Guild Wars 2

You see, I am one of those Defender guys. I like to play with strategy in WvW. But alas, for some reason 9 out of 10 commanders in WvW just RUN over the map, conquer and then don’t care heck to actually built defenses.

Yes I know, conquering gives WXP, defending gives only very little. Which also seems a big issue, so since the tournament, EVERYONE is just running over the blasted map! NOBODY cares for strategy! NOBODY cares to hold one of the important keeps! Let alone secure supply lines! It is all just one chaotic zerg horde!

I am just sick and tired spending hours to built the defenses of keeps, standing guard, which I do out of IDEALISM, because I PAY arrow carts, I PAY catapults, I PAY keep upgrades, and if I call, nobody comes to defend, because all are running in Zergs. Yes, I understand, it is a different playstyle. But I am just tired of this mindless zerging and the total loathing of any strategy. So you can find another idiot trying to defend the keeps and protect your backs!

Sidenote: Anet really needs to look into a mechanism to prevent this keep swapping every 2 minutes! You can built HOURS of defenses and they are overrun by 5-10 people in 90 seconds. That just plain wrong if you ask me. I really would like more strategy and less running madness.

You answered your own comment. Defense is not fun for most people. Why would ANET introduce a new mechanic that makes the game less fun for most of the players?

I know its a different apple, but I loved defending in WG and AB in wow bgs, but defending in this game is just…. boring

style.6173:

You answered your own comment. Defense is not fun for most people. Why would ANET introduce a new mechanic that makes the game less fun for most of the players?

People do what gives WXP. Give defense the same WXP as attack, make castle sieges take longer, and people do do defense just as much as offense. The reward and siege system just needs balancing.

@aaron: It is boing, because it goes way too fast! Building a good defense takes hours, and is overrun in a minute! Thats just horrible balancing. If its balanced, it is also more exciting.

elikal.7356:

style.6173:

You answered your own comment. Defense is not fun for most people. Why would ANET introduce a new mechanic that makes the game less fun for most of the players?

People do what gives WXP. Give defense the same WXP as attack, make castle sieges take longer, and people do do defense just as much as offense. The reward and siege system just needs balancing.

@aaron: It is boing, because it goes way too fast! Building a good defense takes hours, and is overrun in a minute! Thats just horrible balancing. If its balanced, it is also more exciting.

That wouldn’t make any difference for me, or most players in my opinion. Defending needs to be made fun, like it was back before the AoE limit, permanent retaliation, revive spamming, and most of all- mindless zerging.

Actually it still wasn’t all that fun then, definitely an area of WvW they could afford to improve upon.

EDIT: Oh and let’s not forget the cornucopia of line of sight bugs with both siege and abilities which near always favor attackers over defenders.

Well whatevs… but I think WvW really needs some changes. Just running over the map 24/7 is sort of boring too.

I think one of the major problems is that the attackers have the advantage no matter what. Pretty much no matter where you put your siege it can be aoe’d down. They come in take out your cannons, oil and arrow carts and your left pretty much defenseless. Some towers like mendons gap are almost completely worthless cus there is a big hill overlooking it they can set up siege on. Not to mention almost all towers can be trebbed to heck and back from another keep/tower/stomemist making your defensive siege useless.

I dont know what server you play on but scouts, siege and fierce tower/keep defense is a commonplace in T1 NA.

Liquid.9672:

I dont know what server you play on but scouts, siege and fierce tower/keep defense is a commonplace in T1 NA.

This gentlemen is correct.

Contrary to popular opinion Tier 1 is not full of zergers.

Every T1 server uses scouts, builders, and defenders on every map. We play to win and sometimes that means doing boring assignments, so we rotate every 30 minutes. It sounds like your play style is more suited for T1, may I suggest SoR ?

I don’t know what servers some of you are on. If you touch a Maguuma keep, you’d better hold onto your nipples, because kitten just got real.

I know that feel man, everyone has this crazy SM lust too. I tried that defense thing out again on friday and its just not worth it in its current form. Especially when 98% of ppl wont help you defend.

@OP,
Your issue is only the case on low pop servers / unbalanced matchups. You can try out any T1 server – things are a bit different here. We actually holding our keeps waypointed on every BL and have scouts/yak escorts 24/7.

No incentive to defend a keep with all the K-trains.

However my guild personally loves defending. You can farm minimally 300 kills from 1 keep, and upwards of 3-4k in a few hours easily if you are good and dont mind using siege.

JQ player here. We defended SMC against SoR and BG almost everytime we had stonemist. One particular battle was a three way battle in the lord room where most of use gained 2 or 3 world levels and rack up 100 + kills.

Defending is terribly boring, especially after the Ram Mastery making it tougher to defend than ever. I’m not willing to camp in a keep and wait for people to come after it but if I am near a keep that is being hit already, I’ll jump in it. Bottom line is, I play WvW for fun. Not only is defending extremely boring, it gives way less rewards. Upgrading stuff and patrolling for hours is also incredibly boring. Plus, in enemy borderlands it’s typically better to just drain their stuff instead of trying to defend it depending on the numbers you have and whether or not it looks possible for you to hold it.

You could also complain that people aren’t willing to escort dolyaks often enough. That is one of the most boring things ever and I do not believe in escorting a dolyak even if it’s helpful to my server.

I play the game for fun and it is much more fun to try to cap stuff than to try to defend stuff. Doesn’t matter to me if it’s worse for my server as long as it’s not overwhelmingly bad to the point I’m screwing over my server. If you are trying to help your server by doing all of these things but not having fun then you are wasting your time IMO. It’s a game and you should enjoy it.

Radian.2478:

Defending is terribly boring, especially after the Ram Mastery making it tougher to defend than ever. I’m not willing to camp in a keep and wait for people to come after it but if I am near a keep that is being hit already, I’ll jump in it. Bottom line is, I play WvW for fun. Not only is defending extremely boring, it gives way less rewards. Upgrading stuff and patrolling for hours is also incredibly boring. Plus, in enemy borderlands it’s typically better to just drain their stuff instead of trying to defend it depending on the numbers you have and whether or not it looks possible for you to hold it.

You could also complain that people aren’t willing to escort dolyaks often enough. That is one of the most boring things ever and I do not believe in escorting a dolyak even if it’s helpful to my server.

I play the game for fun and it is much more fun to try to cap stuff than to try to defend stuff. Doesn’t matter to me if it’s worse for my server as long as it’s not overwhelmingly bad to the point I’m screwing over my server. If you are trying to help your server by doing all of these things but not having fun then you are wasting your time IMO. It’s a game and you should enjoy it.

Defending is very fun in T1 NA. When you wipe enemy blob over and over again.

Punny.9210:

Radian.2478:

Defending is terribly boring, especially after the Ram Mastery making it tougher to defend than ever. I’m not willing to camp in a keep and wait for people to come after it but if I am near a keep that is being hit already, I’ll jump in it. Bottom line is, I play WvW for fun. Not only is defending extremely boring, it gives way less rewards. Upgrading stuff and patrolling for hours is also incredibly boring. Plus, in enemy borderlands it’s typically better to just drain their stuff instead of trying to defend it depending on the numbers you have and whether or not it looks possible for you to hold it.

You could also complain that people aren’t willing to escort dolyaks often enough. That is one of the most boring things ever and I do not believe in escorting a dolyak even if it’s helpful to my server.

I play the game for fun and it is much more fun to try to cap stuff than to try to defend stuff. Doesn’t matter to me if it’s worse for my server as long as it’s not overwhelmingly bad to the point I’m screwing over my server. If you are trying to help your server by doing all of these things but not having fun then you are wasting your time IMO. It’s a game and you should enjoy it.

Defending is very fun in T1 NA. When you wipe enemy blob over and over again.

Welp, my server isn’t T1. But if you are having fun then there’s nothing wrong. I just don’t agree with someone criticizing other players who are just trying to enjoy WvW.

You should probably move to a different server – check http://gw2stats.net/wvw/live_map/ to see who actually holds their structures

defending used to be much more interesting in low tiers, before …. oh… id say it was around cata mastery time when anet started the slippery slope of attack attack attack. and before swords got delayed. if you stayed alert and aware you could be somewhere in time to really kitten with the attack. but nowadays random 10 man groups appear from other maps and have your reinforced gate at 50% with 3 super rams by the time you see the swords… and thats indefensible even if you have siege already built without a 10 man group of your own. which on our servers doesnt exactly happen cuz those guys would get bored in a heartbeat watching a dead map.

It takes what, 4? 5? hours on average to fully upgrade a keep.

Meanwhile a golem rush will cap it in under a minute.

The defender who upgraded and scouted the keep will be out 2g+ and get no rewards for 5 hours work.

An attacker who ran alongside the golems with the rest of the zerg will get a champion chest, karma, coin and WXP for their 1 minute of “work”.

Here’s the deal. A lot of Season 1 achievements are about capping, i honestly dont think there is a single one about defending so much as a dolyak.

It gives you an exotic satchel, 800 wxp, bunch of xp/karma and the works. Defending it is to most people boring, standing on a wall doing nothing but wait for an attack. While losing it means you can just recap it and get those rewards again. Unlike defending, which is not as rewarding.

Does anyone still wonder why people dont defend stuff?

Terrahero couldn’t have shown the difference better…. mind i guess it depends on time of day, who you are fighting, how the match up is going, coverage for defense.

Because i know today in our home BL we held and fought to hold the north section primary our garrison for 8hrs+/-. While our north towers/camps got flipped a lot people were surprisingly attentive to calls for help which was nice. I guess since we had constant action and a few attacks to retake our bay (then lose it) it kept people happy. Never mind the fun of wiping the zergs that had broken into the inner keep (once or twice the lords rooms) with some wild three ways.

Also considering we were able to do this vs having failed attacks on Hills to try and remove FA’s waypoint showed folks have important/fun defense can be.

I really hope Anet takes a better look at rewards for defense, while fun it’ll never equal the REWARD ratio you get while attacking.

Defending is super fun! It’s like the bags are coming to you!

DB, FA, and SBI have been defending their keeps. At times, we have been putting up crazy defense for towers.

Guess, sometimes people don’t run the karma train.

Peetee.9406:

Liquid.9672:

I dont know what server you play on but scouts, siege and fierce tower/keep defense is a commonplace in T1 NA.

This gentlemen is correct.

Contrary to popular opinion Tier 1 is not full of zergers.

Every T1 server uses scouts, builders, and defenders on every map. We play to win and sometimes that means doing boring assignments, so we rotate every 30 minutes. It sounds like your play style is more suited for T1, may I suggest SoR ?

i see qq about ques on forums and you still recruit. bravo.lol

Personally I love to defend towers, keeps and castle. Just yesterday Vabbi managed to capture Stonemist from 2 superior force servers and we had to fight for around half an hour to defend it. In the end we got overwhelmed, but our force of somewhat 30 players held out against 30 players from FoW and at least 50 from Whiteside Ridge.

I’m on OP on this, WvW has gotten very shallow and boring, commanders are running round capping tower——-caping camp——capping tower——-capping camp——-losing tower——-losing camp——-losing tower—-losing camp and the cycle starts all over again.
So these lemming blobs running around a big circle capping loosing capping loosing.

I mean I thought people played for the PVP not PVE, but sadly these armchairs generals do play it for the PVE, its all about the chest in the end, screw defending let em have the tower we recap it in 10min so we get our shinies.

People just have different goals in WvW. A large proportion of people who play the game are driven solely by reward systems, so it’s only natural for a large part of the WvW populace to hold the same values. It can be frustrating, but it’s just something you have to live with unfortunately.

The best advice I can give is to play at times when WvW populations are generally at their lowest, with a strong WvW focused guild group who enjoy strategy and defence. I get to do this a lot on my Server.

Would be good if PPT and rewards were based on upgrades. But you can always move to a server that likes to defend. Mag certainly does and I think FA too. Not sure who else.

Liquid.9672:

I dont know what server you play on but scouts, siege and fierce tower/keep defense is a commonplace in T1 NA.

I think there has been a trend away from it though. Like I remember not so long ago it was common for servers to upgrade and work on keeping SM for the entire week. Now nobody does and its flipped quite regularly. The same goes with Garrison, bay and hills. They get flipped so much more now. We all take our time scouting. But there is always that underlying tone that as soon as X servers Y coverage comes into play its likely to be a paper keep again.

It might not solve it but increasing the buff on lord after flipping so it last untill the next Score Tick, could be intresting. That way if a server lets it be taken they know they will lose those points for sure for the next PPT.

I am with OP on this 100%. I can understand that for the past months points didn’t matter at all, but now we are on leagues and points matter. Now is the time to defend and keep those T3 structures for points as long as possible. Heck you just need a scout in every tower (that they can rotate every 15-30 minutes) , some arrow carts to slow down the attackers and correct information on TS or map chat to save it. It’s so simple that makes me wanna pull my hair off. Still nobody cares and thus servers are currently low on score, though having full coverage and ques for hours. Desolation never defends anything anymore! People don’t even bother to refresh siege in Garisson or Valley… We are playing for score points guys! Not achievement points!

/sigh

The problem with defense is that it’s practically futile once a zerg hits a critical mass.

Even a fully armed Tier 3 Keep cannot last more than a few minutes against a sizeable zerg. In fact given sufficient Golems they can punch through any defense in a matter of minutes.

Even if you do have spies to call the incoming, this gives commanders barely enough time to react, especially if there’s no waitpoint.

That, and the fact that any Keep can be easily ninja’d in a matter of minutes by a few committed players during late hours.

The entire balance of WvW heavily favors constant offense because defensive aspects are so underpowered. The only way to truly defeat an attacking zerg is by bringing one of your own.

I mean it takes a 40 man zerg….what?…30 seconds to punch through a normal tower door?

I would beg to differ. Little ole ET takes pride in placing siege in our keeps, especially one of our crews. We love setting up meat grinders and superior numbers back.

It is about placement and tactics.

BTW, we hit the max siege that could be placed ON A MAP last night. Caused a few problems, but nothing that we could not handle.

Torgrim.3642:

I’m on OP on this, WvW has gotten very shallow and boring, commanders are running round capping tower——-caping camp——capping tower——-capping camp——-losing tower——-losing camp——-losing tower—-losing camp and the cycle starts all over again.
So these lemming blobs running around a big circle capping loosing capping loosing.

I mean I thought people played for the PVP not PVE, but sadly these armchairs generals do play it for the PVE, its all about the chest in the end, screw defending let em have the tower we recap it in 10min so we get our shinies.

That’s something I can agree with. BUT, some people still play it with tactic instead of blunt old blob power. It’s amazing to choke a blob with a small group of players and getting away with it.

Zephyrus.9680:

Would be good if PPT and rewards were based on upgrades. But you can always move to a server that likes to defend. Mag certainly does and I think FA too. Not sure who else.

I know Mag, FA, SBI, BP do defend. Mag is the best defensive server I ever played against.

Sirendor.1394:

Torgrim.3642:

I’m on OP on this, WvW has gotten very shallow and boring, commanders are running round capping tower——-caping camp——capping tower——-capping camp——-losing tower——-losing camp——-losing tower—-losing camp and the cycle starts all over again.
So these lemming blobs running around a big circle capping loosing capping loosing.

I mean I thought people played for the PVP not PVE, but sadly these armchairs generals do play it for the PVE, its all about the chest in the end, screw defending let em have the tower we recap it in 10min so we get our shinies.

That’s something I can agree with. BUT, some people still play it with tactic instead of blunt old blob power. It’s amazing to choke a blob with a small group of players and getting away with it.

Some servers tactics are the blob power, some are balanced, and some are defensive. To each their own.

defending takes patience, something most people don’t have. The patient spirit of the dolyak is built in to WvW. Must understand and respect that pace, or starve to death.