Cael.3960

Yep. You have your low-effort cynics on both sides of the discussion. Plenty of jaded veterans have spent years watching new players encounter the game mode and bounce off that first wall of competitive difficulty. Back when the game was new and communities were eager to form and grow they'd offer help, guides, and share their own path of improvement. Guilds were a big part of the game back then, now not so much. Most folks kind of play in their own bubble unless a map meta requires a group to achieve success. Even then it's more common to float beside a tag than to actually join the squad. I think people are simply less social now than they used to be in MMO's. I'm in multiple guilds, both WvW and PvE, and training nights are a frequent discussion. When we have them turn out is generally low and most of the people who show up are veterans who really don't need the lessons, they just want to share what they've learned and maybe pick up a new trick they haven't seen before. Those who most need the training and understanding of how everything comes together in a build and how best to play it aren't interested. They expect to be carried on the back of more established players/guilds/servers and as the game is a casual interest at best there's little need to become skilled at it. Once they've experienced the content there's not much point in revisiting it, and if they don't intend to play it again there's no point in learning to improve. It's frustrating, because as someone who's written guides, recorded video, offered one-on-one instruction to guildmates and new players alike watching them leave after a couple months or just ignore the opportunities for improvement makes me question the point of going the extra mile. I still try though, which is why I'm on the forums this week instead of just ignoring the balance patch and the bizarre discussions around it like a sensible person should. Part of me still thinks there's a chance folks will attempt to see the game mode from more than one perspective and take that expanded understanding into consideration before getting angry at the patch notes and reaching for their torch and pitchforks.

Unfortunately there's a huge disconnect in this discussion that centers around being outnumbered vs being a defender. For many it's impossible to equate one without the other and this is the underlying issue preventing meaningful discussion. Boon balls aren't the only groups that attack objectives. If you can't imagine any other circumstance being possible, it makes sense that these changes are especially punishing for defending players. If you recognize that it's also possible for defenders to outnumber their attackers you may begin to see the problems in giving any one side a significant advantage over the other. An entrenched full squad with siege and tiered up walls is almost impossible to remove. They can rain dps down upon attackers and stealth-push/ambush with impunity upon anyone who dares attack a wall or gate. They have reserves of supply to patch walls, build additional siege, and in most cases have an easier time reviving downs along with better access reserve forces streaming in from the nearest waypoint. Very, very few groups have even the most remote chance against groups like this and the situation becomes increasingly difficult the longer a siege continues. Smaller squads ~15 or less, will just run from an objective once they see a similar sized group waiting for them inside. By the time they've managed to punch a hole (if they can punch a hole) attrition will have removed any chance of victory in the upcoming fight. That's why you often see ninja squads of 5-10 constantly building siege and wearing down the walls of objectives over time and then rushing the lord when no one is looking. If a defense response shows up that's as big as they are, they have to decide whether they can quickly win a skirmish and take the objective, or just run out before they're overwhelmed by increasing numbers and attrition. I'm sure even defenders will agree that when the attackers run the moment you show up it's a disappointment. You don't see many talk about that, however. Realistically you can't balance a game mode around the assumption that one side will be heavily outnumbered by another. If the system in place presents the opportunity for a massive shift in population from one side to the other at any time you need to be mindful that some advantages given to an outnumbered population are also an advantage given to an overwhelming population. That's why if you're going to buff/nerf something, you want it to be a minor advantage at best. Something that becomes less and less relevant as more players are involved because ultimately you want player agency to be the determining factor in a competitive environment. The better player/group, strategy, model of efficiency should be what decides the engagement, not PvE advantages/disadvantages. The goal should be a continuous movement toward self-improvement and positive interactions within your server community. Group up, don't group up... doesn't matter. But talk to your server mates, coordinate something, build synergy and strategies that work within your playstyle and skillset. The last thing you should be demanding are buffs/nerfs when you don't have an understanding of the game mode beyond the limited circumstances your preferred playstyle involves.

I think the circles are too small, though I do think consistency in size across all objectives is a better choice than what we had before. One of the strengths of a quality group was being able to hold a large capture circle with multiple points of ingress against clouding defenders. These circles are small enough that a group can mostly stack on point and rotate to clear the ring instead of being required to disperse to cut off access for contesting defenders. Something between what we have now and what we used to have for SMC would be best, I think. I actually think leaving the nodes outside the capture circle is better. Nodes are for the winners, the ones who leave the victory circle.

Sorry, my bad. I shouldn't expect players to do more than the bare minimum necessary to get and maintain participation in WvW. I should also expect them to complain about everything else though. As for other options, why not require anyone who puts down siege to pay 1 gold to whichever guild owns the objective? Friendly or hostile. Whoever was upset about the loss of Mystic Coins due to the nerfed Aura buffs can get his money back.

There's Orcs Must Die (1, 2, 3), Bloons TD 6, Defense Grid 2, Sanctum (1,2). Granted, there's not much of an online economy, but mutiplayer coop is offered for all of them and most feature player-used siege mechanics.

One thing I'm already seeing from both solo/small and large scale groups is an abundant use of supply drain. Doesn't matter how big the enemy group is if they don't have enough supply to build siege. Have a few solos/roamers shadow larger groups and plant supply traps in their path, on the usual siege placement locations, and any choke a group has to pass through. Just a few can drain most groups to the point where they're lucky to have enough for a pair of flame rams/catapults which can easily be destroyed by a handful of defenders and friendly siege.. If they want to attack something bigger than a t2 tower they're forced to knock on the gate, and at that point you can concentrate all your friendly siege on top of them with walls and nearby portals available to sally out at any time for opportunistic clashes. It's even better if you have equal numbers inside the objective because there's literally nothing they can do to break inside and win, anyone foolish enough to attack an objective without hundreds of supply is just a bag waiting to happen. Of course this was always a valid strategy, and abused in particular by a number of guilds and servers. But if there's one thing the most recent patch has done it's force people to evaluate stale tactics and try something that hasn't been done in a while.

Let me see if I'm reading this right. A poorly organized half-map of casuals, wall-runners and inexperienced players sees an approaching blob. For clarification, I'm assuming a 'blob' is anything more than 20 players with some kind of leadership, where'as 'map que' is 35+ because guessing numbers is a significant challenge for most people who can't read enemy groups very well. The enemy group is organized, probably with comped squads and voice coms, isolates a vulnerable gate or wall and throws down siege. They clear nearby fixed-siege, 'heat up' the walls with aoe and pulls to keep defenders from disabling or destroying siege while their full-spec'd players use the available siege to greatest effect. The scout, who can't tell the difference between a tactivator and a resource node, pulls everything once he sees a wall go down (and probably links the EWP in map chat instead of team, thereby wasting valuable seconds while someone with more experience finishes the job for him), succeeding in attracting a competent group which is immediately que'd out by the rush of roamers and milia members knowing there's defence content available. The 'blob' passes through the outer wall and isolates a vulnerable gate or wall and throws down more siege. Because there's a defence presence, they bubble and use anti-projectile hate/pulls to discourage individual defenders from doing insignificant damage to their group from nearby walls, surrounding their siege to ensure it's not disabled and to take advantage of Iron Will should a coordinated response rush their position. Someone who knows what they're doing throws down defensive siege on upper levels or behind walls, knowing these locations are safe and can pressure the entire enemy group while they sit on siege. Also they tag EVERYTHING with their siege volleys, and secure in the knowledge that if any attacker dies they'll get bags and defense rewards they have absolutely zero reason to do anything else in the fight. A few roamers who also know what they're doing join them, one even stealths and hops the wall/exits a portal to disable enemy siege once they see the bubbles dissipate. He's the hero we need, but unfortunately what we have is 30+ idiots, 5-10 wall runners sitting at spawn, and 10 more competent veterans who are hopelessly wrangling the morons on the map to mount an effective defence. Someone calls for a tag or a guild as the situation becomes desperate. The 'blob' knocks down another hole and the keep is wide open to the lord. The idiots try to repair a wall, failing to realize they only brought the 3 supply left over from the last evening they built a catapult at home tower and there isn't enough to tap it shut. They empty their supply and rush to the lord room where they try to range 30x their number and are instantly nuked. The slightly smarter ones are eles who vapor form to safety and once fully recovered, proceed to do the exact same thing over and over again. Meanwhile the half-squad who managed to get on map to defend the objective tries to form up for a push. All they need to do is down/kill half their number to snowball enough attrition to keep the objective. They can duck out at any time to recover numbers from the runbacks and the handful of solo veterans who refuse to join squad but insist on standing in the middle of their group for the push. Ques are in the 20s, no more help is coming. The lord is down to 10% and there isn't enough siege weapons turned on the lord room to pressure the 'blob' to leave. Those who are on the map but not in squad are peppering the 'blob' with everything on their skill bar, getting big numbers and no downs. No one is running supply to fix the walls because there's defence content and the moment someone leaves they're outnumbered and the objective is going to flip. They die and keep running back. Forgetting to grab supply along the way because it's more important to join the fight than to think tanctically. The run back is short, they can die over and over if they have to so long as they grind out the win. The blob has killed the Lord and is now sitting on it's corpse to prevent it from being rez'd. Anti-projectile hate surrounds their group and they watch the glass-rangers off themselves with reflects. Amazingly one of those competent veterans (probably a berserker because they know the subtle benefits of their class with select keep tactics) has grabbed the dragon banner and is absolutely PUMPING damage into that blob. He's targeted for pulls but maintains enough defiance to back off before they hunt him down and eliminate the only real threat outside the guild with a half-squad who's got as much on tag as he can and now pushes in. They die. Because they're outnumbered on the push and can't sustain against bigger numbers. The idiots ringing the lord room pillars and walls stay exactly where they are and launch aoe's into the fight, failing to single out priority targets or secure downs because the biggest concentration of targets is obviously where the damage goes. The defending squad is wiped and tries to run back to regroup. The militia/veterans who remain dance around the columns to stave off the capture circle. But most of them don't bring self-stability or know that aoe can wrap around columns and so they're downed. The 'blob' expands within the circle to push out contestants and the objective starts ticking. Someone managed to repair one of the walls. Two guys are destroying the enemy siege while the keep flips. Another scout announces that the other server is also attacking. He's ignored, except by the ones who were wall-running at spawn and finally realized there was content only to jump into the keep and become fixated on the enemy zerg that's not in the lord room. They start building siege to fight them. The capture circle keeps ticking. Slowly, because some of the defenders actually know what they're doing. Then quickly because those guys are now dead. The casuals who haven't been running into death to contest are running out because they don't want to be a trapped bag (they've already died a couple times so they can't give loot or xp, but they don't know that). The objective quickly flips and the defenders run out. Fortunately, the OTHER enemy 'blob' managed to push in before the flip and has become trapped inside. They see the defenders running out and collect a few corpses (no bags, alas) and have to decide to stay and fight or also leave. Someone gets a look at the lord room and sees that there's roughly the same number they have. They fight, because this group saw the OJ's and chose to rush toward them instead of taking an undefended objective someplace else. It's a quality fight, though the first 'blob' has lost cooldowns and has broken parties due to attrition. It's a toss-up between which of them wins. There's an arrowcart that hasn't been destroyed and one of the defenders is STILL on it. Bags for days. Until someone realizes who the mosquito is and a few people swat him. Oh well, he's got his wiggle chest. Time to call out the idiots in chat for failing to mount a proper defence. The two 'blob's fight and one of them wins. Maybe it's the first one, maybe it's the second one. In any case, it's a T-nothing keep and neither of them decides to stay. 5 minutes later there's swords on the keep. A minute later there's oj's in the lord room. Somewhere else on the map there's another set of Oj's, looks like the two 'blobs' are fighting again at a tower. 5 map defenders, uncontested, have retaken their keep. The half-squad that transferred to defend the keep is bitched out for failing to defend it and has left the map so they can rejoin those who couldn't get in because of the que. They decide it's best just to do their own thing because half a squad having a good time is unfair to the other half. They pick a map, stay there, and ignore future callouts; if there was a que then it means there are enough defenders to manage on their own. Team/map chat gets hostile and abuse is heaped upon whatever tag that showed up because now it's clear THEY were the problem. And by staying on a map instead of responding to future callouts on other maps it's clear they're making the problem even worse. The map is still qued. No, it's a false que. Now it's outnumbered. Hunh. The tag now has a que on his map instead. The two 'blob's fight each other until one side is the clear winner (or one of them gets bored) and one side logs off. Surprisingly, most of the map is defence colors again. Those 5 guys who flipped the keep have been busy while being ignored. In fact, the keep is T1 and in another 10-15 minutes it'll be T2. One blob is gone but the other is still around. They spend 15-20 minutes retaking their third and then make a push toward the now T2 keep. The cycle repeats. And maybe it repeats a second time before a friendly tag with most of a squad shows up to respond and manages to get most, if not all, of their coordinated group on the map. With fewer ineffective players on their side, they manage to hold the T2 keep. With content on the map they stick around. The solo players, recognizing that there's an anchor of stability on their map don't dare leave for a different one. They flip camps and towers and rally to the OJ's on tired objectives because there's a rock they can orbit for protection while collecting bags and defender rewards. It's the good life. Until another map needs help and that tag swaps bl's to respond. Half their squad is que'd out. The cycle repeats.

Clearly the solution is to limit borderland population to a 1:1:1 ratio. You don't get on the map until every other server has equal numbers or 1 more extra player. That way the least populated server has the exact same chance to succeed on a map as the server that's over-stacked, better organized and has better coverage. That way everyone has fair content and we discourage map blobs unless there's two other servers with a map presence big enough to fight against them. Hmm. On second thought that would probably lead to three-digit ques for some servers and absolutely empty borderlands if any one server has weak representation in a particular time slot. kitten it, if only people would spread out to have an equal population on all servers instead of just bandwagoning onto the most successful ones. Can't they see that the game is better if we all suck equally? Okay, how about we take this one step further and open up all servers to transfer for free. After 3 months, delete the one with the lowest population and continue to do so until there's a permanent que on all maps at all times. Surely with no population imbalance everyone has an equal chance to enjoy the content they prefer. Eventually the ques will force people onto other servers and everything will equal out. Network error. Que 88. Well, time to run the Dragonfall until my que pops again...

Exactly which part of the build changes upset you the most? The smaller capture circles, the nerfs to walls or the nerfs to stat buffs for friendly defenders? Or was it the use of siege in ways which were not intended? If you take a moment to read further, you'll see a massive list of nerfs to almost all the over-performing aspects of the current 'boon ball'. And yet, apparently, they've gotten even stronger in your opinion. I'm curious as to how you figure that's the case when there's less boons in that boon ball, less damage in that boon ball, less support/barrier in that boon ball whereas the only thing taken away from a defender is fast and easy wall repair and compensatory stat buffs for defenders (which, by the way, also work for that 50 man boon ball you love to hate if they decide to camp a tiered objective as well). That's the big problem with defensive play and defensive players; you have a reliance on force multipliers but have no concept of how it exponential the advantage becomes with equal numbers. Your problem isn't the boon ball, it's not having enough people or organization to mount an effective defense. If the expectation is that a casual militia SHOULD be able to stomp a well organized, better compted enemy group of superior numbers... I think you're seriously misjudging what the game mode needs right now. Further... you describe a story where no one attacked a T3 smc and opted to flip T0 towers instead. Sounds like the attackers realized what a slog it would be to flip a sieged up T3 objective and decided it was more fun to fight something they could actually land a blade on. Which proves my point; when defenders have such an overwhelming advantage that it discourages attack, you see the k-train T0 flip meta because it's the only way to get a fight without taking 600 arrow carts to the face. Honestly, you gotta step out of your tunnel vision and see both sides of the problem here.

Nerfs to skills which took advantage of higher target caps to push overtuned damage, nerfs to Chaos Aura and boon generation, nerfs to barrier generation, nerfs to brain-dead auto-attack chain damage. But man, oh, man, the BOON BALLS WON GUYS! THEY WON! Anet loves BOON BALLS so much they nerfed capture boundaries into the ground. They nerfed walls into the ground. They nerfed Presence of the Keep and Guild Objective Aura into the ground. They nerfed siege golems so they can't hold camps into the ground. They nerfed Flame Ram Iron Will into the ground. THE GAME MODE SUCKS! I can't collect bags by ignoring group content and sitting inside a friendly objective for hours on end. God. They just don't get it, nobody wants to group up in an MMO anymore. Why can't we just have another Drizzlewood map or a proper Tower Defense mode? Step away from the defend-a-wall meta and you'll see that what the game desperately needed was a reason for players to get out of their comfort zone instead of camping inside friendly objectives. Defenders had such an overwhelming advantage with fortifications/buffs/siege that in many cases the only way to flip them was WITH a boon ball because anything else was suicide. With these kind of nerfs you're actually less likely to see boon balls attacking tiered objectives because you don't need massive sustain to punch a hole and survive overwhelming disadvantages. It encourages player-vs-player interactions, which is at the heart of the game mode. It also encourages defenders to organize a defense, jump into coms, rally around leadership and strategize sally's against groups and siege rather than bunker and wait. Maps will see more activity because there's more to do when tiered objectives aren't sieged up to the point of discouraging all but the biggest and best comped squads. Boon balls have never been the problem, the problem was the meta which required them to effect any meaningful change of ownership on a map. I get it, players who prefer to stay safe on/behind a wall and retreat to safety the moment they're vulnerable will be very upset by these changes. Players who rarely, if ever, use their class skills will be upset that they can't just build siege and use it instead. Ultimately it's a PvP mode; the focus should be on players fighting other players with class builds and individual skill rather than the environment or with special actions. Honestly, the nerfs to almost all zerg-meta builds are going to have a significant impact on the game mode as is. People who don't play a wide variety of classes or squad sizes from full 50-to-solo really have no idea what kind of shakeup all of this means. Personally I'd like to see more boonstrip/corrupts and a consistent target cap upon all skills as well, but nerfing the greatest overperforming aspects of the current meta which have entrenched a very stale game mode for half a year is a big step forward.

Why hasn't this issue been fixed? Or even addressed? The utility skills actually swap the moment combat begins. Out of combat I can swap legendary stances and see no change on my utility bars. The moment I'm in combat, the first legendary stance swap will reset utility skill positions every time.

No worries, we've all been there. Have a good one!

Some guilds run full and run hard Rise comp. It's reset night, there are the usual offenders. Don't expect a fix, this issue is not a priority in development at this time. The Rise!/Escape-Artist comp can be beaten. It's not easy; it takes skill, the right comp, and quality leadership to pull off. Terrible guilds may cheese their way to wins while it lasts but that too has a purpose. Many of these guilds wouldn't fight at all, so at the very least it's causing some to engage in clashes instead of hiding behind walls and siege. It's far from ideal, and frankly to the detriment of the game's long-term sustainability, but there's a silver lining to be found even in trash. And this is trash. No mistake. But unless folks rise above it, it's an atmosphere you're only entrenching by continuing to abuse it. There are no martyrs here collecting bags, just the folks who can't win any other way. Take that for what it's worth.

Anet staff can transfer their accounts to a different server on whim. They frequently play on multiple servers, with multiple guilds, at multiple tiers. They don't favor a particular server, though some individuals may prefer specific guilds they've had long-standing ties with. If an anet player claims an objective, it's the same as any other one-man guild. You're reading far too much into this, my friend.

In NA there are only a handful of guilds big enough and active enough to have a full 50 comp of pure guildies per timezone. The overwhelming majority of the time tags either run closed and invisible to maintain small squad mobility or they run open to grab whomever they can who's on a map. Most squads who engage in (and actively seek out) fights may prioritize meta classes/builds but if the tag is open they'll usually take anyone to get to the cap. Numbers trump class/build/skill in almost all situations so it's advantageous to have 50 even if not everyone is comped or playing a meta build. PPT guilds need numbers even more to sustain themselves through an overabundance of siege so their tags are almost always open. As for the 'meta' of the gameplay itself... typically theorycrafters will build their comp not around a particular class but a particular set of skills. If Spectre had access to Sanctuary they'd be a 'meta' class. If Mantra of Concentration pulsed aegis and 5 stacks of stability to 5 party members every second for 5 seconds you'd see twice as many mesmers in every comp. WvW min-maxes the same way PvE raiders do; most effect for least effort. If anything, creating a muddy gameplay where nothing excels would be ideal because at that point you could take anything instead of being strongly encouraged to favor a particular class/build for the overperforming skills it provides. The goal of theorycrafters is to sniff out those outliers and create short-term excellence before the balance team closes that window. The meta becomes unhealthy when these outliers persist long enough to create an abusive environment where no other successful strategy is viable.

Yes, lag is a thing. Commander discord is repeatedly bringing it to Anet's attention. Has been since before the last Alliance beta, even moreso now. Official response is 'looking into it'. Feels like resources were distributed elsewhere within the last few months to prepare for the expansion, so wvw server investigates were put on hold. Alliances encouraged many guilds to blob up on maps for large-scale content and the resulting success (for some) has encouraged them to continue the practice after the beta ended. The result is even more lag as these guilds now try to fight each other with various map-ques. Some guilds are managing it far better than others, usually those who can run a significant side car to stagger engages. Watching RTT spikes and looking for the 'blink' on autoattacks has helped some folks find the 'window' where their skills can actually go off. But speculation has run wild as some seem far less affected than others. If there is an exploit... folks are quiet about it. More likely it's a system performance issue of some kind that's on the 'to do list' when time and money become available to actually look into it.

In the Arms tratiline Sundering Burst can apply (on a crit) 10 stacks of vulnerability per target struck. Scorched Earth has the potential to hit 75 different targets given perfect conditions, but a more accurate possibility is around 30-40 with quality aim and timing. That means ~35/50 of an enemy squad get 10 stacks of vulnerability. With multiple berserkers casting Scorched Earth on the same target pool, you easily hit the vulnerability cap with only three Scorched Earths. That means you're now dealing 25% more damage on top of all the traited damage increases to a full squad. Now double that. I've seen single casts of this skill do over 60k damage with a single button press. My problem isn't with the CC bomb or the stun-train (though that's also something that's happening in high-level play), it's 1 skill providing the overwhelming majority of damage in a fight. Competitive modes should encourage a diverse use of skills to suit a range of engagements. This skill is sufficiently overtuned that it's defining the meta around a single skill application and the engagements which favor it. I'm fine with it stacking vulnerability. I'm fine with it dealing as much damage per tick as it does. But the potential to hit 25 targets at a time and then tick twice more for a potential 75 packets of damage is far too much for one button press. Competitive play should be more skillful than this. Boost the individual damage and knock the target cap down to 10 per tick and I'm fine with it. You still have a meta-leading skill that combines well with other squad compositions, only now it presents players with a wider range of effective choices for the class.

Seriously. When 6 Berserkers can deal 70% of full squad's total damage with one skill, it needs to be addressed. This skill is so overtuned it's literally dominating every large-scale engagement in WvW right now Pile on Chrono Grav Well bombs and The Warrior Hammer train the game is now about who can CC and Scorched Earth burn first. Terrible meta.

The last thing we need is a significant boost to defensive siege damage when so much of the gameplay in WvW is already just a holding action so an overwhelming amount of it can be built. If the majority of 50-man squads can't crack a T3 with the CURRENT amount of siege spam, what makes you think anyone other than a 5-man ninja squad will bother if the siege is even more effective? Sure, increase the damage but halve the amount of siege that's buildable in a friendly objective. Force defenders to make a choice; siege one entrance to the nuts so that it's impenetrable to assault and defend the rest with organized groups, or spread it out and organize sallies to flank invading groups. This game mode should encourage more interaction than sitting behind friendly walls and hammering the 1 key the moment something in red comes into range.

Mag is reaping the rewards of a 2v1 alliance to see them out of T4 right now. Will they achieve the same success in higher tiers? Maybe, if NSP can PPT everything that's not EBG. It's always been a challenge for Mag to play outside of mother's watchful gaze, so let's hope NSP can keep it up

Hmm... 41 of the past 57 weeks SoR has been linked with a T4-sometimes-T3 server. Hats off to FA, were it not for them we'd never know what any other tier is like in more than a year. Maybe... just maybe... consider shaking things up a little more next time? Especially since TC and SoR were recently linked during the 3-month hiatus during winter holidays.