Guildwars 2 is how to NEVER design PvP/WvW in an MMO

[hjjr78]

Guildwars 2 is the worst PvP game ever made! World vs World is not even pvp because the concepts behind it are all wrong. Players run around scared to face off because ranged DPS is too high and there's too much "CC" (root, daze, stun, knockdown, etc). Excessive Boons allow for groups to run around in super Blobs, running over everything in sight.

Class are unbalanced like hell but to be honest, the classes don't really work in terms of their abilities, which leave some classes 'OP' and others pathetic. Necromancer is completely dead! The class has no Boons worth anything and the ones it has don't last long, your shroud does not last long, and all your traits are slotted poorly and most of them are useless for WvW. If I run my 'Necro', I can only die in WvW. If I run my Willbender, I can raise hell, get inside Zergs and get out alive. That's how bad the 'Necro' class is compared to other classes and this is not fair for those who invested in 'Necro' as their main. The same thing happend to the Warrior class in World of Warcraft. 'Necro' attacks are also slow on purpose. This allows anybody to easily dodge your heavy hits. Base damage on all Necro attacks are also way too low. I can drop everything on my Necro and do no damage to another player but on my Willbender, one cut takes a huge chunk out of them. Get this... Players are still telling the "Devs" to 'Nerf' Necro class. What's left to take away!? The class is literally the laughing test dummy class of WvW.

World of Warcraft has/had better PvP than 'GW2.' Warcraft had a class balance and gear obtain issue(s) but the battlegrounds were fun. There's nothing fun about GW2's WvW because it's all die, res, die, res, die, res super fast with no good one on one encounters. You can't even go down swinging in GW2's WVW because that's how badly it's developed.

The game is horribly made and the creatores behind it are not creative and dumb as "chit!" It's a total chaotic mess!

I'm getting pretty close to uninstalling the game now. It's just a bore because it's a total "gank" fest and the hackers... OMFG, the hackers! I've never seen so many hackers in an MMO's pvp in my life!

Guildwars 2 is not number one! It's not even number negative 1! If garbage like that is considered good, then that's great news for any game development company that's thinking about creating an MMO that features pvp. Just play GW2's WvW and you'll know how to NOT make an MMO's pvp. Hell, the entire game is a guide to how to develop poorly.

WvW has nothing to do with skill because a push/click action game, based on gear stats is hardly a design for true skill. I've played an MMO that featured gear with no stats and the game play was more action-game oriented and required play skills, not click this click that and let your 'OP' class keep winning.

Most players who run around in WvW ganking other players would not be doing so if one, they couldn't get away with hacking, two, if they didn't have long range DPS to hide behind, three, if super speed and teleports were removed and lastly...invulnerability. Players are somehow running around immune to everything for like three minutes. Of course it's hacks because "invul" doesn't last that long. I have it on my Willbender and it's only 3 seconds but I see other Willbenders dancing around with it active forever.

The "Devs" are doing nothing to fix the game and it's not that hard. The following Post talks about three changes that would totally reshape all of WvW...........

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So there I was in WvW on my Willbender because "Necro" is officially dead; that class can not compete with all the 'Boon Party' classes. Just playing around on my Willbender proves that because I was able to get into the middle of a large Zerg and fight out and escape multiple times. That's not possible on any Necro Meta Build and what backs up that claim is the fact, you don't see too many players running a Neco anymore in WvW. Just pay attention to the classes people are on... It's all the classes that generate crazy Boons, Invulnerability, Teleports, Shadow-Steps, Ranged and disappearing. The Necro class is now the World of Warcraft Warrior of GW2 and folks.... Just be honest for once in your lives. You don't see 10+ Boons on a Necro that were generated by a Necro and that alone puts that class, which is already slow and easy to 'CC', at a total disadvantage against all 'Boon Party' Classes.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to mention here....

Players were complaining about how WvW was. Die, 'res', Die, 'res', Die, 'res', over and over again and those are not my words. It's like that for a reason and it's not hard to see why.

Even with the game having bad concepts throughout, WvW could be pretty amazing if just THREE changes were made.

One....

Boons shared effect needs to be greatly reduced. I'm not talking about self Boons, I'm referring to when Boons get onto teammates. That shared effect needs to be tiny. Why? Because when you have 30+ players all giving shared Boons, that tiny share will turn into a decent size share that will empower a 'Zerg' without making it overpowered but as it stands, Zergs are overpowered because you have so many FULL shared effect Boons going off at once.

Two....

Reduce ranged damage to smaller damage, much like "Condi" 'DOT." I know ranged players are going to blow a fuse over this one but you're blowing that fuse for nothing. There is no reason why Rangers, 'Eng', Mesmers, etc need to do so much damage in the far distance, when these classes are capable of 'throwing down' up close and personal. I know this for a fact! My Ranger in PvE shocked me when I finally stop using range so much and got close and personal. They are one of the more powerful up close DPS classes in the game. The same thing can be said for the 'Eng' so why give these classes an easy win in the distance? This is one of the reasons Zergs are also so overpowered because all their ranged players are doing so much damage as you try to approach a Zerg or as the Zerg comes to you, the 'lawnmower' effect happens, which is when one Zerg gets cut down like a lawnmower going over grass and this happens over and over and over and it's just a bore. There is no real PvP to be had with that kind of design. This is why ranged DPS needs to be dropped down in WvW only, making those players engage another player up close. When you add in the fact players seem to have super speed all the time... If they can high DPS in the distance all day with super speed, you can forget it. You'll be dead after your first three steps towards them. That is BAD design for PvP. Ranged damage should be doing like, 100, 250, 97 and sometimes 1k+, which is pretty much how "Condi" damage is reduced. It's easy to run in the distance all day but truly takes strategy to engage; I won't say skills because it's a push/click action MMO that's based on stats on gear. There was only one MMO made that was truly based on skills and gear did NOT have stats at all.

Three....

"CC"......

When you have a 30, 40+ man Zerg and each player has two or three "CC" abilities.... That's WAY too much "CC!" I really only see two options.... 'A', make "CC" only work against NPCs (tower/keep guards, etc) and not against other Human players. 'B', allow everybody to only equip one "CC" ability or if it's a "CC" by trait, then equip none. Why do this? Because Zergs will burn through "CC" faster, which will allow players who didn't get "CC'ed" to charge forward and stand tall, granted change One and Two are implemented as well.

These three changes would just allow players to go at it longer without dying in a heart beat and resurrecting all the time, just to run back and get cut down again in the blink of an eye. For those of you who ran Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft....be honest... That was FUUUNNNN wasn't it, Baby! :D

What's the difference? Well, you didn't have a 'Boon Party' going on. You didn't have a planet load of "CC" going on. You didn't have Zergs going on. You went down swinging in "WOW", none of this several players "CC'ing" you so hard you can't move or get up from the ground stuff. You didn't really get 'ganked' in "WOW" battlegrounds, not to the extent of what you see in GW2.

If the "Devs" would just make the three changes and run it for a week in a beta, I bet my "zonkey" players would NOT want to go back! You'll be having too much what I like to call, Royal Rumble "throw down" fun!

Those suggested changes are fair, because no class isn't going to lose anything because if you think Ranged classes can't deal close up DPS, think again. They just don't because they don't want to risk it and why should they when they can blow you up in the distance.

Personally, in all my years of developing... I could have never come up with the current concepts that exist in GW2 (my creativity won‘t let me, it‘s too high), especially in WvW because they (concepts) just have too many issues but hey...not going to press that, but something really needs to be done about the current WvW. It’s absolutely too chaotic and more about quick deaths than PvP and by pvp, I mean player vs player and not the other PvP mode.

Players are complaining, they just don't go to the forums with it and the "Devs" are probably never going to consider the feedback anyway. If I'm being honest, all the WvW I did today, I was not having fun at all. I was just there to get the claim tickets and memories of battles. You can’t have much fun with the current structure and if players think they were having fun...let those three suggestions happen and you’ll probably be so addicted to WvW, you’ll need MMO rehab to get off it.
Done with that...


Seriously though... The Necro class needs Boons too man...it's only right and I'm talking about Reaper and Core mostly but all build types need more Boons to complete and the traits need to be re-slotted in order to be more effective and all marks need to be unblockable because they can easily be dodged, Necros shouldn't have to trait for that. More stun break needs to be added to tray abilities too. My Willbender can trigger protection with other Boons and the same abilities also allow for stun breaks. That's insane when it comes to class treatment. It's like the Necro was purposely reduced to failure and given how many players keep pushing for more "Nerfing" although I don't know what's left to "Nerf" on a class that doesn't generate any real meaningful Boons, yeah.... Necromancer is truly the "WOW" Warrior and other classes know it, which is why the first thing they do is pull the Necro to them because they know the class has no "Boon Party" and they know the class can't escape from battle. Easy win every time. I would say the Reaper can put up the best fight up close but the lack in Boons will ultimately lead to defeat. You can’t “Condi” with Necro even though Curses and Scepter are for that because conditions are reduced to nothing in WvW so you’ll do no real damage. Scourge, the Shroud shielding don’t help because DPS is too fast and furious and the cool-down on Desert Shroud is way too long, plus again, any conditions spread from it won’t do much in WvW. It’s not hard to see why it’s a dead class if you’re being honest and if you’re not being honest, you probably just want to see it even “deader.”
.

Final contemplation....

The “Devs” really need to do something about players who run around with Invulnerability lasting more than 10 seconds. That’s God Mode. They are so bold with it, they like to dance around in front of you for 10 seconds while you do zero everything to them and then run off with super speed and still have Invulnerability up. Makes no sense what so ever in what’s supposed to be PvP, not player vs ghost player. A three man team of Invulnerability players can wipe out a 10 man Zerg that don’t have it. That's how ridiculous it is.



Forgive "typos", (I really gotta stop typing with the lights off, bad for the eyes)



Peace

[Tuathaqin]

I started reading with raised eyebrows. I main a necro, am a casual and still had some success in WvW. Check out Vallun (he plays every class in WvW) when he is on his Reaper, or MightyTeapot who I've rarely seen playing anything but Scourge. You might be able to steal some moves.

And then:
"The game is horribly made and the creatores behind it are not creative and dumb as "chit!" It's a total chaotic mess!"

I stopped here.
It reads to me like "I can't play well so the game is bad and the devs are incompetent."

Well, tough.

[☆SuperDuperShrimp☆]

This has to be bait.

[Gh0st.exe]

World of Warcraft has/had better PvP than 'GW2.' Warcraft had a class balance and gear obtain issue(s) but the battlegrounds were fun. There's nothing fun about GW2's WvW because it's all die, res, die, res, die, res super fast with no good one on one encounters. You can't even go down swinging in GW2's WVW because that's how badly it's developed.

Now hold on a minute, could you elaborate on that? How is it that WvW is "bad because zerg" while WoWs battegrounds are "fun" even though they devolved into zerg-groups 95% if the time? Hell, at this point Alterac in particular is pretty much just a PVE zerg. Not to mention that you are kinda comparing apples and oranges because WvW and WoWs battlegrounds are entirely different kinds of PVP. WvW has more in common with Wintergrasp, and even that isnt a really accurate comparison.
In other words: Ofcourse you will be disappointed if you go into WvW while expecting something akin to WoWs battlegrounds, because WvW isnt meant to be GW2s equivalent of battlegrounds.

I'm getting pretty close to uninstalling the game now. It's just a bore because it's a total "gank" fest and the hackers... OMFG, the hackers! I've never seen so many hackers in an MMO's pvp in my life!

Again, would you mind elaborating? Because no matter the game, a general "omg so many hackers" statement while refusing to name any details just has that "doesnt know the game, therefor anything he doesnt understand is a hack" kind of vibe.

WvW has nothing to do with skill because a push/click action game, based on gear stats is hardly a design for true skill. I've played an MMO that featured gear with no stats and the game play was more action-game oriented and required play skills, not click this click that and let your 'OP' class keep winning.

1. You realize you are pretty much describing WoWs PVP there, right?
2. Rated PVP has equalized gear, the "based on gear stats" doesnt apply.
3. Even outside of rated PVP the difference between exotic and legendary gear are miniscule, knowing how to play the class has a far greated impact on performance.
4. The difference in stats gets even less relevant once its more then just a few players, which is the whole point of WvW in the first place.

Most players who run around in WvW ganking other players would not be doing so if one, they couldn't get away with hacking, two, if they didn't have long range DPS to hide behind, three, if super speed and teleports were removed and lastly...invulnerability. Players are somehow running around immune to everything for like three minutes. Of course it's hacks because "invul" doesn't last that long. I have it on my Willbender and it's only 3 seconds but I see other Willbenders dancing around with it active forever.

Why do i get the impression that the whole "others are invulnerable for minutes" part is heavily over dramatized? Not to mention that the part before that kinda has the same vibe as saying "hunters wouldnt be that smug if they couldnt hide behind their pet while having ranged DPS" in regards to WoW hunters, aka complaining about a class using the one thing that defines the class.

What's the difference? Well, you didn't have a 'Boon Party' going on. You didn't have a planet load of "CC" going on. You didn't have Zergs going on. You went down swinging in "WOW", none of this several players "CC'ing" you so hard you can't move or get up from the ground stuff. You didn't really get 'ganked' in "WOW" battlegrounds, not to the extent of what you see in GW2.

Yeah no, thats a blatant lie. Even before its "rework" into its current PVE leaning iteration (when you could leave a battle, queue up 4 hours later and still find the same battle going on) Alterac was still mostly zerg-based. And what is that about "no CC" and "no ganking"? Especially in the early days rogues could chain their CC so that you were unable to move for big parts of the fight, not to mention that they cloth and leather classes had little defense and usually got 100-0 by them within seconds. There is a reason why the PVP trinket became mandetory since it could remove CC.

Long story short: Yes, the game does have its issues, i wont deny that. But in regards to this post i agree with Tuathaqin. This just reads like a convoluted way of saying "i just started playing, i dont understand how the game works, so its the devs fault and the game is bad".

[floridianslip]

I ain't reading all of that

[CyberDown]

WvW is such under rated content, which isnt the easiest to understand when new.

To this day on server reset day there are big ole queues getting into most of the wvw maps.

Always go eternal battlegrounds map until you learn how all the maps are interconnected, as that map will have the most activity. If you are getting into a die, res, die, res situation, you are on the wrong map and getting farmed most likely, and dont understand whats really going on with all the other maps.....though its possible you are just on a trash server or when you played was paired with a trash server. Hopefully the sever revamp which is taking ages will fix that.

Seriously that game mode has made this game one I continually return to, its how open world pvp should work in a mmorpg, and some of the massive battles that happen just dont exist anywhere else in mmorpg land.

[Amigo]

Name a game which has better WvW combat. It's the same stuff everywhere - zerg vs zerg.

[Hefutoxin]

Originally posted by hjjr78:

Get this... Players are still telling the "Devs" to 'Nerf' Necro class. What's left to take away!?

Ever stop to think "Maybe I don't understand the PvP in this game?"

Necromancer is THE Boon stripper. Conditions are just toys for them to play with. They are a defensive class that has a high amount of Chill, Cripple, and Fear. They also have a 1,200 Teleport Stunbreak to gtfo.

Yet you attempted to use it as a burst damage zerger. You ignored all the strengths of the profession and used it where it was weakest.

[Angoril]

Both main PvP game modes have been long abandoned by ArenaNet so expecting any changes or fixes is not recommended. Balancing will never change as ArenaNet is incapable of doing anything other than increasing the power creep.

[TheTool]

This doesn't sound like concern as much as it sounds like entitlement.

[Darkstar]

saw the wall of text . stopped reading at title . I am one of the worlds worst at these games due to damaged hands but I love this game . As I am able to play not to badly .

[Kinsz]

Sounds like a troll.

[DarkSlayer197]

Originally posted by armyguy:

@hjjr78
WvW has been long neglected, at least 8 yrs now. Back in the beginning of gw2, there were wvw devs that would go play with the rest of us. Even had an achievement, kill the originator or something similar. Up until last week, i haven't seen a dev in wvw for the past 7 or 8 years and I can't find the achievement in my list.

Making a correction. WvW was touched here and there, not exactly neglected as they did many experimental changes to WvW and still refining said changes with further beta tests. Rewards have been reworked recently, pips were updated last year along with other changes with the objectives. As for the achievement you said... easy to find. It is found in the Community section under General called Conquer the Creator. Devs often play in larger top tier servers so you have a higher chance running into them in T2 and T1 servers.

The tone of the devs has also changed. The original ones were all into separating classes into dps, healer/support and mages. Yes it's true there is no "holy trinity" in the original builds but the healer/support would give boons to augment the group and had less dps. Only mages had condition damage and duration, outside of bleeds, burns and poisons which didn't last all that long coming from non-mage classes. Warriors were strong like bull, smart like truck. Thief was a stealth class that womped single targets, touted as "the scourge of the battlefield" (10 years ago, now eben uplevels attack a thief).
CC was never a thing, some like warrior could cc someone for about 3 secs and some of those cause self-inflected damage, unlike today. Today there is zero damage involved but the cc lasts longer. Everybody and anybody can run long duration conditions. One has to remember that the devs today are whiny snowflakes that have left the intended path that the original devs had set.

Allowing other classes to be multi role is perfectly fine. It allows classes to be more flexible. Every class always had some form of CC. After all, the two types you will often hear are soft CC and hard CC. Often relating to the potency of said CC. However you have people mixed in groups who have no idea what CC is or how to do it. Those that do often know how to use it well and people who work well together are able to chain CC to keep their opponents locked. It is why stun breaks are often required and lifesavers. As for the dev remarks.... not gonna touch that one. You have your opinion and I'll leave it at that.

Cal Cohen, skills and balance "lead" (take that with a grain of salt) inserts his opinion on thief and has "led" the destruction of stealth only on thief. Then there's Cecil Armstrong, WvW Team Lead and Producer. Can't say I've ever seen them in wvw nor heard of any stream/broadcast of them in wvw and once again, "lead" is subjective.
In conclusion, the people that were left to continue down the path of the original developers have veered way into left field pandering to the baby boohoos.
Side note: they dismantled minis in wvw. Reason: "and to remove a bad interaction with stealth that disproportionately affected players new to the game mode." They checked the box on the mini page. just too stupid to uncheck it so ANet pandered to them.
Josh Davis, another "lead", said of thief, Shadow Arts has long been a source of frustrating game play in pvp and wvw (looks like the original post on the anet forums has been removed. Not all that surprising, disappointing but falls in line with their brand of BS). They dumb downed the skill level by destroying one class and adding long lasting cc's and conditions. So yea, don't hold them to any kind of a standard. Low expectations = low frustrations.

New players are unfamiliar and often get borked by stuff they are unaware of. Anet fixing it is not pandering. Calm down, It's fine when developers do this. We vets may be familiar with it, but it'll hurt new player's perceptions and I do not want that. I want the player base to grow, and I think Anet is wanting the same and addressing some errors that will help new players out.

While Shadow Arts can be annoying to deal with, there are ways around it. Many classes have reveal skills to prevent thieves from cloaking. Counters exist and it takes some homework to figure it out. AOEs also work wonders, because you may not be able to see them, but you can still hurt them.

As for class balances, future balances will be coming in. So, new strategies, counters, and play styles will exist down the line. A lot of what you said is complaints, which is fine, but to then say others are being babies while you ranted on your complaints sorta...hurts your argument. A big reason why you should keep it clean and civil. And again, not attacking you, just criticizing your argument and the method you chose to do so.

[TheTool]

lul

[Hefutoxin]

Originally posted by DarkSlayer197:

While Shadow Arts can be annoying to deal with, there are ways around it. Many classes have reveal skills to prevent thieves from cloaking. Counters exist and it takes some homework to figure it out. AOEs also work wonders, because you may not be able to see them, but you can still hurt them.

iirc, he's whining about the "nerf" to shadow arts that prevents Thieves from sitting in infinite stealth to bore their opponents into quitting. Thief mains were pretty happy with the change because it was a buff for aggressive playstyles (what the Thief is good at).

[DarkSlayer197]

Originally posted by Hefutoxin:

Originally posted by DarkSlayer197:

While Shadow Arts can be annoying to deal with, there are ways around it. Many classes have reveal skills to prevent thieves from cloaking. Counters exist and it takes some homework to figure it out. AOEs also work wonders, because you may not be able to see them, but you can still hurt them.

iirc, he's whining about the "nerf" to shadow arts that prevents Thieves from sitting in infinite stealth to bore their opponents into quitting. Thief mains were pretty happy with the change because it was a buff for aggressive playstyles (what the Thief is good at).

Ah. Well, that change makes sense.