Expansion without wvw update?

[Halbarz.3854]

I will buy it but the fact that we haven't received any update on the future of WvW in a very long time is discouraging.

I honestly think the devs would do good giving an update on the mode and what their plans are for it. It would encourage a lot of players and even bring some back :)

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@"Yolaus Kriff.3465" said:I really hoped for some tidbit of info during the anniversary stream to give me hope. Nothing. Why can't any dev even throw us a bone?Any bone they throw at us(the wvw community) is quickly devoured because we are like a pack of hungry dogs, and then we want more and turn on them when they don't have any other bones. What was the last big thing they did for us...links right? How many people complain about that now? The thing before that...reward tracks and pips. Aren't there people constantly posting about making those better because they "suck"? Okay then let's go farther back....the desert borderland. The thing they actually spent lots of time on packaged with HoT and guess what, a lot of the community kitten to high hell saying it needed to be deleted. Why would they make ANYTHING for us at this point? Lots of the WvW community have repeatedly spit on what they have done for us(or even tried to do)so I don't think they want to touch WvW at all and cannot REALLY be blamed for it at this point.

I've been a mostly WvW player since 2013, and the above is sadly very true. Yeah, a lot of the stuff had issues, but the community was less than cordial on a number of occasions, regardless of whether they had a point or not. That said, a large part of the community that are still playing after this time is like me, vocal about what we dislike but we we will still get the expac because we still enjoy the game.

[Shroud.2307]

If there are no changes to WvW and no elite specs, no, I won't buy it. One, the other, or both.

I do enjoy doing Living World stuff and I have fun with PvE once every now and then, but 99% of my play time is in WvW. If the expansion is strictly PvE and no elite specs are included, then I'm not interested because it will only entertain me for a couple days then I'll probably never go back again.

I doubt if I'll quit GW2 all together, but I have definitely been looking forward to the possibility of new content for WvW, be it elite specs or otherwise. If things stay as they are I don't think I'll be able to entertain myself much longer.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@"Yolaus Kriff.3465" said:I really hoped for some tidbit of info during the anniversary stream to give me hope. Nothing. Why can't any dev even throw us a bone?Any bone they throw at us(the wvw community) is quickly devoured because we are like a pack of hungry dogs, and then we want more and turn on them when they don't have any other bones. What was the last big thing they did for us...links right? How many people complain about that now? The thing before that...reward tracks and pips. Aren't there people constantly posting about making those better because they "suck"? Okay then let's go farther back....the desert borderland. The thing they actually spent lots of time on packaged with HoT and guess what, a lot of the community kitten to high hell saying it needed to be deleted. Why would they make ANYTHING for us at this point? Lots of the WvW community have repeatedly spit on what they have done for us(or even tried to do)so I don't think they want to touch WvW at all and cannot REALLY be blamed for it at this point.

You don't seem to know what you're talking about there friend, let me help you:

Links were meant to be a temporary fix, not a permanent fixture. They were added because Anet noticed that the low tier servers were dying while they were working on ... drum roll ... Alliances. That people complain about them in 2020 has to do with the low tier servers being dead again. It should be obvious to anyone who plays or follow this mode to any degree that warrants dressing themselves in an "us". The links have played out their part. They played out their part more than 2 years ago. They were most likely first not even intended to see the light of 2018. When Links came into the game they had just scrapped an Alliance system which they had spent two years working on and announced that they started on a new one from scratch. It's as if they would announce a fourth new Alliance project with this iteration of Alliances to be canned as well, remove EU tier 5 with the husks of Dzago and WSR and then wonder why we were complaining about it in 2023.

Desert Borderland? The problem with Desert Borderland is not that it is a new map. The problem is that it is a bad map. The map is bad because it was likely designed by designers who did not play WvW and did not understand the fundamental gameplay of WvW. The same goes for EotM by the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with EotM the alternative mode, with colors, the overflow map idea or whatever else. The problem with EotM is that it is a bad map for WvW gameplay. It's not particularily difficult to make a good map for WvW gameplay. All they have to do is look at EBG and shift some objectives and textures around. There is absolutely no reason to try to reinvent the wheel when you sit on a working recipe and then be all befuddled about it.

What's next, reward tracks? The changes to rewards have been universally appreciated by the WvW playerbase. That people complain about rewards only has to do with how much more time consuming and less protiftable it is compared to the reward systems of other modes. You say that were are unthankful and unhappy, but why should we settle for less? Why should we settle for so much less? It's not like the other modes are only twice as good. It is far more than that. Imagine how easy gold transfers would be if we were also making 30g/hr or how easy it would be to kit a fresh character if our crafting resources dropped at a pace of 2-3 hours for an ascended weapon.

If I, you or anyone else would go in, make a halfhearted attempt at something and then give up - it is most likely that our boss would step in and suggest that we never gave it a proper try. You get spit if you deserve it, whether that is a bad post or bad a job done. I don't get praise at my work if I do a bad job.

Ed., since I'm a nice guy here are references to everything I mention (2015 reddit AMA with Colin, 2016 reddit AMA with Mike etc.).

Even this: Look at what people are saying even four years ago, people like Intigo from RG who since long have quit this game and his guild turning to myth, it's the same stuff people say today. This meme from this week is almost identical to the concern raised in the first link, which was from november 2012.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@"subversiontwo.7501" said:

Links were meant to be a temporary fix, not a permanent fixture. They were added because Anet noticed that the low tier servers were dying while they were working on ... drum roll ... Alliances.After links had been out about 6 months they were already seeing the flaws in that system, flaws which would carry over into their alliance system they were working on. The fact that some of the largest servers had multiple large guilds willing to underperform near the end of a link in order to raise their chances of getting a link or a better one put a huge roadblock to making alliances balanced, which was the ENTIRE POINT of alliances. How do you counter balance a choice that many players willingly play less or not at all in order to achieve a stronger link for the next matchup? How about those players not playing their main accounts but alt accounts which are very easy to obtain nowadays on a different server during this period, artificially buffing that server's population and weakening their chances for a better link next matchup? How do you counter balance mass transfers to link servers? Would they find a way to make winning matter somewhat, or a way to not have servers intentionally get 3rd to drop a tier or 2nd to stay in a certain tier?All of these questions were things alliances were supposed to combat and at least contain, in order for there to be better server balance. Links seemed to become a permanent feature when they realized they had no idea how to make alliances that could even begin to reign in some of these situations players would willingly create in order for some sort of advantage.

Desert Borderland? The problem with Desert Borderland is not that it is a new map. The problem is that it is a bad map. The map is bad because it was likely designed by designers who did not play WvW and did not understand the fundamental gameplay of WvW. The same goes for EotM by the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with EotM the alternative mode, with colors, the overflow map idea or whatever else. The problem with EotM is that it is a bad map for WvW gameplay. It's not particularily difficult to make a good map for WvW gameplay. All they have to do is look at EBG and shift some objectives and textures around. There is absolutely no reason to try to reinvent the wheel when you sit on a working recipe and then be all befuddled about it.Now here we go! Desert is my favorite map, because of all the options it has compared to both EBG and Alpine(I am not going to bother talking about EotM at all). Desert created more speedbumps for all players, zerg down to solo. Towers and Keeps actually helped control a larger area especially on its release, but there were multiple options of getting through, around, or even over like the fire keep. The initial extra walls were meant to help towers actually control a pass, similar to where somebody would build an actual tower. Don't have the manpower to smash it down or capture it? Go around! Of course players that hated that fact voiced their anger, makes total sense. Unfortunately they were filled with all the rage of a political debate. I like Alpine, and EBG is a very good map, but my opinion there are not enough options because of the close proximity of everything. Much like they add specializations, weapons, and utilities to classes with expansions, if I were to compare maps to something like ranger, I would probably have to say alpine would be a bearbow, ebg a celestial core ranger, but desert is a hybrid soulbeast. That's how I feel with my maps, but at least half the population that speak about WvW on the forums do not feel the same way.

What's next, reward tracks? The changes to rewards have been universally appreciated by the WvW playerbase. That people complain about rewards only has to do with how much more time consuming and less protiftable it is compared to the reward systems of other modes. You say that were are unthankful and unhappy, but why should we settle for less? Why should we settle for so much less? It's not like the other modes are only twice as good. It is far more than that. Imagine how easy gold transfers would be if we were also making 30g/hr or how easy it would be to kit a fresh character if our crafting resources dropped at a pace of 2-3 hours for an ascended weapon.We are in the best position we have ever been. If you only WvW the reward tracks give you pretty much all you need unless you are playing 10 games at once and MUST MAX EVERYTHING ASAP. If people could make 30 gold an hour in WvW, what would that actually do? How would the game change?

If I, you or anyone else would go in, make a halfhearted attempt at something and then give up - it is most likely that our boss would step in and suggest that we never gave it a proper try. You get spit if you deserve it, whether that is a bad post or bad a job done. I don't get praise at my work if I do a bad job.I totally agree with this here, but even their top people don't seem to know what to do with WvW. If you have ever worked in a job where you deal with customers, we as the WvW playerbase have reached that point where we are THAT customer. You know, the one who comes in mad with something they got last time because it didn't work or was spoiled or blah blah blah...which is exactly like the time they came in before that, and before that, and before that. Yeah they still deal with us because we're customers and that's their job, but we kind of get the minimal service compared to the customers that come in and are actually a pleasure to deal with.

Ed., since I'm a nice guy here are references to everything I mention (2015 reddit AMA with Colin, 2016 reddit AMA with Mike etc.).

Even this: Look at what people are saying even four years ago, people like Intigo from RG who since long have quit this game and his guild turning to myth, it's the same stuff people say today. This meme from this week is almost identical to the concern raised in the first link, which was from november 2012.

Thank you for being a nice guy! :) In my opinion, WvW has been the best part the game has to offer, which is amazing considering how much time the devs have put into it since release. I personally want things to improve as do we all, but the WvW community's wants rarely intersect. A post comes up and then that post turns into a multi sided argument just like WvW is(as if that's the only way we know how to handle things, HA!). Overall we ALL want the mode to get some love, more love....even if some of it is bad love I would take it in hopes there is some good in there, my point earlier was we as the community just shoot it all down.

[Waffler.1257]

@"Dinas Dragonbane.2978" said:Okay then let's go farther back....the desert borderland. The thing they actually spent lots of time on packaged with HoT and guess what, a lot of the community kitten to high hell saying it needed to be deleted. Why would they make ANYTHING for us at this point? Lots of the WvW community have repeatedly spit on what they have done for us(or even tried to do)so I don't think they want to touch WvW at all and cannot REALLY be blamed for it at this point.

The problem with this argument is that they have released poorly designed maps for sPvP, the sPvP community gives similarly toxic feedback saying the maps are terrible and need to be deleted and in response Anet improves the map according to the feedback and re-releases them. Look at Raid on the Capricorn which was completely redesigned, you can look at Skyhammer which people hated with a vengeance when it first came out and was later heavily modified, you can look at Eternal Coliseum which had a lot of obstacles added to help with kiting. The sPvP community also incessantly complained about how they hated "circle quest" and in response Anet added that weird League of Legends pvp mode, then when the sPvP community complained about how terrible that was, Anet responded by adding 2v2, then 3v3, then added new maps for 2v2 and 3v3, then added mini-seasons for 2v2 and 3v3. Regardless of how toxic other communities are in providing their feedback, Anet is happy to accommodate them. Contrast that to WvW, where they release a map, WvW players say that it's horribly designed (which I agree with) and in response Anet just says ok, well no more content for you guys then. It's more about the drastically different treatment that the WvW community receives compared to the sPvP and PvE communities.