Guild Wars 2

I have no idea why “suggestion” forum moved to an archive part so “just in case” I’ll post it here.

Please read carefully all post before answering – it will save us many misunderstandings.

So there is a sugestion to ArenaNet probably not so difficult to implement, that in my opinion can bring only good to WvWvW Warfare: to bring ol’ good bodyblocking to PvP.

not sure if its really concern in sPvP – cause there is not so many players there and I’m not quite suer if lack of it is actually visible there but greatest issue is WvWvW.

How it looks like everyone that have seen “profesional WvW” knows – all players standing on one point sstacking migth and running through enemy zerg back and forth spamming AoE’s and/or “water field+blasts”.

Bringing well implemented body-blocking would solve the isse of “AoE-fests” “zerg-fests” and actually all the bad stuff that have source in lacking of it while also can bring many nice – and much more epic – stuff that right now have just no right to be here – like many battle formations like old good phalanx – also called “wall of shields”.

of course to work It needs some restrictions: lets remind we are about bringing body-blocking only to PvP areas.

So there is stuff that may be problematic:
1. Dodges – not quite sure about it – at first though it may seems be logical that dodge should ignore body-blocking – but the longer I think about it the less I’m sure about that one – so that case needs to be discussed
2. When I was talking with folks about it someone suggested thiefs on stealth being immune on it – that would bring infinite options to WvW warfare – after reconsidering I’m not so sure about it also – so that also need to be discussed
3. Body-blocking and CC:
first of all lets say that logical would be making knockdowned and downed players not blocking people from passing through them – only issue here is what to do when they came up from that state.
also I’m not quite sure about how effects like pull/push/launch should interact with players in the way – ignoring them seems very bad for me and I already have an idea how to solve that issue: when pushed/pulled/launched player will meet in his CC way on someon else – he stops and the player he felt on is counted as knockdown was casted on him – so if he have stability – no problem – if not – impact of flying player knocks him down.

that would bring more importance to stability and CC to WvW – and also would increase amount on fresh new tactics – this way well positioned group will be able to stop the much greater hostile forces from – f.e. taking the tower or keep or even SM – without being group of elementalist keeping perma statis field and hoping that enemies are jerk enought to not have stability :P

someone was also joking that such system would make possible to climb into walls by jumping on other players – actually imo it should not be possible but there is an easy way to get through it – as we are on “no race have racial disadvantages or racial advantages” so lets assume everybody have same heigh “by mechanics” and no one can jump high enought to be able to jump on other player – ofc all of this working for wvw cause of all JP’s in PvE.

“ok but what about JP’s in WvW?” you cas ask – ofc we “know” current “hitbox” heigh and how high you can jump is importantt stuff also there – so lets just assume that players are surrounded by somekind of invilisble wall that is hight enought to ne be able to jump upon it but not high enouth to make weird disturbances in some places (like “I can’t run throuth that corridor cause there is player in corridor just below and he is blocking me” or “who care I wanted to jump from the cliff – there is player just under it and who cares that with such height differences I should be able to jump over it”)

TL:DR I suggest to bring body-blocking to PvP area with some restrictions about stuff related – which will solve some irritating stuff in current WvW warfare and will bring a bunch of whole new tactics that in current state of the game have no right to be.

So. What do you think? Let the discussion begins

Love the idea. Hard to implement though.

It would be cool but is hard to implement for technical reasons. I’ve seen body-blocking put in other games, and lead to an immense amount of glitches.

The TLDR of it all is that PC collision detection can lead to immense griefing and what amounts to kitten-blocking in WvW. Which is something you conveniently overlooked.

Counter Strike had bodyblocking as a standard setting for many years, but Counter Strike servers also had admins that could boot players when they sit in the middle of a doorway and type in chat about how cool they are. I have never seen an admin in WvW.

I remember a white paper released by ANET (one of the game architects)- that they considered this but the overhead of implementing this was too high in large maps for all players. The white paper was presented at some big game developer code conference event on how they optimised the GW2 engine.

The amount of CPU utilisation and network traffic would be so high that this makes it technically unfeasible at this time – sorry to disappoint you. I don’t see this feature being added any time soon.

SkylightMoon.1980:

It would be cool but is hard to implement for technical reasons. I’ve seen body-blocking put in other games, and lead to an immense amount of glitches.

Not to mention trolls getting another tool up their sleeves to do their best to annoy other players. I really can’t see it working in this game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How2-solve-Stacking-and-Zerging-without-nerfs/first#post3823415

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Suggestion:
Simply add Charackter- and Obstacle-collision.

Impact:
If you Fiery Rush against a wall, your character would stop, because he collides with the wall. This would solve all problems with stacking and zerging simply because it wouldn’t be possible anymore.

Precautions:
Ofcourse, some things have to be tweaked, you oughtn’t be able to block paths for other players, as example. Also the bank in each city has to be tweaked, so all players can get to their own safe and events, which meant to be completed by zergs, have to be readjusted.

Problems that would be solved:

Stacking in dungeons
People complained about the no-skill tactic of stacking in dungeons. That wouldn’t be possible anymore.

Zerging in PvE
People complained about championfarming and zerging as new Metaevent-meta.
This change would solve the problem.

Zerging in WvW
Some people have complained about not being able to hold a fort against an enemy zerg of 100+ men. Well, those zergs would be really hard to coordinate with this change.

WAR had collision detection, but only for enemies.

Combined with narrow stairs, It made for some very long battles.

Wanderer.3248:

WAR had collision detection, but only for enemies.

Combined with narrow stairs, It made for some very long battles.

Seems like OP wants the opposite. At least that is what would be needed to stop stacking.

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

videoboy.4162:

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P

Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.

Paulytnz.7619:

videoboy.4162:

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P

Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.

So you have to leave a bunch of people sitting around doing absolutely nothing unless the enemy decides to attack that particular spot? Doesn’t sound very fun.

Khisanth.2948:

Paulytnz.7619:

videoboy.4162:

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P

Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.

So you have to leave a bunch of people sitting around doing absolutely nothing unless the enemy decides to attack that particular spot? Doesn’t sound very fun.

Nor would it be at all rewarding. But hey, at least we would have smaller zergs, so totally worth it, right?

<.<

@thread – I absolutely hated player/mob collision in TERA. It felt awkward and clunky, and I would be sad to see it ever implemented here.

storiessave.3807:

Khisanth.2948:

Paulytnz.7619:

videoboy.4162:

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P

Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.

So you have to leave a bunch of people sitting around doing absolutely nothing unless the enemy decides to attack that particular spot? Doesn’t sound very fun.

Nor would it be at all rewarding. But hey, at least we would have smaller zergs, so totally worth it, right?

<.<

@thread – I absolutely hated player/mob collision in TERA. It felt awkward and clunky, and I would be sad to see it ever implemented here.

Oh come one now, who said no rewards? Given enough thought there could be rewards as well as a constant battle going on. Unless you guys just want to run the karma train all day long I really don’t see why people don’t have open minds to things or even try to add to them themselves. What no imagination anyone? Really?

Hi there again,
I’m so glad that the topic brough so much interest – actually from all my “sugestion” topics that the first one that have any responses in amount more than one.

Thank you for pointing some stuff I totaly forgot about – like trolls sitting in choke-points blocking it for allies.

while typing this topic I was nearly sure that there have to be something I haven’t got into mind with it.

but the thing that concern me most is the part with how it’d influence cpu-need of the game – and someone here brought that devs said time ago that this is not so fun from optimising point of view. That actually can be the point blocking this feature – blocking more than griefers – which could make no problem with just some additional restrictions – f.e. again dodging – it could have somekind of sense to let the dodge pass through allies.

and yeah just “hostile bodyblock” is not quite point here – ofc i’d make such stuff like blocking the gate after breaching it somewhat possible but still tactics like that would have no right to be – because such phalanx would melts very fast under the combined fire of 50+ 25might dual axe warriors – or even gs – sligtly lesser dps per character but I still rest my case – we want to break current zerg meta to bring more epic clashes of armies where proper positioning of men is crucial to win.

so its both sided bodyblock or none at all – everything between will not make the point.

ofc I agree that this kind of stuff would make battles last longer and will change managing great armies much more difficult – but imo that cost would be acceptable if bodyblocking was implemented properly.

also someone mentioned banks in great cities – thats why I’ve said that this is only for PvP purposes – I’m aware that it has no chances to work in PvE.

I still encourage to share with opinions cause no matter the difficult of making it right – if much enought players will want it I think devs will try to do it – the matter is only how much players is “enought” to force them to do something difficult

(unless it will be impossible to implement with still having anything that may be called optimisation but if much enought players will want it I think they’ll at least try – and if optimisation would be to great issue they’ll tell us “sorry we tried but we can’t do it in a way that would not cost you to much cpu”)

PS. lets not forget that gw1 had bodyblocking anywhere outside cities and it worked right – and gw1 is working stable and nice on my netbook with atom inside :P (but ok I think party limitations had a point there)

As someone has pointed out, ANet wanted this too, but couldn’t solve the performance impact. Given how poorly the game handles the scenarios in which Blocking would have the most positive impact, I think we’ll need to wait and see if some kind of engine/optimisation update down the line to open this avenue up. Otherwise it just isn’t going to happen for that reason alone.

Even then, ANet would probably be rather reluctant to rock the boat and upset the entire WvW playerbase by essentially undermining the blobs. People get rather accustomed to the stink of a cheese eaten daily.

As far as Dodging goes, I have dodged into obstacles that have physically prevented me from moving clear out of the red circle, but I still avoided damage because I was Dodging when the spell went off. Of course it wouldn’t keep me from taking subsequent injury if the area is subject to damage over time.

Actually, Body Blocking would be pretty cool everywhere (PvE, Dungeons, etc) except for Towns and Jumping Puzzles. Mist Form would go right through a crowd. I can see that being very popular…

For Jumping Puzzles, if you’re in the area of the JP you could “Flag” yourself for jumping. That would turn off the collision. In the area of the Puzzle only! While flagged you are considered to be in “PvE Mode”; unable to hurt or be hurt by other Players, but you still have to be able to fight monsters. (Your text and every other Player’s text is green). I do not know the JPs in WvW… so this solution might not work as it currently stands. I don’t know if there are any Puzzles in a location that would allow someone to use it as “protection” for spies. If so, the Puzzle in question would probably have to become “Contested”, and the jumper whose World does not control the area would be teleported to the nearest safe Waypoint. Sorry, Charlie.

Well, I wonder if it could be achieved with the function already in GW2, “Melee Attack Assist”, which prevents players walking throught the enemy…

It’s there, but it’s more like a disadvantage, when looking at some attacks that benefit more being “inside” the enemy, to maximize number of hits…

Aidan Savage.2078:

The TLDR of it all is that PC collision detection can lead to immense griefing and what amounts to kitten-blocking in WvW. Which is something you conveniently overlooked.

This. No matter what positive effects might be there, they’ll be annihilated by all the griefers.

CptAurellian.9537:

Aidan Savage.2078:

The TLDR of it all is that PC collision detection can lead to immense griefing and what amounts to kitten-blocking in WvW. Which is something you conveniently overlooked.

This. No matter what positive effects might be there, they’ll be annihilated by all the griefers.

I’ve already related to this – there is plenty of tools that were stated that needs to be taken as “some restrictions required it to be working properly” that would in WvW eliminate issue of allied griefers – unless you have sth else in mind than me by “griefers”
hostile folks trying to grief by bodyblocking are not great issue – cause they can be always either killed pushed pulled knoched back launched…….

about getting WvW folks angry with introducing bodyblocking to wvw – I have no idea – and surely some will agree with that – whats so great in idea of mindless running with 50+ folks packed in one place spamming AoE all around and also – so important to life of “professional” zergs – “waterfield+blasts” spam

but it may be only me can’t stand a though that so huge legacy of art of war from all the history of battles are quite wasted in case of WvW warfare – cause when all those briliant tactics and strategies were invented in times when noone could even imagine that enemy army can just run through your lines as you were no here (and I do not mean here total anihilation of your army – just the fact that they are like “ghosts” to your enemy in case of passing through)

but seriously: do you really enjoy running in such blobs?
and would you anjoy more if such blobs would no longer be possible and your battle formation is actually important? when mistake of phew people can break your lines and lead to disaster (while atm in 50+ blobs mistake of phew folks mean nearly nothing unless one of them was commander)
I’d really love to see real epic sieges on SM instead of what we have now – when running to a broken wall or gate to keep enemies there from entering the castle would have actually sense.

and finally I want to really see armies! not the blob of zipped folks that are packed so tight that I can’t even see nametags.

do you really think that current meta of wvw warfare is more anjoying than that?

so atm imo the greatest issue that may be impossible to overcome is engine optimisation and case of players CPU not holding the wvw game with bodyblocking injected :/

PS. and you two seems be conveniently overlooking the part with “ofc there are needed some restriction” and my later post relating issue of griefers :P
or do we have another definition of “bodyblocking griefers”?

It would be really bad espec in wvw.Did you ever played Bf4 by chance,eventhough a completely different genre ? Then you should know how frustrating it is to be body blocked.

Also coming from gw1 where you could body block,and being surrounded by an mm nec was not much fun..

Body blocking might seem nice on paper, but it’s very, very technically unfeasible. For those who say in GW1 it works, it’s because every player has his/her own prerendered instance, and that said instanced had little groups to play with. The number of interactions there is hilariously lower than that of GW2, so there’s your problem.

Implementing body blocking on a scale that simulates real-life conditions on it’s base is hilariously impossible once you take note that you’re not just the people in the map, you also have to account for the NPCs players spawn (turrets, pets, phantasms, etc.) in the collision, because not implementing it isn’t consistent with OP’s insistence on the matter.

In addition, over that layer of collision detection and prevention you also had to make sure that it didn’t bother with your hit detection calculations. Meaning that either way, you need a sufficiently and hilariously powerful processing power to just enable that kind of change.

So no, I don’t think body blocking will be implemented unless they revert their game design back to GW1, most likely having projectiles and other attacks locking on to players and reverting back to 2D instead of 3D combat, and removing heavy condition ticking too.

I think I’d like the changes to the metagame body-blocking could bring if they can keep allied griefers away and solve the performance issues.

videoboy.4162:

Paulytnz.7619:

videoboy.4162:

It’d be pretty cool to see Zergs that weren’t all of on top of each other and looked like actual battalions of soldiers!

They could do this if they just thought about trying to do it in other ways. Using the WvW capture those circles for the server buff for example. Imagine a battle line down the middle of the whole map (or broken up in a way that all 3 maps are equal) where there are areas or circles that needs players in them the whole time or the land becomes neutral. Of course the whole battle line would have these all along it and as the battle lines get pushed in either direction they move accordingly. Remove the ppt garbage and do something like this I say. :P

Things like this could go a long way to breaking zergs up.

So you have to leave a bunch of people sitting around doing absolutely nothing unless the enemy decides to attack that particular spot? Doesn’t sound very fun.

If you’re sitting around doing nothing while waiting for your chance to get to the enemy, try a different approach – Take your chunk of formation away and try to flank, for example, or loosen up formations, and fall back when injured to let healthier soldiers take to the frontline. Or, just wander away and hunt a less-contested objective. Right now, the lack of collision enables mass zerging and blobbing by making it too convenient for a large number of people to group up into the same spot. Discouraging single massive groups encourages more, smaller groups to form and rove – especially if well-coordinated smaller and more mobile groups can out-fight the larger groups through more efficient use of its manpower.

It sounds good on paper but in real enviroment its pain. Who played WAR knows. Also it will incredibly increase server and network usage so only thing what you actualy get will be lags. Absence of bodyblocking isnt perfect solution but have them is simply worse.

@Caedmon yeah I remeber that: but actually I was playing a build that was quite similar in role to turret – heavily tanked ranged – so in many cases I was able to just tank those MM long enought to bring down the necromancer itself :P
then MM was spreading atacking everyone.

@Advent Leader I just don’t get why illusions should bodyblock – they are illusions right? we see them but they are not there – so problem – as maybe not completely solved is little lower :P

and as I understand that it may require some work in optimisation stuff but I’m not quite sure if it requires reverting to gw1 engine :P

and actually I’m not sure if NPC’s actually break consistence of my idea – tbh never though about their role there – but NPC’s does not exploit lack of bodyblocking in any way and my pointwith it was that:
1. Simply hostile bodyblocking does not change anything in mater of current wvw meta of stacking and blobing
2. bodyblocking only with allies disrupt only matter of stacking – but still does not makes most of serious battle formation viable – cause hostiles will still just run throught you

@Rozbuska noone in gw2 even had bodyblocking so I’m not quite sure if we can say “but have them is simply worse” – cause we cannot tell for sure how it would be if some feature have been implemented or not – cause we are lacking precedence.

Haven’t played WAR but I’ve played some games where bodyblocking existed and it was very important to position yourself right.

btw who said that our allies had to block our projectiles? they already doesn’t so I’m not quite sure why not letting an character passing through another character had to change that.

If illusions are solid enough to hit people then they are solid enough to block people.

TPMN.1483:

I remember a white paper released by ANET (one of the game architects)- that they considered this but the overhead of implementing this was too high in large maps for all players. The white paper was presented at some big game developer code conference event on how they optimised the GW2 engine.

The amount of CPU utilisation and network traffic would be so high that this makes it technically unfeasible at this time – sorry to disappoint you. I don’t see this feature being added any time soon.

The CPU utilization and netcode as of today is the kitten poorest that I have seen in a long time.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Rozbuska noone in gw2 even had bodyblocking so I’m not quite sure if we can say “but have them is simply worse” – cause we cannot tell for sure how it would be if some feature have been implemented or not – cause we are lacking precedence.

Haven’t played WAR but I’ve played some games where bodyblocking existed and it was very important to position yourself right.

btw who said that our allies had to block our projectiles? they already doesn’t so I’m not quite sure why not letting an character passing through another character had to change that.

I personaly like tactical options what it can bring on table especialy on WvW but here is one thing and its trinity. In games like WAR you can make tank wall in doors because tanks was simply incredibly tanky and there was dedicated healers who kept them alive fo looong time. But in GW2 even most tanky spec dont survive on one place more than 10s under preassure.
It will end up on bunch of ppl who died stuck on place because someone acciedently bodyblock them and they cant run out and heal themselfs. It will need to change whole game mechanic to make it work. Bodyblock in GW2 is simply bad idea.

Rozbuska.5263:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Rozbuska noone in gw2 even had bodyblocking so I’m not quite sure if we can say “but have them is simply worse” – cause we cannot tell for sure how it would be if some feature have been implemented or not – cause we are lacking precedence.

Haven’t played WAR but I’ve played some games where bodyblocking existed and it was very important to position yourself right.

btw who said that our allies had to block our projectiles? they already doesn’t so I’m not quite sure why not letting an character passing through another character had to change that.

I personaly like tactical options what it can bring on table especialy on WvW but here is one thing and its trinity. In games like WAR you can make tank wall in doors because tanks was simply incredibly tanky and there was dedicated healers who kept them alive fo looong time. But in GW2 even most tanky spec dont survive on one place more than 10s under preassure.
It will end up on bunch of ppl who died stuck on place because someone acciedently bodyblock them and they cant run out and heal themselfs. It will need to change whole game mechanic to make it work. Bodyblock in GW2 is simply bad idea.

and here I see wholes in what you see there – thats why I said that hostile bodyblock is not enought.

tankiest of tankiest guardians can withstand with 5 allies in shout range extremely long agains “rational” amount of enemies – point is that in situation right now if you want to withstand a firepower of zerg then you are aiming in baing able to tank at least 50+ combined aoe’s thats why right now it may seem to be bad idea in case of balance

also thats the point with “certain restriction”

and lets be more optimistic in topic – we know about CPU related issue of that idea but we can’t do anything in that case – so that fully within power of devs.

so instead of disputing “why it will not be implemented” lets talk about why should/shouldn’t and if implemented how it should look like to be good stuff:

so as for now basing on this topic i can develop such restrictions: all are to be discussed and I encourage to suggest more:
1. downed/knockdowned enemies still bodyblocks – reason: simplifing system – players in such conditions that would not bodyblock leads to problem like "what to do if they’ll rally/knockdown will end and someone will stand “on” them
2. NPC of anykind does not bodyblock reason: simplifing system to acheve the goal but not make it ultra-difficult to make
3. you can freely dodge through allies reason: mostly for cases with allied griefers – haven’t got better idea to deal with them and in combat it may seems legit – if your friend behind you see that you want to dodge out of fireball or sth in most cases he will make some room for you to do it succesfully (example roman formations when after some fight first line goes on the back and second line stands to fight)
4. certain skills like shadow form riding on the crack or stealth makes user not bodyblocking reason: why you are aetheral you obviously does not block anyone while you are stealthed yousee the oponent while he does not see you and that gives you bunch of possibilities to avoid “contact” with him while he passes through narrow corridor you are hiding at
5. everyone bodyblock you while under effect of pull or “normal” knockback reason: pulling folks out of formation just in the middle of your formation in not good stuff no matter what – and would also make much less viable for some battleformations to develop cause of bunch of necros somewhere there pulling you. also just knocking you back or fear you is not powerfull enought to get you through your mate behind you – but some extra powerfull skills that “launches” would (in theory) rock you above him

thats all suggestion for “restrictions” I have at this moments – what do you think about them? should some of them be changes for whole system making sense? maybe some should be added?

the more stuff we will work out here the less will be left for devs and it will make more likely that devs will somewhen implement good bodyblocking that will make wvw better place to fight

Having thought about it a bit, I think I might like this idea. It would give a lot more value to traits that pierce. It would make “coated bullets” on the engineer and “Piercing Arrows” on the ranger, very valuable.

Instead of asking Anet to spend the money to implement it, it would be more practical to just go play Archeage. (full collision, huge seamless world, mounts, gliders, naval battles, sandbox, etc…)

Bodyblocking was one of the (many) reasons that Gw1 was so good. I don’t see it coming to Gw2 though because of the technical limitations Anet keeps telling us about.

Furikake.4052:

Instead of asking Anet to spend the money to implement it, it would be more practical to just go play Archeage. (full collision, huge seamless world, mounts, gliders, naval battles, sandbox, etc…)

actually I’m not sure if we can say about spending “money” on implementing that – rather human resources…..

and I don’t like Archeage :P
I want to see real armies in wvw of gw2