I logged on to time the walk and, after helping to take back the BL since it was all the wrong color, finally got some times. Running between Rampart and either side keep, lord room to lord room, took me about 2:10. I used only swiftness—no jumps. Running Rampart WP to mid-inner is faster, of course. It seems the cause of the extended trip is due to the larger keeps moreso than the necessary path or any obstacles.
This strikes me as pretty fair since, with sentries to mark enemies and wall guards to contest before siege is built, there’s earlier warning than before.
However, I can see why it would concern you since what would have been a close save on Alpine is now a loss. I welcome this nudge towards having scouts (and I don’t mean wall sitters) and more mapwide presence, though I imagine it’s not what everyone wants. I think it’s a fair trade-off for the keeps being somewhat easier to defend—or easier to slow attackers down, at least.
It sounds like you dislike the lack of population rather than the map? At least, your only complaint was about that. Is there also something you dislike about the maps or is it just that others dislike them and have left?
At any rate, we have a solid date for when more changes will hit so there is hope on the horizon. Personally, I scaled back on GW2 due to lack of population despite liking the new maps, but I’m hoping that they manage to either bring people back or bring new people in.
While I don’t like zergs, I don’t think they should be ‘forced’ to break up. It would be better to have things where a zerg is ideal and where it isn’t so that players who prefer either playstyle can work together.
What’s the point? Is this just sPvP without point capping?
The video was just to help with pathing—it just helps to know that we’re both on the same page in that respect.
I haven’t timed lord’s room to lord’s room specifically so I won’t dispute that just yet. I did gloss over that in your initial post, for which I apologize.
May I ask why you use that metric, though? I can’t imagine the scenario comes up often, but if I’m around then I’m usually preventing the enemies from reaching the lord’s room, so perhaps it happens more outside of my experience.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to try to sell that…I don’t think I could even convince myself.
The Borderlands currently only really work if all 3 servers have the same map, otherwise one or more servers could be at a distinct tactical disadvantage.
If the Borderlands were made to be a proper 3-way map similar to EB and EotM then it could work, but not the way it is now.
This is exactly the case—The maps are different on so many levels that having them all in one match will significantly impact the score.
The compromise will eventually be a rotation, though I sincerely hope that EotM is never included in that rotation.
Condescension has no bearing on the merit of a comment, just on how well it might be perceived. I was actually trying to be nicer to you than some of the others but I guess I failed. Sorry.
Anyway, you said there were barriers blocking the most direct path. There are not—unless there’s some condition you didn’t stipulate.
You also said that on Alpine there were no hard blocks or cliffs between NWT and SET. There were.
You said that the map is irritating (an opinion, so I won’t dispute it) but also maze like. Thus, I gave directions to demonstrate how simple the path was.
You said that it takes longer and has more chance for errors. I suppose there are more possible errors though they are simple enough to avoid after a few moments on the map. As to it taking longer, I don’t have times for Alpine but I doubt there is any significant difference. If you don’t believe that, refer to this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CENlFEHyea4
They are not the same, on the Alpine map with swiftness from Garrison lords room to Bay or Hills keep lords room was 1 minute and 15 seconds +/- 10 seconds. On the newer Desert map with swiftness from Garrison lords room to the Fire or Air keep lords room takes between 2 minutes and 30 seconds +/- 10 seconds depending on the route.
This is one of the first things I tested when I played the new maps during beta and again at HoT release because as someone who’s been a commander for 3 years in WvW I care about response time when I am making a judgement call about whether to defend something or let it flip.
You are horribly and terribly wrong. Here, have a video that shows you how to get around.
If you think DBL broke up blobs, you should come up here. It most certainly did NOT, and never did. The problem is that the blob is in front of you, you’re fighting, then one the following happens:
1. Zerg gets blown off by Air Keep Birds.
2. Rock walls fly up in your face, totally breaking the flow of the fight.
3. Zerg is – at the same time – in front of you, above you, below you, and somehow even behind/sideways/crisscrossed/crossing time and space dimensions.
4. Zerg is suddenly hiding inside in invulnerable siege spots, firing away.Look, the old map had its flaws, but aint none of that ^ happening on it. There aren’t many places to fight on DBL that are flat, away from siege/gimmicks. It’s overall unpleasant. So while I appreciate your rather sunny plea there, I can in no way agree with it.
1.) Either learn to wait a few seconds to avoid the blast, take 2 shrines to disable the blast, or approach from the west where there are ways in that do not require passing the blowers.
2.) Taking a few shrines disables the rock walls. Also, if they’re your walls, you should expect them and use them to your advantage.
3.) If the enemy zerg is crossing time and dimensions, you’ve got bigger problems than a map or even a game. I suggest calling the Doctor.
4.) This is the same on Alpine. Offensively and defensively.
JoeyMajor issues I see with the DBL.
Too large and maze like- travel time from point to point makes it worthless to chase the ojs for a fight and sometimes one wrong turn keeps you away from them because of a wall or a cliff
Too much PvE- if I wanted that I’d go to all the PvE farm trains, get rid of the rock, fire, air crap and just have a keep
Too much vertical terrain- leads to being unable to move swiftly from one area to another when you get a call out for the enemy
How is there more PvE than Alpine? Barring the Oasis event, there are far fewer aggressive mobs on the map or anywhere near the paths.
As to your other concerns, you have the tools to see the enemy coming much, much sooner. Unless you’re trying to mono-blob versus two enemy groups, they should not be beating you to places by a large margin.
SirdPvE/gimmicks. During my time in WvW I was in a lot of fights that were in and around Lord rooms. Never once did I have to worry about the Lord when fighting a Zerg trying to kill us but here the lords are another mechanic. Leave boss AI in PvE. The gimmicks are a joke as well. I have only been to the air keep once on the attacking side. I don’t want to have to use my stability for the air turrets and not have it for a fight. if we do manage to get past all that and are winning the fight all the opponents have to do is jump down with no damage and I can’t follow.
Are you seriously complaining about lords that are more or less harmless on their own but effective when paired with an equally sized enemy force? Are you honestly saying that the lord should be a non-factor?
As for the air turrets and fall damage immunity, send 2 people to cap 2 shrines and you’re set.
JoeySimply put if Anet wants to keep the last remaining groups in WvW they need to bring back Alpine.
Or you could all leave. I bet we’ll have plenty of folks left.
PuckI’ve stated multiple times that I have learned the kittenty map. I don’t enjoy “taking the scenic route” to find that by the time I made it to where I saw swords there is no one left to fight.
Why is there a fight going on at a place you must bypass a barricade to get to? On your home BL, that only happens if they take your northern towers and your Rampart before your side keeps. On enemy BLs, that only happens if your team is fighting at north camp before taking Rampart. If you run into a barricade outside of those situations, you had a different path you could have taken.
psizoneTry running from the NW Tower to the SE Tower (assuming you only own Rampart), there are numerous paths and barriers blocking the most direct path so it takes ages.
On the old map you could walk what was essentially a straight line, no hard blocks or cliffs barring the path.
It’s not that the Desert map is ‘hard’ to traverse, it’s just irritating – especially if you accidentally take a wrong turn. Hell, some of it can be pretty maze-like.
1.) Head south into the canyon and follow the straight, flat road to the Oasis. Cross diagonally to the southeast and take the unobstructed path that leads directly to the backdoor of SE tower. For this path, you encounter 0 barricades no matter what you own. If you own Rampart, you also won’t encounter any earth walls.
2.) If on home BL, take WP to Rampart and exit to the south into the Oasis. Cross to the southeast corner and take the path that leads directly to the backdoor of SE tower.
Maybe I’m missing something? That was really, really easy. It’s actually not that different from Alpine considering the huge cliffs near NWT there and the embankment to the north of SE tower. Going through the Oasis is about the same as going through the ruins.
X T DI still remember the first time I ran into a barricade. Like a fool I stood there in a glorious struggle auto attacking the mighty pile of wood (which doesnt burn), by the time I finally vanquished that foe the real battle on the other side of the map was over. And I thought to myself, my actual mistake was trying to run to my group to help them and actually get into a fight. I should have just stayed at spawn and waited for the zerg to come back. Who the hell seriously ever thought these things were a good idea, all it does is hurt small groups or individual players trying to run to a fight or help defend something…
Unless you’re in a zerg or in a small group of multi-hit classes (like power necro or staff thief), it is always faster to avoid the barricade. That’s kind of the point. If you want, I can give you quick and easy directions from any point A to any point B.
XenesisTowers served as alternative ways to get the outer walls down if an enemy was entrenched in their keep, it forced your enemies to either come up with counter siege attacks or even bring their own force out to try and take back that tower. Especially if it threatened a waypoint.
You’re right about this, but I disagree that it is a fully positive effect.
When you can siege from towers, that means that your sieging position now has walls to defend it. In order to break the siege, the tower must be recaptured even while your whole force is snug within it. That makes it impossible to launch any sort of defense without the aid of a zerg of similar or greater size. It means that mono-blobs are by far the superior strategy because you can’t do anything to slow one down unless you blob up yourself.
On DBL, the towers function as ways to control territory. They’re spread out more so that they cover more ground. Losing a southern tower makes it harder to detect enemies moving northward. Losing a northern tower makes it much easier for enemies to assault Rampart (though not guaranteed like on Alpine).
Both of these mechanics have their merits, but I prefer the one that encourages scouting rather than blobs. It wouldn’t be awful if the maps retained that distinction and were put into rotation, though—a new strategy for different weeks would keep the battle fresh.
It’s hard to take people seriously when they claim to know the map then complain about shrine effects. Shrines are incredibly easy to flip and, as a rule, difficult or impossible to defend from within the walls. Anyone who suffers from shrine effects either made a decision to blitz and is dealing with it, does not understand the map, or is simply foolish.
There was no announcement about the addition of points per Yak with HoT. There’s no way to see it in-game either unless you keep an eye on the score and the paths of the Yaks on the map. I think the fact that it is so invisible and unintuitive leads to an incorrect perception of WvW and one’s effectiveness in it.
In addition, killing a Yak gives 3 points to the server of the killer. I should also note that if the final objective is not owned, no points are given when the Yak runs back to the camp. Thus, holding SMC is necessary to get any Yak points at all in EBG.
Since PPYak is more of a factor than PPT, I don’t think that removing PPT would get rid of passive gains. It would make it easier to choke point gain in the off-hours since camps/Yaks are easier to flip/kill than structures, though. What do you think of combining your idea with XTD’s idea—that is, removing PPT for tier 0 structures and then adding it back in as the structure upgrades. There would still be potential for PPT but it would be much easier for small groups to tamp it down, even in the off-hours.
You could do away with PPT if you changed scoring to PPK and PP upgrades (while the structure is held continuously) and a smaller amount for capture. Upgrades should count most. Points for upgrades alone would give people a reason to defend. (: ] ) Also, points per dolyak delivery.
There are already points per Dolyak delivery—they account for more points than PPT and PPK combined. Effectively, you can consider those points per upgrade.
If we dropped PPT without changing anything else, the score would not shift dramatically. Servers that held structures would have plenty of Yak points coming in. PPK largely cancels out in even lopsided matches. It would somewhat increase the effect flipping camps had on the overall score but might be too big a shift to the power of roaming.
I lack the energy to argue and imagine it is probably futile anyway. Let me suffice to say that if you’re having problems roaming or with finding good footholds for large fights, you are the problem, not the BL.
At this point, I know the maps by heart. I can get from any point to any other point in less than 2 minutes. Most of the paths aren’t straight but they are not terribly convoluted either. The only time barriers pose a problem is if I’m trying to sneak to northern territory on a BL where my server owns nothing. And by problem, I mean a 30 second detour.
Going back to Alpine is simply trading for a new host of problems. It’s not going to revitalize the game mode. Sure, it has open fields for those who use WvW as a surrogate mass PvP mode, but it also has deeply flawed siege design (moreso than DBL). There are many places to hit a keep where retaliation is impossible, especially at Hills. In short, Alpine is for easymode zerg collisions—DBL is for PPT/Havoc with an option to zerg if you use terrain well.
The root of the problem is likely that many players just want large scale PvP. There’s no way to satisfy both them and the PPT crowd (which seems to have settled mostly on YB) to the fullest. DBL is a decent compromise that can be made better. Alpine, in its former state, requires a zerg to do anything and cannot support healthy PPT.
But what does this have to do with babies?
7PM PST, 9 CST, 10 EST seems a bit late, but if it’s on a Friday that shouldn’t be too big of an issue. Given that time needs to be reserved for hotfixes, that seems like a good compromise.
And yes, I think most of us still prefer Friday for reset. It’s nice to be able to have meaningful WvW at the start of the weekend.
EotM is all narrow bridges and infinite drops. There is mostly only one path between objectives. Also, the triangular layout is more like EBG than either borderland. In addition, I don’t like what the players have made of it. I’m definitely more defense oriented but there’s little point to that there. Actually, there’s no point to anything in EotM except karma training…WvW has at least the pretense of a purpose.
The desert BLs do have cliffs and chokes and what not, but they also have varied pathing and the drops are mostly non-lethal.
I’m not sure what mechanics you’re talking about, but if it’s EotM then I probably don’t understand the minutia of them. I’ve been there about three times for guild practice.
I can’t dispute that most did something like that, though I was one of the few that really enjoyed the new BLs and did not find them anything like EotM, which I bitterly hate. If they plan to press on regardless of negative feedback, they may as well just swim through it—going quiet makes it seem like they don’t care even about those of us who honestly look forward to the changes.
Well, he got it right…but it’s rather old news at this point. I don’t think Anet is unaware of how people feel right now—rather, they for some reason still don’t think it’s a good idea to have much in the way of interaction or information giving. It’s like a bad high school romance but…maybe they’ll come around…
Where Gaile saw potential, I saw merely another thread for sideswipe grievances…but perhaps I can try to hope after all?
1.) Score Visibility
When players participate in any sort of large-scale activity, they want to either believe they made a difference or be rewarded in some way. With PvE bosses, the reward suffices—there isn’t much clamor for being able to tell who did how much damage and such so long as the quest is successful. In WvW there is no such reward and, even if there was, it would not perform as well under repeat since it could not be as varied as all the PvE rewards. Thus, players must have a sense of having contributed to feel good about spending time in WvW.
Right now, the best one can hope for is a nod from a fellow player. It is tricky to guage one’s personal impact and nearly impossible for a new player to do so. After all, there are no tips about how scoring works in WvW outside of the basic PPT—yak points were never put in. No matter how it is implemented, something of this nature is needed on both an individual and a guild level. It is not enough to gain WvW ranks, especially since those are largely invisible to the player and her allies.
2.) Siege Warfare
WvW is either a nominally passable siege warfare game mode or a terrible large scale PvP game mode. Since the large-scale PvP side is basically unsalvageable, it would make sense to tidy up the siege warfare—hopefully in a way that throws a bone to large scale PvP. It’s not a small problem, but I’ll hit the big points.
Defensive siege should not be so vulnerable to attack. It should be possible to completely overwhelm an enemy up to a short range away from the wall of a structure. That is, in fact, the point of a wall. Alone, it just slows enemies down—when it can be defended, it stops their progress entirely. Thus, it should be possible to build an AC inside that can protect the area right next to the wall. As long as the AC does not have much range beyond the walls, it is fine. In the same vein, Cannons and Oil must give better defensive advantages or deal more damage (has their damage been updated ever?). As of now, they are a nuisance—hardly worth killing unless someone tries to use them. They should be a serious threat. Gates, on the other hand, should be less durable to reward taking that risk.
If that is done, offensive siege will be pushed out to a perimeter where there can be actual interactions between offense and defense. It will still be possible to blitz an unguarded structure, but the right answer will not always be to throw catapults directly against the wall. Rather than showing up and building a multitude of catapults in hopes of beating defenders to the punch, they will have better success launching several smaller assaults on multiple objectives or at multiple points on a single objective. Of course, they can still blob up and siege a single objective more quickly, but they would no longer have nigh guaranteed success due to pressuring defenders out of any chance to respond.
The goal is that servers learn to use diverse strategies depending on their opponent. Multi-pronged attacks would work well against ‘siege-humpers’ while blob supported siege would do well against servers that tend to mass up and push out to fight.
Finally, if ACs can be built out of reach in structures, they should have their hp reduced to a pittance. If a blob throws down an AC in the middle of a fight, they should have to protect it as part of their strategy. A single enemy should be able to pop it quickly if they break the lines. In short, siege should be best used against walls and other siege, not players.
3.) Balance
I don’t have much to say here because it doesn’t seem like this is just a WvW problem. However, there are some things that need special attention in WvW.
Stealth is far more powerful in the open fields and away from circles that need to be contested. So is mobility. Across all classes, these two things should be valued highly in WvW—either they must be toned down or other things must be weakened as a price.
Ranged damage is also contentious since it doesn’t mean the user is necessarily glass. Given how much larger the open areas in WvW are rather than PvP, classes that can make use of it have more room to work with and more time to needle their enemies down.
Ranged AoE, the maker of the pirate ship (space ship?) meta is probably the worst offender. It isn’t an issue in PvP because you never have 15 Necros/Eles out to kill you at once. In WvW, it makes for incredibly silly situations where there’s no right decision that involves engaging your enemies in a fight. AoE caps help, but that only pushes players to blob up as it is the only effective way to reduce damage.
More generally: Toughness needs to be a more useful stat. Condition Damage is probably unsalvageable (either you have anti-condi skills on or you don’t—basically you have to guess who’s going to pop up next) but that ship may have sailed. At the very least, try to find a way to reduce the binary nature of it…perhaps by changing the application method from a ‘avoid this one attack/spell or die’ situation. Repeated applications for less damage mean timing condi clears is meaningful without completely negating their damage output.
4.) Hacking.
There are some cases that are resolved quickly and others that go on for years. There is little argument to be made here. Whatever needs to happen to ban a hacker in days instead of months needs to happen.
5.) Guild Upgrades.
As of now, WvW players are being pressured into expanding their guilds into PvE/PvP in order to be able to WvW effectively. However, there’s no opposite push. Thus, the WvW players must effectively leech the efforts of the PvE/PvP players since they have no way of obtaining meaningful numbers useful things in WvW and do not make enough gold to contribute otherwise. Alternatively, they’re drawn out of WvW to grind PvE in the least interesting way possible.
I think the plan might be to get people interested in both PvE and WvW on a larger scale, but even if that happens there needs to be some benefit from WvW to balance the equation.
(edited by Sviel.7493)
If you ignore PvE in wargames you end up invading Russia in the winter. No matter who your opponent is, there will always be environmental obstacles.
That said, you may be able to make a case for removing certain PvE elements if you mention them specifically. You’ll have to remember that this is not a scheduled activity where everyone shows up at once with a clear objective in mind, though—Anet can’t expect players to man everything around the clock with consistent numbers on all sides. Additionally, there is amount of immersion going on that plays into the (mostly aesthetic) design. Thus, while your comparison is interesting, it is not 1:1.
So…could you perhaps be more specific about what you’re saying?
If you ignore PvE in wargames you end up invading Russia in the winter. No matter who your opponent is, there will always be environmental obstacles.
That said, you may be able to make a case for removing certain PvE elements if you mention them specifically. You’ll have to remember that this is not a scheduled activity where everyone shows up at once with a clear objective in mind, though—Anet can’t expect players to man everything around the clock with consistent numbers on all sides. Additionally, there is amount of immersion going on that plays into the (mostly aesthetic) design. Thus, while your comparison is interesting, it is not 1:1.
So…could you perhaps be more specific about what you’re saying?
Happy travels. Hope you find what you’re looking for when you return.
Having it thrown seems like a poor idea. I could see it being part of the stealth trap or perhaps as a WvW only skill or on a kit that’s available in towers, though. It should be able to reliably hit since it’s more QoL than anything.
Also, typed scouting reports are available to everyone whereas TS reports are limited by channel and TS participation. Unless one mono-blob is running the entire map, it is always better to type even if you replicate the message in TS.
PPC breaks down very quickly in practice. Say one server caps everything, then no points can be gained until they lose something. They aren’t rewarded for defending since if something flips, they simply flip it back and get even on points with whoever took it while pulling ahead of the third server. If one server defends all but one objective while the others repeatedly flip that one objective, the defending server gains no points while the opponents gain plenty.
In short, PPC means the best route is to avoid enemy players and cap things once they leave. That is, karma-training.
PPD runs into different problems, though they are no less fatal. Basically, it is impossible to gain points unless someone attacks. Worse, if they contest an objective without launching a serious attack, then they just gave free points away to the enemy. Since defense events run multiple times during a manned siege, the ideal case is to take undefended objectives and avoid engaging enemies at all costs. Once again…karma-training.
PPT works because you don’t have to launch a blazing offensive to get score. You just have to lose structures slower than you take them—meaning that defending and upgrading are directly beneficial. However, it also has problems—it is difficult for a small group to have much impact.
Thus, PPY (points per yak) were added with HoT. There are now more potential PPY than PPT and PPK combined. Thus, large groups and small groups can have impact, just in different ways.
That said, making points more visible would be excellent. Allowing players to see the points accumulated over their playtime would go a long way in helping them form good habits. For example, if they flip a camp, give them 5 personal PPT and 1.5 (half) points for each yak from that camp that survives. If they flip a structure, give them PPT for that and 1.5 (half) points for each incoming yak. Of course, give 1 PPK and 3 points for killing an enemy yak. Finally, keep track of how many defense events they successfully completed per session (and fix how contribution is calculated).
If that’s extended to guilds, even better. It gives us something to be proud of even when the server as a whole is sagging.
This DrStephen guy seems legit, but I’ve never seen him post before. He could have said all that about ‘we tried to go too big so now we’re going smaller’ a month ago, if not more. He could have said ‘X,Y, and Z are problems and we want to fix them, even if we have nothing planned atm’ and it would have eased the pain. He could have explained why the maps aren’t on rotation on HoT release.
The silence hurt, and it’s still eroding the playerbase. It doesn’t matter how good their intentions are if nobody knows about them. Also, due to lack of communication over what turns out to be reasonable errors, they have a serious trust problem now.
If we’re speaking only of the side keep WPs, they do favor the attackers. However, that’s rather the point. The idea was that holding your whole BL should be a massively difficult thing to do but…without population, it sort of falls apart.
1. Don’t allow catapults built next to wall.
Then how the kitten are you supposed to siege with catas? Place them further away and a single ballista bolt kill them, arrowcarts will still reach and shield generators completely block the user from firing.
If catas had the range of trebs I’d agree with you. But they dont.
Catas can hit from well outside of Ballista/AC range. At that range, it takes 2 Shield Generators to negate one cata, so offense still has a bit of a supply advantage.
I got excited, then I saw it was a month old.
Thanks q_q
They take into account that WvW awards can be cheated by collusion of enemy servers, so they don’t want to give out anything too valuable lest people forgo the actual game mode to get it.
Personally, I think they are way too cautious about it, especially since WvW rewards are currently far inferior even if people do cheat for them. They got a little better with HoT since upgrade costs were removed but that’s just gold, and a small amount of it.
Yeah, toughness is a dead stat…nothing kills combat like making it a DPS race.
Yeah, toughness is a dead stat…nothing kills combat like making it a DPS race.
I really doubt the handful of transfers from the vastly shrunk playerbase is enough financial incentive to purposely strangle a game mode. Granted, I totally disagree with their approach, I don’t think it’s that particular brand of villainy.
While I sympathize with your concerns, there’s naught we can do about it right now. There’s some ‘big changes’ coming up that we’ve been given absolutely zero information about and no open communication channels.
While I love the new BLs, the game is in a kitten poor state right now for a variety of reasons. It would be nice if we had something to look forward to—a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. But, barring that, we can only hope that whatever is revealed if good enough to bring people back…but, honestly, good luck with that. No matter how good it is, players don’t forget being spited* so easily.
*It feels like spiting.
To be fair, Gaile did respond to this thread in about 20 minutes. Also, the hacker that the OP was talking about was banned within a day.
On the other hand, said hacker had been at it for a long time before that. Also, there’s this other guy who is widely known and has escaped justice for so long. It is puzzling, but it seems that things do get done on occasion.
In order to preserve the usefulness of wall guards and patrols at Reinforced and above, can we retain the white swords if guards are aggro’d but keep the waypoint uncontested until actual siege damage is done?
@clayton
I’m with you, sort of. Siege vs. siege is all about stalling. If the defenders are outnumbered, they won’t be able to escort yaks into the objective so they will, eventually, fall. If the enemies are persistent, there will come a time when you have to call for back up—but sometimes they’ll go away after their initial attack is rebuffed.
If the assaulter is clever, they’ll do more supply damage faster or perhaps even breach the defense before supply is completely drained. That accelerates the ‘call for help’ phase.
@clayton
If the enemy group is throwing down multiple (let’s say 2) catas and a shield gen, provided they are outside of ballista range or can pressure the wall where the ballista is, they’re going to take the keep. To kill that, even if catas didn’t have bubbles, you’d need at least 2 trebs. With cata bubbles, you need 4-5 trebs and your enemies to have spotty timing. Also, unless you want your wall to go down before you can pierce their bubble rotation, you need another 2 people on shield generators. That’s ~600 sup of defensive siege. Assuming it’s pre-built, we can expect there’s even more sup worth of siege that can’t hit the chosen assault location.
I don’t think anyone’s asking for one person to be able to defend against that. If we pretend catas didn’t have bubbles and reduce the needed defensive siege to ~300 sup (twice the attacker’s amount) then it actually seems reasonable.
Siege -should- be placed beforehand in a perfect world, but even then there’s not time to fully siege an objective (see: defensive siege costs) and one often has to improvise. If you’re the sole defender of a paper tower, which was the situation where build times were referenced, it’s even more likely that you’ll have to build it first.
It is useless to think in terms of people. Think in terms of supply. 40 people in an objective can’t build more siege than the objective has supply for. Attack one place to force them to build siege there, then move to another. Every catapult hit drains almost a yak’s worth of supply. It seems fitting that a populated objective that has been allowed to accumulate supply will take some actual sieging to flip—what’s the point of having walls if they don’t let the few put up a fight against the many?
I don’t think there’s a such a thing as uncounterable defensive siege. All of it is limited by range (assaulters can step back some) or fire rate (bubbles! bubbles galore). Unlike assaulters, the defense is also unable to replenish their supply. The only time things get silly is when a proxy catapult (the epitome of uncounterable siege) gets countered by the rare unhittable AC. If that happens, hope no one saw you make a fool of yourself and move to one of the many locations where it can’t happen.
I doubt there’s anyone in all of WvW that is as enthusiastic about scouting/defense than I am. I’ve written 2 essays on it and spend virtually all of my WvW time doing it. To date, I’ve stopped several assaults by groups of 20+ because they were foolish and didn’t know how to siege beyond throwing down rock hurlers and spamming 2. The 2 most recent instances of that were 2v20 and 2v25. I’m also that charming person that hits you with 2 supply traps (and possibly a cow) anytime you resupply or when you break outer and run to inner. I have a folder of screenshots of whispers from enemy commanders that got angry that I foiled their raid (death threats are my fav <3). That said, scouting and preparation go a long way. I still think that doing away with proxy catas and giving attackers more choices but less all-in-one solutions will make the siege more fun for both parties.
The outnumbered defense is characterized by being unable to replenish supply (unless the assaulters are nimwits). Every attack is characterized by how much supply the party has to throw down. I wish the game was more about using supply efficiently and draining it from your enemies unless you have vastly overwhelming numbers.
@Olli
Sadly, balls alone don’t let 5 men win against 25. In that situation I prefer to grab the nearest thief/mesmer and flash build a balli behind the enemies.
I figured it was relevant because stealth tapping is only possible due to the aforementioned C&D bug and ample…well, stealth. It’s the problem behind the complaint.
But, I don’t think it’s something that deserves it’s own thread. It’s probably been aired well enough here already.
I’m talking specifically WvW. Basically, given that stealth is essentially a non-combat mechanic, it doesn’t translate well between the vastly different game modes. The same can be said for invulnerabilities to a lesser extent. I wouldn’t want to change it in PvP/PvE because it might fit there—in WvW, especially now that the map isn’t a flat plain with visibility for miles, stealth is a get-out-of-jail free card.
If the user can’t kill you, they can effortlessly escape and run off to cause mischief elsewhere. Chasing them down is nigh impossible since the heavy stealth classes are also the heavy mobility classes. If you leave them be, you lose objectives. Stealth traps are a thing but are way too expensive and still require guards all over, not to mention multiple traps.
There’s also the combat aspect where the ‘guessing game’ is much harder in open space, but I think someone else could speak to that better.
Would it be appropriate to complain here about how easy it is for stealth classes to go undetected in the wide expanses of WvW? Or about how stealth is much more powerful than in PvP since capping points isn’t the focus? Can I ask about rebalancing stealth classes to have less stealth than PvP but better direct combat or something in return?
Please?
I totally agree! I wish I could convince people of that, though—there’s just no appetite for defense.
In the time it takes to build a sup AC, a paper wall being hit by a cata will be down to ~60%. Given that the tower is, at best, secured, it will be hard-pressed to have the supply to both build the AC and repair the wall.
I don’t think it needs to be any easier to bleed supply, honestly. It only takes 2 passes to open the tower and that’s assuming someone was there to see the catapult being built in the first place.
Ballistas can’t hit a proxy cata. They’re very good for hitting things that are at mid-range, but they can’t hit a max range catapult either. If you’re able to take out enemy siege with a balli, it was not well placed imo.
That said, I love sending 2 men behind enemy lines to flash build a balli and take out siege that way. I also routinely use them on walls when enemies play into it.
Counter catas are decently useful (and I want to explore them more), but they also can’t hit proxy catas. Trebs are great long range defense but are largely nullified by cata bubbles. If the enemies have 2 catas, you need 2 trebs capable of hitting their position. Trebs, too, are useless against proxy kittenhield generators are, of course, wonderful for defense. However, given their CD, they have very limited use against proxy catas because their fire rate is comparatively high. They also have no potential to stop an assault—just delay it.
See a pattern? Proxy catas are fairly cancerous…but they’re just about always the right choice.
Ballistas can’t hit a proxy cata. They’re very good for hitting things that are at mid-range, but they can’t hit a max range catapult either. If you’re able to take out enemy siege with a balli, it was not well placed imo.
That said, I love sending 2 men behind enemy lines to flash build a balli and take out siege that way. I also routinely use them on walls when enemies play into it.
Counter catas are decently useful (and I want to explore them more), but they also can’t hit proxy catas. Trebs are great long range defense but are largely nullified by cata bubbles. If the enemies have 2 catas, you need 2 trebs capable of hitting their position. Trebs, too, are useless against proxy kittenhield generators are, of course, wonderful for defense. However, given their CD, they have very limited use against proxy catas because their fire rate is comparatively high. They also have no potential to stop an assault—just delay it.
See a pattern? Proxy catas are fairly cancerous…but they’re just about always the right choice.
I still have unpleasant memories of being crushed under the YB hordes (when we weren’t farming them), but I’ve always respected how quickly they rebound from losing something. It’s hard for me to understand how one can lose a keep/tower then just log off or hop BLs.
Right now, it’s difficult to stage a meaningful defense whatsoever. If a siege consists solely of plopping down a cata somewhere an AC can’t target (as in right next to the wall) and laughing at the defenders, we end up with a ktrain meta where defending is all but ignored. Anet claims to want to make holding structures more important to scoring points. The yak changes were a great way to accomplish this…now make defending feel less like BS by giving both sides obstacles and options to overcome them.
Attackers should have to build siege somewhere that they can protect it and should have to make choices about whether to add defensive siege to their assault.
That means removing bubbles from catapults and replacing the 5 with some sort of offensive skill (preferably something with fire that can harm siege/defenders on walls but not walls themselves).
With that change, shield generators (which really shouldn’t be HoT only—maybe to drop, but not to use) have a clearly defined assault role.
Also, walls should have spikes or a moat or such around them to prevent enemies from being able to waltz right up to them. The wall/moat could also block splash damage so that catapults would have to actually hit the wall to damage it.
That shouldn’t change anything about taking an unguarded tower, but will require a bit of thinking to take something with a defender and prebuilt siege. It won’t be make structures impervious but it does make the siege more interactive.
So this is just the point value of the captured thing rather than the actual points gained from it? If so, we have to consider that a server that’s facing low capping servers has less opportunity to cap things itself. Thus, someone crushing their opposition will fare poorly in this graph.
Also, the total PPT from all structures on a BL is 145. The total points from Yaks in one tick is ~205.
Thus, while nifty, I don’t think this metric is going to prove useful. Of course, maybe the point was just that it’s cool, in which case, ignore me…
Based on your observations, your conclusion seems reasonable…But I’ve never seen that happen before.
You should be able to do all of those things, is what I’m saying. Whatever the problem is, I don’t think it’s the map—others are quite successful in those areas.
@Darce
Why would you want to be able to flip something consistently before the other tag responds? If you’re starting on a full hp wall, your enemies should notice before you have it down. Successful havoc doesn’t always end in a cap.