@Anet - Siege changes I think we strongly need for the alliance change.

I think most agree that siege right now is incredibly powerful, especially with tactivators added on top of them. The difference with tactivators though is that they have a 30 minute cooldown that can be worked around when trying to capture a Tier 3 Objective. With well placed siege inside and a few defenders, taking an objective is almost impossible (with some locations not being flipped for the entire week). I have a few different suggestions on how we could rectify that problem. Implementing even one of them would make the world of difference in my opinion, and I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the topic.

Option 1- Lower the siege cap in all objectives. As an example, only allow 2 of each siege per tower, and 8 of each siege per keep?Option 2- Make siege only able to damage other siege. If this makes PvD too strong, make it so only siege can damage gates?Option 3- Drastically reduce how much damage we take from all siege.

This thread was created because I am worried that once alliances come out, the tactical siege warfare will spread to all tiers. As it stands, only some tiers and servers use a lot of siege, but spreading these players and guilds across all the newer tiers might make a lot of objectives impossible. I'm not asking for easy captures, but I also wouldn't find it fun to never be able to take any fortified locations.

EDIT: I get it - siege isn't a problem for large zergs. I've tried to change my playing and commanding style, and I just wanted to voice some suggestions I've noticed with my size group (usually 20). If you dislike the ideas, you can say so without bashing them or my commanding. If siege isn't a problem for you, that's cool, but they have been difficult for me. I'm always willing to learn, but "git gud" comments don't help.

Also - If you get the chance, read Whiteouts siege radius cap suggestion on Page 2. I think it's way better than all three of mine.

first option is problematic as people will disagree were to put that limited siege.second option is interesting if siege can only take damage from siege and while in it you cant take damage from other players. else while you try to damage the siege you will get bombed on siege without putting preassure aswell on the ones casting on you.option 3 is pretty much same as option 2 - drastically lower damage means pretty much no damage considering the support inside a group.also ACs and some abilities on other siege weapons would get redundant with option 2 and 3, therefor need to be changed.

i am not entirely sure what exactly your current issue with siege is, is it that you dont want to do siege war or is it that you really think defensive siege is too strong? because the most powerfull in terms of siege out there are offensive shield gens, used right there is no siege counter to them, you can just suicide bomb or if you are enough kill all opponents in a normal fight.

my wish for siege is that traps are made dodgeable , supply and anti stealth trap currently cannot be evaded like player casted traps.

Seems to favor ktraining a little too much to be honest.I'd rather just see superior siege removed and the watchtower bonus have a shared intermittent period of downtime to let smaller groups function/spread out. This makes siege have plenty of value still in the case of outnumbered defenses (especially since as far as skill usage goes, attackers are generally favored attacking up vs down), but doesn't favor ktraining too heavily by slowing the attack pace down (which still allows long-lasting sieges to work). More people are going to need to man more siege to topple a zerg, but that's okay because it at least demands more defenders.

Sieges traditionally were never really about massive raids and quickly toppling defenses. They were meant to starve the kingdom of resources and win by attrition. I think generally, that's captured pretty well right now, just it's a little bit too difficult for the sake of fun gameplay. Attackers should only really have a big edge by committing to a siege for a while, but the current iteration just favors pretty much trying to take things which aren't contested.

u.u how then will the few defend against the many?

how will the few break the t3 of a larger group or reclaim their own if taken?

how much do we spend?

Easiest change is to make siege cost supply to Re-Arm. Battering Rams and Golems become the most budget, despite their weaknesses, because they would cost nothing to use. Then reduce the supply cost of building everything (except rams/golems) and up repair cost on structures.

Catapults would cost 3 for Standard, 2 for gravel.Trebs 5 for Standard, 5 for cow, 0 for Water Field.Cannon 3 for standard, 4 for Grapeshot, 5 for Ice Shot.Ballista 2 for all.Arrow Carts 2 for all.Shield Gens 1 for the bouncing ball, 3 for the wall, and 10 for the dome.Mortar would cost 3 for both shots, 5 for the raining shot.Boiling Oil costs 0 to use all abilities.

This makes holding camps extra important as both offense and defense need them. It also means that if you hold more camps, you can support more siege. Walk/Slap those yaks.

Just make all siege cost supply per use. We're not talking about trebs, cata's, bali's, and flame rams here; they aren't the problem. We're talking about shield gens and arrow-carts, they are the bane that turns many commanders away from even attempting to take a T3 keep.. aka, they don't want to bang their head against the wall for 2 hours.

So the solution:

• Make arrowcarts 10 supply per shot
• Make shield gens 50 supply per bubble

Doesn't matter whether it's offensive or defensive use. Obviously it would be next to impossible for shield gens to be used offensively with this. You'd get less than 4 bubbles before they were rendered useless. Defensively used, they've have to be selectively and strategically used buying time until the defending group comes out to fight Again with arrow carts, one could simply not sit on them and spam them until the player's finger's bled, the supply would vanish allowing it for an easy capture.

One can not even begin to describe how boring and pointless it is trying to siege a keep with trebs, only to have both the attackers and defenders repeatedly bubbling their siege/walls. It's ridiculous, and it needs to go.

These proposals are insane.

I don't think any of those are necessary. If you don't have a group with any eles to clear arrow carts off of walls it's a tough life, but you can always stay outside their range, force an enemy out or spam the hell out of shield gens. Blocks and damage migitation also exist.

@MUDse.7623 said:is it that you dont want to do siege war or is it that you really think defensive siege is too strong?my wish for siege is that traps are made dodgeable , supply and anti stealth trap currently cannot be evaded like player casted traps.

I find defensive siege really strong when placed in the right place, and with a couple people manning them. I do agree that the traps should be dodgeable though.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Seems to favor ktraining a little too much to be honest.I'd rather just see superior siege removed and the watchtower bonus have a shared intermittent period of downtime to let smaller groups function/spread out.

I definitely did not intend for it to create a K-train. As I stated initially, my concern is once all the servers have better coverage and more population, everywhere will be decked out with siege and it'll take hours to capture anything. I would be happy with superior and guild siege being removed. I like that suggestion. Ty for mentioning it.

@Sovereign.1093 said:u.u how then will the few defend against the many?

Quite truthfully, the few really shouldn't be able to defend against the many. That might be an unpopular opinion, but just like how regardless of skill, a 50 man zerg will always beat a 10 man zerg. don't hate me :(

@Kiroshima.8497 said:@DeadlySynz.3471 said:

You both have the same suggestion, but with two different implementations. I like any ideas for slightly powering down siege, and that would work if you had to pay supply in order to use siege. It might be abused though by someone who dumps an AC near the supply and just wastes it all.

@Blocki.4931 said:If you don't have a group with any eles to clear arrow carts off of walls it's a tough life, but you can always stay outside their range, force an enemy out or spam the hell out of shield gens. Blocks and damage migitation also exist.

It is a tough life indeed. Especially if you're not running a huge group. Perhaps I'm worried about nothing, and all will be well when the alliances are released. I still wanted to voice my thoughts.

Phew. That was a lot replying. Thanks for the responses so far.

@Blocki.4931 said:These proposals are insane.

I don't think any of those are necessary. If you don't have a group with any eles to clear arrow carts off of walls it's a tough life, but you can always stay outside their range, force an enemy out or spam the hell out of shield gens. Blocks and damage migitation also exist.

Groups less than a zerg also exist. Groups simply trying to walk past something without getting hit by mortars, catas, trebs, also exist. I don't care how hard a keep is to take. I'm just really really tired of siege no matter what I'm doing or where I'm going.

@Celsith.2753 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:These proposals are insane.

I don't think any of those are necessary. If you don't have a group with any eles to clear arrow carts off of walls it's a tough life, but you can always stay outside their range, force an enemy out or spam the hell out of shield gens. Blocks and damage migitation also exist.

Well, if you are a roamer or just have a small group, taking towers and even low tiered keeps should never be an issue. You can stay out of AC range and cata a wall down. They shouldn't be brimming with siege either and if they are, the group manning them should be able to wipe you anyway. Using siege yourself to take a wall/gate down shouldn't be an issue. The only issue with siege would arise from groups crashing into keeps and dying to their arrow carts or having to counterplay an enemy siege attacking from far away.

I don't really see the issue?

@Tatori.7938 said:I think most agree that siege right now is incredibly powerful, especially with tactivators added on top of them. The difference with tactivators though is that they have a 30 minute cooldown that can be worked around when trying to capture a Tier 3 Objective. With well placed siege inside and a few defenders, taking an objective is almost impossible (with some locations not being flipped for the entire week). I have a few different suggestions on how we could rectify that problem. Implementing even one of them would make the world of difference in my opinion, and I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the topic.

Option 1- Lower the siege cap in all objectives. As an example, only allow 2 of each siege per tower, and 4 of each siege per keep? (Perhaps 4 for outer, and 4 for inner?)Option 2- Make siege only able to damage other siege. If this makes PvD too strong, make it so only siege can damage gates?Option 3- Drastically reduce how much damage we take from all siege.

This thread was created because I am worried that once alliances come out, the tactical siege warfare will spread to all tiers. As it stands, only some tiers and servers use a lot of siege, but spreading these players and guilds across all the newer tiers might make a lot of objectives impossible. I'm not asking for easy captures, but I also wouldn't find it fun to never be able to take any fortified locations.

No. Taking a defended structure is not supposed to be easy. Use counter siege and different tactics if you are struggling to take an objective. Grow and evolve your commanding skills, don’t expect the devs to make your 80 person zerg train mow everything down easier.

Have to agree with all the idea will not help anything, some will even backfires. No tower or keep is impenetrable, it's only the matter of time depending on how well it's sieged & number of sieges inside. Is this from the mid/lower tiers matchup? Cause it sounded as if there's imbalance/lack of forces to siege in as a invader against the defenders. Or no disrespect, lack of strategy.

@Tatori.7938 said:I definitely did not intend for it to create a K-train. As I stated initially, my concern is once all the servers have better coverage and more population, everywhere will be decked out with siege and it'll take hours to capture anything. I would be happy with superior and guild siege being removed. I like that suggestion. Ty for mentioning it.

uneven numbers leads to t3 structures full of siege but easy to take at some point of the day, while the closer the numbers , the lower the chance you will see such a structure and if you do it is your own fault and should therefor take time to capture it back.alliances might bring overall even coverage but you want have even numbers all the time. so i dont think much will change, in our current matchup everything gets flipped at least twice a day but no side is strong enough during every hour of the day to defend.

Towers and keeps are way to hard to take and it seems like Anet has listened to too many siege humpers when buffing all this stuff. I don't even know why anyone cares to defend when everything upgrades automatically and PPT means nothing, People act like they built the structures themselves or something. Only reason anyone would want to take a tower or keep is to get at all the people hiding in them.

@"Kiroshima.8497" said:Easiest change is to make siege cost supply to Re-Arm. Battering Rams and Golems become the most budget, despite their weaknesses, because they would cost nothing to use. Then reduce the supply cost of building everything (except rams/golems) and up repair cost on structures.

Catapults would cost 3 for Standard, 2 for gravel.Trebs 5 for Standard, 5 for cow, 0 for Water Field.Cannon 3 for standard, 4 for Grapeshot, 5 for Ice Shot.Ballista 2 for all.Arrow Carts 2 for all.Shield Gens 1 for the bouncing ball, 3 for the wall, and 10 for the dome.Mortar would cost 3 for both shots, 5 for the raining shot.Boiling Oil costs 0 to use all abilities.

This makes holding camps extra important as both offense and defense need them. It also means that if you hold more camps, you can support more siege. Walk/Slap those yaks.This is way, way overcomplicated when you can make do with just the simple first parts of the idea of rebalancing supply costs. Such as:

Current hp wall/door repair per supply at T0/T1, T2 and T3 is all the same 1750 -> Wall/door repair at T1 is 2000, T2 is 1500 and T3 is 1000.

Result? Walls/doors at T2 and T3 will be considerably more expensive to maintain but T0/T1 is somewhat cheaper.

Current arrowcart cost 40/50 supply -> Arrowcarts costing 60/70 supply.Result? Less fucking arrowcarts.

Current shield generators cost 40/50 supply -> Sheild gens costing 70/80 supplyResult? Less static defense.

Current trebuchet cost 100/120 supplies -> Trebuchet costing 60/80 suppliesCurrent trebuchet does pitiful damage on T2/T3 -> Make a multiplier that boost treb damage on T2 by 25% and T3 by 50%Result? Trebs now become viable to construct for long range sieging of reinforced/fortified structures.

(reduction in golem cost I am still out on, mobile siege is pretty powerful)

And that's pretty much it. Just the trebuchet change will change the entire battlefield because suddenly 3-5 man parties can siege reinforced/fortified structures and force a response from defenders. No more "meh it's not worth the effort" and walking around.

Does this mean defenders can build more trebs too? Sure! But you know what? Nothing is more impressive than seeing flaming balls of fire fly across the battlefield while fighting over an objective.

Most of the servers already use an excessive amount of siege as it is. While alliances may spread those users around more, the flip side is the alliance system will provide a more even population coverage, it should help with taking structures more often before they get to t3. Placing a cap on the amount of siege that can be placed in a structure is good in theory, but terrible when you look at some of the structures in the game, particularly something like garrison which has eight gates and multiple breakable walls, while some of that can be doubled up, the keeps on desert borderland are even bigger and more spaced out.

Siege do need some tweaks.

• Reduce arrow cart range from 2500 to 2000 or 1500, I've seen ac hitting places they probably shouldn't from where they were placed.
• Increase minimum placement range between siege in general with the exception of rams. This may help with stacking of shield generators which can be a real problem on offensive uses. While most siege is usually spaced on walls, there some instances when you can find people building like 4 acs lined up a wall in a very short space.
• Increase arrow cart supply cost to 100, and shield generator supply cost to 120.

make catas hit allies and alied siege to force them away from walls

The fix to siege in my opinion is pretty simple:Make siege consume supply per skill use (ammo)And with that, remove the siege disablers.

@"Dawdler.8521" said:This is way, way overcomplicated when you can make do with just the simple first parts of the idea of rebalancing supply costs. Such as:

Current hp wall/door repair per supply at T0/T1, T2 and T3 is all the same 1750 -> Wall/door repair at T1 is 2000, T2 is 1500 and T3 is 1000.

Result? Walls/doors at T2 and T3 will be considerably more expensive to maintain but T0/T1 is somewhat cheaper.

Current arrowcart cost 40/50 supply -> Arrowcarts costing 60/70 supply.Result? Less kitten arrowcarts.

Current shield generators cost 40/50 supply -> Sheild gens costing 70/80 supplyResult? Less static defense.

Current trebuchet cost 100/120 supplies -> Trebuchet costing 60/80 suppliesCurrent trebuchet does pitiful damage on T2/T3 -> Make a multiplier that boost treb damage on T2 by 25% and T3 by 50%Result? Trebs now become viable to construct for long range sieging of reinforced/fortified structures.

(reduction in golem cost I am still out on, mobile siege is pretty powerful)

And that's pretty much it. Just the trebuchet change will change the entire battlefield because suddenly 3-5 man parties can siege reinforced/fortified structures and force a response from defenders. No more "meh it's not worth the effort" and walking around.

Does this mean defenders can build more trebs too? Sure! But you know what? Nothing is more impressive than seeing flaming balls of fire fly across the battlefield while fighting over an objective.

That doesn't actually change the game dynamics though. Sure, you can build more trebs, but it rewards stockpiling them as once they're up, they're there until you clear them. Same with the arrow carts and acs. This makes the T3 structures, which have huge amounts of supply, incredibly annoying (not difficult if you want to be REALLY patient) to break.

In order to break up zergs and promote healthier siege play, you need to prevent stockpiles of supply from occuring and promote Camp/Supply focused gameplay. Defenders are forced to go out to hold their structures since they would ACTUALLY be starved out, guaranteed. Any siege they use would eventually burn through their supply, forcing them into melee combat.

Readjusting base supply costs doesn't do that.

@TheWolf.1602 said:make catas hit allies and alied siege to force them away from walls

Having them against the walls benefits defenders. They can fire outside of ballista and AC range on most towers (as well as outside of watchtower range on several)

Putting them on the walls actually no longer has any strategic advantage since charging Catas has been a thing.

Like most problems noted on here, people have not adjusted their gameplay.

@XenesisII.1540 said:

Siege do need some tweaks.

• Reduce arrow cart range from 2500 to 2000 or 1500, I've seen ac hitting places they probably shouldn't from where they were placed.

I might disagree with this but it's worth trying.

• Increase minimum placement range between siege in general with the exception of rams. This may help with stacking of shield generators which can be a real problem on offensive uses. While most siege is usually spaced on walls, there some instances when you can find people building like 4 acs lined up a wall in a very short space.

Really good idea. It never made sense why items could be stacked on top of each other.

• Increase arrow cart supply cost to 100, and shield generator supply cost to 120.

For superior correct? Maybe 75/100 for guild versions. Still more...

The only problem with that is it further hurts the small groups, but I guess small groups probably aren't using those like the large Zergs.

If we don't want to overly punish the attackers though, we would need to decrease the max supply at each tier of each structure, with the exception of camps.

@Tatori.7938 said:I think most agree that siege right now is incredibly powerful, especially with tactivators added on top of them. The difference with tactivators though is that they have a 30 minute cooldown that can be worked around when trying to capture a Tier 3 Objective. With well placed siege inside and a few defenders, taking an objective is almost impossible (with some locations not being flipped for the entire week). I have a few different suggestions on how we could rectify that problem. Implementing even one of them would make the world of difference in my opinion, and I'd like to hear all your thoughts on the topic.

Option 1- Lower the siege cap in all objectives. As an example, only allow 2 of each siege per tower, and 4 of each siege per keep? (Perhaps 4 for outer, and 4 for inner?)Option 2- Make siege only able to damage other siege. If this makes PvD too strong, make it so only siege can damage gates?Option 3- Drastically reduce how much damage we take from all siege.

This thread was created because I am worried that once alliances come out, the tactical siege warfare will spread to all tiers. As it stands, only some tiers and servers use a lot of siege, but spreading these players and guilds across all the newer tiers might make a lot of objectives impossible. I'm not asking for easy captures, but I also wouldn't find it fun to never be able to take any fortified locations.

Anet, the OP is right. This is the correct way of thinking. You should seriously consider listening to this person as opposed to the voices in your heads.

@Sovereign.1093 said:u.u how then will the few defend against the many?

how will the few break the t3 of a larger group or reclaim their own if taken?

how much do we spend?

u dont... u will still get ppt farmed and see the whole map burn :D

I would not mind heavy armored classes have extra damage reducing from certain siege like AC'S, still with some much barrier and spambrand heals... superios ac0s need to damage players...

Or every one wants to ignore the damage? maybe the issue is that is possible to pile up tons of ac's on each one proximity, and the stack is the problem not the damage.

Superior AC's are the biggest culprit, but if you lower the siege cap, what about the team trying to take a keep or tower? Only allow them to drop a couple rams at the gate? That would take too long, and probably push a new meta of golem rush. You could build golems at different camps/towers, and ferry them to the objective you want to take, suddenly that siege cap of, let's say 4 rams, means nothing when 8 golems show up at the gate.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@XenesisII.1540 said:Siege do need some tweaks.

• Reduce arrow cart range from 2500 to 2000 or 1500, I've seen ac hitting places they probably shouldn't from where they were placed.

Check out places like NET where you can place an ac in front of the supply hut area but it can hit just over the wall on the west cata wall, same goes for Mendons, an ac on the wall near the hut can hit just over the cata wall side, I believe the acs can even hit from the stairs area of that tower to the hill across from it where the ballista is usually setup.

• Increase arrow cart supply cost to 100, and shield generator supply cost to 120.

Yes superiors.Small groups don't typically need acs or gens unless they're using it for defense, in which case it can be pre-built in structures. Don't really need this option if it can be worked out to have more restrictive distance of placements between siege in the above option. I still do think generators should have the same cost of a treb though.