WTF is Anet doing to WvW?

[Mordant.3489]

Disclaimer: This is coming from a long-time roamer who used to focus only on <5 man gameplay so it may differ from typical zerglings. But.

The worst part of WvW has honestly been the constant push for zerg/boonball play and the death of...well... any other type of gameplay.

For one, I remember when WvW used to be absolutely amazing just because it provided so many ways diverse ways to play the gamemode. There would be PPT-focused zergs going around taking/defending objectives; fight-focused larger zergs trying to fight similarly sized groups (without needing another "fight" guild to hold their hands); smaller havoc groups trying to sneak objectives or backcap; roamers (<5 ppl in a party - NOT 15 man roaming squads) looking for smaller fights; and duelers simply looking to improve their class mechanics. It was honestly such a vibrant ecosystem of various playstyles and personalities somehow working together and respecting each other's style (for the most part). For instance, you'd have "fight guilds" actually running by roamers in search of better/more challenging fights. Heck, even zerg-busting a 25 man group with a 5 man was possible.

Nowadays? 

The veteran WvWers have quit the game and the general WvW population's mindset has become very risk adverse and thirsty for lack of a better word. The first advice newbies get is "find a Tag and zerg around" and end up not doing anything unless there's a tag/zerg to follow. There's no incentive for smaller group play. You have 50+ man squads immediately stop whatever they were doing and turn 180 degrees just to chase 1-2 players across the map. You have 25+ "fight" guilds hop out of the inner keep wall they were trying to take just to chase and kill ONE person. You have "comped" groups (could be pug or guild) consisting of 80% support/boon builds to fight smaller groups or less comped/evenly-sized groups. You have zergs even go Out-of-Combat and mount up just so they can keep the smaller roamers in combat so they can get run down by the zerg. "Fight" guilds don't even engage each other unless there's another "fight" guild next to them. There is literally no risk/no challenge because most people seem to think dying in a PvP gamemode is the worst thing ever and "if it's red, it's dead" and "not dying = winning". People don't even fight strategically in zerg fights anymore. Two smaller enemy groups used to team up to attack the much larger third enemy zerg but that doesn't even happen anymore. They instead focus on the smallest group out there (presumably because they're easier to kill) and then wipe when they try to fight the biggest zerg.

On top of that more risk averse WvW mindset, Anet's just exacerbated the issue with their push for "more casual" gameplay. Every class pretty much just presses a button and gives out all the boons/heals/support. Recently, Anet reduced the cap circles (making it more difficult for roamers to try to hold the ring while waiting for backup). The 50% wall/gate repair change also got rid of a very valid strategy of splitting a larger group into more manageable chunks and delaying reinforcements during a protracted keep fight. The siege damage/disruptor change means nothing when a map queue zerg already has 8 catas down and there are only a couple defenders. In terms of traits, Anet tried to nerf "passive" gameplay some time ago (ex: nerfing warrior's passives and nerfing stealth) and then did a 180 and added more passives (why are there so many invulns/blocks/evades within certain classes?). Anet nerfed damage in an attempt to address power creep and then went ahead and gave their favorite classes a frankly wild amount of damage for the sustain they have.  Anet nerfed the boonstrips. Even the Warclaw killed smaller fights (enabled the larger group to keep respawning and running back into a fight against a smaller group. Also going anywhere near a larger enemy group is pretty much consigning yourself to death bc you can't run away or kite anyway). I reckon Anet only zergs if they play WvW but... Please. Please acknowledge how the overall WvW playstyle has changed into a 100% boon uptime/80% support comped/25 - 50man zergs and make changes accordingly to encourage different types of gameplay (assuming you don't want everyone to just boonball/K-train across maps). Please recognize how mindnumbingly boring it is to fight a larger group when they have 80% support (and numerous class resurrect skills) in their comp and it's just 2 hrs of 50+ man groups just trying to chip away at each other. 

TLDR: Yes, it's mostly a playerbase issue (just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD). But, also Anet keeps encouraging the playstyle and it's disheartening. 

Edited May 1 by Mordant.3489
adding TLDR

[Gazrul.3086]

3 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

Since the changes to Siege Dampener and Siege Disruptor were in separate updates than the wall/gate repair change, are those changes you think should be reverted in general, or do you feel they're no longer valid changes alongside the other changes made in the last patch?

Personally, I think they should be reverted in general, as the point of them is to stall the enemy until the defenders can get reinforcements. The changes to siege dampener, in my opinion, made it vastly inferior to the emergency waypoint in most scenarios. The changes to siege disabler kill the purpose of that item, as it's meant to disable the siege, not weaken it. There were already ways to protect the siege against it, such as barriers, shields, etc. It just feels bad to use both siege dampener and siege disabler after these nerfs, and they feel weak in my opinion. Coupled with the recent changes, it just feels bad to be a defender. 

 

3 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

For the lowered stats on the Keep Aura, you mentioned that you feel it was overkill, but didn't say that's one of the changes that should be reverted. Do you feel it should be, or do you think it should be left alone?

I personally believe that it should either be fully reverted or at least buffed from 25 to 50. 25 feels far too weak for an important keep buff in my opinion. I honestly don't think that it's ok for the keep buff to be weaker than the minor bloodlust bonus from capping ruins. 

3 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

 

Few more points:

 

1. The changes to keep lords are not really felt at all from my experience. The healing is too weak, and the stability is easily stripped by the enemy zerg. I legit never saw any impact at all, aside from the boss having multiple bars to break at every 25%. The problem is that if you buff it enough to actually feel impactful against enemy zergs or boon blobs, it'll make the keeps almost impossible to take by smaller groups. I like the idea of lords being more impactful, but I believe you've missed the mark here. 

2. This one isn't that big of a deal in my opinion, but the change that makes golems not able to contest objectives also feels unnecessary, as it was a valid stalling tactic, especially for T3 camps. The guards are pretty much useless against most competent players, who will destroy them even in T3 camps. That said, I don't think that guards should be buffed further, as that would make solo capping camps a miserable experience.

Edited May 1 by Gazrul.3086

[adammantium.8031]

3 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

Hey all! I'd like to make sure I understand and hear more about some of the feedback, so I've quoted a few posts below and asked the authors to expand on their thoughts.

          Since the changes to Siege Dampener and Siege Disruptor were in separate updates than the wall/gate repair change, are those changes you think should be reverted in general, or do you feel they're no longer valid changes alongside the other changes made in the last patch?

 

For the lowered stats on the Keep Aura, you mentioned that you feel it was overkill, but didn't say that's one of the changes that should be reverted. Do you feel it should be, or do you think it should be left alone?

          Can you elaborate on your thoughts a bit? I'm interested in what specific changes you're thinking of and why they aren't working for you.

          Since catapults have always been usable on inner and outer walls, are you feeling that the recent changes caused that to become an issue or do you feel that it's a long-running problem aside from more recent updates? Can you talk more about how it feels like a problem?

 

For defensive siege not feeling relevant, do you feel that this is fully related to the most recent update?

 

As far as the suggestion of making some types of siege easier to destroy - namely catapults and flame rams - do you feel that the changes to siege disruptors aid this in any way? Is the increased damage to siege from disruptors making a difference in your eyes?

 

Are the changes to the keep lords just not very impactful, or do you feel as though they've actually worsened them in any way? Have you experienced groups trying to play around the new mechanics at all, or you just haven't seen it make an impact in fights where players aren't particularly paying attention to it?

          Do you feel as though double team attacks have gotten worse since the recent update, or is it an ongoing issue you're calling out?

 

Hi @Roy Marks.7689, more than happy to elaborate, and thanks for following up.

To be fair, my opinion is based on a culmination of changes. Let me try and set a common example. 

I see a group of 40 players approaching a tier 2 Bay on my home borderland. There are 5 other teammates milling around. I know we have another group off map. My objective is "how can I delay these players to give time for reinforcements to come? How can I use up their supply to slow their advance through the map?". The enemy groups drop 5 catapults in south corner. What are my options?

The current meta means defensive siege is ineffective. The group can easily outheal.
Earlier changes to siege disruptors and structural integrity reduce ability to delay attackers. My teammates will struggle to arrive in time.
Longstanding ability to hit outer and inner walls exacerbates how quickly an enemy group can get into a structure. They only need to drop siege once.
Changes to closing walls and gates mean I can't isolate attackers from their teammates. Dead enemies and late-joiners can walk straight in.
Changes to warclaw downing enemies mean I struggle to finish off any focused enemies. Their group can easily resurrect them.

 

I do not feel that siege disruptors have made siege more vulnerable in a meaningful way. May be your intent was to make siege so vulnerable that an enemy blob could outheal themselves, but their siege would die all the same? This hasn't been my experience. Even so, it's a painful trade off compared to the time you previously earnt.

 

Changes to keep lords have been utterly irrelevant to me. They would have to have some serious boonrip skills (pre-nerf winds of disenchantment) and massive stability boons to really impact a fight. That might be interesting, similar to how airship or chilling fog works, if enemy groups have to pay attention to when the lord casts such spells. 

[bq pd.2148]

4 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

(did you guys nerf the lord scaling too?)

for alpine ones at least: the new more frequent defiance bars to interrupt the lords new 'OP' skills are much easier to break than the old ones, often the next defiance bar is broken before the previous ones DPS boost has run out. because of this that change was mostly a nerf to the lords.
additionally lords scale with both attackers and defenders, less defenders -> weaker lord.

[bq pd.2148]

2 hours ago, Gazrul.3086 said:

2. This one isn't that big of a deal in my opinion, but the change that makes golems not able to contest objectives also feels unnecessary, as it was a valid stalling tactic, especially for T3 camps. The guards are pretty much useless against most competent players, who will destroy them even in T3 camps. That said, I don't think that guards should be buffed further, as that would make solo capping camps a miserable experience.

the golems were mostly useful against 1-2 people trying to flip a camp, even a small group of 5 (if not 4 of them are support) will kill these golems quickly anyway. if you cannot hold a t3 camp against 1-2 people (at least until more people come to defend) IMO you should lose the camp.

[Zekent.3652]

3 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

  Can you elaborate on your thoughts a bit? I'm interested in what specific changes you're thinking of and why they aren't working for you.

Hello, Roy

I'll try to answer this as short as i can in 3 points:

1.  Nerfs on boonstrips: it's basically just harder to fight against bigger groups as a smaller (and organized) group, the difference in numbers are pretty notorious now, a well organized group used to have decent chances against bigger ones, but now it feels like bigger numbers just wins.
    
2. Nerf on 'outnumbered' effect: the nerf on pips, why should we go to an outnumbered map and suffer roam/scout in disadvantage, if the extra pips were nerfed? current outnumered effects are not worth for a lot of people.
    
3. Last changes: things are just harder for the defending team, and feels pretty unbalanced, 50% to repair is excessive, it consumes a LOT to ALL of the supplies after they just siege once, defenders can't close again, and if attackers die, they just come back walking like it's "their house" while the base has no supplies, and people just quit by frustration after losing a waypoint, defenders SHOULD have advantage in their keep, might consider reducing the repair % or just reduce it, nobody was asking or expecting for this, but hey, changes MIGHT be good for SMC, but all other keeps just suffers a lot.

All of these three points have something in common: it targets numerically disadvantaged people, making it even more unfair and unrewarding.

[Zekent.3652]

2 hours ago, Mordant.3489 said:

Disclaimer: This is coming from a long-time roamer who used to focus only on <5 man gameplay so it may differ from typical zerglings. But.

The worst part of WvW has honestly been the constant push for zerg/boonball play and the death of...well... any other type of gameplay.

ALL OF THIS, i'll remove a big chunk of the comment to not saturate the post, but you just said what a lot of us thinks, pretty clear.

[One more for the road.8950]

4 hours ago, Mordant.3489 said:

Disclaimer: This is coming from a long-time roamer who used to focus only on <5 man gameplay so it may differ from typical zerglings. But.

The worst part of WvW has honestly been the constant push for zerg/boonball play and the death of...well... any other type of gameplay.

+ 1 on this from me as well.

As someone that enjoys a wide variety of how to play in WvW, playing on multiple accounts, it is what has kept me there over the years. With less valid options I play less. I haven't played at all for a week and barely at all the week before that, and it's not even a conscious choice, I just realized it now. I do like playing with zergs too. But not all the time and not as the only option.

[Mabi black.1824]

4 hours ago, Mordant.3489 said:

Disclaimer: This is coming from a long-time roamer who used to focus only on <5 man gameplay so it may differ from typical zerglings. But.

The worst part of WvW has honestly been the constant push for zerg/boonball play and the death of...well... any other type of gameplay.

For one, I remember when WvW used to be absolutely amazing just because it provided so many ways diverse ways to play the gamemode. There would be PPT-focused zergs going around taking/defending objectives; fight-focused larger zergs trying to fight similarly sized groups (without needing another "fight" guild to hold their hands); smaller havoc groups trying to sneak objectives or backcap; roamers (<5 ppl in a party - NOT 15 man roaming squads) looking for smaller fights; and duelers simply looking to improve their class mechanics. It was honestly such a vibrant ecosystem of various playstyles and personalities somehow working together and respecting each other's style (for the most part). For instance, you'd have "fight guilds" actually running by roamers in search of better/more challenging fights. Heck, even zerg-busting a 25 man group with a 5 man was possible.

Reading this and thinking about what you can often find in this section of the forum, I say it's all very subjective. How we see things or how we react to a change is extremely subjective. It all really ends up in the very interesting discourse of how elusive creating motivation for a game developer is, as Chaba wrote wonderfully.

I imagine what you wrote with the nostalgic eyes of a long-time veteran and I imagine what he sees today  a new player coming to WVW.

 ''There would be ppt-focused zergs going to get targets'' that after a few years we would have despised/described as ktrain.

''Bigger, fight-infested zerg trying to fight similar groups'' that after a few years we would have described/despised with theme gvg by boomball.

''smaller groups of chaos trying to sneak into the targets'' that after a few years we would have despised/described as the usual granky of 5v1. 

''duelists simply trying to improve'' that a few years later we would despise/describe as the usual broken thieves who come out of the fight whenever they want.

''Honestly it was such a vibrant ecosystem of various styles of play'' and I think it's still very similar today to then, it's all a little bit more complicated because time has passed and the average player is higher. There's more knowledge and there's more awareness. But it's still all there. What has changed is how your eyes see all this. Your opinions will change from how motivated you were and how motivated you are to participate in this game mode. But I assure you it's all still there.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

7 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

Can you elaborate on your thoughts a bit? I'm interested in what specific changes you're thinking of and why they aren't working for you.

Truly laughable.

It's been now years that veteran WvWers have warned about the trend to turn everything into a constant boonfest while constantly nerfing all boonrip/boon corruption to the ground. There's been posts after posts of players asking what the kitten you guys were doing and if you even had a tiny understanding of the impacts of all the modifications done patches after patches.

Now suddenly it's "oh jeeze, we just realised that you guys are not so happy!" and asking us "oh please elaborate, i need to understand why?" when there are literally been hundreds of post over the past 3 or 4 years about the same topic, with the same comments and explanations of the different issues and questions to you guys (this actually one of the few topic for which most WvWers on these forums agrees)

And that now we have you guys are asking "please elaborate"? Either you do not read your forum and all the feedbacks, which begs the question, why the kitten are they here for then? Or you read it but you all felt that things were really heating up so you are doing a new version of " WvW is a cornerstone of the game, we'll do Alliances and it will right all wrongs" then do kitten all for 4 years.

Whatever it is, it kinda comforts me in my opinion, ie that you guys are complete and other joke of a dev team, which is kind of illustrated by the fact that for the last 2 or 3 years you have been unable to release a patch without breaking the game in a major way (the zerg solo-busting ele, the game-crashing glider, etc...) or that you can't even be bothered to apply an easy fix to all the exploits that have been constantly reported years after years (more people had warnings and/or bans on these forums for making posts about specific cheater/exploiters than the cheaters/exploiters themselves).

Now if you guys are genuinely interested in turning the tide and making WvW the fun game-mode that it was once upon a time, then read your forums, take the 2 or 3 main issues that are constantly reported and explained and fix them and maybe players will take you guys a bit more seriously.

Personally, I have my doubts that it will ever happen.

[One more for the road.8950]

1 minute ago, Zepoolpe.9217 said:

Truly laughable.

It's been now years that veteran WvWers have warned about the trend to turn everything into a constant boonfest while constantly nerfing all boonrip/boon corruption to the ground. There's been posts after posts of players asking what the kitten you guys were doing and if you even had a tiny understanding of the impacts of all the modifications done patches after patches.

Now suddenly it's "oh jeeze, we just realised that you guys are not so happy!" and asking us "oh please elaborate, i need to understand why?" when there are literally been hundreds of post over the past 3 or 4 years about the same topic, with the same comments and explanations of the different issues and questions to you guys (this actually one of the few topic for which most WvWers on these forums agrees)

And that now we have you guys are asking "please elaborate"? Either you do not read your forum and all the feedbacks, which begs the question, why the kitten are they here for then? Or you read it but you all felt that things were really heating up so you are doing a new version of " WvW is a cornerstone of the game, we'll do Alliances and it will right all wrongs" then do kitten all for 4 years.

Whatever it is, it kinda comforts me in my opinion, ie that you guys are complete and other joke of a dev team, which is kind of illustrated by the fact that for the last 2 or 3 years you have been unable to release a patch without breaking the game in a major way (the zerg solo-busting ele, the game-crashing glider, etc...) or that you can't even be bothered to apply an easy fix to all the exploits that have been constantly reported years after years (more people had warnings and/or bans on these forums for making posts about specific cheater/exploiters than the cheaters/exploiters themselves).

Now if you guys are genuinely interested in turning the tide and making WvW the fun game-mode that it was once upon a time, then read your forums, take the 2 or 3 main issues that are constantly reported and explained and fix them and maybe players will take you guys a bit more seriously.

Personally, I have my doubts that it will ever happen.

Well. Opinions about about taking feedback and forums aside... There is a difference between breaking and trying to patch up things due to heritage and spaghetti code vs tuning balance and mode in ways less successful. The things they have managed to do good archaeological attempts on are less noticable than the accidental awakening of tomb ghosts and protectors. What was it, walls disappearing due to a skin or icon change on an item? 

[Zepoolpe.9217]

5 minutes ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

Well. Opinions about about taking feedback and forums aside... There is a difference between breaking and trying to patch up things due to heritage and spaghetti code vs tuning balance and mode in ways less successful. The things they have managed to do good archaeological attempts on are less noticable than the accidental awakening of tomb ghosts and protectors. What was it, walls disappearing due to a skin or icon change on an item? 

 i agree, but 95% of the game breaking issues that happened after a patch were discovered with 15 mins of playing the game after the patches went live and the fact that unlike all other MMO company they still don't use a PTS to avoid these situations is a testament to their level of professionalism as it happened so much that a patch  without issues has become the exception not the rule.

Edited May 1 by Zepoolpe.9217

[Mabi black.1824]

16 minutes ago, Zepoolpe.9217 said:

Now suddenly it's "oh jeeze, we just realised that you guys are not so happy!

Truth be told, they didn't ask at all. The question is precise and they are politely asking it specifically only to you. Yours is a great way to help a substantive dialogue with developers. Good, well done. I suggest this community always use that thing we identify as brains, and I suggest development not to be intimidated by sloppiness or poor education, because the interaction between player and developer is only a good thing, always appreciated and always welcome.

[Zepoolpe.9217]

4 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Truth be told, they didn't ask at all. The question is precise and they are politely asking it specifically only to you. Yours is a great way to help a substantive dialogue with developers. Good, well done. I suggest this community always use that thing we identify as brains, and I suggest development not to be intimidated by sloppiness or poor education, because the interaction between player and developer is only a good thing, always appreciated and always welcome.

Well, tbh Roy's question was not directed to me but to Zekent who was saying "Big nerfs on boonstrips, big nerf on outnumbered rewards and now these recent changes, i'm sorry but it feels like ANet is actively trying to kill people's motivation to keep playing WvW ".
But that's it's directed to this or that player is inconsequential, what is important is the fact that a someone who is supposed to be in the WvW team (unless I missed something) is asking "oh please give me more input on that topic, I need to understand more about the issue you are raising" when the cycle boon buff / boonrip nerf has been, along with exploits needing fixing, THE hot topic for most post on the WvW part of the forums.
Asking that question means either he is aware of the problem but try to pass as someone just discovering it and that's immensely insulting to everybody that ever reported these issues OR he is truly not aware of the issue and that would brings the question about the real competence of the dev team.
All in all it does not reflect well on Anet.

[Mabi black.1824]

19 minutes ago, Zepoolpe.9217 said:

Well, tbh Roy's question was not directed to me but to Zekent who was saying "Big nerfs on boonstrips, big nerf on outnumbered rewards and now these recent changes, i'm sorry but it feels like ANet is actively trying to kill people's motivation to keep playing WvW ".
But that's it's directed to this or that player is inconsequential, what is important is the fact that a someone who is supposed to be in the WvW team (unless I missed something) is asking "oh please give me more input on that topic, I need to understand more about the issue you are raising" when the cycle boon buff / boonrip nerf has been, along with exploits needing fixing, THE hot topic for most post on the WvW part of the forums.
Asking that question means either he is aware of the problem but try to pass as someone just discovering it and that's immensely insulting to everybody that ever reported these issues OR he is truly not aware of the issue and that would brings the question about the real competence of the dev team.
All in all it does not reflect well on Anet.

You'll have to excuse me but your name has the same initial and I confused you, but it doesn't matter. the quote you quoted, from Zekent, however, says everything and says nothing puts everything together, so the question seems more than legitimate to me. It seems to me like someone who is going to get into the nitty-gritty about a number of things that you're pointing out. It's more of a topic that should be thought of separately, and it seems to me that the developer is trying. The debate, the confrontation, is exactly that. I don't see anything ridiculous in it, just as I don't see any lack of knowledge in all of this. 

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

Just some thoughts.

Some issues;

(A) It seems clear that "boonballs" (zergs pumping out a mass of boons) is a problem, it is boring to play against and an uphill struggle to fight against if outnumbered.
(B) Repairing of walls requiring 50% would not be so much of a problem if there was not a systemic population problem, but WvW currently is not the "ideal situation", and for those outnumbered, it makes it even more harder to defend or stall enemies until support arrives.
(C) Siege disabler needs to be restored back to what it was as this helps with stalling enemies until support arrives.
(D) Celestial builds, we need an official statement from ANET if they consider the stats problematic for WvW (instead of the forum having endless debates if it is, or is not).
(E) A response to balance issues, people like playing in large groups, but also roaming, so both sides need to be addressed (Willbender is one example where there are large threads calling for it to be balanced, a response on large threads in general would be appreciated).
(F) Perma stealth builds needs to be addressed.

Some suggestions for stealth;

WvW has some tools to combat stealth, Target painters and Target painter traps, make these not only insta-cast, but provide us with special actions keys to use them without having to go into our inventory, as it is a very clunky way to use them, especially when stealth builds can blink in and out of stealth. Increase the revealed time. Increase the amount of target painter traps being able to be placed down to 2 at a time and decrease cooldown of target painter. 

No doubt there are other issues, but those are some of the main issues as I see them.

Edited May 1 by Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341

[Verdict is Vengence.6912]

@Roy Marks.7689, I think you guys work hard and implement a lot of new things that are highly enjoyable like stat-selectable gear to wvw and other benefits that weren't around in the beginning. Though you guys may have missed the mark with the latest wvw changes, it's fine because you guys are still trying your best to address concerns and complaints.

That said, when will the next no-downstate week be...?

[bq pd.2148]

53 minutes ago, Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341 said:

(F) Perma stealth builds needs to be addressed.

Some suggestions for stealth;

WvW has some tools to combat stealth, Target painters and Target painter traps, make these not only insta-cast, but provide us with special actions keys to use them without having to go into our inventory, as it is a very clunky way to use them, especially when stealth builds can blink in and out of stealth. Increase the revealed time. Increase the amount of target painter traps being able to be placed down to 2 at a time and decrease cooldown of target painter.

being able to use the painters more easily wont help on even number fights as those usually thieves will still have the tools to escape almost any build while marked and even 1 vs 1 fight many without much of a handicap.
where the painters do have an effect is if you want to zerg them down X vs 1.  smaller groups tryhard chasing single roamers is much worse for roaming than any stealth build so i would rather not see that playstlye supported. 
maybe try to offer them a reasonable risk/reward for engaging you, then you have much better chance to kill them. like even numbers or slightly outnumber them if they are a lot better than you, but not to the point that they cannot win. for then they will just use all resources to avoid engaging, for no potential reward any risk is too much.

[One more for the road.8950]

4 hours ago, Zepoolpe.9217 said:

 i agree, but 95% of the game breaking issues that happened after a patch were discovered with 15 mins of playing the game after the patches went live and the fact that unlike all other MMO company they still don't use a PTS to avoid these situations is a testament to their level of professionalism as it happened so much that a patch  without issues has become the exception not the rule.

But then you have things like the current holo problem where holos made before SOTO works differently than holos made after SOTO and it takes a while for people to identify what is happening. Good luck balancing when that kind of thing happens.

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

A quality of life suggestion.

Seeing that there have been many nerfs to defenses I think it is time to quicken greatly the speed to turn trebs, cata's and mortars, they take too long to simply turn, and especially now, seconds count, and so it would be a great quality of life improvement.

[Aeolus.3615]

11 hours ago, adammantium.8031 said:

Hi @Roy Marks.7689, more than happy to elaborate, and thanks for following up.

To be fair, my opinion is based on a culmination of changes. Let me try and set a common example. 

I see a group of 40 players approaching a tier 2 Bay on my home borderland. There are 5 other teammates milling around. I know we have another group off map. My objective is "how can I delay these players to give time for reinforcements to come? How can I use up their supply to slow their advance through the map?". The enemy groups drop 5 catapults in south corner. What are my options?

The current meta means defensive siege is ineffective. The group can easily outheal.
Earlier changes to siege disruptors and structural integrity reduce ability to delay attackers. My teammates will struggle to arrive in time.
Longstanding ability to hit outer and inner walls exacerbates how quickly an enemy group can get into a structure. They only need to drop siege once.
Changes to closing walls and gates mean I can't isolate attackers from their teammates. Dead enemies and late-joiners can walk straight in.
Changes to warclaw downing enemies mean I struggle to finish off any focused enemies. Their group can easily resurrect them.

 

I do not feel that siege disruptors have made siege more vulnerable in a meaningful way. May be your intent was to make siege so vulnerable that an enemy blob could outheal themselves, but their siege would die all the same? This hasn't been my experience. Even so, it's a painful trade off compared to the time you previously earnt.

 

Changes to keep lords have been utterly irrelevant to me. They would have to have some serious boonrip skills (pre-nerf winds of disenchantment) and massive stability boons to really impact a fight. That might be interesting, similar to how airship or chilling fog works, if enemy groups have to pay attention to when the lord casts such spells. 

@adammantium.8031 note that the  group can outheal for 2 reasons it is not that heal values are broken, players are just way to tanky and siege nerfed to oblivion, Anet and roy m8 think that heals are the problem >_>. (well they are due the player spam but skill  quoficients are mostly fine).

 -  nerfs that made defensive siege useless, don't forget that  10 ac's shooting against 1 player is the same as 1 ac, due the past ac's nerfs.

- Walls are a trap for defenders, attackers have de advantage due how easy they can kill every one standing on the wall, so siege on keeps that are not SMC will have huge defensive problems and lack of LoS  we players have to search sometimes ways to build on sometimes "glitchy" placement, at least to delay the Zerg most time all what happens is some siege is destroyed and Zerg breaches w/o problems.

 - the constant stacking of minstrels and boon balls (minstrels are problematic stats they always have been and when balances changes funnel the game into it they take part on why nerfed siege don't make a dent on groups).

@Roy Marks.7689the class  balance work have neutralised builds to work  in Zerg boon balls mostly, and with those changes there's more boon balls where defensive siege won't work, AC's are useless 1hit per 1 sec per player, its 700-1k damage per second on that player where its a horde of minstrels and barrier, won't even delay them nor stress the boon ball, many of them which have  permanent max boons.. The current changes would work if game wasn't all about boon balls beating the small/emptiest server where those boon balls happen to have the perfect defensive stats.

 It is a whole package of situations and changes that makes this changes not welcome because it was the cherry on top of the pie.

I have got some suggestions, keep the current changes done to wvw but:

-Changes to scores: attacking  servers that are outmaned won't worth to much score, off course  this needs a reevaluation of the scoring system as in increase to servers that put a fight are more valuable, this way if a outmaned server pushes and captures a tower they get more warscore credit, this could be a good addition to the outmaned "buff", and making the blob ktraining that outmaned server a bit of tough if they really want to keep ktrain or split the group rather than look like a PVE/EOTM  ktrain in wvw, this would also encourage players to play while on outmaned rather than press alt-f4.

- Until the stats rework assuming that will happen someday(sooooon?), remove minstrels or swap toughness  for something else, perfect stats for defence in wvw is one of the reasons many changes u guys do don't feel good, cause everything leads to make players ktrain more and more with results in weird fights and blob vs PVD, this way groups would be more squishy and even new players would hurt a little more the boon ball  rather be instantly opressed by a boon ball and leave the game mode.

- Make the arrow carts  put a RNG debuff  on targets where for the next 1-2 seconds they have a chance to be hitted by more ac's, the more a group stands the debuff increases the chances, this at least would stress groups (actually minstrels boons balls would still be unaffected by this due how strong their tankiness  is.....reason minstrel stats are also a problem tied to the siege and structure changes since influences the gameplay as well). 

Edited May 1 by Aeolus.3615

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

well, honestly... i hear a lot of talk among WvW guilds who think that Anet devs still only listen to advice from big boonball commanders like INDO.... or more specifically, zerg commanders who think that it takes too long to take a keep when it's defended.... but the truth is, some of the best fights have been hour-long sieges on a keep.

Nerfing the defenders (constantly), essentially means that i see fewer groups defending these objectives, meaning fewer fights at these objectives. when the changes are said to specifically make MORE fights at these objectives. These changes seem to be doing the opposite. if you want more fights, give us more (even non-scoring) objectives, so we have more reasons to fight everywhere instead of only the same boring keep fights all the time. 

nobody wants to respond to sieges on keeps anymore because it takes too long to get there because all the delay tactics have been removed. so the objective gets taken before the responding defender zerg even arrives. when that happens to you enough, you learn to stop caring about defending objectives.

i've watched attacking zergs run around in a keep chasing down defenders for over an hour when they could easily just capture the keep. the practice is known as "bag farming" , and is very boring when defenders can't actually win the fight, and eventually give up and leave.

PLUS, there's still no rewards for winning a match. no rewards for winning a skirmish, no rewards for starting a fight. only rewards for killing an enemy player, and for taking objectives. NO ONE CARES for all these changes when there's no rewards! as someone else mentioned, the rewards for failed attack on objectives still hasn't been added, even though it was talked about months ago with the supports finally getting loot in the fights.

[kash.9213]

4 hours ago, Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341 said:

Just some thoughts.

Some issues;

(A) It seems clear that "boonballs" (zergs pumping out a mass of boons) is a problem, it is boring to play against and an uphill struggle to fight against if outnumbered.
(B) Repairing of walls requiring 50% would not be so much of a problem if there was not a systemic population problem, but WvW currently is not the "ideal situation", and for those outnumbered, it makes it even more harder to defend or stall enemies until support arrives.
(C) Siege disabler needs to be restored back to what it was as this helps with stalling enemies until support arrives.
(D) Celestial builds, we need an official statement from ANET if they consider the stats problematic for WvW (instead of the forum having endless debates if it is, or is not).
(E) A response to balance issues, people like playing in large groups, but also roaming, so both sides need to be addressed (Willbender is one example where there are large threads calling for it to be balanced, a response on large threads in general would be appreciated).
(F) Perma stealth builds needs to be addressed.

Some suggestions for stealth;

WvW has some tools to combat stealth, Target painters and Target painter traps, make these not only insta-cast, but provide us with special actions keys to use them without having to go into our inventory, as it is a very clunky way to use them, especially when stealth builds can blink in and out of stealth. Increase the revealed time. Increase the amount of target painter traps being able to be placed down to 2 at a time and decrease cooldown of target painter. 

No doubt there are other issues, but those are some of the main issues as I see them.

I think Anet has to be careful about how they approach the boon ball issue, regardless of what we all claim about it. A lot of the issue is the player base and how it's going to simmer down into a gimmick regardless. The boon ball is as dangerous as the WvW points and structure taking systems allow. They're a lot of fun to fight any other time. They're boring and frustrating to fight when they can flex inside a keep or tower circle and time is running out. Mostly agree though and agree with the other points.

Even if target painters are insta cast and easier to use, you'd still have to use them instead of using that time to go through your normal sequence, while the other player can go through theirs. I'd rather have stealth opacity decreased (and allow target select) after a second or two within some radius of proximity to enemies regardless of the stealth duration stack but the stealth user still holds onto stealth modifiers for the duration. That would still allow stealth approach or map travel masking but lessen the chance of stealthing away from combat and allow interrupts, pulls, and all that but still allow the chance at Stealth Attacks throughout. I could be forgetting details where that wouldn't work out the way I'm thinking. 

 

Edited May 1 by kash.9213

[TheGrimm.5624]

17 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

Hey all! I'd like to make sure I understand and hear more about some of the feedback, so I've quoted a few posts below and asked the authors to expand on their thoughts.

Wanted to give the posters that you replied to time to reply first. Thanks for the time.

17 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

 

          Since the changes to Siege Dampener and Siege Disruptor were in separate updates than the wall/gate repair change, are those changes you think should be reverted in general, or do you feel they're no longer valid changes alongside the other changes made in the last patch?

As a scribe and a player that will upgrade any objective that needs it when first jumping on a map, invul walls were close to a no go dampener is not worth it at all. Might be better to just create something new there. Disruptor is not bad for attacking to clear oil and cannon faster. Use in defending, not really, even disabler was close to a death sentence unless on a class with stealth. Again might be something to just completely replace. 

17 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

For the lowered stats on the Keep Aura, you mentioned that you feel it was overkill, but didn't say that's one of the changes that should be reverted. Do you feel it should be, or do you think it should be left alone?

The keep aura was to account for differences in timing and types of groups. You have Roamers, Havocs, Pug groups (organized and not organized) and Guild groups that might be attacking. Defenders are typically even wider groups and you will get a mix server by server on who or what will respond to a defense call out. Should they be reverted? Players are still changing their gameplay so might be too early for that. 100 down to 25, was that a bit much, probably. Have you made taking easier? As a roamer, yes, as a Havoc, yes. As a pugmader, yes. 

17 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

For defensive siege not feeling relevant, do you feel that this is fully related to the most recent update?

Seeing less people even bothering with putting up defensive siege. Again even as a scribe and someone that would spend the first hour before starting to play to set light defenses in place, why bother if its all just paper objectives which doesn't have the supply to spare to get defenses up that might be needed.

17 hours ago, Roy Marks.7689 said:

Are the changes to the keep lords just not very impactful, or do you feel as though they've actually worsened them in any way? Have you experienced groups trying to play around the new mechanics at all, or you just haven't seen it make an impact in fights where players aren't particularly paying attention to it?

 

Haven't seen any difference of attackers or defenders in regards to lord changes on any scale of play. 

 

[Arya Whitefire.8423]

The keep aura nerf was rather hamfisted.

It would've been much better to use different strength auras in different circumstances.  Home keep, and home towers, held by home team, if anything, should have a stronger aura. 

Home keeps held by enemy teams should probably always have negative auras for the team doing the hold out.

SMC should never have any aura at all, heck you could even add a negative stats aura for the team holding SMC that starts ramping up after it's held 15-30 minutes or so.

 

 

Edited May 1 by Arya Whitefire.8423