Guild Wars 2

Let’s talk about the crossed swords on structures!

In my opinion it’s a shame that when you hit a tower or keep it will get contested. The reason for that is because everyone can see it instantly on their map. As a commander I check my map every minute or less which will inform me about every attack on the structures. When a structure gets contested I either send out a scout or check it myself.

What am I trying to say?

It’s nearly impossible to capture an enemy structure with a small group of lets say 5 to 10 unseen. Even if you do everything right, if the structure gets contested you have a few minutes before their scouts comes and checks what you’re doing. If the contested swords would not have shown up no one would have even thought of checking the structure.

What about world vs world be without contested swords on structures?

It would add a whole new dimension, it will stimulate small groups and demotivates zerging. The team who does not care about their structures will lose it, they will have to stop by every now and then or leave someone behind to scout.

Thanks for reading, I would love to see some of your ideas on this.

Note: I’m not talking about the orange battle swords, only about the silver ones on structures.

Strongly disagree. In fact, I believe that there should be automatic announcements when forts come under attack, as DAOC did.

Short term, you take a fort with 5 people — hooray!

Long term, that is not fun gameplay. You will quickly find yourself getting bored and your players not logging in anymore. It’s just…not…fun.

What’s fun are hotly contested battles. To have those, defense has to be alerted and they have to have time to respond. I dunno about you, but when I think back on fun fights, I think back on the times we saw a fort under attack and got there in time to have a huge scrum. All of the times where we snuck in a capture unopposed are not really “fond memories” because they were just something we did, about as entertaining mining mithril.

I do agree that small groups should have things to do, but “sneak attacks on major forts” should not be a main staple.

The problem I see with it is that it would actually make it easier to defend keeps/garrisons/SM if a waypoint was there. 1-2 people stay behind and watch the keep, when they see the 5-10 trying to take it they alert in map/team chat and instantly 30+ people show up. It would probably make upgrading to waypoint a lot more common too.

Planetside (1&2) do nice things with waypoints and mobile spawns that I think makes the game more fun overall.

Generally defenders can respawn inside when killed.
Attackers can setup their own spawn point and respawn outside when killed.

The challenge, therefore, is to shut down the enemy spawns. Although it’s possible to take over a fort without killing the enemy spawner, it’s a lot tougher/riskier. The goal is to reduce “uncontested caps” and create more big fights and I think that’s a big draw of the game.

In GW2, a surprise golem rush or sneak-capture is very “hurr hurr” for screwing the enemy over, which is, to some extent, fun in its own way, but they can do the same thing back to you and the end result is a lot of flip-flopping without much real PvP, which gets old fast. Stealth golem rushes are essentially just “PvDoor”.

I agree with Slamz on this one.

Keeps should be fought for. Not snuck in through the back door (unless there’s a good diversion for one on a different side).

The system works well, and accomplishes this aim.

There definitely needs to be more small-group objectives though that are more practical.

Like destructible bridges.

Imagine a bridge that spans a deep, long valley which covers one approach to your keep (Like the one South of the East keep on the Borderlands). You don’t want to destroy it for no reason, because your zerg might need it to launch their attacks. But if you receive intel that an enemy zerg is coming to attack your keep, you set explosive charges beneath it and blow the bridge.

Now the enemy must take the long way around, or waste their much-needed siege supply repairing it.

Flip side: You know your zerg needs a bridge to lay siege to a keep. So the zerg sends 5 guys (and a mesmer) ahead to secure the bridge. If the 5-man group holding the bridge thinks they can win, maybe they won’t blow it. Your 5-man group can secure the far side before your zerg arrives.

Shrug

I actually have my hopes that ANet has this in store for the February expansion. The mechanic is already in place. There are those wall-pieces behind some of the tower lord’s rooms that are no more than destructible bridges.