Stop Treating WvW like a GvG environment

[One more for the road.8950]

1 hour ago, Reztek.7805 said:

Unlike the common theme which some forum regulars who are happy like to believe: holiday months have the highest activity. Last year august had 25% more activity than june (last week august vs 1st/2nd week june. and SOTO released around the same time as Janthir ;)). So even IF numbers in WvW were the same as before the WR in June, that would be bad. But luckily they are lower, just 5% though. 😉

I don't know which are holiday months where you live, but here people essentially stop having any proper uni or school and start having exams in May and into the beginning of June. Children's schools with no exams last until early to mid-June. Schools and uni start back up as close as possible or on August 15th, usually. The big holiday months are June, July and one week into August or so.

So August having more activity than June just proves the point for me where I live.

Edited September 3 by One more for the road.8950

[Cuks.8241]

Here are some numbers, did them manually, hopefully didn't typo. 

These are cumulative numbers of kills for NA, all tiers, all borders per week. I'm more interested in EU but NA has less tiers so it was faster.

2023.05.27 - 2023.06.03 - 473 314

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2023.08.26 - 2023.09.02 - 533 577

2024.02.10 - 2024.02.17 - 440 444

2024.05.25 - 2024.06.01 - 459 082

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

2024.08.24 - 2024.08.31 - 437052

The numbers are definitely substantially lower compared to last year. I'm not sure though if the numbers are actually lower to pre-WR. They do seem to be but it looks like they start to pick up in last week of August. And that's exactly the time when JW hit this year - at least our guild we took a time off for wvw. A full trend would be much clearer.

[Mike.3196]

15 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

I've come to realize that these WvW forums are the echo chamber for the malcontent and disgruntled; people who would rather complain here than make adjustments to their play style.

I don't understand the proposed logic here. The argument that these boon balls only log on for 2 hours a day and then its "dead" or a "barren wasteland"... then where are all the so-called roamers/havoc and pugs the rest of the time? And why aren't they enjoying the non-boon ball hours? Why aren't the maps queued with these players even before the boon balls have a chance to get in? If these players that hate the boon ball were so massively prevalent, the boon ball groups would be queued out of every map by the non-comped players.

Asking to provide evidence (screenshots/videos) of satisfied players is unreasonable; ofc the upset people will be vocal about their feelings. The people who like it, adapted, don't care or are entirely apathetic towards the changes don't go yelling out "I love this, I feel this is reasonable, this is a little better than before, I don't care at all" around the maps. They're actually playing the game instead of complaining about it.

Yeah it's "terrible" that a 20/30/50 man group who spent hours curating their builds into synergy, who put effort into getting better together, who collaborate, who take the effort of getting into comms to coordinate, who play together to hang out with their friends for hundreds of hours... find it trivial to run over 5 enemy glass eles and rangers who erratically throw skills in their direction and are indignant that it didn't immediately drop half the squad. 🙄

Yes that 4 support synergy stellar gameplay 

[devastoscz.9851]

5 minutes ago, Mike.3196 said:

Yes that 4 support synergy stellar gameplay 

And yet somehow, groups kill each other. Must be coordination of some sort huh?

[Dawdler.8521]

23 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Here are some numbers, did them manually, hopefully didn't typo. 

These are cumulative numbers of kills for NA, all tiers, all borders per week. I'm more interested in EU but NA has less tiers so it was faster.

2023.05.27 - 2023.06.03 - 473 314

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2023.08.26 - 2023.09.02 - 533 577

2024.02.10 - 2024.02.17 - 440 444

2024.05.25 - 2024.06.01 - 459 082

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

2024.08.24 - 2024.08.31 - 437052

The numbers are definitely substantially lower compared to last year. I'm not sure though if the numbers are actually lower to pre-WR. They do seem to be but it looks like they start to pick up in last week of August. And that's exactly the time when JW hit this year - at least our guild we took a time off for wvw. A full trend would be much clearer.

As a sidenote on that, NA was at 240k yesterday and 330k kills today so it will probably go past 400k by tomorrow and on track to go past 500k on friday (note that numbers completely ignore timing with NA prime, just taken in my evenings which is like mid day US). Might dull down considerably though of course, most of the activity is always the weekend. In total both EU and NA KDA we are +350k since yesterday, which is quite a bit higher than the around +200k a weekday over the summer. 

Edited September 3 by Dawdler.8521

[Mara Jack.9305]

36 minutes ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

And yet somehow, groups kill each other. Must be coordination of some sort huh?

Boonblobs are too overpowered to the point that your only solution to boonblob is another boonblob

That is not a healthy balance, that's over centralizing a single over powered strat that turns the entire game mode into a boonblob ridden hellscape

[ArchonWing.9480]

14 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

If the tables were turned and boon strips did their job the boon ballers would be all up in these forums complaining about dying to even pugs cause hugging each other would suddenly be bad.

What are you talking about; they already do that lol. I had to  explain to people on these forums that running off on a support to fight the willbenders ganking your tail is a really bad idea. And then when you realize that when you have that kind of support player, then you are truly screwed if you're in the same group with them. But then again i've also heard that Guardians don't have enough stability so standards are kinda low here.

And I do that a lot, wasting so much time explaining basic concepts to alleged veterans. These people don't play the game mode. They may have entered it a lot and collected rewards, but ultimately speaking someone else plays the game mode for them. And apparently some balance devs.

I've always said that WvW is only playable because most of us do not take the meta to its logical conclusion and play 100% (insert terrible disease here). And when people do the game literally breaks down with skill lag.

I mean yes, there's definitely an echo chamber of players that are bitter because they've gotten farmed each and every meta and thus have spent so many years to accomplish nothing, but that's not everyone. There are also plenty of players that have conquered the meta over and over again and reached the top, only to find nothing there.  There have been quite a few names I've recognized that were part of top guilds back then that really did play at a higher level that despise the meta, and there have also been a lot of uhh... balance discord people that were basically b/c teamers that finally found their chance to rule, but they still can't when matched with active resistance. And why?

Because even with all the suistain, they are still too afraid to push and wimpily pirate ship pugs that they outnumber lmao. Like so many groups would do so much better if they just held down the W key.

Personally, I've never had much respect for people that use the generic "adapt" argument, because it doesn't mean much on its own. It's just a vague way of sounding smart. To contrast this, I know someone that can write entire dissertations on the viability of like any ranger topic lol. I may not always agree with them, but I can tell they know what they're talking about. I suppose someone had to compensate for the collective braincell of ranger players.

As for me, I have a bag full of siege, and 2 separate guardians with about 6-7 builds between the both of them plus the standard stuff. Yea I can adjust lol. But you know, just because you can drive around the trainwreck doesn't mean it's not there.

 

Edited September 3 by ArchonWing.9480

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

These are cumulative numbers of kills for NA, all tiers, all borders per week

Why only kills?  If you don't include deaths, you're not able to tell if the result is from player numbers or meta/blobbing/etc.

Edited September 3 by Chaba.5410

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Why only kills?  If you don't include deaths, you're not able to tell if the result is from player numbers or meta/blobbing/etc.

Yeah I know but it was cumbersome to do it. Deaths would probably be better but I was already on it. If someone could parse it (I didnt write any code in like 10 years) we could have full data.   

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

And yet somehow, groups kill each other. Must be coordination of some sort huh?

Just because a fight concludes eventually, does not mean it's engaging gameplay. That just means something isn't 100% invincible--- doesn't mean it's balanced.  2 minstrel people dueling each other may end up in 1 dead eventually but it's more likely it's because someone fell asleep at the wheel rather than one outplaying the other.

Also many supports are bad and play their classes nowhere near their full potential.  Personally, I think it's more offensive that they get so much mileage out of such poor play, than rather the ceiling being so high, even if it's a problem in its own right.  And once people do find a sufficiently large enough comp, and starts to take the boonball to its logical conclusion, gameplay does break down.

Granted, I do understand some people do enjoy drawn out fights, but I think that level of engagement is a bit too low too.

Edited September 3 by ArchonWing.9480

[Chaba.5410]

7 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Yeah I know but it was cumbersome to do it. Deaths would probably be better but I was already on it. If someone could parse it (I didnt write any code in like 10 years) we could have full data.   

Spreadsheets to the rescue!  🙂

Arete posted his.  He's been collecting that data for awhile now.

[Mike.3196]

4 hours ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

And yet somehow, groups kill each other. Must be coordination of some sort huh?

That's your argument they kill each other if you look at current meta and think it's balanced this convo is pointless.

[Charall.4710]

NA Fight Guild says: We're tired of alliances
EU Fight Guild says: We're annoyed but we're coping
OCX Fight Guild says: They're flatout done with WvW because of alliances.

Bruh, these people defending Anet are out of touch with reality and the rest of the community: Dawdler and Cyninja.

[Charall.4710]

4 hours ago, Mara Jack.9305 said:

Boonblobs are too overpowered to the point that your only solution to boonblob is another boonblob

That is not a healthy balance, that's over centralizing a single over powered strat that turns the entire game mode into a boonblob ridden hellscape

This is exactly what I have been saying for a while now and it got worse during alliances cause now the top fight guilds are banding together.

[Charall.4710]

On 9/2/2024 at 7:06 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

This is the perfect example of a confirmation bubble.

Again since you seem to have missed this:

Your assumption and the complaints some forum users bring up are NOT reflected in the numbers we have access to.

You can complain and have dozens of player agree with you, then all confirm each others points. As long as your complaint is NOT reflected in the overall player behavior, it's meaningless.

As is, some players complain over and over and since these same players are all drawn to the same topic over and over, there suddenly is a distorted perception that this complaint somehow applies to all players.

Meanwhile other players are playing the game, not complaining, and if the numbers those players produce are healthy, then the issue is not as relevant as the few complainers might believe. 

Step outside your bubble, take a look at how the mode is doing overall instead of assuming your perception is the only viable one, then try to draw less biased conclusions.

First: you don't have access to any numbers at all since you're not an anet employee.

Second: Way more than a dozen players share my sentiment and if even half of them stopped playing WvW you would login and never get any fights what so ever cause the population on both NA & EU would dramatically dip.

Third: Theres no confirmation "bubble", look at the overall feeling on the forums, ask your guilds in game, ask people in team chat, etc. If that doesn't give you the overall feel then I don't know what will convince you.

Fourth: If you're gonna naysay every single post I make at least go on an alt account and make a compelling argument.

[One more for the road.8950]

25 minutes ago, Charall.4710 said:

First: you don't have access to any numbers at all since you're not an anet employee.

........you are aware that Anet in fact offers API endpoints? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/API:Main

GW2 even have a thriving small developer environment with the occasional Anet employee chiming in.

And the WvW matches endpoint has tons of information you can pull, courtesy of Anet. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/API:2/wvw/matches

Edited September 3 by One more for the road.8950

[Leaa.2943]

I think this topic is a lot larger then what op is saying here. First of all the absoulte biggest problem of everything in WvW is the boonball cc and bubble meta. And with the spears added  it somehow became even worse. The damage in WvW right now is not ok. The fact that this also is not adressed the slightest by Anet even though people feel frustrated as hell is baffling. Do they not watch any numbers? 

The second problem is not really comp groups. The second problem is that Arena Net have catered towards comp groups and nothing but that. It started before the world restruction was added. Defense was nerfed in to the ground and at this point no matter which world i jump on to in worlds that have veteran guilds with comp groups who go for structures there is really nothing you can do unless you have the same. It do seem like Arena Net do not want to make worlds that all have this, they like to pile them up on 2-3 worlds in each region.

Before you who are in the comp group get on your keyboard and hammer hard on it whilst swearing at me, take a breath i am not done yet. I actually do not think that comp groups should be removed. They have always been a part of WvW ,  Compgroups have a part in WvW for those that like to play like that.

That leads me to my last point. Which is that before worldrestruction was added, and before Arena Net nerfed defense down to the ground, WvW was much bigger. WvW had a lot of options, WvW had something for everybody and you could pick and choose what ever you wanted to focus on. This selection is now narrowed down to compgroups on the highest pidestal which have been buffed with steroids for years now to a point where the rest of the options in wvw is shrinking. Not all people like to play in such groups. Not all people enjoy this one thing. We had a lot of options in the past, it was more ballanced and room for anyone.

And before all of you who are now hammering on your keyboard because you for sure are ganking the kitten out of their backline, allthough now a days you quite often where pulled 43 times hit by 56 k damage in one go bypassing downstate and when trying to pull someone out from any group their 12 bubbles they tanking down under prevent you from that. But yes you get fun kills every now and then, but looking back it was different. Or you who do guild raids where your guild managed to kill the large compgroup 1 time last august so GIT GOOD. Yeah you can obviously do that too, but looking back before the nerfs, you could do a lot more then now. And if any of you are trying to say no that is not the case you just don't have a clue. Well i am on your server, on my alts and see your guilds running back until they give up and move border, seeing your havoc group just fall over and logs out for the evening, seeing your cloud getting rolled because of all the new cc that came with the spears, seeing the roamer being chaised over the map by a 30 man group because why not. 

None of that is fun. None of that is including and if you are trying to defend your tier 3 Garrison against such group but you have no group, or the group you have are not comp, or the group you have are to few or what ever reason, well there is nothing you can do but watch them take it. I never felt like that before this madness of nerfing defense, adding more boons, more cc, more cc, more cc, more cc, more boons and then with the new spears somehow manage to do even more of everything.

WvW need to go back to be more including.  WvW is not only about one way of playing WvW. 

Also Arena Net TALK TO US!

[Mara Jack.9305]

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Spreadsheets to the rescue!  🙂

Arete posted his.  He's been collecting that data for awhile now.

The numbers are already in, we can see a sharp decline in activity immediately after WR

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

Activity dropped by around 11%

Death and kills are directly proportional 1:1 in WvW, barring occasional NPC deaths, which the difference between player killed by NPC in those 2 weeks is negligible 

And looking at the previous kills history from Cuks.8241 over the past year, all activity trended downward by around 20% post WR

Consider:

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

That is (-19%) activity in the same time last year

Note that WR was on 2024.06.14

[JuezCosmico.6723]

The best way to resolve the conflict of GvG and WvW is to create two separate game modes (GvG with cloned maps), since I have even seen an elitist behavior of fighting guilds against roamers (send them to other maps whit false callouts) and guilds dedicated to ppt, I usually play both modes so I really know that they cannot coexist, even the class balance becomes problematic, so my suggestion would be greater changes in both modes to differentiate them.

GvG game mode:

• -Fortress, towers and castle without doors (the combat guilds don't even bother to repair.)
• -Increase earnings in death/kill score.
• -Keeps and SMC start directly at T3 and with TP, it doesn't change when captured, so people only use them to move.
• -You do not earn points for capturing or defending.
• -Boons and boonstrips stay the same.

WvW Game mode:

• -65% reduction in boon duration.
• -Increased power and condition damage coefficient.
• -Increased NPC life.
• -boonstrips remove 2 additional boons.

And in the case of a second solution that does not eliminate the root problem, it would be that they reduce the pairing to a week or even to each reset of the day, thus avoiding downtime and the suffering of 25 days of bad match.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

20 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

This is useless, give me a heads up when you want to discuss what I am actually talking about, not what you made up. If not, have fun derailing, I guess. Or write a guide about how to screenshot your overall feeling and experience in a game.

I gotchu bro:

1 hour ago, Mara Jack.9305 said:

The numbers are already in, we can see a sharp decline in activity immediately after WR

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

Activity dropped by around 11%

Death and kills are directly proportional 1:1 in WvW, barring occasional NPC deaths, which the difference between player killed by NPC in those 2 weeks is negligible 

And looking at the previous kills history from Cuks.8241 over the past year, all activity trended downward by around 20% post WR

Consider:

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

That is (-19%) activity in the same time last year

Note that WR was on 2024.06.14

Now you can fight with math and tell me how these numbers are a 'forum only' thing.

19 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Your assumption on scoring is flawed, but that aside, you have not provided a shred of evidence to support your claim.

It's not flawed.  The evidence is above, there's a sharp drop in activity, to mask this they make up a new scoring algorithm to keep things close.  This isn't hard.  

[One more for the road.8950]

13 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I gotchu bro:

Now you can fight with math and tell me how these numbers are a 'forum only' thing.

It's not flawed.  The evidence is above, there's a sharp drop in activity, to mask this they make up a new scoring algorithm to keep things close.  This isn't hard.  

Why. Are. You. Quoting. Me. Numbers?

What's the hangup, bro?

I was stupid enough to chime in after you quoted and answered another user - Visirale, NOT me - with THIS post only. Just telling you what I experience in game. That's it. This only. Nothing else. Read it It says nothing about numbers. It says nothing about echo chambers. It says nothing about evidence. It says nothing about ANYTHING but my experience in the game compared to what I experience in the forum. Read it. Please. I'll wait.

On 9/3/2024 at 1:21 AM, One more for the road.8950 said:

What I see in the forums and the complaining and utter belief that this is the worst thing that happened to WvW and bring servers back yesterday... doesn't at all line up with my experience in game. It's a forum thing. It's like people are playing two different games.

People are complaining about things. But WR being the core of all WvW trouble is not one of them. WR is more of a relief.

Now. I hope you read it. Can you now pretty please stop projecting so hard you put other words and meanings into what I said there fighting some user that doesn't exist other than in your head?

Yes, it's anecdotal evidence. :It's literally what anecdotal evidence is. My experience. My testimony, call it what you want. What me and the ones I play with experience. No facts or numbers can change MY EXPERIENCE: that what I read in this forum is not the same as what I meet in game or with those I play with.

And you tell me to screenshot it.

Gimme a break, bro. You should take one too.

[Mara Jack.9305]

47 minutes ago, JuezCosmico.6723 said:

The best way to resolve the conflict of GvG and WvW is to create two separate game modes (GvG with cloned maps)

GvG game mode:

• -Fortress, towers and castle without doors (the combat guilds don't even bother to repair.)
• -Increase earnings in death/kill score.
• -Keeps and SMC start directly at T3 and with TP, it doesn't change when captured, so people only use them to move.
• -You do not earn points for capturing or defending.
• -Boons and boonstrips stay the same.

WvW Game mode:

• -65% reduction in boon duration.
• -Increased power and condition damage coefficient.
• -Increased NPC life.
• -boonstrips remove 2 additional boons.

This is good

I would allow people in the GvG game mode to freely move servers any time they like and to meet up with any opposing guild any time they like. This ensures there is no downtime if there is another group on any server. Additionally, remove all concept of warscore/ppt, and instead reward everyone based on a streamlined pip amount every 5 minutes, based on participation.

 

Introduce a GvG ranked queue that allows guilds to climb a ladder and earn titles as Gvgers: I.E. Diamond, and give them a border around their character profile 

 

For WvW, I would leave power and condi coefficient the same, lord hp the same is fine as well, but otherwise all your other points are spot on

 

Maybe -90% outgoing boon duration, it does not make any sense for a fully invested DPS spec to be more difficult to kill than a full minstrel firebrand 

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Mara Jack.9305 said:

The numbers are already in, we can see a sharp decline in activity immediately after WR

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

Activity dropped by around 11%

Death and kills are directly proportional 1:1 in WvW, barring occasional NPC deaths, which the difference between player killed by NPC in those 2 weeks is negligible 

And looking at the previous kills history from Cuks.8241 over the past year, all activity trended downward by around 20% post WR

Consider:

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

That is (-19%) activity in the same time last year

Note that WR was on 2024.06.14

Please refer to this post ->

And this one ->
 

 

Edited September 4 by Chaba.5410

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Mara Jack.9305 said:

The numbers are already in, we can see a sharp decline in activity immediately after WR

2024.06.08 - 2024.06.15 - 454 688

2024.07.13 - 2024.07.20 - 402 449

Activity dropped by around 11%

Death and kills are directly proportional 1:1 in WvW, barring occasional NPC deaths, which the difference between player killed by NPC in those 2 weeks is negligible 

And looking at the previous kills history from Cuks.8241 over the past year, all activity trended downward by around 20% post WR

Consider:

2023.07.29 - 2023.08.05 - 496 048

2024.08.03 - 2024.08.10 - 414 928

That is (-19%) activity in the same time last year

Note that WR was on 2024.06.14

Also you are still using kills only as a measure of  "activity".  There isn't a 1:1 relationship there.  Two servers can be credited for a single kill.

[Mara Jack.9305]

5 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Please refer to this post ->

And this one ->
 

 

24-6-7 -> 24-6-14 matchup (Final matchup pre WR)

Total K+D EU (all tiers) - 807801

Total K+D NA (all tiers) - 738752

 

24-8-2 -> 24-8-9 (Final matchup pre Janthir Wilds API shutdown)

Total K+D EU (all tiers) - 803780 (-0.5%)

Total K+D NA (all tiers) - 770414 (+4.2%)

The 2nd post is just a detailed view of the 2024.08.09 skirmish

All these numbers show the activity post WR, so they are comparing post WR with post WR, as compared to pre WR and post WR