Guild Wars 2

I really enjoy WvW and I really like it when there’s some epic battle for a tower, keep, or massive open field battle between two big groups of people.

But those are rare times.

And most times it’s just independent zergs running around and capping towers and keeps without even blinking an eye.

In short, it’s just too easy.

No one plays defense, because there are no rewards for it. So I’m willing to bet no one has put their points into cannon mastery or oil mastery. Likely arrow cart or ballista, but even the former gets nullified from ram mastery. So I’d hedge my bets that most people are focused offense – so you have superior blueprints now, with bonus to offensive points and guard killer and everything else, and towers and keeps fold like paper, even fully upgraded.

What’s the point in upgrading anything? Guards are completely useless. Won’t even slow down a zerg one second. Reinforced doors are completely useless – superior blueprints and ram mastery still melts them like nothing. Fortified walls, if you can get them when you’re not the dominating server in the matchup, are nice, but take forever to get to. Sure, you can dump seige everywhere for defense, but unless someone is there refreshing the timer (and not getting any rewards for doing so), it gets boring and old.

TL;DR – It’s too easy to flip camps, towers and keeps.

1.) Doors need to be looked at. Fortified doors maybe?

2.) Guards clearly have no point at all. Upgrade them further perhaps?

3.) I’d like to see some type of portable seige weapon that can be moved (albeit slowly) around the battlefield whose soul purpose is to destroy zergs. Some kind of asuran lightning cannon, that the closer people are together, the more damage they take and the more the lightning jumps from one person to the next. This weapon won’t do any damage to towers or keeps.

4.) Currently there is ZERO point to upgrading camps beyond possibly the increased supply delivery. I’m not sure what can be done here. More upgrades maybe?

5.) There has GOT to be SOME way to reward defenders more. And I understand the refresh timer on siege, but MAN is it annoying.

Who knows. Maybe I’m way out of left field and maybe one could make the argument that this would just help dominating servers dominate more, but does it matter at this point? It’s just too easy. Thoughts?

I have points in oil mastery and cannon mastery. and rams and catapults too, of course, since offense is the only thing that this game currently rewards.

but sometimes defense is important, even if the game doesn’t reward it, and for those times some of us do have the needed masteries.

-ken

I agree it is too easy. But I’m afraid it all comes down to population balance again.

Its only easy because the other side does not have enough people. When you do come across that rare close match, people defend, people fight and its not easy.

I do agree with your suggestions. Given that the sides are uneven, Anet has got to introduce some sort of handicapping mechanism.

An Asuran laser cannon would be awesome. Or better yet, rather than a portable siege that can be destroyed, make it a new WvW only Utility Skill. That way blobs have to be carefull always because they never know who has that skill. And if a blob of 40 people stacked all on top of one another gets hit by it – bam one shot them all.

Agreed. But it will take a severe overhaul to fix wvwvw

aaron.7850:

Agreed. But it will take a severe overhaul to fix wvwvw

Wich will never happen, as example if 2 or 3 servers combine they can farm alot of money and WXP, just keep flipping stuff one after another even if is SM castle, trade by another one and keep looping the keeps and towers with the zerg, avoid all contact with the other groups.

It is like WxP and a few copper ranning into your wallet.

Come to t1. Most towers and keeps are all fully upgraded, scouted and filled with superior siege. Commanders drop offensive pushes for defense all the time, because holding upgraded structures is far more important. 2v1’s are common, because that’s what it takes to flip an upgraded keep with a waypoint and a map-zerg inside.

All that said, the league is killing us. The matchups pre-season 1 were great, intense and ppt/fight driven. Now, boredom.

I dunno. We fought off a blob last night at our keep on eb for an hour, before being over whelmed and eventually losing the whole map. When facing superior numbers defense is becoming next to impossible.

Home keeps r a bit different. The whole map will usually pull to defend it

Stark.1350:

I really enjoy WvW and I really like it when there’s some epic battle for a tower, keep, or massive open field battle between two big groups of people.

But those are rare times.

And most times it’s just independent zergs running around and capping towers and keeps without even blinking an eye.

In short, it’s just too easy.

No one plays defense, because there are no rewards for it. So I’m willing to bet no one has put their points into cannon mastery or oil mastery. Likely arrow cart or ballista, but even the former gets nullified from ram mastery. So I’d hedge my bets that most people are focused offense – so you have superior blueprints now, with bonus to offensive points and guard killer and everything else, and towers and keeps fold like paper, even fully upgraded.

What’s the point in upgrading anything? Guards are completely useless. Won’t even slow down a zerg one second. Reinforced doors are completely useless – superior blueprints and ram mastery still melts them like nothing. Fortified walls, if you can get them when you’re not the dominating server in the matchup, are nice, but take forever to get to. Sure, you can dump seige everywhere for defense, but unless someone is there refreshing the timer (and not getting any rewards for doing so), it gets boring and old.

TL;DR – It’s too easy to flip camps, towers and keeps.

1.) Doors need to be looked at. Fortified doors maybe?

2.) Guards clearly have no point at all. Upgrade them further perhaps?

3.) I’d like to see some type of portable seige weapon that can be moved (albeit slowly) around the battlefield whose soul purpose is to destroy zergs. Some kind of asuran lightning cannon, that the closer people are together, the more damage they take and the more the lightning jumps from one person to the next. This weapon won’t do any damage to towers or keeps.

4.) Currently there is ZERO point to upgrading camps beyond possibly the increased supply delivery. I’m not sure what can be done here. More upgrades maybe?

5.) There has GOT to be SOME way to reward defenders more. And I understand the refresh timer on siege, but MAN is it annoying.

Who knows. Maybe I’m way out of left field and maybe one could make the argument that this would just help dominating servers dominate more, but does it matter at this point? It’s just too easy. Thoughts?

I am really getting sick and tired of this stuff about no one playing defense. Transfer servers.

On SBI, we defend. We upgrade keeps, towers, etc.

We took BP’s garrison on friday night, and it took them almost 2 hours to finally get it back from us.

Maguuma defends, BP defends, FA defends, SBI defends. And I am not only talking about garrisons. All these servers even defends towers, and sometimes camps.

Just because defense doesn’t award much karma, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have rewards. The number 1 reward is fun. Defending normally leads to good fights. It also will lead to some nice bag drops. There are incentives for defending, but no one really pays attention to them.

People are talking about different things here.

Defense is only fun if someone is actually attacking. Standing somewhere waiting for someone to show up and attack is boring.

Defense is also pointless if you’re server is vastly outgunned. So that’s another reason people don’t do it.

Also the worst part about defense is that with the siege creep, it is getting far to common for everything turning into “treb wars”.

The other issue is that often it is easiest to just build a ton of AC’s and a few balis and just wait for them to knock a wall down and just choke them out at the breach with siege.

Stark.1350:

I really enjoy WvW and I really like it when there’s some epic battle for a tower, keep, or massive open field battle between two big groups of people.

But those are rare times.

And most times it’s just independent zergs running around and capping towers and keeps without even blinking an eye.

In short, it’s just too easy.

No one plays defense, because there are no rewards for it. So I’m willing to bet no one has put their points into cannon mastery or oil mastery. Likely arrow cart or ballista, but even the former gets nullified from ram mastery. So I’d hedge my bets that most people are focused offense – so you have superior blueprints now, with bonus to offensive points and guard killer and everything else, and towers and keeps fold like paper, even fully upgraded.

What’s the point in upgrading anything? Guards are completely useless. Won’t even slow down a zerg one second. Reinforced doors are completely useless – superior blueprints and ram mastery still melts them like nothing. Fortified walls, if you can get them when you’re not the dominating server in the matchup, are nice, but take forever to get to. Sure, you can dump seige everywhere for defense, but unless someone is there refreshing the timer (and not getting any rewards for doing so), it gets boring and old.

TL;DR – It’s too easy to flip camps, towers and keeps.

1.) Doors need to be looked at. Fortified doors maybe?

2.) Guards clearly have no point at all. Upgrade them further perhaps?

3.) I’d like to see some type of portable seige weapon that can be moved (albeit slowly) around the battlefield whose soul purpose is to destroy zergs. Some kind of asuran lightning cannon, that the closer people are together, the more damage they take and the more the lightning jumps from one person to the next. This weapon won’t do any damage to towers or keeps.

4.) Currently there is ZERO point to upgrading camps beyond possibly the increased supply delivery. I’m not sure what can be done here. More upgrades maybe?

5.) There has GOT to be SOME way to reward defenders more. And I understand the refresh timer on siege, but MAN is it annoying.

Who knows. Maybe I’m way out of left field and maybe one could make the argument that this would just help dominating servers dominate more, but does it matter at this point? It’s just too easy. Thoughts?

+1, completely agree with this. WvW has been on the decline for some time now as zerging has gotten more prevalent. There is a serious imbalance between the speed it takes to capture something versus the speed it takes to organize a defense of something. This phenomenon is shocking to believe simply because ArenaNet has had a year to work on game balance in WvW and we have very little to show for it.

I have serious doubts that anyone at ArenaNet even plays WvW and understands how it works. I really hope GW2 gets its kitten together.

style.6173:

I’ll repeat for the 100th time. People do not play defense because it is boring. It is about siege placement and then using that siege. It gets old fast.

Similarly, it is also boring to attack a well defended structure. Most people just stand around while the range classes clear siege and the traited people use siege. It’s just not fun.

What is fun is actually fighting against people.

I will repeat for the 100th time, that people do play defense. Just depends on who you are following, and what server you are on.

Most of the best battles that I take part in, are normally us defending, or us fighting something that is being defended.

Their are rewards for defending. BAGS, and more BAGS. But, I guess people who just like to PvD, because it is the path of least resistence, wouldn’t really understand that.

And, anyone who says they want good fights, but they don’t want to defend, is full of kitten. Defending leads to good fights, even when outmanned. It is more fun to defend when you are out manned.

for us it depends on the commanders. You can’t hold a tower or camp if the zerg will not support it. Some commanders do sometimes, some almost never do.

It would be awesome if defending was more active. Let players actively help upgrade the keep (like the workers do) and then reward them for that. Or let them do something else in the keep that’s actually rewarding. Give exp/WXP/silver for hitting X number of checkpoints around the interior of the keep every 3 minutes – just promote defense and more people will at least consider it who don’t now (yes, I get it, higher tier servers already do this – but are you saying you’d say no to making it more rewarding?).

Other than fixing the WP timer stuff, the other change I’d like to see is that the portal into/out of a keep/tower is de-activated while combat is occuring near it. Why do you get to run through a shut and locked gate when attackers are hitting it? No, make them come out another entrance and have no easy nearby way back in and defending (even if it’s only with a couple people) will become a priority and will make people have to commit to open field battles to save a tower (one gate) if they weren’t defending. This would make scouting a higher priority so you can get a force inside before it falls under siege. I would love this kind of system.

Why are so many people talking about defending and wxp? Am I the only person who doesn’t play WvW for wxp? Sure, I get wxp while playing, but it isn’t my goal.

I have points in cannon mastery.. it’s great for collecting bags.

Hop on cannon.. watch your zerg track enemy down.. smash enemy zerg with cannon.. your zerg mops them up.. proceed to collect oodles of bags

I do agree though.. guards are useless.. I’d like to see them upgraded to legendary.. and I’d like to see about 5x as many outside each tower. That and let them revive and heal each other.. that should throw a wrench into the offense’s plans lol.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I have points in cannon mastery.. it’s great for collecting bags.

Hop on cannon.. watch your zerg track enemy down.. smash enemy zerg with cannon.. your zerg mops them up.. proceed to collect oodles of bags

I do agree though.. guards are useless.. I’d like to see them upgraded to legendary.. and I’d like to see about 5x as many outside each tower. That and let them revive and heal each other.. that should throw a wrench into the offense’s plans lol.

Yeah. Also have them scale depending on how many enemy players are in wvw. That way, at least PvD would be more exciting. Would be awesome if they could make something for servers who have a small off hour presence. Say, a group of npcs that will go out and attack towers in an attempt to take them back. Siegemaster isn’t that useful when no one is around.

I like some of the stuff that they showed in the Edge of the Mists. I hope they bring those tougher guards, and the elemental defense style hazards, into WvW.

Besides population balancing, in many games you see mechanisms implemented to inhibit zerging. For example, starcraft. Yeah I may throw a population cap of battlecruisers at you (or a better analogy may be 400 fully upgraded zerglings). But even a couple high templars can storm that kitten down, then bam, counter attack and you’re in trouble. The game forces you to think and plan out your battles. Frequently in GW2, often the plan is to karma train with little thought to anything else.

The maps favour the attacker and not the defender.

This should be looked at. ESPECIALLY in the home borderlands.

Its a shame there isn’t much reward for defending. The only problem is that they would have to determine what counts as defending to keep people from going AFK in keeps to make money by doing literally nothing.

Blackarps.1974:

Its a shame there isn’t much reward for defending. The only problem is that they would have to determine what counts as defending to keep people from going AFK in keeps to make money by doing literally nothing.

i think as of now you’ ll have to do some repairing or fighting to get credit for the defending event…. don’t remember if staying afk still give you credit for the defending event…

People will defend in a close match. Blow outs well, why bother…

Johje Holan.4607:

People are talking about different things here.

Defense is only fun if someone is actually attacking. Standing somewhere waiting for someone to show up and attack is boring.

Defense is also pointless if you’re server is vastly outgunned. So that’s another reason people don’t do it.

Attackers come near tower,
Attackers hit the door and notice the huge number of AC circle
Attackers leave.
The end of defense.
Then Attackers attacked a undefended T1 tower and takes it in 1min.
Problem is taking a empty T1 tower give the same reward as taking a defended T3 tower(maybe less since some of u are needed to clear the enemies on the wall )
Why bother taking the risk?

because trebs in the T1 undefended tower won’t reach Garrison. Taking undefended tower is unsatisfying for those who want a fight. Not enough loot bags in undefended towers.

Upgrading and defending structures should give rewards. Holding upgraded structures should give more “points”. Taking upgraded structures should be more rewarding than taking paper structures.
In general there should be more incentive to go to places where the enemy is – wxp did the complete opposite.

PS:

Come to t1. Most towers and keeps are all fully upgraded, scouted and filled with superior siege. Commanders drop offensive pushes for defense all the time, because holding upgraded structures is far more important. 2v1’s are common, because that’s what it takes to flip an upgraded keep with a waypoint and a map-zerg inside.

All that said, the league is killing us. The matchups pre-season 1 were great, intense and ppt/fight driven. Now, boredom.

What you wrote there is not true – but good luck recruiting more queuelings.
http://gw2stats.net/wvw/live_map/1005#

KOK.2650:

Johje Holan.4607:

People are talking about different things here.

Defense is only fun if someone is actually attacking. Standing somewhere waiting for someone to show up and attack is boring.

Defense is also pointless if you’re server is vastly outgunned. So that’s another reason people don’t do it.

Attackers come near tower,
Attackers hit the door and notice the huge number of AC circle
Attackers leave.
The end of defense.
Then Attackers attacked a undefended T1 tower and takes it in 1min.
Problem is taking a empty T1 tower give the same reward as taking a defended T3 tower(maybe less since some of u are needed to clear the enemies on the wall )
Why bother taking the risk?

The answer to this should be obvious. Are you playing WVW to fight NPC guards or are you playing WVW to, you know, fight other players? If you just want to fight guards play PVE in the normal map. It’s called WvW because your world’s players want to demolish the other world’s players.

It’s true though that incentives aren’t properly balanced here. Loot bags are great but something is off about completing “events” for defense. I feel like I’ve never completed a “Defend this land” event unless an enemy actually passed by. So what that means is an attacker can be more productive with his time, as anywhere he attacks he can complete the event, but someone who defends won’t always be able to complete the event unless someone attacks.

That said, someone brought up Starcraft and even in RTS attacking is the way to go, you don’t win RTs games by defending and while you do need to be able to defend, it’s attacking that wins battles. Same principle applies here I should say — attacking intrinsically should net you better rewards. The challenge is for good commanders to have their scouts in place to know where the enemy is, and defend appropriately based on enemy zerg movements.

It doesn’t make sense to be gain rewards for just sitting around doing nothing — in this sense, your gain is the WXP points for keeping the objectives rather than from karma event completion.

But come on, again why is this an issue? People need to stop with the carrot stick approach — that’s what’s killing the game. Whatever happened to playing because it was fun to beat other people up?! When I get into an FPS multiplayer fragfest the fun is in killing people, not in getting karma points or whatever. While RPG gamers do expect some advancement and loot, the fun of a game should be in the core gameplay mechanics first. If we are playing just to get that carrot and not to enjoy the gameplay mechanics, then we might want to re-evaluate our reasons for gaming.

One way that seems easy to do to help the defenders would be to add more exit/entrances for the defenders at keeps. Zergs would have to spread out more to stop defenders from trying to entering keeps plus defenders would have multiple options to fight the attackers without having to funnel out everyone from a single entrance. It just seems very odd that the defenders have fewer options then the attackers, attackers can knock down walls, knock in doors but the defenders have to come out of a single exit unless their willing to give up the element of surprise(plus some of your health) by jumping off the keep to attack without funneling out an exit which just happens to be in front of their whole zerg/group.