The patch was a failure and went in completely wrong direction

[Chaba.5410]

34 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Then maybe they should be made more enjoyable?

You're kind of preaching to the choir asking to make them more enjoyable.  I think you need to read through this old post fully.  This was written for the old Desert BL design:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/wuvtest/The-Long-Siege-and-Player-Interest

I'd also rather talk about WvW in general for everyone and not go off on a rather useless tangent about one particular playstyle.  The fact remains that long sieges fell out of favor with the general playerbase a long time ago.  I disagree with your statement that these are supposed to be the point of WvW.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Chaba.5410]

I want to add, when defense is stronger, meaning that there's "plenty of time to show up to defend", there is almost zero reason for defenders to send their large countering force to an objective right away.  The little 5-man defending crew can delay, delay, delay a much larger force for more than enough time sometimes.  Then it's more efficient for the defending commander to continue with taking another objective or finishing a fight before it is necessary for him to move his zerg to defend the objective that is being sieged.

I don't think that purposeful manipulation of timing gets much talked about whenever it is brought up about defenders having enough time to show up.  Of course you want defenders to have some time.  What you don't want is for them to have too much time.  Objectives should be places for encouraging fights, not avoiding them.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Lukasz.9476]

30 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You're kind of preaching to the choir asking to make them more enjoyable.  I think you need to read through this old post fully.  This was written for the old Desert BL design:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/wuvtest/The-Long-Siege-and-Player-Interest

I'd also rather talk about WvW in general for everyone and not go off on a rather useless tangent about one particular playstyle.  The fact remains that long sieges fell out of favor with the general playerbase a long time ago.  I disagree with your statement that these are supposed to be the point of WvW.

Sounds like you just want WvW to be all about PPT/ktrains that log off as soon as they lose their number advantage, and the occasional roamer ganking some poor PvE scrub trying to daily.

 

No, thanks.

 

So I do wonder what exactly is the point of the kind of objective-based game mode that WvW is to you, all things considered.

 

Also, doubt you're in position to speak about the preferences of general player population, much less whether those are desirable from gameplay and balance perspective.

 

Then again, until Anet decides to finally solve the population disparity problem, everything else is pointless anyway. And, considering they keep linking Mag with other high-population servers anyway, that doesn't seem like much of a priority to them, either.

 

I suppose at least I learned who the changes Anet makes are directed at.

 

Personally, I don't like uneven fights, and will always advocate to give the underdog some manner of advantage to keep their players active. Otherwise, your player population will drain until the dominant servers find empty maps only, exactly as is happening, justifiably so, to Maguuma now.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Lukasz.9476
readability/grammar

[Gehenna.3625]

7 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Personally, I don't like uneven fights, and will always advocate to give the underdog some manner of advantage to keep their players active. Otherwise, your player population will drain until the dominant servers find empty maps only, exactly as is happening, justifiably so, to Maguuma now.

I agree with this and it's been what I'm arguing also. Uneven fights happen out in the open as well, but where it hurts the most is when it comes to defending objectives. Nobody likes to see their hbl completely in the hands of enemy servers unless you're a PPT'er and even then...

But everything is on the side of the attacker when it comes to capping objectives. Particularly when they outnumber the defenders. And since there are 3 teams of equal size on a map the defending team on their home has to fight off double the amount of enemies.

And the new weekly objectives only serve to make that even worse because it means that a higher turnover of objectives is required.

Already in its first week these new achievements have led to people letting other servers cap their towers etc. so that they could cap them back. They were just waiting for them to get done, instead of attacking them and destroying their siege. 

Also the change in supplies means that, at least when you're on the defending side, your keeps and towers during active phases are pretty much empty all the time. So after you fend off the first attack, you can't even build siege anymore nor repair walls in between. Especially when your camps keep getting capped.

It's a reality I've seen and I'm not liking it. PPT'ers see keeps as their supply sources and when they descend on a garrisson there's not much left. I get that attacking a keep or tower and having to deal with constant repairs is annoying but this is much worse imo. It actually punishes the weaker servers most.

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Sounds like you just want WvW to be all about PPT/ktrains that log off as soon as they lose their number advantage, and the occasional roamer ganking some poor PvE scrub trying to daily.

So you don't want to engage in any sort of bigger picture discussion about the subject and just devolve the conversation into the typical useless cynicism with strawman accusations about other posters on what they want or don't want so you can say "no thanks"?  Why should anyone take you seriously when you refuse to engage the conversation in good faith?
 

1 hour ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

So I do wonder what exactly is the point of the kind of objective-based game mode that WvW is to you, all things considered.

I already answered this in my follow-up post.

 

1 hour ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Also, doubt you're in position to speak about the preferences of general player population, much less whether those are desirable from gameplay and balance perspective.

I didn't say I was.  If you read through the ENTIRE linked post like I recommended, you'd understand from other posters as well why they feel that the long siege is not something done so much anymore.  And be honest.  You came into this thread complaining about all of these so-called larger boonblobs and higher population teams running over objectives.  That sure sounds like the "general player population" doing that.  Don't you ever ask yourself why they would rather do that than long siege?  It's not like they just decided to do that one day.  It's a reaction.

When defense is too strong, attackers have to bring MORE NUMBERS.  Don't you get that part?  Stronger defense actively encourages bigger blobs.  It's like take away the objective and put two groups of players against each other.  When one starts losing the fight, they bring more numbers to compensate.

[Lukasz.9476]

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

So you don't want to engage in any sort of bigger picture discussion about the subject and just devolve the conversation into the typical useless cynicism with strawman accusations about other posters on what they want or don't want so you can say "no thanks"?  Why should anyone take you seriously when you refuse to engage the conversation in good faith?

[..]
When defense is too strong, attackers have to bring MORE NUMBERS.  Don't you get that part?  Stronger defense actively encourages bigger blobs.  It's like take away the objective and put two groups of players against each other.  When one starts losing the fight, they bring more numbers to compensate.

What good faith? You started with expectation that objective-based gameplay gets in the way of whatever you want to do, what discussion is there left to have? You don't like sieges in a game mode based all around sieges.

 

The average forum poster does not represent the average player. Never mind that gameplay balance should not be based around wants of the most vocal minority.

 

My whole point was that most objectives, including camps, should not flip every time they are off timer just because someone has a few more people in their group, never mind a competent solo roamer came around. The flips should result from organized gameplay that requires teamwork to overcome defensive fortifications, not just five catas and a boonblob.

 

So that you need to place siege to create multiple breach points, to avoid defenders holding a chokepoint. Something that should be happening, but gets rolled over by even mild numerical advantage right now.

 

And, yes, the attackers would need to bring larger numbers. That's my whole issue with how things are right now. Things are way too easy to flip around as soon as RI wears off. Even by single roamers, never mind 2-3 people doing havoc caps while enemy boonblob is otherwise occupied.

 

If this was my game, I'd tie flips to some NPC-based mechanic (like the siegemaster event that pops up when someone gets completely spawn-locked). So you'd need to hold camps to flip towers to flip keeps and SMC. Make the objectives matter, not be just source of PPT.

 

Instead, the new reward scheme goes even further, by actively penalizing competent defense.

Quote

You came into this thread complaining about all of these so-called larger boonblobs and higher population teams running over objectives.  That sure sounds like the "general player population" doing that.  Don't you ever ask yourself why they would rather do that than long siege?  It's not like they just decided to do that one day.  It's a reaction.

Or maybe they do that because most people, if given a choice, will take the easy "win" even before in-game rewards come into play. Why do you think Maguuma got so stacked over the years?

 

And yes, the whole "gameplay" currently revolves around who gets to run around with the larger group.   Target caps encourage this. Anets love of boonspam doesn't help, either.

 

Hell, last time we went against Mag their entire guild groups would just log off as soon as they faced similar numbers, so please do tell me again how "so-called" it is.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Lukasz.9476
I cannot into proper quoting

[Lukasz.9476]

2 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I agree with this and it's been what I'm arguing also. Uneven fights happen out in the open as well, but where it hurts the most is when it comes to defending objectives.

Hell, it's not even that. The fact of the matter is that, until something major is being done to address population inbalance (and the way people game that with alt accounts), there will always be at least one team that's severely understrength for the intended matchup. From my experience, it's frequently two servers with the dominant one having tanked on purpose just to farm easier.

 

So the logical choice would be to give what few remaining players still are around to bang their head against overwhelming enemies some tools to at least get a feeling of achieving something, or see the population drain till you're only left with unopposed servers having full map dominance.

 

Dunno, maybe that's the end goal. It sure as hell isn't what I'd consider "fun" even being on the curbstomping server. I've been on that side of things when ours was, years ago. Things were so boring I left altogether for over two years.

[Chaba.5410]

24 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

What good faith? You started with expectation that objective-based gameplay gets in the way of whatever you want to do, what discussion is there left to have? You don't like sieges in a game mode based all around sieges.

I did no such thing.  Your nonsensical reinterpretation where sieges not being fun means that objective-based gameplay gets in the way of something else completely ignores anything else I wrote.  Pointing out the fact that long sieges aren't done so much anymore doesn't make that someone's position.  They are observations, not agendas.  It just looks to me like you have tunnel vision against one specific position that you project on everyone who disagrees with you on anything.

When there isn't good balance between defense and offense, you don't get objective-based gameplay.  You get stagnation as players wait around for something to happen.  Or frustrated.  There's plenty of objective-based games that do not have such waiting.  You didn't bother to address my point about how defenders end up waiting around too when defense is stronger because no one has to actually show up to defend until the last minute.

And if you really want to get down to it when it comes to objective-based gameplay, the original objective of WvW (capture the flag/orb) doesn't even exist anymore.  That was the original team objective.  What is a long siege for post-orb?

Lastly, I really don't get what you're trying to say about camps flipping off RI.  On the one hand you say that flips should occur from organized gameplay (referring to keeps) but then you say camps shouldn't just flip so easily even by small numbers doing "havoc caps", which players do as part of organized gameplay around keeps.  It doesn't seem like you're sticking to a principle.

[Mabi black.1824]

Guys it seems to me that there is a bit of confusion in this post. Anet has made an update that stimulates the attack, and where is the problem, if the rules apply to all servers. Moreover, this does not change anything. because if you show up against my server I will make you spit all the blood I can even to take a simple field if I can. Because this is what this mode provides and a daily or weekly event makes no difference. I'll still do everything I can to kill you and not get you to take anything at all.

And finally, what do you see wrong if the enemy with more numbers, or if the enemy more organized than you takes your facilities. I say fortunately that he takes them, because it would be a deadly boredom if we make sure that this does not happen.

If we want to talk about the fact that your server is constantly outnumbered, then let's talk about something else. This update does not center anything. You should ask Anet to make a move and make sure that players are redistributed correctly, to get better servers and matches, to ensure everyone has fun.

You are bringing this discussion as alliances, a big vegetable soup all together, and it is no longer clear what we are talking about.😉

Edited February 6, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Gehenna.3625]

13 hours ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Hell, it's not even that. The fact of the matter is that, until something major is being done to address population inbalance (and the way people game that with alt accounts), there will always be at least one team that's severely understrength for the intended matchup. From my experience, it's frequently two servers with the dominant one having tanked on purpose just to farm easier.

The main issue, imo, revolves around how population imbalances are defined and measured. Anet seems to just stick to hours played and if you reach x amount of hours then you have a full server, though that might mean that servers that are full will still have a big difference between them just the same. But it doesn't take into account how many hours of these are done by afk/leechers and how they are spread over the 24 hours of a day.

My server really isn't that good but we do reach t1 regularly. We have one of the worst KDRs, we have a lot of unorganized groups, but we do have a great time during the night time apparently. And the night crew makes up for all the rest. That's also an imbalance, when there's a fight of 50 vs 50 going on but one side is of a server that has organized groups regularly and a server that doesn't. Whether you use boonballs and voice or not makes a huge difference.

You can be unkillable with equal size groups when you are organized and the others are not as well organized and you can kill them a lot faster, because you do probably at least twice as much damage with perma boons (might, fury, quickness, alacrity) and they don't have half the defenses. That's also an imbalance and it's huge. They should be an advantage, don't get me wrong but how much of an advantage is the question. And currently I would argue that the advantage is way too big. 

This is one of the main reasons why WvW isn't as popular as it could be as I see it. It's all good and well if you're on the winning side, but if it comes down to seeing the current match up and that you know beforehand that you will lose...well that's a problem.

13 hours ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

So the logical choice would be to give what few remaining players still are around to bang their head against overwhelming enemies some tools to at least get a feeling of achieving something, or see the population drain till you're only left with unopposed servers having full map dominance.

Well there are different approaches that can help here. For example, you could do something about tanking. That's a big part of the issue of population imbalance. You could give extra rewards for playing in T1 for example. 

13 hours ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Dunno, maybe that's the end goal. It sure as hell isn't what I'd consider "fun" even being on the curbstomping server. I've been on that side of things when ours was, years ago. Things were so boring I left altogether for over two years.

I see it as inevitable. MMOs (that are not primarily built around PvP) always start with some PvP options that may get some love in the first while but rarely after simply because it hemmorhages players over time and as such become a lower priority for the game makers. And it hemmorhages players mostly because of imbalances. Either class or population imbalances depending on the game mode. But I don't think it's their end goal, they just do the minimum to delay that moment. And they're mostly concerned with zerg fights it seems from the things they talk about and the recent patch.

[Chaba.5410]

Anyone ever ask themselves why it's bad form to pull an EWP at a keep before the outer wall goes down and the boonball hasn't started yet with siege on inner?  If defenders want plenty of time for more defenders to show up, why do we wait for this?

[MaLong.2079]

8 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Anyone ever ask themselves why it's bad form to pull an EWP at a keep before the outer wall goes down and the boonball hasn't started yet with siege on inner?  If defenders want plenty of time for more defenders to show up, why do we wait for this?

Off the top of my head, one reason is to try to save the EWP. If defenders can arrive on foot and save the objective then even better. Another reason is to be reasonably sure that the attackers are committed and will not just leave resulting on a wasted EWP. Also, it gives players time to read the call outs and be ready to take the EWP.

[Gorani.7205]

From my observation, there are the following issues that took the patch "in the wrong direction" as @Riba.3271 stated in is OP:

• Influx of new people going for the daily have a strong reluctance to participate in active/cooperative/competitive game play, because getting some weekly achievements is very easy to do (e.g. tagging and leaving, running away from "anything red", sniping dollies at spawn etc.). There needs to be either something added that slows down their progression without hurting the committed WvW that do not run in large groups or something that encourages them to actively participate in a meaningful way.
• The heavy focus on flipping things to progress the weekly (and flip back over defending) has pushed the activity even more away from a balanced position between attacking and defending towards "the k-train". Unless a second phase of rewards adds something for defending, this tendency will very likely stay.
• The higher depot capacity & refill speed on camps compared to a now a lower depot capacity in towers & keeps also means that larger groups on the open map (most likely attackers) have bigger chances to resupply over defenders that have less options to access supply. Again, another shift towards attacking.
• Higher HP on dollies, rams & ballistae do not have any big impact as far as I can see; also the fact that you can still only loot 7 supply from a "stacked dolly" does not change the supply game.
• 8 gold a week, compared to other less time consuming and a lot easier means to get that "1.2g a day" is kind of neglectable (flax farming, selling stuff from a home instance, Anomaly daily etc.). It is like a carrot on a stick, but does not solve the reward issue for WvW players over other areas of the game.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Gorani.7205
some typos on the original post

[Chaba.5410]

25 minutes ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Off the top of my head, one reason is to try to save the EWP. If defenders can arrive on foot and save the objective then even better. Another reason is to be reasonably sure that the attackers are committed and will not just leave resulting on a wasted EWP. Also, it gives players time to read the call outs and be ready to take the EWP.

The EWP offers the fastest response time though to counter a ktraining boonball.  If we're going to talk about defenders needing time to respond, the EWP is as fast as it comes.

Why would one want to make sure the attackers will not leave?  Isn't the goal, the objective of defense, fulfilled if attackers leave?  Is an EWP really wasted if goal is achieved?  Once you know that a keep is under threat of being attacked again, why would defenders leave and need EWP again?

I ask these questions to challenge certain player assumptions.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[MaLong.2079]

3 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

The EWP offers the fastest response time though to counter a ktraining boonball.  If we're going to talk about defenders needing time to respond, the EWP is as fast as it comes.

Why would one want to make sure the attackers will not leave?  Isn't the goal, the objective of defense, fulfilled if attackers leave?  Is an EWP really wasted if goal is achieved?  Once you know that a keep is under threat of being attacked again, why would defenders leave and need EWP again?

I ask these questions to challenge certain player assumptions.

The EWP is the fastest way to get there and as such is valuable. It makes perfect sense to try to save it if possible and to use it when we can get the most benefit out of it.

Siege consumes supplies. Attackers that commit and build siege spend their supplies, so if they leave they have to find more supplies which in turn give the defenders more time to either hunt them down or prepare at the objective. The goal is not to make them leave, the goal is to keep the objective. If the attackers leave when they see the EWP, before they can be wiped or even before they build siege then that is indeed a wasted EWP.

If defenders stay at one objective then the attackers will just move to a different one. So defenders need to leave one objective to defend the next or to fight on the field. Running back and forth is part of the game mode. Specially when you have two enemy groups, one attacking the east side and the other the west.

What player assumptions are you challenging?

[Chaba.5410]

30 minutes ago, MaLong.2079 said:

If the attackers leave when they see the EWP, before they can be wiped or even before they build siege then that is indeed a wasted EWP.

So what you're saying is that you don't want attackers to leave because you want defenders to wipe the attackers?  You want fights?  And this is standard practice by the general playerbase, not a vocal minority on the forum?

 

30 minutes ago, MaLong.2079 said:

So defenders need to leave one objective to defend the next or to fight on the field.

This looks like more about fighting.
 

30 minutes ago, MaLong.2079 said:

What player assumptions are you challenging?

The one that assumes the point of WvW is sieges and defense of fortifications rather than using structures as places to encourage fights between players.  The one that wants outnumbered players to have stronger defenses to stagnate such fights or for players looking for fights to just go into an open map to "bag farm".  How we should be doing more long sieges which force players to wait around for fights.  It's an assumption that ignores what's done in practice by both attackers and defenders.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[MaLong.2079]

40 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

So what you're saying is that you don't want attackers to leave because you want defenders to wipe the attackers?  You want fights?  And this is standard practice by the general playerbase, not a vocal minority on the forum?

 

This looks like more about fighting.
 

The one that assumes the point of WvW is sieges and defense of fortifications rather than using structures as places to encourage fights between players.  The one that wants outnumbered players to have stronger defenses to stagnate such fights or for players looking for fights to just go into an open map to "bag farm".  How we should be doing more long sieges which force players to wait around for fights.  It's an assumption that ignores what's done in practice by both attackers and defenders.

Are those questions or opinions.😁

I will play along a bit longer, maybe. I didn't say I want to wipe the attackers. I said as a defender I want to hold the objective for as long as possible. Wiping the attackers will force them do run back from their spawn or switch to an easier target or even leave the map. And, if they built siege before they wiped then they may also have to get more before coming back. All of that equals holding the objective for longer.

That said, this is a game mode designed for players to fight other players. I play it because I enjoy the challenge of fighting other players. When I respond to defend an objective I do so expecting and hoping that there will be some fighting.

You may find it fun to take unguarded objectives or when there is nothing to defend and that is fine, to each their own.

Why do you play WvW if you don't like fighting other players, though? It is a player vs player game mode after all.

 

 

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

That said, this is a game mode designed for players to fight other players. I play it because I enjoy the challenge of fighting other players. When I respond to defend an objective I do so expecting and hoping that there will be some fighting.

I think this is the most practical objective of WvW and the one that players are looking to do the most.

When we characterize players opposed to stronger defenses as players who just want to burn through structures as fast as possible without resistance or just go to a map without structures if they want fights, it's a real disservice.  We play WvW; not deathmatch and not a PvE champ train.

We can't solve server population issues by changing how easy or hard it is to take structures.  Such changes directly impact the rest of us.  I'd even argue that changes to sieging and supply have very little to do with the subset of players playing WvW like deathmatch or champ trains.

[Lukasz.9476]

20 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

We can't solve server population issues by changing how easy or hard it is to take structures.  Such changes directly impact the rest of us.  I'd even argue that changes to sieging and supply have very little to do with the subset of players playing WvW like deathmatch or champ trains.

This is about as stupid of a conclusion as you can reach.

You will absolutely impact server population by increasing or decreasing difficulty of taking objectives. You can argue how it'll happen one way or another, but if you're making it even easier for more populous servers to dominate, that'll drain what remains of their opponents' already lacking active participants numbers.

 

You want to see more fights? Then design the gameplay loop around forcing them. Current reward scheme does exactly the opposite. Ticks don't matter as much as participation. You get more karma just moving unopposed from one objective to another, minimizing time-to-flip by avoiding fights. The entire set of rewards right now is quite literally punishing defense, because not only do you not get any of those rewards for defending, you're actually potentially blocking your opportunity to get rewarded for attacking.

It was already difficult enough to get people to respond to defense calls. Particularly when everyone knew the attacking force is superior in numbers. Increasing difficulty of NPCs in target locations would at least allow lower number of defenders to participate without just pure ineffective feeding.

 

The game mechanics should actively encourage smaller groups working simultaneously on multiple objectives. Doesn't mean the objectives should be possible to flip with just one or two people. Tiering up should have massive impact on how much force you need to bring. Holding camps and towers should be essential for your chance of success against keeps and SMC.

 

It's not, and now this lack of defensive presence is further encouraged by reward scheme that actively penalizes defending. Hell, the best gameplay experience I've had in WvW was back when there were NO rewards, because at least then people played for the fun of it, and the pride of defending some objective for as long as possible. SMC flips would happen after half a day of constant attrition against enemies with tools to hold even against 2-3 times larger attacker groups. It was more difficult to achieve, but also far more rewarding when it happened instead of current "we just need more bodies and can walk right in because AC target cap and damage limitations, lulz" implementation. And, ultimately, it promoted fights - because unlike you, most of the people I played with did not just stand around twiddling their thumbs, but participated. Either with support, wall-pulls, or by setting up assisting siege weapons.

 

Yeah, sure, MAG can repaint an entire map and hold it at T3 forever. The problem there is not with fortifications being so difficult to take, as apparently Anet understand it, but the fact that MAG can have near-constant coverage of maps and active population. Often against servers that turn dead as soon as their prime time. Which may or may not coincide with "north america" server designation, see several SEA-dominating servers that have no off-time presence.

 

This is not an issue with how slow/fast you can take fortifications, this is pure population imbalance issue. And should be addressed first, before attempting to balance out everything else.

 

That said, solo flips should be restricted to sentries and untiered camps, and even then only if you had a good build and knew what you're doing. Tier-ups should be direct force multipliers requiring much greater attacker force even without enemy presence. Siege weapons should do much more damage, and not be kitten by target caps and "can only be damaged once per second."

At least then you'd see more people involved in direct conflict with opposing players, because they would have a chance to achieve something other than just be a bag that didn't even make the boonblob flinch.

 

And if you add mechanics that required holding multiple objectives before being able to move to higher-value ones, this would encourage fights everywhere.

 

As an example for EBG. If your keep is in hands of enemy, the siegemaster starts an event at spawn. This helps you retake the keep. This, in turns, generates similar assistant NPC force to retake inner towers. The towers then generate assisting force for taking, and holding, of the two camps. Once that's accomplished, each side sends assisting force toward outer towers. All in turn contribute toward attack on SMC itself.

 

Put some AoE automated long-range weapons into towers and keeps. So that holding those locations provides assistance during assaults on "linked" locations (keep-inner towers-camps-outer towers-SMC/outer towers enemy side), targetting and damaging defensive siege weapon emplacements. So that even if your server is during its off-time, you can still attempt to engage with opposing players with some posibility of success. The more you spread out importance of holding locations, the smaller the defensive presence in each.

 

You don't like "long siege?" For me, that's the whole point of the game. As I wrote the first time, if all you want is PvP fights, ask Anet to make an open area map just for that, and let me play the objective-based team game mode I enjoy in turn.

Edited February 7, 2023 by Lukasz.9476
heil spellcheck

[Chaba.5410]

10 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

You will absolutely impact server population by increasing or decreasing difficulty of taking objectives. You can argue how it'll happen one way or another, but if you're making it even easier for more populous servers to dominate, that'll drain what remains of their opponents' already lacking active participants numbers.

OK let's say you can impact server population with this method.  Walk through applying your principle equally instead of tunnel vision for one side.  If you're making it even harder for less populous servers to take objectives from more populous servers, that'll drain what remains of their already lacking active participant numbers once they realize they need even more numbers anyway to siege anything in WvW.  Again, fiddling with the offense/defense balance on structures or siege time lengths isn't the way to solve population imbalances between teams.

Your idea doesn't address directly any of the causes of population imbalance.  We didn't get to this state because of how easy or hard it was to take a structure.  We got here because over time players have quit the game for various reasons or bandwagoned around and the server-based teams are completely static.  Playing population changes are NATURAL in any game over the years.  WvW's structure wasn't designed to handle that natural evolution.  Reforming teams periodically like World Restructuring, on the other hand, does address that population evolution.
 

14 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

You want to see more fights? Then design the gameplay loop around forcing them

I don't know how you can say this and not recognize that making an objective easier to take (by reducing the time of the supply attrition game) does exactly that.  If a defending team wants to keep the structure, they are forced to go fight for it sooner rather than later.  If they don't have enough players on their team to do that, see above again.
 

44 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

The problem there is not with fortifications being so difficult to take, as apparently Anet understand it, but the fact that MAG can have near-constant coverage of maps and active population.

48 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

This is not an issue with how slow/fast you can take fortifications, this is pure population imbalance issue. And should be addressed first, before attempting to balance out everything else.

Now you're getting it.  Not sure why you called my conclusion stupid then at the start of your response since you just came to the same conclusion right here.
 

49 minutes ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

You don't like "long siege?"

I never said whether I liked or didn't like it.  I said it was not fun for the majority of players who are waiting around for something to happen before walls/gates open.  I wrote that feedback to Anet on the Desert BL test urging them to design further interaction for these players because the beta of Desert BL looked like it was going to require more long sieges.  Did you ever play that map before all the changes to it?  It had a lot of design features you are writing in favor of here like needing to hold a nearby tower in order to facilitate attacking the next objective or the shrine buffs to facilitate holding nearby camps; one of the rare times Anet devs listened to feedback like yours, so you could've seen your ideas in full action.  Just remember, it ALL GOT NERFED because it DIDN'T WORK.  Hey, maybe you are onto something though that making stuff harder to take DOES impact populations?  When all maps were the original defender-favoring Desert BL, it caused populations to DROP.

[Lukasz.9476]

"Myeah, if you could read what I wrote again, and try to understand this time, that'd be greeeat, mkay?"

 

Which part of

1. Population imbalance is a the primary issue with WvW balance right now, and should be addressed first

2. Objectives being taken too fast, and reward system actively discouraging defending any objective, make it even less fun

is difficult to understand?

 

You think flipping objectives even faster will lead to more fights? Lol. It's already hard to get people to defend anything, much less when they are provably outnumbered to the point they will just feed the attacker without achieving anything in turn. Not even slowing them down so that tag doing chain-flips on another map might be persuaded to actually swing by and try to defend, because, as things are, that's actually less rewarded than just ignoring the objective-based gameplay.

 

The "defending team" doesn't care about the structure. There's nothing in current implementation that encourages it - quite contrary.

 

And no, I did not reach "the same conclusion," since you keep conflating the two issues together pretending like turning WvW into effective open-map blob vs blob fight (even IF Anet somehow manages to balance out population) is somehow going to be not just more rewarding, but fun experience. You want that, ask for a separate game mode.

 

In the meantime, at least give tools to players so that skilled performance is rewarded, not just ignored by boonblob of sufficient number advantage. Remove target caps. Remove restrictions on siege weapon damage. Force players to start playing in smaller groups, if not push multiple objectives at once, instead of reinforcing "everyone to the zerg, we'll just chain-flip ignoring any defensive actions" approach the way the new reward system does.

 

I don't know how the Desert BL played. Didn't do that test, pretty sure I was taking a break from the game altogether back then. Just because it wasn't implemented in an engaging way, though, doesn't mean this can't be done.

 

In the meantime, the changes over time absolutely did not lead to a better WvW experience, just fed the "insta-reward" ADHD crowd at the expense of the objective-based gameplay itself that this mode is supposed to be.

[Chaba.5410]

2 hours ago, Lukasz.9476 said:

Which part of

1. Population imbalance is a the primary issue with WvW balance right now, and should be addressed first

2. Objectives being taken too fast, and reward system actively discouraging defending any objective, make it even less fun

is difficult to understand?

IDK, man.  When I responded to your first post that sieges are not fun, it's kind of expected that you'd address that part in a rather sincere and well thought-out manner.

1. We can have perfectly even population balance and long sieges still won't be fun as players wait around to fight.  Now what?
2. The reward system actively discourages long sieges too.  Attackers ain't getting rewarded either for grinding a T3 keep for 3-5 hours.  But you want more of that?  Yay for more "less fun"!

Edited February 8, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[DeceiverX.8361]

On 2/2/2023 at 5:03 AM, Silinsar.6298 said:

That's what happens when the game creates personal goals and rewards for players (dailies, weeklies, claim events) that contradict the server's / game mode's goals.

 

What do you get for (likely unsuccessfully) defending an objective? Maybe a couple kills and a meager defense failed event. You might lose participation.

What do you get for taking something else instead? Maybe kill some defenders and a claim event. Plus you get to walk over to the bigger objective you just lost for another claim event.

 

Your team mates might say "Please help defend this keep!", but your achievement says "You need to complete me and this is the only keep you'll manage to (re-)take before logging of."

 

If, for example, a zerg walking up to (or triggering orange swords near) a keep would create a map wide event saying "defend this!" with a lot of rewards (and decent ones even if you fail), and those dynamically created events would be part of the dailies, players would be much more likely to try and defend.

 

Precisely.  WvW's inherent intended design of mass-scale campaigns to capture fortified nodes is similarly not compatible with its participation/reward model, while also allowing such campaigns to immediately relocate and shift around the map quickly as a ktrain despite a significant part of the core design of WvW being about logistics management with distributed goals/forces.

The problem is there is absolutely zero incentive to diverge away from the ktrain approach, because it's always the quickest and easiest way to more loot and the actual gameplay pattern of smallscale in terms of profession balance is just not fun anymore.

The design of the new content within WvW is designed for Edge of the Mists/Open World collaborative PvE, not the experience people were going into the regular WvW/PvP maps with.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

 Attackers ain't getting rewarded either for grinding a T3 keep for 3-5 hours.  But you want more of that?  Yay for more "less fun"!

3-5h? We are actively discouraged to even spend 15 minutes on sieging T3 because we're not participating in WvW.

Hell, I have been actively discouraged to just fight outnumbered in defense mode because if you aint killing stuff you aint doing WvW.

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

3-5h? We are actively discouraged to even spend 15 minutes on sieging T3 because we're not participating in WvW.

Hell, I have been actively discouraged to just fight outnumbered in defense mode because if you aint killing stuff you aint doing WvW.

Yea lol. The usual supply attrition game takes about 3 hours with a defended T3 keep, but it has to be less now with the supply changes. I don't know if you recall a certain commander from Rx ages ago when they were on SoS. Dude used to brag to me about how him and a few other players would grind a T3 keep during the daytime NA for about 7 hours to flip it. Just kept plinking at it all day with his merry little havoc band keeping the camps flipped and what-not. He doesn't play anymore...

Edited February 8, 2023 by Chaba.5410