It's time to restore Manual Upgrades for structures in WvW.

[b k.1648]

They already got weakened. I don't see the problem here.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@"Ben K.6238" said:That's just going to result in paper structures everywhere, particularly during my timezone.

Which follows what some people on the forums want, right? They say t3 is too hard and want no gates and walls weakened because it takes too long.

Well, most people are like "please cater to only the time I play and screw what happens elsewhere".

Not gonna lie; I do that too sometimes.

[joneirikb.7506]

Okie, unpopular opinion go!

I think that they should do a hybrid, which is very simple to make. Just make it so that dolyaks doesn't start on their own, a player must be present in a camp to spawn a dolyak. There you have instant manual interaction with upgrades, if you want to upgrade a tower, you need to manually move through the camps to activate dolyaks so it will upgrade. This will also let you scout and be more active at the same time, heck even let you escort dolyaks for increasing their speed!

This has several advantages:

• It requires player interaction to upgrade
• It requires/encourages players to also scout, and not just sit in tower
• Encourages stronger on taking out dolyaks to stop upgrades, and camps/scouts
• Encourages more players to move around the map, thus increasing situations for PVP
• Still doesn't flush players money down the drain

---

If you specifically miss the branching options for picking upgrades (that usually had a set "best" path for most situations, thus mostly false choices), I'd rather tell ANet to look at the claim/tactics system, and re-work them into something else.

Say that Tactics instead of being activate-able, was a passive buff, that changed to objective in some ways, like the old old upgrade paths for example. Like more guards, higher level guards etc, but not as strong as the current tactics.

Make this something that can be changed, at no cost, but takes X time. That way much less trolling as well. But it would serve as a way to customize how you wanted a objective to be defended etc, say you got 3 slots, and have to pick from 10 choices what to put in there.

[blp.3489]

heck even let you escort dolyaks for increasing their speed!Having the dolyaks match the speed of the player when escorted would make escorting them less painful than having to match their speed, and would make escorting more rewarding. Having the warclaw speed buff apply to dolyaks would be really excellent.

[joneirikb.7506]

@"blp.3489" said:

heck even let you escort dolyaks for increasing their speed!Having the dolyaks match the speed of the player when escorted would make escorting them less painful than having to match their speed, and would make escorting more rewarding. Having the warclaw speed buff apply to dolyaks would be really excellent.

Good points.

Bit uncertain just how fast a dolyak should be, considering how variable player speed can be though, guess it might be too much to ask for ANet to change it to "catch up" if you're in front of it, and within the event circle. So you could effectively "tow" it.

Mount is a good idea, that would also set it's speed (max), and also make babying dolyaks less tedious, since you'd need to babysit a lot of them with this kind of system.

(Now I have the mental image of that Asura guard following the yak standing out of breath cursing you for forcing him to move his legs at hummingbird speed to keep up)

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Yuffi.2430 said:Can't remember - does Auto-upgrade of a structure use up supply? If not then manual upgrade shouldn't either.I know I'm biased but it seems like enough people would be happy to see manual upgrades return - even if it is simply to require a player to confirm the upgrade with the keep Lord (or whoever).

29 replies out of 578 views is your basis for enough? Um, no. I know I was bad at statistics but, well no. Still not seeing a consistent reason why having someone go and do an extra click adds any value in the game play. if it's about auto-upgrades, all this would do is mean the side with more coverage would still be auto-upgrading overnight. We saw that in the past before the auto-upgrades.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:Manual upgrades return, cost badges instead of coins. Guild owned objectives only upgradeable by guild members, with a toggle just like tactivators.

Also possibly make badges community donated like bank/tp upgrades in silverwastes.

We did this in the past and it lead to dual spy accounts and trolling.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@joneirikb.7506 said:Okie, unpopular opinion go!

I think that they should do a hybrid, which is very simple to make. Just make it so that dolyaks doesn't start on their own, a player must be present in a camp to spawn a dolyak. There you have instant manual interaction with upgrades, if you want to upgrade a tower, you need to manually move through the camps to activate dolyaks so it will upgrade. This will also let you scout and be more active at the same time, heck even let you escort dolyaks for increasing their speed!

This has several advantages:

• It requires player interaction to upgrade
• It requires/encourages players to also scout, and not just sit in tower
• Encourages stronger on taking out dolyaks to stop upgrades, and camps/scouts
• Encourages more players to move around the map, thus increasing situations for PVP
• Still doesn't flush players money down the drain

---

You could go with this or a hybrid where there is a normal yak creation rate that could be augmented by the players doing some activity. There was talk of this and player-runnable supply in the past but the thought was people would always assume someone else was doing that because they were in the zerg and unless the driver went there they were to stay on tag. And it would always favor the side with coverage/numbers.

@joneirikb.7506 said:If you specifically miss the branching options for picking upgrades (that usually had a set "best" path for most situations, thus mostly false choices), I'd rather tell ANet to look at the claim/tactics system, and re-work them into something else.

Agree don't miss the old arguments of what order something was to be done in.

@joneirikb.7506 said:Say that Tactics instead of being activate-able, was a passive buff, that changed to objective in some ways, like the old old upgrade paths for example. Like more guards, higher level guards etc, but not as strong as the current tactics.

Having other ways that individuals, outside of building siege, could aid in adding defenses would not be a miss and might hit that niche that defenders liked to do. Example, maybe going back to above, spend your supply to spawn more guards or blockaides, add sentry/detection points that have a life timer like siege that need to be refreshed or they despawn. To prevent anti-trolling though that supply would have to come from a camp outside of the objective else troll accounts would just use it to empty a structure.

Again wasn't for the autos in the day but they did address a number of issues and wouldn't want to go back. But there are other ways that could keep positives but still making defending more active.

[Strider.7849]

I have to respectfully disagree. I'm on a server that was VERY stingy in terms of manually upgrading towers, etc. There was no point to ever defending because everything was always paper. Auto upgrades are amazing.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

We did this in the past and it lead to dual spy accounts and trolling.

Dual accounts and trolling still exists in the present, and will likely exist in the future no matter what system is in place, right? Did you have anything insightful you would wish to add?

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

We did this in the past and it lead to dual spy accounts and trolling.

Dual accounts and trolling still exists in the present, and will likely exist in the future no matter what system is in place, right? Did you have anything insightful you would wish to add?

Yes, it was worse when only a guild could apply upgrades. I guess you don't remember playing thru that or had a different experience but in T1 it was bad.

[Yuffi.2430]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:29 replies out of 578 views is your basis for enough? Um, no. I know I was bad at statistics but, well no. Still not seeing a consistent reason why having someone go and do an extra click adds any value in the game play. if it's about auto-upgrades, all this would do is mean the side with more coverage would still be auto-upgrading overnight. We saw that in the past before the auto-upgrades.

I based my statement on the content of the replies not the number of views. You can't say whether the 578 views agreed or disagreed, all you can say is that many players didn't comment.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

Yes, it was worse when only a guild could apply upgrades. I guess you don't remember playing thru that or had a different experience but in T1 it was bad.

I remember playing through that but hot was new and those upgrades cost lots of flax fibers, resonating slivers, which were super rare and VERY VERY expensive at the time, compared to now where they are dirt cheap. Sadly we are not talking about guild claim upgrades, we are talking about standard structure upgrades.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Yuffi.2430 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:29 replies out of 578 views is your basis for enough? Um, no. I know I was bad at statistics but, well no. Still not seeing a consistent reason why having someone go and do an extra click adds any value in the game play. if it's about auto-upgrades, all this would do is mean the side with more coverage would still be auto-upgrading overnight. We saw that in the past before the auto-upgrades.

I based my statement on the content of the replies not the number of views. You can't say whether the 578 views agreed or disagreed, all you can say is that many players didn't comment.

When you made your comment there were a net 2 players for it. Now we can use the same metrics and use Anet's banner if you like. +2 players for it out of 11 MILLION. Stat's can easily be abused. No this sampling is way too small, its fine to propose but please don't assume.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

Yes, it was worse when only a guild could apply upgrades. I guess you don't remember playing thru that or had a different experience but in T1 it was bad.

I remember playing through that but hot was new and those upgrades cost lots of flax fibers, resonating slivers, which were super rare and VERY VERY expensive at the time, compared to now where they are dirt cheap. Sadly we are not talking about guild claim upgrades, we are talking about standard structure upgrades.

This was before HoT. Stop for a second. Under your option, only a claiming guild can upgrade. I am in a tiny guild that has a small number of active WvW players. We get the option to claim quite often for however the game mechanics work. Again, a havoc guild at best. Now take one of these small or mid-sized guilds. If they have 2-6 members all with alt accounts on enemy servers its super easy for them to claim and then they never upgrade. Is that really what you want? Allowing other people to upgrade while leaving the claiming guild a way to over-apply another upgrade prevents that non-apply troll options even if they apply a sub-optimal option. At least it still has some upgrades versus none. Plus they didn't have the options during auto-upgrades to do more sabotage along the way since some were built into the tiers. Which is what we saw pre-HoT days. People burning supply adding in upgrades that did not aid the defense of an objective. No going back is not a good idea. Again, adding more individual player upgrade options is not a bad idea, but a full rollback, terrible.

[Yuffi.2430]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:When you made your comment there were a net 2 players for it. Now we can use the same metrics and use Anet's banner if you like. +2 players for it out of 11 MILLION. Stat's can easily be abused. No this sampling is way too small, its fine to propose but please don't assume.

I get the fact that you have a strong opinion on this, and that you disagree with manual upgrades. I don't have a problem with that. However you seem to be worried that for some reason ANET will listen to my opinion and will restore manual upgrades based on a single thread with 28 replies. I'm a lot less worried about this than you seem to be!

The intention of this post was to present what I know is a minority view, but feel is worthy of discussion. I know it's a minority view because there are far fewer players who are prepared to stay around to make manual upgrades happen: most players just want to blob and k-train. I believe manual upgrades are worth discussing because auto upgrades are a passive defence - and like many other players I believe WvW should be about more active play.

I understand why auto upgrades were introduced, but I also know the game has moved on since then which makes it worth a second look. Auto or manual upgrading makes no difference to blobs, but it could make a big difference to smaller groups and off peak players. It is really demoralising to log on at a quiet time and see all T3 structures that you know you can't take. It's unpleasant but perhaps excusable if this is because there are so many players on the other side that they have held and upgraded everything (I've seen both sides of 600 tick matches) but when this situation occurs because no-one was playing - that's wrong in my opinion.

Therefore I am still convinced that WvW structures should not reach T3 without some form of PLAYER intervention, and I'm not the only player who feels this way.

[Svarty.8019]

@"Yuffi.2430" said:Reasons:

• Auto upgrades is too easy and requires no investment - just a lack of players on the other servers.
• Rewards and loot have got better and there are more players with more currency - we can afford manual upgrades now.
• It will promote fights - if a structure upgrades you know there's someone there (who is likely to call for defensive help)
• Encourages a few more players - there is a type of player who will happily sit in structures and keep watch and upgrade them. You don't have to do this if you don't want, but they will. It's ok to let them do their thing.
• Server linking means wild population imbalances are much less likely, so upgrades should be matched to activity not the default "nothing happening".

I was with you until you said "we can afford manual upgrades now".

Objectives flip in the blink of an eye these days thanks to whining about arrow carts and last year's T2 & T3 Wall nerf.

While it's unlikely that a small group can flip a high-tier objective, you often get giant zergs trying to ninja stuff before defenders arrive. Sure, that's fine and everything, but it's crappy that there's no fighting - that's what we all want, but "dominant sides always win", so you end up with the others trying to be sneaky (if they even bother to attack at all) as an alternative to facing them.

There should be better ways to make crap/small teams competitive with the big lardy zergs. I don't see this happening but it's WvW's biggest, oldest problem.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

Yes, it was worse when only a guild could apply upgrades. I guess you don't remember playing thru that or had a different experience but in T1 it was bad.

I remember playing through that but hot was new and those upgrades cost lots of flax fibers, resonating slivers, which were super rare and VERY VERY expensive at the time, compared to now where they are dirt cheap. Sadly we are not talking about guild claim upgrades, we are talking about standard structure upgrades.

This was before HoT. Stop for a second. Under your option, only a claiming guild can upgrade. I am in a tiny guild that has a small number of active WvW players. We get the option to claim quite often for however the game mechanics work. Again, a havoc guild at best. Now take one of these small or mid-sized guilds. If they have 2-6 members all with alt accounts on enemy servers its super easy for them to claim and then they never upgrade. Is that really what you want?

So you expect that the best way to defend your home server is to play for an enemy server, capping objectives, claiming, locking upgrades to the claim, and not upgrading? If playing for the other server is better for your server, then your logic seems off somewhere and this behavior would not be normal.I also am in a havoc guild that plays 3 nights a week for 2.5-3 hours. Auto upgrading is super slow compared to the old system, and while we try to upgrade and defend anything we take, we usually only get keeps and towers to t1, t12 if we are lucky or the dominant server in the match(boring). These structures always fall once or more (to that map's home server) during our run and only the first cap has the ability and chance to upgrade.The old system allowed more intelligent upgrades and encouraged smarter use of supply, the wvw only mechanic for the mode. There are advantages to both systems and neither one is perfect, I prefer the one that has more individuals learning to play smarter with upgrades and supply than ignoring it all to follow the zerg.

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

@Yuffi.2430 said:It is really demoralising to log on at a quiet time and see all T3 structures that you know you can't take. It's unpleasant but perhaps excusable if this is because there are so many players on the other side that they have held and upgraded everything (I've seen both sides of 600 tick matches) but when this situation occurs because no-one was playing - that's wrong in my opinion.

Therefore I am still convinced that WvW structures should not reach T3 without some form of PLAYER intervention, and I'm not the only player who feels this way.

This is one of the worst parts of auto upgrading right here

[Sviel.7493]

If you log on and the enemy has a full T3 map, that's (in a theoretical balanced match) because they worked for it or your server-mates didn't decide to contest the upgrades. In an unbalanced match, there's no real difference between them having to manually upgrade it all to T3 or not--it'd have been there anyway unless people just found it too annoying to play the game. The only time auto-upgrades become an issue is if there is absolutely no one playing on any server...which should never happen.

@Yuffi.2430 said:It is really demoralising to log on at a quiet time and see all T3 structures that you know you can't take. It's unpleasant but perhaps excusable if this is because there are so many players on the other side that they have held and upgraded everything (I've seen both sides of 600 tick matches) but when this situation occurs because no-one was playing - that's wrong in my opinion.

If it's a quiet time, you can still take those T3 structures. The only difference between a T3 and a T1 is a couple minutes of siege time. It may be harder to ninja them, so you may have to interact with the opposing server a bit, but it's definitely possible to do.

It only approaches impossible if you're also outnumbered. In that case, you'll have to hit objectives more than once to soften them up. This is, again, getting into more of a population issue.

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:I also am in a havoc guild that plays 3 nights a week for 2.5-3 hours. Auto upgrading is super slow compared to the old system, and while we try to upgrade and defend anything we take, we usually only get keeps and towers to t1, t12 if we are lucky or the dominant server in the match(boring). These structures always fall once or more (to that map's home server) during our run and only the first cap has the ability and chance to upgrade.The old system allowed more intelligent upgrades and encouraged smarter use of supply, the wvw only mechanic for the mode. There are advantages to both systems and neither one is perfect, I prefer the one that has more individuals learning to play smarter with upgrades and supply than ignoring it all to follow the zerg.

Do you perhaps have the numbers on how long the old upgrades took? A difference in upgrade time is a big deal, so I'd love to compare the current numbers to the old numbers. However, finding info on the old upgrade system isn't easy these days.

Also, when you saw the new upgrades are slower, are you already taking Yak upgrades into account?

[ArlAlt.1630]

I still vividly remember the days of having to decide, whether to pay my repair bill or order upgrades at the camp. :lol:

[Sviel.7493]

I'm trawling through the old forums looking for info on the old upgrade system. Here are some things people were saying about it before there was any change on the horizon. I think this is all 2014 or older, but I wasn't checking dates before I decided to do this side project.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-not-welcoming-to-low-level-characters/page/1#post4013618Do not purchase siege and upgrades if you’re strapped for cash, you’ll thank me later. You’ll end up leashing yourself to structures to make sure they don’t flip or siege doesn’t despawn while everybody else is having fun fighting.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/why-defense-does-not-workDefense siege costs a bunch …each wall..the door…the upgrades…all to be lost in a 5 minute attack.…you just dumped several gold into a garrison and you’ll be kitten ed if they can have it!…even if it means losing your entire map! So there!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/why-defense-does-not-work/page/1#post4006756The design of WvW in this regard is poor. Attackers have most of the advantage and most players have zero vested interest in keeping their towers/keeps theirs. While an SM waypoint is nice to have, most players would rather flip it for the reward.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Suggestion-The-Changes-I-d-Wish-They-Made-For-WvW/page/1#post38817033) Keep/Tower UpgradesProblem: Upgrading a location is expensive and mostly meaningless/unrewarding.Solution: Players can upgrade a base with Badges/Karma/Gold and have reduced prices. There is no reason for upgrades to be costing over 1g when they are guarantee to disappear in a week. That highly discourages players from investing in upgrades. Also many upgrades need a rework to actually have meaning. For Ex. adding to the Hire Outfitter the ability to add traps within the keep itself when they break in or reinforce gates are now immune to player damage.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:

Yes, it was worse when only a guild could apply upgrades. I guess you don't remember playing thru that or had a different experience but in T1 it was bad.

I remember playing through that but hot was new and those upgrades cost lots of flax fibers, resonating slivers, which were super rare and VERY VERY expensive at the time, compared to now where they are dirt cheap. Sadly we are not talking about guild claim upgrades, we are talking about standard structure upgrades.

This was before HoT. Stop for a second. Under your option, only a claiming guild can upgrade. I am in a tiny guild that has a small number of active WvW players. We get the option to claim quite often for however the game mechanics work. Again, a havoc guild at best. Now take one of these small or mid-sized guilds. If they have 2-6 members all with alt accounts on enemy servers its super easy for them to claim and then they never upgrade. Is that really what you want?

So you expect that the best way to defend your home server is to play for an enemy server, capping objectives, claiming, locking upgrades to the claim, and not upgrading? If playing for the other server is better for your server, then your logic seems off somewhere and this behavior would not be normal.

Reaching much? I said trolling happened more often, want to disclaim that? You can try and paint the picture I supported it, but why would I complain about it versus raise the issue it would increase it occurring? That makes zero sense.

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:I also am in a havoc guild that plays 3 nights a week for 2.5-3 hours. Auto upgrading is super slow compared to the old system, and while we try to upgrade and defend anything we take, we usually only get keeps and towers to t1, t12 if we are lucky or the dominant server in the match(boring). These structures always fall once or more (to that map's home server) during our run and only the first cap has the ability and chance to upgrade.

I was not comparing speed of upgrades under either system so will pass on that one.

@Dinas Dragonbane.2978 said:There are advantages to both systems and neither one is perfect, I prefer the one that has more individuals learning to play smarter with upgrades and supply than ignoring it all to follow the zerg.

I agree neither system is perfect, and as stated above would prefer to see people raise up the individual aspects of the old that they liked more, but as Carte Blanche, no would not just want to return to the system old since there were major issues with it, which included more trolling and more strife and costs to individuals that were doing upgrades. Agree, the zerg mentality to both systems is don't worry about it, its up to someone else. Not opposed to more options for players to support upgrades and defense, but don't see returning to the old way as a way to achieve that either for many reasons.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@ArlAlt.1630 said:I still vividly remember the days of having to decide, whether to pay my repair bill or order upgrades at the camp. :lol:

I still remember times of being utterly pissed off at my server after spending hours upgrading and paying costs and seiging just to get replies when calling out for aid that the zerg would just take it back later after the enemy flipped it because the K-Train was in motion else where. Made you want to delete the game right there.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Yuffi.2430 said:

@TheGrimm.5624 said:When you made your comment there were a net 2 players for it. Now we can use the same metrics and use Anet's banner if you like. +2 players for it out of 11 MILLION. Stat's can easily be abused. No this sampling is way too small, its fine to propose but please don't assume.

I get the fact that you have a strong opinion on this, and that you disagree with manual upgrades. I don't have a problem with that. However you seem to be worried that for some reason ANET will listen to my opinion and will restore manual upgrades based on a single thread with 28 replies. I'm a lot less worried about this than you seem to be!

No I made my statement since you made the one below.

@Yuffi.2430 said:I know I'm biased but it seems like enough people would be happy to see manual upgrades return - even if it is simply to require a player to confirm the upgrade with the keep Lord (or whoever).

So do you still feel enough people agree to return to the old? ANet does have a track record of taking unopposed statements as consent, which is why some people will take time to say, um, no. Since we have seen issues in the past where they took a few posters and said, everyone must feel that way and that lead to bigger issues. Hence why your statement of 'enough people' needed counter view points.