Bring back the core gameplay.

[kraai.7265]

You want your playerbase to return? and save the pvp aspect of the game?Remove every hot/pof aspect from wvw and pvp too, and rework everything. Just leave revenant.

First rebalance core classes, meanwhile old veterans and new players can enjoy or experience what gw2 was when it all started. That would motivate older players to come back, veterans to be more active and new players to understand better about game's fundamentals.

After you succesfully find a nice balance between each class, add gliding to wvw and hot specs, and start reworking them towards a good balance between core and hot specs. Imo the best times i ever had in wvw were just after hot patch, when people had the choice to use either hot or core specs and still have a good time, tons of builds variations around the map making interesting fights. And taking back chrono changes!!!

Now, personally, i always hated pof, i think specs in that expansion aren't as good as hot ones, some designs are good others feel rushed, but i know a lot of players really like em, so with some reworks like tuning down FB, buffing renegade, removing DE from game, giving SB either less damage or less mobility, removing holo forge spam and sustain overall, reworking mirage evades and passive damage and reworking scourge from scrap to give them something else to do than beeing an aoe field with legs. Implement them again in wvw.

Only thing i'd remove besides Deadeyes (unfun mechanics to play as or against that ruined thief because of core/hot insane uncalled nerfs) is the warclaw, imo warclaw never should have been added to this game mode, it ruined the small scale aspect of the game, and also the big scale battles, because of how easy is to run back to defend something, making ninja takes impossible, and large battles really chaotic and really loooong and tedious (between the FB meta and the speed factor)

If you add it again, please add a dismount skill, or remove the warclaw's healthbar, so players that stay mounted die if they can't escape quickly.

Also an idea to rework wvw.Remove all existing wvw maps before alliances launch, then select pieces of the pve map, copy them in to another instance and make alliances choose a starting point and make them fight for territory, after a week the alliance with more terrain wins, after a few months the alliance with more wins get a prize for every player in it.

Can you guys imagine? siege battles in castles in the middle of the floating isles in verdant brink? or in the middle of the forest in auric basin? pof maps look really good for this too.You can even change maps every time you want and make wvw players travel all over tyria fighting for territory. And it could give a more rvr like feeling, where players fight for something more than themselves. Current wvw feels like a huge grind for pips or reward tracks, and fightin all this years in the same places is getting kind of boring.

[hunkamania.7561]

Anet is not about giving us what we want so i doubt they'd do core wvw which is a shame. WoW is doing this and they're getting a ton of players interested.

[DeadlySynz.3471]

Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

[Sovereign.1093]

:/ no.

if core all guards team x necros will kill everything. =p

[kash.9213]

Some elite builds are fun and I think you'd lose more by getting rid of them than you'd gain by having core only even if you slowly added stuff back. There's not one big answer to your problem, there will be a lot of little answers and some things just aren't going to go your way.

Also, because you're bad at playing a DE and playing against one doesn't warrant taking it out of the game. It's a fun elite with more than one functional build. Learn what it can do or sit behind a wall when you see one passing by I guess.

[hunkamania.7561]

Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

[Blocki.4931]

Taking well established things away from people is a guaranteed way to lose the rest of the remaining players rather than bringing people who have long lost interest back.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

If only vanilla was all about melee trains...

The most common guild composition a bit into vanilla was to comp two melee parties with two ranged parties and one focus party. It may have been the most inclusive "meta" to date.

These forums are tiresome, people just run their mouths and claim things left and right without backing them up, motivating them, rooting them in anything or even being able to formulate proper arguments :/ .

[Adamarc.7463]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

HoT brought people back? The population plummeted so much they needed to reduce NA from 8 tiers to 4. Do you not recall the whole desert borderlands fiasco? The awful timer-based automatic upgrades? The terrible change to reset time? The horrible pirate ship and dragon banner meta? The changes they had to make to stability?

HoT was good for PvE but nothing short of a disaster for WvW.

[coro.3176]

@hunkamania.7561 said:Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

Seriously. We are at a point in the game where the current state of balance is:

• supports cleansing + converting ~2+ stacks of condi per second from everyone in the group and dps corrupting + applying nearly enough condi to keep up.
• non-projectile aoe bombs hitting for 10k+ per hit from up to 1200 range
• huge aoe circles covering both the target destination and the caster..
• easy full group stealth with no combo coordination needed to make it happen

To add to the last point, combos used to be a big part of the game. You used to drop a water field and coordinate blasts to heal up. You used to drop a fire field to stack might, etc. That's not really a thing any more because the power creep has gone so far past what those combos can deliver. No one bothers with them any more because there are easier and better ways to do the same thing.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@coro.3176 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

Seriously. We are at a point in the game where the current state of balance is:

• supports cleansing + converting ~2+ stacks of condi
  per second
  from everyone in the group and dps corrupting + applying nearly enough condi to keep up.
• non-projectile aoe bombs hitting for 10k+ per hit from up to 1200 range
• huge aoe circles covering both the target destination
  and
  the caster..
• easy full group stealth with no combo coordination needed to make it happen

To add to the last point, combos used to be a big part of the game. You used to drop a water field and coordinate blasts to heal up. You used to drop a fire field to stack might, etc. That's not really a thing any more because the power creep has gone so far past what those combos can deliver. No one bothers with them any more because there are easier and better ways to do the same thing.

If anyone doubts the combo thing said above, try rolling an engi and look at bomb kit, and compare that to PoF skills and utilities. Just saying.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

If only vanilla was all about melee trains...

The most common guild composition a bit into vanilla was to comp two melee parties with two ranged parties and one focus party. It may have been the most inclusive "meta" to date.

These forums are tiresome, people just run their mouths and claim things left and right without backing them up, motivating them, rooting them in anything or even being able to formulate proper arguments :/ .

Agreed. Yes, the whole leap and spike thing was more dull than the myriad of things that you can do these days, that's the nature of powercreep adding stuff to classes they never should have had, plus the fact ANet designed classes to break the tank-healer-DPS trinity only to reintroduce dedicated supports. If you only played warrior or guardian in pug raids back in vanilla, I can see why you'd come to that conclusion. In GvG however, there was a purpose to each group; the melee train were the frontline parties, but without the backline eles and necros you had no heals or damage because AoE was a lot less common than it is now, and blasting water fields was waaaaay more significant since dedicated supports weren't a thing. The focus party had the job of both focussing the enemy backline and protecting their own, when I was in a focus party we had a ranger calling the targets and hitting from a distance, three thieves of which I was one, and a shatter mesmer. We'd call out downs to the driver so the melee party could secure the kill and rally any downs they had (rally working differently to now is a big change in how the meta works imo). If the focus party failed their job then the backline had no protection, if the backline fell the melee had no healing or spike damage and would be sitting ducks. If anything, today's meta is more of a melee train than vanilla ever was, in that it's just one melee boon ball consisting of way fewer classes than before.

[hunkamania.7561]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@coro.3176 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

Seriously. We are at a point in the game where the current state of balance is:

• supports cleansing + converting ~2+ stacks of condi
  per second
  from everyone in the group and dps corrupting + applying nearly enough condi to keep up.
• non-projectile aoe bombs hitting for 10k+ per hit from up to 1200 range
• huge aoe circles covering both the target destination
  and
  the caster..
• easy full group stealth with no combo coordination needed to make it happen

To add to the last point, combos used to be a big part of the game. You used to drop a water field and coordinate blasts to heal up. You used to drop a fire field to stack might, etc. That's not really a thing any more because the power creep has gone so far past what those combos can deliver. No one bothers with them any more because there are easier and better ways to do the same thing.

If anyone doubts the combo thing said above, try rolling an engi and look at bomb kit, and compare that to PoF skills and utilities. Just saying.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:

@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

If only vanilla was all about melee trains...

The most common guild composition a bit into vanilla was to comp two melee parties with two ranged parties and one focus party. It may have been the most inclusive "meta" to date.

These forums are tiresome, people just run their mouths and claim things left and right without backing them up, motivating them, rooting them in anything or even being able to formulate proper arguments :/ .

Agreed. Yes, the whole leap and spike thing was more dull than the myriad of things that you can do these days, that's the nature of powercreep adding stuff to classes they never should have had, plus the fact ANet designed classes to break the tank-healer-DPS trinity only to reintroduce dedicated supports. If you only played warrior or guardian in pug raids back in vanilla, I can see why you'd come to that conclusion. In GvG however, there was a purpose to each group; the melee train were the frontline parties, but without the backline eles and necros you had no heals or damage because AoE was a lot less common than it is now, and blasting water fields was waaaaay more significant since dedicated supports weren't a thing. The focus party had the job of both focussing the enemy backline and protecting their own, when I was in a focus party we had a ranger calling the targets and hitting from a distance, three thieves of which I was one, and a shatter mesmer. We'd call out downs to the driver so the melee party could secure the kill and rally any downs they had (rally working differently to now is a big change in how the meta works imo). If the focus party failed their job then the backline had no protection, if the backline fell the melee had no healing or spike damage and would be sitting ducks. If anything, today's meta is more of a melee train than vanilla ever was, in that it's just one melee boon ball consisting of way fewer classes than before.

Ya, I feel blasting water fields was the right way to heal now it's just brain dead easy. They really ruined wvw with HoT and PoF.

[Sovereign.1093]

:/ just get good. practice, have a core team. you will succeed. else, you really got to lose sometime. its a part of the game.

[hunkamania.7561]

@Sovereign.1093 said::/ just get good. practice, have a core team. you will succeed. else, you really got to lose sometime. its a part of the game.

Get good at what? What are you going on about? It aint hard to be good in the current meta unless you skill click my friend. Everything is faceroll easy

[Justine.6351]

@Adamarc.7463 said:

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

HoT brought people back? The population plummeted so much they needed to reduce NA from 8 tiers to 4. Do you not recall the whole desert borderlands fiasco? The awful timer-based automatic upgrades? The terrible change to reset time? The horrible pirate ship and dragon banner meta? The changes they had to make to stability?

HoT was good for PvE but nothing short of a disaster for WvW.

They needed to condense servers well before HoT. I used to be able to flip every camp and sentry on ALPINE borderland before anybody else started flipping them back. It's when I had to develop methods for making a map hot (no pun intended) so wvw was even playable for myself.

[Sovereign.1093]

@hunkamania.7561 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said::/ just get good. practice, have a core team. you will succeed. else, you really got to lose sometime. its a part of the game.

Get good at what? What are you going on about? It aint hard to be good in the current meta unless you skill click my friend. Everything is faceroll easy

and yet qqs here n whines

[iKeostuKen.2738]

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Only problem is, players were leaving in droves prior to HoT. HoT actually brought more back.

People have to understand, the whole melee train of leap in and spam 1 is excruciatingly dull, and it showed when players were starting to leave in masses prior to HoT.

I'm sure people left because they had a long period of no new content.

[Sovereign.1093]

@hunkamania.7561 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said::/ just get good. practice, have a core team. you will succeed. else, you really got to lose sometime. its a part of the game.

Get good at what? What are you going on about? It aint hard to be good in the current meta unless you skill click my friend. Everything is faceroll easy

not as i see it. :/ but oh well. if they learned their toons and not spam 111, they'll be more efficient.

yesterday, i got my core 4 to 5 players. we had a lot fun fighting more than our nos. from 10 to 20. and we did get some wins.

i'll post later.

[Infusion.7149]

There's just so much powercreep overall that if you allowed only core professions it wouldn't be the same although at least it wouldn't be firebrand+scourge+rev dominant parties but likely guardian+necro dominant nonetheless. Part of the powercreep was due to the introduction of raids and the changes to stability (which killed off mainly melee tactics). If firebrands and scourges disappear then you'd need to blast water fields assuming you can live through powercreeped damage even at the weapon level. Back then people didn't run healing power so the heals weren't as strong (heal power scaling is 0.2 on blast finisher and depends on person blasting). DPS had a larger trade-off due to lack of marauder , so a few pieces of cavalier or soldier's was common.

For example guardian staff has been completely changed and the entire necro shroud mechanic. G.W.E.N. isn't returning.

• Guardian : other than staff changes there were mace changes (which is why mace is used now) and massive merciful intervention heal increases; when's the last time you saw purging flames used. Used to be staff+hammer/greatsword. Rarely did you see scepter or mace or sword+shield because shield rooted you.
• Warrior : the core warrior has had damage boosted via powercreep ; base weapon damage on hammer /greatsword/axe /sword massively increased, weapon traits have 20% damage bonus and Battle Standard (banner) was reworked
• Elementalist : meteor and lava font were nerfed severely and static field is much smaller while every #2 skill outside of fire attunement received damage increases; Power Overwhelming is new ; when's the last time someone called a water field to blast water or a fire field to blast might
• Necromancer: core necro shroud changes ; scepter trait changes as well as core traits reworked such as Death Perception . Scepter has powercreeped over axe. Used to be axe+focus and staff. Core necromancer mobility has also been changed with the dagger trait change , however it's in blood magic.

Roaming/flanking classes such as ranger (without soulbeast damage bonuses it would be far less wanted ; longbow attack + barrage damage increased massively), engineer (was hardly played as core engi), thief , and mesmer (much more damage overall vs launch ; originally used for veil + portal) have undergone severe changes such that 12K damage is a thing outside of backstab. Revenant didn't exist ; herald revenants boost party damage through fury+might as well as assassin's presence.We also picked up 4 stat items , concentration / boon duration in bulk, and foods with -10% incoming damage and such.

[Voltekka.2375]

Next season of "things that will never happen"

[Sovereign.1093]

it shouldnt. :/ core was simply melee train with guards and necro. suprise. =p

[schokelmei.8271]

@"hunkamania.7561" said:Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

I remember people wanting that powercreep. We had a complete different meta in the beginning of PoF. The time when scourges barrier was a good thing and almost everyone here on the forums cried because the fights took forever and they had to deal with condition cleanse. I still remember that there was a thread with a lot of pages was about how a power meta would improve the game and everyone went all in to make it happen.

It's a typical "be careful what you wish for".

[Dawdler.8521]

@gebrechen.5643 said:

@"hunkamania.7561" said:Most people in this thread i guess don't understand the powercreep these elite specs brought to wvw where people get a stupid amount of

-Stealth-Damage-Heals-Boons-Condi's and strips

The game is dumbed down where everything gets 1 shot and people are facerolling their keyboard. Current balance is a mess and the devs don't have a clue what's going on. Going core would help reverse the damage they have already done but most devs don't understand balancing wvw so it'll prob always be a mess.

I remember people wanting that powercreep. We had a complete different meta in the beginning of PoF. The time when scourges barrier was a good thing and almost everyone here on the forums cried because the fights took forever and they had to deal with condition cleanse. I still remember that there was a thread with a lot of pages was about how a power meta would improve the game and everyone went all in to make it happen.

It's a typical "be careful what you wish for".Thats was because it had been ~8 months of pure condi kitten meta due to Anet buffing deathly chill. The reaper literally was to blame for the entire HoT condi clusterkitten that caused everything else to be buffed to counter it. Anet even banned the use of a certain word on the forum that was used to describe it, its insta-infraction.

That people wanted a shift to power again should hardly be a suprise.

Then Anet nerfed it 1 or 2 weeks after PoF released and everyone had already stopped playing reaper in favor of the even worse condi vomiting boon corrupting scourge.

[SexyMofo.8923]

I doubt it will bring anyone back.