Reduce siege splash radius.

[Shinjiko.1352]

As in the title. I know a lot of people will hate the suggestion but I figured it would be a better/ quicker solution to some problems in wvw rather than changing map elements.

 

For starters, why can catapults and trebs take out 2 walls at once by hitting inbetween? This isn't really the biggest issue as to why i'm suggesting this change but could help make defending feel less useless. This is why I think the attack radius is too big.

 

The main issue is all the strange and almost cheesy spots people can place siege to get around having to deal with defenders. You can place catas and trebs in such a way that hitting below the walls or simply hitting parts near it count as damage. This feels almost hopeless to stop as you can't siege a lot of these spots down, nor can you run out to disable/ destroy because of all the projectile hate and enemy group sitting on top of these spots. I feel if the radius could be reduced enough to prevent most of these spots being a thing it would be the most efficient fix for anet rather than adjusting maps to get around it, which is far more time consuming.

I know they don't like these spots and have patched some in the past. But wvw development has been put on the backburner up until now. So I'm just trying to think of feasible solutions that they could opt for that imo would help make some of the problems in the mode less of an issue. I know some will see nothing wrong with this as it is but it's pretty ridiculous to watch a wall be taken down by placing catas a good distance below the wall out of LoS, or simply just be hitting terrain near it and not be able to do much about it if you're outnumbered.

[Dawdler.8521]

The "strange" and "cheesy" siege spots along with multihitting walls is often the only way to siege T3 keeps - and even then it can take 1-2h to starve and eventually take it between equal forces.

But hey if you agree to half wall HP or alternatively double catapult range then gimping the radius is fine by me.

[Telgum.6071]

It would make sense but considering that defenders already have the high ground on combats I see no problem with this.

[Clownmug.8357]

Without splash damage counter siege would be a pain to use though. Along with getting through shield bubbles it'd require nearly perfect accuracy, then would probably only hit one or two catapults at a time.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Clownmug.8357

[Svarty.8019]

6 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

if you agree to half wall HP or alternatively double catapult range then gimping the radius is fine by me.

They've already normalised the toughness. That's more than plenty, thanks.

[Hotride.2187]

IMO defending is already bunker-ish enough. But if you would reduce AoE radius also of defensive siege, why not I guess.

[Xenesis.6389]

With shield gens still around? no. The splash works for both sides.

 

[Sviel.7493]

I agree that this is an issue, but reducing splash range on catapults/trebs will have multiple knock-on effects that may lead to other issues.

The way they planned to address this was through map updates, as you mentioned.  DBL, on release, had 0 places where two walls could be hit at once and only 2 places where walls took damage from siege hitting well below them.  The latter is the result of a bug where walls placed on a diagonal have a larger-than-intended hitbox according to a red post, but we never got any follow-up on if the bug was being worked on or not.

ABL, on the other hand, has multiple such places at every keep and maybe 1 at SET (I don't remember...).  That's part of the reason ABL was intended to be scrapped.  Since it was brought back prior to planned updates, the problems persist.

It is probably too much work to address the issue on ABL since it would involve redesigning every keep.  Inevitably, people would get super mad about it too.  Simply put, the most vocal part of the playerbase is not interested in healthy siege design.  Any change that makes sieges more interactive is going to ruffle their feathers.

[Xenesis.6389]

58 minutes ago, Sviel.7493 said:

That's part of the reason ABL was intended to be scrapped.  Since it was brought back prior to planned updates, the problems persist.

 

ABL was never intended to be scrapped, it was going to be on rotation with DBL.

 

P.S I have no problems with having double wall entry as it provides smaller groups with an opportunity to sneak stuff, even though I think keeps should require big groups to take. And while this is a double edge sword for allowing bigger zergs to get in faster as well(although t3 negates this a lot).... if you have a big zerg running on your map, you should probably be requesting for help in team chat, and your team should probably respond quickly.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[Solitude.2097]

I hope shield bubbles  , reduce the damage done to walls from 100% > 90% and the person that control them emit some damage splash to nearby target  , or random "single -Raid-Boss -avoid-lines" 😞

[Sviel.7493]

Just now, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

ABL was never intended to be scrapped, it was going to be on rotation with DBL.

Sorry, I was a little imprecise there.

It was going to be updated prior to entering a rotation.  ABL as we know it was meant to be permanently removed.  While they never went into specifics on their planned updates, my conjecture is that they didn't remove all double walls purely by accident--thus, if all had gone as planned, I think the updated version of ABL (which never came to be) would have also removed double walls.

[Xenesis.6389]

1 minute ago, Sviel.7493 said:

Sorry, I was a little imprecise there.

It was going to be updated prior to entering a rotation.  ABL as we know it was meant to be permanently removed.  While they never went into specifics on their planned updates, my conjecture is that they didn't remove all double walls purely by accident--thus, if all had gone as planned, I think the updated version of ABL (which never came to be) would have also removed double walls.

 

I don't recall of them wanting to make updates as such, and if they really wanted to they could, regardless if the map was running or not, see SMC north wall changes, Ogrewatch relocation, various wall changes to Wildcreek and Mendon's, and bridge change to Quentin, all done while EBG was in operation. I think the changes that went into ABL in it's absence was probably more of the guild and auto updates which came with HoT release.

 

When the treb from spawn issue came up after, Tyler mentioned that most players wanted the map back without changes.

 

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Alpine-Border-Land-Back-Spawn-Treb-Bug/6140350

 

Quote

 

There are many reasons this wasn’t addressed when Alpine was brought back:

• Players were genuinely nostalgic for Alpine. Virtually all demands were just for Alpine to return, with no changes. There was no outcry that it was important to change Alpine to prevent spawn trebs before bringing the map back. Had we made a change to the layout of citadel to prevent this, perhaps we’d just be seeing a different set of angry threads, those mad that "we made a change that nobody asked for, dumbing down the map and removing a perfectly valid tactic. "
•  
• We were attempting to bring the map back as fast as possible. Players wanted to play the map immediately. Our timing for releasing on 5/3 was already extremely tight. Fixing this issue would likely have caused us to miss our release window and postponed the update for another 2 weeks.
•  
• This goes along with the previous points, but it wasn’t on our mind. We were just focused on bring the map back as fast as possible, in a state as close as people remembered it in.

•  
• For the last 6 months, I’ve been told daily by players how great and well designed ABL is/was. This was our opportunity to see if they’d still feel that way, or think ABL needs additional work just like DBL.

•  
• It isn’t/wasn’t something that needed immediate fixing, like a crash or an unconquerable objective. Players played with this exploit for years, and still had really fond memories of the map. If it turned out to be a big issue when the map was reintroduced, we could always fix it in a later release.

Since it’s clear that this is a big concern for players, we’ll fix it.

 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

There is no useless defense. Only useless defenders.

Also Siege Disablers exist if you can't fight them head on.

But of course the main flaw of all these "defense is too weak" arguments is that nerfing offense also nerfs your ability to counterattack.

For example, if there's 60 people at your garrison, and you are outnumbered, garrison will probably fall regardless of one wall being hit or two walls. Remember. If  I have 60 people, I really don't care if we have to drop a few more catas because the squad can have up to 1500 supply. How much do you have on you?

 

But you could send like 15 people to attack their bay (or whatever keep is closest to you). This group of 15 will probably fail their first attempt,. but they can continue to poke holes and still do damage.

 

However, if we make things harder to attack, is that your group of 15 will get wiped for nothing as the damage they cause can easily be repaired by a few, and you will still lose your garrison anyways.

Edited September 9, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Sviel.7493]

@Xenesis.6389Like Tyler said, players wanted ABL back immediately and with minimal changes.  As a result, they abandoned the planned changes and instead just implemented the bare minimum to allow the map to work with the guild updates and such that came with HoT.  He mentions that a change to the layout of Citadel would have delayed the return by 2 weeks--imagine how long changes to Hills, Bay and Garrison would have taken.

 

If we look at forum threads from that time, we can see that some players were similarly confused as to why ABL returned without more changes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Why-AB-wasn-t-fixed-before-releasing-it

And here's a few threads referencing their plan to update ABL and re-introduce it somehow: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Would-arenanet-ever-bring-the-alpines-back
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/What-will-happen-to-the-old-borderland

Edited September 9, 2021 by Sviel.7493

[Svarty.8019]

14 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

There is no useless defense. Only useless defenders.

Also Siege Disablers exist if you can't fight them head on.

But of course the main flaw of all these "defense is too weak" arguments is that nerfing offense also nerfs your ability to counterattack.

For example, if there's 60 people at your garrison, and you are outnumbered, garrison will probably fall regardless of one wall being hit or two walls. Remember. If  I have 60 people, I really don't care if we have to drop a few more catas because the squad can have up to 1500 supply. How much do you have on you?

 

But you could send like 15 people to attack their bay (or whatever keep is closest to you). This group of 15 will probably fail their first attempt,. but they can continue to poke holes and still do damage.

 

However, if we make things harder to attack, is that your group of 15 will get wiped for nothing as the damage they cause can easily be repaired by a few, and you will still lose your garrison anyways.

I like the initial proposal because a single catapult instinctively should not be able to hit things from in weird, hard-to-counter locations (above the cliff at north Air Keep inner wall, for example, or under the bridge at Veloka Slope).

 

I've made a distinction, in the past, about small and large groups. The 60 person mapblob has a different experience when it comes to sieging, as you assert.  

 

My first instinct was to disagree with your post but I find myself persuaded.

 

Now I find myself wondering what you might suggest as an alternative? I still don't like those weird siege spots.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Svarty.8019

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Now I find myself wondering what you might suggest as an alternative? I still don't like those weird siege spots.

Honestly, we're kinda screwed. No healthy gameplay can come along with this level of population and imbalance. Desert BL keeps in particular need to be reevaluated because there are way too many attack spots. Stuff like Veloka is fine, because you have such a large defensive advantage in that position as Keep can fire siege anyways. We could mess with EB a bit more though.

Also, this will probably get me shot, but do you think arrow carts are too weak atm? Not saying they should be buffed, but they seem pretty ineffective when you're in a decent group. What about shield gens; should they be made a defensive only weapon?

tl;dr buff siege disablers. Make it so aegis can't stop them trololol.

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Trinnitty.8256]

Aegis?  lol   The amount of shield spam from zergs from scrappers and HBs is off the charts 

[Sviel.7493]

Arrow carts might be too weak, but I'm totally fine with that.  There's no situation where arrow carts are effective that I actually find fun.  The idea of one or two people melting a zerg for free is just...not really entertaining.

 

The only time I use ACs is for anti-siege tools, but they're completely ineffective at that now as well.  Still, I'd rather see actual changes to sieges than just buff ACs up again.

[ArchonWing.9480]

59 minutes ago, Sviel.7493 said:

Arrow carts might be too weak, but I'm totally fine with that.  There's no situation where arrow carts are effective that I actually find fun.  The idea of one or two people melting a zerg for free is just...not really entertaining.

 

The only time I use ACs is for anti-siege tools, but they're completely ineffective at that now as well.  Still, I'd rather see actual changes to sieges than just buff ACs up again.

Yea this is true too. Arrow cart aren't a fun thing.

[Xenesis.6389]

Arrow carts aren't suppose to be fun, they're the "anti personnel" siege meant to keep you out of an area, and they're completely nullified with shield gens used with their wxp talent, now they're garbage with any support sitting under it with you.

On 9/9/2021 at 7:09 PM, Sviel.7493 said:

@Xenesis.6389Like Tyler said, players wanted ABL back immediately and with minimal changes.  As a result, they abandoned the planned changes and instead just implemented the bare minimum to allow the map to work with the guild updates and such that came with HoT.  He mentions that a change to the layout of Citadel would have delayed the return by 2 weeks--imagine how long changes to Hills, Bay and Garrison would have taken.

If we look at forum threads from that time, we can see that some players were similarly confused as to why ABL returned without more changes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Why-AB-wasn-t-fixed-before-releasing-it

And here's a few threads referencing their plan to update ABL and re-introduce it somehow: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Would-arenanet-ever-bring-the-alpines-back
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/What-will-happen-to-the-old-borderland

Yet there is no mention of any specific changes anet wanted/would make? The confused over the return thread had no mention of the double cata spots, but more of the bugs and exploits to fix like the citadel siege. So were you just speculating they would remove the two wall cata spots? Like I said they moved an entire tower from it's spot in Ogrewatch, while EBG was in operation right after gliding was introduced, I don't think they would have a problem moving some walls around in hills or garrison or bay.

In fact bay is easily solved by making that south wall invul like they did with wildcreek, hills can be solved by making those mid outer walls all invul, so just the south or north walls which cannot be double cata would be breakable, garrison can be solved by moving the outer east wall out more, which they've done with smc north walls.

If anet really wanted, they could have done those changes by now, regardless of what the players want, but even the double wall cata spot in ne earth keep is still around.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[Sviel.7493]

I am not saying that Anet couldn't have made the changes, but that they decided not to.  This is speculation based on the changes they made the one time they created a new map.  They never told us what changes they had planned, but they did say they were planning changes to ABL and might bring it back in some sort of rotation after those changes were implemented.  It's not a stretch to assume the planned changes would have been similar to the changes they made in DBL keep design.  Likewise, after they mostly scrapped DBL, it follows that they wouldn't go making unrequested changes to ABL to make it more similar to DBL.

I did say earlier that a total redesign of ABL keeps was probably too much work.  I should clarify that if all keeps were to have a standard number of destructible walls without any walls right next to each other and no inner/outer cata spots, then simply making this or that wall invulnerable would not fly.  The shape of the keeps would have to change which would be a much larger undertaking than anything that happened on EBG.  It would not be impossible, but I don't see them undertaking such a large change without it being specifically requested.  The EBG changes, we may note, were player requested to deal with gliding exploits and trebbing vulnerability.

 

In this post, they say: "Even though this will initially replace the existing Borderlands, we have plans to bring back the classic alpine Borderlands. More information on that will come in the future."  'More information' never really came.  There were some statements saying that it needed to be updated first.  In the end, we got ABL back far earlier than they ever suggested--this indicates that there were plans for it that were supposed to take a while that ultimately got dropped.  I'm not saying they were dropped only because of the time crunch.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/essential-elements-of-the-new-borderlands/

 

The double cata wall in earth keep is a bug as confirmed by a red post several years back.  It's a bug that's been around since the game came out (it's why Hills switchback catas work).  I can't say why nothing has been done about it, but I don't think it's the same as ABL double cata spots as they don't rely on bugs to function.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Sviel.7493

[joneirikb.7506]

I do think most siege have too big a splash area. But I also think that changing it independent of other changes would probably cause a lot of other problems.

I think it is something the Devs should look at as a part of a large package/change to siege/sieges balance down the road (phase3 I think they called it). They would have to look at and re-evaluate how all the different siege work and interact with each others, and likely come up with new skills to give all of them uses etc.

For example, regarding the AC. In itself as it is, it's an incredibly boring siege that is either too strong or completely useless, depending on how it been buff or nerfed lately. It has never once hit a good spot. It should probably be re-designed completely in some way. Examples: Base skill does no damage but removes 1 boon and applies cripple. One skill that does low base damage but +1% damage per target under the aoe (target cap is still 50). Another skill that does base damage +5% damage per boon on targets hit.

[ArchonWing.9480]

20 hours ago, Trinnitty.8256 said:

Aegis?  lol   The amount of shield spam from zergs from scrappers and HBs is off the charts 

Well I didn't want a huge buff. I can get around the shields because they have cooldowns, but having my disable be body blocked by people that have random aegis is pretty lame. Why the heck can they even block an attack that doesn't hurt them?

Edited September 11, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480