Guild Wars 2

No response on Reddit either. Haven’t seen heads or tails of any red all week.

No response on Reddit either. Haven’t seen heads or tails of any red all week.

And here I am, all choked up for nothing q_q

I remember it as being stressful and rather embittering since the upgrades often got wiped before completing.

A clarification on his part would be nice, though the ‘hit you without you hitting me’ bit sounds like a ringing endorsement of being able to use ACs without LoS. Perhaps, as others have suggested, with a new firing mechanism akin to catas/trebs/etc so that their overall damage is reduced if they’re firing at mid-to-long ranges.

Then again, I think that sounds like a better balanced tool, so maybe we’re not too far apart?

Walls being deathtraps definitely isn’t healthy. I would add proxy catas to any list of unhealthy mechanics too, though they would be far less so if walls were safe. Still, since I don’t want walls to be totally safe from everything, I’d rather change ACs still.

DeWolfe.2174:

One of the appeals not listed is that Alpine is visually cleaner and more attractive. The structures are not decrepit and broken. They are something you’d actually want to own and defend. Heck, if the Desert map was glaciers in the north, green pastures and grass on the south, and some water in mid, it would have been far better received. Though it would still have the same layout issues and contrived traffic patterns annoyingly designed to slow you down.

Jr. you need to take a breath in between posting. Alpine was/is a superior design which allowed for faster pacing, more active combat, and more map politics.

You are entitled to your opinions, but I do not have to accept them as fact.

I don’t think a proximity based damage buff will fly since it will likely lead to yelling at other players to go away. Also, Anet is notoriously bad at communicating how things work so I doubt people would really get it…making the yelling somewhat necessary.

Yes, but a better plan is to ensure the game doesn’t fall apart with such minor population differences.

If you look here: http://coveragewars2.com/timezone/?tab=graph you can see that there isn’t that big a gap, usually. The biggest gaps tend to be when one server peaks because the other servers, if they can’t match the numbers, experience a sharp population decline. I imagine this is because they realize there’s nothing they can do.

Giving people limited tools for damage control during low pop times should precede more hardcore population balance.

I can’t seem to get images to show up, for some reason, but have some links.

Airkeep All Outers

North Gate: http://puu.sh/o18I7/05e741288e.jpg

Northwest Wall: http://puu.sh/o19su/0b55c130cf.jpg

North Wall: http://puu.sh/o19tw/5f1366c0a4.jpg

West Gate: http://puu.sh/o19uf/64c8a284fc.jpg

South Wall: http://puu.sh/o19uN/f813323260.jpg

South Gate: http://puu.sh/o19wD/a95768ee6e.jpg

Firekeep All Outers

Northwest Wall: http://puu.sh/o19xU/a5a5114ddb.jpg

North Gate: http://puu.sh/o19AL/aa1099c945.jpg

Northeast Wall: http://puu.sh/o19AY/4508621dda.jpg

East Northeast Wall: http://puu.sh/o19BS/87b50c7d32.jpg

East Gate: http://puu.sh/o19CL/71f4c13ae4.jpg

East Southeast Wall: http://puu.sh/o19Dn/39e1b8e863.jpg

Southeast Wall: http://puu.sh/o19E4/2b57182fed.jpg

South Gate: http://puu.sh/o19Fl/f13cc4e161.jpg

Southwest Wall: http://puu.sh/o19FY/be71b0a0eb.jpg

Both run-throughs were actually quicker than I remembered. Also, at Airkeep, I was able to see the gate from my path without taking a detour.

Dawdler.8521:

Uhm…

There are 5 gates and 8 breakable walls (walls counted off the top of my head, more or less) on undercroft.

If you run straight south from the north gate, you will not see the lord room, you have to run to the east gate to actually see it, you wont see one of the walls and you have to run all the way down to see the actual gate.

You really cant get past the fact its a maze. It doesnt even matter how many gates and wall it has – bay had 6 gates and 6ish breakable walls (again, off the top of my head). Its the layout of the keep that matter.

Palace is definetly not a straight line – if you run straight from south to north, you wont see the west gate (stuff in the way), you wont see lords, you wont see south inner, you wont see north inner and again you have to go all the way up to the north outer gate to see it. Hell you wont even see SW cata spot, because its hidden behind a hillside.

If you want an entire border layout comparison btw, I made it long ago:

I was referring to outer walls/gates. I actually defend things so I rarely arrive after outer has already been breached, but I should have specified as such—sorry. For that same reason, I’m not super concerned about checking the lord’s room unless inner has actually been breached at some point. The only time you need to go there is if inner is open (at which point it is obvious) or if inner was opened and a mesmer may be inside.

I’ll log on real quick (or after patching, apparently) and take screenshots of all the walls, assuming I have access to the sidekeeps. In the meantime, please note that I said you have to detour from the straight line to check the side gates, though it is only a few seconds.

There’s no mythical population balancing solution that’s going to make the 5v15 situation go away. At best, it won’t be common during primetime, but that’s about as much as can be hoped for.

OP

Viable defense for a tower or keep needs to account for a small number of players defending against a zerg…because this is what happens the vast majority of the time. Because joining a giant blob and karma training around the maps is so heavily encouraged and incentivized by the game design (most rewards, easiest play, safest play), very few people defend. In order for defense to be viable, the defender needs to be able to hit the enemy without being hit themselves. Very basic…but it’s the central design of all defenses since tribes started building huts thousands of years ago. I have to be able to hit you without you hitting me.

Now I know it might seem on the surface that it wouldn’t be “fair”, but again, remember how the game is played. The vast majority of the time, a huge blob is running up and bashing down the door of the tower and one or two guys are frantically trying to stop them. The blob doesn’t need any more help, for heaven’s sake. Help the two defenders so defense might be a little fun and worthwhile and then more people might do it and fights for objectives might require a bit more than just getting in a blob and running over everything.

If a large attacking group and a large defensive group show up at an objective, the defenders should have the advantage. It’s a tower or keep, is it not? Attacking forces should be trying to draw enemies out of defensive positions, rather than just beating the door down and having all fights in the lord’s room. Defenders shouldn’t have to sacrifice their wall or door just to create a choke point and actually fight to defend.

I don’t agree with it all, but I think this part is well worth a read. OP contradicts it earlier when he says it should all be about fights and only fights, but somehow I think he got it right here.

I know people don’t like listening to me but maybe you’ll listen to this guy…who’s saying the same thing…

I wish everyone who isn’t happy about this was around when Anet asked. Then again, since their communication channels are so inefficient, I can’t really blame you.

There are 4 breakable walls and 3 gates on Undercroft. Running straight from the south gate to the north gate, you can check all of the walls and 2 of the gates without detour, plus the inner walls/gates. In the unlikely event that enemies are using the east gate (I’ve seen this happen exactly once), you barely have to detour from the straight path to check it. It doesn’t take even as long as running the full crescent around Bay to check all the outers, not to mention the inners.

Palace is much the same. You can run in a straight line from the south gate to the north gate and check all of the outers. You can make a slight detour to check the east gate in the unlikely event that it’kitten. The inner is similarly simple. This one does take a little longer than Hills, but it isn’t a huge difference.

Also, with sentries, it’s usually pretty obvious where a group is setting up and you have advance notice to be on the lookout for them. I was worried about this when HoT first dropped but have since found it to be a non-issue.

Dawdler.8521:

Sviel.7493:

At any rate, were you able to defend all of Alpine with just 5 people?

5 people could easily control and scout entire Alpine with minimal movement, requesting reinforcements in time.

On Desert you need 5 people just to scout undercroft and you will probably still miss the 20 people already on the lord.

The size difference and layout is actually quite massive.

I don’t think such exaggeration is helpful.

Puck

On multiple occasions I held hills by myself against groups of 20-30. I would use a good number of siege disablers and mortars/counter siege to destroy anything they had built or send them flying off the cliff.

I used to love going to an enemy bl and ninja’ing hills and then upgrading it to get its wp. I would get roaming fights for hours from people trying to cut off camps or try to take the keep back.
When they did call in the map blob I’d send out word to our own commanders that they could come join in the fight or go bust one of their other way points while they are distracted.

Those 20-30 people couldn’t have had half a brain between them ._.

Had they been on the switch back they’d have been safe from ACs and mortars and you would have had to jump out of the walls to siege disable—but you wouldn’t have been able to get all the catas at once. Also, being knocked back there is a much smaller drop that is non-lethal. Once through outer, the rest would be cake.

But I dunno, maybe you’re superman. If I recall, you weren’t in a boondocks tier, but ninja’ing Hills as a roamer really shouldn’t happen.

I don’t think it was always like this, but I noticed recently that the side camp Yaks no longer run to Rampart if the northern tower isn’t allied. Probably a change for the better.

The old upgrade system is not appealing to me at all, but there’s probably some middle ground that can be found here. It’s already been changed once since HoT dropped so I’m sure it can be changed again. What do you think about changing the guild claim system to resemble the old upgrades? That way, you get the baseline things like walls and gates, but get to choose from the passive guild bonuses as an active component. I imagine it would culminate in getting an Emergency WP which, imo, is far more exciting a tool.

Can you expound on why you want to remove shrines? I don’t think I’ve heard much on them besides passing complaints. I personally like them as roaming hotspots (the RI is much shorter) that can do cool things but won’t make or break an assault. Since they’re so easy to flip and don’t even pop swords when attacked, I’m not really worried about the abilities attached to them.

Sich.7103:

Yes we where able to control alpine with 5 active people. We had generally some other people running around but who don’t speak with anyone.
But eb was always called when we had too much ennemy on the map, and people joined the Alpine map because they know that we are defending, and that if we hold the map we can have the WP.
Now that we can’t have the WP and that the tower have no tactical advantage at all, no one care about jumping on BL to defend something. All is useless on the DBL, except PPT structures have no value at all.

PS : We where on T3 EU at this time. Off peak time was quiet and few people was able to do the job. But at least there where job to do, and this mean something. With all auto or no WP available there no point to have T0 or T3.

Are you saying that 5 people scouted and called in reinforcements from EBG when needed or that 5 people handled defense on their own? If it’s the former, that seems totally plausible (on any map). I really miss the days where I could count on having a handful of folks during the off-hours.

May I ask if you would like the Desert maps if the WP system was reverted? I think that’s productive feedback, at least. What are some of the other things you disliked besides the WP and Auto-Upgrades.

I’ll take your word on the WP change announcement—I probably just missed it.

At any rate, were you able to defend all of Alpine with just 5 people? One of the reasons that I prefer Desert is that it is harder to rush a side keep since you can’t re-use catas and there are sentries along the most common paths. I still can’t defend the whole map with just 5 people (don’t even want that) but I am able to put up a much better fight.

Still, the WP change is not map specific. It’s not going to get better by going back to Alpine. I’d rather have Desert with the old waypoints than Alpine with the new.

I sort of wish we hadn’t gotten the new map and the HoT stuff all at once since it makes it harder to see what’s causing what. The new mechanics should have been phased in first and in as small of chunks as possible.

Dana.8721:

sviel, what can i say i guess one persons nightmare is anothers fun fight. Can’t say I hold it against you if all you saw was the usual plays, and no doubt there were a bunch of predictable seiging ill give you that. I will say during the 2-3 years living in the alpine bl’s I saw a lot more creative mind games then the usual ninja catas. There were some great ninja havoc groups and coordinated multi zerg moves. Some great mind games. Getting nostalgic just thinking thru all the great now defunct guilds, friend and fo. rip retired players.

Can you give me some examples? Also, can you show me how those examples are exclusive to the Alpine map? I don’t doubt that they happened, I just don’t see how the map encouraged it rather than the easiest path.

Sich

What I don’t understand is why people continu to think that the new DBL is fine until you learn it ? Sorry, I have learned the new map, and I hate it… Sorry I have learn the new mechanics and I hate it….
Before HoT was out I have say here on this forum that the auto upgrade and the WP change will kill a big part of the game…

How did you know about the WP change before HoT was out? Were you a beta tester? A quick look through your post history (forgive me, I must be thorough in all things q_q) suggests that you were willing to try the WP change out at first but have since soured on it.

Anyway, I don’t have anything against you for not liking the map. I don’t think you’re dumb or anything. In fact, I really appreciate that you are a more defense-oriented player.

However, when it comes to debating the merits of a map, I prefer to stick to the facts. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing wrong with the DBL, just that I’m not going to give any weight to nostalgia. It’s still perfectly possible for someone, even someone who isn’t a GvG groupie, to not like the maps. But things like ease of navigation and run times can be looked at with more objectivity than they’re being given. I know you dislike the HoT systems like upgrades and such but I see that as a separate issue—they’re going to be on Alpine too, probably.

I understand that the comparison was relative. However, it’s rather apples/oranges.

I’ve spent dozens of hours on TD (ironically, it’s my favorite HoT map) and I still don’t really know my way around. I know how to get to the underground hub, though, and can take the long way to most places from there. It also has the mechanics you mentioned that make life much easier.

Conversely, it took me about an hour to get comfortable with the Desert BL. I never got lost and I could easily improvise a path from point A to point B. With more experience, I learned to use shortcut mechanics and improved on some paths, but there were no big discoveries after the first hour.

Thus, to hear the two compared as such strikes me as recklessly dramatic. You’re right in that the nature of the complaint is the same but there is a gaping difference in severity.

The lack of details makes it hard to understand you…but let me know if I’m close.

Jana.6831:

We had fights = We fought with siege

You used siege to repel enemy attacks? What did you do for Hills/Bay cata spot after LoS changes?

Jana.6831:

, we ran up to the enemies with siege,

This sounds like open field siege but I’m guessing that’s wrong?

Jana.6831:

without siege,

A straight fight?

Jana.6831:

we called in reinforcements,

Zerg vs. Zerg, yeah.

Jana.6831:

we capped their BLs so they would leave ours and so on -

Karma Training, got it.

Jana.6831:

do you now know what I mean with fights or do I have to listen to myself very carefully again?

I’m not a mind reader and you’re very stingy with details. I figured that when you said ‘fights’ you meant the same thing that everyone else was using the word for. Now, I’m not really sure what you mean at all.

Jana

ETA: And well, I guess I can’t convice you that your memories are wrong – but there’s good news for that: The ABLS are coming back and then you can see yourself that you can counter almost everything with siege and don’t have to run out of anything if you don’t want to. If you have people who know that on your server that is.
Btw: If you dislike the strategic aspect that much: EBG still is like it – you can counter most stuff from other objectives – and hey it works.

Can counter rams, open field trebs/catas.

Can’t counter proxy catas after AC LoS changes. Can’t counter tower trebs or spawn camp trebs without a zerg to face their zerg.

I think the counters to rams are too strong and the counters to proxy catas are too weak. Tower trebs are a silly Karma Training deal that unfortunately is inseparable from the map. It’s not strategy—it’s snowballing.

Jana.6831:

You’re wrong on this.
We had hour long fights around objectives, sometimes even for days because everything could be countered. Bay couldn’t counter Briar though – that was the only case.
The ABLS were a lot more strategical than DBL not only when it comes to siege, also camps.

Listen to yourself. Carefully.

Jana.6831:

You’re wrong on this.
We had hour long fights around objectives, sometimes even for days because everything could be countered. Bay couldn’t counter Briar though – that was the only case.
The ABLS were a lot more strategical than DBL not only when it comes to siege, also camps.

You had fights because they were the only way to defend. The walls were barely an obstacle—especially since getting them to fortify is nigh impossible under pressure. The fights were not because everything could be countered but because there was no other choice. Also, people like fights. Every encounter on Alpine was just a fight with a few walls for scenery. It was great for about 3 hours when everyone had the maps queued and then it was awful depending on who had the most pop at the moment.

Now, I don’t want to diminish fights. No matter what happens, fights are going to be the best way to defend because they don’t cost supply and don’t incur supply damage. However, since even in prime time the home team is potentially outnumbered 2:1, fights should not be the only way to defend. To be clear, fights should be the only way to defend indefinitely, but not the only way to defend at all. A good server should bring enough people that it can fight and focus on whichever part of its map needs to recover supply from holding out until the fight can happen. This has the added bonus of letting off-hours players hold out better against the Karma Train.

Can you expound on how Alpine had more tactical depth in terms of siege/camps? I’m not sure what you mean by the first and have no idea what you mean by the second, so I don’t want to make assumptions.

X T D.6458:

Now I can see it being an issue on lower tiers that might not have the manpower to assign scouts and escorters. But it is important to promote and not neglect the importance of small team play, in the past a small team could hold down an entire bl while in communications with a zerg on another map, now there is just to much incentive to use a zerg everywhere, for things that small ops/havok teams used to do so well. I personally have great respect for what small teams do, I have seen some amazing work from them, and I really hate how they were marginalized by HoT.

It’s not a matter of manpower, it’s a matter of making the necessary tasks worthwhile. Giving us busywork isn’t going to make scouting feel rewarding, just tiresome. If you want to promote small-team play, give scouts the tools to impact the match besides calling in a zerg.

Also, I disagree about the incentive to use a zerg everywhere. Just yesterday I heard a guild talking about how much better splitting into 3 groups was rather than being all together. The way I see it, people are zerging because they want to knock down walls faster or they want to force the enemies to zerg in response (usually when they can’t field one). That’s not going to change with an upgrade button unless no one considers it worthwhile to press.

I doubt it would be productive to go into how HoT was better for small teams (but population decline was not) as we’ve beaten that horse thoroughly in other threads. I do want to note my disagreement, though.

There are 3 keeps, 4 towers and 6 camps. The keeps would still be upgraded pretty regularly but keeping up with the rest would be annoying. At least, I haven’t seen any convincing reason to impose that on players. With no cost, it’s not going to bring back the ‘pride’ thing. It will make Karma Training/Havoc easier if players don’t want to run about queuing upgrades, but that seems like a poor reason to impose such inconvenience. I’d rather be defending something or roaming than running in circles around the map.

Also, camp upgrades aren’t even worth the trouble.

That said, it’s a concession I’d be willing to make—I just don’t think it’s a worthwhile idea.

Only a Shield Generator with the WvW rank perk can stop AC fire, but I don’t think the radius/uptime is enough for it to be useful in a fight.

@ X T D
I’m not totally opposed to an upgrade button, though I think it’s just going to institute a bunch of busywork. Sure, the Karma Train will appreciate fewer upgraded structures but that’s only happening because it was too annoying to push a button in all of them.

@DeWolfe
You didn’t make any arguments and thus did not merit a response. I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you, though.

@Luvpie
It takes 1.5 hours for T2 and 4 for T3. If there’s any pressure on the BL, T3 is easily a 7 hours journey or, sometimes, impossible unless a server concentrates on a small part of the map. The only time the new system is really hard on a havoc group is when WvW has very low population for long periods of time. Even then, ‘hard’ on a havoc group means they have to spend about 2 minutes longer on it. That’s less time than it would require to push upgrade buttons everywhere.

@Luvpie (second post)
Sentries are great~

I don’t think they replace scouts since you need a first responder in place quickly to save anything, but they are invaluable in helping players get to objectives before all the walls are down.

Dana.8721:

simply put it was great for roaming (open land) and they were fun keeps to either defend or attack. The appeal was that it was just simple. No gimmicks. The fun of those maps came more from the creativity of the player base finding different strategies and siege spots, etc to try to take/defend a keep.

Hills was a nightmare to defend. So was Bay. So were all of the towers. Garrison was alright in terms of inner, though outer was a lost cause.

Also, there was 0 creativity in siege spots. You either trebbed from inside a tower or abused the double (outer+inner) cata spots. If you were at Hills, you cata’d with impunity by hitting the rocks on the southern switchback or just went to the one wall and took it and inner down before anyone could stop you. It took less time to get on the map and break outer at a side keep than it did to run from Garri WP (or worse, spawn) to the keep.

The result was that defending a keep was only possible through repeated lord’s room fights. It worked well enough during prime time but was brutal if there was ever a brief mismatch in coverage. I don’t know how you remember it differently but I’m super interested in finding out.

Luvpie

Size matters… In this case DBL is just TOO big & inconvenient to run because of gimmicks.
Alpine: Spawn to first objective to attack or defend was 10-15 secs? Second objective was another 10-15 sec, third objective was another 10-15 sec, 4th objective from attacking spawn was long ways and at maybe 1 min of running MAX.
DBL: I fall asleep trying to count.

To first objective is ~10-15 seconds. The south towers are closer to spawn than on Alpine. To second is ~30 seconds, assuming you mean the side keep. To third (north tower?) is ~45 seconds, though Alpine was around ~30s since you had to walk aways and then climb a switchback for the shortest path. Fourth (Garri/Rampart?) was ~1:30 on Alpine for Watergate and Suicidegate, 2:30 for the others. On Desert it’s ~1:45 if you run through Oasis.

Luvpie.8350:

1. autoupgrades give you no pride in defending upgraded stuff is my main point. defending t3 garry on alpine was the most fun because server was invested in the ugprades and losing garry was considered major. Now kitten gets flipped and upgraded on it’s own.

I’m familiar with that argument—it’s been trolled out ad nauseum. I acknowledge that there’s less pride in it but reject the idea that there’s not ample reason to defend it. The only time it takes no investment is when there’s no pressure on camps and no one attacks it mid-upgrade—not a situation that happens often.

It’s not like you, as a commander (if you are who I recall), had any direct role in upgrading old-style Garri that you don’t still have for Ramparts. I simply can’t believe that the gold/karma of some other player was such a huge part of the motivation to defend it.

A better argument talks about the WP changes, though I think the good outweighs the bad there.

Aeowia.7214:

Lowering arrowcart damage against players, to something insignificant, would have been the most important change towards making WvW fun, alongside a scoring system where winning fights decides the ranking, and varied population balance measures (dare to try out things and keep only those which help).

What we got instead was an encouragement of unskilled bunkering on siege, avoidance of the only fun part that WvW ever had: the fight system, because being cowardly made you a “winner”.

What could have been…

In other words, structured large-scale PvP would be the ideal. I do wish they would add something like that but…I doubt they want to deal with the balance issues. Can’t say I really blame them.

Super Kruegs.8967:

Either way one could make the case (and I will here) that less defenders shouldn’t be able to defend against many more offenders it makes a stale game. Why should 5 siege humpers be able to defend against 20 attackers? Now imagine that same scenario with even numbers it makes offensive gameplay near impossible, and at best super boring countering siege sites all raid. That’s the issue with HOT and buffed siege weapons. There’s no fluid gameplay. SMC is pure gimmick now, the BLs are PvD or foiled by a much smaller defensive force. It encourages PvD not PvP as taking anything defended is at best too difficult and at worst painfully boring. If it’s worth defending (AKA fortified keep) defenders should come. If you don’t have enough defenders you shouldn’t be rewarded for your lack of coordination and/or population by OP defensive siege.

In short, defense is a supply limited game and offense has a massive advantage in the supply game and in the mobility of their attacks. A tower can’t reposition, after all. Thus, while defenders can repel some attacks by a larger group, they cannot do so indefinitely.

If we stay in a situation where defenders cannot repel a single attack from a larger group then we see servers owning most of the map during their prime time and see the population of one server drop as the population of another rises since there’s little point in trying to play if you can’t have the most people. See: http://coveragewars2.com/timezone/?tab=graph and the PPT tab too.

Also, why is it that PvD is preferred to being repelled by a smaller force? I would think that a player interested in PvP would prefer interacting with other players. I’m a little disappointed that people are repelled once and proclaim the objective too difficult to take rather than trying to outsmart the defenders.

Super Kruegs.8967:

Lastly there are effective ways to kill offensive siege without defensive siege. If you have one person with a smoke field and 2 other people that understand blasting you can usually stealth up enough to get to the siege and get a burst off on it. Sure you might die but this is RvR. If you portal stack and push out with 3-4 people you can usually disrupt a siege and eventually stop it even if the other server has more numbers. Have a melee player push out as a distraction then have your range players bomb the siege, or disable, or pop a tag to rally people, or call out in your TS/map chat the attack. There’s so many non-seige options but people are too lazy to get gud at the combat system they just like their 1 button bag machines.

You can try this, but you will die and the siege won’t. In the time it takes you to return, the enemies will have resupplied and built more siege than you can damage in your next attempt. That you posit this as effective betrays a misunderstanding of how tanky siege engines are or a limited experience of facing very small (5 or less) groups.

I think 1-3 are solid ideas. I don’t have enough experience with Chilling Fog to weigh in on 4, but I imagine it’s also a solid idea.

With 5, I like the part about making the war room less of a grind and also wish that it could be done mainly or completely in WvW. I disagree with the part about making +5 supply easily available, though. The extra supply is extremely powerful and merits being one of the crowning achievements of the war room.

I completely disagree with 6. As the person that was often popping those upgrades, I greatly appreciate not only the lack of a gold cost but also the tiered upgrades rather than one thing at a time. I’d be sort of ok with having to give a ‘go ahead’ for each tier, but I don’t think that reverting the system will suddenly make people excited about defending.

Has anything actually been tested in EotM and then moved into WvW? Were any of the changes that were made in HoT first tried in EotM?

I get what it was supposed to be…but that’s a far cry from what it is.

Twisted Depths is 100x more complicated than the Desert BL. I actually laughed out loud when I saw they were being compared.

Seriously…no wonder people are so upset.

I’m pretty sure that the DBLs will be making a comeback in WvW, btw. Especially after the switch to Alpine is made and it doesn’t result in a resurgence of players.

The appeal is for the times experienced on the borderlands more than the maps themselves. Though, the people that stuck it out in WvW were mostly whittled down to people that liked what Alpine had to offer. The scoring system had a few devotees but not many. Meanwhile, the GvG scene developed and did a better job of attracting players than the game mode itself. Thus, while it isn’t necessarily the best for WvW, there’s a chorus of players that want to keep things at a point that resembles the GvG prime of WvW at any expense.

To be fair, that’s what the game was for a while and it’s a totally legitimate thing to want.

Dawdler.8521:

Not to mention that all other siege offer some sort of counterplay or have inherent flaws. Catas can bubble against catas, trebs and ballistas, but not acs. Trebs cant protect themselves, but they do have supply drain. Ballistas have a straight shot so need los, it can also be blocked by players/skills.

Acs have insane damage against everything, insane fire rate, cheap as hell and can abuse los to literally bend arrows around obstacles. Since they arent projectiles, there is no defense. Zero counterplay, zero flaws.

ACs have the shortest range out of every piece of siege. They’re at 2,500 while ballistas are 3,000, catapults are 4,000 and trebuchets are 10,000. Also, note that other siege can increase its range by using height.

That said, when trying to take a lord’s room, ACs do way too much damage considering that they can’t be countered when positioning (like of the ring) is fixed.

This comes off as pretty short-sighted.

The players that want this are largely going to be turned off by any changes that don’t shift WvW towards a simplistic GvG scene. Either Anet is going to support that (thus killing WvW as RvR) or they’re going to hamstring themselves courting players who will abandon them anyway.

JDjitsu.7895:

JaKal.4538:

An entire thread in wich ppl complain about they cant easly destroy proxy catas by only using sieges…
Have you tried to drop on proxy catas from wall and destroy them? Its wvw not silverwaste, you can do some pvp sometimes….

Thank you, made me laugh. People sometimes forget it’s a pvp mode, and are worried about dying in game. Diablers, hard CC and damage are an option…slow them down until help arrives. A good descriptive callout in /t or your server’s TS can do wonders also.

This is only possible when servers have even populations every hour of every day of the week. If you will note, my concern in the opening post stems from the lack of such of paradisaical situation. Additionally, this encourages the blob meta since you must bring a blob to even slow a blob down. Rather than letting blob be one viable strategy, it makes blob the only viable strategy.

Also, there’s the small bit about wanting to interact with other players in a meaningful way that is currently impossible. I especially hate the places where it is actually impossible to hit the catas from on top of the walls due to obstructions…considering making a post of pictures to show some of this tomfoolery

On a separate note, we’re halfway through the workweek and don’t have a response, which is disheartening.

That’s a pretty good explanation, though I’d use a cata outside of AC range before resorting to trebs. I think trebs are only good to apply extra pressure—alone, they’re too slow.

I don’t like how binary that is. Either stealth is too much utility like now or it’s utterly useless. No matter which, someone is going to be pretty unhappy.

That said, the trap as is…it’s a joke. Considering how hard it is to use, it should at least mark enemies so that it’s not so niche.

Chaba.5410:

I don’t believe any attempts to provide buffs to the server that doesn’t have the people will make things better. In fact I think it is yet another bad idea. History has shown it to make things worse. Any time Anet has buffed up defense, offense has to increase numbers and they do, from the arrow cart dmg increase to nerfing stability to ni-impenetrable fortifications replete with airship defense.

I didn’t ask for any buffs. For the record, I’m not a fan of the Airship defense either and I’ve heard that SMC inner has become way too difficult to take with the HoT changes. I also think that superior ACs do more damage to players than is necessary, though I blame the buffs from WvW ranks more than anything.

The only change I’m asking for is that there is always interaction between defense and offense. That means no laughably hard to bring down walls, no infinite methods of holing up in a structure without supply and no positions from which the structure can be sieged without fear of counter-siege.

Deaeira.2651:

Sviel.7493:

Deaeira.2651:

Use siege disablers on the cata until you managed to nuke it with aoe damage. It might not be “realistic” but there are easy counters.

Kind of how we can just cut off any cancerous body parts until it stops coming back?

I don’t see the point in a solution that cannot be used in reality. I also don’t see how it qualifies as an ‘easy counter’ if it can’t even pass ‘realistic’ muster.

The kind of unrealistic stuff that allows you to respawn when you’re dead. Didn’t happen in the middle ages but works well in games.

So when you used the word realistic you weren’t referring to how impossible it was to use the solution you suggested but to how it wouldn’t work in real life?

I see. My bad.

I have no problem with games not resembling life. I do have a problem with ‘solutions’ that cannot practically be carried out. I don’t know if maybe you’re from T8 or some other boondocks where standing on the edge of a wall trying to gun down a catapult is remotely reasonable, but let me tell you—that is a literal impossibility in the WvW I play in.

I’m all for solutions that have a chance of working, though.

gennyt.3428:

Sviel.7493:

I think Anet realizes that they are at a turning point in WvW. It has been put off for so long that they must make an effort now or, effectively, scrap it. It seems like they’ve chosen to put the effort in.

That’s not to say WvW won’t be put on hold again…just that we’re due for some updates before that happens, at least.

What’s given you the impression that they’re choosing to put in the effort? Not trying to be a smartkitten, honest question.

It’s a fledgling attempt at optimism, I guess. There’s been a bit of communication and, while no information has been released, I know that they either have to come through with effort or I’m out. So, until such a time as I leave, I want to believe that they’re not just stringing me on.

That means that I need info in April and I need it asap. Also, what changes do drop must demonstrate that they have WvW’s best interests in mind. They don’t have to get it right on the first try so long as the second try isn’t 3 years in the making.

If I’m wrong about everything and they do something silly, I have no qualms with eating my words and just walking away.

Deaeira.2651:

Use siege disablers on the cata until you managed to nuke it with aoe damage. It might not be “realistic” but there are easy counters.

Kind of how we can just cut off any cancerous body parts until it stops coming back?

I don’t see the point in a solution that cannot be used in reality. I also don’t see how it qualifies as an ‘easy counter’ if it can’t even pass ‘realistic’ muster.

Deaeira.2651:

Use siege disablers on the cata until you managed to nuke it with aoe damage. It might not be “realistic” but there are easy counters.

Kind of how we can just cut off any cancerous body parts until it stops coming back?

I don’t see the point in a solution that cannot be used in reality. I also don’t see how it qualifies as an ‘easy counter’ if it can’t even pass ‘realistic’ muster.

Chaba.5410:

Honestly, I don’t understand what is meant by meta-game for WvW here. There is only one meta for WvW: exploitation of population and coverage. Get more people in another server’s weak timezone and take all their stuff and make them quit. Get more people for your own weak timezones. Try to avoid stacking your strongest timezones to avoid boredom.

And that meta won’t be changed until Anet changes it.

That’s largely the meta that I touch on. If you check out http://coveragewars2.com/timezone/?tab=graph you’ll see that servers tend to trade off high population times. That is, when one server’s presence starts growing, the other tends to drop. It is most prevalent among the Blue and Green servers…Red is usually a non-factor. I’ve included a quickly marked up population chart to illustrate these inflection points.

I believe this is directly the result of the futility of trying to play WvW against a larger force. As you say, it’s about bringing the most people to the fight—win that battle and there’s no need to worry about player skill. The issue was made worse by the stab changes since fights became even more of a numbers game, though I don’t advocate for a flat repeal there. It needs to change, but I don’t have the info to get too specific about that here.

At any rate, one of the points I make here is that WvW needs to have viable strategies for the server that doesn’t have the most people. That is how I’m asking Anet to change the meta. I’ve identified some of the aggravating factors but, on the whole, I wanted to lay out the idea and perhaps refine it through discussion.

I think Anet realizes that they are at a turning point in WvW. It has been put off for so long that they must make an effort now or, effectively, scrap it. It seems like they’ve chosen to put the effort in.

That’s not to say WvW won’t be put on hold again…just that we’re due for some updates before that happens, at least.

The WvW specific skills aren’t going to be in the first April patch, I think, but they do have a guy working on them. God help him…

That’s what I do, but when they can apply the condis from range then I’m kind of out of luck.

I can have a decent chance against a power reaper assuming that I don’t have to hold a circle and they don’t have any NPCs to rally/build shroud off of.

I’m not sure if this is a WvW only problem, but I do know that if I’m roaming and meet a condi reaper, whether or not I have a chance in hell depends on if I can switch to full resistance skills (warrior). Even with the ability to clear 5+ condis fairly quickly and a few more every ~10 seconds, it doesn’t help when they whack me with literally every condition in the game and I have to hope the right ones get removed right away or I’m screwed.

Of course, they often survive way longer than my resistance and then things get really hairy since dodging condi applications is all but impossible.

This might just be a Reaper issue though—they’re insanely powerful in 1v1 fights.

Disablers cost 15 badges and 4+ silver for 35 seconds of piece. That’s not sustainable at all and it still doesn’t address the issue of being unable to actually destroy the siege.

I realize that not much can stop a larger determined force. I’m not advocating for a change in that reality. Rather, I think the force should have to be determined—making them wait for long periods due to mass siege disablers is not the way. They should attack and possibly be repelled then have to attack again. What must change is the fact that a breach is inevitable no matter what actions anyone takes.