Guild Wars 2

•Siege sites are now destroyed 2 minutes after being placed if they receive no supply.

Really? This makes leaving people behind to siege up towers and keeps almost impossible if they need to run supply from the camps, especially on reset nights when none of the towers or keeps have any supply so ALL must be run from the camps to let the fortifications complete. You’ll almost have to have two people – one sitting at the build site putting 2 supply on at a time while the other runs from the camps in order to keep out of despawn danger. In EB, this may not be a big deal in some areas as camps are close by, but in the BL’s, this is HUGE as there is at least a 2 min. run round-trip to get supply. Why not 5-10 minutes so that players can run supply from the camps instead of risking the bp’s despawning?

Come on Anet, think!!!

I think it means if NO supply is put into a freshly laid siege that it will go away in 2 mins…NOT that you have to put siege in at least every 2 mins until it’s built.

I sure hope so because we have a siege guy that solo builds in the towers that was seriously emo after the notes were released.

White Knight.3925:

•Siege sites are now destroyed 2 minutes after being placed if they receive no supply.

Really? This makes leaving people behind to siege up towers and keeps almost impossible if they need to run supply from the camps, especially on reset nights when none of the towers or keeps have any supply so ALL must be run from the camps to let the fortifications complete. You’ll almost have to have two people – one sitting at the build site putting 2 supply on at a time while the other runs from the camps in order to keep out of despawn danger. In EB, this may not be a big deal in some areas as camps are close by, but in the BL’s, this is HUGE as there is at least a 2 min. run round-trip to get supply. Why not 5-10 minutes so that players can run supply from the camps instead of risking the bp’s despawning?

Come on Anet, think!!!

If you could into reading comprehension then you’d know that that’s not what It means, at all. It means if you place a siege and don’t even put in ONE measly supply for 2 minutes, it will be removed. In reality, you’d probably put in at least 10.

This will do much to counter the siege spammers who try to sabotage their team.

Takes more than two minutes to run to a supply camp and back to some towers/keeps. This will only encourage folks to use supply from a tower or keep that’s upgrading. Not good.

Jayne.9251:

Takes more than two minutes to run to a supply camp and back to some towers/keeps. This will only encourage folks to use supply from a tower or keep that’s upgrading. Not good.

Why do so many people seem to have a problem with reading comprehension? See my post above.

Paradoxine.8192:

Jayne.9251:

Takes more than two minutes to run to a supply camp and back to some towers/keeps. This will only encourage folks to use supply from a tower or keep that’s upgrading. Not good.

Why do so many people seem to have a problem with reading comprehension? See my post above.

Why do you feel the need to be rude?

People will often put down siege BP’s, realize they don’t have supply and run to the nearest camp. Guess it means folks will have to have minimal supply on them before they put down a blueprint, but sometimes in chaotic attacks that doesn’t happen — and folks will run to the closest supply depot (ie: in the tower/keep) to make sure the blueprint doesn’t despawn.

I believe this is actually a help. It will prevent accidentally (or troll) placed siege from eating up the siege per area cap.

Lauranda.1342:

I believe this is actually a help. It will prevent accidentally (or troll) placed siege from eating up the siege per area cap.

Naw it won’t … the siege griefers typically use the keep/tower supply anyhow.

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

Hi there devon, I’d just like to ask you to reconsider the timer. 2 minutes, even 5 minutes is really very little, for example, if I want to solo a tower, I sometimes have to take 10 minutes before I can reach supply again and bring it back, since the camp has been taken + 5 minute buff + takes me about 1.5 minutes to solo a camp fully, then there is the whole being unseen thing(which in itself is already incredibly difficult etc.) It would just make the whole idea of it completely impossible :/

Please make it at least 10 minutes, so that people, like myself, who actually challenge themselves by doing things such as solo capping, a chance. I would understand if the camp didn’t have the 5 minute buff after capture, but honestly, it is literally impossible to take a camp back soon enough for the siege blueprints. And even if I have to run to another camp, I’ll still take 1.5 minutes to take it, then run back to the tower, and between the running and capping, I just won’t get it all done in 5 minutes!

Kind Regards

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

I like the visible part a lot to be honest, nice touch.

Trebs seem to despawn much faster than other siege, is that intentional or illusionary?

For those of us not in-game, what does the timer look like? Can anyone post a screenshot?

Will Alpha Siege Golems have priority for the person who threw the blueprint down now? Will Golems also have a timer?

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

Devon, this is only going to encourage folks to use the keep/tower supply to “save” their blueprint, and subsequently hinder any upgrades currently going on. It’s not such an issue on EB where the supply camps are closer, but the borderland maps it is difficult to get to a supply camp and back in that time if you drop a blueprint and realize you don’t have supply — heck even five minutes is tight to go back and get more.

I realize this will make people more responsible about making sure they have supply before they drop a blueprint, but I fear this will have really negative effects on managing to upgrade towers and keeps. Please reconsider this. At the very least the previous 10 minute timer to build the siege was enough time to get to a supply camp and back.

Battletorn.4102:

Will Alpha Siege Golems have priority for the person who threw the blueprint down now? Will Golems also have a timer?

It would be so nice to be able to kick someone out of a golem you put down. There’s little more frustrating than some… kitten… taking golems you’ve built and jumping them off cliffs for the lulz.

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

Siege timer is visible now? Oh thank you! As one of several Quartermasters who is tasked with running around refreshing siege, this makes me happy.

This is nutty, was this a gameplay decision or a ’save bandwidth / resources ’ one?

I have run supply for my own siege in WvW sooo many times when it has taken more than 2 minutes. Nice to be able to stop and help a ally in combat, or take back a camp before you can get the supply you need. Sometimes you just need 2m+ because the closest available supply is a long run.

Only large zergs are going to bother dropping defensive siege now, and even more supply will be looted out of depots. They must really despise defense in this game, and won’t be happy until its just zergs exchanging each others structures back and forth and waving to each other as they pass.

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

This shows how little you know about WvW, the area you are supposed to be our key contact on.

Pendragon.8735:

This is nutty, was this a gameplay decision or a ’save bandwidth / resources ’ one?

I have run supply for my own siege in WvW sooo many times when it has taken more than 2 minutes. Nice to be able to stop and help a ally in combat, or take back a camp before you can get the supply you need. Sometimes you just need 2m+ because the closest available supply is a long run.

Only large zergs are going to bother dropping defensive siege now, and even more supply will be looted out of depots. They must really despise defense in this game, and won’t be happy until its just zergs exchanging each others structures back and forth and waving to each other as they pass.

It probably has to do with people siegecapping servers.

Makes it harder than just throwing down 50 blueprints.

If they despise defense so much, why in hell did they buff arrow carts?

Its only 2 minutes if you throw the blueprint down and NOT put any supply into it. If you put even 2 supply in it after you throw the BP it gets a 5 minute timer.

So if you are throwin down 3 prints at once and you have 10 supply, put 2 in each, the rest in the last one before you run for supply.

I can personally vouch that all siege did not despawn before the patch. When you get to a fully upgraded tower and there are still rams on the door from the force that took it over 3+ hours ago, it obviously hasn’t despawned. Well wonderful, Anet. Now no one will be putting down siege in towers as it will be gone when we really need it.

Arrow carts, ballistae and catapults should not despawn when placed inside a tower. Please think about the consequences of some of these changes. This is a half-baked idea at best.

Niim.9260:

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

This shows how little you know about WvW, the area you are supposed to be our key contact on.

Assuming Devon is not referring to some sort of bug that may have existed (perhaps in some instances siege may have despawned before 30 minutes was up), I don’t understand the need to be rude.

Edit: and seeing the response below from Devon (timer didn’t always work) now you look like a fool. Please refrain from posting ever again.

VOLKON.1290:

It would be so nice to be able to kick someone out of a golem you put down. There’s little more frustrating than some… kitten… taking golems you’ve built and jumping them off cliffs for the lulz.

I’m pretty sure you can.

Can’t you?

Niim.9260:

This shows how little you know about WvW, the area you are supposed to be our key contact on.

Fight him irl.

I think this change is acceptable if there is an additional 5 min every time supply is used on the siege site. I thought it already worked this way, no?

What was it like before, exactly?

robocafaz.9017:

VOLKON.1290:

It would be so nice to be able to kick someone out of a golem you put down. There’s little more frustrating than some… kitten… taking golems you’ve built and jumping them off cliffs for the lulz.

I’m pretty sure you can.

Can’t you?

Nope, unfortunately. Golem-napping is one of the very few trolling pastimes still in game.

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

Thought it was always 30 minutes before. We refresh them every 20-25 minutes though to prevent any lapses.

The 2-minute timer isn’t a big deal to me. I try to never throw down prints unless I can start the build.

The 5-minute timer is an absolute deal breaker though. No way I’m going to try to run supply from a camp, defend/retake the camp if necessary when I know my money is sitting on the floor in a keep, about to vanish.

Maybe the goal is to encourage teamwork in building siege, which I’m all for, but I’ve asked for help building siege many many times (on a top-tier server) and am usually lucky to get ONE person to help.

My excitement over the improvements to arrow carts has turned to severe disappointment in the overall handling of siege in this patch.

ETA Of course, this won’t hurt the trolls building siege using keep supplies. Just the hard workers who do the right thing and run it from camps.

Rising Dusk.2408:

For those of us not in-game, what does the timer look like? Can anyone post a screenshot?

You can’t see the mouse pointer in that screenshot but you basically hover over the buff to get the timer info.

DevonCarver.5370:

VOLKON.1290:

DevonCarver.5370:

The timer works like this: When you deploy a siege site, if you don’t put supply into it for 2 minutes, it will despawn. Every time you put supply in, it will get a new timer of 5 minutes. Once siege is fully built, it has the 30 minute timer. That timer resets every time someone uses the weapon.

30 minutes? That’s it?

This patch seems to have put a lot of focus on making defending even harder than it has been, is that deliberate? Sure, arrow carts hurt more, but if you get there and they’ve all despawned, ouch.

The 30 minute timer is actually longer than it used to be. It also is visible now, which it did not used to be.

That’s not true.

Before this patch I could put down an arrow cart, have no-one touch it for 5 hours and it won’t despawn. And at other times it could despawn in 30 minutes, it was unpredictable. Nothing ever despawned before 30 minutes.

I’d prefer something like a 2 hour timer for arrow carts/catapults and ballistas, and 30 minutes for trebs.

Additionally, 2 minute despawn on unused construction sites is an insult to all of the dedicated siege builders out there.

Gone are the days I could throw an arrow cart in my own tower, build it, man it, guard it.

And the damage increase by arrow carts is just ridiculous, rams are now useless, you may as well remove rams from the game entirely.

Before this patch, 6 super carts shooting a gate, nothing could stand in it anyway…now you only need 3 carts to achieve the same…. Are we supposed to all rely on catapults and trebuchets that we can’t swirling wind protect anymore? How?

You can’t stand on gates, you can’t ram gates, you can’t golem gates, you can’t stop waypoints, you can’t protect your ranged siege.

Sorry but this is the most disappointing patch to date and if it is not reversed may kill WvW.

Maladon.5760:

Rising Dusk.2408:

For those of us not in-game, what does the timer look like? Can anyone post a screenshot?

You can’t see the mouse pointer in that screenshot but you basically hover over the buff to get the timer info.

Thank you. That’s pretty much exactly what I was hoping for as far as timers go.

Devon,

Your post still does not address how bad this idea is. Granted, in tier 1 or 2, this isn’t such a bad thing as we have the populations to tag all the siege most of the time, but on tier 3 or less servers where there are only a handful of people on over night, ALL the siege in towers will despawn. I can see the morning guilds fleeing WvW in droves as the first thing they will have to do when they log in is replace ALL siege in EVERY tower/keep. This will get expensive quick. Bad idea all around.

It would be really nice if the timer could be at least kicked up to an hour. Many Wuv Wuvers would wuv you vewy much.

As those of us who actually spent a lot of time refreshing siege in wvw know, the existing so called 30 minute timer was bugged, and catapults/arrow carts used to last for at least 2+ hours in sieged up keeps, people used to refresh siege every hour or so and that was enough to maintain it.

Todays patch fixed that and now the strict 30 minute timer applies to everything.

This is really now just too much constant donkey work to maintain sieged up forts.

A change up to 90 minutes would be a great quality of life improvement. People could just do their refresh runs on the hour like they used to, and then go play the game.

Yeah 30 minutes is more like having to do chores than playing a game

So in short, siege expiration was something that always existed but never worked consistently. Now it works consistently and they upped the timer it originally had.

I guess I’m okay with that.

robocafaz.9017:

So in short, siege expiration was something that always existed but never worked consistently. Now it works consistently and they upped the timer it originally had.

I guess I’m okay with that.

No, they didn’t up the timer. The timer was supposed to be 30 minutes, however siege (except trebs) would last a lot longer. Now they’ve been effectively reduced to 30 minutes for all siege.

Basically we got used to how it worked in an apparently bugged state. The bug has been fixed, and as a result it certainly feels like we’re getting hosed. From Devon’s perspective, I think he sees it as finally working as intended. From our perspective we’re not so sure that’s a good thing.

VOLKON.1290:

No, they didn’t up the timer. The timer was supposed to be 3 minutes, however siege (except trebs) would last a lot longer. Now they’ve been effectively reduced to 30 minutes for all siege.

I think you typo’d that first number.

robocafaz.9017:

VOLKON.1290:

No, they didn’t up the timer. The timer was supposed to be 3 minutes, however siege (except trebs) would last a lot longer. Now they’ve been effectively reduced to 30 minutes for all siege.

I think you typo’d that first number.

Thanks, you’re correct. <blush>

We’ve always asked for longer than 30 minutes on the expiration timer. Getting back to your placed siege equipment every half hour makes WvW much less enjoyable, especially on lower tier servers where the outmanned buff pops up quite often. In those cases it’s generally just a few people (sometimes just one) refreshing the siege. That basically means you are constantly porting back from fighting to babysit (30 minutes goes by really fast in WvW).

Of course there are some obvious tactical measures that can be taken to avoid siege refreshing but everyone has to be on the same page for those to work. I don’t think one hour despawn timers are too much to ask for honestly.

At first glance I thought this change was a bit silly but after thinking about it, the 2/5/30 steps do make sense to me.. 5 minutes is long enough to make it to a camp and back, even with some detours.

and the good thing about this timer: NO MORE BLUEPRINT GRIEFING (or at least very short lived BP griefing)

Thanks Devon! =)

To all the people complaining about the timers:

1. The timers are not new, they have existed since the game released.

2. Before this patch, timers were inconsistent and would sometimes cause siege to despawn, sometimes not.

3. The two minute timer after a blueprint is laid out is new, but only applies if no supply is used on it at all.

Everyone calm now? Carry on.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

At first glance I thought this change was a bit silly but after thinking about it, the 2/5/30 steps do make sense to me.. 5 minutes is long enough to make it to a camp and back, even with some detours.

Five minutes isn’t much time at all if you’re having to fend off attackers at a camp or troll the camp till help arrives, or wait in line for supplies when they’re at zero (or go to another camp), or go take take a power node in the lake, etc. Heck, I’ve had fights that lasted much longer than five minutes. I regularly take care of several other tasks that pop up while building siege, but now it looks like if I do build, at least some of the supply will have to come from the keep/tower depot.

As far as the 30 minute timers working, that’s just another incentive to not sink gold/badges + time to build significant defenses to begin with, unless you just like doing nothing but refreshing constantly.

Well Id say you’ll just have to re-prioritize, stopping mid supply run to go fight NPCs underwater seems completely ridiculous to me.

5 minutes is enough time to accomplish the task if you focus on it.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

To all the people complaining about the timers:

1. The timers are not new, they have existed since the game released.

2. Before this patch, timers were inconsistent and would sometimes cause siege to despawn, sometimes not.

3. The two minute timer after a blueprint is laid out is new, but only applies if no supply is used on it at all.

Everyone calm now? Carry on.

We know…

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Well Id say you’ll just have to re-prioritize, stopping mid supply run to go fight NPCs underwater seems completely ridiculous to me.

5 minutes is enough time to accomplish the task if you focus on it.

The power nodes are but one of several tasks I cited as examples. And yes, they are important. Running supply to build one piece of siege while lightening destroys another is counter productive.

And I’m not just talking about building one or two pieces of siege. Sure if your camp isn’t getting harassed you might be able to get small jobs done, but if you’re trying to build 5+ pieces of siege on a busy map, good luck not having some of your prints, along with whatever supplies you’ve already dumped in them, despawning when you have to take care of something else important. If you stay to defend your camp and you lose an AC build that had 30 supplies in it, that’s 3 more trips you’ll have to make later on. If you don’t defend your camp and it flips, you’ll likely lose the AC, too.

I’m sure it depends on the server/map/time zone you play in, but for me, five minutes will result in a lot of print/supply loss. Hence, I’ll have to be much more selective about when I choose to build and more inclined to take from a depot rather than a camp.

maybe you don’t drop 5 BPs at once and instead you wait till the first one is actually built before dropping the next one?

I don’t drop 5 at once, but over the course of running supplies to build 5+ (one after the other), other things will happen that require my time. Are you saying you’ll let camps flip, lightening destroy a treb, ninja groups take towers, etc., so you can complete an arrow cart in your keep?

Perhaps is it not I who needs to re-prioritize ;-)