Why we think WvW is not going well [Merged]

[Limodriver.4106]

its not even WvW, its more like WvD (door) whoever kill more doors win the matchup.

[sephiroth.4217]

As a roamer, yea WvW is now boring af....

 

Everyone be zerging, which means as a roamer I'm left with these options:

- Do PvE and flip sentries

- Do PvE and flip a camp

- Do Pve and Flip a tower

- Do PvE and flip Merc camps.

- Run around maps looking for people in groups of 1-3, sometimes this can take an hour and the fight will be over in 20s.

- Follow enemy zerg for kills or fights, spend most of the time running away from the zerg after they see you down someone.

- Go and Duel and guarantee yourself constant action or fights until the zerg rocks up and says you destroyed WvW by dueling.

- Watch the commander detag and 30+ people stand around in keep while it's under attack yelling at duelers to defend keep.

- Watch 30 people in keep/spawn proceed to tell everyone who is not zerging to leave the map as they play WvW wrong and waste valuable WvW player space.

 

 

I sure do miss the old WvW, where there was a massive zerg of 20 people and about 10 skill groups floating around in groups of 3-6.. Good days, always good fights.

Except for that one guild CoSA who ran like 50 deep, but even then it was fun.. video of my old guild and CoSA.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"Israel.7056" said:

> I actually agree with swagger for once.

 

yeah me too. feels weird.

[Iozeph.5617]

The people playing have ruined this mode and that's how it's ever been.

 

We've been given am awesome setting to play out medieval/fantasy style siege warfare. Nobody wants to.

 

It's all about open field fighting now- Hence blobs. Why? There's nothing to draw players to want to take and defend objectives because

everything they could want out of this game mode comes from mindlessly following a tag in open field and murder bombing another group doing the exact same thing. Towers, camps and keeps are considered bumps in the road, necessary evils that get in the way of open field fighting. Because of this the latest participation system has been a failure. There's not much change between what we had before with K-training and what we have now with murder bombing. It's still just a numbers game which has only been further facilitated by abuse of the server transfer system.

 

Allowing this abuse to continue has eroded the player base more than anything due to attrition. If you don't have the money to keep server hopping chasing what you believe is the best chance at world experience, then you get stuck on a low pop server that's regularly on the losing end of whatever match-ups there are. The host and guest arrangement hasn't helped much because those who rigged the system before are still doing it. You either get hosted by a realm doing this or you get hosted/partnered with other low pop realms who are still left at a disadvantage. Either way if you haven't the wherewithal or the stomach for this sort of nonsense you've probably quit the mode or the game by now. Many players, myself included, find it hard to believe alliances won't be abused in the same way.

 

For siege- Siege itself isn't fun. It's too easily accomplished and exploited. This could be fixed.

 

The respective battlegrounds need to be spread out distance wise- made half or one hundred percent larger perhaps if only as a matter of land to be traversed. Siege as consumables deployed and then constructed should be removed. In their place should be separate objectives to control the amount of flipping going on and these need to be set in proximity to objectives(keeps and towers) to allow some give and take game play. Call them Forward Siege Bases. These will have low perimeter walls and will need to be held and defended in order to conduct a siege against a keep. Siege is only deployable within these camps and they're constructed via the same system as canons and mortars on tower and keep walls. Players will only need to have supply and then use it to build the engines at the predetermined hook points within the base. This accomplishes several things. It limits the amount of siege engines in the area, provides another point for players vie for control, and it also sets the pace of an attack against an objective -there being a maximum speed for a fully kitted out base to advance the destruction of an objective's walls. This allows defenders time to respond.

 

For defenders there should be no wall repair while an objective is contested. Contested means the nearby siege base is occupied and attacking the walls. Moats/deep ditches should be placed around keeps which prevent players from using ground target area effect spells to attack the tops of walls. The wall base/interior will only be accessible after it has been breached and the resulting rubble creates a temporary bridge across the moat for the attacking or defending players to traverse it. Towers should have bramble patches/pickets around their wall bases which inflict Crippled on those who wander too near. This provides players defending with a means to respond from above before an enemy player simply drops their GTAOE bomb and runs out of range. The point of both of these is that it needs to be difficult to approach an objective's walls(in the case of keeps) and when it's possible to(as with towers) there needs to be a steeper price for doing so.

 

During the siege there should be an NPC response from the keep/tower and it should scale, both in numbers and in quality of troops faced(base - to veteran, to elite, to champion) based on the number of players gathered at the forward base. This presents opportunities for defenders to sally from the objective to crush the base and for attackers to acquire loot/world experience. It also helps prevent one to three players from taking an objective in the middle of an off peak time.

 

Supply camps as we know them need to be removed. Instead supply stores should come solely from the citadel and garrison keeps within a respective borderland or the keep within EB. Supply caravans will run from these keeps outward to the objectives held by that Borderland's respective realm. The amount of supply available in the pool for players to pick up from these places will be determined by the percent of the map(objectives held by that realm) If fewer keeps and towers are held(IE. that realm hasn't been defending) then the pool will be lower. It's possible for the pool to run out but it will refill over time similar to current supply camps. Of note- there should never be a time when a realm does not have a supply pool to draw from even if it's only at their citadel. Also, players will only be able to pick up and carry supply on them in the realm where they pick it up. If they port to another borderland they'll have to acquire supply at a supply dump there. This will keep larger armies/blobs from porting to a home borderland garrison or to a keep in Eternal Battlegrounds to empty its supply before heading to another borderland and as such slow the pace of objective taking and widen the window for defenders to rally.

 

Well, it's a few things to consider. Thanks for reading.

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"HazyDaisy.4107" said:

> Linking's started with the phrase "Wvw is dying". Everything that has happened since is our own faults.

 

People don't really seem to understand that as soon as you need server links to maintain a population, it's truly dying and it's only a matter of time unless sweeping changes are made.

 

People don't stop playing games they like. WvW's balance and profession design have been atrocious which makes the mode really unfun.

 

The faster pace and tighter control over builds compared to sPvP was always seen as a good thing. It's now hot garbage because there are things which are just blatantly overpowered and there's way too much power creep. Backstab and some similar skills used to be a big deal for its skill coefficient and quick cast. There are professions which run close to backstab on damage on their autoattacks.

I mean there's food which gives what's basically equal to perma-vigor or when combined with it, the same dodge rate as the buffed vigor from thief's Acrobatics traitline. Which is hard-capped at 100% game-wide. So guardian can dodge the same as an acrobatics thief.

 

The core game was not designed to handle this. And so people are quitting because it's just not fun to spam invuln/negation effects until unavailable where it turns into a matter of who oneshots the other person.

 

And since nothing has changed it's not going to have been resolved via links. It's covering symptoms (low player counts) and not the underlying problems causing said symptoms.

 

 

 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Junkpile.7439" said:

> Reason is scourge. You can almost spam skill that should have like minute cool down. :angry:

Kind of redundant to say scourge if reaper with deathly chill was killing it the entire year before PoF...

 

Regarding WvW on the whole, as a roamer I only have a problem with T3. Its such a *bore* that it completely kills borders, while the side having T3 rakes in the exponential point gain winning the matchup. Its not fun. Its not engaging. Going into a border, looking at the map and thinking "well we cant hit garri, thats impossible. We cant hit bay either. Or hills. Or the NE and NW tower. Oh oh we can hit our spawntower and the other sides spawn, yay! Flipping camps with no purpose since everything is already T3, amazing!". Its what will ultimately kill WvW, when the population is so low no one bothers to get the ball rolling even in prime.

 

Yes yes when you say "I like attacking objectives" every always yell **PPT HEATHEN!!!** but for me thats the *core gameplay of WvW*. Taking an objective is the basis for getting fights. Its intertwined, not mutually exclusive as many elitists want us to believe. Without objectives flipping just to prevent them from reaching T3, the gears of war arent turning and WvW grind to a mindnumbing halt. Zergs and PPTing have now become a requirement. Either need to be fast and keep flipping them so the players joining WvW after you can play, or you need a zerg to reset them.

[HazyDaisy.4107]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> > @"HazyDaisy.4107" said:

> > Linking's started with the phrase "Wvw is dying". Everything that has happened since is our own faults.

>

> People don't really seem to understand that as soon as you need server links to maintain a population, it's truly dying and it's only a matter of time unless sweeping changes are made.

>

> People don't stop playing games they like. WvW's balance and profession design have been atrocious which makes the mode really unfun.

>

> The faster pace and tighter control over builds compared to sPvP was always seen as a good thing. It's now hot garbage because there are things which are just blatantly overpowered and there's way too much power creep. Backstab and some similar skills used to be a big deal for its skill coefficient and quick cast. There are professions which run close to backstab on damage on their autoattacks.

> I mean there's food which gives what's basically equal to perma-vigor or when combined with it, the same dodge rate as the buffed vigor from thief's Acrobatics traitline. Which is hard-capped at 100% game-wide. So guardian can dodge the same as an acrobatics thief.

>

> The core game was not designed to handle this. And so people are quitting because it's just not fun to spam invuln/negation effects until unavailable where it turns into a matter of who oneshots the other person.

>

> And since nothing has changed it's not going to have been resolved via links. It's covering symptoms (low player counts) and not the underlying problems causing said symptoms.

>

>

>

>

 

It's not about not understanding or even disagreeing that it was needed, just not agreeing that it was needed to the degree it was implemented at 3-1/2 years ago. Water under the bridge, but that change did in fact drive people away from the game well before ridiculous builds could.

[Optimator.3589]

PPTing undefended structures is boring AF. Roaming around is a crapshoot, even when scale stays small, what with all the burst builds. Whoever lands their combo first wins.

Large scale fights between well-led zergs are like a chess match. Reading the enemy and moving accordingly, coordinating bombs and sustain, etc is fun. To say we're doing it wrong when the game mode is designed for large scale combat(even if the game engine isn't) is patently absurd. BTW, a big thank you to FA for the good fights in EBG Saturday afternoon. Kekbots made us work for the wins. <3

[Tiny Doom.4380]

The game mode is mass combat PvPvE based around taking and/or holding structures through use of siege mechanics. As mentioned above, it was modelled on previous MMOs, particularly Dark Age of Camelot. What we have ended up calling "zerg" or "blob" play is the intended outcome - it's supposed to be a game of armies moving against each other to take each other's lands.

 

The implementation leaves a lot to be desired but the intent has been plain from the start.

[Timelord.8190]

"All the objectives require 1-5 people to capture at most unless defending numbers are greater."

This is a very false statement, which should be obvious to most people. Defenders advantage makes it easier for fewer defenders than there are attackers in order to defend. Towers upgrades automaticly, you have tactivators and aura that buff your stats. Every defenders advantage element is forcing people to play a zergy style.

 

Anet made roaming even harder with their HoT expansion with a massive buff to defenders advantage. You can say that the zergers play the game wrong, but this is far from true. Only cause you don't like it it doesen't mean it's wrong. Zerging have much better chance at capping objectives, and get more loot in fights.

 

[Swamurabi.7890]

Sounds like OP is blaming the customer for the failing business.

[Hadan.2841]

Overall it comes down to a few thing's for why this game mode is failing. Now most of my post here will be largely based off the zerg vs zerg aspect of it.

Anet issues

 

1. Game performance- stack scourge shades in a fight of 40 va 40 your top of the line computer becomes a toaster. Im almost positive wveryone has experienced this. This is an anet issue they still struggle to fix.

 

2. Meta- game mode is simply boring with 3-4 classes being the only thing people run.

 

3. Condtions- when people tell you to bring a burst build and they show up in full dire...there is something wrong. Anet has failed for years to balance the damage multiplier per condi stack. Eventually people get sick of it and leave.

 

4. Lack of new content- no new maps(red bl a joke), nothing rewarding for "winning" nothing rewarded for dedicated a week in wvw. They fail to bring anything new. Eventually it becomes stale and people will quit.

 

5. Ignoring the wvw community- I remember back in the day all 8 tiers had large numbers, ques, ppt guilds, roamers, and even gvg guilds. GvG was so big back then. The gvg community had a fan made website that kept a score system of all the guilds and their win/lose record and gave them points based on that. That essentially was how the gvg community could determine who was tog dog and where the rest of the guilds stood. The gvg community went to anet, offered them to give them their website, asked them to implement it to their game and anet told them "we don't support gvg". There was a post of a screenshot of anet saying that to them back in 2013/14 or whenever we had that site. Eventually the gvg guilds got bored, angry with anet and slowly died off.

 

****Salty players INC******

Now here is why I feel as a community we failed this game mode. Sorry to break it to you but just like a relationship it takes 2 to tangle and walk down a 2 way street. We have as players have let this gamemode fail.

 

1. I have recently returned to game and quite honestly it's simply pathetic how fat some guilds run. Back in the day a fight guild raided with their gvg roster snd maybe +5 giving that team 15-20. Now i see "fight guilds with 25-40. Just stop you became the very thing you bitched about for years. You mass recruit because your too lazy to dedicate the time to suck it up and get better. You rather blob around the maps pretending to be good. You all contribute to the blob wars we see today.

2. Lack of guilds. I have seen so many past drivers and leaders just joining up in the fotm guild and blobbing around as a mindless number. We need more drivers to take the initiative and build your own teams. There's no excuse why we can't have a fun competitive tier where we have multiple guild groups of 15-20 mans around the map.

3. Boring group comps- have fun and change the shieett up a bit. Every guild running the same comp same build. Be different, who cares if you die more lol. Game is 6 years old why keep it stale. Anet won't do shieet for our community so why not make it better for us.

 

All I really have to say on it...I'm sure there will be lots of salty tears flowing in soon. Lol

 

[PrinceKhaled.5104]

@"Iozeph.5617" Thanks for sharing your post, I agree with the overall explanation concept.

 

[XenesisII.1540]

It's harder for a 15-20 to break a 25-40 these days, not because of "skill" because of specs, that anet developed. Boonsharing, corruptions, shielding, blocking, invuls, cc's, all continue to be added to one up each other, to the benefit of larger groups.

[Hadan.2841]

Your right...it is definitely harder but back in the day people use to love that stuff. Doing what it takes to win against that blob. And honestly blobs have been around since day one. Just do what most guilds did back in the day...team up wipe that blob and go seperate ways. 90% of the wvw blobs are clueless mindless numbers. It can be done if groups tried. Too many lazy guilds rather mass recruit than actually improve their 15-20 and get it done.

[Israel.7056]

The reason some guilds have gotten bigger is because there are far fewer competent drivers than there used to be so all the good players end up in the same few guilds. I'd say there are only two or three drivers even worth following anymore. The guild I'm in doesn't even really recruit in the traditional sense we just end up picking up all the good players we come across because we're one of the only good guilds left with one of the only competent drivers left playing on a regular basis.

 

You can't blame experienced competent players for not wanting to waste their time following incompetent drivers. You can't blame experienced competent drivers for not wanting to waste their time training incompetent inexperienced players.

 

The suggestion that zerging aka large scale combat is killing WvW is complete nonsense. Zerging is the only thing that has ever made this game mode unique. The thing that's draining WvW of players is other newer games that offer players different gaming experiences. WvW is basically the same game it was at launch. Most people who play WvW, even the ones who really enjoy the game mode, eventually get what they want out of it and move on. This is the natural way of things.

 

Accept that everything ends eventually.

[XenesisII.1540]

A lot of guilds and commanders have retired or left the game already over the years, the pool of good commanders and guilds shrinks every year.

90% of blobs might be clueless mindless numbers, but their specs can carry them these days. Any newb can walk into wvw with a scourge and instantly be useful with shields and shades. I don't disagree with lazy mass recruiting, it might just be a build up for the future of alliances, but at this point in the life of wvw and how stale it's become from neglect and people eventually leaving, this might just be the last stretch of fun for them too.

 

[Hadan.2841]

Honestly, I don't really care how guilds run, this thread is about why wvw is in the state it is in, so i posted my opinions of why I feel the game mode has become this way. I'm sure there is a thousand reason why guilds run so fat now but I still feel it has contributed to the downfall of wvw with all the other issues wvw has.

[Balthazzarr.1349]

> @"Hadan.2841" said:

> Your right...it is definitely harder but back in the day people use to love that stuff. Doing what it takes to win against that blob. And honestly blobs have been around since day one. Just do what most guilds did back in the day...team up wipe that blob and go seperate ways. 90% of the wvw blobs are clueless mindless numbers. It can be done if groups tried. Too many lazy guilds rather mass recruit than actually improve their 15-20 and get it done.

 

One of the issues is when you take your 15-20 group that actually has the build combinations we all seem to like these days... and take it to the blob of 40-50 who also have most of their players with the same builds... well... you know what the outcome is typically going to be. One huge amount of skill spam and with twice the amount of crap hitting you, you typically go down. The days when we used to take that 10-15 group of guildies and mow down a group of 30 enemy doesn't exist (as much ) anymore. Even the pug blobs are overpowered most of the time just due to the new 'meta skill spamming' etc...

 

This isn't some sort of excuse.. it simply is what it is.

 

Even so, out here in SoS land there are a couple of us guilds left that continue to try to do just that. Last night for example we had 18 in our group I believe, and a few pugs out of squad. We were facing off with an SBI group of at least 50 (and one guild that bandwagoned over to BP to fight against us)... and yes they hurt us many times.. but... many times we also punished them into the ground and chased what was left back into SM. Once they regrouped the fun started again.

 

So yes there are still some of us out there running smaller groups and having fun with it. But the fun isn't what it used to be by far... on the other hand, considering the mess of garbage we have to face off against it's definitely satisfying when you see their backs as they retreat like rats into SM or a Keep and start humping siege... ;)

[Arheundel.6451]

Reasons are simple:

 

1) Players are said to either play a specific profession ...or leave the gamemode

2) Specific profession dominate pretty much the whole fighting scenario

3) Huge imbalance between professions like never before

4) Pirate ship meta is boring as hell but again this is due to how balance goes in the game

5) Rampant use of cheap out of game tactics like siege trolls

 

But all in all for me the special reason which forced me to quit WvW is **the terrible balance**, I am sick tired of fighting the never ending zergs of guardian and necros, it has been so for the last 3 years..I need variety, because I am more than happy to sty away from wvw otherwise

[hunkamania.7561]

> @"Hadan.2841" said:

 

> 3. Condtions- when people tell you to bring a burst build and they show up in full dire...there is something wrong. Anet has failed for years to balance the damage multiplier per condi stack. Eventually people get sick of it and leave.

 

Conditions are not even meta in zergs anymore maybe they're good in roaming but i don't really pay attention to that. only ones that matter anymore are chills, cripples, immobes and slow.

 

Zerg busting is also a thing but you need 20-30 comped up players to take a blob down. aint gonna get done with 5 people unless the blob all skill clicks.

 

[Kylden Ar.3724]

Yeah, even for roamers power is often better, with any condi's just being bonus damage. If you can spike down the camp targets or other players faster, there is no need for the waiting game on condi builds.

[Hadan.2841]

.> @"hunkamania.7561" said:

> > @"Hadan.2841" said:

>

> > 3. Condtions- when people tell you to bring a burst build and they show up in full dire...there is something wrong. Anet has failed for years to balance the damage multiplier per condi stack. Eventually people get sick of it and leave.

>

> Conditions are not even meta in zergs anymore maybe they're good in roaming but i don't really pay attention to that. only ones that matter anymore are chills, cripples, immobes and slow.

>

> Zerg busting is also a thing but you need 20-30 comped up players to take a blob down. aint gonna get done with 5 people unless the blob all skill clicks.

>

 

You say anymore..but condi zergs have been a thing for a long time and a ton of players have quit the game because of that. You can post about what is current meta but it doesn't change the fact that the condi meta chased a lot of people away. No one said anything about zerg busting with 5 so not sure where that came from

[SloRules.3560]

> @"Hadan.2841" said:

> Overall it comes down to a few thing's for why this game mode is failing. Now most of my post here will be largely based off the zerg vs zerg aspect of it.

> Anet issues

>

> 1. Game performance- stack scourge shades in a fight of 40 va 40 your top of the line computer becomes a toaster. Im almost positive wveryone has experienced this. This is an anet issue they still struggle to fix.

>

> 2. Meta- game mode is simply boring with 3-4 classes being the only thing people run.

>

> 3. Condtions- when people tell you to bring a burst build and they show up in full dire...there is something wrong. Anet has failed for years to balance the damage multiplier per condi stack. Eventually people get sick of it and leave.

>

> 4. Lack of new content- no new maps(red bl a joke), nothing rewarding for "winning" nothing rewarded for dedicated a week in wvw. They fail to bring anything new. Eventually it becomes stale and people will quit.

>

> 5. Ignoring the wvw community- I remember back in the day all 8 tiers had large numbers, ques, ppt guilds, roamers, and even gvg guilds. GvG was so big back then. The gvg community had a fan made website that kept a score system of all the guilds and their win/lose record and gave them points based on that. That essentially was how the gvg community could determine who was tog dog and where the rest of the guilds stood. The gvg community went to anet, offered them to give them their website, asked them to implement it to their game and anet told them "we don't support gvg". There was a post of a screenshot of anet saying that to them back in 2013/14 or whenever we had that site. Eventually the gvg guilds got bored, angry with anet and slowly died off.

>

> ****Salty players INC******

> Now here is why I feel as a community we failed this game mode. Sorry to break it to you but just like a relationship it takes 2 to tangle and walk down a 2 way street. We have as players have let this gamemode fail.

>

> 1. I have recently returned to game and quite honestly it's simply pathetic how fat some guilds run. Back in the day a fight guild raided with their gvg roster snd maybe +5 giving that team 15-20. Now i see "fight guilds with 25-40. Just stop you became the very thing you kitten about for years. You mass recruit because your too lazy to dedicate the time to suck it up and get better. You rather blob around the maps pretending to be good. You all contribute to the blob wars we see today.

> 2. Lack of guilds. I have seen so many past drivers and leaders just joining up in the fotm guild and blobbing around as a mindless number. We need more drivers to take the initiative and build your own teams. There's no excuse why we can't have a fun competitive tier where we have multiple guild groups of 15-20 mans around the map.

> 3. Boring group comps- have fun and change the shieett up a bit. Every guild running the same comp same build. Be different, who cares if you die more lol. Game is 6 years old why keep it stale. Anet won't do shieet for our community so why not make it better for us.

>

> All I really have to say on it...I'm sure there will be lots of salty tears flowing in soon. Lol

>

 

Btw, are you on NA? Not many big guilds on EU and they especially don't labbel themselves as fight guilds.

 

I agree on most points anyway.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

I think at some point people are going to have to accept that for WvW to ever be anywhere near balanced (outside of raw numbers of people that you can never balance for) it needs the PvP style amulet system (except with no stat restrictions). Let people still get the bonus from their Infusion slots, but that would do a lot to help start balancing it.