[Archive] The Long Siege and Player Interest

Reposting this here from the old forum because a lot of it is still relevant. I posted it originally as feedback for the WvW Desert Borderlands Stress Test. Also reposting some of the responses and including a fullpage screenshot of the entire conversation in hopes the current Anet devs will consider it to better understand player motivations.

WvW players refer to the sieging of a fully fortified and defended keep as “The Long Siege”. The new map with the automatic upgrades seems like it will increase the need for the long siege.

The long siege is an attrition game involving supply denial, sieging and counter-sieging, and ability to fend off skirmishes. It is a very time intensive task that tends to turn off the more casual players (one reason they go to EOTM). Only the truly “hardcore” WvW players and larger organized guilds are able to accomplish a long siege. Experienced commanders who lead militia have come to know that sometimes so-called ktraining is needed in order to grow/obtain enough of the casual players on a tag in order to attempt a long siege and even after that they cannot stay long at the objective, but must hop back and forth to different maps or objectives as a way to hold the interest of followers and get opponent attention off the target objective.

As you go about balancing defense against offense in the new map, consider finding a way to hold player interest in the long siege.

One factor influencing the lack of player interest in the long siege is that a long siege in the current maps can take longer than the length of time guilds rally. This has had the effect of larger organized guilds complaining about opponents that won’t come out to fight them. Part of that comes from guilds choosing to not spend their limited playtime performing a long siege.

Another possible influence is that there often isn’t any “hand-over” mechanism. There’s no “big picture situational awareness”, like what an RTS provides. Guilds and militia commanders start their rallies and are unaware of the progress another earlier group made in sieging/defending as that group logs off. So they often start over from scratch.

Long sieges may be fun and engaging for a subset of players, but as was pointed out above, they aren’t done as much these days as they used to be early on. Players lose interest in them for whatever reason. Maybe it is just human nature to lose interest in it because it requires delayed gratification. The gratification that players get right now from the game for the time they spend in WvW are found mostly in the fights, not the sieges (or scouting/defending). And we all know a siege can fail, which should happen, and there is no reward for that time and effort, especially if the opponent never sallies forth.

But yea, correct. I’m not trying to suggest that attackers should be able to burn through objectives. Only saying there needs to be something in-game maybe that promotes players keeping interest in a long siege or that a long siege shouldn’t be longer than, for example, a timezone’s prime time.

from gavyne.6847Long sieges are draining on people’s patience, focus, and interest. Yes it feels good to finally bust a waypointed, heavily defended T3 keep. The payoff that our commanders promises us for spending this much time is the eventual fights (or bags) inside once we break through. Most people are not keen on spending so much time grinding supplies down, trying to damage walls/gates while being farmed by hundreds of arrowcarts, treb shots, etc.. and the long boring resupply runs while getting picked off by gankers.

Speaking as someone who spends a lot of time playing, the last thing I want to do after a long siege is another long siege. If I find that there are no fights to be had outside of siege infested areas, there’s a good chance I’ll logoff after 1 long siege. You as game developers need to make sure there’s more than just dealing with siege and annoying things ingame (I find eotm-style turrets and side distractions annoying while attempting to fight players). People like fights, and often fights are the incentives for players to even attempt these long sieges in the first place.

And as OP mentioned above, casual players don’t have the patience, will, interest, or often they simply don’t have the time to join in on a long siege. So they often will skip these sieges altogether if they see a heavily defended keep where defenders are not willing to come out to play. You most definitely lose casual players if WvW is designed around long sieges. Just put yourself in their shoes, if you have 1 hour to play, do you want to stand there and watch siege wars? No, you want to kill people and play your class.

from gavyne.6847

Chaba.5410:gavyne, how is it possible for the game to promote the fights, increase the willingness of players to perform a long siege, without nerfing defense too much and turning into a ktrain?

Can start by promoting the “fights” part. Defenders have it rough in this game because of how ground marks work, and how aoe’s extend beyond walls range. Anybody attempting to get line of sight to cast down from the walls get insta gibbed. Anybody attempting to use a cannon or oil gets insta gibbed. Anybody not insta gibbed is insta pulled…and killed. This game is very anti-defenders.

So what Anet has done is to gift players with annoying arrow carts, door trebs, and such to compensate. Unfortunately all they’ve done is to turn the game into siege wars during these long sieges, where players are more annoyed than having fun. With majority of the defenders & attackers doing pretty much nothing while they sit and watch the siege war go on for however long it takes. Defenders can’t do anything other than rain arrow carts or run trebs. Attackers can’t do much of anything other than run around dodging red circles, dying, rinse & repeat until one side has the will & numbers to break through.

I have no solution, as this game is designed differently. They would have to change the core design of the game so attackers can’t instagib defenders on the walls or defenders using stationery sieges such as cannons & oil. Allow people a chance to fight rather than sit inside raining arrow carts and waiting for the walls to go down. Like I said, DAOC promoted fights both in and out of keeps. Here, it’s way too much siege wars. That and skill lag once you do clash inside, so the promise of a fight often are ruined by not being able to use your skills. Oh and all the while you’re trying to have player vs player battles, you’re getting rained on by ac’s, cata’s, trebs, etc.. That last stand lord room defense we saw in DAOC? Don’t work here, you’ll get rained on by ac’s, cata, bals, trebs, etc..

I can stomach it, for 1 long siege, maybe. But your average gamers and casual gamers, they likely won’t make it through 1 long siege. Which is why WvW has turned into a niche for the enthusiasts rather than the casuals.

Screenshot of original thread > https://i.imgur.com/fhwESqD.jpgEdit May 22, 2018: Link to archived version > https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/wuvtest/The-Long-Siege-and-Player-Interest/page/1#post5478546

BAHAHAHAHA

This is from the Yak's Bend "How To Properly Defend Your Server" Doc isn't it?

Here, I'll link..https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B80eaMrkdOdZYjlOQ2ZKOFAyeG8/edit?pli=1

So much fun

Ah, that gives me the opportunity to refer to this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy

As long as the Italians remained loyal to Rome, then there was no hope that Hannibal would win; but should the Romans keep on losing battles, their allies' faith in Rome would weaken. Therefore, Fabius calculated that the way to defeat Hannibal was to avoid engaging with him in pitched battles, so as to deprive him of victories. He determined that Hannibal's extended supply lines, and the cost of maintaining the Carthaginian army in the field, meant that Rome had time on its side. Rather than fight, Fabius shadowed Hannibal's army and avoided battle,

Hannibal's second weakness was that much of his army was made up of mercenaries from Gaul and Spain, who had no great loyalty to Hannibal, although they disliked Rome. Being mercenaries, they were unequipped for siege-type battles; having neither the equipment nor the patience for such a campaign. The mercenaries desired quick, overwhelming battles and raids of villages for plunder, much like land-based pirates. As such, Hannibal's army was virtually no threat to Rome, a walled city which would have required a long siege to reduce, which is why Hannibal never attempted it. Hannibal's only option was to beat Roman armies in the field quickly before plunder ran out and the Gauls and Spaniards deserted for plunder elsewhere. Fabius's strategy of delaying battle and attacking supply chains thus hit right at the heart of Hannibal's weakness; time, not energy, would cripple Hannibal's advances.

Fabius's strategy, though a military success, was a political failure. His indirect policies, while tolerable among wiser minds in the Roman Senate, were deemed unpopular, because the Romans had been long accustomed to facing and besting their enemies directly in the field of battle. The Fabian strategy was, in part, ruined because of a lack of unity in the command of the Roman army. The magister equitum, Marcus Minucius Rufus, a political enemy of Fabius, is famously quoted exclaiming,

Did we come here to see our allies butchered, and their property burned, as a spectacle to be enjoyed? And if we are not moved with shame on account of any others, are we not on account of these citizens... a Carthaginian foreigner, who has advanced even this far from the remotest limits of the world, through our dilatoriness and inactivity?

Aka the ancient way of saying "You siege humping noob!"

In all the latest matches, once home keep reaches T3 and is filled with defensive sieges, it will no be even attacked for the rest of the week, not to mention flipping it. Sometimes if one server has huge nighcapping crew they will spend 4 hours trebbing it down, but in my latest matches nobody really bothers with that. Probably why we are not in T1 anymore.

this is why i cant stand WvW blob fights anymore cus one that is losing just goes into their shitty keep/tower and pumps out AC's like no other and wont come out to fight unless u back off if u do back off they start chasing ur tail and if u come to close they all dash into their tower to hop on AC's again.

just make freaking radius on DEFFENDERS siege so nothing of same can be placed near it from same siege for example.

AC = 1000 radius meaning next AC has to be quite far away from current one. that sounds like a amazing plan.then u fix cannon etc by giving people invul when they are on it so these sieges will actually be used instead of getting wrecked the moment u try touch cannon

What makes players lose interest in Long Siege today is the PPK and not the mechanics of sieges, the longe to take a Keep, the worse PPK. if it were not for that, the commanders could try for hours on end.

There are a couple structural issues that prevent the old set-piece multi-hour long sieges from taking place as often anymore.The first is that WvW population is down, even during NA primetime, which means often it is just two servers fighting each other, instead of three servers being active on a map. Without a third server to pressure the defending server, stalemates occur, or as is often the case commanders won't even try to take a T3 keep.Second, is that for many servers we don't care about winning, or as is often the case now we actively find ways not to take first. Taking an enemy T3 keep makes it harder to tank, leaving them in place lets that server have easy skirmish wins.

Long sieges mean participation decay except for those on siege so players don't want to do it.

There are major issues with long sieges.

1. AC. As long as they have AC's you are kinda screwed.
2. If you decide to go longer range for catas not straight to the wall, they can just build cheap balista and kill them.
3. If you go extra long aka trebs, they build their own, both sides build tons of shield gens ans its a stalemate not decided by skill but by who gets bore first and leaves.

Apart from generators being pretty OP, there is another problem and that is the ease of taking things solo or with just few people. There is a chance that the keep you spent sieging for hour will get flipped by 1-2 guys later in the night. There are multiple classes that can solo the lord. All those points are reasons why long sieges are pointless and its better to just move to do something else when the enemy is dug in too deep. The rewards also do not scale, you will do better by doing anything else and trying to sneakcap it in the night.

Unless Arenanet takes a look at the siege weapons (especially AC's and shield gens), and also how easy it is to take even the most fortified places alone, nothing will change.