Hello fellow GWII’ers.
I have recently explored the world of war, military, combat and tactics (not by actually being in a war, but reading, watching documentaries, etc…), and since GW II has a unique war experience to it (WvW), I thought Id share some ideas on how this game mode (in my humble opinion) could be greatly improved.
Without further ado, here’s what I propose:
1. A bigger world. This is crucial for a proper war to be able to develop, as it offers more terrain and variability in tactics. It would also require much more scouting and caution to be able to act accordingly, aswell as add importance to the siege. Therefore I would get rid of the borderlands as such, and make Eternal battlegrounds a fierce map the size of all 4 together with roaring war. This would benefit the gameplay in such a manner that everybody would be focusing on a single battlefield (and being able to react more quickly and powerfully) therefore removing the currently often divided communities problem, and adding even more strength and connection to every server (or group). Another bonus is, working on a single map is easier to manage (you always know where siege is to refresh it, you always see everything of importance), yet harder (or different at the very least) to master without caution, as you cannot just withdraw to one of the empty borderlands when things go south for you, but have to outplay the enemy on the field instead. Note that this point is in a way crucial for others to properly work and be utilized, but if the community and/or the administration do not agree with it, it can be ignored aswell. A mild alternative is to make a way to travel from EB to a borderland via a cave near the edge (simillar to the JP maybe?) wirhout a waypoint, and make borderlands waypointless as such (except your home one). I would be honored and glad to help develop these ideas further aswell, via map designs, etc…
2. Environment is key. Sun Tzu (an ancient chinese general and the author of The Art Of War) mentioned that without great understanding of the terrain and proper use of it, an army shall never be victorious. GW II already has some environmental strategies included, but more could be added to make the gameplay more strategic, rewarding for the cautious, and penalising for the easygoing. An example of this could be a giant dam that would work much like a wall, only being able to take siege damage, and once collapsed, would destroy all siege placed on the river (which would flow strategically through the map), knock-down all players in it (even allied to the player who collapsed the dam, so be extra cautious!) and release agressive skelk throughout the map. This would mean that the commanders would always require good map awareness, scouts would be needed to keep an eye out on the dam, and wise, cunning players could beat (or put to shame at the very least) armies of players running around with no caution. Alternatively we could add rainy weather ocasionally, disabling any fiery siege (again adding the importance of environment), add footsteps of some sort (perhaps only when 10 or more people run over a single spot? Perhaps avoidable if walking slowly?) to make enemy tracking and counting easier (goes great with the larger map idea), adding jumping puzzles to strategically important locations (as a second path, or sometimes as the only one), etc… A way to implement the jumping puzzles would be to make a jumping puzzle extend from the outside to the inner part of a keep, over which an army could sneak into a keep by being cunning more easily, but during the jump they would be a vulnerable target for even a single defender (AoE fear, damage to the jumping stones, arrow carts, knock downs/backs, etc…). Again you could ofcourse fake a door attack and have your army travel over the puzzle for real instead to add more cunning and tactics. This would again call for constant defense and scouting.
2.1. The map must be filled with caverns, narrow passages, dense forestation and vegetation and simillar terrain types. These can be used as an advantage towards the enemy as a hiding spot, ambush, artilery preparation site or anything else. Some of these need to be near the main roads for extra danger. Water gates need to stay as they’re an amazing feature.
3. No combat swords!!! Big combat swords (signs on the map) are a way to encourage easygoing and simple minded commanding and zerging, and their removal can only be good. (requires scouts once again) However, there would/should be upgrades such as Scouting Guards available for keeps and simillar objectives, which would trigger the sword effect should a guard engage in combat with an enemy player. Should the scout see 10+ players, swords should change in color to signal the difficulty of a fight. More on this will be explained in the next paragraph.
4. Supplies are crucial. Should the enemy have defenses so strong that a hurricane cannot blow away, cutting off the supplies you shall still prevail. Another Sun Tzu inspired feature, which would increase the ability to win a fight with brain furthermore, and punish those only seeking fights, zerging brainlessly, or trying to bunker down on one spot permanently. Supplies are the only cost one should ever have with WvW (besides gear and siege obviously), but are a great cost. Supplies should be taken from an objective fast, should the team decide to reinforce it with Scouting Guards for example, and such a reinforcement would cost supplies every couple of minutes (to avoid putting an objective on steroids then starting slacking) so you should only ever hire these guards when the objective is likely to be attacked and you’ve no men to spare and scout it, or are attacking a distant objective and need to buy time. This would remove super built keeps being inaccessible, as the supply drain would be very significant under these conditions. Timers for such bonuses would still exist, but be slightly lower to compensate for the permanent effect they gave. The point of this feature is: No slacking, be active! Small objectives (yaks) are of great importance aswell so small teams or single roamers can benefit greatly; Good map awareness is needed for economic field control; Dont overspend supply, but dont leave it there either! More upgrades ideas will be coming shortly if the community finds this feature reasonable and interesting.
4.1. Man-held supplies in the time of need. Should a keep be running very low on supplies while under attack and the commander decides he requires supply more than men, a player could pick up supply from one spot, and take it to another. A player can pick up such supplies only a maximum of 5 at a time, and does not count with his own supply. Instead, it replaces the player’s weapon so he cannot fight with the supplies in hand. Should he carry this supply to a keep, he could leave it there. But while carrying it, he is a free kill. Dropping the supplies takes two seconds (to provide disadvantage in battle as opposed to those with ready weapons) and supplies disappear after dropped (to prevent intentional feeding and trolling). These supplies cannot be used to build without being dropped at an objective first however (or can, depending on the community response, but then take twice the time to build and are not affected by perks that speed this up). Similarly a player carrying these supplies cannot waypoint.
5. Gliding should be allowed, with some restrictions: Taking damage (even from a condition) makes you drop your glider until you fall down (think twice, be cautious); Gliding in combat IS possible (but still interrupted by damage), this is to add abit of dynamic movement; If rain is added (see point 2, Environment) gliding during it is disabled to add extra caution and weather issues. A new item, Thundershock System (developed by the asura, a siege item) is added, which makes a barely visible bubble around it that raises high into the air, that stuns anybody caught gliding above it, sending them into certain death. This is so towers and keeps succeptible to gliding attacks can be easily defended; similarly high ground will be (again, inspired by Sun Tzu’s stratagems) a priority should you want to launch an aerial attack, or prevent one. Whether the item is a siege weapon or a structural upgrade is debatable.
This is as far as the gameplay and mechanics are concerned. Furthermore I will suggest a few upgrades to WvW in other ways, such as rewards. If anybody has any questions or comments regarding this whatsoever, please, post! Should the idea get enough support both by community and GW II administration, I am more than willing to back up the developer team on anything, including providing some basic map drawings and designs, etc…
As far as the rewards go, WvW must make it back into the core game. I think it should return as a map completion requisite, as it is hardly any tougher to achieve than the PvE content, and most of the people with map completion (who got it earlier) agree that it was an outstandingly fun part of it, and very interesting aswell. WvW also needs to have some loot comparable to PvE; my advice regarding this is next:
a) Make a “prestige” counter, that goes up with time, and goes down as you lose objectives. After seizing an objective it is slightly increased, and the loot is somewhat based on the prestige counter of your team. Here’s why: Zerging maps that flip a lot of objectives per hour will have a low prestige counter cause of the constant objective losing. Therefore the loot will be about average for the players (as it is now for example). A map where a team is defending strongly and willingly, slowly taking the upper hand will have a lot of prestige for this team, as they arent losing objectives much and are playing it by brain. This team will be getting better than average loot, but because of how slow they are playing it, abit less frequently. Still, they’ll be getting more loot per hour than the zerging team, thanks to their examplary command. This would prevent WvW from being too rich on rewards (zerging and farming wont work so well) while still being great for casual WvW’ers. Aditionally this adds to the importance of defense and witty plays.
Should this idea be considered to make it into the game, Id happily help the developers shape the right formula for prestige rating.
b) Scouts are left out. Sun Tzu (yes, this man inspired me big time) claims that the scouts are in fact the thing that wins wars. I agree. Loot should be squad based, and the commander should have the option to name several squad members as scouts. By doing so, the commander becomes a lootbag, and whenever he claims a reward (e.g. loot a chest) he gets additional loot for each scout on his team – however he doesnt actually get the loot, loot is just bound to him invisibly- and when a person named as a scout gets in range with the commander, he can actually loot the commander to get his share of loot (just as if he had always been there to claim loot). This way scouts get their share, commander can always kick them out should they be freeloading, etc… Win-win situation.
This is what I have come up with so far; should anything else spark my brain, I will come forth with it. Should I find any interesting comment on this thread, I will publish it.
I have put quite a lot of thought into this, and I find it reasonably good, however it does require time and effort to properly develop. That is why I propose we, the community, help build it.
Let me know how you feel about this.
Regards,
Shadow Master Karil
IQGoesgwii
