Guild Wars 2

From what I’ve seen, there’s little to no reward for being a defender. There’s less risk and more reward being an attacker, especially if there’s a bigger group.

So far it seems that the attackers get the benefits in this case. So I am curious, what is the advantage to defending? Compared to what you have available to you, defending a keep or a point is not really all that advantageous.
-The attackers can use the same equipment you (save for oil and cannons), but without placement restrictions due to structure limitations.

-Attackers can merely reset and try again within a relatively short time period. Making it highly unlikely that any resources are repaired or replaced in time. Especially since they almost always make sure supply is continually cut off from their attack point.

-Difficulty increases the more attackers there are versus defenders. Killing enemies from the keep position gets less and less likely the more there are. Even with powerful spells or equipment. Yielding less and less rewards despite the spike of difficulty.

-There is typically less cost involved to attack than it does to defend. (Siege, upgrades, armor repairs, supply etc.)

-Defender events only grant rewards on making successful kills, that and even if so, gain less rewards for doing so if they failed to retain the keep. Whereas the attackers are almost guaranteed rewards for doing both and merely capturing a point. (Also, escort events are almost laughable.)

In fact alot of the time, I see defense spots usually empty. Simply because it’s far more efficient and effective to counter an attack group with an attack group. With a rare case where there’s a significant strongpoint.

So I’m really curious, whats the point of being a defender? Why should I waste my time, making sure a point is defended when I’m not rewarded for it? If anything, penalized when confronted on most fronts.

So far the new Bloodlust points are a pretty decent start to making defenders actually important, but it still seems like a very far stretch. Even still, I think it still mainly suffers from the same notions as above.

there are strategic advantages for defending, however the lackluster rewards for anything involved with defending usually ensure it doesn’t happen. sure, there may be tiny handfuls of people who do understand the importance of setting up defense, but they don’t get a whole lot of support, and end up losing gold on the whole thing.

the key to defense isn’t to focus down the attacking players, it’s to take out their siege so that they’re unable to attack. defensive siege placements, if they’re set up ahead of time and maintained, make it so that can be done without taking much damage. this allows for a smaller number of defenders to deal with a larger attacking force. it also gives those defenders another option: to pin the attacking zerg somewhere. they can keep the zerg there, by playing a bit of cat and mouse. let them think they have a chance, but always keep it just out of reach. the attacking zerg focuses on the area, and isn’t available to defend another area. this allows for a couple smaller groups to claim quite a bit of the map even if outnumbered.

however, this isn’t really possible if the areas have no upgrades, no defensive siege, and no defenders. which…. tends to be standard, since there are far more rewards for zerging, and almost nothing for defending. in part, it’s on the players for not chipping in, but there’s a large part of the blame that falls on Anet since they’re the ones who have been adding more and more incentive to zerging. if they stopped adding further incentive to zerging, and really focused on adding incentive to defending and maintaining the areas, as well as taking away the numerous punishments that exist for those things, then more people would be inclined to do it.

Defending has been dead for months. Anet has been buffing siege and incentivizing karma trains, so don’t defend. Just wait for the queue zerg to move on and then take it back. Welcome to the game as developed under Devon Carver!

Yes, Devon Carver thinks it’s really fun when things swap owners all the time, which is code for “I can’t make defending rewarding so I’ll just incentivize attacking instead”.

Benjamin.6235:

Defending has been dead for months. Anet has been buffing siege and incentivizing karma trains, so don’t defend. Just wait for the queue zerg to move on and then take it back. Welcome to the game as developed under Devon Carver!

oh, yeah, that’s another point i forgot to mention. the karma trains, which are now the WXP trains. with the WXP ranks, people have been mass grinding, and ignoring pretty much everything else on the map. since they decided to stagger the release of the ranks, all it did was artificially extend the lifetime of the grinding, and now that’s pretty much set in as a habit to most of people. it’ll take a severe change in the system to stop that, and an even longer time to break everyone out of that habit. for a company that said “we don’t make grindy games” before launch, it really seems like that’s all they’re actually capable of making. this isn’t grinding for superfluous cosmetic changes, this is grinding as a game mode. it gets to a point where people are actually telling each other not to defend or upgrade, because it slows their grinding down, as well as servers coordinating with each other for more efficient grinding. which results in the players that do bother with defense growing frustrated and eventually giving up. those who defended because they enjoyed it leave, while those who defended because it was needed just assimilate into the zerg.

No one wants to be at a disadvantage simply because of a number slapped on their character so if the devs throw in bigger numbers, people will either suck it up and chase or quit, so that is exactly what wxp is, a grind, one that they made character bound. People want those guard stacks on their alts, they want that AC/balli/whatever mastery now throw the ascended mats in there and the reasons for defending evaporate.

Defending has become even less relevant with the latest patch. Better to cap the buff and go farming stomps.

Zenguy.6421:

Defending has become even less relevant with the latest patch. Better to cap the buff and go farming stomps.

Well, it has made defending important. Just… not the right things. Instead of protecting the vital holds, this buff is the focus of attention.

Honestly, if people were required to defend holds much like this point, I think it would be more beneficial. Along with actually make it rewarding to do so.

Pride and pure spite, nothing more Denying the enemy servers something they want is reason enough, especially after fighting the same two over and over again for months and months. Give them nothing, but take from them.. everything!

This is one of my big issues with WvW for a long time. It’s almost impossible to even defend most places. I understand that the devs want to keep it fair but with the wall heights so low that anyone with a 1200’ aoe can hit you and the HORRIBLE camera angles when on siege (not to mention the bullkitten of getting pulled off of siege) and the poor rewards involved/lack of people who even bother to defend or can even get into the tower with a huge zerg at the front door – I have almost given up trying to defend anything now.

I used to spend hours running supplies, upgrading, and building siege, because I thought it was useful. But when a zerg PvDs into a T3 in under 10 minutes, those hours feel completely wasted. So when our commander tells us to not bother defending because “we’ll flip it later for wxp”, I have a hard time arguing with it anymore. Frankly, it makes it seem pointless to try and defend anything, and if there’s no reason to defend, for me there is really very little reason to capture either, since I don’t care about wxp.

Advantages to Defending?

You get less loot…oh wait…

Aside from being bored out of your mind, there is none. You get more gains re-flippin objectives so let the opposition take it and reclaim again.

msalakka.4653:

I used to spend hours running supplies, upgrading, and building siege, because I thought it was useful. But when a zerg PvDs into a T3 in under 10 minutes, those hours feel completely wasted. So when our commander tells us to not bother defending because “we’ll flip it later for wxp”, I have a hard time arguing with it anymore. Frankly, it makes it seem pointless to try and defend anything, and if there’s no reason to defend, for me there is really very little reason to capture either, since I don’t care about wxp.

Agreed, and there are also gonna be times one does the dirty job and sits at a keep for hours on end, call out an incoming well in advance only to hear the commanders on map chat say, “Let em take it, we get it back later”. Well you basically just wasted hours watching it, haha….so yes in reality more “rewards” are gain re-flippin, so let the opposition grab and join the crowd to retake it later.

…………defending does need to be addressed so that the benefits are comparable AT LEAST to those you gain as the attacker.

Doesn’t matter what the benefits are if they keep putting in more and more siege mastery lines. You’re always one queue zerg away from having hours of boring work going down the drain. It really wasn’t always like this. Makes me sad.

saratoga.4872:

…………defending does need to be addressed so that the benefits are comparable AT LEAST to those you gain as the attacker.

That is harder to implement than it sounds. What is stopping people from running into the nearest building under attack and going afk? When does a player contribute enough? How do you measure it?

When you add a check that tests if a defender attacks other players then how much damage is enough?

People will find ways to abuse a reward system with cracks in it. A human being can glance at a fight and see who contributes. But i have never seen a game be any good at it.

Well there will be no WvW updates for 3 months. So You just need to learn 2 play.
And I mean, forget defending, forget upgrading. There is no point to do that. Just let enemy take everything, and then take it back. You will get nice rewards for doing that.

msalakka.4653:

I used to spend hours running supplies, upgrading, and building siege, because I thought it was useful. But when a zerg PvDs into a T3 in under 10 minutes, those hours feel completely wasted. So when our commander tells us to not bother defending because “we’ll flip it later for wxp”, I have a hard time arguing with it anymore. Frankly, it makes it seem pointless to try and defend anything, and if there’s no reason to defend, for me there is really very little reason to capture either, since I don’t care about wxp.

This doesn’t really happen in T1. Calls are usually sharp and scouts are left to defend the critical spots, and expect super arrow carts everywhere. If you don’t cap the point fast enough, expect 40 players zerg angrily marching in to defend.

Frye.4608:

That is harder to implement than it sounds. What is stopping people from running into the nearest building under attack and going afk? When does a player contribute enough? How do you measure it?

When you add a check that tests if a defender attacks other players then how much damage is enough?

People will find ways to abuse a reward system with cracks in it. A human being can glance at a fight and see who contributes. But i have never seen a game be any good at it.

Well so far, all of the rewards for defending are tied into making at least one kill. I would prefer if it was just downing somebody to count towards such, but even still, a kill should be enough at the very least for one to manage.
You can’t exactly get a kill while you are AFK. So participation in some regard is required. The only way I can see that method being abused is if the opposition allows one to do so.
But the reward still should reflect what you are up against. At the moment, it’s rather pitiful. You get more in armor repair costs than you do for the event failing to be defended.

I’m sure they could add incentive to defending without making it broken or overpowered. But to be honest, I highly doubt anything would be comparable to how OP just zerging something is in terms of success and reward.

The solution is rather obvious, it should be EASIER for the defenders to kill attackers rather than the other way around.
1. Disable downed state for anyone outside the walls of a keep/tower within 1200 unit.
2. Disable AE attack onto walls.

I bet that would solve if not all at least 80% of the problem.

The advantage to defending is your sacrifice of helplessly being rolled over is keeping people in the game, because the karma/wxp train enjoys when there is a little light resistance, but not so much to challenge or stop them.

I strongly agree with this, I think Arrow carts, trebs, Ballistik, oil, cannons, and morters should only be available to an addition on a tower, keep, or castle, and Rams, golems and hopefully if there was ever a Siege Tower added to WvW, that too can be used for attackers. I think the reward for defending should be 3 times greater than the reward for attacking, because attacking already has the reward of gaining the points to win the WvW match.

An now with 3 buffs and 3-4 stomps you get the same amount of points as a tower you hold for 15 min. Good luck arguing with that!

Benjamin.6235:

Doesn’t matter what the benefits are if they keep putting in more and more siege mastery lines. You’re always one queue zerg away from having hours of boring work going down the drain. It really wasn’t always like this. Makes me sad.

Not if you are the winning zerg and upgrading your home BL
But then, you can keep it at T0 and no one will notice the differences

An now with 3 buffs and 3-4 stomps you get the same amount of points as a tower you hold for 15 min. Good luck arguing with that!

Nobody(except those in T1) care about PPT since they are outrank by 100k~200k point

The lack of incentives isn’t really what’s holding back defense.

It’s the lack of effective counters to blobs.

Arrow Carts are the only tool in the shed capable of countering that massive blob of players knocking at your door. And even with ACs you need to reach a critical mass before they become really lethal. Until then people will continue to resurrect and revive their dead while under fire.

Then there’s the problem that walls are a straight-up death trap for anyone standing on them thanks to the massive amount of AoE and Necro-circles that are spammed on it. The walls are the most dangerous place to be rather and offer no protection to the defenders.

There is also no advantage to having an elevated position. the range calculation takes height into account so someone on the wall with 900 range can barely shoot at the foot of the wall. All someone needs to do to avoid his damage is to take a step back.

That’s the real problems.

Dee Jay.2460:

Arrow Carts are the only tool in the shed capable of countering that massive blob of players knocking at your door. And even with ACs you need to reach a critical mass before they become really lethal. Until then people will continue to resurrect and revive their dead while under fire.

Can’t res when getting hit by AC?
Easiest solution: Get a zerg to stand under it.
For some reason, 2 AC don’t hit the same target when there is more than 10 ppl in the circle

There’s a simple solution to this imo: Make gates immune to direct damage from players.

But as others have said, it seems like ANet are pretty keen on the WXP trains, so I’m not expecting buffs to defence any time soon.

Lot’s of things they could do…but probably won’t.

I think they want stuff to constantly flip since all the upgrades players spend money on are pretty much nothing more than a money sink. Stuff gets flipped so fast I rarely ever bother spending my coin on upgrades. I wish other players would just stop to.

I wish they would limit the number of rams you could place on a gate to 3 if not 1. Same limit for golems would not hurt. At least it would give defenders more time to get to a tower/keep.

As someone else said, players not being able to damage gate is something else that might help. If they have to build siege and then protect it, might make things more difficult for attackers.

I wish they would add an upgrade that allows you protection while operating siege equipment. A bubble that shelters you or something. Trying to operate oil for example is just instant death. My as well not ever be built since it is ZERO deterrent. Defenders should be racing each other to be the first on the oil instead of completely avoiding it.

Needs to be some sort of anti omega golem siege. A multiple omega golem rush makes almost all defensive siege completely worthless. Maybe a tower of some sort with a turrent that is 90% immune to ranged golem damage that can target them 360 degrees. Something like a treb that can be built as part of a towers final upgrade.

I dunno what the answers is…but a 70 man zerg should not be able to just walk up and take a heavily sieged tower with 20 defenders like it is nothing. They should fear it. Defenders inside a fully upgraded tower should have most if not all of the advantages. As it is now, attackers have all the advantages. Defenders are just loot bags waiting for their deaths!

I love defending when it works. Sadly, it rarely does and is often a complete waste of time bothering to even try. I love leveling alts and getting lots of easy karma and wxp while doing a karma train. But I’d gladly give it all up for challenging fights.

The new changes to the borderland maps have also opened up so many new possible ways of attacking towers and keeps its just become a bit silly.

As a defender you need to siege and defend against an attack from all possible attack spots. As the attacker you just need to find the one they havent covered.
So defensive siege needed everywhere to defend, but a few (traited) superior rams/cata’s to break in anyway.

Fact its very unrewarding to the person, and now due to the bloodlust buff relatively not even great for point tick either, really drown any incentive to defend. And certainly not to place defenses and upgrades. Better to just lose it and try to retake it later.

sounds like someone who has never upgraded a tower to t3 on their own.