Guild Wars 2

So I want to create this thread to increase the awareness of the fact that siege equipment is despawning after a certain amount of time of inactivity.

This is a pretty flawed feature. If my guild wants to drop 10 arrow carts and 10 ballistas to hold red’s keep near their spawn. They will be despawned the next day if we don’t use them over a certain amount of time.

I know for a fact this happens, as we dropped 4 ballistas in the lord room at SM last night. We’re dominating our match-ups and did not lose SM over night. I got on about 10 hours later and they’re gone.

If match-ups are a designed to be a week long and eventually 2 weeks long, this is a terrible feature to the game, and it needs to be looked at. I’m ok with siege taking hits from lightening in the Borderlands, but we should not lose due to inactivity in EB.

Please chime in and raise awareness to this.

This has been known for some time. All it takes is for someone to sit in them every so often so they don’t despawn.

I think it is fine. Otherwise there would be unused siege equipment all over the place.

sometimes i run back to previously defended locations to reactivate the siege in fear of this.

I think the despawn is kind of lame. I’d prefer the Storm to do damage to the siege and kill them over time, with a repair option build into the action bar that will slowly repair the siege item instead of being able to fire. The despawn is just an overlook on the game designer’s part.

On the other hand, if they never despawned, you’d have 50 Ballistas in almost every Lord area, and everyone would just hop on when they’re being attacked. Still, some design balance could be made here to make them get killed off over time, or to have some kind of system that tells you how long is left on each weapon, so people can choose to reactivate them or not.

Romanus.8023:

This has been known for some time. All it takes is for someone to sit in them every so often so they don’t despawn.

I think it is fine. Otherwise there would be unused siege equipment all over the place.

Not to mention it keeps people from doing exactly what the OP’s server was trying to do; set up a bunch of pre-emptive defensive siege and then allowing the fortress to re-supply overnight.

I think it’s fine the way it is. Fortresses should be forced to bleed supply under siege as they currently do.

I agree with the reasons to Have them despawn.

However…I always feel bad for the dude the volunteers to hang back and just click on siege every ten minutes for an hour or more. How boring, and talk about a loss of exp, gold and karma

Siege despawn after 1/2 an hour of inactivity. If you are walking by someones siege, refresh it

It is done to decrease latency and increase gold sinking. But mostly the second.

I’d say maybe extend the time by a little bit, so you are not forced to baby sit siege weapons.

This game really wants to deter people from actually helping by purchasing, placing and building siege as if it wasn’t a big enough issue already.

A simple fix to this would be to add a visible timer showing how much longer until siege disappears.

Not only will this draw attention to this issue (i dont think a lot of people are aware of this) but it will add a ‘positive reinforcement’ type feeling to players who get on a piece of siege for a sec and hop off. They will be able to visually see how what they’ve done has helped their team.

My only fear is that with this, people will not allow any siege to ever disappear xD

If this happens, then simply lessen the time it takes for siege to disappear.

there should be an upgrade that allows you to spend supply to prevent despawn. say 20-50 supply per despawn period. it prevents overloading with siege past what you can supply, and keeps cutting off keep supply as a legitimate strategy.

Garrix.7036:

there should be an upgrade that allows you to spend supply to prevent despawn. say 20-50 supply per despawn period. it prevents overloading with siege past what you can supply, and keeps cutting off keep supply as a legitimate strategy.

Kind of like that….some version if it could have some nice implications for starving towers and keeps of supply.

I understand the premise behind them despawning, if you are defending a keep you need to defend it. Ie you do go away and let the npc’s do the work for you. It is something that needs to be thought of, ie leave defenders.

You say your a guild, and not a pug zerg… or may be you have /are apart of a server alliance. Communication should therefore not be a major problem. If you want to hold and defend Woodhaven, have it coordinated. But I now digress.

As for your statement about week long server match ups, who do you think will win between a low server population with coordination or a high population running around like headless chickens?

If one team can fight better on a tactical level and strategic level then numbers matter naught, supply and the supply lines eventually win. Having permanent or semi-permanent siege in defence or offence takes away one vital aspect of RvR…

What to use the supply… On the siege to kill the attackers/defenders or on the walls or the gates to by time until reinforcements come.

What you suggest would devalue the need for supply…

However just to throw abone to the idea.

Now if you want a visible timer in the siege that is all well and good. But to balance it out it should have a mim activity time too.

drwookie.6391:

However…I always feel bad for the dude the volunteers to hang back and just click on siege every ten minutes for an hour or more. How boring, and talk about a loss of exp, gold and karma

Pushing people to do this is a “Bad Game Design”

I’m not saying Siege weapons should be eternal, but this is a “Bad Game Design”

EDIT: Perhaps there should be a permanent timer on siege engines and they should start to loose hp after certain amount of time even they are used, which will be visible. This might help the problem of planting permanent siege engines on “not reachable” places close to Citadels.

Yorkie.8950:

As for your statement about week long server match ups, who do you think will win between a low server population with coordination or a high population running around like headless chickens?

Past experience shows that servers with “High Population Running around like headless chickens” wins the match as they have a “high population running around and capping everything” at night when you sleep.

Yorkie, what about the suggestion mentioned of applying a supply cost to maintaining siege more permanently? Either a constant steady supply cost which, if not maintained, leads to them despawning OR they could add a new upgrade to locations that costs supply, but extends the lifespan of siege (maybe not permanently, but like doubles it or something).

While I understand coordination is nice and important, I still don’t think someone should have to stay behind doing nothing at a keep just to maintain the fortifications. That is no fun.

@ Kazim
Vabbi is a low population server with some very well organised guilds on it.

Whiteside Ridge [And I only pick on this server because it has a higher population than Vabbi] are lower in the rankings as of the post in the sticky.

A case in point? or conjecture? I shall let you mull that one over.

NB. Whiteside, again was only picked out as population comparison as I know some very well organised guilds are on the server.

@drwookie
Yes both suggestion I would approve if I was the man to make the call. Both have a cost and time issues associated with them. But only with limitations and the natural derogation of equipment would need to be balanced along side the amount of supply in the world. How this could be achieved I confess that I do not know.

But on the flip.

Imagine if you will siege in hard to reach places without the aid of other siege. [I’m thinking just on the cliff outside homeland citadel, using trebs] The way to counter that would be by building siege yourself, assuming that you agree, we have permanent to semi permanent siege setup.

Now with the ability to repair said equipment would make them indestructible in the sense you would only have to pop in and out of you immunity zone provided by the citadel and constantly repair, supplies comming from the north. All the time destroying and counter siege attempted to be built. [Of course these would be deployed on the Garrison walls or there abouts, but the point is “easy to take out either by siege or aoe”]

Of course you would not be able to keep or hold cliffside keep due to the siege in these areas so as the attackers getting supply to build or repair their own counter siege becomes futile exercise. And the defenders win by pure attrition.

That may be very over analytical but with the proposals in this thread the scenario that I have just outlined will become a reality.

Again just to throw a bone at the other side of the debate. Having a cool down or supply limit usage to repair maybe a solution.

It’s an anti grief feature, on HoD we’ve had some ET members build siege in useless spots (rams in middle of keeps) to use up the allotted amount of equipment we’re allowed to build. If the despawn mechanic was not in the game HoD would have a lot of trouble.

bad game design.

if they are despawned, at least give back the blueprint to the owner of the siege… nvm the supply used, but at least give back the blueprint so that they can be used elsewhere when needed…