Guild Wars 2

I am one of those wierdos who often plays defense, scouting, reporting, repairing, etc…

Normally I can call any commander I see in my friends list and report an incoming situation and those guys will bring their guild/zerg to our border, but not tonight. They were busy flipping stuff.

Ok, it’s Thursday and the game is over, the match has been decided. Normally that doesn’t matter on our server (RoF) because when we suddenly get outnumbered even those guys flipping camps and downgrading towers will come back to our border and defend, because that’s where the fight will be, but not tonight.

I am not going to scout, report, defend or repair anything if players and commanders aren’t going to listen to reports, and come help fight off the bad guys. Tonight I was the only one on our border doing that, but that’s enough of that.

This situation isn’t going to get better.

Why this is even implemented in the first place is beyond me. Discourages defense and promotes karma training.

Almost everyone posted against this in another thread and they still implemented it….lol

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

I also enjoy defending and scouting and I can say without a doubt that removing white swords will make that job far more difficult. While I understand why they might have decided to do this, to save the “little guy” by making it easier to swipe objectives while they are outnumbered, it is far too easy to exploit and still works in favor of those with greater numbers.

Many have repeatedly stated that they do not want WvW to become EOTM. WvW has a dynamic to it that EOTM does not and removing white swords removes a lot of counterplay. You won’t know where your enemy is, you will lose objectives before you have a chance to defend and eventually people will stop putting in the effort to upgrade at a which point WvW turns in to EOTM…

Some of us enjoy scouting, defending and upgrading, but that is a small minority that not every server has a lot of. You can’t expect a handfull of people to replace the white swords and that is why they are absolutely necessary. I very much hope this change is not permanent because I see nothing but bad news if it is.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

I do appreciate the concept that in order to understand a change in WvW you need to run that change in the real time since trying to get enough people into a test environment to simulate may not create the same result since there are a large number of variables in motion.

That said a change to the alarm that white swords indicate needs to be counter balanced with other changes else it may result in the predictions being made. Removing a tool on the defense side needs to be balanced with additional changes that aid the defender versus just aiding the attacker.

One of the results of no white swords maybe the loss of people upgrading structures. Since you know if will be ninja’d, why lose the coin? Unless there is some increased value in the structures that are upgraded, either increased strength of upgrades (even tougher walls/doors/guards) or increased holding value (PPT) because of the upgrade
then we might just see keeps upgraded to get WPs. You can already get into a fully upgraded T3 keep now pretty quick with a low number of people if no one knows to show up and slow that force down. Large forces already know how to not trigger orange swords. There needs to be additional value in that upgraded structure since it just being tougher to take is negated by not knowing its being taken. Maybe even if a new track was added to the upgrade lines that re-activates the sword alert if that upgrade is bought. You could further that path by extended the alert radius per upgrade in that path. Example for a keep it starts at inner walls, then outer walls and then maybe outer roaming guards. Same concept on towers and camps.

Likewise, if there is no incentive to sentry, why do it? If you know that no one is upgrading something since they are afraid that as soon as they leave it will just be gone then you are standing watching a paper keep while you are awarded with time to alt-tab out and play another game? A concentrated thread on sentry incentives would need to have/has been/has had been done on changes to encourage remaining in one place for extended periods.

Today you can already experience the ‘why upgrade it’ syndrome on any server that is missing a time zone in coverage. As you approach that time zone people’s mentality switches to ’don’t worry about the upgrades, no one is going to be around to defend it anyway so it will be paper by the time we are back.’ This will probably increase the we will just take it back before flip calls.

And the potential for trolling. Currently white swords pop and people are asking for confirmation to make sure its not a decoy. Your risk is low that you are being trolled since there was a real game alert. Afterwards you might just get some people sending out false alarms to troll one server or if you have a player upset with the server they are on. A counter to this might be to allow a player to act like an EoTM sentry post and show the dots of enemies that are nearby to them but not sure if there are hidden system issues to that approach. Maybe a combination of this and allowing a player to ping a group could be used to create additional incentive to have people scout. You could even start to use this as a structure to award that scout if the enemy actually attacks the structure being reported on. That way your not encouraging AFK scouts.

Once again all for testing in real WvW and could be fun having some rule variances from time to time but wouldn’t mind hearing about thoughts that balance offensive and defensive capabilities. Good hunting!

Shouldn’t this actually encourage more defense and scouting?

If you don’t want your objectives to be taken away, have some people on patrol duty that can call the big guys in case things go south. Instead previously all you had to do was watch the map whenever there were white swords on a building.

Dunno, that’s my humble opinion.

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

ghost.3208:

Shouldn’t this actually encourage more defense and scouting?

If you don’t want your objectives to be taken away, have some people on patrol duty that can call the big guys in case things go south. Instead previously all you had to do was watch the map whenever there were white swords on a building.

Dunno, that’s my humble opinion.

What “patrols” with no white swords? Or do you mean “stand in tower” 24/7 rotations, that only (some, not even all)T1 servers can afford? And even then – do you mean they have to be on a schedule like – “Show up at 05:10h tomorrow at XXX tower to change Scout No 6 or you will get fired from the server!” – lovely. Also – have you EVER defensively scouted for more than 20 minutes?

Pavel.8531:

ghost.3208:

Shouldn’t this actually encourage more defense and scouting?

If you don’t want your objectives to be taken away, have some people on patrol duty that can call the big guys in case things go south. Instead previously all you had to do was watch the map whenever there were white swords on a building.

Dunno, that’s my humble opinion.

What “patrols” with no white swords? Or do you mean “stand in tower” 24/7 rotations, that only (some, not even all)T1 servers can afford? And even then – do you mean they have to be on a schedule like – “Show up at 05:10h tomorrow at XXX tower to change Scout No 6 or you will get fired from the server!” – lovely. Also – have you EVER defensively scouted for more than 20 minutes?

^

As some who has scouted quit a bit I can tell you the loss of swords is going to hurt. Mainly a scout will be refreshing siege. And paroling the wall to see if there are any zergs or groups in the area to report.

A tower is easy enough, but if you talking about a place with several entrances of attack like the Garrison, Bay or Hills it will mean alot more work. Because if you don’t run and check each entrance regularly it could be a disaster. At least now you can see the swords and know there is something going on, even if its just a tap.

Without them your looking at running the loop constantly.

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

ghost.3208:

Shouldn’t this actually encourage more defense and scouting?

You want to encourage players to defend and scout? How about reward them for it, rather than take their tools away?

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

And what do you propose people do when there aren’t enough people on the entire map to cover every tower (again, this will be the case pretty much all the time besides a few hours outside primetime… not just in “lower tiers,” but even in T4).

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

And what do you propose people do when there aren’t enough people on the entire map to cover every tower (again, this will be the case pretty much all the time besides a few hours outside primetime… not just in “lower tiers,” but even in T4).

Bunker on tower, refresh siege, sit back

This is part of the population imbalance solution :P

If enough people sit around in towers, servers with lesser population might, might look better on the scoreboard. No need to actually revamp anything major!

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

I spent 95% of my wvw time scouting sieging upgrading repairing refreshing etc etc. a thankless job already but now I need to sit in keeps only and not going out to help at other objectives incase of an assault. Or when i dare to run to a camp to throw an upgrade one a zerg might breach through outter before i got back. Its a pain to do already when you lack the people, ofc it shouldnt be that bad for an overstacked server but this change will hurt ALL servers. Think about that.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

And what do you propose people do when there aren’t enough people on the entire map to cover every tower (again, this will be the case pretty much all the time besides a few hours outside primetime… not just in “lower tiers,” but even in T4).

If you don’t have enough people to cover every tower, you don’t have enough people to hold anything on the map.

can i get a server merge/swap with this change?

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Swamurabi.7890:

Offair.2563:

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

They haven’t implemented it yet. They want to test it.

My point is, this is already having an affect on game play.

You dont have to put your hands into a fire to see if it burns so testing this is useless too.

They think this will promote defensive play while all people who actually play this game scouting and defending already know its going the other way around. Less defending moar flipping!

What it’s really showing is that WvW players want to ktrain, and this is giving them the chance to do it in WvW instead of EotM.

Too many commanders have relied upon white swords instead of scouts.

Don’t be surprised if those annoying sentry turrets from EotM make their way into WvW.

So you’re volunteering yourself to sit in a tower, waiting, hoping someone will pass by? That’s “gameplay” that you enjoy?

Don’t forget that tower is paper because at night, when there aren’t even enough people to post one at every tower, they all get papered. Actually this’ll be the case outside of 3 hours on either side of primetime.

So if you wander away even for a few minutes, the zerg inevitably shows up and flips your tower.

Actually, I have done it. I’ve done it enough to know that some of the posters here have never done it. When you’re sitting in a tower and someone taps the gate or damages a wall, a three minute “defend” timer pops up on the screen for everyone in the tower/keep. Thirty seconds later white swords would appear on the map.

It doesn’t take long to check on every wall/gate of a keep to see if you need to call in help. If you use siege disablers you can extend the time even longer, even if it’s paper.

And what do you propose people do when there aren’t enough people on the entire map to cover every tower (again, this will be the case pretty much all the time besides a few hours outside primetime… not just in “lower tiers,” but even in T4).

If you don’t have enough people to cover every tower, you don’t have enough people to hold anything on the map.

This is completely false.

Swamurabi.7890:

If you don’t have enough people to cover every tower, you don’t have enough people to hold anything on the map.

Wrong. Lack of people is different from lack of defense. You can have a handful of players in a map and still be able to hold your side or could before this, non sense, update.

I will never go scout until there are rewards for it.
Its boring. Its mindnumbing. Its unrewarding and doesnt help with my achievements. So why do it.

azyume.6321:

Swamurabi.7890:

If you don’t have enough people to cover every tower, you don’t have enough people to hold anything on the map.

Wrong. Lack of people is different from lack of defense. You can have a handful of players in a map and still be able to hold your side or could before this, non sense, update.

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Swamurabi.7890:

Is that the type of balance you want?

Do you want a Ktrain flip festival?

That’s what you’re going to get.

Swamurabi.7890:

azyume.6321:

Swamurabi.7890:

If you don’t have enough people to cover every tower, you don’t have enough people to hold anything on the map.

Wrong. Lack of people is different from lack of defense. You can have a handful of players in a map and still be able to hold your side or could before this, non sense, update.

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Why should you be able to ninja something? Thats PvD
For small groups you can take camps; towers and keeps should need large forces

As a roamer it would get pretty boring as with no swords the only resistance you would meet are randoms or enemy who connected the dots on the map ;-)

Im not sure why white swords should be removed. There are guard NPCs there for a reason and indeed some of them are called SCOUTS.

And for anyone thinking all will be fine without white swords. There are some kitten ed sneaky cata spots that 95% of wvwers just don’t know about. Have friend clear door guards while you cata away in secret.

Swamurabi.7890:

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Who says that will bring any balance? I am betting it will cause exactly the opposite, more imbalance.

Can’t ninja anything? Are you from t1? Otherwise I’ll tell you any other tier have a chance to ninja anything even with white swords. Besides as stated, that’s PvD, simple as that. You are taking an objective with zero opposition and we have a very good example of what that leads to: ktrain (EoTM). WvW don’t need that, leave it for EoTM. The game mode should be taken more seriously and encourage all aspects such as offense, defense, scout, upgrades, siege and fights (as much as open field as for an objective).

That’s, once again, another change that only may affect for good the servers from tier 1 and perhaps tier 2, but I have my doubts. While it can benefit perhaps 6 servers, the others 18 might suffer from it.

If one have trouble to visualize, think about a server that have 10, perhaps 15, players and still scattered between home map and EBG. This new update requires scouts, so please, how will those 10 guys scout 20 different objectives? Not to mention that you have no reward from do it and might spend hours without even seeing anyone… yeah boring, doubt many will do it.

White swords are not a crutch, in fact, I know many guilds that uses that to know where they have to go to find a fight.

As stated, your group or guild can’t take a keep? Try out other objectives like camps and, depending on the situation, towers. Two towers and one camp will give you exactly the same PPT as a keep or, yet, if you flip all 6 camps, will get more points than a keep would give, if one still plays for PPT.

Personally I think it’s a mistake for the devs to change White Swords without first promoting the gameplay that the removal of White Swords need to be replaced with.

I think the devs have considered how White Swords can promote offensively pushing for keeps, especially for smaller groups, but what the devs haven’t done at all is tried to implement new design elements which support and reward scouts. Scouting is one of the most boring roles in WvW. It can be a skilled job, it can be an exciting job but far too often it’s incredibly boring. Most of the time you won’t see anything – you won’t see havok teams with catas, you won’t see giant zergs running past, you won’t see golem rushes. You will sit there at a tower seeing nothing. Scouting also requires a decent amount of attention. Tabbing out is simply not good enough, especially on an important structure like a keep. You need to be sitting there, eyes glued to the screen constantly searching for enemies (and good scouts can look for signs of enemies – yak’s moving, camps flipping/being claimed, sentries changing etc).

Scouting means you usually won’t fight, you don’t get keep capture karma and you don’t get many loot bags. You will be bored out of your mind a lot and removing White Swords makes you more important but it does squat to solve the biggest problems for scouting – it’s far to inconsistent in how valuable it is (catching that golem rush early feels awesome, but most days you will be reporting taps at best) and your personal rewards are almost non-existent. On top of all that, scouting is incredibly frustrating when you log off and no-one replaces you – suddenly that tower you doted on for hours is ninja flipped 30 mins after you log, wasting your efforts in keeping it.

Altering the game to push players into scouting positions without actively supporting players in those positions is not the kind of development WvW needs imo. If ArenaNet wants to foster diverse roles in WvW (scouting and defending) it’s equally important to look at how rewarding those roles are, both in terms of fun and in terms of loot etc.

Swamurabi.7890:

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

That’s a feature, not a bug. The game rewards coordination and planning, as it should and it should require more attackers than defenders to defeat a defended objective.

Swamurabi.7890:

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Absolutely. A small group shouldn’t be able to ninja a keep and they should have to be careful and maybe a bit lucky to get a tower. Why do you think a small group should be able to ninja a keep?

There is no coordination or planning when you run with 50+ , there is absolutely now counter to blobs with a small defending force. And removing white sword will only promote karma training, since the less populate servers won’t have any people to scout. At all.

Besides.. standing in a keep for hours on end isn’t playing the game. It’s destroying your free time for an imaginary reward.

It’s a lazy “fix” nothing more.

Did someone mention LoS yet? sice better pc’s have more LoS. just saying
oh well they implemented Pay to win last weeks so i guess paying even more to win doesn’t really matter.

As i suggested many many times before.. Anet needs to play their game on lowest settings on a pc that has the minimal specs they suggested a pc needs to run the game.
(I can also play om max settings over a lan connection and claim everything works great , If you catch my drift.)

Berk.8561:

Swamurabi.7890:

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

That’s a feature, not a bug. The game rewards coordination and planning, as it should and it should require more attackers than defenders to defeat a defended objective.

Swamurabi.7890:

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Absolutely. A small group shouldn’t be able to ninja a keep and they should have to be careful and maybe a bit lucky to get a tower. Why do you think a small group should be able to ninja a keep?

The problem with requiring more attackers than defenders is that attackers have to get over a threshold in order to take a tower. Until that time you are left with flipping sentries, camps and killing yaks. So what happens is empty maps stay empty until an organized group decides to show up.

If the game didn’t want a small group to be able to take a keep then it would have required a minimum number of players to be in the circle in order to flip. Currently that number is one. Having that number at one allows for more participation because you can solo a tower or keep.

Anet can compare pre and post white swords to see if more player v player kills happen or if there is less. They could also look at whether there is more flipping of objectives or less. Either way, they can see how this change affects every match and every tier.

Swamurabi.7890:

Berk.8561:

Swamurabi.7890:

Everyone’s been using the white swords as a crutch to aid in defense. In order to counter the white sword defense you either had to drop enough siege to quickly knock down a wall/door before white swords popped, send a “tagger” to pop white swords on the other side of the map, have a “blocking” group to prevent defenders from getting in the keep. All of these required having a much larger attacking force than defenders.

That’s a feature, not a bug. The game rewards coordination and planning, as it should and it should require more attackers than defenders to defeat a defended objective.

Swamurabi.7890:

There was no way to ninja a keep as a small team because the white swords and the fact that you had to go through two walls/gates meant that you’d get attacked before you could even get to the second wall/gate. So even if you had equal but small numbers on a map you were severely handicapped by the white sword mechanic.

Is that the type of balance you want?

Absolutely. A small group shouldn’t be able to ninja a keep and they should have to be careful and maybe a bit lucky to get a tower. Why do you think a small group should be able to ninja a keep?

The problem with requiring more attackers than defenders is that attackers have to get over a threshold in order to take a tower. Until that time you are left with flipping sentries, camps and killing yaks. So what happens is empty maps stay empty until an organized group decides to show up.

If the game didn’t want a small group to be able to take a keep then it would have required a minimum number of players to be in the circle in order to flip. Currently that number is one. Having that number at one allows for more participation because you can solo a tower or keep.

Anet can compare pre and post white swords to see if more player v player kills happen or if there is less. They could also look at whether there is more flipping of objectives or less. Either way, they can see how this change affects every match and every tier.

Less PvP moar PVD – no need to test that.

It’s perfectly possible to take keeps with a small group. All you need is some level of coordination with the bigger groups. Hit the objective you want to take at the same time another group is hitting something else. Alternatively if you have your (or even an enemy) zerg bogged down at the south gate take your smaller one to the north gate and see if you can sneak in behind. Maybe it’s different in T1, but if you’re struggling then there’s already a solution… transfer to the lower tiers. God knows we could use the people. If not then it just requires a bit of tactical thinking to increase your thinking

As someone who plays WvW in pretty much every way (Solo Roaming, small group roaming, zerging, scouting, upgrading) I can only see this change being a horrible one. I also come from a server which has very good scouts, especially considering our position and size. This change will only help servers with more people and will make upgrading even less rewarding and more frustrating than it already is.

When I scout part of the job I do is also upgrade the camps nearby and run dolyaks in to help speed up the upgrading. I don’t want to be in the situation where i know that everytime i need to fight someone to save a dolyak im risking losing the whole keep over it because i cant check the map to see if i have to disengage. Likewise i don’t want to know that as soon as i need to go eat all my work will be for nothing because our server just doesn’t have the manpower to replace me and any attack wont be noticed.

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Why this is even implemented in the first place is beyond me. Discourages defense and promotes karma training.

Almost everyone posted against this in another thread and they still implemented it….lol

Giving details about for a suggested change is better than saying “I don’t like it.” If you can say why, and give a proposed fix, that’s very useful to the team.

;)

Kuldebar.1897:

NiloyBardhan.9170:

Why this is even implemented in the first place is beyond me. Discourages defense and promotes karma training.

Almost everyone posted against this in another thread and they still implemented it….lol

Giving details about for a suggested change is better than saying “I don’t like it.” If you can say why, and give a proposed fix, that’s very useful to the team.

;)

Read up on this thread and the sticky adopt a dev. Tons of explanations why this change is so bad.