Guild Wars 2

Skill lag in large-scale WvW battles has been horrendous for over a month. I have an incredible, custom-built gaming PC. It’s not a graphical issue. I am just spamming my shouts and watching the button press but never activate the skill. I can hit the shout over 20 times in a Stonemist fight and have it never go off.

Every single person I have talked to in my guild and server (Sanctum of Rall – Tier 1) has been experiencing the same skill lag.

This is a wide-scale problem being experienced by a huge number of players. It is NOT 100% of the time in WvW – only when a huge battle breaks out with a lot of players (80+).

Has Anet acknowledged that there is a problem, and do they have any intention on fixing it?

I don’t get why no one seems to be talking about it, pretending it doesn’t exist…

Xter.6271:

Well, I’d say the Mystic Forge would be a better experiment for the community’s sake. You could help document and confirm what exotics the forge may return, and help verify the rate of returns. In addition, you may make your money back with a precursor return to help fund more samples or for personal sakes.

It is settled then! I shall make the goal of the experiment to document the mechanics of the Mystic Forge using high-level rares.

Xter.6271:

Another thing if you did do another sample, try doing the first all at once, then the second in small segments. That’ll help test if the forge has diminishing returns too like the anti-farming mechanics in the game. The exotic yield may be higher in segments compared to doing it all at once like many of us do. That’d help explain why some players toss 500+ rares in without many exotic yields/precursors yet some of us (I being guilty of this) throw in 3-5g and get a precursor and nice exotics.

A sample size of 1,000 is not big enough though to help confirm a DR, but it’s a step in the direction and hopefully more players will contribute their yields in similar fashion to obtain a true average of what the Mystic Forge rate of returns are and mechanics such as diminishing returns.

This is quite an interesting idea, and one I think it would be productive to study. What do you propose my samples sizes should be?

1000 rares all at once?
500 rares?

Then what about the smaller batches?
10, 50, 100?

How long should the waiting period be between batches to let any potential DR run out?

The only problem I see with this approach is the sheer difficulty in amassing 500+ rares before even beginning the project, let alone storing them until it launches.

Xter.6271:

Are you sure it was 54 rares? 100% sure? If so we can throw your results in the sample even though it was a very small sample, everything helps.

Are you sure those were your returns also? If so then find out the other names of the two exotics. Depending how detailed the OP wants to be, he can also compile the rate of returns of exotics. I assumed he wanted to throw in all weapons which was my fault, but if we are using a mix of armor and weapons then the results of the item returned are bigger.

I would like this study to be extremely detailed in terms of recording the raw data (for multiple reasons). As I mentioned, I will be FRAPs-ing every Mystic Forge attempt, including a mouse-over of each item to show its exact name, level, upgrades, and stats. This will not only make my conclusion drawing easier, but will also allow for others to come along and use my data in their own experiments with utmost confidence in the accuracy (because they can actually see each transaction in-game using the video recording).

I would be willing to include data from others as part of my experiment, but I would like to have images from the actual game client. Whether that is a video recording or organized screenshots doesn’t matter, but high-level detail is one of the primary goals of this experiment. That being said, even general patterns observed by others is great information to help design my experiment and test against!

Xter.6271:

So there’s another question for you OP. Are you using only weapons/trinkets/armor or are you planning to use a mix of two or three? If you want to be detailed detailed then you need to decide. I would suggest only one type like all weapons and see the rate of return of different exotics. That’ll help find the Mystic Forge’s rate of returns of precursors which so many players seem to be after.

Weapons, armor, and trinkets will be forged in separate Mystic Forge transactions in order to isolate weapon returns specifically.

Wow, Xter! Thank you for your incredibly detailed response! That’s exactly the type of info I was looking for. That makes sense that the Mystic Forge would have a lower min / greater max potential earnings than salvaging.

I don’t really care how much money I make from this, since I’m doing it for the sake of knowledge and confirming existing theories with well-documented, hard data. I will be Fraps-ing the entire process and will compile the data into a spreadsheet to produce conclusions and graph the information.

The ultimate question, then, is which approach would be more helpful to improving knowledge in the community? Confirming ecto drop rates or documenting Mystic Forge results?

I don’t think your location matters for resetting the chests. I have been doing the jumping puzzle in Lion’s Arch (in the mideast) for the daily achievements, and I keep logging back on the next day to find the chest reset and lootable when I load into the end of the puzzle.

I love math and experimentation, so I’ve decided to start a science project in Guild Wars 2. However, I need your help to determine the best approach to take.

The experiment can take one of following different directions:
A) Salvage 1000+ rares to study the probability of receiving Globs of Ectoplasm.
B) Put 1000+ rares into the Mystic Forge and observe the results.
C) Some other option I have not considered: __________________

Questions for you:

Which of these approaches will produce the most meaningful data for the Guild Wars 2 community?

Is there a different approach that could be taken that would be better?

If you think A or B are good ideas, how could they be best carried out? (For example, should I group specific types / levels of rares together to observe specific patterns? In Experiment A, would Master Salvage Kits be the best to use, or some other type?)

Reward:

The best response will receive 3 Gold from the Asuran Tinkerers Society, acknowledgment in the published research notes, and the satisfaction of enriching players’ understanding of game mechanics in Guild Wars 2.

Thank you in advance for your replies!

I have a simple request, which stems from quite a few mishaps that have occurred in my guild and among friends:

Add a confirmation message when clicking the “Leave Guild” button in the Guild menu, as well as when clicking the “Kick from Guild” option in the party interface menu (when you right-click on a player’s portrait).

I just had a member of my guild join a 2nd guild, and he accidentally left his first when he was only trying to stand down temporarily.

A few of my guildmates have been accidentally kicked in the past when officers would right-click their names to “Invite them to party” but instead mis-clicked “Kick from Guild”.

Adding a confirmation on these options will make these annoying user mistakes much less common.

Thanks!

Hands down, the Endless Mystery Cat Tonic is the best tonic I have used in-game. And let me tell you, I have used a lot of tonics. I don’t care too much for all the tigers and cougars and stuff (unless they were rideable), but the fat cat is AMAZING.

The only thing that would make it better is if you could use siege weapons as a cat.

Check out the 100 laurel tonic in action, hitting up a level 10 fractal while transformed the whole time:

This score update brought to you by Blackgate Anti-Megazerg Farmers [BAMF].

G’day! Here’s a score update for you.

I would like to see Team Keg Brawl and Guild vs Guild Keg Brawl. I would like to challenge other guilds on my server to a championship Keg Brawl tournament where we form teams and brackets and have elimination rounds.

In order to do this, we need a way to control who joins the keg brawl match. The “swap teams” button only works when there is a imbalance in player numbers. We need some way to be able to move our respective guildmates to the right teams and start the match.

Also, we need a way for our players to join the correct keg brawl room other than just random chance.

What do you say?

kuora.5402:

Lalnuir.4957:

SkeletalLlama.5381:

That only shows living players. It doesn’t include the other half of their guild that was killed.

Right all those dead player icons on the mini-map. Why didn’t I see that before? . . . oh wait. . .

Seriously guys if your gonna troll at least put some effort into it, trying to claim bull kitten that you can clearly see is false from watching the vid is just pointless.

kuora.5402:

I see an EMP commander saying it wasn’t an even numbered fight. Until he can clarify that CDS won fair and square, I don’t think you should be bragging on the forums.

Yes he could be mad because he lost, but he didn’t do that when EMP lost against VoTF, TW, etc.

Mate you where in CDS, do you really think they would of brought 20+ people to an organized 15v15 GvG? Do you honestly believe either knight or jack would allow something like that?

I did not question Cds leadership. I want EMP clarification. Also, baseless cds leadership would be one of the reasons i quit.

Take it back Elrenia!! I will come hunt you down and aggro more warthogs on you!

wondo.2870:

Really fun reset night on BG BL. the fights never stopped! Shout out to Fear & CDS from SoR and Icoa and LotD from BG! You guys were hitting us hard all night and we loved it!

one thing I noticed is that most of the guilds stayed separate for the most part not forming a mega zerg ball! This made fights really fun in open field because it was like 30v30 or so for each engagement, one side never really having a huge number advantage. Anyways even though we lost a bunch of stuff on our map we were really having a blast thanks for bringing the heat!

btw saw the new SF troll tag. what was it Bag Force [SF]? love it, keep em coming!

We had a lot of fun as well! Had some pretty epic fights north of Briar tower and in the north near Godslore. I like splitting our guilds up as well. A lot of people on the forums complain about WvW being a zerg fest, but when you fight in smaller groups like that, you get a lot of opportunities for random GvG fights.

Btw Jedbecca, CDS still wants to GvG you guys for real. I enjoyed playing with you back on SBI in the old days, and you seem like a great sport. See you in the field this week. Beware of traps.

We definitely did not have “20+”. In fact, when we were ready to go 35 minutes before this video starts, we could only get 12 players online and wanted to 12v12 EMP. However, EMP said they would not agree to anything less than 20v20, and really preferred 25v25 because they had “specific group compositions for 20v20”.

We really wanted a GvG so we blew up all our chats and whispers trying to scrape up the last 3 players to get us to 15. As soon as we had that, I told EMP and they gave the map to go to. When we arrived we had been ready to go for half an hour, with one of members needing to leave to go to work.

EMP then started saying wait for this, wait for that. They wanted me to leave my party and “show me the field”, line our players up in front of them (I guess so they could check our comp?), and were taking forever to be ready.

I gave the EMP commander a 90 second countdown via whispers when we were finally going to engage, so they were not caught off guard.

CDS brought 15 players to this fight, and we barely managed that number. EMP simply lost, perhaps because we’re more practiced at fighting with a smaller group size. But nonetheless, we won fair and square.

Thanks for coming out anyway. If you guys mellow out a bit and want to GvG us again for a chance at a rematch, we’ll gladly fight you again.

My guild [CDS] had a great time fighting on Blackgate Borderlands last night! We kicked the new match off with a pre-reset GvG:

EMP vs CDS Guild Battle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYbU9Tqdrvs

Unfortunately my contact from EMP was offline shortly after the first and only round, but we would love to have a rematch!

We’re also interested in more GvG fights against anyone who is willing.

Stay sieged out there!

Caedas [CDS] of Sanctum of Rall challenges Emperium [EMP] to a 15v15 Guild vs Guild battle.

Result:
http://youtu.be/UYbU9Tqdrvs

CDS emerges victorious, losing only one player during the entire skirmish!

Thanks EMP for coming out to give us some competitive brawling. Care for a rematch?

CDS is looking to challenge some other guilds out there to GvG battles:
Strike Force [SF]
Icoa
MERC
Agg
- and any others that wish to take us on!

Cheers.

wedo.3049:

HMMM AS THE creator of Hands OFf My Octopus all I have to say it that we had a few friends on JQ and we came to JQ that way, we weren’t planning to stay just were visiting friends. Anyway we never follow zergs, we like the small fights. If any of you don’t like it pay for our xfers and we will go to your server and take camps and take out the havoc squads, we enjoy the small fights and even larger.
We went to T1 to find more action and to find harder fights, JQ is just where we landed. ANyway hook us up with gold we will all move to your server!

Hands OFF MY OCTOPUS
wedo

Hey, I know you guys! It seems like every couple days we spot a few kitten ’s up north trying to take our spawn supply camp.

Paying 30 silver for a viable moa-bird-targeting system or method that would allow a large team of mesmers to effectively transform unique targets on the fly.

Viable?

I mean… think about it. If you had 20 mesmers turn an enemy zerg of 20 into Moas, it seems like you could kill enough of them to turn the tide in your favor before they transform back.

Thoughts?

Caedas [CDS] also hereby challenges Icoa and KnT in GvG mortal combat.

I don’t care, anybody! We haven’t gotten to GvG at all because most guilds are too afraid to fight us.

Caedas [CDS] guild of SoR hereby challenges [EMP] of Jade Quarry to a battle-to-the-death Guild vs. Guild match.

Prior to the GvG start, I additionally challenge the golden-sunrise EMP charr commander to a 1v1 duel before our armies.

We await your response to this challenge. Whisper “Knight Of Flowers” to make the proper time and location arrangements at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

We got trapped inside the jumping puzzle, but we’re making a comeback.

Thanks for helping us flip JQ garrison last night, LotD. /salute

For me, this issue is not about my “right” to an event chest. It’s about fun. I don’t enjoy farming, and I rarely go to dragons and world bosses even though I know you can lookup the timers for each and get great rewards.

I just want to be able to casually stroll through zones and participate in these big boss fights easily. The biggest problem is how fast they end now. If ArenaNet made it so they scaled properly, I would be okay with guests being there. The lag is not as big of an issue, however improving that would also be good.

I’m not going to camp at a boss spawn like it’s a midnight iPhone release just to participate in events within a game that’s meant to be immersive and flexible towards casual play styles.

I don’t think we should have to schedule our day around when a boss should spawn. That’s the old, dumb way of doing MMOs. I just want to be able to run randomly through the world, have a giant monster appear, and have a cool fight with it.

200 players, most of which just guested to my server to farm this event, nuking it down in 10 seconds is NOT a fun experience. It ruins the immersion and serendipity of these kinds of encounters and makes it feel like a job in real life. “Better show up to the event early and wait in line or else you miss out.” No thanks.

It wasn’t like this before guesting, and I believe the guesting system is the only reason it has become this lame. I want my boss fights back.

-A Purple Hooded Charr

My understanding was that the guesting system was meant to be used as a way for players to join their friends in PvE on other servers. However, many players have discovered they can use it as a way to increase the number of dragon chests and world bosses they can farm per day.

This “guest farming” is making it so that the world boss events last less than 10 seconds, are no longer fun, and create lots of lag and even overflows from the sheer number of guests hopping servers to farm.

Something should be done to stop this type of farming, because it ruins the fun of world bosses. I was leveling my Charr necromancer a few days ago in Queensdale when the Shadow Behemoth spawned. I have not fought him in months and was really excited to take him on with my new character.

I was about 100 feet from the spawn area when the event started, and I didn’t make 20 steps before it was already over. This type of “farming over fun” is not what Guilds Wars 2 is about, at least in my mind. Please do something to put a stop to this so I can fight my server’s World Bosses in a fun way again!

What about making the dragon or boss event chests have a cooldown timer to make it so there’s no advantage to hop servers and get more chests? That might cut down a lot on guest-farming while allowing players who guest with friends to still participate in those other servers’ events and get loot if they haven’t completed that event very recently anywhere else.

Am I correct in my conclusion that no Guild Missions will be completable until the Bounty category is fixed? From what I can tell, every other Mission type requires Merits, which means you have to complete Bounty Missions first before unlocking the other types.

This is very frustrating after we just spent 150,000 influence speeding it up. Most of that influence came from members donating gold to buy drinks at the Guild Promoter. Unless ANet fixes this bug in less that 31 hours, we just wasted all that gold buying influence.

I am sad.

I was relaxing and having a drink at the pub near my house the other day, and somehow got to talking about MMOs with a gentleman at the bar. He then told me he was actually a commander for JQ, and his guild normally ran events that began around the oceanic timezone (3am – 11am eastern US time).

I kind of lost control and body slammed him through the window. They sweat me out for a few hours at the local police station before they let me use the phone. I finally got through to my GM, Miasmic Spiritsong, over collect, since his is the only number I had memorized from texting him each time we are about to lose our garrison waypoint every night.

Luckily, we had enough guild donations to cover my bail this time. I learned my lesson, though. Always carry a credit card when you visit pubs where JQ players frequent.

Help JQ is farming me at Hyleks where I am trying to get Daily Healer revives!

I am still out of arrow carts, please help me!! I am accepting donations, even if you are on Jade Quarry or SoS. You can still drop them. Thanks <3

Guys I only have 1 arrow cart left. Please, if you have any you want to donate me please /whisper Knight Of Flowers in game. I promise I’ll drop it out of AoE range somewhere it can poke lots of holes into JQ zergs.

After gradually rising up the ranks in the WvW tiers to reach Tier 1, Sanctum of Rall finally gets a crack at Jade Quarry and Sea of Sorrows. Unlike our final Tier 2 matchup, the fighting is constant and fierce at this level.

Some of our glorious field victories against SoS and JQ zergs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2FrwbPSLUU

While we have some amazing combat performance when running our coordinated guild groups, we still struggle with 24/7 coverage and points-per-tick vs the other servers. So far, we have been starting out strong on the weekend, and the pie chart fluctuates between all three servers at different times of day as big pushes are made.

We aren’t too worried about the score, and our current goal is to give JQ and SoS hell while having loads of fun.

To the battlefield!!

Is there any way for us to know for sure short of a player receiving a precursor or ANet confirming the possibility?

No, Riss, they are not guaranteed to contain an exotic. I purchased one and received two rares from it.

I have been trying to answer questions and give advice to friends about all the new laurel items available, but I found myself stumped when asked this question:

Do laurel gear boxes (such as Elemental Gear Box, Ranger Gear Box, Mesmer Gear Box, etc) have a chance to contain legendary precursors?

My first impression is that they do, because precursors are exotic items, and the tooltip on the boxes says it has a chance to contain exotic items.

Can anyone please confirm or deny this? Thanks!

Hi everyone! I have put together a video guide of all the laurel items available for purchase and each one’s usefulness, value, and availability.

I also included some tips to help you complete your Daily Achievement categories, such as Daily Healer, more quickly.

The best items to purchase are the ascended amulets, utility infusions, Endless Mystery Cat Tonic, and mini pets. (These are all exclusively available from the Laurel Merchants and no other place.)

If you just want to cash in your laurels for in-game gold, the best way to go right now is the packs of unidentified dyes and heavy crafting bags. This depends heavily on current market prices, and the crafting bags do have an element of randomness to their potential profitability.

Please let me know what you think of the guide and add your feedback. Thank you so much!

Daily Crafting and Daily Veteran Slayer are not working for me either. I tried discovering a recipe on my level 0 armorsmithing character: nothing. A friend and I wiped out a supply camp in WvW full of “Veteran Scouts,” “Veteran Guards,” and the “Veteran Guild Supervisor,” none of which counted.

My guildies said they just refined some jute and got the Daily Crafting done.

I guess I don’t get my laurel today because of these 2 bugged categories. Please remove them until they are fixed.

I just traded in 3 exotic trinkets that cost me a chunk of gold to make because I thought Lyns was “here to stay.” When I ran over to her to turn them in, I suddenly realize she is disabled. This sucks! Why does the Mystic Forge let you trade in valuable items for commendations with no way to spend them?

I would have appreciated a warning message or something. Now I have wasted a bunch of gold for useless commendations.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

viperior.2461:

Christia, were you the Guardian with the Elementalist of [Rev] fighting 10 of us outside SoR Valley Keep in EB 2-3 days ago? I will seriously pay you 1 gold if you tell me your builds and how you managed to survive so long like that. I would pay more, but I’m poor, haha.

That was me. I’ve given my builds up to enough “enemy” players though, and I’ve paid for it in some atrociously long fights so far. So I’ll have to think about it. ^^

Please, please, please! I promise I will keep it on the down low. I don’t even play alts. Besides, don’t you remember when we bonded in the jumping puzzle? I felt something between us. Won’t you share you secrets with me? :’(

PS Happy Holidays everyone! I changed my character to Santa

Christia, were you the Guardian with the Elementalist of [Rev] fighting 10 of us outside SoR Valley Keep in EB 2-3 days ago? I will seriously pay you 1 gold if you tell me your builds and how you managed to survive so long like that. I would pay more, but I’m poor, haha.

@Dan Thanks! I am glad you enjoyed it.

BlakThornArrow.2389:

how did you film all this?? or did you add the motion affects in an editing program?

I used the in-game vistas for the first two scenes, which automatically pans the camera through the area. Some of the zooming is done with the Ken Burns effect in iMovie, and some it, like at 0:37, is done by actually walking forward in the game as a tiny spider (which removes my character from the scene if the camera is pointed upward). The zoom-in at 0:42 is done by tilting the camera angle upward so it collides with the ground and brings my character much closer to the camera.

I hope that helps!

This was a video my guild and I put together to promote the Halloween event and holiday:

I can’t wait until Wintersday!

The eternal war between SoR, BG, & IoJ continues. Meanwhile, in the jumping puzzle…

I previously posted this in the WvW section, but seeing the announcement asking for fan-generated content, I figured I would repost it here.

We stampeded around in WvW as moose, rams, and dolyaks and enjoyed cabbage grazing, lakeside water slurping, and running enemies off cliffs with nothing more than our hooves.

This score update was brought to you by Baby Quaggan Tonics International.

Before this thread is closed as well, I think it is safe to say we ALL hate exploiting. Most of us probably have experiences from other games of how hackers and exploiters ruin the fun of the game for all.

If you see it going on, do not participate in it, even if you think it’s okay because your enemy used it against you. Two wrongs do not make a right. Exploiting is not suddenly okay just because someone on an enemy server used it against you previously. If you join in, you only exacerbate the problem and sink to their level.

Ultimately it is up to the entire Guild Wars 2 community to minimize exploitation by refusing to take part and having guild leaders keep their members in check.

Thanks, everyone.

Esoteric.5490:

Fantastic! Can I get a link for where you got the last song? I’m a big FF7 fan:) awesome video though. I must get one of those moose transformations:P

Sure, you can download it for free from The Ultimate D-pad’s SoundCloud page.

rmBossa.4621:

“looks like meats back on the menu boys”

i LOLd hard

well played.

Hehe, I mistyped and said Bosy instead. Bosy is my moose friend (?).

ghostchipz.2341:

lol So this is the new SoR stealth tactic fear all wildlife cus you never know it might just kill you.

thank you guys and girls this has made my monday morning so much better

Yes! Better kill every moose you see if up you’re up against SoR. Ya never know which ones are gonna bite ya. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti…

A herd of moose, dolyaks and rams took over Sanctum of Rall Borderlands map yesterday, driving several Blackgate Invaders off cliffs and ravaging the local cabbage flora:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nKfdiWEAOA

Sarcazar.6148:

RedDeath.2980:

jordain.8617:

so without any reset either weekly or monthly i may has well either quit looking for a group for this dungeon which is making me loose content in a game im otherwise enjoying.

Uhm—- no? Thats like saying no new players or new characters play the game. EVENTUALLY you’ll find a group. Heck I start about 3 hours late and found a group now I just need to find a group at my level. Its significantly harder to find a group higher level than it is lower level.

You completely missed that point of his post. What he’s basically saying is that without the reset, it will be very difficult to find a group at lower levels. The restrictions will be more community-based than game based.

Frankly, it’s like WoW’s raids, if you don’t do a raid once, you can’t do it at all. That’s why I hate community based restrictions.

Our guild has created a shared spreadsheet with each others’ highest difficulty levels, and we will be helping level up our lower guildmates so they can join us in the higher difficulties.

Show the amount of supply each of your party members is carrying on the party interface. A similar feature was implemented for Heart Quests which would show you which of your party members have completed the nearby quest. I would like to see the same thing for supply carried in World Versus World.

One of the most common questions repeated on Ventrilo to my guildmates is, “Who has supply?” “How much supply do you have?” “Say your supply in say chat.”

It would be nice to have this constant need to repeatedly question people solved by a in-game interface improvement.

If you do it, all WvW players will be thrilled, especially the hardcore ones that run in groups and often deploy ballistas and arrow carts during intense combat situations.

<3

Bluesavanah.8562:

Nice idea’s but playing on Gandara this week makes all your idea’s pointless being as the enemy zerg is consistantly 50-100 players 24 hours a day.

We probably could have handled a zerg of 50 with our original defense setup. You would need plenty of siege and all of it manned, but it is doable.

I know a lot of people have been complaining about rendering; if it is affecting you, turning your graphics to Best Performance has helped in my experience. Other than that, upgrading your computer hardware and ArenaNet’s future graphics optimization are possible solutions.

Killing a zerg of 100 is a tougher cookie. I don’t see these very often, even being from Stormbluff Isle originally (tier 1) and now on Sanctum of Rall (tier 2). Therefore, I have not been able to observe strategies to defeat them.

One thing that is certain is that an entrenched force using siege weapons has a range and damage advantage. A mobile zerg would have to stop and build siege weapons to gain an equal advantage, but your ballista gunners could then target their build sites.

In any case, you can destroy a larger force with a fraction of their numbers using the power of siege. The hard part is being prepared with a sufficient enough force to tips the scales in your favor.

LameFox.6349:

Well… the theory is nice, but is this actually more cost effective than just letting them have it and taking it back when they leave? Siege equipment can add up and the upgrade isn’t that expensive.

That depends upon many factors. The cost of the supply camp’s upgrades is not the only thing to consider. The Dolyaks departing from the camp help to build upgrades at keeps, which are much more expensive. They are also much harder to recapture once lost.

The enemy’s behaviors must also be examined. Some camps can be easily defended by one ballista and an arrow cart if the enemy is sending smaller strike teams.

Lastly, it isn’t only the upgrade costs you can lose by leaving camps undefended. It can also hurt the morale of the individuals who consistently upgrade them, only to see them lost on a whim. Keep in mind that siege weapons can be acquired without spending gold or badges by completing the jumping puzzles on any of the four WvW maps.