Guild Wars 2

Hello! I’d like to propose a change to the way supply caravans work.

Currently, a camp will only send out supply caravans to objectives that belong to the same team. Camps will not feed yaks to objectives of a different color unless that path continues towards a keep or castle.

My proposal is to allow yaks to continue spawning from camps towards opposing objectives. These yaks (whose mechanics and attributes could be identical to the existing ones) would instead DRAIN supply and/or REDUCE the upgrade progress of an objective.

I think this change would increase the strategic depth of playing in WvW. It would incentivize players to return to the borderlands, and shift some of the impact that large guild groups and zergs currently possess back towards roamers and small teams. Players would have to venture beyond their walls to engage the enemy and reinforces the idea that in this game you can play and contribute however you want. I also think this change would be relatively easier to implement than some of the other proposals, with gains being immediately realized.

I realize some details may have slipped through the cracks and thus I’m happy to respond to any comments or questions.

Initial knee jerk response: “What strategic depth? Zerg moar?”

I think that would just make roamers even more annoying, enough that zergs may go out of their way to run them down, and create more of this “toxic environment” for roamers that has been talked about ? Roamers already does quite a good bit of work on the points as well, so I don’t know if they really need a buff ?

But largely, I just wish they made fighting fun before fixing all the stuff I can’t be kittened to bother with because the fights are dull.

Surely WvW has the strategic depth of a mud puddle thanks to the “moar zerg” politics.

That’s why more mechanics that’d involve tactics can’t harm anyone. Moreover, I’d say that anything that proves roughly as effective as a zerg, without the zerg, can eventually become useful. So why not more tactics like this ?

Still, expandas, you better get ready for the “no more PvE gimmicks” answers :-( Sadly, most of WvW population looks for “just fights” with no consideration for tactics.

I remember this idea (or something similar) being suggested when the auto upgrades bullkitten was introduced. I’m definitely in favor of this idea, anything to split up the blobs is a move in the right direction.

There’s already an incentive to keep camps flipped. The only time yaks aren’t useful is when your fully upgraded structure is all sieged up and has full supply…meaning it hasn’t seen any action in several hours. Even then, they still contribute to warscore.

This change will only be alarming to the people that already care about small-scale maintenance and defense. As in, the people who already would be going to flip that camp back. Zerglings do not consider the relationship between supply and defense. They’re still going to ignore everything until a large enemy group is practically on the lord then rush in, blob them to death and dump whatever supply they have on them plus whatever is in the structure into the breach. They aren’t likely to notice if it’s been drained by enemy yaks.

That said, if you must implement this idea, it would be be more congruous and easier for players to pick up on if the yaks simply did damage to the gates upon arriving. The effect is similar—players must drain supply to repair the damage. However, damaged gates is something that more players will be concerned about. The zerg won’t have time to respond if the enemy can just walk straight to the lord.