Is this game dead or?

[Sir T]

I was talking with someone recently that said that the WvW scene has kinda fallen apart in GW2. I'm sure there will be blobs to follow though.

[Threash]

The last patch supposedly made things a lot better.  They actually got rid of the new map they added in the expansion and went back to the old one.  Which kinda tells you how badly they fucked things up, but at least they are willing to admit they screwed up and simply scrap the whole thing.

[Sir T]

Oh thank goodness. The old maps had their problems but the newer maps were goddam terrible.

[KallDrexx]

What was so bad about them (haven't played in a long time, but keep thinking about re-downloading it)

[Threash]

I haven't done wubwub in years but from what i heard from guild mates the map was way bigger and more maze like.  It made it impossible to reach a target in time if it got attacked, it made it very very hard for any armies to even run into each other.  Basically even when full it felt empty, even if you wanted to fight instead of play musical castles you couldn't.  It made all the problems people had with world pvp a whole lot worse.

[Sir T]

What he said. Instead of fortresses and lakes and whatever you had big tunnels that would round in big random curves and you could not stray from the path to cut cross country. It was kind of like edge of the mists.

[Sir T]

Logged in for the first time in over a year yesterday. Didn't have a clue what I was doing. Turns out that when I played before I had completely remapped all the keys to something that felt much better for me, and I have no idea what those keys were.

Silverwastes probably wasn't the best place to be for stumbling around and not having a clue. Still had a decent pop on the map though, which surprised me. Of course they all lost horribly when going up against the big boss. So same old same old. 

[Sir T]

Just letting people know that "Living story 3" has started. Its the usual "This story chapter is free for 2 weeks if you log in, otherwise pay up" Model.

The story can be summed up as "GW2 does Blizzard" but is fairly enjoyable (aside from non skippale endless talking sequences) and leads you to a smallish map that is built for running around farming and is fairly cool.

Get it while its free.

[Crumbs]

Matchups in WvW seem kind of shit.  EOTM and WvW proper alike.  I'm on TC and it's usually a steamroll in EOTM unless we have a talented commander.  Outnumbered quite often.  Did some EB the other night and people were given the comm shit, and then someone said, "stop giving the comm a hard time or TC will have no commanders left."

I've been searching for an ELI5 type thing for how matchups are determined, but I can't find anything.  Anyone know?  I have to be missing something...people say in chat, "OG are bastards" or "BL sucks," but they say this the week after our group was OG or BL.   

[Sir T]

I hear you. I dabble in wvw and its total crap a lot of the time with roamers and the way to victory is "massive blobs leaving everyone elses stuff as paper," and somehow we never have the massive blob.

Also I wish I had never started this BS Legendary weapon path. Its a massive gold sink.

[Crumbs]

I hear you. I dabble in wvw and its total crap a lot of the time with roamers and the way to victory is "massive blobs leaving everyone elses stuff as paper," and somehow we never have the massive blob.

Also I wish I had never started this BS Legendary weapon path. Its a massive gold sink.

Yep, still never going to do a legendary.  The Juggernaut tempted me because of the cool FX, but nah. 

I friend suggested I transfer to a different server with a better EOTM matchup history, but I'd like to better understand the matching up process before leaving TC.   TC4Lyfe

[Sir T]

Of course, I write that and a fucking precursor drops. Not a valuable one, a freaking torch that's "only" worth 140 gold. Of course to actually construct the legendary with it would only take about 850 gold. Winning! 

[MediumHigh]

I hear you. I dabble in wvw and its total crap a lot of the time with roamers and the way to victory is "massive blobs leaving everyone elses stuff as paper," and somehow we never have the massive blob.

Also I wish I had never started this BS Legendary weapon path. Its a massive gold sink.

Yep, still never going to do a legendary.  The Juggernaut tempted me because of the cool FX, but nah. 

I friend suggested I transfer to a different server with a better EOTM matchup history, but I'd like to better understand the matching up process before leaving TC.   TC4Lyfe

I never really understand the assertion that your going to have a balance mass pvp system in an mmo. Its just dumb at best, nostalgia at worst.

[Crumbs]

I hear you. I dabble in wvw and its total crap a lot of the time with roamers and the way to victory is "massive blobs leaving everyone elses stuff as paper," and somehow we never have the massive blob.

Also I wish I had never started this BS Legendary weapon path. Its a massive gold sink.

Yep, still never going to do a legendary.  The Juggernaut tempted me because of the cool FX, but nah. 

I friend suggested I transfer to a different server with a better EOTM matchup history, but I'd like to better understand the matching up process before leaving TC.   TC4Lyfe

I never really understand the assertion that your going to have a balance mass pvp system in an mmo. Its just dumb at best, nostalgia at worst.

And I've never really understood how, across multiple MMO's, it has been impossible to at least get the numbers evened out even when multiple servers are combined into different battlegroups at regular intervals.  Then again I'm pretty bad at statistics.

[Threash]

Because the numbers are only even until someone starts winning. 

[Fordel]

Not one mass PvP game has ever made population and participation balance a priority on day one. They always just assume it will work itself out and they scramble to band-aid their system after everyone shifts to the winning teams (or quits entirely).

[Crumbs]

Because the numbers are only even until someone starts winning. 

But EOTM is a game with "battlegroups" a-la WOW.  Different servers put together.  I can't find a concrete explanation, but these server groupings seem to change when the home bases change.  If all of this is correct, there's some sort of algorithm determining the forming of the battlegroups.  If THAT is true, can't the algorithm be based on who got steamrolled and who did the steamrolling? 

[Threash]

Because the numbers are only even until someone starts winning. 

But EOTM is a game with "battlegroups" a-la WOW.  Different servers put together.  I can't find a concrete explanation, but these server groupings seem to change when the home bases change.  If all of this is correct, there's some sort of algorithm determining the forming of the battlegroups.  If THAT is true, can't the algorithm be based on who got steamrolled and who did the steamrolling? 

It is, the steam rolling just begins a new with each match up.

[Sir T]

Hokay. Not worth making a new thread for this but I just want to vent here.

Firstly, ther insistance in non skipable dialogue sections is killing the story aspect of the game for me. Whether or not it's that or the fact that their new big baddie Joko is just such a laughably bad and pathetic character after we have taken down Dragons and Gods, but I can't even bear to finish the latest story patch, and people tell me that its actually pretty good.

Second this game is kidding peak grind. Every fucking new map is a brand new currency to grind up. Fuck that, I'm sick of chasing my own tail to move nowhere. Plus the grind for the new meta gear stats is just insane.

So I've been playing a lot of WvW. I do alright on PVP. Not spectacular by any means, but I get kills in most matches (assuming there are not a bunch of WVW style cheaters in the other side at which point its a pointless massacre where we dont even make it out of our starting area.) In WvW though its "unload into a Mesmer. He out heals you and 2 other guys doing the same thing." Unload into a Warrior. His life bar does not even move. Then he Jumps and *SLASH SLASH SLASH* you are dead. He also mysteriously has a full rank of boons and you have nothing even when playing the same class. If you get rid of those boons they are back inside a second.

The Cheating these days is outrageous. I had a guy last night that was bouncing back and forth over my corpse because his Macro was running out And he had just stood there laughing before he attacked when my Deadeye thief hit him with everything and zero damage. ANd its amazing how manuy people keep dodging every attack despite the fact that you can only have 2 dodges.

So you think "ok I'll do blob fights." Well Blobs fights have turned into "We Charge. The Ground in front of you has turned into lava with all the area of effect condition shit. You now have 20 stacks of every condition and are stunned. You are dead in less than a second Some people might say "use a cleanse skill and learn to play." Yeah use our cleanse skill. First you have to get your stunbreak skill off in the 0.5 seconds you have to live. Assuming you are not immediately stunned again with your stunbreak now on cooldown, most cleanse skills have a casting time, during which you die, and even if you get them off you can celebrate while 20 MORE stacks of conditions are loaded onto you and you still fucking die.

Basically Blob fights are dodgting Nuclear Artillery and Stupid Boon Strip bubbles and the Loser Blobs die in 5 seconds. The tactics now are actually blobs running AWAY from the enemy while dropping Radioactive AOEs for them to run over, or spreading out so that you can cover most of the ground with Syrian Gas attacks over and over while the enemy tries to actually catch your group one at a time. Its fucking stupid.

I mean before the condi game I could take on 2 on one fights with a good chance of winning. Now I wander about knowing I don't stand a chance if I see a player. The lovely SLASH SLASH SLASH YOU ARE DEAD game is so much fun. I actually celebrated the other night when I actually won a fight because the other guy wasn't actually cheating. Anyway the whole combat system needs a serious overhaul.

So, yeah, the story is fucking uninspired and the PVP modes suck ass.

[Crumbs]

Ugh in a moment of weakness I bought POF after not playing since HOT. 

My initial research shows that EOTM is dead, which is a shame because that was the kind of free-for-al fuckfestl I went to GW2 for in the first place.  I'm still due for jumping into WvW...did it turn into SERIOUS mode or can I still just follow a commander? 

Considering joining a WvW guild that does voice chat (FIREFIREFIREFIRE....WATERWATERWATERWATERRR...fuck ok spawn), I'm on TC if anyone has recommendations...

[grabble]

i considered reactivating, after about five years not using the account. 
found that there was an authenticator on my account that i didn't remember putting there. 
opened a ticket. 
a week later, they replied saying i had to resubmit the ticket without using a VPN.
that's as far as i got. 

[Crumbs]

I'll report my findings so far in case anyone pops in here for info:

I joined a WvW guild and ran with them last night.  People still gather for reset night and participation is high.  The experience was very close to what I remember during the first year of launch, where I spent a lot of time with a guild that ran coordinated groups on voice chat.  My HoT build (power reaper) melted easily if focused, but that's GW2 anyway.  I was able to survive a lot of fights but I had a good commander on voice chat who knew what he was doing, so that helped.

The difference is the reward experience.  It's much slower to level character skills now if one does pure wvw.  In the beginning one could level a character in WvW 1-80, then you had to get the tomes/experiene scrolls, then with HoT you had to get the specialization skills.  The skills basically rained down on you in WvW and EOTM compared to now.  In WvW it's now a trickle, and EOTM gives literally nothing.  No reason to do EOTM anymore that I could see. 

It's a little sad to think about how the game became exactly the opposite of its original vision, even at this point where we knew that for a few years already.  But now it's adopted even more of an epic scale of grind, which i guess from an economic standpoint there's no other choice for an mmo developer to make.

[Sir T]

Pretty much. All I can say is that the WvW reward tracks machine gun Experience books at you. So once you have a char at 80 getting another to 80 is pretty much instant, and leveling in normal play is very fast in any case. They have focused the grind at the after 80 crowd. Exotics are very cheap on the trading post so equipping with basic gear is pretty painless, but the Metas demand POT and HOT stats these days, and the grind for ascended gear is immense for that.

Also going glass in WVW zergs is suicide imo. One of the reasons my server does pretty well in zerg fights is that everyone else glasses up because Nuclear damage is where its at, and so they melt like crazy when you get on top of them. A lot of servers are really good at bombing condi blasts everywhere, and its hard to handle the "well the floor just turned to Lava again" situation, especially with choke points. I'm playing Firebrand a lot in zergs, which is the class for breaking condi bombs.

[Sir T]

So, Since I'm still playing

Latest living story is a drastic change of pace from the other updates, which I hated to death.

Just to catch you up here is a synopsis:

Joko the stupid (I hated this character) had started portaling ascended troops around TYria as he had zombified a bunch of Inquest. He oso got his hands on the Scarab Plauge, which is this plauge that *OMG* can only kill Humans!!!! So, the Other races dive in to deal with htis YUGE threat with the Humans, rather than say "uh. well, enjoy your death. We will be over here beating up Joko as we don't give a shit about his superweapon."

So we have a mano et mano fight with Joko where he resses himself as he his REALLY IMMORTAL and freezes us, giving us this speach where he says we are the real bad guys and after we are dead EVERYONE WILL LOVE HIM!!!! And then Aurene, our baby dragon, eats him. This gives her a stomach ache which keeps going into the next chapter so he might not be really dead. or something. Shoot me if they bring that fucktard back.

ANYWAY, this new story is a DRASTIC change of pace. It actually has real emotion behind it. We start seeing that killing a god actually has bad consequences far beyond seeing a big explosion, as people and human society are badly affected. And the last mission actually got to me, even though its crap at telling you where to go to escape it, which spoils the moment somewhat.

Action wiseIts back to decent fighting. Rather than standing on one leg and making the ok sign while counting to ten and doing the hopscotch to win the right to actually do some fucking damage for 15 seconds, I was suddenly in a boss fight where I COULD ACTUALLY FIGHT!! My reaction to this was "Lets get it fucking on!! RAAAAGHHHHRRRR!!! " I was.. HAVING FUN!!

This was a new feeling after a bunch of updates that I have pretty much all hated, leading to yet another grind map. Excuse me while I fall asleep with excitement.

I haven't really done much on the new map, but the focus seems to be large fights with lots of special effects and plenty of damage being thrown about, all decent fun. It leads to a new "home Instance" that you can upgrade with various quests. Its not a true home instance however as any upgrades you have purchased for your other home instances do not carry over. Its really a small map, but a good one. There is the usual "Get a new armour skin oh boy!" and a new legendary sceptre for you to grind for. The new mastery gives you a skill that gives you super fast endurance gen for your mount for 5 seconds, cooldown 60 seconds. Actually pretty useful.

Oh and there is a new Raid wing to bang your head off. You go into the Mystic forge and fight over the mountains of crap loot people fling in there.

[Hawkbit]

I haven’t played this in years but just got an invite to attend an event at the Moore Theatre in Seattle for Friday. Was that a blanket announcement?

EDIT: Nevermind, I forgot PAX is going on this weekend, so this is likely an expansion announcement or general get-together.