Guild Wars 2

I actually support hard-to-do bypasses to gates like this, it adds new dimensions to gameplay rather then LOL SIEGE THE GATE FOR 20 MINUTES.

One thing I despised about WoW was the “Now working as intended”. Let’s consider games like Pokemon, Magic the Gather and D&D. All of these games had a very similar structure. They allowed ability synergy. In WoW when synergy was found it was usually removed as it was “not working as intended”.

If someone could use speed boosts and other such abilities to use terrain to their advantage. Including getting over walls. Then I think that’s a viable tactic. Why can’t keeps have some kind of dangerous backdoor. Put a siege to guard it. Protect it. It’s not likely that a massive zerg could effectively use some kind of difficult jumping based entry anyways.

@jayderyu.3751

“It’s not likely that a massive zerg could effectively use some kind of difficult jumping based entry anyways.”

Mesmers would like to have a word with you regarding their portals.

I want an answer to this. I know of one legitimate way to get my mesmer inside of an outer keep simply by jumping and using the skills available to me. It took about 30 minutes of exploration to find. As a commander, I need to know if I’m allowed to portal my zerg in from there or not.

Well, i’m pretty sure that there weren’t meant to be any way inside a keep beyond breaking a door or wall down. I would call it an exploit, regardless of somebody saying “You have to jump, and have skill to do it”. Just ask yourself if you believe that was Anet’s intention? Did they put all the work into WvW, just to have players find a way to get over the gate without breaking it down? I highly doubt it.

buzzkapow.8465:

Well, i’m pretty sure that there weren’t meant to be any way inside a keep beyond breaking a door or wall down.

I can run mesmer portals to get people inside the keeps and that is a legitimate tactic. Granted, the walls had to be down and ours at some point, but that’s as simple as parking my mesmer in a hidden spot and leaving them to autoattack while I wait a few hours for our keep to get taken.

When Anet wanted to make a place hard to reach yet reachable – they made a jumping puzzle.

This is clearly an exploit. It’s not even a jumping performance but abusing a limit in teleporting targeting. You get one mesmer in – you get an army

Makes the whole “fortifying/sieging” pointless. Clearly an exploit that cannot be defended in any way. No self respecting server or commander should tolerate this.

Even the “hidden mesmer” tactic is borderline since most good teams do now full swipes. If you ever hid your mesmer in a keep, please take screenies – otherwise you will not be credible.

Given they removed the ability for thieves and elementalists to get into 4 of the water keeps using their granted abilities, both classes that couldn’t port anyone else in, I would say getting in using terrain would be considered not working as intended and will be fixed. Mesmer bypassing walls whenever they like would be game breaking, imo and such abuse will likely lead to portal nerf before geometry fix, just like orb removal.

Luveluen.7148:

I am talking about climbing certain walls using the terrain and get around the front doors this way.

No. Really, no. Nightcapping is bad enough as it is and this would invalidate most of the game mechanics.

Luveluen.7148:

I do not want this thread to become a huge discussion about whether it SHOULD BE allowed or SHOULD NOT BE allowed. (I see that happening, though.)
I would like a clear answer of someone entitled to give it.

Then it should go in a suggestion privately sent to ArenaNet. The best you’re going to get is a “We’ll think about it.”
No game studio in their right mind will give a solid unequivocal answer on a subject like this.

There should be nothing against someone using the terrain to get up somewhere. If it is not intended, then it should just simply not be possible. Make an invisible wall.

Problem is, you cannot code it all perfectly at once. So some spots are dicey. I found a few, playing as a mesmer. And for two of them, I simply reported them as bugs to arena.net and left. Since I for one cannot believe it should be possible to bypass a walled and gated entrance by a jump or three.

Just report those you think are borderline and let the devs pick what is intended and what is not.

earendil.1290:

This is clearly an exploit. It’s not even a jumping performance but abusing a limit in teleporting targeting.

No it’s not. It’s “Bad Terrain Design”, but calling that an exploit is pretty ludicrous. However, because there’s open room for argument here, I would rather them say “Yes this is a problem and we will be fixing it” or “Yes this is easy to do but we will ban you if you do it” rather than where we are currently — no one knows whether it’s allowed or not and people individually have to make a risk evaluation as to whether it’s worth trying to cap a keep. Given that the one I know still works, is much more obvious than some of the other wall breaches that have been patched, and requires nothing more than basic game mechanics, I think that we have an extremely large grey area here that needs clarification.

Using flawed design to get a major advantage is called an exploit. Remember the karma to gold conversion.

Also – this can become an excuse for teleport hacks caught in the action “I just jumped here”.

Using it for your enjoyment is defendable. Porting a group inside the keep by using it is not.

The official ways inside a keep are pretty clear on the maps. If you find flaws in design report them and restrain from using them

Why is wall-hopping a full-blown exploit and not a “Borderline” (in your words) exploit like mesmer portalling is (which ANet apparently thinks is completely fine given by the lack of bans when using it)?

Portals are definitely not an “official” way inside of a keep. There’s also no litmus test that says whether something is a flaw in game design or not. Quit thinking that your opinion is the same as the official policies on the game.

This conversation reminds me a lot of the PvP mechanic in dark souls. Lots of people complained about buggy and weird PvP. Some people quit kittening and saw that there was actually a lot of tactics underneath it. They found some weird bugs — weapon swapping at just the right time can break you out of knockback for example — that actually made PvP much more interesting and dynamic. If we took the same “oh no don’t do that that’s an exploit” approach, PvP in Dark Souls would have been kittening stupid.

Because of portals the mesmers are head and shoulders better then any other profession in WvW. Time Warp affecting golems doesn’t help either.

The description on the portal skill on the mesmer says your allies are supposed to take it to get on your position. It’s completely logical to assume they realized the uses in WvW and they accepted them from the start.

I used “borderline” for mesmer hiding not mesmer portalling. Mesmer hiding is a 100% legit tactic, but easy to use as excuse for hacks.

Now – think about the consequences if jumping around the mountains into hills (my guess is that’s your example) is allowed – it means there is no point in fortifying/placing siege or upgrading that keep.

Dark Souls PvP is 1vs1. There was a lot of grief in there but it was limited to one person. What’s acceptable in a 1vs1 is not acceptable in a map wide MMORPG where one person can grief a whole group.

Not to mention that in Dark Souls I was allowed to snipe most enemy bosses with my bow from safe spots. Including the last ones. Including sniping one through the door before entering his room. Not a good example IMO.

If we take a page from PvE, then ANet has changed terrain in the past because people could get up places they weren’t meant to.

I’ve however not heard of anybody being banned because of it.

I’m all for people being like ninjas and entering keeps through unconventional means. As long as they can pull it off without using exploits they deserve to enter your keep

Maybe it will give servers a reason to post guards

Unfortunately things like this are generally an oversight that take time to correct. Normally people don’t get banned for abusing it. They’re underhand tactics and if you have any sort of sense about you you’d know its not good sportsmanship to jump a gap to gain entry past a gate. Its just unfortunate that there is a mesmer portal ability that can cause this to become the serious issue it is.

It falls under the same category of some Mesmers being able to clone/blink through geometry into walls and keeps. Sure its possible given the limitations of the game but its not an intended practice. As such the majority of locations where its possible has been greatly reduced through bug reports and player feedback. Which is something regardless of any stance they have, should be reported.

So maybe not, maybe Anet doesn’t care if we do it or not. But do the right thing and avoid it where you can. Knowing others will do the same. Its cheep, and no one likes underhand tactics in warfare; particularly when a good fight is being fought anyway.

jayderyu.3751:

One thing I despised about WoW was the “Now working as intended”. Let’s consider games like Pokemon, Magic the Gather and D&D. All of these games had a very similar structure. They allowed ability synergy. In WoW when synergy was found it was usually removed as it was “not working as intended”.

If someone could use speed boosts and other such abilities to use terrain to their advantage. Including getting over walls. Then I think that’s a viable tactic. Why can’t keeps have some kind of dangerous backdoor. Put a siege to guard it. Protect it. It’s not likely that a massive zerg could effectively use some kind of difficult jumping based entry anyways.

I agree with that but for the balance if using such type of synergy to have synergy gives an advantage, there should be another synergy which would allow the opposite team to counter this advantage or to have another advantage of the same value.

It just pains me to see such suboptimal design of some parts of keeps and towers. It’s almost like it is intentional.

Take a look at two most known examples which are “jumping puzzles” at Garrison and Bay. When I saw them for the first time when they were used against us, I couldn’t believe my eyes. What military architect in his own mind would come up with such water gate design and what builder would leave some strange stairs on the slope where keep’s walls stand? None. Stairs if they are natural would all be eliminated at the build time to give enemy no chance to just jump around. Water gates would have outer doors to make whole wall perimeter solid.

It’s either intentional and falls in that “MMO abstractions” brasket, or horrible lack of skill on part of map designers. Which I hope is not the case.

P.S. Btw I hate invisible walls even more. It is just unrespectful to players. I was quite disappointed to see them in GW2.