Guild Wars 2

Towers can be easily ignored for use other than for PPT or placement for siege. I would like to see towers have a greater effect on Keeps and Garrison on Borderlands.

With 4 towers, be it Desert or Alpine borderlands; North East, South East, North West and South West, there is great potential for these towers to have great effect on Keeps and Garrisons.

Eastern Towers would affect Eastern Keeps as Western Towers would affect Western Keeps.

All 4 towers on a borderland would affect garrison.

To start, let’s take the Keeps and Garrison and reference them as if they are all currently max Upgrade Level of 3. Fortified Walls and Gates.

These should be impervious to PvD, they should take incredible amounts of resources to batter down.

Let’s take Eastern Keep for this example.

For each of the Eastern Towers held by the homeland server, the Easter Keep gains an additional bonus to defensive status for Gates and Walls. Defensive facility siege will have higher health and deal more damage.

For each of the Eastern Towers held by the invaders, Keeps defenses receive a penalty to defensive status for Gates and Walls. Defensive facility siege will have lower health and deal less damage.

Edit: One eastern Tower held by Homeland and One Eastern Tower held by Invader would result in a natural Level 3 defense in the Eastern Keep

Bonuses and penalties should not be high or low enough to cause major imbalance but enough to make capturing the towers by either side worth taking the time to do.

Garrison

The Garrison should indeed more so than Keeps be mostly invulnerable to being easily conquered by an enemy, no matter who holds it.

In order to bring the Garrison’s defenses down to a penalized state, all four towers must be taken.

2 towers held by the enemy will bring the Garrison’s defenses to the normal level 3 Fortified state making the facility attack-able, 1 tower held by the enemy will make the Garrison attack-able but just barely and take even more reduced damage to Gates, Walls and Siege.

If all four towers are held by the defenders, the Garrison will be impervious to damage.

Upgrades or downgrades will follow the Tick Timer so timing will be important, especially for the Garrison.

Quick list of Pros-

Towers actually become useful as strategic targets. (other than PPT or Seige placement)

*Blob forces may have to decide to split to attack Keeps/Garrison as well as defend towers from being retaken.

*Medium sized roaming groups may decide that sitting a tower and defending would be a better use of their resources as in order for the enemy to take Keeps/Garrison, they will potentially need to take the towers first.

Towers will once again become a good spot for combat chances.

*Off Hour Crews (small/medium roamers) will have to spend a greater amount of time and resources to flip an enemy borderland while everyone else is sleeping.

Quick list of Cons-

Small/Medium roaming groups will have little to no chance of stealing Keeps or Garrison and most likely be relegated to camps and towers.

See * points from Pros list (Depending on point of view)

Please give your thoughts.

Currently I am basing this on fully upgraded Keeps and Garrisons. I’m not sure if anything level 1 or 2 should be affected the same.

Add Pros and Cons

This was pretty rushed but I think the concept is solid if not all the the specifics.

interesting ideas imo

Thank you, I would love to see the towers have more of a direct affect on the Borderlands.

Doesn’t seem like the idea is catching any interest in this sea of negativity going on in the WvW forums though.

I am tired of complaining about linking. I wanted to submit a positive idea for WvW.

This is a good idea worth discussing. Its quite detailed and complex (maybe why not many comments).

So far the only suggestion for making towers relevant is to have them be in treb range of a keep. (Besides my own suggestion of having to go through the northern towers to get to the keep, which no one commented on either). I think being in treb range works for Alpine but on other BL’s it would be nice if there were some other mechanic to make towers valuable. Otherwise you’re locked into the design of Alpine and a new map would not really be that different.

Some observations I had when reading your proposal:

• I don’t think this needs to be done on Alpine since the towers there are already useful.

• How easy would this be to code? Would it be easy to change Desert to this? Easier than moving the towers on Desert? If so I think this would be fantastic for DBL.

• How will players react to stronger fortification?
  • People like to ninja stuff with small groups. Ninjaing would be harder.
  • They didn’t like the stronger gates that were implemented. Or the higher cost to guild catas.
• Defensive siege should not be any stronger than it is now in terms of player damage – people hate how strong AC damage is.
  • However, if the current max AC damage is what you get with owning the nearest towers AND AC damage would be less otherwise then people might actually love it that way.

If populations were relatively similar I think this would be great. My main concern is that this may make the stronger server even stronger. And only add to the imbalance if it exists. I don’t know that it would, it may help the weaker server. But that would need to be fleshed out.

Johje Holan.4607:

Some observations I had when reading your proposal:

• I don’t think this needs to be done on Alpine since the towers there are already useful.

Yes, towers are useful in Alpine, but I was looking at a more direct link between towers and Keeps/Garrison. Trebs can be counter trebbed by a decent team. I was hoping to establish something that makes the towers a necessity to hold (by either side) to tip the scales to be favorable in taking the higher objective.

• How easy would this be to code? Would it be easy to change Desert to this? Easier than moving the towers on Desert? If so I think this would be fantastic for DBL.

I honestly have no clue :-/

• How will players react to stronger fortification?
  • People like to ninja stuff with small groups. Ninjaing would be harder.
  • They didn’t like the stronger gates that were implemented. Or the higher cost to guild catas.

Ninjaing would most likely be relegated down to Towers and Camps. Which would be more feasible than a small group taking an entire Keep or Garrison. The stronger gates would not be on the towers, and taking the towers would diminish the strength or the fortified K/G gates and walls.
Although I can only hope many would accept the reasoning behind this and agree. People have different perspectives on things so I don’t expect everyone to agree.

• Defensive siege should not be any stronger than it is now in terms of player damage – people hate how strong AC damage is.
  • However, if the current max AC damage is what you get with owning the nearest towers AND AC damage would be less otherwise then people might actually love it that way.

This would not affect placed siege, only the upgrade siege inherent to the Keep/Garrison. Cannons, Mortars, Oil.

If populations were relatively similar I think this would be great. My main concern is that this may make the stronger server even stronger. And only add to the imbalance if it exists. I don’t know that it would, it may help the weaker server. But that would need to be fleshed out.

I agree with this, although I am viewing my suggested change to actually cater to the smaller groups.
As long as towers are kept, smaller groups would have a better chance at defending Keeps/Garrison from the larger. If the larger takes the towers, they will have to split their force to keep the towers (and in doing so keep the debuff against their objective) or risk losing the towers to a turn over and once again facing a strengthened Keep/Garrison.

In retrospect to my OP pertaining to Buffs and Debuffs from towers to Keeps/Garrison occuring at the turn of the Tick clock, maybe it should occur as the Towers are actually flipped. Thus you would time your assault with the turning of a tower, and the defenders have a chance to regain their defensive posture if they can get the towers re-flipped quick enough.

I like this idea. Combined with a proper layout of the areas, it would make the towers very strategically relevant. Though, I would make it so that just the tower(s) that share the same yak path as a keep provide the benefits. So NET and NWT would be tied to garri, SET would be tied to the hills, and SWT would be tied to the bay.

Also, I’d lower the benefits one stage from what you’re proposing, and add a twist. I think that the yaks should take supplies to the towers, then a second set of yaks should take that to the keep. So if a tower isn’t held, the keep wouldn’t get supplies, and if the camp isn’t held, the keep would be able to at least get whatever supplies the tower had in it as long as the yak makes it from the tower to the keep. Though that might require a change in the layout, but….. to really make the towers strategically relevant a change in the layout is necessary. (swap the position of the north camp and the garrison, for starters, so that the towers are actually in front of the keep instead of behind it)

That’s a variant definitely worth looking at.

1 tower per Keep, Owning the tower gains the Keep Defender a buff, not owning the tower = Keep with no extra buff.

2 Towers for the Garrison. 2 towers = double buff 1 tower = single buff No towers = normal level upgrade no buff. This would take out Penalties/Debuffs on the Keeps/Garrisons
Also it wouldn’t be as difficult as having to obtain multiple. The buffs should still be strong enough to make taking the tower(s) a priority prior to attempts to take down Keeps/Garrison.

I like the Yak idea. I left out camps and yaks as I figured I had enough to work with on the towers for now without spreading the focus to thin.

Eventually after (if of course) the towers show promise, even owning the Keeps could end up with an effect on the Garrison. But one step at a time or we could end up in a worse situation as far as balance goes.

Daemonne.5018:

That’s a variant definitely worth looking at.

1 tower per Keep, Owning the tower gains the Keep Defender a buff, not owning the tower = Keep with no extra buff.

2 Towers for the Garrison. 2 towers = double buff 1 tower = single buff No towers = normal level upgrade no buff. This would take out Penalties/Debuffs on the Keeps/Garrisons
Also it wouldn’t be as difficult as having to obtain multiple. The buffs should still be strong enough to make taking the tower(s) a priority prior to attempts to take down Keeps/Garrison.

I like the Yak idea. I left out camps and yaks as I figured I had enough to work with on the towers for now without spreading the focus to thin.

Eventually after (if of course) the towers show promise, even owning the Keeps could end up with an effect on the Garrison. But one step at a time or we could end up in a worse situation as far as balance goes.

i like the idea of the keeps having an effect on the garrison. The question would be which direction to go in. Have it add additional layers of buffs to the garrison for the home server, or have a keep remove 1 layer of the garrison’s buff for the away server so that servers are encouraged to take their corner first?