Watchtower nerf

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:I think I'd prefer it if Watchtower activated only when the objective becomes contested. That way it's still passive and not something people can Tacticator troll, but not constantly active so it can be avoided.

Don't aggro NPC's or damage the objective in any way and you won't be Marked. A radius reduction on certain objectives would still be nice though.

I kinda like that idea.

[SweetPotato.7456]

1) Watch towetactic does not need a nerf.

What this thread address is not problem of watchtower.

When your keep gets flip, and your inner tower is taken, watch tower is not instantly available to be slotted, it takes time before the 3rd slots are active , if you let your inner towers go to that state, it is not the problem of watchtower. it is problem of you not trying to take back your tower, has nothing to do with the watchtower tactivator. therefore your reason for it to be nerf is moot!

Your concern is not with watchtowerIt is a much bigger problem with what SMC can and cannot do when a server is able to defend it to T3, under 3 hours, what they can do when it is T3. I suggest that NO trebuchet be allow to be drop in SMC , this pains me to suggest because I love them treb, spent whole lot of time finding the perfect, most sneaky place to build them, :P but for the sake of fairness, when a server is able to hold smc and keep harassing the other side non stop from SMC, trebuchet from SMC is just disgusting :P so i will give up that ability if it means fair fights. If anet cannot balance the population at least do this.

FYI when a very populated server come for my paper tower they use 8 rams :P or 10 catapults its not a fair fight and has nothing to do with watchtower.

[Dawdler.8521]

@SweetPotato.7456 said:1) Watch towetactic does not need a nerf.

What this thread address is not problem of watchtower.

When your keep gets flip, and your inner tower is taken, watch tower is not instantly available to be slotted, it takes time before the 3rd slots are active , if you let your inner towers go to that state, it is not the problem of watchtower. it is problem of you not trying to take back your tower, has nothing to do with the watchtower tactivator. therefore your reason for it to be nerf is moot!

Your concern is not with watchtowerIt is a much bigger problem with what SMC can and cannot do when a server is able to defend it to T3, under 3 hours, what they can do when it is T3. I suggest that NO trebuchet be allow to be drop in SMC , this pains me to suggest because I love them treb, spent whole lot of time finding the perfect, most sneaky place to build them, :P but for the sake of fairness, when a server is able to hold smc and keep harassing the other side non stop from SMC, trebuchet from SMC is just disgusting :P so i will give up that ability if it means fair fights. If anet cannot balance the population at least do this.

FYI when a very populated server come for my paper tower they use 8 rams :P or 10 catapults its not a fair fight and has nothing to do with watchtower.What you said has literally nothing to do with watchtower.

[SweetPotato.7456]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@SweetPotato.7456 said:1) Watch towetactic does not need a nerf.

What this thread address is not problem of watchtower.

When your keep gets flip, and your inner tower is taken, watch tower is not instantly available to be slotted, it takes time before the 3rd slots are active , if you let your inner towers go to that state, it is not the problem of watchtower. it is problem of you not trying to take back your tower, has nothing to do with the watchtower tactivator. therefore your reason for it to be nerf is moot!

Your concern is not with watchtowerIt is a much bigger problem with what SMC can and cannot do when a server is able to defend it to T3, under 3 hours, what they can do when it is T3. I suggest that NO trebuchet be allow to be drop in SMC , this pains me to suggest because I love them treb, spent whole lot of time finding the perfect, most sneaky place to build them, :P but for the sake of fairness, when a server is able to hold smc and keep harassing the other side non stop from SMC, trebuchet from SMC is just disgusting :P so i will give up that ability if it means fair fights. If anet cannot balance the population at least do this.

FYI when a very populated server come for my paper tower they use 8 rams :P or 10 catapults its not a fair fight and has nothing to do with watchtower.What you said has literally nothing to do with watchtower.

that is because the problem isn't with the watch tower LOL

players just wanted stuffs nerf because they can't get pass the spawn when the reason they cannot get pass the spawn area is not because of watchtower. and they rampantly suggest a mechanic that is working just fine. I am merely pointing out the actual problem that cause this player to rant about watch tower when it is actually population balance problem.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:I think I'd prefer it if Watchtower activated

only

when the objective becomes contested. That way it's still passive and not something people can Tacticator troll, but not constantly active so it can be avoided.

Don't aggro NPC's or damage the objective in any way and you won't be Marked. A radius reduction on certain objectives would still be nice though.

I kinda like that idea.

I will have to disagree and agree with a previous poster. The watchtower enhancement actually lets the tower on all maps server their purpose which is to alert to movement. Even on desert where people complain that the towers do not create a threat to the keeps, watch towers make holding those objective all the more vital so you can monitor movement. No, its fine as is. The way you know its working is people have to today already plan to move around them if they are trying to go undetected. Leave it alone and I say this as mostly a roamer/havoc player.

[Riba.3271]

@SweetPotato.7456 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@SweetPotato.7456 said:1) Watch towetactic does not need a nerf.

What this thread address is not problem of watchtower.

When your keep gets flip, and your inner tower is taken, watch tower is not instantly available to be slotted, it takes time before the 3rd slots are active , if you let your inner towers go to that state, it is not the problem of watchtower. it is problem of you not trying to take back your tower, has nothing to do with the watchtower tactivator. therefore your reason for it to be nerf is moot!

Your concern is not with watchtowerIt is a much bigger problem with what SMC can and cannot do when a server is able to defend it to T3, under 3 hours, what they can do when it is T3. I suggest that NO trebuchet be allow to be drop in SMC , this pains me to suggest because I love them treb, spent whole lot of time finding the perfect, most sneaky place to build them, :P but for the sake of fairness, when a server is able to hold smc and keep harassing the other side non stop from SMC, trebuchet from SMC is just disgusting :P so i will give up that ability if it means fair fights. If anet cannot balance the population at least do this.

FYI when a very populated server come for my paper tower they use 8 rams :P or 10 catapults its not a fair fight and has nothing to do with watchtower.What you said has literally nothing to do with watchtower.

that is because the problem isn't with the watch tower LOL

players just wanted stuffs nerf because they can't get pass the spawn when the reason they cannot get pass the spawn area is not because of watchtower. and they rampantly suggest a mechanic that is working just fine. I am merely pointing out the actual problem that cause this player to rant about watch tower when it is actually population balance problem.

If you played pre-HoT, you would know that inner towers on eb and north towers on alpine borderlands were the action magnet several hours before primetime. But now you need 60 people just to attempt most of those. And even for the ones you can, it is literally ONE spot you can use that gets countered by shield gens (which is what smart defenders do). Doesn't help that defending your siege, getting in with everyone and stopping enemy from repairing requires a mesmer portal and mesmer is weak without stealth unless in blobscale

So what watchtower does:

• Completely shuts down certain towers from being capped (Jerri, NE tower on alpine, Langor (only tebs), Veloka (only catas at sentry which is bad because 3 mortars) during daytime (when most people play) unless you have queued map (note commander boycotting, afk pipfarming, new commanders, lack of numbers etc.)
• Makes you require more numbers to even attempt as watchtower will bait lot more enemies, people rarely read chat but almost always see red dots.
• Forces you to only a few cata spots if running small numbers (groups start small ya know, especially off-prime and new commanders)
• Shield gens + watchtower has no counterplay
• Shuts down stealth
• Forces you to run mesmer if you want to play around it
• Forces you to go all the way around the radius. For example alpine zig zags are deathzone alone but were great spots to fight before.
• Makes communication between defenders easy because people can just count themselves how many there are
• Reduces sniping a tower (lets say you get wall down and rush in, defender can over 50% of time contest in time)

So in summary:

• Makes defending braindeadly easy (Just have shield gens for catas/trebs and zerg down small groups)
• Promotes large groups and stacked servers instead of smart gameplay
• Makes maps smaller
• Limits your options and makes WvW play in monotonous way

But population balance problems are caused by current server pop status and relinkings. Server can become full even if they can't get 2 queues on primetime and transferring to links is too cheap. Also every relinking causes too much variation on quality of players and commanders, which definitely shuts down motivation for some people to play the game. Defending is also too easy so stacking on a server is only solution if you want to assault T3 SM/Keeps/towers before your guilds log in.

Btw population imbalance is necessity these days as meta and defender bonuses force it so experienced players can play the game.

Watchtower isn't that big of a deal tho, you are right about that, as it mostly affects smaller groups, scouts and solo roamers. Population status+relinkings are way bigger. But these things shoulda been fixed 4-5 years ago already, so I wouldn't be too hopeful for any changes.

What they should fix is:

• Rework shield gens to not block siege fire
• Nerf claim buff. Rebuff things that promote active defending like wall/gate HP and siege damage to siege (things that got nerfed since introduction of claim buff and faster upgrade times)
• Make options for watchtower but tune watchtower down a bit. Some other tactics need touches too.
• Pop statuses, relinkings and transfer costs
• Upkeep of superspeed and minstrel (concentration) effectiveness
• Upgrade times: SM is literally almost always T3. Same applies to side keeps on borderlands which was always never the case pre-HoT. This forces you to blob just to attack things.

Overall they have catered laziness/passiveness since HoT and yea GW2 is a nice game these days if you bring a can of beer and run around with your brain off, but it plays very onedimensionally these days compared to old days. Watchtower is only one thing amongst dozens of other needed balance changes they have neglected so long.

We all know watchtowers gonna stay, but they can tune it down a litte bit as passive defences are on stupider side but also fix the other problems (population imbalance as you said) with WvW. Its just a tower, who cares if attackers outplay you with map rotations, at least they had good time. Attackers bring action to defenders, attacking shouldn't be terribly hard. Its much worse not having attackers or action outside camps and blobs.

[Riba.3271]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:As someone that's scouted in the past and still does currently, no please stop asking for other players to just stand around in a structure and watch. It's boring, it doesn't reward and it's even worse when people don't respond to scout reports. You are looking at it through tinted glasses and romancing it was a wonderous thing in the past, it wasn't, it isn't now. When havocing the watch towers are easily fooled and leads to sides that don't use roaming scouts to be even more easily deceived. No please don't spend time on this. If we are spending time on map features, be working on a new map over all.

You also need to think of it from attackers perspective. Attackers bring action to scouts and defenders, if attackers fail a lot more, people will stop doing it (as it has outside guildblobs) and defenders are gonna be bored as well.

Attacking should be fun for both sides and watchtower is one of the examples for powercreep of passive defending. Nerfing active defences like siege damage to siege+players and wall/gate HP while buffing passive ones like claim buff, watchtowers, upgrade times and lord hp has led to the situation we are at the moment: Attacking just doesn't feel good and fails way too often. So attackers is an extinct species. Playing around watchtowers is also just extra mental work, especially for people leading disorganised groups, being drunk or new to the gamemode. Wildcreek and anza watchtowers are good examples of annoying ones that protect previously easy routes to take.

You do know that scouting in the past there was always action on towers pre-watchtower which led you to burning out playing a gamemode you loved. Now there is very little action from attackers side, so defenders are bored as well. Home borderlands T3, some occassional camp fights, but very little epic siege moments. I will tell you here: Losing an upgraded objective is fine, there are also humans on the enemy side. You can choose to not go check the contested towers instead of stressing about it.

Promoting passive defences is just bad design and anet should come back to revisit WvW, nerfing claim buff, upgrade times and certain tactics in return for stronger objectives and returning siege gameplay by returning old siege vs siege damage and removing shield gen bubbles from blocking siege fire. Before if you had 2 acs on catas, you managed to stop the attack, now they just tickle. Shield gens also counter every defensive siege and long range trebbing/cata epic moments don't exist anymore.

Yes Home borderland used to have action, upgrading, camp action and lot of chores throughout the day, but if you didn't enjoy that, maybe it just wasn't for you. Its still better than logging in and having nothing to do for more than an hour occassionally.

Btw, anet could have resources to fix this, relinkings, pop status, claim buff WHILE making a new map. Most of these are just numerical changes and don't require that much work. Just they don't have anyone working on WvW infrastructure anymore. I know you think this nerf to watchtower is something that would take more than a few days, but it really wouldn't. So please, massive things like new maps and alliances that take months or years to get released don't take priority over improvements that only take a day or two. Like nerfing amount of stats of claim buff sounds like a big work right when its just changing a few guild/WvW/Buff UI numbers. Nothing compared to making a new map that might flop completely.

[Shroud.2307]

@"TheGrimm.5624" said:no please stop asking for other players to just stand around in a structure and watch. It's boring, it doesn't reward and it's even worse when people don't respond to scout reports.

I agree that Watchtower is good in some regards, that's why I don't think it should be removed, but as it currently is it is too oppressive in too many ways. If people want rewards they should be doing something. Babysitting objectives has never been the proper way to scout. You're supposed to be constantly on the move maintaining your entire territory, including other maps if you want to spread out. You get plenty of rewards reflipping camps, sentrys, towers, killing roamers, etc. It is basically homeland roaming. Unfortunately, most people think "scouting" is sitting in one place doing nothing and expecting to be rewarded for doing nothing.

[Bristingr.5034]

@Justine.6351 said:You can cata net without being marked. Try from garrison side.

You still get marked getting to that side. You'd have to get a Thief/Mesmer to port the group through to avoid it I suppose, but still... it's a lot more work needed than any other tower on any other map.

[ASP.8093]

I don't think "being able to cata a tower without being marked" is at all an important or reasonable expectation.

[Justine.6351]

@Bristingr.5034 said:

@Justine.6351 said:You can cata net without being marked. Try from garrison side.

You still get marked getting to that side. You'd have to get a Thief/Mesmer to port the group through to avoid it I suppose, but still... it's a lot more work needed than any other tower on any other map.

Oh no! Can't have effort get in the way !