Guild Wars 2

I would love to know who came up with the objective aura system, and the mentality behind designing it the way that they did. ANd better yet I’d like to know why its the only guild upgrade that hasn’t been ‘updated’.

Consider:

~75% of all ‘used’ mapspace is aura covered. 1 person can swap up to 7 guilds and lay 7 aura’s on 7 objectives all at once. You can swap and switch claims at will without penalty.

Lets just consider for a moment what the intent of creating the objective aura was…
Ideas:

1. Allow defenders a small buff to fend off larger forces?
2. Allow a ‘homeland buff’ to foster community and sense of domain and territory in the bl. Creating a very conservative meta where the outermost towers become k-train bait. Decreasing the benefits of moving directly into the heart of a bl’s holdings.
3. Allow larger guilds more recognition and ‘perceived’ impact on their bl community.
4. +5 supply in some places increases the speed of gameplay for all sizes of groups especially small.
5. ????

I mean lets just assume 1-5 are correct. Well, what makes it a poor system is because of how small the stats are (except the +5 supply), how indiscriminately large the aura space is made to be, and how indiscriminately the aura’s can be placed. Outside of the +5 supply (which happens to apply to a small static zone….hint hint), I don’t see how anyone can be validate the system in its present form.

To me it would make sense to do the following (omitting the +5 supply stat):

1. Make the aura cover only up to the outermost edges of the actual objective. That way only people inside the objective get the buffs.

2. I would then buff the stats of the objective aura by….maybe double for anyone inside. What would this do? Well it would make it so defenders have a better chance resisting larger forces. They would actually have incentive to stay in the tower….which would mean ‘defensive siege battles’. Presently the only way to defend anything against a larger determined force is to (a) find a way to get them to not be determined or (b) group up and fight them on the ground. That way groups that need help have something ‘inside’ the objective they can use to help them defend. Attackers on the other hand have incentive to plan out their attacks a bit more carefully, if they are smart they will hold the larger advantage against an enemy that is in an enclosed small space. Attackers won’t be complaining about such a change (no kitten aura outside the objective), and defenders won’t be either (more defense options).

3. HAVE A LARGE COOLDOWN ON THE AURA STATS ONCE THE CLAIM IS PLACED. Every cap grants points now with the 5 minute tower. With that and the other k-train goodies of this gamemode, it makes more sense than ever to add more ways to making objectives ‘important’ to defend….add some ‘wargaming’ back into the mode. Ex) a tower is taken, some1 tosses a full claim on it. What happens? Well there are a few options here.
Option A: every 10-20 minutes 1 tick of the aura bonuses unlocks on the objective….up until all aura bonuses are unlocked.
Option B: Aura stats are based on the fortification level of the objective. Maybe all are unlocked like presently but they are 25% of their present status to start….then when secured it goes up to 50%….reinforced 75%…..fortified 100%.
Option C: Unlocking different levels of objective aura based on fortification level. Maybe we start with defensive stats…move up to offensive stats at reinforced and fortified levels.
Option D : Hybrids of options A-C.

Just briefly: With the +5 supply aura: This could be tweaked no doubt as well. However, the problem isn’t necessarily with the aura. The supply system in this game needs a huge fix…..once/if that is handled change can be made to decrease or increase or change the supply given from objective aura’s.

The cost of Objective Aura’s:

If a system like (3) is inplace. Why must only large guilds have access to full aura? Allow all active wvsw guilds access to full objective aura options! There is no reason why a poor guild should not have access to full aura when people are rep’ing 7 guilds for 2 minutes a week and tossing 7 aura up on everything on the map that needs one within a 2 minute time frame. Its an insult to small wvsw guilds, it really is. The ability to place claims should have been based on the guild’s participation in wvsw each week. There are many ways to base such a system off of. Maybe doing x many wvsw guild missions unlocks the ability to place x many claims per the following week. Or maybe some other currency gained through wvsw (exp maybe? Tomes of Knowledge lololol? You kno….useless kittens?) allows rep’ing guild members something that contributes so their host guild’s overall ability to place claims. Maybe claims are limited in number based on this calculated wvsw participation. Maybe large enough guilds should be able to toss claims on more than 1 thing on the map? Maybe large guilds with the money are the only ones that can claim keeps and castles, but everyone else is equal when it comes to towers and camps?

So many questions. Larger guilds should have things smaller guild shouldn’t. The differences shouldn’t be determined by a 1-time-lump-sum of ‘gold’….that’s stupid. That goes both ways….a small guild of 1 person shouldn’t be able to just dump one payment of 200g and have everything a 200 member highly active and involved guild does.

Conclusions

All these options make infinitely more sense to me than the present system. I’m sure anything reasonable the community can come up with will be better than the present system. I mean you made the foundation for the objective aura concept…you still have yet to actually finish constructing it.

Objective aura’s as a concept really are one of the few guild upgrades that actually ‘make sense’, and seem like they add something valid to the gamemode. Flying airships and all that jazz was always just PR to try to get new people to come back to a dying mode. We are past that desperation point now though. If you are serious about this ‘beta’ and fixing WvsW its time to recreate these guild upgrades to something that puts the ‘gamemode’ first. I mean Marketing vs Gamemode has been a huge issue ever since HoT launched….its been half a year already, time to choose 1 or the other. Adding things for the sake of having things needs to stop….we don’t need the next fix to be adding gem store transformer skins to the ‘turn urself into a car’ gimmick.

Cerby.1069:

Lets just consider for a moment what the intent of creating the objective aura was…
Ideas:

1. Allow defenders a small buff to fend off larger forces?
2. *Allow a ‘homeland buff’ to foster community and sense of domain and territory in the bl. Creating a very conservative meta where the outermost towers become k-train bait. Decreasing the benefits of moving directly into the heart of a bl’s holdings.
*3. *Allow larger guilds more recognition and ‘perceived’ impact on their bl community.
*4. +5 supply in some places increases the speed of gameplay for all sizes of groups especially small.
5. ????

I mean lets just assume 1-5 are correct. Well, what makes it a poor system is because of how small the stats are (except the +5 supply), how indiscriminately large the aura space is made to be, and how indiscriminately the aura’s can be placed. Outside of the +5 supply (which happens to apply to a small static zone….hint hint), I don’t see how anyone can be validate the system in its present form.

I dont see how you can completely invalidate it in it’s present form since you present no reasonable argument as to why it’s poor.

Is the bonus small? Actually, it’s a pretty sizable bonus to stats but for arguments sake let’s say it’s small. So what? You want big bonuses? We had that once with early bloodlust implementation. It was awfull.

Indiscriminate large auras? Well yes. That’s what you need to defend a keep because the enemy will deploy siege outside the walls. It also encourage people to come out and fight man to man. Which granted not many servers do, they build 10 arrowcarts instead. Still, the bonus is there in a wide area to give a boon to the defender.

Your third point is a moot. Zero guilds do that because all one care about is +5 and boons.

Your 4th point is just a statement that argues for it being a good implementation and the fifth is not an argument at all, it’s a bunch of question marks.

I wouldn’t be so bothered by the auras if my guild that I had happily applied buffs to keeps etc for years no longer can because I don’t have 1000s of gold and hours of playtime to pour into that gold sink.

My small roaming guild that always felt like it was contributing now can’t even can’t apply the much desired +5 supplies that we used so much in the past.

It’s pretty sad.