Guild Wars 2

Surbrus.6942:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

If we shouldn’t be able to clip into each other, we would have some sort of character collision.

If we shouldn’t be able to LoS and stack up the enemies in melee AoE deathball, then Anet should never have disabled the AI behaviour from BWE1. If enemies acting more intelligent, like they did in BWE1 (and like they still do in GW1), then this wouldn’t be an issue of “exploiting”.

So, all comes down to ANet fixing the AI. The clipping issue looks more like an easy method to get around all the issues coming with character collision. ANet would have to redesign whole maps just to ensure that everyone can get where they want to go.

As far as this game is concerned, the reason as to why stacking is questioned by some people of the community is largely due to it having very little risk involved vs its reward in most situations.

If you were to try and stack mobs together in Dark Souls, there would be a chance of getting mauled down fairly quickly due to how the game is designed, killing is still effective but the risks involved can generally serve to evenly balance out the finale yes/no. Every decision made by a player needs to have a balance between its risk and its reward and a balancing act thought process that occurs when a situation happens. Because of how well stacking works in this game, it requires very little knowledge or player skill to execute successfully in comparison to a toe to toe fight that generally requires consideration of a broader scale of gameplay elements. For this reason it is shunned by players who took the time to learn how to effectively embrace Guild Wars 2’s trinity mechanics, Control, Support, and Damage, and creative building of traits and skills that would help augment the various capabilities of the player, everything from raw dps to bunker builds and all the hybrid styles in between with different methods of dealing damage and surviving..

The elimination of various gameplay elements due to how well the tactic works also eliminates the need for specific builds that are designed around keeping chaos at bay as there is no chaos to begin with in corner stack friendly content.

The elimination of the need of situational awareness has essentially transformed the meta mentality into a spreadsheet mentality which is identical to the mentality used in World of Warcraft raiding. There is a reason as to why I’m not playing World of Warcraft.

The elimination of the demand to consider every single element in the game on a day to day basis causes muscle memory loss and generally does not help serve people trying to maintain an edge in spvp while still having fun with their friends in other content that isn’t as competitive. Content should be constantly helping you train to become a better player as a core, not the reverse.

Stacking or LoSing would be a much more valid and embraced concept if the following were to happen.

- If mobs themselves tried to LoS the players akin to Dark Souls ranged mobs
- If mobs also stacked in their favor
- If mobs healed and used stun breakers as well as condition removal
- If mobs forced the player to make a compromise decision involving a risk vs reward thought process
- If mobs exploited weaknesses in the party through various combat tactics requiring the group to re-converge
- If mobs also timed blocks, blinds, and reflects effectively indirectly turning the entire encounter into an even toe to toe match
- If mobs intelligently took advantage of different combo fields
- and of course to cover all basis, if the risk vs reward split when stacking was generally an even decision that required a skillful paradigm shift

It is slowly starting to turn to this method of course. After the awkward nerf in difficulty of Sorrow’s Embrace Path 2’s last boss, they have taken a step back into re’implementing the need to split dps and manage the health bars while avoiding the AoE. The previous change only required you to pull both together and rip it all down with raw damage. Dredge Bombers also will sometimes kite now. Toxic Alliance Sylvari were my more favorite mob types due to some of the additional adjustments they made to them.

I personally would be a lot better about it if these PvErs would stop touting about elite player skill and pro capability when all they are doing is stacking things in a pile around a corner. If they just kept their mouth shut, minded their manners, and continued with their life without griefing other people, I personally would actually be a lot happier with stacking. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Dual, would you be willing to record a run with zero stacking (no hit box overlapping)?

Stacking itself ain’t my battle. I’m more a neutral party now, so I mainly poke holes in percieved flaws in arguements I see on either side. With this one, I don’t see it helping the pro-stacking side argue their point. You won’t how impractical the non-stackers are being by being even more impractical.
(That and I’m running low on room for Fraps)

What would really help I think is a short video of a lvl 49 ascalon fractal pull – one where you stand still and and just press one, and one where you use ring of warding/blinds/reflects/aegis, etc. At some point people will realize that its a FGS-damage-is-out-of-wack issue rather than a mobs-magically-stop-using-skills-in-corners issue.

Stacking is simply when all players stand in one spot. Skills used don’t matter. LoS doesn’t matter. Builds don’t matter. Standing still doesn’t matter. Those problems(?) are actually separate issues, if they are indeed problems.

If you want to be legalistic about it, someone isn’t stacking when they can be considered standing “next to” a player, particularly when character models are not clipping in to each other. Likewise, due to the dynamic nature of combat, “stacking” must be a product of deliberate coordination, and not happenstance when several players happen to roll/evade into the same spot.

As said in my previous thread, stacking is mostly an issue of conveyance, presentation, and immersion. Also partly due to very basic mob design, but that’s more of a cause than an effect.

This actually isn’t the first MMO I’ve seen stacking in. RS had an open world PVP area, and what a lot of players would do is something called the “death dot”. The game had a grid like spacing, and would only render the player standing on top of any one place. Likewise, the player radar didn’t show depth. So, a lot of players would all stand on one spot, and just wait for someone to happen by. Then BOOM!, ambush by 20 players.

True, this isn’t the first MMO to have things like stacking.

FFXI had it in certain places where it just made sense. When you did things like fight Fafhogg or Jorm or a couple of the other grand dragons there, you wanted to avoid getting breathed on, and you didn’t want people in the side or rear arc (for fear of making the boss oneshot everyone with a Spike Flail). So everyone stacked up on his front paws.

Isn’t LoSing stacking? You stack mobs in one place so you can nuke them easily.

You can stack as a team of players and you can make the mobs stack.

Stacking as a team, you would think that its very risky, since every damage from the mobs will be concentrated on the same spot, where your entire team is standing. AoE and cleaving attacks would devastate the team quickly, and the only advantage it provides on its own is not needing to move far to revive your teammates.

Making the mobs stack is what makes it powerfull, because it allows your team to deal all their damage to the same spot, where the mobs are conveniently directed to.

Now, if getting the mobs to a perfect stack spot would happen by using actual control skills (pull, launch, knockback etc.), that would be skillfull play. However we accomplish this by simply positioning ourselves in a narrow, awkward litte corner and aggro the mobs, who in turn adhere to their line of sight and general “the simplest and closest path between two points is a straight line” movement programming, will stack on us in the corner we chose, even the ranged attackers.

Then it is a race of Damage and Control (their control and our stability), support lacking on the mobs side completely, while our support is mainly just Might stacking. Even reviving is pointless: you can help your team rally by just keep murdering mobs.

So its clear to see that its not mostly the players stacking that is the problem, but the players ability to force the mindless AI to stack by the most mindless and unskillfull method possible, that happens to be stacking themselves in a narrow corner. If the AI reacted to Line of Sight issues differently, if their aggro would work differently, if they themselves had skills that complimented each other better(like the good old GW1 mob group configurations) presenting at least the illusion of teamwork, if the AI mobs would have actual formations they try to maintain (melee in melee range, ranged in the distance, gods forbid support only keeping line of sight with their allies, and not us), stacking ourselves would still be possible, but less effective.

@lakdav: Actually, most pro stackers will use thier full most of the available forms of support such as blind, protection, reflects and aegis. It’s just like you said, the mobs aren’t close to our level so it becomes a very onesided affair.
We out match the mobs in every imaginable way save for raw HP and damage potential. And that’s reduced to HP when you throw Firey Rush spikes and reflecting oneshots into the equation.

Dual.8953:

DigitalKirin.9714:

Dual, would you be willing to record a run with zero stacking (no hit box overlapping)?

Stacking itself ain’t my battle. I’m more a neutral party now, so I mainly poke holes in percieved flaws in arguements I see on either side. With this one, I don’t see it helping the pro-stacking side argue their point. You won’t how impractical the non-stackers are being by being even more impractical.
(That and I’m running low on room for Fraps)

How are we being more impractical by simply following their rules?

haviz.1340:

Isn’t LoSing stacking? You stack mobs in one place so you can nuke them easily.

You can LoS and stack, but they are not the same thing.

Stacking is just having characters or mobs stand on top of each other within each others hitboxes, that’s it really.

maha.7902:

Can people here offer definitions of what they feel stacking is?

On the forum, consensus seem to consistently get stacking right, i.e. group up on the stacking spot.

In-game, it seems people don’t get it, like they should not stack on the spot but rather step 10-15 meters out from the stacking spot. Or once you finally get everyone stacked and whatever you’re burning down to come into the stacking spot, a bloody LB ranger KB’es the mob out just all the AoE is laid down…

maha.7902:

Dual.8953:

DigitalKirin.9714:

Dual, would you be willing to record a run with zero stacking (no hit box overlapping)?

Stacking itself ain’t my battle. I’m more a neutral party now, so I mainly poke holes in percieved flaws in arguements I see on either side. With this one, I don’t see it helping the pro-stacking side argue their point. You won’t how impractical the non-stackers are being by being even more impractical.
(That and I’m running low on room for Fraps)

How are we being more impractical by simply following their rules?

They don’t follow their own rules, but I’m pretty sure even you’d know that.
Actually that pretty much sums them up all together.
The anti-stackers as they’re identified don’t abide by each other’s or anyone’s rules/standards. The only thing that unites them is a common goal (at least at the bare minimum). They don’t care if you’re a camping staff guard, a bear bow or a zerked up GS Warrior, all that matter’s to them is everyone’s trying to assist in the way that best suits them, without dictating how the other builds/plays. The only time they’ll compromise is when they reach a situation where things aren’t working.

IMHO stacking is a direct conseguence of removal of back/frontline positioning in trinity mmos AND the lackluster ranged combat.

If the best approach is all-melee, all-dps, isn’t it just natural to stack on the best possible place to abuse the AI?

The “problem” has deeper roots then most realize, to the point where trying to “fix” without reworing the base gw2 mechanics (not gonna happen) would only end up making everything more tedious, not harder.

Fenrir.3609:

You can LoS and stack, but they are not the same thing.

Stacking is just having characters or mobs stand on top of each other within each others hitboxes, that’s it really.

In a game with no collision detection the former leads to the latter.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Gizmo.9178:

Stacking seems like such a boring way to complete dungeons. It is effective but it is just so dang boring. I play the game to have fun and imo, stacking is not fun.

I don’t understand this argument. I need more info pls.

Because honestly… whether stacking itself is fun or not to you really isn’t the issue… is range kiting a boss fun? I find stacking more fun than that.

Must be personal opinions I guess.

It’s indeed your personal opinion. I find stacking boring as hell, and i like kiting a fight, making me run into different positions, being careful of positional awareness to dodge areas, gears, other enemies or trapts. What i like about not stacking is that it’s Harder because often you gotta deal with no boons or heals or nothing, just by yourself and it takes more time to beat down enemies, and by increasing that 2 factors, it increases my pride when i finally beat down an enemy. That’s what makes fun of not stacking.

Elrey.5472:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Gizmo.9178:

Stacking seems like such a boring way to complete dungeons. It is effective but it is just so dang boring. I play the game to have fun and imo, stacking is not fun.

I don’t understand this argument. I need more info pls.

Because honestly… whether stacking itself is fun or not to you really isn’t the issue… is range kiting a boss fun? I find stacking more fun than that.

Must be personal opinions I guess.

It’s indeed your personal opinion. I find stacking boring as hell, and i like kiting a fight, making me run into different positions, being careful of positional awareness to dodge areas, gears, other enemies or trapts. What i like about not stacking is that it’s Harder because often you gotta deal with no boons or heals or nothing, just by yourself and it takes more time to beat down enemies, and by increasing that 2 factors, it increases my pride when i finally beat down an enemy. That’s what makes fun of not stacking.

This argument I can only really see for fights in aetherpath (shocker coming from you right). Fights like Lupicus and other big baddies do not contain mechanics that are interesting enough to make kiting fun. It’s just, pew pew, get out of red circle, pew pew.

I get it from the aetherpath standpoint.

haviz.1340:

In a game with no collision detection the former leads to the latter.

That is undoubtedly true, but they are not the same thing.

I think it’s pretty obvious what stacking is. You all stand in the corner together, blast some fire fields, pull the boss into the corner with you, and dps it down as fast as possible. It’s a legit strategy. It’s just bad game design (that means it’s the devs fault, not the players).

We may try another run today.

Regarding the no ground-targeted aoe/high damage channeled skills rule – is it allowed for us to immobilise mobs in order to “lock them down” in the aoe fields? Would that be fair? Because the argument is that it’s stupid that they don’t run out, but if we hold them inside it seems fine to me – otherwise it’s honestly starting to get quite hard to try and improve our tactics.

maha.7902:

We may try another run today.

Regarding the no ground-targeted aoe/high damage channeled skills rule – is it allowed for us to immobilise mobs in order to “lock them down” in the aoe fields? Would that be fair? Because the argument is that it’s stupid that they don’t run out, but if we hold them inside it seems fine to me – otherwise it’s honestly starting to get quite hard to try and improve our tactics.

This is interesting. I don’t see immobilizing the boss in the open as “stacking”. It should be a legit strategy. I guess the only difference is whether or not you have shoved the boss into a corner and proceeded to FGS rush it.

We’re not using fiery greatswords or whirlwinds, we just want to use lava fonts on staff eles or maybe smite on scepter guards.

maha.7902:

We’re not using fiery greatswords or whirlwinds, we just want to use lava fonts on staff eles or maybe smite on scepter guards.

It sounds like you are placing a lot of unnecessary and arbitrary limitations on this. The only thing you should be doing is allowing the boss to utilize it’s intended mechanics. When you cram a ranged boss into a corner, you trivialize it’s strengths. Furthermore, FGS rush into a corner is clearly OP and speeds up DPS to a point that wasn’t intended by the games design.

In my opinion, you should be fine as long as you don’t shove the boss into a corner or wall, and don’t do an untargetted FGS rush into that corner/wall. Everything else should be fair game.

However if it’s your actual goal to prove you don’t need reflects or CC, then that’s a different story.

One of the rules we were given is:

2. My basic stance is that mobs should try to move out of ground-based AoEs and skills like 100b, and enemies with ranged attacks should always try to keep distance from players.

So ice bows, fgs, lava fonts, smites are all forbidden. Either way we’re not going to be using fgs/ice bow, but if we were allowed to immobilise we could use lava font and/or smite so as to represent stopping mobs from trying to walk out/keep their distance. t would allow us to achieve a smoother run.

maha.7902:

One of the rules we were given is:

2. My basic stance is that mobs should try to move out of ground-based AoEs and skills like 100b, and enemies with ranged attacks should always try to keep distance from players.

So ice bows, fgs, lava fonts, smites are all forbidden. Either way we’re not going to be using fgs/ice bow, but if we were allowed to immobilise we could use lava font and/or smite so as to represent stopping mobs from trying to walk out/keep their distance. t would allow us to achieve a smoother run.

Well for the purpose of your run, go for it. I wouldn’t hold it against you to SW a projectile or keep the boss targetted while using FGS or even to immob them inside an AOE. The fact that bosses don’t run out of AOE is an AI deficiency. Think about it: 5 players vs 1 boss. Each player has access to many AOEs. If the boss AI priority was to move out of AOE all the time, they would spend 90% of their time running away instead of attacking. That is why they removed that aspect of AI back in beta. But that’s a whole other discussion. Which dungeons are you doing and are you recording the runs?

I love stacking not because of easy boss kills but because I sometimes get 4 ’’ladies’’ in my dungeon group :> if you know what I mean <3)

Stacking was a popular mechanic in GW1 too. Not always but there were places. I never though about it. I thought it was normal. But then, GW1 was my first ‘MMO’ not WoW, so I am used to it.

On the other hand it is clear that this game wasn’t made with the idea to stack 60-70% of the content. And that’s why it’s bad.

Also, beside of LoS, there are several points which benefit from stacking:
-buffs like might stacking, banners, spirits, fields etc.
-melee weapons are more powerful than ranged
-many bosses don’t use certain skills, though they try to fix that (see new Spider Queen in AC).
-AoE damage and cleaving benefits from the stupid enemies that are glued to us

In GW1 they introduced an anti farm mechanic where the enemies scatter when they were crowded and ran into an AoE.

An additional problem is that there aren’t any new dungeons (well almost none), and the old dungeons get no real substantial updates. I was an avid dungeon runner and noticed that most new content – though very scarce – won’t work with stacking. Remember: we still talk about the same old dungeons from release which are now almost 2 years old…

Fenrir.3609:

haviz.1340:

Isn’t LoSing stacking? You stack mobs in one place so you can nuke them easily.

You can LoS and stack, but they are not the same thing.

Stacking is just having characters or mobs stand on top of each other within each others hitboxes, that’s it really.

But theoritically isn’t it sufficient fur buff purposes to be in a 600 diameter circle? And that can be made with having people on different sides of the boss no ? Stacking on a single point is most of the time used for LOSing (or concentrate ennemy’s zones in some cases).

I don’t know if it fits with the initial intent of the topic but what I feel about stacking is that it is counter intuitive. Playing devil’s advocate here since I stack too but recently a friend joined us on the game and he was destabilized by stacking (and skipping too but that’s another story). Stacking melee while playing with a ranged weapon is not intuitive at all (and then discovering you should prefer melee weapon though you don’t like them is frustrating… that is the kind of emotions he went through over the last 2 weeks).

Ranael.6423:

But theoritically isn’t it sufficient fur buff purposes to be in a 600 diameter circle? And that can be made with having people on different sides of the boss no ? Stacking on a single point is most of the time used for LOSing (or concentrate ennemy’s zones in some cases).

I don’t know if it fits with the initial intent of the topic but what I feel about stacking is that it is counter intuitive. Playing devil’s advocate here since I stack too but recently a friend joined us on the game and he was destabilized by stacking (and skipping too but that’s another story). Stacking melee while playing with a ranged weapon is not intuitive at all (and then discovering you should prefer melee weapon though you don’t like them is frustrating… that is the kind of emotions he went through over the last 2 weeks).

As I said, whilst one more often than not leads to another, that does not make them the same thing.

Stacking is when players are close as in 360 range or less. You can stack both at range( “Guys 2 kill grubs and locusts 3 dps boss”) and in melee(“Kolher spin cuz u no stak right!”).
LoS-ing is using line of sight to stack the mobs. I guess you can consider it a form of stacking but it’s different than the general consensus for the word itself.
No stacking would mean a mix of range and melee with everyone hitting( or healing with negative dps) a different mob. Otherwise they might get stacked together by mistake.
Pulling in a smart fashion even without LoS can also get the mobs stacked. This includes but is not limited to temporal curtain, binding blades, line of warding etc.

You guys talk a lot about player stacking when the bigger issue is the fact that a group of mob will stack in an improbable corner.

I have no real objection to stacking or LoS. It is smart play to try and shift the battlefield to an area that favours your party, and sometimes staying close together is the best idea because it allows healers/buffers to affect the entire party, or because the boss has used dangerous attacks that made most of the battlefield unsafe to stand in.

I think the REAL complaint is the general meta that has grown up around stacking. Namely, the “zerk-only, stack enemies up in a corner and burn them down as fast as possible”. It’s fast. It’s efficient. It’s undeniably better than most other builds and strategies.

And THAT’S the problem. It has created a mindset among players where because zerk-stacking is the most optimal strategy, players who do not zerk-stack are considered to be “scrubs” or inefficient players. In effect, if you enjoy playing more of a support, control, or tank role, you are sub-par, unwanted and sometimes kicked from groups. Damage is all that really matters.

This isn’t really the fault of the players. We always, ALWAYS gravitate towards what is the most efficient build that gives us the greatest reward in the shortest amount of time. I think the flaw lies mainly with the game design in that it promotes a “DPS is King” approach above anything else; there are few encounters in the game where sheer damage can’t prevail.

What I think the game needs is more encounters where raw power isn’t the answer. Maybe it’s a boss that’s immune to direct damage, but vulnerable to conditions. Or that can only be killed by knocking him off a cliff or into an environmental hazard. Or that requires players to stand on 5 separate platforms and survive the degen that afflicts them long enough to open a door.

it all depends on the motives.

stacking speed things up. if you’re not in a hurry, then do not stack. people that stack usually speedfarming.

if you don’t like stacking, find people who are with the same mentality and create a friends list and go anywhere together (dungeons etc).