Guild Wars 2

<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnpqzt44Pag&feature=g-u-u”>Tales of Tyria #55</a>

WvW has been undeniably losing its attraction as time goes on. Fixes are coming in at snail’s pace. Anet has to realize that there IS a point where it will be too late. We’re all here because we love this game and saw the potential with it.

Tales of Tyria by far generates the most meaningful and interesting discussions, compared with other open-table shows. WvW was talked about.

One of the major proposals discussed here is: Remove Orange Swords on the Map. Contemplate.

If that got your attention, watch the rest of the show.

Anet watches the show, and they have to take their time quickly, and seriously deliberate over the core structure and come up with creative solutions to WvW.

Thanks I will watch it.

and No dont remove them.

At first I thought ‘no way! don’t remove the swords!’ but as he explained why, it really does make sense to remove them. They are a beacon to where to send the zerg. You can move around a map so quickly that it makes perfect sense not to defend some places because, as soon as you see those swords at a keep, the zerg is on the way to defend it.

It would force people to stay behind and watch those valuable keeps. It would force commanders to communicate and coordinate movement across the map. It would cut the zerg sizes down considerably.

Siege weapons need to be siege weapons – no aoe limits on how many players they hit.

Those two changes would make WvW really interesting again.

I am in the same boat, I listened and changed my mind good idea.

40 mins in for those who want to listen.

Removing the orange swords would be a good idea in my book as they create pretty much no useful information.

It’s even gotten to the point where people call out to not hit doors with anything but rams because “It will create the swords on the map” – when the point will be contested on the map anyway with the smaller swords.

I’m sure it was meant for illustrating hot-spots so people could home in on the fighting, but when maps as so small as they are there’s really no point to them that couldn’t be solved by ‘where is the action’ in /team chat.

Remove them.

I think it’s better to not remove them, just change them to appear just when there’s fighting between actual people, and not between people and npcs.

Makes sense, I’d like to see them removed too.

You can take towers/keeps without putting up cross-swords, its up to you to figure how to use it to your advantage.

Swords are best way to get players together, particularly enemies. No swords means more player vs door; there is regular pve for that. Get rid of swords and more players will be PvEing in WvW, and that’s goofy.

This has been discussed before. It was a good idea then and it is a good idea even now.

Remove them to solve a lot of issues. They serve no purpose other than ease it up for beginners, but giving whole alot of another problems for everyone else.

This is a case of different tier play IMO. When we see swords it is not “drop everything go run run run”, it is “hey scout assigned to that area, whats going on at the swords?”, and most the time they have already reported that x amount of defenders/invaders were otw there anyway. Then assign how many to go take care of it or rally the troops as needed.

No swords would mean all the servers that don’t now use scouts already will have a harder time as you will be blitzed no warning. Now if that forces those servers to use scouts great, maybe that helps, but swords are more helpful to the less organized servers than the organized IMO, and the less organized ones are the less happy these days it seems.

I can see how unhappy a server will be when they are already upset they get zerged, but now they got zerged and lost their bay in under 3 minutes while out-maned because no swords triggered at the sentry or the supply to give them any chance to hold off the zerg at all. I think this hinders the lower tiers a lot more than it hinders the upper tiers, but I think it’s an interesting idea to look into for it’s desire to encourage organized scouts and defense perimeters.

@Arani

I disagree.
If your 80 man zerg is gonna take the Bay vs an outmanned zerg, that Bay is already lost.

But the outmanned zerg could at the same time backstab 1~3 of your towers, making you rethink of stacking all your 80 people in 1 location or take the losses.

An outmanned server already has less territory so they can scout whatever little they have much faster.
But it gives them the chance to sneakily backstab the server with huge numbers unlike now where any chance of sneak attack gets insta zerged by 5x the numbers

Snow Aeth.1937:

I disagree.
If your 80 man zerg is gonna take the Bay vs an outmanned zerg, that Bay is already lost.

But the outmanned zerg could at the same time backstab 1~3 of your towers, making you rethink of stacking all your 80 people in 1 location or take the losses.

An outmanned server already has less territory so they can scout whatever little they have much faster.
But it gives them the chance to sneakily backstab the server with huge numbers unlike now where any chance of sneak attack gets insta zerged by 5x the numbers

The 80 man zerg when one side is out-manned is a bit rare, it’s closer to 20-30-40 with gank groups about, and 10-20 players can hold off a 30 man zerg, turtled or not.

When you drop from normal to out-manned, you had territory, and now you defiantly will not be able to hold onto it until the next shift comes on if 50% of your remaining forces must now play permanent scout.

This week we had a fully manned map held all of our 1/3 map territory and were harassing the enemy well, stuff happened and bam we dropped to out-manned within 10 minutes… even greatly out-manned we held the same keeps for hours, so having out-manned does not mean you have no territory.

Snow Aeth.1937:

@Arani

I disagree.
If your 80 man zerg is gonna take the Bay vs an outmanned zerg, that Bay is already lost.

But the outmanned zerg could at the same time backstab 1~3 of your towers, making you rethink of stacking all your 80 people in 1 location or take the losses.

An outmanned server already has less territory so they can scout whatever little they have much faster.
But it gives them the chance to sneakily backstab the server with huge numbers unlike now where any chance of sneak attack gets insta zerged by 5x the numbers

Exactly this. Whenever there is a guild zerg available to a map, it’s only a matter of minute or two that they’ll pullback to zerg a small team off from a tower and go continue zerging keep down after. A zerg moves so fast it’s basically insane, speed boost on 24/7.

With no swords you could have 3 groups of 5-8 people attacking 3 different towers at the same time and if opposing team would just zerg, they would lose at least one.

Yeah ok, I was also thinking this was a dumb idea until I heard his explanation, it would certainly change a lot of the dynamic from being mainly about having one or two big zerg groups, it would also make defending and communication (what a lot of maps are actually lacking) a great deal more important and would add more strategy as you try to hold key locations and objectives.

swords are fine. they help encourage pvp. they add a layer of depth to the game.

you still need scouts, and other means of communication and observation, but the swords are still useful, and removing them will not solve whatever phantom problems you guyhs think there is with them.

niether will removing them help you win matches and battles any more than you are with them.

stop asking anet to hold your hands on every little thing. please, this is not tol borad. the more hands off the devs are with changes to it the better. it’s bad enough you people are emboldened by the orbs removal. now you people ask for every little thing to be changed to hold your hands in ways you think will help you win easier.

How is requirement to communicate more holding hands? Could you even give a well laid out thought about what does the sword icons bring into the game, positively? Everyone worth his salt is out there to do PvP so that point is hardly relevant.

Having to put somebody as a permanent guard at a point is boring for them. In Condemned we use to have 1 person at every point we captured on VOIP and 98% of the time they were just sitting there watching movies while they were bored to death.

Swords are there to let players know something is going on, but if there’s a fog of war than it can be anything.

Hrist.8972:

How is requirement to communicate more holding hands? Could you even give a well laid out thought about what does the sword icons bring into the game, positively? Everyone worth his salt is out there to do PvP so that point is hardly relevant.

you hav eto communicate if the swords on the map are worth engaging, if they are feints, if they are diversionary tactics, if they are something you need to engage right this minute, or if it’s something you can hold back on.

the swords actually increase the need for communication, and add a layer of depth to wvw.

all these threads and podcasts and youtubers and streamers have in commmon is they don’t consider improving their strats or utilizing what the game already offers in their favour, they simply go straight to asking anet to change things in a way they think will make winning easier for them personally, and that’s the hand holding you people are asking for.
less qq more pew pew plox.

Notes taken, makes sense but I don’t think trying it would hurt.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Having to put somebody as a permanent guard at a point is boring for them. In Condemned we use to have 1 person at every point we captured on VOIP and 98% of the time they were just sitting there watching movies while they were bored to death.

Swords are there to let players know something is going on, but if there’s a fog of war than it can be anything.

What I think people dont realize is how true this statement is. Even with swords any good guild leaves scouts behind and scouting is BORING. Without swords there is no way at all that random PUGs could hope to compete with the ninja tactics of the better guilds.

You can tell in this thread who is serious in WvW and in a good guild on a competitive server and who just casuals WvW (nothing wrong with this, just dont ask for changes based on casual play).

Casual play? I’m no casual and I do my share of organized play. I just don’t deny every suggestion outright, I can see the positives and negatives of both.

Kirito.8796:

+1. WvW is so terribly stale atm. Half of these ideas would bring alot more life into the game. Quite sick of having the biggest zerg wins with little to no strategy other than steamroll keep after keep.

If I may ask are you in a server in the bottom half of the tier system?

Since SoR has gone from the 3rd form bottom tier to second tier over the last 3 months I have gotten to see a lot of different tactics and the separation between tiers.

I have noticed that during peak hours when all 3 servers have a queue in middle tiers the lack of tactics and willingness to spend the time/money to upgrade often results in the biggest zerg winning due to many points constantly flipping.

However at the higher tiers I have noticed having too many players in the same zerg is actually quite harmful to your cause because a small 2-5 man team can take supply camps, sentries and npc nodes by themselves and absolutely cripple supply lines. At the higher tiers supply stockpiles are THE most important thing to winning because an upgraded tower can be a force to take but a recently flipped tower melts like butter under a couple of rams/catas.

Knowing what makes the swords appear on the map can also be used tactically to your advantage. A few times I have seen daggers groups ordered to go kill npcs near objective x, so that that swords pop and the main force can stealth attack objective y. I have seen it work more than once.

To be honest I have no idea how to remedy the large number of differences between lower and upper tiers as far as tactics and upgrade usage, but it is not as easy as the recommendations listed here.

gaspara.4079:

Kirito.8796:

+1. WvW is so terribly stale atm. Half of these ideas would bring alot more life into the game. Quite sick of having the biggest zerg wins with little to no strategy other than steamroll keep after keep.

If I may ask are you in a server in the bottom half of the tier system?

Since SoR has gone from the 3rd form bottom tier to second tier over the last 3 months I have gotten to see a lot of different tactics and the separation between tiers.

I have noticed that during peak hours when all 3 servers have a queue in middle tiers the lack of tactics and willingness to spend the time/money to upgrade often results in the biggest zerg winning due to many points constantly flipping.

However at the higher tiers I have noticed having too many players in the same zerg is actually quite harmful to your cause because a small 2-5 man team can take supply camps, sentries and npc nodes by themselves and absolutely cripple supply lines. At the higher tiers supply stockpiles are THE most important thing to winning because an upgraded tower can be a force to take but a recently flipped tower melts like butter under a couple of rams/catas.

Knowing what makes the swords appear on the map can also be used tactically to your advantage. A few times I have seen daggers groups ordered to go kill npcs near objective x, so that that swords pop and the main force can stealth attack objective y. I have seen it work more than once.

To be honest I have no idea how to remedy the large number of differences between lower and upper tiers as far as tactics and upgrade usage, but it is not as easy as the recommendations listed here.

Exactly what I was trying to say, glad you can type better than I can. The difference in tactics between the top tier servers (T1, T2, T3) and the lower tiers is staggering. It is a completely different game once your server actually organizes and has VOIP running, scouts scouting and correct force placement.

You need 1 zerg on a map to do the big siege or to counter their sieging zerg. However, if your zerg has too many people you are wasting manpower and are weaker elsewhere.

Day.4501:

You can take towers/keeps without putting up cross-swords, its up to you to figure how to use it to your advantage.

Except the towers and keeps still show contested regardless and any half-blind player can see it. The orange swords do very little, except discourage the very lazy from checking which gate is under attack.

Uh, no… they represent hot spots. Don’t like triggering them, start taking some tricks from DAoC and applying them here. Having a couple small teams that don’t trigger swords attacking places is actually pretty effective.

So remove swords and you guys here posting can be the guy camping them for 3-5 hours a night and calling out inc.

ComeAndSee.1356:

So remove swords and you guys here posting can be the guy camping them for 3-5 hours a night and calling out inc.

I am ok with that. It will reward those who are organised and punish the herd.

there’s already been a couple people to point out that the dependance on HUGE zerg forces and how “swords” are used are based on the Tier and organization of the servers. T1 on optimum server capacity has 2-3 medium forces hitting key locations with multiple gank/yak/camp groups + moving and stationary scouts…

It’s not 80 people just running from spot to spot trading turn overs all the time. Granted some servers/commanders have different preferences to troop allocations but most the time it’s fairly similar to this when optimal troops on the map (ie not out-manned etc)

T1 we know when someone is planning to hit any keep/tower based on what was flipped when, and roaming scouts. The swords don’t tell us so much theirs an attack coming just that yeah, that attack we were expecting is there or closer now, aside from the occasionally well placed blitz or ninja.

The fact is with swords in place, as a small group you have the advantage to NOT trigger swords and ninja siege or walls etc, when you are trying to set up for a ninja hit. Swords are used to trick the enemy into think your full force or large zerg is hitting a target by using the minimum numbers to trigger swords draw their forces to defend, then blitz another… Using swords agaianst the enemy who doesn’t have active scouts is more viable that that they become zerg magnets, on T1.

Having played in T2/T3 also, I do know how swords on an unorganized server will just be a lot of knee jerk reaction, but that’s the server coordination, and if it’s not there, removing swords wont be some magic wand to make it happen.

But no swords some guy who lost the draw HAS to sit there making no badges, no cash and eventually grow complacent watch each keep door, each camp along with those traveling scouts who report troop movements, because “hey they are here at godsword” is waaaay too late to know. You should have known when the flipped the sentries or the other supply camps or the road scouts said hey "xxxx invaders moving north towards gods… "

I’m not saying it’s a dumb idea or that it’s not worth giving a test drive, but there’s trades and I think the higher tier servers will not overly change too much, where as the lower tiers will find it’s not some anti-zerg cure and find a whole new type of dissapointment.

There no reward for getting info on ppl so why would ppl do it in the first place. As things stand there no reward for defing a camp unless its attked and even then ppl do not def these things. You must make a point to reward ppl for doing things and getting info where they are is something you cant truly reward in game. At the same time these show ppl where there are bots making it a lot harder for bots to be used in wvw. It may take away a few tricks but you can even use it as miss infomasion as in attking with a small groups all over putting them up when you have your main group attk over all drawing off the other teams.
Look at it this way most ppl come into wvw not knowing how to even get out of it to take these orange swords away you will have ppl pointless running arone doing nothing unless some one put out 100g to be a commander. If any thing these swords gives ppl a reason to go when there are no “rich” ppl on. That is the main thing this would do to the game making wvw only playable when you have commanders on keeping wvw out of reach for though worlds who have small pop or who are simply on at the “wrong” times.
I say keep them they just simply give info on where something is going on nothing about numbers or what is truly getting attked. Now if you cant use this to your advantages i would have to say maybe your not one for the leadership roll.

The swords are a good thing. As has been stated by a few other people they can be used to your advantage. You can have a group or groups go places and draw sword to try to to get enemy to go there and then attack something else. Or you can ninja camps, towers, or even a keep at times without drawing swords. And the people that say but it still gets contested. Someone can pull a mob too close to a location and it will become contested. Or their are camps/keeps that mobs attack on a regular basis that makes them contested so just because something is contested doesn’t mean something is going on there. The swords are an asset you use to your advantage not cry about.

remove sword not only the orange but the normal one too.
Remove AoE cap even if its just for 1 week test period.
Doors and Walls should be more difficult to kill maybe +25% health per upgrade.
More siege wapons. Movable siege like a Golem Dog with a Balista on the Back.
And remove the “player can dmg Doors” its just not right.

Imo, don’t remove them. While this does pose some tactical disadvantage, the swords immensely help new players or solo players coming in to wvw to see where the action is. I agree with the poster a few posts above me as well. They provide a guide for maps/servers at times when there are no commanders online.

I’m all for swords, in my opinion they’re a lure for casual wvw players to show them where the fight’s going to be fun. When we go into WvW we want to kill people, not just knock over NPC-defended objectives in a score match. I think the presence of swords is a luxury that makes the fights more engaging it’s a big “come fight me!” sign which is what casual pvpers want. Leave the tactics to the dedicated guilds, they can decide when to feint orange swords or push objectives. Otherwise I think we’ll see less open field battles & more boring guard duty. I think that people want orange swords gone so they can ninja cap during prime-time and move their server up the ladder without a fight. At the end of the day if you can’t fight the zerg and win why do you deserve to out-rank them?

I had the idea, what about a ‘fog of war’ kind of mechanic. If you control a tower or sentry that generates some sort of fog so it does not reveal on the map the swords or supply yaks walking through. This would also give more of an importance to towers or sentries aside from points. It could also generate some different tactical plays involving the mechanics. Just an idea.

All I really want is more siege heavy, well… sieges. Capturing a tower or defending a tower is not very engaging at the moment. When big zerg can just bang the door down in minutes, it doesn’t feel all that impactful. I remember the first days when people were intrigued by all the siege weapons and used them for long time sieges and then people tried to combat them back with their siege.

If I could magically control every player on the map simultaneously as a commander, then I’d agree to remove orange swords. Other option is to have a 250 man 100% active guild on at all times that only plays WvW.

Yeah nah, it’s going to stay as it is.

It wont help with communication, cant really rely on PUG’s. I’d hate to bring a little bit of reality to every one, but most PUG’s have an attention span of a gold fish, and doing this will only cause things to be worse at first. RE is mostly a self reliant guild, with only maybe 50-80 in WvW daily, other guilds play on other time frames, some work with us, but not all on DH are on the same page. We use vent, and it is public, most of the time we have maybe 2 gorilla squads going around, and one main RE force. Loosing orange X’s will make DH loose Towers and even Keeps when our guild is not on that map, I cant speak for other guilds or alliances though.

dirtyklingon.2918:

Hrist.8972:

How is requirement to communicate more holding hands? Could you even give a well laid out thought about what does the sword icons bring into the game, positively? Everyone worth his salt is out there to do PvP so that point is hardly relevant.

you hav eto communicate if the swords on the map are worth engaging, if they are feints, if they are diversionary tactics, if they are something you need to engage right this minute, or if it’s something you can hold back on.

the swords actually increase the need for communication, and add a layer of depth to wvw.

all these threads and podcasts and youtubers and streamers have in commmon is they don’t consider improving their strats or utilizing what the game already offers in their favour, they simply go straight to asking anet to change things in a way they think will make winning easier for them personally, and that’s the hand holding you people are asking for.
less qq more pew pew plox.

This!!

Just this morning I did a quick scout run up to the north side of the map to see if the main force needed to disengage from the south and respond. It was just some people tickling a gate and not worth the time. Swords or no swords it still requires someone with the ability to analyze the situation. Even with folks there you still need to make the call if you need backup or not. I was in a 3 man defense team last night that did a stellar job on siege and held off a force of 25+ on a tower for a long long time before we had to call for backup to come wipe the force, meanwhile we captured 2 towers during that time to gain points.

I’d also refrain from taking strategy advice from a guild/show that hasn’t proven successful in WvW tactics so far.

And honestly, can any one posting on this thread say they can honestly rely on PUG’s to rally?…When you only need 5-10 30 show up, and when you need 30, only 5 show up…

The only players capable and with enough discipline to stand “Scout” to watch something are organized guilds in a voice chat. Who does that leave behind the commander to make the pushes? Mindless PUG’s who will show up for 20 or so minutes and disappear, go off and do their own thing. Think about it, cant rely on PUG’s to maintain one spot on the map, and cant rely on PUG’s to maintain a force behind a commander.

I have to agree with Littlefeather, I can’t imagine the nightmare of matchups when it is hard as it is to get a lot of PUGs to cooperate. There are certainly a lot of smart team player PUGs, and they are always welcome but unfortunately the mass are not the sharpest. On Maguuma we advertise our public mumble constantly to help get everyone on the same page but there will always be a subset of players who either refuse or just don’t care enough to organize.

It’s easy to see when you see people enter the map and always ask “where is the zerg at” rather than “where am I needed”. Orange swords or not, people care only about where to zerg so I see no changes if they were removed, just way more people in map asking “where is the zerg at?”

Now in all fairness I have come across some solid PUG’s who have enough discipline and can see the bigger picture in WvW, who will guard things, even by themselves for long periods of times. But for the most part you might see a PUG stealing your Golem to kill Moa birds or you may have tried to task one to guard something, then you see them run off to the zerg after 10 minutes.

Everyday its like that, that’s why I’m like this…lol

No matter how many times you spam “Dont take supplies from Towers/Keeps” what do you see, everytime your defending something, when your guild is on siege and PUG’s run out to die, when theres more siege to man…yea You all know what I’m talking about.

Chriswck.6490:

<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnpqzt44Pag&feature=g-u-u”>Tales of Tyria #55</a>

WvW has been undeniably losing its attraction as time goes on. Fixes are coming in at snail’s pace. Anet has to realize that there IS a point where it will be too late. We’re all here because we love this game and saw the potential with it.

Tales of Tyria by far generates the most meaningful and interesting discussions, compared with other open-table shows. WvW was talked about.

One of the major proposals discussed here is: Remove Orange Swords on the Map. Contemplate.

If that got your attention, watch the rest of the show.

Anet watches the show, and they have to take their time quickly, and seriously deliberate over the core structure and come up with creative solutions to WvW.

100% agree with this. Now, the white swords that also prevent Waypoints…those are FINE, they’re great. But the orange swords…those need to go NOW!

Also, I loved the idea of that same video that the cap on siege (max 5 players hit), needs to be removed. That’s good idea to get rid of it to test it out like that. I wish that my Treb shot that hits a location of a major zerg would knock down everyone hit that didn’t dodge-roll out, instead of 5 of the 50.

YOu obviously have never discovered the joy of 4 man tower snipe teams. 4 guys set up ram/catapult at tower, no orange swords are made due to the lower number of players, they snipe the tower all by themselves.

In the top tiers, we are now paranoid of ever seeing white swords on a map because it means we have to have scouts checking out any instance of them.

Orange swords just show where the major engagements of enemy forces are and help co-ordinate those not in guilds and such to where they are needed, especially when theres no commanders on the map (which even in T1, sometimes, there isn’t)

Siphaed.9235:

Chriswck.6490:

<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnpqzt44Pag&feature=g-u-u”>Tales of Tyria #55</a>

WvW has been undeniably losing its attraction as time goes on. Fixes are coming in at snail’s pace. Anet has to realize that there IS a point where it will be too late. We’re all here because we love this game and saw the potential with it.

Tales of Tyria by far generates the most meaningful and interesting discussions, compared with other open-table shows. WvW was talked about.

One of the major proposals discussed here is: Remove Orange Swords on the Map. Contemplate.

If that got your attention, watch the rest of the show.

Anet watches the show, and they have to take their time quickly, and seriously deliberate over the core structure and come up with creative solutions to WvW.

100% agree with this. Now, the white swords that also prevent Waypoints…those are FINE, they’re great. But the orange swords…those need to go NOW!

Also, I loved the idea of that same video that the cap on siege (max 5 players hit), needs to be removed. That’s good idea to get rid of it to test it out like that. I wish that my Treb shot that hits a location of a major zerg would knock down everyone hit that didn’t dodge-roll out, instead of 5 of the 50.

Whats with the agreeing on this? Does any one have a valid reason? Because the guy in the video makes a point, but Its not valid, not in reality it wont work like that. Any one who does WvW daily for over a month knows how things go in WvW, splitting up manpower and relying on PUG’s to rally or react when they are needed is not going to happen.

Gavello.2813:

YOu obviously have never discovered the joy of 4 man tower snipe teams. 4 guys set up ram/catapult at tower, no orange swords are made due to the lower number of players, they snipe the tower all by themselves.

In the top tiers, we are now paranoid of ever seeing white swords on a map because it means we have to have scouts checking out any instance of them.

Orange swords just show where the major engagements of enemy forces are and help co-ordinate those not in guilds and such to where they are needed, especially when theres no commanders on the map (which even in T1, sometimes, there isn’t)

4 man team? can be taken out by strong 2 man team easily…

My Gorilla team runs all Power/Tough/Vit full exotics, can wipe just about any 5-8 man team we come accross, hell no one has ever stood toe to toe with me and won, even other guardians kite me around like a little (omit word) lol… Personally I make suicide runs untill whatever Im aiming at is down, no matter how many people are guarding it.

No such thing as small teams on the servers we face, if there are, they get tired of seeing RE Gorilla squad charging at them everytime we see them lol

@Littlefeather I’ve been involved in 4 man teams who ninja towers in our last match against Darkhaven (Yaks player). Where was ur 2 man push on us then?

Get rid of orange swords….but replace them with blue swords.

Contemplate.

Removing flashpoints on the map would be momentously stupid. Every other game with pvp added them at a later stage.

The whole idea is to get people to fight. Making it harder to do that is counterproductive.