We really need a discussion with the devs on these changes.

[AlphaReborn.1567]

After a week or so of playing with these changes and trying to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt...  Honestly, they are atrocious and are a clear indication they desperately need someone who actually understands the game mode on the team (or at least engage with the community).

Let me illustrate how absurd these changes are.  I just had a fight on one of the southern towers of one of the alpine BLs.  A group of 3 took down the gate with a ram and cata.  I couldn't stop them on siege since, of course, arrow carts are useless.  So they come in and I fight them on lord, 3v1.  I manage to kill them and go back to seal the gate.  I literally could not close it in time before they ran back.  And here's the kicker.  THEY CAN STILL DAMAGE THE WALL/GATE EVEN WHEN DESTROYED.  So after all my running back and forth, even with the gate still open, one of the guys hopped on the siege and did one attack and undid several of my repair runs, basically guaranteeing I could not close it.  I killed them again, but the supply depot was out of supply, so I had to let the tower go.

Even if you wanted to increase the repair percentage needed to rebuild (50% is way too much, by the way), the fact YOU CAN STILL DAMAGE DESTROYED WALLS AND GATES is absolutely insane.  I had no idea this was the case and as long as you have one person popping a siege shot every now and then, there is absolutely no way you can close it, ever.

But hey, at least the nodes are in the circle now in a lot of places, so we have "something to fight for".  I feel like half the WvW community, including myself, would balance the mode for them for free...  Not sure why they don't at least listen a little bit to the community.

EDIT - to the people hitting me with confused emojis.  If you are confused by someone winning a 3v1, twice, and still not being able to prevent a capture due to horribly designed game mechanic changes, I'm sorry but you are part of the problem.

Edited April 27 by AlphaReborn.1567

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

If you killed them a 3rd time I bet they would've given up and you would be victorious enough to maybe buy time for some help to come repair.

But yes you have always been able to damage walls and gates while down as they still have a health bar, it was just rare when something like what they did was needed. 

[AlphaReborn.1567]

3 minutes ago, Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

If you killed them a 3rd time I bet they would've given up and you would be victorious enough to maybe buy time for some help to come repair.

But yes you have always been able to damage walls and gates while down as they still have a health bar, it was just rare when something like what they did was needed. 

Yeah, but I would have figured they'd have removed that if they raised the rebuild percentage to be as high as it is...  It's literally impossible to get the wall up unless you have a whole group trying to fix it...  And if you do, they aren't fighting and you are losing.  It's absurd.

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Your mistake was trying to defend a tower by yourself instead of being in the boon ball where you're supposed to be.

[Hackuuna.4085]

Your interaction isn't very convincing or you're leaving out a tremendous amount of information. You had no way of killing their cata and ram. How would the gate being closed at 10% rather than 50% have given you a chance at holding the tower?

[AlphaReborn.1567]

1 hour ago, Hackuuna.4085 said:

Your interaction isn't very convincing or you're leaving out a tremendous amount of information. You had no way of killing their cata and ram. How would the gate being closed at 10% rather than 50% have given you a chance at holding the tower?

I could have tapped the gate closed in one or two supply runs (10 seconds, remember its SW alpine tower so gate is literally next to the depot), giving me 30-ish seconds to kill the ram which would have been doable.  I could have used the excess supply to kill the cata with a ballista, or at least get it super low and kill it with normal attacks while they went to lord, then killed them again, and tapped it shut once more.

That's just one way I would have done it before Anet destroyed defense.

[devastoscz.9851]

Honestly, while I agree with your assessment that the 50% "patching" is too high and that it's a little absurd that you can still damage a "downed" wall... you never fix walls until the siege is dead, regardless of what the % is. Doesn't matter if you're 1 person or 10, killing siege takes precedence over repairing precisely because you're giving the enemy a chance to undo your work and waste your supply.

[AlphaReborn.1567]

29 minutes ago, devastoscz.9851 said:

Honestly, while I agree with your assessment that the 50% "patching" is too high and that it's a little absurd that you can still damage a "downed" wall... you never fix walls until the siege is dead, regardless of what the % is. Doesn't matter if you're 1 person or 10, killing siege takes precedence over repairing precisely because you're giving the enemy a chance to undo your work and waste your supply.

In the new ruleset sure, in the old ruleset dropping the 25 supply I had from keep into the gate to ensure no stragglers trickle in is perfectly valid.  I'm not trying to rebuild it to 100, I'm trying to tap it closed to give me some breathing room while I kill/fight on siege.

Edited April 26 by AlphaReborn.1567

[Sleepwalker.1398]

Spoiler:

Spoiler

They are already discussing....with the boonball guild leaders.

 

[Rakan Buuyon.8576]

On 4/26/2024 at 4:41 PM, devastoscz.9851 said:

Honestly, while I agree with your assessment that the 50% "patching" is too high and that it's a little absurd that you can still damage a "downed" wall... you never fix walls until the siege is dead, regardless of what the % is. Doesn't matter if you're 1 person or 10, killing siege takes precedence over repairing precisely because you're giving the enemy a chance to undo your work and waste your supply.

Hell no. Close the wall on the tail and get some kills, upset the commander. Yeah sure, they can get it down easy again, but it's not about making a permanent change, it's about causing chaos. Now the head either needs to accept the loss of players, or jump back out and get work on getting people back in. At that point, you simply just put a couple supply into the wall and do it all over again.

Most groups simply aren't coordinated enough to keep it composed when kitten goes wrong, even more so when they lose their commander. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've seen map queues lose to cloud because a couple pin snipers took out just the commander. These new changes stop hit and run defending, and basically require a defense squad on the attacked wall until the siege is destroyed, and the wall is full. With only needing 10% you could simply use the wall repair as a quick way to split a group, at 50% it pretty much means that wall isn't going back up.

[Ronin.4501]

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

After a week or so of playing with these changes and trying to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt...  Honestly, they are atrocious and are a clear indication they desperately need someone who actually understands the game mode on the team (or at least engage with the community).

Let me illustrate how absurd these changes are.  I just had a fight on one of the southern towers of one of the alpine BLs.  A group of 3 took down the gate with a ram and cata.  I couldn't stop them on siege since, of course, arrow carts are useless.  So they come in and I fight them on lord, 3v1.  I manage to kill them and go back to seal the gate.  I literally could not close it in time before they ran back.  And here's the kicker.  THEY CAN STILL DAMAGE THE WALL/GATE EVEN WHEN DESTROYED.  So after all my running back and forth, even with the gate still open, one of the guys hopped on the siege and did one attack and undid several of my repair runs, basically guaranteeing I could not close it.  I killed them again, but the supply depot was out of supply, so I had to let the tower go.

Even if you wanted to increase the repair percentage needed to rebuild (50% is way too much, by the way), the fact YOU CAN STILL DAMAGE DESTROYED WALLS AND GATES is absolutely insane.  I had no idea this was the case and as long as you have one person popping a siege shot every now and then, there is absolutely no way you can close it, ever.

But hey, at least the nodes are in the circle now in a lot of places, so we have "something to fight for".  I feel like half the WvW community, including myself, would balance the mode for them for free...  Not sure why they don't at least listen a little bit to the community.

EDIT - to the people hitting me with confused emojis.  If you are confused by someone winning a 3v1, twice, and still not being able to prevent a capture due to horribly designed game mechanic changes, I'm sorry but you are part of the problem.

Although I absolutely agree with you that the change to gates/walls not being repaired to close at 50% was a ridiculous and poorly thought out change by Anet (which sadly has become the norm over the past few years), your strategy was all wrong. If you were able to kill all 3 on the lord while you were alone, after you killed them the first time the first thing you should have done was cleared their siege. When they returned you should've had no problem killing them again when they again attacked the lord. THEN you should have started repairing the gate/wall. If they returned a 2nd time you should've been able to replicate your results and killed them a 3rd time, and by this point you would have been able to repair the gate/wall enough to close it, at which point they either would've given up or returned with more numbers.

But ultimately it comes down to the server you play on. At some point in between fights if you called for help and no one came, maybe it's time to consider changing servers to one where more players are willing to come defend (despite Anet making it harder and harder to defend these days). 

[AlphaReborn.1567]

On 4/28/2024 at 3:11 AM, Ronin.4501 said:

Although I absolutely agree with you that the change to gates/walls not being repaired to close at 50% was a ridiculous and poorly thought out change by Anet (which sadly has become the norm over the past few years), your strategy was all wrong. If you were able to kill all 3 on the lord while you were alone, after you killed them the first time the first thing you should have done was cleared their siege. When they returned you should've had no problem killing them again when they again attacked the lord. THEN you should have started repairing the gate/wall. If they returned a 2nd time you should've been able to replicate your results and killed them a 3rd time, and by this point you would have been able to repair the gate/wall enough to close it, at which point they either would've given up or returned with more numbers.

But ultimately it comes down to the server you play on. At some point in between fights if you called for help and no one came, maybe it's time to consider changing servers to one where more players are willing to come defend (despite Anet making it harder and harder to defend these days). 

This assessment is so wild I’m not even going to humor it. You just wrote off having to 3v1, while destroying siege, while repairing a gate to 50, outside an enemy’s spawn, with no help, as a “git gud” moment. This exact scenario before these changes would have ended the first time they lost the 3v1. Gate could have been tapped shut while siege was dealt with, end of story. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

On 4/28/2024 at 3:11 AM, Ronin.4501 said:

Although I absolutely agree with you that the change to gates/walls not being repaired to close at 50% was a ridiculous and poorly thought out change by Anet (which sadly has become the norm over the past few years), your strategy was all wrong. If you were able to kill all 3 on the lord while you were alone, after you killed them the first time the first thing you should have done was cleared their siege. When they returned you should've had no problem killing them again when they again attacked the lord. THEN you should have started repairing the gate/wall. If they returned a 2nd time you should've been able to replicate your results and killed them a 3rd time, and by this point you would have been able to repair the gate/wall enough to close it, at which point they either would've given up or returned with more numbers.

All that to get to the bolded part which is the actual outcome 99% of the time.  

I did lol at having to replicate multiple 3v1's as being 'correct strategy' when there is absolutely no penalty for the three just to keep zerging back over and over.  

That's literally being punished for being good at the game.  Which wasn't enough, so they made it so you never can repair and have no breathing room of using the tower doors for kiting anymore.  

[AlphaReborn.1567]

20 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

All that to get to the bolded part which is the actual outcome 99% of the time.  

I did lol at having to replicate multiple 3v1's as being 'correct strategy' when there is absolutely no penalty for the three just to keep zerging back over and over.  

That's literally being punished for being good at the game.  Which wasn't enough, so they made it so you never can repair and have no breathing room of using the tower doors for kiting anymore.  

Thank you… I thought I was crazy for a second there. I don’t think people realize how truly hard it is to win a 3v1 while trying to defend and having limited kiting/terrain advantages. Even average players can be devastating when they outnumber you by that much - all it takes is a grenade barrage or something that you didn’t see coming because you were focused on the other two, and you are dead. 

[ZTeamG.4603]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

That's literally being punished for being good at the game.  Which wasn't enough, so they made it so you never can repair and have no breathing room of using the tower doors for kiting anymore.  

Based on the reasons they gave for these changes, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs read a story like this and have the wrong takeaway of "The changes worked! There's more player engagement--more fights because the gate stayed open--and it still felt better for the attackers because they get to take the objective in the end," while completely ignoring the fact that after this happens once or twice, the defenders will just stop defending since it's futile. If you nerf defense into the ground so that defense never wins, people will just stop defending and you end up with a PvE karmatrain over paper objectives.

[Taikun.3642]

"We really need a discussion with the devs on these changes." I agree 100% and asap!

 

Greetz

Taikun

[Ronin.4501]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

All that to get to the bolded part which is the actual outcome 99% of the time.  

I did lol at having to replicate multiple 3v1's as being 'correct strategy' when there is absolutely no penalty for the three just to keep zerging back over and over.  

That's literally being punished for being good at the game.  Which wasn't enough, so they made it so you never can repair and have no breathing room of using the tower doors for kiting anymore.  

You consider 3 players a zerg?? And since you apparently have difficulty reading, I said I agreed that the changes Anet made were ridiculous. But anyone who repairs the gate first and THEN destroys the siege is doing it backwards.

[Ronin.4501]

2 hours ago, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

This assessment is so wild I’m not even going to humor it. You just wrote off having to 3v1, while destroying siege, while repairing a gate to 50, outside an enemy’s spawn, with no help, as a “git gud” moment. This exact scenario before these changes would have ended the first time they lost the 3v1. Gate could have been tapped shut while siege was dealt with, end of story. 

If you're repairing the walls before destroying the siege, then yeah, you need to "git gud". And you must be new to WvW if you think 3 players coming back to their spawn tower over and over is an uncommon thing. especially when you're alone and they have numbers.

As I said before, I absolutely agree with you that Anet kitten the bed with the decision to make it so that walls/gates aren't repaired until they're 50%, but if you're the player who repairs the walls/gates BEFORE destroying the siege, then most of us who've played for a while are going to ignore your callouts in the future.

[AlphaReborn.1567]

4 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

If you're repairing the walls before destroying the siege, then yeah, you need to "git gud". And you must be new to WvW if you think 3 players coming back to their spawn tower over and over is an uncommon thing. especially when you're alone and they have numbers.

As I said before, I absolutely agree with you that Anet kitten the bed with the decision to make it so that walls/gates aren't repaired until they're 50%, but if you're the player who repairs the walls/gates BEFORE destroying the siege, then most of us who've played for a while are going to ignore your callouts in the future.

I’ve played WvW exclusively as a roamer and scout since launch, so please don’t patronize me.

Your “strategy” assumes a 3v1 is easy and I should have planned on the fact I would easily be able to wipe them over and over (which is a bold assumption even for extremely skilled players), with the gate open and siege still up, ignoring any number of additional enemies could have arrived from spawn to make it even worse.

Killing a ram already takes awhile, and then after I would have to completely move away from the tower and expose myself to kill the cata also. I would have probably needed to kill them, open field, twice or more while praying nobody else showed up. If you think that’s the best strategic move, versus simply getting the gate closed and killing the siege from safety inside the tower (or at least buying some more “safe” time for allies to arrive) then I’m sorry but YOU must be new. It’s been standard procedure for years when defending solo/outnumbered to tap walls/gates closed to reduce the number of people you need to fight and/or give you a safe spot to counter their siege from. Assuming you could easily win a 3v1 (or worse) when they have spawn advantage is a horrendous idea.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

7 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

Based on the reasons they gave for these changes, I wouldn't be surprised if the devs read a story like this and have the wrong takeaway of "The changes worked! There's more player engagement--more fights because the gate stayed open--and it still felt better for the attackers because they get to take the objective in the end," while completely ignoring the fact that after this happens once or twice, the defenders will just stop defending since it's futile. If you nerf defense into the ground so that defense never wins, people will just stop defending and you end up with a PvE karmatrain over paper objectives.

Their logic would be:

What would the alternative be? 

The 3 dudes got killed by 1 roamer. That means they were running zerg builds or are new to the game. 

If the wall would have been up again when they got back, they most likely would not have tried again. I mean, why bother? It's not like getting the tower does something that flipping a camp would not do. 

While the roamer sits in the tower waiting for the free loot bags to return. 

So it's back to flipping spawn camps and waiting in spawn to reflip it again. 

Atleast this time, these 3 players actually engaged in combat instead of Afk farming. 

 

Edited April 30 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Lucy.3728]

On 4/26/2024 at 4:14 PM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

After a week or so of playing with these changes and trying to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt...  Honestly, they are atrocious and are a clear indication they desperately need someone who actually understands the game mode on the team

Actually the 50% repair system for gate/walls is the only remaining ridiculous change after playing the update (and the removed openly disabled-symbol).
I wonder if that can be abused to drain sm. Since I'll be on holiday soon I can treb the entire day then.
That would be ironic, since they crippled the defence system because of draining sm.

The idea behind the change was obviously that 1-2 people can't close the gaps quickly.
For whatever reason that was important.
Closing gaps and splitting groups was a fun thing in wvw.

On 4/26/2024 at 4:14 PM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

I literally could not close it in time before they ran back.  And here's the kicker.  THEY CAN STILL DAMAGE THE WALL/GATE EVENWHEN DESTROYED. 

But that's not new.

Edited April 30 by Lucy.3728

[Gotejjeken.1267]

8 hours ago, Ronin.4501 said:

You consider 3 players a zerg?? And since you apparently have difficulty reading, I said I agreed that the changes Anet made were ridiculous. But anyone who repairs the gate first and THEN destroys the siege is doing it backwards.

You are aware that 'zerging' is a general term and not really related to sizing? There were such things as four ling rushes on bloodba--oh wait, I forgot most people have no idea where the term originated from 😂.

Annnyway, repairing first is only backward now that they nerfed literally everything about defending.  Prior to this, you could disable the siege, repair the gate, then either AoE bomb it from the wall, or go out and destroy it while they try to get back on / use the doors for kiting.  Towers specifically, as keeps like hills or bay it indeed makes little sense to repair until the siege is down..but OP wasn't solo defending a keep. 

2 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

If the wall would have been up again when they got back, they most likely would not have tried again. I mean, why bother? It's not like getting the tower does something that flipping a camp would not do. 

I mean, double devil's advocate here but, they really shouldn't be trying again after getting wiped 3v1.  Maybe flipping camps is all they can do until learning more about the combat system--I for one don't think covering up bad gameplay behind boons, gear, and literal unlimited free chances at structures is good for anyone.  

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

Let me illustrate how absurd these changes are.  I just had a fight on one of the southern towers of one of the alpine BLs.  A group of 3 took down the gate with a ram and cata.  I couldn't stop them on siege since, of course, arrow carts are useless.  So they come in and I fight them on lord, 3v1. 

Careful here this could be read many different ways. Defenders OP, Lord OP versus you played better or had a counter build to theirs or many other things. The attackers complaining to the devs couldn't take and you give an example of they needed more than 3 to take you out. So do we code to the average player or the good defenders?

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

I manage to kill them and go back to seal the gate.  I literally could not close it in time before they ran back.

I am adjusting to the gate changes and never saw a request for this change here. This justifies the changes to the gates that you were before able to close it while they had more numbers before. Plus you are using an example of a south tower on ABL which is meant to give advantage to an attacker. Yet after the changes you were still able to repulse them multiple times. If I was the one that drew up the changes you raise a good point on why they were needed. I don't think you meant to do that, but that is how it can read.

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

And here's the kicker.  THEY CAN STILL DAMAGE THE WALL/GATE EVEN WHEN DESTROYED.  So after all my running back and forth, even with the gate still open, one of the guys hopped on the siege and did one attack and undid several of my repair runs, basically guaranteeing I could not close it.  I killed them again, but the supply depot was out of supply, so I had to let the tower go.

This has always been a thing and was required for any attacker to leave some firing at a breach if they wanted to make sure it remained open while the attackers moved thru the point. By them upping the repair amount they actually dumbed down attacker's tactics since you don't need to do that. They also removed tactful play from defenders knowing when to time a fast repair to cut a force into a smaller amount and allowing them more chance to repel a larger force. They just now require more to coordinate this action which applies more pressure on defenders. Why did you not call for backup versus leave it once depot was empty?

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

Even if you wanted to increase the repair percentage needed to rebuild (50% is way too much, by the way), the fact YOU CAN STILL DAMAGE DESTROYED WALLS AND GATES is absolutely insane.  I had no idea this was the case and as long as you have one person popping a siege shot every now and then, there is absolutely no way you can close it, ever.

50% does seem high. This is where we have a lot of back and fourth on some threads. Should you have tried to close before killing the siege? This is one of those that I call as an attacker's advantage. They get to decide where and when a fight occurs and how long it lasts. Defenders need to know about the attack, get there and then make it up as they go to figure how to try and stop an attacker. And once you drain the supplies defenders have less options. I think a lot of failed attacks are due to players not considering that but the changes errored on if an attacker can't do it in one go then defenses are too hard. Versus should the attacking side have weakened the objective first or retried the attack.

On 4/26/2024 at 10:14 AM, AlphaReborn.1567 said:

EDIT - to the people hitting me with confused emojis.  If you are confused by someone winning a 3v1, twice, and still not being able to prevent a capture due to horribly designed game mechanic changes, I'm sorry but you are part of the problem.

By the way I am on the side that attackers had it easier before the changes. But again, wining a 3v1 twice just supports the side that say defenders have it easier. So what worked here for winning the 3v1? Note I am not saying a 3v1 is unheard of but more detail may leave a reader less seeing this as defense is OP and needs further nerfs versus people not knowing what needs to be killed first, the player or the NPC and/or when and when not to chase a target.

 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

The debate about whether the siege should have been killed before the gate was repaired is all well and good but it is also a complete side show.

The key point is that the wall/gate repair changes as they stand are terrible (and as a sub point you shouldn't be able to damage destroyed walls/gates while they are being repaired).

A very high percentage of people in the WvW forum and this thread seem to agree on this.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

6 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Careful here this could be read many different ways. Defenders OP, Lord OP versus you played better or had a counter build to theirs or many other things. The attackers complaining to the devs couldn't take and you give an example of they needed more than 3 to take you out. So do we code to the average player or the good defenders?

Real question is, how much dumber do we want to make WvW? 

In what world are 3v1's normal? If OP is winning multiple 3v1s then for my money, the attackers shouldn't even be able to penetrate the tower.  Rewarding repeatedly dying to 1 dude is a dangerous path, especially when they already have cele builds to put everyone on equal or greater footing.  With cele, you should never lose in numbers unless you are less skilled, and three times less skilled means something needs to give, or they will lower the bar so much that Drizzlewood is harder than WvW.  

I do realize the game is 12 years old and naturally probably have to set the bar lower to get players in, but too low benefits no one.  It is a big reason I no longer really actively play WvW as there is no reward for being good at roaming.  Not that there ever was, but now more than ever it is a colossal waste of time to defend literally anything.