How does defense credit actually work now?

[timetopat.7921]

So i know they changed repair for not counting but it seems like kills are a bit funky.  I was defending a tower in EBG and the event for defending the tower was active. I got kill credit for 5 enemies in the tower during the event.  At the end of the event it didnt say I got any part of the defense though, not bronze or anything. Just no event popup.  Is there a magic number you have to get credit for before it counts?  From what Im reading kills are the only way to get defense participation, but so far kills arnt seeming to count towards that objective.  Do I just need way more kills in the objective?  Is it just buggy?  

Thanks

[Matty.1234]

It seems to be, if that player didn't kill a guard of the objective, it doesn't count as defense. Possibly if they destroy a wall too. But if only one person in a zerg destroys wall and kills a guard, you have to kill that 1 particular one to get your bronze reward. The other 40 don't count. Gold is impossible in that case.

AKA You killed the wrong 40 guys. =[

Edited March 17, 2023 by Matty.1234

[timetopat.7921]

Thats really lame.  I like wvw and played it a lot over the years but making defense participation almost never work feels really bad. 

[Sjentra.3409]

Short answer: it doesn't.

Longer answer: it's a lottery on who you get credits for kills on inside the walls.

[Xenesis.6389]

Kill random number of players to enter the random defense event lotto.

[MedievalThings.5417]

8 hours ago, timetopat.7921 said:

So i know they changed repair for not counting but it seems like kills are a bit funky.  I was defending a tower in EBG and the event for defending the tower was active. I got kill credit for 5 enemies in the tower during the event.  At the end of the event it didnt say I got any part of the defense though, not bronze or anything. Just no event popup.  Is there a magic number you have to get credit for before it counts?  From what Im reading kills are the only way to get defense participation, but so far kills arnt seeming to count towards that objective.  Do I just need way more kills in the objective?  Is it just buggy?  

Thanks

I've been counting kills per the defense event timers, to see how bad it really is.

Repairing = obviously no credit at all.

I've gotten gold defense credit for killing 1 person, 4 people, and 15-16 (not really sure if I tagged one or not) in separate events.

I've gotten silver/bronze credit for a range of kills from 1 all the way to roughly 20 kills in a single event (the 20 kills where I aoe'd the whole blob over and over) and I got bronze.

 

I have also gotten no credit (multiple times) for kills ranging from 1 to 25, inside the tower, during the single 3 minute defense timer.  This is me as glass, staff catalyst, aoe'ing lords room with a blob in it.  Our guys push to lord, I spam aoe's all over lords room, tons of bags = 0 credit for defending.

 

It's kind of ridiculous.

[TheGrimm.5624]

37 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

I've been counting kills per the defense event timers, to see how bad it really is.

Repairing = obviously no credit at all.

I've gotten gold defense credit for killing 1 person, 4 people, and 15-16 (not really sure if I tagged one or not) in separate events.

I've gotten silver/bronze credit for a range of kills from 1 all the way to roughly 20 kills in a single event (the 20 kills where I aoe'd the whole blob over and over) and I got bronze.

 

I have also gotten no credit (multiple times) for kills ranging from 1 to 25, inside the tower, during the single 3 minute defense timer.  This is me as glass, staff catalyst, aoe'ing lords room with a blob in it.  Our guys push to lord, I spam aoe's all over lords room, tons of bags = 0 credit for defending.

 

It's kind of ridiculous.

That's is, not good. Was going to try and note on reset as well. Don't usually unpack any chests till end of a run so hadn't really been able to tell what went with what but will have to try and test some.

[Ronin.4501]

Based on all the fights I've been involved with since Tuesday's patch, the ONLY way to get credit for objective defender in a keep/tower/SMC is to kill someone who has attacked the lord. Nothing else will give you credit.

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

Based on all the fights I've been involved with since Tuesday's patch, the ONLY way to get credit for objective defender in a keep/tower/SMC is to kill someone who has attacked the lord. Nothing else will give you credit.

Again, not good. ANet I know you don't like to provide details for fear of abuse, but you might want to actually do a write up on this on what actions are being taken. You have had a boosts of players but I wouldn't discount the value of player to player in game details and/or information/mis-information that occurs. More information shared is free marketing information in game, less information is a potential for more mis-information based on assumptions. 2 cents.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

It's quite bad. The computer usually does not know you are defending. This has always been the case, but there was a workaround, repairing a structure during an attack was a sure way to tell the computer: Yes, I am there defending. And you got your reward for defending.

 

Ofc, you could also get the reward by just repairing and not defending anything meaningful. And players complained. This now has been changed but the computer still does not properly detect if you are actually defending.

 

So it's this now:

Player: I successfully participated in a defense. I disabled then destroyed the enemy siege. I hit enemy players who were attacking. I healed allied players and guards and closed a gap in the wall preventing more enemies from getting in.

 

ArenaNet computer:

 

Player gets no reward.

[Aerthan.1907]

21 hours ago, Matty.1234 said:

It seems to be, if that player didn't kill a guard of the objective, it doesn't count as defense. Possibly if they destroy a wall too. But if only one person in a zerg destroys wall and kills a guard, you have to kill that 1 particular one to get your bronze reward. The other 40 don't count. Gold is impossible in that case.

AKA You killed the wrong 40 guys. =[

 

I've seen people say this but in practice I've never seen this behavior. We've flipped something and then killed a person that was afk sitting in the tower. About half of the people that get kill xp will get defense credit. The person we killed did nothing.

[volpenvieh.3201]

I started a new topic on this issue over in the bugs section as I feel like the WvW subforum is often being ignored overlooked.

Feel free to make some noise there as well... This needs to be fixed asap.

 

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:18 PM, Aerthan.1907 said:

 

I've seen people say this but in practice I've never seen this behavior. We've flipped something and then killed a person that was afk sitting in the tower. About half of the people that get kill xp will get defense credit. The person we killed did nothing.

I don't know about the AFKer but was seeing killing people that had been defending right after a flip was triggering the defense event if you killed them while they were still in. Nice double slap to defenders there now that I think about it.

[timetopat.7921]

5 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I don't know about the AFKer but was seeing killing people that had been defending right after a flip was triggering the defense event if you killed them while they were still in. Nice double slap to defenders there now that I think about it.

 

I just want to understand the order in what happened. When you say you are killing people right after a flip, do you mean you capture the objective and are killing them inside of it?  Also what kind of objective was it? Like a keep or tower or SMC? I ask because for the life of me this just seems really random with what im seeing in wvw.  I can be in a tower defending it with my team and kill enemy players on the stairs heading to the tower champion and it doenst seem to work. The event is up and I am getting xp and bags for killing them, but the defense event doesnt seem to trigger. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

Just now, timetopat.7921 said:

 

I just want to understand the order in what happened. When you say you are killing people right after a flip, do you mean you capture the objective and are killing them inside of it?  Also what kind of objective was it? Like a keep or tower or SMC? I ask because for the life of me this just seems really random with what im seeing in wvw.  I can be in a tower defending it with my team and kill enemy players on the stairs heading to the tower champion and it doenst seem to work. The event is up and I am getting xp and bags for killing them, but the defense event doesnt seem to trigger. 

Saw it in SMC and in some of the keeps. Acting as the attackers we took the objective. Before the defenders could exit the objective after it was flipped killed some as they were trying to exit and it counted for defense event credit. Again will try and test some more since I have seen as others as a defender you kill people and no credit for the event while the kill was inside an objective. More testing since I haven't ruled out the chaos of the fight might be impacting trying to pay attention but when doing so the defense triggering right after a flip before the RI timer was off seemed odd. I get the point that defenders become the attacker but that still seems to indicate that for a defender to get credit for killing an attacker there is some pre-requisite that the player you killed had to do in order for them to have value for the defense event. Aka this might be code trying to block kill trading but is also blocking legit kills from counting. 

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 3/17/2023 at 4:24 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Kill random number of players to enter the random defense event lotto.

This is the best description of how to get credit.  I feel like it should be added to the wiki.

[timetopat.7921]

4 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Saw it in SMC and in some of the keeps. Acting as the attackers we took the objective. Before the defenders could exit the objective after it was flipped killed some as they were trying to exit and it counted for defense event credit. Again will try and test some more since I have seen as others as a defender you kill people and no credit for the event while the kill was inside an objective. More testing since I haven't ruled out the chaos of the fight might be impacting trying to pay attention but when doing so the defense triggering right after a flip before the RI timer was off seemed odd. I get the point that defenders become the attacker but that still seems to indicate that for a defender to get credit for killing an attacker there is some pre-requisite that the player you killed had to do in order for them to have value for the defense event. Aka this might be code trying to block kill trading but is also blocking legit kills from counting. 

 

Let me know what your findings are.  I am seeing some players talk about patterns to be deemed an attacker in the eyes of the system such as attacking or killing an npc and attacking or destroying a wall or gate.

[babana.7521]

On 3/18/2023 at 10:08 PM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

It's quite bad. The computer usually does not know you are defending. This has always been the case, but there was a workaround, repairing a structure during an attack was a sure way to tell the computer: Yes, I am there defending. And you got your reward for defending.

 

Ofc, you could also get the reward by just repairing and not defending anything meaningful. And players complained. This now has been changed but the computer still does not properly detect if you are actually defending.

 

So it's this now:

Player: I successfully participated in a defense. I disabled then destroyed the enemy siege. I hit enemy players who were attacking. I healed allied players and guards and closed a gap in the wall preventing more enemies from getting in.

 

ArenaNet computer:

 

Player gets no reward.

LoL aside,  I did not get defender for defending a tower from 5 attacks consecutively, Round 1 : kill their cata with mortar, jump out of the tower, kill the enemy , return to tower, repair the wall. Round 2 Kill their cata, didn't kill any players, repair the previously damaged wall. Round 3, kill some players, gets kill by the zerg that came after, I died, port back to keep, run back to klovan, repair wall that is being cata, our squad arrive, i run behind them, kill a few enemies, run to flip golanta, then cow enemy with treb in Jerrifer... 

Didn't even get one of the defend recorded.

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, timetopat.7921 said:

 

Let me know what your findings are.  I am seeing some players talk about patterns to be deemed an attacker in the eyes of the system such as attacking or killing an npc and attacking or destroying a wall or gate.

Did it again a couple of times tonight. As an attacker once we flip an objective and if you can bag a prior defender before they get out of the objective it counted as defense event for first event after you capped. Now back to looking for patterns on killing people as a defender and if there are any obvious ones to it.

[Chichimec.9364]

7 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

...seems to indicate that for a defender to get credit for killing an attacker there is some pre-requisite that the player you killed had to do in order for them to have value for the defense event...

Was with a squad that capped Hills this morning after some heavy fighting. When the keep flipped, a number of the enemy defenders were caught inside and they started running in different directions. Our squad spread out to chase them down and we killed a fair number of them while the defense timer was ticking. Objective Defender was a daily at the time and several folks in our squad got that daily from this fight while other squad members did not. So it seemed that it wasn't a matter of killing just any enemy inside the walls but of taking down ones who met some unknown criteria. And it seemed to be a matter of luck if you killed an appropriate enemy or not.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Chichimec.9364

[Ronin.4501]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:35 AM, Ronin.4501 said:

Based on all the fights I've been involved with since Tuesday's patch, the ONLY way to get credit for objective defender in a keep/tower/SMC is to kill someone who has attacked the lord. Nothing else will give you credit.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to amend my previous statement to: IT'S COMPLETELY RANDOM.

Initially it seemed the only way to get credit (per my observations) was to kill someone who had attacked the lord. Since then, I've gotten defender credit for killing players who were fighting outside a tower but had not yet reached/engaged the lord (but had put swords/timer on the tower), and I've not gotten defender credit for killing over a dozen players who had engaged the lord in a different tower.

My latest theory is Anet wanted it to be on par with everything else they've done regarding WvW lately, which is to say, we don't know what we're doing...maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, your best guess is as good as ours.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Ronin.4501

[TheGrimm.5624]

31 minutes ago, Ronin.4501 said:

IT'S COMPLETELY RANDOM.

In coding programming random is hard unless you are using some thing like barometric pressure, time and random rolls to a number to determine the result. I am assuming, which I have been known to be an ..., that they are not making it random but instead it requires conditions to trigger. They fear people gaming the system over people seeing it as bugged code, which as a programmer I see that as a lose of faith in the coding and would say is a bad idea. Having people think its random is more of a concern than the code is bugged versus working as intended.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Did it again a couple of times tonight. As an attacker once we flip an objective and if you can bag a prior defender before they get out of the objective it counted as defense event for first event after you capped. Now back to looking for patterns on killing people as a defender and if there are any obvious ones to it.

It wouldnt really surprise me if killing an attacker only counts as a defense if that attacker was active during the relevant event.

Meaning you might get credit for defense if you kill someone thats just killed a guard, but if its the next event and you kill that same person while he is hacking away at the lord 3m later you dont get credit because he hasnt technically done anything that event yet.

[TheGrimm.5624]

9 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

It wouldnt really surprise me if killing an attacker only counts as a defense if that attacker was active during the relevant event.

Meaning you might get credit for defense if you kill someone thats just killed a guard, but if its the next event and you kill that same person while he is hacking away at the lord 3m later you dont get credit because he hasnt technically done anything that event yet.

I admit that's one of the next ones I was looking to test is killing an inbound players that hasn't made it all the when in and done anything yet, which even when roaming isn't as is as easy as it sounds to find and kill just one player that you watched did nothing and then wait out the timer and not kill another to see if there is a pattern. There is irony here in the end.

[blp.3489]

This really calls for a few people on opposing sides in the current matchup to cooperate to test this stuff out in a controlled manner.  Plus small cooperating zergs to chase off well intentioned players that might interfere.