Siege Revisions

[Chaba.5410]

> @"guildabd.6529" said:

> What is the purpose nerfing ACs that much? They are really bad in their current state (never kills anyone, enemy blob health never goes below 90%).

> Usually, when enemies attacks tower or a keep, **I leave that kitten ac for being too weak** and instead drop ranged aoe on them.

 

Just build more arrow carts.

[Waffle.3748]

> @"Pagan Highlander.5948" said:

> I will try the new changes, however, I will say that I am against them. Those are fine for the Top tier where they are siege heavy andmapped queued most of the time. However at the lower tiers, these are huge detriments where you are usually outnumbered, outgunned, and easily outfought by Mag's blobs (A Tier 1-2 Serverhiding in T4 for kills. Just look at their insane KDR). In almost all cases, it is extremely difficult to get at and hit catapults up against your walls other then with Arrow Carts (With all the scourge bombs, its suicide to be on the wall). Thus you have mostly removed the only defense for a tower, especially if outnumbered.

> This will be even more pronounced and detrimental with servers without late night coverage. Crystal Desert can barely pull one map Queue during NA. This will just make them a total punching bag for all the other servers. Same thing will happen for the poor T3 server moving up into T2. This almost all favors the servers with the numbers of players. Unfortunately another case of ANET not looking at all sides of the issue.

 

You're actually really out of date if you think Mag is a t1-t2 server anymore lol.

[coro.3176]

> @"guildabd.6529" said:

> What is the purpose nerfing ACs that much? They are really bad in their current state (never kills anyone, enemy blob health never goes below 90%).

> Usually, when enemies attacks tower or a keep, **I leave that kitten ac for being too weak** and instead drop ranged aoe on them.

 

Currently, 2-3 superior ACs can prevent any close-range cata or ram attack that doesn't have 100% shield gen cover. 2-3 superior ACs firing at a zerg will down squishies within seconds. The difference with regular ranged AOE is that you're putting yourself at risk to do it. The blob under the wall can shoot back at you. AC's can be placed far enough back that only some lucky Meteor hits can touch them.

[Kitanin.8394]

> @"Kitta.3657" said:

> I like the outlook of these changes and I am looking forward to see their effect ingame.

>

> To those who still complain to this day about attackers trying to counter them sitting on arrow carts: use stability and learn how to properly place siege, this is entirely a player issue and not a game issue. I NEVER get pulled on walls or die to a wall bomb because I keep my awareness up. Besides as was previously mentioned you aren't meant to hold against enemies that triple or even quadruple your numbers!! You should be delaying to get reinforcements. Structures should not be impenetrable because 15 players just want to sit on siege inside of it and I find your viewpoint to be what causes a lot of boredom in this game mode.

 

You're right, I should totally use all those stability-granting skills on the right side of my toolbar... that are disabled while I'm operating siege. (Seriously, are arrow carts breath-powered? HOW CAN I NOT SHOUT WHILE OPERATING AN AC!?)

 

Or should I get off the AC, cast stability, get back on the AC, re-adjust my view so I can target something because getting back on the AC has ever so helpfully reset my camera, then get melted by five meteor showers, fifteen wells, and a dozen mesmer clones because they melted the other siege while I was adjusting my camera and can now focus on me?

 

Also, I find the idea of being able to get 15 people to defend something hilarious. (Or, honestly, the idea of getting reinforcements, but that's more of a complaint about the dubious quality of the tags in our current server alliance.) And your dismissal of anyone who enjoys playing and succeeding as defenders as "what causes a lot of boredom in this game mode" is annoying as kittens.

[Elder of Time.3279]

> @"guildabd.6529" said:

> What is the purpose nerfing ACs that much? They are really bad in their current state (never kills anyone, enemy blob health never goes below 90%).

> Usually, when enemies attacks tower or a keep, **I leave that kitten ac for being too weak** and instead drop ranged aoe on them.

 

Never kills anyone!? Have you ever stood underneath 5 superior acs? Now just get that ac damage and add it with the 50 man group bombing on top of you lol.

 

Sure, if you're solo shooting an ac at a 30-50 man group it isn't that effective, but at least your burning some cooldowns.

[Klypto.1703]

Equips aqua breather the flood of tears are coming.

[Shagaliscious.6281]

> @"Crashdown.7419" said:

> Nice work. I agree with most of the points. The Arrow Cart damage against siege has been reduced by 50% one is way to much though. If you are outnumbered there is no way to defend it anymore. Now you had a chance with some ac's. With this you are giving high populated servers even more advantage to lower pop servers. Siege was not destroyed to fast so for me this should go. The rest seem like nice changes.

>

 

I could build a sup AC after 1 cata was fully built, and kill the cata before the wall would go down, with no one repairing.

[Kitta.3657]

> @"Kitanin.8394" said:

> > @"Kitta.3657" said:

> > I like the outlook of these changes and I am looking forward to see their effect ingame.

> >

> > To those who still complain to this day about attackers trying to counter them sitting on arrow carts: use stability and learn how to properly place siege, this is entirely a player issue and not a game issue. I NEVER get pulled on walls or die to a wall bomb because I keep my awareness up. Besides as was previously mentioned you aren't meant to hold against enemies that triple or even quadruple your numbers!! You should be delaying to get reinforcements. Structures should not be impenetrable because 15 players just want to sit on siege inside of it and I find your viewpoint to be what causes a lot of boredom in this game mode.

>

> You're right, I should totally use all those stability-granting skills on the right side of my toolbar... that are disabled while I'm operating siege. (Seriously, are arrow carts breath-powered? HOW CAN I NOT SHOUT WHILE OPERATING AN AC!?)

>

> Or should I get off the AC, cast stability, get back on the AC, re-adjust my view so I can target something because getting back on the AC has ever so helpfully reset my camera, then get melted by five meteor showers, fifteen wells, and a dozen mesmer clones because they melted the other siege while I was adjusting my camera and can now focus on me?

>

> Also, I find the idea of being able to get 15 people to defend something hilarious. (Or, honestly, the idea of getting reinforcements, but that's more of a complaint about the dubious quality of the tags in our current server alliance.) And your dismissal of anyone who enjoys playing and succeeding as defenders as "what causes a lot of boredom in this game mode" is annoying as kittens.

 

It's called awareness, if you think you can fire away and not be touched and not have to react to an attack, that's your fault. I see a zerg moving close to the wall? I get off the AC pop stab get back on. If I didn't see it? I have a stun break which you should have in WvW (and a lot of them come WITH stability) and I can use it so I don't fall off the wall. How about Warrior, per example, won't be pulled off a wall because a pull will proc the passive balanced stance and make him immune to that pull. There are easy and obvious ways to deal with your issue and you are being stubborn in not learning how to handle it better or pretending that these solutions aren't at your disposal. Put your AC at the top of stairs where meteor shower cannot hit you... Hello, safe spots. There are also other ways to defend than sit on arrow carts.

 

I am not dismissive of people who enjoy defensive play (I would absolutely love if it was meaningful & if winning mattered), I am dismissive of the ones who can't understand how the game works and would rather hide than fight in a PvP gamemode while claiming stuff that is simply fixed with learning to play better.

 

Be ready instead of turning off your brain on your AC :)

[Carighan.6758]

I have to say, I **love** that arrow carts are finally getting a very much needed nerf.

 

It might not be quite enough, or it might be slightly too much. I very much prefer sweeping changes like this however, see where the balance falls now, and decide on the final balance later once multiple options are known.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Pagan Highlander.5948" said:

> As for the cannons and Oil, I agree with GDchia Scrub, Cannons and oils are still pretty much useless unless you have good protection/stability. This need to be not only for them, but players on the walls. Why is it they can be insanely pulled off the wall, but we have to stand on the edge just to be able to fight back? Walls are supposed to be a major obstacle and DEFENSIVE advantage, yet everything is to the advantage of the attackers. at the very least, maybe make Window ports or shields that allow players to put up a defense. ANET seriously needs to get it Devs off their butts and come see how bad WvW really is. We need more defensive capabilities, not less.

 

Agreed. One reason Castles were so hard to take historically is that the ranged fighter on a castle wall had a tremendous advantage over those below. They were much harder to hit and target with ranged attacks. In the game it in fact a liability. The enemy atacks can arc up over and out of the LOS of the player initiating the attack. They can pull you down off the way even without a LOS and the defender can only respond by jumping onto that lip to fire back.

 

One reason AC's were so heavily relied on was that you could at least stage them back from the walls edges and did not need a direct LOS to hit an enemy. Without changes to Cannon/oil mortars the changes as proposed are too harsh on defenders.

 

Cannons need a damage boost IMO. If someone is to suicide themself by manning one , they should be rewarded. Alternatively another mastery can be added that provides stability for XXX seconds when used.

 

Burning oil needs quicker refresh times on the skills. It rare to get more then a handful of usages off before all the AOE saturating the area kills you.

[Tammuz.7361]

Great changes, especially to ACs. Will hopefully encourage more actual PvP combat instead of people relying too much on siege during peak hours.

[babazhook.6805]

> @"Tammuz.7361" said:

> Great changes, especially to ACs. Will hopefully encourage more actual PvP combat instead of people relying too much on siege during peak hours.

 

I do not think this will lead to more PvP. The reason many people fight "defensively" is because they are generally outnumbered on a battlefield. They might have 15 guys against a zerg of 40. They are not going to engage that group directly unless they just want to act as bags. When the ability to defend a structure removed that smaller group will jus move to another map where they can join a larger or backflip places they feel they can take before the blob arrives.

 

Without changes to the population imbalance It my opinion the number of battles open field will in fact drop.

[Israel.7056]

Meh reads as half measures to me but I'll withhold judgment until I've played the changes.

[Karnasis.6892]

I'm waiting to see, but currently I'm not keen on the sounds of AC's being nerfed. Does it suck in t1-t2 to be stuck fighting people who constantly hide behind siege, sure. But at lower tiers, (especially with Mag sandbagging) the nerfs to AC's are awful. On top of that we now have really no good way to deal with point blank catas. Most good commanders take down defensive siege (cannons, oils) and that usually means the only defensive siege we have are AC's (you can counter cata I suppose if you have a good angle) but balli's are near useless in this situation. Unless we are playing against total squish characters I doubt we'll have a chance to kill a zerg with AC's (or at least reduced effectiveness), or be able to defend if we're on a low pop server or time zone.

 

I get that folks should be able to pressure keeps and towers no matter what tier, but t3 defenses should be hard to break into, and take tactics beyond "Rush wall, build 7 catas and win", and now ac's potentially won't be able to stop that from happening. As for fights, I'm really sure that 50 man zerg really wants to "fight" those 7 defenders (only for loot, not because it'll be fun).

 

I hope this doesn't cause the game in the lower tiers to be less fun than it currently is (someone convince Mag they want to go to t2/t1 again XD)

 

[Jski.6180]

I like to see these in action before saying if they are good or not. I just hope the Ballistas can hit siege a lot better then what it dose now LoS destroys this siege so badly. This is why i was looking forward to a placsable mortar being part of the siege kit sadly this never happen.

 

When are these going live?

[Kovu.7560]

> @"XenesisII.1540" said:

> The shield gen changes look good, didn't know it would be possible not to put domes on other shield gens lol, (rangers you have one job and that's kill shield gens!), lets see how that plays out.

 

Rangers will still get murdered if they stand on the edge of a wall to shoot a shield gen. The _real_ benefit is if unblockable effects will work in tandem with siege disablers. If that's the case the in-a-small-area setup of x/x/x/shield-gen/shield-gen will get shaken up. (Though it already will if shield gens can no longer overlap each other with their bubbles.)

 

~ Kovu

[Garrus.7403]

Great changes. Especially ac nerf looks fine.

[Shadows Creed.3902]

Great changes and glad to hear that feedback is being listened to.

[Ceistebi.4023]

Interesting changes, although the problem with AC's was never to siege weps, it was the damage it tended to do to players. Also, for those complaining that 15 defenders shouldn't be able to hold of 2,3, or 4x the number, you just honestly need to get better. There are a lot of ways to attack an objective that defenders either can't counter (shield gen bubble rotation for example), or have a hard time doing. Can't get into a tower with catas? Try a treb. Sure, it may take some time, but you should have to work for it because I sure as hell am working my ass off to defend. The idea that just because you have more quantitatively that you should basically just win automatically is what is flawed in this game mode. Some of us enjoy defending and have spent time learning how to do it effectively. Cannons and oils are basically worthless if the enemy has a few eles and decent support class players. This makes us resort to disables and AC's, counter catas, counter trebs, etc. Learn to play smart instead of thinking you're big and therefore it should be a cakewalk.

[Etheri.5406]

These changes look great. Thank you!

Not sure how useful shield gens will be offensively.

Omega auto attacks should be unblockable; they're currently next to useless and if whoever mans it doesn't know what they're doing, they'll kill the golem relatively quickly. I think you also cannot kick a player out of your golems, even if you're the one that dropped them.

[Hoon.1524]

These changes look great. Thank you!

[Pedro.7180]

Ty for this update. These are great changes!

Ty very much. We were waiting for this since 2y at least!

Good job and keep going

[TheGrimm.5624]

Will have to play it out. But a bit concerned since you can place ACs to reach most catapults, but that's not true about ballista. But if it is an issue maybe we can get a new ballista or AC ability that has a different cooldown that is anti-siege. We don't want to get back to a "there is no point to defending" state.

[Rethical.3258]

Any change that promotes players to organize themselves, and fight with their weapons, rather than siege is a good change in my opinion. I endorse these changes!

[DeWolfe.2174]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> I think all of these changes will at least mix things up. It will probably take 2-6 weeks to get an idea of whether it makes things more fun or more tragic. Or maybe has little effect.

 

It shouldn't take more than 2-7 days. If maps become papered easier, the drop in player participation will be easily visible for the Devs. I would not have made any changes during a PvE week though. They'll be no way to measure the participation response.