Stop Punishing Defenders

[Handin.4032]

I'd argue the biggest problem with defending has less to do with defense mechanics, although walls should be looked out: ranged skills should go both ways and they currently can't, and more to do with population problems and imbalances. With the walls, they just need to make it so if a Scourge can stand below and hit the wall, someone should be able to stand on the wall (NOT THE EDGE) and hit the scourge back. Single-target pulls are too easy to come by for most people to risk standing on the edge to get off 1 attack.

The main problem I think is just population. In times past, many servers had the population to be able to attack and defend at once quite easily. Now, many matches tend to have a lot of population problems, in just overall numbers and different time scales. The only way for anet to realistically save WvW, and defenders, is to increase the population over long timescales. However, it doesn't seem like they honestly care to do that.

[hunkamania.7561]

best way to defend is fighting and if numbers are a problem that's a population balance issue that needs to be looked at but sitting in a tower pressing 1 on a AC Shouldn't get you anywhere. Guild wars 2 wvw should showcase the epic zerg combat guild wars has not sitting in the tower with siege.

[rng.1024]

The best way to deal with siege in my opinon is to:

• Fixed siege placement inside a structure (with more and more buildsites as it upgrades, still needs to be built)
• Doors now take 0 damage from players (after Warclaw pull addition)
• Catas cannot be placed very near a structure, only rams
• Reduced siege limit of 5, only applying to placeable siege now
• Arrowcarts and trebs are no longer placeable
• Despawn timer reduced to 5 min on placed siege
• Guild siege supply cap reduced to 25
• Shield generator turned into a trick, meaning everyone can equip one and perform most of it's functions while mobile at the cost of supply on usage, skills would need rebalancing
• Remove Invulnerable Fortification from structures and add the functionality to camps instead
• Allow balliste to go through any siege shielding effect

This is to get attackers eithera) Away from a structure, forcing defenders out to deal with themb) Up close, in a more defendable position

If you are a defendera) You need to exit the structure to countersiegeb) You will need to make sure siege is up in case of an attack

If you are a pug with shield trick

• You must now use your supply and coordinate with fellow players to protect your siege

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@rng.1024 said:

• Remove Invulnerable Fortification from structures and add the functionality to camps instead

With you on everything but that because I simply have no idea how you intend to make non-existent walls and doors Invulnerable?

[Dawdler.8521]

@oOStaticOo.9467 said:Which is why I am a firm believer in the fact that NOBODY should be able to hit another Tower or Keep from any Tower or Keep.Then you're against one of the core principles of WvW and the reason ABL is a good border and DBL is a broken border. Keeps and towers threaten each other, thats why they need to be attacked or defended. Its literally what makes WvW.

[random.9803]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:There are lots of tools to slow down a larger force. That's why T3 objectives are often avoided unless the offending server(s) are confident in their ability or certain they heavily outnumber their opponents.

Siege is not supposed to stop a zerg, though it is capable of doing so with enough players using the siege and having it properly placed. It is supposed to delay a zerg until either they're overwhelmed from losing players to the pressure of that defensive siege (as well as roamers, AOE's from walls and other sources of damage) or until an allied zerg strong enough to stop them shows up.

Defensive upgrades have seen a variety of improvements over the years while offensive options have seen far less. The only reason it appears that defensive options are few is because the overall activity of WvW has declined which means there are more times in a day where people will experience heavily outnumbered fights. Not just fights where they can't rally enough people to defend, but fights where the map total of players currently online are >10. In those kinds of scenarios, you really can't expect to do much other than making it as much of a chore as possible for the enemy zergs to get anything accomplished. The end game will always be losing what ever you're defending when you're that outnumbered and that's how it should be. Otherwise what would be the point in trying to attack anything when half a dozen players can huddle up in an objective and be effectively untouchable.

In my opinion, defense is too strong. The only thing capable of taking upgraded and defended objectives are full sized (30+) zergs. The problem isn't that defense is weak, it's that players think building a dozen AC's should stop anything. A properly sieged objective is incredibly difficult to take, mind you specific towers are more difficult to do this with than others. But towers like Langor or Jerrifer's in EBG for example can be sieged in such a way that every angle can covered. The only way to take them when the enemy server has enough players to defend it is to try to ninja rush it and get inside before anyone can respond. Which means needing to build like 6 rams or catas.

Defence too strong a rather strange view ,stay out of range and problem solved ,why should defence be nerfed an appropriate explanation should be forthcoming from the company as to why they feel the need to cripple the game even furtherHmm that is the norm these days even for a paper objective 6 rams at gate or catas at the wall 50 blob and the complaints they getting ac'd and cannot attack in peace I mean oh my gosh forbid that a tactical view should have to be applied to the game , it is a case of pandering to the ones who complain the most about seiege ,by the same token if they nerf defensive the equitable thing would be to nerf the attacking aoe the range of which is ludicrous the t1 servers do not seem to complain about the attacking thing. The whole game really needs an overhaul. LEave the defence as is and just adapt the attack as defenders have to adapt to defence.

[random.9803]

@hunkamania.7561 said:best way to defend is fighting and if numbers are a problem that's a population balance issue that needs to be looked at but sitting in a tower pressing 1 on a AC Shouldn't get you anywhere. Guild wars 2 wvw should showcase the epic zerg combat guild wars has not sitting in the tower with siege.

Valid point but to complain about seige when the centre castle is nearly always seiged to the hilt even for t1 servers ,who on the most part will not leave structures until the numbers are in their favour ,and we all know the game will never reach the stage of balance as in skills or numbers per server at any given time .

[rng.1024]

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@"rng.1024" said:

• Remove
  Invulnerable Fortification
  from structures and add the functionality
  to camps
  instead

With you on everything but that because I simply have no idea how you intend to make non-existent walls and doors Invulnerable?

Oh yeah, just pictured something delaying the cap (instead of putting a golem there) with maybe 30 seconds which ought to be enough, essentially giving the camp supervisor 30 extra seconds of RI f.ex.

This allows counterplay by setting traps near and killing players before they reach tactivators, while giving your team 30 seconds more response time to come and save it. Should however only be a thing for t3 camps. This encourages fast and sneaky camp flips before defenders arive and preferably before they are fully upgraded, and might just save it if you can get more allies there in time as a lone defender.

I would love to see camps worthy of defending alot more throughout the week instead of just at reset night, which hopefully they would be after these changes. I also want to see more skirmishes over them.

There's alot of changes to dolyaks I ended up not including as it's not siege, but things like speedy/packed being part of the automatic upgrade and dolyaks taking actual supply from a camp upon spawning, bringing back a slightly bigger amount while giving a uniform amount of guaranteed supply to whoever kills it - this is in order to starve out camp supply and make dolyaks returning from keep more valuable to intercept. As long as the dolyaks don't get attacked and you own the keeps, the camp will be resupplied after a while because of th +5 they bring back everytime.

Tbh supply is an entirely different matter. Right now it's a little too accessible. Instead of simply porting to a different keep to supply your zerg, you should be encouraged to:a) Use your WXP to upgrade your personal supply limitb) Capture camps and towers for a minor amount of supply (same as now)c) Actively use supply drop tactics (if keep supply gets capped at 800, the current amount can be doubled to 200 and recharge time increased to 30 minutesd) Intercepting dolyaks (what I mentioned earlier it should be more worthwhile, let's say all who hit it get 1 supply if it's heading to a keep and 2 if it's heading back to camp

Being starved on supplies should be ongoing issue for attackers, which is why structures need ways to regenerate some in order to be defendable. Making supply a "rare" resource increases the value of supply traps (which should cost 1 supply to place and given friendly stealth - like camoflauge just to be visible to the enemy yet harder to spot, whilst best used in chokepoints anyways). More importantly we need the silverwastes ability of donating supply to a structure allowing us to flush it with supply on demand if it's a higher priority tower/keep (moving supply from healthy keep to starved tower f.ex if you know it will be attacked soon - another role for roamers).

There needs to be a finite pool of supply on each and every map, regenerating slightly slower than it's being used. Choosing where to spend your supply should have a meaningful impact, and it needs to become more of a shareable resource than it is today (only personal). Capturing and holding camps ought to be a necessity in order to have enough supply to build siege for towers and keeps, while at the same time a necessity in order to defend your own. What I want is not being able to do both at the same time with leftover supply.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

Cannons and oil pot are utter useless garbage anyway, let take everything else down a notch too.Oh yes and lets turn WvW into dungeon speedruns.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

My biggest gripe while defending from a wall is when a group of scourges literally cut of the whole top edge of the side their attacking while they bust the gate. They control the offence as they do with zerg battles. The profound impact of that one spec in wvw is incredible, so much so the mode would play out significantly different if they were changed in a way to remove the aoe spam.its also crazy arenanet hadn't done so.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:My biggest gripe while defending from a wall is when a group of scourges literally cut of the whole top edge of the side their attacking while the bust the gate. The control the offence as they do with zerg battles. The profound impact of that one spec in wvw is incredible, so much so the mode would play out significantly different if they were changed in a way to remove the aoe spam.its also crazy arenanet hadn't done so.

Agree 100%. I don't know how they can look at that and think it's healthy.

Instead of increasing the size of the sand shades, that GM trait should have increased the max count, similar to how FB gets more pages.

On related topic, FB should not be able to keep virtue passive while on cooldown. That just adds to the shenanigans.

[coro.3176]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:There are lots of tools to slow down a larger force. That's why T3 objectives are often avoided unless the offending server(s) are confident in their ability or certain they heavily outnumber their opponents.

Siege is not supposed to stop a zerg, though it is capable of doing so with enough players using the siege and having it properly placed. It is supposed to delay a zerg until either they're overwhelmed from losing players to the pressure of that defensive siege (as well as roamers, AOE's from walls and other sources of damage) or until an allied zerg strong enough to stop them shows up.

Exactly. Siege should never stop an attacking force - even a small attacking force. Only PvP combat should do that. I'm not saying there needs to be uncounterable cata spots on every objective, but it would be very helpful if there were uncounterable treb spots. This is costly and slow from an attacker's perspective, but it should eventually work.

The defenders should not be able to sit in their tower/keep and defend indefinitely by cycling shield bubbles. If the attackers are trebbing, it should eventually either take down the wall or force an open-field fight where the defenders run out to fight the attackers over their trebs or deploy counter-siege in open field so that the attackers have to run up and fight them instead.

[ArchonWing.9480]

No, it's fine. Proper Borderland defending is not just about hiding in a keep and pretending to be useful. That should never be rewarded. It's also about backcapping , denying supply, and the last is what a lot of people miss-- pressuring the enemy borderlands by occasionally damaging undefended walls/gates of structures and papering the occasional upgraded structure.

Properly havoc play is already rewarded. Though I would say the act of killing players seems to give so little participation. Now that should be changed. I think mounts still need an extra nerf as that has also led to issues.

Simply put, literally every borderland defender I know has zero trouble keeping up partcipation. And from experience, it's certainly better than running with an incompetent commander too.

Case in point, last night my server took most of one server's entire borderland and then EB. Yet that server was able to keep up their score by simply going to another borderland and taking undefended stuff while backcapping their own. They most likely did not have over 10 people. OTOH, when my server is being faced with the exact same circumstances, they just run outside EB spawn nonstop to get spawn camped, thus accomplishing little with more numbers. How can 10 people accomplish that much more than 20 and most likely have full participation while the later group has none? It's just about playing smart and yes I understand that's a foreign concept in this game, but still, it gets results.

Tl;dr Stop worshiping t3 structures. You're literally killing the game.EDIT: I just realized I taught people how to PPT. #Feelsbadman

[maxwelgm.4315]

Passive playstyles will never be supported by a proper developer. There is a good reason why it's always best to force the enemy zerg to compromise by taking your own zerg to their important keeps or breaking their supply chain, etc. Anet doesn't want players locked inside feeling safe behind siege. Finally it's easier by default to defend, to the point that it shouldn't really be rewarded equally as well. K-training is a side symptom of promoting active playstyles, due to the way rewards work - perhaps the rewards are what could change, but that's beyond this topic.

[coro.3176]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@oOStaticOo.9467 said:Which is why I am a firm believer in the fact that NOBODY should be able to hit another Tower or Keep from any Tower or Keep.Then you're against one of the core principles of WvW and the reason ABL is a good border and DBL is a broken border. Keeps and towers threaten each other, thats why they need to be attacked or defended. Its literally what makes WvW.

Is it? I think it's totally fine if the objectives are spaced far apart and can't hit each other.

It might not be well known, but there are safe treb spots on both desert side keeps that hit outer and a semi-safe treb spot on garrison/rampart that hits both inner and outer. I don't see any problem with this treb spot not being inside another walled objective. In fact, being outside of walls encourages the defenders to come out and attempt to destroy the trebs with player combat rather than counter-siege. That's good!

Treb spots:

• East Keep/Air Keep: Southeast camp between the tactivators and the center of the camp. Built a treb and point slightly to the right of the beetle plateau. Full power shot. You can also build trebs farther west near the wooden path leading down to the sentry, but will need to adjust the angle a bit and might need less than full power depending on how far forward you put it. These spots cannot be counter-sieged from within the keep.
• West Keep/Fire Keep: Southwest camp about 1 treb blueprint size forward of the supply pile. Aim over the pointy rock by the path leading down to fire keep. Full power shot. This is a more narrow window, so you might need someone to spot it to get the shot right - cannot be counter-sieged from within the keep.
• Garrison/Earth Keep: North camp, second floor behind the supply pile at the edge of the platform and slightly west around the corner. This hits the west inner wall at full power and the outer wall if you turn and adjust power, but it is a trickier shot. This can be counter-sieged from within the keep, but it's a tough shot and you can hit their counter-cata unless they position it well.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@maxwelgm.4315 said:Passive playstyles will never be supported by a proper developer.

Yea, I think that's a key point. If passive playstyles were encouraged or even made optimal, the game would devolve into staring contests where nobody takes initiative, and are in fact punished for doing so. You simply cannot have quality gameplay from that.

It already happens to a degree in the game already; any more incentive is just going to make it worse.

[Shroud.2307]

@ArchonWing.9480 said:No, it's fine. Proper Borderland defending is not just about hiding in a keep and pretending to be useful. That should never be rewarded. It's also about backcapping , denying supply, and the last is what a lot of people miss-- pressuring the enemy borderlands by occasionally damaging undefended walls/gates of structures and papering the occasional upgraded structure.

Properly havoc play is already rewarded. Though I would say the act of killing players seems to give so little participation. Now that should be changed. I think mounts still need an extra nerf as that has also led to issues.

Simply put, literally every borderland defender I know has zero trouble keeping up partcipation. And from experience, it's certainly better than running with an incompetent commander too.

Case in point, last night my server took most of one server's entire borderland and then EB. Yet that server was able to keep up their score by simply going to another borderland and taking undefended stuff while backcapping their own. They most likely did not have over 10 people. OTOH, when my server is being faced with the exact same circumstances, they just run outside EB spawn nonstop to get spawn camped, thus accomplishing little with more numbers. How can 10 people accomplish that much more than 20 and most likely have full participation while the later group has none? It's just about playing smart and yes I understand that's a foreign concept in this game, but still, it gets results.

Tl;dr Stop worshiping t3 structures. You're literally killing the game.EDIT: I just realized I taught people how to PPT. #Feelsbadman

Agreed and well put. Unfortunately, players like that are becoming less and less common thanks largely in part to the passive effects of Tactics.

Best thing you can do is to be vocal about your movement. When I do what you're describing (which is how the vast majority of my time in WvW has been spent, although typically more so in EBG rather than the BL's) I'll constantly be relaying info like wall/gate percentages, upgrade progress, guild/zerg locations and what my next goal is such as making another attempt at opening SMC from an unprotected wall or killing siege from reachable locations inside keeps, etc. Although there are times I'm just ignored, most times people will actually join me or start echoing back to me what they see/are doing. I think if more people did this we might have a larger community of active defenders.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:There is very little tools, nerfed and otherwise, that defenders have to slow down a larger force. On top of that defending and gearing up a structure just leads toward people losing contribution to do these actions. Be that siege, repairing, escorting yaks. The idea of squad contribution really doesn't cover this and is at best a token gesture. Outnumbered is great but only if you are attacking versus trying to defend. So everything we have just leads to K-training. We need a better balance on attacking and defending.

Matey, i've been saying that defence is broken since 2012, and that's when you could still defend most blobs with just cannons from upgrades (cause people didn't know how to exploit aoe rings yet, and the groups weren't 500 people).So yeah, good luck getting that fixed 7 years later!

[Trinnitty.8256]

@Balsa.3951 said:The true punishment for defending is now that it’s not rewarding at all. U barely get anything for defending. It’s almost u hurt ur self when u defend since u could just let enemies take the tower so u can recap it after that

Yes but defending is on a timer that gives you a little bit of rewards and participation upkeep. If attackers fail for an hour no rewards for that hour. Both sides have potential for bags.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Well, based on the recent update, Anet feels the opposite of the OP.

Gates and walls have had their damage mitigation normalized to the damage levels done to tier 1 (wood). All walls and gates should now take the same amount of damage from a siege attack.

[Gop.8713]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:Well, based on the recent update, Anet feels the opposite of the OP.

Gates and walls have had their damage mitigation normalized to the damage levels done to tier 1 (wood). All walls and gates should now take the same amount of damage from a siege attack.

lulz. Yeah, good for the ktrainers bad for defenders. Also scouts, roamers and solo players in general . . .

But I don't think any of that was the point. I think the idea there is to balance the effects of coverage a little bit. Servers that liked to tier things up offpeak and then turtle during primetime will be the most affected . . .

[hunkamania.7561]

What are defenders even defending? Winning means nothing. Is there hidden treasure in there that I didn't find yet?

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@ArchonWing.9480 said:EDIT: I just realized I taught people how to PPT. #Feelsbadman

im taking notes.

[Elementalist Owner.7802]

Look at vanilla WvW, there were no shield gens, no structural integrity, no hardened gates, no tactivators, and the game was much more enjoyable. It actually took skill to defend objectives.

"We need a better balance on attacking and defending."I agree. All the defensive mechanics they added need to be toned down.

[sephiroth.4217]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@oOStaticOo.9467 said:Which is why I am a firm believer in the fact that NOBODY should be able to hit another Tower or Keep from any Tower or Keep.Then you're against one of the core principles of WvW and the reason ABL is a good border and DBL is a broken border. Keeps and towers threaten each other, thats why they need to be attacked or defended. Its literally what makes WvW.

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