Guild Wars 2

This thread is intended for people to give ideas about how to make wvw more fun. For me Wvw is the best part of this game, but there are some trends currently present that are making it decidedly less fun. So, I started thinking about how to improve on the game play and here’s what I came up with:

Suggestion 1:
Zerging. 40+ groups of randoms following a commander. This can be fun for a while but it really puts a damper on small talented roaming groups. Nothing worse than being with your little 3-5 man group taking camps and what not and all of a sudden just being swamped by a huge zerg. I’m not complaining about large coordinated guild groups because even if it was 10 of them there would be very little chance for you to evade them. Basically the idea that superior numbers = win needs to be addressed, or to be more specific the ratio of more superior numbers = win.

It is the same idea as with class balance. Class balance needs to be balanced around raw dps, cc, healing, group support, and mobility. Played well, equally skilled players 2 vs 1, the 2 will win. However, when one player is significantly more skilled a 5 vs 1 would end up with the 1 winning. This is situational of course as if any of the 5 get off a lucky string of uncoordinated cc the 1 is going to die, but 3 vs 1’s, 2 vs 1’s the skilled player wins.

The current zerg dynamic allows for a group of 15+ average players to take out a group of 5 skilled players or a group of 40+ average players to take out a group of 20 skilled players. I think these numbers are a bit skewed. This does not mean that class balance need to be addressed, and it does not mean that any limits need to be in place. However, some adjustments to the game to make 40+ man zergs less viable might make things a bit more fun.

To put it another way, in the open field, the current ratio of 3 average vs 1 skilled being viable for the 1 is good, the ratio of 40 average players vs 20 skilled players the advantage swings to the 40 very quickly. The bigger the groups the worse the balance gets. So what can be done to keep the ratio of 3 average to 1 skilled as numbers scale up?

The trick here is to make any change unobtrusive. Debuffing people because they are in a huge group is just out. I can only imagine the whining about something like that. What I do think would work to effectively raise the skill cap for a zerg would be to only allow resurrecting defeated players in Wvw while out of combat. Currently there is a tipping point in a fight where the numbers advantage simply allows one side to resurrect their fallen comrades and effectively increase their numbers advantage. Where as the smaller group, being outnumbered, can only take the time to rez a downed player; once the player is defeated it becomes nonviable to try to get them up while facing superior numbers.

As an alternative, smaller change, make resurrecting a defeated player while in combat a solo job. Basically, while a player is in combat, if they are resurrecting another player, they are the only one. Out of combat rez can still be done by 5 players but in combat can only be done by one player at a time. This would be harder to code and explain to the player base, but less of a drastic change than my first suggestion.

Suggestion 2:

Some days are pvdoor days. Guilds are running around looking for a fight and all they find are un-upgraded towers with little to no defenses or defenders. While they are taking a tower they see a tower on the other side of their map flip to their enemies color. They drop every thing and run to that tower to find an un-upgraded tower with no defenses or defenders. Rinse. Repeat. Even switching maps to find people to fight doesn’t work. It may be that you are just unlucky and are missing each other for the big fight of the century or it could be one side is literally trying to avoid the other. Another side to this is how quickly a fully upgraded tower can be flipped with 4 superior rams. Reinforced gate vs 4 sup rams….about a minute. How exactly is anyone suppose to be able to respond to that? Other than having 3 people sitting in that tower waiting for …in some cases… hours for that 4 sup ram attack by a 20 man guild?

So…defending needs to be either more fun or more rewarding. I can think of two ways that would encourage both defending a tower/keep and group vs group combat(in lieu of backcapping). First, implement point increases the longer an objective is held. Not a lot, but say 1 additional pt per tick for every hour a tower is held (or even two hours…start small). This would make the towers that have not been flipped since reset extremely valuable both to defend and to attack. Some visible denotation on the map of bonus pts would be useful.

Second, the longer a tower has been without swords the greater the defender reward. See, this sounds great but it could be easily jury rigged by friends on the opposite side. My only answer to this is that swords only proc when seige hits a gate/wall or when more that 5 people melee the gate. The current mechanic is that a couple of melee swings at the door will proc the white swords, which would make this system to easy to win/trade.

So those are my suggestions. I welcome any thoughts on my suggestions or leave your own. Please do not whine about what you don’t like about Wvw, come up with a problem you see and how that problem could be fixed or improved upon to make the game more enjoyable for all.

Some suggestions hold water. I’d say consider:
- resurrect only outside combat
- no target limit on offensive AoE effects
- limit # of rams at a door
- possibly lower superior ram damage, in return for better HP
- tweak door HP if needed
- Add mini events at safe towers (like helping workers to build an upgrade) to reward guard duty

However, most of the things you say have one simple counter: strategy. It’s fun how many of these things are reflected by military history. Your cap party gets annihilated by a zerg? Zerg spent more time than you, so you win. His zerg’s bigger than yours and defeats you? Your error then was to offer battle when you shouldn’t have.

Likewise the PvDoor matter. You didn’t have men stationed at the tower. You didn’t have someone shadowing their zerg. They attacked after you took the bait of a diversion on the other side of the map. Their coordinated group was faster than your zerg. You didn’t anticipate their move. You saw white swords, but didn’t immediately react, while they made sure to keep their main force “hidden”. Your defenders failed to AoE the rams when they could have. And so forth.

I’ve seen all that making its impact. Good communication can double your effectiveness easily. Good tactics can double it, and good strategy can double it again.

I am convinced that trebs are the bane of fun in WvW.

Having 40 people stand around 2 trebs waiting for them to tear down a wall while 40 defenders stand around watching 3 eles spam swirling winds seems so anti-fun.