I need to know this... Is "storming the Castle" really all there is to EBG gameplay?

[Omega.6801]

Hi there,

I'm playing WvW on and off and recently, I have come to see a strange, yet widespread behavior on EBG. As far as I know, my servers regular comms don't do EBG unless absolutely necessary.They will come to help if some t3 thing is going to fall, but that's about it. So on EBG we either have no comm, people are roaming around the map, taking camps, defending towers etc. But when we have a comm, it always ends in this mindnumbing feeding at the gates of SMC. And here's my question: Why do they do this?

I don't command, so this comes across as somewhat backseaty. But wouldn't it be better to do something else? I've seen comms run and die and run and die for hours at SMC and only very rarely the whole thing results in the actual taking of the object. Is there something wrong with EBG that it incentivises this sort of gameplay?

I get that comms w/o vc are basically 1)a morale boost and 2)a mobile waypoint to gather at. You can't do fancy tactics when you can't communicate in real time and people will not be on tag. So I get why you don't go for a t3 stronghold, but the gameply loop of  "1)run to SMC 2)maybe kill 2 enemies in the push 3)die to the counter push or siege 4)repeat" can't be the best or optimal thing to do on this map. Is it?

Anyway, thanks for your attention. What do you think? Do you experience the same? Can you give an explanation?

Edited September 26, 2021 by lokh.2695

[Gibson.4036]

I had a similar question. Recently I found a group and we endless wove in and out of SMC through broken walls but never attempted to take it. The commander did a great job playing cat and mouse with enemy groups, circling in and out to eat their tails. At first I thought it was to take out enough that we’d be able to make a go for actually flipping SMC, but it never seemed to. 
is this a thing? Just endlessly keep hitting the enemy?

[ArchonWing.9480]

EBG is often queued and pugs flock to it for the reasons listed it in OP. As a result, commanders often don't come because it's queued and usually there's enough pugs to secure their own 3rd unless they're massively failing and there's really nothing to do but toss memes in team chat.

Owning SMC is often not sustainable unless there's a massive skill/population difference due to the multitude of ways to attack it, but having SMC upgraded is a large advantage because you can treb all the enemies' front towers. As a result, people would ideally keep SMC open at the least so they can destroy that siege, and try to make it paper (capture to reset by any of the opposing sides)

Edited September 26, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Gibson.4036]

16 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

EBG is often queued and pugs flock to it for the reasons listed it in OP. As a result, commanders often don't come because it's queued and usually there's enough pugs to secure their own 3rd unless they're massively failing and there's really nothing to do but toss memes in team chat.

Owning SMC is often not sustainable unless there's a massive skill/population difference due to the multitude of ways to attack it, but having SMC upgraded is a large advantage because you can treb all the enemies' front towers. As a result, people would ideally keep SMC open at the least so they can destroy that siege, and try to make it paper (capture to reset by any of the opposing sides)

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

[Dawdler.8521]

Sometimes you defend the castle too. So many options!

[MedievalThings.5417]

The castle is for large blobs/groups to kill solos/outnumbered and for free takes on the 6 closest towers.  When they are low on numbers, they can just repair walls for participation and hide behind siege and the guild aura buff.  When their blob is around, they use it to take everything around it with no effort, since it takes no time or effort to treb everything into oblivion.

 

Nowadays, the bigger servers hold smc and nothing else, because they want the free, easy loot for killing 30 with 70 when the 30 look to see if anyone is home, AND, they want to lose the match to stay fighting smaller servers to repeat the loot farming.

[SweetPotato.7456]

Longest time Stonemist Castle (not the all time, I wouldn't know that, this was few matches ago) held was Maguuma for nearly 4 days. Your questions is also why I want the match to end when an objective has been held for X amount of time.  

The only reason I see for people to keep doing the smc/wc , smc/ow fights is because it is the laziest and easiest way to keep up the pip, get bags or any loots at all from WvW, they don't need to drop any siege (cheapskates) or repair (tedious) any broken objectives,  they do not care how it affect the overall scores, there are players out there criticizing people for ppt-ing,  like it's a shameful things to do (we have lost many commanders because of that, after which, people whine because there are no commanders "roll eyes"),  they want to control where the server land on the next match up to avoid playing against certain server who (except their links) only play on EBG, these players usually do not respond to any call out or watch anything, other then getting farm/farm at the gate of SMC. (Off course there are exception).  That is what happens when all the commanders do not want to fight and avoided EBG, while they say ppt-ing is bad, they also are doing the easy ppt-ing on the borderlands. (shrugs) 

So you see, it is not a simple problem, it's a very big problem that needs fixing, the game is old and the maps are stale, the only way to do anything is either be a zergling and play wvw like pve or you pvp outside smc. 

[corwin.8356]

It's never worth taking SMC as the synthies in there are utter trash (sniff).

[subversiontwo.7501]

I think @ArchonWing.9480 post above was a good explanation. To add to it: There is a design element to it as well. If no one cares about SM then it usually just sits or trades papered. There may be some defenders but its is mostly casual bag farms. Once one side decides to upgrade it and use it in strategic ways you also run into the problem that it has multi-layer defenses that makes it easier to hold than many other objectives and causes a barrier of entry to capture. That is interesting in the environment that people in this thread have already described: Where EB can be highly populated but loosely organised or not organised at all. SM defends very well with clouds against other clouds or insufficiently composed groups.

To put it in rather crude terms: Taking a defended SM usually requires the meta/ball type of composition that clouders tend to hate to fend off the siege and general splash damage. So if you can't convince players to play support and play to their parties then getting shaved off at the gates or overwhelmed by sorties is almost assured. The defenders' advantage means that many times they can hold SM but not hold other objectives, so many times the attackers can have the stronger force just not strong enough or built to task.

This is also what can lead to the feeling of just crashing on the rocks of SM over and over. Though, @lokh.2695 answered his own question already in the OP, I believe (just running at SM over and over - because it is a central objective, because it means decent points or because it threatens your front towers - is rather unimaginative even if it is reasonable/understandable but there are unmistakenly tactical alternatives). There are even alternatives to approaching SM itself that does not completely involve playing on your opponents' terms.

Never forget that the years of neglect and unfairness have made people rather unambitious. They take any content.

Edited September 28, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Skynet.7201]

Middle Fort is love, Middle Fort is life, a place to celebrate and watch fireworks. Not that I would know anything about the fireworks.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

It'd be the same thing in all the Borderlands if they didn't just have huge empty spaces in the middle. If anything its the Borderlands that should be changed to be more similar to EBG.

 

There's a multitude of reasons for it but a big one is that players want to fight, not spend all day walking to objectives. SMC is alot of things but most important: its there, always, and its easy to get to, and its design encourages fighting. Even against a server that has it upgraded to T3 all the time (you know which one) you can still break the walls, keep their siege down, and lure their players out into the open field for farming. This isn't something you can do at any other objective; even just T3 Towers tend to be all-or-nothing if the enemy is strong enough to push you back.

 

It'd be nice if other Keeps and Towers in the game weren't as black and white, but sadly it seems like the devs have given up on the hope of every doing any significant work on the WvW maps.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I came to the realization that SMC is the Golden Snitch of WvW.  That is, whomever holds stonemist castle wins in warscore.  That said, I prefer to play in the borderlands precisely because of what you describe: EBG is an endless clash of zergs against each other in an attempt to try and grab Stonemist from each other.  Every corner of EBG is close to each other, which makes it heavily fortified and hard to take anything.  The end result, unless terribly outmatched, is an endless stalemate where servers trade SMC with each other.  

[Junkpile.7439]

It's annoying when one server doesn't understand what they should do in eb. Idea is try to cap sm not try to ninja second strongest server towers while they try to cap sm.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Junkpile.7439 said:

It's annoying when one server doesn't understand what they should do in eb. Idea is try to cap sm not try to ninja second strongest server towers while they try to cap sm.

They understand exactly what they're doing. If you're not kicking the one that is already down you're doing it wrong. Its EB afterall.

[Boh.4568]

EBG is the designated pug map, so it's difficult to organize a squad to take SM.

Usually defenders are a big cloud and that's hard to kill if you need to siege two layers of castle and a legendary lord at the same time. When someone tags up as an attacking team in EBG, it's rare for their squad to be optimized at all, because an open tag will attract all kinds of pugs who usually don't stay close to the tag and get pulled away.

So you either have a big squad that gets one-pushed by The Cloud™ because they can't stay on tag and/or can't push at the right time, or a small squad (usually a guild) that despite being organized, simply doesn't have the numbers to push into The Cloud™ and they eventually lose the attrition battle around the inner walls or at the lord.

This makes tags on EBG rarer and rarer, and so EBG reverts back to the good ol' Cloud vs Cloud for endless bag farming.

 

From my experience SM usually gets capped when there's no one defending, or when there's a really good squad.

 

Can't beat The Cloud™