Guild Wars 2

Hi,

In short, please remove auto-upgrading from the game.

If Anet is aware or not, (hopefully they are), there are roughly two sides to every server, those who prefer fights, those who play more for the points game. Obviously some people fit in both camps, some in none, but this is a generalish rule. This is EU perspective, not sure how it works in NA, but I assume it is probably similar.

Auto-upgrade ruins the game for both those that care about points, and those that care about fights.

As the game is less busy as it used to be, keeps and other t3 stuff is not always reset every night, meaning that usually when lots of people log in, every border is tier 3 and owned by the home server for that map. This means that small groups can no longer go on these maps to capture objectives, as T3 stuff is easily defend by a few players. Everything being Tier 3 on a map is bad for players who play points games, and fights.

Now, for those that prefer to play for the point objectives. There is no reason to scout, there is no reason to defend, everything us auto-upgraded. Before auto-upgrade, people would bother to build defensive siege on objectives, now this rarely occurs as nobody put effort into upgrading it. The people that have left the game most are these, it creates tensions in the community, as a lot of people do not feel it matters to defend or not, as nobody actually put effort in to upgrading. In the first 3 years of the game, you would rarely have all 3 keeps with WP on a map, all this does is much all servers onto Eternal Battlegrounds for most of the ‘off-peak’.

So, moving on to Eternal Battlegrounds which is where most action takes places outside of ‘prime-time’ due to the fact everything on the borderlands is Tier 3. The problem here, is that the strongest server (for instance, FSP in Europe which I am on) never loses Stonemist Castle. It easily upgrades throughout the morning, as it is easy for 5-10 people to defend against 30+. By the time it hits midday, FSP has about 40 players on map, and it is impossible to cap an upgraded SM. All auto-upgrade on Stonemist does is make it easier for the strongest server to ruin the game for the other 2 servers. We win all the fights, all the skirmishes, and they have no chance. What used to occur, is whoever owned Stonemist would be ‘double-teamed’ which is presumably why Anet has it as WvWvW, as it makes it more balanced. But with this auto upgrade, it is not balanced. In EU, FSP can easily keep a tier 3 Stonemist against 140 enemy attackers.

The final point is about those who play the game mode looking predominantly more for fights. The keeps have the range of mortars + cannons, as well as arrow carts, they can easily hit the majority of ‘open space’ across the borderlands. Meaning that any ‘fair’ fights between guild groups, or even public groups, can easily be shifted one way. An even 70 vs 70 blob fight, can easily be decided by 1-2 cannons, 1-2 acs or a mortar with burn ticks.

On Eternal Battlegrounds, Stonemist IS the free space, its mortars and cannons can pretty much hit all the open ground (except for the North-West corner past Anzalias), which once again makes it easier for the strongest server to dominate. When the strongest server dominates, it ruins the game for them + the 2 weaker servers. The strongest server has no challenge, and the two weaker servers essentially get ‘farmed’ and there’s nothing they can do. 99/100 times you cannot take a tier 3 structure while 80 player defend it.

TL;DR

Anet is falling for a common mistake games developers do. Look at a certain mainstream shooter game, that shares a name with a fish, the developers felt they needed to ADD, ADD, ADD to keep things ‘fresh’ and ‘new’. They did not think, ‘hmm, what can we do to make WvW better?’ In fact, do they even speak to people from the WvW community to understand what they want? Look what has happened to the fish shooter now, b field, a much simpler game, has taken over completely. You made the exact same mistake with Desert Maps, you thought ‘what can we add?’ Not what can we do to improve the gamemode. Most changes have made things worse, open field cannons you tried? HA. I just feel you do not understand your game mode and you need to reach out to specific player groups (perhaps community leaders, teamspeak admins) as these are the people that play every day. Mail polls can be answered by anyone who logs into WvW for 30 seconds.

Auto-upgrade make it far too easier for the strongest server to dominate the other two, even 2 vs 1.

If you want to do one big change to the game to help recover the situation, remove auto-upgrade from the expansion, or at least give us a poll to remove it.

i like to upgrade objectives sometimes. i prefer current system to the old system. in the old system you had to waste money to start upgrades for keep/towers + the camps that gave dolys. it also favored the more populated server who had more people to start upgrade and escort dolyaks and kill yaks etc.

new system is similar to the old one but not as bad. now at least you don’t have to waste money and the server with less people don’t get affected as much. and you can still play the upgrade game by escorting/killing yaks.

and if you dont like bls getting t3 keeps, stop humping eb outside prime time.

everything else i agree with you. mortars gotta go.

I much prefer the current system, mainly because they got rid of the stupid money cost and supply cost for upgrading. Nothing, I REPEAT NOTHING, was as bad as personally upgrading a single objective using your well earned gold (if you were a pure wvw player, gold was hard to come by) only for the objective to be attacked by a larger group. Then when you call for allies to respond, no one bothers to help, and it flips making you wonder why the hell you spent all that time in the first place.
And then there was the time when you tried to upgrade a keep only to have a “friendly” zerg run by and steal all the supply.

You can still help upgrading objectives by yak running and defending camps (since an objective cannot upgrade without a flow of yaks).

henchmen.1856:

i like to upgrade objectives sometimes. i prefer current system to the old system. in the old system you had to waste money to start upgrades for keep/towers + the camps that gave dolys. it also favored the more populated server who had more people to start upgrade and escort dolyaks and kill yaks etc.

new system is similar to the old one but not as bad. now at least you don’t have to waste money and the server with less people don’t get affected as much. and you can still play the upgrade game by escorting/killing yaks.

and if you dont like bls getting t3 keeps, stop humping eb outside prime time.

everything else i agree with you. mortars gotta go.

They could have just kept the old system but removed the gold cost. I had recommended on multiple occasions that they change the cost to karma, badges, or a mix of both. That would have made it easy for dedicated WvW players to pay while making it hard for new players or new troll accounts to kitten things up.

@Op: Nice summary. Prior to auto upgrades there was a whole sub group of players that loved upgrading and defending their bl’s, and there were other players that loved attacking their structures and frustrating their efforts.

Auto upgrades removed a lot of the games depth in the small scale scene and I’m fairly certain that was anet’s intended goal. Every change they make leads to the game being more passive and uncomplicated to attract the casual players. They basically turned GW2 into the candy crush of MMO’s.

Since most of the matches are blowouts, why not have the winner of last weeks match have upgrades cost twice as much.

Let the third place server have upgrades cost half as much.

Or you could have auto upgrades only apply to structures in your natural territory of each map.

Or you can make SMC walls unrepairable once destroyed.

Or once a strucure becomes T3, it’s upgrades cost double. This effect will be cumulative the whole match.

The OP is spot on. It’s the same experience on the NA servers during off-hours. You log on and whoever is the stronger server for that week has a T3 SMC with full supply and guild tactics. And it just sits that way for hours. Hours that before HoT would have been filled with fights in and around SMC. You can sometimes still get fights but a major source of them is diminished. And the borderlands are no better – mostly auto upgraded to T3 and filled with structures that are either undefended or too difficult for most moderate sized groups to take.

And this leads into another problem with WvW currently – apathy. You don’t care about defending because nobody put any effort into upgrading in the first place, and structures will just auto upgrade again super fast. You don’t care about the score because there isn’t really anything to fight for (the one thing in the past was server rivalry and that’s gone now we have linking), and most skirmishes are decided before they start by who has the most upgraded objectives (almost always the side with the T3 SMC). That leaves the fights, and if there aren’t any most people will just log off.

The main complaint people had about the old upgrade system was the gold cost and simply removing that cost would have been a much better outcome. By removing the old upgrade system, WvW became a shallower experience.

I really wish you all would stop saying that the only reason people defend is because they invested money. If someone is going to take an allied keep, I’m going to fight them every step of the way. They’re not getting to the lord unless they slip in my blood and trip on my bones.

Besides, if there’s even one enemy trying to stop it, upgrading a keep is still a huge amount of work and time invested. Just, now, I have a better expectation of that investment paying off and don’t have to worry about being personally punished if my server doesn’t bother defending the place.

I care about upgrading keeps.

I care about defending keeps.

I care about preventing enemy keeps from upgrading.

So would you kindly buzz off with this baseless, sentimental nonsense?

Idk, I’d rather go back to daily resets than get rid of auto upgrades. That way you won’t be stuck in crap match-ups for a whole extra 4 days looking at the T3 objectives.

Sviel.7493:

I really wish you all would stop saying that the only reason people defend is because they invested money.

Nobody is saying that. People will defend if there is a fun fight in doing so. But there isn’t a way to tell whether people before you put any effort into upgrading anything (unless you see them doing so yourself), so there’s less reason to prioritize defending at all. It’s about effort and teamwork, not gold.

Adamarc.7463:

Sviel.7493:

I really wish you all would stop saying that the only reason people defend is because they invested money.

Nobody is saying that. People will defend if there is a fun fight in doing so. But there isn’t a way to tell whether people before you put any effort into upgrading anything (unless you see them doing so yourself), so there’s less reason to prioritize defending at all. It’s about effort and teamwork, not gold.

There was also a time when players/guilds would NOT invest gold into upgrades because they knew that minutes after they logged off their investment would be erased.

Swamurabi.7890:

Adamarc.7463:

Sviel.7493:

I really wish you all would stop saying that the only reason people defend is because they invested money.

Nobody is saying that. People will defend if there is a fun fight in doing so. But there isn’t a way to tell whether people before you put any effort into upgrading anything (unless you see them doing so yourself), so there’s less reason to prioritize defending at all. It’s about effort and teamwork, not gold.

There was also a time when players/guilds would NOT invest gold into upgrades because they knew that minutes after they logged off their investment would be erased.

The best option is to have the old system without the gold costs. It solves both issues at once and people have been suggesting this for a while.

Adamarc.7463:

Nobody is saying that. People will defend if there is a fun fight in doing so. But there isn’t a way to tell whether people before you put any effort into upgrading anything (unless you see them doing so yourself), so there’s less reason to prioritize defending at all. It’s about effort and teamwork, not gold.

You say that but…

OP

Before auto-upgrade, people would bother to build defensive siege on objectives, now this rarely occurs as nobody put effort into upgrading it.

and…

You

You don’t care about defending because nobody put any effort into upgrading in the first place, and structures will just auto upgrade again super fast.

Unless you consider manually starting an upgrade to be effort, what are you talking about? I still have to scout the area, keep the Yaks running, siege it up and defend it. None of that changed. Where is this loss of effort if it’s not a euphemism for gold?

And for the record, fun fights are just a bonus. The only time I don’t defend something is when I’m defending something else.

You again

The best option is to have the old system without the gold costs. It solves both issues at once and people have been suggesting this for a while.

What is the issue you’re trying to solve?

Auto-upgrades weren’t just about removing the gold cost. They also streamlined the upgrades so that if you spent several hours working on something, it might just have reinforced walls and gates. The old system wasn’t just punishing because of the cost—it also meant that attempting to upgrade the keep meant leaving it out of supply and vulnerable to everything. You had to have siege pre-built for everything and, if it got AoE’d down, you were out of luck. Thus, if you didn’t have a zerg backing you up, you were screwed.

Do you dislike it because of the upgrades are too fast? Because it leaves defenders with potential supply? What, exactly, is your problem with the auto-upgrade system? And if your answer is ‘lack of effort,’ please explain further.

Sviel.7493:

Adamarc.7463:

Nobody is saying that. People will defend if there is a fun fight in doing so. But there isn’t a way to tell whether people before you put any effort into upgrading anything (unless you see them doing so yourself), so there’s less reason to prioritize defending at all. It’s about effort and teamwork, not gold.

You say that but…

OP

Before auto-upgrade, people would bother to build defensive siege on objectives, now this rarely occurs as nobody put effort into upgrading it.

and…

You

You don’t care about defending because nobody put any effort into upgrading in the first place, and structures will just auto upgrade again super fast.

Unless you consider manually starting an upgrade to be effort, what are you talking about? I still have to scout the area, keep the Yaks running, siege it up and defend it. None of that changed. Where is this loss of effort if it’s not a euphemism for gold?

And for the record, fun fights are just a bonus. The only time I don’t defend something is when I’m defending something else.

You again

The best option is to have the old system without the gold costs. It solves both issues at once and people have been suggesting this for a while.

What is the issue you’re trying to solve?

Auto-upgrades weren’t just about removing the gold cost. They also streamlined the upgrades so that if you spent several hours working on something, it might just have reinforced walls and gates. The old system wasn’t just punishing because of the cost—it also meant that attempting to upgrade the keep meant leaving it out of supply and vulnerable to everything. You had to have siege pre-built for everything and, if it got AoE’d down, you were out of luck. Thus, if you didn’t have a zerg backing you up, you were screwed.

Do you dislike it because of the upgrades are too fast? Because it leaves defenders with potential supply? What, exactly, is your problem with the auto-upgrade system? And if your answer is ‘lack of effort,’ please explain further.

You ask how the old system required more effort and then you immediately complain about how much work it took to get something upgraded lol.

Here’s a problem with the auto upgrade system. On TCBL, bay fully upgraded in about an hour and a half by an opposing server despite the numerous holes that were repeatedly punched into it because supply management isn’t a concern any longer.

They threw a sentry tower upgrade on sw tower so that between that and the sentry you can’t approach sw camp without being spotted, which gives them the time to wp in as big a blob as they need to defend it. With speedy/armored yaks and the defense buff they get from escorts, roamers can’t keep the yak supply cut off in the short distance from sw camp to bay.

These changes favor the most populated server. In the past they would have to split up their blob to upgrade and scout objectives which gave the smaller groups a more reasonable fight. The small groups could stretch out the upgrade process for hours and hopefully find an opportunity to flip it. Now the blob just relies on the automated scouts and upgrades so they can blob harder.

My point was that all of the effort that I listed still exists. It didn’t go anywhere because I don’t have to manually start the upgrade.

If you want to approach SW camp and you don’t spawn on that side, you can take the Oasis route to the Firekeep area and hit the camp from the north. If you go under the desert, you can assassinate the Yak but you can’t reach the camp without hitting the other sentry. If you go over the desert, no watchtowers or sentries will be privy to your movements. Also, they can’t WP in before T3 without an Emergency WP. They can’t do that twice in a 30m period whereas walking to the camp is only 2-3m depending on your route. Finally, they can’t run both Speedy Yaks and Armored Yaks at the same time. Camps were reduced to a single upgrade tier many months ago.

But wait! You were talking about ABL, weren’t you. Isn’t that the map that’s supposed to be better for roamers? Well, in that case, there really wasn’t anything you could do. Too bad.

Anyway, while I had fun with it, your example plays out the same in the former upgrade system. The blob might be missing 2-3 people who would otherwise have been starting upgrades elsewhere, but if you were so heavily outmatched, that would not have made a difference.

Sviel.7493:

Anyway, while I had fun with it, your example plays out the same in the former upgrade system. The blob might be missing 2-3 people who would otherwise have been starting upgrades elsewhere, but if you were so heavily outmatched, that would not have made a difference.

The hell it couldn’t. The keep was constantly being hit, it was starved of supply but kept upgrading anyway. That’s a problem. Small groups not being able to sneak the sw tower for a spot to treb from, or even sw camp is a problem.

And no it wouldn’t just be 2-3 people broken off from the zerg. to keep an eye on everything they would need to break off a bunch of people to keep small groups from ninja’ing stuff. Right now they just have to throw watch towers on everything and they can just have 1 person per map watching for orange dots so they can port the zerg around.

Auto upgrades make the population imbalance a bigger problem. It’s partly responsible for killing the small scale scene. It also just doesn’t need to be there. The only real benefit is that it doesn’t cost gold, but as multiple people have stated they could have just removed the gold cost and kept the manual upgrades. Win/win.

If the keep was starved of supply, it couldn’t have upgraded because no Yaks were getting in. In order to hit T3, 140 Yaks must have made it to the keep.

It sounds like small groups were able to have considerable effect if you punched the place full of holes. It would nice if you could have taken the camp or had more room to hit the Yak—that’s one of the intentions of the DBL makeover. You wanted ABL, though, so don’t go complaining about it now.

Why can’t your small groups ninja stuff anymore? The range on Watchtower is shorter than the uncharged range of a catapult. You can still knock the wall down without being seen and then you only have to kill the lord. Think of it as a slightly more engaging version of this ninja PvD you so sorely miss. Also, if they port their zerg there, that creates an opportunity for hitting SWT, SWC or Bay.

Sviel.7493:

If the keep was starved of supply, it couldn’t have upgraded because no Yaks were getting in. In order to hit T3, 140 Yaks must have made it to the keep.

It sounds like small groups were able to have considerable effect if you punched the place full of holes. It would nice if you could have taken the camp or had more room to hit the Yak—that’s one of the intentions of the DBL makeover. You wanted ABL, though, so don’t go complaining about it now.

Why can’t your small groups ninja stuff anymore? The range on Watchtower is shorter than the uncharged range of a catapult. You can still knock the wall down without being seen and then you only have to kill the lord. Think of it as a slightly more engaging version of this ninja PvD you so sorely miss. Also, if they port their zerg there, that creates an opportunity for hitting SWT, SWC or Bay.

Stop trying to turn this into abl/dbl debate. Stay on topic.

The keep can be fully drained and still upgrade because upgrades no longer have a supply cost. It can have multiple holes, 0 supply and they can take 60 people to escort that 1 speedy, armored yak they need to reinforce or fortify it to fully repair everything.

Do you know how long it takes to use catas on a upgraded tower from max range? Do you really think those white swords are going to go unnoticed for that long?

And you’re missing the point. It’s not about PvD’ing, it’s about splitting the blob up so you’re getting manageable fights instead of going 5v50+.

In the old system, if you needed 70 supply to finish an upgrade and the keep was fully drained, you could escort one last Yak in and all the walls would be repaired and be reinforced/fortified. That is not a consequence of the new system.

I said the catas hit from uncharged range. That means minimum range. You can’t put them point blank on the wall, but they’re still close enough for maximum DPS. If you still want to know how long it takes, I have that info here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0RkQUsaXhBmv4y1dN7YtFWmuUq8VsUBUk1uxTj4AZw/edit#gid=0

Your claim about splitting up the blob hinges on there being many scouts before—enough to reduce the blob to a manageable size. There is nothing to support this. People have been complaining about unmanageable blobs from day one. But, since me saying that clearly isn’t convincing, perhaps numbers will work? Let’s say there’s a scout in every walled objective other than Bay. On a borderland, that’s 6 people. If the blob was 6 people smaller so you were 5v44+, would your small team have had more success?

And for the second time, it is impossible to have a Speedy, Armored Yak. You can pick one from the list of improvements as seen here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resource_camp#Improvements

What you’re doing is identifying a problem and then blaming it on something else without regard for the evidence at hand. Note how you keep getting what I say wrong and claiming things that can’t possibly be true. If you can step back and find the actual cause of the problem, perhaps we can fix it. For example—do you feel that auto-upgrades are faster than the old system? If so, what are the negative consequences?

Meh the biggest problem is the hit to small groups being able to take structures quickly enough, if at all because of watch tower upgrade and nerf to guild cata cost. Doesn’t matter if the upgrades are on auto or manual , when the two factors that broke small groups would still exist.

While the watchtower is a great replacement for scouts, it doesn’t take any breaks, it doesn’t go afk, it doesn’t go off to another part of the map, it’s radius is a little ridiculous, there’s no windows of opportunity to sneak an attack in. Hell it’s better than irl security, scouting heat signatures 360 degrees at once and even below cliffs!

Sviel.7493:

In the old system, if you needed 70 supply to finish an upgrade and the keep was fully drained, you could escort one last Yak in and all the walls would be repaired and be reinforced/fortified. That is not a consequence of the new system.

I said the catas hit from uncharged range. That means minimum range. You can’t put them point blank on the wall, but they’re still close enough for maximum DPS. If you still want to know how long it takes, I have that info here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0RkQUsaXhBmv4y1dN7YtFWmuUq8VsUBUk1uxTj4AZw/edit#gid=0

Your claim about splitting up the blob hinges on there being many scouts before—enough to reduce the blob to a manageable size. There is nothing to support this. People have been complaining about unmanageable blobs from day one. But, since me saying that clearly isn’t convincing, perhaps numbers will work? Let’s say there’s a scout in every walled objective other than Bay. On a borderland, that’s 6 people. If the blob was 6 people smaller so you were 5v44+, would your small team have had more success?

And for the second time, it is impossible to have a Speedy, Armored Yak. You can pick one from the list of improvements as seen here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resource_camp#Improvements

What you’re doing is identifying a problem and then blaming it on something else without regard for the evidence at hand. Note how you keep getting what I say wrong and claiming things that can’t possibly be true. If you can step back and find the actual cause of the problem, perhaps we can fix it. For example—do you feel that auto-upgrades are faster than the old system? If so, what are the negative consequences?

In the old system to get a T3 wp’ed keep they needed to dedicate 63,000 supply just to the upgrades, any repairs being made, siege being built, etc. would delay that process. If the keep was constantly under 100 supply like it was last night they couldn’t have even gotten cannons built.

Your scout numbers are all wrong. Your only counting structures in 1 bl but without watchtowers/sentries marking everything they will need about 4 times that if they want to watch their structures on the other maps as well (instead of 1 semi afk player watching for orange dots). This means that zerg of 50 is going to lose roughly half their players or leave themselves vulnerable to attacks on other fronts.

And fair enough about the yaks, maybe I was wrong about them being heavy armored, doesn’t make much difference when you’ve got about 5 feet between being marked and fighting in iron guards to kill them and after sniping 1 or 2 they will just have 1 tanky ass person escort them which buffs their toughness anyway.

But there is no way you are correct about catapults being out of watchtower range at minimum distance. Maybe there’s a couple spots where the elevation works in your favor but even on NW tower with the elevation and the brokenly oversized hit box on the wall you have to charge them about 10%.

How are you getting that 63,000 number? Here’s a list of the supply costs in the old upgrade system along with a video that you can verify them by.

Supply Costs
info can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGehPFSL8oo

Reinforce Walls - 500 supply
Reinforce Doors - 1,000 supply
Fortify Keep - 2,000 supply

Cannons - 400 supply
Mortars – 800 supply
Waypoint - 1,600 supply

Hire Merchants - 300 supply
Hire Services - 600 supply
Hire Patrol - 900 supply

Hire Second Worker – 300 supply
Hire Additional Guards - 600 supply
Raise Guard Level – 1,200 supply

By my count, it would take 6,300 supply to get a fortified keep with a WP. That’s a factor of 10 less. In terms of Yaks, that’s 90 normal Yaks or 45 fat Yaks (pre-HoT, yaks carried 70 supply to keeps). Compare to the 140 Yaks it takes under the new system. Thus, even when you account for repairs and siege, a keep that got 140 Yaks under the old system would still have been fortified with a WP. It actually would have happened much sooner, in terms of supply. I, unfortunately, don’t have any info atm on how long the upgrades took in terms of time.

I should also note that due to Yaks delivering only 40 supply now, keeps gain 4,200 less supply over those 140 Yaks than they did before. The maximum supply in the keep was also cut.

On the scouts, I presumed you meant they had 50 people on a map not 50 people in the entirety of WvW. But if we go with that and they have 24 scouts, you’re still 5v26+ and probably not any better off.

I can confirm such cata spots in DBL, but if the Alpine towers have wonky watchtower radii it might take a small charge. I don’t usually attack enemy Alpine BLs and enemy towers on home BL don’t get that upgraded. On NET in DBL, one place is at a lower elevation (NE corner) so it should be alright. I don’t think a guild upgrade having some value is a terrible thing, but I’m afraid that’s another topic entirely.

Everything about the old system was perfect except for the money cost. Could have easily switched gold for karma or some new wvw currency. ez pz. Now everything upgrades on it’s own if you got a camp or two. and it’s become turtle bunker ever since. Old system actually costed supply so now supply isn’t as important so you know what that means, more siege. That’s why reset is fun, nothing is upgraded and you can actually get to your enemy. THEY EVEN FORTIFIED INNER WATERGATE ON GARRISON ON ALPINE BL! IT WAS PAPER FOR A REASON! THEY EVEN RUINED WATERGATE RUSHES. TURTLE TURTLE. It seems that everything they do makes wvw worse by the day. We need to get an actual expert in charge of wvw that actually plays the game and is hardcore about the gamemode. They listen to too many siege humpers on these boards. Hell, i’m sure a lot of us would do it for free, I know I would.

Sviel.7493:

How are you getting that 63,000 number?

I clearly fat fingered the keyboard, don’t get your panties in a bunch.

And in the situation I described the keep wouldn’t have upgraded faster under the old system because even though they were able to hold SW camp the keep was constantly being drained of supply. If the supply is constantly being used for repairs, disablers, etc. they wouldn’t have enough to purchase an upgrade. I don’t know how I can make that any clearer.

Also 5v26 might be a losing fight in most situations, but if the most populated server is being forced to run smaller zergs or risk losing their stuff the smaller servers are more likely to log on and those 5 man groups turn into 15 or 20, which is a lot more competitive. The populated server will still be able to field more groups so they’ll probably win the PPT wars but the fights will be a lot more fun.

So you fat fingered adding a comma after 63 instead of just 6 and then also fat fingered an extra 0 at the end? I considered that but dismissed it as far too unlikely. Sorry?

Under the old system, with fat yaks, they would have amassed 19,600 supply over 140 yaks. That means they had 13,300 supply to spare for repairs, etc. So unless you completely knocked down over 25 walls, they would have had plenty. And that’s assuming they didn’t run any supply from the camps they were guarding so well…and assuming they bothered to repair.

It sounds like your scout complaint is less about auto-upgrades and more about sentries and watchtower.

Sviel.7493:

So you fat fingered adding a comma after 63 instead of just 6 and then also fat fingered an extra 0 at the end? I considered that but dismissed it as far too unlikely. Sorry?

Under the old system, with fat yaks, they would have amassed 19,600 supply over 140 yaks. That means they had 13,300 supply to spare for repairs, etc. So unless you completely knocked down over 25 walls, they would have had plenty. And that’s assuming they didn’t run any supply from the camps they were guarding so well…and assuming they bothered to repair.

It sounds like your scout complaint is less about auto-upgrades and more about sentries and watchtower.

I type fast and then before I post I quickly edit my misspelled words and grammer. These posts aren’t a term paper so I occasionally miss something or kitten up. When I went back to clean up I added a comma instead of deleting a zero, kitten happens.

And no, it doesn’t take knocking down 25 walls to prevent an upgrade. If they are repeatedly using the supply to build siege, disable, and repair, the wall doesn’t even have to completely drop for the supply to stay drained.

LJMaster.6214:

In EU, FSP can easily keep a tier 3 Stonemist against 140 enemy attackers.

Yesterday FSP lost T1 Cragtop on HBL in the middle of EU primetime to 2 enemies that where already scouted in map chat.

True story.

The point is that you would have had to have done enough damage to knock down over 25 walls just to get through their surplus supply. I’m going to guess that you did not.

The reason they were able to upgrade that keep is because they had 50 people babysitting it and you had 5. It wasn’t because of the new upgrade system. In fact, as I have shown, it would have been easier with the old system and they would have had more supply on hand since Yaks carried more by default.

Constructive complaints about auto-upgrades are fine. Blaming them for other things isn’t doing anything but helping you vent.

Sviel.7493:

The point is that you would have had to have done enough damage to knock down over 25 walls just to get through their surplus supply. I’m going to guess that you did not.

The reason they were able to upgrade that keep is because they had 50 people babysitting it and you had 5. It wasn’t because of the new upgrade system. In fact, as I have shown, it would have been easier with the old system and they would have had more supply on hand since Yaks carried more by default.

Constructive complaints about auto-upgrades are fine. Blaming them for other things isn’t doing anything but helping you vent.

I didn’t say we had 5 people hitting the keep. I said 5 couldn’t sneak the sw tower without their zerg responding. We had around 30 hitting the keep which started at 0 supply because we were defending it for a couple hours before it flipped. After it was flipped we immediately started hitting it and they could only consistently hold sw camp.
The keep was losing supply as fast as it was getting it in, no matter how you try and spin it there is no way it would have fully upgraded in that situation under the old system.

This isn’t spin, it’s math. You either did enough damage that they wouldn’t have had enough, or you didn’t. I’ve given you the threshold as a raw number and as an approximate number of walls collapsed. Did you meet it or did you not?

Also, you were the one who was saying 5v50+ earlier. Not that it matters. If 50 people babysit a keep next to their spawn for hours versus 30 people who spawn elsewhere, they’re going to upgrade the keep.

And, head’s up, the supply in the keep would have been coming in much faster under the old system. Even if it was being drained as fast as it came in under this system, that anecdote is not accurate in the past. Precisely the reason the flow was cut down was to account for upgrades not draining supply.

Sviel.7493:

This isn’t spin, it’s math. You either did enough damage that they wouldn’t have had enough, or you didn’t. I’ve given you the threshold as a raw number and as an approximate number of walls collapsed. Did you meet it or did you not?

Also, you were the one who was saying 5v50+ earlier. Not that it matters. If 50 people babysit a keep next to their spawn for hours versus 30 people who spawn elsewhere, they’re going to upgrade the keep.

And, head’s up, the supply in the keep would have been coming in much faster under the old system. Even if it was being drained as fast as it came in under this system, that anecdote is not accurate in the past. Precisely the reason the flow was cut down was to account for upgrades not draining supply.

For the umpteenth time, we were keeping the keep drained through constant attacks….

But hell, for arguments sake let’s say we weren’t. Are you trying to say this situation couldn’t happen? Because I see it nearly every day with SM. It’s constantly being trebbed, or small groups are taking down multiple walls with catapults and all the dominant server has to do is get their own sides yaks in to eventually upgrade it. The attacks are meaningless unless you have the numbers to flip it, that’s a problem.

Maybe bullets will get through?

-I heard that you were keeping the supply drained.
-In the old system, the yaks that made it in during the time it took to upgrade would have given more supply.
-Therefore, since they had much more supply, your attacks may not have been sufficient to drain all of it.

That’s why the threshold is important. Because if you didn’t meet it…

-Supply only drains if people take it.
-If they wanted to upgrade, they could have taken just as much supply as they did in this instance and still had plenty left to upgrade with.

As for SM, see bullets 4-5. If they don’t repair the walls, which seems fairly standard since there’s constant treb pressure on them, then the attacks wouldn’t have drained supply anyway. Thus, that supply goes right to upgrades.

Sviel.7493:

-Therefore, since they had much more supply, your attacks may not have been sufficient to drain all of it.

And maybe they would have, either way that is a tactic that was removed from the game in order to dumb it down for the more casual players.

And I know for a fact that tactic worked in the past because I used it countless times.

So like I said before, the attacks are meaningless unless you have the numbers to flip it, and a system like that really hurts small group play and encourages blobbing….. which is literally bad for the game because the servers can’t handle the map queue sized blobs and we end up with horrible skill delay and disconnects.

Wait, what tactic was removed from the game?

Draining supply to make a keep vulnerable is certainly viable—It’s what I do if the keep on the side of the map I’m working is in enemy hands. I can’t flip it myself, of course, but when a group shows up they have a quick route to lord, minimal enemy siege to face and the enemies don’t have supply on hand to make new siege.

If anything, it’s a tactic I employ more often now since they don’t drain their own supply with doomed attempts at upgrades.

As a small group/solo roamer I don’t expect to flip defended keeps. I just set them up for other groups and flip towers/camps/shrines. Of course, I have flipped keeps because they didn’t defend them, but that’s not something I expect to happen often.

Well I’m one of the scouts and yak escorters and camp sitters and I prefer the new system. I did like the old system other than the gold part, but I actually think this is one thing anet got right xD. To each his own but the autoupgrades are nice. Everyone knows how many yaks are needed for the upgrades. As an enemy server you could be trying to snipe yaks and camps all day to slow them down. If they start camping them hard well bring more people to do it… just like before.

Sviel.7493:

Wait, what tactic was removed from the game?

Draining supply to make a keep vulnerable is certainly viable

But draining supply to prevent upgrades isn’t….

Jim Hunter.6821:

Sviel.7493:

Wait, what tactic was removed from the game?

Draining supply to make a keep vulnerable is certainly viable

But draining supply to prevent upgrades isn’t….

On the other hand – even with full supply the keep will now will not upgrade if no dolly gets inside.

With old system if the keep had supplies these would serve as “upgrade buffer” of several dollies (depending on reserves – even up to 10 ).

Previously I also did a fair share of objective upgrading. Compared to current situation – the things I didn’t like was personal gold cost and the intended or unintended supply trolling.

The things I did like was the possible optimization of upgrades – you could go for walls + gates in first order while building siege with camp suppy. In that case tou had a practically a T2 objective lightning fast compared to now (As the “personnel” upgrades are pretty meaningless towards the structure defense). Also after all was already upgraded you had much larger buffer of supply inside.

Also – the upgrade time for inner towers now is so tragic. Before – the one worker was able to burn down through the supply of a single (upgraded for double supply) dolyak before next one came. Effectively burning 70 supply per dolyak run. Walls + door = 600 supply – that was only 9 upgraded dolyaks. Now 30 (or 60 without double supply guild claim).

As a defender, I personally would not mind going to old system – without the personal gold cost. Preferrably with customized order of upgrades for the guild claiming objective to avoid trolling. Well – as attacker – maybe not that much since things got upgraded walls and doors ultra-fast compared to now.

@Hubal

That’s an excellent point you make about the towers. I’ll see if I can find some info on upgrade costs (in supply) for them under the old system. Then I’ll calculate old T3 ugprade times and compare to the current system.

Well, you can check this page

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Structure_upgrade

Also if anyone is interested sometimes before HoT someone made time calculations for keeps here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Average-Time-to-Build-a-Waypoint/5332741

I would like if they made a mix of the new system and the old, where in it still has to use supplys and workers but it automatic choose the upgrades, as I did like that you had to choose between using your supply to upgrade or attacking but really don’t want them to add the gold cost back

Oh, didn’t expect such a response.

In truth, the biggest issue is Stonemist Castle. It is so easy for a server to hold a t3 SM against both servers. In EU, on FSP, we have started to tag up, leading pugs away from SM, and telling an enemy commander to tag up and cap it.

Stonemist is not like other castles, if you dominate a 2-3 hour spell, you can easily get SM tier 3, and if you are the ones that get it t3 at around 14:00, then there is enough players to hold it all day.

Also, on borders, auto upgrade is a problem as hills and bay become tier 3 almost automatically over night.

Perhaps a suggestion could be, what you start owning (your towers + garrison/EB keep) auto-upgrade, as they are essentially yours. BUT, those which you capture, hills/bay/sm/enemy towers, require actively purchasing upgrades?

To all those people talking about ‘sniping yaks’, it’s a 24/7 game mode… In EU, we predominantly have EU player, we don’t have Asian or Oceania gameres. There are times in a T1 match up when it is essentially dead. Would you recommend someone staying up all night to kill dolyaks? As I say, nobody cares if structures you start off owning become tier 3, but an entire t3 borderland is ridiculous, as is stonemist.

@Hubal

Great info in those links—thanks for sharing!

@LJMaster

I’m willing to bet that Stonemist upgrades much faster under the new system. I’m thinking it might be wise to shift the number of Yaks per tier based on the type of objective. At least, Stonemist should take longer than it currently does.

Hills/Bay seem to have similar upgrade times, though. In the old system, with perfect conditions, they upgraded in ~3 hours. Under the new system, they take ~2 hours. On DBL, where the new system was meant to be deployed, the side keeps take ~3 hours to upgrade due to lack of service from South Camp.

We should not forget the versatility and customizability of the old system.

You could upgrade it methodically

You could rush walls and gate without sieges

You could rush wp (remember people used to have paper keeps with wp)

THEY WERE FUN AND INTERESTING AND BROUGHT EXTRA FLAVOUR TO THE GAMEMODE.

Please, I beg you anet our overlord GM God, please bring remove this tier system stuff and bring back the customizability of the old system – maybe reduce or change gold cost.

ThunderPanda.1872:

We should not forget the versatility and customizability of the old system.

You could upgrade it methodically

You could rush walls and gate without sieges

You could rush wp (remember people used to have paper keeps with wp)

THEY WERE FUN AND INTERESTING AND BROUGHT EXTRA FLAVOUR TO THE GAMEMODE.

Please, I beg you anet our overlord GM God, please bring remove this tier system stuff and bring back the customizability of the old system – maybe reduce or change gold cost.

You could also run in a paper camp or tower ahead of an enemy zerg to drain it by purchasing an upgrade. I really miss that.

Sviel.7493:

@Hubal

Great info in those links—thanks for sharing!

@LJMaster

I’m willing to bet that Stonemist upgrades much faster under the new system. I’m thinking it might be wise to shift the number of Yaks per tier based on the type of objective. At least, Stonemist should take longer than it currently does.

Hills/Bay seem to have similar upgrade times, though. In the old system, with perfect conditions, they upgraded in ~3 hours. Under the new system, they take ~2 hours. On DBL, where the new system was meant to be deployed, the side keeps take ~3 hours to upgrade due to lack of service from South Camp.

Dont forget speedy dollies. Cuts time by half or more if a few also escort. We never had that before.

Speedy Yaks has a similar effect to the old Fat Yaks. However, if it is a problem, it should be addressed directly rather than in a change to the whole auto-upgrade system.