Guild Wars 2

Before the patch, the only siege that properly despawned after 30 minutes were trebs. Even the Devs admitted (cannot find the link) that it was a bug that they fixed so that all siege despwans properly after 30 minutes.

Frankly, I am a little annoyed that it does this. What do you think of these despawn timer modifications:

Flame Rams – 15 minutes (they do not need a long timer, if you do not use it when you place it, it should disappear, they have very limited use other than knocking down doors, as shrines for victory, and to siege cap).

Trebuchets – 30 minutes (I was okay with it despawning after 30 minutes since it was mainly an offensive weapon inside keeps/towers. They are difficult enough as it is to counter)

Golems – 30 minutes (This was the same as it was before. As an offensive weapon, it should have a reduced timer compared to the more defensive siege below. Most are kept near waypoints anyways, so it is easy to tap when you use the WP).

Arrow Carts, Catapults, Ballistas – 1 Hour (Will reduce the amount of time you have to tap it to keep it up. And speaking of Arrow Carts, reduce the damage back to what it was already, or at least put it half way)

Now that it takes longer to siege a keep due to the extreme defensive powers of the Arrow Cart, it is harder to keep siege properly maintained in other parts of the map. It means that someone has to baby sit the siege while the rest of the map is at war.

There is a reason why there are jokes in the military about sending a soldier to a remote outpost in Alaska on Guard Duty. Its boring, tedious, and devoid of human contact. At least Alaska has the penguins to talk to.

edit comments: Forgot Golems. Silly me Did this before I was on my way to work.

I despise the siege timers now effecting EB, it makes the boring, tedious and rewardless job of being a scout/yak runner/upgrader even more tedious.

Completely agree with the OP. Rams last way too long considering they’re only useful for a few minutes before either the gate or the ram goes down. AC/Cata/Balli timer needs to be increased for the sake of the poor graveyard shift workers. 5 people running around a map trying to defend AND refresh defensive siege is a really sad sight to see.

DevonCarver.5370:

Indeed, it was a bug that the timer didn’t work all the time and we’ve addressed that. We are going to evaluate these times now that the timer does in fact work and it is very possible that we will make some changes to them. That being said, the main reason for the timer is the fact that we have to have the siege cap because of technical reasons and this helps to force siege to recycle if it isn’t being used.

Would it be an idea then to have different despawn timers depending on the type of siege? For instance something like this:

Flame Ram – 15 minutes
Catapult – 15 minutes
Ballista – 30 minutes
Arrow Cart – 60 minutes
Trebuchet – 60 minutes
Siege Golem – 60 minutes

Everything except ram should stay at least 60min, superior stuff even 2 hours.

DevonCarver.5370:

Indeed, it was a bug that the timer didn’t work all the time and we’ve addressed that. We are going to evaluate these times now that the timer does in fact work and it is very possible that we will make some changes to them. That being said, the main reason for the timer is the fact that we have to have the siege cap because of technical reasons and this helps to force siege to recycle if it isn’t being used.

That makes a ton of sense with regards to rams… let’s face it, if you’re not using a ram there’s little to no sense for that ram to be there in the first place. However, defensive siege is a different story. People ready defenses with the intent on them being there when needed, not necessarily for immediate use. A couple, three hour timer would be ideal, but even extending it to an hour would be a nice quality of life improvement.

Trebs despawning make me sad. So much supply, relatively high cost… sigh…

Interesting thought… what if superior siege had a longer timer than regular? Regular despawn 1 hr, superior 2 hrs… something like that?

I’m still not amused about the 30 second delay, btw. It is killing the first responder type of defense role which I enjoyed a lot. Now it’s sit in a tower, doing nothing but refreshing siege every 30 minutes… sigh…

Straegen.2938:

The system should remove the siege with the highest unused timer as players drop new siege not automatically on a timer. Refreshing siege should not be a part time WvW job.

Flame rams could be the exception and simply despawn after 5 minutes of no use.

I agree with this. Great points.

Is there ANY possible way of creating the despawn timer to be relevant to the amount of people in the map? . . So if the map is full then everything is on a short timer but if there is only a couple of people then everything is on a long timer. – At least they have a chance of getting around the map to refresh.
I also agree that there should be different timers for different siege (if possible) with the offensive siege on a shorter timer than the defensive siege.

Straegen.2938:

The system should remove the siege with the highest unused timer as players drop new siege not automatically on a timer. Refreshing siege should not be a part time WvW job.

Flame rams could be the exception and simply despawn after 5 minutes of no use.

this is vulnerable to abuse. enemy spies can simply drop a ton of arrow carts causing unmanned (but recently refreshed) siege to despawn.

with this change, refreshing siege wouldn’t be enough — you would actually have to man siege to prevent griefers from forcing it to despawn. and having to man siege should not be a full time WvW job.

-ken

Malediktus.9250:

Everything except ram should stay at least 60min, superior stuff even 2 hours.

Having a different timer for superior stuff is a great idea. Siege griefers probably won’t upgrade siege for the sake of burning 10 additional supply anyways.

I like the OP’s timer suggestions.

On to the more important topic though…

Penguins are not naturally found in the northern hemisphere. That being where Alaska resides.

+1 to OP’s timer suggestions.

Anyone who does sentry work in WvW, especially during low coverage hours, knows that 30 minutes is just way too short for defensive siege. An hour we can work with, lol.

DevonCarver.5370:

Indeed, it was a bug that the timer didn’t work all the time and we’ve addressed that. We are going to evaluate these times now that the timer does in fact work and it is very possible that we will make some changes to them. That being said, the main reason for the timer is the fact that we have to have the siege cap because of technical reasons and this helps to force siege to recycle if it isn’t being used.

Thank you for the response. Obviously I do recognize the issues with technical limitations. I am not savvy with regards to the intricacies of server, hardware and software constraints. So I will defer the wisdom of your staff and others on these forums with more expert knowledge on the topics.

Gisei.5749:

On to the more important topic though…

Penguins are not naturally found in the northern hemisphere. That being where Alaska resides.

I KNEW there was something in Happy Feet about Penguins being a native of the South Pole. How about Polar Bears? Will that work?

Malediktus.9250:

Everything except ram should stay at least 60min, superior stuff even 2 hours.

I like this with rams only around for 10 minutes if even that.

30 minutes is a really bad time. There is but one piece of siege which should have that time and that is a ram. As it is now, nearly every time a defending force arrives to defend, there is NO siege especially for towers away from the front lines. This is compounded now by the delayed contested timer. The gates can be half down by the time the timer even shows up, let alone allowing people time to get in, build the siege and defend. Battles rage for hours. It takes time to place siege, go to defend or attack an objective and come back to.. no siege. 30 minutes passes by in this game easily. It happens all the time.

The other issue is that this refreshing of siege, like repairing and trebbing, are largely done by a minority of people. Most people, at least on my server, do not do these tasks and indeed, they ARE boring, repetitive and unrewarding in terms of not receiving enough credit in the game. What happens is there are a few that spend most of their time running around touching siege while the rest of the people get to do what everyone really wants to do. Kill enemy and you know, ENJOY the game. This low timer on siege is a really big issue.

As far as the original poster’s thoughts. I disagree on the timers for all but rams. I would extend the time on siege to a few hours at minimum and more like 5 or 6. If the worry is about having the siege limit reached then allow commanders the ability to destroy friendly siege. All siege can be used defensively so I disagree with his basic premise for the timing. I also think it should not be a chore to play a game. This siege time limit gives a few people a tedious job to do.

I also am quite ok and welcome the changes to the arrow carts and absolutely do NOT think they should be nerfed in any way shape or form.

Straegen.2938:

The system should remove the siege with the highest unused timer as players drop new siege not automatically on a timer.

This, but prioritize flame rams.

Flame rams will despawn after 15 minutes of no use but if someone tries to drop a siege and the cap limit has been hit, the first flame ram with > 2 minutes of idle time will despawn to make room.

I wouldn’t do this with other siege — let them despawn on their timer so as to not surprise anyone that was trying to keep them refreshed — but any flame ram not being actively used is probably just taking up space.

Totally agree this needs a bit of a rethink. As others have said this is a pure grind that many are not up for. The few that are, do it for hours then get called to defend a keep or SM and by the time they get back all that siege they were protecting. has gone! It’s horrid.

If the main goal is to solve the technical problem then I agree – shorter time for offensive siege, that is normally abandoned after use and longer for defensive.

Could you not have different timers for ACs and cats and rams (and even trebs) placed outside forts to those inside? 15 mins outside, 1 hour inside (agree even longer for superior). You could also clear all defensive siege from inside a fort automatically when it is captured (or after 5 mins to allow for immediate recapture).

Agree with the OP… except about penguins which has already been pointed out.

I can appreciate “technical reasons” as much as anyone but there were technical reasons that that WvW resets couldn’t be split up for NA and EU servers.

I have no intention of spending my gaming time running around “refreshing” siege and if that’s what WvW defensive play is coming down to then I’ll give up on that and go join the zerg.

DevonCarver.5370:

Indeed, it was a bug that the timer didn’t work all the time and we’ve addressed that. We are going to evaluate these times now that the timer does in fact work and it is very possible that we will make some changes to them. That being said, the main reason for the timer is the fact that we have to have the siege cap because of technical reasons and this helps to force siege to recycle if it isn’t being used.

One of your stated objectives in the making of GW2 was to eliminate the “grind” of having to do the same mindless tasks over & over. Despawn timers on tower/keep/camp defenses defeats that purpose. You should completely eliminate the timers on siege which should actually improve overall performance as you wouldn’t need to keep track of timers on every piece of siege. To prevent the siege cap problem, you should add a simple feature to each piece of siege. Add a new command button to the weapon skill bar that would force despawn after 10 separate players clicked that command. The 10 player requirement would prevent people from other servers from sabotaging siege. The first despawn command would start a 30 minute timer to collect an additional 9 player agreement clicks after which that piece of equipment would immediately despawn. If 10 clicks are not made within 30 minutes then the count would be reset to zero. This would eliminate the grind of ticking siege constantly and provide a mechanism for the players to deal with siege griefers. Of course players would still be able to eliminate hostile siege in the usual fashion. Depending on your programmers, you could make the change on equipment placed within defensive areas only and leave a timer on field siege which would help prevent siege griefers from trying to siege cap in remote places. You could even get fancy and overlay the number of clicks remaining over the command button much like the timer display for skill cool down.

Castiel Aurios.7830:

DevonCarver.5370:

Indeed, it was a bug that the timer didn’t work all the time and we’ve addressed that. We are going to evaluate these times now that the timer does in fact work and it is very possible that we will make some changes to them. That being said, the main reason for the timer is the fact that we have to have the siege cap because of technical reasons and this helps to force siege to recycle if it isn’t being used.

One of your stated objectives in the making of GW2 was to eliminate the “grind” of having to do the same mindless tasks over & over. Despawn timers on tower/keep/camp defenses defeats that purpose. You should completely eliminate the timers on siege which should actually improve overall performance as you wouldn’t need to keep track of timers on every piece of siege. To prevent the siege cap problem, you should add a simple feature to each piece of siege. Add a new command button to the weapon skill bar that would force despawn after 10 separate players clicked that command. The 10 player requirement would prevent people from other servers from sabotaging siege. The first despawn command would start a 30 minute timer to collect an additional 9 player agreement clicks after which that piece of equipment would immediately despawn. If 10 clicks are not made within 30 minutes then the count would be reset to zero. This would eliminate the grind of ticking siege constantly and provide a mechanism for the players to deal with siege griefers. Of course players would still be able to eliminate hostile siege in the usual fashion. Depending on your programmers, you could make the change on equipment placed within defensive areas only and leave a timer on field siege which would help prevent siege griefers from trying to siege cap in remote places. You could even get fancy and overlay the number of clicks remaining over the command button much like the timer display for skill cool down.

You’ve left out one critical piece in your argument to remove timers from siege. That is “choice”. When the siege despawns, it’s a matter of choice whether to rebuild or move on. It’s also dependent on battle locations where enemies attack or defend.

I’m against any ability in any Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) that affects an unlimited number of players in any area. The ability to affect an unlimited number of players even in a small area of battle in Player versus Player (PvP) allows one player to be far over powered in combat. All abilities should have some limit not only for balance, but because it makes sense from a shrapnel point of view where many targets in a small area would block objects around them. Eventually in all MMORPGs that I’ve been involved with, the abilities are reduced and placed with a limit. All abilities in all MMORPGs eventually will have a limit even if it takes years of analyzing combat in terms of PvP.

I am going to be the rare person that likes the current despawn timers as they are.

The reason for this is more about how the player base takes advantage of the freedom to zerg about the map to the point of hopping from one BL to another without any regard for that siege or the very structure it resides in.

Yes it sucks to show up at a tower or keep and find all of that siege has evaporated into thin air but it serves a purpose. Players have to learn to but in the time to keep it alive or risk that precious tower or keep to an invading army determined to take it from you.

Superior siege should have a longer timer in my opinion because it does take much more of an investment to create and does use a somewhat difficult resource to acquire in the skill points.

Longer timers will not really solve the problem of disappearing siege at an inconvenient time. Most players will still forget about it or ignore it while they zerg around the map behind a commander. The only difference is that it will give them longer to do so before the consequences of neglect bite them in the rear.

There are too many holier than thou players that preach about refreshing the siege when many, not all, run off to do all the fun stuff depending on others to make sure their backsides are covered.

I hope the system remains like this. Sooner or later people will have to become more responsible for things other than mindlessly following the blue icon all over the place.

chefdiable, I think it will have the opposite effect of what you are hoping for. In fact, for me it already has. I used to be one of those people who couldn’t stand to see Garrison on my home BL with little or no defensive siege, so I would spend at least an hour or two working, usually with no help, to build defenses. When I was finally done, I’d go and “play,” checking back every so often on my siege. It was not uncommon for me to find much of the stuff I built still around 24 hours later, even though I knew it was not being refreshed regularly, if at all.

Now, it’s just not worth it to even build anything other than maybe a few pieces in high-traffic areas where people might bother to tick them. Even when I’ve tried really hard to get back in time to refresh, or ask repeatedly for help in map chat, I’ve seen multiple superior ACs time out right in the Garrison lord room. Right after the patch we had 4 trebs and about 10 ACs at Garri. I’d call out when I refreshed, and ask for help, and by God if they didn’t all despawn the one time I didn’t personally get back and refresh them. On most servers/maps (EB might be an exception), I think it’s more often than not, money, time and supplies down the drain, and that’s really unfortunate.

Its becoming not worth the bother to siege up multiple towers in off peak time, you will either find yourself wasting all your game time babysitting them and getting zero wxp for your efforts, or as soon as you do something else it will all have vanished.
30 mins feels too short when babysitting multiple holdings.

I find its easier to just stockpile supply in the towers and try to rapid build some stuff if and when enemies arrive.

In this regard, all players should start carrying at least some arrow carts on them, so you can build if you find a tower under attack.

SolarWind.5693:

[snip]
If the worry is about having the siege limit reached then allow commanders the ability to destroy friendly siege.

No, no, no, … and no. The moment you give any player the ability to destroy siege, it WILL be abused/griefed. All an opposing server would have to do is have one of their commanders transfer to your server. That commander could then, single handedly, wipe out all your siege. The only possible exception would be the siege owner could destroy their own siege weapons. Even that could be open to abuse:

Griefer: “Hey, guys, I’ll place all the siege blueprints down inside this tower, ok? I just need some help building them.”

Players: “Cool! Thank you. That’s so generous of you. Wow, what a selfless person.”

Attackers arrive at the keep/tower to begin their siege.

Griefer: (goes around and destroys all the siege he placed) “HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Players:

A counter would be that a player who transfers is not permitted to join the current WvWvW match in progress; they must wait until the next reset. But now we’re creating counters to counters, adding unneeded complexity, and locking players out of a portion of the game for a period of time; all of which are undesirable.

I agree that refreshing siege is annoying. However, given the limitation that there can only be so much siege on a map, despawn timers are pretty much the only viable solution. I do agree, though, that increasing the despawn timer to 1 hour for regular siege and 2 hours for superior siege would be a good compromise. Flame rams, perhaps, can remain at 30 minutes. I wouldn’t set it lower because some of us use rams defensively to block a gate; necessitating an attacking force destroy those rams before building rams of their own.

Castiel Aurios.7830:

One of your stated objectives in the making of GW2 was to eliminate the “grind” of having to do the same mindless tasks over & over. Despawn timers on tower/keep/camp defenses defeats that purpose. You should completely eliminate the timers on siege which should actually improve overall performance as you wouldn’t need to keep track of timers on every piece of siege. To prevent the siege cap problem, you should add a simple feature to each piece of siege. Add a new command button to the weapon skill bar that would force despawn after 10 separate players clicked that command. The 10 player requirement would prevent people from other servers from sabotaging siege. The first despawn command would start a 30 minute timer to collect an additional 9 player agreement clicks after which that piece of equipment would immediately despawn. If 10 clicks are not made within 30 minutes then the count would be reset to zero. This would eliminate the grind of ticking siege constantly and provide a mechanism for the players to deal with siege griefers. Of course players would still be able to eliminate hostile siege in the usual fashion. Depending on your programmers, you could make the change on equipment placed within defensive areas only and leave a timer on field siege which would help prevent siege griefers from trying to siege cap in remote places. You could even get fancy and overlay the number of clicks remaining over the command button much like the timer display for skill cool down.

Then the latest tactic will become siege killer teams which transfer over from the opposing server. That may sound ridiculous for players in lower tiers or servers with lower populations. Servers which are playing to win at any cost and have the numbers to pull this off would do it without hesitation. They would collect the gold needed to convert to gems and sponsor ten of their players to transfer to the opposing server. These ten players could then roam the maps, wiping out all your siege.

It’s not a tactic I would employ myself, but it took me all of a few seconds reading your post to see how this could be abused. It’s a great idea if everyone is playing honorably. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case. If I can think this up, you can believe that players/servers who wouldn’t think twice about sabotaging other servers will come to the same conclusion.

Heh – and I thought the removal of the siege timer for everything but trebs and golems was an answer to our prayers. I understand the issue about siege capping and server limits, but it still seems like there should be better solutions. In lieu of that I “+1” the increase in despawn timers.

Oh, and to get back on the topic of penguins and their origins and snafus about it:
!http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BPKUHknKQn0/UTSFiJ2E_JI/AAAAAAAAAHw/qP3LjBnE6cU/s1600/penguin.jpg!

For those of you wondering about this last month, see the post that was recently given below. Thank you for a good solution Arena Net!

In Summary, May 28th the Siege times will be 15 min for flame rams, 1 hr for all others.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Siege-timer-1/first#post2085613