Remove automatic objective upgrades. Save WvW population.

Automatic, unattended objective upgrades exacerbate population issues because players tend to stay away from attacking upgraded objectives even if there is no one defending. They see a map with upgraded stuff and no tag and simply leave. Far too often these days I've seen upgraded objectives that don't have any tactivators or improvements or defenders.

If no one is attending to upgrade an objective's tier because no one is playing, then it shouldn't upgrade. While it felt like a QoL improvement when first introduced, it removed a goal players used to have to fight over objectives.

Just remove gates when it upgrades to t3.Problem solved.

disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

the template right now isnt bad. its just simply lacking direction.

give us a recognized goal like the tournaments.

and population isnt gonna fix itself if theres a lot of tiers

While I would like to see manual upgrade paths for objectives, I still dont consider it to be the cause of your problem. Anet may have deleted the armor, but they havent done anything for the insane amount of resources required to range an upgraded and defended objective.

When I run smallscale, I almost always just pass by T3 because rams arent feasable, catas are too short range and can easily get trebbed or bolted while the good siege such as trebs cost a hideous amount of supplyand does so little damage it take like 20 minutes to breach a wall - assuming no one react or repair - and then you still got inner. Sometimes you get lucky and no one come but lets assume you are fighting competent server.

I've been in loooooong T3 sieges where we spent almost 2 hours softening it up by draining supps, trebbing from range because we cant get close, breeching it over and over and keeping it starved by controlling camps... only to have a 50 man then come and casually take it in less than 5 minutes with 6 rams on the gates.

Its exhausting.

If you really want the WvW population to be more active, then T3 shouldnt be anything special. Hell they could make T4 to T6 for all I care if it involved active defense boons rather than just dull wall/door hp boosts.

As long as they make the upgrade process free it sounds like a good change.

@Sovereign.1093 said:disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

the template right now isnt bad. its just simply lacking direction.

give us a recognized goal like the tournaments.

and population isnt gonna fix itself if theres a lot of tiers

Are you just going to jump into every thread and try and steer towards tournaments? I think they made it very clear how they feel about then

I also appreciate that Anet removed the gold costs. But upgrading should still cost supps imo.

T3 structures should also have maintenance, lets say 10 supps per minute. If you can't keep up maintenance, the walls and doors would constantly lose integrity down to lets say 50%.

So if you want to attack a T3 keep, you would start with fighting for camps, make the keep run out of supps and bring the walls down to 50% with open field fights instead of siege wars.

I mean, I can see the benefits, though you've got to consider that certain servers have a greater number of players who are more dedicated to taking advantage of every element of the gamemode, whereas other servers are more focused on specific elements such as fighting. These servers (that already excel at the gamemode) obviously gain an extra advantage from the players with increased dedication and as a result tend to do well. (Some people call it ppt whoring.)

(Re)-adding an extra manual element to upgrading structures will only further allow these servers to pull ahead. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Depends who you ask, I'm just pointing out the double-edged sword nature of switching back. Also, as @Turk.5460 mentions, there shouldn't be a cost associated. The cost is the time commitment of those players going around making sure upgrades are started as soon as they're available. Scouts aren't rewarded enough as it is.

That said, I'm neither for nor against. I doubt either will change the gamemode's population.

~ Kovu

@Trajan.4953 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

the template right now isnt bad. its just simply lacking direction.

give us a recognized goal like the tournaments.

and population isnt gonna fix itself if theres a lot of tiers

well its the solution to the wvw decline.

@Sovereign.1093 said:

@Trajan.4953 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

the template right now isnt bad. its just simply lacking direction.

give us a recognized goal like the tournaments.

and population isnt gonna fix itself if theres a lot of tiers

Putting aside the flawed structure they used for the tournaments last time, I don't think a tournament will help. As I understand it last time they ran a tournament everyone burned themselves out resulting in a net loss of playtime if you include the time post-tournament, and the bandwagons were real. People really will pull out their credit cards just to say they were on the winning team.

Only updating stale mechanics, adjusting the scoring to weight it to more active play, and adding new and intriguing content to the gamemode will solve a population decrease. In short, the developers need to care about the gamemode more. If pve saw as infrequent and inconsequential updates as both the competitive gamemodes, you can bet your behind it wouldn't be as populated as it is now.

Tournaments are a band-aid solution that have proven to not help against population decrease in the longer term.

~ Kovu

edit- Also, if they ever get around to alliances it'll sort of feel like we're in tournaments all the time. You know. If you squint.

@Kovu.7560 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:

@Trajan.4953 said:

@Sovereign.1093 said:disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

the template right now isnt bad. its just simply lacking direction.

give us a recognized goal like the tournaments.

and population isnt gonna fix itself if theres a lot of tiers

if people observed, they can choose to set a time table of how long they should play. i.e. 2 hours to 4 hours daily, plus or minus.

stacking players x commanders on all time zones of course is the winning strategy. based on the system now and then because of the 24/7 7 days a week system.

and using irl is indeed an option. but it is the players decision to do what they want.

if anet wants to balance wvw. they can do it thru not 24/7 by making it with a less time frame to count. i.e. eotm like or less and queing the fights like spvp so there are always equal numbers. its the only doable option. but imo. that is no longer wvw as it stands but a different mode all together.

also servers conspired to help each other win in a match. a and b vs c. so one server always got the brunt of things. one server fights 200 vs all three fighting 200 some of the time.

in my mind thats fine because in wvw you have 2 enemies not just 1. but others get overwhelmed. and ideally if things get hard, one server should only be able to hold one structure. in this sense, defending against server 1 and 2, all stat bonuses in keeps are justified just not bloodlust. and those who take advantage of siege mechanics fights and warclaw will always have an edge on.those who do not.

tournament wise, red bl design gives the best strategic option but it is not easy for lazy players who want the bunker starcraft wars like game mode of trebbing stuff.

everything is better now than years before. game is broken pre pof in that you can stack just guardians as your main class. or the popular gwen. atleast now rev and scrapper are included if you want to bust the gwen.

probably the best addressed issue is sieges require less supplies now. is cheaper, and more available than before. and auto upgrade of structures.

what is missing is a recognized theme or essence that determines why we should wvw.

there will be players like me who simply like to kill. and those who like to siege, to roam, or rp, or gvg. but, being t1 no1. has no meaning.

@"Sovereign.1093" said:disagree. we're not all rich to pay for the upgrades. this was one of the better additions.

Notice, I didn't say anything about paying for upgrades. I said "attended" vs. "unattended".

@Kovu.7560 said:I mean, I can see the benefits, though you've got to consider that certain servers have a greater number of players who are more dedicated to taking advantage of every element of the gamemode, whereas other servers are more focused on specific elements such as fighting. These servers (that already excel at the gamemode) obviously gain an extra advantage from the players with increased dedication and as a result tend to do well. (Some people call it ppt kitten.)

(Re)-adding an extra manual element to upgrading structures will only further allow these servers to pull ahead. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Depends who you ask, I'm just pointing out the double-edged sword nature of switching back. Also, as @"Turk.5460" mentions, there shouldn't be a cost associated. The cost is the time commitment of those players going around making sure upgrades are started as soon as they're available. Scouts aren't rewarded enough as it is.

That said, I'm neither for nor against. I doubt either will change the gamemode's population.

~ Kovu

The automatic upgrades already allow those servers to pull ahead. I think requiring attended upgrades does a few things differently:1- The "pull ahead" isn't as fast as it is with automated upgrades since not every server has 24/7 population that is PPTing.2- Opportunities for a greater amount of time to pass before an upgrade occurs which helps servers that have greater time between periods of player activity.2- Splits people up more as they have to go physically to the objective which creates more opportunities for small scale encounters.

They should make people use their prized Warclaws to carry supply from Camp to Towers to Keeps.

Remove Yaks and make them an extremely slow and ineffective tactics, but automatic supply delivery system. (1 Yak every 10 minutes)

As such if yu want the Keep or Tower to upgrade faster, get yur roamers to get on supply duty and run them Warclaws in a cycle around yur territory, and they can also act as guard patrols against saboteurs trying to sneak yur camps.

@Yasai.3549 said:They should make people use their prized Warclaws to carry supply from Camp to Towers to Keeps.

Remove Yaks and make them an extremely slow and ineffective tactics, but automatic supply delivery system. (1 Yak every 10 minutes)

As such if yu want the Keep or Tower to upgrade faster, get yur roamers to get on supply duty and run them Warclaws in a cycle around yur territory, and they can also act as guard patrols against saboteurs trying to sneak yur camps.Yes, this will surely make them forget about any fighting concerns on the warclaw.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

Yes, this will surely make them forget about any fighting concerns on the warclaw.

Better than doing it on foot spamming Swiftness skills.

@Yasai.3549 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

Yes, this will surely make them forget about any fighting concerns on the warclaw.

Better than doing it on foot spamming Swiftness skills.

Except...... few roamers ‘spam swiftness’ skills on yaks.

I think it should be the Zerglings. For every 30 minutes spent running with a Zerg of 15 or more, your toon must spend 10 minutes spamming swiftness skills on a yak in order to clear the ‘to bad a player to run alone’ rebuff that you will get which will cut your armor by 75% and your damage by 75%.

@Chaba.5410 said:Automatic, unattended objective upgrades exacerbate population issues because players tend to stay away from attacking upgraded objectives even if there is no one defending. They see a map with upgraded stuff and no tag and simply leave. Far too often these days I've seen upgraded objectives that don't have any tactivators or improvements or defenders.

If no one is attending to upgrade an objective's tier because no one is playing, then it shouldn't upgrade. While it felt like a QoL improvement when first introduced, it removed a goal players used to have to fight over objectives.

Are you really complaining that the extra 30s to get inside an objective is hard?

And it’s pretty silly to equate upgrades with population numbers... You think that changing upgrades will reverberate through the gaming world and players will flock back to gw2 and wvw?

@Swagger.1459 said:And it’s pretty silly to equate upgrades with population numbers... You think that changing upgrades will reverberate through the gaming world and players will flock back to gw2 and wvw?

It is silly to think that game mechanics do not affect people's choices to play. This is just a single mechanic out of a system, but it was also a crucial one that was changed. Upgrades and the way supply works with upgrades is a major mechanic in that system. No one asked for automatic upgrades. They asked to have the gold cost removed from upgrades. It should still cost supply.

@Chaba.5410 said:Automatic, unattended objective upgrades exacerbate population issues because players tend to stay away from attacking upgraded objectives even if there is no one defending. They see a map with upgraded stuff and no tag and simply leave. Far too often these days I've seen upgraded objectives that don't have any tactivators or improvements or defenders.

If no one is attending to upgrade an objective's tier because no one is playing, then it shouldn't upgrade. While it felt like a QoL improvement when first introduced, it removed a goal players used to have to fight over objectives.

The scoring buff that was given to servers for unattended upgrades and the loss of opportunities for the roaming and scouting play styles directly impacted the health of WvW. For years I've maintained that WvW is most healthy when there's a good mix of different play styles. This change had narrowed the selection of different roles that players could take. No more does anyone mind the little worker NPC during objective fights. Now they just join the zerg and don't have to leave it to manage upgrades.

Unattended upgrades also create the perception that one server has more players than they really do. That wrong perception can exacerbate population imbalances.

@Chaba.5410 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:And it’s pretty silly to equate upgrades with population numbers... You think that changing upgrades will reverberate through the gaming world and players will flock back to gw2 and wvw?

@Chaba.5410 said:Automatic, unattended objective upgrades exacerbate population issues because players tend to stay away from attacking upgraded objectives even if there is no one defending. They see a map with upgraded stuff and no tag and simply leave. Far too often these days I've seen upgraded objectives that don't have any tactivators or improvements or defenders.

If no one is attending to upgrade an objective's tier because no one is playing, then it shouldn't upgrade. While it felt like a QoL improvement when first introduced, it removed a goal players used to have to fight over objectives.

Your argument equates to... “Please make it extra easy to take an objective! Think of the skyrocketing participation rates with such a change!”

...

It is hard already to find people to refresh siege or even just scout stuff, and people want to make already most boring and unrewarding part of the game even more boring and tiresome.I'm sure that all these guys who advocating this are definitely going to be ones who gonna spend hours every day running supply manually and upgrading stuff instead of fighting, right?

@Rednik.3809 said:It is hard already to find people to refresh siege or even just scout stuff, and people want to make already most boring and unrewarding part of the game even more boring and tiresome.I'm sure that all these guys who advocating this are definitely going to be ones who gonna spend hours every day running supply manually and upgrading stuff instead of fighting, right?

Then it doesn’t get upgraded.

And gets opened easier and people can’t sit behind T3’s with a ton of siege.

It's like y'all are all playing a different game from me. Capping 'unattended' t3 structures is a nothing activity you can do solo or maybe with one other person. Sieged up t3 structures with defenders take more but aren't 'unattended'. I like the idea of free manual upgrades bc it's one more thing to do while I'm wondering why there is no one to fight, but I don't see how it would make things any different than they are now . . .

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Chaba.5410 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:And it’s pretty silly to equate upgrades with population numbers... You think that changing upgrades will reverberate through the gaming world and players will flock back to gw2 and wvw?

@Chaba.5410 said:Automatic, unattended objective upgrades exacerbate population issues because players tend to stay away from attacking upgraded objectives even if there is no one defending. They see a map with upgraded stuff and no tag and simply leave. Far too often these days I've seen upgraded objectives that don't have any tactivators or improvements or defenders.

If no one is attending to upgrade an objective's tier because no one is playing, then it shouldn't upgrade. While it felt like a QoL improvement when first introduced, it removed a goal players used to have to fight over objectives.

How does making upgrades attended make it extra easy to take an objective? LOL. It doesn't change any HP or toughness of an objective. It just sounds like you are leaping to your favorite conclusion with no actual basis in the proposal. It does affect scoring though as well as removed part of a role that people used to play.

I think the real problem with T3 structures is its too easy to defend. If its already sieged up for defense its a real pain. The addition of adding siege disablers to the game killed off hopes of a small 10 man team capturing stuff. When one person can delay them while their main zerg finishes up what their they are doing and can come wipe you. Now multiply this with shield gens and siege behind gates hitting through gates etc.