Guild Wars 2

Menaki.6329:

My idea is, that the commander (only) is allowed to dissipate (not sure if this is the correct word) the unwanted sieges. The wasted supplies would go back to your owned keep or tower if it was placed there, but not in the openfield and not to the player.

I don’t like the idea of debuffs for building sieges, that will only hurt defenders, not the trolls.

Then all the troll needs to do is buy a commander tag. They can then go into your carefully sieged garrison and despawn everything, wasting the blueprints used to build them.

Here is a system; allow commanders to pack up siege. Stick it in as an ability after the siege ability that becomes in invulnerable momentarily once it’s deployed.

Packing up siege doesn’t have to be quick, it could take 20-30 seconds per piece. This would also greatly benefit commanders on the battle field who go through siege faster than water.

Even better that the commander can see who deployed each piece of siege, so that way if they see vast amount of flame rams where they shouldn’t be; a simple report and screen shot should be enough to send the siege troller packing for good.

I think people are over thinking this.

Add the name of the person who placed the siege to the siege name tag.

Anonymity fuels most trolling.

Commanders can sometimes accidentally drop the wrong siege as well as other players. Sometimes new players just want to help and just throw down what they have.

Adding a report function for it seems a bit overboard unless it was just a report function for general trolling which could be a bad thing:

For one, that feature would probably be abused which makes it even more difficult and wastes resources finding actual trolls.

For two, that leads to a slippery slope. We going to report people for troll portals? Yes trolling can be annoying but it’s also lead to some really funny videos and machinima.

If anyone has anything to add to this then please do.

You don’t use a rocket launcher to kill mosquitoes.

Keep it simple Anet.

You know how if you right click on a player’s name you get a menu with things you can do? What if if you right click on a Siege as a commander, you get the option to prompt the removal/deletion of the siege?

Like, if there’s siege that shouldn’t be there or was misplaced, a commander could right click and “Flag for dismantling”. Then that particular siege becomes available for non-commanders to right click and vote “Dismantle” or “Keep” on that siege. If say 10 players vote dismantle it goes away, but if say 10 players vote “Keep” it gets un-flagged and that particular commander can’t flag it again.

The voting numbers are subject to change :P

I think the best way to deal with this problem is to use a report system (and only reports by people on the same server count). If x people report the same person within y timeframe they are flagged as a troll and will have GM’s notified to investigate the situation.

All the other ways mentioned so far punish the legitimate wvw player and do nothing to stop siege trolls from some of the problematic behavior. With exhaustion as mentioned, it doesn’t stop a person from turning cats and trebs to directions where they can’t cover their intended field of fire, it doesn’t stop a troll from running a golem off a cliff. The troll didn’t place the siege, didn’t use supply to build it and yet it can severely handicap a defensive effort. Sure it might stop some of their trolling but not all.

I like the idea of a person’s name being attached to a siege print if it’s down and disappearing once built. Give us a “tab” key to easily move between active sites and we can stop the trolling as no one will build the unintended siege.

The biggest thing I think this discussion should be for is the community coming together with a set of "definitions’ on what constitutes a siege troll. Most of us know one when we see one but by the community agreeing on a definition we give Anet the ability to ban/punish the person responsible and not the rest of the legitimate wvw player base.

Until Anet actually bans these trolls, this will continue as no matter what system we come up with, the trolls will find a way around it or it will be detrimental to the honest WvW player. Once a banishment takes place and is made public knowledge, the number of trolls will go down for right now the trolls have no fear of punishment.

Before the season began there was a lot of discussion in my guild about whether the lack of a server transfer cooldown would enable trolling. I think we have seen our fears borne out. Strategic trolling could be greatly reduced by limiting WvW access after transfers, regardless the length of the season.

Jerk trolling still would not be affected.

I run in a 5-10 man havoc team all the time. A typical scenario is that we have the night’s team leader being the only one placing siege as we need to be fast and the leader has everything in mind already.

John Corpening.9847:

1. When a player places a piece of siege they receive a stack of “Exhaustion”
2. A stack of “Exhaustion” expires after three minutes
3. If a player has five stacks of “Exhaustion” they can no longer place siege
4. If a player downs an enemy, destroys siege, breaks down a wall or gate their exhaustion is cleared
5. A commander’s exhaustion is reduced by 30 seconds for each member of his squad

• This doesn’t really work with sneaky takes. For example, take the SW side of Hills keep. There are no guards except on the ramparts. What if you are melee and can’t even plink a guard on the walls? You also shouldn’t be forced to equip a ranged weapon simply to help clear exhaustion.

• Defenders may build legitimate siege all night long, solo or with a few other players. There are often no handy enemies to reduce exhaustion.

• Exhaustion reduced by the number of members in a squad favors larger party play only.

• Siege voting also only favors larger party play.

• SQUADS: We don’t like being in a squad because a) it requires a tag and then we get PUGs/spies, b) squad members can’t see other commander tags for tactics and we often break off/help with maneuvers and logistics. For example, on our server a yellow tag has been declared a defender who may or may not be leading people, but it shows where defenders are. (Solutions to our squad disuse would include something like an option to disable removing visibility of the other tags on map and an option for the squad leader’s tag to be visible only to the squad/guild/etc.)

I like the idea of adding the siege owner’s name to it, because that can be very clear who is doing what (good or bad) and help the server self-police, but it can open up some griefing possibilities (e.g., “noob, why’d u put that cata there u suk at siege”).

Our lawyer guildmate likes the idea of adding siege trolling to be against the EULA (go figure).

Also, people need to understand that Banhammer manpower takes away company budget for other things—like developing the game.

I think voting is an adequate method to reduce siege trolling. Sure, 20 people could remove siege to troll.

That is quite a lot of trolls though; when roughly a fourth of your map is trolls your server probably has much bigger problems than siege trolling, so I don’t think it matters if 20 people “troll” remove siege.

There’s also the possibility that those 20 people are just making a legitimate mistake… which is okay.

It would also allow you to lengthen the duration on siege self-destruction, which would be welcome for most of us I think.

Big brother doesn’t need to get involved and don’t add any more client side code to address this. Most of the options are going to hurt smaller groups or havoc teams. Plain and simple, not everyone who drops siege wants to zerg, is part of the zerg, or even runs a commander tag. Now, they may have a commander tag but just don’t show it.

So, how do you plan to address that?

Also, I’d like to see just how big of a issue this is and across what servers? Yes, Ebay has had its fair share of trolls but ask yourself just how big of a issue this really is and if it is a game breaker. Because personally, I’d like to see that focus paid elsewhere in the WvW space because we all know it is lacking.

Add the name who dropped it, allow reporting, when a threshold is exceeded ban them from WvW for 24 hours. If they do it again ban them from the client for 48 hours.

Anything else, in my opinion, is going to ruin the game for a subset of players because not everyone runs in the blob or even has one…

These ideas scare me.

I said previously most anything you can think of will only accomplish the opposite, but most every idea suggested here goes even beyond that. If I didn’t know that people actually believe some of these ideas would be good, I’d swear half of them are just ‘trolling’. Just on pages 6/7 of this thread, I have seen suggestions that would only benefit trolls, while some of them would, not just could, be used to completely prevent ‘actual players’ from playing the game.

From what I see, the exhaustion may be the least evil idea, but it is far from a good idea, and would NOT accomplish the stated goals.

Crapgame.6519:

Also, I’d like to see just how big of a issue this is and across what servers?

It affects T1 servers the most. We often have queues, so if a troll is draining every tower and keep on a map of supply, we can’t port out, grab supply, and port back. Queues are worse during tournaments, which makes it even harder.

If you’re a frequent WvWer, you can imagine how much it impacts a server’s score over time when you have close to no supply on a map. It’s impossible to defend without supply. You can’t countertreb, you can’t break into SMC and take down the trebs hitting your third from the inside, you can’t repair anything at all, because there is no supply to do so.

We still make attempts when we are this drained, but it’s very clear to servers being trolled like this that their score is being massively affected by the lack of supply. It is a serious issue, and one that needs to be addressed.

I still think bans are the only true solution. A lot of suggestions in this thread would either open up worse ways to troll us, or would just hinder our gameplay. ANet needs to stop ignoring reports about these players, because they’re sending a message that it’s perfectly fine for siege trolls to continue what they’re doing.

Zoel.9154:

I think voting is an adequate method to reduce siege trolling. Sure, 20 people could remove siege to troll.

That is quite a lot of trolls though; when roughly a fourth of your map is trolls your server probably has much bigger problems than siege trolling, so I don’t think it matters if 20 people “troll” remove siege.

There’s also the possibility that those 20 people are just making a legitimate mistake… which is okay.

No, it is not okay. All it would take is 1 person that doesn’t like you, to get friends/guild/both to all vote against you. Think this won’t happen? It happens already. A vote is far easier and simpler for them to use than to sit and ‘troll’ someone in map chat, but they would do both while the votes would allow friends to help out easily.

There is far more wrong with it than even that. Some of the points have already been made. But regardless of how anyone may feel about Anet and their actions, I would trust their decision on whether someone is a troll over a ‘mob mentality’ voting on that. I would go so far as to say I would prefer our current situation over any idea that I have read here (maybe I missed a good suggestion or 2, if so wish I had seen them), while I agree at this time it is not working well.

Edit: The ‘fix’/‘cure’ must NOT be worse than the ‘disease’.

storiessave.3807:

Crapgame.6519:

Also, I’d like to see just how big of a issue this is and across what servers?

It affects T1 servers the most. We often have queues, so if a troll is draining every tower and keep on a map of supply, we can’t port out, grab supply, and port back. Queues are worse during tournaments, which makes it even harder.

This is what I assumed. So it is somewhat of a small issue in the grand scheme of things due to T1 range of servers. That, in of itself, is another issue altogether and should maybe be their focus. Wall clock coverage shouldn’t dictate points yet it does. We saw similar situations back in 2001 with DaOC and relic raids and what alliance had Oceanic players.

They addressed / fixed the tournament issue. It will take them all of about 5 minutes to complete and move on.

I understand your comment/concern on queues but honestly these seems like a smaller issue at the end of the date when one takes a step back and looks at the state of WvW in general.

Title is asking for suggestions on Siege trolling yet we allow the cross server party to communicate. I spy, right? Maybe it is time to look at guilds, guild claiming, commander squads, and formation of alliances to manage this issue. But some of these solutions will hurt the play of havoc squads or lower populated servers.

We didn’t have this issue in DaOC and siege but then again stealth classes could climb walls /rollseyes

From a cost vs benefit point of view, I do not see the need for a coded solution, as this is quite an easy thing to report and prove (make a vid, send the vid to customer support). Change the ToS to explicitely include griefing as something that will get you permabanned, and a customer service rep can have this solved before lunch.

P.S. If you hope to code a permanent solution because you plan on giving trial accounts access to Wvw, please rethink that. The amount of tag watching and spying would make WvW unplayable.

Well, we can do what they did good old obsidian sanctum and just remove siege all together. It wasn’t really grief per say when you prevented people from getting the chest by hatchet, spell, sword, or siege. Yet enough people complained and now it is no longer allowed and blocked. This would solve the problem although drastic, yes?

Want to enter tower? Melee or spell it down. You play a Thief, well, give them some rope and a grappling hook. Mix things up a bit.

To arenanet how about you actually be the game developers you’re meant to be and provide possible solutions which we can then comment on.

This is the whole problem with the CDI process you get ideas from players but you then filter them and wind up with an interpretation that is consistently not what players wanted.

morrolan.9608:

To arenanet how about you actually be the game developers you’re meant to be and provide possible solutions which we can then comment on.

This is the whole problem with the CDI process you get ideas from players but you then filter them and wind up with an interpretation that is consistently not what players wanted.

And a small subset of the actual player base at that.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Zoel.9154:

I think voting is an adequate method to reduce siege trolling. Sure, 20 people could remove siege to troll.

That is quite a lot of trolls though; when roughly a fourth of your map is trolls your server probably has much bigger problems than siege trolling, so I don’t think it matters if 20 people “troll” remove siege.

There’s also the possibility that those 20 people are just making a legitimate mistake… which is okay.

No, it is not okay. All it would take is 1 person that doesn’t like you, to get friends/guild/both to all vote against you. Think this won’t happen? It happens already. A vote is far easier and simpler for them to use than to sit and ‘troll’ someone in map chat, but they would do both while the votes would allow friends to help out easily.

There is far more wrong with it than even that. Some of the points have already been made. But regardless of how anyone may feel about Anet and their actions, I would trust their decision on whether someone is a troll over a ‘mob mentality’ voting on that. I would go so far as to say I would prefer our current situation over any idea that I have read here (maybe I missed a good suggestion or 2, if so wish I had seen them), while I agree at this time it is not working well.

Edit: The ‘fix’/‘cure’ must NOT be worse than the ‘disease’.

How would you know what siege was the specific players to grief?

You’re talking about mass harassment here. Only GMs can deal with that situation IMO.

I’m not confident that something like exhaustion can capture enough of the offensive behavior to prevent the siege troll from operating. Instead of building balistas he will waste supply on building oil and suicide golems; He’ll still build some balista, move from tower to tower ordering useless upgrades, etc. He’ll find a loophole in your formula and you will inconvenience legitimate players.

A report option would be great. And enough of this 24 or 48 hour warning. Outright banning not just from wvw but from the game itself would be completely appropriate for the current crew of siege trolls. He is wasting our time and your precious manpower resources.

You’re not running a mental health facility here. Deal with psychopathic behavior firmly and publicize it. There’s a reason why the Communists loved their show trials.

These players are cheating by waisting the opposing sides supplies. I agree with the reporting option. After a player has been reported by 10 players, he is flagged for a GMs review. If he is found guilty, then it’s treated like all other forms of cheating, hacking, & botting. Lets face it just suspending someones extra account doesn’t hurt them at all, but loosing it does. You will also have to consider that some people will be WvW noobs, and waist supplies not knowing they are hurting thier server. So maybe 1st offense should be suspension from WvW for a week, but 2nd offence should be perma ban.

I know this would take the GMs time, but i really feel its the best solution, without creating limitations to legitimate players. Once the players who are cheating without punishment, realize Anet will no longer tolerate these actions, it will stop! Especially when the punishment is so harsh. Also you will want to prevent any free trail accounts from entering WvW, since cheaters will use those.

Also, I like the idea to change “Build” to “Build Ballista” or “Build Superior Arrow Cart.” Sometimes even good commanders can drop the wrong blueprint, and it’s just nice to know what you’re building before waisting supplies.

As people have raised, there are issues with many of the ideas and these questions need to be asked:

1. How effectively does this fix actually curb griefing?
2. Is there a way to get around or abuse this fix?
3. How does this fix affect the experience of honest players?

Implementing any feature which gives players power over one another has the potential both to be abused by trolls and to create conflicts within server communities.

My recommendation is to empower the players so that they are not affected by griefing/trolls. Give players the ability to see more easily where they are spending their supply and to block out build sites that are improperly placed. Improve the siege cap, siege decay, supply, claiming, and upgrade mechanics so that a few disruptive individuals can’t hold an entire server hostage. While you are at it, you can also improve the QoL for individuals who devote themselves to defending their server’s fortifications.

Exhaustion will be abused, kick voting will be abused, anything commander related to siege mechanics be it supplies or building will be abused. The only scenario that has any chance in hell of working is for ANET to get off their duff and monitor/referee 24/7/365 their competitive aspect of the game or the inmates will continue to rule the asylum.

Zoel.9154:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Zoel.9154:

I think voting is an adequate method to reduce siege trolling. Sure, 20 people could remove siege to troll.

That is quite a lot of trolls though; when roughly a fourth of your map is trolls your server probably has much bigger problems than siege trolling, so I don’t think it matters if 20 people “troll” remove siege.

There’s also the possibility that those 20 people are just making a legitimate mistake… which is okay.

No, it is not okay. All it would take is 1 person that doesn’t like you, to get friends/guild/both to all vote against you. Think this won’t happen? It happens already. A vote is far easier and simpler for them to use than to sit and ‘troll’ someone in map chat, but they would do both while the votes would allow friends to help out easily.

There is far more wrong with it than even that. Some of the points have already been made. But regardless of how anyone may feel about Anet and their actions, I would trust their decision on whether someone is a troll over a ‘mob mentality’ voting on that. I would go so far as to say I would prefer our current situation over any idea that I have read here (maybe I missed a good suggestion or 2, if so wish I had seen them), while I agree at this time it is not working well.

Edit: The ‘fix’/‘cure’ must NOT be worse than the ‘disease’.

How would you know what siege was the specific players to grief?

You’re talking about mass harassment here. Only GMs can deal with that situation IMO.

Your response does not actually make sense. “how would I know what siege was the specific players to grief?”?

If I throw down siege, unless I accidentally put it in the wrong spot, I want it there, do not remove it. I put it there for a reason. If I take the time to make sure it’s refreshed, only to come back and refresh it for it to be gone, I’m not going to be happy. But again I ask for you to clarify your question because I do not see it’s relevancy to anything I said.

As for 2nd thing, I can say only GM’s can deal with it as it currently is. As I said, I would prefer our current system over those proposed, including a ‘voting’ system, because there is no real practical way for those voting to know a reason for a piece of siege to be somewhere.

How about a report option? Clearly mass reports should be enough to warrant if there are vids/screenshots. Why implement something so sophisticated when we already have a system

Make a requirement to be part of a squad to place siege.

Small havoc groups usually have someone with commander status even though they don’t display it. So one of the members tags up, form up a squad, and they can play. No worry about anything else.

It would also encourage the use of color tags.

Trolls could still form squads but they would need additional members (guilty parties) but would be easier to spot. May make player reporting, timeouts, easier.

John Corpening.9847:

Let’s talk about Siege Trolls and what we can do about them. The problems that have been brought up are:

• Creating Siege to hit the siege cap
• Creating the wrong type of siege to hit area siege caps
• Spending supply on needless siege to drain supply depots
• Dropping siege on top of legitimate siege build sites

Here are some parameters and questions we should consider:

• Can we come up with a system that doesn’t involve constant policing from GMs?
• What are the characteristics of bad behavior that are different than good behavior?
• How do we prevent bad behavior without making too big of an impact on good behavior?
• What restrictions might we be able to live with as good players in order to prevent bad behavior?

To kick off the brainstorm I’ll throw out this idea:

1. When a player places a piece of siege they receive a stack of “Exhaustion”
2. A stack of “Exhaustion” expires after three minutes
3. If a player has three stacks of “Exhaustion” they can no longer place siege

We are just brainstorming here so I’d love to hear alternative suggestion or whether or not this would work for you.

I know there are other threads on this but I want to start with a clean discussion and focus on how we can realistically address this issue. Let’s keep this constructive and focused.

Thanks,
John

John,

My two cents:

(1) The “Exhaustion” idea sounds good however the duration and stacking need to be more finely tuned. I would suggest something closer to a maximum of five stacks where the first stack expires after 1.5 minutes, two stacks would expire after 3 minutes, three stacks after 5 minutes, four stacks after 7 minutes, and five stacks after 10 minutes. If you decide to implement this system it is critical that you get player feedback after implementation and adjust the timing & stacking as needed.

However “Exhaustion” alone cannot fix this problem.

(2) The targeting of siege placements needs to be improved. Even when a troll is not intended there are many instances where multiple build sites get placed on top of one another causing lots of problems.

(3) Allow siege owners (the person who places it) to destroy their siege at will.

(4) Allow non-siege owners to destroy siege with a majority vote. Based on the number of people voting the siege should be destroyed within a range of minutes (e.g. 1 to 10 minutes). If the siege owner is still in zone they should get a notification that their siege is pending for destruction. A siege owner should be allowed to veto a vote but can be overridden if the number of voters is significant (i.e. 5 or more people voting).

(5) Lastly, and I realize this suggestion is a long shot, Anet needs to seriously consider ending server transfers. The majority of siege trolls are doing what they do to help their home server. If you are not willing to end transfers then at least increase the penalty so people cannot transfer back and forth between servers.

I believe all of these ideas together will solve the siege troll problem, particularly the voting idea.

-Tekyn

Gate of Madness

John Corpening.9847:

Here is the new proposal based on your ideas:

• Siege Dismantling
  • You DO NOT get exhaustion from placing siege
  • If you own a piece of siege:
    • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Dismantle” that will drop the timer down to one minute
  • If you do not own a piece of siege:
    • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Vote Dismantle”
    • If a piece of siege gets 5 votes:
      • The timer on the siege drops to 5 minutes
      • The player who placed the siege gets a stack of exhaustion
        • In this proposal this is the only way to get exhaustion
  • When a siege timer is reduced to 0 it is dismantled
    • All siege that is dismantled drops 25% of the supply it took to construct
• Exhaustion
  • A player who has 5 stacks of exhaustion can no longer place siege until they have 0 stacks of exhaustion
  • A stack of exhaustion is removed:
    • After 5 minutes
      • For commanders this time is reduced by 2 minutes for each member of your squad for up to 20 minutes
    • For each enemy player defeated
    • For each objective taken

This proposal has these properties:

• Play is not affected at all for anyone unless they repeatedly place siege that is repeatedly voted down
• Players are encouraged to clean up their siege to get a refund and to prevent their siege being voted down
• Players can police themselves by voting down bad siege
• Players who get exhaustion incorrectly can easily remove it by playing WvW normally
• The more siege that gets placed that is left unattended the easier it will be to lose the privilege of placing siege.
• Commanders who actually have people following them can bypass the bulk of the penalty and should easily remove the rest through normal play

It really should be more than 5 people required to vote down Siege, and Siege that has already been used to damage a structure or attack enemy players should be excluded, so that legitimate siege isn’t dismantled (a Troll can easily find 4 unsuspecting people that he can talk into voting down a piece of siege, probably by telling them that useful siege is, in fact, “Troll Siege”).

Another reason why siege that has already been used to damage a structure should NOT be disabled is that it would make zergs even stronger, tbh, by allowing a group to ram or catapult a door or wall down, then dismantle the siege they’ve just used in order to build more siege on Inner Gates of Keeps or Castle.

Otherwise, I think what you have outlined above is something I can live with. We just don’t want to open up a new avenue for Trolling by creating a new “Siege Dismantle Troll”, so I really think it should require more than 5 people to vote a piece of siege down, even though I realize that this means that solo Scouts will have to call large parties back to their structures to deal with said troll once in a while.

John Corpening.9847:

-snip-

• If you do not own a piece of siege:
  • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Vote Dismantle”
  • If a piece of siege gets 5 votes:
    • The timer on the siege drops to 5 minutes
    • The player who placed the siege gets a stack of exhaustion
      • In this proposal this is the only way to get exhaustion
• When a siege timer is reduced to 0 it is dismantled
  • All siege that is dismantled drops 25% of the supply it took to construct

Exhaustion

• A player who has 5 stacks of exhaustion can no longer place siege until they have 0 stacks of exhaustion
• A stack of exhaustion is removed:
  • After 5 minutes
    • For commanders this time is reduced by 2 minutes for each member of your squad for up to 20 minutes
  • For each enemy player defeated
  • For each objective taken
    -snip-

This will still effectively do nothing against actual trolls. Worst case, they will wait out the time/tag up for a few mins to ‘game the system and remove their limits’, or go and kill a few players and come back to troll with more siege.
And again, it does nothing to prevent a group from trolling others. If someone places siege, but someone else doesn’t like them, they can get 4 friends to come, remove all siege when not looking, and limit how someone is allowed to play until the ‘punishment timer’ is up. This could, intentionally or not, prevent further defense and could cause a loss of another objective.

The community is not good at policing itself (edit: on things like this. Nor is it the communities place to decide who can or cannot be allowed to throw siege or defend a tower, etc). And I am completely against anything that can be used to ‘troll’ actual legitimate players.

I place siege for myself, and others, to use to defend something. I expect it to stay there if it is refreshed. But under this proposal it would be in my best interest to remove siege when I’m not going to stay and defend something because I want to play elsewhere (you know, since defending is boring after a while and rewards are awful), so I’m not prevented from playing how I choose to due to what a group of other people think I should be playing, especially when I am helping my server.

Otokomae.9356:

Another reason why siege that has already been used to damage a structure should NOT be disabled is that it would make zergs even stronger, tbh, by allowing a group to ram or catapult a door or wall down, then dismantle the siege they’ve just used in order to build more siege on Inner Gates of Keeps or Castle.

I agree with this. I would go further to say siege that has been used to kill X number of players should not return any supply.

For exhaustion I would increase the player kill limit tagging a few players in WvW is actually rather easy. If the troll actually plays for 10 minutes then I feel that the stacks should be removed.

Otherwise I think the new proposal is rather sound.

John Corpening.9847:

• There is a skill on the skill bar called “Dismantle” that will drop the timer down to one minute

If you change your mind, can you refresh the timer?

• If you do not own a piece of siege:
  • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Vote Dismantle”
  • If a piece of siege gets 5 votes:
    • The timer on the siege drops to 5 minutes
    • The player who placed the siege gets a stack of exhaustion
      • In this proposal this is the only way to get exhaustion

For how long would the window for voting be open?

Often, a siege troll will be on when populations are low, building siege in the least trafficked area. I’m not sure if enough players at low-pop times would be around to vote down siege, especially on some servers/times, depending on the window.

The biggest problem is that entire fortifications could now be siege trolled by 5 players in this scenario. I guarantee this would be a problem based on what I’ve seen.

• For commanders this time is reduced by 2 minutes for each member of your squad for up to 20 minutes

This still requires squads. I don’t think this should rely on squads with how squads are currently functioning.

John Corpening.9847:

I was about to toss out the exhaustion idea altogether because of the legitimate concerns of small groups that a good number of you have brought up but this post gave me another perspective on it. I’m going to merge some of the ideas you guys have put forth into a new iteration on the design you and I have been working out.

Here is the new proposal based on your ideas:

• Siege Dismantling
  • You DO NOT get exhaustion from placing siege
  • If you own a piece of siege:
    • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Dismantle” that will drop the timer down to one minute

I think your original idea for Exhaustion was fine the way it was so long as you adjust the stacks and duration to accommodate small groups. Exhaustion alone can not solve the siege troll problem but it can stop the more egregious instances of it.

John Corpening.9847:

• If you do not own a piece of siege:
  • There is a skill on the skill bar called “Vote Dismantle”
  • If a piece of siege gets 5 votes:
    • The timer on the siege drops to 5 minutes
    • The player who placed the siege gets a stack of exhaustion
      • In this proposal this is the only way to get exhaustion
• When a siege timer is reduced to 0 it is dismantled
  • All siege that is dismantled drops 25% of the supply it took to construct

Under no circumstances should players be able to give other players Exhaustion. This will lead to griefing. As per your original idea Exhaustion should only come from a player placing siege.

Also, getting supply back from a dismantle seems to be irrelevant to the siege troll issue. I think we should leave that out for the time being while we focus on solving the main problem.

John Corpening.9847:

• Exhaustion
  • A player who has 5 stacks of exhaustion can no longer place siege until they have 0 stacks of exhaustion
  • A stack of exhaustion is removed:
    • After 5 minutes
      • For commanders this time is reduced by 2 minutes for each member of your squad for up to 20 minutes
    • For each enemy player defeated
    • For each objective taken

No special treatment for commanders please. For “Exhaustion” to be fair it needs to be implemented equally across the board. If a zerg needs to place siege and the commander has exhaustion then another person can drop it. No special reduction for taking objectives or killing enemies.

Your original idea of having Exhaustion expire over time makes sense. However, the key to that system working is the duration and the number of stacks. Given any size group from 2 to 100 people there is a reasonable number of siege that they will need to place within a reasonable number of minutes. Figuring out those numbers and developing a scale that works for all size groups is completely feasible.

-Tekyn

If there is an item that cost 1 silver + have 3 charges + can be persuade only ONCE per 6 hours/per account ….
so you can ’’dip’’ up to 3 Sieges Weapons , making them undestructable from the ‘’Siege Dismantling’’ = fine :P
… you can even reduce the 5 votes that are needed to 1 single person .

You can make a new ‘’Honor coin’’ that by participating in events , lets you buy again that Item once more . And the ‘’Honor Coin’’ is resseted daily

Edit: nvm scratch that ….
theres still the problem that a guild of Trolls , will try to use it …. or will roam the map ,spamming ‘’Siege Dismantling’

Here are my reservations about this modified exhaustion/vote system:

• While currently there is only one or two siege trolls doing the sabotage, this is because one or two are enough; raising the minimum number to five with no clarification on rules to define this form of “trolling” as match manipulation/siege exploitation just means one or two becomes five or six.
• This makes it even easier for siege trolls to destroy legitimate defensive siege engines (because now they don’t have to keep building until they hit cap, they just need to vote); this simply shifts their resource-wasting strategy from building useless siege to destroying expensive siege (even with the 25% cost refund).
• Anyone who stays in a keep to try to undo their damage (by rebuilding siege) will not be part of the offense, so they won’t have kill or cap credit to clear the exhaustion that the trolls will be applying to them; at most they’ll be able to reduce 20 of the 25 minute exhaustion timer by staying in a squad.

Tekyn.5376:

Your original idea of having Exhaustion expire over time makes sense. However, the key to that system working is the duration and the number of stacks. Given any size group from 2 to 100 people there is a reasonable number of siege that they will need to place within a reasonable number of minutes. Figuring out those numbers and developing a scale that works for all size groups is completely feasible.

-Tekyn

Negative. There is a thing called time and distance. Any form of exhaustion is going to disrupt tiers 7 and below and small havoc squads. If you are on a higher server, say 6 and above, maybe considering moving down if you are that frustrated. You still haven’t addressed the cross server party / groups, guild reps, comm, or spies. They have to run to camps depending on what they can carry and have a time constraint for enemy reaction.

Consider the commander tag and squad option to deploy siege. Small duo, trio, or a group of 5 in a havoc squad typically have someone who ponied up for the tag anyway so it won’t hurt. And if they don’t, it is a good investment or small price to pay.

Also think about player statistics and history. Maybe we are going about this all wrong and revisit our portal and player statistics. Adding a few columns collecting siege statistics could help tie in reporting and ban/vacations from WvW. Someone with zero kills (ambient creature, player, yak, et al) over time + player reporting would surely equate to a troll. Maybe tie it to the battle historian such that you enter the map, visit historian, timer starts or resets values. Kills and types get added, along with daily and you can go from there.

We have options that don’t hinder speed.

Crapgame.6519:

If you are on a higher server, say 6 and above, maybe considering moving down if you are that frustrated.

I’m not frustrated. I play on T6 and siege trolls aren’t much of a problem. Our community takes care of itself.

Crapgame.6519:

Negative. There is a thing called time and distance. Any form of exhaustion is going to disrupt tiers 7 and below and small havoc squads

That makes no sense. How would an exhaustion duration of 30 seconds or 60 seconds change what you’re doing? Give an example please.

Crapgame.6519:

You still haven’t addressed the cross server party / groups, guild reps, comm, or spies.

I did address this in my other post where I said Anet needs to take another look at limiting server transfers. Please don’t tell me what I didn’t address if you haven’t read the entire thread.

John Corpening.9847:

A general note, when we are kicking around ideas like this we try not to get bogged down with numbers. 5 minutes, stacks, players etc. can easily be 1, 10, 100. That’s all balance and tuning as Tekyn pointed out. The question is if there is any number that would make it work. If there isn’t we can eliminate that idea.

What I’m really looking for is if the concept works and if there are other ideas, thoughts or perspectives that can spark or refine other ideas and that has certainly happened a few times already in this discussion. Many times you follow a path of thinking that then spawns a completely different idea that works out great.

Thanks a ton for your continued input!

Hats off to you for your continued involvement in this thread and the process as a whole. It is really good to see!

-Tekyn

Why not create some specifics animals outside of each gate and the Siege need to attack/kill them in order to refresh itself ?
Otherwise it will despawn after 5 min and the suplies will goin the deposit ?

And hire some Npc ’’Caretakers’’ that they will stand near them and the Program will calculate if it is fearsible to hit the target from that distance or not and refresh the Siege .

Or ppl can manually do it , for some rewards (rewards defence)

Edit: Catapults must hit building to stay alive
While they Sieges inside the Keep/Castle are immune to ‘’Siege Dismantling’

Edit2: Yeah , theres still the problem with Trolls that will overstack Sieges Weapons in 1 of the 2 gates …..
The ‘’Caretakers’ could reduce some ’’numbers’’’ …. but… costly …

I do wonder if there is any number you can find that will strike the right balance across all servers and all times. Making it so that 5 or 10 people can go around dismantling siege will create problems. With a higher number, then it’s a real distraction for a server if the griefer decides to mass their siege in an inconvenient location. I hope you can do a good job of accounting for all the different roles in WvW and thinking about how the player experience will change for each of these roles once a candidate situation is implemented.

Anyways, I have to hand you my compliments for catching the idea of making build sites have a smaller footprint, I didn’t see that myself while reading the thread but I like it!

John Corpening.9847:

A general note, when we are kicking around ideas like this we try not to get bogged down with numbers. 5 minutes, stacks, players etc. can easily be 1, 10, 100. That’s all balance and tuning as Tekyn pointed out. The question is if there is any number that would make it work. If there isn’t we can eliminate that idea.

Well, as many people have pointed out here, the biggest problem with exhaustion stacks, and voting to dismantle siege, etc, is that the optimum number of people to vote on something like that, or the optimum amount of siege someone can throw, or the number of things you have to do to wipe your exhaustion stacks really is different for most Tiers. In Tier 1, it would be easy for an anonymous Troll (one whose name we don’t all recognize) to find 4 people whom he can talk into voting down a piece of siege, because there are so many people around. On Tier 7 server, however, if a legitimate player needed 4 people to come vote down a piece of siege that might be 1/2 the population of the map at some hours!

Otokomae.9356:

John Corpening.9847:

A general note, when we are kicking around ideas like this we try not to get bogged down with numbers. 5 minutes, stacks, players etc. can easily be 1, 10, 100. That’s all balance and tuning as Tekyn pointed out. The question is if there is any number that would make it work. If there isn’t we can eliminate that idea.

Well, as many people have pointed out here, the biggest problem with exhaustion stacks, and voting to dismantle siege, etc, is that the optimum number of people to vote on something like that, or the optimum amount of siege someone can throw, or the number of things you have to do to wipe your exhaustion stacks really is different for most Tiers. In Tier 1, it would be easy for an anonymous Troll (one whose name we don’t all recognize) to find 4 people whom he can talk into voting down a piece of siege, because there are so many people around. On Tier 7 server, however, if a legitimate player needed 4 people to come vote down a piece of siege that might be 1/2 the population of the map at some hours!

Exactly. T1 – 6 are stacked 7×24 – 7 and below don’t have that luxury. In fact, this really isn’t a issue on T7 and below (although we do have a lot of spies and cross server guild repping going on).

Smaller servers play differently and not everyone runs with 50+ people. Personally I run 2 to 3 ninety percent of the time in our havoc group which is why I would vote no if we had to. We roam to flip a camp, supply up, then go to a tower, lay siege, and engage. Sometimes if we know time is critical, then we’ll drop 2 siege engines which means we now have to run back to the camp. Depending on how you spent your WvW talents you may, or may not, have chosen things to increase supply.

Exhaustion will make me move slower when I don’t have the time. It gives yet another advantage to the team I’m facing if they have more and I’m out numbered. Does that make sense? There has to be other ways.

Commander, squad, kill activity anything but exhaustion. I honestly believe it will have a more negative impact although I admit I can be incorrect.

Otokomae.9356:

John Corpening.9847:

A general note, when we are kicking around ideas like this we try not to get bogged down with numbers. 5 minutes, stacks, players etc. can easily be 1, 10, 100. That’s all balance and tuning as Tekyn pointed out. The question is if there is any number that would make it work. If there isn’t we can eliminate that idea.

Well, as many people have pointed out here, the biggest problem with exhaustion stacks, and voting to dismantle siege, etc, is that the optimum number of people to vote on something like that, or the optimum amount of siege someone can throw, or the number of things you have to do to wipe your exhaustion stacks really is different for most Tiers. In Tier 1, it would be easy for an anonymous Troll (one whose name we don’t all recognize) to find 4 people whom he can talk into voting down a piece of siege, because there are so many people around. On Tier 7 server, however, if a legitimate player needed 4 people to come vote down a piece of siege that might be 1/2 the population of the map at some hours!

in general, on lower tiers, you dont even have people to tap good siege. siege trolls are nonexistent. trolls need to have people around who care a lot and there arent enough scouts below t4 to make it worth the trouble.

i played on fc for 1.75 years (t8-t6), and i cannot think of a single instance of siege trolling in that time. on either my server or enemy servers.

on the other hand, troll upgrades have been an issue. and mesmers being rezzed thru bay’s water walls. and several occasions of players going under the map.

I believe we should just leave things as they are now… Any changes made would only be adapted to, and more then likely end up hurting the legitimate seige placers. Things are already screwed up enough from trying to outwit and cater to grievers, trolls and crybabies. We as a community can deal with the trolls but we don’t need any more fixes for non consequential problems.
All that’s going to happen is that the vocal minority will flood the forums with prejudiced and biased suggestions geared in their favor with no regard to the community as a whole.

Widebody.5071:

All that’s going to happen is that the vocal minority will flood the forums with prejudiced and biased suggestions geared in their favor with no regard to the community as a whole.

Yup, exactly this. Just look at Obsidian Sanctum…

Exhaustion I must say is a terrible thing to introduced to the game to stop seige placement. What will be next, warriors run to far so let’s apply exhaustion after the 3rd. swiftnes skill? I’m not great at pvping but my forte is defence and seige placement and now someone is trying to take that away. With all the things that need to be done why focus on this???? I appreciate the fact that you all are trying to improve the game but this will only cause more mayhem and cater to the zerg.

Serously, John, I think the easiest solution is just to review reports of trolling in WvW (add a new category to report or expand “harassment” to include it) and attribute some people actively review the claims.

People who have said the biggest reason for the trolling is a lack of consequence . . . are mostly right. Some of the trolls don’t care, they buy accounts on the cheap when it goes on sale and use them. What’s $30 in comparison to tons of lulz messing with people? When they can do something like ditch golems out in the corner of a borderland, or jump them off the borderland keep walls until they break?

There has to be a clear message from you good folks at ArenaNet of this thing not being tolerated and will be acted upon.

Adding a system into place to put hoops into place to ostensibly prevent this siege griefing/trolling? Is really going to hurt legitimate players as well, to some extent.

Before investigating a system . . . take the time now during this tournament to begin policing these events. I would almost wager it would curtail most of the obvious trolling.

It’s been brought up before, but I think it bears repeating again (for other posters, if nothing else), but we really have to break down what the benefits of abusing sieges are:

DENIAL OF INTERACTION
The problem: as dzeRnumbrd.6129 and others pointed out, one of the tactics used by trolls is to drop siege on top of NPCs, other siege, and downed players to prevent people from interacting with the correct prompt.

The solution: I would say the most straightforward solution to this is interaction priority. Downed player > NPC > supply depot > superior siege > regular siege > siege build sites. This change not only renders dumping siege on top of interact points useless, it also fixes that annoying bug in PvE where you accidentally talk to/start raising an NPC instead of the downed player they’re right next to.

DRAINING OF DEPOTS
The problem: the construction of useless sieges takes away from the supply depot and because of how the siege cap works, this can be repeated infinitely for a (theoretical) infinite drain on supplies.

The solution: make despawned sieges refund their full cost back to the nearest supply depot (within a reasonable range, naturally) and allow full depots to hold excess supply. By making it a zero sum game the system cannot be abused to rob resources from the server.

DESTRUCTION OF DEFENSES
The problem (1 of 2): an extension of draining supplies, the way that the siege cap currently works will cause legitimate defenses to despawn while useless sieges are built.

The solution (1 of 2): if sieges will have ownership associated with them, then change the despawning system to prioritize by ownership first: meaning if a siege troll starts putting down siege to hit the cap, it will start despawning his own sieges before others, thus rendering his efforts pointless. The potential flaw in this is if the troll puts down a lot of siege ahead of others, that can potentially backfire if a small handful of people try to put down proper sieges.

The problem (2 of 2): dropping siege golems off cliffs destroys the siege and supply that went into it as well.

The solution (2 of 2): make any golem that is destroyed by falling (and while not in combat) count it as being despawned instead and refund the build cost as usual.

DELAYING DEFENDERS’ RESPONSE TIMES
The problem: swinging a slow, defensive siege around the wrong way to delay the effectiveness of defenses.

The solution: make the direction the siege was placed the default direction, have the siege slowly rotate back to its default position when nobody uses if for a minute.

These should all be low impact changes that don’t require new, potentially exploitable mechanics and mitigate (if not completely eliminate) the advantages to siege trolling.

(And yes, I changed my mind on my dismantling suggestion.)

Pandaman.4758:

DRAINING OF DEPOTS
The problem: the construction of useless sieges takes away from the supply depot and because of how the siege cap works, this can be repeated infinitely for a (theoretical) infinite drain on supplies.

The solution: make despawned sieges refund their full cost back to the nearest supply depot (within a reasonable range, naturally) and allow full depots to hold excess supply. By making it a zero sum game the system cannot be abused to rob resources from the server.

• Doesn’t stop trolls from refreshing their own siege so they don’t despawn in the first place.
• Doesn’t stop the real problem of supply draining: buying merchants right before/during an attack.
• I come to your BL and take all three southern camps. I build balli with the camp’s supply in the back corner of each camp. I leave to fight in EB. I come back right before the balli expire with a small zerg and take those same camps back. Those balli expire and I have 200 supply in each camp that I create omegas with. (Yes, alternatively, I could create half my golem army now and come back later to create the other half for the same effect. Except that golems will be trolled away, see below.)

Pandaman.4758:

DESTRUCTION OF DEFENSES
The problem (1 of 2): an extension of draining supplies, the way that the siege cap currently works will cause legitimate defenses to despawn while useless sieges are built.

The solution (1 of 2): if sieges will have ownership associated with them, then change the despawning system to prioritize by ownership first: meaning if a siege troll starts putting down siege to hit the cap, it will start despawning his own sieges before others, thus rendering his efforts pointless.

Imagine a troll dropping siege in the right places, and then despawning them himself by dropping more siege right before an attack. It’d be hilarious; for the troll.

Pandaman.4758:

The problem (2 of 2): dropping siege golems off cliffs destroys the siege and supply that went into it as well.

The solution (2 of 2): make any golem that is destroyed by falling (and while not in combat) count it as being despawned instead and refund the build cost as usual.

• We frequently leave golems at spawn in enemy BLs when we leave the BL, only to come back later to use them in an attack. What if the troll kills the golems when we’re gone and simply takes the camps back that we hold, where presumably all the supply has been refunded (if we even hold any camps)?
• Plus, it takes quite a bit of gold, effort, and most importantly, time, to build even a small golem army. None of that is refunded. The troll is still effective.
• Troll walks golem to nearest tower or even sentry and parks it for it to be destroyed by NPCs or real players.
• Troll dumps golem in the water in a less-traveled corner. They eventually despawn.

Pandaman.4758:

DELAYING DEFENDERS’ RESPONSE TIMES
The problem: swinging a slow, defensive siege around the wrong way to delay the effectiveness of defenses.

The solution: make the direction the siege was placed the default direction, have the siege slowly rotate back to its default position when nobody uses if for a minute.

Troll drops the siege in the first place. But all backwards. (You don’t even need trolls for this, 1/2 of all players drop siege backwards already.)