Guild Wars 2

sminkiottone.6972:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

sminkiottone.6972:

It’s a good change and I hope it’s kept after this test phase on my server we managed to take half the map while ournumbered just because the other 2 servers lack of coordination.

People complaining only need to start using some tactics instead of Ktrain around the maps, is it difficult for you to find the zerg ? get better at scouting, one thing I noticed there are a lot of people sitting on camps/towers/keeps waiting to spot the enemy… that’s just ridiculous.

You know what happened on reset? I babysat Hills for upwards of 5 hours to get it waypointed and fortified, and I was the only scout in it. A large guild group came in, didn’t flip any camps, and build 5 guild catas. If I hadn’t been babysitting, they would have taken the keep. They managed to get both outer and inner walls down before we were able to wipe them. They tried this twice. If I had just been running around and scouting, they would have taken the keep before we ever knew it was being attacked. Luckily, I was there, and was able to call for reinforcements. It was boring as hell, completely unrewarding, but I knew it was important and made the choice to do it. I was the White Swords. Think about that for a moment.

I managed to scout around hills killing other scouts, killing and escorting dolies, flipping some camps and calling everytime enemy groups where going to hills (they try it 3/4 times), had a lot of fun and we managed to keep it safe, but you can choose to sit in an empty keep, to each theyr own

You’re still not listening. If I had been running around, the keep would have been gone. It was only saved because I was literally right there when the guild group ran up and tossed all those cats, walls were still paper, and I had to call for reinforcements immediately and even then they still managed to get both outer and inner walls down. We got lucky that people showed up in time to fight and wipe them. With waypoints, it’s definitely better, and the upgrade path that we use in all our keeps now is cannons → mortars → waypoint because it is the easiest way to be alerted to when something is happening. We work on walls and doors afterwards when we can.

I’m glad that you didn’t have to experience what I did. If what happened at our Hills happened at yours, you wouldn’t have had a Hills anymore. Truth.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

You’re still not listening. If I had been running around, the keep would have been gone.

I’m glad that you didn’t have to experience what I did. If what happened at our Hills happened at yours, you wouldn’t have had a Hills anymore. Truth.

I listened, I’ve been scouting for more than 2 years now and after a while you learn how to move around, a good scout would have spotted the attackers before they could reach hills giving the defenders extra time + placing siege disablers it would have probably saved both walls.

Few things that can make it easier for you :

1. Improve your map awereness.
2. Always run with 20 supplys so you can use 2 traps instead of 1.
3. Use your traps with some logic.

i have been having fun with the change -
but the problem is all this does is highlights the problems with population balance and coverage

sminkiottone.6972:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

You’re still not listening. If I had been running around, the keep would have been gone.

I’m glad that you didn’t have to experience what I did. If what happened at our Hills happened at yours, you wouldn’t have had a Hills anymore. Truth.

I listened, I’ve been scouting for more than 2 years now and after a while you learn how to move around, a good scout would have spotted the attackers before they could reach hills giving the defenders extra time + placing siege disablers it would have probably saved both walls.

Few things that can make it easier for you :

1. Improve your map awereness.
2. Always run with 20 supplys so you can use 2 traps instead of 1.
3. Use your traps with some logic.

1. I’ve been scouting for 2 years as well. My map awareness is quite good, but I of course can’t be everywhere at once and see everything at once. I commanded BL defense on our server all throughout Season 2. I know what I’m doing.
2. I threw 2 disablers. The keep had no supply since it was upgrading, so that was all I could do.
3. I don’t even know what this means aside from “disable all the cats as long as I can.”

Frankly, your condescension is not appreciated.

I’m pretty sure the only people here who like this change are the people who like to “ninja” empty structures… But then again, I don’t think there is nothing about ninja if it’s somenthing you can do with 2 people or with 24 people.

A small group would usually have the chance to be overrun because people would respond to the white swords. Now you can just take stuff without a single soul ever showing up. Hardly any risk at all, which make it so much more boring than being blobbed over and over (at least we were running against the clock before).

While I am happy with this change, I do miss the use of fake attacks to lure enemies in the wrong direction. But I would rather have more need for scouts than have the option to feign attacks.

As to the idea that there is less risk in taking towers now, I disagree. Once player’s mindsets change and they start to spread out across the map more, it could very well increase the risk. And in turn increase the frequency in which players are in contact with each other. But players need to get out of the old mindset first, and that might take a while.

Rin.1046:

While I am happy with this change, I do miss the use of fake attacks to lure enemies in the wrong direction. But I would rather have more need for scouts than have the option to feign attacks.

As to the idea that there is less risk in taking towers now, I disagree. Once player’s mindsets change and they start to spread out across the map more, it could very well increase the risk. And in turn increase the frequency in which players are in contact with each other. But players need to get out of the old mindset first, and that might take a while.

Precisely. Almost every objection I’ve seen is in essence, “We can’t use x tactic anymore so this update is bad.” If they would just change their dang tactics, things might be better.

The best objection I’ve seen is that upgrades are an issue now. They aren’t quite as worth it because things are being capped too easily. However, I feel this is a minor issue in light of everything good that has come from the change.

Some players need hand holding features like white swords to help them play, as soon as things change they panic.

Nobody’s panicking, and you’re acting like a jerk.

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Nobody’s panicking, and you’re acting like a jerk.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he is from some high tier or one of these servers in the lower bracked that is on a winning streak due having more people and not moving up.

TheBandit.7031:

Leaving scouts at important points and havocing is the way to take advantage of this.

If you happen to have, say, 40 people on the map … yes. If you happen to have like 10 (except for our 2h prime time window) this is posing a bit of a challenge … 2 to cover your third on Eternal, maybe one more in a key location to see what the enemy is doing when not in your quarter … that’s reducing your zerg to 7 people. Bow you can split that in two teams .. 3 and 4 men each.

Apart form constant mat starving … whaddaya mean set up a defensive ballista? All our mats are in the catapault (4 man) to … oh, when we returned from the camp we had it flipped on us and when we returned our catapult was gone too (3 man) …

All you can do with a 3 man group (especially if the other servers are able to field 30+ players against your 10) is flipping camps and sentries …

So may have been intended to give havoc teams an upper (and probably much needed) hand but it backfired in making the stronger servers even stronger because they can afford to set up scouting while the outnumbered servers can’t without seriously hindering their offensive power.

If servers had more or less an equal active population on the maps the change might be ok but many matchups are seriously unbalanced and this is just even more power to those servers with more people.

Heibi.4251:

I admit I was skeptical about this, but after 2 of us capped 2 towers and several camps without being descended upon by 30 people to stop us, I find it interesting and useful.

You can do that in EotM … oh, lemme guess … the vet NPCs are too strong there … so, of course, bring it to borderlands …

I understand that you might feel good about doing two towers with just two people – I find this … ridiculous. If there was any newer version of DaoC I’d be over there in seconds – 2 people against downright stupid NPC API … hell, one of those troll perma stealth thieves can cap Stonemist …

With the introduction of all those nice runes and ascended armor + infusion GW 2 has pretty much turned into Gear Wars 2 and made pay to win quite possible. Many casual players cannot afford the horrendous prices for buff food and the “best” runes – especially if you’re after condition based builds and can’t even CRAFT dire or rabid.

So you have to buy those … great game design …

It’s unbelievable how far GW 2 has moved away from GW 1 where all money could get you was skins and you could get the same gear with the same stats and then see who’s better at using them.

It’s telling something when my sPvP guardian does just fine but get’s insta wiped in WvW … what’s the difference? Gear + buff food I cannot afford …

Edit: Got a tad distracted there … so we have Gear Wars already in place, we have latency wars (today was a very bad day with 2 -3 second delays in between skill activation), we’ve got population wars (because hardly any setup is balanced) and now we’re making the population war thing juuuust a bit more painful because we give (not intentionally, maybe) the server with the bgger population even more advantage … yay.

Jeknar.6184:

Only people who are in servers that been winning lately are saying the changes are good, like Ehmry Bay, Gate of Madness and Kaineng.

Nice generalization based upon very little information… The vast majority of people who post on the EBay forums (and who I personally talk to) hate the change for the reasons already mentioned by the opponents of “no white swords” in this thread. At our tier, it makes defending more of a chore, and it’s harder to draw out fights, etc…

To those who suggest that people who don’t like this change should be shifting to sPvP… yup, that’s what a some of us have been doing because WvW just isn’t nearly as fun ATM. Surprising how that works… but, hardly an argument in favor of the new game mechanic.

HtFde.3856:

Heibi.4251:

I admit I was skeptical about this, but after 2 of us capped 2 towers and several camps without being descended upon by 30 people to stop us, I find it interesting and useful.

You can do that in EotM … oh, lemme guess … the vet NPCs are too strong there … so, of course, bring it to borderlands …

I understand that you might feel good about doing two towers with just two people – I find this … ridiculous. If there was any newer version of DaoC I’d be over there in seconds – 2 people against downright stupid NPC API … hell, one of those troll perma stealth thieves can cap Stonemist …

With the introduction of all those nice runes and ascended armor + infusion GW 2 has pretty much turned into Gear Wars 2 and made pay to win quite possible. Many casual players cannot afford the horrendous prices for buff food and the “best” runes – especially if you’re after condition based builds and can’t even CRAFT dire or rabid.

So you have to buy those … great game design …

It’s unbelievable how far GW 2 has moved away from GW 1 where all money could get you was skins and you could get the same gear with the same stats and then see who’s better at using them.

It’s telling something when my sPvP guardian does just fine but get’s insta wiped in WvW … what’s the difference? Gear + buff food I cannot afford …

Edit: Got a tad distracted there … so we have Gear Wars already in place, we have latency wars (today was a very bad day with 2 -3 second delays in between skill activation), we’ve got population wars (because hardly any setup is balanced) and now we’re making the population war thing juuuust a bit more painful because we give (not intentionally, maybe) the server with the bgger population even more advantage … yay.

Though, of course, you skipped everything else I said. I’m still not sold on the no swords bit yet.

Stupendous Man.4920:

I was sceptical of removal of white swords. I am now convinced it was a good thing. While losing structures to ninjas is frustrating, it has given smaller guilds the opportunity to make a difference in WvW.

However, despite scouting being necessary now in WvW they get absolutely no rewards for scouting. Admittedly it is difficult to introduce a system where scouts could be clearly identified and rewarded. How about introducing scanners that can be planted similar to wards in games like League of Legends.

I my server our scouts are pinning up if they happen to have a commander tag. (For easy visual finding of what location is being scouted.) In addition to that we are normally on voice comms, and even Commander coms in the VOIP to relay information quickly if attacked. For those who don’t have a commander pin, we also party up, to keep tabs on what is being scouted or not.

This change is a good one in my view. It makes players actively look for enemy siege, actively run around scouting, and not just window screen their game, and watch a movie online while waiting for white swords to pop on their mini map while scouting.

I do agree on scouting needing a way to be rewarded, and I think that https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Idea-for-Incentivizing-Objective-Scouting/first#post4637360 has some very nice ideas for scouting rewards. (Or at least a nice discussion of ideas for scouting rewards.)

Jeknar.6184:

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

Nobody’s panicking, and you’re acting like a jerk.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he is from some high tier or one of these servers in the lower bracked that is on a winning streak due having more people and not moving up.

How many times can you be wrong ? I’m neither in a top server nor in a winning streak, it just happens that I’m for once with Anet on something, but by all means keep thinking that everyone whos enjoying this change is an Eotm/pve player or in a top server if it makes you feel happy

Some of the biggest voices against this is in T1, who can more or less afford to have a scout in every structure and camp and can still field a sizeable zerg, no matter the hour. It’s simply not an enjoyable experience right now. Way too easy to karma train, way too difficult to respond to late scout calls cause no white swords.

I like PPK. Keep that PLEASE. Just keep contested markers as they were.

Reverence.6915:

Some of the biggest voices against this is in T1, who can more or less afford to have a scout in every structure and camp and can still field a sizeable zerg, no matter the hour. It’s simply not an enjoyable experience right now. Way too easy to karma train, way too difficult to respond to late scout calls cause no white swords.

I like PPK. Keep that PLEASE. Just keep contested markers as they were.

From your signature I suppose you are on blackgate, last time I checked was one of most populated server in NA, am I missing something ?

I enjoyed the bit about ‘running around flipping camps and sentries and still being able to scout hills in my spare time’. A decent guild group will flip hills through the walls by the time you can run to the sentry , cap that, run to the camp, cap that, and run back to alert your server that it’s under attack- not to mention once they breach the first wall you’re not getting close enough to set a disabler unless they are asleep.

The problem is no white swords encourages pvd whilst at the same time discouraging upgrading anything, as once your coverage drops there is little to no chance of having sufficient scouts (ask a guild raid to supply a couple scouts, see what they say…) and a fast enough response to stop the cap. It leads to people caring less and less about defending structures and turning wvw into eotm karma train part 2.

Maybe the plan is to force pvp players in to spvp (with all it’s build and food restrictions)…in which case the plan might be working.

Baldrick.8967:

Maybe the plan is to force pvp players in to spvp (with all it’s build and food restrictions)…in which case the plan might be working.

Don’t forget to put on your tinfoil hat.

If it was for me I would also remove the waypoints from keeps and garry, so the big blobs would be punished even more

sminkiottone.6972:

Reverence.6915:

Some of the biggest voices against this is in T1, who can more or less afford to have a scout in every structure and camp and can still field a sizeable zerg, no matter the hour. It’s simply not an enjoyable experience right now. Way too easy to karma train, way too difficult to respond to late scout calls cause no white swords.

I like PPK. Keep that PLEASE. Just keep contested markers as they were.

From your signature I suppose you are on blackgate, last time I checked was one of most populated server in NA, am I missing something ?

You’re not missing anything. Most of us hate the removal of white swords and are eagerly awaiting the end of the event for it to come back, even at the expense of PPK

matthen.5024:

Jeknar.6184:

Only people who are in servers that been winning lately are saying the changes are good, like Ehmry Bay, Gate of Madness and Kaineng.

Nice generalization based upon very little information… The vast majority of people who post on the EBay forums (and who I personally talk to) hate the change for the reasons already mentioned by the opponents of “no white swords” in this thread. At our tier, it makes defending more of a chore, and it’s harder to draw out fights, etc…

Well, I’m posting based on the people who are posting here… The servers I said are the ones I could identify in the signature of the players or because I know from which server the player is.

When you have one person from a server saying he like it, and no one else from the same server saying otherwise, you can only assume that the server is with that person. For exemple: you can see that HoD is divided in their opinions since Heibi like it and Ark does not.

Heibi.4251:

Though, of course, you skipped everything else I said. I’m still not sold on the no swords bit yet.

I’m not sold on WvW as it is – white swords or no white swords

White swords are a pain in the behind for smaller groups as they allow a server with a higher population to send a few guys to check things out before the small group can accomplish anything.

No white swords benefit servers with lager population as they can place spotters more easily than servers with a smaller population so servers with a smaller population have the advantage of being able to cap something with white swords gone but they’re in danger of having their structures stolen now.

So the “no white swords” things is a dual bladed sword and cuts both ways. You’re a havoc player – you’ll love the change – you’re a defender – you’ll hate it.

For the servers with more population it is only an issue if they decide to zerg instead of using multiple smaller teams. If they do, you’re again at the losing end with your havoc teams because they can field 3 or 5 per map whereas the smaller servers can only field one or two (and keep up scouting).

And if both sides forget about scouts and just cap, cap, cap … well, then the bigger servers will still win (unleess they keep one big zerg instead of splitting) because they can flip more objectives faster by being able to field more havoc teams than the smaller servers – as a side effect you’ll be up against paper towers the whole time because upgrading keeps, keeping camps and speeding Dolyaks becomes meaningless because your havoc teams will have to jump from map to map to cap, cap, cap.

It’ll be (or in cases already is) like EotM where you run into enemies only ocasionally and by accident.

The discussion about white swords is, however, a distraction from the real problems that WvW faces – it would actually be a good change if server population was somwhat identical – and I don’t mean the people registred on that server but the active part of it that does WvW.

As long as we do have the situation, however, that one server can field more people on one map than another server can field on all maps combined, it is a bad change – unless, of course, you happen to belong to the server with the population advantage or you prefer a playstyle where capturing enemy structures dominates over your global score.

It’s a nightmare when you are outnumbered though. Like you can be in all tiers :/

caveman.5840:

i have been having fun with the change -
but the problem is all this does is highlights the problems with population balance and coverage

Agreed.

As a lower Tier player, we have a hard enough time forming something worthy of being called a “zerg.” Im in WvW for the fights; we can’t put people in all of our structures.

If they flesh out Sneak Attack Rules with a few of the tons of ideas offered over the past weeks (sentry turrets etc.) then I think no white swords could be alright… Alot of my anger over this is that we have been asking them to ADD to WvW and for an event they REMOVE SOMETHING….

Sneak Attack rules could be kept in the game and activate automatically when a server is losing its current matchup badly. Pretty much it can act as a way to even the odds when 1 server is being dominated by another server (100,000 point difference in score.) Think of it as an outnumbered buff that will actually even the odds. The winning server (s) will not see white swords and will not gain PPK vs the losing server(s) but the losing server(s) will.

I think the answer to white swords lies somewhere in between what we had and what we have now.

HtFde.3856:

The discussion about white swords is, however, a distraction from the real problems that WvW faces – it would actually be a good change if server population was somwhat identical – and I don’t mean the people registred on that server but the active part of it that does WvW.

I partially agree on this point, the thing people still don’t understand is that WvW like daoc/war/eso always had a population problem and always will. Anet can try to find something to mitigate the advantage a more populated server has, like allowing 2vs1 for example, I belive the removal of white swords is a start in the right direction.

Before the removal of white swords the bigger zerg could carelessly Ktrain all over the maps and defend those objective that where tagged by swords, now against a smaller but more organized server it can loose more than it can conquer.

Before the removal of white swords the bigger zerg could carelessly Ktrain all over the maps and defend those objective that where tagged by swords, now against a smaller but more organized server it can loose more than it can conquer.

[/quote]

I’ll fix that for you: before the removal of white swords the bigger server could carelessly zerg all over the place and defend those objectives that were tagged by swords, now 4 or 5 people can be bored senseless acting as scouts that the smaller servers can’t afford and still zerg all over the map, and the smaller server now has even less chance of stopping it, or has to spread out so much that they have hardly anyone to cap anything .

The bigger server can very quickly flip back anything you manage to pvd, and might actually want you to flip something so they can flip it back for the rewards, as defending gives nothing. they might also be looking for some fights, but without map information showing where the enemies are, having people running around getting bored trying to find a group that doesn’t want to be found might be fun for the first 100 hours, but after that you’re going to get bored.

Removing white swords comes from the ‘adopt a dev’ that got a rosy world view of what wvw is like during a tournament prime time, playing for a guild, probably in ts, and in organised guilds and raids. The reality of wvw is very different.

@Baldrick.8967 Let’s agree to disagree, obviously my view of WvW is very different than yours ^^. I always play in maps where Im outnumbered and I find these change helpfull for underdog server, you clearly experienced the exact oppsite

The argument that bigger servers are at a bigger advantage now is a load of crap. Bigger servers have an advantage period. But it’s easier for a big server to win in a “giant blob vs smaller blob” battle than, “Small blob vs smaller blob” battle. In other words, the less the amount of people skirmishing, the more the battle is up to skill to win. No white swords encourages smaller groups, and thusly promotes skill to this effect. So far, this is consistent with what I have observed in WvW since the update.

sminkiottone.6972:

Before the removal of white swords the bigger zerg could carelessly Ktrain all over the maps and defend those objective that where tagged by swords, now against a smaller but more organized server it can loose more than it can conquer.

Nods – if they keep up that “one big zerg” idea – if they split, say, 5 people off per map with a 30 minute rotation, however, there’s no real difference – and the server that fields more people per map can easily afford those 5 sentries.

Population imbalance is the key and – as you said in that part of your post I snipped – it’s something that’s been present in all games. But you can do something to lessen the impact or you can choose do nothing about it and it is sad that ANet has chosen to simply not address the issue at all.

A dynamic alliance based system (preferably across continents to mitigate the time zone problems) with guilds forming the alliances wouldn’t be perfect but I think it would be MUCH better than what is in existence right now.

sminkiottone.6972:

Baldrick.8967:

Maybe the plan is to force pvp players in to spvp (with all it’s build and food restrictions)…in which case the plan might be working.

Don’t forget to put on your tinfoil hat.

If it was for me I would also remove the waypoints from keeps and garry, so the big blobs would be punished even more

This is just ridiculous. This is one of those times I’m certainly glad you don’t work for Anet and the fact that I’m pretty sure they’re not even reading these threads anyway. You are seriously alone here in all of these threads and it’s a good thing that you are.

HtFde.3856:

sminkiottone.6972:

Before the removal of white swords the bigger zerg could carelessly Ktrain all over the maps and defend those objective that where tagged by swords, now against a smaller but more organized server it can loose more than it can conquer.

Nods – if they keep up that “one big zerg” idea – if they split, say, 5 people off per map with a 30 minute rotation, however, there’s no real difference – and the server that fields more people per map can easily afford those 5 sentries.

Population imbalance is the key and – as you said in that part of your post I snipped – it’s something that’s been present in all games. But you can do something to lessen the impact or you can choose do nothing about it and it is sad that ANet has chosen to simply not address the issue at all.

A dynamic alliance based system (preferably across continents to mitigate the time zone problems) with guilds forming the alliances wouldn’t be perfect but I think it would be MUCH better than what is in existence right now.

i am with u on this one

Jeknar.6184:

I’m pretty sure the only people here who like this change are the people who like to “ninja” empty structures… But then again, I don’t think there is nothing about ninja if it’s somenthing you can do with 2 people or with 24 people.

A small group would usually have the chance to be overrun because people would respond to the white swords. Now you can just take stuff without a single soul ever showing up. Hardly any risk at all, which make it so much more boring than being blobbed over and over (at least we were running against the clock before).

This. It’s often fun to ninja – when there is some risk of getting caught or when you have to be at least somewhat clever (good siege placement, tapping other towers for white swords, contesting WPs).

Now, it’s the norm to pvd empty paper towers and that gets boring really fast. By the way, if pvd is what you’re interested in, you’d be better off in EotM as the rewards are far greater.

The only thing I care about is fights, and the most boring thing ever is fighting people you outnumber.

Before this change my group of 5 or less would roll up on a BL map and do a full circle taking camps. If we were lucky we’d get 1 fight, if we were super lucky it would be vs more than 2, even rarer was something manageable like 10-15, usually it was 30. If we tried any tower or keep we’d be delayed by 1 defender until we’d get rolled by 30, or just rolled by 30.

After the patch we changed tactics. Roll on a BL map and take a camp, then the nearest tower, then the nearest keep. By the time we’re attacking inner keep there is almost always a fight, but unlike before its usually a stream of 1-2, then 5-10, then 30, so we at least have a chance.

Overall I’d say the change was good. Before I could log out after 2 hours of play having had 1 crappy fight, now I log having had a few crappy fights and 1 good one. Hopefully players adapt and stop holding hands with every other person they come across.

Thats not true. I don’t zerg and I have a much harder time finding enemies now. Yes, sometimes there are clues to where the enemies might be going but thats only if they want to. It’s too easy to avoid being detected.

also, thats only part of the problem. I’d often attack stuff just to call enemies to fight me or my group when wvw is slower. “ringing the doorbell” we’d call it. Now we just stare at each other till someone says -meh I’ll go play dragon age instead, this is boring- .

white sword removal didn’t bring anything good to wvw. the op saying he caps undefended stuff is exactly the kind of thing thats bores us to death. I’d much rather have a fight vs players than fight structures. [/quote]

I second this! Bring back swords or give us some way of finding our enemies without guesswork. It’s simply terrible and often end up just pvping as a result of a disappointing night of hide and seek!

Ark Bladesteele.2943:

sminkiottone.6972:

Baldrick.8967:

Maybe the plan is to force pvp players in to spvp (with all it’s build and food restrictions)…in which case the plan might be working.

Don’t forget to put on your tinfoil hat.

If it was for me I would also remove the waypoints from keeps and garry, so the big blobs would be punished even more

This is just ridiculous. This is one of those times I’m certainly glad you don’t work for Anet and the fact that I’m pretty sure they’re not even reading these threads anyway. You are seriously alone here in all of these threads and it’s a good thing that you are.

I don’t think Anet will ever listen to me and don’t want to, it would be cool if it was just a little bit less noob firendly

Even though making WvW a more hardcore experience sounds tempting to experienced players, WvW would become a very empty place without its less hardcore / more casual crowd.