Guild Wars 2

The last few weeks I’ve observed my server (DB) on several occassions spending over an hour trying to take a well-defended tower. The opposition has 50+ people inside focused on defense of the tower whose walls are down with no local supply. We push in, and they portal bomb as a glob, and then the process repeats.

Time is a resource that must be spent wisely. While the enemy is focused on tower defense, the rest of the map is less well-defended. Quick strikes on those other locations do many things. It gives your team a few more points, it keeps the enemy on its toes, and eventually diverts resources away from the tower in question.

Holding a tower with its walls down and no supply constitutes a local semi-permenant disadvantage. As long as the tower is harrassed enough, the walls will remain down. If the team defending the tower starts losing the other camps and towers it holds on the map, eventually the defending team will have to split its force leaving the tower less well defended. That’s when you strike!

Commanders please, if a tower has a ridiculous number of defenders, even if the walls are down, don’t bog our forces down trying to take the tower back. It’s a waste of time, a waste of points, and it reinforces an ineffective strategy. Instead, have a dozen or two continually harrass the tower while the rest of the group goes after the rest of the map’s positions. Within 20 minutes, the majority of the tower defenders will leave, and the tower will be easily retaken.

In this game battles are usually won by superior force. You must manipulate the scenario so that you only fight when you have the local superior force.

Given your scenario, what’s to keep the defending force from also splitting up it’s forces, once the majority of the attacking force has dispersed?

Or, once the attacking force loses numbers, the larger defending force goes out, quickly kills the remaining attacking force, then goes out to the rest of the map, while they repair the damaged keep. Pretty much leaving you with no gains, whatsoever.

As i’m sure it’s been stated many times, W3 is a game of coverage/numbers. Skill, and tactics, are also important. But, all the skill, or planning, falls short if you don’t have the numbers.

Come talk to DB Eviator,

http://dragonbrandforums.com/

Nalviir.2698:

Given your scenario, what’s to keep the defending force from also splitting up it’s forces, once the majority of the attacking force has dispersed?

Or, once the attacking force loses numbers, the larger defending force goes out, quickly kills the remaining attacking force, then goes out to the rest of the map, while they repair the damaged keep. Pretty much leaving you with no gains, whatsoever.

As i’m sure it’s been stated many times, W3 is a game of coverage/numbers. Skill, and tactics, are also important. But, all the skill, or planning, falls short if you don’t have the numbers.

The answer: time. They may be able to do all those things, but hopefully by then it’s too late for the rest of the map. Continually pounding away against the superior force for hours on end…that has to be the worst strategy ever.

I absolutely agree.

I can see where a commander would have a few issues sorting this out if they are the only tag on the map though. If the commander leaves, then so does everyone else. The opposing team then rebuilds and moves on, which sounds like it would’ve been better for everyone. Calling for tactical teams to start harassing other areas of the map (flipping camps to cut off supply to that wall-less tower even) almost never works unless they’re using VoIP, which is often a guild team.

A second command tag on the map would help. A lot of times if I PUG into WvW, I don’t fly my tag since someone else is already “primary” commander. If something needs to be done, I’ll announce it in chat, pop the tag, take care of it, and then reunite with the first commander. Hell, sometimes I pop the tag just for supply runs since I can portal people which makes getting back faster.

Nikked.7365:

A second command tag on the map would help. A lot of times if I PUG into WvW, I don’t fly my tag since someone else is already “primary” commander. If something needs to be done, I’ll announce it in chat, pop the tag, take care of it, and then reunite with the first commander. Hell, sometimes I pop the tag just for supply runs since I can portal people which makes getting back faster.

I think you’re right. I could see an optimal scenario where there is a primary commander and a secondary commander. The primary commander manages the map strategy and macro tactics, organizes and simultaneously deploys various groups to complete a variety of objectives, perhaps leading one of these smaller groups. The secondary commander leads a larger force, a “primary zerg” for example, which acts mainly to distract the opposing team, take the more difficult objectives, and to bolster a smaller group having trouble with a particular objective. The commanders are in VOIP, and the secondary commander coordinates smaller-scale tactics, relaying the situation to the primary.

One thing I think is a potential benefit to this setup is that the secondary “zerg” commander doesn’t get laser focused on one objective.

I don’t know, I’m not a commander nor a great strategist, nor do I have experience with the logistics of leading a large team of individuals who think for themselves. But I am a decent chess player. Most of the time we’re playing 1-move chess: make a move and force the opponent to respond, repeat ad nauseum. That will only get us so far. There are many sound chess principles that apply to the overall strategy on a WvW map. “Attack the opponent where they are strongest” is not one of them.

Eviator.9746:

There are many sound chess principles that apply to the overall strategy on a WvW map. “Attack the opponent where they are strongest” is not one of them.

Someone get this man a Commander pin. He’s already got more know-how than half of the commanders running around!

Seriously though, well thought out post. And I completely agree. Hopefully some of the changes they make to commanders will include some kind of commander chat channel. What we’ve covered here only applies to one map out of four. So, here we have one tower being stalemated. SM being stalemated is a whole different situation, though just as boring. Better communication would set us up. EB commander could put out the call that they are preparing to take SM. So, while s/he starts pinning camps and building golems, another commander goes to gank the enemy BL in hopes of pulling their attention. If I’m upgrading points in our home BL though, then I don’t know what’s going on in EB.

Of course, any of this is difficult to pull off as there is little incentive for activities like tactical teams. You don’t get many badges that way, so people want to stay in the action. WvW is about so much more than just throwing zerg balls at each other and seeing what happens, but right now we’re lacking some tools for surgical precision. A scalpel, for one.

Yes yes, lets congratulate him.

Now let’s look at reality. People want to fight. They don’t want to PvDoor. So players will go to where enemy players are for the sake of fighting them.

Players also want loot. Loot is now great in WvW. To get loot you need to kill players (which people like, and want to do anyway). Doors, towers, keeps, and camps do not give loot (event rewards aside). If you can muster a strong force, and wipe another strong force, assuming you tag as many of that force as you can you can win for yourself 20, 30, 40 bags. Hell, if the fight drags on, and people on both sides res eachother, you can repeatedly kill players AND farm bags.

So tell me, why do we want to leave the fun, productive fighting again to go cap points?

Yes, it should happen. In fact it takes nothing to get some ninjas to go do it in your scenario. But let’s be reasonable here, and honest.

You are right about the loot bags and the PvDoor. There is no motivation for doing the things required to make your team win against superior numbers. But you are missing one important point: no matter what is going on on a map, nearly everyone will seek out and follow a blue icon. They are essentially pawns and pieces ready and willing to do your bidding, if you know your stuff. In other words, we may make excuses, but it’s the commanders who have the responsibility for making things happen….or not.