Guild Wars 2

This is a public plea to the devs to please get rid of auto upgrades on everything.

Keep it so its no cost, but please, make it go back to a person required to actually trigger the upgrades. It seems to be killing the game play more deeply than any other changes that have been put into WvW with HoT.

Begging you, can you please just remove this one thing and see if it helps the situation……………..at least a little?

Thanks.

I used to love defending and upgrading camps and their dolys alone or in a small group because it meant I was actively participating in upgrading other places. Now that its all auto I dont see the point of it anymore since its gonna upgrade whether Im there or not. Heck wvw basically plays itself imo.
So yeah I havent really kept at wvw since then. Please change it back.

And replace it with what?

They changed it from the old system because they were demanded to do so by posters here. Before, it could be trolled by supply trolls.

I am not certain why so many posters are in favor of a system that was heavily trolled.

Why were you not championing the cause when we had multiple threads spammed with demands to change the system to prevent those game breaking trolls?

the problem with the troll are the troll…. not the system…. Give tools to ban the troll… Or make guild alliance, and make the game guild vs guild… Then if you have troll in your team you can just kick it out… The problem in the server mode is that you can’t choose your ally, and then you have troll….
The previous upgrade system was very good, maybe except the gold cost (and this one never disturb me)… No need to destroy everything because anet is unable to ban troll / hacker (yes because we speak about troll, but what about the hacker who where never ban ?)

coglin.1867:

And replace it with what?

They changed it from the old system because they were demanded to do so by posters here. Before, it could be trolled by supply trolls.

I am not certain why so many posters are in favor of a system that was heavily trolled.

Why were you not championing the cause when we had multiple threads spammed with demands to change the system to prevent those game breaking trolls?

Replace it needing a real person to trigger it. It can even stay in the order they choose it to be in. Let it stay free, let it not use supply. Just require an actual person to trigger it. Makes sense?

WvW playing itself is just not a good environment. My guild LOVED standing around the upgrading keeps, towers, and camps. It was quite an accomplishment. Not only that, it made my entire guild want to defend, and brought out the other server who wanted to break down the walls we spent all day upgrading. And vice versa. Nothing quite as challenging as going and knocking down all the walls of that fortified keep some group of people spent all their time working on. And, they wanted to defend, as well.

It helped fights! I mean, come on. Its completely boring with auto upgrades.

Okay, I get your point there. I guess I am baffled why you what them to make a change in order to

standing around the upgrading keeps, towers, and camps.

I just do not understand wanting a game change so anyone can “stand around”. That seems counter productive and counterintuitive to the game mode itself.

Kitiara.2706:

It helped fights! I mean, come on. Its completely boring with auto upgrades.

No, not really. I would be interested to hear how you feel it does help fights though. It helps defenders, it prevents the supply trolls and spies, but I see no evidence that it helps fights.

All we will see with a change like this is multiple threads making various demands and arguments as to who should and should not have the right to chose which upgrade, and in what order. We had hundreds of threads complaining about this before, and demanding it be changed.

By the way, you never answered the question of why you didn’t support not changing it, when it was a hot topic and over discussed, in multiple threads?

coglin.1867:

Okay, I get your point there. I guess I am baffled why you what them to make a change in order to

standing around the upgrading keeps, towers, and camps.

I just do not understand wanting a game change so anyone can “stand around”. That seems counter productive and counterintuitive to the game mode itself.

Well, technically I wouldnt just stand there. I was bouncing all over 1 map upgrading stuff. Preparing for prime time, getting it sieged up, ready for the fights. It was fun, it was building anticipation.

Kitiara.2706:

Replace it needing a real person to trigger it. It can even stay in the order they choose it to be in. Let it stay free, let it not use supply. Just require an actual person to trigger it. Makes sense?

WvW playing itself is just not a good environment. My guild LOVED standing around the upgrading keeps, towers, and camps. It was quite an accomplishment. Not only that, it made my entire guild want to defend, and brought out the other server who wanted to break down the walls we spent all day upgrading. And vice versa. Nothing quite as challenging as going and knocking down all the walls of that fortified keep some group of people spent all their time working on. And, they wanted to defend, as well.

It helped fights! I mean, come on. Its completely boring with auto upgrades.

How is wvw “playing itself” when the only thing that’s being automatically done is a button being ticked here and there?

As someone who frequently BL defended (only reason I don’t now is because the BLs themselves suck) it was a huge pain to have to constantly be micromanaging the upgrades (and often people would for example mistakenly order say fort walls instead of wp first).

The fact that you don’t have to go to the quartermaster and click an icon then click upgrade is not in any way a bad change. What may be causing issues to people who like bl defending is the fact that it no longer requires supply, which gives you 0 real reason to actually defend camps and such in order to help it upgrade. No real reason to be defending unless you actively are expecting an attack.

The auto-upgrade system is also a massive help to folks during their own dead timezones, it helps counter the nightcappers and such by making it so they’re more frequently facing upgraded objectives. It’s a good system itself, in no way is it a bad thing that we no longer have to micromanage ticking boxes constantly. That’s not WvW.

Kitiara.2706:

Well, technically I wouldnt just stand there. I was bouncing all over 1 map upgrading stuff. Preparing for prime time, getting it sieged up, ready for the fights. It was fun, it was building anticipation.

I respect your personal preference, but to most of us who did it, we only did it because we had to as no one else wanted to do it. It may be fun for you to sit there for 5-6 hours, watching for swords on all your objectives, constantly running in circles upgrading this or that… but to most people that wasn’t fun gameplay. It’s something most who did it were basically forced to do if we wanted to be competitive.

coglin.1867:

And replace it with what?

They changed it from the old system because they were demanded to do so by posters here. Before, it could be trolled by supply trolls.

I am not certain why so many posters are in favor of a system that was heavily trolled.

Why were you not championing the cause when we had multiple threads spammed with demands to change the system to prevent those game breaking trolls?

Keep the upgrade tiers like they are now. Keep the no cost to kick it off, but make sure it has to be done manually. That way it can’t be trolled. It removes some of the control but I think its a good middle ground. Make supply mater again. It was nice to split it so you could use the supply without hampering the up grade. I think that each tier of upgrades should require X number of yaks, while still leaving supply for use. That way you have supply to build/repair, and yaks and supply lines become important again. Couple of small changes that would go a long way to bring back the feeling of contribution that my small havok/scouting guild lost with this update.

They won’t get rid of it because it’s their solution to upgrade trolling. They don’t wish to put any actual man hours into dealing with that… thus the autoupgrade fail mechanic.

Arius.7031:

Kitiara.2706:

Well, technically I wouldnt just stand there. I was bouncing all over 1 map upgrading stuff. Preparing for prime time, getting it sieged up, ready for the fights. It was fun, it was building anticipation.

I respect your personal preference, but to most of us who did it, we only did it because we had to as no one else wanted to do it. It may be fun for you to sit there for 5-6 hours, watching for swords on all your objectives, constantly running in circles upgrading this or that… but to most people that wasn’t fun gameplay. It’s something most who did it were basically forced to do if we wanted to be competitive.

The problem is that the player who like this play style was the core team for the off peak time… Those player where here to fight against the ennemy roamer… And then give something to do for the roamer… And those people make the map alive…
Now without those people when the casual player join he just see an empty map… And he won’t do anything without a tag… This map have killed the core players… All the other won’t join if those core player are not here…
You need a minimum level of population doing something on the map, if you remove the “job” who was done by this core people, then those people don’t play… And then your map are dead….
You just have people at prime time for fight or KT…

Sich.7103:

Arius.7031:

Kitiara.2706:

Well, technically I wouldnt just stand there. I was bouncing all over 1 map upgrading stuff. Preparing for prime time, getting it sieged up, ready for the fights. It was fun, it was building anticipation.

I respect your personal preference, but to most of us who did it, we only did it because we had to as no one else wanted to do it. It may be fun for you to sit there for 5-6 hours, watching for swords on all your objectives, constantly running in circles upgrading this or that… but to most people that wasn’t fun gameplay. It’s something most who did it were basically forced to do if we wanted to be competitive.

The problem is that the player who like this play style was the core team for the off peak time… Those player where here to fight against the ennemy roamer… And then give something to do for the roamer… And those people make the map alive…
Now without those people when the casual player join he just see an empty map… And he won’t do anything without a tag… This map have killed the core players… All the other won’t join if those core player are not here…
You need a minimum level of population doing something on the map, if you remove the “job” who was done by this core people, then those people don’t play… And then your map are dead….
You just have people at prime time for fight or KT…

exactly this!!!

Actually i have no problem with the auto-upgrade system. It makes things easier than it used to. So i do not want a reverse to the old system. Here are the main reasons for it.

• Now i can fully concentrate on sieging the keep/tower and fights.
• I can still escort dollies when its needed. Now comes with a protective bubble, that helping me defending it from solo-thiefs and mesmers.
• No more starting an upgrade for griefing.
• No more starting an upgrade , when the keep/tower was under attack only to loose supply.

Regards

Seed

You may like it like this, but there was an entire group of people that thoroughly enjoyed doing the upgrades all day. Do we even matter?

you think the “core people” for off peak enjoys running around doing nothing but upgrade things?

As somebody who plays “off peak” I don’t enjoy doing that. Also I am actually more motivated now to defend yaks and retake camps than before, because I know that each yak that gets to one of our objectives decreases the timer for upgrades, whereas before the objective could be at full supply but because not enough people is around to defend, we don’t even bother upgrading. It remains paper until taken by the next ktrain who will then leave it with full supply ready to ktrain another one of our objectives.

In fact, in the past when heavily outnumbered, it is sometimes better to never retake the camps, that way when the enemy ktrains your stuff, they leave it with no supply.

Requiring people to trigger the upgrades is dumb.

Letting people zerg up and manually run all the supply from camp to base to do upgrades is dumb.

Requiring you to actually get supply yaks to the objective to upgrade it is not.

Yaks are more useless now than they were before, and that’s saying a lot.

I’m not against the idea that objectives should only upgrade based on a yak count as opposed to a timer that gets sped up by yaks. However yaks are more useful now than before because they speed the upgrade up considerably.

PopeUrban.2578:

Requiring people to trigger the upgrades is dumb.

Letting people zerg up and manually run all the supply from camp to base to do upgrades is dumb.

Requiring you to actually get supply yaks to the objective to upgrade it is not.

Yaks are more useless now than they were before, and that’s saying a lot.

This. This is the real problem. Auto-upgrades are fine. Inevitable, yak-optional upgrades are not. Walking around and managing the upgrades pre-HoT was a boring necessity, but making sure camps didn’t flip and yaks got to structures successfully added strategic value to the game. Much of that value has been removed now that yaks are optional for upgrades.

We can also say that auto-upgrades are fine, but the reason we all struggle against this is because there is a lot less people playing WvW. If there were people playing on the maps and constantly fight over structures (if there is enough incentive to fight for these to begin with), these structures won’t really upgrade as much. Maybe scale the rate of upgrade depending on how your server is doing in WvW (a bit slower for dominating server based on point difference maybe)?

Auto upgrades, in its current implementation it simply encourages more blobbing and ktraining, then ever before because it becomes a more valuable strategy as small guild/havok teams become essentially shut out of the new wvw.

In typical anet fashion there is no balance, in regards to auto upgrades there are of course some obvious benefits but with how fast and easily structures upgrade now, and all the new stupid gimmicky defense mechanics they added in, not to mention the shameful wall after wall that has to be climbed in order to upgrade a guilds capabilities to even get a +5 from camps, whereas in the past any small/1person guild could achieve this easily. Now with so many gates in the way, it seems only large guilds are able to contribute to this, in a gamemode called…world vs world… guess not everyone matters?

There are many ways in which wvw can not be balanced its understandable, but anet continously fails to anticipate the consequences that many of us can see coming a mile away. I do not believe the concept of autoupgrades itself is a bad idea, but the current implementation in a larger picture has been very badly handled.

Seed.5467:

Actually i have no problem with the auto-upgrade system. It makes things easier than it used to. So i do not want a reverse to the old system. Here are the main reasons for it.

• Now i can fully concentrate on sieging the keep/tower and fights.
• I can still escort dollies when its needed. Now comes with a protective bubble, that helping me defending it from solo-thiefs and mesmers.
• No more starting an upgrade for griefing.
• No more starting an upgrade , when the keep/tower was under attack only to loose supply.

Regards

Seed

^this.

As much i hate the auto upgrades, it is a good sacrifice to have in game to avoid siege trolls, and less time spending with 2 or 3 players in the Alpine BL upgrading stuff before they get blobbed, now i can actually spend more time fighting, that is for sure.

Still new BL map needs a few tweaks and central weapon removed or changed, farming those easy mobs is dammn fast to get the event up.

Further consideration: auto-upgrades were put in place to try to get us to take enemy towers and keeps quickly, creating the illusion that servers and matchups are active. Letting a keep or tower fortify becomes an inevitability unless you prevent it, meaning you now have incentive (although a rather small incentive) to move to a different map and take things.

The upgrades don’t need to be automatic to prevent trolling. Right now they’re tiered, there’s no reason they can’t stay that way.

So you flip a tower, head to the npc start the upgrade. You are only given the option of T1 upgrade. So we lose the choice of rushing wp over gate/walls, but it can’t be trolled.

Right now upgrades are on a timer I’d like to see it change to upgrade requires x number dollies. Supply is left separate doesn’t affect the upgrade.

So you can flip your keep tower whatever pop the upgrades and move on to the camps to secure that supply. In and around camps are where most of the BL roaming took place. This would ensure there’s people there to kill.

This would also somewhat prevent home BL from being fully upgraded during weak time zones. Enemy group can still pop upgrades but if they don’t hang around to secure supply the process will stall.

X T D.6458:

Auto upgrades, in its current implementation it simply encourages more blobbing and ktraining, then ever before because it becomes a more valuable strategy as small guild/havok teams become essentially shut out of the new wvw.

No it really doesn’t. Some of your points are valid, like the complaint about +5. But auto upgrades discourages ktraining because it makes it easier for a small force to defend against an unorganised larger force and if all they’re there for is the ktrain you can even make them leave the map completely. However a smaller force can only delay a determined and organized larger force. Which is how it should be.

Without auto upgrades, a small force trying to recap their BL that was lost during a dead coverage period will likely leave everything as paper until the enemy ktrain comes back simply because they don’t have anyone to spare to babysit upgrades. With auto upgrades those objectives will get stronger the longer you hold them even without any babysitting. So now, by the time the enemy ktrain comes back you likely have at least cannons and oil and if you’re lucky you may also have reinforced walls. Which gives you a chance to fight back.

Nate.3927:

X T D.6458:

Auto upgrades, in its current implementation it simply encourages more blobbing and ktraining, then ever before because it becomes a more valuable strategy as small guild/havok teams become essentially shut out of the new wvw.

No it really doesn’t. Some of your points are valid, like the complaint about +5. But auto upgrades discourages ktraining because it makes it easier for a small force to defend against an unorganised larger force and if all they’re there for is the ktrain you can even make them leave the map completely. However a smaller force can only delay a determined and organized larger force. Which is how it should be.

Without auto upgrades, a small force trying to recap their BL that was lost during a dead coverage period will likely leave everything as paper until the enemy ktrain comes back simply because they don’t have anyone to spare to babysit upgrades. With auto upgrades those objectives will get stronger the longer you hold them even without any babysitting. So now, by the time the enemy ktrain comes back you likely have at least cannons and oil and if you’re lucky you may also have reinforced walls. Which gives you a chance to fight back.

I didnt say auto upgrades are bad, I said in its current implementation its unbalanced. Your also proving my point about it encouraging ktraining and blobbing. When you shift the focus to defense over offense instead of aiming for a balance, thats one of the consequences. Consider this, with all of the handicaps now affecting smaller groups, such as guild limitations, faster/auto upgrades that require no actual work on our end, bunch of gimmicky defense mechanics. You are essentially encouraging blobbing and ktraining to prevent stuff from upgrading or keeping it paper, even more then before. In the past ktraining was usually done when the enemy had a dead timezone, now its essentially encouraged as a constant tactic to counter automatic upgrades. And unfortunately the small teams which used to be so important to maintaining a bl, have been completely shut out and shafted by the recent features and changes.

Nate.3927:

X T D.6458:

Auto upgrades, in its current implementation it simply encourages more blobbing and ktraining, then ever before because it becomes a more valuable strategy as small guild/havok teams become essentially shut out of the new wvw.

No it really doesn’t. Some of your points are valid, like the complaint about +5. But auto upgrades discourages ktraining because it makes it easier for a small force to defend against an unorganised larger force and if all they’re there for is the ktrain you can even make them leave the map completely. However a smaller force can only delay a determined and organized larger force. Which is how it should be.

Without auto upgrades, a small force trying to recap their BL that was lost during a dead coverage period will likely leave everything as paper until the enemy ktrain comes back simply because they don’t have anyone to spare to babysit upgrades. With auto upgrades those objectives will get stronger the longer you hold them even without any babysitting. So now, by the time the enemy ktrain comes back you likely have at least cannons and oil and if you’re lucky you may also have reinforced walls. Which gives you a chance to fight back.

Now during a dead coverage period, the bigger server can easily T3 everything with little to no effort.

• It can pick a couple towers and karma train while keeping one eye on these towers.
• Initially, if you try to take them back, they quickly hit you.
• But once the towers start getting upgrades, it becomes progressively harder for you to take them back, and they can be much more casual in responding. The bugged gate and wall upgrades and lack of +5 certainly doesn’t help your small group ninja the towers back.
• Once they’re T3, you have zero chance of taking them back.
• And then they pick two more of your towers.

They don’t need to spend any gold, babysit any camps or dolyaks, or really even be around at all once upgrades start rolling in.

Consider also, in the past that just because your server was in the dead time of the day it didnt mean there was no activity or your score had to drop to 50 or something. Sure you might lose your upgraded stuff, but thats not the end of the world. During those dead times, small teams could easily keep ppt up by constantly recapping paper structures not just on home bl, but other maps as well. Now however, when you are outnumbered and the enemy has everything upgraded on their bl quickly and with no effort on their part, this will put a serious obstacle in the way when trying to maintain ppt during this time. Whereas in the past it was much more manageable with a small team.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Nate.3927:

X T D.6458:

Auto upgrades, in its current implementation it simply encourages more blobbing and ktraining, then ever before because it becomes a more valuable strategy as small guild/havok teams become essentially shut out of the new wvw.

No it really doesn’t. Some of your points are valid, like the complaint about +5. But auto upgrades discourages ktraining because it makes it easier for a small force to defend against an unorganised larger force and if all they’re there for is the ktrain you can even make them leave the map completely. However a smaller force can only delay a determined and organized larger force. Which is how it should be.

Without auto upgrades, a small force trying to recap their BL that was lost during a dead coverage period will likely leave everything as paper until the enemy ktrain comes back simply because they don’t have anyone to spare to babysit upgrades. With auto upgrades those objectives will get stronger the longer you hold them even without any babysitting. So now, by the time the enemy ktrain comes back you likely have at least cannons and oil and if you’re lucky you may also have reinforced walls. Which gives you a chance to fight back.

Now during a dead coverage period, the bigger server can easily T3 everything with little to no effort.

• It can pick a couple towers and karma train while keeping one eye on these towers.
• Initially, if you try to take them back, they quickly hit you.
• But once the towers start getting upgrades, it becomes progressively harder for you to take them back, and they can be much more casual in responding. The bugged gate and wall upgrades and lack of +5 certainly doesn’t help your small group ninja the towers back.
• Once they’re T3, you have zero chance of taking them back.
• And then they pick two more of your towers.

They don’t need to spend any gold, babysit any camps or dolyaks, or really even be around at all once upgrades start rolling in.

If you are literally outnumbered 30 to 1 and can’t maintain any of your objectives then at some point they own everything and the ktrain stops. If everything was paper and you continue to backcap everything without ever defending them, then all you’re doing is participating in and encouraging the ktraining. The auto upgrade encourages servers to take a more aggressive approach to keep enemy objectives from reaching full fortified status. It does not enable or encourage ktraining.

I recently took 5 people to cap a fully fortified enemy fire keep, fighting against I believe 2-3 defenders, one was a minion master necro so it was hard to tell. Took us about 15-20 minutes to break into inner and then I don’t know how long we spent fighting the fire lord. But the champ gave us more trouble than the enemy players. Do you stand zero chance to take a fully fortified objective from an enemy group multiple times your size? yes. But you also stand zero chance to take a paper objective from an enemy group multiple times your size. So no difference there.

Do you stand zero chance to take a fully fortified objective with the number of attackers greater or equal to the number of defenders? no you don’t. It all comes down to which side knows what they’re doing.

X T D.6458:

During those dead times, small teams could easily keep ppt up by constantly recapping paper structures not just on home bl, but other maps as well.

The impression I get from this is that basically you actually want to ktrain (constantly recapping) and this is now harder so you’re unhappy. Without auto upgrades, sometimes you have no choice but to constantly backcap everything largely because you can’t afford to spare people to babysit upgrades. With auto upgrades as the outnumbered side, you actually get more options. Now you don’t have to babysit them to let them upgrade, which actually makes it easier to defend. Let me give you an example:

1. I log on to find my server’s entire home bl fortified or reinforced by the enemy.
2. I get together a few friends/guildies to first retake earth keep(and the northern camps needed for supply)
3. We get earth keep and dolyaks start coming there
4. We move on to air/fire keep
5. While we’re sieging air/fire keep, earth keep gets upgraded to T1 due to auto upgrades and the constant flow of yaks
6. Enemy ktrain blob on other map notices we took earth keep back. Best case scenario it’s a pure ktrain blob and will finish their current map before coming back so there’s a chance we can get to T2 before they come back. Worst case scenario they hate our server specifically and comes back straight away.
7. Assuming worst case scenario, while we’re still fighting in air/fire keep, outnumbered buff pops up.
8. We get ooc and wp to earth keep and start sieging it up.
9. Enemy blob attacks earth keep.

If the larger enemy force is a coordinated and motivated group, then at best we can delay them until either help comes or we are overwhelmed. This is true with/without auto upgrades. If the enemy blob is a mindless ktrain, the free upgrades we got because of auto upgrades will help us demoralize their ktrainers until they leave and eventually the blob losses enough people that they are no longer a serious threat.

You dont seem to understand, idk if thats intentional or your just not bothering to actually read my posts before replying to them. You took one sentence while ignoring the rest of my post which actually (if you bothered reading) explains my point to throw this label on me as someone who somehow supports ktraining? How is me talking about the importance of small teams helping their server during dead time zones supporting ktraining? And furthermore how is me pointing out how the new autoupgrade system encouraging ktraining and hurting small teams make me someone who wants more ktrains?

Both of you view the scenario from different angles. And honestly, although you made good points XTD, I’m with Nate on this for now.

It isn’t that hard to get a T3 objective but it’s very hard to defend paper.

Jana.6831:

Both of you view the scenario from different angles. And honestly, although you made good points XTD, I’m with Nate on this for now.

It isn’t that hard to get a T3 objective but it’s very hard to defend paper.

This is one of the point ts I was trying to make somewhere earlier. Only I think you two hashed it out more, and you worded it better, and more directly. I agree with what your saying.

My other aspect is supply trolls. Some posters have made arguments about devoting man power to banning them, but I do not feel that is reasonable. The reason I feel that way, is that a troll can build siege such as ACs and ballistas at a camp to burn supply, and thay can be justified as claiming it is to defend a camp. Or they can make golems that are not needed, but that is justified as well. With the new system, at least keeps will get upgraded, albeit much slower, at least it is no longer stopped entirely with this system.

Preventing supply trolling is one of the good parts of automatic upgrades, I always felt that going case by case was unproductive, nor were they ever engaged in ever actually seriously enforcing it. I personally feel automatic upgrades in its current state is unbalanced and needs more work required on the part of players.

X T D.6458:

You dont seem to understand, idk if thats intentional or your just not bothering to actually read my posts before replying to them. You took one sentence while ignoring the rest of my post which actually (if you bothered reading) explains my point to throw this label on me as someone who somehow supports ktraining? How is me talking about the importance of small teams helping their server during dead time zones supporting ktraining? And furthermore how is me pointing out how the new autoupgrade system encouraging ktraining and hurting small teams make me someone who wants more ktrains?

I am not deliberately misunderstanding you. You changed the focus of your complaint from one post to another. You had two complaints:

1. Auto upgrades promote ktraining
2. Auto upgrades makes it harder for small teams to maintain PPT during weaker timezones

The second one is partly true, the first one is not. A ktrain can only exist when at least two sides are continuously flipping objectives. There are two ways to stop it, make it more and more painful for the ktrain blob to take your stuff and you will demoralize enough of them that at some point their number is reduced to more manageable levels. Or let them take everything without backcapping and once they own everything, they have nothing to do so they will get bored and leave. Auto upgrades makes it easier for small teams to defend their objectives against a larger force. It helps small teams in their effort to derail the enemy ktrain.

With regards to the second complaint, this all depends on what you’re logging in to. A small team logging in to a fully fortified friendly map will find that it is a lot easier to delay and in some cases defeat a larger enemy force (depending on morale etc). This makes it easier for a small team to maintain PPT even while outnumbered.

However a smaller team logging in to a fully fortified hostile map will find that it is harder to maintain PPT because it will take you more time to recap your home bl. But at the same time, any objective you do take back will be easier to defend.

I have been in a situation before where it was literally 4 people on my side against 2 separate 30+ blobs on the enemy side. In order to maintain PPT for our server we had no choice but to continuously flip stuff and in doing so we participated in and helped the enemy server keep their ktrain going.

I did not change my complaint, I was commenting on someone elses post. You also fail to mention the actual effects of the auto upgrades, ppt requires offense that means capturing stuff. When they make capturing stuff all that much difficult, not that it shouldnt be, but to out of balance the way it is now thanks to auto upgrades, blobbing and ktraining becomes the standard tactic, do you really not understand this? Whereas in the past you could leave a small team to cap stuff on a map, now you need a large force anywhere.

X T D.6458:

I did not change my complaint, I was commenting on someone elses post. You also fail to mention the actual effects of the auto upgrades, ppt requires offense that means capturing stuff. When they make capturing stuff all that much difficult, not that it shouldnt be, but to out of balance the way it is now thanks to auto upgrades, blobbing and ktraining becomes the standard tactic, do you really not understand this? Whereas in the past you could leave a small team to cap stuff on a map, now you need a large force anywhere.

Capping an undefended T3 tower takes 2 mins longer (I pulled that number out, no idea how long it really takes but it isn’t that long) than a T0 – so in case of a 25 karma train blob and 5 who just logged in and want to get their stuff back, the 5 are in fact in advantage as no one has to upgrade camps or structures = they can take all supply they need and can run as a group whereas before someone had to stay and wait for the upgrade to be availlable.
If some of the 25 karma guys decide to split from their zerg and defend the structures then the automatic upgrades are bad. Only time will tell how it goes, but in the past you had to upgrade in good faith that enough people will be there to defend and in a lot of cases you were better off if you hadn’t upgraded because you would’ve had supply to build siege/additional siege/repair. I stopped upgrading actually because of these factors and that was bad as well as the prime time blob just karma trained all objectives they knew were paper – they had it before our blob could even react anyway.

So maybe a compromise would be the way to go – I’m going to think about it some more.

ETA: First thought: How about making enemy objectives upgrade slower when you hold it and/or take human interaction to upgrade them. And/or speed up friendly objective’s upgrades with or without human interaction.

I think one of the core problems of wvw is that only size matters anymore – would be great if skill/effort were buffed and I think the problem with coverage might partly solve itself with that. That problem is complex though, it’s not just auto upgrades.

X T D.6458:

I did not change my complaint, I was commenting on someone elses post. You also fail to mention the actual effects of the auto upgrades, ppt requires offense that means capturing stuff. When they make capturing stuff all that much difficult, not that it shouldnt be, but to out of balance the way it is now thanks to auto upgrades, blobbing and ktraining becomes the standard tactic, do you really not understand this? Whereas in the past you could leave a small team to cap stuff on a map, now you need a large force anywhere.

Actually I did mention it, twice in fact. Read again:

“I recently took 5 people to cap a fully fortified enemy fire keep, fighting against I believe 2-3 defenders, one was a minion master necro so it was hard to tell. Took us about 15-20 minutes to break into inner and then I don’t know how long we spent fighting the fire lord. But the champ gave us more trouble than the enemy players. Do you stand zero chance to take a fully fortified objective from an enemy group multiple times your size? yes. But you also stand zero chance to take a paper objective from an enemy group multiple times your size. So no difference there.”

and

“However a smaller team logging in to a fully fortified hostile map will find that it is harder to maintain PPT because it will take you more time to recap your home bl. But at the same time, any objective you do take back will be easier to defend.”

Will a blob take a T3 objective faster than a 5 man group? Yes. Will a blob take a paper objective faster than a 5 man group? Also yes.

Do you need a blob to take a T3 objective? No. You only need to have a force that is the same or slightly larger(or more skilled) than the defending group. The only time you need a blob to take a T3 objective is if another blob is defending it.

A large enemy force taking your objectives and actively defending it is not ktraining, that’s called WvW. Ktraining is when you go around in a rough circle just constantly flipping one objective after another without bothering to defend because you want your enemy to take things back so you can then cap it again and get more karma.

Nate.3927:

snip

I actually don’t know what your point is anymore as what you’ve said in your last post is: upgrades don’t matter at all.

Arius.7031:

Kitiara.2706:

Well, technically I wouldnt just stand there. I was bouncing all over 1 map upgrading stuff. Preparing for prime time, getting it sieged up, ready for the fights. It was fun, it was building anticipation.

I respect your personal preference, but to most of us who did it, we only did it because we had to as no one else wanted to do it. It may be fun for you to sit there for 5-6 hours, watching for swords on all your objectives, constantly running in circles upgrading this or that… but to most people that wasn’t fun gameplay. It’s something most who did it were basically forced to do if we wanted to be competitive.

^^^
This.

So much this, + there have been days where I spent around 50-60 gold in upgrades and siege prints just to keep objectives ready for blobs.

I don’t see any of the complainers shelling out that kinda gold amount, all they do is yap their traps but when it comes to forking over 50 gold / day to keep a gari ready for a blob + the 2 north towers at least partially ready + sit there for countless hours they’re no where to be found.

I’m glad the old upgrade system is gone and good riddance to it. I can actually play and fight now for a change and get to keep my gold.

@ Jana, yea the speed, and lack of player participation I believe are the biggest issues. One of the most confusing to me is the changes to camp/dolyaks in regards to upgrades. In the past both were absolutely crucial and required player effort in order to upgrade. Now, their role and significance has been marginalized and almost inconsequential to upgrades. Whats even more puzzling is dolyaks were buffed to become more durable and yet at the same time they are not even required for upgrades, I just find this completely counterproductive. The simplified upgrade queues and removal of gold cost are a welcome change, there was a constant confusion as to what goes in what order, and needless labeling of trolling on people who might have been new and didnt know but were just trying to help, and the gold cost…well it was ridiculous to begin with.

It’s kind of hard to say that auto upgrading should be removed when there is a new system of upgrading already in the game that isn’t being used because most guilds aren’t developed enough for it. The meta hasn’t settled yet, so relax.

I think camps should stay on auto upgrade and towers/garris/keeps should upgrade/downgrade depend on how many camps you control. Give the players a little time to cap back befor the upgrade happens.

@ X TD – I will still think about this – you guys helped me a lot btw – I’m constantly trying to articulate my problems with wvw but it’s hard without input.

You can solve this by all towers/keeps having a minimum at supply which won’t be touched by upgrades – basically independently, but the other upgrades still need dolyak supply to start/finish. People would still be able to troll to an extend (building unneccessary siege) but they can do that now as well.

Question is how my suggestion would work out. So basically either you have your corner/borderland upgrade faster if it’s in your hand, or upgrade faster if one of your server interacts with it. So that you have an advantage if you hold your own objectives either passively or actively. Enemies who want to upgrade your keep though will have to make an enourmous effort to do so. And maybe in that case we could also bring back working WPs in enemy keeps. Since my server is currently green we have no waypoints except one on our BL anyway.

Would that be confusing for players to have two different ways to upgrade stuff, one your own and the other enemy structures? Or just make it slower maybe. And make yaks matter more but currently the guards are bugged anyway so it’s rather hard to tell what’s going on.

Jana.6831:

Nate.3927:

snip

I actually don’t know what your point is anymore as what you’ve said in your last post is: upgrades don’t matter at all.

Not quite. My point is that with no defenders around, upgrades don’t matter (since nobody is using them). So you don’t need a large force to cap an empty map.

When the defenders seriously outnumber the attackers upgrades also don’t matter since they will likely just push out and fight regardless.

Upgrades matter when there’s a roughly equal number of attackers and defenders or when the defenders are outnumbered. Which is why the auto upgrades actually help slow down ktrains since it allows a smaller force to cause a lot of pain to a larger force. In the meantime the objective they’re defending is still ticking to the next upgrade, so the longer they can hold it, the stronger their position becomes.

I am not against removing the timer and making upgrades rely solely on dolyak count e.g. 5 dolyaks to secured, 20 to reinforced etc. But even if they remain the same, there is nothing about the auto upgrade system that promotes ktraining. Paper objectives promote ktraining because they can be captured very quickly with minimal effort. Upgraded objectives that require an attacking force to actually think and manage their supply/siege placement don’t.

The auto upgrade system promotes a more offensive strategy for all servers since you don’t want your enemies to have too many T3 objectives. And at the same time it helps outnumbered defenders fight against a superior force until either help comes or the attackers are sufficiently demoralized that they leave on their own.

Nate.3927:

Not quite. My point is that with no defenders around, upgrades don’t matter (since nobody is using them). So you don’t need a large force to cap an empty map.

With that you’re right.

Nate.3927:

When the defenders seriously outnumber the attackers upgrades also don’t matter since they will likely just push out and fight regardless.

In that case upgrades do matter as the defenders likely don’t just sit in the tower but need time to get there – so in case the karma trains realize that only 3 of them need to defend the enemy keep they just capped to “hold it forever” the attackers (those who were karma-blobbed off the map) are at disadvantage. All they can do is to defend what they capped when no one was around but they have a slim chance to cap something that is defended. Before HoT 3 attackers at a paper tower with 3 defenders and no supply had a roughly equal chance of getting that tower.

Nate.3927:

I am not against removing the timer and making upgrades rely solely on dolyak count e.g. 5 dolyaks to secured, 20 to reinforced etc. But even if they remain the same, there is nothing about the auto upgrade system that promotes ktraining. Paper objectives promote ktraining because they can be captured very quickly with minimal effort. Upgraded objectives that require an attacking force to actually think and manage their supply/siege placement don’t.

The auto upgrade system promotes a more offensive strategy for all servers since you don’t want your enemies to have too many T3 objectives. And at the same time it helps outnumbered defenders fight against a superior force until either help comes or the attackers are sufficiently demoralized that they leave on their own.

I kind of spoke already about it -auto upgrades can be pretty bad for the outnumbered server as well.
In the past, my last server, we had a decent coverage (but chaotic as no one tagged up) in prime, the rest of the day we were roamers who upgraded stuff. We had to have T3 structures before prime and if we lost it during prime the PPT was lost for the rest of the night (as the enemies would always come back before the tick to cap it again). It would’ve helped a lot during the day if upgrades had been faster or coupled, like gates and walls at the same time as it was really hard to defend. On the other hand I’ve witnessed whole weeks in which my server (several) didn’t manage to recap our hills. For these scenarios auto upgrades are even worse.

Bring back auto upgrades but change the old costs to badges of honor, then we can actually spend the WvW currency and be given a choice to upgrade a position or spend it on siege, or both but more carefully.

If it has no cost it has no value.

coglin.1867:

And replace it with what?

They changed it from the old system because they were demanded to do so by posters here. Before, it could be trolled by supply trolls.

I am not certain why so many posters are in favor of a system that was heavily trolled.

Why were you not championing the cause when we had multiple threads spammed with demands to change the system to prevent those game breaking trolls?

Keep it like it is but now human interaction is needed to start the next tier. Most trolls started an upgrade to burn the supply down. Now structures dont need supplies to upgrades they cant even troll but being helpful in that matter. All happy dont ya think?

Offair.2563:

Keep it like it is but now human interaction is needed to start the next tier. Most trolls started an upgrade to burn the supply down. Now structures dont need supplies to upgrades they cant even troll but being helpful in that matter. All happy dont ya think?

You would be back complaining that the system is boring after a week as “Hi, I want the next upgrade” isn’t more exciting than saying nothing.

Edit: So maybe a better system whould be a bit more complex and maybe even rely more on yaks. But I haven’t yet sat in a tower and watched it upgrade, so I don’t really know what difference yaks currently make.

Jana.6831:

Offair.2563:

Keep it like it is but now human interaction is needed to start the next tier. Most trolls started an upgrade to burn the supply down. Now structures dont need supplies to upgrades they cant even troll but being helpful in that matter. All happy dont ya think?

You would be back complaining that the system is boring after a week as “Hi, I want the next upgrade” isn’t more exciting than saying nothing.

Edit: So maybe a better system whould be a bit more complex and maybe even rely more on yaks. But I haven’t yet sat in a tower and watched it upgrade, so I don’t really know what difference yaks currently make.

Auto upgrades will just encourage lazy play. Right now its “cap and leave, it will upgrade anyway”. In the past enemies tried to upgrade keeps/towers in our home borderland but to do so they needed to stay and do it. A nice perspective for home border defenders to go there as they know theres something to fight there.

No pain no gain.

As you all say, the T3 give now a huge advantage for the defensive team.
This is a very good point.
But this advantage must be earned ! You have to work for that, this should not be free and automatic… This is not “fair” against the attack team…
And the WvW should be something made by human players, not automatic scripts.

Now it’s too easy… Just jump inside the keep, use all the sups to build siege, wait the auto upgrade and hold on ennemy zerg with 5 people…

But before bringing back the old system, please fix the bug with the south doly…