Guild Wars 2

Huzzah?!

Now that Sneak Attack is done with. What are all your thoughts? Was it interesting? Or was it just worthless and Anet has nothing to show for it?

Personally, I prefer that they don’t mess with the White Swords. But if they did, I’d like it as an upgradable option that you can buy called ‘Signal Fire’ or something, rather than removing them completely.

White swords are a necessary evil. If every server had the population to dedicate to scouting, running yaks, etc it wouldn’t be an issue but many don’t.

As a career low-pop server player, the lack of swords made a HUGE difference in our play this last month. We could actually influence something before a horde of zerglings descended on and face-rolled our much smaller numbers.

It was pure guerrilla warfare at its finest, so naturally, the blob-fests hate it. Look, if you have a high population server, you darned well ought to be able to sacrifice a few of your personal points to guard a place. If my low pop server could manage to station guards at Hills, Bay, Garri, and even towers in the south, you high-pop zergfests darned well oughta be able to do the same.

I did like it!

Getting hills or keeps were way out of my guild’s target ever… Without the swords our 10-20 large team could basically get everything but Garrison. Also a scout became more important…

Before the event: “There is a defender, so he gonna use an AC, AoE it down quickly, white swords were spawning so everybody knows where we are…”

In the event: "There is a scout so be aware… we gonna have a blob on us… so attack for 2 minutes than WP back… their slow zerk just coming to defend, so we can take bay…)

I did like this

I think it should be base off of being out maned or not if your out maned you get them if your not then you do not. Beyond that it should be up to the well populated worlds to do some work.

I am going to miss ppk a good bit though i think ppt should be nerfed some holding object should not be the end all be all thing in wvw object should be value as staging points and not point generators. Much like holding the top of a hill dose not win you a war but it helps you win.

If they want to remove white sword permanently then they have to add rewards to scouting and patrolling.

Hell bring back rewards for dolly escorts! The only reason they removed that reward was due to botters, but there are so many hackers who cares.
And it isnt a complex thing to fix, neither of them are. You simple add events in keeps and add more pve mobs to attack dollies that you have to be present to complete those tasks in order to get the rewards.

I loved the no white swords. I’d recommend the devs rework upgrades to accomodate a system with no white swords and then implement it. It would do miles for improving the WvW experience. The last few weeks have been the most fun I’ve ever had in WvW.

Still undecided, both liked and disliked, and can’t quite put the finger on exactly which parts yet. Need further analysis.

I wasnt thrilled with the constant karma training, and lack of upgraded keeps during the event, but it did have its advantages. Maybe tweak it say have white swords as part of an upgrade. Scouts have always been important, but making it as part of an upgrade will make it easier to defend upgraded keeps/towers, give incentive to put in time and gold to actually upgrade, and make karma training harder, because leave that crap in eotm.

Removing white swords did not effect keep captures, they still had their own white swords on the waypoint.

All it did was stop roamers from defending and just backcapping everything instead.

Jski.6180:

I am going to miss ppk a good bit though i think ppt should be nerfed some holding object should not be the end all be all thing in wvw object should be value as staging points and not point generators. Much like holding the top of a hill dose not win you a war but it helps you win.

PPK is still available, if your real has Bloodlust, then you get PPK.

MightyMicah.7451:

I loved the no white swords. I’d recommend the devs rework upgrades to accomodate a system with no white swords and then implement it. It would do miles for improving the WvW experience. The last few weeks have been the most fun I’ve ever had in WvW.

That’s an interesting idea, rather than an upgrade for white swords, a trap/siege that you can deploy next to the keep/tower/camp that will hide white swords.

X T D.6458:

I wasnt thrilled with the constant karma training, and lack of upgraded keeps during the event, but it did have its advantages. Maybe tweak it say have white swords as part of an upgrade. Scouts have always been important, but making it as part of an upgrade will make it easier to defend upgraded keeps/towers, give incentive to put in time and gold to actually upgrade, and make karma training harder, because leave that crap in eotm.

Ah, lucky. I was stuck in T3 all four weeks. T2 servers that got stuck with us steamrolled us and kept most of the keeps upgraded.

ChoChoBo.6503:

X T D.6458:

I wasnt thrilled with the constant karma training, and lack of upgraded keeps during the event, but it did have its advantages. Maybe tweak it say have white swords as part of an upgrade. Scouts have always been important, but making it as part of an upgrade will make it easier to defend upgraded keeps/towers, give incentive to put in time and gold to actually upgrade, and make karma training harder, because leave that crap in eotm.

Ah, lucky. I was stuck in T3 all four weeks. T2 servers that got stuck with us steamrolled us and kept most of the keeps upgraded.

Ive been there man, on both sides, hated every second of it…its frustrating as hell and I really do feel awful for what you guys are going through because I know all to well. All I can say is either try to hang in there and hope for the best, or transfer somewhere to have fun again, because end of the day thats what its all about. Good Luck to you guys.

I loved the white swords being absent. Now with them back, I kinda lost the urge to do WvW…

no white swords +1

Lynx Rufus Californicus.2958:

As a career low-pop server player, the lack of swords made a HUGE difference in our play this last month. We could actually influence something before a horde of zerglings descended on and face-rolled our much smaller numbers.

It was pure guerrilla warfare at its finest, so naturally, the blob-fests hate it. Look, if you have a high population server, you darned well ought to be able to sacrifice a few of your personal points to guard a place. If my low pop server could manage to station guards at Hills, Bay, Garri, and even towers in the south, you high-pop zergfests darned well oughta be able to do the same.

THIS^. No white swords was very very fun in T8. Hours after the reversion to white swords the blob is back. Last month was the most fun WvW has been in a long time… tactics really made a difference and felt rewarding.

Lakshmi.5941:

Lynx Rufus Californicus.2958:

As a career low-pop server player, the lack of swords made a HUGE difference in our play this last month. We could actually influence something before a horde of zerglings descended on and face-rolled our much smaller numbers.

It was pure guerrilla warfare at its finest, so naturally, the blob-fests hate it. Look, if you have a high population server, you darned well ought to be able to sacrifice a few of your personal points to guard a place. If my low pop server could manage to station guards at Hills, Bay, Garri, and even towers in the south, you high-pop zergfests darned well oughta be able to do the same.

THIS^. No white swords was very very fun in T8. Hours after the reversion to white swords the blob is back. Last month was the most fun WvW has been in a long time… tactics really made a difference and felt rewarding.

Same goes for T7. Went from awesome skirmish fights everywhere to blobs rolling around the map and wp’ing when they see swords.

White swords +1, loved it

I liked the IDEA behind no white swords, but not the implementation. When the season started my server got blitzkrieged by the enemy servers, each fighting and taking about half our borderlands during the first couple of days. We didn’t have enough people to scout AND fight off the 2 large zerfs that were now just rampaging throughout our borderlands. We couldn’t get supplies for defensive siege or really anything.

If they added a trap or trick that marked all enemies in a range when it went off that would be great! Or if npcs are alive, enemies appear on the minimap or something to that extent. Anyway thats’s my two cents. EU t2.

It was kitten and it was not interesting and I never want to see it again.

Bring back No white swords. Was actually interesting figuring out what was going on and what to do, based on RI timers, sentry statuses, patrolling, etc.

Had more engagements, especially nonblob, than ever before. For fights, no idea why people need white swords given only so many paths to take. On offense, opened up options for smaller coordinated groups, that couldn’t otherwise counter one massive blob near their own WPs. And on defense, successfully killing the enemy WAS the reward for successful scouting and ambushes.

White swords is a crutch – but implementing their removal is/was missing a key piece: displaying Righteous Indignation timers of each flipped point on the WvW map itself.

I gave it a shot. It was pure hell.

If you don’t have scouts it’s just free cap. I had really low interest in defending any stuff during the event and I haven’t spend a single silver on any upgrade. Our border defenders took their leave and I could understand that.

As a raid leader for my guild I had so many headaches just to figure out where enemy was, and it was impossible to estimate the group just looking at the map.

As a romer in other borders I had no idea where the enemy was and if there was anything interesting to do.

Last night I logged only to flip a couple of camps and get a sentry, but the swords gave me reason to check that tower that was tagged, then go to hills and try to defend against that group etc.

In our tier having no warning is just a joke. And if the enemy blobs is way better for us tbh, at least we can focus our defense instead of running around like headless chicken to check 3 keeps with 2 people.

#whiteswordsforever

Thank God it’s back!

sneak attack over? alright, all aboard the karma train chu chu.

It sadly means more people will have to idle in structures, which is boring and very unrewarding. But it does invite more tactful play, punishing dumb brute-force zergs so that’s a plus.

Maybe white swords shouldn’t be completely removed but instead be a mechanic that only applies if that realm is outnumbered. Atleast then they wont have to dedicate what few people they have to play babysitter for what few structures they have and can focus all their manpower on fighting.
While the servers who aren’t outnumbered have no excuse for not being able to spare some players to watch strategic points. And if they are to reckless to do so, a smaller outnumbered server can still really punish them.

I came to the conclusion that the faith of a server depends on 5 people holding their kitten together.

I and some other dedicated players basically held the borderland together and made it playable for the rest of the server.
2 to cap camps, 1 to scout, 2 to build siege.

Even though i spend loads of hours in WvW the rewards i got during the whole period where i was scouting and upgrading amounted to a total of – 50 gold.
No loot, no rewards no nothing except appreciation.

We only could hold 1 keep with a waypoint if we had a decent size group running around in wvw that we could call back to our borderland.

One thing i can say about scouting without swords.
NEVER AGAIN!

In the end nothing was gained with this event for defensive roamers, heck we don;t even have time to stay in a circle to cap stuff because we need eyes here or there.

if these 5 people who kept the borderland clear were not around (and they won’t be next white swords event) WvW would be deader then dead in a paper borderland where no one would even try to upgrade.

another issue that arose with white swords is that as defender you also have less time and options because every freaking 50 minutes you have to do your rounds to give the server a fighting chance.
yesterday i was relieved and finally could enjoy fights versus players over a camp or tower without having to waypoint or run away to save this or that tower.

also the blobs are bigger then before, showing that white swords make people lazy..
but what do you expect from a game where people come to enjoy and relax.

All white swords did was make sure defending servers sunk more gold and bought more traps.

Without a population fix on ALL SERVERS you can create event after event and never get a good result.. ever.

So: FIX server populations on maps. (especially homeborderlands)
It should never be possible to have a Queue on home and after a population count find out you have no more then 40 people on the map.

anyways..

As a BL defender, I didn’t like sneak attack. Our scouting resources are always thin and lack of white swords just made it harder.

Sneak attack is great for the attackers, but I fear it just turns the game into more of a big karma-train.

ChoChoBo.6503:

Huzzah?!

Now that Sneak Attack is done with. What are all your thoughts? Was it interesting? Or was it just worthless and Anet has nothing to show for it?

Personally, I prefer that they don’t mess with the White Swords. But if they did, I’d like it as an upgradable option that you can buy called ‘Signal Fire’ or something, rather than removing them completely.

Not a fan. NSP and IoJ were already getting destroyed in t3, now we can’t even get out of our starting areas without getting facerolled at the first tower we touch. That goes for both EB and BL.

My server has a pretty bad coverage gap where we occasionally lose everything. This past month we have gained several ranks because small parties and solo players could quickly back cap our towers and keeps without being zerged over.

With the return of white swords we lost our 20-30k lead and will likely take 2nd this week because we can’t get any momentum going in the mornings and it is too easy for the enemy server to send 20 people to deal with the 2 or 3 players that tripped white swords.

You might want to say boohoo players can’t pvd and have to fight but in reality there are far less fights now because the fairweathers log off when we have extremely low ppt and the server that has everything doesn’t have to split up to find the smaller groups so the ”fights” are a couple players running or being steamrolled.

i loved white swords.

the return of white swords has just made WvW feel as if my small man team can;t do much anymore without a zerg ball showing up instantly

White swords : Great for defenders, and for people who are just looking for fights, it’s also easier to know where the enemy is.

No White swords: Easier for small groups to take towers.