact with anyone outside your server. I was on a war roster for a bit, I had top 5 speed runs for gold capes in M10s for a bit when they launched that.

If Guild Wars 2 had the New World combat system I'd be enjoying it a lot more.

You're taking this the wrong way, the majority of my gameplay is logging on with a guild to boonball and steamroll other boonballs. I'm probably on many of those videos on the NA server if anyone records. Do we win every fight? No. We win most though. I'm just saying when you bring dozens of people together with an objectively bad combat system - it really highlights the problems and they need to keep this in mind while developing Guild Wars 3. 

Hell, the reason WvW still survives is because you can run large boonball blobs. The reason sPvP is dead is because you can't and nobody wants to learn the convoluted gimmick combat system. A zerg can mask that hence why WvW still has a playerbase and sPvP does not.

I've probably posted as much in some of the other threads - boonball isn't a problem. The fundamental combat design is a problem. The fact cloud groups are so easy to survive in while providing so much damage is a problem. Thief is a problem, not because it's OP but because you can initiate and escape so easily. And you can run gimmick builds that do what the thief does with willbender, with some of the engineer specs. Run through 50 people with invulnerable on. There is too much garbage bloat in this combat system that people mistake for their skill and ability. If we forced a million people to play this game daily - the people talking about GW2 combat being good would be nobodies and suddenly they'd have a problem with the combat design of this game. Anyone who thinks the combat design in this game is good is just a status groupy. They're part of a group they feel is special and don't want to lose that feeling.

I won't disagree that the combat system has its problems, particularly with something you mentioned: bloat. But as you said, there's no alternative, there's no better combat system out there. Does this make the GW2 combat system "good"? Not necessarily (although I think it is, despite its flaws), but it's better than anything else I've played. I too enjoyed New World's combat system for a bit, but that was also incredibly unbalanced (sword and board, the axe kitten, zoom wizards etc.). Given that its a massively simpler system, it should've been handled better.

I think the level of complexity in the combat system is not necessarily a bad thing, but the effects of it do rear its ugly head in PvP because of a vicious cycle of low population affecting the matchmaking system. Players get placed in matches that are way out of their league in ranked, causing landslide results. If the matchmaking was more even, players would have a chance to learn their professions on a gradual scale, facing people with a similar level of understanding of the game and graduate into tougher matches. But this requires a much higher population. As it stands, the low pop matchmaking leads to pvp cannibalizing itself and less knowledgeable players quitting so as to not get farmed.

I too belong to a guild that wins most of its fights, we usually only lose when we're considerably outnumbered. And that's why we keep our guild numbers low, so the chance to be outnumbered is very frequent, and we enjoy the challenge. Maybe that's why I don't find it mindless and boring, because for the most part my experience is purposefully tailored to be a challenge and coordination/skill based. And when it's not, we log off; clubbing spread out baby seals is not engaging content.

 

[kash.9213]

35 minutes ago, Leger.3724 said:

There is no alternative.

There was an alternative for a hot minute with New World wars and that was pretty fun. New World suffered from a gear grind and the war content being walled off to the vast majority of players, the inability to interact with anyone outside your server. I was on a war roster for a bit, I had top 5 speed runs for gold capes in M10s for a bit when they launched that.

If Guild Wars 2 had the New World combat system I'd be enjoying it a lot more.

You're taking this the wrong way, the majority of my gameplay is logging on with a guild to boonball and steamroll other boonballs. I'm probably on many of those videos on the NA server if anyone records. Do we win every fight? No. We win most though. I'm just saying when you bring dozens of people together with an objectively bad combat system - it really highlights the problems and they need to keep this in mind while developing Guild Wars 3. 

Hell, the reason WvW still survives is because you can run large boonball blobs. The reason sPvP is dead is because you can't and nobody wants to learn the convoluted gimmick combat system. A zerg can mask that hence why WvW still has a playerbase and sPvP does not.

I've probably posted as much in some of the other threads - boonball isn't a problem. The fundamental combat design is a problem. The fact cloud groups are so easy to survive in while providing so much damage is a problem. Thief is a problem, not because it's OP but because you can initiate and escape so easily. And you can run gimmick builds that do what the thief does with willbender, with some of the engineer specs. Run through 50 people with invulnerable on. There is too much garbage bloat in this combat system that people mistake for their skill and ability. If we forced a million people to play this game daily - the people talking about GW2 combat being good would be nobodies and suddenly they'd have a problem with the combat design of this game. Anyone who thinks the combat design in this game is good is just a status groupy. They're part of a group they feel is special and don't want to lose that feeling.

GW2 combat isn't bad, it's one of the best, and you're wrong about a few points but especially in saying that the combat is what makes WvW suffer. WvW suffers from its structure and its player base. GW2 combat is largely what keeps people playing the game in general but especially what keeps WvW afloat and it might be the only thing. 

Cloud groups survive easily from your perspective because generally that's where the players are who are more alert and with builds more tuned to how they move instead of the other way around. 

Most of the problems in your last segment are due to the game modes structure because whatever dynamics in the combat system and in regards to team play is stifled by the frequent and quick time constraints of taking or holding control points. That's a problem because player base behavior over time and dev response has simmered sieging down into rush grabs and everyone has to push their builds towards that. 

Edited September 13 by kash.9213

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Leger.3724 said:

There is no alternative.

There was an alternative for a hot minute with New World wars and that was pretty fun. New World suffered from a gear grind and the war content being walled off to the vast majority of players, the inability to interact with anyone outside your server. I was on a war roster for a bit, I had top 5 speed runs for gold capes in M10s for a bit when they launched that.

If Guild Wars 2 had the New World combat system I'd be enjoying it a lot more.

You're taking this the wrong way, the majority of my gameplay is logging on with a guild to boonball and steamroll other boonballs. I'm probably on many of those videos on the NA server if anyone records. Do we win every fight? No. We win most though. I'm just saying when you bring dozens of people together with an objectively bad combat system - it really highlights the problems and they need to keep this in mind while developing Guild Wars 3. 

Hell, the reason WvW still survives is because you can run large boonball blobs. The reason sPvP is dead is because you can't and nobody wants to learn the convoluted gimmick combat system. A zerg can mask that hence why WvW still has a playerbase and sPvP does not.

I've probably posted as much in some of the other threads - boonball isn't a problem. The fundamental combat design is a problem. The fact cloud groups are so easy to survive in while providing so much damage is a problem. Thief is a problem, not because it's OP but because you can initiate and escape so easily. And you can run gimmick builds that do what the thief does with willbender, with some of the engineer specs. Run through 50 people with invulnerable on. There is too much garbage bloat in this combat system that people mistake for their skill and ability. If we forced a million people to play this game daily - the people talking about GW2 combat being good would be nobodies and suddenly they'd have a problem with the combat design of this game. Anyone who thinks the combat design in this game is good is just a status groupy. They're part of a group they feel is special and don't want to lose that feeling.

NW's combat is a very active one and it can be fun versus players and NPC due to its active style. Its a blend between the over the shoulder viewpoint point and FPS. But its very connection based. I have played it while on broadband and fiber and it plays a lot different. That's not in it's favor in my opinion. The attempt to 'balance' the sides in a fight also made the scheduling of fights come down to a who knows who which leads to a factor of who cares. I wouldn't really called it a RvR. GW2 exceeds NW in the 24x7 fight which is what makes RvR style games attract some of us. The combat system is engaging in a 1v1 3v3 50v50v50. Can it still be improved, sure, is it engaging, yes. I think NW failed in trying to over balance sides of a fight and control when a fight could occur which is why it won't fill that RvR role that players are looking for. RvR needs to be open for a fight 24 hours a day and be the same scale through all times and days of weeks. That's what makes it RvR or as defined here as WvW. NW didn't understand that. 

Edited September 13 by TheGrimm.5624
spelling

[Leger.3724]

1 hour ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I won't disagree that the combat system has its problems, particularly with something you mentioned: bloat. But as you said, there's no alternative, there's no better combat system out there. Does this make the GW2 combat system "good"? Not necessarily (although I think it is, despite its flaws), but it's better than anything else I've played. I too enjoyed New World's combat system for a bit, but that was also incredibly unbalanced (sword and board, the axe kitten, zoom wizards etc.). Given that its a massively simpler system, it should've been handled better.

I think the level of complexity in the combat system is not necessarily a bad thing, but the effects of it do rear its ugly head in PvP because of a vicious cycle of low population affecting the matchmaking system. Players get placed in matches that are way out of their league in ranked, causing landslide results. If the matchmaking was more even, players would have a chance to learn their professions on a gradual scale, facing people with a similar level of understanding of the game and graduate into tougher matches. But this requires a much higher population. As it stands, the low pop matchmaking leads to pvp cannibalizing itself and less knowledgeable players quitting so as to not get farmed.

I too belong to a guild that wins most of its fights, we usually only lose when we're considerably outnumbered. And that's why we keep our guild numbers low, so the chance to be outnumbered is very frequent, and we enjoy the challenge. Maybe that's why I don't find it mindless and boring, because for the most part my experience is purposefully tailored to be a challenge and coordination/skill based. And when it's not, we log off; clubbing spread out baby seals is not engaging content.

 

I think balance is important so experienced people aren't destroying new people. I think the gearing in New World played a massive part in lack of balance. Weapon abilities were huge. Spending tons of gold trying to get the right weapon ability on an armor piece... 

I'm less concerned with balance in that everything needs to be playable or viable. As long as something isn't ungodly better than everything else and there's an accessible, viable rotation of classes that everyone has access to (without needing to buy a character slot)... that's good enough.

League of Legends and DOTA 2 are not very balanced for example, tons of champions/heros get no serious play. What these games do well is you have 4 unique abilities on a bar. You can watch a guide and figure out the best few combos and usages of those abilities. And some combos are very hard to master. It's simple to approach but has some complexity/depth because it's not about figuring out the combo and memorizing it but rather finding the best place and time to use your abilities and combo them.

That's how I think Guild Wars 3 should be in a broad sense. Abilities should be important choices. They should be impactful.

That's how it was (partially) in Guild Wars 1. In pvp one of your monks brought infusion and the timing/usage was incredibly important. Casting guardian was an important decision giving 50% block chance. It wasn't an AOE shout protecting you and 4 allies. You had to look around the battlefield and pick someone to cast it on. It was a decision a player had to make.

It's great that some people on here really like Guild Wars 2 combat. But... I really like the RTS genre and nobody plays it. At a certain point when you make an MMO or an online service game you need to bring players in. Guild Wars 2 brings in players for the casual atmosphere, doing things in large groups like a world boss train or a meta or a convergence or Dragonstorm. And they don't want to memorize 7-8-9-0-3-1-1-1-5-4 for pve or whatever because that's optimal and it's how you stay alive and doing damage together as a group in the raid as the other mechanics of the raid happen and you have to manage those as well.

When we get to combat design like the above - you're basically asking people to buy a foot pedal and tap it to the beat of Thunderstruck by AC/DC while they are in the raid. Some people find that exciting. The vast majority do not. And this is a big reason why Arena Net has spent the last 4-5 years trying to make it a lot easier to get 100% coverage on Alacrity and Quickness. They have their internal numbers and those numbers are saying "people don't seem to engage longterm with our raids, our strikes and other small-group instanced content".

Why? The combat is not intuitive for people and with very few exceptions there's never a point in time where you make an impactful choice to use an ability. It's always better to be pumping out your damage rotation or getting your alac/qness spam on or spamming your aoe heals or whatever. The one major exception is breakbar and with IBS we got the EMPs so now that's just a special action key. And okay fine, that's rhythm and it's not completely devoid of skill. But if I wanted a rhythm game I'd go play OSU or Super Hexagon. They have music that goes with the rhythm.

Edited September 13 by Leger.3724

[Cuks.8241]

4 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

For example, borrow some Skyhammer mechanics for keeps, where a smaller ring needs to be fought for and capped and only 5 players can join from each side and that would have some impact on the main keep cap. I'm not sure if a giant laser from the sky should down 50 people in a keep, but at least properly delay an attacking force; they could make it a tactivator with a short cooldown.

This is how Planetside does it. The whole concept is very similar to WvW. I proposed something like that in the past.

For example in Planetside 2 big structures have 3 side objectives in the outer area that you need to take down to power down the shield to access inner. And defenders can repair them. So you have to split and also defend those objectives.

In general P2 has lots of stuff wvw could learn from. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

In general P2 has lots of stuff wvw could learn from. 

I do appreciate that about New World. They removed the bar that said game companies couldn't take good concepts from other games and meld them together. I think Anet could do the same and incorporate ideas that work elsewhere and would blend in here well. 

[Void.8921]

On 9/2/2024 at 5:02 PM, Anov.4237 said:

They log in for raids and then out again. They dont play the gamemode.

Can’t speak for everyone but a large amount of us do in fact enjoy roaming. A lot of us also have jobs or educations and can only play during raids. 
You’re free to dislike the play style of guilds, but to say we don’t play outside of that is disingenuous as a lot of us spend time just like any other roamer.

Some don’t! Some have limited time due to jobs, education, children, etc. and I can understand only logging on for raids in those cases too. Imagine having 2 hours of playtime a few times a week and log on to 0 content, that’d be pretty boring and a bit of a waste of time.

[Chaba.5410]

On 9/12/2024 at 2:41 PM, Mike.3196 said:

Wait I think you think boonballing is hard I understand and requires skill in 4 support compa I understand now

You understand now your own thoughts about others?  Great!