Siege Revisions

[Silver.2076]

I think the siege weapons could use a lot of qol.

 

Timings - it would be good, especially with the shield generators, if other players could see what the CDs of the others are, so that they can adjust to it, even without announcing. If this should also be visible for enemies, try it out.

 

Cooldown - After a shot, there should be no general cooldown until you can do something else. Extends fire, a recharge time, but I think it would be more fluid if the catapult could spin or another ability could recharge right after a shot. short, makes the use more fluid, but keeps it as slow :)

 

Skins - yes, I would wish for skins in the shop for siege weapons! Of course, only placed on the guild weapons, yes, push the guilds, let them do more advertising for themselves.

 

Visibility - I think, if we already have the radar system, it should also report enemy siege. So you can see where and how much of it is attacking it. Yeah, no more sneaky actions with it.

 

Sneaky action - or yes, but different! If "individual" players want to enter a tower quietly - this should not be possible in a fortress - they should be able to do so without siege weapons, i.e. with little noise and conspicuousness. Give them a new siege weapon with which they can crawl through one by one and only be discovered when they are inside. Talk tunnel digging or climbing!

 

Okay, that sounds too crazy, I better stop;) But in principle, makes the weapons more comfortable without changing their previous functionality and takes more care of the guilds - even with regard to the siege weapons!

[zerorogue.9410]

I still got a big page of WvW suggestions kicking around that i plan to post one day. Might as well post the siege part here:

 

**Arrow carts**

 

* increased damage(+20-40%)

* Skills now work mechanically the same as stampede of arrows

* you cast in a direction and the arrows fall one box aoe at a time in a line.

* aoe line can go down edges but not up. (such as cliffs or walls)

 

_This makes Arrow carts far more deadly for unobservant and static enemies while rewarding those who have the skills to outmaneuver the attacks. Removing the ability to fire upwards allows for more strategic play and gives ballistas(with changes below) a better place._

 

**Trebuchet**

 

* Treb shots ping where they land.

* Only treb user can see this.

* Damage numbers show up always, even if you can not see the targets.

* fix treb shot graphics not moving/landing the same place as the real shot.

* stop treb shots from cliping through walls.

 

_Trebs are pretty much fine mechanically. The big problem is the fact we have no idea where our shots are landing in long range battles or if we even hit anything. Adding this and bug fixes would make trebs perfect._

 

**Ballista**

 

* 3rd rank upgrade is now Change arc unlock.

* new 5 skill: change arc. Changes skills to have either a fast straight path or a slower high arc that can go over obstacles.

* old speed boost is applied to straight path skills.

* arc skills do extra damage to all siege

* takes extra damage from siege(superior cata can one hit it)

* straight shots use a straight path for shots(if you can select it, have los, and it's not moving; then the shot hits every time)

 

_I find ballistas are really out shined by arrow carts and trebs for siege removal. Additionally a lot of shots on the ballistas are operate weirdly or have trouble with things above them. This actually makes the 3rd rank upgrade a hindrance in many situations. Giving the ability to arc your shots gives you the ability to make sure no obstacle will interfere. Increasing its weakness to other siege makes it a wonderful fast strike or ambush weapon, while being easy to counter expected deployments._

 

**Catapults**

 

* cata shots ping where they land.

* Only cata user can see this.

* Launches targets hit by boulder.

* Gravel shot uses same mechanics as boulder

* Gravel does more damage to siege.

* Shots needs los to hit.(no more splash damage through walls)

* Increase time for rocks to despawn

 

_Catapults have turned into the wall version of flame rams. Giving them a launch and extra siege damage makes them useful for defense again. Fixing the splash damage and the issue of rocks disappearing when traveling for a long time will allow them better use on the battlefield._

 

**Shield generator**

 

* No more hot requirement.(seriously, this)

* Force ball.

* When it hits the ground it will always bounce away from generator in straight line 6 times.

* Ball will end early if it hits a wall.

* Inclines will reduce number of bounces.

* Increased radius of Aegis Force Ball Applies to 500.

* Force Wall

* grants 2 stacks of stability for 9 seconds for all allies that pass through.

* Only one application per ally.

* Force Dome

* no longer blocks siege nor grants stability

* channels once you cast it.

* grants Barrier to allies Inside bubble every 3s.

* Shield Generator Mastery Rank 5 Now increases Barrier given.

* Added a new skill Force Matrix

* Channeled skill: Hold to create a 800(1200 traited) dome around the shield generator.

* Lasts 9 seconds at 18 second recharge.

* recharge starts after releasing key

* This dome only blocks all siege weapons.

* Dome does nothing to player damage.

* Dome is visible at same range as treb shots.

 

_Shield gens need the most work by far. First get rid of the hot requirement, I can't even remember how many times I tried to get someone on a shield gen just to have people say they didn't have hot. This needs to go away. It’s almost been 3 years, you can get rid of this._

 

_The main issue with the gens is there cheesy. There good for only very very specific things. When it comes to other use they are useless. First the forceball is completely unreliable or predictable, giving it a expected pattern will allow players to use it more effectively. Increasing the range of the aegis will also make it useful in fights._

 

_Force wall can be useful on enemy approaches but often becomes useless once the battle has become static. Giving it the ability to grant stability allows you to support your team in fights._

 

_Finally the biggest issue with shield gens are they are tedious and boring to use in defense of trebs. Splitting the force dome skill into two will allow the dome to be used for player combat while the new force matrix allows shield gen users to copy the treb users in holding one key to continuously defend a target. The split also makes choosing between using an excellent pvp skill vs defending against siege attacks._

 

[Krystal.5429]

A great test would be to have an event with no siege, only rams. I would bet most players would have more fun fighting with their skills rather than botting an AC! after that ask about siege.

another fix might be to do 70% less damage on players and and full damage on siege vs siege.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Warlord Lu Bu.7905" said:

> Siege should have ammo, and you refill that ammo with supply. Makes siege far more strategic and less spammable.

 

This is why I suggested removing refresh and replacing it with a hp decay and repair mechanic. Its basicly the same *effect* as ammo resupply, but its much more visual for all sides and as a bonus makes "neglected" siege much weaker. It also avoid any logic problems (what kind of ammo would an alpha golem use? Punch ammo? Do different shots have different ammo? You would have enter each siege to check ammo, etc) and simply streamline it to something we already have - the hitpoint bar. Easy to implement, easy to see status even when not in the siege, easy to understand.

 

Btw for those asking "well how can I repair or use the siege, we only got one action button!" Thats simple - the siege repair mastery would use the right skillbar for its abilities.

[Draeyon.4392]

Reduce Arrowcart damage to players by 50% or reduce the number of people it hits down to 5 or 10.

 

ALSO, Please for the love of Quaggan have a look at placement of mortars on Desert Borderlands. On Stoic Rampart alone I dont think they I have seen anyone trying to use them.

See screenshot for reference. What is this supposed to hit?


 

[Shining One.1635]

> @"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:

> Prolly would help to start with a goal in mind then. Example: "We want to increase player engagement. After noticing 50% of the players don't get to interact while sieging/being under siege. This is our priority."

How about giving defenders on walls pulsing stability. Defenders can then stand on the edge and fight back against the besiegers. The besiegers in turn can fight against the defenders.

 

 

[thegman.7962]

I just skimmed this so probably a double post.

AC's can only be built inside structures. Not in open field situations.

I also saw someone say put a % on charge up bars, and I second that.

[SkyShroud.2865]

> @"AllNightPlayer.1286" said:

> #auto-repairing for structural siege weapons

> Since we didn’t get our **repair hammers**, how about auto-repairing **burning oil pots**, **cannons**, and **mortars** once the objective reached *tier 3*? *(like the water gates from **green world lowlands**)*

> It’s always “fun” to stick with the 5 % cannon from the siege 1 hour ago. :s

>

> The auto-repair should be something like 5—10 % for every 5—15 min.

> My first thought was, that the auto-repair only applies, if the objective isn’t under siege *(white swords)*. But getting an objective into attack mode is much to easy and already exploited constantly, so I scrapped this idea.

 

Interesting, I would suggest tying the repair to yaks like every yak delivered, repair the damaged sieges by certain %.

[Sovereign.1093]

change nothing

 

add siege canons.

 

allow us to pull rams cata bali but speed slow

 

 

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

> @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> Interesting, I would suggest tying the repair to yaks like every yak delivered, repair the damaged sieges by certain %.

It already relies heavily on the dolyak system, since the objective has to reach *tier 3* first. If only dolyaks repair sieges, the system becomes pointless for small servers, who already have a hard time to defend and can’t protect any camps nor even escort dolyaks.

[Notjes.7182]

Fighting against siege is NEVER fun. And since big player numbers bring more siege its getting worse.

Everyone who had the disgusting pleasure to play against the PVE servers knows this.

 

So for the love of god and all that is holy:

**REMOVE ALL SIEGE AND ALL DOORS** on at least one map. THANKS!

 

This way the hardcore pve servers can pve in peace and the wvw players can have some nice fights.

[SkyShroud.2865]

> @"AllNightPlayer.1286" said:

> > @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> > Interesting, I would suggest tying the repair to yaks like every yak delivered, repair the damaged sieges by certain %.

> It already relies heavily on the dolyak system, since the objective has to reach *tier 3* first. If only dolyaks repair sieges, the system becomes pointless for small servers, who already have a hard time to defend and can’t protect any camps nor even escort dolyaks.

 

Normally supply is required to repair things, applicable to gate and wall. Therefore, not requiring any forms of supply and yet siege able to heal naturally is abit too much. Yak brings in supply, I think is reasonable to use yak as a basis for auto restoration.

[SkyShroud.2865]

On second note, note sure what's everyone's problem with ac. It is anti personnel siege, it has been so since first year, before shield generator even come to existence. Now, we got sg, yet it isn't enough as a counter?

 

I do think the ballista need some fixing. Technically, ballista range is 3000 and with mastery it is 3500. Canon is 3750. Therefore it is weird that ballista can hit cannon at 4000 range due to ballista projectile not disappearing beyond 3500. This is unreasonable solely because there are other forms of range attacks and usually they simply disappear once go beyond their allowed range. Even if there are proejctiles that dosn't disappear, the fact that it can fire a shot beyond 3500 range without the system saying it is out of range means the skill is in essence broken and not working as described.

[SweetPotato.7456]

Sieges are often more useful from and attacker point, especially if you are on a mostly downtime server. But. we not going to discuss players coverage here, but it cannot be discuss without mentioning players coverage either.

 

this post talks about the Shield Generators and how they are not functioning for a defender vs attacker

 

Towers like Quentin Lake, WildCreek Run, Klovan, Anzaliaz, Ogre Watch and Durios are mostly always undersiege from the server that hold SMC reason being trebbing is easy when you have SMC, you build a treb, you take aim, you hold down the 2 keys and you goes do some housework, when you return the wall is down and the tower is flipped.

 

fault 1

First the defender have to have enough supply in the tower, being a tower that is constantly being flipped, it is always only holding 100 supplies, enough for you to build some shields, then there are the uncontrollable factors of players draining supplies, so you are lucky if you managed 2 shields up, you alternate between them and you run from shiled 1 to shiled 2 countering someone who may be afk, if they aren't afk, onces they pin point your shiled, it will be easilly treb down becase shiled is shielding the wall, it can't shield itself, and then you are left with no supply and no shield, so, the wall is inevitably taken down at some point and you get 0 pip for building the shields, and defending the tower.

 

fault 2

when you shiled , you need to target, everytime the treb/cata etc hits, but its not so for the attackers, one only needs to aim once and then let it do its own thing.

 

Fault 3

The vulnerable area of a wall is too wide, if you build a shiled that can cover that area, 100% of the time, it can be reach by enemy players and be taken down even before you have a chance to defend, so you find a nice spot to build the shiled but the distance of coverage isn't reachable to counter the attacking fire, whereas someone using a treb can and always will build it far away as long as they can hit that ground within the vunerable area.

 

fault 4

usually for a low population server or a server experiencing a low population hours. when an attack come, they come with lots sieges, and you have few people to defend, the recharge time of the shileds just can't hold the tower. no way at all, so you think, okay, i will take down the sieges instead of shielding, but, because 1) theres a zerg, 2) catas has shields of their own, 3) ontop of that they have shileds build far away and hinding from sight shielding the sieges. yes, you just kinda give up by then. HEHE

 

The conclusion is : shield is pretty much useless for defender vs attacker.

[SweetPotato.7456]

The taking over of a Tower/Keep vs Sieges.

Supply is a very important part of WvW that is why when a tower / keep is being take over, need to be able to take over enemy sieges.

 

What to do:

1) Add passive improvement Sabotage Sieges

2) once a tower/keep is taken over, players can use a "scroll" like the siege disable to take control of the enemy built sieges.

[cobbah.3102]

Arrow Carts are fine as is

Catapaults need to have a set range so cannot be placed against walls ,or dumb spots like hills down the slope and fired into solid rock and kill walls

Trebuchets range needs a decrease so if SMC holders want to take towers they need to attack and not use siege bots to continually hit towers (boring) and then run in with a blob for no effort.

Remove shield Gens not required

Ballista need a fix as mentioned before like tripod to lift so doesnt hit wall

Rams are fine as is

Lets just throw Dragon Banners in the mix needs a fix ,cannot roam with them for defence of structures only not an open field offensive weapon set a range from structures for use

 

[SweetPotato.7456]

Let the treb operator knows where on the mini map they are hitting, specifically for Trebuchet. The changes of the trebuchet operation in Battle of Kyhlo is good . maybe apply that, that would end the "auto-trebbing" from smc .

[penguin.9271]

> @"SkyShroud.2865" said:

> On second note, note sure what's everyone's problem with ac. It is anti personnel siege, it has been so since first year, before shield generator even come to existence. Now, we got sg, yet it isn't enough as a counter?

>

> I do think the ballista need some fixing. Technically, ballista range is 3000 and with mastery it is 3500. Canon is 3750. Therefore it is weird that ballista can hit cannon at 4000 range due to ballista projectile not disappearing beyond 3500. This is unreasonable solely because there are other forms of range attacks and usually they simply disappear once go beyond their allowed range. Even if there are proejctiles that dosn't disappear, the fact that it can fire a shot beyond 3500 range without the system saying it is out of range means the skill is in essence broken and not working as described.

 

Of course you won't have a problem with arrow carts. You and your guild abuses it everyday, you guys can't play without it. It's part of your culture just like the rest of the siege humpers who are defending or even asking arrow carts to be buffed.

[SweetPotato.7456]

Unfair advantages of attackers at borderland attacking Bay.

The trebuchet fire coming from the south west camps (bluevale / redvale) are not block by invisible wall/ barrier.

where as from the keep to the camp there is an invisible wall, therefore making it impossible to counter treb the attackers.

 

see picture

[https://goo.gl/aPNLCw](https://goo.gl/aPNLCw "https://goo.gl/aPNLCw")

[aspirine.6852]

Ok please consider in making the cannons, mortars and oil either indestructible or with better placements. Because right now when they matter the most they are instagibbed by an incoming zerg so in that case they are useless now. Give them a mastery that allows shielding perhaps, you are also instagibbed when you happen to be on a mortar or cannon if you do not lightning reflex out of them.

After they are destroyed it will take forever for them to be up again.. Can this also be changed?

 

Like someone else already stated, the siege in the desert Borderlands are a bit weird sometimes. Not just the mortars on stoic, but the cannons also seem to even be less useful as they are on other keeps. Fire keep cannons on the outer are bothered by bad line of sight, and at the inner I cant even imagine why you would use them because they cannot hit anything.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"SweetPotato.7456" said:

> Unfair advantages of attackers at borderland attacking Bay.

> The trebuchet fire coming from the south west camps (bluevale / redvale) are not block by invisible wall/ barrier.

> where as from the keep to the camp there is an invisible wall, therefore making it impossible to counter treb the attackers.

>

> see picture

> [https://goo.gl/aPNLCw](https://goo.gl/aPNLCw "https://goo.gl/aPNLCw")

 

The entire point is to call for reinforcement and go out and fight the enemy, if you cant counter-siege them. It happens. That's why its called a siege. Its not an issue, it's quite literally the purpose of the game. It should *never* be possible to siege bunker everywhere.

[borgs.6103]

Arrow Cart Revision

 

Skill 1 - Same damage to siege, **no damage to players** but instead gives them a stacking debuff that _increases physical damage from players by **x%**_.

 

Skill 2 - Same damage to siege, **no damage to players** but instead gives them a stacking debuff that _increases condition duration from conditions done by players by **x%**_.

 

Skill 3 - Same damage to siege, **no damage to players** but instead _removes a boon_.

 

Skill 4 - Reveals stealthed targets and _increases boon duration of allies affected by **x** seconds_. This is the **only damaging AC skill** and should have quite the cooldown.

 

Arrow Cart Mastery:

 

Rank 1 - Same

Rank 2 - Increase damage to siege by 25% and Increases the debuff effectiveness of skills to y%.

Rank 3 - Increases the boons removed by skill 3 to _(X)_ and it now also drains supply.

Rank 4 - Same

Rank 5 - Unlocks Skill 4 and increases the duration of debuffs by skills 1 and 2 by x seconds.

 

Normal ACs do less damage to siege, lower debuff effectiveness and duration than Superior versions.

 

ACs will now be more of a support siege and people would still need to fight and not just stay in them. The debuffs are still a threat and standing in its AOE for a long time can still be dangerous.

 

This of course still needs some tweaking of numbers and cooldowns since it can be overpowered in open field fights.

[Israel.7056]

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> Players need to improve their “game”, and realize there is more to wvw than blobbing up and spamming skills without thinking.

 

You mean like fighting other players?

[guildabd.6529]

Honestly, what's with the complaints about arrow carts dealing too much damage? Since when did you got full kill with an ac? Those things hit like a wet noodle, and usually down 1 or 2 at best.

If anything, arrow carts should be buffed, not nerfed.

[Israel.7056]

Here is what I would like to see:

 

1.) Remove all siege except rams and catas and arrow carts. Make catas only do damage to walls. Make ACs only do damage to siege. Game instantly becomes more fighting oriented instead of sit on a wall and build siege oriented.

 

2.) Let players do normal damage to gates and walls so it's possible for a large group to plow through without having to build a bunch of siege.

 

3.) No more auto upgrades, go back to making people pay for them if they really want them.

 

These three changes by themselves would speed up the game so much and force these siege monkeys to actually get off a wall and fight if they really want to protect their objectives. They will lose a lot because most of them have spent way way too much time afking on trebs but over time they will remember the glory of combat.