How does defending work?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

This is currently my biggest mystery in WvW. I cannot figure out how progression/participation is gained. Here are two situations I ran into:

1.) A camp was attacked by a player. I let them kill a few of the NPCs. Then I started attacking them. They ran away, so I have chased them and killed them. Returned to the camp, revived the Quartermaster and waited for the timer to run off.
GW2 = You did not participate in defending the objective. No reward for you!

2.) A massive enemy group attacked a tower. I sneaked inside and slowed them down. Attacked people at the gate with my FT. Did not manage to kill anyone at all. Died during defense. Respawned and the timer ran off.
GW2 = Congratulations for participating in the defense event. Here is your reward!

What do I have to do in a Tower/Camp/Keep to be recognized in the defense event?

Probably a stupid question, many times asked. But I'd appreciate an answer. Ty. 

[Gehenna.3625]

2 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

This is currently my biggest mystery in WvW. I cannot figure out how progression/participation is gained. Here are two situations I ran into:

1.) A camp was attacked by a player. I let them kill a few of the NPCs. Then I started attacking them. They ran away, so I have chased them and killed them. Returned to the camp, revived the Quartermaster and waited for the timer to run off.
GW2 = You did not participate in defending the objective. No reward for you!

That is correct, you don't get participation and a number of classes can easily get away and they can try again at any time. So if they do escape, you should leave and let them cap it at their earliest convenience. You can then cap the camp back and get participation.

It sucks but you can either accept it or stay frustrated...I'm still undecided.

2 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

2.) A massive enemy group attacked a tower. I sneaked inside and slowed them down. Attacked people at the gate with my FT. Did not manage to kill anyone at all. Died during defense. Respawned and the timer ran off.
GW2 = Congratulations for participating in the defense event. Here is your reward!

What do I have to do in a Tower/Camp/Keep to be recognized in the defense event?

You only get participation from enemy players when you kill them or participated in their kill.

You get some participation from killing enemy siege (your participation clock goes to 5 mins if you're lower)

But overall just playing a defender is a dirty job that not many people want to do because it doesn't give you participation unless you kill something.

 

[Xenesis.6389]

You get participation for the killing of a player, whether you did the killing blow or assisted with damage, even tagging someone with warclaw spear can get you 10 min participation. You can get credit for defense event if you participated in killing someone or siege within the area, or for towers and keeps by repairing a wall or gate.

Not sure if you dying without doing anything to the enemy would get you credit for failed defense event, never bothered to test that, but I'd guess not otherwise we would have lemming lining up to die at objectives. Reviving npcs doesn't grant participation, but it does for mercenaries, so reviving that quartermaster did nothing for credit of the event. As for the tower, maybe there's minimum damage amount that was taken into account in your case? we don't know.

Kill credit for events have been reported to be buggy at time, but maybe it's the player who didn't gauge the credit range properly. Repair seems to work fine, although I think there was a time last year after the repair participation changes it wasn't working properly on alpine? it was reported in the forums but don't know what happened after that. Seems fine to me.

If a tower is being attacked, and calls have been made, but doesn't look like anyone will show up, don't stand around waiting to be killed and handing over your bag and 10 min participation to 20 people, go do something else while they are busy there. You can kill guards at towers/keeps you don't own but know your side will take back soon, you will get credit when it eventually caps by your side even if you're on the other side of the map.

Wvw is a back and forth game, don't rely on defense events 100% for your participation, treat it as a bonus, the system was built to  mostly credit you on kills on players or npcs, or captures in order to keep promoting conflict instead of stalemates.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track#Increasing_Participation

 

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

What do I have to do in a Tower/Camp/Keep to be recognized in the defense event?

Usually anything that grants WXP. Getting credit for players kills, destroyed siege or repairing. Key is that you are in the area of the defense event while getting WXP and the event still being active (contested capture points do not activate defense events, so if guards are down and the event ran out before you killed the attacker, it can still happen that you don't get credit for a successful defense). Also getting credit for successful defense doesn't always grant participation (bug).

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Thanks for the good answers. They also solved another few inaccurate assumptions of me. Things are much clearer now. ^^

[Gehenna.3625]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Usually anything that grants WXP. Getting credit for players kills, destroyed siege or repairing. Key is that you are in the area of the defense event while getting WXP and the event still being active (contested capture points do not activate defense events, so if guards are down and the event ran out before you killed the attacker, it can still happen that you don't get credit for a successful defense). Also getting credit for successful defense doesn't always grant participation (bug).

Not everything that grants WXP gives time on the participation clock however. Repairing walls for example does give WXP but doesn't add anything to your timer. Same for mercenaries I believe.

[SFShinigami.1572]

6 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

What do I have to do in a Tower/Camp/Keep to be recognized in the defense event?

 

Repair gate/wall. Guaranteed defense credit if it is contested at the time you repair.

[Dawdler.8521]

11 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Also getting credit for successful defense doesn't always grant participation (bug).

Or offense for that matter.

Very fun when you get credit for the outer wall, inner wall and take 30% of the lords hp... then you dont get credit for the cap because you walked out to delay an enemy.

Afterwards you sneeze on a quartermaster at a 90% capped camp with 25 people in it and you get gold and also first claim right.

[Silinsar.6298]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Very fun when you get credit for the outer wall, inner wall and take 30% of the lords hp... then you dont get credit for the cap because you walked out to delay an enemy.

Participation has been weird for me too in some cases lately. And events not triggering when they used to, e.g. an enemy player attacking a camp and killing the supervisor not triggering a defense event after you ressed it / defend it the second time.

 

On the other hand, you sometimes get gold participation for towers or keeps you passed by 15min ago, where you just hit some of the outer guards.

 

17 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

1.) A camp was attacked by a player. I let them kill a few of the NPCs. Then I started attacking them. They ran away, so I have chased them and killed them. Returned to the camp, revived the Quartermaster and waited for the timer to run off.
GW2 = You did not participate in defending the objective. No reward for you!

I think this is something you they actually changed at some point, just ressing NPCs not counting towards defense (not sure if repairing still works). Ressing NPCs used to give you defense participation.

I've also felt like some successful camp defenses (killing enemies within the area of the camp while the event was ticking down) didn't give me the event rewards when I left the area before the event ended. Don't remember that happening in the past either.

And again, on the other hand, sometimes you successfully defend a camp. Then 10min later, while you are on the other side of the map, you get the message for the failed defense and get some rewards, even if you didn't participate in that defense event at all.

[Sahne.6950]

You have to put your Yu-Gi-Oh monster sideways, this way the defense stat is used.

[MedievalThings.5417]

20 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

This is currently my biggest mystery in WvW. I cannot figure out how progression/participation is gained. Here are two situations I ran into:

1.) A camp was attacked by a player. I let them kill a few of the NPCs. Then I started attacking them. They ran away, so I have chased them and killed them. Returned to the camp, revived the Quartermaster and waited for the timer to run off.
GW2 = You did not participate in defending the objective. No reward for you!

2.) A massive enemy group attacked a tower. I sneaked inside and slowed them down. Attacked people at the gate with my FT. Did not manage to kill anyone at all. Died during defense. Respawned and the timer ran off.
GW2 = Congratulations for participating in the defense event. Here is your reward!

What do I have to do in a Tower/Camp/Keep to be recognized in the defense event?

Probably a stupid question, many times asked. But I'd appreciate an answer. Ty. 

There is no good answer to this.  Anet's view of wvw is that ideally no one defends anything.  No one slows down the boon blobs as they fight doors and 1-5 pugs on their way to ultimate domination.

They have nerfed: defensive siege, wall health, participation defending, boon strips.

They have added more access to boons (benefits numbers) and added shield gens under the guise of "both sides can use them".  But, it essentially means the blob can't be slowed by defensive siege.  Cannons and oil are mostly useless.  Even the oil trait, that prevents crowd control to the user, doesn't even work, after 6 years of reporting it making it just a death trap.  Even downstate favors the blobs over skill.

 

Best to just backcap things and not feed the blobs loot.

[Gehenna.3625]

On 1/23/2023 at 9:00 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Or offense for that matter.

Very fun when you get credit for the outer wall, inner wall and take 30% of the lords hp... then you dont get credit for the cap because you walked out to delay an enemy.

Afterwards you sneeze on a quartermaster at a 90% capped camp with 25 people in it and you get gold and also first claim right.

Delaying an enemy is a defensive move if you think about it. You're defending against incoming forces so you can let the rest of the group cap the objective. And you can kill one of the guards of the castle/keep/tower to get credit for the cap as well.