Guild Wars 2

People are already going crazy with changes that have not even been tested. Every single Joe feels that he’s an expert, and he knows exactly what’s going to happen if white swords were to be removed.
In fact, it’s practically impossible to predict how things go. Will it devolve to simple capping like it is in EotM? Or will it actually encourage players to defend objectives?
Of course, most arguments against removing white swords come with the undeniable fact that defending and scouting is neither rewarding, neither fun.
I think that expanding the upgrade system with more different defensive upgrades available including automatic scout devices(eotm observatory kind) and, well, more interactive defences and even stronger NPCs is in place to be if white swords are removed(I’ll remind you that since the game has been launched, we’ve got Ascended Gear, WXP, many other bonuses, new traits, and the player experience has risen greatly – Right now I am fully capable of soloing Keeps and Towers alone in a timespan of 10 minutes including gates(paper keep takes ~9-10 minutes to destroy 2 gates and kill champ with a single golem), even fully upgraded ones. And I do that on T1 server, too.)
The way at look at it is that while removing White Swords by itself may not be the greatest idea(though we have no idea which way it will go), it provides more possibilities and opportunities to WvW, especially with other changes that can come together with this specific change.

Why not advocate for the fixing of things that’s broken in-game instead of steadily adding more content thus making the game more chaotic? There’s so many items that need a little love from the Devs.
Removing swords should not even be a consideration with superior and guild siege weapons are able breach any T3 fortification in no time. Unless… when the swords are removed the fortifications get some other type of notification system.
If more “possibilities and opportunities” are desired lets keep pushing for changes with some meat.This last patch certainly provided a need for that, let’s not keep breaking something that’s already broken.

Make removing white swords the new outmanned buff, and then keep it for everything else.

This just seems part of the broader trend of making WvW more like EotM. Why do they keep discouraging competition? They want to promote e-sports but their philosophy on competition would make Gandhi want to punch a baby!

It doesn’t take an expert to see that if you don’t even have enough people in your BL to cover every tower, that things are going to get papered. That being stuck in a tower waiting for foes to attack or not attack you not compelling gameplay.

Pretty sure…there didn’t need to be another thread covering this topic.

It would be wise of people to perhaps read the previous threads on the subject instead of making another whiny post that emphasizes their utter lack in ability to comprehend the bigger picture.

In no way does this change encourage fighting enemy players. It encourages very boring scouting on servers that can afford scouts, and it encourages PvDoor for everyone else. Why would Anet promote either of these options? Nobody enjoys sitting in a tower waiting, and if you’d rather PvDoor than fight enemies, PvE offers much better rewards.

This change also, in no way, helps the weakest server. Thinking that is just delusional.

We need to change how we play. No one needs to sit in towers any longer. This is what to do:

1. Identify the zerg.

• Someone needs to search out the zerg
• When found, the player needs to trail the zerg and stick to it like glue
• This way, there will be no surprise attacks

2. Scouts for the southern camps.

• Instead of sitting in all towers and keeps, scouts will need to patrol the three southern camps of their BL to spot invaders as soon as they enter the map.
• These scouts should have more fun than just sitting in towers. They can fight anyone who enters the BL, they can take the camps.
• These scouts will alert the zerg trailer if the zerg ports into the BL.

By changing to this scouting system we will be able to deal with the loss of the white swords.

Advantages:

• It only takes 4 people to be scouts.
• It is more fun than sitting in a tower or keep.

Maybe the loss of white swords won’t be so bad after all. Maybe it will even be good.

Johje Holan.4607:

1. Identify the zerg.

• Someone needs to search out the zerg
• When found, the player needs to trail the zerg and stick to it like glue
• This way, there will be no surprise attacks

This doesn’t work when there are multiple groups running around the map. Then, ideally, you’d need one person trailing each group. That’s also assuming no group waypoints and no group kills the scout, both of which are very unlikely.

Johje Holan.4607:

2. Scouts for the southern camps.

• Instead of sitting in all towers and keeps, scouts will need to patrol the three southern camps of their BL to spot invaders as soon as they enter the map.
• These scouts should have more fun than just sitting in towers. They can fight anyone who enters the BL, they can take the camps.
• These scouts will alert the zerg trailer if the zerg ports into the BL.

This is no better than sitting in a tower. For most tiers, the BL will be empty for many of the timezones, so patrolling would basically just entail running between spawns, waiting for something to happen.

Johje Holan.4607:

Maybe the loss of white swords won’t be so bad after all. Maybe it will even be good.

In no way is it a good thing. Anet should encourage fighting enemies, and removing white swords does just the opposite.

Johje Holan.4607:

1. Identify the zerg.

• Someone needs to search out the zerg
• When found, the player needs to trail the zerg and stick to it like glue
• This way, there will be no surprise attacks

2. Scouts for the southern camps.

• Instead of sitting in all towers and keeps, scouts will need to patrol the three southern camps of their BL to spot invaders as soon as they enter the map.
• These scouts should have more fun than just sitting in towers. They can fight anyone who enters the BL, they can take the camps.
• These scouts will alert the zerg trailer if the zerg ports into the BL.

What makes you assume that the enemy will attack as a zerg without swords? Two people can take a tower pretty quickly if not interrupted. Not a zerg. Two. (15 supplies each and a guild cat or, heck, a ballista. I’ve taken a keep’s wall down with a ballista and some persistence.)

We need 2 more profile categories down voted/ thumbs down and least rated to cut down on some of these threads that just don’t make sense. Unless they’re just doing their job.

As a solo roamer and small scale-dedicated WvW player I am fairly certain if I say that removing white swords will have a negative impact on my having fun in WvW, because removing them will simply get us in less fights. Most people I know are there FOR the fights. They don’t care about the mindless PvDoor, all they care about is their server, their guild and having fun in the form of competitive PvP.

Guild Wars 2 needs more pvp, not less.

Evalia.7103:

People are already going crazy with changes that have not even been tested. Every single Joe feels that he’s an expert, and he knows exactly what’s going to happen if white swords were to be removed.
In fact, it’s practically impossible to predict how things go. Will it devolve to simple capping like it is in EotM? Or will it actually encourage players to defend objectives?
Of course, most arguments against removing white swords come with the undeniable fact that defending and scouting is neither rewarding, neither fun.
I think that expanding the upgrade system with more different defensive upgrades available including automatic scout devices(eotm observatory kind) and, well, more interactive defences and even stronger NPCs is in place to be if white swords are removed(I’ll remind you that since the game has been launched, we’ve got Ascended Gear, WXP, many other bonuses, new traits, and the player experience has risen greatly – Right now I am fully capable of soloing Keeps and Towers alone in a timespan of 10 minutes including gates(paper keep takes ~9-10 minutes to destroy 2 gates and kill champ with a single golem), even fully upgraded ones. And I do that on T1 server, too.)
The way at look at it is that while removing White Swords by itself may not be the greatest idea(though we have no idea which way it will go), it provides more possibilities and opportunities to WvW, especially with other changes that can come together with this specific change.

I suggest you come out of t1 and see if these ideas will work out. Try to encourage people to defend, im doing that stuff for 2 years now and i can tell, its not easy to get people of the Ktrain to do the same as me. Removing white swords will make defending even harder/boredom fest and u dont need to test to see whats going to happen.

Just my 2 cents from a mid silver server with lack of coverage at times i usualy play. We already lose things even with the white swords so remove those, and its 100% guaranteed flipfest.

Berk.8561:

What makes you assume that the enemy will attack as a zerg without swords? Two people can take a tower pretty quickly if not interrupted. Not a zerg. Two. (15 supplies each and a guild cat or, heck, a ballista. I’ve taken a keep’s wall down with a ballista and some persistence.)

Ballista’s dont damage walls. A for Effort though.

The change however is dumb and is a slap in the face to the players as a whole. The developers need to listen, and i mean really listen not just double take and give PR speeches. The white sword change is up there if not equally as bad as introducing Siege Disablers. When players told you it would being broken, you guys insisted it would be fine, just as you are doing now. I’m not one for scripture typically but i feel this fits flawlessly given the situation. “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly”

Can we please break the cycle and start listening to the community at large for a change ?

TexZero.7910:

Ballista’s dont damage walls. A for Effort though.

Unless they’ve changed something and the Wiki is wrong, sure they do. See:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Reinforced_Shot

TexZero.7910:

Ballista’s dont damage walls. A for Effort though.

yeah no, go try it

TexZero.7910:

Ballista’s dont damage walls. A for Effort though.

So, just to confirm it still works, I went over to the FC borderlands and capped a camp, and built myself a ballista in the catapult spot on Briar tower (under the lord’s room) and got damage for all three attacks and drew swords on the tower. It’s not a lot of damage (under 1000 on the 1 and 2 and under 4000 on the 3 with a normal ballista and full mastery), but with enough time, you can take a wall down with it. In the past, I’ve done it to an outer wall on the blue keep in EBG from Langor. Without white swords, there will be all sorts of interesting stand-off locations where you can build a ballista to whittle a wall down. You can take gates down with ballista fire, too, which is useful if the front of the gate gets too hot for rams and the gate is already damaged.

If they want to remove white swords, then add rewards for patrolling and scouting; simple as!

I’d love to think that this will lead to an onslaught of new ways to scout a map, but I think it’s unlikely.

Unfortunately, the fundamental issues of removing white swords cannot be made up for by anything other than a new mechanic that replicates what they already do.

Where currently white swords act as a ‘come get some action here’ indicator, with their removal we will be left with a map screen with no indication of fights to be had. Groups of camp cappers, tower flippers and roamers passing each other like ships in the night. It has the potential to make WvW very very boring.

Johje Holan.4607:

We need to change how we play. No one needs to sit in towers any longer. This is what to do:

1. Identify the zerg.

• Someone needs to search out the zerg
• When found, the player needs to trail the zerg and stick to it like glue
• This way, there will be no surprise attacks

2. Scouts for the southern camps.

• Instead of sitting in all towers and keeps, scouts will need to patrol the three southern camps of their BL to spot invaders as soon as they enter the map.
• These scouts should have more fun than just sitting in towers. They can fight anyone who enters the BL, they can take the camps.
• These scouts will alert the zerg trailer if the zerg ports into the BL.

By changing to this scouting system we will be able to deal with the loss of the white swords.

Advantages:

• It only takes 4 people to be scouts.
• It is more fun than sitting in a tower or keep.

Maybe the loss of white swords won’t be so bad after all. Maybe it will even be good.

This person gets it.

Actually since player gone have more active scout and bunkering in BL’s, i imagine other servers not atacking the other BL’s and EB gona get mostly empty by most midle and lower tiers, unless some one will adventure on afk pvd.

i fear its gona be a afk tower wars, players dotn atack other BL’s when its defended mostly only want to karma train.

I liked the idea regarding changing the scout Meta Johje posted. I have a suggestion for all.

Please post the hrs you personally will be willing to be scouting away from the “action” during the trial.

Speaking as a player with a few thousand hrs into the game, who has done a tad of scouting. IMHO the MOST annoying thing is ’THAT" teamspeak/forums warrior complaining about some perceived scouting fail.

Never seen them scout, never seen them play one second away from a zerg in fact but wah wah wah, we lost hills because you only gave us 15 mins notice and forgot to mention the windspeed in your calls!

Please treat scouts well people, they play an important part in keeping this part of the game alive… Be willing to scout yourself or get off the scouts back when their calls are not exactly in your perceived formats.

We already have a glimpse in the way camp swords operate. By the time swords pop, a small team can have the circle half done. Because of this slow sword response at camps, our small team often flips a camp with reinforcements showing up much too late.

I suspect the exact same behavior at towers. Disciplined groups can already have a gate nearly down before any indication a tower is under attack is visible on the map.

If the concept of the WvW design is to get players to mix it up more and PvD less, fewer indications that enemies are in our backyard is a horrible change.

As a roamer I think it is great. Now I can ninja cap objectives without the entire map being made aware of my presence. Those looking for action can always look for orange swords.

Mega blobs will still be quite visible on the map, maybe this will encourage them to break up into smaller groups with multiple commanders fighting on several fronts.

Julie Yann.5379:

As a roamer I think it is great. Now I can ninja cap objectives without the entire map being made aware of my presence. Those looking for action can always look for orange swords.

Mega blobs will still be quite visible on the map, maybe this will encourage them to break up into smaller groups with multiple commanders fighting on several fronts.

How can you consider yourself a roamer if you’d rather PvE than PvP? Generally, roamers seek fights first; objectives are simply a means to finding fights. Sounds like you just want objectives, without the fights.

I honestly can’t think of any roamer or fight-oriented player who’d support this change.

not a very “broad” look considering you’re from a t1 server and ignoring the situation on lower tier servers. Being from a Bronze league server it doesn’t require rocket science (or an “expert”) to figure out that this change is going to go a long way to destroy the wvw we currently do have going on.

Reason maybe a marketing? sales?
GW2 account 50% off now. Buy your AFK scout now!

mango.9267:

Julie Yann.5379:

As a roamer I think it is great. Now I can ninja cap objectives without the entire map being made aware of my presence. Those looking for action can always look for orange swords.

Mega blobs will still be quite visible on the map, maybe this will encourage them to break up into smaller groups with multiple commanders fighting on several fronts.

How can you consider yourself a roamer if you’d rather PvE than PvP? Generally, roamers seek fights first; objectives are simply a means to finding fights. Sounds like you just want objectives, without the fights.

I honestly can’t think of any roamer or fight-oriented player who’d support this change.

Fights definitely come first but killing yaks, flipping camps and maybe even a tower is also part of it. On T1 if you happen to pop swords on a camp it’s not another roamer that will come to fight you. It’s a party of 10 or 15, where’s the good fight then, you either have to run or get stomped.

If the changes to swords work out the way I think they intend it to, servers will need to have more small patrols and roamers to make up for what the swords use to do. That means more possible fights.

I don’t know how it will affect bronze servers though cause I moved out of there a long time ago. First to T3, then T2, now I having a taste of T1.

Julie Yann.5379:

Fights definitely come first but killing yaks, flipping camps and maybe even a tower is also part of it. On T1 if you happen to pop swords on a camp it’s not another roamer that will come to fight you. It’s a party of 10 or 15, where’s the good fight then, you either have to run or get stomped.

This is only in T1. In any other tier, this would never happen, and removing swords will prevent roamers from finding each other.

Julie Yann.5379:

If the changes to swords work out the way I think they intend it to, servers will need to have more small patrols and roamers to make up for what the swords use to do. That means more possible fights.

Again, this might only be a possibility in T1 (and YB, who already has this implemented). No other server has enough people willing to do such a boring job or enough action to warrant it. It’ll help small groups that want to PvDoor, but it’ll help large zergs even more. It’s not hard to drop 3 superior rams, tell people not to proc orange swords, and then steamroll everything on the map.

Even worse for finding other small groups to fight.

retsuya.4708:

Reason maybe a marketing? sales?
GW2 account 50% off now. Buy your AFK scout now!

I think it’s more of a “Leave your low tier server and transfer to T1,2,3” marketing tactic.

Removing white swords would be a hackers dream…

sephiroth.4217:

Removing white swords would be a hackers dream…

Don’t forget the spies and trolls. “30+ on inner bay!” while theyre hitting something else instead.

I miss the old Competitive Dev team…

Evalia.7103:

The way at look at it is that while removing White Swords by itself may not be the greatest idea(though we have no idea which way it will go), it provides more possibilities and opportunities to WvW, especially with other changes that can come together with this specific change.

A system that truly provides possibilities and opportunities is one that does not treat all attacks equally, but handles attacks by a small force, 25+, and a map blob differently. It should also handle camps and towers/keeps uniquely. A “one size fits all” change is not gonna cut it, sorry.