Guild Wars 2

This is only about the working of upgrades in the new WvW system. Please refrain from “ANet keeps ruining stuff”-comments and other nonsense from this thread.

I am not sure from the blog post, but it seems that upgrades will just happen, regardless if dollies come in or not. As far as I understand, the dollies will just speed up the upgrading process.

I ask ANet to consider making upgrades depended on incoming dollies. An objective wouldn’t be able to upgrade, if there are no dollies arriving there. This way a very important WvW strategy remains, namely killing the caravans to prevent upgrading of the enemy objective. Alternatively the first tier could also work without dollies but higher tier upgrades would still rely on them.

TyPin.9860:

This is only about the working of upgrades in the new WvW system. Please refrain from “ANet keeps ruining stuff”-comments and other nonsense from this thread.

I am not sure from the blog post, but it seems that upgrades will just happen, regardless if dollies come in or not. As far as I understand, the dollies will just speed up the upgrading process.

I ask ANet to consider making upgrades depended on incoming dollies. An objective wouldn’t be able to upgrade, if there are no dollies arriving there. This way a very important WvW strategy remains, namely killing the caravans to prevent upgrading of the enemy objective. Alternatively the first tier could also work without dollies but higher tier upgrades would still rely on them.

I support this.
Even in T1 sometimes there just isn’t a super powerful map blob. That doesn’t last long ofc…but that’s not the point. This gives low #s of players a way to impressively hinder enemy upgrades while not many people are on. While without this the upgrades will simply continue, albeit much slower, which means even if you are doing an amazing job stopping yaks while the enemy ignores you if your driving force isn’t on in time the enemy still gets rewarded for passively ignoring you. Now true, T1 doesn’t usually go too long without a driving force but what about lower Teirs? How long to they have to wait? Imagine coming home from work the next day and finding that, depite having the best yakslappers in all tyria the enemy still has everything (or a majority) t2-t3.

I say reward those no-life yakslappers. Even if Yaks need more base HP or Def to make them not melt in 5s to a spike that may not even be stopped by a group of defending people.

Definitely agree. I honestly can’t believe this is even up for debate, the proposed upgrade system is a really, really bad idea.

TyPin.9860:

This is only about the working of upgrades in the new WvW system. Please refrain from “ANet keeps ruining stuff”-comments and other nonsense from this thread.

I am not sure from the blog post, but it seems that upgrades will just happen, regardless if dollies come in or not. As far as I understand, the dollies will just speed up the upgrading process.

I ask ANet to consider making upgrades depended on incoming dollies. An objective wouldn’t be able to upgrade, if there are no dollies arriving there. This way a very important WvW strategy remains, namely killing the caravans to prevent upgrading of the enemy objective. Alternatively the first tier could also work without dollies but higher tier upgrades would still rely on them.

+1, I completely agree. I’m on board with all of the other changes, but I’m completely against this one. It seriously diminishes the role of yak slapping by roamers if those players know that upgrades will happen anyway no matter what they do. Which in turn also seriously diminishes the role of yak escorting by roamers.

“Each time an allied dolyak caravan arrives at the tower, the timer will decrease by five minutes. The Tier 1 upgrades will automatically occur sometime between 20 and 40 minutes as long as the red team can maintain control of the tower. The time depends on how many caravans safely make it to the objective.” From the blog post.

So their current plan is that towers will eventually upgrade no matter what, but Dolyaks will speed up the process. So killing yaks is still valuable, but it may be less valuable compared to what it currently is. On the other hand, killing Yaks could help to insure the tower is taken prior to upgrading, but unlike now someone just killing Yaks would not be able to stop the upgrades entirely.

I also want to remind everyone that they are planning to buff yak escorting, by making it so any escorted yak gets a significant defensive boost:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/essential-elements-of-the-new-borderlands/

So it will be much harder for a single roamer to spike a yak that is defended. I’m totally on board with that change, but if you combine it with this new change that makes yak slapping only delay upgrades, not stall them, it’s way too much of a nerf to yak slapping. I think along with the buff to yak escorting, you need to reward successful yak slappers by making killing yaks actually stall the upgrade process.

The yak buff is a good idea ! Really.
But if the yak are killed, then the upgrade need to stop ! Not slowed down, stopped.

Hmm, I kind of feel the same way, but at the same time I kind of like this.

I used to be on a lower tiered/smaller WvW server, and the toughest thing was to upgrade your realstate, especially if you’re bouncing from BL to BL to defend or attack. You don’t really have the man power to dedicate to scouting or upgrading. So this update seems very nice from that point of view, it just helps smaller WvW servers or even smaller groups play and feel like they’re actually making a difference.

The real problem, is now that its automatic, they need to add a new mechanic to actually stop the upgrades, not just delay it. The only counter play now to stopping an enemy from upgrading their points is to capture it. Where right now (pre-update) you could take out its camps or capture the point.

yes, automatic… Then why not NPC building siege alone ? Repairing the wall…. New alarm when keep are attacked…
Oh wait, and why not just remove players ? Lets have some automatic siegeraser who will attack all the tower….

TyPin.9860:

This is only about the working of upgrades in the new WvW system. Please refrain from “ANet keeps ruining stuff”-comments and other nonsense from this thread.

I am not sure from the blog post, but it seems that upgrades will just happen, regardless if dollies come in or not. As far as I understand, the dollies will just speed up the upgrading process.

I ask ANet to consider making upgrades depended on incoming dollies. An objective wouldn’t be able to upgrade, if there are no dollies arriving there. This way a very important WvW strategy remains, namely killing the caravans to prevent upgrading of the enemy objective. Alternatively the first tier could also work without dollies but higher tier upgrades would still rely on them.

But the fact is that Anet does keep ruining things.

Most of the recent changes are a strong indicator that the developers do not take part in this game mode in any meaningful fashion, and that any ideas they formulated based on the laughable ‘Adopt-a-dev’ farce are either deliberately contrary to the way WvW is currently played or are based on misconceptions garnered by running only in EBG pug zergs.

What we are receiving are not balance changes based upon the way WvW is, but are instead throwing the whole thing out to create the WvW that Anet believes should exist.

As it happens, that vision seems to be a more controlled form of the EotM k-trains.

To address your point in particular, I agree. My guild prides itself on our havoc abilities, and enjoy our time spent weakening keeps and towers in a BL over the course of several hours, preparing for reinforcements to come start flipping things. With these changes, especially to the upgrade/dolyak relationship, much of our time will be invalidated by inevitable and unstoppable upgrades.

That time will be better spent somewhere else, and it likely won’t be in WvW, which seems to be how Anet likes it. Less competitive play, and more PVE.

+1 Agreed on that aspect. Auto upgrades is fine as long as stopping dollies effectively stop the upgrades. A wall cannot be built out of thin air.

All Dolyak tappers of Tyria unite!

auto-UPgrades should mean they add in auto-DOWNgrades too.

Maybe some way to sabotage yaks or camps, so supplies downgrade instead of upgrade.

ShadowLordX.5148:

So killing yaks is still valuable, but it may be less valuable compared to what it currently is.

It’s not valuable at all on low tier servers like the one I’m on, where it can take hours to muster a group to take a keep. The difference between a 20 minute upgrade and a 40 minute upgrade is largely irrelevant when the structure will be safe for at least 60 minutes.

Pyro.4765:

ShadowLordX.5148:

So killing yaks is still valuable, but it may be less valuable compared to what it currently is.

It’s not valuable at all on low tier servers like the one I’m on, where it can take hours to muster a group to take a keep. The difference between a 20 minute upgrade and a 40 minute upgrade is largely irrelevant when the structure will be safe for at least 60 minutes.

Ah, the dubious pleasure of only being able to round up enough people to complete 2-3 rams total between inner and outer of a T3 keep. Even a lightly defended garri becomes a tough nut to crack when you have to stand in AC fire and one-ram a fortified door.