Guild Wars 2

Hello GW2 community and, hopefully, ArenaNet devs. I have done my best to speak with devs I see in game during patches to gauge their reactions to these ideas I’ve been pitching since this time last year but I refuse to give up, so here it goes!

What can you, ArenaNet, bring to the game to help the last remaining small teams in WvW?

The answer is probably simple compared to what some of you might think. It comes in two categories, siege defense and new traps. So here it goes:

Siege defense, not to be confused with siege weapons, are defensive structures and weapons that are placed just like siege weapons but provide necessary cover for groups of 10-15 that stand their ground against 60. I have a dozen ideas but I’ll whittle it down to the better, more fluid, ideas.

Siege Walls – (No, not the giant steel walls the Charr roll around)

This would be a simple wall, picture pointed stakes like a Viking village, that would be a solid object zergs can’t simply run through. It is pointless enough that zergs would go around it, but powerful enough that it indeed causes a channeling effect on large groups. This not only provides cover for small teams but allows for creative fortifications to be build in open fields, sentries, or even supply camps.

These walls could also be upgradeable, like in towers and keeps, by either using a tiered build system that keeps eating supply until you hit tier 3, a stone wall or something, or you could make it strength based on mastery points type deal. These walls should not exceed the length of 3-5 Norn standing side by side.

Spike Traps – (Similar to the thief/ranger skills)

This would be the third trap, since the first addition of supply and stealth, and would create a basic spike trap like any other in game. Bad guy steps on trap, spikes shoot up, player gets crippled for short duration. You should be able to use mastery points to increase the effectiveness, or even add a poison, to the spikes.

This would even the playing field since you can’t see the traps and would allow for better ambushes on zergs by creating a bit of chaos with half the group running ahead of the crippled players, even making them use boons and cleansers early.

Flame Throwers – (Chinese Style)

This would work similar to the ram but is designed for player engagement, not door smashing. It should work in a similar manner, if not exactly like, to the flame legion shamans. Visually, it should be smaller than a siege ram and maybe change the figure head to a dragon.

Combined with siege walls a single player could engulf several players in flames doing direct, and burning, damage that would require cleansing and create and shock and awe moment of attack opportunity. Picture a zerg hitting a keep, they break the door down, and are greeted with flames shooting into the doorway as defenders hop the wall into the middle of the group.

Land Mines – (Like Engineers)

This would be our 4th trap in game. I don’t think there should be much difference from the current engi skill except that you can’t see it and it should hit everyone in the blast radius, if that’s even effected by AoE limitation. This would do a knockback, thus breaking the zerg up for a moment and giving people time to react.

I don’t have any solid reason to say why this should be added besides the fact it would bring some diversity to gameplay and seems like a fairly simple, yet good idea. It would allow small teams to create kill zones leading up to whatever they are guarding and force the enemy to coordinate it’s movements better.

Defense Rewards -

It seems like a very simple request but rewarding players for staying, watching, sieging, and upgrading keeps would go a long way to bringing more people back to the game.

Mercenaries -

I’m not going to go the route I used to of asking for the removal of the ruins. Instead, I’d like to simply ask that the quaggans, or another merc group, be introduced back into the server borderlands. It was much easier for us to sew confusion when we could launch quaggan attacks on all the key areas of the maps at once, thus giving us the chance to strike at another objective.

Structural Weakness -

It’s safe to say a wooden keep is more vulnerable to the elements than a stone keep, or “steel”. I believe it’s also safe to say this should be taken into account when assaulting towers/keeps because it will make assaulting/defending more interesting. I’m not saying this should help a 10 man take a keep with 60 defenders, but when you can deal burning damage to a wooden wall, well I just call that normal.

I have others but these are the ones that stick out most in my mind for creating more diversity in WvW gameplay. Hopefully this can at least help generate some discussion on the matter.

Hopefully someone saw this and enjoyed it, but just in case here it is again for round 2.

I’m sure people read it and liked or didn’t like your ideas (i personally like them). The problem is, like most of the sugestion posts on wvw forum, that these ideas will never be implemented.
WvW is the lowest priority for Anet it seems so a lot of people simply gave up on hoping for improvements.

The siege wall probably wouldn’t happen for two reasons:
trolls and exploiters

Players love to cheat and kitten each other off. Siege walls are a perfect way to do that. Want to drain supply in a tower? Siege walls. Want to keep a zerg from pushing into a keep? Siege walls in the gate. These would have to follow a rule of only 1 wall per player to work.

Spike traps: I like the idea but they need to be potent enough. Should cause immobilize for 4 seconds, have a radius of 900, and be un-blockable and un-evadeable.

Land Mines: Needs to be potent: Knockback range of 900, no target cap. Like them too.

Mercenaries: The way they can bring them back is that they replace the Skritt and Centaur camps on the borderlands. When you clear the camp the camp flips to your side. You then get options to upgrade the mercenary camp
- Siege Engineers: Hire a group of quaggans who are skilled in using siege. They will go to the nearest tower and keep and man any siege which is unmanned. Mercenary siege operators will surrender siege to human players upon request.
- Elite troops: Hire a quaggan commander (displays with tag, “Commander Coo”) who rallies a battalion of elite quaggan troops. The commander seeks your strategic wisdom in where to direct his attack (you can talk to him to define his objective). Once he takes your advice he sticks on the target until it is capped. Quaggan troops under his command are silver veteran skill.
- Skirmish group (you get this by default when you flip the camp): A small group of veterans attacks a nearby camp. This group is strong enough to flip an un-upgraded camp.

Structural weakness: Love it. Always wondered why i can spew a river of lava from my ele but somehow wooden walls look as if they were freshly cut at the lumber mill.
- Wooden keeps: Sustained fire fields on a wood wall will inflict a wall with burning.
- Stone walls when attacked with catapult shots will crumble at certain health percentages. At 60% the front of the wall will crumble. Anyone or any siege on the wall part that cumbles falls down forward. Crumbling wall will damage catapults that are too close to it.
- Reinforced wall will crumble at 40%.

I like the ideas but I like to elaborate on ideas too. This imo makes the change more interesting. The crumbling wall thing will be tricky for Anet to do.

lioka qiao.8734:

Players love to cheat and kitten each other off. Siege walls are a perfect way to do that. Want to drain supply in a tower? Siege walls. Want to keep a zerg from pushing into a keep? Siege walls in the gate. These would have to follow a rule of only 1 wall per player to work.

The existing traps only allow you to place one per player, so that’s doable. And if you require players to spend badges to buy them like traps and have them disappear after an hour (unrefreshable) like the traps, that should limit the appeal of using them to troll. Also apply build limit like siege weapons have so that only a few walls can be dropped in a certain distance of each other. Was for siege walling the gate, I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem if the siege wall can be destroyed and there are other ways to break in (destroying walls), though that could be avoided with zones of exclusion around fortifications so they can’t be placed right up against an existing structure. Might also need to keep them from being built in choke-point exists (like the exits to Danelon) or only dolyak roads (or the dolyaks will need to be able to figure out how to go around them).