Guild Wars 2

So this is a topic I’ve discussed before, but I’ve decided to update my thoughts and ideas on it. Due to the forums rules about necroing old posts, I’ll just repost part of the old one here with some updated thoughts. I wrote this is relation to a lot of posts being made by players complaining about off hours capping in WvW, as a method of trying to even up the odds for the defenders who really don’t have the hopes of reinforcements.

Updating the Out Numbered Buff
This idea is aimed at helping servers with lower populations during certain times defending their home BL by expanding on the benefit’s of the Out Numbered buff (I’m not sure about whether this could be implemented in EB due to lack of information on the criteria of getting the Out Numbered buff)

We all know that if you end up with the Out Numbered buff in your home BL you’re going to lose most of it without back up and if there is no back up coming most players won’t bother to defend. We also know that the Out Numbered Buff is near useless in this situation as well, so I’m suggesting Anet expands on what it offers to players and their server in their home BL.

Player benefits
1. Retain the current Out Numbered buffs
2. Permanent 33% speed increase whilst Out Numbered

Server Benefits
1. Contested WP(way point) cool down reduction – Keep’s with WPs have the contested timer reduced from 3 minutes to 90 sec.
2. Seasoned Guards – All NPC guards scale up in level and difficulty ie, Keep Lords go from Champion to Legendary.
3. Commanders Presence on Keep Lords – Whilst in the presence of a Keep Lord players gain the Commander’s Presence buff (the one that the breakout commanders have)
4. Armored Caravans – Yaks and Yak guards gain extra Toughness and Vitality whilst in transit.
5. Call for aid – If the enemy get to the inner walls/gates of a Keep, a message is sent out to all players in WvW that " ‘X’ keep is under attack in the BL ". (Similar to the Scarlet Minions message)
6. Increased siege decay time – Any siege that has been placed by players has its decay timer increased by another 60 minutes, totaling 120 minutes.
7. Lord’s Room Medic – The addition of healing NPC’s in the keeps lord room.
8. Siege maintenance – Any destroyed defensive siege natural to towers and keeps will automatically repair themselves over time using the tower/keeps supply 10 minutes after an assault has been successfully repelled. This ends if the structure is attacked again.
9. Structural Maintenance – Any structural components of towers and keeps that have been destroyed or are in need of repair will begin to be repaired by the towers/keeps workers 10 minutes after an assault has been successfully repelled. This ends if the structure is attacked again.
10. The Last Stand – If the Keep Lord is killed the WP is immediately uncontested and has a small shield bubble over the area where the player would WP in. Enemy players who enter this bubble are immediately killed.

The Out Numbered Buff for the ‘Server Benefits’ would need to be on a cool down that is influenced by the amount of friendly players from that server show up, whilst that server has the Out Numbered Buff on their BL. You don’t want it to disappear as soon as a friendly zerg shows up in Citadel, with the enemy zerg inside a Keep that still has it’s WP contested, whilst at the same time you don’t want it to still be there long after the enemy has been repelled from a tower or keep and the friendly zerg is still on the map hunting the enemy zerg down.

The biggest issue would be trying to balance all this to work fairly. But this is a solution that could be implemented in the short term to fix the issues for servers who have large differences in world wide population without punishing players too much. Another method to actually make this outnumbered buff fairer is to break it up into stages, based on a ratio of how much the enemy outnumbers you. That way if the enemy doesn’t show up with a map blob, but still outnumbers you, it’s still a challenge to take your stuff, but not impossible.

All this will do is promote never being on your BL especially with the 90s waypoint timer.

Not a healthy change.

I like a lot of your thinking Tonaius, and was remarking on a couple of the above ideas to a fellow player the other day.

However, if the Outnumbered buff becomes something useful, it would indeed open it up to be used tactically. This may be a bit harder for upper tier / high population servers, but down low where a single staff ele on the walls of a tower can, in fact, wipe a party of four or five if played right… there may need to be a flexible situational adjustment to the buff.

Here is an alternative that should work as well.

• walls and doors have 10 times as much life.
• Killing NPCs, doors and walls from an outmanned side does not give any rewards (WEXP, drops).
• the conquest event vs an outmanned side (outmanned during the whole event) does not give karma/gold.
• An objective acquired from an outmanned side (outmanned during the whole event) does not generate score until upgraded at least twice.
• outmanned is indicated on walls, doors, npcs and the event to the enemy.

10 people or less never generate outmanned buf on the opponents. ( if your enemy leaves a map empty by intend, send only 10 people and not a whole Zerg there to capture the map.)

Currently it’s most rewarding to attack the outmanned side. This reduces the incentive to do PvD, i.e. no effort = no reward.

Been asking for a change since forever, not happened. Would be nice to have a response but hasn’t happened. Would be nice to have a change..not going to happen.

I’m trying to decide who wasted more time- the OP in writing a fine script that will have no bearing on whatever we ever get, or me for responding.

Some very good points in regards to how this idea could be exploited. A few points I want to make though in regards to the proposed upgraded buff.

The buff can be used tactically, yes to a point. This is where the balancing and adding stages to the outnumbered buff would need to come into effect. If for example there’s 3 people on the map and a map queuing blob shows up and it’s during, say that servers Oceanic timezone, where’s the incentive to defend? But I agree, if the enemy doesn’t significantly outnumber you then the benefits shouldn’t be as high.