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Screw Siege and let us make waypoints


jul.7602

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Problem:TLDR: The game incentivizes highly conservative mechanics like waiting in towers until(if at all) you accumulate an overwhelming numerical advantage to decisively wipe the enemy because if either of you wipe even once then you will lose the structure to the enemy long before you can regroup and walk back to the fight.

I'm dead serious. One of the biggest problems we have in this game is the lack of equilibrium forces that encourage the disadvantaged side (outnumbered/outcomped) to fight. Among many other reasons this is why people sit in towers behind siege and don't fight. I genuinely like to believe that most people playing this game mode want to fight and have fun as opposed to turtling in T3 keeps. But we need to understand that this game does a horrible job at encouraging fights (especially ones where you likely lose). You don't get any loot, and if you die you often have to spend 4 minutes walking across the map to rejoin the fight assuming they haven't patched the gates. In essence, the duration and quality of fights are unnecessarily limited by logistics such as player movement and ridiculous amounts of coordination needed to set up and rotate flame ram+ shield generators before you get obliterated by counter ACS or cheese gate trebs.

Solution: Nerf siegeTLDR: Across the board major nerfs to siege and fortifications to bring things back to reasonable levels.

Nerf the living hell out of siege, keep lords, and fortifications and replace them with complimentary mechanics that make it easier for players to fight other players instead of doing all the work for them (excessively high damage and target cap). This post will mostly introduce an feature which we sort of had a long time ago in Vanilla called "bugged waypoints" which in essence allowed players to more easily reinforce keeps. This is a PvP which means players should be fighting other players. We don't need Keep lords with literal hundreds of millions of effective health, AC-130 modern warfare kill streaks at SMC, or literal WW2 Era trench warfare combat (counter ac to kill the counter ballista that kills the counter treb which theoretically counters the... flame rebhind the gate).

Changes

  • Arrow cart, damage reduced by 50%, and target cap reduced to 10.
  • Trebuchet/catapults no longer splash/damage flame rams behind gates
  • Cannons removed from towers and SMC, damage reduced by 50% and target cap reduced to 10
  • Tower/keep/SMC lord scaling has been reverted to vanilla levels.
  • Capture ring will require 30 seconds to take the objective (regardless of allies present).
  • Shield Generators, remove the AC damage invulnerability trait.
  • Burning oil removed.
  • Reinforced gates and walls removed.

Solution II: Add "Relay blueprints"

TLDR: Add two types of buildable waypoints. One which is suitable for havoc groups, and skirmishing and another which is appropriate for massive scale sieges.

Relay BlueprintSupply requirement:50Effective HP: Comparable to catapult

Description: Constructs a special waypoint at the following location which allied players on the map may fast travel to, with certain restrictions. Relays contain up to 5 charges and are consumed whenever a player uses them to fast travel. These charges are replenished one a time every 45 seconds automatically. To limit abuse, players are given relay sickness when used which prevents them from using another relay for 2 minutes. Further, players inside of golemns or carrying banners are not able to use the waypoint. Players that use the waypoint will lose up to 20 supply. The superior version will replenish charges at a rate of 30 seconds.

Philosophy: This is a PvP game. Players fighting other players should be the primary means of defending and attacking objectives. The problem with the current system is that fights are inherently designed to be brief and stingy. If the defending team jumps off the walls and wipes for whatever reason they will almost 90% lose the structure before they can reorganize or try again. Individuals and smaller groups are less likely to fight because if they die prematurely than they will miss out on the "fight" should it actually happen. Likewise the attacking force has only 1 chance to take the structure because if they wipe they lose all their siege and will have to try again after ~5 to 10 minutes or resupply and regroup. Waypoints will inherently be stronger on the defense because they wont be exposed, but can also be used for offensive purposes. Most importantly is encourages aggressive gameplay where players are constantly pushing/flanking in order to neutralize the enemies waypoints. Further, it alleviates the pressure of both teams to sit and wait until they have overwhelming odds to push. Additionally it rewards good communication and allows commanders to set up supply lines and staging grounds to attack larger objectives (capturing an inner tower on EBG and installing waypoints to pressure the keep).

Mass Relay blueprintSupply requirement: 1,000Effective HP: Comparable to superior flame ram

Description: More or less the same as above but with looser requirements on fast travel. Firstly, mass relays hold up to 20 charges and once all charges are consumed the entire thing shuts down for 20 minutes to recharge. After 20 minutes all 20 charges become available at once which should encourage players to spawn in organized waves as opposed to steady reinforcements like the mini relays. Secondly, players inside of golems or carrying banners are eligible to use these. Thirdly, players do not lose their supply after using this. The superior version contains 30 charges with more HP and more supply.

Philosophy: These are expensive and relatively fragile given their supply cost. They can be placed literally anywhere as aggressively as the commander wants including inside of enemy fortifications. This will allow most guilds or medium size groups to respond to major objectives. Keep in mind that 2-3 people can easily burst these things down so strategic placement is advised, especially on offense. Some ideas would be putting these inside of towers adjacent to keeps that you wish to attack.

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Geez where to start with this one..

Let's just nerf every single wvw thing that helps the disadvantaged side to encourage them to fight! because somehow that will get the outnumbered side more numbers to compete....

Add more way points cause mounts and gliders don't get you to places fast enough, let's hand attacking zergs another huge advantage to safely keep their front lines full..

What is going on with these forums this week... it's like a bunch of eotm k-trainers looking to turn wvw into old eotm trains and ruin actual map politics of wvw.

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Its a siege based PVP system. Right from the start folks should know what they are walking into. Having said that I will absolutely agree with your opening statement. If you look at KDR numbers and contrast that with total activity for a server the results get really wonky. Players might complain about the strategy of waiting until you have an almost guaranteed win but I just consider that smart play. Annoying sure. Expanding on our current existing options for types of blueprints could prove interesting. I'm all for something that causes us to think and try out new strategies. Just not sold on the idea of nerfing existing siege is going to help solve anything.

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Hard No! The seige weaponry is a fundamental component of this battle mode. It's supposed to be strategic, not running blindly into whatever red blob appears and dying while being able to be back in 15 seconds. Taking out an opponents piece should take it off the board for the match, unless ofc its a really long glorious fight.Holding a point against a solid group is tricky, especially if they have a pin with a brain. On the other hand, taking a point from a solid group with a few people with brains is nigh impossible at T3, unless YOU have a pin with half a brain. I think it's in a really good place rn and any further adjustment to the point claiming mechanics will likely break it for most.

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The respawn should reflect the TTK (time to kill) imo. Since TTK is about 0.5 seconds the respawn should be much closer.

I like the ESO way where you can spawn at any uncontested structure. A player make WP camp is cool too but not sure it's needed in this game. Just wish people valued fighting in WvW.

There used to be guilds that respected fights especially in T2 but I guess they all went to fortnite or something.

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  • 1 year later...

Well I do not agree with the nerfs to things but maybe offensive waypoints would be nice idea to boost the action a bit.

Defenders already have a massive stat advantage and if they're not willing to fix that so that attackers don't get outstatted everytime to death, offensive waypoints would at least make wiping more tolerable.

Of course the waypoints would have to be within your own objectives only on outer/further towers, other than that, I am unsure how often you should be able to take it. Every 5 min? And only if no enemy siege nearby?

Anyways, nerf claim buff, thats all I ask. Plus some other things

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