Siege Revisions

[Etheri.5406]

Considering alliances will NOT fix coverage issues; coverage issues can only be fixed through PPT balance.

 

As long as ACs and siege allows to hold objectives even when heavily outnumbered and / or outskilled for exceptionally long periods of time; coverage can neither be balanced through matchmaking (which doesn't even measure when we play) nor PPT (a 20v40 has almost no influence on PPT; the 20 players can simply siege away the 40 players without much influence on scoring.) Skill will always be irrelevant if it can be replaced with siege; rather than substituted.

 

Omegas should be unblockable. Siege will need to be nerfed more.

 

Anet shouldn't wait a year with these type of changes. These are incremental changes towards a healthier gamestate and will need to be tried and repeated. As with no downstate week; just implement and readjust in a MONTH. You don't have to bullseye changes if you stay on top of them; and just fix issues in a month. If you make changes but won't re-evalute for a year, then you better get them right instantly. But frankly I don't think that's realistic.

[Chimppossible.1829]

Acs do now 50% less damage on other sieges! What ppl forget is..what is the role of sieges in the game. This makes blobs unstopable at gates cause i throw 4 a 5 rams on a gate and u can shake it your acs gone take them down. Also if you attack a wall with a blob..acs cant get cats down then but cats can stand united in their bubbles so trebs will fail to. Arrow carts are invented to make it not To easy to enter a tower or keep. With 50% less damage the normal arrow cart u can throw out of the game. Nobody wants it (allready it was outdated) but this way arrow carts also are no longer of real use. Also.....if u can get in any tower or keep and siege doesnt defend really (like unstopable omegas) then why defend? Or even upgrade. ppl that think ppl will put time and effort in upgrading or defending then objects are naive unless you are equal numbers. If an enemy comes with 40 ppl and u cant hold them out unless u have 40 defenders, then ppl simple wont even be in objects...all stays wooden and you see only equal numbers fighting or one of both sides say ok let them have it why waste time on this. So it would be boring! Siege is...to bring balance and effort in the game for defense and offense as a buff that not equal ammount of players still can have fun defending. With no defense u cap empty objects..omg that is a lot of fun! yes that is not predictable! Sieges are a buffer for a smaller group of ppl to defend an strategic object and to give the enemy the joy of effort....godmode is boring and always fighting battles with equal numbers is to! So siege has a very important role here! The first think that now has to change is the cats that all can stand in one united bubble. Specially now acs have just 50% dmg on enemy sieges.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Now that its been in production for a bit, the AC change does seem to favor the zerg over the defenders. It is reducing the number of defenders since if the numbers are adverse enough there is no reason to defend.

[XenesisII.1540]

Arrow carts are used on enemy players, all other siege are used on all other siege, is there something hard here to understand?

But oh right, people just want the one siege to rule them all, sit at the back of the wall hitting anything from anywhere without being countered.

 

[godofcows.2451]

I'm more concerned about shield generators. They're too dominating. And for a defensive siege by design on paper, it usually favors the bigger offensive group.

[Garrus.7403]

> @"Chimppossible.1829" said:

> Acs do now 50% less damage on other sieges! What ppl forget is..what is the role of sieges in the game. This makes blobs unstopable at gates cause i throw 4 a 5 rams on a gate and u can shake it your acs gone take them down. Also if you attack a wall with a blob..acs cant get cats down then but cats can stand united in their bubbles so trebs will fail to. Arrow carts are invented to make it not To easy to enter a tower or keep. With 50% less damage the normal arrow cart u can throw out of the game. Nobody wants it (allready it was outdated) but this way arrow carts also are no longer of real use. Also.....if u can get in any tower or keep and siege doesnt defend really (like unstopable omegas) then why defend? Or even upgrade. ppl that think ppl will put time and effort in upgrading or defending then objects are naive unless you are equal numbers. If an enemy comes with 40 ppl and u cant hold them out unless u have 40 defenders, then ppl simple wont even be in objects...all stays wooden and you see only equal numbers fighting or one of both sides say ok let them have it why waste time on this. So it would be boring! Siege is...to bring balance and effort in the game for defense and offense as a buff that not equal ammount of players still can have fun defending. With no defense u cap empty objects..omg that is a lot of fun! yes that is not predictable! Sieges are a buffer for a smaller group of ppl to defend an strategic object and to give the enemy the joy of effort....godmode is boring and always fighting battles with equal numbers is to! So siege has a very important role here! The first think that now has to change is the cats that all can stand in one united bubble. Specially now acs have just 50% dmg on enemy sieges.

 

AC are anti player weapons not anti siege. You should try and fight with your own skills to destroy a cata/ram not just sitting behind a wall and press 1 in safety. Loosing a keep to omega golems is a l2p issue. Get 2 firebrands behind a gate and use reflects and you the golems can not do shit. If the enemy is inside your keep just keep clouding and farm the backline. Destroy the siege on the outer gates/walls and repair it so the enemy can not respawn. You have so much advantage in your own structures as a defender just start using it. I know for some servers this might be hard if you just relied on acs 90% of the time but you can do it I am sure. :) After all its a PvP mode not some arrowcart simulator.

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

> @"hunkamania.7561" said:

> When is this happening? What was the point of this post if you're not gonna do anything anytime soon? AC's are still OP. 11111111111111111111111 for the win

 

The point of the post was to put it up early to look at feedback. We did make one additional change to oil as a result. The user of boiling oil will now be immune to cc effects.

 

The changes are done, just going through QA now. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the planned release, the changes will be up by the end of the month.

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > @"hunkamania.7561" said:

> > When is this happening? What was the point of this post if you're not gonna do anything anytime soon? AC's are still OP. 11111111111111111111111 for the win

>

> The point of the post was to put it up early to look at feedback. We did make one additional change to oil as a result. The user of boiling oil will now be immune to cc effects.

>

> The changes are done, just going through QA now. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the planned release, the changes will be up by the end of the month.

 

One additional note. I should be more clear that the extra oil change requires oil mastery 3.

[TheBravery.9615]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > > @"hunkamania.7561" said:

> > > When is this happening? What was the point of this post if you're not gonna do anything anytime soon? AC's are still OP. 11111111111111111111111 for the win

> >

> > The point of the post was to put it up early to look at feedback. We did make one additional change to oil as a result. The user of boiling oil will now be immune to cc effects.

> >

> > The changes are done, just going through QA now. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the planned release, the changes will be up by the end of the month.

>

> One additional note. I should be more clear that the extra oil change requires oil mastery 3.

 

Speaking of which, are there any works in progress to update the wvw mastery system? It's a bit outdated - earning useless points unable to spend on and all that

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

> @"TheBravery.9615" said:

> > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > > > @"hunkamania.7561" said:

> > > > When is this happening? What was the point of this post if you're not gonna do anything anytime soon? AC's are still OP. 11111111111111111111111 for the win

> > >

> > > The point of the post was to put it up early to look at feedback. We did make one additional change to oil as a result. The user of boiling oil will now be immune to cc effects.

> > >

> > > The changes are done, just going through QA now. Assuming nothing goes wrong with the planned release, the changes will be up by the end of the month.

> >

> > One additional note. I should be more clear that the extra oil change requires oil mastery 3.

>

> Speaking of which, are there any works in progress to update the wvw mastery system? It's a bit outdated - earning useless points unable to spend on and all that

 

We talk about it from time to time, but it hasn't yet bubbled up to the top of our priority list. You should make a new thread about it. I'd love to see suggestions on new masteries people would like to see.

[cobbah.3102]

> @"pete.4835" said:

> i feel like you should leave AC alone. ive never thought of them as OP. they are most times the only way to defend and usually if players are good they are just a sway to delay the inevitable unless help arrives. the rest are good changes

 

I agree AC should be left as they are ,I I mean if your choice is to play a squishy player do not stand under ac fire simple ,not as if you have no dodge ,structures should be harder to get into when a 50 man blob comes and throws all their aoe on top of the wall I mean siege doesn't even last 2 secs, to keep the balance halve the aoe but then the complaints would still come . Still say it is the blob servers that are doing the complaining.

[Gypaetus.6709]

Hey Ben, have you considered implementing exclusion zones/collision between siege weapons? Is it hard to code? I'm sure many people have suggested that before and such a mechanic would not only help balance WvW (requiring more shield gens and making it harder to stack cata shields) but also make life harder for trolls and spies who toss trash siege on top of useful build sites. I've seen a lot of trolling recently and would highly support any measures taken against them, especially on the design level.

[Arda.2490]

> Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.


Seriously ?

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

> @"Arda.2490" said:

> > Shield generators can no longer put domes on other shield generators.

> 

> Seriously ?

 

LOL! .

[Tiawal.2351]

There is much lobbying here for one extreme or the other, but there has to be a balance: keeping it useful, but not overpowered. This isn't easy, and adjusting it has to be about measuring and adjusting those numbers involved. Siege has to allow reaction time and counterplay, even for a full glass player standing under 1,000 AC, but should kill after that "reaction time", including lag and and everything.

 

If defenders need more help, adjust wall & gate, or something that helps only defenders. But keep in mind that attacking has to be "easy" enough, otherwise won't happen (and then defending either).

 

The most important is, even more important than balancing these, is the FUN factor: has to be fun defending, has to be fun attacking. THIS part is the biggest problem. Defending is a painful and mindless press buttons, and attacking is a mindless and un-fun being killed by something you can't even see in this game (we needed badly options to remove all that useless flashy effects) and even if you can see it, you can't react: it's either instakills you or there's no place where to move away.

 

"Siege wars" game is extremely boring because of these. I don't mind dying, but I really hate dying in these stupid ways, where I can't do anything else but "not be there". I really hate siege in this game because of these reasons, both attacking and defending. Using siege is almost equal to hacking and exploiting in my mind. At this point removing every building and leaving just circles to capture, with no siege at all, would remove this huge bad part -- that's how a failure currently the siege part it is.

 

Instead let's focus on fixing it, and consider both sides, because even if you never attack or defend, many others do both, and this part of the game shouldn't be as bad as it is.

[Clardalan.2607]

it is just painful to get a reward from mists chest, and it turns out to be a ballista. when in zerg, you dont need it. when alone, you cannot defend it. there has to be full stability/cc protection when you are on a ballista, and reduced damage. also; why can we not upgrade the normal ballista to superior? the other requirements are expensive but normal ballista is worthless. just reduce other requirements and put maybe 10x or 20x ballista in the receipe for the superior ballista?

we know nobody uses normal siege; due to dmg. at least make them useful for converting to superior. other requirements are too costly to conver normal to superior.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Clardalan.2607" said:

> also; why can we not upgrade the normal ballista to superior?

 

Eh, you can convert ballistas like any other siege.

 

Also if you dont like it then throw it away. Nobody works by siege drops, we buy the siege we want. Whatever one get from drops is either crap (trash/sell) or goes on top of the pile of 1000+ various siege engines one have in inventory.

[Strider Pj.2193]

> @"Clardalan.2607" said:

> it is just painful to get a reward from mists chest, and it turns out to be a ballista. when in zerg, you dont need it. when alone, you cannot defend it. there has to be full stability/cc protection when you are on a ballista, and reduced damage. also; why can we not upgrade the normal ballista to superior? the other requirements are expensive but normal ballista is worthless. just reduce other requirements and put maybe 10x or 20x ballista in the receipe for the superior ballista?

> we know nobody uses normal siege; due to dmg. at least make them useful for converting to superior. other requirements are too costly to conver normal to superior.

 

If you have a guild scribe, that makes guild seige, they can always use 'blue' seige. Problem with some of the recipes is they become expensive with the use of iron/steel.

 

It can make guild ACs and ballistas cost prohibitive.

[santenal.1054]

Is it not too late to make suggestions?

Maps filled with fully upgraded tower/keeps and a too little amount of people that can try to cap them is pretty much dead content for those people (and also boring for the defending players on that borderland) because they can not do alot of usefull stuff on those maps. (they get spotted and overrun too soon) Why not scale siege damage (of a particular side) against upgraded walls/gates with the amount of players of a particular alliance/server on that map? so when there are not alot players they still can try capping and have a reasonable chance in succeeding?