Guild Wars 2

No white swords = BAD idea. It doesn’t require testing. All you are going to do is promote karma trains….

I’d say, let them run their test and let’s participate on them as much as we can, then discuss about it. (its going to be temporary so no worries there), also it shows that they actually care for any changes that may come with the current WvW system and whether the community like those changes or not.
Since we don’t have the luxury of a PTR this is a great way to approach this issue rather than force them in a single stroke. Run the test, then let us discuss about it and we’ll see.

John Corpening.9847:

Hello All,

There was quite a lot of discussion around the proposal of removing white swords from objectives in WvW. We understand there are concerns about how this change might work in practice or how player behavior may change as a result of it. We felt like the best way to understand fully the impact, and give players a chance to see for themselves how it directly changes the WvW experience is to let people try it and see what they think.

We have decided to run a special multi-week event in WvW where we’ll be changing some of the “rules” of WvW for a limited time. This event will feature two major rule changes while it is running: we are planning to remove white swords from objectives, and add points per kill in WvW to the over-all score for the duration of this event. We are currently targeting December for this event but will keep you posted when we have dates nailed down for certain. If this type of event is successful, we may look to do more events like this in the future where for short periods of time the rules of WvW are changed to different rules, scoring and scenarios to help both keep the game fresh, as well as to change up the experience and try new fun things for WvW.

We look forward to your feedback once the event begins, both on the temporary event only changes, as well as the concept of these special events in WvW.

Thanks,
John

You already know what feedback you’re gonna regarding the white swords, there are hundreds of posts on this forum telling you why it’s a bad idea. It does not warrant any testing.

There doesn’t need to be a test, is the point. The consensus has already expressed it is a bad idea and doesn’t need implementation.

However, here are some points I’ve seen on just a couple pages of this forum thread, and others I’ve heard in game, for improvements and ideas that should happen.

- Improving the server match up and rotations for WvW

- Disallowing players to rez fully downed allies while in combat.

- Disallowing players to rally off of anything other than enemy players in WvW

- Extending Waypoint timers on an attacked objective to keep defenders from “Rez-Rushing”

- Requiring a minimum number of defenders to neutralize the “flip” on an attacked objective’s circle.

- Decreasing the timer to 2:00 (two minutes) on the fully-downed player state in WvW.

- Rewarding Scouts for their time and effort in Scouting objectives.

- Points Per Kill system (other than Bloodlust Buff)

- Disallowing siege to be placed on gates, withing a certain range, that aren’t Rams.

- Disallowing groups of players to destroy a gate below 50% without the use of Siege.

Removing White Swords from objectives being attacked does not fall into a list of “improvements” which need to be made or adjusted for WvW. It is just not a viable change. Again, these are just a few ideas of improvement that could be made which far supersede what Anet, and only Anet, seems to want to prioritize as far as changes and adjustments go.

There are obvious pros and cons for some, and implementation ideas that are needed for others. However, they’re still better than what is obviously a broken idea.

if you’r a high ranking server like SFR removing the white swords will have no effect as we always have scouts! every server should have scouts in towers

Styles.7469:

- Improving the server match up and rotations for WvW < Something we always wanted.

- Disallowing players to rez fully downed allies while in combat. < Please, do test this.

- Disallowing players to rally off of anything other than enemy players in WvW < Please, do test this.

- Extending Waypoint timers on an attacked objective to keep defenders from “Rez-Rushing” < Same as the other two.

- Requiring a minimum number of defenders to neutralize the “flip” on an attacked objective’s circle. < Same as the other three.

- Decreasing the timer to 2:00 (two minutes) on the fully-downed player state in WvW. < Same…

- Rewarding Scouts for their time and effort in Scouting objectives. < Scouting is so boring, I don’t even know what reward can be enough. Honestly, if white swords appeared as soon as 4+ enemies get within 1200 range of a camp/tower/keep(so barely any scouts are needed, except for patroling around the camps) I wouldn’t mind it.

- Points Per Kill system (other than Bloodlust Buff) < Depends how it’s done, but yea, can be tested.

- Disallowing siege to be placed on gates, withing a certain range, that aren’t Rams. < No opinion.

- Disallowing groups of players to destroy a gate below 50% without the use of Siege. < Please, test this.

Styles has some great ideas, some can probably even be easy to “test”. Also, let’s beat the dead horse again: “Removing the white swords is stupid and no testing is needed for us to know it.”

John Corpening.9847:

Hello All,
We have decided to run a special multi-week event in WvW where we’ll be changing some of the “rules” of WvW for a limited time.
Thanks,
John

That’s nice, John.

Will you also be suspending Glicko scoring changes for a limited time while you use the live environment as a test server?

hophopcool.7618:

if you’r a high ranking server like SFR removing the white swords will have no effect as we always have scouts! every server should have scouts in towers

t3-t9 depend on white swords to know where the enemies are because there arent enough players to have luxuries such as tower campers.

but ignorance is bliss right?

High tier servers (at least in NA) have the same problem with sentries, though obviously to a lesser degree. TC’s OCX/SEA is our weakest period of coverage, and there simply aren’t enough people on at that time to have sentries in everything on every map. We usually have enough coverage to do it in EU/NA, but it’s like pulling teeth getting people to volunteer sometimes, because sentrying is the most unrewarding part of WvW.

This change benefits no one, and I think most people in every tier are fully opposed to this being implemented. It astounds me that they ask for feedback on kitten like this and then steamroll ahead with it even if almost everyone who’s responded has said it’s a terrible idea. They did this with the Siege Disablers too (which even now, most of us think need a serious nerf – just like we told ANet they would weeks before they got implemented). Why ask for our feedback if you’re going to ignore it anyway?

I’m glad that this will only be a “test,” but as awesome as ANet has been about listening to our concerns, I’m worried that they’ll push it through even if we all end up hating it for those few weeks (which we will…because the notion of removing white swords in a game that revolves around responding to attacks on your towers/keeps – when the game mode is seriously underpopulated – is laughable).

Pavel.8531:

Styles.7469:

- Points Per Kill system (other than Bloodlust Buff) < Depends how it’s done, but yea, can be tested.

Styles has some great ideas, some can probably even be easy to “test”.

Not all the ideas were mine, but it is appreciated and credit is given where credit is due.

I’m actually in the midst of writing up a good way the PPK system could be implemented that I -think- is fair and balanced (it will need criticism when it’s done), and will give roamers and duo-roamers a better and more rewarding experience, as well as contributing to their world.

Mark Katzbach on another thread wrote:
“If you want to see more developers participating in the lower tiers, then encourage more of the lower-tiered guilds to apply.”

I only just saw this on the other thread that got locked and want to respond about it here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but lower tier servers don’t have as many active WvW guilds for the simple fact that the population is smaller. It sounds like a bit of a catch 22 to me.

Chaba.5410:

Mark Katzbach on another thread wrote:
“If you want to see more developers participating in the lower tiers, then encourage more of the lower-tiered guilds to apply.”

I only just saw this on the other thread that got locked and want to respond about it here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but lower tier servers don’t have as many active WvW guilds for the simple fact that the population is smaller. It sounds like a bit of a catch 22 to me.

Encouraging people to participate is the most important part of making any community better. The more people that get involved, the healthier the community will be.

Deli.1302:

You already know what feedback you’re gonna regarding the white swords, there are hundreds of posts on this forum telling you why it’s a bad idea. It does not warrant any testing.

Agreed, its baffling. Its like they either don’t want to give up an idea of theirs without a fight or they simply can’t properly determine whats good for the game and make a decision on it but it fits in with the CDI program in that respect.

The PPK system they want to put into effect, I sincerely hope, is as equally balanced as the Bloodlust Buff we currently have (though suggestions have been made that even it could be further balanced). I do strongly believe that it could bring more fighting and open field guilds to fruition in WvW so that the sole focus isn’t PPT via Conquest, and finally give an edge to the servers whom, despite the lack of numbers, bring skilled combat groups into the mix. It would work very well with some of the suggestions I’ve seen and noted in a previous post, and would give not only Smaller numbers a fighting chance, but also bring a sense of reward and better experiences to Roamers, small groups, skill groups, and zergs alike.

Personally, I think there are a few different way Anet could introduce and/or test the PPK system, but to me what I’m about to propose seems as though it could have a correct balance (or is at least on the right track) in order to implement it effectively for long term use in WvW. I also believe I have not come up with some ultimate solution to how PPK should work, but any criticism it receives will be taken into consideration.

Perhaps if, as a gamer’s community rather than separate servers, guilds, or even players, we can actually get through to Anet for truly balanced and enjoyable game play and strive for an improved WvW like we’ve been asking for, yet have hardly received.

Here is what I propose:

Points Per Kill system (other than Bloodlust Buff)
Implementation:

1.) Kill Capacity: Similar to Guard Stacks, as something you put into with your WxP points.

It would activate stomp-only so players running zergs/blobs couldn’t abuse it by simply cleaving down enemies, or utilize siege to farm players. This, as opposed to the Bloodlust Buff, would give solo or duo roamers a more rewarding experience for contributing even further to their world, without having to waste time standing in a circle for a minute just to get a buff that someone could just as easily decap.

How many points one could accumulate couldn’t be anything crazy high, so maybe something similar to Supply Capacity in both cumulative totals as well as points put in.

1 – 30 World Ability Points – Increases kill capacity by 1

2 – 60 World Ability Points – Increases kill capacity by 2 (total)

3 – 90 World Ability Points – Increases kill capacity by 3 (total)

90 ranks in WvW, if you’re a regular, is pretty easy to get in my opinion. Then you could even go so far as to balance it so that it’s only available to use if the World Bloodlust Buff is up. This would help with large scale cooperation between Roamers, Duo-Roamers, Havoc Squads, Map-Hoppers, and Zergs alike, since it would require cooperation from all of them and stress the importance of organization further.

So assuming maximum “Kill Capacity”, which is 3 pts. per stomp, and the World Bloodlust Buff is active:

1 – 4 pts to World Score per stomp with Minor World Bloodlust Buff.

2 – 5 pts to World Score per stomp with Major World Bloodlust Buff.

3 – 6 pts to World Score per stomp with Superior World Bloodlust Buff.

There are still pros and cons, and exploitable issues with the PPK system overall, but I am in high hopes that this is at least a good start.

Removing white swords is terrible idea, as mentioned.
Stylus (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Adopt-a-Dev-for-the-WvW-Fall-Tournament/4519559) suggested good ideas.

My suggestions:
– Keep contested state (with white swords), but show it only if wall or gate take some considerable damage, like 3-5%. It is for prevent one-man-contesters like thief who can contest full EBG side in 1 min. Run from spawn to fight Stonemist or enemy Keep is not funny (game is all about fun, isn’t it?).
– Remove depends of capture time based of numbers of players in ring. 80 players must cap object like 1. Best fights always for objects.
– Make WvW reward tracks like your make it for sPvP. Your can also give t(n+1) server reward bonus (like +15% for track progression) for beating t(n) server. But this rewards must be based on individual player efficiency (count kills/captured objects for the week) rather than server efficiency, if your want really increase WvW population.
– Make rewards for scouting towers. Only for really scouting rather than afking in tower/keep. How make it? I dont know. But f.e. ppl on map can “report” one man as commander and when he got stack he can “report” some players as scouts. Just an idea.

Also 70% map populations depends on the presence on it of good commander. My server can have 80-90 ppl queue on EBG in pre-prime time if there one of popular server commanders, and no queue at the same time the next day if there is no commander. So, your should make game interesting for commanders, but the reality is that most of good popular commanders is bored and not command anymore. It because they play on same 2 maps 2 years with the same mechanics – it really boring.
Your really should think about maps generate for each matchup and add new mechanics. It may be underwater keeps & battles, or special golems which effective versus players zerg, or moving waypoints like ships.

I wonder what happened to “EotM will be used to test new features for WvW?” Just talk?

And it’s unbelievable that the devs are still convinced white swords are a good idea. Even after all the outcry. Talk about out of touch.

I understand how they came to idea of removing white swords:

Devon: Guys we need to better get into problem of advantage of running with a huge group and support more smaller groupds for capturing/fighgting in wvw/
RadnvomDev: Big groups make orange and white swords! While small groups making only white, so let’s remove it and give advantage to smaller groups!
Devon:Great idea, community will be happy.

At least it’s how i understand it. “RandomDev” didn’t ook in account in here that ussually when a big group wants to take an object just making less then 25 guys hit the object and bananas don’t trigger, that simple.

Looking forward to that idea though.
Alot of people outcrying babys left over without mom’s kittens becasue of that changes, but I would better try it and i don’t care if it will be good or bad, it will be fresh 100%.

Though with PPK system, will it be still viable to take and defend objectives, or it will be more effective to snowball everything with uberblob. Maybe balancing the TIK time itself with points per objective in terms to make it more efficient to save those, and make objectives tik more first 5h, so uberstrong servers will have lesser adventage.

Anet should invite some really HC players to some of their meetigns/testings, but the one that can stay silent to the other community to not kittentalk them behind their back etc, so he could help them to see how things can go. Yes it will be work, but it will really help alot to their team.

I remember few of the funniest days in wvw was:
- the day with chaos storm mesmer bug (it was dealing 20k+ dmg on golems when “Chaos storm on falling damage”)
- the day when you could build ONLY golems among all siege (that was a blast, NO ac, no trebs, no rams, just ROBOTS)
So looking forward for testings.

As I generally run a small guild group for PPT a couple nights a week, I think that eliminating white swords helps us be offensive… I would welcome the test on this one.

As far as PpK, I think this will just encourage more of the large scale fights that many of us have grown tired of. We need to stop the mentality that it is just a bag farm and/or even a karma farm. EotM also needs some testing as I am sure the original intent was not a large karma farm 24/7. Anyone say inflation?

I have another couple ideas that I would propose…. We run at least two tournaments a year… Lets lock the T1 first place server from any new transfers, still allow new accounts though. That allows Anet to still get a profit and provides some downfall to coming in first. T1 first place gets unlocked for transfers once they fail at being 1st in a future tournament. T1 second place could be locked for a slightly shorter time or not locked but have a very steep transfer fee, and so on down the entire set of brackets. Also a steeper gem cost to transfer, say 100gems for lowest 3 servers, and say 4k gems to T1 servers. I would also like to see a token system or something that I can gift to help someone transfer servers that is not in the form of gold.

Lord Kuru.3685:

And it’s unbelievable that the devs are still convinced white swords are a good idea. Even after all the outcry. Talk about out of touch.

the standart response to this is, that the people crying in forums are only a minuscule minority, and that most people are content with the status of the game.

And a-net has to cater to their most important customers, which are the gem buying players. so to ensure, that these casual players are happy even in WvW they have to dumb down the whole game and keep it simple, rewarding and karmatrainy.

in light of this i suggest the following changes:
- no more doors on structures (since sieging takes far too long)
- the time of capturing an objectiv should be reduced by half.
- the rewards in wvw should be as god as in eotm (also there should be always a magnificent chest, when capturing an object)
- if your group is smaller then 20 People, we receive a debuff and are automaticly immobilized near enemies, until death
- killing an enemy should give you an instant rank up (WvW rank) with a guaranteed precursordrop every 100 ranks
- upscaled players and rangers should get a buff of +50 to all stats and a ranged attack of 2500 which can shoot through walls.

I’ve not seen so many people complain about a single thing so much on the forums since launch.

If they bring in the removal of white swords they have to bring in rewards for patrolling towers! Simple as!

Only problem is that they have made excuses saying that it would be hard to rewards defenders as it would be hard to tell if that person was actually defending or just afk.

But they have no real excuse, they brought in the auto kick if you are afk for like 5 mins. We’ve also suggested to add in-tower events, you have to do the event to get the reward. So why havent they done it? Same reason as always, they simply are not working on WvW!

Removal of white swords won’t make things fun… it’s pretty obvious that the folks pushing changes like these very simply just don’t play the game.

Removing swords will only require us to leave scouts on each objective. Which means one of two things:
1.) half of the people on the map will effectively be bored out of their mind for the entirety (or majority) of the time spent in wvw.
2.) half of the clients logged into wvw will be the second client of a person already in wvw on their main.

Either way you look at it, it’s only going to cause higher queue times when maps DO get queued, due to requiring more people in addition to the normal combatants. It wouldn’t surprise me if they anticipated that hardcore commanders would get fed up with sub-par scouts and purchase a second account in order to simply scout on a second monitor. If that’s the case, then it’s a pretty sorry attempt at a cash-grab…

Believing that a change like this will cause people to forget blobbing and adopt a weaker fighting tactic is laughable at best. Don’t kid yourselves. You’re promoting people AFKing a second account in a high traffic map area while they continue to blob — not promoting small roaming groups and objective defenders.

Any other change proposed is just going to be overshadowed by the monumental mistake of even suggesting that removing a system that alerts people to an attack will give defenders a stronger role.

Please go. Come back when you decide to actually fix the problem, rather than try to reinvent the wheel…

Of course soliciting the views of the players was an empty gesture. We sure fell for it, though.

The disingenuousness is arguably the worst part of the affair. Look, it does not need to be tested, as for the majority of worlds this change admits of a binary outcome. Our world, like many, simply does not have the personnel to scout all locations and maintain any sort of group play.

The implementation of this change will produce one of the following:
1) WvW groups break into small units, some to thanklessly scout each location, and others to try to quickly capture undefended or poorly defended locations, and to respond to warnings from the scouts. Group fighting occurs only on a tPvP scale. The world with more players can divide into more groups or into groups with a few more members than can the smaller world. The larger world threatens more locations at a time, can respond with larger groups (two people make a difference when it’s 3v5), and wins.

2) WvW groups do not break into smaller units. Locations go undefended and readily change hands. In the interest of rapidly capturing undefended locations, all of a world’s players on a map probably join into a single group and simply rotate through capturing locations. Group fighting is rare and usually meaningless. The more populous world can carry more supply and hit doors harder, so it captures objectives more quickly than its opponents. Given that as blob size increases individual skill impact decreases, fights also tend to go the way of the larger world. With more objectives and more kills, the larger server wins.

Maybe this works as intended in T1, though I suspect the players there are no more inclined than the rest of us to play sit-and-wait. The view for most worlds is quite a bit different from what you saw at the top.

Oh, and anybody that believes this is “temporary” and subject to the evaluation of a trial period clearly hasn’t been following along.

Styles.7469:

However, here are some points I’ve seen on just a couple pages of this forum thread, and others I’ve heard in game, for improvements and ideas that should happen.

Styles.7469:

Here is what I propose: [. . .]

Maybe now that it’s out there we could start a new thread with this? I understand that putting it in a pinned thread increases the probability it will be read, but I’d worry that discussion will get lost in the flood.

Ocosh.5843:

Of course soliciting the views of the players was an empty gesture. We sure fell for it, though.

The disingenuousness is arguably the worst part of the affair. Look, it does not need to be tested, as for the majority of worlds this change admits of a binary outcome. Our world, like many, simply does not have the personnel to scout all locations and maintain any sort of group play.

Numbers

hide spoiler

Consider: Assuming one side controls its entire Borderlands, then with a bare minimum of two defenders per keep (running back and forth and straining their ears), one per tower, and one per camp, warning-free scouting requires sixteen people on that map just to advise of attacks on capture objectives. Clearly, you have not seen us at low tide. We have scouts — good ones — but, as many have said, they rely on white swords to let them know of potential trouble; they let us know while they head to the location, and then they report on the nature of the threat.

That’s an minimum of 16 (without walking yaks), plus 8 more for EBG, and this assumes an equal split of territories. Any side that takes the lead is going to have to leave people behind at every point. This expects that a very large percentage of the playerbase would be willing to sit at one spot, twiddling their thumbs and waiting to have something to do.

The implementation of this change will produce one of the following:
1) WvW groups break into small units, some to thanklessly scout each location, and others to try to quickly capture undefended or poorly defended locations, and to respond to warnings from the scouts. Group fighting occurs only on a tPvP scale. The world with more players can divide into more groups or into groups with a few more members than can the smaller world. The larger world threatens more locations at a time, can respond with larger groups (two people make a difference when it’s 3v5), and wins.

2) WvW groups do not break into smaller units. Locations go undefended and readily change hands. In the interest of rapidly capturing undefended locations, all of a world’s players on a map probably join into a single group and simply rotate through capturing locations. Group fighting is rare and usually meaningless. The more populous world can carry more supply and hit doors harder, so it captures objectives more quickly than its opponents. Given that as blob size increases individual skill impact decreases, fights also tend to go the way of the larger world. With more objectives and more kills, the larger server wins.

Maybe this works as intended in T1, though I suspect the players there are no more inclined than the rest of us to play sit-and-wait. The view for most worlds is quite a bit different from what you saw at the top.

Oh, and anybody that believes this is “temporary” and subject to the evaluation of a trial period clearly hasn’t been following along.

In Black Gate, we don’t defend every objectives. The paper towers and keeps are there, give or take. I guess that outside the raid time, BG isn’t that big for PPT anymore and we aren’t bothered any bits if the whole home borderland gets flipped. The one that usually needs scout and defense are T3 towers (EB and the two North ones in home borderlands), EB Keep, Garrison, Bay and Hill (usually it’s a sacrifice of one to keep another). Even so, we don’t have that many stationed sentries, mostly just AFK, and scouting was done by roamers and siege handlers or per request by commanders. I dare say that removing the white sword won’t change the matter of defense and scouting in BG. The server is already accustomed to its quick alert-fast response-instant rally way of communication developed through the seasons. Also BG fighting force relies on independent guild groups which don’t often blobs together. I think the PPK change will promote more open field fights and makes WvW less of the PvD karma train. (But then, there are certain groups who prefer to turtle with their superior arrow carts than having fun and will be less likely to be affected by these changes).
In brief, I think the new rule sets are fun to try. I’m hopeful for its positive impact to the current meta.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/PpK-Implementation-Ideas

Please see this thread for an idea of how PpK may be fairly implemented to our WvW play.

Iris Ng.9845:

In Black Gate [. . .]
In brief, I think the new rule sets are fun to try. I’m hopeful for its positive impact to the current meta.

Ok, but that’s my point: You’re Black Gate. Everyone knows the T1 worlds are the tops and packed with people. The rest of us aren’t even close to your numbers. Even if we have the same percentage of players roaming and scouting, we cover far less ground.

I expect that the approaches aren’t all that different between tiers. I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that for a lot of people on my world (especially long-time players), PPT is nice, but it’s not the focus: we’d rather not lose, but having a good time trumps winning. We enjoy challenges. We like fights. We hate blobs. We need white swords to get fights (and to PPT). We increasingly see worlds and guild groups who care only for the score. They hide in towers; they blob all their guild groups together; and if they are given the opportunity to k-train they will do just that, because they already have the incentive — moving up in the rankings to bore more people. This isn’t a real war; it’s a game without much of an offseason, so people who put victory ahead of sportsmanship are missing the point, and this change is geared toward them. I suggest that fostering this approach is poor for the long-term health of WvW: Wins without reward grow boring more quickly than dynamic engagements.

The removal of white swords is going to abet a style of play that excludes much of what makes the game mode unique, and further fragment the population between PPT’ers and GvG’ers, leaving WvW’ers out in the cold.

I applaud the idea of testing changes for a period of time. Awesome!

It will freshen up WvW. And it will allow Anet to make changes that may be controversial without committing to permanent changes. If the change is bad, they can just not implement it permanently.

I hope to see “test periods” much more often. As far as I’m concerned, they can have them every month. Introduce a new change and see how it goes.

I would love to test a new map this way. They wouldn’t have to spend so much time getting every little tiny thing perfect before releasing it. Just let us test it! We’ll find the bugs.

Styles.7469:

There doesn’t need to be a test, is the point. The consensus has already expressed it is a bad idea and doesn’t need implementation.

However, here are some points I’ve seen on just a couple pages of this forum thread, and others I’ve heard in game, for improvements and ideas that should happen.

- Improving the server match up and rotations for WvW

- Disallowing players to rez fully downed allies while in combat.

- Disallowing players to rally off of anything other than enemy players in WvW

- Extending Waypoint timers on an attacked objective to keep defenders from “Rez-Rushing”

- Requiring a minimum number of defenders to neutralize the “flip” on an attacked objective’s circle.

- Decreasing the timer to 2:00 (two minutes) on the fully-downed player state in WvW.

- Rewarding Scouts for their time and effort in Scouting objectives.

- Points Per Kill system (other than Bloodlust Buff)

- Disallowing siege to be placed on gates, withing a certain range, that aren’t Rams.

- Disallowing groups of players to destroy a gate below 50% without the use of Siege.

Removing White Swords from objectives being attacked does not fall into a list of “improvements” which need to be made or adjusted for WvW. It is just not a viable change. Again, these are just a few ideas of improvement that could be made which far supersede what Anet, and only Anet, seems to want to prioritize as far as changes and adjustments go.

There are obvious pros and cons for some, and implementation ideas that are needed for others. However, they’re still better than what is obviously a broken idea.

I agree with almost everything here. Well done.

This is what is going to happen during the testing:

New changes, everyone will be all over it. For a while. A short while. People will defend, pay for people to defend, set up defense rotations. Then everyone will again lose interest in defending and we will be back to empty towers and no white swords. Your testing will prove nothing.

The problem with the whole ‘adopt a dev’ is that they have now taken their rosy view of organised guild experiences and seek to apply that overall, conveniently forgetting all the other aspects of wvw that guilds tend to ignore. Try asking a guild raid to supply some scouts and see what response you get’ that’s someone else’s job, we’re on a raid’ is the polite phrasing…

They also totally failed to explore the lower tiers, the majority who play in small guilds or ‘guildless’, the roamers, the defenders, the siegers, the scouts, and all the other jobs, the outmanned, and the very small servers where scouts are a luxury they cannot afford.

It’s no wonder they think removing white swords is a good idea, given their skewed view of wvw obtained during adopt a dev during the busiest time on wvw.

What they need is a few interns whose job is to join the lower tiers, off peak hours, solo, etc and then report back their findings. Or, heaven forbid, ask the community for their take on it…

Baldrick.8967:

Or, heaven forbid, ask the community for their take on it…

they asked the community, there are multiple CDI’s on different topics. The problem is, that after asking, they evaluate, they ponder, they discuss possiblities with the developers and after years of debate, they decide to implement things no one wanted, no one suggested and no one tested.

and they expect that we are incredibly grateful for what they’ve done for us!

If no more white sword do that mean that WP never will be blocked?

Ocosh.5843:

Iris Ng.9845:

In Black Gate [. . .]
In brief, I think the new rule sets are fun to try. I’m hopeful for its positive impact to the current meta.

Ok, but that’s my point: You’re Black Gate. Everyone knows the T1 worlds are the tops and packed with people. The rest of us aren’t even close to your numbers. Even if we have the same percentage of players roaming and scouting, we cover far less ground.

I expect that the approaches aren’t all that different between tiers. I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that for a lot of people on my world (especially long-time players), PPT is nice, but it’s not the focus: we’d rather not lose, but having a good time trumps winning. We enjoy challenges. We like fights. We hate blobs. We need white swords to get fights (and to PPT). We increasingly see worlds and guild groups who care only for the score. They hide in towers; they blob all their guild groups together; and if they are given the opportunity to k-train they will do just that, because they already have the incentive — moving up in the rankings to bore more people. This isn’t a real war; it’s a game without much of an offseason, so people who put victory ahead of sportsmanship are missing the point, and this change is geared toward them. I suggest that fostering this approach is poor for the long-term health of WvW: Wins without reward grow boring more quickly than dynamic engagements.

The removal of white swords is going to abet a style of play that excludes much of what makes the game mode unique, and further fragment the population between PPT’ers and GvG’ers, leaving WvW’ers out in the cold.

In the earlier post, you wondered about the situation in T1, so have I answered. I’m also aware that it is different from server to server, and your concern sound reasonable. However, speculation is just speculation. I believe we would reach an accurate assessment after trying the new rule sets out.

tl;dr No need to dish it yet.

/PardonMyEnglish

Just make a WXP line for scouting, allowing you to see white swords and gain experience, WXP and loot from standing still. Maybe even champion lootbags every time your refresh siege?

Scouting is boring. Scouting is unrewarding. It has to be, otherwise we’ll just have AFKers. Apart from the time I had a tea party with all my golems (supplies were nearly full and weren’t being used, what choice did I have?); I have loathed scout duty as I get no fun or rewards, but I allow other players to get even more. An act of kindness and selflessness? No. As usual, I’m just being told that I get the kitten job.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Scouting is boring. Scouting is unrewarding. It has to be, otherwise we’ll just have AFKers. Apart from the time I had a tea party with all my golems (supplies were nearly full and weren’t being used, what choice did I have?); I have loathed scout duty as I get no fun or rewards, but I allow other players to get even more. An act of kindness and selflessness? No. As usual, I’m just being told that I get the kitten job.

You’re doing that because YOU WANT to do that… If you don’t like it, there is absolutely NO REASON for you to do it. It’s a GAME, it’s meant to be FUN, then why in the world would you do somenthing that you find to be BORING?

I don’t like the idea of ppk, but I could live with no white swords, if we get instead the radar turret. The ppk are only good for T1 or stacked servers with no timezone gaps. Maybe you could test them only there, and of course please test this idea in T8 to see the diffence. Before a roll-out of all servers, make both Tiers to a playground for your devs.

Most of the players can’t decide on their own where they have to live, ppk punish people to be on a server and play against one where they have no enemies. Why should they play further wvw or the game, when their support is lesser worth because they live in the wrong timezone for others?

To the original topic: I was dissappointed that ioj didn’t get any dev, but after reading the post where we had played against servers who had ones makes me really sad. Sometimes I think anet hates ioj. Yes, I know this isn’t true, but after playing this game on the same server since over 1,5 years with the ups and downs after feature patches (e.g. season 1, suddenly changes of the leagues, same high transfer cost for silver league midtiers season 2), it feels so. Just to make clear, I don’t demand anything or begging for attention of a dev.

Shadow.3475:

If no more white sword do that mean that WP never will be blocked?

dont worry, you wont have any wps with all the ninjas afoot

insanemaniac.2456 on SFR we still have scouts from time to time

Shadow.3475:

insanemaniac.2456 on SFR we still have scouts from time to time

Because you are a stacked T1 server maybe?

John Corpening.9847:

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update on some changes I shared with you in a previous post. With the build on Tuesday build site interacts will have text better describing them, the arrow cart and ballista build sites will now have a smaller footprint and the siege disabler has a more visible projectile giving you a better chance to block it. We look forward to seeing how these changes improve the WvW experience.

Happy Halloween!

John

Can we expect more changes to siege disablers? The duration is what makes it broken.
There aren’t enough aoe blocks in this game to make an animation change very worthwhile.

Thats all? No ability to stop them being spammed over and over and over? Meaning unless you have overwhelming numbers the only way into an upgraded keep is with omega golems?

Personally i’d just say remove disablers all together… I see the thinking behind them, but it has basically ruined the effectiveness and fun from small man groups. 5-10 man group goes to attack NW tower, rams or catas get siege disabled 3 times (2.25 mins/ 135 sec) , then enemy zerg shows up and kills you. Well lets encourage zerging more….

Jhawk.1360:

Personally i’d just say remove disablers all together… I see the thinking behind them, but it has basically ruined the effectiveness and fun from small man groups. 5-10 man group goes to attack NW tower, rams or catas get siege disabled 3 times (2.25 mins/ 135 sec) , then enemy zerg shows up and kills you. Well lets encourage zerging more….

They think getting rid of white swords will fix the siege disabler problem.

It could possibly yes.

Jhawk.1360:

Personally i’d just say remove disablers all together… I see the thinking behind them, but it has basically ruined the effectiveness and fun from small man groups. 5-10 man group goes to attack NW tower, rams or catas get siege disabled 3 times (2.25 mins/ 135 sec) , then enemy zerg shows up and kills you. Well lets encourage zerging more….

By making disablers they created that problem. They want to ‘fix’ that by removing white crosses when an objective is tagged. So unless you have scouts everywhere, prepare to lose everything without a WP and without even noticing how you lost it.

Dopamine.7502:

By making disablers they created that problem. They want to ‘fix’ that by removing white crosses when an objective is tagged.

What are they doing pretty much is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EuqxFwS9I8 < just replace arm and finger with siege disablers and white swords.

While I understand that the Removal of White Swords will be tested, I would have suggested more proactive methods to get players to Defend. We have discussed this repeatedly in our daily map runs, both while we were on TC and helping out on other servers. There needs to be some sort of reward for watching a keep/ tower/ camp. The only rewards, really, are for the take. An NPC to speak with at each gate, yadda yadda, whatever, that starts a timer, to show how long someone did sentry. A rotation path, like walking yaks, but talk to sentries at each sentry post, etc. Credit for building X number of AC’s. X number Balli’s, Gate trebs, etc, whatever…something. I love Defense…always have (okay, I like going on offensive too), but I’d Defend all day if there were not stumbling blocks in place for the players.

One of the few Tools the Defensive team has in their toolbox would be the White Swords… You’d need a Sentry at every collapsible wall and door in the Keeps. Think of the points of Ingress for Garry, Hills & Bay, thus leaving the towers as cannon fodder—southern two can be cannon fodder anyway, np. During the Day (SEA through EU times, there may not be that many players on the maps! Number crunch, do the math. Supply rules your WvW world and the camps are a loss, w/o white swords, so upgrading will be abysmal. The whole basis of a strong defense: place sentries in the major keeps and towers, respond to swords as needed, upgrade, siege, rinse, repeat.

Without the swords, will this not become EoTM? Infrastructure flipping repeatedly and no one upgrading? As an aside, I think EoTM was laid out brilliantly, had it not been turned into a huge karma train.

Kitty

Deli.1302:

Can we expect more changes to siege disablers? The duration is what makes it broken.
There aren’t enough aoe blocks in this game to make an animation change very worthwhile.

More than duration, cooldown (non existant) and/or radius should be fixed

Having a 10 minutes cooldown could be fair, so 1 guy alone can only buy some time, 5-6 defenders have a chance with small groups, 10 defenders is the right number to consider T3 stuff hard to get.

1 guy blocking 30 men group: way too much.

Perhaps they could gives scouts a tool or device like a siege antenna that can detect enemy players in a certain range of the device. The scout would have to also be in range of the antenna to see the detected foe on the mini map. Scouts could get Wxp if they detect enemies. The only problem with this is assuming all scouts are honest and would be reporting to commanders or chat.

Another tool would be a trap that pops orange swords when an enemy sets it off giving the scout Wxp depending on how many people it hits.

Just tossing this out there as a counter to no white swords and giving scouts something. (I’m also not a fan of no white swords btw)

John Corpening.9847:

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update on some changes I shared with you in a previous post. With the build on Tuesday build site interacts will have text better describing them, the arrow cart and ballista build sites will now have a smaller footprint and the siege disabler has a more visible projectile giving you a better chance to block it. We look forward to seeing how these changes improve the WvW experience.

Happy Halloween!

John

Can you guy us xray goggles so we can see through gates when rams get disabled? So that I can pop my block at the right time. Thanks!