Defense is dead

[A Hamster.2580]

I don't think defense is dead. I have been playing with random pug groups as well as my organized guild almost daily on all four maps. I find myself still clashing with plenty of defenders when on the offensive. The many squads I was in still attempt to defend and not just give up the objective.

 

Regarding rewards, I get plenty of Gold and some Silver tier rewards whether I play dps or support.

 

It sounds to me like you guys want to be able to semi afk in a tower/keep and get full participation. There were definitely players exploiting the previous system with SMC walls repair and gaining massive levels to the detriment of the genuine SMC defenders. Anet had to do something. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and I think this decision benefitted WvW overall.

 

If it is the rewards that you care about, just go back to drizzlewood. It's multiple times better than doing WvW if gold is the main concern. Heck, even swiping your card and converting gem to gold would be way more efficient.

 

For participation, you can still escort dolyaks. I actually think Anet did a good job with this. Just waiting on Alliance...

 

If your argument is you feel like you get nothing for attempting to defend, I would say that is true for ALL WvW players. PVE players get a lot more for their time.

[Ashen.2907]

12 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

I don't think defense is dead. I have been playing with random pug groups as well as my organized guild almost daily on all four maps. I find myself still clashing with plenty of defenders when on the offensive. The many squads I was in still attempt to defend and not just give up the objective.

 

Regarding rewards, I get plenty of Gold and some Silver tier rewards whether I play dps or support.

 

It sounds to me like you guys want to be able to semi afk in a tower/keep and get full participation. There were definitely players exploiting the previous system with SMC walls repair and gaining massive levels to the detriment of the genuine SMC defenders. Anet had to do something. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and I think this decision benefitted WvW overall.

 

If it is the rewards that you care about, just go back to drizzlewood. It's multiple times better than doing WvW if gold is the main concern. Heck, even swiping your card and converting gem to gold would be way more efficient.

 

For participation, you can still escort dolyaks. I actually think Anet did a good job with this. Just waiting on Alliance...

 

If your argument is you feel like you get nothing for attempting to defend, I would say that is true for ALL WvW players. PVE players get a lot more for their time.

20 kills, multiple events, no credit. Yeah that sounds like I looking for afk rewards.

[Chichimec.9364]

18 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

...It sounds to me like you guys want to be able to semi afk in a tower/keep and get full participation...

 

5 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

20 kills, multiple events, no credit. Yeah that sounds like I looking for afk rewards.

On the one hand, I've said it before and I'll say it again - Defense is NOT dead. Every day I'm seeing and taking part in both attacking and defending on all the maps. On the other hand,  the mechanics of defense participation ARE broken. In the same fight, killing the same attackers, some in our squad get defense credit and some don't. Saying that, and asking Anet when/how they plan to fix defense participation doesn't mean I want to "semi afk". That would be boring. I enjoy good fights as well as doing other stuff in WvW. Atm I have 5 of the weekly achievements done and expect to finish 2-3 more tomorrow. The one I probably won't get is Tower Guardian, despite the fact that my squad usually defends several towers a day. That won't stop me from playing WvW or from defending but it would be nice if Anet fixed the broken mechanics involved.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Chichimec.9364

[xDumplinx.7983]

Defense isn’t dead. The participation requirements are broken and the radio silence from ANet pretty much shows how much they care about fixing it.

 

All it would take to settle the community would be something as simple as “we are aware that the Defense participation is currently not working correctly and are looking into a fix”, but in typical ANet fashion we get crickets

[Ashen.2907]

23 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Responded to EWP for Garrison, got 17 player kills while the defend event timer was up. Took multiple run downs of the timer, several events, before the enemy zerg finally retreated. Zero defend credit despite getting kills during 5 events.

Top notch work there devs.

 

Edit: After retreating from Garrison the enemy zerg went after Sunnyvale. I joined the defense. Event timer up. Multiple kills. No credit.

 

Half a dozen kills while the defend event was up twice at Garrison again. No credit for either.

[Ashen.2907]

34 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Half a dozen kills while the defend event was up twice at Garrison again. No credit for either.

3 kills while the event was up at Garrison. No credit.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:43 AM, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

"Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead..." ~ Butch

quote respect

[MarzAttakz.9608]

1 hour ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

quote respect

Thank goodness somebody got the reference. An entire generation with no knowledge of Pulp Fiction is a sad state to be in...

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 minutes ago, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

Thank goodness somebody got the reference. An entire generation with no knowledge of Pulp Fiction is a sad state to be in...

ikr

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 4/5/2023 at 2:41 AM, A Hamster.2580 said:

I don't think defense is dead. I have been playing with random pug groups as well as my organized guild almost daily on all four maps. I find myself still clashing with plenty of defenders when on the offensive. The many squads I was in still attempt to defend and not just give up the objective.

 

Regarding rewards, I get plenty of Gold and some Silver tier rewards whether I play dps or support.

 

It sounds to me like you guys want to be able to semi afk in a tower/keep and get full participation. There were definitely players exploiting the previous system with SMC walls repair and gaining massive levels to the detriment of the genuine SMC defenders. Anet had to do something. It's impossible to make everyone happy, and I think this decision benefitted WvW overall.

 

If it is the rewards that you care about, just go back to drizzlewood. It's multiple times better than doing WvW if gold is the main concern. Heck, even swiping your card and converting gem to gold would be way more efficient.

 

For participation, you can still escort dolyaks. I actually think Anet did a good job with this. Just waiting on Alliance...

 

If your argument is you feel like you get nothing for attempting to defend, I would say that is true for ALL WvW players. PVE players get a lot more for their time.

You miss a lot of points and apply a number of assumptions. Using the same brush you applied to the thread, based on your reply you are currently coming across as karma train player that is looking to avoid fights as much as possible to get your loot from empty or under defended objectives. Maybe you should consider going back to this drizzlewood place you mentioned. Considering this thread is almost a month old things change as time goes on.

So for defenders before any of the rewards system was added and after the removed participation, which we will leave alone good or bad, that left those that didn't like to leave behind weakened walls an issue on longer repairs as less people were there to do it. Meaning more busy work and less fights or more supporting the karma train and saying just take it back later mentality. Then the rewards land and now walls are being maintained and there is 3 times more people defending. To the attack versus defend people that is a good thing as there are more defenders and less time needed fixing things which means more fighting. Then the wall repair change is made, which then shows we have bugs in the code that were simply not identified until that change was made. So people can now see this and can now report on it. I admit I don't even open any bags till I am done playing so it doesn't really mean anything and I wouldn't have noticed unless mentioned. But testing it I can see what people were talking about and agree its a bug and should be ID'd as one. Now what I have seen is again back to pre-rewards and less people repairing which means less time for defenders to get to a place to defend meaning more rise of karma trains of let it go we can retake it and more paper structures which had already been made easier to just flip prior to these changes. It's also leading into an increase in those that defended before the rewards system into adding in more defense actions with golems which was predicted with the camp supply increase. So I expect we will soon see more requests that siege is over powered as those that are more defense orientated will increase their defensive siege placements planning on people not repairing as much and still looking to hold their objectives. Granted behaviors vary server to server so you will see different reactions. The roamer/havoc side of me says more ways to kill them since making places into swiss cheese is easier and need to seed in more Dune Roller/Charr Cars at camps. The defender side of me says, I need to triple my AC coverage and station more golems at gates when setting up defenses. So when the complaints about defensive siege show up, plan on a reply of you shouldn't have discouraged people from repairing.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Just now, TheGrimm.5624 said:

The defender side of me says, I need to triple my AC coverage and station more golems at gates when setting up defenses. So when the complaints about defensive siege show up, plan on a reply of you shouldn't have discouraged people from repairing.

Xen, I admit, after we were talking about the increase in golems it has been impactful to slow the other side's zerg by capping their camps and then solo drain their supply into a golem in order to slow their advance. Porting it back to add to the golem defense army. Back to 2012/2013 tactics but in this case instead of leaving useless rams in the open now we have more mobile defense options. 

Now if we can get golem skins in game.....profit.

[A Hamster.2580]

Fights aka content cannot occur without attackers.

 

Let's examine all the possible scenarios:

1 group of attackers vs 1 group of defenders on an objective will obviously result in a fight.

2 groups of attackers can come across each other in the middle of nowhere and decide to duke it out.

2 groups of defenders??? They just both sit at their own objective staring into space.

 

Therefore, whatever Anet decides to do, the rewards for attacking must be greater than the rewards for defending.

 

If the rewards for defenders were greater, more players will choose to stick to an objective defending rather than going out, touching grass, and invading enemy's objectives. This is exactly what we saw before the recent nerfs to defender's reward. There were noticeably less fights, at least for the groups I was in.

 

Just yesterday, my guild was involved in some epic three way battles between two other large groups in Red BL. After the guild run was over, I went over to EB, joined some random tag, and got involved in more epic three way battles near SMC. I don't understand why so many players here are salty. WvW is very fun for me right now.

 

I would not be surprise if there was some hourly cap on defender's credit. Otherwise defenders would keep getting credit every event cycle (which is only 3 min?) as long as any enemy was nearby. It would be very easy to exploit again.

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Fights aka content cannot occur without attackers.

Disagree. Attacks have been rewarded without defenders since 2012. Fights do not occur without defenders. Agree content does not occur for defenders unless attackers show, so that means attacking is rewarded in both situations but defending only if present and in numbers to act on the issue and attackers are present.

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

 

Let's examine all the possible scenarios:

1 group of attackers vs 1 group of defenders on an objective will obviously result in a fight.

Attackers run away after they find defenders. Attacker loses nothing, defenders lose though they won the fight by driving them off.

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

2 groups of attackers can come across each other in the middle of nowhere and decide to duke it out.

This has nothing to do with defense. That's called open field fights and the owner aka defender didn't get anything in either case. Both attackers may be rewarded based on kills. So there is no encouragement to defenders here since they weren't in the fight but had to scout out and waste timing figuring out what was up.

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

2 groups of defenders??? They just both sit at their own objective staring into space.

How would 2 groups of defenders face each other, there are no objectives that overlap. Not sure where you are going here. Both groups get nothing, nor do they have to waste time repairing and can become attackers. 

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

 

Therefore, whatever Anet decides to do, the rewards for attacking must be greater than the rewards for defending.

Where are the other scenarios? Why should 50 players get rewards that required only 1 or 2 players to defeat an empty objective?  Why should 5 attackers that defeat 10 defenders get paid the same as 50 attackers versus 2 defenders? Why should 10 defenders that push back 50 attackers not be rewarded better. If you just pay attackers there are no fights. There are karma trains of people circling each other and avoiding fights outside of the stubborn peeps that don't care about rewards and don't want to lose their stuff. 10% will always defend, 10% will never defend. 80% will defend if there is value in doing so.

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

 

If the rewards for defenders were greater, more players will choose to stick to an objective defending rather than going out, touching grass, and invading enemy's objectives. This is exactly what we saw before the recent nerfs to defender's reward. There were noticeably less fights, at least for the groups I was in.

Saw different. There were more fights as people held their ground. Mileage varies. 

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

 

Just yesterday, my guild was involved in some epic three way battles between two other large groups in Red BL.

Saw this before any rewards were added period. Server mileage varies.

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

After the guild run was over, I went over to EB, joined some random tag, and got involved in more epic three way battles near SMC. I don't understand why so many players here are salty. WvW is very fun for me right now.

This occurred before any rewards so again, mileage varied.

 

6 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

I would not be surprise if there was some hourly cap on defender's credit. Otherwise defenders would keep getting credit every event cycle (which is only 3 min?) as long as any enemy was nearby. It would be very easy to exploit again.

 

So again one issue is they hadn't released the failed attack event so we really don't know how the failed attack and successful defend would have balanced the encouragement side of things. From the defender side, aka not caring about reward but want a wall that won't fall in one shot so I can get back to defend side though that means nothing, we are back to more people thinking let it fall so we can recap. Again, I roam and havoc so bread and butter is attacking and attacking pays more and is still much easier than holding. 

[Mabi black.1824]

19 hours ago, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

Thank goodness somebody got the reference. An entire generation with no knowledge of Pulp Fiction is a sad state to be in...

ezechiele 25-17 

Who you want to be, the timorous man or the evil man. ( babayaga )🤭

Edited April 7, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Gehenna.3625]

11 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Fights aka content cannot occur without attackers.

 

Let's examine all the possible scenarios:

1 group of attackers vs 1 group of defenders on an objective will obviously result in a fight.

2 groups of attackers can come across each other in the middle of nowhere and decide to duke it out.

2 groups of defenders??? They just both sit at their own objective staring into space.

You forgot a bunch of scenarios.

Like a small(er) group of defenders against a zerg, so the only safety they have is the objective they're defending. Going out to meet that zerg is suicide.

Also when you have a group of random defenders against an attacking boonball. Same issue as above in the end.

 

There are more scenarios but I'll leave you with those two because in my experience this is the case a lot and they illustrate very well that your scenarios fall short.

11 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Therefore, whatever Anet decides to do, the rewards for attacking must be greater than the rewards for defending.

Reward scaling is one issue but the other one is to get any reward at all. Making attacking a t0 keep more interesting than defending a t3 tower is out of whack anyway.

11 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

If the rewards for defenders were greater, more players will choose to stick to an objective defending rather than going out, touching grass, and invading enemy's objectives. This is exactly what we saw before the recent nerfs to defender's reward. There were noticeably less fights, at least for the groups I was in.

Again, you assume roughly equal sides. Tower defense is not as popular anymore since the rewards are less than for Keeps. So the focus has shifted to keeps. It doesn't mean that there's zero defense of towers but when a commander is trying to cap a t0 keep they will choose that over defending a t3 tower now. 

11 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

Just yesterday, my guild was involved in some epic three way battles between two other large groups in Red BL. After the guild run was over, I went over to EB, joined some random tag, and got involved in more epic three way battles near SMC. I don't understand why so many players here are salty. WvW is very fun for me right now.

You clearly have no idea about what it's like for others. You assume they have the same experience as you do but when you're outnumbered or outgunned you don't have fun.

11 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

I would not be surprise if there was some hourly cap on defender's credit. Otherwise defenders would keep getting credit every event cycle (which is only 3 min?) as long as any enemy was nearby. It would be very easy to exploit again.

I would be surprised because that makes no sense at all. And oh please, pray tell, how on earth would it be possible to exploit these events? You still need to kill players or their siege in order to have any credit for a defense event. So please, tell us how this can be exploited "easily".

Edited April 7, 2023 by Gehenna.3625