Claiming keeps and other objectives

[Deleted]

We know it's possible to claim keeps and other objectives in WvW, but I can't really find many details on it. Like how expensive is it (initial cost / over time) or even the currency used. Does the guild earn influence faster? I know about the Art of War and the bonuses from that, and I know the guild with the most members present (or most contribution perhaps) when the keep is taken gets a small time window to claim the objective before anyone else, but that's just about all I could find. Oh and there's the guild banners I suppose.

Anyone know more?

[Bridger]

To my knowledge it costs nothing, and has no upkeep, though that may change. There are guild banners that hang from the keeps. We saw them in action during the beta weekend.

[Deleted]

Thanks for reply.

For beta purposes I fully understand the no cost to claiming, but I will be a little surprised if it doesn't cost *something* come release, at least for keeps and the castle. Claiming comes with a responsibility to upgrade I think, so I'd rather not see guilds claiming Stonemist Castle with no intention of upgrading after, just to have their banners shown.

[Glytch]

i would think the cost is having enough people to defend the keep

[Dosvidaniya]

Taking a keep costs nothing for the capture.

Upgrading costs some silver. I think around 50 silver each; there are 3 possible upgrades. Keep in mind that it is beta and money was insanely scarce. Siege costs between 20s and 50s. Dropping 3 to 4 pieces of siege is expected for fast capping a gate. That'll run you about 75s. So, expect to drop 1.5+ gold per keep capture.

The big restriction on upgrading your keep is time. When people get into the real game, the money will stop (many, not all) people from doing stupid things and tossing siege equipment here, there, and everywhere. Upgrades to the keep will happen. However, they take time to complete (and only one can happen at a time). Upgrading a keep requires you to dispatch some npcs. They go about upgrading it. And it takes a couple hours to finish the good ones. If the npcs get killed, it takes even longer. (If they all get killed, you lose your upgrade). People will upgrade keeps after capture. It's relatively cheap. The top WvW servers had heavily upgraded keeps for most of Sunday. It's not that pricey and the gain is massive. The big investment is time.

[Deleted]

I didn't explore WvW enough last BWE (was ripping things apart in structured PVP), this is something I'm planning to do next event. I remember though that there was quite big list of things you could upgrade, like: waypoint, defensive "turrets", better walls and gates etc. Can't wait to try all this out next BWE =].

God.. it is scary, no matter what aspect of the game I touch - it's good.

[Deleted]

Actually, the whole "it's gotta cost something to claim" thing is based on the assumption that only the guild that claimed the keep can upgrade it. Is that how it is though? Or can anyone or any guild upgrade a keep that a different guild has claimed? If the latter is true, it matters less if it's free to claim I think, but I'd still like to see something stopping a 1-man guild from claiming an objective just for the epeen, with no intention or means to upgrade it.

[Dosvidaniya]

Actually, the whole "it's gotta cost something to claim" thing is based on the assumption that only the guild that claimed the keep can upgrade it. Is that how it is though? Or can anyone or any guild upgrade a keep that a different guild has claimed? If the latter is true, I matters less if it's free to claim I think, but I'd still like to see something stopping a 1-man guild from claiming an objective just for the epeen, with no intention or means to upgrade it.

Anyone can upgrade a keep. It's actually bad in the sense that the uninformed like to upgrade guards (which is the weakest upgrade by far). It's good, in the sense that anyone can do it. Upgrades happen. The cost in terms of money is low. The cost in time and supply is high. Random people and guilds will upgrade them. While it may seem viable to be a zerg guild that takes keeps, plants a flag, and then bails; it is not. It costs more to take a keep than it does to upgrade it. You can only show your banner at one location and the prestigious ones are a real pain to get. Sure, this may happen. It's really not a big deal.

[Deleted]

Anyone can upgrade a keep. It's actually bad in the sense that the uninformed like to upgrade guards (which is the weakest upgrade by far). It's good, in the sense that anyone can do it. Upgrades happen. The cost in terms of money is low. The cost in time and supply is high. Random people and guilds will upgrade them. While it may seem viable to be a zerg guild that takes keeps, plants a flag, and then bails; it is not.

Ok thanks for confirmation on that

It costs more to take a keep than it does to upgrade it. You can only show your banner at one location and the prestigious ones are a real pain to get. Sure, this may happen. It's really not a big deal.

Can you explain what you mean by "It costs more to take a keep" please? You mean in siege equipment and such, or is there another cost?

[terrahero]

Can you explain what you mean by "It costs more to take a keep" please? You mean in siege equipment and such, or is there another cost?

I believe he means Siege equipment. A couple of Trebs can be pretty costly, and thats the least you'll need if you wanna take any decently sized Keep.
But i dont know if its entirely true that upgrading is cheaper. I think there are some expensive upgrades aswell, and then we arent even talking about placing some Cannons and other such defenses.

[Merendel]

thats also asuming costs stay the same. its possible it might go up after retail. looking at the reward scaleing we saw its possible that a true 80 wouldnt even thing twice about droping 5gold on something but if they priced it that high during a BWE with no existing funds or economy runing nothing would ever get tested.

[terrahero]

thats also asuming costs stay the same. its possible it might go up after retail. looking at the reward scaleing we saw its possible that a true 80 wouldnt even thing twice about droping 5gold on something but if they priced it that high during a BWE with no existing funds or economy runing nothing would ever get tested.

They did say they are considering dropping the cost in WvW to get some more action going for the next BWE. And also that they are still balancing the final costs.

[Threndsa]

Also if you wanted to make some quick cash you can always walk with the pack animals and get the defend the caravan event quest reward. At level 13 I was getting about 2 silver a full run and my friend who was 21 said he was getting 4 and some copper. Its not a lot but when you are defending/waiting for keep upgrades to run its an easy thing to do.

[Merendel]

Also if you wanted to make some quick cash you can always walk with the pack animals and get the defend the caravan event quest reward. At level 13 I was getting about 2 silver a full run and my friend who was 21 said he was getting 4 and some copper. Its not a lot but when you are defending/waiting for keep upgrades to run its an easy thing to do.

makeing money isnt all that hard its just a mater of the time avalible. Rewards everywhere scale to your true level so what seems expensive at lvl 10 where you make 1s for an event is a pitance to a lvl 80 that could get 40-50s an event. For the BWE's you have the double issue of everybody is low level and has had no time to acumulate funds. This made pricing that would be just fine at live be very painful for a BWE. That 1g siege golem looks like a good investment when you can get that in 10 minutes and are siting on 1000gold but is brutal when youve got only 2 gold you spent the last 12 hours slowly acumeulating.

[terrahero]

Yah the quest rewards seem to be scaling up more and more. Unless they cut it off at some point and stop scaling 50s or perhaps even 1g might be possible at lv80. We just dont know yet. And ultimately, prices of siege equipment is scaled to lv80 players, so one could make the argument they might even be a little cheap. Or that Arenanet intends for Supply to be the limiting factor in constructing Siege weapons, and not Coin.

[Spl4sh3r]

Anyone can upgrade a keep. It's actually bad in the sense that the uninformed like to upgrade guards (which is the weakest upgrade by far). It's good, in the sense that anyone can do it. Upgrades happen. The cost in terms of money is low. The cost in time and supply is high. Random people and guilds will upgrade them. While it may seem viable to be a zerg guild that takes keeps, plants a flag, and then bails; it is not. It costs more to take a keep than it does to upgrade it. You can only show your banner at one location and the prestigious ones are a real pain to get. Sure, this may happen. It's really not a big deal.

I believe anyone could upgrade cause they wanted to test it during beta. Hopefully its not true at release.

[terrahero]

I believe anyone could upgrade cause they wanted to test it during beta. Hopefully its not true at release.

Well, thats an interesting point. Do we only allow Guild Members (or even specific ranked members) to upgrade? Or do we leave it FFA? Supply is limited, so someone that blows that supply on a weak upgrade, or the wrong upgrade, while people were gathering supply so they could get something else could be a pain.

But on the other hand. If some simple, rookie guild, claims a keep because they can. And then abandons it, people who are serious about WvW cannot upgrade this keep to defend it. It might be a strategically important keep.

I dont know how the current system works. But if there is a rule that only the guild who claimed it can upgrade it, then there should be a significant cost attached to claiming a keep. So you really have to invest, else you are just throwing your coin away.

edit:
Also im curious how a guild claims a keep. Is it first come first serve? Or is there more involved?

[Merendel]

Maybe have a system where anybody can upgrade but the claiming guild can override a non guilds upgrade request. Say a guild claims a keep and some random member of the zerg immediately starts upgrading guards. Within some time frame of that initial upgrade order a guild member can tell the workers to go build a cannon instead. If done within say 10% of the total time of the first upgrade then the game treats it as if that had been the upgrade from the start and all supplies and time spent count towards the guild ordered upgrade. After that threshold some of the supplies are shifted over but there's some loss dependent on how long the previous upgrade was running. This would still give guilds a priority say on what gets upgraded and in what order but still alow the server to upgrade locations that are claimed and abandoned.