Guild Wars 2

Seeing lots of negative feedback about the new map. While I don’t particularly enjoy it, I feel the auto upgrades, and no supply required changes have hurt the BLs worse. EBG has always been pug life and the BLs were always more guild focused but I’m not seeing any guild activity outside of the K-train guilds. I don’t think the pve is new and shiny explanation holds up anymore. Am I alone on this? What do you folks think?

I mostly like them because it means that if I manage to defend a keep for 8 hours straight, it upgrades. Previously, I’d scout a keep for a long period and would repel defenders with the help of whatever comm was running, but we couldn’t get any yaks in so it was only a matter of time before it fell due to no supply for upgrades/repairs/siege. It felt like it was pointless to defend too much because, as time wore on, the structure became indefensible even if the siege was only for 10 minutes out of every hour.

The time can be adjusted, but I think it’s probably fine as is. Fortified structures take a huge amount of time without yaks, as they should. Reinforced is also several hours. Even the initial upgrade, which doesn’t improve the walls/gates, takes a while. The cannons oil make it difficult to breach a gate but do little to protect the walls.

I think the statements about no one wanting to defend because everything comes free are melodramatic. Structures aren’t going to last several hours without being attacked—if you want to be able to defend it, you still need a steady stream of yaks.

I can agree that the old yaks were a pain to try and defend with thieves poppin up and 2 shotting them. The new yaks are much tankier. The whole point was you needed to keep your supply lines to keep your stuff. You can say its melodramatic but its happening. Why bother rushing to defend garri’s waypoint when all you need to do is flip it back and boom waypoint. At least this is what I’m seeing on my server.

I didn’t address that in my first post, but I feel differently about that too. If rampart is under attack when it’s fortified and sieged up, I want to defend it because it’s fortified and sieged up. It’s much, much easier to repel an attack when I have stronger walls and siege fully built. In fact, if a blob comes, I have to have walls/siege or there’s no hope at all.

Defending a paper rampart is very difficult, by comparison.

Thus, waypoint or not, I’ll always be defending.

keadlaw.6350:

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The free auto upgrade, no WP on side keep, WP at T0 on rampart and the south tower are a big part of the actual fail of the new map… Even more that the map itself.
The only thing they had to do was to make upgrade free for money, not for supply…. And reinforce the Yak… That is a very very good thing… Faster and stronger yak is a really good thing… But now the Yak are close to useless…
And those new WP placement…. Seriously…. And don’t talk me about those new emergency WP…

At least if the south WP could be used by all team…. But only at T0… Ths will make the south tower very very important… But WP at T0 only for 1 team is…. well…. no word for that…

the only thing I don’t like about the new upgrades is the fact that rampart gets a WP straight away. As convenient as it is for me to use that WP, it does mean there is less motivation to defend a paper rampart if you know that your server’s coverage will have a gap soon after. My motivation to defend an upgraded objective remains the same.

As far as guild rallies go, my guild rallies quite a lot but most WvW guilds I know including us are still only on guild level 12-18. Do you know when we get to use the +5 buff? Level 37. So yes many of us are still farming PvE to get all the mats we need to get our +5. Not to mention those of us who are altaholics are still farming HP as well to get our elite specs.

Previously, I’d scout a keep for a long period and would repel defenders with the help of whatever comm was running, but we couldn’t get any yaks in so it was only a matter of time before it fell due to no supply for upgrades/repairs/siege. It felt like it was pointless to defend too much because, as time wore on, the structure became indefensible even if the siege was only for 10 minutes out of every hour.

I feel in the same way. Before HOT I just didn’t even both to siege up the place if it was paper. I would wait for think to calm down and at least get the reinforced gate, then I would place a sup.treb for the gate and wouldn’t bother with carts for proxy catapults. Then once I got the reinforced walls I would put carts and a treb for countering other trebs and basically starting scouting it.

The auto-upgrade system we have now helps scouts to quickly siege up the place with supplies from inside and at least in 20 mins with yaks coming, you at least have oils and canons and if more yaks are coming by the time you build your trebs (5+ trebs for keeps and 2-3 trebs for towers) and all the carts for proxy catapults 1:30 hours pass and guess what you have your reinforced gates+walls. Then the fun starts when enemies come in and you destroy their puny rams or proxy catas or poorly placed trebs.

If rampart is under attack when it’s fortified and sieged up, I want to defend it because it’s fortified and sieged up.

I agree. Once you place 5-10 gold worth of siege and also 1-2 hours invested in running to the supply depot to build your stuff, you will mostly care about protecting that, not the waypoint. Like I said in my previous posts I would rather not have waypoints at all besides the ones where you spawn.

The free auto upgrade, no WP on side keep, WP at T0 on rampart and the south tower are a big part of the actual fail of the new map… Even more that the map itself.

I don’t understand why aren.net buffed the borderland map for defenders. Defenders already had a very good garrison with walls and lots of good places to put siege while bay was extremely hard to defend and hills I guess was a bit better. On SFR you would always see our borderland map owned by us and the enemy maps owned by them. Very rarely you would see dominating the other maps, unless we had a very big map jump crew. On top of that most guilds raided on the home borderland map.

Faster and stronger yak is a really good thing… But now the Yak are close to useless…

No they are not. They bring 30 supplies and they come very fast and they take 5 minutes off the upgrade timer which is huge. 10 yaks in and your upgrade timer remove 50 minutes from it.

I don’t like new upgrade mechanic.

Auto-upgrade + upgrade without need for supply = solo players have much less impact on gameplay. Dolly killers, dolly walkers, people who keep eye on buildings upgrades when population is low (in the morning for example) – all this work mostly replaced by timer.
For me auto-upgrade change perspective, from “if I start upgrade\defend camp\walk dolly, it may change something” to “it will happen anyway sometime.. let’s play PvP”.

Also I really dislike WP changes, what point of defending t3 now? What really you lost? Walls, some supply, few 25 score ticks. Before HoT garri was important to defend because of wp, now some commanders don’t even try to defend it prefer flip it for reward.

Chingiz.6481:

Before HoT garri was important to defend because of wp, now some commanders don’t even try to defend it prefer flip it for reward.

This issue isn’t just from HoT there has always been commanders who would rather let objectives get flipped to flip them back later. This is more of the rewards for defending vs the rewards for attacking. Something ArenaNet said they are looking into, hopefully they come up with something nice I think battles over objectives are the most fun. Only place you see battles over objectives is EBG and SM just because it’s normally open from trebs in towers/keeps and it’s in the middle of the map. This probably leads to the higher populations (pre-HoT) in EBG.

The old upgrade system was amazing. The only thing that sucked was that it would cost the upgrader gold. Supply use to be important, now it is just there to keep the k train rolling.

yeah the upgrades are terrible. but honestly. its both for me the upgrades and the terrible map that makes m e not even wanting to go and defend. it takes me way too long to get to a keep and defend and then its too complex for a fight/u fall off everywhere or stupid ai traps or wind blasts or then a leser….its just not wvw for me and i dont care about these weird keeps that dont even look like keeps.

i did prefer the old way of upgrading as escorting dolyaks was a thing and also scouts.
it was the player shaping the home bl with sieg and upgrading not the ai. now it ai only so its way less sandbox as it used to be and thats what kills this map completely same as eotm….

Sich.7103:

keadlaw.6350:

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The free auto upgrade, no WP on side keep, WP at T0 on rampart and the south tower are a big part of the actual fail of the new map… Even more that the map itself.
The only thing they had to do was to make upgrade free for money, not for supply…. And reinforce the Yak… That is a very very good thing… Faster and stronger yak is a really good thing… But now the Yak are close to useless…
And those new WP placement…. Seriously…. And don’t talk me about those new emergency WP…

At least if the south WP could be used by all team…. But only at T0… Ths will make the south tower very very important… But WP at T0 only for 1 team is…. well…. no word for that…

Sometimes i read a posting to the changes where i say: “YES! 100% agree”. And when i look at the side i see nearly every time your name XD
I feel exactly the same!

I like the auto-upgrading. I didn’t think babysitting upgrades was that much fun (and I certainly didn’t like having to pay gold for it).

What I don’t like is inevitable auto-upgrading. I know escorting yaks takes time off the upgrade timer, but I don’t think that puts enough value on yaks. I’d prefer a version of the old system, where a structure needs both time and a certain amount of yaks to reach it in order to upgrade. The structure can still auto-upgrade, just as long as these two requirements have been fulfilled.

They’re dumb and removed strategic elements of gameplay.

I have no problem with them being free, i have a huge problem with the game shift to remove strategic elements in favor of becoming timer wars.

Nate.3927:

As far as guild rallies go, my guild rallies quite a lot but most WvW guilds I know including us are still only on guild level 12-18.

You’re doing better than us.

The Auto Upgrade system is (imho) terrible.
Seems like the old way was something that we didn’t know what it was until it was gone.
There has to be a human/player element to structures or, as has been stated many times, nobody is going to care, especially when it auto upgrades to full in a couple of hours.
The real issue here, as I see it, is coverage.

I’d say keep the new features (defense systems, no player cost for upgrades, and similar), but bring back the player based upgrade selection path. That’s where tactical choices come into play, and it forces people to actually go to the camps, towers and keeps to do things to activate the upgrades beyond just insuring yaks arrive.

The old system needed tweaking more than it needed replacement. I think the designers may have overthought the solutions to the problems it had.

My biggest issue: what’s the point in roaming/havok?

Once upon a time a group of 5 could make sure a keep didn’t upgrade for many hours if they were focused. Smaller numbers of defenders mattered also, walk a dolly, defend a camp, siege a tower. Now what’s the point? That whole eco-system is pretty much redundant now.

Not exactly related but certainly in the same vein is the central event. It seems it was an event designed for roamers but if a server shows up with 50 people they will always win. What’s the point?

People will learn the new maps but the mechanics in the maps are ill conceived and harmful to community interaction/actual WvW and may greatly increase the rate of erosion in the WvW playerbase.

Possible solutions:
- Some manner in which human interaction triggers upgrades
- Upgrade timers (not supply amount) dependant on dollys getting in
- A flat bonus amount of points or a multiplier on the map for tick from the central event
- A tournament to actually get people into the maps

Last thing, should a dev ever read this, there is a ton of new people in WvW atm and the experience is, to be frank, lame. A few quick reactions might actual increase retention….

RlyOsim.2497:

Not exactly related but certainly in the same vein is the central event. It seems it was an event designed for roamers but if a server shows up with 50 people they will always win. What’s the point?

The bigger number of people will always win this event as you have to run to the mob, kill it and then run to the npc to hand the core in. Every group bigger than the other will automatically win.
I did this event alone today and I had a shot to make it in time, had 6 cores brought in, was at ~9% of the event done and still had 50 mins left on the clock. Then the mob I wanted to kill pretended to be a GS warrior and rushed away, I ran after him, than he rushed the other direction and so on until he reset. That was the point where I thought “I refuse to do this event – I will never attempt to do it again – let them destroy our gate with lasers I DON’T CARE!”

On Topic:
I agree with a lot of what has been said – human interaction would be nice but I still haven’t figured out what I’d like to see.

Edit: Style