Guild Wars 2

T1 Servers are fairly far away from dropping out of T1 so nobody is PPTing to avoid that. For and example of what I mean by playing for PPT look at the last Borderland Stress Test. Two servers opted for Zerging/Blobing/K-Train style and one played for PPT by splitting up and taking objectives and only defending if possible with numbers and to stall out long enuf for a tick. Yes the Zergin/Blobling/K-Train servers had a lead at points and had high PPT for parts, but at the end of the day the server going for PPT and not Zerging won. What T1 servers are doing is not playing for PPT, and if it is they then are not good at it. I don’t think with how WvW works currently that playing for PPT should happen. As people have said they find it boring and it is unrewarding in comparison to K-Train. The WvW T1 K-Train isn’t as bad as EotM but it’s definitely not PPT focused gameplay. I do understand a lot of guilds in T1 love to fight and will often map hop untill they find fights.

Chaba.5410:

I’m not talking about as a solo player. I’m talking as a player who leads a guild and frequently tags up to lead militia. If you’re playing PPT and not just ktrain, that role often requires situational awareness of 4-map “politics” and deciding upon the over-all strategy to maximize your PPT depending upon what forces the other servers have out and how they are playing. Sometimes strategy dictates that you avoid fights because if you get tied up in a long fight you could end up losing objectives you’re trying to hold onto.

Agreed you have to pick and choose fights. Also you need to split up some times to take multiple objectives quicker. Example you main force is headed to a tower and needs supply so you send two groups(5 – 10) out to capture nearby camps. A larger group can still use the same tactics to defend as I mentioned, weaken them until you can take them. You can defend objectives against larger groups and you have to keep in mind that you are occupying a large amount of their force defending. If you have same numbers send a group of 10 or so to go capture another one of their objectives while you hold them off. If they leave communicate that to your other team so they can fall back and regroup. Does your guild or server do these tactics often or do you just try to get as much PPT but not in the most optimal way? If they do what server do you play on, and/or what guild?

Jayne.9251:

Build AC halfway up the stairs. Then YOU get the advantage.

Good way to defend but still does not cover the fact that being on top of wall is not advantageous.

Zoom hack goes both ways just a matter of who builds first/more.

dom.2748:

Well that is an extremely disingenuous way to do it. NSP never has more than like 5 person queue on one map at a time and thats usually just on reset night. Calling that a full server is extremely ridiculous.

Never said if it was right or not. I believe it is misleading to WvW players but it makes sense to someone trying to join a server. If it says full they are not allowed to join. Hopefully HoT will bring WvWers so that full can feel like full where the server is crowded.

gavyne.6847:

You are a ranger, you are about the only class that have the range to hit things outside the walls. Most other classes get insta pulled or gibbed by ground marks because they lack the range to do much of anything unless they stand right on top of attackers and poke their heads out like target dummies. Rangers can stand to the side and safely pluck away.

I agree with the person you quoted, ppt/pvdoor is just boring. Defending at its current form is boring for most classes. Defending is also whacked because of zoom hacks with ac’s that can destroy everything inside, and you can’t even mount a last stand in lords room without standing in ac fire.

Bottom line is people don’t ppt because it’s boring. But even T1 servers have turned into ppt fest because people fear of dropping out of T1. It’s ridiculous watching a zerg of 30+ run away from fights just so they can ppt more.

Any class can hop on an arrowcart and defend. Yes the arrowcarts are not in a good place but that is a different discussion. Also non-ranged classes tend to be stronger so they can leave the tower (depending on attacking force) and harass the siege and bring it down. Nobody defends because the rewards are little and don’t count killing siege.

Also T1 server’s aren’t a PPT fest. The are K-Train fests. If they were PPT fests then how come servers don’t respond to me taking a paper keep in their home bl with a small group (10ish) with one golem (alpha) and 1 ram on each door. We got scouted and a few from the map tried to stop us but didn’t bring us down. After we took the keep we held it for an hour at least before a K-Train finally showed up to take it back. What took them so long? They though they would get more PPT by taking 2 towers in EBG then defending a keep? I’m not sure why people think T1 plays for PPT when they don’t. I join JQ public Teamspeak form time to time and never to they seem to have a concern as to how our PPT compares to other servers. Depending on the guild running the Zerg they are either looking for fights (fun) or just running through as many paper objectives as they can before porting to another map and repeating.

[quote=5379406;gavyne.6847:]

dom.2748:

This system has Northern Shiverpeak classified as high. This is hilarious if you’ve actually ever been to NSP you would know why. There is no way in hell a server with such a low WvW population should be considered a high population server. Unless low pop servers average like 5 people a night this is wildly hilarious.

I think this is because the based their ‘full’, ‘high’, ‘medium’, and ‘low’ off of total WvW population. I play on JQ and most of the time I don’t see more than 1 maybe 2 maps with a small 1 – 15 person que, and we are flagged as full. They are trying to set it up, I believe, so that all servers will report high or medium when the total WvW population is spread evenly between them, even though the worlds themselves can easily take more people without it actually feeling full. Just my opinion though.

I have heard rumors of 7 Guilds leaving JQ (NA) but wasn’t sure if a Developer might come back with some actual numbers. I figure they are watching them after the changes to see how everything is going.

Chaba.5410:

PPT playstyle can be boring. That’s the biggest reason. Sometimes the most PPT-efficient strategy requires avoiding fights or ktraining. It’s BORING!

I actually find defending objective quite fun and interesting. I play a ranger and often sit on the walls finding someone that oversteps just a bit so I can burst them to down state. If I’m luck then I get the kill on them if not I might have still knocked stacks off them. After a while of this their numbers dwindle and eventually our group can push out and have a good fight. This is more subjective so it will depend form player to play.

However I don’t think boring is everything. Look at how many players go to Silverwastes and farm gold all day. That is boring to me and I feel it is to most of them as well however they feel they are getting rewarded for it so they do it anyhow.

Yes if you play for PPT and other servers don’t it feels just like normal K-Train except you keep a closer eye on what you control and defend smaller objectives. I think the main reason this is the case is because other servers are not playing for PPT either. So you don’t get the fun (in my opinion) times of attacking a tower while it is getting defended.

Right now playing for PPT is boring and unrewarding and that’s why people chose the slightly more rewarding K-Train zerging. It’s is about as boring but at least you are earning rewards.

Also when running with a 5 man group it can be fun trying to take objectives while a much larger group is around. Got to play sneaky and keep eyes out in all directions.

Aeolus.3615:

they werent rewarded at that

That is my point in this post. I’m pointing out the reasons that people play the way the do, and possible fixes to the ‘problem’ if it is even a problem. I’m not saying people should go about not K-Training just the reasons for it happening since there is a large portion of the Guild Wars 2 community and Arena Net themselves that don’t like this style. It being a problem is subjective .

Red Post

They have been having payment issues so lots of transactions are delayed up to 72 hours.

If you are talking about appearance purposes there is also the wardrobe. Every time you get a new piece of gear that you haven’t had before and you bind it to your account or your character (salvaging works also) it get’s stored in your wardrobe. You can then use transmutation charges to apply the look of that gear to your current gear (has to be the same type of gear, light, medium, heavy).

Clarion Bond will not always activate when you swap pets and in combat. You get the pet swap cool-down and not the effect.

This occurs when you are right about to come out of combat. If you jump off a wall and wait until right before you leave combat and switch pets you can get the cool-down on the pet swap but not the buffs.

Also have had it happen a few times in normal fights but unsure how it happened or a good way to test. I am aware there is a 30 second cool-down.

PPT and K-Training are different. K-Training is about flipping as many objectives as possible. PPT is about Holding as many objectives as possible and bigger point objectives are better. T1 Servers K-Train and will just flip as many objectives as possible in turn they ‘hold’ lots of objectives so their PPT is high. Many higher tier objectives are lost because the K-Train doesn’t defend because they are busy attacking some other objective on the other side of the map. Also they can just come K-Train flip it easy after the attackers are gone. If a server were to play for PPT they could group up to stop a zerg from K-Training them. Most K-Trains move on if they run into opposition looking for easier flips really depends on the guild running it. Once they leave your stuff alone you can split up and attack theirs half the time they don’ t defend unless it’s a upgraded objective.

I play in T1 NA and have taken many towers with a small 5 man group with enemy blobs on the map. These normally only get retaken after then finish K-Training where they were on the map losing the points for a few ticks.

Supply is important

• This is an intended feature but it only enhances the large group style because more players equals more supply. The more supply the more you can do to attack, defend, or fight other groups with. There are a few mechanics to try and make this not so bad such has supply camps only having 100 on flip, supply drain traps, and trebuchet cows removing supply. Maybe add a few more features to help this out like supply can only be taken so fast from objectives (100 supply per min)
• Larger groups with more supply can place more siege down to take objectives quicker allowing for more rewards quicker. There is a siege cap in place however it could be refined a bit more. The siege disruption devices were a big help to this problem but it still doesn’t prevent 5 guild catapults spread out taking down a wall. This might be a bit tricky to change but maybe make the siege placement checks a bit different. Make them look of siege of the same type and cap that lower with a larger range on the check. Make different caps per siege like 1 for ram, 2 catapults, 3 trebuchets, 4 arrowcarts and make the range the size of a tower. This will also help limit spam of arrowcarts on defense to a reasonable number. Unfortunately people can miss use this to place siege in bad locations blocking good ones, maybe cap is much higher inside objectives for defending teams.
• If siege get’s destroyed larger groups can simply rebuild with the large amounts of supply. To fix this maybe make it so that destroyed siege stay put for a few min and still blocks new siege (if at siege cap) from being placed. This problem isn’t to bad because normally if you found a way to destroy it the first time you have means to destroy any new siege placed.
• Repairing objectives is a quick process for a large group as they can fix everything without any supply running needed. This makes it harder for smaller groups to defend a tower from multiple waves of attack. Maybe limit how quick a wall can be repaired to 5 repairs a minute. Also make towers that don’t need anymore upgrades use supply to repair automatically if supply is above a threshold (or not using supply with the changes to upgrades).

Thanks for taking the time to read my ideas and good luck on the battlefield.

Hello, below is a list of topics as to why servers tend to shy away from the PPT play style and more into a Zerg/Blob/K-Train style. Feel free to add your own thoughts or comment on mine below. For a tl;dr just read the bold sections, the bullets below them explain on the point more:

Often coverage determines the winner of a match

• Unfortunately WvW is a coverage game and I think this hurts it the most. Even if when I’m on and I lead my server to hold the highest PPT for a few hours that easily get’s negated if later in the day or week my server doesn’t have people to even compete for PPT. This is a simple problem with no real good solution or I think Arena Net would be implementing it. They are always looking for ways to fix this problem.
• Maybe a solution would be to split up the server into different ‘time zones’ and each has it’s own points, population, and ladder rank. However, this would only divide servers more and make WvW ladders look super confusing.

No real reward or triumph from winning a match

• The rank system makes it so that it takes a long time to move any reasonable distance in the ladder. I’m not against this system but when you win you don’t feel immediately rewarded in this aspect
• Just getting 3 bonus chests isn’t a big reward. I think the main reason for this is because it is so easy to obtain. Maybe the reward should scale better based on how much you helped your server to win. Many players often spend 3+ hours a day each day of the week only to get rewarded with 3 bonus chests
• Other than sitting at the top of a leader-board on a website there is no real benefit to being one of the best servers. Adding something would not help the bandwagon to the top servers problem (which is now not possible with the new population out).

Active rewards while are to basic

• This is what is the easiest to change and I think would have the biggest impact to the enjoyment of WvW
• Rewards for taking objectives should be based on how many players took the objective, and how long the other server has held the objective. The more players that participate in taking a objective the less of a reward it should be down to a minimum. Rewards need to be based on difficulty. The longer a server holds and objective or the higher tier it has reached the more the reward should be. Again reward should be based on difficulty. You can even use this to remove the RI buff from objectives by making there be little or even no reward for flipping a camp before 5 min have passed. However that should only be the case if RI is to prevent people constantly flipping it for rewards.
• There is a lack of reward/game-play for scouting the enemy servers yet it’s is important for earning high PPT. Maybe add some telescope upgrade to towers/keeps that give the ability to see players farther away and ‘mark’ them. Player gets reward based on marking players and rewards can only be earned so quick so there is no exploiting. Marked players would show briefly on the map similar to how EotM works. Add a flare item(similar to how the traps work they need supply) that will mark enemies and give rewards for marking them, more for out of objective scouting.
• Tweak defending events and how you get credit for them. It seems silly to me if I’m defending a tower and I kill an attacking teams siege that I don’t get credit for defending. The only way to get credit currently is kills and repairing. A lot more goes into defending objectives and one of the most important killing siege isn’t rewarded. This makes defending fairly undesirable because if you bring people to kill of the attackers they run before they die so no credit unless you repair. Using supply to repair is normally not wanted because it’s a waste unless it stalls the other server out so your team can arrive and defend or the siege has been cleared and the tower defended already.
• Besieging an objective will only give you rewards if your server takes the objective. This one isn’t to bad because normally you server takes an objective when you have been attacking it for a while. However a crucial part of taking a larger more fortified keep requires several attacks to weaken the keep and drain it’s supply. This can take a long time and often you might have to log before your team takes it. You should get rewarded for knocking down walls and doors a bit more than the little bit of WXP.

I believe what he is looking for is a easy way to view WvW daily achievements when NOT in the WvW maps and NOT using the hero panel.

Seems like a cool idea but not sure Arena Net will want to spend time developing it as it’s just a small inconvenience.

How well is the population ‘re-balance’ going?
Are people starting to transfer off top servers and filling up lower servers?
Once lower servers fill up close to full will the ‘full’ cap be raised?
Good work and thanks for putting some serious resources into WvW!

Frye.4608:

How about a +range buff inside a castle or, if possible, just on top of walls? 10% extra range makes defending more pleasurable and the game more realistic.

If you are using projectiles you do get a range increase for being higher up, not much but it is there.

However I do agree that being on a wall in the real world is a huge advantage and in the game the only thing it’s good for is keeping people form getting into melee range of you.

Possible Fix: put a roof over the wall so that aoe’s only hit a small portion of the ‘front’ of the wall. They will still be able to use standard projectiles to hit you if you push up but AoE’s on the walls won’t be so oppressive. Possible downside arrow carts would be much harder to kill if even possible, but I feel arrow cart’s need a rework anyhow but that’s another topic.

I think you really need to define roaming because people will either agree roaming is dead or alive based on how you define it:

Roaming: You run around not with a larger group (15+) playing WvW if it’s killing other groups, flipping bloodlust, or taking objectives.

This form is not dead as many people have mentioned that they see people running around solo with x build. I myself run around as a Bezerker Ranger using Traps and have solo taken towers and defended camps.

Roaming (Honor): Running around with a smaller group (<15) and finding other opponents with similar numbers to try and have fair fights.

This most people will consider dead. I have heard rumors of lower tier servers still having groups that play this way but cannot confirm. The this with this is WvW has never be design around ‘fair’ fights. People normally run to the blob/zerg because they know more numbers can win a fight even if you are out skilled. Most players looking for a PvP experience are looking for the ‘easiest’ way to beat other players to boots their ego, this results in ‘cheesy’ or ‘easy’ to win builds.

TLDR: People running around solo/small gorups still is alive and well they just often don’t look for ‘fair’ fights but that is the nature of WvW and PvP mentality.

It would be nice to see something like this and who knows maybe something like this is coming in HoT (already said there will be changes and buff are permanent now).

The currency is called influence and is earned by members of you guild doing events or in other words INFLUENCING people that the guild they are representing is doing good. In my opinion holding an objective in WvW should earn some reputation (aka influence) for the guild holding it.

Unfortunately I have to agree with Korgov that just passively earning it would just make random guilds try and claim the ‘easier’ to hold objectives. I am aware there is a ‘counter’ to this in how objectives can get claimed.

Maybe a simple solution is just a boost to any influence earned by the claimed objective?

Anyhow most of this doesn’t matter as already mentioned in the news about guilds influence is no longer a currency for guilds and they hinted that upgrades would just be more time based.

Still would be nice to earn something for claiming an objective to make guilds and WvW more ‘excited’ about defending objectives.

Would be cool to have a unique finisher for tournament winners. I’m not talking just about the big tournaments but the small community ones too. One of the things I like about Guild Wars 2 competitive it’s that Arena Net is trying to make it fun, rewarding, and exciting at all levels of play. It would be cool though if they added a little unique reward for winning a tournament, as of now you get gems which anyone with money can acquire. Having a finisher is something simple yet fun to work towards, also if they just gave you 100 uses a win then it would draw people back to the tournaments even if they have more gems then they will ever need. Anyhow keep up the good work and I can’t wait to try the new leagues out.

Those new population changes RIP Stackgate

The starting boxes of gear don’t include everything either. I wanted to try a Trapper Guardian using Rune of the Trapper but couldn’t because I couldn’t get the runes (without leveling up huntsman and crafting them after getting lucky and finding the recipe in WvW). I don’t think putting all the Runes in a box is a good fix either xD would fill your inventory even worse.

Does anyone know any information on Rune of the Trapper?

Will it ever come to PvP?

Why it isn’t coming to PvP if it isn’t a time issue?

As a Trapper Ranger in WvW was looking to try some PvP and noticed these runes are not an option. Would like to know if I need to try a different build for PvP or if I need to wait to use my WvW build.

Thanks

What I’m talking about is the portal stone drop that you could try and farm for in the silver-wastes. Can we get one similar to this in WvW. It would be nice to know that there is a way I can attempt to make it into the next beta other than just knowing the right people. This would also be nice to see some increased WvW activity, heck make it one of your WvW event weeks too.

So in my humble opinion ever since Arena Net introduced the world experience points walls and gates have become a little to easy to knock down. I think they should give a little buff to the walls so it takes about the same amount of time it use to before the world experience showed up.

Note: I love the world exp system I don’t want it removed I just think they make it to easy and quick to capture a point.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

My other points still stand. Achievement point hunters recently made WvW unplayable for many of us, and we don’t need more of it.

How so, It helped my server out (lower tier server) because it brought more people to the battle making the map feel more alive. Also since the achievements were split over different areas there were groups that formed to do specific tasks such as tower caputures. I can see how it would increase que times on higher WvW population servers but other than that I don’t see how it made it ‘unplayable’. Different I will agree. I also agree that achievements are probably not the best way to go about doing this change from zerg fest to strategic sieging and starving supply from points to weaken them.

Good discussion though

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

I guess you haven’t been paying attention to the complaints about Toxic mobs in WvW for the last couple of weeks?

…

Besides that there are far better ways to break up the zerging karma trains. Better rewards for defense would be a good start.

I agree that the Toxic mobs are in the way, this is because they are not in any way helping out with WvW, take a look at the merc camps for instance lots of players understand their importance in the WvW realm. All I’m suggest is more stuff like this and maybe make these events chain into more than just a camp.

I also agree that more rewards for defense should be in place, I also think that the gates and walls need a bit of a buff because of the recent world exp perks causing them to be even easier to knock down. Part of this was on a successful defend of a tower under attack from one of the events was an event of your own that is a counter attack.

Thanks for further explaining why you don’t agree it makes it easier to see, and I know this is the perfect solution but I do believe it is a start. I will take a while to get any new major change working properly.

Ozirus.4859:

To me, WvW should be about territory creep and expanding/pushing your boundaries

This is exactly my though too and what prompted this idea. I wish I could find a better what not involving NPC’s so it doesn’t feel like PvE to players but I don’t see much of a way. Thanks for the reply.

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

If there was ever a post that needed a -1 button….

Any particular reason why? Just saying things suck isn’t helping anything, if there is a valid reason behind it, the ‘downvote’ is much more powerful.

Retsuko.2035:

More PvE in WvW? no thank you!

It’s funny you say this because for the average WvW player that follows the zerg most of the time you are just PvEing because you just run to an objective build some stuff and knock it down while the other server is doing the same to one of your towers. I do see your point this is supposed to be a PvP battle area and making more NPC’s seems like taking away from PvP interaction but if it works properly it will cause more PvP interaction I believe.

Thanks again for the comment though, can you think of any other ways to break the zerg up a bit and not make it PvE like that would be ideal.

Thanks for reading this post and leave any comments on things you liked, things you thing should be tweaked, and things you thing should not happen. If you have your own suggestions on making WvW feel more alive post them here as well. I thank Arena Net for all the hard work they put into this game I just wish they put a little more time into WvW. Every two weeks the PvE’s get a new patch with new content and WvW hasn’t seen much changes (apart from the world exp). No I don’t consider the edge of the mists map to be a WvW change other than for high WvW population servers (however I have heard it is supposed to be a beta grounds of sorts for the actuall WvW maps). Thanks for you time in reading this and replying.

Sorry for 3 posts I was limited on the number of characters I could use and I wanted to get as much information out as possible to explain the concept well

Edit Please read the details of the post before you assume the content, this is not to make WvW have more PvE stuff but rather to make it feel more alive and more like a battlefield rather than a zergfest there are only a few NPC’s added to help group people as they are grouped in PvE they are not meant to be huge NPC groups that have to bet PvE down.

I love many things about Guild Wars 2 but most of all how when you are out exploring the world events will start up on their own and often people working or exploring the zone will find themselves grouping up to complete these events. One of the major down sides that people dislike about WvW is that it is often a huge zerg-fest unless you find a dedicated guild in doing WvW. The solution to this is making WvW a living world.

I have noticed that this forum in particular is much more full than most of the other forums on the site. I can’t imagine it is easy for Arena Net developers to look at possibile suggestions for the team they are on. For example a WvW developer can’t just come in to the forums and see WvW suggestions. Same with Dungeon developers, Living Story, and so on. I think the community and the developers would like at least a little breakdown in the suggestion forum instead of one giant forum that good suggestions can get lost within. Anyone else think this would be nice?

Edit: Changed the title to better represent the topic being talked about in this forum, sorry for any confusion.

I think the main reason they don’t give out anything is because of how they slowly diminish over time. This would allow people to capture a point and then step out and wait for it to drain then recapture (capturing). There isn’t any reason they can’t have a defend event for them that would reward players similar to how other WvW locations have it. Bloodlust is a fairly new mechanic and will probably get tweaked a bit before it reaches its final place in the game. However that is another discussion in itself.

I like how the breakout quest in WvW gives an opportunity for a smaller group to attack a tower that is a bit stronger or guarded by more players. I think this is a unique way of helping out the smaller groups fighting in WvW and chip away at the larger ones. So how can make more of WvW like this:

Assault Quests – These quest are much like the breakout quest where a NPC will attempt to rally some troops up and attack a defensible location. The next few paragraphs will describe how they are started, work, and how people will know when they are occurring.

Starting the Event – Supply and dolyaks are a major part of WvW but they tend to be overlooked a bit (supply camps often don’t get upgrades). Towers sometimes don’t need supply from the dolyaks either making no real need to defend them. To kill two birds with one stone so to speak we can have the event get trigger by supply in a location. Now people are going to get mad if they can’t upgrade a tower because some silly NPC even keeps draining it all so the only time that the even will trigger is when some (to be determined by balancing) amount of supply is reached over the maximum the point can hold. For example if a tower can hold 100 supply and it is full the next dolyak puts it’s supply in a special event or supply depot that is untouchable by players. Once this ‘bonus’ supply reaches the amount required to trigger the event the bonus supply is drained and a countdown timer starts much like breakout quests. The only time this bonus supply fills is when the normal supply is maxed out. This allows points to always be in need of supply, and can work on supply points as well (done by passive supply increase) but probably should not be.

How they Work – As stated before they will have a countdown timer to try and group up nearby players to make the assault more effective. Different points would have different events. For example a tower might make a few guys that drop arrow carts and rams down where a keep would make ballistas and catapults. The buffs they supply might be different as well such as giving power or stealth on travel to the place of attack. These events would attack any neighboring defensive location that is controlled by another server, and if all neighboring points are already held then they even turns into a defensive event causing siege equipment to be placed at the location of the event and a few extra guards spawning in (possibly no event also).

How Players Know When they are Running – Much like how most of PvE works on in the world of Tryia when a ‘Map’ event begins it shows up on everyone’s map (also like bloodlust dose now). This will help to make WvW more like the rest of Guild Wars in feeling like a dynamic world. It will also cause smaller groups to form up on events much like when Map events occur in PvE. Once grouped people tend to stick together and have an overall better experience.

As of right now WvW is kinda a zerg fest as many know and it doesn’t feel alive like much of the rest of Guild Wars does. This change (tweaked for balance of coarse) would help to bring more of a living feel to the battle ground. It also make dolyaks more important to escort to locations as they are not only for defending but also attacking. Any thoughts or opinions on this idea helping make WvW more ‘alive’ would be appreciated.

runeblade.7514:

Any kind of AoE knockback in auto-attack is just overpowered.

So the catapult is overpowered then? And the trebuchet! Also as I mentioned it would be a new spell with more cooldown than the normal attack. I like the idea of firing an explosive round as suggested above. Kinda helps with the hitting moving targets and lack of CC.

Obscure One.4357:

Balistae like Golems, are offensive weapons rather than defensive ones. In specific Balistae are used to counter siege placements, provided those placements have LOS to your Balista.

I must be mistaken because I though that they were kinda a counter to catapults taking out a wall. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be used on defense as well as offense. I like the idea of a penetrating shot but it seems it would be op because then on defense you could just build a ballista on the ground behind the walls and shoot out being almost un-killable, not to say that arrow carts can’t already do this.

Some suggestions to the claimed points system:

Reward Guilds for Holding Points – As of right now a guild has to spend their possibly hard earned influence on upgrading the point they control and there is not reward in return (other than the buff itself). Maybe it would be nice if any even that took place at that point earned influence for the guild holding it. Maybe if that is too much influence then just automatically increase the influence guild members earn around their controlled tower.

Customize the Point – It would be cool to have a bit more customization to the points other than just the banners on display. Possible something simple like a few wall styles to chose between or what the supply areas look like at the point. Something that players will start to recognize and associate with specific guilds (allies and enemies).

Show on Map – Might be nice to show on the world map which points are under control by guilds and what guild has it. Something simple like the icon displays a small star on it. Also if you mouse over a point that is currently controlled it would display the buffs it is currently offering.

Guild Benefiting Upgrades – When a guild holds onto a specific point for and extended period of time they should get something out of it because it isn’t easy to hold things for an extended period of time. Maybe something simple like all items purchased from the merchants(like siege ones that you get from upgrading) give 10% of the cost to the guild bank. In points that don’t allow upgrading merchants add some sort of merchant upgrade.

What are other peoples though on how to make the point claiming system a bit more exciting and rewarding to use. As far as I can tell right now the only point you see it used on much in the occasional supply point for +5 supply and on the castle.

I do think it is silly that they have decided to put wheels on most of the siege but it is unable to be moved. I also like the idea of salvaging siege and getting something back out of it (not fully what you put into it) so that when you attack a keep with a smaller force you don’t need to have as many supply runs to build siege on the second door/wall.

I have noticed that the ballista is a siege equipment that is used less than others and I believe there are some reasons for it:

Hard to hit moving targets – I think this is a reasonable part of the ballista because when the rounds do land they hit for massive dammage. Some people don’t like this feature and prefer other siege instead because of it. I think maybe a small tweak to the projectile speed but it isn’t necessary.

No form of ‘CC’ – All other forms of siege have some sort of CC weather it be a knock-back, knock-down, or slow, ballistas however do not. When an enemy force is stuck in a choke point for longer from some sort of CC they are forced to take more damage. This makes other siege more effective than the ballista. Possible fix make a long cool-down attack that has some knock back for whoever it hits and call it heavy bolt or something, or maybe have some other form of CC such as a giant scorpion wire ability where it pulls enemies to the ballista (great for attacking people on the wall).

Requires LOS – This is probably the most problematic part of the ballista. It only allows for the ballista to be used in specific spots and makes it un-idea for a lot of situations. They are near impossible to use on a wall for defense unless you are on a ramp above the wall, they just hit they wall when you fire. I don’t think you should change it so they don’t need line of sight I just think it could be improved. A simple solution would be to just re-do the model a bit to show it as a higher standing ballista and move up where the projectile get’s launched from (allowing them to be used on walls easier to shoot out). I’m sure there are many people that would agree that it is frustrating to build a ballista just to shoot the wall you built it on.

Anyhow these are just some small change suggestions for the most part I like how the device works but would like it to be a bit more use-able so you seem more on the battlefield. Thanks for your time reading this post.