Suggestion for additional WvW structure

After the no downstate week managed to shake things up a bit, and the subsequent ghost town that WvW is after that fact I began thinking about some changes that seemed like they could be cheaply (relatively) implemented into WvW to make gameplay interesting and rewarding for many types of players. This is an idea that is not exactly my own, simply one that I have seen work in a similar game and have spent a great deal of time with.

World Vs World Lattice StructureThe idea for this comes from a game by the name of Planetside 2. As with many other WvW type games, it features three factions on several "continents" that fight over territory. The key part that I feel would be a great addition to GW2 WvW is the lattice structure controlling the capture and loss of territory and the associated gameplay benefits of holding particular structures. What follows is how I envision that could be implemented and why it feels like it could be a good match. I am not a professional developer nor would I claim to be the best WvWer by any stretch of the imagination so I would welcome and appreciate any feedback.

Lattice Linking:The core idea is that the various keeps, garrisons and camps would be connected by "lines" of connectivity. For the sake of the example I will use Eternal Battlegrounds as the test case. If your side wanted to capture SMC they would need to hold at least one of their two towers in their respective "corner". Without holding at least one tower, SMC would not be able to be captured by that faction. Similarly those towers would not be able to be captured without first holding their respective camps. Additionally possession of these camps and towers would also apply benefits akin to bloodlust bonus and guild auras. These could be bonuses such as reduced siege cost, waypoints or even jump pads that get you back into the fight quicker. The ideal would be bonuses that are attractive enough to warrant groups dedicating themselves to holding but not so over powered that they provide an unbalanced game state.

Why I think it could work:I have found that there is a strong reliance on large zergs or "blobs" in WvW and because of this, there is very little incentive for small groups to get stuck in beyond mindless recapping of inconsequential towers and camps. The idea behind the lattice system is that it would take the guess work out of finding enemies for pugs, allow for some deeper strategies by commanders and provide multiple levels of engagement beyond "zerg and done". The nice thing about lattice linking is that it allows for smaller groups to work viably ahead of the zerg. They can prep towers or keeps while the rest of the zerg is securing behind them, or this smaller group can be sent back to keep and enemy from back capping to allow the zerg not to lose its forward momentum. The bonuses themselves would also benefit the entire faction rather than the current aura bonuses only applying to an area around the keep/tower. The complexity of the lattice lines could be tweaked to provide different "lanes" or kept simplified to keep the flow of combat straight forward. Borderlands would benefit from this even more as things are much more spread out and we've already seen similar types of bonuses that I'm thinking of in the shrines on the desert borderland.

An extra aspect to this that might be interesting, though far more labor intensive would be to have three different borderlands as opposed to now where we have two that are identical and one is the desert map. Each borderland could confer a benefit upon the dominating faction across all of the maps, and encourage spreading your forces out to try and capture as much territory as possible.

Apologies for being wordy, I would welcome and appreciate any feedback. I do ask that if you're against the whole idea or just a part please provide reasoning as opposed to just simply saying "no" or "I don't like it". Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Kinda hard to say if I'd like it or not but I'd be down to try it. I've never played Planetside 2 or any MMO that had anything like this "lattice linking" so I don't really have any experience to pull from. Sounds interesting though, anything to change things up at this point will probably be fun just for the novelty of it.

No, ps2 was a very poorly implemented game and it failed very quickly soon after launch. (I was there and played it.)

This would only support snowballing the weaker server. Weak server cant hold their outer tower? Cool the strong servers can jump pad right into the fight while the weak server walks.

Say no to snowball mechanics.

@"Gwaihir.1745" said:No, ps2 was a very poorly implemented game and it failed very quickly soon after launch. (I was there and played it.)

This would only support snowballing the weaker server. Weak server cant hold their outer tower? Cool the strong servers can jump pad right into the fight while the weak server walks.

Say no to snowball mechanics.

I can see what you're saying about "snowball mechanics" but how is that any different than now where the weaker server gets spawn camped? I wouldn't say I agree with the idea of planetside 2 "failing" though, it's still going strong and being iterated on. I think any time you have three different groups there will always be imbalance which at this point is handled by the stronger moving up one and the weaker moving down one (gaming the system aside) There is also the case that those who want to bandwagon will swap to whichever server is "winning".

Part of the attempt to avoid the situation you've mentioned is the fact that only one tower connecting to the next target along would be required, so if one side is too much of a fight you can always push down the other lane. There is also the case that if there is a good fight to be had there the third faction will also show up to get those sweet sweet bags which always gives an opening. So I agree that snowballing is bad, but I would disagree that the lattice system would create it any more than we're already dealing with now.

In a sense, this already exist. Its not a hard cap that prevent you from capping an objective unless preceding ones has been capped, but the way objectives and supply camps work is that they prevent you from fortifying objectives unless you hold the supply camps. Its really the same thing.

With PS2 they need to cap the active battle area because their map is like 100x larger than a WvW map. "Roaming" behind the enemy lines would only mean everyone spread out too much. This isnt the case for GW2, the few objectives there are is easily and quickly responded to.

Hmm, I'd like to try it, but can't really say which direction it would take.

One advantage (for many players), is that it creates a clearly visible theater of operation, you will always know where the action is, and can get back to it faster. If the enemy got SMC, and your side got your towers, then your side/group/zerg will almost guaranteed be either around SMC or the nearest tower on enemy side.

One negative, unless this excluded camps, is that it would remove most of the reason to go behind enemy lines (Roaming), unless you're just out to gank. I guess this could be fixed by excluding camps, and setting camps as "start lines" for all buildings. So if I was in a havoc squad I could take a camp in enemy territory, and from there go attack and cap a tower in their zone (thus opening for attacking their keep, potentially).

In both cases it creates some predictability in the game, and rewards reading the map. Would also make it easier to scout/defend, simply because you have more buffer to where people attack.

I think Lattice Linking is interesting.On the one hand, it has the potential to reduce the variability of encounters into a linear format. Could make the game less fun for people.On the other hand, you know whats next, fights are a lot more likely if you want to cap stuff, plus some people like the linear format. I wouldnt mind it, probably not at first, as I remember being in lower tiers looking for some times half an hour to find any fights. With this all that would go away for the most part, unless your time zone is just dead.

EditI was just thinking about who this would ultimately benefit, the weaker (A) or stronger (B) side. Imo it would be kinda even.B would be able to take stuff easier, but A would see it coming and be able to prepare for it. Right now B can attack anywhere and its almost always impossible to defend unless you have an EWP / sieged up to high hell / somewhat even numbers.This would make it harder for A to take stuff, since everything that applies to the defenders advantage in the example above applies here as well. It would almost be necessary to split up and attack multiple objectives for A.

@Gwaihir.1745 said:No, ps2 was a very poorly implemented game and it failed very quickly soon after launch. (I was there and played it.)

This would only support snowballing the weaker server. Weak server cant hold their outer tower? Cool the strong servers can jump pad right into the fight while the weak server walks.

Say no to snowball mechanics.

Thats fair so do it like ESO does it then. It has the same lattice like structure but you can still take objectives separated from the lattice so the weaker server can take a tower or keep behind enemy lines, disrupting the stronger server.

I've already mentioned this idea in the past and even was going to post up a thread as a suggestion as I had the lattice all drawn up as well, it was based on ps1/eso though, but I always got stuck on one thing for that idea, the front line. You see the beauty of wvw is the ability to break up groups and hit multiple objectives at a time, it adds a bit of sneak element into the game play. The lattice system would just push to have everyone zerg into the frontlines and bunker down. One thing ps didn't have was upgrading structures in 3 tiers and it also had air access and a backdoor, so while you could upgrade the front gates to prevent vehicles from getting in there was still other ways to.

Lattice also works better on large multiple maps where you need to drive players to spots, PS had huge and multiple maps which not all of which were open for attacks, ESO has one giant map to make this work. Warhammer also had you capping points before you could hit the keeps and had like 15min timers before you could try it again.

Example of the maps, don't mind the lines too much as it had conditions to go with it to make sense.

This would make roamers and small teams useless.

Right now, as a small group you can cap supply camps behind enemy lines to slow down upgrades, or even towers to start siege on keeps.By this you can clear defense siege of keeps or even open up their walls and get ready for your zerg to take.

This tactic is great if your server is being pressured at their territory as it take people away and let you counter-attack or rebuild defenses.

People should be free to attack and take wherever they want. The more territory you get, the harder it should be to defend it.

I'm seeing the mention of smaller groups being out in the cold if lattice linking were to come into play. One of my original aims for thinking of this system is to make multiple gameplay styles viable. As it stands right now on my own server, smaller group stuff isn't really viable as everyone just zergs. The aim of suggesting this change was to provide multiple objectives that smaller groups could take part in.I should like to note that while towers wouldn't be able to be capped without a lattice link, I never intended for the structures to be invulnerable at that time. Smaller groups could get some decent fights cracking objectives open which would allow the larger group to quickly move in, and would also provide another detail that all factions would need to manage in order to avoid being steamrolled so I think there is some viability there for small groups to have an important role. There could also be the chance to include the dredge,frogs, and ogres (on EBG) as part of the lattice system allowing factions to bypass taking SMC in order to begin capping enemy territory. Or as another alternative, the capping requirement could be limited to just the two towers for each faction nearest SMC as a cap condition for SMC leaving other objectives still open for capping to disrupt enemy lines.

As a side note I want to thank everyone who has responded in this thread so far, whether or not we agree all the feedback has been constructive and is giving me valuable input to better refine my idea, so thank you all.

The more I think about this, the more I think that camps should have a own status under this. Camps should always be "starts" of the chains, so you can go anywhere on the map, take any camp, and thus open up a path to take 2 different towers. Taking one of those towers should then open for another tower or a keep.

If you lock down the camps so they can't be taken, you shut down the map too much, to just a single frontline.

As said above, this will still allow scouts/defenders to read the map and see likely attack patterns and react.

@"joneirikb.7506" said:The more I think about this, the more I think that camps should have a own status under this. Camps should always be "starts" of the chains, so you can go anywhere on the map, take any camp, and thus open up a path to take 2 different towers. Taking one of those towers should then open for another tower or a keep.

If you lock down the camps so they can't be taken, you shut down the map too much, to just a single frontline.

As said above, this will still allow scouts/defenders to read the map and see likely attack patterns and react.

I like that idea, it would be a nice way to allow for additional pressure to be applied and give smaller groups even more stuff to do. Awesome thinking!

@MrGhosty.4296 said:I'm seeing the mention of smaller groups being out in the cold if lattice linking were to come into play. One of my original aims for thinking of this system is to make multiple gameplay styles viable. As it stands right now on my own server, smaller group stuff isn't really viable as everyone just zergs. The aim of suggesting this change was to provide multiple objectives that smaller groups could take part in.

If you want to make every game-play viable, you need to diversify the field. Lattice system will limit what can be done to few pts in the map instead of the whole map.If you are in a tier that zergs a lot, its even easier to do something as a small group. All you need to do is keep track of the enemy zergs and be quick and efficient on what you are doing. Its very easy to quickly cap a tower on the opposite side of the map with just 3-5 players. All you need is a couple guild catas, not show your location too early and one of you to tap the keep (so they can't wp quick). Make sure the enemy zerg is busy with another zerg, then quickly cap a tower... Now defend it from other roamers and that big zerg will have to stop his fight to come and take it back. Make sure you build some trebs and start bombing their keep to draw attention. Now your zerg has more space to go and do its thing.

All this would be completely lost with lattice system. No one cares if all walls of a tower are down if no one can cap it.

Although linking objectives to help point the focus point of the next battle is fun in smaller scale action FPS oriented (less tactical) games, in WvW it would almost totally remove the "element of surprise" and small scale skirmishing "deep behind enemy lines" operations. It only seems to make the grossly unbalanced populated servers get even more grossly unbalanced (a step in the opposite direction to where we want to go).

There are servers that have empty timezones, while being matched against servers that have 2 map blobs... linking "next objective" to predetermined locations will only force those 4 people to go head to head against 60-120 opponents in many cases. That doesn't sound like more fun.

This seems like it would reduce the game to "put siege and bodies on the frontmost objective you own and you never need to worry about anything" on borderlands.