WTF is Anet doing to WvW?

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, ascii.1369 said:

The numbers are probably too high, but other than that YES. It should probably be "if you have done this activity during the current tick, you get x additional pips when the actual tick happens". Maybe that's what you meant, because getting pips every time you do this rather than adding it once to the total amount seems excessive.

Please for the love of god Anet, you finally need to introduce rewards that encourage active gameplay. Especially giving rewards for stomps (not kills) would be amazing. This would finally encourage people to actually play the game rather than afk in spawn until a tag shows up. As someone who roams almost exclusively and never on EBG I have to say, it feels like 95% of WvW players don't actually like PvP. It's pretty much impossible to get randome pugs to help capture a camp that has 2-5 defenders.

Now that I'm thinking about it, while the above suggested changes to rewards would be a massive step in the right direction, I think the most pressing issue to solve would be that people refuse to play if there is no tag around. While there is no tag on borderlands it seems those three maps are just EBG waiting rooms. While encouraging active gameplay through rewards is the direction WvW should move in more generally, it really would be great if we could have significant rewards that encourage players to venture out there without the protection of a 35 people zerg. Admittedly, I can't think of any other good ideas of how to encourage small scale gameplay right now, other than the already mentioned rewards for stomps. But than again, there are people at Anet whose full time job it is to design the game, I'm sure you can come up with something.

The wizard vault is close but still a passive system. Again to have an active system they need to have something more like a bounty system. Example Destiny 2. You have bounties that are defined upfront and then random ones. All payout if completed, all cost something to buy into and all have expiration dates. Risk and reward rolled into one. 

A potential other I have been pondering is a friendly heat map view of the map for your side. Roamers are going to Roam, Havocs are already going to be active. The players that are looking for a tag are waiting for someone to create content and they don't know if there is already content going on unless that is shared via chat. This isn't always done for various reasons. So outside of spying I wonder if a view of overall map activity might help those tagless. It might also help in the whole debate of open and invis tags as well. To be clear I still support both open and invis tags for various reasons so this is just a secondary point that it might help a main tag to be able to see the various Havocs and Roamers moving around the map if it didn't create too much extra latency to the game while aiding the tagless see that there are things going on that they could move to.

[ascii.1369]

4 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

A potential other I have been pondering is a friendly heat map view of the map for your side. Roamers are going to Roam, Havocs are already going to be active. The players that are looking for a tag are waiting for someone to create content and they don't know if there is already content going on unless that is shared via chat. This isn't always done for various reasons.

That's actually not a bad idea. They could also just make allies visible across the entire map in WvW. And maybe give the option to opt out, since people might not always want to be visible on the map for variouse reasons. Or tie the opt out to squad options where the commander can hide the squad like you can hide your tag.

Edited May 2 by ascii.1369

[ascii.1369]

5 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

Sure, that could get people out there more. That value threshold for the rewards would be tricky though and we'd have to hope we're actually rewarding people who like to pvp and not filling up people who are more into gimmicks to secure those rewards routinely. 

Can you maybe explain what you mean by "people who are more into gimmicks to secure those rewards routinely". Not sure I understand what that would specifically entail. If the rewards are tailored towards forcing people to engage enemy players I'm not sure there is much that can be done to cheese the system, given that those enemies will fight back.

[XenesisII.1540]

Working as intended. https://i.imgur.com/sSm6PDu.jpg 🤭

Edited May 3 by XenesisII.1540

[Ronin.4501]

12 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I think this would hurt havocs and defenders more than it would to impact large scale play personally. When the attackers group siege up its also easier to destroy in mass. I understand your point but I think the solution hinders smaller play more than it does larger scale.

I actually considered that when I made the suggestion, as 75% of my current play is done with a havoc-sized group (anywhere from 5-15 players), but the reality is havoc-sized groups rarely if ever throw down 5 catas/rams; it's usually more in the 2-3 range as supply is limited. And as for defenders, outside of arrow carts most attackers siege cannot be hit by any defending siege as it's generally placed right up against the wall where ballistae, catapults and trebs all will be unable to hit it unless it's placed PERFECTLY (and then it's usually placed so close to the wall that the attacking blob destroys it in 1-2 seconds).

Another option possibly would be that attackers cannot place siege within 900' range of the walls (obviously with the exception of rams on gates) but I could see a real issue in coding in such a feature.

[Ronin.4501]

6 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

Can you maybe explain what you mean by "people who are more into gimmicks to secure those rewards routinely". Not sure I understand what that would specifically entail. If the rewards are tailored towards forcing people to engage enemy players I'm not sure there is much that can be done to cheese the system, given that those enemies will fight back.

I think they're refering to the players who play solely for pips. They actively avoid enemy players (and will often run as soon as an enemy player has been sighted) and simply sit at spawn waiting for the nearest camp to flip, and once that camp has been flipped immediately return to spawn and do nothing more to help their server until their pips timer has drawn down. Those types of players will tell you they hate the game-mode and only serve to artificially increase server population while doing next-to-nothing to actually participate in the game mode.

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Ronin.4501 said:

I actually considered that when I made the suggestion, as 75% of my current play is done with a havoc-sized group (anywhere from 5-15 players), but the reality is havoc-sized groups rarely if ever throw down 5 catas/rams;

I admit I usually use 2-6 and match the cats to players. So if we have 4 we build 4 though it may take 2 runs. 

Edited May 3 by TheGrimm.5624
Edit: Hence why I would be careful that large scale changes doesn't make small scale worse. Be careful of those suggestions.

[Hecksler Der Henker.9280]

Too many too strong changes to the defense

• The life point reduction on the walls
• the increased life points on the rams
• invulnerability becomes a damper
• the blocker that no longer blocks
• a Zerg standing in front of the gate laughing and opening it with his hand. Since he doesn't mind arrow chariots, catapults and even oil (It shouldn't be possible to open a goal on T3 with your hand. That's ridiculous!)
• the lord who can channel (but you don't notice the effect at all, neither defender nor attacker)
• small conquest circle
• gates and walls that are only at 50% close.

All of this makes it impossible to actively defend! The WvW maps currently feel like a second Edge of the Mist map. Lots of karma train.

It takes hours to get to a level 3 position, but it may only take 30 minutes to take down a T3 fortress with resistance. Throughout human history, defenders have always had an advantage over attackers, but in Guild Wars 2 it's flipped.

What's the point of the zones if they only count for gliding and the guild buff. You could do so much more with it. But sometimes the zones and position zones are not identical. A WvW banner is also dropped in this position because you have supposedly moved away even though you are still standing inside.

Edited May 3 by Hecksler Der Henker.9280

[kash.9213]

15 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

Can you maybe explain what you mean by "people who are more into gimmicks to secure those rewards routinely". Not sure I understand what that would specifically entail. If the rewards are tailored towards forcing people to engage enemy players I'm not sure there is much that can be done to cheese the system, given that those enemies will fight back.

Like the people who only show up for events or whatever that pay out a lot more. Requiring a stomp will get some people to go for it. Hopefully fight kill trading and fishing near spawns and stuff won't be a huge factor. 

[ascii.1369]

39 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

Like the people who only show up for events or whatever that pay out a lot more. Requiring a stomp will get some people to go for it. Hopefully fight kill trading and fishing near spawns and stuff won't be a huge factor. 

Kill trading would not be an issue if they finally implement rewards for winning the match at the same time. But i guess you are right that there might be a risk of some toxic behaviour regarding spawn camping and such things. Then again that already happens in one sided matches already.

[kash.9213]

59 minutes ago, ascii.1369 said:

Kill trading would not be an issue if they finally implement rewards for winning the match at the same time. But i guess you are right that there might be a risk of some toxic behaviour regarding spawn camping and such things. Then again that already happens in one sided matches already.

I'm for it either way because players are there for the game mode itself should still be rewarded. But there does need to be an upgrade or shake up of setting and structure at some point or matches are going to simmer down to the active squads queuing one map and leaving the rest empty. That would still be an active game mode, but for who. You can't pay me to spend most of my 20-30 min after work map hopping or sitting a queue to miss the best large brawls and whatever else. I'll be honest, taking camps and that kind of kitten isn't what I'm logging in for with limited time and no reward is making that fun with our current maps and structure. 

[Kyon.4810]

6 hours ago, Hecksler Der Henker.9280 said:

Too many too strong changes to the defense

• The life point reduction on the walls
• the increased life points on the rams
• invulnerability becomes a damper
• the blocker that no longer blocks
• a Zerg standing in front of the gate laughing and opening it with his hand. Since he doesn't mind arrow chariots, catapults and even oil (It shouldn't be possible to open a goal on T3 with your hand. That's ridiculous!)
• the lord who can channel (but you don't notice the effect at all, neither defender nor attacker)
• small conquest circle
• gates and walls that are only at 50% close.

All of this makes it impossible to actively defend! The WvW maps currently feel like a second Edge of the Mist map. Lots of karma train.

It takes hours to get to a level 3 position, but it may only take 30 minutes to take down a T3 fortress with resistance. Throughout human history, defenders have always had an advantage over attackers, but in Guild Wars 2 it's flipped.

What's the point of the zones if they only count for gliding and the guild buff. You could do so much more with it. But sometimes the zones and position zones are not identical. A WvW banner is also dropped in this position because you have supposedly moved away even though you are still standing inside.

Obviously now wvw requires active defense rather than passive 5-6 defenders pew pewing with siege. As for me now wvw looks better, because organized groups able to take objectives with weak defense. All the whinners are just ppl which plays solo with arrow carts or longbow rangers or trebuchet, and they should be reduced from cooperative mode, thats why arena net makes wvw really great now with all these updates. Ofcourse u still able to protect objectives if build sieges properly and before the moment when enemy already at the gate (or gate already at 5%)  and use it wisely. At this moment most of cases when I see defences - ppl are building normal siege and catas (which does 0 damage and doesnt knockback) opposite the gates instead of superior sieges and trebuchetes (heavy damage to siege + cows draining supplies + knockback) opposite gates, also there is millions of examples of bad gameplay from whinners. If u want play with saving objectives probably u need to play with ppl in squad or at least with party instead of whinning in map/team chat about enemy. If you don`t want play with your team - ofcourse no one will help you defend objectives.

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

I think I would have left this alone as an opinion piece if you hadn't added so much subjective points and considered your choices in attacking other posters so you made it fair game. Welcome to Forum Wars 2. 

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

Obviously now wvw requires active defense rather than passive 5-6 defenders pew pewing with siege.

So how were 5-6 driving you off with subpar siege? How many were you using in your attacks? 

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

 

As for me now wvw looks better, because organized groups able to take objectives with weak defense.

Organized groups could always take objectives. Sometimes it came down to how long it would take. 

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

All the whinners are just ppl which plays solo with arrow carts or longbow rangers or trebuchet, and they should be reduced from cooperative mode

Or consider that organized groups don't defend as much and it might be more scouts, havocs and pug groups that do defend. You also missed out on the people that build defenses. So how much do think a light defense takes to setup? If you are using superior siege in those calculations you might not consider replying since you just spent more supplies then you should have and wasted resources for your side. That said an organized group wouldn't have cared if you set it up with all guild siege since they would attack it anyway if that was what they were looking to do.

If it is a pug group then its up to the tag to weigh moral, entertainment and/or impacts by Havocs for against the action as well as how many are not on tag that might also need to factor into the consideration of go or no go. But again if your tags weren't trying it when there was jus 5-6 that's a tag issue.

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

thats why arena net makes wvw really great now with all these updates.

Here you are sounding like a ktrainer.

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

Ofcourse u still able to protect objectives if build sieges properly and before the moment when enemy already at the gate (or gate already at 5%)  and use it wisely.

Again an organized group wouldn't care since they would hit it while you aren't there. 

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

At this moment most of cases when I see defences - ppl are building normal siege and catas (which does 0 damage and doesnt knockback) opposite the gates instead of superior sieges and trebuchetes (heavy damage to siege + cows draining supplies + knockback) opposite gates, also there is millions of examples of bad gameplay from whinners.

So these are the people you were losing to before all the defense nerfs?

2 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

If u want play with saving objectives probably u need to play with ppl in squad or at least with party instead of whinning in map/team chat about enemy. If you don`t want play with your team - ofcourse no one will help you defend objectives.

Sure, when was the last time you saw a squad message saying we are opening a tag for just defense? And how many times before all these changes did you see bad scout reports? And tags saying I need more info? Or outright saying we won't make it in time? The window on the last just gets smaller and smaller.

As a friend pointed out to me after I spent an hour setting what I call light defenses on a keep it all means nothing if people can't get there to use it. Wasn't wrong. See that happen on a regular basis.

 

[Izzy.2951]

You guys are stuck in 2012, this gamemode is irrelevant. (even GW2 is kinda irrelevant too)

Edited May 3 by Izzy.2951

[Reztek.7805]

4 hours ago, Kyon.4810 said:

Obviously now wvw requires active defense rather than passive 5-6 defenders pew pewing with siege. As for me now wvw looks better, because organized groups able to take objectives with weak defense. All the whinners are just ppl which plays solo with arrow carts or longbow rangers or trebuchet, and they should be reduced from cooperative mode, thats why arena net makes wvw really great now with all these updates. Ofcourse u still able to protect objectives if build sieges properly and before the moment when enemy already at the gate (or gate already at 5%)  and use it wisely. At this moment most of cases when I see defences - ppl are building normal siege and catas (which does 0 damage and doesnt knockback) opposite the gates instead of superior sieges and trebuchetes (heavy damage to siege + cows draining supplies + knockback) opposite gates, also there is millions of examples of bad gameplay from whinners. If u want play with saving objectives probably u need to play with ppl in squad or at least with party instead of whinning in map/team chat about enemy. If you don`t want play with your team - ofcourse no one will help you defend objectives.

 

Lol, tell me your 30 zerglings weren't able to take a T1 tower with 10 defenders (and so you started crying to anet) without telling me your 30 zerglings weren't able to take a T1 tower with 10 defenders.

[T G.7496]

It must be a full time job for someone at Anet, fiddling with the location of synthesisers - important stuff, and hopefully will silence all the people who have been screaming for these changes to the game mode for years.

[Widebody.5071]

8 hours ago, Reztek.7805 said:

Lol, tell me your 30 zerglings weren't able to take a T1 tower with 10 defenders (and so you started crying to anet) without telling me your 30 zerglings weren't able to take a T1 tower with 10 defenders.

Just like back in the old days when 10 could defeat 30, I guess they got what they've been asking for.

Congratulations!

[TheGrimm.5624]

11 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

You guys are stuck in 2012, this gamemode is irrelevant. (even GW2 is kinda irrelevant too)

No just a lot of us still find it fun and want to make sure various points are covered while we also want changes.

[Altex.6083]

I am wvw newbie, I play heal in blob and couple thoughts after getting into wvw for 9 or so months. I caught perhaps last 3 balancing cycles +-. 

1.  update to keep lords seems useless. Before we timed CC to get damage phase in, now we ... just do dmg and mostly ignore CC. I don't see any positive thing that came from that update for attacking side. Defensive effect is neglected by multiple updates that made defending harder. 
2. Siege dampeners work well only for classes that have AoE capability with Snap-to-Ground-target to shoot through wall to get rid of the siege faster. For everything else disabler was better. I'd say disabler was better tool because it is class agnostic. Maybe skill issue on my end. 
3. Wall repair at 15% vs 50%, we used to troll ourselves by closing ourselves outside. I see it as nerfing fun. I sense this balancing approach was to make big change to walk it back, rather than increase it by 5-10% every 3 months. 50% threshold is just too big. It is another change that negatively effects defending in smaller numbers. 
4. Guild (Keep) Aura - we used to maneuver a lot before engagement if we had lower numbers or lost couple fights to at least have fighting chance. Now with massive nerfs to bonus stats, nobody cares about where they fight. There is usually higher quantity and quality on one side. Now you can't get extra fighting chance in the aura, so if you don't want to feed enemies with bags, you disengage and go do something else. Perhaps it was intention, but I don't think it brought positive changes into the game mode. I am curious why there aren't any dead zones for this kind of boons. I would think inner keep could have higher bonus than zone outside of the keep walls. 
5. Capture circles - I don't mind smaller circles, I don't play immortal builds that are able to contest anyway. More so, having capture circle with line of sight capability was a bit strange, but perhaps it was good for variety.

I don't do roaming, I don't see incentive in doing so. Only solo ventures into wvw I do is to cap near spawn camps for dailies and ruin runs for weekly. 

Current natural boonball enemy is quantity and skill issues. Unless you have all the siege in the world or outnumber the boonball with cloud at least by 10 people, or the boonball is simply bad, it is almost pointless to try to get rid of organized 40-50 people farming kills in your gari. It might be ok state, at least for me because I don't play the gamemode otherwise, but it looks like people do not enjoy it. I caught a while back some beta without downstate. I am curious how much it would change the current banner kill/revive style, where you go for mass sustain and rely on banner finishing. 

Edited May 4 by Altex.6083
added point 4 extra suggestion

[Zok.4956]

On 5/2/2024 at 8:53 PM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

A potential other I have been pondering is a friendly heat map view of the map for your side. Roamers are going to Roam, Havocs are already going to be active. The players that are looking for a tag are waiting for someone to create content and they don't know if there is already content going on unless that is shared via chat. This isn't always done for various reasons. So outside of spying I wonder if a view of overall map activity might help those tagless. It might also help in the whole debate of open and invis tags as well. To be clear I still support both open and invis tags for various reasons so this is just a secondary point that it might help a main tag to be able to see the various Havocs and Roamers moving around the map if it didn't create too much extra latency to the game while aiding the tagless see that there are things going on that they could move to.

That's an interesting idea. Sometimes when I come to a queued map there are no tags, there is no answer in the map chat and not many people are waiting at the spawn or in the keep. But the map is full. This happens more often on some servers/links than others. A kind of heat map could show directly where something is happening.

[Zok.4956]

On 5/3/2024 at 10:39 PM, Izzy.2951 said:

You guys are stuck in 2012, this gamemode is irrelevant. (even GW2 is kinda irrelevant too)

Every game is somehow irrelevant. That's the point of a game as a leisure activity. 

[Aeolus.3615]

On 5/3/2024 at 9:39 PM, Izzy.2951 said:

You guys are stuck in 2012, this gamemode is irrelevant. (even GW2 is kinda irrelevant too)

not yet but sooooon.....gw2 will sooooon become less than being irrelevant, and minstrel blobs can then ktrain against those evil gates,, maybe then Anet will think PVD is to hard for players  and will make walls and gates faint when they see a Zerg.

Lamerwars 2 will reach its full lamer potential... soooon.

Edited May 5 by Aeolus.3615

[Dawdler.8521]

57 minutes ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

not yet but sooooon.....gw2 will sooooon become less than being irrelevant, and minstrel blobs can then ktrain against those evil gates,, maybe then Anet will think PVD is to hard for players  and will make walls and gates faint when they see a Zerg.

Lamerwars 2 will reach its full lamer potential... soooon.

Is Camelot Unchained finally getting released or something?

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 5/3/2024 at 11:43 AM, Kyon.4810 said:

Obviously now wvw requires active defense rather than passive 5-6 defenders pew pewing with siege. As for me now wvw looks better, because organized groups able to take objectives with weak defense. All the whinners are just ppl which plays solo with arrow carts or longbow rangers or trebuchet, and they should be reduced from cooperative mode, thats why arena net makes wvw really great now with all these updates. Ofcourse u still able to protect objectives if build sieges properly and before the moment when enemy already at the gate (or gate already at 5%)  and use it wisely. At this moment most of cases when I see defences - ppl are building normal siege and catas (which does 0 damage and doesnt knockback) opposite the gates instead of superior sieges and trebuchetes (heavy damage to siege + cows draining supplies + knockback) opposite gates, also there is millions of examples of bad gameplay from whinners. If u want play with saving objectives probably u need to play with ppl in squad or at least with party instead of whinning in map/team chat about enemy. If you don`t want play with your team - ofcourse no one will help you defend objectives.

 

It only takes 25 seconds to flip a T3 tower, from the time the siege is dropped until the tower flips.  Yeah, that is a problem.  And, the 25 second time has been that way for the last few years, and Anet thought "wow, 25 seconds...that's too long, let's nerf defense some more".  YET, Anet refuses to change SMC at all.  Why you might ask, because it's the giant boonball that owns it.  Can't have people taking the precious from the ktrain.  If Anet was really concerned with defense being too strong they would nerf airships and cloaking waters too.  But, this isn't about "defense is too strong", Anet's crusade is against people defending keeps and towers from the blob just taking it by pressing 1.

Edited May 5 by MedievalThings.5417

[misterman.1530]

On 5/1/2024 at 6:13 PM, Ronin.4501 said:

I think the most effective solution here, rather than changing the Siege Disabler into the Siege Disruptor, is to lower the amount of siege that can be placed in one area. I would suggest reducing it from 5 siege pieces in area to 2 siege pieces.

I agree with this, and I had a complementary idea somewhere earlier in this thread. Catas pressed up against the wall are difficult to counter - you can't get close to the edge without getting pulled off the wall. So I proposed that the closer a cata is to a wall, the less damage it does. So stacking 5 (or in your suggestion, 2) catas up against a wall would slow down how long it takes the wall to go down.  Thus, attackers would need to put the catas further back, giving defenders a bit of a chance.
 

That would require attackers to build Shield Gens and ballis to counter the defenders' ballis, etc. I think this would make for more intense and strategic fights.