Guild Wars 2

A recent discussion in my guild over how WvW should be grown to include larger objectives of various types inspired by various mmos.

I personally suggested what we need is not more strongholds or items that we look to control during certain times more than anything else, instead we need high risk high reward objectives that are difficult to defend. The biggest part is that they shouldn’t give you anything towards your score, but a tactical advantage.

To me this was like the Xelnaga towers in SC2. Get units near it and you gain a larger field of view but not usually easy to hold onto for long with out serious investment.

If we were to first increase the radius that we can see friendly dots on the map, to say absolutely no more than 1/4 the map, we could make tracking allied movements easier beyond just commander icons. We then in several Scrying Towers thru out the maps. these would have a small control circle at the base. stay in it and you would gain for your side the ability to see red dots on the map as well for a limited range(was thinking between 2/3rds treb range and treb range) Leave the circle and it would slowly lose focus and become neutral.
(aside:personally i would say limit who can see the red dots to who is in the circle. would make defending it a more active and rewarding venture. that way you cant just park someone afk there and everyone gets the benifit. you could have people relaying info and troop movements. this strike me as more in line with the comments Colin made about wvw needing more reason to employ forces of scouts)

Therefore you would gain a tactical advantage for the immediate area. One that would theoretically would promote defending actively without involving rotating balls of zerg crashing over it. yet would also be enough of a tactical piece that denying your opponents control of it and keeping it for yourself would be a priority.

to my thinking this would help break up the giant zerg balls, as if you can see a large force coming you will move out of the way. this would entice people to have several smaller zergs running over just one or two containing 70%+ of the map population.

Also i would suggest that using invis would hide your red dot on the map, making organized and skilled groups able to chain veils and the like to sneak a force thru a monitored area and surprise the other side.

Edit: forgot to mention these Scry Towers should be more ‘out in the open’ structures with maybe a little natural terrain defense but otherwise no walls. They should also be locate in the wilderness between camps,towers and keeps not where their range would let you see the defenders inside(or allow the defenders to keep tabs on if anyone is at the base of their walls, that should still be that locals defenders job)