WvW Thoughts

[tazelbain]

It's almost like they need data to do matching.

Na, its not a data issue.  They were re-matching every 24 hours with great success in the BWE. Honestly i think its broken but its low prioty.

[Lantyssa]

The data won't tell them much yet.  People are still learning how to play their classes and working out strategy.  I'm going to play the tournament style to work on my skirmish skills and go back to WvW when the game has had a little time to settle in.

It's not going to give super-high accuracy, but it'll help sort the scrub servers from the ones where people know what they're doing.  It's not like there isn't a significant population that's been playing for months...

Refinement will come later.  This is just a rough sort.

As for them not actually changing... probably due to the back-end problems.  WvW is a later activity for me anyways.  I want to enjoy the world for now.

[sachiel]

Yeah, I'm still learning how to handle my ele.  I wouldn't feel comfortable in wvw yet. 

[Crumbs]

It'll be nice when the people complaining about this game move on to MoP and BO2.  That said, WvW is getting better as people are learning what to actually do.  You don't just stand at a flag, duel in a box, or (lol) throw a ball around.

Holding off a gate attack by using supplies to build a repair machine, and watching that machine actually repair the gate as a huge battle rages...this is what I signed up for.  Running back to the battle doesn't happen as often as I feared, because people are constantly rezzing you.

The map is huge, yes.  However there are a ton of objectives away from the zergs (which, again, feel less like zergs as people become more knowledgeable and work together).  Go to the areas you control and get supplies.  Get the NPC areas so you can use them to your advantage.  I dunno...to each his own I guess.  I'm sold.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah, I'm still learning how to handle my ele.  I wouldn't feel comfortable in wvw yet. 

Don't let that scare you.  Find a large group of people and go at it.  Seriously, with enough people around you'll figure practices and build confidence.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, I'm still learning how to handle my ele.  I wouldn't feel comfortable in wvw yet. 

Everyone else sucks too. Plus what if you have something overpowered that gets fixed later and you miss out? You don't want to miss GW2's Stungard. 

[Falconeer]

Does anyone know how many players are allowed for each faction on each border? I'd really love to know that. did they ever post anything about it, pre or after launch?

Also, SUPER-NEEDED feature: a transparent queue counter letting me know how long I have to wait before I can do WvW, if it's worth the wait or I should go to bed, if me and my friends are about to enter at the same time or not at all, or if I should queue for another border (because, yes, apparently the four borderlands have separate queues. So you might be in the queue for the most overcrowded while you would be superhappy to queue for another oneif you only knew which one is that. This is not confirmed information, just experimental findings).

[Ingmar]

Yeah there is room for a *lot* of QoL improvement around queuing.

[Genev]

The WvWvW queue is a bit funny though, i did it with a bunch of friends, i queued up later than them (as in, a good 5-10 minutes later) i got in before any of them... We'd also all queued for the same borderlands.
Think the first of them got in 20 minutes after me.

[Ingmar]

Can you queue as a group? I haven't tried that yet. If not that's the very first thing that needs to be added.

[Genev]

I don't think so, we all queued individually at least

[Nebu]

Can you queue as a group? I haven't tried that yet. If not that's the very first thing that needs to be added.

I think the only thing you can queue for a group as is the tournament pvp.  If you queue as a group, you will stay in the group but your queue will resolve individually.  Does that make sense?

[Pendan]

The WvWvW queue is a bit funny though, i did it with a bunch of friends, i queued up later than them (as in, a good 5-10 minutes later) i got in before any of them... We'd also all queued for the same borderlands.
Think the first of them got in 20 minutes after me.

This is happening a lot in my guild. People spend hours in queue only to have someone else in guild get in in under 15 minutes. You can actually see the same thing happen with the overflow queue system. Sometimes when logging in or switching areas I have the message that I am in an overflow server and the message asking if I want to move to the main server already up by the time the screen refreshes. I can see 20 other people just in my viewable surroundings. You can't tell me all the people in zone were asked if want to move to main server and declined because someone left during the 8 seconds of switching zone. I think the truth is it is not a queue but a list of accounts that want to go into WvW and a random account is selected when room is made.

[Furiously]

It also appears to get reset everytime you zone.

[Sjofn]

Can you queue as a group? I haven't tried that yet. If not that's the very first thing that needs to be added.

I think the only thing you can queue for a group as is the tournament pvp.  If you queue as a group, you will stay in the group but your queue will resolve individually.  Does that make sense?

It makes sense in that "I understand what you said" way but a little less in the "why would you do it that way" way. :P

Having absolutely no hint as to how long the queue is, though? That's kinda clownshoes.

[Dark_MadMax]

WWW was complete garbage. 5-6 hours queues one the lowest pop server (well it was lowest pop . now seems bandwagoners transferred to it and it is medium). You get in , game crashes within 10 minutes - you back in line. WE been paired with same 2 servers without any rotation (and those other 2 servers are behind by 200k permanently).  Arena managed to make release version of www much shittier than it was in BWE2

[Ingmar]

The thing with the rotation, is right now it seems to say it is rotating you (and it kicks everyone out to do so) but then the server matchups stay the same. So ... yeah. Buggy.

[kildorn]

Yeah, we keep getting rotated/map resets, but wind up with the same pairing.

That said: Mesmers are seriously bullshit in wvw. Holy shit the amount of havoc a glamour mesmer can cause in a zerg fight. I went about an hour before seeing a hostile mesmer try any of the same bullshit tricks I was doing (run forward, feedback/berserker, shatter, run away!) to thin the herd.

[KallDrexx]

Mesmers make me rage in SPvP

[Nevermore]

Yeah, we keep getting rotated/map resets, but wind up with the same pairing.

Not only that, but when it comes back up it's not resetting the keeps or the score.

That said: Mesmers are seriously bullshit in wvw. Holy shit the amount of havoc a glamour mesmer can cause in a zerg fight. I went about an hour before seeing a hostile mesmer try any of the same bullshit tricks I was doing (run forward, feedback/berserker, shatter, run away!) to thin the herd.

Even though I wasn't able to actually play much or at all in the second and third beta weekends due to the video drivers hating the game, I was still following some of the class subforums.  Class balance (or lack thereof) was the biggest reason I thought Arenanet might be pushing the game out too fast.  It'll be interesting to see how heavy or lighthanded the devs are when it comes to class balance now that the game has been released.  Mesmers can be pretty ridiculous right now, but so can the number of knockdowns some other classes can chain together.  That latter is a marked change from GW1 and one I don't particularly like.

[Ingmar]

Yeah I think the balance between the knockdown type stuff on one hand and the cooldown/duration of stability effects on the other (too long/short in general) needs to be tweaked.

[kildorn]

Part of the issue I see is that sPVP balance and WvW balance are completely different things. Some abilities simply don't balance well when you scale them based on having a max of 2-5 of them around, versus 40. There are no immunity timers, so you can get chain CC'd pretty badly in a zerg fight.

[Nebu]

Part of the issue I see is that sPVP balance and WvW balance are completely different things. Some abilities simply don't balance well when you scale them based on having a max of 2-5 of them around, versus 40. There are no immunity timers, so you can get chain CC'd pretty badly in a zerg fight.

This x 10000

Too much cc and too few condition removal/speed boost abilities. 

PvP needs serious thought... it's not where it should be for the year 2012.  I have many MANY hours in pvp both in beta and live.  Having numbers of some classes really ruins the fun.  I think that's why I prefer the small scale.  It's easier to neutralize the impact of a single class.

[OandA]

  I think that's why I prefer the small scale.  It's easier to neutralize the impact of a single class.

Are you still playing on GoM, Nebu ?

I really like small scale guerilla warfare WvW. Since Jade Quarry is dominating the whole map right now, there is plenty of opportunity for small fights around caravans and preferably) non-upgraded  supply camps. If you get a full group rolling, you can cause some serious havoc and have some decent fun. XP/Karma rewards are not to shabby either. There are even some veteran critters on the map who trigger an event and give decent xp rewards as well (best I ever got from an event, 650ish xp for a solo kill is not bad in my book).

We should definitly get some PvP enthusiast group going, if queues are too long you can even play some sPvP while you wait in queue.

I know I have asked this before, but does somebody have a vent/ts/etc. channel we could use ?

[OandA]

Since I am bored at work, I just want to point out that you really should not run with the zerg (or fight it) if you can help it. Grabbing small scale objectives left and right and avoid the enemy retaliation is way more fun and makes them use up resources, giving our zergies the chance to actually take a keep/tower once in a while.

Also, bind your call target/take target (default is ctrl-t for calling and T for taking) to something convenient and rain hellfire on your enemies.

Most of the jade quarry players I fought are not very good in small group engagements, they rely on momentum and number advantage more than anything else. And I have never played DaoC RvR.

TLDR: Target calling, taking and smart use of combos ftw.

[proudft]

Most of the jade quarry players I fought are not very good in small group engagements

I'm RIGHT HERE!

[OandA]

Most of the jade quarry players I fought are not very good in small group engagements

I'm RIGHT HERE!

Bolded for emphasis. 

I also got killed by guys with a [SLAP] tag a few nights ago. 

[kildorn]

I'll play small engagements if I have a group rolling, but otherwise I just enjoy taking keeps. It's more that most players on any side are going to be pretty terrible when out of their element, so being used to smaller engagements and going up against someone who isn't will wind up being a lopsided fight. Both of my smaller engagements yesterday were either me wandering across a fight on my way somewhere, or an elementalist who fought me for roughly seven seconds before deciding that mesmers were some bullshit and running away.

That and all the smaller engagements along the side of a keep fight, which are always fun. Really, I just enjoy sieges.

[OandA]

Well, my PC is not really up to the task of castle sieges. The game slows down to a crawl even on minimal settings. I have also never seen a siege succeed (for GoM).

So are Mesmer good for PvP ? I still have 2 character spaces left.

[Simond]

There are no immunity timers

what

[kildorn]

There are no immunity timers

what

You can get chain dazed all day long if people line them up. The immunity is Stability, but it basically means in WvW a dozen people can chain control abilities on a point for quite a while.

The flip side is there aren't many hard controls (stun, knockdown) and very few are AE. But soft control AEs come in spades (blind, chill)

[Threash]

If you are getting gang banged does it really matter what they are doing? you are gonna die, it's what should happen when you are severely outnumbered.  One person shouldn't be able to lock you down, that's enough for me.

[Fordel]

There are no immunity timers

what

You can get chain dazed all day long if people line them up. The immunity is Stability, but it basically means in WvW a dozen people can chain control abilities on a point for quite a while.

The flip side is there aren't many hard controls (stun, knockdown) and very few are AE. But soft control AEs come in spades (blind, chill)

I doubt people are really exploiting the defensive combos possible yet either. Gotta get those guardians to pop the light fields and spin 

[Malakili]

I played a bit of this today for the first time and it was fun, but as people are saying, there appear to be some downsides at the moment.  Still, I like the idea and although it needs a bit of work it seems at least a worthy distraction for me at the moment.

[Kageru]

I need to work out which class will have fun in WvW, given I'm casual and with slow reflexes / high latency (though it doesn't look like jousting works?). I thought a rifle warrior would have fun with long range, high damage, durability and decent melee if it comes to that. But the class itself seems sort of boring to me and the slot skills lack character.

The rogue is proving surprisingly fun. But I can see it's a reflex class and not nearly as long ranged. I'm not sure if all the powers give it a role and survivability, but it would seem like the mobility could be interesting.

I really just need to do some WvW once the queues settle and see what it is, though I'm sure there's going to be lots of balance changes to come in both classes and PvP.