Guild Wars 2

The approach to sieging any given objective is incredibly static. The best decision is usually proxy catas that take advantage of the diagonal wall hitbox glitch—that is, the one that lets them ‘hit’ walls by hitting well below them. Meanwhile, the best defense is to wait inside until the wall falls and then attempt to fight in the lord’s room or some other choke—attempting to keep the wall up is just a waste of supply. If you happen to be outnumbered in that engagement, you can buy a bit of time with suicide disables but otherwise are at the mercy of wherever your group is. Splitting up to defend is not feasible unless you can win lopsided fights consistently.

Furthermore, since invaders can hit through platforms by using AoE on the bottom, they can hit the defenders without line of sight. A similar issue exists with walls but everyone knows that already. Meanwhile, a defender must risk being pulled or bombed just to get in position to use a skill. The result is that walls are of no use in defense except for buying a bit of time. Functionally, they are the same as making the invaders talk to an NPC that the opens some gate after a moment or two—there’s precious little interaction between offense and defense.

After getting through all that, the invaders may find that they’re facing a room full of arrow carts. Their best choice for dealing with it—a ballista—has been rendered fairly ineffective by the long-ago range nerf on ballis (for dubious reasons) and the fact that, despite being hit-scan, the balli is the only siege that requires a target to fire.

To be fair, this is hardly a standalone issue. Combat is a mess. Scoring is a mess (though the recent change seems great so far). Various glitches and lag abound. On the bright side, with skirmishes, there’s more incentive to play after the weekend. Now, if siegeplay gets cleaned up, there may be more incentive to play when you’re not the biggest zerg around.

I disagree. Siegeplay is not static. However, point blank catapults are by far the most popular option.
Depending on the objective, you can kill siege with cannons, arrow carts, ballistas, trebuchets, or even catapults (wall catapults actually work). As long as the tower isn’t paper or Anz, there is a good chance you will be able to defend it.
I’d like to see the base defenses of walls boosted and the upgrade times decreased but the impact of upgrades to the walls decreased.

Sviel.7493:

The approach to sieging any given objective is incredibly static. The best decision is usually proxy catas that take advantage of the diagonal wall hitbox glitch—that is, the one that lets them ‘hit’ walls by hitting well below them. Meanwhile, the best defense is to wait inside until the wall falls and then attempt to fight in the lord’s room or some other choke—attempting to keep the wall up is just a waste of supply. If you happen to be outnumbered in that engagement, you can buy a bit of time with suicide disables but otherwise are at the mercy of wherever your group is. Splitting up to defend is not feasible unless you can win lopsided fights consistently.

Furthermore, since invaders can hit through platforms by using AoE on the bottom, they can hit the defenders without line of sight. A similar issue exists with walls but everyone knows that already. Meanwhile, a defender must risk being pulled or bombed just to get in position to use a skill. The result is that walls are of no use in defense except for buying a bit of time. Functionally, they are the same as making the invaders talk to an NPC that the opens some gate after a moment or two—there’s precious little interaction between offense and defense.

After getting through all that, the invaders may find that they’re facing a room full of arrow carts. Their best choice for dealing with it—a ballista—has been rendered fairly ineffective by the long-ago range nerf on ballis (for dubious reasons) and the fact that, despite being hit-scan, the balli is the only siege that requires a target to fire.

To be fair, this is hardly a standalone issue. Combat is a mess. Scoring is a mess (though the recent change seems great so far). Various glitches and lag abound. On the bright side, with skirmishes, there’s more incentive to play after the weekend. Now, if siegeplay gets cleaned up, there may be more incentive to play when you’re not the biggest zerg around.

Seige is part of wvw gameplay so you’ll just have to get use to it.

Do you except the same people that buffed AC damage by 80% despite everyone wanting lower damage to actually fix siege issues?

Hahahahahahahaaaa…

Bring on the new cannons instead, at least we can have something to laugh at… Still crossing fingers that they are going to be mobile.

I dont know why people understand critism on issues as a “remove it” or “i cant handle it” !?
Siege weapons really need a change or adjustment. Either u have shield generators and fall asleep cause noone can dmg you or you havent those and get wiped by a few arrow carts. Anet should reduce dmg of arrow carts and instead add more soft cc or boon stripping. I also would appreciate a stability skill on canons, so cant get cc’d that easily out of them.

The most op option right now is to simply go rams with 3 shield generators behind it. Constant coverage against ac damage, countertrebs, catapults, mortars, everything.

Sviel.7493:

the best defense is to wait inside until the wall falls and then attempt to fight in the lord’s room or some other choke—attempting to keep the wall up is just a waste of supply. If you happen to be outnumbered in that engagement, you can buy a bit of time with suicide disables but otherwise are at the mercy of wherever your group is.

What is your assumption regarding the number of defenders?

I think we have to recognise that there are two types of attackers;

1. the mighty zerg/guildgroup – You will need something similar to take it out, no matter what siege you have. One or two defenders can’t stop this.
2. the soloer/small group – This is easy counter with just one or two defenders. Current defensive siege is perfect for preventing attacks by upto… [10ish?] players.

I think the main factor here is supply. If an attacking force can bung down enough point-blank catapults, a single defender on an AC isn’t going to have enough time to destroy them. This may seem like a very specific situation, but make no mistake, this (in my experience) is how the vast majority of WvW objective encounters happen.

I get the impression that a lot of people who say it’s difficult to defend an objective don’t factor in that it’s one guy vs 20+ much of the time. The one guy should get obliterated, although perhaps not that easily whilst he has a wall to stand on.

My opinion is;

• Superior ACs are fine, except the camera isn’t predictable – you never know if you will be able to see what you want to hit until the AC is built. Vanilla AC is in a bad place tho.
• Catapults shouldn’t do damage at point blank, or damage themselves with debris from wall or something. Vanilla could do to be slightly cheaper to make it viable.
• Trebs are fine. The water field mastery seems too awkward to use effectively.
• Ballistas – could do with a free-aim option. Otherwise they seem fine.
• Alpha Golems are fine-ish. They should (imo) do more damage than Omega at point-blank, making them an feasible option (to point-blank as opposed to range) rather than a poor man’s Omega.
• Omega golems are very fine. They need to remain expensive, no more duping. They also need to have the colour of the team they represent instead of always having blue lights.
• Guild siege is beautiful, we need to see these amazing models more often, please! I don’t know what I’m asking for here, I just love the models. Models on the vanilla siege are largely prettier than the models on superior, but I’m happy that there is a difference in models. Thanks for this.

@Cecilia

I imagine things may be different on EBG. I should have noted that I play almost exclusively in the borderlands. If someone comes and drops 6-8 proxy catas there, you’re lucky if it’s even possible to land counter-siege fire on them. Also, if you’re not using an AC, good luck penetrating their 150% bubble up-time.

@Swagger

I’m not asking for siegeplay to be removed. Nor do I find it unenjoyable at a base level. Thus, I don’t really understand your comment…

@Dawdler

I don’t really expect anything, at this point. If I did, this would have been a carefully researched thread with lots of number crunching—but I do hate feeling like I put more effort into things than the devs.

@Svarty

I agree that 1v20 sieges should be decided in favor of the 20—my issue is how we get there. If the 20 show up and do things and the 1 does things in response but is ultimately overwhelmed by the 20’s more numerous things then all is well. However, it is much more likely that the 1 can’t actually do anything with any sort of effect. This carries on up all the way to even numbers because, too often, there’s naught to be done about enemy siege from inside the walls. The only option, even to slow them down, is to abandon all defensive structures and punch the invaders in the face.

Guild siege is pretty nice looking but I’m pretty tired of YB showing up and plopping down 12 guild catas. I think part of that issue is a failure on our part to drain their supply before they get there, but it’s still very disheartening.

I personally think the problem right now is that people simply got used to the attitude that if they can’t take something within one or two attempts they will never go there again, so Anet gave defenders a kitten ton of ways to defend their offensive siege rendering defensive siege almost entirely useless.
In my eyes this is a completely wrong approach. The fight over ressources and supplies should be a major part of the siege warfare and yes, defenders must have a natural advantage in my opinion but right now we are very far away from that.
The only way to really defend something is to already have like 5ac’s or 3 trebs firing the enemy position before anything goes down. If you can’t prevent the initial siege placement you are doomed and this isn’t fun for neither defenders nor attackers.

The best example I can give right now would probably be stonemist caste, because that’s ususally the only place where all factions will put constant pressure on, which often yields very epic fights of zergs first shooting the outer ring open, then being pushed out maybe 10 times until the defenders simply can’t keep the inner doors closed. But at this point you can still fight the lord room for hours if you are really into it. That’s how all battles should look like imo because it makes you feel that you’ve achieved something.

Right now you are basically in the situation you’ve had back in the days where mesmer portals weren’t restricted and you couldn’t do anything about 30 omegas knocking your door.
Also I feel that increasing the max supply capacity to 25 (while helping smaller groups) almost entirely destroyed the purpose of ressource management and supply control for the offensive side. It’s just insane seeing your 50 man squad with easily over 1000 supplies. That means you can build 6 superior flame rams and 3 superior shield generators on both gates of a keep and still have a few hundred supplies left. (Or instantly build like 7 omega golems)

Dawdler.8521:

Do you except the same people that buffed AC damage by 80% despite everyone wanting lower damage to actually fix siege issues?

Hahahahahahahaaaa…

Bring on the new cannons instead, at least we can have something to laugh at… Still crossing fingers that they are going to be mobile.

good one! The damage one superior arrow cart is okeish, but put 10 of those together and it will melt anything, even enemy moral.
same for ballista. Why that weapon that is point and click does 10k damage to a 3k amored player with protection?

Porblem! If you are a blob defending an structure you can build those 10 superior AC. But if you are just 3 players youll be lucky if you can finish building one before the enemy breach in.

The siege should not do primary desing to damage players. It’s primary function should be disable enemy blobs so they can not enter in so there is no point to build more for moar damage.

There are zero issues with seige in the game. If you are dying to seige that’s a personal problem…

WvW was designed with seige warfare in mind so learn strategies with seige use and counter seige.

I think his point, Swagger, is that siege is boring, due to situational placement, and broken, due to defenders not being able to effectively utilize siege or otherwise stand on walls to ward off the attack. No one is saying that siege isn’t supposed to be part of the game mode, but most would probably say the implementation has room for improvement.

Entenkommando.5208:

I personally think the problem right now is that people simply got used to the attitude that if they can’t take something within one or two attempts they will never go there again, so Anet gave defenders a kitten ton of ways to defend their offensive siege rendering defensive siege almost entirely useless.
In my eyes this is a completely wrong approach. The fight over ressources and supplies should be a major part of the siege warfare and yes, defenders must have a natural advantage in my opinion but right now we are very far away from that.
The only way to really defend something is to already have like 5ac’s or 3 trebs firing the enemy position before anything goes down. If you can’t prevent the initial siege placement you are doomed and this isn’t fun for neither defenders nor attackers.

The best example I can give right now would probably be stonemist caste, because that’s ususally the only place where all factions will put constant pressure on, which often yields very epic fights of zergs first shooting the outer ring open, then being pushed out maybe 10 times until the defenders simply can’t keep the inner doors closed. But at this point you can still fight the lord room for hours if you are really into it. That’s how all battles should look like imo because it makes you feel that you’ve achieved something.

Right now you are basically in the situation you’ve had back in the days where mesmer portals weren’t restricted and you couldn’t do anything about 30 omegas knocking your door.
Also I feel that increasing the max supply capacity to 25 (while helping smaller groups) almost entirely destroyed the purpose of ressource management and supply control for the offensive side. It’s just insane seeing your 50 man squad with easily over 1000 supplies. That means you can build 6 superior flame rams and 3 superior shield generators on both gates of a keep and still have a few hundred supplies left. (Or instantly build like 7 omega golems)

Well put. +1

Well if you think siege is good the way it is……I don’t know how to convince you otherwise.

It is a mess as the OP states…..it reallly is. Things no longer make any conventional sense they just work a certain way for the sake of working a certain way. The pulls too…..my gawddddd the pulls you can inflict on people on walls is absolutely disgusting. Totally agree the best tactic to defending an objective is to camp it and (a) create a killzone with siege for when the enemy gets in; (b) use the tower’s entrance teleport to get the drop on the enemy group; © use both a and b

I think the over issue is that anet doesn’t know it’s history of castles and keeps very well? They most likely are not all nerds like us and read medieval books and watch documentaries on sword fights. Or that’s just me lol

If you look back, there were several engineering ideas incorporated into new castles/keeps built to counter siege and soldiers that got too close for defenders to hit for example. Something that is common in wvw, siege very close to the wall making it difficult for defenders to hit or get too close to the wall, you know what happens.

If you look back around the 12th century, guards use to complain that they couldn’t fire directly beneath them to engineers. Castle engineers started looking into ideas and progressed from wooden sheds cantilevered beyond the wall of the castle with a trap door so archers could fire directly down at enemies without them being at risk.
http://discoverthemiddleages.com/img/full/hoardings%203.jpg

This idea got later improved into machicolations. Stone structures that were similar to a balcony with fitted holes where archers could lay the arrow storm down on killing everything in sight.
http://www.exploring-castles.com/image-files/lewes_castle_machicolations.jpg

The overall problem with defending is that the blob has the advantage at every turn. Anet needs to put the power into the defenders hands because castles and keeps intention is to be impenetrable. Giving the player resources other than a stupid ac that many eles and mesmers can use pulls on is a ill game design.

They should really incorporate some of the ideas from literally the 12th century. Even back then engineers knew how to come up with creative ideas for counters. I’m sure our well educated devs can with their fancy computers and programmers.

:)

They did give us murder holes above some of the gates, but not arrow slits in the walls…

That would be interesting to have a back lash on catapults , trebs ,golems and possibly cannons, if the blast area was to close to the weapon.Maybe limit the number of rams that can be deployed at a gate. Change the number 4 on ballista (Spread Shot)so it can be targeted a little better.Arrow carts need to have a reduction in damage or a longer reload.
Siege towers would be cool.And how about explosives ? Maybe a keg dump could be built and people could run kegs of explosives to a wall.

Give me sapper charges.

I am more disappointed by the lack of ramparts on the desert bl keep walls. :/

Famine.7915:

I am more disappointed by the lack of ramparts on the desert bl keep walls. :/

I’m just disappointed in that map lol

Could have been an epic castle and tower land with historical ideas infused. Could have had the fighting wvwers and mixed in some immersive beautiful environment for the pvers. Yeah…could could could.

It looks like the game Doom to me, all barren and boring. At least Doom gave you a shotgun I guess.

The guild groups quiting structures because 1 ac doing 300-800 damage and just one defender is Embarrassing, but it happens.

The thing is Structure are not ment to hold, they are ment to belost and recaptured, but players want to do it without effort.

IT is easy to clear siege from walls, only under 3 ac’s is hard, and it is neaded waterblasts for healign the aoe group clearing the walls.

Every tower and keep is placed almost on valeys, at least theres always higer ground to clear siege with counter siege+aoe team from the ground.

Alot of places can have siege built on situation defenders cant do much.

Blob drops 6 catas on walls, there isnt much to do.

Sugestion : guild members defending their own structures should get a defensive bonus using siege on walls.
Anet should reduce the Ktrain effect, guilds most time dont deffend even t2 nor t3 stuff, while they prefer to capping empty structures and then QQ if they get a defender.