Guild Wars 2

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and I wanted to bring the discussion to the forums in case others have some valuable insight on the matter.

Everyone knows that we cannot attack or damage walls by throwing our spells at them or auto-attacking them or whatever. We have to use siege like Catapults or Trebuchets to do damage to them. Okay, that’s cool. However, we can attack gates, and this means that we can contest locations either intentionally or unintentionally (in the case of a member of a zerg not listening and attacking it randomly). This brings about its fair share of facts associated with it. Note that I don’t want to pass judgment until these facts are laid bare:

• You can contest a location by attacking the gate
• You can burn down gates without putting any siege up if your zerg is large enough

Now the question I have to ask is, why can we attack the gates at all? What does it actually do that benefits the game format at all? I see the value in having someone intentionally contest points with an attack to “fake” an attack and misdirect enemies. That’s valuable. I can also see it as a means to prevent players from using the WP at a keep by simply attacking the gate really fast. Maybe it gives the untrained masses something to do while sieging if you’re PvDooring. On the flipside, sometimes you’re setting up a siege and don’t want to alert the enemy to your presence, but a random member of your zerg doesn’t listen to you and wails on the gate, contesting it before siege is placed. It also tends to distract bad players because “omg must attack gate” and they don’t pay any attention to chat and thus attacks from behind. Furthermore, being able to attack gates encourages PvDoor, and takes players’ attention away from other players, placing and using siege, and other sorts of behavior we want to encourage.

I’ve been trying to think of a WvW without being able to attack gates, and honestly, I think it’d be pretty cool. I might not like the lack of misdirection because that’s pretty nifty, but similarly I think it would help guide bad players to paying more attention to what matters in WvW (fighting players, holding chokepoints, and so forth), which is definitely not PvDooring. That would be a good thing.

What do you all think?

I can see your point, but I think it would cause something that would be even more annoying.

People that are new to WvW have short attention spans :\ . As soon as they realize there is nothing to do but stand and wait, they’ll be running off to another section of the map or chasing / wiping.

While it is annoying when people PvD when you don’t want them to, it would be even worse if half your group splits off. Personally, I prefer the people with me attack the door than run off. But then again, I usually don’t have that many people with me to begin with.

Why do antipersonnel siege weapons (arrowcarts) damage siege? I think gate damage is there to give a zerg an easy point of entry (funnel them due to convenience) so that you can set up to defend more easily against typical large groups.

Not every attack can damage a gate. The necro staff 1 skill apparently was not meant to damage a gate, or it was just overlooked. Haven’t tried scepter or axe yet, but dagger does hit them. First time I tried to contest SM with staff out, I got off like 8 attacks and later thought…wtf?

AggieTechGuy.4901:

People that are new to WvW have short attention spans :\ . As soon as they realize there is nothing to do but stand and wait, they’ll be running off to another section of the map or chasing / wiping.

While it is annoying when people PvD when you don’t want them to, it would be even worse if half your group splits off. Personally, I prefer the people with me attack the door than run off. But then again, I usually don’t have that many people with me to begin with.

See, this is something I considered. Maybe being able to attack the gate is there just to keep people busy while sieging so they don’t wander off. Even so, in my groups, I’d much rather people burn down enemy invaders attempting to get inside the location than attack the gate. I’d also much rather then spread out so as to avoid getting ravaged by ACs and the like. People just really love attacking the gate, and swarm to it. I’m not quite sure exactly which I’d prefer.

One possible plus of making gates immune to everything except siege is that maybe then net turret wouldn’t feel obligated to waste its shots by constantly immobilizing gates.

I get DPSing down a wooden gate. But a steel reinforced? Hell no. Player damage to an upgraded gate should be reduced. I have seen zergs of 80, failing to get in through rams and then just stand there for 15 mins wailing on the gate. Eventually even reinforced succumbs to that.

Or, make the last fortify upgrade also fortify the gate which would basically make players hit for 0s or 1s

They are made of wood. Reinforcing is metal straps on the other side with a big log holding them together(at least what it should look like but it doesnt.)

I have a axe. My axe can chop wood just as easily as flesh. My axe should be able to cut a hole in the gate. My axe won’t work as well against stone, likely break on stone.

I want to be able to sap the walls and dig tunnels.

“Why can we attack Gates?”

Vista.