Guild Wars 2

Lot of you guys who play lot of wvw have most likely realised that currently taking t3 tower with watchtower guild upgrade is near impossible with smaller group.
Whole promotion campaign of when HoT came out was anet claiming that people dont need to run bigger group to cap stuff due to desert bls. Now that desert borders are only 1/3 of borders, I believe sniping would require some kind of a buff.
Claim buffs are cool itself but it+guild upgrades+t3 gates are bit overkill regarding defence.

Would you remove t3 gates or watchtower ugrade if you had to choose one?

Mmm. it would be nice to have the balloon toned down; maybe emit pulses every few moments instead of constant ez-mode no hands free kill siting there on the screen to look at.

But yes, these upgrades killed off those special small ops forces snagging smaller structures. It’s not fun.

Remove watchtower. We already have sentries and white swords.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Remove watchtower. We already have sentries and white swords.

Amen. Nothing wrong with fortified gates though as most squads will go for walls anyway these days.

Maybe they could add a tactivator for it that you have to activate like every 15 minutes. That sould be long enaugh so that one scout running around the map can refresh siege and quickly hit the baloon but if nobody is there it won’t be active.

neither, especially on DBL

Watchtower is an issue? Why not just use trebuchets and knock down walls from outside the balloon range? Can probably even use catapults if firing from max range or elevation which is more often than not the no.1 attack route anyway.

Hardened gates is completely irrelevant, PvD is a joke anyway.

Sarrs.4831:

Watchtower is an issue? Why not just use trebuchets and knock down walls from outside the balloon range? Can probably even use catapults if firing from max range or elevation which is more often than not the no.1 attack route anyway.

Hardened gates is completely irrelevant, PvD is a joke anyway.

Have you noticed how solo/small groups have all but disappeared?
If you have to treb or even just cata from max range you’ll end up with a zerg showing up to stop you because they have all the time in the world to respond.

Before all the passive kitten was added you’d end up with multiple small scale fights all over the place because small groups could quickly ninja objectives which forced the zerg to split.

Offair.2563:

Nothing wrong with fortified gates though as most squads will go for walls anyway these days.

People go for wall exactly because the T3 gates have more HP than T3 walls.

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

Remember you said that the next time you complain about blobs, lag, or how wvw is bleeding players.

He is still right to a certain point. You shouldn’t be able to take a t3 structure with 5 people or less. And yes, I know that sucks when you are the only 5 people running on your borderland.
Still I think the spy balloon is too strong and I think it should be taken out.
What I would change is the auto upgrade of towers and keeps. Make it like it was before and give guilds or players the options to upgrade and opponents better options to stop upgrades (ie kill yaks and deny supply more easy)

Threather.9354:

Lot of you guys who play lot of wvw have most likely realised that currently taking t3 tower with watchtower guild upgrade is near impossible with smaller group.

Only if it’s not another empty tower to ktrain down.

Whole promotion campaign of when HoT came out was anet claiming that people dont need to run bigger group to cap stuff due to desert bls.

Where? Keep in mind that the original mission of WvW is for massive battles over objectives with siege: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Threather.9354:

Now that desert borders are only 1/3 of borders, I believe sniping would require some kind of a buff.
Claim buffs are cool itself but it+guild upgrades+t3 gates are bit overkill regarding defence.

I don’t understand how desert borders being 1 map correlates to the need of increasing mini-ktraining effectiveness.

Considering the game play of massive battles involving siege warfare, then a lot of the guild buffs just slow down the game mode on the whole. In most cases of post-HoT, ramming is a rare thing when fighting a balanced force over an objective.

Threather.9354:

Would you remove t3 gates or watchtower ugrade if you had to choose one?

A black and white question that doesn’t answer anything that is bloody grey. The game mode’s initial selling point is for massive battles. It is only with time as people stopped playing that we start to see servers die or dwindle down to smaller numbers. I am against appeasing the idea that less than 5 people should have it easy when capturing a T3 tower or even a T1 keep. That would only perpetuate ktraining, even if it’s scaled down to your group’s size.

If you really want to capture objectives with your small man force, then ask yourselves why doesn’t Silver Wastes satisfy you? The game mechanics at play are similar, but you will meet resistance that scales to your small group. You can even walk yaks, and actually get rewarded! Simple answer, no challenge from open world AI, but AI in empty T3 towers is even more lack luster. I am sorry if you are in a dead matchup where empty objectives is primarily the case.

Good luck!

shagwell.1349:

He is still right to a certain point. You shouldn’t be able to take a t3 structure with 5 people or less. And yes, I know that sucks when you are the only 5 people running on your borderland.
Still I think the spy balloon is too strong and I think it should be taken out.
What I would change is the auto upgrade of towers and keeps. Make it like it was before and give guilds or players the options to upgrade and opponents better options to stop upgrades (ie kill yaks and deny supply more easy)

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

@OP, should i start complain to remove walls since i cant solo a wall alone, becuse theres defenders to????
Most stuff is undenfended and most players dont care to defend already, all they care is loose stuff to recap it back, it is already a very dumb game, reducing dificulty in WvW would make the game mode even worse that is at the momment.

@jim, gw2 players want stuff even more efortless, t3 stuff cant even hold a zerg they even melt if a15+ group knows what they are doing.
Issue is most dont know 2play if they dont ktrain, and still want stuff easy to take on very small scale… sometimes i dont know who fails more, the players or Anet.

About blobing small groups, that is the biggest flaw in wvw concept, blob is to forgiving and to easy to achieve good results.

A servers that dont defend their stuff dont deserve to win either, it needs a balance offence VS defense gameplay, but it is a tricky thing to resolve since Anet prefers players to be distracted ktrain of apearing 25-35+ to kill 3-5 players atacking a structure, because what u said they have all the time.

Sorry about the awfull english

Jim Hunter.6821:

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

How should he do it? He can’t build siege on his own which isn’t easily destroyed by the attackers. The walls are easier to attack from below than defendable from above.

And no, you should not take an unguarded keep with 5 people. Taking a keep isn’t 5 player content. It’s content for large groups. And Anet shouldn’t make wvw even more rewarding for small groups. It already is rewarding enough running roaming groups.

shagwell.1349, actually empty structures as Jim is talking are perfectly well soloed, ive seen players soloing stuff, and one that soloed SM(no defenders).

WvW-…… build a treb, treb something,go solo the npc inside.. bam… let it flip, reapeat process.

He talked about solo defending against a team, not about taking stuff, imho.

ur right :\, and i completelly agree, strucutes are not for a team of 5, still a team of 5 can cap a non defended structure or will be ended getting blobbed by 30+.
Removing t3 would make Ktrain even more easy, and it is already alot more easy to be on offense than defense.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Have you noticed how solo/small groups have all but disappeared?

No, because I run solo regularly, clearing camps and towers across the board. Soloed keeps during primetimes after Watch Towers were added.

Look, if you want to take an objective that people have invested time and effort into upgrading to T3, you have to put resources towards it. A 5 man team won’t cut it nor should it when you are targeting a deep tower. Prioritize southern towers before pushing northern towers.

Jim Hunter.6821:

shagwell.1349:

He is still right to a certain point. You shouldn’t be able to take a t3 structure with 5 people or less. And yes, I know that sucks when you are the only 5 people running on your borderland.
Still I think the spy balloon is too strong and I think it should be taken out.
What I would change is the auto upgrade of towers and keeps. Make it like it was before and give guilds or players the options to upgrade and opponents better options to stop upgrades (ie kill yaks and deny supply more easy)

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

Pointless defending it, tbh. The only players left in WvW are largely ktrainers or zerglings since what, maybe 95% of the small-scale scene quit the game entirely since HoT?

Sarrs.4831:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Have you noticed how solo/small groups have all but disappeared?

No, because I run solo regularly, clearing camps and towers across the board. Soloed keeps during primetimes after Watch Towers were added.

Soling keeps in T8 stopped being impressive in 2012. I find it really hard you would do that again in primetime now that matchups are populated with server links.

shagwell.1349:

Jim Hunter.6821:

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

How should he do it? He can’t build siege on his own which isn’t easily destroyed by the attackers. The walls are easier to attack from below than defendable from above.

And no, you should not take an unguarded keep with 5 people. Taking a keep isn’t 5 player content. It’s content for large groups. And Anet shouldn’t make wvw even more rewarding for small groups. It already is rewarding enough running roaming groups.

You absolutely should be allowed to do so if you are skilled enough. There shouldn’t be a minimum player requirement for taking structures in WvW yet it sounds as if you would like there to be.

WvW is already far more rewarding for being in a brainless zerg, and you want to further decrease the attractiveness of smaller groups by taking away their ability to cap upgraded structures? If a 5 player team can do it then by all means they should be allowed to do so. It will already take them longer to get through the walls since they can’t drop 10 catas and have them fully built and people on them in 30 seconds. So if you don’t get there in time its on you, not them.

shagwell.1349:

Jim Hunter.6821:

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

How should he do it? He can’t build siege on his own which isn’t easily destroyed by the attackers. The walls are easier to attack from below than defendable from above.

And no, you should not take an unguarded keep with 5 people. Taking a keep isn’t 5 player content. It’s content for large groups. And Anet shouldn’t make wvw even more rewarding for small groups. It already is rewarding enough running roaming groups.

Dungeons and Fractals also are group content but people can solo most of them. If people get through all the trouble of doing stuff with less people, by all means they should be rewarded for it. If your server is losing T3 towers/keeps to 5 people maybe you should tell to the omniblob spare some people to defend structures instead of asking Arena Net to not let it happen.

And no, roaming is nowhere rewarding enough. Running in a brainless zerg is much more rewarding (loot/wxp-wise) than running as a small group.

Chinchilla.1785:

Threather.9354:

Lot of you guys who play lot of wvw have most likely realised that currently taking t3 tower with watchtower guild upgrade is near impossible with smaller group.

Only if it’s not another empty tower to ktrain down.

Whole promotion campaign of when HoT came out was anet claiming that people dont need to run bigger group to cap stuff due to desert bls.

Where? Keep in mind that the original mission of WvW is for massive battles over objectives with siege: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

Threather.9354:

Now that desert borders are only 1/3 of borders, I believe sniping would require some kind of a buff.
Claim buffs are cool itself but it+guild upgrades+t3 gates are bit overkill regarding defence.

I don’t understand how desert borders being 1 map correlates to the need of increasing mini-ktraining effectiveness.

Considering the game play of massive battles involving siege warfare, then a lot of the guild buffs just slow down the game mode on the whole. In most cases of post-HoT, ramming is a rare thing when fighting a balanced force over an objective.

Threather.9354:

Would you remove t3 gates or watchtower ugrade if you had to choose one?

A black and white question that doesn’t answer anything that is bloody grey. The game mode’s initial selling point is for massive battles. It is only with time as people stopped playing that we start to see servers die or dwindle down to smaller numbers. I am against appeasing the idea that less than 5 people should have it easy when capturing a T3 tower or even a T1 keep. That would only perpetuate ktraining, even if it’s scaled down to your group’s size.

If you really want to capture objectives with your small man force, then ask yourselves why doesn’t Silver Wastes satisfy you? The game mechanics at play are similar, but you will meet resistance that scales to your small group. You can even walk yaks, and actually get rewarded! Simple answer, no challenge from open world AI, but AI in empty T3 towers is even more lack luster. I am sorry if you are in a dead matchup where empty objectives is primarily the case.

Good luck!

The games selling point for you may have been massive battles, it was not the only selling point, WvW was suppose to cater to all play styles from solo to zerg.

Jeknar.6184:

Soling keeps in T8 stopped being impressive in 2012. I find it really hard you would do that again in primetime now that matchups are populated with server links.

My abilities are unbelievable, it’s true, but I did it in T1.

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

You wouldn’t lose an upgraded structure if you actually had people defending it or watching the map for white swords.

Watch tower was one of the dumbest upgrades added that destroyed small group play.

OriOri.8724:

shagwell.1349:

Jim Hunter.6821:

You absolutely should be able to take a T3 structure with 5 or less if it’s undefended.
1 smart defender in a t3 structure can hold off 5 players for hours. Blobbing shouldn’t be the only way to play wvw, that is a big part of why wvw is in such a kittenty unbalanced place.

How should he do it? He can’t build siege on his own which isn’t easily destroyed by the attackers. The walls are easier to attack from below than defendable from above.

And no, you should not take an unguarded keep with 5 people. Taking a keep isn’t 5 player content. It’s content for large groups. And Anet shouldn’t make wvw even more rewarding for small groups. It already is rewarding enough running roaming groups.

You absolutely should be allowed to do so if you are skilled enough. There shouldn’t be a minimum player requirement for taking structures in WvW yet it sounds as if you would like there to be.

WvW is already far more rewarding for being in a brainless zerg, and you want to further decrease the attractiveness of smaller groups by taking away their ability to cap upgraded structures? If a 5 player team can do it then by all means they should be allowed to do so. It will already take them longer to get through the walls since they can’t drop 10 catas and have them fully built and people on them in 30 seconds. So if you don’t get there in time its on you, not them.

“skilled enough”
it currently only takes the right build to solo a tower or keep and luck that no defenders show up
WvW is about 80% about quantity, not quality of players.

Xenesis.6389:

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

You wouldn’t lose an upgraded structure if you actually had people defending it or watching the map for white swords.

Watch tower was one of the dumbest upgrades added that destroyed small group play.

standing for hours in towers and scouting was one of the most boring, unrewarding and time wasting activity you could do in this game, so I am glad Anet gave us the opportunity to remove the need for scouts in towers.
Crafting a watchtower tactivator costs 2-3g, so it is not exactly for free either

Xenesis.6389:

You wouldn’t lose an upgraded structure if you actually had people defending it or watching the map for white swords.

Watch tower was one of the dumbest upgrades added that destroyed small group play.

These two ideas don’t really go well together.

If you won’t lose an upgraded structure if you have someone protecting or observing map, then why precisely is watchtower an issue? Watchtower is basically just a surrogate for a scout.

The only situation in which it actually matters is when you have so few people that you cannot actually observe all your objectives. Which is only on night hours.

So there’s an upgrade that makes it harder to nightcap towers.

???

What’s the problem? What precisely is bad at breaking the massive advantage nightcappers have?

Nuzt.7894:

The games selling point for you may have been massive battles, it was not the only selling point, WvW was suppose to cater to all play styles from solo to zerg.

What? That goes both ways, I am not saying there isn’t small scale things to do. Literally not my words below from: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/competitive-play/

This is how ANET described WvW, not what I believed it to be. I emboldened anything that emphasized scale.

“Join World vs. World (WvW) for an epic PvP experience full of cunning strategy, earthshaking sieges, and pitched battles between hundreds of players. In this massive war, three huge armies—each representing their world—battle for control of the castles and keeps, raid enemy supply caravans, and clash in open-field battles on five massive maps in week-long matches and seasonal tournaments.”

For focusedscale combat there is Spvp, that directly competes for the “small scale” scene with WvW’s lesser attempts. It is sold as such, where I emboldened the key words that were about brevity, small, and variety (everything that WvW isn’t):

“In Player vs. Player (PvP) matches, small teams of players compete to eliminate each other and capture strategic objectives on a map in short, fast-paced matches. In one match, players must battle over ancient ruins, while in another match, they may have to breach the enemy’s stronghold and defeat their lord.”

In conclusion, I don’t believe it is impossible for small scale things to exist in WvW (killing yaks, ganking, camp captures). But WvW by its own name, World versus World, is about massive something fighting massive something else.

Malediktus.3740:

standing for hours in towers and scouting was one of the most boring, unrewarding and time wasting activity you could do in this game, so I am glad Anet gave us the opportunity to remove the need for scouts in towers.
Crafting a watchtower tactivator costs 2-3g, so it is not exactly for free either

There are players who like to defend and tend to stay on maps doing just that, including build and maintaining siege for those attacks. It’s not like white or orange swords don’t exist. If you don’t like to scout, you don’t have to.

People kept asking to split zergs up, but then they added something that hampered small groups and encouraged zerging instead. GG.

Sarrs.4831:

These two ideas don’t really go well together.

If you won’t lose an upgraded structure if you have someone protecting or observing map, then why precisely is watchtower an issue? Watchtower is basically just a surrogate for a scout.

The only situation in which it actually matters is when you have so few people that you cannot actually observe all your objectives. Which is only on night hours.

So there’s an upgrade that makes it harder to nightcap towers.

???

What’s the problem? What precisely is bad at breaking the massive advantage nightcappers have?

1. It takes away the element of surprise for an attacking team that had 30s to setup before white swords went up. The element of surprise is the greatest asset for a havoc team to use.

2. A small group will not take the chance to take an upgraded structure unless they know the other side cannot respond in time, ie usually the stronger team would be in this situation. Hell the north towers in alpine spot you at the bottom before you hit the ramp. You can’t even take a small team and setup siege with initial supply and then run back to the camp for more supplies.

3. You know exactly how many are coming to that structure and how many you need to respond. Before you HAD to send a scout over to check on the numbers, now you just need to sit in spawn looking at the map to report the moment they walk into range.

They could improve the watch tower upgrade in any number of ways.

• Instead of being on all the time it could activate when white swords are up, it would give you numbers right away without having to send a scout, but gives the attacking team some time to setup.
• Or activate when it detects a certain number of players in the area, like 6+ or 11+ enemies it activates. So smaller groups have a chance to move around.
• Add a potion boon that makes enemies invisible to the detection range for 30s.

My guild use have 5-7 players on that would build 5 golems over a period of time on enemy borders, it took time transporting supplies in or taking from camps, then having to store and hide the golems, there’s about 10 good hiding spots on alpine you probably don’t even know exist. Sometimes we would cause a ruckus and the borderland would be flooded with enemies and we would have to wait and let it cool down.

Once it did we transported the golems to the keeps using mesmer ports and hidden cover, most times it was a tier 3 garrison we’d hit. We would hit watergate, we had 30s before white swords and had to build 2 rams at outer for the siege damage buff with the 5 golems, we would take an undefended garrison in under 3 minutes before the waypoint would open again. Sometimes people would be afk in lords, sometimes the wp opened and a few popped in, sometimes we had to hold the door, retap if needed.

We also use to do the same by setting up 4-5 guild catas on the tier 3 north towers using the camp for supply.

That isn’t even remotely possible today with watch tower and emergency waypoint, it’s just better to hit with bigger numbers.

So, it might have solved a night capping issue where a lot less players were active, where it’s known that most servers have lopsided coverage for a few hours, and you probably lose the structure anyways cause you don’t have enough to respond, at least you’ll know they’ll be taking it 30s sooner than usual.

Xenesis.6389:

Malediktus.3740:

standing for hours in towers and scouting was one of the most boring, unrewarding and time wasting activity you could do in this game, so I am glad Anet gave us the opportunity to remove the need for scouts in towers.
Crafting a watchtower tactivator costs 2-3g, so it is not exactly for free either

There are players who like to defend and tend to stay on maps doing just that, including build and maintaining siege for those attacks. It’s not like white or orange swords don’t exist. If you don’t like to scout, you don’t have to.

People kept asking to split zergs up, but then they added something that hampered small groups and encouraged zerging instead. GG.

“People kept asking to split zergs up” = minority
the majority of players seems to like playing in large groups. Personally I prefer playing with blobs with 50+ players, too.

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

Solo players should be able to take upgraded structures on their own if the defending side is too busy not taking care about scouting/defending.

Offair.2563:

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

Solo players should be able to take upgraded structures on their own if the defending side is too busy not taking care about scouting/defending.

Watchtower hardly changes that though, with the time it takes a single person to take a T3 tower (or more ambitously, a keep), someone will always notice it. If no one comes during those 30 odd minutes you will spend working on it, the red dot wouldnt matter as there is no enemy in the border lol.

For havoc parties during prime it does make a huge difference however. I have never liked the watchtowers, automatic reveals and new sentries dumbing down the gameplay and communications. WvW IMO lost a part of soul with those changes.

Malediktus.3740:

Xenesis.6389:

Malediktus.3740:

standing for hours in towers and scouting was one of the most boring, unrewarding and time wasting activity you could do in this game, so I am glad Anet gave us the opportunity to remove the need for scouts in towers.
Crafting a watchtower tactivator costs 2-3g, so it is not exactly for free either

There are players who like to defend and tend to stay on maps doing just that, including build and maintaining siege for those attacks. It’s not like white or orange swords don’t exist. If you don’t like to scout, you don’t have to.

People kept asking to split zergs up, but then they added something that hampered small groups and encouraged zerging instead. GG.

“People kept asking to split zergs up” = minority
the majority of players seems to like playing in large groups. Personally I prefer playing with blobs with 50+ players, too.

There’s a difference to choosing to play as a large group and behaving like a frightened animal and congregating into large groups.

Dawdler.8521:

Offair.2563:

Malediktus.3740:

No changes needed. Small groups should not be able to take upgraded structures.

Solo players should be able to take upgraded structures on their own if the defending side is too busy not taking care about scouting/defending.

Watchtower hardly changes that though, with the time it takes a single person to take a T3 tower (or more ambitously, a keep), someone will always notice it. If no one comes during those 30 odd minutes you will spend working on it, the red dot wouldnt matter as there is no enemy in the border lol.

Not necessarily.
When I solo roam I am constantly tapping everything, and most other roamers do as well (hell most do it unintentionally now since they changed how swords are triggered).

Players get used to seeing the white swords and don’t rush to check them out right away. There were countless times I wasn’t discovered until I was already killing the lord and in those situations I usually only had to fight a couple people to get the cap because they weren’t going to send a huge group to investigate.

With the Watchtower there isn’t 1 or 2 defenders coming to see if it’s a tap or not, the defenders know exactly how many are hitting the structure and will always bring overwhelming odds if they can.

Remove all tactics and shield generators is better idea. let it be old school sword and siege fight.