Guild Wars 2

EDIT: Changed wording with treb % to avoid confusion

1) Improve rewards for defending a point as well as give a first response reward (basically a separate reward for fighting in the first minute of the attack)
Right now I can make more money hitting depots, yaks, npc points, sentries, and towers in a big zerg then retaking the tower we just lost then for defending the tower and probably ending up dead.

2) When a tower or keep is under attack you have to perform a skill channel to get inside through the color-gate
If this is a siege simulator its kinda silly how even spaced out attackers can’t stop some people (perm stealth thieves or bunker elementalists for example) from just running past everyone into the point.

3) Reduce the range of trebuchets by 5-10% as well as say the Ele focus block is intended and expected or fix their ability to block siege (guardians too).
This last one is more based on what I was advertised WvW would be. If ANet wants it to be a siege from tower to keep or keep to keep then please say so. I accept that a map redesign is out of the question but please explain why the ‘helms deep’ advertised battlefield is more akin to a 3d ‘angry birds’.
I’m ok losing defensive siege to treb fire so long as its from a point I can access.
(EX of issues: Hills -> Lake Tower or SM ->Anzalias/Durios/WC/QL/Durios or Overlook -> Anzalias)

These are 3 issues I’ve seen in WvW (all based on a lack of incentive to defend) with, near as I can tell, not requiring an insane amount of resources to fix. Anyone with an argument of why these issues aren’t important other then “you should defend for the points” or “you just need more skill” I’d love to hear rebuttals.

I can give some, since Im waiting for my trillion gig patch:

1. Its easier to defend a point than it is to take one, so why would you reward more for defending one than taking one. You have NPCs and as a defender you have more reinforcements nearby than an attacker does.

2. Against strong teams your already going to have to get through multiple fears, slows and pulls, why should it be harder to get in?

3. Protecting your siege is smart team play. Its often not done correctly. If it is done correctly it comes down to team play and good coordination. Why remove that?

There you go. My patch is almost done. Maybe not long winded arguments but its all I got!

1) It would be exploited for rewards.
2) First you say that defense should be promoted, and now you want to kill it off? Preventing reinforcements from trickling in is easy. Just place a few thieves around the outer perimeter of your zerg.
3) Trebbing from Stonemist is the only reason SM isn’t flipped every 2h, at least in the lower tiers. Besides, if your team has the resources to cap enemy Bay, or their EB area, it’s better for everyone if they have it slightly easier to cap it back. It allows for much better and more even match ups.

85% to 90% reduced treb range? You do realize that would give trebs a range of 1000-1500 right? As in, about the same distance an engineer can toss a grenade? Who needs a siege engine, just grab a boulder and start tossing.

An argument can be made for some reduction in treb range but 85-90% is ridiculous.

The only point I sorta agree with is the first one. For a zerg or even smaller organized groups there really is no reward incentive for hanging onto towers especially say if you have EK and take the SE tower. It is more profitable to let the enemy take it than keep it. For one you dont spend on upgrades or siege there and for two you take it right back and get karma some silver and xp.

Myself though will fight to the death to keep what my server has taken even it it drains me of every copper I have. I would hope more think this way than the other. because that can and will just end up with two servers just trading towers back and forth all day for an easy money karma farm.

For point 2 if your team can not designate scouts to hel;p stop the enemy forom entering the keep then too bad for you. It is by design and no one team or server gets an advantage over another in this. Not to mention this is only an issue on towers really because keep and even camps have multiple entrances anyway. Stop beating on the gate and sweep for incoming is easy as that.

3. So you are asking for trebs to be turned into catapults? or asking for Eles to get swirlys nerfed or for them to be able to perma swirl? Once again in almost every case if a treb is hitting you then you can hit it. Actually I am pretty sure there is a way to hit any treb position that is hitting a tower or keep. if you dont have the number to send out a squad or to put up defensive trebs then you will lose.

Instead of asking for nerfs think of ways to counter the enemy not ask Anet to counter them for you by nerfing siege equipment. Now ima get off here before my mouth/fingers get me in trouble gnite all.

1) its the the ease of defending its the value of a players time idling in a point and then beating back attackers for a bit of coin (or again, failing to defend and death) versus joining an attacking zerg and getting money, karma, xp for point after point.

2) Against zergs of 50 I can sneak past on my mesmer with stealths, blink and dodging. My ele just has to ride the lightning, lightning flash then double dodge roll and i’m inside. Yes, some classes have an easier time then most, but by that same token I see those classes more often in WvW. And if the bar is set at ‘elite squads can stop people from getting inside’ that seems a bit high since thats not the common majority.

3) Again, if ANet says that guardians and elementalists are working as intended (and if they have someone please link the post). Also my issue was 2 fold and the trebuchet reduction was with scenarios where one of the trebuchets can not be hit by the other.
To a point I don’t mind the treb back and forth so long as it is a back and forth.

Thurbleton.5841:

1) Improve rewards for defending a point as well as give a first response reward (basically a separate reward for fighting in the first minute of the attack)
Right now I can make more money hitting depots, yaks, npc points, sentries, and towers in a big zerg then retaking the tower we just lost then for defending the tower and probably ending up dead.

1. Originally I was a strong advocate for this as well but now I am for either. I would like to see some kind of time-increment-increase of reward for defense, meaning the longer you defend a place that is under attack, the higher your reward. But on the otherhand, I don’t care if they end up not changing anything because I see small groups of people defending all the time and they don’t really do anything productive against a zerg 20 times their size. Their effort is generally futile and I don’t see why it should be reason for increased rewards when most of them jump ship after the gate’s down anyway.

Thurbleton.5841:

2) When a tower or keep is under attack you have to perform a skill channel to get inside through the color-gate
If this is a siege simulator its kinda silly how even spaced out attackers can’t stop some people (perm stealth thieves or bunker elementalists for example) from just running past everyone into the point.

I personally think this is an issue of L2P. When I’m a part of a zerg that’s sieging a tower, I never bother doing 15-20 damage a shot to a reinforced gate. What I do is scout for any flanks/nme zergs/people trying to get inside, and engage them before they even see exactly how many are in my zerg. You have to admit, most people in the zerg don’t care about people running by because they know they can’t kill them. So instead of doing what I do, they choose to ignore runners completely. Therefore, it was a matter of choice, and I don’t see why the consequences of a poorly made choice should be reason for a change of that magnitude. As for thieves, well they’re thieves. They do cheaper things than that.

Thurbleton.5841:

3) Reduce the range of trebuchets by 85-90% as well as say the Ele focus block is intended and expected or fix their ability to block siege (guardians too).
This last one is more based on what I was advertised WvW would be. If ANet wants it to be a siege from tower to keep or keep to keep then please say so. I accept that a map redesign is out of the question but please explain why the ‘helms deep’ advertised battlefield is more akin to a 3d ‘angry birds’.
I’m ok losing defensive siege to treb fire so long as its from a point I can access.
(EX of issues: Hills -> Lake Tower or SM ->Anzalias/Durios/WC/QL/Durios or Overlook -> Anzalias)

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These are 3 issues I’ve seen in WvW (all based on a lack of incentive to defend) with, near as I can tell, not requiring an insane amount of resources to fix. Anyone with an argument of why these issues aren’t important other then “you should defend for the points” or “you just need more skill” I’d love to hear rebuttals.

You mean reduce range BY 10-15% or reduce TO 85-90%. Not sure what you’re trying to say otherwise so no comment.

A lot of people seem to be confused over the wording, I mean scaled back to 85 or 90% what it was (as in a from 10,000 to 9,000). Sorry for the confusion the intent is not to turn them into point blank fireball machines thats silly.

ExZee you make a fair point for change #2 but how do you explain to the masses that focusing on stopping people from getting inside while the siege wears down the gate/wall. (cause I’ve been trying to teach group after group when i’m commanding and theres always people just getting tunnel vision shooting the gate)

The idea behind the change would be that there are 2 groups of defenders, those holding out inside with siege etc and those outside. The responders would have to not stream in one at a time focusing on the door and instead reward players who group together either as a pvp guild or big zerg and actually duke it out on the field.

As for your point on #1, are you in the mindset that defense as a constant is futile and should just be relied on responding zergs?

Ok – if you are going to do wvw for the goal of making money you are a moron.

If you cannot see the point of being able to treb vale from hills or anz from sm, you are also a moron.
This one i will elaborate on: The home borderland is supposed to give an advantage to the defending server, that is why every server has one and they are all identical.
Ideally the defending server should maintain every point on their map, which is why there are treb-able towers to the south of the forts where the enemy spawn, and not to the north, where you spawn, meaning that you are more easily able to apply pressure to the enemy invaders, and they cannot so easily apply pressure to you.
As for stonemist – its purpose and therefore its design is to be the most coveted landmark in wvw. What better way to achieve this goal than by having the team who holds it able to pressure the enemy servers from the safety of the walls.

#3

There are some skills that do not translate well with siege weapons. Namely mesmers Portal and Time Warp and elementalists Swirling Winds.

Swiftness and Might boons on golems are less of an issue. Those boons only last short time and have much lesser impact.

The guardians Wall of Reflection was already fixed not to actually reflect trebuchet projectiles or any other siege projectiles for that matter. Sanctuary and Shield of Absorption also do not protect against siege projectiles. I would expect ANet to follow same principle with the mesmer and elementalist skills.

Beyondthelol,
I stated rewards, offering money as an example (often in this forum we hear complaints about having to repair when we die in WvW so while not making Scrooge McDuck levels of money, making enough to repair, spend money on siege on top of what we get from puzzles, and then having some extra would be nice.
Beyond money though the act of getting rewarded for participation is not a moronic idea, in fact ArenaNet stated they want to reward players by way of ‘a prestige and system of advancement’
(source -> https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/)

On the second subject I’ll address the borderlands first. Yes they are identical maps and defenders should feel the need to secure their borderland. Except for the western side can place a treb in Vale Depot (arguable the most defensible supply depot in WvW) and siege down Bay. With such an advantage to one corner and disadvantage to the other, often maps will progress into a 1v1 then more commonly (though some servers have made exceptions in my experience) the defenders outnumber the attackers due to the tenacity of fighting for the borderland and eventually clear the map of enemies.

Consider the fact that if trebuchets had a slight reduction in distance then not only would SW attackers have to more directly siege the Bay keep rather then behind the Depot, the Hills treb would still be able to clear any siege being made to assault its gates.

Now for Eternal and Stonemist. Isnt the idea of stonemist to be a balancing point? If the trebs along the outer wall couldn’t hit the tower walls the tower trebs couldn’t hit SM walls. Resulting in any trebuchet sieges against stonemist being able to be countered by trebuchets either on the upper level or sitting on supply depot huts.

Towers are meant to be trade-able I would just like to see the ‘ace’ move of “even if we take this point it will just be trebbed down.”

If treb range was reduced taking stonemist may infact be harder. Would you consider them testing it for a week similar to the culling test?
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Again, with the confusion in this thread I wanna clarify I’m ok with Ele’s and guardians if they are working as ANet intended. Its the constant “is what i’m doing a glitch that will be eventually fixed” mystery that is bothering me.

You make good points: Vale treb is just one of the many ‘plays’ that a group can make in wvw – it inspires a counter-play of going in and destroying it. Just because you can place a treb in vale doesnt eliminate the other options of attack? Server A will attack the west and server B will attack the east, thats how its set up and thats how it usually goes.
If server A attacks bay – working as intended
If server B attacks bay – likely to get hit by server A, and then a glorious threesome occurs in which everyone can get soaked in the blood of their enemy. I see no problem here?

Byeondthelol,
While thats fun and probably likely to happen on some Friday nights, the rest of the time the time & resources vs risk/reward aren’t in SouthEast’s favor (more then likely SE would take the Briar tower then have a 3 way fight).

If we’re focusing on Borderlands then lets consider time of siege. With SW you just have to secure Vale Depot and build some defenses for the bottleneck then have your zerg fight on the field outside, then begin making trebs. Even after a wipe thats easy to rebuild.

With SE you have to be constantly fighting uphill all the while your tower and depot are under fire, going for several choke/death zones just to reach the outer gate. If they moved for Bay/Briar instead, yes there would be better fighting but even if they succeeded in Bay the SW spawn would constantly be at their back and the focus of the map’s battle would only be in 1 corner of the borderlands.
Talk like this approaches game theory and I try my best to avoid that cause often just running through with a zerg of 50 trumps any theories you have.

I’m fairly certain this post doesnt make any sense as I’ve just passed 24 hours awake and my brain is shutting down.

Also something to the effect of SE would have a much longer spawn run to the Briar tower as well as SW tower would just breakout the tower back… but I dont want to go to indepth of my issues with breakouts on borderlands because with their flaws they are a decent resource to use in WvW.