Guild Wars 2: World versus World

Last Wednesday ArenaNet opened up their server doors once more for another stress test. So after getting back from work I jumped on Mumble, coffee and biccys at the ready (biscuits to you normal folk) and eagerly hammered the log in screen just in case they opened up the servers earlier than expected. They didn’t, but as good ol’ karma would have it the test ended up stretching on longer than the original four hours we had all expected. Huzzah! There was a good dollop of lag and a sprinkling of disconnects but other than that the stress test was extremely smooth.

The stress test went swimmingly! :D

Even in this short space of time, my guildies and I had an absolute blast finally getting involved in World versus World, and then towards the end of the night we were also treated to participate in one of ArenaNet’s end event. This was alongside a few of the ArenaNet staff, who graciously led the hordes of enthusiastic players through the madness they had created for us to blatter our way through. It was a real treat, as none of us had got the chance to participate in any of the previous end events. They always seem to happen in the early hours of the morning for us UK players. I can just about manage to go to work with five hours sleep, but unfortunately I think two hours may have just been pushing it a bit. It was tempting though!

The highlight of the night for me was finally getting round to giving World versus World a proper go. It’s the Guild Wars 2 answer to world PvP, and is in-keeping with what I like to call; ArenaNet’s ‘stop players annoying the shit out of each other’ policy. It keeps PvP away from the GW2 questing areas while at the same time offering players the opportunity to participate in large scale battles in an open world environment. For me World PvP has always been a particularly favourite element of MMOs (aside from all the griefing) and it’s great to finally see a whole portion of a game dedicated to just that. Even better as it avoids aggravating PvE players who don’t want to deal with all the crap that comes with it.

World versus World (also known as WvWvW or WvW) places three different servers against one another.  It’s an onslaught of resource gathering, objective capturing and experience boosting PvP warfare which is set across “four large maps with up to several hundreds of players per map.” Players can also “besiege structures such as Keeps and Towers with siege weapons” and makes for a very interesting blend of PvE and PvE. So whatever your preference in MMOs, there's always plenty to do for both types of players. Your character is also boosted to top level while you are within the WvW area, so it gives everyone a chance to participate no matter what stage of the game you are currently at.

Someone got here before us huh?

It’s easy to jump straight into, just bring up one screen and hit the join button. You will either be queued or placed straight into the WvW area, no fuss. At first I felt a bit lost, the maps really are huge and there are so many objectives to consider attacking. It’s easy to feel a bit overwhelmed to begin with. Luckily there are a number of NPCs to explain things, or you can just follow the crowd or players running to whatever objective they are focused on skipping merrily and hitting anything that comes your way, much simpler.

My guild and I noticed to our dismay that one of the other servers had already claimed pretty much the entire map when we started. This was the first worrying factor of WvW we came across. The enemy server had managed to do this in an incredibly short space of time (we had only logged a little while before), leaving us and another server with very little opportunity to fight back.  We now had to deal with all the elite NPCs that defended these once neutral areas, plus the outnumbering players that had claimed them.

You do receive a buff that boosts your health and damage when your server is outnumbered, but this seems to do very little to really balance the situation as a whole. When it’s just one of you versus a group of fifty, there’s very little you’re going to be able to do before having your head ripped off and stuffed down your neck.

The keeps and towers that we needed to win back to get a foothold on the battle can be incredibly tough to  recapture. Just breaking down the gates to get into just one keep or tower can be a nightmare, especially when you are being showered with arrows and burning oil from the defending players. You just end up feeling like fish in a barrel.

Just keep hitting it guys, I'm sure it will break eventually!

The best way of attacking is by building various siege weapons which bring down the enemy defences far quicker that just smacking your head on the walls. But this also poses another problem; unless you are near a supply cache you have to carry resources back and forth to the build sites. Each player can only hold a limited number of resources so it becomes tedious work. Even more so if they enemy team manage to quickly jump out of their keep and smash what your trying desperately to build. I saw red a good few times, and it becomes disheartening when you see all your efforts smashed to bits in just a few swings.

I had hoped that we would have been able to build our siege weapons away from the battle first, and then move them closer to an attack position afterwards. But apart from the golem (which is basically a walking robotic wrecking machine) none of the other weapons could be moved once they were built. I was sure I had seen footage of battering rams moving towards keep gates before. Perhaps this had not been implemented yet due to pathing or balance issues, but I feel it would be a major improvement if ArenaNet could allow players to tactically move siege weapons into positions come launch.

When we couldn’t get into the keep for some time me and my guild mates decided to go in search of the enemy supply lines. We made attacks on the resources they were using to constantly rebuild what we were trying to tear down.  We ransacked supply routes, and ambushed players who were trying to make their way back to the keep to help defend it.

It made a huge difference that you can also do things as a smaller group rather than being made to feel stuck fighting with the general mob of players, who usually just want to throw themselves to the slaughter against the gates of a keep. It’s just a shame there isn’t more you can do as a smaller unit in order to help the bigger picture, unfortunately most objectives are just far too tough for a small party to take over and hold. It would be great to see more of these smaller objectives on the map.

I might just stay up here...

When WvW really comes into its own is if your team does finally pull their resources and work together. We managed start building a golem just outside the keep.  Once we had gathered enough to build it we ploughed right into the heart of the enemy fortress running behind the golem sneering like weedy kids behind a big bully as it pummelled down the gates and then everything in its sight.

It’s extremely satisfying to charge into a keep and begin tearing into the weaker internal defences, putting an end to any of the enemy team left defending it, while your teams catapult and trebuchet rounds come pouring in over the walls while you’re fighting.  It’s then just a matter of charging at the NPC lord (the really tough bastard) and bringing him down together to retake the keep. You can even claim it for your own guild afterwards having your banners displayed all around it.

WvW is a truly worthwhile PvP experience even for players that aren’t even that keen on PvP. You don’t have to feel as pressured to throw yourself into the heart of the battle as you have far more room to play how you want. What’s more is that there is quite a strong feeling of pride, a need to fight back. You don’t want your entire server to look weak against the others you are up against after all do you? Not that we did that well, but fought valiantly anyway dammit!

You can easily end up spending an enormous amount of time in GW2 WvW, but the fact that you will still be receiving just as good an amount of experience towards your characters levels means that anytime spent doing it is just as worthwhile as anything else.

I wish I had spent more time on the PvP side of things in Guild Wars 2. It seems it’s going to be yet another element of the game that will be very worthwhile. Hopefully next time I will get the chance to explore the traditional arena style combat on offer as well. I guess that will just have to wait till July 20^th, until then I have to find something to fill the void.