Guild Wars 2

They did a pretty good job with it. I’d have quit long before if it wasn’t for DBL, and I wouldn’t still be keeping an eye on the game if they had removed it. In a series of puzzling decisions, it’s the one thing that gives me hope.

WvW is the least balanced game mode by far. If you’re in it purely for the combat, you’re going to have to put up with a lot of BS and then even more BS from people who think they’re the bee’s knees because Anet made some decision that gave them too much power.

That said, if you’re on SoS, I can help you get your armor with minimal combat. I know the maps like the back of my hand and am used to playing outnumbered, so combat is often not an option.

Aren’t 2 hour skirmishes already a thing?

At any rate, simply adding more rewards isn’t the best way to go about it. It would be better to tie rewards to specific activities across a wide range of playstyles. Rather than adding rewards on top of those you mentioned, I’m suggesting a more productive framework in how they’re given out.

I should have also asked what server you’re on and class you play~

At any rate, it sounds like you’re on a Thief, Rev, Necro and Ele mostly? Specifically, a build of thief that can disengage at will and runs an anti-condi set-up. That makes sense as you’d then have ample access to anti-condi stuff. I tend to run on a Thief or Warrior, mostly. As a warrior, I have plenty of cleanses and can sort of dance with condi though it’s not what I’d call fun or engaging—it’s just a matter of cycling my cleanses and hoping I don’t run out before they do. As a thief, I don’t have much cleanse and thus don’t fight condi people at all. To do so would require a huge shift in skills and traits that would render my play experience unrecognizable.

Part of that is curiously punishing condis like Torment and Confusion, though. They’re a little more powerful than the norm because they have ‘counterplay’ in that you can not move or not use skills…but it’s not real counterplay because those are not viable options. They make it fairly impossible to continue fighting unless you have an immediate cleanse…and they can be reapplied with impunity by some classes.

Conversely, if I’m fighting a power build with all my cleanses slotted, I have a lot of dead weight in my build.

It seems you love roaming for the sake of roaming, which is great. How do you feel about the big picture things? I usually spent my time scouting/roaming but eventually stopped playing because there just wasn’t much point in doing those things in match-ups. Partially due to population imbalance and partially because putting in effort to boost PPT is a totally fruitless endeavor. When it became apparent that combat was also not enjoyable and Anet had no discernible plan for the future, I couldn’t find a reason to keep playing.

Chaba

My point is that guilds have a greater potential for managing numbers than casual militia do and a lot of that is because the leaders of these guilds are more likely to contact each other in PM to arrange fights than militia will.

You’re right on this point, but that doesn’t seem like a solution to the problems you’re talking about. Rather, it is a step sideways.

Chaba

So in the end, “guild-centric” means an organized WvW with a diverse option of playstyles. Militia by their nature do not provide the organization and diversity that guilds do. When a team has more militia than guilds, that presents a particular problem for both that team and their opponents.

This ‘diverse’ option of playstyles seems very restricted to me. You can either be a hardcore GvG guild (since casual guilds don’t fit the criteria) or one of a few stragglers. The benefits of guilds, in this case, are that they want even fights and thus police their own numbers.

I agree that playstyle diversity hinges on breaking up the blob, but I don’t see any greater diversity from doing it in this manner. We have about the same number of choices—just different choices.

A better way would be to have an informed militia. If it is clearer to individual players what’s going on and what sort of actions are productive, they are better able to act as a group. We still needs guilds and such, but we can’t put the entire responsibility of organizing the war effort on them.

Possible rewards are probably best split into several categories. Namely, Server rewards, Guild rewards and Personal rewards. The idea is to have enough various rewards that a wide variety of players are incentivized.

In terms what is actually received, let’s split that as well:

Legendary Tier – These would be tournament rewards. I’m not sure what would be appropriate but perhaps unique guild emblems and a statue in Lion’s Arch? Perhaps a forum archive with some stats from each tourny and a synopsis of the winning server’s efforts? These are awarded on a server level. In addition, the number and potency of awards given out in the other tiers would increase during any tournament.

Ascended – These would be available at least one week out of a month and would include unique Armor/Weapon skins, and gold. These are awarded on a server level.

Exotic – These would be available every week. On the server level, they would include chests with1-2 exotic items and a chance at Ascended. On an individual level, they would include an additional chest per individual reward (more on this later) and a small amount of gold.

Rare – These would be available every week. These would include materials necessary to build a guild hall (flax, sand, shovels, etc.) and a permanent Medal somewhere in the player’s account. Anyone who receives such an award is also eligible for an additional chest from the Exotic Tier. They would be rewarded on an individual basis per server as follows:

-Realm Defender’s Medal
-Top 20% of players who received the most wexp from player kills. It’s based on wexp so that farming kills won’t add much to the score.

-Last Line
-Top 20% of players who participated in the most defense events.

-Saboteur’s
-Top 20% of players who flipped the most camps in enemy territory.

-Yakslapper’s
-Top 20% of players who slapped the most Yaks.

-Pheonix
-Top 20% of players who flipped the most Keeps/Towers in allied territory.

-Yak Messiah
-Top 50% of players who successfully escorted the most Yaks.

-Scout’s Honor Medal
-Top 20% of players who flipped the most Camps/Sentries in allied territory.

Masterwork Tier – These would be non-material rewards. Basically, there would be a place in the WvW UI and/or a sign in every spawn where players could view who had earned what medals for their server. It would also be possible to see the medals earned by what guild for that server. Any medals from another server would not count towards these totals.

Guild Tier – These would be awarded weekly or monthly on a guild level and would include guild hall decorations, functional items and resources. They would be given based on the number of individual medals earned in the guild.

1st Tier – 3
2nd Tier – 15
3rd Tier – 30
4th Tier – 100

My Goal with these rewards is to make awards available to whoever puts effort in, no matter how it’s done. Please let me know if I’ve missed some area. At the same time, I wanted to avoid having too many guild exclusive rewards so that solo players don’t feel too slighted while also giving guilds something to work towards. Finally, I wanted to give players recognition for their work while also showing new players what kind of activities could be valuable.

On the whole, I wanted the rewards to be good enough to be worth working towards but not so rare/magnificent as to induce people to play to burnout levels. I also wanted to tie plenty of the non-tournament awards to triggers that do not require winning the week so that players aren’t too heavily punished for being on a less populous server.
—-

For the second question, I think the biggest obstacle is population imbalance. If matches aren’t competitive, it can be hard to give out awards. I’ve tried to solve this issue by making individual rewards a per server thing. That way, it’s easier to earn them on a less populous server. I’m hoping this lessens the incentive to just switch to the current bandwagon as that would only increase rewards during tournies and even then only tourny-specific rewards.

In this thread, let’s try to figure what sorts of things that Anet could offer to a winning server to boost player’s competitive spirit without causing too much burnout or server stacking. Secondly, let’s identify the problems that might be standing in the way of this but not try to solve them.

This is important because the WvW population is very different in competitive times and lazy times. In the former, PPT is important and players act as such—in the latter, PPT is meaningless and players know it. The result is that changes to WvW which would be good for competitive times are often ill-received since the current population prefers the non-PPT version of the game. In other words, things that improve the competitive situation in part (that is, not enough for a tournament), but hurt the skewed gamemode that people are playing currently feel bad for everyone.

I’ll post my contribution after this…character limit is breaking my back q_q

I’m not totally sure what the thread is actually about as the OP is rather vague. I’ll ask for clarification where I see it’s needed, but I apologize if I inadvertently make some false assumption.

‘Guild-centric’ is not clear. You sort of define it as “protections from a blob being created for roamers, scouts, and small havoc guilds to play WvW their way,” but I don’t understand what that has to do with guilds. My assumption will be that by focusing on guilds, you presume that there won’t be mega-blobs because the guilds will be running separately. As a result, other players are ‘protected’ from blobs because there are no blobs.

I suspect that as long as a blob is the most effective way to do things, though, there will continue to be blobs. Even if the blob is made up of multiple guilds, they’re not going to self-separate willy-nilly. Protection from blobs, then, must be pursued in other ways.

You also contend that guilds transfer servers to fight other guilds as fighting casual militia mobs is not fun. I am not certain this is the main issue. I’ve seen guilds transfer to be on stronger servers, to face servers that have more even numbers (because others were too high or too low), or for political reasons. Some have transferred to fight other guilds, but they are not the majority.

Hidden beneath this is the realization that fighting a casual guild is not as fun as fighting a GvG guild. This suggests that WvW is only for hardcore guilds. If I may speak from my experience, the WvW effort does benefit from such guilds but is equally or more extensively benefited from having many individuals who understand what’s going on and are willing to fight, scout and cap structures without a tag. The two things (guilds and individuals) have a symbiotic relationship. More GvG guilds would benefit the GvG scene and hurt the rest.

That said, it would be good to see guild stuff that could band the individual effort together in ways other than just combat. I’ve seen a few scouting guilds, which is nice. Support for players to participate in guilds and WvW in a capacity other than GvG would definitely be good…but I’m not sure if that’s included in your post.

I would actually rather see server-centric play step forward as it gives smaller guilds a frame to exist in. Even if it was just a signpost in Citadel where guilds and players could say ’we’ll be doing this thing (fighting with 20, scouting an area, roaming, etc) for a while.’ There are things that need doing and sometimes people to do them. The hard part is teaching new players what’s important at what time and how to do it. Guilds would be great at that if they didn’t tend to focus solely on combat.

Can you clarify a few things? You’re a bit of an anomaly and thus rather interesting~

What do you enjoy about roaming? Is it engaging other roamers/small-groups or taking enemy structures or something else?

You said you don’t mind the condi mess. Can you elaborate on your interactions with it? Do you participate in large-scale battles? Do you face other roamers/small-groups that use condi?

There’s room for something of this nature, but I don’t think this particular idea works. Making certain things stronger would easily break the game without adding any more gameplay—you’d just have an expanded meta with everyone doing the thing they did before better. As a result, you’d have less variance in acceptable approaches because one role would do it so much better than anything else. Any implementation would also have to take into account that some roles will be more desireable than others.

That said, allow me to try to contribute something constructive too.

Rather than new skills and buffs to class mechanics, this system should focus on WvW specific things. Players should be able to choose a focus for each character and be able to reset it by paying a certain amount of some WvW resource (perhaps excess wexp points?). There should also be a cooldown between switching. The focus should not affect combat abilities as there’s no way to do this without being dragged into a whole new can of worms. Finally, there should be multiple viable options for each player.

I’ll try to create some examples, but it would be helpful if people could point out what sort of things could be affected. I’m sure I don’t know them all.

Crusader
+1% repair efficiency per 10 WvW ranks.
+1% starting build % on siege per 10 WvW ranks. Capped at 50%.
+1 supply per 100 WvW ranks delivered by Yaks you escort for at least 30s. Does not stack—uses highest bonus from all escorts.

Scout
+1% movement speed per 30 WvW ranks while in aura range of an allied structure. Stacks additively with haste and shrine buffs.
+1% capture rate for camps, shrines, ruins and outposts per 30 WvW ranks.
+1% siege damage versus structures on your BL or in your corner of EB per 30 WvW ranks.

Assassin
+1% movement speed per 30 WvW ranks while in aura range of an enemy holding. Stacks additively with haste and shrine buffs.
+1 point per enemy player or Yak killed per 300 WvW ranks.
+1% damage to enemy NPCs per 30 WvW ranks.

Marauder
+1 supply capacity per 10 people in your squad. Caps at 5, effectively.
+1% damage reduction from enemy siege per 50 WvW ranks. Caps at 70%. Stacks additively.
-1% falling damage per 20 WvW ranks. Caps at 50%. Stacks additively.

Vanguard
+1% chance per 50 WvW ranks to recover +5 supply when building siege. 30s cooldown. Caps at 50%.
+1 supply capacity per 200 WvW ranks for 30s after capturing a camp.
+1% damage to enemy siege per 30 WvW ranks.

Saboteur
+1% effect strength/duration to your traps (supply/stealth, not class abilities) per 5 WvW ranks.
+1% damage reduction per 100 WvW ranks for nearby allied NPCs (but not player summons). Stacks with other players but caps at 50% total.
+1% movespeed while in combat per 30 WvW ranks. Stacks additively.
-1% falling damage per 20 WvW ranks. Caps at 50%. Stacks additively.

Treasure Hunter
+1% Magic Find per 5 WvW ranks.
+1 item from Resource Nodes per 500 WvW ranks.
+10% Wexp.

I wouldn’t come back for a tournament. All the reasons I left still exist and they’d only be more frustrating if I was losing a tourny because of them.

I love how people complained that it was impossible to defend on DBL when it was every map. Now, they’re complaining that it’s too much of a defensive advantage when it’s just one.

I almost started posted numbers again, but obviously facts have no place here.

That’s a large enough sample size that it’s worth talking about, but not infallible. I’m not sure what we can really do about it though save for not stressing out over MF because it’s probably not worth the trouble anyway.

Anet payed a bit of attention to WvW and it didn’t go very well, so people started losing hope faster than normal. Then Anet backed off and renigged on some promises and even more people lost hope. Add to that that the people who have stuck around this long tend to be the folks that like what’s sort of working rather than what’s healthy and there’s no quick or painless path to a better game.

I like how DBL has polled way above 50% every time, but people still say the majority dislike it.

Most of the reason I stopped playing (for the most part) is that I haven’t seen any goal statements from Anet. I have no idea what kind of game they’re trying to make so I don’t know if it’s something I might enjoy. What I do know is that the game as it is isn’t worth the amount of time I generally put into it. With no hope in the present or the future, I decided to step out and eagerly await the CU Beta.

Stephen.6312:

The main reason is to encourage the adoption of a wider range of both defensive and offensive tactics by Commanders. Hey, we can stick to the same-old same-old approach, no problem.

If you want a wider range of tactics, you have to address the broken tactics. As it stands, placing siege directly against a wall provides the best offense and often the best defense via Line of Sight denial. In situations where this defensive advantage does not exist, we see a much wider variety of siege play because zergs have to take into account that the defenders may be able to counter siege.

Allowing players to bypass the siege altogether would simply be adding a more broken tactic on top of what exists. Everyone would simply shift to using the new most broken thing, resulting in even less variety than what we have now.

Your heart’s in the right place, but I cannot support this method of achieving your goal.

Before the inevitable landslide of reasons why this is not a good idea, can you perhaps explain why being able to assault structures without siege is a good thing in your mind?

There’s already an incentive to keep camps flipped. The only time yaks aren’t useful is when your fully upgraded structure is all sieged up and has full supply…meaning it hasn’t seen any action in several hours. Even then, they still contribute to warscore.

This change will only be alarming to the people that already care about small-scale maintenance and defense. As in, the people who already would be going to flip that camp back. Zerglings do not consider the relationship between supply and defense. They’re still going to ignore everything until a large enemy group is practically on the lord then rush in, blob them to death and dump whatever supply they have on them plus whatever is in the structure into the breach. They aren’t likely to notice if it’s been drained by enemy yaks.

That said, if you must implement this idea, it would be be more congruous and easier for players to pick up on if the yaks simply did damage to the gates upon arriving. The effect is similar—players must drain supply to repair the damage. However, damaged gates is something that more players will be concerned about. The zerg won’t have time to respond if the enemy can just walk straight to the lord.

There is a bird above the bale to let you know. See the screenshots in my first post~

I think I know what happened.

http://puu.sh/tkzEz/f26d79963f.PNG
http://puu.sh/tkzFT/36d6ee5f6c.PNG

If you want to nerf walls/gates, we need to at least put some times out there. I’ve listed some below for a minimum distance cata or a ram on a wall or gate respectively for every tier of wall/gate.

If you use 4 rams/catas, quarter the time.

Which do you think are too long and by how much?

More importantly, is it that tacky gold guild hall or the chill nature one?

If you’re on Mag and you like Mag…please just stay there and leave the rest of us alone q_q

To be fair, they’ve done a lot of things since then. Some went mostly ok (skirmishes?), some went terribly (cannons?!?!), and many of them were attempts to address population imbalance and ‘nightcapping.’ As opposed to pre-HoT, the proper complaint is no longer that they aren’t doing anything but rather that the things they’re doing aren’t to your liking.

That, and they still seem morbidly adverse to sharing their master plan for the game and tend not to talk about problems that they aren’t already trying to fix.

The greatest irony is when people come to complain about the new scoring while also complaining that no one cares about scoring because it’s meaningless.

I like this change because it doesn’t let people sit in some status quo and collect their trophy at the end. If you want 2nd, you can’t just cannibalize the third server the whole time.

What I would normally see happening is that first place would hit second place because they were the closest in points. Meanwhile, third place would hit second place for the same reason. Thus, first place was never challenged and second place would have to go all out against third place just to hold on.

Given that this change just happened and there’s not much point in winning matches, I haven’t seen that behavior change whatsoever, yet. If, one day, there is a reason to care about score, I’d rather have this system in place than the old one.

I don’t think this would solve any of main problems with WvW, but it would be a huge investment. What’s your goal with this change?

Jeknar.6184:

SkyShroud.2865:

However, this isn’t a food stall or retail shop, it is called as what it is, a penalty. Also, it isn’t a matter of people (who transfers a lot) liking the idea, it is a matter of controlling the transfers to maintain the balance, balance that got broken by the players themselves every time we relink.

People transfer to either find fun elsewhere or to flock to a easy win. Neither of these will be playing the game if they are penalized for transfering… Your “balance” will be achieved by making these people just quit? I don’t think that people quitting a game when it’s already 4 years old is a good deal to it’s heath.

A game grows when people say ‘this is fun and others should play it.’ A game doesn’t grow when people say ‘i play in hopes that this game will one day be better than it is.’ Getting on the right side of that dichotomy has a much larger impact than a few disgruntled folks leaving.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of this idea. Unless Anet has some ace-in-the-hole to repair the damage that’s been done, locking people in place will be more disruptive than just a few disgruntled people. Perhaps, in a variant, they could just close transfers after linking is done for a week or so. It would, perhaps, let them link more accurately and reduce the urge to transfer.

I think it’s working in that population balance between all server groups is closer than it was before. There are still some match-ups that are wonky but not as often or as much as before linking. Thus, while links didn’t solve all the problems, they did make headway on what they wanted to accomplish.

The biggest issue is still how poorly the game handles even a slight imbalance in population, though. If that was in order then server linking wouldn’t have such an impossible task laid out before it.

This is pretty hilarious xD

..you are joking…right?

It would be annoying for k-trainers but hellish for anyone actually looking to defend. I don’t want to have my walls downgrading for no reason other than time.

I think what would ultimately happen is an expanded schedule of k-training to hit things when they’re paper.

What about Queen Bee?

Part of the reason the scores are so stagnant is because we have no incentive to get creative. No matter how hard one tries, beating the next server up is an unlikely goal and one that comes with no rewards.

A tourney could change that but at the cost of serious burn-out.

I would rather see a guild-based reward (think favor, aetherium or a free upgrade) that encouraged players to do creative things instead of just massing up and blobbing poorly defended structures. If we want more volatility in match-up outcomes, we have to decouple them from population to some extent.

Of course, a siege rework would go a long way to that end…

I want a set of statues in Lion’s Arch for the winners. It’s not something worth transferring over, but it is something to be proud of.

I’m pretty used to roaming in populated servers. I don’t get what the problem is, but I also can’t say that it doesn’t exist.

Can you detail what, exactly, you prefer about low-pop servers?

I don’t think WvW was ever glorious, so to speak. There were always problems and they were always ignored. Anet says they were working on some big package that never came through but their subsequent decision to release it in parts has been as underwhelming as it is unsatisfying. They haven’t even acknowledged some issues.

When HoT dropped, elite specs were either an egregious failure of game design or a bald-faced ploy to sell power. It kind of worked in PvE because they made more ‘challenging’ content to go along with it. In PvP it was a nightmare. No one’s going to forget a team walking away from a pro match because of a half-hour stalemate. They made some changes then but, again, no where near enough. PvP is still a joke despite their efforts to hype it. Worse, there were no considerations made for WvW. They had ‘a guy’ working on WvW specific skill changes and he came through in the eleventh hour with some target limits that arguably made things worse. No word on this since.

My point? WvW has always been about what it could have been in the hands of a competent developer that cared about the game. It could have been great RvR, great PvP, etc. It’s decline has come from people giving up on Anet ever coming through on delivering that potential experience. HoT was a real kick in the shins for everyone who held out that long. When they renigged on making WvW their focus post-HoT, even more folks left. Months later, it’s hard to look at the current state of WvW and say that it’s worth putting in the time.

That said, I think whoever designed the DBL deserves a medal. There were many problems with it but, for once, they were addressed with some manner of urgency. There are still issues but they are no where near as numerous as Alpine. Unfortunately, DBL was meant to support an RvR game whereas the remaining old-school populace is mostly the GvG crowd. There’s no telling which direction Anet plans to go since they haven’t said anything about it.

I came back this week because my server had DBL and I had some fun despite being matched against YB, who outpops us something awful. I’m bowing out this week because Alpine is a major headache and the server’s we’re facing run a bunch of condi roaming groups. I’d rather spend the time learning how to sew. Still, no point saying things were ever good…they could have been, of course…

The back half of the lava pool is still uncovered. It makes the boss a bit safer but that means putting your back to any approaching enemies.

To be fair, I think part of the issue is that people just don’t know how to play against YB. I’ve seen various commanders zerg down a wall or two then get pushed out. Their assaults causes ~1k supply damage and perhaps some tactivator CDs so it’s not a total loss…but then they decide to leave the objective alone for an hour before coming back and doing the same thing again. Since they don’t bother cutting off supply, YB is able to successfully defend with a dozen people versus 40 while their blob is off causing problems. It’s quite frustrating but is more the fault of the people on offense than on defense.

YB also seems to have a large non-zerg presence that responds to camps, walks yaks, scouts and otherwise performs very well without being yelled at by a tag. Since they have so many people in general, they can outblob either server in their match-up and have wide non-zerg field presence to boot…makes it very hard for either the blob or the small-teams to do anything against them.

I’m not going to say that playing against YB is fun in this case, but I do really enjoy seeing them at work because they play the game very well outside of open field fights.

Rampart feels like a pretty potato battle to me. It’s not annoying but also not really interesting. I love the rock walls that pop up because of the unique theming but the boss itself deals limited damage and doesn’t do anything too cool.

Mostly just curious about what everyone else thinks about these. It’s going to be almost all DBL because ABL and EBG bosses are all generic, but…oh well?

1. Firekeep/Undercroft

This one is my favorite because it has a nice mix of things I need to dodge (cone attack), things I need to plan for (fear) and damage output. It’s very engaging all around. In addition, the boss is strong enough that it makes a difference in a fight with a bunch of players without being so overbearing that it’s impossible to do anything about.

2. SET/Workshop

I like this one for much the same reasons. I can solo but only if I play my cards very well. I’m constantly responding to the boss and making up for minor mistakes. This one isn’t much of a factor in player fights, but it’s a tower boss so I don’t mind that quite as much.

3. NWT/Academy

This one is harder to avoid damage on what with all the AoE, but my success still depends on what I do and how I do it. The staging room with all the pillars and the bridge also makes for a pretty interesting battleground.

-1. Airkeep/Palace

This is, in my humble opinion, the worst boss fight in the game. The boss teleports and knocks you down to boot, traps you in a ring and AoEs you, and the battle room has wind turrets that knock you down at random intervals. I spend a third of the fight on my butt and another third trapped in that ring. I just don’t get to do things and that’s not a whole lot of fun.

-2. SWT/Outpost

This boss is Airkeep lite. It stealths and teleports and stuns. Every normal attack it does dazes. The amount of time spent staring at my screen waiting for my character to recover is dazzling in and of itself. I defend this tower more zealously than the others because I hate having to retake it.

-3. NET/Necropolis

Just like other condi kittens, there’s not much to dodge here. You either have the condi clear or you don’t. He also has a good deal of direct damage that just kind of hits you. It makes for a pretty uninteresting fight all around.

So, in other words, you’re beating a dead horse?

It’s an interesting idea but too drastic to just force on everyone…would still be better than Golem week, though.

You’re right that it doesn’t force people to spread out, but it also gives them less incentive to stack a single time zone than the original system.

Boysenberry.1869:

It doesn’t matter how scores are calculated. Whoever has the most players wins. It’s just the way the game is designed.

You sound like a cynical kitten, but you’re also very right. The game is going to have a fluctuating population because it’s a 24/7 thing (which is really cool) but the whole of the design favors greater numbers to the exclusion of everything else…even game mechanics like walls and supply.

That said, I think that skirmish scoring is still a good change because it diminishes the effect of cheesing the game system by stacking in an otherwise underpopulated timezone. I say this even as an SoS native—I’ve seen us get carried by OCX some weeks.

Skirmishes don’t fix a slew of other problems, though, but they aren’t meant to.

As to the OP, while the ratio is larger the amount of time needed to catch up is not. The possibility of catching up is about the same unless a server was relying on an off-hours crew.

@Cecilia

I imagine things may be different on EBG. I should have noted that I play almost exclusively in the borderlands. If someone comes and drops 6-8 proxy catas there, you’re lucky if it’s even possible to land counter-siege fire on them. Also, if you’re not using an AC, good luck penetrating their 150% bubble up-time.

@Swagger

I’m not asking for siegeplay to be removed. Nor do I find it unenjoyable at a base level. Thus, I don’t really understand your comment…

@Dawdler

I don’t really expect anything, at this point. If I did, this would have been a carefully researched thread with lots of number crunching—but I do hate feeling like I put more effort into things than the devs.

@Svarty

I agree that 1v20 sieges should be decided in favor of the 20—my issue is how we get there. If the 20 show up and do things and the 1 does things in response but is ultimately overwhelmed by the 20’s more numerous things then all is well. However, it is much more likely that the 1 can’t actually do anything with any sort of effect. This carries on up all the way to even numbers because, too often, there’s naught to be done about enemy siege from inside the walls. The only option, even to slow them down, is to abandon all defensive structures and punch the invaders in the face.

Guild siege is pretty nice looking but I’m pretty tired of YB showing up and plopping down 12 guild catas. I think part of that issue is a failure on our part to drain their supply before they get there, but it’s still very disheartening.

The approach to sieging any given objective is incredibly static. The best decision is usually proxy catas that take advantage of the diagonal wall hitbox glitch—that is, the one that lets them ‘hit’ walls by hitting well below them. Meanwhile, the best defense is to wait inside until the wall falls and then attempt to fight in the lord’s room or some other choke—attempting to keep the wall up is just a waste of supply. If you happen to be outnumbered in that engagement, you can buy a bit of time with suicide disables but otherwise are at the mercy of wherever your group is. Splitting up to defend is not feasible unless you can win lopsided fights consistently.

Furthermore, since invaders can hit through platforms by using AoE on the bottom, they can hit the defenders without line of sight. A similar issue exists with walls but everyone knows that already. Meanwhile, a defender must risk being pulled or bombed just to get in position to use a skill. The result is that walls are of no use in defense except for buying a bit of time. Functionally, they are the same as making the invaders talk to an NPC that the opens some gate after a moment or two—there’s precious little interaction between offense and defense.

After getting through all that, the invaders may find that they’re facing a room full of arrow carts. Their best choice for dealing with it—a ballista—has been rendered fairly ineffective by the long-ago range nerf on ballis (for dubious reasons) and the fact that, despite being hit-scan, the balli is the only siege that requires a target to fire.

To be fair, this is hardly a standalone issue. Combat is a mess. Scoring is a mess (though the recent change seems great so far). Various glitches and lag abound. On the bright side, with skirmishes, there’s more incentive to play after the weekend. Now, if siegeplay gets cleaned up, there may be more incentive to play when you’re not the biggest zerg around.

This seems like the sort of thing that would have been fixed if it could have been fixed. Chances are they’ve been working on it the whole time without success. Not much we can do on our end but hope for a breakthrough.

When you open up the world map and, in an instant, can see which yaks are missing.

WvW being dead is old news, but now Anet is at least kicking the corpse. With luck, they may stomp some new life into it eventually. Their hit-and-miss approach has been miles better than the say-nothing do-nothing policy of the past.

I’m not super optimistic either, but this is a pretty constructive post, so good job.