WTF is Anet doing to WvW?

[Nidome.1365]

I've been playing GW2 since launch and WvW close to that. Over the last year Anet have just been making changes that have been destroying WvW. Another 6 months with more changes like this and WvW will become unplayable.

What is the point of having objectives any more? Every change makes them less defensible.

I have to ask, is the systematic destruction of WvW deliberate?

[MaLong.2079]

Anet is on a mission to end individual play in WvW. That is all.

[Galmac.4680]

If they can't implement alliances they don't want us to play it at all.

[Riba.3271]

This was absolutely necessary change and good for WvW. Objectives were not a spot to fight in, making players stack more and more to servers that are so strong that they can go inside objectives without it being trolling. Guilds were avoiding objectives and dueling scene died, because objective auras were just too strong. Ofc not everyone knew why enemy objectives were unfun to fight in, but they still felt it and avoided them.

Of course you are right that they should still buff defenders by  increasing siege vs siege damage, removing boon golems and multiple shield generator bubbles in same spot. Defender should be at least able to buy some time with siege so they can build some numbers.

But no one can deny that objective auras were killing whole WvW experience when for any sized group difference between any friendly and enemy objective was 30% damage worth of stats. When optimal gameplay is to wait for your enemies to be stupid, the game isn't very good.

Edited April 17 by Riba.3271

[Grave.5683]

20 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

This was absolutely necessary change and good for WvW. Objectives were not a spot to fight in, making players stack more and more to servers that are so strong that they can go inside objectives without it being trolling. Guilds were avoiding objectives and dueling scene died, because objective auras were just too strong. Ofc not everyone knew why enemy objectives were unfun to fight in, but they still felt it and avoided them.

Of course you are right that they should still buff defenders by  increasing siege vs siege damage, removing boon golems and multiple shield generator bubbles in same spot. Defender should be at least able to buy some time with siege so they can build some numbers.

But no one can deny that objective auras were killing whole WvW experience when for any sized group difference between any friendly and enemy objective was 30% damage worth of stats. When optimal gameplay is to wait for your enemies to be stupid, the game isn't very good.

Stats don't matter,sos been systematically targeted for years now  where guilds use both enemy queues to bring in non WvW guilds just to farm randoms and then trash the rest objectives without them fighting one another and leave.

Defence was already on the verge of extinction,now anet finished the job.

But when it comes to dealing with a certain ud5 "fight guild"  guild leader who is farming solo players by using spies and his group has boonbots running macros nothing is done.

There was nothing good for WvW on this patch.

 

 

 

[Mabi black.1824]

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

This was absolutely necessary change and good for WvW.

You've finally gotten what you've been asking for for a long time. The WVW community will continue to monitor this change in the coming weeks to decide whether to give you a pat on the back or if you need to kick your butt 😉

Irony aside, my first impression/feeling was ''Finally something really changes in WVW''

Edited April 17 by Mabi black.1824

[Zaxares.5419]

I have to shake my head at the latest WvW changes too. It feels like ANet's constantly buffing offensive/attacker stuff in WvW and nerfing defensive/boonstrips. Walls are only repaired now at 50%? I can guarantee you that this means that NOBODY will bother repairing walls anymore. Not only did ANet not bring back the participation/defense credit for wall repairs, but it's now downright impossible to solo patch a wall by yourself within a reasonable time. You would need to make like 8-10 trips (for a T3 wall) to a supply hut to repair it that high, and you'll likely get run over by enemy reinforcements pouring in all the time while most of the defenders are busy trying to fight off the attackers. The increased time you would now need to patch the wall would be far better spent killing enemy players.

They say they don't want to tilt the balance totally towards attackers, but honestly at this rate it's WAY more profitable (in the sense of building WXP and reward track progress)/time cost-effective to just run ktrains and backcap stuff.

[Wolfofdivinity.6251]

If any of yall played gw1. Just remember what they did to alliance battles. They want rid of wvw in the same way. 

[Preppy.7046]

I'd be really curious as to how badly Defend Objective numbers tank this week.  Golem zerg rush and then stack tight on lord seems pretty hard to beat so far, and you're not going to get much opportunity to actually kill someone and maybe earn Defense credit.

Edited April 17 by Preppy.7046

[Damian.8127]

Quote

5 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

This was absolutely necessary change and good for WvW. Objectives were not a spot to fight in, making players stack more and more to servers that are so strong that they can go inside objectives without it being trolling. Guilds were avoiding objectives and dueling scene died, because objective auras were just too strong. Ofc not everyone knew why enemy objectives were unfun to fight in, but they still felt it and avoided them.

Of course you are right that they should still buff defenders by  increasing siege vs siege damage, removing boon golems and multiple shield generator bubbles in same spot. Defender should be at least able to buy some time with siege so they can build some numbers.

But no one can deny that objective auras were killing whole WvW experience when for any sized group difference between any friendly and enemy objective was 30% damage worth of stats. When optimal gameplay is to wait for your enemies to be stupid, the game isn't very good.

Insane take. When was the last time you defended something??

They absolutely are places to fight; And guilds do regularly attack the enemy servers structures when they cannot get a fight open field, if the fight is what they are seeking. With the current set up, attacking organised groups will now just roll over opposition as it will take too long to rally a defence. Camps cannot be defended, so things will be slower to tier up.

Paper structures t0/t1 are already pretty undefendable, we just "let them burn"; why extend this beyond to t2/t3? The changes to repairs means t3 repair costs are far too high, and will require some organisation to not waste the limited supplies (which takes time that has been cut). 

If attacking something, most likely double walls or cheap spots are used with 5+ catas. Opening time is less than 3min. The defenders have no chance if their squad is engaged. The walls of a structure are actually more dangerous that open ground; just a slow feed to the attackers with pulls. What is the advantage to a structure again? xD

The most efficient defence vs a stronger enemy at this point is to just leave and play PPT train on enemy border/structure. Avoid all interaction. Something i assume neither side will want - or do, i cant say for sure.

If anyone on balance team reads this, consider different perspectives from players. These changes heavily favour boonballs. how would you advise structure be held when 50+ come knocking?

Buffs are a big deal, leave slightly larger spaces between the territories - no-mans-land. The ONLY structure that could do with its aura reducing is SM as its a large tactical advantage over the map.

put disables back in the game. increase the CD by 5s if its a big deal. These are mainly used by scouts.

restore Keeps buffs. If a weaker side cannot hold its keep, it will be spawn camped. Who wants that gameplay? Towers reduced a little if needed? SM reduced? fair.

drop the 50% supply requirement to a more reasonable figure... 20%?

Make golems function for contesting in camps; it is only good against a party, and only slows. That, or change how camps can be held.

increase the circles to allow for some LoS for players.

Reduce boon duration across the board to free us from the current godforsaken meta.

Reduce the supply burn on trebs. not remove, reduce. This will help attackers more than anything.

 

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[Riba.3271]

2 hours ago, Damian.8127 said:

The most efficient defence vs a stronger enemy at this point is to just leave and play PPT train on enemy border/structure. Avoid all interaction. Something i assume neither side will want - or do, i cant say for sure.

If anyone on balance team reads this, consider different perspectives from players. These changes heavily favour boonballs. how would you advise structure be held when 50+ come knocking?

Buffs are a big deal, leave slightly larger spaces between the territories - no-mans-land. The ONLY structure that could do with its aura reducing is SM as its a large tactical advantage over the map.

Yes. Buffs are a big deal, which is precisely why they ruined fights between similarly populated groups. If you give defenders buffs to hold 20 vs 50 every time then 50 people have bad time due to unfair experience they cant do anything about against enemy that focuses only on defending

 

what defenders should use are active defences: Siege, tactivators, respawns, first engage. Things that arent available to attacker that has to push into lord room. Do defenders need More Siege vs Siege damage and Time to gather numbers/ use active defenses? Absolutely.

Does this need to be at expense of killing every 1vs1, 5vs5, 20vs20, 50vs50 for an objective? No. Winner should be the smarter and stronger group. Objective auras were just too strong while being impossible to make best decision against.

Defenders had to do nothing to win with weaker group. So what do you suggest attackers were supposed to do? ... Bring even stronger group?  And that is exactly why super stacked servers and groups were born. They might have failed to take T3 keeps sometimes, but they absolutely had 0 challenge to take every tower and openfield fight on the map. This might sound bad to you, but do note that they had More numbers, brain and skills than your server while being 10 Times more organised. Your server just doesnt deserve to stop the enemy that point... If you could, then keeps and towers cannot be spots for good fights

Edited April 17 by Riba.3271

[Chaba.5410]

25 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Defenders had to do nothing to win with weaker group. So what do you suggest attackers were supposed to do? ... Bring even stronger group?  And that is exactly why super stacked servers and groups were born. They might have failed to take T3 keeps sometimes, but they absolutely had 0 challenge to take every tower and openfield fight on the map. This might sound bad to you, but do note that they had More numbers, brain and skills than your server while being 10 Times more organised. Your server just doesnt deserve to stop the enemy that point... If you could, then keeps and towers cannot be spots for good fights

I wish more people than just you understood how a strong defense fed into the trend of larger and larger attacker numbers.  It's an unintended consequence.  It also had the effect of increasing the value of taking objectives outside of prime time hours.

Been seeing that happen for years now when HoT introduced changes that favored defenders more.

Edited April 17 by Chaba.5410

[Zok.4956]

27 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

If you give defenders buffs to hold 20 vs 50 every time then 50 people have bad time due to unfair experience they cant do anything about against enemy that focuses only on defending

So 50 people are having a bad time because they can't steamroll 20 people? But the 20 people should be happy if they were run over by the 50 zerg? If 20 defenders can successfully defend against a 50 zerg, then the 50 zerg is so bad that it rightly shouldn't conquer the structure. 

If the players are fairly equally skilled, the 20 defenders can only slow down the 50 zerg until their own reinforcements arrive. And if there are no reinforcements, the structure is lost. This was already the case before the update.

40 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Yes. Buffs are a big deal, which is precisely why they ruined fights between similarly populated groups

When equal/large groups wish to fight each other consentually, they usually do so either in an open field or in enemy third team structures. Then none of the two groups have these aura buffs. This works quite well if both groups want it.

 

WvW used to have many different variants of gameplay in which players could (more or less) play whatever they found most fun to the advantage of their own server/team. If Anet now just wants to reduce this to (more or less) zerg fights where players are (more or less) forced to fight, then a simple solution would be to completely remove all aura buffs, gates and walls. But this probably won't lead to better fights, just that the players on a server with significantly fewer players will have even less desire to get steamrolled and then wait at the spawn or log out again immediately. Then WvW would have completely become EotM.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

1 hour ago, Riba.3271 said:

 

Defenders had to do nothing to win with weaker group. 

I don't think I have ever read anything more exaggerated on these forums, and that is a major accomplishment after almost 12 years.

[Chaba.5410]

27 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

When equal/large groups wish to fight each other consentually, they usually do so either in an open field or in enemy third team structures. Then none of the two groups have these aura buffs. This works quite well if both groups want it.

And see, that's the exact reason for things like nerfing guild objective auras if you read the patch notes carefully.  Anet wants people fighting in structures, not avoiding them.  It doesn't work out well.  As so many like saying around here on this forum, play WvW as intended.  The intent is to fight for objectives!  The game mode is broken if the fighters are avoiding objectives!

Edited April 17 by Chaba.5410

[XenesisII.1540]

I like how some people somehow think when you nerf the defenses down that those fat groups are somehow going to run smaller groups like they use to back in the day, because you know, those groups only ever fight in objectives with those numbers, they don't ever fight in open field against other bigger groups where they need those numbers..... Yeah fortified keeps were totally the only reason why groups run 50 instead of 25, totally. Like guilds like Flux will totally tell half their members to kitten off they only need 25 in the squad now that keeps are so easy to bust through and the cap ring is smaller, and Indo will only need to run 20 people instead of 40 to bag farm in keeps, like totally.

They're in delulu world if they think numbers advantage doesn't exist regardless, that it totally doesn't give boon balls a bigger advantage now, after they've also nerfed the heck out of counters like boon strips, and wawwior bubbles. Smaller groups run from bigger groups, they run to nearby owned objectives to get a slight advantage with chokes and stat bouses, if you take away the bonuses, they will continue to run, they won't suddenly decide, well, our backs are against the wall, it's time to face the music, no, they will just go somewhere else, and many already do so these days.

You can keep nerfing down all the walls your opponents are hiding behind, eventually they will just run out of the game instead, because you were too dumb to look at the reasons why they ran from you in the first place. 😏

[Zok.4956]

7 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Anet wants people fighting in structures, not avoiding them

I have participated in many great fights in the past in and around structures where defenders and attackers were comparable. Regardless of whether my group/team won or lost, or attacked or defended, the fights themselves were great. And some were quite long.

Unfortunately, such fights are now the exception. What I see more and more are avoidance strategies in which the few defenders don't even defend because they have no chance against the superior forces of the opposing zerg anyway. They flip back empty structures and try to avoid the enemy zerg. I don't enjoy that kind of thing.

The easier it becomes to conquer and the weaker and less fun it becomes to defend, the fewer players will even care about defending and instead of great fights there will only be empty paper structures. Like the old k-trains in EotM. Conquering and fighting should be fun. But defending should also be fun.

 

22 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

The intent is to fight for objectives! 

If no one wants to defend anymore, there are no fights for objectives.

 

27 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

The game mode is broken if the fighters are avoiding objectives!

Please don't quote me in a misleading way. When supposedly equally strong groups want to compete to see who is better, they naturally do so outside of aura-buf zones. This will not change even if the aura buffs are weakened, as long as they are not completely removed.

 

[Chaba.5410]

7 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

I like how some people somehow think when you nerf the defenses down that those fat groups are somehow going to run smaller groups like they use to back in the day, because you know, those groups only ever fight in objectives with those numbers, they don't ever fight in open field against other bigger groups where they need those numbers..... Yeah fortified keeps were totally the only reason why groups run 50 instead of 25, totally. Like guilds like Flux will totally tell half their members to kitten off they only need 25 in the squad now that keeps are so easy to bust through and the cap ring is smaller, and Indo will only need to run 20 people instead of 40 to bag farm in keeps, like totally.

They're in delulu world if they think numbers advantage doesn't exist regardless, that it totally doesn't give boon balls a bigger advantage now, after they've also nerfed the heck out of counters like boon strips, and wawwior bubbles. Smaller groups run from bigger groups, they run to nearby owned objectives to get a slight advantage with chokes and stat bouses, if you take away the bonuses, they will continue to run, they won't suddenly decide, well, our backs are against the wall, it's time to face the music, no, they will just go somewhere else, and many already do so these days.

You can keep nerfing down all the walls your opponents are hiding behind, eventually they will just run out of the game instead, because you were too dumb to look at the reasons why they ran from you in the first place. 😏

It's a historical fact that HoT tipped the game more in the direction of defenders and we can look back and analyze the results without much speculation.  It didn't change overnight.  It was a slow adaptation as players discovered that they needed more allies than before when trying to take an objective.  Holding up outliers like FLUX or Indo as examples of the average WvW experience is reaching for straws, especially when the discussion is about attempting to actually take structures and not about Indo-ktraining.  There will always be outliers and they don't really inform us about the experience of the majority.

No one is stating that numbers advantage don't exist regardless.  The server game has always been numbers+coverage.  We're not talking about that here.  We're talking about specifically what's termed "defender's advantage", "offense/defense balance" or what owning a structure is supposed to confer.

No one is asking either for defender's advantage to be removed; for walls to be nerfed into oblivion.  Everything you wrote about how defenders would run away has already happened to most havoc groups.  Defenders can't be given too much of an advantage where it causes attackers to need to bring more numbers, something most havoc groups just don't do because they don't have numbers.  If you're only running 5-10 and you want to try to take a tower or keep instead of just camps and defense or nuthugging and mindless ktraining all the time, good luck if there's a handful of defenders.

[Chaba.5410]

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

Please don't quote me in a misleading way. When supposedly equally strong groups want to compete to see who is better, they naturally do so outside of aura-buf zones. This will not change even if the aura buffs are weakened, as long as they are not completely removed.

Not intended.  Realize that my response was in the context of fighting over structures and not GvGs or RvRs.  It's not clear why those are supposed to be a reason not to change the aura buffs.  Riba wasn't referring to even numbered fights outside of structures.

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, Chaba.5410 said:

And see, that's the exact reason for things like nerfing guild objective auras if you read the patch notes carefully.  Anet wants people fighting in structures, not avoiding them.

One further amendment:
Yes, I have read the patch notes and know what they say and what they intend to do with it. But I think they're doing it wrong, or probably just trying to make it easier for some zergs to ktrain.

If it's really about good, epic battles in and around structures, then the defenders and defense should actually be made stronger, rather than weaker if the attackers have many more players than the defenders.

Here's the reason: I once conquered an enemy home keep with another random player. OK, there was only one defender and he wasn't particularly good. But doing something like that shouldn't have been possible with only two people. It was kind of funny, but far from epic.

A keep should be difficult to conquer. For me, epic, good fights are when you fight against opponents of roughly equal strength. So if a 50 zerg wants to conquer a keep, but there are only 20-30 defenders, the 20-30 defenders should be reinforced so that the 20-30 defenders can give the 50 attacking a good, epic fight (if attackers and defenders are at the same skill level).

But if at some point there are 50 defenders, the defenders should be weakened to such an extent that the 50 attackers and the 50 defenders are equally strong and can also put up an epic, good fight (if attackers and defenders have the same skill levels).

Of course, I know that this sounds simpler than it is technically and can also be problematic. But that would be a better solution if it were really about good, epic fights. Because those will only happen if the attackers and defenders believe they can win the fight and it neither seems hopeless nor is too easy.

 

[Chaba.5410]

3 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Here's the reason: I once conquered an enemy home keep with another random player. OK, there was only one defender and he wasn't particularly good. But doing something like that shouldn't have been possible with only two people. It was kind of funny, but far from epic.

 

4 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

the 20-30 defenders should be reinforced so that the 20-30 defenders can give the 50 attacking a good, epic fight

In your example, that single player should have been buffed to prevent you two from being able to take the keep.  Is that what you're saying?  That's how it reads to me.

[One more for the road.8950]

3 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

Yes. Buffs are a big deal, which is precisely why they ruined fights between similarly populated groups. If you give defenders buffs to hold 20 vs 50 every time then 50 people have bad time due to unfair experience they cant do anything about against enemy that focuses only on defending

You're talking like fort farms by a 20-30 man group inside someone else's keep against much larger numbers defending hasn't been a thing for ages by now already.

Edited April 17 by One more for the road.8950

[Zok.4956]

11 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

In your example, that single player should have been buffed to prevent you two from being able to take the keep.  Is that what you're saying?  That's how it reads to me.

Yes, my thought goes in that direction. However, it should of course be kept within limits and a single defender should not be so strong that he can take on a 50 zerg. This is just a basic idea, not a fully developed concept.

BTW: I also think that you should have a certain minimum number of players to conquer a keep in enemy map territory and it shouldn't be possible to conquer an empty keep in enemy map territory with just two people.

[TheGrimm.5624]

13 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

BTW: I also think that you should have a certain minimum number of players to conquer a keep in enemy map territory and it shouldn't be possible to conquer an empty keep in enemy map territory with just two people.

If they can use 50 to take an empty keep, it's fair that 1-2 counter their progress. Actually using multiple havocs is a good way to counter a side with more to try and break them into smaller groups to balance the fights. So no I wouldn't put a min on keep takes. 

[kash.9213]

39 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

One further amendment:
Yes, I have read the patch notes and know what they say and what they intend to do with it. But I think they're doing it wrong, or probably just trying to make it easier for some zergs to ktrain.

If it's really about good, epic battles in and around structures, then the defenders and defense should actually be made stronger, rather than weaker if the attackers have many more players than the defenders.

Here's the reason: I once conquered an enemy home keep with another random player. OK, there was only one defender and he wasn't particularly good. But doing something like that shouldn't have been possible with only two people. It was kind of funny, but far from epic.

A keep should be difficult to conquer. For me, epic, good fights are when you fight against opponents of roughly equal strength. So if a 50 zerg wants to conquer a keep, but there are only 20-30 defenders, the 20-30 defenders should be reinforced so that the 20-30 defenders can give the 50 attacking a good, epic fight (if attackers and defenders are at the same skill level).

But if at some point there are 50 defenders, the defenders should be weakened to such an extent that the 50 attackers and the 50 defenders are equally strong and can also put up an epic, good fight (if attackers and defenders have the same skill levels).

Of course, I know that this sounds simpler than it is technically and can also be problematic. But that would be a better solution if it were really about good, epic fights. Because those will only happen if the attackers and defenders believe they can win the fight and it neither seems hopeless nor is too easy.

 

I've seen towers and keeps fall while there have been plenty enough people on the maps logged in to fully respond, and they often don't. Juicing up those 20-30 or less defenders to compensate for a scrub server culture doesn't seem like the answer to me. I think the answer is going to be on the game mode scale and not on the player stat scale.