subversiontwo.7501

I didn't bother reading the post beyond just letting it flash by (sorry). However, I've posted about the topic a fair bit on the Ranger forums in the past. To give a very brief summary: The Druid's most important problems are two. 1) The staff mechanics fit poorly into the variety of WvW content (making Celestial both too important for its heals and not accessible enough in certain situations), they seem mostly built around channelling through your pet to build Celestial power but the pet is used very differently in different types of content. 2) Similar to the staff mechanics not really befitting WvW, the nerfs to the Druid's support functions were done for PvE raid reasons and when Anet sat down to decide on what abilities to keep and which to gut, they kept abilities with mechanics that do not work in WvW (like %dmg spirits) while they gutted it from glyphs and traits. That essentially robbed the spec of much of the roles embedded in its builds. This stuff keeps the Druid as just a PvE raider, solo/duo roamer and clouder. That isn't broad enough for me. However, all it needs is for these things to be adressed (Staff 1 being a narrow cone instead; offensive support being better available in WvW situations through either mechanical changes or moving that support to abilities with mechanics that fit better here - as it used to be).

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > If you play organized with a pug, then the bigger number wins. The average pug skill level is equal across the servers. Whoever says something different is delusional. This thread keeps on giving. Those were unexpectedly striking words I must say :3 . > I got away from organized zerging /.../ At some point you just stop playing the lootbag and either leave the game or begin to create your own gaming experience, which includes clouding as this doesn't require you to play a certain build and to be at a certain position, where you just die in your 30v50 fight. I can see part of this being a motivation for sure, I mean, clouding and/or havocking does give you some freedom that organized groups do not afford you. That's certainly what motivates me whenver I choose to cloud or havoc. I wouldn't say that number disparities on map motivates that very much though, at least not for me, that rather tends to motivate me more to organize closer with friends and bust those groups. In my experience clouding can be effective up to a certain point of organisation and scale of your opponents and once they surpass that you tend to want to organise something of your own to combat it even if you remain small. That is sort of when you transition from just clouding to havocking though since a havoc party basically is a specific party organized to cloud coordinatedly or simply into busting if there is nothing to cloud around so you need to take the attention. > @"Shroud.2307" said: > Don't let the wall Rangers and gank Thieves distract you from the real problems. Keep in mind that the thread mentions changes, not just nerfs. For me it's more of a question of representation and an understanding of that pickup groups are usually the doormat deeper into the mode. Rangers and Thieves can be real problems for multiple reasons with that in mind. It's one of those situations where things are not mutually exclusive. You can for example make an argument for that Rangers do have some niche and things they excel at (that are rarely seen) but also aknowledge that it isn't very good that they are regarded with disdain and often kicked out of public groups. Both things can be true at the same time.

Many shorter ranged weapons already have higher damage outputs, it is only that it is negligible without context. When overall damage output is lower and groups can sustain each other for longer this creates a demand for those weapons. That is what we are seeing budding examples of now in the meta with many "flex damage" builds (builds that combine ranged and melee weapons). This is also why you see salty pirates on the forums so much now, arrr :) .

> @"kash.9213" said: > Also clouding has been a thing since the beginning and no one has cared until recently for some reason. It's not unorganized, it's just more people know what to do with their class at this point and can stretch a little while still moving as a team. Logic would suggest that you are right, but alot of what we witness on many servers suggests that people have become incredibly poor at forming focus parties and coordinating damage. Quite alot of highly mediocre guild groups seems to be quite successful at just tanking through cloud damage and these forums with all their whines about guilds and "boonballs" would also suggest the opposite. Just take a look at this thread. That doesn't mean that there aren't still good havoc players who cloud who can bring their 8-year experience to bear. If we're talking common behaviour though every piece of observation I can gather says that is an exception. You do not see the forums rife with tears about clouds or how clouds are too strong or too oppressive.

> @"Shroud.2307" said: > I feel like attacker/defender balance is extremely situational, and therefore not as in favor of one or the other as some people say. It is entirely dependent on the creativity and knowledge of each, though objectively I do think defenders have the edge. In all fairness, defenders always have the advantage. Anything disadvantageous in defending could always be circumvented by just exiting the objective and going open field. There is never a situation in which a group that holds an objective and is strong enough to put up a fight open field does not benefit from holding the objective. Whether they then decide to use that advantage or uses it effectively is another question. It is never bad to hold an objective, if it ever was you could just choose not to hold it. With that said, looking past the unecessary phrasing of the OP, this time around Threater's arguments or suggestions are not necessarily bad. At least not the spirit of what he is trying to say. The passive system has not proven to be superior to the older active system or to not warrant a third system that builds upon what is good but reintroduces more active "stocking" or preparations. At the end of the day though, as with everything else, the real problem for PPT is coverage. It doesn't matter if it is passive or active if whatever you are trying to achieve with it is unfairly slated when you go to bed, work and school. Everything regarding passive, active, fun or unfun upgrades are secondary to the problems related to night-capping and population imbalance. I would start with mechanics dealing with that whether it is simply applied to score or more intricately and creatively applied to the objective mechanics somehow. I favour score because it is a simple db change but I could certainly see arguments being made for why outnumbered mechanics could be used to directly affect objective upgrade processes and vulnurabilities. Perhaps not so outright as to make them uncapturable when outnumbered but they could easily twist parameters of upgrade pace, timers etc.m if they wanted to and indirectly affect scoring through upgrade time. Considering that score has not been properly addressed in 8 years, it is an aim-small, miss-small issue for me though and I'd keep it simple.

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > clouding [...] thievs and rangers > I absolutely don't see clouding a something negative. It requires far more individual skill from the players than boonballing. Sure it does bud, that is why all the good players do it. I do agree with you that clouding isn't necessarily something negative though. I think it has a place in the mode same as any other approaches. I merely pointed out that we see more and more rather unorganized groups and as a result you are going to see more complaints about such builds and classes. Your post kind of underlines that.

I'm pretty sure the two most common classes that are going to be brought up are Engineers and Guardians because clouders don't like people running support and as organisation in the mode falls low, more players end up as clouders. The two classes I think needs to be looked at the most are Thieves and Rangers. Thieves have a very odd balance at being underrepresented at large scale and overrepresented at small scale. Two wrongs do not make a right as the saying goes. The whole picking fights at will, committing and quitting, issue is not well designed. Just look at all those Thief meta builds running the same utilities etc., regardless of spec. Deadeye was also always a concept-design problem that goes deeper than just simple balance. A sneaky ranged dude is going to have nightmare balance and alot of built-in anti-fun. It's a typical example of where something that looks cool in concept is not very good design in gameplay. Rangers just have general representation issues and most of the things that get brought up when people complain about them are rather destructive but not particularily powerful niches (like tower pew and imob). I would rather that these classes got some stuff that made them appealing in groups, fit into broader conventional play, covered some holes in their design and made sure their concepts actually panned out well in gameplay.

I hate to disappoint but this question has the same answer as almost every other question: The people who used to create those events are gone, reluctant or hindered/discouraged to create such events due to the state of the game mode. Most of these things were not created by a single, lone player who did everything by themselves. They were created through cooperation and the initative of empowered groups of friends. That does not stop you from going out and doing it today but it answers why the people who used to do it no longer do.

> @"lordmeowalot.8135" said: > Title! What is your ideal squad composition? > > You can state your ideal squad size as well or state the the minimum squad size and composition then add numbers and classes/builds in increments. > > Also, about 5 years ago there were usually 3 or so squad members designated as gankers (I forgot the term) for coordinated bursting of enemy stragglers and squishies. It was more prevalent during GvG but is this still a thing? **The old and its downfall** It was commonly known as a focus party or havoc party (what Strider mentioned I have not heard before but I have heard people refer to the party as setting up picks so such a name would also make sense). It ceased being a thing when HoT released in 2015. The last time I heard some group actively using it was early-mid 2016 back when some groups still split out Tempests from their parties (to cross/splash heal over the priority mechanics and thus had two broken parties [ie., 5+5+2+3]) but even then it was just one option to comp among multiple that was already growing increasingly rare. Also, many of the trends that came with HoT had already begun appearing so the HoT balance mostly just cemented them as the norm same as how the new elites did the same for PoF, just cementing existing norms and throwing balance further in favour of what already was popular. Interestingly, both expansions did that. **The remains, rise and other remaining content** There are similar elements to it today at times, but that is mainly in oversized (50+) pickup environments and they are composed more like oldschool range parties of the same era. So you could just as easily argue that those are more so remaining elements of vanilla ranged parties than vanilla focus parties. Considering that the new map caps and the general state of the mode has made 50+ organisation increasingly rare, so have those elements also become, turning that aspect into more of just unorganized individuality again (ie., people solo-havocking and clouding like that on their own on classes that permit). GvG may still have parties that have different weight and balance to them for somewhat different roles rather than building every party equal in weight or similar in role, but the kind of focus party that used to exist also existed in a very specific rock-paper-scissor balance that we have not seen since. In fact the only reason that we may have seen traces of it in oversized pickups has to do with that superfluous clouds turning organized recreates those range parties and then you may need to find something to oppose them. In most cases, unorgnized clouding is just shrugged off as it doesn't have the coordinated damage to be effective. The old focus parties mainly existed to defend and attack range parties. Range parties existed to support (fields) and attack (AoE) melee cores that clashed with each other for position control. Even now with the past year of damage and healing nerfs we still do not really have that kind of sustain for position control meaning one side usually breaks the other too quick to sort of spawn such a division of roles. Instead we see groups that either dominate other groups through advantages in one of those dimensions (melee, range) or we see a segmentation of tactics (range first, melee after) when two sides are more even; with the ranged tactics establishing advantages to pounce on by moving into melee tactics after the fact. The latter can be seen in both 15v15 scales as well as 30v30 scale and 50v50 pickups. The former is quite common to see when a cloud is weak vs. a group (often seen in complaints here on the forum) or when a smaller group is incompatibly stronger than a larger group (busting). **The wider implications and most recent discourse** With that said, WvW is still diverse enough to allow a havoc approach to be effective, however, that kind of organisation is just rare to see these days. You rarely see people havoc for the same reasons as you rarely see the kind of public-privates that used to be normative in vanilla. Instead you see more of the opposite, private-publics (eg., build-exclusive, disc-mandatory pickups) or just all-out privates at any scale under full blobs. Players and groups have become very entrenched and you see fewer and fewer of them "cross-moding" like that, likely for the reason that so many of those groups have quit and people have gotten entrenched by being defensive/protective of what they have. This due to a demography change (fewer socially active mode-ingrained players; eg., even in disc-mandatory pickups you can see 90% mics turned off - people "~playing alone together just or next to each other" as GW2 combat systems designer Jon Peters once put it) and a direction/system that takes content for granted (just send players into WvW, there will be tags) while ensuring that it can't be taken for granted (caps, caps, caps) and stifles content rather than encouraging it. I've remarked on it in passing before, but I believe that this recent divide and sharpening tone on the topic of guilds stems from that they are beginning to become so rare now that their presence is becomming exceedingly powerful (more attention to who has content, more attention to meta etc.). There are more mismatched content matchups, not just per weekly reset but also day-to-day and on-map. That is interesting because it seeps through so many topics on this forum from players' attitudes to servers, to content and down to topics like these on balance, classes and composition. There is also some recent trends of groups that have been entrenched in specific subsets of content re-entering more of the day-to-day content (eg., poor roaming has benefitted busting, poor pickups have seen groups entering GvG and poor GvG has then seen those groups re-entering maps). When the GvG scene is 15, there are fight guilds around 25 and pickups around 50, that has an inherent balance to it. Something similar can be observed down in scale. Recent changes and trends are creating vacuums here. All of that is actually quite fascinating but no room to dive into it deeper here. This is already long enough and then some. The only reason I am blabbering about all that extra stuff here is to perhaps broaden your perspectives a bit and remind you that an ideal composition is both a very specific (to what scale/end) and narrow (if you want havoc, you can still havoc, go out and do it, you don't need a squad's permission - you just need some likeminded friends assuming you can find some on your server!) discussion.

When you say regional server you mean a separate region, right? Otherwise you seem to have spent quite alot of time arguing infrastructure without considering the infrastructure.

> @"FrodoBiggins.9184" said: > Let alone anyone who thinks they can kill anyone with condi is HARD COUNTERED by Engi comps! This seems to be your main concern. The question then becomes, in what way do you intend to play condi? I can't be bothered to discuss it at length again but in past recent threads with people like you I have pointed out that there are very few groups around that have actually attempted to sample this balance and can raise valid concerns about it. In most cases people seem to complain about situations that are uneven to begin with or isolated (such as them wanting to play condi in a pickup group that is predominantly power-based for personal, singular, self-motivated reasons). What they then go about suggesting will do nothing to change the situations they are concerned about. It will only impact situations they themselves do not partake in.

This thread has really taken a sharp turn for the worse again with people arguing semantics or whatever spirit of Alliances. **An alliance, the proposed entity in the system, is just a guild.** It is a way to stick 5 guilds into one piece or to divide your guild into 5 pieces, however you choose to see it. The Alliance on a World is just like a Guild on a Server today. There is no major significant difference. Alliances can't kick players off Worlds anymore than Guilds can kick players off a Server. That is just nonsense. Whether its authority or power is just semantics. **Alliances, the system, has two major perks remaining:** * **Guilds will be automatically transfered together every 8 weeks** * **Worlds will be seen as very high for players in a guild designated for that World but full for other players when 90% to the cap** That makes the guild less prone to transfer simply because the world is full. Do we not want guilds to stop transfering just because their servers turn full? Do we not want players to try to form guilds and communities that can go out there, form tags/squads and create content? It really is that simple and that is all anyone here needs to know unless they are curious enough about the system to dive into its details and discuss them out of sheer interest. **So what are the wider ramifications beyond those basics?** It also makes manipulation by transfers less impactful even if someone can throw tens of thousands of gold at it every 8 weeks to upset the reset. They can throw money at it but whatever investment into stacking with transfers disappear from the system every 8 weeks. I'm sure someone will try. I'm sure there will be resets that disrupts the system and turns some matchups bad for the duration. However, it will not be persistant or recurring. It will be less needed and less impactful to fork out 200g every 8 weeks just to reset yourself. People can still move. People can still pay to move as is now. People will just have alternatives or be less prone to feel forced to move. In fact, they could probably raise the transfer costs for any transfer to 600g/1800gm to make sure they got something back from anyone desperate enough to transfer within an 8 week window. I sincerely believe they don't make that much off the recurring 200g/500gm transfers even if they still continue to some degree of mass. If they did make bank out of it, I would assume them to farm that harder by making the mode more appealing to play. That's why I always say that it is a question of neglect before it is a question of business. It also makes sure less players will quit because of the 200-600g transfer wall and that players who want to make new guilds do not have to climb the transfer wall first. It also makes sure that if you have IRL friends who wants to come play WvW with you, either of you do not have to immidiately climb the transfer wall (or that you will not have to give up your entire existing ingame circle of friends just to get your IRL friend aboard it). If friends can play that means box sales. That has to be a hell of alot more lucrative than milking a dwindling existing playerbase dry. To any sensible business, not being able to sell your product because you have yourself in a twist is a major prioritized red flag.

> @"Shroud.2307" said: > > @"God.2708" said: > > Does anyone actually have any arguments about PoP being overtuned/overpowered? Or is 'People get boons if you cure their conditions' all you've really got? > > > > The only thing I really see being problematic is the fact chill gets converted to alacrity, which allows the scrapper to get an okay uptime of a boon it generally should not get access to. Chill is also not nearly as uncommon as it should be, and something as simple as a tempest support putting out frost aura occasionally allows a squad to gain way more alacrity than it should (which acts as an inadvertent nerf to the tempest too). > > > > And possibly that immobilize gets converted to resistance, but resistance does not get converted to immobilize (please do not bring that back). > > > > Keep in mind purity of purpose use to exist on e-gun cleanses only (which is 60% of a scrappers cleanses anyway) long before PoP came about with > > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inversion_Enzyme and scrappers still didn't get used as supports. It started getting looked at in the May 2018 update when MDF got a huge buff, Med kit got reworked, and defense field applied stability. That was 3 months where PoP existed and scrappers were 'meh'. They became staple in start of 2019 with the gyro/superspeed rework (compounded by the anti-toxin rune silliness). So I remain skeptical that PoP is in any way a problem beyond the resistance/alacrity access it gives scrappers (which is a small acceptable change that shouldn't be 'hard' to implement) > > > > One trait dictating whether or not Condition builds can reasonably contribute to large scale fights seems like it might be a bit strong to me. The issue with measuring that lies in conditions' own mechanics. They stack from multiple sources so the balance of power relative condi needs to be sampled from groups dedicated into either damage profile. Power still benefits from control conditions so even a very skewered power meta will have an abundance of cleanses. Most people overlook that when they consider conditions ability to scale up to content levels. Conditions also makes alot of other factors pointless outside of the control war. That is sure to make the developers err on the side of caution. If you remember the epi meta for example. If people want that to change they will have to nerf down the condition caps by alot because conditions still has the ability to tick for many times a HP-pool / tick when the caps are hit. Power is simply more common because it is easier to organize, use in unorganized conditions and less prone to be all or nothing. Some groups use condis at larger scale than typical 5-10 man roaming/busting comps though and it does have its own interesting tactical factors. It's one of those things in the game that can do alot more things than most people are aware of since it is (has to be) strongly written off by typical pickup authorities.

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > > @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > > > > > > The server population caps are different for different servers (and can be manipulated by exploiting the system while that isn't policed) > > > > > > > > > > Not to be argumentative, but do you have a source for this? > > > > > > I don’t disagree that the population *levels* are different in each server ( for many reasons) > > > > > > But the actual *caps*? I’ve never heard that. People speculate, but never seen where the caps are different. > > > > > The primary source is Tyler Bearce's old Relinking announcement thread on the old forums. It states that _caps_ are changed based on host-link combinations. Granted, things do no longer have to work like that. It is an old post and there are examples to the contrary. For example, the same post states that there are counter measures against servers trying to dump population by boycotting for a week or two, but recently we have seen servers do that just fine. > > > > The other issue is more of a rumour, but it is established well enough to be the greatest troll in the history of the WvW forums if it isn't true. That is that BB is kept manually open because it is the only server highlighted with that language definition. So, everyone in EU could transfer there. There may be a source, but I have admittedly just heard so many different players on different servers taking it for granted by now, so I have begun to do so myself. I shouldn't ofc. > > > > > > Got it. > > You are likely correct, and we both know that Anet won’t publish actual pop data. I wish they WOULD publish a population hours chart again like the infamous one from a couple years ago. Just with server names, but no actual ‘numbers’. I would like to see that too, I enjoyed that slope and it put things into perspective for alot of people. It really showed how big the differences were. At the same time, I don't know which region you play in, but I am almost exclusively on EU and here there are so many nomadic communities now that they are becomming norm and the server populations changes quite drastically every relink. The few remaining popular commanders and guilds have so much attraction that they will completely empty out or fill up a server over a single weekly update. Other servers are almost entirely carried by single guilds by now, so that guild can make the server implode as a server. Those are some of the realities the "server identity" people here on the forums do not see.

> @"Strider Pj.2193" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: > > > The server population caps are different for different servers (and can be manipulated by exploiting the system while that isn't policed) > > > > Not to be argumentative, but do you have a source for this? > > I don’t disagree that the population *levels* are different in each server ( for many reasons) > > But the actual *caps*? I’ve never heard that. People speculate, but never seen where the caps are different. > The primary source is Tyler Bearce's old Relinking announcement thread on the old forums. It states that _caps_ are changed based on host-link combinations. Granted, things do no longer have to work like that. It is an old post and there are examples to the contrary. For example, the same post states that there are counter measures against servers trying to dump population by boycotting for a week or two, but recently we have seen servers do that just fine. Ed. It should be underlined that the post was made during the Relink beta, so while it does say that those things are in that iteration/patch, it does state that they are looking at alternatives for alot of the information listed there. The other issue is more of a rumour, but it is established well enough to be the greatest troll in the history of the WvW forums if it isn't true. That is that BB is kept manually open because it is the only server highlighted with that language definition. So, everyone in EU could transfer there. There may be a source, but I have admittedly just heard so many different players on different servers taking it for granted by now, so I have begun to do so myself. I shouldn't ofc.

> @"manu.7539" said: > > @"subversiontwo.7501" said: That has nothing to do with people's attitude and everything to do with ArenaNet's management. > > Peoples attitude has something to do with it but I agree that the dysfonctionnality of WvW is mostly caused by Anet lack of care about GvGers. Give'em their own things (maps rewards etc) so they leave WvWers do their own. What's the point to have full servers and huge WvW community if we dont cooperate for the same goals: win or do your best at least. > Friend, I think you grossly missed my point: - The scoring equation is broken (making stacking players in the wrong region at the wrong time and avoiding PPK the most effective) - The server population caps are different for different servers (and can be manipulated by exploiting the system while that isn't policed) - Even the map caps have a tremendous and volatile effect on players' ability to play (and can also be manipulated with little risk of repercussion) Things like that makes people stop caring about the ladder. Granted, they should definately give the GvGers a place to effectively GvG in. However, that has nothing to do with the ladder or the divide of PPK and PPT. In fact, I see it quite contrary to how I think you see it. I believe a place to GvG in would make guilds happy, resulting in more guilds being formed that also play on maps and share content by putting up public tags.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > @"KrHome.1920" said: > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > > @"hunkamania.7561" said: > > > > > @"Dawdler.8521" said: > > > > > > @"hunkamania.7561" said: > > > > > > they got 50 million engis in every blob it seems converting any condi into ezpz boons. They nerfed all the dps and didn't touch engi that has > > > > > > > > > > > > - ezpz no skill stealth > > > > > > - boons for free by just condi clearing > > > > > > - best healer by a country mile > > > > > > - 80%-90% superspeed uptime > > > > > > > > > > > > i'm sure I missed some things but hitting a blob feels like hitting a brick wall these days is all i'm saying... > > > > > Yet the blob that wins is often the one that has 50 million necros so that they can bomb the enemy blob into oblivion in seconds. > > > > > > > > > > Even if they deleted the scrapper, you would either see: > > > > > A ) More AoE healing, more stab and boons, about as much stealth (couple more mesmers, a portion of scrappers would be replaced by tempests again and others would be firebrands) > > > > > B ) More condi damage (with less cleansing sustain, zergs would go more red carpet of death). > > > > > > > > > > Yay...? > > > > > > > > > > What should happen is blanket nerf on AoE boons and boon duration for all classes, all sigils, all runes. Add a blanket nerf to all passive and basic AoE healing as well and instead strengthen combo fields, like how it was in GW2 vanilla. > > > > > > > > > > But no. It's the eeeeeeevil scrappers fault! **Because Purity Of Purpose**. > > > > > > > > > > Lets just also completely ignore the kitten firebrand that *dominate* zerg support. > > > > > > > > What's necro's have to do with with the facts i stated? you cannot tell me that engi isn't overtuned atm. It got 0 nerfs when it was the top tier secondary support now it's not even close. > > > > > > > > > > > > Guardian heals are nerfed to the ground my guy. It's mostly a boon bot atm. > > > And yet the firebrand is still the top tier primary support, is it not? > > > > > > Also, 0 nerfs? The competetive split absolutely gutted many traits. Healing modifiers got cut in half. Yes that includes purity of purpose, which saw a 50-75% reduction in boon durations. And yet the scrapper is more common than ever. This alone should tell you it is a global problem. Even deleting it would do nothing, other classes pick up the slack because they are equally as strong or stronger. > > Purity of Purpose is a problem. Even when the boons it creates have only a 1 second base duration, the group mechanic of this trait is too strong. > > > > Scourge has a similar mechanic, but it works only on the scourge. Image how ridiculous scourge would be if it could share the effect of Feed from Corruption with its group (even at reduced durations). > > > > Long story short: Purity of Purpose should just work for the engineer itself, but not for the group. The boon durations should increase slightly as a compensation of course. > And what I said earlier was *"what should happen is blanket nerf on AoE boons and boon duration for all classes, all sigils, all runes"*. Which is again why its silly to focus on purity of purpose and engineer. Yes it includes purity of purpose. But need to happen for **all** classes. You realize they did exactly that with the 2020 rebalance initiative, right? There are some buttons hardly worth pushing now and while the rebalance has made sure more stat-combinations see use, some stat-combinations did take quite a dive. Yet, stat-wise still a positive trade (ie. toughness/concentration). > @"God.2708" said: > Does anyone actually have any arguments about PoP being overtuned/overpowered? Or is 'People get boons if you cure their conditions' all you've really got? Overall, the only real issue with PoP is that conversion and corruption overall has become a fair bit too common, making sure the boons and conditions do not leave the cycle as quick as they did back in vanilla. Instead they ping back and forth under new sources of application. I think there are plenty of positives to gain from making both corruption and conversion less common, leaving them as a very rare improved version of simple application, rip and cleanse that can remain more as is. On the flipside, I don't think that is the reason people keep complaining about PoP though. I think PoP is frequently brought up because the forums are full of people who think a stale 1200-range control war is going to make them comparatively better to players or groups who are in fact better than them. They just want easy bags clouding or hiding behind others and want to feel rewarded for that type of gameplay. They don't realize that people will adapt and no one will offer to be a meatshield under those conditions. The hate is more on groups being organized than PoP.

Do you remember when ArenaNet commented on data from PvE, pointing out that experienced players did 10x the damage of inexperienced players? Something similar applies to WvW and not just in regard to damage done. The groups that are the best at whatever the current meta is were better than you at whatever the meta was before or what it would come to be with changes that you suggest. It may sound cold but I am actually trying to help out by pointing that out. There are far too many self-delusional complaints here these days as the forums are full of nabs and tower heroes. You can't really make suggestions that even out the difference in ability or experience. Even if you could that would be no fun as it would imply a hyper simplification of the game. Instead, if you want an adequate understanding of whether the game is too tanky or too bursty, look at what those groups that you find oppressive are capable of doing to each other. That should give you a good idea of what is possible or not or exactly how tanky or bursty the meta is. Do they tank each other forever or just you? Do they one-push each other or just you? Also, consider that the behaviour of the "good" groups tend to work in the reverse of how you believe it to work. When the meta is bursty, the "good" groups look to optimize survival. When the meta is tanky the "good" groups look to optimize effective damage. If the balance is leaning towards the tanky it rewards playing aggressively coordinated. Many "good" groups find that more fun, when aggression is challenging and rewarded. They find it less fun when cautiousness is challenging and rewarded. They will get rewarded either way though. Let's look at some trends right now that I think most of you here have not noticed already: - Some good groups have stopped using Minstrel Firebrands (Yes, you read that right) - Some good groups have begun using high-damage flex-distance builds again, like Berserkers (Yes, melee damage, at least in part) - Some good groups have begun using things like Thieves and Rangers even on maps and when larger than 15 (Yes, not just GvG) These are just some of the more popular risk-rewarding opts popping up here and there now (with damage given more value) and may affect future meta.

> @"manu.7539" said: >The game I enjoyed the most is ruined by careless peoples so I'm done until something happen to fix that losers mentality. You're going to be waiting a long time then, because it only took the players a couple of months back in 2012 to figure out that the best way to "win" the ladder was to stack and play at 5am when everyone else is asleep. Then just guard your own objectives PPT-style when the other two servers play and let them fight each other for the scraps and waste their time chugging through the upgraded objectives you left them. NA and EU dealt with this realization differently, with NA's natural night crews only being SEA groups somewhat limited in numbers. So NA actively recruited cross-region to gain more coverage stacks. In EU there was a more sizable early natural influx of Canadians and South Americans due to langage-denoted servers so few people in EU ever bothered recruiting NA groups. This is why NA cares more than EU but also why no one really cares. If you want competetive group play look into the GvG scenes. It may be unsupported by the developers but it is your best bet to feel like you are apart of something that lets you more directly measure up opponents and give you a sense of competition. It's the only places where enough people occassionally do care to give some sense of accomplishment. That is why people keep mentioning that word to you. There's no point in harping on about competition where there are not 3+ sides looking to compete and when there are too many obstacles in the way hindering people from trying to compete the way you'd want them to. That has nothing to do with people's attitude and everything to do with ArenaNet's management. You could argue that the game was always meant to be casual but at the end of the day, the ladder is broken, it has been pointed out and given suggested solutions since 2012 and it has not yet been fixed. Casual or not, that is primarily why people do not care.

I am not much of a meta-mongerer myself but if you are comming into this from a blank, this is a good starting place for you to see what is common/norm: https://gw2mists.com/builds Here you have more alternatives with a division between large- and small-scale builds: https://metabattle.com/wiki/WvW Just keep in mind, that if you are looking for solo- or small-scale content there are going to be quite sizable experience differences between you and many players that are far more noticable the less friends you have around you, while the balance between classes and builds is generally considered worse. Anything high up in the larger scale lists will likely get you invited into groups and make you at least somewhat appreciated even if you still have alot to learn whereas at smaller scale you should not really consider something like Holorifle to be on par with something like the Thief builds even if both options are listed in the top tier and you should prepare yourself to learn by dying alot more :) .

It depends on what kind of competition you are looking for I guess. The ladder on NA has always been more of a thing, so if you are looking for PPT and coverage wars it is likely NA all the way, if the involved servers are not all full and locked. EU has never really had any servers that have gotten together to be #1 in PPT (at least not since early vanilla), has no tradition of buying guilds for gold and have always been more plagued by general cross-region and server-cap issues than purposeful stacking, making players care less about the ladder and seeking matchups on sweet spots on the ladder. EU has always had more players though, making EU tours more popular among NA players and guilds rather than the opposite, so if you are looking for more vibrant PPK content then EU is probably still the better bet (even if that also tend to vary a bit with eg., the NA GvG scene dis-/reappearing more).

While I don't necessarily disagree with the outlook of this thread (it is pretty boring to see SM so stale), I'd have to chime in with the other people who have already mentioned it here: It is just a sign of the times. This, like most other things, is tied to how there is just so much more unorganized clouding going on to so much less organized squads. SM gets upgraded more and more these days because many servers have begun treating EBG as an overflow because so many people just go there to cloud while they wait for queues. Whatever server dominates the matchup just ends up holding SM for a very long time. Making it upgrade slower will do little to nothing to change that. Most servers simply have trouble getting a group that is equipped to break a cloud with siege onto that map. It often ends up being cloud v. cloud outside the walls instead. The objectives would flip more if EBG was more of an alternative to form groups on or move groups to. EBG has taken over the role of HBL for many servers in that regard. It is also similar to when people suggest ticks for EotM as that might clear some of the people using any map as an overflow, for pip-ing out or for maintaining pips while they wait for a queue. On the other hand, the far superior solutions to any of these problems is to look at the overall infrastructure of WvW (server- and map backends) with things like Alliances and EotM's backend tech rather than just making its map more appealing to karmatrain on. It's the same old story really and all the roads lead to Rome.

> @"kamikharzeeh.8016" said: > the guilds sorta know each other anyways. the more weeks u play, the more guilds u get to know, be it on good or bad terms. servers lost their identity anyways. the desolation of 2-3 years ago is spread to 4-5 servers, WSR is since some links now not on the host bc the farm on the "holidayserver" is app better I'm not sure how many times it needs to be said, but whether your name is Deso, WSR or Gandara, the reason guilds leave servers is because servers go full, unlinked and maps go full so they can not play with their friends. That is the same and chief reason for everyone. Why is the Deso of 3 years ago scattered? Perhaps because they got full, unlinked and their guilds either died or moved. WSR transfered off WSR and back again because they were full and unlinked, their two core guilds had players locked out. Then they got full and unlinked again so they left again so they could play together. Last relink Gandara was full and unlinked again which is nothing new for them but what was new for them was that their core guilds and community leaders now had players locked out, so they've just spent two weeks playing alts, mainly on RoS. You could fault them for ruining RoS eco system or you can aknowledge that the system causes these problems, not the players. The players just want to play the game with their friends and the developer is in no hurry to make sure that fundamental piece of their game actually works.

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said: > And you have succinctly made my point in why alliances should never occur, even as you strongly defend them. > > You see guilds as the primary drivers of WvW ('content creators'), while everyone is along for the ride('content consumers'). I oppose that statement. Everybody contributes in WvW: PUGs, roamers, militia/havoc groups, guilds. When guilds are not active or they retire for the night, who picks up the slack? That's right, PUGs, roamers and havoc groups. I'm sorry, but guilds are not special, they're a part of the system like everyone else. Roamers and havoc groups usually are guilds. You yourself used the word group. Whereas for pickup players, if that is all they do, then that too is implicit in their name. That implies that they do not play unless there is a tag to feed them. That is a problem. It isn't necessarily a problem for me, but for the game if it grows rampant. There are caps, people get locked out. Roaming and havoc groups create their own content. That's not a problem. Now, obviously most people who play in pickups do not only do that, that is why tags lead them and other players who tend to be in guilds follow them too. However, ArenaNet making changes in favour of the content creators then obviously comes back to all of those players: Happy tags = tags = content. I think you are severely missing the point here. My problem isn't with pickups existing. I want pickups to exist. My issue is that the current system making guilds quit also makes the players who produce the majority of content for other players (or themselves) quit or stop. There are less public tags as a result of guilds getting split apart, starved out or feeling forced to not share. I don't even have a problem with players who are 100% pugs, casuals or PvX. I have a problem when those players thinks that holding tags hostage, attempting to force those tags to cater to those uninvested players, is a functioning system that doesn't make the tags quit, lash out or stop tagging up (publically or completely). I'm also posting because while ArenaNet are terrible at communicating, they are prone to read threads like these and get cold feet, so any project dealing with full servers, transfer costs and other population issues trickles on for even more years. This has been going on since Colin's comments on it before HoT where he showed that they were clearly reluctant on who to listen to. He mentioned the server communities and them being Alliances, but the issue was the same then as now. Sometime they need to decide and commit. Do you listen to the tags or the people who follow them? Boil it down to its bare bones and that is the crude decision. As long as they do nothing they listen to the players who follow tags over the people who put the tags up. **What exactly is your reservation?** Do you disagree that guilds produce the majority of popular tags and content to affect populations? Do you somehow disagree that there seems to be less public tags per capita now? Can you relate that to remaining tags becomming more guarded with who they lead? Do you disagree that the guilds that remain seems to grow disproportionally stronger relative the content on their worlds ("killing servers" when only one or two guilds leave as opposed to server communities absorbing that in the past)? You just seem to errenously piece things together and go with it, confusing what things like pugs, bandwagons or Alliances themselves are or how the system is actually gamed or faulty (including night capping and coverage or cross-region stacking). You have to excuse me but that baffles me with your argument as you somehow accuse guilds of ruining servers but then you do not want to aknowledge that they have the power to do that for a reason (they can kill the server because they are the server). If you were the server it wouldn't affect you if they left or it would affect them if you left. That is the case though, no? You also don't want them to have more power without understanding that their actions are prompted by a lack of options and that giving them more power to choose would result in more good choices being made. If you assume them to do harm it wouldn't affect you if they had the power to go do whatever they do elsewhere. Those parts of your argument simply do not click together. You seem stuck in this loop of not being part of the guilds, being angry at them but still need or want them with you. My point here is that we just get more JT's relative fewer guilds the longer this transpires. Your frustrations will just grow. If not your frustrations then someone else's who is in your position on another server. The fewer guilds the more dominant the servers who still have them become. The less likely it will be that you will have that content rather than any other JT. At the end of the day we seem to have a smaller and smaller portion of the community creating a larger and larger portion of the remaining overall content. For a mode, for a game and for a game developer that should be a major red flag. That is irrelevant of remaining player totals. The playerbase overall is less productive. You can try to figure out why and try to turn that around or you can put your head in the sand and just grrrr. The roaming and havoc groups are also hurt by full servers, transfer costs, map queues and whatever else. They also have problems creating their own content as a result even if they are less known to share it. They do not hold the server above their own group either and will transfer to survive or make sure they can play as a group of friends. There are even still some guilds on servers who are all happy about the server they've been on since release. However, they are only happy with that until they are faced with the reality of getting split apart (host/link) or choked out of players (full but friends looking to come). Then they sing another tune. The same goes for maps, if a number of other groups transfer to them and clog up the maps, those old cool cucumbers also quickly turn rather toxic. So the issue, in most cases, is that they have not been faced with the realities of the system. That goes for pugs as well. They can be rather prideful until their favourite tag transfers away. When it does they rarely have qualms about transfering themselves. The pride is out the window. Or they just go grrr toxic. > You speak as if guilds have not stacked servers forming de-facto alliances since launch, which they have. Guilds historically have also gamed the current system by mass transferring if they don't like this or that server or tier. This makes so-called "competition" ladder essentially meaningless, since guilds with resources and capital can just pack up and go at will like locusts leaving their host server a husk and shell of what it was. This has happened to previous servers and continues to this day. And yet, we as players should give these giant mega guilds more control over this game mode just merely because of they 'create content' with an alliance system? I'm sorry, no dice. Again, all I hear here is "grrr guilds", with you being upset at guild groups who left you to go play elsewhere without you. It just comes across as egoistic and it reads like "giant mega" hyperbole to me. If friendships exist between guilds and they choose to go somewhere to build community and that server then climbs the ladder that is working as intended. They are the community, they are the "server" and they make that server climb the ladder. That is how it works and how it should work. The problems we have is when things do not work that way. Regardless of who we talk about (BG, guilds or whoever else you are mad at), the problems under the existing system isn't that the best 5 guilds can band together and possibly create the strongest server. Both the system and its eco system should be able to handle that. If a server does well because it is good or active, that is not gaming the system. That is the system. If a server does well because it stacks coverage or is more active outside a region's free time than in it, that is gaming the system. Alliances makes gaming the system (stacking worlds) more difficult while playing within the system (alliances) easier.

> @"JTGuevara.9018" said: > 1.) _It's not much different than server links_ -- Servers already get partially restructured every 2 months with server links. You do not seem to see the importance of the finer print in the announcement. The important parts of Alliances is not the shuffling but rather what factors are taken into account when the shuffle occurs and what factors are taken into account to calculate when a world is full or not. That you can choose your friends and get shuffled with them and that your group of friends will have a priority for when people want to transfer to your world is very important as player groups move or quit when servers or maps get crowded and they get choked out of recruitment or their own content. > If anything, it will be _worse_. There is no basis for that conclusion. > 2.)_Players and guilds won't change_ -- Try-hard players and guilds will still find a way to bandwagon and game the system. You list that as some superficial negative thing and casually throw around popular terminology that you don't seem to understand (bandwagon). Alliances are meant to recruit. Guilds are meant to attempt to be competetive and we have a ladder for that reason so every group can be matched up for content at their own level, so they can have more fun without being put into situations where they get dominated as often. Under the existing system guilds transfer away from guildless players to open up their recruitment pool. The guildless players (who have no interest in joining the guilds or helping them out, they just want access to their content) transfer after them. The guildless players are the "bandwagon", not the guilds. You seem to be completely oblivious to that fact. The guilds do not want the bandwagon, it is something that follows them which they can't keep away. > 3.) _Guilds will have too much power_ -- Alliances will eventually consolidate into powerhouses limited only by the yet to be proposed alliance cap, dominating smaller ones either through victories, bandwagons, or both. Again, that is meant to be. That is why we have a ladder. Some "servers" (alliances, worlds) are meant to be stronger than others. The ladder is there to make sure that the matchups have fitting content levels. One problem with the existing system is that the ladder does not match servers up very well. A strong server is meant to dominate a weak server so they can separate on the ladder and on their own match up versus respectively strong and weak servers. That is the intention of the entire system since 2012. The problems we have right now is that guilds do not have enough power over the content that the guild itself creates. Players who are not in the guild have equal or better access to the content that the guild produces. That is a **major problem** as it makes the players who create content stop. They stop either by quitting or by giving up (not producing content, not sharing content, trying to scare unwanted volume away). **Let's look at how things are now and some issues that come with that:** The content a guild and their commanders create and then possibly decide to share with players not in that guild by making their squad open is not content that all those other players are entitled to. That is also a **major misunderstanding** kept by players who post on this forum and are not commanders, roamers or members of guilds themselves. You feel entitled to that content: You take public tags for granted. You take the players who share their content through public tags for granted. ArenaNet takes those players for granted as they never prioritize them in whatever little attention this game mode gets. ArenaNet does very few things for WvW but equally troublesome is that very few things ArenaNet does for WvW has been done for guilds or commanders. Everytime something is done for commanders (like hidden tags for example) the entitled guildless mass cry and complain, like in this thread. This problem has only been getting **larger and larger** as the balance between players in guilds (content creators) and players without guilds who rely on public groups (content consumers) grows more and more distant. This is **more of a problem** than losses in total population because - in the total loss of population we have - there is relatively a larger loss of content producers than we have a loss of content consumers which means that tags have just become more and more scarce relative the population total. As a result, players have started to **transfer more and more** as time has gone on. The population totals does not create that situation, a larger disparity between tags and how many players want to follow those specific tags creates that situation. It isn't a problem if most players in guilds end up at the higher tiers of the ladder and most players who are not in guilds and take no part in helping out with producing tags and content end up at the lower end of the ladder. That is how it is supposed to be and players like the OP and their ilk have kept protesting things like this for years while the mode just bleeds guilds and tags, making sure there are less and less tags per player. They call others bandwagoners, but they are the wagon. Of course those players are going to protest the Alliance system and muddy the waters surrounding it, because it takes content that they are not producing from them, by stopping them from taking content from the players who produce it. It is easy to see when they are all "grrrr guilds" without aknowledging that the guilds are the tags and the vast majority of well-organized public tags you see are guilds who decide to share their content with the public. They are angry at that the tags that they want to follow does not want them to follow them. The tags wants to get away from them because they are not helpful and just takes them for granted. So, anytime you see someone go "grrr those bad bad guilds who transfer and are too powerful" you should go: Good, that means ArenaNet are actually doing something for the players who produce the vast majority of content in this game mode and that is the only way to breathe life back into it - to encourage players to go out and create content! Alliances are for the people who wants to play with friends, who wants to create guilds and who wants to tag up to produce content. They are the people who are for Alliances in the same way that they were the people who were for hidden tags. Tags are not public commodity even if they can be set to public access. ArenaNet needs to see and understand that, no matter how much some selfish majority of solo-public consumers wants to muddle that truth. The thing agree with the OP on is that I am far from sure that Alliances are comming anymore, despite Ray's somewhat recent reassurances. However, I strongly dislike these attempts at swaying opinion on the matter by creating noise and misunderstanding or misrepresenting what Alliances are.