Guild Wars 2

Jeknar.6184:

“Hi! My blob can’t respond quick enough to defend our stuff because a thief keep taping our keep all day. Please make it impossible for it to happen so my blob can respond quicker so we can all go back to mowing down smaller groups and k-training faster. Ty”

except larger servers constantly employ said tactic, sooo…..

People keep talking about blobs and groups, and completely missing the point about the mechanics of the issue.

The problem is that waypoint contesting is treated the same way as popping swords. Waypoints do not appear as soon as a keep is captured it takes hours for it to be built, and it is a little ridiculous that it becomes completely unusable because somebody taps a guard. It is not unreasonable to ask for a simple change to this, in that a waypoint should only become contested if a guard is killed, there is damage being done to a keep, or the lord is taking damage. This can be done by an individual or group, same as now. The number of people that respond, whether its a blob or a single scout is irrelevant.

The mechanics of swords popping up to show an objective is being contested should stay the same though, they just need to split the mechanics between popping swords and waypoint contesting.

Forcing anyone to have to group up is not good for wvw. People should be free to play as they wish, whether it is solo or in a group.

Waypoint contesting is a bit tricky.

On one side the single person tapping is absolutely and definitively a broken crap mechanic and needs to go entirely or be redesigned.

But on the flip side, imagine you’re attacking, and the waypoint stays up uncontested too long, this would grind offense to a halt as response now becomes a guaranteed except for nightcapping vs empty servers.

So the whole thing needs to be redesigned, if waypoints won’t get contested as easily and remain open, then some other defenses need to get significantly scaled down to keep things in balance between offense and defense. What would you be willing to sacrifice ?

For example if waypoint contest time gets reduced by lets say 25%, could you live with 25% HP reduction on walls and gates to make up for the player response ?

Should the guild that owns structure have a very short CD and longer usage of the waypoint when structure is contested??

What is the point of a guild to actually defend structures providing more warfare gameplay besides ktrain redundancy, does the game lacks integrity?

Would this force to players to group more, or scatter them across several structures more?

@Tongku.5326, i think i could not live with the 25% reduction on walls, that would make players to stack even more since it would be more easy and faster to get strucures down, as i am in a small server it would not be a good thing, i think would be much harder to defend, we dont even have players to refresh siege…

Luna.9640:

I really would like to see a dev trying to carry a truck because that is the same as current joke – 1 person able to contest a fully upgraded keep/tower.

It should take more then 5 to contest a fully upgraded structure.

Small scale roamer action should be respectfully related to camps less upgraded structers or roaming around killing solos but not contesting fully upgraded Keeps because it literally invalidates the idea of WvW ( a fight on a massive scale )

Edit: just wanted to clarify as many pointed out that the main problem is not 1 man being able to pop white swords (because scouts exist for reason) but 1 man being able to contest the T3 Keep and it main feature – the Waypoint.

You’re hilarious. I actually have solo taken towers MANY times and keeps several times in the past, all by myself.. The keep being under attack means the waypoint should be contested rather its one person attacking or 50. Why should you be able to respond faster to 1 person hitting it than 50?

If I had time to go through my stream and find the times I’ve solo’d keeps and towers, I’d highlight it just for you.

Never underestimate a good roamer.

Edit: Honestly, I think they should remove waypoints from WvW all together except spawn.

Tongku.5326:

Waypoint contesting is a bit tricky.

On one side the single person tapping is absolutely and definitively a broken crap mechanic and needs to go entirely or be redesigned.

But on the flip side, imagine you’re attacking, and the waypoint stays up uncontested too long, this would grind offense to a halt as response now becomes a guaranteed except for nightcapping vs empty servers.

So the whole thing needs to be redesigned, if waypoints won’t get contested as easily and remain open, then some other defenses need to get significantly scaled down to keep things in balance between offense and defense. What would you be willing to sacrifice ?

For example if waypoint contest time gets reduced by lets say 25%, could you live with 25% HP reduction on walls and gates to make up for the player response ?

In an ideal scenario, the amount of time/damage before the WP became contested would be correlated to your server’s population versus the other two servers populations at the time. If you are vastly outnumbered, your WP should be functional for longer to give you a more fair chance at responding. If you outnumber them, then it should become contested earlier to give them a more fair chance.

Since we won’t get that, at the very least you should have to kill a guard, and the amount of time that a WP is contested should depend on what happened. If it was just a single guard that got killed, maybe make it contested for 45 seconds or so. If a gate/wall took siege damage, maybe make it ~90 seconds. If a gate or wall comes down then it can go to 3 minutes.

XTR.9604:

Never underestimate a good roamer.

Unless its a perma-stealth thief, then its a gouda roamer.

One person contesting a keep really isnt an issue until the cheesiest of cheese builds get involved. Its not like anyone ever complained that a turret engie contest a keep, or a spirit weapon guardian.

It has absolutely nothing to do with good roamers.

Dawdler.8521:

XTR.9604:

Never underestimate a good roamer.

Unless its a perma-stealth thief, then its a gouda roamer.

One person contesting a keep really isnt an issue until the cheesiest of cheese builds get involved. Its not like anyone ever complained that a turret engie contest a keep, or a spirit weapon guardian.

It has absolutely nothing to do with good roamers.

Any kind of thief is trash. I’ve solod keeps on my warrior, guardian, ele, and necro in the past.

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

XTR.9604:

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

LoL /blush

Removing waypoints would work better for a different map layout, say if the map had a top down rectangular shape where it is more narrow in the middle. Since wvw maps have a more circular shape to accommodate space for 3 servers, waypoints make it easier to travel around. Also since it provides a strategic advantage, it therefore gives an incentive to attack the keep that has/working on a waypoint, so it promotes a more progressive style of play which is good.

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

LoL /blush

Removing waypoints would work better for a different map layout, say if the map had a top down rectangular shape where it is more narrow in the middle. Since wvw maps have a more circular shape to accommodate space for 3 servers, waypoints make it easier to travel around. Also since it provides a strategic advantage, it therefore gives an incentive to attack the keep that has/working on a waypoint, so it promotes a more progressive style of play which is good.

I think the idea is to have scouts around that can call out in team chat if something is being hit somewhere.. If a servers scouting is bad enough to where they lose an objective because they had to run from spawn instead of the nearest waypoint, then they deserved to lose it lol.

XTR.9604:

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

LoL /blush

Removing waypoints would work better for a different map layout, say if the map had a top down rectangular shape where it is more narrow in the middle. Since wvw maps have a more circular shape to accommodate space for 3 servers, waypoints make it easier to travel around. Also since it provides a strategic advantage, it therefore gives an incentive to attack the keep that has/working on a waypoint, so it promotes a more progressive style of play which is good.

I think the idea is to have scouts around that can call out in team chat if something is being hit somewhere.. If a servers scouting is bad enough to where they lose an objective because they had to run from spawn instead of the nearest waypoint, then they deserved to lose it lol.

Scouting is definitely important and it cannot be said enough. However it can be very difficult to do considering how much of the area around the keep needs to be checked. Alpine garrison is simply enough, 5 gates and 2 wall sections. With the current system. With desert bl it is a lot harder to do because of how much larger the keeps are and the more complex navigation and pathing doesn’t make it easier. Some servers simply do not have the manpower, or volunteers to place a scout, let alone multiple scouts throughout a map.

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

LoL /blush

Removing waypoints would work better for a different map layout, say if the map had a top down rectangular shape where it is more narrow in the middle. Since wvw maps have a more circular shape to accommodate space for 3 servers, waypoints make it easier to travel around. Also since it provides a strategic advantage, it therefore gives an incentive to attack the keep that has/working on a waypoint, so it promotes a more progressive style of play which is good.

I think the idea is to have scouts around that can call out in team chat if something is being hit somewhere.. If a servers scouting is bad enough to where they lose an objective because they had to run from spawn instead of the nearest waypoint, then they deserved to lose it lol.

Scouting is definitely important and it cannot be said enough. However it can be very difficult to do considering how much of the area around the keep needs to be checked. Alpine garrison is simply enough, 5 gates and 2 wall sections. With the current system. With desert bl it is a lot harder to do because of how much larger the keeps are and the more complex navigation and pathing doesn’t make it easier. Some servers simply do not have the manpower, or volunteers to place a scout, let alone multiple scouts throughout a map.

I can’t speak for all roamers, but when I’m roaming, I’ll frequently call out where I see enemy zergs in team chat or send a PM to a commander that I know is running.

XTR.9604:

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

X T D.6458:

XTR.9604:

Stand The Wall.6987:

X T D.6458:

snipples

you sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I would like to wholeheartedly give my unabated praise for such a radical display of honest logic and grand ideas! hear hear!

only about 10, 15… maybe 20% joke. so for srs it really doesn’t makes sense that the swords and wp contestation are treated as separate events.

Don’t lie, you were serious the whole way lol.

But really though, the sword and WP contesting are one in the same as they should be. I still say that waypoints should be removed from WvW in general except for spawn but I doubt I’ll get what I want too lol.

LoL /blush

Removing waypoints would work better for a different map layout, say if the map had a top down rectangular shape where it is more narrow in the middle. Since wvw maps have a more circular shape to accommodate space for 3 servers, waypoints make it easier to travel around. Also since it provides a strategic advantage, it therefore gives an incentive to attack the keep that has/working on a waypoint, so it promotes a more progressive style of play which is good.

I think the idea is to have scouts around that can call out in team chat if something is being hit somewhere.. If a servers scouting is bad enough to where they lose an objective because they had to run from spawn instead of the nearest waypoint, then they deserved to lose it lol.

Scouting is definitely important and it cannot be said enough. However it can be very difficult to do considering how much of the area around the keep needs to be checked. Alpine garrison is simply enough, 5 gates and 2 wall sections. With the current system. With desert bl it is a lot harder to do because of how much larger the keeps are and the more complex navigation and pathing doesn’t make it easier. Some servers simply do not have the manpower, or volunteers to place a scout, let alone multiple scouts throughout a map.

I can’t speak for all roamers, but when I’m roaming, I’ll frequently call out where I see enemy zergs in team chat or send a PM to a commander that I know is running.

Well sure, as many people do, but mobile scouting is a little different than stationary scouting. Both are important and useful, but require different action.

XTR.9604:

Edit: Honestly, I think they should remove waypoints from WvW all together except spawn.

They removed waypoints from the side keeps and that worked out so well…

You guys are hilarious. You expect people to be able to stop someone from hitting a guard one time(do they even need to do this or can they just aggro them?) like that’s viable. How many people do you expect to camp every single group of guards. The mechanic is stupid and I’m pretty sure there are people using bots to contest keeps because I’ve seen the same person doing it for literally hours every day, starting before I logged on, probably still going on after I logged out.

Baldrick.8967:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

One change I would like to see is to not have WPs be contested until either a wall/gate is down.

Careful for what you wish for. Those swords can mean the difference between defending lords room and getting there JUST as it flips. One gate down and no immediate defenders … Might as well just hand it to them.

Have it affect WPs and attackers might as well not attack. People can insta port in.

I only want to change how the WPs are contested, not how the orange swords spawn. Those should stay the same, but it just doesn’t make sense for one person to knock a WP out of commission by doing almost nothing. And, having the WP still be uncontested until the outer wall is down gives that server more of a chance of getting there to defend. It might be too long, so maybe when walls/gates are at 50% might be better but still.

Also, if at all possible (though I highly doubt it), someone who hits a gate, then runs away mmediately as soon as you come up to fight them, rinse and repeat should never, ever be able to contest anything.

There’s strategy involved in the pizza delivery model.

Contest the centre keep on alpine and force your opponent to have to run all the way from spawn to get to a keep under attack. Any delay can mean victory if timed well.

I’m well aware of that strategy. I think its a bullkitten strategy that Anet should get rid of already. If you want to contest a WP then you should be putting serious pressure on that keep, not killing a guard or two that are roaming outside every couple minutes. That’s lazy and only requires a single person to hamper an entire servers’ ability to respond. That’s too much power put into a single person’s hands, too much. It’s just something that shouldn’t be happening. Go actually attack the keep and make a concentrated effort if you want to take down their WP.

It’s not a bull-kitten strategy.

There are many viable counters to it; the prime one being jumping out of your keep and killing the guy who’s doing it. Over and over. Hiding behind the walls and pew pewing with siege won’t stop them – it just irritates them and makes them more determined.

I can think of five different ways to dissuade it.

Your counter of jumping out doesn’t work. It’s a thief. Unless you want to tie up 5-10 people for hours on the off chance he comes back the likelihood is he will stealth and be out of range. Even if you camp both gates with people- at which point he’s won, as he’s tied up 10 players just to try and prevent him contesting (which is still very hard to do). It’s usually the same thief contesting other towers, capping guards, etc and sometimes 2-3 of them. If you do manage to kill him he’s back within 3 minutes anyway- if there is more than one of you spending time trying to kill him then he’s winning, tying up your players and making his team’s odds better elsewhere.

There is no viable foolproof counter to a lone thief contesting whatever he likes which doesn’t involve tying up many more on your side than his. It’s a broken mechanic that needs fixing.

If you’re playing in t1 or t2 then you probably don’t see the issue as you have bodies available.

Contesting should be done on damage to walls or gates, threshold set at 10k damage (ie one hit or so with a catapult/ram).

Scouting should be done by NPC’s so tactics would be send people around taking down NPCs on towers etc so your main party isn’t revealed if you want to ninja things until you get in – then Lord would reveal you anyway.

Wvw should encourage tactics and fights not karma training. When I’m ninja capping a tower with a couple of people the game should show us if an NPC spots us- after all, it might be my tactic to pull a larger force to us so our main force can attack SM or a keep or main tower elsewhere.

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.
3. How do you counter a thief “in the wild”? Use the same strategy to staking them, or hide in the keep and be annoyed.
4. Recognize patterns.
5. Have one person per gate. Kill thief over and over. They’ll move on to an easier target.
6. Use cold snares on thieves; they have few counters to cold.
7. Play a thief, learn their limitations.
8. See #3.

maybe simply decreasing the time a wp is contested would help. although its a bandaid kinda deal, and if it was decreased too drastically (when has anet ever messed up something basic) then taking stuff would become hard indeed.

Jayne.9251:

Baldrick.8967:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

One change I would like to see is to not have WPs be contested until either a wall/gate is down.

Careful for what you wish for. Those swords can mean the difference between defending lords room and getting there JUST as it flips. One gate down and no immediate defenders … Might as well just hand it to them.

Have it affect WPs and attackers might as well not attack. People can insta port in.

I only want to change how the WPs are contested, not how the orange swords spawn. Those should stay the same, but it just doesn’t make sense for one person to knock a WP out of commission by doing almost nothing. And, having the WP still be uncontested until the outer wall is down gives that server more of a chance of getting there to defend. It might be too long, so maybe when walls/gates are at 50% might be better but still.

Also, if at all possible (though I highly doubt it), someone who hits a gate, then runs away mmediately as soon as you come up to fight them, rinse and repeat should never, ever be able to contest anything.

There’s strategy involved in the pizza delivery model.

Contest the centre keep on alpine and force your opponent to have to run all the way from spawn to get to a keep under attack. Any delay can mean victory if timed well.

I’m well aware of that strategy. I think its a bullkitten strategy that Anet should get rid of already. If you want to contest a WP then you should be putting serious pressure on that keep, not killing a guard or two that are roaming outside every couple minutes. That’s lazy and only requires a single person to hamper an entire servers’ ability to respond. That’s too much power put into a single person’s hands, too much. It’s just something that shouldn’t be happening. Go actually attack the keep and make a concentrated effort if you want to take down their WP.

It’s not a bull-kitten strategy.

There are many viable counters to it; the prime one being jumping out of your keep and killing the guy who’s doing it. Over and over. Hiding behind the walls and pew pewing with siege won’t stop them – it just irritates them and makes them more determined.

I can think of five different ways to dissuade it.

Your counter of jumping out doesn’t work. It’s a thief. Unless you want to tie up 5-10 people for hours on the off chance he comes back the likelihood is he will stealth and be out of range. Even if you camp both gates with people- at which point he’s won, as he’s tied up 10 players just to try and prevent him contesting (which is still very hard to do). It’s usually the same thief contesting other towers, capping guards, etc and sometimes 2-3 of them. If you do manage to kill him he’s back within 3 minutes anyway- if there is more than one of you spending time trying to kill him then he’s winning, tying up your players and making his team’s odds better elsewhere.

There is no viable foolproof counter to a lone thief contesting whatever he likes which doesn’t involve tying up many more on your side than his. It’s a broken mechanic that needs fixing.

If you’re playing in t1 or t2 then you probably don’t see the issue as you have bodies available.

Contesting should be done on damage to walls or gates, threshold set at 10k damage (ie one hit or so with a catapult/ram).

Scouting should be done by NPC’s so tactics would be send people around taking down NPCs on towers etc so your main party isn’t revealed if you want to ninja things until you get in – then Lord would reveal you anyway.

Wvw should encourage tactics and fights not karma training. When I’m ninja capping a tower with a couple of people the game should show us if an NPC spots us- after all, it might be my tactic to pull a larger force to us so our main force can attack SM or a keep or main tower elsewhere.

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.
3. How do you counter a thief “in the wild”? Use the same strategy to staking them, or hide in the keep and be annoyed.
4. Recognize patterns.
5. Have one person per gate. Kill thief over and over. They’ll move on to an easier target.
6. Use cold snares on thieves; they have few counters to cold.
7. Play a thief, learn their limitations.
8. See #3.

You clearly have never actually fought a thief that has even a tiny amount of competence at this game.

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

One change I would like to see is to not have WPs be contested until either a wall/gate is down.

Careful for what you wish for. Those swords can mean the difference between defending lords room and getting there JUST as it flips. One gate down and no immediate defenders … Might as well just hand it to them.

Have it affect WPs and attackers might as well not attack. People can insta port in.

I only want to change how the WPs are contested, not how the orange swords spawn. Those should stay the same, but it just doesn’t make sense for one person to knock a WP out of commission by doing almost nothing. And, having the WP still be uncontested until the outer wall is down gives that server more of a chance of getting there to defend. It might be too long, so maybe when walls/gates are at 50% might be better but still.

Also, if at all possible (though I highly doubt it), someone who hits a gate, then runs away mmediately as soon as you come up to fight them, rinse and repeat should never, ever be able to contest anything.

There’s strategy involved in the pizza delivery model.

Contest the centre keep on alpine and force your opponent to have to run all the way from spawn to get to a keep under attack. Any delay can mean victory if timed well.

I’m well aware of that strategy. I think its a bullkitten strategy that Anet should get rid of already. If you want to contest a WP then you should be putting serious pressure on that keep, not killing a guard or two that are roaming outside every couple minutes. That’s lazy and only requires a single person to hamper an entire servers’ ability to respond. That’s too much power put into a single person’s hands, too much. It’s just something that shouldn’t be happening. Go actually attack the keep and make a concentrated effort if you want to take down their WP.

It’s not a bull-kitten strategy.

There are many viable counters to it; the prime one being jumping out of your keep and killing the guy who’s doing it. Over and over. Hiding behind the walls and pew pewing with siege won’t stop them – it just irritates them and makes them more determined.

I can think of five different ways to dissuade it.

The problem is when said person is a thief who literally just comes back over and over and over again to tap a guard on the wall then stealth runs away for 5 mins. Then they go to another part of the wall and do it, you can literally have a keep contested for hours while needing a disproportionate amount of people to kill him or just stop him contesting it.

Remember a thief can get back again in plenty of time even if they die every time.

Also did someone say pizza, mines a pepperoni please!

Fay.2357:

Jayne.9251:

Baldrick.8967:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

Jayne.9251:

OriOri.8724:

One change I would like to see is to not have WPs be contested until either a wall/gate is down.

Careful for what you wish for. Those swords can mean the difference between defending lords room and getting there JUST as it flips. One gate down and no immediate defenders … Might as well just hand it to them.

Have it affect WPs and attackers might as well not attack. People can insta port in.

I only want to change how the WPs are contested, not how the orange swords spawn. Those should stay the same, but it just doesn’t make sense for one person to knock a WP out of commission by doing almost nothing. And, having the WP still be uncontested until the outer wall is down gives that server more of a chance of getting there to defend. It might be too long, so maybe when walls/gates are at 50% might be better but still.

Also, if at all possible (though I highly doubt it), someone who hits a gate, then runs away mmediately as soon as you come up to fight them, rinse and repeat should never, ever be able to contest anything.

There’s strategy involved in the pizza delivery model.

Contest the centre keep on alpine and force your opponent to have to run all the way from spawn to get to a keep under attack. Any delay can mean victory if timed well.

I’m well aware of that strategy. I think its a bullkitten strategy that Anet should get rid of already. If you want to contest a WP then you should be putting serious pressure on that keep, not killing a guard or two that are roaming outside every couple minutes. That’s lazy and only requires a single person to hamper an entire servers’ ability to respond. That’s too much power put into a single person’s hands, too much. It’s just something that shouldn’t be happening. Go actually attack the keep and make a concentrated effort if you want to take down their WP.

It’s not a bull-kitten strategy.

There are many viable counters to it; the prime one being jumping out of your keep and killing the guy who’s doing it. Over and over. Hiding behind the walls and pew pewing with siege won’t stop them – it just irritates them and makes them more determined.

I can think of five different ways to dissuade it.

Your counter of jumping out doesn’t work. It’s a thief. Unless you want to tie up 5-10 people for hours on the off chance he comes back the likelihood is he will stealth and be out of range. Even if you camp both gates with people- at which point he’s won, as he’s tied up 10 players just to try and prevent him contesting (which is still very hard to do). It’s usually the same thief contesting other towers, capping guards, etc and sometimes 2-3 of them. If you do manage to kill him he’s back within 3 minutes anyway- if there is more than one of you spending time trying to kill him then he’s winning, tying up your players and making his team’s odds better elsewhere.

There is no viable foolproof counter to a lone thief contesting whatever he likes which doesn’t involve tying up many more on your side than his. It’s a broken mechanic that needs fixing.

If you’re playing in t1 or t2 then you probably don’t see the issue as you have bodies available.

Contesting should be done on damage to walls or gates, threshold set at 10k damage (ie one hit or so with a catapult/ram).

Scouting should be done by NPC’s so tactics would be send people around taking down NPCs on towers etc so your main party isn’t revealed if you want to ninja things until you get in – then Lord would reveal you anyway.

Wvw should encourage tactics and fights not karma training. When I’m ninja capping a tower with a couple of people the game should show us if an NPC spots us- after all, it might be my tactic to pull a larger force to us so our main force can attack SM or a keep or main tower elsewhere.

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.
3. How do you counter a thief “in the wild”? Use the same strategy to staking them, or hide in the keep and be annoyed.
4. Recognize patterns.
5. Have one person per gate. Kill thief over and over. They’ll move on to an easier target.
6. Use cold snares on thieves; they have few counters to cold.
7. Play a thief, learn their limitations.
8. See #3.

You clearly have never actually fought a thief that has even a tiny amount of competence at this game.

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Jayne.9251:

Fay.2357:

Jayne.9251:

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.
3. How do you counter a thief “in the wild”? Use the same strategy to staking them, or hide in the keep and be annoyed.
4. Recognize patterns.
5. Have one person per gate. Kill thief over and over. They’ll move on to an easier target.
6. Use cold snares on thieves; they have few counters to cold.
7. Play a thief, learn their limitations.
8. See #3.

You clearly have never actually fought a thief that has even a tiny amount of competence at this game.

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Yes, you can. But that doesn’t change the fact that even after you kill them, that thief has more than enough time to respawn, make it all the way across the map again without being detected, and sneezing on a guard again to keep your WP contested forever. Are you seriously claiming that not only is this some deep, dark strategy that was super hard to think of, but its also the opposite of cheese and should be encouraged and allowed? A single person allowed to hamper an entire server’s ability to respond to anything that happens on the map? And even if they are killed they have plenty of time to get back and knock the WP into contested again?

This is just not good game design. This is just too much power given to a single player at no expense to their server. If you want to hamper an entire server’s ability to respond on a map then you should have to put dedication and real resources into it and actually make a concentrated effort at their keep to keep the WP out of commission for any length of time.

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

If a thief in the wild doesn’t want to be killed, it’s more or less impossible to kill them. The same applies here, except NPCs aren’t smart enough to just leave the thief be, they’ll simply die to it.

Fay.2357:

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

If a thief in the wild doesn’t want to be killed, it’s more or less impossible to kill them. The same applies here, except NPCs aren’t smart enough to just leave the thief be, they’ll simply die to it.

Imagine if an NPC scout suddenly has 8 condis on him from a permastealth thief… He immiedietly pop invouln and reveal the thief, the two guards next to him pop quickness and toss unblockable pulls, when the thief is being CCd the scout steal teleport to him and stealth backstab for 15k damage.

[/quote]

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.
3. How do you counter a thief “in the wild”? Use the same strategy to staking them, or hide in the keep and be annoyed.
4. Recognize patterns.
5. Have one person per gate. Kill thief over and over. They’ll move on to an easier target.
6. Use cold snares on thieves; they have few counters to cold.
7. Play a thief, learn their limitations.
8. See #3.[/quote]

I lol’d.

1. So what- you have to be able to hit it first.
2. Requires multiple people to set them at multiple points, you might catch him with them once then they will just trigger, reset, then contest anyway.
3. Decent thief can avoid fight in the wild and there is nothing you can do about it- they are gone before you blink.
4. Pattern being ‘thief contests, poof, stealthed’. You stand in keep, run out place one stealth trap, wrong gate, contested, call more people to do the same- at which point the thief is winning, tying up multiple people. Not so easy when maybe 10 people on the map.
5. How? A decent thief won’t be killed 1v1, and you’ve still tied up at least two people who will die of boredom waiting at gates on the off chance they see the thief before he’s done his job.
6. Cold doesn’t stop him contesting. How many cold snares you got on your toon? Condi clear, all you did is delay him by 5 seconds. Still contested.
7. Been there, done that. I’ve even been the one to contest a keep, just to see how long it takes for anyone to be able to stop me and how much resources I could tie up. Generally ends up as several enemies, sup ACs, stealth traps, etc and I’m still contesting towers and flipping camps.
8. see 3.
9. Your ‘solution’ only works if you massively outnumber the enemy so you can afford to waste people and resources staking out your WPs.
10. The proper solution I already described- 10k damage to a wall or door.

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Fought Baruch Bay recently? They have a thief who seems to enjoy tagging keeps for hours. Problem is that you only need to tag any guard to contest a keep.

So while you guard a gate they go to the wall, choking gas an archer and BAM contested. I mean just think how many guards there are at gates and on walls to contest with, you will need several players just to guard it all.

Also cold doesn’t affect thieves anymore as most run unhindered combatant which removes cold on dodge.

Why do people talk so much about a teef tagging keeps. It’s kitten easy to do it with any class.

My guess anet changed it from tapping gates to aggro a guard as hardened gates prevented pvd for 100%. Now that has been nerfed with 50% i think the way to contest stuff should be reverted to actually tap the gate again.

Offair.2563:

Why do people talk so much about a teef tagging keeps. It’s kitten easy to do it with any class.

My guess anet changed it from tapping gates to aggro a guard as hardened gates prevented pvd for 100%. Now that has been nerfed with 50% i think the way to contest stuff should be reverted to actually tap the gate again.

Probably because doing it with thief is easy mode and almost guaranteed escape so long as you’re not comatose. You also have the excessive mobility to get back in 2 mins if you somehow died.

Add me to the zerg haters :-). WvW should encourage small groups as much as possible.
But contestign keep waypoints should only be done if the inner wall/gate is attacked.

Wolfric.9380:

Add me to the zerg haters :-). WvW should encourage small groups as much as possible.
But contestign keep waypoints should only be done if the inner wall/gate is attacked.

So if 10 people start on a T3 keep there is supposed to be an open waypoint the entire time? Yeah… that will surely encourage small groups…

so they should bring a treb … It´s a KEEP

Wolfric.9380:

so they should bring a treb … It´s a KEEP

Sure because all small groups have enough supply to build a 3x more expensive treb doing 1/5th the dps of a single ram. I always put aside 2 hours a night for trebbing.

Simplest solution is to require gates or walls to take 500 damage in a single hit to become contested, simple.

sounds a reasonable sollution. Need siege to contest.

Simple Solution : Remove all non-home WP’s. 1 per-side is plenty. The BL’s are not that big.

@Ballads – Because keeps on EB don’t have WPs either, oh wait, they do.

apharma.3741:

Simplest solution is to require gates or walls to take 500 damage in a single hit to become contested, simple.

This is reasonable. Requiring siege to contest keeps would prevent griefers from tapping guards and running away in stealth for hours, as well as prevent PvD players from taking a WP out of commission while keeping the swords up so you know they are there.

OriOri.8724:

@Ballads – Because keeps on EB don’t have WPs either, oh wait, they do.

apharma.3741:

Simplest solution is to require gates or walls to take 500 damage in a single hit to become contested, simple.

This is reasonable. Requiring siege to contest keeps would prevent griefers from tapping guards and running away in stealth for hours, as well as prevent PvD players from taking a WP out of commission while keeping the swords up so you know they are there.

There is a down side, you can have a zerg roll up build 5 catas and the wall will be down on T1 before it’s tagged. Even keeps will have a substantial amount of health knocked off a wall first. Conversely you will know that it’s a serious attack to towers and keeps if you see crossed swords.

Another idea would be to also put up white swords when there’s X number of enemies within a certain range of a keep or tower.

All the suggested changes mean that theres no point for a team to commit to a keep unless they know they outnumber the defenders…

Requiring wall damage to contest a waypoint means the game automatically scouts for the defending side, so you know 100% whether your keep is being attacked or not just by looking at the waypoint status.

Right now a small attacking side might be able to get a keep if the defending side are slow with scouting / responding. If waypoints contested when the structure was damaged, the defending blob would respond immediately.

Also you might be substituting one annoying thing for another. If solo people can’t contest by hitting guards, they’ll just build trebs …

Pancake.3092:

All the suggested changes mean that theres no point for a team to commit to a keep unless they know they outnumber the defenders…

Requiring wall damage to contest a waypoint means the game automatically scouts for the defending side, so you know 100% whether your keep is being attacked or not just by looking at the waypoint status.

Right now a small attacking side might be able to get a keep if the defending side are slow with scouting / responding. If waypoints contested when the structure was damaged, the defending blob would respond immediately.

Also you might be substituting one annoying thing for another. If solo people can’t contest by hitting guards, they’ll just build trebs …

The point is that it will cost something to contest a keep more so than 1 guy running around hitting a guard every 5 mins. You also have the option to destroy the Seige and flip the camp they had to use to build the Seige.

What might happen is you have 2 people running around building a cata and hitting the wall once but again it takes time and resources to do and you won’t be able to keep a way point contested all the time.

Think of it like this: Ever had a T3 stonemist castle? You know how useless a waypoint usually is there unless you’re completely dominating a match up? It’s contested 95% of the time as either someone is trebbing or has catas up trying to paper it. The same is currently true of keep waypoints if someone chooses to be a troll except they don’t need to do anything but tap a guard.

I think wall or door damage as trigger for imminiate “Swords” would be a good thing.

apharma.3741:

OriOri.8724:

@Ballads – Because keeps on EB don’t have WPs either, oh wait, they do.

apharma.3741:

Simplest solution is to require gates or walls to take 500 damage in a single hit to become contested, simple.

This is reasonable. Requiring siege to contest keeps would prevent griefers from tapping guards and running away in stealth for hours, as well as prevent PvD players from taking a WP out of commission while keeping the swords up so you know they are there.

There is a down side, you can have a zerg roll up build 5 catas and the wall will be down on T1 before it’s tagged. Even keeps will have a substantial amount of health knocked off a wall first. Conversely you will know that it’s a serious attack to towers and keeps if you see crossed swords.

Another idea would be to also put up white swords when there’s X number of enemies within a certain range of a keep or tower.

I think ideas are becoming confused in this thread. Personally I think that the orange swords are fine as they are, I just want the WP contesting on T3 keeps to change. Your suggestion, of taking enough damage in a single hit to know that the gate/wall was hit with siege, is one that I rather like just for contesting the WP. I don’t want to change how the orange swords show up though, if it is possible to separate the two.

Just change it so thieves can’t contest waypoints.
[/thread]

~ Kovu

One player should not be able to disrupt an entire server this easily and certainly not easily disrupt a keep that takes hours to upgrade.

At the very least a thief should have to kill a guard…. the very least.

As for the class, it is nigh unkillable if it is built to not-die. It may suck at killing players but it won’t go down easily or at all. Also if a server does kill a thief, it can be back contesting in less than 2 min.

Straegen.2938:

One player should not be able to disrupt an entire server this easily and certainly not easily disrupt a keep that takes hours to upgrade.

At the very least a thief should have to kill a guard…. the very least.

As for the class, it is nigh unkillable if it is built to not-die. It may suck at killing players but it won’t go down easily or at all. Also if a server does kill a thief, it can be back contesting in less than 2 min.

Meanwhile yesterday SMC swords poped up after we got down outside gates down and inner gates were @50ish….

apharma.3741:

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Fought Baruch Bay recently? They have a thief who seems to enjoy tagging keeps for hours. Problem is that you only need to tag any guard to contest a keep.

So while you guard a gate they go to the wall, choking gas an archer and BAM contested. I mean just think how many guards there are at gates and on walls to contest with, you will need several players just to guard it all.

Also cold doesn’t affect thieves anymore as most run unhindered combatant which removes cold on dodge.

They actually taught me how to fight thieves, whole server is full of thieves, lol, kept me on my toes. Was frustrating for a long time, but useful.

Jayne.9251:

apharma.3741:

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Fought Baruch Bay recently? They have a thief who seems to enjoy tagging keeps for hours. Problem is that you only need to tag any guard to contest a keep.

So while you guard a gate they go to the wall, choking gas an archer and BAM contested. I mean just think how many guards there are at gates and on walls to contest with, you will need several players just to guard it all.

Also cold doesn’t affect thieves anymore as most run unhindered combatant which removes cold on dodge.

They actually taught me how to fight thieves, whole server is full of thieves, lol, kept me on my toes. Was frustrating for a long time, but useful.

This sounds like a challenge to make you truly fear thieves again…

Also BB thieves are terrible, 100-0 most of the time except this one condi guy who pretty much runs away 90% of the time.

apharma.3741:

Jayne.9251:

apharma.3741:

Jayne.9251:

See #3.

You all a making it like thieves are the boogeyman. You can kill them.

Or it could be all thieves in EU play drunk.

Fought Baruch Bay recently? They have a thief who seems to enjoy tagging keeps for hours. Problem is that you only need to tag any guard to contest a keep.

So while you guard a gate they go to the wall, choking gas an archer and BAM contested. I mean just think how many guards there are at gates and on walls to contest with, you will need several players just to guard it all.

Also cold doesn’t affect thieves anymore as most run unhindered combatant which removes cold on dodge.

They actually taught me how to fight thieves, whole server is full of thieves, lol, kept me on my toes. Was frustrating for a long time, but useful.

This sounds like a challenge to make you truly fear thieves again…

Also BB thieves are terrible, 100-0 most of the time except this one condi guy who pretty much runs away 90% of the time.

Yeah I spent six months duelling nothing but thieves, asking in various match threads, etc. Thankfully most (EU) players from various servers were keen on helping me learn. Good people. New friends (like you ).

And then I stopped playing for a long time, returned, and was faceplanting again. Lol.

I think they should but the idea of objectives being contested due to guards being in combat (especially with random animals) needs to go.

It could be something like either killing all the guards in front of the door/wall or a certain amount of damage to a wall or structure.

Jayne.9251:

1. Thieves have very little HP.
2. Multiple stealth traps ensures he not only aggros you, but the npcs as well.

If the npcs aggro the thief then the keep & wp contest and you didn’t stop them…which is the whole point of the thread.