Guild Wars 2

After 8 months of play, on different servers, different regions, and many matchups, me and some friends felt the need of sharing our thoughts on how we see WvW going.

We can start this throwing a question that you can try to answer to yourselves:

When do you feel you (and your group) are doing something really important, determinant, for your server ?

The answer is usually “When we take a castle/keep/tower”. Fact is that what mainly leads to this achievements isnt a server strategy with coordination across the map, to best manage server resources, but is a …. zerg rush to the gate. Ok, there might be more clever rushes then others, but usually thats what happens, there isnt really much left for smaller groups roaming the maps to support the zerg (except flipping camps).
Most of times we realize that what the meta leads us to think is….
“they took a camp!” -> “oh, k, you can flip it back in some min”
“they took a tower!” -> “never mind, we got a zerg close there, we’ll get it back asap”
“they took a keep!” -> “our zerg is busy on another borderland, but no worries, they’ll jump back here to get it back asap”
“they are sieging us! they built a treb…no wait, two…. three now!” -> “mh.. k, we will portal bomb there and go kamikaze style to destroy all of them”

What i want to say with these trivial, yet usual situations is that seems like there isnt something really meaningfull we can do, there isnt much tactics we can use, or any big plan needed to take a keep, most of things are…little stuff.

We think that some easy changes could be done to improve the metagame, providing more strength to organization yet still allowing PuGs to jump in the first zerg passing by and feel important for taking part to a big siege; but behind this there should be smaller groups, coordinated by commanders to make that siege possible.

About AoE 5 targets cap
It has been discussed alot, yet we want to refrain it, its a mechaninc which is just encouraging big zergs and no brain play.
Atm Numbers just win over skilled play, cause if you sneak charge a zerg with a group of 5 ppl, you’ll just hit 5 out of 30-50, even if they are stacked, which is totally dumb, while the group will just get wiped, and those 5 downed will be ressed by the rest of the zerg.
You can group up as many as possible, pack all togheter and rush everything (blobs), if an AoE lands 5 will be hit, others wont even notice something hit them.

Are you afraid that AoE spamm will be too strong then ?
AoE in every other game has the advantage of being able to hit more ppl, but ofc they do less dmg on a single target, this is something that some Dev actually mentioned on forums, but i didnt see any change happening on this matter.
Once the damage is decrease removing aoe cap wont be such a trouble anymore, but it will be possible to a good group to control and kill more ppl in a brainless zerg, sure they wont kill all of them, but at least it wont be pointless.

About siege weapons
At the moment they really look like…little stuff, disposable tools which you can drop 1…2…10….20, do the job and then dont care anymore. Yeh, sure they are fundamental in a siege, but you can place so many that when you build one, it doesnt really feel
that good. Siege weapons should have greater impact on a battle, they should be greater, stronger, and harder to build.
When a zerg run into a camp defended with a ballista and arrow carts right now they just rush in and destroy everything just passing over it, even when you have few ppl a siege wepon is nothing scary at all, you can just jump on it and destroy it with few attacks.
A ballista shot should be able to do some serious damage to a crwod of ppl all packed togheter, it has to pierce the pack and leave a line of dead and bleeding bodies….if they are so dumb to charge all packed in front of a ballista.
Same goes for catapults, i mean, those things are throwing big rocks that have one falling on your head should just leave tomato sauce on the ground.
Trebs… well, those are even bigger rocks, big enough to take down walls and towers, ofc its not anything a squad of infantry in an open field should worry about… o.o

The main idea is to amplify all: cost, damage, resistance, but also their importance once they are built.
This is why we would to suggest for example:

Arrow carts: 60 supply, double damage, halved fire rate.
Ballista: 180 supply, 12k – 20k dmg, single target but piercing hit, fire rate: 10s
Catapult: 240 supply, 8k – 14k dmg, on a 240 area, knockback for 300, fire rate: 12s
Treb: 700 supply, 25k – 35k dmg, on a 360 area, knowckback for 450, fire rate: 18s
Golem: 900 supply, higher damage than now and way way harder to kill (atm you can 1v1 a golem easily =.=)

Taking down these sieges shouldnt be something that easy, the time needed to destroy them should be proportional to the amount of supplies used to built them. This way building a siege is a big investment for a siege or a defence, not a little thing you drop when you have too many in your inventory. (It would be good also to be able to repair them bringing supplies)

How would things change ?
Siege weapons would require some wise placement and some serious efforts to actually build them, but the reward would be important aswell.
This could open a new layer of strategy around the siege weapons building and the job of scouting building sites for smaller groups.

But with cap removed and these dmg, some siege weapons will be able to waste a whole zerg !?
If the zerg is so dumb to straight charge in front of them, yes, and thats what has to happen. ‘Situation awareness’ many say, once you get wiped you learn that maybe you didnt do it the best way. A good commander will send his scouts to check if there are sieges defending, in that case, knowing their position, will lead the zerg on another side or in case, he can choose a different approach and counter them with ranged attacks.

There still is the problem, they would take a lot of supply to build! Drying out a whole camp wont even be enough to build a cata!
Hold on, read the following point.

About supplies and dolyaks, new strategy layer
We can keep going with our refrain, cause even yaks really feels like…. little stuff, who cares about defending a yak ?
It carries just 75 supplies, they spawn often, its boring to escort and even if you do a high dpser that jumps on it on a suicide mission can still kill it even if 5+ ppl are defending it, so why bothering ?
People usually start to care about yaks when they are on a long defense and they are running out of supply, at that point they start defending yaks.
As usual, the suggestion is to make them really more important. When you have many things of a kind and arent worth much you dont consider them important, while when you have few and those few really do help you alot…. thats when you consider it important.
Thats why our suggestion is:

Change Dolyak spawn time for each one per route every 15m, let them bring 250 supplies, and make so it will be possible to actually defend them.
This can be done in 2 ways:

• Make a circle around yaks, and let them be invulnerable while there are players inside it defending the dolyak; once all defenders are dead or are pushed outside the circle the dolyak can be killed.
• Make dolyak stats scale with the number of players (similar to what happens with pve events), and when it gets killed it drops its supplies, so that attackers can steal those or defender can save them.

With such a need of many supply upgrading towers and keeps will become something really important, cause they will function as big supply warehouse (maybe the max cpacity would need an increase), and having a fully upgraded building as base from where to start a siege would become a real tactical advantage.

This changes would lead to more action around the supply management, that will actually become a relevant role to cover, specially with sieges requiring that many supplies to be built. This way also small groups will have a really important role, cause zerg wont be able to be everywhere, they can be attacking a keep, or defending it, or providing supplies for a siege weapons, or killing/escorting a yak, but wont be able to do all of this. More relevance to organized groups, skilled players, and good commanders.

wow, nice wall of text i dropped here, pls be constructive, no trolls and have fun.

I can agree with most of what you’re saying, however, two things to note:

1. If I remember correctly, the AoE cakitten o that there isn’t massive ultra super-uber mega lag in large battles.

2. The changes to the dolyaks seem a bit excessive, as if you’re trying to make them unstoppable. I would simply keep them how they are right now (but with the supply/spawning changes mentioned before), and then guarding them closely and watching supply routes becomes infinitely more important, for both the attacker and the defender.

cuge.5398:

pls be constructive, no trolls and have fun.

:(

i do not agree with ur sieging points atall,

WvW is siege wars 2 as it already is, i would like to see more open field fights without the siege!

aoe cap is clearly due to technical issues and not balance.

It takes too many resources to track all aoes without caps they said it few times if i recall correctly.

@Arganthium: the problem with dolyaks is that there is no way to defend them, for how well you defend them a suicide mission will still kill it, doesnt matter how many ppl you have around the dolyak, a single rush of 2-3 ppl could still kill a yak defended by 30; they will die ofc, but the yak will be aswell, and 250 supplies will be lost.
With a revamped importance of yaks a new system to defend them is necessary, and to say something for Salluks too, this will also bring some really nice open fields fights
around the defense/attack of the yaks.

@salluks: you are seeing a “siege wars 2” just cause anyone can place them without any problem, we dont want that too, thats why we are suggesting such an increase supply need for each weapon. At that point you wont see anymore a forest of arrow carts or a whole line of trebkittenting a wall, and with such a power on a single treb/golem will make them a real danger, so that ppl will have to group around it to defend, and others will need to push to destroy it, wich is actually an open field battle to prevent building.

cuge.5398:

*
The main idea is to amplify all: cost, damage, resistance, but also their importance once they are built.
This is why we would to suggest for example:

Arrow carts: 60 supply, double damage, halved fire rate.
Ballista: 180 supply, 12k – 20k dmg, single target but piercing hit, fire rate: 10s
Catapult: 240 supply, 8k – 14k dmg, on a 240 area, knockback for 300, fire rate: 12s
Treb: 700 supply, 25k – 35k dmg, on a 360 area, knowckback for 450, fire rate: 18s
Golem: 900 supply, higher damage than now and way way harder to kill (atm you can 1v1 a golem easily =.=)

A very big NO to your suggestion. Please do NOT turn this game into Siege Wars 2.

Your suggestion would be the ultimate night time capping pro patch. In EU very few servers have a night time coverage. Now imagine that during night when the other servers sleep, one server captures everything and then build those totally overpowered siege weapons. How are those few people who wake up and play in the morning and noon are gonna do anything?

Increasing siege damage = worst idea ever. Almost ALL people in EU I know would actually want more focus in skirmishing and open field fights, instead of just sitting next to siege. There are already a WXP traits (which my main character has), which increase ballista damage by 25% and spread shot which hits multiple foes and piercing, making it already a bit too good to be true.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spread_Shot

After your suggestion ballista would insta kill most players.* And in your suggestion a treb hit would kill up to 50 people (= everybody in the area). Absolutely totally overpowered.

Increasing supply required to make siege to astronomical levels = another bad idea. How would then those servers who can summon just 2-3 man groups gonna build anything?

The biggest problem is the population and coverage imbalances and you are just suggesting stuff which makes this problem much worse than it is. More power to the winning side. Let everybody on the losing side pay gems to Arenanet to change servers.

I still think that areas of influence would solve a lot of zerg ball room dancing. Like the game Black and White you can’t operate outside your area of influence.

In short:
You can’t place siege or attack camps in an area where you don’t have influence. Influence can be spread by taking all the usual capture points as well as the lonesome sentries that does not appear to serve a purpose other than change a flag colour and alerting the enemy to your presence if you so desire. Also capturing the npc assistance (dredge, hylek, etc) increases areas of influence. Adding more sentries all over the map will attract crowds and force a little more open field battle. Percentage influence owned on a map can also count toward the points tick.

EDIT: perhaps camps should still be attackable outside your area of influence, but then a small buff/debuff to health should apply (Like Rise of Nations). Something similar to loosing/gaining health per second as a mango pie would provide? That way roamers can still roam, but at a slight disadvantage.
And also no rez allowed outside your area of influence. /END EDIT

Back to responding to OP:
I agree that siege should cost more to supply to build, but a newly captured tower can only hold 100 supply so a dolyak with 250 supply would be a little too much perhaps and waiting aaaages for the dolyak to arrive just to get the tower upgraded…. well, I’m not so sure what the outcome would be really.
Perhaps dolyak vitality and toughness can be an upgrade at camps, because the escorting guards are worth as much as escorting raccoons.

In stopping the zerg from rushing to destroy ACs and balistas:
siege blueprints for walls (not tower walls, just a little over jump hight walls). I know this is probably a bad idea and one would probably find walls all over the place (which might even be a good thing to have the players restructuring the landscape to their own advantage)
If we could build sections of walls to shut access to ACs and balistas, it would enable the defenders to fire a few more shots before succumbing to the red wave of death.

@Deniara
Night capping is a problem that exists since launch, and i think its something that cannot be solved in any way, but tiers reduce it naturally. If a server dont have enough coverage it will go down till he stops in a tier where its coverage is similar to its one.

About the 50ppl killing blow by a treb, jeez, i’d love to see that….
Trebs shot slow flying big rocks, that you can see coming and you can move away, or even stay and dodge.
If 50 ppl are all standing packed in a spot waiting for that big rock to fall on their heads , well, they deserve to become a big pizza on the ground.

cuge.5398:

@Deniara
Night capping is a problem that exists since launch, and i think its something that cannot be solved in any way, but tiers reduce it naturally. If a server dont have enough coverage it will go down till he stops in a tier where its coverage is similar to its one.

About the 50ppl killing blow by a treb, jeez, i’d love to see that….

I am sorry, but I have zero sympathy for you now and I do hope some game glitch will transfer you to play on Vabbi and then you will finally understand what I mean:
http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups/map/710

What you are suggesting would turn the game into a nightmare for a big number of EU servers. It would completely kill WvWvW for many players and servers, since not everybody can afford the gem transfer cost. If enemy already build siege all the map and controls 100% of the map, your few players are unable to do anything, absolutely nothing after your “balance” changes. And all for… just for such “fun” that somebody can kill 50 guys with a single Treb shot and get gazillion badges and loot bags for being so “skilled”.

Your suggestion is to ruin the game for more than half of the EU players. Most players here want that siege weapons would do less damage e.g. tone down the WXP AC and ballista traits to similar level to other traits e.g. + 1 / + 2 / + 3%… damage against mercanaries = minor buff. And revert the AC damage back to where it was.

Deniara Devious.3948:

And all for… just for such “fun” that somebody can kill 50 guys with a single Treb shot and get gazillion badges and loot bags for being so “skilled”.

We’d better just ‘reset’ our discussion here, cause you totally missed my point and you are just heating up on the siege dmg fact.
My point is that many things, (almost everything i’d say) in WvW should be boosted in all its aspects (both effect and cost to balance it) to make things more meaningfull, and to give some good reason to actually care and work for them or against them.
The main focus imo should be on supply management: increased effect of upgrades (maybe higher lvls of upgrades ?), and a general increase of the need of supply, so that playing around it becomes more important, and this is where the increased cost for sieges comes from.

You need sieges to take keeps → more supplies needed to drop sieges & less dolyaks but heavyly loaded → new battle focus around supplies play.

Increased damage for sieges comes to justify the increased costs.

salluks.6017:

i do not agree with ur sieging points atall,

WvW is siege wars 2 as it already is, i would like to see more open field fights without the siege!

well first of all I agree on all points stated by the OP!!
At the moment we are seeing Siege Wars 2 just because siege are too easy to build up and too easy to cut down.
This is destroying their strategical importance.
If we could build less siege weapon (since their build cost would be higher than now) but their power could be also higher, and also they could be much tougher than now, we could finally see less sieges spam and more strategical use of those.

Deniara Devious.3948:

cuge.5398:

@Deniara
Night capping is a problem that exists since launch, and i think its something that cannot be solved in any way, but tiers reduce it naturally. If a server dont have enough coverage it will go down till he stops in a tier where its coverage is similar to its one.

About the 50ppl killing blow by a treb, jeez, i’d love to see that….

I am sorry, but I have zero sympathy for you now and I do hope some game glitch will transfer you to play on Vabbi and then you will finally understand what I mean:
http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups/map/710

What you are suggesting would turn the game into a nightmare for a big number of EU servers. It would completely kill WvWvW for many players and servers, since not everybody can afford the gem transfer cost. If enemy already build siege all the map and controls 100% of the map, your few players are unable to do anything, absolutely nothing after your “balance” changes. And all for… just for such “fun” that somebody can kill 50 guys with a single Treb shot and get gazillion badges and loot bags for being so “skilled”.

well I stopped reading here!!
if 50 men blob realy die from 1 treb shot (remember that one of the proposal is to change the fire rate of those weapons, 1 treb should shot 1 projectile every 30 seconds), well thos 50 men blob deserve to die!!!
The problem here is Always the same, it’s people like you that are no skilled at all, WvW is all about who has the bigger blob now. Just Learn to split a bit man, and you won’t see all 50 men dieing by 1 shot.

EDIT: this topic just wanna show how we should change WvW tactics.
Now it’s all stacked in 1 big blob = win
Then it could be: stacked in 1 big blob = dead

and I prefer very much the second option

These changes would only further unbalance WvW against an outmanned server. Seige being so easily deployable in its current state allows small teams of people to at least attempt to defend themselves and their towers. If supply cost per seige went up to those extreme levels losing servers would almost never be able to defend themselves, further increasing the score gap between winning and losing servers.

It only takes a few people to flip a camp and deny someone resources for a while and people can only carry 10-20max supply per person. With constant camp disruptions from the server with most people online, it could potentially take an hour or more to build even a single treb. When seige despawn timers are factored in, some seige in these situation might not ever be built. Infact, if a winning server had all the towers/keeps on a map, all they would need to do is zerg supply camps whenever they were contested to ensure complete and utter dominance over an outmanned server.

It’s a nice idea in a perfect world, but server population unbalances do exist and not all servers can muster night crews to defend their land. In short, your anti-zerg themed changed would only benefit those with the biggest zerg and the best coverage.

Yeah I kind of agree. On one hand you want siege to be more realistic in terms of damage to single targets, but on the other you want dolyaks to have a ring of invincibility around them? I know this may not be your experience, but some zerg leaders actually use quite a few tactics that allow them to succeed against larger numbers. It can be a lot of fun the way it is, with a good commander.

“When do you feel you are doing something really important, determinant, for your server?”

• Giving advice to and helping players in chat
• Scouting and relaying information in chat
• Using my AoE stealth as a Thief to stealth dolyaks or golems
• Using Portal as Mesmer to move golems or teleport allies up on walls
• Using wards as a Guardian to control zerg movement
• Using a treb to take down a wall or support allies from a distance
• Placing down siege in a good spot
• Running supply to repair gates/walls
• Pushing groups of players back by playing aggressively
• Running with, and supporting, commanders who are good
• Ignoring; commanders who shows no interests in wanting to improve, who won’t listen to advice from other players, and who thinks that chat communication is unimportant

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

What if to use siege (exept for rams and golems) you need supply?

One shot of a balista/AC/Cata – 1 supply.

And place upkeep on towers/castles upgrades. To maintain those improved walls and gates and guards you need a set amount of supply per hour.
This would make supply starving and holding supply camps a much bigger impact.

cuge.5398:

Arrow carts: 60 supply, double damage, halved fire rate.
Ballista: 180 supply, 12k – 20k dmg, single target but piercing hit, fire rate: 10s
Catapult: 240 supply, 8k – 14k dmg, on a 240 area, knockback for 300, fire rate: 12s
Treb: 700 supply, 25k – 35k dmg, on a 360 area, knowckback for 450, fire rate: 18s
Golem: 900 supply, higher damage than now and way way harder to kill (atm you can 1v1 a golem easily =.=)

These are already in the game. In these exact same incarnations. Let me explain:

2 arrow carts: 60 supply, double the damage.
7 trebs: 700 supply, ~35k damage per shot.
And so on.

See?

I don’t know. My suggestion for WvW is still this: remove the forced teaming and make it free for all.

“When do you feel you are doing something really important, determinant, for your server?"
When I’m trolling a spawn point with my thief.

Budg.3064:

These changes would only further unbalance WvW against an outmanned server.

I dont see it that way, the server with biggest numbers will always win, we cant escape that, but with aoe cap removed at least you can inflict more losses on the bigger zerg than you can do now.

Budg.3064:

Seige being so easily deployable in its current state allows small teams of people to at least attempt to defend themselves and their towers. If supply cost per seige went up to those extreme levels losing servers would almost never be able to defend themselves, further increasing the score gap between winning and losing servers.

Can u really defend a tower with few ppl manning siege weapons ? I dont think so… atm a zerg isnt getting any real harm from these. Instead, if that small group could actually kill ppl with stronger weapons they could have a chace to defend…. then ofc the zerg can counter treb that tower… but it would surely take them a much bigger effort.

Kasama.8941:

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

I see it in a different manner!
The fact that siege weapon are rather vulnerable reduces their tactical importance.
I prefer to have few siege weapons around the map but that can realy be feared once they are up.
At the moment destroying a treb is “just another treb down”… and few seconds later you will see 2 more treb up in the same place.
What about if for buildling only 1 treb you would need not only to take 1 camp but to defend it also for 30 minutes? Same goes for golems…
but once you manage to build one, you finally have a powerfull weapon to use against your enemies..

Of course nightcapping would be an issue.. but it’s an issue already. There is no difference from the way it is at the moment, when one server can cap all the map during the night a full upgrade all buildings.

We are here to discuss how to improve tactics in WvW, and personally I have seen a lot of good guild and awsome commanders with different tactics.. but still stacking 50+ men on the commasder tag and moving like a big blob is a worth it tactic, and that shouldn’t be the case.

For the first question you asked, my personal answer is whenever I am putting points on the board for my server. There are a few exceptions to this such as contesting a waypoint or pulling a group away from a important fight (IE camping garrison entrance for players rallying to defend hills and pulling alot of aggro from it). I mostly solo roam these days if you haven’t figured that out. Also, to point out, often I find killing a player to be a waste of my time so I often avoid the situation when I have other tasks in mind.

cuge.5398:

Can u really defend a tower with few ppl manning siege weapons ? I dont think so… atm a zerg isnt getting any real harm from these. Instead, if that small group could actually kill ppl with stronger weapons they could have a chace to defend…. then ofc the zerg can counter treb that tower… but it would surely take them a much bigger effort.

3 competent people on arrow carts + one treb can defend a tower against 30+ people. I’ve done it, it’s easy. Not indefinitely, of course (mistakes cost door/wall/siege hp, and supply isn’t infinite), but nobody really commits a zerg to a single tower for longer periods of time so that’s a non-issue really. The issue is, they come back after an hour and all your arrow carts and other siege are gone. Luckily, the next patch will extend the timer to one hour, which isn’t much but still much much better than 30 minutes.

Kolly.9872:

Kasama.8941:

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

I see it in a different manner!
The fact that siege weapon are rather vulnerable reduces their tactical importance.
I prefer to have few siege weapons around the map but that can realy be feared once they are up.
At the moment destroying a treb is “just another treb down”… and few seconds later you will see 2 more treb up in the same place.
What about if for buildling only 1 treb you would need not only to take 1 camp but to defend it also for 30 minutes? Same goes for golems…
but once you manage to build one, you finally have a powerfull weapon to use against your enemies..

Of course nightcapping would be an issue.. but it’s an issue already. There is no difference from the way it is at the moment, when one server can cap all the map during the night a full upgrade all buildings.

We are here to discuss how to improve tactics in WvW, and personally I have seen a lot of good guild and awsome commanders with different tactics.. but still stacking 50+ men on the commasder tag and moving like a big blob is a worth it tactic, and that shouldn’t be the case.

I personally think it would give siege weapons too big of a role. The game should be about the players, not the siege weapons. If two more trebs are build for the one that was destroyed, it pushes the opposing server to take action and chase the foes away/capture the tower. Golems already have a lot of survivability, but not so much that it doesn’t require them to be defended by allies. It’s also arguably a lot more fun to fight and support a siege weapon, then it is to build one for 30 min.

Blobs need to be balanced by giving smaller groups a bigger impact on the battlefield. However, blobs will always be there, because ArenaNet wants to create the felling of an “epic battle” (even though the combat system isn’t build for it).

Kasama.8941:

Kolly.9872:

Kasama.8941:

I like your dolyak idea, but the AoE limit and siege I think works fine. The fact that siege weapons are rather vulnerable, means that placement becomes an important factor. It’s a part of what separates an experience player from a new player, in WvW, as siege placement takes knowledge. This also gives some much needed dynamic to siege wars, as you get punished for placing siege in a bad place.

I see it in a different manner!
The fact that siege weapon are rather vulnerable reduces their tactical importance.
I prefer to have few siege weapons around the map but that can realy be feared once they are up.
At the moment destroying a treb is “just another treb down”… and few seconds later you will see 2 more treb up in the same place.
What about if for buildling only 1 treb you would need not only to take 1 camp but to defend it also for 30 minutes? Same goes for golems…
but once you manage to build one, you finally have a powerfull weapon to use against your enemies..

Of course nightcapping would be an issue.. but it’s an issue already. There is no difference from the way it is at the moment, when one server can cap all the map during the night a full upgrade all buildings.

We are here to discuss how to improve tactics in WvW, and personally I have seen a lot of good guild and awsome commanders with different tactics.. but still stacking 50+ men on the commasder tag and moving like a big blob is a worth it tactic, and that shouldn’t be the case.

I personally think it would give siege weapons too big of a role. The game should be about the players, not the siege weapons. If two more trebs are build for the one that was destroyed, it pushes the opposing server to take action and chase the foes away/capture the tower. Golems already have a lot of survivability, but not so much that it doesn’t require them to be defended by allies. It’s also arguably a lot more fun to fight and support a siege weapon, then it is to build one for 30 min.

Blobs need to be balanced by giving smaller groups a bigger impact on the battlefield. However, blobs will always be there, because ArenaNet wants to create the felling of an “epic battle” (even though the combat system isn’t build for it).

The problem is, from my point of view, that trebs, golems like as dolyak are too squishy.
I can easily take down a trebs by myself going kamikaze, even if the treb is well defended, I have done it.
And dolyak, well, they are simply undefendable!!! I challenge anyone at defending a dolyak when I try to kill it. Sure I can die, or better I will die but I will achieve my task that is Killing the dolyak.
I would prefer dolyak being killable if not protected, but being unkillable till there are defenders near by. This will improve much the role of dolyaks in wvw. Now let’s add a longer spawn time for dolyaks but also an improved supply capacity so that they can bring more supply per run.
Dolyak should attract battles on the map. Because if the zerg must split around for defending 2 dolyaks, it’s only a good thing for the health of the game. At the moment they are so squishy that requires just 1 person with brain for Killing it, even if 5 ppl are defending.

I like all the original suggestions.

Suggestion for how dolyaks could work. A Capture circle. Once you kill everyone around it, the circle changes colour and you stand in it and capture the dolyak for your own team – the same system we have with camps already. A group can defend it and as long as they are alive with the dolyak they defend it.

Kolly.9872:

The problem here is Always the same, it’s people like you that are no skilled at all, WvW is all about who has the bigger blob now. Just Learn to split a bit man, and you won’t see all 50 men dieing by 1 shot.

My typical WvWvW experience in current months (EU tier 1, now finally tier 2):
I come our own borderlands and see that enemy controls 100% or almost all of the map. People are depressed, because enemy has night capped everything and upgraded their towers and keeps and built a lot of protective siege and runs around in a 20+ man blob.

We are badly outmanned and I see only couple of players near me, some might be upleveled. I put on my commander tag and start leading the PuGs, usually having just 1-2 guys with me in the beginning. We get couple of supply camps, NPCs, towers, then keep. The PuG train grows, but I advice people on the map chat to cap different supply camps at same time and request intel.

And then we have people like Kolly who tells me that people like me ruined the WvWvW, because I have no skill!!!

You are completely missing my point: the suggested siege + siege changes would bring only more imbalance. Be realistic and fair. You are not gonna build anything with the above suggested changes if you are on the smaller side. Enemy is gonna treb down your ACs or catapults from their tier #3 castle or keep. And with just 1-3 guys it would take forever for you to build a counter siege (would be blasted to bits in a second).

Deniara Devious.3948:

Kolly.9872:

The problem here is Always the same, it’s people like you that are no skilled at all, WvW is all about who has the bigger blob now. Just Learn to split a bit man, and you won’t see all 50 men dieing by 1 shot.

My typical WvWvW experience in current months (EU tier 1, now finally tier 2):
I come our own borderlands and see that enemy controls 100% or almost all of the map. People are depressed, because enemy has night capped everything and upgraded their towers and keeps and built a lot of protective siege and runs around in a 20+ man blob.

We are badly outmanned and I see only couple of players near me, some might be upleveled. I put on my commander tag and start leading the PuGs, usually having just 1-2 guys with me in the beginning. We get couple of supply camps, NPCs, towers, then keep. The PuG train grows, but I advice people on the map chat to cap different supply camps at same time and request intel.

And then we have people like Kolly who tells me that people like me ruined the WvWvW, because I have no skill!!!

You are completely missing my point: the suggested siege + siege changes would bring only more imbalance. Be realistic and fair. You are not gonna build anything with the above suggested changes if you are on the smaller side. Enemy is gonna treb down your ACs or catapults from their tier #3 castle or keep. And with just 1-3 guys it would take forever for you to build a counter siege (would be blasted to bits in a second).

OMG mate seriously, try to think out of the constest.
What you are describing is a night capping problem, that is in this game from the early beginning. and yeah I play from beta and I have Always been on the outmanned side cos I do not like zergs and maxi blob.
The nightcapping issue cannot be solved in the current state of WvW nor if the proposed changes would be approved.
If you server doesn’t have WvW population vs WvW population of your opponents, well first of all your server should drop a tier. I have dropped a lot of tiers and have raised.
The topic is about how to improve things in WvW, giving them an importance other than build\destroy build\destroy or cap\lose cap\lose like it is now.
Less sieges but of a much higher impact in the war.
And there is no difference if you are outmanned 10 to 1, if your opponents want to build 1, 2,3 trebs or 10 golems you cannot stop them, and even if you play smart and and with your commander tag tell Others to go and cap camps or destroy enemy sieges and so on, well nothing will stop your opponents from building other 3 trebs and other 10 golems.
Full vs outmanned server is not the point of this thread

I believe that the fact that people have been playing this game on different servers with different matchups and different hours will always lead one to have a different opinion than another.

However, from what you see in almost every thread in this game, it’s not a matter of player skill but a matter of numbers -> more supplies, more players to push on enemy territory so as to have time to upgrade yours and more players to downgrade the enemy towers too. Tiers do not solve this problem because you don’t get to face new opponents and guilds do not have a chance to meter their skills against others although this game is about Guilds.

No matter what kind of buffs you give to things, you should keep in mind that you give the same buffs to the stronger servers as well. So, you get to make things harder for the losing side as long as everything is down to logistics and numbers in the end.

My proposal for this game in order to be more competitive and in order for real strategy to shine is pretty simple:

Introduce more objectives on map to attack/defend instead of having vast, useless areas filled with animals and specific routes that give people little space to maneuver.
Ger rid of NPC Guards, Upgrades and Arrowcarts. Score will be determined based on the successful defences/attacks a server makes. No points will be added for holding for 8 hours (when everyone is sleeping) a structure and no upgrades will make this structure harder to get for the outmanned server.
Players will be responsible for the defence of an objective and not NPCs, which means that if everyone wants to roll in a group, whereas the other server has many small teams, the first server will lose ground. They need to implement a strategy on where to hit, what to hold, what not to hit. Every failed attempt will mean points for their opponents.
Attackers cannot dps the door, but defenders cannot hit them with arrowcarts too. It will be a matter of skill to kill the flame ram or catapult with players and also to prevent enemies from placing them instead of elementalists mist-forming in tower and manning sieges placed there beforehand while they were zerging elsewhre. Also, 1 normal ram per door, 1 catapult/trebuchet per wall is enough to make things spicy and more people will be rendered useless unlekittenting a big objective.

All in all, this game right now has come to a stalled state for many people fighting from the first month and seeing that everything is resolved only through numbers and “game breaking” groups still run around thinking that this is the way to play the game. Things will not be fixed with buffs on things that apply on all sides and also something that is a good solution for Tier 1 is a bad one for all the rest as long as this game remains the same in all its other aspects.

If we want WvWvW to have more depth, we need to make PvP its core and everyone should fight with their class skills only instead of manning arrowcarts and standing in the safety of a tower’s walls farming wexp and getting titles which hold no meaning as to their skill.

salluks.6017:

i do not agree with ur sieging points atall,

WvW is siege wars 2 as it already is, i would like to see more open field fights without the siege!

this is just nonsense in wvw since we are fighting over keeps, not over zerg wipes… i mean, why would anyone go into open field fights in wvw?

i like dolly changes. it has the potential to take some numbers off main zerg and make the game much more tactical in sense of player management.

Karahol.9840:

Introduce more objectives on map to attack/defend instead of having vast, useless areas filled with animals and specific routes that give people little space to maneuver.

What i was suggesting about dolyaks would work in that sense, they could become a new important objective to fight for.

Karahol.9840:

Score will be determined based on the successful defences/attacks a server makes. No points will be added for holding for 8 hours (when everyone is sleeping) a structure

This was suggested already, many months ago, and i think i was an active part on that suggestion. Actually points gain on Successful events rather then on hold-time will greatly reduce night capping issues; even if it might get even bigger zergs.

About removing npc, mobs, and most of sieges weapons…. just wont happen, cause they are part of the game mode, its not a pure pvp like sPvP, its WvW, which is a grey zone between PvE and sPvP.

Anyway i would be totally up for a point system rework.

i think ppl will never be satisfied, cause everybody wants something else as we can see from this discussion

cuge.5398:

Karahol.9840:

Introduce more objectives on map to attack/defend instead of having vast, useless areas filled with animals and specific routes that give people little space to maneuver.

What i was suggesting about dolyaks would work in that sense, they could become a new important objective to fight for.

Karahol.9840:

Score will be determined based on the successful defences/attacks a server makes. No points will be added for holding for 8 hours (when everyone is sleeping) a structure

This was suggested already, many months ago, and i think i was an active part on that suggestion. Actually points gain on Successful events rather then on hold-time will greatly reduce night capping issues; even if it might get even bigger zergs.

About removing npc, mobs, and most of sieges weapons…. just wont happen, cause they are part of the game mode, its not a pure pvp like sPvP, its WvW, which is a grey zone between PvE and sPvP.

Anyway i would be totally up for a point system rework.

yeah I agree too that a point system rework is needed and I remember it was proposed to change it the way you describe long time ago already.
As for Dolyaks, they are something good in the direction of adding more stuffs to do around the map, and I think that lowering their spawn rate will only improve their importance and people will active defend a dolyak.
As for siege weapon I also think they need a rework, I like them to be an active part of WvW (even if I rarely use them) but I think that they are overused right now, just for one reason, cos siege weapon are too easy to build up and to destroy so no one cares about them, nor for defending them nor realy for destroying them, make them a rare thing in WvW and you will see actually people fighting for them, 1 server trying to build and also thinking where to build for the better success and 1 server trying to prevent the building.
Siege weapons, like dolyaks, could also play an important part in WvW for attract people out of the zerg and generating so many nice fights around them.
Of course if they are so easy to destroy, it’s better tobuild a new one instead of staying and defend the already built one