Guild Wars 2

I wasn’t saying nobody should tick siege in general, I was just responding to people who said they were spending all day ticking siege.

Also I said I agree that despawn times should be longer.

Whenever I pass a bit of siege I always tick it, it’s just people were complaining about sitting in towers all day just to tick sige and I was saying go have some fun instead.

TallDan.6350:

Why spend all this time tickling siege, WvW wins go to the server with the most players/best coverage anyway, so unless you’re in the only evenly balanced matchup in WvW, why not just go and have some fun, as nothing you do will make any difference to the final outcome. Losing a tower is not the end of the world anyway you can always recap them.

If your server is one of the losing ones, you may hold a keep for hours but it will only get pvd after you go to bed and at the end of the week, the largest server will still have won.

I agree that the siege timers should be a little longer but honestly, in the hours you sit in the keep think of all the points you could have scored attacking the enemy keeps or taking camps or killing dolyaks.

Refreshing siege as you pass by is fine but don’t waste hours of your day sitting in a keep just to refresh siege, the game is supposed to be fun after all.

Here’s a reason to tick siege. Four ACs placed by the wurm gate on an enemy’s Bay were kept ticked and lived for 12 hours. During that time four people on those ACs fended off three zerg invasions of more than 30 enemy. If the ACs hadn’t been ticked or there in the first place, it would have been an easy roll for the enemy.

Certainly if they amass more bodies, they can push, but those early defensive siege can hold them off until help arrives.

@TallDan, Yeah, I understand. As I said, I agreed and disagreed with your post.

I agreed people shouldn’t turn the game into a grind. I disagreed that ticking wasn’t really worth it because everything gets flushed anyway! But, I don’t think you really meant it as it sounded to me, so sorry if I offended.

@ Jong; No not offended just clarifying what my point was really.

I just have to point out that reading “ticking” as “tickling” makes this thread more fun. That should be the official term, “tick” is boring.

Typical scenario:

tower gets attacked by enemy group.
let’s say 3 fast defenders get in, they were in the neighboorhood…

1. when siege does not despawn:
3 defenders man 3 arrow carts and the rams are attacked, golems might die, attackers have a hard time at the gate. Maybe they need cata’s, or can they outheal?

Bottom line: defenders buy time till their main forces arrive. Attackers still have a good chance to get in.

2. when siege despawns:
3 defenders get in and wonder where the heck those arrow carts went.
Tower was upgrading as usual, and the dollies get killed… hardly any supply there.
If lucky they can build a single arrow cart, after a lot of running back and forth.

Rams break down the door, golems do a little dance and cata’s will be used next time. Attackers take the tower before the help arrives.
Every time. Every single time!

This happens all the time for me in WvW. It’s not as theorycrafted as it sounds.

Thanks you two for lightening the mood

outcome #1 (“when siege does not despawn”) is preferable, for exactly the reason cited. so, what can you do to prevent siege from despawning? refresh it.

there have been times I had to make a hard choice: stay where I was to continue a fight, knowing that unrefreshed siege was going to despawn elsewhere, or leave an active fight to refresh siege elsewhere, knowing that my absence might be the difference between holding our position and getting overrun.

sometimes I choose to leave, and sometimes I choose to stay. sometimes my choice proves to be correct, and sometimes it turns out to be a mistake. these are the kinds of decisions that add variability and unpredictability to WvW, and they help keep it from getting boring.

and for the person who asked earlier: yes, siege sabotage is a real problem. here are some sample threads/posts complaining about it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Siege-griefing
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Siege-cap-griefers
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Spies-in-WvW-wasting-supply-and-siege-capping
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Attention-SoS-spies/1214213
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/What-is-with-supply-burning/1091794
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/12-24-Yaks-Bend-Maguuma-Dragonbrand/1091300

-ken

How about 6hrs whether is is being tapped or not? You build it last 6hrs, you could be on it firing at the enemy and when that 6hrs comes up it despawns. 6hrs might be too much but the idea is better than having to tap it all the time.

How about Anet removes the siege timers, and add a new skill to all the siege like skill 6 or something. That skill would be called something like “remove siege.” And when used, the siege has one tick to it. Once it gets 10 ticks from 10 different players, it would be removed and in its place 10 supply. That way, armies can recycle supply (go green!) and people can prevent siege grieving. The chances of sabotaging another server would be lower as it would require 10 people to remove key sieges.

kyro.8162:

How about Anet removes the siege timers, and add a new skill to all the siege like skill 6 or something. That skill would be called something like “remove siege.” And when used, the siege has one tick to it. Once it gets 10 ticks from 10 different players, it would be removed and in its place 10 supply. That way, armies can recycle supply (go green!) and people can prevent siege grieving. The chances of sabotaging another server would be lower as it would require 10 people to remove key sieges.

I like this idea. Most troll-proof alternative I’ve seen yet.

Julie Yann.5379:

How about 6hrs whether is is being tapped or not? You build it last 6hrs, you could be on it firing at the enemy and when that 6hrs comes up it despawns. 6hrs might be too much but the idea is better than having to tap it all the time.

Funnily enough, I suggested the same exact thing earlier in the thread. Most siege is getting reapplied far more than 4 times a day anyway, so 6 hours makes sense to me.

Snowreap.5174:

outcome #1 (“when siege does not despawn”)
and for the person who asked earlier: yes, siege sabotage is a real problem. here are some sample threads/posts

Im not saying there wasn’t a problem, but, even if the timer has fixed it, 30mins is still an arbitrary number. There is nothing magic about. Who’s to say an hour would not work as well, especially if it was only for siege in towers. We should try it. It is not like Anet are not experimenting in all kinds of other ways with the game!

kyro.8162:

How about Anet removes the siege timers, and add a new skill to all the siege like skill 6 or something. That skill would be called something like “remove siege.” And when used, the siege has one tick to it. Once it gets 10 ticks from 10 different players, it would be removed and in its place 10 supply. That way, armies can recycle supply (go green!) and people can prevent siege grieving. The chances of sabotaging another server would be lower as it would require 10 people to remove key sieges.

This really is the absolute best idea. I’ve seen it before and suggested it myself, but it would have to be 25 ticks not 10 because it would be too easy for 10man grief/sabotage squads to to roam the enemy servers. But I totally agree, this NEEDS to be done!!!!!!! Except on rams, those should despawn after 10 minutes.

Another idea that might help to encourage tapping: a red flashing light on the top of siege when it is down to its last 5 or 3 mins. Might remind less dedicated, casual players. At least they will all ask why the siege is flashing!

There are far better ways to avoid siege sabotaging than using a timer.
The timer system brings too much side-effects that are hindering players in their normal playstyle.

I’m all for strategic choices, but wheter or not to sit in a siege for a second each half hour should not be one of these choices!

This thread alone has better solutions. the whole timer idea wasn’t well thought out in design I think.
As usual it ‘can be made to work’.
But is that really our standard for everything in this game?
Some changes just need to be reverted as a bad idea and replaced with a better mechanic.

kyro.8162:

How about Anet removes the siege timers, and add a new skill to all the siege like skill 6 or something. That skill would be called something like “remove siege.” And when used, the siege has one tick to it. Once it gets 10 ticks from 10 different players, it would be removed and in its place 10 supply. That way, armies can recycle supply (go green!) and people can prevent siege grieving. The chances of sabotaging another server would be lower as it would require 10 people to remove key sieges.

I don’t know how technically feasible this idea is, but I do like it.

Just because I think the current situation with 30 minute timers is tolerable (barely), does not mean that I wouldn’t welcome a better situation.

-ken

I’d prefer they remove the tick siege as well and just institute an ammo system for all siege. Either make it cost 1 supply per 1 shot, or have a separate ammo camps that can be taken over for ammo.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I’d prefer they remove the tick siege as well and just institute an ammo system for all siege. Either make it cost 1 supply per 1 shot, or have a separate ammo camps that can be taken over for ammo.

1 supply per shot would make siege utterly non-viable for defense.

I suggest we stick to “Ticking is not fun, and prevents people doing sensible things (such as building modest precautionary siege, even on upgraded towers/keeps/castles). Plz fix it Anet”.

We don’t really know their problems and all these contradictory solutions (mine included!) risk them saying “See, no one agrees on a better solution. Ours is as good as anybody’s”!

Lots of excellent points in this thread. 100% Agreed that this takes away from the fun. It’s a real problem that needs to be addressed. For me, half hour despawn time makes no sense and Im getting tired of running back n forth just to refresh. Siege should never despawn unless destroyed imo. :p

So for now: PLEASE PLEASE refresh siege when ever you come across some!

Another idea for siege.. Eliminate the timer altogether.. Add a command to the skill bar for all types of siege with an 8 tick countdown.. The counter would keep track of eight separate players “voting” to have the siege despawn and when the counter hits zero the siege despawns immediately. The skill button would have the count on the despawn button just like the cool down timer appears on other skills. The 8 player counter would discourage other servers from trying to sabotage the siege. The ability to remove siege by proxy would eliminate the problem of siege griefers and help players manage the siege limit. Seems like eliminating the need to track despawn times on every piece of siege in the game would lighten the load on the server slightly. Also, Eliminating the siege timer would be more in line with the developers stated vision of GW2, to not force players to “grind” thru the game.

And as long as I’m making suggestions, how about an audible beep of some sort when you’re sitting in queue and your option to travel appears. It really sucks waiting 2 hours in queue staring at screen so you don’t miss the travel box.

Edit: Reading back at some other ideas posted. I like the idea of salvaging siege, so I think rather than calling it a “despawn” button, it should be called a “Salvage” button, and it would only be active when the siege is within your own keep or tower. Further, when the piece of siege despawns, 50% of the supply required to build the siege would be placed into the keep/tower supply pool (up to the current limit of course). This would make it even more discouraging for siege griefers and open up some interesting possibilities when you’re defending a tower with low supplies.

Field Siege: All other siege outside of a keep or tower would be on a 60/90 timer. A 60 minute timer would control the life of the siege, but it will not despawn until it is unmanned for 90 seconds. No ticking to increase the life, but it would be possible to setup siege within a supply camp for instance and have one person “man” multiple pieces to keep them from despawning in case of an assault on the camp as the 90 second timer would reset each time the siege is manned (or ticked).

Hmmm, on one hand it sucks. On the other hand it helps balance siege out. Currently it’s possible to rotate hitting different objectives as a viable way of draining supply. You hit an objective, they build siege, you hang in there for a little while and they build more siege, then you back off.

However if siege timers were 1 hour or more this would not be possible. Essentially most of the siege would be perma. While this is good for defense, defense is also getting alot more out of the sizable buffs to siege in recent game patches.

Giving siege a long timer currently would make turtling way too easy. Lets wait until we see the trebs/catas masteries one day before we ensure that any prime-time attack will run into 6 arrow carts on a door. (this in Tier 5!)

A couple quick built arrow carts is enough to hold until the main forces arrive. If you want to defend carry some arrow carts with you or….I dunno….DEFEND.

Now, I would be open to the option of people being able to salvage siege for a fraction of the supply/badges used to create them however. To make this less of a waste. Lets say 60% of initial costs modified downwards by damage received or a straight 40%.

Why was the guy infracted? I see nothing wrong with his post

kovah.9764:

Why was the guy infracted? I see nothing wrong with his post

Ditto, completely baffled!

Can I just say thank you, thank you, TY to Devon for the 1hr timer change!

This has made a huge difference to the life of defenders on our server – the willingness to invest in siege and the likelihood it might still be there if you disappear into real life for a bit. Perversely, I think it may have even encouraged people to tick siege, as it is less of a grind and you feel you might actually be making a difference, instead of just delaying the inevitable.

Thanks once again for a small but hugely valuable change

There was a FPS with STR elements I played that had problems with griefers deconstructing the whole base. The solution? They changed the system. Deconstructing flagged the structure to be removed, and the next time a player wanted to construct something that would push the base past the maximum capacity, the game would remove some of the flagged buildings as appropriate.

I think we could use something similar here. Like building an arrow cart above capacity will automatically remove the least used arrow cart on the map (by least used I mean the oldest one used). If all the arrow carts on the map have been used in the last 30 minutes, we’ll still get the error preventing from building another one. Or we apply the “deconstruct flag” thing by a simple toggle. Since even if some jerk goes around flagging all siege, it’ll still only cause them to disappear if we try to build over capacity.

One hour is certainly better than 1/2 hour, but it’s still too short. Maybe in the top tiers it’s not so much of a problem, but I’m on a mid-tier server and usually play on the home BL map. Usually there are only a handful of players, at the most, who will go out of their way to tick siege. And usually it’s the same few people, day after day. I saw someone else refer to these people as the “slave class” of wvw and I think that’s pretty accurate. Their work is taken for granted. Having to tick 10-30 pieces of siege across the map is a ball-and-chain that leaves too little time to do other things.

I’ve found that much of the siege I build gets missed by those who at least try to refresh because they just don’t see it, which means I have to make the rounds anyway, regardless of whether or not anyone else is helping. The people who appreciate the value of sufficient, well-placed siege and are willing to build it become slaves to doing what’s best for their server, and least rewarding for themselves in terms of loot, WXP and time spent actually fighting.

Anet, let my people go!

Yes, thank you ANet for making it an hour, sooo much appreciated.

But also, slingblade is right – for lower pop servers it’s still not long enough. And even higher pop ones wouldn’t complain about a further extension.

And stof’s idea above about marking siege for overwriting is even better.

They need to dump the timers completely. Normally when you build anything it lasts untill you or someone else chooses to destroy it.

As a casual with a short time every day to play WvW, it’s a waste of my resources to build siege that will vanish in a few minutes.

The whole ‘ticking’ grind is just silly.

It adds nothing to the game.

It’s just a bad idea that slipped past the early development of the game.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

They need to dump the timers completely. Normally when you build anything it lasts untill you or someone else chooses to destroy it.

As a casual with a short time every day to play WvW, it’s a waste of my resources to build siege that will vanish in a few minutes.

The whole ‘ticking’ grind is just silly.

It adds nothing to the game.

It’s just a bad idea that slipped past the early development of the game.

They have stated they need some sort of mechanism to limit the number of siege pieces on a map due to technical constraints. So, there are caps on how much siege you can have. 100 rams and 100 non-rams per map, or something like that.

Without some way of despawning siege, you could reach your limit on a map on reset night, and then be screwed for the entire rest of the match pretty much. Only siege that was destroyed would leave the map. I’m not saying the timers are the best way to address the problem, but there does need to be some mechanism to control the amount of siege on the map.

You mean, like that suggestion 4 posts above yours?

I agree with Anet’s reasoning to allow siege to despawn to prevent a tower from being trolled with rams or bad placement. But I tend to agree 1 hour is too short, based on the same reasons listed above. Only a small group of people tick siege.

Agreed, it has to change. Atm not only there’s no point in placing siege in borderlands, because people just don’t go there or defend, so it’s a waste 85% of the time, but with the ticking on top, the superior siege I place is just wasted because nobody refreshes it. So I refuse to siege up borderlands from now on.

A mitigating solution:
- a siege timer is frozen as long as the owner is on the map, no need to refresh it
- once the owner leaves the map, the timer ticks down, 1 hour, but anyone can refresh it by just running past it, in a certain radius, say 500, and doesn’t need to interact with it

I make it a habit of monitoring and timing any siege I place on a map. I don’t expect others to do it (I’m delighted when they do!) … but I will look at the clock and know I have 55 minutes before I have to return to retick it. Having it adjusted to an hour massively improved the quality of my wvw time. I actually can get out a zerg a bit I"m primarily interested in defensive play, so having to go back within one hour is not a big deal to me.

Me and a friend managed to keep all four T3 towers on EB ticked with 10-15 pieces of siege in each today. That siege saved the towers from about five assaults each against about 70 man zerg. Was pretty proud of that So I’d suggest that if you build siege, you expect to have to do the ticking yourself. It’s not fair in some ways, but at least you have some control over it. Otherwise, don’t build it, let the tower fall, and have the server learn the hard way how invaluable it is to keep this stuff ticked.

If they ever made siege permanent, that would be a disaster. Having witnessed months of troll siege griefing, permanent siege would have the map capped within the first hour of reset. And all flame rams. Or ballistas facing into walls.

kurtosis.9526:

snip

/signed

Siege should just refresh when a player comes close enough to it. It’s pretty kitten awkward to have to press F and ESC 10 times in keep every 50 mins or so.

At least while the person that placed the siege is present on the map it should never expire. Only make the timer start once the person leaves the map.

Safir.9203:

kurtosis.9526:

snip

/signed

and…

(User was infracted for this post.)

why?

I questioned the same thing and was infracted ^^ INB4 Im infracted for mentioning I was infracted.