Guild Wars 2

Add those three together, sometimes even coupled with hacks and it impossible to defend towers anymore. All the enemy has to do is plant arrow carts right up against the walls, change their aspect ratio (or use a hack) and they can take out any siege you have in place on the inside of the tower. However it is not possible to target those arrow carts from inside the tower with your own siege. All they need is enough AOE to keep defenders off the walls and away from their acs at the base of the walls (the corners right by the gates) and you can kiss that tower goodbye. The LOS on arrow carts is totally out to lunch!

An arrow cart placed in that position on the northwest tower for example can take out any siege inside except for any placed directly in the Lord’s room. I have witnessed it time and time again.

Devon please fix the targeting for arrow carts. The way they are now the attacking zerg has all the advantages whereas it should be the other way around. A quick fix for part of the problem would be to close the holes at the tops of the gates. At least that will prevent the aspect ratio abuse.

Thinking about this a bit more I would be in complete favor with a redesign of the walls of a tower or keep. They should be wider with the inner pakitten t higher than the outer one. AOE or arrow carts at the base of the wall should not be able to take out defensive siege. The only thing that should be able to remove that siege should be field placed siege. A zerg should not be able to go along the base of a wall, under the cannon range and destroy all cannons on the walls and the oil pots currently are just a waste of resources. Easy to target and a mesmer can send up clones to destroy them at will. b
a ____
_ | |
| |_| |
| |

(well that picture I tried to put in here just did not work but in essence the outer wall ledge is lower than the inner. The outer would be “A” the inner “B”.)

So with a design like this for the pakitten ts siege placed at “B” should have a line of sight to be able to reach attackers near the base of the outer walls. “B” would be the inner walls. “A” being the outer would be similar in design to what is currently in place. Arrow carts and AOE should be able to hit any defensive structures or people at “A” but not at “B”. The only thing that should be able to take out siege placed anywhere along “B” would be field placed siege. Gates should not have the opening above the gate and the hole in the wall it is covering, that only leads to abuse.

Next add an extra function for trebuchets and catapults which would give the option of a “Greek” fire. That function would be on a slower recycle timer but when used would set a long D.O.T. of burning to any siege that it happens to target and hit. Add an upgrade to keeps and towers where a well could be dug. Defenders could thereby form bucket brigades in order to dampen any fires on their siege equipment. Attackers in the field should be able to buy/purchase buckets from a merchant and fill them at any stream/lake/body of water in order to put out fires on siege placed in the field and burning from Greek fire. Then make the oil pots above doors be only affected by attacking siege and not arrows, pistols or mesmer clones.

With that sort of setup you would accomplish the following:

1) Slow down the fipping and re-flipping of towers, keeps and castles.
2) Make it worthwhile and more advantageous to build and entrench siege before upgrading walls and doors.
3) Prevent the current method of flipping towers and keeps just in time to take advantage of the point “tick” and leaving them paper.
4) Slow down golem rushes and make taking and defending these structures more a function of strategy then that of numbers and exploits.

Here is a “Microsoft Fix” that can be applied until a full fix can be formulated.

Fix = Changing aspect Ratio in WvW automatically does one of the following things, which ever is the easiest.
1. Set it up so you can’t change any game settings while manning siege.
2. Set it up so that changing aspect ratio makes you unman any siege you are on.
3. Set it up so that certain graphics settings, namely AR, can’t be changed unless you are at spawn.

The fundamental problem is this:
In real life, walls are easier to defend than attack in every way, shape and form.
In game, being ON a wall is more dangerous than being BELOW it.

I don’t know how you fix that given the limitations of how the game engine handles AoE and LoS issues.