Only thing is free transfers should have been disabled before the 1 week long matches started.
My server Far Shiverpeaks went from 2 hours queeu to 6 hours queue in a matter of 4 days
Seems evry1 transfers off to winning servers -_-
I don't get this either. I've yet to see a single MMO offer free transfers in an effort to even out populations and actually have it work as intended.
They should have put in a requirement that if you're moving from server A you have to go to either server B and C, and then locked any transfers to servers that they wanted people to move off of. Especially when they intend to charge for server transfers.
When have players ever done what a developer actually expects them to do? Kind of like the way that a lot of players won't report an exploit they find during testing if they can use it after release to gain an advantage. Yet developers still rely on players to test their game to find these things, and then people wonder why so many bugs and exploits make it into the released games.
I have played WvW at different times and for long length of time, but I feel like a few posters here... I just don't feel the fun, satisfaction is lacking, and server impact and pride just not a major deal. When I am exploring the pve world therw is no relevent evidence of any change to my server from the pvp war raging. When I am in WvW it just feels like one big zerg from base to base then lose said bases to just zerg bases all over again.
After a few days of trying to grasp the WvW concept I have resigned to pve exploring. In other games and especially WoW and Rift I have been a huge pvper. I was excited for a large scale world to pvp, but there just isn't enough gratification right now in WvW to draw me back in everyday to play it. For this player something is missing that leaves me saying "Is that all?"
After a few weeks WvW just sort of fizzled in the fun department. I'm not the sort that needs rewards to do PvP, fun is usually reward enough. However, when the point eclipses the amount of fun I'm having, and in this case it was a seemingly complete lack of point, then it ceases to be fun anymore.
Why? This was the biggest thing that started creaping into my head as I played. Why? What was the point. Realm pride simply isn't enough, and the fact that it's a contained enviroment that doesn't seem to have that great an impact on anything seems to be the big killer for me.
Maybe if it wasn't server vs server and self contained I would get it.
You would think that with the way that it's set up that when you're not actually doing WvW you would care. Afterall, is that not first and formost one of the effects of WvW? Bonuses for the server. When I'm doing PvE I'm not giving WvW any thought what-so-ever. If my server is winning or losing I could really care less because I never feel any form of impact when not doing WvW.
Perhaps a PvE zone that would unlock for the winning server that provides the best PvE farming? Access to merchants, dungeons, craftables, etc. for the server that's winning in the WvW? Something, anything that actually has a tangible, noticable impact on the PvE experience.
This is a fantastic idea, and one that has been brought up a couple of times before. Maybe someone over at ANet will listen.
Lobsided, incredibly. This was something I noticed that took a lot of fun out of it as well. Either you're winning or you're not, and usually winning means your server has more people in the WvW zone then the other servers. I do not think that I've experienced a situation yet were Dragonbrand was either completely dominating whatever map they were winning, or losing horribly. In EVE we call it "good fights" when sides are relatively balanced and winning really comes down to who simply did better, I've not found any of this in WvW yet. It seems, first and foremost, based on whether or not your server has more players in the zone then the other server, and when sides are relatively equal who is actually using seige equipment. Primarilly though, it's just who has the bigger zerg.
Map diversity. This was another killer for me. It's supposed to be a world unto itself, but it's not in the slightest. 3 of the 4 maps are identical, even though they're supposed to be seperate areas of the same world. Why did they only make two maps and then use one for three different areas? Really wish they would have made four unique maps for the four different fronts.
I like this idea as well, but I don't see them doing a re-vamp of the maps anytime soon.
It's not bad or awful in any extent, it's just not that engrossing after a few weeks. It just kind of became the place to go when some form of world pvp was desired, or when I wanted to do some nonstructured PvP.
I do have to say this about the review. The extent of WvW doesn't seem suited to a review after only a few days of playing it. Obviously it wasn't Bills fault that he couldn't get into it, but I do wish that the review could have waited a little longer. Reviewing WvW after a week or so is kind of like reviewing any other MMO after only playing it for a week.
To be fair, he is on one of the busiest WvW servers and the queue times are horrendous. HOWEVER, as a journalist, he should have simply worked around this and made a character on server so that he could have spent the time needed to give more depth.
I really think that something like this could have used a few weeks of play time to review well. For the first week or two WvW was great; I had a blast. It wasn't until after about three weeks that I really started to ask why, and that was around about the time that it started feeling rather shallow and dull to me.
I'd really love to hear Bills impression of WvW after he's had about month to really play in it. I have a feeling Bill might actually come away with the same impression that I'm seeing a lot of other people developing, where's the point.
I agree with you. I made a comment above saying people are leaving in droves (perhaps a slight exaggeration at this point in time but people are leaving regardless) because they've realised that after a while, the game lacks substance. While people ARE leaving in boredom, ANet should be listening to the common themes of WHY they are leaving. You don't get too many opportunities to improve something, and if they can include some deeper, meaningful levels of character progression and tweak WvW to make it rewarding past the "fun" factor (that wears thin after a while) then people will work to achieve those goals.
Based on my experiences and fun being had in the PvE part of the game, I haven't even thought about PvP which is my preferred playing environment. I messed around a bit in beta and thought it was very cool. Especially side battles like killing the enemy's baggage train etc.
One thing I do look for in PvP is real consequence and not minor buffs. Be great to see Anet implement something game changing. e.g. new vendors open up to the winning side, winning side get a new mix of DE's that drop better gear, Losing side has a price rise... something that makes everyone on the server go 'damn! that's good, or damn! that's harsh'.
It would generate a great feeling when you win and make you want to hit back twice as hard if you lose
Funny to see how so many MMO players need some kind of reward at the end of the road for doing something and if they don't get it, they don't see the purpose of doing it or don't see the purpose of doing it for too long. Can't you guys just play to have fun? This mindset is one of the worst thing that happen to gaming for the past 10+ years. Games have been dumbed down because of this, a progression process inserted for the casuals noobs to feel good because they unlock/looted some stupid rewards. You nearly can't even play a game that has everything unlocked/ready to use from the start, always the need of stupid nonsense crap of progression. Nowadays every single games created nearly ALWAYS have some kind of progress and this is pretty stupid if you ask me.
Originally posted by SirFubar Funny to see how so many MMO players need some kind of reward at the end of the road for doing something and if they don't get it, they don't see the purpose of doing it or don't see the purpose of doing it for too long. Can't you guys just play to have fun? This mindset is one of the worst thing that happen to gaming for the past 10+ years. Games have been dumbed down because of this, a progression process inserted for the casuals noobs to feel good because they unlock/looted some stupid rewards. You nearly can't even play a game that has everything unlocked/ready to use from the start, always the need of stupid nonsense crap of progression. Nowadays every single games created nearly ALWAYS have some kind of progress and this is pretty stupid if you ask me.
I don't think it's just mmorpgs. Look at how fps games have evolved, where you get tiered content to unlock, levels and points to spend on various things. Fps of old was just about grabbing the game and shooting stuff, today it's equaly as important to set a path of progression, sometimes meaningless (since you constantly reset it). In the end I think it comes down to choice. If both gamestyles are covered by the market, a big portion of the games crowd will be pleased, although they may not like the individual choices.
Originally posted by chryses
Based on my experiences and fun being had in the PvE part of the game, I haven't even thought about PvP which is my preferred playing environment. I messed around a bit in beta and thought it was very cool. Especially side battles like killing the enemy's baggage train etc.
One thing I do look for in PvP is real consequence and not minor buffs. Be great to see Anet implement something game changing. e.g. new vendors open up to the winning side, winning side get a new mix of DE's that drop better gear, Losing side has a price rise... something that makes everyone on the server go 'damn! that's good, or damn! that's harsh'.
It would generate a great feeling when you win and make you want to hit back twice as hard if you lose
I'm afraid you are describing something ideal that does not exist. What is actually happening is people hop to the winning servers at the slightest sign of trouble. There is no incentive to support your server the way you describe it, when you can just transfer in a second, pick whatever you want from the winning side and then return back to your friends if you so wish (although usually people end up sticking with the FOTM server).
Originally posted by sookster54
For me (I know not for everyone), World vs world is the BEST part of GW2 (but I also really like sPVP), because I come from other games that had massive world pvp or such. Arenanet has been adjusting the WvW zones and caps lately and I'm a little annoyed by the queue (couldn't even get in at all last night), hopefully they'll smooth things out where all the players can get in and fix the matchups, right now my server is well over 200K while other 2 are 60K and 40K.
You get these absurd queue times because the people from the other two servers don't consolidate their forces and fight back, they just transfer to your server. Expect the queues to get worse, since the majority of the WvW interested crowd of the third server will move the second it becomes apparent who the main server is. Your queue times will obviously go up, because these people are extremely interested in WvW in the first place. You'll also get all the people from the second server that don't want to put much effort.
On the next match up, the former first server may end up doing much worse than before, simply because all those transfers have dilluted the good quality of the former WvW force, which will incite a fresh wave of transfers.
WvW has become rather boring, mostly because Ehmry Bay seems to be in total domination and finding opponents to fight is becoming difficult at times.
Didn't record the exact score, but for the last few days we have held all but 6-7 of the camps continuously. Something like 370,000:400:600 last I looked.
Just to let you know the person who placed the siege weapon can kick anyone off their siege weapon at will. You do however raise the point about a que spot. It is ofcouse possible that a massive alliance could drasticaly reduce the number of players in a battle ground however a couple of spies does not make a difference in a fight. There should however be a way to report someone as a spy and have aNet check it out and kick them back to the server they are spying for. Once sever transfers cost real money this could be a very interesting dynamic. Then i could see the best spies who have infiltrated alliances hiring out their services for a lot of gold because of the high risk that once your caught you cant do it anymore. This could be an awesome dynamic with a little thought put into it.
Most organised groups use voice communication software outside the game, so there is usually nothing in Anet's log to verify that somebody is a spy.
The only way to limit the problem somewhat would be to put some cooldown timer in transfers (like most Korean mmorpgs do, westerners need to learn a lot from the design of those games, they are way better suited for PvP in terms of rules and regulations). Even that however would not solve the issue of somebody buying a second box and planting a character in the opposite server battleground.
Originally posted by mCalvert
The problem with cheating is the mechanics are in favor of the cheater.
1. they take up a queue spot
2. you cant cant kill them
3. if you expose them they can create infinite alts
4. they can lock down seige weps with no way to kick them off
This is not real life. This is a game, and games have rules to ensure a fun and competitive atmosphere where people play with sportsmanship. THis is why you cant horsecollar a football player or excessivly celebrate, or take a dive in sports. AN wants this to be an esport, and there is no sport on earth where spying is allowed.
Now, if you want to make this a full loot, permadeath game with friendlyfire, then we will be happy to sort the problem out ourselves.
The queue spot by itself is meaningless. It's the information (or misinformation) that is transferred that is more important. You lose more people doing jumping puzzles, running around doing world objectives or just afking in the respawn area if you're talking about fighting force numbers.
Killing them doesn't remove them from the battleground. They can still see the map and they can still see map chat, even if you can prevent them from following you around.
This is not a problem, alts are account based. You'll notice that if you make an alt, your alt will be automatically in the guild your main is representing.
The person who placed the siege weapon can kick anybody and take over. It can be an issue if said person is not around.
I just wat to point out that keeps can be upgraded to have waypoints, but it's a big investment gold wise, needs a lot of resources and you obviously lose everything if the keep is taken down. So people place those kind of upgrades only on servers that have 24/7 presence, because only these servers can safeguard them.
On another sidenote, one thing you can do to really screw up your server (and people do it a lot) is take supplies from the keeps. Keep workers (NPCs) use those supplies to upgrade the keeps and since only dolyaks can transfer those supplies and not players, if you take them, you deny keep upgrades, making them easier for the enemy to take.
Supply camps on the other hand have infinite supplies and are only a few second away from keeps. Yet people are either ignorant or lazy and don't bother going there to restock.
On MMORPG.com we used to have a few previews, then a post launch review. Then we got a two reviews after launch. I am wondering when the next AAA title gets released if we are going to have a Review of the Day, each day until they finally decided to do a post launch review!
“Server Transfers being free are a big part of this problem.”
I should not by surprised but I am. This is a problem identified in may other MMO’s, Aion being a case in point. It has been a diaster for MMO’s before, why invite that disaster again?
Only thing is free transfers should have been disabled before the 1 week long matches started.
My server Far Shiverpeaks went from 2 hours queeu to 6 hours queue in a matter of 4 days
Seems evry1 transfers off to winning servers -_-
In fact if you read my post, I endorsed EVEs style. But GW2 is not a hardcore sandbox. If they want to give us the tools to combat spying and sabotage, then bring it on. Since they wont, then AN should prevent it.
Just to let you know the person who placed the siege weapon can kick anyone off their siege weapon at will. You do however raise the point about a que spot. It is ofcouse possible that a massive alliance could drasticaly reduce the number of players in a battle ground however a couple of spies does not make a difference in a fight. There should however be a way to report someone as a spy and have aNet check it out and kick them back to the server they are spying for. Once sever transfers cost real money this could be a very interesting dynamic. Then i could see the best spies who have infiltrated alliances hiring out their services for a lot of gold because of the high risk that once your caught you cant do it anymore. This could be an awesome dynamic with a little thought put into it.
Most organised groups use voice communication software outside the game, so there is usually nothing in Anet's log to verify that somebody is a spy.
The only way to limit the problem somewhat would be to put some cooldown timer in transfers (like most Korean mmorpgs do, westerners need to learn a lot from the design of those games, they are way better suited for PvP in terms of rules and regulations). Even that however would not solve the issue of somebody buying a second box and planting a character in the opposite server battleground.
Originally posted by mCalvert
The problem with cheating is the mechanics are in favor of the cheater.
1. they take up a queue spot
2. you cant cant kill them
3. if you expose them they can create infinite alts
4. they can lock down seige weps with no way to kick them off
This is not real life. This is a game, and games have rules to ensure a fun and competitive atmosphere where people play with sportsmanship. THis is why you cant horsecollar a football player or excessivly celebrate, or take a dive in sports. AN wants this to be an esport, and there is no sport on earth where spying is allowed.
Now, if you want to make this a full loot, permadeath game with friendlyfire, then we will be happy to sort the problem out ourselves.
The queue spot by itself is meaningless. It's the information (or misinformation) that is transferred that is more important. You lose more people doing jumping puzzles, running around doing world objectives or just afking in the respawn area if you're talking about fighting force numbers.
Killing them doesn't remove them from the battleground. They can still see the map and they can still see map chat, even if you can prevent them from following you around.
This is not a problem, alts are account based. You'll notice that if you make an alt, your alt will be automatically in the guild your main is representing.
The person who placed the siege weapon can kick anybody and take over. It can be an issue if said person is not around.
You just confirmed everything I said, though it sounded like you were trying to rebutt.
WvW and sPvP could certainly benefit from more progression via FPS like horizontal progression of titles/rank/style and keep the power curve flat.
Which, I'm sure, is feedback they hear loud and clear and are planning on.
We're supposed to be getting some kind of big "status update" with insight on what's coming and what's in the way forward sometime in September so the rumors go.
First off, I'm no PvPer. I'm fine with group battles and such, but for the most part I avoid it.
But let me say this: the rampant "exploitation" of the server transfers, or whatever, which has led to "spys" "subterfuge" and all that jazz is AWESOME. I think its a cool mechanic that should be pushed to its limits by the players.
I'm sure that this is, in fact, the correct way to PvP in GW2.
Tsk tsk dear boy. Don't you realize they're playing it wrong?
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
I didn't stop reading, but I got the same disgusting feeling as you did.
Originally posted by mCalvert
The problem with cheating is the mechanics are in favor of the cheater.
1. they take up a queue spot
2. you cant cant kill them
3. if you expose them they can create infinite alts
4. they can lock down seige weps with no way to kick them off
This is not real life. This is a game, and games have rules to ensure a fun and competitive atmosphere where people play with sportsmanship. THis is why you cant horsecollar a football player or excessivly celebrate, or take a dive in sports. AN wants this to be an esport, and there is no sport on earth where spying is allowed.
Now, if you want to make this a full loot, permadeath game with friendlyfire, then we will be happy to sort the problem out ourselves.
This was put beautifully, and sums it up for me as well. I'm sure others can come up with other reasons why encouraging and making the cheating so easy is a huge turn off to people who just want some decent PvP action. I can't stand horrible arguments that "this is PvP", and "it's always been going on". With the good changes that Anet has put forth in the first MMO I've liked in years, I can't believe they dropped the ball on reforming a little bit how the PvP works and crack down a bit more on the cheaters. Like it's been said, the decent players have absolutely no way to stop the cheaters, which makes it all the more annoying, especially if Anet even encouarges it.
WvW was the #1 reason I bought the game, and to be honest, this would be a game breaker to me if not at least cracked down on a little bit. I know it hasn't even been out a month yet, and I'm curious if any attempt to stop this stuff, besides the paid server transfers, will be put into effect.
The queue spot by itself is meaningless. It's the information (or misinformation) that is transferred that is more important. You lose more people doing jumping puzzles, running around doing world objectives or just afking in the respawn area if you're talking about fighting force numbers.
Killing them doesn't remove them from the battleground. They can still see the map and they can still see map chat, even if you can prevent them from following you around.
This is not a problem, alts are account based. You'll notice that if you make an alt, your alt will be automatically in the guild your main is representing.
The person who placed the siege weapon can kick anybody and take over. It can be an issue if said person is not around.
1. Regardless of what others are doing, thats 1 less spot a guildie could be using to come help fight.
2. They can see the map, but that doesnt give you position of anyone unless youre already very close.
3. Ive got to wonder if you even play. Nothing regarding guilds matters account wide. Yes you are technically "in" the guild, but you do not automatically represent any guild. You have to click Represent in order to get the guild tag, etc on any new toon. You dont even need a new alt. You can just stand down at any time with any toon and there goes your tag. Representing is toon based, not account based.
Anyway for those who think "this is just war" or its not exploiting, etc.... It is exploiting, because theyre abusing a system that is only there for a limited time for the purpose of allowing people to move around freely until they find a good server for them. The free transfers are only temporary, and once that goes away they will have to pay to use such tactics. Doing it now for free, is abusing the free part. It will be kind of funny to see how fast some of those same servers get their asses kicked when they cant take advantage of it anymore and dont have someone constantly telling them the enemies moves, etc.
Originally posted by SirFubar Funny to see how so many MMO players need some kind of reward at the end of the road for doing something and if they don't get it, they don't see the purpose of doing it or don't see the purpose of doing it for too long. Can't you guys just play to have fun? This mindset is one of the worst thing that happen to gaming for the past 10+ years. Games have been dumbed down because of this, a progression process inserted for the casuals noobs to feel good because they unlock/looted some stupid rewards. You nearly can't even play a game that has everything unlocked/ready to use from the start, always the need of stupid nonsense crap of progression. Nowadays every single games created nearly ALWAYS have some kind of progress and this is pretty stupid if you ask me.
Except for the part were WvW is supposed to be meaningul I guess. SPvP is there "just for the fun", WvW is supposed to mean something.
There is no real impact on the game whether you win or lose in WvW. In the end it turns into giant sPvP matches with people fighting over points for no other reason to participate in large PvP encounters, that isn't fun over the long haul.
I paint for fun, in fact I didn't pursue a career in art because I wanted to keep it fun for me, that doesn't mean that I spend hours or days even doing a painting and then through it into a closet were no one ever sees it. I paint for fun, I show off my works for the satisfaction I get from people enjoying what they're looking at; that is my REWARD for doing something that is fun for me.
Fun does not encourage the vast magority of people to do something for long periods of time without getting bored of it. You need to provide something that encourages peopel, beyond the fun factor, to keep doing it or they WILL stop.
Most people would find sitting in a station in EVE, buying minerals, producing goods, and selling those goods as not a lot of fun because I literally spend the vast magority of my time in EVE staring at numbers and following trends. For me, it's fun, but if I wasn't being reward for it -IE: becoming filthy space rich- I wouldn't keep doing it just for the fun. There needs to be a POINT.
There's no sense of impact in WvW on a personal level, not even really on a server wide level because the success or failure of my server in WvW is having no impact on the server outside of WvW.
If Anet removed WvW from the game no one doing PvE would ever notice because the reward for winning in WvW isn't having any noticable impact on anyone doing PvE; yet they reward for winning WvW is that your server gets bonuses while doing PvE.
Not to mention, the way things are laid out with 4 different zones, the entire 3 way pvp aspect of it isn't even really noticable. I have not encountered a single instance were there was a fight between all 3 sides. My entire experience with the WvWvW aspect of it is that each server tends to converge on a single map and control it, resulting in 2 way fights. It's always green vs red, blue vs green, and red vs blue. I have not encountered a single instance were it was green vs blue vs red in a single map.
Perhaps if there was some incentive, in the way of rewards for winning more then one map that could be felt, and 3 of the maps weren't identical copies of the exact same map, people would actually spread out to other borderlands in an effort to actually try and win more then just one map. As it stands, there doesn't seem to be any POINT to do this. I only need to enter a single borderland if I want to do large scale pvp, and there's usually no reason to enter one that we're losing because it ends up being totally unbalanced in numbers to be fun.
I can play FPS games for non presistant, meaningless PvP fun. I play mmoRPG's for persitant meaningful fun, and that should carry over to PvP that is already intended to have purpose and meaning but fall short on those two points.
PS: The graphs they just released. You'll notice, or maybe you didn't, that it shows a trend across all servers; not just high pop ones. Q's have been steadily dropping for pretty much every server. Anet hasn't actually done anything to alleviate the Q times, yet q times have been showing a steady drop over the course of the graphs across all servers. That would indicate that fewer people are actively Qing for WvW. It's very likely to do with people simly getting bored with the mindlessness of it.
I'm sad my laptop can't handle it. I have a 1.8GHz A6 OC to 2.5 (not really going to utilize that tho. Want it to last) with a 512MB dedicated AMD G620 HD. I get 58MBps Internet so I'm not sure of the issue. When the game was more reliant on CPU than GPU I was perfectly fine. But how does it utilize my 4 cores more than my GPU? Id really like to participate without having to wait 2 years to buy the parts to build a desktop. Even turning all options all the way down doesn't work. It's a lag fest
Your feeling of "is it enough." is warrented. I hit a wall after alot of WvW hours (I was able to sit in the 3 hour queues >.<) played during the first three weeks. That left me asking "What for."
Seems like there needs to be ranks or something, or an expanding of the skill system.
For the record the garbage that's going on is not ok. Even if Anet says it is.
I'm with you on this one. I don't even think about WvW anymore when I log in, it just doesn't have anything in it worth going for right now since most of the time you end up running around the map all day which is just annoying. I can get my pvp fix in by doing sPVP which is fast and has an ok reward system, far faster to get into action that way than any day in WvW.
I too think any form of "cheating" whether that be the rules of war or not, should be done away with. It's a game not reality, we all paid to play. Still love the game, just wish WvW had more incentive for me to do it. The badges that drop for gear are too few and far between to farm for. Would much rather have a rank system and a currency similar to glory for WvW.
If you love WvW and DAOC you will have to try Darkfall : Unholy Wars in November. By then the shiny might have worn off GW2, although I am pretty much between games atm so avidly reading your reviews. You've made the choice between Mists or GW2 as a "for now" game for me so much harder than it was before I started reading them lol
Comments
Gues not many inhere waged war in Eve ?
War when did it become even or fair ?
Only thing is free transfers should have been disabled before the 1 week long matches started.
My server Far Shiverpeaks went from 2 hours queeu to 6 hours queue in a matter of 4 days
Seems evry1 transfers off to winning servers -_-
I don't get this either. I've yet to see a single MMO offer free transfers in an effort to even out populations and actually have it work as intended.
They should have put in a requirement that if you're moving from server A you have to go to either server B and C, and then locked any transfers to servers that they wanted people to move off of. Especially when they intend to charge for server transfers.
When have players ever done what a developer actually expects them to do? Kind of like the way that a lot of players won't report an exploit they find during testing if they can use it after release to gain an advantage. Yet developers still rely on players to test their game to find these things, and then people wonder why so many bugs and exploits make it into the released games.
I have played WvW at different times and for long length of time, but I feel like a few posters here... I just don't feel the fun, satisfaction is lacking, and server impact and pride just not a major deal. When I am exploring the pve world therw is no relevent evidence of any change to my server from the pvp war raging. When I am in WvW it just feels like one big zerg from base to base then lose said bases to just zerg bases all over again.
After a few days of trying to grasp the WvW concept I have resigned to pve exploring. In other games and especially WoW and Rift I have been a huge pvper. I was excited for a large scale world to pvp, but there just isn't enough gratification right now in WvW to draw me back in everyday to play it. For this player something is missing that leaves me saying "Is that all?"
I agree with you. I made a comment above saying people are leaving in droves (perhaps a slight exaggeration at this point in time but people are leaving regardless) because they've realised that after a while, the game lacks substance. While people ARE leaving in boredom, ANet should be listening to the common themes of WHY they are leaving. You don't get too many opportunities to improve something, and if they can include some deeper, meaningful levels of character progression and tweak WvW to make it rewarding past the "fun" factor (that wears thin after a while) then people will work to achieve those goals.
Based on my experiences and fun being had in the PvE part of the game, I haven't even thought about PvP which is my preferred playing environment. I messed around a bit in beta and thought it was very cool. Especially side battles like killing the enemy's baggage train etc.
One thing I do look for in PvP is real consequence and not minor buffs. Be great to see Anet implement something game changing. e.g. new vendors open up to the winning side, winning side get a new mix of DE's that drop better gear, Losing side has a price rise... something that makes everyone on the server go 'damn! that's good, or damn! that's harsh'.
It would generate a great feeling when you win and make you want to hit back twice as hard if you lose
I don't think it's just mmorpgs. Look at how fps games have evolved, where you get tiered content to unlock, levels and points to spend on various things. Fps of old was just about grabbing the game and shooting stuff, today it's equaly as important to set a path of progression, sometimes meaningless (since you constantly reset it). In the end I think it comes down to choice. If both gamestyles are covered by the market, a big portion of the games crowd will be pleased, although they may not like the individual choices.
I'm afraid you are describing something ideal that does not exist. What is actually happening is people hop to the winning servers at the slightest sign of trouble. There is no incentive to support your server the way you describe it, when you can just transfer in a second, pick whatever you want from the winning side and then return back to your friends if you so wish (although usually people end up sticking with the FOTM server).
You get these absurd queue times because the people from the other two servers don't consolidate their forces and fight back, they just transfer to your server. Expect the queues to get worse, since the majority of the WvW interested crowd of the third server will move the second it becomes apparent who the main server is. Your queue times will obviously go up, because these people are extremely interested in WvW in the first place. You'll also get all the people from the second server that don't want to put much effort.
On the next match up, the former first server may end up doing much worse than before, simply because all those transfers have dilluted the good quality of the former WvW force, which will incite a fresh wave of transfers.
WvW has become rather boring, mostly because Ehmry Bay seems to be in total domination and finding opponents to fight is becoming difficult at times.
Didn't record the exact score, but for the last few days we have held all but 6-7 of the camps continuously. Something like 370,000:400:600 last I looked.
Most organised groups use voice communication software outside the game, so there is usually nothing in Anet's log to verify that somebody is a spy.
The only way to limit the problem somewhat would be to put some cooldown timer in transfers (like most Korean mmorpgs do, westerners need to learn a lot from the design of those games, they are way better suited for PvP in terms of rules and regulations). Even that however would not solve the issue of somebody buying a second box and planting a character in the opposite server battleground.
I just wat to point out that keeps can be upgraded to have waypoints, but it's a big investment gold wise, needs a lot of resources and you obviously lose everything if the keep is taken down. So people place those kind of upgrades only on servers that have 24/7 presence, because only these servers can safeguard them.
On another sidenote, one thing you can do to really screw up your server (and people do it a lot) is take supplies from the keeps. Keep workers (NPCs) use those supplies to upgrade the keeps and since only dolyaks can transfer those supplies and not players, if you take them, you deny keep upgrades, making them easier for the enemy to take.
Supply camps on the other hand have infinite supplies and are only a few second away from keeps. Yet people are either ignorant or lazy and don't bother going there to restock.
On MMORPG.com we used to have a few previews, then a post launch review. Then we got a two reviews after launch. I am wondering when the next AAA title gets released if we are going to have a Review of the Day, each day until they finally decided to do a post launch review!
“Server Transfers being free are a big part of this problem.”
I should not by surprised but I am. This is a problem identified in may other MMO’s, Aion being a case in point. It has been a diaster for MMO’s before, why invite that disaster again?
If they endorse an exploit, then it's not an exploit - it's a feature.
In fact if you read my post, I endorsed EVEs style. But GW2 is not a hardcore sandbox. If they want to give us the tools to combat spying and sabotage, then bring it on. Since they wont, then AN should prevent it.
You just confirmed everything I said, though it sounded like you were trying to rebutt.
WvW and sPvP could certainly benefit from more progression via FPS like horizontal progression of titles/rank/style and keep the power curve flat.
Which, I'm sure, is feedback they hear loud and clear and are planning on.
We're supposed to be getting some kind of big "status update" with insight on what's coming and what's in the way forward sometime in September so the rumors go.
Tsk tsk dear boy. Don't you realize they're playing it wrong?
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
This was put beautifully, and sums it up for me as well. I'm sure others can come up with other reasons why encouraging and making the cheating so easy is a huge turn off to people who just want some decent PvP action. I can't stand horrible arguments that "this is PvP", and "it's always been going on". With the good changes that Anet has put forth in the first MMO I've liked in years, I can't believe they dropped the ball on reforming a little bit how the PvP works and crack down a bit more on the cheaters. Like it's been said, the decent players have absolutely no way to stop the cheaters, which makes it all the more annoying, especially if Anet even encouarges it.
WvW was the #1 reason I bought the game, and to be honest, this would be a game breaker to me if not at least cracked down on a little bit. I know it hasn't even been out a month yet, and I'm curious if any attempt to stop this stuff, besides the paid server transfers, will be put into effect.
1. Regardless of what others are doing, thats 1 less spot a guildie could be using to come help fight.
2. They can see the map, but that doesnt give you position of anyone unless youre already very close.
3. Ive got to wonder if you even play. Nothing regarding guilds matters account wide. Yes you are technically "in" the guild, but you do not automatically represent any guild. You have to click Represent in order to get the guild tag, etc on any new toon. You dont even need a new alt. You can just stand down at any time with any toon and there goes your tag. Representing is toon based, not account based.
Anyway for those who think "this is just war" or its not exploiting, etc.... It is exploiting, because theyre abusing a system that is only there for a limited time for the purpose of allowing people to move around freely until they find a good server for them. The free transfers are only temporary, and once that goes away they will have to pay to use such tactics. Doing it now for free, is abusing the free part. It will be kind of funny to see how fast some of those same servers get their asses kicked when they cant take advantage of it anymore and dont have someone constantly telling them the enemies moves, etc.
Except for the part were WvW is supposed to be meaningul I guess. SPvP is there "just for the fun", WvW is supposed to mean something.
There is no real impact on the game whether you win or lose in WvW. In the end it turns into giant sPvP matches with people fighting over points for no other reason to participate in large PvP encounters, that isn't fun over the long haul.
I paint for fun, in fact I didn't pursue a career in art because I wanted to keep it fun for me, that doesn't mean that I spend hours or days even doing a painting and then through it into a closet were no one ever sees it. I paint for fun, I show off my works for the satisfaction I get from people enjoying what they're looking at; that is my REWARD for doing something that is fun for me.
Fun does not encourage the vast magority of people to do something for long periods of time without getting bored of it. You need to provide something that encourages peopel, beyond the fun factor, to keep doing it or they WILL stop.
Most people would find sitting in a station in EVE, buying minerals, producing goods, and selling those goods as not a lot of fun because I literally spend the vast magority of my time in EVE staring at numbers and following trends. For me, it's fun, but if I wasn't being reward for it -IE: becoming filthy space rich- I wouldn't keep doing it just for the fun. There needs to be a POINT.
There's no sense of impact in WvW on a personal level, not even really on a server wide level because the success or failure of my server in WvW is having no impact on the server outside of WvW.
If Anet removed WvW from the game no one doing PvE would ever notice because the reward for winning in WvW isn't having any noticable impact on anyone doing PvE; yet they reward for winning WvW is that your server gets bonuses while doing PvE.
Not to mention, the way things are laid out with 4 different zones, the entire 3 way pvp aspect of it isn't even really noticable. I have not encountered a single instance were there was a fight between all 3 sides. My entire experience with the WvWvW aspect of it is that each server tends to converge on a single map and control it, resulting in 2 way fights. It's always green vs red, blue vs green, and red vs blue. I have not encountered a single instance were it was green vs blue vs red in a single map.
Perhaps if there was some incentive, in the way of rewards for winning more then one map that could be felt, and 3 of the maps weren't identical copies of the exact same map, people would actually spread out to other borderlands in an effort to actually try and win more then just one map. As it stands, there doesn't seem to be any POINT to do this. I only need to enter a single borderland if I want to do large scale pvp, and there's usually no reason to enter one that we're losing because it ends up being totally unbalanced in numbers to be fun.
I can play FPS games for non presistant, meaningless PvP fun. I play mmoRPG's for persitant meaningful fun, and that should carry over to PvP that is already intended to have purpose and meaning but fall short on those two points.
PS: The graphs they just released. You'll notice, or maybe you didn't, that it shows a trend across all servers; not just high pop ones. Q's have been steadily dropping for pretty much every server. Anet hasn't actually done anything to alleviate the Q times, yet q times have been showing a steady drop over the course of the graphs across all servers. That would indicate that fewer people are actively Qing for WvW. It's very likely to do with people simly getting bored with the mindlessness of it.
I'm with you on this one. I don't even think about WvW anymore when I log in, it just doesn't have anything in it worth going for right now since most of the time you end up running around the map all day which is just annoying. I can get my pvp fix in by doing sPVP which is fast and has an ok reward system, far faster to get into action that way than any day in WvW.
I too think any form of "cheating" whether that be the rules of war or not, should be done away with. It's a game not reality, we all paid to play. Still love the game, just wish WvW had more incentive for me to do it. The badges that drop for gear are too few and far between to farm for. Would much rather have a rank system and a currency similar to glory for WvW.