Guild Wars 2

So do you punish just the commanders or everyone who is following?

Such a scheme can’t be done without the support of at least a few people to build the rams.

I like the rewards, but definitely not seeing the Ecto’s. Every 7-8 chests I might see a rare. I did get a supply trap instead of a weapon/armor piece today. It’s not like I have a million karma and 100+ jugs.

Anet’s love of RNG now has events only happening on certain servers and certain overflows.

I’d be less upset if it weren’t tied to an achievement.

And it’s frustrating because we don’t know when the next event happens so there is uncertainty in obtaining the achievement.

I’m glad for the change.

And, people still rush in ’zerking and not letting others tag.

It still takes less than 2 hours to accomplish, so quit complaining.

KaMiKaZe.1874:

I had some fun tonight contesting Gandara keep in Eternal Battleground for few hours, not easy with a lvl 31 thief that pretty much gets 1hit

Quite funny seeing 20ppl looking for a thief time to time =)

You did keep getting killed.

I think one person said something in chat about it being contested.

Contesting our keep isn’t exactly tough with a thief that does have all their utility slots and elite.

Good job nonetheless, especially the perseverance. XD

FrouFrou.4958:

You got Judged. Or Juded. Or Jugged. Depends if Osicat gets to do the punchline.

Do you guys really tell people they got Judged? Amusing and a bit cliche at the same time, I like it.

leadustin.1572:

Wow! Your da man of the week! Killing with AC´s! Is this real?

Did you not see the blob you were in?!?! I feel like it was an accomplishment. Lighten up, just some light trolling.

To FSP: Great job flipping SMC today, took away an unnecessary WP from AM :P I would like to apologize for a commander who harassed your incursion. Most of us were glad of your distraction while we took some of their towers and were content to let you have SMC.

To AM: Not exactly a battle at QL against your super-blob, but the 10 of us there did laugh when our AC’s took out a few dozen of you on the bridge to the Lord Room. Thank you for the lols.

Enjoyed the hilarious fight against the AM super-zerg in the dredge camp this evening. Not sure why you all ran into a dead end tunnel, but we appreciated the loot nonetheless.

Like mentioned, it’s likely so that camps don’t flip so fast.

Riselight.3695:

Can you get any lower AM?

While I’m sure it’s only a small group doing it (so I hope), you’d expect AM to keep their own house in order and discourage such unfortunate behavior (e.g. report the offenders, at the least).

Immolator.5640:

Arrow Cart Hax yet again AM :/ The Arrow cart was directly outside the door, at the start of the bridge… it was also hitting our bridge so not extended radius crap… broke my pc screening the bridge, didnt get it tho, in queue back at present…

I died from this.

AM, please share how you get your AC’s to shoot on the other side of doors, it’s a neat trick.

How do you think we’d even respect you as a server if you keep pulling dirty tricks like this? With 40+ of you there, seeing it happen, you are all complicit of cheating.

edit: Screenshot for Lowlands north gate. No gap.

Riselight.3695:

And now, AM is using zoom hacks as well…
Good job guys, if you need to use hacks to win, very good job

With increased radius (and even without) from ranks, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with how the enemy AC is hitting.

A recent attack on Anzalias gave me access to an AC on ground and I wakittenting their AC which was on the inner ledge of the wall, near the top of the wall stairs.

The more money you are willing to spend on siege (superior rams/ golems / amount), the better chance you can take a tower before the enemy can react.

You know how fast a T3 tower falls to 5 Superior Rams and a 50+ mob to support that action? Less than a minute. Barely any time to react. Not enough time for a few Arrow Carts to stop a mob that is spamming heals and protection.

This is a mechanic that seems broken to me. How can you go toe to toe against enemies willing to spend badges (that they’ve attain from blob farming) to effectively fast capture a tower before you can get there?

Make the doors stronger? Not fair for smaller groups who won’t ever amass such firepower.

Limit siege on doors to 3 normal rams or 2 superiors? Doesn’t seem right either.

If defenders can’t get from the main spawn to their tower (in EBG) to support a handful of defenders on AC’s, something needs to change, in my opinion.

I’m I being ridiculous or do others have similar thoughts?

(Screenshot is 5 superior rams)

AM mega-blob in EBG this morning, putting superior AC’s on towers not in their section. It’s all or nothing for these guys, isn’t? :P

Ahh, spawn camping. A tactic as old as gaming itself. True and tried, with whole bunch of douchbaggery mixed in.

How do you build siege with no supply camps? Doesn’t it seem a bit broken if you have to map to a BL to do that?

Suggestions to beat this:
1. Leave for 15-20 minutes and come back. With nothing to shoot at, most will get bored.
2. Mesmer portal. Ask a thief to give you a nice long stealth, run behind them, drop 20 players on their siege, especially AC’s. AC’s can’t hit targets next to them.
3. Strip naked and run at them. Eventually their siege will die.
4. Not a suggestion. But tag their keep if there is a WP there.
5. Leave on the outer edges, and skip over them. Take some camps, hitting targets not near them, force them to spread out.

While a pain to deal with, it’s by no means so insurmountable that requires an immediate fix from Anet.

Naffy.1493:

We need some sort of calvalry like mechanic to break through the zergs. I would be on board with that.

Did I just hear we need mounts?

Great post OP. I agree on the map design aspect. More chokepoints and having less of large open fields will help remove the benefits a zerg enjoys.

If the idea is to add siege, add barricades or something that helps break up zergs. AC’s aren’t your answer. AC’s excel against small to medium groups who don’t have the raw numbers to outbuff the damage. Zergs can shrug off a few AC’s with ease.

You should not be able to hit inside the middle of the tower from behind a two story wall.

I don’t see how people think this is okay.

Exosferatu.2961:

A group / guild of few people can eliminate any zerg with the tactical use of synergies: water-fields (regeneration & area of effect healing using “Blast Finishers”), fire-fields (might boon stacking: max 25), chaos armor / fire aura & other auras (“Conditions” for your enemies) and more. Ambush (w/ Crowd control skills first then Spike-damage) a zerg with few people using Veil or Portal Bombs. And don’t forget tactical siege weapon placement.

If you can use synergies properly, you can get more gold in WvW than you earn in Cursed Shore. . .

Aside from the odd video here or there, I have never seen a few people wreck a zerg. The closest I’ve seen was one of our guild groups of 15 slice through a 30-40 person zerg, and that is relatively rare too as it requires good timing.

In my opinion a zerg debuff is a great way to discourage massive groups. “You are in a large group, you do 33% less damage due to player density, and you get less 33% XP/karma/gold.” It’s relatively realistic as from a battle management perspective. 40 people shouldn’t be able to tag one player and get a couple dozen items from them. If I had dozens of green and gold items hanging on my body, I sure as hell wouldn’t be running around WvW with them.

It still is horrible in the largest 3-way SMC fights. But overall, I feel like I’ve complained less about lag recently

Tagging is sufficient as far as I know. But OP’s argument still stands, as he’ll be mid-line or back-lining with his support role and less focused on tagging enemies. Even if he tags some, he tags significantly less than the DPS focused players, thus less rewards.

The whole reward system is bias towards DPS and large groups. The last major WvW updates had some changes to help with the defenders and supporters, but those rewards are scraps compared to what the DPS-zerging players get.

The support players should get rewards based on what the players they are healing / buffing are getting. Loot sharing, but not actually sharing.

Some guilds claim towers for the prestige and will “host” a tower for sometime, maintaining an active presence to deter enemies, guard dolyaks, and upgrade. They may not have tower buffs.

But, what happens more often than not is a player claims a tower to see his guild banner displayed to the world, and not do anything about its defense.

The claim should go away if there is no active player of the guild on the tower or in the immediate area, after a set time… 30 minutes perhaps. If you claim a tower, you should be near it. And every 30m isn’t bad to retag siege, etc…

This issue is difficult to address as you are rewarding players for effectively staying in one spot, for watching a tower, being a spotter.

Dolyak escorts used to reward, but that was heavily abused and removed.

I agree with OP that it usually comes down to the same few people to do such a thankless and unrewarding job. It’s these players that hold a server from falling apart, by maintaining a stronghold to fight from.

I doubt Anet will ever come up with a reasonable solution, as it just affects a small group, and has no significant impact on the game. You either sacrifice your loot or join the zerg train.

While we may be winning by a landslide, for those of us defending, it’s been a headache.

In EBG, sure we held most of Arborstone’s section, but it’s basically running from one fire to the next, a commander leading the PvE bandwagon zerglings to their next set of loots and WXP’s. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an FSP tower unmanned and without siege to defend with. I wish Gandara would take a page out of your book.

The dedicated veterans build up towers to T3, but because Gandara is comprised mostly of reward hounds (not that we weren’t before), towers are empty, siege isn’t built.

So, next week, when we get pitted against a more powerful server, Gandara will be a wasteland, leaving the veterans to deal with ‘not winning’. And the bandwagoners will be running Southsun loops, CoF, and whatever else is easy loot.

FSP and AS are like “QQ Gandara player, you have it so tough.” But really, blob vs. blob, yelling at people to scout, and losing T2/T3 towers b/c our zerg is halfway across the map and has no situational awareness. It’s frustrating.

natzmc.2895:

I am not asking this to start a flame war, its a genuine question, I thought as a server Gandara were against blobbing? Like as a rule of thumb.

I think you got a good answer to this above, but I’ll add my view.

We don’t have any rule that is anti-blob. As mentioned we are originally a PvE server with a halfway decent WvW team thanks to the presence of some strong guilds. We have a lot of pugs which tends to generate bigger groups, at least in EBG. We don’t, for example, bounce around our BL’s, like Abbadon’s Mouth, with super-zergs.

What you saw yesterday on EBG was a bit atypical. We had no larger guilds roaming, so majority were pugs, and with the success we were having, the ball grew to proportions we don’t normally witness. Towards the end, when we had 90% of the map, we were back down to a “reasonable” 30-40 group.

We might blob more if more players weren’t simply following their own agenda. So instead, we get people chasing roamers, or engaging gate gaurds, or frolicking with some Rams in WvW PvE. Thus, our blob potential falls apart rapidly.

Unfortunately I have some errands to run so I won’t be able to hop in EBG for a few hours yet. I’ll see y’all soon though.

The match up for our server this week is not as bad as others, but Arborstone got placed with us and Far Shiverpeaks, with a few tiers separating Arbor from the latter two. And, they are the green server to boot.

Jinks.2057:

I think no one on either server should WvW for the week in protest to Anet and their wonderful kitten up.

Fissure of Woe and Vabbi are already one step ahead of you.

Yes please

I was going to comment on methods to prevent people from just camping them, but real sentries know that eventually the posers get bored and leave, with you remaining, staying vigilant.

Perhaps the players tagged get a little icon, like the PvE Sonicscopes (or w/e) that indicates someone is watching you.

Thanks to a persevering and sleep depriving commander (Guinivere), we took over EBG, and as someone stated, ‘painted the town red’.

We don’t do this often, so I feel like this deserves a little showing off.

Props to FSP for holding out as long as you did in Langor. You kept us back the whole time.

FSP, despite losing, waiting for us in Valley, in EBG, in the Lord room, was hilarious.

10/10 would fight again

The mass server exodus, server hopping, and bandwagon’ing was the cause of a lot of matchup imbalances to begin with.

Be patient, the new system is coming. While you wait, save up your gold as the new system isn’t guaranteed to give you a good time as it is.

Plus, how do you think I feel? Gandara can’t hold Stonemist long enough to get a Waypoint, even when we’re green! Ridiculous.

Hilarity on German forums? Can someone pass me a link so I may partake too?

Huh, well that makes more sense.

When I get those level ups mid-battle it’s like the universe handed me a rainbow-unicorn shooting bow personally, to smite my enemies!

Just imagine if a large [guild] group got all their chars within a hundred XP of next level, and mid-battle your enemy sees you all getting golden halo super saiyen power ups as they get that kill that brings them over the next skill point level.

I thought I was crazy. I’ve seen this happen a couple times thinking “how did they rally?!”.

It’s always been a small skirmish with a few on each side, and always in a close fight, where you are super focused. I’ve seen players downed and then get downed myself and they seem to rally with no player res or environments in sight.

Thieves are by no means the only class able to this with ease. Mesmers can, I do it all the time. One of the safer ways: set your Portal away in a secluded area, run to the gate casting Mass Invisibility, having it activate just in range of the guards, Sword 2 on the gate as you set your exit portal and before the attack finishes you can portal out without being touched.

Elementalists are easy too. RTL to the gate, damage, use Lightning Flash and Mist Form to make an easy escape. Staff works with Earth 3 to reflect projectiles, and Fire 2 for safety, Lightning Flash and Mist Form for easy escape.

I’m sure all classes can do it. Thieves probably have the least skill bar modification, but if your intent is to tag, chances are you are not planning to fight either. WP out and return to the fight… by then your Utils will be recharged and you can swap them back to normal. Rangers can just send pets in as decoy and longbow it. Necro has Spectral Walk. Warriors and Guardians can take the damage and hit the gate.

As the mechanic isn’t limited by class, I hope it’s not changed.

Excalibur.9748:

why would you disable comments/ratings for the video?

Because all you’d see is ‘L2P’, ‘noob’, ‘haha you suck’, and maybe a ‘thieves are op’. Basically, nothing constructive, so why even let them?

OP, while I am on the side of ‘stealth is broken’, one mistake I noticed is that everyone clustered together hitting the same area, very easy for a thief to avoid. Spread out and you have a better chance to catch them. Not too far, don’t want to get ganked.

In this current game state, thieves have superior hiding and getaway skills, so it’s best just to ignore them when you can. In this case, I’d have followed him around to make sure he didn’t tag up with a Mesmer and then just left. The thief can’t kill the Castle Lord on his own and cap before anyone notices.

The best counter is to give them something they can’t resist.

Get a squishy class, and have them stand in a secluded corner, away from activity, as if they have gone af_k.

Thieves are killers by nature, so this easy mark will be too tempting to resist, thinking ‘an easy kill, no one will notice’. He’ll reveal himself, not being able to pass up seeing a 12k backstab. As he goes in for the stomp, that’s when you pounce. Boom! Dead thief.

Alternate ending: He gets the stomp, C&D’s, and leaves laughing.

woomera.9841:

People here are prolly talking about our 10-15 “blob” roaming around EB and looking for some fun activity and challenge ofc. Not helping anyone thats fo sho.^

I haven’t heard any of that myself. I like when we have guilds roaming around the map, stirring up fights and such. Keep doing what you are doing.

wish.1027:

Steel chest is the good one actually. Wooden is junk.

I’ve never seen this and I play a lot of WvW

Master of Timespace.2548:

Been mostly a crappy blob vs. blob match up. Gandara is just blobby as the other 2, as well.

You have to beat a blob, with a blob.

It’s obviously a classic case of the chicken and the egg. Which blob came first; Gandara, AM, or RS?

Would you have preferred us to wait until you had inner down, engaged with AM, and then we choo choo through and cap?

I don’t know what you are expecting. An apology, for throwing a wrench into your plans to capture SM?

Is it because it’s not fair? If that’s the case, do something about it. I’m sure DYE is looking for a challenge.

Killing enemies is trolling? Maybe we prefer AM to have SM over you guys, so it is to our advantage to prevent that from happening (not really though, we want it, but we are too lazy to cap it).

Ekwah.8152:

That was one of the situations yes, but not the most important one. We finally got rid of all the sieges and the mortar at the south inner gate and placed catapults on the wall. Guess who came and destroyed them.

If it hadn’t been DYE, then it would have been AM. If you can’t defend against one, you won’t be able to defend against the other, because AM would have just drowned you in a sea of players.

Crular.9762:

Considering the comments in this thread so far, I’ll go out on a limb and assume they don’t care at all who has what on EB and just try to kill everything in sight.

They care (possibly), and they’ll help if asked, but they are doing a fine job roaming and generally causing havoc as it’s now being complained about on the forum. And they are obviously easy targets… why not kill and farm for badges/loot/WXP?

Ekwah.8152:

It’s really pathetic what the guild DYE from Gandara is doing on EBG at the moment. Every time we are trying to conquer Stonemist they are destroying our sieges and helping Abaddon to defend it. That’s going on for hours now. Respect for the good defence from Abaddon so far but DYE is really doing their best to help you out every time we are making some progress.

Then don’t set up a Superior Trebuchet right next one of our towers.! XD

Our Anz trebs took down three sections of the SM outer wall, and then you set up your treb right next to Anzalias to take out their inner gate long distance. You tried to take advantage of our work and had the audacity to do it near our tower… of course we’ll take you out. (Though a couple people did say to leave you be, to reset SM, but no one listened.)

Also: loot bags

PS: I’m not part of [DYE]

Norreka.8407:

holy molly gandara got no bloops no never ever…

see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge4VWs8rs8g

.

Wow, if this is serious WvW I’m glad I am not part of it. Just listening to you talk to your guild mates would suck all the fun out of the experience for me…

“Zu mir, zu mir, es muss scheller gehen. Es geht so, nicht einschlafen! Und wir ziehen uns auf eine ecke zuruck. Hinter uns ist ein attack, nim in mir rein. Feuerfeld, schnell feuerfeld, explode, wo ist das feuerfeld verdammt und scheisse.”

“To me, to me, it has to go faster. This way, don’t fall asleep! And we go back to a corner. Behind us is an attack, gather on me. Firefield, quick firefield, finishers, where is the firefield kitten and kitten.” -roughly translated

You zoom in on our Gandara blob at 1:38, which is just a portal bomb (so maybe 20 players?). And looking at your green dots on the mini, we are just matching your numbers, defending a Keep… so yeah, there’s going to be a lot of us. XD

The anger is misplaced and I’m sorry if people from my server are acting that way towards AM. You are just taking utilizing a valid tactic to win.

The anger stems from players being upset how the zerg mechanic is so overpowering and is far more rewarding (in terms of loot) compared to smaller 5-10 man groups. They are angry at Anet for not properly addressing the issue and effectively encouraging it. And because AM’s super zergs are so visible, they focus on you to vent their frustration.

Barring some well coordinated guild groups (XxX on Gandara for example) or clever commanders, super zergs negate any engagement tactic by shear, overwhelming, numbers.

While I say that, I still shake my fist angrily at AM, because today in EBG we had a 25-30 sized zerg with our commander and seeing the BL’s turning blue meant your super zerg would show soon. And sure enough the Outmanned buff (debuff?) appears despite our numbers, saying AM has arrived and significantly outnumbers us and prepare for a tidal wave we can’t stop.

Why golems don’t have blueprint ownership is beyond me too.

As said, the more you can tag, the more chances you’ll get kill credit and more loot (and badges).

The bug favors servers willing to pay for golems and large numbers.

Right now, people aren’t bothering with upgrades to towers as a dozen on the walls can pretty much just watch while a couple golems and 30 enemies tear down the gate.

lordkrall.7241:

Dhampyr.2104:

Three words – Public Test Realm.

It amazes me that sweeping changes are apparently made without playtesting.

And it amazes me how preachers of the PTRs seems to ignore the fact that they usually don’t help anyway.

Why don’t PTRs work? I was going to agree with the comment, that any sort of change should be tested in a sandbox like this. Having a copy of the game running on a separate cluster seems like a no-brainer to me. The tests to run can be exhaustive, but that’s what automated testing scripts are for, to do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Losing T3 towers left and right to a couple golems and a rainstorm of 30 person spam on the walls. This is ridiculous.