-snip- Will it become a stale zerg fest? Will it be complex enough that players can find new ways to challenge the enemies often enough that it stays fresh?-snip-
Not quite sure, but I think zerging is in our nature as humans...
Btw i think it's a good thread even if i think most of those suggestions are not really "improvements".
I just want to remark the fact that Arenanet is right now focussing on making the basics works.... improvements can come only later after months of testing and warfare experiences.
Just keep in mind that WvWvW is already better than every other competitor... just the supply system alone makes WvWvW incredibly deep.
just the supply system alone makes WvWvW incredibly deep.
Can we hold off talking about that for a few months? I want my server to get a few wins in before the rest of the players realize this very important truth.
I disagree with the op that wvwvw is disapointing, but he has some good points that could make the wvwvw even better. All 4 points make sense to me, but wont keep me from enjoying the game as is.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I think the points that The korrigan brought up about overpowered CC in DAoC were spot on. 30 second instant cast mezz was way too long, forcing everyone who could to spend their first 3 points in determination. Tough if it's not an option, you're stuck for 30 seconds watching your group die.
As for the OP, apart from the map design every problem you've mentioned can be solved by using the correct tactics. Contrary to popular belief W v W is not just a big zerg, unless you choose to follow one. If you have a brain and take the time to use it you can bring tactics to bear against the opposition and still win even with fewer numbers. This will become apparant as the weeks roll by and we start to see RvR vets and smarter players begin to dominate matches.
Whether W v W needs any kind of redesign can't be answered until the game's been out a while. Something that may be appealing to you, or seem a very simple idea may just confuse others or seem more of a hassle or just not fun. Time will tell I suppose.
Originally posted by observer Could it be better? Sure. A-Net is on a schedule though, so it's best to release it as is. They can always improve it as the years go by.
I just got a shiver. The same thing was said about Ilum.
You say it was only popular because it was alone in the field, but in the past 10 years, no one has managed to do it better, and I'm not convinced GW2 will prove to be better either.
The 250.000 players the game had at PEAK may agree with you, many others who have experienced PvP different than DAoC and broke their "MMO cherry" on other games disagree. DAoC's endgame was, by today's standards, "abysmally" bad.
Yeah it was kinda good... as I said, 10 years ago, when you had no competition.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
Originally posted by observer Could it be better? Sure. A-Net is on a schedule though, so it's best to release it as is. They can always improve it as the years go by.
I just got a shiver. The same thing was said about Ilum.
Well one thing is for sure. At least it won't have the same issues as Ilum, since it's actually been thoroughly tested and ArenaNet has listened to the communities feedback and implemented changes due to it (before launch).
Some good points, but most are overlooking key design points:
1) As others have said, if these aren't the same (as a base map), then people will complain about them being imbalanced. Keep in mind that every 2 weeks you're server will have a different borderlands. You would want to lose WvW, because your server is on the map that has your spawn slightly further away from the nearest keeps. Variety is great, but most of the variety comes from how players effect the map (which is how I think it should be).
2) Respawn distance is fine. A lot of people are complaining it takes 'too long' to get back into it, and it's nowhere near as bad as TSW's Fusang province. If you're team is attacking keeps close to an enemy's outpost, then they absolutely should be able to get back into the fight quicker, as you are fighting on their home terf. The further away from their base you get, the longer it takes for them to get back into the fight, making it extremely beneficial to have the east / west keeps captured and upgraded for the waypoints. Keep in mind, that a good / coordinated assault on a keep can be over in a matter of minutes, meaning that ~2minute+ run back to the keep will make you fashionably late to the party.
3) Supply: While the idea of having different programmable routes is interesting... here is the problem. 1) Such a system would have players abusing it (reprogramming it to have the least efficient routes possible, and in WvW you want your supply dolyaks to get there ASAP and as frequently as possible). 2) You can still see where the supply lines are on the map, so changing them wouldn't give you any kind of stealth advantage. Furthermore, even if they were to remove that, you still know exactly where the supply is going (the keeps), and a giant dolyak w/ a backpack isn't exactly tough to spot. A good team can tear apart a dolyak near it's destinate in a matter of seconds. Such a mechanic would give no real benefit, but would introduce a bunch of negative effects.
- Having different types of supply would be cool, but people are already having a difficult enough time keeping track of just 1 type of supply. Dividing that up into multiple types would help, and instead it would dilute the potential for successful sieges / defense (which may not be a bad thing, we'll have to see how things play out).
4) Not sure where you're getting that the keeps all look the same. Is it because they all have walls, gates, and are made out of stone? In that case, sure.. but there are a lot of different layouts and aesthetics between them, once you get passed that gross overgeneralization.
As for strategy, you couldn't be more wrong. Watch some of Team Legacy's WvW vids. They prove just how wrong this assessment is. The bad / uncoordinated players are the ones doing the zerging. A smart group that knows which siege weapons to use where, can take on a MUCH larger force with ease. TL has demonstrated this over, and over, and over again, and I myself have seen this in action. Hell, a zerg tries to bust down the door, if there are ballistas there, and some stun fields, you can kill the entire zerg in just a few shots.
- Furthermore, as Korrigan pointed out, the idea is to siege the enemy zerg BEFORE they break your doors down. Not after. There are ways in which you can repel a zerg if they do break your door down, but you aren't supposed to allow that 911 scenario to happen.
*** I'm also curious as to what you would consider 'deep' RvR. Compared to DAoC this game takes the exact same mechanics of DAoC, and improves upon them. WAR's RvR wasn't anywhere near as complex, and there aren't many other games that offer such battles. Maybe planetside 2? But that's not out yet, and the entire game is built around that 1 aspect of PvP.
From what I've seen from GW2's WvW system, it's much more complex than other games on the market from what I've seen. It's not completely a sandbox (and some of your points make it sound like you really want a full-blown sandbox), but it does have a good mix of both sandbox and structured elements, while keeping the whole experience relatively balanced (which is key). It's like chess, sure the whole system can seem painfully simple at first glance, but if you take the time to really learn it, it becomes insanely complex.
No, i'm not trying to troll and hate or anything. Honestly, after all these wvw thread mostly being about owpvp, i decided to give my overall opinion on wvwvw and why i'm not overall impressed, what could have and could be made to improve. Please keep in mind that if i am incorrect in a factual way about something, please correct me so as to not spread misinformation. But also remember my post in mostly opinion based, after some play time in it, aswell as alot of research and video watching.
So, hopefully without causing to many agressive flames:
1- The Boarderlands: My biggest complaint here is simply the fact that they are copied. I'm actually suprised so many are okay with this. Anet themselves said in a trailer that the battle was across 4 huge maps, when in reality they took the easy road. To me, this is the same placing a dungeon which is 95% the same with 3 different final bosses and a dev calling it 3 unique dungeons. It also makes running around the Boarderlands more tiresome, since the controll points are necessary, one must travel across the same exact landscape. It also makes me wonder if Anet is even dedicated to WVW
Eh, I don't think this is really a problem. Considering that the server matchups will get swapped every two weeks, it would almost be jarring to have to defend a new landscape all the time.
2- The keep distance in the Eternal Battlegrounds: To go from you main base, to the closest keep, to a tower and finally a camp, it only takes 2 minutes. Watch Mike's video in the begining and time. The reason why this annoys me somewhat is because you're sieging a keep and you're enemy respawns right next to you in the tower or base, which is less than 1 minute away. I actually find the Boarderlands to be a much better and well designed map.
I'll have to see how this plays out. Not really sure if the keep distances are going to bea n issue at this point.
But, these 2 are minor things (well, 2 is atleast)
The main problem is that i find WVW to be overlly shallow in the end. Before you go berserk on me, i'll try to be as clear as possible in explaining myself. Also, i'm not hating the game at all, since i do like, and i do think wvw is also amazing in many other points. The reason i feel it's shallow is because the overall "strategy" can be summed up in 2 points.
3- Supply: The idea of using supply is great, but i think there are problems.
First, the camps are static, meaning you can't collect resources in different ways. There's no "pvp crafting and nodes" systems, you can't build camps in different resoucce points, nothing. They are always in 1 place.
Second, the resource is universal. There's no different types. If, for example, there was stone and wood, it would add more depth and controlling different zones would be crucial. But, there is only a single resource type to manage.
Finally, the Dolyak. The problem isn't so much the speed, which is also a little minus, but their predictability. Anet's idea was to probably create a "resource route", which is great, but, the game does not allow you to map out a different route. So, it's almost guarenteed that after launch, all the different paths will be posted online, and intercepting a caravan will be easy. If one could carry the supply himself (from the camp, not keep), we could avoid blockades.
In conclusion of this, i find the Supply system to be a good idea on paper, but not will excuted and diverse enough. 1 dimensional. This is half of what WVW mostly consists off, while, of course, after obtaining the resources, all that's left is
If this were an actual strategy game, then I could see your points here. But you have to realize that WvW will, by and large, be a bunch of completely unorganized people trying to work together towards a common goal.
Having multiple supply resources and variable supply routes and camps would make this incredibly frustrating. You just wouldn't have the level of organization you need to ensure that people bring the right amount of wood/metal/stone, and it will be really annoying to find a supply caravan to intercept when the routes keep moving around.
4- Sieges: The variety of siege weapons is awesome, really. Some are defensive, some player offensive, some destroy walls, gates, restore and strenghten walls, etc. Now, all of this is nice, but i find the problem not in the weapons, but the keeps themselves, and their responding strategy,
Honestly, when you take a close look at it, towers, keeps, and castle Stonemist are almost the exact same. The only main different is that towers don't have inner walls and gates. But there lie the problems, since that's all there is.
The startegy of all keepsis to take down a wall or gate, and follow up with a massive zerg. When i use the word zerg, i don't mean in a bad way. But, once inside, all that you do is kill players and npc and keep pushing to reach the center and push them out. There isn't anything inside the locations that you need to care for. Once the wall is down, just keep killing until everyone is gone.
This is kind of like when people argue that questing in GW2 is exactly the same as other MMO's because you are just killing monsters or escorting etc...
At some point, you have to realize that sieges are essentially about taking down walls or gates, and then zerging through the openings. This is just the reality of the situation...this is how siege battles are in reality, this is how they are in the game.
Now what can be done is to make that process more interesting, and I think ANet has done a fairly decent job of that with the wide variety of siege weapons and the supply system.
Now, i'm sure you'll ask me what you can do to improve this. Many ways IMHO. What if the doors could be opened from the inside, and one must use a special siege weapon to send a lone group to open it? What if you had to have controll over a certain point to attack other keep instead of free for all? What if the underground dungeon had a switch to open the gates from the inside. What about traps inside Stonemist. There's so much one can do. There's a fountain in the dungeon that grants permanent invis. (cool stuff), so why not special environmental wepons that grant trully unique powers, like a jumping pack, or whatever.
Once again, this is not an actual strategy game, it is a large unorganized group of players trying to work together. Adding mechanics like "you need a specific siege weapon to get through this door" will just be frustrating. And sending a lone group in will be more frustrating, because you actually have to get real players to listen to your orders.
My main complaint is that sieges revolve around taking down a wall, zerg inside, take it down, controll it, and proced to the next one. While there's different weapon to do the job, their ultimate functionaly is almost identical.
I know, there are many different strategies one can employ, like using a trebucth from afar or a 2 catapults from up close, since the later is cheaper. But, their role is ultimately the same.
And so, combined with the supply system, which like i said, is somewhat shallow, my final impressions of WVW is that it's not a very deep rvr game.
BTW, HOLY SH***T My wall of text hits for 1000000000000000000 crit. Sorry about that, i didn't even realize i wrote that much. Hope you guys have the patience to ready it all. Really sorry
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
Once the game has been up a short while and players get used to the mechanic, I think adding more to the depth of the supply system is a great idea, you should definitely post the idea on the official forum.
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
isn't that how any castle seige you have ever seen in the movies or history channel went?
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
1) If the borderlands weren't carbon copies of each other, you would have people complaining about the maps being unfair or easier for some than for others.
2) I had no problem with that, jogging back takes long enough for you not wanting to die.
3) Supplies must be able to be interrupted, that's why caravans have paths and are also marked on maps. Stopping the supply flow is part of successfully sieging a keep.
4) The siege begins BEFORE a wall or door is down. It's up to the defenders to also build siege engines to destroy the attackers artillery. When the enemy took down a wall or a door, it means you sucked at defending...
I'd be curious to read how you would concieve "deep" RvR. The only other game with similar mechanics, DAoC, was way more simplistic.
Quoted for truth. The only thing DAoC's RvR had that I wish GW2's WvW has is a Darkness Falls dungeons but I think that will come eventually. GW2 WvW is jsut so much more in depth.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Originally posted by observer Could it be better? Sure. A-Net is on a schedule though, so it's best to release it as is. They can always improve it as the years go by.
I just got a shiver. The same thing was said about Ilum.
Haha. Except thousands of players have tested WvW.
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
isn't that how any castle seige you have ever seen in the movies or history channel went?
Well in reality, the defenders may have been starved out for months, or poisoned, or have any other amount of nastiness done to them to make them weaker...but yes you are generally right. Typically, you need a significantly larger force to take a castle or keep.
I'm talking game terms here though...I just find it a bit frustrating that I can orchestrate great siege emplacements, cut off the enemies supply, and bust a hole in their wall...but then there is literally nothing I can do because we don't out-zerg them.
I would just like there to be a way to let strategy and tactics have more of an effect on the actual keep assault part of the battle.
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
isn't that how any castle seige you have ever seen in the movies or history channel went?
Well in reality, the defenders may have been starved out for months, or poisoned, or have any other amount of nastiness done to them to make them weaker...but yes you are generally right. Typically, you need a significantly larger force to take a castle or keep.
I'm talking game terms here though...I just find it a bit frustrating that I can orchestrate great siege emplacements, cut off the enemies supply, and bust a hole in their wall...but then there is literally nothing I can do because we don't out-zerg them.
I would just like there to be a way to let strategy and tactics have more of an effect on the actual keep assault part of the battle.
Move siege closer, hit players now that walls are not there to shield them!
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
isn't that how any castle seige you have ever seen in the movies or history channel went?
Well in reality, the defenders may have been starved out for months, or poisoned, or have any other amount of nastiness done to them to make them weaker...but yes you are generally right. Typically, you need a significantly larger force to take a castle or keep.
I'm talking game terms here though...I just find it a bit frustrating that I can orchestrate great siege emplacements, cut off the enemies supply, and bust a hole in their wall...but then there is literally nothing I can do because we don't out-zerg them.
I would just like there to be a way to let strategy and tactics have more of an effect on the actual keep assault part of the battle.
Move siege closer, hit players now that walls are not there to shield them!
Yah that isn't a bad idea...I would even do this kind of thing in Empire Total War sometimes with portable cannons lol .
Maybe a good idea would be to allow players to VERY SLOWLY pack and move catapults and arrow carts?
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Ballistas are the substitute. Each Ballista shot hits for most of a player's health, and pierces (with no current cap on the number of enemies it can hit). Place 2-3 Ballistas facing a breached wall, and perhaps a static field / bubble or 2 for good measure. There you go, no more than 5 people and you can stop an indefinite number of players coming through that breach.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
You've got:
- Rams
- Siege Golems
- Trebuchets
- Ballistas
- Arrow Carts
- Catapults
Half of those can be used to effectively directly assault a keeps structure (walls / doors). The other half do decent damage against keeps (aside from arrow carts), and are good at reducing the enemy force's numbers.
I'm sure it may feel like that at times, Creslin, but I'm not sure a lot of people here have really been part of organized WvW play yet. A smaller, more organized group can most definitely hold back a much larger force. It's not guarunteed (and it shouldn't be), but I've seen at least a dozen cases of this happening during the BWEs.
Originally posted by otinanai123 I'm not impressed(understatement) by WvW because it's not about killing players (PvP), it's about attacking and defending keeps. Only PvEers and casuals won't get bored of it within a few days/weeks.
Well, you must kill players in order to attack and defend keeps.
WvW will be succesful because there are objectives and a purpose to kill players. If we had no keeps and objectives people would get bored very fast.
You must be new to PvP mmorpgs to state something like this.
Thanks for all your responses guys. I'd like to respond to all but it's abit too much.
So, after reading the posts, i want to say that in the end it's a matter of taste.
Otacu, i, for example, disagree with you on using other tricks after the walls come down. Like i said in my OP, i find the sieging system too shallow. While i understand your point about that being the center of WVW, the mechanics behind towers, keeps and castle is the same. Gates and walls are identical except for a few differences, like one being harder to knock down.
Also, as i already said, i don't honestly buy it that different maps could cause that much imbalance. Many also seem to be against the idea of tracking our own supply route. I think that you could be an option for a certain amount of gold. Don't want it, don't use it.
Another point out the similarities to RTS. This is indeed true, but i don't think that's a bad thing. Creslin, while the coordination would be complicated, i still feel it would add lonegevity and overall more fun. After all, people have to use weapons, otherwise it's "doors wars 2", so coordination is already necessary.
Also, while Anet can improve it over time, there are things i think can't be fixed. For example, unless i'm mistaken which please correct me, you can't carry supplies being your current map. This is because all maps are disconnected. If it was 1 full landscape, all locations would be linked, adding, again, anothe layer of depth, since you could take the resources from the the EB to th top of the BL.
The important thing here is that i'm not predicting doom. I'm simply putting down my view as to why WVW isn't all that great.
Like many of you said, this is the best and deepest rvr pvp system available, so it's the best, which is perfectly fine. To me that's not necessarily good enough. It's like saying that it's the least junk in the middle of a pile is gold all of a sudden. And, no, while this analogy is extreme, i'm not saying other mmorpgs or GW2 are junk, at all.
One can i say. I guess in the end, many are happy with just the current system and the simple idea of sieging a castle is enough to make some happy. I guess i'd prefer something deeper and more complex. It is the best rvr system currently (maybe until PS2 and TESO), but i guess it's just not enough for me. But no problem. The important thing is having fun.
To compare the WvWvW to other games that have tried this, I'd say that A.Net has done an excellent job at nailing a siege battle area down. WAR and AoC both screwed up royally when it came to their siege systems.
1) Balance maps = balanced gameplay. It's fair to say that the equality of each world having it's own 'world map' is a good thing. To make more maps would take a lot more resources and development time to do, besides having to balance every new map in a triangle tactic. Besides that, too many maps would mean that individual points have less value and small group tactics become less valuable to overall server efforts. That doesn't bode well for those smaller groups.
2) Keep distance is fine. It makes it so people aren't running for minutes to hours on end through pointless nothingness. They're spaced enough though that there is still field battles that happen a lot. And, seige can reach from a tower to a keep, adding another layer of tactical battle method.
3) Camps are static, but can be attacked from multiple angles as well as defended as such. But, those are static supply locations. There's too much griefing that can be done with mobile, player set supply locations. --Also, there's only one supply to make the game much more accessable and "fun", instead of a grind of different materials. --And for Dolyacks, they can be guarded by player escorts (actually a Dynamic Event involved with that) as well as can be ugpraded at the camp with NPC upgrades. So, there's really no issue with single paths to nearby locations.
4) Sieges have already multiple ways into keeps, towers, and the castle. There's no "one way" about doing it. But, doing a "open door/gates" mechanic will make defending a futile effort that would unbalance the siege mechanics of the game.
Yah that isn't a bad idea...I would even do this kind of thing in Empire Total War sometimes with portable cannons lol .
Maybe a good idea would be to allow players to VERY SLOWLY pack and move catapults and arrow carts?
That might be cool, however if they were to implement such a feature I think they'd need to revamp how siege weapons work entirely.
I know a lot of people don't think so atm, but siege weapons are actually very easy to get atm. To make them moveable would make the number of them appearing in a battle field increase substantially, and it would also reward poor siege placement. I'd rather have them be harder to comeby, and be more impactful. If any weapons should be moveable though, I'd say rams & arrow carts.
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Ballistas are the substitute. Each Ballista shot hits for most of a player's health, and pierces (with no current cap on the number of enemies it can hit). Place 2-3 Ballistas facing a breached wall, and perhaps a static field / bubble or 2 for good measure. There you go, no more than 5 people and you can stop an indefinite number of players coming through that breach.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
You've got:
- Rams
- Siege Golems
- Trebuchets
- Ballistas
- Arrow Carts
- Catapults
Half of those can be used to effectively directly assault a keeps structure (walls / doors). The other half do decent damage against keeps (aside from arrow carts), and are good at reducing the enemy force's numbers.
I'm sure it may feel like that at times, Creslin, but I'm not sure a lot of people here have really been part of organized WvW play yet. A smaller, more organized group can most definitely hold back a much larger force. It's not guarunteed (and it shouldn't be), but I've seen at least a dozen cases of this happening during the BWEs.
Good point about the ballistas, and tihs could definitely be the case! I'm really just spitballing here from what I experienced...hopefully more tactics will emerge once we are all in game more .
I think it would be awesome if all the people championing DaoC would go play that game and not play GW2. Please do us all a favor and stop talking about how awesome it was and play it now.
Come on it's the "BEST PVP GAME EVAH", so go play it and forget about the GW2 launch.
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Omg this is so true
Btw i think it's a good thread even if i think most of those suggestions are not really "improvements".
I just want to remark the fact that Arenanet is right now focussing on making the basics works.... improvements can come only later after months of testing and warfare experiences.
Just keep in mind that WvWvW is already better than every other competitor... just the supply system alone makes WvWvW incredibly deep.
Can we hold off talking about that for a few months? I want my server to get a few wins in before the rest of the players realize this very important truth.
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I think the points that The korrigan brought up about overpowered CC in DAoC were spot on. 30 second instant cast mezz was way too long, forcing everyone who could to spend their first 3 points in determination. Tough if it's not an option, you're stuck for 30 seconds watching your group die.
As for the OP, apart from the map design every problem you've mentioned can be solved by using the correct tactics. Contrary to popular belief W v W is not just a big zerg, unless you choose to follow one. If you have a brain and take the time to use it you can bring tactics to bear against the opposition and still win even with fewer numbers. This will become apparant as the weeks roll by and we start to see RvR vets and smarter players begin to dominate matches.
Whether W v W needs any kind of redesign can't be answered until the game's been out a while. Something that may be appealing to you, or seem a very simple idea may just confuse others or seem more of a hassle or just not fun. Time will tell I suppose.
took forever to find images in the order I wanted...glad I found that crusades painting though.
I just got a shiver. The same thing was said about Ilum.
The 250.000 players the game had at PEAK may agree with you, many others who have experienced PvP different than DAoC and broke their "MMO cherry" on other games disagree. DAoC's endgame was, by today's standards, "abysmally" bad.
Yeah it was kinda good... as I said, 10 years ago, when you had no competition.
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Well one thing is for sure. At least it won't have the same issues as Ilum, since it's actually been thoroughly tested and ArenaNet has listened to the communities feedback and implemented changes due to it (before launch).
Some good points, but most are overlooking key design points:
1) As others have said, if these aren't the same (as a base map), then people will complain about them being imbalanced. Keep in mind that every 2 weeks you're server will have a different borderlands. You would want to lose WvW, because your server is on the map that has your spawn slightly further away from the nearest keeps. Variety is great, but most of the variety comes from how players effect the map (which is how I think it should be).
2) Respawn distance is fine. A lot of people are complaining it takes 'too long' to get back into it, and it's nowhere near as bad as TSW's Fusang province. If you're team is attacking keeps close to an enemy's outpost, then they absolutely should be able to get back into the fight quicker, as you are fighting on their home terf. The further away from their base you get, the longer it takes for them to get back into the fight, making it extremely beneficial to have the east / west keeps captured and upgraded for the waypoints. Keep in mind, that a good / coordinated assault on a keep can be over in a matter of minutes, meaning that ~2minute+ run back to the keep will make you fashionably late to the party.
3) Supply: While the idea of having different programmable routes is interesting... here is the problem. 1) Such a system would have players abusing it (reprogramming it to have the least efficient routes possible, and in WvW you want your supply dolyaks to get there ASAP and as frequently as possible). 2) You can still see where the supply lines are on the map, so changing them wouldn't give you any kind of stealth advantage. Furthermore, even if they were to remove that, you still know exactly where the supply is going (the keeps), and a giant dolyak w/ a backpack isn't exactly tough to spot. A good team can tear apart a dolyak near it's destinate in a matter of seconds. Such a mechanic would give no real benefit, but would introduce a bunch of negative effects.
- Having different types of supply would be cool, but people are already having a difficult enough time keeping track of just 1 type of supply. Dividing that up into multiple types would help, and instead it would dilute the potential for successful sieges / defense (which may not be a bad thing, we'll have to see how things play out).
4) Not sure where you're getting that the keeps all look the same. Is it because they all have walls, gates, and are made out of stone? In that case, sure.. but there are a lot of different layouts and aesthetics between them, once you get passed that gross overgeneralization.
As for strategy, you couldn't be more wrong. Watch some of Team Legacy's WvW vids. They prove just how wrong this assessment is. The bad / uncoordinated players are the ones doing the zerging. A smart group that knows which siege weapons to use where, can take on a MUCH larger force with ease. TL has demonstrated this over, and over, and over again, and I myself have seen this in action. Hell, a zerg tries to bust down the door, if there are ballistas there, and some stun fields, you can kill the entire zerg in just a few shots.
- Furthermore, as Korrigan pointed out, the idea is to siege the enemy zerg BEFORE they break your doors down. Not after. There are ways in which you can repel a zerg if they do break your door down, but you aren't supposed to allow that 911 scenario to happen.
*** I'm also curious as to what you would consider 'deep' RvR. Compared to DAoC this game takes the exact same mechanics of DAoC, and improves upon them. WAR's RvR wasn't anywhere near as complex, and there aren't many other games that offer such battles. Maybe planetside 2? But that's not out yet, and the entire game is built around that 1 aspect of PvP.
From what I've seen from GW2's WvW system, it's much more complex than other games on the market from what I've seen. It's not completely a sandbox (and some of your points make it sound like you really want a full-blown sandbox), but it does have a good mix of both sandbox and structured elements, while keeping the whole experience relatively balanced (which is key). It's like chess, sure the whole system can seem painfully simple at first glance, but if you take the time to really learn it, it becomes insanely complex.
I basically agree that WvW is not perfect, but I disagree with the reasons you bring up.
One of the problems I have with WvW right now is that once the walls of a keep come down, there is really no substitute for overwhelming numbers.
Before the walls come down, a very well organized smaller group could easily trounce a larger unorganized group by clever supply management and organized siege placements.
But once those walls go down, it just comes down to pure zerg strength because siege weapons aren't really movable (yes, siege golems, but come on). So the smaller group's strategic advantage of siege weapon management is largely lost. If the larger group has many more players, they will probably handily beat the smaller, but better group. Even worse, the defending players could set up siege equipment inside the keep to further harm the attackers.
I would really like to see more types of siege equip that is used for actually assaulting a keep. The golem is way too slow and can more or less be kited easily.
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Once the game has been up a short while and players get used to the mechanic, I think adding more to the depth of the supply system is a great idea, you should definitely post the idea on the official forum.
isn't that how any castle seige you have ever seen in the movies or history channel went?
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Quoted for truth. The only thing DAoC's RvR had that I wish GW2's WvW has is a Darkness Falls dungeons but I think that will come eventually. GW2 WvW is jsut so much more in depth.
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Haha. Except thousands of players have tested WvW.
Well in reality, the defenders may have been starved out for months, or poisoned, or have any other amount of nastiness done to them to make them weaker...but yes you are generally right. Typically, you need a significantly larger force to take a castle or keep.
I'm talking game terms here though...I just find it a bit frustrating that I can orchestrate great siege emplacements, cut off the enemies supply, and bust a hole in their wall...but then there is literally nothing I can do because we don't out-zerg them.
I would just like there to be a way to let strategy and tactics have more of an effect on the actual keep assault part of the battle.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Move siege closer, hit players now that walls are not there to shield them!
Yah that isn't a bad idea...I would even do this kind of thing in Empire Total War sometimes with portable cannons lol
.
Maybe a good idea would be to allow players to VERY SLOWLY pack and move catapults and arrow carts?
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I'm sure it may feel like that at times, Creslin, but I'm not sure a lot of people here have really been part of organized WvW play yet. A smaller, more organized group can most definitely hold back a much larger force. It's not guarunteed (and it shouldn't be), but I've seen at least a dozen cases of this happening during the BWEs.
Well, you must kill players in order to attack and defend keeps.
WvW will be succesful because there are objectives and a purpose to kill players. If we had no keeps and objectives people would get bored very fast.
You must be new to PvP mmorpgs to state something like this.
Thanks for all your responses guys. I'd like to respond to all but it's abit too much.
So, after reading the posts, i want to say that in the end it's a matter of taste.
Otacu, i, for example, disagree with you on using other tricks after the walls come down. Like i said in my OP, i find the sieging system too shallow. While i understand your point about that being the center of WVW, the mechanics behind towers, keeps and castle is the same. Gates and walls are identical except for a few differences, like one being harder to knock down.
Also, as i already said, i don't honestly buy it that different maps could cause that much imbalance. Many also seem to be against the idea of tracking our own supply route. I think that you could be an option for a certain amount of gold. Don't want it, don't use it.
Another point out the similarities to RTS. This is indeed true, but i don't think that's a bad thing. Creslin, while the coordination would be complicated, i still feel it would add lonegevity and overall more fun. After all, people have to use weapons, otherwise it's "doors wars 2", so coordination is already necessary.
Also, while Anet can improve it over time, there are things i think can't be fixed. For example, unless i'm mistaken which please correct me, you can't carry supplies being your current map. This is because all maps are disconnected. If it was 1 full landscape, all locations would be linked, adding, again, anothe layer of depth, since you could take the resources from the the EB to th top of the BL.
The important thing here is that i'm not predicting doom. I'm simply putting down my view as to why WVW isn't all that great.
Like many of you said, this is the best and deepest rvr pvp system available, so it's the best, which is perfectly fine. To me that's not necessarily good enough. It's like saying that it's the least junk in the middle of a pile is gold all of a sudden. And, no, while this analogy is extreme, i'm not saying other mmorpgs or GW2 are junk, at all.
One can i say. I guess in the end, many are happy with just the current system and the simple idea of sieging a castle is enough to make some happy. I guess i'd prefer something deeper and more complex. It is the best rvr system currently (maybe until PS2 and TESO), but i guess it's just not enough for me. But no problem. The important thing is having fun.
To compare the WvWvW to other games that have tried this, I'd say that A.Net has done an excellent job at nailing a siege battle area down. WAR and AoC both screwed up royally when it came to their siege systems.
1) Balance maps = balanced gameplay. It's fair to say that the equality of each world having it's own 'world map' is a good thing. To make more maps would take a lot more resources and development time to do, besides having to balance every new map in a triangle tactic. Besides that, too many maps would mean that individual points have less value and small group tactics become less valuable to overall server efforts. That doesn't bode well for those smaller groups.
2) Keep distance is fine. It makes it so people aren't running for minutes to hours on end through pointless nothingness. They're spaced enough though that there is still field battles that happen a lot. And, seige can reach from a tower to a keep, adding another layer of tactical battle method.
3) Camps are static, but can be attacked from multiple angles as well as defended as such. But, those are static supply locations. There's too much griefing that can be done with mobile, player set supply locations. --Also, there's only one supply to make the game much more accessable and "fun", instead of a grind of different materials. --And for Dolyacks, they can be guarded by player escorts (actually a Dynamic Event involved with that) as well as can be ugpraded at the camp with NPC upgrades. So, there's really no issue with single paths to nearby locations.
4) Sieges have already multiple ways into keeps, towers, and the castle. There's no "one way" about doing it. But, doing a "open door/gates" mechanic will make defending a futile effort that would unbalance the siege mechanics of the game.
That might be cool, however if they were to implement such a feature I think they'd need to revamp how siege weapons work entirely.
I know a lot of people don't think so atm, but siege weapons are actually very easy to get atm. To make them moveable would make the number of them appearing in a battle field increase substantially, and it would also reward poor siege placement. I'd rather have them be harder to comeby, and be more impactful. If any weapons should be moveable though, I'd say rams & arrow carts.
Good point about the ballistas, and tihs could definitely be the case! I'm really just spitballing here from what I experienced...hopefully more tactics will emerge once we are all in game more
.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I think it would be awesome if all the people championing DaoC would go play that game and not play GW2. Please do us all a favor and stop talking about how awesome it was and play it now.
Come on it's the "BEST PVP GAME EVAH", so go play it and forget about the GW2 launch.