Guild Wars 2

With the mixed borderlands poll I figure now is as good a time as any to bring this up.

A major complaint about Desert is the lack of strategic value of the towers. I had never played Alpine before it was brought back, but I could really say that defensively, they’re useless as well. Sure offensively they can be used to treb keeps, but that’s not going to work unless a zerg is defending the tower at the same time. The same could really be done on open ground.

Towers would be a lot more useful strategically if they acquired waypoints at T2 or T3 (I believe T2 would put more urgency into attacking/defending or running/disrupting caravans).

With the change to keeps only getting waypoints at T3, the game is fundamentally changed. Traversing the borderlands from the citadel is an exercise in frustration, especially on alpine where you have to take falling damage several times to get out or go the long way around. Even if you were to recapture a lost garrison, it might be several hours until you have a waypoint again.

I agree with most of what you are saying, however, particularly on Alpine I think more waypoints would make the map too fast to navigate (disclaimer: I play thief). I don’t think they have hit the sweet spot on either map when it comes to traversal, but frankly I have no idea what that sweet spot would be.

Towers are much easier to attack and denying enemy waypoints are totally worth the effort. It would encourage smaller groups since a group of 3-5 can flip a tower without much trouble. That’s a tall order for a keep.

This could work to counter the blob vs. blob. If a small group can destroy the blob’s ability to navigate, maybe servers have to rethink putting 50+ people on the tag and break it up.

It also puts more emphasis on controlling camps and caravans, a move anet has been working towards with the last couple of big updates. Roamers win, small groups win, blobs can still exist but are not the ultimate weapon anymore.

The thing is, even if you put waypoints in the towers, they still wouldn’t have much strategic value. I’ve always said that the alpine towers had minor strategic value, for the reasons pointed out in the OP. To give them actual strategic value, it’s not about what gimmicks you can tack onto them. Strategic value boils down to the 3 rules of real estate. Location, location, location. In order for them to have any real strategic purpose, they have to actually fulfill the purpose actual towers would have. They have to be placed strategically, to act as forward outposts for the keep. They can’t be forward outposts if they’re behind. That one fact is what kills the strategic value, and no amount of gimmicks or duct tape solutions will change that. Anything else is just a waste of time, energy and dev resources.

Now, if they somehow do break down and fix the locations of the areas so that they actually have strategic value, then waypoints in the towers would be a good idea at tier 3.

Alpine did towers right. A small group can hold off a zerg for hours if you take the time to set up defensive siege (this includes trebs and bali’s).

If you make towers braindead easy to defend you lose the small attack groups since you need a zerg to take anything that is defended.

….and the game wasn’t fundamentally changed by returning wp’s to T3. The Alpines never gave you wp’s as an instant upgrade. This is why people defend their keeps.

What they can do in Desert BL is put a waypoint in the center of the map and than have it defended by two lengendary NPS along with veterans to make it hard to flip.

The towers themselves should at the very least be situated to as to ensure no enemy dolyak with supply can ever get past them to bring supply to an alternate tower. So if you control tower NW in the desert BL that NW camp can supply neither fire keep or any other keep tower that the enemy might control.

On DBL they should make it so that you have to go through the northern towers to get to the keep. That would funnel epic battles to the NW and NE towers.

And if the enemy breaks through you can fight all the way back to the keep and have an epic last stand.

Losing NWT or NET on Alpine can easily cost a server Garri. I think what you are seeing now is that most of the siege commanders have left the game. Most don’t know how or do not have the patience for long range trebbing. Few servers even defensively siege well these days. Even the vaunted YB defense isn’t what it used to be.

I believe this is a product of a T1 rewarding the same as T3 and general WvW neglect that created a significant amount of player attrition.

I opened a thread about it some times ago. It’s still here. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Ideas-for-DBL-towers/first

Here a list of proposals :

Have towers work as “barracks”

Each tower having a special flavour, there could be a training master that you could use to buy specific and extra-powerful reinforcements you’d assign to a camp, a keep, another tower, or escorting dolyaks.

Towers could also be the one place to buy a specific extra-powerful siege weapon (depending on the flavour of the tower).

Have towers generate an environemental effect

This effect would be related to the “flavour” of the tower, and would strongly incitate a blob to take the tower first, or have a very hard time ignoring it. It’d be a strong defensive point, yet at the same time, a strong step in ennemy territory for invaders.

The detection effect of towers could also have an increased radius, yet would only be available for players actually scouting the tower.

Have tower be strategical waypoints
Towers could have then own waypoints, only active when both related supply camps are ok.

Towers could also have a networking system, in a nuhoch wallow’s or skritt’s holes’s fashion. You could fast travel from one tower to another, yet couldn’t spawn in a tower.

Towers in DBL put up blockades. They were strategic but people didn’t like that.

The trick to a good suggestion is being as easy to implement as possible. Waypoints would be far easier than developing something completely new.

Both northern towers can be used to treb garry. The SW tower can treb bay. About the only useless tower is SE tower, which is easily trebbed from Hills. The camp is almost more valuable than the tower is in the SE.

Edit: also placing watchtowers in northern towers prevents cata-ing of garry without the group being seen at the switchback. The DBL towers are so far north of garry that they are useless in this regard.