Guild Wars 2

ORIGINAL IDEA HAS BEEN UPDATED
You can simply read the new iteration, everything should be explained

Hello everyone!
I tuned in to watch the new Desert Borderlands on Ready Up today, and overall I really like the design, it’s a beautiful environment. I don’t feel I can really comment on how it plays out, before I see and play it myself.
However, one thing I noticed was that every keep and tower only had one capture point.
It’s a thing that has been bothering me a lot about the Alpine Borderlands (and Eternal Battlegrounds), the fact that there are not multiple capture points in the large keeps.
Right now, a whole zerg of 30-80 people stand in the same small circle when capturing a keep or tower. To defend the tower, the defending zerg has to run into that same small circle to battle it out in an unfortunately laggy anti-climactic fight.

Some of the better large scale fights I’ve had in WvW, has been where the keep walls were down for a very long time, while dominance constantly shifted. This mostly happens when it’s a three-way fight, and the extremely large groups somehow gets split up. Bringing in multiple capture-points, that has to be capped simultaneously would force the zerg to split up, and therefore create a better opportunity for defending and having that intense fight for control.

Iteration 2.0 to address certain flaws: (Update)

Baldrick.8967:

OP’s suggestion makes defending too easy- just have all your forces stand on one point, whilst the attackers have to split to cap. then if they all come for you, send a recap team to take one of the other spots.

A legitimate problem to my suggestion was brought to light by Baldrick and others. So I discussed this with a friend and we came up with an interesting idea, that we hope would bring the dynamic fights of this vision to a reality.

For the sake of keeping this simple, let’s use Stonemist Castle as an example throughout the explanation:
Instead of the single capture point we have now, there would be three in total. Two additional points, one on the second floor and another at the top floor.
This has not changed, but to prevent the defending zerg from simply guarding one of the points imagine if you simply needed to control a majority of the points.

The new capture system would work like this:
The three capture points start in a neutral state, and function much like one node split into three. This means, that all progress in one node adds to the overall progress.
If there are no defenders, the attackers can still capture the keep standing in only one node. This is legit as long as the two other points are still in the neutral state. To capture you simply need to stand in the node without any defenders, it will add to the overall capture-score, like it is now. You do not need to capture it before it starts progressing. If a defender stands in one of the other nodes, the battle for progress will be a tie. A contested point with an ongoing fight functions like a neutral point.

Exemplary situation:
1 – Attackers, 1 – Defenders, 1 – Neutral.
The attackers now have three options, they can:

1. Capture the neutral point, which will give the attackers two points and the defenders one. This adds capping-progress for the attackers.
2. Kill off the defenders, capture that point and keep the last neutral.
3. Kill off the defenders and cap all three points.

The more points you have in your favor, will add to the capping speed. You gain +1 to your capping speed for each node you control. So controlling all three nodes will grant a rate of +3, controlling two nodes will grant +2 etc.
This also applies for defending, however just as it functions now, you simply just decrease/remove the capping progress from the attackers.

This will ensure that defenders can’t just guard one of the points anymore. If they do, the attackers can send small squads to capture the remaining neutral points. This would then force the defending zerg to split up. I imagine this would create very dynamic and intense fights, with a lot of possibilites for smaller groups to have an impact on the fight. Should there be no defenders, the progress would be exactly like it is now.

Now is the time for such feedback, if we hope to see it implemented or at least brought it to the test with HoT and the new Desert Borderland. I could even be implented for a limited testing period, just like removing the white swords from objectives.
What are your thoughts? Would it be good, or do you like how it is now?
Most importantly: Why?

Secret question for Anet:
Have you tried this internally? Seems a bit too obvious a thing not to have been tested.
If yes, why didn’t it work out? What problems did you face?

- Kris

You are saying the zerg will split in 3 groups but what’s the incentive for defenders to split? If defenders are not splitting the zerg will stay together and we’ll have the same fight as we have now.

Chicho Gosho.6507:

You are saying the zerg will split in 3 groups but what’s the incentive for defenders to split? If defenders are not splitting the zerg will stay together and we’ll have the same fight as we have now.

If the zerg stays together, they wont be able to capture the Keep/Castle? So naturally, the zerg will have to split up, in order to contest multiple capture points. That was the entire point of OPs post.

But I assume you’re worried that the ’Defender-Zerg’ will just camp one capture point only, thus forcing the ’Attacker-Zerg’ to stick together, in order to actually have a fighting chance. While that is a legitimate concern, it will not happen in reality, as no one would ever dedicate such a force to defending. Just look at how often people defend stuff now - nearly never.

T2 NA spent all of last week fighting inside towers, keeps and smc so it’s hardly fair to say that defending happens ‘nearly never’.

OP’s suggestion makes defending too easy- just have all your forces stand on one point, whilst the attackers have to split to cap. then if they all come for you, send a recap team to take one of the other spots.

Would making capping as the smaller force even harder than it is now.

In theory the OP’s suggestion sounds great, but in practical terms it becomes bad very quickly.

I see your concern about the defending zerg grouping up at one capture point.
I think the reason I overlooked it is because people never really defend. To my experience, it’s almost always the attackers that arrive first, and then the defenders come to defend afterwards.
However, you’re right in that there is not much incentive for the defending zerg to really split up. It might be more efficient for them to zerg the capture points one by one.

MY IDEA HAS BEEN REWORKED AND THE ORIGINAL POST HAS BEEN UPDATED

The updated idea does indeed take Baldrick & Chichos concerns into account. As a roamer myself, I’d love to see something like this implemented. I’m all about the fight, and don’t care about PPT or loot in any way, so any mechanics that’ll split the zerg up, or somehow make way for smaller groups to have fun fights, I’d love to see in the game.

The zerg-farmers are likely not going to like a system such as this, as it would make it harder to attack and capture, and somewhat easier to defend, given some capable defenders (And we all know people would rather attack, as this is where the loot is).

Another point I’d like to make, is that a system such as this would weed out the bad commanders from the good. Good attacking commanders would have a set strategy for taking multiple capture points (splitting up into specific groups), and good defending commanders would have strategies for defending. As it is now, there’s really no difference between commanders, as all they ever do, is put down some siege, and smash their way through the structures. There’s not a lot of tactical decision involved.