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Guild Wars 2 - World vs World


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World vs World

 

I can say that I had absolutely no interest in PvP until I heard about World vs World (WvW). The idea of three servers in a battle royal complete with castles and siege engines was something I just had to try. Upon release, three servers will be matched up based on past performance and will face off in a two week bout. Matching on server performance is supposed to help balance the bouts. Getting steamrolled is no fun and completely obliterating the opposition gets boring real fast. The objective of these matches is to score the most points by taking and holding objectives such as keeps, towers and supply camps.

 

 

I am going to write this intro in the form of a walk-through. Unfortunately, I do not really have any visual aids to go with it.

 

NOTE: This is all based on less than an hour of WvW during BWE2 on a server facing two virtually non-existent opponents.

 

 

Entering WvW

You can enter WvW from anywhere in the world. Just press B to bring up the WvW scoreboard and click the link at the top to enter WvW. You will be given the choice of four worlds to enter. Each server has their own Borderlands, which represents their "home turf", and then there is the Eternal Battlegrounds which is no-man's-land. Even against two apparently empty servers, there was always a queue to enter the Eternal Battlegrounds. I have since learned you can queue up for the Eternal Battlegrounds while in one of the Borderlands.

 

Upon arriving in WvW, your stats will be boosted to level 80. You will not however earn all of the benefits of being level 80. Your trait and skill unlocks still reflect your actual level. The same goes for weapons skill unlocks and weapon swapping. Therefore, at a bare minimum you should at least reach level 7 before entering WvW.

 

Home Base

You start WvW in your home base. It has all the amenities of a major city, plus a special quartermaster vendor. The quartermaster sells blueprints for offensive siege engines. The blueprints (as well as supply) are required to construct the siege engines.

 

The chamber where you land has Asura Gates to each of the other WvW maps. You can use the Eternal Battlegrounds gate to queue up for that map. Across the room you will find a gate that leads to Lion's Arch, which is how you exit WvW. That Lion's Arch gate can also be used to quickly and cheaply get to Lion's Arch from anywhere. Just enter WvW and walk across the room to the Lion's Arch gate.

 

Supply

Supply is a critical commodity in WvW. It is produced by friendly supply camps and transported automatically to friendly keeps via supply caravans. It is important to note that damaged keeps can only be repaired by supply caravans. If your enemy can cut off your supply (by taking the supply camp or just ambushing all your supply caravans) you will be unable to repair damaged gates and walls.

 

Additionally, supply is required to build siege weapons. That supply must come from players. Players can carry supply and should always have supply on them.

 

The world

WvW has many of the PvE elements in it. There are NPC's and resource nodes. There are also special things like keeps, towers, supply camps and supply caravans. All enemy holdings will be guarded by unfriendly NPC's, even if there are no enemy players around.

 

Where to go

OK, so you have landed in WvW, now where do you go. If you open the map, you will likely see orange swords. That indicates six or more players fighting. For small groups, those areas should be approached with caution. Also on the map, you may see blue triangles. Those indicate friendly squads, which you can join. To join a squad, just right-click on the squad map icon. Keep in mind, you will still have to get to the squad, which could potentially be very hazardous. Nearby friendly players will show up as dots on your map. It might be a good idea to just follow them at first, since there is usually safety in numbers.

 

Downed state

The downed state operates in WvW just like it does in PvE. The one major difference is the lack of waypoints. If you are defeated in WvW with no one around to revive you, you will likely be in for a very long walk to get back into the action.

 

Additionally, this is PvP, which means enemy players also have the downed state. In this case, the same F key that revives friendly players delivers the coup de grace to enemy players.

 

Siege Engines

The player wishing to build the siege engine puts down the blueprints where he wants the siege engine to go (all but one of the siege engines are immobile). Then other players have to deposit supply onto that siege engine to actually construct it.

 

Score

At regular intervals, a count is taken of how many objectives each team holds and points are assigned based on that. Those points are accumulated into a running total, and the team with the most points after two weeks wins.

 

 

This is the short, short, short overview of WvW.

 

HTH

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Thanks for this overview, I had a good time reading it. I'll have to try it in the near future (most likely the next BWE) maybe with some of you.

 

 

Max

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was all alone at the beginning of Stress Test 2, so I dipped my toe a little deeper in the WvW waters. Overall, the water seemed a little cold and not entirely inviting.

 

In this first video, I port to our home server's Boderlands. After squaring away my equipment, I head out towards a neutral supply camp. When a WvW match first starts, all capture points are neutral, but are guarded by unfriendly NPC's. I ran into a couple other players, and we managed to capture the camp with little difficulty. I could not help but laugh when I watched the vid and saw at one point my scholar was tanking while the one soldier in the group was standing back doing ranged.

 

Like an afterschool special, this second video shows an important theme: Never Go Out Alone.

(And also have all your underwater skills unlocked before engaging in blood sports.)

 

to be continued...

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I a huge Anti-PvP player... but umm WOW did that look like fun.

 

I may have to revisit my opinion lol

You took the words right out of my mouth. Yesterday, I described myself as "WvW-curious". I have been trying it solo because I was not sure whether anyone else was interested. And FDM vs WvW is no choice at all.

 

I will be trying it again post-release. I think your server will be very important, and I want to wait until the makeup has some degree of certainty.

 

 

BTW, I have three more videos but with my bandwidth it will be a couple of overnights to get them uploaded.

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Here I was doing some recon and got spotted. The outcome was predictable, but why did I earn XP after I was defeated? Did I get partial credit for that charr I was fighting?

 

Here we attempted to stop an enemy supply caravan, but unfortunately we failed.

(And I forgot to recharge my healing mantra between engagements.)

 

I am not as optimistic about WvW as I was before. Most of the videos you see depict epic battles that look like something out of Lord Of The Rings. Most of what I experienced were quick-and-dirty little one-sided fights. Only time will tell, I guess.

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  • 2 months later...

Just a few more tips I have picked up.

  1. Remember, this is a game for points. You earn no points for killing mobs, or even enemy players.
  2. If a friendly goes down, expect the enemy to Area of Effect his body. They know we will try and revive him.
  3. A group of three players should no longer try to take supply camps since you can no longer pick off the guards individually. When you hit the camp, they will all be on you.
  4. NPC caravan guards will de-spawn when the dolyak dies. If possible, ignore the guards and burst down the dolyak.
  5. If you need help with a caravan, wait at a friendly sentry. The NPC sentry will attack the enemy caravan.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Thank you for the tour Kiy! Visiting World vs World for the first time with you as my guide was phenominal! That battle we were a part of was so exciting. :D How many were we? like 30 or 40?! Even though a lot was happening the targets and objectives were fairly simple. I just looked at what everyone else was doing and did the same. Being part of a huge effort like that was very satisfying. WvW is a genious idea. I will certainly be a part of it again. *dreams of an FDM hit squad* Would be cool to carry out FDM precision strikes while big battles take place elsewhere. ^^

 

Thank you lujate for the info in here. I'll be giving a careful read shortly. :)

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So far, Kiyeri and I are the only people who have been bitten by the WvW bug, although Max tags along occasionally.

She keeps threatening to make me play WvW with you guys. She is beginning to weaken my resolve. :viking:

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So far, Kiyeri and I are the only people who have been bitten by the WvW bug, although Max tags along occasionally.

She keeps threatening to make me play WvW with you guys. She is beginning to weaken my resolve. :viking:

Bad news my friend, she can smell weakness like a shark smells blood. ;) Keep your rifle ready. :guns:

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/sniff /sniff hmm me thinks soon we will get you in WvW Wygram... its only matter of time <3

OMG, maybe after the next dungeon run. Or if the run does not come off as planned.

 

I can not believe I am saying this.................... :viking:

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/sniff /sniff hmm me thinks soon we will get you in WvW Wygram... its only matter of time <3

OMG, maybe after the next dungeon run. Or if the run does not come off as planned.

 

I can not believe I am saying this.................... :viking:

Don't worry, it won't be so bad, we'll be there with you and we'll collect lots of gold, loot, and trophies.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Another quick tip I discovered this morning. Holding down CTRL will make the tooltip for your loot bags show up. That is an easy way to help make sure you do not miss them.

  • Like! 1
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yes, it also helps a lot if you're collecting the pearls while capping the quaggans in BL. And of course not to miss any chickens while going for the ambient killer daily achievement :)

Another good tip I saw practised for the first time today is when you've only got a small force holding out a tower against a large group: Build two (or more) rams in the tower lord area and spam 2!!! Had a LOT of fun like that against an ET zerg today!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

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