At what point did WvW become no different then a game of whack-a-mole with forts? WvW, in my experience, has become almost entirely PvE. Zergs don’t want to fight other zergs, they just want to get to the next paper fort and reap the rewards. There is a total break down of conflict from where I am standing.
Problems:
1) A lack of ways to actively defend/sentry fortifications.
2) Aside from waypoints, forts are not worth anything to the player. And waypoints are not low hanging fruit, as they would say.
3) Rewards are stacked in favor of offense. There is nothing you can get on defense that you can’t get on offense both faster and better.
4) The ever increasing weight of offensive abilities bought with WXP. As the total average of WXP per character increases, so will the effects of all these offensive abilities. As it is, more often then not, a friendly NPC guard next to you is a liability, and enemy guards are an asset when fighting other players.
My initial thoughts on solutions:
1) There needs to be events that require players to actively standby within forts. This paves the way toward rewards. Without rewards, the majority of players will not defend positions they helped to gain.
2) Forts must be an asset. Forts need to provide much better boons then they currently do. I’m not sure what those could be, but I’m open to suggestions.
3) With more ways to actively defend and sentry locations, you can start to create better rewards for defense, but that’s not enough, the rewards need to be something different. If defense grants rewards that are made up of the same boons that offense offers, players will still simply do what is more efficient. Varying the rewards for offense and defense creates an equal spread of defenders and attackers. Thus interesting conflict.
4) I’m not sure about fighting fire-with-fire in this case. I would rather think it better to make the events spawned by forts be the counter to this issue.
Everything starts with solution #1 in my opinion. And I’ve got a couple of ideas:
Moral Events) Have an NPC from the fort spawn an event. Players who interact with the NPC get a bundle of letters. The letters then need to be distributed to other NPCs. The final NPC in the chain gets a buff. A buff like the invincibility buff that supervisors have is actually my thought. Its just enough of a buff that a guard who has it can be trouble for a small group trying to ninja your keep, yet not a real threat to a zerg of any size.
Supply Runs) Occasionally have an NPC spawn an event. Like before, let the NPC grant players a bundle of some sort. When the player then takes the bundle to a camp supervisor it turns into another bundle that is full of supply. Bringing the bundle back would give the fort something like 20 supply. Its not as good as a dolyak, but it might be more of a sure thing. It would be just enough supply that a player could set up some basic siege using their personal supply with it. Also, players who often run back and forth from camps to repair walls and build cannons will be grateful for a reward for that thing they do already.
I also suggest letting these events, and others, ramp up in frequency as the forts are upgraded.