Guild Wars 2

Sadly is that WvW is all about flipping and lemming trains, Is that really fun, no not really but the rewards give people the reason to follow that armchair general.

Why don’t commander players defend and actually command, noooo, its all about flipping, killing npcs lords just to earn those few points, a real commader defend what he capped, read what happens and attack or defend depends whats going on, instead the lemming train of 50+ go for a sup camp and 15min later the tower thew just capped is lost.

Flipping is a good tactic sometimes but come on, flipping is THE tactic now and sadly it kills WvW in the long run.

Leading a lemming train capping towers and camps defended with NPCs dont make you a good commander, a good commander defend what he capped AGAINST other players AND make a counter attack and hopelfully cap another tower/camp.

What server are you on?

Commanders defend important stuff on the map, not every camp or paper tower they take. You can’t do it in a 1v1v1 battle.

I’m on EU, Far Shiverpeaks, and for the past month I’ve only seen perhaps 1 or 2 commanders who actually made a difference and really commanded, capped, defend, then launch a counter attack while the rest of us defended what we capped, rest of the lot commanders just run around in a big cirlce capping/flipping and saying in chat let em have it we recap it in 15min, really, how kittening fun is that, it’s pointless gameplay.

And yes I’m speaking from my opinion, but really flipping cans and killing npc lords, is it that fun?, or would you rather have great battle defending a keep against the enemy players?

This is the sad state of wvw on servers where WvW isnt the main focus

I have seen a bunch of commanders for the first time in the last few days. Hope some of them will turn out to be good. The thing with multiple commanders may also make a big difference. You could chose to follow a defensive or offensive commander.

Having 50g to blow does not a good Commander make.

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

I have seen a bunch of commanders for the first time in the last few days. Hope some of them will turn out to be good. The thing with multiple commanders may also make a big difference. You could chose to follow a defensive or offensive commander.

…which is actually what Anet plans to add: color-coded commander icons. Hopefully it’ll be implemented soon

Artasian Nosferatu.3516:

Nanyetah Elohi.4852:

I have seen a bunch of commanders for the first time in the last few days. Hope some of them will turn out to be good. The thing with multiple commanders may also make a big difference. You could chose to follow a defensive or offensive commander.

…which is actually what Anet plans to add: color-coded commander icons. Hopefully it’ll be implemented soon

I think this will make a very cool change in game play. Can’t wait to see it.

NornBearPig.9814:

Having 50g to blow does not a good Commander make.

100g actually it is.

Torgrim.3642:

Sadly is that WvW is all about flipping and lemming trains, Is that really fun, no not really but the rewards give people the reason to follow that armchair general.

Why don’t commander players defend and actually command, noooo, its all about flipping, killing npcs lords just to earn those few points, a real commader defend what he capped, read what happens and attack or defend depends whats going on, instead the lemming train of 50+ go for a sup camp and 15min later the tower thew just capped is lost.

Flipping is a good tactic sometimes but come on, flipping is THE tactic now and sadly it kills WvW in the long run.

Leading a lemming train capping towers and camps defended with NPCs dont make you a good commander, a good commander defend what he capped AGAINST other players AND make a counter attack and hopelfully cap another tower/camp.

SBI, FA, and DB have been defending all their crap, the best they can. Commanders drop what they are doing to go defend their stuff. I even participated in several epic tower battles cause it was one zerg attacking, another defending.

Your server might have commanders that don’t believe in defense, but not all servers are that way.

Look at Mag, they defend their stuff very well. BP also is great at defending their stuff (or was when we played them). SoS defends the crap out of their garrison.

I think more people actually defend, than don’t defend.

Commanders who can defend are going to change tier rankings when we have multiple commanders. Supply matters in WvW, it is sad how many commanders don’t realize supply matters.

Try playing in a T1 server with a PPT guild. You’ll be defending your keeps and towers to your heart’s content.

on (FA) we have both. we got commanders that are attacking and open field battle a lot and then we got guilds that upgrade, repair and build a lot of siege for defense. its actually good if u have 1 zerg that puts pressure on the other servers, while u upgrade and defend. the problem is, when there is only 1 giant mapblob that is only offensive.
on fa, we got a lot of havoc groups and our zerg normally splits up apart from eb as eb is more zergy than the bl’s

Buy a tag, lead people how you want the game played. Happy camper.

yeah there is people that put on the tag just to cap the bloodlust or to escort dolyaks or to get stuff repaired and siege up keeps. we also have a comunity ts which helps with defense a lot.

Sovereign.1093:

Buy a tag, lead people how you want the game played. Happy camper.

+1

And I must say that commander issue is a problem of players not commanders. Nobody will follow a guy who is standing on wall waiting for attack.

Part of being a commander is learning how to micro manage. You can’t seriously expect a guy to defend only, as that will invite the opposing servers to 2-1 you; at the same time, if you go on the offensive all the time while paying no mind to defend your important towers and keeps, then you are doing it wrong.

In my opinion, a commander should not do everything himself, but should delegate whenever possible. Flip a tower, set siege, comment on /say or /team chat for ppl to build said siege and then move on, reminding ppl that there’s siege at that tower that needs to be manned and refreshed. There’s always defensive minded ppl or guilds that will stay on those towers.

Also, you need to keep a priority list. Towers like Anz, klov and dur are more susceptible to be taken, and thus, you shouldn’t flip out whenever you lose them. Keeps, T3 towers and stuff with waypoints, you should prioritize.

Also, and again this is only my opinion, whenever holding SM gets in the way of defending the rest of your stuff, it becomes expendable. I prefer to let it flip, concentrate on getting your lowlands back into shape and then make a try for SM when you feel you’re strong enough.

I know some will not agree with me, but that’s the beauty of it: you can play this game the way you choose to

@OP:

You forget one thing…. people play the game in the way that is most fun for them. The reason you don’t have people defending is because it is boring for most people.

Torgrim.3642:

Sadly is that WvW is all about flipping and lemming trains, Is that really fun, no not really but the rewards give people the reason to follow that armchair general.

Why don’t commander players defend and actually command, noooo, its all about flipping, killing npcs lords just to earn those few points, a real commader defend what he capped, read what happens and attack or defend depends whats going on, instead the lemming train of 50+ go for a sup camp and 15min later the tower thew just capped is lost.

Flipping is a good tactic sometimes but come on, flipping is THE tactic now and sadly it kills WvW in the long run.

Leading a lemming train capping towers and camps defended with NPCs dont make you a good commander, a good commander defend what he capped AGAINST other players AND make a counter attack and hopelfully cap another tower/camp.

I’m not sure what server you’re on, but my server earlier today was non-stop P (player) v (verses) P (player) in all out war. Every tower we hit had 3-6 scouts that brought dozens of defenders. AC’s lined walls to prevent direct rams, causing havoc on close in attacks.

Cats were lined up with ballista and AC coverage in many area, even open-field trebs were up. With the new Bloodlust ruins in the mid, there’s all new places that the enemy can build counter siege.

At one point near a tower in the SE, we had 2 trebs, 5 AC, 4 Cats, and roughly 30+ players. The enemy? Oh, around 20 in front, 5 SupAC on walls, and then built a siege encampment of another 15 on the SE ruin [high ground above us] and basically did a whole closure on our well placed siege. Not really a "wipe", but just over a handful made it out alive in the retreat.

Our commanders earlier today -proudly I was one of them- rocked in actually making sure it was PvP in the game instead of just PvD. Sure it was kicking a hornets’ nest, which brought the might of two armies onto Bay; but in all the Eternal Alchemy was it fun! Our defenses were great and kept Bay ours in a matter of a consistent 1.5hr siege against it, which was astonishing (and exhausting too).

The new, twisted strategies used to take defended towers are something that’s ....well, been missing in the past 6 months. There’s real drive now to take something that has people in it, and really PUSH to get bodies under our feet before crowning the hill*.

*Speaking of hill. There was even a single, memorable fight on the Z-hill near NW tower that we spent nearly 10-20 minutes just inching our way in a gradual push up that very short area. A very even, awesome fight that I applaud our enemy as much as our own troops for the exciting fun.

Siphaed.9235:

I’m not sure what server you’re on, but my server earlier today was non-stop P (player) v (verses) P (player) in all out war. Every tower we hit had 3-6 scouts that brought dozens of defenders. AC’s lined walls to prevent direct rams, causing havoc on close in attacks.

Cats were lined up with ballista and AC coverage in many area, even open-field trebs were up. With the new Bloodlust ruins in the mid, there’s all new places that the enemy can build counter siege.

At one point near a tower in the SE, we had 2 trebs, 5 AC, 4 Cats, and roughly 30+ players. The enemy? Oh, around 20 in front, 5 SupAC on walls, and then built a siege encampment of another 15 on the SE ruin [high ground above us] and basically did a whole closure on our well placed siege. Not really a “wipe”, but just over a handful made it out alive in the retreat.

Our commanders earlier today -proudly I was one of them- rocked in actually making sure it was PvP in the game instead of just PvD. Sure it was kicking a hornets’ nest, which brought the might of two armies onto Bay; but in all the Eternal Alchemy was it fun! Our defenses were great and kept Bay ours in a matter of a consistent 1.5hr siege against it, which was astonishing (and exhausting too).

The new, twisted strategies used to take defended towers are something that’s ….well, been missing in the past 6 months. There’s real drive now to take something that has people in it, and really PUSH to get bodies under our feet before crowning the hill*.

*Speaking of hill. There was even a single, memorable fight on the Z-hill near NW tower that we spent nearly 10-20 minutes just inching our way in a gradual push up that very short area. A very even, awesome fight that I applaud our enemy as much as our own troops for the exciting fun.

It’s been pretty much the same on Yaks Bend. Been ALOT of fun fights with both Ebay and BP, although it is sad that this may be the closest fight we will have this whole season. Gonna be fun while it lasts though.

yeah, people play game for fun, some people find defending fun, while for others it is not….

you can’t dictate how people should play their game, they are not your bot….

People don’t defend because it’s an uphill fight to nowhere.

1. Most attackers don’t try unless they can blod the structure down or take it practically undefended*. Plus siege gets stronger and structures do not. It’s a kittening joke.

2. Due to the scoreboard being totally dependent on numbers, PPT is and will a joke to many players.

3. Anet added a nice little power creep, now people want ranks and ascended mats. See point 2.

And this is why people don’t give a kitten about defending.

@OP:
FSP? familiar situation to me…hmm, I was born in FSP, and I knew the FSP’s style is almost flipping. And that can be a good leveling process tho. However if u want some decent wvw fight, move to a t1 server, such kitten, PS, etc.
BUT, in a larger server, u will find it so hard to queue :P
btw, I’m not in FSP anymore as well…

Torgrim.3642:

I’m on EU, Far Shiverpeaks, and for the past month I’ve only seen perhaps 1 or 2 commanders who actually made a difference and really commanded, capped, defend, then launch a counter attack while the rest of us defended what we capped, rest of the lot commanders just run around in a big cirlce capping/flipping and saying in chat let em have it we recap it in 15min, really, how kittening fun is that, it’s pointless gameplay.

And yes I’m speaking from my opinion, but really flipping cans and killing npc lords, is it that fun?, or would you rather have great battle defending a keep against the enemy players?

I have actually witnessed commanders going too much defensively to the point where we don’t get anything done except become the punching bag for the two other servers we fight against. Many commanders are either thinking about defending paper towers whenever an enemy zerg comes, without fortifying the towers we own and without actually being offensive to push the enemies away from our towers to focus on other server, or they just go for SM even though we got none of our towers fortified or even when we don’t even have all our towers on our side of the border.

What we lack, in my opinion, is offense, but at the right timing.

I’m in FSP EU as well. Though, I disagree, we have a lot of experienced commanders that know what they’re doing. FSP also has its public TeamSpeak, so you can perhaps follow the commander better on TeamSpeak.

Also take into consideration that currently we have massive amounts of people that normally do PvE in the WvWvW servers right now.

Just give it some time.

It’s a hostile environment for people who want to become good commanders.
Mess up once and people start screaming at you, throw insults etc.

iPsychO.5043:

I’m in FSP EU as well. Though, I disagree, we have a lot of experienced commanders that know what they’re doing. FSP also has its public TeamSpeak, so you can perhaps follow the commander better on TeamSpeak.

Also take into consideration that currently we have massive amounts of people that normally do PvE in the WvWvW servers right now.

Just give it some time.

I do follow commanders on TS, but it doesn’t always take TS to see issues with the tactics used sometimes. I have actually been on TS with many of the active commanders as well as other active WvW players and discussed the issue of us being too defensive at certain points when we would benefit more in being offensive. I can understand that we got issues with our performances because of the amount of PvE players coming in to WvW because of the achievements, but I am referring to the past few weeks, before the introduction of Leagues and the Achievement points from the Season.

As long as you get Wxp from taking structures (which imo is utterly wrong) ppl are just a bunch of hedless chickens when they find a blob doin just that stuff.
If A-net was to remove the high Wxp reward for taking structers we would see a totally different gameplay. It’s not really an achievement taking structures atm, T1 stuff just melts when a blob is runing around furiously takin everything in sight.
I’d love to see a boost in the Wxp you get from killing your enemy and a nerf on taking structures.

But will we ever see such changes? I doubt it.

style.6173:

@OP:

You forget one thing…. people play the game in the way that is most fun for them. The reason you don’t have people defending is because it is boring for most people.

I understand your logic behind this, but lemme get some things straight for you.

I suppose you have played football or basketball in your life. Imagine now, that because its fun to score goals or points all the players of the teams were offensive (because hey its fun and it has glory) and no player was defensive or even a goalkeeper in football. Tell me honestly how sad that game would be. “Hey they scored on us, never mind it guys lets go score again!”

This is exactly what we are doing at the moment in wvw. We just score, without defenders or goalkeepers. It’s not a match anymore, but a rush game of who will score faster than the other, continuously…

I hope it makes sense. And always remember that there are many people out there, including me, who love to defend because we care for the team and not our personal rank and achievements. All commanders should remember that they have defensive players in their teams and use them accordingly for the whole benefit of the server.

Leadership: The art of influencing and directing people to accomplish the mission.

Some commanders are better than others at that. Some servers are better at following than others.

It’s all part of the friction and fog of war.

@OP

First of all, if you just run in EB, get to a border and follow a guild. Also get on the community TS if your not already. For example Losing paper bay to take out T3 hills is the wiser choice, even more if its on your side of the map.

But still there a different kinds of WvW people/guilds. Those interested in the PPT and those that are not. Find one that suits you.

I personally have seen plenty of other commanders in the Borderlands trying to hold, Hill, Bay and Garri. Just last night I saw Frums from GOT defending a T3 Hills in UW border. A keep that got T3 because during the day a AoA Strike Team had been upgrading and defending Bluewater. While their commander was on the offensive.

Hills had 12 Ac, a cata and a Treb aswell

Hello Tinoosh

You’re spot on.

Knowing when to attack or defend us the key for commanders. It’s plenty hard because it takes:

1. Scouting.
2. Knowing how the enemy commanders operate.
3. Knowing your own forces. The morale, loyalty, skill and numbers of your soldiers. A solid 20man can take out 3x bigger forces if trained well.
4. Terrain and siege.

This will take a long time and much patience for the commander to experience, learn and execute well.

FW

Tinoosh.5386:

What we lack, in my opinion, is offense, but at the right timing.

I would argue most of the time it’s the level of militia/pugs on your server.

Yes some commanders are better than others…but at the end of the day…if you group consists of 20+ upleveled pve’ers….the most advanced tactics are probably not going to save you from the same number of an organized guild booting around your map. People realize this and basically try to strike where the organized group isn’t since they can’t beat them….thus the karma train is born….

A-net should make a new hat worth 1 million G and you have to sell your soul to NCsoft!!! and then when you put on your hat… people know you mean business

I just don’t really see this lack of defense in the NA bracket.

Even in last week’s blowout between SoR, SoS and SBI, there was quite a large amount of defense being played. SoS and SBI were constantly rallying to defend the small amount of terrority they had against overwhelming numbers. No matter how many times we killed them, they continued to defend.

The commanders that are really bad are the one’s who stand around a lot doing nothing, also those that go around the map with a big zerg only to capture a couple of camps/sentrys. You only need 2-3 players to capture camps/get bloodlust.

Zergs are for taking towers/keeps/sm.

^ exactly what Peetee said. This week SoS constantly has scouting parties around their borderlands, and they always have people sentrying their towers, and their defending group will come to stop your push. Ever server has those commanders who are too defensive, or too offensive. It takes a special someone to balance the two perfectly.

I’ve run with a mix of good and horrible Commanders. Some people have more money than sense. What I would really like to see introduced into the game (this has been said many times before) is the introduction of two different types of Commander pins; PvE and WvW so we can distinguish the two.

Also, make the WvW pin ascertainable only via a ranking achievement and by completing certain perquisites. I.e. Rank 100+, 5k badges of honour, maxing 3-5 WvW achievements (tiered), and 100g. This will ensure that people who really want to command will have, at the very least, intermediate knowledge of the workings of WvW. I’m tired of running around with a PvE Queen that lacks tact and is only there for the Karma.

Reverence.6915:

Try playing in a T1 server with a PPT guild. You’ll be defending your keeps and towers to your heart’s content.

It’s heartening to know that even in times like these, every thread is still a tier 1 recruitment thread.

necromancin.2396:

I’ve run with a mix of good and horrible Commanders. Some people have more money than sense. What I would really like to see introduced into the game (this has been said many times before) is the introduction of two different types of Commander pins; PvE and WvW so we can distinguish the two.

Also, make the WvW pin ascertainable only via a ranking achievement and by completing certain perquisites. I.e. Rank 100+, 5k badges of honour, maxing 3-5 WvW achievements (tiered), and 100g. This will ensure that people who really want to command will have, at the very least, intermediate knowledge of the workings of WvW. I’m tired of running around with a PvE Queen that lacks tact and is only there for the Karma.

Make sure you’re in your community teamspeak channel then. You’ll know which commanders to follow and which not to follow. PvE heroes generally won’t use teamspeak and have a commander tag up cause it looks nice… or something.

Also, because there are so many PvE heroes this week, many guilds are running tagless.

A good commander should know where to be on the map. This requires ability to prioritize and closely watching the map and anticipating.

I don’t like to pop tag until I’ve been on a map long enough to understand what’s going on – this includes knowing what’s upgraded and what’s got supply and how many #s each side has and what they’re doing. But this also includes watching and knowing what’s going on in the other BL’s. I’m sure in upper tiers you can stay just focused on your own map but down here in bronze league it would be pretty rare for us to even have a tag up in each map let alone have a zerg in each one. Our best commanders do a good amount of map-hopping.

The first thing I’ll say for this is:
Don’t complain unless you’re willing to get a tag and lead yourself.

Being a commander means actually being the armchair general you describe us to be. There will actually be times (and I had this happen sunday) where your best defense is to actually just back cap things as fast as you can. This especially occurs when your server can only muster half of what the enemy brings to the table. Defense at that point is pointless unless you had some poor bored soul stay in a tower on an arrow cart ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Honestly with today’s game of Superior ram mastery being a best in slot wvw trait you can’t defend unless you pre-empt it. The enemy can bust down both gates of a keep in 2 and a half minutes. This is enough time for maybe 6 of your guys to stream in and scout it. Even the reinforced gates fall that fast. Your only chance to save your keep is to suicide bomb the build sites for rams the moment they appear or use supply traps.

Now that said it is possible to mount a defense if you’re fast enough. You can get ACs and trebs behind a gate to destroy rams. You can have your ranged DPSers AOE the gate.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. That’s why you get 100 commanders doing things 100 different ways. Some are there for the karma train some for the battles themselves. You know who the ones you want to follow are. And if you can’t find one you want to follow you know where to get a tag.

The problem is the requirements for a commander pin. You don’t have to have ANY WvW experience to buy one. They need to up the cost to something a little more appropriate such as 2000 badges of honor and 100g. Then turn around and add guild pins for PvE players so that you can see where you guild mates are for PvE events such as guild missions.

Its getting out of hand with the number of players buying pins and just running around. They aren’t really harming anything right now, but it could become a problem on larger populated servers.

All i can say is that there is lacking of mechanics/tool/costumizations for commanders, they jusnt dont have the right tools.

Blackarps.1974:

The problem is the requirements for a commander pin. You don’t have to have ANY WvW experience to buy one. They need to up the cost to something a little more appropriate such as 2000 badges of honor and 100g. Then turn around and add guild pins for PvE players so that you can see where you guild mates are for PvE events such as guild missions.

Its getting out of hand with the number of players buying pins and just running around. They aren’t really harming anything right now, but it could become a problem on larger populated servers.

1) Some people do PvE events with commanders that are non-guilded, pugs and all. So your ‘solution’ would never work.

2) Thanks to rank bags, and the way that badges are, it’s ease to get them now.

gennyt.3428:

People don’t defend because it’s an uphill fight to nowhere.

1. Most attackers don’t try unless they can blod the structure down or take it practically undefended*. Plus siege gets stronger and structures do not. It’s a kittening joke.

2. Due to the scoreboard being totally dependent on numbers, PPT is and will a joke to many players.

3. Anet added a nice little power creep, now people want ranks and ascended mats. See point 2.

And this is why people don’t give a kitten about defending.

Except, good siege placement can help defend against superior numbers.

Now that it is a competitive league, PPT means something. And, if you want to get those points, then you better learn to defend. When SBI stormed FA’s bay tonight, with 70 people, do you think we didn’t meet resistence? Hell yeah, FA was heavily guarding their keep, with siege and about 70 to 90 people of their own.

And, defending leads to epic fights. I’m sure the players on FA who participated in that defense, will not say that it was boring.

the problem is in the game design. the game rewards offense in every way, from PvE to WvW.

DPS and Offense is always rewarded over support and defense. people play and want to be rewarded in some way. that gives pleasure.

Knighthonor.4061:

the problem is in the game design. the game rewards offense in every way, from PvE to WvW.

DPS and Offense is always rewarded over support and defense. people play and want to be rewarded in some way. that gives pleasure.

THIS!!!!!

I hate it when a PVE noob comes for achives and switch on commander:
-Forget about garrison, we need supply camps, cos I need 3 for AP.