Let me first start off by saying that this is by no means a thorough look at all the problems we see in WvW. This is just a couple of ideas that I feel would greatly improve the gameplay of WvW. These are also probably not original ideas. I’m sure someone, somewhere have made these suggestions but it never hurts to make the argument for them again. Are these ideas viable? I think so. Will Anet make these changes? Probably not. But if enough of the community shows support for good ideas, maybe it will at least cross their minds.
Without further adieu, my suggestions:
Remove in combat rezzing (downed state or dead) / 1 player rally per kill
This is a great idea to help smaller groups take on larger zergs. My original thought was to remove the downed state all together (and the rally mechanic with it), but I think Anet has already put a lot of work into it and it actually is a rather unique aspect of the game. By removing in combat rezzing, you prevent large groups from mass rezzing players in the middle of a fight, while still allowing players to contribute in downed state by doing damage and using their other downed state abilities. They can still be rallied by player abilities such as the warrior banner or necromancer signet (makes these abilities much more important to organized groups) so no player abilities will need to be altered. Rezzing players out of combat is of course still allowed. The second part of this idea is to allow only 1 downed player to be rallied by an enemy death. This prevents larger groups from regaining the advantage by preventing large numbers of players in the zerg from being rallied by the death of an npc mob or even an up leveled enemy. Again, the major function of the mechanic is left in place which keeps it a unique aspect of the game.
New tower/keep upgrade system
The new system would go something like this:
- Doors and walls no longer auto repair when an objective is taken. Servers must repair the damage they did before it was taken. Any wall/door upgrades already completed at the objective would remain intact. All other upgrades (merchants, guards, oil, cannons, etc) would be reset.
- The objective receives 100 (arbitrary number) supply on flip to get repairs started.
- Door and wall upgrades are no longer qued through the quartermaster. Instead, each door and wall is upgraded individually through repairing.
- Example: A wooden wall at full health would show a health bar at 50%. Players would have to put supply into that wall until the health bar reaches full. Once full, the wood wall would become reinforced and the health bar would drop to half. This process would repeat until it is full fortified.
- If a reinforced wall/fortified wall/reinforced door is destroyed, the upgrade for that section would reset to wood.
The main reason for me behind this new system is to promote more player vs. player combat. If an enemy just flipped your keep or tower, you will still have a short time to respond before the enemy locks you out. Of course, if you make it in, you will still have to fight them for it. If an enemy is trebbing your fortified wall section, you better go destroy it before it destroys the wall and resets your upgrade.
Other potential benefits:
- Makes supply camps and supply that much more important.
- Allows servers to upgrade the most vulnerable doors/walls first.
- Forces groups to hit walls/doors they wouldn’t normally hit due to them being less upgraded.
- Gives people who like to repair/upgrade/run supplies something to do and makes them that much more important for doing it.
- Gives scouts something to do while they wait for enemies to attack.
- Makes defense more important. If you don’t want to give the enemy a fortified keep, you better defend it.
If you like or dislike these ideas, feel free to comment. If you have ideas to add, feel free, just remember these are not ideas to fix every issue, just ideas to make things a little better and keep constructive discussions going on improvements to WvW.
(edited by Aytrix.4059)