Guild Wars 2

So, according to Devon Carter, the leader of the development team for WvW, as of June 5th, 2013 he said:

“We are going to take a much closer look at all of the siege in the game to bring it in line with where we want it to be. Arrow carts should be deadly for players who get caught beneath their hail of arrows, but there should be a viable way to counter them with other siege — we don’t think that “MOAR arrow carts!” should be the answer to every situation. WvW is a mix of players fighting other players and players fighting against the various weapons of war, so we’ll be introducing balance changes that will give you a reason to use every piece of siege at the proper time.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/devon-carver-on-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

This has become even more of a problem lately, with some servers ahve 10+ AC’s inside of one tower, absolutely destroying the ability to siege a tower with anything short of 60 players.

My suggestion: Fix arrow cart placement.

This should be a simple fix that would have fairly drastic results. As it stands now, commanders and players have found every cheeky spot, every buggy wall, every single spot that you can place an arrow cart to make it as difficult for an enemy to hit as possible.

Everyone who has played WvW for more than 30 minutes has experienced situations like this:
http://i.imgur.com/UB23pYV.jpg

My suggestion is to fix arrow carts so they MUST be placed completely on a wall, or texture like this:
http://i.imgur.com/fFqRbTi.jpg

Currently, it takes half a second to stand below a wall and throw an arrow cart up above at it where it can only be hit by 1 or 2 skills, while still raining death on everyone down below. This “fixed” placement would make it actually able to be destroyed by players on the outside. Yes, this would prevent 5 people from being able to defend a structure from 30 people, but how realistic is it for them to be able to do that anyways?

It would require actual players to be there to defend AS WELL as the siege being placed. The siege is supposed to ->Supplement<- the army, not be the army.

If anyone has anything suggestions to improve this etc let me know. I just really feel something needs to be changed about the way it is.

Build a treb out of ac range, kill acs, build rams, take tower.

They build 2 counter trebs inside, and proceed to destroy your trebs because theirs are placed in a tight corner that is very difficult to hit.

The point still stands, AC’s as they are currently can be manipulated into ways they were never meant to originally, and it leads to imbalance.

So they got at least 600 supplies worth of siege inside the tower and you expect to take it with some ranged attacks and a couple of rams?

Wanze.8410:

So they got at least 600 supplies worth of siege inside the tower and you expect to take it with some ranged attacks and a couple of rams?

No, but I would expect to actually have players be involved in the defense of it. You should have to actually FIGHT someone to defend the tower, instead of just hiding behind a wall of arrow cart fire.

They already nerfed arrow carts when they nerfed the bonus range from AC mastery. I believe that was what the quote you linked was referring to.

If you want to force players to place AC 100% on the wall then Anet needs to get rid of the Elementalist and Necromancer’s ability to nuke the top of the wall to hell and back.

Making the arrow cart as useless as the cannon and the oil isn’t the solution. You want an easy way to take down the siege and for that, put them in AoE range to do it so. If want to look at things as they weren’t meant to be, AoE should never be able to hit the top of walls as it does now, just as shouldn’t be able to hit players and siege from the other side of the gate.

It is expected that a tier 3 tower/keep to be harder to be taken, have to play smart, use tactics and take your time instead of wanting to rush things if both servers have something close to even numbers as have been happening a lot lately. I’ve already spent more than 3 hours attacking a fully upgraded Hills with proper tactic. It was challenging for us and we had fun.

That said, as much as you can use siege for offense, they can use for defense. If they decided to not take the risk of the fight and be safe trying to protect their tower/keep, it is their right to do so.

Besides that, you are looking as a server that can field great numbers and forget about the others that don’t have such coverage. For the ones lacking coverage, yes, siege is the only way to stop the other server from taking their stuff. And yes, two people and a fully upgraded tower or keep with siege properly placed, is enough to stop a zerg if they lack creativity. Have done it before, more than once. Another guy and I stopped 30-ish players from taking our EB keep a few times.

Frvwfr.4307:

Yes, this would prevent 5 people from being able to defend a structure from 30 people, but how realistic is it for them to be able to do that anyways?

Oh, this argument again. Sounds like you are mad that your zerg can’t just karma train pvd a tower against lesser numbers that would have no chance in open field combat against you. There is no way 30 players should lose a battle of attrition against 5.

Anyone who has been in t1 or fought yak’s bend understands this suggestion. I don’t know if this is the best way to nerf ACs but ACs should definitely be brought into line in some way.

The solution is very obviously to change the supply cost.

To deploy siege it should cost 10 supply and to lets say build an AC it takes 150 supply or more.

That way it will not be massed anymore lest they use up the entire supply storage of the map. And tactical siege placement will become more important.

Arrow carts are perfectly fine. If anything, it needs a buff in damage.
This is WvW, not PvP. Siege are meant to be used a LOT and especially when outnumbered.

I think offense is already too easy as it stand since being under the wall is more advantageous than being on-top of it. It’s kittened how easy a bad placed ACs (like the placements you want them to be) melt because they are powerless against the players standing below…

Also, offense can always bring the almight omega golems of hell which can simply ignore any ammount of arrow carts (and basically all other siege outside cannons) and take whatever they want since they have numerical superiority.

That must be a yaks bend tower. But there are less acs then the server uses…strange.

IMO there are three main solutions to the arrowcart “problem”. Placing them on certain textures is an… odd… way of handling it.

1) Reduce damage by about 50% and be done with it. Alternativly, double the recharge on skills to reduce its dps rather than damage.

2) Change the arrowcart to fire like a catapult/treb – aim with 1/3, charge arc fire with 2, change type of arrows with 4.

3) Remove them as placeable siege and add them to T3 fortifications (fixed positions on the walls, just like cannons).

There isn’t any place you can put an Arrow Cart that it’s 100% safe. Just Dragon’s Tooth them to death like everyone else does.

Dawdler.8521:

IMO there are three main solutions to the arrowcart “problem”. Placing them on certain textures is an… odd… way of handling it.

1) Reduce damage by about 50% and be done with it. Alternativly, double the recharge on skills to reduce its dps rather than damage.

2) Change the arrowcart to fire like a catapult/treb – aim with 1/3, charge arc fire with 2, change type of arrows with 4.

3) Remove them as placeable siege and add them to T3 fortifications (fixed positions on the walls, just like cannons).

While all of these are viable (some maybe a bit extreme, but the point is there) they are all way too drastic of a change for Anet to make. From experience they ONLY make minor changes. So hell, maybe a tooltip change on the AC saying that it shouldn’t be mass used will help!

Frvwfr.4307 5 elementalist and 1 necro and all AC are gone.

Yes, or even a counter AC before they bring reinforcements.
There is no arrow cart problem unless you don’t know how to counter, it’s almost impossible to defend outnumbered otherwise; especially against Golem Rushes or even Ram Rushes these days with Ram Mastery.

A tier 3 tower or keep, full of superior seige, has taken a considerable amount of time and resources to build up by the defenders. It should be difficult to take, that’s the whole point. Being able to walk up to a fully upgraded tower with 30 guys, drop 4 superior rams, and take it in less than 5 minutes, that would be stupid. But it can already happen if the defenders aren’t on their toes, so if anything anti-ram defences need a buff, not a nerf.

The proper counter to a fully upgraded/seiged tower should be trebs. That way the attackers have to make an equal effort to the defenders in order to take the tower. Then the defenders are given time to try and rally together and go take out the trebs. That way we get to see some proper WvW action and not just PvD.

The problem is that trebbing is far too easily countered by….. other trebs. 1 or 2 trebs inside a T3 tower or keep make it pointless to try and treb an upgraded tower. Combined with ACs, this means the only way to take an upgraded objective is to either zerg it down with a blob, 5+ superior rams, and maybe golems for good measure. Or to try and sneak attack. This is PvD, pure and simple, and results in boring WvW.

So take a look at trebs before QQing about ACs..

Ragnar yes that’s why I think they should change so only Melee attack from Axe, Hammer, Sword should be able to damage siege except other siege ofc.

Now its to easy to destroy all defensive siege.

I don’t understand the Problem:

IF you have superior numbers no one can defend a Tower.
1. Place down a Treb and a Catapult, treb down all sieges in the tower
2. Play PVD and be happy.

Since you will have more then 4 people in your zerg that have skilled catapult-mastery you can block the counter treb while not every siege in the tower can be shielded.

Be creative and no defense has any chance against an attacking zerg. Besides the obvious use of eles and nekros to put down AC’s.

greetz

Grabs popcorn

Lets see how they break WvW and continue to reinforce the “Zerg” and “Condi Meta” while buffing theives more.

On the counter treb point… an offensive force against a tower has the advantage of multiple directions when it comes to trebs. Build trebs at 180degree angles from the tower and they won’t be able to counter treb them all down by the time you destroy their treb unless your treb operators are completely incompetent. You know how long it takes to turn a treb right? Use that fact.

To the OP

This has become even more of a problem lately, with some servers ahve 10+ AC’s inside of one tower, absolutely destroying the ability to siege a tower with anything short of 60 players.

I disagree with this. I believe that if your opponents have 10 well places arrow carts, then its supposed to be hard to take that tower. That is kind of the point, in my opinion this is what is lacking in WvW. There is absolutely not enough effort put into defense. There is way to much capturing and abandoning taking place.

Everyone who has played WvW for more than 30 minutes has experienced situations like this:
http://i.imgur.com/UB23pYV.jpg

Just wanted to point out that it does not matter if you have a million arrow carts if you have nobody available to man the siege. Looking at that screenshot it appears you are the only defender.

Currently, it takes half a second to stand below a wall and throw an arrow cart up above at it where it can only be hit by 1 or 2 skills, while still raining death on everyone down below. This “fixed” placement would make it actually able to be destroyed by players on the outside. Yes, this would prevent 5 people from being able to defend a structure from 30 people, but how realistic is it for them to be able to do that anyways?

It would require actual players to be there to defend AS WELL as the siege being placed. The siege is supposed to ->Supplement<- the army, not be the army.

In my opinion, I feel that seige is a bit lackluster in comparison to getting out their and fighting off your attackers. Currently, seige is really only affective to support ground defenses. Seige alone will not repel any zerg without ground forces.

unless said attack force is too smart to place proper siege itself, just 2 days ago i had a tower attacked by like 20 players, they set up 3 catas on a nearby hill and started shooting at the wall. a few cannon shots had them retreat to the nearest supply camp… facepalm

If they have that much supply in a tower, dont expect an easy cap. Simple as that.

Apparition.1576:

This has become even more of a problem lately

What do you mean lately? Arrowcarts has always been a problem. Anets solution to fix the problem was to buff arrowcart damage by about 80% (first they boosted damage, then they added mastery on top).

So no, it hasnt been a problem lately. Its been a problem both before and after Anet gave us the finger and shoved it up our kitten followed by ignoring feedback.

For all extreme suggestions we make, be it placement limitations, mechanics changes or nerfing it to the ground, you know what Anet could have done? Simple things.

Like, make arrowcarts cost 50/60/50 to reflect their buffed damage.

But nope. Not even that.

Golem rush, problem solved, you’re welcome.

@ Dawdler you are quoting the wrong person.

Take a look at the formatting for the post. All of the quotes are bolded, everything under is a response to those quotes.

I figured I’d pop in here to give my two cents on the subject. Mind you, I’ve fought to ridiculous lengths against Yaks Bend, just as I’ve defended to ridiculous lengths while being on Yaks Bend. So yeah, I understand siege quite a lot.

I’d also like to know what server OP currently resides on. In my experience, fighting against 10 AC’s is primarily just a problem when you have a really low population or a very small zerg. It can still be possible, but it becomes a lot harder. But of course, this in my opinion, has nothing to do with AC’s being “overpowered” but more so other things in the gamemode.

That being said, if the numbers are even remotely similar, that tower or even keep can be yours. As others have said, you can’t expect to walk up to a T3 tower, let alone with one that has so much siege, and expect to take it without running supply a couple times (if not more.) Expecting to do so is just silly, just as expecting those 10 players on siege to come out and fight the 60 man zerg is silly. Believe me, it’s not impossible to take it. The key is persistence, and draining their supply. No matter how many times they rebuild their AC’s or walls or gates, something will come down eventually, and they wont have supply to rebuild it. If you worked in a group that actually coordinated to keep camps, kill yaks, and continuously treb/cata/ect, you’d eventually take it unless they can outnumber and kill you at some point.

And of course, as others have pointed out, there are very few locations you can put an AC that a golem, treb, or another AC can’t hit. But as long as you can take out the others, those 2-3 AC’s shouldn’t really stop you.

I see absolutely no reason why AC’s should be changed at this point. Even changing where you can place siege could utterly decimate any reason to put them down at all, especially when you’re outnumbered.

New trick consumable: Siege Disabler that disables enemy siege for 45 seconds and golems for 20 seconds. Cost of 10 supply and a 1200 range. In the feature pack. It will stop ram or ACs. enough to delay a enemy zerg for the tick or break into a t3 keep.