Guild Wars 2

So this will reward servers with people sacrificing themselves for static guard duties?

OH DEAR GODS NOOOO! You go, you people who know who you are.

Well, way to reward the zergs then.

And ninja squads.

I wonder…. build a catapult on an obscure portion of wall, hit the wall for 20-25 seconds, should be able to get several shots in, and then stop until after the 30 second update. Would the swords still show? It would be interesting to try that out as a lone person could break into a Garrison without anyone being the wiser, place a mesmer and boom!

This is honestly the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. How are we supposed to defend anything, anymore?

So, let me get this straight

With this update, someone is forced to spend their precious time (remember, time is money, otherwise you’d all be left with version 0.9 of GW2) sitting around doing absolutely nothing to keep watch at some distant camp/tower/keep just to make sure that a massive zerg isn’t steamrolling the place?

To understand the massive rip-off of this mechanic, understand that in EBG, there are 12 towers. That means, 12 poor sods will have to spend their entire time (which could be used to farm gold, running dungeons, playing PvP, hanging out with guildies… and… y’know… actually play a video game. Or heck, maybe go on a date IRL) keeping watch against (possibly non-existent) enemies. If the particular guard needs to deal with his biology urges, there is a high chance by the time he’s back, his corpse is being teabagged by the newly appointed tower lord. That is IF their particular tower gets attacked. If not, that’s an entire evening spent doing absolutely nothing, getting absolutely nothing. You may have remembered the definition of the word “game” at this point, but I won’t blame you if you don’t

The mechanics seem to work nice with the whole “no biggie with waypoint”, but there are only 3 keeps and one castle in EBG, for a total of 4 waypoints, all of which need to be bought to function. And remember: there is no waypoint in towers and camps

Theftwind.8976:

I wonder…. build a catapult on an obscure portion of wall, hit the wall for 20-25 seconds, should be able to get several shots in, and then stop until after the 30 second update. Would the swords still show? It would be interesting to try that out as a lone person could break into a Garrison without anyone being the wiser, place a mesmer and boom!

Swrods show no matter what after the 30second point

McNuggetBandit.8376:

Theftwind.8976:

I wonder…. build a catapult on an obscure portion of wall, hit the wall for 20-25 seconds, should be able to get several shots in, and then stop until after the 30 second update. Would the swords still show? It would be interesting to try that out as a lone person could break into a Garrison without anyone being the wiser, place a mesmer and boom!

Swrods show no matter what after the 30second point

If you stop attacking, they might go “Oh, maybe just monsters” and go. Rinse and repeat until someone’s day is crushed

Raestloz.7134:

McNuggetBandit.8376:

Theftwind.8976:

I wonder…. build a catapult on an obscure portion of wall, hit the wall for 20-25 seconds, should be able to get several shots in, and then stop until after the 30 second update. Would the swords still show? It would be interesting to try that out as a lone person could break into a Garrison without anyone being the wiser, place a mesmer and boom!

Swrods show no matter what after the 30second point

If you stop attacking, they might go “Oh, maybe just monsters” and go. Rinse and repeat until someone’s day is crushed

If they do that they deserve to me hung, draw and quartered i’ve never seen anyone go “oh white swords at keep must be mosters”

McNuggetBandit.8376:

Raestloz.7134:

McNuggetBandit.8376:

Theftwind.8976:

I wonder…. build a catapult on an obscure portion of wall, hit the wall for 20-25 seconds, should be able to get several shots in, and then stop until after the 30 second update. Would the swords still show? It would be interesting to try that out as a lone person could break into a Garrison without anyone being the wiser, place a mesmer and boom!

Swrods show no matter what after the 30second point

If you stop attacking, they might go “Oh, maybe just monsters” and go. Rinse and repeat until someone’s day is crushed

If they do that they deserve to me hung, draw and quartered i’ve never seen anyone go “oh white swords at keep must be mosters”

I’ve often went to white sworded area and indeed it was just monsters. If you stop attacking when they come checking, there’s a probability they’d think of the same thing

Problem #1: So basically if something is just flipped, we’ll need someone posted at every gate to prevent golem rushes. These people can reward themselves by building seige, but without supply camps to BUILD seige, there is nothing they can do. Because blue prints only last 2 minutes, they can’t lay something, lose a camp, reflip the camp, and come back and finish it.

Problem #2: We won’t be able to keep camps past the initial five minute RI time period unless we have a significant amount posted there because if it gets zerged, even with a warning, it will be gone before response can get there. So it will be much harder to upgrade keeps past the paper stage, which makes problem #1 more significant.

Problem #3: This discourages people from upgrading anything, because it can be flipped at any time without warning. Reinforced gates with 5 golems already MELT. Even five superior rams can melt something in 30 seconds. Towers are pretty much forfeits. Upgrades cost GOLD in addition to time and effort. Access to waypoints? It will be much harder to even GET a waypoint, so gl with that.

It is really easy to say that this new thing is nice for other servers because they have dedicated people to stay and watch over things as such but what about the other servers that dont?. It is really unfair for the others because we cant just force people to do this and that they arent slaves and all…..the people watching over the stuff for the server may get bored because they have to sit it all day/night and the boredom may ruin their mood to even play the game because of this, only a few people are determined to do guard duty as hectic as this. This new thing also just makes people resort to zerging even more just to take things because 30 sec is MORE than enough time to deal so much damage to a gate/wall. Ninja squads have been favored already by adding battle markers(orange swords) when there is 25 people in the zone attacking…. why make things much worse…..

As someone who stands watch in towers/keeps for long periods (some nights up to 8 hours), this will have no impact.

For servers who do not have sentries at towers/keeps…good luck.

There’s a word for this strategy. It’s called garrisoning. The army does this all the time. People in the garrison receive a small stipend, and the threat of up to life imprisonment if they don’t.

I’m not in the army, I’m not getting paid, and we don’t have enough people to watch that map and relieve people every 20 minutes (which would be fair). WvW is dead. It’ll just be PvD against paper gates for karma now. (and I don’t need karma)

Ubi.4136:

As someone who stands watch in towers/keeps for long periods (some nights up to 8 hours), this will have no impact.

For servers who do not have sentries at towers/keeps…good luck.

grats? NA Tier 1-2 will not be affected because you have enough people on the map for this. Tier 4 here with barely 30 people max on the map and enemy has 50 or so in NA primetime. If attacks don’t show up on keep for 30 secs. 3-4 superior rams and door is down and they on inner. forget golem rush that’s even easier. Also how fun is it to watch the gate for 8 hours?

VOLKON.1290:

The “under attack” notice at objectives now displays 30 seconds after it is first attacked. Does not affect waypoint usage.

Well, better place guards in all your towers and camps now, it’s become ridiculously easy for the zerg to flip areas and you never know it’s happening. So, designate people to go into WvW and sit there for who knows how long, watching all the gates, …

This was not well thought out.

It means the exact opposite, you will never have to have sentries if you have a WP. As soon as you see white swords you can just WP in.

Vash.9183:

Pinko.2076:

Vash.9183:

Volkon, I’m thinking this update was more focused on the small teams. This way, they can have 30 more seconds before a zerg might notice what they’re doing…

Stop crying.

Vash, this helps zergs MORE than small groups because zergs will have a higher siege budget and make larger uses of 30 seconds.

If a zerg is big enough, you’re not going to stop it. Wait- now you can build arrow carts that have an 80% damage buff to shoot down a zerg. These are indeed balanced updates. Having good points and bad points is to be expected with any update.

Vash is making way too much sense. I see multiple threads complaining about how everything is going to flip immediately (This thread) and about how nothing will ever flip (AC threads)

I’m thinking maybe I’ll actually play the game and see how it works before freaking out.

Ruprect.7260:

It means the exact opposite, you will never have to have sentries if you have a WP. As soon as you see white swords you can just WP in.

By the time you way point in after seeing swords, they’re already on the inner. Outers are always forfeit now.

This literally just happened to me before patch. I tagged South Gate WK. 30 Seconds later swords went up. 15 seconds later, their scout came to find me. I waved at him, and tagged the gate again. I laughed in map chat. IN THE TIME IT TOOK for this poor guy to run to south gate from north, our commander sup rammed down the north gate and went through to inner. By the time I tagged the gate the second time, they were in the lords room.

Whoever made this change clearly does not play the game.

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

Note to zergs approaching a keep:

When the person who is babysitting a keep waves (that would be me, and a few others), know that our zerg will waypoint in soon after.

Have a nice day…and may you die a horrible fiery burning death to my new pimped out arrow cart.

Ruprect.7260:

VOLKON.1290:

The “under attack” notice at objectives now displays 30 seconds after it is first attacked. Does not affect waypoint usage.

Well, better place guards in all your towers and camps now, it’s become ridiculously easy for the zerg to flip areas and you never know it’s happening. So, designate people to go into WvW and sit there for who knows how long, watching all the gates, …

This was not well thought out.

It means the exact opposite, you will never have to have sentries if you have a WP. As soon as you see white swords you can just WP in.

wow i didn’t know there were WP’s in every single tower and supply camp aswell!

Even so as people have stated getting those WP’s is gonna be a kitten now as holding that supply line is going to be hard because even a 5 man group can flip a camp in 30seconds

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

So those trebs you can no longer block, they won’t be making it difficult for the ten of you that just watched your arrow carts get destroyed?

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

Because waypoints just come for free with every keep and castle as soon as you take it.

“Working together” code for ‘taking turns being bored’.

Yeah you deserve to lose if you can’t find enough people willing to be bored. Maybe they should install latrines in the towers and you need to find people to wash them, because hey that’s keeping it real.

Well a golem rush on all towers and keeps seems like a great way to get wxp now. gates will be down before the enemy team even realizes their tower is hit. I’m pretty sure 30seconds is way too long, 15sec would be better, but no way to know until we try. but the 30second interval before you can’t waypoint into a keep is really nice.

Pendragon.8735:

“Working together” code for ‘taking turns being bored’.

Yeah you deserve to lose if you can’t find enough people willing to be bored. Maybe they should install latrines in the towers and you need to find people to wash them, because hey that’s keeping it real.

I know this may come as a total shock but not everyone finds this boring.

Some people like the excitement of knowing that an attack could be coming at any moment. Some people just like helping their team even without a reward. If it isn’t something you are interested in then don’t do it. But you’d be surprised how many people actually enjoy scouting for their server.

Can you devon clarify the: “does not affect the waypoint usage” if it means to those 30 secs or to event notification?

Because what i inderstand is that you can suicide and ress al time since wps are not contested anymore.

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

So those trebs you can no longer block, they won’t be making it difficult for the ten of you that just watched your arrow carts get destroyed?

We will go take out the treb, sigh. What do you guys do just stand there and watch them treb you??? We usually have a wp in every keep we own Friday night. We will never lose a keep again.

Ethose.5694:

I know this may come as a total shock but not everyone finds this boring.

Some people like the excitement of knowing that an attack could be coming at any moment. Some people just like helping their team even without a reward. If it isn’t something you are interested in then don’t do it. But you’d be surprised how many people actually enjoy scouting for their server.

Doesn’t shock me, but I would wager its a pretty darn small minority, based on my servers experience. And just because some do it (I’ve done it), doesn’t mean they like or enjoy it, but may feel duty bound to ‘take one for the team’, or because its their turn.

It’s also not scouting, scouting is roaming around keeping tabs on the enemy, giving information to prepare for an attack, etc, its at least active gameplay, I have no problem with that. This is sentry duty. Guard duty, just like the dullish NPC’s out front do, and should be doing for you. Why are NPC’s there if they can’t give an alarm on time?

Most that do this are often busy mutli-tasking with something else, surfing, watching TV, eating, who knows, because its about as fun as watching grass grow. But not quality gameplay if players feel they must be distracted by something else while doing it.

In T1-T2 there might be so many players on map, its easy to find people for this. Great. But farther on down when you need 20% of your on map force just standing around to cover all your assets, good luck finding 1 in 5 that like it. And the end result is keep trading, less fighting, less epic sieges.

Ruprect.7260:

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

So those trebs you can no longer block, they won’t be making it difficult for the ten of you that just watched your arrow carts get destroyed?

We will go take out the treb, sigh. What do you guys do just stand there and watch them treb you??? We usually have a wp in every keep we own Friday night. We will never lose a keep again.

Sorry, there may be a little confusion here. I was using your numbers. You say your ten will go out and kill the treb that those attacking 50 built, is this correct? One or two ACs by the treb may hinder your plans a bit.

What a great idea, lets put even more pressure on bored people who sit in towers for hours on end, while zergs farm WXP.

For groups that “20 man zerg” a supply camp….

It is pretty easy to flip a camp in under 30 seconds. After 4min buff expires…that is.

Groups can flip camps at will without opposition even knowing about it.

on Vabbi, i will send scouts to all towers and keeps and i will be 4ever alone commander

mekkanic.4759:

For groups that “20 man zerg” a supply camp….

It is pretty easy to flip a camp in under 30 seconds. After 4min buff expires…that is.

Groups can flip camps at will without opposition even knowing about it.

a good small 5man group should be able to kill all npcs in less than 20seconds, plus 5sec for that node cap=ninja.

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

So those trebs you can no longer block, they won’t be making it difficult for the ten of you that just watched your arrow carts get destroyed?

We will go take out the treb, sigh. What do you guys do just stand there and watch them treb you??? We usually have a wp in every keep we own Friday night. We will never lose a keep again.

Sorry, there may be a little confusion here. I was using your numbers. You say your ten will go out and kill the treb that those attacking 50 built, is this correct? One or two ACs by the treb may hinder your plans a bit.

Have you ever used a ballista. Lol at an open field treb. Does that work on your server?

For people that enjoy being sentries, there is nothing stopping them from doing it, and it already gave an advantage like it should as it was. The swords couldn’t tell you how many attackers (could even be more than 25 just not all attacking) what kind of siege was up, what kind of defenses were there, you needed human intel for that, great.

But it shouldn’t be mandatory at every location, and this makes it nearly so. If a zerg hits and you don’t have notification for 30 seconds, good chance you lost it. Especially now with WxP already having made less waypoints and upgrades around most maps.

Ruprect.7260:

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

VOLKON.1290:

Ruprect.7260:

I don’t know about you but my guild with 10 people could hold off a zerg of 50 for hours at inner/the lords room. With the AC changes no one will ever take a keep from us again.

So those trebs you can no longer block, they won’t be making it difficult for the ten of you that just watched your arrow carts get destroyed?

We will go take out the treb, sigh. What do you guys do just stand there and watch them treb you??? We usually have a wp in every keep we own Friday night. We will never lose a keep again.

Sorry, there may be a little confusion here. I was using your numbers. You say your ten will go out and kill the treb that those attacking 50 built, is this correct? One or two ACs by the treb may hinder your plans a bit.

Have you ever used a ballista. Lol at an open field treb. Does that work on your server?

Why yes, yes I have. So where exactly were you going to put that ballista on inner Bay that will hit the trebs on the plateau? I can never seem to find the sweet spot…

Pendragon.8735:

For people that enjoy being sentries, there is nothing stopping them from doing it, and it already gave an advantage like it should as it was. The swords couldn’t tell you how many attackers (could even be more than 25 just not all attacking) what kind of siege was up, what kind of defenses were there, you needed human intel for that, great.

But it shouldn’t be mandatory at every location, and this makes it nearly so. If a zerg hits and you don’t have notification for 30 seconds, good chance you lost it. Especially now with WxP already having made less waypoints and upgrades around most maps.

It should be basic to have a scout at every structure.

If you are not placing a scout in your towers/keeps, you deserve to loose.

lol really, we do it all the time.

Edit: Or a counter treb. Defense has always had the advantage for good players.

We already have hour+ long battles for keeps that end in a stalemate and defenders win. This will just make it impossible for anyone to get past inner wals.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Pendragon.8735:

For people that enjoy being sentries, there is nothing stopping them from doing it, and it already gave an advantage like it should as it was. The swords couldn’t tell you how many attackers (could even be more than 25 just not all attacking) what kind of siege was up, what kind of defenses were there, you needed human intel for that, great.

But it shouldn’t be mandatory at every location, and this makes it nearly so. If a zerg hits and you don’t have notification for 30 seconds, good chance you lost it. Especially now with WxP already having made less waypoints and upgrades around most maps.

It should be basic to have a scout at every structure.

If you are not placing a scout in your towers/keeps, you deserve to loose.

In the higher teirs where im guessing you play and where i play its easy to do that, but remember lower teirs can’t afford to do that sort of stuff kinda kills it for them. And its not scouting its guarding and sentry duty. Scouting is whatt you do when you go and check out what the enemy has standing around sucking your thumb in your tower is being a sentry

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Pendragon.8735:

For people that enjoy being sentries, there is nothing stopping them from doing it, and it already gave an advantage like it should as it was. The swords couldn’t tell you how many attackers (could even be more than 25 just not all attacking) what kind of siege was up, what kind of defenses were there, you needed human intel for that, great.

But it shouldn’t be mandatory at every location, and this makes it nearly so. If a zerg hits and you don’t have notification for 30 seconds, good chance you lost it. Especially now with WxP already having made less waypoints and upgrades around most maps.

It should be basic to have a scout at every structure.

If you are not placing a scout in your towers/keeps, you deserve to loose.

You’re forgetting something called “response time”. Before, when the “X” came up (I’ll use home borderland as an example) you could have a couple people waypoint to citadel and run to either tower or the camp usually in time to respond to the attack. You weren’t required to have someone in each spot, especially when the other servers were on a slow time. Now you’re required to have someone at every spot if you intend to defend. By the time the “X” shows up a small group with a couple golems can already be in the process of flipping it. You’re basically required to tell three people now to go sit in those spots while everyone else goes out and captures, kills, etc. I’m sure they have nothing better to do.

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

It should be basic to have a scout at every structure.

If you are not placing a scout in your towers/keeps, you deserve to loose.

No it should not. What tier are you in? If not enough players are currently doing it right now on many servers that pretty much tells you they don’t enjoy it, why should players in a video game be forced to do something not fun and not enjoyable just because it will help them win? That is backwards logic, ‘we do it to win’.

What next, someone is going to come in and say their favorite part of the game is refereshing siege, no really, they prefer there is a time limit on siege so they can refresh it instead of it staying up like it would, and should, if it the game didn’t have to make compromises for server resources.

People refresh siege because it is necessary yes, same reason most act as sentries. But refreshing siege is necessary because server resources demanded that as a concession for the game to run better. While this is purely an arbitrary choice, that doesn’t have to exist, but does despite that it is looked at as a chore rather than enjoyable to most.

Ruprect.7260:

lol really, we do it all the time.

Edit: Or a counter treb. Defense has always had the advantage for good players.

We already have hour+ long battles for keeps that end in a stalemate and defenders win. This will just make it impossible for anyone to get past inner wals.

I’m glad you added the edit for counter treb considering I was talking about Bay. I was starting to worry. Now, here’s a little fun fact secret I’ll share with you… one counter treb won’t do it.

But the main question is:

will be wps usable for ever once built? Or they will be contested once The “under attack” notice appears? since it clearly says:

The “under attack” notice […] Does not affect waypoint usage.

I think we need redstone in here now so we can rig up a circuit that detects when the gates are being hit and flashes a light in the center of the keeps… yeah…

I would also contest that you can have just one sentry at each structure with this change. Before? Sure.

But not now, you need one at every single gate, less the only way that sentry sees the attack before 30 seconds is if he gets lucky and happens to be at the right gate, even if doing rounds to each over and over. A garrison will now need 5 sentries to watch all the gates, a side keep will need 2 or 3 sentries.

Even in T3 the majority of the day outside primetime I bet there is less than 30 players per team on the BL maps. Less the lower you go. You’re going to have a a third of your force standing around twiddling their thumbs? No way, not realistic.

I find this patch note to be very unclear. Possibilities …

1. White crossed swords don’t show for 30 seconds, waypoint can be used until the swords show.
2. No change to waypoint usage, you can’t use it even though there’s not white swords showing yet.
3. You can always use the waypoint, white swords or no.

1 or 2 seems most likely, I think maybe 2? 3 seems very unlikely.

Also, I assume this only applies to white swords, orange swords will continue to show immediately as long as 25 or more people are involved.

Maybe people are familiar with the phrase that doing something boring is “like watching paint dry”. Now anet introduce a system whereby you can stare at walls for hours that don’t even offer the relative excitement of the aforementioned drying paint…

Fighting = fun
Staring at walls = logout

This update is needless and, to be blunt, kitten if you actually want to have fun playing wvw.

Forcing players to defend without making it intrinsically interesting to do so? Yeah no.

Welcome to full on PvDoor.

This only encourages the roaming zerg action, and as you can tell the zerg runners are absolutely happy with this change.