Civil Discussion: Changing Marked Effect for Both Sides of Play-style

First and foremost let me address the sides of play-style that are in question.

• Stealth lovers that would do such things listed below

• Stealth haters that would complain/show great distaste for those utilizing such mechanics such as stealth.

• What we know is that the patch @ https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/60248/game-update-notes-november-13-2018#latest has brought some styles of stealth play-styles to their knees while making some other forms of play easier and able to detect easier. However those that enjoy veiling / entering stealth to get behind enemy lines or even those that used to scout have either stopped playing wvwvw or moved on from the game altogether or even stopped the classes they have enjoyed playing.

What are some suggestions that would appease both sides of play that could bring those players, that stopped playing, back to the game and at the same time still make it easier for those players that are against such stealth play? Please leave your suggestions while staying on topic and explaining your reasoning. Be open to criticism and do NOT post low effort replies If you can not post here, just pm me in game and I will post your suggestions here as an edit.

1. OP suggestion is: Make the marked effect from sentries/towers an upgrade in specific tier that could effect players as it does currently...however, would still allow players utilizing stealth to enjoy their play-style.

@"Lithril Ashwalker.6230" said:some styles of stealth play-styles to their kneesThe style of only fighting around enemy sentries and near ballooned enemy towers?

Man, thieves are weird.

A civil discussion is pretty pointless when there is no issue. Regardless of being stealthed or not, a player is still visible on the map - the only difference between someone with stealth and someone without stealth... the player with stealth can still walk out of it and stealth. The player without cant, because they - surprisingly - dont have stealth. +1 for stealth.

If you make your build so much around stealth and glass ganking to the point you cant survive without it within sentry range or towers... well you did that on purpose didnt you? And you know exactly why you did it. Accept the consequences.

Regular roamers that actually want to try to cap the towers are alot more hurt by the existance of cheap automatic scouting than some random thief being helpless without stealth. Your entire premise for making changes to it is wrong.

I would like to see short cooldown, short duration balloon in order to make it a reaction tactivator instead (expecting an attack in the next 5 minutes? Go and pop the balloon). The tactivator itself would have "ammo" use ie you could pop it a certain amount of times, with certain intervals. This would:

A) Not keep it on constant passive so that smallscales dont just see a balloon and goes "nope".B) Give some point with interaction with the tower every now and then.C) Give your poor thieves a fighting chance, I guess.

I fail to see op's suggestion. It is more vague than ancient greece's Oracles. What about the rest 95% of the map that thieves can abuse with permastealth? What about classes that have to rely on reveal skills (some classes have no reveal skills, hence they have to rely on painter traps that cost supply)? What about deadeye, a spec that has ranged dmg higher than melee classes? What about there being absolutely no downsides to stealth?If you cant gank people from stealth within towers that have a T3 tactic or near Sentries, then...dont. Abuse the other 95% of the map.

I'm OK with whoever gets marked by one of my traps, I dont discriminate.

But, since I had a blonde moment last night opening 250 skirmish chests and clicking traps and tricks instead of tactics, I sincerely apologize for any pain and misery that may befall those who trigger one of these ample traps over the course of the cleansing process.

@Dawdler.8521 said:Regular roamers that actually want to try to cap the towers are alot more hurt by the existance of cheap automatic scouting than some random thief being helpless without stealth. Your entire premise for making changes to it is wrong.

hey i can also abuse stealth and cap towers!but you are right being visible on the opponents map has a much greater effect than getting revealed in combat.however regardless if you think being visible on the opponents map or affected in your fight by it is worse, reducing overall marked would help smaller groups/roamers.

i can still as voltekka said abuse my stealth to the fullest in most parts of the map, enough to make me still choose my deadeye over my mirage for roaming. there are many encounters that are easier on mirage but every mirage build has downsides that IMO outweight the ones of a deadeye. mostly 'low' sustain for glassy builds (for outnumbered fights where deadeye simply can survive among an indefinite amount of opponents) and low pressure for tankier condi builds and something in between has a bit of both.

while i dislike the marked mechanic it would be good to know the reason behind the changes to make an alternative suggestion. was it to combat stealth in general instead of making another deadeye rework? in that case it doesnt work and should be looked into. or is anet ok with stealth just dont want people to sit in opposing keeps/towers all day long making their opponents spamm tickets? in that case i wish they did something without involving marked so it leaves the option to reduce/remove overall marked.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:some styles of stealth play-styles to their kneesThe style of only fighting around enemy sentries and near ballooned enemy towers?

The level of sheer arrogance spilling out from that post is amazing :open_mouth:

There are builds that just use stealth on and off. The worst affected is probably dp dash daredevil, that literally only stealths to get access to the burst.

That said, deadeye needs to be gutted. my god

I don't understand why people complain about sentrytowers marking small roaming groups. Most towers can be safely catapulted from outside watchtower range. Once the wall is down small groups can usually get the lord down quick and cap before the zerg shows up.

@LaGranse.8652 said:I don't understand why people complain about sentrytowers marking small roaming groups.

Because the complainers are not in those small roaming groups and see that argument as good for their agenda for getting rid of marking (and any other tactics) that do affect the large and less conspicuous bag collecting blobs these guys most likely run with.

Afterall, It's hard to look for fights when 50 red dots tell the map you're only looking for ppt.

@LaGranse.8652 said:I don't understand why people complain about sentrytowers marking small roaming groups. Most towers can be safely catapulted from outside watchtower range. Once the wall is down small groups can usually get the lord down quick and cap before the zerg shows up.

while you can attack most towers from out of their mark range it still limits your options and it also reduces the amount of people that will check objectives when they are contested. its a huge difference to fight with a couple people that have noticed you/your group or bein shown to the entire map.and might be doing it solo, i can build a cata solo outisde that range, open the tower and fight the lord. while i think i am doing it at a decent speed for a roaming build i am pretty sure you can get there in time. sure you could now say that solo roaming shouldnt matter, but then half the threads on this forum matter as much ;)

@MUDse.7623 said:

@LaGranse.8652 said:I don't understand why people complain about sentrytowers marking small roaming groups. Most towers can be safely catapulted from outside watchtower range. Once the wall is down small groups can usually get the lord down quick and cap before the zerg shows up.

I can see it being a problen when having to solo lords. I roam on ele and have found myself in that situation myself since it is a slow koll. This is why I was talking about smaller groups that can take down a lord faster than a zerg can due to scaling.

The sentrytower mechanic can in some cases benefit the group hitting it from outside marked range by people thinking it was just a tag, cause they see no dots. Or them sending 1 person in so it looks like a tag.

Maybe make unveiled mechanics (Watchtowers etc.) apply to all players around (friend or foe). And let it pulse -> 5 seconds revealed -> 10 seconds no effect -> 5 seconds revealed . . . and so on. I also liked the idea, that it doesn't completely unveal, but only shows blurred shapes of a still mainly transparent enemy.

Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

The veil only lasts 2 seconds anyhow (3 with trait in chaos traitline selected). Most organized smallscale groups would have 1 mesmer with mass invis, Make targeted apply revealed after 4-5 seconds I am fine with that.

Feels your issue is less with the targeted debuff and more with targeted applying revealed.

@LaGranse.8652 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

what about thieves trying to apply the stealth to groups without a mesmer with veil? I understand there are roles thieves can play for groupwise effort but why should they not have the ability to provide the smokefields and blasts too? seems like were trying to have forced roles in wvw. maybe if there was long stealth away from twoers and as we get close, let stealth come off, veil then get to the group?

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

@LaGranse.8652 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

They can still blast smoke fields and such, it is just more difficult to get the full duration of stealth before being revealed. I'm just trying to be realistic and an on the go cast mass invis will be much easier to use than blasting smokefileds. I was talking about organized groups, which most likely then will have 1-2 mesmers, while an unorganized group would not bother blasting smokefields in the first case.

@Emi.4152 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:some styles of stealth play-styles to their kneesThe style of only fighting around enemy sentries and near ballooned enemy towers?

I would like it if the marked range from watch tower had a circular radius. Right now it has a very irregular shape to cover the tower's portion of the map. This will nerf the marked area a bit and make it easier for roamers to set up long range catapults.

@LaGranse.8652 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

4s are alot to reposition and it would allow stealth to run out without reveal, that would reduce the effect of marked vs stealthed alot. not sure how good it then still is at getting a deadeye out of the tower/keep, i think you will then still need to outnumber them by ALOT as you will just see him popping up in a dodgeroll animation here and there. i am not opposed to this, but i know that there will be again 'deadeye in my keep'-threads.

@Dagger.2035 said:I would like it if the marked range from watch tower had a circular radius. Right now it has a very irregular shape to cover the tower's portion of the map. This will nerf the marked area a bit and make it easier for roamers to set up long range catapults.It is circular radius as fas as I know, unless you're on DBL where towers are so god damn large they require multiple balloons (which would give an irregular shape).

Stealth should not be an long effect out side of making it no longer stack in duration this is a good mid grone of an effect. But i am all for taking out mark effect for stealth no longer stacking.

@MUDse.7623 said:

@LaGranse.8652 said:

@Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:Without putting me down try to stay on topic some of you the rest of your actually giving some good input to what I was suggesting earlier as an alternative. What I was trying to stake was that the reason behind having the revealed near the towers kind of outweighs the reason to attack it in the first place some people only like to go in on low amounts because the scaling alone helps you take Towers easier. But flipping was playstyle all in itself and now you can't even flip because of the tower preventing you from sneaking inside or a Mesmer being able to sneak inside and Port his buddies in because it takes longer than 2 seconds to get to a good spot or you can still get a good amount of people inside. Here is another example ..group a is getting inside group B's Tower by brute-forcing but Group C wants to sneak inside behind Group A to attack them and steal the tower for themselves... this will be extremely difficult considering if anyone wants to sneak in under a veil they would be immediately revealed after 2 seconds

I have nothing against deadeye stealthing for shorter periods of time like some other thief builds. The 4-5 second timer for revealed would stop the long durations of stealthing which is the unfun part for me. Is nice to see the enemy once every 5 seconds instead of once every 10-15^^

I guess they are massive circles, I've just never bothered to walk the border before. I still feel like the range could be shorted by 20-25%

@Dawdler.8521 said:

Regular roamers that actually want to try to cap the towers are alot more hurt by the existance of cheap automatic scouting than some random thief being helpless without stealth. Your entire premise for making changes to it is wrong.

You are quite right, but, why should a thief be automatically prevented from trying to aid their world by actually doing meaningful havok? If I have a thief with my group I hear, 'watchtower, afk'. You realize that the marked buff as it currently stands pretty much means that the ONLY thing thieves can do is sit at peoples' spawn and gank? Is this really what people intended?

For all small groups sake i'd like to see watchtower range reduced, marked gone from sentries and the ability to stealth for 4s without reveal being automatic. It's ludicrous that the majority of stealth abilities on the classes that have them are 3s long and going to give them that reveal.

Edit: Actually ideally i'd like to see watchtower moved to keeps only. Then you'd know if your keep was tapped or a zerg and if it was a t3 tactic youd actually have to make a meaningful choice instead of the buff aura tactic being a no brainer. Sentries could keep marked then. Put charr car as an option on towers instead, things far too cool to be stuck on camps.

@Celsith.2753 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

Regular roamers that actually want to try to cap the towers are

alot

more hurt by the existance of cheap automatic scouting than some random thief being helpless without stealth. Your entire premise for making changes to it is wrong.

You are quite right, but, why should a thief be automatically prevented from trying to aid their world by actually doing meaningful havok? If I have a thief with my group I hear, 'watchtower, afk'. You realize that the marked buff as it currently stands pretty much means that the ONLY thing thieves can do is sit at peoples' spawn and gank? Is this really what people intended?

this is what i was getting at. classes that relied on stealth cant really do what they used to prior to the marked change. If stealthing long durations was the issue then it should be handled by changing Shadow Meld to something different or reducing the effect of marked...Personally, i dislike Shadow Meld, maybe we can make it where it has a small window that PREVENTS reveal for a set amount of time like an irremovable buff and will NOT stealth you after using it. This would benefit those wanting stealth and wanting to stay in it...but still revolves around staying in stealth and CHOOSING to stay in it for scouting etc. If someone uses shadow meld (the new suggestion) then goes stealth to attack will force people to adjust their gameplay. choose to hide, stay hidden or choose to engage

@Celsith.2753 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

Regular roamers that actually want to try to cap the towers are

alot

more hurt by the existance of cheap automatic scouting than some random thief being helpless without stealth. Your entire premise for making changes to it is wrong.

You are quite right, but, why should a thief be automatically prevented from trying to aid their world by actually doing meaningful havok? If I have a thief with my group I hear, 'watchtower, afk'. You realize that the marked buff as it currently stands pretty much means that the ONLY thing thieves can do is sit at peoples' spawn and gank? Is this really what people intended?

Also it does not stop them from doing anything. Under the watchtower, they are marked just as everybody else. They cant work as effectivly? Well neither can other classes. Only the necro can decently mark walls. Only the ele/ranger can meteor shower/barrage arrowcarts. Glass cannons die to defensive fire regardless of what class they are on, regardless of having stealth or not. Most thieves will be built for damage because that's what they want to do, that's why they picked thief. Complaining that there are flaws when assaulting towers is pointless.

Because different classes, different purposes. That's how an RPG works. You still have stealth on the other 90% of the map.