Guild Wars 2

Standing on the walls, attacking players assaulting a keep from below…
Rushing in from the ground, launching attacks up at the defenders on the walls…

Ive been on both sides of the scenarios above. (this isnt taking siege weapons into consideration here)

Does anyone else feel like the mechanics of attacking to and from walls is flawed?

Throughout history and warfare tactics, high ground is supposed to be advantageous. Especially that of something like castle walls. Presumably a lot fewer people could defend a keep from attackers, than the number of people needed to actually attack a keep. And this is just from being able to use bows, crossbows, rocks, etc from the well defended castle walls.

Yet, for some reason, in GW2, it feels easier to attack people on walls, than it does to be on the wall attacking people on the ground. I believe this to be a mechanic flaw in the game. Specifically with how line of sight works while up on the wall.

For most ranged attacks, even though you can tilt the camera to see over the edge of the top of a wall, as you stand on it, you still arent able to attack. Your character head (and sometimes more) is still visible however to the attacker on the ground. In most cases, you must completely expose yourself 100% by jumping onto the ledge of the walls in order to attack players on ground level. This seems broken. As if your line of sight to the enemy starts at your character ankles, rather than his head.

To add to this flawed mechanic, ground attackers can actually attack people who arent even showing much, if any, of their character over the cover of the wall, simply by targeting the top ledge of the wall with AoE. This creates a scenario where the people on the wall must stay a good distance away from the ledge just to avoid being hit, let alone ever getting to attack. This means ground attackers can hit wall defenders without even seeing them, but wall defenders cant do the same (broken line of sight mechanics while on the wall).

I believe a lot of this flawed mechanic can be fixed simply by properly adjusting the line of sight issues players have while ON walls as they try to attack people on the ground. Players shouldnt need to have to jump on the very ledge of a wall to attack someone clearly visible below. The only reason someone should have to move to the very ledge to attack, is to hit enemies directly at the walls base (ie: standing right next to the keeps doors).

The players on the ground are SUPPOSED to be at a disadvantage because they are completely in the open, with zero cover. The players on the walls are supposed to have an advantage because they are up high, and have the cover of the wall. The games current mechanics remove ALL of these things, actually grantings the ground attackers a noticeable advantage over those actually on the wall.

Given, wall defenders should STILL be targetable (just not as easily seen) if they can target and hit ground enemies. There shouldnt ever be a time when one side can target and attack, while the other cant, aside from using INDIRECT siege weapons like catapults, mortars, and arrow carts.

It would be nice if the devs could at least look into the code involving these mechanics, because they seem pretty flawed right now.

^ I completely agree.

100% agree.

It also has an effect on balance since professions / weapons with a lot of long duration or high damage GTAOEs are more beneficial to a WvW team than professions with ST ranged options / weapons.

Defensive siege placed at the edges (oil, cannons) also suffer greatly from this since are completely unusable by a defender due to aoe.

I agree. As a Mesmer I found it pretty cool that my Clones and Phantasms magically pop on to walls and wreak havoc :-) but somehow it doesn’t seem quite right. By contrast, my abilities feel alot less useful as a wall defender.

if you change the way it currently works you will break the game

the walls are there to use seige weapons from not for players to try and defend from with player abilitys

Daish.6139:

if you change the way it currently works you will break the game

the walls are there to use seige weapons from not for players to try and defend from with player abilitys

players attacking from walls doesnt stop them from using siege weapons.

The issue here is that players can already attack from the walls, its just a matter have having to move to the very ledge in order to do so.

Siege weapons should always be preferred for a combination of the following reasons:

Bigger AoE
More damage
More Range
Indirect Fire

So despite being able to stand on the wall and attack with your abilities, siege still has its benefits.

Well put OP. I agree.

Gadzooks.4687:

Daish.6139:

if you change the way it currently works you will break the game

the walls are there to use seige weapons from not for players to try and defend from with player abilitys

players attacking from walls doesnt stop attackers from using siege weapons against them. Most siege weapons far exceed the range that players have, even on the wall.

The issue here is that players can already attack from the walls, its just a matter have having to move to the very ledge in order to do so.

you
can
leave
the
wall
and
attack
from
a
flank

the wall is there for seige weapons to be placed on not for players to attack from

Daish.6139:

you
can
leave
the
wall
and
attack
from
a
flank

the wall is there for seige weapons to be placed on not for players to attack from

And how am I supposed to get back into my keep after that? Just run away if I’m going to die and let them have it? Being inside a keep with such good defenses is supposed to give you an advantage. Even in the real world, castles and keeps were built so that human defenders could stand inside and shoot arrows out of tiny slits in the walls, or stand on the top and use their height as an advantage and the walls as defense. Keeps are built so that you can hunker down and defend them from attackers for long periods of time. Of course since this is a game, the attackers need to have a fair chance. But forcing us to jump down off the walls and attack from the sides is not the answer. It sort of defeats the purpose lol.

Daish.6139:

you
can
leave
the
wall
and
attack
from
a
flank

the wall is there for seige weapons to be placed on not for players to attack from

Showing alternate strategies doesnt magically fix mechanics that are flawed with others.

Wall defense mechanics should work better. Should defending from the wall be the thing to do 100% of the time? No. Should it work better than it does currently without the limitation of flawed mechanics? Yes.

And no, walls are not just there to use siege weapons on. Thats one option, but not limited to just that. If they didnt expect players to attack from walls, there would be a ledge too high to climb up on. What we are dealing with here is the devs not knowing how to implement a proper use of game mechanics to allow for it, in time for the games release. Its probably something they want to improve, but its low on the priority list. Not game breaking, just frustrating.