The yak changes are too severe

[cannibalkitteh.8376]

We have all been on the losing side of a tiered EB keep or garri before, and if you play off-hours, population imbalance can make it a daily occurrence. In the past, a few hours was all it took to rebuild, incentivizing a team to pull together for backcap and defense. Now with the yak changes, we're looking at about 4.5 hours to tier a garri and 8+ hours to tier an EB keep. This has the double effect of punishing the weaker team for 1/3 of the day, often allowing multiple caps with reduced numbers of enemies, but also disincentivizes them to make bold counterattacks while they are in a weaker position. The net effect is a "dead" map until the population imbalance shifts to your team's favor.

[MedievalThings.5417]

Just now, cannibalkitteh.8376 said:

We have all been on the losing side of a tiered EB keep or garri before, and if you play off-hours, population imbalance can make it a daily occurrence. In the past, a few hours was all it took to rebuild, incentivizing a team to pull together for backcap and defense. Now with the yak changes, we're looking at about 4.5 hours to tier a garri and 8+ hours to tier an EB keep. This has the double effect of punishing the weaker team for 1/3 of the day, often allowing multiple caps with reduced numbers of enemies, but also disincentivizes them to make bold counterattacks while they are in a weaker position. The net effect is a "dead" map until the population imbalance shifts to your team's favor.

Since the yak change my server averages having a waypoint in EB for 2-3 hours per day...total.  Since Anet hates people defending, and there is no point in defending a paper keep, it is doing exactly what Anet wants.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Yes, very annoying to call out t0 keeps to get 'it's paper', but it's literally the only thing it will ever be after the yak changes, as nothing ever tiers up.  

[Sheff.4851]

In the majority of the times that I've seen the yak changes discussed, it's in the context of being frustrated about the amount of time it takes to get a keep to tier 3 and unlock a waypoint, and not about supply shortages. Conceptually, I think the yak changes are interesting, because if yaks become more important it may encourage more smaller-scale combat of solo players fighting over yak escorts to ensure they reach their objective. But the difficulty in getting an objective to T3 outweighs that benefit for people, from what I've seen.

My question is -- if you left the yak spawn rate where it is, but instead moved keep waypoint to T2 instead of T3, would that make the yak changes a net positive overall for you and your playstyle? Or do the other downsides of the yak change (harder weeklies, less supply) outweigh the positives (better opportunities for small-scale fights, successful yak escorts become more important overall, incentivizing yak escorts as good gameplay).

[cannibalkitteh.8376]

10 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

My question is -- if you left the yak spawn rate where it is, but instead moved keep waypoint to T2 instead of T3, would that make the yak changes a net positive overall for you and your playstyle? Or do the other downsides of the yak change (harder weeklies, less supply) outweigh the positives (better opportunities for small-scale fights, successful yak escorts become more important overall, incentivizing yak escorts as good gameplay).

I think it would still be a negative, while the forward spawn point is nice, having a less secure objective overall makes it much easier for other teams to just flip it again and is a further disadvantage to a team that likely already has a population disparity. I haven't seen that the changes have made for better opportunities for small-scale fights, because people don't generally want to stand around a camp on the off chance someone is going to come by.

The previous cadence felt a lot better in that, while losing a tiered keep was impactful, it didn't spill much over the skirmish in terms of team momentum.

[Santo.2419]

10 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

In the majority of the times that I've seen the yak changes discussed, it's in the context of being frustrated about the amount of time it takes to get a keep to tier 3 and unlock a waypoint, and not about supply shortages. Conceptually, I think the yak changes are interesting, because if yaks become more important it may encourage more smaller-scale combat of solo players fighting over yak escorts to ensure they reach their objective. But the difficulty in getting an objective to T3 outweighs that benefit for people, from what I've seen.

I agree on the aim being the concept of scarcity and creating conflict on resources for like you said, small scale combat.

This WR has been a double edged sword. In my case I have probably liked it more than disliked it, but I came from SoS and it was heavily weighted in the OCX TZ and we’d dominate (I mean just by pop mostly) with sometimes good fights but got screwed over other TZ’s (depending on our link). So from a technical standpoint of populations and coverage, it’s better for me with more people playing at other times I randomly log in (except this last matchup has been strangely like my server setup with us winning basically on ocx activity to be in T1)

Anyhow, the thing I’m getting to is that even though I personally like WR for my own gameplay, I can definitely see how other may not and it comes down to that thing of team (what used to be server) pride. That’s what got people to care to tier and escort these yaks, maybe these people that tiered things up and escorted were a sub group and knew others that did it too and could pass the baton over knowing their work was not for naught.

I know, we’ve heard that all before many times by now. I just can’t help but think about what Anet is thinking when they make these yak changes, but I think it is like what you said. They want resources fought for and protected, but unfortunately WR seems to affect the prime motivator, which makes me wonder that perhaps it’s not a great change for a WR era WvW and anet needs to change their thinking to match player motivations in a faster paced WvW with no real “whole team” allegiance anymore. 
 

With WR they would do much better to incentivise guilds to get some form of notoriety or something of value to them for upgrading something over such large timeframes, as guilds really now are the only enduring social component to WvW, and it seems like even Anet is catching up to this in their own design.

[One more for the road.8950]

1 hour ago, Sheff.4851 said:

In the majority of the times that I've seen the yak changes discussed, it's in the context of being frustrated about the amount of time it takes to get a keep to tier 3 and unlock a waypoint, and not about supply shortages. Conceptually, I think the yak changes are interesting, because if yaks become more important it may encourage more smaller-scale combat of solo players fighting over yak escorts to ensure they reach their objective. But the difficulty in getting an objective to T3 outweighs that benefit for people, from what I've seen.

My question is -- if you left the yak spawn rate where it is, but instead moved keep waypoint to T2 instead of T3, would that make the yak changes a net positive overall for you and your playstyle? Or do the other downsides of the yak change (harder weeklies, less supply) outweigh the positives (better opportunities for small-scale fights, successful yak escorts become more important overall, incentivizing yak escorts as good gameplay).

It doesn't create more small scale combat tho, instead it seems nobody cares about the yaks any more.

[Sheff.4851]

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

It doesn't create more small scale combat tho, instead it seems nobody cares about the yaks any more.

Which is strange, because you'd think that if you want an objective to tier up faster, but yaks spawn less often, you'd want to make sure that as many yaks as possible are reaching their destination. Likewise, if you want to prevent an enemy's objective from tiering up, you'd want to kill as many of their yaks as possible. 

That's not a part of the game that I interface with very often, so I can't really speak to why that is, but it definitely seems like players should be running yaks and flipping camps more often if they're concerned with upgrade times.

[One more for the road.8950]

1 minute ago, Sheff.4851 said:

Which is strange, because you'd think that if you want an objective to tier up faster, but yaks spawn less often, you'd want to make sure that as many yaks as possible are reaching their destination. Likewise, if you want to prevent an enemy's objective from tiering up, you'd want to kill as many of their yaks as possible. 

That's not a part of the game that I interface with very often, so I can't really speak to why that is, but it definitely seems like players should be running yaks and flipping camps more often if they're concerned with upgrade times.

Probably because they know it's not gonna tier up in hours, it's not going to happen while they are still in the game, and some night bird will flip it anyway.

Who cares then.

[XenesisII.1540]

Less supply cap.

Less yaks.

Less supply flow.

Less upgrading.

Less waypoints.

Faster break ins.

Faster captures.

More double team and sneak captures.

Less guild claiming being done.

Less tactivators being inserted.

Nerfed wall repair.

Nerfed disabler.

Nerfed Invulnerable fortifications.

Lost server identity and server community.

We're suppose to care about defending because, why exactly?

Because points? which don't matter, and we're about to get carried by Victory point scaling?

Oh wait, I need to defend for my weekly achieves... for 10 times in a week.

😐☕

Edited December 1 by XenesisII.1540

[One more for the road.8950]

Just another nerf to defending.

Clearly we are not supposed to defend.

So, why defend.

[ArchonWing.9480]

It's designed by people that have never upgraded a keep in their lives.

Like, did someone look at this and decide "this is fun and I would total;ly do it"

It's more reasonable to assume that they would just rather you not even bother and somehow the calculations will work out in the end, or something.

[cannibalkitteh.8376]

15 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

Which is strange, because you'd think that if you want an objective to tier up faster, but yaks spawn less often, you'd want to make sure that as many yaks as possible are reaching their destination. Likewise, if you want to prevent an enemy's objective from tiering up, you'd want to kill as many of their yaks as possible. 

That's not a part of the game that I interface with very often, so I can't really speak to why that is, but it definitely seems like players should be running yaks and flipping camps more often if they're concerned with upgrade times.

What do you suppose the appropriate amount of people to languish in a camp is? Does that change if a higher priority objective is contested? At any given moment, there's 4 towers and multiple keeps that are going to take priority. Camps flip in about 20 seconds, and babysitting NPCs is mind-numbing boredom.

[Sheff.4851]

9 minutes ago, cannibalkitteh.8376 said:

What do you suppose the appropriate amount of people to languish in a camp is? Does that change if a higher priority objective is contested? At any given moment, there's 4 towers and multiple keeps that are going to take priority. Camps flip in about 20 seconds, and babysitting NPCs is mind-numbing boredom.

Since yaks take five minutes to respawn, I don't know that I'd languish in any one camp at all. Instead, I'd rotate through all of the camps that can send yaks to the objective that I'm working on defending, and alternate running yaks at each. So if I were running yaks to upgrade Bay, I'd be running back and forth between the southwest camp and northwest camp, flipping either if they're captured, and running yaks if they aren't. It takes about a minute to make that run, south camp to north camp. And sure, it changes if a higher priority objective is contested, but that decision making process is why WvW is interesting -- you're constantly deciding what to spend your time on, and what the most important objective on the map is.

Sometimes the best choice is not to run yaks, and defend a keep instead, and that's good. Sometimes the best choice is to run a yak or two in between attacks, and that's also good.

[Santo.2419]

They could do some fun stuff with WvW points to be able to either work towards personal or guild goals. 
 

They could allow the claimer of a camp to be able to install a one time waypoint only available to the guild that has claim.

Be able to upgrade camps with barricades and traps (things in pve already) from maybe mats resourced nearby. Not a huge difference but people like upgrading and building stuff if they can see and benefit from it 

I mean, these are pipe dreams and spitballing but if a guild could build up a camp it would give reasons to hangout at a camp and protect it and with say the wp, they can escort too. Maybe even to enough time and resources you can get it to a almost fort status.

I could imagine this creating skirmish hotspots, but also maybe some grief.

Anyhow, this is all a bit head in the clouds stuff, but it annoys me that with so much potential that they can’t shake the game up in fun ways

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

In the majority of the times that I've seen the yak changes discussed, it's in the context of being frustrated about the amount of time it takes to get a keep to tier 3 and unlock a waypoint, and not about supply shortages. Conceptually, I think the yak changes are interesting, because if yaks become more important it may encourage more smaller-scale combat of solo players fighting over yak escorts to ensure they reach their objective. But the difficulty in getting an objective to T3 outweighs that benefit for people, from what I've seen.

My question is -- if you left the yak spawn rate where it is, but instead moved keep waypoint to T2 instead of T3, would that make the yak changes a net positive overall for you and your playstyle? Or do the other downsides of the yak change (harder weeklies, less supply) outweigh the positives (better opportunities for small-scale fights, successful yak escorts become more important overall, incentivizing yak escorts as good gameplay).

One of my first thought on the matter was that this could encourage escorting yaks to ensure that they make it to the keep...

...and then I realized that even doing so for every yak would mean waiting until the next day before I could have a chance to see the result. So I don't bother.

[igmolicious.5986]

46 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

One of my first thought on the matter was that this could encourage escorting yaks to ensure that they make it to the keep...

...and then I realized that even doing so for every yak would mean waiting until the next day before I could have a chance to see the result. So I don't bother.

I think if escorting the yak gave it some sort of speed boost in addition to spawning a new one immediately (edit: maybe even if it wasn't immediate, but noticably shorter, it might incentivize doing this a little) upon arrival/despawn at the last objective on its route (only using the respawn timer if the yak dies before reaching that destination), it might encourage yakscorts a little more, though probably still not enough for people to do them outside of dire circumstances.

Edited November 30 by igmolicious.5986

[foxof.8752]

Yep, slowly decent into EOTN v2.0, firstly kill servers, then slow to tier objective.
The Final: more and more wvwer complaint about population that Anet cannot fixed, 2 hours team reset instead of monthly.

Edited November 30 by foxof.8752

[CafPow.1542]

6 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

My question is -- if you left the yak spawn rate where it is, but instead moved keep waypoint to T2 instead of T3, would that make the yak changes a net positive overall for you and your playstyle

Then ot wouldn’t mind so much for me honestly. The change would then neither be positive or negative for me personally. 
but since the change i never saw another waypoint in a keep.

[Bleikopf.2491]

So what, keep yak spawn rate but make each yak twice as impactful? 

Currently yaks are more rare but not more impactful than before. People don't bother. Would making them more impactful help? More supplies and less yaks needed for upgrades. Suddenly the stakes for each yak are higher. 

[CafPow.1542]

29 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Suddenly the stakes for each yak are higher. 

That could be a possibility to force a more important objective.

but!

see dollys are an objective that is more accessible for roamers. Concerning the design philosophy, dollys need the hp and hp-scaling of smc-lord. Sorry.

[loadi.4208]

I personally tend to like the yak changes, as it counters idle upgrading entire maps. E.g. in some matchups the desert map is not frequented by any player and all objectives get to T3 without active participation. So when joining the map after a while it's tough for smaller groups to flip something even though nobody put any effort into upgrading stuff.

In my opinion the best compromise would be to instantly respawn yaks that have been escorted by a player (for at least 50% of it's path). This would allow active servers to upgrade their objectives (even with a few players) while still countering idle upgrades.

[Noidea Incognito.9607]

It's not hard to imagine, Defense became a thorn in the eye's of the "favored ones".... but who knows what the real reasons are.... we never truly can know. 

My guess is they trying to nerf the Defensive PvE elements in favor of more offensive PvP carnage and faster AP achie clearance.

Aside if it has wrecked a balanced synergy of the past; i was one of those peeps that stayed in the background, not much of a fighter; but by escorting Dolyaks, maintaining/building siege to fortify key structures, monitoring enemy blob movement, i indirectly contributed to the cause..... alas; that's not gonna be a proper thing anymore.

Edited November 30 by Noidea Incognito.9607

[igmolicious.5986]

I think a few things that Anet may not have realized with this change, if they were trying to make it encourage conflict around yaks:

1. Yakscorts were already uncommon outside of daily/weekly tasks and guild missions, generally only happening when an objective was drained of supply but close to T2/T3, and tasks/guild missions were commonly skipped even before timer changes due to the required time investment.

2. Attacking yaks was done in an opportunistic manner, outside maybe weekly tasks -- very few people chase down a yak that isn't already close by outside of MAYBE finishing weeklies. This change does not provide any incitive for attackers to attack yaks, since respawn times are slow, attackers ignoring a yak does very little toward helping an objective tier up.

3. Yakscorts are slow (outside of yaks buffed with speedy yaks, and even slower with packed yaks) on top of forcing you to travel through very open, visible areas. Since yakscorts are generally done by solo or (very) small groups, and not larger groups, like zergs, this leaves you very vulnerable to large enemy groups moving between objectives.

I think if Anet wants to encourage conflict around yaks, the risk needs to reflect the reward, whether that be through faster yak respawns on completed routes, bonus supply/upgrade points to objectives from yaks that are escorted for a certain distance, or maybe even something like a temporary supply capacity increase for people who escort yaks for a certain distance. I still also think that yaks should speed up when escorted (maybe granting swiftness as an "aura" around the yak when the invuln shield goes up, to speed up the yak and those escorting it) to help mitigate the already painfully long time it takes to complete a yak route.

Edited November 30 by igmolicious.5986

[RisingDawn.5796]

It looks like people are generally not urgently defending camps, even on a queued EBG, so it's awfully slow to upgrade your own keep on there as it is.

I mean look at the average EBG roamer/clouder stats on gwmists, hours on there: https://ibb.co/CJBG4np 😅

Edited December 1 by RisingDawn.5796